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[
"Thích Quảng Đức",
"Religious background"
] | C_0113efd736a8413c95bfc18dae367505_0 | What was his religious background? | 1 | What was Thích Quảng Đức's religious background? | Thích Quảng Đức | In a country where surveys of the religious composition at the time estimated the Buddhist majority to be between 70 and 90 percent, President Diem was a member of the Catholic minority, and pursued discriminatory policies favoring Catholics for public service and military promotions, as well as in the allocation of land, business arrangements and tax concessions. Diem once told a high-ranking officer, forgetting that the officer was from a Buddhist family, "Put your Catholic officers in sensitive places. They can be trusted." Many officers in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam converted to Roman Catholicism as their military prospects depended on it. Additionally, the distribution of firearms to village self-defense militias saw weapons given only to Roman Catholics, with some Buddhists in the army being denied promotion if they refused to convert to Roman Catholicism. Some Roman Catholic priests ran their own private armies, and there were forced conversions and looting, shelling, and demolition of pagodas in some areas, to which the government turned a blind eye. Some Buddhist villages converted en masse to receive aid or avoid being forcibly resettled by Diem's regime. The "private" status that was imposed on Buddhism by the French, which required official permission to be obtained by those wishing to conduct public Buddhist activities, was not repealed by Diem. Catholics were also de facto exempt from corvee labor, which the government obliged all citizens to perform, and United States aid was distributed disproportionately to Catholic majority villages by Diem's regime. The Roman Catholic Church was the largest landowner in the country and enjoyed special exemptions in property acquisition, and land owned by the Roman Catholic Church was exempt from land reform. The white and gold Vatican flag was regularly flown at all major public events in South Vietnam, and Diem dedicated his country to the Virgin Mary in 1959. Buddhist discontent erupted following a ban in early May on flying the Buddhist flag in Hue on Vesak, the birthday of Gautama Buddha. Just days before, Catholics had been encouraged to fly the Vatican flag at a celebration for Archbishop Ngo Dinh Thuc of Hue, Diem's elder brother. A large crowd of Buddhists protested the ban, defying the government by flying Buddhist flags on the Buddhist holy day of Vesak and marching on the government broadcasting station. Government forces fired into the crowd of protesters, killing nine people. Diem's refusal to take responsibility -- he blamed the Viet Cong for the deaths -- led to further Buddhist protests and calls for religious equality. As Diem remained unwilling to comply with Buddhist demands, the frequency of protests increased. CANNOTANSWER | Buddhist | Thích Quảng Đức (; 1897 – 11 June 1963; born Lâm Văn Túc) was a Vietnamese Mahayana Buddhist monk who burned himself to death at a busy Saigon road intersection on 11 June 1963. Quảng Đức was protesting the persecution of Buddhists by the South Vietnamese government led by Ngô Đình Diệm, a staunch Roman Catholic. Photographs of his self-immolation circulated around the world, drawing attention to the policies of the Diệm government. John F. Kennedy said of one photograph, "No news picture in history has generated so much emotion around the world as that one." Malcolm Browne won a Pulitzer Prize for his photograph of the monk's death.
Quảng Đức's act increased international pressure on Diệm and led him to announce reforms with the intention of mollifying the Buddhists. However, the promised reforms were not implemented, leading to a deterioration in the dispute. As protests continued, the ARVN Special Forces loyal to Diệm's brother, Ngô Đình Nhu, launched raids across South Vietnam on Buddhist pagodas, seizing Quảng Đức's heart and causing deaths and widespread damage. Several Buddhist monks followed Quảng Đức's example, also immolating themselves. Eventually, a U.S.-backed coup toppled Diệm, who was assassinated on 2 November 1963.
Biography
Accounts of the life of Quảng Đức are derived from information disseminated by Buddhist organizations. He was born in the village of Hội Khánh, in Vạn Ninh District of Khánh Hòa Province in central Vietnam as Lâm Văn Túc, one of seven children of Lâm Hữu Ứng and his wife, Nguyễn Thị Nương. At the age of seven, he left to study Buddhism under Hòa thượng Thích Hoằng Thâm, who was his maternal uncle and spiritual master. Thích Hoằng Thâm raised him as a son and Lâm Văn Túc changed his name to Nguyễn Văn Khiết. At age 15, he took the samanera (novice) vows and was ordained as a monk at age 20 under the dharma name Thích Quảng Đức. The Vietnamese name Thích (釋) is from "Thích Ca" or "Thích Già" (釋迦), means "of the Shakya clan." After ordination, he traveled to a mountain near Ninh Hòa, vowing to live the life of a solitary Buddhism-practicing hermit for three years. He returned in later life to open the Thien Loc pagoda at his mountain retreat.
After his self-imposed isolation ended, he began to travel around central Vietnam expounding the dharma. After two years, he went into retreat at the Sac Tu Thien An pagoda near Nha Trang. In 1932, he was appointed an inspector for the Buddhist Association in Ninh Hòa before becoming the inspector of monks in his home province of Khánh Hòa. During this period in central Vietnam, he was responsible for the construction of 14 temples. In 1934, he moved to southern Vietnam and traveled throughout the provinces spreading Buddhist teachings. During his time in southern Vietnam, he also spent two years in Cambodia studying the Theravada Buddhist tradition.
Upon his return from Cambodia, he oversaw the construction of a further 17 new temples during his time in the south. The last of the 31 new temples that he was responsible for constructing was the Quan The Am pagoda in the Phú Nhuận District of Gia Định Province on the outskirts of Saigon. The street on which the temple stands was later renamed Quảng Đức Street in 1975. After the temple-building phase, Quảng Đức was appointed to serve as the Chairman of the Panel on Ceremonial Rites of the Congregation of Vietnamese Monks, and as abbot of the Phuoc Hoa pagoda, which was the initial location of the Association for Buddhist Studies of Vietnam (ABSV). When the office of the ABSV was relocated to the Xá Lợi Pagoda, the main pagoda of Saigon, Quảng Đức resigned.
Self-immolation
Religious background
In a country where surveys of the religious composition at the time estimated the Buddhist majority to be between 70 and 90 percent, President Diệm was a member of the Catholic minority, and pursued discriminatory policies favoring Catholics for public service and military promotions, as well as in the allocation of land, business arrangements and tax concessions. Diệm once told a high-ranking officer, forgetting that the officer was from a Buddhist family, "Put your Catholic officers in sensitive places. They can be trusted." Many officers in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) converted to Roman Catholicism as their military prospects depended on it. Additionally, the distribution of firearms to village self-defense militias saw weapons given only to Roman Catholics, with some Buddhists in the army being denied promotion if they refused to convert to Roman Catholicism.
Some Catholic priests ran their own private armies, and there were forced conversions and looting, shelling, and demolition of pagodas in some areas, to which the government turned a blind eye. Some Buddhist villages converted en masse to receive aid or avoid being forcibly resettled by Diệm's regime. The "private" status that was imposed on Buddhism by the French, which required official permission to be obtained by those wishing to conduct public Buddhist activities, was not repealed by Diệm. Catholics were also de facto exempt from corvée labor, which the government obliged all citizens to perform, and United States aid was distributed disproportionately to Catholic majority villages by Diệm's regime.
The Catholic Church was the largest landowner in the country and enjoyed special exemptions in property acquisition, and land owned by the Catholic Church was exempt from land reform. The white and gold Vatican flag was regularly flown at all major public events in South Vietnam, and Diệm dedicated his country to the Virgin Mary in 1959.
Buddhist discontent erupted following a ban in early May on flying the Buddhist flag in Huế on Vesak, the birthday of Gautama Buddha. Just days before, Catholics had been encouraged to fly the Vatican flag at a celebration for Archbishop Ngô Đình Thục of Huế, Diệm's elder brother. A large crowd of Buddhists protested the ban, defying the government by flying Buddhist flags on the Buddhist holy day of Vesak and marching on the government broadcasting station. Government forces fired into the crowd of protesters, killing nine people. Diệm's refusal to take responsibility—he blamed the Viet Cong for the deaths—led to further Buddhist protests and calls for religious equality. As Diem remained unwilling to comply with Buddhist demands, the frequency of protests increased.
Day of the act
On 10 June 1963, U.S. correspondents were informed that "something important" would happen the following morning on the road outside the Cambodian embassy in Saigon. Most of the reporters disregarded the message, since the Buddhist crisis had at that point been going on for more than a month, and the next day only a few journalists turned up, including David Halberstam of The New York Times and Malcolm Browne, the Saigon bureau chief for the Associated Press (AP). Quảng Đức arrived as part of a procession that had begun at a nearby pagoda. Around 350 monks and nuns marched in two phalanxes, preceded by an Austin Westminster sedan, carrying banners printed in both English and Vietnamese. They denounced the Diệm government and its policy towards Buddhists, demanding that it fulfill its promises of religious equality. Another monk offered himself, but Quảng Đức's seniority prevailed.
The act occurred at the intersection of Phan Đình Phùng Boulevard (now Nguyễn Đình Chiểu Street) and Lê Văn Duyệt Street (now Cách Mạng Tháng Tám Street) (), a few blocks southwest of the Presidential Palace (now the Reunification Palace). Quảng Đức emerged from the car along with two other monks. One placed a cushion on the road while the second opened the trunk and took out a five-gallon petrol can. As the marchers formed a circle around him, Quảng Đức calmly sat down in the traditional Buddhist meditative lotus position on the cushion. A colleague emptied the contents of the petrol container over Quảng Đức's head. Quảng Đức rotated a string of wooden prayer beads and recited the words ("Homage to Amitābha Buddha") before striking a match and dropping it on himself. Flames consumed his robes and flesh, and black oily smoke emanated from his burning body.
Quảng Đức's last words before his self-immolation were documented in a letter he had left:
David Halberstam wrote:
The spectators were mostly stunned into silence, but some wailed and several began praying. Many of the monks and nuns, as well as some shocked passersby, prostrated themselves before the burning monk. Even some of the policemen, who had orders to control the gathered crowd, prostrated before him.
In English and Vietnamese, a monk repeated into a microphone: "A Buddhist priest burns himself to death. A Buddhist priest becomes a martyr." After approximately 10 minutes, Quảng Đức's body was fully immolated and it eventually toppled backwards onto its back. Once the fire subsided, a group of monks covered the smoking corpse with yellow robes, picked it up and tried to fit it into a coffin, but the limbs could not be straightened and one of the arms protruded from the wooden box as he was carried to the nearby Xá Lợi Pagoda in central Saigon. Outside the pagoda, students unfurled bilingual banners which read: "A Buddhist priest burns himself for our five requests."
By 1:30p.m. (13:30), around 1,000 monks had congregated inside to hold a meeting, while outside a large crowd of pro-Buddhist students had formed a human barrier around it. The meeting soon ended and all but 100 monks slowly left the compound. Nearly 1,000 monks, accompanied by laypeople, returned to the cremation site. The police lingered nearby. At around 6:00p.m. (18:00), thirty nuns and six monks were arrested for holding a prayer meeting on the street outside Xá Lợi. The police encircled the pagoda, blocking public passage and giving observers the impression that an armed siege was imminent by donning riot gear.
Funeral and aftermath
After the self-immolation, the U.S. put more pressure on Diệm to re-open negotiations on the faltering agreement. Diệm had scheduled an emergency cabinet meeting at 11:30 on 11 June to discuss the Buddhist crisis which he believed to be winding down. Following Quảng Đức's death, Diệm canceled the meeting and met individually with his ministers. Acting U.S. Ambassador to South Vietnam William Trueheart warned Nguyễn Đình Thuận, Diệm's Secretary of State, of the desperate need for an agreement, saying that the situation was "dangerously near breaking point" and expected Diệm would meet the Buddhists' five-point manifesto. United States Secretary of State Dean Rusk warned the Saigon embassy that the White House would publicly announce that it would no longer "associate itself" with the regime if this did not occur. The Joint Communiqué and concessions to the Buddhists were signed on 16 June.
15 June was set as the date for the funeral, and on that day 4,000 people gathered outside the Xá Lợi pagoda, only for the ceremony to be postponed. On 19 June, his remains were carried out of Xá Lợi to a cemetery south of the city for a re-cremation and funeral ceremony. Following the signing of the Joint Communiqué, attendance was limited by agreement between Buddhist leaders and police to approximately 500 monks.
Intact heart and symbolism
The body was re-cremated during the funeral, but Quảng Đức's heart remained intact and did not burn. It was considered to be holy and placed in a glass chalice at Xá Lợi Pagoda. The intact heart relic is regarded as a symbol of compassion. Quảng Đức has subsequently been revered by Vietnamese Buddhists as a bodhisattva (Bồ Tát), and accordingly is often referred to in Vietnamese as Bồ Tát Thích Quảng Đức. On 21 August, the ARVN Special Forces of Nhu attacked Xá Lợi and other Buddhist pagodas across Vietnam. The secret police intended to confiscate Quảng Đức's ashes, but two monks had escaped with the urn, jumping over the back fence and finding safety at the U.S. Operations Mission next door. Nhu's men managed to confiscate Đức's charred heart.
The location chosen for the self-immolation, in front of the Cambodian embassy, raised questions as to whether it was coincidence or a symbolic choice. Trueheart and embassy official Charles Flowerree felt that the location was selected to show solidarity with the Cambodian government of Prince Norodom Sihanouk. South Vietnam and Cambodia had strained relations: in a speech on 22 May, Sihanouk had accused Diệm of mistreating Vietnamese and ethnic minority Khmer Buddhists. The pro-Diệm Times of Vietnam published an article on 9 June which claimed that Cambodian monks had been encouraging the Buddhist crisis, asserting it was part of a Cambodian plot to extend its neutralist foreign policy into South Vietnam. Flowerree noted that Diệm was "ready and eager to see a fine Cambodian hand in all the organized Buddhist actions".
Diệm reaction
Diệm made a radio address at 19:00 on the day of Quảng Đức's death, asserting that he was profoundly troubled by the event. He appealed for "serenity and patriotism", and announced that stalled negotiations would resume with the Buddhists. He claimed that negotiations had been progressing well and in a time of religious tension emphasized the role of the Roman Catholic philosophy of personalism in his rule. He alleged that extremists had twisted the facts and he asserted that the Buddhists can "count on the Constitution, in other words, me."
The ARVN responded to the appeal, putting on a show of solidarity behind Diệm to isolate dissident officers. Thirty high-ranking officers headed by General Lê Văn Tỵ declared their resolve to carry out all missions entrusted to the army for the defense of the constitution and the Republic. The declaration was a veneer which masked a developing plot to oust Diệm. Some of the signatories were to become personally involved in Diệm's overthrow and death in November. Generals Dương Văn Minh and Trần Văn Đôn, the presidential military advisor and the chief of the army who were to lead the coup, were overseas.
Madame Nhu (a Catholic convert from Buddhism and the wife of Diệm's younger brother and chief adviser Ngô Đình Nhu), who was regarded as the First Lady of South Vietnam at the time (as Diệm was a bachelor), said she would "clap hands at seeing another monk barbecue show". Later that month, Diệm's government charged that Quảng Đức had been drugged before being forced to commit suicide. The regime also accused Browne of bribing Quảng Đức to burn himself.
Political and media impact
Photographs taken by Malcolm Browne of the self-immolation quickly spread across the wire services and were featured on the front pages of newspapers worldwide. The self-immolation was later regarded as a turning point in the Buddhist crisis and a critical point in the collapse of the Diệm regime.
Historian Seth Jacobs asserted that Quảng Đức had "reduced America's Diệm experiment to ashes as well" and that "no amount of pleading could retrieve Diệm's reputation" once Browne's images had become ingrained into the psyche of the world public. Ellen Hammer described the event as having "evoked dark images of persecution and horror corresponding to a profoundly Asian reality that passed the understanding of Westerners." John Mecklin, an official from the U.S. embassy, noted that the photograph "had a shock effect of incalculable value to the Buddhist cause, becoming a symbol of the state of things in Vietnam." William Colby, then chief of the Central Intelligence Agency's Far East Division, opined that Diệm "handled the Buddhist crisis fairly badly and allowed it to grow. But I really don't think there was much they could have done about it once that bonze burned himself."
President John F. Kennedy, whose government was the main sponsor of Diệm's regime, learned of Quảng Đức's death when handed the morning newspapers while he was talking to his brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, on the phone. Kennedy reportedly interrupted their conversation about segregation in Alabama by exclaiming "Jesus Christ!" He later remarked that "no news picture in history has generated so much emotion around the world as that one." U.S. Senator Frank Church (D-Idaho), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, claimed that "such grisly scenes have not been witnessed since the Christian martyrs marched hand in hand into the Roman arenas."
In Europe, the photographs were sold on the streets as postcards during the 1960s, and communist China distributed millions of copies of the photograph throughout Asia and Africa as evidence of what it called US imperialism. One of Browne's photographs remains affixed to the sedan in which Quảng Đức was riding and is part of a tourist attraction in Huế.
For Browne and the AP, the pictures were a marketing success. Ray Herndon, the United Press International (UPI) correspondent who had forgotten to take his camera on the day, was harshly criticized in private by his employer. UPI estimated that 5,000 readers in Sydney, then a city of around 1.5–2 million, had switched to AP news sources.
Diệm's English-language mouthpiece, the Times of Vietnam, intensified its attacks on both journalists and Buddhists. Headlines such as "Xá Lợi politburo makes new threats" and "Monks plot murder" were printed. One article questioned the relationship between the monks and the press by posing the question as to why "so many young girls are buzzing in and out of Xá Lợi early [in the day]" and then going on to allege that they were brought in for sexual purposes for the U.S. reporters.
Browne's award-winning photograph of Quảng Đức's death has been reproduced in popular media for decades, and the incident has been used as a touchstone reference in many films and television programs.
A still photograph of Quảng Đức's self-immolation taken by Browne was used for the cover of American rap metal band Rage Against the Machine's debut album which came out in 1992, as well as the cover of their single "Killing in the Name". That same photograph was used for the cover of Canadian electronic act Delerium's debut album Faces, Forms & Illusions, which came out in 1989.
Precedents and influence
Despite the shock of the Western public, the practice of Vietnamese monks self-immolating was not unprecedented. Instances of self-immolations in Vietnam had been recorded for centuries, usually carried out to honor Gautama Buddha. The most recently recorded case had been in North Vietnam in 1950. The French colonial authorities had tried to eradicate the practice after their conquest of Vietnam in the nineteenth century, but had not been totally successful. They did manage to prevent one monk from setting fire to himself in Huế in the 1920s, but he managed to starve himself to death instead. During the 1920s and 1930s, Saigon newspapers reported multiple instances of self-immolations by monks in a matter-of-fact style. The practice had also been seen in the Chinese city of Harbin in 1948 when a monk seated down in the lotus position on a pile of sawdust and soybean oil and set fire to himself in protest against the treatment of Buddhism by the anti-religious communists of Mao Zedong. His heart remained intact, as did that of Quảng Đức.
After Quảng Đức, five more Buddhist monks self-immolated up until late October 1963 as the Buddhist protests in Vietnam escalated. On 1 November, the ARVN overthrew Diệm in a coup. Diệm and Nhu were assassinated the next day. Monks have followed Quảng Đức's example since for other reasons.
The Americans in Saigon often found the self-immolations to be surreal and made puns about "bonze fires" and "hot cross bonzes", almost as an escape mechanism from the bewilderment. In one instance in 1963, the young son of an American officer based at the Saigon U.S. Embassy doused himself with gasoline and set himself on fire. He was seriously burned before the fire was extinguished and later could only offer the explanation that "I wanted to see what it was like." Thich Quang Duc's actions were twice fatally copied in the United States in protest against the Vietnam War. On March 16, 1965, Alice Herz an 82-year-old peace activist immolated herself in front of the Federal Department Store in northwest Detroit. Later that same year, Norman Morrison, a 31-year-old Quaker pacifist, poured kerosene over himself and set light to himself below the third-floor window of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara at the Pentagon on November 2, 1965.
See also
List of civil rights leaders
List of political self-immolations
Notes
References
Bibliography
External links
– Official Buddhist monastery dedicated to Thích Quảng Đức
Vietnamese Buddhists
Buddhism in Vietnam
20th-century Buddhist monks
1897 births
1963 suicides
Date of birth unknown
People from Khánh Hòa Province
Vietnamese Buddhist monks
Buddhist crisis
History of South Vietnam
Suicides in Vietnam
1963 in Vietnam
Filmed suicides
Vietnamese people of the Vietnam War
Self-immolations by Buddhists
Articles containing video clips
People notable for being the subject of a specific photograph
Suicides by self-immolation
Buddhist martyrs
Photographs of protests | true | [
"\"No Matter What\" is a song performed by American Christian musician Ryan Stevenson.The song was released as the third single from his 2018 album No Matter What on January 26, 2018. It features guest vocals from MercyMe frontman Bart Millard. It was released to Christian radio on March 2, 2018. The song peaked at No. 8 on the US Hot Christian Songs chart, becoming his third Top 10 single from that chart. It lasted 26 weeks on the overall chart. The song is played in an A major key, and 79 beats per minute.\n\nBackground\n\"No Matter What\" was released as the third single from his second studio album No Matter What, on January 26, 2018. It is the follow-up to Christian radio hit \"The Gospel.\" Stevenson explained his inspiration for writing the song in an interview,\"Over the course of the last several years, I've continued to ask the Lord to give me songs that exist for a reason,\" shares Ryan Stevenson about his new single. \"As we were working on this new record, a reoccurring theme I felt the Lord continually whisper to my heart was 'beloved identity.' I, like many of us, grew up in the church- a religious environment, where we weren't necessarily nurtured and taught about Gods grace, patience and compassion. As I continue to grow and experience life, the truth I continue to encounter is 'I am His son, no matter what.' It is easy to fall into the trap of performance based relationship with God when we've been taught in religious environments that He's mostly disappointed with us. This song hopefully will encourage all of us that even though we struggle, Jesus is overseeing the process.\"\n\nMusic video\nA music video for the single \"No Matter What\" was released on July 27, 2018. The visual features Stevenson performing the track in a dark room\n\nTrack listing\nCD release\n\"No Matter What\" – 3:36\n\"No Matter What (Lead Sheet (Medium Key)\" – 3:36\n\"No Matter What (Vocal Demonstration)\" – 3:27\n\"No Matter What (High Key With Background Vocals)\" – 3:27\n\"No Matter What (High Key Without Background Vocals)\" – 3:27\n\"No Matter What (Medium Key With Background Vocals)\" – 3:27\n\"No Matter What (Medium Key Without Background Vocals)\" – 3:27\n\"No Matter What (Low Key With Background Vocals)\" – 3:27\n\"No Matter What (Low Key Without Background Vocals)\" – 3:27\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\n2018 songs\n2018 singles",
"\"What a Friend\" is a song performed by Canadian contemporary Christian music (CCM) artist Matt Maher. The song was released as the second single from his 2017 album Echoes on September 15, 2017. The song peaked at No. 10 on the US Hot Christian Songs chart, becoming his seventh Top 10 single from that chart. It lasted 26 weeks on the overall chart. The song is played in an E major key, and 110 beats per minute.\n\nBackground\n\"What a Friend\" was released on September 15, 2017, as the second single from his fifth studio album Echoes. The song samples the Christian hymn What a Friend We Have in Jesus by Joseph M. Scriven, who wrote it in 1855 to comfort his mother in Iceland while he was living in Canada. Maher shows God’s faithfulness even in the midst of personal sorrow and devastation. On the song, Maher sings about the joy of our friendship with the Saviour. Aleteia described the song as \"switching gears from quiet worship to bouncing folk-rock, with a country-pop hook, where the piece is infused with a jubilant energy, which is aided by a perfectly employed gospel-ish choir.\"\n\nMusic video\nA lyric video was released on February 23, 2018. A live version of the song was released on June 15, 2018, featuring Christian music singer Jason Crabb.\n\nTrack listing\nCD release\n\"What a Friend\" – 3:17\n\"What a Friend (Lead Sheet (Medium Key)\" – 3:17\n\"What a Friend (Vocal Demonstration)\" – 3:4\n\"What a Friend (High Key With Background Vocals)\" – 3:14\n\"What a Friend (High Key Without Background Vocals)\" – 3:14\n\"What a Friend (Medium Key With Background Vocals)\" – 3:14\n\"What a Friend (Medium Key Without Background Vocals)\" – 3:14\n\"What a Friend (Low Key With Background Vocals)\" – 3:14\n\"What a Friend (Low Key Without Background Vocals)\" – 3:14\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nReferences\n\n2017 songs\n2017 singles\nEssential Records (Christian) singles\nSongs written by Matt Maher"
] |
[
"Thích Quảng Đức",
"Religious background",
"What was his religious background?",
"Buddhist"
] | C_0113efd736a8413c95bfc18dae367505_0 | Was most of the country also buddhist? | 2 | Was most of Thích Quảng Đức's country also buddhist? | Thích Quảng Đức | In a country where surveys of the religious composition at the time estimated the Buddhist majority to be between 70 and 90 percent, President Diem was a member of the Catholic minority, and pursued discriminatory policies favoring Catholics for public service and military promotions, as well as in the allocation of land, business arrangements and tax concessions. Diem once told a high-ranking officer, forgetting that the officer was from a Buddhist family, "Put your Catholic officers in sensitive places. They can be trusted." Many officers in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam converted to Roman Catholicism as their military prospects depended on it. Additionally, the distribution of firearms to village self-defense militias saw weapons given only to Roman Catholics, with some Buddhists in the army being denied promotion if they refused to convert to Roman Catholicism. Some Roman Catholic priests ran their own private armies, and there were forced conversions and looting, shelling, and demolition of pagodas in some areas, to which the government turned a blind eye. Some Buddhist villages converted en masse to receive aid or avoid being forcibly resettled by Diem's regime. The "private" status that was imposed on Buddhism by the French, which required official permission to be obtained by those wishing to conduct public Buddhist activities, was not repealed by Diem. Catholics were also de facto exempt from corvee labor, which the government obliged all citizens to perform, and United States aid was distributed disproportionately to Catholic majority villages by Diem's regime. The Roman Catholic Church was the largest landowner in the country and enjoyed special exemptions in property acquisition, and land owned by the Roman Catholic Church was exempt from land reform. The white and gold Vatican flag was regularly flown at all major public events in South Vietnam, and Diem dedicated his country to the Virgin Mary in 1959. Buddhist discontent erupted following a ban in early May on flying the Buddhist flag in Hue on Vesak, the birthday of Gautama Buddha. Just days before, Catholics had been encouraged to fly the Vatican flag at a celebration for Archbishop Ngo Dinh Thuc of Hue, Diem's elder brother. A large crowd of Buddhists protested the ban, defying the government by flying Buddhist flags on the Buddhist holy day of Vesak and marching on the government broadcasting station. Government forces fired into the crowd of protesters, killing nine people. Diem's refusal to take responsibility -- he blamed the Viet Cong for the deaths -- led to further Buddhist protests and calls for religious equality. As Diem remained unwilling to comply with Buddhist demands, the frequency of protests increased. CANNOTANSWER | the religious composition at the time estimated the Buddhist majority to be between 70 and 90 percent, | Thích Quảng Đức (; 1897 – 11 June 1963; born Lâm Văn Túc) was a Vietnamese Mahayana Buddhist monk who burned himself to death at a busy Saigon road intersection on 11 June 1963. Quảng Đức was protesting the persecution of Buddhists by the South Vietnamese government led by Ngô Đình Diệm, a staunch Roman Catholic. Photographs of his self-immolation circulated around the world, drawing attention to the policies of the Diệm government. John F. Kennedy said of one photograph, "No news picture in history has generated so much emotion around the world as that one." Malcolm Browne won a Pulitzer Prize for his photograph of the monk's death.
Quảng Đức's act increased international pressure on Diệm and led him to announce reforms with the intention of mollifying the Buddhists. However, the promised reforms were not implemented, leading to a deterioration in the dispute. As protests continued, the ARVN Special Forces loyal to Diệm's brother, Ngô Đình Nhu, launched raids across South Vietnam on Buddhist pagodas, seizing Quảng Đức's heart and causing deaths and widespread damage. Several Buddhist monks followed Quảng Đức's example, also immolating themselves. Eventually, a U.S.-backed coup toppled Diệm, who was assassinated on 2 November 1963.
Biography
Accounts of the life of Quảng Đức are derived from information disseminated by Buddhist organizations. He was born in the village of Hội Khánh, in Vạn Ninh District of Khánh Hòa Province in central Vietnam as Lâm Văn Túc, one of seven children of Lâm Hữu Ứng and his wife, Nguyễn Thị Nương. At the age of seven, he left to study Buddhism under Hòa thượng Thích Hoằng Thâm, who was his maternal uncle and spiritual master. Thích Hoằng Thâm raised him as a son and Lâm Văn Túc changed his name to Nguyễn Văn Khiết. At age 15, he took the samanera (novice) vows and was ordained as a monk at age 20 under the dharma name Thích Quảng Đức. The Vietnamese name Thích (釋) is from "Thích Ca" or "Thích Già" (釋迦), means "of the Shakya clan." After ordination, he traveled to a mountain near Ninh Hòa, vowing to live the life of a solitary Buddhism-practicing hermit for three years. He returned in later life to open the Thien Loc pagoda at his mountain retreat.
After his self-imposed isolation ended, he began to travel around central Vietnam expounding the dharma. After two years, he went into retreat at the Sac Tu Thien An pagoda near Nha Trang. In 1932, he was appointed an inspector for the Buddhist Association in Ninh Hòa before becoming the inspector of monks in his home province of Khánh Hòa. During this period in central Vietnam, he was responsible for the construction of 14 temples. In 1934, he moved to southern Vietnam and traveled throughout the provinces spreading Buddhist teachings. During his time in southern Vietnam, he also spent two years in Cambodia studying the Theravada Buddhist tradition.
Upon his return from Cambodia, he oversaw the construction of a further 17 new temples during his time in the south. The last of the 31 new temples that he was responsible for constructing was the Quan The Am pagoda in the Phú Nhuận District of Gia Định Province on the outskirts of Saigon. The street on which the temple stands was later renamed Quảng Đức Street in 1975. After the temple-building phase, Quảng Đức was appointed to serve as the Chairman of the Panel on Ceremonial Rites of the Congregation of Vietnamese Monks, and as abbot of the Phuoc Hoa pagoda, which was the initial location of the Association for Buddhist Studies of Vietnam (ABSV). When the office of the ABSV was relocated to the Xá Lợi Pagoda, the main pagoda of Saigon, Quảng Đức resigned.
Self-immolation
Religious background
In a country where surveys of the religious composition at the time estimated the Buddhist majority to be between 70 and 90 percent, President Diệm was a member of the Catholic minority, and pursued discriminatory policies favoring Catholics for public service and military promotions, as well as in the allocation of land, business arrangements and tax concessions. Diệm once told a high-ranking officer, forgetting that the officer was from a Buddhist family, "Put your Catholic officers in sensitive places. They can be trusted." Many officers in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) converted to Roman Catholicism as their military prospects depended on it. Additionally, the distribution of firearms to village self-defense militias saw weapons given only to Roman Catholics, with some Buddhists in the army being denied promotion if they refused to convert to Roman Catholicism.
Some Catholic priests ran their own private armies, and there were forced conversions and looting, shelling, and demolition of pagodas in some areas, to which the government turned a blind eye. Some Buddhist villages converted en masse to receive aid or avoid being forcibly resettled by Diệm's regime. The "private" status that was imposed on Buddhism by the French, which required official permission to be obtained by those wishing to conduct public Buddhist activities, was not repealed by Diệm. Catholics were also de facto exempt from corvée labor, which the government obliged all citizens to perform, and United States aid was distributed disproportionately to Catholic majority villages by Diệm's regime.
The Catholic Church was the largest landowner in the country and enjoyed special exemptions in property acquisition, and land owned by the Catholic Church was exempt from land reform. The white and gold Vatican flag was regularly flown at all major public events in South Vietnam, and Diệm dedicated his country to the Virgin Mary in 1959.
Buddhist discontent erupted following a ban in early May on flying the Buddhist flag in Huế on Vesak, the birthday of Gautama Buddha. Just days before, Catholics had been encouraged to fly the Vatican flag at a celebration for Archbishop Ngô Đình Thục of Huế, Diệm's elder brother. A large crowd of Buddhists protested the ban, defying the government by flying Buddhist flags on the Buddhist holy day of Vesak and marching on the government broadcasting station. Government forces fired into the crowd of protesters, killing nine people. Diệm's refusal to take responsibility—he blamed the Viet Cong for the deaths—led to further Buddhist protests and calls for religious equality. As Diem remained unwilling to comply with Buddhist demands, the frequency of protests increased.
Day of the act
On 10 June 1963, U.S. correspondents were informed that "something important" would happen the following morning on the road outside the Cambodian embassy in Saigon. Most of the reporters disregarded the message, since the Buddhist crisis had at that point been going on for more than a month, and the next day only a few journalists turned up, including David Halberstam of The New York Times and Malcolm Browne, the Saigon bureau chief for the Associated Press (AP). Quảng Đức arrived as part of a procession that had begun at a nearby pagoda. Around 350 monks and nuns marched in two phalanxes, preceded by an Austin Westminster sedan, carrying banners printed in both English and Vietnamese. They denounced the Diệm government and its policy towards Buddhists, demanding that it fulfill its promises of religious equality. Another monk offered himself, but Quảng Đức's seniority prevailed.
The act occurred at the intersection of Phan Đình Phùng Boulevard (now Nguyễn Đình Chiểu Street) and Lê Văn Duyệt Street (now Cách Mạng Tháng Tám Street) (), a few blocks southwest of the Presidential Palace (now the Reunification Palace). Quảng Đức emerged from the car along with two other monks. One placed a cushion on the road while the second opened the trunk and took out a five-gallon petrol can. As the marchers formed a circle around him, Quảng Đức calmly sat down in the traditional Buddhist meditative lotus position on the cushion. A colleague emptied the contents of the petrol container over Quảng Đức's head. Quảng Đức rotated a string of wooden prayer beads and recited the words ("Homage to Amitābha Buddha") before striking a match and dropping it on himself. Flames consumed his robes and flesh, and black oily smoke emanated from his burning body.
Quảng Đức's last words before his self-immolation were documented in a letter he had left:
David Halberstam wrote:
The spectators were mostly stunned into silence, but some wailed and several began praying. Many of the monks and nuns, as well as some shocked passersby, prostrated themselves before the burning monk. Even some of the policemen, who had orders to control the gathered crowd, prostrated before him.
In English and Vietnamese, a monk repeated into a microphone: "A Buddhist priest burns himself to death. A Buddhist priest becomes a martyr." After approximately 10 minutes, Quảng Đức's body was fully immolated and it eventually toppled backwards onto its back. Once the fire subsided, a group of monks covered the smoking corpse with yellow robes, picked it up and tried to fit it into a coffin, but the limbs could not be straightened and one of the arms protruded from the wooden box as he was carried to the nearby Xá Lợi Pagoda in central Saigon. Outside the pagoda, students unfurled bilingual banners which read: "A Buddhist priest burns himself for our five requests."
By 1:30p.m. (13:30), around 1,000 monks had congregated inside to hold a meeting, while outside a large crowd of pro-Buddhist students had formed a human barrier around it. The meeting soon ended and all but 100 monks slowly left the compound. Nearly 1,000 monks, accompanied by laypeople, returned to the cremation site. The police lingered nearby. At around 6:00p.m. (18:00), thirty nuns and six monks were arrested for holding a prayer meeting on the street outside Xá Lợi. The police encircled the pagoda, blocking public passage and giving observers the impression that an armed siege was imminent by donning riot gear.
Funeral and aftermath
After the self-immolation, the U.S. put more pressure on Diệm to re-open negotiations on the faltering agreement. Diệm had scheduled an emergency cabinet meeting at 11:30 on 11 June to discuss the Buddhist crisis which he believed to be winding down. Following Quảng Đức's death, Diệm canceled the meeting and met individually with his ministers. Acting U.S. Ambassador to South Vietnam William Trueheart warned Nguyễn Đình Thuận, Diệm's Secretary of State, of the desperate need for an agreement, saying that the situation was "dangerously near breaking point" and expected Diệm would meet the Buddhists' five-point manifesto. United States Secretary of State Dean Rusk warned the Saigon embassy that the White House would publicly announce that it would no longer "associate itself" with the regime if this did not occur. The Joint Communiqué and concessions to the Buddhists were signed on 16 June.
15 June was set as the date for the funeral, and on that day 4,000 people gathered outside the Xá Lợi pagoda, only for the ceremony to be postponed. On 19 June, his remains were carried out of Xá Lợi to a cemetery south of the city for a re-cremation and funeral ceremony. Following the signing of the Joint Communiqué, attendance was limited by agreement between Buddhist leaders and police to approximately 500 monks.
Intact heart and symbolism
The body was re-cremated during the funeral, but Quảng Đức's heart remained intact and did not burn. It was considered to be holy and placed in a glass chalice at Xá Lợi Pagoda. The intact heart relic is regarded as a symbol of compassion. Quảng Đức has subsequently been revered by Vietnamese Buddhists as a bodhisattva (Bồ Tát), and accordingly is often referred to in Vietnamese as Bồ Tát Thích Quảng Đức. On 21 August, the ARVN Special Forces of Nhu attacked Xá Lợi and other Buddhist pagodas across Vietnam. The secret police intended to confiscate Quảng Đức's ashes, but two monks had escaped with the urn, jumping over the back fence and finding safety at the U.S. Operations Mission next door. Nhu's men managed to confiscate Đức's charred heart.
The location chosen for the self-immolation, in front of the Cambodian embassy, raised questions as to whether it was coincidence or a symbolic choice. Trueheart and embassy official Charles Flowerree felt that the location was selected to show solidarity with the Cambodian government of Prince Norodom Sihanouk. South Vietnam and Cambodia had strained relations: in a speech on 22 May, Sihanouk had accused Diệm of mistreating Vietnamese and ethnic minority Khmer Buddhists. The pro-Diệm Times of Vietnam published an article on 9 June which claimed that Cambodian monks had been encouraging the Buddhist crisis, asserting it was part of a Cambodian plot to extend its neutralist foreign policy into South Vietnam. Flowerree noted that Diệm was "ready and eager to see a fine Cambodian hand in all the organized Buddhist actions".
Diệm reaction
Diệm made a radio address at 19:00 on the day of Quảng Đức's death, asserting that he was profoundly troubled by the event. He appealed for "serenity and patriotism", and announced that stalled negotiations would resume with the Buddhists. He claimed that negotiations had been progressing well and in a time of religious tension emphasized the role of the Roman Catholic philosophy of personalism in his rule. He alleged that extremists had twisted the facts and he asserted that the Buddhists can "count on the Constitution, in other words, me."
The ARVN responded to the appeal, putting on a show of solidarity behind Diệm to isolate dissident officers. Thirty high-ranking officers headed by General Lê Văn Tỵ declared their resolve to carry out all missions entrusted to the army for the defense of the constitution and the Republic. The declaration was a veneer which masked a developing plot to oust Diệm. Some of the signatories were to become personally involved in Diệm's overthrow and death in November. Generals Dương Văn Minh and Trần Văn Đôn, the presidential military advisor and the chief of the army who were to lead the coup, were overseas.
Madame Nhu (a Catholic convert from Buddhism and the wife of Diệm's younger brother and chief adviser Ngô Đình Nhu), who was regarded as the First Lady of South Vietnam at the time (as Diệm was a bachelor), said she would "clap hands at seeing another monk barbecue show". Later that month, Diệm's government charged that Quảng Đức had been drugged before being forced to commit suicide. The regime also accused Browne of bribing Quảng Đức to burn himself.
Political and media impact
Photographs taken by Malcolm Browne of the self-immolation quickly spread across the wire services and were featured on the front pages of newspapers worldwide. The self-immolation was later regarded as a turning point in the Buddhist crisis and a critical point in the collapse of the Diệm regime.
Historian Seth Jacobs asserted that Quảng Đức had "reduced America's Diệm experiment to ashes as well" and that "no amount of pleading could retrieve Diệm's reputation" once Browne's images had become ingrained into the psyche of the world public. Ellen Hammer described the event as having "evoked dark images of persecution and horror corresponding to a profoundly Asian reality that passed the understanding of Westerners." John Mecklin, an official from the U.S. embassy, noted that the photograph "had a shock effect of incalculable value to the Buddhist cause, becoming a symbol of the state of things in Vietnam." William Colby, then chief of the Central Intelligence Agency's Far East Division, opined that Diệm "handled the Buddhist crisis fairly badly and allowed it to grow. But I really don't think there was much they could have done about it once that bonze burned himself."
President John F. Kennedy, whose government was the main sponsor of Diệm's regime, learned of Quảng Đức's death when handed the morning newspapers while he was talking to his brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, on the phone. Kennedy reportedly interrupted their conversation about segregation in Alabama by exclaiming "Jesus Christ!" He later remarked that "no news picture in history has generated so much emotion around the world as that one." U.S. Senator Frank Church (D-Idaho), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, claimed that "such grisly scenes have not been witnessed since the Christian martyrs marched hand in hand into the Roman arenas."
In Europe, the photographs were sold on the streets as postcards during the 1960s, and communist China distributed millions of copies of the photograph throughout Asia and Africa as evidence of what it called US imperialism. One of Browne's photographs remains affixed to the sedan in which Quảng Đức was riding and is part of a tourist attraction in Huế.
For Browne and the AP, the pictures were a marketing success. Ray Herndon, the United Press International (UPI) correspondent who had forgotten to take his camera on the day, was harshly criticized in private by his employer. UPI estimated that 5,000 readers in Sydney, then a city of around 1.5–2 million, had switched to AP news sources.
Diệm's English-language mouthpiece, the Times of Vietnam, intensified its attacks on both journalists and Buddhists. Headlines such as "Xá Lợi politburo makes new threats" and "Monks plot murder" were printed. One article questioned the relationship between the monks and the press by posing the question as to why "so many young girls are buzzing in and out of Xá Lợi early [in the day]" and then going on to allege that they were brought in for sexual purposes for the U.S. reporters.
Browne's award-winning photograph of Quảng Đức's death has been reproduced in popular media for decades, and the incident has been used as a touchstone reference in many films and television programs.
A still photograph of Quảng Đức's self-immolation taken by Browne was used for the cover of American rap metal band Rage Against the Machine's debut album which came out in 1992, as well as the cover of their single "Killing in the Name". That same photograph was used for the cover of Canadian electronic act Delerium's debut album Faces, Forms & Illusions, which came out in 1989.
Precedents and influence
Despite the shock of the Western public, the practice of Vietnamese monks self-immolating was not unprecedented. Instances of self-immolations in Vietnam had been recorded for centuries, usually carried out to honor Gautama Buddha. The most recently recorded case had been in North Vietnam in 1950. The French colonial authorities had tried to eradicate the practice after their conquest of Vietnam in the nineteenth century, but had not been totally successful. They did manage to prevent one monk from setting fire to himself in Huế in the 1920s, but he managed to starve himself to death instead. During the 1920s and 1930s, Saigon newspapers reported multiple instances of self-immolations by monks in a matter-of-fact style. The practice had also been seen in the Chinese city of Harbin in 1948 when a monk seated down in the lotus position on a pile of sawdust and soybean oil and set fire to himself in protest against the treatment of Buddhism by the anti-religious communists of Mao Zedong. His heart remained intact, as did that of Quảng Đức.
After Quảng Đức, five more Buddhist monks self-immolated up until late October 1963 as the Buddhist protests in Vietnam escalated. On 1 November, the ARVN overthrew Diệm in a coup. Diệm and Nhu were assassinated the next day. Monks have followed Quảng Đức's example since for other reasons.
The Americans in Saigon often found the self-immolations to be surreal and made puns about "bonze fires" and "hot cross bonzes", almost as an escape mechanism from the bewilderment. In one instance in 1963, the young son of an American officer based at the Saigon U.S. Embassy doused himself with gasoline and set himself on fire. He was seriously burned before the fire was extinguished and later could only offer the explanation that "I wanted to see what it was like." Thich Quang Duc's actions were twice fatally copied in the United States in protest against the Vietnam War. On March 16, 1965, Alice Herz an 82-year-old peace activist immolated herself in front of the Federal Department Store in northwest Detroit. Later that same year, Norman Morrison, a 31-year-old Quaker pacifist, poured kerosene over himself and set light to himself below the third-floor window of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara at the Pentagon on November 2, 1965.
See also
List of civil rights leaders
List of political self-immolations
Notes
References
Bibliography
External links
– Official Buddhist monastery dedicated to Thích Quảng Đức
Vietnamese Buddhists
Buddhism in Vietnam
20th-century Buddhist monks
1897 births
1963 suicides
Date of birth unknown
People from Khánh Hòa Province
Vietnamese Buddhist monks
Buddhist crisis
History of South Vietnam
Suicides in Vietnam
1963 in Vietnam
Filmed suicides
Vietnamese people of the Vietnam War
Self-immolations by Buddhists
Articles containing video clips
People notable for being the subject of a specific photograph
Suicides by self-immolation
Buddhist martyrs
Photographs of protests | true | [
"Khieu Chum ( , 1907–1975) was a prominent Cambodian Buddhist monk and activist who was a member of a small group of people responsible for planning the Cambodian coup of 1970 which overthrew the monarchy and placed General Lon Nol as leader of a new Khmer Republic. Chum was a student of Hem Chieu, a leading figure in the early period of modern Khmer nationalism. After Cambodia achieved independence in 1953, Chum became an active figure in internal politics and is now considered one of the country's most significant political thinkers of the era. He is also credited with writing the March of the Khmer Republic.\n\nReferences\n\nCambodian Buddhist monks\n1907 births\n1975 deaths\n20th-century Buddhist monks",
"Venerable Sikkim Mahinda (), commonly known as S. Mahinda (), was a Buddhist monk from the state of Sikkim. He was a poet and author, and participated in the Sri Lankan independence movement. Although he was from Sikkim, he identified himself as a Tibetan, presumably because it was more well known in Ceylon.\n\nS. Mahinda arrived in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) at a young age and was ordained as a Buddhist monk by Ven. Dodanduwa Sri Piyaratana Tissa Mahanayake Thero. Having learned the Sinhala language, he became a poet, creating several literary works inspiring patriotism among the Sinhalese and urging them to fight for their freedom during Sri Lankan Independence movement.. He is now considered a national hero of Sri Lanka and one among the greatest of Sinhalese poetry figures of all time.\n\nEarly life\nS. Mahinda was born around 1901 in Sikkim and named Pempa Tendupi Serky Cherin. His family lived in Gangtok, the capital of Sikkim. He had three brothers; the first would later become a lecturer of the University of Calcutta, the second would be the prime minister of the king, and the third would join the Buddhist priesthood who was known as Punnaji thero. Their elder half-brother, who looked after the family following the death of their father, was Kazi Dawa Samdup. His childhood friend Tashi Namgyal would become the king of Sikkim. S. Mahinda had used his name as a pseudonym in Sri Lanka, leading to the belief that it was his real name.\n\nSerky received a scholarship, with an annual allowance of six rupees, to study Buddhism in Ceylon and arrived there in 1912 or 1914. At the time, the country was under British rule. Sikkim Punnaji, his elder brother who was already a Buddhist monk, accompanied him.\n\nBuddhist priesthood and life in Ceylon\nThe two brothers stayed at the Island Hermitage in Polgasduwa, southern Ceylon, and learned Buddhism under the German monk Nyanatiloka. He was then sent to the Vidyodaya Pirivena in Maradana, and admitted to a school there to learn English. After this, he returned to the Island Hermitage, and learned Sinhala and Pali languages. With the outbreak of World War I, his mentor Nyanatiloka Thera was arrested. His brother Sikkim Punnaji also appears to have died around this time, while he was himself interned twice by the government.\n\nHe was later ordained into the Amarapura Nikaya as Sikkim Mahinda, although he used his name as S. Mahinda. He was re-ordained into the Shyamopali Nikaya on 16 June 1930, and obtained Upasampada later that year. He identified himself as a Tibetan, presumably because it was better known in Ceylon and was a leading Buddhist country in Asia. S.Mahinda Thera served as a teacher at Nalanda College, Colombo from 1934 to 1936.\n\nLiterary work and nationalism\nS. Mahinda soon became fluent in the Sinhala language, and established himself as a poet and author. He has written over 40 books, most of them are poems inspiring patriotism. His first book was Ova Muthu Dama, which was written around 1921. His final book is believed to be Sri Pada. He also appears to have created a number of unpublished works. In his works, he has focused on the past glory of the country, and the weaknesses of its people in the present, urging them to work towards their freedom. He also wrote several books for children as well, and in these too he has tried to inspire patriotism upon the reader. His most famous works include Nidahase Dehena, Nidahase Manthraya, Lanka Matha, Jathika Thotilla, Ada Lak Mawage Puttu, Nidahasa, Videshikayakugen Lak Mawata Namaskarayak and Sinhala Jathiya.\n\nHe was also a member of the temperance movement, which served as the basis for the independence movement of Sri Lanka. After the country gained independence in 1948, he was acknowledged as a national hero for his literary works inspiring the independence movement. He died on 16 March 1951.\n\nSee also\nSagara Palansuriya\n\nReferences\n\n1951 deaths\nNational Heroes of Sri Lanka\nSri Lankan independence movement\nWriters from Sikkim\nPeople from Gangtok\nSri Lankan Theravada Buddhists\nSri Lankan Buddhist monks\nSri Lankan religious leaders\nIndian emigrants to Sri Lanka\nIndian Buddhist monks\nFaculty of Nalanda College, Colombo\nIndian religious writers\n20th-century Indian non-fiction writers\nSinhalese writers\nFaculty of Ananda College\n1901 births\n20th-century Buddhist monks"
] |
[
"Thích Quảng Đức",
"Religious background",
"What was his religious background?",
"Buddhist",
"Was most of the country also buddhist?",
"the religious composition at the time estimated the Buddhist majority to be between 70 and 90 percent,"
] | C_0113efd736a8413c95bfc18dae367505_0 | If they were the majority, then why were they being persecuted? | 3 | If Buddhists were the majority in Thích Quảng Đức's country, then why were they being persecuted? | Thích Quảng Đức | In a country where surveys of the religious composition at the time estimated the Buddhist majority to be between 70 and 90 percent, President Diem was a member of the Catholic minority, and pursued discriminatory policies favoring Catholics for public service and military promotions, as well as in the allocation of land, business arrangements and tax concessions. Diem once told a high-ranking officer, forgetting that the officer was from a Buddhist family, "Put your Catholic officers in sensitive places. They can be trusted." Many officers in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam converted to Roman Catholicism as their military prospects depended on it. Additionally, the distribution of firearms to village self-defense militias saw weapons given only to Roman Catholics, with some Buddhists in the army being denied promotion if they refused to convert to Roman Catholicism. Some Roman Catholic priests ran their own private armies, and there were forced conversions and looting, shelling, and demolition of pagodas in some areas, to which the government turned a blind eye. Some Buddhist villages converted en masse to receive aid or avoid being forcibly resettled by Diem's regime. The "private" status that was imposed on Buddhism by the French, which required official permission to be obtained by those wishing to conduct public Buddhist activities, was not repealed by Diem. Catholics were also de facto exempt from corvee labor, which the government obliged all citizens to perform, and United States aid was distributed disproportionately to Catholic majority villages by Diem's regime. The Roman Catholic Church was the largest landowner in the country and enjoyed special exemptions in property acquisition, and land owned by the Roman Catholic Church was exempt from land reform. The white and gold Vatican flag was regularly flown at all major public events in South Vietnam, and Diem dedicated his country to the Virgin Mary in 1959. Buddhist discontent erupted following a ban in early May on flying the Buddhist flag in Hue on Vesak, the birthday of Gautama Buddha. Just days before, Catholics had been encouraged to fly the Vatican flag at a celebration for Archbishop Ngo Dinh Thuc of Hue, Diem's elder brother. A large crowd of Buddhists protested the ban, defying the government by flying Buddhist flags on the Buddhist holy day of Vesak and marching on the government broadcasting station. Government forces fired into the crowd of protesters, killing nine people. Diem's refusal to take responsibility -- he blamed the Viet Cong for the deaths -- led to further Buddhist protests and calls for religious equality. As Diem remained unwilling to comply with Buddhist demands, the frequency of protests increased. CANNOTANSWER | President Diem was a member of the Catholic minority, and pursued discriminatory policies favoring Catholics for public service and military promotions, | Thích Quảng Đức (; 1897 – 11 June 1963; born Lâm Văn Túc) was a Vietnamese Mahayana Buddhist monk who burned himself to death at a busy Saigon road intersection on 11 June 1963. Quảng Đức was protesting the persecution of Buddhists by the South Vietnamese government led by Ngô Đình Diệm, a staunch Roman Catholic. Photographs of his self-immolation circulated around the world, drawing attention to the policies of the Diệm government. John F. Kennedy said of one photograph, "No news picture in history has generated so much emotion around the world as that one." Malcolm Browne won a Pulitzer Prize for his photograph of the monk's death.
Quảng Đức's act increased international pressure on Diệm and led him to announce reforms with the intention of mollifying the Buddhists. However, the promised reforms were not implemented, leading to a deterioration in the dispute. As protests continued, the ARVN Special Forces loyal to Diệm's brother, Ngô Đình Nhu, launched raids across South Vietnam on Buddhist pagodas, seizing Quảng Đức's heart and causing deaths and widespread damage. Several Buddhist monks followed Quảng Đức's example, also immolating themselves. Eventually, a U.S.-backed coup toppled Diệm, who was assassinated on 2 November 1963.
Biography
Accounts of the life of Quảng Đức are derived from information disseminated by Buddhist organizations. He was born in the village of Hội Khánh, in Vạn Ninh District of Khánh Hòa Province in central Vietnam as Lâm Văn Túc, one of seven children of Lâm Hữu Ứng and his wife, Nguyễn Thị Nương. At the age of seven, he left to study Buddhism under Hòa thượng Thích Hoằng Thâm, who was his maternal uncle and spiritual master. Thích Hoằng Thâm raised him as a son and Lâm Văn Túc changed his name to Nguyễn Văn Khiết. At age 15, he took the samanera (novice) vows and was ordained as a monk at age 20 under the dharma name Thích Quảng Đức. The Vietnamese name Thích (釋) is from "Thích Ca" or "Thích Già" (釋迦), means "of the Shakya clan." After ordination, he traveled to a mountain near Ninh Hòa, vowing to live the life of a solitary Buddhism-practicing hermit for three years. He returned in later life to open the Thien Loc pagoda at his mountain retreat.
After his self-imposed isolation ended, he began to travel around central Vietnam expounding the dharma. After two years, he went into retreat at the Sac Tu Thien An pagoda near Nha Trang. In 1932, he was appointed an inspector for the Buddhist Association in Ninh Hòa before becoming the inspector of monks in his home province of Khánh Hòa. During this period in central Vietnam, he was responsible for the construction of 14 temples. In 1934, he moved to southern Vietnam and traveled throughout the provinces spreading Buddhist teachings. During his time in southern Vietnam, he also spent two years in Cambodia studying the Theravada Buddhist tradition.
Upon his return from Cambodia, he oversaw the construction of a further 17 new temples during his time in the south. The last of the 31 new temples that he was responsible for constructing was the Quan The Am pagoda in the Phú Nhuận District of Gia Định Province on the outskirts of Saigon. The street on which the temple stands was later renamed Quảng Đức Street in 1975. After the temple-building phase, Quảng Đức was appointed to serve as the Chairman of the Panel on Ceremonial Rites of the Congregation of Vietnamese Monks, and as abbot of the Phuoc Hoa pagoda, which was the initial location of the Association for Buddhist Studies of Vietnam (ABSV). When the office of the ABSV was relocated to the Xá Lợi Pagoda, the main pagoda of Saigon, Quảng Đức resigned.
Self-immolation
Religious background
In a country where surveys of the religious composition at the time estimated the Buddhist majority to be between 70 and 90 percent, President Diệm was a member of the Catholic minority, and pursued discriminatory policies favoring Catholics for public service and military promotions, as well as in the allocation of land, business arrangements and tax concessions. Diệm once told a high-ranking officer, forgetting that the officer was from a Buddhist family, "Put your Catholic officers in sensitive places. They can be trusted." Many officers in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) converted to Roman Catholicism as their military prospects depended on it. Additionally, the distribution of firearms to village self-defense militias saw weapons given only to Roman Catholics, with some Buddhists in the army being denied promotion if they refused to convert to Roman Catholicism.
Some Catholic priests ran their own private armies, and there were forced conversions and looting, shelling, and demolition of pagodas in some areas, to which the government turned a blind eye. Some Buddhist villages converted en masse to receive aid or avoid being forcibly resettled by Diệm's regime. The "private" status that was imposed on Buddhism by the French, which required official permission to be obtained by those wishing to conduct public Buddhist activities, was not repealed by Diệm. Catholics were also de facto exempt from corvée labor, which the government obliged all citizens to perform, and United States aid was distributed disproportionately to Catholic majority villages by Diệm's regime.
The Catholic Church was the largest landowner in the country and enjoyed special exemptions in property acquisition, and land owned by the Catholic Church was exempt from land reform. The white and gold Vatican flag was regularly flown at all major public events in South Vietnam, and Diệm dedicated his country to the Virgin Mary in 1959.
Buddhist discontent erupted following a ban in early May on flying the Buddhist flag in Huế on Vesak, the birthday of Gautama Buddha. Just days before, Catholics had been encouraged to fly the Vatican flag at a celebration for Archbishop Ngô Đình Thục of Huế, Diệm's elder brother. A large crowd of Buddhists protested the ban, defying the government by flying Buddhist flags on the Buddhist holy day of Vesak and marching on the government broadcasting station. Government forces fired into the crowd of protesters, killing nine people. Diệm's refusal to take responsibility—he blamed the Viet Cong for the deaths—led to further Buddhist protests and calls for religious equality. As Diem remained unwilling to comply with Buddhist demands, the frequency of protests increased.
Day of the act
On 10 June 1963, U.S. correspondents were informed that "something important" would happen the following morning on the road outside the Cambodian embassy in Saigon. Most of the reporters disregarded the message, since the Buddhist crisis had at that point been going on for more than a month, and the next day only a few journalists turned up, including David Halberstam of The New York Times and Malcolm Browne, the Saigon bureau chief for the Associated Press (AP). Quảng Đức arrived as part of a procession that had begun at a nearby pagoda. Around 350 monks and nuns marched in two phalanxes, preceded by an Austin Westminster sedan, carrying banners printed in both English and Vietnamese. They denounced the Diệm government and its policy towards Buddhists, demanding that it fulfill its promises of religious equality. Another monk offered himself, but Quảng Đức's seniority prevailed.
The act occurred at the intersection of Phan Đình Phùng Boulevard (now Nguyễn Đình Chiểu Street) and Lê Văn Duyệt Street (now Cách Mạng Tháng Tám Street) (), a few blocks southwest of the Presidential Palace (now the Reunification Palace). Quảng Đức emerged from the car along with two other monks. One placed a cushion on the road while the second opened the trunk and took out a five-gallon petrol can. As the marchers formed a circle around him, Quảng Đức calmly sat down in the traditional Buddhist meditative lotus position on the cushion. A colleague emptied the contents of the petrol container over Quảng Đức's head. Quảng Đức rotated a string of wooden prayer beads and recited the words ("Homage to Amitābha Buddha") before striking a match and dropping it on himself. Flames consumed his robes and flesh, and black oily smoke emanated from his burning body.
Quảng Đức's last words before his self-immolation were documented in a letter he had left:
David Halberstam wrote:
The spectators were mostly stunned into silence, but some wailed and several began praying. Many of the monks and nuns, as well as some shocked passersby, prostrated themselves before the burning monk. Even some of the policemen, who had orders to control the gathered crowd, prostrated before him.
In English and Vietnamese, a monk repeated into a microphone: "A Buddhist priest burns himself to death. A Buddhist priest becomes a martyr." After approximately 10 minutes, Quảng Đức's body was fully immolated and it eventually toppled backwards onto its back. Once the fire subsided, a group of monks covered the smoking corpse with yellow robes, picked it up and tried to fit it into a coffin, but the limbs could not be straightened and one of the arms protruded from the wooden box as he was carried to the nearby Xá Lợi Pagoda in central Saigon. Outside the pagoda, students unfurled bilingual banners which read: "A Buddhist priest burns himself for our five requests."
By 1:30p.m. (13:30), around 1,000 monks had congregated inside to hold a meeting, while outside a large crowd of pro-Buddhist students had formed a human barrier around it. The meeting soon ended and all but 100 monks slowly left the compound. Nearly 1,000 monks, accompanied by laypeople, returned to the cremation site. The police lingered nearby. At around 6:00p.m. (18:00), thirty nuns and six monks were arrested for holding a prayer meeting on the street outside Xá Lợi. The police encircled the pagoda, blocking public passage and giving observers the impression that an armed siege was imminent by donning riot gear.
Funeral and aftermath
After the self-immolation, the U.S. put more pressure on Diệm to re-open negotiations on the faltering agreement. Diệm had scheduled an emergency cabinet meeting at 11:30 on 11 June to discuss the Buddhist crisis which he believed to be winding down. Following Quảng Đức's death, Diệm canceled the meeting and met individually with his ministers. Acting U.S. Ambassador to South Vietnam William Trueheart warned Nguyễn Đình Thuận, Diệm's Secretary of State, of the desperate need for an agreement, saying that the situation was "dangerously near breaking point" and expected Diệm would meet the Buddhists' five-point manifesto. United States Secretary of State Dean Rusk warned the Saigon embassy that the White House would publicly announce that it would no longer "associate itself" with the regime if this did not occur. The Joint Communiqué and concessions to the Buddhists were signed on 16 June.
15 June was set as the date for the funeral, and on that day 4,000 people gathered outside the Xá Lợi pagoda, only for the ceremony to be postponed. On 19 June, his remains were carried out of Xá Lợi to a cemetery south of the city for a re-cremation and funeral ceremony. Following the signing of the Joint Communiqué, attendance was limited by agreement between Buddhist leaders and police to approximately 500 monks.
Intact heart and symbolism
The body was re-cremated during the funeral, but Quảng Đức's heart remained intact and did not burn. It was considered to be holy and placed in a glass chalice at Xá Lợi Pagoda. The intact heart relic is regarded as a symbol of compassion. Quảng Đức has subsequently been revered by Vietnamese Buddhists as a bodhisattva (Bồ Tát), and accordingly is often referred to in Vietnamese as Bồ Tát Thích Quảng Đức. On 21 August, the ARVN Special Forces of Nhu attacked Xá Lợi and other Buddhist pagodas across Vietnam. The secret police intended to confiscate Quảng Đức's ashes, but two monks had escaped with the urn, jumping over the back fence and finding safety at the U.S. Operations Mission next door. Nhu's men managed to confiscate Đức's charred heart.
The location chosen for the self-immolation, in front of the Cambodian embassy, raised questions as to whether it was coincidence or a symbolic choice. Trueheart and embassy official Charles Flowerree felt that the location was selected to show solidarity with the Cambodian government of Prince Norodom Sihanouk. South Vietnam and Cambodia had strained relations: in a speech on 22 May, Sihanouk had accused Diệm of mistreating Vietnamese and ethnic minority Khmer Buddhists. The pro-Diệm Times of Vietnam published an article on 9 June which claimed that Cambodian monks had been encouraging the Buddhist crisis, asserting it was part of a Cambodian plot to extend its neutralist foreign policy into South Vietnam. Flowerree noted that Diệm was "ready and eager to see a fine Cambodian hand in all the organized Buddhist actions".
Diệm reaction
Diệm made a radio address at 19:00 on the day of Quảng Đức's death, asserting that he was profoundly troubled by the event. He appealed for "serenity and patriotism", and announced that stalled negotiations would resume with the Buddhists. He claimed that negotiations had been progressing well and in a time of religious tension emphasized the role of the Roman Catholic philosophy of personalism in his rule. He alleged that extremists had twisted the facts and he asserted that the Buddhists can "count on the Constitution, in other words, me."
The ARVN responded to the appeal, putting on a show of solidarity behind Diệm to isolate dissident officers. Thirty high-ranking officers headed by General Lê Văn Tỵ declared their resolve to carry out all missions entrusted to the army for the defense of the constitution and the Republic. The declaration was a veneer which masked a developing plot to oust Diệm. Some of the signatories were to become personally involved in Diệm's overthrow and death in November. Generals Dương Văn Minh and Trần Văn Đôn, the presidential military advisor and the chief of the army who were to lead the coup, were overseas.
Madame Nhu (a Catholic convert from Buddhism and the wife of Diệm's younger brother and chief adviser Ngô Đình Nhu), who was regarded as the First Lady of South Vietnam at the time (as Diệm was a bachelor), said she would "clap hands at seeing another monk barbecue show". Later that month, Diệm's government charged that Quảng Đức had been drugged before being forced to commit suicide. The regime also accused Browne of bribing Quảng Đức to burn himself.
Political and media impact
Photographs taken by Malcolm Browne of the self-immolation quickly spread across the wire services and were featured on the front pages of newspapers worldwide. The self-immolation was later regarded as a turning point in the Buddhist crisis and a critical point in the collapse of the Diệm regime.
Historian Seth Jacobs asserted that Quảng Đức had "reduced America's Diệm experiment to ashes as well" and that "no amount of pleading could retrieve Diệm's reputation" once Browne's images had become ingrained into the psyche of the world public. Ellen Hammer described the event as having "evoked dark images of persecution and horror corresponding to a profoundly Asian reality that passed the understanding of Westerners." John Mecklin, an official from the U.S. embassy, noted that the photograph "had a shock effect of incalculable value to the Buddhist cause, becoming a symbol of the state of things in Vietnam." William Colby, then chief of the Central Intelligence Agency's Far East Division, opined that Diệm "handled the Buddhist crisis fairly badly and allowed it to grow. But I really don't think there was much they could have done about it once that bonze burned himself."
President John F. Kennedy, whose government was the main sponsor of Diệm's regime, learned of Quảng Đức's death when handed the morning newspapers while he was talking to his brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, on the phone. Kennedy reportedly interrupted their conversation about segregation in Alabama by exclaiming "Jesus Christ!" He later remarked that "no news picture in history has generated so much emotion around the world as that one." U.S. Senator Frank Church (D-Idaho), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, claimed that "such grisly scenes have not been witnessed since the Christian martyrs marched hand in hand into the Roman arenas."
In Europe, the photographs were sold on the streets as postcards during the 1960s, and communist China distributed millions of copies of the photograph throughout Asia and Africa as evidence of what it called US imperialism. One of Browne's photographs remains affixed to the sedan in which Quảng Đức was riding and is part of a tourist attraction in Huế.
For Browne and the AP, the pictures were a marketing success. Ray Herndon, the United Press International (UPI) correspondent who had forgotten to take his camera on the day, was harshly criticized in private by his employer. UPI estimated that 5,000 readers in Sydney, then a city of around 1.5–2 million, had switched to AP news sources.
Diệm's English-language mouthpiece, the Times of Vietnam, intensified its attacks on both journalists and Buddhists. Headlines such as "Xá Lợi politburo makes new threats" and "Monks plot murder" were printed. One article questioned the relationship between the monks and the press by posing the question as to why "so many young girls are buzzing in and out of Xá Lợi early [in the day]" and then going on to allege that they were brought in for sexual purposes for the U.S. reporters.
Browne's award-winning photograph of Quảng Đức's death has been reproduced in popular media for decades, and the incident has been used as a touchstone reference in many films and television programs.
A still photograph of Quảng Đức's self-immolation taken by Browne was used for the cover of American rap metal band Rage Against the Machine's debut album which came out in 1992, as well as the cover of their single "Killing in the Name". That same photograph was used for the cover of Canadian electronic act Delerium's debut album Faces, Forms & Illusions, which came out in 1989.
Precedents and influence
Despite the shock of the Western public, the practice of Vietnamese monks self-immolating was not unprecedented. Instances of self-immolations in Vietnam had been recorded for centuries, usually carried out to honor Gautama Buddha. The most recently recorded case had been in North Vietnam in 1950. The French colonial authorities had tried to eradicate the practice after their conquest of Vietnam in the nineteenth century, but had not been totally successful. They did manage to prevent one monk from setting fire to himself in Huế in the 1920s, but he managed to starve himself to death instead. During the 1920s and 1930s, Saigon newspapers reported multiple instances of self-immolations by monks in a matter-of-fact style. The practice had also been seen in the Chinese city of Harbin in 1948 when a monk seated down in the lotus position on a pile of sawdust and soybean oil and set fire to himself in protest against the treatment of Buddhism by the anti-religious communists of Mao Zedong. His heart remained intact, as did that of Quảng Đức.
After Quảng Đức, five more Buddhist monks self-immolated up until late October 1963 as the Buddhist protests in Vietnam escalated. On 1 November, the ARVN overthrew Diệm in a coup. Diệm and Nhu were assassinated the next day. Monks have followed Quảng Đức's example since for other reasons.
The Americans in Saigon often found the self-immolations to be surreal and made puns about "bonze fires" and "hot cross bonzes", almost as an escape mechanism from the bewilderment. In one instance in 1963, the young son of an American officer based at the Saigon U.S. Embassy doused himself with gasoline and set himself on fire. He was seriously burned before the fire was extinguished and later could only offer the explanation that "I wanted to see what it was like." Thich Quang Duc's actions were twice fatally copied in the United States in protest against the Vietnam War. On March 16, 1965, Alice Herz an 82-year-old peace activist immolated herself in front of the Federal Department Store in northwest Detroit. Later that same year, Norman Morrison, a 31-year-old Quaker pacifist, poured kerosene over himself and set light to himself below the third-floor window of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara at the Pentagon on November 2, 1965.
See also
List of civil rights leaders
List of political self-immolations
Notes
References
Bibliography
External links
– Official Buddhist monastery dedicated to Thích Quảng Đức
Vietnamese Buddhists
Buddhism in Vietnam
20th-century Buddhist monks
1897 births
1963 suicides
Date of birth unknown
People from Khánh Hòa Province
Vietnamese Buddhist monks
Buddhist crisis
History of South Vietnam
Suicides in Vietnam
1963 in Vietnam
Filmed suicides
Vietnamese people of the Vietnam War
Self-immolations by Buddhists
Articles containing video clips
People notable for being the subject of a specific photograph
Suicides by self-immolation
Buddhist martyrs
Photographs of protests | false | [
"John 1:25 is the twenty-fifth verse in the first chapter of the Gospel of John in the New Testament of the Christian Bible.\n\nContent\nIn the original Greek according to Westcott-Hort for this verse is:\nΚαὶ ἠρώτησαν αὐτόν, καὶ εἶπον αὐτῷ, Τί οὖν βαπτίζεις, εἰ σὺ οὐκ εἶ ὁ Χριστός, οὔτε Ἠλίας, οὔτε ὁ προφήτης; \n\nIn the King James Version of the Bible the text reads:\nAnd they asked him, and said unto him, Why baptizest thou then, if thou be not that Christ, nor Elias, neither that prophet?\n\nThe New International Version translates the passage as:\nThey questioned him, \"Why then do you baptize if you are not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?\"\n\nAnalysis\nThe scribes and Pharisees challenge John, asking by what authority does he baptize publicly, and how does he act with authority so that the people flock to him, and were subject to a baptism of Penance? MacEvilly notes that this they thought as being particularly daring on the part of John, since he denied being a prophet; for the prophets foretold that when Christ would come, baptism was to be administered to the people (Ezech. 36:25; Zach. 13:1). And the Pharisees who were learned in the law, knew this. They supposed that such a baptism could only be done by the Messiah or by his accompanying prophet.\n\nCommentary from the Church Fathers\nOrigen: \"The questions of the priests and Levites being answered, another mission comes from the Pharisees: And they that were sent were of the Pharisees. So far as it is allowable to form a conjecture from the discourse itself here, I should say that it was the third occasion of John’s giving his witness. Observe the mildness of the former question, so befitting the priestly and levitical character, Who art thou? There is nothing arrogant or disrespectful, but only what becomes true ministers of God. The Pharisees however, being a sectarian body, as their name implies, address the Baptist in an importunate and contumelious way. And they said, Why baptizest thou then, if thou be not that Christ, neither Elias, neither that Prophet? not caring about information, but only wishing to prevent him baptizing. Yet the very next thing they did, was to come to John’s baptism. The solution of this is, that they came not in faith, but hypocritically, because they feared the people.\"\n\nChrysostom: \"Or, those very same priests and Levites were of the Pharisees, and, because they could not undermine him by blandishments, began accusing, after they had compelled him to say what he was not. And they asked him, saying, Why baptizest thou then, if thou art not the Christ, neither Elias, neither that Prophet? As if it were an act of audacity in him to baptize, when he was neither the Christ, nor His precursor, nor His proclaimer, i. e. that Prophet.\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nOther translations of John 1:25 at BibleHub\n\n01:25",
"Matthew 5:10 is the tenth verse of the fifth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. It is the eighth verse of the Sermon on the Mount, and also eighth, and to some the last, of what are known as the Beatitudes.\n\nContent\nIn the King James Version of the Bible the text reads:\nBlessed are they which are persecuted \nfor righteousness' sake: for \ntheirs is the kingdom of heaven.\n\nThe World English Bible translates the passage as:\nBlessed are those who have been \npersecuted for righteousness' sake,\nfor theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.\n\nThe Novum Testamentum Graece text is:\nμακάριοι οἱ δεδιωγμένοι\nἕνεκεν δικαιοσύνης, \nὅτι αὐτῶν ἐστιν ἡ βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν.\n\nFor a collection of other versions see BibleHub Matthew 5:10\n\nAnalysis\nSt. Augustine was convinced that there should actually be seven Beatitudes, as seven was considered the holy number. He thus felt that this one was not actually a separate one, but rather a rephrasing of the first Beatitude at Matthew 5:3. To Augustine this eighth Beatitude symbolized Christ rising on the eighth day, which was also the first day. As with 5:3 this verse cites the Kingdom of Heaven as the reward, also like that first verse the reward is in the present tense, the other six have it in the future. Kodjak believes that this parallelism with the first verse is to emphasize that this one is the conclusion of the Beatitudes and 5:11-12 should not be considered part of the group. Davies and Allison also agree that the verse \"looks like it has been pieced together from other Beatitudes.\"\n\nGundry feels the word translated as persecuted should perhaps best be read as hounded. Hill notes that persecuted is a participle in the perfect tense which indicates that Jesus' followers had already been persecuted for their righteousness.\n\nThis verse has often been cited as an argument for Christian toleration and acceptance. John Locke prominently cited it in his A Letter Concerning Toleration. This argument was rebutted by inquisitors and others who pointed out that only those persecuted for \"righteousness' sake\" were to be blessed, something they did not think applied to the enemies of the church.\n\nCommentary from the Church Fathers\nChrysostom: Blessed are they who suffer persecution for righteousness’ sake, that is for virtue, for defending others, for piety, for all these things are spoken of under the title of righteousness. This follows the beatitude upon the peacemakers, that we may not be led to suppose that it is good to seek peace at all times.\n\nAugustine: When peace is once firmly established within, whatever persecutions he who has been cast without raises, or carries on, he increases that glory which is in the sight of God.\n\nJerome: For righteousness’ sake He adds expressly, for many suffer persecution for their sins, and are not therefore righteous. Likewise consider how the eighth beatitude of the true circumcision is terminated by martyrdom.\n\nPseudo-Chrysostom: (vid. Phil. 3:2:3.) He said not, Blessed are they who suffer persecution of the Gentiles; that we may not suppose the blessing pronounced on those only who are persecuted for refusing to sacrifice to idols; yea, whoever suffers persecution of heretics because he will not forsake the truth is likewise blessed, seeing he suffers for righteousness. Moreover, if any of the great ones, who seem to be Christians, being corrected by you on account of his sins, shall persecute you, you are blessed with John the Baptist. For if the Prophets are truly martyrs when they are killed by their own countrymen, without doubt he who suffers in the cause of God has the reward of martyrdom though he suffers from his own people. Scripture therefore does not mention the persons of the persecutors, but only the cause of persecution, that you may learn to look, not by whom, but why you suffer.\n\nHilary of Poitiers: Thus, lastly, He includes those in the beatitude whose will is ready to suffer all things for Christ, who is our righteousness. For these then also is the kingdom preserved, for they are in the contempt of this world poor in spirit.\n\nAugustine: Or, the eighth beatitude, as it were, returns to the commencement, because it shows the perfect complete character. In the first then and the eighth, the kingdom of heaven is named, for the seven go to make the perfect man, the eighth manifests and proves his perfectness, that all may be conducted to perfection by these steps.\n\nAmbrose: Otherwise; the first kingdom of heaven was promised to the Saints, in deliverance from the body; the second, that after the resurrection they should be with Christ. For after your resurrection you shall begin to possess the earth delivered from death, and in that possession shall find comfort. Pleasure follows comfort, and Divine mercy pleasure. But on whom God has mercy, him He calls, and he whom He calls, beholds Him that called him. He who beholds God is adopted into the rights of divine birth, and then at length as the son of God is delighted with the riches of the heavenly kingdom. The first then begins, the last is perfected.\n\nChrysostom: Wonder not if you do not hear ‘the kingdom’ mentioned under each beatitude; for in saying shall be comforted, shall find mercy, and the rest, in all these the kingdom of heaven is tacitly understood, so that you must not look for any of the things of sense. For indeed he would not be blessed who was to be crowned with those things which depart with this life.\n\nReferences\n\n05:10\nHeaven in Christianity"
] |
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"Religious background",
"What was his religious background?",
"Buddhist",
"Was most of the country also buddhist?",
"the religious composition at the time estimated the Buddhist majority to be between 70 and 90 percent,",
"If they were the majority, then why were they being persecuted?",
"President Diem was a member of the Catholic minority, and pursued discriminatory policies favoring Catholics for public service and military promotions,"
] | C_0113efd736a8413c95bfc18dae367505_0 | How did the people react to this? | 4 | How did the people react to President Diem pursuing discriminatory policies favoring catholics in Thích Quảng Đức's country? | Thích Quảng Đức | In a country where surveys of the religious composition at the time estimated the Buddhist majority to be between 70 and 90 percent, President Diem was a member of the Catholic minority, and pursued discriminatory policies favoring Catholics for public service and military promotions, as well as in the allocation of land, business arrangements and tax concessions. Diem once told a high-ranking officer, forgetting that the officer was from a Buddhist family, "Put your Catholic officers in sensitive places. They can be trusted." Many officers in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam converted to Roman Catholicism as their military prospects depended on it. Additionally, the distribution of firearms to village self-defense militias saw weapons given only to Roman Catholics, with some Buddhists in the army being denied promotion if they refused to convert to Roman Catholicism. Some Roman Catholic priests ran their own private armies, and there were forced conversions and looting, shelling, and demolition of pagodas in some areas, to which the government turned a blind eye. Some Buddhist villages converted en masse to receive aid or avoid being forcibly resettled by Diem's regime. The "private" status that was imposed on Buddhism by the French, which required official permission to be obtained by those wishing to conduct public Buddhist activities, was not repealed by Diem. Catholics were also de facto exempt from corvee labor, which the government obliged all citizens to perform, and United States aid was distributed disproportionately to Catholic majority villages by Diem's regime. The Roman Catholic Church was the largest landowner in the country and enjoyed special exemptions in property acquisition, and land owned by the Roman Catholic Church was exempt from land reform. The white and gold Vatican flag was regularly flown at all major public events in South Vietnam, and Diem dedicated his country to the Virgin Mary in 1959. Buddhist discontent erupted following a ban in early May on flying the Buddhist flag in Hue on Vesak, the birthday of Gautama Buddha. Just days before, Catholics had been encouraged to fly the Vatican flag at a celebration for Archbishop Ngo Dinh Thuc of Hue, Diem's elder brother. A large crowd of Buddhists protested the ban, defying the government by flying Buddhist flags on the Buddhist holy day of Vesak and marching on the government broadcasting station. Government forces fired into the crowd of protesters, killing nine people. Diem's refusal to take responsibility -- he blamed the Viet Cong for the deaths -- led to further Buddhist protests and calls for religious equality. As Diem remained unwilling to comply with Buddhist demands, the frequency of protests increased. CANNOTANSWER | Some Buddhist villages converted en masse to receive aid or avoid being forcibly resettled by Diem's regime. | Thích Quảng Đức (; 1897 – 11 June 1963; born Lâm Văn Túc) was a Vietnamese Mahayana Buddhist monk who burned himself to death at a busy Saigon road intersection on 11 June 1963. Quảng Đức was protesting the persecution of Buddhists by the South Vietnamese government led by Ngô Đình Diệm, a staunch Roman Catholic. Photographs of his self-immolation circulated around the world, drawing attention to the policies of the Diệm government. John F. Kennedy said of one photograph, "No news picture in history has generated so much emotion around the world as that one." Malcolm Browne won a Pulitzer Prize for his photograph of the monk's death.
Quảng Đức's act increased international pressure on Diệm and led him to announce reforms with the intention of mollifying the Buddhists. However, the promised reforms were not implemented, leading to a deterioration in the dispute. As protests continued, the ARVN Special Forces loyal to Diệm's brother, Ngô Đình Nhu, launched raids across South Vietnam on Buddhist pagodas, seizing Quảng Đức's heart and causing deaths and widespread damage. Several Buddhist monks followed Quảng Đức's example, also immolating themselves. Eventually, a U.S.-backed coup toppled Diệm, who was assassinated on 2 November 1963.
Biography
Accounts of the life of Quảng Đức are derived from information disseminated by Buddhist organizations. He was born in the village of Hội Khánh, in Vạn Ninh District of Khánh Hòa Province in central Vietnam as Lâm Văn Túc, one of seven children of Lâm Hữu Ứng and his wife, Nguyễn Thị Nương. At the age of seven, he left to study Buddhism under Hòa thượng Thích Hoằng Thâm, who was his maternal uncle and spiritual master. Thích Hoằng Thâm raised him as a son and Lâm Văn Túc changed his name to Nguyễn Văn Khiết. At age 15, he took the samanera (novice) vows and was ordained as a monk at age 20 under the dharma name Thích Quảng Đức. The Vietnamese name Thích (釋) is from "Thích Ca" or "Thích Già" (釋迦), means "of the Shakya clan." After ordination, he traveled to a mountain near Ninh Hòa, vowing to live the life of a solitary Buddhism-practicing hermit for three years. He returned in later life to open the Thien Loc pagoda at his mountain retreat.
After his self-imposed isolation ended, he began to travel around central Vietnam expounding the dharma. After two years, he went into retreat at the Sac Tu Thien An pagoda near Nha Trang. In 1932, he was appointed an inspector for the Buddhist Association in Ninh Hòa before becoming the inspector of monks in his home province of Khánh Hòa. During this period in central Vietnam, he was responsible for the construction of 14 temples. In 1934, he moved to southern Vietnam and traveled throughout the provinces spreading Buddhist teachings. During his time in southern Vietnam, he also spent two years in Cambodia studying the Theravada Buddhist tradition.
Upon his return from Cambodia, he oversaw the construction of a further 17 new temples during his time in the south. The last of the 31 new temples that he was responsible for constructing was the Quan The Am pagoda in the Phú Nhuận District of Gia Định Province on the outskirts of Saigon. The street on which the temple stands was later renamed Quảng Đức Street in 1975. After the temple-building phase, Quảng Đức was appointed to serve as the Chairman of the Panel on Ceremonial Rites of the Congregation of Vietnamese Monks, and as abbot of the Phuoc Hoa pagoda, which was the initial location of the Association for Buddhist Studies of Vietnam (ABSV). When the office of the ABSV was relocated to the Xá Lợi Pagoda, the main pagoda of Saigon, Quảng Đức resigned.
Self-immolation
Religious background
In a country where surveys of the religious composition at the time estimated the Buddhist majority to be between 70 and 90 percent, President Diệm was a member of the Catholic minority, and pursued discriminatory policies favoring Catholics for public service and military promotions, as well as in the allocation of land, business arrangements and tax concessions. Diệm once told a high-ranking officer, forgetting that the officer was from a Buddhist family, "Put your Catholic officers in sensitive places. They can be trusted." Many officers in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) converted to Roman Catholicism as their military prospects depended on it. Additionally, the distribution of firearms to village self-defense militias saw weapons given only to Roman Catholics, with some Buddhists in the army being denied promotion if they refused to convert to Roman Catholicism.
Some Catholic priests ran their own private armies, and there were forced conversions and looting, shelling, and demolition of pagodas in some areas, to which the government turned a blind eye. Some Buddhist villages converted en masse to receive aid or avoid being forcibly resettled by Diệm's regime. The "private" status that was imposed on Buddhism by the French, which required official permission to be obtained by those wishing to conduct public Buddhist activities, was not repealed by Diệm. Catholics were also de facto exempt from corvée labor, which the government obliged all citizens to perform, and United States aid was distributed disproportionately to Catholic majority villages by Diệm's regime.
The Catholic Church was the largest landowner in the country and enjoyed special exemptions in property acquisition, and land owned by the Catholic Church was exempt from land reform. The white and gold Vatican flag was regularly flown at all major public events in South Vietnam, and Diệm dedicated his country to the Virgin Mary in 1959.
Buddhist discontent erupted following a ban in early May on flying the Buddhist flag in Huế on Vesak, the birthday of Gautama Buddha. Just days before, Catholics had been encouraged to fly the Vatican flag at a celebration for Archbishop Ngô Đình Thục of Huế, Diệm's elder brother. A large crowd of Buddhists protested the ban, defying the government by flying Buddhist flags on the Buddhist holy day of Vesak and marching on the government broadcasting station. Government forces fired into the crowd of protesters, killing nine people. Diệm's refusal to take responsibility—he blamed the Viet Cong for the deaths—led to further Buddhist protests and calls for religious equality. As Diem remained unwilling to comply with Buddhist demands, the frequency of protests increased.
Day of the act
On 10 June 1963, U.S. correspondents were informed that "something important" would happen the following morning on the road outside the Cambodian embassy in Saigon. Most of the reporters disregarded the message, since the Buddhist crisis had at that point been going on for more than a month, and the next day only a few journalists turned up, including David Halberstam of The New York Times and Malcolm Browne, the Saigon bureau chief for the Associated Press (AP). Quảng Đức arrived as part of a procession that had begun at a nearby pagoda. Around 350 monks and nuns marched in two phalanxes, preceded by an Austin Westminster sedan, carrying banners printed in both English and Vietnamese. They denounced the Diệm government and its policy towards Buddhists, demanding that it fulfill its promises of religious equality. Another monk offered himself, but Quảng Đức's seniority prevailed.
The act occurred at the intersection of Phan Đình Phùng Boulevard (now Nguyễn Đình Chiểu Street) and Lê Văn Duyệt Street (now Cách Mạng Tháng Tám Street) (), a few blocks southwest of the Presidential Palace (now the Reunification Palace). Quảng Đức emerged from the car along with two other monks. One placed a cushion on the road while the second opened the trunk and took out a five-gallon petrol can. As the marchers formed a circle around him, Quảng Đức calmly sat down in the traditional Buddhist meditative lotus position on the cushion. A colleague emptied the contents of the petrol container over Quảng Đức's head. Quảng Đức rotated a string of wooden prayer beads and recited the words ("Homage to Amitābha Buddha") before striking a match and dropping it on himself. Flames consumed his robes and flesh, and black oily smoke emanated from his burning body.
Quảng Đức's last words before his self-immolation were documented in a letter he had left:
David Halberstam wrote:
The spectators were mostly stunned into silence, but some wailed and several began praying. Many of the monks and nuns, as well as some shocked passersby, prostrated themselves before the burning monk. Even some of the policemen, who had orders to control the gathered crowd, prostrated before him.
In English and Vietnamese, a monk repeated into a microphone: "A Buddhist priest burns himself to death. A Buddhist priest becomes a martyr." After approximately 10 minutes, Quảng Đức's body was fully immolated and it eventually toppled backwards onto its back. Once the fire subsided, a group of monks covered the smoking corpse with yellow robes, picked it up and tried to fit it into a coffin, but the limbs could not be straightened and one of the arms protruded from the wooden box as he was carried to the nearby Xá Lợi Pagoda in central Saigon. Outside the pagoda, students unfurled bilingual banners which read: "A Buddhist priest burns himself for our five requests."
By 1:30p.m. (13:30), around 1,000 monks had congregated inside to hold a meeting, while outside a large crowd of pro-Buddhist students had formed a human barrier around it. The meeting soon ended and all but 100 monks slowly left the compound. Nearly 1,000 monks, accompanied by laypeople, returned to the cremation site. The police lingered nearby. At around 6:00p.m. (18:00), thirty nuns and six monks were arrested for holding a prayer meeting on the street outside Xá Lợi. The police encircled the pagoda, blocking public passage and giving observers the impression that an armed siege was imminent by donning riot gear.
Funeral and aftermath
After the self-immolation, the U.S. put more pressure on Diệm to re-open negotiations on the faltering agreement. Diệm had scheduled an emergency cabinet meeting at 11:30 on 11 June to discuss the Buddhist crisis which he believed to be winding down. Following Quảng Đức's death, Diệm canceled the meeting and met individually with his ministers. Acting U.S. Ambassador to South Vietnam William Trueheart warned Nguyễn Đình Thuận, Diệm's Secretary of State, of the desperate need for an agreement, saying that the situation was "dangerously near breaking point" and expected Diệm would meet the Buddhists' five-point manifesto. United States Secretary of State Dean Rusk warned the Saigon embassy that the White House would publicly announce that it would no longer "associate itself" with the regime if this did not occur. The Joint Communiqué and concessions to the Buddhists were signed on 16 June.
15 June was set as the date for the funeral, and on that day 4,000 people gathered outside the Xá Lợi pagoda, only for the ceremony to be postponed. On 19 June, his remains were carried out of Xá Lợi to a cemetery south of the city for a re-cremation and funeral ceremony. Following the signing of the Joint Communiqué, attendance was limited by agreement between Buddhist leaders and police to approximately 500 monks.
Intact heart and symbolism
The body was re-cremated during the funeral, but Quảng Đức's heart remained intact and did not burn. It was considered to be holy and placed in a glass chalice at Xá Lợi Pagoda. The intact heart relic is regarded as a symbol of compassion. Quảng Đức has subsequently been revered by Vietnamese Buddhists as a bodhisattva (Bồ Tát), and accordingly is often referred to in Vietnamese as Bồ Tát Thích Quảng Đức. On 21 August, the ARVN Special Forces of Nhu attacked Xá Lợi and other Buddhist pagodas across Vietnam. The secret police intended to confiscate Quảng Đức's ashes, but two monks had escaped with the urn, jumping over the back fence and finding safety at the U.S. Operations Mission next door. Nhu's men managed to confiscate Đức's charred heart.
The location chosen for the self-immolation, in front of the Cambodian embassy, raised questions as to whether it was coincidence or a symbolic choice. Trueheart and embassy official Charles Flowerree felt that the location was selected to show solidarity with the Cambodian government of Prince Norodom Sihanouk. South Vietnam and Cambodia had strained relations: in a speech on 22 May, Sihanouk had accused Diệm of mistreating Vietnamese and ethnic minority Khmer Buddhists. The pro-Diệm Times of Vietnam published an article on 9 June which claimed that Cambodian monks had been encouraging the Buddhist crisis, asserting it was part of a Cambodian plot to extend its neutralist foreign policy into South Vietnam. Flowerree noted that Diệm was "ready and eager to see a fine Cambodian hand in all the organized Buddhist actions".
Diệm reaction
Diệm made a radio address at 19:00 on the day of Quảng Đức's death, asserting that he was profoundly troubled by the event. He appealed for "serenity and patriotism", and announced that stalled negotiations would resume with the Buddhists. He claimed that negotiations had been progressing well and in a time of religious tension emphasized the role of the Roman Catholic philosophy of personalism in his rule. He alleged that extremists had twisted the facts and he asserted that the Buddhists can "count on the Constitution, in other words, me."
The ARVN responded to the appeal, putting on a show of solidarity behind Diệm to isolate dissident officers. Thirty high-ranking officers headed by General Lê Văn Tỵ declared their resolve to carry out all missions entrusted to the army for the defense of the constitution and the Republic. The declaration was a veneer which masked a developing plot to oust Diệm. Some of the signatories were to become personally involved in Diệm's overthrow and death in November. Generals Dương Văn Minh and Trần Văn Đôn, the presidential military advisor and the chief of the army who were to lead the coup, were overseas.
Madame Nhu (a Catholic convert from Buddhism and the wife of Diệm's younger brother and chief adviser Ngô Đình Nhu), who was regarded as the First Lady of South Vietnam at the time (as Diệm was a bachelor), said she would "clap hands at seeing another monk barbecue show". Later that month, Diệm's government charged that Quảng Đức had been drugged before being forced to commit suicide. The regime also accused Browne of bribing Quảng Đức to burn himself.
Political and media impact
Photographs taken by Malcolm Browne of the self-immolation quickly spread across the wire services and were featured on the front pages of newspapers worldwide. The self-immolation was later regarded as a turning point in the Buddhist crisis and a critical point in the collapse of the Diệm regime.
Historian Seth Jacobs asserted that Quảng Đức had "reduced America's Diệm experiment to ashes as well" and that "no amount of pleading could retrieve Diệm's reputation" once Browne's images had become ingrained into the psyche of the world public. Ellen Hammer described the event as having "evoked dark images of persecution and horror corresponding to a profoundly Asian reality that passed the understanding of Westerners." John Mecklin, an official from the U.S. embassy, noted that the photograph "had a shock effect of incalculable value to the Buddhist cause, becoming a symbol of the state of things in Vietnam." William Colby, then chief of the Central Intelligence Agency's Far East Division, opined that Diệm "handled the Buddhist crisis fairly badly and allowed it to grow. But I really don't think there was much they could have done about it once that bonze burned himself."
President John F. Kennedy, whose government was the main sponsor of Diệm's regime, learned of Quảng Đức's death when handed the morning newspapers while he was talking to his brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, on the phone. Kennedy reportedly interrupted their conversation about segregation in Alabama by exclaiming "Jesus Christ!" He later remarked that "no news picture in history has generated so much emotion around the world as that one." U.S. Senator Frank Church (D-Idaho), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, claimed that "such grisly scenes have not been witnessed since the Christian martyrs marched hand in hand into the Roman arenas."
In Europe, the photographs were sold on the streets as postcards during the 1960s, and communist China distributed millions of copies of the photograph throughout Asia and Africa as evidence of what it called US imperialism. One of Browne's photographs remains affixed to the sedan in which Quảng Đức was riding and is part of a tourist attraction in Huế.
For Browne and the AP, the pictures were a marketing success. Ray Herndon, the United Press International (UPI) correspondent who had forgotten to take his camera on the day, was harshly criticized in private by his employer. UPI estimated that 5,000 readers in Sydney, then a city of around 1.5–2 million, had switched to AP news sources.
Diệm's English-language mouthpiece, the Times of Vietnam, intensified its attacks on both journalists and Buddhists. Headlines such as "Xá Lợi politburo makes new threats" and "Monks plot murder" were printed. One article questioned the relationship between the monks and the press by posing the question as to why "so many young girls are buzzing in and out of Xá Lợi early [in the day]" and then going on to allege that they were brought in for sexual purposes for the U.S. reporters.
Browne's award-winning photograph of Quảng Đức's death has been reproduced in popular media for decades, and the incident has been used as a touchstone reference in many films and television programs.
A still photograph of Quảng Đức's self-immolation taken by Browne was used for the cover of American rap metal band Rage Against the Machine's debut album which came out in 1992, as well as the cover of their single "Killing in the Name". That same photograph was used for the cover of Canadian electronic act Delerium's debut album Faces, Forms & Illusions, which came out in 1989.
Precedents and influence
Despite the shock of the Western public, the practice of Vietnamese monks self-immolating was not unprecedented. Instances of self-immolations in Vietnam had been recorded for centuries, usually carried out to honor Gautama Buddha. The most recently recorded case had been in North Vietnam in 1950. The French colonial authorities had tried to eradicate the practice after their conquest of Vietnam in the nineteenth century, but had not been totally successful. They did manage to prevent one monk from setting fire to himself in Huế in the 1920s, but he managed to starve himself to death instead. During the 1920s and 1930s, Saigon newspapers reported multiple instances of self-immolations by monks in a matter-of-fact style. The practice had also been seen in the Chinese city of Harbin in 1948 when a monk seated down in the lotus position on a pile of sawdust and soybean oil and set fire to himself in protest against the treatment of Buddhism by the anti-religious communists of Mao Zedong. His heart remained intact, as did that of Quảng Đức.
After Quảng Đức, five more Buddhist monks self-immolated up until late October 1963 as the Buddhist protests in Vietnam escalated. On 1 November, the ARVN overthrew Diệm in a coup. Diệm and Nhu were assassinated the next day. Monks have followed Quảng Đức's example since for other reasons.
The Americans in Saigon often found the self-immolations to be surreal and made puns about "bonze fires" and "hot cross bonzes", almost as an escape mechanism from the bewilderment. In one instance in 1963, the young son of an American officer based at the Saigon U.S. Embassy doused himself with gasoline and set himself on fire. He was seriously burned before the fire was extinguished and later could only offer the explanation that "I wanted to see what it was like." Thich Quang Duc's actions were twice fatally copied in the United States in protest against the Vietnam War. On March 16, 1965, Alice Herz an 82-year-old peace activist immolated herself in front of the Federal Department Store in northwest Detroit. Later that same year, Norman Morrison, a 31-year-old Quaker pacifist, poured kerosene over himself and set light to himself below the third-floor window of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara at the Pentagon on November 2, 1965.
See also
List of civil rights leaders
List of political self-immolations
Notes
References
Bibliography
External links
– Official Buddhist monastery dedicated to Thích Quảng Đức
Vietnamese Buddhists
Buddhism in Vietnam
20th-century Buddhist monks
1897 births
1963 suicides
Date of birth unknown
People from Khánh Hòa Province
Vietnamese Buddhist monks
Buddhist crisis
History of South Vietnam
Suicides in Vietnam
1963 in Vietnam
Filmed suicides
Vietnamese people of the Vietnam War
Self-immolations by Buddhists
Articles containing video clips
People notable for being the subject of a specific photograph
Suicides by self-immolation
Buddhist martyrs
Photographs of protests | false | [
"React is a media franchise used by the Fine Brothers consisting of several online series centering on a group of individuals reacting to viral videos, trends, video games, film trailers, or music videos. The franchise was launched with the YouTube debut of Kids React in October 2010, and then grew to encompass four more series uploaded on the Fine Brothers' primary YouTube channel, a separate YouTube channel with various reaction-related content, as well as a television series titled React to That.\n\nIn 2016, the duo announced React World, a program and channel in which they would license the format of their React shows to creators, which led to widespread negative reception from viewers and fellow content creators, as well as confusion about what their format is. This eventually lead to the Fine Brothers removing all videos related to React World, essentially pulling the plug on the React World program.\n\nYouTube series\n\nKids React\nBenny and Rafi Fine launched a series titled Kids React on October 16, 2010, the first video being \"Kids React to Viral Videos (Double Rainbow, Obama Fail, Twin Rabbits, Snickers Halloween)\". The Kids React series features The Fine Brothers (and one of the staff members since 2016), off-camera, showing kids ages 4–14 (7-13 as of September 2016, 7-11 as of October 2016) several viral videos or popular YouTubers and having the kids react to the videos.\n\nThe most popular Kids React episode to date is “Kids React to Gay Marriage\", with over 40.2 million views as of September 2, 2018. The popularity of Kids React made it possible for the online series to win a special Emmy Award at the 39th Daytime Emmy Awards in 2012. The Emmy Award, that was given in cooperation with AOL, was awarded to the Fine Brothers for \"Best Viral Video Series\". After their Emmy win, the brothers explained, \"Not a lot has changed [after winning the Emmy] other than realizing that there are shows on YouTube like React that can get similar if not better viewership than mainstream entertainment can.\"\n\nVideos and YouTube stars that have been reacted to by the kids include Smosh (who later reacted to the kids' reactions), planking and President Obama addressing the death of Osama bin Laden, among several other topics. Kids React has been compared to Kids Say the Darndest Things. In October 2012, the kids of the show were shown videos of the 2012 U.S. Presidential debates. Kids React won the Streamy Award for Best Non-Fiction or Reality Series in 2013.\n\nTeens React\nDue to the popularity of Kids React, The Fine Brothers spawned a spin-off dubbed Teens React on November 17, 2011 with \"TEENS REACT TO TWILIGHT\". The show has a similar premise to Kids React, however the younger stars are replaced with high school teenagers aged 14-18, some of whom have aged out of the Kids React series. Due to this, the Fine Brothers are able to show more mature and less \"kid-friendly\" videos such as videos on topics like Toddlers & Tiaras, Rick Perry's Strong commercial, Amanda Todd's death, and the 2012 U.S. Presidential debates. Other viral videos and YouTube stars that have been reacted to include Salad Fingers, the Overly Attached Girlfriend, \"Gangnam Style\", The Hunger Games trailer, Shane Dawson, and One Direction, among other topics. Later on, The Fine Brothers launched a series titled Teens React: Gaming consisting videos of teenagers reacting to popular games such as Mario Kart 64, Flappy Bird, Rocket League, and Five Nights at Freddy’s. Teens React launched the career of Lia Marie Johnson, it also featured some \"famous\" 'reactors' as guest stars, including Lisa Cimorelli, Amy Cimorelli, Lucas Cruikshank (who later appears in YouTubers React), Alex Steele, Jake Short, and Maisie Williams.\n\nElders React\nElders React was debuted in 2012 and it included seniors over the age of 55. In 2021, it became a subseries for Adults React.\n\nYouTubers React\nYouTubers React was debuted in 2012 and it included famous YouTubers. On November 2020, it is retitled Creators React due to the success of other social medias and is currently airing its one-off episodes as of June 2021.\n\nAdults React\nOn May 30, 2015, the Fine Brothers announced Adults React, which premiered on July 16 later that year. It consists of people ages 20 to 55, including former stars of Teens React that have aged out of the series. Depending on the video or topic, Adults React will be specific of which type of adults are going to be reacting, such as parents or college kids.\n\nParents React\n\nThe first episode of Parents React premiered on August 6, 2015 with “Parents React to Don’t Stay At School”. This series involves parents reacting to stuff that kids were getting into.\n\nCollege Kids React\nThe first episode of College Kids React premiered on June 23, 2016 with \"College Kids React to The 1975\". This series includes stars who have aged out of Teens React along with new stars, as well as stars that have not yet aged out of Teens React but have begun college. The content of College Kids React is similar to the content found in Teens React but more mature.\n\nOne-off episodes\nIn April 2014, as an April Fools joke, the Fine Brothers teamed up with Friskies and released Cats React, which went viral. In July 2016 they released another part of Cats React.\n\nIn August 2014, they released Celebrities React to Viral Videos, and now re-released yearly.\n\nIn April 2018, in another April Fools joke, they released \"Teens React to Nothing\" where they showed the teenagers on a blank screen. The following year, they released a sequel, \"nothing reacts to teens react to nothing.\", which featured the original video being played in an empty studio.\n\nReact YouTube channel\nAfter creating four individual successful React series on their primary YouTube channel, the Fine Brothers launched a separate YouTube channel in 2014, for reaction-related content, simply dubbed \"React\". With the intent of running programming five days a week, the channel launched with five series: React Gaming (a Let's Play-style series with real youths from their primary React series), Advice (a series featuring real youths respond to questions from viewers), React Remix (musical remixes of past React footage), People Vs. Foods (originally Kids Vs. Food until 2016) (a series featuring Reactors taste-test \"Weird\" or international foods), and Lyric Breakdown (a series in which Reactors break down the meaning of various songs). The channel launched with a teenage-focused playthrough of Goat Simulator.\nFrom September 18th 2020 to May 31st 2021, the React YouTube channel was retitled to \"REPLAY\", following the renaming of the main FBE channel to \"REACT\" in the wake of FBE's distancing from Benny and Rafi Fine as a consequence of the scandal in Summer 2020 that led to many reactors leaving the channel.\nOn June 1st 2021, REPLAY is retitled \"PEOPLE VS FOOD\" and moved all the non-food videos to REACT.\n\nReact to That\nIn early 2014, it was announced that the Fine Brothers made a deal with NCredible Entertainment, a production studio founded by Nick Cannon to develop a television series for Nickelodeon. The series, dubbed React to That, was \"entirely re-envisioned for television,\" as the reactors \"not only watch and respond to viral videos, but pop out of the reaction room and into showdowns where the clips come to life as each reactor is confronted with a challenge based on the video they just watched.\" Following the announcement of the series, Benny Fine explained, \"All these viewers now watching are also pioneering what it is to be a viewer of content. They follow us through all of our different endeavors, all our different series, and now will have the opportunity to follow us to another medium.\" Nickelodeon ordered 13 episodes to be produced, but only 12 were made and aired.\n\nReact World\n\nBackground\nIn July 2015, the Fine Brothers filed for trademark protection on \"React\" with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The trademark was filed for \"Entertainment services, namely, providing an ongoing series of programs and webisodes via the internet in the field of observing and interviewing various groups of people.\" The USPTO approved for a 30-day opposition period which was set to begin on February 2, 2016; if no parties filed an opposition to the Fines' trademark request, it would have proceeded through the process. The brothers had recently filed for and been granted trademark registrations for \"Elders React\" and \"Teens React\" in 2013 as well as \"Kids React\" in 2012.\n\nAnnouncement details\nOn January 26, 2016, the Fines announced that they would be launching React World, a way to grant content creators the license to create their own versions of the React shows. Specifically, the Fine Brothers explained they were going to license the format of their React shows. A Variety report detailed that React World would \"aggregate videos in a channel to launch later this year to promote, support and feature fan-produced programming based on their shows.\" The brothers' company, Fine Brothers Entertainment (FBE) explained they would be working with YouTube and ChannelMeter on the launch of React World. FBE also expressed they would be able to monetize React-style videos uploaded under their license. On monetization, Digital Trends detailed \"Although licenses are free, React World creators must agree to share 20 percent of AdSense revenue and 30 percent of premium brand deals with FBE.\" Additionally, the Fines explained they would provide ongoing production guidance, creative guidelines, format bibles, and other resources, as well as promotional and technical support to those creators who participated with the brothers on React World.\n\nReception\nAlthough YouTube's VP on content partnerships, Kelly Merryman, originally proclaimed \"This is brand-building in the YouTube age — rising media companies building their brands through collaborations with creators around the world,\" the Fine Brothers were met with overwhelmingly negative reception to their React World announcement. BBC News reported that \"critics of the Fine Brothers have expressed concern they may use the trademarks to stifle competition,\" and quoted one YouTuber who detailed \"People don't trust them because a few years ago when Ellen DeGeneres did a similar video—not that similar, it didn't have the same format or branding—they claimed it was their format.\" Viewers and fellow content creators alike condemned the Fines for their announcement, with The Daily Dot reporting, \"Backlash poured in on Reddit and social media, and other YouTubers posted their own reactions and parodies of the enthusiastically corporate React World announcement video.\" The backlash led to a dramatic drop in subscribers, with upwards of 675,000 accounts collectively unsubscribing from the React and Fine Bros Entertainment channels as well as recent videos getting many dislikes in protest as of February 22, 2016. Mashable described that one Reddit post \"ignited a thread of haters, defenders and overall discussion about whether what Fine Brothers Entertainment is doing is fair.\" Ryan Morrison, a gamer, lawyer and Reddit user, declared that he would file a legal challenge to the Fine Brothers' trademark request on \"React\", writing \"These guys didn’t come up with the idea of filming funny reactions from kids. And they certainly don’t own an entire genre of YouTube videos. It wasn’t their idea, and it’s not theirs to own or police.\"\n\nThough there was an overwhelmingly negative response to the React World announcement, other personalities expressed milder opinions; Internet personality Hank Green wrote \"This could actually be a very cool project if it could be divorced from the idea of two very powerful creators attempting to control a very popular YouTube video format. Franchising one of YouTube's biggest shows? Yeah, I’d love to see how that goes.\" New York reporter Jay Hathaway wrote \"The trademark and React World are dead. And that's a shame, because it was an interesting idea that suffered from tone-deaf execution.\"\n\nResponses and discontinuation by the Fine Brothers\nAfter seeing the initial backlash from their announcement, The Fine Brothers posted comments on various social media websites including Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and the comment section of their YouTube announcement video. On Facebook the Fines wrote, \"We do not own the idea or copyright for reaction videos overall, nor did we ever say we did. You don’t need anyone’s permission to make these kinds of videos, and we’re not coming after anyone\", adding \"We are in no way claiming reaction content in general is our intellectual property. This is purely a voluntary program for people wanting direct support from us, and we continue to be so excited to work with all of you who may want to participate\". They additionally tweeted \"We're not saying we hold a copyright on reaction videos overall, no one can. We're licensing our specific shows, like TV has done for years\". The brothers also explained they would \"not be trying to take revenue from other types of reaction videos, and will not be copyright-striking\". However, other YouTubers have reported multiple copyright related video takedowns. The Guardian also reported that unrelated channels featuring diverse groups of people reacting to videos were also removed after takedown requests from the Fine Brothers; the \"Seniors React\" video was noted to be released prior to the Fines launching their Elders React series. The Fines also posted an update video in response to what they described as \"confusion and negative response\" to React World, in which they try to clear up confusion on what their format encompasses, as well as inviting viewers to e-mail them about any further questions.\n\nUltimately, the Fine Brothers removed all React World videos, and posted a statement on Medium, declaring they have filed the paperwork to rescind all their \"React\" trademarks and applications, will discontinue the React World program, and will release all past Content ID claims. In their post, the brothers expressed \"It makes perfect sense for people to distrust our motives here, but we are confident that our actions will speak louder than these words moving forward\". Reaction to this Medium post was negative on Reddit, where users were reported commenting they would not forgive the Fine Brothers.\n\nAccolades\n\nReferences\n\nCitations\n\nSources\n\nFootnotes\n\nSee also \n Reaction video\n\n2010 web series debuts\nFullscreen (company) channels\nFullscreen Media franchises\nYouTube original programming",
"REACT (Radio Emergency Associated Communication Teams) began as a CB radio Emergency Channel 9 monitoring organization across the United States and Canada in 1962. Initially, the primary role of REACT volunteers was to monitor Channel 9, the CB Emergency Channel, to help motorists. Later, duties grew to include communications after disasters (such as tornadoes and floods), and in some places before disasters (storm spotting). As well, REACT safety communications for parades, runs/walks and other community events became prominent. Now, REACT Teams rarely use CB primarily, a large percentage have now added amateur, FRS, GMRS, Multi-Use Radio Service (MURS), Trunked radio systems and business band radio (LMR) to their public service capabilities. Their original purpose, to monitor CB, has largely gone by the wayside.\n\nServices Provided \nEach REACT Team is unique and fills a local purpose. The original purpose of monitoring Emergency Channel 9 for distress calls is not as needed as once was due to the availability of cellular phones, but is still done in some remote locations. Some teams disbanded when the need for CB 9 monitoring waned; however, other Teams became creative and found other things to do in their communities. \n\nMany REACT Teams go beyond just communications and provide services such as traffic and parking control, search and rescue support, assistance with large public events, helping with safety breaks along roadways, help monitor traffic flow, assist with their local emergency management offices, law enforcement and also some participate in the Skywarn program of storm spotters. However many of these functions require the mobile communications that many REACT Teams utilize.\n\nObjectives \n(a) To develop the use of the personal radio services as an additional source of communications for emergencies. disasters, and as an emergency aid to individuals;\n(b) To establish 24-hour volunteer monitoring of emergency calls, particularly over officially designated emergency frequencies, from personal radio service operators, and reporting such calls to appropriate emergency authorities;\n(c) To promote transportation safety by developing programs that provide information and communications assistance to motorists;\n(d) To coordinate efforts with and provide communication help to other groups, e.g., Red Cross, Emergency Management, and local, state, and federal authorities, during emergencies and disasters;\n(e) To develop, administer, and promote public information projects demonstrating and publicizing the potential benefits and the proper use of the personal radio service to individuals, organizations, industry, and government; and\n(f) To participate in citizens crime prevention programs where established by appropriate law enforcement agencies.\n\nHistory \n\n1962 - A sick infant, a disabled car on a Chicago freeway, and a January blizzard prompted Henry B. (Pete) Kreer to envision using CB radio to get help in such emergencies. By April, REACT was founded, with Hallicrafters Radio as its first sponsor and Kreer as its executive director.\n\n1967 - REACT approached FCC for a designated CB Emergency Channel.\n\n1969 - REACT gained General Motors Research Labs as its new sponsor.\n\n1970 - CB-9 was designated the 'Emergency and Travelers' Assistance Channel' by the FCC. The Ohio REACT Network was created. It worked with Ohio State Police to demonstrate how CB-9 could enhance highway safety. It later became the first REACT Council.\nREACT signed its first MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) with the American Red Cross.\n\n1973 - REACT's Pete Kreer and Jerry Reese were interviewed on the NBC 'Today' show about the potential for highway safety of CB radio.\n\n1975 - REACT became an Illinois not-for-profit corporation.\n\n1976 - REACT held its first convention in Deerfield, Ill. REACT participated in the White House Conference on CB Radio.\n\n1977 - REACT launched its highway Safety Break program in cooperation with the American Trucking Association. REACT developed the NEAR (National Emergency Aid Radio) safety program for the U.S. government.\n\n1978 - REACT signed an MOU with Special Olympics.\n\n1982 - REACT was honored with the first President's Volunteer Action Award (16 awarded out of 2300 nominations).\n\n1984 - REACT assisted in introducing FRS (Family Radio Service).\n\n1985 - REACT office moved from Chicago, Ill., to Wichita, Kans.\n\n1986 -'REACT Month' was observed for the first time.\n\n1988 - REACT developed its 'Team Topics' newsletter for Teams.\nREACT introduced the CB-9 road sign to advise travelers of monitoring.\n\n1991 - REACT published the first in a series of 'Team Training Modules' to advance its monitors' skills.\n\n1993 - REACT agreed to Memorandums of Understanding with the American Red Cross, Salvation Army, and National Weather Service.\n\n1994 - Dallas County REACT, at HamCom in Arlington, Tex., became the fourth local group to host remote operation of the ARRL's station W1AW.\n\n1995 - REACT HQ established its first website on the Internet.\nRose City Windsor REACT, Ontario, launched the first REACT Team website.\nSeveral Teams responded to and assisted with the response to the bombing of the Alfred P Murrah Building (Oklahoma City Bombing).\n\n1998 - REACT moved its headquarters from Wichita, Kans., to the D.C. area. REACT Teams in Florida respond to wildfires, receive recognition from governor. \n\n2001 - Several Teams assisted the Salvation Army in response to the World Trade Center attacks in New York City.\nREACT agreed to Memorandum of Understanding with the American Radio Relay League (ARRL).\n\n2002 - REACT assisted with Olympic Torch Run.\nREACT presented the first \"Radio Hero Award\" to an Indiana State Trooper.\n\n2004 - Dallas County REACT was again selected to host ARRL station W1AW at HamCom in Arlington, Texas.\n\n2010 - REACT moved its headquarters from Suitland, Md., to Dinwiddie, Va.\nREACT joins GERC - Global Emergency Radio Coalition - as a Charter Member.\n\n2011 - REACT Announced 50th Anniversary Logo and 2012 Convention Site at Las Vegas, Nev.\nFor the third time, Dallas County REACT hosted ARRL station W1AW at HamCom in Plano, Texas.\nREACT Teams involved in response to Hurricane Irene and Hurricane Lee.\n\n2012 - REACT official office returned to Chicago; administrative office moved to Glendale, Calif.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nREACT International, Inc. Official Website\n\nwww.swreact.com\n\nAmateur radio emergency communications organizations\nEmergency communication"
] |
[
"Thích Quảng Đức",
"Religious background",
"What was his religious background?",
"Buddhist",
"Was most of the country also buddhist?",
"the religious composition at the time estimated the Buddhist majority to be between 70 and 90 percent,",
"If they were the majority, then why were they being persecuted?",
"President Diem was a member of the Catholic minority, and pursued discriminatory policies favoring Catholics for public service and military promotions,",
"How did the people react to this?",
"Some Buddhist villages converted en masse to receive aid or avoid being forcibly resettled by Diem's regime."
] | C_0113efd736a8413c95bfc18dae367505_0 | So did Catholics then become the majority? | 5 | So did Catholics then become the majority in Thích Quảng Đức's country? | Thích Quảng Đức | In a country where surveys of the religious composition at the time estimated the Buddhist majority to be between 70 and 90 percent, President Diem was a member of the Catholic minority, and pursued discriminatory policies favoring Catholics for public service and military promotions, as well as in the allocation of land, business arrangements and tax concessions. Diem once told a high-ranking officer, forgetting that the officer was from a Buddhist family, "Put your Catholic officers in sensitive places. They can be trusted." Many officers in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam converted to Roman Catholicism as their military prospects depended on it. Additionally, the distribution of firearms to village self-defense militias saw weapons given only to Roman Catholics, with some Buddhists in the army being denied promotion if they refused to convert to Roman Catholicism. Some Roman Catholic priests ran their own private armies, and there were forced conversions and looting, shelling, and demolition of pagodas in some areas, to which the government turned a blind eye. Some Buddhist villages converted en masse to receive aid or avoid being forcibly resettled by Diem's regime. The "private" status that was imposed on Buddhism by the French, which required official permission to be obtained by those wishing to conduct public Buddhist activities, was not repealed by Diem. Catholics were also de facto exempt from corvee labor, which the government obliged all citizens to perform, and United States aid was distributed disproportionately to Catholic majority villages by Diem's regime. The Roman Catholic Church was the largest landowner in the country and enjoyed special exemptions in property acquisition, and land owned by the Roman Catholic Church was exempt from land reform. The white and gold Vatican flag was regularly flown at all major public events in South Vietnam, and Diem dedicated his country to the Virgin Mary in 1959. Buddhist discontent erupted following a ban in early May on flying the Buddhist flag in Hue on Vesak, the birthday of Gautama Buddha. Just days before, Catholics had been encouraged to fly the Vatican flag at a celebration for Archbishop Ngo Dinh Thuc of Hue, Diem's elder brother. A large crowd of Buddhists protested the ban, defying the government by flying Buddhist flags on the Buddhist holy day of Vesak and marching on the government broadcasting station. Government forces fired into the crowd of protesters, killing nine people. Diem's refusal to take responsibility -- he blamed the Viet Cong for the deaths -- led to further Buddhist protests and calls for religious equality. As Diem remained unwilling to comply with Buddhist demands, the frequency of protests increased. CANNOTANSWER | The Roman Catholic Church was the largest landowner in the country and enjoyed special exemptions in property acquisition, | Thích Quảng Đức (; 1897 – 11 June 1963; born Lâm Văn Túc) was a Vietnamese Mahayana Buddhist monk who burned himself to death at a busy Saigon road intersection on 11 June 1963. Quảng Đức was protesting the persecution of Buddhists by the South Vietnamese government led by Ngô Đình Diệm, a staunch Roman Catholic. Photographs of his self-immolation circulated around the world, drawing attention to the policies of the Diệm government. John F. Kennedy said of one photograph, "No news picture in history has generated so much emotion around the world as that one." Malcolm Browne won a Pulitzer Prize for his photograph of the monk's death.
Quảng Đức's act increased international pressure on Diệm and led him to announce reforms with the intention of mollifying the Buddhists. However, the promised reforms were not implemented, leading to a deterioration in the dispute. As protests continued, the ARVN Special Forces loyal to Diệm's brother, Ngô Đình Nhu, launched raids across South Vietnam on Buddhist pagodas, seizing Quảng Đức's heart and causing deaths and widespread damage. Several Buddhist monks followed Quảng Đức's example, also immolating themselves. Eventually, a U.S.-backed coup toppled Diệm, who was assassinated on 2 November 1963.
Biography
Accounts of the life of Quảng Đức are derived from information disseminated by Buddhist organizations. He was born in the village of Hội Khánh, in Vạn Ninh District of Khánh Hòa Province in central Vietnam as Lâm Văn Túc, one of seven children of Lâm Hữu Ứng and his wife, Nguyễn Thị Nương. At the age of seven, he left to study Buddhism under Hòa thượng Thích Hoằng Thâm, who was his maternal uncle and spiritual master. Thích Hoằng Thâm raised him as a son and Lâm Văn Túc changed his name to Nguyễn Văn Khiết. At age 15, he took the samanera (novice) vows and was ordained as a monk at age 20 under the dharma name Thích Quảng Đức. The Vietnamese name Thích (釋) is from "Thích Ca" or "Thích Già" (釋迦), means "of the Shakya clan." After ordination, he traveled to a mountain near Ninh Hòa, vowing to live the life of a solitary Buddhism-practicing hermit for three years. He returned in later life to open the Thien Loc pagoda at his mountain retreat.
After his self-imposed isolation ended, he began to travel around central Vietnam expounding the dharma. After two years, he went into retreat at the Sac Tu Thien An pagoda near Nha Trang. In 1932, he was appointed an inspector for the Buddhist Association in Ninh Hòa before becoming the inspector of monks in his home province of Khánh Hòa. During this period in central Vietnam, he was responsible for the construction of 14 temples. In 1934, he moved to southern Vietnam and traveled throughout the provinces spreading Buddhist teachings. During his time in southern Vietnam, he also spent two years in Cambodia studying the Theravada Buddhist tradition.
Upon his return from Cambodia, he oversaw the construction of a further 17 new temples during his time in the south. The last of the 31 new temples that he was responsible for constructing was the Quan The Am pagoda in the Phú Nhuận District of Gia Định Province on the outskirts of Saigon. The street on which the temple stands was later renamed Quảng Đức Street in 1975. After the temple-building phase, Quảng Đức was appointed to serve as the Chairman of the Panel on Ceremonial Rites of the Congregation of Vietnamese Monks, and as abbot of the Phuoc Hoa pagoda, which was the initial location of the Association for Buddhist Studies of Vietnam (ABSV). When the office of the ABSV was relocated to the Xá Lợi Pagoda, the main pagoda of Saigon, Quảng Đức resigned.
Self-immolation
Religious background
In a country where surveys of the religious composition at the time estimated the Buddhist majority to be between 70 and 90 percent, President Diệm was a member of the Catholic minority, and pursued discriminatory policies favoring Catholics for public service and military promotions, as well as in the allocation of land, business arrangements and tax concessions. Diệm once told a high-ranking officer, forgetting that the officer was from a Buddhist family, "Put your Catholic officers in sensitive places. They can be trusted." Many officers in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) converted to Roman Catholicism as their military prospects depended on it. Additionally, the distribution of firearms to village self-defense militias saw weapons given only to Roman Catholics, with some Buddhists in the army being denied promotion if they refused to convert to Roman Catholicism.
Some Catholic priests ran their own private armies, and there were forced conversions and looting, shelling, and demolition of pagodas in some areas, to which the government turned a blind eye. Some Buddhist villages converted en masse to receive aid or avoid being forcibly resettled by Diệm's regime. The "private" status that was imposed on Buddhism by the French, which required official permission to be obtained by those wishing to conduct public Buddhist activities, was not repealed by Diệm. Catholics were also de facto exempt from corvée labor, which the government obliged all citizens to perform, and United States aid was distributed disproportionately to Catholic majority villages by Diệm's regime.
The Catholic Church was the largest landowner in the country and enjoyed special exemptions in property acquisition, and land owned by the Catholic Church was exempt from land reform. The white and gold Vatican flag was regularly flown at all major public events in South Vietnam, and Diệm dedicated his country to the Virgin Mary in 1959.
Buddhist discontent erupted following a ban in early May on flying the Buddhist flag in Huế on Vesak, the birthday of Gautama Buddha. Just days before, Catholics had been encouraged to fly the Vatican flag at a celebration for Archbishop Ngô Đình Thục of Huế, Diệm's elder brother. A large crowd of Buddhists protested the ban, defying the government by flying Buddhist flags on the Buddhist holy day of Vesak and marching on the government broadcasting station. Government forces fired into the crowd of protesters, killing nine people. Diệm's refusal to take responsibility—he blamed the Viet Cong for the deaths—led to further Buddhist protests and calls for religious equality. As Diem remained unwilling to comply with Buddhist demands, the frequency of protests increased.
Day of the act
On 10 June 1963, U.S. correspondents were informed that "something important" would happen the following morning on the road outside the Cambodian embassy in Saigon. Most of the reporters disregarded the message, since the Buddhist crisis had at that point been going on for more than a month, and the next day only a few journalists turned up, including David Halberstam of The New York Times and Malcolm Browne, the Saigon bureau chief for the Associated Press (AP). Quảng Đức arrived as part of a procession that had begun at a nearby pagoda. Around 350 monks and nuns marched in two phalanxes, preceded by an Austin Westminster sedan, carrying banners printed in both English and Vietnamese. They denounced the Diệm government and its policy towards Buddhists, demanding that it fulfill its promises of religious equality. Another monk offered himself, but Quảng Đức's seniority prevailed.
The act occurred at the intersection of Phan Đình Phùng Boulevard (now Nguyễn Đình Chiểu Street) and Lê Văn Duyệt Street (now Cách Mạng Tháng Tám Street) (), a few blocks southwest of the Presidential Palace (now the Reunification Palace). Quảng Đức emerged from the car along with two other monks. One placed a cushion on the road while the second opened the trunk and took out a five-gallon petrol can. As the marchers formed a circle around him, Quảng Đức calmly sat down in the traditional Buddhist meditative lotus position on the cushion. A colleague emptied the contents of the petrol container over Quảng Đức's head. Quảng Đức rotated a string of wooden prayer beads and recited the words ("Homage to Amitābha Buddha") before striking a match and dropping it on himself. Flames consumed his robes and flesh, and black oily smoke emanated from his burning body.
Quảng Đức's last words before his self-immolation were documented in a letter he had left:
David Halberstam wrote:
The spectators were mostly stunned into silence, but some wailed and several began praying. Many of the monks and nuns, as well as some shocked passersby, prostrated themselves before the burning monk. Even some of the policemen, who had orders to control the gathered crowd, prostrated before him.
In English and Vietnamese, a monk repeated into a microphone: "A Buddhist priest burns himself to death. A Buddhist priest becomes a martyr." After approximately 10 minutes, Quảng Đức's body was fully immolated and it eventually toppled backwards onto its back. Once the fire subsided, a group of monks covered the smoking corpse with yellow robes, picked it up and tried to fit it into a coffin, but the limbs could not be straightened and one of the arms protruded from the wooden box as he was carried to the nearby Xá Lợi Pagoda in central Saigon. Outside the pagoda, students unfurled bilingual banners which read: "A Buddhist priest burns himself for our five requests."
By 1:30p.m. (13:30), around 1,000 monks had congregated inside to hold a meeting, while outside a large crowd of pro-Buddhist students had formed a human barrier around it. The meeting soon ended and all but 100 monks slowly left the compound. Nearly 1,000 monks, accompanied by laypeople, returned to the cremation site. The police lingered nearby. At around 6:00p.m. (18:00), thirty nuns and six monks were arrested for holding a prayer meeting on the street outside Xá Lợi. The police encircled the pagoda, blocking public passage and giving observers the impression that an armed siege was imminent by donning riot gear.
Funeral and aftermath
After the self-immolation, the U.S. put more pressure on Diệm to re-open negotiations on the faltering agreement. Diệm had scheduled an emergency cabinet meeting at 11:30 on 11 June to discuss the Buddhist crisis which he believed to be winding down. Following Quảng Đức's death, Diệm canceled the meeting and met individually with his ministers. Acting U.S. Ambassador to South Vietnam William Trueheart warned Nguyễn Đình Thuận, Diệm's Secretary of State, of the desperate need for an agreement, saying that the situation was "dangerously near breaking point" and expected Diệm would meet the Buddhists' five-point manifesto. United States Secretary of State Dean Rusk warned the Saigon embassy that the White House would publicly announce that it would no longer "associate itself" with the regime if this did not occur. The Joint Communiqué and concessions to the Buddhists were signed on 16 June.
15 June was set as the date for the funeral, and on that day 4,000 people gathered outside the Xá Lợi pagoda, only for the ceremony to be postponed. On 19 June, his remains were carried out of Xá Lợi to a cemetery south of the city for a re-cremation and funeral ceremony. Following the signing of the Joint Communiqué, attendance was limited by agreement between Buddhist leaders and police to approximately 500 monks.
Intact heart and symbolism
The body was re-cremated during the funeral, but Quảng Đức's heart remained intact and did not burn. It was considered to be holy and placed in a glass chalice at Xá Lợi Pagoda. The intact heart relic is regarded as a symbol of compassion. Quảng Đức has subsequently been revered by Vietnamese Buddhists as a bodhisattva (Bồ Tát), and accordingly is often referred to in Vietnamese as Bồ Tát Thích Quảng Đức. On 21 August, the ARVN Special Forces of Nhu attacked Xá Lợi and other Buddhist pagodas across Vietnam. The secret police intended to confiscate Quảng Đức's ashes, but two monks had escaped with the urn, jumping over the back fence and finding safety at the U.S. Operations Mission next door. Nhu's men managed to confiscate Đức's charred heart.
The location chosen for the self-immolation, in front of the Cambodian embassy, raised questions as to whether it was coincidence or a symbolic choice. Trueheart and embassy official Charles Flowerree felt that the location was selected to show solidarity with the Cambodian government of Prince Norodom Sihanouk. South Vietnam and Cambodia had strained relations: in a speech on 22 May, Sihanouk had accused Diệm of mistreating Vietnamese and ethnic minority Khmer Buddhists. The pro-Diệm Times of Vietnam published an article on 9 June which claimed that Cambodian monks had been encouraging the Buddhist crisis, asserting it was part of a Cambodian plot to extend its neutralist foreign policy into South Vietnam. Flowerree noted that Diệm was "ready and eager to see a fine Cambodian hand in all the organized Buddhist actions".
Diệm reaction
Diệm made a radio address at 19:00 on the day of Quảng Đức's death, asserting that he was profoundly troubled by the event. He appealed for "serenity and patriotism", and announced that stalled negotiations would resume with the Buddhists. He claimed that negotiations had been progressing well and in a time of religious tension emphasized the role of the Roman Catholic philosophy of personalism in his rule. He alleged that extremists had twisted the facts and he asserted that the Buddhists can "count on the Constitution, in other words, me."
The ARVN responded to the appeal, putting on a show of solidarity behind Diệm to isolate dissident officers. Thirty high-ranking officers headed by General Lê Văn Tỵ declared their resolve to carry out all missions entrusted to the army for the defense of the constitution and the Republic. The declaration was a veneer which masked a developing plot to oust Diệm. Some of the signatories were to become personally involved in Diệm's overthrow and death in November. Generals Dương Văn Minh and Trần Văn Đôn, the presidential military advisor and the chief of the army who were to lead the coup, were overseas.
Madame Nhu (a Catholic convert from Buddhism and the wife of Diệm's younger brother and chief adviser Ngô Đình Nhu), who was regarded as the First Lady of South Vietnam at the time (as Diệm was a bachelor), said she would "clap hands at seeing another monk barbecue show". Later that month, Diệm's government charged that Quảng Đức had been drugged before being forced to commit suicide. The regime also accused Browne of bribing Quảng Đức to burn himself.
Political and media impact
Photographs taken by Malcolm Browne of the self-immolation quickly spread across the wire services and were featured on the front pages of newspapers worldwide. The self-immolation was later regarded as a turning point in the Buddhist crisis and a critical point in the collapse of the Diệm regime.
Historian Seth Jacobs asserted that Quảng Đức had "reduced America's Diệm experiment to ashes as well" and that "no amount of pleading could retrieve Diệm's reputation" once Browne's images had become ingrained into the psyche of the world public. Ellen Hammer described the event as having "evoked dark images of persecution and horror corresponding to a profoundly Asian reality that passed the understanding of Westerners." John Mecklin, an official from the U.S. embassy, noted that the photograph "had a shock effect of incalculable value to the Buddhist cause, becoming a symbol of the state of things in Vietnam." William Colby, then chief of the Central Intelligence Agency's Far East Division, opined that Diệm "handled the Buddhist crisis fairly badly and allowed it to grow. But I really don't think there was much they could have done about it once that bonze burned himself."
President John F. Kennedy, whose government was the main sponsor of Diệm's regime, learned of Quảng Đức's death when handed the morning newspapers while he was talking to his brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, on the phone. Kennedy reportedly interrupted their conversation about segregation in Alabama by exclaiming "Jesus Christ!" He later remarked that "no news picture in history has generated so much emotion around the world as that one." U.S. Senator Frank Church (D-Idaho), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, claimed that "such grisly scenes have not been witnessed since the Christian martyrs marched hand in hand into the Roman arenas."
In Europe, the photographs were sold on the streets as postcards during the 1960s, and communist China distributed millions of copies of the photograph throughout Asia and Africa as evidence of what it called US imperialism. One of Browne's photographs remains affixed to the sedan in which Quảng Đức was riding and is part of a tourist attraction in Huế.
For Browne and the AP, the pictures were a marketing success. Ray Herndon, the United Press International (UPI) correspondent who had forgotten to take his camera on the day, was harshly criticized in private by his employer. UPI estimated that 5,000 readers in Sydney, then a city of around 1.5–2 million, had switched to AP news sources.
Diệm's English-language mouthpiece, the Times of Vietnam, intensified its attacks on both journalists and Buddhists. Headlines such as "Xá Lợi politburo makes new threats" and "Monks plot murder" were printed. One article questioned the relationship between the monks and the press by posing the question as to why "so many young girls are buzzing in and out of Xá Lợi early [in the day]" and then going on to allege that they were brought in for sexual purposes for the U.S. reporters.
Browne's award-winning photograph of Quảng Đức's death has been reproduced in popular media for decades, and the incident has been used as a touchstone reference in many films and television programs.
A still photograph of Quảng Đức's self-immolation taken by Browne was used for the cover of American rap metal band Rage Against the Machine's debut album which came out in 1992, as well as the cover of their single "Killing in the Name". That same photograph was used for the cover of Canadian electronic act Delerium's debut album Faces, Forms & Illusions, which came out in 1989.
Precedents and influence
Despite the shock of the Western public, the practice of Vietnamese monks self-immolating was not unprecedented. Instances of self-immolations in Vietnam had been recorded for centuries, usually carried out to honor Gautama Buddha. The most recently recorded case had been in North Vietnam in 1950. The French colonial authorities had tried to eradicate the practice after their conquest of Vietnam in the nineteenth century, but had not been totally successful. They did manage to prevent one monk from setting fire to himself in Huế in the 1920s, but he managed to starve himself to death instead. During the 1920s and 1930s, Saigon newspapers reported multiple instances of self-immolations by monks in a matter-of-fact style. The practice had also been seen in the Chinese city of Harbin in 1948 when a monk seated down in the lotus position on a pile of sawdust and soybean oil and set fire to himself in protest against the treatment of Buddhism by the anti-religious communists of Mao Zedong. His heart remained intact, as did that of Quảng Đức.
After Quảng Đức, five more Buddhist monks self-immolated up until late October 1963 as the Buddhist protests in Vietnam escalated. On 1 November, the ARVN overthrew Diệm in a coup. Diệm and Nhu were assassinated the next day. Monks have followed Quảng Đức's example since for other reasons.
The Americans in Saigon often found the self-immolations to be surreal and made puns about "bonze fires" and "hot cross bonzes", almost as an escape mechanism from the bewilderment. In one instance in 1963, the young son of an American officer based at the Saigon U.S. Embassy doused himself with gasoline and set himself on fire. He was seriously burned before the fire was extinguished and later could only offer the explanation that "I wanted to see what it was like." Thich Quang Duc's actions were twice fatally copied in the United States in protest against the Vietnam War. On March 16, 1965, Alice Herz an 82-year-old peace activist immolated herself in front of the Federal Department Store in northwest Detroit. Later that same year, Norman Morrison, a 31-year-old Quaker pacifist, poured kerosene over himself and set light to himself below the third-floor window of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara at the Pentagon on November 2, 1965.
See also
List of civil rights leaders
List of political self-immolations
Notes
References
Bibliography
External links
– Official Buddhist monastery dedicated to Thích Quảng Đức
Vietnamese Buddhists
Buddhism in Vietnam
20th-century Buddhist monks
1897 births
1963 suicides
Date of birth unknown
People from Khánh Hòa Province
Vietnamese Buddhist monks
Buddhist crisis
History of South Vietnam
Suicides in Vietnam
1963 in Vietnam
Filmed suicides
Vietnamese people of the Vietnam War
Self-immolations by Buddhists
Articles containing video clips
People notable for being the subject of a specific photograph
Suicides by self-immolation
Buddhist martyrs
Photographs of protests | false | [
"General elections were held in Belgium in 1833. In the Senate elections Catholics won 31 seats and Liberals seven. Only 46,000 people (1.1% of the country's population) were eligible to vote.\n\nThe Chamber of Representatives was fully renewed, following its dissolution by royal order of 28 April 1833. The King did so because of conflicts between the Liberal government (of Albert Goblet d'Alviella and Charles Rogier) and the Catholic-majority Parliament. The Chamber elections were held on 23 May 1833, with a run-off on 30 May. On 21 May 1833, just a few days before the elections, the government secured a significant diplomatic victory with the Convention of London, an agreement with the Netherlands to extend the ceasefire for an indefinite period.\n\nResults\n\nSenate\n\nReferences\n\n1830s elections in Belgium\n1833 in Belgium\n1833 elections in Europe\nMay 1833 events",
"The Independent Left () was an Italian parliamentary group in the Italian Senate between 1968 and 1992. Its forerunner was the Democrats of the Left group which was active between 1948 and 1953 and formed by independent leftist senators elected into the Popular Democratic Front. A group of Independent Democrats of the Left then existed from 1953 to 1963.\n\nThe Independent Left was created by the Italian Communist Party with the goal to reinforce its leadership over the Italian left after the passage of the Italian Socialist Party to an alliance with the centrist Italian Christian Democracy. The group was formed by past members of the Socialist Party, actors, judges, and many leftist Catholics who did not become full members of the Communist Party because it was seen as an atheist organization.\n\nThe senators belonging to the group were elected into the Communist lists, so this group ceased to exist after the disbandment of the PCI in 1991.\n\nSee also \nIndependent Left (France)\n\nItalian Parliament"
] |
[
"Thích Quảng Đức",
"Religious background",
"What was his religious background?",
"Buddhist",
"Was most of the country also buddhist?",
"the religious composition at the time estimated the Buddhist majority to be between 70 and 90 percent,",
"If they were the majority, then why were they being persecuted?",
"President Diem was a member of the Catholic minority, and pursued discriminatory policies favoring Catholics for public service and military promotions,",
"How did the people react to this?",
"Some Buddhist villages converted en masse to receive aid or avoid being forcibly resettled by Diem's regime.",
"So did Catholics then become the majority?",
"The Roman Catholic Church was the largest landowner in the country and enjoyed special exemptions in property acquisition,"
] | C_0113efd736a8413c95bfc18dae367505_0 | Is there anything else interesting from this article? | 6 | Besides Roman Catholic Church being the largest landowner in Thích Quảng Đức's country, Is there anything else interesting from this article? | Thích Quảng Đức | In a country where surveys of the religious composition at the time estimated the Buddhist majority to be between 70 and 90 percent, President Diem was a member of the Catholic minority, and pursued discriminatory policies favoring Catholics for public service and military promotions, as well as in the allocation of land, business arrangements and tax concessions. Diem once told a high-ranking officer, forgetting that the officer was from a Buddhist family, "Put your Catholic officers in sensitive places. They can be trusted." Many officers in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam converted to Roman Catholicism as their military prospects depended on it. Additionally, the distribution of firearms to village self-defense militias saw weapons given only to Roman Catholics, with some Buddhists in the army being denied promotion if they refused to convert to Roman Catholicism. Some Roman Catholic priests ran their own private armies, and there were forced conversions and looting, shelling, and demolition of pagodas in some areas, to which the government turned a blind eye. Some Buddhist villages converted en masse to receive aid or avoid being forcibly resettled by Diem's regime. The "private" status that was imposed on Buddhism by the French, which required official permission to be obtained by those wishing to conduct public Buddhist activities, was not repealed by Diem. Catholics were also de facto exempt from corvee labor, which the government obliged all citizens to perform, and United States aid was distributed disproportionately to Catholic majority villages by Diem's regime. The Roman Catholic Church was the largest landowner in the country and enjoyed special exemptions in property acquisition, and land owned by the Roman Catholic Church was exempt from land reform. The white and gold Vatican flag was regularly flown at all major public events in South Vietnam, and Diem dedicated his country to the Virgin Mary in 1959. Buddhist discontent erupted following a ban in early May on flying the Buddhist flag in Hue on Vesak, the birthday of Gautama Buddha. Just days before, Catholics had been encouraged to fly the Vatican flag at a celebration for Archbishop Ngo Dinh Thuc of Hue, Diem's elder brother. A large crowd of Buddhists protested the ban, defying the government by flying Buddhist flags on the Buddhist holy day of Vesak and marching on the government broadcasting station. Government forces fired into the crowd of protesters, killing nine people. Diem's refusal to take responsibility -- he blamed the Viet Cong for the deaths -- led to further Buddhist protests and calls for religious equality. As Diem remained unwilling to comply with Buddhist demands, the frequency of protests increased. CANNOTANSWER | Buddhist discontent erupted following a ban in early May on flying the Buddhist flag in Hue on Vesak, the birthday of Gautama Buddha. | Thích Quảng Đức (; 1897 – 11 June 1963; born Lâm Văn Túc) was a Vietnamese Mahayana Buddhist monk who burned himself to death at a busy Saigon road intersection on 11 June 1963. Quảng Đức was protesting the persecution of Buddhists by the South Vietnamese government led by Ngô Đình Diệm, a staunch Roman Catholic. Photographs of his self-immolation circulated around the world, drawing attention to the policies of the Diệm government. John F. Kennedy said of one photograph, "No news picture in history has generated so much emotion around the world as that one." Malcolm Browne won a Pulitzer Prize for his photograph of the monk's death.
Quảng Đức's act increased international pressure on Diệm and led him to announce reforms with the intention of mollifying the Buddhists. However, the promised reforms were not implemented, leading to a deterioration in the dispute. As protests continued, the ARVN Special Forces loyal to Diệm's brother, Ngô Đình Nhu, launched raids across South Vietnam on Buddhist pagodas, seizing Quảng Đức's heart and causing deaths and widespread damage. Several Buddhist monks followed Quảng Đức's example, also immolating themselves. Eventually, a U.S.-backed coup toppled Diệm, who was assassinated on 2 November 1963.
Biography
Accounts of the life of Quảng Đức are derived from information disseminated by Buddhist organizations. He was born in the village of Hội Khánh, in Vạn Ninh District of Khánh Hòa Province in central Vietnam as Lâm Văn Túc, one of seven children of Lâm Hữu Ứng and his wife, Nguyễn Thị Nương. At the age of seven, he left to study Buddhism under Hòa thượng Thích Hoằng Thâm, who was his maternal uncle and spiritual master. Thích Hoằng Thâm raised him as a son and Lâm Văn Túc changed his name to Nguyễn Văn Khiết. At age 15, he took the samanera (novice) vows and was ordained as a monk at age 20 under the dharma name Thích Quảng Đức. The Vietnamese name Thích (釋) is from "Thích Ca" or "Thích Già" (釋迦), means "of the Shakya clan." After ordination, he traveled to a mountain near Ninh Hòa, vowing to live the life of a solitary Buddhism-practicing hermit for three years. He returned in later life to open the Thien Loc pagoda at his mountain retreat.
After his self-imposed isolation ended, he began to travel around central Vietnam expounding the dharma. After two years, he went into retreat at the Sac Tu Thien An pagoda near Nha Trang. In 1932, he was appointed an inspector for the Buddhist Association in Ninh Hòa before becoming the inspector of monks in his home province of Khánh Hòa. During this period in central Vietnam, he was responsible for the construction of 14 temples. In 1934, he moved to southern Vietnam and traveled throughout the provinces spreading Buddhist teachings. During his time in southern Vietnam, he also spent two years in Cambodia studying the Theravada Buddhist tradition.
Upon his return from Cambodia, he oversaw the construction of a further 17 new temples during his time in the south. The last of the 31 new temples that he was responsible for constructing was the Quan The Am pagoda in the Phú Nhuận District of Gia Định Province on the outskirts of Saigon. The street on which the temple stands was later renamed Quảng Đức Street in 1975. After the temple-building phase, Quảng Đức was appointed to serve as the Chairman of the Panel on Ceremonial Rites of the Congregation of Vietnamese Monks, and as abbot of the Phuoc Hoa pagoda, which was the initial location of the Association for Buddhist Studies of Vietnam (ABSV). When the office of the ABSV was relocated to the Xá Lợi Pagoda, the main pagoda of Saigon, Quảng Đức resigned.
Self-immolation
Religious background
In a country where surveys of the religious composition at the time estimated the Buddhist majority to be between 70 and 90 percent, President Diệm was a member of the Catholic minority, and pursued discriminatory policies favoring Catholics for public service and military promotions, as well as in the allocation of land, business arrangements and tax concessions. Diệm once told a high-ranking officer, forgetting that the officer was from a Buddhist family, "Put your Catholic officers in sensitive places. They can be trusted." Many officers in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) converted to Roman Catholicism as their military prospects depended on it. Additionally, the distribution of firearms to village self-defense militias saw weapons given only to Roman Catholics, with some Buddhists in the army being denied promotion if they refused to convert to Roman Catholicism.
Some Catholic priests ran their own private armies, and there were forced conversions and looting, shelling, and demolition of pagodas in some areas, to which the government turned a blind eye. Some Buddhist villages converted en masse to receive aid or avoid being forcibly resettled by Diệm's regime. The "private" status that was imposed on Buddhism by the French, which required official permission to be obtained by those wishing to conduct public Buddhist activities, was not repealed by Diệm. Catholics were also de facto exempt from corvée labor, which the government obliged all citizens to perform, and United States aid was distributed disproportionately to Catholic majority villages by Diệm's regime.
The Catholic Church was the largest landowner in the country and enjoyed special exemptions in property acquisition, and land owned by the Catholic Church was exempt from land reform. The white and gold Vatican flag was regularly flown at all major public events in South Vietnam, and Diệm dedicated his country to the Virgin Mary in 1959.
Buddhist discontent erupted following a ban in early May on flying the Buddhist flag in Huế on Vesak, the birthday of Gautama Buddha. Just days before, Catholics had been encouraged to fly the Vatican flag at a celebration for Archbishop Ngô Đình Thục of Huế, Diệm's elder brother. A large crowd of Buddhists protested the ban, defying the government by flying Buddhist flags on the Buddhist holy day of Vesak and marching on the government broadcasting station. Government forces fired into the crowd of protesters, killing nine people. Diệm's refusal to take responsibility—he blamed the Viet Cong for the deaths—led to further Buddhist protests and calls for religious equality. As Diem remained unwilling to comply with Buddhist demands, the frequency of protests increased.
Day of the act
On 10 June 1963, U.S. correspondents were informed that "something important" would happen the following morning on the road outside the Cambodian embassy in Saigon. Most of the reporters disregarded the message, since the Buddhist crisis had at that point been going on for more than a month, and the next day only a few journalists turned up, including David Halberstam of The New York Times and Malcolm Browne, the Saigon bureau chief for the Associated Press (AP). Quảng Đức arrived as part of a procession that had begun at a nearby pagoda. Around 350 monks and nuns marched in two phalanxes, preceded by an Austin Westminster sedan, carrying banners printed in both English and Vietnamese. They denounced the Diệm government and its policy towards Buddhists, demanding that it fulfill its promises of religious equality. Another monk offered himself, but Quảng Đức's seniority prevailed.
The act occurred at the intersection of Phan Đình Phùng Boulevard (now Nguyễn Đình Chiểu Street) and Lê Văn Duyệt Street (now Cách Mạng Tháng Tám Street) (), a few blocks southwest of the Presidential Palace (now the Reunification Palace). Quảng Đức emerged from the car along with two other monks. One placed a cushion on the road while the second opened the trunk and took out a five-gallon petrol can. As the marchers formed a circle around him, Quảng Đức calmly sat down in the traditional Buddhist meditative lotus position on the cushion. A colleague emptied the contents of the petrol container over Quảng Đức's head. Quảng Đức rotated a string of wooden prayer beads and recited the words ("Homage to Amitābha Buddha") before striking a match and dropping it on himself. Flames consumed his robes and flesh, and black oily smoke emanated from his burning body.
Quảng Đức's last words before his self-immolation were documented in a letter he had left:
David Halberstam wrote:
The spectators were mostly stunned into silence, but some wailed and several began praying. Many of the monks and nuns, as well as some shocked passersby, prostrated themselves before the burning monk. Even some of the policemen, who had orders to control the gathered crowd, prostrated before him.
In English and Vietnamese, a monk repeated into a microphone: "A Buddhist priest burns himself to death. A Buddhist priest becomes a martyr." After approximately 10 minutes, Quảng Đức's body was fully immolated and it eventually toppled backwards onto its back. Once the fire subsided, a group of monks covered the smoking corpse with yellow robes, picked it up and tried to fit it into a coffin, but the limbs could not be straightened and one of the arms protruded from the wooden box as he was carried to the nearby Xá Lợi Pagoda in central Saigon. Outside the pagoda, students unfurled bilingual banners which read: "A Buddhist priest burns himself for our five requests."
By 1:30p.m. (13:30), around 1,000 monks had congregated inside to hold a meeting, while outside a large crowd of pro-Buddhist students had formed a human barrier around it. The meeting soon ended and all but 100 monks slowly left the compound. Nearly 1,000 monks, accompanied by laypeople, returned to the cremation site. The police lingered nearby. At around 6:00p.m. (18:00), thirty nuns and six monks were arrested for holding a prayer meeting on the street outside Xá Lợi. The police encircled the pagoda, blocking public passage and giving observers the impression that an armed siege was imminent by donning riot gear.
Funeral and aftermath
After the self-immolation, the U.S. put more pressure on Diệm to re-open negotiations on the faltering agreement. Diệm had scheduled an emergency cabinet meeting at 11:30 on 11 June to discuss the Buddhist crisis which he believed to be winding down. Following Quảng Đức's death, Diệm canceled the meeting and met individually with his ministers. Acting U.S. Ambassador to South Vietnam William Trueheart warned Nguyễn Đình Thuận, Diệm's Secretary of State, of the desperate need for an agreement, saying that the situation was "dangerously near breaking point" and expected Diệm would meet the Buddhists' five-point manifesto. United States Secretary of State Dean Rusk warned the Saigon embassy that the White House would publicly announce that it would no longer "associate itself" with the regime if this did not occur. The Joint Communiqué and concessions to the Buddhists were signed on 16 June.
15 June was set as the date for the funeral, and on that day 4,000 people gathered outside the Xá Lợi pagoda, only for the ceremony to be postponed. On 19 June, his remains were carried out of Xá Lợi to a cemetery south of the city for a re-cremation and funeral ceremony. Following the signing of the Joint Communiqué, attendance was limited by agreement between Buddhist leaders and police to approximately 500 monks.
Intact heart and symbolism
The body was re-cremated during the funeral, but Quảng Đức's heart remained intact and did not burn. It was considered to be holy and placed in a glass chalice at Xá Lợi Pagoda. The intact heart relic is regarded as a symbol of compassion. Quảng Đức has subsequently been revered by Vietnamese Buddhists as a bodhisattva (Bồ Tát), and accordingly is often referred to in Vietnamese as Bồ Tát Thích Quảng Đức. On 21 August, the ARVN Special Forces of Nhu attacked Xá Lợi and other Buddhist pagodas across Vietnam. The secret police intended to confiscate Quảng Đức's ashes, but two monks had escaped with the urn, jumping over the back fence and finding safety at the U.S. Operations Mission next door. Nhu's men managed to confiscate Đức's charred heart.
The location chosen for the self-immolation, in front of the Cambodian embassy, raised questions as to whether it was coincidence or a symbolic choice. Trueheart and embassy official Charles Flowerree felt that the location was selected to show solidarity with the Cambodian government of Prince Norodom Sihanouk. South Vietnam and Cambodia had strained relations: in a speech on 22 May, Sihanouk had accused Diệm of mistreating Vietnamese and ethnic minority Khmer Buddhists. The pro-Diệm Times of Vietnam published an article on 9 June which claimed that Cambodian monks had been encouraging the Buddhist crisis, asserting it was part of a Cambodian plot to extend its neutralist foreign policy into South Vietnam. Flowerree noted that Diệm was "ready and eager to see a fine Cambodian hand in all the organized Buddhist actions".
Diệm reaction
Diệm made a radio address at 19:00 on the day of Quảng Đức's death, asserting that he was profoundly troubled by the event. He appealed for "serenity and patriotism", and announced that stalled negotiations would resume with the Buddhists. He claimed that negotiations had been progressing well and in a time of religious tension emphasized the role of the Roman Catholic philosophy of personalism in his rule. He alleged that extremists had twisted the facts and he asserted that the Buddhists can "count on the Constitution, in other words, me."
The ARVN responded to the appeal, putting on a show of solidarity behind Diệm to isolate dissident officers. Thirty high-ranking officers headed by General Lê Văn Tỵ declared their resolve to carry out all missions entrusted to the army for the defense of the constitution and the Republic. The declaration was a veneer which masked a developing plot to oust Diệm. Some of the signatories were to become personally involved in Diệm's overthrow and death in November. Generals Dương Văn Minh and Trần Văn Đôn, the presidential military advisor and the chief of the army who were to lead the coup, were overseas.
Madame Nhu (a Catholic convert from Buddhism and the wife of Diệm's younger brother and chief adviser Ngô Đình Nhu), who was regarded as the First Lady of South Vietnam at the time (as Diệm was a bachelor), said she would "clap hands at seeing another monk barbecue show". Later that month, Diệm's government charged that Quảng Đức had been drugged before being forced to commit suicide. The regime also accused Browne of bribing Quảng Đức to burn himself.
Political and media impact
Photographs taken by Malcolm Browne of the self-immolation quickly spread across the wire services and were featured on the front pages of newspapers worldwide. The self-immolation was later regarded as a turning point in the Buddhist crisis and a critical point in the collapse of the Diệm regime.
Historian Seth Jacobs asserted that Quảng Đức had "reduced America's Diệm experiment to ashes as well" and that "no amount of pleading could retrieve Diệm's reputation" once Browne's images had become ingrained into the psyche of the world public. Ellen Hammer described the event as having "evoked dark images of persecution and horror corresponding to a profoundly Asian reality that passed the understanding of Westerners." John Mecklin, an official from the U.S. embassy, noted that the photograph "had a shock effect of incalculable value to the Buddhist cause, becoming a symbol of the state of things in Vietnam." William Colby, then chief of the Central Intelligence Agency's Far East Division, opined that Diệm "handled the Buddhist crisis fairly badly and allowed it to grow. But I really don't think there was much they could have done about it once that bonze burned himself."
President John F. Kennedy, whose government was the main sponsor of Diệm's regime, learned of Quảng Đức's death when handed the morning newspapers while he was talking to his brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, on the phone. Kennedy reportedly interrupted their conversation about segregation in Alabama by exclaiming "Jesus Christ!" He later remarked that "no news picture in history has generated so much emotion around the world as that one." U.S. Senator Frank Church (D-Idaho), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, claimed that "such grisly scenes have not been witnessed since the Christian martyrs marched hand in hand into the Roman arenas."
In Europe, the photographs were sold on the streets as postcards during the 1960s, and communist China distributed millions of copies of the photograph throughout Asia and Africa as evidence of what it called US imperialism. One of Browne's photographs remains affixed to the sedan in which Quảng Đức was riding and is part of a tourist attraction in Huế.
For Browne and the AP, the pictures were a marketing success. Ray Herndon, the United Press International (UPI) correspondent who had forgotten to take his camera on the day, was harshly criticized in private by his employer. UPI estimated that 5,000 readers in Sydney, then a city of around 1.5–2 million, had switched to AP news sources.
Diệm's English-language mouthpiece, the Times of Vietnam, intensified its attacks on both journalists and Buddhists. Headlines such as "Xá Lợi politburo makes new threats" and "Monks plot murder" were printed. One article questioned the relationship between the monks and the press by posing the question as to why "so many young girls are buzzing in and out of Xá Lợi early [in the day]" and then going on to allege that they were brought in for sexual purposes for the U.S. reporters.
Browne's award-winning photograph of Quảng Đức's death has been reproduced in popular media for decades, and the incident has been used as a touchstone reference in many films and television programs.
A still photograph of Quảng Đức's self-immolation taken by Browne was used for the cover of American rap metal band Rage Against the Machine's debut album which came out in 1992, as well as the cover of their single "Killing in the Name". That same photograph was used for the cover of Canadian electronic act Delerium's debut album Faces, Forms & Illusions, which came out in 1989.
Precedents and influence
Despite the shock of the Western public, the practice of Vietnamese monks self-immolating was not unprecedented. Instances of self-immolations in Vietnam had been recorded for centuries, usually carried out to honor Gautama Buddha. The most recently recorded case had been in North Vietnam in 1950. The French colonial authorities had tried to eradicate the practice after their conquest of Vietnam in the nineteenth century, but had not been totally successful. They did manage to prevent one monk from setting fire to himself in Huế in the 1920s, but he managed to starve himself to death instead. During the 1920s and 1930s, Saigon newspapers reported multiple instances of self-immolations by monks in a matter-of-fact style. The practice had also been seen in the Chinese city of Harbin in 1948 when a monk seated down in the lotus position on a pile of sawdust and soybean oil and set fire to himself in protest against the treatment of Buddhism by the anti-religious communists of Mao Zedong. His heart remained intact, as did that of Quảng Đức.
After Quảng Đức, five more Buddhist monks self-immolated up until late October 1963 as the Buddhist protests in Vietnam escalated. On 1 November, the ARVN overthrew Diệm in a coup. Diệm and Nhu were assassinated the next day. Monks have followed Quảng Đức's example since for other reasons.
The Americans in Saigon often found the self-immolations to be surreal and made puns about "bonze fires" and "hot cross bonzes", almost as an escape mechanism from the bewilderment. In one instance in 1963, the young son of an American officer based at the Saigon U.S. Embassy doused himself with gasoline and set himself on fire. He was seriously burned before the fire was extinguished and later could only offer the explanation that "I wanted to see what it was like." Thich Quang Duc's actions were twice fatally copied in the United States in protest against the Vietnam War. On March 16, 1965, Alice Herz an 82-year-old peace activist immolated herself in front of the Federal Department Store in northwest Detroit. Later that same year, Norman Morrison, a 31-year-old Quaker pacifist, poured kerosene over himself and set light to himself below the third-floor window of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara at the Pentagon on November 2, 1965.
See also
List of civil rights leaders
List of political self-immolations
Notes
References
Bibliography
External links
– Official Buddhist monastery dedicated to Thích Quảng Đức
Vietnamese Buddhists
Buddhism in Vietnam
20th-century Buddhist monks
1897 births
1963 suicides
Date of birth unknown
People from Khánh Hòa Province
Vietnamese Buddhist monks
Buddhist crisis
History of South Vietnam
Suicides in Vietnam
1963 in Vietnam
Filmed suicides
Vietnamese people of the Vietnam War
Self-immolations by Buddhists
Articles containing video clips
People notable for being the subject of a specific photograph
Suicides by self-immolation
Buddhist martyrs
Photographs of protests | false | [
"Přírodní park Třebíčsko (before Oblast klidu Třebíčsko) is a natural park near Třebíč in the Czech Republic. There are many interesting plants. The park was founded in 1983.\n\nKobylinec and Ptáčovský kopeček\n\nKobylinec is a natural monument situated ca 0,5 km from the village of Trnava.\nThe area of this monument is 0,44 ha. Pulsatilla grandis can be found here and in the Ptáčovský kopeček park near Ptáčov near Třebíč. Both monuments are very popular for tourists.\n\nPonds\n\nIn the natural park there are some interesting ponds such as Velký Bor, Malý Bor, Buršík near Přeckov and a brook Březinka. Dams on the brook are examples of European beaver activity.\n\nSyenitové skály near Pocoucov\n\nSyenitové skály (rocks of syenit) near Pocoucov is one of famed locations. There are interesting granite boulders. The area of the reservation is 0,77 ha.\n\nExternal links\nParts of this article or all article was translated from Czech. The original article is :cs:Přírodní park Třebíčsko.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nNature near the village Trnava which is there\n\nTřebíč\nParks in the Czech Republic\nTourist attractions in the Vysočina Region",
"Tamana Airport is the airport serving Tamana, Kiribati.\n\nThe airport is served by Air Kiribati from Tabiteuea North, which is connected directly with the international airport at South Tarawa, but lands at Tamana too on its way from Arorae back to Tabiteuea North.\n\nAirlines and destinations\n\nAir Kiribati connection with Tamana\nLanding at Tamana is not a fuel stop: Since this is the only time in the week Tamana is served, passengers can get in or get out there. Thus, note that if one wants to fly from Tamana to Arorae, he cannot do anything else than make the big detour via Tabiteuea North (which lies much farther from Tamana than Arorae does), and wait a full week there, until the next flight to Arorae (because from Tabiteuea North, the plane continues its way to Bonriki International Airport).\n\nNotes\n\nAirports in Kiribati\nGilbert Islands"
] |
[
"Thích Quảng Đức",
"Religious background",
"What was his religious background?",
"Buddhist",
"Was most of the country also buddhist?",
"the religious composition at the time estimated the Buddhist majority to be between 70 and 90 percent,",
"If they were the majority, then why were they being persecuted?",
"President Diem was a member of the Catholic minority, and pursued discriminatory policies favoring Catholics for public service and military promotions,",
"How did the people react to this?",
"Some Buddhist villages converted en masse to receive aid or avoid being forcibly resettled by Diem's regime.",
"So did Catholics then become the majority?",
"The Roman Catholic Church was the largest landowner in the country and enjoyed special exemptions in property acquisition,",
"Is there anything else interesting from this article?",
"Buddhist discontent erupted following a ban in early May on flying the Buddhist flag in Hue on Vesak, the birthday of Gautama Buddha."
] | C_0113efd736a8413c95bfc18dae367505_0 | Did they protest or do anything to fight the ban? | 7 | Did buddhists in Thích Quảng Đức's country protest or do anything to fight the ban on the Buddhist flag? | Thích Quảng Đức | In a country where surveys of the religious composition at the time estimated the Buddhist majority to be between 70 and 90 percent, President Diem was a member of the Catholic minority, and pursued discriminatory policies favoring Catholics for public service and military promotions, as well as in the allocation of land, business arrangements and tax concessions. Diem once told a high-ranking officer, forgetting that the officer was from a Buddhist family, "Put your Catholic officers in sensitive places. They can be trusted." Many officers in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam converted to Roman Catholicism as their military prospects depended on it. Additionally, the distribution of firearms to village self-defense militias saw weapons given only to Roman Catholics, with some Buddhists in the army being denied promotion if they refused to convert to Roman Catholicism. Some Roman Catholic priests ran their own private armies, and there were forced conversions and looting, shelling, and demolition of pagodas in some areas, to which the government turned a blind eye. Some Buddhist villages converted en masse to receive aid or avoid being forcibly resettled by Diem's regime. The "private" status that was imposed on Buddhism by the French, which required official permission to be obtained by those wishing to conduct public Buddhist activities, was not repealed by Diem. Catholics were also de facto exempt from corvee labor, which the government obliged all citizens to perform, and United States aid was distributed disproportionately to Catholic majority villages by Diem's regime. The Roman Catholic Church was the largest landowner in the country and enjoyed special exemptions in property acquisition, and land owned by the Roman Catholic Church was exempt from land reform. The white and gold Vatican flag was regularly flown at all major public events in South Vietnam, and Diem dedicated his country to the Virgin Mary in 1959. Buddhist discontent erupted following a ban in early May on flying the Buddhist flag in Hue on Vesak, the birthday of Gautama Buddha. Just days before, Catholics had been encouraged to fly the Vatican flag at a celebration for Archbishop Ngo Dinh Thuc of Hue, Diem's elder brother. A large crowd of Buddhists protested the ban, defying the government by flying Buddhist flags on the Buddhist holy day of Vesak and marching on the government broadcasting station. Government forces fired into the crowd of protesters, killing nine people. Diem's refusal to take responsibility -- he blamed the Viet Cong for the deaths -- led to further Buddhist protests and calls for religious equality. As Diem remained unwilling to comply with Buddhist demands, the frequency of protests increased. CANNOTANSWER | A large crowd of Buddhists protested the ban, defying the government by flying Buddhist flags on the Buddhist holy day of Vesak and marching on the government broadcasting station. | Thích Quảng Đức (; 1897 – 11 June 1963; born Lâm Văn Túc) was a Vietnamese Mahayana Buddhist monk who burned himself to death at a busy Saigon road intersection on 11 June 1963. Quảng Đức was protesting the persecution of Buddhists by the South Vietnamese government led by Ngô Đình Diệm, a staunch Roman Catholic. Photographs of his self-immolation circulated around the world, drawing attention to the policies of the Diệm government. John F. Kennedy said of one photograph, "No news picture in history has generated so much emotion around the world as that one." Malcolm Browne won a Pulitzer Prize for his photograph of the monk's death.
Quảng Đức's act increased international pressure on Diệm and led him to announce reforms with the intention of mollifying the Buddhists. However, the promised reforms were not implemented, leading to a deterioration in the dispute. As protests continued, the ARVN Special Forces loyal to Diệm's brother, Ngô Đình Nhu, launched raids across South Vietnam on Buddhist pagodas, seizing Quảng Đức's heart and causing deaths and widespread damage. Several Buddhist monks followed Quảng Đức's example, also immolating themselves. Eventually, a U.S.-backed coup toppled Diệm, who was assassinated on 2 November 1963.
Biography
Accounts of the life of Quảng Đức are derived from information disseminated by Buddhist organizations. He was born in the village of Hội Khánh, in Vạn Ninh District of Khánh Hòa Province in central Vietnam as Lâm Văn Túc, one of seven children of Lâm Hữu Ứng and his wife, Nguyễn Thị Nương. At the age of seven, he left to study Buddhism under Hòa thượng Thích Hoằng Thâm, who was his maternal uncle and spiritual master. Thích Hoằng Thâm raised him as a son and Lâm Văn Túc changed his name to Nguyễn Văn Khiết. At age 15, he took the samanera (novice) vows and was ordained as a monk at age 20 under the dharma name Thích Quảng Đức. The Vietnamese name Thích (釋) is from "Thích Ca" or "Thích Già" (釋迦), means "of the Shakya clan." After ordination, he traveled to a mountain near Ninh Hòa, vowing to live the life of a solitary Buddhism-practicing hermit for three years. He returned in later life to open the Thien Loc pagoda at his mountain retreat.
After his self-imposed isolation ended, he began to travel around central Vietnam expounding the dharma. After two years, he went into retreat at the Sac Tu Thien An pagoda near Nha Trang. In 1932, he was appointed an inspector for the Buddhist Association in Ninh Hòa before becoming the inspector of monks in his home province of Khánh Hòa. During this period in central Vietnam, he was responsible for the construction of 14 temples. In 1934, he moved to southern Vietnam and traveled throughout the provinces spreading Buddhist teachings. During his time in southern Vietnam, he also spent two years in Cambodia studying the Theravada Buddhist tradition.
Upon his return from Cambodia, he oversaw the construction of a further 17 new temples during his time in the south. The last of the 31 new temples that he was responsible for constructing was the Quan The Am pagoda in the Phú Nhuận District of Gia Định Province on the outskirts of Saigon. The street on which the temple stands was later renamed Quảng Đức Street in 1975. After the temple-building phase, Quảng Đức was appointed to serve as the Chairman of the Panel on Ceremonial Rites of the Congregation of Vietnamese Monks, and as abbot of the Phuoc Hoa pagoda, which was the initial location of the Association for Buddhist Studies of Vietnam (ABSV). When the office of the ABSV was relocated to the Xá Lợi Pagoda, the main pagoda of Saigon, Quảng Đức resigned.
Self-immolation
Religious background
In a country where surveys of the religious composition at the time estimated the Buddhist majority to be between 70 and 90 percent, President Diệm was a member of the Catholic minority, and pursued discriminatory policies favoring Catholics for public service and military promotions, as well as in the allocation of land, business arrangements and tax concessions. Diệm once told a high-ranking officer, forgetting that the officer was from a Buddhist family, "Put your Catholic officers in sensitive places. They can be trusted." Many officers in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) converted to Roman Catholicism as their military prospects depended on it. Additionally, the distribution of firearms to village self-defense militias saw weapons given only to Roman Catholics, with some Buddhists in the army being denied promotion if they refused to convert to Roman Catholicism.
Some Catholic priests ran their own private armies, and there were forced conversions and looting, shelling, and demolition of pagodas in some areas, to which the government turned a blind eye. Some Buddhist villages converted en masse to receive aid or avoid being forcibly resettled by Diệm's regime. The "private" status that was imposed on Buddhism by the French, which required official permission to be obtained by those wishing to conduct public Buddhist activities, was not repealed by Diệm. Catholics were also de facto exempt from corvée labor, which the government obliged all citizens to perform, and United States aid was distributed disproportionately to Catholic majority villages by Diệm's regime.
The Catholic Church was the largest landowner in the country and enjoyed special exemptions in property acquisition, and land owned by the Catholic Church was exempt from land reform. The white and gold Vatican flag was regularly flown at all major public events in South Vietnam, and Diệm dedicated his country to the Virgin Mary in 1959.
Buddhist discontent erupted following a ban in early May on flying the Buddhist flag in Huế on Vesak, the birthday of Gautama Buddha. Just days before, Catholics had been encouraged to fly the Vatican flag at a celebration for Archbishop Ngô Đình Thục of Huế, Diệm's elder brother. A large crowd of Buddhists protested the ban, defying the government by flying Buddhist flags on the Buddhist holy day of Vesak and marching on the government broadcasting station. Government forces fired into the crowd of protesters, killing nine people. Diệm's refusal to take responsibility—he blamed the Viet Cong for the deaths—led to further Buddhist protests and calls for religious equality. As Diem remained unwilling to comply with Buddhist demands, the frequency of protests increased.
Day of the act
On 10 June 1963, U.S. correspondents were informed that "something important" would happen the following morning on the road outside the Cambodian embassy in Saigon. Most of the reporters disregarded the message, since the Buddhist crisis had at that point been going on for more than a month, and the next day only a few journalists turned up, including David Halberstam of The New York Times and Malcolm Browne, the Saigon bureau chief for the Associated Press (AP). Quảng Đức arrived as part of a procession that had begun at a nearby pagoda. Around 350 monks and nuns marched in two phalanxes, preceded by an Austin Westminster sedan, carrying banners printed in both English and Vietnamese. They denounced the Diệm government and its policy towards Buddhists, demanding that it fulfill its promises of religious equality. Another monk offered himself, but Quảng Đức's seniority prevailed.
The act occurred at the intersection of Phan Đình Phùng Boulevard (now Nguyễn Đình Chiểu Street) and Lê Văn Duyệt Street (now Cách Mạng Tháng Tám Street) (), a few blocks southwest of the Presidential Palace (now the Reunification Palace). Quảng Đức emerged from the car along with two other monks. One placed a cushion on the road while the second opened the trunk and took out a five-gallon petrol can. As the marchers formed a circle around him, Quảng Đức calmly sat down in the traditional Buddhist meditative lotus position on the cushion. A colleague emptied the contents of the petrol container over Quảng Đức's head. Quảng Đức rotated a string of wooden prayer beads and recited the words ("Homage to Amitābha Buddha") before striking a match and dropping it on himself. Flames consumed his robes and flesh, and black oily smoke emanated from his burning body.
Quảng Đức's last words before his self-immolation were documented in a letter he had left:
David Halberstam wrote:
The spectators were mostly stunned into silence, but some wailed and several began praying. Many of the monks and nuns, as well as some shocked passersby, prostrated themselves before the burning monk. Even some of the policemen, who had orders to control the gathered crowd, prostrated before him.
In English and Vietnamese, a monk repeated into a microphone: "A Buddhist priest burns himself to death. A Buddhist priest becomes a martyr." After approximately 10 minutes, Quảng Đức's body was fully immolated and it eventually toppled backwards onto its back. Once the fire subsided, a group of monks covered the smoking corpse with yellow robes, picked it up and tried to fit it into a coffin, but the limbs could not be straightened and one of the arms protruded from the wooden box as he was carried to the nearby Xá Lợi Pagoda in central Saigon. Outside the pagoda, students unfurled bilingual banners which read: "A Buddhist priest burns himself for our five requests."
By 1:30p.m. (13:30), around 1,000 monks had congregated inside to hold a meeting, while outside a large crowd of pro-Buddhist students had formed a human barrier around it. The meeting soon ended and all but 100 monks slowly left the compound. Nearly 1,000 monks, accompanied by laypeople, returned to the cremation site. The police lingered nearby. At around 6:00p.m. (18:00), thirty nuns and six monks were arrested for holding a prayer meeting on the street outside Xá Lợi. The police encircled the pagoda, blocking public passage and giving observers the impression that an armed siege was imminent by donning riot gear.
Funeral and aftermath
After the self-immolation, the U.S. put more pressure on Diệm to re-open negotiations on the faltering agreement. Diệm had scheduled an emergency cabinet meeting at 11:30 on 11 June to discuss the Buddhist crisis which he believed to be winding down. Following Quảng Đức's death, Diệm canceled the meeting and met individually with his ministers. Acting U.S. Ambassador to South Vietnam William Trueheart warned Nguyễn Đình Thuận, Diệm's Secretary of State, of the desperate need for an agreement, saying that the situation was "dangerously near breaking point" and expected Diệm would meet the Buddhists' five-point manifesto. United States Secretary of State Dean Rusk warned the Saigon embassy that the White House would publicly announce that it would no longer "associate itself" with the regime if this did not occur. The Joint Communiqué and concessions to the Buddhists were signed on 16 June.
15 June was set as the date for the funeral, and on that day 4,000 people gathered outside the Xá Lợi pagoda, only for the ceremony to be postponed. On 19 June, his remains were carried out of Xá Lợi to a cemetery south of the city for a re-cremation and funeral ceremony. Following the signing of the Joint Communiqué, attendance was limited by agreement between Buddhist leaders and police to approximately 500 monks.
Intact heart and symbolism
The body was re-cremated during the funeral, but Quảng Đức's heart remained intact and did not burn. It was considered to be holy and placed in a glass chalice at Xá Lợi Pagoda. The intact heart relic is regarded as a symbol of compassion. Quảng Đức has subsequently been revered by Vietnamese Buddhists as a bodhisattva (Bồ Tát), and accordingly is often referred to in Vietnamese as Bồ Tát Thích Quảng Đức. On 21 August, the ARVN Special Forces of Nhu attacked Xá Lợi and other Buddhist pagodas across Vietnam. The secret police intended to confiscate Quảng Đức's ashes, but two monks had escaped with the urn, jumping over the back fence and finding safety at the U.S. Operations Mission next door. Nhu's men managed to confiscate Đức's charred heart.
The location chosen for the self-immolation, in front of the Cambodian embassy, raised questions as to whether it was coincidence or a symbolic choice. Trueheart and embassy official Charles Flowerree felt that the location was selected to show solidarity with the Cambodian government of Prince Norodom Sihanouk. South Vietnam and Cambodia had strained relations: in a speech on 22 May, Sihanouk had accused Diệm of mistreating Vietnamese and ethnic minority Khmer Buddhists. The pro-Diệm Times of Vietnam published an article on 9 June which claimed that Cambodian monks had been encouraging the Buddhist crisis, asserting it was part of a Cambodian plot to extend its neutralist foreign policy into South Vietnam. Flowerree noted that Diệm was "ready and eager to see a fine Cambodian hand in all the organized Buddhist actions".
Diệm reaction
Diệm made a radio address at 19:00 on the day of Quảng Đức's death, asserting that he was profoundly troubled by the event. He appealed for "serenity and patriotism", and announced that stalled negotiations would resume with the Buddhists. He claimed that negotiations had been progressing well and in a time of religious tension emphasized the role of the Roman Catholic philosophy of personalism in his rule. He alleged that extremists had twisted the facts and he asserted that the Buddhists can "count on the Constitution, in other words, me."
The ARVN responded to the appeal, putting on a show of solidarity behind Diệm to isolate dissident officers. Thirty high-ranking officers headed by General Lê Văn Tỵ declared their resolve to carry out all missions entrusted to the army for the defense of the constitution and the Republic. The declaration was a veneer which masked a developing plot to oust Diệm. Some of the signatories were to become personally involved in Diệm's overthrow and death in November. Generals Dương Văn Minh and Trần Văn Đôn, the presidential military advisor and the chief of the army who were to lead the coup, were overseas.
Madame Nhu (a Catholic convert from Buddhism and the wife of Diệm's younger brother and chief adviser Ngô Đình Nhu), who was regarded as the First Lady of South Vietnam at the time (as Diệm was a bachelor), said she would "clap hands at seeing another monk barbecue show". Later that month, Diệm's government charged that Quảng Đức had been drugged before being forced to commit suicide. The regime also accused Browne of bribing Quảng Đức to burn himself.
Political and media impact
Photographs taken by Malcolm Browne of the self-immolation quickly spread across the wire services and were featured on the front pages of newspapers worldwide. The self-immolation was later regarded as a turning point in the Buddhist crisis and a critical point in the collapse of the Diệm regime.
Historian Seth Jacobs asserted that Quảng Đức had "reduced America's Diệm experiment to ashes as well" and that "no amount of pleading could retrieve Diệm's reputation" once Browne's images had become ingrained into the psyche of the world public. Ellen Hammer described the event as having "evoked dark images of persecution and horror corresponding to a profoundly Asian reality that passed the understanding of Westerners." John Mecklin, an official from the U.S. embassy, noted that the photograph "had a shock effect of incalculable value to the Buddhist cause, becoming a symbol of the state of things in Vietnam." William Colby, then chief of the Central Intelligence Agency's Far East Division, opined that Diệm "handled the Buddhist crisis fairly badly and allowed it to grow. But I really don't think there was much they could have done about it once that bonze burned himself."
President John F. Kennedy, whose government was the main sponsor of Diệm's regime, learned of Quảng Đức's death when handed the morning newspapers while he was talking to his brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, on the phone. Kennedy reportedly interrupted their conversation about segregation in Alabama by exclaiming "Jesus Christ!" He later remarked that "no news picture in history has generated so much emotion around the world as that one." U.S. Senator Frank Church (D-Idaho), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, claimed that "such grisly scenes have not been witnessed since the Christian martyrs marched hand in hand into the Roman arenas."
In Europe, the photographs were sold on the streets as postcards during the 1960s, and communist China distributed millions of copies of the photograph throughout Asia and Africa as evidence of what it called US imperialism. One of Browne's photographs remains affixed to the sedan in which Quảng Đức was riding and is part of a tourist attraction in Huế.
For Browne and the AP, the pictures were a marketing success. Ray Herndon, the United Press International (UPI) correspondent who had forgotten to take his camera on the day, was harshly criticized in private by his employer. UPI estimated that 5,000 readers in Sydney, then a city of around 1.5–2 million, had switched to AP news sources.
Diệm's English-language mouthpiece, the Times of Vietnam, intensified its attacks on both journalists and Buddhists. Headlines such as "Xá Lợi politburo makes new threats" and "Monks plot murder" were printed. One article questioned the relationship between the monks and the press by posing the question as to why "so many young girls are buzzing in and out of Xá Lợi early [in the day]" and then going on to allege that they were brought in for sexual purposes for the U.S. reporters.
Browne's award-winning photograph of Quảng Đức's death has been reproduced in popular media for decades, and the incident has been used as a touchstone reference in many films and television programs.
A still photograph of Quảng Đức's self-immolation taken by Browne was used for the cover of American rap metal band Rage Against the Machine's debut album which came out in 1992, as well as the cover of their single "Killing in the Name". That same photograph was used for the cover of Canadian electronic act Delerium's debut album Faces, Forms & Illusions, which came out in 1989.
Precedents and influence
Despite the shock of the Western public, the practice of Vietnamese monks self-immolating was not unprecedented. Instances of self-immolations in Vietnam had been recorded for centuries, usually carried out to honor Gautama Buddha. The most recently recorded case had been in North Vietnam in 1950. The French colonial authorities had tried to eradicate the practice after their conquest of Vietnam in the nineteenth century, but had not been totally successful. They did manage to prevent one monk from setting fire to himself in Huế in the 1920s, but he managed to starve himself to death instead. During the 1920s and 1930s, Saigon newspapers reported multiple instances of self-immolations by monks in a matter-of-fact style. The practice had also been seen in the Chinese city of Harbin in 1948 when a monk seated down in the lotus position on a pile of sawdust and soybean oil and set fire to himself in protest against the treatment of Buddhism by the anti-religious communists of Mao Zedong. His heart remained intact, as did that of Quảng Đức.
After Quảng Đức, five more Buddhist monks self-immolated up until late October 1963 as the Buddhist protests in Vietnam escalated. On 1 November, the ARVN overthrew Diệm in a coup. Diệm and Nhu were assassinated the next day. Monks have followed Quảng Đức's example since for other reasons.
The Americans in Saigon often found the self-immolations to be surreal and made puns about "bonze fires" and "hot cross bonzes", almost as an escape mechanism from the bewilderment. In one instance in 1963, the young son of an American officer based at the Saigon U.S. Embassy doused himself with gasoline and set himself on fire. He was seriously burned before the fire was extinguished and later could only offer the explanation that "I wanted to see what it was like." Thich Quang Duc's actions were twice fatally copied in the United States in protest against the Vietnam War. On March 16, 1965, Alice Herz an 82-year-old peace activist immolated herself in front of the Federal Department Store in northwest Detroit. Later that same year, Norman Morrison, a 31-year-old Quaker pacifist, poured kerosene over himself and set light to himself below the third-floor window of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara at the Pentagon on November 2, 1965.
See also
List of civil rights leaders
List of political self-immolations
Notes
References
Bibliography
External links
– Official Buddhist monastery dedicated to Thích Quảng Đức
Vietnamese Buddhists
Buddhism in Vietnam
20th-century Buddhist monks
1897 births
1963 suicides
Date of birth unknown
People from Khánh Hòa Province
Vietnamese Buddhist monks
Buddhist crisis
History of South Vietnam
Suicides in Vietnam
1963 in Vietnam
Filmed suicides
Vietnamese people of the Vietnam War
Self-immolations by Buddhists
Articles containing video clips
People notable for being the subject of a specific photograph
Suicides by self-immolation
Buddhist martyrs
Photographs of protests | true | [
"The Magic Crystal (; released in the Philippines as Fight to Win) is a 1986 Hong Kong action film written and directed by Wong Jing. The film stars Andy Lau, Max Mok and Cynthia Rothrock.\n\nThe film introduced Rothrock to Filipino audiences (as Cindy Rothrock), with its success spawning a trend in the Philippines to re title various martial art films into Fight to Win sequels.\n\nPlot\nAn important piece of document to be presented as evidence in court the next day against triad boss has been stolen from the Hong Kong police. Due to the time constraints, Sergeant Shek (Shih Kien) of the Special Duty Unit employs mercenary Andy Lo (Andy Lau), known as the \"Eagle Hunter\", to retrieve it. Andy breaks into the triad boss's mansion where he fights his henchmen and tricks the triad boss into opening his safe where the document is hidden.\n\nLater Andy receives a letter from his archaeologist friend Shum Kwan (Philip Ko) where he discovered a mysterious artefact in Greece and wants Andy to examine it with him, but also warns him to be cautious as Shum is being tailed by international spies. Andy arrives in Greece with his nephew, Ban-ban (Siu Ban-ban), and assistant, Snooker (Wong Jing). While Andy was sightseeing at the Parthenon with Ban-ban and Snooker, he bumps into Shum. Shum is ambushed and chased down by KGB thugs posing as Interpol agents. Andy, along with actual agents Cindy Morgan (Cynthia Rothrock) and her partner (Max Mok) give chase and beat up the thugs while Shum escapes. Afterwards, Cindy and her partner reveals to Andy that they know of his identity as the Eagle Hunter and informs him of Shum's situation of being hunted by the KGB and persuades him to cooperate with them to help his friend.\n\nShum arrives at the hotel where Andy was residing but gets shot by a KGB thug posing as Andy's assistant, but manages to subdue the thug before escaping. Afterwards, Shum leaves a baggage containing the mysterious artifact in Andy's hotel room before being captured by Karov (Richard Norton), head of the KGB. Shum is then tranquillised by Karov when he refuses to tell him the whereabouts of the artefact, but Karov is able to deduce that it may be kept by Andy.\n\nAfter returning to Hong Kong, Andy's older sister (Wong Mei-mei) informs about a phone call for him made by Shum's younger sister, Winnie, and gives him an address of a gymnasium where she trains. Ban-ban also opens the luggage containing the mysterious artifact, the Magic Crystal, a large piece of jade with magical powers and can talk, and befriends the jade. Meanwhile, Andy arrives at Winnie's gymnasium she states she has no news of her brother for a month. Andy, Winnie and Lo Sai (Natalis Chan), an aggressive pursuer of Winnie, were ambushed by Karov's thugs and Andy fights them off and rescues Winnie. Winnie goes to hide in Andy's house, while Lo Sai also follows, much to everyone's annoyance.\n\nBan-ban and the jade play tricks on Lo Sai, including swapping his hands and feet and he wakes up in shock. The jade also help Ban-ban beat up a school bully. Sergeant Shek arrives and asks Andy, Winnie and Lo Sai about their attack last night, with the latter hiding the awkward swapping of his limbs. Cindy and his partner also arrive in Hong Kong and briefly speak with Andy, before encountering Karov, who demands Andy to hand over the jade, which confuses Andy. Andy fights off Karov's thug and escape with Winnie and tells Snooker to take a look at their baggage brought back from Greece. At this time, Lo Sai also discovers the jade, who swaps Lo Sai's hands and feet back to normal and gives him a superpower where he can command people to do whatever he says. However, Lo Sai did not catch that the superpower only works within five feet of the jade and he goes to rob a bank by himself and is taken to an asylum as a result.\n\nAndy then receives a call from Sergeant Shek that he as found Shum as is at his house. Andy arrives at Shek's home and finds both Shek and Shum dead while Andy was knocked unconscious. Andy wakes up and Cindy and her partner who arrest him thinking he murdered Shek. Meanwhile, Andy's sister was attacked by Karov's thug at home but she fends them off. Karov arrives and fights Andy's sister, outmatching her until Cindy arrives and join forces to fight Karov, who kidnaps Ban-ban and takes the jade.\n\nKarov then hires a thug to kill Andy with ice bullets but fails. Andy then escapes from prison helped by Cindy's partner, who reveals the plan to avoid the attention of moles in the police force. The two join with Cindy, Snooker and Andy's sister at Karov's headquarters where they fight off Karov's thug. Karov escapes after Andy engages in a fight with him but they were able to rescue Ban-ban and Cindy suggests to keep the child protected at the police station. At the police station the jade uses its power where Ban-ban leaves the station and takes the jade to Greece by himself while police mole informs Karov the whereabouts of Ban-ban before being punched by Cindy's partner.\n\nAndy, Snooker, Cindy and his partner arrive in Greece where Cindy receives intel Ban-ban paid for a boat to a mysterious island. However, Ban-ban is once again captured by Karov on his way to the island but Andy and the crew manage to follow them into a cave. Andy, Cindy, Snooker fall into an underground level full of booby traps while Cindy's partner chases Karov, and the trio find a device with the recording Venus detailing his journey to Earth and the jade, which is his technological pet, will help him return to his home planet. Karov, who has Ban-ban in his arms also hear this and a big fight between Andy, Cindy and his partner against Karov and his thugs. Andy and Cindy then join forces to fight Karov who uses a pair of sai against them until Andy delivers a devastating punch on Karov. Karov then chase Ban-ban but Andy subdues Karov with a big statue and Ban-ban is able to use the jade to help Venus return home while Karov furious jumps into the wave bringing Venus home and is transported out of Earth. The jade dies after using all its energy and bids farewell to a crying Ban-ban before it hatches a baby jade, much to the delight of the child.\n\nCast\nAndy Lau as Andy Lo (羅力), a mercenary employed by the Hong Kong police and is branded as the Eagle Hunter No. 1 (獵鷹第一號).\nMax Mok as Cindy's Interpol partner.\nCynthia Rothrock as Cindy Morgan, an Interpol agent.\nNatalis Chan as Lo Sai (老細), an aggressive pursuer of Winnie with low IQ and can be easily manipulated by the Magic Crystal.\nSiu Ban-ban as Ban-ban (彬彬), Andy's nephew who befriends the Magic Crystal.\nWong Jing as Snooker, Andy's bumbling assistant.\nSharla Cheung as Winnie Shum (沈雲妮), Shum Kwan's younger sister.\nShum Wai as a triad boss captured by Andy.\nChung Fat as the triad boss's thug who fought Andy.\nHung San-nam as the triad boss's thug who fought Andy.\nPhillip Ko as Shum Kwan (沈昆), Andy's archeologist friend who discovered the Magic Crystal in Greece and is hunted by Karov.\nWong Mei-mei as Andy's older sister and Ban-ban's mother.\nEddie Maher as Karov's thug in Greece\nTony Leung Siu-hung as Karov's thug in Greece \nRichard Norton as Karov, leader of the KGB who is after the Magic Crystal.\nShih Kien as Sergeant Shek (石探長), Andy's employer.\nShing Fui-On as a prisoner who is a friend of Andy.\nJackson Ng as Karov's thug who wears a red head band and fought Cindy and Andy's sister.\nYu Mo-lin as Maureen Yu, head coach at Winnie's gymnasium.\nAlbert Lai as a cop.\nDavid Ho as Steve's father.\n\nRelease\nThe Magic Crystal was released in the Philippines Fight to Win by Pioneer Releasing, and became a box office hit, introducing Cynthia Rothrock (credited as Cindy Rothrock) to Filipino audiences. Numerous imported films were renamed to act as sequels to the film.\n\nPhilippines Fight to Win retitling trend\nFight to Win II (original title: Righting Wrongs), released on March 17, 1987\nFight to Win Again (original title: A Book of Heroes), released on August 25, 1987\nFight to Win: New Chapter (starring \"Billy Chan\" from Bloodsport), released on July 13, 1988\nThe Last Fight to Win: The Bloody End (original title: Low Blow), released on October 13, 1988\n\nReferences\n\nSee also\nAndy Lau filmography\nWong Jing filmography\n\nExternal links\n\n1986 films\n1980s action comedy films\n1980s Cantonese-language films\n1986 action films\n1986 comedy films\n1986 martial arts films\nFilms directed by Wong Jing\nFilms set in Greece\nFilms set in Hong Kong\nFilms shot in Greece\nFilms shot in Hong Kong\nHong Kong action comedy films\nHong Kong films\nHong Kong martial arts comedy films\nKung fu films",
"The dirty protest (also called the no wash protest) was part of a five-year protest during the Troubles by Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) and Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) prisoners held in the Maze Prison (also known as \"Long Kesh\") and a protest at Armagh Women's Prison in Northern Ireland.\n\nBackground\n\nConvicted paramilitary prisoners were treated as ordinary criminals until July 1972, when Special Category Status was introduced following a hunger strike by 40 IRA prisoners led by the veteran republican Billy McKee. Special Category (or political) status meant prisoners were treated very much like prisoners of war, for example, not having to wear prison uniforms or do prison work. In 1976, as part of the policy of \"criminalisation\", the British Government brought an end to Special Category Status for paramilitary prisoners in Northern Ireland. The policy was not introduced for existing prisoners, but for those convicted after 1 March 1976.\n\nThe end to Special Category Status was a serious threat to the authority which the paramilitary leaderships inside prison had been able to exercise over their own men, as well as being a propaganda blow. The imminent withdrawal of Special Category Status caused relations between the prisoners and prison officers to deteriorate, and in early 1976 the IRA leaders in prison sent word to the IRA Army Council asking them to assassinate prison officers, stating \"We are prepared to die for political status. Those who try to take it away from us must be fully prepared to pay the same price\". Outside the prison the IRA responded by shooting prison officer Patrick Dillon in April 1976, the first of nineteen prison officers to be killed during the five-year protest. On 14 September 1976 newly convicted prisoner Kieran Nugent began the blanket protest, in which IRA and INLA prisoners refused to wear prison uniform and either went naked or fashioned garments from prison blankets.\n\nDirty protest\nIn March 1978 some prisoners refused to leave their cells to shower or use the lavatory because of attacks by prison officers, and were provided with wash-hand basins in their cells. The prisoners requested showers installed in their cells, and when this request was turned down they refused to use the wash-hand basins. At the end of April 1978 a fight occurred between a prisoner and a prison officer in H-Block 6. The prisoner was taken away to solitary confinement, and news spread across the wing that the prisoner had been badly beaten.\n\nThe prisoners responded by smashing the furniture in their cells, and the prison authorities responded by removing the remaining furniture from the cells, leaving the prisoners in cells with just blankets and mattresses. The prisoners responded by refusing to leave their cells, and as a result the prison officers were unable to clear them. This resulted in the blanket protest escalating into the dirty protest, as the prisoners could not leave their cells to \"slop out\" (i.e., empty their chamber pots), and smeared excrement on the walls of their cells. Prisoner Pat McGeown described the conditions inside the prison in a 1985 interview:\n\nThere were times when you would vomit. There were times when you were so run down that you would lie for days and not do anything with the maggots crawling all over you. The rain would be coming in the window and you would be lying there with the maggots all over the place.\n\nThe prison authorities attempted to keep the cells clean by breaking the cell windows and spraying in disinfectant, then temporarily removing the prisoners and sending in rubber-suited prison officers with steam hoses to clean the walls. However, as soon as the prisoners were returned to their cells they resumed their protest. By mid-1978 there were between 250 and 300 protesting prisoners, and the protest was attracting media attention from around the world. Tomás Ó Fiaich, the Roman Catholic Cardinal Archbishop of Armagh, visited the prison on 31 July 1978 and condemned the conditions there:\n\nHaving spent the whole of Sunday in the prison, I was shocked at the inhuman conditions prevailing in H-Blocks, three, four and five, where over 300 prisoners were incarcerated. One would hardly allow an animal to remain in such conditions, let alone a human being. The nearest approach to it that I have seen was the spectacle of hundreds of homeless people living in the sewer pipes in the slums of Calcutta. The stench and filth in some of the cells, with the remains of rotten food and human excreta scattered around the walls was almost unbearable. In two of them I was unable to speak for fear of vomiting.\n\nDespite the conditions, Ó Fiaich said the morale of the prisoners was high:\n\nFrom talking to them [he wrote] it is evident that they intend to continue their protest indefinitely and it seems they prefer to face death rather than to submit to being classed as criminals. Anyone with the least knowledge of Irish history knows how deeply this attitude is in our country's past. In isolation and perpetual boredom they maintain their sanity by studying Irish. It was an indication of the triumph of the human spirit over adverse material conditions to notice Irish words, phrases and songs being shouted from cell to cell and then written on each cell wall with the remnants of toothpaste tubes.\n\nThe protest continued with no sign of compromise from the British government, and by late 1979 nine out of ten newly arriving prisoners were choosing to join the protest. In January 1980 the prisoners issued a statement outlining what were known as the \"Five Demands\":\n\n The right not to wear a prison uniform;\n The right not to do prison work;\n The right of free association with other prisoners, and to organise educational and recreational pursuits;\n The right to one visit, one letter and one parcel per week;\n Full restoration of remission lost through the protest.\n\nIn February 1980, Mairéad Farrell and over thirty other prisoners in Armagh Women's Prison joined the dirty protest following a series of disputes with the prison governor, including allegations they had been ill-treated by male prison officers. They did not conduct a blanket protest, as women prisoners in Northern Ireland already had the right to wear their own clothes, but this did include smearing their menstrual blood on the cell walls.\n\nIn June 1980 the British government's position was strengthened when the European Commission of Human Rights rejected a case by four prisoners including Kieran Nugent that conditions inside the prison were \"inhuman\". The Commission's ruling was that the conditions were self-inflicted and \"designed to enlist sympathy for the [prisoners'] political aims'.\n\nHunger strikes\n\nOn 27 October 1980, IRA members Brendan Hughes, Tommy McKearney, Raymond McCartney, Tom McFeeley, Sean McKenna, Leo Green, and INLA member John Nixon, began a hunger strike aimed at restoring political status for paramilitary prisoners by securing the \"Five Demands\". After a 53-day hunger strike with McKenna lapsing in and out of a coma and on the brink of death, the government appeared to concede the essence of the prisoners' five demands with a 30-page document detailing a proposed settlement. With the document in transit to Belfast, Hughes took the decision to save McKenna's life and end the strike after 53 days on 18 December.\n\nIn January 1981 it became clear that the prisoners' demands had not been conceded. On 4 February the prisoners issued a statement saying that the British government had failed to resolve the crisis and declared their intention of \"hunger striking once more\". The 1981 Irish hunger strike began on 1 March when Bobby Sands refused food, and the dirty protest ended the following day. By the time the hunger strike ended on 3 October ten men, including Sands, had starved to death. Two days later, the incoming Northern Ireland Secretary, Jim Prior, announced a number of changes in prison policy, including that from then on all paramilitary prisoners would be allowed to wear their own clothes at all times.\n\nSee also\nArmagh Prison Dirty Protest\n\nReferences\n\nThe Troubles (Northern Ireland)\nProtests in Northern Ireland\nPenal system in Northern Ireland\nProtest tactics"
] |
[
"Thích Quảng Đức",
"Religious background",
"What was his religious background?",
"Buddhist",
"Was most of the country also buddhist?",
"the religious composition at the time estimated the Buddhist majority to be between 70 and 90 percent,",
"If they were the majority, then why were they being persecuted?",
"President Diem was a member of the Catholic minority, and pursued discriminatory policies favoring Catholics for public service and military promotions,",
"How did the people react to this?",
"Some Buddhist villages converted en masse to receive aid or avoid being forcibly resettled by Diem's regime.",
"So did Catholics then become the majority?",
"The Roman Catholic Church was the largest landowner in the country and enjoyed special exemptions in property acquisition,",
"Is there anything else interesting from this article?",
"Buddhist discontent erupted following a ban in early May on flying the Buddhist flag in Hue on Vesak, the birthday of Gautama Buddha.",
"Did they protest or do anything to fight the ban?",
"A large crowd of Buddhists protested the ban, defying the government by flying Buddhist flags on the Buddhist holy day of Vesak and marching on the government broadcasting station."
] | C_0113efd736a8413c95bfc18dae367505_0 | What happened to them when they protested? | 8 | What happened to the large crowd of Buddhists in Thích Quảng Đức's country when they protested? | Thích Quảng Đức | In a country where surveys of the religious composition at the time estimated the Buddhist majority to be between 70 and 90 percent, President Diem was a member of the Catholic minority, and pursued discriminatory policies favoring Catholics for public service and military promotions, as well as in the allocation of land, business arrangements and tax concessions. Diem once told a high-ranking officer, forgetting that the officer was from a Buddhist family, "Put your Catholic officers in sensitive places. They can be trusted." Many officers in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam converted to Roman Catholicism as their military prospects depended on it. Additionally, the distribution of firearms to village self-defense militias saw weapons given only to Roman Catholics, with some Buddhists in the army being denied promotion if they refused to convert to Roman Catholicism. Some Roman Catholic priests ran their own private armies, and there were forced conversions and looting, shelling, and demolition of pagodas in some areas, to which the government turned a blind eye. Some Buddhist villages converted en masse to receive aid or avoid being forcibly resettled by Diem's regime. The "private" status that was imposed on Buddhism by the French, which required official permission to be obtained by those wishing to conduct public Buddhist activities, was not repealed by Diem. Catholics were also de facto exempt from corvee labor, which the government obliged all citizens to perform, and United States aid was distributed disproportionately to Catholic majority villages by Diem's regime. The Roman Catholic Church was the largest landowner in the country and enjoyed special exemptions in property acquisition, and land owned by the Roman Catholic Church was exempt from land reform. The white and gold Vatican flag was regularly flown at all major public events in South Vietnam, and Diem dedicated his country to the Virgin Mary in 1959. Buddhist discontent erupted following a ban in early May on flying the Buddhist flag in Hue on Vesak, the birthday of Gautama Buddha. Just days before, Catholics had been encouraged to fly the Vatican flag at a celebration for Archbishop Ngo Dinh Thuc of Hue, Diem's elder brother. A large crowd of Buddhists protested the ban, defying the government by flying Buddhist flags on the Buddhist holy day of Vesak and marching on the government broadcasting station. Government forces fired into the crowd of protesters, killing nine people. Diem's refusal to take responsibility -- he blamed the Viet Cong for the deaths -- led to further Buddhist protests and calls for religious equality. As Diem remained unwilling to comply with Buddhist demands, the frequency of protests increased. CANNOTANSWER | Government forces fired into the crowd of protesters, killing nine people. | Thích Quảng Đức (; 1897 – 11 June 1963; born Lâm Văn Túc) was a Vietnamese Mahayana Buddhist monk who burned himself to death at a busy Saigon road intersection on 11 June 1963. Quảng Đức was protesting the persecution of Buddhists by the South Vietnamese government led by Ngô Đình Diệm, a staunch Roman Catholic. Photographs of his self-immolation circulated around the world, drawing attention to the policies of the Diệm government. John F. Kennedy said of one photograph, "No news picture in history has generated so much emotion around the world as that one." Malcolm Browne won a Pulitzer Prize for his photograph of the monk's death.
Quảng Đức's act increased international pressure on Diệm and led him to announce reforms with the intention of mollifying the Buddhists. However, the promised reforms were not implemented, leading to a deterioration in the dispute. As protests continued, the ARVN Special Forces loyal to Diệm's brother, Ngô Đình Nhu, launched raids across South Vietnam on Buddhist pagodas, seizing Quảng Đức's heart and causing deaths and widespread damage. Several Buddhist monks followed Quảng Đức's example, also immolating themselves. Eventually, a U.S.-backed coup toppled Diệm, who was assassinated on 2 November 1963.
Biography
Accounts of the life of Quảng Đức are derived from information disseminated by Buddhist organizations. He was born in the village of Hội Khánh, in Vạn Ninh District of Khánh Hòa Province in central Vietnam as Lâm Văn Túc, one of seven children of Lâm Hữu Ứng and his wife, Nguyễn Thị Nương. At the age of seven, he left to study Buddhism under Hòa thượng Thích Hoằng Thâm, who was his maternal uncle and spiritual master. Thích Hoằng Thâm raised him as a son and Lâm Văn Túc changed his name to Nguyễn Văn Khiết. At age 15, he took the samanera (novice) vows and was ordained as a monk at age 20 under the dharma name Thích Quảng Đức. The Vietnamese name Thích (釋) is from "Thích Ca" or "Thích Già" (釋迦), means "of the Shakya clan." After ordination, he traveled to a mountain near Ninh Hòa, vowing to live the life of a solitary Buddhism-practicing hermit for three years. He returned in later life to open the Thien Loc pagoda at his mountain retreat.
After his self-imposed isolation ended, he began to travel around central Vietnam expounding the dharma. After two years, he went into retreat at the Sac Tu Thien An pagoda near Nha Trang. In 1932, he was appointed an inspector for the Buddhist Association in Ninh Hòa before becoming the inspector of monks in his home province of Khánh Hòa. During this period in central Vietnam, he was responsible for the construction of 14 temples. In 1934, he moved to southern Vietnam and traveled throughout the provinces spreading Buddhist teachings. During his time in southern Vietnam, he also spent two years in Cambodia studying the Theravada Buddhist tradition.
Upon his return from Cambodia, he oversaw the construction of a further 17 new temples during his time in the south. The last of the 31 new temples that he was responsible for constructing was the Quan The Am pagoda in the Phú Nhuận District of Gia Định Province on the outskirts of Saigon. The street on which the temple stands was later renamed Quảng Đức Street in 1975. After the temple-building phase, Quảng Đức was appointed to serve as the Chairman of the Panel on Ceremonial Rites of the Congregation of Vietnamese Monks, and as abbot of the Phuoc Hoa pagoda, which was the initial location of the Association for Buddhist Studies of Vietnam (ABSV). When the office of the ABSV was relocated to the Xá Lợi Pagoda, the main pagoda of Saigon, Quảng Đức resigned.
Self-immolation
Religious background
In a country where surveys of the religious composition at the time estimated the Buddhist majority to be between 70 and 90 percent, President Diệm was a member of the Catholic minority, and pursued discriminatory policies favoring Catholics for public service and military promotions, as well as in the allocation of land, business arrangements and tax concessions. Diệm once told a high-ranking officer, forgetting that the officer was from a Buddhist family, "Put your Catholic officers in sensitive places. They can be trusted." Many officers in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) converted to Roman Catholicism as their military prospects depended on it. Additionally, the distribution of firearms to village self-defense militias saw weapons given only to Roman Catholics, with some Buddhists in the army being denied promotion if they refused to convert to Roman Catholicism.
Some Catholic priests ran their own private armies, and there were forced conversions and looting, shelling, and demolition of pagodas in some areas, to which the government turned a blind eye. Some Buddhist villages converted en masse to receive aid or avoid being forcibly resettled by Diệm's regime. The "private" status that was imposed on Buddhism by the French, which required official permission to be obtained by those wishing to conduct public Buddhist activities, was not repealed by Diệm. Catholics were also de facto exempt from corvée labor, which the government obliged all citizens to perform, and United States aid was distributed disproportionately to Catholic majority villages by Diệm's regime.
The Catholic Church was the largest landowner in the country and enjoyed special exemptions in property acquisition, and land owned by the Catholic Church was exempt from land reform. The white and gold Vatican flag was regularly flown at all major public events in South Vietnam, and Diệm dedicated his country to the Virgin Mary in 1959.
Buddhist discontent erupted following a ban in early May on flying the Buddhist flag in Huế on Vesak, the birthday of Gautama Buddha. Just days before, Catholics had been encouraged to fly the Vatican flag at a celebration for Archbishop Ngô Đình Thục of Huế, Diệm's elder brother. A large crowd of Buddhists protested the ban, defying the government by flying Buddhist flags on the Buddhist holy day of Vesak and marching on the government broadcasting station. Government forces fired into the crowd of protesters, killing nine people. Diệm's refusal to take responsibility—he blamed the Viet Cong for the deaths—led to further Buddhist protests and calls for religious equality. As Diem remained unwilling to comply with Buddhist demands, the frequency of protests increased.
Day of the act
On 10 June 1963, U.S. correspondents were informed that "something important" would happen the following morning on the road outside the Cambodian embassy in Saigon. Most of the reporters disregarded the message, since the Buddhist crisis had at that point been going on for more than a month, and the next day only a few journalists turned up, including David Halberstam of The New York Times and Malcolm Browne, the Saigon bureau chief for the Associated Press (AP). Quảng Đức arrived as part of a procession that had begun at a nearby pagoda. Around 350 monks and nuns marched in two phalanxes, preceded by an Austin Westminster sedan, carrying banners printed in both English and Vietnamese. They denounced the Diệm government and its policy towards Buddhists, demanding that it fulfill its promises of religious equality. Another monk offered himself, but Quảng Đức's seniority prevailed.
The act occurred at the intersection of Phan Đình Phùng Boulevard (now Nguyễn Đình Chiểu Street) and Lê Văn Duyệt Street (now Cách Mạng Tháng Tám Street) (), a few blocks southwest of the Presidential Palace (now the Reunification Palace). Quảng Đức emerged from the car along with two other monks. One placed a cushion on the road while the second opened the trunk and took out a five-gallon petrol can. As the marchers formed a circle around him, Quảng Đức calmly sat down in the traditional Buddhist meditative lotus position on the cushion. A colleague emptied the contents of the petrol container over Quảng Đức's head. Quảng Đức rotated a string of wooden prayer beads and recited the words ("Homage to Amitābha Buddha") before striking a match and dropping it on himself. Flames consumed his robes and flesh, and black oily smoke emanated from his burning body.
Quảng Đức's last words before his self-immolation were documented in a letter he had left:
David Halberstam wrote:
The spectators were mostly stunned into silence, but some wailed and several began praying. Many of the monks and nuns, as well as some shocked passersby, prostrated themselves before the burning monk. Even some of the policemen, who had orders to control the gathered crowd, prostrated before him.
In English and Vietnamese, a monk repeated into a microphone: "A Buddhist priest burns himself to death. A Buddhist priest becomes a martyr." After approximately 10 minutes, Quảng Đức's body was fully immolated and it eventually toppled backwards onto its back. Once the fire subsided, a group of monks covered the smoking corpse with yellow robes, picked it up and tried to fit it into a coffin, but the limbs could not be straightened and one of the arms protruded from the wooden box as he was carried to the nearby Xá Lợi Pagoda in central Saigon. Outside the pagoda, students unfurled bilingual banners which read: "A Buddhist priest burns himself for our five requests."
By 1:30p.m. (13:30), around 1,000 monks had congregated inside to hold a meeting, while outside a large crowd of pro-Buddhist students had formed a human barrier around it. The meeting soon ended and all but 100 monks slowly left the compound. Nearly 1,000 monks, accompanied by laypeople, returned to the cremation site. The police lingered nearby. At around 6:00p.m. (18:00), thirty nuns and six monks were arrested for holding a prayer meeting on the street outside Xá Lợi. The police encircled the pagoda, blocking public passage and giving observers the impression that an armed siege was imminent by donning riot gear.
Funeral and aftermath
After the self-immolation, the U.S. put more pressure on Diệm to re-open negotiations on the faltering agreement. Diệm had scheduled an emergency cabinet meeting at 11:30 on 11 June to discuss the Buddhist crisis which he believed to be winding down. Following Quảng Đức's death, Diệm canceled the meeting and met individually with his ministers. Acting U.S. Ambassador to South Vietnam William Trueheart warned Nguyễn Đình Thuận, Diệm's Secretary of State, of the desperate need for an agreement, saying that the situation was "dangerously near breaking point" and expected Diệm would meet the Buddhists' five-point manifesto. United States Secretary of State Dean Rusk warned the Saigon embassy that the White House would publicly announce that it would no longer "associate itself" with the regime if this did not occur. The Joint Communiqué and concessions to the Buddhists were signed on 16 June.
15 June was set as the date for the funeral, and on that day 4,000 people gathered outside the Xá Lợi pagoda, only for the ceremony to be postponed. On 19 June, his remains were carried out of Xá Lợi to a cemetery south of the city for a re-cremation and funeral ceremony. Following the signing of the Joint Communiqué, attendance was limited by agreement between Buddhist leaders and police to approximately 500 monks.
Intact heart and symbolism
The body was re-cremated during the funeral, but Quảng Đức's heart remained intact and did not burn. It was considered to be holy and placed in a glass chalice at Xá Lợi Pagoda. The intact heart relic is regarded as a symbol of compassion. Quảng Đức has subsequently been revered by Vietnamese Buddhists as a bodhisattva (Bồ Tát), and accordingly is often referred to in Vietnamese as Bồ Tát Thích Quảng Đức. On 21 August, the ARVN Special Forces of Nhu attacked Xá Lợi and other Buddhist pagodas across Vietnam. The secret police intended to confiscate Quảng Đức's ashes, but two monks had escaped with the urn, jumping over the back fence and finding safety at the U.S. Operations Mission next door. Nhu's men managed to confiscate Đức's charred heart.
The location chosen for the self-immolation, in front of the Cambodian embassy, raised questions as to whether it was coincidence or a symbolic choice. Trueheart and embassy official Charles Flowerree felt that the location was selected to show solidarity with the Cambodian government of Prince Norodom Sihanouk. South Vietnam and Cambodia had strained relations: in a speech on 22 May, Sihanouk had accused Diệm of mistreating Vietnamese and ethnic minority Khmer Buddhists. The pro-Diệm Times of Vietnam published an article on 9 June which claimed that Cambodian monks had been encouraging the Buddhist crisis, asserting it was part of a Cambodian plot to extend its neutralist foreign policy into South Vietnam. Flowerree noted that Diệm was "ready and eager to see a fine Cambodian hand in all the organized Buddhist actions".
Diệm reaction
Diệm made a radio address at 19:00 on the day of Quảng Đức's death, asserting that he was profoundly troubled by the event. He appealed for "serenity and patriotism", and announced that stalled negotiations would resume with the Buddhists. He claimed that negotiations had been progressing well and in a time of religious tension emphasized the role of the Roman Catholic philosophy of personalism in his rule. He alleged that extremists had twisted the facts and he asserted that the Buddhists can "count on the Constitution, in other words, me."
The ARVN responded to the appeal, putting on a show of solidarity behind Diệm to isolate dissident officers. Thirty high-ranking officers headed by General Lê Văn Tỵ declared their resolve to carry out all missions entrusted to the army for the defense of the constitution and the Republic. The declaration was a veneer which masked a developing plot to oust Diệm. Some of the signatories were to become personally involved in Diệm's overthrow and death in November. Generals Dương Văn Minh and Trần Văn Đôn, the presidential military advisor and the chief of the army who were to lead the coup, were overseas.
Madame Nhu (a Catholic convert from Buddhism and the wife of Diệm's younger brother and chief adviser Ngô Đình Nhu), who was regarded as the First Lady of South Vietnam at the time (as Diệm was a bachelor), said she would "clap hands at seeing another monk barbecue show". Later that month, Diệm's government charged that Quảng Đức had been drugged before being forced to commit suicide. The regime also accused Browne of bribing Quảng Đức to burn himself.
Political and media impact
Photographs taken by Malcolm Browne of the self-immolation quickly spread across the wire services and were featured on the front pages of newspapers worldwide. The self-immolation was later regarded as a turning point in the Buddhist crisis and a critical point in the collapse of the Diệm regime.
Historian Seth Jacobs asserted that Quảng Đức had "reduced America's Diệm experiment to ashes as well" and that "no amount of pleading could retrieve Diệm's reputation" once Browne's images had become ingrained into the psyche of the world public. Ellen Hammer described the event as having "evoked dark images of persecution and horror corresponding to a profoundly Asian reality that passed the understanding of Westerners." John Mecklin, an official from the U.S. embassy, noted that the photograph "had a shock effect of incalculable value to the Buddhist cause, becoming a symbol of the state of things in Vietnam." William Colby, then chief of the Central Intelligence Agency's Far East Division, opined that Diệm "handled the Buddhist crisis fairly badly and allowed it to grow. But I really don't think there was much they could have done about it once that bonze burned himself."
President John F. Kennedy, whose government was the main sponsor of Diệm's regime, learned of Quảng Đức's death when handed the morning newspapers while he was talking to his brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, on the phone. Kennedy reportedly interrupted their conversation about segregation in Alabama by exclaiming "Jesus Christ!" He later remarked that "no news picture in history has generated so much emotion around the world as that one." U.S. Senator Frank Church (D-Idaho), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, claimed that "such grisly scenes have not been witnessed since the Christian martyrs marched hand in hand into the Roman arenas."
In Europe, the photographs were sold on the streets as postcards during the 1960s, and communist China distributed millions of copies of the photograph throughout Asia and Africa as evidence of what it called US imperialism. One of Browne's photographs remains affixed to the sedan in which Quảng Đức was riding and is part of a tourist attraction in Huế.
For Browne and the AP, the pictures were a marketing success. Ray Herndon, the United Press International (UPI) correspondent who had forgotten to take his camera on the day, was harshly criticized in private by his employer. UPI estimated that 5,000 readers in Sydney, then a city of around 1.5–2 million, had switched to AP news sources.
Diệm's English-language mouthpiece, the Times of Vietnam, intensified its attacks on both journalists and Buddhists. Headlines such as "Xá Lợi politburo makes new threats" and "Monks plot murder" were printed. One article questioned the relationship between the monks and the press by posing the question as to why "so many young girls are buzzing in and out of Xá Lợi early [in the day]" and then going on to allege that they were brought in for sexual purposes for the U.S. reporters.
Browne's award-winning photograph of Quảng Đức's death has been reproduced in popular media for decades, and the incident has been used as a touchstone reference in many films and television programs.
A still photograph of Quảng Đức's self-immolation taken by Browne was used for the cover of American rap metal band Rage Against the Machine's debut album which came out in 1992, as well as the cover of their single "Killing in the Name". That same photograph was used for the cover of Canadian electronic act Delerium's debut album Faces, Forms & Illusions, which came out in 1989.
Precedents and influence
Despite the shock of the Western public, the practice of Vietnamese monks self-immolating was not unprecedented. Instances of self-immolations in Vietnam had been recorded for centuries, usually carried out to honor Gautama Buddha. The most recently recorded case had been in North Vietnam in 1950. The French colonial authorities had tried to eradicate the practice after their conquest of Vietnam in the nineteenth century, but had not been totally successful. They did manage to prevent one monk from setting fire to himself in Huế in the 1920s, but he managed to starve himself to death instead. During the 1920s and 1930s, Saigon newspapers reported multiple instances of self-immolations by monks in a matter-of-fact style. The practice had also been seen in the Chinese city of Harbin in 1948 when a monk seated down in the lotus position on a pile of sawdust and soybean oil and set fire to himself in protest against the treatment of Buddhism by the anti-religious communists of Mao Zedong. His heart remained intact, as did that of Quảng Đức.
After Quảng Đức, five more Buddhist monks self-immolated up until late October 1963 as the Buddhist protests in Vietnam escalated. On 1 November, the ARVN overthrew Diệm in a coup. Diệm and Nhu were assassinated the next day. Monks have followed Quảng Đức's example since for other reasons.
The Americans in Saigon often found the self-immolations to be surreal and made puns about "bonze fires" and "hot cross bonzes", almost as an escape mechanism from the bewilderment. In one instance in 1963, the young son of an American officer based at the Saigon U.S. Embassy doused himself with gasoline and set himself on fire. He was seriously burned before the fire was extinguished and later could only offer the explanation that "I wanted to see what it was like." Thich Quang Duc's actions were twice fatally copied in the United States in protest against the Vietnam War. On March 16, 1965, Alice Herz an 82-year-old peace activist immolated herself in front of the Federal Department Store in northwest Detroit. Later that same year, Norman Morrison, a 31-year-old Quaker pacifist, poured kerosene over himself and set light to himself below the third-floor window of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara at the Pentagon on November 2, 1965.
See also
List of civil rights leaders
List of political self-immolations
Notes
References
Bibliography
External links
– Official Buddhist monastery dedicated to Thích Quảng Đức
Vietnamese Buddhists
Buddhism in Vietnam
20th-century Buddhist monks
1897 births
1963 suicides
Date of birth unknown
People from Khánh Hòa Province
Vietnamese Buddhist monks
Buddhist crisis
History of South Vietnam
Suicides in Vietnam
1963 in Vietnam
Filmed suicides
Vietnamese people of the Vietnam War
Self-immolations by Buddhists
Articles containing video clips
People notable for being the subject of a specific photograph
Suicides by self-immolation
Buddhist martyrs
Photographs of protests | true | [
"Don Juan Manuel's Tales of Count Lucanor, in Spanish Libro de los ejemplos del conde Lucanor y de Patronio (Book of the Examples of Count Lucanor and of Patronio), also commonly known as El Conde Lucanor, Libro de Patronio, or Libro de los ejemplos (original Old Castilian: Libro de los enxiemplos del Conde Lucanor et de Patronio), is one of the earliest works of prose in Castilian Spanish. It was first written in 1335.\n\nThe book is divided into four parts. The first and most well-known part is a series of 51 short stories (some no more than a page or two) drawn from various sources, such as Aesop and other classical writers, and Arabic folktales.\n\nTales of Count Lucanor was first printed in 1575 when it was published at Seville under the auspices of Argote de Molina. It was again printed at Madrid in 1642, after which it lay forgotten for nearly two centuries.\n\nPurpose and structure\n\nA didactic, moralistic purpose, which would color so much of the Spanish literature to follow (see Novela picaresca), is the mark of this book. Count Lucanor engages in conversation with his advisor Patronio, putting to him a problem (\"Some man has made me a proposition...\" or \"I fear that such and such person intends to...\") and asking for advice. Patronio responds always with the greatest humility, claiming not to wish to offer advice to so illustrious a person as the Count, but offering to tell him a story of which the Count's problem reminds him. (Thus, the stories are \"examples\" [ejemplos] of wise action.) At the end he advises the Count to do as the protagonist of his story did.\n\nEach chapter ends in more or less the same way, with slight variations on: \"And this pleased the Count greatly and he did just so, and found it well. And Don Johán (Juan) saw that this example was very good, and had it written in this book, and composed the following verses.\" A rhymed couplet closes, giving the moral of the story.\n\nOrigin of stories and influence on later literature\nMany of the stories written in the book are the first examples written in a modern European language of various stories, which many other writers would use in the proceeding centuries. Many of the stories he included were themselves derived from other stories, coming from western and Arab sources.\n\nShakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew has the basic elements of Tale 35, \"What Happened to a Young Man Who Married a Strong and Ill-tempered Woman\".\n\nTale 32, \"What Happened to the King and the Tricksters Who Made Cloth\" tells the story that Hans Christian Andersen made popular as The Emperor's New Clothes.\n\nStory 7, \"What Happened to a Woman Named Truhana\", a version of Aesop's The Milkmaid and Her Pail, was claimed by Max Müller to originate in the Hindu cycle Panchatantra.\n\nTale 2, \"What happened to a good Man and his Son, leading a beast to market,\" is the familiar fable The miller, his son and the donkey.\n\nIn 2016, Baroque Decay released a game under the name \"The Count Lucanor\". As well as some protagonists' names, certain events from the books inspired past events in the game.\n\nThe stories\n\nThe book opens with a prologue which introduces the characters of the Count and Patronio. The titles in the following list are those given in Keller and Keating's 1977 translation into English. James York's 1868 translation into English gives a significantly different ordering of the stories and omits the fifty-first.\n\n What Happened to a King and His Favorite \n What Happened to a Good Man and His Son \n How King Richard of England Leapt into the Sea against the Moors\n What a Genoese Said to His Soul When He Was about to Die \n What Happened to a Fox and a Crow Who Had a Piece of Cheese in His Beak\n How the Swallow Warned the Other Birds When She Saw Flax Being Sown \n What Happened to a Woman Named Truhana \n What Happened to a Man Whose Liver Had to Be Washed \n What Happened to Two Horses Which Were Thrown to the Lion \n What Happened to a Man Who on Account of Poverty and Lack of Other Food Was Eating Bitter Lentils \n What Happened to a Dean of Santiago de Compostela and Don Yllán, the Grand Master of Toledo\n What Happened to the Fox and the Rooster \n What Happened to a Man Who Was Hunting Partridges \n The Miracle of Saint Dominick When He Preached against the Usurer \n What Happened to Lorenzo Suárez at the Siege of Seville \n The Reply that count Fernán González Gave to His Relative Núño Laynes \n What Happened to a Very Hungry Man Who Was Half-heartedly Invited to Dinner \n What Happened to Pero Meléndez de Valdés When He Broke His Leg \n What Happened to the Crows and the Owls \n What Happened to a King for Whom a Man Promised to Perform Alchemy \n What Happened to a Young King and a Philosopher to Whom his Father Commended Him \n What Happened to the Lion and the Bull \n How the Ants Provide for Themselves \n What Happened to the King Who Wanted to Test His Three Sons \n What Happened to the Count of Provence and How He Was Freed from Prison by the Advice of Saladin\n What Happened to the Tree of Lies \n What Happened to an Emperor and to Don Alvarfáñez Minaya and Their Wives \n What Happened in Granada to Don Lorenzo Suárez Gallinato When He Beheaded the Renegade Chaplain \n What Happened to a Fox Who Lay down in the Street to Play Dead \n What Happened to King Abenabet of Seville and Ramayquía His Wife \n How a Cardinal Judged between the Canons of Paris and the Friars Minor \n What Happened to the King and the Tricksters Who Made Cloth \n What Happened to Don Juan Manuel's Saker Falcon and an Eagle and a Heron \n What Happened to a Blind Man Who Was Leading Another \n What Happened to a Young Man Who Married a Strong and Ill-tempered Woman\n What Happened to a Merchant When He Found His Son and His Wife Sleeping Together \n What Happened to Count Fernán González with His Men after He Had Won the Battle of Hacinas \n What Happened to a Man Who Was Loaded down with Precious Stones and Drowned in the River \n What Happened to a Man and a Swallow and a Sparrow \n Why the Seneschal of Carcassonne Lost His Soul \n What Happened to a King of Córdova Named Al-Haquem \n What Happened to a Woman of Sham Piety \n What Happened to Good and Evil and the Wise Man and the Madman \n What Happened to Don Pero Núñez the Loyal, to Don Ruy González de Zavallos, and to Don Gutier Roiz de Blaguiello with Don Rodrigo the Generous \n What Happened to a Man Who Became the Devil's Friend and Vassal \n What Happened to a Philosopher who by Accident Went down a Street Where Prostitutes Lived \n What Befell a Moor and His Sister Who Pretended That She Was Timid \n What Happened to a Man Who Tested His Friends \n What Happened to the Man Whom They Cast out Naked on an Island When They Took away from Him the Kingdom He Ruled \n What Happened to Saladin and a Lady, the Wife of a Knight Who Was His Vassal \n What Happened to a Christian King Who Was Very Powerful and Haughty\n\nReferences\n\nNotes\n\nBibliography\n\n Sturm, Harlan\n\n Wacks, David\n\nExternal links\n\nThe Internet Archive provides free access to the 1868 translation by James York.\nJSTOR has the to the 1977 translation by Keller and Keating.\nSelections in English and Spanish (pedagogical edition) with introduction, notes, and bibliography in Open Iberia/América (open access teaching anthology)\n\n14th-century books\nSpanish literature\n1335 books",
"What Happened to Jones may refer to:\n What Happened to Jones (1897 play), a play by George Broadhurst\n What Happened to Jones (1915 film), a lost silent film\n What Happened to Jones (1920 film), a lost silent film\n What Happened to Jones (1926 film), a silent film comedy"
] |
[
"Thích Quảng Đức",
"Religious background",
"What was his religious background?",
"Buddhist",
"Was most of the country also buddhist?",
"the religious composition at the time estimated the Buddhist majority to be between 70 and 90 percent,",
"If they were the majority, then why were they being persecuted?",
"President Diem was a member of the Catholic minority, and pursued discriminatory policies favoring Catholics for public service and military promotions,",
"How did the people react to this?",
"Some Buddhist villages converted en masse to receive aid or avoid being forcibly resettled by Diem's regime.",
"So did Catholics then become the majority?",
"The Roman Catholic Church was the largest landowner in the country and enjoyed special exemptions in property acquisition,",
"Is there anything else interesting from this article?",
"Buddhist discontent erupted following a ban in early May on flying the Buddhist flag in Hue on Vesak, the birthday of Gautama Buddha.",
"Did they protest or do anything to fight the ban?",
"A large crowd of Buddhists protested the ban, defying the government by flying Buddhist flags on the Buddhist holy day of Vesak and marching on the government broadcasting station.",
"What happened to them when they protested?",
"Government forces fired into the crowd of protesters, killing nine people."
] | C_0113efd736a8413c95bfc18dae367505_0 | What was the reaction to those killings? | 9 | What was the reaction to the killings? | Thích Quảng Đức | In a country where surveys of the religious composition at the time estimated the Buddhist majority to be between 70 and 90 percent, President Diem was a member of the Catholic minority, and pursued discriminatory policies favoring Catholics for public service and military promotions, as well as in the allocation of land, business arrangements and tax concessions. Diem once told a high-ranking officer, forgetting that the officer was from a Buddhist family, "Put your Catholic officers in sensitive places. They can be trusted." Many officers in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam converted to Roman Catholicism as their military prospects depended on it. Additionally, the distribution of firearms to village self-defense militias saw weapons given only to Roman Catholics, with some Buddhists in the army being denied promotion if they refused to convert to Roman Catholicism. Some Roman Catholic priests ran their own private armies, and there were forced conversions and looting, shelling, and demolition of pagodas in some areas, to which the government turned a blind eye. Some Buddhist villages converted en masse to receive aid or avoid being forcibly resettled by Diem's regime. The "private" status that was imposed on Buddhism by the French, which required official permission to be obtained by those wishing to conduct public Buddhist activities, was not repealed by Diem. Catholics were also de facto exempt from corvee labor, which the government obliged all citizens to perform, and United States aid was distributed disproportionately to Catholic majority villages by Diem's regime. The Roman Catholic Church was the largest landowner in the country and enjoyed special exemptions in property acquisition, and land owned by the Roman Catholic Church was exempt from land reform. The white and gold Vatican flag was regularly flown at all major public events in South Vietnam, and Diem dedicated his country to the Virgin Mary in 1959. Buddhist discontent erupted following a ban in early May on flying the Buddhist flag in Hue on Vesak, the birthday of Gautama Buddha. Just days before, Catholics had been encouraged to fly the Vatican flag at a celebration for Archbishop Ngo Dinh Thuc of Hue, Diem's elder brother. A large crowd of Buddhists protested the ban, defying the government by flying Buddhist flags on the Buddhist holy day of Vesak and marching on the government broadcasting station. Government forces fired into the crowd of protesters, killing nine people. Diem's refusal to take responsibility -- he blamed the Viet Cong for the deaths -- led to further Buddhist protests and calls for religious equality. As Diem remained unwilling to comply with Buddhist demands, the frequency of protests increased. CANNOTANSWER | Diem's refusal to take responsibility -- he blamed the Viet Cong for the deaths -- led to further Buddhist protests and calls for religious equality. | Thích Quảng Đức (; 1897 – 11 June 1963; born Lâm Văn Túc) was a Vietnamese Mahayana Buddhist monk who burned himself to death at a busy Saigon road intersection on 11 June 1963. Quảng Đức was protesting the persecution of Buddhists by the South Vietnamese government led by Ngô Đình Diệm, a staunch Roman Catholic. Photographs of his self-immolation circulated around the world, drawing attention to the policies of the Diệm government. John F. Kennedy said of one photograph, "No news picture in history has generated so much emotion around the world as that one." Malcolm Browne won a Pulitzer Prize for his photograph of the monk's death.
Quảng Đức's act increased international pressure on Diệm and led him to announce reforms with the intention of mollifying the Buddhists. However, the promised reforms were not implemented, leading to a deterioration in the dispute. As protests continued, the ARVN Special Forces loyal to Diệm's brother, Ngô Đình Nhu, launched raids across South Vietnam on Buddhist pagodas, seizing Quảng Đức's heart and causing deaths and widespread damage. Several Buddhist monks followed Quảng Đức's example, also immolating themselves. Eventually, a U.S.-backed coup toppled Diệm, who was assassinated on 2 November 1963.
Biography
Accounts of the life of Quảng Đức are derived from information disseminated by Buddhist organizations. He was born in the village of Hội Khánh, in Vạn Ninh District of Khánh Hòa Province in central Vietnam as Lâm Văn Túc, one of seven children of Lâm Hữu Ứng and his wife, Nguyễn Thị Nương. At the age of seven, he left to study Buddhism under Hòa thượng Thích Hoằng Thâm, who was his maternal uncle and spiritual master. Thích Hoằng Thâm raised him as a son and Lâm Văn Túc changed his name to Nguyễn Văn Khiết. At age 15, he took the samanera (novice) vows and was ordained as a monk at age 20 under the dharma name Thích Quảng Đức. The Vietnamese name Thích (釋) is from "Thích Ca" or "Thích Già" (釋迦), means "of the Shakya clan." After ordination, he traveled to a mountain near Ninh Hòa, vowing to live the life of a solitary Buddhism-practicing hermit for three years. He returned in later life to open the Thien Loc pagoda at his mountain retreat.
After his self-imposed isolation ended, he began to travel around central Vietnam expounding the dharma. After two years, he went into retreat at the Sac Tu Thien An pagoda near Nha Trang. In 1932, he was appointed an inspector for the Buddhist Association in Ninh Hòa before becoming the inspector of monks in his home province of Khánh Hòa. During this period in central Vietnam, he was responsible for the construction of 14 temples. In 1934, he moved to southern Vietnam and traveled throughout the provinces spreading Buddhist teachings. During his time in southern Vietnam, he also spent two years in Cambodia studying the Theravada Buddhist tradition.
Upon his return from Cambodia, he oversaw the construction of a further 17 new temples during his time in the south. The last of the 31 new temples that he was responsible for constructing was the Quan The Am pagoda in the Phú Nhuận District of Gia Định Province on the outskirts of Saigon. The street on which the temple stands was later renamed Quảng Đức Street in 1975. After the temple-building phase, Quảng Đức was appointed to serve as the Chairman of the Panel on Ceremonial Rites of the Congregation of Vietnamese Monks, and as abbot of the Phuoc Hoa pagoda, which was the initial location of the Association for Buddhist Studies of Vietnam (ABSV). When the office of the ABSV was relocated to the Xá Lợi Pagoda, the main pagoda of Saigon, Quảng Đức resigned.
Self-immolation
Religious background
In a country where surveys of the religious composition at the time estimated the Buddhist majority to be between 70 and 90 percent, President Diệm was a member of the Catholic minority, and pursued discriminatory policies favoring Catholics for public service and military promotions, as well as in the allocation of land, business arrangements and tax concessions. Diệm once told a high-ranking officer, forgetting that the officer was from a Buddhist family, "Put your Catholic officers in sensitive places. They can be trusted." Many officers in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) converted to Roman Catholicism as their military prospects depended on it. Additionally, the distribution of firearms to village self-defense militias saw weapons given only to Roman Catholics, with some Buddhists in the army being denied promotion if they refused to convert to Roman Catholicism.
Some Catholic priests ran their own private armies, and there were forced conversions and looting, shelling, and demolition of pagodas in some areas, to which the government turned a blind eye. Some Buddhist villages converted en masse to receive aid or avoid being forcibly resettled by Diệm's regime. The "private" status that was imposed on Buddhism by the French, which required official permission to be obtained by those wishing to conduct public Buddhist activities, was not repealed by Diệm. Catholics were also de facto exempt from corvée labor, which the government obliged all citizens to perform, and United States aid was distributed disproportionately to Catholic majority villages by Diệm's regime.
The Catholic Church was the largest landowner in the country and enjoyed special exemptions in property acquisition, and land owned by the Catholic Church was exempt from land reform. The white and gold Vatican flag was regularly flown at all major public events in South Vietnam, and Diệm dedicated his country to the Virgin Mary in 1959.
Buddhist discontent erupted following a ban in early May on flying the Buddhist flag in Huế on Vesak, the birthday of Gautama Buddha. Just days before, Catholics had been encouraged to fly the Vatican flag at a celebration for Archbishop Ngô Đình Thục of Huế, Diệm's elder brother. A large crowd of Buddhists protested the ban, defying the government by flying Buddhist flags on the Buddhist holy day of Vesak and marching on the government broadcasting station. Government forces fired into the crowd of protesters, killing nine people. Diệm's refusal to take responsibility—he blamed the Viet Cong for the deaths—led to further Buddhist protests and calls for religious equality. As Diem remained unwilling to comply with Buddhist demands, the frequency of protests increased.
Day of the act
On 10 June 1963, U.S. correspondents were informed that "something important" would happen the following morning on the road outside the Cambodian embassy in Saigon. Most of the reporters disregarded the message, since the Buddhist crisis had at that point been going on for more than a month, and the next day only a few journalists turned up, including David Halberstam of The New York Times and Malcolm Browne, the Saigon bureau chief for the Associated Press (AP). Quảng Đức arrived as part of a procession that had begun at a nearby pagoda. Around 350 monks and nuns marched in two phalanxes, preceded by an Austin Westminster sedan, carrying banners printed in both English and Vietnamese. They denounced the Diệm government and its policy towards Buddhists, demanding that it fulfill its promises of religious equality. Another monk offered himself, but Quảng Đức's seniority prevailed.
The act occurred at the intersection of Phan Đình Phùng Boulevard (now Nguyễn Đình Chiểu Street) and Lê Văn Duyệt Street (now Cách Mạng Tháng Tám Street) (), a few blocks southwest of the Presidential Palace (now the Reunification Palace). Quảng Đức emerged from the car along with two other monks. One placed a cushion on the road while the second opened the trunk and took out a five-gallon petrol can. As the marchers formed a circle around him, Quảng Đức calmly sat down in the traditional Buddhist meditative lotus position on the cushion. A colleague emptied the contents of the petrol container over Quảng Đức's head. Quảng Đức rotated a string of wooden prayer beads and recited the words ("Homage to Amitābha Buddha") before striking a match and dropping it on himself. Flames consumed his robes and flesh, and black oily smoke emanated from his burning body.
Quảng Đức's last words before his self-immolation were documented in a letter he had left:
David Halberstam wrote:
The spectators were mostly stunned into silence, but some wailed and several began praying. Many of the monks and nuns, as well as some shocked passersby, prostrated themselves before the burning monk. Even some of the policemen, who had orders to control the gathered crowd, prostrated before him.
In English and Vietnamese, a monk repeated into a microphone: "A Buddhist priest burns himself to death. A Buddhist priest becomes a martyr." After approximately 10 minutes, Quảng Đức's body was fully immolated and it eventually toppled backwards onto its back. Once the fire subsided, a group of monks covered the smoking corpse with yellow robes, picked it up and tried to fit it into a coffin, but the limbs could not be straightened and one of the arms protruded from the wooden box as he was carried to the nearby Xá Lợi Pagoda in central Saigon. Outside the pagoda, students unfurled bilingual banners which read: "A Buddhist priest burns himself for our five requests."
By 1:30p.m. (13:30), around 1,000 monks had congregated inside to hold a meeting, while outside a large crowd of pro-Buddhist students had formed a human barrier around it. The meeting soon ended and all but 100 monks slowly left the compound. Nearly 1,000 monks, accompanied by laypeople, returned to the cremation site. The police lingered nearby. At around 6:00p.m. (18:00), thirty nuns and six monks were arrested for holding a prayer meeting on the street outside Xá Lợi. The police encircled the pagoda, blocking public passage and giving observers the impression that an armed siege was imminent by donning riot gear.
Funeral and aftermath
After the self-immolation, the U.S. put more pressure on Diệm to re-open negotiations on the faltering agreement. Diệm had scheduled an emergency cabinet meeting at 11:30 on 11 June to discuss the Buddhist crisis which he believed to be winding down. Following Quảng Đức's death, Diệm canceled the meeting and met individually with his ministers. Acting U.S. Ambassador to South Vietnam William Trueheart warned Nguyễn Đình Thuận, Diệm's Secretary of State, of the desperate need for an agreement, saying that the situation was "dangerously near breaking point" and expected Diệm would meet the Buddhists' five-point manifesto. United States Secretary of State Dean Rusk warned the Saigon embassy that the White House would publicly announce that it would no longer "associate itself" with the regime if this did not occur. The Joint Communiqué and concessions to the Buddhists were signed on 16 June.
15 June was set as the date for the funeral, and on that day 4,000 people gathered outside the Xá Lợi pagoda, only for the ceremony to be postponed. On 19 June, his remains were carried out of Xá Lợi to a cemetery south of the city for a re-cremation and funeral ceremony. Following the signing of the Joint Communiqué, attendance was limited by agreement between Buddhist leaders and police to approximately 500 monks.
Intact heart and symbolism
The body was re-cremated during the funeral, but Quảng Đức's heart remained intact and did not burn. It was considered to be holy and placed in a glass chalice at Xá Lợi Pagoda. The intact heart relic is regarded as a symbol of compassion. Quảng Đức has subsequently been revered by Vietnamese Buddhists as a bodhisattva (Bồ Tát), and accordingly is often referred to in Vietnamese as Bồ Tát Thích Quảng Đức. On 21 August, the ARVN Special Forces of Nhu attacked Xá Lợi and other Buddhist pagodas across Vietnam. The secret police intended to confiscate Quảng Đức's ashes, but two monks had escaped with the urn, jumping over the back fence and finding safety at the U.S. Operations Mission next door. Nhu's men managed to confiscate Đức's charred heart.
The location chosen for the self-immolation, in front of the Cambodian embassy, raised questions as to whether it was coincidence or a symbolic choice. Trueheart and embassy official Charles Flowerree felt that the location was selected to show solidarity with the Cambodian government of Prince Norodom Sihanouk. South Vietnam and Cambodia had strained relations: in a speech on 22 May, Sihanouk had accused Diệm of mistreating Vietnamese and ethnic minority Khmer Buddhists. The pro-Diệm Times of Vietnam published an article on 9 June which claimed that Cambodian monks had been encouraging the Buddhist crisis, asserting it was part of a Cambodian plot to extend its neutralist foreign policy into South Vietnam. Flowerree noted that Diệm was "ready and eager to see a fine Cambodian hand in all the organized Buddhist actions".
Diệm reaction
Diệm made a radio address at 19:00 on the day of Quảng Đức's death, asserting that he was profoundly troubled by the event. He appealed for "serenity and patriotism", and announced that stalled negotiations would resume with the Buddhists. He claimed that negotiations had been progressing well and in a time of religious tension emphasized the role of the Roman Catholic philosophy of personalism in his rule. He alleged that extremists had twisted the facts and he asserted that the Buddhists can "count on the Constitution, in other words, me."
The ARVN responded to the appeal, putting on a show of solidarity behind Diệm to isolate dissident officers. Thirty high-ranking officers headed by General Lê Văn Tỵ declared their resolve to carry out all missions entrusted to the army for the defense of the constitution and the Republic. The declaration was a veneer which masked a developing plot to oust Diệm. Some of the signatories were to become personally involved in Diệm's overthrow and death in November. Generals Dương Văn Minh and Trần Văn Đôn, the presidential military advisor and the chief of the army who were to lead the coup, were overseas.
Madame Nhu (a Catholic convert from Buddhism and the wife of Diệm's younger brother and chief adviser Ngô Đình Nhu), who was regarded as the First Lady of South Vietnam at the time (as Diệm was a bachelor), said she would "clap hands at seeing another monk barbecue show". Later that month, Diệm's government charged that Quảng Đức had been drugged before being forced to commit suicide. The regime also accused Browne of bribing Quảng Đức to burn himself.
Political and media impact
Photographs taken by Malcolm Browne of the self-immolation quickly spread across the wire services and were featured on the front pages of newspapers worldwide. The self-immolation was later regarded as a turning point in the Buddhist crisis and a critical point in the collapse of the Diệm regime.
Historian Seth Jacobs asserted that Quảng Đức had "reduced America's Diệm experiment to ashes as well" and that "no amount of pleading could retrieve Diệm's reputation" once Browne's images had become ingrained into the psyche of the world public. Ellen Hammer described the event as having "evoked dark images of persecution and horror corresponding to a profoundly Asian reality that passed the understanding of Westerners." John Mecklin, an official from the U.S. embassy, noted that the photograph "had a shock effect of incalculable value to the Buddhist cause, becoming a symbol of the state of things in Vietnam." William Colby, then chief of the Central Intelligence Agency's Far East Division, opined that Diệm "handled the Buddhist crisis fairly badly and allowed it to grow. But I really don't think there was much they could have done about it once that bonze burned himself."
President John F. Kennedy, whose government was the main sponsor of Diệm's regime, learned of Quảng Đức's death when handed the morning newspapers while he was talking to his brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, on the phone. Kennedy reportedly interrupted their conversation about segregation in Alabama by exclaiming "Jesus Christ!" He later remarked that "no news picture in history has generated so much emotion around the world as that one." U.S. Senator Frank Church (D-Idaho), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, claimed that "such grisly scenes have not been witnessed since the Christian martyrs marched hand in hand into the Roman arenas."
In Europe, the photographs were sold on the streets as postcards during the 1960s, and communist China distributed millions of copies of the photograph throughout Asia and Africa as evidence of what it called US imperialism. One of Browne's photographs remains affixed to the sedan in which Quảng Đức was riding and is part of a tourist attraction in Huế.
For Browne and the AP, the pictures were a marketing success. Ray Herndon, the United Press International (UPI) correspondent who had forgotten to take his camera on the day, was harshly criticized in private by his employer. UPI estimated that 5,000 readers in Sydney, then a city of around 1.5–2 million, had switched to AP news sources.
Diệm's English-language mouthpiece, the Times of Vietnam, intensified its attacks on both journalists and Buddhists. Headlines such as "Xá Lợi politburo makes new threats" and "Monks plot murder" were printed. One article questioned the relationship between the monks and the press by posing the question as to why "so many young girls are buzzing in and out of Xá Lợi early [in the day]" and then going on to allege that they were brought in for sexual purposes for the U.S. reporters.
Browne's award-winning photograph of Quảng Đức's death has been reproduced in popular media for decades, and the incident has been used as a touchstone reference in many films and television programs.
A still photograph of Quảng Đức's self-immolation taken by Browne was used for the cover of American rap metal band Rage Against the Machine's debut album which came out in 1992, as well as the cover of their single "Killing in the Name". That same photograph was used for the cover of Canadian electronic act Delerium's debut album Faces, Forms & Illusions, which came out in 1989.
Precedents and influence
Despite the shock of the Western public, the practice of Vietnamese monks self-immolating was not unprecedented. Instances of self-immolations in Vietnam had been recorded for centuries, usually carried out to honor Gautama Buddha. The most recently recorded case had been in North Vietnam in 1950. The French colonial authorities had tried to eradicate the practice after their conquest of Vietnam in the nineteenth century, but had not been totally successful. They did manage to prevent one monk from setting fire to himself in Huế in the 1920s, but he managed to starve himself to death instead. During the 1920s and 1930s, Saigon newspapers reported multiple instances of self-immolations by monks in a matter-of-fact style. The practice had also been seen in the Chinese city of Harbin in 1948 when a monk seated down in the lotus position on a pile of sawdust and soybean oil and set fire to himself in protest against the treatment of Buddhism by the anti-religious communists of Mao Zedong. His heart remained intact, as did that of Quảng Đức.
After Quảng Đức, five more Buddhist monks self-immolated up until late October 1963 as the Buddhist protests in Vietnam escalated. On 1 November, the ARVN overthrew Diệm in a coup. Diệm and Nhu were assassinated the next day. Monks have followed Quảng Đức's example since for other reasons.
The Americans in Saigon often found the self-immolations to be surreal and made puns about "bonze fires" and "hot cross bonzes", almost as an escape mechanism from the bewilderment. In one instance in 1963, the young son of an American officer based at the Saigon U.S. Embassy doused himself with gasoline and set himself on fire. He was seriously burned before the fire was extinguished and later could only offer the explanation that "I wanted to see what it was like." Thich Quang Duc's actions were twice fatally copied in the United States in protest against the Vietnam War. On March 16, 1965, Alice Herz an 82-year-old peace activist immolated herself in front of the Federal Department Store in northwest Detroit. Later that same year, Norman Morrison, a 31-year-old Quaker pacifist, poured kerosene over himself and set light to himself below the third-floor window of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara at the Pentagon on November 2, 1965.
See also
List of civil rights leaders
List of political self-immolations
Notes
References
Bibliography
External links
– Official Buddhist monastery dedicated to Thích Quảng Đức
Vietnamese Buddhists
Buddhism in Vietnam
20th-century Buddhist monks
1897 births
1963 suicides
Date of birth unknown
People from Khánh Hòa Province
Vietnamese Buddhist monks
Buddhist crisis
History of South Vietnam
Suicides in Vietnam
1963 in Vietnam
Filmed suicides
Vietnamese people of the Vietnam War
Self-immolations by Buddhists
Articles containing video clips
People notable for being the subject of a specific photograph
Suicides by self-immolation
Buddhist martyrs
Photographs of protests | false | [
"The Petrus killings were a series of extrajudicial executions in Indonesia that occurred between 1983 and 1985 under President Suharto's New Order regime. Without undergoing a trial, thousands of criminals were shot dead by undercover snipers or death squads. Their bodies were then placed in public places which terrorized an unaware populace. The executions were part of a government effort to reduce crime and estimates of the death toll have ranged from 300 to 10,000.\n\nOrigin of name\nThe term Petrus is derived from the Indonesian backronym containing the words \"mysterious shooters\" (penembak misterius) or \"mysterious shootings\" (penembakan misterius). It is also known colloquially as \"dar der dor\", which is an Indonesian onomatopoeia for the sound of a gunshot.\n\nBackground\nSuharto came to power in 1967 and created his New Order policy to separate his regime from what he called the Old Order of his predecessor Sukarno. The new policies brought much change to Indonesia, including a stronger, more influential military. This often led to violence and the Petrus killings stand as one of the most egregious examples.\n\nHistory\nIn the early 1980s, Indonesian citizens began witnessing an increase of dead bodies in public. At first, the government and other security authorities would not reveal the cause or reason behind the deaths. Commander of Indonesia's Armed Forces, General Leonardus Benjamin Moerdani initially blamed the killings on gang wars. Moerdani later claimed the government committed the murders, but that \"some were gunned down by security men, but it was because they resisted arrest.\"\n\nUnannounced to the public, the Petrus killings were carried out as a form of \"shock therapy\" to reduce the crime rate. The operation was planned in March 1983 by the Yogyakarta garrison commander Lt. Col. M. Hasbi. Soon, it would spread; some criminals surrendered, some were shot, some fled and others quit a life of crime. Many of the victims had tattoos, which made it apparent to the public their status as criminals. The Petrus Killings caused crime to drop significantly, which led the government to expand the killings.\n\nPetrus was a game changer in Indonesia, making an ultimatum to the public. Police intelligence supplied the garrison commander with a list naming hundreds of suspected criminals and ex-prisoners in the region. The garrison then put together a black list and issued a public ultimatum to all galis (without, however, naming names) to \"surrender immediately\" to the garrison headquarters. Those who did, and these numbered several hundred, were required to fill out detailed forms, providing their life history as well as data on all their family members and friends. They were also required to sign statements agreeing to refrain from criminal activities or face \"firm action\" from the authorities. Each gali was obliged to carry a special card and report to the garrison on a regular basis. Those who did not turn up to be registered, or did not keep their appointments with the garrison, were hunted down and killed by squads of military men. \n\nAs the list was shrouded in mystery, citizens had to question themselves if they were \"criminals\" and potentially on the list. This self-surveillance tactic made people very aware of their actions and tread carefully during this period. Moreover, unlike many other issues in Indonesia, nothing, not even money or powerful connections could erase a name off the mysterious list. However, some have argued that there was no actual list and this tactic lead to the police identifying criminals based on their registration.\n \nSuharto himself would not acknowledge the killings and the fact that they were carried out by the military until his biography, Pikiran, Ucapan, dan Tindakan Saya (My Thoughts, Words, and Deeds) was published in 1988. In the book, Suharto explains: \"The incidents were not mysterious. The real problem was that the incidents were preceded by public fears.\" Because some people had exceeded norms in society, \"we had to initiate some treatment, some stern action\", Suharto claimed. \"What kind of action? Well, we had to resort to force. But it was not just execution by shootings. No! Those who resisted had to be shot. They were gunned down because they fought back.\"\n\nAftermath\nNo specific death toll from the Petrus killings has been established. In 1983, it was estimated that 300 corpses were found throughout Indonesia. Due to the fact that many criminals were still missing, that number is likely inaccurate and understated. Indonesian criminologist Mulyana W. Kusumah placed the death toll at more than 2,000. In 1984, Hans van den Broek, the former Foreign Minister of the Netherlands, asked the Indonesian government to place the death toll around 3,000. Other reports put the death toll around 10,000. Research continues to reveal the extent of the Petrus Killings and how they applied to anti-crime efforts in many major Indonesian cities.\n\nOperations against criminals in the late 1980s had police claiming they would not be following the earlier pattern.\n\nSee also\nDeath squad\nIndonesian killings of 1965–66\n\nReferences\n\nFurther reading\n Justus M. van der Kroef \"Petrus\": Patterns of Prophylactic Murder in Indonesia in Asian Survey Vol. 25, No. 7 (Jul., 1985), pp. 745–759 Published by: University of California Press\n \n\nNew Order (Indonesia)\nExtrajudicial killings\nMass murder in Indonesia\nMilitary history of Indonesia\nMass murder in 1983\nMass murder in 1984\nMass murder in 1985\nPoliticides\n1980s in Indonesia",
"The Darkley killings or Darkley massacre was a gun attack carried out on 20 November 1983 near the village of Darkley in County Armagh, Northern Ireland. Three gunmen attacked worshippers attending a church service at Mountain Lodge Pentecostal Church, killing three Protestant civilians and wounding seven. The attackers were rogue members of the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA). They claimed responsibility using the cover name \"Catholic Reaction Force\", saying it was retaliation for recent sectarian attacks on Catholics by the loyalist \"Protestant Action Force\". The attack was condemned by INLA leadership.\n\nBackground\nIn the months before the Darkley killings, several Catholic civilians were killed by loyalists. On 29 October 1983, a Catholic civilian member of the Workers' Party, David Nocher (26), was shot dead in Belfast. On 8 November, Catholic civilian Adrian Carroll (24) was shot dead in Armagh, UDR personnel were later convicted but the convictions were cleared on appeal for three of them (see UDR Four case). Carroll was the brother of an INLA member who was killed a year earlier. These attacks were claimed by the \"Protestant Action Force\" (PAF), a cover name used mostly by members of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). It is believed the Darkley killings were primarily a retaliation for the killing of Carroll.\n\nAttack\nOn the evening of Sunday 20 November, about sixty people were attending a church service at Mountain Lodge Pentecostal Church. The small, isolated wooden church was outside the village of Darkley, near the border with the Republic of Ireland and several miles from Armagh. As the service began, three masked gunmen arrived, at least one of whom was armed with a Ruger semi-automatic rifle and opened fire on those standing in the entrance. Three church elders were killed: Harold Browne (59), Victor Cunningham (39) and David Wilson (44). The fatally wounded Wilson staggered into the service, where he collapsed and died. The gunmen then stood outside the building and sprayed it with bullets, wounding a further seven people, before fleeing in a car. The service was being tape-recorded when the attack took place. On the tape, the congregation can be heard singing the hymn, \"Are You Washed in the Blood of the Lamb\", followed by the sound of gunfire. All of the victims were Protestant civilians.\n\nAftermath\nIn a telephone call to a journalist, a caller claimed responsibility for the attack on behalf of the \"Catholic Reaction Force\". He said it was \"retaliation for the murderous sectarian campaign carried out by the Protestant Action Force\" and added, \"By this token retaliation we could easily have taken the lives of at least 20 more innocent Protestants. We serve notice on the PAF to call an immediate halt to their vicious indiscriminate campaign against innocent Catholics, or we will make the Darkley killings look like a picnic\". The caller named nine Catholics who had been attacked.\n\nThe name \"Catholic Reaction Force\" had never been used before, and police said they believed the attack was carried out by members of the INLA. The INLA condemned the attack and denied direct involvement, but said it was investigating the involvement of INLA members or weapons. A week later, INLA leader Dominic McGlinchey admitted that one of the gunmen had been an INLA member and admitted supplying him with the gun, but said there was no justification for the attack. The INLA member's brother had been killed by loyalists. McGlinchey explained that the INLA member had asked him for a gun to shoot a known loyalist who had been involved in sectarian killings. However, \"clearly deranged by the death of his brother\", he \"used it instead to attack the Darkley Gospel Hall\". McGlinchey said: \"he must have been unbalanced or something to have gone and organised this killing. We are conducting an inquiry\".\n\nThere were reprisal sectarian attacks on Catholics in North Belfast, Lisburn, and Portadown within 24 hours of the Darkley massacre. On 5 December, fifteen days after the Darkley attack, the PAF shot dead INLA member Joseph Craven (26) in Newtownabbey. \n\nThe name \"Catholic Reaction Force\" was used several other times. In August 1984 it was used to issue a threat to newspapers against the families of RUC officers, after a Catholic man (Sean Downes) died after the RUC shot him with a plastic bullet during an anti-internment march on the Andersontown Road, Belfast. In May 1986 it was used to claim the killing of Protestant civilian David Wilson (39), who was shot while driving his firm's van in Donaghmore. The IRA also claimed responsibility, saying Wilson was a member of the UDR. \nThe \"Catholic Reaction Force\" declared a ceasefire on 28 October 1994. In 2001 the name was used to claim two attacks on homes in which there were no injuries, and in 2002 was used to issue a threat to hospital workers suspected of links to the security forces.\n\nSee also\n\n Kingsmill massacre\n South Armagh Republican Action Force\n\nReferences\n\n1983 in Northern Ireland\n1983 mass shootings\n1983 murders in the United Kingdom\n1980s in County Armagh\n1980s mass shootings in the United Kingdom\nAnti-Protestantism\nAttacks on buildings and structures in Northern Ireland\nAttacks on churches in Europe\nAttacks on religious buildings and structures in Europe\nDeaths by firearm in Northern Ireland\nIrish National Liberation Army\nMass shootings in Northern Ireland\nMurder in County Armagh\nNovember 1983 crimes\nNovember 1983 events in Europe\nTerrorist incidents in County Armagh\nTerrorist incidents in the United Kingdom in 1983\nThe Troubles in County Armagh"
] |
[
"Big Boss Man (wrestler)",
"Hardcore Championship pursuit (1998-2000)"
] | C_3bba6eb691eb4ad19e5ff75dbe17c742_1 | What wrestling league was Big Boss Man in when he was pursuing the Hardcore Championship? | 1 | What league was Big Boss Man in when he was pursuing the Harcore wrestling Championship? | Big Boss Man (wrestler) | Traylor rejoined the WWF shortly after his WCW release and once again became "Big Boss Man". On October 12, 1998, he returned to television with a new look, abandoning his blue police shirt for an all-black SWAT-style uniform, including a tactical vest and gloves. He served as Vince McMahon's bodyguard during his feud with Stone Cold Steve Austin and his later feud with D-Generation X. He briefly wore a mask, before his identity was revealed. Boss Man was one of the first members of McMahon's heel stable, The Corporation, and served as a bodyguard for other members, such as Vince's son Shane. While in The Corporation, Boss Man won the Tag Team Championship with Ken Shamrock, won the Hardcore Championship four times, and lost to The Undertaker at WrestleMania XV in a Hell in a Cell match. After this match, The Undertaker hanged him from the roof of the cage (an illusion made possible by a body harness concealed under Traylor's outfit). In the WWF's Hardcore division, Boss Man's major feud was with Al Snow, a feud that eventually involved Snow's pet chihuahua, Pepper. At SummerSlam, the two had a Falls Count Anywhere match that spilled into the backstage area, the street and, finally, into a nearby bar. Just prior to the match, Snow had set Pepper's pet carrier near the entranceway. Minutes into the match, Boss Man picked it up, taunted Pepper, struck Snow with the carrier and carelessly tossed it behind him. Commentator Jim Ross immediately apologized to viewers for the act, and stated that Pepper had been removed from the box before the match. Two weeks later, Boss Man kidnapped and ransomed Pepper, arranging a meeting in which he fed Snow a meat dish supposedly made from Pepper's remains. The two settled their feud in a Kennel from Hell match at Unforgiven, in which a blue solid steel cage surrounded the ring, itself and ringside surrounded by the chain-link fenced "cell". The object of the match was to escape from the cage and the cell while avoiding "attack dogs" (which turned out to be disappointingly docile) positioned outside the ring. Snow won the match and retained the Hardcore title, which had been returned to him by Davey Boy Smith, who had defeated Boss Man for it. Boss Man would later win back the Hardcore title in a triple threat match involving Al Snow and The Big Show, and would hold it until January 2000, when he lost it to Test. Boss Man then feuded with The Big Show over the WWF Championship. During the feud, Boss Man showed up at Big Show's father's funeral, made some disrespectful remarks, then chained the casket to the back of his car and drove off. The Big Show attempted to save the coffin by jumping on it, riding it for a few yards before losing his grip and tumbling off, the feud also included a segment in which Boss Man invaded the home of Big Show's mother and forced her on camera to admit her son was born an illegitimate child. Boss Man became the #1 contender for the WWF Championship by defeating The Rock on the November 15, 1999 episode of Raw. At Armageddon, The Big Show defeated him to retain the title and end the feud. CANNOTANSWER | In the WWF's Hardcore division, | false | [
"The WWE Hardcore Championship was a professional wrestling championship contested for in the United States–based World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) promotion, formerly known as the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) before May 2002. The title was only contestable in matches under hardcore regulations, and could be won only by individual wrestlers. As a professional wrestling championship, it was introduced by the WWF on its television program Raw Is War on November 2, 1998, in which WWF chairman Mr. McMahon awarded Mankind the title. In 2000, the WWF instated the \"24/7 rule\", a regulation stating that the title could be defended anywhere at any time as long as a referee was present, which led to numerous title changes in shorter time periods; the rule was discontinued in 2002. On the August 26, 2002 episode of Raw, Intercontinental Champion Rob Van Dam defeated Hardcore Champion Tommy Dreamer to unify both titles; the Hardcore Championship was retired shortly thereafter. The title was reactivated on two occasions afterwards, although they are not considered official reigns by WWE according to their official title history. On the June 23, 2003 episode of Raw, Mick Foley (who was the first champion as \"Mankind\") was awarded the Hardcore Championship belt by the Raw brand authority figure Stone Cold Steve Austin for his contributions in hardcore wrestling. Edge and Foley then introduced themselves as co-holders of the championship in 2006, due to a storyline with alumni of the hardcore wrestling-based Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) promotion.\n\nOverall, there were 240 reigns shared among 52 wrestlers. Raven has the most reigns as champion, with 27. Big Boss Man's fourth reign was the longest in the title's history, at 97 days. Steve Blackman ranks first in combined reigns by length, at 172 days in six reigns. Due to the \"24/7 rule\" numerous wrestlers held the title less than one day, and because the exact times at which each wrestler held the title is unknown, it is impossible to determine who had the shortest reign. Each reign was won at WWF/E-promoted events: pay-per-view events, house shows, and on televised events.\n\nTitle history\n\nNames\n\nReigns\n\nCombined reigns\n\nFootnotes\n\nSee also \n WCW Hardcore Championship: a hardcore championship that was contested for in World Championship Wrestling (WCW)\n List of former championships in WWE\n\nReferences \n General\n \n \n Note: Used only to determine which programs title changes occurred on and when they aired\n Specific\n\nExternal links \n WWE.com\n\nWWE championships lists\nHardcore wrestling championships\n\nde:WWE Hardcore Championship#Liste der Titelträger (chronologisch)",
"The CSWF Hardcore Championship was a professional wrestling hardcore heavyweight championship in the CyberSpace Wrestling Federation. It was among the first original titles of the CyberSpace Wrestling Federation promotion. The inaugural champion was JD Dreamer, who defeated Big Q and Lucifer Grimm in a three-way match on October 19, 2002 to become the first CSWF Hardcore Champion. Dreamer was the only recognized champion and the title was retired when was appointed the promotion's Director of Authority by CSWF Commissioner Larry Zbyszko on February 21, 2003.\n\nTitle history\n\nNames\n\nReigns\n\nList of combined reigns\n\nFootnotes\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nNWA Shockwave on Myspace\nNWA Cyberspace on Myspace\nCSWF.com\nCSWOL.com\n\nNWA Shockwave championships\nHardcore wrestling championships\nNational Wrestling Alliance championships",
"The Twin Towers was the name of a professional wrestling tag-team who competed in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) from 1988 to 1990, consisting of Akeem and The Big Boss Man.\n\nHistory\nThe Towers had before feuded with each other when the Big Boss Man was known as Big Bubba Rogers and Akeem was known as The One Man Gang in the Universal Wrestling Federation (UWF), when Rogers defeated Gang to win the UWF World Heavyweight Championship. This happened when Skandor Akbar who was managing Gang then deviously pitted Gang against Rogers who Akbar was also managing, for the UWF championship, Rogers then defeated Gang to win the title, and after Akbar then dumped Gang and continued to manage Rogers.\n\nShortly after losing the UWF championship, Gang left the UWF and joined the WWF. In late 1988 when Slick was managing the One Man Gang (who had recently become Akeem \"The African Dream\") as well Rogers who had joined the WWF as The Big Boss Man. Slick then paired up Akeem with the Boss Man and billed them as The Twin Towers. The Towers would make their pay-per-view debut on November 24, 1988 as at the WWF 1988 Survivor Series captaining a team with Haku, Ted DiBiase, and The Red Rooster against a team captained by The Mega Powers (Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage), Hercules, Koko B. Ware and Hillbilly Jim in a five against five elimination match. The Towers' team lost and Hogan and Savage were the survivors of the match, but not before both received beat downs from The Towers.\n\nAttack and aftermath\nWhile still teaming as the Towers, Boss Man and Akeem would have many single matches against Hogan and Savage. Then on a January 9, 1989 episode of WWF Superstars of Wrestling, WWF World Heavyweight Champion Savage had a match against Akeem. When Savage delivered his diving elbow drop to Akeem and went to pin him, Boss Man then came and entered the ring and attacked Savage with his nightstick, and Akeem was disqualified. Hogan then ran down and attacked the Towers who then left the ring. On January 7, 1989 When Hogan faced Akeem on Saturday Night's Main Event XIX, Boss Man again interfered in the match, and then Elizabeth who was the manager of the Mega Powers came to help Hogan, who was then followed by Savage, who then cleared the ring of the Towers.\n\nAlso during January 1989 the Towers would achieve success, when they would score several wins over The Young Stallions (Paul Roma and Jim Powers). Weeks later on February 3, 1989 on The Main Event II, the Towers had a match against the Mega Powers, who were having dissension between them. During the match, Akeem threw Savage out of the ring and who then landed on top of Savage's manager Elizabeth, knocking her unconscious. When Hogan saw what happened, he left the match and carried Elizabeth from the ring to the medical area. When he returned to the ring, he wanted to tag Savage, but Savage, who was furious with being abandoned during the match and very angry that he had to face the Towers alone, then slapped Hogan in the face, and then left Hogan the face the Towers by himself. Hogan then defeated the Towers by himself and the Mega Powers won the match.\n\nTwo months later at WrestleMania V The Towers defeated The Rockers (Shawn Michaels and Marty Jannetty) after Akeem pinned Michaels following a powerbomb by the Boss Man and Akeem's own Air Africa finisher. The Towers also appeared on a 1989 WWF VHS coliseum home video cassette called WWF Fan Favorites where they wrestled and defeated The Hart Foundation (Bret Hart and Jim Neidhart) by countout. Though the Towers were still wrestling as a team, Boss Man pursued the WWF world championship and wrestled a major singles match, when he received a title shot against the new WWF champion Hulk Hogan after Hogan regained the WWF World Title from Savage at WrestleMania V, after the Mega Powers disbanded.\n\nOn Saturday Night's Main Event XXI, Boss Man faced Hogan in a Steel Cage Match, and during the match Hogan superplexed Boss Man of the top of the cage, Boss Man ended up losing the match. Shortly after The Towers began a feud with the WWF Tag Team Champions Demolition (Ax and Smash) as they pursued the tag-team title. The Towers would lose every house show match they had against Demolition, some by pinfall, and some by disqualification. Even after Demolition lost the tag titles to The Brain Busters (Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard), The Towers continued to feud with Demolition. The Towers teamed with André the Giant against Demolition and King Duggan at SummerSlam 1989 much to surprise of commentator Jesse Ventura, Demolition and Duggan won the match. During this time The Twin Towers and Slick would also make an appearance on the Arsenio Hall Show.\n\nAt the 1989 Survivor Series The Towers were to team with The Honky Tonk Man and Rick Martel as a team called The Enforcers against a team called the Dream Team consisting of Dusty Rhodes, Brutus Beefcake, Tito Santana, and the Red Rooster, but the Boss Man's partner Akeem, but was replaced at the last moment by Bad News Brown. The Enforcers lost the match, with the Boss Man the last one to be pinned by Rhodes.\n\nDuring this time, the Boss Man was actually embroiled in a feud with Dusty Rhodes after Rhodes had stolen The Boss Man's nightstick and handcuffs.\n\nEnd of feud\nFollowing the conclusion of his feud with Rhodes early 1990, The Boss Man became a face when \"The Million Dollar Man\" Ted DiBiase paid Slick to have the Boss Man retrieve the Million Dollar Championship belt from Jake \"The Snake\" Roberts, who had stolen it. On a February 24, 1990 episode of WWF Superstars of Wrestling, The Boss Man retrieved a bag containing both the belt and Roberts' pet python, Damien. On The Brother Love Show, he refused to accept DiBiase's money for the bag, and returned it to Roberts. After that the Towers disbanded.\n\nBreakup and aftermath\n\nBig Boss Man\nAfter the Towers disbanded they once again feuded, Boss Man wrestled and defeated Akeem at WrestleMania VI in only 1:49 despite DiBiase (who had wrestled the previous match against Jake Roberts) sneak attacking The Big Boss Man before the bell had rung to begin the match. Boss Man again defeated Akeem on April 28, 1990 on episode 26 of Saturday Night's Main Event XXVI by disqualification. Subsequently, Boss Man later began teaming up with his former foe, Hulk Hogan, against many forces including being in Hogan's corner for his match against Earthquake at SummerSlam 1990, and was also on a team led by Hogan at the 1990 Survivor Series. He would leave the company in March 1993 and went to All Japan Pro Wrestling.\n\nBoss Man later resurfaced in World Championship Wrestling (WCW) in December 1993 as The Boss before being rebranded as The Guardian Angel. He subsequently turned heel and reverted to the Big Bubba Rogers identity, later shortened to Big Bubba. Then went to his real name jobbing for WCW. He left in early 1998. In September 1998 he returned to WWF and worked there until being released in 2003. He died on September 22, 2004 from a heart attack at 41 years old.\n\nAkeem\nAfter losing his feud with his former partner, Akeem dropped back down to mid-card status, and would later leave the WWF in October 1990, and in the process reverting to being the One Man Gang. He wrestled in WCW in 1991, where he feuded with El Gigante. He later returned to WCW in 1995 and won the United States championship. He retired from wrestling in 2009.\n\nReunion\nGang and Bubba were both recruited to The Dungeon of Doom in early 1996.\n\nExternal links\nTwin Towers OWW Profile\n\nReferences\n\nArticles containing video clips\nWWE teams and stables"
] |
|
[
"Big Boss Man (wrestler)",
"Hardcore Championship pursuit (1998-2000)",
"What wrestling league was Big Boss Man in when he was pursuing the Hardcore Championship?",
"In the WWF's Hardcore division,"
] | C_3bba6eb691eb4ad19e5ff75dbe17c742_1 | What is a notable match that he had during this time period? | 2 | What was one of the notable matches Big Boss man had while pursuing the hardcore championship? | Big Boss Man (wrestler) | Traylor rejoined the WWF shortly after his WCW release and once again became "Big Boss Man". On October 12, 1998, he returned to television with a new look, abandoning his blue police shirt for an all-black SWAT-style uniform, including a tactical vest and gloves. He served as Vince McMahon's bodyguard during his feud with Stone Cold Steve Austin and his later feud with D-Generation X. He briefly wore a mask, before his identity was revealed. Boss Man was one of the first members of McMahon's heel stable, The Corporation, and served as a bodyguard for other members, such as Vince's son Shane. While in The Corporation, Boss Man won the Tag Team Championship with Ken Shamrock, won the Hardcore Championship four times, and lost to The Undertaker at WrestleMania XV in a Hell in a Cell match. After this match, The Undertaker hanged him from the roof of the cage (an illusion made possible by a body harness concealed under Traylor's outfit). In the WWF's Hardcore division, Boss Man's major feud was with Al Snow, a feud that eventually involved Snow's pet chihuahua, Pepper. At SummerSlam, the two had a Falls Count Anywhere match that spilled into the backstage area, the street and, finally, into a nearby bar. Just prior to the match, Snow had set Pepper's pet carrier near the entranceway. Minutes into the match, Boss Man picked it up, taunted Pepper, struck Snow with the carrier and carelessly tossed it behind him. Commentator Jim Ross immediately apologized to viewers for the act, and stated that Pepper had been removed from the box before the match. Two weeks later, Boss Man kidnapped and ransomed Pepper, arranging a meeting in which he fed Snow a meat dish supposedly made from Pepper's remains. The two settled their feud in a Kennel from Hell match at Unforgiven, in which a blue solid steel cage surrounded the ring, itself and ringside surrounded by the chain-link fenced "cell". The object of the match was to escape from the cage and the cell while avoiding "attack dogs" (which turned out to be disappointingly docile) positioned outside the ring. Snow won the match and retained the Hardcore title, which had been returned to him by Davey Boy Smith, who had defeated Boss Man for it. Boss Man would later win back the Hardcore title in a triple threat match involving Al Snow and The Big Show, and would hold it until January 2000, when he lost it to Test. Boss Man then feuded with The Big Show over the WWF Championship. During the feud, Boss Man showed up at Big Show's father's funeral, made some disrespectful remarks, then chained the casket to the back of his car and drove off. The Big Show attempted to save the coffin by jumping on it, riding it for a few yards before losing his grip and tumbling off, the feud also included a segment in which Boss Man invaded the home of Big Show's mother and forced her on camera to admit her son was born an illegitimate child. Boss Man became the #1 contender for the WWF Championship by defeating The Rock on the November 15, 1999 episode of Raw. At Armageddon, The Big Show defeated him to retain the title and end the feud. CANNOTANSWER | Boss Man became the #1 contender for the WWF Championship by defeating The Rock on the November 15, 1999 episode of Raw. | false | [
"Feast or Fired is a professional wrestling match concept featured in Impact Wrestling. The idea is based on the object on a pole match, which sees wrestlers trying to gain possession of items hanging from poles attached to the ring posts. In this case, the participants in the match try to grab one of four briefcases from the poles. In the match itself, a wrestler can only claim a briefcase if he/she leaves the ring with it and both feet touch the floor.\n\nStipulations\nInside each of the briefcases is some sort of paperwork. One of the cases holds a contract for an Impact World Championship match, one holds a contract for an Impact X Division Championship match, and one holds a contract for an Impact World Tag Team Championship match (with a partner of that wrestler's choosing). The fourth and final briefcase contains a pink slip, which fires the wrestler carrying it. (The 2016 edition replaced the X Division championship contract with one for the TNA King of the Mountain Championship.)\n\nThe winners of the briefcases do not reveal what is in them that night. Instead, they are revealed in a segment on a later episode of Impact!. Before the contents of the cases are revealed, each wrestler is given a choice to keep their case or forfeit it, which protects the wrestler from being fired, but also gives up any potential title match.\n\nOnce a wrestler wins a briefcase, it may be (and has been) defended in matches similar to the way championships are.\n\nThe allocated time period during which a wrestler must invoke their title opportunity has not been explicitly stated, all that has been said is that the title opportunity can be invoked \"anywhere, anytime\", making it similar in fashion to the WWE Money in the Bank ladder match contract, which lasts for one year.\n\nMatches\n\nFeast or Fired information\n\nRecord\n\nMatches\n\nReferences\n\nProfessional wrestling match types\nImpact Wrestling match types\nImpact Wrestling",
"The Trinity–Antonian Cricket Encounter (known as The Hill Country Battle of the Blues) is the leading annual school cricket match (Big Match) of the hill country which is played between Trinity College, Kandy and St. Anthony's College, Kandy since 1914. It is considered to be one of the oldest annual school cricket encounters in Sri Lanka. This encounter is being played for the John Halangoda Memorial Trophy and is awarded to the team who manages to win the match by means of an outright win or failing that, a first innings win. But a first innings win will not go into the records as a win to the relevant team.\n\nOut of the 102 games played, the Trinitians have won 23 with 11 ending in favour of the Antonians. The last outright win for the Antonians was in 1992 and Trinity won last under Niroshan Dickwella in 2012 after the 1986 win under Thushara Weerasuriya. The victory came after 26 years. St. Anthony's College, Kandy are the current holders of the trophy after their 1st innings win in 2019 as they managed to restrict Trinity College to 173 after posting 298 for the loss of 8 wickets.\n\nThe winner of the limited overs encounter, usually played a week after the 2-day match, will be awarded the Sir Richard Aluwihare Trophy.\n\nHistory \n\nThe first encounter was played at the Bogambara Grounds in March 1914; the Antonians won. Trinity won the next match, and a long-contested series has followed.\n\n1918 to 1929, during the World War I St. Anthony's College premises including the practice pitches and the playing-fields were occupied by the British Army. As a result, Antonian cricket deprived and they had lost to Trinity for 11 times consecutively. Without a playground of their own, The Antonians were no match for the Trinitians even with the like of legendary Jack Anderson in the team.\n\nThe post-war period (1929–1947) was inauspicious for the Antonians, as they had a poor run in the field. Trinity during that time had C. Dharmalingam, a left-arm bowler who for two consecutive years nagged the Antonians with his left-arm spin. In 1938 he took 9 for 14 and in 1939 had the figures of 6 for 17 and 6 for 31 inclusive of a double hat-trick, a world record.\n\nThen there was T. B. Werapitiya with scores of 100 in 1943 and 143 in 1944, the highest score made by a Trinitian. Meanwhile, the Antonians came back fighting in 1947, and nearly tumbled the Trinitians Asgiriya after getting back their premises, with facilities restored and having the services of a renowned cricket coach in Mr. John Halangoda. The strong Trinity batting line-up crumbled under the spin bowling of Dicky Dunuwille, the Antonian mystery bowler who was later responsible in changing the fortunes of Antonian cricket. Antonians however lost the match by 68 runs due to a spectacular fielding performance where seven close-in-catches were grabbed by Trinity's Clarence Senanayake to dismiss the Antonians.\n\nThe Antonians won the very next encounter (1948) at Katugastota Oval where Dicky Dunuwilla taking 6 for 10 once again mesmerized the Trinitians and the Antonians since then have not looked back. During the post-independence period (1947–1997) Trinity has registered only four wins against the Antonian tally of eight wins. Most Antonian victories (11) in the series have been registered during the period.\n\nA disagreement between the two schools, regarding the age rule resulted in the cancellation of the match in 1956 and 1957. Also, in 2001 the match did not play as the Trinity stopped playing mid way during that season due to disciplinary reasons.\n\nNotable persons who have played\n\nPast records\n\nNotable performances \n\nCenturies\n\nCaptains\n\nSee also \nRoyal–Thomian\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Down the memory lane-Antonians.org\n Trinity College website\n\nBig Matches\nTrinity College, Kandy",
"An innings is one of the divisions of a cricket match during which one team takes its turn to bat. Innings also means the period in which an individual player bats (acts as either striker or nonstriker). Innings, in cricket, and rounders, is both singular and plural; this contrasts with baseball and softball in which the singular is \"inning\".\n\nOrigin\nThe earliest known record of the term concerns a match in August 1730 at Blackheath, Kent between a Kent side and London Cricket Club. The London-based St. James Evening Post reported: \"'Twas thought that the Kentish champions would have lost their honours by being beat at one innings if time had permitted\".\n\nUsage in cricket\nAn innings is one of the divisions of a match during which one team takes its turn to bat, and is said to be \"in to bat\". Innings is the subject of Law 13 in the Laws of Cricket.\n\n In a first-class match, there are up to four innings with each team due to bat twice (in practice, this is not always the case). In a limited overs match, there are only two innings with each team batting once (though there can be extra, shortened innings in the case of a tie). \n An innings may end in a number of ways, such as when all but one batsman on the team is gotten out, or in limited overs cricket, when the limited number of overs for that innings have been bowled. \n\nThe term is also used with the meaning of \"score\" for both the team and each individual batsman. For example, it may be said that \"he played an innings of 101\", meaning that the player scored 101 runs in his innings (while batting during one of the team's innings). Similarly, it may be said that the team had a first innings (score) of 501.\n\nMetaphor\nThe term can generally be taken as a reference to the time during which someone possesses something and, colloquially, the phrase \"a good innings\" means a long life.\n\nSee also\n Cricket terminology\n\nReferences\n\nBibliography\n\nExternal links\n ICC Cricket Rules and Regulations\n\nCricket laws and regulations\nCricket terminology"
] |
|
[
"Big Boss Man (wrestler)",
"Hardcore Championship pursuit (1998-2000)",
"What wrestling league was Big Boss Man in when he was pursuing the Hardcore Championship?",
"In the WWF's Hardcore division,",
"What is a notable match that he had during this time period?",
"Boss Man became the #1 contender for the WWF Championship by defeating The Rock on the November 15, 1999 episode of Raw."
] | C_3bba6eb691eb4ad19e5ff75dbe17c742_1 | Did he eventually win the WWF Championship? | 3 | Did big Boss man Eventially Wil the WWF championship? | Big Boss Man (wrestler) | Traylor rejoined the WWF shortly after his WCW release and once again became "Big Boss Man". On October 12, 1998, he returned to television with a new look, abandoning his blue police shirt for an all-black SWAT-style uniform, including a tactical vest and gloves. He served as Vince McMahon's bodyguard during his feud with Stone Cold Steve Austin and his later feud with D-Generation X. He briefly wore a mask, before his identity was revealed. Boss Man was one of the first members of McMahon's heel stable, The Corporation, and served as a bodyguard for other members, such as Vince's son Shane. While in The Corporation, Boss Man won the Tag Team Championship with Ken Shamrock, won the Hardcore Championship four times, and lost to The Undertaker at WrestleMania XV in a Hell in a Cell match. After this match, The Undertaker hanged him from the roof of the cage (an illusion made possible by a body harness concealed under Traylor's outfit). In the WWF's Hardcore division, Boss Man's major feud was with Al Snow, a feud that eventually involved Snow's pet chihuahua, Pepper. At SummerSlam, the two had a Falls Count Anywhere match that spilled into the backstage area, the street and, finally, into a nearby bar. Just prior to the match, Snow had set Pepper's pet carrier near the entranceway. Minutes into the match, Boss Man picked it up, taunted Pepper, struck Snow with the carrier and carelessly tossed it behind him. Commentator Jim Ross immediately apologized to viewers for the act, and stated that Pepper had been removed from the box before the match. Two weeks later, Boss Man kidnapped and ransomed Pepper, arranging a meeting in which he fed Snow a meat dish supposedly made from Pepper's remains. The two settled their feud in a Kennel from Hell match at Unforgiven, in which a blue solid steel cage surrounded the ring, itself and ringside surrounded by the chain-link fenced "cell". The object of the match was to escape from the cage and the cell while avoiding "attack dogs" (which turned out to be disappointingly docile) positioned outside the ring. Snow won the match and retained the Hardcore title, which had been returned to him by Davey Boy Smith, who had defeated Boss Man for it. Boss Man would later win back the Hardcore title in a triple threat match involving Al Snow and The Big Show, and would hold it until January 2000, when he lost it to Test. Boss Man then feuded with The Big Show over the WWF Championship. During the feud, Boss Man showed up at Big Show's father's funeral, made some disrespectful remarks, then chained the casket to the back of his car and drove off. The Big Show attempted to save the coffin by jumping on it, riding it for a few yards before losing his grip and tumbling off, the feud also included a segment in which Boss Man invaded the home of Big Show's mother and forced her on camera to admit her son was born an illegitimate child. Boss Man became the #1 contender for the WWF Championship by defeating The Rock on the November 15, 1999 episode of Raw. At Armageddon, The Big Show defeated him to retain the title and end the feud. CANNOTANSWER | The Big Show defeated him to retain the title and end the feud. | false | [
"WWF on MSG Network (also advertised as WWF from Madison Square Garden) was a professional wrestling television program produced by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF). It was a monthly television special that aired live from Madison Square Garden on the MSG Network from August 7, 1976 to March 16, 1997. The program featured live wrestling matches and interviews with WWF wrestlers. Updates of current feuds and several major title changes also took place on the show.\n\nHistory\nWorld Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF) began airing their monthly television special WWWF on MSG Network on August 7, 1976 after several years of airing their monthly Madison Square Garden shows on HBO. Several notable title changes took place on the show including Bob Backlund winning his first WWWF World Heavyweight Championship by defeating Superstar Billy Graham on February 20, 1978. The show was renamed WWF on MSG Network after the promotion changed its name to \"World Wrestling Federation\" in March 1979. The show was an important event and equivalent to today's pay-per-view events. Many important matches and storyline developments took place on the show, for example, Hulk Hogan's rise to stardom began on the show when he defeated The Iron Sheik to capture his first WWF Championship on January 23, 1984. With the rise of Hogan's popularity and WWF's national expansion, the show lost its significance following the first pay-per-view event WrestleMania in 1985. With the addition of more pay-per-view events and the introduction of Saturday Night's Main Event as a nationally televised monthly special, the WWF on MSG Network discontinued after 1992. WWF aired one final event on the MSG Network on March 16, 1997.\n\nTitle changes\nWWF on MSG Network had many notable title changes.\nBob Backlund defeated Superstar Billy Graham to win the WWWF World Heavyweight Championship on February 20, 1978\nBob Backlund defeated Bobby Duncum in a Texas Deathmatch to win the vacant WWF Championship on December 17, 1979\nBacklund had lost the title to Antonio Inoki on November 30 in Japan, but after a controversial rematch on December 6 in Japan, the title was vacated. Neither match was acknowledged on US television. The match against Duncum was referred to on US television as a title defense, even though Backlund was not introduced as champion, nor did he wear the belt during his entrance.\nKen Patera defeated Pat Patterson to win the WWF Intercontinental Championship on April 21, 1980\nPedro Morales defeated Don Muraco to win the WWF Intercontinental Championship on November 23, 1981\nBob Backlund defeated Greg Valentine to win the vacant WWF Championship on November 23, 1981\nThe title was vacated on October 19 when Backlund had successfully defended the title against Valentine but the dazed referee awarded the title to Valentine. The title controversy was not recognized outside New York City and WWF continued to recognize Backlund as champion outside New York City. WWE officially does not recognize this title vacancy and Backlund's reign is recognized uninterrupted.\nDon Muraco defeated Pedro Morales to win the WWF Intercontinental Championship on January 22, 1983\nThe Iron Sheik defeated Bob Backlund to win the WWF Championship on December 26, 1983\nHulk Hogan defeated The Iron Sheik to win the WWF Championship on January 23, 1984\nAkira Maeda defeated Pierre Lefebvre to win the WWF International Heavyweight Championship on March 25, 1984\nWendi Richter defeated The Fabulous Moolah to win the WWF Women's Championship on July 23, 1984\nThe Cobra defeated Black Tiger to win the WWF Junior Heavyweight Championship on December 28, 1984\nLeilani Kai defeated Wendi Richter to win the WWF Women's Championship on February 18, 1985\nSpider Lady (The Fabulous Moolah) defeated Wendi Richter to win the WWF Women's Championship on November 25, 1985\n\nLegacy\nAlthough WWF discontinued live wrestling shows on the MSG Network, WWE began airing a new television show in 2006 called the MSG Classics which featured clips and matches from WWF's house shows at the Madison Square Garden and the show aired on the MSG Network from 2006 to 2009.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nWWF on MSG Network results\n\nTelevision series by WWE\nMSG Network original programming\n1980s American television series\n1976 American television series debuts\n1997 American television series endings",
"In Your House 3 (retroactively titled In Your House 3: Triple Header) was the third In Your House professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE). It took place on September 24, 1995, at the Saginaw Civic Center in Saginaw, Michigan. The PPV portion of the show featured six matches in total, while four dark matches also occurred. With the launch of the WWE Network in 2014, the PPV section became available to subscribers to view on demand.\n\nThe main event of the show featured all three active championships in the WWF at the time being defended. The WWF World Heavyweight Champion Diesel teamed up with the WWF Intercontinental Champion Shawn Michaels and they were slated to take on the reigning WWF World Tag Team Champions Yokozuna and Owen Hart in a match where the person who was pinned would lose the championship. As part of the storyline the WWF replaced Owen Hart with The British Bulldog, due to Hart's wife being in labor. In the end Owen Hart did appear at the show and was pinned to end the match, but since he was not deemed the legal man in the match, the next night on Raw, the WWF World Tag Team Championship was awarded back to Hart and Yokozuna.\n\nIn Your House 3 was the first WWF PPV of the Monday Night Wars era of September 4, 1995, to March 26, 2001. During this time, WWF's Raw and World Championship Wrestling's Nitro competed for ratings in a weekly Monday night time slot, now widely seen as the \"golden age\" of pro-wrestling.\n\nProduction\n\nBackground\nIn Your House was a series of monthly pay-per-view (PPV) shows first produced by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE) in May 1995. They aired when the promotion was not holding one of its then-five major PPVs (WrestleMania, King of the Ring, SummerSlam, Survivor Series, and Royal Rumble), and were sold at a lower cost. This third In Your House event took place on September 24, 1995, at the Saginaw Civic Center in Saginaw, Michigan. While this event was originally known simply as In Your House 3, it was later retroactively renamed as In Your House 3: Triple Header. This retroactive renaming of the show was based on the event featuring all three active championships in the WWF at the time being defended: the WWF World Heavyweight Championship, the WWF Intercontinental Championship, and the WWF World Tag Team Championship.\n\nStorylines\nThe professional wrestling matches at In Your House 3 featured professional wrestlers performing as characters in scripted events pre-determined by the hosting promotion, World Wrestling Federation (WWF). Storylines between the characters played out on WWF's primary television programs, Monday Night Raw.\n\nEvent\nIn the main event, three championships were on the line: Diesel's WWF World Heavyweight Championship, Shawn Michaels' WWF Intercontinental Championship, and Yokozuna and Owen Hart's WWF World Tag Team Championship. If Diesel had been pinned, he would have lost the WWF World Heavyweight Championship and if Michaels had been pinned he would have lost the Intercontinental Championship. On the night of the show, the WWF announced that the British Bulldog had to replace Owen Hart in the match, as Hart was with his wife at the hospital, as she was giving birth to their second child. Near the end of the match. it was revealed that this was just a storyline as Owen Hart rushed to the ring in full wrestling gear and interfered in the match. Moments later, Diesel pinned Owen Hart to win the match and supposedly win the tag team championship, but it was later announced that while Diesel and Michaels did win the match, they did not win the tag team championship, as Owen Hart was not the legal man in the match.\n\nAftermath\nThe following month's In Your House, In Your House 4 on October 22, 1995, saw Diesel successfully defend the WWF World Heavyweight Championship against the British Bulldog, concluding the feud that had been building since the Bulldog turned on Diesel in August of that year. At the same show, it was revealed that Shawn Michaels was unable to compete after being in a fight with a number of Marines and he had to forfeit the WWF Intercontinental Championship to Dean Douglas. Yokozuna and Owen Hart were given the tag team championship belts back after In Your House 3, but lost them to The Smoking Gunns (Billy Gunn and Bart Gunn) a short time later.\n\nResults\n\nOther on-screen personnel\n\nReferences\n\n03\nProfessional wrestling in Michigan\n1995 in Michigan\nEvents in Michigan\n1995 WWF pay-per-view events\nSeptember 1995 events in the United States",
"Diesel and Shawn Michaels formed a tag team also known as Two Dudes with Attitudes who competed in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now known as WWE) in 1994 and again in 1995 through March 1996 with a brief reunion in 2002 as a sub-group of the New World Order stable. The team held the WWF Tag Team Championship twice, but also found success in singles competition while still allied with one another, as Diesel held the WWF Championship and Intercontinental Championship once each and Michaels held the Intercontinental Championship twice.\n\nHistory\n\nFirst run (1993–1994) \nThe two first got together in mid-1993 when Diesel became a bodyguard for Intercontinental Champion Shawn Michaels During 1993 and 1994, both Michaels and Diesel held the WWF Intercontinental Championship. Diesel helped Michaels win the Intercontinental Championship from Marty Jannetty on June 6, 1993. In mid-1994, Michaels acted as Diesel's manager, leading him to winning the Intercontinental Championship from Razor Ramon.\n\nThe duo transformed into a tag team on Michaels and Diesel defeated The Headshrinkers at a house show to win the WWF Tag Team Championship on August 28, 1994 in Indianapolis, Indiana, days before interference by Michaels backfired and cost Diesel the Intercontinental Championship at SummerSlam on August 29, 1994. At Survivor Series on November 23, 1994, Michaels once again accidentally hit Diesel with a superkick. The team subsequently split, vacating the WWF Tag Team Championship. Three days later, Diesel squashed Bob Backlund at a house show to win the WWF Championship.\n\nSecond run (1995-1996) \nIn early 1995, Michaels and Diesel feuded over the WWF Championship. Michaels won the Royal Rumble and unsuccessfully challenged Diesel in a title match at WrestleMania XI on April 2, 1995. On the April 3, 1995 episode of Monday Night Raw, Diesel came to rescue Michaels from an attack by his replacement bodyguard, Sid.\n\nMichaels and Diesel reformed as a team in mid-1995, adopting the moniker \"Two Dudes with Attitudes\". At In Your House 3 on September 24, 1995, they challenged WWF Tag Team Champions Owen Hart and Yokozuna in a match in which the WWF Tag Team Championship, Diesel's WWF Championship and Michaels' Intercontinental Championship were all on the line. Diesel and Michaels won the match and the WWF Tag Team Championship but had to return it to Hart and Yokozuna the next day on a technicality following lobbying from Hart's and Yokozuna's lawyer, Clarence Mason.\n\nTwo Dudes with Attitudes disbanded for a second time after Diesel lost the WWF Championship to Bret Hart at Survivor Series on November 19, 1995. On January 21, 1996, Michaels won the Royal Rumble for a second consecutive year, eliminating Diesel in the process. After Michaels won the WWF Championship from Hart at WrestleMania XII on March 31, 1996, Diesel unsuccessfully challenged him at In Your House 7: Good Friends, Better Enemies on April 28, 1996. Diesel and Michaels continued to feud until Diesel's departure from the WWF in May 1996.\n\nReunions (2002, 2003) \nMichaels and Nash did not reunite until June 3, 2002, when Nash named Michaels as the newest member of the New World Order (nWo). On the June 10 episode of Raw, Michaels explained that his best friend Nash was always there for him, which was why he returned to WWE to become a member of the nWo. He then shocked the audience by hitting Booker T with a superkick to remove him from the nWo.\n\nA month later, Nash tore his quadriceps, which broke up the nWo. When Nash returned from his injury in 2003, the duo teamed with Booker T to face Evolution (Triple H, Ric Flair, and Randy Orton) in an effort to have Nash win the World Heavyweight Championship from Triple H. At Judgment Day, Nash came close to winning the title until Triple H got himself disqualified when he hit referee Earl Hebner with the sledgehammer in the chest. Nash later left the WWE soon after SummerSlam when he was the first to be eliminated in the Elimination Chamber match after Michaels hit him with a superkick.\n\nChampionships and accomplishments \n World Wrestling Federation\n WWF Championship (1 time) – Diesel\n WWF Intercontinental Championship (3 times) – Michaels (2) and Diesel (1)\n WWF Tag Team Championship (2 times)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n \n\nThe Kliq members\nWWE teams and stables\nWWE World Tag Team Champions"
] |
|
[
"Big Boss Man (wrestler)",
"Hardcore Championship pursuit (1998-2000)",
"What wrestling league was Big Boss Man in when he was pursuing the Hardcore Championship?",
"In the WWF's Hardcore division,",
"What is a notable match that he had during this time period?",
"Boss Man became the #1 contender for the WWF Championship by defeating The Rock on the November 15, 1999 episode of Raw.",
"Did he eventually win the WWF Championship?",
"The Big Show defeated him to retain the title and end the feud."
] | C_3bba6eb691eb4ad19e5ff75dbe17c742_1 | Did he feud with any other wrestlers? | 4 | Aside from The Rock?, Did Big Boss man fued with any other wrestler's? | Big Boss Man (wrestler) | Traylor rejoined the WWF shortly after his WCW release and once again became "Big Boss Man". On October 12, 1998, he returned to television with a new look, abandoning his blue police shirt for an all-black SWAT-style uniform, including a tactical vest and gloves. He served as Vince McMahon's bodyguard during his feud with Stone Cold Steve Austin and his later feud with D-Generation X. He briefly wore a mask, before his identity was revealed. Boss Man was one of the first members of McMahon's heel stable, The Corporation, and served as a bodyguard for other members, such as Vince's son Shane. While in The Corporation, Boss Man won the Tag Team Championship with Ken Shamrock, won the Hardcore Championship four times, and lost to The Undertaker at WrestleMania XV in a Hell in a Cell match. After this match, The Undertaker hanged him from the roof of the cage (an illusion made possible by a body harness concealed under Traylor's outfit). In the WWF's Hardcore division, Boss Man's major feud was with Al Snow, a feud that eventually involved Snow's pet chihuahua, Pepper. At SummerSlam, the two had a Falls Count Anywhere match that spilled into the backstage area, the street and, finally, into a nearby bar. Just prior to the match, Snow had set Pepper's pet carrier near the entranceway. Minutes into the match, Boss Man picked it up, taunted Pepper, struck Snow with the carrier and carelessly tossed it behind him. Commentator Jim Ross immediately apologized to viewers for the act, and stated that Pepper had been removed from the box before the match. Two weeks later, Boss Man kidnapped and ransomed Pepper, arranging a meeting in which he fed Snow a meat dish supposedly made from Pepper's remains. The two settled their feud in a Kennel from Hell match at Unforgiven, in which a blue solid steel cage surrounded the ring, itself and ringside surrounded by the chain-link fenced "cell". The object of the match was to escape from the cage and the cell while avoiding "attack dogs" (which turned out to be disappointingly docile) positioned outside the ring. Snow won the match and retained the Hardcore title, which had been returned to him by Davey Boy Smith, who had defeated Boss Man for it. Boss Man would later win back the Hardcore title in a triple threat match involving Al Snow and The Big Show, and would hold it until January 2000, when he lost it to Test. Boss Man then feuded with The Big Show over the WWF Championship. During the feud, Boss Man showed up at Big Show's father's funeral, made some disrespectful remarks, then chained the casket to the back of his car and drove off. The Big Show attempted to save the coffin by jumping on it, riding it for a few yards before losing his grip and tumbling off, the feud also included a segment in which Boss Man invaded the home of Big Show's mother and forced her on camera to admit her son was born an illegitimate child. Boss Man became the #1 contender for the WWF Championship by defeating The Rock on the November 15, 1999 episode of Raw. At Armageddon, The Big Show defeated him to retain the title and end the feud. CANNOTANSWER | Boss Man's major feud was with Al Snow, | false | [
"In professional wrestling, a feud is a staged rivalry between multiple wrestlers or groups of wrestlers. They are integrated into ongoing storylines, particularly in events which are televised. Feuds may last for months or even years or be resolved with implausible speed, perhaps during a single match. WWE's terminology discouraged the use of the term along with the word \"war\".\n\nDefinition\nFeuds are often the result of the friction that is created between faces (the heroic figures) and heels (the malevolent, \"evil\" participants). Common causes of feuds are a purported slight or insult, although they can be based on many other things, including conflicting moral codes or simple professional one-upmanship such as the pursuit of a championship. Some of the more popular feuds with audiences involve pitting former allies, particularly tag team partners, against each other. Depending on how popular and entertaining the feud may be, it is usually common practice for a feud to continue on for weeks, usually building toward a match in a supercard.\n\nOne of the longest feuds of all time was the feud between Ric Flair and Ricky Steamboat, estimated by Flair to comprise more than 2,000 matches, though he admits that most of those matches were \"confined to those in the arena.\"\n\nTraditionally, most promoters wanted to \"protect the business\" by having wrestlers act in character in public, and thus further convince the live audience that the feuding wrestlers really did hate each other and were looking to outdo each other. During the days when wrestling territories were more regionally based, some feuds lasted for years, and if the feuding wrestlers were shown to really be friends, or were associating as friends in public, it would break the illusion of their feud, and undo all the work to promote it up to that point.\n\nSee also\nAngle (professional wrestling)\nGlossary of professional wrestling terms\nKayfabe\nShoot (professional wrestling)\nWork (professional wrestling)\n\nNotes\n\nProfessional wrestling slang",
"William Smithson (May 31, 1950 – March 21, 2013) was a professional wrestler who wrestled as Moondog Spike during the early 1990s with Moondog Spot from 1991 to 1992 and Moondog Cujo from 1992 to 1993 as part of The Moondogs.\n\nProfessional wrestling career\nTrained by Tojo Yamamoto in Tennessee, Smithson made his debut in 1978 as a tag team partner of Jerry Ralph in one of the many incarnations of the \"Inferno\" tag teams managed by Mike Duprée. During the mid-1980s, under the name Dizzy Golden, he formed a tag team with his storyline brother Mike Golden in the Mid-South area winning the Texas All-Star U.S.A. Tag Team Championship twice during a feud with the \"Dream Team\" of King Parsons and Tiger Conway, Jr. in 1986 and reigned as its last tag team champions until the title was retired in November 1986 following the federation's purchase by World Class Championship Wrestling. He briefly went to Memphis after the demise of Texas All Star Wrestling as the Australian \"Bluey\". He was bought in by George Barnes to help feud with Bill Dundee who Barnes had turned on and said Dundee had gotten too \"American\". That same year he worked for All Japan Pro Wrestling. After that he went to ICW in the New England area where he wrestled there in late 1987 and 1988 as Moondog Spike.He won the Hwy Title as well as twice the Tag straps.\n\nIn 1991, Smithson began teaming with Moondog Spot in the Memphis-based United States Wrestling Association. Together they violently feuded with Jeff Jarrett and Jerry \"The King\" Lawler throughout the year; the feud being featured in Pro Wrestling Illustrated's \"Feud of the Year\" in 1992.\n\nWith Moondog Spot's retirement the following year, Lanny Keane, Jr. was brought in as Moondog Cujo to replace Moondog Spot. Smithson and Keane, Jr. would feud with The Dogcatchers and win the USWA Southern Tag Team Championships several times before Lanny Keane left to pursue a singles career as Bloody Ox Brody. In 1993 he returned to Japan teaming with Moondog Splat for W*ING. Smithson disappeared soon after the split however, possibly due to health problems resulting from his weight gain. He would work occasionally in the independent circuit until his last match in 2011. He died in March 2013.\n\nChampionships and accomplishments\nInternational Championship Wrestling (New England)\nICW Heavyweight Championship (1 time)\nICW Tag Team Championship (2 times) - with Moondog Spot (1) and The Dungeon Master (1)\nTexas All-Star Wrestling\nTexas All-Star USA Tag Team Championship (2 times) with Mike Golden\nUnited States Wrestling Association\nUSWA World Tag Team Championship (6 times) - with Moondog Spot (3), Moondog Cujo (2) and Mike Lozansky (1)\nPro Wrestling Illustrated\nPWI ranked him # 150 of the 500 best singles wrestlers in the PWI 500 in 1992.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nOnline World of Wrestling: Bill Smithson\nMoondog Spike\nLegends: The Moondogs\n\n2013 deaths\n1950 births\nAmerican male professional wrestlers\nProfessional wrestlers from Tennessee",
"El Elegido (born November 23, 1975) is a Mexican luchador enmascarado, or masked professional wrestler. Elegido is best known for his appearances with the Mexican professional wrestling promotion AAA, where he has worked primarily as a tecnico (a face, or those that portray the \"good guys\") and for a while as a member of the rudo (Heel, those that portray the \"bad guys\") stable Los Mirreyes alongside Alan Stone and Toscano. He has also worked for International Wrestling Revolution Group and smaller independent groups.\n\nIn 2007, Elegido was among several luchadors that represented AAA in an inter-promotional show with Pro Wrestling Noah at the Differ Ariake Arena.\n\nHe is known for his entrances consisting of him somersaulting from all four ring corners after raising both arms in the air at each corner. His gear consists of a black mask with a Celtic cross on the forehead of the mask, and black trunks. His ring name is Spanish for \"The Chosen One\"\n\nProfessional wrestling career \n\nElegido debuted on March 20, 2006. He became a regular with AAA that year.\n\nHe often teamed with El Intocable, who had a similar gimmick and often competed against various members of Los Guapos VIP.\n\nOn July 15, 2007, he competed in his first Triplemanía at Triplemanía XV, picking up the win in a trios against Los Guapos VIP.\n\nOn March 15, 2009, he was defeated in the semifinals of the Rey de Reyes tournament. In 2009, he also teamed with Gronda II in Gronda's short feud against the original \"Gronda\", Groon XXX.\n\nOn October 1, 2010, he competed in a Torneo cibernetico match with the stipulation that he would lose his mask if he was final person pinned. While he did get pinned, he was able to escape the match with his mask intact.\n\nAs of February 2017, despite competing in AAA for over 10 years, he has yet to win any AAA titles.\n\nHe competed at Rey de Reyes (2017) for the Rey de Reyes sword. the also match also included La Parka , Argenis , Averno , Pimpinela Escarlata , Niño Hamburguesa , Joe Líder , Chessman , which Argenis won\n\nChampionships and accomplishments \n Pro Wrestling Illustrated\n PWI ranked him #170 of the 500 best singles wrestlers of the PWI 500 in 2009\n\nLuchas de Apuestas record\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nEl Elegido at The Accelerator's Wrestling Rollercoaster\nEl Elegido at Cagematch.net\n\nEl Elegido at Wrestlingdata.com\nProfessional wrestling record for El Elegido from The Internet Wrestling Database\n\n1975 births\nMasked wrestlers\nMexican male professional wrestlers\nLiving people\nUnidentified wrestlers\nProfessional wrestlers from Nuevo León\nPeople from Monterrey"
] |
|
[
"Big Boss Man (wrestler)",
"Hardcore Championship pursuit (1998-2000)",
"What wrestling league was Big Boss Man in when he was pursuing the Hardcore Championship?",
"In the WWF's Hardcore division,",
"What is a notable match that he had during this time period?",
"Boss Man became the #1 contender for the WWF Championship by defeating The Rock on the November 15, 1999 episode of Raw.",
"Did he eventually win the WWF Championship?",
"The Big Show defeated him to retain the title and end the feud.",
"Did he feud with any other wrestlers?",
"Boss Man's major feud was with Al Snow,"
] | C_3bba6eb691eb4ad19e5ff75dbe17c742_1 | Did they have a match against each other? | 5 | Did Big Boss man and Al Snow have a WWF match?? | Big Boss Man (wrestler) | Traylor rejoined the WWF shortly after his WCW release and once again became "Big Boss Man". On October 12, 1998, he returned to television with a new look, abandoning his blue police shirt for an all-black SWAT-style uniform, including a tactical vest and gloves. He served as Vince McMahon's bodyguard during his feud with Stone Cold Steve Austin and his later feud with D-Generation X. He briefly wore a mask, before his identity was revealed. Boss Man was one of the first members of McMahon's heel stable, The Corporation, and served as a bodyguard for other members, such as Vince's son Shane. While in The Corporation, Boss Man won the Tag Team Championship with Ken Shamrock, won the Hardcore Championship four times, and lost to The Undertaker at WrestleMania XV in a Hell in a Cell match. After this match, The Undertaker hanged him from the roof of the cage (an illusion made possible by a body harness concealed under Traylor's outfit). In the WWF's Hardcore division, Boss Man's major feud was with Al Snow, a feud that eventually involved Snow's pet chihuahua, Pepper. At SummerSlam, the two had a Falls Count Anywhere match that spilled into the backstage area, the street and, finally, into a nearby bar. Just prior to the match, Snow had set Pepper's pet carrier near the entranceway. Minutes into the match, Boss Man picked it up, taunted Pepper, struck Snow with the carrier and carelessly tossed it behind him. Commentator Jim Ross immediately apologized to viewers for the act, and stated that Pepper had been removed from the box before the match. Two weeks later, Boss Man kidnapped and ransomed Pepper, arranging a meeting in which he fed Snow a meat dish supposedly made from Pepper's remains. The two settled their feud in a Kennel from Hell match at Unforgiven, in which a blue solid steel cage surrounded the ring, itself and ringside surrounded by the chain-link fenced "cell". The object of the match was to escape from the cage and the cell while avoiding "attack dogs" (which turned out to be disappointingly docile) positioned outside the ring. Snow won the match and retained the Hardcore title, which had been returned to him by Davey Boy Smith, who had defeated Boss Man for it. Boss Man would later win back the Hardcore title in a triple threat match involving Al Snow and The Big Show, and would hold it until January 2000, when he lost it to Test. Boss Man then feuded with The Big Show over the WWF Championship. During the feud, Boss Man showed up at Big Show's father's funeral, made some disrespectful remarks, then chained the casket to the back of his car and drove off. The Big Show attempted to save the coffin by jumping on it, riding it for a few yards before losing his grip and tumbling off, the feud also included a segment in which Boss Man invaded the home of Big Show's mother and forced her on camera to admit her son was born an illegitimate child. Boss Man became the #1 contender for the WWF Championship by defeating The Rock on the November 15, 1999 episode of Raw. At Armageddon, The Big Show defeated him to retain the title and end the feud. CANNOTANSWER | At SummerSlam, the two had a Falls Count Anywhere match that spilled into the backstage area, the street and, finally, into a nearby bar. | false | [
"The 1877 season was the first in which Geelong participated in the newly established Victorian Football Association. Geelong did not have a captain this season nor did they have a best and fairest. No data is available as to who scored the most goals. Geelong did not play enough matches to place on the ladder.\n\nSeason Summary \nGeelong mainly played matches against local teams this season with only three matches against senior clubs. Of those matches, Geelong won one match and lost two matches. Geelong played twice against Geelong Imperial winning one match and drawing the other. Geelong also played matches against Camperdown and Colac, and Victorian Railways, winning both of these matches.\n\nResults\n\nReferences \n\n Geelong Football Club seasons\n 1877 in Australian rules football",
"The Pakistani cricket team toured South Africa in the 1994–95 season. On the tour they played two first-class tour matches, three one-day matches and a single Test match. They also competed in a quadrangular tournament against New Zealand, South Africa and Sri Lanka, entitled the Mandela Trophy. They lost the best-of-three final series 2–0 to South Africa, having topped the table in the group stage. They lost the only Test by 324 runs.\n\nSquads\n\nWasim Akram missed the South African leg of the tour with sinus trouble and was replaced by Ata-ur-Rehman. Aamer Nazir joined the tour party when Waqar Younis returned home injured.\n\nTour matches\n\nNicky Oppenheimer XI v Sri Lankans\n\nThis match did not have List A status.\n\n50-over: Transvaal Invitation XI v Pakistanis\n \nThis match did not have List A status.\n\n50-over: Eastern Cape Invitation XI v Pakistanis\n\nThis match did not have List A status.\n\nFirst-class: Western Province v Pakistanis\n\nFirst-class: Natal v Pakistanis\n\nMandela Trophy\n\nPakistan played in a quadrangular tournament with New Zealand, South Africa and Sri Lanka. Played in a round-robin format, all four teams played each other once, with the top two teams going through to a best-of-three final series to decide the winner.\n\nGroup stage\n\nFinal series\n\nSouth Africa won the best of three final series against Pakistan 2-0.\n\n1st Final\n\n2nd Final\n\nTest series\n\nOnly Test\n\nRecords\nThis match was the inaugural Test between Pakistan and South Africa. At the time, this was South Africa's second-largest Test victory by runs.\n\nSee also\nNew Zealand cricket team in South Africa in 1994–95\nMandela Trophy\n\nNotes\n\nExternal links\n CricketArchive\n Cricinfo\n Cricinfo: Test match averages\n\nReferences\n Wisden Cricketers' Almanack 1996: The Pakistanis in South Africa and Zimbabwe, 1994-95\n\n1994 in Pakistani cricket\n1995 in Pakistani cricket\n1994 in South African cricket\n1995 in South African cricket\nInternational cricket competitions from 1994–95 to 1997\n1994-95\nSouth African cricket seasons from 1970–71 to 1999–2000",
"Western United Football Club is an Australian professional association football club based in the Western Suburbs in Melbourne. The club was formed in 2017 as Western United before it was renamed from Western Melbourne in 2018.\n\nWestern United's first team compete in the A-League Men. Western United's first A-League Men match was against Wellington Phoenix, and they met their 11th and most recent different league opponent, Macarthur FC, for the first time in the 2020–21 A-League season. The teams that Western United have played most in the league competition are Melbourne City and Melbourne Victory. The 5 defeats from 8 meetings against Melbourne City is more than they have lost against any other club. Adelaide United have drawn 2 league encounters with Western United, more than any other club. Western United have recorded more league victories against Brisbane Roar, Melbourne Victory and Western Sydney Wanderers than against any other club, having beaten them 4 times each.\n\nKey\nThe table includes results of matches played by Western United in the A-League Men.\nThe name used for each opponent is the name they had when Western United most recently played a league match against them.\nThe columns headed \"First\" and \"Last\" contain the first and most recent seasons in which Western United played league matches against each opponent.\nP = matches played; W = matches won; D = matches drawn; L = matches lost; Win% = percentage of total matches won\n\nAll-time league record\nStatistics correct as at match played 23 February 2022\n\nReferences \nGeneral\n \n \n \n\nSpecific\n\nLeague record by opponent\nAustralian soccer club league records by opponent"
] |
|
[
"Big Boss Man (wrestler)",
"Hardcore Championship pursuit (1998-2000)",
"What wrestling league was Big Boss Man in when he was pursuing the Hardcore Championship?",
"In the WWF's Hardcore division,",
"What is a notable match that he had during this time period?",
"Boss Man became the #1 contender for the WWF Championship by defeating The Rock on the November 15, 1999 episode of Raw.",
"Did he eventually win the WWF Championship?",
"The Big Show defeated him to retain the title and end the feud.",
"Did he feud with any other wrestlers?",
"Boss Man's major feud was with Al Snow,",
"Did they have a match against each other?",
"At SummerSlam, the two had a Falls Count Anywhere match that spilled into the backstage area, the street and, finally, into a nearby bar."
] | C_3bba6eb691eb4ad19e5ff75dbe17c742_1 | Who won the feud? | 6 | Who won the feud between wrestlers Big Boss man and Al Snow? | Big Boss Man (wrestler) | Traylor rejoined the WWF shortly after his WCW release and once again became "Big Boss Man". On October 12, 1998, he returned to television with a new look, abandoning his blue police shirt for an all-black SWAT-style uniform, including a tactical vest and gloves. He served as Vince McMahon's bodyguard during his feud with Stone Cold Steve Austin and his later feud with D-Generation X. He briefly wore a mask, before his identity was revealed. Boss Man was one of the first members of McMahon's heel stable, The Corporation, and served as a bodyguard for other members, such as Vince's son Shane. While in The Corporation, Boss Man won the Tag Team Championship with Ken Shamrock, won the Hardcore Championship four times, and lost to The Undertaker at WrestleMania XV in a Hell in a Cell match. After this match, The Undertaker hanged him from the roof of the cage (an illusion made possible by a body harness concealed under Traylor's outfit). In the WWF's Hardcore division, Boss Man's major feud was with Al Snow, a feud that eventually involved Snow's pet chihuahua, Pepper. At SummerSlam, the two had a Falls Count Anywhere match that spilled into the backstage area, the street and, finally, into a nearby bar. Just prior to the match, Snow had set Pepper's pet carrier near the entranceway. Minutes into the match, Boss Man picked it up, taunted Pepper, struck Snow with the carrier and carelessly tossed it behind him. Commentator Jim Ross immediately apologized to viewers for the act, and stated that Pepper had been removed from the box before the match. Two weeks later, Boss Man kidnapped and ransomed Pepper, arranging a meeting in which he fed Snow a meat dish supposedly made from Pepper's remains. The two settled their feud in a Kennel from Hell match at Unforgiven, in which a blue solid steel cage surrounded the ring, itself and ringside surrounded by the chain-link fenced "cell". The object of the match was to escape from the cage and the cell while avoiding "attack dogs" (which turned out to be disappointingly docile) positioned outside the ring. Snow won the match and retained the Hardcore title, which had been returned to him by Davey Boy Smith, who had defeated Boss Man for it. Boss Man would later win back the Hardcore title in a triple threat match involving Al Snow and The Big Show, and would hold it until January 2000, when he lost it to Test. Boss Man then feuded with The Big Show over the WWF Championship. During the feud, Boss Man showed up at Big Show's father's funeral, made some disrespectful remarks, then chained the casket to the back of his car and drove off. The Big Show attempted to save the coffin by jumping on it, riding it for a few yards before losing his grip and tumbling off, the feud also included a segment in which Boss Man invaded the home of Big Show's mother and forced her on camera to admit her son was born an illegitimate child. Boss Man became the #1 contender for the WWF Championship by defeating The Rock on the November 15, 1999 episode of Raw. At Armageddon, The Big Show defeated him to retain the title and end the feud. CANNOTANSWER | Snow won the match | false | [
"A feud is long-running argument or conflict between two parties.\n\nFeud may also refer to:\n\n Fief or feudum, land held under the feudal system\n\nFilm\n The Feud (1910 film), an American silent film\n The Feud (1919 film), a lost silent film drama\n The Feud, a 1926 American film featuring Earle Foxe\n The Feud, a 1955 Hong Kong film featuring Kenneth Tsang\n The Feud, a 1989 American film based on Thomas Berger's novel (see below), directed by Bill D'Elia\n The Feud, a 2019 American film directed by Randall Maclowry for the television series American Experience\n\nTelevision\n Feud (professional wrestling), a storyline rivalry in professional wrestling\n Feud (TV series), an American anthology TV series\n\nEpisodes\n \"Feud\" (The Brak Show)\n \"Feud\" (The Elephant Princess)\n \"Feud\" (Glee)\n \"Feud\" (Lassie)\n \"Feud\" (Watching Ellie)\n \"The Feud\" (The Army Game)\n \"The Feud\" (Arthur)\n \"The Feud\" (Blondie)\n \"The Feud\" (Date with the Angels)\n \"The Feud\" (Hidden Hills)\n \"The Feud\" (Mad About You)\n \"The Feud\" (Memphis Beat)\n \"The Feud\" (Modern Family)\n \"The Feud\" (Reba)\n \"The Feud\" (The Roy Rogers Show)\n \"The Feud\" (Wildfire)\n \"The Feud!\" (Voltron: Legendary Defender)\n\nOther media\n Feud (video game), a 1987 computer game for 8- and 16-bit home computers\n The Feud (novel), a 1983 novel by Thomas Berger\n\nSee also \n Family Feud (disambiguation)\n Feudal (disambiguation)\n Blood Feud (disambiguation)",
"Google Feud is a browser-based trivia game featuring answers pulled from Google.\nIt is based on American show Family Feud\n\nHistory\nThe game was created in 2013 by American indie developer Justin Hook, a writer for Bob's Burgers on FOX, as well as other TV shows and comic books.\n\nGoogle Feud went viral in March 2015, when it was featured on the front page of Buzzfeed, played on @midnight with Chris Hardwick, referenced in the monologue of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, and featured in dozens of other outlets. Google Feud has since been played over half a billion times by nearly 30 million players.\n\nGoogle Feud has become a popular game with YouTubers, including Dan and Phil, Markiplier, PewDiePie, and jacksepticeye.\n\nIn 2017, Google Feud was featured on the Fine Brothers program Celebs React on Fullscreen, with contestants including Tyler Oakley.\n\nAccording to Colin McMillen, a staff software engineer at Google who shared the game on his Google+ page, a very similar game was played by employees in Google's offices around the world.\n\nOther versions and platforms\nAn app version of Google Feud called Autocompete is available for iOS and Android. A bot version, also called Autocompete, is available on Amweb \n\nGoogle Feud is also available as a Tor hidden service.\n\nControversy\nGoogle Feud became the subject of some controversy for promoting the online game Push Trump Off A Cliff Again!, also created by Hook, after celebrities including John Leguizamo and Rosie O'Donnell promoted the game on their Twitter profiles.\n\nAwards\nGoogle Feud won the \"People's Voice\" Webby Award for Games in 2016, presented by Nick Offerman.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n Developer Website\n\n2013 video games\nBrowser games\nOnline games\nQuiz games\nVideo games developed in the United States",
"The Lincoln County feud occurred in the Harts Creek community of Lincoln and Logan counties, West Virginia, between 1878 and 1890.\n\nBackground\nThe feud arose out of personal grievances between Paris Brumfield (c.1837–1891), a distiller, storekeeper, and timber man, and Canaan \"Cain\" Adkins (1833–1896), a United Baptist preacher, country physician, schoolteacher, and justice of the peace. A great deal of the early trouble centered on ownership of a key piece of real estate at the mouth of Harts Creek. Aside from the Brumfield-Adkins quarrel, the feud included family quarrels between Henderson Dingess (1829–1902), a distiller, and his brother-in-law, Benjamin Adams (1854–1910), a timber boss, and the Halls, one of whom had married Dingess' son, Floyd.\n\nThe feud\nBy the mid-1880s, the Brumfield-Adkins vendetta, the Dingess-Adams vendetta, and the Dingess-Hall vendetta had become hopelessly entangled, partly due to the marriage of Allen \"Al\" Brumfield (1860–1905), merchant son of Paris, and Hollena Dingess (1863–1937), daughter of Henderson. While Paris Brumfield continued his personal feud with Cain Adkins and his family, Al Brumfield feuded with Ben Adams, his uncle-in-law, John W. Runyon (1855–1925), storekeeper, tavern operator, and deputy sheriff, and others due to matters of business, politics, or land. The Lincoln County Feud ranks as the second-most famous feud in West Virginia history, trumped only by the Hatfield-McCoy Feud, which occurred in the nearby Tug Valley. During its hey-day, the Lincoln feud commanded headlines in newspapers throughout the United States. It resulted in four confirmed deaths and the extermination or out-migration of some of the community's leading citizens, established Harts Creek as one of West Virginia's most violent communities, and may have triggered the movement of a county boundary.\n\nDeaths\n\nPopular culture\n\nIn 1925, Professor John Harrington Cox published Folk-Songs of the South, which included a ballad titled \"A West Virginia Feud Song\" that detailed key events in the Lincoln County Feud. The following year, regional historian and educator Fred B. Lambert presented a brief account of the feud, including a better version of Cox's ballad titled \"The Lincoln County Crew,\" which he attributed to George W. Ferrell. In 1986 and 1992, Goldenseal magazine, West Virginia's premiere publication of state culture and history, resurrected the story and published two accounts of the feud. During the early 1990s, Brandon Ray Kirk, a local historian and descendant of feudists, began to research the feud story, mostly compiling oral histories and consulting available newspaper accounts. Between 1995 and 2001, Kirk partnered with country music star John Hartford to research the feud. During that time, Hartford and Kirk primarily investigated the life of Ed Haley, one of the most significant musicians of his era, whose father had been murdered in the Lincoln County Feud. In 1997, Rounder Records released a four CD set of Haley's home recordings from the late 1940s, titled Forked Deer and Grey Eagle, which featured liner notes by Hartford and Kirk regarding the feud. In 1998, Hartford released the Haley-inspired and Grammy-nominated CD The Speed of the Old Long Bow, which included some feud-era musical selections. In the late 1990s, Kirk and Hartford published a brief history of the feud in the West Virginia Encyclopedia. Hartford and Kirk also collaborated with Douglas W. Owsley, Division Head of Physical Anthropology at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History (NMNH), to exhume the grave of two feudists. In March 2000, Smithsonian magazine published a story regarding the dig. Ed Haley's music appeared in the movie O Brother Where Art Thou? which won a Grammy in 2001. In 2014, Kirk published Blood in West Virginia: Brumfield v. McCoy (Pelican Publishing Company: Gretna, LA), which details the story of the Lincoln County Feud.\n\nReferences\n\nFurther reading\n \n \n\nAmerican murder victims\nAppalachia\nAppalachian society\nCulture of the Southern United States\nDeaths by firearm in West Virginia\nFeuds in the United States\nFolklore of the Southern United States\nHistory of West Virginia\nHistory of Kentucky\nHistory of the Southern United States\nPeople murdered in West Virginia"
] |
|
[
"Big Boss Man (wrestler)",
"Hardcore Championship pursuit (1998-2000)",
"What wrestling league was Big Boss Man in when he was pursuing the Hardcore Championship?",
"In the WWF's Hardcore division,",
"What is a notable match that he had during this time period?",
"Boss Man became the #1 contender for the WWF Championship by defeating The Rock on the November 15, 1999 episode of Raw.",
"Did he eventually win the WWF Championship?",
"The Big Show defeated him to retain the title and end the feud.",
"Did he feud with any other wrestlers?",
"Boss Man's major feud was with Al Snow,",
"Did they have a match against each other?",
"At SummerSlam, the two had a Falls Count Anywhere match that spilled into the backstage area, the street and, finally, into a nearby bar.",
"Who won the feud?",
"Snow won the match"
] | C_3bba6eb691eb4ad19e5ff75dbe17c742_1 | Was Big Boss Man ever a part of a tag team? | 7 | Was Big Boss Man ever a part of a tag team? | Big Boss Man (wrestler) | Traylor rejoined the WWF shortly after his WCW release and once again became "Big Boss Man". On October 12, 1998, he returned to television with a new look, abandoning his blue police shirt for an all-black SWAT-style uniform, including a tactical vest and gloves. He served as Vince McMahon's bodyguard during his feud with Stone Cold Steve Austin and his later feud with D-Generation X. He briefly wore a mask, before his identity was revealed. Boss Man was one of the first members of McMahon's heel stable, The Corporation, and served as a bodyguard for other members, such as Vince's son Shane. While in The Corporation, Boss Man won the Tag Team Championship with Ken Shamrock, won the Hardcore Championship four times, and lost to The Undertaker at WrestleMania XV in a Hell in a Cell match. After this match, The Undertaker hanged him from the roof of the cage (an illusion made possible by a body harness concealed under Traylor's outfit). In the WWF's Hardcore division, Boss Man's major feud was with Al Snow, a feud that eventually involved Snow's pet chihuahua, Pepper. At SummerSlam, the two had a Falls Count Anywhere match that spilled into the backstage area, the street and, finally, into a nearby bar. Just prior to the match, Snow had set Pepper's pet carrier near the entranceway. Minutes into the match, Boss Man picked it up, taunted Pepper, struck Snow with the carrier and carelessly tossed it behind him. Commentator Jim Ross immediately apologized to viewers for the act, and stated that Pepper had been removed from the box before the match. Two weeks later, Boss Man kidnapped and ransomed Pepper, arranging a meeting in which he fed Snow a meat dish supposedly made from Pepper's remains. The two settled their feud in a Kennel from Hell match at Unforgiven, in which a blue solid steel cage surrounded the ring, itself and ringside surrounded by the chain-link fenced "cell". The object of the match was to escape from the cage and the cell while avoiding "attack dogs" (which turned out to be disappointingly docile) positioned outside the ring. Snow won the match and retained the Hardcore title, which had been returned to him by Davey Boy Smith, who had defeated Boss Man for it. Boss Man would later win back the Hardcore title in a triple threat match involving Al Snow and The Big Show, and would hold it until January 2000, when he lost it to Test. Boss Man then feuded with The Big Show over the WWF Championship. During the feud, Boss Man showed up at Big Show's father's funeral, made some disrespectful remarks, then chained the casket to the back of his car and drove off. The Big Show attempted to save the coffin by jumping on it, riding it for a few yards before losing his grip and tumbling off, the feud also included a segment in which Boss Man invaded the home of Big Show's mother and forced her on camera to admit her son was born an illegitimate child. Boss Man became the #1 contender for the WWF Championship by defeating The Rock on the November 15, 1999 episode of Raw. At Armageddon, The Big Show defeated him to retain the title and end the feud. CANNOTANSWER | Boss Man won the Tag Team Championship with Ken Shamrock, | false | [
"The Twin Towers was the name of a professional wrestling tag-team who competed in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) from 1988 to 1990, consisting of Akeem and The Big Boss Man.\n\nHistory\nThe Towers had before feuded with each other when the Big Boss Man was known as Big Bubba Rogers and Akeem was known as The One Man Gang in the Universal Wrestling Federation (UWF), when Rogers defeated Gang to win the UWF World Heavyweight Championship. This happened when Skandor Akbar who was managing Gang then deviously pitted Gang against Rogers who Akbar was also managing, for the UWF championship, Rogers then defeated Gang to win the title, and after Akbar then dumped Gang and continued to manage Rogers.\n\nShortly after losing the UWF championship, Gang left the UWF and joined the WWF. In late 1988 when Slick was managing the One Man Gang (who had recently become Akeem \"The African Dream\") as well Rogers who had joined the WWF as The Big Boss Man. Slick then paired up Akeem with the Boss Man and billed them as The Twin Towers. The Towers would make their pay-per-view debut on November 24, 1988 as at the WWF 1988 Survivor Series captaining a team with Haku, Ted DiBiase, and The Red Rooster against a team captained by The Mega Powers (Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage), Hercules, Koko B. Ware and Hillbilly Jim in a five against five elimination match. The Towers' team lost and Hogan and Savage were the survivors of the match, but not before both received beat downs from The Towers.\n\nAttack and aftermath\nWhile still teaming as the Towers, Boss Man and Akeem would have many single matches against Hogan and Savage. Then on a January 9, 1989 episode of WWF Superstars of Wrestling, WWF World Heavyweight Champion Savage had a match against Akeem. When Savage delivered his diving elbow drop to Akeem and went to pin him, Boss Man then came and entered the ring and attacked Savage with his nightstick, and Akeem was disqualified. Hogan then ran down and attacked the Towers who then left the ring. On January 7, 1989 When Hogan faced Akeem on Saturday Night's Main Event XIX, Boss Man again interfered in the match, and then Elizabeth who was the manager of the Mega Powers came to help Hogan, who was then followed by Savage, who then cleared the ring of the Towers.\n\nAlso during January 1989 the Towers would achieve success, when they would score several wins over The Young Stallions (Paul Roma and Jim Powers). Weeks later on February 3, 1989 on The Main Event II, the Towers had a match against the Mega Powers, who were having dissension between them. During the match, Akeem threw Savage out of the ring and who then landed on top of Savage's manager Elizabeth, knocking her unconscious. When Hogan saw what happened, he left the match and carried Elizabeth from the ring to the medical area. When he returned to the ring, he wanted to tag Savage, but Savage, who was furious with being abandoned during the match and very angry that he had to face the Towers alone, then slapped Hogan in the face, and then left Hogan the face the Towers by himself. Hogan then defeated the Towers by himself and the Mega Powers won the match.\n\nTwo months later at WrestleMania V The Towers defeated The Rockers (Shawn Michaels and Marty Jannetty) after Akeem pinned Michaels following a powerbomb by the Boss Man and Akeem's own Air Africa finisher. The Towers also appeared on a 1989 WWF VHS coliseum home video cassette called WWF Fan Favorites where they wrestled and defeated The Hart Foundation (Bret Hart and Jim Neidhart) by countout. Though the Towers were still wrestling as a team, Boss Man pursued the WWF world championship and wrestled a major singles match, when he received a title shot against the new WWF champion Hulk Hogan after Hogan regained the WWF World Title from Savage at WrestleMania V, after the Mega Powers disbanded.\n\nOn Saturday Night's Main Event XXI, Boss Man faced Hogan in a Steel Cage Match, and during the match Hogan superplexed Boss Man of the top of the cage, Boss Man ended up losing the match. Shortly after The Towers began a feud with the WWF Tag Team Champions Demolition (Ax and Smash) as they pursued the tag-team title. The Towers would lose every house show match they had against Demolition, some by pinfall, and some by disqualification. Even after Demolition lost the tag titles to The Brain Busters (Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard), The Towers continued to feud with Demolition. The Towers teamed with André the Giant against Demolition and King Duggan at SummerSlam 1989 much to surprise of commentator Jesse Ventura, Demolition and Duggan won the match. During this time The Twin Towers and Slick would also make an appearance on the Arsenio Hall Show.\n\nAt the 1989 Survivor Series The Towers were to team with The Honky Tonk Man and Rick Martel as a team called The Enforcers against a team called the Dream Team consisting of Dusty Rhodes, Brutus Beefcake, Tito Santana, and the Red Rooster, but the Boss Man's partner Akeem, but was replaced at the last moment by Bad News Brown. The Enforcers lost the match, with the Boss Man the last one to be pinned by Rhodes.\n\nDuring this time, the Boss Man was actually embroiled in a feud with Dusty Rhodes after Rhodes had stolen The Boss Man's nightstick and handcuffs.\n\nEnd of feud\nFollowing the conclusion of his feud with Rhodes early 1990, The Boss Man became a face when \"The Million Dollar Man\" Ted DiBiase paid Slick to have the Boss Man retrieve the Million Dollar Championship belt from Jake \"The Snake\" Roberts, who had stolen it. On a February 24, 1990 episode of WWF Superstars of Wrestling, The Boss Man retrieved a bag containing both the belt and Roberts' pet python, Damien. On The Brother Love Show, he refused to accept DiBiase's money for the bag, and returned it to Roberts. After that the Towers disbanded.\n\nBreakup and aftermath\n\nBig Boss Man\nAfter the Towers disbanded they once again feuded, Boss Man wrestled and defeated Akeem at WrestleMania VI in only 1:49 despite DiBiase (who had wrestled the previous match against Jake Roberts) sneak attacking The Big Boss Man before the bell had rung to begin the match. Boss Man again defeated Akeem on April 28, 1990 on episode 26 of Saturday Night's Main Event XXVI by disqualification. Subsequently, Boss Man later began teaming up with his former foe, Hulk Hogan, against many forces including being in Hogan's corner for his match against Earthquake at SummerSlam 1990, and was also on a team led by Hogan at the 1990 Survivor Series. He would leave the company in March 1993 and went to All Japan Pro Wrestling.\n\nBoss Man later resurfaced in World Championship Wrestling (WCW) in December 1993 as The Boss before being rebranded as The Guardian Angel. He subsequently turned heel and reverted to the Big Bubba Rogers identity, later shortened to Big Bubba. Then went to his real name jobbing for WCW. He left in early 1998. In September 1998 he returned to WWF and worked there until being released in 2003. He died on September 22, 2004 from a heart attack at 41 years old.\n\nAkeem\nAfter losing his feud with his former partner, Akeem dropped back down to mid-card status, and would later leave the WWF in October 1990, and in the process reverting to being the One Man Gang. He wrestled in WCW in 1991, where he feuded with El Gigante. He later returned to WCW in 1995 and won the United States championship. He retired from wrestling in 2009.\n\nReunion\nGang and Bubba were both recruited to The Dungeon of Doom in early 1996.\n\nExternal links\nTwin Towers OWW Profile\n\nReferences\n\nArticles containing video clips\nWWE teams and stables",
"Big Japan Pro Wrestling has held a variety of different professional wrestling tournaments, mainly in deathmatch format, competed for by sports entertainers that are a part of their roster.\n\nSporadic tournaments\n\nBJW Junior Heavyweight Championship Tournament (1998)\nThe BJW Junior Heavyweight Championship Tournament was an eight-man single-elimination tournament conducted on March 2, 1998 to crown the inaugural BJW Junior Heavyweight Champion.\n\nBJW Deathmatch Heavyweight Championship Tournament (1998)\nThe BJW Deathmatch Heavyweight Championship Tournament was held to crown the inaugural BJW Deathmatch Heavyweight Champion from June 8 to August 9, 1998.\n\nBJW Junior Heavyweight Championship Tournament (1999)\nThe BJW Junior Heavyweight Championship Tournament was a round-robin tournament for the vacant BJW Junior Heavyweight Championship held between June 14 and June 30, 1999.\n\nGrand Prix Tournament\nThe Grand Prix Tournament was a single elimination tournament which took place between January 2, 2000 and February 22, 2000.\n\nYamakawa's BJW Deathmatch Heavyweight Championship was on the line.\n\nSuper J-Cup Qualifying Tournament\nThe Super J-Cup Qualifying Tournament was a tournament for junior heavyweight wrestlers with the winner qualifying for the 2000 Super J-Cup, representing BJW in the tournament. The tournament was held between February 23 and March 3, 2000.\n\n2000 World Extreme Cup\nThe 2000 World Extreme Cup was a round-robin tournament contested under deathmatch variations. The tournament consisted of three blocks with each block consisting of four wrestlers and a total of twelve participants in the tournament. The top three scorers of each block qualified for the knockout stage of the tournament.\n\nBJW Heavyweight Championship Tournament\nThe BJW Heavyweight Championship Tournament was held between March 18 and March 20, 2001 to determine the inaugural BJW Heavyweight Champion.\n\nBJW Deathmatch Heavyweight Championship Tournament (2001)\nA tournament was held to crown a new BJW Deathmatch Heavyweight Champion after previous champion Tomoaki Honma left the company in March 2001, thus vacating the title. The tournament was held between April 28 and May 4, 2001.\n\nSix-Man Maximum Tag League\nThe Six-Man Tag Team League was a round-robin tournament featuring four trios with each trio consisting of three wrestlers and the tournament featured six-man tag team matches. The tournament was held between October 15 and October 25, 2001. The tournament was won by the trio of KAMIKAZE, Hideki Hosaka and Shunme Matsuzaki.\n\n2002 World Extreme Cup\nThe 2002 World Extreme Cup was the second version of the World Extreme Cup tournament consisting of four blocks and four wrestlers in each block, a total of sixteen participants in the tournament. The top two wrestlers from each block qualified for the knockout stage of the tournament.\n\nHayabusa Cup\nThe Hayabusa Cup was a round-robin tournament which took place between April 14 and May 6, 2002. The tournament was held as a homage to Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling superstar Hayabusa, who had recently retired from wrestling due to a severe injury which left him paralysed for the rest of his life.\n\nSix-Man Tag Team Tournament\nA knockout tournament was held on June 13, 2004 featuring six-man tag team matches.\n\nNumber 1 of Japan Tournament\nThe Number 1 of Japan Tournament was held on September 5, 2004.\n\nNew Generation Battle Tournament\nThe New Generation Battle Tournament was a tournament held on January 9, 2005.\n\nDainichi Dash\nThe Dainichi Dash was a tournament held on July 1, 2009.\n\n1 Day Tag Team Tournament\nThe 1 Day Tag Team Tournament was a three-team tournament held on August 5, 2013.\n\n8-Man Tag Team Tournament\nThe 8-Man Tag Team Tournament was a deathmatch tournament featuring eight-man tag team matches on August 19, 2009.\n\nD-Dash Tag Team Tournament\nThe D-Dash Tag Team Tournament was a tag team tournament held between November 3 and December 23, 2009.\n\nBJW Tag Team Championship Tournament\nA tournament was set up for the vacant BJW Tag Team Championship after previous champions Shinya Ishikawa and Yoshihito Sasaki vacated the titles due to Ishikawa suffering a leg injury. The tournament was held between March 19 and April 28, 2010.\n\nDainichi-X (2011)\nThe 2011 Dainichi-X was a round-robin tag team tournament which took place between February 2 and October 26, 2011.\n\nDainichi-X (2012)\nThe 2012 Dainichi-X was a round-robin tournament with the top two teams advancing to the final round.\n\nJun Ogawauchi was a replacement for the injured Ryuichi Kawakami. Ogawauchi and Shinya Ishikawa replaced to compete in the final round and thus were replaced by the third ranked tag team in the tournament in the final round.\n\nStrong Style Rising Tournament\nThe Strong Style Rising Tournament was a tournament held between May 24 and June 5, 2013.\n\nBJW Junior Heavyweight Championship Tournament (2017)\n\nA round robin tournament was held for the newly created BJW Junior Heavyweight Championship, distinct from the previous version.\n\nBJW Junior Heavyweight Championship #1 Contender's Tournament\nA tournament was set up to determine the #1 contender for Shinobu's BJW Junior Heavyweight Championship, taking place between June 13 and July 17, 2018.\n\nHercules Senga changed his ring name to Banana Senga in the semi-final round.\n\n6-Man Sacred Ground City of Forest Sendai Tournament\nThe 6-Man Sacred Ground City of Forest Sendai Tournament was a six-man tag team tournament, in which the Yokohama Shopping Street 6-Man Tag Team Championship was defended. The tournament was held on August 5, 2018. The defending champions Abdullah Kobayashi, Ryuji Ito and Jaki Numazawa lost the titles to Masaya Takahashi, Takayuki Ueki and Toshiyuki Sakuda, who would successfully defend the titles in the final round to win the tournament.\n\nSaikyo Tag League\n\nSaikyo Tag League is a professional wrestling round-robin hardcore tag team tournament annually held since 1999.\n\nDates and venues of finals\n\nIkkitousen Deathmatch Survivor\n\nIkkitousen Deathmatch Survivor is an annual professional wrestling round-robin hardcore tournament to determine the best wrestler of BJW's deathmatch division.\n\nDates and venues of finals\n\nIkkitousen Strong Climb\n\nIkkitousen Strong Climb is an annual professional wrestling round-robin hardcore tournament to determine the best wrestler of BJW's Strong BJ division.\n\nDates and venues of finals\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Big Japan Pro Wrestling official website\n\nTournaments\nProfessional wrestling tournaments\nProfessional wrestling-related lists",
"The 1999 Survivor Series was the 13th annual Survivor Series professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE). It took place on November 14, 1999, at the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, Michigan.\n\nThe main event was a Triple Threat Match (a non-elimination match involving three wrestlers against each other) for the WWF Championship between Triple H, Big Show and The Rock. Big Show was a replacement for Stone Cold Steve Austin, who had been run down by a car earlier in the night (which was an angle for Austin to take time to recover from his injuries). In reality, Austin needed spinal surgery to repair damage stemming from a serious injury he sustained just over two years prior at SummerSlam 1997.\n\nThe undercard included the New Age Outlaws defending the WWF Tag Team Championship against Al Snow and Mankind, Chyna defending the Intercontinental Championship against Chris Jericho, three four-on-four Survivor Series elimination match (including a Handicap match involving Big Show), as well as the WWF in-ring debut of Olympic Gold Medalist Kurt Angle.\n\nProduction\n\nBackground\nSurvivor Series is an annual gimmick pay-per-view (PPV), produced every November by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE) since 1987. In what has become the second longest running pay-per-view event in history (behind WWE's WrestleMania), it is one of the promotion's original four pay-per-views, along with WrestleMania, SummerSlam, and Royal Rumble, and was considered one of the \"Big Five\" PPVs, along with King of the Ring. The event is traditionally characterized by having Survivor Series matches, which are tag team elimination matches that typically pits teams of four or five wrestlers against each other. The 1999 event was the 13th event in the Survivor Series chronology and was scheduled to be held on November 14, 1999, at the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, Michigan.\n\nStorylines\nSurvivor Series consisted of professional wrestling matches involving wrestlers from pre-existing feuds and storylines that played out on Raw is War and SmackDown! — WWF's television programs. Wrestlers portrayed a hero or a villain as they followed a series of events that built tension, and culminated in a wrestling match or series of matches.\n\nThe main rivalry heading into the event was between Triple H, Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock over the WWF Championship. At No Mercy, Rock defeated British Bulldog in a standard wrestling match. Later that night, Rock challenged the winner of the WWF Championship Anything Goes match between Triple H and Stone Cold Steve Austin for the title. After issuing the challenge, Rock was attacked by Triple H with a sledgehammer. Later that night, Triple H defeated Austin to retain the title. On the October 18 episode of Raw is War, Rock challenged Triple H to a match for the title at Survivor Series, because Rock was angered at the previous night's attack. Austin also issued a challenge and claimed that he deserved a title shot instead of Rock. The WWF Chairman Vince McMahon solved the situation by making a Triple Threat match between Triple H, Austin and Rock for the WWF Championship.\n\nAnother predominant rivalry heading into the event was between New Age Outlaws (Mr. Ass and Road Dogg) and Al Snow and Mankind for the WWF Tag Team Championship. On the October 18 episode of Raw is War, Mick Foley gave his Rock 'n' Sock Connection partner Rock, a copy of his book \"Have A Nice Day!\". However, later that night, the same copy was discovered by Al Snow in a trashcan. He informed Foley about it. Foley confronted Rock about it. Rock denied doing so but Foley broke up the Rock 'n' Sock Connection. Later that night, Foley cost Rock and himself, the Tag Team Championship against The Hollys (Hardcore Holly and Crash Holly) by coming out for the match without wearing Mankind gear and leaving Rock to wrestle on his own. This allowed Hollys to defeat Rock and win the titles. On the October 21 episode of SmackDown, Mankind and Rock had a match which ended in a disqualification when Val Venis interfered and attacked Mankind with his book. On the October 25 episode of Raw is War, Mankind wrestled Triple H for the WWF Championship. Triple H was disqualified when Venis assaulted Mankind again, earning Mankind, a disqualification win. However, Al Snow came out to rescue Mankind from the assault. On the October 28 episode of SmackDown, Mankind defeated Venis after distraction from Snow. As a result, Mankind and Snow formed a tag team. On the November 4 episode of SmackDown!, Mankind and Snow defeated The Hollys to win the Tag Team Championship. On the November 8 episode of Raw is War, New Age Outlaws defeated Mankind and Snow for the Tag Team Championship. This led to a title match between New Age Outlaws and Mankind and Snow for the Tag Team Championship.\n\nAt No Mercy, Chyna defeated Jeff Jarrett in a Good Housekeeping match to win the WWF Intercontinental Championship. On the October 18 episode of Raw is War, Chyna issued an open challenge, which was answered by Chris Jericho, whose insults prompted Chyna to attack him. Stevie Richards also got involved in Chyna and Jericho's rivalry. On the November 8 episode of Raw is War, Jericho was scheduled to wrestle Chyna for the Intercontinental Championship at Survivor Series.\n\nOn the October 18 episode of Raw is War, Big Boss Man challenged Big Show to a match and agreed to defend the WWF Hardcore Championship. Big Show accepted the challenge. However, before the match Big Show left the arena to check on his father, who had reportedly died (in storyline). The report was later revealed as a plan of Boss Man. On the October 21 episode of SmackDown, an enraged Big Show attempted to attack Boss Man but Boss Man escaped. Big Show then assaulted the police officer. On the October 25 episode of Raw is War, Boss Man distracted Big Show during his match with Prince Albert. Albert attacked Big Show from behind and Boss Man broke Big Show's father's watch with a hammer. As a result, Boss Man and Albert formed a new alliance. On the October 28 episode of SmackDown, Al Snow had a match with Boss Man. However, Boss Man's ally, Albert continuously interfered in the match and the two attacked Snow, leading him to challenge both men to a Hardcore match in the parking lot. Later that night, Boss Man and Albert went to the parking lot to wrestle Snow but instead of Snow, Big Show appeared. He trapped Boss Man and Albert in a car, smashed it into pieces and pushed a dumpster on the top of the car. On the November 1 episode of Raw is War, Boss Man and Albert attacked Big Show during an interview. On the November 8 episode of Raw is War, a tribute was paid to Big Show's father on his death. Boss Man came out and insulted Big Show and his father. On the November 11 episode of SmackDown, footage was shown of Boss Man interrupting the funeral, attacking Big Show and ruining the grave. This led to a Survivor Series match between Big Show's team (consisting of Kai En Tai (Funaki and Taka Michinoku) and The Blue Meanie) and Boss Man's team (consisting of Prince Albert, Viscera and Mideon). On the November 14 episode of Sunday Night Heat, Big Show attacked all of his team members, who withdrew from the team, making the match a 4-on-1 Survivor Series match.\n\nAt No Mercy, the Hardy Boyz (Matt Hardy and Jeff Hardy) defeated Edge and Christian in a Ladder match, which was the final round match in a tournament for the managerial services of Terri Runnels and a prize of $100,000. On the October 18 episode of Raw is War, New Brood disbanded their relationship with Gangrel's New Brood stable, turning face in the process, and formed an alliance with their former enemies, Edge and Christian. The Holly Cousins defended the WWF Tag Team Championship against the Hardy Boyz on the October 21 episode of SmackDown and against Edge and Christian on the October 25 episode of Raw is War. In the latter match, Too Cool (Grand Master Sexay and Scotty Too Hotty) interfered, costing Edge and Christian the victory. The Hardy Boyz came out to rescue Edge and Christian and the four wrestlers cleared the ring of Too Cool and Hollys. As a result, the teams of Edge and Christian and Hardy Boyz began a rivalry with Too Cool and Hollys, as the four teams battled each other in several tag team matches and standard wrestling matches, leading to a Survivor Series match at Survivor Series.\n\nOn the October 18 episode of Raw is War, The Headbangers (Mosh and Thrasher) distracted The Dudley Boyz (Bubba Ray Dudley and D-Von Dudley) during their match against X-Pac and Kane, costing the Dudley Boyz, the match. On the October 25 episode of Raw is War, Dudley Boyz made fun of The Godfather's hos for being attacked by Viscera, after Viscera defeated Godfather in a \"Winner Takes Hos\" match. The following week on Raw is War, The Headbangers defeated Dudley Boyz in a tag team match. On the November 11 episode of SmackDown, Dudley Boyz defeated Godfather and D'Lo Brown. It led to a Survivor Series match pitting Dudley Boyz and Acolytes Protection Agency (Faarooq and Bradshaw) against Headbangers, Godfather and Brown.\n\nAt No Mercy, X-Pac defeated Kane, Faarooq and Bradshaw in a Four Corners Elimination match. As a result of losing to X-Pac, Kane started showing jealousy towards X-Pac and their team started to break up. On the October 28 episode of SmackDown, X-Pac betrayed Kane during a tag team match against Dudley Boyz by low blowing Kane and allowing Dudley Boyz to pin Kane for the win. After the match, X-Pac proclaimed that Kane did not deserve to be a member of D-Generation X, a faction that X-Pac was a part of during that time. On the November 1 episode of Raw is War, the entirety of DX attacked Kane during a match between Kane and X-Pac. This led to a match between Kane and X-Pac at Survivor Series.\n\nAt No Mercy, Mae Young helped her friend The Fabulous Moolah in defeating Ivory to win the WWF Women's Championship. On the October 21 episode of SmackDown, Moolah defended the Women's Championship against Young, but Ivory interfered in the match and attacked both Moolah and Young. Jacqueline and Luna joined Ivory in the assault and Tori came out and joined Young and Moolah. On the October 25 episode of Raw is War, Moolah decided to vacate her title and retire from professional wrestling. However, Ivory reminded Moolah of her rematch clause and easily defeated Moolah for the Women's Championship. On the November 11 episode of SmackDown, Ivory, Jacqueline, Luna and Terri Runnels were set to wrestle Moolah, Young, Tori and Debra at Survivor Series.\n\nThroughout November 1999, vignettes aired that hyped the WWF debut of Kurt Angle, who had represented the United States in the 1996 Summer Olympics and won the gold medal in heavyweight freestyle wrestling. His in-ring debut was scheduled for Survivor Series.\n\nEvent\n\nPreliminary matches\nThe pay-per-view opened with a Four-on-four Survivor Series elimination match pitting The Dudley Boyz (Bubba Ray Dudley and D-Von Dudley) and Acolytes Protection Agency (Faarooq and Bradshaw) against The Godfather, D'Lo Brown and The Headbangers (Mosh and Thrasher). Godfather's team suffered the first elimination when Bradshaw pinned Thrasher after performing a Clothesline from Hell. Mosh was eliminated next when the Dudley Boyz hit him with a 3D. Bradshaw was disqualified for hitting Brown with a chair. D-Von took advantage and tried to pin Brown, but Faarooq broke up the pin because he wanted to score the pinfall himself. As a result, Faarooq and D-Von started brawling outside the ring and were counted-out. Bubba Ray, the last remaining member of his team, was double-teamed when Godfather performed a Ho Train, followed by Brown with a Lo Down on Bubba Ray for the victory. As a result, Godfather and Brown were the survivors of their team.\n\nAfter that, Kurt Angle made his WWF in-ring debut against faced Shawn Stasiak. Stasiak dominated much of the earlier match until Angle escaped the ring and insulted the fans by telling them not to insult an Olympic Gold Medalist. However, Stasiak beat on Angle and then climbed the top rope to perform a Diving Splash, but Angle got up and caught a flying Stasiak by performing an Olympic Slam for the victory.\n\nAnother Survivor Series elimination match pitted British Bulldog and Mean Street Posse (Rodney, Pete Gas and Joey Abs) against Val Venis, Mark Henry, Gangrel and Steve Blackman. Blackman eliminated Pete Gas after a Martial Arts Kick. Gangrel then eliminated Rodney with an Impaler. Henry hit a Big Splash on Joey Abs and eliminated him. Bulldog eliminated Gangrel by after a Superplex and Blackman after a Fisherman Suplex. Venis and Henry started double-teaming Bulldog as Henry splashed Bulldog and Venis hit a Money Shot on Bulldog for the victory. Venis and Henry were the survivors on their team.\n\nNext, an eight-woman tag team match pitted Ivory, Luna, Jacqueline and Terri Runnels against Mae Young, The Fabulous Moolah, Tori and Debra. The match went back and forth until Moolah performed a Scoop Slam on Ivory and splashed her to win the match.\n\nAfter that, Kane fought X-Pac. X-Pac attacked Kane from behind at the end of his signature fiery intro and had the upper hand for a good portion of the match. Kane climbed the top rope, but X-Pac dropkicked him outside the ring. Back in the ring, X-Pac hit Kane with three consecutive Spinning Heel Kicks and then attempted a Bronco Buster, but Kane avoided it and performed a Flying Clothesline and a Chokeslam on X-Pac. Kane attempted a pinfall, but D-Generation X teammate Road Dogg pulled him out of the ring. As Kane rolled back into the ring, he was hit by X-Pac's X-Factor. Kane threw X-Pac away and eventually attempted a Tombstone Piledriver, but Triple H interfered and hit Kane in the face with the WWF Championship belt, thus resulting in a disqualification victory for Kane. Kane was placed in the corner when Tori ran to the ring to stop X-Pac's Bronco Buster. She was kicked in the face as Kane fought off all of the DX members to rescue her. After the match, The Rock was trying to give an interview, but Triple H attacked him. The two brawled until they were separated by several WWF officials.\n\nNext, Big Show faced Big Boss Man, Prince Albert, Mideon and Viscera in a Handicap Survivor Series match. Big Show was the only member on his team because he had attacked all of his teammates prior to the event. However, he single-handedly dominated the match when he eliminated Mideon, Prince Albert and Viscera in under a minute. With all of his teammates eliminated, Boss Man left the ring and ran to the backstage and was counted-out. Big Show won the match and ran after Boss Man to the backstage.\n\nAfter the match, Triple H interrupted an interview with Stone Cold Steve Austin. Austin started chasing Triple H in the backstage area until a car drove up and ran down Austin at high speed. WWF Chairman Vince McMahon confronted Triple H, D-Generation X and WWF's head of security, but Triple H said that he was not to blame. Austin was loaded into the ambulance and removed from the WWF Championship match against Triple H and Rock.\n\nAfter that, Chyna defended the Intercontinental Championship against Chris Jericho. They immediately started attacking each other when Jericho shoved down Chyna's manager Miss Kitty. Both women then kicked Jericho to the outside of the ring as Chyna jumped out and threw Jericho into the stairs. Jericho taunted and teased Miss Kitty throughout the match and even kissed her on one occasion. Kitty started fighting Jericho as Chyna fought back with a Spear and an Irish whip into the ring post. However, Jericho quickly regained momentum and Powerbombed her for a near-fall. Jericho then attempted a Lionsault, but Chyna avoided the move and attacked Jericho. She then hit Jericho with a DDT and accidentally attacked the referee. Jericho took advantage and nailed Chyna with the championship belt. Chyna hit Jericho with a Pedigree and then attempted a Hurricanrana, but Jericho countered it into a Walls of Jericho. Jericho then placed Chyna on the top rope, but Miss Kitty distracted the referee as Chyna hit Jericho with a Low Blow and a Pedigree from the top turnbuckle to win the match and retain the Intercontinental Championship.\n\nNext, a Survivor Series match pitted Edge and Christian and the Hardy Boyz (Matt Hardy and Jeff Hardy) against Too Cool (Scotty Too Hotty and Grand Master Sexay) and the Holly Cousins (Hardcore Holly and Crash Holly). Hardcore Holly pinned Edge with a Schoolboy and Scotty pinned Matt Hardy after a Tornado DDT. Jeff Hardy pinned Scotty after a 450° Splash but was eliminated after Grand Master Sexay hit a Tennessee Jam. Christian then eliminated Grand Master Sexay after a Diving Reverse DDT and Crash Holly after an Impaler but was quickly pinned by Hardcore Holly with a Victory Roll. Hardcore Holly was the sole survivor.\n\nAfter that, the New Age Outlaws (Billy Gunn and Road Dogg) defended the WWF Tag Team Championship against Mankind and Al Snow. Mankind and Gunn started exchanging blows until the action spilled outside the ring. Back in the ring, Gunn and Road Dogg quickly tagged in each other as they hurt Snow outside the ring. After being dominated, Snow performed a Clothesline on Road Dogg and tagged in Mankind, while Road Dogg tagged in Gunn. Mankind started dominating until Gunn hit with a Fame-asser. Road Dogg then attempted a Pumphandle Drop on Mankind, but Snow hit him with a Snow Plow. Gunn then threw Al Snow into the steps and hit Mankind with a Texas Piledriver to win the match and retain the Tag Team Championship.\n\nMain event match\nIn the main event, Big Show was revealed as the substitute for the hospitalized Steve Austin in the Triple Threat match against WWF Champion Triple H and The Rock. Triple H and Rock started double-teaming Big Show who fought back by clotheslined both opponents. The Rock eventually hit Big Show with a People's Elbow but Triple H attacked Rock. Big Show then hit a Sidewalk Slam on Rock and fought Triple H outside of the ring, where The Rock rejoined the fight. Triple H and The Rock suplexed Big Show onto the Spanish broadcast table and then continued to fight each other in the ring until the referee was knocked out. The Rock then threw Triple H into the top turnbuckle and hit him with a Rock Bottom. The Rock attempt a pinfall but the referee was still out. Finally, Shane McMahon came in as a replacement referee but Triple H kicked out at two. Rock eventually hit another Rock Bottom when Big Show rejoined the action, pulling McMahon out of the ring, attacking The Rock on the broadcast table and hitting Triple H with a stomp, an elbow drop and a legdrop. D-Generation X interfered in the match to help Triple H, but Vince also ran into the ring and hit Triple H with the championship belt. Big Show took advantage and chokeslammed Triple H to win the match and the WWF Championship.\n\nReception\nIn 2014, Dylan Diot of 411Mania gave the event a rating of 5.0 [Not So Good], writing, \"This show felt more like an episode of Raw than a PPV. All of the classic Survivor Series elimination matches were thrown together, a majority of the show was taken over by the Stone Cold car angle, and the wrestling wasn't all that good with only two exceptions. If [you're] a Big Show fan and want to see his crowning moment since coming to the WWF early in the year, then this show is worth a look. Otherwise, nothing to see here.\"\n\nAftermath\nAfter Big Show won the WWF Championship at Survivor Series, he continued his rivalry with Big Boss Man. The next night on Raw, Boss Man defeated The Rock in a Hardcore match, with help from Prince Albert, to become the number one contender for the WWF Championship. At the new December pay-per-view, Armageddon, Big Show defeated Boss Man to retain the title.\n\nSince Stone Cold Steve Austin was hit with a car, the WWF Chairman Vince McMahon continuously blamed Triple H and D-Generation X for the attack. On the November 18 episode of SmackDown, DX assaulted McMahon's Corporate Stooges (Pat Patterson and Gerald Brisco). Sgt. Slaughter informed McMahon of the attack and told McMahon that Triple H had invited him to DX's locker room. McMahon went to the locker room, where Triple H warned McMahon, not to make this personal. Later in the night, Triple H came down to the ring and blamed McMahon for his title loss at Survivor Series and then challenged McMahon to a match at Armageddon. Shortly after, a footage was shown of backstage where the McMahon family had fallen down the stairs. On the November 22 episode of Raw Is War, Vince destroyed a limousine carrying DX using his car. Although DX retreated, the limousine was destroyed. Later that night, police officers arrested Vince for assaulting DX; Triple H attacked the hand-cuffed Vince and later accused him of orchestrating the attack on Austin at Survivor Series. Shane McMahon came to his father's defense and informed Triple H that Vince would accept Triple H's challenge at Armageddon. On the November 29 episode of Raw Is War, Vince's daughter Stephanie McMahon was supposed to (storyline) marry Test. The ceremony was interrupted by Triple H, who showed a video of himself and a drunk Stephanie getting married. On the December 2 episode of SmackDown, Triple H announced that his match against Vince at Armageddon would be a No Holds Barred match, and on the following episode of Raw Is War a further stipulation was added to the match. If Vince won the match, Triple H and Stephanie's marriage would be annulled but if Triple H won, he would be granted a WWF Championship match. At Armageddon, Triple H defeated Vince in a No Holds Barred match, after Stephanie betrayed Vince and helped Triple H in finishing Vince with a sledgehammer. It was later revealed that Rikishi had run over Austin on Triple H's orders.\n\nAustin later made his return at Backlash 2000 in April, where he helped The Rock defeat Triple H for the WWF Championship. This was Austin's first appearance since Survivor Series 6 months prior.\n\nResults\n\nSurvivor Series elimination matches\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nOfficial 1999 Survivor Series website\n\nEvents in Detroit\n1999\n1999 in Michigan\nProfessional wrestling in Detroit\n1999 WWF pay-per-view events\nNovember 1999 events in the United States"
] |
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[
"Tony Benn",
"Prior to retirement, 1997-2001"
] | C_bc32948de7454cfdbfeaa94f0a07401b_0 | What did Benn do in 1997? | 1 | What did Benn do in 1997? | Tony Benn | In 1997, the Labour Party under Tony Blair won the election. Despite later calling Labour under Tony Blair "the idea of a Conservative group who had taken over Labour" and saying "[Blair] set up a new political party, New Labour", Benn's political diaries Free at Last show that Benn was initially somewhat sympathetic to Blair, welcoming a change of government. Benn supported the introduction of the national minimum wage, and welcomed the progress towards peace and security in Northern Ireland (particularly under Mo Mowlam). He was supportive of the extra public money given to public services in the New Labour years but believed it to be under the guise of privatisation. Overall, his concluding judgement on New Labour is highly critical; he describes its evolution as a way of retaining office by abandoning socialism and distancing the party from the trade union movement, adopting a presidentialist style of politics, overriding the concept of the collective ministerial responsibility by reducing the power of the Cabinet, eliminated any effective influence from the annual conference of the Labour Party and "hinged its foreign policy on support for one of the worst presidents in US history". Benn strongly objected to the "immoral" bombing of Iraq in December 1998, saying: "Aren't Arabs terrified? Aren't Iraqis terrified? Don't Arab and Iraqi women weep when their children die? Does bombing strengthen their determination? ... Every Member of Parliament tonight who votes for the government motion will be consciously and deliberately accepting the responsibility for the deaths of innocent people if the war begins, as I fear it will." Several months prior to his retirement, Benn was a signatory to a letter, alongside Niki Adams (Legal Action for Women), Ian Macdonald QC, Gareth Peirce, and other legal professionals, that was published in The Guardian newspaper on 22 February 2001 "condemning" raids of more than 50 brothels in the central London area of Soho. At the time, a police spokesman said: "As far as we know, this is the biggest simultaneous crackdown on brothels and prostitution in this country in recent times", the arrest of 28 people in an operation that involved around 110 police officers. The letter read: In the name of "protecting" women from trafficking, about 40 women, including a woman from Iraq, were arrested, detained and in some cases summarily removed from Britain. If any of these women have been trafficked ... they deserve protection and resources, not punishment by expulsion. ... Having forced women into destitution, the government first criminalised those who begged. Now it is trying to use prostitution as a way to make deportation of the vulnerable more acceptable. We will not allow such injustice to go unchallenged. CANNOTANSWER | Benn was initially somewhat sympathetic to Blair, welcoming a change of government. | Anthony Neil Wedgwood Benn (3 April 1925 – 14 March 2014; known between 1960 and 1963 as Viscount Stansgate) was a British politician, writer and diarist who served as a Cabinet minister in the 1960s and 1970s. A member of the Labour Party, he was Member of Parliament for Bristol South East and Chesterfield for 47 of the 51 years between 1950 and 2001. He later served as President of the Stop the War Coalition from 2001 to 2014.
The son of a Liberal and later Labour Party politician, Benn was born in Westminster and privately educated at Westminster School. He was elected for Bristol South East at the 1950 general election but inherited his father's peerage on his death, which prevented him from continuing to serve as an MP. He fought to remain in the House of Commons and campaigned for the ability to renounce the title, a campaign which succeeded with the Peerage Act 1963. He was an active member of the Fabian Society and served as chairman from 1964 to 1965. He served in the Labour government of Harold Wilson from 1964 to 1970 first as Postmaster General, where he oversaw the opening of the Post Office Tower, and later as Minister of Technology.
Benn served as Chairman of the National Executive Committee from 1971 to 1972 while in Opposition. In the Labour government of 1974–1979, he returned to the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Industry and subsequently served as Secretary of State for Energy. He retained that post when James Callaghan succeeded Wilson as Prime Minister. When the Labour Party was in opposition through the 1980s, he emerged as a prominent figure on the left wing of the party and unsuccessfully challenged Neil Kinnock for the Labour leadership in 1988. After leaving Parliament at the 2001 general election, Benn was President of the Stop the War Coalition until his death in 2014.
Benn was widely seen as a key proponent of democratic socialism and Christian socialism. Originally considered a moderate within the party, he was identified as belonging to its left wing after leaving ministerial office. The terms Bennism and Bennite came into usage to describe the left-wing politics he espoused from the late 1970s and its adherents. He was an influence on the politics of Jeremy Corbyn, who was elected Leader of the Labour Party a year after Benn's death, and John McDonnell, who served as Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer under Corbyn.
Early life and family
Benn was born in Westminster, London, on 3 April 1925. He had two brothers, Michael (1921–1944), who was killed in the Second World War, and David (1928–2017), a specialist in Russia and Eastern Europe. After the Thames flood in January 1928 their house was uninhabitable so the Benn family moved to Scotland for over 12 months. Their father, William Benn, was a Liberal Member of Parliament from 1906 who crossed the floor to the Labour Party in 1928 and was appointed Secretary of State for India by Ramsay MacDonald in 1929, a position he held until the Labour Party's landslide electoral defeat in 1931. William Benn was elevated to the House of Lords and Tony Benn was subsequently titled with the honorific prefix, The Honourable. William Benn was given the title of Viscount Stansgate in 1942: the new wartime coalition government was short of working Labour peers in the upper house. In 1945–46, William Benn was the Secretary of State for Air in the first majority Labour Government.
Benn's mother, Margaret Benn (née Holmes, 1897–1991), was a theologian, feminist and the founder President of the Congregational Federation. She was a member of the League of the Church Militant, which was the predecessor of the Movement for the Ordination of Women; in 1925, she was rebuked by Randall Davidson, the Archbishop of Canterbury, for advocating the ordination of women. His mother's theology had a profound influence on Benn, as she taught him that the stories in the Bible were based around the struggle between the prophets and the kings and that he ought in his life to support the prophets over the kings, who had power, as the prophets taught righteousness.
Benn was for over 30 years a committed Christian. He said that the teachings of Jesus Christ had a "radical political importance" on his life, and made a distinction between the historical Jesus as "a carpenter of Nazareth" who advocated social justice and egalitarianism and "the way in which he's presented by some religious authorities; by popes, archbishops and bishops who present Jesus as justification for their power", believing this to be a gross misunderstanding of the role of Jesus. He believed that it was a "great mistake" to assume that the teachings of Christianity are outdated in modern Britain, and Higgins wrote in The Benn Inheritance that Benn was "a socialist whose political commitment owes much more to the teaching of Jesus than the writing of Marx". (Indeed, he did not read The Communist Manifesto until he was in his 50s.) "The driving force of his life was Christian socialism," according to Peter Wilby, linking Benn to the "high-minded" founding roots of Labour.
Later in his life, Benn emphasised issues regarding morality and righteousness, as well as various ethical principles of Nonconformism. On Desert Island Discs he said that he had been powerfully influenced by "what I would call the Dissenting tradition" (that is, the English Dissenters who left or were ejected from the established church, one of whom was his ancestor William Benn). "I've never thought we can understand the world we lived in unless we understood the history of the church", Benn said to the Catholic Herald. "All political freedoms were won, first of all, through religious freedom. Some of the arguments about the control of the media today, which are very big arguments, are the arguments that would have been fought in the religious wars. You have the satellites coming in now—well, it is the multinational church all over again. That's why Mrs Thatcher pulled Britain out of UNESCO: she was not prepared, any more than Ronald Reagan was, to be part of an organisation that talked about a New World Information Order, people speaking to each other without the help of Murdoch or Maxwell."
According to Wilby in the New Statesman, Benn "decided to do without the paraphernalia and doctrine of organised religion but not without the teachings of Jesus". Although Benn became more agnostic as he became older, he was intrigued by the interconnections between Christianity, radicalism and socialism. Wilby also wrote in The Guardian that although former Chancellor Stafford Cripps described Benn as "as keen a Christian as I am myself", Benn wrote in 2005 that he was "a Christian agnostic" who believed "in Jesus the prophet, not Christ the king", specifically rejecting the label of "humanist".
Both of Benn's grandfathers were Liberal Party MPs; his paternal grandfather was John Benn, a successful politician, MP for Tower Hamlets and later Devonport, who was created a baronet in 1914 (and who founded a publishing company, Benn Brothers), and his maternal grandfather was Daniel Holmes, MP for Glasgow Govan. Benn's contact with leading politicians of the day, dates back to his earliest years. He met Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald when he was five years old, whom he described as: "A kindly old gentleman [who] leaned over me and offered me a chocolate biscuit. I've looked at Labour leaders in a funny way ever since." Benn also met former Liberal Prime Minister David Lloyd George when he was 12, and later recalled that, while still a boy, he once shook hands with Mahatma Gandhi, in 1931, while his father was Secretary of State for India.
During the Second World War, Benn joined and trained with the Home Guard from the age of 16, later recalling in a speech made in 2009: "I could use a bayonet, a rifle, a revolver, and if I'd seen a German officer having a meal I'd have tossed a grenade through the window. Would I have been a freedom fighter or a terrorist?" In July 1943, Benn enlisted in the Royal Air Force as an aircraftman 2nd Class. His father and elder brother Michael (who was later killed in an accident) were already serving in the RAF. He was granted an emergency commission as a pilot officer (on probation) on 10 March 1945. As a pilot officer, Benn served as a pilot in South Africa and Rhodesia. In June 1944, he made his first solo flight, at RAF Guinea Fowl, an RAF Elementary Flying Training School, in Rhodesia. The aircraft was a Canadian-built Fairchild Cornell. In a 1993 article recounting the experience, he said, "I always thought that I would feel a sense of panic when I saw the ground coming up at me on my first solo, but strangely enough I didn't feel anything but exhilaration ...". He relinquished his commission with effect from 10 August 1945, three months after the Second World War ended in Europe on 8 May, and just days before the war with Japan ended on 2 September.
After attending Mr Gladstone's day school near Sloane Square, Benn attended Westminster School, and studied at New College, Oxford, where he read Philosophy, Politics and Economics and was elected President of the Oxford Union in 1947. In later life, Benn removed public references to his private education from Who's Who. In 1970 all references to Westminster School were removed, and in the 1975 edition his entry stated "Education—still in progress". In the 1976 edition, almost all details were omitted except his name, jobs as a Member of Parliament and as a Government Minister, and address; the publishers confirmed that Benn had sent back the draft entry with everything else struck through. In the 1977 edition, Benn's entry disappeared entirely, and when he returned to Who's Who in 1983, he was listed as "Tony Benn" and all references to his education or service record were removed.
In 1972, Benn said in his diaries that "Today I had the idea that I would resign my Privy Councillorship, my MA and all my honorary doctorates in order to strip myself of what the world had to offer". While he acknowledged that he "might be ridiculed" for doing so, Benn said that "'Wedgie Benn' and 'the Rt Honourable Anthony Wedgwood Benn' and all that stuff is impossible. I have been Tony Benn in Bristol for a long time." In October 1973, he announced on BBC Radio that he wished to be known as Mr. Tony Benn rather than Anthony Wedgwood Benn, and his book Speeches from 1974 is credited to "Tony Benn". Despite this name change, social historian Alwyn W. Turner writes that "Just as those with an agenda to pursue still call Muhammed Ali by his original name ... so most newspapers continued to refer to Tony Benn as Wedgwood Benn, or Wedgie in the case of the tabloids, for years to come".
Benn met Caroline Middleton DeCamp (born 13 October 1926, Cincinnati, Ohio, United States) over tea at Worcester College, Oxford, in 1949; just nine days after meeting her, he proposed to her on a park bench in the city. Later, he bought the bench from Oxford City Council and installed it in the garden of their home in Holland Park. Tony and Caroline had four children—Stephen, Hilary, Melissa, a feminist writer, and Joshua—and 10 grandchildren. Caroline Benn died of cancer on 22 November 2000, aged 74, after a career as an educationalist.
Two of Benn's children have been active in Labour Party politics. His eldest son Stephen was an elected Member of the Inner London Education Authority from 1986 to 1990. His second son Hilary was a councillor in London, stood for Parliament in 1983 and 1987, and became Labour MP for Leeds Central in 1999. He was Secretary of State for International Development from 2003 to 2007, and then Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs until 2010, later serving as Shadow Foreign Secretary (2015–16). This makes him the third generation of his family to have been a member of the Cabinet, a rare distinction for a modern political family in Britain. Benn's granddaughter Emily Benn was the Labour Party's youngest-ever candidate when she failed to win East Worthing and Shoreham in 2010. Benn was a first cousin once removed of the actress Margaret Rutherford.
Benn and his wife Caroline became vegetarian in 1970, for ethical reasons, and remained so for the rest of their lives. Benn cited the decision of his son Hilary to become vegetarian as an important factor in his own decision to adopt a vegetarian diet.
Early parliamentary career
Member of Parliament, 1950–1960
Following the Second World War, Benn worked briefly as a BBC Radio producer. On 1 November 1950, he was selected to succeed Stafford Cripps as the Labour candidate for Bristol South East, after Cripps stood down because of ill-health. He won the seat in a by-election on 30 November 1950. Anthony Crosland helped him get the seat as he was the MP for nearby South Gloucestershire at the time. Upon taking the oath on 4 December 1950 Benn became "Baby of the House", the youngest MP, for one day, being succeeded by Thomas Teevan, who was two years younger but took his oath a day later. He became the "Baby" again in 1951, when Teevan was not re-elected. In the 1950s, Benn held middle-of-the-road or soft left views, and was not associated with the young left wing group around Aneurin Bevan.
As MP for Bristol South East, Benn helped organise the 1963 Bristol Bus Boycott against the colour bar of the Bristol Omnibus Company against employing Black British and British Asian drivers. Benn said that he would "stay off the buses, even if I have to find a bike", and Labour leader Harold Wilson also told an anti-apartheid rally in London he was "glad that so many Bristolians are supporting the [boycott] campaign", adding that he "wish[ed] them every success".
Peerage reform
Benn's father was created Viscount Stansgate in 1942 when Winston Churchill increased the number of Labour peers to aid political work in the House of Lords; at this time, Benn's elder brother Michael, then serving in the RAF, was intending to enter the priesthood and had no objections to inheriting a peerage. However, Michael was later killed in an accident while on active service in the Second World War, and this left Benn as the heir-apparent to the peerage. He made several unsuccessful attempts to renounce the succession.
In November 1960, Lord Stansgate died. Benn automatically became a peer, preventing him from sitting in the House of Commons. The Speaker of the Commons, Sir Harry Hylton-Foster, did not allow him to deliver a speech from the bar of the House of Commons in April 1961 when the by-election was being called. Continuing to maintain his right to abandon his peerage, Benn fought to retain his seat in a by-election caused by his succession on 4 May 1961. Although he was disqualified from taking his seat, he was re-elected. An election court found that the voters were fully aware that Benn was disqualified, and declared the seat won by the Conservative runner-up, Malcolm St Clair, who was at the time also the heir presumptive to a peerage.
Benn continued his campaign outside Parliament. Within two years, though, the Conservative Government of the time, which had members in the same or similar situation to Benn's (i.e., who were going to receive title, or who had already applied for writs of summons), changed the law. The Peerage Act 1963, allowing lifetime disclaimer of peerages, became law shortly after 6 pm on 31 July 1963. Benn was the first peer to renounce his title, doing so at 6.22 pm that day. St Clair, fulfilling a promise he had made at the time of his election, then accepted the office of Steward of the Manor of Northstead, disqualifying himself from the House (outright resignation not being possible). Benn returned to the Commons after winning a by-election on 20 August 1963.
In government, 1964–1970
In the 1964 Government led by Harold Wilson, Benn was Postmaster General, where he oversaw the opening of the Post Office Tower, then the UK's tallest building, and the creations of the Post Bus service and Girobank. He proposed issuing stamps without the Sovereign's head, but this met with private opposition from the Queen. Instead, the portrait was reduced to a small profile in silhouette, a format that is still used on commemorative stamps.
Benn also led the government's opposition to the "pirate" radio stations broadcasting from international waters, which he was aware would be an unpopular measure. Some of these stations were causing problems, such as interference to emergency radio used by shipping, although he was not responsible for introducing the Marine Broadcasting Offences Bill when it came before Parliament at the end of July 1966 for its first reading.
Earlier in the month, Benn was promoted to Minister of Technology, which included responsibility for the development of Concorde and the formation of International Computers Ltd. (ICL). The period also saw government involvement in industrial rationalisation, and the merger of several car companies to form British Leyland. Following Conservative MP Enoch Powell's 1968 "Rivers of Blood" speech to a Conservative Association meeting, in opposition to Harold Wilson's insistence on not "stirring up the Powell issue", Benn said during the 1970 general election campaign:
The mainstream press attacked Benn for using language deemed as intemperate as Powell's language in his "Rivers of Blood" speech (which was widely regarded as racist), and Benn noted in his diary that "letters began pouring in on the Powell speech: 2:1 against me but some very sympathetic ones saying that my speech was overdue". Harold Wilson later reprimanded Benn for this speech, accusing him of losing Labour seats in the 1970 general election.
During the 1970s Benn publicly defended Marxism, saying:
Labour lost the 1970 election to Edward Heath's Conservatives and upon Heath's application to join the European Economic Community, a surge in left-wing Euroscepticism emerged. Benn "was stridently against membership", and campaigned in favour of a referendum on the UK's membership. The Shadow Cabinet voted to support a referendum on 29 March 1972, and as a result Roy Jenkins resigned as Deputy Leader of the Labour Party.
In government, 1974–1979
In the Labour Government of 1974, Benn was Secretary of State for Industry and as such increased nationalised industry pay, provided better terms and conditions for workers such as the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and was involved in setting up worker cooperatives in firms which were struggling, the best known being at Meriden, outside Coventry, producing Triumph Motorcycles. In 1975, he was appointed Secretary of State for Energy, immediately following his unsuccessful campaign for a "No" vote in the referendum on the UK's continued membership of the European Community (Common Market). Later in his diary, (25 October 1977) Benn wrote that he "loathed" the EEC; he claimed it was "bureaucratic and centralised" and "of course it is really dominated by Germany. All the Common Market countries except the UK have been occupied by Germany, and they have this mixed feeling of hatred and subservience towards the Germans".
Upon the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, Benn described Mao as "one of the greatest—if not the greatest—figures of the twentieth century: a schoolteacher who transformed China, released it from civil war and foreign attack and constructed a new society there" in his diaries, adding that "he certainly towers above any twentieth-century figure I can think of in his philosophical contribution and military genius". On his trip to the Chinese embassy after Mao's death, Benn recorded in an earlier volume of his diaries that he was "a great admirer of Mao", while also admitting that "he made mistakes, because everybody does".
Harold Wilson resigned as Leader of the Labour Party and Prime Minister in March 1976. Benn later attributed the collapse of the Wilson government to cuts enforced on the UK by global capital, in particular the International Monetary Fund. In the resulting leadership contest Benn finished in fourth place out of the six cabinet ministers who stood—he withdrew as 11.8 per cent of colleagues voted for him in the first ballot. Benn withdrew from the second ballot and endorsed Michael Foot; James Callaghan eventually won. Despite not receiving his support in the second and third rounds of the vote, Callaghan kept Benn on as Energy Secretary. In 1976, there was a sterling crisis, and Chancellor of the Exchequer Denis Healey sought a loan from the International Monetary Fund. Underlining a wish to counter international market forces which seemed to penalise a larger welfare state, Benn publicly circulated the divided Cabinet minutes in which a narrow majority of the Labour Cabinet under Ramsay MacDonald supported a cut in unemployment benefits in order to obtain a loan from American bankers. As he highlighted, these minutes resulted in the 1931 split of the Labour Party in which MacDonald and his allies formed a National Government with Conservatives and Liberals. Callaghan allowed Benn to put forward the Alternative Economic Strategy, which consisted of a self-sufficient economy less dependent on low-rate fresh borrowing, but the AES, which according to opponents would have led to a "siege economy", was rejected by the Cabinet. In response, Benn later recalled that: "I retorted that their policy was a siege economy, only they had the bankers inside the castle with all our supporters left outside, whereas my policy would have our supporters in the castle with the bankers outside." Benn blamed the Winter of Discontent on these cuts to socialist policies.
During Benn's time as energy minister from 1975 to 1979 he supported the United Kingdom's use of nuclear power. However, later in his life he became an opponent of nuclear power, attributing his time as running it as a minister to persuading him it was not cheap, safe or peaceful. When asked in an interview in January 2009 on what he had changed his mind on over the course of his life he expanded on this issue by saying:
Move to the left
By the end of the 1970s, Benn's views had shifted to the left-wing of the Labour Party. He attributed this political shift to his experience as a Cabinet Minister in the 1964–1970 Labour Government. Benn ascribed his move to the left to four lessons:
How "the Civil Service can frustrate the policies and decisions of popularly elected governments"
The centralised nature of the Labour Party which allowed the Leader to run "the Party almost as if it were his personal kingdom"
"The power of industrialists and bankers to get their way by use of the crudest form of economic pressure, even blackmail, against a Labour Government"
The power of the media, which "like the power of the medieval Church, ensures that events of the day are always presented from the point of the view of those who enjoy economic privilege"
As regards the power of industrialists and bankers, Benn remarked:
Benn's philosophy consisted of a form of syndicalism, state planning where necessary to ensure national competitiveness, greater democracy in the structures of the Labour Party and observance of Party Conference decisions. Alongside an alleged 12 Labour MPs, he spent 12 years affiliated with the Institute for Workers' Control, beginning in 1971 when he visited the Upper Clyde Shipyards, arguing in 1975 for the "labour movement to intensify its discussion about industrial democracy".
He was vilified by most of the press while his opponents implied and stated that a Benn-led Labour Government would implement a type of Eastern European state socialism, with Edward Heath referring to Benn as "Commissar Benn" and others referring to Benn as a "Bollinger Bolshevik". Despite this, Benn was overwhelmingly popular with Labour activists in the constituencies: a survey of delegates at the Labour Party Conference in 1978 found that by large margins they supported Benn for the leadership, as well as many Bennite policies.
He publicly supported Sinn Féin and the unification of Ireland, although in 2005 he suggested to Sinn Féin leaders that it abandon its long-standing policy of not taking seats at Westminster (abstentionism). Sinn Féin in turn argued that to do so would recognise Britain's claim over Northern Ireland, and the Sinn Féin constitution prevented its elected members from taking their seats in any British-created institution. A supporter of the Scottish Parliament and political devolution, Benn however opposed the Scottish National Party and Scottish independence, saying: "I think nationalism is a mistake. And I am half Scots and feel it would divide me in half with a knife. The thought that my mother would suddenly be a foreigner would upset me very much."
In British politics during this period, the term "Bennism" came into use to describe the conviction politics, economic, social and political ideology of Tony Benn; and an exponent or advocate of Bennism was regarded as a "Bennite".
In opposition, 1979–1997
In a keynote speech to the Labour Party Conference of 1980, shortly before the resignation of party leader James Callaghan and election of Michael Foot as successor, Benn outlined what he envisaged the next Labour Government would do. "Within days", a Labour Government would gain powers to nationalise industries, control capital and implement industrial democracy; "within weeks", all powers from Brussels would be returned to Westminster, and the House of Lords would be abolished by creating one thousand new peers and then abolishing the peerage. Benn received tumultuous applause. On 25 January 1981, Roy Jenkins, David Owen, Shirley Williams and Bill Rodgers (known collectively as the "Gang of Four") launched the Council for Social Democracy, which became the Social Democratic Party in March. The "Gang of Four" left the Labour Party because of what they perceived to be the influence of the Militant tendency and the Bennite "hard left" within the party. Benn was highly critical of the SDP, saying that "Britain has had SDP governments for the past 25 years."
Benn stood against Denis Healey, the party's incumbent deputy leader, triggering the 1981 deputy leadership election, disregarding an appeal from Michael Foot to either stand for the leadership or abstain from inflaming the party's divisions. Benn defended his decision insisting that it was "not about personalities, but about policies". The result was announced on 27 September 1981; Healey retained his position by a margin of barely one per cent. The decision of several soft left MPs, including Neil Kinnock, to abstain triggered the split of the Socialist Campaign Group from the left of the Tribune Group.
After Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands in April 1982, Benn argued that the dispute should be settled by the United Nations and that the British Government should not send a task force to recapture the islands. The task force was sent, and following the Falklands War, they were back in British control by mid-June. In a debate in the Commons just after the Falklands were recaptured, Benn's demand for "a full analysis of the costs in life, equipment and money in this tragic and unnecessary war" was rejected by Margaret Thatcher, who stated that "he would not enjoy the freedom of speech that he put to such excellent use unless people had been prepared to fight for it".
For the 1983 election Benn's Bristol South East constituency was abolished by boundary changes, and he lost to Michael Cocks in the selection of a candidate to stand in the new winnable seat of Bristol South. Rejecting offers from the new seat of Livingston in Scotland, Benn contested Bristol East, losing to the Conservative's Jonathan Sayeed in June 1983. Foot resigned as leader following the defeat which reduced Labour to only 209 MPs, while Healey also decided to step down as deputy leader. However Benn's absence from parliament meant that he was unable to stand in the resulting leadership contest as only MPs were eligible to be candidates. Benn's absence from the contest was reported by The Glasgow Herald to leave Neil Kinnock as "the favourite Left-wing candidate". Ultimately Kinnock won the contest, formally replacing Foot as party leader in October of that year.
In a by-election, Benn was elected as the MP for Chesterfield, the next Labour seat to fall vacant, after Eric Varley had left the Commons to head Coalite. On the day of the by-election, 1 March 1984, The Sun newspaper ran a hostile feature article, "Benn on the Couch", which purported to be the opinions of an American psychiatrist.
Newly elected to a mining seat, Benn was a supporter of the 1984–85 UK miners' strike, which was beginning when he returned to the Commons, and of his long-standing friend, the National Union of Mineworkers leader Arthur Scargill. However, some miners considered Benn's 1977 industry reforms to have caused problems during the strike; firstly, that they led to huge wage differences and distrust between miners of different regions; and secondly that the controversy over balloting miners for these reforms made it unclear as to whether a ballot was needed for a strike or whether it could be deemed as a "regional matter" in the same way that the 1977 reforms had been. Benn also spoke at a Militant tendency rally held in 1984, saying: "The labour movement is not engaged in a personalised battle against individual cabinet ministers, nor do we seek to win public support by arguing that the crisis could be ended by the election of a new and more humane team of ministers who are better qualified to administer capitalism. We are working for a majority labour government, elected on a socialist programme, as decided by conference."
In June 1985, three months after the miners admitted defeat and ended their strike, Benn introduced the Miners' Amnesty (General Pardon) Bill into the Commons, which would have extended an amnesty to all miners imprisoned during the strike. This would have included two men convicted of murder (later reduced to manslaughter) for the killing of David Wilkie, a taxi driver driving a non-striking miner to work in South Wales during the strike.
Benn stood for election as party leader in 1988, against Neil Kinnock, following Labour's third successive defeat in the 1987 general election, losing by a substantial margin, and received only about 11 per cent of the vote. In May 1989 he made an extended appearance on Channel 4's late-night discussion programme After Dark, alongside among others Lord Dacre and Miles Copeland. During the Gulf War, Benn visited Baghdad in order to try to persuade Saddam Hussein to release the hostages who had been captured.
Benn supported various LGBT social movements, which were then known as gay liberation; Benn had voted in favour of decriminalisation in 1967. Talking about Section 28 of the 1988 Local Government Act, a piece of anti-gay legislation preventing the "promotion of homosexuality", Benn said:
Benn later voted for the repeal of Section 28 during the first term of Tony Blair's New Labour Government, and voted in favour of equalising the age of consent.
In 1990 he proposed a "Margaret Thatcher (Global Repeal) Bill", which he said "could go through both Houses in 24 hours. It would be easy to reverse the policies and replace the personalities—the process has begun—but the rotten values that have been propagated from the platform of political power in Britain during the past 10 years will be an infection—a virulent strain of right-wing capitalist thinking which it will take time to overcome." In 1991, with Labour still in opposition and a general election due by June 1992, he proposed the Commonwealth of Britain Bill, abolishing the monarchy in favour of the United Kingdom becoming a "democratic, federal and secular commonwealth", a republic with a written constitution. It was read in Parliament a number of times until his retirement at the 2001 election, but never achieved a second reading. He presented an account of his proposal in Common Sense: A New Constitution for Britain. In 1992, Benn also received a Pipe Smoker of the Year award, claiming in his acceptance speech that "pipe smoking stopped you going to war".
In 1991, Benn reiterated his opposition to the European Commission and highlighted an alleged democratic deficit in the institution, saying: "Some people genuinely believe that we shall never get social justice from the British Government, but we shall get it from Jacques Delors. They believe that a good king is better than a bad Parliament. I have never taken that view." This argument has also been used by many on the right-wing Eurosceptic wing of the Conservative Party, such as Daniel Hannan MEP. Jonathan Freedland writes in The Guardian that "For [Tony Benn], even benign rule by a monarch was worthless because the king's whim could change and there'd be nothing you could do about it."
Prior to retirement, 1997–2001
In 1997, the Labour Party under the leadership of Tony Blair won the general election in a landslide, after 18 years of Conservative Party rule. Despite later calling Labour under Blair "the idea of a Conservative group who had taken over Labour" and saying "[Blair] set up a new political party, New Labour", his political diaries Free at Last show that Benn was initially somewhat sympathetic to Blair, welcoming a change of government. Benn supported the introduction of the national minimum wage, and welcomed the progress towards peace and security in Northern Ireland (particularly under Mo Mowlam). He was supportive of the extra money given to public services in the New Labour years but believed it to be under the guise of privatisation. Overall, his concluding judgement on New Labour is highly critical; he describes its evolution as a way of retaining office by abandoning socialism and distancing the party from the trade union movement, adopting a presidentialist style of politics, overriding the concept of the collective ministerial responsibility by reducing the power of the Cabinet, eliminated any effective influence from the annual conference of the Labour Party and "hinged its foreign policy on support for one of the worst presidents in US history".
Benn strongly objected to the bombing of Iraq in December 1998, calling it immoral and saying: "Aren't Arabs terrified? Aren't Iraqis terrified? Don't Arab and Iraqi women weep when their children die? Does bombing strengthen their determination? ... Every Member of Parliament tonight who votes for the government motion will be consciously and deliberately accepting the responsibility for the deaths of innocent people if the war begins, as I fear it will."
Several months prior to his retirement, Benn was a signatory to a letter, alongside Niki Adams (Legal Action for Women), Ian Macdonald QC, Gareth Peirce, and other legal professionals, that was published in The Guardian newspaper on 22 February 2001 condemning raids of more than 50 brothels in the central London area of Soho. At the time, a police spokesman said: "As far as we know, this is the biggest simultaneous crackdown on brothels and prostitution in this country in recent times", the arrest of 28 people in an operation that involved around 110 police officers. The letter read:
In the name of "protecting" women from trafficking, about 40 women, including a woman from Iraq, were arrested, detained and in some cases summarily removed from Britain. If any of these women have been trafficked ... they deserve protection and resources, not punishment by expulsion. ... Having forced women into destitution, the government first criminalised those who begged. Now it is trying to use prostitution as a way to make deportation of the vulnerable more acceptable. We will not allow such injustice to go unchallenged.
Retirement and final years, 2001–2014
Benn chose not to seek re-election at the 2001 general election, saying he was "leaving parliament in order to spend more time on politics." Along with former Prime Minister Edward Heath, Benn was permitted by the Speaker to continue using the House of Commons Library and Members' refreshment facilities. Shortly after his retirement, he became the President of the Stop the War Coalition. He became a leading figure of the British opposition to the War in Afghanistan from 2001 and the Iraq War, and in February 2003 he travelled to Baghdad to meet Saddam Hussein. The interview was broadcast on British television.
He spoke against the war at the February 2003 protest in London organised by the Stop the War Coalition, with police saying it was the biggest ever demonstration in the UK with about 750,000 marchers, and the organisers estimating nearly a million people participating. In February 2004 and 2008, he was re-elected President of the Stop the War Coalition.
He toured with a one-man stage show and appeared a few times each year in a two-man show with folk singer Roy Bailey. In 2003, his show with Bailey was voted 'Best Live Act' at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. In 2002, he opened the "Left Field" stage at the Glastonbury Festival. He continued to speak at each subsequent festival; attending one of his speeches was described as a "Glastonbury rite of passage". In October 2003, he was a guest of British Airways on the last scheduled Concorde flight from New York to London. In June 2005, he was a panellist on a special edition of BBC One's Question Time edited entirely by a school-age film crew selected by a BBC competition.
On 21 June 2005, Benn presented a programme on democracy as part of the Channel 5 series Big Ideas That Changed The World. He presented a left-wing view of democracy as the means to pass power from the "wallet to the ballot". He argued that traditional social democratic values were under threat in an increasingly globalised world in which powerful institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the European Commission are unelected and unaccountable to those whose lives they affect daily.
On 27 September 2005, Benn became ill while attending the annual Labour Party Conference in Brighton and was taken by ambulance to the Royal Sussex County Hospital after being treated by paramedics on-the-scene at the Brighton Centre. Benn reportedly fell and struck his head. He was kept in hospital for observation and was described as being in a "comfortable condition". He was subsequently fitted with an artificial pacemaker to help regulate his heartbeat.
In a list compiled by the magazine New Statesman in 2006, he was voted twelfth in the list of "Heroes of our Time". In September 2006, Benn joined the "Time to Go" demonstration in Manchester the day before the final Labour Party Conference with Tony Blair as Leader of the Labour Party, with the aim of persuading the Government to withdraw troops from Iraq, to refrain from attacking Iran and to reject replacing the Trident missile and submarines with a new system. He spoke to the demonstrators in the rally afterwards. In 2007, he appeared in an extended segment in the Michael Moore film Sicko giving comments about democracy, social responsibility and healthcare, notably, "If we can find the money to kill people, we can find the money to help people." A poll by the BBC2 The Daily Politics programme in January 2007 selected Benn as the UK's "Political Hero" with 38% of the vote, narrowly defeating Margaret Thatcher, who had 35%.
For the 2007 Labour Party leadership election, Benn backed the left-wing MP John McDonnell in his unsuccessful bid. In September 2007, Benn called for the government to hold a referendum on the EU Reform Treaty. In October 2007, aged 82, and when it appeared that a general election was about to be held, Benn reportedly announced that he wanted to stand, having written to his local Constituency Labour Party offering himself as a prospective candidate for the newly drawn Kensington seat. His main opponent would have been the incumbent Conservative MP for the predecessor seat of Kensington and Chelsea, Malcolm Rifkind. However, there was no election held in 2007, and so the boundary changes did not take effect until the eventual election in 2010, when Benn was not a candidate and the new seat was won by Rifkind.
In early 2008, Benn appeared on Scottish singer-songwriter Colin MacIntyre's album The Water, reading a poem he had written himself. In September 2008, he appeared on the DVD release for the Doctor Who story The War Machines with a vignette discussing the Post Office Tower; he became the second Labour politician, after Roy Hattersley to appear on a Doctor Who DVD.
At the Stop the War Conference 2009, he described the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as "Imperialist war(s)" and discussed the killing of American and allied troops by Iraqi or foreign insurgents, questioning whether they were in fact freedom fighters, and comparing the insurgents to a British Dad's Army, saying: "If you are invaded you have a right to self-defence, and this idea that people in Iraq and Afghanistan who are resisting the invasion are militant Muslim extremists is a complete bloody lie. I joined Dad's Army when I was sixteen, and if the Germans had arrived, I tell you, I could use a bayonet, a rifle, a revolver, and if I'd seen a German officer having a meal I'd have tossed a grenade through the window. Would I have been a freedom fighter or a terrorist?"
In an interview published in Dartford Living in September 2009, Benn was critical of the Government's decision to delay the findings of the Iraq War Inquiry until after the general election, stating that "people can take into account what the inquiry has reported on but they’ve deliberately pushed it beyond the election. Government is responsible for explaining what it has done and I don't think we were told the truth." He also stated that local government was strangled by Margaret Thatcher and had not been liberated by New Labour.
In 2009, Benn was admitted to hospital and An Evening with Tony Benn, scheduled to take place at London's Cadogan Hall, was cancelled. He performed his show, The Writing on the Wall, with Roy Bailey at St Mary's Church, Ashford, Kent, in September 2011, as part of the arts venue's first Revelation St. Mary's Season. In July 2011 Benn was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Glamorgan, Wales.
Benn headed the "coalition of resistance", a group which was opposed to the UK austerity programme. In interviews in 2010 with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! and 2013 with Afshin Rattansi on RT UK, Benn claimed that the actions of New Labour in the leadup to and aftermath of the Iraq War were such that the former Prime Minister Tony Blair should be tried for war crimes. Benn also claimed in 2010 that Blair had lost the "trust of the nation" regarding the war in Iraq.
In 2012, Benn was awarded an honorary degree from Goldsmiths, University of London. He was also the honorary president of the Goldsmiths Students' Union, who successfully campaigned for him to retract comments dismissing the Julian Assange rape allegations. In February 2013, Benn was among those who gave their support to the People's Assembly in a letter published by The Guardian newspaper. He gave a speech at the People's Assembly Conference held at Westminster Central Hall on 22 June 2013.
In 2013, Benn reiterated his previous opposition to European integration. Speaking to the Oxford Union on the alleged overshadowing of the EU debate by "UKIP and Tory backbenchers", he said:I took the view that having fought [Europeans in the Second World War] that we should now work with them, and co-operate, and that was my first thought about it. Then how I saw how the European Union was developing, it was very obvious that what they had in mind was not democratic. ... And the way that Europe has developed is that the bankers and the multinational corporations have got very powerful positions, and if you come in on their terms, they will tell you what you can and cannot do. And that is unacceptable. My view about the European Union has always been not that I am hostile to foreigners, but that I am in favour of democracy ... I think they're building an empire there, they want us to be a part of their empire and I don't want that.
Illness and death
In 1990, Benn was diagnosed with chronic lymphatic leukaemia and given three or four years to live; at this time, he kept the news of his leukaemia from everyone except his immediate family. Benn said: "When you're in parliament, you can't describe your medical condition. People immediately start wondering what your majority is and when there will be a by-election. They're very brutal." This was revealed in 2002 with the release of his 1990–2001 diaries.
Benn suffered a stroke in 2012, and spent much of the following year in hospital. He was reported to be "seriously ill" in hospital in February 2014. Benn died at home on 14 March 2014, surrounded by his family, less than a month shy of his 89th birthday.
Benn's funeral took place on 27 March 2014 at St Margaret's Church, Westminster. His body had lain in rest at St Mary Undercroft in the Palace of Westminster the night before the funeral service. The service ended with the singing of "The Red Flag". His body was then cremated; the ashes were expected to be buried alongside those of his wife at the family home near Steeple, Essex.
Figures from across the political spectrum praised Benn following his death, and the leaders of all three major political parties (the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats) in the United Kingdom paid tribute.
Conservative leader and Prime Minister David Cameron said:... he was an extraordinary man: a great writer, a brilliant speaker, extraordinary in Parliament, and a great life of public and political and parliamentary service. I mean, I disagreed with most of what he said. But he was always engaging and interesting, and you were never bored when reading or listening to him, and the country a great campaigner, a great writer, and someone who I'm sure whose words will be followed keenly for many, many years to come.
Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg called Benn an "astonishing, iconic figure" and a "veteran parliamentarian, he was a great writer, he had great warmth and he had great conviction ... his political life will be looked back on with affection and admiration".
Leader of the Opposition and Labour leader Ed Miliband, who knew Benn personally as a family friend, said:I think Tony Benn will be remembered as a champion of the powerless, as a conviction politician, as somebody of deep principle and integrity. The thing about Tony Benn is that you always knew what he stood for, and who he stood up for. And I think that's why he was admired right across the political spectrum. There are people who agreed with him and disagreed with him, including in my own party, but I think people admired that sense of conviction and integrity that shone through from Tony Benn.
Diaries and biographies
Benn was a prolific diarist. Nine volumes of his diaries have been published. The final volume was published in 2013. Collections of his speeches and writings were published as Arguments for Socialism (1979), Arguments for Democracy (1981), (both edited by Chris Mullin), Fighting Back (1988) and (with Andrew Hood) Common Sense (1993), as well as Free Radical: New Century Essays (2004). In August 2003, London DJ Charles Bailey created an album of Benn's speeches () set to ambient groove.
He made public several episodes of audio diaries he made during his time in Parliament and after retirement, entitled The Benn Tapes, broadcast originally on BBC Radio 4. Short series have been played periodically on BBC Radio 4 Extra. A major biography was written by Jad Adams and published by Macmillan in 1992; it was updated to cover the intervening 20 years and reissued by Biteback Publishing in 2011: Tony Benn: A Biography (). A more recent "semi-authorised" biography with a foreword by Benn was published in 2001: David Powell, Tony Benn: A Political Life, Continuum Books (). An autobiography, Dare to be a Daniel: Then and Now, Hutchinson (), a reference to the Old Testament prophet in the lions' den , was published in 2004.
There are substantial essays on Benn in the Dictionary of Labour Biography by Phillip Whitehead, Greg Rosen (eds), Politicos Publishing, 2001 () and in Labour Forces: From Ernie Bevin to Gordon Brown, Kevin Jefferys (ed.), I.B. Tauris Publishing, 2002 (). American Michael Moore dedicates his book Mike's Election Guide 2008 () to Benn, with the words: "For Tony Benn, keep teaching us".
On 5 March 2019, it was announced that a large political archive of Benn's speeches, diaries, letters, pamphlets, recordings and ephemera had been accepted in lieu of £210,000 inheritance tax and allocated to the British Library. The audio recordings total to thousands of hours of content.
Plaques
During his final years in Parliament, Benn placed three plaques within the Houses of Parliament. Two are in a room between the Central Lobby and Strangers' Gallery that holds a permanent display about the suffragettes. The first was placed in 1995. The second was placed in 1996 and is dedicated to all who work within the Houses of Parliament.
The third is dedicated to Emily Wilding Davison, who died for the cause of "Votes for women", and was placed in the broom cupboard next to the Undercroft Chapel, where Davison is said to have hidden during the night of the 1911 census in order to establish her address as the House of Commons.
In 2011 Benn unveiled a plaque in Highbury, North London, to commemorate the Peasants' Revolt of 1381.
Legacy
In Bristol, where Benn first served as a member of parliament, a number of tributes exist in his honour. A bust of him was unveiled in Bristol's City Hall in 2005. In 2012 Transport House on Victoria Street, headquarters of Unite the Union's regional office, was officially renamed Tony Benn House and opened by Benn himself. As of 2015 he appears, alongside other famous people associated with the city, on the reverse of the Bristol Pound's £B5 banknote.
Benn told the Socialist Review in 2007 that:I'd like to have on my gravestone: "He encouraged us." I'm proud to have been in the parliament that introduced the health service, the welfare state and voted against means testing. I did my maiden speech on nationalising the steel industry, put down the first motion for the boycott of South African goods, and resigned from the shadow cabinet in 1958 because of their support for nuclear weapons.
I think you do plant a few acorns, and I have lived to see one or two trees growing: gay rights, freedom of information, CND. I'm not claiming them for myself but you feel you have encouraged other people and see the arguments developing.
I'm not ashamed of making mistakes. I've made a million mistakes and they're all in the diary. When we edit the diary—which is cut to around 10 per cent—every mistake has to be printed because people look to see if you do. I would be ashamed if I thought I'd ever said anything I didn't believe to get on, but making mistakes is part of life, isn't it?
Benn was widely seen as a key proponent of democratic socialism. He was described as "one of the few UK politicians to have become more left-wing after holding ministerial office". Harold Wilson, his former boss, maintained that Benn was the only man he knew who "immatures with age".
He has been cited as being a key mentor to future leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn, with his Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell commenting that "they would discuss everything under the sun. Jeremy was very close to Tony right up until the end." Corbyn was elected as leader of the Labour Party a little over a year after Benn's death, an act which Hilary Benn said would have made his father feel "thrilled".
Styles
Anthony Wedgwood Benn, Esq. (1925 – 12 January 1942)
The Hon. Anthony Wedgwood Benn (12 January 1942 – 30 November 1950)
The Hon. Anthony Wedgwood Benn, MP (30 November 1950 – 17 November 1960)
The Rt Hon. The Viscount Stansgate (17 November 1960 – 31 July 1963)
Anthony Wedgwood Benn, Esq. (31 July – 20 August 1963)
Anthony Wedgwood Benn, Esq., MP (20 August 1963 – 1964)
The Rt Hon. Anthony Wedgwood Benn, MP (1964 – October 1973)
The Rt Hon. Tony Benn, MP (October 1973 – 9 June 1983)
The Rt Hon. Tony Benn (9 June 1983 – 1 March 1984)
The Rt Hon. Tony Benn, MP (1 March 1984 – 14 May 2001)
The Rt Hon. Tony Benn (14 May 2001 – 14 March 2014)
Bibliography
Speeches, Spokesman Books (1974);
Levellers and the English Democratic Tradition, Spokesman Books (1976);
Why America Needs Democratic Socialism, Spokesman Books (1978);
Prospects, Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers, Technical, Administrative and Supervisory Section (1979)
Case for Constitutional Civil Service, Institute for Workers' Control (1980);
Case for Party Democracy, Institute for Workers' Control (1980);
Arguments for Socialism, Penguin Books (1980);
& Chris Mullin, Arguments for Democracy, Jonathan Cape (1981);
European Unity: A New Perspective, Spokesman Books (1981)
Parliament and Power: Agenda for a Free Society, Verso Books (1982);
& Andrew Hood, Common Sense: New Constitution for Britain, Hutchinson (1993)
Free Radical: New Century Essays, Continuum International Publishing (2004);
Dare to Be a Daniel: Then and Now, Hutchinson (2004);
Letters to my Grandchildren: Thoughts on the Future, Arrow Books (2010);
Diaries
Out of the Wilderness: Diaries 1963–67, Hutchinson (1987);
Office Without Power: Diaries 1968–72, Hutchinson (1988);
Against the Tide: Diaries 1973–76, Hutchinson (1989);
Conflicts of Interest: Diaries 1977–80, Hutchinson (1990);
The End of an Era: Diaries 1980–90, Hutchinson (1992);
Years of Hope: Diaries 1940–62, Hutchinson (1994);
The Benn Diaries: Single Volume Edition 1940–90, Hutchinson (1995);
Free at Last!: Diaries 1991–2001, Hutchinson (2002);
More Time for Politics: Diaries 2001–2007, Hutchinson (2007);
A Blaze of Autumn Sunshine: The Last Diaries, Hutchinson (2013);
See also
Labour Representation Committee (2004)
Republicanism in the United Kingdom
Socialist Campaign Group
References
External links
By date
Contributions in Parliament by Tony Benn. Hansard, 1925–2005.
Late Developer: Review of Against the Tide: Diaries 1973–1976 by Tony Benn. Author – Paul Foot, 1985.
Andrew Roth. "Tony Benn Chesterfield and Bristol South East MP". The Guardian, 25 March 2001.
The Guardian web guide to Benn.. 6 June 2002.
Face-to-Face with Tony Benn. Freeview video interview by the Vega Science Trust. Recorded in 2005.
Tony Benn. "Atomic hypocrisy: West is not in a position to take a high moral line". The Guardian, 30 November 2005.
Interview with Tony Benn – Radio France Internationale. 28 March 2008 – 6-minute audio – Ahead of G20 marches, London.
Tony Benn on Tony Blair: "He Is Guilty of a War Crime". Video report by Democracy Now!. 21 September 2010.
Obituary: Tony Benn. BBC News, 14 March 2014.
Tony Benn: a stalwart of the peace and anti-nuclear movement. Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, 14 March 2014.
Other
Audio interview with The Guardian.
His Address to the College Historical Society of Trinity College.
Private Eye depictions of Benn: "Most Dangerous Man in Britain", "Labour United", "Benn's Triumph", "Foot & Benn Disease", "Would You Buy a New Car From This Man?".
Tony Benn on Modern Liberty. Tony Benn speaking for The Convention on Modern Liberty. YouTube. 23 February 2009.
Unofficial Tony Benn quotation site.
Tony Benn on The Guardian
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Pipe smokers | true | [
"More Die of Heartbreak is a 1987 novel by the American author Saul Bellow, and was his tenth novel. Like most of Bellow's other works, More Die of Heartbreak is grounded more in the development of character than in the growth of action. Among its themes are the difficulties of reconciling one's ideals with \"the actual\" and the difficulties of relating to parents and to mortality. The protagonist of the novel, Kenneth Trachtenberg, is an intellectually gifted and philosophically tortured man attempting to work out his fate and worldview.\n\nPlot summary\n\nThe book opens with an introduction of characters, and with Trachtenberg, the narrator, describing his complex relationship with his maternal uncle, Benn Crader, a world-renowned botanist. He then discusses the distinctions between himself, and his father, a man who, as he describes him, “[puts] on the kind of sex display you see in nature films, the courting behavior of turkey cocks or any of the leggier birds… Dad was a hit with women.”\n\nThis theme continues throughout the book, with Kenneth accepting his difficulties with women. He also introduces his mother, a woman who allowed her husband to step out, and only left after realizing that he did not understand what made her happy. She wanted intellectual stimulation of a literary style, whereas he bought her materialistic goods to make up for his infidelities. To atone for receiving the goods she did not need, Kenneth's mother is now living among refugees in Africa.\n\nKenneth then embarks on an overview of Benn's recent sexual history. He presents a man who, while appreciative of beauty and women, is not quite rooted enough in human society to understand the sexual pretexts he encounters. One incident is discussed many times during the novel: a middle aged neighbor of Benn's, an attractive professional who has a slight drinking problem, asks Benn to help her change a light bulb, a not too subtle hint which Benn ignores until she makes a move. The next day, when he shows no interest, and expresses regret for the act, she exclaims, “What am I supposed to do with my sexuality?” \nBenn then attracts the attentions of another older woman, Caroline who is controlling, indifferent, and loving all at the same time.\n\nWhile Benn, unbeknownst to Kenneth, is dealing with a planned wedding to Caroline, the protagonist is in Seattle to discuss with his ex-girlfriend, Treckie, what they should do about raising their child, now three years old. Treckie, a beautiful, half-sized woman, has been seeing another man, a fact Kenneth knows because of the bruises on her legs - lovemaking injuries he refused to ever give her. Kenneth has discussed this peculiar fetish with his father, who knows women, and received the knowledge that some smaller women must do it to show they are women, and not fully matured girls, the perception they give off.\n\nBenn, escaping from the wedding to Caroline, flies to Kyoto at the expense of a lecture series, inviting Kenneth to join him. The Japanese sense of order and utility appeals to Benn, until a strip show he sees at the insistence of his colleagues upsets him with its overt sexuality, at which point, he and Kenneth return to their home in the Midwest.\n\nBenn's next partner is Matilda Layamon, a beautiful, Midwestern daughter, who wants to settle down with a distinguished, older man who can calm her wild side. Benn, perhaps fearing that Kenneth will convince him that it is a foolhardy idea, weds her without “Kenneth’s permission.”\n\nMatilda's father is a rectangular man with sharp, thin shoulders who is a doctor, and in fact, asks that he be called, “Doctor.” He serves the rich, and because of this, has one-percentage point interests in many businesses around the country - an accidental fortune. He is a scheming man, and other than a few disagreements between Benn, and the man, no conflicts occur until he attempts to take advantage of Benn's uncle, a man who, as executor of the will of the Crader mother, undersold, and unfairly bought the Crader home, selling the land to a company which built a tower there, resulting in millions of dollars of profit for Uncle Vilitzer, and pennies for the Crader children. Because Vilitzer controlled the judge, neither Benn nor Kenneth's mother received their fair share, and the Doctor hopes to correct this, so that Matilda will have a rich husband.\n\nIn the end, Vilitzer dies after a heated discussion with Kenneth and Benn, and Benn, attending the funeral, sends his wife ahead to their honeymoon, and changes his ticket for the North Pole. He relays this to Kenneth who now lives in Benn's apartment, and who has recently returned from a successful bid to Treckie that he have his daughter for a part of the year. He is aware of her impending marriage thanks to a self-expedient phone call that revealed this information.\n\nThe book ends with a conversation between the two professors in which both stories are relayed to each other.\n\nReferences\n\n1987 American novels\nNovels by Saul Bellow\nWilliam Morrow and Company books",
"Viscount Stansgate, of Stansgate in the County of Essex, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1942 for the Labour politician, former Secretary of State for India and future Secretary of State for Air, William Wedgwood Benn. He was the second son of Sir John Benn, 1st Baronet, of The Old Knoll. Stansgate's eldest son and heir apparent, Michael Benn, was later killed in the Second World War; consequently, he was succeeded in the title by his second son, the Labour politician Tony Benn. He disclaimed the peerage on 31 July 1963, the day the Peerage Act 1963 passed into law and made it possible for him to do so. , the title is held by Tony Benn's eldest son, Stephen Benn, 3rd Viscount Stansgate.\n\nStansgate is a hamlet near the village of Steeple, Essex, on the southern side of the River Blackwater estuary. The village has been home to several generations of the Benn family since about 1900. They live in Stansgate Abbey, described by Chris Mullin as \"an ungainly, rambling 1920s house in a stunning location\".\n\nViscounts Stansgate (1942)\n\nWilliam Wedgwood Benn, 1st Viscount Stansgate (1877–1960)\nAnthony Neil Wedgwood Benn, 2nd Viscount Stansgate (1925–2014) (disclaimed 1963)\nStephen Michael Wedgwood Benn, 3rd Viscount Stansgate (b. 1951)\n\nThe heir apparent is the present holder's only son, Hon. Daniel John Wedgwood Benn (b. 1991).\n\nSee also\nBenn baronets, of The Old Knoll\n\nReferences\n\nKidd, Charles, Williamson, David (editors). Debrett's Peerage and Baronetage (1990 edition). New York: St Martin's Press, 1990.\n\nViscountcies in the Peerage of the United Kingdom\nNoble titles created in 1942\nBenn family\nTony Benn"
] |
[
"Tony Benn",
"Prior to retirement, 1997-2001",
"What did Benn do in 1997?",
"Benn was initially somewhat sympathetic to Blair, welcoming a change of government."
] | C_bc32948de7454cfdbfeaa94f0a07401b_0 | What change of government? | 2 | What change of government was Benn welcoming of? | Tony Benn | In 1997, the Labour Party under Tony Blair won the election. Despite later calling Labour under Tony Blair "the idea of a Conservative group who had taken over Labour" and saying "[Blair] set up a new political party, New Labour", Benn's political diaries Free at Last show that Benn was initially somewhat sympathetic to Blair, welcoming a change of government. Benn supported the introduction of the national minimum wage, and welcomed the progress towards peace and security in Northern Ireland (particularly under Mo Mowlam). He was supportive of the extra public money given to public services in the New Labour years but believed it to be under the guise of privatisation. Overall, his concluding judgement on New Labour is highly critical; he describes its evolution as a way of retaining office by abandoning socialism and distancing the party from the trade union movement, adopting a presidentialist style of politics, overriding the concept of the collective ministerial responsibility by reducing the power of the Cabinet, eliminated any effective influence from the annual conference of the Labour Party and "hinged its foreign policy on support for one of the worst presidents in US history". Benn strongly objected to the "immoral" bombing of Iraq in December 1998, saying: "Aren't Arabs terrified? Aren't Iraqis terrified? Don't Arab and Iraqi women weep when their children die? Does bombing strengthen their determination? ... Every Member of Parliament tonight who votes for the government motion will be consciously and deliberately accepting the responsibility for the deaths of innocent people if the war begins, as I fear it will." Several months prior to his retirement, Benn was a signatory to a letter, alongside Niki Adams (Legal Action for Women), Ian Macdonald QC, Gareth Peirce, and other legal professionals, that was published in The Guardian newspaper on 22 February 2001 "condemning" raids of more than 50 brothels in the central London area of Soho. At the time, a police spokesman said: "As far as we know, this is the biggest simultaneous crackdown on brothels and prostitution in this country in recent times", the arrest of 28 people in an operation that involved around 110 police officers. The letter read: In the name of "protecting" women from trafficking, about 40 women, including a woman from Iraq, were arrested, detained and in some cases summarily removed from Britain. If any of these women have been trafficked ... they deserve protection and resources, not punishment by expulsion. ... Having forced women into destitution, the government first criminalised those who begged. Now it is trying to use prostitution as a way to make deportation of the vulnerable more acceptable. We will not allow such injustice to go unchallenged. CANNOTANSWER | Blair] set up a new political party, New Labour", | Anthony Neil Wedgwood Benn (3 April 1925 – 14 March 2014; known between 1960 and 1963 as Viscount Stansgate) was a British politician, writer and diarist who served as a Cabinet minister in the 1960s and 1970s. A member of the Labour Party, he was Member of Parliament for Bristol South East and Chesterfield for 47 of the 51 years between 1950 and 2001. He later served as President of the Stop the War Coalition from 2001 to 2014.
The son of a Liberal and later Labour Party politician, Benn was born in Westminster and privately educated at Westminster School. He was elected for Bristol South East at the 1950 general election but inherited his father's peerage on his death, which prevented him from continuing to serve as an MP. He fought to remain in the House of Commons and campaigned for the ability to renounce the title, a campaign which succeeded with the Peerage Act 1963. He was an active member of the Fabian Society and served as chairman from 1964 to 1965. He served in the Labour government of Harold Wilson from 1964 to 1970 first as Postmaster General, where he oversaw the opening of the Post Office Tower, and later as Minister of Technology.
Benn served as Chairman of the National Executive Committee from 1971 to 1972 while in Opposition. In the Labour government of 1974–1979, he returned to the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Industry and subsequently served as Secretary of State for Energy. He retained that post when James Callaghan succeeded Wilson as Prime Minister. When the Labour Party was in opposition through the 1980s, he emerged as a prominent figure on the left wing of the party and unsuccessfully challenged Neil Kinnock for the Labour leadership in 1988. After leaving Parliament at the 2001 general election, Benn was President of the Stop the War Coalition until his death in 2014.
Benn was widely seen as a key proponent of democratic socialism and Christian socialism. Originally considered a moderate within the party, he was identified as belonging to its left wing after leaving ministerial office. The terms Bennism and Bennite came into usage to describe the left-wing politics he espoused from the late 1970s and its adherents. He was an influence on the politics of Jeremy Corbyn, who was elected Leader of the Labour Party a year after Benn's death, and John McDonnell, who served as Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer under Corbyn.
Early life and family
Benn was born in Westminster, London, on 3 April 1925. He had two brothers, Michael (1921–1944), who was killed in the Second World War, and David (1928–2017), a specialist in Russia and Eastern Europe. After the Thames flood in January 1928 their house was uninhabitable so the Benn family moved to Scotland for over 12 months. Their father, William Benn, was a Liberal Member of Parliament from 1906 who crossed the floor to the Labour Party in 1928 and was appointed Secretary of State for India by Ramsay MacDonald in 1929, a position he held until the Labour Party's landslide electoral defeat in 1931. William Benn was elevated to the House of Lords and Tony Benn was subsequently titled with the honorific prefix, The Honourable. William Benn was given the title of Viscount Stansgate in 1942: the new wartime coalition government was short of working Labour peers in the upper house. In 1945–46, William Benn was the Secretary of State for Air in the first majority Labour Government.
Benn's mother, Margaret Benn (née Holmes, 1897–1991), was a theologian, feminist and the founder President of the Congregational Federation. She was a member of the League of the Church Militant, which was the predecessor of the Movement for the Ordination of Women; in 1925, she was rebuked by Randall Davidson, the Archbishop of Canterbury, for advocating the ordination of women. His mother's theology had a profound influence on Benn, as she taught him that the stories in the Bible were based around the struggle between the prophets and the kings and that he ought in his life to support the prophets over the kings, who had power, as the prophets taught righteousness.
Benn was for over 30 years a committed Christian. He said that the teachings of Jesus Christ had a "radical political importance" on his life, and made a distinction between the historical Jesus as "a carpenter of Nazareth" who advocated social justice and egalitarianism and "the way in which he's presented by some religious authorities; by popes, archbishops and bishops who present Jesus as justification for their power", believing this to be a gross misunderstanding of the role of Jesus. He believed that it was a "great mistake" to assume that the teachings of Christianity are outdated in modern Britain, and Higgins wrote in The Benn Inheritance that Benn was "a socialist whose political commitment owes much more to the teaching of Jesus than the writing of Marx". (Indeed, he did not read The Communist Manifesto until he was in his 50s.) "The driving force of his life was Christian socialism," according to Peter Wilby, linking Benn to the "high-minded" founding roots of Labour.
Later in his life, Benn emphasised issues regarding morality and righteousness, as well as various ethical principles of Nonconformism. On Desert Island Discs he said that he had been powerfully influenced by "what I would call the Dissenting tradition" (that is, the English Dissenters who left or were ejected from the established church, one of whom was his ancestor William Benn). "I've never thought we can understand the world we lived in unless we understood the history of the church", Benn said to the Catholic Herald. "All political freedoms were won, first of all, through religious freedom. Some of the arguments about the control of the media today, which are very big arguments, are the arguments that would have been fought in the religious wars. You have the satellites coming in now—well, it is the multinational church all over again. That's why Mrs Thatcher pulled Britain out of UNESCO: she was not prepared, any more than Ronald Reagan was, to be part of an organisation that talked about a New World Information Order, people speaking to each other without the help of Murdoch or Maxwell."
According to Wilby in the New Statesman, Benn "decided to do without the paraphernalia and doctrine of organised religion but not without the teachings of Jesus". Although Benn became more agnostic as he became older, he was intrigued by the interconnections between Christianity, radicalism and socialism. Wilby also wrote in The Guardian that although former Chancellor Stafford Cripps described Benn as "as keen a Christian as I am myself", Benn wrote in 2005 that he was "a Christian agnostic" who believed "in Jesus the prophet, not Christ the king", specifically rejecting the label of "humanist".
Both of Benn's grandfathers were Liberal Party MPs; his paternal grandfather was John Benn, a successful politician, MP for Tower Hamlets and later Devonport, who was created a baronet in 1914 (and who founded a publishing company, Benn Brothers), and his maternal grandfather was Daniel Holmes, MP for Glasgow Govan. Benn's contact with leading politicians of the day, dates back to his earliest years. He met Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald when he was five years old, whom he described as: "A kindly old gentleman [who] leaned over me and offered me a chocolate biscuit. I've looked at Labour leaders in a funny way ever since." Benn also met former Liberal Prime Minister David Lloyd George when he was 12, and later recalled that, while still a boy, he once shook hands with Mahatma Gandhi, in 1931, while his father was Secretary of State for India.
During the Second World War, Benn joined and trained with the Home Guard from the age of 16, later recalling in a speech made in 2009: "I could use a bayonet, a rifle, a revolver, and if I'd seen a German officer having a meal I'd have tossed a grenade through the window. Would I have been a freedom fighter or a terrorist?" In July 1943, Benn enlisted in the Royal Air Force as an aircraftman 2nd Class. His father and elder brother Michael (who was later killed in an accident) were already serving in the RAF. He was granted an emergency commission as a pilot officer (on probation) on 10 March 1945. As a pilot officer, Benn served as a pilot in South Africa and Rhodesia. In June 1944, he made his first solo flight, at RAF Guinea Fowl, an RAF Elementary Flying Training School, in Rhodesia. The aircraft was a Canadian-built Fairchild Cornell. In a 1993 article recounting the experience, he said, "I always thought that I would feel a sense of panic when I saw the ground coming up at me on my first solo, but strangely enough I didn't feel anything but exhilaration ...". He relinquished his commission with effect from 10 August 1945, three months after the Second World War ended in Europe on 8 May, and just days before the war with Japan ended on 2 September.
After attending Mr Gladstone's day school near Sloane Square, Benn attended Westminster School, and studied at New College, Oxford, where he read Philosophy, Politics and Economics and was elected President of the Oxford Union in 1947. In later life, Benn removed public references to his private education from Who's Who. In 1970 all references to Westminster School were removed, and in the 1975 edition his entry stated "Education—still in progress". In the 1976 edition, almost all details were omitted except his name, jobs as a Member of Parliament and as a Government Minister, and address; the publishers confirmed that Benn had sent back the draft entry with everything else struck through. In the 1977 edition, Benn's entry disappeared entirely, and when he returned to Who's Who in 1983, he was listed as "Tony Benn" and all references to his education or service record were removed.
In 1972, Benn said in his diaries that "Today I had the idea that I would resign my Privy Councillorship, my MA and all my honorary doctorates in order to strip myself of what the world had to offer". While he acknowledged that he "might be ridiculed" for doing so, Benn said that "'Wedgie Benn' and 'the Rt Honourable Anthony Wedgwood Benn' and all that stuff is impossible. I have been Tony Benn in Bristol for a long time." In October 1973, he announced on BBC Radio that he wished to be known as Mr. Tony Benn rather than Anthony Wedgwood Benn, and his book Speeches from 1974 is credited to "Tony Benn". Despite this name change, social historian Alwyn W. Turner writes that "Just as those with an agenda to pursue still call Muhammed Ali by his original name ... so most newspapers continued to refer to Tony Benn as Wedgwood Benn, or Wedgie in the case of the tabloids, for years to come".
Benn met Caroline Middleton DeCamp (born 13 October 1926, Cincinnati, Ohio, United States) over tea at Worcester College, Oxford, in 1949; just nine days after meeting her, he proposed to her on a park bench in the city. Later, he bought the bench from Oxford City Council and installed it in the garden of their home in Holland Park. Tony and Caroline had four children—Stephen, Hilary, Melissa, a feminist writer, and Joshua—and 10 grandchildren. Caroline Benn died of cancer on 22 November 2000, aged 74, after a career as an educationalist.
Two of Benn's children have been active in Labour Party politics. His eldest son Stephen was an elected Member of the Inner London Education Authority from 1986 to 1990. His second son Hilary was a councillor in London, stood for Parliament in 1983 and 1987, and became Labour MP for Leeds Central in 1999. He was Secretary of State for International Development from 2003 to 2007, and then Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs until 2010, later serving as Shadow Foreign Secretary (2015–16). This makes him the third generation of his family to have been a member of the Cabinet, a rare distinction for a modern political family in Britain. Benn's granddaughter Emily Benn was the Labour Party's youngest-ever candidate when she failed to win East Worthing and Shoreham in 2010. Benn was a first cousin once removed of the actress Margaret Rutherford.
Benn and his wife Caroline became vegetarian in 1970, for ethical reasons, and remained so for the rest of their lives. Benn cited the decision of his son Hilary to become vegetarian as an important factor in his own decision to adopt a vegetarian diet.
Early parliamentary career
Member of Parliament, 1950–1960
Following the Second World War, Benn worked briefly as a BBC Radio producer. On 1 November 1950, he was selected to succeed Stafford Cripps as the Labour candidate for Bristol South East, after Cripps stood down because of ill-health. He won the seat in a by-election on 30 November 1950. Anthony Crosland helped him get the seat as he was the MP for nearby South Gloucestershire at the time. Upon taking the oath on 4 December 1950 Benn became "Baby of the House", the youngest MP, for one day, being succeeded by Thomas Teevan, who was two years younger but took his oath a day later. He became the "Baby" again in 1951, when Teevan was not re-elected. In the 1950s, Benn held middle-of-the-road or soft left views, and was not associated with the young left wing group around Aneurin Bevan.
As MP for Bristol South East, Benn helped organise the 1963 Bristol Bus Boycott against the colour bar of the Bristol Omnibus Company against employing Black British and British Asian drivers. Benn said that he would "stay off the buses, even if I have to find a bike", and Labour leader Harold Wilson also told an anti-apartheid rally in London he was "glad that so many Bristolians are supporting the [boycott] campaign", adding that he "wish[ed] them every success".
Peerage reform
Benn's father was created Viscount Stansgate in 1942 when Winston Churchill increased the number of Labour peers to aid political work in the House of Lords; at this time, Benn's elder brother Michael, then serving in the RAF, was intending to enter the priesthood and had no objections to inheriting a peerage. However, Michael was later killed in an accident while on active service in the Second World War, and this left Benn as the heir-apparent to the peerage. He made several unsuccessful attempts to renounce the succession.
In November 1960, Lord Stansgate died. Benn automatically became a peer, preventing him from sitting in the House of Commons. The Speaker of the Commons, Sir Harry Hylton-Foster, did not allow him to deliver a speech from the bar of the House of Commons in April 1961 when the by-election was being called. Continuing to maintain his right to abandon his peerage, Benn fought to retain his seat in a by-election caused by his succession on 4 May 1961. Although he was disqualified from taking his seat, he was re-elected. An election court found that the voters were fully aware that Benn was disqualified, and declared the seat won by the Conservative runner-up, Malcolm St Clair, who was at the time also the heir presumptive to a peerage.
Benn continued his campaign outside Parliament. Within two years, though, the Conservative Government of the time, which had members in the same or similar situation to Benn's (i.e., who were going to receive title, or who had already applied for writs of summons), changed the law. The Peerage Act 1963, allowing lifetime disclaimer of peerages, became law shortly after 6 pm on 31 July 1963. Benn was the first peer to renounce his title, doing so at 6.22 pm that day. St Clair, fulfilling a promise he had made at the time of his election, then accepted the office of Steward of the Manor of Northstead, disqualifying himself from the House (outright resignation not being possible). Benn returned to the Commons after winning a by-election on 20 August 1963.
In government, 1964–1970
In the 1964 Government led by Harold Wilson, Benn was Postmaster General, where he oversaw the opening of the Post Office Tower, then the UK's tallest building, and the creations of the Post Bus service and Girobank. He proposed issuing stamps without the Sovereign's head, but this met with private opposition from the Queen. Instead, the portrait was reduced to a small profile in silhouette, a format that is still used on commemorative stamps.
Benn also led the government's opposition to the "pirate" radio stations broadcasting from international waters, which he was aware would be an unpopular measure. Some of these stations were causing problems, such as interference to emergency radio used by shipping, although he was not responsible for introducing the Marine Broadcasting Offences Bill when it came before Parliament at the end of July 1966 for its first reading.
Earlier in the month, Benn was promoted to Minister of Technology, which included responsibility for the development of Concorde and the formation of International Computers Ltd. (ICL). The period also saw government involvement in industrial rationalisation, and the merger of several car companies to form British Leyland. Following Conservative MP Enoch Powell's 1968 "Rivers of Blood" speech to a Conservative Association meeting, in opposition to Harold Wilson's insistence on not "stirring up the Powell issue", Benn said during the 1970 general election campaign:
The mainstream press attacked Benn for using language deemed as intemperate as Powell's language in his "Rivers of Blood" speech (which was widely regarded as racist), and Benn noted in his diary that "letters began pouring in on the Powell speech: 2:1 against me but some very sympathetic ones saying that my speech was overdue". Harold Wilson later reprimanded Benn for this speech, accusing him of losing Labour seats in the 1970 general election.
During the 1970s Benn publicly defended Marxism, saying:
Labour lost the 1970 election to Edward Heath's Conservatives and upon Heath's application to join the European Economic Community, a surge in left-wing Euroscepticism emerged. Benn "was stridently against membership", and campaigned in favour of a referendum on the UK's membership. The Shadow Cabinet voted to support a referendum on 29 March 1972, and as a result Roy Jenkins resigned as Deputy Leader of the Labour Party.
In government, 1974–1979
In the Labour Government of 1974, Benn was Secretary of State for Industry and as such increased nationalised industry pay, provided better terms and conditions for workers such as the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and was involved in setting up worker cooperatives in firms which were struggling, the best known being at Meriden, outside Coventry, producing Triumph Motorcycles. In 1975, he was appointed Secretary of State for Energy, immediately following his unsuccessful campaign for a "No" vote in the referendum on the UK's continued membership of the European Community (Common Market). Later in his diary, (25 October 1977) Benn wrote that he "loathed" the EEC; he claimed it was "bureaucratic and centralised" and "of course it is really dominated by Germany. All the Common Market countries except the UK have been occupied by Germany, and they have this mixed feeling of hatred and subservience towards the Germans".
Upon the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, Benn described Mao as "one of the greatest—if not the greatest—figures of the twentieth century: a schoolteacher who transformed China, released it from civil war and foreign attack and constructed a new society there" in his diaries, adding that "he certainly towers above any twentieth-century figure I can think of in his philosophical contribution and military genius". On his trip to the Chinese embassy after Mao's death, Benn recorded in an earlier volume of his diaries that he was "a great admirer of Mao", while also admitting that "he made mistakes, because everybody does".
Harold Wilson resigned as Leader of the Labour Party and Prime Minister in March 1976. Benn later attributed the collapse of the Wilson government to cuts enforced on the UK by global capital, in particular the International Monetary Fund. In the resulting leadership contest Benn finished in fourth place out of the six cabinet ministers who stood—he withdrew as 11.8 per cent of colleagues voted for him in the first ballot. Benn withdrew from the second ballot and endorsed Michael Foot; James Callaghan eventually won. Despite not receiving his support in the second and third rounds of the vote, Callaghan kept Benn on as Energy Secretary. In 1976, there was a sterling crisis, and Chancellor of the Exchequer Denis Healey sought a loan from the International Monetary Fund. Underlining a wish to counter international market forces which seemed to penalise a larger welfare state, Benn publicly circulated the divided Cabinet minutes in which a narrow majority of the Labour Cabinet under Ramsay MacDonald supported a cut in unemployment benefits in order to obtain a loan from American bankers. As he highlighted, these minutes resulted in the 1931 split of the Labour Party in which MacDonald and his allies formed a National Government with Conservatives and Liberals. Callaghan allowed Benn to put forward the Alternative Economic Strategy, which consisted of a self-sufficient economy less dependent on low-rate fresh borrowing, but the AES, which according to opponents would have led to a "siege economy", was rejected by the Cabinet. In response, Benn later recalled that: "I retorted that their policy was a siege economy, only they had the bankers inside the castle with all our supporters left outside, whereas my policy would have our supporters in the castle with the bankers outside." Benn blamed the Winter of Discontent on these cuts to socialist policies.
During Benn's time as energy minister from 1975 to 1979 he supported the United Kingdom's use of nuclear power. However, later in his life he became an opponent of nuclear power, attributing his time as running it as a minister to persuading him it was not cheap, safe or peaceful. When asked in an interview in January 2009 on what he had changed his mind on over the course of his life he expanded on this issue by saying:
Move to the left
By the end of the 1970s, Benn's views had shifted to the left-wing of the Labour Party. He attributed this political shift to his experience as a Cabinet Minister in the 1964–1970 Labour Government. Benn ascribed his move to the left to four lessons:
How "the Civil Service can frustrate the policies and decisions of popularly elected governments"
The centralised nature of the Labour Party which allowed the Leader to run "the Party almost as if it were his personal kingdom"
"The power of industrialists and bankers to get their way by use of the crudest form of economic pressure, even blackmail, against a Labour Government"
The power of the media, which "like the power of the medieval Church, ensures that events of the day are always presented from the point of the view of those who enjoy economic privilege"
As regards the power of industrialists and bankers, Benn remarked:
Benn's philosophy consisted of a form of syndicalism, state planning where necessary to ensure national competitiveness, greater democracy in the structures of the Labour Party and observance of Party Conference decisions. Alongside an alleged 12 Labour MPs, he spent 12 years affiliated with the Institute for Workers' Control, beginning in 1971 when he visited the Upper Clyde Shipyards, arguing in 1975 for the "labour movement to intensify its discussion about industrial democracy".
He was vilified by most of the press while his opponents implied and stated that a Benn-led Labour Government would implement a type of Eastern European state socialism, with Edward Heath referring to Benn as "Commissar Benn" and others referring to Benn as a "Bollinger Bolshevik". Despite this, Benn was overwhelmingly popular with Labour activists in the constituencies: a survey of delegates at the Labour Party Conference in 1978 found that by large margins they supported Benn for the leadership, as well as many Bennite policies.
He publicly supported Sinn Féin and the unification of Ireland, although in 2005 he suggested to Sinn Féin leaders that it abandon its long-standing policy of not taking seats at Westminster (abstentionism). Sinn Féin in turn argued that to do so would recognise Britain's claim over Northern Ireland, and the Sinn Féin constitution prevented its elected members from taking their seats in any British-created institution. A supporter of the Scottish Parliament and political devolution, Benn however opposed the Scottish National Party and Scottish independence, saying: "I think nationalism is a mistake. And I am half Scots and feel it would divide me in half with a knife. The thought that my mother would suddenly be a foreigner would upset me very much."
In British politics during this period, the term "Bennism" came into use to describe the conviction politics, economic, social and political ideology of Tony Benn; and an exponent or advocate of Bennism was regarded as a "Bennite".
In opposition, 1979–1997
In a keynote speech to the Labour Party Conference of 1980, shortly before the resignation of party leader James Callaghan and election of Michael Foot as successor, Benn outlined what he envisaged the next Labour Government would do. "Within days", a Labour Government would gain powers to nationalise industries, control capital and implement industrial democracy; "within weeks", all powers from Brussels would be returned to Westminster, and the House of Lords would be abolished by creating one thousand new peers and then abolishing the peerage. Benn received tumultuous applause. On 25 January 1981, Roy Jenkins, David Owen, Shirley Williams and Bill Rodgers (known collectively as the "Gang of Four") launched the Council for Social Democracy, which became the Social Democratic Party in March. The "Gang of Four" left the Labour Party because of what they perceived to be the influence of the Militant tendency and the Bennite "hard left" within the party. Benn was highly critical of the SDP, saying that "Britain has had SDP governments for the past 25 years."
Benn stood against Denis Healey, the party's incumbent deputy leader, triggering the 1981 deputy leadership election, disregarding an appeal from Michael Foot to either stand for the leadership or abstain from inflaming the party's divisions. Benn defended his decision insisting that it was "not about personalities, but about policies". The result was announced on 27 September 1981; Healey retained his position by a margin of barely one per cent. The decision of several soft left MPs, including Neil Kinnock, to abstain triggered the split of the Socialist Campaign Group from the left of the Tribune Group.
After Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands in April 1982, Benn argued that the dispute should be settled by the United Nations and that the British Government should not send a task force to recapture the islands. The task force was sent, and following the Falklands War, they were back in British control by mid-June. In a debate in the Commons just after the Falklands were recaptured, Benn's demand for "a full analysis of the costs in life, equipment and money in this tragic and unnecessary war" was rejected by Margaret Thatcher, who stated that "he would not enjoy the freedom of speech that he put to such excellent use unless people had been prepared to fight for it".
For the 1983 election Benn's Bristol South East constituency was abolished by boundary changes, and he lost to Michael Cocks in the selection of a candidate to stand in the new winnable seat of Bristol South. Rejecting offers from the new seat of Livingston in Scotland, Benn contested Bristol East, losing to the Conservative's Jonathan Sayeed in June 1983. Foot resigned as leader following the defeat which reduced Labour to only 209 MPs, while Healey also decided to step down as deputy leader. However Benn's absence from parliament meant that he was unable to stand in the resulting leadership contest as only MPs were eligible to be candidates. Benn's absence from the contest was reported by The Glasgow Herald to leave Neil Kinnock as "the favourite Left-wing candidate". Ultimately Kinnock won the contest, formally replacing Foot as party leader in October of that year.
In a by-election, Benn was elected as the MP for Chesterfield, the next Labour seat to fall vacant, after Eric Varley had left the Commons to head Coalite. On the day of the by-election, 1 March 1984, The Sun newspaper ran a hostile feature article, "Benn on the Couch", which purported to be the opinions of an American psychiatrist.
Newly elected to a mining seat, Benn was a supporter of the 1984–85 UK miners' strike, which was beginning when he returned to the Commons, and of his long-standing friend, the National Union of Mineworkers leader Arthur Scargill. However, some miners considered Benn's 1977 industry reforms to have caused problems during the strike; firstly, that they led to huge wage differences and distrust between miners of different regions; and secondly that the controversy over balloting miners for these reforms made it unclear as to whether a ballot was needed for a strike or whether it could be deemed as a "regional matter" in the same way that the 1977 reforms had been. Benn also spoke at a Militant tendency rally held in 1984, saying: "The labour movement is not engaged in a personalised battle against individual cabinet ministers, nor do we seek to win public support by arguing that the crisis could be ended by the election of a new and more humane team of ministers who are better qualified to administer capitalism. We are working for a majority labour government, elected on a socialist programme, as decided by conference."
In June 1985, three months after the miners admitted defeat and ended their strike, Benn introduced the Miners' Amnesty (General Pardon) Bill into the Commons, which would have extended an amnesty to all miners imprisoned during the strike. This would have included two men convicted of murder (later reduced to manslaughter) for the killing of David Wilkie, a taxi driver driving a non-striking miner to work in South Wales during the strike.
Benn stood for election as party leader in 1988, against Neil Kinnock, following Labour's third successive defeat in the 1987 general election, losing by a substantial margin, and received only about 11 per cent of the vote. In May 1989 he made an extended appearance on Channel 4's late-night discussion programme After Dark, alongside among others Lord Dacre and Miles Copeland. During the Gulf War, Benn visited Baghdad in order to try to persuade Saddam Hussein to release the hostages who had been captured.
Benn supported various LGBT social movements, which were then known as gay liberation; Benn had voted in favour of decriminalisation in 1967. Talking about Section 28 of the 1988 Local Government Act, a piece of anti-gay legislation preventing the "promotion of homosexuality", Benn said:
Benn later voted for the repeal of Section 28 during the first term of Tony Blair's New Labour Government, and voted in favour of equalising the age of consent.
In 1990 he proposed a "Margaret Thatcher (Global Repeal) Bill", which he said "could go through both Houses in 24 hours. It would be easy to reverse the policies and replace the personalities—the process has begun—but the rotten values that have been propagated from the platform of political power in Britain during the past 10 years will be an infection—a virulent strain of right-wing capitalist thinking which it will take time to overcome." In 1991, with Labour still in opposition and a general election due by June 1992, he proposed the Commonwealth of Britain Bill, abolishing the monarchy in favour of the United Kingdom becoming a "democratic, federal and secular commonwealth", a republic with a written constitution. It was read in Parliament a number of times until his retirement at the 2001 election, but never achieved a second reading. He presented an account of his proposal in Common Sense: A New Constitution for Britain. In 1992, Benn also received a Pipe Smoker of the Year award, claiming in his acceptance speech that "pipe smoking stopped you going to war".
In 1991, Benn reiterated his opposition to the European Commission and highlighted an alleged democratic deficit in the institution, saying: "Some people genuinely believe that we shall never get social justice from the British Government, but we shall get it from Jacques Delors. They believe that a good king is better than a bad Parliament. I have never taken that view." This argument has also been used by many on the right-wing Eurosceptic wing of the Conservative Party, such as Daniel Hannan MEP. Jonathan Freedland writes in The Guardian that "For [Tony Benn], even benign rule by a monarch was worthless because the king's whim could change and there'd be nothing you could do about it."
Prior to retirement, 1997–2001
In 1997, the Labour Party under the leadership of Tony Blair won the general election in a landslide, after 18 years of Conservative Party rule. Despite later calling Labour under Blair "the idea of a Conservative group who had taken over Labour" and saying "[Blair] set up a new political party, New Labour", his political diaries Free at Last show that Benn was initially somewhat sympathetic to Blair, welcoming a change of government. Benn supported the introduction of the national minimum wage, and welcomed the progress towards peace and security in Northern Ireland (particularly under Mo Mowlam). He was supportive of the extra money given to public services in the New Labour years but believed it to be under the guise of privatisation. Overall, his concluding judgement on New Labour is highly critical; he describes its evolution as a way of retaining office by abandoning socialism and distancing the party from the trade union movement, adopting a presidentialist style of politics, overriding the concept of the collective ministerial responsibility by reducing the power of the Cabinet, eliminated any effective influence from the annual conference of the Labour Party and "hinged its foreign policy on support for one of the worst presidents in US history".
Benn strongly objected to the bombing of Iraq in December 1998, calling it immoral and saying: "Aren't Arabs terrified? Aren't Iraqis terrified? Don't Arab and Iraqi women weep when their children die? Does bombing strengthen their determination? ... Every Member of Parliament tonight who votes for the government motion will be consciously and deliberately accepting the responsibility for the deaths of innocent people if the war begins, as I fear it will."
Several months prior to his retirement, Benn was a signatory to a letter, alongside Niki Adams (Legal Action for Women), Ian Macdonald QC, Gareth Peirce, and other legal professionals, that was published in The Guardian newspaper on 22 February 2001 condemning raids of more than 50 brothels in the central London area of Soho. At the time, a police spokesman said: "As far as we know, this is the biggest simultaneous crackdown on brothels and prostitution in this country in recent times", the arrest of 28 people in an operation that involved around 110 police officers. The letter read:
In the name of "protecting" women from trafficking, about 40 women, including a woman from Iraq, were arrested, detained and in some cases summarily removed from Britain. If any of these women have been trafficked ... they deserve protection and resources, not punishment by expulsion. ... Having forced women into destitution, the government first criminalised those who begged. Now it is trying to use prostitution as a way to make deportation of the vulnerable more acceptable. We will not allow such injustice to go unchallenged.
Retirement and final years, 2001–2014
Benn chose not to seek re-election at the 2001 general election, saying he was "leaving parliament in order to spend more time on politics." Along with former Prime Minister Edward Heath, Benn was permitted by the Speaker to continue using the House of Commons Library and Members' refreshment facilities. Shortly after his retirement, he became the President of the Stop the War Coalition. He became a leading figure of the British opposition to the War in Afghanistan from 2001 and the Iraq War, and in February 2003 he travelled to Baghdad to meet Saddam Hussein. The interview was broadcast on British television.
He spoke against the war at the February 2003 protest in London organised by the Stop the War Coalition, with police saying it was the biggest ever demonstration in the UK with about 750,000 marchers, and the organisers estimating nearly a million people participating. In February 2004 and 2008, he was re-elected President of the Stop the War Coalition.
He toured with a one-man stage show and appeared a few times each year in a two-man show with folk singer Roy Bailey. In 2003, his show with Bailey was voted 'Best Live Act' at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. In 2002, he opened the "Left Field" stage at the Glastonbury Festival. He continued to speak at each subsequent festival; attending one of his speeches was described as a "Glastonbury rite of passage". In October 2003, he was a guest of British Airways on the last scheduled Concorde flight from New York to London. In June 2005, he was a panellist on a special edition of BBC One's Question Time edited entirely by a school-age film crew selected by a BBC competition.
On 21 June 2005, Benn presented a programme on democracy as part of the Channel 5 series Big Ideas That Changed The World. He presented a left-wing view of democracy as the means to pass power from the "wallet to the ballot". He argued that traditional social democratic values were under threat in an increasingly globalised world in which powerful institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the European Commission are unelected and unaccountable to those whose lives they affect daily.
On 27 September 2005, Benn became ill while attending the annual Labour Party Conference in Brighton and was taken by ambulance to the Royal Sussex County Hospital after being treated by paramedics on-the-scene at the Brighton Centre. Benn reportedly fell and struck his head. He was kept in hospital for observation and was described as being in a "comfortable condition". He was subsequently fitted with an artificial pacemaker to help regulate his heartbeat.
In a list compiled by the magazine New Statesman in 2006, he was voted twelfth in the list of "Heroes of our Time". In September 2006, Benn joined the "Time to Go" demonstration in Manchester the day before the final Labour Party Conference with Tony Blair as Leader of the Labour Party, with the aim of persuading the Government to withdraw troops from Iraq, to refrain from attacking Iran and to reject replacing the Trident missile and submarines with a new system. He spoke to the demonstrators in the rally afterwards. In 2007, he appeared in an extended segment in the Michael Moore film Sicko giving comments about democracy, social responsibility and healthcare, notably, "If we can find the money to kill people, we can find the money to help people." A poll by the BBC2 The Daily Politics programme in January 2007 selected Benn as the UK's "Political Hero" with 38% of the vote, narrowly defeating Margaret Thatcher, who had 35%.
For the 2007 Labour Party leadership election, Benn backed the left-wing MP John McDonnell in his unsuccessful bid. In September 2007, Benn called for the government to hold a referendum on the EU Reform Treaty. In October 2007, aged 82, and when it appeared that a general election was about to be held, Benn reportedly announced that he wanted to stand, having written to his local Constituency Labour Party offering himself as a prospective candidate for the newly drawn Kensington seat. His main opponent would have been the incumbent Conservative MP for the predecessor seat of Kensington and Chelsea, Malcolm Rifkind. However, there was no election held in 2007, and so the boundary changes did not take effect until the eventual election in 2010, when Benn was not a candidate and the new seat was won by Rifkind.
In early 2008, Benn appeared on Scottish singer-songwriter Colin MacIntyre's album The Water, reading a poem he had written himself. In September 2008, he appeared on the DVD release for the Doctor Who story The War Machines with a vignette discussing the Post Office Tower; he became the second Labour politician, after Roy Hattersley to appear on a Doctor Who DVD.
At the Stop the War Conference 2009, he described the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as "Imperialist war(s)" and discussed the killing of American and allied troops by Iraqi or foreign insurgents, questioning whether they were in fact freedom fighters, and comparing the insurgents to a British Dad's Army, saying: "If you are invaded you have a right to self-defence, and this idea that people in Iraq and Afghanistan who are resisting the invasion are militant Muslim extremists is a complete bloody lie. I joined Dad's Army when I was sixteen, and if the Germans had arrived, I tell you, I could use a bayonet, a rifle, a revolver, and if I'd seen a German officer having a meal I'd have tossed a grenade through the window. Would I have been a freedom fighter or a terrorist?"
In an interview published in Dartford Living in September 2009, Benn was critical of the Government's decision to delay the findings of the Iraq War Inquiry until after the general election, stating that "people can take into account what the inquiry has reported on but they’ve deliberately pushed it beyond the election. Government is responsible for explaining what it has done and I don't think we were told the truth." He also stated that local government was strangled by Margaret Thatcher and had not been liberated by New Labour.
In 2009, Benn was admitted to hospital and An Evening with Tony Benn, scheduled to take place at London's Cadogan Hall, was cancelled. He performed his show, The Writing on the Wall, with Roy Bailey at St Mary's Church, Ashford, Kent, in September 2011, as part of the arts venue's first Revelation St. Mary's Season. In July 2011 Benn was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Glamorgan, Wales.
Benn headed the "coalition of resistance", a group which was opposed to the UK austerity programme. In interviews in 2010 with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! and 2013 with Afshin Rattansi on RT UK, Benn claimed that the actions of New Labour in the leadup to and aftermath of the Iraq War were such that the former Prime Minister Tony Blair should be tried for war crimes. Benn also claimed in 2010 that Blair had lost the "trust of the nation" regarding the war in Iraq.
In 2012, Benn was awarded an honorary degree from Goldsmiths, University of London. He was also the honorary president of the Goldsmiths Students' Union, who successfully campaigned for him to retract comments dismissing the Julian Assange rape allegations. In February 2013, Benn was among those who gave their support to the People's Assembly in a letter published by The Guardian newspaper. He gave a speech at the People's Assembly Conference held at Westminster Central Hall on 22 June 2013.
In 2013, Benn reiterated his previous opposition to European integration. Speaking to the Oxford Union on the alleged overshadowing of the EU debate by "UKIP and Tory backbenchers", he said:I took the view that having fought [Europeans in the Second World War] that we should now work with them, and co-operate, and that was my first thought about it. Then how I saw how the European Union was developing, it was very obvious that what they had in mind was not democratic. ... And the way that Europe has developed is that the bankers and the multinational corporations have got very powerful positions, and if you come in on their terms, they will tell you what you can and cannot do. And that is unacceptable. My view about the European Union has always been not that I am hostile to foreigners, but that I am in favour of democracy ... I think they're building an empire there, they want us to be a part of their empire and I don't want that.
Illness and death
In 1990, Benn was diagnosed with chronic lymphatic leukaemia and given three or four years to live; at this time, he kept the news of his leukaemia from everyone except his immediate family. Benn said: "When you're in parliament, you can't describe your medical condition. People immediately start wondering what your majority is and when there will be a by-election. They're very brutal." This was revealed in 2002 with the release of his 1990–2001 diaries.
Benn suffered a stroke in 2012, and spent much of the following year in hospital. He was reported to be "seriously ill" in hospital in February 2014. Benn died at home on 14 March 2014, surrounded by his family, less than a month shy of his 89th birthday.
Benn's funeral took place on 27 March 2014 at St Margaret's Church, Westminster. His body had lain in rest at St Mary Undercroft in the Palace of Westminster the night before the funeral service. The service ended with the singing of "The Red Flag". His body was then cremated; the ashes were expected to be buried alongside those of his wife at the family home near Steeple, Essex.
Figures from across the political spectrum praised Benn following his death, and the leaders of all three major political parties (the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats) in the United Kingdom paid tribute.
Conservative leader and Prime Minister David Cameron said:... he was an extraordinary man: a great writer, a brilliant speaker, extraordinary in Parliament, and a great life of public and political and parliamentary service. I mean, I disagreed with most of what he said. But he was always engaging and interesting, and you were never bored when reading or listening to him, and the country a great campaigner, a great writer, and someone who I'm sure whose words will be followed keenly for many, many years to come.
Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg called Benn an "astonishing, iconic figure" and a "veteran parliamentarian, he was a great writer, he had great warmth and he had great conviction ... his political life will be looked back on with affection and admiration".
Leader of the Opposition and Labour leader Ed Miliband, who knew Benn personally as a family friend, said:I think Tony Benn will be remembered as a champion of the powerless, as a conviction politician, as somebody of deep principle and integrity. The thing about Tony Benn is that you always knew what he stood for, and who he stood up for. And I think that's why he was admired right across the political spectrum. There are people who agreed with him and disagreed with him, including in my own party, but I think people admired that sense of conviction and integrity that shone through from Tony Benn.
Diaries and biographies
Benn was a prolific diarist. Nine volumes of his diaries have been published. The final volume was published in 2013. Collections of his speeches and writings were published as Arguments for Socialism (1979), Arguments for Democracy (1981), (both edited by Chris Mullin), Fighting Back (1988) and (with Andrew Hood) Common Sense (1993), as well as Free Radical: New Century Essays (2004). In August 2003, London DJ Charles Bailey created an album of Benn's speeches () set to ambient groove.
He made public several episodes of audio diaries he made during his time in Parliament and after retirement, entitled The Benn Tapes, broadcast originally on BBC Radio 4. Short series have been played periodically on BBC Radio 4 Extra. A major biography was written by Jad Adams and published by Macmillan in 1992; it was updated to cover the intervening 20 years and reissued by Biteback Publishing in 2011: Tony Benn: A Biography (). A more recent "semi-authorised" biography with a foreword by Benn was published in 2001: David Powell, Tony Benn: A Political Life, Continuum Books (). An autobiography, Dare to be a Daniel: Then and Now, Hutchinson (), a reference to the Old Testament prophet in the lions' den , was published in 2004.
There are substantial essays on Benn in the Dictionary of Labour Biography by Phillip Whitehead, Greg Rosen (eds), Politicos Publishing, 2001 () and in Labour Forces: From Ernie Bevin to Gordon Brown, Kevin Jefferys (ed.), I.B. Tauris Publishing, 2002 (). American Michael Moore dedicates his book Mike's Election Guide 2008 () to Benn, with the words: "For Tony Benn, keep teaching us".
On 5 March 2019, it was announced that a large political archive of Benn's speeches, diaries, letters, pamphlets, recordings and ephemera had been accepted in lieu of £210,000 inheritance tax and allocated to the British Library. The audio recordings total to thousands of hours of content.
Plaques
During his final years in Parliament, Benn placed three plaques within the Houses of Parliament. Two are in a room between the Central Lobby and Strangers' Gallery that holds a permanent display about the suffragettes. The first was placed in 1995. The second was placed in 1996 and is dedicated to all who work within the Houses of Parliament.
The third is dedicated to Emily Wilding Davison, who died for the cause of "Votes for women", and was placed in the broom cupboard next to the Undercroft Chapel, where Davison is said to have hidden during the night of the 1911 census in order to establish her address as the House of Commons.
In 2011 Benn unveiled a plaque in Highbury, North London, to commemorate the Peasants' Revolt of 1381.
Legacy
In Bristol, where Benn first served as a member of parliament, a number of tributes exist in his honour. A bust of him was unveiled in Bristol's City Hall in 2005. In 2012 Transport House on Victoria Street, headquarters of Unite the Union's regional office, was officially renamed Tony Benn House and opened by Benn himself. As of 2015 he appears, alongside other famous people associated with the city, on the reverse of the Bristol Pound's £B5 banknote.
Benn told the Socialist Review in 2007 that:I'd like to have on my gravestone: "He encouraged us." I'm proud to have been in the parliament that introduced the health service, the welfare state and voted against means testing. I did my maiden speech on nationalising the steel industry, put down the first motion for the boycott of South African goods, and resigned from the shadow cabinet in 1958 because of their support for nuclear weapons.
I think you do plant a few acorns, and I have lived to see one or two trees growing: gay rights, freedom of information, CND. I'm not claiming them for myself but you feel you have encouraged other people and see the arguments developing.
I'm not ashamed of making mistakes. I've made a million mistakes and they're all in the diary. When we edit the diary—which is cut to around 10 per cent—every mistake has to be printed because people look to see if you do. I would be ashamed if I thought I'd ever said anything I didn't believe to get on, but making mistakes is part of life, isn't it?
Benn was widely seen as a key proponent of democratic socialism. He was described as "one of the few UK politicians to have become more left-wing after holding ministerial office". Harold Wilson, his former boss, maintained that Benn was the only man he knew who "immatures with age".
He has been cited as being a key mentor to future leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn, with his Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell commenting that "they would discuss everything under the sun. Jeremy was very close to Tony right up until the end." Corbyn was elected as leader of the Labour Party a little over a year after Benn's death, an act which Hilary Benn said would have made his father feel "thrilled".
Styles
Anthony Wedgwood Benn, Esq. (1925 – 12 January 1942)
The Hon. Anthony Wedgwood Benn (12 January 1942 – 30 November 1950)
The Hon. Anthony Wedgwood Benn, MP (30 November 1950 – 17 November 1960)
The Rt Hon. The Viscount Stansgate (17 November 1960 – 31 July 1963)
Anthony Wedgwood Benn, Esq. (31 July – 20 August 1963)
Anthony Wedgwood Benn, Esq., MP (20 August 1963 – 1964)
The Rt Hon. Anthony Wedgwood Benn, MP (1964 – October 1973)
The Rt Hon. Tony Benn, MP (October 1973 – 9 June 1983)
The Rt Hon. Tony Benn (9 June 1983 – 1 March 1984)
The Rt Hon. Tony Benn, MP (1 March 1984 – 14 May 2001)
The Rt Hon. Tony Benn (14 May 2001 – 14 March 2014)
Bibliography
Speeches, Spokesman Books (1974);
Levellers and the English Democratic Tradition, Spokesman Books (1976);
Why America Needs Democratic Socialism, Spokesman Books (1978);
Prospects, Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers, Technical, Administrative and Supervisory Section (1979)
Case for Constitutional Civil Service, Institute for Workers' Control (1980);
Case for Party Democracy, Institute for Workers' Control (1980);
Arguments for Socialism, Penguin Books (1980);
& Chris Mullin, Arguments for Democracy, Jonathan Cape (1981);
European Unity: A New Perspective, Spokesman Books (1981)
Parliament and Power: Agenda for a Free Society, Verso Books (1982);
& Andrew Hood, Common Sense: New Constitution for Britain, Hutchinson (1993)
Free Radical: New Century Essays, Continuum International Publishing (2004);
Dare to Be a Daniel: Then and Now, Hutchinson (2004);
Letters to my Grandchildren: Thoughts on the Future, Arrow Books (2010);
Diaries
Out of the Wilderness: Diaries 1963–67, Hutchinson (1987);
Office Without Power: Diaries 1968–72, Hutchinson (1988);
Against the Tide: Diaries 1973–76, Hutchinson (1989);
Conflicts of Interest: Diaries 1977–80, Hutchinson (1990);
The End of an Era: Diaries 1980–90, Hutchinson (1992);
Years of Hope: Diaries 1940–62, Hutchinson (1994);
The Benn Diaries: Single Volume Edition 1940–90, Hutchinson (1995);
Free at Last!: Diaries 1991–2001, Hutchinson (2002);
More Time for Politics: Diaries 2001–2007, Hutchinson (2007);
A Blaze of Autumn Sunshine: The Last Diaries, Hutchinson (2013);
See also
Labour Representation Committee (2004)
Republicanism in the United Kingdom
Socialist Campaign Group
References
External links
By date
Contributions in Parliament by Tony Benn. Hansard, 1925–2005.
Late Developer: Review of Against the Tide: Diaries 1973–1976 by Tony Benn. Author – Paul Foot, 1985.
Andrew Roth. "Tony Benn Chesterfield and Bristol South East MP". The Guardian, 25 March 2001.
The Guardian web guide to Benn.. 6 June 2002.
Face-to-Face with Tony Benn. Freeview video interview by the Vega Science Trust. Recorded in 2005.
Tony Benn. "Atomic hypocrisy: West is not in a position to take a high moral line". The Guardian, 30 November 2005.
Interview with Tony Benn – Radio France Internationale. 28 March 2008 – 6-minute audio – Ahead of G20 marches, London.
Tony Benn on Tony Blair: "He Is Guilty of a War Crime". Video report by Democracy Now!. 21 September 2010.
Obituary: Tony Benn. BBC News, 14 March 2014.
Tony Benn: a stalwart of the peace and anti-nuclear movement. Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, 14 March 2014.
Other
Audio interview with The Guardian.
His Address to the College Historical Society of Trinity College.
Private Eye depictions of Benn: "Most Dangerous Man in Britain", "Labour United", "Benn's Triumph", "Foot & Benn Disease", "Would You Buy a New Car From This Man?".
Tony Benn on Modern Liberty. Tony Benn speaking for The Convention on Modern Liberty. YouTube. 23 February 2009.
Unofficial Tony Benn quotation site.
Tony Benn on The Guardian
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Pipe smokers | true | [
"\"What I Cannot Change\" is a song written by Darrell Brown, and co-written and recorded by American country artist LeAnn Rimes. The song was released to country radio in August 2008 as the third and final single from her ninth studio album, Family (2007). The song was later supported by a set of dance remixes, released in November 2008. When the song reached number one on the Dance Club Songs chart, Rimes became the first country artist to attain a number one single on both that chart and the Hot Country Songs chart.\n\n\"What I Cannot Change\" was praised by critics for Rimes's restrained vocal performance, however the song failed to enter the country charts following its release. The single received a nomination for Best Female Country Vocal Performance at the 2009 Grammy Awards, her second consecutive nomination in the category.\n\nThe song inspired Rimes to release a book of the same name and launch a \"What I Cannot Change\" website where fans could share stories of moments where they came to terms with what they could or could not change in their life.\n\nContent\n\n\"What I Cannot Change\" is a ballad, revealing examination of love relationships and choosing acceptance instead of conflict. The song's chorus is a play on the first line of the Serenity Prayer. According to the digital sheet music published by Hal Leonard Music Publishing, the song was composed in the key of G major and set to a \"slow\" tempo of 72 BPM. Rimes's vocals in the song range from a low note of G to a high note of D.\n\nCritical reception\nWriting for Billboard, Deborah Evans Price called the song a \"gorgeous ballad\" on which Rimes has never sounded \"more emotionally riveting or vulnerable,\" resulting in her \"finest performance ever.\"\nCountry Universe also praised \"What I Cannot Change,\" calling the ballad, \"the finest single of LeAnn Rimes' career.\" Reviewer Kevin Coyne praised the singer's \"nuance,\" using \"all of the shades of her voice to communicate the complicated mess of emotions that she is feeling.\"\nThe 9513 also reviewed the single and praised Rimes's vocal performance, calling her vocals, \"a tremendously sensitive vocal performance that is easily one of the most nuanced of Rimes’ career.\" In a review of Family, Jonathan Keefe of Slant praised the \"lovely\" song as \"the most subtle, understated performance of her career.\" Matt Bjorke of Roughstock ranked \"What I Cannot Change\" as the fourth-best country single of 2008 and expressed disappointment at the song's lack of chart success. \"No song she's recorded has quite matched this single,\" writes Bjorke, calling it, \"a mature single from a mature album by a mature artist.\"\n\nChart performance\n\"What I Cannot Change\" failed to enter the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart after being released to radio in August 2008. A few months later, however, the song was given several electronic dance music remixes and debuted on the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart in late 2008. \"What I Can't Change\" reached #1 on the chart dated February 28, 2009. With this song, Rimes became the first country music artist to have topped both the Billboard country chart and the Billboard dance chart, surpassing Reba McEntire's previous record-best peak of two on the Dance Club Play chart with her cover of The Supremes' \"You Keep Me Hangin' On\".\n\nUsage in media\nThe song was used in the 2010 release of the film, Like Dandelion Dust.\n\nTrack listings\nRemixes EP\n What I Cannot Change [Kaskade Radio Mix] – 3:41\n What I Cannot Change [Jody Den Broeder Radio Mix] – 4:43\n What I Cannot Change [Scotty K Radio Mix] – 4:19\n What I Cannot Change [Bronleewe & Bose Radio Mix] – 4:01\n Good Friend And A Glass Of Wine [Wideboys Electro Radio Mix] – 3:33\n Good Friend And A Glass Of Wine [Soul Seekerz Radio Mix] – 3:32\n Headphones [Almighty Radio Mix] – 3:37\n\nExtended Mixes EP\n What I Cannot Change [Kaskade Extended Mix] – 5:08\n What I Cannot Change [Jody den Broeder Extended Mix] – 8:03\n What I Cannot Change [Scotty K Klub Mix] – 8:12\n What I Cannot Change [Bronleewe & Bose Extended Mix] – 6:25\n Good Friend And A Glass Of Wine [Wideboys Electro Mix] – 5:49\n Good Friend And A Glass Of Wine [Soul Seekerz Extended Mix] – 8:54\n Headphones [Almighty Extended Mix] – 8:01\n\nWhat I Cannot Change Exclusive CD Released with the book of the same name by LeAnn Rimes and Darrell Brown\n What I Cannot Change – 4:34\n Spoken Words – 23:17\n\nPromo CD single\n What I Cannot Change – 3:40\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear end charts\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\n2008 singles\nLeAnn Rimes songs\nCurb Records singles\nSongs written by Darrell Brown (musician)\nSongs written by LeAnn Rimes\n2008 songs",
"The Bangladesh Climate Change Trust is a government trust in Bangladesh that utilises funds to take action against problems caused by climate change. The trust fund has operated since 2010, and collaborates with government ministries as well as NGOs and the private sector to implement and evaluate climate change mitigation projects.\n\nHistory\nThe Bangladesh Climate Change Trust (BCCT) was established on 13 October 2010 through the passage of the Climate Change Trust Act, 2010. It works under the Ministry of Environment and Forests. In April 2017, Mohammad Iqbal the chairman of Bangladesh Chemical Industries Corporation was transferred to the BCCT as its managing director by the Government of Bangladesh. He has since refused to leave his previous position and is now lobbying to get his transfer cancelled. The government of Bangladesh has allocated $400 million to the fund.\n\nFunctions\nThe official website of the BCCT lists the fund as having a range of functions in regards to the funding of climate change mitigation projects:\n\nThe overall management of the Climate Change Trust Fund\nProvide secretarial support to the Trustee Board on Climate Change and Technical Committee\nReview projects from different government ministries/divisions\nCoordinate with different government ministries/divisions to progress climate change mitigation projects\nConnect with beneficiaries, civil society, NGO, private sector and international organizations related to climate change\nUndertake monitoring and evaluation of projects under implementation\n\nReferences\n\nClimate change in Bangladesh\nGovernment agencies of Bangladesh\n2010 establishments in Bangladesh"
] |
[
"Tony Benn",
"Prior to retirement, 1997-2001",
"What did Benn do in 1997?",
"Benn was initially somewhat sympathetic to Blair, welcoming a change of government.",
"What change of government?",
"Blair] set up a new political party, New Labour\","
] | C_bc32948de7454cfdbfeaa94f0a07401b_0 | Why did he set up a new party? | 3 | Why did Blair set up a new party? | Tony Benn | In 1997, the Labour Party under Tony Blair won the election. Despite later calling Labour under Tony Blair "the idea of a Conservative group who had taken over Labour" and saying "[Blair] set up a new political party, New Labour", Benn's political diaries Free at Last show that Benn was initially somewhat sympathetic to Blair, welcoming a change of government. Benn supported the introduction of the national minimum wage, and welcomed the progress towards peace and security in Northern Ireland (particularly under Mo Mowlam). He was supportive of the extra public money given to public services in the New Labour years but believed it to be under the guise of privatisation. Overall, his concluding judgement on New Labour is highly critical; he describes its evolution as a way of retaining office by abandoning socialism and distancing the party from the trade union movement, adopting a presidentialist style of politics, overriding the concept of the collective ministerial responsibility by reducing the power of the Cabinet, eliminated any effective influence from the annual conference of the Labour Party and "hinged its foreign policy on support for one of the worst presidents in US history". Benn strongly objected to the "immoral" bombing of Iraq in December 1998, saying: "Aren't Arabs terrified? Aren't Iraqis terrified? Don't Arab and Iraqi women weep when their children die? Does bombing strengthen their determination? ... Every Member of Parliament tonight who votes for the government motion will be consciously and deliberately accepting the responsibility for the deaths of innocent people if the war begins, as I fear it will." Several months prior to his retirement, Benn was a signatory to a letter, alongside Niki Adams (Legal Action for Women), Ian Macdonald QC, Gareth Peirce, and other legal professionals, that was published in The Guardian newspaper on 22 February 2001 "condemning" raids of more than 50 brothels in the central London area of Soho. At the time, a police spokesman said: "As far as we know, this is the biggest simultaneous crackdown on brothels and prostitution in this country in recent times", the arrest of 28 people in an operation that involved around 110 police officers. The letter read: In the name of "protecting" women from trafficking, about 40 women, including a woman from Iraq, were arrested, detained and in some cases summarily removed from Britain. If any of these women have been trafficked ... they deserve protection and resources, not punishment by expulsion. ... Having forced women into destitution, the government first criminalised those who begged. Now it is trying to use prostitution as a way to make deportation of the vulnerable more acceptable. We will not allow such injustice to go unchallenged. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Anthony Neil Wedgwood Benn (3 April 1925 – 14 March 2014; known between 1960 and 1963 as Viscount Stansgate) was a British politician, writer and diarist who served as a Cabinet minister in the 1960s and 1970s. A member of the Labour Party, he was Member of Parliament for Bristol South East and Chesterfield for 47 of the 51 years between 1950 and 2001. He later served as President of the Stop the War Coalition from 2001 to 2014.
The son of a Liberal and later Labour Party politician, Benn was born in Westminster and privately educated at Westminster School. He was elected for Bristol South East at the 1950 general election but inherited his father's peerage on his death, which prevented him from continuing to serve as an MP. He fought to remain in the House of Commons and campaigned for the ability to renounce the title, a campaign which succeeded with the Peerage Act 1963. He was an active member of the Fabian Society and served as chairman from 1964 to 1965. He served in the Labour government of Harold Wilson from 1964 to 1970 first as Postmaster General, where he oversaw the opening of the Post Office Tower, and later as Minister of Technology.
Benn served as Chairman of the National Executive Committee from 1971 to 1972 while in Opposition. In the Labour government of 1974–1979, he returned to the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Industry and subsequently served as Secretary of State for Energy. He retained that post when James Callaghan succeeded Wilson as Prime Minister. When the Labour Party was in opposition through the 1980s, he emerged as a prominent figure on the left wing of the party and unsuccessfully challenged Neil Kinnock for the Labour leadership in 1988. After leaving Parliament at the 2001 general election, Benn was President of the Stop the War Coalition until his death in 2014.
Benn was widely seen as a key proponent of democratic socialism and Christian socialism. Originally considered a moderate within the party, he was identified as belonging to its left wing after leaving ministerial office. The terms Bennism and Bennite came into usage to describe the left-wing politics he espoused from the late 1970s and its adherents. He was an influence on the politics of Jeremy Corbyn, who was elected Leader of the Labour Party a year after Benn's death, and John McDonnell, who served as Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer under Corbyn.
Early life and family
Benn was born in Westminster, London, on 3 April 1925. He had two brothers, Michael (1921–1944), who was killed in the Second World War, and David (1928–2017), a specialist in Russia and Eastern Europe. After the Thames flood in January 1928 their house was uninhabitable so the Benn family moved to Scotland for over 12 months. Their father, William Benn, was a Liberal Member of Parliament from 1906 who crossed the floor to the Labour Party in 1928 and was appointed Secretary of State for India by Ramsay MacDonald in 1929, a position he held until the Labour Party's landslide electoral defeat in 1931. William Benn was elevated to the House of Lords and Tony Benn was subsequently titled with the honorific prefix, The Honourable. William Benn was given the title of Viscount Stansgate in 1942: the new wartime coalition government was short of working Labour peers in the upper house. In 1945–46, William Benn was the Secretary of State for Air in the first majority Labour Government.
Benn's mother, Margaret Benn (née Holmes, 1897–1991), was a theologian, feminist and the founder President of the Congregational Federation. She was a member of the League of the Church Militant, which was the predecessor of the Movement for the Ordination of Women; in 1925, she was rebuked by Randall Davidson, the Archbishop of Canterbury, for advocating the ordination of women. His mother's theology had a profound influence on Benn, as she taught him that the stories in the Bible were based around the struggle between the prophets and the kings and that he ought in his life to support the prophets over the kings, who had power, as the prophets taught righteousness.
Benn was for over 30 years a committed Christian. He said that the teachings of Jesus Christ had a "radical political importance" on his life, and made a distinction between the historical Jesus as "a carpenter of Nazareth" who advocated social justice and egalitarianism and "the way in which he's presented by some religious authorities; by popes, archbishops and bishops who present Jesus as justification for their power", believing this to be a gross misunderstanding of the role of Jesus. He believed that it was a "great mistake" to assume that the teachings of Christianity are outdated in modern Britain, and Higgins wrote in The Benn Inheritance that Benn was "a socialist whose political commitment owes much more to the teaching of Jesus than the writing of Marx". (Indeed, he did not read The Communist Manifesto until he was in his 50s.) "The driving force of his life was Christian socialism," according to Peter Wilby, linking Benn to the "high-minded" founding roots of Labour.
Later in his life, Benn emphasised issues regarding morality and righteousness, as well as various ethical principles of Nonconformism. On Desert Island Discs he said that he had been powerfully influenced by "what I would call the Dissenting tradition" (that is, the English Dissenters who left or were ejected from the established church, one of whom was his ancestor William Benn). "I've never thought we can understand the world we lived in unless we understood the history of the church", Benn said to the Catholic Herald. "All political freedoms were won, first of all, through religious freedom. Some of the arguments about the control of the media today, which are very big arguments, are the arguments that would have been fought in the religious wars. You have the satellites coming in now—well, it is the multinational church all over again. That's why Mrs Thatcher pulled Britain out of UNESCO: she was not prepared, any more than Ronald Reagan was, to be part of an organisation that talked about a New World Information Order, people speaking to each other without the help of Murdoch or Maxwell."
According to Wilby in the New Statesman, Benn "decided to do without the paraphernalia and doctrine of organised religion but not without the teachings of Jesus". Although Benn became more agnostic as he became older, he was intrigued by the interconnections between Christianity, radicalism and socialism. Wilby also wrote in The Guardian that although former Chancellor Stafford Cripps described Benn as "as keen a Christian as I am myself", Benn wrote in 2005 that he was "a Christian agnostic" who believed "in Jesus the prophet, not Christ the king", specifically rejecting the label of "humanist".
Both of Benn's grandfathers were Liberal Party MPs; his paternal grandfather was John Benn, a successful politician, MP for Tower Hamlets and later Devonport, who was created a baronet in 1914 (and who founded a publishing company, Benn Brothers), and his maternal grandfather was Daniel Holmes, MP for Glasgow Govan. Benn's contact with leading politicians of the day, dates back to his earliest years. He met Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald when he was five years old, whom he described as: "A kindly old gentleman [who] leaned over me and offered me a chocolate biscuit. I've looked at Labour leaders in a funny way ever since." Benn also met former Liberal Prime Minister David Lloyd George when he was 12, and later recalled that, while still a boy, he once shook hands with Mahatma Gandhi, in 1931, while his father was Secretary of State for India.
During the Second World War, Benn joined and trained with the Home Guard from the age of 16, later recalling in a speech made in 2009: "I could use a bayonet, a rifle, a revolver, and if I'd seen a German officer having a meal I'd have tossed a grenade through the window. Would I have been a freedom fighter or a terrorist?" In July 1943, Benn enlisted in the Royal Air Force as an aircraftman 2nd Class. His father and elder brother Michael (who was later killed in an accident) were already serving in the RAF. He was granted an emergency commission as a pilot officer (on probation) on 10 March 1945. As a pilot officer, Benn served as a pilot in South Africa and Rhodesia. In June 1944, he made his first solo flight, at RAF Guinea Fowl, an RAF Elementary Flying Training School, in Rhodesia. The aircraft was a Canadian-built Fairchild Cornell. In a 1993 article recounting the experience, he said, "I always thought that I would feel a sense of panic when I saw the ground coming up at me on my first solo, but strangely enough I didn't feel anything but exhilaration ...". He relinquished his commission with effect from 10 August 1945, three months after the Second World War ended in Europe on 8 May, and just days before the war with Japan ended on 2 September.
After attending Mr Gladstone's day school near Sloane Square, Benn attended Westminster School, and studied at New College, Oxford, where he read Philosophy, Politics and Economics and was elected President of the Oxford Union in 1947. In later life, Benn removed public references to his private education from Who's Who. In 1970 all references to Westminster School were removed, and in the 1975 edition his entry stated "Education—still in progress". In the 1976 edition, almost all details were omitted except his name, jobs as a Member of Parliament and as a Government Minister, and address; the publishers confirmed that Benn had sent back the draft entry with everything else struck through. In the 1977 edition, Benn's entry disappeared entirely, and when he returned to Who's Who in 1983, he was listed as "Tony Benn" and all references to his education or service record were removed.
In 1972, Benn said in his diaries that "Today I had the idea that I would resign my Privy Councillorship, my MA and all my honorary doctorates in order to strip myself of what the world had to offer". While he acknowledged that he "might be ridiculed" for doing so, Benn said that "'Wedgie Benn' and 'the Rt Honourable Anthony Wedgwood Benn' and all that stuff is impossible. I have been Tony Benn in Bristol for a long time." In October 1973, he announced on BBC Radio that he wished to be known as Mr. Tony Benn rather than Anthony Wedgwood Benn, and his book Speeches from 1974 is credited to "Tony Benn". Despite this name change, social historian Alwyn W. Turner writes that "Just as those with an agenda to pursue still call Muhammed Ali by his original name ... so most newspapers continued to refer to Tony Benn as Wedgwood Benn, or Wedgie in the case of the tabloids, for years to come".
Benn met Caroline Middleton DeCamp (born 13 October 1926, Cincinnati, Ohio, United States) over tea at Worcester College, Oxford, in 1949; just nine days after meeting her, he proposed to her on a park bench in the city. Later, he bought the bench from Oxford City Council and installed it in the garden of their home in Holland Park. Tony and Caroline had four children—Stephen, Hilary, Melissa, a feminist writer, and Joshua—and 10 grandchildren. Caroline Benn died of cancer on 22 November 2000, aged 74, after a career as an educationalist.
Two of Benn's children have been active in Labour Party politics. His eldest son Stephen was an elected Member of the Inner London Education Authority from 1986 to 1990. His second son Hilary was a councillor in London, stood for Parliament in 1983 and 1987, and became Labour MP for Leeds Central in 1999. He was Secretary of State for International Development from 2003 to 2007, and then Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs until 2010, later serving as Shadow Foreign Secretary (2015–16). This makes him the third generation of his family to have been a member of the Cabinet, a rare distinction for a modern political family in Britain. Benn's granddaughter Emily Benn was the Labour Party's youngest-ever candidate when she failed to win East Worthing and Shoreham in 2010. Benn was a first cousin once removed of the actress Margaret Rutherford.
Benn and his wife Caroline became vegetarian in 1970, for ethical reasons, and remained so for the rest of their lives. Benn cited the decision of his son Hilary to become vegetarian as an important factor in his own decision to adopt a vegetarian diet.
Early parliamentary career
Member of Parliament, 1950–1960
Following the Second World War, Benn worked briefly as a BBC Radio producer. On 1 November 1950, he was selected to succeed Stafford Cripps as the Labour candidate for Bristol South East, after Cripps stood down because of ill-health. He won the seat in a by-election on 30 November 1950. Anthony Crosland helped him get the seat as he was the MP for nearby South Gloucestershire at the time. Upon taking the oath on 4 December 1950 Benn became "Baby of the House", the youngest MP, for one day, being succeeded by Thomas Teevan, who was two years younger but took his oath a day later. He became the "Baby" again in 1951, when Teevan was not re-elected. In the 1950s, Benn held middle-of-the-road or soft left views, and was not associated with the young left wing group around Aneurin Bevan.
As MP for Bristol South East, Benn helped organise the 1963 Bristol Bus Boycott against the colour bar of the Bristol Omnibus Company against employing Black British and British Asian drivers. Benn said that he would "stay off the buses, even if I have to find a bike", and Labour leader Harold Wilson also told an anti-apartheid rally in London he was "glad that so many Bristolians are supporting the [boycott] campaign", adding that he "wish[ed] them every success".
Peerage reform
Benn's father was created Viscount Stansgate in 1942 when Winston Churchill increased the number of Labour peers to aid political work in the House of Lords; at this time, Benn's elder brother Michael, then serving in the RAF, was intending to enter the priesthood and had no objections to inheriting a peerage. However, Michael was later killed in an accident while on active service in the Second World War, and this left Benn as the heir-apparent to the peerage. He made several unsuccessful attempts to renounce the succession.
In November 1960, Lord Stansgate died. Benn automatically became a peer, preventing him from sitting in the House of Commons. The Speaker of the Commons, Sir Harry Hylton-Foster, did not allow him to deliver a speech from the bar of the House of Commons in April 1961 when the by-election was being called. Continuing to maintain his right to abandon his peerage, Benn fought to retain his seat in a by-election caused by his succession on 4 May 1961. Although he was disqualified from taking his seat, he was re-elected. An election court found that the voters were fully aware that Benn was disqualified, and declared the seat won by the Conservative runner-up, Malcolm St Clair, who was at the time also the heir presumptive to a peerage.
Benn continued his campaign outside Parliament. Within two years, though, the Conservative Government of the time, which had members in the same or similar situation to Benn's (i.e., who were going to receive title, or who had already applied for writs of summons), changed the law. The Peerage Act 1963, allowing lifetime disclaimer of peerages, became law shortly after 6 pm on 31 July 1963. Benn was the first peer to renounce his title, doing so at 6.22 pm that day. St Clair, fulfilling a promise he had made at the time of his election, then accepted the office of Steward of the Manor of Northstead, disqualifying himself from the House (outright resignation not being possible). Benn returned to the Commons after winning a by-election on 20 August 1963.
In government, 1964–1970
In the 1964 Government led by Harold Wilson, Benn was Postmaster General, where he oversaw the opening of the Post Office Tower, then the UK's tallest building, and the creations of the Post Bus service and Girobank. He proposed issuing stamps without the Sovereign's head, but this met with private opposition from the Queen. Instead, the portrait was reduced to a small profile in silhouette, a format that is still used on commemorative stamps.
Benn also led the government's opposition to the "pirate" radio stations broadcasting from international waters, which he was aware would be an unpopular measure. Some of these stations were causing problems, such as interference to emergency radio used by shipping, although he was not responsible for introducing the Marine Broadcasting Offences Bill when it came before Parliament at the end of July 1966 for its first reading.
Earlier in the month, Benn was promoted to Minister of Technology, which included responsibility for the development of Concorde and the formation of International Computers Ltd. (ICL). The period also saw government involvement in industrial rationalisation, and the merger of several car companies to form British Leyland. Following Conservative MP Enoch Powell's 1968 "Rivers of Blood" speech to a Conservative Association meeting, in opposition to Harold Wilson's insistence on not "stirring up the Powell issue", Benn said during the 1970 general election campaign:
The mainstream press attacked Benn for using language deemed as intemperate as Powell's language in his "Rivers of Blood" speech (which was widely regarded as racist), and Benn noted in his diary that "letters began pouring in on the Powell speech: 2:1 against me but some very sympathetic ones saying that my speech was overdue". Harold Wilson later reprimanded Benn for this speech, accusing him of losing Labour seats in the 1970 general election.
During the 1970s Benn publicly defended Marxism, saying:
Labour lost the 1970 election to Edward Heath's Conservatives and upon Heath's application to join the European Economic Community, a surge in left-wing Euroscepticism emerged. Benn "was stridently against membership", and campaigned in favour of a referendum on the UK's membership. The Shadow Cabinet voted to support a referendum on 29 March 1972, and as a result Roy Jenkins resigned as Deputy Leader of the Labour Party.
In government, 1974–1979
In the Labour Government of 1974, Benn was Secretary of State for Industry and as such increased nationalised industry pay, provided better terms and conditions for workers such as the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and was involved in setting up worker cooperatives in firms which were struggling, the best known being at Meriden, outside Coventry, producing Triumph Motorcycles. In 1975, he was appointed Secretary of State for Energy, immediately following his unsuccessful campaign for a "No" vote in the referendum on the UK's continued membership of the European Community (Common Market). Later in his diary, (25 October 1977) Benn wrote that he "loathed" the EEC; he claimed it was "bureaucratic and centralised" and "of course it is really dominated by Germany. All the Common Market countries except the UK have been occupied by Germany, and they have this mixed feeling of hatred and subservience towards the Germans".
Upon the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, Benn described Mao as "one of the greatest—if not the greatest—figures of the twentieth century: a schoolteacher who transformed China, released it from civil war and foreign attack and constructed a new society there" in his diaries, adding that "he certainly towers above any twentieth-century figure I can think of in his philosophical contribution and military genius". On his trip to the Chinese embassy after Mao's death, Benn recorded in an earlier volume of his diaries that he was "a great admirer of Mao", while also admitting that "he made mistakes, because everybody does".
Harold Wilson resigned as Leader of the Labour Party and Prime Minister in March 1976. Benn later attributed the collapse of the Wilson government to cuts enforced on the UK by global capital, in particular the International Monetary Fund. In the resulting leadership contest Benn finished in fourth place out of the six cabinet ministers who stood—he withdrew as 11.8 per cent of colleagues voted for him in the first ballot. Benn withdrew from the second ballot and endorsed Michael Foot; James Callaghan eventually won. Despite not receiving his support in the second and third rounds of the vote, Callaghan kept Benn on as Energy Secretary. In 1976, there was a sterling crisis, and Chancellor of the Exchequer Denis Healey sought a loan from the International Monetary Fund. Underlining a wish to counter international market forces which seemed to penalise a larger welfare state, Benn publicly circulated the divided Cabinet minutes in which a narrow majority of the Labour Cabinet under Ramsay MacDonald supported a cut in unemployment benefits in order to obtain a loan from American bankers. As he highlighted, these minutes resulted in the 1931 split of the Labour Party in which MacDonald and his allies formed a National Government with Conservatives and Liberals. Callaghan allowed Benn to put forward the Alternative Economic Strategy, which consisted of a self-sufficient economy less dependent on low-rate fresh borrowing, but the AES, which according to opponents would have led to a "siege economy", was rejected by the Cabinet. In response, Benn later recalled that: "I retorted that their policy was a siege economy, only they had the bankers inside the castle with all our supporters left outside, whereas my policy would have our supporters in the castle with the bankers outside." Benn blamed the Winter of Discontent on these cuts to socialist policies.
During Benn's time as energy minister from 1975 to 1979 he supported the United Kingdom's use of nuclear power. However, later in his life he became an opponent of nuclear power, attributing his time as running it as a minister to persuading him it was not cheap, safe or peaceful. When asked in an interview in January 2009 on what he had changed his mind on over the course of his life he expanded on this issue by saying:
Move to the left
By the end of the 1970s, Benn's views had shifted to the left-wing of the Labour Party. He attributed this political shift to his experience as a Cabinet Minister in the 1964–1970 Labour Government. Benn ascribed his move to the left to four lessons:
How "the Civil Service can frustrate the policies and decisions of popularly elected governments"
The centralised nature of the Labour Party which allowed the Leader to run "the Party almost as if it were his personal kingdom"
"The power of industrialists and bankers to get their way by use of the crudest form of economic pressure, even blackmail, against a Labour Government"
The power of the media, which "like the power of the medieval Church, ensures that events of the day are always presented from the point of the view of those who enjoy economic privilege"
As regards the power of industrialists and bankers, Benn remarked:
Benn's philosophy consisted of a form of syndicalism, state planning where necessary to ensure national competitiveness, greater democracy in the structures of the Labour Party and observance of Party Conference decisions. Alongside an alleged 12 Labour MPs, he spent 12 years affiliated with the Institute for Workers' Control, beginning in 1971 when he visited the Upper Clyde Shipyards, arguing in 1975 for the "labour movement to intensify its discussion about industrial democracy".
He was vilified by most of the press while his opponents implied and stated that a Benn-led Labour Government would implement a type of Eastern European state socialism, with Edward Heath referring to Benn as "Commissar Benn" and others referring to Benn as a "Bollinger Bolshevik". Despite this, Benn was overwhelmingly popular with Labour activists in the constituencies: a survey of delegates at the Labour Party Conference in 1978 found that by large margins they supported Benn for the leadership, as well as many Bennite policies.
He publicly supported Sinn Féin and the unification of Ireland, although in 2005 he suggested to Sinn Féin leaders that it abandon its long-standing policy of not taking seats at Westminster (abstentionism). Sinn Féin in turn argued that to do so would recognise Britain's claim over Northern Ireland, and the Sinn Féin constitution prevented its elected members from taking their seats in any British-created institution. A supporter of the Scottish Parliament and political devolution, Benn however opposed the Scottish National Party and Scottish independence, saying: "I think nationalism is a mistake. And I am half Scots and feel it would divide me in half with a knife. The thought that my mother would suddenly be a foreigner would upset me very much."
In British politics during this period, the term "Bennism" came into use to describe the conviction politics, economic, social and political ideology of Tony Benn; and an exponent or advocate of Bennism was regarded as a "Bennite".
In opposition, 1979–1997
In a keynote speech to the Labour Party Conference of 1980, shortly before the resignation of party leader James Callaghan and election of Michael Foot as successor, Benn outlined what he envisaged the next Labour Government would do. "Within days", a Labour Government would gain powers to nationalise industries, control capital and implement industrial democracy; "within weeks", all powers from Brussels would be returned to Westminster, and the House of Lords would be abolished by creating one thousand new peers and then abolishing the peerage. Benn received tumultuous applause. On 25 January 1981, Roy Jenkins, David Owen, Shirley Williams and Bill Rodgers (known collectively as the "Gang of Four") launched the Council for Social Democracy, which became the Social Democratic Party in March. The "Gang of Four" left the Labour Party because of what they perceived to be the influence of the Militant tendency and the Bennite "hard left" within the party. Benn was highly critical of the SDP, saying that "Britain has had SDP governments for the past 25 years."
Benn stood against Denis Healey, the party's incumbent deputy leader, triggering the 1981 deputy leadership election, disregarding an appeal from Michael Foot to either stand for the leadership or abstain from inflaming the party's divisions. Benn defended his decision insisting that it was "not about personalities, but about policies". The result was announced on 27 September 1981; Healey retained his position by a margin of barely one per cent. The decision of several soft left MPs, including Neil Kinnock, to abstain triggered the split of the Socialist Campaign Group from the left of the Tribune Group.
After Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands in April 1982, Benn argued that the dispute should be settled by the United Nations and that the British Government should not send a task force to recapture the islands. The task force was sent, and following the Falklands War, they were back in British control by mid-June. In a debate in the Commons just after the Falklands were recaptured, Benn's demand for "a full analysis of the costs in life, equipment and money in this tragic and unnecessary war" was rejected by Margaret Thatcher, who stated that "he would not enjoy the freedom of speech that he put to such excellent use unless people had been prepared to fight for it".
For the 1983 election Benn's Bristol South East constituency was abolished by boundary changes, and he lost to Michael Cocks in the selection of a candidate to stand in the new winnable seat of Bristol South. Rejecting offers from the new seat of Livingston in Scotland, Benn contested Bristol East, losing to the Conservative's Jonathan Sayeed in June 1983. Foot resigned as leader following the defeat which reduced Labour to only 209 MPs, while Healey also decided to step down as deputy leader. However Benn's absence from parliament meant that he was unable to stand in the resulting leadership contest as only MPs were eligible to be candidates. Benn's absence from the contest was reported by The Glasgow Herald to leave Neil Kinnock as "the favourite Left-wing candidate". Ultimately Kinnock won the contest, formally replacing Foot as party leader in October of that year.
In a by-election, Benn was elected as the MP for Chesterfield, the next Labour seat to fall vacant, after Eric Varley had left the Commons to head Coalite. On the day of the by-election, 1 March 1984, The Sun newspaper ran a hostile feature article, "Benn on the Couch", which purported to be the opinions of an American psychiatrist.
Newly elected to a mining seat, Benn was a supporter of the 1984–85 UK miners' strike, which was beginning when he returned to the Commons, and of his long-standing friend, the National Union of Mineworkers leader Arthur Scargill. However, some miners considered Benn's 1977 industry reforms to have caused problems during the strike; firstly, that they led to huge wage differences and distrust between miners of different regions; and secondly that the controversy over balloting miners for these reforms made it unclear as to whether a ballot was needed for a strike or whether it could be deemed as a "regional matter" in the same way that the 1977 reforms had been. Benn also spoke at a Militant tendency rally held in 1984, saying: "The labour movement is not engaged in a personalised battle against individual cabinet ministers, nor do we seek to win public support by arguing that the crisis could be ended by the election of a new and more humane team of ministers who are better qualified to administer capitalism. We are working for a majority labour government, elected on a socialist programme, as decided by conference."
In June 1985, three months after the miners admitted defeat and ended their strike, Benn introduced the Miners' Amnesty (General Pardon) Bill into the Commons, which would have extended an amnesty to all miners imprisoned during the strike. This would have included two men convicted of murder (later reduced to manslaughter) for the killing of David Wilkie, a taxi driver driving a non-striking miner to work in South Wales during the strike.
Benn stood for election as party leader in 1988, against Neil Kinnock, following Labour's third successive defeat in the 1987 general election, losing by a substantial margin, and received only about 11 per cent of the vote. In May 1989 he made an extended appearance on Channel 4's late-night discussion programme After Dark, alongside among others Lord Dacre and Miles Copeland. During the Gulf War, Benn visited Baghdad in order to try to persuade Saddam Hussein to release the hostages who had been captured.
Benn supported various LGBT social movements, which were then known as gay liberation; Benn had voted in favour of decriminalisation in 1967. Talking about Section 28 of the 1988 Local Government Act, a piece of anti-gay legislation preventing the "promotion of homosexuality", Benn said:
Benn later voted for the repeal of Section 28 during the first term of Tony Blair's New Labour Government, and voted in favour of equalising the age of consent.
In 1990 he proposed a "Margaret Thatcher (Global Repeal) Bill", which he said "could go through both Houses in 24 hours. It would be easy to reverse the policies and replace the personalities—the process has begun—but the rotten values that have been propagated from the platform of political power in Britain during the past 10 years will be an infection—a virulent strain of right-wing capitalist thinking which it will take time to overcome." In 1991, with Labour still in opposition and a general election due by June 1992, he proposed the Commonwealth of Britain Bill, abolishing the monarchy in favour of the United Kingdom becoming a "democratic, federal and secular commonwealth", a republic with a written constitution. It was read in Parliament a number of times until his retirement at the 2001 election, but never achieved a second reading. He presented an account of his proposal in Common Sense: A New Constitution for Britain. In 1992, Benn also received a Pipe Smoker of the Year award, claiming in his acceptance speech that "pipe smoking stopped you going to war".
In 1991, Benn reiterated his opposition to the European Commission and highlighted an alleged democratic deficit in the institution, saying: "Some people genuinely believe that we shall never get social justice from the British Government, but we shall get it from Jacques Delors. They believe that a good king is better than a bad Parliament. I have never taken that view." This argument has also been used by many on the right-wing Eurosceptic wing of the Conservative Party, such as Daniel Hannan MEP. Jonathan Freedland writes in The Guardian that "For [Tony Benn], even benign rule by a monarch was worthless because the king's whim could change and there'd be nothing you could do about it."
Prior to retirement, 1997–2001
In 1997, the Labour Party under the leadership of Tony Blair won the general election in a landslide, after 18 years of Conservative Party rule. Despite later calling Labour under Blair "the idea of a Conservative group who had taken over Labour" and saying "[Blair] set up a new political party, New Labour", his political diaries Free at Last show that Benn was initially somewhat sympathetic to Blair, welcoming a change of government. Benn supported the introduction of the national minimum wage, and welcomed the progress towards peace and security in Northern Ireland (particularly under Mo Mowlam). He was supportive of the extra money given to public services in the New Labour years but believed it to be under the guise of privatisation. Overall, his concluding judgement on New Labour is highly critical; he describes its evolution as a way of retaining office by abandoning socialism and distancing the party from the trade union movement, adopting a presidentialist style of politics, overriding the concept of the collective ministerial responsibility by reducing the power of the Cabinet, eliminated any effective influence from the annual conference of the Labour Party and "hinged its foreign policy on support for one of the worst presidents in US history".
Benn strongly objected to the bombing of Iraq in December 1998, calling it immoral and saying: "Aren't Arabs terrified? Aren't Iraqis terrified? Don't Arab and Iraqi women weep when their children die? Does bombing strengthen their determination? ... Every Member of Parliament tonight who votes for the government motion will be consciously and deliberately accepting the responsibility for the deaths of innocent people if the war begins, as I fear it will."
Several months prior to his retirement, Benn was a signatory to a letter, alongside Niki Adams (Legal Action for Women), Ian Macdonald QC, Gareth Peirce, and other legal professionals, that was published in The Guardian newspaper on 22 February 2001 condemning raids of more than 50 brothels in the central London area of Soho. At the time, a police spokesman said: "As far as we know, this is the biggest simultaneous crackdown on brothels and prostitution in this country in recent times", the arrest of 28 people in an operation that involved around 110 police officers. The letter read:
In the name of "protecting" women from trafficking, about 40 women, including a woman from Iraq, were arrested, detained and in some cases summarily removed from Britain. If any of these women have been trafficked ... they deserve protection and resources, not punishment by expulsion. ... Having forced women into destitution, the government first criminalised those who begged. Now it is trying to use prostitution as a way to make deportation of the vulnerable more acceptable. We will not allow such injustice to go unchallenged.
Retirement and final years, 2001–2014
Benn chose not to seek re-election at the 2001 general election, saying he was "leaving parliament in order to spend more time on politics." Along with former Prime Minister Edward Heath, Benn was permitted by the Speaker to continue using the House of Commons Library and Members' refreshment facilities. Shortly after his retirement, he became the President of the Stop the War Coalition. He became a leading figure of the British opposition to the War in Afghanistan from 2001 and the Iraq War, and in February 2003 he travelled to Baghdad to meet Saddam Hussein. The interview was broadcast on British television.
He spoke against the war at the February 2003 protest in London organised by the Stop the War Coalition, with police saying it was the biggest ever demonstration in the UK with about 750,000 marchers, and the organisers estimating nearly a million people participating. In February 2004 and 2008, he was re-elected President of the Stop the War Coalition.
He toured with a one-man stage show and appeared a few times each year in a two-man show with folk singer Roy Bailey. In 2003, his show with Bailey was voted 'Best Live Act' at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. In 2002, he opened the "Left Field" stage at the Glastonbury Festival. He continued to speak at each subsequent festival; attending one of his speeches was described as a "Glastonbury rite of passage". In October 2003, he was a guest of British Airways on the last scheduled Concorde flight from New York to London. In June 2005, he was a panellist on a special edition of BBC One's Question Time edited entirely by a school-age film crew selected by a BBC competition.
On 21 June 2005, Benn presented a programme on democracy as part of the Channel 5 series Big Ideas That Changed The World. He presented a left-wing view of democracy as the means to pass power from the "wallet to the ballot". He argued that traditional social democratic values were under threat in an increasingly globalised world in which powerful institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the European Commission are unelected and unaccountable to those whose lives they affect daily.
On 27 September 2005, Benn became ill while attending the annual Labour Party Conference in Brighton and was taken by ambulance to the Royal Sussex County Hospital after being treated by paramedics on-the-scene at the Brighton Centre. Benn reportedly fell and struck his head. He was kept in hospital for observation and was described as being in a "comfortable condition". He was subsequently fitted with an artificial pacemaker to help regulate his heartbeat.
In a list compiled by the magazine New Statesman in 2006, he was voted twelfth in the list of "Heroes of our Time". In September 2006, Benn joined the "Time to Go" demonstration in Manchester the day before the final Labour Party Conference with Tony Blair as Leader of the Labour Party, with the aim of persuading the Government to withdraw troops from Iraq, to refrain from attacking Iran and to reject replacing the Trident missile and submarines with a new system. He spoke to the demonstrators in the rally afterwards. In 2007, he appeared in an extended segment in the Michael Moore film Sicko giving comments about democracy, social responsibility and healthcare, notably, "If we can find the money to kill people, we can find the money to help people." A poll by the BBC2 The Daily Politics programme in January 2007 selected Benn as the UK's "Political Hero" with 38% of the vote, narrowly defeating Margaret Thatcher, who had 35%.
For the 2007 Labour Party leadership election, Benn backed the left-wing MP John McDonnell in his unsuccessful bid. In September 2007, Benn called for the government to hold a referendum on the EU Reform Treaty. In October 2007, aged 82, and when it appeared that a general election was about to be held, Benn reportedly announced that he wanted to stand, having written to his local Constituency Labour Party offering himself as a prospective candidate for the newly drawn Kensington seat. His main opponent would have been the incumbent Conservative MP for the predecessor seat of Kensington and Chelsea, Malcolm Rifkind. However, there was no election held in 2007, and so the boundary changes did not take effect until the eventual election in 2010, when Benn was not a candidate and the new seat was won by Rifkind.
In early 2008, Benn appeared on Scottish singer-songwriter Colin MacIntyre's album The Water, reading a poem he had written himself. In September 2008, he appeared on the DVD release for the Doctor Who story The War Machines with a vignette discussing the Post Office Tower; he became the second Labour politician, after Roy Hattersley to appear on a Doctor Who DVD.
At the Stop the War Conference 2009, he described the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as "Imperialist war(s)" and discussed the killing of American and allied troops by Iraqi or foreign insurgents, questioning whether they were in fact freedom fighters, and comparing the insurgents to a British Dad's Army, saying: "If you are invaded you have a right to self-defence, and this idea that people in Iraq and Afghanistan who are resisting the invasion are militant Muslim extremists is a complete bloody lie. I joined Dad's Army when I was sixteen, and if the Germans had arrived, I tell you, I could use a bayonet, a rifle, a revolver, and if I'd seen a German officer having a meal I'd have tossed a grenade through the window. Would I have been a freedom fighter or a terrorist?"
In an interview published in Dartford Living in September 2009, Benn was critical of the Government's decision to delay the findings of the Iraq War Inquiry until after the general election, stating that "people can take into account what the inquiry has reported on but they’ve deliberately pushed it beyond the election. Government is responsible for explaining what it has done and I don't think we were told the truth." He also stated that local government was strangled by Margaret Thatcher and had not been liberated by New Labour.
In 2009, Benn was admitted to hospital and An Evening with Tony Benn, scheduled to take place at London's Cadogan Hall, was cancelled. He performed his show, The Writing on the Wall, with Roy Bailey at St Mary's Church, Ashford, Kent, in September 2011, as part of the arts venue's first Revelation St. Mary's Season. In July 2011 Benn was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Glamorgan, Wales.
Benn headed the "coalition of resistance", a group which was opposed to the UK austerity programme. In interviews in 2010 with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! and 2013 with Afshin Rattansi on RT UK, Benn claimed that the actions of New Labour in the leadup to and aftermath of the Iraq War were such that the former Prime Minister Tony Blair should be tried for war crimes. Benn also claimed in 2010 that Blair had lost the "trust of the nation" regarding the war in Iraq.
In 2012, Benn was awarded an honorary degree from Goldsmiths, University of London. He was also the honorary president of the Goldsmiths Students' Union, who successfully campaigned for him to retract comments dismissing the Julian Assange rape allegations. In February 2013, Benn was among those who gave their support to the People's Assembly in a letter published by The Guardian newspaper. He gave a speech at the People's Assembly Conference held at Westminster Central Hall on 22 June 2013.
In 2013, Benn reiterated his previous opposition to European integration. Speaking to the Oxford Union on the alleged overshadowing of the EU debate by "UKIP and Tory backbenchers", he said:I took the view that having fought [Europeans in the Second World War] that we should now work with them, and co-operate, and that was my first thought about it. Then how I saw how the European Union was developing, it was very obvious that what they had in mind was not democratic. ... And the way that Europe has developed is that the bankers and the multinational corporations have got very powerful positions, and if you come in on their terms, they will tell you what you can and cannot do. And that is unacceptable. My view about the European Union has always been not that I am hostile to foreigners, but that I am in favour of democracy ... I think they're building an empire there, they want us to be a part of their empire and I don't want that.
Illness and death
In 1990, Benn was diagnosed with chronic lymphatic leukaemia and given three or four years to live; at this time, he kept the news of his leukaemia from everyone except his immediate family. Benn said: "When you're in parliament, you can't describe your medical condition. People immediately start wondering what your majority is and when there will be a by-election. They're very brutal." This was revealed in 2002 with the release of his 1990–2001 diaries.
Benn suffered a stroke in 2012, and spent much of the following year in hospital. He was reported to be "seriously ill" in hospital in February 2014. Benn died at home on 14 March 2014, surrounded by his family, less than a month shy of his 89th birthday.
Benn's funeral took place on 27 March 2014 at St Margaret's Church, Westminster. His body had lain in rest at St Mary Undercroft in the Palace of Westminster the night before the funeral service. The service ended with the singing of "The Red Flag". His body was then cremated; the ashes were expected to be buried alongside those of his wife at the family home near Steeple, Essex.
Figures from across the political spectrum praised Benn following his death, and the leaders of all three major political parties (the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats) in the United Kingdom paid tribute.
Conservative leader and Prime Minister David Cameron said:... he was an extraordinary man: a great writer, a brilliant speaker, extraordinary in Parliament, and a great life of public and political and parliamentary service. I mean, I disagreed with most of what he said. But he was always engaging and interesting, and you were never bored when reading or listening to him, and the country a great campaigner, a great writer, and someone who I'm sure whose words will be followed keenly for many, many years to come.
Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg called Benn an "astonishing, iconic figure" and a "veteran parliamentarian, he was a great writer, he had great warmth and he had great conviction ... his political life will be looked back on with affection and admiration".
Leader of the Opposition and Labour leader Ed Miliband, who knew Benn personally as a family friend, said:I think Tony Benn will be remembered as a champion of the powerless, as a conviction politician, as somebody of deep principle and integrity. The thing about Tony Benn is that you always knew what he stood for, and who he stood up for. And I think that's why he was admired right across the political spectrum. There are people who agreed with him and disagreed with him, including in my own party, but I think people admired that sense of conviction and integrity that shone through from Tony Benn.
Diaries and biographies
Benn was a prolific diarist. Nine volumes of his diaries have been published. The final volume was published in 2013. Collections of his speeches and writings were published as Arguments for Socialism (1979), Arguments for Democracy (1981), (both edited by Chris Mullin), Fighting Back (1988) and (with Andrew Hood) Common Sense (1993), as well as Free Radical: New Century Essays (2004). In August 2003, London DJ Charles Bailey created an album of Benn's speeches () set to ambient groove.
He made public several episodes of audio diaries he made during his time in Parliament and after retirement, entitled The Benn Tapes, broadcast originally on BBC Radio 4. Short series have been played periodically on BBC Radio 4 Extra. A major biography was written by Jad Adams and published by Macmillan in 1992; it was updated to cover the intervening 20 years and reissued by Biteback Publishing in 2011: Tony Benn: A Biography (). A more recent "semi-authorised" biography with a foreword by Benn was published in 2001: David Powell, Tony Benn: A Political Life, Continuum Books (). An autobiography, Dare to be a Daniel: Then and Now, Hutchinson (), a reference to the Old Testament prophet in the lions' den , was published in 2004.
There are substantial essays on Benn in the Dictionary of Labour Biography by Phillip Whitehead, Greg Rosen (eds), Politicos Publishing, 2001 () and in Labour Forces: From Ernie Bevin to Gordon Brown, Kevin Jefferys (ed.), I.B. Tauris Publishing, 2002 (). American Michael Moore dedicates his book Mike's Election Guide 2008 () to Benn, with the words: "For Tony Benn, keep teaching us".
On 5 March 2019, it was announced that a large political archive of Benn's speeches, diaries, letters, pamphlets, recordings and ephemera had been accepted in lieu of £210,000 inheritance tax and allocated to the British Library. The audio recordings total to thousands of hours of content.
Plaques
During his final years in Parliament, Benn placed three plaques within the Houses of Parliament. Two are in a room between the Central Lobby and Strangers' Gallery that holds a permanent display about the suffragettes. The first was placed in 1995. The second was placed in 1996 and is dedicated to all who work within the Houses of Parliament.
The third is dedicated to Emily Wilding Davison, who died for the cause of "Votes for women", and was placed in the broom cupboard next to the Undercroft Chapel, where Davison is said to have hidden during the night of the 1911 census in order to establish her address as the House of Commons.
In 2011 Benn unveiled a plaque in Highbury, North London, to commemorate the Peasants' Revolt of 1381.
Legacy
In Bristol, where Benn first served as a member of parliament, a number of tributes exist in his honour. A bust of him was unveiled in Bristol's City Hall in 2005. In 2012 Transport House on Victoria Street, headquarters of Unite the Union's regional office, was officially renamed Tony Benn House and opened by Benn himself. As of 2015 he appears, alongside other famous people associated with the city, on the reverse of the Bristol Pound's £B5 banknote.
Benn told the Socialist Review in 2007 that:I'd like to have on my gravestone: "He encouraged us." I'm proud to have been in the parliament that introduced the health service, the welfare state and voted against means testing. I did my maiden speech on nationalising the steel industry, put down the first motion for the boycott of South African goods, and resigned from the shadow cabinet in 1958 because of their support for nuclear weapons.
I think you do plant a few acorns, and I have lived to see one or two trees growing: gay rights, freedom of information, CND. I'm not claiming them for myself but you feel you have encouraged other people and see the arguments developing.
I'm not ashamed of making mistakes. I've made a million mistakes and they're all in the diary. When we edit the diary—which is cut to around 10 per cent—every mistake has to be printed because people look to see if you do. I would be ashamed if I thought I'd ever said anything I didn't believe to get on, but making mistakes is part of life, isn't it?
Benn was widely seen as a key proponent of democratic socialism. He was described as "one of the few UK politicians to have become more left-wing after holding ministerial office". Harold Wilson, his former boss, maintained that Benn was the only man he knew who "immatures with age".
He has been cited as being a key mentor to future leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn, with his Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell commenting that "they would discuss everything under the sun. Jeremy was very close to Tony right up until the end." Corbyn was elected as leader of the Labour Party a little over a year after Benn's death, an act which Hilary Benn said would have made his father feel "thrilled".
Styles
Anthony Wedgwood Benn, Esq. (1925 – 12 January 1942)
The Hon. Anthony Wedgwood Benn (12 January 1942 – 30 November 1950)
The Hon. Anthony Wedgwood Benn, MP (30 November 1950 – 17 November 1960)
The Rt Hon. The Viscount Stansgate (17 November 1960 – 31 July 1963)
Anthony Wedgwood Benn, Esq. (31 July – 20 August 1963)
Anthony Wedgwood Benn, Esq., MP (20 August 1963 – 1964)
The Rt Hon. Anthony Wedgwood Benn, MP (1964 – October 1973)
The Rt Hon. Tony Benn, MP (October 1973 – 9 June 1983)
The Rt Hon. Tony Benn (9 June 1983 – 1 March 1984)
The Rt Hon. Tony Benn, MP (1 March 1984 – 14 May 2001)
The Rt Hon. Tony Benn (14 May 2001 – 14 March 2014)
Bibliography
Speeches, Spokesman Books (1974);
Levellers and the English Democratic Tradition, Spokesman Books (1976);
Why America Needs Democratic Socialism, Spokesman Books (1978);
Prospects, Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers, Technical, Administrative and Supervisory Section (1979)
Case for Constitutional Civil Service, Institute for Workers' Control (1980);
Case for Party Democracy, Institute for Workers' Control (1980);
Arguments for Socialism, Penguin Books (1980);
& Chris Mullin, Arguments for Democracy, Jonathan Cape (1981);
European Unity: A New Perspective, Spokesman Books (1981)
Parliament and Power: Agenda for a Free Society, Verso Books (1982);
& Andrew Hood, Common Sense: New Constitution for Britain, Hutchinson (1993)
Free Radical: New Century Essays, Continuum International Publishing (2004);
Dare to Be a Daniel: Then and Now, Hutchinson (2004);
Letters to my Grandchildren: Thoughts on the Future, Arrow Books (2010);
Diaries
Out of the Wilderness: Diaries 1963–67, Hutchinson (1987);
Office Without Power: Diaries 1968–72, Hutchinson (1988);
Against the Tide: Diaries 1973–76, Hutchinson (1989);
Conflicts of Interest: Diaries 1977–80, Hutchinson (1990);
The End of an Era: Diaries 1980–90, Hutchinson (1992);
Years of Hope: Diaries 1940–62, Hutchinson (1994);
The Benn Diaries: Single Volume Edition 1940–90, Hutchinson (1995);
Free at Last!: Diaries 1991–2001, Hutchinson (2002);
More Time for Politics: Diaries 2001–2007, Hutchinson (2007);
A Blaze of Autumn Sunshine: The Last Diaries, Hutchinson (2013);
See also
Labour Representation Committee (2004)
Republicanism in the United Kingdom
Socialist Campaign Group
References
External links
By date
Contributions in Parliament by Tony Benn. Hansard, 1925–2005.
Late Developer: Review of Against the Tide: Diaries 1973–1976 by Tony Benn. Author – Paul Foot, 1985.
Andrew Roth. "Tony Benn Chesterfield and Bristol South East MP". The Guardian, 25 March 2001.
The Guardian web guide to Benn.. 6 June 2002.
Face-to-Face with Tony Benn. Freeview video interview by the Vega Science Trust. Recorded in 2005.
Tony Benn. "Atomic hypocrisy: West is not in a position to take a high moral line". The Guardian, 30 November 2005.
Interview with Tony Benn – Radio France Internationale. 28 March 2008 – 6-minute audio – Ahead of G20 marches, London.
Tony Benn on Tony Blair: "He Is Guilty of a War Crime". Video report by Democracy Now!. 21 September 2010.
Obituary: Tony Benn. BBC News, 14 March 2014.
Tony Benn: a stalwart of the peace and anti-nuclear movement. Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, 14 March 2014.
Other
Audio interview with The Guardian.
His Address to the College Historical Society of Trinity College.
Private Eye depictions of Benn: "Most Dangerous Man in Britain", "Labour United", "Benn's Triumph", "Foot & Benn Disease", "Would You Buy a New Car From This Man?".
Tony Benn on Modern Liberty. Tony Benn speaking for The Convention on Modern Liberty. YouTube. 23 February 2009.
Unofficial Tony Benn quotation site.
Tony Benn on The Guardian
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Alumni of New College, Oxford
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Pipe smokers | false | [
"This is a description of the concert tours that American singer-songwriter Hilary Duff has embarked on during her professional career.\n\nMetamorphosis Tour \n\nThe Metamorphosis Tour is the debut concert tour by the American pop singer Hilary Duff. The tour supported Duff's studio album Metamorphosis. The concert at the Ventura Theatre was filmed and released on Hilary Duff: The Concert – The Girl Can Rock.\n\nSet list\n\"Girl Can Rock\"\n\"Little Voice\"\n\"Come Clean\"\n\"Sweet Sixteen\"\n\"Anywhere But Here\"\n\"Metamorphosis\"\n\"Where Did I Go Right\"\n\"Love Just Is\"\n\"The Math\"\n\"Workin' It Out\"\n\"Party Up\"\nEncore\n\"My Generation\"\n\"So Yesterday\"\n\"Why Not\"\n\nTour dates\n\nNotes\n\nMost Wanted Tour\n\nThe Most Wanted Tour is the second concert tour by the American pop singer Hilary Duff. The tour supported Duff's studio album, Hilary Duff. The tour was a moderate success, practically selling out each arena prior to the show. Haylie Duff, Hilary's sister, was the opening act of the tour before the set list started.\n\nSet list\n\"The Girl Can Rock\"\n\"Little Voice\"\n\"Weird\"\n\"Come Clean\"\n\"Anywhere But Here\"\n\"Metamorphosis\"\n\"So Yesterday\"\n\"Haters\"\n\"Where Did I Go Right?\"\n\"Do You Want Me?\"\n\"Workin' it Out\"\n\"Why Not\"\n\"Party Up\"\n\"Rock This World\"\n\"Fly\"\n\"The Getaway\"\n\"Our Lips Are Sealed\"\n\"My Generation\"\n\"The Math\"\n\nTour dates\n\nNotes\n\nStill Most Wanted Tour\n\nThe Still Most Wanted Tour is the third concert tour by American singer-songwriter Hilary Duff. The tour promoted her first greatest hits compilation, Most Wanted. Tour dates were canceled in Latin America. The tour was a success with the tour being sold out at over 80%.\n\nSetlist\n\"Wake Up\"\n\"The Getaway\"\n\"Do You Want Me?\"\n\"Underneath This Smile\"\n\"Come Clean\"\n\"Anywhere but Here\"\n\"Who's That Girl?\"\n\"Someone's Watching over Me\"\n\"Mr. James Dean\"\n\"Hide Away\"\n\"Beat of My Heart\"\n\"Cry\"\n\"I Am\"\n\"Party Up\"\n\"Fly\"\n\"Break My Heart\"\n\"Little Voice\"\n\"So Yesterday\"\n\"Rock This World\"\n\nTour dates\n\nDignity Tour\n\nThe Dignity Tour is the fourth concert tour by Hilary Duff in support of her fourth album Dignity. Tickets for most of the leg sold out prior to the show. The tour began in Los Angeles, California on July 28, 2007, and closed in Melbourne, Australia at Rod Laver Arena on February 3, 2008.\n\nConcert video\nFilming of the Dignity Tour took place on August 15, 2007, at Gibson Amphitheatre. In 2010, it was released exclusively on the U.S. iTunes Store. However, most likely due to copyright laws, the iTunes video does not include the performances of any cover songs including \"Our Lips Are Sealed\" and \"Love Is A Battlefield\". As a result, Never Stop was also edited out of the footage because it samples \"Major Tom (Coming Home)\".\n\nSetlist\n\"Play With Fire\"\n\"Danger\"\n\"Come Clean\"\n\"The Getaway\"\n\"Dignity\"\n\"Gypsy Woman\"\n\"Someone's Watching Over Me\"\n\"Beat of My Heart\"\n\"Our Lips Are Sealed\"\n\"Why Not\"\n\"So Yesterday\"\n\"With Love\"\n\"Never Stop\" (samples \"Major Tom (Coming Home)\").\n\"Wake Up\"\n\"I Wish\"\n\"Love Is a Battlefield\"\n\"Outside of You\"\n\"Fly\"\n\"Happy\" \n\"Dreamer\"\n\"Reach Out\"\n\"Stranger\"\n\nTour dates\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nTours\nDuff, Hillary",
"Roger Barton (born 6 January 1945) is a British engineer and politician who served for ten years as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP). He was a leading member of the Labour Party in Sheffield and served on the City Council. After losing his seat in the European Parliament, he set up an organisation that offers llama trekking to young people in the city.\n\nEngineering\nBarton was born in Sheffield and went to Burngreave Secondary Modern School. He went into work as an apprenticed engineering fitter in 1960. In 1965 he obtained an Engineering Technician's Certificate from Granville College. Barton became active in the Labour Party and in 1971 was elected to Sheffield City Council.\n\nParty chairman\nIn 1974 Barton was chairman of Sheffield Brightside Constituency Labour Party when the party deselected its Member of Parliament, Edward Griffiths, by 40 votes to 10. When Griffiths claimed he was the victim of a \"left-wing coup\", Barton gave a list of ten reasons why the constituency association were unhappy with him, including reneging on a promise to move to the constituency.\n\nLocal party secretary\nIn 1981 Barton left his job in engineering to be full-time Secretary of Sheffield Trades and Labour Council and Labour Party. During the 1983 leadership election of the Labour Party, Barton outlined the reason why the Sheffield Labour Party had sold cassettes of the four leadership candidates being cross-examined by Sheffield party members. He insisted that \"we really do object to the media editing internal debates\", and declared that he did not want to conduct debates through the newspapers because it would keep down the party's standing with the public.\n\nEuropean Parliament\nBarton offered himself for selection for the Labour nomination for the Sheffield constituency in the 1984 European Parliament election, as a left-wing opponent of British membership of the European Communities; however he lost out to Bob Cryer, who had lost his Parliamentary seat the previous year. When Cryer was returned to the House of Commons in the 1987 general election he stood down from the European Parliament and Barton was selected for the 1989 election.\n\nPolitical views\nAfter winning the seat easily, Barton became identified with the left-wing in the European Parliament's Labour Group. He led the signatories of a letter calling for support for a Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament rally, and signed an advertisement opposing changes to Clause IV when Tony Blair proposed to drop it. Barton opposed a proposal from German Commissioner Martin Bangemann to restrict the sale of superbikes, and persuaded the European Parliament to vote against it.\n\nDefeat\nIn the 1999 election, Barton was placed in fourth place on the Labour Party's list for Yorkshire and the Humber. As the Labour Party won only three seats, Barton was defeated. For a time he was a Director of Insight Dynamics, an information technology company.\n\nLlama trekking\nBarton set up the Sheffield and Peak District Llama Trekking project in 2006, aiming to encourage young people from inner-city Sheffield to venture out into the countryside. The project is based in the Mayfield Valley, but Barton brought his llamas to local festivals; he commented that many local children thought they were sheep. Barton has noted that although llamas are famous for spitting as a sign of aggression, there was only one occasion when he had intervened in a fight between them that he had been spat at.\n\nReferences\n\n1945 births\nLiving people\nPoliticians from Sheffield\nLabour Party (UK) MEPs\nCouncillors in Sheffield\nLabour Party (UK) councillors\nMEPs for England 1989–1994\nMEPs for England 1994–1999"
] |
[
"Tony Benn",
"Prior to retirement, 1997-2001",
"What did Benn do in 1997?",
"Benn was initially somewhat sympathetic to Blair, welcoming a change of government.",
"What change of government?",
"Blair] set up a new political party, New Labour\",",
"Why did he set up a new party?",
"I don't know."
] | C_bc32948de7454cfdbfeaa94f0a07401b_0 | What else did Benn do in 1997? | 4 | What else did Benn do in 1997 in addition to supporting Blair and his change of government? | Tony Benn | In 1997, the Labour Party under Tony Blair won the election. Despite later calling Labour under Tony Blair "the idea of a Conservative group who had taken over Labour" and saying "[Blair] set up a new political party, New Labour", Benn's political diaries Free at Last show that Benn was initially somewhat sympathetic to Blair, welcoming a change of government. Benn supported the introduction of the national minimum wage, and welcomed the progress towards peace and security in Northern Ireland (particularly under Mo Mowlam). He was supportive of the extra public money given to public services in the New Labour years but believed it to be under the guise of privatisation. Overall, his concluding judgement on New Labour is highly critical; he describes its evolution as a way of retaining office by abandoning socialism and distancing the party from the trade union movement, adopting a presidentialist style of politics, overriding the concept of the collective ministerial responsibility by reducing the power of the Cabinet, eliminated any effective influence from the annual conference of the Labour Party and "hinged its foreign policy on support for one of the worst presidents in US history". Benn strongly objected to the "immoral" bombing of Iraq in December 1998, saying: "Aren't Arabs terrified? Aren't Iraqis terrified? Don't Arab and Iraqi women weep when their children die? Does bombing strengthen their determination? ... Every Member of Parliament tonight who votes for the government motion will be consciously and deliberately accepting the responsibility for the deaths of innocent people if the war begins, as I fear it will." Several months prior to his retirement, Benn was a signatory to a letter, alongside Niki Adams (Legal Action for Women), Ian Macdonald QC, Gareth Peirce, and other legal professionals, that was published in The Guardian newspaper on 22 February 2001 "condemning" raids of more than 50 brothels in the central London area of Soho. At the time, a police spokesman said: "As far as we know, this is the biggest simultaneous crackdown on brothels and prostitution in this country in recent times", the arrest of 28 people in an operation that involved around 110 police officers. The letter read: In the name of "protecting" women from trafficking, about 40 women, including a woman from Iraq, were arrested, detained and in some cases summarily removed from Britain. If any of these women have been trafficked ... they deserve protection and resources, not punishment by expulsion. ... Having forced women into destitution, the government first criminalised those who begged. Now it is trying to use prostitution as a way to make deportation of the vulnerable more acceptable. We will not allow such injustice to go unchallenged. CANNOTANSWER | Benn supported the introduction of the national minimum wage, and welcomed the progress towards peace and security in Northern Ireland | Anthony Neil Wedgwood Benn (3 April 1925 – 14 March 2014; known between 1960 and 1963 as Viscount Stansgate) was a British politician, writer and diarist who served as a Cabinet minister in the 1960s and 1970s. A member of the Labour Party, he was Member of Parliament for Bristol South East and Chesterfield for 47 of the 51 years between 1950 and 2001. He later served as President of the Stop the War Coalition from 2001 to 2014.
The son of a Liberal and later Labour Party politician, Benn was born in Westminster and privately educated at Westminster School. He was elected for Bristol South East at the 1950 general election but inherited his father's peerage on his death, which prevented him from continuing to serve as an MP. He fought to remain in the House of Commons and campaigned for the ability to renounce the title, a campaign which succeeded with the Peerage Act 1963. He was an active member of the Fabian Society and served as chairman from 1964 to 1965. He served in the Labour government of Harold Wilson from 1964 to 1970 first as Postmaster General, where he oversaw the opening of the Post Office Tower, and later as Minister of Technology.
Benn served as Chairman of the National Executive Committee from 1971 to 1972 while in Opposition. In the Labour government of 1974–1979, he returned to the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Industry and subsequently served as Secretary of State for Energy. He retained that post when James Callaghan succeeded Wilson as Prime Minister. When the Labour Party was in opposition through the 1980s, he emerged as a prominent figure on the left wing of the party and unsuccessfully challenged Neil Kinnock for the Labour leadership in 1988. After leaving Parliament at the 2001 general election, Benn was President of the Stop the War Coalition until his death in 2014.
Benn was widely seen as a key proponent of democratic socialism and Christian socialism. Originally considered a moderate within the party, he was identified as belonging to its left wing after leaving ministerial office. The terms Bennism and Bennite came into usage to describe the left-wing politics he espoused from the late 1970s and its adherents. He was an influence on the politics of Jeremy Corbyn, who was elected Leader of the Labour Party a year after Benn's death, and John McDonnell, who served as Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer under Corbyn.
Early life and family
Benn was born in Westminster, London, on 3 April 1925. He had two brothers, Michael (1921–1944), who was killed in the Second World War, and David (1928–2017), a specialist in Russia and Eastern Europe. After the Thames flood in January 1928 their house was uninhabitable so the Benn family moved to Scotland for over 12 months. Their father, William Benn, was a Liberal Member of Parliament from 1906 who crossed the floor to the Labour Party in 1928 and was appointed Secretary of State for India by Ramsay MacDonald in 1929, a position he held until the Labour Party's landslide electoral defeat in 1931. William Benn was elevated to the House of Lords and Tony Benn was subsequently titled with the honorific prefix, The Honourable. William Benn was given the title of Viscount Stansgate in 1942: the new wartime coalition government was short of working Labour peers in the upper house. In 1945–46, William Benn was the Secretary of State for Air in the first majority Labour Government.
Benn's mother, Margaret Benn (née Holmes, 1897–1991), was a theologian, feminist and the founder President of the Congregational Federation. She was a member of the League of the Church Militant, which was the predecessor of the Movement for the Ordination of Women; in 1925, she was rebuked by Randall Davidson, the Archbishop of Canterbury, for advocating the ordination of women. His mother's theology had a profound influence on Benn, as she taught him that the stories in the Bible were based around the struggle between the prophets and the kings and that he ought in his life to support the prophets over the kings, who had power, as the prophets taught righteousness.
Benn was for over 30 years a committed Christian. He said that the teachings of Jesus Christ had a "radical political importance" on his life, and made a distinction between the historical Jesus as "a carpenter of Nazareth" who advocated social justice and egalitarianism and "the way in which he's presented by some religious authorities; by popes, archbishops and bishops who present Jesus as justification for their power", believing this to be a gross misunderstanding of the role of Jesus. He believed that it was a "great mistake" to assume that the teachings of Christianity are outdated in modern Britain, and Higgins wrote in The Benn Inheritance that Benn was "a socialist whose political commitment owes much more to the teaching of Jesus than the writing of Marx". (Indeed, he did not read The Communist Manifesto until he was in his 50s.) "The driving force of his life was Christian socialism," according to Peter Wilby, linking Benn to the "high-minded" founding roots of Labour.
Later in his life, Benn emphasised issues regarding morality and righteousness, as well as various ethical principles of Nonconformism. On Desert Island Discs he said that he had been powerfully influenced by "what I would call the Dissenting tradition" (that is, the English Dissenters who left or were ejected from the established church, one of whom was his ancestor William Benn). "I've never thought we can understand the world we lived in unless we understood the history of the church", Benn said to the Catholic Herald. "All political freedoms were won, first of all, through religious freedom. Some of the arguments about the control of the media today, which are very big arguments, are the arguments that would have been fought in the religious wars. You have the satellites coming in now—well, it is the multinational church all over again. That's why Mrs Thatcher pulled Britain out of UNESCO: she was not prepared, any more than Ronald Reagan was, to be part of an organisation that talked about a New World Information Order, people speaking to each other without the help of Murdoch or Maxwell."
According to Wilby in the New Statesman, Benn "decided to do without the paraphernalia and doctrine of organised religion but not without the teachings of Jesus". Although Benn became more agnostic as he became older, he was intrigued by the interconnections between Christianity, radicalism and socialism. Wilby also wrote in The Guardian that although former Chancellor Stafford Cripps described Benn as "as keen a Christian as I am myself", Benn wrote in 2005 that he was "a Christian agnostic" who believed "in Jesus the prophet, not Christ the king", specifically rejecting the label of "humanist".
Both of Benn's grandfathers were Liberal Party MPs; his paternal grandfather was John Benn, a successful politician, MP for Tower Hamlets and later Devonport, who was created a baronet in 1914 (and who founded a publishing company, Benn Brothers), and his maternal grandfather was Daniel Holmes, MP for Glasgow Govan. Benn's contact with leading politicians of the day, dates back to his earliest years. He met Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald when he was five years old, whom he described as: "A kindly old gentleman [who] leaned over me and offered me a chocolate biscuit. I've looked at Labour leaders in a funny way ever since." Benn also met former Liberal Prime Minister David Lloyd George when he was 12, and later recalled that, while still a boy, he once shook hands with Mahatma Gandhi, in 1931, while his father was Secretary of State for India.
During the Second World War, Benn joined and trained with the Home Guard from the age of 16, later recalling in a speech made in 2009: "I could use a bayonet, a rifle, a revolver, and if I'd seen a German officer having a meal I'd have tossed a grenade through the window. Would I have been a freedom fighter or a terrorist?" In July 1943, Benn enlisted in the Royal Air Force as an aircraftman 2nd Class. His father and elder brother Michael (who was later killed in an accident) were already serving in the RAF. He was granted an emergency commission as a pilot officer (on probation) on 10 March 1945. As a pilot officer, Benn served as a pilot in South Africa and Rhodesia. In June 1944, he made his first solo flight, at RAF Guinea Fowl, an RAF Elementary Flying Training School, in Rhodesia. The aircraft was a Canadian-built Fairchild Cornell. In a 1993 article recounting the experience, he said, "I always thought that I would feel a sense of panic when I saw the ground coming up at me on my first solo, but strangely enough I didn't feel anything but exhilaration ...". He relinquished his commission with effect from 10 August 1945, three months after the Second World War ended in Europe on 8 May, and just days before the war with Japan ended on 2 September.
After attending Mr Gladstone's day school near Sloane Square, Benn attended Westminster School, and studied at New College, Oxford, where he read Philosophy, Politics and Economics and was elected President of the Oxford Union in 1947. In later life, Benn removed public references to his private education from Who's Who. In 1970 all references to Westminster School were removed, and in the 1975 edition his entry stated "Education—still in progress". In the 1976 edition, almost all details were omitted except his name, jobs as a Member of Parliament and as a Government Minister, and address; the publishers confirmed that Benn had sent back the draft entry with everything else struck through. In the 1977 edition, Benn's entry disappeared entirely, and when he returned to Who's Who in 1983, he was listed as "Tony Benn" and all references to his education or service record were removed.
In 1972, Benn said in his diaries that "Today I had the idea that I would resign my Privy Councillorship, my MA and all my honorary doctorates in order to strip myself of what the world had to offer". While he acknowledged that he "might be ridiculed" for doing so, Benn said that "'Wedgie Benn' and 'the Rt Honourable Anthony Wedgwood Benn' and all that stuff is impossible. I have been Tony Benn in Bristol for a long time." In October 1973, he announced on BBC Radio that he wished to be known as Mr. Tony Benn rather than Anthony Wedgwood Benn, and his book Speeches from 1974 is credited to "Tony Benn". Despite this name change, social historian Alwyn W. Turner writes that "Just as those with an agenda to pursue still call Muhammed Ali by his original name ... so most newspapers continued to refer to Tony Benn as Wedgwood Benn, or Wedgie in the case of the tabloids, for years to come".
Benn met Caroline Middleton DeCamp (born 13 October 1926, Cincinnati, Ohio, United States) over tea at Worcester College, Oxford, in 1949; just nine days after meeting her, he proposed to her on a park bench in the city. Later, he bought the bench from Oxford City Council and installed it in the garden of their home in Holland Park. Tony and Caroline had four children—Stephen, Hilary, Melissa, a feminist writer, and Joshua—and 10 grandchildren. Caroline Benn died of cancer on 22 November 2000, aged 74, after a career as an educationalist.
Two of Benn's children have been active in Labour Party politics. His eldest son Stephen was an elected Member of the Inner London Education Authority from 1986 to 1990. His second son Hilary was a councillor in London, stood for Parliament in 1983 and 1987, and became Labour MP for Leeds Central in 1999. He was Secretary of State for International Development from 2003 to 2007, and then Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs until 2010, later serving as Shadow Foreign Secretary (2015–16). This makes him the third generation of his family to have been a member of the Cabinet, a rare distinction for a modern political family in Britain. Benn's granddaughter Emily Benn was the Labour Party's youngest-ever candidate when she failed to win East Worthing and Shoreham in 2010. Benn was a first cousin once removed of the actress Margaret Rutherford.
Benn and his wife Caroline became vegetarian in 1970, for ethical reasons, and remained so for the rest of their lives. Benn cited the decision of his son Hilary to become vegetarian as an important factor in his own decision to adopt a vegetarian diet.
Early parliamentary career
Member of Parliament, 1950–1960
Following the Second World War, Benn worked briefly as a BBC Radio producer. On 1 November 1950, he was selected to succeed Stafford Cripps as the Labour candidate for Bristol South East, after Cripps stood down because of ill-health. He won the seat in a by-election on 30 November 1950. Anthony Crosland helped him get the seat as he was the MP for nearby South Gloucestershire at the time. Upon taking the oath on 4 December 1950 Benn became "Baby of the House", the youngest MP, for one day, being succeeded by Thomas Teevan, who was two years younger but took his oath a day later. He became the "Baby" again in 1951, when Teevan was not re-elected. In the 1950s, Benn held middle-of-the-road or soft left views, and was not associated with the young left wing group around Aneurin Bevan.
As MP for Bristol South East, Benn helped organise the 1963 Bristol Bus Boycott against the colour bar of the Bristol Omnibus Company against employing Black British and British Asian drivers. Benn said that he would "stay off the buses, even if I have to find a bike", and Labour leader Harold Wilson also told an anti-apartheid rally in London he was "glad that so many Bristolians are supporting the [boycott] campaign", adding that he "wish[ed] them every success".
Peerage reform
Benn's father was created Viscount Stansgate in 1942 when Winston Churchill increased the number of Labour peers to aid political work in the House of Lords; at this time, Benn's elder brother Michael, then serving in the RAF, was intending to enter the priesthood and had no objections to inheriting a peerage. However, Michael was later killed in an accident while on active service in the Second World War, and this left Benn as the heir-apparent to the peerage. He made several unsuccessful attempts to renounce the succession.
In November 1960, Lord Stansgate died. Benn automatically became a peer, preventing him from sitting in the House of Commons. The Speaker of the Commons, Sir Harry Hylton-Foster, did not allow him to deliver a speech from the bar of the House of Commons in April 1961 when the by-election was being called. Continuing to maintain his right to abandon his peerage, Benn fought to retain his seat in a by-election caused by his succession on 4 May 1961. Although he was disqualified from taking his seat, he was re-elected. An election court found that the voters were fully aware that Benn was disqualified, and declared the seat won by the Conservative runner-up, Malcolm St Clair, who was at the time also the heir presumptive to a peerage.
Benn continued his campaign outside Parliament. Within two years, though, the Conservative Government of the time, which had members in the same or similar situation to Benn's (i.e., who were going to receive title, or who had already applied for writs of summons), changed the law. The Peerage Act 1963, allowing lifetime disclaimer of peerages, became law shortly after 6 pm on 31 July 1963. Benn was the first peer to renounce his title, doing so at 6.22 pm that day. St Clair, fulfilling a promise he had made at the time of his election, then accepted the office of Steward of the Manor of Northstead, disqualifying himself from the House (outright resignation not being possible). Benn returned to the Commons after winning a by-election on 20 August 1963.
In government, 1964–1970
In the 1964 Government led by Harold Wilson, Benn was Postmaster General, where he oversaw the opening of the Post Office Tower, then the UK's tallest building, and the creations of the Post Bus service and Girobank. He proposed issuing stamps without the Sovereign's head, but this met with private opposition from the Queen. Instead, the portrait was reduced to a small profile in silhouette, a format that is still used on commemorative stamps.
Benn also led the government's opposition to the "pirate" radio stations broadcasting from international waters, which he was aware would be an unpopular measure. Some of these stations were causing problems, such as interference to emergency radio used by shipping, although he was not responsible for introducing the Marine Broadcasting Offences Bill when it came before Parliament at the end of July 1966 for its first reading.
Earlier in the month, Benn was promoted to Minister of Technology, which included responsibility for the development of Concorde and the formation of International Computers Ltd. (ICL). The period also saw government involvement in industrial rationalisation, and the merger of several car companies to form British Leyland. Following Conservative MP Enoch Powell's 1968 "Rivers of Blood" speech to a Conservative Association meeting, in opposition to Harold Wilson's insistence on not "stirring up the Powell issue", Benn said during the 1970 general election campaign:
The mainstream press attacked Benn for using language deemed as intemperate as Powell's language in his "Rivers of Blood" speech (which was widely regarded as racist), and Benn noted in his diary that "letters began pouring in on the Powell speech: 2:1 against me but some very sympathetic ones saying that my speech was overdue". Harold Wilson later reprimanded Benn for this speech, accusing him of losing Labour seats in the 1970 general election.
During the 1970s Benn publicly defended Marxism, saying:
Labour lost the 1970 election to Edward Heath's Conservatives and upon Heath's application to join the European Economic Community, a surge in left-wing Euroscepticism emerged. Benn "was stridently against membership", and campaigned in favour of a referendum on the UK's membership. The Shadow Cabinet voted to support a referendum on 29 March 1972, and as a result Roy Jenkins resigned as Deputy Leader of the Labour Party.
In government, 1974–1979
In the Labour Government of 1974, Benn was Secretary of State for Industry and as such increased nationalised industry pay, provided better terms and conditions for workers such as the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and was involved in setting up worker cooperatives in firms which were struggling, the best known being at Meriden, outside Coventry, producing Triumph Motorcycles. In 1975, he was appointed Secretary of State for Energy, immediately following his unsuccessful campaign for a "No" vote in the referendum on the UK's continued membership of the European Community (Common Market). Later in his diary, (25 October 1977) Benn wrote that he "loathed" the EEC; he claimed it was "bureaucratic and centralised" and "of course it is really dominated by Germany. All the Common Market countries except the UK have been occupied by Germany, and they have this mixed feeling of hatred and subservience towards the Germans".
Upon the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, Benn described Mao as "one of the greatest—if not the greatest—figures of the twentieth century: a schoolteacher who transformed China, released it from civil war and foreign attack and constructed a new society there" in his diaries, adding that "he certainly towers above any twentieth-century figure I can think of in his philosophical contribution and military genius". On his trip to the Chinese embassy after Mao's death, Benn recorded in an earlier volume of his diaries that he was "a great admirer of Mao", while also admitting that "he made mistakes, because everybody does".
Harold Wilson resigned as Leader of the Labour Party and Prime Minister in March 1976. Benn later attributed the collapse of the Wilson government to cuts enforced on the UK by global capital, in particular the International Monetary Fund. In the resulting leadership contest Benn finished in fourth place out of the six cabinet ministers who stood—he withdrew as 11.8 per cent of colleagues voted for him in the first ballot. Benn withdrew from the second ballot and endorsed Michael Foot; James Callaghan eventually won. Despite not receiving his support in the second and third rounds of the vote, Callaghan kept Benn on as Energy Secretary. In 1976, there was a sterling crisis, and Chancellor of the Exchequer Denis Healey sought a loan from the International Monetary Fund. Underlining a wish to counter international market forces which seemed to penalise a larger welfare state, Benn publicly circulated the divided Cabinet minutes in which a narrow majority of the Labour Cabinet under Ramsay MacDonald supported a cut in unemployment benefits in order to obtain a loan from American bankers. As he highlighted, these minutes resulted in the 1931 split of the Labour Party in which MacDonald and his allies formed a National Government with Conservatives and Liberals. Callaghan allowed Benn to put forward the Alternative Economic Strategy, which consisted of a self-sufficient economy less dependent on low-rate fresh borrowing, but the AES, which according to opponents would have led to a "siege economy", was rejected by the Cabinet. In response, Benn later recalled that: "I retorted that their policy was a siege economy, only they had the bankers inside the castle with all our supporters left outside, whereas my policy would have our supporters in the castle with the bankers outside." Benn blamed the Winter of Discontent on these cuts to socialist policies.
During Benn's time as energy minister from 1975 to 1979 he supported the United Kingdom's use of nuclear power. However, later in his life he became an opponent of nuclear power, attributing his time as running it as a minister to persuading him it was not cheap, safe or peaceful. When asked in an interview in January 2009 on what he had changed his mind on over the course of his life he expanded on this issue by saying:
Move to the left
By the end of the 1970s, Benn's views had shifted to the left-wing of the Labour Party. He attributed this political shift to his experience as a Cabinet Minister in the 1964–1970 Labour Government. Benn ascribed his move to the left to four lessons:
How "the Civil Service can frustrate the policies and decisions of popularly elected governments"
The centralised nature of the Labour Party which allowed the Leader to run "the Party almost as if it were his personal kingdom"
"The power of industrialists and bankers to get their way by use of the crudest form of economic pressure, even blackmail, against a Labour Government"
The power of the media, which "like the power of the medieval Church, ensures that events of the day are always presented from the point of the view of those who enjoy economic privilege"
As regards the power of industrialists and bankers, Benn remarked:
Benn's philosophy consisted of a form of syndicalism, state planning where necessary to ensure national competitiveness, greater democracy in the structures of the Labour Party and observance of Party Conference decisions. Alongside an alleged 12 Labour MPs, he spent 12 years affiliated with the Institute for Workers' Control, beginning in 1971 when he visited the Upper Clyde Shipyards, arguing in 1975 for the "labour movement to intensify its discussion about industrial democracy".
He was vilified by most of the press while his opponents implied and stated that a Benn-led Labour Government would implement a type of Eastern European state socialism, with Edward Heath referring to Benn as "Commissar Benn" and others referring to Benn as a "Bollinger Bolshevik". Despite this, Benn was overwhelmingly popular with Labour activists in the constituencies: a survey of delegates at the Labour Party Conference in 1978 found that by large margins they supported Benn for the leadership, as well as many Bennite policies.
He publicly supported Sinn Féin and the unification of Ireland, although in 2005 he suggested to Sinn Féin leaders that it abandon its long-standing policy of not taking seats at Westminster (abstentionism). Sinn Féin in turn argued that to do so would recognise Britain's claim over Northern Ireland, and the Sinn Féin constitution prevented its elected members from taking their seats in any British-created institution. A supporter of the Scottish Parliament and political devolution, Benn however opposed the Scottish National Party and Scottish independence, saying: "I think nationalism is a mistake. And I am half Scots and feel it would divide me in half with a knife. The thought that my mother would suddenly be a foreigner would upset me very much."
In British politics during this period, the term "Bennism" came into use to describe the conviction politics, economic, social and political ideology of Tony Benn; and an exponent or advocate of Bennism was regarded as a "Bennite".
In opposition, 1979–1997
In a keynote speech to the Labour Party Conference of 1980, shortly before the resignation of party leader James Callaghan and election of Michael Foot as successor, Benn outlined what he envisaged the next Labour Government would do. "Within days", a Labour Government would gain powers to nationalise industries, control capital and implement industrial democracy; "within weeks", all powers from Brussels would be returned to Westminster, and the House of Lords would be abolished by creating one thousand new peers and then abolishing the peerage. Benn received tumultuous applause. On 25 January 1981, Roy Jenkins, David Owen, Shirley Williams and Bill Rodgers (known collectively as the "Gang of Four") launched the Council for Social Democracy, which became the Social Democratic Party in March. The "Gang of Four" left the Labour Party because of what they perceived to be the influence of the Militant tendency and the Bennite "hard left" within the party. Benn was highly critical of the SDP, saying that "Britain has had SDP governments for the past 25 years."
Benn stood against Denis Healey, the party's incumbent deputy leader, triggering the 1981 deputy leadership election, disregarding an appeal from Michael Foot to either stand for the leadership or abstain from inflaming the party's divisions. Benn defended his decision insisting that it was "not about personalities, but about policies". The result was announced on 27 September 1981; Healey retained his position by a margin of barely one per cent. The decision of several soft left MPs, including Neil Kinnock, to abstain triggered the split of the Socialist Campaign Group from the left of the Tribune Group.
After Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands in April 1982, Benn argued that the dispute should be settled by the United Nations and that the British Government should not send a task force to recapture the islands. The task force was sent, and following the Falklands War, they were back in British control by mid-June. In a debate in the Commons just after the Falklands were recaptured, Benn's demand for "a full analysis of the costs in life, equipment and money in this tragic and unnecessary war" was rejected by Margaret Thatcher, who stated that "he would not enjoy the freedom of speech that he put to such excellent use unless people had been prepared to fight for it".
For the 1983 election Benn's Bristol South East constituency was abolished by boundary changes, and he lost to Michael Cocks in the selection of a candidate to stand in the new winnable seat of Bristol South. Rejecting offers from the new seat of Livingston in Scotland, Benn contested Bristol East, losing to the Conservative's Jonathan Sayeed in June 1983. Foot resigned as leader following the defeat which reduced Labour to only 209 MPs, while Healey also decided to step down as deputy leader. However Benn's absence from parliament meant that he was unable to stand in the resulting leadership contest as only MPs were eligible to be candidates. Benn's absence from the contest was reported by The Glasgow Herald to leave Neil Kinnock as "the favourite Left-wing candidate". Ultimately Kinnock won the contest, formally replacing Foot as party leader in October of that year.
In a by-election, Benn was elected as the MP for Chesterfield, the next Labour seat to fall vacant, after Eric Varley had left the Commons to head Coalite. On the day of the by-election, 1 March 1984, The Sun newspaper ran a hostile feature article, "Benn on the Couch", which purported to be the opinions of an American psychiatrist.
Newly elected to a mining seat, Benn was a supporter of the 1984–85 UK miners' strike, which was beginning when he returned to the Commons, and of his long-standing friend, the National Union of Mineworkers leader Arthur Scargill. However, some miners considered Benn's 1977 industry reforms to have caused problems during the strike; firstly, that they led to huge wage differences and distrust between miners of different regions; and secondly that the controversy over balloting miners for these reforms made it unclear as to whether a ballot was needed for a strike or whether it could be deemed as a "regional matter" in the same way that the 1977 reforms had been. Benn also spoke at a Militant tendency rally held in 1984, saying: "The labour movement is not engaged in a personalised battle against individual cabinet ministers, nor do we seek to win public support by arguing that the crisis could be ended by the election of a new and more humane team of ministers who are better qualified to administer capitalism. We are working for a majority labour government, elected on a socialist programme, as decided by conference."
In June 1985, three months after the miners admitted defeat and ended their strike, Benn introduced the Miners' Amnesty (General Pardon) Bill into the Commons, which would have extended an amnesty to all miners imprisoned during the strike. This would have included two men convicted of murder (later reduced to manslaughter) for the killing of David Wilkie, a taxi driver driving a non-striking miner to work in South Wales during the strike.
Benn stood for election as party leader in 1988, against Neil Kinnock, following Labour's third successive defeat in the 1987 general election, losing by a substantial margin, and received only about 11 per cent of the vote. In May 1989 he made an extended appearance on Channel 4's late-night discussion programme After Dark, alongside among others Lord Dacre and Miles Copeland. During the Gulf War, Benn visited Baghdad in order to try to persuade Saddam Hussein to release the hostages who had been captured.
Benn supported various LGBT social movements, which were then known as gay liberation; Benn had voted in favour of decriminalisation in 1967. Talking about Section 28 of the 1988 Local Government Act, a piece of anti-gay legislation preventing the "promotion of homosexuality", Benn said:
Benn later voted for the repeal of Section 28 during the first term of Tony Blair's New Labour Government, and voted in favour of equalising the age of consent.
In 1990 he proposed a "Margaret Thatcher (Global Repeal) Bill", which he said "could go through both Houses in 24 hours. It would be easy to reverse the policies and replace the personalities—the process has begun—but the rotten values that have been propagated from the platform of political power in Britain during the past 10 years will be an infection—a virulent strain of right-wing capitalist thinking which it will take time to overcome." In 1991, with Labour still in opposition and a general election due by June 1992, he proposed the Commonwealth of Britain Bill, abolishing the monarchy in favour of the United Kingdom becoming a "democratic, federal and secular commonwealth", a republic with a written constitution. It was read in Parliament a number of times until his retirement at the 2001 election, but never achieved a second reading. He presented an account of his proposal in Common Sense: A New Constitution for Britain. In 1992, Benn also received a Pipe Smoker of the Year award, claiming in his acceptance speech that "pipe smoking stopped you going to war".
In 1991, Benn reiterated his opposition to the European Commission and highlighted an alleged democratic deficit in the institution, saying: "Some people genuinely believe that we shall never get social justice from the British Government, but we shall get it from Jacques Delors. They believe that a good king is better than a bad Parliament. I have never taken that view." This argument has also been used by many on the right-wing Eurosceptic wing of the Conservative Party, such as Daniel Hannan MEP. Jonathan Freedland writes in The Guardian that "For [Tony Benn], even benign rule by a monarch was worthless because the king's whim could change and there'd be nothing you could do about it."
Prior to retirement, 1997–2001
In 1997, the Labour Party under the leadership of Tony Blair won the general election in a landslide, after 18 years of Conservative Party rule. Despite later calling Labour under Blair "the idea of a Conservative group who had taken over Labour" and saying "[Blair] set up a new political party, New Labour", his political diaries Free at Last show that Benn was initially somewhat sympathetic to Blair, welcoming a change of government. Benn supported the introduction of the national minimum wage, and welcomed the progress towards peace and security in Northern Ireland (particularly under Mo Mowlam). He was supportive of the extra money given to public services in the New Labour years but believed it to be under the guise of privatisation. Overall, his concluding judgement on New Labour is highly critical; he describes its evolution as a way of retaining office by abandoning socialism and distancing the party from the trade union movement, adopting a presidentialist style of politics, overriding the concept of the collective ministerial responsibility by reducing the power of the Cabinet, eliminated any effective influence from the annual conference of the Labour Party and "hinged its foreign policy on support for one of the worst presidents in US history".
Benn strongly objected to the bombing of Iraq in December 1998, calling it immoral and saying: "Aren't Arabs terrified? Aren't Iraqis terrified? Don't Arab and Iraqi women weep when their children die? Does bombing strengthen their determination? ... Every Member of Parliament tonight who votes for the government motion will be consciously and deliberately accepting the responsibility for the deaths of innocent people if the war begins, as I fear it will."
Several months prior to his retirement, Benn was a signatory to a letter, alongside Niki Adams (Legal Action for Women), Ian Macdonald QC, Gareth Peirce, and other legal professionals, that was published in The Guardian newspaper on 22 February 2001 condemning raids of more than 50 brothels in the central London area of Soho. At the time, a police spokesman said: "As far as we know, this is the biggest simultaneous crackdown on brothels and prostitution in this country in recent times", the arrest of 28 people in an operation that involved around 110 police officers. The letter read:
In the name of "protecting" women from trafficking, about 40 women, including a woman from Iraq, were arrested, detained and in some cases summarily removed from Britain. If any of these women have been trafficked ... they deserve protection and resources, not punishment by expulsion. ... Having forced women into destitution, the government first criminalised those who begged. Now it is trying to use prostitution as a way to make deportation of the vulnerable more acceptable. We will not allow such injustice to go unchallenged.
Retirement and final years, 2001–2014
Benn chose not to seek re-election at the 2001 general election, saying he was "leaving parliament in order to spend more time on politics." Along with former Prime Minister Edward Heath, Benn was permitted by the Speaker to continue using the House of Commons Library and Members' refreshment facilities. Shortly after his retirement, he became the President of the Stop the War Coalition. He became a leading figure of the British opposition to the War in Afghanistan from 2001 and the Iraq War, and in February 2003 he travelled to Baghdad to meet Saddam Hussein. The interview was broadcast on British television.
He spoke against the war at the February 2003 protest in London organised by the Stop the War Coalition, with police saying it was the biggest ever demonstration in the UK with about 750,000 marchers, and the organisers estimating nearly a million people participating. In February 2004 and 2008, he was re-elected President of the Stop the War Coalition.
He toured with a one-man stage show and appeared a few times each year in a two-man show with folk singer Roy Bailey. In 2003, his show with Bailey was voted 'Best Live Act' at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. In 2002, he opened the "Left Field" stage at the Glastonbury Festival. He continued to speak at each subsequent festival; attending one of his speeches was described as a "Glastonbury rite of passage". In October 2003, he was a guest of British Airways on the last scheduled Concorde flight from New York to London. In June 2005, he was a panellist on a special edition of BBC One's Question Time edited entirely by a school-age film crew selected by a BBC competition.
On 21 June 2005, Benn presented a programme on democracy as part of the Channel 5 series Big Ideas That Changed The World. He presented a left-wing view of democracy as the means to pass power from the "wallet to the ballot". He argued that traditional social democratic values were under threat in an increasingly globalised world in which powerful institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the European Commission are unelected and unaccountable to those whose lives they affect daily.
On 27 September 2005, Benn became ill while attending the annual Labour Party Conference in Brighton and was taken by ambulance to the Royal Sussex County Hospital after being treated by paramedics on-the-scene at the Brighton Centre. Benn reportedly fell and struck his head. He was kept in hospital for observation and was described as being in a "comfortable condition". He was subsequently fitted with an artificial pacemaker to help regulate his heartbeat.
In a list compiled by the magazine New Statesman in 2006, he was voted twelfth in the list of "Heroes of our Time". In September 2006, Benn joined the "Time to Go" demonstration in Manchester the day before the final Labour Party Conference with Tony Blair as Leader of the Labour Party, with the aim of persuading the Government to withdraw troops from Iraq, to refrain from attacking Iran and to reject replacing the Trident missile and submarines with a new system. He spoke to the demonstrators in the rally afterwards. In 2007, he appeared in an extended segment in the Michael Moore film Sicko giving comments about democracy, social responsibility and healthcare, notably, "If we can find the money to kill people, we can find the money to help people." A poll by the BBC2 The Daily Politics programme in January 2007 selected Benn as the UK's "Political Hero" with 38% of the vote, narrowly defeating Margaret Thatcher, who had 35%.
For the 2007 Labour Party leadership election, Benn backed the left-wing MP John McDonnell in his unsuccessful bid. In September 2007, Benn called for the government to hold a referendum on the EU Reform Treaty. In October 2007, aged 82, and when it appeared that a general election was about to be held, Benn reportedly announced that he wanted to stand, having written to his local Constituency Labour Party offering himself as a prospective candidate for the newly drawn Kensington seat. His main opponent would have been the incumbent Conservative MP for the predecessor seat of Kensington and Chelsea, Malcolm Rifkind. However, there was no election held in 2007, and so the boundary changes did not take effect until the eventual election in 2010, when Benn was not a candidate and the new seat was won by Rifkind.
In early 2008, Benn appeared on Scottish singer-songwriter Colin MacIntyre's album The Water, reading a poem he had written himself. In September 2008, he appeared on the DVD release for the Doctor Who story The War Machines with a vignette discussing the Post Office Tower; he became the second Labour politician, after Roy Hattersley to appear on a Doctor Who DVD.
At the Stop the War Conference 2009, he described the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as "Imperialist war(s)" and discussed the killing of American and allied troops by Iraqi or foreign insurgents, questioning whether they were in fact freedom fighters, and comparing the insurgents to a British Dad's Army, saying: "If you are invaded you have a right to self-defence, and this idea that people in Iraq and Afghanistan who are resisting the invasion are militant Muslim extremists is a complete bloody lie. I joined Dad's Army when I was sixteen, and if the Germans had arrived, I tell you, I could use a bayonet, a rifle, a revolver, and if I'd seen a German officer having a meal I'd have tossed a grenade through the window. Would I have been a freedom fighter or a terrorist?"
In an interview published in Dartford Living in September 2009, Benn was critical of the Government's decision to delay the findings of the Iraq War Inquiry until after the general election, stating that "people can take into account what the inquiry has reported on but they’ve deliberately pushed it beyond the election. Government is responsible for explaining what it has done and I don't think we were told the truth." He also stated that local government was strangled by Margaret Thatcher and had not been liberated by New Labour.
In 2009, Benn was admitted to hospital and An Evening with Tony Benn, scheduled to take place at London's Cadogan Hall, was cancelled. He performed his show, The Writing on the Wall, with Roy Bailey at St Mary's Church, Ashford, Kent, in September 2011, as part of the arts venue's first Revelation St. Mary's Season. In July 2011 Benn was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Glamorgan, Wales.
Benn headed the "coalition of resistance", a group which was opposed to the UK austerity programme. In interviews in 2010 with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! and 2013 with Afshin Rattansi on RT UK, Benn claimed that the actions of New Labour in the leadup to and aftermath of the Iraq War were such that the former Prime Minister Tony Blair should be tried for war crimes. Benn also claimed in 2010 that Blair had lost the "trust of the nation" regarding the war in Iraq.
In 2012, Benn was awarded an honorary degree from Goldsmiths, University of London. He was also the honorary president of the Goldsmiths Students' Union, who successfully campaigned for him to retract comments dismissing the Julian Assange rape allegations. In February 2013, Benn was among those who gave their support to the People's Assembly in a letter published by The Guardian newspaper. He gave a speech at the People's Assembly Conference held at Westminster Central Hall on 22 June 2013.
In 2013, Benn reiterated his previous opposition to European integration. Speaking to the Oxford Union on the alleged overshadowing of the EU debate by "UKIP and Tory backbenchers", he said:I took the view that having fought [Europeans in the Second World War] that we should now work with them, and co-operate, and that was my first thought about it. Then how I saw how the European Union was developing, it was very obvious that what they had in mind was not democratic. ... And the way that Europe has developed is that the bankers and the multinational corporations have got very powerful positions, and if you come in on their terms, they will tell you what you can and cannot do. And that is unacceptable. My view about the European Union has always been not that I am hostile to foreigners, but that I am in favour of democracy ... I think they're building an empire there, they want us to be a part of their empire and I don't want that.
Illness and death
In 1990, Benn was diagnosed with chronic lymphatic leukaemia and given three or four years to live; at this time, he kept the news of his leukaemia from everyone except his immediate family. Benn said: "When you're in parliament, you can't describe your medical condition. People immediately start wondering what your majority is and when there will be a by-election. They're very brutal." This was revealed in 2002 with the release of his 1990–2001 diaries.
Benn suffered a stroke in 2012, and spent much of the following year in hospital. He was reported to be "seriously ill" in hospital in February 2014. Benn died at home on 14 March 2014, surrounded by his family, less than a month shy of his 89th birthday.
Benn's funeral took place on 27 March 2014 at St Margaret's Church, Westminster. His body had lain in rest at St Mary Undercroft in the Palace of Westminster the night before the funeral service. The service ended with the singing of "The Red Flag". His body was then cremated; the ashes were expected to be buried alongside those of his wife at the family home near Steeple, Essex.
Figures from across the political spectrum praised Benn following his death, and the leaders of all three major political parties (the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats) in the United Kingdom paid tribute.
Conservative leader and Prime Minister David Cameron said:... he was an extraordinary man: a great writer, a brilliant speaker, extraordinary in Parliament, and a great life of public and political and parliamentary service. I mean, I disagreed with most of what he said. But he was always engaging and interesting, and you were never bored when reading or listening to him, and the country a great campaigner, a great writer, and someone who I'm sure whose words will be followed keenly for many, many years to come.
Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg called Benn an "astonishing, iconic figure" and a "veteran parliamentarian, he was a great writer, he had great warmth and he had great conviction ... his political life will be looked back on with affection and admiration".
Leader of the Opposition and Labour leader Ed Miliband, who knew Benn personally as a family friend, said:I think Tony Benn will be remembered as a champion of the powerless, as a conviction politician, as somebody of deep principle and integrity. The thing about Tony Benn is that you always knew what he stood for, and who he stood up for. And I think that's why he was admired right across the political spectrum. There are people who agreed with him and disagreed with him, including in my own party, but I think people admired that sense of conviction and integrity that shone through from Tony Benn.
Diaries and biographies
Benn was a prolific diarist. Nine volumes of his diaries have been published. The final volume was published in 2013. Collections of his speeches and writings were published as Arguments for Socialism (1979), Arguments for Democracy (1981), (both edited by Chris Mullin), Fighting Back (1988) and (with Andrew Hood) Common Sense (1993), as well as Free Radical: New Century Essays (2004). In August 2003, London DJ Charles Bailey created an album of Benn's speeches () set to ambient groove.
He made public several episodes of audio diaries he made during his time in Parliament and after retirement, entitled The Benn Tapes, broadcast originally on BBC Radio 4. Short series have been played periodically on BBC Radio 4 Extra. A major biography was written by Jad Adams and published by Macmillan in 1992; it was updated to cover the intervening 20 years and reissued by Biteback Publishing in 2011: Tony Benn: A Biography (). A more recent "semi-authorised" biography with a foreword by Benn was published in 2001: David Powell, Tony Benn: A Political Life, Continuum Books (). An autobiography, Dare to be a Daniel: Then and Now, Hutchinson (), a reference to the Old Testament prophet in the lions' den , was published in 2004.
There are substantial essays on Benn in the Dictionary of Labour Biography by Phillip Whitehead, Greg Rosen (eds), Politicos Publishing, 2001 () and in Labour Forces: From Ernie Bevin to Gordon Brown, Kevin Jefferys (ed.), I.B. Tauris Publishing, 2002 (). American Michael Moore dedicates his book Mike's Election Guide 2008 () to Benn, with the words: "For Tony Benn, keep teaching us".
On 5 March 2019, it was announced that a large political archive of Benn's speeches, diaries, letters, pamphlets, recordings and ephemera had been accepted in lieu of £210,000 inheritance tax and allocated to the British Library. The audio recordings total to thousands of hours of content.
Plaques
During his final years in Parliament, Benn placed three plaques within the Houses of Parliament. Two are in a room between the Central Lobby and Strangers' Gallery that holds a permanent display about the suffragettes. The first was placed in 1995. The second was placed in 1996 and is dedicated to all who work within the Houses of Parliament.
The third is dedicated to Emily Wilding Davison, who died for the cause of "Votes for women", and was placed in the broom cupboard next to the Undercroft Chapel, where Davison is said to have hidden during the night of the 1911 census in order to establish her address as the House of Commons.
In 2011 Benn unveiled a plaque in Highbury, North London, to commemorate the Peasants' Revolt of 1381.
Legacy
In Bristol, where Benn first served as a member of parliament, a number of tributes exist in his honour. A bust of him was unveiled in Bristol's City Hall in 2005. In 2012 Transport House on Victoria Street, headquarters of Unite the Union's regional office, was officially renamed Tony Benn House and opened by Benn himself. As of 2015 he appears, alongside other famous people associated with the city, on the reverse of the Bristol Pound's £B5 banknote.
Benn told the Socialist Review in 2007 that:I'd like to have on my gravestone: "He encouraged us." I'm proud to have been in the parliament that introduced the health service, the welfare state and voted against means testing. I did my maiden speech on nationalising the steel industry, put down the first motion for the boycott of South African goods, and resigned from the shadow cabinet in 1958 because of their support for nuclear weapons.
I think you do plant a few acorns, and I have lived to see one or two trees growing: gay rights, freedom of information, CND. I'm not claiming them for myself but you feel you have encouraged other people and see the arguments developing.
I'm not ashamed of making mistakes. I've made a million mistakes and they're all in the diary. When we edit the diary—which is cut to around 10 per cent—every mistake has to be printed because people look to see if you do. I would be ashamed if I thought I'd ever said anything I didn't believe to get on, but making mistakes is part of life, isn't it?
Benn was widely seen as a key proponent of democratic socialism. He was described as "one of the few UK politicians to have become more left-wing after holding ministerial office". Harold Wilson, his former boss, maintained that Benn was the only man he knew who "immatures with age".
He has been cited as being a key mentor to future leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn, with his Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell commenting that "they would discuss everything under the sun. Jeremy was very close to Tony right up until the end." Corbyn was elected as leader of the Labour Party a little over a year after Benn's death, an act which Hilary Benn said would have made his father feel "thrilled".
Styles
Anthony Wedgwood Benn, Esq. (1925 – 12 January 1942)
The Hon. Anthony Wedgwood Benn (12 January 1942 – 30 November 1950)
The Hon. Anthony Wedgwood Benn, MP (30 November 1950 – 17 November 1960)
The Rt Hon. The Viscount Stansgate (17 November 1960 – 31 July 1963)
Anthony Wedgwood Benn, Esq. (31 July – 20 August 1963)
Anthony Wedgwood Benn, Esq., MP (20 August 1963 – 1964)
The Rt Hon. Anthony Wedgwood Benn, MP (1964 – October 1973)
The Rt Hon. Tony Benn, MP (October 1973 – 9 June 1983)
The Rt Hon. Tony Benn (9 June 1983 – 1 March 1984)
The Rt Hon. Tony Benn, MP (1 March 1984 – 14 May 2001)
The Rt Hon. Tony Benn (14 May 2001 – 14 March 2014)
Bibliography
Speeches, Spokesman Books (1974);
Levellers and the English Democratic Tradition, Spokesman Books (1976);
Why America Needs Democratic Socialism, Spokesman Books (1978);
Prospects, Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers, Technical, Administrative and Supervisory Section (1979)
Case for Constitutional Civil Service, Institute for Workers' Control (1980);
Case for Party Democracy, Institute for Workers' Control (1980);
Arguments for Socialism, Penguin Books (1980);
& Chris Mullin, Arguments for Democracy, Jonathan Cape (1981);
European Unity: A New Perspective, Spokesman Books (1981)
Parliament and Power: Agenda for a Free Society, Verso Books (1982);
& Andrew Hood, Common Sense: New Constitution for Britain, Hutchinson (1993)
Free Radical: New Century Essays, Continuum International Publishing (2004);
Dare to Be a Daniel: Then and Now, Hutchinson (2004);
Letters to my Grandchildren: Thoughts on the Future, Arrow Books (2010);
Diaries
Out of the Wilderness: Diaries 1963–67, Hutchinson (1987);
Office Without Power: Diaries 1968–72, Hutchinson (1988);
Against the Tide: Diaries 1973–76, Hutchinson (1989);
Conflicts of Interest: Diaries 1977–80, Hutchinson (1990);
The End of an Era: Diaries 1980–90, Hutchinson (1992);
Years of Hope: Diaries 1940–62, Hutchinson (1994);
The Benn Diaries: Single Volume Edition 1940–90, Hutchinson (1995);
Free at Last!: Diaries 1991–2001, Hutchinson (2002);
More Time for Politics: Diaries 2001–2007, Hutchinson (2007);
A Blaze of Autumn Sunshine: The Last Diaries, Hutchinson (2013);
See also
Labour Representation Committee (2004)
Republicanism in the United Kingdom
Socialist Campaign Group
References
External links
By date
Contributions in Parliament by Tony Benn. Hansard, 1925–2005.
Late Developer: Review of Against the Tide: Diaries 1973–1976 by Tony Benn. Author – Paul Foot, 1985.
Andrew Roth. "Tony Benn Chesterfield and Bristol South East MP". The Guardian, 25 March 2001.
The Guardian web guide to Benn.. 6 June 2002.
Face-to-Face with Tony Benn. Freeview video interview by the Vega Science Trust. Recorded in 2005.
Tony Benn. "Atomic hypocrisy: West is not in a position to take a high moral line". The Guardian, 30 November 2005.
Interview with Tony Benn – Radio France Internationale. 28 March 2008 – 6-minute audio – Ahead of G20 marches, London.
Tony Benn on Tony Blair: "He Is Guilty of a War Crime". Video report by Democracy Now!. 21 September 2010.
Obituary: Tony Benn. BBC News, 14 March 2014.
Tony Benn: a stalwart of the peace and anti-nuclear movement. Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, 14 March 2014.
Other
Audio interview with The Guardian.
His Address to the College Historical Society of Trinity College.
Private Eye depictions of Benn: "Most Dangerous Man in Britain", "Labour United", "Benn's Triumph", "Foot & Benn Disease", "Would You Buy a New Car From This Man?".
Tony Benn on Modern Liberty. Tony Benn speaking for The Convention on Modern Liberty. YouTube. 23 February 2009.
Unofficial Tony Benn quotation site.
Tony Benn on The Guardian
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Pipe smokers | true | [
"My Heart Is Mine Alone () is a 1997 German experimental drama film directed by Helma Sanders-Brahms. A 1997 issue of Jewish Currents wrote that the film is \"a kind of German movie that usually requires more than one screening to decipher and is made for avant-garde devotees.\"\n\nPlot\nThe story of the real-life love affair between Jewish poet Else Lasker-Schüler and Nazi poet Gottfried Benn is told largely through their poetry throughout the film. Lasker-Schüler is forced to leave the country because of the very ideology Benn espouses, and while she drifts from country to country en route to Jerusalem, he eventually realizes his mistake when the Nazis condemn his artistic school.\n\nCast\nLena Stolze as Else Lasker-Schüler\nThomas Ruffer\tas Berthold Lasker\nRené Schubert\tas Noble\nKatja Ruttloff as Else Lasker-Schüler's Sister\nAnna Sanders as Edith Benn\nCornelius Obonya as Gottfried Benn\nTomek Schulz as Young Gottfried Benn\nChristian Schlemmer as Wassily Kandinsky\nJanina Berge as Young\tElse Lasker-Schüler\nStefan Ostertag as Franz Marc\nNicolai Albrecht as Marc Chagall\nInken Schmitz as Lasker Family Member\nWolfgang Tebbe as Lasker Family Member\nDagmar Bertram as Lasker Family Member\nMatthias Wessolek as Fat Cat\nKlaus Bunk as Herwarth Walden\nSabine Panzer\tas Nell Walden\nOliver Grice as Gustav Benn\nLothar von Versen as Peter Hille\nJulia Kiessling as Else Lasker-Schüler's Sister\nLeonard Schnitman as Paul Schüler\nNikolai Sirenko as Aaron Schüler\nValentina Sirenko as Jeannette Schüler\nBruno Dunst as Professor\n\nRelease\nThe film was released on DVD by Facets Multi-Media in 2008.\n\nReception\nCritical opinion has been largely positive. The film was screened out of competition at the 1997 Berlin International Film Festival and was nominated for the Maverick Spirit Award at the Cinequest Film Festival in 1998 as well as for the Emden Film Award at the International Filmfest Emden in 1997. Variety, although opining that the film was \"flat,\" nevertheless praised the leading actress' \"charm and energy,\" as did Metro Silicon Valley critic Richard von Busack, who wrote that \"[d]ark, pocket-size and intense, Stolze has the magnetism to prove why men thought of Lasker-Schüler as an Expressionist vampire,\" and critic Ed Soohoo, who wrote that it is \"wonderful to see\" Lena Stolze \"once again on screen as she brings life to Else.\" Critic Peter Nellhaus has praised the film's \"expressionist collage of conventional biographical re-enactment, stylized staging, and documentary\" and wrote that he regards it as a \"truthful film.\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nMy Heart Is Mine Alone at the TCM Movie Database\nMein Herz – niemandem! at Film Portal \n\n1990s biographical drama films\n1990s historical drama films\n1997 films\nBiographical films about writers\nFilms about Jews and Judaism\nFilms about Nazi Germany\nFilms based on poems\nFilms directed by Helma Sanders-Brahms\nFilms set in Jerusalem\nFilms set in the 1860s\nFilms set in the 1870s\nFilms set in the 1880s\nFilms set in the 1890s\nFilms set in the 1900s\nFilms set in the 1910s\nFilms set in the 1920s\nFilms set in the 1930s\nFilms set in the 1940s\nFilms set in the 1950s\nGerman avant-garde and experimental films\nGerman biographical drama films\nGerman films\nGerman historical drama films\nGerman-language films\nFilms about Nazis\n1990s avant-garde and experimental films\n1997 drama films",
"More Die of Heartbreak is a 1987 novel by the American author Saul Bellow, and was his tenth novel. Like most of Bellow's other works, More Die of Heartbreak is grounded more in the development of character than in the growth of action. Among its themes are the difficulties of reconciling one's ideals with \"the actual\" and the difficulties of relating to parents and to mortality. The protagonist of the novel, Kenneth Trachtenberg, is an intellectually gifted and philosophically tortured man attempting to work out his fate and worldview.\n\nPlot summary\n\nThe book opens with an introduction of characters, and with Trachtenberg, the narrator, describing his complex relationship with his maternal uncle, Benn Crader, a world-renowned botanist. He then discusses the distinctions between himself, and his father, a man who, as he describes him, “[puts] on the kind of sex display you see in nature films, the courting behavior of turkey cocks or any of the leggier birds… Dad was a hit with women.”\n\nThis theme continues throughout the book, with Kenneth accepting his difficulties with women. He also introduces his mother, a woman who allowed her husband to step out, and only left after realizing that he did not understand what made her happy. She wanted intellectual stimulation of a literary style, whereas he bought her materialistic goods to make up for his infidelities. To atone for receiving the goods she did not need, Kenneth's mother is now living among refugees in Africa.\n\nKenneth then embarks on an overview of Benn's recent sexual history. He presents a man who, while appreciative of beauty and women, is not quite rooted enough in human society to understand the sexual pretexts he encounters. One incident is discussed many times during the novel: a middle aged neighbor of Benn's, an attractive professional who has a slight drinking problem, asks Benn to help her change a light bulb, a not too subtle hint which Benn ignores until she makes a move. The next day, when he shows no interest, and expresses regret for the act, she exclaims, “What am I supposed to do with my sexuality?” \nBenn then attracts the attentions of another older woman, Caroline who is controlling, indifferent, and loving all at the same time.\n\nWhile Benn, unbeknownst to Kenneth, is dealing with a planned wedding to Caroline, the protagonist is in Seattle to discuss with his ex-girlfriend, Treckie, what they should do about raising their child, now three years old. Treckie, a beautiful, half-sized woman, has been seeing another man, a fact Kenneth knows because of the bruises on her legs - lovemaking injuries he refused to ever give her. Kenneth has discussed this peculiar fetish with his father, who knows women, and received the knowledge that some smaller women must do it to show they are women, and not fully matured girls, the perception they give off.\n\nBenn, escaping from the wedding to Caroline, flies to Kyoto at the expense of a lecture series, inviting Kenneth to join him. The Japanese sense of order and utility appeals to Benn, until a strip show he sees at the insistence of his colleagues upsets him with its overt sexuality, at which point, he and Kenneth return to their home in the Midwest.\n\nBenn's next partner is Matilda Layamon, a beautiful, Midwestern daughter, who wants to settle down with a distinguished, older man who can calm her wild side. Benn, perhaps fearing that Kenneth will convince him that it is a foolhardy idea, weds her without “Kenneth’s permission.”\n\nMatilda's father is a rectangular man with sharp, thin shoulders who is a doctor, and in fact, asks that he be called, “Doctor.” He serves the rich, and because of this, has one-percentage point interests in many businesses around the country - an accidental fortune. He is a scheming man, and other than a few disagreements between Benn, and the man, no conflicts occur until he attempts to take advantage of Benn's uncle, a man who, as executor of the will of the Crader mother, undersold, and unfairly bought the Crader home, selling the land to a company which built a tower there, resulting in millions of dollars of profit for Uncle Vilitzer, and pennies for the Crader children. Because Vilitzer controlled the judge, neither Benn nor Kenneth's mother received their fair share, and the Doctor hopes to correct this, so that Matilda will have a rich husband.\n\nIn the end, Vilitzer dies after a heated discussion with Kenneth and Benn, and Benn, attending the funeral, sends his wife ahead to their honeymoon, and changes his ticket for the North Pole. He relays this to Kenneth who now lives in Benn's apartment, and who has recently returned from a successful bid to Treckie that he have his daughter for a part of the year. He is aware of her impending marriage thanks to a self-expedient phone call that revealed this information.\n\nThe book ends with a conversation between the two professors in which both stories are relayed to each other.\n\nReferences\n\n1987 American novels\nNovels by Saul Bellow\nWilliam Morrow and Company books"
] |
[
"Tony Benn",
"Prior to retirement, 1997-2001",
"What did Benn do in 1997?",
"Benn was initially somewhat sympathetic to Blair, welcoming a change of government.",
"What change of government?",
"Blair] set up a new political party, New Labour\",",
"Why did he set up a new party?",
"I don't know.",
"What else did Benn do in 1997?",
"Benn supported the introduction of the national minimum wage, and welcomed the progress towards peace and security in Northern Ireland"
] | C_bc32948de7454cfdbfeaa94f0a07401b_0 | What was happening in Northern Ireland? | 5 | What was happening in Northern Ireland? | Tony Benn | In 1997, the Labour Party under Tony Blair won the election. Despite later calling Labour under Tony Blair "the idea of a Conservative group who had taken over Labour" and saying "[Blair] set up a new political party, New Labour", Benn's political diaries Free at Last show that Benn was initially somewhat sympathetic to Blair, welcoming a change of government. Benn supported the introduction of the national minimum wage, and welcomed the progress towards peace and security in Northern Ireland (particularly under Mo Mowlam). He was supportive of the extra public money given to public services in the New Labour years but believed it to be under the guise of privatisation. Overall, his concluding judgement on New Labour is highly critical; he describes its evolution as a way of retaining office by abandoning socialism and distancing the party from the trade union movement, adopting a presidentialist style of politics, overriding the concept of the collective ministerial responsibility by reducing the power of the Cabinet, eliminated any effective influence from the annual conference of the Labour Party and "hinged its foreign policy on support for one of the worst presidents in US history". Benn strongly objected to the "immoral" bombing of Iraq in December 1998, saying: "Aren't Arabs terrified? Aren't Iraqis terrified? Don't Arab and Iraqi women weep when their children die? Does bombing strengthen their determination? ... Every Member of Parliament tonight who votes for the government motion will be consciously and deliberately accepting the responsibility for the deaths of innocent people if the war begins, as I fear it will." Several months prior to his retirement, Benn was a signatory to a letter, alongside Niki Adams (Legal Action for Women), Ian Macdonald QC, Gareth Peirce, and other legal professionals, that was published in The Guardian newspaper on 22 February 2001 "condemning" raids of more than 50 brothels in the central London area of Soho. At the time, a police spokesman said: "As far as we know, this is the biggest simultaneous crackdown on brothels and prostitution in this country in recent times", the arrest of 28 people in an operation that involved around 110 police officers. The letter read: In the name of "protecting" women from trafficking, about 40 women, including a woman from Iraq, were arrested, detained and in some cases summarily removed from Britain. If any of these women have been trafficked ... they deserve protection and resources, not punishment by expulsion. ... Having forced women into destitution, the government first criminalised those who begged. Now it is trying to use prostitution as a way to make deportation of the vulnerable more acceptable. We will not allow such injustice to go unchallenged. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Anthony Neil Wedgwood Benn (3 April 1925 – 14 March 2014; known between 1960 and 1963 as Viscount Stansgate) was a British politician, writer and diarist who served as a Cabinet minister in the 1960s and 1970s. A member of the Labour Party, he was Member of Parliament for Bristol South East and Chesterfield for 47 of the 51 years between 1950 and 2001. He later served as President of the Stop the War Coalition from 2001 to 2014.
The son of a Liberal and later Labour Party politician, Benn was born in Westminster and privately educated at Westminster School. He was elected for Bristol South East at the 1950 general election but inherited his father's peerage on his death, which prevented him from continuing to serve as an MP. He fought to remain in the House of Commons and campaigned for the ability to renounce the title, a campaign which succeeded with the Peerage Act 1963. He was an active member of the Fabian Society and served as chairman from 1964 to 1965. He served in the Labour government of Harold Wilson from 1964 to 1970 first as Postmaster General, where he oversaw the opening of the Post Office Tower, and later as Minister of Technology.
Benn served as Chairman of the National Executive Committee from 1971 to 1972 while in Opposition. In the Labour government of 1974–1979, he returned to the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Industry and subsequently served as Secretary of State for Energy. He retained that post when James Callaghan succeeded Wilson as Prime Minister. When the Labour Party was in opposition through the 1980s, he emerged as a prominent figure on the left wing of the party and unsuccessfully challenged Neil Kinnock for the Labour leadership in 1988. After leaving Parliament at the 2001 general election, Benn was President of the Stop the War Coalition until his death in 2014.
Benn was widely seen as a key proponent of democratic socialism and Christian socialism. Originally considered a moderate within the party, he was identified as belonging to its left wing after leaving ministerial office. The terms Bennism and Bennite came into usage to describe the left-wing politics he espoused from the late 1970s and its adherents. He was an influence on the politics of Jeremy Corbyn, who was elected Leader of the Labour Party a year after Benn's death, and John McDonnell, who served as Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer under Corbyn.
Early life and family
Benn was born in Westminster, London, on 3 April 1925. He had two brothers, Michael (1921–1944), who was killed in the Second World War, and David (1928–2017), a specialist in Russia and Eastern Europe. After the Thames flood in January 1928 their house was uninhabitable so the Benn family moved to Scotland for over 12 months. Their father, William Benn, was a Liberal Member of Parliament from 1906 who crossed the floor to the Labour Party in 1928 and was appointed Secretary of State for India by Ramsay MacDonald in 1929, a position he held until the Labour Party's landslide electoral defeat in 1931. William Benn was elevated to the House of Lords and Tony Benn was subsequently titled with the honorific prefix, The Honourable. William Benn was given the title of Viscount Stansgate in 1942: the new wartime coalition government was short of working Labour peers in the upper house. In 1945–46, William Benn was the Secretary of State for Air in the first majority Labour Government.
Benn's mother, Margaret Benn (née Holmes, 1897–1991), was a theologian, feminist and the founder President of the Congregational Federation. She was a member of the League of the Church Militant, which was the predecessor of the Movement for the Ordination of Women; in 1925, she was rebuked by Randall Davidson, the Archbishop of Canterbury, for advocating the ordination of women. His mother's theology had a profound influence on Benn, as she taught him that the stories in the Bible were based around the struggle between the prophets and the kings and that he ought in his life to support the prophets over the kings, who had power, as the prophets taught righteousness.
Benn was for over 30 years a committed Christian. He said that the teachings of Jesus Christ had a "radical political importance" on his life, and made a distinction between the historical Jesus as "a carpenter of Nazareth" who advocated social justice and egalitarianism and "the way in which he's presented by some religious authorities; by popes, archbishops and bishops who present Jesus as justification for their power", believing this to be a gross misunderstanding of the role of Jesus. He believed that it was a "great mistake" to assume that the teachings of Christianity are outdated in modern Britain, and Higgins wrote in The Benn Inheritance that Benn was "a socialist whose political commitment owes much more to the teaching of Jesus than the writing of Marx". (Indeed, he did not read The Communist Manifesto until he was in his 50s.) "The driving force of his life was Christian socialism," according to Peter Wilby, linking Benn to the "high-minded" founding roots of Labour.
Later in his life, Benn emphasised issues regarding morality and righteousness, as well as various ethical principles of Nonconformism. On Desert Island Discs he said that he had been powerfully influenced by "what I would call the Dissenting tradition" (that is, the English Dissenters who left or were ejected from the established church, one of whom was his ancestor William Benn). "I've never thought we can understand the world we lived in unless we understood the history of the church", Benn said to the Catholic Herald. "All political freedoms were won, first of all, through religious freedom. Some of the arguments about the control of the media today, which are very big arguments, are the arguments that would have been fought in the religious wars. You have the satellites coming in now—well, it is the multinational church all over again. That's why Mrs Thatcher pulled Britain out of UNESCO: she was not prepared, any more than Ronald Reagan was, to be part of an organisation that talked about a New World Information Order, people speaking to each other without the help of Murdoch or Maxwell."
According to Wilby in the New Statesman, Benn "decided to do without the paraphernalia and doctrine of organised religion but not without the teachings of Jesus". Although Benn became more agnostic as he became older, he was intrigued by the interconnections between Christianity, radicalism and socialism. Wilby also wrote in The Guardian that although former Chancellor Stafford Cripps described Benn as "as keen a Christian as I am myself", Benn wrote in 2005 that he was "a Christian agnostic" who believed "in Jesus the prophet, not Christ the king", specifically rejecting the label of "humanist".
Both of Benn's grandfathers were Liberal Party MPs; his paternal grandfather was John Benn, a successful politician, MP for Tower Hamlets and later Devonport, who was created a baronet in 1914 (and who founded a publishing company, Benn Brothers), and his maternal grandfather was Daniel Holmes, MP for Glasgow Govan. Benn's contact with leading politicians of the day, dates back to his earliest years. He met Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald when he was five years old, whom he described as: "A kindly old gentleman [who] leaned over me and offered me a chocolate biscuit. I've looked at Labour leaders in a funny way ever since." Benn also met former Liberal Prime Minister David Lloyd George when he was 12, and later recalled that, while still a boy, he once shook hands with Mahatma Gandhi, in 1931, while his father was Secretary of State for India.
During the Second World War, Benn joined and trained with the Home Guard from the age of 16, later recalling in a speech made in 2009: "I could use a bayonet, a rifle, a revolver, and if I'd seen a German officer having a meal I'd have tossed a grenade through the window. Would I have been a freedom fighter or a terrorist?" In July 1943, Benn enlisted in the Royal Air Force as an aircraftman 2nd Class. His father and elder brother Michael (who was later killed in an accident) were already serving in the RAF. He was granted an emergency commission as a pilot officer (on probation) on 10 March 1945. As a pilot officer, Benn served as a pilot in South Africa and Rhodesia. In June 1944, he made his first solo flight, at RAF Guinea Fowl, an RAF Elementary Flying Training School, in Rhodesia. The aircraft was a Canadian-built Fairchild Cornell. In a 1993 article recounting the experience, he said, "I always thought that I would feel a sense of panic when I saw the ground coming up at me on my first solo, but strangely enough I didn't feel anything but exhilaration ...". He relinquished his commission with effect from 10 August 1945, three months after the Second World War ended in Europe on 8 May, and just days before the war with Japan ended on 2 September.
After attending Mr Gladstone's day school near Sloane Square, Benn attended Westminster School, and studied at New College, Oxford, where he read Philosophy, Politics and Economics and was elected President of the Oxford Union in 1947. In later life, Benn removed public references to his private education from Who's Who. In 1970 all references to Westminster School were removed, and in the 1975 edition his entry stated "Education—still in progress". In the 1976 edition, almost all details were omitted except his name, jobs as a Member of Parliament and as a Government Minister, and address; the publishers confirmed that Benn had sent back the draft entry with everything else struck through. In the 1977 edition, Benn's entry disappeared entirely, and when he returned to Who's Who in 1983, he was listed as "Tony Benn" and all references to his education or service record were removed.
In 1972, Benn said in his diaries that "Today I had the idea that I would resign my Privy Councillorship, my MA and all my honorary doctorates in order to strip myself of what the world had to offer". While he acknowledged that he "might be ridiculed" for doing so, Benn said that "'Wedgie Benn' and 'the Rt Honourable Anthony Wedgwood Benn' and all that stuff is impossible. I have been Tony Benn in Bristol for a long time." In October 1973, he announced on BBC Radio that he wished to be known as Mr. Tony Benn rather than Anthony Wedgwood Benn, and his book Speeches from 1974 is credited to "Tony Benn". Despite this name change, social historian Alwyn W. Turner writes that "Just as those with an agenda to pursue still call Muhammed Ali by his original name ... so most newspapers continued to refer to Tony Benn as Wedgwood Benn, or Wedgie in the case of the tabloids, for years to come".
Benn met Caroline Middleton DeCamp (born 13 October 1926, Cincinnati, Ohio, United States) over tea at Worcester College, Oxford, in 1949; just nine days after meeting her, he proposed to her on a park bench in the city. Later, he bought the bench from Oxford City Council and installed it in the garden of their home in Holland Park. Tony and Caroline had four children—Stephen, Hilary, Melissa, a feminist writer, and Joshua—and 10 grandchildren. Caroline Benn died of cancer on 22 November 2000, aged 74, after a career as an educationalist.
Two of Benn's children have been active in Labour Party politics. His eldest son Stephen was an elected Member of the Inner London Education Authority from 1986 to 1990. His second son Hilary was a councillor in London, stood for Parliament in 1983 and 1987, and became Labour MP for Leeds Central in 1999. He was Secretary of State for International Development from 2003 to 2007, and then Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs until 2010, later serving as Shadow Foreign Secretary (2015–16). This makes him the third generation of his family to have been a member of the Cabinet, a rare distinction for a modern political family in Britain. Benn's granddaughter Emily Benn was the Labour Party's youngest-ever candidate when she failed to win East Worthing and Shoreham in 2010. Benn was a first cousin once removed of the actress Margaret Rutherford.
Benn and his wife Caroline became vegetarian in 1970, for ethical reasons, and remained so for the rest of their lives. Benn cited the decision of his son Hilary to become vegetarian as an important factor in his own decision to adopt a vegetarian diet.
Early parliamentary career
Member of Parliament, 1950–1960
Following the Second World War, Benn worked briefly as a BBC Radio producer. On 1 November 1950, he was selected to succeed Stafford Cripps as the Labour candidate for Bristol South East, after Cripps stood down because of ill-health. He won the seat in a by-election on 30 November 1950. Anthony Crosland helped him get the seat as he was the MP for nearby South Gloucestershire at the time. Upon taking the oath on 4 December 1950 Benn became "Baby of the House", the youngest MP, for one day, being succeeded by Thomas Teevan, who was two years younger but took his oath a day later. He became the "Baby" again in 1951, when Teevan was not re-elected. In the 1950s, Benn held middle-of-the-road or soft left views, and was not associated with the young left wing group around Aneurin Bevan.
As MP for Bristol South East, Benn helped organise the 1963 Bristol Bus Boycott against the colour bar of the Bristol Omnibus Company against employing Black British and British Asian drivers. Benn said that he would "stay off the buses, even if I have to find a bike", and Labour leader Harold Wilson also told an anti-apartheid rally in London he was "glad that so many Bristolians are supporting the [boycott] campaign", adding that he "wish[ed] them every success".
Peerage reform
Benn's father was created Viscount Stansgate in 1942 when Winston Churchill increased the number of Labour peers to aid political work in the House of Lords; at this time, Benn's elder brother Michael, then serving in the RAF, was intending to enter the priesthood and had no objections to inheriting a peerage. However, Michael was later killed in an accident while on active service in the Second World War, and this left Benn as the heir-apparent to the peerage. He made several unsuccessful attempts to renounce the succession.
In November 1960, Lord Stansgate died. Benn automatically became a peer, preventing him from sitting in the House of Commons. The Speaker of the Commons, Sir Harry Hylton-Foster, did not allow him to deliver a speech from the bar of the House of Commons in April 1961 when the by-election was being called. Continuing to maintain his right to abandon his peerage, Benn fought to retain his seat in a by-election caused by his succession on 4 May 1961. Although he was disqualified from taking his seat, he was re-elected. An election court found that the voters were fully aware that Benn was disqualified, and declared the seat won by the Conservative runner-up, Malcolm St Clair, who was at the time also the heir presumptive to a peerage.
Benn continued his campaign outside Parliament. Within two years, though, the Conservative Government of the time, which had members in the same or similar situation to Benn's (i.e., who were going to receive title, or who had already applied for writs of summons), changed the law. The Peerage Act 1963, allowing lifetime disclaimer of peerages, became law shortly after 6 pm on 31 July 1963. Benn was the first peer to renounce his title, doing so at 6.22 pm that day. St Clair, fulfilling a promise he had made at the time of his election, then accepted the office of Steward of the Manor of Northstead, disqualifying himself from the House (outright resignation not being possible). Benn returned to the Commons after winning a by-election on 20 August 1963.
In government, 1964–1970
In the 1964 Government led by Harold Wilson, Benn was Postmaster General, where he oversaw the opening of the Post Office Tower, then the UK's tallest building, and the creations of the Post Bus service and Girobank. He proposed issuing stamps without the Sovereign's head, but this met with private opposition from the Queen. Instead, the portrait was reduced to a small profile in silhouette, a format that is still used on commemorative stamps.
Benn also led the government's opposition to the "pirate" radio stations broadcasting from international waters, which he was aware would be an unpopular measure. Some of these stations were causing problems, such as interference to emergency radio used by shipping, although he was not responsible for introducing the Marine Broadcasting Offences Bill when it came before Parliament at the end of July 1966 for its first reading.
Earlier in the month, Benn was promoted to Minister of Technology, which included responsibility for the development of Concorde and the formation of International Computers Ltd. (ICL). The period also saw government involvement in industrial rationalisation, and the merger of several car companies to form British Leyland. Following Conservative MP Enoch Powell's 1968 "Rivers of Blood" speech to a Conservative Association meeting, in opposition to Harold Wilson's insistence on not "stirring up the Powell issue", Benn said during the 1970 general election campaign:
The mainstream press attacked Benn for using language deemed as intemperate as Powell's language in his "Rivers of Blood" speech (which was widely regarded as racist), and Benn noted in his diary that "letters began pouring in on the Powell speech: 2:1 against me but some very sympathetic ones saying that my speech was overdue". Harold Wilson later reprimanded Benn for this speech, accusing him of losing Labour seats in the 1970 general election.
During the 1970s Benn publicly defended Marxism, saying:
Labour lost the 1970 election to Edward Heath's Conservatives and upon Heath's application to join the European Economic Community, a surge in left-wing Euroscepticism emerged. Benn "was stridently against membership", and campaigned in favour of a referendum on the UK's membership. The Shadow Cabinet voted to support a referendum on 29 March 1972, and as a result Roy Jenkins resigned as Deputy Leader of the Labour Party.
In government, 1974–1979
In the Labour Government of 1974, Benn was Secretary of State for Industry and as such increased nationalised industry pay, provided better terms and conditions for workers such as the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and was involved in setting up worker cooperatives in firms which were struggling, the best known being at Meriden, outside Coventry, producing Triumph Motorcycles. In 1975, he was appointed Secretary of State for Energy, immediately following his unsuccessful campaign for a "No" vote in the referendum on the UK's continued membership of the European Community (Common Market). Later in his diary, (25 October 1977) Benn wrote that he "loathed" the EEC; he claimed it was "bureaucratic and centralised" and "of course it is really dominated by Germany. All the Common Market countries except the UK have been occupied by Germany, and they have this mixed feeling of hatred and subservience towards the Germans".
Upon the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, Benn described Mao as "one of the greatest—if not the greatest—figures of the twentieth century: a schoolteacher who transformed China, released it from civil war and foreign attack and constructed a new society there" in his diaries, adding that "he certainly towers above any twentieth-century figure I can think of in his philosophical contribution and military genius". On his trip to the Chinese embassy after Mao's death, Benn recorded in an earlier volume of his diaries that he was "a great admirer of Mao", while also admitting that "he made mistakes, because everybody does".
Harold Wilson resigned as Leader of the Labour Party and Prime Minister in March 1976. Benn later attributed the collapse of the Wilson government to cuts enforced on the UK by global capital, in particular the International Monetary Fund. In the resulting leadership contest Benn finished in fourth place out of the six cabinet ministers who stood—he withdrew as 11.8 per cent of colleagues voted for him in the first ballot. Benn withdrew from the second ballot and endorsed Michael Foot; James Callaghan eventually won. Despite not receiving his support in the second and third rounds of the vote, Callaghan kept Benn on as Energy Secretary. In 1976, there was a sterling crisis, and Chancellor of the Exchequer Denis Healey sought a loan from the International Monetary Fund. Underlining a wish to counter international market forces which seemed to penalise a larger welfare state, Benn publicly circulated the divided Cabinet minutes in which a narrow majority of the Labour Cabinet under Ramsay MacDonald supported a cut in unemployment benefits in order to obtain a loan from American bankers. As he highlighted, these minutes resulted in the 1931 split of the Labour Party in which MacDonald and his allies formed a National Government with Conservatives and Liberals. Callaghan allowed Benn to put forward the Alternative Economic Strategy, which consisted of a self-sufficient economy less dependent on low-rate fresh borrowing, but the AES, which according to opponents would have led to a "siege economy", was rejected by the Cabinet. In response, Benn later recalled that: "I retorted that their policy was a siege economy, only they had the bankers inside the castle with all our supporters left outside, whereas my policy would have our supporters in the castle with the bankers outside." Benn blamed the Winter of Discontent on these cuts to socialist policies.
During Benn's time as energy minister from 1975 to 1979 he supported the United Kingdom's use of nuclear power. However, later in his life he became an opponent of nuclear power, attributing his time as running it as a minister to persuading him it was not cheap, safe or peaceful. When asked in an interview in January 2009 on what he had changed his mind on over the course of his life he expanded on this issue by saying:
Move to the left
By the end of the 1970s, Benn's views had shifted to the left-wing of the Labour Party. He attributed this political shift to his experience as a Cabinet Minister in the 1964–1970 Labour Government. Benn ascribed his move to the left to four lessons:
How "the Civil Service can frustrate the policies and decisions of popularly elected governments"
The centralised nature of the Labour Party which allowed the Leader to run "the Party almost as if it were his personal kingdom"
"The power of industrialists and bankers to get their way by use of the crudest form of economic pressure, even blackmail, against a Labour Government"
The power of the media, which "like the power of the medieval Church, ensures that events of the day are always presented from the point of the view of those who enjoy economic privilege"
As regards the power of industrialists and bankers, Benn remarked:
Benn's philosophy consisted of a form of syndicalism, state planning where necessary to ensure national competitiveness, greater democracy in the structures of the Labour Party and observance of Party Conference decisions. Alongside an alleged 12 Labour MPs, he spent 12 years affiliated with the Institute for Workers' Control, beginning in 1971 when he visited the Upper Clyde Shipyards, arguing in 1975 for the "labour movement to intensify its discussion about industrial democracy".
He was vilified by most of the press while his opponents implied and stated that a Benn-led Labour Government would implement a type of Eastern European state socialism, with Edward Heath referring to Benn as "Commissar Benn" and others referring to Benn as a "Bollinger Bolshevik". Despite this, Benn was overwhelmingly popular with Labour activists in the constituencies: a survey of delegates at the Labour Party Conference in 1978 found that by large margins they supported Benn for the leadership, as well as many Bennite policies.
He publicly supported Sinn Féin and the unification of Ireland, although in 2005 he suggested to Sinn Féin leaders that it abandon its long-standing policy of not taking seats at Westminster (abstentionism). Sinn Féin in turn argued that to do so would recognise Britain's claim over Northern Ireland, and the Sinn Féin constitution prevented its elected members from taking their seats in any British-created institution. A supporter of the Scottish Parliament and political devolution, Benn however opposed the Scottish National Party and Scottish independence, saying: "I think nationalism is a mistake. And I am half Scots and feel it would divide me in half with a knife. The thought that my mother would suddenly be a foreigner would upset me very much."
In British politics during this period, the term "Bennism" came into use to describe the conviction politics, economic, social and political ideology of Tony Benn; and an exponent or advocate of Bennism was regarded as a "Bennite".
In opposition, 1979–1997
In a keynote speech to the Labour Party Conference of 1980, shortly before the resignation of party leader James Callaghan and election of Michael Foot as successor, Benn outlined what he envisaged the next Labour Government would do. "Within days", a Labour Government would gain powers to nationalise industries, control capital and implement industrial democracy; "within weeks", all powers from Brussels would be returned to Westminster, and the House of Lords would be abolished by creating one thousand new peers and then abolishing the peerage. Benn received tumultuous applause. On 25 January 1981, Roy Jenkins, David Owen, Shirley Williams and Bill Rodgers (known collectively as the "Gang of Four") launched the Council for Social Democracy, which became the Social Democratic Party in March. The "Gang of Four" left the Labour Party because of what they perceived to be the influence of the Militant tendency and the Bennite "hard left" within the party. Benn was highly critical of the SDP, saying that "Britain has had SDP governments for the past 25 years."
Benn stood against Denis Healey, the party's incumbent deputy leader, triggering the 1981 deputy leadership election, disregarding an appeal from Michael Foot to either stand for the leadership or abstain from inflaming the party's divisions. Benn defended his decision insisting that it was "not about personalities, but about policies". The result was announced on 27 September 1981; Healey retained his position by a margin of barely one per cent. The decision of several soft left MPs, including Neil Kinnock, to abstain triggered the split of the Socialist Campaign Group from the left of the Tribune Group.
After Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands in April 1982, Benn argued that the dispute should be settled by the United Nations and that the British Government should not send a task force to recapture the islands. The task force was sent, and following the Falklands War, they were back in British control by mid-June. In a debate in the Commons just after the Falklands were recaptured, Benn's demand for "a full analysis of the costs in life, equipment and money in this tragic and unnecessary war" was rejected by Margaret Thatcher, who stated that "he would not enjoy the freedom of speech that he put to such excellent use unless people had been prepared to fight for it".
For the 1983 election Benn's Bristol South East constituency was abolished by boundary changes, and he lost to Michael Cocks in the selection of a candidate to stand in the new winnable seat of Bristol South. Rejecting offers from the new seat of Livingston in Scotland, Benn contested Bristol East, losing to the Conservative's Jonathan Sayeed in June 1983. Foot resigned as leader following the defeat which reduced Labour to only 209 MPs, while Healey also decided to step down as deputy leader. However Benn's absence from parliament meant that he was unable to stand in the resulting leadership contest as only MPs were eligible to be candidates. Benn's absence from the contest was reported by The Glasgow Herald to leave Neil Kinnock as "the favourite Left-wing candidate". Ultimately Kinnock won the contest, formally replacing Foot as party leader in October of that year.
In a by-election, Benn was elected as the MP for Chesterfield, the next Labour seat to fall vacant, after Eric Varley had left the Commons to head Coalite. On the day of the by-election, 1 March 1984, The Sun newspaper ran a hostile feature article, "Benn on the Couch", which purported to be the opinions of an American psychiatrist.
Newly elected to a mining seat, Benn was a supporter of the 1984–85 UK miners' strike, which was beginning when he returned to the Commons, and of his long-standing friend, the National Union of Mineworkers leader Arthur Scargill. However, some miners considered Benn's 1977 industry reforms to have caused problems during the strike; firstly, that they led to huge wage differences and distrust between miners of different regions; and secondly that the controversy over balloting miners for these reforms made it unclear as to whether a ballot was needed for a strike or whether it could be deemed as a "regional matter" in the same way that the 1977 reforms had been. Benn also spoke at a Militant tendency rally held in 1984, saying: "The labour movement is not engaged in a personalised battle against individual cabinet ministers, nor do we seek to win public support by arguing that the crisis could be ended by the election of a new and more humane team of ministers who are better qualified to administer capitalism. We are working for a majority labour government, elected on a socialist programme, as decided by conference."
In June 1985, three months after the miners admitted defeat and ended their strike, Benn introduced the Miners' Amnesty (General Pardon) Bill into the Commons, which would have extended an amnesty to all miners imprisoned during the strike. This would have included two men convicted of murder (later reduced to manslaughter) for the killing of David Wilkie, a taxi driver driving a non-striking miner to work in South Wales during the strike.
Benn stood for election as party leader in 1988, against Neil Kinnock, following Labour's third successive defeat in the 1987 general election, losing by a substantial margin, and received only about 11 per cent of the vote. In May 1989 he made an extended appearance on Channel 4's late-night discussion programme After Dark, alongside among others Lord Dacre and Miles Copeland. During the Gulf War, Benn visited Baghdad in order to try to persuade Saddam Hussein to release the hostages who had been captured.
Benn supported various LGBT social movements, which were then known as gay liberation; Benn had voted in favour of decriminalisation in 1967. Talking about Section 28 of the 1988 Local Government Act, a piece of anti-gay legislation preventing the "promotion of homosexuality", Benn said:
Benn later voted for the repeal of Section 28 during the first term of Tony Blair's New Labour Government, and voted in favour of equalising the age of consent.
In 1990 he proposed a "Margaret Thatcher (Global Repeal) Bill", which he said "could go through both Houses in 24 hours. It would be easy to reverse the policies and replace the personalities—the process has begun—but the rotten values that have been propagated from the platform of political power in Britain during the past 10 years will be an infection—a virulent strain of right-wing capitalist thinking which it will take time to overcome." In 1991, with Labour still in opposition and a general election due by June 1992, he proposed the Commonwealth of Britain Bill, abolishing the monarchy in favour of the United Kingdom becoming a "democratic, federal and secular commonwealth", a republic with a written constitution. It was read in Parliament a number of times until his retirement at the 2001 election, but never achieved a second reading. He presented an account of his proposal in Common Sense: A New Constitution for Britain. In 1992, Benn also received a Pipe Smoker of the Year award, claiming in his acceptance speech that "pipe smoking stopped you going to war".
In 1991, Benn reiterated his opposition to the European Commission and highlighted an alleged democratic deficit in the institution, saying: "Some people genuinely believe that we shall never get social justice from the British Government, but we shall get it from Jacques Delors. They believe that a good king is better than a bad Parliament. I have never taken that view." This argument has also been used by many on the right-wing Eurosceptic wing of the Conservative Party, such as Daniel Hannan MEP. Jonathan Freedland writes in The Guardian that "For [Tony Benn], even benign rule by a monarch was worthless because the king's whim could change and there'd be nothing you could do about it."
Prior to retirement, 1997–2001
In 1997, the Labour Party under the leadership of Tony Blair won the general election in a landslide, after 18 years of Conservative Party rule. Despite later calling Labour under Blair "the idea of a Conservative group who had taken over Labour" and saying "[Blair] set up a new political party, New Labour", his political diaries Free at Last show that Benn was initially somewhat sympathetic to Blair, welcoming a change of government. Benn supported the introduction of the national minimum wage, and welcomed the progress towards peace and security in Northern Ireland (particularly under Mo Mowlam). He was supportive of the extra money given to public services in the New Labour years but believed it to be under the guise of privatisation. Overall, his concluding judgement on New Labour is highly critical; he describes its evolution as a way of retaining office by abandoning socialism and distancing the party from the trade union movement, adopting a presidentialist style of politics, overriding the concept of the collective ministerial responsibility by reducing the power of the Cabinet, eliminated any effective influence from the annual conference of the Labour Party and "hinged its foreign policy on support for one of the worst presidents in US history".
Benn strongly objected to the bombing of Iraq in December 1998, calling it immoral and saying: "Aren't Arabs terrified? Aren't Iraqis terrified? Don't Arab and Iraqi women weep when their children die? Does bombing strengthen their determination? ... Every Member of Parliament tonight who votes for the government motion will be consciously and deliberately accepting the responsibility for the deaths of innocent people if the war begins, as I fear it will."
Several months prior to his retirement, Benn was a signatory to a letter, alongside Niki Adams (Legal Action for Women), Ian Macdonald QC, Gareth Peirce, and other legal professionals, that was published in The Guardian newspaper on 22 February 2001 condemning raids of more than 50 brothels in the central London area of Soho. At the time, a police spokesman said: "As far as we know, this is the biggest simultaneous crackdown on brothels and prostitution in this country in recent times", the arrest of 28 people in an operation that involved around 110 police officers. The letter read:
In the name of "protecting" women from trafficking, about 40 women, including a woman from Iraq, were arrested, detained and in some cases summarily removed from Britain. If any of these women have been trafficked ... they deserve protection and resources, not punishment by expulsion. ... Having forced women into destitution, the government first criminalised those who begged. Now it is trying to use prostitution as a way to make deportation of the vulnerable more acceptable. We will not allow such injustice to go unchallenged.
Retirement and final years, 2001–2014
Benn chose not to seek re-election at the 2001 general election, saying he was "leaving parliament in order to spend more time on politics." Along with former Prime Minister Edward Heath, Benn was permitted by the Speaker to continue using the House of Commons Library and Members' refreshment facilities. Shortly after his retirement, he became the President of the Stop the War Coalition. He became a leading figure of the British opposition to the War in Afghanistan from 2001 and the Iraq War, and in February 2003 he travelled to Baghdad to meet Saddam Hussein. The interview was broadcast on British television.
He spoke against the war at the February 2003 protest in London organised by the Stop the War Coalition, with police saying it was the biggest ever demonstration in the UK with about 750,000 marchers, and the organisers estimating nearly a million people participating. In February 2004 and 2008, he was re-elected President of the Stop the War Coalition.
He toured with a one-man stage show and appeared a few times each year in a two-man show with folk singer Roy Bailey. In 2003, his show with Bailey was voted 'Best Live Act' at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. In 2002, he opened the "Left Field" stage at the Glastonbury Festival. He continued to speak at each subsequent festival; attending one of his speeches was described as a "Glastonbury rite of passage". In October 2003, he was a guest of British Airways on the last scheduled Concorde flight from New York to London. In June 2005, he was a panellist on a special edition of BBC One's Question Time edited entirely by a school-age film crew selected by a BBC competition.
On 21 June 2005, Benn presented a programme on democracy as part of the Channel 5 series Big Ideas That Changed The World. He presented a left-wing view of democracy as the means to pass power from the "wallet to the ballot". He argued that traditional social democratic values were under threat in an increasingly globalised world in which powerful institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the European Commission are unelected and unaccountable to those whose lives they affect daily.
On 27 September 2005, Benn became ill while attending the annual Labour Party Conference in Brighton and was taken by ambulance to the Royal Sussex County Hospital after being treated by paramedics on-the-scene at the Brighton Centre. Benn reportedly fell and struck his head. He was kept in hospital for observation and was described as being in a "comfortable condition". He was subsequently fitted with an artificial pacemaker to help regulate his heartbeat.
In a list compiled by the magazine New Statesman in 2006, he was voted twelfth in the list of "Heroes of our Time". In September 2006, Benn joined the "Time to Go" demonstration in Manchester the day before the final Labour Party Conference with Tony Blair as Leader of the Labour Party, with the aim of persuading the Government to withdraw troops from Iraq, to refrain from attacking Iran and to reject replacing the Trident missile and submarines with a new system. He spoke to the demonstrators in the rally afterwards. In 2007, he appeared in an extended segment in the Michael Moore film Sicko giving comments about democracy, social responsibility and healthcare, notably, "If we can find the money to kill people, we can find the money to help people." A poll by the BBC2 The Daily Politics programme in January 2007 selected Benn as the UK's "Political Hero" with 38% of the vote, narrowly defeating Margaret Thatcher, who had 35%.
For the 2007 Labour Party leadership election, Benn backed the left-wing MP John McDonnell in his unsuccessful bid. In September 2007, Benn called for the government to hold a referendum on the EU Reform Treaty. In October 2007, aged 82, and when it appeared that a general election was about to be held, Benn reportedly announced that he wanted to stand, having written to his local Constituency Labour Party offering himself as a prospective candidate for the newly drawn Kensington seat. His main opponent would have been the incumbent Conservative MP for the predecessor seat of Kensington and Chelsea, Malcolm Rifkind. However, there was no election held in 2007, and so the boundary changes did not take effect until the eventual election in 2010, when Benn was not a candidate and the new seat was won by Rifkind.
In early 2008, Benn appeared on Scottish singer-songwriter Colin MacIntyre's album The Water, reading a poem he had written himself. In September 2008, he appeared on the DVD release for the Doctor Who story The War Machines with a vignette discussing the Post Office Tower; he became the second Labour politician, after Roy Hattersley to appear on a Doctor Who DVD.
At the Stop the War Conference 2009, he described the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as "Imperialist war(s)" and discussed the killing of American and allied troops by Iraqi or foreign insurgents, questioning whether they were in fact freedom fighters, and comparing the insurgents to a British Dad's Army, saying: "If you are invaded you have a right to self-defence, and this idea that people in Iraq and Afghanistan who are resisting the invasion are militant Muslim extremists is a complete bloody lie. I joined Dad's Army when I was sixteen, and if the Germans had arrived, I tell you, I could use a bayonet, a rifle, a revolver, and if I'd seen a German officer having a meal I'd have tossed a grenade through the window. Would I have been a freedom fighter or a terrorist?"
In an interview published in Dartford Living in September 2009, Benn was critical of the Government's decision to delay the findings of the Iraq War Inquiry until after the general election, stating that "people can take into account what the inquiry has reported on but they’ve deliberately pushed it beyond the election. Government is responsible for explaining what it has done and I don't think we were told the truth." He also stated that local government was strangled by Margaret Thatcher and had not been liberated by New Labour.
In 2009, Benn was admitted to hospital and An Evening with Tony Benn, scheduled to take place at London's Cadogan Hall, was cancelled. He performed his show, The Writing on the Wall, with Roy Bailey at St Mary's Church, Ashford, Kent, in September 2011, as part of the arts venue's first Revelation St. Mary's Season. In July 2011 Benn was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Glamorgan, Wales.
Benn headed the "coalition of resistance", a group which was opposed to the UK austerity programme. In interviews in 2010 with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! and 2013 with Afshin Rattansi on RT UK, Benn claimed that the actions of New Labour in the leadup to and aftermath of the Iraq War were such that the former Prime Minister Tony Blair should be tried for war crimes. Benn also claimed in 2010 that Blair had lost the "trust of the nation" regarding the war in Iraq.
In 2012, Benn was awarded an honorary degree from Goldsmiths, University of London. He was also the honorary president of the Goldsmiths Students' Union, who successfully campaigned for him to retract comments dismissing the Julian Assange rape allegations. In February 2013, Benn was among those who gave their support to the People's Assembly in a letter published by The Guardian newspaper. He gave a speech at the People's Assembly Conference held at Westminster Central Hall on 22 June 2013.
In 2013, Benn reiterated his previous opposition to European integration. Speaking to the Oxford Union on the alleged overshadowing of the EU debate by "UKIP and Tory backbenchers", he said:I took the view that having fought [Europeans in the Second World War] that we should now work with them, and co-operate, and that was my first thought about it. Then how I saw how the European Union was developing, it was very obvious that what they had in mind was not democratic. ... And the way that Europe has developed is that the bankers and the multinational corporations have got very powerful positions, and if you come in on their terms, they will tell you what you can and cannot do. And that is unacceptable. My view about the European Union has always been not that I am hostile to foreigners, but that I am in favour of democracy ... I think they're building an empire there, they want us to be a part of their empire and I don't want that.
Illness and death
In 1990, Benn was diagnosed with chronic lymphatic leukaemia and given three or four years to live; at this time, he kept the news of his leukaemia from everyone except his immediate family. Benn said: "When you're in parliament, you can't describe your medical condition. People immediately start wondering what your majority is and when there will be a by-election. They're very brutal." This was revealed in 2002 with the release of his 1990–2001 diaries.
Benn suffered a stroke in 2012, and spent much of the following year in hospital. He was reported to be "seriously ill" in hospital in February 2014. Benn died at home on 14 March 2014, surrounded by his family, less than a month shy of his 89th birthday.
Benn's funeral took place on 27 March 2014 at St Margaret's Church, Westminster. His body had lain in rest at St Mary Undercroft in the Palace of Westminster the night before the funeral service. The service ended with the singing of "The Red Flag". His body was then cremated; the ashes were expected to be buried alongside those of his wife at the family home near Steeple, Essex.
Figures from across the political spectrum praised Benn following his death, and the leaders of all three major political parties (the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats) in the United Kingdom paid tribute.
Conservative leader and Prime Minister David Cameron said:... he was an extraordinary man: a great writer, a brilliant speaker, extraordinary in Parliament, and a great life of public and political and parliamentary service. I mean, I disagreed with most of what he said. But he was always engaging and interesting, and you were never bored when reading or listening to him, and the country a great campaigner, a great writer, and someone who I'm sure whose words will be followed keenly for many, many years to come.
Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg called Benn an "astonishing, iconic figure" and a "veteran parliamentarian, he was a great writer, he had great warmth and he had great conviction ... his political life will be looked back on with affection and admiration".
Leader of the Opposition and Labour leader Ed Miliband, who knew Benn personally as a family friend, said:I think Tony Benn will be remembered as a champion of the powerless, as a conviction politician, as somebody of deep principle and integrity. The thing about Tony Benn is that you always knew what he stood for, and who he stood up for. And I think that's why he was admired right across the political spectrum. There are people who agreed with him and disagreed with him, including in my own party, but I think people admired that sense of conviction and integrity that shone through from Tony Benn.
Diaries and biographies
Benn was a prolific diarist. Nine volumes of his diaries have been published. The final volume was published in 2013. Collections of his speeches and writings were published as Arguments for Socialism (1979), Arguments for Democracy (1981), (both edited by Chris Mullin), Fighting Back (1988) and (with Andrew Hood) Common Sense (1993), as well as Free Radical: New Century Essays (2004). In August 2003, London DJ Charles Bailey created an album of Benn's speeches () set to ambient groove.
He made public several episodes of audio diaries he made during his time in Parliament and after retirement, entitled The Benn Tapes, broadcast originally on BBC Radio 4. Short series have been played periodically on BBC Radio 4 Extra. A major biography was written by Jad Adams and published by Macmillan in 1992; it was updated to cover the intervening 20 years and reissued by Biteback Publishing in 2011: Tony Benn: A Biography (). A more recent "semi-authorised" biography with a foreword by Benn was published in 2001: David Powell, Tony Benn: A Political Life, Continuum Books (). An autobiography, Dare to be a Daniel: Then and Now, Hutchinson (), a reference to the Old Testament prophet in the lions' den , was published in 2004.
There are substantial essays on Benn in the Dictionary of Labour Biography by Phillip Whitehead, Greg Rosen (eds), Politicos Publishing, 2001 () and in Labour Forces: From Ernie Bevin to Gordon Brown, Kevin Jefferys (ed.), I.B. Tauris Publishing, 2002 (). American Michael Moore dedicates his book Mike's Election Guide 2008 () to Benn, with the words: "For Tony Benn, keep teaching us".
On 5 March 2019, it was announced that a large political archive of Benn's speeches, diaries, letters, pamphlets, recordings and ephemera had been accepted in lieu of £210,000 inheritance tax and allocated to the British Library. The audio recordings total to thousands of hours of content.
Plaques
During his final years in Parliament, Benn placed three plaques within the Houses of Parliament. Two are in a room between the Central Lobby and Strangers' Gallery that holds a permanent display about the suffragettes. The first was placed in 1995. The second was placed in 1996 and is dedicated to all who work within the Houses of Parliament.
The third is dedicated to Emily Wilding Davison, who died for the cause of "Votes for women", and was placed in the broom cupboard next to the Undercroft Chapel, where Davison is said to have hidden during the night of the 1911 census in order to establish her address as the House of Commons.
In 2011 Benn unveiled a plaque in Highbury, North London, to commemorate the Peasants' Revolt of 1381.
Legacy
In Bristol, where Benn first served as a member of parliament, a number of tributes exist in his honour. A bust of him was unveiled in Bristol's City Hall in 2005. In 2012 Transport House on Victoria Street, headquarters of Unite the Union's regional office, was officially renamed Tony Benn House and opened by Benn himself. As of 2015 he appears, alongside other famous people associated with the city, on the reverse of the Bristol Pound's £B5 banknote.
Benn told the Socialist Review in 2007 that:I'd like to have on my gravestone: "He encouraged us." I'm proud to have been in the parliament that introduced the health service, the welfare state and voted against means testing. I did my maiden speech on nationalising the steel industry, put down the first motion for the boycott of South African goods, and resigned from the shadow cabinet in 1958 because of their support for nuclear weapons.
I think you do plant a few acorns, and I have lived to see one or two trees growing: gay rights, freedom of information, CND. I'm not claiming them for myself but you feel you have encouraged other people and see the arguments developing.
I'm not ashamed of making mistakes. I've made a million mistakes and they're all in the diary. When we edit the diary—which is cut to around 10 per cent—every mistake has to be printed because people look to see if you do. I would be ashamed if I thought I'd ever said anything I didn't believe to get on, but making mistakes is part of life, isn't it?
Benn was widely seen as a key proponent of democratic socialism. He was described as "one of the few UK politicians to have become more left-wing after holding ministerial office". Harold Wilson, his former boss, maintained that Benn was the only man he knew who "immatures with age".
He has been cited as being a key mentor to future leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn, with his Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell commenting that "they would discuss everything under the sun. Jeremy was very close to Tony right up until the end." Corbyn was elected as leader of the Labour Party a little over a year after Benn's death, an act which Hilary Benn said would have made his father feel "thrilled".
Styles
Anthony Wedgwood Benn, Esq. (1925 – 12 January 1942)
The Hon. Anthony Wedgwood Benn (12 January 1942 – 30 November 1950)
The Hon. Anthony Wedgwood Benn, MP (30 November 1950 – 17 November 1960)
The Rt Hon. The Viscount Stansgate (17 November 1960 – 31 July 1963)
Anthony Wedgwood Benn, Esq. (31 July – 20 August 1963)
Anthony Wedgwood Benn, Esq., MP (20 August 1963 – 1964)
The Rt Hon. Anthony Wedgwood Benn, MP (1964 – October 1973)
The Rt Hon. Tony Benn, MP (October 1973 – 9 June 1983)
The Rt Hon. Tony Benn (9 June 1983 – 1 March 1984)
The Rt Hon. Tony Benn, MP (1 March 1984 – 14 May 2001)
The Rt Hon. Tony Benn (14 May 2001 – 14 March 2014)
Bibliography
Speeches, Spokesman Books (1974);
Levellers and the English Democratic Tradition, Spokesman Books (1976);
Why America Needs Democratic Socialism, Spokesman Books (1978);
Prospects, Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers, Technical, Administrative and Supervisory Section (1979)
Case for Constitutional Civil Service, Institute for Workers' Control (1980);
Case for Party Democracy, Institute for Workers' Control (1980);
Arguments for Socialism, Penguin Books (1980);
& Chris Mullin, Arguments for Democracy, Jonathan Cape (1981);
European Unity: A New Perspective, Spokesman Books (1981)
Parliament and Power: Agenda for a Free Society, Verso Books (1982);
& Andrew Hood, Common Sense: New Constitution for Britain, Hutchinson (1993)
Free Radical: New Century Essays, Continuum International Publishing (2004);
Dare to Be a Daniel: Then and Now, Hutchinson (2004);
Letters to my Grandchildren: Thoughts on the Future, Arrow Books (2010);
Diaries
Out of the Wilderness: Diaries 1963–67, Hutchinson (1987);
Office Without Power: Diaries 1968–72, Hutchinson (1988);
Against the Tide: Diaries 1973–76, Hutchinson (1989);
Conflicts of Interest: Diaries 1977–80, Hutchinson (1990);
The End of an Era: Diaries 1980–90, Hutchinson (1992);
Years of Hope: Diaries 1940–62, Hutchinson (1994);
The Benn Diaries: Single Volume Edition 1940–90, Hutchinson (1995);
Free at Last!: Diaries 1991–2001, Hutchinson (2002);
More Time for Politics: Diaries 2001–2007, Hutchinson (2007);
A Blaze of Autumn Sunshine: The Last Diaries, Hutchinson (2013);
See also
Labour Representation Committee (2004)
Republicanism in the United Kingdom
Socialist Campaign Group
References
External links
By date
Contributions in Parliament by Tony Benn. Hansard, 1925–2005.
Late Developer: Review of Against the Tide: Diaries 1973–1976 by Tony Benn. Author – Paul Foot, 1985.
Andrew Roth. "Tony Benn Chesterfield and Bristol South East MP". The Guardian, 25 March 2001.
The Guardian web guide to Benn.. 6 June 2002.
Face-to-Face with Tony Benn. Freeview video interview by the Vega Science Trust. Recorded in 2005.
Tony Benn. "Atomic hypocrisy: West is not in a position to take a high moral line". The Guardian, 30 November 2005.
Interview with Tony Benn – Radio France Internationale. 28 March 2008 – 6-minute audio – Ahead of G20 marches, London.
Tony Benn on Tony Blair: "He Is Guilty of a War Crime". Video report by Democracy Now!. 21 September 2010.
Obituary: Tony Benn. BBC News, 14 March 2014.
Tony Benn: a stalwart of the peace and anti-nuclear movement. Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, 14 March 2014.
Other
Audio interview with The Guardian.
His Address to the College Historical Society of Trinity College.
Private Eye depictions of Benn: "Most Dangerous Man in Britain", "Labour United", "Benn's Triumph", "Foot & Benn Disease", "Would You Buy a New Car From This Man?".
Tony Benn on Modern Liberty. Tony Benn speaking for The Convention on Modern Liberty. YouTube. 23 February 2009.
Unofficial Tony Benn quotation site.
Tony Benn on The Guardian
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20th-century English male writers
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Alumni of New College, Oxford
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Pipe smokers | false | [
"Sir Robert John Lynn (31 January 1873 – 5 August 1945) was a British Ulster Unionist Party politician. In March 1924 he was knighted.\n\nParliamentary career \nHe was elected as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Belfast Woodvale from 1918 general election to 1922, and when that constituency was abolished for the 1922 general election he was returned for Belfast West, holding the seat until he stood down at the 1929 general election.\n\nAt the 1921 Northern Irish general election Lynn was elected as a member of the Parliament of Northern Ireland for Belfast West, holding that seat until it was abolished for the 1929 Northern Irish general election. He was elected for the new North Antrim constituency, and held that seat until 1945. From 1937 to 1944 he was Deputy Speaker of the Northern Ireland House of Commons.\n\nJournalistic career \nLynn was the editor of the Northern Whig newspaper. He was a leading contributor to educational debates in Northern Ireland though his impartiality is in question, especially following a comment in the Northern Irish House of Commons that Irish language instruction was not worth spending money on. Lynn at first attacked the 1923 education bill for stripping Protestant schools of their denominational character. However, Lord Londonderry—the Education Minister at the time—persuaded him to support the measure making the latter one of the few public proponents of what amounted to nondenominational schooling.\n\nIn 1902, the Education Act had been withheld from Ireland at the insistence of Roman Catholic bishops, the result of which was that education reform in Northern Ireland lagged behind that of the rest of the country by 1920. Lynn was asked by the Northern Irish government to look into reforms in education in 1921 and he set up what became known as the Lynn Committee. However, Roman Catholics refused to serve on or cooperate with the committee. Much guidance was therefore required of Roman Catholic Unionist, A. N. Bonaparte Wyse (who later became Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Education in Northern Ireland).\n\nWhile Roman Catholic representatives boycotted the committee, Lynn recommended government funding for a separate Roman Catholic education system in Northern Ireland. When the Lynn Committee published its report in 1923, its recommendations were adopted and made law by the Education Bill (NI) of 1923.\n\nOn the difficulties of their dealings with the Roman Catholic hierarchy, the Lynn Committee said this in their report:\n\nThe Bill was bitterly assailed by both Catholic and Protestant clerics and was subsequently amended so that its original intent disappeared.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n \n\n1873 births\n1945 deaths\nUlster Unionist Party members of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom\nKnights Bachelor\nMembers of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Belfast constituencies (1801–1922)\nMembers of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Belfast constituencies (since 1922)\nUK MPs 1918–1922\nUK MPs 1922–1923\nUK MPs 1923–1924\nUK MPs 1924–1929\nUlster Unionist Party members of the House of Commons of Northern Ireland\nMembers of the House of Commons of Northern Ireland 1921–1925\nMembers of the House of Commons of Northern Ireland 1925–1929\nMembers of the House of Commons of Northern Ireland 1929–1933\nMembers of the House of Commons of Northern Ireland 1933–1938\nMembers of the House of Commons of Northern Ireland 1938–1945\nMembers of the House of Commons of Northern Ireland 1945–1949\nPresbyterians from Northern Ireland\nMembers of the House of Commons of Northern Ireland for County Antrim constituencies\nMembers of the House of Commons of Northern Ireland for Belfast constituencies",
"Steven Agnew (born 12 October 1979) is a Northern Irish politician who served as the leader of the Green Party in Northern Ireland between 2011 and 2018. He was elected as an MLA to the Northern Ireland Assembly in May 2011.\n\nEarly life\nAgnew was born in Dundonald and studied at Brooklands Primary School, Grosvenor Grammar School and Queen's University Belfast. Sammy Wilson and Michelle McIlveen were teachers at his school. He grew up around a \"very negative political landscape\", where politics was \"about being anti-Catholic, anti the Pope and anti-Sinn Féin.\"\n\nPolitical career\nAgnew joined the Green Party in 2003 during its campaign against the invasion of Iraq. During a protest march from Queen's to the US Consulate, he met John Barry, who convinced him that \"the Green Party had a practical agenda of what needed to be changed\". He came to believe \"environmental justice is interlinked\" with social justice.\n\nAt the 2007 Northern Ireland Assembly election, he stood in Belfast East, where he took 2.2% of the vote and was not elected. Brian Wilson was successful for the party at the election, and Agnew became his full-time research officer. He was the party's candidate for the 2009 European Parliament election in the Northern Ireland constituency, where he increased the party's share to 3.3%, although he still came bottom of the poll. At the 2010 United Kingdom general election, he stood in North Down, taking 3.1% of the votes cast. He increased this to 5.4% in 2015 and 6.5% in 2017.\n\nIn January 2011, Agnew was elected as the first leader of the Green Party, beating Cadogan Enright in a postal ballot. He successfully contested the North Down seat in the 2011 Northern Ireland Assembly election.\n\nAgnew announced he would step down as the Green Party NI leader from Autumn 2018, citing family reasons. He resigned as an MLA in September 2019 to become head of the Northern Ireland Renewables Industry Group representing the renewable electricity industry in Northern Ireland.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nSteven Agnew - Northern Ireland Assembly website\nSteven Agnew - The Green Party in Northern Ireland website\nSteven Agnew - The Green Party in Ireland website (Archive link - 2008)\n\n1979 births\nGreen Party in Northern Ireland MLAs\nLeaders of political parties in Northern Ireland\nLiving people\nNorthern Ireland MLAs 2011–2016\nPeople from Dundonald, County Down\nNorthern Ireland MLAs 2016–2017\nNorthern Ireland MLAs 2017–2022"
] |
[
"Tony Benn",
"Prior to retirement, 1997-2001",
"What did Benn do in 1997?",
"Benn was initially somewhat sympathetic to Blair, welcoming a change of government.",
"What change of government?",
"Blair] set up a new political party, New Labour\",",
"Why did he set up a new party?",
"I don't know.",
"What else did Benn do in 1997?",
"Benn supported the introduction of the national minimum wage, and welcomed the progress towards peace and security in Northern Ireland",
"What was happening in Northern Ireland?",
"I don't know."
] | C_bc32948de7454cfdbfeaa94f0a07401b_0 | Did Benn do anything in 1998? | 6 | Did Benn do anything in 1998? | Tony Benn | In 1997, the Labour Party under Tony Blair won the election. Despite later calling Labour under Tony Blair "the idea of a Conservative group who had taken over Labour" and saying "[Blair] set up a new political party, New Labour", Benn's political diaries Free at Last show that Benn was initially somewhat sympathetic to Blair, welcoming a change of government. Benn supported the introduction of the national minimum wage, and welcomed the progress towards peace and security in Northern Ireland (particularly under Mo Mowlam). He was supportive of the extra public money given to public services in the New Labour years but believed it to be under the guise of privatisation. Overall, his concluding judgement on New Labour is highly critical; he describes its evolution as a way of retaining office by abandoning socialism and distancing the party from the trade union movement, adopting a presidentialist style of politics, overriding the concept of the collective ministerial responsibility by reducing the power of the Cabinet, eliminated any effective influence from the annual conference of the Labour Party and "hinged its foreign policy on support for one of the worst presidents in US history". Benn strongly objected to the "immoral" bombing of Iraq in December 1998, saying: "Aren't Arabs terrified? Aren't Iraqis terrified? Don't Arab and Iraqi women weep when their children die? Does bombing strengthen their determination? ... Every Member of Parliament tonight who votes for the government motion will be consciously and deliberately accepting the responsibility for the deaths of innocent people if the war begins, as I fear it will." Several months prior to his retirement, Benn was a signatory to a letter, alongside Niki Adams (Legal Action for Women), Ian Macdonald QC, Gareth Peirce, and other legal professionals, that was published in The Guardian newspaper on 22 February 2001 "condemning" raids of more than 50 brothels in the central London area of Soho. At the time, a police spokesman said: "As far as we know, this is the biggest simultaneous crackdown on brothels and prostitution in this country in recent times", the arrest of 28 people in an operation that involved around 110 police officers. The letter read: In the name of "protecting" women from trafficking, about 40 women, including a woman from Iraq, were arrested, detained and in some cases summarily removed from Britain. If any of these women have been trafficked ... they deserve protection and resources, not punishment by expulsion. ... Having forced women into destitution, the government first criminalised those who begged. Now it is trying to use prostitution as a way to make deportation of the vulnerable more acceptable. We will not allow such injustice to go unchallenged. CANNOTANSWER | Benn strongly objected to the "immoral" bombing of Iraq in December 1998, | Anthony Neil Wedgwood Benn (3 April 1925 – 14 March 2014; known between 1960 and 1963 as Viscount Stansgate) was a British politician, writer and diarist who served as a Cabinet minister in the 1960s and 1970s. A member of the Labour Party, he was Member of Parliament for Bristol South East and Chesterfield for 47 of the 51 years between 1950 and 2001. He later served as President of the Stop the War Coalition from 2001 to 2014.
The son of a Liberal and later Labour Party politician, Benn was born in Westminster and privately educated at Westminster School. He was elected for Bristol South East at the 1950 general election but inherited his father's peerage on his death, which prevented him from continuing to serve as an MP. He fought to remain in the House of Commons and campaigned for the ability to renounce the title, a campaign which succeeded with the Peerage Act 1963. He was an active member of the Fabian Society and served as chairman from 1964 to 1965. He served in the Labour government of Harold Wilson from 1964 to 1970 first as Postmaster General, where he oversaw the opening of the Post Office Tower, and later as Minister of Technology.
Benn served as Chairman of the National Executive Committee from 1971 to 1972 while in Opposition. In the Labour government of 1974–1979, he returned to the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Industry and subsequently served as Secretary of State for Energy. He retained that post when James Callaghan succeeded Wilson as Prime Minister. When the Labour Party was in opposition through the 1980s, he emerged as a prominent figure on the left wing of the party and unsuccessfully challenged Neil Kinnock for the Labour leadership in 1988. After leaving Parliament at the 2001 general election, Benn was President of the Stop the War Coalition until his death in 2014.
Benn was widely seen as a key proponent of democratic socialism and Christian socialism. Originally considered a moderate within the party, he was identified as belonging to its left wing after leaving ministerial office. The terms Bennism and Bennite came into usage to describe the left-wing politics he espoused from the late 1970s and its adherents. He was an influence on the politics of Jeremy Corbyn, who was elected Leader of the Labour Party a year after Benn's death, and John McDonnell, who served as Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer under Corbyn.
Early life and family
Benn was born in Westminster, London, on 3 April 1925. He had two brothers, Michael (1921–1944), who was killed in the Second World War, and David (1928–2017), a specialist in Russia and Eastern Europe. After the Thames flood in January 1928 their house was uninhabitable so the Benn family moved to Scotland for over 12 months. Their father, William Benn, was a Liberal Member of Parliament from 1906 who crossed the floor to the Labour Party in 1928 and was appointed Secretary of State for India by Ramsay MacDonald in 1929, a position he held until the Labour Party's landslide electoral defeat in 1931. William Benn was elevated to the House of Lords and Tony Benn was subsequently titled with the honorific prefix, The Honourable. William Benn was given the title of Viscount Stansgate in 1942: the new wartime coalition government was short of working Labour peers in the upper house. In 1945–46, William Benn was the Secretary of State for Air in the first majority Labour Government.
Benn's mother, Margaret Benn (née Holmes, 1897–1991), was a theologian, feminist and the founder President of the Congregational Federation. She was a member of the League of the Church Militant, which was the predecessor of the Movement for the Ordination of Women; in 1925, she was rebuked by Randall Davidson, the Archbishop of Canterbury, for advocating the ordination of women. His mother's theology had a profound influence on Benn, as she taught him that the stories in the Bible were based around the struggle between the prophets and the kings and that he ought in his life to support the prophets over the kings, who had power, as the prophets taught righteousness.
Benn was for over 30 years a committed Christian. He said that the teachings of Jesus Christ had a "radical political importance" on his life, and made a distinction between the historical Jesus as "a carpenter of Nazareth" who advocated social justice and egalitarianism and "the way in which he's presented by some religious authorities; by popes, archbishops and bishops who present Jesus as justification for their power", believing this to be a gross misunderstanding of the role of Jesus. He believed that it was a "great mistake" to assume that the teachings of Christianity are outdated in modern Britain, and Higgins wrote in The Benn Inheritance that Benn was "a socialist whose political commitment owes much more to the teaching of Jesus than the writing of Marx". (Indeed, he did not read The Communist Manifesto until he was in his 50s.) "The driving force of his life was Christian socialism," according to Peter Wilby, linking Benn to the "high-minded" founding roots of Labour.
Later in his life, Benn emphasised issues regarding morality and righteousness, as well as various ethical principles of Nonconformism. On Desert Island Discs he said that he had been powerfully influenced by "what I would call the Dissenting tradition" (that is, the English Dissenters who left or were ejected from the established church, one of whom was his ancestor William Benn). "I've never thought we can understand the world we lived in unless we understood the history of the church", Benn said to the Catholic Herald. "All political freedoms were won, first of all, through religious freedom. Some of the arguments about the control of the media today, which are very big arguments, are the arguments that would have been fought in the religious wars. You have the satellites coming in now—well, it is the multinational church all over again. That's why Mrs Thatcher pulled Britain out of UNESCO: she was not prepared, any more than Ronald Reagan was, to be part of an organisation that talked about a New World Information Order, people speaking to each other without the help of Murdoch or Maxwell."
According to Wilby in the New Statesman, Benn "decided to do without the paraphernalia and doctrine of organised religion but not without the teachings of Jesus". Although Benn became more agnostic as he became older, he was intrigued by the interconnections between Christianity, radicalism and socialism. Wilby also wrote in The Guardian that although former Chancellor Stafford Cripps described Benn as "as keen a Christian as I am myself", Benn wrote in 2005 that he was "a Christian agnostic" who believed "in Jesus the prophet, not Christ the king", specifically rejecting the label of "humanist".
Both of Benn's grandfathers were Liberal Party MPs; his paternal grandfather was John Benn, a successful politician, MP for Tower Hamlets and later Devonport, who was created a baronet in 1914 (and who founded a publishing company, Benn Brothers), and his maternal grandfather was Daniel Holmes, MP for Glasgow Govan. Benn's contact with leading politicians of the day, dates back to his earliest years. He met Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald when he was five years old, whom he described as: "A kindly old gentleman [who] leaned over me and offered me a chocolate biscuit. I've looked at Labour leaders in a funny way ever since." Benn also met former Liberal Prime Minister David Lloyd George when he was 12, and later recalled that, while still a boy, he once shook hands with Mahatma Gandhi, in 1931, while his father was Secretary of State for India.
During the Second World War, Benn joined and trained with the Home Guard from the age of 16, later recalling in a speech made in 2009: "I could use a bayonet, a rifle, a revolver, and if I'd seen a German officer having a meal I'd have tossed a grenade through the window. Would I have been a freedom fighter or a terrorist?" In July 1943, Benn enlisted in the Royal Air Force as an aircraftman 2nd Class. His father and elder brother Michael (who was later killed in an accident) were already serving in the RAF. He was granted an emergency commission as a pilot officer (on probation) on 10 March 1945. As a pilot officer, Benn served as a pilot in South Africa and Rhodesia. In June 1944, he made his first solo flight, at RAF Guinea Fowl, an RAF Elementary Flying Training School, in Rhodesia. The aircraft was a Canadian-built Fairchild Cornell. In a 1993 article recounting the experience, he said, "I always thought that I would feel a sense of panic when I saw the ground coming up at me on my first solo, but strangely enough I didn't feel anything but exhilaration ...". He relinquished his commission with effect from 10 August 1945, three months after the Second World War ended in Europe on 8 May, and just days before the war with Japan ended on 2 September.
After attending Mr Gladstone's day school near Sloane Square, Benn attended Westminster School, and studied at New College, Oxford, where he read Philosophy, Politics and Economics and was elected President of the Oxford Union in 1947. In later life, Benn removed public references to his private education from Who's Who. In 1970 all references to Westminster School were removed, and in the 1975 edition his entry stated "Education—still in progress". In the 1976 edition, almost all details were omitted except his name, jobs as a Member of Parliament and as a Government Minister, and address; the publishers confirmed that Benn had sent back the draft entry with everything else struck through. In the 1977 edition, Benn's entry disappeared entirely, and when he returned to Who's Who in 1983, he was listed as "Tony Benn" and all references to his education or service record were removed.
In 1972, Benn said in his diaries that "Today I had the idea that I would resign my Privy Councillorship, my MA and all my honorary doctorates in order to strip myself of what the world had to offer". While he acknowledged that he "might be ridiculed" for doing so, Benn said that "'Wedgie Benn' and 'the Rt Honourable Anthony Wedgwood Benn' and all that stuff is impossible. I have been Tony Benn in Bristol for a long time." In October 1973, he announced on BBC Radio that he wished to be known as Mr. Tony Benn rather than Anthony Wedgwood Benn, and his book Speeches from 1974 is credited to "Tony Benn". Despite this name change, social historian Alwyn W. Turner writes that "Just as those with an agenda to pursue still call Muhammed Ali by his original name ... so most newspapers continued to refer to Tony Benn as Wedgwood Benn, or Wedgie in the case of the tabloids, for years to come".
Benn met Caroline Middleton DeCamp (born 13 October 1926, Cincinnati, Ohio, United States) over tea at Worcester College, Oxford, in 1949; just nine days after meeting her, he proposed to her on a park bench in the city. Later, he bought the bench from Oxford City Council and installed it in the garden of their home in Holland Park. Tony and Caroline had four children—Stephen, Hilary, Melissa, a feminist writer, and Joshua—and 10 grandchildren. Caroline Benn died of cancer on 22 November 2000, aged 74, after a career as an educationalist.
Two of Benn's children have been active in Labour Party politics. His eldest son Stephen was an elected Member of the Inner London Education Authority from 1986 to 1990. His second son Hilary was a councillor in London, stood for Parliament in 1983 and 1987, and became Labour MP for Leeds Central in 1999. He was Secretary of State for International Development from 2003 to 2007, and then Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs until 2010, later serving as Shadow Foreign Secretary (2015–16). This makes him the third generation of his family to have been a member of the Cabinet, a rare distinction for a modern political family in Britain. Benn's granddaughter Emily Benn was the Labour Party's youngest-ever candidate when she failed to win East Worthing and Shoreham in 2010. Benn was a first cousin once removed of the actress Margaret Rutherford.
Benn and his wife Caroline became vegetarian in 1970, for ethical reasons, and remained so for the rest of their lives. Benn cited the decision of his son Hilary to become vegetarian as an important factor in his own decision to adopt a vegetarian diet.
Early parliamentary career
Member of Parliament, 1950–1960
Following the Second World War, Benn worked briefly as a BBC Radio producer. On 1 November 1950, he was selected to succeed Stafford Cripps as the Labour candidate for Bristol South East, after Cripps stood down because of ill-health. He won the seat in a by-election on 30 November 1950. Anthony Crosland helped him get the seat as he was the MP for nearby South Gloucestershire at the time. Upon taking the oath on 4 December 1950 Benn became "Baby of the House", the youngest MP, for one day, being succeeded by Thomas Teevan, who was two years younger but took his oath a day later. He became the "Baby" again in 1951, when Teevan was not re-elected. In the 1950s, Benn held middle-of-the-road or soft left views, and was not associated with the young left wing group around Aneurin Bevan.
As MP for Bristol South East, Benn helped organise the 1963 Bristol Bus Boycott against the colour bar of the Bristol Omnibus Company against employing Black British and British Asian drivers. Benn said that he would "stay off the buses, even if I have to find a bike", and Labour leader Harold Wilson also told an anti-apartheid rally in London he was "glad that so many Bristolians are supporting the [boycott] campaign", adding that he "wish[ed] them every success".
Peerage reform
Benn's father was created Viscount Stansgate in 1942 when Winston Churchill increased the number of Labour peers to aid political work in the House of Lords; at this time, Benn's elder brother Michael, then serving in the RAF, was intending to enter the priesthood and had no objections to inheriting a peerage. However, Michael was later killed in an accident while on active service in the Second World War, and this left Benn as the heir-apparent to the peerage. He made several unsuccessful attempts to renounce the succession.
In November 1960, Lord Stansgate died. Benn automatically became a peer, preventing him from sitting in the House of Commons. The Speaker of the Commons, Sir Harry Hylton-Foster, did not allow him to deliver a speech from the bar of the House of Commons in April 1961 when the by-election was being called. Continuing to maintain his right to abandon his peerage, Benn fought to retain his seat in a by-election caused by his succession on 4 May 1961. Although he was disqualified from taking his seat, he was re-elected. An election court found that the voters were fully aware that Benn was disqualified, and declared the seat won by the Conservative runner-up, Malcolm St Clair, who was at the time also the heir presumptive to a peerage.
Benn continued his campaign outside Parliament. Within two years, though, the Conservative Government of the time, which had members in the same or similar situation to Benn's (i.e., who were going to receive title, or who had already applied for writs of summons), changed the law. The Peerage Act 1963, allowing lifetime disclaimer of peerages, became law shortly after 6 pm on 31 July 1963. Benn was the first peer to renounce his title, doing so at 6.22 pm that day. St Clair, fulfilling a promise he had made at the time of his election, then accepted the office of Steward of the Manor of Northstead, disqualifying himself from the House (outright resignation not being possible). Benn returned to the Commons after winning a by-election on 20 August 1963.
In government, 1964–1970
In the 1964 Government led by Harold Wilson, Benn was Postmaster General, where he oversaw the opening of the Post Office Tower, then the UK's tallest building, and the creations of the Post Bus service and Girobank. He proposed issuing stamps without the Sovereign's head, but this met with private opposition from the Queen. Instead, the portrait was reduced to a small profile in silhouette, a format that is still used on commemorative stamps.
Benn also led the government's opposition to the "pirate" radio stations broadcasting from international waters, which he was aware would be an unpopular measure. Some of these stations were causing problems, such as interference to emergency radio used by shipping, although he was not responsible for introducing the Marine Broadcasting Offences Bill when it came before Parliament at the end of July 1966 for its first reading.
Earlier in the month, Benn was promoted to Minister of Technology, which included responsibility for the development of Concorde and the formation of International Computers Ltd. (ICL). The period also saw government involvement in industrial rationalisation, and the merger of several car companies to form British Leyland. Following Conservative MP Enoch Powell's 1968 "Rivers of Blood" speech to a Conservative Association meeting, in opposition to Harold Wilson's insistence on not "stirring up the Powell issue", Benn said during the 1970 general election campaign:
The mainstream press attacked Benn for using language deemed as intemperate as Powell's language in his "Rivers of Blood" speech (which was widely regarded as racist), and Benn noted in his diary that "letters began pouring in on the Powell speech: 2:1 against me but some very sympathetic ones saying that my speech was overdue". Harold Wilson later reprimanded Benn for this speech, accusing him of losing Labour seats in the 1970 general election.
During the 1970s Benn publicly defended Marxism, saying:
Labour lost the 1970 election to Edward Heath's Conservatives and upon Heath's application to join the European Economic Community, a surge in left-wing Euroscepticism emerged. Benn "was stridently against membership", and campaigned in favour of a referendum on the UK's membership. The Shadow Cabinet voted to support a referendum on 29 March 1972, and as a result Roy Jenkins resigned as Deputy Leader of the Labour Party.
In government, 1974–1979
In the Labour Government of 1974, Benn was Secretary of State for Industry and as such increased nationalised industry pay, provided better terms and conditions for workers such as the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and was involved in setting up worker cooperatives in firms which were struggling, the best known being at Meriden, outside Coventry, producing Triumph Motorcycles. In 1975, he was appointed Secretary of State for Energy, immediately following his unsuccessful campaign for a "No" vote in the referendum on the UK's continued membership of the European Community (Common Market). Later in his diary, (25 October 1977) Benn wrote that he "loathed" the EEC; he claimed it was "bureaucratic and centralised" and "of course it is really dominated by Germany. All the Common Market countries except the UK have been occupied by Germany, and they have this mixed feeling of hatred and subservience towards the Germans".
Upon the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, Benn described Mao as "one of the greatest—if not the greatest—figures of the twentieth century: a schoolteacher who transformed China, released it from civil war and foreign attack and constructed a new society there" in his diaries, adding that "he certainly towers above any twentieth-century figure I can think of in his philosophical contribution and military genius". On his trip to the Chinese embassy after Mao's death, Benn recorded in an earlier volume of his diaries that he was "a great admirer of Mao", while also admitting that "he made mistakes, because everybody does".
Harold Wilson resigned as Leader of the Labour Party and Prime Minister in March 1976. Benn later attributed the collapse of the Wilson government to cuts enforced on the UK by global capital, in particular the International Monetary Fund. In the resulting leadership contest Benn finished in fourth place out of the six cabinet ministers who stood—he withdrew as 11.8 per cent of colleagues voted for him in the first ballot. Benn withdrew from the second ballot and endorsed Michael Foot; James Callaghan eventually won. Despite not receiving his support in the second and third rounds of the vote, Callaghan kept Benn on as Energy Secretary. In 1976, there was a sterling crisis, and Chancellor of the Exchequer Denis Healey sought a loan from the International Monetary Fund. Underlining a wish to counter international market forces which seemed to penalise a larger welfare state, Benn publicly circulated the divided Cabinet minutes in which a narrow majority of the Labour Cabinet under Ramsay MacDonald supported a cut in unemployment benefits in order to obtain a loan from American bankers. As he highlighted, these minutes resulted in the 1931 split of the Labour Party in which MacDonald and his allies formed a National Government with Conservatives and Liberals. Callaghan allowed Benn to put forward the Alternative Economic Strategy, which consisted of a self-sufficient economy less dependent on low-rate fresh borrowing, but the AES, which according to opponents would have led to a "siege economy", was rejected by the Cabinet. In response, Benn later recalled that: "I retorted that their policy was a siege economy, only they had the bankers inside the castle with all our supporters left outside, whereas my policy would have our supporters in the castle with the bankers outside." Benn blamed the Winter of Discontent on these cuts to socialist policies.
During Benn's time as energy minister from 1975 to 1979 he supported the United Kingdom's use of nuclear power. However, later in his life he became an opponent of nuclear power, attributing his time as running it as a minister to persuading him it was not cheap, safe or peaceful. When asked in an interview in January 2009 on what he had changed his mind on over the course of his life he expanded on this issue by saying:
Move to the left
By the end of the 1970s, Benn's views had shifted to the left-wing of the Labour Party. He attributed this political shift to his experience as a Cabinet Minister in the 1964–1970 Labour Government. Benn ascribed his move to the left to four lessons:
How "the Civil Service can frustrate the policies and decisions of popularly elected governments"
The centralised nature of the Labour Party which allowed the Leader to run "the Party almost as if it were his personal kingdom"
"The power of industrialists and bankers to get their way by use of the crudest form of economic pressure, even blackmail, against a Labour Government"
The power of the media, which "like the power of the medieval Church, ensures that events of the day are always presented from the point of the view of those who enjoy economic privilege"
As regards the power of industrialists and bankers, Benn remarked:
Benn's philosophy consisted of a form of syndicalism, state planning where necessary to ensure national competitiveness, greater democracy in the structures of the Labour Party and observance of Party Conference decisions. Alongside an alleged 12 Labour MPs, he spent 12 years affiliated with the Institute for Workers' Control, beginning in 1971 when he visited the Upper Clyde Shipyards, arguing in 1975 for the "labour movement to intensify its discussion about industrial democracy".
He was vilified by most of the press while his opponents implied and stated that a Benn-led Labour Government would implement a type of Eastern European state socialism, with Edward Heath referring to Benn as "Commissar Benn" and others referring to Benn as a "Bollinger Bolshevik". Despite this, Benn was overwhelmingly popular with Labour activists in the constituencies: a survey of delegates at the Labour Party Conference in 1978 found that by large margins they supported Benn for the leadership, as well as many Bennite policies.
He publicly supported Sinn Féin and the unification of Ireland, although in 2005 he suggested to Sinn Féin leaders that it abandon its long-standing policy of not taking seats at Westminster (abstentionism). Sinn Féin in turn argued that to do so would recognise Britain's claim over Northern Ireland, and the Sinn Féin constitution prevented its elected members from taking their seats in any British-created institution. A supporter of the Scottish Parliament and political devolution, Benn however opposed the Scottish National Party and Scottish independence, saying: "I think nationalism is a mistake. And I am half Scots and feel it would divide me in half with a knife. The thought that my mother would suddenly be a foreigner would upset me very much."
In British politics during this period, the term "Bennism" came into use to describe the conviction politics, economic, social and political ideology of Tony Benn; and an exponent or advocate of Bennism was regarded as a "Bennite".
In opposition, 1979–1997
In a keynote speech to the Labour Party Conference of 1980, shortly before the resignation of party leader James Callaghan and election of Michael Foot as successor, Benn outlined what he envisaged the next Labour Government would do. "Within days", a Labour Government would gain powers to nationalise industries, control capital and implement industrial democracy; "within weeks", all powers from Brussels would be returned to Westminster, and the House of Lords would be abolished by creating one thousand new peers and then abolishing the peerage. Benn received tumultuous applause. On 25 January 1981, Roy Jenkins, David Owen, Shirley Williams and Bill Rodgers (known collectively as the "Gang of Four") launched the Council for Social Democracy, which became the Social Democratic Party in March. The "Gang of Four" left the Labour Party because of what they perceived to be the influence of the Militant tendency and the Bennite "hard left" within the party. Benn was highly critical of the SDP, saying that "Britain has had SDP governments for the past 25 years."
Benn stood against Denis Healey, the party's incumbent deputy leader, triggering the 1981 deputy leadership election, disregarding an appeal from Michael Foot to either stand for the leadership or abstain from inflaming the party's divisions. Benn defended his decision insisting that it was "not about personalities, but about policies". The result was announced on 27 September 1981; Healey retained his position by a margin of barely one per cent. The decision of several soft left MPs, including Neil Kinnock, to abstain triggered the split of the Socialist Campaign Group from the left of the Tribune Group.
After Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands in April 1982, Benn argued that the dispute should be settled by the United Nations and that the British Government should not send a task force to recapture the islands. The task force was sent, and following the Falklands War, they were back in British control by mid-June. In a debate in the Commons just after the Falklands were recaptured, Benn's demand for "a full analysis of the costs in life, equipment and money in this tragic and unnecessary war" was rejected by Margaret Thatcher, who stated that "he would not enjoy the freedom of speech that he put to such excellent use unless people had been prepared to fight for it".
For the 1983 election Benn's Bristol South East constituency was abolished by boundary changes, and he lost to Michael Cocks in the selection of a candidate to stand in the new winnable seat of Bristol South. Rejecting offers from the new seat of Livingston in Scotland, Benn contested Bristol East, losing to the Conservative's Jonathan Sayeed in June 1983. Foot resigned as leader following the defeat which reduced Labour to only 209 MPs, while Healey also decided to step down as deputy leader. However Benn's absence from parliament meant that he was unable to stand in the resulting leadership contest as only MPs were eligible to be candidates. Benn's absence from the contest was reported by The Glasgow Herald to leave Neil Kinnock as "the favourite Left-wing candidate". Ultimately Kinnock won the contest, formally replacing Foot as party leader in October of that year.
In a by-election, Benn was elected as the MP for Chesterfield, the next Labour seat to fall vacant, after Eric Varley had left the Commons to head Coalite. On the day of the by-election, 1 March 1984, The Sun newspaper ran a hostile feature article, "Benn on the Couch", which purported to be the opinions of an American psychiatrist.
Newly elected to a mining seat, Benn was a supporter of the 1984–85 UK miners' strike, which was beginning when he returned to the Commons, and of his long-standing friend, the National Union of Mineworkers leader Arthur Scargill. However, some miners considered Benn's 1977 industry reforms to have caused problems during the strike; firstly, that they led to huge wage differences and distrust between miners of different regions; and secondly that the controversy over balloting miners for these reforms made it unclear as to whether a ballot was needed for a strike or whether it could be deemed as a "regional matter" in the same way that the 1977 reforms had been. Benn also spoke at a Militant tendency rally held in 1984, saying: "The labour movement is not engaged in a personalised battle against individual cabinet ministers, nor do we seek to win public support by arguing that the crisis could be ended by the election of a new and more humane team of ministers who are better qualified to administer capitalism. We are working for a majority labour government, elected on a socialist programme, as decided by conference."
In June 1985, three months after the miners admitted defeat and ended their strike, Benn introduced the Miners' Amnesty (General Pardon) Bill into the Commons, which would have extended an amnesty to all miners imprisoned during the strike. This would have included two men convicted of murder (later reduced to manslaughter) for the killing of David Wilkie, a taxi driver driving a non-striking miner to work in South Wales during the strike.
Benn stood for election as party leader in 1988, against Neil Kinnock, following Labour's third successive defeat in the 1987 general election, losing by a substantial margin, and received only about 11 per cent of the vote. In May 1989 he made an extended appearance on Channel 4's late-night discussion programme After Dark, alongside among others Lord Dacre and Miles Copeland. During the Gulf War, Benn visited Baghdad in order to try to persuade Saddam Hussein to release the hostages who had been captured.
Benn supported various LGBT social movements, which were then known as gay liberation; Benn had voted in favour of decriminalisation in 1967. Talking about Section 28 of the 1988 Local Government Act, a piece of anti-gay legislation preventing the "promotion of homosexuality", Benn said:
Benn later voted for the repeal of Section 28 during the first term of Tony Blair's New Labour Government, and voted in favour of equalising the age of consent.
In 1990 he proposed a "Margaret Thatcher (Global Repeal) Bill", which he said "could go through both Houses in 24 hours. It would be easy to reverse the policies and replace the personalities—the process has begun—but the rotten values that have been propagated from the platform of political power in Britain during the past 10 years will be an infection—a virulent strain of right-wing capitalist thinking which it will take time to overcome." In 1991, with Labour still in opposition and a general election due by June 1992, he proposed the Commonwealth of Britain Bill, abolishing the monarchy in favour of the United Kingdom becoming a "democratic, federal and secular commonwealth", a republic with a written constitution. It was read in Parliament a number of times until his retirement at the 2001 election, but never achieved a second reading. He presented an account of his proposal in Common Sense: A New Constitution for Britain. In 1992, Benn also received a Pipe Smoker of the Year award, claiming in his acceptance speech that "pipe smoking stopped you going to war".
In 1991, Benn reiterated his opposition to the European Commission and highlighted an alleged democratic deficit in the institution, saying: "Some people genuinely believe that we shall never get social justice from the British Government, but we shall get it from Jacques Delors. They believe that a good king is better than a bad Parliament. I have never taken that view." This argument has also been used by many on the right-wing Eurosceptic wing of the Conservative Party, such as Daniel Hannan MEP. Jonathan Freedland writes in The Guardian that "For [Tony Benn], even benign rule by a monarch was worthless because the king's whim could change and there'd be nothing you could do about it."
Prior to retirement, 1997–2001
In 1997, the Labour Party under the leadership of Tony Blair won the general election in a landslide, after 18 years of Conservative Party rule. Despite later calling Labour under Blair "the idea of a Conservative group who had taken over Labour" and saying "[Blair] set up a new political party, New Labour", his political diaries Free at Last show that Benn was initially somewhat sympathetic to Blair, welcoming a change of government. Benn supported the introduction of the national minimum wage, and welcomed the progress towards peace and security in Northern Ireland (particularly under Mo Mowlam). He was supportive of the extra money given to public services in the New Labour years but believed it to be under the guise of privatisation. Overall, his concluding judgement on New Labour is highly critical; he describes its evolution as a way of retaining office by abandoning socialism and distancing the party from the trade union movement, adopting a presidentialist style of politics, overriding the concept of the collective ministerial responsibility by reducing the power of the Cabinet, eliminated any effective influence from the annual conference of the Labour Party and "hinged its foreign policy on support for one of the worst presidents in US history".
Benn strongly objected to the bombing of Iraq in December 1998, calling it immoral and saying: "Aren't Arabs terrified? Aren't Iraqis terrified? Don't Arab and Iraqi women weep when their children die? Does bombing strengthen their determination? ... Every Member of Parliament tonight who votes for the government motion will be consciously and deliberately accepting the responsibility for the deaths of innocent people if the war begins, as I fear it will."
Several months prior to his retirement, Benn was a signatory to a letter, alongside Niki Adams (Legal Action for Women), Ian Macdonald QC, Gareth Peirce, and other legal professionals, that was published in The Guardian newspaper on 22 February 2001 condemning raids of more than 50 brothels in the central London area of Soho. At the time, a police spokesman said: "As far as we know, this is the biggest simultaneous crackdown on brothels and prostitution in this country in recent times", the arrest of 28 people in an operation that involved around 110 police officers. The letter read:
In the name of "protecting" women from trafficking, about 40 women, including a woman from Iraq, were arrested, detained and in some cases summarily removed from Britain. If any of these women have been trafficked ... they deserve protection and resources, not punishment by expulsion. ... Having forced women into destitution, the government first criminalised those who begged. Now it is trying to use prostitution as a way to make deportation of the vulnerable more acceptable. We will not allow such injustice to go unchallenged.
Retirement and final years, 2001–2014
Benn chose not to seek re-election at the 2001 general election, saying he was "leaving parliament in order to spend more time on politics." Along with former Prime Minister Edward Heath, Benn was permitted by the Speaker to continue using the House of Commons Library and Members' refreshment facilities. Shortly after his retirement, he became the President of the Stop the War Coalition. He became a leading figure of the British opposition to the War in Afghanistan from 2001 and the Iraq War, and in February 2003 he travelled to Baghdad to meet Saddam Hussein. The interview was broadcast on British television.
He spoke against the war at the February 2003 protest in London organised by the Stop the War Coalition, with police saying it was the biggest ever demonstration in the UK with about 750,000 marchers, and the organisers estimating nearly a million people participating. In February 2004 and 2008, he was re-elected President of the Stop the War Coalition.
He toured with a one-man stage show and appeared a few times each year in a two-man show with folk singer Roy Bailey. In 2003, his show with Bailey was voted 'Best Live Act' at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. In 2002, he opened the "Left Field" stage at the Glastonbury Festival. He continued to speak at each subsequent festival; attending one of his speeches was described as a "Glastonbury rite of passage". In October 2003, he was a guest of British Airways on the last scheduled Concorde flight from New York to London. In June 2005, he was a panellist on a special edition of BBC One's Question Time edited entirely by a school-age film crew selected by a BBC competition.
On 21 June 2005, Benn presented a programme on democracy as part of the Channel 5 series Big Ideas That Changed The World. He presented a left-wing view of democracy as the means to pass power from the "wallet to the ballot". He argued that traditional social democratic values were under threat in an increasingly globalised world in which powerful institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the European Commission are unelected and unaccountable to those whose lives they affect daily.
On 27 September 2005, Benn became ill while attending the annual Labour Party Conference in Brighton and was taken by ambulance to the Royal Sussex County Hospital after being treated by paramedics on-the-scene at the Brighton Centre. Benn reportedly fell and struck his head. He was kept in hospital for observation and was described as being in a "comfortable condition". He was subsequently fitted with an artificial pacemaker to help regulate his heartbeat.
In a list compiled by the magazine New Statesman in 2006, he was voted twelfth in the list of "Heroes of our Time". In September 2006, Benn joined the "Time to Go" demonstration in Manchester the day before the final Labour Party Conference with Tony Blair as Leader of the Labour Party, with the aim of persuading the Government to withdraw troops from Iraq, to refrain from attacking Iran and to reject replacing the Trident missile and submarines with a new system. He spoke to the demonstrators in the rally afterwards. In 2007, he appeared in an extended segment in the Michael Moore film Sicko giving comments about democracy, social responsibility and healthcare, notably, "If we can find the money to kill people, we can find the money to help people." A poll by the BBC2 The Daily Politics programme in January 2007 selected Benn as the UK's "Political Hero" with 38% of the vote, narrowly defeating Margaret Thatcher, who had 35%.
For the 2007 Labour Party leadership election, Benn backed the left-wing MP John McDonnell in his unsuccessful bid. In September 2007, Benn called for the government to hold a referendum on the EU Reform Treaty. In October 2007, aged 82, and when it appeared that a general election was about to be held, Benn reportedly announced that he wanted to stand, having written to his local Constituency Labour Party offering himself as a prospective candidate for the newly drawn Kensington seat. His main opponent would have been the incumbent Conservative MP for the predecessor seat of Kensington and Chelsea, Malcolm Rifkind. However, there was no election held in 2007, and so the boundary changes did not take effect until the eventual election in 2010, when Benn was not a candidate and the new seat was won by Rifkind.
In early 2008, Benn appeared on Scottish singer-songwriter Colin MacIntyre's album The Water, reading a poem he had written himself. In September 2008, he appeared on the DVD release for the Doctor Who story The War Machines with a vignette discussing the Post Office Tower; he became the second Labour politician, after Roy Hattersley to appear on a Doctor Who DVD.
At the Stop the War Conference 2009, he described the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as "Imperialist war(s)" and discussed the killing of American and allied troops by Iraqi or foreign insurgents, questioning whether they were in fact freedom fighters, and comparing the insurgents to a British Dad's Army, saying: "If you are invaded you have a right to self-defence, and this idea that people in Iraq and Afghanistan who are resisting the invasion are militant Muslim extremists is a complete bloody lie. I joined Dad's Army when I was sixteen, and if the Germans had arrived, I tell you, I could use a bayonet, a rifle, a revolver, and if I'd seen a German officer having a meal I'd have tossed a grenade through the window. Would I have been a freedom fighter or a terrorist?"
In an interview published in Dartford Living in September 2009, Benn was critical of the Government's decision to delay the findings of the Iraq War Inquiry until after the general election, stating that "people can take into account what the inquiry has reported on but they’ve deliberately pushed it beyond the election. Government is responsible for explaining what it has done and I don't think we were told the truth." He also stated that local government was strangled by Margaret Thatcher and had not been liberated by New Labour.
In 2009, Benn was admitted to hospital and An Evening with Tony Benn, scheduled to take place at London's Cadogan Hall, was cancelled. He performed his show, The Writing on the Wall, with Roy Bailey at St Mary's Church, Ashford, Kent, in September 2011, as part of the arts venue's first Revelation St. Mary's Season. In July 2011 Benn was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Glamorgan, Wales.
Benn headed the "coalition of resistance", a group which was opposed to the UK austerity programme. In interviews in 2010 with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! and 2013 with Afshin Rattansi on RT UK, Benn claimed that the actions of New Labour in the leadup to and aftermath of the Iraq War were such that the former Prime Minister Tony Blair should be tried for war crimes. Benn also claimed in 2010 that Blair had lost the "trust of the nation" regarding the war in Iraq.
In 2012, Benn was awarded an honorary degree from Goldsmiths, University of London. He was also the honorary president of the Goldsmiths Students' Union, who successfully campaigned for him to retract comments dismissing the Julian Assange rape allegations. In February 2013, Benn was among those who gave their support to the People's Assembly in a letter published by The Guardian newspaper. He gave a speech at the People's Assembly Conference held at Westminster Central Hall on 22 June 2013.
In 2013, Benn reiterated his previous opposition to European integration. Speaking to the Oxford Union on the alleged overshadowing of the EU debate by "UKIP and Tory backbenchers", he said:I took the view that having fought [Europeans in the Second World War] that we should now work with them, and co-operate, and that was my first thought about it. Then how I saw how the European Union was developing, it was very obvious that what they had in mind was not democratic. ... And the way that Europe has developed is that the bankers and the multinational corporations have got very powerful positions, and if you come in on their terms, they will tell you what you can and cannot do. And that is unacceptable. My view about the European Union has always been not that I am hostile to foreigners, but that I am in favour of democracy ... I think they're building an empire there, they want us to be a part of their empire and I don't want that.
Illness and death
In 1990, Benn was diagnosed with chronic lymphatic leukaemia and given three or four years to live; at this time, he kept the news of his leukaemia from everyone except his immediate family. Benn said: "When you're in parliament, you can't describe your medical condition. People immediately start wondering what your majority is and when there will be a by-election. They're very brutal." This was revealed in 2002 with the release of his 1990–2001 diaries.
Benn suffered a stroke in 2012, and spent much of the following year in hospital. He was reported to be "seriously ill" in hospital in February 2014. Benn died at home on 14 March 2014, surrounded by his family, less than a month shy of his 89th birthday.
Benn's funeral took place on 27 March 2014 at St Margaret's Church, Westminster. His body had lain in rest at St Mary Undercroft in the Palace of Westminster the night before the funeral service. The service ended with the singing of "The Red Flag". His body was then cremated; the ashes were expected to be buried alongside those of his wife at the family home near Steeple, Essex.
Figures from across the political spectrum praised Benn following his death, and the leaders of all three major political parties (the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats) in the United Kingdom paid tribute.
Conservative leader and Prime Minister David Cameron said:... he was an extraordinary man: a great writer, a brilliant speaker, extraordinary in Parliament, and a great life of public and political and parliamentary service. I mean, I disagreed with most of what he said. But he was always engaging and interesting, and you were never bored when reading or listening to him, and the country a great campaigner, a great writer, and someone who I'm sure whose words will be followed keenly for many, many years to come.
Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg called Benn an "astonishing, iconic figure" and a "veteran parliamentarian, he was a great writer, he had great warmth and he had great conviction ... his political life will be looked back on with affection and admiration".
Leader of the Opposition and Labour leader Ed Miliband, who knew Benn personally as a family friend, said:I think Tony Benn will be remembered as a champion of the powerless, as a conviction politician, as somebody of deep principle and integrity. The thing about Tony Benn is that you always knew what he stood for, and who he stood up for. And I think that's why he was admired right across the political spectrum. There are people who agreed with him and disagreed with him, including in my own party, but I think people admired that sense of conviction and integrity that shone through from Tony Benn.
Diaries and biographies
Benn was a prolific diarist. Nine volumes of his diaries have been published. The final volume was published in 2013. Collections of his speeches and writings were published as Arguments for Socialism (1979), Arguments for Democracy (1981), (both edited by Chris Mullin), Fighting Back (1988) and (with Andrew Hood) Common Sense (1993), as well as Free Radical: New Century Essays (2004). In August 2003, London DJ Charles Bailey created an album of Benn's speeches () set to ambient groove.
He made public several episodes of audio diaries he made during his time in Parliament and after retirement, entitled The Benn Tapes, broadcast originally on BBC Radio 4. Short series have been played periodically on BBC Radio 4 Extra. A major biography was written by Jad Adams and published by Macmillan in 1992; it was updated to cover the intervening 20 years and reissued by Biteback Publishing in 2011: Tony Benn: A Biography (). A more recent "semi-authorised" biography with a foreword by Benn was published in 2001: David Powell, Tony Benn: A Political Life, Continuum Books (). An autobiography, Dare to be a Daniel: Then and Now, Hutchinson (), a reference to the Old Testament prophet in the lions' den , was published in 2004.
There are substantial essays on Benn in the Dictionary of Labour Biography by Phillip Whitehead, Greg Rosen (eds), Politicos Publishing, 2001 () and in Labour Forces: From Ernie Bevin to Gordon Brown, Kevin Jefferys (ed.), I.B. Tauris Publishing, 2002 (). American Michael Moore dedicates his book Mike's Election Guide 2008 () to Benn, with the words: "For Tony Benn, keep teaching us".
On 5 March 2019, it was announced that a large political archive of Benn's speeches, diaries, letters, pamphlets, recordings and ephemera had been accepted in lieu of £210,000 inheritance tax and allocated to the British Library. The audio recordings total to thousands of hours of content.
Plaques
During his final years in Parliament, Benn placed three plaques within the Houses of Parliament. Two are in a room between the Central Lobby and Strangers' Gallery that holds a permanent display about the suffragettes. The first was placed in 1995. The second was placed in 1996 and is dedicated to all who work within the Houses of Parliament.
The third is dedicated to Emily Wilding Davison, who died for the cause of "Votes for women", and was placed in the broom cupboard next to the Undercroft Chapel, where Davison is said to have hidden during the night of the 1911 census in order to establish her address as the House of Commons.
In 2011 Benn unveiled a plaque in Highbury, North London, to commemorate the Peasants' Revolt of 1381.
Legacy
In Bristol, where Benn first served as a member of parliament, a number of tributes exist in his honour. A bust of him was unveiled in Bristol's City Hall in 2005. In 2012 Transport House on Victoria Street, headquarters of Unite the Union's regional office, was officially renamed Tony Benn House and opened by Benn himself. As of 2015 he appears, alongside other famous people associated with the city, on the reverse of the Bristol Pound's £B5 banknote.
Benn told the Socialist Review in 2007 that:I'd like to have on my gravestone: "He encouraged us." I'm proud to have been in the parliament that introduced the health service, the welfare state and voted against means testing. I did my maiden speech on nationalising the steel industry, put down the first motion for the boycott of South African goods, and resigned from the shadow cabinet in 1958 because of their support for nuclear weapons.
I think you do plant a few acorns, and I have lived to see one or two trees growing: gay rights, freedom of information, CND. I'm not claiming them for myself but you feel you have encouraged other people and see the arguments developing.
I'm not ashamed of making mistakes. I've made a million mistakes and they're all in the diary. When we edit the diary—which is cut to around 10 per cent—every mistake has to be printed because people look to see if you do. I would be ashamed if I thought I'd ever said anything I didn't believe to get on, but making mistakes is part of life, isn't it?
Benn was widely seen as a key proponent of democratic socialism. He was described as "one of the few UK politicians to have become more left-wing after holding ministerial office". Harold Wilson, his former boss, maintained that Benn was the only man he knew who "immatures with age".
He has been cited as being a key mentor to future leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn, with his Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell commenting that "they would discuss everything under the sun. Jeremy was very close to Tony right up until the end." Corbyn was elected as leader of the Labour Party a little over a year after Benn's death, an act which Hilary Benn said would have made his father feel "thrilled".
Styles
Anthony Wedgwood Benn, Esq. (1925 – 12 January 1942)
The Hon. Anthony Wedgwood Benn (12 January 1942 – 30 November 1950)
The Hon. Anthony Wedgwood Benn, MP (30 November 1950 – 17 November 1960)
The Rt Hon. The Viscount Stansgate (17 November 1960 – 31 July 1963)
Anthony Wedgwood Benn, Esq. (31 July – 20 August 1963)
Anthony Wedgwood Benn, Esq., MP (20 August 1963 – 1964)
The Rt Hon. Anthony Wedgwood Benn, MP (1964 – October 1973)
The Rt Hon. Tony Benn, MP (October 1973 – 9 June 1983)
The Rt Hon. Tony Benn (9 June 1983 – 1 March 1984)
The Rt Hon. Tony Benn, MP (1 March 1984 – 14 May 2001)
The Rt Hon. Tony Benn (14 May 2001 – 14 March 2014)
Bibliography
Speeches, Spokesman Books (1974);
Levellers and the English Democratic Tradition, Spokesman Books (1976);
Why America Needs Democratic Socialism, Spokesman Books (1978);
Prospects, Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers, Technical, Administrative and Supervisory Section (1979)
Case for Constitutional Civil Service, Institute for Workers' Control (1980);
Case for Party Democracy, Institute for Workers' Control (1980);
Arguments for Socialism, Penguin Books (1980);
& Chris Mullin, Arguments for Democracy, Jonathan Cape (1981);
European Unity: A New Perspective, Spokesman Books (1981)
Parliament and Power: Agenda for a Free Society, Verso Books (1982);
& Andrew Hood, Common Sense: New Constitution for Britain, Hutchinson (1993)
Free Radical: New Century Essays, Continuum International Publishing (2004);
Dare to Be a Daniel: Then and Now, Hutchinson (2004);
Letters to my Grandchildren: Thoughts on the Future, Arrow Books (2010);
Diaries
Out of the Wilderness: Diaries 1963–67, Hutchinson (1987);
Office Without Power: Diaries 1968–72, Hutchinson (1988);
Against the Tide: Diaries 1973–76, Hutchinson (1989);
Conflicts of Interest: Diaries 1977–80, Hutchinson (1990);
The End of an Era: Diaries 1980–90, Hutchinson (1992);
Years of Hope: Diaries 1940–62, Hutchinson (1994);
The Benn Diaries: Single Volume Edition 1940–90, Hutchinson (1995);
Free at Last!: Diaries 1991–2001, Hutchinson (2002);
More Time for Politics: Diaries 2001–2007, Hutchinson (2007);
A Blaze of Autumn Sunshine: The Last Diaries, Hutchinson (2013);
See also
Labour Representation Committee (2004)
Republicanism in the United Kingdom
Socialist Campaign Group
References
External links
By date
Contributions in Parliament by Tony Benn. Hansard, 1925–2005.
Late Developer: Review of Against the Tide: Diaries 1973–1976 by Tony Benn. Author – Paul Foot, 1985.
Andrew Roth. "Tony Benn Chesterfield and Bristol South East MP". The Guardian, 25 March 2001.
The Guardian web guide to Benn.. 6 June 2002.
Face-to-Face with Tony Benn. Freeview video interview by the Vega Science Trust. Recorded in 2005.
Tony Benn. "Atomic hypocrisy: West is not in a position to take a high moral line". The Guardian, 30 November 2005.
Interview with Tony Benn – Radio France Internationale. 28 March 2008 – 6-minute audio – Ahead of G20 marches, London.
Tony Benn on Tony Blair: "He Is Guilty of a War Crime". Video report by Democracy Now!. 21 September 2010.
Obituary: Tony Benn. BBC News, 14 March 2014.
Tony Benn: a stalwart of the peace and anti-nuclear movement. Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, 14 March 2014.
Other
Audio interview with The Guardian.
His Address to the College Historical Society of Trinity College.
Private Eye depictions of Benn: "Most Dangerous Man in Britain", "Labour United", "Benn's Triumph", "Foot & Benn Disease", "Would You Buy a New Car From This Man?".
Tony Benn on Modern Liberty. Tony Benn speaking for The Convention on Modern Liberty. YouTube. 23 February 2009.
Unofficial Tony Benn quotation site.
Tony Benn on The Guardian
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Pipe smokers | false | [
"Viscount Stansgate, of Stansgate in the County of Essex, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1942 for the Labour politician, former Secretary of State for India and future Secretary of State for Air, William Wedgwood Benn. He was the second son of Sir John Benn, 1st Baronet, of The Old Knoll. Stansgate's eldest son and heir apparent, Michael Benn, was later killed in the Second World War; consequently, he was succeeded in the title by his second son, the Labour politician Tony Benn. He disclaimed the peerage on 31 July 1963, the day the Peerage Act 1963 passed into law and made it possible for him to do so. , the title is held by Tony Benn's eldest son, Stephen Benn, 3rd Viscount Stansgate.\n\nStansgate is a hamlet near the village of Steeple, Essex, on the southern side of the River Blackwater estuary. The village has been home to several generations of the Benn family since about 1900. They live in Stansgate Abbey, described by Chris Mullin as \"an ungainly, rambling 1920s house in a stunning location\".\n\nViscounts Stansgate (1942)\n\nWilliam Wedgwood Benn, 1st Viscount Stansgate (1877–1960)\nAnthony Neil Wedgwood Benn, 2nd Viscount Stansgate (1925–2014) (disclaimed 1963)\nStephen Michael Wedgwood Benn, 3rd Viscount Stansgate (b. 1951)\n\nThe heir apparent is the present holder's only son, Hon. Daniel John Wedgwood Benn (b. 1991).\n\nSee also\nBenn baronets, of The Old Knoll\n\nReferences\n\nKidd, Charles, Williamson, David (editors). Debrett's Peerage and Baronetage (1990 edition). New York: St Martin's Press, 1990.\n\nViscountcies in the Peerage of the United Kingdom\nNoble titles created in 1942\nBenn family\nTony Benn",
"Benn (Bencjon Rabinowicz) (1905–1989) was a painter associated with the School of Paris. His early work was mostly figurative; much of his later work is inspired by the Bible, particularly the Book of Psalms.\n\nBiography \nBenn was born in 1905 in Białystok, Russian Empire, where his father was an architect and his grandfather was a rabbi. He demonstrated an early talent for painting. In 1917, he began giving private lessons in drawing. In 1926, he started making theatre sets. In 1927, Benn had his first private exhibition in Wilno (Second Polish Republic). After his admission to the Union of Professional Artists of Poland in 1928, Benn started exhibiting his works in Białystok and Warsaw. In 1929, he received a scholarship to study for three years in Paris, where he attended the Académie Fernand Léger. It was upon his arrival in Paris that he changed his name to Benn and used it exclusively for the rest of his life. During his studies at the Académie, Benn drew on geometric forms but refrained from becoming an abstract painter. In 1932, Benn met ballet dancer and artist Ghera; they wed in 1938 and Benn became a French citizen.\n\nIn 1939, after being mobilized and discharged in Brittany, Benn sent paintings from Rennes to the Salon d'Automne exhibits and began sculpting. In 1941, Benn was interned at Beaune-la-Rolande. He was eventually released with the help of professor Marcel Brulé and art critic Lo Duca. Following his release, Benn went into hiding for 26 months with the protection of Jean Paulhan. During this time, Benn produced 62 works that were inspired by biblical verses and motifs. Following the Liberation in 1944, Benn returned permanently to Paris and continued to exhibit his work in galleries and museums across Europe.\n\nIn 1949, Benn collaborated with the artist Marc Chagall to create a company of painters and sculptors.\n\nIn 1966, an association called \"Friends of the Work of the Painter Benn\" was established.\n\nFollowing a long career, Benn bequeathed a collection of his works to the French commune Rueil-Malmaison.\n\nIn 1987, Benn donated 190 biblical oils to the Musée d'art sacré du Gard. He died in Paris in 1989.\n\nBenn's wife, Ghera, died in 1994. Upon her death, the received an additional collection of lithographs, paintings, and medals that represented Benn's creative works and contributions.\n\nArtistic career \nInitially inspired by Russian Constructivism, Kinetic art, and Cubism, Benn's style evolved over time. He went through a geometric period that was influenced by Wassily Kandinsky, then Symbolism; eventually he adopted a Poetic Realist style.\n\nIn 1930, Benn was admitted to the Association of Professional Artists, Paris. His first exhibition in Paris was in 1931 at Galerie L'Époque. Between 1932 and 1939, Benn's works were exhibited at private galleries and exhibitions in France, including Salon d'Automne and Les Independents. In 1940, upon the exclusion of Jewish artists from the exhibition, Benn's work was rejected by the Salon d'Automne.\n\nIn 1956, Benn received the Gold Medal from the . In 1957, he was awarded the Prix de L'Institut de France. In 1960, he published 62 psaumes et versets de la Bible, based on sketches he did while in hiding during World War II. In 1962, he received the Grand Médaille de Vermeil de la Ville de Paris. The same year, Fox (Paris) produced a film about Benn. In 1969, Benn continued his contributions to the theatre community by creating scenes and costumes for the play, Job, at the National Theatre in Amsterdam. During the 1970s, Benn received awards from Petah Tikva, Levallois-Perret, Île-de-France, and Bordeaux. In 1974, Benn received a prize from the Académie des Beaux-Arts for his album, \"Le cantique des cantiques,\" illustrations to the biblical book, The Song of Songs, which was presented to the Bibliothèque nationale. That year, Benn also received the Légion d'Honneur. In 1975, in honour of his 70th birthday, Benn received the Médaille du Jubilé from the . In 1986, Benn received an international prize in recognition of donating his poster design symbolizing peace and human rights to UNESCO. Benn's mural entitled, \"Love and Peace\" (1985), was donated to UNESCO in 1987 and remains at the organization's headquarters in Paris. In 1988, Benn was awarded the Grand Prix d'Honneur et Médaille de l'Académie des Beaux-Arts, Lyon.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n http://www.paris.catholique.fr/IMG/jpg/defexpo-benn_affiche_web-2.jpg\n http://parismuseescollections.paris.fr/en/node/169972#infos-principales\n A comprehensive bibliography of monographs and articles about Benn, collections of his illustrations, and exhibition catalogues can be found at: http://www.artofbenn.com/bibliography/ and at: http://www.peintre-benn.com/\n\n20th-century French painters\nJewish artists\nBiblical art\n1905 births\n1989 deaths\nJews of the Russian Empire\nPolish emigrants to France\nArtists from Białystok"
] |
[
"Tony Benn",
"Prior to retirement, 1997-2001",
"What did Benn do in 1997?",
"Benn was initially somewhat sympathetic to Blair, welcoming a change of government.",
"What change of government?",
"Blair] set up a new political party, New Labour\",",
"Why did he set up a new party?",
"I don't know.",
"What else did Benn do in 1997?",
"Benn supported the introduction of the national minimum wage, and welcomed the progress towards peace and security in Northern Ireland",
"What was happening in Northern Ireland?",
"I don't know.",
"Did Benn do anything in 1998?",
"Benn strongly objected to the \"immoral\" bombing of Iraq in December 1998,"
] | C_bc32948de7454cfdbfeaa94f0a07401b_0 | Why did he object? | 7 | Why did Benn object to the 1998 bombing of Iraq? | Tony Benn | In 1997, the Labour Party under Tony Blair won the election. Despite later calling Labour under Tony Blair "the idea of a Conservative group who had taken over Labour" and saying "[Blair] set up a new political party, New Labour", Benn's political diaries Free at Last show that Benn was initially somewhat sympathetic to Blair, welcoming a change of government. Benn supported the introduction of the national minimum wage, and welcomed the progress towards peace and security in Northern Ireland (particularly under Mo Mowlam). He was supportive of the extra public money given to public services in the New Labour years but believed it to be under the guise of privatisation. Overall, his concluding judgement on New Labour is highly critical; he describes its evolution as a way of retaining office by abandoning socialism and distancing the party from the trade union movement, adopting a presidentialist style of politics, overriding the concept of the collective ministerial responsibility by reducing the power of the Cabinet, eliminated any effective influence from the annual conference of the Labour Party and "hinged its foreign policy on support for one of the worst presidents in US history". Benn strongly objected to the "immoral" bombing of Iraq in December 1998, saying: "Aren't Arabs terrified? Aren't Iraqis terrified? Don't Arab and Iraqi women weep when their children die? Does bombing strengthen their determination? ... Every Member of Parliament tonight who votes for the government motion will be consciously and deliberately accepting the responsibility for the deaths of innocent people if the war begins, as I fear it will." Several months prior to his retirement, Benn was a signatory to a letter, alongside Niki Adams (Legal Action for Women), Ian Macdonald QC, Gareth Peirce, and other legal professionals, that was published in The Guardian newspaper on 22 February 2001 "condemning" raids of more than 50 brothels in the central London area of Soho. At the time, a police spokesman said: "As far as we know, this is the biggest simultaneous crackdown on brothels and prostitution in this country in recent times", the arrest of 28 people in an operation that involved around 110 police officers. The letter read: In the name of "protecting" women from trafficking, about 40 women, including a woman from Iraq, were arrested, detained and in some cases summarily removed from Britain. If any of these women have been trafficked ... they deserve protection and resources, not punishment by expulsion. ... Having forced women into destitution, the government first criminalised those who begged. Now it is trying to use prostitution as a way to make deportation of the vulnerable more acceptable. We will not allow such injustice to go unchallenged. CANNOTANSWER | Aren't Iraqis terrified? Don't Arab and Iraqi women weep when their children die? Does bombing strengthen their determination? ... | Anthony Neil Wedgwood Benn (3 April 1925 – 14 March 2014; known between 1960 and 1963 as Viscount Stansgate) was a British politician, writer and diarist who served as a Cabinet minister in the 1960s and 1970s. A member of the Labour Party, he was Member of Parliament for Bristol South East and Chesterfield for 47 of the 51 years between 1950 and 2001. He later served as President of the Stop the War Coalition from 2001 to 2014.
The son of a Liberal and later Labour Party politician, Benn was born in Westminster and privately educated at Westminster School. He was elected for Bristol South East at the 1950 general election but inherited his father's peerage on his death, which prevented him from continuing to serve as an MP. He fought to remain in the House of Commons and campaigned for the ability to renounce the title, a campaign which succeeded with the Peerage Act 1963. He was an active member of the Fabian Society and served as chairman from 1964 to 1965. He served in the Labour government of Harold Wilson from 1964 to 1970 first as Postmaster General, where he oversaw the opening of the Post Office Tower, and later as Minister of Technology.
Benn served as Chairman of the National Executive Committee from 1971 to 1972 while in Opposition. In the Labour government of 1974–1979, he returned to the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Industry and subsequently served as Secretary of State for Energy. He retained that post when James Callaghan succeeded Wilson as Prime Minister. When the Labour Party was in opposition through the 1980s, he emerged as a prominent figure on the left wing of the party and unsuccessfully challenged Neil Kinnock for the Labour leadership in 1988. After leaving Parliament at the 2001 general election, Benn was President of the Stop the War Coalition until his death in 2014.
Benn was widely seen as a key proponent of democratic socialism and Christian socialism. Originally considered a moderate within the party, he was identified as belonging to its left wing after leaving ministerial office. The terms Bennism and Bennite came into usage to describe the left-wing politics he espoused from the late 1970s and its adherents. He was an influence on the politics of Jeremy Corbyn, who was elected Leader of the Labour Party a year after Benn's death, and John McDonnell, who served as Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer under Corbyn.
Early life and family
Benn was born in Westminster, London, on 3 April 1925. He had two brothers, Michael (1921–1944), who was killed in the Second World War, and David (1928–2017), a specialist in Russia and Eastern Europe. After the Thames flood in January 1928 their house was uninhabitable so the Benn family moved to Scotland for over 12 months. Their father, William Benn, was a Liberal Member of Parliament from 1906 who crossed the floor to the Labour Party in 1928 and was appointed Secretary of State for India by Ramsay MacDonald in 1929, a position he held until the Labour Party's landslide electoral defeat in 1931. William Benn was elevated to the House of Lords and Tony Benn was subsequently titled with the honorific prefix, The Honourable. William Benn was given the title of Viscount Stansgate in 1942: the new wartime coalition government was short of working Labour peers in the upper house. In 1945–46, William Benn was the Secretary of State for Air in the first majority Labour Government.
Benn's mother, Margaret Benn (née Holmes, 1897–1991), was a theologian, feminist and the founder President of the Congregational Federation. She was a member of the League of the Church Militant, which was the predecessor of the Movement for the Ordination of Women; in 1925, she was rebuked by Randall Davidson, the Archbishop of Canterbury, for advocating the ordination of women. His mother's theology had a profound influence on Benn, as she taught him that the stories in the Bible were based around the struggle between the prophets and the kings and that he ought in his life to support the prophets over the kings, who had power, as the prophets taught righteousness.
Benn was for over 30 years a committed Christian. He said that the teachings of Jesus Christ had a "radical political importance" on his life, and made a distinction between the historical Jesus as "a carpenter of Nazareth" who advocated social justice and egalitarianism and "the way in which he's presented by some religious authorities; by popes, archbishops and bishops who present Jesus as justification for their power", believing this to be a gross misunderstanding of the role of Jesus. He believed that it was a "great mistake" to assume that the teachings of Christianity are outdated in modern Britain, and Higgins wrote in The Benn Inheritance that Benn was "a socialist whose political commitment owes much more to the teaching of Jesus than the writing of Marx". (Indeed, he did not read The Communist Manifesto until he was in his 50s.) "The driving force of his life was Christian socialism," according to Peter Wilby, linking Benn to the "high-minded" founding roots of Labour.
Later in his life, Benn emphasised issues regarding morality and righteousness, as well as various ethical principles of Nonconformism. On Desert Island Discs he said that he had been powerfully influenced by "what I would call the Dissenting tradition" (that is, the English Dissenters who left or were ejected from the established church, one of whom was his ancestor William Benn). "I've never thought we can understand the world we lived in unless we understood the history of the church", Benn said to the Catholic Herald. "All political freedoms were won, first of all, through religious freedom. Some of the arguments about the control of the media today, which are very big arguments, are the arguments that would have been fought in the religious wars. You have the satellites coming in now—well, it is the multinational church all over again. That's why Mrs Thatcher pulled Britain out of UNESCO: she was not prepared, any more than Ronald Reagan was, to be part of an organisation that talked about a New World Information Order, people speaking to each other without the help of Murdoch or Maxwell."
According to Wilby in the New Statesman, Benn "decided to do without the paraphernalia and doctrine of organised religion but not without the teachings of Jesus". Although Benn became more agnostic as he became older, he was intrigued by the interconnections between Christianity, radicalism and socialism. Wilby also wrote in The Guardian that although former Chancellor Stafford Cripps described Benn as "as keen a Christian as I am myself", Benn wrote in 2005 that he was "a Christian agnostic" who believed "in Jesus the prophet, not Christ the king", specifically rejecting the label of "humanist".
Both of Benn's grandfathers were Liberal Party MPs; his paternal grandfather was John Benn, a successful politician, MP for Tower Hamlets and later Devonport, who was created a baronet in 1914 (and who founded a publishing company, Benn Brothers), and his maternal grandfather was Daniel Holmes, MP for Glasgow Govan. Benn's contact with leading politicians of the day, dates back to his earliest years. He met Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald when he was five years old, whom he described as: "A kindly old gentleman [who] leaned over me and offered me a chocolate biscuit. I've looked at Labour leaders in a funny way ever since." Benn also met former Liberal Prime Minister David Lloyd George when he was 12, and later recalled that, while still a boy, he once shook hands with Mahatma Gandhi, in 1931, while his father was Secretary of State for India.
During the Second World War, Benn joined and trained with the Home Guard from the age of 16, later recalling in a speech made in 2009: "I could use a bayonet, a rifle, a revolver, and if I'd seen a German officer having a meal I'd have tossed a grenade through the window. Would I have been a freedom fighter or a terrorist?" In July 1943, Benn enlisted in the Royal Air Force as an aircraftman 2nd Class. His father and elder brother Michael (who was later killed in an accident) were already serving in the RAF. He was granted an emergency commission as a pilot officer (on probation) on 10 March 1945. As a pilot officer, Benn served as a pilot in South Africa and Rhodesia. In June 1944, he made his first solo flight, at RAF Guinea Fowl, an RAF Elementary Flying Training School, in Rhodesia. The aircraft was a Canadian-built Fairchild Cornell. In a 1993 article recounting the experience, he said, "I always thought that I would feel a sense of panic when I saw the ground coming up at me on my first solo, but strangely enough I didn't feel anything but exhilaration ...". He relinquished his commission with effect from 10 August 1945, three months after the Second World War ended in Europe on 8 May, and just days before the war with Japan ended on 2 September.
After attending Mr Gladstone's day school near Sloane Square, Benn attended Westminster School, and studied at New College, Oxford, where he read Philosophy, Politics and Economics and was elected President of the Oxford Union in 1947. In later life, Benn removed public references to his private education from Who's Who. In 1970 all references to Westminster School were removed, and in the 1975 edition his entry stated "Education—still in progress". In the 1976 edition, almost all details were omitted except his name, jobs as a Member of Parliament and as a Government Minister, and address; the publishers confirmed that Benn had sent back the draft entry with everything else struck through. In the 1977 edition, Benn's entry disappeared entirely, and when he returned to Who's Who in 1983, he was listed as "Tony Benn" and all references to his education or service record were removed.
In 1972, Benn said in his diaries that "Today I had the idea that I would resign my Privy Councillorship, my MA and all my honorary doctorates in order to strip myself of what the world had to offer". While he acknowledged that he "might be ridiculed" for doing so, Benn said that "'Wedgie Benn' and 'the Rt Honourable Anthony Wedgwood Benn' and all that stuff is impossible. I have been Tony Benn in Bristol for a long time." In October 1973, he announced on BBC Radio that he wished to be known as Mr. Tony Benn rather than Anthony Wedgwood Benn, and his book Speeches from 1974 is credited to "Tony Benn". Despite this name change, social historian Alwyn W. Turner writes that "Just as those with an agenda to pursue still call Muhammed Ali by his original name ... so most newspapers continued to refer to Tony Benn as Wedgwood Benn, or Wedgie in the case of the tabloids, for years to come".
Benn met Caroline Middleton DeCamp (born 13 October 1926, Cincinnati, Ohio, United States) over tea at Worcester College, Oxford, in 1949; just nine days after meeting her, he proposed to her on a park bench in the city. Later, he bought the bench from Oxford City Council and installed it in the garden of their home in Holland Park. Tony and Caroline had four children—Stephen, Hilary, Melissa, a feminist writer, and Joshua—and 10 grandchildren. Caroline Benn died of cancer on 22 November 2000, aged 74, after a career as an educationalist.
Two of Benn's children have been active in Labour Party politics. His eldest son Stephen was an elected Member of the Inner London Education Authority from 1986 to 1990. His second son Hilary was a councillor in London, stood for Parliament in 1983 and 1987, and became Labour MP for Leeds Central in 1999. He was Secretary of State for International Development from 2003 to 2007, and then Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs until 2010, later serving as Shadow Foreign Secretary (2015–16). This makes him the third generation of his family to have been a member of the Cabinet, a rare distinction for a modern political family in Britain. Benn's granddaughter Emily Benn was the Labour Party's youngest-ever candidate when she failed to win East Worthing and Shoreham in 2010. Benn was a first cousin once removed of the actress Margaret Rutherford.
Benn and his wife Caroline became vegetarian in 1970, for ethical reasons, and remained so for the rest of their lives. Benn cited the decision of his son Hilary to become vegetarian as an important factor in his own decision to adopt a vegetarian diet.
Early parliamentary career
Member of Parliament, 1950–1960
Following the Second World War, Benn worked briefly as a BBC Radio producer. On 1 November 1950, he was selected to succeed Stafford Cripps as the Labour candidate for Bristol South East, after Cripps stood down because of ill-health. He won the seat in a by-election on 30 November 1950. Anthony Crosland helped him get the seat as he was the MP for nearby South Gloucestershire at the time. Upon taking the oath on 4 December 1950 Benn became "Baby of the House", the youngest MP, for one day, being succeeded by Thomas Teevan, who was two years younger but took his oath a day later. He became the "Baby" again in 1951, when Teevan was not re-elected. In the 1950s, Benn held middle-of-the-road or soft left views, and was not associated with the young left wing group around Aneurin Bevan.
As MP for Bristol South East, Benn helped organise the 1963 Bristol Bus Boycott against the colour bar of the Bristol Omnibus Company against employing Black British and British Asian drivers. Benn said that he would "stay off the buses, even if I have to find a bike", and Labour leader Harold Wilson also told an anti-apartheid rally in London he was "glad that so many Bristolians are supporting the [boycott] campaign", adding that he "wish[ed] them every success".
Peerage reform
Benn's father was created Viscount Stansgate in 1942 when Winston Churchill increased the number of Labour peers to aid political work in the House of Lords; at this time, Benn's elder brother Michael, then serving in the RAF, was intending to enter the priesthood and had no objections to inheriting a peerage. However, Michael was later killed in an accident while on active service in the Second World War, and this left Benn as the heir-apparent to the peerage. He made several unsuccessful attempts to renounce the succession.
In November 1960, Lord Stansgate died. Benn automatically became a peer, preventing him from sitting in the House of Commons. The Speaker of the Commons, Sir Harry Hylton-Foster, did not allow him to deliver a speech from the bar of the House of Commons in April 1961 when the by-election was being called. Continuing to maintain his right to abandon his peerage, Benn fought to retain his seat in a by-election caused by his succession on 4 May 1961. Although he was disqualified from taking his seat, he was re-elected. An election court found that the voters were fully aware that Benn was disqualified, and declared the seat won by the Conservative runner-up, Malcolm St Clair, who was at the time also the heir presumptive to a peerage.
Benn continued his campaign outside Parliament. Within two years, though, the Conservative Government of the time, which had members in the same or similar situation to Benn's (i.e., who were going to receive title, or who had already applied for writs of summons), changed the law. The Peerage Act 1963, allowing lifetime disclaimer of peerages, became law shortly after 6 pm on 31 July 1963. Benn was the first peer to renounce his title, doing so at 6.22 pm that day. St Clair, fulfilling a promise he had made at the time of his election, then accepted the office of Steward of the Manor of Northstead, disqualifying himself from the House (outright resignation not being possible). Benn returned to the Commons after winning a by-election on 20 August 1963.
In government, 1964–1970
In the 1964 Government led by Harold Wilson, Benn was Postmaster General, where he oversaw the opening of the Post Office Tower, then the UK's tallest building, and the creations of the Post Bus service and Girobank. He proposed issuing stamps without the Sovereign's head, but this met with private opposition from the Queen. Instead, the portrait was reduced to a small profile in silhouette, a format that is still used on commemorative stamps.
Benn also led the government's opposition to the "pirate" radio stations broadcasting from international waters, which he was aware would be an unpopular measure. Some of these stations were causing problems, such as interference to emergency radio used by shipping, although he was not responsible for introducing the Marine Broadcasting Offences Bill when it came before Parliament at the end of July 1966 for its first reading.
Earlier in the month, Benn was promoted to Minister of Technology, which included responsibility for the development of Concorde and the formation of International Computers Ltd. (ICL). The period also saw government involvement in industrial rationalisation, and the merger of several car companies to form British Leyland. Following Conservative MP Enoch Powell's 1968 "Rivers of Blood" speech to a Conservative Association meeting, in opposition to Harold Wilson's insistence on not "stirring up the Powell issue", Benn said during the 1970 general election campaign:
The mainstream press attacked Benn for using language deemed as intemperate as Powell's language in his "Rivers of Blood" speech (which was widely regarded as racist), and Benn noted in his diary that "letters began pouring in on the Powell speech: 2:1 against me but some very sympathetic ones saying that my speech was overdue". Harold Wilson later reprimanded Benn for this speech, accusing him of losing Labour seats in the 1970 general election.
During the 1970s Benn publicly defended Marxism, saying:
Labour lost the 1970 election to Edward Heath's Conservatives and upon Heath's application to join the European Economic Community, a surge in left-wing Euroscepticism emerged. Benn "was stridently against membership", and campaigned in favour of a referendum on the UK's membership. The Shadow Cabinet voted to support a referendum on 29 March 1972, and as a result Roy Jenkins resigned as Deputy Leader of the Labour Party.
In government, 1974–1979
In the Labour Government of 1974, Benn was Secretary of State for Industry and as such increased nationalised industry pay, provided better terms and conditions for workers such as the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and was involved in setting up worker cooperatives in firms which were struggling, the best known being at Meriden, outside Coventry, producing Triumph Motorcycles. In 1975, he was appointed Secretary of State for Energy, immediately following his unsuccessful campaign for a "No" vote in the referendum on the UK's continued membership of the European Community (Common Market). Later in his diary, (25 October 1977) Benn wrote that he "loathed" the EEC; he claimed it was "bureaucratic and centralised" and "of course it is really dominated by Germany. All the Common Market countries except the UK have been occupied by Germany, and they have this mixed feeling of hatred and subservience towards the Germans".
Upon the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, Benn described Mao as "one of the greatest—if not the greatest—figures of the twentieth century: a schoolteacher who transformed China, released it from civil war and foreign attack and constructed a new society there" in his diaries, adding that "he certainly towers above any twentieth-century figure I can think of in his philosophical contribution and military genius". On his trip to the Chinese embassy after Mao's death, Benn recorded in an earlier volume of his diaries that he was "a great admirer of Mao", while also admitting that "he made mistakes, because everybody does".
Harold Wilson resigned as Leader of the Labour Party and Prime Minister in March 1976. Benn later attributed the collapse of the Wilson government to cuts enforced on the UK by global capital, in particular the International Monetary Fund. In the resulting leadership contest Benn finished in fourth place out of the six cabinet ministers who stood—he withdrew as 11.8 per cent of colleagues voted for him in the first ballot. Benn withdrew from the second ballot and endorsed Michael Foot; James Callaghan eventually won. Despite not receiving his support in the second and third rounds of the vote, Callaghan kept Benn on as Energy Secretary. In 1976, there was a sterling crisis, and Chancellor of the Exchequer Denis Healey sought a loan from the International Monetary Fund. Underlining a wish to counter international market forces which seemed to penalise a larger welfare state, Benn publicly circulated the divided Cabinet minutes in which a narrow majority of the Labour Cabinet under Ramsay MacDonald supported a cut in unemployment benefits in order to obtain a loan from American bankers. As he highlighted, these minutes resulted in the 1931 split of the Labour Party in which MacDonald and his allies formed a National Government with Conservatives and Liberals. Callaghan allowed Benn to put forward the Alternative Economic Strategy, which consisted of a self-sufficient economy less dependent on low-rate fresh borrowing, but the AES, which according to opponents would have led to a "siege economy", was rejected by the Cabinet. In response, Benn later recalled that: "I retorted that their policy was a siege economy, only they had the bankers inside the castle with all our supporters left outside, whereas my policy would have our supporters in the castle with the bankers outside." Benn blamed the Winter of Discontent on these cuts to socialist policies.
During Benn's time as energy minister from 1975 to 1979 he supported the United Kingdom's use of nuclear power. However, later in his life he became an opponent of nuclear power, attributing his time as running it as a minister to persuading him it was not cheap, safe or peaceful. When asked in an interview in January 2009 on what he had changed his mind on over the course of his life he expanded on this issue by saying:
Move to the left
By the end of the 1970s, Benn's views had shifted to the left-wing of the Labour Party. He attributed this political shift to his experience as a Cabinet Minister in the 1964–1970 Labour Government. Benn ascribed his move to the left to four lessons:
How "the Civil Service can frustrate the policies and decisions of popularly elected governments"
The centralised nature of the Labour Party which allowed the Leader to run "the Party almost as if it were his personal kingdom"
"The power of industrialists and bankers to get their way by use of the crudest form of economic pressure, even blackmail, against a Labour Government"
The power of the media, which "like the power of the medieval Church, ensures that events of the day are always presented from the point of the view of those who enjoy economic privilege"
As regards the power of industrialists and bankers, Benn remarked:
Benn's philosophy consisted of a form of syndicalism, state planning where necessary to ensure national competitiveness, greater democracy in the structures of the Labour Party and observance of Party Conference decisions. Alongside an alleged 12 Labour MPs, he spent 12 years affiliated with the Institute for Workers' Control, beginning in 1971 when he visited the Upper Clyde Shipyards, arguing in 1975 for the "labour movement to intensify its discussion about industrial democracy".
He was vilified by most of the press while his opponents implied and stated that a Benn-led Labour Government would implement a type of Eastern European state socialism, with Edward Heath referring to Benn as "Commissar Benn" and others referring to Benn as a "Bollinger Bolshevik". Despite this, Benn was overwhelmingly popular with Labour activists in the constituencies: a survey of delegates at the Labour Party Conference in 1978 found that by large margins they supported Benn for the leadership, as well as many Bennite policies.
He publicly supported Sinn Féin and the unification of Ireland, although in 2005 he suggested to Sinn Féin leaders that it abandon its long-standing policy of not taking seats at Westminster (abstentionism). Sinn Féin in turn argued that to do so would recognise Britain's claim over Northern Ireland, and the Sinn Féin constitution prevented its elected members from taking their seats in any British-created institution. A supporter of the Scottish Parliament and political devolution, Benn however opposed the Scottish National Party and Scottish independence, saying: "I think nationalism is a mistake. And I am half Scots and feel it would divide me in half with a knife. The thought that my mother would suddenly be a foreigner would upset me very much."
In British politics during this period, the term "Bennism" came into use to describe the conviction politics, economic, social and political ideology of Tony Benn; and an exponent or advocate of Bennism was regarded as a "Bennite".
In opposition, 1979–1997
In a keynote speech to the Labour Party Conference of 1980, shortly before the resignation of party leader James Callaghan and election of Michael Foot as successor, Benn outlined what he envisaged the next Labour Government would do. "Within days", a Labour Government would gain powers to nationalise industries, control capital and implement industrial democracy; "within weeks", all powers from Brussels would be returned to Westminster, and the House of Lords would be abolished by creating one thousand new peers and then abolishing the peerage. Benn received tumultuous applause. On 25 January 1981, Roy Jenkins, David Owen, Shirley Williams and Bill Rodgers (known collectively as the "Gang of Four") launched the Council for Social Democracy, which became the Social Democratic Party in March. The "Gang of Four" left the Labour Party because of what they perceived to be the influence of the Militant tendency and the Bennite "hard left" within the party. Benn was highly critical of the SDP, saying that "Britain has had SDP governments for the past 25 years."
Benn stood against Denis Healey, the party's incumbent deputy leader, triggering the 1981 deputy leadership election, disregarding an appeal from Michael Foot to either stand for the leadership or abstain from inflaming the party's divisions. Benn defended his decision insisting that it was "not about personalities, but about policies". The result was announced on 27 September 1981; Healey retained his position by a margin of barely one per cent. The decision of several soft left MPs, including Neil Kinnock, to abstain triggered the split of the Socialist Campaign Group from the left of the Tribune Group.
After Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands in April 1982, Benn argued that the dispute should be settled by the United Nations and that the British Government should not send a task force to recapture the islands. The task force was sent, and following the Falklands War, they were back in British control by mid-June. In a debate in the Commons just after the Falklands were recaptured, Benn's demand for "a full analysis of the costs in life, equipment and money in this tragic and unnecessary war" was rejected by Margaret Thatcher, who stated that "he would not enjoy the freedom of speech that he put to such excellent use unless people had been prepared to fight for it".
For the 1983 election Benn's Bristol South East constituency was abolished by boundary changes, and he lost to Michael Cocks in the selection of a candidate to stand in the new winnable seat of Bristol South. Rejecting offers from the new seat of Livingston in Scotland, Benn contested Bristol East, losing to the Conservative's Jonathan Sayeed in June 1983. Foot resigned as leader following the defeat which reduced Labour to only 209 MPs, while Healey also decided to step down as deputy leader. However Benn's absence from parliament meant that he was unable to stand in the resulting leadership contest as only MPs were eligible to be candidates. Benn's absence from the contest was reported by The Glasgow Herald to leave Neil Kinnock as "the favourite Left-wing candidate". Ultimately Kinnock won the contest, formally replacing Foot as party leader in October of that year.
In a by-election, Benn was elected as the MP for Chesterfield, the next Labour seat to fall vacant, after Eric Varley had left the Commons to head Coalite. On the day of the by-election, 1 March 1984, The Sun newspaper ran a hostile feature article, "Benn on the Couch", which purported to be the opinions of an American psychiatrist.
Newly elected to a mining seat, Benn was a supporter of the 1984–85 UK miners' strike, which was beginning when he returned to the Commons, and of his long-standing friend, the National Union of Mineworkers leader Arthur Scargill. However, some miners considered Benn's 1977 industry reforms to have caused problems during the strike; firstly, that they led to huge wage differences and distrust between miners of different regions; and secondly that the controversy over balloting miners for these reforms made it unclear as to whether a ballot was needed for a strike or whether it could be deemed as a "regional matter" in the same way that the 1977 reforms had been. Benn also spoke at a Militant tendency rally held in 1984, saying: "The labour movement is not engaged in a personalised battle against individual cabinet ministers, nor do we seek to win public support by arguing that the crisis could be ended by the election of a new and more humane team of ministers who are better qualified to administer capitalism. We are working for a majority labour government, elected on a socialist programme, as decided by conference."
In June 1985, three months after the miners admitted defeat and ended their strike, Benn introduced the Miners' Amnesty (General Pardon) Bill into the Commons, which would have extended an amnesty to all miners imprisoned during the strike. This would have included two men convicted of murder (later reduced to manslaughter) for the killing of David Wilkie, a taxi driver driving a non-striking miner to work in South Wales during the strike.
Benn stood for election as party leader in 1988, against Neil Kinnock, following Labour's third successive defeat in the 1987 general election, losing by a substantial margin, and received only about 11 per cent of the vote. In May 1989 he made an extended appearance on Channel 4's late-night discussion programme After Dark, alongside among others Lord Dacre and Miles Copeland. During the Gulf War, Benn visited Baghdad in order to try to persuade Saddam Hussein to release the hostages who had been captured.
Benn supported various LGBT social movements, which were then known as gay liberation; Benn had voted in favour of decriminalisation in 1967. Talking about Section 28 of the 1988 Local Government Act, a piece of anti-gay legislation preventing the "promotion of homosexuality", Benn said:
Benn later voted for the repeal of Section 28 during the first term of Tony Blair's New Labour Government, and voted in favour of equalising the age of consent.
In 1990 he proposed a "Margaret Thatcher (Global Repeal) Bill", which he said "could go through both Houses in 24 hours. It would be easy to reverse the policies and replace the personalities—the process has begun—but the rotten values that have been propagated from the platform of political power in Britain during the past 10 years will be an infection—a virulent strain of right-wing capitalist thinking which it will take time to overcome." In 1991, with Labour still in opposition and a general election due by June 1992, he proposed the Commonwealth of Britain Bill, abolishing the monarchy in favour of the United Kingdom becoming a "democratic, federal and secular commonwealth", a republic with a written constitution. It was read in Parliament a number of times until his retirement at the 2001 election, but never achieved a second reading. He presented an account of his proposal in Common Sense: A New Constitution for Britain. In 1992, Benn also received a Pipe Smoker of the Year award, claiming in his acceptance speech that "pipe smoking stopped you going to war".
In 1991, Benn reiterated his opposition to the European Commission and highlighted an alleged democratic deficit in the institution, saying: "Some people genuinely believe that we shall never get social justice from the British Government, but we shall get it from Jacques Delors. They believe that a good king is better than a bad Parliament. I have never taken that view." This argument has also been used by many on the right-wing Eurosceptic wing of the Conservative Party, such as Daniel Hannan MEP. Jonathan Freedland writes in The Guardian that "For [Tony Benn], even benign rule by a monarch was worthless because the king's whim could change and there'd be nothing you could do about it."
Prior to retirement, 1997–2001
In 1997, the Labour Party under the leadership of Tony Blair won the general election in a landslide, after 18 years of Conservative Party rule. Despite later calling Labour under Blair "the idea of a Conservative group who had taken over Labour" and saying "[Blair] set up a new political party, New Labour", his political diaries Free at Last show that Benn was initially somewhat sympathetic to Blair, welcoming a change of government. Benn supported the introduction of the national minimum wage, and welcomed the progress towards peace and security in Northern Ireland (particularly under Mo Mowlam). He was supportive of the extra money given to public services in the New Labour years but believed it to be under the guise of privatisation. Overall, his concluding judgement on New Labour is highly critical; he describes its evolution as a way of retaining office by abandoning socialism and distancing the party from the trade union movement, adopting a presidentialist style of politics, overriding the concept of the collective ministerial responsibility by reducing the power of the Cabinet, eliminated any effective influence from the annual conference of the Labour Party and "hinged its foreign policy on support for one of the worst presidents in US history".
Benn strongly objected to the bombing of Iraq in December 1998, calling it immoral and saying: "Aren't Arabs terrified? Aren't Iraqis terrified? Don't Arab and Iraqi women weep when their children die? Does bombing strengthen their determination? ... Every Member of Parliament tonight who votes for the government motion will be consciously and deliberately accepting the responsibility for the deaths of innocent people if the war begins, as I fear it will."
Several months prior to his retirement, Benn was a signatory to a letter, alongside Niki Adams (Legal Action for Women), Ian Macdonald QC, Gareth Peirce, and other legal professionals, that was published in The Guardian newspaper on 22 February 2001 condemning raids of more than 50 brothels in the central London area of Soho. At the time, a police spokesman said: "As far as we know, this is the biggest simultaneous crackdown on brothels and prostitution in this country in recent times", the arrest of 28 people in an operation that involved around 110 police officers. The letter read:
In the name of "protecting" women from trafficking, about 40 women, including a woman from Iraq, were arrested, detained and in some cases summarily removed from Britain. If any of these women have been trafficked ... they deserve protection and resources, not punishment by expulsion. ... Having forced women into destitution, the government first criminalised those who begged. Now it is trying to use prostitution as a way to make deportation of the vulnerable more acceptable. We will not allow such injustice to go unchallenged.
Retirement and final years, 2001–2014
Benn chose not to seek re-election at the 2001 general election, saying he was "leaving parliament in order to spend more time on politics." Along with former Prime Minister Edward Heath, Benn was permitted by the Speaker to continue using the House of Commons Library and Members' refreshment facilities. Shortly after his retirement, he became the President of the Stop the War Coalition. He became a leading figure of the British opposition to the War in Afghanistan from 2001 and the Iraq War, and in February 2003 he travelled to Baghdad to meet Saddam Hussein. The interview was broadcast on British television.
He spoke against the war at the February 2003 protest in London organised by the Stop the War Coalition, with police saying it was the biggest ever demonstration in the UK with about 750,000 marchers, and the organisers estimating nearly a million people participating. In February 2004 and 2008, he was re-elected President of the Stop the War Coalition.
He toured with a one-man stage show and appeared a few times each year in a two-man show with folk singer Roy Bailey. In 2003, his show with Bailey was voted 'Best Live Act' at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. In 2002, he opened the "Left Field" stage at the Glastonbury Festival. He continued to speak at each subsequent festival; attending one of his speeches was described as a "Glastonbury rite of passage". In October 2003, he was a guest of British Airways on the last scheduled Concorde flight from New York to London. In June 2005, he was a panellist on a special edition of BBC One's Question Time edited entirely by a school-age film crew selected by a BBC competition.
On 21 June 2005, Benn presented a programme on democracy as part of the Channel 5 series Big Ideas That Changed The World. He presented a left-wing view of democracy as the means to pass power from the "wallet to the ballot". He argued that traditional social democratic values were under threat in an increasingly globalised world in which powerful institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the European Commission are unelected and unaccountable to those whose lives they affect daily.
On 27 September 2005, Benn became ill while attending the annual Labour Party Conference in Brighton and was taken by ambulance to the Royal Sussex County Hospital after being treated by paramedics on-the-scene at the Brighton Centre. Benn reportedly fell and struck his head. He was kept in hospital for observation and was described as being in a "comfortable condition". He was subsequently fitted with an artificial pacemaker to help regulate his heartbeat.
In a list compiled by the magazine New Statesman in 2006, he was voted twelfth in the list of "Heroes of our Time". In September 2006, Benn joined the "Time to Go" demonstration in Manchester the day before the final Labour Party Conference with Tony Blair as Leader of the Labour Party, with the aim of persuading the Government to withdraw troops from Iraq, to refrain from attacking Iran and to reject replacing the Trident missile and submarines with a new system. He spoke to the demonstrators in the rally afterwards. In 2007, he appeared in an extended segment in the Michael Moore film Sicko giving comments about democracy, social responsibility and healthcare, notably, "If we can find the money to kill people, we can find the money to help people." A poll by the BBC2 The Daily Politics programme in January 2007 selected Benn as the UK's "Political Hero" with 38% of the vote, narrowly defeating Margaret Thatcher, who had 35%.
For the 2007 Labour Party leadership election, Benn backed the left-wing MP John McDonnell in his unsuccessful bid. In September 2007, Benn called for the government to hold a referendum on the EU Reform Treaty. In October 2007, aged 82, and when it appeared that a general election was about to be held, Benn reportedly announced that he wanted to stand, having written to his local Constituency Labour Party offering himself as a prospective candidate for the newly drawn Kensington seat. His main opponent would have been the incumbent Conservative MP for the predecessor seat of Kensington and Chelsea, Malcolm Rifkind. However, there was no election held in 2007, and so the boundary changes did not take effect until the eventual election in 2010, when Benn was not a candidate and the new seat was won by Rifkind.
In early 2008, Benn appeared on Scottish singer-songwriter Colin MacIntyre's album The Water, reading a poem he had written himself. In September 2008, he appeared on the DVD release for the Doctor Who story The War Machines with a vignette discussing the Post Office Tower; he became the second Labour politician, after Roy Hattersley to appear on a Doctor Who DVD.
At the Stop the War Conference 2009, he described the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as "Imperialist war(s)" and discussed the killing of American and allied troops by Iraqi or foreign insurgents, questioning whether they were in fact freedom fighters, and comparing the insurgents to a British Dad's Army, saying: "If you are invaded you have a right to self-defence, and this idea that people in Iraq and Afghanistan who are resisting the invasion are militant Muslim extremists is a complete bloody lie. I joined Dad's Army when I was sixteen, and if the Germans had arrived, I tell you, I could use a bayonet, a rifle, a revolver, and if I'd seen a German officer having a meal I'd have tossed a grenade through the window. Would I have been a freedom fighter or a terrorist?"
In an interview published in Dartford Living in September 2009, Benn was critical of the Government's decision to delay the findings of the Iraq War Inquiry until after the general election, stating that "people can take into account what the inquiry has reported on but they’ve deliberately pushed it beyond the election. Government is responsible for explaining what it has done and I don't think we were told the truth." He also stated that local government was strangled by Margaret Thatcher and had not been liberated by New Labour.
In 2009, Benn was admitted to hospital and An Evening with Tony Benn, scheduled to take place at London's Cadogan Hall, was cancelled. He performed his show, The Writing on the Wall, with Roy Bailey at St Mary's Church, Ashford, Kent, in September 2011, as part of the arts venue's first Revelation St. Mary's Season. In July 2011 Benn was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Glamorgan, Wales.
Benn headed the "coalition of resistance", a group which was opposed to the UK austerity programme. In interviews in 2010 with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! and 2013 with Afshin Rattansi on RT UK, Benn claimed that the actions of New Labour in the leadup to and aftermath of the Iraq War were such that the former Prime Minister Tony Blair should be tried for war crimes. Benn also claimed in 2010 that Blair had lost the "trust of the nation" regarding the war in Iraq.
In 2012, Benn was awarded an honorary degree from Goldsmiths, University of London. He was also the honorary president of the Goldsmiths Students' Union, who successfully campaigned for him to retract comments dismissing the Julian Assange rape allegations. In February 2013, Benn was among those who gave their support to the People's Assembly in a letter published by The Guardian newspaper. He gave a speech at the People's Assembly Conference held at Westminster Central Hall on 22 June 2013.
In 2013, Benn reiterated his previous opposition to European integration. Speaking to the Oxford Union on the alleged overshadowing of the EU debate by "UKIP and Tory backbenchers", he said:I took the view that having fought [Europeans in the Second World War] that we should now work with them, and co-operate, and that was my first thought about it. Then how I saw how the European Union was developing, it was very obvious that what they had in mind was not democratic. ... And the way that Europe has developed is that the bankers and the multinational corporations have got very powerful positions, and if you come in on their terms, they will tell you what you can and cannot do. And that is unacceptable. My view about the European Union has always been not that I am hostile to foreigners, but that I am in favour of democracy ... I think they're building an empire there, they want us to be a part of their empire and I don't want that.
Illness and death
In 1990, Benn was diagnosed with chronic lymphatic leukaemia and given three or four years to live; at this time, he kept the news of his leukaemia from everyone except his immediate family. Benn said: "When you're in parliament, you can't describe your medical condition. People immediately start wondering what your majority is and when there will be a by-election. They're very brutal." This was revealed in 2002 with the release of his 1990–2001 diaries.
Benn suffered a stroke in 2012, and spent much of the following year in hospital. He was reported to be "seriously ill" in hospital in February 2014. Benn died at home on 14 March 2014, surrounded by his family, less than a month shy of his 89th birthday.
Benn's funeral took place on 27 March 2014 at St Margaret's Church, Westminster. His body had lain in rest at St Mary Undercroft in the Palace of Westminster the night before the funeral service. The service ended with the singing of "The Red Flag". His body was then cremated; the ashes were expected to be buried alongside those of his wife at the family home near Steeple, Essex.
Figures from across the political spectrum praised Benn following his death, and the leaders of all three major political parties (the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats) in the United Kingdom paid tribute.
Conservative leader and Prime Minister David Cameron said:... he was an extraordinary man: a great writer, a brilliant speaker, extraordinary in Parliament, and a great life of public and political and parliamentary service. I mean, I disagreed with most of what he said. But he was always engaging and interesting, and you were never bored when reading or listening to him, and the country a great campaigner, a great writer, and someone who I'm sure whose words will be followed keenly for many, many years to come.
Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg called Benn an "astonishing, iconic figure" and a "veteran parliamentarian, he was a great writer, he had great warmth and he had great conviction ... his political life will be looked back on with affection and admiration".
Leader of the Opposition and Labour leader Ed Miliband, who knew Benn personally as a family friend, said:I think Tony Benn will be remembered as a champion of the powerless, as a conviction politician, as somebody of deep principle and integrity. The thing about Tony Benn is that you always knew what he stood for, and who he stood up for. And I think that's why he was admired right across the political spectrum. There are people who agreed with him and disagreed with him, including in my own party, but I think people admired that sense of conviction and integrity that shone through from Tony Benn.
Diaries and biographies
Benn was a prolific diarist. Nine volumes of his diaries have been published. The final volume was published in 2013. Collections of his speeches and writings were published as Arguments for Socialism (1979), Arguments for Democracy (1981), (both edited by Chris Mullin), Fighting Back (1988) and (with Andrew Hood) Common Sense (1993), as well as Free Radical: New Century Essays (2004). In August 2003, London DJ Charles Bailey created an album of Benn's speeches () set to ambient groove.
He made public several episodes of audio diaries he made during his time in Parliament and after retirement, entitled The Benn Tapes, broadcast originally on BBC Radio 4. Short series have been played periodically on BBC Radio 4 Extra. A major biography was written by Jad Adams and published by Macmillan in 1992; it was updated to cover the intervening 20 years and reissued by Biteback Publishing in 2011: Tony Benn: A Biography (). A more recent "semi-authorised" biography with a foreword by Benn was published in 2001: David Powell, Tony Benn: A Political Life, Continuum Books (). An autobiography, Dare to be a Daniel: Then and Now, Hutchinson (), a reference to the Old Testament prophet in the lions' den , was published in 2004.
There are substantial essays on Benn in the Dictionary of Labour Biography by Phillip Whitehead, Greg Rosen (eds), Politicos Publishing, 2001 () and in Labour Forces: From Ernie Bevin to Gordon Brown, Kevin Jefferys (ed.), I.B. Tauris Publishing, 2002 (). American Michael Moore dedicates his book Mike's Election Guide 2008 () to Benn, with the words: "For Tony Benn, keep teaching us".
On 5 March 2019, it was announced that a large political archive of Benn's speeches, diaries, letters, pamphlets, recordings and ephemera had been accepted in lieu of £210,000 inheritance tax and allocated to the British Library. The audio recordings total to thousands of hours of content.
Plaques
During his final years in Parliament, Benn placed three plaques within the Houses of Parliament. Two are in a room between the Central Lobby and Strangers' Gallery that holds a permanent display about the suffragettes. The first was placed in 1995. The second was placed in 1996 and is dedicated to all who work within the Houses of Parliament.
The third is dedicated to Emily Wilding Davison, who died for the cause of "Votes for women", and was placed in the broom cupboard next to the Undercroft Chapel, where Davison is said to have hidden during the night of the 1911 census in order to establish her address as the House of Commons.
In 2011 Benn unveiled a plaque in Highbury, North London, to commemorate the Peasants' Revolt of 1381.
Legacy
In Bristol, where Benn first served as a member of parliament, a number of tributes exist in his honour. A bust of him was unveiled in Bristol's City Hall in 2005. In 2012 Transport House on Victoria Street, headquarters of Unite the Union's regional office, was officially renamed Tony Benn House and opened by Benn himself. As of 2015 he appears, alongside other famous people associated with the city, on the reverse of the Bristol Pound's £B5 banknote.
Benn told the Socialist Review in 2007 that:I'd like to have on my gravestone: "He encouraged us." I'm proud to have been in the parliament that introduced the health service, the welfare state and voted against means testing. I did my maiden speech on nationalising the steel industry, put down the first motion for the boycott of South African goods, and resigned from the shadow cabinet in 1958 because of their support for nuclear weapons.
I think you do plant a few acorns, and I have lived to see one or two trees growing: gay rights, freedom of information, CND. I'm not claiming them for myself but you feel you have encouraged other people and see the arguments developing.
I'm not ashamed of making mistakes. I've made a million mistakes and they're all in the diary. When we edit the diary—which is cut to around 10 per cent—every mistake has to be printed because people look to see if you do. I would be ashamed if I thought I'd ever said anything I didn't believe to get on, but making mistakes is part of life, isn't it?
Benn was widely seen as a key proponent of democratic socialism. He was described as "one of the few UK politicians to have become more left-wing after holding ministerial office". Harold Wilson, his former boss, maintained that Benn was the only man he knew who "immatures with age".
He has been cited as being a key mentor to future leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn, with his Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell commenting that "they would discuss everything under the sun. Jeremy was very close to Tony right up until the end." Corbyn was elected as leader of the Labour Party a little over a year after Benn's death, an act which Hilary Benn said would have made his father feel "thrilled".
Styles
Anthony Wedgwood Benn, Esq. (1925 – 12 January 1942)
The Hon. Anthony Wedgwood Benn (12 January 1942 – 30 November 1950)
The Hon. Anthony Wedgwood Benn, MP (30 November 1950 – 17 November 1960)
The Rt Hon. The Viscount Stansgate (17 November 1960 – 31 July 1963)
Anthony Wedgwood Benn, Esq. (31 July – 20 August 1963)
Anthony Wedgwood Benn, Esq., MP (20 August 1963 – 1964)
The Rt Hon. Anthony Wedgwood Benn, MP (1964 – October 1973)
The Rt Hon. Tony Benn, MP (October 1973 – 9 June 1983)
The Rt Hon. Tony Benn (9 June 1983 – 1 March 1984)
The Rt Hon. Tony Benn, MP (1 March 1984 – 14 May 2001)
The Rt Hon. Tony Benn (14 May 2001 – 14 March 2014)
Bibliography
Speeches, Spokesman Books (1974);
Levellers and the English Democratic Tradition, Spokesman Books (1976);
Why America Needs Democratic Socialism, Spokesman Books (1978);
Prospects, Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers, Technical, Administrative and Supervisory Section (1979)
Case for Constitutional Civil Service, Institute for Workers' Control (1980);
Case for Party Democracy, Institute for Workers' Control (1980);
Arguments for Socialism, Penguin Books (1980);
& Chris Mullin, Arguments for Democracy, Jonathan Cape (1981);
European Unity: A New Perspective, Spokesman Books (1981)
Parliament and Power: Agenda for a Free Society, Verso Books (1982);
& Andrew Hood, Common Sense: New Constitution for Britain, Hutchinson (1993)
Free Radical: New Century Essays, Continuum International Publishing (2004);
Dare to Be a Daniel: Then and Now, Hutchinson (2004);
Letters to my Grandchildren: Thoughts on the Future, Arrow Books (2010);
Diaries
Out of the Wilderness: Diaries 1963–67, Hutchinson (1987);
Office Without Power: Diaries 1968–72, Hutchinson (1988);
Against the Tide: Diaries 1973–76, Hutchinson (1989);
Conflicts of Interest: Diaries 1977–80, Hutchinson (1990);
The End of an Era: Diaries 1980–90, Hutchinson (1992);
Years of Hope: Diaries 1940–62, Hutchinson (1994);
The Benn Diaries: Single Volume Edition 1940–90, Hutchinson (1995);
Free at Last!: Diaries 1991–2001, Hutchinson (2002);
More Time for Politics: Diaries 2001–2007, Hutchinson (2007);
A Blaze of Autumn Sunshine: The Last Diaries, Hutchinson (2013);
See also
Labour Representation Committee (2004)
Republicanism in the United Kingdom
Socialist Campaign Group
References
External links
By date
Contributions in Parliament by Tony Benn. Hansard, 1925–2005.
Late Developer: Review of Against the Tide: Diaries 1973–1976 by Tony Benn. Author – Paul Foot, 1985.
Andrew Roth. "Tony Benn Chesterfield and Bristol South East MP". The Guardian, 25 March 2001.
The Guardian web guide to Benn.. 6 June 2002.
Face-to-Face with Tony Benn. Freeview video interview by the Vega Science Trust. Recorded in 2005.
Tony Benn. "Atomic hypocrisy: West is not in a position to take a high moral line". The Guardian, 30 November 2005.
Interview with Tony Benn – Radio France Internationale. 28 March 2008 – 6-minute audio – Ahead of G20 marches, London.
Tony Benn on Tony Blair: "He Is Guilty of a War Crime". Video report by Democracy Now!. 21 September 2010.
Obituary: Tony Benn. BBC News, 14 March 2014.
Tony Benn: a stalwart of the peace and anti-nuclear movement. Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, 14 March 2014.
Other
Audio interview with The Guardian.
His Address to the College Historical Society of Trinity College.
Private Eye depictions of Benn: "Most Dangerous Man in Britain", "Labour United", "Benn's Triumph", "Foot & Benn Disease", "Would You Buy a New Car From This Man?".
Tony Benn on Modern Liberty. Tony Benn speaking for The Convention on Modern Liberty. YouTube. 23 February 2009.
Unofficial Tony Benn quotation site.
Tony Benn on The Guardian
1925 births
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Alumni of New College, Oxford
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Stansgate, V2
United Kingdom Postmasters General
Stansgate, Tony Benn, 2nd Viscount
Left-wing politics in the United Kingdom
Ministers in the Wilson governments, 1964–1970
People with Guillain–Barré syndrome
Pipe smokers | true | [
"Yoni Wolf (formerly known by his stage name Why?) is an American alternative hip hop and indie rock artist based in Berkeley, California. His discography consists of twelve studio albums, eight EPs, three compilations of demos, one compilation album, four live albums, numerous physical singles, and many production and remix credits and guest appearances on other artists' tracks.\n\nAlbums\n\nSolo \n Part Time People Cage... or Part Time Key? (1999) (as Why?)\n Oaklandazulasylum (2003) (as Why?)\n\nWhy? \nElephant Eyelash (2005)\nAlopecia (2008)\nEskimo Snow (2009)\nMumps, Etc. (2012)\nMoh Lhean (2017)\nAOKOHIO (2019)\n\nClouddead (Yoni Wolf with Doseone & Odd Nosdam) \n Clouddead (2001)\n Ten (2004)\n\nGreenthink (Yoni Wolf with Doseone) \n It's Not Easy Being... (1998)\n Blindfold (1999)\n\nOther collaborations \n Object Beings (2001) (with Doseone & Pedestrian, as Object Beings)\n In the Shadow of the Living Room (2002) (with Odd Nosdam, as Reaching Quiet)\n Hymie's Basement (2003) (with Andrew Broder, as Hymie's Basement)\n Divorcee (2014) (with Anna Stewart, as Divorcee)\n Testarossa (2016) (with Serengeti)\n\nEPs\n Crazy Hitman Science (1999) (with Doseone, Jel, et al., as Blud N Gutz)\n Split EP! (2001) (as Why?, with Odd Nosdam)\n Miss Ohio's Nameless (2001) (with Odd Nosdam, Doug McDiarmid, Chris Messick & John Meinkin, as Miss Ohio's Nameless)\n The Peel Session (2001) (Clouddead)\n Early Whitney (2003) (as Why?)\n Sanddollars (2005) (with Why?)\n Rubber Traits EP (2006) (with Why?)\n Sod in the Seed (2012) (with Why?)\n\nMixtapes\n Old Dope (Rap Tape) (2014)\n Snowjams (Covers Tape) (2014)\n\nDemo albums\n Alopecia: The Demos!! (2008) (with Why?)\n Eskimo Snow Demos (2009) (with Why?)\n Mumps, Etc. Etc.: The Demos 2007-2011 (2012) (with Why?)\n\nLive albums\n Apogee (1997) (with Doseone, Josiah & Mr. Dibbs, as Apogee)\n Almost Live from Anna’s Cabin (2003) (as Why?)\n Hymie's Basement Live (2004) (Hymie's Basement)\n Almost Live from Eli's Room (2008) (with Why?)\n Live At Third Man Records (2018)\n\nSingles\n \"Attack of the Postmodern Pat Boones / Cannibalism of the Object Beings\" (2000) (Object Beings)\n \"Apt. A\" (2000) (Clouddead)\n \"And All You Can Do Is Laugh\" (2000) (Clouddead)\n \"I Promise Never to Get Paint on My Glasses Again\" (2001) (Clouddead)\n \"Jimmy Breeze\" (2001) (Clouddead)\n \"Cloud Dead Number Five\" (2001) (Clouddead)\n \"Bike\" (2001) (Clouddead)\n \"So Long, Mike Pt. 1 / Black Light District\" (2001) (with Odd Nosdam, as MadToons Beat Orchestra)\n \"The Sound of a Handshake / This About the City\" (2002) (Clouddead)\n \"Dead Dogs Two\" (2004) (Clouddead)\n \"Dumb Hummer\" (2006) (with Why?)\n \"The Hollows\" (2007) (with Why?)\n\nGuest appearances\n Sole - \"Center City\" from Bottle of Humans (2000)\n Reaching Quiet - \"113th Clean\" on Ropeladder 12 (2000)\n Hood - \"They Removed All Trace That Anything Had Ever Happened Here\", \"Branches Bare\" & \"You're Worth The Whole World\" from Cold House (2001)\n DJ Krush - \"Song for John Walker\" from The Message at the Depth (2002)\n Pedestrian - \"O Hosanna\" \"Lifelong Liquidation Sale (1850-1950)\" \"The Dead Of A Day\" \"Anticon.\" \"Jane 2: Electric Boogaloo\" from Volume One: UnIndian Songs (2005)\n 13 & God - \"Soft Atlas\" from 13 & God (2005)\n Jel - \"All Day Breakfast\" from Soft Money (2006)\n Subtle - \"Falling\" from Yell & Ice (2007)\n Xiu Xiu - \"The Wig Master\" from Remixed & Covered (2007)\n SJ Esau - \"Note\" from Stop Touching My Cat (2007)\n Alias - \"Well Water Black\" from Resurgam (2008)\n Cryptacize - \"As I Went Out This Morning\" from Unusual Animals Vol. 4 (2008)\n Telephone Jim Jesus - \"Dice Raw\" from Anywhere Out of the Everything (2008)\n Themselves - \"Rapping 4 Money\" from The Free Houdini (2009)\n Serengeti - \"Geti Life\" from C.A.R. (2012)\n Ceschi - \"Yoni’s Electrocardiographs (feat. Yoni Wolf)\" from Sans Soleil (2019)\n Foxing - \"Speak With The Dead (feat. WHY?) (2021)\n\nRemix credits\n Fog - \"What a Day Day (Remix)\" from What a Day Day (2003)\n Themselves - \"Poison Pit (remix)\" from The No Music of AIFFs (2003)\n 13 & God - \"Into The Trees (Remix)\" from \"Men of Station\" (2005)\n Thee More Shallows - \"Freshman Remix\" from Monkey vs. Shark (2006)\n Bracken - \"Heathens (Redone by Alias And Why?)\" from \"Heathens\" (2006)\n\nDiscographies of American artists\nHip hop discographies\nMusic of the San Francisco Bay Area",
"In database design, a Persistent Object Identifier (POID) is a unique identifier of a record on a table, used as the primary key. Important characteristics of a POID are that it does not carry business information and are not generally exported or otherwise made visible to data users; as such a POID has many of the characteristics of a surrogate key. The only purpose of the POID is to act as the primary key on the table where it is defined and to be referenced as the foreign key by other tables. Because POIDs, like surrogate keys, do not carry business information, they are immune to changes in the form or meaning of business data.\n\nSee also\n Natural key\n Primary key\n Surrogate key\n Unique key\n Object identifier\n\nExternal links\n Persistent Object ID Service\n What is a Persistent Object Identifier and why should I care?\n Persistent Object\nDatabase theory"
] |
[
"Tony Benn",
"Prior to retirement, 1997-2001",
"What did Benn do in 1997?",
"Benn was initially somewhat sympathetic to Blair, welcoming a change of government.",
"What change of government?",
"Blair] set up a new political party, New Labour\",",
"Why did he set up a new party?",
"I don't know.",
"What else did Benn do in 1997?",
"Benn supported the introduction of the national minimum wage, and welcomed the progress towards peace and security in Northern Ireland",
"What was happening in Northern Ireland?",
"I don't know.",
"Did Benn do anything in 1998?",
"Benn strongly objected to the \"immoral\" bombing of Iraq in December 1998,",
"Why did he object?",
"Aren't Iraqis terrified? Don't Arab and Iraqi women weep when their children die? Does bombing strengthen their determination? ..."
] | C_bc32948de7454cfdbfeaa94f0a07401b_0 | Did he do anything else about Iraq? | 8 | Did Benn do anything else about Iraq in addition to statements supporting objection to the bombing? | Tony Benn | In 1997, the Labour Party under Tony Blair won the election. Despite later calling Labour under Tony Blair "the idea of a Conservative group who had taken over Labour" and saying "[Blair] set up a new political party, New Labour", Benn's political diaries Free at Last show that Benn was initially somewhat sympathetic to Blair, welcoming a change of government. Benn supported the introduction of the national minimum wage, and welcomed the progress towards peace and security in Northern Ireland (particularly under Mo Mowlam). He was supportive of the extra public money given to public services in the New Labour years but believed it to be under the guise of privatisation. Overall, his concluding judgement on New Labour is highly critical; he describes its evolution as a way of retaining office by abandoning socialism and distancing the party from the trade union movement, adopting a presidentialist style of politics, overriding the concept of the collective ministerial responsibility by reducing the power of the Cabinet, eliminated any effective influence from the annual conference of the Labour Party and "hinged its foreign policy on support for one of the worst presidents in US history". Benn strongly objected to the "immoral" bombing of Iraq in December 1998, saying: "Aren't Arabs terrified? Aren't Iraqis terrified? Don't Arab and Iraqi women weep when their children die? Does bombing strengthen their determination? ... Every Member of Parliament tonight who votes for the government motion will be consciously and deliberately accepting the responsibility for the deaths of innocent people if the war begins, as I fear it will." Several months prior to his retirement, Benn was a signatory to a letter, alongside Niki Adams (Legal Action for Women), Ian Macdonald QC, Gareth Peirce, and other legal professionals, that was published in The Guardian newspaper on 22 February 2001 "condemning" raids of more than 50 brothels in the central London area of Soho. At the time, a police spokesman said: "As far as we know, this is the biggest simultaneous crackdown on brothels and prostitution in this country in recent times", the arrest of 28 people in an operation that involved around 110 police officers. The letter read: In the name of "protecting" women from trafficking, about 40 women, including a woman from Iraq, were arrested, detained and in some cases summarily removed from Britain. If any of these women have been trafficked ... they deserve protection and resources, not punishment by expulsion. ... Having forced women into destitution, the government first criminalised those who begged. Now it is trying to use prostitution as a way to make deportation of the vulnerable more acceptable. We will not allow such injustice to go unchallenged. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Anthony Neil Wedgwood Benn (3 April 1925 – 14 March 2014; known between 1960 and 1963 as Viscount Stansgate) was a British politician, writer and diarist who served as a Cabinet minister in the 1960s and 1970s. A member of the Labour Party, he was Member of Parliament for Bristol South East and Chesterfield for 47 of the 51 years between 1950 and 2001. He later served as President of the Stop the War Coalition from 2001 to 2014.
The son of a Liberal and later Labour Party politician, Benn was born in Westminster and privately educated at Westminster School. He was elected for Bristol South East at the 1950 general election but inherited his father's peerage on his death, which prevented him from continuing to serve as an MP. He fought to remain in the House of Commons and campaigned for the ability to renounce the title, a campaign which succeeded with the Peerage Act 1963. He was an active member of the Fabian Society and served as chairman from 1964 to 1965. He served in the Labour government of Harold Wilson from 1964 to 1970 first as Postmaster General, where he oversaw the opening of the Post Office Tower, and later as Minister of Technology.
Benn served as Chairman of the National Executive Committee from 1971 to 1972 while in Opposition. In the Labour government of 1974–1979, he returned to the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Industry and subsequently served as Secretary of State for Energy. He retained that post when James Callaghan succeeded Wilson as Prime Minister. When the Labour Party was in opposition through the 1980s, he emerged as a prominent figure on the left wing of the party and unsuccessfully challenged Neil Kinnock for the Labour leadership in 1988. After leaving Parliament at the 2001 general election, Benn was President of the Stop the War Coalition until his death in 2014.
Benn was widely seen as a key proponent of democratic socialism and Christian socialism. Originally considered a moderate within the party, he was identified as belonging to its left wing after leaving ministerial office. The terms Bennism and Bennite came into usage to describe the left-wing politics he espoused from the late 1970s and its adherents. He was an influence on the politics of Jeremy Corbyn, who was elected Leader of the Labour Party a year after Benn's death, and John McDonnell, who served as Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer under Corbyn.
Early life and family
Benn was born in Westminster, London, on 3 April 1925. He had two brothers, Michael (1921–1944), who was killed in the Second World War, and David (1928–2017), a specialist in Russia and Eastern Europe. After the Thames flood in January 1928 their house was uninhabitable so the Benn family moved to Scotland for over 12 months. Their father, William Benn, was a Liberal Member of Parliament from 1906 who crossed the floor to the Labour Party in 1928 and was appointed Secretary of State for India by Ramsay MacDonald in 1929, a position he held until the Labour Party's landslide electoral defeat in 1931. William Benn was elevated to the House of Lords and Tony Benn was subsequently titled with the honorific prefix, The Honourable. William Benn was given the title of Viscount Stansgate in 1942: the new wartime coalition government was short of working Labour peers in the upper house. In 1945–46, William Benn was the Secretary of State for Air in the first majority Labour Government.
Benn's mother, Margaret Benn (née Holmes, 1897–1991), was a theologian, feminist and the founder President of the Congregational Federation. She was a member of the League of the Church Militant, which was the predecessor of the Movement for the Ordination of Women; in 1925, she was rebuked by Randall Davidson, the Archbishop of Canterbury, for advocating the ordination of women. His mother's theology had a profound influence on Benn, as she taught him that the stories in the Bible were based around the struggle between the prophets and the kings and that he ought in his life to support the prophets over the kings, who had power, as the prophets taught righteousness.
Benn was for over 30 years a committed Christian. He said that the teachings of Jesus Christ had a "radical political importance" on his life, and made a distinction between the historical Jesus as "a carpenter of Nazareth" who advocated social justice and egalitarianism and "the way in which he's presented by some religious authorities; by popes, archbishops and bishops who present Jesus as justification for their power", believing this to be a gross misunderstanding of the role of Jesus. He believed that it was a "great mistake" to assume that the teachings of Christianity are outdated in modern Britain, and Higgins wrote in The Benn Inheritance that Benn was "a socialist whose political commitment owes much more to the teaching of Jesus than the writing of Marx". (Indeed, he did not read The Communist Manifesto until he was in his 50s.) "The driving force of his life was Christian socialism," according to Peter Wilby, linking Benn to the "high-minded" founding roots of Labour.
Later in his life, Benn emphasised issues regarding morality and righteousness, as well as various ethical principles of Nonconformism. On Desert Island Discs he said that he had been powerfully influenced by "what I would call the Dissenting tradition" (that is, the English Dissenters who left or were ejected from the established church, one of whom was his ancestor William Benn). "I've never thought we can understand the world we lived in unless we understood the history of the church", Benn said to the Catholic Herald. "All political freedoms were won, first of all, through religious freedom. Some of the arguments about the control of the media today, which are very big arguments, are the arguments that would have been fought in the religious wars. You have the satellites coming in now—well, it is the multinational church all over again. That's why Mrs Thatcher pulled Britain out of UNESCO: she was not prepared, any more than Ronald Reagan was, to be part of an organisation that talked about a New World Information Order, people speaking to each other without the help of Murdoch or Maxwell."
According to Wilby in the New Statesman, Benn "decided to do without the paraphernalia and doctrine of organised religion but not without the teachings of Jesus". Although Benn became more agnostic as he became older, he was intrigued by the interconnections between Christianity, radicalism and socialism. Wilby also wrote in The Guardian that although former Chancellor Stafford Cripps described Benn as "as keen a Christian as I am myself", Benn wrote in 2005 that he was "a Christian agnostic" who believed "in Jesus the prophet, not Christ the king", specifically rejecting the label of "humanist".
Both of Benn's grandfathers were Liberal Party MPs; his paternal grandfather was John Benn, a successful politician, MP for Tower Hamlets and later Devonport, who was created a baronet in 1914 (and who founded a publishing company, Benn Brothers), and his maternal grandfather was Daniel Holmes, MP for Glasgow Govan. Benn's contact with leading politicians of the day, dates back to his earliest years. He met Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald when he was five years old, whom he described as: "A kindly old gentleman [who] leaned over me and offered me a chocolate biscuit. I've looked at Labour leaders in a funny way ever since." Benn also met former Liberal Prime Minister David Lloyd George when he was 12, and later recalled that, while still a boy, he once shook hands with Mahatma Gandhi, in 1931, while his father was Secretary of State for India.
During the Second World War, Benn joined and trained with the Home Guard from the age of 16, later recalling in a speech made in 2009: "I could use a bayonet, a rifle, a revolver, and if I'd seen a German officer having a meal I'd have tossed a grenade through the window. Would I have been a freedom fighter or a terrorist?" In July 1943, Benn enlisted in the Royal Air Force as an aircraftman 2nd Class. His father and elder brother Michael (who was later killed in an accident) were already serving in the RAF. He was granted an emergency commission as a pilot officer (on probation) on 10 March 1945. As a pilot officer, Benn served as a pilot in South Africa and Rhodesia. In June 1944, he made his first solo flight, at RAF Guinea Fowl, an RAF Elementary Flying Training School, in Rhodesia. The aircraft was a Canadian-built Fairchild Cornell. In a 1993 article recounting the experience, he said, "I always thought that I would feel a sense of panic when I saw the ground coming up at me on my first solo, but strangely enough I didn't feel anything but exhilaration ...". He relinquished his commission with effect from 10 August 1945, three months after the Second World War ended in Europe on 8 May, and just days before the war with Japan ended on 2 September.
After attending Mr Gladstone's day school near Sloane Square, Benn attended Westminster School, and studied at New College, Oxford, where he read Philosophy, Politics and Economics and was elected President of the Oxford Union in 1947. In later life, Benn removed public references to his private education from Who's Who. In 1970 all references to Westminster School were removed, and in the 1975 edition his entry stated "Education—still in progress". In the 1976 edition, almost all details were omitted except his name, jobs as a Member of Parliament and as a Government Minister, and address; the publishers confirmed that Benn had sent back the draft entry with everything else struck through. In the 1977 edition, Benn's entry disappeared entirely, and when he returned to Who's Who in 1983, he was listed as "Tony Benn" and all references to his education or service record were removed.
In 1972, Benn said in his diaries that "Today I had the idea that I would resign my Privy Councillorship, my MA and all my honorary doctorates in order to strip myself of what the world had to offer". While he acknowledged that he "might be ridiculed" for doing so, Benn said that "'Wedgie Benn' and 'the Rt Honourable Anthony Wedgwood Benn' and all that stuff is impossible. I have been Tony Benn in Bristol for a long time." In October 1973, he announced on BBC Radio that he wished to be known as Mr. Tony Benn rather than Anthony Wedgwood Benn, and his book Speeches from 1974 is credited to "Tony Benn". Despite this name change, social historian Alwyn W. Turner writes that "Just as those with an agenda to pursue still call Muhammed Ali by his original name ... so most newspapers continued to refer to Tony Benn as Wedgwood Benn, or Wedgie in the case of the tabloids, for years to come".
Benn met Caroline Middleton DeCamp (born 13 October 1926, Cincinnati, Ohio, United States) over tea at Worcester College, Oxford, in 1949; just nine days after meeting her, he proposed to her on a park bench in the city. Later, he bought the bench from Oxford City Council and installed it in the garden of their home in Holland Park. Tony and Caroline had four children—Stephen, Hilary, Melissa, a feminist writer, and Joshua—and 10 grandchildren. Caroline Benn died of cancer on 22 November 2000, aged 74, after a career as an educationalist.
Two of Benn's children have been active in Labour Party politics. His eldest son Stephen was an elected Member of the Inner London Education Authority from 1986 to 1990. His second son Hilary was a councillor in London, stood for Parliament in 1983 and 1987, and became Labour MP for Leeds Central in 1999. He was Secretary of State for International Development from 2003 to 2007, and then Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs until 2010, later serving as Shadow Foreign Secretary (2015–16). This makes him the third generation of his family to have been a member of the Cabinet, a rare distinction for a modern political family in Britain. Benn's granddaughter Emily Benn was the Labour Party's youngest-ever candidate when she failed to win East Worthing and Shoreham in 2010. Benn was a first cousin once removed of the actress Margaret Rutherford.
Benn and his wife Caroline became vegetarian in 1970, for ethical reasons, and remained so for the rest of their lives. Benn cited the decision of his son Hilary to become vegetarian as an important factor in his own decision to adopt a vegetarian diet.
Early parliamentary career
Member of Parliament, 1950–1960
Following the Second World War, Benn worked briefly as a BBC Radio producer. On 1 November 1950, he was selected to succeed Stafford Cripps as the Labour candidate for Bristol South East, after Cripps stood down because of ill-health. He won the seat in a by-election on 30 November 1950. Anthony Crosland helped him get the seat as he was the MP for nearby South Gloucestershire at the time. Upon taking the oath on 4 December 1950 Benn became "Baby of the House", the youngest MP, for one day, being succeeded by Thomas Teevan, who was two years younger but took his oath a day later. He became the "Baby" again in 1951, when Teevan was not re-elected. In the 1950s, Benn held middle-of-the-road or soft left views, and was not associated with the young left wing group around Aneurin Bevan.
As MP for Bristol South East, Benn helped organise the 1963 Bristol Bus Boycott against the colour bar of the Bristol Omnibus Company against employing Black British and British Asian drivers. Benn said that he would "stay off the buses, even if I have to find a bike", and Labour leader Harold Wilson also told an anti-apartheid rally in London he was "glad that so many Bristolians are supporting the [boycott] campaign", adding that he "wish[ed] them every success".
Peerage reform
Benn's father was created Viscount Stansgate in 1942 when Winston Churchill increased the number of Labour peers to aid political work in the House of Lords; at this time, Benn's elder brother Michael, then serving in the RAF, was intending to enter the priesthood and had no objections to inheriting a peerage. However, Michael was later killed in an accident while on active service in the Second World War, and this left Benn as the heir-apparent to the peerage. He made several unsuccessful attempts to renounce the succession.
In November 1960, Lord Stansgate died. Benn automatically became a peer, preventing him from sitting in the House of Commons. The Speaker of the Commons, Sir Harry Hylton-Foster, did not allow him to deliver a speech from the bar of the House of Commons in April 1961 when the by-election was being called. Continuing to maintain his right to abandon his peerage, Benn fought to retain his seat in a by-election caused by his succession on 4 May 1961. Although he was disqualified from taking his seat, he was re-elected. An election court found that the voters were fully aware that Benn was disqualified, and declared the seat won by the Conservative runner-up, Malcolm St Clair, who was at the time also the heir presumptive to a peerage.
Benn continued his campaign outside Parliament. Within two years, though, the Conservative Government of the time, which had members in the same or similar situation to Benn's (i.e., who were going to receive title, or who had already applied for writs of summons), changed the law. The Peerage Act 1963, allowing lifetime disclaimer of peerages, became law shortly after 6 pm on 31 July 1963. Benn was the first peer to renounce his title, doing so at 6.22 pm that day. St Clair, fulfilling a promise he had made at the time of his election, then accepted the office of Steward of the Manor of Northstead, disqualifying himself from the House (outright resignation not being possible). Benn returned to the Commons after winning a by-election on 20 August 1963.
In government, 1964–1970
In the 1964 Government led by Harold Wilson, Benn was Postmaster General, where he oversaw the opening of the Post Office Tower, then the UK's tallest building, and the creations of the Post Bus service and Girobank. He proposed issuing stamps without the Sovereign's head, but this met with private opposition from the Queen. Instead, the portrait was reduced to a small profile in silhouette, a format that is still used on commemorative stamps.
Benn also led the government's opposition to the "pirate" radio stations broadcasting from international waters, which he was aware would be an unpopular measure. Some of these stations were causing problems, such as interference to emergency radio used by shipping, although he was not responsible for introducing the Marine Broadcasting Offences Bill when it came before Parliament at the end of July 1966 for its first reading.
Earlier in the month, Benn was promoted to Minister of Technology, which included responsibility for the development of Concorde and the formation of International Computers Ltd. (ICL). The period also saw government involvement in industrial rationalisation, and the merger of several car companies to form British Leyland. Following Conservative MP Enoch Powell's 1968 "Rivers of Blood" speech to a Conservative Association meeting, in opposition to Harold Wilson's insistence on not "stirring up the Powell issue", Benn said during the 1970 general election campaign:
The mainstream press attacked Benn for using language deemed as intemperate as Powell's language in his "Rivers of Blood" speech (which was widely regarded as racist), and Benn noted in his diary that "letters began pouring in on the Powell speech: 2:1 against me but some very sympathetic ones saying that my speech was overdue". Harold Wilson later reprimanded Benn for this speech, accusing him of losing Labour seats in the 1970 general election.
During the 1970s Benn publicly defended Marxism, saying:
Labour lost the 1970 election to Edward Heath's Conservatives and upon Heath's application to join the European Economic Community, a surge in left-wing Euroscepticism emerged. Benn "was stridently against membership", and campaigned in favour of a referendum on the UK's membership. The Shadow Cabinet voted to support a referendum on 29 March 1972, and as a result Roy Jenkins resigned as Deputy Leader of the Labour Party.
In government, 1974–1979
In the Labour Government of 1974, Benn was Secretary of State for Industry and as such increased nationalised industry pay, provided better terms and conditions for workers such as the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and was involved in setting up worker cooperatives in firms which were struggling, the best known being at Meriden, outside Coventry, producing Triumph Motorcycles. In 1975, he was appointed Secretary of State for Energy, immediately following his unsuccessful campaign for a "No" vote in the referendum on the UK's continued membership of the European Community (Common Market). Later in his diary, (25 October 1977) Benn wrote that he "loathed" the EEC; he claimed it was "bureaucratic and centralised" and "of course it is really dominated by Germany. All the Common Market countries except the UK have been occupied by Germany, and they have this mixed feeling of hatred and subservience towards the Germans".
Upon the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, Benn described Mao as "one of the greatest—if not the greatest—figures of the twentieth century: a schoolteacher who transformed China, released it from civil war and foreign attack and constructed a new society there" in his diaries, adding that "he certainly towers above any twentieth-century figure I can think of in his philosophical contribution and military genius". On his trip to the Chinese embassy after Mao's death, Benn recorded in an earlier volume of his diaries that he was "a great admirer of Mao", while also admitting that "he made mistakes, because everybody does".
Harold Wilson resigned as Leader of the Labour Party and Prime Minister in March 1976. Benn later attributed the collapse of the Wilson government to cuts enforced on the UK by global capital, in particular the International Monetary Fund. In the resulting leadership contest Benn finished in fourth place out of the six cabinet ministers who stood—he withdrew as 11.8 per cent of colleagues voted for him in the first ballot. Benn withdrew from the second ballot and endorsed Michael Foot; James Callaghan eventually won. Despite not receiving his support in the second and third rounds of the vote, Callaghan kept Benn on as Energy Secretary. In 1976, there was a sterling crisis, and Chancellor of the Exchequer Denis Healey sought a loan from the International Monetary Fund. Underlining a wish to counter international market forces which seemed to penalise a larger welfare state, Benn publicly circulated the divided Cabinet minutes in which a narrow majority of the Labour Cabinet under Ramsay MacDonald supported a cut in unemployment benefits in order to obtain a loan from American bankers. As he highlighted, these minutes resulted in the 1931 split of the Labour Party in which MacDonald and his allies formed a National Government with Conservatives and Liberals. Callaghan allowed Benn to put forward the Alternative Economic Strategy, which consisted of a self-sufficient economy less dependent on low-rate fresh borrowing, but the AES, which according to opponents would have led to a "siege economy", was rejected by the Cabinet. In response, Benn later recalled that: "I retorted that their policy was a siege economy, only they had the bankers inside the castle with all our supporters left outside, whereas my policy would have our supporters in the castle with the bankers outside." Benn blamed the Winter of Discontent on these cuts to socialist policies.
During Benn's time as energy minister from 1975 to 1979 he supported the United Kingdom's use of nuclear power. However, later in his life he became an opponent of nuclear power, attributing his time as running it as a minister to persuading him it was not cheap, safe or peaceful. When asked in an interview in January 2009 on what he had changed his mind on over the course of his life he expanded on this issue by saying:
Move to the left
By the end of the 1970s, Benn's views had shifted to the left-wing of the Labour Party. He attributed this political shift to his experience as a Cabinet Minister in the 1964–1970 Labour Government. Benn ascribed his move to the left to four lessons:
How "the Civil Service can frustrate the policies and decisions of popularly elected governments"
The centralised nature of the Labour Party which allowed the Leader to run "the Party almost as if it were his personal kingdom"
"The power of industrialists and bankers to get their way by use of the crudest form of economic pressure, even blackmail, against a Labour Government"
The power of the media, which "like the power of the medieval Church, ensures that events of the day are always presented from the point of the view of those who enjoy economic privilege"
As regards the power of industrialists and bankers, Benn remarked:
Benn's philosophy consisted of a form of syndicalism, state planning where necessary to ensure national competitiveness, greater democracy in the structures of the Labour Party and observance of Party Conference decisions. Alongside an alleged 12 Labour MPs, he spent 12 years affiliated with the Institute for Workers' Control, beginning in 1971 when he visited the Upper Clyde Shipyards, arguing in 1975 for the "labour movement to intensify its discussion about industrial democracy".
He was vilified by most of the press while his opponents implied and stated that a Benn-led Labour Government would implement a type of Eastern European state socialism, with Edward Heath referring to Benn as "Commissar Benn" and others referring to Benn as a "Bollinger Bolshevik". Despite this, Benn was overwhelmingly popular with Labour activists in the constituencies: a survey of delegates at the Labour Party Conference in 1978 found that by large margins they supported Benn for the leadership, as well as many Bennite policies.
He publicly supported Sinn Féin and the unification of Ireland, although in 2005 he suggested to Sinn Féin leaders that it abandon its long-standing policy of not taking seats at Westminster (abstentionism). Sinn Féin in turn argued that to do so would recognise Britain's claim over Northern Ireland, and the Sinn Féin constitution prevented its elected members from taking their seats in any British-created institution. A supporter of the Scottish Parliament and political devolution, Benn however opposed the Scottish National Party and Scottish independence, saying: "I think nationalism is a mistake. And I am half Scots and feel it would divide me in half with a knife. The thought that my mother would suddenly be a foreigner would upset me very much."
In British politics during this period, the term "Bennism" came into use to describe the conviction politics, economic, social and political ideology of Tony Benn; and an exponent or advocate of Bennism was regarded as a "Bennite".
In opposition, 1979–1997
In a keynote speech to the Labour Party Conference of 1980, shortly before the resignation of party leader James Callaghan and election of Michael Foot as successor, Benn outlined what he envisaged the next Labour Government would do. "Within days", a Labour Government would gain powers to nationalise industries, control capital and implement industrial democracy; "within weeks", all powers from Brussels would be returned to Westminster, and the House of Lords would be abolished by creating one thousand new peers and then abolishing the peerage. Benn received tumultuous applause. On 25 January 1981, Roy Jenkins, David Owen, Shirley Williams and Bill Rodgers (known collectively as the "Gang of Four") launched the Council for Social Democracy, which became the Social Democratic Party in March. The "Gang of Four" left the Labour Party because of what they perceived to be the influence of the Militant tendency and the Bennite "hard left" within the party. Benn was highly critical of the SDP, saying that "Britain has had SDP governments for the past 25 years."
Benn stood against Denis Healey, the party's incumbent deputy leader, triggering the 1981 deputy leadership election, disregarding an appeal from Michael Foot to either stand for the leadership or abstain from inflaming the party's divisions. Benn defended his decision insisting that it was "not about personalities, but about policies". The result was announced on 27 September 1981; Healey retained his position by a margin of barely one per cent. The decision of several soft left MPs, including Neil Kinnock, to abstain triggered the split of the Socialist Campaign Group from the left of the Tribune Group.
After Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands in April 1982, Benn argued that the dispute should be settled by the United Nations and that the British Government should not send a task force to recapture the islands. The task force was sent, and following the Falklands War, they were back in British control by mid-June. In a debate in the Commons just after the Falklands were recaptured, Benn's demand for "a full analysis of the costs in life, equipment and money in this tragic and unnecessary war" was rejected by Margaret Thatcher, who stated that "he would not enjoy the freedom of speech that he put to such excellent use unless people had been prepared to fight for it".
For the 1983 election Benn's Bristol South East constituency was abolished by boundary changes, and he lost to Michael Cocks in the selection of a candidate to stand in the new winnable seat of Bristol South. Rejecting offers from the new seat of Livingston in Scotland, Benn contested Bristol East, losing to the Conservative's Jonathan Sayeed in June 1983. Foot resigned as leader following the defeat which reduced Labour to only 209 MPs, while Healey also decided to step down as deputy leader. However Benn's absence from parliament meant that he was unable to stand in the resulting leadership contest as only MPs were eligible to be candidates. Benn's absence from the contest was reported by The Glasgow Herald to leave Neil Kinnock as "the favourite Left-wing candidate". Ultimately Kinnock won the contest, formally replacing Foot as party leader in October of that year.
In a by-election, Benn was elected as the MP for Chesterfield, the next Labour seat to fall vacant, after Eric Varley had left the Commons to head Coalite. On the day of the by-election, 1 March 1984, The Sun newspaper ran a hostile feature article, "Benn on the Couch", which purported to be the opinions of an American psychiatrist.
Newly elected to a mining seat, Benn was a supporter of the 1984–85 UK miners' strike, which was beginning when he returned to the Commons, and of his long-standing friend, the National Union of Mineworkers leader Arthur Scargill. However, some miners considered Benn's 1977 industry reforms to have caused problems during the strike; firstly, that they led to huge wage differences and distrust between miners of different regions; and secondly that the controversy over balloting miners for these reforms made it unclear as to whether a ballot was needed for a strike or whether it could be deemed as a "regional matter" in the same way that the 1977 reforms had been. Benn also spoke at a Militant tendency rally held in 1984, saying: "The labour movement is not engaged in a personalised battle against individual cabinet ministers, nor do we seek to win public support by arguing that the crisis could be ended by the election of a new and more humane team of ministers who are better qualified to administer capitalism. We are working for a majority labour government, elected on a socialist programme, as decided by conference."
In June 1985, three months after the miners admitted defeat and ended their strike, Benn introduced the Miners' Amnesty (General Pardon) Bill into the Commons, which would have extended an amnesty to all miners imprisoned during the strike. This would have included two men convicted of murder (later reduced to manslaughter) for the killing of David Wilkie, a taxi driver driving a non-striking miner to work in South Wales during the strike.
Benn stood for election as party leader in 1988, against Neil Kinnock, following Labour's third successive defeat in the 1987 general election, losing by a substantial margin, and received only about 11 per cent of the vote. In May 1989 he made an extended appearance on Channel 4's late-night discussion programme After Dark, alongside among others Lord Dacre and Miles Copeland. During the Gulf War, Benn visited Baghdad in order to try to persuade Saddam Hussein to release the hostages who had been captured.
Benn supported various LGBT social movements, which were then known as gay liberation; Benn had voted in favour of decriminalisation in 1967. Talking about Section 28 of the 1988 Local Government Act, a piece of anti-gay legislation preventing the "promotion of homosexuality", Benn said:
Benn later voted for the repeal of Section 28 during the first term of Tony Blair's New Labour Government, and voted in favour of equalising the age of consent.
In 1990 he proposed a "Margaret Thatcher (Global Repeal) Bill", which he said "could go through both Houses in 24 hours. It would be easy to reverse the policies and replace the personalities—the process has begun—but the rotten values that have been propagated from the platform of political power in Britain during the past 10 years will be an infection—a virulent strain of right-wing capitalist thinking which it will take time to overcome." In 1991, with Labour still in opposition and a general election due by June 1992, he proposed the Commonwealth of Britain Bill, abolishing the monarchy in favour of the United Kingdom becoming a "democratic, federal and secular commonwealth", a republic with a written constitution. It was read in Parliament a number of times until his retirement at the 2001 election, but never achieved a second reading. He presented an account of his proposal in Common Sense: A New Constitution for Britain. In 1992, Benn also received a Pipe Smoker of the Year award, claiming in his acceptance speech that "pipe smoking stopped you going to war".
In 1991, Benn reiterated his opposition to the European Commission and highlighted an alleged democratic deficit in the institution, saying: "Some people genuinely believe that we shall never get social justice from the British Government, but we shall get it from Jacques Delors. They believe that a good king is better than a bad Parliament. I have never taken that view." This argument has also been used by many on the right-wing Eurosceptic wing of the Conservative Party, such as Daniel Hannan MEP. Jonathan Freedland writes in The Guardian that "For [Tony Benn], even benign rule by a monarch was worthless because the king's whim could change and there'd be nothing you could do about it."
Prior to retirement, 1997–2001
In 1997, the Labour Party under the leadership of Tony Blair won the general election in a landslide, after 18 years of Conservative Party rule. Despite later calling Labour under Blair "the idea of a Conservative group who had taken over Labour" and saying "[Blair] set up a new political party, New Labour", his political diaries Free at Last show that Benn was initially somewhat sympathetic to Blair, welcoming a change of government. Benn supported the introduction of the national minimum wage, and welcomed the progress towards peace and security in Northern Ireland (particularly under Mo Mowlam). He was supportive of the extra money given to public services in the New Labour years but believed it to be under the guise of privatisation. Overall, his concluding judgement on New Labour is highly critical; he describes its evolution as a way of retaining office by abandoning socialism and distancing the party from the trade union movement, adopting a presidentialist style of politics, overriding the concept of the collective ministerial responsibility by reducing the power of the Cabinet, eliminated any effective influence from the annual conference of the Labour Party and "hinged its foreign policy on support for one of the worst presidents in US history".
Benn strongly objected to the bombing of Iraq in December 1998, calling it immoral and saying: "Aren't Arabs terrified? Aren't Iraqis terrified? Don't Arab and Iraqi women weep when their children die? Does bombing strengthen their determination? ... Every Member of Parliament tonight who votes for the government motion will be consciously and deliberately accepting the responsibility for the deaths of innocent people if the war begins, as I fear it will."
Several months prior to his retirement, Benn was a signatory to a letter, alongside Niki Adams (Legal Action for Women), Ian Macdonald QC, Gareth Peirce, and other legal professionals, that was published in The Guardian newspaper on 22 February 2001 condemning raids of more than 50 brothels in the central London area of Soho. At the time, a police spokesman said: "As far as we know, this is the biggest simultaneous crackdown on brothels and prostitution in this country in recent times", the arrest of 28 people in an operation that involved around 110 police officers. The letter read:
In the name of "protecting" women from trafficking, about 40 women, including a woman from Iraq, were arrested, detained and in some cases summarily removed from Britain. If any of these women have been trafficked ... they deserve protection and resources, not punishment by expulsion. ... Having forced women into destitution, the government first criminalised those who begged. Now it is trying to use prostitution as a way to make deportation of the vulnerable more acceptable. We will not allow such injustice to go unchallenged.
Retirement and final years, 2001–2014
Benn chose not to seek re-election at the 2001 general election, saying he was "leaving parliament in order to spend more time on politics." Along with former Prime Minister Edward Heath, Benn was permitted by the Speaker to continue using the House of Commons Library and Members' refreshment facilities. Shortly after his retirement, he became the President of the Stop the War Coalition. He became a leading figure of the British opposition to the War in Afghanistan from 2001 and the Iraq War, and in February 2003 he travelled to Baghdad to meet Saddam Hussein. The interview was broadcast on British television.
He spoke against the war at the February 2003 protest in London organised by the Stop the War Coalition, with police saying it was the biggest ever demonstration in the UK with about 750,000 marchers, and the organisers estimating nearly a million people participating. In February 2004 and 2008, he was re-elected President of the Stop the War Coalition.
He toured with a one-man stage show and appeared a few times each year in a two-man show with folk singer Roy Bailey. In 2003, his show with Bailey was voted 'Best Live Act' at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. In 2002, he opened the "Left Field" stage at the Glastonbury Festival. He continued to speak at each subsequent festival; attending one of his speeches was described as a "Glastonbury rite of passage". In October 2003, he was a guest of British Airways on the last scheduled Concorde flight from New York to London. In June 2005, he was a panellist on a special edition of BBC One's Question Time edited entirely by a school-age film crew selected by a BBC competition.
On 21 June 2005, Benn presented a programme on democracy as part of the Channel 5 series Big Ideas That Changed The World. He presented a left-wing view of democracy as the means to pass power from the "wallet to the ballot". He argued that traditional social democratic values were under threat in an increasingly globalised world in which powerful institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the European Commission are unelected and unaccountable to those whose lives they affect daily.
On 27 September 2005, Benn became ill while attending the annual Labour Party Conference in Brighton and was taken by ambulance to the Royal Sussex County Hospital after being treated by paramedics on-the-scene at the Brighton Centre. Benn reportedly fell and struck his head. He was kept in hospital for observation and was described as being in a "comfortable condition". He was subsequently fitted with an artificial pacemaker to help regulate his heartbeat.
In a list compiled by the magazine New Statesman in 2006, he was voted twelfth in the list of "Heroes of our Time". In September 2006, Benn joined the "Time to Go" demonstration in Manchester the day before the final Labour Party Conference with Tony Blair as Leader of the Labour Party, with the aim of persuading the Government to withdraw troops from Iraq, to refrain from attacking Iran and to reject replacing the Trident missile and submarines with a new system. He spoke to the demonstrators in the rally afterwards. In 2007, he appeared in an extended segment in the Michael Moore film Sicko giving comments about democracy, social responsibility and healthcare, notably, "If we can find the money to kill people, we can find the money to help people." A poll by the BBC2 The Daily Politics programme in January 2007 selected Benn as the UK's "Political Hero" with 38% of the vote, narrowly defeating Margaret Thatcher, who had 35%.
For the 2007 Labour Party leadership election, Benn backed the left-wing MP John McDonnell in his unsuccessful bid. In September 2007, Benn called for the government to hold a referendum on the EU Reform Treaty. In October 2007, aged 82, and when it appeared that a general election was about to be held, Benn reportedly announced that he wanted to stand, having written to his local Constituency Labour Party offering himself as a prospective candidate for the newly drawn Kensington seat. His main opponent would have been the incumbent Conservative MP for the predecessor seat of Kensington and Chelsea, Malcolm Rifkind. However, there was no election held in 2007, and so the boundary changes did not take effect until the eventual election in 2010, when Benn was not a candidate and the new seat was won by Rifkind.
In early 2008, Benn appeared on Scottish singer-songwriter Colin MacIntyre's album The Water, reading a poem he had written himself. In September 2008, he appeared on the DVD release for the Doctor Who story The War Machines with a vignette discussing the Post Office Tower; he became the second Labour politician, after Roy Hattersley to appear on a Doctor Who DVD.
At the Stop the War Conference 2009, he described the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as "Imperialist war(s)" and discussed the killing of American and allied troops by Iraqi or foreign insurgents, questioning whether they were in fact freedom fighters, and comparing the insurgents to a British Dad's Army, saying: "If you are invaded you have a right to self-defence, and this idea that people in Iraq and Afghanistan who are resisting the invasion are militant Muslim extremists is a complete bloody lie. I joined Dad's Army when I was sixteen, and if the Germans had arrived, I tell you, I could use a bayonet, a rifle, a revolver, and if I'd seen a German officer having a meal I'd have tossed a grenade through the window. Would I have been a freedom fighter or a terrorist?"
In an interview published in Dartford Living in September 2009, Benn was critical of the Government's decision to delay the findings of the Iraq War Inquiry until after the general election, stating that "people can take into account what the inquiry has reported on but they’ve deliberately pushed it beyond the election. Government is responsible for explaining what it has done and I don't think we were told the truth." He also stated that local government was strangled by Margaret Thatcher and had not been liberated by New Labour.
In 2009, Benn was admitted to hospital and An Evening with Tony Benn, scheduled to take place at London's Cadogan Hall, was cancelled. He performed his show, The Writing on the Wall, with Roy Bailey at St Mary's Church, Ashford, Kent, in September 2011, as part of the arts venue's first Revelation St. Mary's Season. In July 2011 Benn was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Glamorgan, Wales.
Benn headed the "coalition of resistance", a group which was opposed to the UK austerity programme. In interviews in 2010 with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! and 2013 with Afshin Rattansi on RT UK, Benn claimed that the actions of New Labour in the leadup to and aftermath of the Iraq War were such that the former Prime Minister Tony Blair should be tried for war crimes. Benn also claimed in 2010 that Blair had lost the "trust of the nation" regarding the war in Iraq.
In 2012, Benn was awarded an honorary degree from Goldsmiths, University of London. He was also the honorary president of the Goldsmiths Students' Union, who successfully campaigned for him to retract comments dismissing the Julian Assange rape allegations. In February 2013, Benn was among those who gave their support to the People's Assembly in a letter published by The Guardian newspaper. He gave a speech at the People's Assembly Conference held at Westminster Central Hall on 22 June 2013.
In 2013, Benn reiterated his previous opposition to European integration. Speaking to the Oxford Union on the alleged overshadowing of the EU debate by "UKIP and Tory backbenchers", he said:I took the view that having fought [Europeans in the Second World War] that we should now work with them, and co-operate, and that was my first thought about it. Then how I saw how the European Union was developing, it was very obvious that what they had in mind was not democratic. ... And the way that Europe has developed is that the bankers and the multinational corporations have got very powerful positions, and if you come in on their terms, they will tell you what you can and cannot do. And that is unacceptable. My view about the European Union has always been not that I am hostile to foreigners, but that I am in favour of democracy ... I think they're building an empire there, they want us to be a part of their empire and I don't want that.
Illness and death
In 1990, Benn was diagnosed with chronic lymphatic leukaemia and given three or four years to live; at this time, he kept the news of his leukaemia from everyone except his immediate family. Benn said: "When you're in parliament, you can't describe your medical condition. People immediately start wondering what your majority is and when there will be a by-election. They're very brutal." This was revealed in 2002 with the release of his 1990–2001 diaries.
Benn suffered a stroke in 2012, and spent much of the following year in hospital. He was reported to be "seriously ill" in hospital in February 2014. Benn died at home on 14 March 2014, surrounded by his family, less than a month shy of his 89th birthday.
Benn's funeral took place on 27 March 2014 at St Margaret's Church, Westminster. His body had lain in rest at St Mary Undercroft in the Palace of Westminster the night before the funeral service. The service ended with the singing of "The Red Flag". His body was then cremated; the ashes were expected to be buried alongside those of his wife at the family home near Steeple, Essex.
Figures from across the political spectrum praised Benn following his death, and the leaders of all three major political parties (the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats) in the United Kingdom paid tribute.
Conservative leader and Prime Minister David Cameron said:... he was an extraordinary man: a great writer, a brilliant speaker, extraordinary in Parliament, and a great life of public and political and parliamentary service. I mean, I disagreed with most of what he said. But he was always engaging and interesting, and you were never bored when reading or listening to him, and the country a great campaigner, a great writer, and someone who I'm sure whose words will be followed keenly for many, many years to come.
Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg called Benn an "astonishing, iconic figure" and a "veteran parliamentarian, he was a great writer, he had great warmth and he had great conviction ... his political life will be looked back on with affection and admiration".
Leader of the Opposition and Labour leader Ed Miliband, who knew Benn personally as a family friend, said:I think Tony Benn will be remembered as a champion of the powerless, as a conviction politician, as somebody of deep principle and integrity. The thing about Tony Benn is that you always knew what he stood for, and who he stood up for. And I think that's why he was admired right across the political spectrum. There are people who agreed with him and disagreed with him, including in my own party, but I think people admired that sense of conviction and integrity that shone through from Tony Benn.
Diaries and biographies
Benn was a prolific diarist. Nine volumes of his diaries have been published. The final volume was published in 2013. Collections of his speeches and writings were published as Arguments for Socialism (1979), Arguments for Democracy (1981), (both edited by Chris Mullin), Fighting Back (1988) and (with Andrew Hood) Common Sense (1993), as well as Free Radical: New Century Essays (2004). In August 2003, London DJ Charles Bailey created an album of Benn's speeches () set to ambient groove.
He made public several episodes of audio diaries he made during his time in Parliament and after retirement, entitled The Benn Tapes, broadcast originally on BBC Radio 4. Short series have been played periodically on BBC Radio 4 Extra. A major biography was written by Jad Adams and published by Macmillan in 1992; it was updated to cover the intervening 20 years and reissued by Biteback Publishing in 2011: Tony Benn: A Biography (). A more recent "semi-authorised" biography with a foreword by Benn was published in 2001: David Powell, Tony Benn: A Political Life, Continuum Books (). An autobiography, Dare to be a Daniel: Then and Now, Hutchinson (), a reference to the Old Testament prophet in the lions' den , was published in 2004.
There are substantial essays on Benn in the Dictionary of Labour Biography by Phillip Whitehead, Greg Rosen (eds), Politicos Publishing, 2001 () and in Labour Forces: From Ernie Bevin to Gordon Brown, Kevin Jefferys (ed.), I.B. Tauris Publishing, 2002 (). American Michael Moore dedicates his book Mike's Election Guide 2008 () to Benn, with the words: "For Tony Benn, keep teaching us".
On 5 March 2019, it was announced that a large political archive of Benn's speeches, diaries, letters, pamphlets, recordings and ephemera had been accepted in lieu of £210,000 inheritance tax and allocated to the British Library. The audio recordings total to thousands of hours of content.
Plaques
During his final years in Parliament, Benn placed three plaques within the Houses of Parliament. Two are in a room between the Central Lobby and Strangers' Gallery that holds a permanent display about the suffragettes. The first was placed in 1995. The second was placed in 1996 and is dedicated to all who work within the Houses of Parliament.
The third is dedicated to Emily Wilding Davison, who died for the cause of "Votes for women", and was placed in the broom cupboard next to the Undercroft Chapel, where Davison is said to have hidden during the night of the 1911 census in order to establish her address as the House of Commons.
In 2011 Benn unveiled a plaque in Highbury, North London, to commemorate the Peasants' Revolt of 1381.
Legacy
In Bristol, where Benn first served as a member of parliament, a number of tributes exist in his honour. A bust of him was unveiled in Bristol's City Hall in 2005. In 2012 Transport House on Victoria Street, headquarters of Unite the Union's regional office, was officially renamed Tony Benn House and opened by Benn himself. As of 2015 he appears, alongside other famous people associated with the city, on the reverse of the Bristol Pound's £B5 banknote.
Benn told the Socialist Review in 2007 that:I'd like to have on my gravestone: "He encouraged us." I'm proud to have been in the parliament that introduced the health service, the welfare state and voted against means testing. I did my maiden speech on nationalising the steel industry, put down the first motion for the boycott of South African goods, and resigned from the shadow cabinet in 1958 because of their support for nuclear weapons.
I think you do plant a few acorns, and I have lived to see one or two trees growing: gay rights, freedom of information, CND. I'm not claiming them for myself but you feel you have encouraged other people and see the arguments developing.
I'm not ashamed of making mistakes. I've made a million mistakes and they're all in the diary. When we edit the diary—which is cut to around 10 per cent—every mistake has to be printed because people look to see if you do. I would be ashamed if I thought I'd ever said anything I didn't believe to get on, but making mistakes is part of life, isn't it?
Benn was widely seen as a key proponent of democratic socialism. He was described as "one of the few UK politicians to have become more left-wing after holding ministerial office". Harold Wilson, his former boss, maintained that Benn was the only man he knew who "immatures with age".
He has been cited as being a key mentor to future leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn, with his Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell commenting that "they would discuss everything under the sun. Jeremy was very close to Tony right up until the end." Corbyn was elected as leader of the Labour Party a little over a year after Benn's death, an act which Hilary Benn said would have made his father feel "thrilled".
Styles
Anthony Wedgwood Benn, Esq. (1925 – 12 January 1942)
The Hon. Anthony Wedgwood Benn (12 January 1942 – 30 November 1950)
The Hon. Anthony Wedgwood Benn, MP (30 November 1950 – 17 November 1960)
The Rt Hon. The Viscount Stansgate (17 November 1960 – 31 July 1963)
Anthony Wedgwood Benn, Esq. (31 July – 20 August 1963)
Anthony Wedgwood Benn, Esq., MP (20 August 1963 – 1964)
The Rt Hon. Anthony Wedgwood Benn, MP (1964 – October 1973)
The Rt Hon. Tony Benn, MP (October 1973 – 9 June 1983)
The Rt Hon. Tony Benn (9 June 1983 – 1 March 1984)
The Rt Hon. Tony Benn, MP (1 March 1984 – 14 May 2001)
The Rt Hon. Tony Benn (14 May 2001 – 14 March 2014)
Bibliography
Speeches, Spokesman Books (1974);
Levellers and the English Democratic Tradition, Spokesman Books (1976);
Why America Needs Democratic Socialism, Spokesman Books (1978);
Prospects, Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers, Technical, Administrative and Supervisory Section (1979)
Case for Constitutional Civil Service, Institute for Workers' Control (1980);
Case for Party Democracy, Institute for Workers' Control (1980);
Arguments for Socialism, Penguin Books (1980);
& Chris Mullin, Arguments for Democracy, Jonathan Cape (1981);
European Unity: A New Perspective, Spokesman Books (1981)
Parliament and Power: Agenda for a Free Society, Verso Books (1982);
& Andrew Hood, Common Sense: New Constitution for Britain, Hutchinson (1993)
Free Radical: New Century Essays, Continuum International Publishing (2004);
Dare to Be a Daniel: Then and Now, Hutchinson (2004);
Letters to my Grandchildren: Thoughts on the Future, Arrow Books (2010);
Diaries
Out of the Wilderness: Diaries 1963–67, Hutchinson (1987);
Office Without Power: Diaries 1968–72, Hutchinson (1988);
Against the Tide: Diaries 1973–76, Hutchinson (1989);
Conflicts of Interest: Diaries 1977–80, Hutchinson (1990);
The End of an Era: Diaries 1980–90, Hutchinson (1992);
Years of Hope: Diaries 1940–62, Hutchinson (1994);
The Benn Diaries: Single Volume Edition 1940–90, Hutchinson (1995);
Free at Last!: Diaries 1991–2001, Hutchinson (2002);
More Time for Politics: Diaries 2001–2007, Hutchinson (2007);
A Blaze of Autumn Sunshine: The Last Diaries, Hutchinson (2013);
See also
Labour Representation Committee (2004)
Republicanism in the United Kingdom
Socialist Campaign Group
References
External links
By date
Contributions in Parliament by Tony Benn. Hansard, 1925–2005.
Late Developer: Review of Against the Tide: Diaries 1973–1976 by Tony Benn. Author – Paul Foot, 1985.
Andrew Roth. "Tony Benn Chesterfield and Bristol South East MP". The Guardian, 25 March 2001.
The Guardian web guide to Benn.. 6 June 2002.
Face-to-Face with Tony Benn. Freeview video interview by the Vega Science Trust. Recorded in 2005.
Tony Benn. "Atomic hypocrisy: West is not in a position to take a high moral line". The Guardian, 30 November 2005.
Interview with Tony Benn – Radio France Internationale. 28 March 2008 – 6-minute audio – Ahead of G20 marches, London.
Tony Benn on Tony Blair: "He Is Guilty of a War Crime". Video report by Democracy Now!. 21 September 2010.
Obituary: Tony Benn. BBC News, 14 March 2014.
Tony Benn: a stalwart of the peace and anti-nuclear movement. Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, 14 March 2014.
Other
Audio interview with The Guardian.
His Address to the College Historical Society of Trinity College.
Private Eye depictions of Benn: "Most Dangerous Man in Britain", "Labour United", "Benn's Triumph", "Foot & Benn Disease", "Would You Buy a New Car From This Man?".
Tony Benn on Modern Liberty. Tony Benn speaking for The Convention on Modern Liberty. YouTube. 23 February 2009.
Unofficial Tony Benn quotation site.
Tony Benn on The Guardian
1925 births
2014 deaths
20th-century English writers
20th-century English male writers
21st-century English writers
Alumni of New College, Oxford
Tony
British Eurosceptics
British Secretaries of State
Royal Air Force pilots of World War II
Chairs of the Fabian Society
Chairs of the Labour Party (UK)
European democratic socialists
English agnostics
English anti-war activists
English anti–Iraq War activists
English anti–nuclear weapons activists
English autobiographers
English Christian socialists
English diarists
English feminists
English male non-fiction writers
English people of Scottish descent
English republicans
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Male feminists
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Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom
People educated at Westminster School, London
People from Marylebone
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Stansgate, V2
United Kingdom Postmasters General
Stansgate, Tony Benn, 2nd Viscount
Left-wing politics in the United Kingdom
Ministers in the Wilson governments, 1964–1970
People with Guillain–Barré syndrome
Pipe smokers | false | [
"\"If You Can Do Anything Else\" is a song written by Billy Livsey and Don Schlitz, and recorded by American country music artist George Strait. It was released in February 2001 as the third and final single from his self-titled album. The song reached number 5 on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart in July 2001. It also peaked at number 51 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100.\n\nContent\nThe song is about man who is giving his woman the option to leave him. He gives her many different options for all the things she can do. At the end he gives her the option to stay with him if she really can’t find anything else to do. He says he will be alright if she leaves, but really it seems he wants her to stay.\n\nChart performance\n\"If You Can Do Anything Else\" debuted at number 60 on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks for the week of March 3, 2001.\n\nYear-end charts\n\nReferences\n\n2001 singles\n2000 songs\nGeorge Strait songs\nSongs written by Billy Livsey\nSongs written by Don Schlitz\nSong recordings produced by Tony Brown (record producer)\nMCA Nashville Records singles",
"Oil and Vinegar is a screenplay that was written but never filmed. It is a screenplay that John Hughes wrote and that Howard Deutch planned to direct. It would have starred Molly Ringwald and Matthew Broderick.\n\nPlot\nA soon-to-be-married man and a hitchhiking girl end up talking about their lives during the length of the car ride.\n\nProduction\n\nCasting\nThe film was set to have Molly Ringwald and Matthew Broderick as the two main characters.\n\nDevelopment\nThe screenplay was written by Hughes, with Howard Deutch set to direct. Its style was said to be similar to The Breakfast Club (1985) but instead of taking place in detention, it would have taken place in a car with Ringwald's and Broderick's characters both discussing their lives to each other.\n\nFuture\nWhen asked about Oil and Vinegar Howard Deutch said,\n\nYes. That was John's favorite script and he was saving it for himself, and I convinced him to let me do it. It was the story of a traveling salesman that Matthew Broderick was going to play, and a rock-and-roll girl, a real rocker. Polar opposites. Molly [Ringwald] was going to play that. And I had to make a personal decision about whether to go forward or not. We had rehearsals in a couple weeks, and I was exhausted, and my girlfriend Lea Thompson, who became my wife, said, \"You're going to die. You can't do this. I'm not going to stick around and watch that.\" And I think it was also sprinkled with the fact that I wanted to do one movie that was my movie, not necessarily in service to John, even though I loved John. So between the two things, I didn't... It could still happen. I would do it. Not with Matthew and Molly anymore, but the script is still there. It doesn't need anything. It's one of his great scripts. He had so many great scripts. For instance, he would stay up all night, music blasting, and at like 5:30 or 6 a.m., he'd hand me what was supposed to be a rewrite on Some Kind of Wonderful. We needed five pages, and it was 50 pages. I said, \"What did you do?! What is this?\" and he said, \"Oh, I didn't do that. I did something else. Tell me what you think?\" And it was Ferris Bueller's Day Off. He wrote the first half of the movie in, like, eight hours, and then finished it a couple days later. That was John. I never knew a writer who could do that. No one else had that ability. Even the stuff I fished out of the garbage was gold.\n\nReferences\n\nUnproduced screenplays\nFilms with screenplays by John Hughes (filmmaker)"
] |
[
"Women in Syria",
"Federation of Northern Syria - Rojava"
] | C_39f4f398e5164489b14c16dd91326711_0 | What was the federation of northern syria? | 1 | What was the federation of northern syria? | Women in Syria | With the Syrian Civil War, the Kurdish populated area in Northern Syria has gained de facto autonomy as the Federation of Northern Syria - Rojava, with the leading political actor being the progressive Democratic Union Party (PYD). Kurdish women have several armed and non-armed organizations in Rojava, and enhancing women's rights is a major focus of the political and societal agenda. Kurdish female fighters in the Women's Protection Units (YPJ) played a key role during the Siege of Kobani and in rescuing Yazidis trapped on Mount Sinjar, and their achievements have attracted international attention as a rare example of strong female achievement in a region in which women are heavily repressed. The civil laws of Syria are valid in Rojava, as far as they do not conflict with the Constitution of Rojava. One notable example for amendment is personal status law, in Syria still Sharia-based, where Rojava introduced civil law and proclaims absolute equality of women under the law and a ban on forced marriage as well as polygamy was introduced, while underage marriage was outlawed as well. For the first time in Syrian history, civil marriage is being allowed and promoted, a significant move towards a secular open society and intermarriage between people of different religious backgrounds. The legal efforts to reduce cases of underage marriage, polygamy and honor killings are underpinned by comprehensive public awareness campaigns. In every town and village, a women's house is established. These are community centers run by women, providing services to survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault and other forms of harm. These services include counseling, family mediation, legal support, and coordinating safe houses for women and children. Classes on economic independence and social empowerment programs are also held at women's houses. All administrative organs in Rojava are required to have male and female co-chairs, and forty percent of the members of any governing body in Rojava must be female. An estimated 25 percent of the Asayish police force of the Rojava cantons are women, and joining the Asayish is described in international media as a huge act of personal and societal liberation from an extremely patriarchical background, for ethnic Kurdish and ethnic Arab women alike. The PYD's political agenda of "trying to break the honor-based religious and tribal rules that confine women" is controversial in conservative quarters of society. CANNOTANSWER | the Kurdish populated area in Northern Syria has gained de facto autonomy as the Federation of Northern Syria - Rojava, | Women in Syria constitute 49.4% of Syria's population, and are active participants not only in everyday life, but also in the socio-political fields.
History
In the 20th century a movement for women's rights developed in Syria, made up largely of upper-class, educated women. In 1919, Naziq al-Abid founded Noor al-Fayha (Light of Damascus), the city's first women's organization, alongside an affiliated publication of the same name. She was made an honorary general of the Syrian Army after fighting in the Battle of Maysaloun, and in 1922 she founded the Syrian Red Crescent. In 1928 Lebanese-Syrian feminist Nazira Zain al-Din, one of the first people to critically reinterpret the Quran from a feminist perspective, published a book condemning the practice of veiling or hijab, arguing that Islam requires women to be treated equally with men. In 1930, the First Eastern Women's Congress was hosted in Damascus.
In 1963 the Ba'ath Party took power in Syria, and pledged full equality between women and men as well as full workforce participation for women.
In 1967 Syrian women formed a quasi-governmental organization called the General Union of Syrian Women (GUSW), a coalition of women's welfare societies, educational associations, and voluntary councils intended to achieve equal opportunity for women in Syria.
The year 2011 marked the beginning of the Syrian Civil War, where many civilians have fallen victim to attacks targeted at hospitals, schools, and infrastructure. Extremist rebel groups, such as Jabhat al-Nusra and ISIS, have enforced strict policies restricting freedoms of women in territories they control.
After the outbreak of civil war, some Syrian women have joined all-female brigade units in the Syrian Arab Army, the Democratic Union Party, and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, taking on roles such as snipers, frontline units, or police.
Legal rights
While Syria has developed some fairly secular features during independence in the second half of the 20th century, personal status law is still based on Sharia and applied by Sharia Courts. Syria has a dual legal system which includes both secular and religious courts. Marriage contracts are between the groom and the bride's father, and Syrian law does not recognize the concept of marital rape.
Syrian women are legally allowed to participate in everyday life, although they are not guaranteed a spot in being part of political, social, cultural and economic categories. The legal marriage for females in Syria is seventeen years old and eighteen for males. Women are technically allowed to have a say in what the agreements are between them and the groom. Although, since this contract has to be signed by the groom and the male guardian of the bride, her wishes are rarely met. On the other hand, of marriage, the divorce laws are unique in Syria. Women are in fact allowed to file for divorce except it is a long drawn out process and she must get consent from her husband. There are some circumstances in which the woman can apply for a divorce through the judicial system. In order to do this, she must prove that her husband has abused her or neglected his other duties as a husband. If a man wants to divorce a woman, all he has to do is go to court and orally demand a divorce three times, then the court will order him a divorce.
Education
The early schooling in Syria starts at six years old and ends at the age of eighteen. In Syrian universities, women and men attend the same classes. Between 1970 and the late 1990s, the female population in schools dramatically increased. This increase included the early school years, along with the upper-level schools such as universities and higher education. Although the number of women has increased, there are still ninety five women to every one hundred men. Although many women start going to school, the dropout rate for women is much higher than for men.
The literacy rate for women is 74.2 percent and 91 percent for men. The rate of females over 25 with secondary education is 29.0 percent.
Politics
In Syria, women in Syria were first allowed to vote and received universal suffrage in 1953. In the 1950s, Thuraya Al-Hafez ran for Parliament, but was not elected. By 1971, women held four out of the 173 seats.
The current president of Syria is a male. There are also two vice presidents (including female vice president Najah al-Attar since 2006), a prime minister and a cabinet. As of 2012, in the national parliament men held 88% of the seats while women held 12%. The Syrian Parliament was previously led by female Speaker Hadiya Khalaf Abbas, the first woman to have held that position.
President Assad's political and media adviser is Bouthaina Shaaban. Shaaban served as the first Minister of Expatriates for the Syrian Arab Republic, between 2003 and 2008, and she has been described as the Syrian government's face to the outside world.
Of the civil society representatives among the 150 members of the Syrian Constitutional Committee, which was assembled in 2019 by the Syria Envoy of the United Nations, Syrian women comprise around 30%. Several renowned Syrian women, such as academic Bassma Kodmani, Sabah Hallak of the Syrian Women's League, the law professor Amal Yazji or the judge Iman Shahoud, sit on the committee's influential 'Small' or Drafting Body.
Role in economy and in the military
In 1989 the Syrian government passed a law requiring factories and public institutions to provide on-site childcare.
However, women's involvement in the workforce is low; according to World Bank, as of 2014, women made up 16.4% of the labor force.
Women are not conscripted in the military, but may serve voluntarily. The female militias of Syria are trained to fight for the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad. A video was found dating back to the 1980s with female soldiers showing their pride and protectiveness toward Assad's father. "Because women are rarely involved in the armed side of the revolution, they are much less likely to get stopped, searched, or hassled at government checkpoints. This has proved crucial in distributing humanitarian aid throughout Syria."
Women's health
Between 2010 and 2015, the average life expectancy at birth for women in Syria is 77.7 years, compared with 74.5 years for men.
Impact of the conflict on Syria's women
Since the conflict erupted in 2011, women in Syria, namely in conflict zones, have been facing violence, sexual assault, forced displacement, detension, domestic violence, child marriage and other violations of their rights.
During the years of conflict, insecurity and the economic collapse significantly increased the vulnerability of women and girls. In addition, many girls were left without schooling or access to healthcare services. The enrolment rate for primary education was 61% in 2013, with 61.1% of the total number being female, while for secondary education, the rate was 44% in 2013 - 43.8% for female.
In 2015, the United Nations gathered evidence of systematic sexual assault of women and girls by combatants in Syria, and this was escalated by the Islamic State (ISIL) and other terrorist organizations.
Crime against women
Honor killings
Honor killings take place in Syria in situations where women are deemed to have brought shame to the family, affecting the family's 'reputation' in the community. Some estimates suggest that more than 200 honor killings occur every year in Syria.
Forced and child marriage
The conflict in Syria has led to an increase in child marriages. The harsh living conditions, the insecurity, and the fear of rape, have led families to force their daughters into early marriages.
As a result of early marriage, many girls in Syria are forbidden from completing their studies because when a girl is married she is only expected to be a good wife and a good mother as well. Child marriage can influence physical and mental health badly. Physical damage can be related to child bearing specially for women under 18 years old and the possibility for not being able to give birth later in life, and in extreme cases it can lead to death. Psychological factors can be defined as difficulties in interacting with the husband or not having enough awareness about marriage life and its responsibilities.
Domestic Violence
A study covering the low-income women in Aleppo, an area where domestic abuse is more likely due to the tribal nature of the area, shows that physical abuse (battering at least 3 times in the last year) was found in 23% of the investigated women in 2003, 26% amongst married women. Regular abuse (battering at least once weekly) was found in 3.3% of married women, with no regular abused reported by non-married women. The prevalence of physical abuse amongst country residents was 44.3% compared to 18.8% amongst city residents. In most cases (87.4%) the abuse was inflicted by the husband, and in 9.5% of cases, the abuse was inflicted by more than one person. Correlates of physical abuse were women's education, religion, age, marital status, economic status, mental distress, smoking and residence.
Federation of Northern Syria - Rojava
With the Syrian Civil War, the Kurdish populated area in Northern Syria has gained de facto autonomy as the Federation of Northern Syria - Rojava, with the leading political actor being the progressive Democratic Union Party (PYD). Kurdish women have several armed and non-armed organizations in Rojava, and enhancing women's rights is a major focus of the political and societal agenda. Kurdish female fighters in the Women's Protection Units (YPJ) played a key role during the Siege of Kobani and in rescuing Yazidis trapped on Mount Sinjar, and their achievements have attracted international attention as a rare example of strong female achievement in a region in which women are heavily repressed.
The civil laws of Syria are valid in Rojava, as far as they do not conflict with the Constitution of Rojava. One notable example for amendment is personal status law, in Syria still Sharia-based, where Rojava introduced civil law and proclaims absolute equality of women under the law and a ban on forced marriage as well as polygamy was introduced, while underage marriage was outlawed as well. For the first time in Syrian history, civil marriage is being allowed and promoted, a significant move towards a secular open society and intermarriage between people of different religious backgrounds.
The legal efforts to reduce cases of underage marriage, polygamy and honor killings are underpinned by comprehensive public awareness campaigns. In every town and village, a women's house is established. These are community centers run by women, providing services to survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault and other forms of harm. These services include counseling, family mediation, legal support, and coordinating safe houses for women and children. Classes on economic independence and social empowerment programs are also held at women's houses.
All administrative organs in Rojava are required to have male and female co-chairs, and forty percent of the members of any governing body in Rojava must be female. An estimated 25 percent of the Asayish police force of the Rojava cantons are women, and joining the Asayish is described in international media as a huge act of personal and societal liberation from an extremely patriarchical background, for ethnic Kurdish and ethnic Arab women alike.
The PYD's political agenda of "trying to break the honor-based religious and tribal rules that confine women" is controversial in conservative quarters of society.
Notable women
Hadiya Khalaf Abbas, Speaker of the People's Council of Syria (since 2016).
Asya Abdullah is the co-chairwoman of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), the leading political party in Rojava.
Asma al-Assad, the First Lady of Syria and the wife of the current President Assad
Najah al-Attar, Vice President of Syria (since 2006).
Randa Kassis, President of The Astana Platform of the Syrian opposition.
Suheir Atassi, Vice President of the opposition government.
Samar Al Dayyoub, literary critic and writer
Khawla Dunia, opposition activist and poet
Îlham Ehmed is co-chairwoman of the Syrian Democratic Council.
Hêvî Îbrahîm is the prime minister of Afrin Canton.
Samira Khalil, dissident
Ulfat Idilbi, best-selling Arabic-language novelist.
Assala Nasri is a musical artist
Souad Nawfal, opposition activist and schoolteacher.
Rasha Omran, poet
Bouthaina Shaaban, Bashar al-Assad's political adviser and previous Minister of Expatriates
Muna Wassef, theater, television, and film actress.
Hediya Yousef is an ex-guerilla and co-chairwoman of the executive committee of the Federation of Northern Syria – Rojava.
Razan Zaitouneh, human rights lawyer and activist.
References
External links
Survey: Discrimination against Women in Syrian Society (I/II). Awareness of Women Rights and Freedoms, The Day After Association, August 2017
Survey: Discrimination Against Women in Syrian Society (II/II): Perception of Domestic Violence, The Day After Association, August 2017
Asian women | true | [
"The first local elections in the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria were held on 22 September 2017. Representatives of 3,700 communes in the regions of the Northern Syria Federation were selected in the election, involving 12,421 candidates. The communal elections on 22 September were followed by elections of local councils in December and a federal parliamentary election of the People's Democratic Council, the region's highest governing body, in 2018. Some areas controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces were not included in the election, including the city of Manbij.\n\nPreparations\nBetween 27 and 28 July 2017, a conference of the Syrian Democratic Council was held in the town of Rmelan. During the conference, the three-canton system in Rojava was changed to three federal regions, the Jazira, the Euphrates, and Afrin Regions. Dates of elections were also decided at the meeting, with 22 September being the date for communal elections, 3 November for municipal elections, and 19 January 2018 for the People's Assembly of Federal Regions and the People's Democratic Council, the highest governing body for the Federation of Northern Syria. Officials who organized the elections included Hediya Yousef and Îlham Ehmed, two senior officials in the government of the de facto federal region.\n\nThe election was mostly organized by the High Electoral Commission (; ; ) of the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria which launched a promotional campaign in order to encourage voting in the election which included online promotional advertisement on Facebook and Twitter and the release of a promotional song in Kurdish, Arabic and Syriac.\n\nal-Ghamar Arabs (lit. \"Arabs of the Flood\"), who were settled by the Syrian regime in the Hasakah Governorate in the 1960s and '70s on appropriated (mostly Kurdish-owned) land, were allowed to participate in the communal elections and subsequent regional elections to establish local services for them, but weren't allowed to participate in the third round in January 2018 to elect the Syrian Democratic Council. The cities of Manbij and Raqqa were excluded, as they had local councils independent from the Northern Syria Federation, and Raqqa was only fully captured by the Syrian Democratic Forces after the first local elections. Both men and women ran in the elections, with the SDC planning to have women hold 50% of positions.\n\nElections\nThe elections officially began at 8 a.m. on 22 September, with hundreds of thousands of people participating.\n\nSecurity during the elections was maintained by the Asayish police, the Anti-Terror Forces (HAT) and the Society Protection Forces (HPC). In cities and towns with Assyrian populations, such as Qamishli, the Sutoro police also provided security.\n\nThe elections in the Jazeera and Euphrates regions ended on 8 p.m. that day, while elections in the Afrin Region were extended by two hours.\n\nResults\n728,450 votes representing 70% of eligible voters were reported to have been cast in total, with 437,142 from the Jazira Region, 135,611 from the Euphrates Region and 155,697 from the Afrin Region.\n\nRecognition, support, and opposition\nOn 6 August 2017, Faisal Mekdad, the deputy foreign minister of Syria, dismissed the elections as a \"joke\".\n\nThe Raqqa Civil Council and leaders of 5 tribes in and around Raqqa announced their support for the elections.\n\nOn 20 September, the Kurdish National Council in Syria announced a boycott of the election and called it a \"flagrant violation of the will of the Kurdish people\".\n\nSee also\n 2017 Northern Syria regional elections\n List of political parties in Rojava\n Politics of Syria\n\nReferences\n\nElections in Syria\n2017 in the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria\nPolitics of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria",
"The Syrian National Democratic Alliance (, al-Tahaluf al-Watani al-Democrati al-Suri, TWDS) is a left-wing multi-ethnic political party established in 2014 in northern Syria.\n\nThe alliance was founded during the Syrian Civil War and the war has considerably affected its policies to become very critical of totalitarianism and extremist beliefs. However the party is \"ready to build bridges with the parties that recognize the right of Syria's components in general and the Kurds in particular\", according to party leader Alaeddine Khaled.\n\nThe party has 5 politicians in the Democratic Assembly of the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria and the party leader, Ahmad Araj, is one of the seven members of the Executive Council.\n\nHistory\nOn 7 February 2016, the first conference of the party was held. The alliance closely coordinates with the Syrian Alliance for Freedom and Human Rights and the Syrian Revolutionary Left Current. Since then, the Northern Democratic Brigade has also de facto joined the TWDS.\n\nOn 11 March 2017, after negotiations between the Syrian National Democratic Alliance, the political council of Idlib, and the Army of Revolutionaries, 80 prisoners of war from Turkey-supported rebels were released from captivity by the Syrian Democratic Forces.\n\nBetween 24 and 25 May 2017, the second conference of the SNDA was held in Afrin, Syria under the slogan of \"We are all partners\".\n\nIn course of the 2017 Northern Syria regional elections, the TWDS ran for 48 seats of the Afrin Region's councils, out of which it won eight.\n\nReferences\n\n2014 establishments in Syria\nApoist organizations in Syria\nCommunalism\nFederalist parties in Syria\nLibertarian socialist parties\nPolitical parties established in 2014\nPolitical parties in Syria\nPolitical parties in the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria\nSocialist parties in Syria\nSyrian democracy movements\nSyrian opposition"
] |
[
"Women in Syria",
"Federation of Northern Syria - Rojava",
"What was the federation of northern syria?",
"the Kurdish populated area in Northern Syria has gained de facto autonomy as the Federation of Northern Syria - Rojava,"
] | C_39f4f398e5164489b14c16dd91326711_0 | when did this occur? | 2 | when did Federation of Northern Syria occur? | Women in Syria | With the Syrian Civil War, the Kurdish populated area in Northern Syria has gained de facto autonomy as the Federation of Northern Syria - Rojava, with the leading political actor being the progressive Democratic Union Party (PYD). Kurdish women have several armed and non-armed organizations in Rojava, and enhancing women's rights is a major focus of the political and societal agenda. Kurdish female fighters in the Women's Protection Units (YPJ) played a key role during the Siege of Kobani and in rescuing Yazidis trapped on Mount Sinjar, and their achievements have attracted international attention as a rare example of strong female achievement in a region in which women are heavily repressed. The civil laws of Syria are valid in Rojava, as far as they do not conflict with the Constitution of Rojava. One notable example for amendment is personal status law, in Syria still Sharia-based, where Rojava introduced civil law and proclaims absolute equality of women under the law and a ban on forced marriage as well as polygamy was introduced, while underage marriage was outlawed as well. For the first time in Syrian history, civil marriage is being allowed and promoted, a significant move towards a secular open society and intermarriage between people of different religious backgrounds. The legal efforts to reduce cases of underage marriage, polygamy and honor killings are underpinned by comprehensive public awareness campaigns. In every town and village, a women's house is established. These are community centers run by women, providing services to survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault and other forms of harm. These services include counseling, family mediation, legal support, and coordinating safe houses for women and children. Classes on economic independence and social empowerment programs are also held at women's houses. All administrative organs in Rojava are required to have male and female co-chairs, and forty percent of the members of any governing body in Rojava must be female. An estimated 25 percent of the Asayish police force of the Rojava cantons are women, and joining the Asayish is described in international media as a huge act of personal and societal liberation from an extremely patriarchical background, for ethnic Kurdish and ethnic Arab women alike. The PYD's political agenda of "trying to break the honor-based religious and tribal rules that confine women" is controversial in conservative quarters of society. CANNOTANSWER | With the Syrian Civil War, | Women in Syria constitute 49.4% of Syria's population, and are active participants not only in everyday life, but also in the socio-political fields.
History
In the 20th century a movement for women's rights developed in Syria, made up largely of upper-class, educated women. In 1919, Naziq al-Abid founded Noor al-Fayha (Light of Damascus), the city's first women's organization, alongside an affiliated publication of the same name. She was made an honorary general of the Syrian Army after fighting in the Battle of Maysaloun, and in 1922 she founded the Syrian Red Crescent. In 1928 Lebanese-Syrian feminist Nazira Zain al-Din, one of the first people to critically reinterpret the Quran from a feminist perspective, published a book condemning the practice of veiling or hijab, arguing that Islam requires women to be treated equally with men. In 1930, the First Eastern Women's Congress was hosted in Damascus.
In 1963 the Ba'ath Party took power in Syria, and pledged full equality between women and men as well as full workforce participation for women.
In 1967 Syrian women formed a quasi-governmental organization called the General Union of Syrian Women (GUSW), a coalition of women's welfare societies, educational associations, and voluntary councils intended to achieve equal opportunity for women in Syria.
The year 2011 marked the beginning of the Syrian Civil War, where many civilians have fallen victim to attacks targeted at hospitals, schools, and infrastructure. Extremist rebel groups, such as Jabhat al-Nusra and ISIS, have enforced strict policies restricting freedoms of women in territories they control.
After the outbreak of civil war, some Syrian women have joined all-female brigade units in the Syrian Arab Army, the Democratic Union Party, and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, taking on roles such as snipers, frontline units, or police.
Legal rights
While Syria has developed some fairly secular features during independence in the second half of the 20th century, personal status law is still based on Sharia and applied by Sharia Courts. Syria has a dual legal system which includes both secular and religious courts. Marriage contracts are between the groom and the bride's father, and Syrian law does not recognize the concept of marital rape.
Syrian women are legally allowed to participate in everyday life, although they are not guaranteed a spot in being part of political, social, cultural and economic categories. The legal marriage for females in Syria is seventeen years old and eighteen for males. Women are technically allowed to have a say in what the agreements are between them and the groom. Although, since this contract has to be signed by the groom and the male guardian of the bride, her wishes are rarely met. On the other hand, of marriage, the divorce laws are unique in Syria. Women are in fact allowed to file for divorce except it is a long drawn out process and she must get consent from her husband. There are some circumstances in which the woman can apply for a divorce through the judicial system. In order to do this, she must prove that her husband has abused her or neglected his other duties as a husband. If a man wants to divorce a woman, all he has to do is go to court and orally demand a divorce three times, then the court will order him a divorce.
Education
The early schooling in Syria starts at six years old and ends at the age of eighteen. In Syrian universities, women and men attend the same classes. Between 1970 and the late 1990s, the female population in schools dramatically increased. This increase included the early school years, along with the upper-level schools such as universities and higher education. Although the number of women has increased, there are still ninety five women to every one hundred men. Although many women start going to school, the dropout rate for women is much higher than for men.
The literacy rate for women is 74.2 percent and 91 percent for men. The rate of females over 25 with secondary education is 29.0 percent.
Politics
In Syria, women in Syria were first allowed to vote and received universal suffrage in 1953. In the 1950s, Thuraya Al-Hafez ran for Parliament, but was not elected. By 1971, women held four out of the 173 seats.
The current president of Syria is a male. There are also two vice presidents (including female vice president Najah al-Attar since 2006), a prime minister and a cabinet. As of 2012, in the national parliament men held 88% of the seats while women held 12%. The Syrian Parliament was previously led by female Speaker Hadiya Khalaf Abbas, the first woman to have held that position.
President Assad's political and media adviser is Bouthaina Shaaban. Shaaban served as the first Minister of Expatriates for the Syrian Arab Republic, between 2003 and 2008, and she has been described as the Syrian government's face to the outside world.
Of the civil society representatives among the 150 members of the Syrian Constitutional Committee, which was assembled in 2019 by the Syria Envoy of the United Nations, Syrian women comprise around 30%. Several renowned Syrian women, such as academic Bassma Kodmani, Sabah Hallak of the Syrian Women's League, the law professor Amal Yazji or the judge Iman Shahoud, sit on the committee's influential 'Small' or Drafting Body.
Role in economy and in the military
In 1989 the Syrian government passed a law requiring factories and public institutions to provide on-site childcare.
However, women's involvement in the workforce is low; according to World Bank, as of 2014, women made up 16.4% of the labor force.
Women are not conscripted in the military, but may serve voluntarily. The female militias of Syria are trained to fight for the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad. A video was found dating back to the 1980s with female soldiers showing their pride and protectiveness toward Assad's father. "Because women are rarely involved in the armed side of the revolution, they are much less likely to get stopped, searched, or hassled at government checkpoints. This has proved crucial in distributing humanitarian aid throughout Syria."
Women's health
Between 2010 and 2015, the average life expectancy at birth for women in Syria is 77.7 years, compared with 74.5 years for men.
Impact of the conflict on Syria's women
Since the conflict erupted in 2011, women in Syria, namely in conflict zones, have been facing violence, sexual assault, forced displacement, detension, domestic violence, child marriage and other violations of their rights.
During the years of conflict, insecurity and the economic collapse significantly increased the vulnerability of women and girls. In addition, many girls were left without schooling or access to healthcare services. The enrolment rate for primary education was 61% in 2013, with 61.1% of the total number being female, while for secondary education, the rate was 44% in 2013 - 43.8% for female.
In 2015, the United Nations gathered evidence of systematic sexual assault of women and girls by combatants in Syria, and this was escalated by the Islamic State (ISIL) and other terrorist organizations.
Crime against women
Honor killings
Honor killings take place in Syria in situations where women are deemed to have brought shame to the family, affecting the family's 'reputation' in the community. Some estimates suggest that more than 200 honor killings occur every year in Syria.
Forced and child marriage
The conflict in Syria has led to an increase in child marriages. The harsh living conditions, the insecurity, and the fear of rape, have led families to force their daughters into early marriages.
As a result of early marriage, many girls in Syria are forbidden from completing their studies because when a girl is married she is only expected to be a good wife and a good mother as well. Child marriage can influence physical and mental health badly. Physical damage can be related to child bearing specially for women under 18 years old and the possibility for not being able to give birth later in life, and in extreme cases it can lead to death. Psychological factors can be defined as difficulties in interacting with the husband or not having enough awareness about marriage life and its responsibilities.
Domestic Violence
A study covering the low-income women in Aleppo, an area where domestic abuse is more likely due to the tribal nature of the area, shows that physical abuse (battering at least 3 times in the last year) was found in 23% of the investigated women in 2003, 26% amongst married women. Regular abuse (battering at least once weekly) was found in 3.3% of married women, with no regular abused reported by non-married women. The prevalence of physical abuse amongst country residents was 44.3% compared to 18.8% amongst city residents. In most cases (87.4%) the abuse was inflicted by the husband, and in 9.5% of cases, the abuse was inflicted by more than one person. Correlates of physical abuse were women's education, religion, age, marital status, economic status, mental distress, smoking and residence.
Federation of Northern Syria - Rojava
With the Syrian Civil War, the Kurdish populated area in Northern Syria has gained de facto autonomy as the Federation of Northern Syria - Rojava, with the leading political actor being the progressive Democratic Union Party (PYD). Kurdish women have several armed and non-armed organizations in Rojava, and enhancing women's rights is a major focus of the political and societal agenda. Kurdish female fighters in the Women's Protection Units (YPJ) played a key role during the Siege of Kobani and in rescuing Yazidis trapped on Mount Sinjar, and their achievements have attracted international attention as a rare example of strong female achievement in a region in which women are heavily repressed.
The civil laws of Syria are valid in Rojava, as far as they do not conflict with the Constitution of Rojava. One notable example for amendment is personal status law, in Syria still Sharia-based, where Rojava introduced civil law and proclaims absolute equality of women under the law and a ban on forced marriage as well as polygamy was introduced, while underage marriage was outlawed as well. For the first time in Syrian history, civil marriage is being allowed and promoted, a significant move towards a secular open society and intermarriage between people of different religious backgrounds.
The legal efforts to reduce cases of underage marriage, polygamy and honor killings are underpinned by comprehensive public awareness campaigns. In every town and village, a women's house is established. These are community centers run by women, providing services to survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault and other forms of harm. These services include counseling, family mediation, legal support, and coordinating safe houses for women and children. Classes on economic independence and social empowerment programs are also held at women's houses.
All administrative organs in Rojava are required to have male and female co-chairs, and forty percent of the members of any governing body in Rojava must be female. An estimated 25 percent of the Asayish police force of the Rojava cantons are women, and joining the Asayish is described in international media as a huge act of personal and societal liberation from an extremely patriarchical background, for ethnic Kurdish and ethnic Arab women alike.
The PYD's political agenda of "trying to break the honor-based religious and tribal rules that confine women" is controversial in conservative quarters of society.
Notable women
Hadiya Khalaf Abbas, Speaker of the People's Council of Syria (since 2016).
Asya Abdullah is the co-chairwoman of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), the leading political party in Rojava.
Asma al-Assad, the First Lady of Syria and the wife of the current President Assad
Najah al-Attar, Vice President of Syria (since 2006).
Randa Kassis, President of The Astana Platform of the Syrian opposition.
Suheir Atassi, Vice President of the opposition government.
Samar Al Dayyoub, literary critic and writer
Khawla Dunia, opposition activist and poet
Îlham Ehmed is co-chairwoman of the Syrian Democratic Council.
Hêvî Îbrahîm is the prime minister of Afrin Canton.
Samira Khalil, dissident
Ulfat Idilbi, best-selling Arabic-language novelist.
Assala Nasri is a musical artist
Souad Nawfal, opposition activist and schoolteacher.
Rasha Omran, poet
Bouthaina Shaaban, Bashar al-Assad's political adviser and previous Minister of Expatriates
Muna Wassef, theater, television, and film actress.
Hediya Yousef is an ex-guerilla and co-chairwoman of the executive committee of the Federation of Northern Syria – Rojava.
Razan Zaitouneh, human rights lawyer and activist.
References
External links
Survey: Discrimination against Women in Syrian Society (I/II). Awareness of Women Rights and Freedoms, The Day After Association, August 2017
Survey: Discrimination Against Women in Syrian Society (II/II): Perception of Domestic Violence, The Day After Association, August 2017
Asian women | true | [
"Skrjabingylus nasicola is a species of parasitic nematode in the family Metastrongylidae. Its lifecycle includes an intermediary mollusc host and a paratenic host, a shrew or small rodent. Adult worms are found in the nasal sinuses of mustelids.\n\nInfection\nHansson (1977) showed that direct transmission of the nematode from mustelid to mustelid did not occur, nor did infection occur when the mustelid was fed on small rodents, amphibians, molluscs, arthropods, or earthworms. Infection could occur when the animal was fed on the common shrew (Sorex aranea) and larvae of the nematode begin to be excreted by the mustelid some three weeks later. Research since then has shown that rodents can be a source of infection for mustelids.\n\nLifecycle\nSkrjabingylus nasicola has a complex lifecycle. Larvae passed in the faeces of infected mustelids are ingested by slugs such as Deroceras reticulatum. Mustelids do not usually eat molluscs, but the slugs may be eaten by a mammalian paratenic host such as Apodemus sp. or Clethrionomys glareolus. No developmental stages take place in this host and the nematode rests in the glandular zones in the head or possibly in the muscle or connective tissue. Further development takes place when this host is eaten by a mustelid and the parasite moves into its nasal tissues.\n\nReferences \n\nStrongylida\n\nParasitic nematodes of mammals\nNematodes described in 1842",
"IROC XII was the twelfth year of IROC competition took place in 1988. It saw the use of the Chevrolet Camaro in all races, and continued the format introduced in IROC VIII. Race one took place on the Daytona International Speedway, race two took place at Riverside International Raceway, race three ran at Michigan International Speedway, and race four concluded the year at Watkins Glen International. Al Unser, Jr. won his second championship and $211,900.\n\nThe roster of drivers and final points standings were as follows:\n\nRace results\n\nRace One, Daytona International Speedway\nFriday, February 12, 1988\n\n(5) Indicates 5 bonus points added to normal race points scored for leading the most laps.(3) Indicates 3 bonus points added to normal race points scored for leading the 2nd most laps (did not occur in this race so not awarded).(2) Indicates 2 bonus points added to normal race points scored for leading the 3rd most laps (did not occur in this race so not awarded).\n\nAverage speed: Cautions: 1Margin of victory: 2 clLead changes: 0\n\nRace Two, Riverside International Raceway\nSaturday, June 11, 1988\n\n(5) Indicates 5 bonus points added to normal race points scored for leading the most laps.(3) Indicates 3 bonus points added to normal race points scored for leading the 2nd most laps(2) Indicates 2 bonus points added to normal race points scored for leading the 3rd most laps (did not occur in this race so not awarded).\n\nAverage speed: Cautions: 2Margin of victory: 2 secLead changes: 1\nLap Leader Breakdown\n\nRace Three, Michigan International Speedway\nSaturday, August 6, 1988 \n\n(5) Indicates 5 bonus points added to normal race points scored for leading the most laps.(3) Indicates 3 bonus points added to normal race points scored for leading the 2nd most laps(2) Indicates 2 bonus points added to normal race points scored for leading the 3rd most laps (did not occur in this race so not awarded).\n\nAverage speed: Cautions:noneMargin of victory: 0.78 secLead changes: 1\nLap Leader Breakdown\n\nRace Four, Watkins Glen International\nSaturday, August 13, 1988\n\n(5) Indicates 5 bonus points added to normal race points scored for leading the most laps.(3) Indicates 3 bonus points added to normal race points scored for leading the 2nd most laps (did not occur in this race so not awarded).(2) Indicates 2 bonus points added to normal race points scored for leading the 3rd most laps (did not occur in this race so not awarded).\n\nAverage speed: Cautions: 3Margin of victory: 1.58 secLead changes: 0\n\nNotes\n Dale Earnhardt and Geoff Bodine tied for fifth place in the championship standings, but Earnhardt was awarded the position due to a higher finishing position in the final race.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nIROC XII History - IROC Website\n\nInternational Race of Champions\n1988 in American motorsport"
] |
[
"Women in Syria",
"Federation of Northern Syria - Rojava",
"What was the federation of northern syria?",
"the Kurdish populated area in Northern Syria has gained de facto autonomy as the Federation of Northern Syria - Rojava,",
"when did this occur?",
"With the Syrian Civil War,"
] | C_39f4f398e5164489b14c16dd91326711_0 | howdid they gain the autonomy? | 3 | how did the Kurdish populated area in North Syria gain the autonomy? | Women in Syria | With the Syrian Civil War, the Kurdish populated area in Northern Syria has gained de facto autonomy as the Federation of Northern Syria - Rojava, with the leading political actor being the progressive Democratic Union Party (PYD). Kurdish women have several armed and non-armed organizations in Rojava, and enhancing women's rights is a major focus of the political and societal agenda. Kurdish female fighters in the Women's Protection Units (YPJ) played a key role during the Siege of Kobani and in rescuing Yazidis trapped on Mount Sinjar, and their achievements have attracted international attention as a rare example of strong female achievement in a region in which women are heavily repressed. The civil laws of Syria are valid in Rojava, as far as they do not conflict with the Constitution of Rojava. One notable example for amendment is personal status law, in Syria still Sharia-based, where Rojava introduced civil law and proclaims absolute equality of women under the law and a ban on forced marriage as well as polygamy was introduced, while underage marriage was outlawed as well. For the first time in Syrian history, civil marriage is being allowed and promoted, a significant move towards a secular open society and intermarriage between people of different religious backgrounds. The legal efforts to reduce cases of underage marriage, polygamy and honor killings are underpinned by comprehensive public awareness campaigns. In every town and village, a women's house is established. These are community centers run by women, providing services to survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault and other forms of harm. These services include counseling, family mediation, legal support, and coordinating safe houses for women and children. Classes on economic independence and social empowerment programs are also held at women's houses. All administrative organs in Rojava are required to have male and female co-chairs, and forty percent of the members of any governing body in Rojava must be female. An estimated 25 percent of the Asayish police force of the Rojava cantons are women, and joining the Asayish is described in international media as a huge act of personal and societal liberation from an extremely patriarchical background, for ethnic Kurdish and ethnic Arab women alike. The PYD's political agenda of "trying to break the honor-based religious and tribal rules that confine women" is controversial in conservative quarters of society. CANNOTANSWER | Kurdish women have several armed and non-armed organizations in Rojava, and enhancing women's rights is a major focus of the political and societal agenda. | Women in Syria constitute 49.4% of Syria's population, and are active participants not only in everyday life, but also in the socio-political fields.
History
In the 20th century a movement for women's rights developed in Syria, made up largely of upper-class, educated women. In 1919, Naziq al-Abid founded Noor al-Fayha (Light of Damascus), the city's first women's organization, alongside an affiliated publication of the same name. She was made an honorary general of the Syrian Army after fighting in the Battle of Maysaloun, and in 1922 she founded the Syrian Red Crescent. In 1928 Lebanese-Syrian feminist Nazira Zain al-Din, one of the first people to critically reinterpret the Quran from a feminist perspective, published a book condemning the practice of veiling or hijab, arguing that Islam requires women to be treated equally with men. In 1930, the First Eastern Women's Congress was hosted in Damascus.
In 1963 the Ba'ath Party took power in Syria, and pledged full equality between women and men as well as full workforce participation for women.
In 1967 Syrian women formed a quasi-governmental organization called the General Union of Syrian Women (GUSW), a coalition of women's welfare societies, educational associations, and voluntary councils intended to achieve equal opportunity for women in Syria.
The year 2011 marked the beginning of the Syrian Civil War, where many civilians have fallen victim to attacks targeted at hospitals, schools, and infrastructure. Extremist rebel groups, such as Jabhat al-Nusra and ISIS, have enforced strict policies restricting freedoms of women in territories they control.
After the outbreak of civil war, some Syrian women have joined all-female brigade units in the Syrian Arab Army, the Democratic Union Party, and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, taking on roles such as snipers, frontline units, or police.
Legal rights
While Syria has developed some fairly secular features during independence in the second half of the 20th century, personal status law is still based on Sharia and applied by Sharia Courts. Syria has a dual legal system which includes both secular and religious courts. Marriage contracts are between the groom and the bride's father, and Syrian law does not recognize the concept of marital rape.
Syrian women are legally allowed to participate in everyday life, although they are not guaranteed a spot in being part of political, social, cultural and economic categories. The legal marriage for females in Syria is seventeen years old and eighteen for males. Women are technically allowed to have a say in what the agreements are between them and the groom. Although, since this contract has to be signed by the groom and the male guardian of the bride, her wishes are rarely met. On the other hand, of marriage, the divorce laws are unique in Syria. Women are in fact allowed to file for divorce except it is a long drawn out process and she must get consent from her husband. There are some circumstances in which the woman can apply for a divorce through the judicial system. In order to do this, she must prove that her husband has abused her or neglected his other duties as a husband. If a man wants to divorce a woman, all he has to do is go to court and orally demand a divorce three times, then the court will order him a divorce.
Education
The early schooling in Syria starts at six years old and ends at the age of eighteen. In Syrian universities, women and men attend the same classes. Between 1970 and the late 1990s, the female population in schools dramatically increased. This increase included the early school years, along with the upper-level schools such as universities and higher education. Although the number of women has increased, there are still ninety five women to every one hundred men. Although many women start going to school, the dropout rate for women is much higher than for men.
The literacy rate for women is 74.2 percent and 91 percent for men. The rate of females over 25 with secondary education is 29.0 percent.
Politics
In Syria, women in Syria were first allowed to vote and received universal suffrage in 1953. In the 1950s, Thuraya Al-Hafez ran for Parliament, but was not elected. By 1971, women held four out of the 173 seats.
The current president of Syria is a male. There are also two vice presidents (including female vice president Najah al-Attar since 2006), a prime minister and a cabinet. As of 2012, in the national parliament men held 88% of the seats while women held 12%. The Syrian Parliament was previously led by female Speaker Hadiya Khalaf Abbas, the first woman to have held that position.
President Assad's political and media adviser is Bouthaina Shaaban. Shaaban served as the first Minister of Expatriates for the Syrian Arab Republic, between 2003 and 2008, and she has been described as the Syrian government's face to the outside world.
Of the civil society representatives among the 150 members of the Syrian Constitutional Committee, which was assembled in 2019 by the Syria Envoy of the United Nations, Syrian women comprise around 30%. Several renowned Syrian women, such as academic Bassma Kodmani, Sabah Hallak of the Syrian Women's League, the law professor Amal Yazji or the judge Iman Shahoud, sit on the committee's influential 'Small' or Drafting Body.
Role in economy and in the military
In 1989 the Syrian government passed a law requiring factories and public institutions to provide on-site childcare.
However, women's involvement in the workforce is low; according to World Bank, as of 2014, women made up 16.4% of the labor force.
Women are not conscripted in the military, but may serve voluntarily. The female militias of Syria are trained to fight for the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad. A video was found dating back to the 1980s with female soldiers showing their pride and protectiveness toward Assad's father. "Because women are rarely involved in the armed side of the revolution, they are much less likely to get stopped, searched, or hassled at government checkpoints. This has proved crucial in distributing humanitarian aid throughout Syria."
Women's health
Between 2010 and 2015, the average life expectancy at birth for women in Syria is 77.7 years, compared with 74.5 years for men.
Impact of the conflict on Syria's women
Since the conflict erupted in 2011, women in Syria, namely in conflict zones, have been facing violence, sexual assault, forced displacement, detension, domestic violence, child marriage and other violations of their rights.
During the years of conflict, insecurity and the economic collapse significantly increased the vulnerability of women and girls. In addition, many girls were left without schooling or access to healthcare services. The enrolment rate for primary education was 61% in 2013, with 61.1% of the total number being female, while for secondary education, the rate was 44% in 2013 - 43.8% for female.
In 2015, the United Nations gathered evidence of systematic sexual assault of women and girls by combatants in Syria, and this was escalated by the Islamic State (ISIL) and other terrorist organizations.
Crime against women
Honor killings
Honor killings take place in Syria in situations where women are deemed to have brought shame to the family, affecting the family's 'reputation' in the community. Some estimates suggest that more than 200 honor killings occur every year in Syria.
Forced and child marriage
The conflict in Syria has led to an increase in child marriages. The harsh living conditions, the insecurity, and the fear of rape, have led families to force their daughters into early marriages.
As a result of early marriage, many girls in Syria are forbidden from completing their studies because when a girl is married she is only expected to be a good wife and a good mother as well. Child marriage can influence physical and mental health badly. Physical damage can be related to child bearing specially for women under 18 years old and the possibility for not being able to give birth later in life, and in extreme cases it can lead to death. Psychological factors can be defined as difficulties in interacting with the husband or not having enough awareness about marriage life and its responsibilities.
Domestic Violence
A study covering the low-income women in Aleppo, an area where domestic abuse is more likely due to the tribal nature of the area, shows that physical abuse (battering at least 3 times in the last year) was found in 23% of the investigated women in 2003, 26% amongst married women. Regular abuse (battering at least once weekly) was found in 3.3% of married women, with no regular abused reported by non-married women. The prevalence of physical abuse amongst country residents was 44.3% compared to 18.8% amongst city residents. In most cases (87.4%) the abuse was inflicted by the husband, and in 9.5% of cases, the abuse was inflicted by more than one person. Correlates of physical abuse were women's education, religion, age, marital status, economic status, mental distress, smoking and residence.
Federation of Northern Syria - Rojava
With the Syrian Civil War, the Kurdish populated area in Northern Syria has gained de facto autonomy as the Federation of Northern Syria - Rojava, with the leading political actor being the progressive Democratic Union Party (PYD). Kurdish women have several armed and non-armed organizations in Rojava, and enhancing women's rights is a major focus of the political and societal agenda. Kurdish female fighters in the Women's Protection Units (YPJ) played a key role during the Siege of Kobani and in rescuing Yazidis trapped on Mount Sinjar, and their achievements have attracted international attention as a rare example of strong female achievement in a region in which women are heavily repressed.
The civil laws of Syria are valid in Rojava, as far as they do not conflict with the Constitution of Rojava. One notable example for amendment is personal status law, in Syria still Sharia-based, where Rojava introduced civil law and proclaims absolute equality of women under the law and a ban on forced marriage as well as polygamy was introduced, while underage marriage was outlawed as well. For the first time in Syrian history, civil marriage is being allowed and promoted, a significant move towards a secular open society and intermarriage between people of different religious backgrounds.
The legal efforts to reduce cases of underage marriage, polygamy and honor killings are underpinned by comprehensive public awareness campaigns. In every town and village, a women's house is established. These are community centers run by women, providing services to survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault and other forms of harm. These services include counseling, family mediation, legal support, and coordinating safe houses for women and children. Classes on economic independence and social empowerment programs are also held at women's houses.
All administrative organs in Rojava are required to have male and female co-chairs, and forty percent of the members of any governing body in Rojava must be female. An estimated 25 percent of the Asayish police force of the Rojava cantons are women, and joining the Asayish is described in international media as a huge act of personal and societal liberation from an extremely patriarchical background, for ethnic Kurdish and ethnic Arab women alike.
The PYD's political agenda of "trying to break the honor-based religious and tribal rules that confine women" is controversial in conservative quarters of society.
Notable women
Hadiya Khalaf Abbas, Speaker of the People's Council of Syria (since 2016).
Asya Abdullah is the co-chairwoman of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), the leading political party in Rojava.
Asma al-Assad, the First Lady of Syria and the wife of the current President Assad
Najah al-Attar, Vice President of Syria (since 2006).
Randa Kassis, President of The Astana Platform of the Syrian opposition.
Suheir Atassi, Vice President of the opposition government.
Samar Al Dayyoub, literary critic and writer
Khawla Dunia, opposition activist and poet
Îlham Ehmed is co-chairwoman of the Syrian Democratic Council.
Hêvî Îbrahîm is the prime minister of Afrin Canton.
Samira Khalil, dissident
Ulfat Idilbi, best-selling Arabic-language novelist.
Assala Nasri is a musical artist
Souad Nawfal, opposition activist and schoolteacher.
Rasha Omran, poet
Bouthaina Shaaban, Bashar al-Assad's political adviser and previous Minister of Expatriates
Muna Wassef, theater, television, and film actress.
Hediya Yousef is an ex-guerilla and co-chairwoman of the executive committee of the Federation of Northern Syria – Rojava.
Razan Zaitouneh, human rights lawyer and activist.
References
External links
Survey: Discrimination against Women in Syrian Society (I/II). Awareness of Women Rights and Freedoms, The Day After Association, August 2017
Survey: Discrimination Against Women in Syrian Society (II/II): Perception of Domestic Violence, The Day After Association, August 2017
Asian women | true | [
"Triphylians ( or Τρίφυλοι) were an ancient Greek tribe. They were residents of the western Peloponnese region, which in Homeric times was called Pylos and later Triphylia. The name Triphylia, literally emerged from the fact of the establishment of three different tribes in the area. The Homeric cities of Pylos, Kyparisieis and Dorion enjoyed great growth and prosperity. Triphylia and its residents had the benefit of independence and self-government until the second Messenian war, in 628 BC, when they fell into the authority of the Spartans, who later handed Triphylia over to the Eleans. Triphylians remained enslaved under the sovereignty of Eleans throughout the Peloponnesian war, excluding a short period during which they managed to recover their autonomy. In 366 BC Triphylians fell again to the jurisdiction of Elis, until the establishment of the Achaean League, when they gain their independence as part of the confederation’s members. \n\nIn the years 220–217 BC, Trifylia was conquered by the king Philip V and came under the influence of Macedonia. In the early Roman times, a large part of Triphylia regained its autonomy.\n\nReferences\n\nTriphylians",
"Radivojević noble family were a Bosnian nobility during the 14th and 15th century. They were vassals to Kosače, who were the lords of the southeastern region of Kingdom of Bosnia at the time, and with whom the family often quarreled for the reason of growing Kosače arbitrariness as they tried to gain and deepen their autonomy from Bosnia royal dominion. Members of Radivojević were participants in King Tomaš's engagements in restoration of royal authority over Kosače domains, and in particular over the towns of Drijeva and Blagaj.\n\nReferences\n\nBosnian noble families \nKingdom of Bosnia"
] |
[
"Women in Syria",
"Federation of Northern Syria - Rojava",
"What was the federation of northern syria?",
"the Kurdish populated area in Northern Syria has gained de facto autonomy as the Federation of Northern Syria - Rojava,",
"when did this occur?",
"With the Syrian Civil War,",
"howdid they gain the autonomy?",
"Kurdish women have several armed and non-armed organizations in Rojava, and enhancing women's rights is a major focus of the political and societal agenda."
] | C_39f4f398e5164489b14c16dd91326711_0 | did they have any setbacks? | 4 | did Kurdish women have any setbacks? | Women in Syria | With the Syrian Civil War, the Kurdish populated area in Northern Syria has gained de facto autonomy as the Federation of Northern Syria - Rojava, with the leading political actor being the progressive Democratic Union Party (PYD). Kurdish women have several armed and non-armed organizations in Rojava, and enhancing women's rights is a major focus of the political and societal agenda. Kurdish female fighters in the Women's Protection Units (YPJ) played a key role during the Siege of Kobani and in rescuing Yazidis trapped on Mount Sinjar, and their achievements have attracted international attention as a rare example of strong female achievement in a region in which women are heavily repressed. The civil laws of Syria are valid in Rojava, as far as they do not conflict with the Constitution of Rojava. One notable example for amendment is personal status law, in Syria still Sharia-based, where Rojava introduced civil law and proclaims absolute equality of women under the law and a ban on forced marriage as well as polygamy was introduced, while underage marriage was outlawed as well. For the first time in Syrian history, civil marriage is being allowed and promoted, a significant move towards a secular open society and intermarriage between people of different religious backgrounds. The legal efforts to reduce cases of underage marriage, polygamy and honor killings are underpinned by comprehensive public awareness campaigns. In every town and village, a women's house is established. These are community centers run by women, providing services to survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault and other forms of harm. These services include counseling, family mediation, legal support, and coordinating safe houses for women and children. Classes on economic independence and social empowerment programs are also held at women's houses. All administrative organs in Rojava are required to have male and female co-chairs, and forty percent of the members of any governing body in Rojava must be female. An estimated 25 percent of the Asayish police force of the Rojava cantons are women, and joining the Asayish is described in international media as a huge act of personal and societal liberation from an extremely patriarchical background, for ethnic Kurdish and ethnic Arab women alike. The PYD's political agenda of "trying to break the honor-based religious and tribal rules that confine women" is controversial in conservative quarters of society. CANNOTANSWER | The legal efforts to reduce cases of underage marriage, polygamy and honor killings are underpinned by comprehensive public awareness campaigns. | Women in Syria constitute 49.4% of Syria's population, and are active participants not only in everyday life, but also in the socio-political fields.
History
In the 20th century a movement for women's rights developed in Syria, made up largely of upper-class, educated women. In 1919, Naziq al-Abid founded Noor al-Fayha (Light of Damascus), the city's first women's organization, alongside an affiliated publication of the same name. She was made an honorary general of the Syrian Army after fighting in the Battle of Maysaloun, and in 1922 she founded the Syrian Red Crescent. In 1928 Lebanese-Syrian feminist Nazira Zain al-Din, one of the first people to critically reinterpret the Quran from a feminist perspective, published a book condemning the practice of veiling or hijab, arguing that Islam requires women to be treated equally with men. In 1930, the First Eastern Women's Congress was hosted in Damascus.
In 1963 the Ba'ath Party took power in Syria, and pledged full equality between women and men as well as full workforce participation for women.
In 1967 Syrian women formed a quasi-governmental organization called the General Union of Syrian Women (GUSW), a coalition of women's welfare societies, educational associations, and voluntary councils intended to achieve equal opportunity for women in Syria.
The year 2011 marked the beginning of the Syrian Civil War, where many civilians have fallen victim to attacks targeted at hospitals, schools, and infrastructure. Extremist rebel groups, such as Jabhat al-Nusra and ISIS, have enforced strict policies restricting freedoms of women in territories they control.
After the outbreak of civil war, some Syrian women have joined all-female brigade units in the Syrian Arab Army, the Democratic Union Party, and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, taking on roles such as snipers, frontline units, or police.
Legal rights
While Syria has developed some fairly secular features during independence in the second half of the 20th century, personal status law is still based on Sharia and applied by Sharia Courts. Syria has a dual legal system which includes both secular and religious courts. Marriage contracts are between the groom and the bride's father, and Syrian law does not recognize the concept of marital rape.
Syrian women are legally allowed to participate in everyday life, although they are not guaranteed a spot in being part of political, social, cultural and economic categories. The legal marriage for females in Syria is seventeen years old and eighteen for males. Women are technically allowed to have a say in what the agreements are between them and the groom. Although, since this contract has to be signed by the groom and the male guardian of the bride, her wishes are rarely met. On the other hand, of marriage, the divorce laws are unique in Syria. Women are in fact allowed to file for divorce except it is a long drawn out process and she must get consent from her husband. There are some circumstances in which the woman can apply for a divorce through the judicial system. In order to do this, she must prove that her husband has abused her or neglected his other duties as a husband. If a man wants to divorce a woman, all he has to do is go to court and orally demand a divorce three times, then the court will order him a divorce.
Education
The early schooling in Syria starts at six years old and ends at the age of eighteen. In Syrian universities, women and men attend the same classes. Between 1970 and the late 1990s, the female population in schools dramatically increased. This increase included the early school years, along with the upper-level schools such as universities and higher education. Although the number of women has increased, there are still ninety five women to every one hundred men. Although many women start going to school, the dropout rate for women is much higher than for men.
The literacy rate for women is 74.2 percent and 91 percent for men. The rate of females over 25 with secondary education is 29.0 percent.
Politics
In Syria, women in Syria were first allowed to vote and received universal suffrage in 1953. In the 1950s, Thuraya Al-Hafez ran for Parliament, but was not elected. By 1971, women held four out of the 173 seats.
The current president of Syria is a male. There are also two vice presidents (including female vice president Najah al-Attar since 2006), a prime minister and a cabinet. As of 2012, in the national parliament men held 88% of the seats while women held 12%. The Syrian Parliament was previously led by female Speaker Hadiya Khalaf Abbas, the first woman to have held that position.
President Assad's political and media adviser is Bouthaina Shaaban. Shaaban served as the first Minister of Expatriates for the Syrian Arab Republic, between 2003 and 2008, and she has been described as the Syrian government's face to the outside world.
Of the civil society representatives among the 150 members of the Syrian Constitutional Committee, which was assembled in 2019 by the Syria Envoy of the United Nations, Syrian women comprise around 30%. Several renowned Syrian women, such as academic Bassma Kodmani, Sabah Hallak of the Syrian Women's League, the law professor Amal Yazji or the judge Iman Shahoud, sit on the committee's influential 'Small' or Drafting Body.
Role in economy and in the military
In 1989 the Syrian government passed a law requiring factories and public institutions to provide on-site childcare.
However, women's involvement in the workforce is low; according to World Bank, as of 2014, women made up 16.4% of the labor force.
Women are not conscripted in the military, but may serve voluntarily. The female militias of Syria are trained to fight for the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad. A video was found dating back to the 1980s with female soldiers showing their pride and protectiveness toward Assad's father. "Because women are rarely involved in the armed side of the revolution, they are much less likely to get stopped, searched, or hassled at government checkpoints. This has proved crucial in distributing humanitarian aid throughout Syria."
Women's health
Between 2010 and 2015, the average life expectancy at birth for women in Syria is 77.7 years, compared with 74.5 years for men.
Impact of the conflict on Syria's women
Since the conflict erupted in 2011, women in Syria, namely in conflict zones, have been facing violence, sexual assault, forced displacement, detension, domestic violence, child marriage and other violations of their rights.
During the years of conflict, insecurity and the economic collapse significantly increased the vulnerability of women and girls. In addition, many girls were left without schooling or access to healthcare services. The enrolment rate for primary education was 61% in 2013, with 61.1% of the total number being female, while for secondary education, the rate was 44% in 2013 - 43.8% for female.
In 2015, the United Nations gathered evidence of systematic sexual assault of women and girls by combatants in Syria, and this was escalated by the Islamic State (ISIL) and other terrorist organizations.
Crime against women
Honor killings
Honor killings take place in Syria in situations where women are deemed to have brought shame to the family, affecting the family's 'reputation' in the community. Some estimates suggest that more than 200 honor killings occur every year in Syria.
Forced and child marriage
The conflict in Syria has led to an increase in child marriages. The harsh living conditions, the insecurity, and the fear of rape, have led families to force their daughters into early marriages.
As a result of early marriage, many girls in Syria are forbidden from completing their studies because when a girl is married she is only expected to be a good wife and a good mother as well. Child marriage can influence physical and mental health badly. Physical damage can be related to child bearing specially for women under 18 years old and the possibility for not being able to give birth later in life, and in extreme cases it can lead to death. Psychological factors can be defined as difficulties in interacting with the husband or not having enough awareness about marriage life and its responsibilities.
Domestic Violence
A study covering the low-income women in Aleppo, an area where domestic abuse is more likely due to the tribal nature of the area, shows that physical abuse (battering at least 3 times in the last year) was found in 23% of the investigated women in 2003, 26% amongst married women. Regular abuse (battering at least once weekly) was found in 3.3% of married women, with no regular abused reported by non-married women. The prevalence of physical abuse amongst country residents was 44.3% compared to 18.8% amongst city residents. In most cases (87.4%) the abuse was inflicted by the husband, and in 9.5% of cases, the abuse was inflicted by more than one person. Correlates of physical abuse were women's education, religion, age, marital status, economic status, mental distress, smoking and residence.
Federation of Northern Syria - Rojava
With the Syrian Civil War, the Kurdish populated area in Northern Syria has gained de facto autonomy as the Federation of Northern Syria - Rojava, with the leading political actor being the progressive Democratic Union Party (PYD). Kurdish women have several armed and non-armed organizations in Rojava, and enhancing women's rights is a major focus of the political and societal agenda. Kurdish female fighters in the Women's Protection Units (YPJ) played a key role during the Siege of Kobani and in rescuing Yazidis trapped on Mount Sinjar, and their achievements have attracted international attention as a rare example of strong female achievement in a region in which women are heavily repressed.
The civil laws of Syria are valid in Rojava, as far as they do not conflict with the Constitution of Rojava. One notable example for amendment is personal status law, in Syria still Sharia-based, where Rojava introduced civil law and proclaims absolute equality of women under the law and a ban on forced marriage as well as polygamy was introduced, while underage marriage was outlawed as well. For the first time in Syrian history, civil marriage is being allowed and promoted, a significant move towards a secular open society and intermarriage between people of different religious backgrounds.
The legal efforts to reduce cases of underage marriage, polygamy and honor killings are underpinned by comprehensive public awareness campaigns. In every town and village, a women's house is established. These are community centers run by women, providing services to survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault and other forms of harm. These services include counseling, family mediation, legal support, and coordinating safe houses for women and children. Classes on economic independence and social empowerment programs are also held at women's houses.
All administrative organs in Rojava are required to have male and female co-chairs, and forty percent of the members of any governing body in Rojava must be female. An estimated 25 percent of the Asayish police force of the Rojava cantons are women, and joining the Asayish is described in international media as a huge act of personal and societal liberation from an extremely patriarchical background, for ethnic Kurdish and ethnic Arab women alike.
The PYD's political agenda of "trying to break the honor-based religious and tribal rules that confine women" is controversial in conservative quarters of society.
Notable women
Hadiya Khalaf Abbas, Speaker of the People's Council of Syria (since 2016).
Asya Abdullah is the co-chairwoman of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), the leading political party in Rojava.
Asma al-Assad, the First Lady of Syria and the wife of the current President Assad
Najah al-Attar, Vice President of Syria (since 2006).
Randa Kassis, President of The Astana Platform of the Syrian opposition.
Suheir Atassi, Vice President of the opposition government.
Samar Al Dayyoub, literary critic and writer
Khawla Dunia, opposition activist and poet
Îlham Ehmed is co-chairwoman of the Syrian Democratic Council.
Hêvî Îbrahîm is the prime minister of Afrin Canton.
Samira Khalil, dissident
Ulfat Idilbi, best-selling Arabic-language novelist.
Assala Nasri is a musical artist
Souad Nawfal, opposition activist and schoolteacher.
Rasha Omran, poet
Bouthaina Shaaban, Bashar al-Assad's political adviser and previous Minister of Expatriates
Muna Wassef, theater, television, and film actress.
Hediya Yousef is an ex-guerilla and co-chairwoman of the executive committee of the Federation of Northern Syria – Rojava.
Razan Zaitouneh, human rights lawyer and activist.
References
External links
Survey: Discrimination against Women in Syrian Society (I/II). Awareness of Women Rights and Freedoms, The Day After Association, August 2017
Survey: Discrimination Against Women in Syrian Society (II/II): Perception of Domestic Violence, The Day After Association, August 2017
Asian women | true | [
"In land use, a setback is the minimum distance which a building or other structure must be set back from a street or road, a river or other stream, a shore or flood plain, or any other place which is deemed to need protection. Depending on the jurisdiction, other things like fences, landscaping, septic tanks, and various potential hazards or nuisances might be regulated and prohibited by setback lines. Setbacks along state, provincial, or federal highways may also be set in the laws of the state or province, or the federal government. Local governments create setbacks through ordinances, zoning restrictions, and Building Codes, usually for reasons of public policy such as safety, privacy, and environmental protection. Neighborhood developers may create setback lines (usually defined in Covenants & Restrictions, and set forth in official neighborhood maps) to ensure uniform appearance in the neighborhood and prevent houses from crowding adjacent structures or streets. In some cases, building ahead of a setback line may be permitted through special approval.\n\nOverview\nHomes usually have a setback from the property boundary, so that they cannot be placed close together. Setbacks may also allow for public utilities to access the buildings, and for access to utility meters. In some municipalities, setbacks are based on street right-of-ways, and not the front property line. Nonetheless, many of the world's cities, such as those built in the US before 1916 and the beginnings of zoning in the United States, do not employ setbacks. Zoning –and laws pertaining to site development, such as setbacks for front lawns– has been criticized recently by urban planners (most notably Jane Jacobs) for the role that these laws have played in producing urban sprawl and automobile-dependent, low-density cities.\n\nOlder houses have smaller setbacks between properties, as walking was a primary mode of transportation and the distance people walked to actual destinations and, eventually, streetcar stops had to be kept short out of necessity. Distances of one to five feet at most are common in neighborhoods built in the United States before 1890, when the electric streetcar first became popular. Most suburbs laid out before 1920 have narrow lots and setbacks of five to fifteen feet between houses. As automobile ownership became common, setbacks increased further because zoning laws required developers to leave large spaces between the house and street. Recently, in some areas of the United States, setback requirements have been lowered so as to permit new homes and other structures to be closer to the street, one facet of the low impact development urban design movement. This permits a more usable rear yard and limits new impervious surface areas for the purposes of stormwater infiltration.\n\nMailboxes, on the other hand, often have a maximum setback instead of a minimum one. A postal administration or postmaster may mandate that if a mailbox on a street is too far from the curb for the letter carrier to insert mail, without having to get out of the vehicle, the mail may not be delivered to that address at all until the situation is corrected.\n\nSetbacks in Canada\nBritish Columbia uses a minimum setback of 4.5 metres (15 feet) of any building, mobile home, retaining wall, or other structure from all highway rights-of-way under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure unless the building has access from another street, in which case the allowed setback is 3 metres (10 feet).\n\nReferences\n\nLand management\nUrban studies and planning terminology\nZoning",
"Setbacks is the debut studio album by American hip hop recording artist ScHoolboy Q, released for digital download on January 11, 2011 under Top Dawg Entertainment. The album features guest appearances from his fellow Black Hippy members Kendrick Lamar, Jay Rock and Ab-Soul, as well as vocals from singer-songwriters Alori Joh, Jhené Aiko and BJ the Chicago Kid. The album's production was handled by Lord Quest, Willie B, Focus..., Rahki, Phonix Beats, Tae Beast, DJ Wes, King Blue, Sounwave and more.\n\nSchoolboy Q titled the album Setbacks, due to the limitations he experienced and endured before releasing the album. After the release of Setbacks, the album reached number 100 on the US Billboard 200, number 12 on the Top Rap Albums, number 25 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and number 13 on the Top Independent Albums chart. Only a few weeks after Setbacks was released, it already had 4,395 units and was praised by fans and critics alike.\n\nBackground \nIn 2012, in an interview with Complex, Schoolboy Q spoke on the concept behind Setbacks: \"The concept behind Setbacks was [to talk about] all the shit that’s the reason why I can’t rap. The reason I can’t accomplish what I want to accomplish is because I’m doing all this dumb shit. I put it all together on the album. Like, ‘Druggys Wit Hoes,’ I'm out here drugging and I'm not even trying to fuck with hoes. ‘Kamikaze,’ I'm not even trying to rap—keep going broke. Different shit like that, I sum it up all in one album. My life did a whole 180 after that dropped. A lot of people still didn't know the name though, but a lot of people did. It was weird. It just took me to the right spot. I made some fucking money off the project, it helped me see that I needed to do more positive shit in life, and it made me into the person I am now. All I do now is just chill. I'd rather just chill, work on my music, be with my two-year-old daughter, and smoke weed and shit.\" Two weeks after the album's release ScHoolboy Q released it for free via his Twitter feed. The free version doesn't include \"LigHt Years AHead\" and is replaced with \"Live Again\" which also features Kendrick Lamar. The free version also features a new bonus track titled \"Fuck Ya Hip Hop\" featuring Big Pooh and Murs\n\nReception\n\nCommercial performance \nThe album debuted at number 100 on the US Billboard 200 chart and had sold 17,000 copies in the US as of February 2014.\n\nCritical response \nSetbacks received generally positive reviews from music critics, who praised the album's production, features and lyrics. iHipHop gave it a 3.5 out of 5 rating mentioning \"While Setbacks is a misleading title, ScHoolboy Q does leave room for critique. Despite his overwhelmingly impressive flow, Q rarely says anything worthy of raising an eyebrow.\" Allmusic gave it 4 out of 5 stars commenting \"Dividing his time between socially conscious rap and bud smoker’s anthems, ScHoolboy Q makes quite the impression on his debut “street album\"\". They called Setbacks polished, funky, well-balanced, and rewarding.\n\nTrack listing\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\n2011 debut albums\nSchoolboy Q albums\nAlbums produced by Sounwave\nAlbums produced by Focus...\nAlbums produced by Tae Beast\nAlbums produced by Willie B\nTop Dawg Entertainment albums"
] |
[
"Women in Syria",
"Federation of Northern Syria - Rojava",
"What was the federation of northern syria?",
"the Kurdish populated area in Northern Syria has gained de facto autonomy as the Federation of Northern Syria - Rojava,",
"when did this occur?",
"With the Syrian Civil War,",
"howdid they gain the autonomy?",
"Kurdish women have several armed and non-armed organizations in Rojava, and enhancing women's rights is a major focus of the political and societal agenda.",
"did they have any setbacks?",
"The legal efforts to reduce cases of underage marriage, polygamy and honor killings are underpinned by comprehensive public awareness campaigns."
] | C_39f4f398e5164489b14c16dd91326711_0 | Are there any other interesting aspects about this article? | 5 | Are there any other interesting aspects about this article besides Kurdish women's legal efforts? | Women in Syria | With the Syrian Civil War, the Kurdish populated area in Northern Syria has gained de facto autonomy as the Federation of Northern Syria - Rojava, with the leading political actor being the progressive Democratic Union Party (PYD). Kurdish women have several armed and non-armed organizations in Rojava, and enhancing women's rights is a major focus of the political and societal agenda. Kurdish female fighters in the Women's Protection Units (YPJ) played a key role during the Siege of Kobani and in rescuing Yazidis trapped on Mount Sinjar, and their achievements have attracted international attention as a rare example of strong female achievement in a region in which women are heavily repressed. The civil laws of Syria are valid in Rojava, as far as they do not conflict with the Constitution of Rojava. One notable example for amendment is personal status law, in Syria still Sharia-based, where Rojava introduced civil law and proclaims absolute equality of women under the law and a ban on forced marriage as well as polygamy was introduced, while underage marriage was outlawed as well. For the first time in Syrian history, civil marriage is being allowed and promoted, a significant move towards a secular open society and intermarriage between people of different religious backgrounds. The legal efforts to reduce cases of underage marriage, polygamy and honor killings are underpinned by comprehensive public awareness campaigns. In every town and village, a women's house is established. These are community centers run by women, providing services to survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault and other forms of harm. These services include counseling, family mediation, legal support, and coordinating safe houses for women and children. Classes on economic independence and social empowerment programs are also held at women's houses. All administrative organs in Rojava are required to have male and female co-chairs, and forty percent of the members of any governing body in Rojava must be female. An estimated 25 percent of the Asayish police force of the Rojava cantons are women, and joining the Asayish is described in international media as a huge act of personal and societal liberation from an extremely patriarchical background, for ethnic Kurdish and ethnic Arab women alike. The PYD's political agenda of "trying to break the honor-based religious and tribal rules that confine women" is controversial in conservative quarters of society. CANNOTANSWER | All administrative organs in Rojava are required to have male and female co-chairs, and forty percent of the members of any governing body in Rojava must be female. | Women in Syria constitute 49.4% of Syria's population, and are active participants not only in everyday life, but also in the socio-political fields.
History
In the 20th century a movement for women's rights developed in Syria, made up largely of upper-class, educated women. In 1919, Naziq al-Abid founded Noor al-Fayha (Light of Damascus), the city's first women's organization, alongside an affiliated publication of the same name. She was made an honorary general of the Syrian Army after fighting in the Battle of Maysaloun, and in 1922 she founded the Syrian Red Crescent. In 1928 Lebanese-Syrian feminist Nazira Zain al-Din, one of the first people to critically reinterpret the Quran from a feminist perspective, published a book condemning the practice of veiling or hijab, arguing that Islam requires women to be treated equally with men. In 1930, the First Eastern Women's Congress was hosted in Damascus.
In 1963 the Ba'ath Party took power in Syria, and pledged full equality between women and men as well as full workforce participation for women.
In 1967 Syrian women formed a quasi-governmental organization called the General Union of Syrian Women (GUSW), a coalition of women's welfare societies, educational associations, and voluntary councils intended to achieve equal opportunity for women in Syria.
The year 2011 marked the beginning of the Syrian Civil War, where many civilians have fallen victim to attacks targeted at hospitals, schools, and infrastructure. Extremist rebel groups, such as Jabhat al-Nusra and ISIS, have enforced strict policies restricting freedoms of women in territories they control.
After the outbreak of civil war, some Syrian women have joined all-female brigade units in the Syrian Arab Army, the Democratic Union Party, and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, taking on roles such as snipers, frontline units, or police.
Legal rights
While Syria has developed some fairly secular features during independence in the second half of the 20th century, personal status law is still based on Sharia and applied by Sharia Courts. Syria has a dual legal system which includes both secular and religious courts. Marriage contracts are between the groom and the bride's father, and Syrian law does not recognize the concept of marital rape.
Syrian women are legally allowed to participate in everyday life, although they are not guaranteed a spot in being part of political, social, cultural and economic categories. The legal marriage for females in Syria is seventeen years old and eighteen for males. Women are technically allowed to have a say in what the agreements are between them and the groom. Although, since this contract has to be signed by the groom and the male guardian of the bride, her wishes are rarely met. On the other hand, of marriage, the divorce laws are unique in Syria. Women are in fact allowed to file for divorce except it is a long drawn out process and she must get consent from her husband. There are some circumstances in which the woman can apply for a divorce through the judicial system. In order to do this, she must prove that her husband has abused her or neglected his other duties as a husband. If a man wants to divorce a woman, all he has to do is go to court and orally demand a divorce three times, then the court will order him a divorce.
Education
The early schooling in Syria starts at six years old and ends at the age of eighteen. In Syrian universities, women and men attend the same classes. Between 1970 and the late 1990s, the female population in schools dramatically increased. This increase included the early school years, along with the upper-level schools such as universities and higher education. Although the number of women has increased, there are still ninety five women to every one hundred men. Although many women start going to school, the dropout rate for women is much higher than for men.
The literacy rate for women is 74.2 percent and 91 percent for men. The rate of females over 25 with secondary education is 29.0 percent.
Politics
In Syria, women in Syria were first allowed to vote and received universal suffrage in 1953. In the 1950s, Thuraya Al-Hafez ran for Parliament, but was not elected. By 1971, women held four out of the 173 seats.
The current president of Syria is a male. There are also two vice presidents (including female vice president Najah al-Attar since 2006), a prime minister and a cabinet. As of 2012, in the national parliament men held 88% of the seats while women held 12%. The Syrian Parliament was previously led by female Speaker Hadiya Khalaf Abbas, the first woman to have held that position.
President Assad's political and media adviser is Bouthaina Shaaban. Shaaban served as the first Minister of Expatriates for the Syrian Arab Republic, between 2003 and 2008, and she has been described as the Syrian government's face to the outside world.
Of the civil society representatives among the 150 members of the Syrian Constitutional Committee, which was assembled in 2019 by the Syria Envoy of the United Nations, Syrian women comprise around 30%. Several renowned Syrian women, such as academic Bassma Kodmani, Sabah Hallak of the Syrian Women's League, the law professor Amal Yazji or the judge Iman Shahoud, sit on the committee's influential 'Small' or Drafting Body.
Role in economy and in the military
In 1989 the Syrian government passed a law requiring factories and public institutions to provide on-site childcare.
However, women's involvement in the workforce is low; according to World Bank, as of 2014, women made up 16.4% of the labor force.
Women are not conscripted in the military, but may serve voluntarily. The female militias of Syria are trained to fight for the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad. A video was found dating back to the 1980s with female soldiers showing their pride and protectiveness toward Assad's father. "Because women are rarely involved in the armed side of the revolution, they are much less likely to get stopped, searched, or hassled at government checkpoints. This has proved crucial in distributing humanitarian aid throughout Syria."
Women's health
Between 2010 and 2015, the average life expectancy at birth for women in Syria is 77.7 years, compared with 74.5 years for men.
Impact of the conflict on Syria's women
Since the conflict erupted in 2011, women in Syria, namely in conflict zones, have been facing violence, sexual assault, forced displacement, detension, domestic violence, child marriage and other violations of their rights.
During the years of conflict, insecurity and the economic collapse significantly increased the vulnerability of women and girls. In addition, many girls were left without schooling or access to healthcare services. The enrolment rate for primary education was 61% in 2013, with 61.1% of the total number being female, while for secondary education, the rate was 44% in 2013 - 43.8% for female.
In 2015, the United Nations gathered evidence of systematic sexual assault of women and girls by combatants in Syria, and this was escalated by the Islamic State (ISIL) and other terrorist organizations.
Crime against women
Honor killings
Honor killings take place in Syria in situations where women are deemed to have brought shame to the family, affecting the family's 'reputation' in the community. Some estimates suggest that more than 200 honor killings occur every year in Syria.
Forced and child marriage
The conflict in Syria has led to an increase in child marriages. The harsh living conditions, the insecurity, and the fear of rape, have led families to force their daughters into early marriages.
As a result of early marriage, many girls in Syria are forbidden from completing their studies because when a girl is married she is only expected to be a good wife and a good mother as well. Child marriage can influence physical and mental health badly. Physical damage can be related to child bearing specially for women under 18 years old and the possibility for not being able to give birth later in life, and in extreme cases it can lead to death. Psychological factors can be defined as difficulties in interacting with the husband or not having enough awareness about marriage life and its responsibilities.
Domestic Violence
A study covering the low-income women in Aleppo, an area where domestic abuse is more likely due to the tribal nature of the area, shows that physical abuse (battering at least 3 times in the last year) was found in 23% of the investigated women in 2003, 26% amongst married women. Regular abuse (battering at least once weekly) was found in 3.3% of married women, with no regular abused reported by non-married women. The prevalence of physical abuse amongst country residents was 44.3% compared to 18.8% amongst city residents. In most cases (87.4%) the abuse was inflicted by the husband, and in 9.5% of cases, the abuse was inflicted by more than one person. Correlates of physical abuse were women's education, religion, age, marital status, economic status, mental distress, smoking and residence.
Federation of Northern Syria - Rojava
With the Syrian Civil War, the Kurdish populated area in Northern Syria has gained de facto autonomy as the Federation of Northern Syria - Rojava, with the leading political actor being the progressive Democratic Union Party (PYD). Kurdish women have several armed and non-armed organizations in Rojava, and enhancing women's rights is a major focus of the political and societal agenda. Kurdish female fighters in the Women's Protection Units (YPJ) played a key role during the Siege of Kobani and in rescuing Yazidis trapped on Mount Sinjar, and their achievements have attracted international attention as a rare example of strong female achievement in a region in which women are heavily repressed.
The civil laws of Syria are valid in Rojava, as far as they do not conflict with the Constitution of Rojava. One notable example for amendment is personal status law, in Syria still Sharia-based, where Rojava introduced civil law and proclaims absolute equality of women under the law and a ban on forced marriage as well as polygamy was introduced, while underage marriage was outlawed as well. For the first time in Syrian history, civil marriage is being allowed and promoted, a significant move towards a secular open society and intermarriage between people of different religious backgrounds.
The legal efforts to reduce cases of underage marriage, polygamy and honor killings are underpinned by comprehensive public awareness campaigns. In every town and village, a women's house is established. These are community centers run by women, providing services to survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault and other forms of harm. These services include counseling, family mediation, legal support, and coordinating safe houses for women and children. Classes on economic independence and social empowerment programs are also held at women's houses.
All administrative organs in Rojava are required to have male and female co-chairs, and forty percent of the members of any governing body in Rojava must be female. An estimated 25 percent of the Asayish police force of the Rojava cantons are women, and joining the Asayish is described in international media as a huge act of personal and societal liberation from an extremely patriarchical background, for ethnic Kurdish and ethnic Arab women alike.
The PYD's political agenda of "trying to break the honor-based religious and tribal rules that confine women" is controversial in conservative quarters of society.
Notable women
Hadiya Khalaf Abbas, Speaker of the People's Council of Syria (since 2016).
Asya Abdullah is the co-chairwoman of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), the leading political party in Rojava.
Asma al-Assad, the First Lady of Syria and the wife of the current President Assad
Najah al-Attar, Vice President of Syria (since 2006).
Randa Kassis, President of The Astana Platform of the Syrian opposition.
Suheir Atassi, Vice President of the opposition government.
Samar Al Dayyoub, literary critic and writer
Khawla Dunia, opposition activist and poet
Îlham Ehmed is co-chairwoman of the Syrian Democratic Council.
Hêvî Îbrahîm is the prime minister of Afrin Canton.
Samira Khalil, dissident
Ulfat Idilbi, best-selling Arabic-language novelist.
Assala Nasri is a musical artist
Souad Nawfal, opposition activist and schoolteacher.
Rasha Omran, poet
Bouthaina Shaaban, Bashar al-Assad's political adviser and previous Minister of Expatriates
Muna Wassef, theater, television, and film actress.
Hediya Yousef is an ex-guerilla and co-chairwoman of the executive committee of the Federation of Northern Syria – Rojava.
Razan Zaitouneh, human rights lawyer and activist.
References
External links
Survey: Discrimination against Women in Syrian Society (I/II). Awareness of Women Rights and Freedoms, The Day After Association, August 2017
Survey: Discrimination Against Women in Syrian Society (II/II): Perception of Domestic Violence, The Day After Association, August 2017
Asian women | true | [
"Přírodní park Třebíčsko (before Oblast klidu Třebíčsko) is a natural park near Třebíč in the Czech Republic. There are many interesting plants. The park was founded in 1983.\n\nKobylinec and Ptáčovský kopeček\n\nKobylinec is a natural monument situated ca 0,5 km from the village of Trnava.\nThe area of this monument is 0,44 ha. Pulsatilla grandis can be found here and in the Ptáčovský kopeček park near Ptáčov near Třebíč. Both monuments are very popular for tourists.\n\nPonds\n\nIn the natural park there are some interesting ponds such as Velký Bor, Malý Bor, Buršík near Přeckov and a brook Březinka. Dams on the brook are examples of European beaver activity.\n\nSyenitové skály near Pocoucov\n\nSyenitové skály (rocks of syenit) near Pocoucov is one of famed locations. There are interesting granite boulders. The area of the reservation is 0,77 ha.\n\nExternal links\nParts of this article or all article was translated from Czech. The original article is :cs:Přírodní park Třebíčsko.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nNature near the village Trnava which is there\n\nTřebíč\nParks in the Czech Republic\nTourist attractions in the Vysočina Region",
"Damn Interesting is an independent website founded by Alan Bellows in 2005. The website presents true stories from science, history, and psychology, primarily as long-form articles, often illustrated with original artwork. Works are written by various authors, and published at irregular intervals. The website openly rejects advertising, relying on reader and listener donations to cover operating costs.\n\nAs of October 2012, each article is also published as a podcast under the same name. In November 2019, a second podcast was launched under the title Damn Interesting Week, featuring unscripted commentary on an assortment of news articles featured on the website's \"Curated Links\" section that week. In mid-2020, a third podcast called Damn Interesting Curio Cabinet began highlighting the website's periodic short-form articles in the same radioplay format as the original podcast.\n\nIn July 2009, Damn Interesting published the print book Alien Hand Syndrome through Workman Publishing. It contains some favorites from the site and some exclusive content.\n\nAwards and recognition \nIn August 2007, PC Magazine named Damn Interesting one of the \"Top 100 Undiscovered Web Sites\".\nThe article \"The Zero-Armed Bandit\" by Alan Bellows won a 2015 Sidney Award from David Brooks in The New York Times.\nThe article \"Ghoulish Acts and Dastardly Deeds\" by Alan Bellows was cited as \"nonfiction journalism from 2017 that will stand the test of time\" by Conor Friedersdorf in The Atlantic.\nThe article \"Dupes and Duplicity\" by Jennifer Lee Noonan won a 2020 Sidney Award from David Brooks in the New York Times.\n\nAccusing The Dollop of plagiarism \n\nOn July 9, 2015, Bellows posted an open letter accusing The Dollop, a comedy podcast about history, of plagiarism due to their repeated use of verbatim text from Damn Interesting articles without permission or attribution. Dave Anthony, the writer of The Dollop, responded on reddit, admitting to using Damn Interesting content, but claiming that the use was protected by fair use, and that \"historical facts are not copyrightable.\" In an article about the controversy on Plagiarism Today, Jonathan Bailey concluded, \"Any way one looks at it, The Dollop failed its ethical obligations to all of the people, not just those writing for Damn Interesting, who put in the time, energy and expertise into writing the original content upon which their show is based.\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Official website\n\n2005 podcast debuts"
] |
[
"Women in Syria",
"Federation of Northern Syria - Rojava",
"What was the federation of northern syria?",
"the Kurdish populated area in Northern Syria has gained de facto autonomy as the Federation of Northern Syria - Rojava,",
"when did this occur?",
"With the Syrian Civil War,",
"howdid they gain the autonomy?",
"Kurdish women have several armed and non-armed organizations in Rojava, and enhancing women's rights is a major focus of the political and societal agenda.",
"did they have any setbacks?",
"The legal efforts to reduce cases of underage marriage, polygamy and honor killings are underpinned by comprehensive public awareness campaigns.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"All administrative organs in Rojava are required to have male and female co-chairs, and forty percent of the members of any governing body in Rojava must be female."
] | C_39f4f398e5164489b14c16dd91326711_0 | has it remained this way? | 6 | has Rojava remained to have male and female co-chairs and forty percent members of governing body to be female? | Women in Syria | With the Syrian Civil War, the Kurdish populated area in Northern Syria has gained de facto autonomy as the Federation of Northern Syria - Rojava, with the leading political actor being the progressive Democratic Union Party (PYD). Kurdish women have several armed and non-armed organizations in Rojava, and enhancing women's rights is a major focus of the political and societal agenda. Kurdish female fighters in the Women's Protection Units (YPJ) played a key role during the Siege of Kobani and in rescuing Yazidis trapped on Mount Sinjar, and their achievements have attracted international attention as a rare example of strong female achievement in a region in which women are heavily repressed. The civil laws of Syria are valid in Rojava, as far as they do not conflict with the Constitution of Rojava. One notable example for amendment is personal status law, in Syria still Sharia-based, where Rojava introduced civil law and proclaims absolute equality of women under the law and a ban on forced marriage as well as polygamy was introduced, while underage marriage was outlawed as well. For the first time in Syrian history, civil marriage is being allowed and promoted, a significant move towards a secular open society and intermarriage between people of different religious backgrounds. The legal efforts to reduce cases of underage marriage, polygamy and honor killings are underpinned by comprehensive public awareness campaigns. In every town and village, a women's house is established. These are community centers run by women, providing services to survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault and other forms of harm. These services include counseling, family mediation, legal support, and coordinating safe houses for women and children. Classes on economic independence and social empowerment programs are also held at women's houses. All administrative organs in Rojava are required to have male and female co-chairs, and forty percent of the members of any governing body in Rojava must be female. An estimated 25 percent of the Asayish police force of the Rojava cantons are women, and joining the Asayish is described in international media as a huge act of personal and societal liberation from an extremely patriarchical background, for ethnic Kurdish and ethnic Arab women alike. The PYD's political agenda of "trying to break the honor-based religious and tribal rules that confine women" is controversial in conservative quarters of society. CANNOTANSWER | An estimated 25 percent of the Asayish police force of the Rojava cantons are women, | Women in Syria constitute 49.4% of Syria's population, and are active participants not only in everyday life, but also in the socio-political fields.
History
In the 20th century a movement for women's rights developed in Syria, made up largely of upper-class, educated women. In 1919, Naziq al-Abid founded Noor al-Fayha (Light of Damascus), the city's first women's organization, alongside an affiliated publication of the same name. She was made an honorary general of the Syrian Army after fighting in the Battle of Maysaloun, and in 1922 she founded the Syrian Red Crescent. In 1928 Lebanese-Syrian feminist Nazira Zain al-Din, one of the first people to critically reinterpret the Quran from a feminist perspective, published a book condemning the practice of veiling or hijab, arguing that Islam requires women to be treated equally with men. In 1930, the First Eastern Women's Congress was hosted in Damascus.
In 1963 the Ba'ath Party took power in Syria, and pledged full equality between women and men as well as full workforce participation for women.
In 1967 Syrian women formed a quasi-governmental organization called the General Union of Syrian Women (GUSW), a coalition of women's welfare societies, educational associations, and voluntary councils intended to achieve equal opportunity for women in Syria.
The year 2011 marked the beginning of the Syrian Civil War, where many civilians have fallen victim to attacks targeted at hospitals, schools, and infrastructure. Extremist rebel groups, such as Jabhat al-Nusra and ISIS, have enforced strict policies restricting freedoms of women in territories they control.
After the outbreak of civil war, some Syrian women have joined all-female brigade units in the Syrian Arab Army, the Democratic Union Party, and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, taking on roles such as snipers, frontline units, or police.
Legal rights
While Syria has developed some fairly secular features during independence in the second half of the 20th century, personal status law is still based on Sharia and applied by Sharia Courts. Syria has a dual legal system which includes both secular and religious courts. Marriage contracts are between the groom and the bride's father, and Syrian law does not recognize the concept of marital rape.
Syrian women are legally allowed to participate in everyday life, although they are not guaranteed a spot in being part of political, social, cultural and economic categories. The legal marriage for females in Syria is seventeen years old and eighteen for males. Women are technically allowed to have a say in what the agreements are between them and the groom. Although, since this contract has to be signed by the groom and the male guardian of the bride, her wishes are rarely met. On the other hand, of marriage, the divorce laws are unique in Syria. Women are in fact allowed to file for divorce except it is a long drawn out process and she must get consent from her husband. There are some circumstances in which the woman can apply for a divorce through the judicial system. In order to do this, she must prove that her husband has abused her or neglected his other duties as a husband. If a man wants to divorce a woman, all he has to do is go to court and orally demand a divorce three times, then the court will order him a divorce.
Education
The early schooling in Syria starts at six years old and ends at the age of eighteen. In Syrian universities, women and men attend the same classes. Between 1970 and the late 1990s, the female population in schools dramatically increased. This increase included the early school years, along with the upper-level schools such as universities and higher education. Although the number of women has increased, there are still ninety five women to every one hundred men. Although many women start going to school, the dropout rate for women is much higher than for men.
The literacy rate for women is 74.2 percent and 91 percent for men. The rate of females over 25 with secondary education is 29.0 percent.
Politics
In Syria, women in Syria were first allowed to vote and received universal suffrage in 1953. In the 1950s, Thuraya Al-Hafez ran for Parliament, but was not elected. By 1971, women held four out of the 173 seats.
The current president of Syria is a male. There are also two vice presidents (including female vice president Najah al-Attar since 2006), a prime minister and a cabinet. As of 2012, in the national parliament men held 88% of the seats while women held 12%. The Syrian Parliament was previously led by female Speaker Hadiya Khalaf Abbas, the first woman to have held that position.
President Assad's political and media adviser is Bouthaina Shaaban. Shaaban served as the first Minister of Expatriates for the Syrian Arab Republic, between 2003 and 2008, and she has been described as the Syrian government's face to the outside world.
Of the civil society representatives among the 150 members of the Syrian Constitutional Committee, which was assembled in 2019 by the Syria Envoy of the United Nations, Syrian women comprise around 30%. Several renowned Syrian women, such as academic Bassma Kodmani, Sabah Hallak of the Syrian Women's League, the law professor Amal Yazji or the judge Iman Shahoud, sit on the committee's influential 'Small' or Drafting Body.
Role in economy and in the military
In 1989 the Syrian government passed a law requiring factories and public institutions to provide on-site childcare.
However, women's involvement in the workforce is low; according to World Bank, as of 2014, women made up 16.4% of the labor force.
Women are not conscripted in the military, but may serve voluntarily. The female militias of Syria are trained to fight for the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad. A video was found dating back to the 1980s with female soldiers showing their pride and protectiveness toward Assad's father. "Because women are rarely involved in the armed side of the revolution, they are much less likely to get stopped, searched, or hassled at government checkpoints. This has proved crucial in distributing humanitarian aid throughout Syria."
Women's health
Between 2010 and 2015, the average life expectancy at birth for women in Syria is 77.7 years, compared with 74.5 years for men.
Impact of the conflict on Syria's women
Since the conflict erupted in 2011, women in Syria, namely in conflict zones, have been facing violence, sexual assault, forced displacement, detension, domestic violence, child marriage and other violations of their rights.
During the years of conflict, insecurity and the economic collapse significantly increased the vulnerability of women and girls. In addition, many girls were left without schooling or access to healthcare services. The enrolment rate for primary education was 61% in 2013, with 61.1% of the total number being female, while for secondary education, the rate was 44% in 2013 - 43.8% for female.
In 2015, the United Nations gathered evidence of systematic sexual assault of women and girls by combatants in Syria, and this was escalated by the Islamic State (ISIL) and other terrorist organizations.
Crime against women
Honor killings
Honor killings take place in Syria in situations where women are deemed to have brought shame to the family, affecting the family's 'reputation' in the community. Some estimates suggest that more than 200 honor killings occur every year in Syria.
Forced and child marriage
The conflict in Syria has led to an increase in child marriages. The harsh living conditions, the insecurity, and the fear of rape, have led families to force their daughters into early marriages.
As a result of early marriage, many girls in Syria are forbidden from completing their studies because when a girl is married she is only expected to be a good wife and a good mother as well. Child marriage can influence physical and mental health badly. Physical damage can be related to child bearing specially for women under 18 years old and the possibility for not being able to give birth later in life, and in extreme cases it can lead to death. Psychological factors can be defined as difficulties in interacting with the husband or not having enough awareness about marriage life and its responsibilities.
Domestic Violence
A study covering the low-income women in Aleppo, an area where domestic abuse is more likely due to the tribal nature of the area, shows that physical abuse (battering at least 3 times in the last year) was found in 23% of the investigated women in 2003, 26% amongst married women. Regular abuse (battering at least once weekly) was found in 3.3% of married women, with no regular abused reported by non-married women. The prevalence of physical abuse amongst country residents was 44.3% compared to 18.8% amongst city residents. In most cases (87.4%) the abuse was inflicted by the husband, and in 9.5% of cases, the abuse was inflicted by more than one person. Correlates of physical abuse were women's education, religion, age, marital status, economic status, mental distress, smoking and residence.
Federation of Northern Syria - Rojava
With the Syrian Civil War, the Kurdish populated area in Northern Syria has gained de facto autonomy as the Federation of Northern Syria - Rojava, with the leading political actor being the progressive Democratic Union Party (PYD). Kurdish women have several armed and non-armed organizations in Rojava, and enhancing women's rights is a major focus of the political and societal agenda. Kurdish female fighters in the Women's Protection Units (YPJ) played a key role during the Siege of Kobani and in rescuing Yazidis trapped on Mount Sinjar, and their achievements have attracted international attention as a rare example of strong female achievement in a region in which women are heavily repressed.
The civil laws of Syria are valid in Rojava, as far as they do not conflict with the Constitution of Rojava. One notable example for amendment is personal status law, in Syria still Sharia-based, where Rojava introduced civil law and proclaims absolute equality of women under the law and a ban on forced marriage as well as polygamy was introduced, while underage marriage was outlawed as well. For the first time in Syrian history, civil marriage is being allowed and promoted, a significant move towards a secular open society and intermarriage between people of different religious backgrounds.
The legal efforts to reduce cases of underage marriage, polygamy and honor killings are underpinned by comprehensive public awareness campaigns. In every town and village, a women's house is established. These are community centers run by women, providing services to survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault and other forms of harm. These services include counseling, family mediation, legal support, and coordinating safe houses for women and children. Classes on economic independence and social empowerment programs are also held at women's houses.
All administrative organs in Rojava are required to have male and female co-chairs, and forty percent of the members of any governing body in Rojava must be female. An estimated 25 percent of the Asayish police force of the Rojava cantons are women, and joining the Asayish is described in international media as a huge act of personal and societal liberation from an extremely patriarchical background, for ethnic Kurdish and ethnic Arab women alike.
The PYD's political agenda of "trying to break the honor-based religious and tribal rules that confine women" is controversial in conservative quarters of society.
Notable women
Hadiya Khalaf Abbas, Speaker of the People's Council of Syria (since 2016).
Asya Abdullah is the co-chairwoman of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), the leading political party in Rojava.
Asma al-Assad, the First Lady of Syria and the wife of the current President Assad
Najah al-Attar, Vice President of Syria (since 2006).
Randa Kassis, President of The Astana Platform of the Syrian opposition.
Suheir Atassi, Vice President of the opposition government.
Samar Al Dayyoub, literary critic and writer
Khawla Dunia, opposition activist and poet
Îlham Ehmed is co-chairwoman of the Syrian Democratic Council.
Hêvî Îbrahîm is the prime minister of Afrin Canton.
Samira Khalil, dissident
Ulfat Idilbi, best-selling Arabic-language novelist.
Assala Nasri is a musical artist
Souad Nawfal, opposition activist and schoolteacher.
Rasha Omran, poet
Bouthaina Shaaban, Bashar al-Assad's political adviser and previous Minister of Expatriates
Muna Wassef, theater, television, and film actress.
Hediya Yousef is an ex-guerilla and co-chairwoman of the executive committee of the Federation of Northern Syria – Rojava.
Razan Zaitouneh, human rights lawyer and activist.
References
External links
Survey: Discrimination against Women in Syrian Society (I/II). Awareness of Women Rights and Freedoms, The Day After Association, August 2017
Survey: Discrimination Against Women in Syrian Society (II/II): Perception of Domestic Violence, The Day After Association, August 2017
Asian women | true | [
"Dravidian numerals are a numeral system that originated in ancient India and remained the usual way of writing numbers throughout Dravidian-speaking regions in South Asia. Numbers in this system are represented by combinations of letters from the various Indian scripts. In modern usage it has been replaced by Hindu-Arabic numeral systems.\n\nReferences \n\nDravidian",
"\"This Is The Way\" is a song recorded by the Swedish musician known under the pseudonym of E-Type. It features vocals by Swedish singer Nana Hedin and was released in 1994 as the second single from his debut album, Made in Sweden. The single reached number-one in Sweden, and also peaked at number 4 in Denmark and number 18 in Finland. In France, \"This Is The Way\" reached number 14 and remained for twenty weeks in the top 50. On the Eurochart Hot 100, the song peaked at number 40. E-Type won the prize for best Swedish dance track 1996 at the 1997 Swedish Dance Music Awards with \"This Is The Way\".\n\nMusic video\nThe music video of \"This Is The Way\" was directed by Matt Broadley.\n\nTrack listings\n CD single\n \"This Is the Way\" (radio edit) — 3:54\n \"This Is the Way\" (waterdreamix) — 6:50\n\n CD maxi\n \"This Is the Way\" (radio edit) — 3:54\n \"This Is the Way\" (waterdreamix) — 6:50\n \"This Is the Way\" (extended) — 6:44\n \"Me No Want Miseria (Take Me to the End)\" — 4:49\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nCertifications\n\nReferences\n\n1994 songs\n1995 singles\nE-Type (musician) songs\nNana Hedin songs\nNumber-one singles in Sweden\nSong recordings produced by Denniz Pop\nSong recordings produced by Max Martin\nPolydor Records singles\nMusic videos directed by Matt Broadley\nEnglish-language Swedish songs"
] |
[
"Women in Syria",
"Federation of Northern Syria - Rojava",
"What was the federation of northern syria?",
"the Kurdish populated area in Northern Syria has gained de facto autonomy as the Federation of Northern Syria - Rojava,",
"when did this occur?",
"With the Syrian Civil War,",
"howdid they gain the autonomy?",
"Kurdish women have several armed and non-armed organizations in Rojava, and enhancing women's rights is a major focus of the political and societal agenda.",
"did they have any setbacks?",
"The legal efforts to reduce cases of underage marriage, polygamy and honor killings are underpinned by comprehensive public awareness campaigns.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"All administrative organs in Rojava are required to have male and female co-chairs, and forty percent of the members of any governing body in Rojava must be female.",
"has it remained this way?",
"An estimated 25 percent of the Asayish police force of the Rojava cantons are women,"
] | C_39f4f398e5164489b14c16dd91326711_0 | Where else do woman hold power? | 7 | Where else do woman hold power besides 25 percent of Asayish police force? | Women in Syria | With the Syrian Civil War, the Kurdish populated area in Northern Syria has gained de facto autonomy as the Federation of Northern Syria - Rojava, with the leading political actor being the progressive Democratic Union Party (PYD). Kurdish women have several armed and non-armed organizations in Rojava, and enhancing women's rights is a major focus of the political and societal agenda. Kurdish female fighters in the Women's Protection Units (YPJ) played a key role during the Siege of Kobani and in rescuing Yazidis trapped on Mount Sinjar, and their achievements have attracted international attention as a rare example of strong female achievement in a region in which women are heavily repressed. The civil laws of Syria are valid in Rojava, as far as they do not conflict with the Constitution of Rojava. One notable example for amendment is personal status law, in Syria still Sharia-based, where Rojava introduced civil law and proclaims absolute equality of women under the law and a ban on forced marriage as well as polygamy was introduced, while underage marriage was outlawed as well. For the first time in Syrian history, civil marriage is being allowed and promoted, a significant move towards a secular open society and intermarriage between people of different religious backgrounds. The legal efforts to reduce cases of underage marriage, polygamy and honor killings are underpinned by comprehensive public awareness campaigns. In every town and village, a women's house is established. These are community centers run by women, providing services to survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault and other forms of harm. These services include counseling, family mediation, legal support, and coordinating safe houses for women and children. Classes on economic independence and social empowerment programs are also held at women's houses. All administrative organs in Rojava are required to have male and female co-chairs, and forty percent of the members of any governing body in Rojava must be female. An estimated 25 percent of the Asayish police force of the Rojava cantons are women, and joining the Asayish is described in international media as a huge act of personal and societal liberation from an extremely patriarchical background, for ethnic Kurdish and ethnic Arab women alike. The PYD's political agenda of "trying to break the honor-based religious and tribal rules that confine women" is controversial in conservative quarters of society. CANNOTANSWER | joining the Asayish is described in international media as a huge act of personal and societal liberation from an extremely patriarchical background, | Women in Syria constitute 49.4% of Syria's population, and are active participants not only in everyday life, but also in the socio-political fields.
History
In the 20th century a movement for women's rights developed in Syria, made up largely of upper-class, educated women. In 1919, Naziq al-Abid founded Noor al-Fayha (Light of Damascus), the city's first women's organization, alongside an affiliated publication of the same name. She was made an honorary general of the Syrian Army after fighting in the Battle of Maysaloun, and in 1922 she founded the Syrian Red Crescent. In 1928 Lebanese-Syrian feminist Nazira Zain al-Din, one of the first people to critically reinterpret the Quran from a feminist perspective, published a book condemning the practice of veiling or hijab, arguing that Islam requires women to be treated equally with men. In 1930, the First Eastern Women's Congress was hosted in Damascus.
In 1963 the Ba'ath Party took power in Syria, and pledged full equality between women and men as well as full workforce participation for women.
In 1967 Syrian women formed a quasi-governmental organization called the General Union of Syrian Women (GUSW), a coalition of women's welfare societies, educational associations, and voluntary councils intended to achieve equal opportunity for women in Syria.
The year 2011 marked the beginning of the Syrian Civil War, where many civilians have fallen victim to attacks targeted at hospitals, schools, and infrastructure. Extremist rebel groups, such as Jabhat al-Nusra and ISIS, have enforced strict policies restricting freedoms of women in territories they control.
After the outbreak of civil war, some Syrian women have joined all-female brigade units in the Syrian Arab Army, the Democratic Union Party, and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, taking on roles such as snipers, frontline units, or police.
Legal rights
While Syria has developed some fairly secular features during independence in the second half of the 20th century, personal status law is still based on Sharia and applied by Sharia Courts. Syria has a dual legal system which includes both secular and religious courts. Marriage contracts are between the groom and the bride's father, and Syrian law does not recognize the concept of marital rape.
Syrian women are legally allowed to participate in everyday life, although they are not guaranteed a spot in being part of political, social, cultural and economic categories. The legal marriage for females in Syria is seventeen years old and eighteen for males. Women are technically allowed to have a say in what the agreements are between them and the groom. Although, since this contract has to be signed by the groom and the male guardian of the bride, her wishes are rarely met. On the other hand, of marriage, the divorce laws are unique in Syria. Women are in fact allowed to file for divorce except it is a long drawn out process and she must get consent from her husband. There are some circumstances in which the woman can apply for a divorce through the judicial system. In order to do this, she must prove that her husband has abused her or neglected his other duties as a husband. If a man wants to divorce a woman, all he has to do is go to court and orally demand a divorce three times, then the court will order him a divorce.
Education
The early schooling in Syria starts at six years old and ends at the age of eighteen. In Syrian universities, women and men attend the same classes. Between 1970 and the late 1990s, the female population in schools dramatically increased. This increase included the early school years, along with the upper-level schools such as universities and higher education. Although the number of women has increased, there are still ninety five women to every one hundred men. Although many women start going to school, the dropout rate for women is much higher than for men.
The literacy rate for women is 74.2 percent and 91 percent for men. The rate of females over 25 with secondary education is 29.0 percent.
Politics
In Syria, women in Syria were first allowed to vote and received universal suffrage in 1953. In the 1950s, Thuraya Al-Hafez ran for Parliament, but was not elected. By 1971, women held four out of the 173 seats.
The current president of Syria is a male. There are also two vice presidents (including female vice president Najah al-Attar since 2006), a prime minister and a cabinet. As of 2012, in the national parliament men held 88% of the seats while women held 12%. The Syrian Parliament was previously led by female Speaker Hadiya Khalaf Abbas, the first woman to have held that position.
President Assad's political and media adviser is Bouthaina Shaaban. Shaaban served as the first Minister of Expatriates for the Syrian Arab Republic, between 2003 and 2008, and she has been described as the Syrian government's face to the outside world.
Of the civil society representatives among the 150 members of the Syrian Constitutional Committee, which was assembled in 2019 by the Syria Envoy of the United Nations, Syrian women comprise around 30%. Several renowned Syrian women, such as academic Bassma Kodmani, Sabah Hallak of the Syrian Women's League, the law professor Amal Yazji or the judge Iman Shahoud, sit on the committee's influential 'Small' or Drafting Body.
Role in economy and in the military
In 1989 the Syrian government passed a law requiring factories and public institutions to provide on-site childcare.
However, women's involvement in the workforce is low; according to World Bank, as of 2014, women made up 16.4% of the labor force.
Women are not conscripted in the military, but may serve voluntarily. The female militias of Syria are trained to fight for the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad. A video was found dating back to the 1980s with female soldiers showing their pride and protectiveness toward Assad's father. "Because women are rarely involved in the armed side of the revolution, they are much less likely to get stopped, searched, or hassled at government checkpoints. This has proved crucial in distributing humanitarian aid throughout Syria."
Women's health
Between 2010 and 2015, the average life expectancy at birth for women in Syria is 77.7 years, compared with 74.5 years for men.
Impact of the conflict on Syria's women
Since the conflict erupted in 2011, women in Syria, namely in conflict zones, have been facing violence, sexual assault, forced displacement, detension, domestic violence, child marriage and other violations of their rights.
During the years of conflict, insecurity and the economic collapse significantly increased the vulnerability of women and girls. In addition, many girls were left without schooling or access to healthcare services. The enrolment rate for primary education was 61% in 2013, with 61.1% of the total number being female, while for secondary education, the rate was 44% in 2013 - 43.8% for female.
In 2015, the United Nations gathered evidence of systematic sexual assault of women and girls by combatants in Syria, and this was escalated by the Islamic State (ISIL) and other terrorist organizations.
Crime against women
Honor killings
Honor killings take place in Syria in situations where women are deemed to have brought shame to the family, affecting the family's 'reputation' in the community. Some estimates suggest that more than 200 honor killings occur every year in Syria.
Forced and child marriage
The conflict in Syria has led to an increase in child marriages. The harsh living conditions, the insecurity, and the fear of rape, have led families to force their daughters into early marriages.
As a result of early marriage, many girls in Syria are forbidden from completing their studies because when a girl is married she is only expected to be a good wife and a good mother as well. Child marriage can influence physical and mental health badly. Physical damage can be related to child bearing specially for women under 18 years old and the possibility for not being able to give birth later in life, and in extreme cases it can lead to death. Psychological factors can be defined as difficulties in interacting with the husband or not having enough awareness about marriage life and its responsibilities.
Domestic Violence
A study covering the low-income women in Aleppo, an area where domestic abuse is more likely due to the tribal nature of the area, shows that physical abuse (battering at least 3 times in the last year) was found in 23% of the investigated women in 2003, 26% amongst married women. Regular abuse (battering at least once weekly) was found in 3.3% of married women, with no regular abused reported by non-married women. The prevalence of physical abuse amongst country residents was 44.3% compared to 18.8% amongst city residents. In most cases (87.4%) the abuse was inflicted by the husband, and in 9.5% of cases, the abuse was inflicted by more than one person. Correlates of physical abuse were women's education, religion, age, marital status, economic status, mental distress, smoking and residence.
Federation of Northern Syria - Rojava
With the Syrian Civil War, the Kurdish populated area in Northern Syria has gained de facto autonomy as the Federation of Northern Syria - Rojava, with the leading political actor being the progressive Democratic Union Party (PYD). Kurdish women have several armed and non-armed organizations in Rojava, and enhancing women's rights is a major focus of the political and societal agenda. Kurdish female fighters in the Women's Protection Units (YPJ) played a key role during the Siege of Kobani and in rescuing Yazidis trapped on Mount Sinjar, and their achievements have attracted international attention as a rare example of strong female achievement in a region in which women are heavily repressed.
The civil laws of Syria are valid in Rojava, as far as they do not conflict with the Constitution of Rojava. One notable example for amendment is personal status law, in Syria still Sharia-based, where Rojava introduced civil law and proclaims absolute equality of women under the law and a ban on forced marriage as well as polygamy was introduced, while underage marriage was outlawed as well. For the first time in Syrian history, civil marriage is being allowed and promoted, a significant move towards a secular open society and intermarriage between people of different religious backgrounds.
The legal efforts to reduce cases of underage marriage, polygamy and honor killings are underpinned by comprehensive public awareness campaigns. In every town and village, a women's house is established. These are community centers run by women, providing services to survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault and other forms of harm. These services include counseling, family mediation, legal support, and coordinating safe houses for women and children. Classes on economic independence and social empowerment programs are also held at women's houses.
All administrative organs in Rojava are required to have male and female co-chairs, and forty percent of the members of any governing body in Rojava must be female. An estimated 25 percent of the Asayish police force of the Rojava cantons are women, and joining the Asayish is described in international media as a huge act of personal and societal liberation from an extremely patriarchical background, for ethnic Kurdish and ethnic Arab women alike.
The PYD's political agenda of "trying to break the honor-based religious and tribal rules that confine women" is controversial in conservative quarters of society.
Notable women
Hadiya Khalaf Abbas, Speaker of the People's Council of Syria (since 2016).
Asya Abdullah is the co-chairwoman of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), the leading political party in Rojava.
Asma al-Assad, the First Lady of Syria and the wife of the current President Assad
Najah al-Attar, Vice President of Syria (since 2006).
Randa Kassis, President of The Astana Platform of the Syrian opposition.
Suheir Atassi, Vice President of the opposition government.
Samar Al Dayyoub, literary critic and writer
Khawla Dunia, opposition activist and poet
Îlham Ehmed is co-chairwoman of the Syrian Democratic Council.
Hêvî Îbrahîm is the prime minister of Afrin Canton.
Samira Khalil, dissident
Ulfat Idilbi, best-selling Arabic-language novelist.
Assala Nasri is a musical artist
Souad Nawfal, opposition activist and schoolteacher.
Rasha Omran, poet
Bouthaina Shaaban, Bashar al-Assad's political adviser and previous Minister of Expatriates
Muna Wassef, theater, television, and film actress.
Hediya Yousef is an ex-guerilla and co-chairwoman of the executive committee of the Federation of Northern Syria – Rojava.
Razan Zaitouneh, human rights lawyer and activist.
References
External links
Survey: Discrimination against Women in Syrian Society (I/II). Awareness of Women Rights and Freedoms, The Day After Association, August 2017
Survey: Discrimination Against Women in Syrian Society (II/II): Perception of Domestic Violence, The Day After Association, August 2017
Asian women | true | [
"\"If You Can Do Anything Else\" is a song written by Billy Livsey and Don Schlitz, and recorded by American country music artist George Strait. It was released in February 2001 as the third and final single from his self-titled album. The song reached number 5 on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart in July 2001. It also peaked at number 51 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100.\n\nContent\nThe song is about man who is giving his woman the option to leave him. He gives her many different options for all the things she can do. At the end he gives her the option to stay with him if she really can’t find anything else to do. He says he will be alright if she leaves, but really it seems he wants her to stay.\n\nChart performance\n\"If You Can Do Anything Else\" debuted at number 60 on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks for the week of March 3, 2001.\n\nYear-end charts\n\nReferences\n\n2001 singles\n2000 songs\nGeorge Strait songs\nSongs written by Billy Livsey\nSongs written by Don Schlitz\nSong recordings produced by Tony Brown (record producer)\nMCA Nashville Records singles",
"Jury stress or juror stress is physical and mental tension that affects members of juries. Its causes include \"exhaustion, sequestration, the mountain of evidence, and the desire to do the right thing\".\n\nJury stress can come as a result of seeing or hearing disturbing evidence. In the cases of murder or sexual crimes, evidence can be explicit causing potential harm to the jury. Jurors can also feel a 'burden of responsibility' - they hold large amounts of power over someone else's life and the possibility of imprisonment or a fine for that person. Jury stress could, in some cases, lead to symptoms of Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and increased anxiety, depression or physical symptoms such as an increase in blood pressure or nausea.\n\nReferences\n\nFurther reading\nUnder Pressure, Isolation: Jury Stress Sparks Concerns\n\nOccupational safety and health\nPsychological stress"
] |
[
"Katy Perry",
"1999-2006: Career beginnings"
] | C_29e64ee43f0547139a7c08bceed86ff2_1 | when was katy parry's first album under her stage name? | 1 | When was Katy Perry's first album under Perry's stage name? | Katy Perry | Perry completed her General Educational Development (GED) requirements at age 15, during her freshman year of high school, and left Dos Pueblos High School to pursue a musical career. She briefly studied Italian opera at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara. Her singing caught the attention of rock artists Steve Thomas and Jennifer Knapp from Nashville, Tennessee, who brought her there to improve her writing skills. In Nashville, she started recording demos and learned how to write songs and play guitar. After signing with Red Hill Records, Perry recorded her debut album, a gospel record titled Katy Hudson. She released the album on March 6, 2001, and went on tour that year as part of Phil Joel's Strangely Normal Tour while also embarking on other performances of her own in the United States. Katy Hudson received positive reviews from critics, though was commercially unsuccessful and sold an estimated 200 copies before the label ceased operations in December. Transitioning from gospel music to secular music, Perry started writing songs with producer Glen Ballard, and moved to Los Angeles at age 17. In 2003, she briefly performed as Katheryn Perry to avoid confusion with actress Kate Hudson. She later adopted the stage name Katy Perry, using her mother's maiden name. In 2004, Perry signed to Ballard's label, Java, which was then affiliated with The Island Def Jam Music Group. She began work on a solo record, but the record was shelved after Java was dropped. Ballard then introduced Perry to Tim Devine, an A&R executive at Columbia Records, and she was signed as a solo artist. Over the course of the next two years, Perry wrote and recorded material for her Columbia debut, and worked with songwriters including Desmond Child, Greg Wells, Butch Walker, Scott Cutler, Anne Preven, The Matrix, Kara DioGuardi, Max Martin and Dr. Luke. In addition, after Devine suggested that songwriting team The Matrix become a "real group", Perry recorded with them. Perry was dropped from Columbia in 2006 as her record neared completion. After the label dropped her, she worked at an independent A&R company called Taxi Music. Perry had minor success prior to her breakthrough. One of the songs she had recorded for her album with Ballard, "Simple", was featured on the soundtrack to the 2005 film The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. She provided backing vocals on Mick Jagger's song "Old Habits Die Hard", which was included on the soundtrack to the 2004 film Alfie. In September 2004, Blender named Perry "The Next Big Thing". She recorded background vocals on P.O.D.'s single "Goodbye for Now" and was featured at the end of its music video in 2006. That year, Perry also appeared in the music video for "Learn to Fly" by Carbon Leaf, and played the love interest of her then-boyfriend, Gym Class Heroes lead singer Travie McCoy, in the band's music video for "Cupid's Chokehold". CANNOTANSWER | March 6, 2001, | Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson (born October 25, 1984), known professionally as Katy Perry, is an American singer, songwriter, and television judge. She is known for her influence on the pop sound and style of the 2010s. Pursuing a career in gospel music at 16, Perry released her commercially unsuccessful debut album, Katy Hudson (2001), under Red Hill Records. She moved to Los Angeles at 17 to venture into secular music, adopting the stage name "Katy Perry" from her mother's maiden name. With producers Glen Ballard and Greg Wells, she recorded an unreleased album titled Fingerprints while signed to Java Records and then Columbia Records before being dropped. After this, she signed a recording contract with Capitol Records in April 2007.
Perry rose to fame with her second album and major label debut, One of the Boys (2008), a pop rock record containing her debut single "I Kissed a Girl" and follow-up single "Hot n Cold", which respectively reached number one and three on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. The disco-influenced pop album Teenage Dream (2010) spawned five U.S. number one singles—"California Gurls", "Teenage Dream", "Firework", "E.T.", and "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)"—becoming the first album by a solo female artist to do so. A reissue titled Teenage Dream: The Complete Confection (2012) subsequently had the U.S. number one single "Part of Me". Her fourth album Prism (2013) has themes of self-empowerment and relationships. With the music videos for its U.S. number one singles "Roar" and "Dark Horse", Perry became the first artist to have multiple videos reach one billion views on YouTube. Witness (2017) featured an electropop sound with themes of liberation and a political subtext, while Smile (2020) featured themes of motherhood and self-help. She later embarked on her first concert residency titled Play in Resorts World Las Vegas, selling out multiple shows and receiving critical acclaim.
Perry is one of the best-selling artists of all time, having sold over 143 million records worldwide. All of her studio albums released under Capitol have individually surpassed one billion streams on Spotify. She has nine U.S. number one singles, three U.S. number one albums and has received various accolades, including four Guinness World Records, five Billboard Music Awards, five American Music Awards, a Brit Award, and a Juno Award. Perry has been included in the annual Forbes lists of highest-earning women in music from 2011 to 2019. Her critically acclaimed Super Bowl halftime show performance is the most watched in history. Outside of music, she released an autobiographical documentary titled Katy Perry: Part of Me in 2012, and voiced Smurfette in The Smurfs film series. Perry began serving as a judge on American Idol, starting from its sixteenth season in 2018. She is also the most followed woman on Twitter, with over 108 million followers.
Life and career
1984–1998: Early life and family
Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson was born on October 25, 1984, in Santa Barbara, California, to Pentecostal pastors Mary Christine (née Perry) and Maurice Keith Hudson. Both of her parents turned to religion after a "wild youth". Perry has English, German, Irish, and Portuguese ancestry. Through her mother, she is a niece of film director Frank Perry. She has a younger brother named David, who is a singer, and an older sister, Angela.
From ages three to 11, Perry often moved across the country as her parents set up churches before settling again in Santa Barbara. Growing up, she attended religious schools and camps, including Paradise Valley Christian School in Arizona and Santa Barbara Christian School in California during her elementary years. Her family struggled financially, sometimes using food stamps and eating food from the food bank which also fed the congregation at Perry's parents' church.
Growing up, Perry and her siblings were not allowed to eat the cereal Lucky Charms as the word "luck" reminded their mother of Lucifer, and had to call deviled eggs "angeled eggs". Perry primarily listened to gospel music, as secular music was generally discouraged in the family's home. She discovered popular music through CDs she sneaked from her friends. Perry later recalled a story about how a friend of hers played "You Oughta Know" by Alanis Morissette, which impacted her songwriting and singing.
While not strictly identifying as religious, she has stated, "I pray all the time – for self-control, for humility." Wanting to be like her sister Angela, Perry began singing by practicing with her sister's cassette tapes. She performed the tracks in front of their parents, who let her take vocal lessons as Angela was at the time. She began training at age nine, and was incorporated into her parents' ministry, singing in church from ages nine to 17. At 13, Perry was given her first guitar for her birthday, and publicly performed songs she wrote. She tried to "be a bit like the typical Californian girl" while growing up, and started rollerskating, skateboarding, and surfing as a teenager. Her brother David described her as a tomboy during her adolescence, which Perry talks about on her song "One Of The Boys". She took dancing lessons and learned how to swing, Lindy Hop, and jitterbug.
1999–2006: Career beginnings, Katy Hudson and Fingerprints
Perry completed her General Educational Development (GED) requirements at age 15, during her first year of high school, and left Dos Pueblos High School to pursue a music career. She briefly had music lessons in facilities rented from the Music Academy of the West. Her singing caught the attention of rock artists Steve Thomas and Jennifer Knapp from Nashville, Tennessee, who brought her there to improve her writing skills. In Nashville, she started recording demos and learned how to write songs and play guitar. Perry signed with Red Hill Records and recorded her debut album, a contemporary Christian record titled Katy Hudson, which was released on March 6, 2001. She also went on tour that year as part of Phil Joel's Strangely Normal Tour and embarked on other performances of her own in the United States. Katy Hudson received mixed reviews from critics and was commercially unsuccessful, selling an estimated 200 copies before the label ceased operations in December. Transitioning from gospel music to secular music, Perry started working with producer Glen Ballard, and moved to Los Angeles at age 17. She opted to work with Ballard due to his past work with Alanis Morissette, one of her major inspirations. In 2003, she briefly performed as Katheryn Perry to avoid confusion with actress Kate Hudson. She later adopted the stage name 'Katy Perry', using her mother's maiden name. In 2010, she recalled that "Thinking of You" was one of the first songs she wrote after moving to Los Angeles.
In 2004, she signed to Ballard's label, Java Records, which was then affiliated with The Island Def Jam Music Group. Perry began work on a solo record due for release in March 2005, but the record was shelved after Java was dropped. Ballard then introduced her to Tim Devine, an A&R executive at Columbia Records, and she was signed as a solo artist. By November 2006, Perry had finished writing and recording material for her Columbia debut titled Fingerprints (with some of the material from this time appearing on One of the Boys) which was planned for release in 2007. Some of the material from Fingerprints that did not make it on One Of The Boys was given to other artists, such as "I Do Not Hook Up" and "Long Shot" to Kelly Clarkson and "Rock God" to Selena Gomez & the Scene.
Perry worked with songwriters including Desmond Child, Greg Wells, Butch Walker, Scott Cutler, Anne Preven, The Matrix, Kara DioGuardi, Max Martin, and Dr. Luke. In addition, after Devine suggested that songwriting team The Matrix become a "real group", she recorded a shelved album called The Matrix with them. The Matrix was planned to be released in 2004 but was cancelled due to creative differences. It was later released in 2009 after the release of One of the Boys. Perry was dropped from Columbia in 2006 as Fingerprints neared completion. After the label dropped her, she worked at an independent A&R company called Taxi Music.
Perry had minor success prior to her breakthrough. One of the songs she had recorded for her album with Ballard, "Simple", was featured on the soundtrack to the 2005 film The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. She provided backing vocals on Mick Jagger's song "Old Habits Die Hard", which was included on the soundtrack to the 2004 film Alfie. In September 2004, Blender named Perry "The Next Big Thing". She recorded background vocals on P.O.D.'s single "Goodbye for Now", was featured at the end of its music video in 2006, and performed it with them on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. That year, Perry also appeared in the music video for "Learn to Fly" by Carbon Leaf, and played the love interest of her then-boyfriend, Gym Class Heroes lead singer Travie McCoy, in the band's music video for "Cupid's Chokehold".
2007–2009: Breakthrough with One of the Boys
After Columbia dropped Perry, Angelica Cob-Baehler, then a publicity executive at the label, brought Perry's demos to Virgin Records chairman Jason Flom. Flom was convinced that she could be a breakthrough star and she was signed to Capitol Records in April 2007. The label arranged for her to work with Dr. Luke to add an "undeniable smash" to her existing material. Perry and Dr. Luke co-wrote the songs "I Kissed a Girl" and "Hot n Cold" for her second album One of the Boys. A campaign was started with the November 2007 release of the video to "Ur So Gay", a song aimed at introducing her to the music market. A digital EP of the same name was also released that month. Madonna helped publicize the song by praising it on the JohnJay & Rich radio show in April 2008, stating "Ur So Gay" was her "favorite song" at the time. In March 2008, Perry made a cameo appearance as a club singer in the Wildfire episode "Life's Too Short" and appeared as herself during a photo shoot that June on The Young and the Restless for the show's magazine Restless Style.
Perry released her first single with Capitol, "I Kissed a Girl", on April 28, 2008, as the lead single from One of the Boys. The first station to pick up the song was WRVW in Nashville, who were inundated with enthusiastic calls the first three days they played it. The track reached number one on the US Billboard Hot 100. "I Kissed a Girl" created controversy among both religious and LGBT groups. The former criticized its homosexual theme, while the latter accused her of using bi-curiosity to sell records. In response to speculation that her parents opposed her music and career, Perry told MTV that they had no problems with her success. One of the Boys, released on June 17, 2008, garnered mixed critical reviews and reached number nine on the US Billboard 200. The album went on to sell 7 million copies worldwide. "Hot n Cold" was released the following September and became the album's second successful single, reaching number three on the Billboard Hot 100 while topping charts in Germany, Canada, the Netherlands and Austria. Later singles "Thinking of You" and "Waking Up in Vegas" were released in 2009 and reached the top 30 of the Hot 100. The Matrix's self-titled debut album, which Perry had recorded with the band in 2004, was released onto iTunes on January 27, 2009, as a result of her solo success.
After finishing the 2008 Warped Tour, Perry hosted the 2008 MTV Europe Music Awards in November 2008, where she won the award for Best New Act. At the 2009 Brit Awards, she also won the award for International Female Solo Artist. Perry embarked on her first headlining world tour, the Hello Katy Tour, from January to November 2009 to support One of the Boys. On August 4, 2009, she performed as opening act for one date of No Doubt's 2009 Summer Tour. Perry also hosted the 2009 MTV Europe Music Awards in November 2009, becoming the first person to host two consecutive ceremonies of the European awards. On July 22, 2009, Perry recorded a live album titled MTV Unplugged, which featured acoustic performances of five tracks from One of the Boys as well as one new song, "Brick by Brick", and a cover of Fountains of Wayne's "Hackensack". It was released on November 17, 2009. Perry also appeared on two singles with other artists; she was featured on a remix of Colorado-based band 3OH!3's song "Starstrukk" in September 2009, and on a duet with Timbaland entitled "If We Ever Meet Again", from his album Shock Value II, three months later. The Guinness World Records recognized her in its 2010 edition as the "Best Start on the U.S. Digital Chart by a Female Artist", for digital single sales of over two million copies.
After Perry and Travie McCoy split up in December 2008, they briefly reconciled before she ended their relationship in 2009. Perry met her future husband Russell Brand in the summer of 2009 while filming a cameo appearance for his film Get Him to the Greek. Her scene, in which the two kiss, does not appear in the film. She began dating Brand after meeting him again that September at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards. The couple became engaged on December 31, 2009, while vacationing in Rajasthan, India.
2010–2012: Teenage Dream and first marriage
After serving as a guest judge on American Idol, Perry released "California Gurls" featuring Snoop Dogg on May 7, 2010. The song was the lead single from her third studio album, Teenage Dream, and reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in June. She also served as a guest judge on British The X Factor later that month before releasing the album's second single, "Teenage Dream", in July. "Teenage Dream" reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in September. Released on August 24, 2010, Teenage Dream debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, and received mixed reviews from music critics. It has since sold 6 million copies worldwide. Teenage Dream would go on to win the 2011 Juno Award for International Album of the Year. In October, "Firework" was released as the album's third single. It became the album's third consecutive number one on the Billboard Hot 100 on December 8, 2010.
"E.T." featuring Kanye West was released as the fourth single from Teenage Dream on February 16, 2011. It topped the Billboard Hot 100 for five non-consecutive weeks, making Teenage Dream the ninth album in history to produce four number one singles on the chart. "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)" followed as the fifth single in June, and Perry became the first female artist to achieve five number-one Billboard Hot 100 songs from one album when the single topped that chart on August 17, and the second artist after Michael Jackson with his album Bad. For this record, she received an honorary American Music Award in November 2011 and a 2013 Guinness World Record. On September 7, she set a new record by becoming the first artist to spend 69 consecutive weeks in the top ten of the Hot 100. After "The One That Got Away" was released as the album's sixth single in October, Teenage Dream became the third album to spawn six top-five songs on the Billboard Hot 100 after Rhythm Nation 1814 by Janet Jackson and Faith by George Michael. The song peaked at number three in the US and number two in Canada.
On January 5, 2012, Perry was named the sixth best-selling digital artist in the United States, with sales of 37.6 million units according to Nielsen SoundScan. That month, she became the first artist to have four songs sell over 5 million digital units when "E.T." reached that mark along with "Firework", "California Gurls", and "Hot N Cold". On February 13, Capitol released the lead single from Teenage Dream: The Complete Confection, "Part of Me", which debuted at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and became Perry's seventh single overall to top the chart. Teenage Dream: The Complete Confection was released on March 23, and serves as a reissue of Teenage Dream. "Wide Awake" was released on May 22 as the re-release's second single, peaking at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 and number one in Canada and New Zealand.
Perry embarked on her second tour, the California Dreams Tour, in support of Teenage Dream from February 2011 to January 2012. The tour grossed $59.5 million globally and won her the award for Best Live Act at the 2011 MTV Europe Music Awards. On September 23, 2011, she performed on the opening day of the 2011 Rock in Rio festival along with Elton John and Rihanna. In September 2010, Perry was scheduled to appear on the 41st-season premiere of Sesame Street. After her scene was uploaded to YouTube, viewers criticized Perry's exposed cleavage. Four days before the scheduled airing, Sesame Workshop announced that the segment would not air on television, but would still be available to watch online. Perry subsequently mocked the controversy on Saturday Night Live, where she was a musical guest and wore an Elmo-themed shirt showing large amounts of cleavage during one skit.
In December 2010, Perry played Moe Szyslak's girlfriend in the live-action segment from a Christmas episode of The Simpsons titled "The Fight Before Christmas". In February 2011, she made a guest appearance on the How I Met Your Mother episode "Oh Honey", playing a woman known as Honey. The role won her the People's Choice Award for Favorite TV Guest Star in January 2012. She made her film debut in the 3D family motion picture The Smurfs as Smurfette on July 29, 2011. The film was a financial success worldwide, while critics gave mostly negative reviews. She hosted Saturday Night Live on December 10, 2011, with Robyn as the episode's musical guest. Perry's work on the episode received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised her performance in the episode's digital short featuring her and Andy Samberg. In March 2012, she guest starred as a prison security guard named Rikki on the Raising Hope episode "Single White Female Role Model". On July 5, 2012, Perry's autobiographical documentary Katy Perry: Part of Me was released to theaters through Paramount Pictures. The film received positive reviews and grossed $32.7 million worldwide at the box office.
Perry began to venture into business when she endorsed her first fragrance, Purr, in November 2010. Her second fragrance, Meow!, was released in December 2011. Both perfumes were released through Nordstrom department stores. Electronic Arts recruited her to promote their new expansion pack for The Sims 3: Showtime, before releasing a separate stuff pack featuring Perry-inspired furniture, outfits, and hairstyles, titled The Sims 3: Katy Perry's Sweet Treats, in June 2012. The following month, she became the spokesperson and ambassador for Popchips and made an investment in the company. Billboard dubbed her as their "Woman of the Year" for 2012.
She married Russell Brand on October 23, 2010, in a traditional Hindu ceremony near the Ranthambhore tiger sanctuary in Rajasthan, India. Brand announced on December 30, 2011, that they were divorcing after 14 months of marriage. Perry later stated that conflicting career schedules and his desire to have children before she was ready led to the end of their marriage and that he never spoke to her again after sending a text message that he was divorcing her, while Brand asserted that he divorced her due to her commercial success and reluctance to engage in activism. She was initially distraught over their divorce, and said that she contemplated suicide. After the marriage ended in 2012, Perry began a relationship with singer John Mayer that August.
2013–2015: Prism and Super Bowl XLIX halftime show
In November 2012, Perry began work on her fourth album, Prism. She told Billboard, "I know exactly the record I want to make next. I know the artwork, the coloring and the tone" and "I even know what type of tour I'm doing next. I'll be very pleased if the vision I have in my head becomes a reality." After initially telling L'Uomo Vogue in June 2012 that she planned to have "darker elements" in Prism following the end of her marriage, the singer revealed to MTV during the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards that she changed the album's direction after periods of self-reflection. Perry commented "I felt very prismatic", which inspired the album's name. "Roar" was released as the lead single from Prism on August 10, 2013. It was promoted at the MTV Video Music Awards and reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100. "Unconditionally" followed as the second single from Prism on October 16, 2013, and peaked at number 14 in the United States.
Prism was released on October 18, 2013, and has sold 4 million copies as of August 2015. It received favorable reviews from critics and debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 chart. Four days later, Perry performed the songs from the album at the iHeartRadio Theater in Los Angeles. "Dark Horse" with Juicy J was released as the album's third single in December, and became her ninth U.S. number-one single the following month. In 2014, "Birthday" and "This Is How We Do" respectively followed as the album's fourth and fifth singles, and reached the top 25 on the Hot 100. Prior to ending her relationship with Mayer in February 2014, she recorded and co-wrote a duet with him titled "Who You Love" for his album Paradise Valley. The song was released on August 12, 2013. Perry's third headlining tour, the Prismatic World Tour, began in May 2014 and concluded in October 2015. It sold almost 2 million tickets and grossed $204.3 million worldwide and won Perry the award for "Top Package" at the 2014 Billboard Touring Awards. She also performed at the 2015 Rock in Rio festival on September 27, 2015.
On November 23, 2014, the NFL announced that Perry would perform at the Super Bowl XLIX halftime show on February 1, 2015. Lenny Kravitz and Missy Elliott served as special guests for the show. Her performance was critically acclaimed, and the Guinness World Records announced two days after the singer's halftime show that it garnered 118.5 million viewers in the United States, becoming the most watched and highest rated show in Super Bowl history. The viewership was higher than the game itself, which was viewed by an audience of 114.4 million.
The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) ranked her fifth on the list of Top Global Recording Artists of 2013. On June 26, 2014, she was declared the Top Certified Digital Artist Ever by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for certified sales of 72 million digital singles in the United States. In May 2014, a portrait of Perry by painter Mark Ryden was featured in his exhibition "The Gay 90s", and shown at the Kohn Gallery in Los Angeles. Along with several other artists, she also recorded a cover version of the song "Daisy Bell (Bicycle Built for Two)" on a limited-edition concept album titled The Gay Nineties Old Tyme Music: Daisy Bell to accompany the exhibition. That month, a portrait of Perry by artist Will Cotton was included in the United States National Portrait Gallery. On November 23, 2015, Perry starred in H&M's holiday advertising campaign, for which she wrote and recorded a song titled "Every Day Is a Holiday".
On June 17, 2014, Perry announced that she had founded her own record label under Capitol Records, titled Metamorphosis Music. Ferras was the first artist to get signed to her label, and Perry served as an executive producer on his self-titled EP. She also recorded a duet with him on the EP, titled "Legends Never Die". The label was later renamed Unsub Records.
Outside of her music career, Perry reprised her role as Smurfette in The Smurfs 2, which was released in theaters on July 31, 2013. Like its predecessor, The Smurfs 2 was a financial success but was panned by critics. In March 2014, she made a guest appearance playing herself in the episode "Blisteritos Presents Dad Academy Graduation Congraduritos Red Carpet Viewing Party" of the Kroll Show. Killer Queen was released as her third fragrance in August 2013 through Coty, Inc. In January 2014, she became a guest curator of Madonna's Art for Freedom initiative. In March 2015, she appeared in Brand: A Second Coming, a documentary following her ex-husband Russell Brand's transition from comedy work to activism, and released a concert film titled Katy Perry: The Prismatic World Tour through Epix, which took place during her tour of the same name. Perry also made a cameo appearance in the music video for Madonna's song "Bitch I'm Madonna" in June 2015. The following month, she released another fragrance with Coty, entitled Mad Potion. In September 2015, she appeared in the documentaries Katy Perry: Making of the Pepsi Super Bowl Halftime Show, which followed Perry's preparation for her Super Bowl performance, and Jeremy Scott: The People's Designer, which followed the life and career of designer Jeremy Scott. Perry released a mobile app titled Katy Perry Pop in December 2015 through Glu Mobile where her character helps players become famous musicians. She described it as "the most fun, colorful world that helps guide your musical dreams".
2016–2018: Witness and American Idol
Perry started writing songs for her new album in June 2016, and recorded an anthem for NBC Sports's coverage of the 2016 Summer Olympics titled "Rise", which was released the following month. Perry chose to release it as a standalone track rather than save it for her album "because now more than ever, there is a need for our world to unite". NBC also felt its message spoke "directly to the spirit of the Olympics and its athletes" for its inspirational themes. The song reached number one in Australia and number eleven in the United States.
In August 2016, Perry stated that she aspired to create material "that connects and relates and inspires" and told Ryan Seacrest that she was "not rushing" her fifth album, adding "I'm just having a lot of fun, but experimenting and trying different producers, and different collaborators, and different styles". On February 10, 2017, Perry released the album's lead single "Chained to the Rhythm" featuring Skip Marley. It reached number one in Hungary and number four in the United States. The track was also streamed over three million times on Spotify within 24 hours, breaking the music streaming service's record at the time for the highest first-day streaming for a single track by a female artist. The album's second single, "Bon Appétit" with Migos, was released that April. Its third single, "Swish Swish", featured Nicki Minaj and followed the next month. They respectively peaked at numbers 59 and 46 in the United States, and made the top 15 in Canada.
The album, titled Witness, was released on June 9, 2017, to mixed reviews, and debuted at number one in the United States. To accompany the album's release, Perry broadcast herself on YouTube for four days with a live-stream titled Katy Perry Live: Witness World Wide, concluding with a live concert on June 12. The live-stream generated over 49 million views from 190 different countries. She also embarked on Witness: The Tour, which began in September 2017 and ended in August 2018. On June 15, 2017, Calvin Harris released a song titled "Feels" from his album Funk Wav Bounces Vol. 1, which featured Perry, Big Sean, and Pharrell Williams. The song went on to reach number one in the United Kingdom.
Perry subsequently recorded a cover of the Dear Evan Hansen song "Waving Through a Window" for the deluxe edition of the cast recording, which was released on November 2, 2018. The show's creators Benj Pasek and Justin Paul had requested Perry to cover the song to promote the musical's national tour and bring awareness to mental health. Later that month, Perry released "Cozy Little Christmas". She also recorded the song "Immortal Flame" for the game Final Fantasy Brave Exvius, and had a playable character modeled after her.
Outside of recording music, Perry appeared as herself in the film Zoolander 2, which was released in February 2016. In February 2017, the singer launched a shoe line titled "Katy Perry Collections". Her shoes are available on her website, Katy Perry Collections, and at retailers such as Dillard's and Walmart. The following August, she hosted the 2017 MTV Video Music Awards. Perry was signed for a $25-million salary to serve as a judge on ABC's revival of American Idol, which premiered in March 2018. Perry began a relationship with Orlando Bloom in early 2016, and the couple got engaged on February 14, 2019.
2019–present: Smile, motherhood and Play residency
At the 61st Annual Grammy Awards, Perry performed "Here You Come Again", alongside Dolly Parton and Kacey Musgraves, as part of a tribute to Parton. Four days later, she released a song called "365", with DJ Zedd. In April, Perry was included on a remix of Daddy Yankee's song "Con Calma", featuring Snow. She followed this with the singles "Never Really Over" on May 31, "Small Talk" on August 9, and "Harleys in Hawaii" on October 16.
In June 2019, Perry appeared in the music video of Taylor Swift's "You Need to Calm Down". In July, a jury in California passed a verdict following a week-long trial that Perry's song "Dark Horse" had copied Flame's 2008 song "Joyful Noise" after he filed a copyright lawsuit alleging that it used his track's beat without permission, which was later overturned. After the initial verdict, the jury ordered her to pay him $550,000. The next month, Josh Kloss, Perry's co-star in the "Teenage Dream" music video, accused her of sexual misconduct. In an Instagram post, Kloss alleged that, during a party at a skating rink, Perry pulled on his sweatpants and underwear, exposing his penis to her male friends. He also said her management prevented him from speaking about his time with the singer. However, Johnny Wujek, the creative director of said party defended Perry, saying that she "would never do something like that" and accused Kloss of having an "ongoing obsession" with her. After initially refraining from responding to this, believing it would have detracted from the Me Too movement, Perry has also denied Kloss's claims.
Following the release of her single "Never Worn White" in March 2020, Perry revealed in the accompanying music video that she was expecting her first child with Bloom. "Daisies", the lead single from her sixth album, was released on May 15, 2020. Its second single "Smile" followed two months later. The album, also titled Smile, was released on August 28, 2020. Two days before its distribution, she gave birth to a daughter named Daisy Dove Bloom. The album received mixed reviews, and debuted at number five in the United States. Perry further promoted the album with four compilation EPs: Camp Katy, Empowered, Scorpio SZN, and Cosmic Energy. These EPs were followed by the single "Not the End of the World" in December 2020, which had a music video in which Zooey Deschanel impersonates Perry. Additionally she collaborated with various artists to create two remixes of Smile album tracks. Tiësto remix of "Resillient" featuring Aitana was released in November 2020, while Bruno Martini remix of "Cry About It Later" featuring Luísa Sonza was released in April 2021. In January 20, 2021, Perry performed "Firework" at the Celebrating America concert during the inauguration of Joe Biden. Four months later, she released a new single, "Electric", a collaboration with Pokémon for their 25th anniversary.
Perry began hosting a residency named Play at Resorts World Las Vegas on December 29, 2021. The show's inception happened during the COVID-19 lockdown with Perry being inspired by 1990s movies such as Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, Pee-wee's Playhouse, and Pee-wee's Big Adventure. She described it as "larger than life" and "the kookiest, most camp show I've ever put together." The show has received critical acclaim with Melinda Sheckells of Billboard saying that "[Play's] sold-out opening night is part fantasy, part hallucination and thoroughly camp.
In September 2021, Variety paid tribute to and honored Perry on their "Power of Women" issue, where she discussed her career, motherhood, and philanthropy. As a nominee, she attended the Variety 2021 "Power of Women" dinner. On her 37th birthday the following month, Perry guest hosted The Ellen DeGeneres Show and starred in a holiday advertisement for Gap Inc. which featured her singing "All You Need Is Love" by The Beatles. A full version of her cover was released on streaming platforms the same day. Two months later, Perry followed this with "When I'm Gone", a collaboration with Alesso.
Artistry
Influences
Perry cites her sister Angela as the woman who has had the most influence on her. During the early stages of her career, Perry's musical style gravitated towards gospel and she aspired to be as successful as Amy Grant. At age 15, she heard "Killer Queen" by Queen, which inspired her to pursue a music career. She cites the band's frontman, Freddie Mercury, as her biggest influence and expressed how the "combination of his sarcastic approach to writing lyrics and his 'I don't give a fuck' attitude" inspired her music. She paid homage to the band by naming her third fragrance Killer Queen. Perry described the Beach Boys and their album Pet Sounds as having a considerable influence on her music: "Pet Sounds is one of my favorite records and it influenced pretty much all of my songwriting. All of the melody choices that I make are because of Pet Sounds." The singer also holds the Beatles' album The Beatles in high esteem, and described these two albums as "the only things I listened to for probably two years straight."
She cites Alanis Morissette and her 1995 album Jagged Little Pill as a significant musical inspiration, stating in 2012: "Jagged Little Pill was the most perfect female record ever made. There's a song for anyone on that record; I relate to all those songs. They're still so timeless." Additionally, Perry borrows influence from Flaming Red by Patty Griffin and 10 Cent Wings by Jonatha Brooke. Perry's autobiographical documentary Katy Perry: Part of Me was largely influenced by Madonna: Truth or Dare. She admires Madonna's ability to reinvent herself, saying "I want to evolve like Madonna".
Perry names Björk as an influence, particularly admiring her "willingness to always be taking chances". Other artists who Perry has cited as influences include Stevie Nicks, ABBA, the Cardigans, Cyndi Lauper, Ace of Base, 3OH!3, CeCe Peniston, C+C Music Factory, Black Box, Crystal Waters, Mariah Carey, Heart, Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, Imogen Heap, Rufus Wainwright, Pink, and Gwen Stefani. "Firework" was inspired by a passage in the book On the Road by Jack Kerouac in which the author compares people who are full of life to fireworks that shoot across the sky and make people watch in awe. Her second concert tour, the California Dreams Tour, was reminiscent of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. She also credits the 1996 film The Craft for inspiring her song "Dark Horse", and Eckhart Tolle's book The Power of Now for influencing Prism.
Musical style and themes
While Perry's music incorporates pop, rock, and disco, Katy Hudson contains gospel. Her subsequent releases, One of the Boys and Teenage Dream, involve themes of sex and love. One of the Boys is a pop rock record, while Teenage Dream features disco influences. Perry's fourth album, Prism, is significantly influenced by dance and pop music. Lyrically, the album addresses relationships, self-reflection, and everyday life. Her fifth studio effort Witness is an electropop album that she described as a "360-degree liberation" record, with themes including political liberation, sexual liberation, and liberation from negativity. Many of her songs, particularly on Teenage Dream, reflect on love between teenagers; W magazine described the album's sexual innuendos as "irresistible hook-laden melodies". Self-empowerment is a common theme in Perry's music.
Perry has described herself as a "singer-songwriter masquerading as a pop star" and maintains that honest songwriting is very important to her. She told Marie Claire: "I feel like my secret magic trick that separates me from a lot of my peers is the bravery to be vulnerable and truthful and honest. I think you become more relatable when you're vulnerable." Actress and comedian Kristen Wiig commented that "as easy, breezy, and infectious as Perry's songs can be, beneath the surface lurks a sea of mixed emotions, jumbled motives, and contradictory impulses complicated enough to fill a Carole King record." According to Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune, "being taken seriously may be Perry's greatest challenge yet." In 2013, The New York Times labeled her "the most potent pop star of the day – her hits are relatable with just a hint of experimentation". Randall Roberts of the Los Angeles Times criticized her use of idioms and metaphors in her lyrics and for frequent "clichés". Throughout her career, Perry has also co-written songs recorded by other artists, including Lesley Roy, Kelly Clarkson, Jessie James Decker, Selena Gomez & the Scene, Britney Spears, Iggy Azalea, Rita Ora, Nicki Minaj, and Ariana Grande.
Voice
Perry possesses a contralto vocal range. Her singing has received both praise and criticism. Betty Clarke of The Guardian commented that her "powerful voice is hard-edged" while Rob Sheffield from Rolling Stone described Perry's vocals on Teenage Dream as "processed staccato blips". Darren Harvey of musicOMH compared Perry's vocals on One of the Boys to Alanis Morissette's, both possessing a "perky voice shifting octaves mid-syllable". Alex Miller from NME felt that "Perry's problem is often her voice" on One of the Boys, stating that "somewhere along the line someone convinced her she was like, well, a ballsy rock chick". Conversely, Bernadette McNulty from The Daily Telegraph praised her "rock chick voice" in a review of a concert promoting Prism.
Public image
On social media, Perry surpassed Justin Bieber as the most followed person on Twitter in November 2013. She won the 2015 Guinness World Record for most Twitter followers, and became the first person to gain 100 million followers on the site in June 2017. Keith Caulfield of Billboard stated that Perry is "the rare celebrity who seems to have enormous popularity but genuine ground-level interaction with her adoring KatyCats." With over 108 Twitter million followers, she is the most followed female on the site, and the fifth most followed musician across social media with a combined total of over 326 million followers across Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. In June 2017, Time magazine listed Perry among its "25 Most Influential People on the Internet" of the year, writing that her live-stream for Witness was "blazing a trail" for being "the closest any major entertainer has come to giving fans the kind of 'real' intimacy that social media purports to provide".
In 2011, Forbes ranked Perry third on their "Top-Earning Women In Music" list with earnings of $44 million and fifth on their 2012 list with $45 million. She subsequently ranked seventh on the 2013 Forbes list for "Top-Earning Women In Music" with $39 million earned, and fifth on their 2014 list with $40 million. With earnings of $135 million, Forbes also ranked Perry number one on their 2015 "Top-Earning Women In Music" list as well as the "World's Highest-Paid Musicians" and declared her the highest earning female celebrity in 2015, placing her at number 3 on the Forbes Celebrity 100 list. In 2016, the magazine estimated her net worth was $125 million, and ranked her number six on their list of "Highest-Paid Women in Music" with earnings of $41 million. The following year, she was ranked number nine on the list with $33 million. In 2018, she topped its "Highest-Paid Women in Music" listing and ranked at number four on the "Highest-Paid Female Celebrities" list with earnings of $83 million. Perry subsequently was placed at number four on the 2019 "Highest-Paid Women in Music" listings with $57.5 million. Later that year, with earnings of $530 million throughout the 2010s, the magazine also ranked her as the 9th highest earning musician of the decade.
Fashion
Perry has been described as a sex symbol; GQ labeled her a "full-on male fantasy", while Elle wrote her body looked "as though sketched by a teenage boy". Vice called her a serious' popstar/woman/sex symbol". She was placed at number one on the Maxim Hot 100 in 2010 as the "most beautiful woman in the world", with editor Joe Levy describing her as a "triple – no quadruple – kind of hot". Men's Health readers voted her the "sexiest woman of 2013". In November 2010, Perry told Harper's Bazaar that she was proud of and satisfied with her figure.
Perry's fashion often incorporates humor, bright colors, and food-related themes such as her characteristic spinning peppermint swirl dress. Vogue described her as "never exactly one to shy away from the outrageous or the extreme in any realm" and called her the "Queen of Camp". while Glamour named her the "queen of quirk". In February 2009, Perry told Seventeen that her fashion style was "a bit of a concoction of different things" and stated she enjoyed humor in her clothing. She has also described herself as having "multipersonality disorder" for fashion. Perry lists Gwen Stefani, Shirley Manson, Chloë Sevigny, Daphne Guinness, Natalie Portman, and the fictional character Lolita as her style icons. Elle described her as "the kitsch-loving pop star renowned for her uniquely experimental style" while Vogue described her style as "synonymous with outrageous, eye-catching ensembles that lean towards the theatrical."
During the 2017 launch of her shoe collection, Katy Perry Collections, she said about shoes: "When I first got to L.A., I cultivated my style on a budget, always shopping at thrift stores or vintage stores. … Once, I found these flats that looked like Dalmatian dogs. They had ears that moved and a tongue that stuck out. They were such a conversation piece. That's what is so great about fashion. … It's a form of communication. You don't have to start a smoking habit to start talking to someone. You can just wear cool shoes. It's an icebreaker."
Legacy and influence
Several media outlets such as Billboard and Glamour have referred to her as the "Queen of Pop", while Vogue has dubbed Perry the "Queen of Camp" and a "pop icon." Andrew Unterberger of Billboard described Teenage Dream "one of the defining LPs from a new golden age in mega-pop" while Christopher Rosa of Glamour named her as an influence to the pop sound and style of the 2010s, adding that her singles are "some of the most recognizable, iconic, and impactful hits in pop history." Perry was named "one of the last decade's most reliable and successful hitmakers" by the Official Charts Company in 2022.
Additionally, Perry was included in Glamour's "104 Women Who Defined the [2010s] in Pop Culture" list, saying: "[Perry] did more than just break chart records. She was one of the driving forces behind the sound of pop radio in the 2010s. [...] glossy, booming, sugary-sweet, and undeniably catchy." Variety included Perry in their Variety 500 list of the most influential business leaders, calling her a "global phenomenon" and a "dedicated artist and tireless self-promoter who has leveraged chart-topping hits, sold-out stadium shows, and staggering endorsement deals to become one of the richest and most influential pop stars alive." She has been called a "gay icon" by Taylor Henderson of Out, noting how "I Kissed a Girl" helped fans explore their sexuality and how Perry openly embraced the LGBTQ+ community.
Perry's music has been described by Out as having a "lasting legacy", with American singers Fletcher sampling "I Kissed a Girl" and Olivia Rodrigo referencing Teenage Dream on "Brutal". Additionally, other artists such as Halsey and Ariana Grande have praised Perry's work, with Halsey calling Teenage Dream the "perfect pop album" and Grande saying "The One That Got Away" is "one of the biggest and most perfectly written pop songs ever from one of the best pop albums of all time". Perry and her work have influenced artists such as Lil Nas X, Halsey, Lorde, Rina Sawayama, Doja Cat, Ellie Goulding, Tegan and Sara, Kim Petras, and Coldplay.
Other ventures
Philanthropy
Perry has supported various charitable organizations and causes throughout her career. She has contributed to organizations aimed at improving the lives and welfare of children in particular. In April 2013, she joined UNICEF to assist children in Madagascar with education and nutrition. On December 3, 2013, she was officially named a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, "with a special focus on engaging young people in the agency's work to improve the lives of the world's most vulnerable children and adolescents." She arranged for a portion of the money generated from tickets to her Prismatic World Tour to go to UNICEF. In September 2010, she helped build and design the Boys Hope/Girls Hope foundation shelter for youth in Baltimore, Maryland along with Raven-Symoné, Shaquille O'Neal, and the cast of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. In 2010, Perry and Nicki Minaj performed a cover of "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" for service members during the 2010 VH1 Divas Salute the Troops concert.
She has also supported children's education and well-being. All profits from sales of the album The Gay Nineties Old Tyme Music: Daisy Bell, which includes her rendition of "Daisy Bell (Bicycle Built for Two)", were donated to the charity Little Kids Rock, which supports musical education in underprivileged elementary schools. In June 2014, she teamed up with Staples Inc. for a project entitled "Make Roar Happen" which donated $1 million to DonorsChoose, an organization that supports teachers and funds classroom resources in public schools. In May 2016, she worked with UNICEF to improve child care quality in Vietnam, hoping to "break the cycle of poverty and drastically improve children's health, education and well-being". The following month, UNICEF announced that Perry would receive the Audrey Hepburn Humanitarian Award "for her work as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in support of the world's most vulnerable children" at their annual Snowflake Ball in November. All Spotify streams of her 2021 cover of "All You Need Is Love" will generate $1 in donations for the charity Baby2Baby.
Perry has supported organizations aimed at aiding people suffering with diseases including cancer and HIV/AIDS. During the 2008 Warped Tour, she had a cast made of her breasts to raise money for the Keep A Breast Foundation. She hosted and performed at the We Can Survive concert along with Bonnie McKee, Kacey Musgraves, Sara Bareilles, Ellie Goulding, and duo Tegan and Sara at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, California, on October 23, 2013. The concert's profits were donated to Young Survival Coalition, an organization aiding breast cancer in young women. In June 2009, she designed an item of clothing for H&M's "Fashion Against AIDS" campaign, which raises money for HIV/AIDS awareness projects. On February 26, 2017, she served as a co-chair alongside various celebrities such as Beyoncé, Lea Michele, Jim Carrey, Jared Leto, and Kevin Spacey for the 25th Annual Elton John AIDS Foundation Academy Award Party, a fundraiser for HIV/AIDS healthcare.
The proceeds from Perry's single "Part of Me" were donated to the charity MusiCares, which helps musicians in times of need. During her California Dreams Tour, she raised over $175,000 for the Tickets-For-Charity fundraiser. The money was divided between three charities: the Children's Health Fund (CHF), Generosity Water, and The Humane Society of the United States.
On her 27th birthday, Perry set up a donations page for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Auckland, and set up a similar page benefiting the David Lynch Foundation for her 28th birthday. On March 29, 2014, she helped raise $2.4 million for the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles along with other celebrities such as Ryan Seacrest, Pharrell Williams, Tim Allen, Lisa Edelstein, and Riley Keough.
Perry performed at the One Love Manchester benefit concert for the victims of the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing, among various performers including its organizer Ariana Grande, which was broadcast live on June 4, 2017, on radio and television stations around the world. In March 2018, Perry announced Witness: Coming Home, a benefit concert that was held in her hometown of Santa Barbara on May 19, 2018. The concert benefited those recovering from the aftermath of the 2017 California wildfires and 2018 Southern California mudflows. Perry partnered with the Santa Barbara Foundation, the 93108 Fund and The 805 UndocuFund, organizations which help in assisting members of the community in the Santa Barbara area through grants and various philanthropic efforts.
Activism
Perry has publicly advocated for LGBT rights and admitted that she wrote "I Kissed a Girl" about her own bisexual experiences with other women. In 2017, she received a Nation Equality Award from Human Rights Campaign for "using her powerful voice and international platform to speak out for LGBTQ equality". In her acceptance speech, she discussed having bisexual experiences, her fluid sexuality, and thanked the LGBTQ+ community. In an Out interview in 2021, she was heralded as a "gay icon" with "I Kissed a Girl" being called a "bonafide queer anthem." She continued to thank the LGBTQ+ community in the same interview, saying: "I came from a very sheltered upbringing where it wasn't okay to be friends with anyone from that community. And now that is my community, [...] I wouldn't have survived without the community and it's amazing how full circle it's come and how much growth has happened since I started."
She supported Stonewall during their "It gets better..... today" campaign to prevent homophobic bullying, and dedicated the music video to her song "Firework" to the It Gets Better Project. In 2008, Perry told Do Something she was proud to be a LGBT rights activist, saying "I've always been a very open-minded person, but I definitely believe in equality." In June 2012, Perry expressed her hopes for LGBT equality, commenting "hopefully, we will look back at this moment and think like we do now concerning [other] civil rights issues. We'll just shake our heads in disbelief, saying, 'Thank God we've evolved.' That would be my prayer for the future." In December 2012, Perry was awarded the Trevor Hero Award by The Trevor Project for her work and activism on behalf of LGBT youth.
Perry identifies as a feminist, and appeared in April 2013 in a video clip for the "Chime for Change" campaign that aimed to spread female empowerment. She has also said that America's lack of free health care drove her "absolutely crazy". Following the shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando in June 2016, Perry and nearly 200 other artists and executives in music signed an open letter organized by Billboard addressed to United States Congress demanding increased gun control in the United States.
Through Twitter and by performing at rallies, Perry supported President Barack Obama in his run for re-election and praised his support for same-sex marriage and LGBT equality. She performed at three rallies for Obama, in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Wisconsin, singing a rendition of "Let's Stay Together" as well as a number of her songs. During her Las Vegas performance she wore a dress made to replicate a voting ballot, with Obama's box filled in. On Twitter, she encouraged her followers to vote for Obama.
In August 2013, Perry voiced criticism of Tony Abbott, then-leader of conservative Liberal Party of Australia and candidate for Prime Minister of Australia, due to his opposition to gay marriage and told Abbott, "I love you as a human being but I can't give you my vote."; the statement came after Abbott expressed pride at learning of Perry's then-upcoming performance in Australia. In April 2014, she publicly supported Marianne Williamson in her campaign for California's 33rd congressional district by attending a political press event. She endorsed Kamala Harris in the United States Senate election in California, and organized a fundraiser for Harris at her home in Los Angeles in November 2016. Perry also publicly endorsed former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for president in 2016. She performed alongside Elton John at a fundraising concert for Clinton in New York City in March 2016. Perry also spoke and performed at the 2016 Democratic National Convention in support of Clinton. Four years later, she supported Joe Biden and Kamala Harris during the 2020 United States presidential election, praising the latter as a leader who had "experience we desperately need right now" and believed that the former "choosing her as his running mate is already a testament to his decision making".
Achievements
Throughout her career, Perry has won five American Music Awards, fourteen People's Choice Awards, four Guinness World Records, a Brit Award, and a Juno Award. In September 2012, Billboard dubbed her the "Woman of the Year". From May 2010 to September 2011, the singer spent a record-breaking 69 consecutive weeks in the top ten of the Billboard Hot 100. Teenage Dream became the first album by a female artist to produce five number-one Billboard Hot 100 singles, and the second album overall after Michael Jackson's Bad. In the United States, she has accumulated nine number-one singles on the Billboard Hot 100, her most recent being "Dark Horse", and holds the record for having 18 consecutive number-one songs on the Billboard Dance Club Songs chart.
Billboard also named her the 15th most successful dance club artist of all time. The magazine additionally ranked her 4th on its "Greatest of All Time Pop Songs Artists" list, included Teenage Dream and Prism among its "Greatest of All Time Billboard 200 Albums by Women" list, and ranked "Dark Horse" at number 100 on its "Greatest of All Time Hot 100 Songs" as well as one of its "Greatest of All Time Hot 100 Songs by Women" along with "E.T.", "Firework", and "California Gurls". In June 2015, her music video for "Dark Horse" became the first video by a female artist to reach 1 billion views on Vevo. The following month, her music video for "Roar" reached 1 billion views on Vevo, making her the first artist to have multiple videos with 1 billion views.
Perry was declared the Top Global Female Recording Artist of 2013 by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI). According to Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), she is the fifth top digital singles artist in the United States, with 105 million certified song units in the country including on-demand streams and also has 11 million certified album units, totaling 116 million certified units in the nation. She also became the first artist to have three songs receive Diamond certifications from the RIAA with "Dark Horse", "Firework", and "Roar". All three of them and "E.T.", "California Gurls", and "Hot n Cold" have each sold over 5 million digital copies. Throughout her career, Perry has sold more than 18 million albums and 125 million singles globally, making her one of the best-selling music artists of all time.
Discography
Katy Hudson (2001)
One of the Boys (2008)
Teenage Dream (2010)
Prism (2013)
Witness (2017)
Smile (2020)
Filmography
The Smurfs (2011)
Katy Perry: Part of Me (2012)
The Smurfs 2 (2013)
Brand: A Second Coming (2015)
Katy Perry: The Prismatic World Tour (2015)
Katy Perry: Making of the Pepsi Super Bowl Halftime Show (2015)
Jeremy Scott: The People's Designer (2015)
Zoolander 2 (2016)
Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (2016)
Tours and residency
Co-headlining tour
Strangely Normal Tour (with Phil Joel) (2001)
Headlining tours
Hello Katy Tour (2009)
California Dreams Tour (2011–2012)
Prismatic World Tour (2014–2015)
Witness: The Tour (2017–2018)
Residency
Play (2021–2022)
See also
List of best-selling music artists
List of most-followed Twitter accounts
List of Billboard Social 50 number-one artists
List of highest-certified music artists in the United States
Best-selling female artists of all time
References
Footnotes
Sources
External links
1984 births
Living people
21st-century American guitarists
21st-century American singers
21st-century American women singers
21st-century American women guitarists
Activists from California
American contraltos
American disco singers
American women pop singers
American women rock singers
American women singer-songwriters
American feminists
American film actresses
American performance artists
American pop guitarists
American pop rock singers
American rock guitarists
American rock songwriters
American television actresses
American women activists
American voice actresses
American women in electronic music
Brit Award winners
Capitol Records artists
Columbia Records artists
Dance-pop musicians
Def Jam Recordings artists
Feminist musicians
Guitarists from California
Island Records artists
Juno Award for International Album of the Year winners
LGBT rights activists from the United States
Musicians from Santa Barbara, California
MTV Europe Music Award winners
Participants in American reality television series
Singer-songwriters from California
UNICEF Goodwill Ambassadors | false | [
"Kathleen Anne Brien (born 8 May 1989), better known as Katy B, is an English singer and songwriter. She released her debut studio album, On a Mission, in 2011, which spawned two top five hits, \"Katy on a Mission\" and \"Lights On\". In 2014 she released her second studio album, Little Red, which produced her third top five hit, \"Crying for No Reason\". Her third, and most recent, studio album, Honey, was released in 2016.\n\nEarly life\nKathleen Anne Brien was born on 8 May 1989, in Peckham, London, where she attended at Lyndhurst Primary School, Haberdashers' Aske's Hatcham College, and the BRIT School. Katy also attended at the Glenlyn Academy in South London, where she took dance classes. Katy's father (David O'Brien) was a member of the Les Humphries Singers, who represented Germany at Eurovision 1976, with the song \"Sing Sang Song\".\nKaty B possesses a soprano vocal range.\n\nCareer\n\n2007–2012: On a Mission\n\nKaty has guested on many tracks, both before and during her album release campaign. DJ NG's song \"Tell Me\", on which she featured as Baby Katy, was initially released on a white label and then later signed to Ministry of Sound. She also provided vocals on the track \"Hold Me\" for The Count & Sinden's debut album Mega Mega Mega, and features on Magnetic Man's tracks \"Perfect Stranger\" and \"Crossover\".\n\nKaty B has also collaborated with Rinse FM DJ Geeneus to cover the Kevin Saunderson produced \"Good Life\" and the track \"As I\". It was following the official recognition of the former pirate radio station Rinse FM in June 2010 that Katy B saw her first single release: \"Katy on a Mission\", presented by Rinse and produced by Benga, was released on 22 August 2010. The single reached number five on the UK Singles Chart and number one on the UK Indie Chart.\n\nKaty B performed at the London Jazz Festival in 2009 with Ms Dynamite, who also featured on Katy's second single \"Lights On\", which was released in the United Kingdom on 19 December 2010, and debuted at number four on the UK Singles Chart. Her third single \"Broken Record\" was released in March 2011, and peaked at number eight. The fourth single \"Easy Please Me\" was released on 3 June 2011. Her fifth single \"Witches' Brew\" was released on 28 August 2011. Katy's debut album On a Mission was released on 4 April 2011, and peaked at number two on the UK Albums Chart.\n\nKaty B supported Tinie Tempah on his tour during Spring of 2011, and on 30 April 2011 she embarked on her own debut concert tour throughout Europe until September, then the UK in October. In 2011, Katy B and Mark Ronson teamed up for the song \"Anywhere in the World\", which was created as an advert for Coca-Cola to tie in with the 2012 Summer Olympics, and was released as a digital download on 13 May 2012.\n\n2013–2014: Little Red\n\nOn 1 October 2013, Katy announced that her second studio album would be titled Little Red. A single, \"What Love Is Made Of\", was released on 7 July 2013, charting at number 21 on the UK Singles Chart; although \nwhen the official Little Red track list was revealed on 13 December, \"What Love Is Made Of\" was no longer included. Lead single \"5 AM\" was released on 4 November 2013, charting at number 14 on the UK Singles Chart. \"Crying for No Reason\" was released on 10 February 2014, reaching the Top 5 of the singles chart. Little Red topped the UK Albums Chart on 19 February 2014. \"Still\" was released as the third and final single from the album.\n\nOn 18 February 2014, Katy's video for the ongoing 'Rinse Sessions x Metropolis' project was revealed, which included a back-to-back cover of Beyoncé's 'Drunk in Love' and Tinashe's \"Vulnerable\". In February, she also appeared on the BBC One show The Voice as Ricky Wilson's team mentor.\n\nIn March 2014, Katy took part in the recording of England's 2014 World Cup song, collaborating with fellow pop stars Melanie C, Eliza Doolittle, Emma Bunton, Conor Maynard, Kimberley Walsh and Pixie Lott on \"Greatest Day\", a track originally performed by the British band Take That. The track was produced by Gary Barlow and recorded at Sarm Studios in London, and also featured former footballers such as Gary Lineker, Michael Owen, Geoff Hurst, David Seaman, Peter Shilton, Glenn Hoddle and Dion Dublin on backing vocals. She performed at Birmingham Pride in May 2014.\n\n2015–present: Honey\nIn October 2015, Katy provided vocals, along with Tinie Tempah on \"Turn the Music Louder (Rumble)\", a re-worked version of British DJ KDA's track \"Rumble\". It topped the UK charts becoming Katy's first UK number one single.\n\nIn December 2015, Katy confirmed in a backstage interview at Capital FM's Jingle Bell Ball that her third studio album would be called Honey and would be released sometime in 2016. It was also confirmed that a track of the same name would feature. The album was released on 22 April 2016, containing 14 songs.\n\nPolitical views\nIn November 2019, along with 34 other musicians, Katy signed a letter endorsing the Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn in the 2019 UK general election with a call to end austerity.\n\nDiscography\n\nStudio albums\n On a Mission (2011)\n Little Red (2014)\n Honey (2016)\n\nTours\n On a Mission Tour (2011)\n Little Red UK Tour (2014)\n Honey Tour (2016)\n\nAwards and nominations\nKaty B has received five nominations at the MOBO Awards. She was nominated for Best Push Act at the MTV Europe Music Awards 2011. In 2011 she was also nominated for the Mercury Prize. In 2012 she won a NME Award for Dancefloor Anthem.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nOfficial site \n\n1989 births\nLiving people\nAlumni of Goldsmiths, University of London\nEnglish dance musicians\nEnglish women singers\nEnglish songwriters\nEnglish sopranos\nEnglish women rappers\nBritish contemporary R&B singers\nDubstep musicians\nNME Awards winners\nPeople educated at the BRIT School\nPeople from Peckham\nRappers from London\nSingers from London\nUK garage singers\nEnglish women in electronic music\nColumbia Records artists",
"The discography of British singer-songwriter Katy B consists of three studio albums, four extended plays, fifteen singles and seventeen music videos.\n\nHer first single, \"Katy on a Mission\", was released on 22 August 2010. The single reached number five on the UK Singles Chart and number one on the UK Indie Chart. Katy B performed at the London Jazz Festival in 2009 with Ms Dynamite, who also featured on Katy's second single, \"Lights On\" which was released in the United Kingdom on 19 December 2010, and debuted at number four on the UK Singles Chart. Her third single \"Broken Record\" was released in March 2011, and peaked at number eight. The fourth single \"Easy Please Me\" was released on 3 June 2011. Her fifth single \"Witches' Brew\" was released on 28 August 2011. Katy's debut album On a Mission was released on 4 April 2011, and peaked at number two on the UK Albums Chart. In 2011, Katy B and Mark Ronson teamed up for the song \"Anywhere in the World\" created as an advert for the Coca-Cola and the 2012 Summer Olympics, which was released as a digital download on 13 May 2012.\n\nShe released \"What Love Is Made Of\" in May 2013. \"5 AM\" was released in November 2013 as the lead single from her second studio album, peaking to number 14 on the UK Singles Chart. \"Crying for No Reason\" was released in January 2014 as the second single from her second studio album, which peaked at number 5. In February 2014, Katy B released her second studio album Little Red, which debuted at number 1 on the UK Albums chart and went on to be certified Silver. In April 2014 she released the album's third single \"Still\".\n\nAlongside KDA and Tinie Tempah, Katy B reached number 1 in 2015 with \"Turn the Music Louder (Rumble)\". It is included on her third album Honey, which was released on 22 April 2016. Three singles have been issued from the album, including the official lead single \"Who Am I\", featuring Craig David.\n\nStudio albums\n\nExtended plays\n\nSingles\n\nAs lead artist\n\nPromotional singles\n\nAs featured artist\n\nOther charted songs\n\nGuest appearances\n\nMusic videos\n\nNotes\n\nReferences \n\nDiscographies of British artists"
] |
[
"Katy Perry",
"1999-2006: Career beginnings",
"when was katy parry's first album under her stage name?",
"March 6, 2001,"
] | C_29e64ee43f0547139a7c08bceed86ff2_1 | what did she do between 1999 and 2001? | 2 | What did Perry do between 1999 and 2001? | Katy Perry | Perry completed her General Educational Development (GED) requirements at age 15, during her freshman year of high school, and left Dos Pueblos High School to pursue a musical career. She briefly studied Italian opera at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara. Her singing caught the attention of rock artists Steve Thomas and Jennifer Knapp from Nashville, Tennessee, who brought her there to improve her writing skills. In Nashville, she started recording demos and learned how to write songs and play guitar. After signing with Red Hill Records, Perry recorded her debut album, a gospel record titled Katy Hudson. She released the album on March 6, 2001, and went on tour that year as part of Phil Joel's Strangely Normal Tour while also embarking on other performances of her own in the United States. Katy Hudson received positive reviews from critics, though was commercially unsuccessful and sold an estimated 200 copies before the label ceased operations in December. Transitioning from gospel music to secular music, Perry started writing songs with producer Glen Ballard, and moved to Los Angeles at age 17. In 2003, she briefly performed as Katheryn Perry to avoid confusion with actress Kate Hudson. She later adopted the stage name Katy Perry, using her mother's maiden name. In 2004, Perry signed to Ballard's label, Java, which was then affiliated with The Island Def Jam Music Group. She began work on a solo record, but the record was shelved after Java was dropped. Ballard then introduced Perry to Tim Devine, an A&R executive at Columbia Records, and she was signed as a solo artist. Over the course of the next two years, Perry wrote and recorded material for her Columbia debut, and worked with songwriters including Desmond Child, Greg Wells, Butch Walker, Scott Cutler, Anne Preven, The Matrix, Kara DioGuardi, Max Martin and Dr. Luke. In addition, after Devine suggested that songwriting team The Matrix become a "real group", Perry recorded with them. Perry was dropped from Columbia in 2006 as her record neared completion. After the label dropped her, she worked at an independent A&R company called Taxi Music. Perry had minor success prior to her breakthrough. One of the songs she had recorded for her album with Ballard, "Simple", was featured on the soundtrack to the 2005 film The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. She provided backing vocals on Mick Jagger's song "Old Habits Die Hard", which was included on the soundtrack to the 2004 film Alfie. In September 2004, Blender named Perry "The Next Big Thing". She recorded background vocals on P.O.D.'s single "Goodbye for Now" and was featured at the end of its music video in 2006. That year, Perry also appeared in the music video for "Learn to Fly" by Carbon Leaf, and played the love interest of her then-boyfriend, Gym Class Heroes lead singer Travie McCoy, in the band's music video for "Cupid's Chokehold". CANNOTANSWER | 2001, and went on tour that year as part of Phil Joel's Strangely Normal Tour while also embarking on other performances of her own in the United States. | Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson (born October 25, 1984), known professionally as Katy Perry, is an American singer, songwriter, and television judge. She is known for her influence on the pop sound and style of the 2010s. Pursuing a career in gospel music at 16, Perry released her commercially unsuccessful debut album, Katy Hudson (2001), under Red Hill Records. She moved to Los Angeles at 17 to venture into secular music, adopting the stage name "Katy Perry" from her mother's maiden name. With producers Glen Ballard and Greg Wells, she recorded an unreleased album titled Fingerprints while signed to Java Records and then Columbia Records before being dropped. After this, she signed a recording contract with Capitol Records in April 2007.
Perry rose to fame with her second album and major label debut, One of the Boys (2008), a pop rock record containing her debut single "I Kissed a Girl" and follow-up single "Hot n Cold", which respectively reached number one and three on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. The disco-influenced pop album Teenage Dream (2010) spawned five U.S. number one singles—"California Gurls", "Teenage Dream", "Firework", "E.T.", and "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)"—becoming the first album by a solo female artist to do so. A reissue titled Teenage Dream: The Complete Confection (2012) subsequently had the U.S. number one single "Part of Me". Her fourth album Prism (2013) has themes of self-empowerment and relationships. With the music videos for its U.S. number one singles "Roar" and "Dark Horse", Perry became the first artist to have multiple videos reach one billion views on YouTube. Witness (2017) featured an electropop sound with themes of liberation and a political subtext, while Smile (2020) featured themes of motherhood and self-help. She later embarked on her first concert residency titled Play in Resorts World Las Vegas, selling out multiple shows and receiving critical acclaim.
Perry is one of the best-selling artists of all time, having sold over 143 million records worldwide. All of her studio albums released under Capitol have individually surpassed one billion streams on Spotify. She has nine U.S. number one singles, three U.S. number one albums and has received various accolades, including four Guinness World Records, five Billboard Music Awards, five American Music Awards, a Brit Award, and a Juno Award. Perry has been included in the annual Forbes lists of highest-earning women in music from 2011 to 2019. Her critically acclaimed Super Bowl halftime show performance is the most watched in history. Outside of music, she released an autobiographical documentary titled Katy Perry: Part of Me in 2012, and voiced Smurfette in The Smurfs film series. Perry began serving as a judge on American Idol, starting from its sixteenth season in 2018. She is also the most followed woman on Twitter, with over 108 million followers.
Life and career
1984–1998: Early life and family
Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson was born on October 25, 1984, in Santa Barbara, California, to Pentecostal pastors Mary Christine (née Perry) and Maurice Keith Hudson. Both of her parents turned to religion after a "wild youth". Perry has English, German, Irish, and Portuguese ancestry. Through her mother, she is a niece of film director Frank Perry. She has a younger brother named David, who is a singer, and an older sister, Angela.
From ages three to 11, Perry often moved across the country as her parents set up churches before settling again in Santa Barbara. Growing up, she attended religious schools and camps, including Paradise Valley Christian School in Arizona and Santa Barbara Christian School in California during her elementary years. Her family struggled financially, sometimes using food stamps and eating food from the food bank which also fed the congregation at Perry's parents' church.
Growing up, Perry and her siblings were not allowed to eat the cereal Lucky Charms as the word "luck" reminded their mother of Lucifer, and had to call deviled eggs "angeled eggs". Perry primarily listened to gospel music, as secular music was generally discouraged in the family's home. She discovered popular music through CDs she sneaked from her friends. Perry later recalled a story about how a friend of hers played "You Oughta Know" by Alanis Morissette, which impacted her songwriting and singing.
While not strictly identifying as religious, she has stated, "I pray all the time – for self-control, for humility." Wanting to be like her sister Angela, Perry began singing by practicing with her sister's cassette tapes. She performed the tracks in front of their parents, who let her take vocal lessons as Angela was at the time. She began training at age nine, and was incorporated into her parents' ministry, singing in church from ages nine to 17. At 13, Perry was given her first guitar for her birthday, and publicly performed songs she wrote. She tried to "be a bit like the typical Californian girl" while growing up, and started rollerskating, skateboarding, and surfing as a teenager. Her brother David described her as a tomboy during her adolescence, which Perry talks about on her song "One Of The Boys". She took dancing lessons and learned how to swing, Lindy Hop, and jitterbug.
1999–2006: Career beginnings, Katy Hudson and Fingerprints
Perry completed her General Educational Development (GED) requirements at age 15, during her first year of high school, and left Dos Pueblos High School to pursue a music career. She briefly had music lessons in facilities rented from the Music Academy of the West. Her singing caught the attention of rock artists Steve Thomas and Jennifer Knapp from Nashville, Tennessee, who brought her there to improve her writing skills. In Nashville, she started recording demos and learned how to write songs and play guitar. Perry signed with Red Hill Records and recorded her debut album, a contemporary Christian record titled Katy Hudson, which was released on March 6, 2001. She also went on tour that year as part of Phil Joel's Strangely Normal Tour and embarked on other performances of her own in the United States. Katy Hudson received mixed reviews from critics and was commercially unsuccessful, selling an estimated 200 copies before the label ceased operations in December. Transitioning from gospel music to secular music, Perry started working with producer Glen Ballard, and moved to Los Angeles at age 17. She opted to work with Ballard due to his past work with Alanis Morissette, one of her major inspirations. In 2003, she briefly performed as Katheryn Perry to avoid confusion with actress Kate Hudson. She later adopted the stage name 'Katy Perry', using her mother's maiden name. In 2010, she recalled that "Thinking of You" was one of the first songs she wrote after moving to Los Angeles.
In 2004, she signed to Ballard's label, Java Records, which was then affiliated with The Island Def Jam Music Group. Perry began work on a solo record due for release in March 2005, but the record was shelved after Java was dropped. Ballard then introduced her to Tim Devine, an A&R executive at Columbia Records, and she was signed as a solo artist. By November 2006, Perry had finished writing and recording material for her Columbia debut titled Fingerprints (with some of the material from this time appearing on One of the Boys) which was planned for release in 2007. Some of the material from Fingerprints that did not make it on One Of The Boys was given to other artists, such as "I Do Not Hook Up" and "Long Shot" to Kelly Clarkson and "Rock God" to Selena Gomez & the Scene.
Perry worked with songwriters including Desmond Child, Greg Wells, Butch Walker, Scott Cutler, Anne Preven, The Matrix, Kara DioGuardi, Max Martin, and Dr. Luke. In addition, after Devine suggested that songwriting team The Matrix become a "real group", she recorded a shelved album called The Matrix with them. The Matrix was planned to be released in 2004 but was cancelled due to creative differences. It was later released in 2009 after the release of One of the Boys. Perry was dropped from Columbia in 2006 as Fingerprints neared completion. After the label dropped her, she worked at an independent A&R company called Taxi Music.
Perry had minor success prior to her breakthrough. One of the songs she had recorded for her album with Ballard, "Simple", was featured on the soundtrack to the 2005 film The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. She provided backing vocals on Mick Jagger's song "Old Habits Die Hard", which was included on the soundtrack to the 2004 film Alfie. In September 2004, Blender named Perry "The Next Big Thing". She recorded background vocals on P.O.D.'s single "Goodbye for Now", was featured at the end of its music video in 2006, and performed it with them on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. That year, Perry also appeared in the music video for "Learn to Fly" by Carbon Leaf, and played the love interest of her then-boyfriend, Gym Class Heroes lead singer Travie McCoy, in the band's music video for "Cupid's Chokehold".
2007–2009: Breakthrough with One of the Boys
After Columbia dropped Perry, Angelica Cob-Baehler, then a publicity executive at the label, brought Perry's demos to Virgin Records chairman Jason Flom. Flom was convinced that she could be a breakthrough star and she was signed to Capitol Records in April 2007. The label arranged for her to work with Dr. Luke to add an "undeniable smash" to her existing material. Perry and Dr. Luke co-wrote the songs "I Kissed a Girl" and "Hot n Cold" for her second album One of the Boys. A campaign was started with the November 2007 release of the video to "Ur So Gay", a song aimed at introducing her to the music market. A digital EP of the same name was also released that month. Madonna helped publicize the song by praising it on the JohnJay & Rich radio show in April 2008, stating "Ur So Gay" was her "favorite song" at the time. In March 2008, Perry made a cameo appearance as a club singer in the Wildfire episode "Life's Too Short" and appeared as herself during a photo shoot that June on The Young and the Restless for the show's magazine Restless Style.
Perry released her first single with Capitol, "I Kissed a Girl", on April 28, 2008, as the lead single from One of the Boys. The first station to pick up the song was WRVW in Nashville, who were inundated with enthusiastic calls the first three days they played it. The track reached number one on the US Billboard Hot 100. "I Kissed a Girl" created controversy among both religious and LGBT groups. The former criticized its homosexual theme, while the latter accused her of using bi-curiosity to sell records. In response to speculation that her parents opposed her music and career, Perry told MTV that they had no problems with her success. One of the Boys, released on June 17, 2008, garnered mixed critical reviews and reached number nine on the US Billboard 200. The album went on to sell 7 million copies worldwide. "Hot n Cold" was released the following September and became the album's second successful single, reaching number three on the Billboard Hot 100 while topping charts in Germany, Canada, the Netherlands and Austria. Later singles "Thinking of You" and "Waking Up in Vegas" were released in 2009 and reached the top 30 of the Hot 100. The Matrix's self-titled debut album, which Perry had recorded with the band in 2004, was released onto iTunes on January 27, 2009, as a result of her solo success.
After finishing the 2008 Warped Tour, Perry hosted the 2008 MTV Europe Music Awards in November 2008, where she won the award for Best New Act. At the 2009 Brit Awards, she also won the award for International Female Solo Artist. Perry embarked on her first headlining world tour, the Hello Katy Tour, from January to November 2009 to support One of the Boys. On August 4, 2009, she performed as opening act for one date of No Doubt's 2009 Summer Tour. Perry also hosted the 2009 MTV Europe Music Awards in November 2009, becoming the first person to host two consecutive ceremonies of the European awards. On July 22, 2009, Perry recorded a live album titled MTV Unplugged, which featured acoustic performances of five tracks from One of the Boys as well as one new song, "Brick by Brick", and a cover of Fountains of Wayne's "Hackensack". It was released on November 17, 2009. Perry also appeared on two singles with other artists; she was featured on a remix of Colorado-based band 3OH!3's song "Starstrukk" in September 2009, and on a duet with Timbaland entitled "If We Ever Meet Again", from his album Shock Value II, three months later. The Guinness World Records recognized her in its 2010 edition as the "Best Start on the U.S. Digital Chart by a Female Artist", for digital single sales of over two million copies.
After Perry and Travie McCoy split up in December 2008, they briefly reconciled before she ended their relationship in 2009. Perry met her future husband Russell Brand in the summer of 2009 while filming a cameo appearance for his film Get Him to the Greek. Her scene, in which the two kiss, does not appear in the film. She began dating Brand after meeting him again that September at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards. The couple became engaged on December 31, 2009, while vacationing in Rajasthan, India.
2010–2012: Teenage Dream and first marriage
After serving as a guest judge on American Idol, Perry released "California Gurls" featuring Snoop Dogg on May 7, 2010. The song was the lead single from her third studio album, Teenage Dream, and reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in June. She also served as a guest judge on British The X Factor later that month before releasing the album's second single, "Teenage Dream", in July. "Teenage Dream" reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in September. Released on August 24, 2010, Teenage Dream debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, and received mixed reviews from music critics. It has since sold 6 million copies worldwide. Teenage Dream would go on to win the 2011 Juno Award for International Album of the Year. In October, "Firework" was released as the album's third single. It became the album's third consecutive number one on the Billboard Hot 100 on December 8, 2010.
"E.T." featuring Kanye West was released as the fourth single from Teenage Dream on February 16, 2011. It topped the Billboard Hot 100 for five non-consecutive weeks, making Teenage Dream the ninth album in history to produce four number one singles on the chart. "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)" followed as the fifth single in June, and Perry became the first female artist to achieve five number-one Billboard Hot 100 songs from one album when the single topped that chart on August 17, and the second artist after Michael Jackson with his album Bad. For this record, she received an honorary American Music Award in November 2011 and a 2013 Guinness World Record. On September 7, she set a new record by becoming the first artist to spend 69 consecutive weeks in the top ten of the Hot 100. After "The One That Got Away" was released as the album's sixth single in October, Teenage Dream became the third album to spawn six top-five songs on the Billboard Hot 100 after Rhythm Nation 1814 by Janet Jackson and Faith by George Michael. The song peaked at number three in the US and number two in Canada.
On January 5, 2012, Perry was named the sixth best-selling digital artist in the United States, with sales of 37.6 million units according to Nielsen SoundScan. That month, she became the first artist to have four songs sell over 5 million digital units when "E.T." reached that mark along with "Firework", "California Gurls", and "Hot N Cold". On February 13, Capitol released the lead single from Teenage Dream: The Complete Confection, "Part of Me", which debuted at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and became Perry's seventh single overall to top the chart. Teenage Dream: The Complete Confection was released on March 23, and serves as a reissue of Teenage Dream. "Wide Awake" was released on May 22 as the re-release's second single, peaking at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 and number one in Canada and New Zealand.
Perry embarked on her second tour, the California Dreams Tour, in support of Teenage Dream from February 2011 to January 2012. The tour grossed $59.5 million globally and won her the award for Best Live Act at the 2011 MTV Europe Music Awards. On September 23, 2011, she performed on the opening day of the 2011 Rock in Rio festival along with Elton John and Rihanna. In September 2010, Perry was scheduled to appear on the 41st-season premiere of Sesame Street. After her scene was uploaded to YouTube, viewers criticized Perry's exposed cleavage. Four days before the scheduled airing, Sesame Workshop announced that the segment would not air on television, but would still be available to watch online. Perry subsequently mocked the controversy on Saturday Night Live, where she was a musical guest and wore an Elmo-themed shirt showing large amounts of cleavage during one skit.
In December 2010, Perry played Moe Szyslak's girlfriend in the live-action segment from a Christmas episode of The Simpsons titled "The Fight Before Christmas". In February 2011, she made a guest appearance on the How I Met Your Mother episode "Oh Honey", playing a woman known as Honey. The role won her the People's Choice Award for Favorite TV Guest Star in January 2012. She made her film debut in the 3D family motion picture The Smurfs as Smurfette on July 29, 2011. The film was a financial success worldwide, while critics gave mostly negative reviews. She hosted Saturday Night Live on December 10, 2011, with Robyn as the episode's musical guest. Perry's work on the episode received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised her performance in the episode's digital short featuring her and Andy Samberg. In March 2012, she guest starred as a prison security guard named Rikki on the Raising Hope episode "Single White Female Role Model". On July 5, 2012, Perry's autobiographical documentary Katy Perry: Part of Me was released to theaters through Paramount Pictures. The film received positive reviews and grossed $32.7 million worldwide at the box office.
Perry began to venture into business when she endorsed her first fragrance, Purr, in November 2010. Her second fragrance, Meow!, was released in December 2011. Both perfumes were released through Nordstrom department stores. Electronic Arts recruited her to promote their new expansion pack for The Sims 3: Showtime, before releasing a separate stuff pack featuring Perry-inspired furniture, outfits, and hairstyles, titled The Sims 3: Katy Perry's Sweet Treats, in June 2012. The following month, she became the spokesperson and ambassador for Popchips and made an investment in the company. Billboard dubbed her as their "Woman of the Year" for 2012.
She married Russell Brand on October 23, 2010, in a traditional Hindu ceremony near the Ranthambhore tiger sanctuary in Rajasthan, India. Brand announced on December 30, 2011, that they were divorcing after 14 months of marriage. Perry later stated that conflicting career schedules and his desire to have children before she was ready led to the end of their marriage and that he never spoke to her again after sending a text message that he was divorcing her, while Brand asserted that he divorced her due to her commercial success and reluctance to engage in activism. She was initially distraught over their divorce, and said that she contemplated suicide. After the marriage ended in 2012, Perry began a relationship with singer John Mayer that August.
2013–2015: Prism and Super Bowl XLIX halftime show
In November 2012, Perry began work on her fourth album, Prism. She told Billboard, "I know exactly the record I want to make next. I know the artwork, the coloring and the tone" and "I even know what type of tour I'm doing next. I'll be very pleased if the vision I have in my head becomes a reality." After initially telling L'Uomo Vogue in June 2012 that she planned to have "darker elements" in Prism following the end of her marriage, the singer revealed to MTV during the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards that she changed the album's direction after periods of self-reflection. Perry commented "I felt very prismatic", which inspired the album's name. "Roar" was released as the lead single from Prism on August 10, 2013. It was promoted at the MTV Video Music Awards and reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100. "Unconditionally" followed as the second single from Prism on October 16, 2013, and peaked at number 14 in the United States.
Prism was released on October 18, 2013, and has sold 4 million copies as of August 2015. It received favorable reviews from critics and debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 chart. Four days later, Perry performed the songs from the album at the iHeartRadio Theater in Los Angeles. "Dark Horse" with Juicy J was released as the album's third single in December, and became her ninth U.S. number-one single the following month. In 2014, "Birthday" and "This Is How We Do" respectively followed as the album's fourth and fifth singles, and reached the top 25 on the Hot 100. Prior to ending her relationship with Mayer in February 2014, she recorded and co-wrote a duet with him titled "Who You Love" for his album Paradise Valley. The song was released on August 12, 2013. Perry's third headlining tour, the Prismatic World Tour, began in May 2014 and concluded in October 2015. It sold almost 2 million tickets and grossed $204.3 million worldwide and won Perry the award for "Top Package" at the 2014 Billboard Touring Awards. She also performed at the 2015 Rock in Rio festival on September 27, 2015.
On November 23, 2014, the NFL announced that Perry would perform at the Super Bowl XLIX halftime show on February 1, 2015. Lenny Kravitz and Missy Elliott served as special guests for the show. Her performance was critically acclaimed, and the Guinness World Records announced two days after the singer's halftime show that it garnered 118.5 million viewers in the United States, becoming the most watched and highest rated show in Super Bowl history. The viewership was higher than the game itself, which was viewed by an audience of 114.4 million.
The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) ranked her fifth on the list of Top Global Recording Artists of 2013. On June 26, 2014, she was declared the Top Certified Digital Artist Ever by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for certified sales of 72 million digital singles in the United States. In May 2014, a portrait of Perry by painter Mark Ryden was featured in his exhibition "The Gay 90s", and shown at the Kohn Gallery in Los Angeles. Along with several other artists, she also recorded a cover version of the song "Daisy Bell (Bicycle Built for Two)" on a limited-edition concept album titled The Gay Nineties Old Tyme Music: Daisy Bell to accompany the exhibition. That month, a portrait of Perry by artist Will Cotton was included in the United States National Portrait Gallery. On November 23, 2015, Perry starred in H&M's holiday advertising campaign, for which she wrote and recorded a song titled "Every Day Is a Holiday".
On June 17, 2014, Perry announced that she had founded her own record label under Capitol Records, titled Metamorphosis Music. Ferras was the first artist to get signed to her label, and Perry served as an executive producer on his self-titled EP. She also recorded a duet with him on the EP, titled "Legends Never Die". The label was later renamed Unsub Records.
Outside of her music career, Perry reprised her role as Smurfette in The Smurfs 2, which was released in theaters on July 31, 2013. Like its predecessor, The Smurfs 2 was a financial success but was panned by critics. In March 2014, she made a guest appearance playing herself in the episode "Blisteritos Presents Dad Academy Graduation Congraduritos Red Carpet Viewing Party" of the Kroll Show. Killer Queen was released as her third fragrance in August 2013 through Coty, Inc. In January 2014, she became a guest curator of Madonna's Art for Freedom initiative. In March 2015, she appeared in Brand: A Second Coming, a documentary following her ex-husband Russell Brand's transition from comedy work to activism, and released a concert film titled Katy Perry: The Prismatic World Tour through Epix, which took place during her tour of the same name. Perry also made a cameo appearance in the music video for Madonna's song "Bitch I'm Madonna" in June 2015. The following month, she released another fragrance with Coty, entitled Mad Potion. In September 2015, she appeared in the documentaries Katy Perry: Making of the Pepsi Super Bowl Halftime Show, which followed Perry's preparation for her Super Bowl performance, and Jeremy Scott: The People's Designer, which followed the life and career of designer Jeremy Scott. Perry released a mobile app titled Katy Perry Pop in December 2015 through Glu Mobile where her character helps players become famous musicians. She described it as "the most fun, colorful world that helps guide your musical dreams".
2016–2018: Witness and American Idol
Perry started writing songs for her new album in June 2016, and recorded an anthem for NBC Sports's coverage of the 2016 Summer Olympics titled "Rise", which was released the following month. Perry chose to release it as a standalone track rather than save it for her album "because now more than ever, there is a need for our world to unite". NBC also felt its message spoke "directly to the spirit of the Olympics and its athletes" for its inspirational themes. The song reached number one in Australia and number eleven in the United States.
In August 2016, Perry stated that she aspired to create material "that connects and relates and inspires" and told Ryan Seacrest that she was "not rushing" her fifth album, adding "I'm just having a lot of fun, but experimenting and trying different producers, and different collaborators, and different styles". On February 10, 2017, Perry released the album's lead single "Chained to the Rhythm" featuring Skip Marley. It reached number one in Hungary and number four in the United States. The track was also streamed over three million times on Spotify within 24 hours, breaking the music streaming service's record at the time for the highest first-day streaming for a single track by a female artist. The album's second single, "Bon Appétit" with Migos, was released that April. Its third single, "Swish Swish", featured Nicki Minaj and followed the next month. They respectively peaked at numbers 59 and 46 in the United States, and made the top 15 in Canada.
The album, titled Witness, was released on June 9, 2017, to mixed reviews, and debuted at number one in the United States. To accompany the album's release, Perry broadcast herself on YouTube for four days with a live-stream titled Katy Perry Live: Witness World Wide, concluding with a live concert on June 12. The live-stream generated over 49 million views from 190 different countries. She also embarked on Witness: The Tour, which began in September 2017 and ended in August 2018. On June 15, 2017, Calvin Harris released a song titled "Feels" from his album Funk Wav Bounces Vol. 1, which featured Perry, Big Sean, and Pharrell Williams. The song went on to reach number one in the United Kingdom.
Perry subsequently recorded a cover of the Dear Evan Hansen song "Waving Through a Window" for the deluxe edition of the cast recording, which was released on November 2, 2018. The show's creators Benj Pasek and Justin Paul had requested Perry to cover the song to promote the musical's national tour and bring awareness to mental health. Later that month, Perry released "Cozy Little Christmas". She also recorded the song "Immortal Flame" for the game Final Fantasy Brave Exvius, and had a playable character modeled after her.
Outside of recording music, Perry appeared as herself in the film Zoolander 2, which was released in February 2016. In February 2017, the singer launched a shoe line titled "Katy Perry Collections". Her shoes are available on her website, Katy Perry Collections, and at retailers such as Dillard's and Walmart. The following August, she hosted the 2017 MTV Video Music Awards. Perry was signed for a $25-million salary to serve as a judge on ABC's revival of American Idol, which premiered in March 2018. Perry began a relationship with Orlando Bloom in early 2016, and the couple got engaged on February 14, 2019.
2019–present: Smile, motherhood and Play residency
At the 61st Annual Grammy Awards, Perry performed "Here You Come Again", alongside Dolly Parton and Kacey Musgraves, as part of a tribute to Parton. Four days later, she released a song called "365", with DJ Zedd. In April, Perry was included on a remix of Daddy Yankee's song "Con Calma", featuring Snow. She followed this with the singles "Never Really Over" on May 31, "Small Talk" on August 9, and "Harleys in Hawaii" on October 16.
In June 2019, Perry appeared in the music video of Taylor Swift's "You Need to Calm Down". In July, a jury in California passed a verdict following a week-long trial that Perry's song "Dark Horse" had copied Flame's 2008 song "Joyful Noise" after he filed a copyright lawsuit alleging that it used his track's beat without permission, which was later overturned. After the initial verdict, the jury ordered her to pay him $550,000. The next month, Josh Kloss, Perry's co-star in the "Teenage Dream" music video, accused her of sexual misconduct. In an Instagram post, Kloss alleged that, during a party at a skating rink, Perry pulled on his sweatpants and underwear, exposing his penis to her male friends. He also said her management prevented him from speaking about his time with the singer. However, Johnny Wujek, the creative director of said party defended Perry, saying that she "would never do something like that" and accused Kloss of having an "ongoing obsession" with her. After initially refraining from responding to this, believing it would have detracted from the Me Too movement, Perry has also denied Kloss's claims.
Following the release of her single "Never Worn White" in March 2020, Perry revealed in the accompanying music video that she was expecting her first child with Bloom. "Daisies", the lead single from her sixth album, was released on May 15, 2020. Its second single "Smile" followed two months later. The album, also titled Smile, was released on August 28, 2020. Two days before its distribution, she gave birth to a daughter named Daisy Dove Bloom. The album received mixed reviews, and debuted at number five in the United States. Perry further promoted the album with four compilation EPs: Camp Katy, Empowered, Scorpio SZN, and Cosmic Energy. These EPs were followed by the single "Not the End of the World" in December 2020, which had a music video in which Zooey Deschanel impersonates Perry. Additionally she collaborated with various artists to create two remixes of Smile album tracks. Tiësto remix of "Resillient" featuring Aitana was released in November 2020, while Bruno Martini remix of "Cry About It Later" featuring Luísa Sonza was released in April 2021. In January 20, 2021, Perry performed "Firework" at the Celebrating America concert during the inauguration of Joe Biden. Four months later, she released a new single, "Electric", a collaboration with Pokémon for their 25th anniversary.
Perry began hosting a residency named Play at Resorts World Las Vegas on December 29, 2021. The show's inception happened during the COVID-19 lockdown with Perry being inspired by 1990s movies such as Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, Pee-wee's Playhouse, and Pee-wee's Big Adventure. She described it as "larger than life" and "the kookiest, most camp show I've ever put together." The show has received critical acclaim with Melinda Sheckells of Billboard saying that "[Play's] sold-out opening night is part fantasy, part hallucination and thoroughly camp.
In September 2021, Variety paid tribute to and honored Perry on their "Power of Women" issue, where she discussed her career, motherhood, and philanthropy. As a nominee, she attended the Variety 2021 "Power of Women" dinner. On her 37th birthday the following month, Perry guest hosted The Ellen DeGeneres Show and starred in a holiday advertisement for Gap Inc. which featured her singing "All You Need Is Love" by The Beatles. A full version of her cover was released on streaming platforms the same day. Two months later, Perry followed this with "When I'm Gone", a collaboration with Alesso.
Artistry
Influences
Perry cites her sister Angela as the woman who has had the most influence on her. During the early stages of her career, Perry's musical style gravitated towards gospel and she aspired to be as successful as Amy Grant. At age 15, she heard "Killer Queen" by Queen, which inspired her to pursue a music career. She cites the band's frontman, Freddie Mercury, as her biggest influence and expressed how the "combination of his sarcastic approach to writing lyrics and his 'I don't give a fuck' attitude" inspired her music. She paid homage to the band by naming her third fragrance Killer Queen. Perry described the Beach Boys and their album Pet Sounds as having a considerable influence on her music: "Pet Sounds is one of my favorite records and it influenced pretty much all of my songwriting. All of the melody choices that I make are because of Pet Sounds." The singer also holds the Beatles' album The Beatles in high esteem, and described these two albums as "the only things I listened to for probably two years straight."
She cites Alanis Morissette and her 1995 album Jagged Little Pill as a significant musical inspiration, stating in 2012: "Jagged Little Pill was the most perfect female record ever made. There's a song for anyone on that record; I relate to all those songs. They're still so timeless." Additionally, Perry borrows influence from Flaming Red by Patty Griffin and 10 Cent Wings by Jonatha Brooke. Perry's autobiographical documentary Katy Perry: Part of Me was largely influenced by Madonna: Truth or Dare. She admires Madonna's ability to reinvent herself, saying "I want to evolve like Madonna".
Perry names Björk as an influence, particularly admiring her "willingness to always be taking chances". Other artists who Perry has cited as influences include Stevie Nicks, ABBA, the Cardigans, Cyndi Lauper, Ace of Base, 3OH!3, CeCe Peniston, C+C Music Factory, Black Box, Crystal Waters, Mariah Carey, Heart, Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, Imogen Heap, Rufus Wainwright, Pink, and Gwen Stefani. "Firework" was inspired by a passage in the book On the Road by Jack Kerouac in which the author compares people who are full of life to fireworks that shoot across the sky and make people watch in awe. Her second concert tour, the California Dreams Tour, was reminiscent of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. She also credits the 1996 film The Craft for inspiring her song "Dark Horse", and Eckhart Tolle's book The Power of Now for influencing Prism.
Musical style and themes
While Perry's music incorporates pop, rock, and disco, Katy Hudson contains gospel. Her subsequent releases, One of the Boys and Teenage Dream, involve themes of sex and love. One of the Boys is a pop rock record, while Teenage Dream features disco influences. Perry's fourth album, Prism, is significantly influenced by dance and pop music. Lyrically, the album addresses relationships, self-reflection, and everyday life. Her fifth studio effort Witness is an electropop album that she described as a "360-degree liberation" record, with themes including political liberation, sexual liberation, and liberation from negativity. Many of her songs, particularly on Teenage Dream, reflect on love between teenagers; W magazine described the album's sexual innuendos as "irresistible hook-laden melodies". Self-empowerment is a common theme in Perry's music.
Perry has described herself as a "singer-songwriter masquerading as a pop star" and maintains that honest songwriting is very important to her. She told Marie Claire: "I feel like my secret magic trick that separates me from a lot of my peers is the bravery to be vulnerable and truthful and honest. I think you become more relatable when you're vulnerable." Actress and comedian Kristen Wiig commented that "as easy, breezy, and infectious as Perry's songs can be, beneath the surface lurks a sea of mixed emotions, jumbled motives, and contradictory impulses complicated enough to fill a Carole King record." According to Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune, "being taken seriously may be Perry's greatest challenge yet." In 2013, The New York Times labeled her "the most potent pop star of the day – her hits are relatable with just a hint of experimentation". Randall Roberts of the Los Angeles Times criticized her use of idioms and metaphors in her lyrics and for frequent "clichés". Throughout her career, Perry has also co-written songs recorded by other artists, including Lesley Roy, Kelly Clarkson, Jessie James Decker, Selena Gomez & the Scene, Britney Spears, Iggy Azalea, Rita Ora, Nicki Minaj, and Ariana Grande.
Voice
Perry possesses a contralto vocal range. Her singing has received both praise and criticism. Betty Clarke of The Guardian commented that her "powerful voice is hard-edged" while Rob Sheffield from Rolling Stone described Perry's vocals on Teenage Dream as "processed staccato blips". Darren Harvey of musicOMH compared Perry's vocals on One of the Boys to Alanis Morissette's, both possessing a "perky voice shifting octaves mid-syllable". Alex Miller from NME felt that "Perry's problem is often her voice" on One of the Boys, stating that "somewhere along the line someone convinced her she was like, well, a ballsy rock chick". Conversely, Bernadette McNulty from The Daily Telegraph praised her "rock chick voice" in a review of a concert promoting Prism.
Public image
On social media, Perry surpassed Justin Bieber as the most followed person on Twitter in November 2013. She won the 2015 Guinness World Record for most Twitter followers, and became the first person to gain 100 million followers on the site in June 2017. Keith Caulfield of Billboard stated that Perry is "the rare celebrity who seems to have enormous popularity but genuine ground-level interaction with her adoring KatyCats." With over 108 Twitter million followers, she is the most followed female on the site, and the fifth most followed musician across social media with a combined total of over 326 million followers across Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. In June 2017, Time magazine listed Perry among its "25 Most Influential People on the Internet" of the year, writing that her live-stream for Witness was "blazing a trail" for being "the closest any major entertainer has come to giving fans the kind of 'real' intimacy that social media purports to provide".
In 2011, Forbes ranked Perry third on their "Top-Earning Women In Music" list with earnings of $44 million and fifth on their 2012 list with $45 million. She subsequently ranked seventh on the 2013 Forbes list for "Top-Earning Women In Music" with $39 million earned, and fifth on their 2014 list with $40 million. With earnings of $135 million, Forbes also ranked Perry number one on their 2015 "Top-Earning Women In Music" list as well as the "World's Highest-Paid Musicians" and declared her the highest earning female celebrity in 2015, placing her at number 3 on the Forbes Celebrity 100 list. In 2016, the magazine estimated her net worth was $125 million, and ranked her number six on their list of "Highest-Paid Women in Music" with earnings of $41 million. The following year, she was ranked number nine on the list with $33 million. In 2018, she topped its "Highest-Paid Women in Music" listing and ranked at number four on the "Highest-Paid Female Celebrities" list with earnings of $83 million. Perry subsequently was placed at number four on the 2019 "Highest-Paid Women in Music" listings with $57.5 million. Later that year, with earnings of $530 million throughout the 2010s, the magazine also ranked her as the 9th highest earning musician of the decade.
Fashion
Perry has been described as a sex symbol; GQ labeled her a "full-on male fantasy", while Elle wrote her body looked "as though sketched by a teenage boy". Vice called her a serious' popstar/woman/sex symbol". She was placed at number one on the Maxim Hot 100 in 2010 as the "most beautiful woman in the world", with editor Joe Levy describing her as a "triple – no quadruple – kind of hot". Men's Health readers voted her the "sexiest woman of 2013". In November 2010, Perry told Harper's Bazaar that she was proud of and satisfied with her figure.
Perry's fashion often incorporates humor, bright colors, and food-related themes such as her characteristic spinning peppermint swirl dress. Vogue described her as "never exactly one to shy away from the outrageous or the extreme in any realm" and called her the "Queen of Camp". while Glamour named her the "queen of quirk". In February 2009, Perry told Seventeen that her fashion style was "a bit of a concoction of different things" and stated she enjoyed humor in her clothing. She has also described herself as having "multipersonality disorder" for fashion. Perry lists Gwen Stefani, Shirley Manson, Chloë Sevigny, Daphne Guinness, Natalie Portman, and the fictional character Lolita as her style icons. Elle described her as "the kitsch-loving pop star renowned for her uniquely experimental style" while Vogue described her style as "synonymous with outrageous, eye-catching ensembles that lean towards the theatrical."
During the 2017 launch of her shoe collection, Katy Perry Collections, she said about shoes: "When I first got to L.A., I cultivated my style on a budget, always shopping at thrift stores or vintage stores. … Once, I found these flats that looked like Dalmatian dogs. They had ears that moved and a tongue that stuck out. They were such a conversation piece. That's what is so great about fashion. … It's a form of communication. You don't have to start a smoking habit to start talking to someone. You can just wear cool shoes. It's an icebreaker."
Legacy and influence
Several media outlets such as Billboard and Glamour have referred to her as the "Queen of Pop", while Vogue has dubbed Perry the "Queen of Camp" and a "pop icon." Andrew Unterberger of Billboard described Teenage Dream "one of the defining LPs from a new golden age in mega-pop" while Christopher Rosa of Glamour named her as an influence to the pop sound and style of the 2010s, adding that her singles are "some of the most recognizable, iconic, and impactful hits in pop history." Perry was named "one of the last decade's most reliable and successful hitmakers" by the Official Charts Company in 2022.
Additionally, Perry was included in Glamour's "104 Women Who Defined the [2010s] in Pop Culture" list, saying: "[Perry] did more than just break chart records. She was one of the driving forces behind the sound of pop radio in the 2010s. [...] glossy, booming, sugary-sweet, and undeniably catchy." Variety included Perry in their Variety 500 list of the most influential business leaders, calling her a "global phenomenon" and a "dedicated artist and tireless self-promoter who has leveraged chart-topping hits, sold-out stadium shows, and staggering endorsement deals to become one of the richest and most influential pop stars alive." She has been called a "gay icon" by Taylor Henderson of Out, noting how "I Kissed a Girl" helped fans explore their sexuality and how Perry openly embraced the LGBTQ+ community.
Perry's music has been described by Out as having a "lasting legacy", with American singers Fletcher sampling "I Kissed a Girl" and Olivia Rodrigo referencing Teenage Dream on "Brutal". Additionally, other artists such as Halsey and Ariana Grande have praised Perry's work, with Halsey calling Teenage Dream the "perfect pop album" and Grande saying "The One That Got Away" is "one of the biggest and most perfectly written pop songs ever from one of the best pop albums of all time". Perry and her work have influenced artists such as Lil Nas X, Halsey, Lorde, Rina Sawayama, Doja Cat, Ellie Goulding, Tegan and Sara, Kim Petras, and Coldplay.
Other ventures
Philanthropy
Perry has supported various charitable organizations and causes throughout her career. She has contributed to organizations aimed at improving the lives and welfare of children in particular. In April 2013, she joined UNICEF to assist children in Madagascar with education and nutrition. On December 3, 2013, she was officially named a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, "with a special focus on engaging young people in the agency's work to improve the lives of the world's most vulnerable children and adolescents." She arranged for a portion of the money generated from tickets to her Prismatic World Tour to go to UNICEF. In September 2010, she helped build and design the Boys Hope/Girls Hope foundation shelter for youth in Baltimore, Maryland along with Raven-Symoné, Shaquille O'Neal, and the cast of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. In 2010, Perry and Nicki Minaj performed a cover of "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" for service members during the 2010 VH1 Divas Salute the Troops concert.
She has also supported children's education and well-being. All profits from sales of the album The Gay Nineties Old Tyme Music: Daisy Bell, which includes her rendition of "Daisy Bell (Bicycle Built for Two)", were donated to the charity Little Kids Rock, which supports musical education in underprivileged elementary schools. In June 2014, she teamed up with Staples Inc. for a project entitled "Make Roar Happen" which donated $1 million to DonorsChoose, an organization that supports teachers and funds classroom resources in public schools. In May 2016, she worked with UNICEF to improve child care quality in Vietnam, hoping to "break the cycle of poverty and drastically improve children's health, education and well-being". The following month, UNICEF announced that Perry would receive the Audrey Hepburn Humanitarian Award "for her work as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in support of the world's most vulnerable children" at their annual Snowflake Ball in November. All Spotify streams of her 2021 cover of "All You Need Is Love" will generate $1 in donations for the charity Baby2Baby.
Perry has supported organizations aimed at aiding people suffering with diseases including cancer and HIV/AIDS. During the 2008 Warped Tour, she had a cast made of her breasts to raise money for the Keep A Breast Foundation. She hosted and performed at the We Can Survive concert along with Bonnie McKee, Kacey Musgraves, Sara Bareilles, Ellie Goulding, and duo Tegan and Sara at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, California, on October 23, 2013. The concert's profits were donated to Young Survival Coalition, an organization aiding breast cancer in young women. In June 2009, she designed an item of clothing for H&M's "Fashion Against AIDS" campaign, which raises money for HIV/AIDS awareness projects. On February 26, 2017, she served as a co-chair alongside various celebrities such as Beyoncé, Lea Michele, Jim Carrey, Jared Leto, and Kevin Spacey for the 25th Annual Elton John AIDS Foundation Academy Award Party, a fundraiser for HIV/AIDS healthcare.
The proceeds from Perry's single "Part of Me" were donated to the charity MusiCares, which helps musicians in times of need. During her California Dreams Tour, she raised over $175,000 for the Tickets-For-Charity fundraiser. The money was divided between three charities: the Children's Health Fund (CHF), Generosity Water, and The Humane Society of the United States.
On her 27th birthday, Perry set up a donations page for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Auckland, and set up a similar page benefiting the David Lynch Foundation for her 28th birthday. On March 29, 2014, she helped raise $2.4 million for the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles along with other celebrities such as Ryan Seacrest, Pharrell Williams, Tim Allen, Lisa Edelstein, and Riley Keough.
Perry performed at the One Love Manchester benefit concert for the victims of the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing, among various performers including its organizer Ariana Grande, which was broadcast live on June 4, 2017, on radio and television stations around the world. In March 2018, Perry announced Witness: Coming Home, a benefit concert that was held in her hometown of Santa Barbara on May 19, 2018. The concert benefited those recovering from the aftermath of the 2017 California wildfires and 2018 Southern California mudflows. Perry partnered with the Santa Barbara Foundation, the 93108 Fund and The 805 UndocuFund, organizations which help in assisting members of the community in the Santa Barbara area through grants and various philanthropic efforts.
Activism
Perry has publicly advocated for LGBT rights and admitted that she wrote "I Kissed a Girl" about her own bisexual experiences with other women. In 2017, she received a Nation Equality Award from Human Rights Campaign for "using her powerful voice and international platform to speak out for LGBTQ equality". In her acceptance speech, she discussed having bisexual experiences, her fluid sexuality, and thanked the LGBTQ+ community. In an Out interview in 2021, she was heralded as a "gay icon" with "I Kissed a Girl" being called a "bonafide queer anthem." She continued to thank the LGBTQ+ community in the same interview, saying: "I came from a very sheltered upbringing where it wasn't okay to be friends with anyone from that community. And now that is my community, [...] I wouldn't have survived without the community and it's amazing how full circle it's come and how much growth has happened since I started."
She supported Stonewall during their "It gets better..... today" campaign to prevent homophobic bullying, and dedicated the music video to her song "Firework" to the It Gets Better Project. In 2008, Perry told Do Something she was proud to be a LGBT rights activist, saying "I've always been a very open-minded person, but I definitely believe in equality." In June 2012, Perry expressed her hopes for LGBT equality, commenting "hopefully, we will look back at this moment and think like we do now concerning [other] civil rights issues. We'll just shake our heads in disbelief, saying, 'Thank God we've evolved.' That would be my prayer for the future." In December 2012, Perry was awarded the Trevor Hero Award by The Trevor Project for her work and activism on behalf of LGBT youth.
Perry identifies as a feminist, and appeared in April 2013 in a video clip for the "Chime for Change" campaign that aimed to spread female empowerment. She has also said that America's lack of free health care drove her "absolutely crazy". Following the shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando in June 2016, Perry and nearly 200 other artists and executives in music signed an open letter organized by Billboard addressed to United States Congress demanding increased gun control in the United States.
Through Twitter and by performing at rallies, Perry supported President Barack Obama in his run for re-election and praised his support for same-sex marriage and LGBT equality. She performed at three rallies for Obama, in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Wisconsin, singing a rendition of "Let's Stay Together" as well as a number of her songs. During her Las Vegas performance she wore a dress made to replicate a voting ballot, with Obama's box filled in. On Twitter, she encouraged her followers to vote for Obama.
In August 2013, Perry voiced criticism of Tony Abbott, then-leader of conservative Liberal Party of Australia and candidate for Prime Minister of Australia, due to his opposition to gay marriage and told Abbott, "I love you as a human being but I can't give you my vote."; the statement came after Abbott expressed pride at learning of Perry's then-upcoming performance in Australia. In April 2014, she publicly supported Marianne Williamson in her campaign for California's 33rd congressional district by attending a political press event. She endorsed Kamala Harris in the United States Senate election in California, and organized a fundraiser for Harris at her home in Los Angeles in November 2016. Perry also publicly endorsed former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for president in 2016. She performed alongside Elton John at a fundraising concert for Clinton in New York City in March 2016. Perry also spoke and performed at the 2016 Democratic National Convention in support of Clinton. Four years later, she supported Joe Biden and Kamala Harris during the 2020 United States presidential election, praising the latter as a leader who had "experience we desperately need right now" and believed that the former "choosing her as his running mate is already a testament to his decision making".
Achievements
Throughout her career, Perry has won five American Music Awards, fourteen People's Choice Awards, four Guinness World Records, a Brit Award, and a Juno Award. In September 2012, Billboard dubbed her the "Woman of the Year". From May 2010 to September 2011, the singer spent a record-breaking 69 consecutive weeks in the top ten of the Billboard Hot 100. Teenage Dream became the first album by a female artist to produce five number-one Billboard Hot 100 singles, and the second album overall after Michael Jackson's Bad. In the United States, she has accumulated nine number-one singles on the Billboard Hot 100, her most recent being "Dark Horse", and holds the record for having 18 consecutive number-one songs on the Billboard Dance Club Songs chart.
Billboard also named her the 15th most successful dance club artist of all time. The magazine additionally ranked her 4th on its "Greatest of All Time Pop Songs Artists" list, included Teenage Dream and Prism among its "Greatest of All Time Billboard 200 Albums by Women" list, and ranked "Dark Horse" at number 100 on its "Greatest of All Time Hot 100 Songs" as well as one of its "Greatest of All Time Hot 100 Songs by Women" along with "E.T.", "Firework", and "California Gurls". In June 2015, her music video for "Dark Horse" became the first video by a female artist to reach 1 billion views on Vevo. The following month, her music video for "Roar" reached 1 billion views on Vevo, making her the first artist to have multiple videos with 1 billion views.
Perry was declared the Top Global Female Recording Artist of 2013 by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI). According to Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), she is the fifth top digital singles artist in the United States, with 105 million certified song units in the country including on-demand streams and also has 11 million certified album units, totaling 116 million certified units in the nation. She also became the first artist to have three songs receive Diamond certifications from the RIAA with "Dark Horse", "Firework", and "Roar". All three of them and "E.T.", "California Gurls", and "Hot n Cold" have each sold over 5 million digital copies. Throughout her career, Perry has sold more than 18 million albums and 125 million singles globally, making her one of the best-selling music artists of all time.
Discography
Katy Hudson (2001)
One of the Boys (2008)
Teenage Dream (2010)
Prism (2013)
Witness (2017)
Smile (2020)
Filmography
The Smurfs (2011)
Katy Perry: Part of Me (2012)
The Smurfs 2 (2013)
Brand: A Second Coming (2015)
Katy Perry: The Prismatic World Tour (2015)
Katy Perry: Making of the Pepsi Super Bowl Halftime Show (2015)
Jeremy Scott: The People's Designer (2015)
Zoolander 2 (2016)
Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (2016)
Tours and residency
Co-headlining tour
Strangely Normal Tour (with Phil Joel) (2001)
Headlining tours
Hello Katy Tour (2009)
California Dreams Tour (2011–2012)
Prismatic World Tour (2014–2015)
Witness: The Tour (2017–2018)
Residency
Play (2021–2022)
See also
List of best-selling music artists
List of most-followed Twitter accounts
List of Billboard Social 50 number-one artists
List of highest-certified music artists in the United States
Best-selling female artists of all time
References
Footnotes
Sources
External links
1984 births
Living people
21st-century American guitarists
21st-century American singers
21st-century American women singers
21st-century American women guitarists
Activists from California
American contraltos
American disco singers
American women pop singers
American women rock singers
American women singer-songwriters
American feminists
American film actresses
American performance artists
American pop guitarists
American pop rock singers
American rock guitarists
American rock songwriters
American television actresses
American women activists
American voice actresses
American women in electronic music
Brit Award winners
Capitol Records artists
Columbia Records artists
Dance-pop musicians
Def Jam Recordings artists
Feminist musicians
Guitarists from California
Island Records artists
Juno Award for International Album of the Year winners
LGBT rights activists from the United States
Musicians from Santa Barbara, California
MTV Europe Music Award winners
Participants in American reality television series
Singer-songwriters from California
UNICEF Goodwill Ambassadors | false | [
"\"What Did I Do to You?\" is a song recorded by British singer Lisa Stansfield for her 1989 album, Affection. It was written by Stansfield, Ian Devaney and Andy Morris, and produced by Devaney and Morris. The song was released as the fourth European single on 30 April 1990. It included three previously unreleased songs written by Stansfield, Devaney and Morris: \"My Apple Heart,\" \"Lay Me Down\" and \"Something's Happenin'.\" \"What Did I Do to You?\" was remixed by Mark Saunders and by the Grammy Award-winning American house music DJ and producer, David Morales. The single became a top forty hit in the European countries reaching number eighteen in Finland, number twenty in Ireland and number twenty-five in the United Kingdom. \"What Did I Do to You?\" was also released in Japan.\n\nIn 2014, the remixes of \"What Did I Do to You?\" were included on the deluxe 2CD + DVD re-release of Affection and on People Hold On ... The Remix Anthology. They were also featured on The Collection 1989–2003 box set (2014), including previously unreleased Red Zone Mix by David Morales.\n\nCritical reception\nThe song received positive reviews from music critics. Matthew Hocter from Albumism viewed it as a \"upbeat offering\". David Giles from Music Week said it is \"beautifully performed\" by Stansfield. A reviewer from Reading Eagle wrote that \"What Did I Do to You?\" \"would be right at home on the \"Saturday Night Fever\" soundtrack.\"\n\nMusic video\nA music video was produced to promote the single, directed by Philip Richardson, who had previously directed the videos for \"All Around the World\" and \"Live Together\". It features Stansfield with her kiss curls, dressed in a white outfit and performing with her band on a stage in front of a jumping audience. The video was later published on Stansfield's official YouTube channel in November 2009. It has amassed more than 1,6 million views as of October 2021.\n\nTrack listings\n\n European/UK 7\" single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Mark Saunders Remix Edit) – 4:20\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:59\n\n European/UK/Japanese CD single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Mark Saunders Remix Edit) – 4:20\n\"My Apple Heart\" – 5:19\n\"Lay Me Down\" – 4:17\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:59\n\n UK 10\" single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Mark Saunders Remix) – 5:52\n\"My Apple Heart\" – 5:19\n\"Lay Me Down\" – 4:17\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:59\n\n European/UK 12\" single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Morales Mix) – 7:59\n\"My Apple Heart\" – 4:22\n\"Lay Me Down\" – 3:19\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:15\n\n UK 12\" promotional single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Morales Mix) – 7:59\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Anti Poll Tax Dub) – 6:31\n\n Other remixes\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Red Zone Mix) – 7:45\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\nLisa Stansfield songs\n1990 singles\nSongs written by Lisa Stansfield\n1989 songs\nArista Records singles\nSongs written by Ian Devaney\nSongs written by Andy Morris (musician)",
"Kylie Watson (born 7 May 1978) is an Australian actress, interior designer and model. She is best known for playing Shauna Bradley in the Australian soap opera Home and Away between 1999 and 2002. She is now a successful interior designer.\n\nCareer\nIn her teens, Watson was an international model, travelling to Asia for several contracts.\n\nIn February 1999, Watson received an audition for Home and Away. However, she decided not to attend the audition because she did not think she stood a chance of winning the part. Her agent persuaded her to change her mind and she went on to receive the role of Shauna Bradley. It was her first acting role and she revealed \"So at that point, I thought 'What am I going to do? I've never done this before, never acted in my life.' My agent booked me into acting classes – I think I had about eight weeks before I started so I was absolutely petrified. I think I was really bad, to be honest, at the beginning. But like anything if you really put your mind to it and love what you do, you invest the time to grow and educate yourself and I did do that.\"\n\nAfter leaving Home and Away in 2002, Watson completed a diploma in interior design. She began her own business called KW Design.\n\nIn 2009, Watson starred in Lightswitch, a short film directed by Emma Keltie and written by Natalie Krikowa and Penny Glasswell. The film played at various LGBT festivals.\n\nPersonal life\nWatson is lesbian. She came out in an issue of Cherrie magazine in March 2008. Watson told Katrina Fox \"I've never made a point of letting people know about my sexuality because I've never thought it was relevant, but it's who I am and I'm not ashamed of it. However in saying that, I think in this particular day it's a lot easier to be identified as a not-so-straight woman particularly with The L Word series out where it's glamorised if you like; it's almost a bit of a fad like we're in fashion.\"\n\nFilmography\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\nAustralian soap opera actresses\nAustralian interior designers\n1978 births\nLiving people\nAustralian lesbian actresses"
] |
[
"Katy Perry",
"1999-2006: Career beginnings",
"when was katy parry's first album under her stage name?",
"March 6, 2001,",
"what did she do between 1999 and 2001?",
"2001, and went on tour that year as part of Phil Joel's Strangely Normal Tour while also embarking on other performances of her own in the United States."
] | C_29e64ee43f0547139a7c08bceed86ff2_1 | Was her first album as Katy Perry a hit? | 3 | Was Perry's first album as Katy Perry a hit? | Katy Perry | Perry completed her General Educational Development (GED) requirements at age 15, during her freshman year of high school, and left Dos Pueblos High School to pursue a musical career. She briefly studied Italian opera at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara. Her singing caught the attention of rock artists Steve Thomas and Jennifer Knapp from Nashville, Tennessee, who brought her there to improve her writing skills. In Nashville, she started recording demos and learned how to write songs and play guitar. After signing with Red Hill Records, Perry recorded her debut album, a gospel record titled Katy Hudson. She released the album on March 6, 2001, and went on tour that year as part of Phil Joel's Strangely Normal Tour while also embarking on other performances of her own in the United States. Katy Hudson received positive reviews from critics, though was commercially unsuccessful and sold an estimated 200 copies before the label ceased operations in December. Transitioning from gospel music to secular music, Perry started writing songs with producer Glen Ballard, and moved to Los Angeles at age 17. In 2003, she briefly performed as Katheryn Perry to avoid confusion with actress Kate Hudson. She later adopted the stage name Katy Perry, using her mother's maiden name. In 2004, Perry signed to Ballard's label, Java, which was then affiliated with The Island Def Jam Music Group. She began work on a solo record, but the record was shelved after Java was dropped. Ballard then introduced Perry to Tim Devine, an A&R executive at Columbia Records, and she was signed as a solo artist. Over the course of the next two years, Perry wrote and recorded material for her Columbia debut, and worked with songwriters including Desmond Child, Greg Wells, Butch Walker, Scott Cutler, Anne Preven, The Matrix, Kara DioGuardi, Max Martin and Dr. Luke. In addition, after Devine suggested that songwriting team The Matrix become a "real group", Perry recorded with them. Perry was dropped from Columbia in 2006 as her record neared completion. After the label dropped her, she worked at an independent A&R company called Taxi Music. Perry had minor success prior to her breakthrough. One of the songs she had recorded for her album with Ballard, "Simple", was featured on the soundtrack to the 2005 film The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. She provided backing vocals on Mick Jagger's song "Old Habits Die Hard", which was included on the soundtrack to the 2004 film Alfie. In September 2004, Blender named Perry "The Next Big Thing". She recorded background vocals on P.O.D.'s single "Goodbye for Now" and was featured at the end of its music video in 2006. That year, Perry also appeared in the music video for "Learn to Fly" by Carbon Leaf, and played the love interest of her then-boyfriend, Gym Class Heroes lead singer Travie McCoy, in the band's music video for "Cupid's Chokehold". CANNOTANSWER | Katy Hudson received positive reviews from critics, though was commercially unsuccessful | Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson (born October 25, 1984), known professionally as Katy Perry, is an American singer, songwriter, and television judge. She is known for her influence on the pop sound and style of the 2010s. Pursuing a career in gospel music at 16, Perry released her commercially unsuccessful debut album, Katy Hudson (2001), under Red Hill Records. She moved to Los Angeles at 17 to venture into secular music, adopting the stage name "Katy Perry" from her mother's maiden name. With producers Glen Ballard and Greg Wells, she recorded an unreleased album titled Fingerprints while signed to Java Records and then Columbia Records before being dropped. After this, she signed a recording contract with Capitol Records in April 2007.
Perry rose to fame with her second album and major label debut, One of the Boys (2008), a pop rock record containing her debut single "I Kissed a Girl" and follow-up single "Hot n Cold", which respectively reached number one and three on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. The disco-influenced pop album Teenage Dream (2010) spawned five U.S. number one singles—"California Gurls", "Teenage Dream", "Firework", "E.T.", and "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)"—becoming the first album by a solo female artist to do so. A reissue titled Teenage Dream: The Complete Confection (2012) subsequently had the U.S. number one single "Part of Me". Her fourth album Prism (2013) has themes of self-empowerment and relationships. With the music videos for its U.S. number one singles "Roar" and "Dark Horse", Perry became the first artist to have multiple videos reach one billion views on YouTube. Witness (2017) featured an electropop sound with themes of liberation and a political subtext, while Smile (2020) featured themes of motherhood and self-help. She later embarked on her first concert residency titled Play in Resorts World Las Vegas, selling out multiple shows and receiving critical acclaim.
Perry is one of the best-selling artists of all time, having sold over 143 million records worldwide. All of her studio albums released under Capitol have individually surpassed one billion streams on Spotify. She has nine U.S. number one singles, three U.S. number one albums and has received various accolades, including four Guinness World Records, five Billboard Music Awards, five American Music Awards, a Brit Award, and a Juno Award. Perry has been included in the annual Forbes lists of highest-earning women in music from 2011 to 2019. Her critically acclaimed Super Bowl halftime show performance is the most watched in history. Outside of music, she released an autobiographical documentary titled Katy Perry: Part of Me in 2012, and voiced Smurfette in The Smurfs film series. Perry began serving as a judge on American Idol, starting from its sixteenth season in 2018. She is also the most followed woman on Twitter, with over 108 million followers.
Life and career
1984–1998: Early life and family
Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson was born on October 25, 1984, in Santa Barbara, California, to Pentecostal pastors Mary Christine (née Perry) and Maurice Keith Hudson. Both of her parents turned to religion after a "wild youth". Perry has English, German, Irish, and Portuguese ancestry. Through her mother, she is a niece of film director Frank Perry. She has a younger brother named David, who is a singer, and an older sister, Angela.
From ages three to 11, Perry often moved across the country as her parents set up churches before settling again in Santa Barbara. Growing up, she attended religious schools and camps, including Paradise Valley Christian School in Arizona and Santa Barbara Christian School in California during her elementary years. Her family struggled financially, sometimes using food stamps and eating food from the food bank which also fed the congregation at Perry's parents' church.
Growing up, Perry and her siblings were not allowed to eat the cereal Lucky Charms as the word "luck" reminded their mother of Lucifer, and had to call deviled eggs "angeled eggs". Perry primarily listened to gospel music, as secular music was generally discouraged in the family's home. She discovered popular music through CDs she sneaked from her friends. Perry later recalled a story about how a friend of hers played "You Oughta Know" by Alanis Morissette, which impacted her songwriting and singing.
While not strictly identifying as religious, she has stated, "I pray all the time – for self-control, for humility." Wanting to be like her sister Angela, Perry began singing by practicing with her sister's cassette tapes. She performed the tracks in front of their parents, who let her take vocal lessons as Angela was at the time. She began training at age nine, and was incorporated into her parents' ministry, singing in church from ages nine to 17. At 13, Perry was given her first guitar for her birthday, and publicly performed songs she wrote. She tried to "be a bit like the typical Californian girl" while growing up, and started rollerskating, skateboarding, and surfing as a teenager. Her brother David described her as a tomboy during her adolescence, which Perry talks about on her song "One Of The Boys". She took dancing lessons and learned how to swing, Lindy Hop, and jitterbug.
1999–2006: Career beginnings, Katy Hudson and Fingerprints
Perry completed her General Educational Development (GED) requirements at age 15, during her first year of high school, and left Dos Pueblos High School to pursue a music career. She briefly had music lessons in facilities rented from the Music Academy of the West. Her singing caught the attention of rock artists Steve Thomas and Jennifer Knapp from Nashville, Tennessee, who brought her there to improve her writing skills. In Nashville, she started recording demos and learned how to write songs and play guitar. Perry signed with Red Hill Records and recorded her debut album, a contemporary Christian record titled Katy Hudson, which was released on March 6, 2001. She also went on tour that year as part of Phil Joel's Strangely Normal Tour and embarked on other performances of her own in the United States. Katy Hudson received mixed reviews from critics and was commercially unsuccessful, selling an estimated 200 copies before the label ceased operations in December. Transitioning from gospel music to secular music, Perry started working with producer Glen Ballard, and moved to Los Angeles at age 17. She opted to work with Ballard due to his past work with Alanis Morissette, one of her major inspirations. In 2003, she briefly performed as Katheryn Perry to avoid confusion with actress Kate Hudson. She later adopted the stage name 'Katy Perry', using her mother's maiden name. In 2010, she recalled that "Thinking of You" was one of the first songs she wrote after moving to Los Angeles.
In 2004, she signed to Ballard's label, Java Records, which was then affiliated with The Island Def Jam Music Group. Perry began work on a solo record due for release in March 2005, but the record was shelved after Java was dropped. Ballard then introduced her to Tim Devine, an A&R executive at Columbia Records, and she was signed as a solo artist. By November 2006, Perry had finished writing and recording material for her Columbia debut titled Fingerprints (with some of the material from this time appearing on One of the Boys) which was planned for release in 2007. Some of the material from Fingerprints that did not make it on One Of The Boys was given to other artists, such as "I Do Not Hook Up" and "Long Shot" to Kelly Clarkson and "Rock God" to Selena Gomez & the Scene.
Perry worked with songwriters including Desmond Child, Greg Wells, Butch Walker, Scott Cutler, Anne Preven, The Matrix, Kara DioGuardi, Max Martin, and Dr. Luke. In addition, after Devine suggested that songwriting team The Matrix become a "real group", she recorded a shelved album called The Matrix with them. The Matrix was planned to be released in 2004 but was cancelled due to creative differences. It was later released in 2009 after the release of One of the Boys. Perry was dropped from Columbia in 2006 as Fingerprints neared completion. After the label dropped her, she worked at an independent A&R company called Taxi Music.
Perry had minor success prior to her breakthrough. One of the songs she had recorded for her album with Ballard, "Simple", was featured on the soundtrack to the 2005 film The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. She provided backing vocals on Mick Jagger's song "Old Habits Die Hard", which was included on the soundtrack to the 2004 film Alfie. In September 2004, Blender named Perry "The Next Big Thing". She recorded background vocals on P.O.D.'s single "Goodbye for Now", was featured at the end of its music video in 2006, and performed it with them on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. That year, Perry also appeared in the music video for "Learn to Fly" by Carbon Leaf, and played the love interest of her then-boyfriend, Gym Class Heroes lead singer Travie McCoy, in the band's music video for "Cupid's Chokehold".
2007–2009: Breakthrough with One of the Boys
After Columbia dropped Perry, Angelica Cob-Baehler, then a publicity executive at the label, brought Perry's demos to Virgin Records chairman Jason Flom. Flom was convinced that she could be a breakthrough star and she was signed to Capitol Records in April 2007. The label arranged for her to work with Dr. Luke to add an "undeniable smash" to her existing material. Perry and Dr. Luke co-wrote the songs "I Kissed a Girl" and "Hot n Cold" for her second album One of the Boys. A campaign was started with the November 2007 release of the video to "Ur So Gay", a song aimed at introducing her to the music market. A digital EP of the same name was also released that month. Madonna helped publicize the song by praising it on the JohnJay & Rich radio show in April 2008, stating "Ur So Gay" was her "favorite song" at the time. In March 2008, Perry made a cameo appearance as a club singer in the Wildfire episode "Life's Too Short" and appeared as herself during a photo shoot that June on The Young and the Restless for the show's magazine Restless Style.
Perry released her first single with Capitol, "I Kissed a Girl", on April 28, 2008, as the lead single from One of the Boys. The first station to pick up the song was WRVW in Nashville, who were inundated with enthusiastic calls the first three days they played it. The track reached number one on the US Billboard Hot 100. "I Kissed a Girl" created controversy among both religious and LGBT groups. The former criticized its homosexual theme, while the latter accused her of using bi-curiosity to sell records. In response to speculation that her parents opposed her music and career, Perry told MTV that they had no problems with her success. One of the Boys, released on June 17, 2008, garnered mixed critical reviews and reached number nine on the US Billboard 200. The album went on to sell 7 million copies worldwide. "Hot n Cold" was released the following September and became the album's second successful single, reaching number three on the Billboard Hot 100 while topping charts in Germany, Canada, the Netherlands and Austria. Later singles "Thinking of You" and "Waking Up in Vegas" were released in 2009 and reached the top 30 of the Hot 100. The Matrix's self-titled debut album, which Perry had recorded with the band in 2004, was released onto iTunes on January 27, 2009, as a result of her solo success.
After finishing the 2008 Warped Tour, Perry hosted the 2008 MTV Europe Music Awards in November 2008, where she won the award for Best New Act. At the 2009 Brit Awards, she also won the award for International Female Solo Artist. Perry embarked on her first headlining world tour, the Hello Katy Tour, from January to November 2009 to support One of the Boys. On August 4, 2009, she performed as opening act for one date of No Doubt's 2009 Summer Tour. Perry also hosted the 2009 MTV Europe Music Awards in November 2009, becoming the first person to host two consecutive ceremonies of the European awards. On July 22, 2009, Perry recorded a live album titled MTV Unplugged, which featured acoustic performances of five tracks from One of the Boys as well as one new song, "Brick by Brick", and a cover of Fountains of Wayne's "Hackensack". It was released on November 17, 2009. Perry also appeared on two singles with other artists; she was featured on a remix of Colorado-based band 3OH!3's song "Starstrukk" in September 2009, and on a duet with Timbaland entitled "If We Ever Meet Again", from his album Shock Value II, three months later. The Guinness World Records recognized her in its 2010 edition as the "Best Start on the U.S. Digital Chart by a Female Artist", for digital single sales of over two million copies.
After Perry and Travie McCoy split up in December 2008, they briefly reconciled before she ended their relationship in 2009. Perry met her future husband Russell Brand in the summer of 2009 while filming a cameo appearance for his film Get Him to the Greek. Her scene, in which the two kiss, does not appear in the film. She began dating Brand after meeting him again that September at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards. The couple became engaged on December 31, 2009, while vacationing in Rajasthan, India.
2010–2012: Teenage Dream and first marriage
After serving as a guest judge on American Idol, Perry released "California Gurls" featuring Snoop Dogg on May 7, 2010. The song was the lead single from her third studio album, Teenage Dream, and reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in June. She also served as a guest judge on British The X Factor later that month before releasing the album's second single, "Teenage Dream", in July. "Teenage Dream" reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in September. Released on August 24, 2010, Teenage Dream debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, and received mixed reviews from music critics. It has since sold 6 million copies worldwide. Teenage Dream would go on to win the 2011 Juno Award for International Album of the Year. In October, "Firework" was released as the album's third single. It became the album's third consecutive number one on the Billboard Hot 100 on December 8, 2010.
"E.T." featuring Kanye West was released as the fourth single from Teenage Dream on February 16, 2011. It topped the Billboard Hot 100 for five non-consecutive weeks, making Teenage Dream the ninth album in history to produce four number one singles on the chart. "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)" followed as the fifth single in June, and Perry became the first female artist to achieve five number-one Billboard Hot 100 songs from one album when the single topped that chart on August 17, and the second artist after Michael Jackson with his album Bad. For this record, she received an honorary American Music Award in November 2011 and a 2013 Guinness World Record. On September 7, she set a new record by becoming the first artist to spend 69 consecutive weeks in the top ten of the Hot 100. After "The One That Got Away" was released as the album's sixth single in October, Teenage Dream became the third album to spawn six top-five songs on the Billboard Hot 100 after Rhythm Nation 1814 by Janet Jackson and Faith by George Michael. The song peaked at number three in the US and number two in Canada.
On January 5, 2012, Perry was named the sixth best-selling digital artist in the United States, with sales of 37.6 million units according to Nielsen SoundScan. That month, she became the first artist to have four songs sell over 5 million digital units when "E.T." reached that mark along with "Firework", "California Gurls", and "Hot N Cold". On February 13, Capitol released the lead single from Teenage Dream: The Complete Confection, "Part of Me", which debuted at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and became Perry's seventh single overall to top the chart. Teenage Dream: The Complete Confection was released on March 23, and serves as a reissue of Teenage Dream. "Wide Awake" was released on May 22 as the re-release's second single, peaking at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 and number one in Canada and New Zealand.
Perry embarked on her second tour, the California Dreams Tour, in support of Teenage Dream from February 2011 to January 2012. The tour grossed $59.5 million globally and won her the award for Best Live Act at the 2011 MTV Europe Music Awards. On September 23, 2011, she performed on the opening day of the 2011 Rock in Rio festival along with Elton John and Rihanna. In September 2010, Perry was scheduled to appear on the 41st-season premiere of Sesame Street. After her scene was uploaded to YouTube, viewers criticized Perry's exposed cleavage. Four days before the scheduled airing, Sesame Workshop announced that the segment would not air on television, but would still be available to watch online. Perry subsequently mocked the controversy on Saturday Night Live, where she was a musical guest and wore an Elmo-themed shirt showing large amounts of cleavage during one skit.
In December 2010, Perry played Moe Szyslak's girlfriend in the live-action segment from a Christmas episode of The Simpsons titled "The Fight Before Christmas". In February 2011, she made a guest appearance on the How I Met Your Mother episode "Oh Honey", playing a woman known as Honey. The role won her the People's Choice Award for Favorite TV Guest Star in January 2012. She made her film debut in the 3D family motion picture The Smurfs as Smurfette on July 29, 2011. The film was a financial success worldwide, while critics gave mostly negative reviews. She hosted Saturday Night Live on December 10, 2011, with Robyn as the episode's musical guest. Perry's work on the episode received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised her performance in the episode's digital short featuring her and Andy Samberg. In March 2012, she guest starred as a prison security guard named Rikki on the Raising Hope episode "Single White Female Role Model". On July 5, 2012, Perry's autobiographical documentary Katy Perry: Part of Me was released to theaters through Paramount Pictures. The film received positive reviews and grossed $32.7 million worldwide at the box office.
Perry began to venture into business when she endorsed her first fragrance, Purr, in November 2010. Her second fragrance, Meow!, was released in December 2011. Both perfumes were released through Nordstrom department stores. Electronic Arts recruited her to promote their new expansion pack for The Sims 3: Showtime, before releasing a separate stuff pack featuring Perry-inspired furniture, outfits, and hairstyles, titled The Sims 3: Katy Perry's Sweet Treats, in June 2012. The following month, she became the spokesperson and ambassador for Popchips and made an investment in the company. Billboard dubbed her as their "Woman of the Year" for 2012.
She married Russell Brand on October 23, 2010, in a traditional Hindu ceremony near the Ranthambhore tiger sanctuary in Rajasthan, India. Brand announced on December 30, 2011, that they were divorcing after 14 months of marriage. Perry later stated that conflicting career schedules and his desire to have children before she was ready led to the end of their marriage and that he never spoke to her again after sending a text message that he was divorcing her, while Brand asserted that he divorced her due to her commercial success and reluctance to engage in activism. She was initially distraught over their divorce, and said that she contemplated suicide. After the marriage ended in 2012, Perry began a relationship with singer John Mayer that August.
2013–2015: Prism and Super Bowl XLIX halftime show
In November 2012, Perry began work on her fourth album, Prism. She told Billboard, "I know exactly the record I want to make next. I know the artwork, the coloring and the tone" and "I even know what type of tour I'm doing next. I'll be very pleased if the vision I have in my head becomes a reality." After initially telling L'Uomo Vogue in June 2012 that she planned to have "darker elements" in Prism following the end of her marriage, the singer revealed to MTV during the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards that she changed the album's direction after periods of self-reflection. Perry commented "I felt very prismatic", which inspired the album's name. "Roar" was released as the lead single from Prism on August 10, 2013. It was promoted at the MTV Video Music Awards and reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100. "Unconditionally" followed as the second single from Prism on October 16, 2013, and peaked at number 14 in the United States.
Prism was released on October 18, 2013, and has sold 4 million copies as of August 2015. It received favorable reviews from critics and debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 chart. Four days later, Perry performed the songs from the album at the iHeartRadio Theater in Los Angeles. "Dark Horse" with Juicy J was released as the album's third single in December, and became her ninth U.S. number-one single the following month. In 2014, "Birthday" and "This Is How We Do" respectively followed as the album's fourth and fifth singles, and reached the top 25 on the Hot 100. Prior to ending her relationship with Mayer in February 2014, she recorded and co-wrote a duet with him titled "Who You Love" for his album Paradise Valley. The song was released on August 12, 2013. Perry's third headlining tour, the Prismatic World Tour, began in May 2014 and concluded in October 2015. It sold almost 2 million tickets and grossed $204.3 million worldwide and won Perry the award for "Top Package" at the 2014 Billboard Touring Awards. She also performed at the 2015 Rock in Rio festival on September 27, 2015.
On November 23, 2014, the NFL announced that Perry would perform at the Super Bowl XLIX halftime show on February 1, 2015. Lenny Kravitz and Missy Elliott served as special guests for the show. Her performance was critically acclaimed, and the Guinness World Records announced two days after the singer's halftime show that it garnered 118.5 million viewers in the United States, becoming the most watched and highest rated show in Super Bowl history. The viewership was higher than the game itself, which was viewed by an audience of 114.4 million.
The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) ranked her fifth on the list of Top Global Recording Artists of 2013. On June 26, 2014, she was declared the Top Certified Digital Artist Ever by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for certified sales of 72 million digital singles in the United States. In May 2014, a portrait of Perry by painter Mark Ryden was featured in his exhibition "The Gay 90s", and shown at the Kohn Gallery in Los Angeles. Along with several other artists, she also recorded a cover version of the song "Daisy Bell (Bicycle Built for Two)" on a limited-edition concept album titled The Gay Nineties Old Tyme Music: Daisy Bell to accompany the exhibition. That month, a portrait of Perry by artist Will Cotton was included in the United States National Portrait Gallery. On November 23, 2015, Perry starred in H&M's holiday advertising campaign, for which she wrote and recorded a song titled "Every Day Is a Holiday".
On June 17, 2014, Perry announced that she had founded her own record label under Capitol Records, titled Metamorphosis Music. Ferras was the first artist to get signed to her label, and Perry served as an executive producer on his self-titled EP. She also recorded a duet with him on the EP, titled "Legends Never Die". The label was later renamed Unsub Records.
Outside of her music career, Perry reprised her role as Smurfette in The Smurfs 2, which was released in theaters on July 31, 2013. Like its predecessor, The Smurfs 2 was a financial success but was panned by critics. In March 2014, she made a guest appearance playing herself in the episode "Blisteritos Presents Dad Academy Graduation Congraduritos Red Carpet Viewing Party" of the Kroll Show. Killer Queen was released as her third fragrance in August 2013 through Coty, Inc. In January 2014, she became a guest curator of Madonna's Art for Freedom initiative. In March 2015, she appeared in Brand: A Second Coming, a documentary following her ex-husband Russell Brand's transition from comedy work to activism, and released a concert film titled Katy Perry: The Prismatic World Tour through Epix, which took place during her tour of the same name. Perry also made a cameo appearance in the music video for Madonna's song "Bitch I'm Madonna" in June 2015. The following month, she released another fragrance with Coty, entitled Mad Potion. In September 2015, she appeared in the documentaries Katy Perry: Making of the Pepsi Super Bowl Halftime Show, which followed Perry's preparation for her Super Bowl performance, and Jeremy Scott: The People's Designer, which followed the life and career of designer Jeremy Scott. Perry released a mobile app titled Katy Perry Pop in December 2015 through Glu Mobile where her character helps players become famous musicians. She described it as "the most fun, colorful world that helps guide your musical dreams".
2016–2018: Witness and American Idol
Perry started writing songs for her new album in June 2016, and recorded an anthem for NBC Sports's coverage of the 2016 Summer Olympics titled "Rise", which was released the following month. Perry chose to release it as a standalone track rather than save it for her album "because now more than ever, there is a need for our world to unite". NBC also felt its message spoke "directly to the spirit of the Olympics and its athletes" for its inspirational themes. The song reached number one in Australia and number eleven in the United States.
In August 2016, Perry stated that she aspired to create material "that connects and relates and inspires" and told Ryan Seacrest that she was "not rushing" her fifth album, adding "I'm just having a lot of fun, but experimenting and trying different producers, and different collaborators, and different styles". On February 10, 2017, Perry released the album's lead single "Chained to the Rhythm" featuring Skip Marley. It reached number one in Hungary and number four in the United States. The track was also streamed over three million times on Spotify within 24 hours, breaking the music streaming service's record at the time for the highest first-day streaming for a single track by a female artist. The album's second single, "Bon Appétit" with Migos, was released that April. Its third single, "Swish Swish", featured Nicki Minaj and followed the next month. They respectively peaked at numbers 59 and 46 in the United States, and made the top 15 in Canada.
The album, titled Witness, was released on June 9, 2017, to mixed reviews, and debuted at number one in the United States. To accompany the album's release, Perry broadcast herself on YouTube for four days with a live-stream titled Katy Perry Live: Witness World Wide, concluding with a live concert on June 12. The live-stream generated over 49 million views from 190 different countries. She also embarked on Witness: The Tour, which began in September 2017 and ended in August 2018. On June 15, 2017, Calvin Harris released a song titled "Feels" from his album Funk Wav Bounces Vol. 1, which featured Perry, Big Sean, and Pharrell Williams. The song went on to reach number one in the United Kingdom.
Perry subsequently recorded a cover of the Dear Evan Hansen song "Waving Through a Window" for the deluxe edition of the cast recording, which was released on November 2, 2018. The show's creators Benj Pasek and Justin Paul had requested Perry to cover the song to promote the musical's national tour and bring awareness to mental health. Later that month, Perry released "Cozy Little Christmas". She also recorded the song "Immortal Flame" for the game Final Fantasy Brave Exvius, and had a playable character modeled after her.
Outside of recording music, Perry appeared as herself in the film Zoolander 2, which was released in February 2016. In February 2017, the singer launched a shoe line titled "Katy Perry Collections". Her shoes are available on her website, Katy Perry Collections, and at retailers such as Dillard's and Walmart. The following August, she hosted the 2017 MTV Video Music Awards. Perry was signed for a $25-million salary to serve as a judge on ABC's revival of American Idol, which premiered in March 2018. Perry began a relationship with Orlando Bloom in early 2016, and the couple got engaged on February 14, 2019.
2019–present: Smile, motherhood and Play residency
At the 61st Annual Grammy Awards, Perry performed "Here You Come Again", alongside Dolly Parton and Kacey Musgraves, as part of a tribute to Parton. Four days later, she released a song called "365", with DJ Zedd. In April, Perry was included on a remix of Daddy Yankee's song "Con Calma", featuring Snow. She followed this with the singles "Never Really Over" on May 31, "Small Talk" on August 9, and "Harleys in Hawaii" on October 16.
In June 2019, Perry appeared in the music video of Taylor Swift's "You Need to Calm Down". In July, a jury in California passed a verdict following a week-long trial that Perry's song "Dark Horse" had copied Flame's 2008 song "Joyful Noise" after he filed a copyright lawsuit alleging that it used his track's beat without permission, which was later overturned. After the initial verdict, the jury ordered her to pay him $550,000. The next month, Josh Kloss, Perry's co-star in the "Teenage Dream" music video, accused her of sexual misconduct. In an Instagram post, Kloss alleged that, during a party at a skating rink, Perry pulled on his sweatpants and underwear, exposing his penis to her male friends. He also said her management prevented him from speaking about his time with the singer. However, Johnny Wujek, the creative director of said party defended Perry, saying that she "would never do something like that" and accused Kloss of having an "ongoing obsession" with her. After initially refraining from responding to this, believing it would have detracted from the Me Too movement, Perry has also denied Kloss's claims.
Following the release of her single "Never Worn White" in March 2020, Perry revealed in the accompanying music video that she was expecting her first child with Bloom. "Daisies", the lead single from her sixth album, was released on May 15, 2020. Its second single "Smile" followed two months later. The album, also titled Smile, was released on August 28, 2020. Two days before its distribution, she gave birth to a daughter named Daisy Dove Bloom. The album received mixed reviews, and debuted at number five in the United States. Perry further promoted the album with four compilation EPs: Camp Katy, Empowered, Scorpio SZN, and Cosmic Energy. These EPs were followed by the single "Not the End of the World" in December 2020, which had a music video in which Zooey Deschanel impersonates Perry. Additionally she collaborated with various artists to create two remixes of Smile album tracks. Tiësto remix of "Resillient" featuring Aitana was released in November 2020, while Bruno Martini remix of "Cry About It Later" featuring Luísa Sonza was released in April 2021. In January 20, 2021, Perry performed "Firework" at the Celebrating America concert during the inauguration of Joe Biden. Four months later, she released a new single, "Electric", a collaboration with Pokémon for their 25th anniversary.
Perry began hosting a residency named Play at Resorts World Las Vegas on December 29, 2021. The show's inception happened during the COVID-19 lockdown with Perry being inspired by 1990s movies such as Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, Pee-wee's Playhouse, and Pee-wee's Big Adventure. She described it as "larger than life" and "the kookiest, most camp show I've ever put together." The show has received critical acclaim with Melinda Sheckells of Billboard saying that "[Play's] sold-out opening night is part fantasy, part hallucination and thoroughly camp.
In September 2021, Variety paid tribute to and honored Perry on their "Power of Women" issue, where she discussed her career, motherhood, and philanthropy. As a nominee, she attended the Variety 2021 "Power of Women" dinner. On her 37th birthday the following month, Perry guest hosted The Ellen DeGeneres Show and starred in a holiday advertisement for Gap Inc. which featured her singing "All You Need Is Love" by The Beatles. A full version of her cover was released on streaming platforms the same day. Two months later, Perry followed this with "When I'm Gone", a collaboration with Alesso.
Artistry
Influences
Perry cites her sister Angela as the woman who has had the most influence on her. During the early stages of her career, Perry's musical style gravitated towards gospel and she aspired to be as successful as Amy Grant. At age 15, she heard "Killer Queen" by Queen, which inspired her to pursue a music career. She cites the band's frontman, Freddie Mercury, as her biggest influence and expressed how the "combination of his sarcastic approach to writing lyrics and his 'I don't give a fuck' attitude" inspired her music. She paid homage to the band by naming her third fragrance Killer Queen. Perry described the Beach Boys and their album Pet Sounds as having a considerable influence on her music: "Pet Sounds is one of my favorite records and it influenced pretty much all of my songwriting. All of the melody choices that I make are because of Pet Sounds." The singer also holds the Beatles' album The Beatles in high esteem, and described these two albums as "the only things I listened to for probably two years straight."
She cites Alanis Morissette and her 1995 album Jagged Little Pill as a significant musical inspiration, stating in 2012: "Jagged Little Pill was the most perfect female record ever made. There's a song for anyone on that record; I relate to all those songs. They're still so timeless." Additionally, Perry borrows influence from Flaming Red by Patty Griffin and 10 Cent Wings by Jonatha Brooke. Perry's autobiographical documentary Katy Perry: Part of Me was largely influenced by Madonna: Truth or Dare. She admires Madonna's ability to reinvent herself, saying "I want to evolve like Madonna".
Perry names Björk as an influence, particularly admiring her "willingness to always be taking chances". Other artists who Perry has cited as influences include Stevie Nicks, ABBA, the Cardigans, Cyndi Lauper, Ace of Base, 3OH!3, CeCe Peniston, C+C Music Factory, Black Box, Crystal Waters, Mariah Carey, Heart, Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, Imogen Heap, Rufus Wainwright, Pink, and Gwen Stefani. "Firework" was inspired by a passage in the book On the Road by Jack Kerouac in which the author compares people who are full of life to fireworks that shoot across the sky and make people watch in awe. Her second concert tour, the California Dreams Tour, was reminiscent of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. She also credits the 1996 film The Craft for inspiring her song "Dark Horse", and Eckhart Tolle's book The Power of Now for influencing Prism.
Musical style and themes
While Perry's music incorporates pop, rock, and disco, Katy Hudson contains gospel. Her subsequent releases, One of the Boys and Teenage Dream, involve themes of sex and love. One of the Boys is a pop rock record, while Teenage Dream features disco influences. Perry's fourth album, Prism, is significantly influenced by dance and pop music. Lyrically, the album addresses relationships, self-reflection, and everyday life. Her fifth studio effort Witness is an electropop album that she described as a "360-degree liberation" record, with themes including political liberation, sexual liberation, and liberation from negativity. Many of her songs, particularly on Teenage Dream, reflect on love between teenagers; W magazine described the album's sexual innuendos as "irresistible hook-laden melodies". Self-empowerment is a common theme in Perry's music.
Perry has described herself as a "singer-songwriter masquerading as a pop star" and maintains that honest songwriting is very important to her. She told Marie Claire: "I feel like my secret magic trick that separates me from a lot of my peers is the bravery to be vulnerable and truthful and honest. I think you become more relatable when you're vulnerable." Actress and comedian Kristen Wiig commented that "as easy, breezy, and infectious as Perry's songs can be, beneath the surface lurks a sea of mixed emotions, jumbled motives, and contradictory impulses complicated enough to fill a Carole King record." According to Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune, "being taken seriously may be Perry's greatest challenge yet." In 2013, The New York Times labeled her "the most potent pop star of the day – her hits are relatable with just a hint of experimentation". Randall Roberts of the Los Angeles Times criticized her use of idioms and metaphors in her lyrics and for frequent "clichés". Throughout her career, Perry has also co-written songs recorded by other artists, including Lesley Roy, Kelly Clarkson, Jessie James Decker, Selena Gomez & the Scene, Britney Spears, Iggy Azalea, Rita Ora, Nicki Minaj, and Ariana Grande.
Voice
Perry possesses a contralto vocal range. Her singing has received both praise and criticism. Betty Clarke of The Guardian commented that her "powerful voice is hard-edged" while Rob Sheffield from Rolling Stone described Perry's vocals on Teenage Dream as "processed staccato blips". Darren Harvey of musicOMH compared Perry's vocals on One of the Boys to Alanis Morissette's, both possessing a "perky voice shifting octaves mid-syllable". Alex Miller from NME felt that "Perry's problem is often her voice" on One of the Boys, stating that "somewhere along the line someone convinced her she was like, well, a ballsy rock chick". Conversely, Bernadette McNulty from The Daily Telegraph praised her "rock chick voice" in a review of a concert promoting Prism.
Public image
On social media, Perry surpassed Justin Bieber as the most followed person on Twitter in November 2013. She won the 2015 Guinness World Record for most Twitter followers, and became the first person to gain 100 million followers on the site in June 2017. Keith Caulfield of Billboard stated that Perry is "the rare celebrity who seems to have enormous popularity but genuine ground-level interaction with her adoring KatyCats." With over 108 Twitter million followers, she is the most followed female on the site, and the fifth most followed musician across social media with a combined total of over 326 million followers across Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. In June 2017, Time magazine listed Perry among its "25 Most Influential People on the Internet" of the year, writing that her live-stream for Witness was "blazing a trail" for being "the closest any major entertainer has come to giving fans the kind of 'real' intimacy that social media purports to provide".
In 2011, Forbes ranked Perry third on their "Top-Earning Women In Music" list with earnings of $44 million and fifth on their 2012 list with $45 million. She subsequently ranked seventh on the 2013 Forbes list for "Top-Earning Women In Music" with $39 million earned, and fifth on their 2014 list with $40 million. With earnings of $135 million, Forbes also ranked Perry number one on their 2015 "Top-Earning Women In Music" list as well as the "World's Highest-Paid Musicians" and declared her the highest earning female celebrity in 2015, placing her at number 3 on the Forbes Celebrity 100 list. In 2016, the magazine estimated her net worth was $125 million, and ranked her number six on their list of "Highest-Paid Women in Music" with earnings of $41 million. The following year, she was ranked number nine on the list with $33 million. In 2018, she topped its "Highest-Paid Women in Music" listing and ranked at number four on the "Highest-Paid Female Celebrities" list with earnings of $83 million. Perry subsequently was placed at number four on the 2019 "Highest-Paid Women in Music" listings with $57.5 million. Later that year, with earnings of $530 million throughout the 2010s, the magazine also ranked her as the 9th highest earning musician of the decade.
Fashion
Perry has been described as a sex symbol; GQ labeled her a "full-on male fantasy", while Elle wrote her body looked "as though sketched by a teenage boy". Vice called her a serious' popstar/woman/sex symbol". She was placed at number one on the Maxim Hot 100 in 2010 as the "most beautiful woman in the world", with editor Joe Levy describing her as a "triple – no quadruple – kind of hot". Men's Health readers voted her the "sexiest woman of 2013". In November 2010, Perry told Harper's Bazaar that she was proud of and satisfied with her figure.
Perry's fashion often incorporates humor, bright colors, and food-related themes such as her characteristic spinning peppermint swirl dress. Vogue described her as "never exactly one to shy away from the outrageous or the extreme in any realm" and called her the "Queen of Camp". while Glamour named her the "queen of quirk". In February 2009, Perry told Seventeen that her fashion style was "a bit of a concoction of different things" and stated she enjoyed humor in her clothing. She has also described herself as having "multipersonality disorder" for fashion. Perry lists Gwen Stefani, Shirley Manson, Chloë Sevigny, Daphne Guinness, Natalie Portman, and the fictional character Lolita as her style icons. Elle described her as "the kitsch-loving pop star renowned for her uniquely experimental style" while Vogue described her style as "synonymous with outrageous, eye-catching ensembles that lean towards the theatrical."
During the 2017 launch of her shoe collection, Katy Perry Collections, she said about shoes: "When I first got to L.A., I cultivated my style on a budget, always shopping at thrift stores or vintage stores. … Once, I found these flats that looked like Dalmatian dogs. They had ears that moved and a tongue that stuck out. They were such a conversation piece. That's what is so great about fashion. … It's a form of communication. You don't have to start a smoking habit to start talking to someone. You can just wear cool shoes. It's an icebreaker."
Legacy and influence
Several media outlets such as Billboard and Glamour have referred to her as the "Queen of Pop", while Vogue has dubbed Perry the "Queen of Camp" and a "pop icon." Andrew Unterberger of Billboard described Teenage Dream "one of the defining LPs from a new golden age in mega-pop" while Christopher Rosa of Glamour named her as an influence to the pop sound and style of the 2010s, adding that her singles are "some of the most recognizable, iconic, and impactful hits in pop history." Perry was named "one of the last decade's most reliable and successful hitmakers" by the Official Charts Company in 2022.
Additionally, Perry was included in Glamour's "104 Women Who Defined the [2010s] in Pop Culture" list, saying: "[Perry] did more than just break chart records. She was one of the driving forces behind the sound of pop radio in the 2010s. [...] glossy, booming, sugary-sweet, and undeniably catchy." Variety included Perry in their Variety 500 list of the most influential business leaders, calling her a "global phenomenon" and a "dedicated artist and tireless self-promoter who has leveraged chart-topping hits, sold-out stadium shows, and staggering endorsement deals to become one of the richest and most influential pop stars alive." She has been called a "gay icon" by Taylor Henderson of Out, noting how "I Kissed a Girl" helped fans explore their sexuality and how Perry openly embraced the LGBTQ+ community.
Perry's music has been described by Out as having a "lasting legacy", with American singers Fletcher sampling "I Kissed a Girl" and Olivia Rodrigo referencing Teenage Dream on "Brutal". Additionally, other artists such as Halsey and Ariana Grande have praised Perry's work, with Halsey calling Teenage Dream the "perfect pop album" and Grande saying "The One That Got Away" is "one of the biggest and most perfectly written pop songs ever from one of the best pop albums of all time". Perry and her work have influenced artists such as Lil Nas X, Halsey, Lorde, Rina Sawayama, Doja Cat, Ellie Goulding, Tegan and Sara, Kim Petras, and Coldplay.
Other ventures
Philanthropy
Perry has supported various charitable organizations and causes throughout her career. She has contributed to organizations aimed at improving the lives and welfare of children in particular. In April 2013, she joined UNICEF to assist children in Madagascar with education and nutrition. On December 3, 2013, she was officially named a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, "with a special focus on engaging young people in the agency's work to improve the lives of the world's most vulnerable children and adolescents." She arranged for a portion of the money generated from tickets to her Prismatic World Tour to go to UNICEF. In September 2010, she helped build and design the Boys Hope/Girls Hope foundation shelter for youth in Baltimore, Maryland along with Raven-Symoné, Shaquille O'Neal, and the cast of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. In 2010, Perry and Nicki Minaj performed a cover of "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" for service members during the 2010 VH1 Divas Salute the Troops concert.
She has also supported children's education and well-being. All profits from sales of the album The Gay Nineties Old Tyme Music: Daisy Bell, which includes her rendition of "Daisy Bell (Bicycle Built for Two)", were donated to the charity Little Kids Rock, which supports musical education in underprivileged elementary schools. In June 2014, she teamed up with Staples Inc. for a project entitled "Make Roar Happen" which donated $1 million to DonorsChoose, an organization that supports teachers and funds classroom resources in public schools. In May 2016, she worked with UNICEF to improve child care quality in Vietnam, hoping to "break the cycle of poverty and drastically improve children's health, education and well-being". The following month, UNICEF announced that Perry would receive the Audrey Hepburn Humanitarian Award "for her work as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in support of the world's most vulnerable children" at their annual Snowflake Ball in November. All Spotify streams of her 2021 cover of "All You Need Is Love" will generate $1 in donations for the charity Baby2Baby.
Perry has supported organizations aimed at aiding people suffering with diseases including cancer and HIV/AIDS. During the 2008 Warped Tour, she had a cast made of her breasts to raise money for the Keep A Breast Foundation. She hosted and performed at the We Can Survive concert along with Bonnie McKee, Kacey Musgraves, Sara Bareilles, Ellie Goulding, and duo Tegan and Sara at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, California, on October 23, 2013. The concert's profits were donated to Young Survival Coalition, an organization aiding breast cancer in young women. In June 2009, she designed an item of clothing for H&M's "Fashion Against AIDS" campaign, which raises money for HIV/AIDS awareness projects. On February 26, 2017, she served as a co-chair alongside various celebrities such as Beyoncé, Lea Michele, Jim Carrey, Jared Leto, and Kevin Spacey for the 25th Annual Elton John AIDS Foundation Academy Award Party, a fundraiser for HIV/AIDS healthcare.
The proceeds from Perry's single "Part of Me" were donated to the charity MusiCares, which helps musicians in times of need. During her California Dreams Tour, she raised over $175,000 for the Tickets-For-Charity fundraiser. The money was divided between three charities: the Children's Health Fund (CHF), Generosity Water, and The Humane Society of the United States.
On her 27th birthday, Perry set up a donations page for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Auckland, and set up a similar page benefiting the David Lynch Foundation for her 28th birthday. On March 29, 2014, she helped raise $2.4 million for the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles along with other celebrities such as Ryan Seacrest, Pharrell Williams, Tim Allen, Lisa Edelstein, and Riley Keough.
Perry performed at the One Love Manchester benefit concert for the victims of the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing, among various performers including its organizer Ariana Grande, which was broadcast live on June 4, 2017, on radio and television stations around the world. In March 2018, Perry announced Witness: Coming Home, a benefit concert that was held in her hometown of Santa Barbara on May 19, 2018. The concert benefited those recovering from the aftermath of the 2017 California wildfires and 2018 Southern California mudflows. Perry partnered with the Santa Barbara Foundation, the 93108 Fund and The 805 UndocuFund, organizations which help in assisting members of the community in the Santa Barbara area through grants and various philanthropic efforts.
Activism
Perry has publicly advocated for LGBT rights and admitted that she wrote "I Kissed a Girl" about her own bisexual experiences with other women. In 2017, she received a Nation Equality Award from Human Rights Campaign for "using her powerful voice and international platform to speak out for LGBTQ equality". In her acceptance speech, she discussed having bisexual experiences, her fluid sexuality, and thanked the LGBTQ+ community. In an Out interview in 2021, she was heralded as a "gay icon" with "I Kissed a Girl" being called a "bonafide queer anthem." She continued to thank the LGBTQ+ community in the same interview, saying: "I came from a very sheltered upbringing where it wasn't okay to be friends with anyone from that community. And now that is my community, [...] I wouldn't have survived without the community and it's amazing how full circle it's come and how much growth has happened since I started."
She supported Stonewall during their "It gets better..... today" campaign to prevent homophobic bullying, and dedicated the music video to her song "Firework" to the It Gets Better Project. In 2008, Perry told Do Something she was proud to be a LGBT rights activist, saying "I've always been a very open-minded person, but I definitely believe in equality." In June 2012, Perry expressed her hopes for LGBT equality, commenting "hopefully, we will look back at this moment and think like we do now concerning [other] civil rights issues. We'll just shake our heads in disbelief, saying, 'Thank God we've evolved.' That would be my prayer for the future." In December 2012, Perry was awarded the Trevor Hero Award by The Trevor Project for her work and activism on behalf of LGBT youth.
Perry identifies as a feminist, and appeared in April 2013 in a video clip for the "Chime for Change" campaign that aimed to spread female empowerment. She has also said that America's lack of free health care drove her "absolutely crazy". Following the shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando in June 2016, Perry and nearly 200 other artists and executives in music signed an open letter organized by Billboard addressed to United States Congress demanding increased gun control in the United States.
Through Twitter and by performing at rallies, Perry supported President Barack Obama in his run for re-election and praised his support for same-sex marriage and LGBT equality. She performed at three rallies for Obama, in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Wisconsin, singing a rendition of "Let's Stay Together" as well as a number of her songs. During her Las Vegas performance she wore a dress made to replicate a voting ballot, with Obama's box filled in. On Twitter, she encouraged her followers to vote for Obama.
In August 2013, Perry voiced criticism of Tony Abbott, then-leader of conservative Liberal Party of Australia and candidate for Prime Minister of Australia, due to his opposition to gay marriage and told Abbott, "I love you as a human being but I can't give you my vote."; the statement came after Abbott expressed pride at learning of Perry's then-upcoming performance in Australia. In April 2014, she publicly supported Marianne Williamson in her campaign for California's 33rd congressional district by attending a political press event. She endorsed Kamala Harris in the United States Senate election in California, and organized a fundraiser for Harris at her home in Los Angeles in November 2016. Perry also publicly endorsed former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for president in 2016. She performed alongside Elton John at a fundraising concert for Clinton in New York City in March 2016. Perry also spoke and performed at the 2016 Democratic National Convention in support of Clinton. Four years later, she supported Joe Biden and Kamala Harris during the 2020 United States presidential election, praising the latter as a leader who had "experience we desperately need right now" and believed that the former "choosing her as his running mate is already a testament to his decision making".
Achievements
Throughout her career, Perry has won five American Music Awards, fourteen People's Choice Awards, four Guinness World Records, a Brit Award, and a Juno Award. In September 2012, Billboard dubbed her the "Woman of the Year". From May 2010 to September 2011, the singer spent a record-breaking 69 consecutive weeks in the top ten of the Billboard Hot 100. Teenage Dream became the first album by a female artist to produce five number-one Billboard Hot 100 singles, and the second album overall after Michael Jackson's Bad. In the United States, she has accumulated nine number-one singles on the Billboard Hot 100, her most recent being "Dark Horse", and holds the record for having 18 consecutive number-one songs on the Billboard Dance Club Songs chart.
Billboard also named her the 15th most successful dance club artist of all time. The magazine additionally ranked her 4th on its "Greatest of All Time Pop Songs Artists" list, included Teenage Dream and Prism among its "Greatest of All Time Billboard 200 Albums by Women" list, and ranked "Dark Horse" at number 100 on its "Greatest of All Time Hot 100 Songs" as well as one of its "Greatest of All Time Hot 100 Songs by Women" along with "E.T.", "Firework", and "California Gurls". In June 2015, her music video for "Dark Horse" became the first video by a female artist to reach 1 billion views on Vevo. The following month, her music video for "Roar" reached 1 billion views on Vevo, making her the first artist to have multiple videos with 1 billion views.
Perry was declared the Top Global Female Recording Artist of 2013 by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI). According to Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), she is the fifth top digital singles artist in the United States, with 105 million certified song units in the country including on-demand streams and also has 11 million certified album units, totaling 116 million certified units in the nation. She also became the first artist to have three songs receive Diamond certifications from the RIAA with "Dark Horse", "Firework", and "Roar". All three of them and "E.T.", "California Gurls", and "Hot n Cold" have each sold over 5 million digital copies. Throughout her career, Perry has sold more than 18 million albums and 125 million singles globally, making her one of the best-selling music artists of all time.
Discography
Katy Hudson (2001)
One of the Boys (2008)
Teenage Dream (2010)
Prism (2013)
Witness (2017)
Smile (2020)
Filmography
The Smurfs (2011)
Katy Perry: Part of Me (2012)
The Smurfs 2 (2013)
Brand: A Second Coming (2015)
Katy Perry: The Prismatic World Tour (2015)
Katy Perry: Making of the Pepsi Super Bowl Halftime Show (2015)
Jeremy Scott: The People's Designer (2015)
Zoolander 2 (2016)
Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (2016)
Tours and residency
Co-headlining tour
Strangely Normal Tour (with Phil Joel) (2001)
Headlining tours
Hello Katy Tour (2009)
California Dreams Tour (2011–2012)
Prismatic World Tour (2014–2015)
Witness: The Tour (2017–2018)
Residency
Play (2021–2022)
See also
List of best-selling music artists
List of most-followed Twitter accounts
List of Billboard Social 50 number-one artists
List of highest-certified music artists in the United States
Best-selling female artists of all time
References
Footnotes
Sources
External links
1984 births
Living people
21st-century American guitarists
21st-century American singers
21st-century American women singers
21st-century American women guitarists
Activists from California
American contraltos
American disco singers
American women pop singers
American women rock singers
American women singer-songwriters
American feminists
American film actresses
American performance artists
American pop guitarists
American pop rock singers
American rock guitarists
American rock songwriters
American television actresses
American women activists
American voice actresses
American women in electronic music
Brit Award winners
Capitol Records artists
Columbia Records artists
Dance-pop musicians
Def Jam Recordings artists
Feminist musicians
Guitarists from California
Island Records artists
Juno Award for International Album of the Year winners
LGBT rights activists from the United States
Musicians from Santa Barbara, California
MTV Europe Music Award winners
Participants in American reality television series
Singer-songwriters from California
UNICEF Goodwill Ambassadors | false | [
"\"Starstrukk\" is a song recorded by American group 3OH!3. It is their third single and their second single to be released from their second studio album, Want (2008). A radio-only and the deluxe album version has been released featuring singer Katy Perry. The version featuring Perry had considerable success worldwide, peaking within the top ten of the charts in Australia, Belgium (Wallonia), Finland, Poland, the Republic of Ireland, and the United Kingdom. It is the follow-up to their debut single \"Don't Trust Me\".\n\nBackground and release\n3OH!3 was among the line-up of the Warped Tour 2008 where they met Katy Perry. The band then toured with her on the United Kingdom dates of her Hello Katy Tour in February 2009. They said of Perry's participation to the song: \"Katy did this because we toured with Katy, we are good friends with Katy and we worked on the song together — we worked on the remix together.\" \"Starstrukk\" was chosen as the second single of their second studio album Want (2008). It impacted the US contemporary hit radio format on August 4, 2009. A remix version featuring American singer and songwriter Katy Perry was released next month, on September 14. Perry later included this remix on the deluxe edition of her third studio album Teenage Dream while 3OH!3 included this remix on the international edition of their third studio album Streets of Gold.\n\nMusic videos\n\nThe music video for the song was premiered by AOL on Monday, June 8, 2009. A \"behind the scenes\" of the music video has been released prior to the release date. It was filmed in Los Angeles, California and directed by Sum 41's drummer, Steve Jocz. According to Rolling Stone, the video showcases throngs of girls dressed in fluorescent wardrobe chasing 3OH!3, a large clothed orgy with construction workers, a marching band and copious amounts of whipped cream. Jocz said the concept is a bunch of people getting clustered together until the eventually formed a massive dogpile. According to group member, Sean Foreman, \"the video is looking awesome.\"\n\nSean Foreman commented on the video to an interview with MTV. He said the following:\n\nThe second music video for \"Starstrukk\", which was directed by Marc Klasfeld and Steve Jocz, and includes Katy Perry, was shot at the Los Angeles County Natural History Museum's Rose Garden in Exposition Park on Monday, September 21, 2009. The video shows 3OH!3 sitting at a fountain where they retrieve coins that have been thrown in, causing women to begin pursuing them. In other scenes, Perry and 3OH!3 sing together in front of the fountain. During her verse, Perry dances underneath the fountain at night. The story treatment in the video is mostly taken from the film When in Rome, with the theme of magical coins thrown into a fountain. The video also references James Bond films, West Side Story and Baywatch.\n\nUsage in media and cover versions\n\"Starstrukk\" was featured on the third episode of the first season of The Vampire Diaries. It was also used in When in Rome. The song was covered by Marina and the Diamonds on BBC Radio 1's Live Lounge in the United Kingdom, and at a few of her live performances, including the Glastonbury Festival. A studio recording of her cover was included as the B-side to her 2010 single \"Oh No!\".\n\nCharts and certifications\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nCertifications\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\n2009 singles\n2009 songs\n3OH!3 songs\nKaty Perry songs\nMarina Diamandis songs\nMusic videos directed by Marc Klasfeld\nSongs written by Nathaniel Motte\nSongs written by Sean Foreman\nPhoto Finish Records singles\nCapitol Records singles",
"Martin Kirkup is a British-born music industry executive. He is a founding partner of the Los Angeles-based Direct Management Group. Over the course of his career, Kirkup has worked with artists including Katy Perry, Adam Lambert, k.d. lang, Counting Crows, The B-52s, Echo and the Bunnymen, and Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark.\n\nEarly life and education\nKirkup was born and grew up in Tynemouth, Northumberland. He attended the University of Leicester, and came to the United States in 1973 as a visiting professor at the University of Rhode Island. He later moved to New York, where he began his career in the music industry in the publicity department at Elektra Records.\n\nCareer\nKirkup was hired by A&M Records in 1975 as director of creative services. He moved to Los Angeles in 1978, and was named vice president of artist development, overseeing campaigns for the artists on A&M's roster, which at the time included Peter Frampton, Nils Lofgren, Supertramp, Squeeze, The Tubes, Bryan Adams, Joe Jackson, The Police and Joan Armatrading.\n\nIn 1984, he founded Direct Management with Steve Jensen, who was previously a booking agent. Kirkup and Jensen's first clients were Boy Meets Girl and Nell Carter. Their first significant success was with Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark; they placed \"If You Leave\" on the Pretty in Pink soundtrack, and the song became a Top 5 hit on the Billboard Top 100. While the band previously had hits in Europe, the album which followed the Pretty in Pink soundtrack, The Pacific Age, was their first American gold album.\n\nBryan Ferry was signed in 1988 Echo and the Bunnymen were signed in 1986, and in 1989 Kirkup and Jensen began working with The B-52's, reformed after the death of guitarist Ricky Wilson. \n Their first release as a Direct client, Cosmic Thing included the hit singles \"Roam\" and \"Love Shack\" and more than 5 million copies of the album were sold. Kirkup and Jenson were credited for \"steering (the B-52s) into a major comeback.\"\n\nIn 1992 Kirkup and Jensen signed Counting Crows; their debut, August and Everything After, sold in excess of 10 million albums. Direct worked with the band until 2001. They have managed Lang since signing her in 2000.\n\nBradford Cobb joined Direct in 1997, and in 2004, he met Katy Perry and producer Glen Ballard. She was signed by Direct shortly thereafter. The first single from the debut Katy Perry album, One of the Boys, I Kissed a Girl\", became her first Billboard Hot 100. Her next album, Teenage Dream became the first album by a female artist to produce five number-one Billboard Hot 100 singles As of 2018, Perry had sold more than 100 million records.\n\nDirect also manages AU/RA. The company managed Adam Lambert from 2011 until 2017.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Direct Management \n\n1948 births\nAlumni of the University of Leicester\nAmerican music industry executives\nAmerican music managers\nBusinesspeople from Los Angeles\nBritish music industry executives\nEnglish music managers\nLiving people\nPeople from Tynemouth"
] |
[
"Katy Perry",
"1999-2006: Career beginnings",
"when was katy parry's first album under her stage name?",
"March 6, 2001,",
"what did she do between 1999 and 2001?",
"2001, and went on tour that year as part of Phil Joel's Strangely Normal Tour while also embarking on other performances of her own in the United States.",
"Was her first album as Katy Perry a hit?",
"Katy Hudson received positive reviews from critics, though was commercially unsuccessful"
] | C_29e64ee43f0547139a7c08bceed86ff2_1 | When did Perry start gaining commercial success? | 4 | When did Perry start gaining commercial success? | Katy Perry | Perry completed her General Educational Development (GED) requirements at age 15, during her freshman year of high school, and left Dos Pueblos High School to pursue a musical career. She briefly studied Italian opera at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara. Her singing caught the attention of rock artists Steve Thomas and Jennifer Knapp from Nashville, Tennessee, who brought her there to improve her writing skills. In Nashville, she started recording demos and learned how to write songs and play guitar. After signing with Red Hill Records, Perry recorded her debut album, a gospel record titled Katy Hudson. She released the album on March 6, 2001, and went on tour that year as part of Phil Joel's Strangely Normal Tour while also embarking on other performances of her own in the United States. Katy Hudson received positive reviews from critics, though was commercially unsuccessful and sold an estimated 200 copies before the label ceased operations in December. Transitioning from gospel music to secular music, Perry started writing songs with producer Glen Ballard, and moved to Los Angeles at age 17. In 2003, she briefly performed as Katheryn Perry to avoid confusion with actress Kate Hudson. She later adopted the stage name Katy Perry, using her mother's maiden name. In 2004, Perry signed to Ballard's label, Java, which was then affiliated with The Island Def Jam Music Group. She began work on a solo record, but the record was shelved after Java was dropped. Ballard then introduced Perry to Tim Devine, an A&R executive at Columbia Records, and she was signed as a solo artist. Over the course of the next two years, Perry wrote and recorded material for her Columbia debut, and worked with songwriters including Desmond Child, Greg Wells, Butch Walker, Scott Cutler, Anne Preven, The Matrix, Kara DioGuardi, Max Martin and Dr. Luke. In addition, after Devine suggested that songwriting team The Matrix become a "real group", Perry recorded with them. Perry was dropped from Columbia in 2006 as her record neared completion. After the label dropped her, she worked at an independent A&R company called Taxi Music. Perry had minor success prior to her breakthrough. One of the songs she had recorded for her album with Ballard, "Simple", was featured on the soundtrack to the 2005 film The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. She provided backing vocals on Mick Jagger's song "Old Habits Die Hard", which was included on the soundtrack to the 2004 film Alfie. In September 2004, Blender named Perry "The Next Big Thing". She recorded background vocals on P.O.D.'s single "Goodbye for Now" and was featured at the end of its music video in 2006. That year, Perry also appeared in the music video for "Learn to Fly" by Carbon Leaf, and played the love interest of her then-boyfriend, Gym Class Heroes lead singer Travie McCoy, in the band's music video for "Cupid's Chokehold". CANNOTANSWER | 2005 | Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson (born October 25, 1984), known professionally as Katy Perry, is an American singer, songwriter, and television judge. She is known for her influence on the pop sound and style of the 2010s. Pursuing a career in gospel music at 16, Perry released her commercially unsuccessful debut album, Katy Hudson (2001), under Red Hill Records. She moved to Los Angeles at 17 to venture into secular music, adopting the stage name "Katy Perry" from her mother's maiden name. With producers Glen Ballard and Greg Wells, she recorded an unreleased album titled Fingerprints while signed to Java Records and then Columbia Records before being dropped. After this, she signed a recording contract with Capitol Records in April 2007.
Perry rose to fame with her second album and major label debut, One of the Boys (2008), a pop rock record containing her debut single "I Kissed a Girl" and follow-up single "Hot n Cold", which respectively reached number one and three on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. The disco-influenced pop album Teenage Dream (2010) spawned five U.S. number one singles—"California Gurls", "Teenage Dream", "Firework", "E.T.", and "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)"—becoming the first album by a solo female artist to do so. A reissue titled Teenage Dream: The Complete Confection (2012) subsequently had the U.S. number one single "Part of Me". Her fourth album Prism (2013) has themes of self-empowerment and relationships. With the music videos for its U.S. number one singles "Roar" and "Dark Horse", Perry became the first artist to have multiple videos reach one billion views on YouTube. Witness (2017) featured an electropop sound with themes of liberation and a political subtext, while Smile (2020) featured themes of motherhood and self-help. She later embarked on her first concert residency titled Play in Resorts World Las Vegas, selling out multiple shows and receiving critical acclaim.
Perry is one of the best-selling artists of all time, having sold over 143 million records worldwide. All of her studio albums released under Capitol have individually surpassed one billion streams on Spotify. She has nine U.S. number one singles, three U.S. number one albums and has received various accolades, including four Guinness World Records, five Billboard Music Awards, five American Music Awards, a Brit Award, and a Juno Award. Perry has been included in the annual Forbes lists of highest-earning women in music from 2011 to 2019. Her critically acclaimed Super Bowl halftime show performance is the most watched in history. Outside of music, she released an autobiographical documentary titled Katy Perry: Part of Me in 2012, and voiced Smurfette in The Smurfs film series. Perry began serving as a judge on American Idol, starting from its sixteenth season in 2018. She is also the most followed woman on Twitter, with over 108 million followers.
Life and career
1984–1998: Early life and family
Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson was born on October 25, 1984, in Santa Barbara, California, to Pentecostal pastors Mary Christine (née Perry) and Maurice Keith Hudson. Both of her parents turned to religion after a "wild youth". Perry has English, German, Irish, and Portuguese ancestry. Through her mother, she is a niece of film director Frank Perry. She has a younger brother named David, who is a singer, and an older sister, Angela.
From ages three to 11, Perry often moved across the country as her parents set up churches before settling again in Santa Barbara. Growing up, she attended religious schools and camps, including Paradise Valley Christian School in Arizona and Santa Barbara Christian School in California during her elementary years. Her family struggled financially, sometimes using food stamps and eating food from the food bank which also fed the congregation at Perry's parents' church.
Growing up, Perry and her siblings were not allowed to eat the cereal Lucky Charms as the word "luck" reminded their mother of Lucifer, and had to call deviled eggs "angeled eggs". Perry primarily listened to gospel music, as secular music was generally discouraged in the family's home. She discovered popular music through CDs she sneaked from her friends. Perry later recalled a story about how a friend of hers played "You Oughta Know" by Alanis Morissette, which impacted her songwriting and singing.
While not strictly identifying as religious, she has stated, "I pray all the time – for self-control, for humility." Wanting to be like her sister Angela, Perry began singing by practicing with her sister's cassette tapes. She performed the tracks in front of their parents, who let her take vocal lessons as Angela was at the time. She began training at age nine, and was incorporated into her parents' ministry, singing in church from ages nine to 17. At 13, Perry was given her first guitar for her birthday, and publicly performed songs she wrote. She tried to "be a bit like the typical Californian girl" while growing up, and started rollerskating, skateboarding, and surfing as a teenager. Her brother David described her as a tomboy during her adolescence, which Perry talks about on her song "One Of The Boys". She took dancing lessons and learned how to swing, Lindy Hop, and jitterbug.
1999–2006: Career beginnings, Katy Hudson and Fingerprints
Perry completed her General Educational Development (GED) requirements at age 15, during her first year of high school, and left Dos Pueblos High School to pursue a music career. She briefly had music lessons in facilities rented from the Music Academy of the West. Her singing caught the attention of rock artists Steve Thomas and Jennifer Knapp from Nashville, Tennessee, who brought her there to improve her writing skills. In Nashville, she started recording demos and learned how to write songs and play guitar. Perry signed with Red Hill Records and recorded her debut album, a contemporary Christian record titled Katy Hudson, which was released on March 6, 2001. She also went on tour that year as part of Phil Joel's Strangely Normal Tour and embarked on other performances of her own in the United States. Katy Hudson received mixed reviews from critics and was commercially unsuccessful, selling an estimated 200 copies before the label ceased operations in December. Transitioning from gospel music to secular music, Perry started working with producer Glen Ballard, and moved to Los Angeles at age 17. She opted to work with Ballard due to his past work with Alanis Morissette, one of her major inspirations. In 2003, she briefly performed as Katheryn Perry to avoid confusion with actress Kate Hudson. She later adopted the stage name 'Katy Perry', using her mother's maiden name. In 2010, she recalled that "Thinking of You" was one of the first songs she wrote after moving to Los Angeles.
In 2004, she signed to Ballard's label, Java Records, which was then affiliated with The Island Def Jam Music Group. Perry began work on a solo record due for release in March 2005, but the record was shelved after Java was dropped. Ballard then introduced her to Tim Devine, an A&R executive at Columbia Records, and she was signed as a solo artist. By November 2006, Perry had finished writing and recording material for her Columbia debut titled Fingerprints (with some of the material from this time appearing on One of the Boys) which was planned for release in 2007. Some of the material from Fingerprints that did not make it on One Of The Boys was given to other artists, such as "I Do Not Hook Up" and "Long Shot" to Kelly Clarkson and "Rock God" to Selena Gomez & the Scene.
Perry worked with songwriters including Desmond Child, Greg Wells, Butch Walker, Scott Cutler, Anne Preven, The Matrix, Kara DioGuardi, Max Martin, and Dr. Luke. In addition, after Devine suggested that songwriting team The Matrix become a "real group", she recorded a shelved album called The Matrix with them. The Matrix was planned to be released in 2004 but was cancelled due to creative differences. It was later released in 2009 after the release of One of the Boys. Perry was dropped from Columbia in 2006 as Fingerprints neared completion. After the label dropped her, she worked at an independent A&R company called Taxi Music.
Perry had minor success prior to her breakthrough. One of the songs she had recorded for her album with Ballard, "Simple", was featured on the soundtrack to the 2005 film The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. She provided backing vocals on Mick Jagger's song "Old Habits Die Hard", which was included on the soundtrack to the 2004 film Alfie. In September 2004, Blender named Perry "The Next Big Thing". She recorded background vocals on P.O.D.'s single "Goodbye for Now", was featured at the end of its music video in 2006, and performed it with them on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. That year, Perry also appeared in the music video for "Learn to Fly" by Carbon Leaf, and played the love interest of her then-boyfriend, Gym Class Heroes lead singer Travie McCoy, in the band's music video for "Cupid's Chokehold".
2007–2009: Breakthrough with One of the Boys
After Columbia dropped Perry, Angelica Cob-Baehler, then a publicity executive at the label, brought Perry's demos to Virgin Records chairman Jason Flom. Flom was convinced that she could be a breakthrough star and she was signed to Capitol Records in April 2007. The label arranged for her to work with Dr. Luke to add an "undeniable smash" to her existing material. Perry and Dr. Luke co-wrote the songs "I Kissed a Girl" and "Hot n Cold" for her second album One of the Boys. A campaign was started with the November 2007 release of the video to "Ur So Gay", a song aimed at introducing her to the music market. A digital EP of the same name was also released that month. Madonna helped publicize the song by praising it on the JohnJay & Rich radio show in April 2008, stating "Ur So Gay" was her "favorite song" at the time. In March 2008, Perry made a cameo appearance as a club singer in the Wildfire episode "Life's Too Short" and appeared as herself during a photo shoot that June on The Young and the Restless for the show's magazine Restless Style.
Perry released her first single with Capitol, "I Kissed a Girl", on April 28, 2008, as the lead single from One of the Boys. The first station to pick up the song was WRVW in Nashville, who were inundated with enthusiastic calls the first three days they played it. The track reached number one on the US Billboard Hot 100. "I Kissed a Girl" created controversy among both religious and LGBT groups. The former criticized its homosexual theme, while the latter accused her of using bi-curiosity to sell records. In response to speculation that her parents opposed her music and career, Perry told MTV that they had no problems with her success. One of the Boys, released on June 17, 2008, garnered mixed critical reviews and reached number nine on the US Billboard 200. The album went on to sell 7 million copies worldwide. "Hot n Cold" was released the following September and became the album's second successful single, reaching number three on the Billboard Hot 100 while topping charts in Germany, Canada, the Netherlands and Austria. Later singles "Thinking of You" and "Waking Up in Vegas" were released in 2009 and reached the top 30 of the Hot 100. The Matrix's self-titled debut album, which Perry had recorded with the band in 2004, was released onto iTunes on January 27, 2009, as a result of her solo success.
After finishing the 2008 Warped Tour, Perry hosted the 2008 MTV Europe Music Awards in November 2008, where she won the award for Best New Act. At the 2009 Brit Awards, she also won the award for International Female Solo Artist. Perry embarked on her first headlining world tour, the Hello Katy Tour, from January to November 2009 to support One of the Boys. On August 4, 2009, she performed as opening act for one date of No Doubt's 2009 Summer Tour. Perry also hosted the 2009 MTV Europe Music Awards in November 2009, becoming the first person to host two consecutive ceremonies of the European awards. On July 22, 2009, Perry recorded a live album titled MTV Unplugged, which featured acoustic performances of five tracks from One of the Boys as well as one new song, "Brick by Brick", and a cover of Fountains of Wayne's "Hackensack". It was released on November 17, 2009. Perry also appeared on two singles with other artists; she was featured on a remix of Colorado-based band 3OH!3's song "Starstrukk" in September 2009, and on a duet with Timbaland entitled "If We Ever Meet Again", from his album Shock Value II, three months later. The Guinness World Records recognized her in its 2010 edition as the "Best Start on the U.S. Digital Chart by a Female Artist", for digital single sales of over two million copies.
After Perry and Travie McCoy split up in December 2008, they briefly reconciled before she ended their relationship in 2009. Perry met her future husband Russell Brand in the summer of 2009 while filming a cameo appearance for his film Get Him to the Greek. Her scene, in which the two kiss, does not appear in the film. She began dating Brand after meeting him again that September at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards. The couple became engaged on December 31, 2009, while vacationing in Rajasthan, India.
2010–2012: Teenage Dream and first marriage
After serving as a guest judge on American Idol, Perry released "California Gurls" featuring Snoop Dogg on May 7, 2010. The song was the lead single from her third studio album, Teenage Dream, and reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in June. She also served as a guest judge on British The X Factor later that month before releasing the album's second single, "Teenage Dream", in July. "Teenage Dream" reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in September. Released on August 24, 2010, Teenage Dream debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, and received mixed reviews from music critics. It has since sold 6 million copies worldwide. Teenage Dream would go on to win the 2011 Juno Award for International Album of the Year. In October, "Firework" was released as the album's third single. It became the album's third consecutive number one on the Billboard Hot 100 on December 8, 2010.
"E.T." featuring Kanye West was released as the fourth single from Teenage Dream on February 16, 2011. It topped the Billboard Hot 100 for five non-consecutive weeks, making Teenage Dream the ninth album in history to produce four number one singles on the chart. "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)" followed as the fifth single in June, and Perry became the first female artist to achieve five number-one Billboard Hot 100 songs from one album when the single topped that chart on August 17, and the second artist after Michael Jackson with his album Bad. For this record, she received an honorary American Music Award in November 2011 and a 2013 Guinness World Record. On September 7, she set a new record by becoming the first artist to spend 69 consecutive weeks in the top ten of the Hot 100. After "The One That Got Away" was released as the album's sixth single in October, Teenage Dream became the third album to spawn six top-five songs on the Billboard Hot 100 after Rhythm Nation 1814 by Janet Jackson and Faith by George Michael. The song peaked at number three in the US and number two in Canada.
On January 5, 2012, Perry was named the sixth best-selling digital artist in the United States, with sales of 37.6 million units according to Nielsen SoundScan. That month, she became the first artist to have four songs sell over 5 million digital units when "E.T." reached that mark along with "Firework", "California Gurls", and "Hot N Cold". On February 13, Capitol released the lead single from Teenage Dream: The Complete Confection, "Part of Me", which debuted at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and became Perry's seventh single overall to top the chart. Teenage Dream: The Complete Confection was released on March 23, and serves as a reissue of Teenage Dream. "Wide Awake" was released on May 22 as the re-release's second single, peaking at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 and number one in Canada and New Zealand.
Perry embarked on her second tour, the California Dreams Tour, in support of Teenage Dream from February 2011 to January 2012. The tour grossed $59.5 million globally and won her the award for Best Live Act at the 2011 MTV Europe Music Awards. On September 23, 2011, she performed on the opening day of the 2011 Rock in Rio festival along with Elton John and Rihanna. In September 2010, Perry was scheduled to appear on the 41st-season premiere of Sesame Street. After her scene was uploaded to YouTube, viewers criticized Perry's exposed cleavage. Four days before the scheduled airing, Sesame Workshop announced that the segment would not air on television, but would still be available to watch online. Perry subsequently mocked the controversy on Saturday Night Live, where she was a musical guest and wore an Elmo-themed shirt showing large amounts of cleavage during one skit.
In December 2010, Perry played Moe Szyslak's girlfriend in the live-action segment from a Christmas episode of The Simpsons titled "The Fight Before Christmas". In February 2011, she made a guest appearance on the How I Met Your Mother episode "Oh Honey", playing a woman known as Honey. The role won her the People's Choice Award for Favorite TV Guest Star in January 2012. She made her film debut in the 3D family motion picture The Smurfs as Smurfette on July 29, 2011. The film was a financial success worldwide, while critics gave mostly negative reviews. She hosted Saturday Night Live on December 10, 2011, with Robyn as the episode's musical guest. Perry's work on the episode received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised her performance in the episode's digital short featuring her and Andy Samberg. In March 2012, she guest starred as a prison security guard named Rikki on the Raising Hope episode "Single White Female Role Model". On July 5, 2012, Perry's autobiographical documentary Katy Perry: Part of Me was released to theaters through Paramount Pictures. The film received positive reviews and grossed $32.7 million worldwide at the box office.
Perry began to venture into business when she endorsed her first fragrance, Purr, in November 2010. Her second fragrance, Meow!, was released in December 2011. Both perfumes were released through Nordstrom department stores. Electronic Arts recruited her to promote their new expansion pack for The Sims 3: Showtime, before releasing a separate stuff pack featuring Perry-inspired furniture, outfits, and hairstyles, titled The Sims 3: Katy Perry's Sweet Treats, in June 2012. The following month, she became the spokesperson and ambassador for Popchips and made an investment in the company. Billboard dubbed her as their "Woman of the Year" for 2012.
She married Russell Brand on October 23, 2010, in a traditional Hindu ceremony near the Ranthambhore tiger sanctuary in Rajasthan, India. Brand announced on December 30, 2011, that they were divorcing after 14 months of marriage. Perry later stated that conflicting career schedules and his desire to have children before she was ready led to the end of their marriage and that he never spoke to her again after sending a text message that he was divorcing her, while Brand asserted that he divorced her due to her commercial success and reluctance to engage in activism. She was initially distraught over their divorce, and said that she contemplated suicide. After the marriage ended in 2012, Perry began a relationship with singer John Mayer that August.
2013–2015: Prism and Super Bowl XLIX halftime show
In November 2012, Perry began work on her fourth album, Prism. She told Billboard, "I know exactly the record I want to make next. I know the artwork, the coloring and the tone" and "I even know what type of tour I'm doing next. I'll be very pleased if the vision I have in my head becomes a reality." After initially telling L'Uomo Vogue in June 2012 that she planned to have "darker elements" in Prism following the end of her marriage, the singer revealed to MTV during the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards that she changed the album's direction after periods of self-reflection. Perry commented "I felt very prismatic", which inspired the album's name. "Roar" was released as the lead single from Prism on August 10, 2013. It was promoted at the MTV Video Music Awards and reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100. "Unconditionally" followed as the second single from Prism on October 16, 2013, and peaked at number 14 in the United States.
Prism was released on October 18, 2013, and has sold 4 million copies as of August 2015. It received favorable reviews from critics and debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 chart. Four days later, Perry performed the songs from the album at the iHeartRadio Theater in Los Angeles. "Dark Horse" with Juicy J was released as the album's third single in December, and became her ninth U.S. number-one single the following month. In 2014, "Birthday" and "This Is How We Do" respectively followed as the album's fourth and fifth singles, and reached the top 25 on the Hot 100. Prior to ending her relationship with Mayer in February 2014, she recorded and co-wrote a duet with him titled "Who You Love" for his album Paradise Valley. The song was released on August 12, 2013. Perry's third headlining tour, the Prismatic World Tour, began in May 2014 and concluded in October 2015. It sold almost 2 million tickets and grossed $204.3 million worldwide and won Perry the award for "Top Package" at the 2014 Billboard Touring Awards. She also performed at the 2015 Rock in Rio festival on September 27, 2015.
On November 23, 2014, the NFL announced that Perry would perform at the Super Bowl XLIX halftime show on February 1, 2015. Lenny Kravitz and Missy Elliott served as special guests for the show. Her performance was critically acclaimed, and the Guinness World Records announced two days after the singer's halftime show that it garnered 118.5 million viewers in the United States, becoming the most watched and highest rated show in Super Bowl history. The viewership was higher than the game itself, which was viewed by an audience of 114.4 million.
The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) ranked her fifth on the list of Top Global Recording Artists of 2013. On June 26, 2014, she was declared the Top Certified Digital Artist Ever by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for certified sales of 72 million digital singles in the United States. In May 2014, a portrait of Perry by painter Mark Ryden was featured in his exhibition "The Gay 90s", and shown at the Kohn Gallery in Los Angeles. Along with several other artists, she also recorded a cover version of the song "Daisy Bell (Bicycle Built for Two)" on a limited-edition concept album titled The Gay Nineties Old Tyme Music: Daisy Bell to accompany the exhibition. That month, a portrait of Perry by artist Will Cotton was included in the United States National Portrait Gallery. On November 23, 2015, Perry starred in H&M's holiday advertising campaign, for which she wrote and recorded a song titled "Every Day Is a Holiday".
On June 17, 2014, Perry announced that she had founded her own record label under Capitol Records, titled Metamorphosis Music. Ferras was the first artist to get signed to her label, and Perry served as an executive producer on his self-titled EP. She also recorded a duet with him on the EP, titled "Legends Never Die". The label was later renamed Unsub Records.
Outside of her music career, Perry reprised her role as Smurfette in The Smurfs 2, which was released in theaters on July 31, 2013. Like its predecessor, The Smurfs 2 was a financial success but was panned by critics. In March 2014, she made a guest appearance playing herself in the episode "Blisteritos Presents Dad Academy Graduation Congraduritos Red Carpet Viewing Party" of the Kroll Show. Killer Queen was released as her third fragrance in August 2013 through Coty, Inc. In January 2014, she became a guest curator of Madonna's Art for Freedom initiative. In March 2015, she appeared in Brand: A Second Coming, a documentary following her ex-husband Russell Brand's transition from comedy work to activism, and released a concert film titled Katy Perry: The Prismatic World Tour through Epix, which took place during her tour of the same name. Perry also made a cameo appearance in the music video for Madonna's song "Bitch I'm Madonna" in June 2015. The following month, she released another fragrance with Coty, entitled Mad Potion. In September 2015, she appeared in the documentaries Katy Perry: Making of the Pepsi Super Bowl Halftime Show, which followed Perry's preparation for her Super Bowl performance, and Jeremy Scott: The People's Designer, which followed the life and career of designer Jeremy Scott. Perry released a mobile app titled Katy Perry Pop in December 2015 through Glu Mobile where her character helps players become famous musicians. She described it as "the most fun, colorful world that helps guide your musical dreams".
2016–2018: Witness and American Idol
Perry started writing songs for her new album in June 2016, and recorded an anthem for NBC Sports's coverage of the 2016 Summer Olympics titled "Rise", which was released the following month. Perry chose to release it as a standalone track rather than save it for her album "because now more than ever, there is a need for our world to unite". NBC also felt its message spoke "directly to the spirit of the Olympics and its athletes" for its inspirational themes. The song reached number one in Australia and number eleven in the United States.
In August 2016, Perry stated that she aspired to create material "that connects and relates and inspires" and told Ryan Seacrest that she was "not rushing" her fifth album, adding "I'm just having a lot of fun, but experimenting and trying different producers, and different collaborators, and different styles". On February 10, 2017, Perry released the album's lead single "Chained to the Rhythm" featuring Skip Marley. It reached number one in Hungary and number four in the United States. The track was also streamed over three million times on Spotify within 24 hours, breaking the music streaming service's record at the time for the highest first-day streaming for a single track by a female artist. The album's second single, "Bon Appétit" with Migos, was released that April. Its third single, "Swish Swish", featured Nicki Minaj and followed the next month. They respectively peaked at numbers 59 and 46 in the United States, and made the top 15 in Canada.
The album, titled Witness, was released on June 9, 2017, to mixed reviews, and debuted at number one in the United States. To accompany the album's release, Perry broadcast herself on YouTube for four days with a live-stream titled Katy Perry Live: Witness World Wide, concluding with a live concert on June 12. The live-stream generated over 49 million views from 190 different countries. She also embarked on Witness: The Tour, which began in September 2017 and ended in August 2018. On June 15, 2017, Calvin Harris released a song titled "Feels" from his album Funk Wav Bounces Vol. 1, which featured Perry, Big Sean, and Pharrell Williams. The song went on to reach number one in the United Kingdom.
Perry subsequently recorded a cover of the Dear Evan Hansen song "Waving Through a Window" for the deluxe edition of the cast recording, which was released on November 2, 2018. The show's creators Benj Pasek and Justin Paul had requested Perry to cover the song to promote the musical's national tour and bring awareness to mental health. Later that month, Perry released "Cozy Little Christmas". She also recorded the song "Immortal Flame" for the game Final Fantasy Brave Exvius, and had a playable character modeled after her.
Outside of recording music, Perry appeared as herself in the film Zoolander 2, which was released in February 2016. In February 2017, the singer launched a shoe line titled "Katy Perry Collections". Her shoes are available on her website, Katy Perry Collections, and at retailers such as Dillard's and Walmart. The following August, she hosted the 2017 MTV Video Music Awards. Perry was signed for a $25-million salary to serve as a judge on ABC's revival of American Idol, which premiered in March 2018. Perry began a relationship with Orlando Bloom in early 2016, and the couple got engaged on February 14, 2019.
2019–present: Smile, motherhood and Play residency
At the 61st Annual Grammy Awards, Perry performed "Here You Come Again", alongside Dolly Parton and Kacey Musgraves, as part of a tribute to Parton. Four days later, she released a song called "365", with DJ Zedd. In April, Perry was included on a remix of Daddy Yankee's song "Con Calma", featuring Snow. She followed this with the singles "Never Really Over" on May 31, "Small Talk" on August 9, and "Harleys in Hawaii" on October 16.
In June 2019, Perry appeared in the music video of Taylor Swift's "You Need to Calm Down". In July, a jury in California passed a verdict following a week-long trial that Perry's song "Dark Horse" had copied Flame's 2008 song "Joyful Noise" after he filed a copyright lawsuit alleging that it used his track's beat without permission, which was later overturned. After the initial verdict, the jury ordered her to pay him $550,000. The next month, Josh Kloss, Perry's co-star in the "Teenage Dream" music video, accused her of sexual misconduct. In an Instagram post, Kloss alleged that, during a party at a skating rink, Perry pulled on his sweatpants and underwear, exposing his penis to her male friends. He also said her management prevented him from speaking about his time with the singer. However, Johnny Wujek, the creative director of said party defended Perry, saying that she "would never do something like that" and accused Kloss of having an "ongoing obsession" with her. After initially refraining from responding to this, believing it would have detracted from the Me Too movement, Perry has also denied Kloss's claims.
Following the release of her single "Never Worn White" in March 2020, Perry revealed in the accompanying music video that she was expecting her first child with Bloom. "Daisies", the lead single from her sixth album, was released on May 15, 2020. Its second single "Smile" followed two months later. The album, also titled Smile, was released on August 28, 2020. Two days before its distribution, she gave birth to a daughter named Daisy Dove Bloom. The album received mixed reviews, and debuted at number five in the United States. Perry further promoted the album with four compilation EPs: Camp Katy, Empowered, Scorpio SZN, and Cosmic Energy. These EPs were followed by the single "Not the End of the World" in December 2020, which had a music video in which Zooey Deschanel impersonates Perry. Additionally she collaborated with various artists to create two remixes of Smile album tracks. Tiësto remix of "Resillient" featuring Aitana was released in November 2020, while Bruno Martini remix of "Cry About It Later" featuring Luísa Sonza was released in April 2021. In January 20, 2021, Perry performed "Firework" at the Celebrating America concert during the inauguration of Joe Biden. Four months later, she released a new single, "Electric", a collaboration with Pokémon for their 25th anniversary.
Perry began hosting a residency named Play at Resorts World Las Vegas on December 29, 2021. The show's inception happened during the COVID-19 lockdown with Perry being inspired by 1990s movies such as Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, Pee-wee's Playhouse, and Pee-wee's Big Adventure. She described it as "larger than life" and "the kookiest, most camp show I've ever put together." The show has received critical acclaim with Melinda Sheckells of Billboard saying that "[Play's] sold-out opening night is part fantasy, part hallucination and thoroughly camp.
In September 2021, Variety paid tribute to and honored Perry on their "Power of Women" issue, where she discussed her career, motherhood, and philanthropy. As a nominee, she attended the Variety 2021 "Power of Women" dinner. On her 37th birthday the following month, Perry guest hosted The Ellen DeGeneres Show and starred in a holiday advertisement for Gap Inc. which featured her singing "All You Need Is Love" by The Beatles. A full version of her cover was released on streaming platforms the same day. Two months later, Perry followed this with "When I'm Gone", a collaboration with Alesso.
Artistry
Influences
Perry cites her sister Angela as the woman who has had the most influence on her. During the early stages of her career, Perry's musical style gravitated towards gospel and she aspired to be as successful as Amy Grant. At age 15, she heard "Killer Queen" by Queen, which inspired her to pursue a music career. She cites the band's frontman, Freddie Mercury, as her biggest influence and expressed how the "combination of his sarcastic approach to writing lyrics and his 'I don't give a fuck' attitude" inspired her music. She paid homage to the band by naming her third fragrance Killer Queen. Perry described the Beach Boys and their album Pet Sounds as having a considerable influence on her music: "Pet Sounds is one of my favorite records and it influenced pretty much all of my songwriting. All of the melody choices that I make are because of Pet Sounds." The singer also holds the Beatles' album The Beatles in high esteem, and described these two albums as "the only things I listened to for probably two years straight."
She cites Alanis Morissette and her 1995 album Jagged Little Pill as a significant musical inspiration, stating in 2012: "Jagged Little Pill was the most perfect female record ever made. There's a song for anyone on that record; I relate to all those songs. They're still so timeless." Additionally, Perry borrows influence from Flaming Red by Patty Griffin and 10 Cent Wings by Jonatha Brooke. Perry's autobiographical documentary Katy Perry: Part of Me was largely influenced by Madonna: Truth or Dare. She admires Madonna's ability to reinvent herself, saying "I want to evolve like Madonna".
Perry names Björk as an influence, particularly admiring her "willingness to always be taking chances". Other artists who Perry has cited as influences include Stevie Nicks, ABBA, the Cardigans, Cyndi Lauper, Ace of Base, 3OH!3, CeCe Peniston, C+C Music Factory, Black Box, Crystal Waters, Mariah Carey, Heart, Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, Imogen Heap, Rufus Wainwright, Pink, and Gwen Stefani. "Firework" was inspired by a passage in the book On the Road by Jack Kerouac in which the author compares people who are full of life to fireworks that shoot across the sky and make people watch in awe. Her second concert tour, the California Dreams Tour, was reminiscent of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. She also credits the 1996 film The Craft for inspiring her song "Dark Horse", and Eckhart Tolle's book The Power of Now for influencing Prism.
Musical style and themes
While Perry's music incorporates pop, rock, and disco, Katy Hudson contains gospel. Her subsequent releases, One of the Boys and Teenage Dream, involve themes of sex and love. One of the Boys is a pop rock record, while Teenage Dream features disco influences. Perry's fourth album, Prism, is significantly influenced by dance and pop music. Lyrically, the album addresses relationships, self-reflection, and everyday life. Her fifth studio effort Witness is an electropop album that she described as a "360-degree liberation" record, with themes including political liberation, sexual liberation, and liberation from negativity. Many of her songs, particularly on Teenage Dream, reflect on love between teenagers; W magazine described the album's sexual innuendos as "irresistible hook-laden melodies". Self-empowerment is a common theme in Perry's music.
Perry has described herself as a "singer-songwriter masquerading as a pop star" and maintains that honest songwriting is very important to her. She told Marie Claire: "I feel like my secret magic trick that separates me from a lot of my peers is the bravery to be vulnerable and truthful and honest. I think you become more relatable when you're vulnerable." Actress and comedian Kristen Wiig commented that "as easy, breezy, and infectious as Perry's songs can be, beneath the surface lurks a sea of mixed emotions, jumbled motives, and contradictory impulses complicated enough to fill a Carole King record." According to Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune, "being taken seriously may be Perry's greatest challenge yet." In 2013, The New York Times labeled her "the most potent pop star of the day – her hits are relatable with just a hint of experimentation". Randall Roberts of the Los Angeles Times criticized her use of idioms and metaphors in her lyrics and for frequent "clichés". Throughout her career, Perry has also co-written songs recorded by other artists, including Lesley Roy, Kelly Clarkson, Jessie James Decker, Selena Gomez & the Scene, Britney Spears, Iggy Azalea, Rita Ora, Nicki Minaj, and Ariana Grande.
Voice
Perry possesses a contralto vocal range. Her singing has received both praise and criticism. Betty Clarke of The Guardian commented that her "powerful voice is hard-edged" while Rob Sheffield from Rolling Stone described Perry's vocals on Teenage Dream as "processed staccato blips". Darren Harvey of musicOMH compared Perry's vocals on One of the Boys to Alanis Morissette's, both possessing a "perky voice shifting octaves mid-syllable". Alex Miller from NME felt that "Perry's problem is often her voice" on One of the Boys, stating that "somewhere along the line someone convinced her she was like, well, a ballsy rock chick". Conversely, Bernadette McNulty from The Daily Telegraph praised her "rock chick voice" in a review of a concert promoting Prism.
Public image
On social media, Perry surpassed Justin Bieber as the most followed person on Twitter in November 2013. She won the 2015 Guinness World Record for most Twitter followers, and became the first person to gain 100 million followers on the site in June 2017. Keith Caulfield of Billboard stated that Perry is "the rare celebrity who seems to have enormous popularity but genuine ground-level interaction with her adoring KatyCats." With over 108 Twitter million followers, she is the most followed female on the site, and the fifth most followed musician across social media with a combined total of over 326 million followers across Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. In June 2017, Time magazine listed Perry among its "25 Most Influential People on the Internet" of the year, writing that her live-stream for Witness was "blazing a trail" for being "the closest any major entertainer has come to giving fans the kind of 'real' intimacy that social media purports to provide".
In 2011, Forbes ranked Perry third on their "Top-Earning Women In Music" list with earnings of $44 million and fifth on their 2012 list with $45 million. She subsequently ranked seventh on the 2013 Forbes list for "Top-Earning Women In Music" with $39 million earned, and fifth on their 2014 list with $40 million. With earnings of $135 million, Forbes also ranked Perry number one on their 2015 "Top-Earning Women In Music" list as well as the "World's Highest-Paid Musicians" and declared her the highest earning female celebrity in 2015, placing her at number 3 on the Forbes Celebrity 100 list. In 2016, the magazine estimated her net worth was $125 million, and ranked her number six on their list of "Highest-Paid Women in Music" with earnings of $41 million. The following year, she was ranked number nine on the list with $33 million. In 2018, she topped its "Highest-Paid Women in Music" listing and ranked at number four on the "Highest-Paid Female Celebrities" list with earnings of $83 million. Perry subsequently was placed at number four on the 2019 "Highest-Paid Women in Music" listings with $57.5 million. Later that year, with earnings of $530 million throughout the 2010s, the magazine also ranked her as the 9th highest earning musician of the decade.
Fashion
Perry has been described as a sex symbol; GQ labeled her a "full-on male fantasy", while Elle wrote her body looked "as though sketched by a teenage boy". Vice called her a serious' popstar/woman/sex symbol". She was placed at number one on the Maxim Hot 100 in 2010 as the "most beautiful woman in the world", with editor Joe Levy describing her as a "triple – no quadruple – kind of hot". Men's Health readers voted her the "sexiest woman of 2013". In November 2010, Perry told Harper's Bazaar that she was proud of and satisfied with her figure.
Perry's fashion often incorporates humor, bright colors, and food-related themes such as her characteristic spinning peppermint swirl dress. Vogue described her as "never exactly one to shy away from the outrageous or the extreme in any realm" and called her the "Queen of Camp". while Glamour named her the "queen of quirk". In February 2009, Perry told Seventeen that her fashion style was "a bit of a concoction of different things" and stated she enjoyed humor in her clothing. She has also described herself as having "multipersonality disorder" for fashion. Perry lists Gwen Stefani, Shirley Manson, Chloë Sevigny, Daphne Guinness, Natalie Portman, and the fictional character Lolita as her style icons. Elle described her as "the kitsch-loving pop star renowned for her uniquely experimental style" while Vogue described her style as "synonymous with outrageous, eye-catching ensembles that lean towards the theatrical."
During the 2017 launch of her shoe collection, Katy Perry Collections, she said about shoes: "When I first got to L.A., I cultivated my style on a budget, always shopping at thrift stores or vintage stores. … Once, I found these flats that looked like Dalmatian dogs. They had ears that moved and a tongue that stuck out. They were such a conversation piece. That's what is so great about fashion. … It's a form of communication. You don't have to start a smoking habit to start talking to someone. You can just wear cool shoes. It's an icebreaker."
Legacy and influence
Several media outlets such as Billboard and Glamour have referred to her as the "Queen of Pop", while Vogue has dubbed Perry the "Queen of Camp" and a "pop icon." Andrew Unterberger of Billboard described Teenage Dream "one of the defining LPs from a new golden age in mega-pop" while Christopher Rosa of Glamour named her as an influence to the pop sound and style of the 2010s, adding that her singles are "some of the most recognizable, iconic, and impactful hits in pop history." Perry was named "one of the last decade's most reliable and successful hitmakers" by the Official Charts Company in 2022.
Additionally, Perry was included in Glamour's "104 Women Who Defined the [2010s] in Pop Culture" list, saying: "[Perry] did more than just break chart records. She was one of the driving forces behind the sound of pop radio in the 2010s. [...] glossy, booming, sugary-sweet, and undeniably catchy." Variety included Perry in their Variety 500 list of the most influential business leaders, calling her a "global phenomenon" and a "dedicated artist and tireless self-promoter who has leveraged chart-topping hits, sold-out stadium shows, and staggering endorsement deals to become one of the richest and most influential pop stars alive." She has been called a "gay icon" by Taylor Henderson of Out, noting how "I Kissed a Girl" helped fans explore their sexuality and how Perry openly embraced the LGBTQ+ community.
Perry's music has been described by Out as having a "lasting legacy", with American singers Fletcher sampling "I Kissed a Girl" and Olivia Rodrigo referencing Teenage Dream on "Brutal". Additionally, other artists such as Halsey and Ariana Grande have praised Perry's work, with Halsey calling Teenage Dream the "perfect pop album" and Grande saying "The One That Got Away" is "one of the biggest and most perfectly written pop songs ever from one of the best pop albums of all time". Perry and her work have influenced artists such as Lil Nas X, Halsey, Lorde, Rina Sawayama, Doja Cat, Ellie Goulding, Tegan and Sara, Kim Petras, and Coldplay.
Other ventures
Philanthropy
Perry has supported various charitable organizations and causes throughout her career. She has contributed to organizations aimed at improving the lives and welfare of children in particular. In April 2013, she joined UNICEF to assist children in Madagascar with education and nutrition. On December 3, 2013, she was officially named a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, "with a special focus on engaging young people in the agency's work to improve the lives of the world's most vulnerable children and adolescents." She arranged for a portion of the money generated from tickets to her Prismatic World Tour to go to UNICEF. In September 2010, she helped build and design the Boys Hope/Girls Hope foundation shelter for youth in Baltimore, Maryland along with Raven-Symoné, Shaquille O'Neal, and the cast of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. In 2010, Perry and Nicki Minaj performed a cover of "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" for service members during the 2010 VH1 Divas Salute the Troops concert.
She has also supported children's education and well-being. All profits from sales of the album The Gay Nineties Old Tyme Music: Daisy Bell, which includes her rendition of "Daisy Bell (Bicycle Built for Two)", were donated to the charity Little Kids Rock, which supports musical education in underprivileged elementary schools. In June 2014, she teamed up with Staples Inc. for a project entitled "Make Roar Happen" which donated $1 million to DonorsChoose, an organization that supports teachers and funds classroom resources in public schools. In May 2016, she worked with UNICEF to improve child care quality in Vietnam, hoping to "break the cycle of poverty and drastically improve children's health, education and well-being". The following month, UNICEF announced that Perry would receive the Audrey Hepburn Humanitarian Award "for her work as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in support of the world's most vulnerable children" at their annual Snowflake Ball in November. All Spotify streams of her 2021 cover of "All You Need Is Love" will generate $1 in donations for the charity Baby2Baby.
Perry has supported organizations aimed at aiding people suffering with diseases including cancer and HIV/AIDS. During the 2008 Warped Tour, she had a cast made of her breasts to raise money for the Keep A Breast Foundation. She hosted and performed at the We Can Survive concert along with Bonnie McKee, Kacey Musgraves, Sara Bareilles, Ellie Goulding, and duo Tegan and Sara at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, California, on October 23, 2013. The concert's profits were donated to Young Survival Coalition, an organization aiding breast cancer in young women. In June 2009, she designed an item of clothing for H&M's "Fashion Against AIDS" campaign, which raises money for HIV/AIDS awareness projects. On February 26, 2017, she served as a co-chair alongside various celebrities such as Beyoncé, Lea Michele, Jim Carrey, Jared Leto, and Kevin Spacey for the 25th Annual Elton John AIDS Foundation Academy Award Party, a fundraiser for HIV/AIDS healthcare.
The proceeds from Perry's single "Part of Me" were donated to the charity MusiCares, which helps musicians in times of need. During her California Dreams Tour, she raised over $175,000 for the Tickets-For-Charity fundraiser. The money was divided between three charities: the Children's Health Fund (CHF), Generosity Water, and The Humane Society of the United States.
On her 27th birthday, Perry set up a donations page for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Auckland, and set up a similar page benefiting the David Lynch Foundation for her 28th birthday. On March 29, 2014, she helped raise $2.4 million for the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles along with other celebrities such as Ryan Seacrest, Pharrell Williams, Tim Allen, Lisa Edelstein, and Riley Keough.
Perry performed at the One Love Manchester benefit concert for the victims of the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing, among various performers including its organizer Ariana Grande, which was broadcast live on June 4, 2017, on radio and television stations around the world. In March 2018, Perry announced Witness: Coming Home, a benefit concert that was held in her hometown of Santa Barbara on May 19, 2018. The concert benefited those recovering from the aftermath of the 2017 California wildfires and 2018 Southern California mudflows. Perry partnered with the Santa Barbara Foundation, the 93108 Fund and The 805 UndocuFund, organizations which help in assisting members of the community in the Santa Barbara area through grants and various philanthropic efforts.
Activism
Perry has publicly advocated for LGBT rights and admitted that she wrote "I Kissed a Girl" about her own bisexual experiences with other women. In 2017, she received a Nation Equality Award from Human Rights Campaign for "using her powerful voice and international platform to speak out for LGBTQ equality". In her acceptance speech, she discussed having bisexual experiences, her fluid sexuality, and thanked the LGBTQ+ community. In an Out interview in 2021, she was heralded as a "gay icon" with "I Kissed a Girl" being called a "bonafide queer anthem." She continued to thank the LGBTQ+ community in the same interview, saying: "I came from a very sheltered upbringing where it wasn't okay to be friends with anyone from that community. And now that is my community, [...] I wouldn't have survived without the community and it's amazing how full circle it's come and how much growth has happened since I started."
She supported Stonewall during their "It gets better..... today" campaign to prevent homophobic bullying, and dedicated the music video to her song "Firework" to the It Gets Better Project. In 2008, Perry told Do Something she was proud to be a LGBT rights activist, saying "I've always been a very open-minded person, but I definitely believe in equality." In June 2012, Perry expressed her hopes for LGBT equality, commenting "hopefully, we will look back at this moment and think like we do now concerning [other] civil rights issues. We'll just shake our heads in disbelief, saying, 'Thank God we've evolved.' That would be my prayer for the future." In December 2012, Perry was awarded the Trevor Hero Award by The Trevor Project for her work and activism on behalf of LGBT youth.
Perry identifies as a feminist, and appeared in April 2013 in a video clip for the "Chime for Change" campaign that aimed to spread female empowerment. She has also said that America's lack of free health care drove her "absolutely crazy". Following the shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando in June 2016, Perry and nearly 200 other artists and executives in music signed an open letter organized by Billboard addressed to United States Congress demanding increased gun control in the United States.
Through Twitter and by performing at rallies, Perry supported President Barack Obama in his run for re-election and praised his support for same-sex marriage and LGBT equality. She performed at three rallies for Obama, in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Wisconsin, singing a rendition of "Let's Stay Together" as well as a number of her songs. During her Las Vegas performance she wore a dress made to replicate a voting ballot, with Obama's box filled in. On Twitter, she encouraged her followers to vote for Obama.
In August 2013, Perry voiced criticism of Tony Abbott, then-leader of conservative Liberal Party of Australia and candidate for Prime Minister of Australia, due to his opposition to gay marriage and told Abbott, "I love you as a human being but I can't give you my vote."; the statement came after Abbott expressed pride at learning of Perry's then-upcoming performance in Australia. In April 2014, she publicly supported Marianne Williamson in her campaign for California's 33rd congressional district by attending a political press event. She endorsed Kamala Harris in the United States Senate election in California, and organized a fundraiser for Harris at her home in Los Angeles in November 2016. Perry also publicly endorsed former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for president in 2016. She performed alongside Elton John at a fundraising concert for Clinton in New York City in March 2016. Perry also spoke and performed at the 2016 Democratic National Convention in support of Clinton. Four years later, she supported Joe Biden and Kamala Harris during the 2020 United States presidential election, praising the latter as a leader who had "experience we desperately need right now" and believed that the former "choosing her as his running mate is already a testament to his decision making".
Achievements
Throughout her career, Perry has won five American Music Awards, fourteen People's Choice Awards, four Guinness World Records, a Brit Award, and a Juno Award. In September 2012, Billboard dubbed her the "Woman of the Year". From May 2010 to September 2011, the singer spent a record-breaking 69 consecutive weeks in the top ten of the Billboard Hot 100. Teenage Dream became the first album by a female artist to produce five number-one Billboard Hot 100 singles, and the second album overall after Michael Jackson's Bad. In the United States, she has accumulated nine number-one singles on the Billboard Hot 100, her most recent being "Dark Horse", and holds the record for having 18 consecutive number-one songs on the Billboard Dance Club Songs chart.
Billboard also named her the 15th most successful dance club artist of all time. The magazine additionally ranked her 4th on its "Greatest of All Time Pop Songs Artists" list, included Teenage Dream and Prism among its "Greatest of All Time Billboard 200 Albums by Women" list, and ranked "Dark Horse" at number 100 on its "Greatest of All Time Hot 100 Songs" as well as one of its "Greatest of All Time Hot 100 Songs by Women" along with "E.T.", "Firework", and "California Gurls". In June 2015, her music video for "Dark Horse" became the first video by a female artist to reach 1 billion views on Vevo. The following month, her music video for "Roar" reached 1 billion views on Vevo, making her the first artist to have multiple videos with 1 billion views.
Perry was declared the Top Global Female Recording Artist of 2013 by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI). According to Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), she is the fifth top digital singles artist in the United States, with 105 million certified song units in the country including on-demand streams and also has 11 million certified album units, totaling 116 million certified units in the nation. She also became the first artist to have three songs receive Diamond certifications from the RIAA with "Dark Horse", "Firework", and "Roar". All three of them and "E.T.", "California Gurls", and "Hot n Cold" have each sold over 5 million digital copies. Throughout her career, Perry has sold more than 18 million albums and 125 million singles globally, making her one of the best-selling music artists of all time.
Discography
Katy Hudson (2001)
One of the Boys (2008)
Teenage Dream (2010)
Prism (2013)
Witness (2017)
Smile (2020)
Filmography
The Smurfs (2011)
Katy Perry: Part of Me (2012)
The Smurfs 2 (2013)
Brand: A Second Coming (2015)
Katy Perry: The Prismatic World Tour (2015)
Katy Perry: Making of the Pepsi Super Bowl Halftime Show (2015)
Jeremy Scott: The People's Designer (2015)
Zoolander 2 (2016)
Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (2016)
Tours and residency
Co-headlining tour
Strangely Normal Tour (with Phil Joel) (2001)
Headlining tours
Hello Katy Tour (2009)
California Dreams Tour (2011–2012)
Prismatic World Tour (2014–2015)
Witness: The Tour (2017–2018)
Residency
Play (2021–2022)
See also
List of best-selling music artists
List of most-followed Twitter accounts
List of Billboard Social 50 number-one artists
List of highest-certified music artists in the United States
Best-selling female artists of all time
References
Footnotes
Sources
External links
1984 births
Living people
21st-century American guitarists
21st-century American singers
21st-century American women singers
21st-century American women guitarists
Activists from California
American contraltos
American disco singers
American women pop singers
American women rock singers
American women singer-songwriters
American feminists
American film actresses
American performance artists
American pop guitarists
American pop rock singers
American rock guitarists
American rock songwriters
American television actresses
American women activists
American voice actresses
American women in electronic music
Brit Award winners
Capitol Records artists
Columbia Records artists
Dance-pop musicians
Def Jam Recordings artists
Feminist musicians
Guitarists from California
Island Records artists
Juno Award for International Album of the Year winners
LGBT rights activists from the United States
Musicians from Santa Barbara, California
MTV Europe Music Award winners
Participants in American reality television series
Singer-songwriters from California
UNICEF Goodwill Ambassadors | true | [
"Sandy Julien Wilhelm (born 22 April 1975 in Toulouse) better known by his stage name Sandy Vee, is a French music producer and songwriter. He gained much commercial and critical recognition for co-producing Rihanna's \"Only Girl (In the World)\", Katy Perry's “Firework”, and 8 songs on the David Guetta album One Love. He originally played bass in a variety of jazz, rock, and punk bands before gaining exposure to the underground DJ scene in France. He currently resides in New York City.\n\nSandy Vee won the Best Dance Recording at the 2011 Grammy Awards for Rihanna's \"Only Girl (In the World)\". He was also nominated in the category Album of the Year for Katy Perry's Teenage Dream.\n\nEarly success\n\nVee was DJing at the “Fuck Me I'm Famous” party at Pacha Ibiza when David Guetta approached him after a set and told him how much he loved his track Bleep. The two producers bonded and went into the studio to produce the song that would eventually become \"On The Dancefloor\" for will.i.am. However, according to Vee, \"we discovered that not only did we work well together, but we worked fast... We figured there was no reason to stop, so we just kept going\". This led to Vee co-producing 8 songs on Guetta's globally successful record One Love.\n\nRecent work\n\nAfter the success with One Love, Vee became a desired name on the pop production circuit. Sandy went on to work with Norwegian production duo Stargate, who Sandy described their initial meeting in 2009 as: \"I played them a few tunes I was working on at the time and they went crazy for one in particular...so we worked together and finished it\". The first track the group worked on was eventually placed with Sean Kingston.\n\nStargate and Vee continued to work together, producing hits for Katy Perry (\"Firework\"), Rihanna (\"Only Girl (In the World)\", \"S&M\") and Ne-Yo (\"Beautiful Monster\"), Britney Spears (\"Selfish\"), and more.\nSandy currently lives in New York where he has since his production credits increase exponentially with credits on records for Taio Cruz, Pitbull, Selena Gomez, Nikki Williams.\n\nNumber one singles\n2009: David Guetta feat. Akon - \"Sexy Bitch\"2010: Rihanna - \"Only Girl (In the World)\"2010: Katy Perry - \"Firework\"2011: Rihanna - \"S&M\"\n\nGrammy nominations and awards\n2011: Best Dance Recording, Rihanna - \"Only Girl (In the World)\" (Won)2012: Record of the Year, Katy Perry - \"Firework\" (Nominated)2012: Album of the Year, Rihanna - \"Loud\" (Nominated)2012: Best Dance/Electronica Album, David Guetta - \"Nothing But the Beat\" (Nominated)\n\nSongwriting and production discography\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nSandy Vee at Discogs\n\nLiving people\nFrench record producers\nFrench songwriters\nFrench DJs\nGrammy Award winners\n1975 births",
"\"Every Day Is a Holiday\" is a song written and recorded by American singer Katy Perry. Produced by Duke Dumont, the song was released on November 23, 2015 as part of H&M's holiday campaign along with a promotional commercial directed by Jonas Åkerlund. It is a gospel-inspired Christmas dance track about how love is the best Christmas gift.\n\nComposition\n\"Every Day Is a Holiday\" was written by Perry and produced by Duke Dumont. Lyrically, the song talks about how the best Christmas gift one can receive is love. It features a background choir as Perry sings the chorus:We don't need a thing under the tree\nYou give me all I need\nEvery day is a holiday\nWhen you're the reason to celebrate\nEvery day is a holiday\nWhen you're the reason\n\nThe track contains a \"'70s disco essence and a big ol' thumping bassline\". It is a gospel-inspired dance track, and Perry's first Christmas song.\n\nRelease and promotion\nThe song was released on November 23, 2015. The same day, it was featured in a two-minute commercial for H&M's 2015 holiday campaign. It features Perry interacting with gingerbread men, presents, and large teddy bears while sporting various holiday-themed clothes made by the store. The commercial was directed by Jonas Åkerlund and filmed in July 2015. Perry herself described it as \"very jolly\", and was happy to wear H&M's clothes in the video since \"H&M has been a part of the evolution of my personal style since I was 13, when I would start to incorporate fun, affordable H&M pieces into my vintage wardrobe\".\n\nReception\nLara O'Reilly of Business Insider criticized the video as \"bizarre\" while Idolators Bianca Gracie described it as \"slightly cheesy but fun\". Writing for Fuse, Jeff Bejamin praised the song as \"catchy\" and ranked it number one on a \"Best Holiday Songs of 2015\" list. VH1 also gave a positive review, calling the commercial \"fun\" and \"energetic\" and felt Perry's outfits were \"cute\". Lauren Valenti from Marie Claire dubbed the song \"a track filled with good tidings\". In a negative review, Matt Miller from Esquire felt the video was \"a hellish non-denominational land of cheer\". Glamour writer Christopher Rosa ranked it as Perry's 7th worst song, adding that the H&M campaign it was made for is \"exactly where it should stay\".\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n \n\n2015 songs\nAmerican Christmas songs\nAmerican dance songs\nKaty Perry songs\nMusic videos directed by Jonas Åkerlund\nSongs written by Katy Perry"
] |
[
"Katy Perry",
"1999-2006: Career beginnings",
"when was katy parry's first album under her stage name?",
"March 6, 2001,",
"what did she do between 1999 and 2001?",
"2001, and went on tour that year as part of Phil Joel's Strangely Normal Tour while also embarking on other performances of her own in the United States.",
"Was her first album as Katy Perry a hit?",
"Katy Hudson received positive reviews from critics, though was commercially unsuccessful",
"When did Perry start gaining commercial success?",
"2005"
] | C_29e64ee43f0547139a7c08bceed86ff2_1 | What was it that started gaining her popularity? | 5 | What started gaining Perry popularity in 2005? | Katy Perry | Perry completed her General Educational Development (GED) requirements at age 15, during her freshman year of high school, and left Dos Pueblos High School to pursue a musical career. She briefly studied Italian opera at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara. Her singing caught the attention of rock artists Steve Thomas and Jennifer Knapp from Nashville, Tennessee, who brought her there to improve her writing skills. In Nashville, she started recording demos and learned how to write songs and play guitar. After signing with Red Hill Records, Perry recorded her debut album, a gospel record titled Katy Hudson. She released the album on March 6, 2001, and went on tour that year as part of Phil Joel's Strangely Normal Tour while also embarking on other performances of her own in the United States. Katy Hudson received positive reviews from critics, though was commercially unsuccessful and sold an estimated 200 copies before the label ceased operations in December. Transitioning from gospel music to secular music, Perry started writing songs with producer Glen Ballard, and moved to Los Angeles at age 17. In 2003, she briefly performed as Katheryn Perry to avoid confusion with actress Kate Hudson. She later adopted the stage name Katy Perry, using her mother's maiden name. In 2004, Perry signed to Ballard's label, Java, which was then affiliated with The Island Def Jam Music Group. She began work on a solo record, but the record was shelved after Java was dropped. Ballard then introduced Perry to Tim Devine, an A&R executive at Columbia Records, and she was signed as a solo artist. Over the course of the next two years, Perry wrote and recorded material for her Columbia debut, and worked with songwriters including Desmond Child, Greg Wells, Butch Walker, Scott Cutler, Anne Preven, The Matrix, Kara DioGuardi, Max Martin and Dr. Luke. In addition, after Devine suggested that songwriting team The Matrix become a "real group", Perry recorded with them. Perry was dropped from Columbia in 2006 as her record neared completion. After the label dropped her, she worked at an independent A&R company called Taxi Music. Perry had minor success prior to her breakthrough. One of the songs she had recorded for her album with Ballard, "Simple", was featured on the soundtrack to the 2005 film The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. She provided backing vocals on Mick Jagger's song "Old Habits Die Hard", which was included on the soundtrack to the 2004 film Alfie. In September 2004, Blender named Perry "The Next Big Thing". She recorded background vocals on P.O.D.'s single "Goodbye for Now" and was featured at the end of its music video in 2006. That year, Perry also appeared in the music video for "Learn to Fly" by Carbon Leaf, and played the love interest of her then-boyfriend, Gym Class Heroes lead singer Travie McCoy, in the band's music video for "Cupid's Chokehold". CANNOTANSWER | One of the songs she had recorded for her album with Ballard, | Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson (born October 25, 1984), known professionally as Katy Perry, is an American singer, songwriter, and television judge. She is known for her influence on the pop sound and style of the 2010s. Pursuing a career in gospel music at 16, Perry released her commercially unsuccessful debut album, Katy Hudson (2001), under Red Hill Records. She moved to Los Angeles at 17 to venture into secular music, adopting the stage name "Katy Perry" from her mother's maiden name. With producers Glen Ballard and Greg Wells, she recorded an unreleased album titled Fingerprints while signed to Java Records and then Columbia Records before being dropped. After this, she signed a recording contract with Capitol Records in April 2007.
Perry rose to fame with her second album and major label debut, One of the Boys (2008), a pop rock record containing her debut single "I Kissed a Girl" and follow-up single "Hot n Cold", which respectively reached number one and three on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. The disco-influenced pop album Teenage Dream (2010) spawned five U.S. number one singles—"California Gurls", "Teenage Dream", "Firework", "E.T.", and "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)"—becoming the first album by a solo female artist to do so. A reissue titled Teenage Dream: The Complete Confection (2012) subsequently had the U.S. number one single "Part of Me". Her fourth album Prism (2013) has themes of self-empowerment and relationships. With the music videos for its U.S. number one singles "Roar" and "Dark Horse", Perry became the first artist to have multiple videos reach one billion views on YouTube. Witness (2017) featured an electropop sound with themes of liberation and a political subtext, while Smile (2020) featured themes of motherhood and self-help. She later embarked on her first concert residency titled Play in Resorts World Las Vegas, selling out multiple shows and receiving critical acclaim.
Perry is one of the best-selling artists of all time, having sold over 143 million records worldwide. All of her studio albums released under Capitol have individually surpassed one billion streams on Spotify. She has nine U.S. number one singles, three U.S. number one albums and has received various accolades, including four Guinness World Records, five Billboard Music Awards, five American Music Awards, a Brit Award, and a Juno Award. Perry has been included in the annual Forbes lists of highest-earning women in music from 2011 to 2019. Her critically acclaimed Super Bowl halftime show performance is the most watched in history. Outside of music, she released an autobiographical documentary titled Katy Perry: Part of Me in 2012, and voiced Smurfette in The Smurfs film series. Perry began serving as a judge on American Idol, starting from its sixteenth season in 2018. She is also the most followed woman on Twitter, with over 108 million followers.
Life and career
1984–1998: Early life and family
Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson was born on October 25, 1984, in Santa Barbara, California, to Pentecostal pastors Mary Christine (née Perry) and Maurice Keith Hudson. Both of her parents turned to religion after a "wild youth". Perry has English, German, Irish, and Portuguese ancestry. Through her mother, she is a niece of film director Frank Perry. She has a younger brother named David, who is a singer, and an older sister, Angela.
From ages three to 11, Perry often moved across the country as her parents set up churches before settling again in Santa Barbara. Growing up, she attended religious schools and camps, including Paradise Valley Christian School in Arizona and Santa Barbara Christian School in California during her elementary years. Her family struggled financially, sometimes using food stamps and eating food from the food bank which also fed the congregation at Perry's parents' church.
Growing up, Perry and her siblings were not allowed to eat the cereal Lucky Charms as the word "luck" reminded their mother of Lucifer, and had to call deviled eggs "angeled eggs". Perry primarily listened to gospel music, as secular music was generally discouraged in the family's home. She discovered popular music through CDs she sneaked from her friends. Perry later recalled a story about how a friend of hers played "You Oughta Know" by Alanis Morissette, which impacted her songwriting and singing.
While not strictly identifying as religious, she has stated, "I pray all the time – for self-control, for humility." Wanting to be like her sister Angela, Perry began singing by practicing with her sister's cassette tapes. She performed the tracks in front of their parents, who let her take vocal lessons as Angela was at the time. She began training at age nine, and was incorporated into her parents' ministry, singing in church from ages nine to 17. At 13, Perry was given her first guitar for her birthday, and publicly performed songs she wrote. She tried to "be a bit like the typical Californian girl" while growing up, and started rollerskating, skateboarding, and surfing as a teenager. Her brother David described her as a tomboy during her adolescence, which Perry talks about on her song "One Of The Boys". She took dancing lessons and learned how to swing, Lindy Hop, and jitterbug.
1999–2006: Career beginnings, Katy Hudson and Fingerprints
Perry completed her General Educational Development (GED) requirements at age 15, during her first year of high school, and left Dos Pueblos High School to pursue a music career. She briefly had music lessons in facilities rented from the Music Academy of the West. Her singing caught the attention of rock artists Steve Thomas and Jennifer Knapp from Nashville, Tennessee, who brought her there to improve her writing skills. In Nashville, she started recording demos and learned how to write songs and play guitar. Perry signed with Red Hill Records and recorded her debut album, a contemporary Christian record titled Katy Hudson, which was released on March 6, 2001. She also went on tour that year as part of Phil Joel's Strangely Normal Tour and embarked on other performances of her own in the United States. Katy Hudson received mixed reviews from critics and was commercially unsuccessful, selling an estimated 200 copies before the label ceased operations in December. Transitioning from gospel music to secular music, Perry started working with producer Glen Ballard, and moved to Los Angeles at age 17. She opted to work with Ballard due to his past work with Alanis Morissette, one of her major inspirations. In 2003, she briefly performed as Katheryn Perry to avoid confusion with actress Kate Hudson. She later adopted the stage name 'Katy Perry', using her mother's maiden name. In 2010, she recalled that "Thinking of You" was one of the first songs she wrote after moving to Los Angeles.
In 2004, she signed to Ballard's label, Java Records, which was then affiliated with The Island Def Jam Music Group. Perry began work on a solo record due for release in March 2005, but the record was shelved after Java was dropped. Ballard then introduced her to Tim Devine, an A&R executive at Columbia Records, and she was signed as a solo artist. By November 2006, Perry had finished writing and recording material for her Columbia debut titled Fingerprints (with some of the material from this time appearing on One of the Boys) which was planned for release in 2007. Some of the material from Fingerprints that did not make it on One Of The Boys was given to other artists, such as "I Do Not Hook Up" and "Long Shot" to Kelly Clarkson and "Rock God" to Selena Gomez & the Scene.
Perry worked with songwriters including Desmond Child, Greg Wells, Butch Walker, Scott Cutler, Anne Preven, The Matrix, Kara DioGuardi, Max Martin, and Dr. Luke. In addition, after Devine suggested that songwriting team The Matrix become a "real group", she recorded a shelved album called The Matrix with them. The Matrix was planned to be released in 2004 but was cancelled due to creative differences. It was later released in 2009 after the release of One of the Boys. Perry was dropped from Columbia in 2006 as Fingerprints neared completion. After the label dropped her, she worked at an independent A&R company called Taxi Music.
Perry had minor success prior to her breakthrough. One of the songs she had recorded for her album with Ballard, "Simple", was featured on the soundtrack to the 2005 film The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. She provided backing vocals on Mick Jagger's song "Old Habits Die Hard", which was included on the soundtrack to the 2004 film Alfie. In September 2004, Blender named Perry "The Next Big Thing". She recorded background vocals on P.O.D.'s single "Goodbye for Now", was featured at the end of its music video in 2006, and performed it with them on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. That year, Perry also appeared in the music video for "Learn to Fly" by Carbon Leaf, and played the love interest of her then-boyfriend, Gym Class Heroes lead singer Travie McCoy, in the band's music video for "Cupid's Chokehold".
2007–2009: Breakthrough with One of the Boys
After Columbia dropped Perry, Angelica Cob-Baehler, then a publicity executive at the label, brought Perry's demos to Virgin Records chairman Jason Flom. Flom was convinced that she could be a breakthrough star and she was signed to Capitol Records in April 2007. The label arranged for her to work with Dr. Luke to add an "undeniable smash" to her existing material. Perry and Dr. Luke co-wrote the songs "I Kissed a Girl" and "Hot n Cold" for her second album One of the Boys. A campaign was started with the November 2007 release of the video to "Ur So Gay", a song aimed at introducing her to the music market. A digital EP of the same name was also released that month. Madonna helped publicize the song by praising it on the JohnJay & Rich radio show in April 2008, stating "Ur So Gay" was her "favorite song" at the time. In March 2008, Perry made a cameo appearance as a club singer in the Wildfire episode "Life's Too Short" and appeared as herself during a photo shoot that June on The Young and the Restless for the show's magazine Restless Style.
Perry released her first single with Capitol, "I Kissed a Girl", on April 28, 2008, as the lead single from One of the Boys. The first station to pick up the song was WRVW in Nashville, who were inundated with enthusiastic calls the first three days they played it. The track reached number one on the US Billboard Hot 100. "I Kissed a Girl" created controversy among both religious and LGBT groups. The former criticized its homosexual theme, while the latter accused her of using bi-curiosity to sell records. In response to speculation that her parents opposed her music and career, Perry told MTV that they had no problems with her success. One of the Boys, released on June 17, 2008, garnered mixed critical reviews and reached number nine on the US Billboard 200. The album went on to sell 7 million copies worldwide. "Hot n Cold" was released the following September and became the album's second successful single, reaching number three on the Billboard Hot 100 while topping charts in Germany, Canada, the Netherlands and Austria. Later singles "Thinking of You" and "Waking Up in Vegas" were released in 2009 and reached the top 30 of the Hot 100. The Matrix's self-titled debut album, which Perry had recorded with the band in 2004, was released onto iTunes on January 27, 2009, as a result of her solo success.
After finishing the 2008 Warped Tour, Perry hosted the 2008 MTV Europe Music Awards in November 2008, where she won the award for Best New Act. At the 2009 Brit Awards, she also won the award for International Female Solo Artist. Perry embarked on her first headlining world tour, the Hello Katy Tour, from January to November 2009 to support One of the Boys. On August 4, 2009, she performed as opening act for one date of No Doubt's 2009 Summer Tour. Perry also hosted the 2009 MTV Europe Music Awards in November 2009, becoming the first person to host two consecutive ceremonies of the European awards. On July 22, 2009, Perry recorded a live album titled MTV Unplugged, which featured acoustic performances of five tracks from One of the Boys as well as one new song, "Brick by Brick", and a cover of Fountains of Wayne's "Hackensack". It was released on November 17, 2009. Perry also appeared on two singles with other artists; she was featured on a remix of Colorado-based band 3OH!3's song "Starstrukk" in September 2009, and on a duet with Timbaland entitled "If We Ever Meet Again", from his album Shock Value II, three months later. The Guinness World Records recognized her in its 2010 edition as the "Best Start on the U.S. Digital Chart by a Female Artist", for digital single sales of over two million copies.
After Perry and Travie McCoy split up in December 2008, they briefly reconciled before she ended their relationship in 2009. Perry met her future husband Russell Brand in the summer of 2009 while filming a cameo appearance for his film Get Him to the Greek. Her scene, in which the two kiss, does not appear in the film. She began dating Brand after meeting him again that September at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards. The couple became engaged on December 31, 2009, while vacationing in Rajasthan, India.
2010–2012: Teenage Dream and first marriage
After serving as a guest judge on American Idol, Perry released "California Gurls" featuring Snoop Dogg on May 7, 2010. The song was the lead single from her third studio album, Teenage Dream, and reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in June. She also served as a guest judge on British The X Factor later that month before releasing the album's second single, "Teenage Dream", in July. "Teenage Dream" reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in September. Released on August 24, 2010, Teenage Dream debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, and received mixed reviews from music critics. It has since sold 6 million copies worldwide. Teenage Dream would go on to win the 2011 Juno Award for International Album of the Year. In October, "Firework" was released as the album's third single. It became the album's third consecutive number one on the Billboard Hot 100 on December 8, 2010.
"E.T." featuring Kanye West was released as the fourth single from Teenage Dream on February 16, 2011. It topped the Billboard Hot 100 for five non-consecutive weeks, making Teenage Dream the ninth album in history to produce four number one singles on the chart. "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)" followed as the fifth single in June, and Perry became the first female artist to achieve five number-one Billboard Hot 100 songs from one album when the single topped that chart on August 17, and the second artist after Michael Jackson with his album Bad. For this record, she received an honorary American Music Award in November 2011 and a 2013 Guinness World Record. On September 7, she set a new record by becoming the first artist to spend 69 consecutive weeks in the top ten of the Hot 100. After "The One That Got Away" was released as the album's sixth single in October, Teenage Dream became the third album to spawn six top-five songs on the Billboard Hot 100 after Rhythm Nation 1814 by Janet Jackson and Faith by George Michael. The song peaked at number three in the US and number two in Canada.
On January 5, 2012, Perry was named the sixth best-selling digital artist in the United States, with sales of 37.6 million units according to Nielsen SoundScan. That month, she became the first artist to have four songs sell over 5 million digital units when "E.T." reached that mark along with "Firework", "California Gurls", and "Hot N Cold". On February 13, Capitol released the lead single from Teenage Dream: The Complete Confection, "Part of Me", which debuted at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and became Perry's seventh single overall to top the chart. Teenage Dream: The Complete Confection was released on March 23, and serves as a reissue of Teenage Dream. "Wide Awake" was released on May 22 as the re-release's second single, peaking at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 and number one in Canada and New Zealand.
Perry embarked on her second tour, the California Dreams Tour, in support of Teenage Dream from February 2011 to January 2012. The tour grossed $59.5 million globally and won her the award for Best Live Act at the 2011 MTV Europe Music Awards. On September 23, 2011, she performed on the opening day of the 2011 Rock in Rio festival along with Elton John and Rihanna. In September 2010, Perry was scheduled to appear on the 41st-season premiere of Sesame Street. After her scene was uploaded to YouTube, viewers criticized Perry's exposed cleavage. Four days before the scheduled airing, Sesame Workshop announced that the segment would not air on television, but would still be available to watch online. Perry subsequently mocked the controversy on Saturday Night Live, where she was a musical guest and wore an Elmo-themed shirt showing large amounts of cleavage during one skit.
In December 2010, Perry played Moe Szyslak's girlfriend in the live-action segment from a Christmas episode of The Simpsons titled "The Fight Before Christmas". In February 2011, she made a guest appearance on the How I Met Your Mother episode "Oh Honey", playing a woman known as Honey. The role won her the People's Choice Award for Favorite TV Guest Star in January 2012. She made her film debut in the 3D family motion picture The Smurfs as Smurfette on July 29, 2011. The film was a financial success worldwide, while critics gave mostly negative reviews. She hosted Saturday Night Live on December 10, 2011, with Robyn as the episode's musical guest. Perry's work on the episode received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised her performance in the episode's digital short featuring her and Andy Samberg. In March 2012, she guest starred as a prison security guard named Rikki on the Raising Hope episode "Single White Female Role Model". On July 5, 2012, Perry's autobiographical documentary Katy Perry: Part of Me was released to theaters through Paramount Pictures. The film received positive reviews and grossed $32.7 million worldwide at the box office.
Perry began to venture into business when she endorsed her first fragrance, Purr, in November 2010. Her second fragrance, Meow!, was released in December 2011. Both perfumes were released through Nordstrom department stores. Electronic Arts recruited her to promote their new expansion pack for The Sims 3: Showtime, before releasing a separate stuff pack featuring Perry-inspired furniture, outfits, and hairstyles, titled The Sims 3: Katy Perry's Sweet Treats, in June 2012. The following month, she became the spokesperson and ambassador for Popchips and made an investment in the company. Billboard dubbed her as their "Woman of the Year" for 2012.
She married Russell Brand on October 23, 2010, in a traditional Hindu ceremony near the Ranthambhore tiger sanctuary in Rajasthan, India. Brand announced on December 30, 2011, that they were divorcing after 14 months of marriage. Perry later stated that conflicting career schedules and his desire to have children before she was ready led to the end of their marriage and that he never spoke to her again after sending a text message that he was divorcing her, while Brand asserted that he divorced her due to her commercial success and reluctance to engage in activism. She was initially distraught over their divorce, and said that she contemplated suicide. After the marriage ended in 2012, Perry began a relationship with singer John Mayer that August.
2013–2015: Prism and Super Bowl XLIX halftime show
In November 2012, Perry began work on her fourth album, Prism. She told Billboard, "I know exactly the record I want to make next. I know the artwork, the coloring and the tone" and "I even know what type of tour I'm doing next. I'll be very pleased if the vision I have in my head becomes a reality." After initially telling L'Uomo Vogue in June 2012 that she planned to have "darker elements" in Prism following the end of her marriage, the singer revealed to MTV during the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards that she changed the album's direction after periods of self-reflection. Perry commented "I felt very prismatic", which inspired the album's name. "Roar" was released as the lead single from Prism on August 10, 2013. It was promoted at the MTV Video Music Awards and reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100. "Unconditionally" followed as the second single from Prism on October 16, 2013, and peaked at number 14 in the United States.
Prism was released on October 18, 2013, and has sold 4 million copies as of August 2015. It received favorable reviews from critics and debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 chart. Four days later, Perry performed the songs from the album at the iHeartRadio Theater in Los Angeles. "Dark Horse" with Juicy J was released as the album's third single in December, and became her ninth U.S. number-one single the following month. In 2014, "Birthday" and "This Is How We Do" respectively followed as the album's fourth and fifth singles, and reached the top 25 on the Hot 100. Prior to ending her relationship with Mayer in February 2014, she recorded and co-wrote a duet with him titled "Who You Love" for his album Paradise Valley. The song was released on August 12, 2013. Perry's third headlining tour, the Prismatic World Tour, began in May 2014 and concluded in October 2015. It sold almost 2 million tickets and grossed $204.3 million worldwide and won Perry the award for "Top Package" at the 2014 Billboard Touring Awards. She also performed at the 2015 Rock in Rio festival on September 27, 2015.
On November 23, 2014, the NFL announced that Perry would perform at the Super Bowl XLIX halftime show on February 1, 2015. Lenny Kravitz and Missy Elliott served as special guests for the show. Her performance was critically acclaimed, and the Guinness World Records announced two days after the singer's halftime show that it garnered 118.5 million viewers in the United States, becoming the most watched and highest rated show in Super Bowl history. The viewership was higher than the game itself, which was viewed by an audience of 114.4 million.
The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) ranked her fifth on the list of Top Global Recording Artists of 2013. On June 26, 2014, she was declared the Top Certified Digital Artist Ever by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for certified sales of 72 million digital singles in the United States. In May 2014, a portrait of Perry by painter Mark Ryden was featured in his exhibition "The Gay 90s", and shown at the Kohn Gallery in Los Angeles. Along with several other artists, she also recorded a cover version of the song "Daisy Bell (Bicycle Built for Two)" on a limited-edition concept album titled The Gay Nineties Old Tyme Music: Daisy Bell to accompany the exhibition. That month, a portrait of Perry by artist Will Cotton was included in the United States National Portrait Gallery. On November 23, 2015, Perry starred in H&M's holiday advertising campaign, for which she wrote and recorded a song titled "Every Day Is a Holiday".
On June 17, 2014, Perry announced that she had founded her own record label under Capitol Records, titled Metamorphosis Music. Ferras was the first artist to get signed to her label, and Perry served as an executive producer on his self-titled EP. She also recorded a duet with him on the EP, titled "Legends Never Die". The label was later renamed Unsub Records.
Outside of her music career, Perry reprised her role as Smurfette in The Smurfs 2, which was released in theaters on July 31, 2013. Like its predecessor, The Smurfs 2 was a financial success but was panned by critics. In March 2014, she made a guest appearance playing herself in the episode "Blisteritos Presents Dad Academy Graduation Congraduritos Red Carpet Viewing Party" of the Kroll Show. Killer Queen was released as her third fragrance in August 2013 through Coty, Inc. In January 2014, she became a guest curator of Madonna's Art for Freedom initiative. In March 2015, she appeared in Brand: A Second Coming, a documentary following her ex-husband Russell Brand's transition from comedy work to activism, and released a concert film titled Katy Perry: The Prismatic World Tour through Epix, which took place during her tour of the same name. Perry also made a cameo appearance in the music video for Madonna's song "Bitch I'm Madonna" in June 2015. The following month, she released another fragrance with Coty, entitled Mad Potion. In September 2015, she appeared in the documentaries Katy Perry: Making of the Pepsi Super Bowl Halftime Show, which followed Perry's preparation for her Super Bowl performance, and Jeremy Scott: The People's Designer, which followed the life and career of designer Jeremy Scott. Perry released a mobile app titled Katy Perry Pop in December 2015 through Glu Mobile where her character helps players become famous musicians. She described it as "the most fun, colorful world that helps guide your musical dreams".
2016–2018: Witness and American Idol
Perry started writing songs for her new album in June 2016, and recorded an anthem for NBC Sports's coverage of the 2016 Summer Olympics titled "Rise", which was released the following month. Perry chose to release it as a standalone track rather than save it for her album "because now more than ever, there is a need for our world to unite". NBC also felt its message spoke "directly to the spirit of the Olympics and its athletes" for its inspirational themes. The song reached number one in Australia and number eleven in the United States.
In August 2016, Perry stated that she aspired to create material "that connects and relates and inspires" and told Ryan Seacrest that she was "not rushing" her fifth album, adding "I'm just having a lot of fun, but experimenting and trying different producers, and different collaborators, and different styles". On February 10, 2017, Perry released the album's lead single "Chained to the Rhythm" featuring Skip Marley. It reached number one in Hungary and number four in the United States. The track was also streamed over three million times on Spotify within 24 hours, breaking the music streaming service's record at the time for the highest first-day streaming for a single track by a female artist. The album's second single, "Bon Appétit" with Migos, was released that April. Its third single, "Swish Swish", featured Nicki Minaj and followed the next month. They respectively peaked at numbers 59 and 46 in the United States, and made the top 15 in Canada.
The album, titled Witness, was released on June 9, 2017, to mixed reviews, and debuted at number one in the United States. To accompany the album's release, Perry broadcast herself on YouTube for four days with a live-stream titled Katy Perry Live: Witness World Wide, concluding with a live concert on June 12. The live-stream generated over 49 million views from 190 different countries. She also embarked on Witness: The Tour, which began in September 2017 and ended in August 2018. On June 15, 2017, Calvin Harris released a song titled "Feels" from his album Funk Wav Bounces Vol. 1, which featured Perry, Big Sean, and Pharrell Williams. The song went on to reach number one in the United Kingdom.
Perry subsequently recorded a cover of the Dear Evan Hansen song "Waving Through a Window" for the deluxe edition of the cast recording, which was released on November 2, 2018. The show's creators Benj Pasek and Justin Paul had requested Perry to cover the song to promote the musical's national tour and bring awareness to mental health. Later that month, Perry released "Cozy Little Christmas". She also recorded the song "Immortal Flame" for the game Final Fantasy Brave Exvius, and had a playable character modeled after her.
Outside of recording music, Perry appeared as herself in the film Zoolander 2, which was released in February 2016. In February 2017, the singer launched a shoe line titled "Katy Perry Collections". Her shoes are available on her website, Katy Perry Collections, and at retailers such as Dillard's and Walmart. The following August, she hosted the 2017 MTV Video Music Awards. Perry was signed for a $25-million salary to serve as a judge on ABC's revival of American Idol, which premiered in March 2018. Perry began a relationship with Orlando Bloom in early 2016, and the couple got engaged on February 14, 2019.
2019–present: Smile, motherhood and Play residency
At the 61st Annual Grammy Awards, Perry performed "Here You Come Again", alongside Dolly Parton and Kacey Musgraves, as part of a tribute to Parton. Four days later, she released a song called "365", with DJ Zedd. In April, Perry was included on a remix of Daddy Yankee's song "Con Calma", featuring Snow. She followed this with the singles "Never Really Over" on May 31, "Small Talk" on August 9, and "Harleys in Hawaii" on October 16.
In June 2019, Perry appeared in the music video of Taylor Swift's "You Need to Calm Down". In July, a jury in California passed a verdict following a week-long trial that Perry's song "Dark Horse" had copied Flame's 2008 song "Joyful Noise" after he filed a copyright lawsuit alleging that it used his track's beat without permission, which was later overturned. After the initial verdict, the jury ordered her to pay him $550,000. The next month, Josh Kloss, Perry's co-star in the "Teenage Dream" music video, accused her of sexual misconduct. In an Instagram post, Kloss alleged that, during a party at a skating rink, Perry pulled on his sweatpants and underwear, exposing his penis to her male friends. He also said her management prevented him from speaking about his time with the singer. However, Johnny Wujek, the creative director of said party defended Perry, saying that she "would never do something like that" and accused Kloss of having an "ongoing obsession" with her. After initially refraining from responding to this, believing it would have detracted from the Me Too movement, Perry has also denied Kloss's claims.
Following the release of her single "Never Worn White" in March 2020, Perry revealed in the accompanying music video that she was expecting her first child with Bloom. "Daisies", the lead single from her sixth album, was released on May 15, 2020. Its second single "Smile" followed two months later. The album, also titled Smile, was released on August 28, 2020. Two days before its distribution, she gave birth to a daughter named Daisy Dove Bloom. The album received mixed reviews, and debuted at number five in the United States. Perry further promoted the album with four compilation EPs: Camp Katy, Empowered, Scorpio SZN, and Cosmic Energy. These EPs were followed by the single "Not the End of the World" in December 2020, which had a music video in which Zooey Deschanel impersonates Perry. Additionally she collaborated with various artists to create two remixes of Smile album tracks. Tiësto remix of "Resillient" featuring Aitana was released in November 2020, while Bruno Martini remix of "Cry About It Later" featuring Luísa Sonza was released in April 2021. In January 20, 2021, Perry performed "Firework" at the Celebrating America concert during the inauguration of Joe Biden. Four months later, she released a new single, "Electric", a collaboration with Pokémon for their 25th anniversary.
Perry began hosting a residency named Play at Resorts World Las Vegas on December 29, 2021. The show's inception happened during the COVID-19 lockdown with Perry being inspired by 1990s movies such as Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, Pee-wee's Playhouse, and Pee-wee's Big Adventure. She described it as "larger than life" and "the kookiest, most camp show I've ever put together." The show has received critical acclaim with Melinda Sheckells of Billboard saying that "[Play's] sold-out opening night is part fantasy, part hallucination and thoroughly camp.
In September 2021, Variety paid tribute to and honored Perry on their "Power of Women" issue, where she discussed her career, motherhood, and philanthropy. As a nominee, she attended the Variety 2021 "Power of Women" dinner. On her 37th birthday the following month, Perry guest hosted The Ellen DeGeneres Show and starred in a holiday advertisement for Gap Inc. which featured her singing "All You Need Is Love" by The Beatles. A full version of her cover was released on streaming platforms the same day. Two months later, Perry followed this with "When I'm Gone", a collaboration with Alesso.
Artistry
Influences
Perry cites her sister Angela as the woman who has had the most influence on her. During the early stages of her career, Perry's musical style gravitated towards gospel and she aspired to be as successful as Amy Grant. At age 15, she heard "Killer Queen" by Queen, which inspired her to pursue a music career. She cites the band's frontman, Freddie Mercury, as her biggest influence and expressed how the "combination of his sarcastic approach to writing lyrics and his 'I don't give a fuck' attitude" inspired her music. She paid homage to the band by naming her third fragrance Killer Queen. Perry described the Beach Boys and their album Pet Sounds as having a considerable influence on her music: "Pet Sounds is one of my favorite records and it influenced pretty much all of my songwriting. All of the melody choices that I make are because of Pet Sounds." The singer also holds the Beatles' album The Beatles in high esteem, and described these two albums as "the only things I listened to for probably two years straight."
She cites Alanis Morissette and her 1995 album Jagged Little Pill as a significant musical inspiration, stating in 2012: "Jagged Little Pill was the most perfect female record ever made. There's a song for anyone on that record; I relate to all those songs. They're still so timeless." Additionally, Perry borrows influence from Flaming Red by Patty Griffin and 10 Cent Wings by Jonatha Brooke. Perry's autobiographical documentary Katy Perry: Part of Me was largely influenced by Madonna: Truth or Dare. She admires Madonna's ability to reinvent herself, saying "I want to evolve like Madonna".
Perry names Björk as an influence, particularly admiring her "willingness to always be taking chances". Other artists who Perry has cited as influences include Stevie Nicks, ABBA, the Cardigans, Cyndi Lauper, Ace of Base, 3OH!3, CeCe Peniston, C+C Music Factory, Black Box, Crystal Waters, Mariah Carey, Heart, Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, Imogen Heap, Rufus Wainwright, Pink, and Gwen Stefani. "Firework" was inspired by a passage in the book On the Road by Jack Kerouac in which the author compares people who are full of life to fireworks that shoot across the sky and make people watch in awe. Her second concert tour, the California Dreams Tour, was reminiscent of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. She also credits the 1996 film The Craft for inspiring her song "Dark Horse", and Eckhart Tolle's book The Power of Now for influencing Prism.
Musical style and themes
While Perry's music incorporates pop, rock, and disco, Katy Hudson contains gospel. Her subsequent releases, One of the Boys and Teenage Dream, involve themes of sex and love. One of the Boys is a pop rock record, while Teenage Dream features disco influences. Perry's fourth album, Prism, is significantly influenced by dance and pop music. Lyrically, the album addresses relationships, self-reflection, and everyday life. Her fifth studio effort Witness is an electropop album that she described as a "360-degree liberation" record, with themes including political liberation, sexual liberation, and liberation from negativity. Many of her songs, particularly on Teenage Dream, reflect on love between teenagers; W magazine described the album's sexual innuendos as "irresistible hook-laden melodies". Self-empowerment is a common theme in Perry's music.
Perry has described herself as a "singer-songwriter masquerading as a pop star" and maintains that honest songwriting is very important to her. She told Marie Claire: "I feel like my secret magic trick that separates me from a lot of my peers is the bravery to be vulnerable and truthful and honest. I think you become more relatable when you're vulnerable." Actress and comedian Kristen Wiig commented that "as easy, breezy, and infectious as Perry's songs can be, beneath the surface lurks a sea of mixed emotions, jumbled motives, and contradictory impulses complicated enough to fill a Carole King record." According to Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune, "being taken seriously may be Perry's greatest challenge yet." In 2013, The New York Times labeled her "the most potent pop star of the day – her hits are relatable with just a hint of experimentation". Randall Roberts of the Los Angeles Times criticized her use of idioms and metaphors in her lyrics and for frequent "clichés". Throughout her career, Perry has also co-written songs recorded by other artists, including Lesley Roy, Kelly Clarkson, Jessie James Decker, Selena Gomez & the Scene, Britney Spears, Iggy Azalea, Rita Ora, Nicki Minaj, and Ariana Grande.
Voice
Perry possesses a contralto vocal range. Her singing has received both praise and criticism. Betty Clarke of The Guardian commented that her "powerful voice is hard-edged" while Rob Sheffield from Rolling Stone described Perry's vocals on Teenage Dream as "processed staccato blips". Darren Harvey of musicOMH compared Perry's vocals on One of the Boys to Alanis Morissette's, both possessing a "perky voice shifting octaves mid-syllable". Alex Miller from NME felt that "Perry's problem is often her voice" on One of the Boys, stating that "somewhere along the line someone convinced her she was like, well, a ballsy rock chick". Conversely, Bernadette McNulty from The Daily Telegraph praised her "rock chick voice" in a review of a concert promoting Prism.
Public image
On social media, Perry surpassed Justin Bieber as the most followed person on Twitter in November 2013. She won the 2015 Guinness World Record for most Twitter followers, and became the first person to gain 100 million followers on the site in June 2017. Keith Caulfield of Billboard stated that Perry is "the rare celebrity who seems to have enormous popularity but genuine ground-level interaction with her adoring KatyCats." With over 108 Twitter million followers, she is the most followed female on the site, and the fifth most followed musician across social media with a combined total of over 326 million followers across Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. In June 2017, Time magazine listed Perry among its "25 Most Influential People on the Internet" of the year, writing that her live-stream for Witness was "blazing a trail" for being "the closest any major entertainer has come to giving fans the kind of 'real' intimacy that social media purports to provide".
In 2011, Forbes ranked Perry third on their "Top-Earning Women In Music" list with earnings of $44 million and fifth on their 2012 list with $45 million. She subsequently ranked seventh on the 2013 Forbes list for "Top-Earning Women In Music" with $39 million earned, and fifth on their 2014 list with $40 million. With earnings of $135 million, Forbes also ranked Perry number one on their 2015 "Top-Earning Women In Music" list as well as the "World's Highest-Paid Musicians" and declared her the highest earning female celebrity in 2015, placing her at number 3 on the Forbes Celebrity 100 list. In 2016, the magazine estimated her net worth was $125 million, and ranked her number six on their list of "Highest-Paid Women in Music" with earnings of $41 million. The following year, she was ranked number nine on the list with $33 million. In 2018, she topped its "Highest-Paid Women in Music" listing and ranked at number four on the "Highest-Paid Female Celebrities" list with earnings of $83 million. Perry subsequently was placed at number four on the 2019 "Highest-Paid Women in Music" listings with $57.5 million. Later that year, with earnings of $530 million throughout the 2010s, the magazine also ranked her as the 9th highest earning musician of the decade.
Fashion
Perry has been described as a sex symbol; GQ labeled her a "full-on male fantasy", while Elle wrote her body looked "as though sketched by a teenage boy". Vice called her a serious' popstar/woman/sex symbol". She was placed at number one on the Maxim Hot 100 in 2010 as the "most beautiful woman in the world", with editor Joe Levy describing her as a "triple – no quadruple – kind of hot". Men's Health readers voted her the "sexiest woman of 2013". In November 2010, Perry told Harper's Bazaar that she was proud of and satisfied with her figure.
Perry's fashion often incorporates humor, bright colors, and food-related themes such as her characteristic spinning peppermint swirl dress. Vogue described her as "never exactly one to shy away from the outrageous or the extreme in any realm" and called her the "Queen of Camp". while Glamour named her the "queen of quirk". In February 2009, Perry told Seventeen that her fashion style was "a bit of a concoction of different things" and stated she enjoyed humor in her clothing. She has also described herself as having "multipersonality disorder" for fashion. Perry lists Gwen Stefani, Shirley Manson, Chloë Sevigny, Daphne Guinness, Natalie Portman, and the fictional character Lolita as her style icons. Elle described her as "the kitsch-loving pop star renowned for her uniquely experimental style" while Vogue described her style as "synonymous with outrageous, eye-catching ensembles that lean towards the theatrical."
During the 2017 launch of her shoe collection, Katy Perry Collections, she said about shoes: "When I first got to L.A., I cultivated my style on a budget, always shopping at thrift stores or vintage stores. … Once, I found these flats that looked like Dalmatian dogs. They had ears that moved and a tongue that stuck out. They were such a conversation piece. That's what is so great about fashion. … It's a form of communication. You don't have to start a smoking habit to start talking to someone. You can just wear cool shoes. It's an icebreaker."
Legacy and influence
Several media outlets such as Billboard and Glamour have referred to her as the "Queen of Pop", while Vogue has dubbed Perry the "Queen of Camp" and a "pop icon." Andrew Unterberger of Billboard described Teenage Dream "one of the defining LPs from a new golden age in mega-pop" while Christopher Rosa of Glamour named her as an influence to the pop sound and style of the 2010s, adding that her singles are "some of the most recognizable, iconic, and impactful hits in pop history." Perry was named "one of the last decade's most reliable and successful hitmakers" by the Official Charts Company in 2022.
Additionally, Perry was included in Glamour's "104 Women Who Defined the [2010s] in Pop Culture" list, saying: "[Perry] did more than just break chart records. She was one of the driving forces behind the sound of pop radio in the 2010s. [...] glossy, booming, sugary-sweet, and undeniably catchy." Variety included Perry in their Variety 500 list of the most influential business leaders, calling her a "global phenomenon" and a "dedicated artist and tireless self-promoter who has leveraged chart-topping hits, sold-out stadium shows, and staggering endorsement deals to become one of the richest and most influential pop stars alive." She has been called a "gay icon" by Taylor Henderson of Out, noting how "I Kissed a Girl" helped fans explore their sexuality and how Perry openly embraced the LGBTQ+ community.
Perry's music has been described by Out as having a "lasting legacy", with American singers Fletcher sampling "I Kissed a Girl" and Olivia Rodrigo referencing Teenage Dream on "Brutal". Additionally, other artists such as Halsey and Ariana Grande have praised Perry's work, with Halsey calling Teenage Dream the "perfect pop album" and Grande saying "The One That Got Away" is "one of the biggest and most perfectly written pop songs ever from one of the best pop albums of all time". Perry and her work have influenced artists such as Lil Nas X, Halsey, Lorde, Rina Sawayama, Doja Cat, Ellie Goulding, Tegan and Sara, Kim Petras, and Coldplay.
Other ventures
Philanthropy
Perry has supported various charitable organizations and causes throughout her career. She has contributed to organizations aimed at improving the lives and welfare of children in particular. In April 2013, she joined UNICEF to assist children in Madagascar with education and nutrition. On December 3, 2013, she was officially named a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, "with a special focus on engaging young people in the agency's work to improve the lives of the world's most vulnerable children and adolescents." She arranged for a portion of the money generated from tickets to her Prismatic World Tour to go to UNICEF. In September 2010, she helped build and design the Boys Hope/Girls Hope foundation shelter for youth in Baltimore, Maryland along with Raven-Symoné, Shaquille O'Neal, and the cast of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. In 2010, Perry and Nicki Minaj performed a cover of "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" for service members during the 2010 VH1 Divas Salute the Troops concert.
She has also supported children's education and well-being. All profits from sales of the album The Gay Nineties Old Tyme Music: Daisy Bell, which includes her rendition of "Daisy Bell (Bicycle Built for Two)", were donated to the charity Little Kids Rock, which supports musical education in underprivileged elementary schools. In June 2014, she teamed up with Staples Inc. for a project entitled "Make Roar Happen" which donated $1 million to DonorsChoose, an organization that supports teachers and funds classroom resources in public schools. In May 2016, she worked with UNICEF to improve child care quality in Vietnam, hoping to "break the cycle of poverty and drastically improve children's health, education and well-being". The following month, UNICEF announced that Perry would receive the Audrey Hepburn Humanitarian Award "for her work as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in support of the world's most vulnerable children" at their annual Snowflake Ball in November. All Spotify streams of her 2021 cover of "All You Need Is Love" will generate $1 in donations for the charity Baby2Baby.
Perry has supported organizations aimed at aiding people suffering with diseases including cancer and HIV/AIDS. During the 2008 Warped Tour, she had a cast made of her breasts to raise money for the Keep A Breast Foundation. She hosted and performed at the We Can Survive concert along with Bonnie McKee, Kacey Musgraves, Sara Bareilles, Ellie Goulding, and duo Tegan and Sara at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, California, on October 23, 2013. The concert's profits were donated to Young Survival Coalition, an organization aiding breast cancer in young women. In June 2009, she designed an item of clothing for H&M's "Fashion Against AIDS" campaign, which raises money for HIV/AIDS awareness projects. On February 26, 2017, she served as a co-chair alongside various celebrities such as Beyoncé, Lea Michele, Jim Carrey, Jared Leto, and Kevin Spacey for the 25th Annual Elton John AIDS Foundation Academy Award Party, a fundraiser for HIV/AIDS healthcare.
The proceeds from Perry's single "Part of Me" were donated to the charity MusiCares, which helps musicians in times of need. During her California Dreams Tour, she raised over $175,000 for the Tickets-For-Charity fundraiser. The money was divided between three charities: the Children's Health Fund (CHF), Generosity Water, and The Humane Society of the United States.
On her 27th birthday, Perry set up a donations page for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Auckland, and set up a similar page benefiting the David Lynch Foundation for her 28th birthday. On March 29, 2014, she helped raise $2.4 million for the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles along with other celebrities such as Ryan Seacrest, Pharrell Williams, Tim Allen, Lisa Edelstein, and Riley Keough.
Perry performed at the One Love Manchester benefit concert for the victims of the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing, among various performers including its organizer Ariana Grande, which was broadcast live on June 4, 2017, on radio and television stations around the world. In March 2018, Perry announced Witness: Coming Home, a benefit concert that was held in her hometown of Santa Barbara on May 19, 2018. The concert benefited those recovering from the aftermath of the 2017 California wildfires and 2018 Southern California mudflows. Perry partnered with the Santa Barbara Foundation, the 93108 Fund and The 805 UndocuFund, organizations which help in assisting members of the community in the Santa Barbara area through grants and various philanthropic efforts.
Activism
Perry has publicly advocated for LGBT rights and admitted that she wrote "I Kissed a Girl" about her own bisexual experiences with other women. In 2017, she received a Nation Equality Award from Human Rights Campaign for "using her powerful voice and international platform to speak out for LGBTQ equality". In her acceptance speech, she discussed having bisexual experiences, her fluid sexuality, and thanked the LGBTQ+ community. In an Out interview in 2021, she was heralded as a "gay icon" with "I Kissed a Girl" being called a "bonafide queer anthem." She continued to thank the LGBTQ+ community in the same interview, saying: "I came from a very sheltered upbringing where it wasn't okay to be friends with anyone from that community. And now that is my community, [...] I wouldn't have survived without the community and it's amazing how full circle it's come and how much growth has happened since I started."
She supported Stonewall during their "It gets better..... today" campaign to prevent homophobic bullying, and dedicated the music video to her song "Firework" to the It Gets Better Project. In 2008, Perry told Do Something she was proud to be a LGBT rights activist, saying "I've always been a very open-minded person, but I definitely believe in equality." In June 2012, Perry expressed her hopes for LGBT equality, commenting "hopefully, we will look back at this moment and think like we do now concerning [other] civil rights issues. We'll just shake our heads in disbelief, saying, 'Thank God we've evolved.' That would be my prayer for the future." In December 2012, Perry was awarded the Trevor Hero Award by The Trevor Project for her work and activism on behalf of LGBT youth.
Perry identifies as a feminist, and appeared in April 2013 in a video clip for the "Chime for Change" campaign that aimed to spread female empowerment. She has also said that America's lack of free health care drove her "absolutely crazy". Following the shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando in June 2016, Perry and nearly 200 other artists and executives in music signed an open letter organized by Billboard addressed to United States Congress demanding increased gun control in the United States.
Through Twitter and by performing at rallies, Perry supported President Barack Obama in his run for re-election and praised his support for same-sex marriage and LGBT equality. She performed at three rallies for Obama, in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Wisconsin, singing a rendition of "Let's Stay Together" as well as a number of her songs. During her Las Vegas performance she wore a dress made to replicate a voting ballot, with Obama's box filled in. On Twitter, she encouraged her followers to vote for Obama.
In August 2013, Perry voiced criticism of Tony Abbott, then-leader of conservative Liberal Party of Australia and candidate for Prime Minister of Australia, due to his opposition to gay marriage and told Abbott, "I love you as a human being but I can't give you my vote."; the statement came after Abbott expressed pride at learning of Perry's then-upcoming performance in Australia. In April 2014, she publicly supported Marianne Williamson in her campaign for California's 33rd congressional district by attending a political press event. She endorsed Kamala Harris in the United States Senate election in California, and organized a fundraiser for Harris at her home in Los Angeles in November 2016. Perry also publicly endorsed former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for president in 2016. She performed alongside Elton John at a fundraising concert for Clinton in New York City in March 2016. Perry also spoke and performed at the 2016 Democratic National Convention in support of Clinton. Four years later, she supported Joe Biden and Kamala Harris during the 2020 United States presidential election, praising the latter as a leader who had "experience we desperately need right now" and believed that the former "choosing her as his running mate is already a testament to his decision making".
Achievements
Throughout her career, Perry has won five American Music Awards, fourteen People's Choice Awards, four Guinness World Records, a Brit Award, and a Juno Award. In September 2012, Billboard dubbed her the "Woman of the Year". From May 2010 to September 2011, the singer spent a record-breaking 69 consecutive weeks in the top ten of the Billboard Hot 100. Teenage Dream became the first album by a female artist to produce five number-one Billboard Hot 100 singles, and the second album overall after Michael Jackson's Bad. In the United States, she has accumulated nine number-one singles on the Billboard Hot 100, her most recent being "Dark Horse", and holds the record for having 18 consecutive number-one songs on the Billboard Dance Club Songs chart.
Billboard also named her the 15th most successful dance club artist of all time. The magazine additionally ranked her 4th on its "Greatest of All Time Pop Songs Artists" list, included Teenage Dream and Prism among its "Greatest of All Time Billboard 200 Albums by Women" list, and ranked "Dark Horse" at number 100 on its "Greatest of All Time Hot 100 Songs" as well as one of its "Greatest of All Time Hot 100 Songs by Women" along with "E.T.", "Firework", and "California Gurls". In June 2015, her music video for "Dark Horse" became the first video by a female artist to reach 1 billion views on Vevo. The following month, her music video for "Roar" reached 1 billion views on Vevo, making her the first artist to have multiple videos with 1 billion views.
Perry was declared the Top Global Female Recording Artist of 2013 by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI). According to Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), she is the fifth top digital singles artist in the United States, with 105 million certified song units in the country including on-demand streams and also has 11 million certified album units, totaling 116 million certified units in the nation. She also became the first artist to have three songs receive Diamond certifications from the RIAA with "Dark Horse", "Firework", and "Roar". All three of them and "E.T.", "California Gurls", and "Hot n Cold" have each sold over 5 million digital copies. Throughout her career, Perry has sold more than 18 million albums and 125 million singles globally, making her one of the best-selling music artists of all time.
Discography
Katy Hudson (2001)
One of the Boys (2008)
Teenage Dream (2010)
Prism (2013)
Witness (2017)
Smile (2020)
Filmography
The Smurfs (2011)
Katy Perry: Part of Me (2012)
The Smurfs 2 (2013)
Brand: A Second Coming (2015)
Katy Perry: The Prismatic World Tour (2015)
Katy Perry: Making of the Pepsi Super Bowl Halftime Show (2015)
Jeremy Scott: The People's Designer (2015)
Zoolander 2 (2016)
Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (2016)
Tours and residency
Co-headlining tour
Strangely Normal Tour (with Phil Joel) (2001)
Headlining tours
Hello Katy Tour (2009)
California Dreams Tour (2011–2012)
Prismatic World Tour (2014–2015)
Witness: The Tour (2017–2018)
Residency
Play (2021–2022)
See also
List of best-selling music artists
List of most-followed Twitter accounts
List of Billboard Social 50 number-one artists
List of highest-certified music artists in the United States
Best-selling female artists of all time
References
Footnotes
Sources
External links
1984 births
Living people
21st-century American guitarists
21st-century American singers
21st-century American women singers
21st-century American women guitarists
Activists from California
American contraltos
American disco singers
American women pop singers
American women rock singers
American women singer-songwriters
American feminists
American film actresses
American performance artists
American pop guitarists
American pop rock singers
American rock guitarists
American rock songwriters
American television actresses
American women activists
American voice actresses
American women in electronic music
Brit Award winners
Capitol Records artists
Columbia Records artists
Dance-pop musicians
Def Jam Recordings artists
Feminist musicians
Guitarists from California
Island Records artists
Juno Award for International Album of the Year winners
LGBT rights activists from the United States
Musicians from Santa Barbara, California
MTV Europe Music Award winners
Participants in American reality television series
Singer-songwriters from California
UNICEF Goodwill Ambassadors | true | [
"Jian Renzi (; born 19 October 1991), also known as Joyce Jian, is a Chinese actress. She is known for her roles in My Sunshine (2015) and Game of Hunting (2017).\n\nEarly life and education \nJian was born 19 October 1991 in Shenyang, Liaoning, China. She graduated from the Central Academy of Drama in 2014.\n\nCareer\nJian started her acting career in 2014 with the movie Fantasia. In the same year she started to gain popularity for her role in The Romance of the Condor Heroes. In 2015 she rose to fame starring as He Yimei in the television show My Sunshine. The show was a huge success in China gaining over 10 billion views online and won Audience's Favorite TV Series (Dragon TV) at the 1st China Television Drama Quality Ceremony.\n\nIn 2017, she starred alongside Hu Ge in the TV show Game of Hunting. Jian gained popularity due to the show and received positive reviews for her performance. She was cast in the wuxia drama Wen Tian Lu, and spy drama Autumn Cicada.\n\nIn 2018, Jian starred in the workplace drama Partners.\n\nFilmography\n\nFilm\n\nTelevision series\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1991 births\nLiving people\nActresses from Shenyang\nCentral Academy of Drama alumni\n21st-century Chinese actresses\nChinese film actresses\nChinese television actresses",
"Throwback Thursday or #TBT is an internet trend used among social media platforms such as Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. On a Thursday, Users will post nostalgia-inducing pictures – from a different era of their life, accompanied by the hashtag #TBT or #ThrowbackThursday. Many posts reflect positive moments, or funny, old clothes, hair and styles. Throwback Thursday can be attributed to any photo in one's past memories whether it be childhood, old relationships, past vacations, old songs, or anything that gives one a \"happy and nostalgic feeling.\"\n\nOrigin\nLike many internet trends, it is hard to determine who exactly started the #TBT hashtag trend. The earliest usage on Instagram was by the user @bobbysander22.Sports Illustrated attributes the origin of the term to a sneaker-specific blog named Nice Kicks. According to SI, this blog began a practice of regular postings (on Thursdays) of photos of old basketball footwear in 2006, titling the series \"Throwback Thursday\". Since then, the slogan has blown up to the point where #TBT has been used on Instagram over 500 million times. While the trend has origins outside of social media, it only gained popularity once major apps such as Instagram began to rise in popularity as well.\n\nPopularity\nIn February 2012, Kim Kardashian and her family frequently started using the hashtag which caused it to start gaining traction.\n\nFlashback Friday\nSimilar to Throwback Thursday, Flashback Friday was a popular hashtag several months before Throwback Thursday was. Although both hashtags are similar, what makes them different is the days in which one can post a nostalgic picture. Flashback Friday is a second chance for social media lovers to upload a photo if they have forgotten on Thursday, or even for people to upload more vintage photos that allows them to share their content as many times as they want. On Fridays, social media users should use the hashtag #flashbackfriday or #fbf to follow the trend.\n\nSee also\n Monday Motivation\n\nReferences\n\nHashtags\nNostalgia\nThursday\n2000s neologisms"
] |
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"Katy Perry",
"1999-2006: Career beginnings",
"when was katy parry's first album under her stage name?",
"March 6, 2001,",
"what did she do between 1999 and 2001?",
"2001, and went on tour that year as part of Phil Joel's Strangely Normal Tour while also embarking on other performances of her own in the United States.",
"Was her first album as Katy Perry a hit?",
"Katy Hudson received positive reviews from critics, though was commercially unsuccessful",
"When did Perry start gaining commercial success?",
"2005",
"What was it that started gaining her popularity?",
"One of the songs she had recorded for her album with Ballard,"
] | C_29e64ee43f0547139a7c08bceed86ff2_1 | Which album did she record with Ballard? | 6 | Which album did Perry record with Ballard? | Katy Perry | Perry completed her General Educational Development (GED) requirements at age 15, during her freshman year of high school, and left Dos Pueblos High School to pursue a musical career. She briefly studied Italian opera at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara. Her singing caught the attention of rock artists Steve Thomas and Jennifer Knapp from Nashville, Tennessee, who brought her there to improve her writing skills. In Nashville, she started recording demos and learned how to write songs and play guitar. After signing with Red Hill Records, Perry recorded her debut album, a gospel record titled Katy Hudson. She released the album on March 6, 2001, and went on tour that year as part of Phil Joel's Strangely Normal Tour while also embarking on other performances of her own in the United States. Katy Hudson received positive reviews from critics, though was commercially unsuccessful and sold an estimated 200 copies before the label ceased operations in December. Transitioning from gospel music to secular music, Perry started writing songs with producer Glen Ballard, and moved to Los Angeles at age 17. In 2003, she briefly performed as Katheryn Perry to avoid confusion with actress Kate Hudson. She later adopted the stage name Katy Perry, using her mother's maiden name. In 2004, Perry signed to Ballard's label, Java, which was then affiliated with The Island Def Jam Music Group. She began work on a solo record, but the record was shelved after Java was dropped. Ballard then introduced Perry to Tim Devine, an A&R executive at Columbia Records, and she was signed as a solo artist. Over the course of the next two years, Perry wrote and recorded material for her Columbia debut, and worked with songwriters including Desmond Child, Greg Wells, Butch Walker, Scott Cutler, Anne Preven, The Matrix, Kara DioGuardi, Max Martin and Dr. Luke. In addition, after Devine suggested that songwriting team The Matrix become a "real group", Perry recorded with them. Perry was dropped from Columbia in 2006 as her record neared completion. After the label dropped her, she worked at an independent A&R company called Taxi Music. Perry had minor success prior to her breakthrough. One of the songs she had recorded for her album with Ballard, "Simple", was featured on the soundtrack to the 2005 film The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. She provided backing vocals on Mick Jagger's song "Old Habits Die Hard", which was included on the soundtrack to the 2004 film Alfie. In September 2004, Blender named Perry "The Next Big Thing". She recorded background vocals on P.O.D.'s single "Goodbye for Now" and was featured at the end of its music video in 2006. That year, Perry also appeared in the music video for "Learn to Fly" by Carbon Leaf, and played the love interest of her then-boyfriend, Gym Class Heroes lead singer Travie McCoy, in the band's music video for "Cupid's Chokehold". CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson (born October 25, 1984), known professionally as Katy Perry, is an American singer, songwriter, and television judge. She is known for her influence on the pop sound and style of the 2010s. Pursuing a career in gospel music at 16, Perry released her commercially unsuccessful debut album, Katy Hudson (2001), under Red Hill Records. She moved to Los Angeles at 17 to venture into secular music, adopting the stage name "Katy Perry" from her mother's maiden name. With producers Glen Ballard and Greg Wells, she recorded an unreleased album titled Fingerprints while signed to Java Records and then Columbia Records before being dropped. After this, she signed a recording contract with Capitol Records in April 2007.
Perry rose to fame with her second album and major label debut, One of the Boys (2008), a pop rock record containing her debut single "I Kissed a Girl" and follow-up single "Hot n Cold", which respectively reached number one and three on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. The disco-influenced pop album Teenage Dream (2010) spawned five U.S. number one singles—"California Gurls", "Teenage Dream", "Firework", "E.T.", and "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)"—becoming the first album by a solo female artist to do so. A reissue titled Teenage Dream: The Complete Confection (2012) subsequently had the U.S. number one single "Part of Me". Her fourth album Prism (2013) has themes of self-empowerment and relationships. With the music videos for its U.S. number one singles "Roar" and "Dark Horse", Perry became the first artist to have multiple videos reach one billion views on YouTube. Witness (2017) featured an electropop sound with themes of liberation and a political subtext, while Smile (2020) featured themes of motherhood and self-help. She later embarked on her first concert residency titled Play in Resorts World Las Vegas, selling out multiple shows and receiving critical acclaim.
Perry is one of the best-selling artists of all time, having sold over 143 million records worldwide. All of her studio albums released under Capitol have individually surpassed one billion streams on Spotify. She has nine U.S. number one singles, three U.S. number one albums and has received various accolades, including four Guinness World Records, five Billboard Music Awards, five American Music Awards, a Brit Award, and a Juno Award. Perry has been included in the annual Forbes lists of highest-earning women in music from 2011 to 2019. Her critically acclaimed Super Bowl halftime show performance is the most watched in history. Outside of music, she released an autobiographical documentary titled Katy Perry: Part of Me in 2012, and voiced Smurfette in The Smurfs film series. Perry began serving as a judge on American Idol, starting from its sixteenth season in 2018. She is also the most followed woman on Twitter, with over 108 million followers.
Life and career
1984–1998: Early life and family
Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson was born on October 25, 1984, in Santa Barbara, California, to Pentecostal pastors Mary Christine (née Perry) and Maurice Keith Hudson. Both of her parents turned to religion after a "wild youth". Perry has English, German, Irish, and Portuguese ancestry. Through her mother, she is a niece of film director Frank Perry. She has a younger brother named David, who is a singer, and an older sister, Angela.
From ages three to 11, Perry often moved across the country as her parents set up churches before settling again in Santa Barbara. Growing up, she attended religious schools and camps, including Paradise Valley Christian School in Arizona and Santa Barbara Christian School in California during her elementary years. Her family struggled financially, sometimes using food stamps and eating food from the food bank which also fed the congregation at Perry's parents' church.
Growing up, Perry and her siblings were not allowed to eat the cereal Lucky Charms as the word "luck" reminded their mother of Lucifer, and had to call deviled eggs "angeled eggs". Perry primarily listened to gospel music, as secular music was generally discouraged in the family's home. She discovered popular music through CDs she sneaked from her friends. Perry later recalled a story about how a friend of hers played "You Oughta Know" by Alanis Morissette, which impacted her songwriting and singing.
While not strictly identifying as religious, she has stated, "I pray all the time – for self-control, for humility." Wanting to be like her sister Angela, Perry began singing by practicing with her sister's cassette tapes. She performed the tracks in front of their parents, who let her take vocal lessons as Angela was at the time. She began training at age nine, and was incorporated into her parents' ministry, singing in church from ages nine to 17. At 13, Perry was given her first guitar for her birthday, and publicly performed songs she wrote. She tried to "be a bit like the typical Californian girl" while growing up, and started rollerskating, skateboarding, and surfing as a teenager. Her brother David described her as a tomboy during her adolescence, which Perry talks about on her song "One Of The Boys". She took dancing lessons and learned how to swing, Lindy Hop, and jitterbug.
1999–2006: Career beginnings, Katy Hudson and Fingerprints
Perry completed her General Educational Development (GED) requirements at age 15, during her first year of high school, and left Dos Pueblos High School to pursue a music career. She briefly had music lessons in facilities rented from the Music Academy of the West. Her singing caught the attention of rock artists Steve Thomas and Jennifer Knapp from Nashville, Tennessee, who brought her there to improve her writing skills. In Nashville, she started recording demos and learned how to write songs and play guitar. Perry signed with Red Hill Records and recorded her debut album, a contemporary Christian record titled Katy Hudson, which was released on March 6, 2001. She also went on tour that year as part of Phil Joel's Strangely Normal Tour and embarked on other performances of her own in the United States. Katy Hudson received mixed reviews from critics and was commercially unsuccessful, selling an estimated 200 copies before the label ceased operations in December. Transitioning from gospel music to secular music, Perry started working with producer Glen Ballard, and moved to Los Angeles at age 17. She opted to work with Ballard due to his past work with Alanis Morissette, one of her major inspirations. In 2003, she briefly performed as Katheryn Perry to avoid confusion with actress Kate Hudson. She later adopted the stage name 'Katy Perry', using her mother's maiden name. In 2010, she recalled that "Thinking of You" was one of the first songs she wrote after moving to Los Angeles.
In 2004, she signed to Ballard's label, Java Records, which was then affiliated with The Island Def Jam Music Group. Perry began work on a solo record due for release in March 2005, but the record was shelved after Java was dropped. Ballard then introduced her to Tim Devine, an A&R executive at Columbia Records, and she was signed as a solo artist. By November 2006, Perry had finished writing and recording material for her Columbia debut titled Fingerprints (with some of the material from this time appearing on One of the Boys) which was planned for release in 2007. Some of the material from Fingerprints that did not make it on One Of The Boys was given to other artists, such as "I Do Not Hook Up" and "Long Shot" to Kelly Clarkson and "Rock God" to Selena Gomez & the Scene.
Perry worked with songwriters including Desmond Child, Greg Wells, Butch Walker, Scott Cutler, Anne Preven, The Matrix, Kara DioGuardi, Max Martin, and Dr. Luke. In addition, after Devine suggested that songwriting team The Matrix become a "real group", she recorded a shelved album called The Matrix with them. The Matrix was planned to be released in 2004 but was cancelled due to creative differences. It was later released in 2009 after the release of One of the Boys. Perry was dropped from Columbia in 2006 as Fingerprints neared completion. After the label dropped her, she worked at an independent A&R company called Taxi Music.
Perry had minor success prior to her breakthrough. One of the songs she had recorded for her album with Ballard, "Simple", was featured on the soundtrack to the 2005 film The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. She provided backing vocals on Mick Jagger's song "Old Habits Die Hard", which was included on the soundtrack to the 2004 film Alfie. In September 2004, Blender named Perry "The Next Big Thing". She recorded background vocals on P.O.D.'s single "Goodbye for Now", was featured at the end of its music video in 2006, and performed it with them on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. That year, Perry also appeared in the music video for "Learn to Fly" by Carbon Leaf, and played the love interest of her then-boyfriend, Gym Class Heroes lead singer Travie McCoy, in the band's music video for "Cupid's Chokehold".
2007–2009: Breakthrough with One of the Boys
After Columbia dropped Perry, Angelica Cob-Baehler, then a publicity executive at the label, brought Perry's demos to Virgin Records chairman Jason Flom. Flom was convinced that she could be a breakthrough star and she was signed to Capitol Records in April 2007. The label arranged for her to work with Dr. Luke to add an "undeniable smash" to her existing material. Perry and Dr. Luke co-wrote the songs "I Kissed a Girl" and "Hot n Cold" for her second album One of the Boys. A campaign was started with the November 2007 release of the video to "Ur So Gay", a song aimed at introducing her to the music market. A digital EP of the same name was also released that month. Madonna helped publicize the song by praising it on the JohnJay & Rich radio show in April 2008, stating "Ur So Gay" was her "favorite song" at the time. In March 2008, Perry made a cameo appearance as a club singer in the Wildfire episode "Life's Too Short" and appeared as herself during a photo shoot that June on The Young and the Restless for the show's magazine Restless Style.
Perry released her first single with Capitol, "I Kissed a Girl", on April 28, 2008, as the lead single from One of the Boys. The first station to pick up the song was WRVW in Nashville, who were inundated with enthusiastic calls the first three days they played it. The track reached number one on the US Billboard Hot 100. "I Kissed a Girl" created controversy among both religious and LGBT groups. The former criticized its homosexual theme, while the latter accused her of using bi-curiosity to sell records. In response to speculation that her parents opposed her music and career, Perry told MTV that they had no problems with her success. One of the Boys, released on June 17, 2008, garnered mixed critical reviews and reached number nine on the US Billboard 200. The album went on to sell 7 million copies worldwide. "Hot n Cold" was released the following September and became the album's second successful single, reaching number three on the Billboard Hot 100 while topping charts in Germany, Canada, the Netherlands and Austria. Later singles "Thinking of You" and "Waking Up in Vegas" were released in 2009 and reached the top 30 of the Hot 100. The Matrix's self-titled debut album, which Perry had recorded with the band in 2004, was released onto iTunes on January 27, 2009, as a result of her solo success.
After finishing the 2008 Warped Tour, Perry hosted the 2008 MTV Europe Music Awards in November 2008, where she won the award for Best New Act. At the 2009 Brit Awards, she also won the award for International Female Solo Artist. Perry embarked on her first headlining world tour, the Hello Katy Tour, from January to November 2009 to support One of the Boys. On August 4, 2009, she performed as opening act for one date of No Doubt's 2009 Summer Tour. Perry also hosted the 2009 MTV Europe Music Awards in November 2009, becoming the first person to host two consecutive ceremonies of the European awards. On July 22, 2009, Perry recorded a live album titled MTV Unplugged, which featured acoustic performances of five tracks from One of the Boys as well as one new song, "Brick by Brick", and a cover of Fountains of Wayne's "Hackensack". It was released on November 17, 2009. Perry also appeared on two singles with other artists; she was featured on a remix of Colorado-based band 3OH!3's song "Starstrukk" in September 2009, and on a duet with Timbaland entitled "If We Ever Meet Again", from his album Shock Value II, three months later. The Guinness World Records recognized her in its 2010 edition as the "Best Start on the U.S. Digital Chart by a Female Artist", for digital single sales of over two million copies.
After Perry and Travie McCoy split up in December 2008, they briefly reconciled before she ended their relationship in 2009. Perry met her future husband Russell Brand in the summer of 2009 while filming a cameo appearance for his film Get Him to the Greek. Her scene, in which the two kiss, does not appear in the film. She began dating Brand after meeting him again that September at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards. The couple became engaged on December 31, 2009, while vacationing in Rajasthan, India.
2010–2012: Teenage Dream and first marriage
After serving as a guest judge on American Idol, Perry released "California Gurls" featuring Snoop Dogg on May 7, 2010. The song was the lead single from her third studio album, Teenage Dream, and reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in June. She also served as a guest judge on British The X Factor later that month before releasing the album's second single, "Teenage Dream", in July. "Teenage Dream" reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in September. Released on August 24, 2010, Teenage Dream debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, and received mixed reviews from music critics. It has since sold 6 million copies worldwide. Teenage Dream would go on to win the 2011 Juno Award for International Album of the Year. In October, "Firework" was released as the album's third single. It became the album's third consecutive number one on the Billboard Hot 100 on December 8, 2010.
"E.T." featuring Kanye West was released as the fourth single from Teenage Dream on February 16, 2011. It topped the Billboard Hot 100 for five non-consecutive weeks, making Teenage Dream the ninth album in history to produce four number one singles on the chart. "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)" followed as the fifth single in June, and Perry became the first female artist to achieve five number-one Billboard Hot 100 songs from one album when the single topped that chart on August 17, and the second artist after Michael Jackson with his album Bad. For this record, she received an honorary American Music Award in November 2011 and a 2013 Guinness World Record. On September 7, she set a new record by becoming the first artist to spend 69 consecutive weeks in the top ten of the Hot 100. After "The One That Got Away" was released as the album's sixth single in October, Teenage Dream became the third album to spawn six top-five songs on the Billboard Hot 100 after Rhythm Nation 1814 by Janet Jackson and Faith by George Michael. The song peaked at number three in the US and number two in Canada.
On January 5, 2012, Perry was named the sixth best-selling digital artist in the United States, with sales of 37.6 million units according to Nielsen SoundScan. That month, she became the first artist to have four songs sell over 5 million digital units when "E.T." reached that mark along with "Firework", "California Gurls", and "Hot N Cold". On February 13, Capitol released the lead single from Teenage Dream: The Complete Confection, "Part of Me", which debuted at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and became Perry's seventh single overall to top the chart. Teenage Dream: The Complete Confection was released on March 23, and serves as a reissue of Teenage Dream. "Wide Awake" was released on May 22 as the re-release's second single, peaking at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 and number one in Canada and New Zealand.
Perry embarked on her second tour, the California Dreams Tour, in support of Teenage Dream from February 2011 to January 2012. The tour grossed $59.5 million globally and won her the award for Best Live Act at the 2011 MTV Europe Music Awards. On September 23, 2011, she performed on the opening day of the 2011 Rock in Rio festival along with Elton John and Rihanna. In September 2010, Perry was scheduled to appear on the 41st-season premiere of Sesame Street. After her scene was uploaded to YouTube, viewers criticized Perry's exposed cleavage. Four days before the scheduled airing, Sesame Workshop announced that the segment would not air on television, but would still be available to watch online. Perry subsequently mocked the controversy on Saturday Night Live, where she was a musical guest and wore an Elmo-themed shirt showing large amounts of cleavage during one skit.
In December 2010, Perry played Moe Szyslak's girlfriend in the live-action segment from a Christmas episode of The Simpsons titled "The Fight Before Christmas". In February 2011, she made a guest appearance on the How I Met Your Mother episode "Oh Honey", playing a woman known as Honey. The role won her the People's Choice Award for Favorite TV Guest Star in January 2012. She made her film debut in the 3D family motion picture The Smurfs as Smurfette on July 29, 2011. The film was a financial success worldwide, while critics gave mostly negative reviews. She hosted Saturday Night Live on December 10, 2011, with Robyn as the episode's musical guest. Perry's work on the episode received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised her performance in the episode's digital short featuring her and Andy Samberg. In March 2012, she guest starred as a prison security guard named Rikki on the Raising Hope episode "Single White Female Role Model". On July 5, 2012, Perry's autobiographical documentary Katy Perry: Part of Me was released to theaters through Paramount Pictures. The film received positive reviews and grossed $32.7 million worldwide at the box office.
Perry began to venture into business when she endorsed her first fragrance, Purr, in November 2010. Her second fragrance, Meow!, was released in December 2011. Both perfumes were released through Nordstrom department stores. Electronic Arts recruited her to promote their new expansion pack for The Sims 3: Showtime, before releasing a separate stuff pack featuring Perry-inspired furniture, outfits, and hairstyles, titled The Sims 3: Katy Perry's Sweet Treats, in June 2012. The following month, she became the spokesperson and ambassador for Popchips and made an investment in the company. Billboard dubbed her as their "Woman of the Year" for 2012.
She married Russell Brand on October 23, 2010, in a traditional Hindu ceremony near the Ranthambhore tiger sanctuary in Rajasthan, India. Brand announced on December 30, 2011, that they were divorcing after 14 months of marriage. Perry later stated that conflicting career schedules and his desire to have children before she was ready led to the end of their marriage and that he never spoke to her again after sending a text message that he was divorcing her, while Brand asserted that he divorced her due to her commercial success and reluctance to engage in activism. She was initially distraught over their divorce, and said that she contemplated suicide. After the marriage ended in 2012, Perry began a relationship with singer John Mayer that August.
2013–2015: Prism and Super Bowl XLIX halftime show
In November 2012, Perry began work on her fourth album, Prism. She told Billboard, "I know exactly the record I want to make next. I know the artwork, the coloring and the tone" and "I even know what type of tour I'm doing next. I'll be very pleased if the vision I have in my head becomes a reality." After initially telling L'Uomo Vogue in June 2012 that she planned to have "darker elements" in Prism following the end of her marriage, the singer revealed to MTV during the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards that she changed the album's direction after periods of self-reflection. Perry commented "I felt very prismatic", which inspired the album's name. "Roar" was released as the lead single from Prism on August 10, 2013. It was promoted at the MTV Video Music Awards and reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100. "Unconditionally" followed as the second single from Prism on October 16, 2013, and peaked at number 14 in the United States.
Prism was released on October 18, 2013, and has sold 4 million copies as of August 2015. It received favorable reviews from critics and debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 chart. Four days later, Perry performed the songs from the album at the iHeartRadio Theater in Los Angeles. "Dark Horse" with Juicy J was released as the album's third single in December, and became her ninth U.S. number-one single the following month. In 2014, "Birthday" and "This Is How We Do" respectively followed as the album's fourth and fifth singles, and reached the top 25 on the Hot 100. Prior to ending her relationship with Mayer in February 2014, she recorded and co-wrote a duet with him titled "Who You Love" for his album Paradise Valley. The song was released on August 12, 2013. Perry's third headlining tour, the Prismatic World Tour, began in May 2014 and concluded in October 2015. It sold almost 2 million tickets and grossed $204.3 million worldwide and won Perry the award for "Top Package" at the 2014 Billboard Touring Awards. She also performed at the 2015 Rock in Rio festival on September 27, 2015.
On November 23, 2014, the NFL announced that Perry would perform at the Super Bowl XLIX halftime show on February 1, 2015. Lenny Kravitz and Missy Elliott served as special guests for the show. Her performance was critically acclaimed, and the Guinness World Records announced two days after the singer's halftime show that it garnered 118.5 million viewers in the United States, becoming the most watched and highest rated show in Super Bowl history. The viewership was higher than the game itself, which was viewed by an audience of 114.4 million.
The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) ranked her fifth on the list of Top Global Recording Artists of 2013. On June 26, 2014, she was declared the Top Certified Digital Artist Ever by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for certified sales of 72 million digital singles in the United States. In May 2014, a portrait of Perry by painter Mark Ryden was featured in his exhibition "The Gay 90s", and shown at the Kohn Gallery in Los Angeles. Along with several other artists, she also recorded a cover version of the song "Daisy Bell (Bicycle Built for Two)" on a limited-edition concept album titled The Gay Nineties Old Tyme Music: Daisy Bell to accompany the exhibition. That month, a portrait of Perry by artist Will Cotton was included in the United States National Portrait Gallery. On November 23, 2015, Perry starred in H&M's holiday advertising campaign, for which she wrote and recorded a song titled "Every Day Is a Holiday".
On June 17, 2014, Perry announced that she had founded her own record label under Capitol Records, titled Metamorphosis Music. Ferras was the first artist to get signed to her label, and Perry served as an executive producer on his self-titled EP. She also recorded a duet with him on the EP, titled "Legends Never Die". The label was later renamed Unsub Records.
Outside of her music career, Perry reprised her role as Smurfette in The Smurfs 2, which was released in theaters on July 31, 2013. Like its predecessor, The Smurfs 2 was a financial success but was panned by critics. In March 2014, she made a guest appearance playing herself in the episode "Blisteritos Presents Dad Academy Graduation Congraduritos Red Carpet Viewing Party" of the Kroll Show. Killer Queen was released as her third fragrance in August 2013 through Coty, Inc. In January 2014, she became a guest curator of Madonna's Art for Freedom initiative. In March 2015, she appeared in Brand: A Second Coming, a documentary following her ex-husband Russell Brand's transition from comedy work to activism, and released a concert film titled Katy Perry: The Prismatic World Tour through Epix, which took place during her tour of the same name. Perry also made a cameo appearance in the music video for Madonna's song "Bitch I'm Madonna" in June 2015. The following month, she released another fragrance with Coty, entitled Mad Potion. In September 2015, she appeared in the documentaries Katy Perry: Making of the Pepsi Super Bowl Halftime Show, which followed Perry's preparation for her Super Bowl performance, and Jeremy Scott: The People's Designer, which followed the life and career of designer Jeremy Scott. Perry released a mobile app titled Katy Perry Pop in December 2015 through Glu Mobile where her character helps players become famous musicians. She described it as "the most fun, colorful world that helps guide your musical dreams".
2016–2018: Witness and American Idol
Perry started writing songs for her new album in June 2016, and recorded an anthem for NBC Sports's coverage of the 2016 Summer Olympics titled "Rise", which was released the following month. Perry chose to release it as a standalone track rather than save it for her album "because now more than ever, there is a need for our world to unite". NBC also felt its message spoke "directly to the spirit of the Olympics and its athletes" for its inspirational themes. The song reached number one in Australia and number eleven in the United States.
In August 2016, Perry stated that she aspired to create material "that connects and relates and inspires" and told Ryan Seacrest that she was "not rushing" her fifth album, adding "I'm just having a lot of fun, but experimenting and trying different producers, and different collaborators, and different styles". On February 10, 2017, Perry released the album's lead single "Chained to the Rhythm" featuring Skip Marley. It reached number one in Hungary and number four in the United States. The track was also streamed over three million times on Spotify within 24 hours, breaking the music streaming service's record at the time for the highest first-day streaming for a single track by a female artist. The album's second single, "Bon Appétit" with Migos, was released that April. Its third single, "Swish Swish", featured Nicki Minaj and followed the next month. They respectively peaked at numbers 59 and 46 in the United States, and made the top 15 in Canada.
The album, titled Witness, was released on June 9, 2017, to mixed reviews, and debuted at number one in the United States. To accompany the album's release, Perry broadcast herself on YouTube for four days with a live-stream titled Katy Perry Live: Witness World Wide, concluding with a live concert on June 12. The live-stream generated over 49 million views from 190 different countries. She also embarked on Witness: The Tour, which began in September 2017 and ended in August 2018. On June 15, 2017, Calvin Harris released a song titled "Feels" from his album Funk Wav Bounces Vol. 1, which featured Perry, Big Sean, and Pharrell Williams. The song went on to reach number one in the United Kingdom.
Perry subsequently recorded a cover of the Dear Evan Hansen song "Waving Through a Window" for the deluxe edition of the cast recording, which was released on November 2, 2018. The show's creators Benj Pasek and Justin Paul had requested Perry to cover the song to promote the musical's national tour and bring awareness to mental health. Later that month, Perry released "Cozy Little Christmas". She also recorded the song "Immortal Flame" for the game Final Fantasy Brave Exvius, and had a playable character modeled after her.
Outside of recording music, Perry appeared as herself in the film Zoolander 2, which was released in February 2016. In February 2017, the singer launched a shoe line titled "Katy Perry Collections". Her shoes are available on her website, Katy Perry Collections, and at retailers such as Dillard's and Walmart. The following August, she hosted the 2017 MTV Video Music Awards. Perry was signed for a $25-million salary to serve as a judge on ABC's revival of American Idol, which premiered in March 2018. Perry began a relationship with Orlando Bloom in early 2016, and the couple got engaged on February 14, 2019.
2019–present: Smile, motherhood and Play residency
At the 61st Annual Grammy Awards, Perry performed "Here You Come Again", alongside Dolly Parton and Kacey Musgraves, as part of a tribute to Parton. Four days later, she released a song called "365", with DJ Zedd. In April, Perry was included on a remix of Daddy Yankee's song "Con Calma", featuring Snow. She followed this with the singles "Never Really Over" on May 31, "Small Talk" on August 9, and "Harleys in Hawaii" on October 16.
In June 2019, Perry appeared in the music video of Taylor Swift's "You Need to Calm Down". In July, a jury in California passed a verdict following a week-long trial that Perry's song "Dark Horse" had copied Flame's 2008 song "Joyful Noise" after he filed a copyright lawsuit alleging that it used his track's beat without permission, which was later overturned. After the initial verdict, the jury ordered her to pay him $550,000. The next month, Josh Kloss, Perry's co-star in the "Teenage Dream" music video, accused her of sexual misconduct. In an Instagram post, Kloss alleged that, during a party at a skating rink, Perry pulled on his sweatpants and underwear, exposing his penis to her male friends. He also said her management prevented him from speaking about his time with the singer. However, Johnny Wujek, the creative director of said party defended Perry, saying that she "would never do something like that" and accused Kloss of having an "ongoing obsession" with her. After initially refraining from responding to this, believing it would have detracted from the Me Too movement, Perry has also denied Kloss's claims.
Following the release of her single "Never Worn White" in March 2020, Perry revealed in the accompanying music video that she was expecting her first child with Bloom. "Daisies", the lead single from her sixth album, was released on May 15, 2020. Its second single "Smile" followed two months later. The album, also titled Smile, was released on August 28, 2020. Two days before its distribution, she gave birth to a daughter named Daisy Dove Bloom. The album received mixed reviews, and debuted at number five in the United States. Perry further promoted the album with four compilation EPs: Camp Katy, Empowered, Scorpio SZN, and Cosmic Energy. These EPs were followed by the single "Not the End of the World" in December 2020, which had a music video in which Zooey Deschanel impersonates Perry. Additionally she collaborated with various artists to create two remixes of Smile album tracks. Tiësto remix of "Resillient" featuring Aitana was released in November 2020, while Bruno Martini remix of "Cry About It Later" featuring Luísa Sonza was released in April 2021. In January 20, 2021, Perry performed "Firework" at the Celebrating America concert during the inauguration of Joe Biden. Four months later, she released a new single, "Electric", a collaboration with Pokémon for their 25th anniversary.
Perry began hosting a residency named Play at Resorts World Las Vegas on December 29, 2021. The show's inception happened during the COVID-19 lockdown with Perry being inspired by 1990s movies such as Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, Pee-wee's Playhouse, and Pee-wee's Big Adventure. She described it as "larger than life" and "the kookiest, most camp show I've ever put together." The show has received critical acclaim with Melinda Sheckells of Billboard saying that "[Play's] sold-out opening night is part fantasy, part hallucination and thoroughly camp.
In September 2021, Variety paid tribute to and honored Perry on their "Power of Women" issue, where she discussed her career, motherhood, and philanthropy. As a nominee, she attended the Variety 2021 "Power of Women" dinner. On her 37th birthday the following month, Perry guest hosted The Ellen DeGeneres Show and starred in a holiday advertisement for Gap Inc. which featured her singing "All You Need Is Love" by The Beatles. A full version of her cover was released on streaming platforms the same day. Two months later, Perry followed this with "When I'm Gone", a collaboration with Alesso.
Artistry
Influences
Perry cites her sister Angela as the woman who has had the most influence on her. During the early stages of her career, Perry's musical style gravitated towards gospel and she aspired to be as successful as Amy Grant. At age 15, she heard "Killer Queen" by Queen, which inspired her to pursue a music career. She cites the band's frontman, Freddie Mercury, as her biggest influence and expressed how the "combination of his sarcastic approach to writing lyrics and his 'I don't give a fuck' attitude" inspired her music. She paid homage to the band by naming her third fragrance Killer Queen. Perry described the Beach Boys and their album Pet Sounds as having a considerable influence on her music: "Pet Sounds is one of my favorite records and it influenced pretty much all of my songwriting. All of the melody choices that I make are because of Pet Sounds." The singer also holds the Beatles' album The Beatles in high esteem, and described these two albums as "the only things I listened to for probably two years straight."
She cites Alanis Morissette and her 1995 album Jagged Little Pill as a significant musical inspiration, stating in 2012: "Jagged Little Pill was the most perfect female record ever made. There's a song for anyone on that record; I relate to all those songs. They're still so timeless." Additionally, Perry borrows influence from Flaming Red by Patty Griffin and 10 Cent Wings by Jonatha Brooke. Perry's autobiographical documentary Katy Perry: Part of Me was largely influenced by Madonna: Truth or Dare. She admires Madonna's ability to reinvent herself, saying "I want to evolve like Madonna".
Perry names Björk as an influence, particularly admiring her "willingness to always be taking chances". Other artists who Perry has cited as influences include Stevie Nicks, ABBA, the Cardigans, Cyndi Lauper, Ace of Base, 3OH!3, CeCe Peniston, C+C Music Factory, Black Box, Crystal Waters, Mariah Carey, Heart, Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, Imogen Heap, Rufus Wainwright, Pink, and Gwen Stefani. "Firework" was inspired by a passage in the book On the Road by Jack Kerouac in which the author compares people who are full of life to fireworks that shoot across the sky and make people watch in awe. Her second concert tour, the California Dreams Tour, was reminiscent of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. She also credits the 1996 film The Craft for inspiring her song "Dark Horse", and Eckhart Tolle's book The Power of Now for influencing Prism.
Musical style and themes
While Perry's music incorporates pop, rock, and disco, Katy Hudson contains gospel. Her subsequent releases, One of the Boys and Teenage Dream, involve themes of sex and love. One of the Boys is a pop rock record, while Teenage Dream features disco influences. Perry's fourth album, Prism, is significantly influenced by dance and pop music. Lyrically, the album addresses relationships, self-reflection, and everyday life. Her fifth studio effort Witness is an electropop album that she described as a "360-degree liberation" record, with themes including political liberation, sexual liberation, and liberation from negativity. Many of her songs, particularly on Teenage Dream, reflect on love between teenagers; W magazine described the album's sexual innuendos as "irresistible hook-laden melodies". Self-empowerment is a common theme in Perry's music.
Perry has described herself as a "singer-songwriter masquerading as a pop star" and maintains that honest songwriting is very important to her. She told Marie Claire: "I feel like my secret magic trick that separates me from a lot of my peers is the bravery to be vulnerable and truthful and honest. I think you become more relatable when you're vulnerable." Actress and comedian Kristen Wiig commented that "as easy, breezy, and infectious as Perry's songs can be, beneath the surface lurks a sea of mixed emotions, jumbled motives, and contradictory impulses complicated enough to fill a Carole King record." According to Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune, "being taken seriously may be Perry's greatest challenge yet." In 2013, The New York Times labeled her "the most potent pop star of the day – her hits are relatable with just a hint of experimentation". Randall Roberts of the Los Angeles Times criticized her use of idioms and metaphors in her lyrics and for frequent "clichés". Throughout her career, Perry has also co-written songs recorded by other artists, including Lesley Roy, Kelly Clarkson, Jessie James Decker, Selena Gomez & the Scene, Britney Spears, Iggy Azalea, Rita Ora, Nicki Minaj, and Ariana Grande.
Voice
Perry possesses a contralto vocal range. Her singing has received both praise and criticism. Betty Clarke of The Guardian commented that her "powerful voice is hard-edged" while Rob Sheffield from Rolling Stone described Perry's vocals on Teenage Dream as "processed staccato blips". Darren Harvey of musicOMH compared Perry's vocals on One of the Boys to Alanis Morissette's, both possessing a "perky voice shifting octaves mid-syllable". Alex Miller from NME felt that "Perry's problem is often her voice" on One of the Boys, stating that "somewhere along the line someone convinced her she was like, well, a ballsy rock chick". Conversely, Bernadette McNulty from The Daily Telegraph praised her "rock chick voice" in a review of a concert promoting Prism.
Public image
On social media, Perry surpassed Justin Bieber as the most followed person on Twitter in November 2013. She won the 2015 Guinness World Record for most Twitter followers, and became the first person to gain 100 million followers on the site in June 2017. Keith Caulfield of Billboard stated that Perry is "the rare celebrity who seems to have enormous popularity but genuine ground-level interaction with her adoring KatyCats." With over 108 Twitter million followers, she is the most followed female on the site, and the fifth most followed musician across social media with a combined total of over 326 million followers across Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. In June 2017, Time magazine listed Perry among its "25 Most Influential People on the Internet" of the year, writing that her live-stream for Witness was "blazing a trail" for being "the closest any major entertainer has come to giving fans the kind of 'real' intimacy that social media purports to provide".
In 2011, Forbes ranked Perry third on their "Top-Earning Women In Music" list with earnings of $44 million and fifth on their 2012 list with $45 million. She subsequently ranked seventh on the 2013 Forbes list for "Top-Earning Women In Music" with $39 million earned, and fifth on their 2014 list with $40 million. With earnings of $135 million, Forbes also ranked Perry number one on their 2015 "Top-Earning Women In Music" list as well as the "World's Highest-Paid Musicians" and declared her the highest earning female celebrity in 2015, placing her at number 3 on the Forbes Celebrity 100 list. In 2016, the magazine estimated her net worth was $125 million, and ranked her number six on their list of "Highest-Paid Women in Music" with earnings of $41 million. The following year, she was ranked number nine on the list with $33 million. In 2018, she topped its "Highest-Paid Women in Music" listing and ranked at number four on the "Highest-Paid Female Celebrities" list with earnings of $83 million. Perry subsequently was placed at number four on the 2019 "Highest-Paid Women in Music" listings with $57.5 million. Later that year, with earnings of $530 million throughout the 2010s, the magazine also ranked her as the 9th highest earning musician of the decade.
Fashion
Perry has been described as a sex symbol; GQ labeled her a "full-on male fantasy", while Elle wrote her body looked "as though sketched by a teenage boy". Vice called her a serious' popstar/woman/sex symbol". She was placed at number one on the Maxim Hot 100 in 2010 as the "most beautiful woman in the world", with editor Joe Levy describing her as a "triple – no quadruple – kind of hot". Men's Health readers voted her the "sexiest woman of 2013". In November 2010, Perry told Harper's Bazaar that she was proud of and satisfied with her figure.
Perry's fashion often incorporates humor, bright colors, and food-related themes such as her characteristic spinning peppermint swirl dress. Vogue described her as "never exactly one to shy away from the outrageous or the extreme in any realm" and called her the "Queen of Camp". while Glamour named her the "queen of quirk". In February 2009, Perry told Seventeen that her fashion style was "a bit of a concoction of different things" and stated she enjoyed humor in her clothing. She has also described herself as having "multipersonality disorder" for fashion. Perry lists Gwen Stefani, Shirley Manson, Chloë Sevigny, Daphne Guinness, Natalie Portman, and the fictional character Lolita as her style icons. Elle described her as "the kitsch-loving pop star renowned for her uniquely experimental style" while Vogue described her style as "synonymous with outrageous, eye-catching ensembles that lean towards the theatrical."
During the 2017 launch of her shoe collection, Katy Perry Collections, she said about shoes: "When I first got to L.A., I cultivated my style on a budget, always shopping at thrift stores or vintage stores. … Once, I found these flats that looked like Dalmatian dogs. They had ears that moved and a tongue that stuck out. They were such a conversation piece. That's what is so great about fashion. … It's a form of communication. You don't have to start a smoking habit to start talking to someone. You can just wear cool shoes. It's an icebreaker."
Legacy and influence
Several media outlets such as Billboard and Glamour have referred to her as the "Queen of Pop", while Vogue has dubbed Perry the "Queen of Camp" and a "pop icon." Andrew Unterberger of Billboard described Teenage Dream "one of the defining LPs from a new golden age in mega-pop" while Christopher Rosa of Glamour named her as an influence to the pop sound and style of the 2010s, adding that her singles are "some of the most recognizable, iconic, and impactful hits in pop history." Perry was named "one of the last decade's most reliable and successful hitmakers" by the Official Charts Company in 2022.
Additionally, Perry was included in Glamour's "104 Women Who Defined the [2010s] in Pop Culture" list, saying: "[Perry] did more than just break chart records. She was one of the driving forces behind the sound of pop radio in the 2010s. [...] glossy, booming, sugary-sweet, and undeniably catchy." Variety included Perry in their Variety 500 list of the most influential business leaders, calling her a "global phenomenon" and a "dedicated artist and tireless self-promoter who has leveraged chart-topping hits, sold-out stadium shows, and staggering endorsement deals to become one of the richest and most influential pop stars alive." She has been called a "gay icon" by Taylor Henderson of Out, noting how "I Kissed a Girl" helped fans explore their sexuality and how Perry openly embraced the LGBTQ+ community.
Perry's music has been described by Out as having a "lasting legacy", with American singers Fletcher sampling "I Kissed a Girl" and Olivia Rodrigo referencing Teenage Dream on "Brutal". Additionally, other artists such as Halsey and Ariana Grande have praised Perry's work, with Halsey calling Teenage Dream the "perfect pop album" and Grande saying "The One That Got Away" is "one of the biggest and most perfectly written pop songs ever from one of the best pop albums of all time". Perry and her work have influenced artists such as Lil Nas X, Halsey, Lorde, Rina Sawayama, Doja Cat, Ellie Goulding, Tegan and Sara, Kim Petras, and Coldplay.
Other ventures
Philanthropy
Perry has supported various charitable organizations and causes throughout her career. She has contributed to organizations aimed at improving the lives and welfare of children in particular. In April 2013, she joined UNICEF to assist children in Madagascar with education and nutrition. On December 3, 2013, she was officially named a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, "with a special focus on engaging young people in the agency's work to improve the lives of the world's most vulnerable children and adolescents." She arranged for a portion of the money generated from tickets to her Prismatic World Tour to go to UNICEF. In September 2010, she helped build and design the Boys Hope/Girls Hope foundation shelter for youth in Baltimore, Maryland along with Raven-Symoné, Shaquille O'Neal, and the cast of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. In 2010, Perry and Nicki Minaj performed a cover of "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" for service members during the 2010 VH1 Divas Salute the Troops concert.
She has also supported children's education and well-being. All profits from sales of the album The Gay Nineties Old Tyme Music: Daisy Bell, which includes her rendition of "Daisy Bell (Bicycle Built for Two)", were donated to the charity Little Kids Rock, which supports musical education in underprivileged elementary schools. In June 2014, she teamed up with Staples Inc. for a project entitled "Make Roar Happen" which donated $1 million to DonorsChoose, an organization that supports teachers and funds classroom resources in public schools. In May 2016, she worked with UNICEF to improve child care quality in Vietnam, hoping to "break the cycle of poverty and drastically improve children's health, education and well-being". The following month, UNICEF announced that Perry would receive the Audrey Hepburn Humanitarian Award "for her work as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in support of the world's most vulnerable children" at their annual Snowflake Ball in November. All Spotify streams of her 2021 cover of "All You Need Is Love" will generate $1 in donations for the charity Baby2Baby.
Perry has supported organizations aimed at aiding people suffering with diseases including cancer and HIV/AIDS. During the 2008 Warped Tour, she had a cast made of her breasts to raise money for the Keep A Breast Foundation. She hosted and performed at the We Can Survive concert along with Bonnie McKee, Kacey Musgraves, Sara Bareilles, Ellie Goulding, and duo Tegan and Sara at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, California, on October 23, 2013. The concert's profits were donated to Young Survival Coalition, an organization aiding breast cancer in young women. In June 2009, she designed an item of clothing for H&M's "Fashion Against AIDS" campaign, which raises money for HIV/AIDS awareness projects. On February 26, 2017, she served as a co-chair alongside various celebrities such as Beyoncé, Lea Michele, Jim Carrey, Jared Leto, and Kevin Spacey for the 25th Annual Elton John AIDS Foundation Academy Award Party, a fundraiser for HIV/AIDS healthcare.
The proceeds from Perry's single "Part of Me" were donated to the charity MusiCares, which helps musicians in times of need. During her California Dreams Tour, she raised over $175,000 for the Tickets-For-Charity fundraiser. The money was divided between three charities: the Children's Health Fund (CHF), Generosity Water, and The Humane Society of the United States.
On her 27th birthday, Perry set up a donations page for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Auckland, and set up a similar page benefiting the David Lynch Foundation for her 28th birthday. On March 29, 2014, she helped raise $2.4 million for the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles along with other celebrities such as Ryan Seacrest, Pharrell Williams, Tim Allen, Lisa Edelstein, and Riley Keough.
Perry performed at the One Love Manchester benefit concert for the victims of the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing, among various performers including its organizer Ariana Grande, which was broadcast live on June 4, 2017, on radio and television stations around the world. In March 2018, Perry announced Witness: Coming Home, a benefit concert that was held in her hometown of Santa Barbara on May 19, 2018. The concert benefited those recovering from the aftermath of the 2017 California wildfires and 2018 Southern California mudflows. Perry partnered with the Santa Barbara Foundation, the 93108 Fund and The 805 UndocuFund, organizations which help in assisting members of the community in the Santa Barbara area through grants and various philanthropic efforts.
Activism
Perry has publicly advocated for LGBT rights and admitted that she wrote "I Kissed a Girl" about her own bisexual experiences with other women. In 2017, she received a Nation Equality Award from Human Rights Campaign for "using her powerful voice and international platform to speak out for LGBTQ equality". In her acceptance speech, she discussed having bisexual experiences, her fluid sexuality, and thanked the LGBTQ+ community. In an Out interview in 2021, she was heralded as a "gay icon" with "I Kissed a Girl" being called a "bonafide queer anthem." She continued to thank the LGBTQ+ community in the same interview, saying: "I came from a very sheltered upbringing where it wasn't okay to be friends with anyone from that community. And now that is my community, [...] I wouldn't have survived without the community and it's amazing how full circle it's come and how much growth has happened since I started."
She supported Stonewall during their "It gets better..... today" campaign to prevent homophobic bullying, and dedicated the music video to her song "Firework" to the It Gets Better Project. In 2008, Perry told Do Something she was proud to be a LGBT rights activist, saying "I've always been a very open-minded person, but I definitely believe in equality." In June 2012, Perry expressed her hopes for LGBT equality, commenting "hopefully, we will look back at this moment and think like we do now concerning [other] civil rights issues. We'll just shake our heads in disbelief, saying, 'Thank God we've evolved.' That would be my prayer for the future." In December 2012, Perry was awarded the Trevor Hero Award by The Trevor Project for her work and activism on behalf of LGBT youth.
Perry identifies as a feminist, and appeared in April 2013 in a video clip for the "Chime for Change" campaign that aimed to spread female empowerment. She has also said that America's lack of free health care drove her "absolutely crazy". Following the shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando in June 2016, Perry and nearly 200 other artists and executives in music signed an open letter organized by Billboard addressed to United States Congress demanding increased gun control in the United States.
Through Twitter and by performing at rallies, Perry supported President Barack Obama in his run for re-election and praised his support for same-sex marriage and LGBT equality. She performed at three rallies for Obama, in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Wisconsin, singing a rendition of "Let's Stay Together" as well as a number of her songs. During her Las Vegas performance she wore a dress made to replicate a voting ballot, with Obama's box filled in. On Twitter, she encouraged her followers to vote for Obama.
In August 2013, Perry voiced criticism of Tony Abbott, then-leader of conservative Liberal Party of Australia and candidate for Prime Minister of Australia, due to his opposition to gay marriage and told Abbott, "I love you as a human being but I can't give you my vote."; the statement came after Abbott expressed pride at learning of Perry's then-upcoming performance in Australia. In April 2014, she publicly supported Marianne Williamson in her campaign for California's 33rd congressional district by attending a political press event. She endorsed Kamala Harris in the United States Senate election in California, and organized a fundraiser for Harris at her home in Los Angeles in November 2016. Perry also publicly endorsed former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for president in 2016. She performed alongside Elton John at a fundraising concert for Clinton in New York City in March 2016. Perry also spoke and performed at the 2016 Democratic National Convention in support of Clinton. Four years later, she supported Joe Biden and Kamala Harris during the 2020 United States presidential election, praising the latter as a leader who had "experience we desperately need right now" and believed that the former "choosing her as his running mate is already a testament to his decision making".
Achievements
Throughout her career, Perry has won five American Music Awards, fourteen People's Choice Awards, four Guinness World Records, a Brit Award, and a Juno Award. In September 2012, Billboard dubbed her the "Woman of the Year". From May 2010 to September 2011, the singer spent a record-breaking 69 consecutive weeks in the top ten of the Billboard Hot 100. Teenage Dream became the first album by a female artist to produce five number-one Billboard Hot 100 singles, and the second album overall after Michael Jackson's Bad. In the United States, she has accumulated nine number-one singles on the Billboard Hot 100, her most recent being "Dark Horse", and holds the record for having 18 consecutive number-one songs on the Billboard Dance Club Songs chart.
Billboard also named her the 15th most successful dance club artist of all time. The magazine additionally ranked her 4th on its "Greatest of All Time Pop Songs Artists" list, included Teenage Dream and Prism among its "Greatest of All Time Billboard 200 Albums by Women" list, and ranked "Dark Horse" at number 100 on its "Greatest of All Time Hot 100 Songs" as well as one of its "Greatest of All Time Hot 100 Songs by Women" along with "E.T.", "Firework", and "California Gurls". In June 2015, her music video for "Dark Horse" became the first video by a female artist to reach 1 billion views on Vevo. The following month, her music video for "Roar" reached 1 billion views on Vevo, making her the first artist to have multiple videos with 1 billion views.
Perry was declared the Top Global Female Recording Artist of 2013 by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI). According to Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), she is the fifth top digital singles artist in the United States, with 105 million certified song units in the country including on-demand streams and also has 11 million certified album units, totaling 116 million certified units in the nation. She also became the first artist to have three songs receive Diamond certifications from the RIAA with "Dark Horse", "Firework", and "Roar". All three of them and "E.T.", "California Gurls", and "Hot n Cold" have each sold over 5 million digital copies. Throughout her career, Perry has sold more than 18 million albums and 125 million singles globally, making her one of the best-selling music artists of all time.
Discography
Katy Hudson (2001)
One of the Boys (2008)
Teenage Dream (2010)
Prism (2013)
Witness (2017)
Smile (2020)
Filmography
The Smurfs (2011)
Katy Perry: Part of Me (2012)
The Smurfs 2 (2013)
Brand: A Second Coming (2015)
Katy Perry: The Prismatic World Tour (2015)
Katy Perry: Making of the Pepsi Super Bowl Halftime Show (2015)
Jeremy Scott: The People's Designer (2015)
Zoolander 2 (2016)
Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (2016)
Tours and residency
Co-headlining tour
Strangely Normal Tour (with Phil Joel) (2001)
Headlining tours
Hello Katy Tour (2009)
California Dreams Tour (2011–2012)
Prismatic World Tour (2014–2015)
Witness: The Tour (2017–2018)
Residency
Play (2021–2022)
See also
List of best-selling music artists
List of most-followed Twitter accounts
List of Billboard Social 50 number-one artists
List of highest-certified music artists in the United States
Best-selling female artists of all time
References
Footnotes
Sources
External links
1984 births
Living people
21st-century American guitarists
21st-century American singers
21st-century American women singers
21st-century American women guitarists
Activists from California
American contraltos
American disco singers
American women pop singers
American women rock singers
American women singer-songwriters
American feminists
American film actresses
American performance artists
American pop guitarists
American pop rock singers
American rock guitarists
American rock songwriters
American television actresses
American women activists
American voice actresses
American women in electronic music
Brit Award winners
Capitol Records artists
Columbia Records artists
Dance-pop musicians
Def Jam Recordings artists
Feminist musicians
Guitarists from California
Island Records artists
Juno Award for International Album of the Year winners
LGBT rights activists from the United States
Musicians from Santa Barbara, California
MTV Europe Music Award winners
Participants in American reality television series
Singer-songwriters from California
UNICEF Goodwill Ambassadors | false | [
"No More the Fool is a 1986 album by Elkie Brooks. It includes the title track single which became the biggest hit of Brooks' career. Both the album and single peaked at No. 5 on the UK charts in early 1987.\n\nOverview\nHaving been released from her contract with A&M Records in early 1986, Brooks struck a new deal with smaller label Legend Records, which was distributed by Island. Impressed with their enthusiasm and willingness to promote this new album, Brooks was excited about the project and worked with songwriter Russ Ballard who had had a number of hits to his credit. Ballard had been working on a song called \"No More the Fool\" which he had earmarked for Kim Wilde, but on hearing it, Brooks' husband and engineer Trevor Jordan instantly claimed the song for her. Ballard wrote some other songs for the album, while Brooks composed two as well as choosing cover versions of \"We've Got Tonight\" and \"Only Women Bleed\". The album was completed by \"Hold the Dream\" which had been the theme to the TV mini-series of the same name.\n\nGathering together a team of trusted musicians, Brooks recorded the album at her home studio in North Devon, except for the title track which was recorded at Ballard's own studios. It was recorded during May and June 1986 just as Brooks discovered she was pregnant. Because of this, pre-promotion was pulled forward to October with live and personal appearances being undertaken while heavily pregnant, Legend Records meanwhile heralded the album with advertising on buses and in tube stations. \n \nReleased a month later, the album marked the peak of Brooks' career. The lead single \"No More the Fool\" was a big comeback hit for her, reaching No.5 in the UK Singles Chart in January 1987. This album also reached No. 5 at the same time, while a compilation album, The Very Best of Elkie Brooks, was at No. 10 in the charts. Brooks had given birth in late December and therefore was back to performing on TV including appearances on Top of the Pops soon afterwards. A promotional tour in Germany was also undertaken at this time. Brooks later recalled that having a baby boy at this time meant that she did not fully appreciate the success she was experiencing. Two more singles were released from the album, a remixed version of \"Break the Chain\" and \"We've Got Tonight\", which became more modest hits peaking at numbers 55 and 69 respectively. No More the Fool remained on the UK album chart for 23 weeks.\n\nA cruel twist emerged from the album however as when 18 months later Brooks was to release the follow-up album, she discovered that despite huge earnings from the album, she still had not received any royalties. Looking into it, the profits showed up as zero. The record company had shipped production of the album out to Germany, which then linked to a separate account held in Panama, meaning that the UK account of the record company showed only a debt of £132,000 in recording costs. To add to this, Legend Records later sold the rights to Polydor Records for £500,000 - which was declared at covering the cost of recording and other extras. Brooks looked into the matter with solicitors but reluctantly bowed down due to the cost of legal proceedings against the chances of winning. She later remarked \"This was the business end of it, which I've always hated and I still do to this day\". Although aware that these things happen quite often in the music business, she declared that the artist is an innocent party and \"it should be stopped because it's totally wrong\".\n\nTracks from the album (along with the follow-up) have been re-issued several times on various compilation CDs (Original Recordings in 1993, Love Is Love in 1994, We've Got Tonight four times and No More the Fool twice).\n\nIn 2003, a compilation album with the same title was released by Delta Music on compact disc at a budget price following Brooks' appearance on ITV's Reborn in the USA.\n\nTrack listing\nSide one\n \"No More the Fool\" (Russ Ballard)\n \"Only Women Bleed\" (Alice Cooper, Dick Wagner)\n \"No Secrets (Call of the Wild)\" (Jimmy Scott, Julia Downes) \n \"Blue Jay\" (Elkie Brooks, Trevor Jordan)\n \"Break the Chain\" (Russ Ballard)\nSide two\n \"We've Got Tonight\" (Bob Seger)\n \"All or Nothing\" (Russ Ballard)\n \"Don't Want to Cry No More\" (Russ Ballard)\n \"Hiding Inside Yourself\" (Elkie Brooks)\n \"Hold the Dream\" (Barrie Guard)\n\nSingle releases\n \"No More the Fool\" (UK #5, 1986)\n \"Break the Chain\" (single remix) (UK #55, 1987)\n \"We've Got Tonight\" (UK# 69, 1987)\n\nPersonnel\nElkie Brooks - vocals\nRuss Ballard, Mickey Simmonds, Chris Allison, Duncan Mackay, Nick Glennie-Smith - piano, keyboards\nRuss Ballard, Zal Cleminson, Ian Crighton, Clem Clempson, Gary Hutchins - guitars\nMo Foster, Brad Lang, Graham Edwards, Felix Krish - bass guitar\nMike Richardson, Julia Downes, Tony Beard, Morris Pert - drums, percussion\nMartin Dobson, Gary Barnacle - saxophone\nSteve Lang, Peter Straker Morty - backing vocals\nTrevor Jordan, Russ Ballard, Matt Butler, Steve Reece, Marcellus Frank, Brad Davies, Richard Sullivan - engineers\n\nReferences\n\nElkie Brooks albums\n1986 albums\nAlbums produced by Russ Ballard",
"\"Love Ain't Love\" is the second solo single released by singer Florence Ballard, shortly after her departure from The Supremes. Robert Bateman, who produced both sides of the single, was familiar with Ballard, having \"discovered\" The Primettes (who would later become The Supremes) at the Windsor Festival and attended their Motown audition.\n\nBackground\nIn 1967, Florence Ballard was fired by Motown Records founder Berry Gordy Jr. As part of her release from Motown, no mention could be made that Ballard had been a part of the best-selling trio. Eventually, Ballard signed with ABC Records on March 6, 1968, and quickly started work on her solo album. \"It Doesn't Matter How I Say It (It's What I Say That Matters)\" b/w \"Goin' Out Of My Head\" (ABC Records 11074) was released in 1968 with little fanfare, in which Ballard blamed the record company as they \"just wouldn't push it [the single]\". As it failed to chart, ABC Records executives brought in former Motown producer Robert Bateman and singer-songwriter Van McCoy to produce songs with Ballard. The single \"Love Ain't Love\" was released in September 1968. When it failed to chart, plans to release an album, tentatively titled You Don't Have To, were shelved. Songs due to appear on the album were released in 2002 by Spectrum Records, on the compilation album The Supreme Florence \"Flo\" Ballard.\n\nReception\nIn the issue dated October 19, 1968, Cashbox listed \"Love Ain't Love\" in its Picks of the Week, writing, 'Though the lyrics have an often told love message, the manner in which they are presented should turn Florence Ballard into a new star on the solo scene. Former Supreme \"Flo\" has a brilliant time on this moving dance track with the power to break wide open on both pop and blues fronts. Expect national action.' Billboard wrote in the issue dated 2 November 1968, 'Miss Ballard, formerly of The Supremes, makes a powerful bid for solo chart honors with a pulsating Van McCoy rhythm entry' and in the 16 November issue Ed Hochs wrote the song was 'makin' noise'.\n\nReferences\n\nBibliography\n \n\n1968 singles\n1968 songs\nABC Records singles\nSongs written by Van McCoy"
] |
[
"Katy Perry",
"1999-2006: Career beginnings",
"when was katy parry's first album under her stage name?",
"March 6, 2001,",
"what did she do between 1999 and 2001?",
"2001, and went on tour that year as part of Phil Joel's Strangely Normal Tour while also embarking on other performances of her own in the United States.",
"Was her first album as Katy Perry a hit?",
"Katy Hudson received positive reviews from critics, though was commercially unsuccessful",
"When did Perry start gaining commercial success?",
"2005",
"What was it that started gaining her popularity?",
"One of the songs she had recorded for her album with Ballard,",
"Which album did she record with Ballard?",
"I don't know."
] | C_29e64ee43f0547139a7c08bceed86ff2_1 | did she do more than record albums during this time? | 7 | did Perry do more than record albums during the time Perry recorded with Ballard? | Katy Perry | Perry completed her General Educational Development (GED) requirements at age 15, during her freshman year of high school, and left Dos Pueblos High School to pursue a musical career. She briefly studied Italian opera at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara. Her singing caught the attention of rock artists Steve Thomas and Jennifer Knapp from Nashville, Tennessee, who brought her there to improve her writing skills. In Nashville, she started recording demos and learned how to write songs and play guitar. After signing with Red Hill Records, Perry recorded her debut album, a gospel record titled Katy Hudson. She released the album on March 6, 2001, and went on tour that year as part of Phil Joel's Strangely Normal Tour while also embarking on other performances of her own in the United States. Katy Hudson received positive reviews from critics, though was commercially unsuccessful and sold an estimated 200 copies before the label ceased operations in December. Transitioning from gospel music to secular music, Perry started writing songs with producer Glen Ballard, and moved to Los Angeles at age 17. In 2003, she briefly performed as Katheryn Perry to avoid confusion with actress Kate Hudson. She later adopted the stage name Katy Perry, using her mother's maiden name. In 2004, Perry signed to Ballard's label, Java, which was then affiliated with The Island Def Jam Music Group. She began work on a solo record, but the record was shelved after Java was dropped. Ballard then introduced Perry to Tim Devine, an A&R executive at Columbia Records, and she was signed as a solo artist. Over the course of the next two years, Perry wrote and recorded material for her Columbia debut, and worked with songwriters including Desmond Child, Greg Wells, Butch Walker, Scott Cutler, Anne Preven, The Matrix, Kara DioGuardi, Max Martin and Dr. Luke. In addition, after Devine suggested that songwriting team The Matrix become a "real group", Perry recorded with them. Perry was dropped from Columbia in 2006 as her record neared completion. After the label dropped her, she worked at an independent A&R company called Taxi Music. Perry had minor success prior to her breakthrough. One of the songs she had recorded for her album with Ballard, "Simple", was featured on the soundtrack to the 2005 film The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. She provided backing vocals on Mick Jagger's song "Old Habits Die Hard", which was included on the soundtrack to the 2004 film Alfie. In September 2004, Blender named Perry "The Next Big Thing". She recorded background vocals on P.O.D.'s single "Goodbye for Now" and was featured at the end of its music video in 2006. That year, Perry also appeared in the music video for "Learn to Fly" by Carbon Leaf, and played the love interest of her then-boyfriend, Gym Class Heroes lead singer Travie McCoy, in the band's music video for "Cupid's Chokehold". CANNOTANSWER | Perry wrote and recorded material | Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson (born October 25, 1984), known professionally as Katy Perry, is an American singer, songwriter, and television judge. She is known for her influence on the pop sound and style of the 2010s. Pursuing a career in gospel music at 16, Perry released her commercially unsuccessful debut album, Katy Hudson (2001), under Red Hill Records. She moved to Los Angeles at 17 to venture into secular music, adopting the stage name "Katy Perry" from her mother's maiden name. With producers Glen Ballard and Greg Wells, she recorded an unreleased album titled Fingerprints while signed to Java Records and then Columbia Records before being dropped. After this, she signed a recording contract with Capitol Records in April 2007.
Perry rose to fame with her second album and major label debut, One of the Boys (2008), a pop rock record containing her debut single "I Kissed a Girl" and follow-up single "Hot n Cold", which respectively reached number one and three on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. The disco-influenced pop album Teenage Dream (2010) spawned five U.S. number one singles—"California Gurls", "Teenage Dream", "Firework", "E.T.", and "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)"—becoming the first album by a solo female artist to do so. A reissue titled Teenage Dream: The Complete Confection (2012) subsequently had the U.S. number one single "Part of Me". Her fourth album Prism (2013) has themes of self-empowerment and relationships. With the music videos for its U.S. number one singles "Roar" and "Dark Horse", Perry became the first artist to have multiple videos reach one billion views on YouTube. Witness (2017) featured an electropop sound with themes of liberation and a political subtext, while Smile (2020) featured themes of motherhood and self-help. She later embarked on her first concert residency titled Play in Resorts World Las Vegas, selling out multiple shows and receiving critical acclaim.
Perry is one of the best-selling artists of all time, having sold over 143 million records worldwide. All of her studio albums released under Capitol have individually surpassed one billion streams on Spotify. She has nine U.S. number one singles, three U.S. number one albums and has received various accolades, including four Guinness World Records, five Billboard Music Awards, five American Music Awards, a Brit Award, and a Juno Award. Perry has been included in the annual Forbes lists of highest-earning women in music from 2011 to 2019. Her critically acclaimed Super Bowl halftime show performance is the most watched in history. Outside of music, she released an autobiographical documentary titled Katy Perry: Part of Me in 2012, and voiced Smurfette in The Smurfs film series. Perry began serving as a judge on American Idol, starting from its sixteenth season in 2018. She is also the most followed woman on Twitter, with over 108 million followers.
Life and career
1984–1998: Early life and family
Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson was born on October 25, 1984, in Santa Barbara, California, to Pentecostal pastors Mary Christine (née Perry) and Maurice Keith Hudson. Both of her parents turned to religion after a "wild youth". Perry has English, German, Irish, and Portuguese ancestry. Through her mother, she is a niece of film director Frank Perry. She has a younger brother named David, who is a singer, and an older sister, Angela.
From ages three to 11, Perry often moved across the country as her parents set up churches before settling again in Santa Barbara. Growing up, she attended religious schools and camps, including Paradise Valley Christian School in Arizona and Santa Barbara Christian School in California during her elementary years. Her family struggled financially, sometimes using food stamps and eating food from the food bank which also fed the congregation at Perry's parents' church.
Growing up, Perry and her siblings were not allowed to eat the cereal Lucky Charms as the word "luck" reminded their mother of Lucifer, and had to call deviled eggs "angeled eggs". Perry primarily listened to gospel music, as secular music was generally discouraged in the family's home. She discovered popular music through CDs she sneaked from her friends. Perry later recalled a story about how a friend of hers played "You Oughta Know" by Alanis Morissette, which impacted her songwriting and singing.
While not strictly identifying as religious, she has stated, "I pray all the time – for self-control, for humility." Wanting to be like her sister Angela, Perry began singing by practicing with her sister's cassette tapes. She performed the tracks in front of their parents, who let her take vocal lessons as Angela was at the time. She began training at age nine, and was incorporated into her parents' ministry, singing in church from ages nine to 17. At 13, Perry was given her first guitar for her birthday, and publicly performed songs she wrote. She tried to "be a bit like the typical Californian girl" while growing up, and started rollerskating, skateboarding, and surfing as a teenager. Her brother David described her as a tomboy during her adolescence, which Perry talks about on her song "One Of The Boys". She took dancing lessons and learned how to swing, Lindy Hop, and jitterbug.
1999–2006: Career beginnings, Katy Hudson and Fingerprints
Perry completed her General Educational Development (GED) requirements at age 15, during her first year of high school, and left Dos Pueblos High School to pursue a music career. She briefly had music lessons in facilities rented from the Music Academy of the West. Her singing caught the attention of rock artists Steve Thomas and Jennifer Knapp from Nashville, Tennessee, who brought her there to improve her writing skills. In Nashville, she started recording demos and learned how to write songs and play guitar. Perry signed with Red Hill Records and recorded her debut album, a contemporary Christian record titled Katy Hudson, which was released on March 6, 2001. She also went on tour that year as part of Phil Joel's Strangely Normal Tour and embarked on other performances of her own in the United States. Katy Hudson received mixed reviews from critics and was commercially unsuccessful, selling an estimated 200 copies before the label ceased operations in December. Transitioning from gospel music to secular music, Perry started working with producer Glen Ballard, and moved to Los Angeles at age 17. She opted to work with Ballard due to his past work with Alanis Morissette, one of her major inspirations. In 2003, she briefly performed as Katheryn Perry to avoid confusion with actress Kate Hudson. She later adopted the stage name 'Katy Perry', using her mother's maiden name. In 2010, she recalled that "Thinking of You" was one of the first songs she wrote after moving to Los Angeles.
In 2004, she signed to Ballard's label, Java Records, which was then affiliated with The Island Def Jam Music Group. Perry began work on a solo record due for release in March 2005, but the record was shelved after Java was dropped. Ballard then introduced her to Tim Devine, an A&R executive at Columbia Records, and she was signed as a solo artist. By November 2006, Perry had finished writing and recording material for her Columbia debut titled Fingerprints (with some of the material from this time appearing on One of the Boys) which was planned for release in 2007. Some of the material from Fingerprints that did not make it on One Of The Boys was given to other artists, such as "I Do Not Hook Up" and "Long Shot" to Kelly Clarkson and "Rock God" to Selena Gomez & the Scene.
Perry worked with songwriters including Desmond Child, Greg Wells, Butch Walker, Scott Cutler, Anne Preven, The Matrix, Kara DioGuardi, Max Martin, and Dr. Luke. In addition, after Devine suggested that songwriting team The Matrix become a "real group", she recorded a shelved album called The Matrix with them. The Matrix was planned to be released in 2004 but was cancelled due to creative differences. It was later released in 2009 after the release of One of the Boys. Perry was dropped from Columbia in 2006 as Fingerprints neared completion. After the label dropped her, she worked at an independent A&R company called Taxi Music.
Perry had minor success prior to her breakthrough. One of the songs she had recorded for her album with Ballard, "Simple", was featured on the soundtrack to the 2005 film The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. She provided backing vocals on Mick Jagger's song "Old Habits Die Hard", which was included on the soundtrack to the 2004 film Alfie. In September 2004, Blender named Perry "The Next Big Thing". She recorded background vocals on P.O.D.'s single "Goodbye for Now", was featured at the end of its music video in 2006, and performed it with them on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. That year, Perry also appeared in the music video for "Learn to Fly" by Carbon Leaf, and played the love interest of her then-boyfriend, Gym Class Heroes lead singer Travie McCoy, in the band's music video for "Cupid's Chokehold".
2007–2009: Breakthrough with One of the Boys
After Columbia dropped Perry, Angelica Cob-Baehler, then a publicity executive at the label, brought Perry's demos to Virgin Records chairman Jason Flom. Flom was convinced that she could be a breakthrough star and she was signed to Capitol Records in April 2007. The label arranged for her to work with Dr. Luke to add an "undeniable smash" to her existing material. Perry and Dr. Luke co-wrote the songs "I Kissed a Girl" and "Hot n Cold" for her second album One of the Boys. A campaign was started with the November 2007 release of the video to "Ur So Gay", a song aimed at introducing her to the music market. A digital EP of the same name was also released that month. Madonna helped publicize the song by praising it on the JohnJay & Rich radio show in April 2008, stating "Ur So Gay" was her "favorite song" at the time. In March 2008, Perry made a cameo appearance as a club singer in the Wildfire episode "Life's Too Short" and appeared as herself during a photo shoot that June on The Young and the Restless for the show's magazine Restless Style.
Perry released her first single with Capitol, "I Kissed a Girl", on April 28, 2008, as the lead single from One of the Boys. The first station to pick up the song was WRVW in Nashville, who were inundated with enthusiastic calls the first three days they played it. The track reached number one on the US Billboard Hot 100. "I Kissed a Girl" created controversy among both religious and LGBT groups. The former criticized its homosexual theme, while the latter accused her of using bi-curiosity to sell records. In response to speculation that her parents opposed her music and career, Perry told MTV that they had no problems with her success. One of the Boys, released on June 17, 2008, garnered mixed critical reviews and reached number nine on the US Billboard 200. The album went on to sell 7 million copies worldwide. "Hot n Cold" was released the following September and became the album's second successful single, reaching number three on the Billboard Hot 100 while topping charts in Germany, Canada, the Netherlands and Austria. Later singles "Thinking of You" and "Waking Up in Vegas" were released in 2009 and reached the top 30 of the Hot 100. The Matrix's self-titled debut album, which Perry had recorded with the band in 2004, was released onto iTunes on January 27, 2009, as a result of her solo success.
After finishing the 2008 Warped Tour, Perry hosted the 2008 MTV Europe Music Awards in November 2008, where she won the award for Best New Act. At the 2009 Brit Awards, she also won the award for International Female Solo Artist. Perry embarked on her first headlining world tour, the Hello Katy Tour, from January to November 2009 to support One of the Boys. On August 4, 2009, she performed as opening act for one date of No Doubt's 2009 Summer Tour. Perry also hosted the 2009 MTV Europe Music Awards in November 2009, becoming the first person to host two consecutive ceremonies of the European awards. On July 22, 2009, Perry recorded a live album titled MTV Unplugged, which featured acoustic performances of five tracks from One of the Boys as well as one new song, "Brick by Brick", and a cover of Fountains of Wayne's "Hackensack". It was released on November 17, 2009. Perry also appeared on two singles with other artists; she was featured on a remix of Colorado-based band 3OH!3's song "Starstrukk" in September 2009, and on a duet with Timbaland entitled "If We Ever Meet Again", from his album Shock Value II, three months later. The Guinness World Records recognized her in its 2010 edition as the "Best Start on the U.S. Digital Chart by a Female Artist", for digital single sales of over two million copies.
After Perry and Travie McCoy split up in December 2008, they briefly reconciled before she ended their relationship in 2009. Perry met her future husband Russell Brand in the summer of 2009 while filming a cameo appearance for his film Get Him to the Greek. Her scene, in which the two kiss, does not appear in the film. She began dating Brand after meeting him again that September at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards. The couple became engaged on December 31, 2009, while vacationing in Rajasthan, India.
2010–2012: Teenage Dream and first marriage
After serving as a guest judge on American Idol, Perry released "California Gurls" featuring Snoop Dogg on May 7, 2010. The song was the lead single from her third studio album, Teenage Dream, and reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in June. She also served as a guest judge on British The X Factor later that month before releasing the album's second single, "Teenage Dream", in July. "Teenage Dream" reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in September. Released on August 24, 2010, Teenage Dream debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, and received mixed reviews from music critics. It has since sold 6 million copies worldwide. Teenage Dream would go on to win the 2011 Juno Award for International Album of the Year. In October, "Firework" was released as the album's third single. It became the album's third consecutive number one on the Billboard Hot 100 on December 8, 2010.
"E.T." featuring Kanye West was released as the fourth single from Teenage Dream on February 16, 2011. It topped the Billboard Hot 100 for five non-consecutive weeks, making Teenage Dream the ninth album in history to produce four number one singles on the chart. "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)" followed as the fifth single in June, and Perry became the first female artist to achieve five number-one Billboard Hot 100 songs from one album when the single topped that chart on August 17, and the second artist after Michael Jackson with his album Bad. For this record, she received an honorary American Music Award in November 2011 and a 2013 Guinness World Record. On September 7, she set a new record by becoming the first artist to spend 69 consecutive weeks in the top ten of the Hot 100. After "The One That Got Away" was released as the album's sixth single in October, Teenage Dream became the third album to spawn six top-five songs on the Billboard Hot 100 after Rhythm Nation 1814 by Janet Jackson and Faith by George Michael. The song peaked at number three in the US and number two in Canada.
On January 5, 2012, Perry was named the sixth best-selling digital artist in the United States, with sales of 37.6 million units according to Nielsen SoundScan. That month, she became the first artist to have four songs sell over 5 million digital units when "E.T." reached that mark along with "Firework", "California Gurls", and "Hot N Cold". On February 13, Capitol released the lead single from Teenage Dream: The Complete Confection, "Part of Me", which debuted at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and became Perry's seventh single overall to top the chart. Teenage Dream: The Complete Confection was released on March 23, and serves as a reissue of Teenage Dream. "Wide Awake" was released on May 22 as the re-release's second single, peaking at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 and number one in Canada and New Zealand.
Perry embarked on her second tour, the California Dreams Tour, in support of Teenage Dream from February 2011 to January 2012. The tour grossed $59.5 million globally and won her the award for Best Live Act at the 2011 MTV Europe Music Awards. On September 23, 2011, she performed on the opening day of the 2011 Rock in Rio festival along with Elton John and Rihanna. In September 2010, Perry was scheduled to appear on the 41st-season premiere of Sesame Street. After her scene was uploaded to YouTube, viewers criticized Perry's exposed cleavage. Four days before the scheduled airing, Sesame Workshop announced that the segment would not air on television, but would still be available to watch online. Perry subsequently mocked the controversy on Saturday Night Live, where she was a musical guest and wore an Elmo-themed shirt showing large amounts of cleavage during one skit.
In December 2010, Perry played Moe Szyslak's girlfriend in the live-action segment from a Christmas episode of The Simpsons titled "The Fight Before Christmas". In February 2011, she made a guest appearance on the How I Met Your Mother episode "Oh Honey", playing a woman known as Honey. The role won her the People's Choice Award for Favorite TV Guest Star in January 2012. She made her film debut in the 3D family motion picture The Smurfs as Smurfette on July 29, 2011. The film was a financial success worldwide, while critics gave mostly negative reviews. She hosted Saturday Night Live on December 10, 2011, with Robyn as the episode's musical guest. Perry's work on the episode received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised her performance in the episode's digital short featuring her and Andy Samberg. In March 2012, she guest starred as a prison security guard named Rikki on the Raising Hope episode "Single White Female Role Model". On July 5, 2012, Perry's autobiographical documentary Katy Perry: Part of Me was released to theaters through Paramount Pictures. The film received positive reviews and grossed $32.7 million worldwide at the box office.
Perry began to venture into business when she endorsed her first fragrance, Purr, in November 2010. Her second fragrance, Meow!, was released in December 2011. Both perfumes were released through Nordstrom department stores. Electronic Arts recruited her to promote their new expansion pack for The Sims 3: Showtime, before releasing a separate stuff pack featuring Perry-inspired furniture, outfits, and hairstyles, titled The Sims 3: Katy Perry's Sweet Treats, in June 2012. The following month, she became the spokesperson and ambassador for Popchips and made an investment in the company. Billboard dubbed her as their "Woman of the Year" for 2012.
She married Russell Brand on October 23, 2010, in a traditional Hindu ceremony near the Ranthambhore tiger sanctuary in Rajasthan, India. Brand announced on December 30, 2011, that they were divorcing after 14 months of marriage. Perry later stated that conflicting career schedules and his desire to have children before she was ready led to the end of their marriage and that he never spoke to her again after sending a text message that he was divorcing her, while Brand asserted that he divorced her due to her commercial success and reluctance to engage in activism. She was initially distraught over their divorce, and said that she contemplated suicide. After the marriage ended in 2012, Perry began a relationship with singer John Mayer that August.
2013–2015: Prism and Super Bowl XLIX halftime show
In November 2012, Perry began work on her fourth album, Prism. She told Billboard, "I know exactly the record I want to make next. I know the artwork, the coloring and the tone" and "I even know what type of tour I'm doing next. I'll be very pleased if the vision I have in my head becomes a reality." After initially telling L'Uomo Vogue in June 2012 that she planned to have "darker elements" in Prism following the end of her marriage, the singer revealed to MTV during the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards that she changed the album's direction after periods of self-reflection. Perry commented "I felt very prismatic", which inspired the album's name. "Roar" was released as the lead single from Prism on August 10, 2013. It was promoted at the MTV Video Music Awards and reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100. "Unconditionally" followed as the second single from Prism on October 16, 2013, and peaked at number 14 in the United States.
Prism was released on October 18, 2013, and has sold 4 million copies as of August 2015. It received favorable reviews from critics and debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 chart. Four days later, Perry performed the songs from the album at the iHeartRadio Theater in Los Angeles. "Dark Horse" with Juicy J was released as the album's third single in December, and became her ninth U.S. number-one single the following month. In 2014, "Birthday" and "This Is How We Do" respectively followed as the album's fourth and fifth singles, and reached the top 25 on the Hot 100. Prior to ending her relationship with Mayer in February 2014, she recorded and co-wrote a duet with him titled "Who You Love" for his album Paradise Valley. The song was released on August 12, 2013. Perry's third headlining tour, the Prismatic World Tour, began in May 2014 and concluded in October 2015. It sold almost 2 million tickets and grossed $204.3 million worldwide and won Perry the award for "Top Package" at the 2014 Billboard Touring Awards. She also performed at the 2015 Rock in Rio festival on September 27, 2015.
On November 23, 2014, the NFL announced that Perry would perform at the Super Bowl XLIX halftime show on February 1, 2015. Lenny Kravitz and Missy Elliott served as special guests for the show. Her performance was critically acclaimed, and the Guinness World Records announced two days after the singer's halftime show that it garnered 118.5 million viewers in the United States, becoming the most watched and highest rated show in Super Bowl history. The viewership was higher than the game itself, which was viewed by an audience of 114.4 million.
The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) ranked her fifth on the list of Top Global Recording Artists of 2013. On June 26, 2014, she was declared the Top Certified Digital Artist Ever by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for certified sales of 72 million digital singles in the United States. In May 2014, a portrait of Perry by painter Mark Ryden was featured in his exhibition "The Gay 90s", and shown at the Kohn Gallery in Los Angeles. Along with several other artists, she also recorded a cover version of the song "Daisy Bell (Bicycle Built for Two)" on a limited-edition concept album titled The Gay Nineties Old Tyme Music: Daisy Bell to accompany the exhibition. That month, a portrait of Perry by artist Will Cotton was included in the United States National Portrait Gallery. On November 23, 2015, Perry starred in H&M's holiday advertising campaign, for which she wrote and recorded a song titled "Every Day Is a Holiday".
On June 17, 2014, Perry announced that she had founded her own record label under Capitol Records, titled Metamorphosis Music. Ferras was the first artist to get signed to her label, and Perry served as an executive producer on his self-titled EP. She also recorded a duet with him on the EP, titled "Legends Never Die". The label was later renamed Unsub Records.
Outside of her music career, Perry reprised her role as Smurfette in The Smurfs 2, which was released in theaters on July 31, 2013. Like its predecessor, The Smurfs 2 was a financial success but was panned by critics. In March 2014, she made a guest appearance playing herself in the episode "Blisteritos Presents Dad Academy Graduation Congraduritos Red Carpet Viewing Party" of the Kroll Show. Killer Queen was released as her third fragrance in August 2013 through Coty, Inc. In January 2014, she became a guest curator of Madonna's Art for Freedom initiative. In March 2015, she appeared in Brand: A Second Coming, a documentary following her ex-husband Russell Brand's transition from comedy work to activism, and released a concert film titled Katy Perry: The Prismatic World Tour through Epix, which took place during her tour of the same name. Perry also made a cameo appearance in the music video for Madonna's song "Bitch I'm Madonna" in June 2015. The following month, she released another fragrance with Coty, entitled Mad Potion. In September 2015, she appeared in the documentaries Katy Perry: Making of the Pepsi Super Bowl Halftime Show, which followed Perry's preparation for her Super Bowl performance, and Jeremy Scott: The People's Designer, which followed the life and career of designer Jeremy Scott. Perry released a mobile app titled Katy Perry Pop in December 2015 through Glu Mobile where her character helps players become famous musicians. She described it as "the most fun, colorful world that helps guide your musical dreams".
2016–2018: Witness and American Idol
Perry started writing songs for her new album in June 2016, and recorded an anthem for NBC Sports's coverage of the 2016 Summer Olympics titled "Rise", which was released the following month. Perry chose to release it as a standalone track rather than save it for her album "because now more than ever, there is a need for our world to unite". NBC also felt its message spoke "directly to the spirit of the Olympics and its athletes" for its inspirational themes. The song reached number one in Australia and number eleven in the United States.
In August 2016, Perry stated that she aspired to create material "that connects and relates and inspires" and told Ryan Seacrest that she was "not rushing" her fifth album, adding "I'm just having a lot of fun, but experimenting and trying different producers, and different collaborators, and different styles". On February 10, 2017, Perry released the album's lead single "Chained to the Rhythm" featuring Skip Marley. It reached number one in Hungary and number four in the United States. The track was also streamed over three million times on Spotify within 24 hours, breaking the music streaming service's record at the time for the highest first-day streaming for a single track by a female artist. The album's second single, "Bon Appétit" with Migos, was released that April. Its third single, "Swish Swish", featured Nicki Minaj and followed the next month. They respectively peaked at numbers 59 and 46 in the United States, and made the top 15 in Canada.
The album, titled Witness, was released on June 9, 2017, to mixed reviews, and debuted at number one in the United States. To accompany the album's release, Perry broadcast herself on YouTube for four days with a live-stream titled Katy Perry Live: Witness World Wide, concluding with a live concert on June 12. The live-stream generated over 49 million views from 190 different countries. She also embarked on Witness: The Tour, which began in September 2017 and ended in August 2018. On June 15, 2017, Calvin Harris released a song titled "Feels" from his album Funk Wav Bounces Vol. 1, which featured Perry, Big Sean, and Pharrell Williams. The song went on to reach number one in the United Kingdom.
Perry subsequently recorded a cover of the Dear Evan Hansen song "Waving Through a Window" for the deluxe edition of the cast recording, which was released on November 2, 2018. The show's creators Benj Pasek and Justin Paul had requested Perry to cover the song to promote the musical's national tour and bring awareness to mental health. Later that month, Perry released "Cozy Little Christmas". She also recorded the song "Immortal Flame" for the game Final Fantasy Brave Exvius, and had a playable character modeled after her.
Outside of recording music, Perry appeared as herself in the film Zoolander 2, which was released in February 2016. In February 2017, the singer launched a shoe line titled "Katy Perry Collections". Her shoes are available on her website, Katy Perry Collections, and at retailers such as Dillard's and Walmart. The following August, she hosted the 2017 MTV Video Music Awards. Perry was signed for a $25-million salary to serve as a judge on ABC's revival of American Idol, which premiered in March 2018. Perry began a relationship with Orlando Bloom in early 2016, and the couple got engaged on February 14, 2019.
2019–present: Smile, motherhood and Play residency
At the 61st Annual Grammy Awards, Perry performed "Here You Come Again", alongside Dolly Parton and Kacey Musgraves, as part of a tribute to Parton. Four days later, she released a song called "365", with DJ Zedd. In April, Perry was included on a remix of Daddy Yankee's song "Con Calma", featuring Snow. She followed this with the singles "Never Really Over" on May 31, "Small Talk" on August 9, and "Harleys in Hawaii" on October 16.
In June 2019, Perry appeared in the music video of Taylor Swift's "You Need to Calm Down". In July, a jury in California passed a verdict following a week-long trial that Perry's song "Dark Horse" had copied Flame's 2008 song "Joyful Noise" after he filed a copyright lawsuit alleging that it used his track's beat without permission, which was later overturned. After the initial verdict, the jury ordered her to pay him $550,000. The next month, Josh Kloss, Perry's co-star in the "Teenage Dream" music video, accused her of sexual misconduct. In an Instagram post, Kloss alleged that, during a party at a skating rink, Perry pulled on his sweatpants and underwear, exposing his penis to her male friends. He also said her management prevented him from speaking about his time with the singer. However, Johnny Wujek, the creative director of said party defended Perry, saying that she "would never do something like that" and accused Kloss of having an "ongoing obsession" with her. After initially refraining from responding to this, believing it would have detracted from the Me Too movement, Perry has also denied Kloss's claims.
Following the release of her single "Never Worn White" in March 2020, Perry revealed in the accompanying music video that she was expecting her first child with Bloom. "Daisies", the lead single from her sixth album, was released on May 15, 2020. Its second single "Smile" followed two months later. The album, also titled Smile, was released on August 28, 2020. Two days before its distribution, she gave birth to a daughter named Daisy Dove Bloom. The album received mixed reviews, and debuted at number five in the United States. Perry further promoted the album with four compilation EPs: Camp Katy, Empowered, Scorpio SZN, and Cosmic Energy. These EPs were followed by the single "Not the End of the World" in December 2020, which had a music video in which Zooey Deschanel impersonates Perry. Additionally she collaborated with various artists to create two remixes of Smile album tracks. Tiësto remix of "Resillient" featuring Aitana was released in November 2020, while Bruno Martini remix of "Cry About It Later" featuring Luísa Sonza was released in April 2021. In January 20, 2021, Perry performed "Firework" at the Celebrating America concert during the inauguration of Joe Biden. Four months later, she released a new single, "Electric", a collaboration with Pokémon for their 25th anniversary.
Perry began hosting a residency named Play at Resorts World Las Vegas on December 29, 2021. The show's inception happened during the COVID-19 lockdown with Perry being inspired by 1990s movies such as Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, Pee-wee's Playhouse, and Pee-wee's Big Adventure. She described it as "larger than life" and "the kookiest, most camp show I've ever put together." The show has received critical acclaim with Melinda Sheckells of Billboard saying that "[Play's] sold-out opening night is part fantasy, part hallucination and thoroughly camp.
In September 2021, Variety paid tribute to and honored Perry on their "Power of Women" issue, where she discussed her career, motherhood, and philanthropy. As a nominee, she attended the Variety 2021 "Power of Women" dinner. On her 37th birthday the following month, Perry guest hosted The Ellen DeGeneres Show and starred in a holiday advertisement for Gap Inc. which featured her singing "All You Need Is Love" by The Beatles. A full version of her cover was released on streaming platforms the same day. Two months later, Perry followed this with "When I'm Gone", a collaboration with Alesso.
Artistry
Influences
Perry cites her sister Angela as the woman who has had the most influence on her. During the early stages of her career, Perry's musical style gravitated towards gospel and she aspired to be as successful as Amy Grant. At age 15, she heard "Killer Queen" by Queen, which inspired her to pursue a music career. She cites the band's frontman, Freddie Mercury, as her biggest influence and expressed how the "combination of his sarcastic approach to writing lyrics and his 'I don't give a fuck' attitude" inspired her music. She paid homage to the band by naming her third fragrance Killer Queen. Perry described the Beach Boys and their album Pet Sounds as having a considerable influence on her music: "Pet Sounds is one of my favorite records and it influenced pretty much all of my songwriting. All of the melody choices that I make are because of Pet Sounds." The singer also holds the Beatles' album The Beatles in high esteem, and described these two albums as "the only things I listened to for probably two years straight."
She cites Alanis Morissette and her 1995 album Jagged Little Pill as a significant musical inspiration, stating in 2012: "Jagged Little Pill was the most perfect female record ever made. There's a song for anyone on that record; I relate to all those songs. They're still so timeless." Additionally, Perry borrows influence from Flaming Red by Patty Griffin and 10 Cent Wings by Jonatha Brooke. Perry's autobiographical documentary Katy Perry: Part of Me was largely influenced by Madonna: Truth or Dare. She admires Madonna's ability to reinvent herself, saying "I want to evolve like Madonna".
Perry names Björk as an influence, particularly admiring her "willingness to always be taking chances". Other artists who Perry has cited as influences include Stevie Nicks, ABBA, the Cardigans, Cyndi Lauper, Ace of Base, 3OH!3, CeCe Peniston, C+C Music Factory, Black Box, Crystal Waters, Mariah Carey, Heart, Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, Imogen Heap, Rufus Wainwright, Pink, and Gwen Stefani. "Firework" was inspired by a passage in the book On the Road by Jack Kerouac in which the author compares people who are full of life to fireworks that shoot across the sky and make people watch in awe. Her second concert tour, the California Dreams Tour, was reminiscent of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. She also credits the 1996 film The Craft for inspiring her song "Dark Horse", and Eckhart Tolle's book The Power of Now for influencing Prism.
Musical style and themes
While Perry's music incorporates pop, rock, and disco, Katy Hudson contains gospel. Her subsequent releases, One of the Boys and Teenage Dream, involve themes of sex and love. One of the Boys is a pop rock record, while Teenage Dream features disco influences. Perry's fourth album, Prism, is significantly influenced by dance and pop music. Lyrically, the album addresses relationships, self-reflection, and everyday life. Her fifth studio effort Witness is an electropop album that she described as a "360-degree liberation" record, with themes including political liberation, sexual liberation, and liberation from negativity. Many of her songs, particularly on Teenage Dream, reflect on love between teenagers; W magazine described the album's sexual innuendos as "irresistible hook-laden melodies". Self-empowerment is a common theme in Perry's music.
Perry has described herself as a "singer-songwriter masquerading as a pop star" and maintains that honest songwriting is very important to her. She told Marie Claire: "I feel like my secret magic trick that separates me from a lot of my peers is the bravery to be vulnerable and truthful and honest. I think you become more relatable when you're vulnerable." Actress and comedian Kristen Wiig commented that "as easy, breezy, and infectious as Perry's songs can be, beneath the surface lurks a sea of mixed emotions, jumbled motives, and contradictory impulses complicated enough to fill a Carole King record." According to Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune, "being taken seriously may be Perry's greatest challenge yet." In 2013, The New York Times labeled her "the most potent pop star of the day – her hits are relatable with just a hint of experimentation". Randall Roberts of the Los Angeles Times criticized her use of idioms and metaphors in her lyrics and for frequent "clichés". Throughout her career, Perry has also co-written songs recorded by other artists, including Lesley Roy, Kelly Clarkson, Jessie James Decker, Selena Gomez & the Scene, Britney Spears, Iggy Azalea, Rita Ora, Nicki Minaj, and Ariana Grande.
Voice
Perry possesses a contralto vocal range. Her singing has received both praise and criticism. Betty Clarke of The Guardian commented that her "powerful voice is hard-edged" while Rob Sheffield from Rolling Stone described Perry's vocals on Teenage Dream as "processed staccato blips". Darren Harvey of musicOMH compared Perry's vocals on One of the Boys to Alanis Morissette's, both possessing a "perky voice shifting octaves mid-syllable". Alex Miller from NME felt that "Perry's problem is often her voice" on One of the Boys, stating that "somewhere along the line someone convinced her she was like, well, a ballsy rock chick". Conversely, Bernadette McNulty from The Daily Telegraph praised her "rock chick voice" in a review of a concert promoting Prism.
Public image
On social media, Perry surpassed Justin Bieber as the most followed person on Twitter in November 2013. She won the 2015 Guinness World Record for most Twitter followers, and became the first person to gain 100 million followers on the site in June 2017. Keith Caulfield of Billboard stated that Perry is "the rare celebrity who seems to have enormous popularity but genuine ground-level interaction with her adoring KatyCats." With over 108 Twitter million followers, she is the most followed female on the site, and the fifth most followed musician across social media with a combined total of over 326 million followers across Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. In June 2017, Time magazine listed Perry among its "25 Most Influential People on the Internet" of the year, writing that her live-stream for Witness was "blazing a trail" for being "the closest any major entertainer has come to giving fans the kind of 'real' intimacy that social media purports to provide".
In 2011, Forbes ranked Perry third on their "Top-Earning Women In Music" list with earnings of $44 million and fifth on their 2012 list with $45 million. She subsequently ranked seventh on the 2013 Forbes list for "Top-Earning Women In Music" with $39 million earned, and fifth on their 2014 list with $40 million. With earnings of $135 million, Forbes also ranked Perry number one on their 2015 "Top-Earning Women In Music" list as well as the "World's Highest-Paid Musicians" and declared her the highest earning female celebrity in 2015, placing her at number 3 on the Forbes Celebrity 100 list. In 2016, the magazine estimated her net worth was $125 million, and ranked her number six on their list of "Highest-Paid Women in Music" with earnings of $41 million. The following year, she was ranked number nine on the list with $33 million. In 2018, she topped its "Highest-Paid Women in Music" listing and ranked at number four on the "Highest-Paid Female Celebrities" list with earnings of $83 million. Perry subsequently was placed at number four on the 2019 "Highest-Paid Women in Music" listings with $57.5 million. Later that year, with earnings of $530 million throughout the 2010s, the magazine also ranked her as the 9th highest earning musician of the decade.
Fashion
Perry has been described as a sex symbol; GQ labeled her a "full-on male fantasy", while Elle wrote her body looked "as though sketched by a teenage boy". Vice called her a serious' popstar/woman/sex symbol". She was placed at number one on the Maxim Hot 100 in 2010 as the "most beautiful woman in the world", with editor Joe Levy describing her as a "triple – no quadruple – kind of hot". Men's Health readers voted her the "sexiest woman of 2013". In November 2010, Perry told Harper's Bazaar that she was proud of and satisfied with her figure.
Perry's fashion often incorporates humor, bright colors, and food-related themes such as her characteristic spinning peppermint swirl dress. Vogue described her as "never exactly one to shy away from the outrageous or the extreme in any realm" and called her the "Queen of Camp". while Glamour named her the "queen of quirk". In February 2009, Perry told Seventeen that her fashion style was "a bit of a concoction of different things" and stated she enjoyed humor in her clothing. She has also described herself as having "multipersonality disorder" for fashion. Perry lists Gwen Stefani, Shirley Manson, Chloë Sevigny, Daphne Guinness, Natalie Portman, and the fictional character Lolita as her style icons. Elle described her as "the kitsch-loving pop star renowned for her uniquely experimental style" while Vogue described her style as "synonymous with outrageous, eye-catching ensembles that lean towards the theatrical."
During the 2017 launch of her shoe collection, Katy Perry Collections, she said about shoes: "When I first got to L.A., I cultivated my style on a budget, always shopping at thrift stores or vintage stores. … Once, I found these flats that looked like Dalmatian dogs. They had ears that moved and a tongue that stuck out. They were such a conversation piece. That's what is so great about fashion. … It's a form of communication. You don't have to start a smoking habit to start talking to someone. You can just wear cool shoes. It's an icebreaker."
Legacy and influence
Several media outlets such as Billboard and Glamour have referred to her as the "Queen of Pop", while Vogue has dubbed Perry the "Queen of Camp" and a "pop icon." Andrew Unterberger of Billboard described Teenage Dream "one of the defining LPs from a new golden age in mega-pop" while Christopher Rosa of Glamour named her as an influence to the pop sound and style of the 2010s, adding that her singles are "some of the most recognizable, iconic, and impactful hits in pop history." Perry was named "one of the last decade's most reliable and successful hitmakers" by the Official Charts Company in 2022.
Additionally, Perry was included in Glamour's "104 Women Who Defined the [2010s] in Pop Culture" list, saying: "[Perry] did more than just break chart records. She was one of the driving forces behind the sound of pop radio in the 2010s. [...] glossy, booming, sugary-sweet, and undeniably catchy." Variety included Perry in their Variety 500 list of the most influential business leaders, calling her a "global phenomenon" and a "dedicated artist and tireless self-promoter who has leveraged chart-topping hits, sold-out stadium shows, and staggering endorsement deals to become one of the richest and most influential pop stars alive." She has been called a "gay icon" by Taylor Henderson of Out, noting how "I Kissed a Girl" helped fans explore their sexuality and how Perry openly embraced the LGBTQ+ community.
Perry's music has been described by Out as having a "lasting legacy", with American singers Fletcher sampling "I Kissed a Girl" and Olivia Rodrigo referencing Teenage Dream on "Brutal". Additionally, other artists such as Halsey and Ariana Grande have praised Perry's work, with Halsey calling Teenage Dream the "perfect pop album" and Grande saying "The One That Got Away" is "one of the biggest and most perfectly written pop songs ever from one of the best pop albums of all time". Perry and her work have influenced artists such as Lil Nas X, Halsey, Lorde, Rina Sawayama, Doja Cat, Ellie Goulding, Tegan and Sara, Kim Petras, and Coldplay.
Other ventures
Philanthropy
Perry has supported various charitable organizations and causes throughout her career. She has contributed to organizations aimed at improving the lives and welfare of children in particular. In April 2013, she joined UNICEF to assist children in Madagascar with education and nutrition. On December 3, 2013, she was officially named a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, "with a special focus on engaging young people in the agency's work to improve the lives of the world's most vulnerable children and adolescents." She arranged for a portion of the money generated from tickets to her Prismatic World Tour to go to UNICEF. In September 2010, she helped build and design the Boys Hope/Girls Hope foundation shelter for youth in Baltimore, Maryland along with Raven-Symoné, Shaquille O'Neal, and the cast of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. In 2010, Perry and Nicki Minaj performed a cover of "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" for service members during the 2010 VH1 Divas Salute the Troops concert.
She has also supported children's education and well-being. All profits from sales of the album The Gay Nineties Old Tyme Music: Daisy Bell, which includes her rendition of "Daisy Bell (Bicycle Built for Two)", were donated to the charity Little Kids Rock, which supports musical education in underprivileged elementary schools. In June 2014, she teamed up with Staples Inc. for a project entitled "Make Roar Happen" which donated $1 million to DonorsChoose, an organization that supports teachers and funds classroom resources in public schools. In May 2016, she worked with UNICEF to improve child care quality in Vietnam, hoping to "break the cycle of poverty and drastically improve children's health, education and well-being". The following month, UNICEF announced that Perry would receive the Audrey Hepburn Humanitarian Award "for her work as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in support of the world's most vulnerable children" at their annual Snowflake Ball in November. All Spotify streams of her 2021 cover of "All You Need Is Love" will generate $1 in donations for the charity Baby2Baby.
Perry has supported organizations aimed at aiding people suffering with diseases including cancer and HIV/AIDS. During the 2008 Warped Tour, she had a cast made of her breasts to raise money for the Keep A Breast Foundation. She hosted and performed at the We Can Survive concert along with Bonnie McKee, Kacey Musgraves, Sara Bareilles, Ellie Goulding, and duo Tegan and Sara at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, California, on October 23, 2013. The concert's profits were donated to Young Survival Coalition, an organization aiding breast cancer in young women. In June 2009, she designed an item of clothing for H&M's "Fashion Against AIDS" campaign, which raises money for HIV/AIDS awareness projects. On February 26, 2017, she served as a co-chair alongside various celebrities such as Beyoncé, Lea Michele, Jim Carrey, Jared Leto, and Kevin Spacey for the 25th Annual Elton John AIDS Foundation Academy Award Party, a fundraiser for HIV/AIDS healthcare.
The proceeds from Perry's single "Part of Me" were donated to the charity MusiCares, which helps musicians in times of need. During her California Dreams Tour, she raised over $175,000 for the Tickets-For-Charity fundraiser. The money was divided between three charities: the Children's Health Fund (CHF), Generosity Water, and The Humane Society of the United States.
On her 27th birthday, Perry set up a donations page for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Auckland, and set up a similar page benefiting the David Lynch Foundation for her 28th birthday. On March 29, 2014, she helped raise $2.4 million for the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles along with other celebrities such as Ryan Seacrest, Pharrell Williams, Tim Allen, Lisa Edelstein, and Riley Keough.
Perry performed at the One Love Manchester benefit concert for the victims of the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing, among various performers including its organizer Ariana Grande, which was broadcast live on June 4, 2017, on radio and television stations around the world. In March 2018, Perry announced Witness: Coming Home, a benefit concert that was held in her hometown of Santa Barbara on May 19, 2018. The concert benefited those recovering from the aftermath of the 2017 California wildfires and 2018 Southern California mudflows. Perry partnered with the Santa Barbara Foundation, the 93108 Fund and The 805 UndocuFund, organizations which help in assisting members of the community in the Santa Barbara area through grants and various philanthropic efforts.
Activism
Perry has publicly advocated for LGBT rights and admitted that she wrote "I Kissed a Girl" about her own bisexual experiences with other women. In 2017, she received a Nation Equality Award from Human Rights Campaign for "using her powerful voice and international platform to speak out for LGBTQ equality". In her acceptance speech, she discussed having bisexual experiences, her fluid sexuality, and thanked the LGBTQ+ community. In an Out interview in 2021, she was heralded as a "gay icon" with "I Kissed a Girl" being called a "bonafide queer anthem." She continued to thank the LGBTQ+ community in the same interview, saying: "I came from a very sheltered upbringing where it wasn't okay to be friends with anyone from that community. And now that is my community, [...] I wouldn't have survived without the community and it's amazing how full circle it's come and how much growth has happened since I started."
She supported Stonewall during their "It gets better..... today" campaign to prevent homophobic bullying, and dedicated the music video to her song "Firework" to the It Gets Better Project. In 2008, Perry told Do Something she was proud to be a LGBT rights activist, saying "I've always been a very open-minded person, but I definitely believe in equality." In June 2012, Perry expressed her hopes for LGBT equality, commenting "hopefully, we will look back at this moment and think like we do now concerning [other] civil rights issues. We'll just shake our heads in disbelief, saying, 'Thank God we've evolved.' That would be my prayer for the future." In December 2012, Perry was awarded the Trevor Hero Award by The Trevor Project for her work and activism on behalf of LGBT youth.
Perry identifies as a feminist, and appeared in April 2013 in a video clip for the "Chime for Change" campaign that aimed to spread female empowerment. She has also said that America's lack of free health care drove her "absolutely crazy". Following the shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando in June 2016, Perry and nearly 200 other artists and executives in music signed an open letter organized by Billboard addressed to United States Congress demanding increased gun control in the United States.
Through Twitter and by performing at rallies, Perry supported President Barack Obama in his run for re-election and praised his support for same-sex marriage and LGBT equality. She performed at three rallies for Obama, in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Wisconsin, singing a rendition of "Let's Stay Together" as well as a number of her songs. During her Las Vegas performance she wore a dress made to replicate a voting ballot, with Obama's box filled in. On Twitter, she encouraged her followers to vote for Obama.
In August 2013, Perry voiced criticism of Tony Abbott, then-leader of conservative Liberal Party of Australia and candidate for Prime Minister of Australia, due to his opposition to gay marriage and told Abbott, "I love you as a human being but I can't give you my vote."; the statement came after Abbott expressed pride at learning of Perry's then-upcoming performance in Australia. In April 2014, she publicly supported Marianne Williamson in her campaign for California's 33rd congressional district by attending a political press event. She endorsed Kamala Harris in the United States Senate election in California, and organized a fundraiser for Harris at her home in Los Angeles in November 2016. Perry also publicly endorsed former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for president in 2016. She performed alongside Elton John at a fundraising concert for Clinton in New York City in March 2016. Perry also spoke and performed at the 2016 Democratic National Convention in support of Clinton. Four years later, she supported Joe Biden and Kamala Harris during the 2020 United States presidential election, praising the latter as a leader who had "experience we desperately need right now" and believed that the former "choosing her as his running mate is already a testament to his decision making".
Achievements
Throughout her career, Perry has won five American Music Awards, fourteen People's Choice Awards, four Guinness World Records, a Brit Award, and a Juno Award. In September 2012, Billboard dubbed her the "Woman of the Year". From May 2010 to September 2011, the singer spent a record-breaking 69 consecutive weeks in the top ten of the Billboard Hot 100. Teenage Dream became the first album by a female artist to produce five number-one Billboard Hot 100 singles, and the second album overall after Michael Jackson's Bad. In the United States, she has accumulated nine number-one singles on the Billboard Hot 100, her most recent being "Dark Horse", and holds the record for having 18 consecutive number-one songs on the Billboard Dance Club Songs chart.
Billboard also named her the 15th most successful dance club artist of all time. The magazine additionally ranked her 4th on its "Greatest of All Time Pop Songs Artists" list, included Teenage Dream and Prism among its "Greatest of All Time Billboard 200 Albums by Women" list, and ranked "Dark Horse" at number 100 on its "Greatest of All Time Hot 100 Songs" as well as one of its "Greatest of All Time Hot 100 Songs by Women" along with "E.T.", "Firework", and "California Gurls". In June 2015, her music video for "Dark Horse" became the first video by a female artist to reach 1 billion views on Vevo. The following month, her music video for "Roar" reached 1 billion views on Vevo, making her the first artist to have multiple videos with 1 billion views.
Perry was declared the Top Global Female Recording Artist of 2013 by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI). According to Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), she is the fifth top digital singles artist in the United States, with 105 million certified song units in the country including on-demand streams and also has 11 million certified album units, totaling 116 million certified units in the nation. She also became the first artist to have three songs receive Diamond certifications from the RIAA with "Dark Horse", "Firework", and "Roar". All three of them and "E.T.", "California Gurls", and "Hot n Cold" have each sold over 5 million digital copies. Throughout her career, Perry has sold more than 18 million albums and 125 million singles globally, making her one of the best-selling music artists of all time.
Discography
Katy Hudson (2001)
One of the Boys (2008)
Teenage Dream (2010)
Prism (2013)
Witness (2017)
Smile (2020)
Filmography
The Smurfs (2011)
Katy Perry: Part of Me (2012)
The Smurfs 2 (2013)
Brand: A Second Coming (2015)
Katy Perry: The Prismatic World Tour (2015)
Katy Perry: Making of the Pepsi Super Bowl Halftime Show (2015)
Jeremy Scott: The People's Designer (2015)
Zoolander 2 (2016)
Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (2016)
Tours and residency
Co-headlining tour
Strangely Normal Tour (with Phil Joel) (2001)
Headlining tours
Hello Katy Tour (2009)
California Dreams Tour (2011–2012)
Prismatic World Tour (2014–2015)
Witness: The Tour (2017–2018)
Residency
Play (2021–2022)
See also
List of best-selling music artists
List of most-followed Twitter accounts
List of Billboard Social 50 number-one artists
List of highest-certified music artists in the United States
Best-selling female artists of all time
References
Footnotes
Sources
External links
1984 births
Living people
21st-century American guitarists
21st-century American singers
21st-century American women singers
21st-century American women guitarists
Activists from California
American contraltos
American disco singers
American women pop singers
American women rock singers
American women singer-songwriters
American feminists
American film actresses
American performance artists
American pop guitarists
American pop rock singers
American rock guitarists
American rock songwriters
American television actresses
American women activists
American voice actresses
American women in electronic music
Brit Award winners
Capitol Records artists
Columbia Records artists
Dance-pop musicians
Def Jam Recordings artists
Feminist musicians
Guitarists from California
Island Records artists
Juno Award for International Album of the Year winners
LGBT rights activists from the United States
Musicians from Santa Barbara, California
MTV Europe Music Award winners
Participants in American reality television series
Singer-songwriters from California
UNICEF Goodwill Ambassadors | false | [
"Love Notes/Letter Bombs is the third full length studio album by Indie pop band The Submarines. It was released on April 5, 2011 through the Canadian label Nettwerk.\n\nRecording\nHazard and Dragonetti used a much more collaborative approach to writing and recording Love Notes/Letter Bombs than they have used for past albums. In an interview with The Vinyl District, Dragonetti notes: \"The first thing we really wanted to do when working on this record is involve other people more. We definitely wanted to make something a little more aggressive sounding, something we enjoyed playing live a little more. We had this guy John O’Mahony mix it, and he did the Metric record Fantasies, and sonically that really impressed us. We recorded it out in Los Angeles at The Sound Factory.\"\n\nThe duo also worked more closely during the writing process, with Dragonetti saying, \"We usually kind of work on ideas separately and then bring it together, which we did on this record, but we also plopped ourselves in a room, which was a bit more challenging.\"\n\nTrack listing\n\nPersonnel\n\nMusicians\n John Dragonetti - Composer, Engineer\n Blake Hazard - Composer, Engineer, Photography\n Jim Eno - Drums, Engineer\n Jason Stare - Drums\n The Section Quartet - Strings\n\nProduction\n John O'Mahony - Mixing\n Jeff Lipton - Mastering\n\nReferences\n\n2011 albums\nThe Submarines albums\nNettwerk Records albums",
"Daisy is the second studio album from the American rock band, Dog's Eye View. The follow-up to the band's 1995 debut album, Happy Nowhere, Daisy was released on August 19, 1997.\n\nProduction\nDog's Eye View's singer and songwriter, Peter Stuart, publicly stated that work for Daisy was more difficult for him than for 1995's Happy Nowhere. In 2000, Stuart told MTV News, \"The band worked for the first record, but on the second record [Daisy], it just felt like I was carrying this albatross.\" He also criticized their record label, Columbia Records, for a lack of support with Dog's Eye View's sophomore effort.\n\nStuart announced a break from Dog's Eye View after Daisy's release to pursue a solo album. Dog's Eye View did not reunite again until production began for their third album, Tomorrow Always Comes, released in 2006.\n\nTrack listing\n\"The Trouble With Love\" (composer: Peter Stuart) – 4:04\n\"Homecoming Parade\" (Stuart) – 4:22\n\"What Do You Do?\" (Stuart) – 3:16\n\"Last Letter Home\" (Stuart) – 4:10\n\"Falling in Place\" (Stuart) – 4:30\n\"Let It Lie\" (Stuart) – 3:50\n\"Goodbye to Grace\" (Stuart) – 3:48\n\"Vows\" (Stuart) – 4:14\n\"Hollywood\" (Stuart) – 4:49\n\"Did You Get Hurt\" (Stuart) – 5:14\n\"The Shallows\" (Stuart) – 3:40\n\"Umbrella\" (Stuart) – 3:33\n\nReferences\n\n1997 albums\nDog's Eye View albums\nColumbia Records albums\nAlbums produced by Thom Russo\nAlbums produced by Matt Wallace"
] |
[
"Katy Perry",
"1999-2006: Career beginnings",
"when was katy parry's first album under her stage name?",
"March 6, 2001,",
"what did she do between 1999 and 2001?",
"2001, and went on tour that year as part of Phil Joel's Strangely Normal Tour while also embarking on other performances of her own in the United States.",
"Was her first album as Katy Perry a hit?",
"Katy Hudson received positive reviews from critics, though was commercially unsuccessful",
"When did Perry start gaining commercial success?",
"2005",
"What was it that started gaining her popularity?",
"One of the songs she had recorded for her album with Ballard,",
"Which album did she record with Ballard?",
"I don't know.",
"did she do more than record albums during this time?",
"Perry wrote and recorded material"
] | C_29e64ee43f0547139a7c08bceed86ff2_1 | what kind of material did she record during this time? | 8 | what kind of material did Perry record during the time Perry recorded with Ballard? | Katy Perry | Perry completed her General Educational Development (GED) requirements at age 15, during her freshman year of high school, and left Dos Pueblos High School to pursue a musical career. She briefly studied Italian opera at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara. Her singing caught the attention of rock artists Steve Thomas and Jennifer Knapp from Nashville, Tennessee, who brought her there to improve her writing skills. In Nashville, she started recording demos and learned how to write songs and play guitar. After signing with Red Hill Records, Perry recorded her debut album, a gospel record titled Katy Hudson. She released the album on March 6, 2001, and went on tour that year as part of Phil Joel's Strangely Normal Tour while also embarking on other performances of her own in the United States. Katy Hudson received positive reviews from critics, though was commercially unsuccessful and sold an estimated 200 copies before the label ceased operations in December. Transitioning from gospel music to secular music, Perry started writing songs with producer Glen Ballard, and moved to Los Angeles at age 17. In 2003, she briefly performed as Katheryn Perry to avoid confusion with actress Kate Hudson. She later adopted the stage name Katy Perry, using her mother's maiden name. In 2004, Perry signed to Ballard's label, Java, which was then affiliated with The Island Def Jam Music Group. She began work on a solo record, but the record was shelved after Java was dropped. Ballard then introduced Perry to Tim Devine, an A&R executive at Columbia Records, and she was signed as a solo artist. Over the course of the next two years, Perry wrote and recorded material for her Columbia debut, and worked with songwriters including Desmond Child, Greg Wells, Butch Walker, Scott Cutler, Anne Preven, The Matrix, Kara DioGuardi, Max Martin and Dr. Luke. In addition, after Devine suggested that songwriting team The Matrix become a "real group", Perry recorded with them. Perry was dropped from Columbia in 2006 as her record neared completion. After the label dropped her, she worked at an independent A&R company called Taxi Music. Perry had minor success prior to her breakthrough. One of the songs she had recorded for her album with Ballard, "Simple", was featured on the soundtrack to the 2005 film The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. She provided backing vocals on Mick Jagger's song "Old Habits Die Hard", which was included on the soundtrack to the 2004 film Alfie. In September 2004, Blender named Perry "The Next Big Thing". She recorded background vocals on P.O.D.'s single "Goodbye for Now" and was featured at the end of its music video in 2006. That year, Perry also appeared in the music video for "Learn to Fly" by Carbon Leaf, and played the love interest of her then-boyfriend, Gym Class Heroes lead singer Travie McCoy, in the band's music video for "Cupid's Chokehold". CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson (born October 25, 1984), known professionally as Katy Perry, is an American singer, songwriter, and television judge. She is known for her influence on the pop sound and style of the 2010s. Pursuing a career in gospel music at 16, Perry released her commercially unsuccessful debut album, Katy Hudson (2001), under Red Hill Records. She moved to Los Angeles at 17 to venture into secular music, adopting the stage name "Katy Perry" from her mother's maiden name. With producers Glen Ballard and Greg Wells, she recorded an unreleased album titled Fingerprints while signed to Java Records and then Columbia Records before being dropped. After this, she signed a recording contract with Capitol Records in April 2007.
Perry rose to fame with her second album and major label debut, One of the Boys (2008), a pop rock record containing her debut single "I Kissed a Girl" and follow-up single "Hot n Cold", which respectively reached number one and three on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. The disco-influenced pop album Teenage Dream (2010) spawned five U.S. number one singles—"California Gurls", "Teenage Dream", "Firework", "E.T.", and "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)"—becoming the first album by a solo female artist to do so. A reissue titled Teenage Dream: The Complete Confection (2012) subsequently had the U.S. number one single "Part of Me". Her fourth album Prism (2013) has themes of self-empowerment and relationships. With the music videos for its U.S. number one singles "Roar" and "Dark Horse", Perry became the first artist to have multiple videos reach one billion views on YouTube. Witness (2017) featured an electropop sound with themes of liberation and a political subtext, while Smile (2020) featured themes of motherhood and self-help. She later embarked on her first concert residency titled Play in Resorts World Las Vegas, selling out multiple shows and receiving critical acclaim.
Perry is one of the best-selling artists of all time, having sold over 143 million records worldwide. All of her studio albums released under Capitol have individually surpassed one billion streams on Spotify. She has nine U.S. number one singles, three U.S. number one albums and has received various accolades, including four Guinness World Records, five Billboard Music Awards, five American Music Awards, a Brit Award, and a Juno Award. Perry has been included in the annual Forbes lists of highest-earning women in music from 2011 to 2019. Her critically acclaimed Super Bowl halftime show performance is the most watched in history. Outside of music, she released an autobiographical documentary titled Katy Perry: Part of Me in 2012, and voiced Smurfette in The Smurfs film series. Perry began serving as a judge on American Idol, starting from its sixteenth season in 2018. She is also the most followed woman on Twitter, with over 108 million followers.
Life and career
1984–1998: Early life and family
Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson was born on October 25, 1984, in Santa Barbara, California, to Pentecostal pastors Mary Christine (née Perry) and Maurice Keith Hudson. Both of her parents turned to religion after a "wild youth". Perry has English, German, Irish, and Portuguese ancestry. Through her mother, she is a niece of film director Frank Perry. She has a younger brother named David, who is a singer, and an older sister, Angela.
From ages three to 11, Perry often moved across the country as her parents set up churches before settling again in Santa Barbara. Growing up, she attended religious schools and camps, including Paradise Valley Christian School in Arizona and Santa Barbara Christian School in California during her elementary years. Her family struggled financially, sometimes using food stamps and eating food from the food bank which also fed the congregation at Perry's parents' church.
Growing up, Perry and her siblings were not allowed to eat the cereal Lucky Charms as the word "luck" reminded their mother of Lucifer, and had to call deviled eggs "angeled eggs". Perry primarily listened to gospel music, as secular music was generally discouraged in the family's home. She discovered popular music through CDs she sneaked from her friends. Perry later recalled a story about how a friend of hers played "You Oughta Know" by Alanis Morissette, which impacted her songwriting and singing.
While not strictly identifying as religious, she has stated, "I pray all the time – for self-control, for humility." Wanting to be like her sister Angela, Perry began singing by practicing with her sister's cassette tapes. She performed the tracks in front of their parents, who let her take vocal lessons as Angela was at the time. She began training at age nine, and was incorporated into her parents' ministry, singing in church from ages nine to 17. At 13, Perry was given her first guitar for her birthday, and publicly performed songs she wrote. She tried to "be a bit like the typical Californian girl" while growing up, and started rollerskating, skateboarding, and surfing as a teenager. Her brother David described her as a tomboy during her adolescence, which Perry talks about on her song "One Of The Boys". She took dancing lessons and learned how to swing, Lindy Hop, and jitterbug.
1999–2006: Career beginnings, Katy Hudson and Fingerprints
Perry completed her General Educational Development (GED) requirements at age 15, during her first year of high school, and left Dos Pueblos High School to pursue a music career. She briefly had music lessons in facilities rented from the Music Academy of the West. Her singing caught the attention of rock artists Steve Thomas and Jennifer Knapp from Nashville, Tennessee, who brought her there to improve her writing skills. In Nashville, she started recording demos and learned how to write songs and play guitar. Perry signed with Red Hill Records and recorded her debut album, a contemporary Christian record titled Katy Hudson, which was released on March 6, 2001. She also went on tour that year as part of Phil Joel's Strangely Normal Tour and embarked on other performances of her own in the United States. Katy Hudson received mixed reviews from critics and was commercially unsuccessful, selling an estimated 200 copies before the label ceased operations in December. Transitioning from gospel music to secular music, Perry started working with producer Glen Ballard, and moved to Los Angeles at age 17. She opted to work with Ballard due to his past work with Alanis Morissette, one of her major inspirations. In 2003, she briefly performed as Katheryn Perry to avoid confusion with actress Kate Hudson. She later adopted the stage name 'Katy Perry', using her mother's maiden name. In 2010, she recalled that "Thinking of You" was one of the first songs she wrote after moving to Los Angeles.
In 2004, she signed to Ballard's label, Java Records, which was then affiliated with The Island Def Jam Music Group. Perry began work on a solo record due for release in March 2005, but the record was shelved after Java was dropped. Ballard then introduced her to Tim Devine, an A&R executive at Columbia Records, and she was signed as a solo artist. By November 2006, Perry had finished writing and recording material for her Columbia debut titled Fingerprints (with some of the material from this time appearing on One of the Boys) which was planned for release in 2007. Some of the material from Fingerprints that did not make it on One Of The Boys was given to other artists, such as "I Do Not Hook Up" and "Long Shot" to Kelly Clarkson and "Rock God" to Selena Gomez & the Scene.
Perry worked with songwriters including Desmond Child, Greg Wells, Butch Walker, Scott Cutler, Anne Preven, The Matrix, Kara DioGuardi, Max Martin, and Dr. Luke. In addition, after Devine suggested that songwriting team The Matrix become a "real group", she recorded a shelved album called The Matrix with them. The Matrix was planned to be released in 2004 but was cancelled due to creative differences. It was later released in 2009 after the release of One of the Boys. Perry was dropped from Columbia in 2006 as Fingerprints neared completion. After the label dropped her, she worked at an independent A&R company called Taxi Music.
Perry had minor success prior to her breakthrough. One of the songs she had recorded for her album with Ballard, "Simple", was featured on the soundtrack to the 2005 film The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. She provided backing vocals on Mick Jagger's song "Old Habits Die Hard", which was included on the soundtrack to the 2004 film Alfie. In September 2004, Blender named Perry "The Next Big Thing". She recorded background vocals on P.O.D.'s single "Goodbye for Now", was featured at the end of its music video in 2006, and performed it with them on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. That year, Perry also appeared in the music video for "Learn to Fly" by Carbon Leaf, and played the love interest of her then-boyfriend, Gym Class Heroes lead singer Travie McCoy, in the band's music video for "Cupid's Chokehold".
2007–2009: Breakthrough with One of the Boys
After Columbia dropped Perry, Angelica Cob-Baehler, then a publicity executive at the label, brought Perry's demos to Virgin Records chairman Jason Flom. Flom was convinced that she could be a breakthrough star and she was signed to Capitol Records in April 2007. The label arranged for her to work with Dr. Luke to add an "undeniable smash" to her existing material. Perry and Dr. Luke co-wrote the songs "I Kissed a Girl" and "Hot n Cold" for her second album One of the Boys. A campaign was started with the November 2007 release of the video to "Ur So Gay", a song aimed at introducing her to the music market. A digital EP of the same name was also released that month. Madonna helped publicize the song by praising it on the JohnJay & Rich radio show in April 2008, stating "Ur So Gay" was her "favorite song" at the time. In March 2008, Perry made a cameo appearance as a club singer in the Wildfire episode "Life's Too Short" and appeared as herself during a photo shoot that June on The Young and the Restless for the show's magazine Restless Style.
Perry released her first single with Capitol, "I Kissed a Girl", on April 28, 2008, as the lead single from One of the Boys. The first station to pick up the song was WRVW in Nashville, who were inundated with enthusiastic calls the first three days they played it. The track reached number one on the US Billboard Hot 100. "I Kissed a Girl" created controversy among both religious and LGBT groups. The former criticized its homosexual theme, while the latter accused her of using bi-curiosity to sell records. In response to speculation that her parents opposed her music and career, Perry told MTV that they had no problems with her success. One of the Boys, released on June 17, 2008, garnered mixed critical reviews and reached number nine on the US Billboard 200. The album went on to sell 7 million copies worldwide. "Hot n Cold" was released the following September and became the album's second successful single, reaching number three on the Billboard Hot 100 while topping charts in Germany, Canada, the Netherlands and Austria. Later singles "Thinking of You" and "Waking Up in Vegas" were released in 2009 and reached the top 30 of the Hot 100. The Matrix's self-titled debut album, which Perry had recorded with the band in 2004, was released onto iTunes on January 27, 2009, as a result of her solo success.
After finishing the 2008 Warped Tour, Perry hosted the 2008 MTV Europe Music Awards in November 2008, where she won the award for Best New Act. At the 2009 Brit Awards, she also won the award for International Female Solo Artist. Perry embarked on her first headlining world tour, the Hello Katy Tour, from January to November 2009 to support One of the Boys. On August 4, 2009, she performed as opening act for one date of No Doubt's 2009 Summer Tour. Perry also hosted the 2009 MTV Europe Music Awards in November 2009, becoming the first person to host two consecutive ceremonies of the European awards. On July 22, 2009, Perry recorded a live album titled MTV Unplugged, which featured acoustic performances of five tracks from One of the Boys as well as one new song, "Brick by Brick", and a cover of Fountains of Wayne's "Hackensack". It was released on November 17, 2009. Perry also appeared on two singles with other artists; she was featured on a remix of Colorado-based band 3OH!3's song "Starstrukk" in September 2009, and on a duet with Timbaland entitled "If We Ever Meet Again", from his album Shock Value II, three months later. The Guinness World Records recognized her in its 2010 edition as the "Best Start on the U.S. Digital Chart by a Female Artist", for digital single sales of over two million copies.
After Perry and Travie McCoy split up in December 2008, they briefly reconciled before she ended their relationship in 2009. Perry met her future husband Russell Brand in the summer of 2009 while filming a cameo appearance for his film Get Him to the Greek. Her scene, in which the two kiss, does not appear in the film. She began dating Brand after meeting him again that September at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards. The couple became engaged on December 31, 2009, while vacationing in Rajasthan, India.
2010–2012: Teenage Dream and first marriage
After serving as a guest judge on American Idol, Perry released "California Gurls" featuring Snoop Dogg on May 7, 2010. The song was the lead single from her third studio album, Teenage Dream, and reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in June. She also served as a guest judge on British The X Factor later that month before releasing the album's second single, "Teenage Dream", in July. "Teenage Dream" reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in September. Released on August 24, 2010, Teenage Dream debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, and received mixed reviews from music critics. It has since sold 6 million copies worldwide. Teenage Dream would go on to win the 2011 Juno Award for International Album of the Year. In October, "Firework" was released as the album's third single. It became the album's third consecutive number one on the Billboard Hot 100 on December 8, 2010.
"E.T." featuring Kanye West was released as the fourth single from Teenage Dream on February 16, 2011. It topped the Billboard Hot 100 for five non-consecutive weeks, making Teenage Dream the ninth album in history to produce four number one singles on the chart. "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)" followed as the fifth single in June, and Perry became the first female artist to achieve five number-one Billboard Hot 100 songs from one album when the single topped that chart on August 17, and the second artist after Michael Jackson with his album Bad. For this record, she received an honorary American Music Award in November 2011 and a 2013 Guinness World Record. On September 7, she set a new record by becoming the first artist to spend 69 consecutive weeks in the top ten of the Hot 100. After "The One That Got Away" was released as the album's sixth single in October, Teenage Dream became the third album to spawn six top-five songs on the Billboard Hot 100 after Rhythm Nation 1814 by Janet Jackson and Faith by George Michael. The song peaked at number three in the US and number two in Canada.
On January 5, 2012, Perry was named the sixth best-selling digital artist in the United States, with sales of 37.6 million units according to Nielsen SoundScan. That month, she became the first artist to have four songs sell over 5 million digital units when "E.T." reached that mark along with "Firework", "California Gurls", and "Hot N Cold". On February 13, Capitol released the lead single from Teenage Dream: The Complete Confection, "Part of Me", which debuted at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and became Perry's seventh single overall to top the chart. Teenage Dream: The Complete Confection was released on March 23, and serves as a reissue of Teenage Dream. "Wide Awake" was released on May 22 as the re-release's second single, peaking at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 and number one in Canada and New Zealand.
Perry embarked on her second tour, the California Dreams Tour, in support of Teenage Dream from February 2011 to January 2012. The tour grossed $59.5 million globally and won her the award for Best Live Act at the 2011 MTV Europe Music Awards. On September 23, 2011, she performed on the opening day of the 2011 Rock in Rio festival along with Elton John and Rihanna. In September 2010, Perry was scheduled to appear on the 41st-season premiere of Sesame Street. After her scene was uploaded to YouTube, viewers criticized Perry's exposed cleavage. Four days before the scheduled airing, Sesame Workshop announced that the segment would not air on television, but would still be available to watch online. Perry subsequently mocked the controversy on Saturday Night Live, where she was a musical guest and wore an Elmo-themed shirt showing large amounts of cleavage during one skit.
In December 2010, Perry played Moe Szyslak's girlfriend in the live-action segment from a Christmas episode of The Simpsons titled "The Fight Before Christmas". In February 2011, she made a guest appearance on the How I Met Your Mother episode "Oh Honey", playing a woman known as Honey. The role won her the People's Choice Award for Favorite TV Guest Star in January 2012. She made her film debut in the 3D family motion picture The Smurfs as Smurfette on July 29, 2011. The film was a financial success worldwide, while critics gave mostly negative reviews. She hosted Saturday Night Live on December 10, 2011, with Robyn as the episode's musical guest. Perry's work on the episode received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised her performance in the episode's digital short featuring her and Andy Samberg. In March 2012, she guest starred as a prison security guard named Rikki on the Raising Hope episode "Single White Female Role Model". On July 5, 2012, Perry's autobiographical documentary Katy Perry: Part of Me was released to theaters through Paramount Pictures. The film received positive reviews and grossed $32.7 million worldwide at the box office.
Perry began to venture into business when she endorsed her first fragrance, Purr, in November 2010. Her second fragrance, Meow!, was released in December 2011. Both perfumes were released through Nordstrom department stores. Electronic Arts recruited her to promote their new expansion pack for The Sims 3: Showtime, before releasing a separate stuff pack featuring Perry-inspired furniture, outfits, and hairstyles, titled The Sims 3: Katy Perry's Sweet Treats, in June 2012. The following month, she became the spokesperson and ambassador for Popchips and made an investment in the company. Billboard dubbed her as their "Woman of the Year" for 2012.
She married Russell Brand on October 23, 2010, in a traditional Hindu ceremony near the Ranthambhore tiger sanctuary in Rajasthan, India. Brand announced on December 30, 2011, that they were divorcing after 14 months of marriage. Perry later stated that conflicting career schedules and his desire to have children before she was ready led to the end of their marriage and that he never spoke to her again after sending a text message that he was divorcing her, while Brand asserted that he divorced her due to her commercial success and reluctance to engage in activism. She was initially distraught over their divorce, and said that she contemplated suicide. After the marriage ended in 2012, Perry began a relationship with singer John Mayer that August.
2013–2015: Prism and Super Bowl XLIX halftime show
In November 2012, Perry began work on her fourth album, Prism. She told Billboard, "I know exactly the record I want to make next. I know the artwork, the coloring and the tone" and "I even know what type of tour I'm doing next. I'll be very pleased if the vision I have in my head becomes a reality." After initially telling L'Uomo Vogue in June 2012 that she planned to have "darker elements" in Prism following the end of her marriage, the singer revealed to MTV during the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards that she changed the album's direction after periods of self-reflection. Perry commented "I felt very prismatic", which inspired the album's name. "Roar" was released as the lead single from Prism on August 10, 2013. It was promoted at the MTV Video Music Awards and reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100. "Unconditionally" followed as the second single from Prism on October 16, 2013, and peaked at number 14 in the United States.
Prism was released on October 18, 2013, and has sold 4 million copies as of August 2015. It received favorable reviews from critics and debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 chart. Four days later, Perry performed the songs from the album at the iHeartRadio Theater in Los Angeles. "Dark Horse" with Juicy J was released as the album's third single in December, and became her ninth U.S. number-one single the following month. In 2014, "Birthday" and "This Is How We Do" respectively followed as the album's fourth and fifth singles, and reached the top 25 on the Hot 100. Prior to ending her relationship with Mayer in February 2014, she recorded and co-wrote a duet with him titled "Who You Love" for his album Paradise Valley. The song was released on August 12, 2013. Perry's third headlining tour, the Prismatic World Tour, began in May 2014 and concluded in October 2015. It sold almost 2 million tickets and grossed $204.3 million worldwide and won Perry the award for "Top Package" at the 2014 Billboard Touring Awards. She also performed at the 2015 Rock in Rio festival on September 27, 2015.
On November 23, 2014, the NFL announced that Perry would perform at the Super Bowl XLIX halftime show on February 1, 2015. Lenny Kravitz and Missy Elliott served as special guests for the show. Her performance was critically acclaimed, and the Guinness World Records announced two days after the singer's halftime show that it garnered 118.5 million viewers in the United States, becoming the most watched and highest rated show in Super Bowl history. The viewership was higher than the game itself, which was viewed by an audience of 114.4 million.
The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) ranked her fifth on the list of Top Global Recording Artists of 2013. On June 26, 2014, she was declared the Top Certified Digital Artist Ever by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for certified sales of 72 million digital singles in the United States. In May 2014, a portrait of Perry by painter Mark Ryden was featured in his exhibition "The Gay 90s", and shown at the Kohn Gallery in Los Angeles. Along with several other artists, she also recorded a cover version of the song "Daisy Bell (Bicycle Built for Two)" on a limited-edition concept album titled The Gay Nineties Old Tyme Music: Daisy Bell to accompany the exhibition. That month, a portrait of Perry by artist Will Cotton was included in the United States National Portrait Gallery. On November 23, 2015, Perry starred in H&M's holiday advertising campaign, for which she wrote and recorded a song titled "Every Day Is a Holiday".
On June 17, 2014, Perry announced that she had founded her own record label under Capitol Records, titled Metamorphosis Music. Ferras was the first artist to get signed to her label, and Perry served as an executive producer on his self-titled EP. She also recorded a duet with him on the EP, titled "Legends Never Die". The label was later renamed Unsub Records.
Outside of her music career, Perry reprised her role as Smurfette in The Smurfs 2, which was released in theaters on July 31, 2013. Like its predecessor, The Smurfs 2 was a financial success but was panned by critics. In March 2014, she made a guest appearance playing herself in the episode "Blisteritos Presents Dad Academy Graduation Congraduritos Red Carpet Viewing Party" of the Kroll Show. Killer Queen was released as her third fragrance in August 2013 through Coty, Inc. In January 2014, she became a guest curator of Madonna's Art for Freedom initiative. In March 2015, she appeared in Brand: A Second Coming, a documentary following her ex-husband Russell Brand's transition from comedy work to activism, and released a concert film titled Katy Perry: The Prismatic World Tour through Epix, which took place during her tour of the same name. Perry also made a cameo appearance in the music video for Madonna's song "Bitch I'm Madonna" in June 2015. The following month, she released another fragrance with Coty, entitled Mad Potion. In September 2015, she appeared in the documentaries Katy Perry: Making of the Pepsi Super Bowl Halftime Show, which followed Perry's preparation for her Super Bowl performance, and Jeremy Scott: The People's Designer, which followed the life and career of designer Jeremy Scott. Perry released a mobile app titled Katy Perry Pop in December 2015 through Glu Mobile where her character helps players become famous musicians. She described it as "the most fun, colorful world that helps guide your musical dreams".
2016–2018: Witness and American Idol
Perry started writing songs for her new album in June 2016, and recorded an anthem for NBC Sports's coverage of the 2016 Summer Olympics titled "Rise", which was released the following month. Perry chose to release it as a standalone track rather than save it for her album "because now more than ever, there is a need for our world to unite". NBC also felt its message spoke "directly to the spirit of the Olympics and its athletes" for its inspirational themes. The song reached number one in Australia and number eleven in the United States.
In August 2016, Perry stated that she aspired to create material "that connects and relates and inspires" and told Ryan Seacrest that she was "not rushing" her fifth album, adding "I'm just having a lot of fun, but experimenting and trying different producers, and different collaborators, and different styles". On February 10, 2017, Perry released the album's lead single "Chained to the Rhythm" featuring Skip Marley. It reached number one in Hungary and number four in the United States. The track was also streamed over three million times on Spotify within 24 hours, breaking the music streaming service's record at the time for the highest first-day streaming for a single track by a female artist. The album's second single, "Bon Appétit" with Migos, was released that April. Its third single, "Swish Swish", featured Nicki Minaj and followed the next month. They respectively peaked at numbers 59 and 46 in the United States, and made the top 15 in Canada.
The album, titled Witness, was released on June 9, 2017, to mixed reviews, and debuted at number one in the United States. To accompany the album's release, Perry broadcast herself on YouTube for four days with a live-stream titled Katy Perry Live: Witness World Wide, concluding with a live concert on June 12. The live-stream generated over 49 million views from 190 different countries. She also embarked on Witness: The Tour, which began in September 2017 and ended in August 2018. On June 15, 2017, Calvin Harris released a song titled "Feels" from his album Funk Wav Bounces Vol. 1, which featured Perry, Big Sean, and Pharrell Williams. The song went on to reach number one in the United Kingdom.
Perry subsequently recorded a cover of the Dear Evan Hansen song "Waving Through a Window" for the deluxe edition of the cast recording, which was released on November 2, 2018. The show's creators Benj Pasek and Justin Paul had requested Perry to cover the song to promote the musical's national tour and bring awareness to mental health. Later that month, Perry released "Cozy Little Christmas". She also recorded the song "Immortal Flame" for the game Final Fantasy Brave Exvius, and had a playable character modeled after her.
Outside of recording music, Perry appeared as herself in the film Zoolander 2, which was released in February 2016. In February 2017, the singer launched a shoe line titled "Katy Perry Collections". Her shoes are available on her website, Katy Perry Collections, and at retailers such as Dillard's and Walmart. The following August, she hosted the 2017 MTV Video Music Awards. Perry was signed for a $25-million salary to serve as a judge on ABC's revival of American Idol, which premiered in March 2018. Perry began a relationship with Orlando Bloom in early 2016, and the couple got engaged on February 14, 2019.
2019–present: Smile, motherhood and Play residency
At the 61st Annual Grammy Awards, Perry performed "Here You Come Again", alongside Dolly Parton and Kacey Musgraves, as part of a tribute to Parton. Four days later, she released a song called "365", with DJ Zedd. In April, Perry was included on a remix of Daddy Yankee's song "Con Calma", featuring Snow. She followed this with the singles "Never Really Over" on May 31, "Small Talk" on August 9, and "Harleys in Hawaii" on October 16.
In June 2019, Perry appeared in the music video of Taylor Swift's "You Need to Calm Down". In July, a jury in California passed a verdict following a week-long trial that Perry's song "Dark Horse" had copied Flame's 2008 song "Joyful Noise" after he filed a copyright lawsuit alleging that it used his track's beat without permission, which was later overturned. After the initial verdict, the jury ordered her to pay him $550,000. The next month, Josh Kloss, Perry's co-star in the "Teenage Dream" music video, accused her of sexual misconduct. In an Instagram post, Kloss alleged that, during a party at a skating rink, Perry pulled on his sweatpants and underwear, exposing his penis to her male friends. He also said her management prevented him from speaking about his time with the singer. However, Johnny Wujek, the creative director of said party defended Perry, saying that she "would never do something like that" and accused Kloss of having an "ongoing obsession" with her. After initially refraining from responding to this, believing it would have detracted from the Me Too movement, Perry has also denied Kloss's claims.
Following the release of her single "Never Worn White" in March 2020, Perry revealed in the accompanying music video that she was expecting her first child with Bloom. "Daisies", the lead single from her sixth album, was released on May 15, 2020. Its second single "Smile" followed two months later. The album, also titled Smile, was released on August 28, 2020. Two days before its distribution, she gave birth to a daughter named Daisy Dove Bloom. The album received mixed reviews, and debuted at number five in the United States. Perry further promoted the album with four compilation EPs: Camp Katy, Empowered, Scorpio SZN, and Cosmic Energy. These EPs were followed by the single "Not the End of the World" in December 2020, which had a music video in which Zooey Deschanel impersonates Perry. Additionally she collaborated with various artists to create two remixes of Smile album tracks. Tiësto remix of "Resillient" featuring Aitana was released in November 2020, while Bruno Martini remix of "Cry About It Later" featuring Luísa Sonza was released in April 2021. In January 20, 2021, Perry performed "Firework" at the Celebrating America concert during the inauguration of Joe Biden. Four months later, she released a new single, "Electric", a collaboration with Pokémon for their 25th anniversary.
Perry began hosting a residency named Play at Resorts World Las Vegas on December 29, 2021. The show's inception happened during the COVID-19 lockdown with Perry being inspired by 1990s movies such as Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, Pee-wee's Playhouse, and Pee-wee's Big Adventure. She described it as "larger than life" and "the kookiest, most camp show I've ever put together." The show has received critical acclaim with Melinda Sheckells of Billboard saying that "[Play's] sold-out opening night is part fantasy, part hallucination and thoroughly camp.
In September 2021, Variety paid tribute to and honored Perry on their "Power of Women" issue, where she discussed her career, motherhood, and philanthropy. As a nominee, she attended the Variety 2021 "Power of Women" dinner. On her 37th birthday the following month, Perry guest hosted The Ellen DeGeneres Show and starred in a holiday advertisement for Gap Inc. which featured her singing "All You Need Is Love" by The Beatles. A full version of her cover was released on streaming platforms the same day. Two months later, Perry followed this with "When I'm Gone", a collaboration with Alesso.
Artistry
Influences
Perry cites her sister Angela as the woman who has had the most influence on her. During the early stages of her career, Perry's musical style gravitated towards gospel and she aspired to be as successful as Amy Grant. At age 15, she heard "Killer Queen" by Queen, which inspired her to pursue a music career. She cites the band's frontman, Freddie Mercury, as her biggest influence and expressed how the "combination of his sarcastic approach to writing lyrics and his 'I don't give a fuck' attitude" inspired her music. She paid homage to the band by naming her third fragrance Killer Queen. Perry described the Beach Boys and their album Pet Sounds as having a considerable influence on her music: "Pet Sounds is one of my favorite records and it influenced pretty much all of my songwriting. All of the melody choices that I make are because of Pet Sounds." The singer also holds the Beatles' album The Beatles in high esteem, and described these two albums as "the only things I listened to for probably two years straight."
She cites Alanis Morissette and her 1995 album Jagged Little Pill as a significant musical inspiration, stating in 2012: "Jagged Little Pill was the most perfect female record ever made. There's a song for anyone on that record; I relate to all those songs. They're still so timeless." Additionally, Perry borrows influence from Flaming Red by Patty Griffin and 10 Cent Wings by Jonatha Brooke. Perry's autobiographical documentary Katy Perry: Part of Me was largely influenced by Madonna: Truth or Dare. She admires Madonna's ability to reinvent herself, saying "I want to evolve like Madonna".
Perry names Björk as an influence, particularly admiring her "willingness to always be taking chances". Other artists who Perry has cited as influences include Stevie Nicks, ABBA, the Cardigans, Cyndi Lauper, Ace of Base, 3OH!3, CeCe Peniston, C+C Music Factory, Black Box, Crystal Waters, Mariah Carey, Heart, Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, Imogen Heap, Rufus Wainwright, Pink, and Gwen Stefani. "Firework" was inspired by a passage in the book On the Road by Jack Kerouac in which the author compares people who are full of life to fireworks that shoot across the sky and make people watch in awe. Her second concert tour, the California Dreams Tour, was reminiscent of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. She also credits the 1996 film The Craft for inspiring her song "Dark Horse", and Eckhart Tolle's book The Power of Now for influencing Prism.
Musical style and themes
While Perry's music incorporates pop, rock, and disco, Katy Hudson contains gospel. Her subsequent releases, One of the Boys and Teenage Dream, involve themes of sex and love. One of the Boys is a pop rock record, while Teenage Dream features disco influences. Perry's fourth album, Prism, is significantly influenced by dance and pop music. Lyrically, the album addresses relationships, self-reflection, and everyday life. Her fifth studio effort Witness is an electropop album that she described as a "360-degree liberation" record, with themes including political liberation, sexual liberation, and liberation from negativity. Many of her songs, particularly on Teenage Dream, reflect on love between teenagers; W magazine described the album's sexual innuendos as "irresistible hook-laden melodies". Self-empowerment is a common theme in Perry's music.
Perry has described herself as a "singer-songwriter masquerading as a pop star" and maintains that honest songwriting is very important to her. She told Marie Claire: "I feel like my secret magic trick that separates me from a lot of my peers is the bravery to be vulnerable and truthful and honest. I think you become more relatable when you're vulnerable." Actress and comedian Kristen Wiig commented that "as easy, breezy, and infectious as Perry's songs can be, beneath the surface lurks a sea of mixed emotions, jumbled motives, and contradictory impulses complicated enough to fill a Carole King record." According to Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune, "being taken seriously may be Perry's greatest challenge yet." In 2013, The New York Times labeled her "the most potent pop star of the day – her hits are relatable with just a hint of experimentation". Randall Roberts of the Los Angeles Times criticized her use of idioms and metaphors in her lyrics and for frequent "clichés". Throughout her career, Perry has also co-written songs recorded by other artists, including Lesley Roy, Kelly Clarkson, Jessie James Decker, Selena Gomez & the Scene, Britney Spears, Iggy Azalea, Rita Ora, Nicki Minaj, and Ariana Grande.
Voice
Perry possesses a contralto vocal range. Her singing has received both praise and criticism. Betty Clarke of The Guardian commented that her "powerful voice is hard-edged" while Rob Sheffield from Rolling Stone described Perry's vocals on Teenage Dream as "processed staccato blips". Darren Harvey of musicOMH compared Perry's vocals on One of the Boys to Alanis Morissette's, both possessing a "perky voice shifting octaves mid-syllable". Alex Miller from NME felt that "Perry's problem is often her voice" on One of the Boys, stating that "somewhere along the line someone convinced her she was like, well, a ballsy rock chick". Conversely, Bernadette McNulty from The Daily Telegraph praised her "rock chick voice" in a review of a concert promoting Prism.
Public image
On social media, Perry surpassed Justin Bieber as the most followed person on Twitter in November 2013. She won the 2015 Guinness World Record for most Twitter followers, and became the first person to gain 100 million followers on the site in June 2017. Keith Caulfield of Billboard stated that Perry is "the rare celebrity who seems to have enormous popularity but genuine ground-level interaction with her adoring KatyCats." With over 108 Twitter million followers, she is the most followed female on the site, and the fifth most followed musician across social media with a combined total of over 326 million followers across Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. In June 2017, Time magazine listed Perry among its "25 Most Influential People on the Internet" of the year, writing that her live-stream for Witness was "blazing a trail" for being "the closest any major entertainer has come to giving fans the kind of 'real' intimacy that social media purports to provide".
In 2011, Forbes ranked Perry third on their "Top-Earning Women In Music" list with earnings of $44 million and fifth on their 2012 list with $45 million. She subsequently ranked seventh on the 2013 Forbes list for "Top-Earning Women In Music" with $39 million earned, and fifth on their 2014 list with $40 million. With earnings of $135 million, Forbes also ranked Perry number one on their 2015 "Top-Earning Women In Music" list as well as the "World's Highest-Paid Musicians" and declared her the highest earning female celebrity in 2015, placing her at number 3 on the Forbes Celebrity 100 list. In 2016, the magazine estimated her net worth was $125 million, and ranked her number six on their list of "Highest-Paid Women in Music" with earnings of $41 million. The following year, she was ranked number nine on the list with $33 million. In 2018, she topped its "Highest-Paid Women in Music" listing and ranked at number four on the "Highest-Paid Female Celebrities" list with earnings of $83 million. Perry subsequently was placed at number four on the 2019 "Highest-Paid Women in Music" listings with $57.5 million. Later that year, with earnings of $530 million throughout the 2010s, the magazine also ranked her as the 9th highest earning musician of the decade.
Fashion
Perry has been described as a sex symbol; GQ labeled her a "full-on male fantasy", while Elle wrote her body looked "as though sketched by a teenage boy". Vice called her a serious' popstar/woman/sex symbol". She was placed at number one on the Maxim Hot 100 in 2010 as the "most beautiful woman in the world", with editor Joe Levy describing her as a "triple – no quadruple – kind of hot". Men's Health readers voted her the "sexiest woman of 2013". In November 2010, Perry told Harper's Bazaar that she was proud of and satisfied with her figure.
Perry's fashion often incorporates humor, bright colors, and food-related themes such as her characteristic spinning peppermint swirl dress. Vogue described her as "never exactly one to shy away from the outrageous or the extreme in any realm" and called her the "Queen of Camp". while Glamour named her the "queen of quirk". In February 2009, Perry told Seventeen that her fashion style was "a bit of a concoction of different things" and stated she enjoyed humor in her clothing. She has also described herself as having "multipersonality disorder" for fashion. Perry lists Gwen Stefani, Shirley Manson, Chloë Sevigny, Daphne Guinness, Natalie Portman, and the fictional character Lolita as her style icons. Elle described her as "the kitsch-loving pop star renowned for her uniquely experimental style" while Vogue described her style as "synonymous with outrageous, eye-catching ensembles that lean towards the theatrical."
During the 2017 launch of her shoe collection, Katy Perry Collections, she said about shoes: "When I first got to L.A., I cultivated my style on a budget, always shopping at thrift stores or vintage stores. … Once, I found these flats that looked like Dalmatian dogs. They had ears that moved and a tongue that stuck out. They were such a conversation piece. That's what is so great about fashion. … It's a form of communication. You don't have to start a smoking habit to start talking to someone. You can just wear cool shoes. It's an icebreaker."
Legacy and influence
Several media outlets such as Billboard and Glamour have referred to her as the "Queen of Pop", while Vogue has dubbed Perry the "Queen of Camp" and a "pop icon." Andrew Unterberger of Billboard described Teenage Dream "one of the defining LPs from a new golden age in mega-pop" while Christopher Rosa of Glamour named her as an influence to the pop sound and style of the 2010s, adding that her singles are "some of the most recognizable, iconic, and impactful hits in pop history." Perry was named "one of the last decade's most reliable and successful hitmakers" by the Official Charts Company in 2022.
Additionally, Perry was included in Glamour's "104 Women Who Defined the [2010s] in Pop Culture" list, saying: "[Perry] did more than just break chart records. She was one of the driving forces behind the sound of pop radio in the 2010s. [...] glossy, booming, sugary-sweet, and undeniably catchy." Variety included Perry in their Variety 500 list of the most influential business leaders, calling her a "global phenomenon" and a "dedicated artist and tireless self-promoter who has leveraged chart-topping hits, sold-out stadium shows, and staggering endorsement deals to become one of the richest and most influential pop stars alive." She has been called a "gay icon" by Taylor Henderson of Out, noting how "I Kissed a Girl" helped fans explore their sexuality and how Perry openly embraced the LGBTQ+ community.
Perry's music has been described by Out as having a "lasting legacy", with American singers Fletcher sampling "I Kissed a Girl" and Olivia Rodrigo referencing Teenage Dream on "Brutal". Additionally, other artists such as Halsey and Ariana Grande have praised Perry's work, with Halsey calling Teenage Dream the "perfect pop album" and Grande saying "The One That Got Away" is "one of the biggest and most perfectly written pop songs ever from one of the best pop albums of all time". Perry and her work have influenced artists such as Lil Nas X, Halsey, Lorde, Rina Sawayama, Doja Cat, Ellie Goulding, Tegan and Sara, Kim Petras, and Coldplay.
Other ventures
Philanthropy
Perry has supported various charitable organizations and causes throughout her career. She has contributed to organizations aimed at improving the lives and welfare of children in particular. In April 2013, she joined UNICEF to assist children in Madagascar with education and nutrition. On December 3, 2013, she was officially named a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, "with a special focus on engaging young people in the agency's work to improve the lives of the world's most vulnerable children and adolescents." She arranged for a portion of the money generated from tickets to her Prismatic World Tour to go to UNICEF. In September 2010, she helped build and design the Boys Hope/Girls Hope foundation shelter for youth in Baltimore, Maryland along with Raven-Symoné, Shaquille O'Neal, and the cast of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. In 2010, Perry and Nicki Minaj performed a cover of "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" for service members during the 2010 VH1 Divas Salute the Troops concert.
She has also supported children's education and well-being. All profits from sales of the album The Gay Nineties Old Tyme Music: Daisy Bell, which includes her rendition of "Daisy Bell (Bicycle Built for Two)", were donated to the charity Little Kids Rock, which supports musical education in underprivileged elementary schools. In June 2014, she teamed up with Staples Inc. for a project entitled "Make Roar Happen" which donated $1 million to DonorsChoose, an organization that supports teachers and funds classroom resources in public schools. In May 2016, she worked with UNICEF to improve child care quality in Vietnam, hoping to "break the cycle of poverty and drastically improve children's health, education and well-being". The following month, UNICEF announced that Perry would receive the Audrey Hepburn Humanitarian Award "for her work as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in support of the world's most vulnerable children" at their annual Snowflake Ball in November. All Spotify streams of her 2021 cover of "All You Need Is Love" will generate $1 in donations for the charity Baby2Baby.
Perry has supported organizations aimed at aiding people suffering with diseases including cancer and HIV/AIDS. During the 2008 Warped Tour, she had a cast made of her breasts to raise money for the Keep A Breast Foundation. She hosted and performed at the We Can Survive concert along with Bonnie McKee, Kacey Musgraves, Sara Bareilles, Ellie Goulding, and duo Tegan and Sara at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, California, on October 23, 2013. The concert's profits were donated to Young Survival Coalition, an organization aiding breast cancer in young women. In June 2009, she designed an item of clothing for H&M's "Fashion Against AIDS" campaign, which raises money for HIV/AIDS awareness projects. On February 26, 2017, she served as a co-chair alongside various celebrities such as Beyoncé, Lea Michele, Jim Carrey, Jared Leto, and Kevin Spacey for the 25th Annual Elton John AIDS Foundation Academy Award Party, a fundraiser for HIV/AIDS healthcare.
The proceeds from Perry's single "Part of Me" were donated to the charity MusiCares, which helps musicians in times of need. During her California Dreams Tour, she raised over $175,000 for the Tickets-For-Charity fundraiser. The money was divided between three charities: the Children's Health Fund (CHF), Generosity Water, and The Humane Society of the United States.
On her 27th birthday, Perry set up a donations page for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Auckland, and set up a similar page benefiting the David Lynch Foundation for her 28th birthday. On March 29, 2014, she helped raise $2.4 million for the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles along with other celebrities such as Ryan Seacrest, Pharrell Williams, Tim Allen, Lisa Edelstein, and Riley Keough.
Perry performed at the One Love Manchester benefit concert for the victims of the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing, among various performers including its organizer Ariana Grande, which was broadcast live on June 4, 2017, on radio and television stations around the world. In March 2018, Perry announced Witness: Coming Home, a benefit concert that was held in her hometown of Santa Barbara on May 19, 2018. The concert benefited those recovering from the aftermath of the 2017 California wildfires and 2018 Southern California mudflows. Perry partnered with the Santa Barbara Foundation, the 93108 Fund and The 805 UndocuFund, organizations which help in assisting members of the community in the Santa Barbara area through grants and various philanthropic efforts.
Activism
Perry has publicly advocated for LGBT rights and admitted that she wrote "I Kissed a Girl" about her own bisexual experiences with other women. In 2017, she received a Nation Equality Award from Human Rights Campaign for "using her powerful voice and international platform to speak out for LGBTQ equality". In her acceptance speech, she discussed having bisexual experiences, her fluid sexuality, and thanked the LGBTQ+ community. In an Out interview in 2021, she was heralded as a "gay icon" with "I Kissed a Girl" being called a "bonafide queer anthem." She continued to thank the LGBTQ+ community in the same interview, saying: "I came from a very sheltered upbringing where it wasn't okay to be friends with anyone from that community. And now that is my community, [...] I wouldn't have survived without the community and it's amazing how full circle it's come and how much growth has happened since I started."
She supported Stonewall during their "It gets better..... today" campaign to prevent homophobic bullying, and dedicated the music video to her song "Firework" to the It Gets Better Project. In 2008, Perry told Do Something she was proud to be a LGBT rights activist, saying "I've always been a very open-minded person, but I definitely believe in equality." In June 2012, Perry expressed her hopes for LGBT equality, commenting "hopefully, we will look back at this moment and think like we do now concerning [other] civil rights issues. We'll just shake our heads in disbelief, saying, 'Thank God we've evolved.' That would be my prayer for the future." In December 2012, Perry was awarded the Trevor Hero Award by The Trevor Project for her work and activism on behalf of LGBT youth.
Perry identifies as a feminist, and appeared in April 2013 in a video clip for the "Chime for Change" campaign that aimed to spread female empowerment. She has also said that America's lack of free health care drove her "absolutely crazy". Following the shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando in June 2016, Perry and nearly 200 other artists and executives in music signed an open letter organized by Billboard addressed to United States Congress demanding increased gun control in the United States.
Through Twitter and by performing at rallies, Perry supported President Barack Obama in his run for re-election and praised his support for same-sex marriage and LGBT equality. She performed at three rallies for Obama, in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Wisconsin, singing a rendition of "Let's Stay Together" as well as a number of her songs. During her Las Vegas performance she wore a dress made to replicate a voting ballot, with Obama's box filled in. On Twitter, she encouraged her followers to vote for Obama.
In August 2013, Perry voiced criticism of Tony Abbott, then-leader of conservative Liberal Party of Australia and candidate for Prime Minister of Australia, due to his opposition to gay marriage and told Abbott, "I love you as a human being but I can't give you my vote."; the statement came after Abbott expressed pride at learning of Perry's then-upcoming performance in Australia. In April 2014, she publicly supported Marianne Williamson in her campaign for California's 33rd congressional district by attending a political press event. She endorsed Kamala Harris in the United States Senate election in California, and organized a fundraiser for Harris at her home in Los Angeles in November 2016. Perry also publicly endorsed former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for president in 2016. She performed alongside Elton John at a fundraising concert for Clinton in New York City in March 2016. Perry also spoke and performed at the 2016 Democratic National Convention in support of Clinton. Four years later, she supported Joe Biden and Kamala Harris during the 2020 United States presidential election, praising the latter as a leader who had "experience we desperately need right now" and believed that the former "choosing her as his running mate is already a testament to his decision making".
Achievements
Throughout her career, Perry has won five American Music Awards, fourteen People's Choice Awards, four Guinness World Records, a Brit Award, and a Juno Award. In September 2012, Billboard dubbed her the "Woman of the Year". From May 2010 to September 2011, the singer spent a record-breaking 69 consecutive weeks in the top ten of the Billboard Hot 100. Teenage Dream became the first album by a female artist to produce five number-one Billboard Hot 100 singles, and the second album overall after Michael Jackson's Bad. In the United States, she has accumulated nine number-one singles on the Billboard Hot 100, her most recent being "Dark Horse", and holds the record for having 18 consecutive number-one songs on the Billboard Dance Club Songs chart.
Billboard also named her the 15th most successful dance club artist of all time. The magazine additionally ranked her 4th on its "Greatest of All Time Pop Songs Artists" list, included Teenage Dream and Prism among its "Greatest of All Time Billboard 200 Albums by Women" list, and ranked "Dark Horse" at number 100 on its "Greatest of All Time Hot 100 Songs" as well as one of its "Greatest of All Time Hot 100 Songs by Women" along with "E.T.", "Firework", and "California Gurls". In June 2015, her music video for "Dark Horse" became the first video by a female artist to reach 1 billion views on Vevo. The following month, her music video for "Roar" reached 1 billion views on Vevo, making her the first artist to have multiple videos with 1 billion views.
Perry was declared the Top Global Female Recording Artist of 2013 by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI). According to Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), she is the fifth top digital singles artist in the United States, with 105 million certified song units in the country including on-demand streams and also has 11 million certified album units, totaling 116 million certified units in the nation. She also became the first artist to have three songs receive Diamond certifications from the RIAA with "Dark Horse", "Firework", and "Roar". All three of them and "E.T.", "California Gurls", and "Hot n Cold" have each sold over 5 million digital copies. Throughout her career, Perry has sold more than 18 million albums and 125 million singles globally, making her one of the best-selling music artists of all time.
Discography
Katy Hudson (2001)
One of the Boys (2008)
Teenage Dream (2010)
Prism (2013)
Witness (2017)
Smile (2020)
Filmography
The Smurfs (2011)
Katy Perry: Part of Me (2012)
The Smurfs 2 (2013)
Brand: A Second Coming (2015)
Katy Perry: The Prismatic World Tour (2015)
Katy Perry: Making of the Pepsi Super Bowl Halftime Show (2015)
Jeremy Scott: The People's Designer (2015)
Zoolander 2 (2016)
Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (2016)
Tours and residency
Co-headlining tour
Strangely Normal Tour (with Phil Joel) (2001)
Headlining tours
Hello Katy Tour (2009)
California Dreams Tour (2011–2012)
Prismatic World Tour (2014–2015)
Witness: The Tour (2017–2018)
Residency
Play (2021–2022)
See also
List of best-selling music artists
List of most-followed Twitter accounts
List of Billboard Social 50 number-one artists
List of highest-certified music artists in the United States
Best-selling female artists of all time
References
Footnotes
Sources
External links
1984 births
Living people
21st-century American guitarists
21st-century American singers
21st-century American women singers
21st-century American women guitarists
Activists from California
American contraltos
American disco singers
American women pop singers
American women rock singers
American women singer-songwriters
American feminists
American film actresses
American performance artists
American pop guitarists
American pop rock singers
American rock guitarists
American rock songwriters
American television actresses
American women activists
American voice actresses
American women in electronic music
Brit Award winners
Capitol Records artists
Columbia Records artists
Dance-pop musicians
Def Jam Recordings artists
Feminist musicians
Guitarists from California
Island Records artists
Juno Award for International Album of the Year winners
LGBT rights activists from the United States
Musicians from Santa Barbara, California
MTV Europe Music Award winners
Participants in American reality television series
Singer-songwriters from California
UNICEF Goodwill Ambassadors | false | [
"Diamá's ( Claudia D'Addio) discography starts 2006 with an unofficial Single \"You can't stop me/Identità\", recorded when she was part of the Eurovision Song Contest 2006 entry for Switzerland Six4One. Both songs were never part of an album but became part of the Six4One album. The single was physically released in Switzerland only through Phonag. Digitally it was released worldwide by Chips Records (Germany). At the time she was signed with Jupiter Records, record label of notorious German composer and producer Ralph Siegel. Due to different views about her career both sides did not dispose picking up the option for an album. Everything was resolved in collegial manners.\n\nAfter this experience she and her songwriter and longtime friend Jiameé started working on new material, but Diamá felt not ready to start an own career and wanted to discover what kind of artist she is on her own. 2007 she collaborated on many projects with DJs and worked on improving her vocal skills. 2008 she started discovering the music set in her Italian roots. Infatuated by Mediterranean sounds and instruments, today's heavy hip-hop beats or electronic elements and inspired by Italian divas such as Sophia Loren, Anna Magnani, Gina Lollobrigida or Giulietta Masina she started understanding what moves her as an artist. Her Italian hometown Caserta and her favorite city Naples both located in the Campania region of Italy furnished most of the inspiration for her debut album set to be released in 2014. Powerful images of strong Italian women inspired the look of her first album. Two young and talented photographers based in Switzerland Shpend Salihu and Basil Stücheli translated her vision into art. The album has a sad undertone due to the fact that she lost her childhood friend in a tragic accident in 2009. Her whole album is dedicated first of all to his memory.\n\nDiscography\n\nDiscography as Diamá\n\nDiscography of collaborations as Diamá\n\nDiscography as Claudia D'Addio\n\nReferences\n\nDiscographies of Swiss artists",
"My Kind of Gospel is a studio album by American recording artist Wanda Jackson. It was released in 1983 via Vine Records and contained ten tracks of material. It was the twenty ninth studio record released in Jackson's career and among a series of gospel recordings she released during the 1980s decade.\n\nBackground, content and release\nWanda Jackson was among the first women to have commercial success in both the country and Rockabilly music genres, releasing a series of singles during the 1950s and 1960s. This included \"Let's Have a Party\", \"Fujiyama Mama\", \"Right or Wrong\" and \"The Box It Came In\". Jackson transitioned into the gospel genre during the 1970s. After parting ways with her long-time record label, Jackson recorded a series of gospel records for the Vine label in the 1980s. The first Vine release was My Kind of Gospel. Jackson recorded the album alongside producer Gregg Gray at the Associated Recording Studio in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Sessions took place in June 1983.\n\nMy Kind of Gospel consisted of ten tracks, all of which were gospel-themed. Original recordings on the record included \"Life's Journey\", \"Jesus Gave It to Me\" and \"Jesus Loves Cowgirls\". The album was originally released in 1983 on Vine Records. The project marked Jackson's twenty ninth in her career and her first with Vine. It was originally issued as a vinyl LP. In 1984 it was re-released on Tab Records, a Swedish record label, which had previously issued her 1984 album Rockabilly Fever. It was re-released again in 1986 in the United Kingdom. It was later re-released to digital and streaming sites, including Spotify.\n\nTrack listings\n\nVinyl versions\n\nDigital version\n\nPersonnel\nAll credits are adapted from the liner notes of My Kind of Gospel.\n\nMusical personnel\n Doug Campbell – Steel guitar\n Gregg Gray – Background vocals, keyboards, piano\n Rocky Gribble – Banjo, guitar\n Bill Hamblin – Fiddle\n Wanda Jackson – Lead vocals\n Linda Matheson – Background vocals\n Carolyn McCoy – Background vocals\n Dale McCoy – Background vocals\n Ray Owens – Harmonica\n Marty Schrabel – Bass\n Lynn Williams – Drums\n\nTechnical personnel\n Paul Bowman – Percussion\n Gregg Gray – Producer\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\n1983 albums\n1984 albums\n1986 albums\nWanda Jackson albums"
] |
[
"Katy Perry",
"1999-2006: Career beginnings",
"when was katy parry's first album under her stage name?",
"March 6, 2001,",
"what did she do between 1999 and 2001?",
"2001, and went on tour that year as part of Phil Joel's Strangely Normal Tour while also embarking on other performances of her own in the United States.",
"Was her first album as Katy Perry a hit?",
"Katy Hudson received positive reviews from critics, though was commercially unsuccessful",
"When did Perry start gaining commercial success?",
"2005",
"What was it that started gaining her popularity?",
"One of the songs she had recorded for her album with Ballard,",
"Which album did she record with Ballard?",
"I don't know.",
"did she do more than record albums during this time?",
"Perry wrote and recorded material",
"what kind of material did she record during this time?",
"I don't know."
] | C_29e64ee43f0547139a7c08bceed86ff2_1 | Are there any other interesting aspects about this article? | 9 | Aside from Perry's recordings, are there any other interesting aspects about this article? | Katy Perry | Perry completed her General Educational Development (GED) requirements at age 15, during her freshman year of high school, and left Dos Pueblos High School to pursue a musical career. She briefly studied Italian opera at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara. Her singing caught the attention of rock artists Steve Thomas and Jennifer Knapp from Nashville, Tennessee, who brought her there to improve her writing skills. In Nashville, she started recording demos and learned how to write songs and play guitar. After signing with Red Hill Records, Perry recorded her debut album, a gospel record titled Katy Hudson. She released the album on March 6, 2001, and went on tour that year as part of Phil Joel's Strangely Normal Tour while also embarking on other performances of her own in the United States. Katy Hudson received positive reviews from critics, though was commercially unsuccessful and sold an estimated 200 copies before the label ceased operations in December. Transitioning from gospel music to secular music, Perry started writing songs with producer Glen Ballard, and moved to Los Angeles at age 17. In 2003, she briefly performed as Katheryn Perry to avoid confusion with actress Kate Hudson. She later adopted the stage name Katy Perry, using her mother's maiden name. In 2004, Perry signed to Ballard's label, Java, which was then affiliated with The Island Def Jam Music Group. She began work on a solo record, but the record was shelved after Java was dropped. Ballard then introduced Perry to Tim Devine, an A&R executive at Columbia Records, and she was signed as a solo artist. Over the course of the next two years, Perry wrote and recorded material for her Columbia debut, and worked with songwriters including Desmond Child, Greg Wells, Butch Walker, Scott Cutler, Anne Preven, The Matrix, Kara DioGuardi, Max Martin and Dr. Luke. In addition, after Devine suggested that songwriting team The Matrix become a "real group", Perry recorded with them. Perry was dropped from Columbia in 2006 as her record neared completion. After the label dropped her, she worked at an independent A&R company called Taxi Music. Perry had minor success prior to her breakthrough. One of the songs she had recorded for her album with Ballard, "Simple", was featured on the soundtrack to the 2005 film The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. She provided backing vocals on Mick Jagger's song "Old Habits Die Hard", which was included on the soundtrack to the 2004 film Alfie. In September 2004, Blender named Perry "The Next Big Thing". She recorded background vocals on P.O.D.'s single "Goodbye for Now" and was featured at the end of its music video in 2006. That year, Perry also appeared in the music video for "Learn to Fly" by Carbon Leaf, and played the love interest of her then-boyfriend, Gym Class Heroes lead singer Travie McCoy, in the band's music video for "Cupid's Chokehold". CANNOTANSWER | Perry had minor success prior to her breakthrough. | Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson (born October 25, 1984), known professionally as Katy Perry, is an American singer, songwriter, and television judge. She is known for her influence on the pop sound and style of the 2010s. Pursuing a career in gospel music at 16, Perry released her commercially unsuccessful debut album, Katy Hudson (2001), under Red Hill Records. She moved to Los Angeles at 17 to venture into secular music, adopting the stage name "Katy Perry" from her mother's maiden name. With producers Glen Ballard and Greg Wells, she recorded an unreleased album titled Fingerprints while signed to Java Records and then Columbia Records before being dropped. After this, she signed a recording contract with Capitol Records in April 2007.
Perry rose to fame with her second album and major label debut, One of the Boys (2008), a pop rock record containing her debut single "I Kissed a Girl" and follow-up single "Hot n Cold", which respectively reached number one and three on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. The disco-influenced pop album Teenage Dream (2010) spawned five U.S. number one singles—"California Gurls", "Teenage Dream", "Firework", "E.T.", and "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)"—becoming the first album by a solo female artist to do so. A reissue titled Teenage Dream: The Complete Confection (2012) subsequently had the U.S. number one single "Part of Me". Her fourth album Prism (2013) has themes of self-empowerment and relationships. With the music videos for its U.S. number one singles "Roar" and "Dark Horse", Perry became the first artist to have multiple videos reach one billion views on YouTube. Witness (2017) featured an electropop sound with themes of liberation and a political subtext, while Smile (2020) featured themes of motherhood and self-help. She later embarked on her first concert residency titled Play in Resorts World Las Vegas, selling out multiple shows and receiving critical acclaim.
Perry is one of the best-selling artists of all time, having sold over 143 million records worldwide. All of her studio albums released under Capitol have individually surpassed one billion streams on Spotify. She has nine U.S. number one singles, three U.S. number one albums and has received various accolades, including four Guinness World Records, five Billboard Music Awards, five American Music Awards, a Brit Award, and a Juno Award. Perry has been included in the annual Forbes lists of highest-earning women in music from 2011 to 2019. Her critically acclaimed Super Bowl halftime show performance is the most watched in history. Outside of music, she released an autobiographical documentary titled Katy Perry: Part of Me in 2012, and voiced Smurfette in The Smurfs film series. Perry began serving as a judge on American Idol, starting from its sixteenth season in 2018. She is also the most followed woman on Twitter, with over 108 million followers.
Life and career
1984–1998: Early life and family
Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson was born on October 25, 1984, in Santa Barbara, California, to Pentecostal pastors Mary Christine (née Perry) and Maurice Keith Hudson. Both of her parents turned to religion after a "wild youth". Perry has English, German, Irish, and Portuguese ancestry. Through her mother, she is a niece of film director Frank Perry. She has a younger brother named David, who is a singer, and an older sister, Angela.
From ages three to 11, Perry often moved across the country as her parents set up churches before settling again in Santa Barbara. Growing up, she attended religious schools and camps, including Paradise Valley Christian School in Arizona and Santa Barbara Christian School in California during her elementary years. Her family struggled financially, sometimes using food stamps and eating food from the food bank which also fed the congregation at Perry's parents' church.
Growing up, Perry and her siblings were not allowed to eat the cereal Lucky Charms as the word "luck" reminded their mother of Lucifer, and had to call deviled eggs "angeled eggs". Perry primarily listened to gospel music, as secular music was generally discouraged in the family's home. She discovered popular music through CDs she sneaked from her friends. Perry later recalled a story about how a friend of hers played "You Oughta Know" by Alanis Morissette, which impacted her songwriting and singing.
While not strictly identifying as religious, she has stated, "I pray all the time – for self-control, for humility." Wanting to be like her sister Angela, Perry began singing by practicing with her sister's cassette tapes. She performed the tracks in front of their parents, who let her take vocal lessons as Angela was at the time. She began training at age nine, and was incorporated into her parents' ministry, singing in church from ages nine to 17. At 13, Perry was given her first guitar for her birthday, and publicly performed songs she wrote. She tried to "be a bit like the typical Californian girl" while growing up, and started rollerskating, skateboarding, and surfing as a teenager. Her brother David described her as a tomboy during her adolescence, which Perry talks about on her song "One Of The Boys". She took dancing lessons and learned how to swing, Lindy Hop, and jitterbug.
1999–2006: Career beginnings, Katy Hudson and Fingerprints
Perry completed her General Educational Development (GED) requirements at age 15, during her first year of high school, and left Dos Pueblos High School to pursue a music career. She briefly had music lessons in facilities rented from the Music Academy of the West. Her singing caught the attention of rock artists Steve Thomas and Jennifer Knapp from Nashville, Tennessee, who brought her there to improve her writing skills. In Nashville, she started recording demos and learned how to write songs and play guitar. Perry signed with Red Hill Records and recorded her debut album, a contemporary Christian record titled Katy Hudson, which was released on March 6, 2001. She also went on tour that year as part of Phil Joel's Strangely Normal Tour and embarked on other performances of her own in the United States. Katy Hudson received mixed reviews from critics and was commercially unsuccessful, selling an estimated 200 copies before the label ceased operations in December. Transitioning from gospel music to secular music, Perry started working with producer Glen Ballard, and moved to Los Angeles at age 17. She opted to work with Ballard due to his past work with Alanis Morissette, one of her major inspirations. In 2003, she briefly performed as Katheryn Perry to avoid confusion with actress Kate Hudson. She later adopted the stage name 'Katy Perry', using her mother's maiden name. In 2010, she recalled that "Thinking of You" was one of the first songs she wrote after moving to Los Angeles.
In 2004, she signed to Ballard's label, Java Records, which was then affiliated with The Island Def Jam Music Group. Perry began work on a solo record due for release in March 2005, but the record was shelved after Java was dropped. Ballard then introduced her to Tim Devine, an A&R executive at Columbia Records, and she was signed as a solo artist. By November 2006, Perry had finished writing and recording material for her Columbia debut titled Fingerprints (with some of the material from this time appearing on One of the Boys) which was planned for release in 2007. Some of the material from Fingerprints that did not make it on One Of The Boys was given to other artists, such as "I Do Not Hook Up" and "Long Shot" to Kelly Clarkson and "Rock God" to Selena Gomez & the Scene.
Perry worked with songwriters including Desmond Child, Greg Wells, Butch Walker, Scott Cutler, Anne Preven, The Matrix, Kara DioGuardi, Max Martin, and Dr. Luke. In addition, after Devine suggested that songwriting team The Matrix become a "real group", she recorded a shelved album called The Matrix with them. The Matrix was planned to be released in 2004 but was cancelled due to creative differences. It was later released in 2009 after the release of One of the Boys. Perry was dropped from Columbia in 2006 as Fingerprints neared completion. After the label dropped her, she worked at an independent A&R company called Taxi Music.
Perry had minor success prior to her breakthrough. One of the songs she had recorded for her album with Ballard, "Simple", was featured on the soundtrack to the 2005 film The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. She provided backing vocals on Mick Jagger's song "Old Habits Die Hard", which was included on the soundtrack to the 2004 film Alfie. In September 2004, Blender named Perry "The Next Big Thing". She recorded background vocals on P.O.D.'s single "Goodbye for Now", was featured at the end of its music video in 2006, and performed it with them on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. That year, Perry also appeared in the music video for "Learn to Fly" by Carbon Leaf, and played the love interest of her then-boyfriend, Gym Class Heroes lead singer Travie McCoy, in the band's music video for "Cupid's Chokehold".
2007–2009: Breakthrough with One of the Boys
After Columbia dropped Perry, Angelica Cob-Baehler, then a publicity executive at the label, brought Perry's demos to Virgin Records chairman Jason Flom. Flom was convinced that she could be a breakthrough star and she was signed to Capitol Records in April 2007. The label arranged for her to work with Dr. Luke to add an "undeniable smash" to her existing material. Perry and Dr. Luke co-wrote the songs "I Kissed a Girl" and "Hot n Cold" for her second album One of the Boys. A campaign was started with the November 2007 release of the video to "Ur So Gay", a song aimed at introducing her to the music market. A digital EP of the same name was also released that month. Madonna helped publicize the song by praising it on the JohnJay & Rich radio show in April 2008, stating "Ur So Gay" was her "favorite song" at the time. In March 2008, Perry made a cameo appearance as a club singer in the Wildfire episode "Life's Too Short" and appeared as herself during a photo shoot that June on The Young and the Restless for the show's magazine Restless Style.
Perry released her first single with Capitol, "I Kissed a Girl", on April 28, 2008, as the lead single from One of the Boys. The first station to pick up the song was WRVW in Nashville, who were inundated with enthusiastic calls the first three days they played it. The track reached number one on the US Billboard Hot 100. "I Kissed a Girl" created controversy among both religious and LGBT groups. The former criticized its homosexual theme, while the latter accused her of using bi-curiosity to sell records. In response to speculation that her parents opposed her music and career, Perry told MTV that they had no problems with her success. One of the Boys, released on June 17, 2008, garnered mixed critical reviews and reached number nine on the US Billboard 200. The album went on to sell 7 million copies worldwide. "Hot n Cold" was released the following September and became the album's second successful single, reaching number three on the Billboard Hot 100 while topping charts in Germany, Canada, the Netherlands and Austria. Later singles "Thinking of You" and "Waking Up in Vegas" were released in 2009 and reached the top 30 of the Hot 100. The Matrix's self-titled debut album, which Perry had recorded with the band in 2004, was released onto iTunes on January 27, 2009, as a result of her solo success.
After finishing the 2008 Warped Tour, Perry hosted the 2008 MTV Europe Music Awards in November 2008, where she won the award for Best New Act. At the 2009 Brit Awards, she also won the award for International Female Solo Artist. Perry embarked on her first headlining world tour, the Hello Katy Tour, from January to November 2009 to support One of the Boys. On August 4, 2009, she performed as opening act for one date of No Doubt's 2009 Summer Tour. Perry also hosted the 2009 MTV Europe Music Awards in November 2009, becoming the first person to host two consecutive ceremonies of the European awards. On July 22, 2009, Perry recorded a live album titled MTV Unplugged, which featured acoustic performances of five tracks from One of the Boys as well as one new song, "Brick by Brick", and a cover of Fountains of Wayne's "Hackensack". It was released on November 17, 2009. Perry also appeared on two singles with other artists; she was featured on a remix of Colorado-based band 3OH!3's song "Starstrukk" in September 2009, and on a duet with Timbaland entitled "If We Ever Meet Again", from his album Shock Value II, three months later. The Guinness World Records recognized her in its 2010 edition as the "Best Start on the U.S. Digital Chart by a Female Artist", for digital single sales of over two million copies.
After Perry and Travie McCoy split up in December 2008, they briefly reconciled before she ended their relationship in 2009. Perry met her future husband Russell Brand in the summer of 2009 while filming a cameo appearance for his film Get Him to the Greek. Her scene, in which the two kiss, does not appear in the film. She began dating Brand after meeting him again that September at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards. The couple became engaged on December 31, 2009, while vacationing in Rajasthan, India.
2010–2012: Teenage Dream and first marriage
After serving as a guest judge on American Idol, Perry released "California Gurls" featuring Snoop Dogg on May 7, 2010. The song was the lead single from her third studio album, Teenage Dream, and reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in June. She also served as a guest judge on British The X Factor later that month before releasing the album's second single, "Teenage Dream", in July. "Teenage Dream" reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in September. Released on August 24, 2010, Teenage Dream debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, and received mixed reviews from music critics. It has since sold 6 million copies worldwide. Teenage Dream would go on to win the 2011 Juno Award for International Album of the Year. In October, "Firework" was released as the album's third single. It became the album's third consecutive number one on the Billboard Hot 100 on December 8, 2010.
"E.T." featuring Kanye West was released as the fourth single from Teenage Dream on February 16, 2011. It topped the Billboard Hot 100 for five non-consecutive weeks, making Teenage Dream the ninth album in history to produce four number one singles on the chart. "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)" followed as the fifth single in June, and Perry became the first female artist to achieve five number-one Billboard Hot 100 songs from one album when the single topped that chart on August 17, and the second artist after Michael Jackson with his album Bad. For this record, she received an honorary American Music Award in November 2011 and a 2013 Guinness World Record. On September 7, she set a new record by becoming the first artist to spend 69 consecutive weeks in the top ten of the Hot 100. After "The One That Got Away" was released as the album's sixth single in October, Teenage Dream became the third album to spawn six top-five songs on the Billboard Hot 100 after Rhythm Nation 1814 by Janet Jackson and Faith by George Michael. The song peaked at number three in the US and number two in Canada.
On January 5, 2012, Perry was named the sixth best-selling digital artist in the United States, with sales of 37.6 million units according to Nielsen SoundScan. That month, she became the first artist to have four songs sell over 5 million digital units when "E.T." reached that mark along with "Firework", "California Gurls", and "Hot N Cold". On February 13, Capitol released the lead single from Teenage Dream: The Complete Confection, "Part of Me", which debuted at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and became Perry's seventh single overall to top the chart. Teenage Dream: The Complete Confection was released on March 23, and serves as a reissue of Teenage Dream. "Wide Awake" was released on May 22 as the re-release's second single, peaking at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 and number one in Canada and New Zealand.
Perry embarked on her second tour, the California Dreams Tour, in support of Teenage Dream from February 2011 to January 2012. The tour grossed $59.5 million globally and won her the award for Best Live Act at the 2011 MTV Europe Music Awards. On September 23, 2011, she performed on the opening day of the 2011 Rock in Rio festival along with Elton John and Rihanna. In September 2010, Perry was scheduled to appear on the 41st-season premiere of Sesame Street. After her scene was uploaded to YouTube, viewers criticized Perry's exposed cleavage. Four days before the scheduled airing, Sesame Workshop announced that the segment would not air on television, but would still be available to watch online. Perry subsequently mocked the controversy on Saturday Night Live, where she was a musical guest and wore an Elmo-themed shirt showing large amounts of cleavage during one skit.
In December 2010, Perry played Moe Szyslak's girlfriend in the live-action segment from a Christmas episode of The Simpsons titled "The Fight Before Christmas". In February 2011, she made a guest appearance on the How I Met Your Mother episode "Oh Honey", playing a woman known as Honey. The role won her the People's Choice Award for Favorite TV Guest Star in January 2012. She made her film debut in the 3D family motion picture The Smurfs as Smurfette on July 29, 2011. The film was a financial success worldwide, while critics gave mostly negative reviews. She hosted Saturday Night Live on December 10, 2011, with Robyn as the episode's musical guest. Perry's work on the episode received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised her performance in the episode's digital short featuring her and Andy Samberg. In March 2012, she guest starred as a prison security guard named Rikki on the Raising Hope episode "Single White Female Role Model". On July 5, 2012, Perry's autobiographical documentary Katy Perry: Part of Me was released to theaters through Paramount Pictures. The film received positive reviews and grossed $32.7 million worldwide at the box office.
Perry began to venture into business when she endorsed her first fragrance, Purr, in November 2010. Her second fragrance, Meow!, was released in December 2011. Both perfumes were released through Nordstrom department stores. Electronic Arts recruited her to promote their new expansion pack for The Sims 3: Showtime, before releasing a separate stuff pack featuring Perry-inspired furniture, outfits, and hairstyles, titled The Sims 3: Katy Perry's Sweet Treats, in June 2012. The following month, she became the spokesperson and ambassador for Popchips and made an investment in the company. Billboard dubbed her as their "Woman of the Year" for 2012.
She married Russell Brand on October 23, 2010, in a traditional Hindu ceremony near the Ranthambhore tiger sanctuary in Rajasthan, India. Brand announced on December 30, 2011, that they were divorcing after 14 months of marriage. Perry later stated that conflicting career schedules and his desire to have children before she was ready led to the end of their marriage and that he never spoke to her again after sending a text message that he was divorcing her, while Brand asserted that he divorced her due to her commercial success and reluctance to engage in activism. She was initially distraught over their divorce, and said that she contemplated suicide. After the marriage ended in 2012, Perry began a relationship with singer John Mayer that August.
2013–2015: Prism and Super Bowl XLIX halftime show
In November 2012, Perry began work on her fourth album, Prism. She told Billboard, "I know exactly the record I want to make next. I know the artwork, the coloring and the tone" and "I even know what type of tour I'm doing next. I'll be very pleased if the vision I have in my head becomes a reality." After initially telling L'Uomo Vogue in June 2012 that she planned to have "darker elements" in Prism following the end of her marriage, the singer revealed to MTV during the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards that she changed the album's direction after periods of self-reflection. Perry commented "I felt very prismatic", which inspired the album's name. "Roar" was released as the lead single from Prism on August 10, 2013. It was promoted at the MTV Video Music Awards and reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100. "Unconditionally" followed as the second single from Prism on October 16, 2013, and peaked at number 14 in the United States.
Prism was released on October 18, 2013, and has sold 4 million copies as of August 2015. It received favorable reviews from critics and debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 chart. Four days later, Perry performed the songs from the album at the iHeartRadio Theater in Los Angeles. "Dark Horse" with Juicy J was released as the album's third single in December, and became her ninth U.S. number-one single the following month. In 2014, "Birthday" and "This Is How We Do" respectively followed as the album's fourth and fifth singles, and reached the top 25 on the Hot 100. Prior to ending her relationship with Mayer in February 2014, she recorded and co-wrote a duet with him titled "Who You Love" for his album Paradise Valley. The song was released on August 12, 2013. Perry's third headlining tour, the Prismatic World Tour, began in May 2014 and concluded in October 2015. It sold almost 2 million tickets and grossed $204.3 million worldwide and won Perry the award for "Top Package" at the 2014 Billboard Touring Awards. She also performed at the 2015 Rock in Rio festival on September 27, 2015.
On November 23, 2014, the NFL announced that Perry would perform at the Super Bowl XLIX halftime show on February 1, 2015. Lenny Kravitz and Missy Elliott served as special guests for the show. Her performance was critically acclaimed, and the Guinness World Records announced two days after the singer's halftime show that it garnered 118.5 million viewers in the United States, becoming the most watched and highest rated show in Super Bowl history. The viewership was higher than the game itself, which was viewed by an audience of 114.4 million.
The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) ranked her fifth on the list of Top Global Recording Artists of 2013. On June 26, 2014, she was declared the Top Certified Digital Artist Ever by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for certified sales of 72 million digital singles in the United States. In May 2014, a portrait of Perry by painter Mark Ryden was featured in his exhibition "The Gay 90s", and shown at the Kohn Gallery in Los Angeles. Along with several other artists, she also recorded a cover version of the song "Daisy Bell (Bicycle Built for Two)" on a limited-edition concept album titled The Gay Nineties Old Tyme Music: Daisy Bell to accompany the exhibition. That month, a portrait of Perry by artist Will Cotton was included in the United States National Portrait Gallery. On November 23, 2015, Perry starred in H&M's holiday advertising campaign, for which she wrote and recorded a song titled "Every Day Is a Holiday".
On June 17, 2014, Perry announced that she had founded her own record label under Capitol Records, titled Metamorphosis Music. Ferras was the first artist to get signed to her label, and Perry served as an executive producer on his self-titled EP. She also recorded a duet with him on the EP, titled "Legends Never Die". The label was later renamed Unsub Records.
Outside of her music career, Perry reprised her role as Smurfette in The Smurfs 2, which was released in theaters on July 31, 2013. Like its predecessor, The Smurfs 2 was a financial success but was panned by critics. In March 2014, she made a guest appearance playing herself in the episode "Blisteritos Presents Dad Academy Graduation Congraduritos Red Carpet Viewing Party" of the Kroll Show. Killer Queen was released as her third fragrance in August 2013 through Coty, Inc. In January 2014, she became a guest curator of Madonna's Art for Freedom initiative. In March 2015, she appeared in Brand: A Second Coming, a documentary following her ex-husband Russell Brand's transition from comedy work to activism, and released a concert film titled Katy Perry: The Prismatic World Tour through Epix, which took place during her tour of the same name. Perry also made a cameo appearance in the music video for Madonna's song "Bitch I'm Madonna" in June 2015. The following month, she released another fragrance with Coty, entitled Mad Potion. In September 2015, she appeared in the documentaries Katy Perry: Making of the Pepsi Super Bowl Halftime Show, which followed Perry's preparation for her Super Bowl performance, and Jeremy Scott: The People's Designer, which followed the life and career of designer Jeremy Scott. Perry released a mobile app titled Katy Perry Pop in December 2015 through Glu Mobile where her character helps players become famous musicians. She described it as "the most fun, colorful world that helps guide your musical dreams".
2016–2018: Witness and American Idol
Perry started writing songs for her new album in June 2016, and recorded an anthem for NBC Sports's coverage of the 2016 Summer Olympics titled "Rise", which was released the following month. Perry chose to release it as a standalone track rather than save it for her album "because now more than ever, there is a need for our world to unite". NBC also felt its message spoke "directly to the spirit of the Olympics and its athletes" for its inspirational themes. The song reached number one in Australia and number eleven in the United States.
In August 2016, Perry stated that she aspired to create material "that connects and relates and inspires" and told Ryan Seacrest that she was "not rushing" her fifth album, adding "I'm just having a lot of fun, but experimenting and trying different producers, and different collaborators, and different styles". On February 10, 2017, Perry released the album's lead single "Chained to the Rhythm" featuring Skip Marley. It reached number one in Hungary and number four in the United States. The track was also streamed over three million times on Spotify within 24 hours, breaking the music streaming service's record at the time for the highest first-day streaming for a single track by a female artist. The album's second single, "Bon Appétit" with Migos, was released that April. Its third single, "Swish Swish", featured Nicki Minaj and followed the next month. They respectively peaked at numbers 59 and 46 in the United States, and made the top 15 in Canada.
The album, titled Witness, was released on June 9, 2017, to mixed reviews, and debuted at number one in the United States. To accompany the album's release, Perry broadcast herself on YouTube for four days with a live-stream titled Katy Perry Live: Witness World Wide, concluding with a live concert on June 12. The live-stream generated over 49 million views from 190 different countries. She also embarked on Witness: The Tour, which began in September 2017 and ended in August 2018. On June 15, 2017, Calvin Harris released a song titled "Feels" from his album Funk Wav Bounces Vol. 1, which featured Perry, Big Sean, and Pharrell Williams. The song went on to reach number one in the United Kingdom.
Perry subsequently recorded a cover of the Dear Evan Hansen song "Waving Through a Window" for the deluxe edition of the cast recording, which was released on November 2, 2018. The show's creators Benj Pasek and Justin Paul had requested Perry to cover the song to promote the musical's national tour and bring awareness to mental health. Later that month, Perry released "Cozy Little Christmas". She also recorded the song "Immortal Flame" for the game Final Fantasy Brave Exvius, and had a playable character modeled after her.
Outside of recording music, Perry appeared as herself in the film Zoolander 2, which was released in February 2016. In February 2017, the singer launched a shoe line titled "Katy Perry Collections". Her shoes are available on her website, Katy Perry Collections, and at retailers such as Dillard's and Walmart. The following August, she hosted the 2017 MTV Video Music Awards. Perry was signed for a $25-million salary to serve as a judge on ABC's revival of American Idol, which premiered in March 2018. Perry began a relationship with Orlando Bloom in early 2016, and the couple got engaged on February 14, 2019.
2019–present: Smile, motherhood and Play residency
At the 61st Annual Grammy Awards, Perry performed "Here You Come Again", alongside Dolly Parton and Kacey Musgraves, as part of a tribute to Parton. Four days later, she released a song called "365", with DJ Zedd. In April, Perry was included on a remix of Daddy Yankee's song "Con Calma", featuring Snow. She followed this with the singles "Never Really Over" on May 31, "Small Talk" on August 9, and "Harleys in Hawaii" on October 16.
In June 2019, Perry appeared in the music video of Taylor Swift's "You Need to Calm Down". In July, a jury in California passed a verdict following a week-long trial that Perry's song "Dark Horse" had copied Flame's 2008 song "Joyful Noise" after he filed a copyright lawsuit alleging that it used his track's beat without permission, which was later overturned. After the initial verdict, the jury ordered her to pay him $550,000. The next month, Josh Kloss, Perry's co-star in the "Teenage Dream" music video, accused her of sexual misconduct. In an Instagram post, Kloss alleged that, during a party at a skating rink, Perry pulled on his sweatpants and underwear, exposing his penis to her male friends. He also said her management prevented him from speaking about his time with the singer. However, Johnny Wujek, the creative director of said party defended Perry, saying that she "would never do something like that" and accused Kloss of having an "ongoing obsession" with her. After initially refraining from responding to this, believing it would have detracted from the Me Too movement, Perry has also denied Kloss's claims.
Following the release of her single "Never Worn White" in March 2020, Perry revealed in the accompanying music video that she was expecting her first child with Bloom. "Daisies", the lead single from her sixth album, was released on May 15, 2020. Its second single "Smile" followed two months later. The album, also titled Smile, was released on August 28, 2020. Two days before its distribution, she gave birth to a daughter named Daisy Dove Bloom. The album received mixed reviews, and debuted at number five in the United States. Perry further promoted the album with four compilation EPs: Camp Katy, Empowered, Scorpio SZN, and Cosmic Energy. These EPs were followed by the single "Not the End of the World" in December 2020, which had a music video in which Zooey Deschanel impersonates Perry. Additionally she collaborated with various artists to create two remixes of Smile album tracks. Tiësto remix of "Resillient" featuring Aitana was released in November 2020, while Bruno Martini remix of "Cry About It Later" featuring Luísa Sonza was released in April 2021. In January 20, 2021, Perry performed "Firework" at the Celebrating America concert during the inauguration of Joe Biden. Four months later, she released a new single, "Electric", a collaboration with Pokémon for their 25th anniversary.
Perry began hosting a residency named Play at Resorts World Las Vegas on December 29, 2021. The show's inception happened during the COVID-19 lockdown with Perry being inspired by 1990s movies such as Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, Pee-wee's Playhouse, and Pee-wee's Big Adventure. She described it as "larger than life" and "the kookiest, most camp show I've ever put together." The show has received critical acclaim with Melinda Sheckells of Billboard saying that "[Play's] sold-out opening night is part fantasy, part hallucination and thoroughly camp.
In September 2021, Variety paid tribute to and honored Perry on their "Power of Women" issue, where she discussed her career, motherhood, and philanthropy. As a nominee, she attended the Variety 2021 "Power of Women" dinner. On her 37th birthday the following month, Perry guest hosted The Ellen DeGeneres Show and starred in a holiday advertisement for Gap Inc. which featured her singing "All You Need Is Love" by The Beatles. A full version of her cover was released on streaming platforms the same day. Two months later, Perry followed this with "When I'm Gone", a collaboration with Alesso.
Artistry
Influences
Perry cites her sister Angela as the woman who has had the most influence on her. During the early stages of her career, Perry's musical style gravitated towards gospel and she aspired to be as successful as Amy Grant. At age 15, she heard "Killer Queen" by Queen, which inspired her to pursue a music career. She cites the band's frontman, Freddie Mercury, as her biggest influence and expressed how the "combination of his sarcastic approach to writing lyrics and his 'I don't give a fuck' attitude" inspired her music. She paid homage to the band by naming her third fragrance Killer Queen. Perry described the Beach Boys and their album Pet Sounds as having a considerable influence on her music: "Pet Sounds is one of my favorite records and it influenced pretty much all of my songwriting. All of the melody choices that I make are because of Pet Sounds." The singer also holds the Beatles' album The Beatles in high esteem, and described these two albums as "the only things I listened to for probably two years straight."
She cites Alanis Morissette and her 1995 album Jagged Little Pill as a significant musical inspiration, stating in 2012: "Jagged Little Pill was the most perfect female record ever made. There's a song for anyone on that record; I relate to all those songs. They're still so timeless." Additionally, Perry borrows influence from Flaming Red by Patty Griffin and 10 Cent Wings by Jonatha Brooke. Perry's autobiographical documentary Katy Perry: Part of Me was largely influenced by Madonna: Truth or Dare. She admires Madonna's ability to reinvent herself, saying "I want to evolve like Madonna".
Perry names Björk as an influence, particularly admiring her "willingness to always be taking chances". Other artists who Perry has cited as influences include Stevie Nicks, ABBA, the Cardigans, Cyndi Lauper, Ace of Base, 3OH!3, CeCe Peniston, C+C Music Factory, Black Box, Crystal Waters, Mariah Carey, Heart, Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, Imogen Heap, Rufus Wainwright, Pink, and Gwen Stefani. "Firework" was inspired by a passage in the book On the Road by Jack Kerouac in which the author compares people who are full of life to fireworks that shoot across the sky and make people watch in awe. Her second concert tour, the California Dreams Tour, was reminiscent of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. She also credits the 1996 film The Craft for inspiring her song "Dark Horse", and Eckhart Tolle's book The Power of Now for influencing Prism.
Musical style and themes
While Perry's music incorporates pop, rock, and disco, Katy Hudson contains gospel. Her subsequent releases, One of the Boys and Teenage Dream, involve themes of sex and love. One of the Boys is a pop rock record, while Teenage Dream features disco influences. Perry's fourth album, Prism, is significantly influenced by dance and pop music. Lyrically, the album addresses relationships, self-reflection, and everyday life. Her fifth studio effort Witness is an electropop album that she described as a "360-degree liberation" record, with themes including political liberation, sexual liberation, and liberation from negativity. Many of her songs, particularly on Teenage Dream, reflect on love between teenagers; W magazine described the album's sexual innuendos as "irresistible hook-laden melodies". Self-empowerment is a common theme in Perry's music.
Perry has described herself as a "singer-songwriter masquerading as a pop star" and maintains that honest songwriting is very important to her. She told Marie Claire: "I feel like my secret magic trick that separates me from a lot of my peers is the bravery to be vulnerable and truthful and honest. I think you become more relatable when you're vulnerable." Actress and comedian Kristen Wiig commented that "as easy, breezy, and infectious as Perry's songs can be, beneath the surface lurks a sea of mixed emotions, jumbled motives, and contradictory impulses complicated enough to fill a Carole King record." According to Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune, "being taken seriously may be Perry's greatest challenge yet." In 2013, The New York Times labeled her "the most potent pop star of the day – her hits are relatable with just a hint of experimentation". Randall Roberts of the Los Angeles Times criticized her use of idioms and metaphors in her lyrics and for frequent "clichés". Throughout her career, Perry has also co-written songs recorded by other artists, including Lesley Roy, Kelly Clarkson, Jessie James Decker, Selena Gomez & the Scene, Britney Spears, Iggy Azalea, Rita Ora, Nicki Minaj, and Ariana Grande.
Voice
Perry possesses a contralto vocal range. Her singing has received both praise and criticism. Betty Clarke of The Guardian commented that her "powerful voice is hard-edged" while Rob Sheffield from Rolling Stone described Perry's vocals on Teenage Dream as "processed staccato blips". Darren Harvey of musicOMH compared Perry's vocals on One of the Boys to Alanis Morissette's, both possessing a "perky voice shifting octaves mid-syllable". Alex Miller from NME felt that "Perry's problem is often her voice" on One of the Boys, stating that "somewhere along the line someone convinced her she was like, well, a ballsy rock chick". Conversely, Bernadette McNulty from The Daily Telegraph praised her "rock chick voice" in a review of a concert promoting Prism.
Public image
On social media, Perry surpassed Justin Bieber as the most followed person on Twitter in November 2013. She won the 2015 Guinness World Record for most Twitter followers, and became the first person to gain 100 million followers on the site in June 2017. Keith Caulfield of Billboard stated that Perry is "the rare celebrity who seems to have enormous popularity but genuine ground-level interaction with her adoring KatyCats." With over 108 Twitter million followers, she is the most followed female on the site, and the fifth most followed musician across social media with a combined total of over 326 million followers across Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. In June 2017, Time magazine listed Perry among its "25 Most Influential People on the Internet" of the year, writing that her live-stream for Witness was "blazing a trail" for being "the closest any major entertainer has come to giving fans the kind of 'real' intimacy that social media purports to provide".
In 2011, Forbes ranked Perry third on their "Top-Earning Women In Music" list with earnings of $44 million and fifth on their 2012 list with $45 million. She subsequently ranked seventh on the 2013 Forbes list for "Top-Earning Women In Music" with $39 million earned, and fifth on their 2014 list with $40 million. With earnings of $135 million, Forbes also ranked Perry number one on their 2015 "Top-Earning Women In Music" list as well as the "World's Highest-Paid Musicians" and declared her the highest earning female celebrity in 2015, placing her at number 3 on the Forbes Celebrity 100 list. In 2016, the magazine estimated her net worth was $125 million, and ranked her number six on their list of "Highest-Paid Women in Music" with earnings of $41 million. The following year, she was ranked number nine on the list with $33 million. In 2018, she topped its "Highest-Paid Women in Music" listing and ranked at number four on the "Highest-Paid Female Celebrities" list with earnings of $83 million. Perry subsequently was placed at number four on the 2019 "Highest-Paid Women in Music" listings with $57.5 million. Later that year, with earnings of $530 million throughout the 2010s, the magazine also ranked her as the 9th highest earning musician of the decade.
Fashion
Perry has been described as a sex symbol; GQ labeled her a "full-on male fantasy", while Elle wrote her body looked "as though sketched by a teenage boy". Vice called her a serious' popstar/woman/sex symbol". She was placed at number one on the Maxim Hot 100 in 2010 as the "most beautiful woman in the world", with editor Joe Levy describing her as a "triple – no quadruple – kind of hot". Men's Health readers voted her the "sexiest woman of 2013". In November 2010, Perry told Harper's Bazaar that she was proud of and satisfied with her figure.
Perry's fashion often incorporates humor, bright colors, and food-related themes such as her characteristic spinning peppermint swirl dress. Vogue described her as "never exactly one to shy away from the outrageous or the extreme in any realm" and called her the "Queen of Camp". while Glamour named her the "queen of quirk". In February 2009, Perry told Seventeen that her fashion style was "a bit of a concoction of different things" and stated she enjoyed humor in her clothing. She has also described herself as having "multipersonality disorder" for fashion. Perry lists Gwen Stefani, Shirley Manson, Chloë Sevigny, Daphne Guinness, Natalie Portman, and the fictional character Lolita as her style icons. Elle described her as "the kitsch-loving pop star renowned for her uniquely experimental style" while Vogue described her style as "synonymous with outrageous, eye-catching ensembles that lean towards the theatrical."
During the 2017 launch of her shoe collection, Katy Perry Collections, she said about shoes: "When I first got to L.A., I cultivated my style on a budget, always shopping at thrift stores or vintage stores. … Once, I found these flats that looked like Dalmatian dogs. They had ears that moved and a tongue that stuck out. They were such a conversation piece. That's what is so great about fashion. … It's a form of communication. You don't have to start a smoking habit to start talking to someone. You can just wear cool shoes. It's an icebreaker."
Legacy and influence
Several media outlets such as Billboard and Glamour have referred to her as the "Queen of Pop", while Vogue has dubbed Perry the "Queen of Camp" and a "pop icon." Andrew Unterberger of Billboard described Teenage Dream "one of the defining LPs from a new golden age in mega-pop" while Christopher Rosa of Glamour named her as an influence to the pop sound and style of the 2010s, adding that her singles are "some of the most recognizable, iconic, and impactful hits in pop history." Perry was named "one of the last decade's most reliable and successful hitmakers" by the Official Charts Company in 2022.
Additionally, Perry was included in Glamour's "104 Women Who Defined the [2010s] in Pop Culture" list, saying: "[Perry] did more than just break chart records. She was one of the driving forces behind the sound of pop radio in the 2010s. [...] glossy, booming, sugary-sweet, and undeniably catchy." Variety included Perry in their Variety 500 list of the most influential business leaders, calling her a "global phenomenon" and a "dedicated artist and tireless self-promoter who has leveraged chart-topping hits, sold-out stadium shows, and staggering endorsement deals to become one of the richest and most influential pop stars alive." She has been called a "gay icon" by Taylor Henderson of Out, noting how "I Kissed a Girl" helped fans explore their sexuality and how Perry openly embraced the LGBTQ+ community.
Perry's music has been described by Out as having a "lasting legacy", with American singers Fletcher sampling "I Kissed a Girl" and Olivia Rodrigo referencing Teenage Dream on "Brutal". Additionally, other artists such as Halsey and Ariana Grande have praised Perry's work, with Halsey calling Teenage Dream the "perfect pop album" and Grande saying "The One That Got Away" is "one of the biggest and most perfectly written pop songs ever from one of the best pop albums of all time". Perry and her work have influenced artists such as Lil Nas X, Halsey, Lorde, Rina Sawayama, Doja Cat, Ellie Goulding, Tegan and Sara, Kim Petras, and Coldplay.
Other ventures
Philanthropy
Perry has supported various charitable organizations and causes throughout her career. She has contributed to organizations aimed at improving the lives and welfare of children in particular. In April 2013, she joined UNICEF to assist children in Madagascar with education and nutrition. On December 3, 2013, she was officially named a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, "with a special focus on engaging young people in the agency's work to improve the lives of the world's most vulnerable children and adolescents." She arranged for a portion of the money generated from tickets to her Prismatic World Tour to go to UNICEF. In September 2010, she helped build and design the Boys Hope/Girls Hope foundation shelter for youth in Baltimore, Maryland along with Raven-Symoné, Shaquille O'Neal, and the cast of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. In 2010, Perry and Nicki Minaj performed a cover of "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" for service members during the 2010 VH1 Divas Salute the Troops concert.
She has also supported children's education and well-being. All profits from sales of the album The Gay Nineties Old Tyme Music: Daisy Bell, which includes her rendition of "Daisy Bell (Bicycle Built for Two)", were donated to the charity Little Kids Rock, which supports musical education in underprivileged elementary schools. In June 2014, she teamed up with Staples Inc. for a project entitled "Make Roar Happen" which donated $1 million to DonorsChoose, an organization that supports teachers and funds classroom resources in public schools. In May 2016, she worked with UNICEF to improve child care quality in Vietnam, hoping to "break the cycle of poverty and drastically improve children's health, education and well-being". The following month, UNICEF announced that Perry would receive the Audrey Hepburn Humanitarian Award "for her work as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in support of the world's most vulnerable children" at their annual Snowflake Ball in November. All Spotify streams of her 2021 cover of "All You Need Is Love" will generate $1 in donations for the charity Baby2Baby.
Perry has supported organizations aimed at aiding people suffering with diseases including cancer and HIV/AIDS. During the 2008 Warped Tour, she had a cast made of her breasts to raise money for the Keep A Breast Foundation. She hosted and performed at the We Can Survive concert along with Bonnie McKee, Kacey Musgraves, Sara Bareilles, Ellie Goulding, and duo Tegan and Sara at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, California, on October 23, 2013. The concert's profits were donated to Young Survival Coalition, an organization aiding breast cancer in young women. In June 2009, she designed an item of clothing for H&M's "Fashion Against AIDS" campaign, which raises money for HIV/AIDS awareness projects. On February 26, 2017, she served as a co-chair alongside various celebrities such as Beyoncé, Lea Michele, Jim Carrey, Jared Leto, and Kevin Spacey for the 25th Annual Elton John AIDS Foundation Academy Award Party, a fundraiser for HIV/AIDS healthcare.
The proceeds from Perry's single "Part of Me" were donated to the charity MusiCares, which helps musicians in times of need. During her California Dreams Tour, she raised over $175,000 for the Tickets-For-Charity fundraiser. The money was divided between three charities: the Children's Health Fund (CHF), Generosity Water, and The Humane Society of the United States.
On her 27th birthday, Perry set up a donations page for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Auckland, and set up a similar page benefiting the David Lynch Foundation for her 28th birthday. On March 29, 2014, she helped raise $2.4 million for the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles along with other celebrities such as Ryan Seacrest, Pharrell Williams, Tim Allen, Lisa Edelstein, and Riley Keough.
Perry performed at the One Love Manchester benefit concert for the victims of the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing, among various performers including its organizer Ariana Grande, which was broadcast live on June 4, 2017, on radio and television stations around the world. In March 2018, Perry announced Witness: Coming Home, a benefit concert that was held in her hometown of Santa Barbara on May 19, 2018. The concert benefited those recovering from the aftermath of the 2017 California wildfires and 2018 Southern California mudflows. Perry partnered with the Santa Barbara Foundation, the 93108 Fund and The 805 UndocuFund, organizations which help in assisting members of the community in the Santa Barbara area through grants and various philanthropic efforts.
Activism
Perry has publicly advocated for LGBT rights and admitted that she wrote "I Kissed a Girl" about her own bisexual experiences with other women. In 2017, she received a Nation Equality Award from Human Rights Campaign for "using her powerful voice and international platform to speak out for LGBTQ equality". In her acceptance speech, she discussed having bisexual experiences, her fluid sexuality, and thanked the LGBTQ+ community. In an Out interview in 2021, she was heralded as a "gay icon" with "I Kissed a Girl" being called a "bonafide queer anthem." She continued to thank the LGBTQ+ community in the same interview, saying: "I came from a very sheltered upbringing where it wasn't okay to be friends with anyone from that community. And now that is my community, [...] I wouldn't have survived without the community and it's amazing how full circle it's come and how much growth has happened since I started."
She supported Stonewall during their "It gets better..... today" campaign to prevent homophobic bullying, and dedicated the music video to her song "Firework" to the It Gets Better Project. In 2008, Perry told Do Something she was proud to be a LGBT rights activist, saying "I've always been a very open-minded person, but I definitely believe in equality." In June 2012, Perry expressed her hopes for LGBT equality, commenting "hopefully, we will look back at this moment and think like we do now concerning [other] civil rights issues. We'll just shake our heads in disbelief, saying, 'Thank God we've evolved.' That would be my prayer for the future." In December 2012, Perry was awarded the Trevor Hero Award by The Trevor Project for her work and activism on behalf of LGBT youth.
Perry identifies as a feminist, and appeared in April 2013 in a video clip for the "Chime for Change" campaign that aimed to spread female empowerment. She has also said that America's lack of free health care drove her "absolutely crazy". Following the shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando in June 2016, Perry and nearly 200 other artists and executives in music signed an open letter organized by Billboard addressed to United States Congress demanding increased gun control in the United States.
Through Twitter and by performing at rallies, Perry supported President Barack Obama in his run for re-election and praised his support for same-sex marriage and LGBT equality. She performed at three rallies for Obama, in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Wisconsin, singing a rendition of "Let's Stay Together" as well as a number of her songs. During her Las Vegas performance she wore a dress made to replicate a voting ballot, with Obama's box filled in. On Twitter, she encouraged her followers to vote for Obama.
In August 2013, Perry voiced criticism of Tony Abbott, then-leader of conservative Liberal Party of Australia and candidate for Prime Minister of Australia, due to his opposition to gay marriage and told Abbott, "I love you as a human being but I can't give you my vote."; the statement came after Abbott expressed pride at learning of Perry's then-upcoming performance in Australia. In April 2014, she publicly supported Marianne Williamson in her campaign for California's 33rd congressional district by attending a political press event. She endorsed Kamala Harris in the United States Senate election in California, and organized a fundraiser for Harris at her home in Los Angeles in November 2016. Perry also publicly endorsed former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for president in 2016. She performed alongside Elton John at a fundraising concert for Clinton in New York City in March 2016. Perry also spoke and performed at the 2016 Democratic National Convention in support of Clinton. Four years later, she supported Joe Biden and Kamala Harris during the 2020 United States presidential election, praising the latter as a leader who had "experience we desperately need right now" and believed that the former "choosing her as his running mate is already a testament to his decision making".
Achievements
Throughout her career, Perry has won five American Music Awards, fourteen People's Choice Awards, four Guinness World Records, a Brit Award, and a Juno Award. In September 2012, Billboard dubbed her the "Woman of the Year". From May 2010 to September 2011, the singer spent a record-breaking 69 consecutive weeks in the top ten of the Billboard Hot 100. Teenage Dream became the first album by a female artist to produce five number-one Billboard Hot 100 singles, and the second album overall after Michael Jackson's Bad. In the United States, she has accumulated nine number-one singles on the Billboard Hot 100, her most recent being "Dark Horse", and holds the record for having 18 consecutive number-one songs on the Billboard Dance Club Songs chart.
Billboard also named her the 15th most successful dance club artist of all time. The magazine additionally ranked her 4th on its "Greatest of All Time Pop Songs Artists" list, included Teenage Dream and Prism among its "Greatest of All Time Billboard 200 Albums by Women" list, and ranked "Dark Horse" at number 100 on its "Greatest of All Time Hot 100 Songs" as well as one of its "Greatest of All Time Hot 100 Songs by Women" along with "E.T.", "Firework", and "California Gurls". In June 2015, her music video for "Dark Horse" became the first video by a female artist to reach 1 billion views on Vevo. The following month, her music video for "Roar" reached 1 billion views on Vevo, making her the first artist to have multiple videos with 1 billion views.
Perry was declared the Top Global Female Recording Artist of 2013 by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI). According to Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), she is the fifth top digital singles artist in the United States, with 105 million certified song units in the country including on-demand streams and also has 11 million certified album units, totaling 116 million certified units in the nation. She also became the first artist to have three songs receive Diamond certifications from the RIAA with "Dark Horse", "Firework", and "Roar". All three of them and "E.T.", "California Gurls", and "Hot n Cold" have each sold over 5 million digital copies. Throughout her career, Perry has sold more than 18 million albums and 125 million singles globally, making her one of the best-selling music artists of all time.
Discography
Katy Hudson (2001)
One of the Boys (2008)
Teenage Dream (2010)
Prism (2013)
Witness (2017)
Smile (2020)
Filmography
The Smurfs (2011)
Katy Perry: Part of Me (2012)
The Smurfs 2 (2013)
Brand: A Second Coming (2015)
Katy Perry: The Prismatic World Tour (2015)
Katy Perry: Making of the Pepsi Super Bowl Halftime Show (2015)
Jeremy Scott: The People's Designer (2015)
Zoolander 2 (2016)
Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (2016)
Tours and residency
Co-headlining tour
Strangely Normal Tour (with Phil Joel) (2001)
Headlining tours
Hello Katy Tour (2009)
California Dreams Tour (2011–2012)
Prismatic World Tour (2014–2015)
Witness: The Tour (2017–2018)
Residency
Play (2021–2022)
See also
List of best-selling music artists
List of most-followed Twitter accounts
List of Billboard Social 50 number-one artists
List of highest-certified music artists in the United States
Best-selling female artists of all time
References
Footnotes
Sources
External links
1984 births
Living people
21st-century American guitarists
21st-century American singers
21st-century American women singers
21st-century American women guitarists
Activists from California
American contraltos
American disco singers
American women pop singers
American women rock singers
American women singer-songwriters
American feminists
American film actresses
American performance artists
American pop guitarists
American pop rock singers
American rock guitarists
American rock songwriters
American television actresses
American women activists
American voice actresses
American women in electronic music
Brit Award winners
Capitol Records artists
Columbia Records artists
Dance-pop musicians
Def Jam Recordings artists
Feminist musicians
Guitarists from California
Island Records artists
Juno Award for International Album of the Year winners
LGBT rights activists from the United States
Musicians from Santa Barbara, California
MTV Europe Music Award winners
Participants in American reality television series
Singer-songwriters from California
UNICEF Goodwill Ambassadors | true | [
"Přírodní park Třebíčsko (before Oblast klidu Třebíčsko) is a natural park near Třebíč in the Czech Republic. There are many interesting plants. The park was founded in 1983.\n\nKobylinec and Ptáčovský kopeček\n\nKobylinec is a natural monument situated ca 0,5 km from the village of Trnava.\nThe area of this monument is 0,44 ha. Pulsatilla grandis can be found here and in the Ptáčovský kopeček park near Ptáčov near Třebíč. Both monuments are very popular for tourists.\n\nPonds\n\nIn the natural park there are some interesting ponds such as Velký Bor, Malý Bor, Buršík near Přeckov and a brook Březinka. Dams on the brook are examples of European beaver activity.\n\nSyenitové skály near Pocoucov\n\nSyenitové skály (rocks of syenit) near Pocoucov is one of famed locations. There are interesting granite boulders. The area of the reservation is 0,77 ha.\n\nExternal links\nParts of this article or all article was translated from Czech. The original article is :cs:Přírodní park Třebíčsko.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nNature near the village Trnava which is there\n\nTřebíč\nParks in the Czech Republic\nTourist attractions in the Vysočina Region",
"Damn Interesting is an independent website founded by Alan Bellows in 2005. The website presents true stories from science, history, and psychology, primarily as long-form articles, often illustrated with original artwork. Works are written by various authors, and published at irregular intervals. The website openly rejects advertising, relying on reader and listener donations to cover operating costs.\n\nAs of October 2012, each article is also published as a podcast under the same name. In November 2019, a second podcast was launched under the title Damn Interesting Week, featuring unscripted commentary on an assortment of news articles featured on the website's \"Curated Links\" section that week. In mid-2020, a third podcast called Damn Interesting Curio Cabinet began highlighting the website's periodic short-form articles in the same radioplay format as the original podcast.\n\nIn July 2009, Damn Interesting published the print book Alien Hand Syndrome through Workman Publishing. It contains some favorites from the site and some exclusive content.\n\nAwards and recognition \nIn August 2007, PC Magazine named Damn Interesting one of the \"Top 100 Undiscovered Web Sites\".\nThe article \"The Zero-Armed Bandit\" by Alan Bellows won a 2015 Sidney Award from David Brooks in The New York Times.\nThe article \"Ghoulish Acts and Dastardly Deeds\" by Alan Bellows was cited as \"nonfiction journalism from 2017 that will stand the test of time\" by Conor Friedersdorf in The Atlantic.\nThe article \"Dupes and Duplicity\" by Jennifer Lee Noonan won a 2020 Sidney Award from David Brooks in the New York Times.\n\nAccusing The Dollop of plagiarism \n\nOn July 9, 2015, Bellows posted an open letter accusing The Dollop, a comedy podcast about history, of plagiarism due to their repeated use of verbatim text from Damn Interesting articles without permission or attribution. Dave Anthony, the writer of The Dollop, responded on reddit, admitting to using Damn Interesting content, but claiming that the use was protected by fair use, and that \"historical facts are not copyrightable.\" In an article about the controversy on Plagiarism Today, Jonathan Bailey concluded, \"Any way one looks at it, The Dollop failed its ethical obligations to all of the people, not just those writing for Damn Interesting, who put in the time, energy and expertise into writing the original content upon which their show is based.\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Official website\n\n2005 podcast debuts"
] |
[
"Katy Perry",
"1999-2006: Career beginnings",
"when was katy parry's first album under her stage name?",
"March 6, 2001,",
"what did she do between 1999 and 2001?",
"2001, and went on tour that year as part of Phil Joel's Strangely Normal Tour while also embarking on other performances of her own in the United States.",
"Was her first album as Katy Perry a hit?",
"Katy Hudson received positive reviews from critics, though was commercially unsuccessful",
"When did Perry start gaining commercial success?",
"2005",
"What was it that started gaining her popularity?",
"One of the songs she had recorded for her album with Ballard,",
"Which album did she record with Ballard?",
"I don't know.",
"did she do more than record albums during this time?",
"Perry wrote and recorded material",
"what kind of material did she record during this time?",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Perry had minor success prior to her breakthrough."
] | C_29e64ee43f0547139a7c08bceed86ff2_1 | Where was Perry most successful before her breakthrough? | 10 | Where was Perry most successful before Perry's breakthrough? | Katy Perry | Perry completed her General Educational Development (GED) requirements at age 15, during her freshman year of high school, and left Dos Pueblos High School to pursue a musical career. She briefly studied Italian opera at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara. Her singing caught the attention of rock artists Steve Thomas and Jennifer Knapp from Nashville, Tennessee, who brought her there to improve her writing skills. In Nashville, she started recording demos and learned how to write songs and play guitar. After signing with Red Hill Records, Perry recorded her debut album, a gospel record titled Katy Hudson. She released the album on March 6, 2001, and went on tour that year as part of Phil Joel's Strangely Normal Tour while also embarking on other performances of her own in the United States. Katy Hudson received positive reviews from critics, though was commercially unsuccessful and sold an estimated 200 copies before the label ceased operations in December. Transitioning from gospel music to secular music, Perry started writing songs with producer Glen Ballard, and moved to Los Angeles at age 17. In 2003, she briefly performed as Katheryn Perry to avoid confusion with actress Kate Hudson. She later adopted the stage name Katy Perry, using her mother's maiden name. In 2004, Perry signed to Ballard's label, Java, which was then affiliated with The Island Def Jam Music Group. She began work on a solo record, but the record was shelved after Java was dropped. Ballard then introduced Perry to Tim Devine, an A&R executive at Columbia Records, and she was signed as a solo artist. Over the course of the next two years, Perry wrote and recorded material for her Columbia debut, and worked with songwriters including Desmond Child, Greg Wells, Butch Walker, Scott Cutler, Anne Preven, The Matrix, Kara DioGuardi, Max Martin and Dr. Luke. In addition, after Devine suggested that songwriting team The Matrix become a "real group", Perry recorded with them. Perry was dropped from Columbia in 2006 as her record neared completion. After the label dropped her, she worked at an independent A&R company called Taxi Music. Perry had minor success prior to her breakthrough. One of the songs she had recorded for her album with Ballard, "Simple", was featured on the soundtrack to the 2005 film The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. She provided backing vocals on Mick Jagger's song "Old Habits Die Hard", which was included on the soundtrack to the 2004 film Alfie. In September 2004, Blender named Perry "The Next Big Thing". She recorded background vocals on P.O.D.'s single "Goodbye for Now" and was featured at the end of its music video in 2006. That year, Perry also appeared in the music video for "Learn to Fly" by Carbon Leaf, and played the love interest of her then-boyfriend, Gym Class Heroes lead singer Travie McCoy, in the band's music video for "Cupid's Chokehold". CANNOTANSWER | One of the songs she had recorded for her album with Ballard, "Simple", was featured on the soundtrack to the 2005 film The Sisterhood | Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson (born October 25, 1984), known professionally as Katy Perry, is an American singer, songwriter, and television judge. She is known for her influence on the pop sound and style of the 2010s. Pursuing a career in gospel music at 16, Perry released her commercially unsuccessful debut album, Katy Hudson (2001), under Red Hill Records. She moved to Los Angeles at 17 to venture into secular music, adopting the stage name "Katy Perry" from her mother's maiden name. With producers Glen Ballard and Greg Wells, she recorded an unreleased album titled Fingerprints while signed to Java Records and then Columbia Records before being dropped. After this, she signed a recording contract with Capitol Records in April 2007.
Perry rose to fame with her second album and major label debut, One of the Boys (2008), a pop rock record containing her debut single "I Kissed a Girl" and follow-up single "Hot n Cold", which respectively reached number one and three on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. The disco-influenced pop album Teenage Dream (2010) spawned five U.S. number one singles—"California Gurls", "Teenage Dream", "Firework", "E.T.", and "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)"—becoming the first album by a solo female artist to do so. A reissue titled Teenage Dream: The Complete Confection (2012) subsequently had the U.S. number one single "Part of Me". Her fourth album Prism (2013) has themes of self-empowerment and relationships. With the music videos for its U.S. number one singles "Roar" and "Dark Horse", Perry became the first artist to have multiple videos reach one billion views on YouTube. Witness (2017) featured an electropop sound with themes of liberation and a political subtext, while Smile (2020) featured themes of motherhood and self-help. She later embarked on her first concert residency titled Play in Resorts World Las Vegas, selling out multiple shows and receiving critical acclaim.
Perry is one of the best-selling artists of all time, having sold over 143 million records worldwide. All of her studio albums released under Capitol have individually surpassed one billion streams on Spotify. She has nine U.S. number one singles, three U.S. number one albums and has received various accolades, including four Guinness World Records, five Billboard Music Awards, five American Music Awards, a Brit Award, and a Juno Award. Perry has been included in the annual Forbes lists of highest-earning women in music from 2011 to 2019. Her critically acclaimed Super Bowl halftime show performance is the most watched in history. Outside of music, she released an autobiographical documentary titled Katy Perry: Part of Me in 2012, and voiced Smurfette in The Smurfs film series. Perry began serving as a judge on American Idol, starting from its sixteenth season in 2018. She is also the most followed woman on Twitter, with over 108 million followers.
Life and career
1984–1998: Early life and family
Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson was born on October 25, 1984, in Santa Barbara, California, to Pentecostal pastors Mary Christine (née Perry) and Maurice Keith Hudson. Both of her parents turned to religion after a "wild youth". Perry has English, German, Irish, and Portuguese ancestry. Through her mother, she is a niece of film director Frank Perry. She has a younger brother named David, who is a singer, and an older sister, Angela.
From ages three to 11, Perry often moved across the country as her parents set up churches before settling again in Santa Barbara. Growing up, she attended religious schools and camps, including Paradise Valley Christian School in Arizona and Santa Barbara Christian School in California during her elementary years. Her family struggled financially, sometimes using food stamps and eating food from the food bank which also fed the congregation at Perry's parents' church.
Growing up, Perry and her siblings were not allowed to eat the cereal Lucky Charms as the word "luck" reminded their mother of Lucifer, and had to call deviled eggs "angeled eggs". Perry primarily listened to gospel music, as secular music was generally discouraged in the family's home. She discovered popular music through CDs she sneaked from her friends. Perry later recalled a story about how a friend of hers played "You Oughta Know" by Alanis Morissette, which impacted her songwriting and singing.
While not strictly identifying as religious, she has stated, "I pray all the time – for self-control, for humility." Wanting to be like her sister Angela, Perry began singing by practicing with her sister's cassette tapes. She performed the tracks in front of their parents, who let her take vocal lessons as Angela was at the time. She began training at age nine, and was incorporated into her parents' ministry, singing in church from ages nine to 17. At 13, Perry was given her first guitar for her birthday, and publicly performed songs she wrote. She tried to "be a bit like the typical Californian girl" while growing up, and started rollerskating, skateboarding, and surfing as a teenager. Her brother David described her as a tomboy during her adolescence, which Perry talks about on her song "One Of The Boys". She took dancing lessons and learned how to swing, Lindy Hop, and jitterbug.
1999–2006: Career beginnings, Katy Hudson and Fingerprints
Perry completed her General Educational Development (GED) requirements at age 15, during her first year of high school, and left Dos Pueblos High School to pursue a music career. She briefly had music lessons in facilities rented from the Music Academy of the West. Her singing caught the attention of rock artists Steve Thomas and Jennifer Knapp from Nashville, Tennessee, who brought her there to improve her writing skills. In Nashville, she started recording demos and learned how to write songs and play guitar. Perry signed with Red Hill Records and recorded her debut album, a contemporary Christian record titled Katy Hudson, which was released on March 6, 2001. She also went on tour that year as part of Phil Joel's Strangely Normal Tour and embarked on other performances of her own in the United States. Katy Hudson received mixed reviews from critics and was commercially unsuccessful, selling an estimated 200 copies before the label ceased operations in December. Transitioning from gospel music to secular music, Perry started working with producer Glen Ballard, and moved to Los Angeles at age 17. She opted to work with Ballard due to his past work with Alanis Morissette, one of her major inspirations. In 2003, she briefly performed as Katheryn Perry to avoid confusion with actress Kate Hudson. She later adopted the stage name 'Katy Perry', using her mother's maiden name. In 2010, she recalled that "Thinking of You" was one of the first songs she wrote after moving to Los Angeles.
In 2004, she signed to Ballard's label, Java Records, which was then affiliated with The Island Def Jam Music Group. Perry began work on a solo record due for release in March 2005, but the record was shelved after Java was dropped. Ballard then introduced her to Tim Devine, an A&R executive at Columbia Records, and she was signed as a solo artist. By November 2006, Perry had finished writing and recording material for her Columbia debut titled Fingerprints (with some of the material from this time appearing on One of the Boys) which was planned for release in 2007. Some of the material from Fingerprints that did not make it on One Of The Boys was given to other artists, such as "I Do Not Hook Up" and "Long Shot" to Kelly Clarkson and "Rock God" to Selena Gomez & the Scene.
Perry worked with songwriters including Desmond Child, Greg Wells, Butch Walker, Scott Cutler, Anne Preven, The Matrix, Kara DioGuardi, Max Martin, and Dr. Luke. In addition, after Devine suggested that songwriting team The Matrix become a "real group", she recorded a shelved album called The Matrix with them. The Matrix was planned to be released in 2004 but was cancelled due to creative differences. It was later released in 2009 after the release of One of the Boys. Perry was dropped from Columbia in 2006 as Fingerprints neared completion. After the label dropped her, she worked at an independent A&R company called Taxi Music.
Perry had minor success prior to her breakthrough. One of the songs she had recorded for her album with Ballard, "Simple", was featured on the soundtrack to the 2005 film The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. She provided backing vocals on Mick Jagger's song "Old Habits Die Hard", which was included on the soundtrack to the 2004 film Alfie. In September 2004, Blender named Perry "The Next Big Thing". She recorded background vocals on P.O.D.'s single "Goodbye for Now", was featured at the end of its music video in 2006, and performed it with them on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. That year, Perry also appeared in the music video for "Learn to Fly" by Carbon Leaf, and played the love interest of her then-boyfriend, Gym Class Heroes lead singer Travie McCoy, in the band's music video for "Cupid's Chokehold".
2007–2009: Breakthrough with One of the Boys
After Columbia dropped Perry, Angelica Cob-Baehler, then a publicity executive at the label, brought Perry's demos to Virgin Records chairman Jason Flom. Flom was convinced that she could be a breakthrough star and she was signed to Capitol Records in April 2007. The label arranged for her to work with Dr. Luke to add an "undeniable smash" to her existing material. Perry and Dr. Luke co-wrote the songs "I Kissed a Girl" and "Hot n Cold" for her second album One of the Boys. A campaign was started with the November 2007 release of the video to "Ur So Gay", a song aimed at introducing her to the music market. A digital EP of the same name was also released that month. Madonna helped publicize the song by praising it on the JohnJay & Rich radio show in April 2008, stating "Ur So Gay" was her "favorite song" at the time. In March 2008, Perry made a cameo appearance as a club singer in the Wildfire episode "Life's Too Short" and appeared as herself during a photo shoot that June on The Young and the Restless for the show's magazine Restless Style.
Perry released her first single with Capitol, "I Kissed a Girl", on April 28, 2008, as the lead single from One of the Boys. The first station to pick up the song was WRVW in Nashville, who were inundated with enthusiastic calls the first three days they played it. The track reached number one on the US Billboard Hot 100. "I Kissed a Girl" created controversy among both religious and LGBT groups. The former criticized its homosexual theme, while the latter accused her of using bi-curiosity to sell records. In response to speculation that her parents opposed her music and career, Perry told MTV that they had no problems with her success. One of the Boys, released on June 17, 2008, garnered mixed critical reviews and reached number nine on the US Billboard 200. The album went on to sell 7 million copies worldwide. "Hot n Cold" was released the following September and became the album's second successful single, reaching number three on the Billboard Hot 100 while topping charts in Germany, Canada, the Netherlands and Austria. Later singles "Thinking of You" and "Waking Up in Vegas" were released in 2009 and reached the top 30 of the Hot 100. The Matrix's self-titled debut album, which Perry had recorded with the band in 2004, was released onto iTunes on January 27, 2009, as a result of her solo success.
After finishing the 2008 Warped Tour, Perry hosted the 2008 MTV Europe Music Awards in November 2008, where she won the award for Best New Act. At the 2009 Brit Awards, she also won the award for International Female Solo Artist. Perry embarked on her first headlining world tour, the Hello Katy Tour, from January to November 2009 to support One of the Boys. On August 4, 2009, she performed as opening act for one date of No Doubt's 2009 Summer Tour. Perry also hosted the 2009 MTV Europe Music Awards in November 2009, becoming the first person to host two consecutive ceremonies of the European awards. On July 22, 2009, Perry recorded a live album titled MTV Unplugged, which featured acoustic performances of five tracks from One of the Boys as well as one new song, "Brick by Brick", and a cover of Fountains of Wayne's "Hackensack". It was released on November 17, 2009. Perry also appeared on two singles with other artists; she was featured on a remix of Colorado-based band 3OH!3's song "Starstrukk" in September 2009, and on a duet with Timbaland entitled "If We Ever Meet Again", from his album Shock Value II, three months later. The Guinness World Records recognized her in its 2010 edition as the "Best Start on the U.S. Digital Chart by a Female Artist", for digital single sales of over two million copies.
After Perry and Travie McCoy split up in December 2008, they briefly reconciled before she ended their relationship in 2009. Perry met her future husband Russell Brand in the summer of 2009 while filming a cameo appearance for his film Get Him to the Greek. Her scene, in which the two kiss, does not appear in the film. She began dating Brand after meeting him again that September at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards. The couple became engaged on December 31, 2009, while vacationing in Rajasthan, India.
2010–2012: Teenage Dream and first marriage
After serving as a guest judge on American Idol, Perry released "California Gurls" featuring Snoop Dogg on May 7, 2010. The song was the lead single from her third studio album, Teenage Dream, and reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in June. She also served as a guest judge on British The X Factor later that month before releasing the album's second single, "Teenage Dream", in July. "Teenage Dream" reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in September. Released on August 24, 2010, Teenage Dream debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, and received mixed reviews from music critics. It has since sold 6 million copies worldwide. Teenage Dream would go on to win the 2011 Juno Award for International Album of the Year. In October, "Firework" was released as the album's third single. It became the album's third consecutive number one on the Billboard Hot 100 on December 8, 2010.
"E.T." featuring Kanye West was released as the fourth single from Teenage Dream on February 16, 2011. It topped the Billboard Hot 100 for five non-consecutive weeks, making Teenage Dream the ninth album in history to produce four number one singles on the chart. "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)" followed as the fifth single in June, and Perry became the first female artist to achieve five number-one Billboard Hot 100 songs from one album when the single topped that chart on August 17, and the second artist after Michael Jackson with his album Bad. For this record, she received an honorary American Music Award in November 2011 and a 2013 Guinness World Record. On September 7, she set a new record by becoming the first artist to spend 69 consecutive weeks in the top ten of the Hot 100. After "The One That Got Away" was released as the album's sixth single in October, Teenage Dream became the third album to spawn six top-five songs on the Billboard Hot 100 after Rhythm Nation 1814 by Janet Jackson and Faith by George Michael. The song peaked at number three in the US and number two in Canada.
On January 5, 2012, Perry was named the sixth best-selling digital artist in the United States, with sales of 37.6 million units according to Nielsen SoundScan. That month, she became the first artist to have four songs sell over 5 million digital units when "E.T." reached that mark along with "Firework", "California Gurls", and "Hot N Cold". On February 13, Capitol released the lead single from Teenage Dream: The Complete Confection, "Part of Me", which debuted at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and became Perry's seventh single overall to top the chart. Teenage Dream: The Complete Confection was released on March 23, and serves as a reissue of Teenage Dream. "Wide Awake" was released on May 22 as the re-release's second single, peaking at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 and number one in Canada and New Zealand.
Perry embarked on her second tour, the California Dreams Tour, in support of Teenage Dream from February 2011 to January 2012. The tour grossed $59.5 million globally and won her the award for Best Live Act at the 2011 MTV Europe Music Awards. On September 23, 2011, she performed on the opening day of the 2011 Rock in Rio festival along with Elton John and Rihanna. In September 2010, Perry was scheduled to appear on the 41st-season premiere of Sesame Street. After her scene was uploaded to YouTube, viewers criticized Perry's exposed cleavage. Four days before the scheduled airing, Sesame Workshop announced that the segment would not air on television, but would still be available to watch online. Perry subsequently mocked the controversy on Saturday Night Live, where she was a musical guest and wore an Elmo-themed shirt showing large amounts of cleavage during one skit.
In December 2010, Perry played Moe Szyslak's girlfriend in the live-action segment from a Christmas episode of The Simpsons titled "The Fight Before Christmas". In February 2011, she made a guest appearance on the How I Met Your Mother episode "Oh Honey", playing a woman known as Honey. The role won her the People's Choice Award for Favorite TV Guest Star in January 2012. She made her film debut in the 3D family motion picture The Smurfs as Smurfette on July 29, 2011. The film was a financial success worldwide, while critics gave mostly negative reviews. She hosted Saturday Night Live on December 10, 2011, with Robyn as the episode's musical guest. Perry's work on the episode received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised her performance in the episode's digital short featuring her and Andy Samberg. In March 2012, she guest starred as a prison security guard named Rikki on the Raising Hope episode "Single White Female Role Model". On July 5, 2012, Perry's autobiographical documentary Katy Perry: Part of Me was released to theaters through Paramount Pictures. The film received positive reviews and grossed $32.7 million worldwide at the box office.
Perry began to venture into business when she endorsed her first fragrance, Purr, in November 2010. Her second fragrance, Meow!, was released in December 2011. Both perfumes were released through Nordstrom department stores. Electronic Arts recruited her to promote their new expansion pack for The Sims 3: Showtime, before releasing a separate stuff pack featuring Perry-inspired furniture, outfits, and hairstyles, titled The Sims 3: Katy Perry's Sweet Treats, in June 2012. The following month, she became the spokesperson and ambassador for Popchips and made an investment in the company. Billboard dubbed her as their "Woman of the Year" for 2012.
She married Russell Brand on October 23, 2010, in a traditional Hindu ceremony near the Ranthambhore tiger sanctuary in Rajasthan, India. Brand announced on December 30, 2011, that they were divorcing after 14 months of marriage. Perry later stated that conflicting career schedules and his desire to have children before she was ready led to the end of their marriage and that he never spoke to her again after sending a text message that he was divorcing her, while Brand asserted that he divorced her due to her commercial success and reluctance to engage in activism. She was initially distraught over their divorce, and said that she contemplated suicide. After the marriage ended in 2012, Perry began a relationship with singer John Mayer that August.
2013–2015: Prism and Super Bowl XLIX halftime show
In November 2012, Perry began work on her fourth album, Prism. She told Billboard, "I know exactly the record I want to make next. I know the artwork, the coloring and the tone" and "I even know what type of tour I'm doing next. I'll be very pleased if the vision I have in my head becomes a reality." After initially telling L'Uomo Vogue in June 2012 that she planned to have "darker elements" in Prism following the end of her marriage, the singer revealed to MTV during the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards that she changed the album's direction after periods of self-reflection. Perry commented "I felt very prismatic", which inspired the album's name. "Roar" was released as the lead single from Prism on August 10, 2013. It was promoted at the MTV Video Music Awards and reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100. "Unconditionally" followed as the second single from Prism on October 16, 2013, and peaked at number 14 in the United States.
Prism was released on October 18, 2013, and has sold 4 million copies as of August 2015. It received favorable reviews from critics and debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 chart. Four days later, Perry performed the songs from the album at the iHeartRadio Theater in Los Angeles. "Dark Horse" with Juicy J was released as the album's third single in December, and became her ninth U.S. number-one single the following month. In 2014, "Birthday" and "This Is How We Do" respectively followed as the album's fourth and fifth singles, and reached the top 25 on the Hot 100. Prior to ending her relationship with Mayer in February 2014, she recorded and co-wrote a duet with him titled "Who You Love" for his album Paradise Valley. The song was released on August 12, 2013. Perry's third headlining tour, the Prismatic World Tour, began in May 2014 and concluded in October 2015. It sold almost 2 million tickets and grossed $204.3 million worldwide and won Perry the award for "Top Package" at the 2014 Billboard Touring Awards. She also performed at the 2015 Rock in Rio festival on September 27, 2015.
On November 23, 2014, the NFL announced that Perry would perform at the Super Bowl XLIX halftime show on February 1, 2015. Lenny Kravitz and Missy Elliott served as special guests for the show. Her performance was critically acclaimed, and the Guinness World Records announced two days after the singer's halftime show that it garnered 118.5 million viewers in the United States, becoming the most watched and highest rated show in Super Bowl history. The viewership was higher than the game itself, which was viewed by an audience of 114.4 million.
The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) ranked her fifth on the list of Top Global Recording Artists of 2013. On June 26, 2014, she was declared the Top Certified Digital Artist Ever by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for certified sales of 72 million digital singles in the United States. In May 2014, a portrait of Perry by painter Mark Ryden was featured in his exhibition "The Gay 90s", and shown at the Kohn Gallery in Los Angeles. Along with several other artists, she also recorded a cover version of the song "Daisy Bell (Bicycle Built for Two)" on a limited-edition concept album titled The Gay Nineties Old Tyme Music: Daisy Bell to accompany the exhibition. That month, a portrait of Perry by artist Will Cotton was included in the United States National Portrait Gallery. On November 23, 2015, Perry starred in H&M's holiday advertising campaign, for which she wrote and recorded a song titled "Every Day Is a Holiday".
On June 17, 2014, Perry announced that she had founded her own record label under Capitol Records, titled Metamorphosis Music. Ferras was the first artist to get signed to her label, and Perry served as an executive producer on his self-titled EP. She also recorded a duet with him on the EP, titled "Legends Never Die". The label was later renamed Unsub Records.
Outside of her music career, Perry reprised her role as Smurfette in The Smurfs 2, which was released in theaters on July 31, 2013. Like its predecessor, The Smurfs 2 was a financial success but was panned by critics. In March 2014, she made a guest appearance playing herself in the episode "Blisteritos Presents Dad Academy Graduation Congraduritos Red Carpet Viewing Party" of the Kroll Show. Killer Queen was released as her third fragrance in August 2013 through Coty, Inc. In January 2014, she became a guest curator of Madonna's Art for Freedom initiative. In March 2015, she appeared in Brand: A Second Coming, a documentary following her ex-husband Russell Brand's transition from comedy work to activism, and released a concert film titled Katy Perry: The Prismatic World Tour through Epix, which took place during her tour of the same name. Perry also made a cameo appearance in the music video for Madonna's song "Bitch I'm Madonna" in June 2015. The following month, she released another fragrance with Coty, entitled Mad Potion. In September 2015, she appeared in the documentaries Katy Perry: Making of the Pepsi Super Bowl Halftime Show, which followed Perry's preparation for her Super Bowl performance, and Jeremy Scott: The People's Designer, which followed the life and career of designer Jeremy Scott. Perry released a mobile app titled Katy Perry Pop in December 2015 through Glu Mobile where her character helps players become famous musicians. She described it as "the most fun, colorful world that helps guide your musical dreams".
2016–2018: Witness and American Idol
Perry started writing songs for her new album in June 2016, and recorded an anthem for NBC Sports's coverage of the 2016 Summer Olympics titled "Rise", which was released the following month. Perry chose to release it as a standalone track rather than save it for her album "because now more than ever, there is a need for our world to unite". NBC also felt its message spoke "directly to the spirit of the Olympics and its athletes" for its inspirational themes. The song reached number one in Australia and number eleven in the United States.
In August 2016, Perry stated that she aspired to create material "that connects and relates and inspires" and told Ryan Seacrest that she was "not rushing" her fifth album, adding "I'm just having a lot of fun, but experimenting and trying different producers, and different collaborators, and different styles". On February 10, 2017, Perry released the album's lead single "Chained to the Rhythm" featuring Skip Marley. It reached number one in Hungary and number four in the United States. The track was also streamed over three million times on Spotify within 24 hours, breaking the music streaming service's record at the time for the highest first-day streaming for a single track by a female artist. The album's second single, "Bon Appétit" with Migos, was released that April. Its third single, "Swish Swish", featured Nicki Minaj and followed the next month. They respectively peaked at numbers 59 and 46 in the United States, and made the top 15 in Canada.
The album, titled Witness, was released on June 9, 2017, to mixed reviews, and debuted at number one in the United States. To accompany the album's release, Perry broadcast herself on YouTube for four days with a live-stream titled Katy Perry Live: Witness World Wide, concluding with a live concert on June 12. The live-stream generated over 49 million views from 190 different countries. She also embarked on Witness: The Tour, which began in September 2017 and ended in August 2018. On June 15, 2017, Calvin Harris released a song titled "Feels" from his album Funk Wav Bounces Vol. 1, which featured Perry, Big Sean, and Pharrell Williams. The song went on to reach number one in the United Kingdom.
Perry subsequently recorded a cover of the Dear Evan Hansen song "Waving Through a Window" for the deluxe edition of the cast recording, which was released on November 2, 2018. The show's creators Benj Pasek and Justin Paul had requested Perry to cover the song to promote the musical's national tour and bring awareness to mental health. Later that month, Perry released "Cozy Little Christmas". She also recorded the song "Immortal Flame" for the game Final Fantasy Brave Exvius, and had a playable character modeled after her.
Outside of recording music, Perry appeared as herself in the film Zoolander 2, which was released in February 2016. In February 2017, the singer launched a shoe line titled "Katy Perry Collections". Her shoes are available on her website, Katy Perry Collections, and at retailers such as Dillard's and Walmart. The following August, she hosted the 2017 MTV Video Music Awards. Perry was signed for a $25-million salary to serve as a judge on ABC's revival of American Idol, which premiered in March 2018. Perry began a relationship with Orlando Bloom in early 2016, and the couple got engaged on February 14, 2019.
2019–present: Smile, motherhood and Play residency
At the 61st Annual Grammy Awards, Perry performed "Here You Come Again", alongside Dolly Parton and Kacey Musgraves, as part of a tribute to Parton. Four days later, she released a song called "365", with DJ Zedd. In April, Perry was included on a remix of Daddy Yankee's song "Con Calma", featuring Snow. She followed this with the singles "Never Really Over" on May 31, "Small Talk" on August 9, and "Harleys in Hawaii" on October 16.
In June 2019, Perry appeared in the music video of Taylor Swift's "You Need to Calm Down". In July, a jury in California passed a verdict following a week-long trial that Perry's song "Dark Horse" had copied Flame's 2008 song "Joyful Noise" after he filed a copyright lawsuit alleging that it used his track's beat without permission, which was later overturned. After the initial verdict, the jury ordered her to pay him $550,000. The next month, Josh Kloss, Perry's co-star in the "Teenage Dream" music video, accused her of sexual misconduct. In an Instagram post, Kloss alleged that, during a party at a skating rink, Perry pulled on his sweatpants and underwear, exposing his penis to her male friends. He also said her management prevented him from speaking about his time with the singer. However, Johnny Wujek, the creative director of said party defended Perry, saying that she "would never do something like that" and accused Kloss of having an "ongoing obsession" with her. After initially refraining from responding to this, believing it would have detracted from the Me Too movement, Perry has also denied Kloss's claims.
Following the release of her single "Never Worn White" in March 2020, Perry revealed in the accompanying music video that she was expecting her first child with Bloom. "Daisies", the lead single from her sixth album, was released on May 15, 2020. Its second single "Smile" followed two months later. The album, also titled Smile, was released on August 28, 2020. Two days before its distribution, she gave birth to a daughter named Daisy Dove Bloom. The album received mixed reviews, and debuted at number five in the United States. Perry further promoted the album with four compilation EPs: Camp Katy, Empowered, Scorpio SZN, and Cosmic Energy. These EPs were followed by the single "Not the End of the World" in December 2020, which had a music video in which Zooey Deschanel impersonates Perry. Additionally she collaborated with various artists to create two remixes of Smile album tracks. Tiësto remix of "Resillient" featuring Aitana was released in November 2020, while Bruno Martini remix of "Cry About It Later" featuring Luísa Sonza was released in April 2021. In January 20, 2021, Perry performed "Firework" at the Celebrating America concert during the inauguration of Joe Biden. Four months later, she released a new single, "Electric", a collaboration with Pokémon for their 25th anniversary.
Perry began hosting a residency named Play at Resorts World Las Vegas on December 29, 2021. The show's inception happened during the COVID-19 lockdown with Perry being inspired by 1990s movies such as Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, Pee-wee's Playhouse, and Pee-wee's Big Adventure. She described it as "larger than life" and "the kookiest, most camp show I've ever put together." The show has received critical acclaim with Melinda Sheckells of Billboard saying that "[Play's] sold-out opening night is part fantasy, part hallucination and thoroughly camp.
In September 2021, Variety paid tribute to and honored Perry on their "Power of Women" issue, where she discussed her career, motherhood, and philanthropy. As a nominee, she attended the Variety 2021 "Power of Women" dinner. On her 37th birthday the following month, Perry guest hosted The Ellen DeGeneres Show and starred in a holiday advertisement for Gap Inc. which featured her singing "All You Need Is Love" by The Beatles. A full version of her cover was released on streaming platforms the same day. Two months later, Perry followed this with "When I'm Gone", a collaboration with Alesso.
Artistry
Influences
Perry cites her sister Angela as the woman who has had the most influence on her. During the early stages of her career, Perry's musical style gravitated towards gospel and she aspired to be as successful as Amy Grant. At age 15, she heard "Killer Queen" by Queen, which inspired her to pursue a music career. She cites the band's frontman, Freddie Mercury, as her biggest influence and expressed how the "combination of his sarcastic approach to writing lyrics and his 'I don't give a fuck' attitude" inspired her music. She paid homage to the band by naming her third fragrance Killer Queen. Perry described the Beach Boys and their album Pet Sounds as having a considerable influence on her music: "Pet Sounds is one of my favorite records and it influenced pretty much all of my songwriting. All of the melody choices that I make are because of Pet Sounds." The singer also holds the Beatles' album The Beatles in high esteem, and described these two albums as "the only things I listened to for probably two years straight."
She cites Alanis Morissette and her 1995 album Jagged Little Pill as a significant musical inspiration, stating in 2012: "Jagged Little Pill was the most perfect female record ever made. There's a song for anyone on that record; I relate to all those songs. They're still so timeless." Additionally, Perry borrows influence from Flaming Red by Patty Griffin and 10 Cent Wings by Jonatha Brooke. Perry's autobiographical documentary Katy Perry: Part of Me was largely influenced by Madonna: Truth or Dare. She admires Madonna's ability to reinvent herself, saying "I want to evolve like Madonna".
Perry names Björk as an influence, particularly admiring her "willingness to always be taking chances". Other artists who Perry has cited as influences include Stevie Nicks, ABBA, the Cardigans, Cyndi Lauper, Ace of Base, 3OH!3, CeCe Peniston, C+C Music Factory, Black Box, Crystal Waters, Mariah Carey, Heart, Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, Imogen Heap, Rufus Wainwright, Pink, and Gwen Stefani. "Firework" was inspired by a passage in the book On the Road by Jack Kerouac in which the author compares people who are full of life to fireworks that shoot across the sky and make people watch in awe. Her second concert tour, the California Dreams Tour, was reminiscent of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. She also credits the 1996 film The Craft for inspiring her song "Dark Horse", and Eckhart Tolle's book The Power of Now for influencing Prism.
Musical style and themes
While Perry's music incorporates pop, rock, and disco, Katy Hudson contains gospel. Her subsequent releases, One of the Boys and Teenage Dream, involve themes of sex and love. One of the Boys is a pop rock record, while Teenage Dream features disco influences. Perry's fourth album, Prism, is significantly influenced by dance and pop music. Lyrically, the album addresses relationships, self-reflection, and everyday life. Her fifth studio effort Witness is an electropop album that she described as a "360-degree liberation" record, with themes including political liberation, sexual liberation, and liberation from negativity. Many of her songs, particularly on Teenage Dream, reflect on love between teenagers; W magazine described the album's sexual innuendos as "irresistible hook-laden melodies". Self-empowerment is a common theme in Perry's music.
Perry has described herself as a "singer-songwriter masquerading as a pop star" and maintains that honest songwriting is very important to her. She told Marie Claire: "I feel like my secret magic trick that separates me from a lot of my peers is the bravery to be vulnerable and truthful and honest. I think you become more relatable when you're vulnerable." Actress and comedian Kristen Wiig commented that "as easy, breezy, and infectious as Perry's songs can be, beneath the surface lurks a sea of mixed emotions, jumbled motives, and contradictory impulses complicated enough to fill a Carole King record." According to Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune, "being taken seriously may be Perry's greatest challenge yet." In 2013, The New York Times labeled her "the most potent pop star of the day – her hits are relatable with just a hint of experimentation". Randall Roberts of the Los Angeles Times criticized her use of idioms and metaphors in her lyrics and for frequent "clichés". Throughout her career, Perry has also co-written songs recorded by other artists, including Lesley Roy, Kelly Clarkson, Jessie James Decker, Selena Gomez & the Scene, Britney Spears, Iggy Azalea, Rita Ora, Nicki Minaj, and Ariana Grande.
Voice
Perry possesses a contralto vocal range. Her singing has received both praise and criticism. Betty Clarke of The Guardian commented that her "powerful voice is hard-edged" while Rob Sheffield from Rolling Stone described Perry's vocals on Teenage Dream as "processed staccato blips". Darren Harvey of musicOMH compared Perry's vocals on One of the Boys to Alanis Morissette's, both possessing a "perky voice shifting octaves mid-syllable". Alex Miller from NME felt that "Perry's problem is often her voice" on One of the Boys, stating that "somewhere along the line someone convinced her she was like, well, a ballsy rock chick". Conversely, Bernadette McNulty from The Daily Telegraph praised her "rock chick voice" in a review of a concert promoting Prism.
Public image
On social media, Perry surpassed Justin Bieber as the most followed person on Twitter in November 2013. She won the 2015 Guinness World Record for most Twitter followers, and became the first person to gain 100 million followers on the site in June 2017. Keith Caulfield of Billboard stated that Perry is "the rare celebrity who seems to have enormous popularity but genuine ground-level interaction with her adoring KatyCats." With over 108 Twitter million followers, she is the most followed female on the site, and the fifth most followed musician across social media with a combined total of over 326 million followers across Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. In June 2017, Time magazine listed Perry among its "25 Most Influential People on the Internet" of the year, writing that her live-stream for Witness was "blazing a trail" for being "the closest any major entertainer has come to giving fans the kind of 'real' intimacy that social media purports to provide".
In 2011, Forbes ranked Perry third on their "Top-Earning Women In Music" list with earnings of $44 million and fifth on their 2012 list with $45 million. She subsequently ranked seventh on the 2013 Forbes list for "Top-Earning Women In Music" with $39 million earned, and fifth on their 2014 list with $40 million. With earnings of $135 million, Forbes also ranked Perry number one on their 2015 "Top-Earning Women In Music" list as well as the "World's Highest-Paid Musicians" and declared her the highest earning female celebrity in 2015, placing her at number 3 on the Forbes Celebrity 100 list. In 2016, the magazine estimated her net worth was $125 million, and ranked her number six on their list of "Highest-Paid Women in Music" with earnings of $41 million. The following year, she was ranked number nine on the list with $33 million. In 2018, she topped its "Highest-Paid Women in Music" listing and ranked at number four on the "Highest-Paid Female Celebrities" list with earnings of $83 million. Perry subsequently was placed at number four on the 2019 "Highest-Paid Women in Music" listings with $57.5 million. Later that year, with earnings of $530 million throughout the 2010s, the magazine also ranked her as the 9th highest earning musician of the decade.
Fashion
Perry has been described as a sex symbol; GQ labeled her a "full-on male fantasy", while Elle wrote her body looked "as though sketched by a teenage boy". Vice called her a serious' popstar/woman/sex symbol". She was placed at number one on the Maxim Hot 100 in 2010 as the "most beautiful woman in the world", with editor Joe Levy describing her as a "triple – no quadruple – kind of hot". Men's Health readers voted her the "sexiest woman of 2013". In November 2010, Perry told Harper's Bazaar that she was proud of and satisfied with her figure.
Perry's fashion often incorporates humor, bright colors, and food-related themes such as her characteristic spinning peppermint swirl dress. Vogue described her as "never exactly one to shy away from the outrageous or the extreme in any realm" and called her the "Queen of Camp". while Glamour named her the "queen of quirk". In February 2009, Perry told Seventeen that her fashion style was "a bit of a concoction of different things" and stated she enjoyed humor in her clothing. She has also described herself as having "multipersonality disorder" for fashion. Perry lists Gwen Stefani, Shirley Manson, Chloë Sevigny, Daphne Guinness, Natalie Portman, and the fictional character Lolita as her style icons. Elle described her as "the kitsch-loving pop star renowned for her uniquely experimental style" while Vogue described her style as "synonymous with outrageous, eye-catching ensembles that lean towards the theatrical."
During the 2017 launch of her shoe collection, Katy Perry Collections, she said about shoes: "When I first got to L.A., I cultivated my style on a budget, always shopping at thrift stores or vintage stores. … Once, I found these flats that looked like Dalmatian dogs. They had ears that moved and a tongue that stuck out. They were such a conversation piece. That's what is so great about fashion. … It's a form of communication. You don't have to start a smoking habit to start talking to someone. You can just wear cool shoes. It's an icebreaker."
Legacy and influence
Several media outlets such as Billboard and Glamour have referred to her as the "Queen of Pop", while Vogue has dubbed Perry the "Queen of Camp" and a "pop icon." Andrew Unterberger of Billboard described Teenage Dream "one of the defining LPs from a new golden age in mega-pop" while Christopher Rosa of Glamour named her as an influence to the pop sound and style of the 2010s, adding that her singles are "some of the most recognizable, iconic, and impactful hits in pop history." Perry was named "one of the last decade's most reliable and successful hitmakers" by the Official Charts Company in 2022.
Additionally, Perry was included in Glamour's "104 Women Who Defined the [2010s] in Pop Culture" list, saying: "[Perry] did more than just break chart records. She was one of the driving forces behind the sound of pop radio in the 2010s. [...] glossy, booming, sugary-sweet, and undeniably catchy." Variety included Perry in their Variety 500 list of the most influential business leaders, calling her a "global phenomenon" and a "dedicated artist and tireless self-promoter who has leveraged chart-topping hits, sold-out stadium shows, and staggering endorsement deals to become one of the richest and most influential pop stars alive." She has been called a "gay icon" by Taylor Henderson of Out, noting how "I Kissed a Girl" helped fans explore their sexuality and how Perry openly embraced the LGBTQ+ community.
Perry's music has been described by Out as having a "lasting legacy", with American singers Fletcher sampling "I Kissed a Girl" and Olivia Rodrigo referencing Teenage Dream on "Brutal". Additionally, other artists such as Halsey and Ariana Grande have praised Perry's work, with Halsey calling Teenage Dream the "perfect pop album" and Grande saying "The One That Got Away" is "one of the biggest and most perfectly written pop songs ever from one of the best pop albums of all time". Perry and her work have influenced artists such as Lil Nas X, Halsey, Lorde, Rina Sawayama, Doja Cat, Ellie Goulding, Tegan and Sara, Kim Petras, and Coldplay.
Other ventures
Philanthropy
Perry has supported various charitable organizations and causes throughout her career. She has contributed to organizations aimed at improving the lives and welfare of children in particular. In April 2013, she joined UNICEF to assist children in Madagascar with education and nutrition. On December 3, 2013, she was officially named a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, "with a special focus on engaging young people in the agency's work to improve the lives of the world's most vulnerable children and adolescents." She arranged for a portion of the money generated from tickets to her Prismatic World Tour to go to UNICEF. In September 2010, she helped build and design the Boys Hope/Girls Hope foundation shelter for youth in Baltimore, Maryland along with Raven-Symoné, Shaquille O'Neal, and the cast of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. In 2010, Perry and Nicki Minaj performed a cover of "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" for service members during the 2010 VH1 Divas Salute the Troops concert.
She has also supported children's education and well-being. All profits from sales of the album The Gay Nineties Old Tyme Music: Daisy Bell, which includes her rendition of "Daisy Bell (Bicycle Built for Two)", were donated to the charity Little Kids Rock, which supports musical education in underprivileged elementary schools. In June 2014, she teamed up with Staples Inc. for a project entitled "Make Roar Happen" which donated $1 million to DonorsChoose, an organization that supports teachers and funds classroom resources in public schools. In May 2016, she worked with UNICEF to improve child care quality in Vietnam, hoping to "break the cycle of poverty and drastically improve children's health, education and well-being". The following month, UNICEF announced that Perry would receive the Audrey Hepburn Humanitarian Award "for her work as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in support of the world's most vulnerable children" at their annual Snowflake Ball in November. All Spotify streams of her 2021 cover of "All You Need Is Love" will generate $1 in donations for the charity Baby2Baby.
Perry has supported organizations aimed at aiding people suffering with diseases including cancer and HIV/AIDS. During the 2008 Warped Tour, she had a cast made of her breasts to raise money for the Keep A Breast Foundation. She hosted and performed at the We Can Survive concert along with Bonnie McKee, Kacey Musgraves, Sara Bareilles, Ellie Goulding, and duo Tegan and Sara at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, California, on October 23, 2013. The concert's profits were donated to Young Survival Coalition, an organization aiding breast cancer in young women. In June 2009, she designed an item of clothing for H&M's "Fashion Against AIDS" campaign, which raises money for HIV/AIDS awareness projects. On February 26, 2017, she served as a co-chair alongside various celebrities such as Beyoncé, Lea Michele, Jim Carrey, Jared Leto, and Kevin Spacey for the 25th Annual Elton John AIDS Foundation Academy Award Party, a fundraiser for HIV/AIDS healthcare.
The proceeds from Perry's single "Part of Me" were donated to the charity MusiCares, which helps musicians in times of need. During her California Dreams Tour, she raised over $175,000 for the Tickets-For-Charity fundraiser. The money was divided between three charities: the Children's Health Fund (CHF), Generosity Water, and The Humane Society of the United States.
On her 27th birthday, Perry set up a donations page for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Auckland, and set up a similar page benefiting the David Lynch Foundation for her 28th birthday. On March 29, 2014, she helped raise $2.4 million for the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles along with other celebrities such as Ryan Seacrest, Pharrell Williams, Tim Allen, Lisa Edelstein, and Riley Keough.
Perry performed at the One Love Manchester benefit concert for the victims of the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing, among various performers including its organizer Ariana Grande, which was broadcast live on June 4, 2017, on radio and television stations around the world. In March 2018, Perry announced Witness: Coming Home, a benefit concert that was held in her hometown of Santa Barbara on May 19, 2018. The concert benefited those recovering from the aftermath of the 2017 California wildfires and 2018 Southern California mudflows. Perry partnered with the Santa Barbara Foundation, the 93108 Fund and The 805 UndocuFund, organizations which help in assisting members of the community in the Santa Barbara area through grants and various philanthropic efforts.
Activism
Perry has publicly advocated for LGBT rights and admitted that she wrote "I Kissed a Girl" about her own bisexual experiences with other women. In 2017, she received a Nation Equality Award from Human Rights Campaign for "using her powerful voice and international platform to speak out for LGBTQ equality". In her acceptance speech, she discussed having bisexual experiences, her fluid sexuality, and thanked the LGBTQ+ community. In an Out interview in 2021, she was heralded as a "gay icon" with "I Kissed a Girl" being called a "bonafide queer anthem." She continued to thank the LGBTQ+ community in the same interview, saying: "I came from a very sheltered upbringing where it wasn't okay to be friends with anyone from that community. And now that is my community, [...] I wouldn't have survived without the community and it's amazing how full circle it's come and how much growth has happened since I started."
She supported Stonewall during their "It gets better..... today" campaign to prevent homophobic bullying, and dedicated the music video to her song "Firework" to the It Gets Better Project. In 2008, Perry told Do Something she was proud to be a LGBT rights activist, saying "I've always been a very open-minded person, but I definitely believe in equality." In June 2012, Perry expressed her hopes for LGBT equality, commenting "hopefully, we will look back at this moment and think like we do now concerning [other] civil rights issues. We'll just shake our heads in disbelief, saying, 'Thank God we've evolved.' That would be my prayer for the future." In December 2012, Perry was awarded the Trevor Hero Award by The Trevor Project for her work and activism on behalf of LGBT youth.
Perry identifies as a feminist, and appeared in April 2013 in a video clip for the "Chime for Change" campaign that aimed to spread female empowerment. She has also said that America's lack of free health care drove her "absolutely crazy". Following the shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando in June 2016, Perry and nearly 200 other artists and executives in music signed an open letter organized by Billboard addressed to United States Congress demanding increased gun control in the United States.
Through Twitter and by performing at rallies, Perry supported President Barack Obama in his run for re-election and praised his support for same-sex marriage and LGBT equality. She performed at three rallies for Obama, in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Wisconsin, singing a rendition of "Let's Stay Together" as well as a number of her songs. During her Las Vegas performance she wore a dress made to replicate a voting ballot, with Obama's box filled in. On Twitter, she encouraged her followers to vote for Obama.
In August 2013, Perry voiced criticism of Tony Abbott, then-leader of conservative Liberal Party of Australia and candidate for Prime Minister of Australia, due to his opposition to gay marriage and told Abbott, "I love you as a human being but I can't give you my vote."; the statement came after Abbott expressed pride at learning of Perry's then-upcoming performance in Australia. In April 2014, she publicly supported Marianne Williamson in her campaign for California's 33rd congressional district by attending a political press event. She endorsed Kamala Harris in the United States Senate election in California, and organized a fundraiser for Harris at her home in Los Angeles in November 2016. Perry also publicly endorsed former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for president in 2016. She performed alongside Elton John at a fundraising concert for Clinton in New York City in March 2016. Perry also spoke and performed at the 2016 Democratic National Convention in support of Clinton. Four years later, she supported Joe Biden and Kamala Harris during the 2020 United States presidential election, praising the latter as a leader who had "experience we desperately need right now" and believed that the former "choosing her as his running mate is already a testament to his decision making".
Achievements
Throughout her career, Perry has won five American Music Awards, fourteen People's Choice Awards, four Guinness World Records, a Brit Award, and a Juno Award. In September 2012, Billboard dubbed her the "Woman of the Year". From May 2010 to September 2011, the singer spent a record-breaking 69 consecutive weeks in the top ten of the Billboard Hot 100. Teenage Dream became the first album by a female artist to produce five number-one Billboard Hot 100 singles, and the second album overall after Michael Jackson's Bad. In the United States, she has accumulated nine number-one singles on the Billboard Hot 100, her most recent being "Dark Horse", and holds the record for having 18 consecutive number-one songs on the Billboard Dance Club Songs chart.
Billboard also named her the 15th most successful dance club artist of all time. The magazine additionally ranked her 4th on its "Greatest of All Time Pop Songs Artists" list, included Teenage Dream and Prism among its "Greatest of All Time Billboard 200 Albums by Women" list, and ranked "Dark Horse" at number 100 on its "Greatest of All Time Hot 100 Songs" as well as one of its "Greatest of All Time Hot 100 Songs by Women" along with "E.T.", "Firework", and "California Gurls". In June 2015, her music video for "Dark Horse" became the first video by a female artist to reach 1 billion views on Vevo. The following month, her music video for "Roar" reached 1 billion views on Vevo, making her the first artist to have multiple videos with 1 billion views.
Perry was declared the Top Global Female Recording Artist of 2013 by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI). According to Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), she is the fifth top digital singles artist in the United States, with 105 million certified song units in the country including on-demand streams and also has 11 million certified album units, totaling 116 million certified units in the nation. She also became the first artist to have three songs receive Diamond certifications from the RIAA with "Dark Horse", "Firework", and "Roar". All three of them and "E.T.", "California Gurls", and "Hot n Cold" have each sold over 5 million digital copies. Throughout her career, Perry has sold more than 18 million albums and 125 million singles globally, making her one of the best-selling music artists of all time.
Discography
Katy Hudson (2001)
One of the Boys (2008)
Teenage Dream (2010)
Prism (2013)
Witness (2017)
Smile (2020)
Filmography
The Smurfs (2011)
Katy Perry: Part of Me (2012)
The Smurfs 2 (2013)
Brand: A Second Coming (2015)
Katy Perry: The Prismatic World Tour (2015)
Katy Perry: Making of the Pepsi Super Bowl Halftime Show (2015)
Jeremy Scott: The People's Designer (2015)
Zoolander 2 (2016)
Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (2016)
Tours and residency
Co-headlining tour
Strangely Normal Tour (with Phil Joel) (2001)
Headlining tours
Hello Katy Tour (2009)
California Dreams Tour (2011–2012)
Prismatic World Tour (2014–2015)
Witness: The Tour (2017–2018)
Residency
Play (2021–2022)
See also
List of best-selling music artists
List of most-followed Twitter accounts
List of Billboard Social 50 number-one artists
List of highest-certified music artists in the United States
Best-selling female artists of all time
References
Footnotes
Sources
External links
1984 births
Living people
21st-century American guitarists
21st-century American singers
21st-century American women singers
21st-century American women guitarists
Activists from California
American contraltos
American disco singers
American women pop singers
American women rock singers
American women singer-songwriters
American feminists
American film actresses
American performance artists
American pop guitarists
American pop rock singers
American rock guitarists
American rock songwriters
American television actresses
American women activists
American voice actresses
American women in electronic music
Brit Award winners
Capitol Records artists
Columbia Records artists
Dance-pop musicians
Def Jam Recordings artists
Feminist musicians
Guitarists from California
Island Records artists
Juno Award for International Album of the Year winners
LGBT rights activists from the United States
Musicians from Santa Barbara, California
MTV Europe Music Award winners
Participants in American reality television series
Singer-songwriters from California
UNICEF Goodwill Ambassadors | true | [
"Mary Antoinette \"Tony\" Perry (June 27, 1888June 28, 1946) was an American actress and director, and co-founder of the American Theatre Wing. She is the eponym of the Tony Awards.\n\nEarly life\nBorn in Denver, Colorado, she spent her childhood aspiring to replicate the thespian artistry of her aunt and uncle, Mildred Hall and George Wessels, who were both well-respected touring actors. She performed at the Elitch Theater near Denver when she was only 11 years old. In her biography, Mary Elitch recalled, \"Her first public appearance was at the age of eleven in a small part on my stage. Today, with a brilliant career as an actress behind her, having played leading women with such great actors as David Warfield, Antoinette is a successful producer in New York City -- having her own theatre.\"\n\nPerry's father, William Perry, was opposed to his daughter becoming an actress, but he was not against her pursuing a career in music, so sent her to Miss Ely's School in New York to study voice and piano.\n\nPerry made her actual stage debut at Elitch Theatre \"on June 12,1904 in Olympe as the 'Fifth Actress'.\" In June 1905 she made her Chicago debut in Mrs. Temple's Telegram and one year later she appeared in the same play in her New York debut. \n\nIn 1906 David Warfield discovered her, and she remained with his company as leading lady until 1909. Perry was able to return to her hometown theatre in Denver during the 1908 Elitch Theatre season with David Warfield, Marie Bates, William Elliot and others in the preseason special productions of The Music Master and David Belasco’s The Grand Army Man.\n\nShe appeared opposite David Warfield in Music Master in 1906 when she was only 18.\n\nHer career was on the rise, yet she left the stage a star in 1909, to marry Denver businessman and president of the Denver Gas and Electric Company, Frank W. Frueauff.\n\nCareer\nFollowing Frank Frueauff's death in 1922 of a heart attack, Perry returned to the stage. In 1924 she appeared in Zona Gale's Mr. Pitt. She appeared notably in George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber's Minick that same year. She took up directing in 1928. In partnership with Brock Pemberton she produced several successful plays, including: Divorce Me Dear, Ceiling Zero, Red Harvest, Strictly Dishonorable, Personal Appearance (Lawrence Riley's breakthrough hit), and Kiss the Boys Goodbye. Their most famous production was probably the Pulitzer Prize-winning Mary Chase classic Harvey, which Perry directed and which enjoyed enormous success on Broadway and as a film starring James Stewart.\nAccording to Ellis Nassour:\nPerry became a stage director at a time when women working offstage in theater were often relegated to positions as costumers or dressers. She established herself as a director with Preston Sturges in \"Strictly Dishonorable\" in 1929, in which her daughter Margaret debuted. “Tony was a gifted and versatile actress, and one of the best directors the American theater has produced,” noted Helen Hayes.\n\nLegacy\nPerry helped found, and was chairwoman and secretary of, the American Theatre Wing (ATW), which operated the Stage Door Canteens during World War II, providing entertainment to servicemen in several American cities. After her death, her friends and colleagues took action to memorialize her contribution to the high standards of American theatre. Brock Pemberton suggested that the ATW create a series of awards to be given in her honor. Since 1947, the Antoinette Perry Awards have been given annually for distinguished achievement in theatre, and are one of the theatre world's most coveted honors. They are universally known by their nickname, the Tony Awards. Fellow ATW co-founder and Perry's close friend Louise Heims Beck was responsible for overseeing the organization of the 1st Tony Awards.\n\nIn 2011 Perry was featured as an historical figure when The Neo-Futurists devised a show about the longest-running failure in Broadway history, J. Frank Davis' The Ladder. The Neo-Futurist show was called Chalk & Saltwater: The Ladder Project. Chalk & Saltwater explored the individuals involved in the failed show this included Edgar B. Davis, the play's backer and \"angel\", Brock and Murdock Pemberton, and J. Frank Davis and their lives before and after The Ladders 789-performance run. Perry was a member of the original cast of The Ladder, but left the production prior to its close. \n\nPerry was inducted into the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame in 2004.\n\nPersonal life \nPerry had three daughters: Margaret, who became an actress; Virginia, who died as an infant; and Elaine, who became a stage producer in the 1950s.\n\nDeath \nPerry was a devout Christian Scientist. Despite signs of heart disease, she refused to see a doctor. The day after her 58th birthday, on June 28, 1946, she died of a heart attack. She is buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, New York City.\n\nReferences\n\nFurther reading\n Fjelde, Rolf. \"In Memoriam: Einar Østvedt and Antoinette Perry.\" Ibsen News and Comment (1981): 2–4. online\n Nassour, Ellis. \"Perry, Antoinette\" American National Biography (1999) https://doi.org/10.1093/anb/9780198606697.article.1800930\n New York Times, 29 June 1946, obituary\n Robinson, Alice M. , and Vera Mowry Roberts, et al. eds. Notable Women in the American Theatre: A Biographical Dictionary (1989)\n\nExternal links\n\n Perry Biography at Tony Awards\n \n Antoinette Perry's biography, American Theatre Wing website; accessed June 9, 2014.\n Antoinette Perry profile, Encyclopædia Britannica\n Colorado Women's Hall of Fame\n\n1888 births\n1946 deaths\nActresses from Denver\nAmerican musical theatre actresses\nAmerican stage actresses\nAmerican theatre directors\nWomen theatre directors\nBurials at Woodlawn Cemetery (Bronx, New York)\n20th-century American actresses\n20th-century American singers\n20th-century American women singers\nAmerican Christian Scientists",
"Sarah-Jane Perry (born 15 May 1990 in Birmingham) is a professional squash player who represents England and Great Britain. She reached a career-high world ranking of World No. 5 in July 2020.\n\nEducation \nPerry was educated at Kenilworth School, Kenilworth, UK, and then graduated from Warwick University, England with a BEng (Hons) degree in 2011.\n\nSquash career \nPerry had a successful junior career, culminating in winning the European Under 19 Individual Championships in Cologne and the British Under 19 Championships, both in 2009. She has won 2 further British National Championships, at the Under 23 level in 2012 and 2013. Perry was part of the victorious England team at the 2013 European Squash Championships, her first selection at senior level. She represented Great Britain at the 2013 World Games in Cali, Colombia where she reached the quarter-finals, losing to the eventual winner Nicol David.\n\nSarah-Jane broke into the top 20 just prior to her 23rd Birthday and reached her highest ranking of 14 after her first World Series quarter-final berth at the Malaysian Open in September 2013. However, she was forced to miss the remainder of tournaments in 2013 with a back injury.\n\nSarah-Jane Perry made her Team England debut at the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games where she won a silver medal in the women's singles.\n\nOn December 12th Sarah Jane Perry won her most prestigious title by winning the CIB Black Ball Squash Open.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n \n \n\n1990 births\nLiving people\nEnglish female squash players\nCommonwealth Games silver medallists for England\nCommonwealth Games medallists in squash\nSquash players at the 2018 Commonwealth Games\nCompetitors at the 2013 World Games"
] |
[
"Rick Barry",
"San Francisco Warriors"
] | C_097b93885b9447d6b53b6b0274d9713d_1 | When did Barry start playing for the Warriors? | 1 | When did Rick Barry start playing for the Warriors? | Rick Barry | In Barry's first season in the NBA with the Warriors, the team improved from 17 to 35 victories. In the All-Star Game one season later, Barry erupted for 38 points as the West team stunned the East squad, which featured Wilt Chamberlain, Oscar Robertson, Bill Russell and head coach Red Auerbach among other all-time greats. Later that season, Barry and company extended the mighty Philadelphia 76ers to six highly competitive games in the NBA Finals, something that Russell and the Boston Celtics could not do in the Eastern Conference playoffs. That 76ers team is considered to be one of the greatest in basketball history. Nicknamed the "Miami Greyhound" by longtime San Francisco-area broadcaster Bill King because of his slender physical build and remarkable quickness and instincts, the 6'7" Barry won the NBA Rookie of the Year Award after averaging 25.7 points and 10.6 rebounds per game in the 1965-66 season. The following year, he won the 1967 NBA All-Star Game MVP award with a 38-point outburst and led the NBA in scoring with a 35.6 point per game average -- which still ranks as the eighth- highest output in league annals. Teamed with star center Nate Thurmond in San Francisco, Barry helped take the Warriors to the 1967 NBA Finals, which they lost to the Philadelphia 76ers in six games. Including a 55-point outburst in Game 3, Barry averaged 40.8 points per game in the series, an NBA Finals record that stood for three decades. Upset that he was not paid incentive monies that he believed due from Warriors owner Franklin Mieuli, Barry jumped to the ABA's Oakland Oaks, who offered him a lucrative contract and the chance to play for Bruce Hale, his then father-in-law. The three-year contract offer from Pat Boone, the singer and team owner, was estimated to be worth $500,000, with Barry saying "the offer Oakland made me was one I simply couldn't turn down" and that it would make him one of basketball's highest-paid players. The courts ordered Barry to sit out the 1967-68 season before he starred in the ABA, upholding the validity of the reserve clause in his contract. He preceded St. Louis Cardinals' outfielder Curt Flood, whose better-known challenge to the reserve clause went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, by two years as the first American major-league professional athlete to bring a court action against it. The ensuing negative publicity cast Barry in a negative light, portraying him as selfish and money-hungry. However, many NBA players at the time were looking at jumping to the ABA for more lucrative contracts. Barry would star in the ABA, twice averaging more than 30 points per game. CANNOTANSWER | game in the 1965-66 season. | Richard Francis Dennis Barry III (born March 28, 1944) is an American retired professional basketball player who played in both the American Basketball Association (ABA) and National Basketball Association (NBA). Named one of the 50 Greatest Players in history in 1996 and 75 Greatest Players in history in 2021, each in a league-wide vote of media, analysts, current and former players and team executives, Barry ranks among the most prolific scorers and all-around players in basketball history. He is the only one to lead the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), ABA, and NBA in points per game in a season. He ranks as the all-time ABA scoring leader in regular season (30.5 points per game) and postseason (33.5) play, while his 36.3 points per game are the most in the NBA Finals history. Barry also is the only player to reach the 50-point mark in a Game 7 of the playoffs in either league. He is one of only four players to be a part of a championship team in both leagues.
Barry is widely known for his unorthodox but extraordinarily effective underhand free throw technique. His career .880 free throw percentage ranks No. 1 in ABA history, and at the time of his retirement in 1980, his .900 percentage was the best of any NBA player. In 1987, he was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. In October 2021, Barry was honored as one of the league's greatest players of all-time by being named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team.
Barry is the father of former professional basketball players Brent Barry, Jon Barry, Drew Barry, and Scooter Barry, and current professional player Canyon Barry. His wife, Lynn Norenberg Barry, was a star basketball player at the College of William & Mary, where she became the first female athlete to have her jersey number (22) retired.
Early years and college career
Barry grew up in Roselle Park, New Jersey, where baseball was his best sport as a youth. He grew up a fan of local New York Giants star Willie Mays, who wore jersey number 24, and Barry would wear the same number in tribute to the outfielder throughout his basketball career. In 1962, Barry graduated from Roselle Park High School.
Barry decided to attend the University of Miami, largely because the Hurricanes adhered to an up-tempo, pro-style system under head coach Bruce Hale that was conducive to his skills and athleticism. It was there that the three-time All-American met his future wife Pamela, who was the daughter of the head coach. As a senior, Barry led the NCAA with a 37.4 points per game average in the 1964–65 campaign. He and his teammates did not take part in the NCAA Tournament, however, because the Hurricanes basketball program was on probation at the time.
Barry was drafted by the San Francisco Warriors with the second pick of the 1965 NBA draft. He had hoped to be selected by the New York Knicks, his hometown team, but they opted for local Princeton star Bill Bradley in round one instead. It was a slight that Barry would not soon forget. In his second visit to Madison Square Garden as a pro, he went off for 57 points versus the Knicks, including 21 free throws in 22 attempts. He also grabbed 15 rebounds in the 141–137 loss.
Professional playing career
San Francisco Warriors
In Barry's first season in the NBA with the Warriors, the team made a quantum leap from 17 to 35 victories and were in playoff contention until the final game of the regular season. In the All-Star Game one season later, Barry erupted for 38 points as the West team stunned the East team, which featured Wilt Chamberlain, Oscar Robertson, Bill Russell and head coach Red Auerbach among other all-time greats. Later that season, Barry and company extended the mighty Philadelphia 76ers to six highly competitive games in the NBA Finals, something that Russell and the Boston Celtics could not do in the Eastern Conference playoffs.
Nicknamed the "Miami Greyhound" by longtime San Francisco Bay Area broadcaster Bill King because of his long and slender physical build, whippet-like quickness and remarkable instincts, the Barry won the NBA Rookie of the Year Award after averaging 25.7 points and 10.6 rebounds per game in the 1965–66 season. The following year, he won the 1967 NBA All-Star Game MVP award with a 38-point outburst and led the NBA in scoring with a 35.6 point per game average — which still ranks as the eighth-highest output in league annals.
Along with All-Star center Nate Thurmond, Barry carried the Warriors to the 1967 NBA Finals, which they lost to the Philadelphia 76ers in six games. Despite an injured left knee that required cortisone shots on game days, Barry averaged 40.8 points per game in the series, an NBA Finals record that stood for three decades. "The guy was so good that we had to have three different guys guard him at different times," Chamberlain said. "'Cause he would run them all ragged."
Joining the ABA
At odds with Warriors owner Franklin Mieuli over unpaid incentive monies due him, Barry shocked the basketball world when he jumped to the ABA's Oakland Oaks, who overwhelmed him with a historic contract offer. Barry became the first marquee NBA player to jump to the rival league. Not only was the three-year agreement worth a reported $500,000, which would make him one of basketball's highest-paid players, it afforded him the opportunity to play for his former college coach Bruce Hale, who was also his father-in-law. In addition, Barry received 15 percent ownership in the franchise as well as 5 percent of all ticket sales in excess of $600,000 for home games. The ground-breaking deal led him to remark, "The offer Oakland made me was one I simply couldn't turn down."
The courts ordered Barry to sit out the 1967–68 season for the Oaks, upholding the validity of the reserve clause in his contract. At the time, all NBA teams had one-year options on player contracts, however, and the Warriors were quick to exercise theirs. He preceded St. Louis Cardinals' outfielder Curt Flood, whose better-known challenge to the reserve clause went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, by two years as the first American major-league professional athlete to bring a court action against it. The ensuing negative publicity cast Barry in a negative light, portraying him as selfish and money hungry. He was hardly alone in his vision, however, as numerous NBA players also saw the rival league as a rare opportunity to enhance their careers.
Oakland Oaks
The Oaks finished 22–56 in their ABA debut, which Barry spent as part of their broadcast team. Prior to the 1968–69 season, they hired his former San Francisco Warriors coach Alex Hannum to replace Hale, who moved to a front office position. If there was any question about whether Barry would remain the most dominant player in professional basketball, he quickly answered it. In his ABA debut, he averaged a league-high 34.0 points per game and the Oaks became the first West Coast team to capture a league championship in professional basketball history. Barry also paced the league in free-throw percentage in the regular season, a feat he would repeat in the 1970–71 and 1971–72 seasons.
Barry had his season come to an abrupt halt on December 27, 1968, when late in a game against the New York Nets, he was blindsided by Ken Wilburn on a drive to the basket and tore left knee ligaments on the play. He attempted to come back in January 1969, only to aggravate the injury and sit out the remainder of the season. He took part in only 35 games but still was named to the ABA All-Star team.
Even without the arguably the best all-around player in basketball, the Oaks barely skipped a beat. They finished with a 60–18 record under Hannum, dominating the Western Division by 14 games over the second-place New Orleans Buccaneers. In the 1969 ABA Playoffs, the Oaks ousted the Denver Rockets in a seven-game series then swept the Buccaneers in the Western Division finals. In the championship round, they made short work of the Indiana Pacers, 4–1, to capture the league title.
In lieu of a parade in downtown Oakland, a modest victory celebration was held at a restaurant in Jack London Square. It was there that Barry announced, "I see no hope for the rest of the teams in the league."
Washington Caps
Despite their on-court excellence, the Oaks were a disappointment at the gate, partly because of Barry's absence in the final five months of the season, partly because they were the only ABA member that competed in the same market as an NBA team, that being the more established Warriors across the bay. They averaged just 2,800 fans per home game at the state-of-the-art Oakland County Coliseum Arena, slightly more than the league average. By that time, entertainer-business entrepreneur Pat Boone had become the majority team owner, and after more than $2 million in losses over two seasons, he wanted out of the basketball business. In August 1968, the franchise was sold to a group headed by real estate attorney and former Baltimore Bullets owner Earl Foreman, who immediately moved it to Washington, D.C., even though there was no suitable arena in the vicinity at the time.
Reluctantly, Barry played the 1969–70 season with the ABA's Washington Caps. He refused to report to the team at the outset, at one point commenting, "If I wanted to go to Washington, I'd run for president!" He missed the first 32 games before he joined the team, which played in the Western Division, making for a grueling travel schedule. The Caps still managed to finish with a respectable 44–40 record, good for third place in the Western Division. Appearing in only 52 games because of a knee injury, Barry finished the season with 1,442 points (27.7 per game), second-best in the league. The Denver Rockets edged the Caps, 4–3, in the Western Division semifinals. In Game 7 on the road, Barry went off for 52 points, the most scored in a seventh and deciding game in professional basketball history.
Virginia Squires
The Washington Caps became the Virginia Squires after the 1969–70 season, but Barry was openly despondent about playing in Virginia. At the same time, he wanted to continue playing in the ABA. Featured on the August 24, 1970, cover of Sports Illustrated in a Squires jersey, he indicated that he would not return to the NBA if the league paid him "a million dollars a year." He denounced the Squires (and, subsequently, never suited up for them), saying he did not want his kids growing up with a Southern accent. On September 1, 1970, the Squires traded Barry to the New York Nets for a draft pick and $200,000. The negative comments were not the primary reason; rather, Squires owner Earl Foreman was mired in financial troubles and sold Barry to help meet expenses.
New York Nets
After the Squires dealt Barry to the New York Nets, he played in only 59 games in the 1970–71 season because of a knee injury but still made the ABA All Star team. He repeated as an ABA All Star during the 1971–72 season. During the 1970–71 season he led the league in scoring (29.4 points per game) and led the league again in 1971–72 with 31.5 points per game. In both of those years he also led the ABA in free throw percentage as he had in 1968–69. Barry also became the ABA record holder for most consecutive free throws in one game with 23.
In the 1970–71 season, the Nets finished 40–44, good for fourth place in the Eastern Division and a place in the 1971 ABA Playoffs. The Virginia Squires defeated the Nets 4 games to 2 in the Eastern Division semifinals. The 1971–72 Nets finished the season at 44–40, making the 1972 ABA Playoffs by claiming third place in the Eastern Division, 24 games behind the 68–16 Kentucky Colonels. In the Eastern Division semifinals the Nets shocked the ABA by defeating the Colonels 4 games to 2. The Nets then eked out a 4–3 game victory over the Virginia Squires in the Eastern Division finals. The Nets were then edged by the Western Division champion Indiana Pacers, 4 games to 2, in the 1972 ABA Finals.
On June 23, 1972, a United States District Court judge issued a preliminary injunction to prohibit Barry from playing for any team other than the Golden State Warriors after his contract with the Nets ended. On October 6, 1972, the Nets released Barry and he returned to the Warriors.
Golden State Warriors
Upon Barry's return to the Warriors and the NBA, the cumulative effects of knee problems were taking their toll. Barry gradually moved his game away from the basket, where he became the first so-called point forward in league history. That is, Barry took on a role similar to that of a point guard and became the chief facilitator of the offense. While his offensive forays were not as frequent as in the past, he remained an elite scorer as evidenced by his performance on March 26, 1974, when he went off for a career-high 64 points and grabbed 10 rebounds in a 143–120 win over the visiting Portland Trail Blazers.
In 1974–75, the Warriors had a Cinderella season for the ages. The turnaround began in training camp, when Barry was elected captain by his teammates. They went on to capture the Pacific Division crown as Barry responded with the best all-around season of his career. Not only did he average 30.6 points per game, but he also led the league in free throw percentage (.904) and steals per game (2.9) and ranked sixth in assists per game (6.2), the only forward among the top 10 in the category.
In the playoffs, the upstart Warriors turned back the Seattle SuperSonics and Chicago Bulls to capture the Western Conference crown. In the NBA Finals, they shocked the basketball world with a historic four-game sweep of Elvin Hayes, Wes Unseld and the Washington Bullets, widely considered to be the greatest postseason upset in NBA history. The Bullets had posted a league-high 60 victories, 12 more than the Warriors total in the regular season, which led many experts to predict that they would win the series easily. Barry was named NBA Finals Most Valuable Player on the strength of 29.5 points, 5.0 assists and 3.5 steals per game, not to mention his profound impact in a leadership role.
In the 1975 NBA draft, the Warriors selected point guard Gus Williams in the first round. While Williams made immediate contributions off the bench, off guard Phil Smith came into his own in his second season. Barry was not required to carry the team as often, and his scoring average dipped to 21.0 points per game as a result. As the deepest and most athletic team in professional basketball, the Warriors repeated as Pacific Division champions, this time with a league-best 59–23 record. They entered the playoffs as clear-cut favorites to return to the NBA Finals.
After an unusual 10-day layoff, partly to accommodate network television, the Warriors eliminated the Detroit Pistons in round one then were upset in the Western Conference finals by the Phoenix Suns in seven games. The final contest was marred by a fight between Barry and Suns rookie Ricky Sobers away from the ball in the first quarter, during which none of the Warriors came to his aid at the opposite side of the court. Suns broadcaster Al McCoy concocted a narrative that Barry quit in the second half, a charge that lacked tangible evidence and he steadfastly denied. In fact, Barry led his team in points and shot attempts that game. Rather, he said his intent was to get more teammates involved in the third quarter, the game plan that had allowed them to dominate in the regular season.
In the 1976–77 campaign, the Warriors won 46 games the next season with Barry, Smith, and Williams sharing scoring and ball-handling, but were ousted in the second round by the Los Angeles Lakers. Reportedly, Barry and Williams clashed over the ball-handling role, and Williams was traded after the season to the Seattle SuperSonics. Barry averaged 23.1 points per game in his farewell season (1977–78) with the Warriors, but the team failed to make the playoffs.
Houston Rockets
Barry finished his career with the Houston Rockets, playing through the 1979–80 NBA season. The Rockets signed him as a free agent in June, 1978, and the league awarded veteran guard John Lucas to the Warriors as compensation.
In the twilight of his career, Barry continued to make history. In his Rockets debut, he assumed a new role as the first player off the bench. It was not long before he elevated the point forward position to another level. Barry finished with a career-high 502 assists to become the first true small forward to reach the 500 mark in one season. Until then, swingman John Havlicek had been the only forward with as many as 500 assists in a season, but the Boston Celtics swingman also spent considerable time at the off guard spot. Barry averaged 13.5 points per game and established a new NBA record (since broken) with a .947 free throw percentage.
Barry was less of a factor in his final season. The Rockets were swept by the Celtics in the 1980 Eastern Conference semifinals, and when contract talks with Boston and the Seattle SuperSonics failed to produce a contract, he decided to retire.
NBA career statistics
Regular season
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|San Francisco
| style="background:#cfecec;"|80* || || 37.4 || .439 || || .862 || 10.6 || 2.2 || || || 25.7
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|San Francisco
| 78 || || 40.7 || .451 || || .884 || 9.2 || 3.6 || || || style="background:#cfecec;"|35.6*
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || || 37.5 || .452 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.902* || 8.9 || 4.9 || || || 22.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 80 || || 36.5 || .456 || || .899 || 6.8 || 6.1 || 2.1 || 0.5 || 25.1
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 80 || || 40.4 || .464 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.904* || 5.7 || 6.2 || style="background:#cfecec;"|2.9* || 0.4 || 30.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 81 || || 38.5 || .435 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.923* || 6.1 || 6.1 || 2.5 || 0.3 || 21.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 79 || || 36.8 || .440 || || .916 || 5.3 || 6.0 || 2.2 || 0.7 || 21.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 82 || || 36.9 || .451 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.924* || 5.5 || 5.4 || 1.9 || 0.5 || 23.1
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 80 || || 32.1 || .461 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.947* || 3.5 || 6.3 || 1.2 || 0.5 || 13.5
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 72 || || 25.2 || .422 || .330 || style="background:#cfecec;"|.935* || 3.3 || 3.7 || 1.1 || 0.4 || 12.0
|- class=sortbottom
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|Career
| 794 || || 36.3 || .449 || .330 || .900 || 6.5 || 5.1 || 2.0 || 0.5 || 23.2
Later years
During the 1990s, he coached the Cedar Rapids Sharpshooters of the Global Basketball Association and the Continental Basketball Association, guiding the Fort Wayne Fury to a 19–37 win-loss record in 1993–94. In 1998 and 1999, he served as head coach of the New Jersey ShoreCats of the United States Basketball League. Former Warriors teammate Clifford Ray was his top assistant.
Barry finished second in his division at the 2005 World Long Drive Championship.
Barry is part owner and promoter for the Ektio basketball shoe, which doctor and former college basketball player Barry Katz designed to reduce ankle injuries. He also serves on the company's Board of Directors.
Broadcasting career
Barry was among the first professional basketball players to make a successful transition to the broadcasting profession. He began broadcasting during the 1967–68 season broadcasting Oakland Oaks games because of contractual matters that kept him off the court. Barry continues to work in the field, a career that began with his own radio show in San Francisco and CBS while still an active player and then with TBS.
While working as a CBS analyst during Game 5 of the 1981 NBA Finals, Barry made a controversial comment when CBS displayed an old photo of colleague Bill Russell, who is African-American. He tried to joke that "it looks like some fool over there with that big watermelon grin". Barry later apologized for the comment, claiming that he did not realize that a reference to watermelons had racial overtones. Russell said that he believed Barry with regard to Barry's racial attitudes, but nonetheless, the two men are reported not to have been particularly friendly for other reasons, unrelated to that comment.
CBS did not renew Barry's employment for the subsequent season. Producers later cited the general negative tone of his game commentary, which did not sit well with some players and agents around the league. The next season Barry filled in on a few Seattle SuperSonics broadcasts, but a plan for a full-time position fell through when he insisted that his then-wife be allowed to join him when the team was on the road, which would have been contrary to team policy. The next year, Barry was featured in a lengthy Sports Illustrated article written by Tony Kornheiser in which he lamented the failure of his broadcasting career to that point, as well as the fact that he'd left a reputation within NBA circles for being an unlikeable person. After this, Barry worked with TBS and later on, TNT into the 1989–90 season, mostly as a color analyst but sometimes as a play-by-play announcer paired with Bill Russell. One of the more notable games Barry called as play-by-play announcer on TBS was Game 5 of the 1985 Eastern Conference Finals between the Boston Celtics and the Philadelphia 76ers, where Larry Bird made a last-second steal which sealed the win and the Eastern Conference Championship for the Celtics. After the 1989–90 season, Barry became the color analyst for the Atlanta Hawks' games that aired on TBS, paired with Skip Caray.
In a rare non-sports venture, he hosted the pilot for the mid-1980s game show Catchphrase; however, when the series debuted in the fall of 1985, game show veteran Art James replaced him (the series itself was short-lived in the US, but was brought over to the UK and is still running).
In September 2001, Barry began hosting a sports talk show on KNBR in San Francisco until June 2003, when KNBR paired him up with Rod Brooks to co-host a show named Rick and Rod. The show aired on KNBR until August 2006, when Barry left the station abruptly for reasons not disclosed to the public.
Personal life
Barry is of Irish, English, French, and Lithuanian descent. He was a member of the Kappa Sigma fraternity. He resides in Colorado Springs, Colorado with his wife, Lynn Norenberg Barry. While their youngest son, Canyon, played basketball for The University of Florida, to watch him play, they rented a condominium in Gainesville, Florida.
He has four sons and a daughter with his first wife Pam: Scooter, Jon, Brent, Drew and Shannon. All of Barry's sons were professional basketball players. Barry wrote an autobiography, Confessions of a Basketball Gypsy: The Rick Barry Story with Bill Libby that was published in 1972. He also has a son, Canyon, with his third wife, Lynn Barry, who is a professional player, playing for Chinese club Hunan Jinjian Miye in the 2018–19 season.
When his son Brent won the NBA Championship in 2005 with the San Antonio Spurs, Rick and Brent became the second father-son duo to both win NBA Championships as players, following Matt Guokas Sr. and Matt Guokas Jr. Later, this would be repeated by Bill and Luke Walton, and Mychal and Klay Thompson.
Jon and Brent have also moved to broadcasting after retirement. Jon serves as a game analyst on ESPN while Brent worked as a studio and game analyst on TNT and NBA TV until 2018 when he took a job with the San Antonio Spurs to be vice president of basketball operations.
Scooter won titles in the CBA and the top Belgian League.
Career achievements
Roselle Park High School – Roselle Park, New Jersey (1957–1961)
Two-time All-State selection
University of Miami (1961–1965)
Associated Press First-Team All-America (1965)
The Sporting News All-America Second Team (1965)
Consensus All-America (1965)
Led the nation in scoring (37.4 ppg) as a senior
NBA San Francisco Warriors (1965–1967)
NBA Rookie of the Year (1966)
NBA All-Rookie First Team (1966)
NBA leading scorer in 1967 (35.6 ppg)
ABA leading scorer in 1969 (34.0 ppg)
NBA highest free-throw percentage 1973, 1975, 1976, 1978, 1979, 1980
ABA highest free-throw percentage 1969, 1971, 1972
NBA All-Star Game MVP (1967)
ABA Oakland Oaks (1968–1969)
ABA Washington Caps (1969–1970)
ABA New York Nets (1970–1972)
NBA Golden State Warriors (1972–1978)
All-NBA Second Team (1973)
NBA Finals MVP (1975)
NBA champion (1975)
NBA Houston Rockets (1978–1979)
All-NBA First Team (1966, 1967, 1974, 1975, 1976)
Eight-time NBA All-Star (1966, 1967, 1973–1978)
ABA All-Star First Team (1969–1972)
NBA 50 Greatest Players (1996)
NBA 75 Greatest Players (2021)
Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame (1988)
Sports Hall of Fame of New Jersey (1994)
University of Miami Sports Hall of Fame (1976)
Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement (1975)
15 games in NBA career scoring 50 or more points (5th in NBA history)
115 games in professional career scoring 40 or more points — 70 NBA, 45 ABA (4th in professional basketball history after Wilt Chamberlain, Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant)
NBA records
Regular season
Only player in history to lead the NCAA, ABA and NBA in scoring
Led the NCAA in scoring in 1964–65 (973 points, 37.4 ppg)
Led the NBA in scoring in (2,775 points, 35.6 ppg)
Led the ABA in scoring in (1,190 points; 34.0 ppg)
Youngest player to score 57 points in a game: (57 points, San Francisco Warriors at New York Knicks, )
Free throws, consecutive, ABA game: 23, at Kentucky Colonels,
Assists, forward, game: 19, at Chicago Bulls, November 30, 1976
Playoffs
Scoring 30 or more points in all games, any playoff series: 6 games, vs. Philadelphia 76ers, 1967 NBA Finals
Points, 7-game ABA series: 281, vs. Denver Rockets, 1970 semifinals
Points scored, Game 7, any ABA-NBA playoff series: 52, at Denver Rockets,
Field goal attempts, 6-game series: 235, vs. Philadelphia 76ers, 1967 NBA Finals
Field goal attempts, game: 48, vs. Philadelphia 76ers,
Field goal attempts, quarter: 17, at Philadelphia 76ers,
Steals, quarter: 4, second quarter, at Chicago Bulls,
Tied with many other players
NBA Finals
Highest scoring average (career): 36.3
Scoring 30 or more points in all games, any championship series: 6 games, vs. Philadelphia 76ers, 1967 NBA Finals
Tied with Elgin Baylor, Michael Jordan, Hakeem Olajuwon, Shaquille O'Neal, and Kevin Durant.
Field goals made, game: 22, vs. Philadelphia 76ers,
Tied with Elgin Baylor
Field goal attempts, 6-game series: 235, vs. Philadelphia 76ers, 1967 NBA Finals
Field goal attempts, game: 48, vs. Philadelphia 76ers,
Field goal attempts, quarter: 17, at Philadelphia 76ers,
Steals, 4-game series: 14, vs. Washington Bullets, 1975 NBA Finals (3.5 spg)
All-Star
Field goal attempts, game: 27 (1967)
Steals, game: 8 (1975)
Personal fouls, game: 6, twice (1966, 1978)
Disqualifications, career: 2
Tied with Bob Cousy
See also
American Basketball Association (2000–present)
List of individual National Basketball Association scoring leaders by season
List of National Basketball Association players with most points in a game
List of National Basketball Association players with most steals in a game
List of National Basketball Association players with 50 or more points in a playoff game
List of NCAA Division I men's basketball players with 2000 points and 1000 rebounds
References
External links
Basketball Hall of Fame profile
RememberTheABA.com Rick Barry page
1972 Jim O'Brien biographical article on Rick Barry
Rick Barry and Rod Brooks Home Page at KNBR Radio
Rick Barry Career Statistics
A Voice Crying in the Wilderness
1944 births
Living people
All-American college men's basketball players
American Basketball Association announcers
American men's basketball players
American people of Lithuanian descent
American sports radio personalities
Basketball coaches from New Jersey
Basketball players from Colorado Springs, Colorado
Basketball players from New Jersey
Big3 coaches
Continental Basketball Association coaches
Golden State Warriors players
Golf writers and broadcasters
Houston Rockets players
Miami Hurricanes men's basketball players
Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductees
National Basketball Association All-Stars
National Basketball Association broadcasters
National Basketball Association players with retired numbers
New York Nets players
Oakland Oaks players
People from Roselle Park, New Jersey
Radio personalities from San Francisco
San Francisco Warriors draft picks
San Francisco Warriors players
Small forwards
Sportspeople from Elizabeth, New Jersey
Tennis commentators
United States Basketball League coaches
Washington Caps players | false | [
"Miguel Start (born 30 November 1987) is a former Samoa international rugby league footballer who played as a .\n\nBackground\nStart was born in Auckland, New Zealand.\n\nPlaying career\nStart was educated at Mount Albert Grammar School, and played for the Pakuranga Jaguars in the Auckland Rugby League competition.\n\nIn 2005 Start represented the Junior Kiwis in 2005. He played for both the New Zealand Residents and Samoa in 2006.\n\nStart was signed with the New Zealand Warriors in the National Rugby League competition for 2007. Start did not make his NRL debut but did appear in the NSWRL Premier League for the Auckland Lions.\n\nReferences\n\nNew Zealand rugby league players\n1987 births\nLiving people\nPakuranga Jaguars players\nAuckland rugby league team players\nNew Zealand people of Samoan descent\nSamoa national rugby league team players\nJunior Kiwis players\nRugby league centres",
"Darren Barry (born 2 February 1990) is an English rugby union player who plays for Vannes in the Pro D2.\n\nClub career\nBarry was part of Bristol academy system where he enjoyed a loan spell at Clifton near Bristol. Barry made his senior debut when they beat Cornish Pirates 60-15 at Camborne in May 2010 and made his 50th appearance for Bristol winning against the Pirates won 50-22 in the British and Irish Cup at the Mennaye Field in September 2011.\n\nIn July 2012, Barry left Bristol to join Cornish Pirates in the RFU Championship from the 2012-13 season. On 25 March 2015, Barry left Cornwall to join Western rivals Worcester Warriors in the Aviva Premiership ahead of the 2015-16 season. On 20 May 2016, Barry signed a contract extension to stay with the club at Sixways Stadium.\n\nOn 17 April 2019, Barry returns to the RFU Championship with Newcastle Falcons from the 2019-20 season.\n\nOn 5 April 2021, Barry would leave Newcastle to sign for Pro D2 side Vannes in France as medical joker for the rest of the 2020-21 season.\n\nInternational career\nBarry was a regular member of the England U19s squad while still with Bristol. Barry was selected for a RFU Championship XV team that defeated Canada 28-23 as part of their 2014 autumn tests, which was held at the Sixways Stadium in Worcester.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nWorcester Warriors Profile\nCornish Pirates Profile\n\nEnglish rugby union players\n1990 births\nLiving people\nWorcester Warriors players\nCornish Pirates players\nBristol Bears players\nRugby union players from Bristol"
] |
[
"Rick Barry",
"San Francisco Warriors",
"When did Barry start playing for the Warriors?",
"game in the 1965-66 season."
] | C_097b93885b9447d6b53b6b0274d9713d_1 | How many games did he play in the 1965-66 season? | 2 | How many games did Rick Barry play in the 1965-66 season? | Rick Barry | In Barry's first season in the NBA with the Warriors, the team improved from 17 to 35 victories. In the All-Star Game one season later, Barry erupted for 38 points as the West team stunned the East squad, which featured Wilt Chamberlain, Oscar Robertson, Bill Russell and head coach Red Auerbach among other all-time greats. Later that season, Barry and company extended the mighty Philadelphia 76ers to six highly competitive games in the NBA Finals, something that Russell and the Boston Celtics could not do in the Eastern Conference playoffs. That 76ers team is considered to be one of the greatest in basketball history. Nicknamed the "Miami Greyhound" by longtime San Francisco-area broadcaster Bill King because of his slender physical build and remarkable quickness and instincts, the 6'7" Barry won the NBA Rookie of the Year Award after averaging 25.7 points and 10.6 rebounds per game in the 1965-66 season. The following year, he won the 1967 NBA All-Star Game MVP award with a 38-point outburst and led the NBA in scoring with a 35.6 point per game average -- which still ranks as the eighth- highest output in league annals. Teamed with star center Nate Thurmond in San Francisco, Barry helped take the Warriors to the 1967 NBA Finals, which they lost to the Philadelphia 76ers in six games. Including a 55-point outburst in Game 3, Barry averaged 40.8 points per game in the series, an NBA Finals record that stood for three decades. Upset that he was not paid incentive monies that he believed due from Warriors owner Franklin Mieuli, Barry jumped to the ABA's Oakland Oaks, who offered him a lucrative contract and the chance to play for Bruce Hale, his then father-in-law. The three-year contract offer from Pat Boone, the singer and team owner, was estimated to be worth $500,000, with Barry saying "the offer Oakland made me was one I simply couldn't turn down" and that it would make him one of basketball's highest-paid players. The courts ordered Barry to sit out the 1967-68 season before he starred in the ABA, upholding the validity of the reserve clause in his contract. He preceded St. Louis Cardinals' outfielder Curt Flood, whose better-known challenge to the reserve clause went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, by two years as the first American major-league professional athlete to bring a court action against it. The ensuing negative publicity cast Barry in a negative light, portraying him as selfish and money-hungry. However, many NBA players at the time were looking at jumping to the ABA for more lucrative contracts. Barry would star in the ABA, twice averaging more than 30 points per game. CANNOTANSWER | Barry won the NBA Rookie of the Year Award after averaging 25.7 points and 10.6 rebounds per game in the 1965-66 season. | Richard Francis Dennis Barry III (born March 28, 1944) is an American retired professional basketball player who played in both the American Basketball Association (ABA) and National Basketball Association (NBA). Named one of the 50 Greatest Players in history in 1996 and 75 Greatest Players in history in 2021, each in a league-wide vote of media, analysts, current and former players and team executives, Barry ranks among the most prolific scorers and all-around players in basketball history. He is the only one to lead the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), ABA, and NBA in points per game in a season. He ranks as the all-time ABA scoring leader in regular season (30.5 points per game) and postseason (33.5) play, while his 36.3 points per game are the most in the NBA Finals history. Barry also is the only player to reach the 50-point mark in a Game 7 of the playoffs in either league. He is one of only four players to be a part of a championship team in both leagues.
Barry is widely known for his unorthodox but extraordinarily effective underhand free throw technique. His career .880 free throw percentage ranks No. 1 in ABA history, and at the time of his retirement in 1980, his .900 percentage was the best of any NBA player. In 1987, he was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. In October 2021, Barry was honored as one of the league's greatest players of all-time by being named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team.
Barry is the father of former professional basketball players Brent Barry, Jon Barry, Drew Barry, and Scooter Barry, and current professional player Canyon Barry. His wife, Lynn Norenberg Barry, was a star basketball player at the College of William & Mary, where she became the first female athlete to have her jersey number (22) retired.
Early years and college career
Barry grew up in Roselle Park, New Jersey, where baseball was his best sport as a youth. He grew up a fan of local New York Giants star Willie Mays, who wore jersey number 24, and Barry would wear the same number in tribute to the outfielder throughout his basketball career. In 1962, Barry graduated from Roselle Park High School.
Barry decided to attend the University of Miami, largely because the Hurricanes adhered to an up-tempo, pro-style system under head coach Bruce Hale that was conducive to his skills and athleticism. It was there that the three-time All-American met his future wife Pamela, who was the daughter of the head coach. As a senior, Barry led the NCAA with a 37.4 points per game average in the 1964–65 campaign. He and his teammates did not take part in the NCAA Tournament, however, because the Hurricanes basketball program was on probation at the time.
Barry was drafted by the San Francisco Warriors with the second pick of the 1965 NBA draft. He had hoped to be selected by the New York Knicks, his hometown team, but they opted for local Princeton star Bill Bradley in round one instead. It was a slight that Barry would not soon forget. In his second visit to Madison Square Garden as a pro, he went off for 57 points versus the Knicks, including 21 free throws in 22 attempts. He also grabbed 15 rebounds in the 141–137 loss.
Professional playing career
San Francisco Warriors
In Barry's first season in the NBA with the Warriors, the team made a quantum leap from 17 to 35 victories and were in playoff contention until the final game of the regular season. In the All-Star Game one season later, Barry erupted for 38 points as the West team stunned the East team, which featured Wilt Chamberlain, Oscar Robertson, Bill Russell and head coach Red Auerbach among other all-time greats. Later that season, Barry and company extended the mighty Philadelphia 76ers to six highly competitive games in the NBA Finals, something that Russell and the Boston Celtics could not do in the Eastern Conference playoffs.
Nicknamed the "Miami Greyhound" by longtime San Francisco Bay Area broadcaster Bill King because of his long and slender physical build, whippet-like quickness and remarkable instincts, the Barry won the NBA Rookie of the Year Award after averaging 25.7 points and 10.6 rebounds per game in the 1965–66 season. The following year, he won the 1967 NBA All-Star Game MVP award with a 38-point outburst and led the NBA in scoring with a 35.6 point per game average — which still ranks as the eighth-highest output in league annals.
Along with All-Star center Nate Thurmond, Barry carried the Warriors to the 1967 NBA Finals, which they lost to the Philadelphia 76ers in six games. Despite an injured left knee that required cortisone shots on game days, Barry averaged 40.8 points per game in the series, an NBA Finals record that stood for three decades. "The guy was so good that we had to have three different guys guard him at different times," Chamberlain said. "'Cause he would run them all ragged."
Joining the ABA
At odds with Warriors owner Franklin Mieuli over unpaid incentive monies due him, Barry shocked the basketball world when he jumped to the ABA's Oakland Oaks, who overwhelmed him with a historic contract offer. Barry became the first marquee NBA player to jump to the rival league. Not only was the three-year agreement worth a reported $500,000, which would make him one of basketball's highest-paid players, it afforded him the opportunity to play for his former college coach Bruce Hale, who was also his father-in-law. In addition, Barry received 15 percent ownership in the franchise as well as 5 percent of all ticket sales in excess of $600,000 for home games. The ground-breaking deal led him to remark, "The offer Oakland made me was one I simply couldn't turn down."
The courts ordered Barry to sit out the 1967–68 season for the Oaks, upholding the validity of the reserve clause in his contract. At the time, all NBA teams had one-year options on player contracts, however, and the Warriors were quick to exercise theirs. He preceded St. Louis Cardinals' outfielder Curt Flood, whose better-known challenge to the reserve clause went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, by two years as the first American major-league professional athlete to bring a court action against it. The ensuing negative publicity cast Barry in a negative light, portraying him as selfish and money hungry. He was hardly alone in his vision, however, as numerous NBA players also saw the rival league as a rare opportunity to enhance their careers.
Oakland Oaks
The Oaks finished 22–56 in their ABA debut, which Barry spent as part of their broadcast team. Prior to the 1968–69 season, they hired his former San Francisco Warriors coach Alex Hannum to replace Hale, who moved to a front office position. If there was any question about whether Barry would remain the most dominant player in professional basketball, he quickly answered it. In his ABA debut, he averaged a league-high 34.0 points per game and the Oaks became the first West Coast team to capture a league championship in professional basketball history. Barry also paced the league in free-throw percentage in the regular season, a feat he would repeat in the 1970–71 and 1971–72 seasons.
Barry had his season come to an abrupt halt on December 27, 1968, when late in a game against the New York Nets, he was blindsided by Ken Wilburn on a drive to the basket and tore left knee ligaments on the play. He attempted to come back in January 1969, only to aggravate the injury and sit out the remainder of the season. He took part in only 35 games but still was named to the ABA All-Star team.
Even without the arguably the best all-around player in basketball, the Oaks barely skipped a beat. They finished with a 60–18 record under Hannum, dominating the Western Division by 14 games over the second-place New Orleans Buccaneers. In the 1969 ABA Playoffs, the Oaks ousted the Denver Rockets in a seven-game series then swept the Buccaneers in the Western Division finals. In the championship round, they made short work of the Indiana Pacers, 4–1, to capture the league title.
In lieu of a parade in downtown Oakland, a modest victory celebration was held at a restaurant in Jack London Square. It was there that Barry announced, "I see no hope for the rest of the teams in the league."
Washington Caps
Despite their on-court excellence, the Oaks were a disappointment at the gate, partly because of Barry's absence in the final five months of the season, partly because they were the only ABA member that competed in the same market as an NBA team, that being the more established Warriors across the bay. They averaged just 2,800 fans per home game at the state-of-the-art Oakland County Coliseum Arena, slightly more than the league average. By that time, entertainer-business entrepreneur Pat Boone had become the majority team owner, and after more than $2 million in losses over two seasons, he wanted out of the basketball business. In August 1968, the franchise was sold to a group headed by real estate attorney and former Baltimore Bullets owner Earl Foreman, who immediately moved it to Washington, D.C., even though there was no suitable arena in the vicinity at the time.
Reluctantly, Barry played the 1969–70 season with the ABA's Washington Caps. He refused to report to the team at the outset, at one point commenting, "If I wanted to go to Washington, I'd run for president!" He missed the first 32 games before he joined the team, which played in the Western Division, making for a grueling travel schedule. The Caps still managed to finish with a respectable 44–40 record, good for third place in the Western Division. Appearing in only 52 games because of a knee injury, Barry finished the season with 1,442 points (27.7 per game), second-best in the league. The Denver Rockets edged the Caps, 4–3, in the Western Division semifinals. In Game 7 on the road, Barry went off for 52 points, the most scored in a seventh and deciding game in professional basketball history.
Virginia Squires
The Washington Caps became the Virginia Squires after the 1969–70 season, but Barry was openly despondent about playing in Virginia. At the same time, he wanted to continue playing in the ABA. Featured on the August 24, 1970, cover of Sports Illustrated in a Squires jersey, he indicated that he would not return to the NBA if the league paid him "a million dollars a year." He denounced the Squires (and, subsequently, never suited up for them), saying he did not want his kids growing up with a Southern accent. On September 1, 1970, the Squires traded Barry to the New York Nets for a draft pick and $200,000. The negative comments were not the primary reason; rather, Squires owner Earl Foreman was mired in financial troubles and sold Barry to help meet expenses.
New York Nets
After the Squires dealt Barry to the New York Nets, he played in only 59 games in the 1970–71 season because of a knee injury but still made the ABA All Star team. He repeated as an ABA All Star during the 1971–72 season. During the 1970–71 season he led the league in scoring (29.4 points per game) and led the league again in 1971–72 with 31.5 points per game. In both of those years he also led the ABA in free throw percentage as he had in 1968–69. Barry also became the ABA record holder for most consecutive free throws in one game with 23.
In the 1970–71 season, the Nets finished 40–44, good for fourth place in the Eastern Division and a place in the 1971 ABA Playoffs. The Virginia Squires defeated the Nets 4 games to 2 in the Eastern Division semifinals. The 1971–72 Nets finished the season at 44–40, making the 1972 ABA Playoffs by claiming third place in the Eastern Division, 24 games behind the 68–16 Kentucky Colonels. In the Eastern Division semifinals the Nets shocked the ABA by defeating the Colonels 4 games to 2. The Nets then eked out a 4–3 game victory over the Virginia Squires in the Eastern Division finals. The Nets were then edged by the Western Division champion Indiana Pacers, 4 games to 2, in the 1972 ABA Finals.
On June 23, 1972, a United States District Court judge issued a preliminary injunction to prohibit Barry from playing for any team other than the Golden State Warriors after his contract with the Nets ended. On October 6, 1972, the Nets released Barry and he returned to the Warriors.
Golden State Warriors
Upon Barry's return to the Warriors and the NBA, the cumulative effects of knee problems were taking their toll. Barry gradually moved his game away from the basket, where he became the first so-called point forward in league history. That is, Barry took on a role similar to that of a point guard and became the chief facilitator of the offense. While his offensive forays were not as frequent as in the past, he remained an elite scorer as evidenced by his performance on March 26, 1974, when he went off for a career-high 64 points and grabbed 10 rebounds in a 143–120 win over the visiting Portland Trail Blazers.
In 1974–75, the Warriors had a Cinderella season for the ages. The turnaround began in training camp, when Barry was elected captain by his teammates. They went on to capture the Pacific Division crown as Barry responded with the best all-around season of his career. Not only did he average 30.6 points per game, but he also led the league in free throw percentage (.904) and steals per game (2.9) and ranked sixth in assists per game (6.2), the only forward among the top 10 in the category.
In the playoffs, the upstart Warriors turned back the Seattle SuperSonics and Chicago Bulls to capture the Western Conference crown. In the NBA Finals, they shocked the basketball world with a historic four-game sweep of Elvin Hayes, Wes Unseld and the Washington Bullets, widely considered to be the greatest postseason upset in NBA history. The Bullets had posted a league-high 60 victories, 12 more than the Warriors total in the regular season, which led many experts to predict that they would win the series easily. Barry was named NBA Finals Most Valuable Player on the strength of 29.5 points, 5.0 assists and 3.5 steals per game, not to mention his profound impact in a leadership role.
In the 1975 NBA draft, the Warriors selected point guard Gus Williams in the first round. While Williams made immediate contributions off the bench, off guard Phil Smith came into his own in his second season. Barry was not required to carry the team as often, and his scoring average dipped to 21.0 points per game as a result. As the deepest and most athletic team in professional basketball, the Warriors repeated as Pacific Division champions, this time with a league-best 59–23 record. They entered the playoffs as clear-cut favorites to return to the NBA Finals.
After an unusual 10-day layoff, partly to accommodate network television, the Warriors eliminated the Detroit Pistons in round one then were upset in the Western Conference finals by the Phoenix Suns in seven games. The final contest was marred by a fight between Barry and Suns rookie Ricky Sobers away from the ball in the first quarter, during which none of the Warriors came to his aid at the opposite side of the court. Suns broadcaster Al McCoy concocted a narrative that Barry quit in the second half, a charge that lacked tangible evidence and he steadfastly denied. In fact, Barry led his team in points and shot attempts that game. Rather, he said his intent was to get more teammates involved in the third quarter, the game plan that had allowed them to dominate in the regular season.
In the 1976–77 campaign, the Warriors won 46 games the next season with Barry, Smith, and Williams sharing scoring and ball-handling, but were ousted in the second round by the Los Angeles Lakers. Reportedly, Barry and Williams clashed over the ball-handling role, and Williams was traded after the season to the Seattle SuperSonics. Barry averaged 23.1 points per game in his farewell season (1977–78) with the Warriors, but the team failed to make the playoffs.
Houston Rockets
Barry finished his career with the Houston Rockets, playing through the 1979–80 NBA season. The Rockets signed him as a free agent in June, 1978, and the league awarded veteran guard John Lucas to the Warriors as compensation.
In the twilight of his career, Barry continued to make history. In his Rockets debut, he assumed a new role as the first player off the bench. It was not long before he elevated the point forward position to another level. Barry finished with a career-high 502 assists to become the first true small forward to reach the 500 mark in one season. Until then, swingman John Havlicek had been the only forward with as many as 500 assists in a season, but the Boston Celtics swingman also spent considerable time at the off guard spot. Barry averaged 13.5 points per game and established a new NBA record (since broken) with a .947 free throw percentage.
Barry was less of a factor in his final season. The Rockets were swept by the Celtics in the 1980 Eastern Conference semifinals, and when contract talks with Boston and the Seattle SuperSonics failed to produce a contract, he decided to retire.
NBA career statistics
Regular season
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|San Francisco
| style="background:#cfecec;"|80* || || 37.4 || .439 || || .862 || 10.6 || 2.2 || || || 25.7
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|San Francisco
| 78 || || 40.7 || .451 || || .884 || 9.2 || 3.6 || || || style="background:#cfecec;"|35.6*
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || || 37.5 || .452 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.902* || 8.9 || 4.9 || || || 22.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 80 || || 36.5 || .456 || || .899 || 6.8 || 6.1 || 2.1 || 0.5 || 25.1
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 80 || || 40.4 || .464 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.904* || 5.7 || 6.2 || style="background:#cfecec;"|2.9* || 0.4 || 30.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 81 || || 38.5 || .435 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.923* || 6.1 || 6.1 || 2.5 || 0.3 || 21.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 79 || || 36.8 || .440 || || .916 || 5.3 || 6.0 || 2.2 || 0.7 || 21.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 82 || || 36.9 || .451 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.924* || 5.5 || 5.4 || 1.9 || 0.5 || 23.1
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 80 || || 32.1 || .461 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.947* || 3.5 || 6.3 || 1.2 || 0.5 || 13.5
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 72 || || 25.2 || .422 || .330 || style="background:#cfecec;"|.935* || 3.3 || 3.7 || 1.1 || 0.4 || 12.0
|- class=sortbottom
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|Career
| 794 || || 36.3 || .449 || .330 || .900 || 6.5 || 5.1 || 2.0 || 0.5 || 23.2
Later years
During the 1990s, he coached the Cedar Rapids Sharpshooters of the Global Basketball Association and the Continental Basketball Association, guiding the Fort Wayne Fury to a 19–37 win-loss record in 1993–94. In 1998 and 1999, he served as head coach of the New Jersey ShoreCats of the United States Basketball League. Former Warriors teammate Clifford Ray was his top assistant.
Barry finished second in his division at the 2005 World Long Drive Championship.
Barry is part owner and promoter for the Ektio basketball shoe, which doctor and former college basketball player Barry Katz designed to reduce ankle injuries. He also serves on the company's Board of Directors.
Broadcasting career
Barry was among the first professional basketball players to make a successful transition to the broadcasting profession. He began broadcasting during the 1967–68 season broadcasting Oakland Oaks games because of contractual matters that kept him off the court. Barry continues to work in the field, a career that began with his own radio show in San Francisco and CBS while still an active player and then with TBS.
While working as a CBS analyst during Game 5 of the 1981 NBA Finals, Barry made a controversial comment when CBS displayed an old photo of colleague Bill Russell, who is African-American. He tried to joke that "it looks like some fool over there with that big watermelon grin". Barry later apologized for the comment, claiming that he did not realize that a reference to watermelons had racial overtones. Russell said that he believed Barry with regard to Barry's racial attitudes, but nonetheless, the two men are reported not to have been particularly friendly for other reasons, unrelated to that comment.
CBS did not renew Barry's employment for the subsequent season. Producers later cited the general negative tone of his game commentary, which did not sit well with some players and agents around the league. The next season Barry filled in on a few Seattle SuperSonics broadcasts, but a plan for a full-time position fell through when he insisted that his then-wife be allowed to join him when the team was on the road, which would have been contrary to team policy. The next year, Barry was featured in a lengthy Sports Illustrated article written by Tony Kornheiser in which he lamented the failure of his broadcasting career to that point, as well as the fact that he'd left a reputation within NBA circles for being an unlikeable person. After this, Barry worked with TBS and later on, TNT into the 1989–90 season, mostly as a color analyst but sometimes as a play-by-play announcer paired with Bill Russell. One of the more notable games Barry called as play-by-play announcer on TBS was Game 5 of the 1985 Eastern Conference Finals between the Boston Celtics and the Philadelphia 76ers, where Larry Bird made a last-second steal which sealed the win and the Eastern Conference Championship for the Celtics. After the 1989–90 season, Barry became the color analyst for the Atlanta Hawks' games that aired on TBS, paired with Skip Caray.
In a rare non-sports venture, he hosted the pilot for the mid-1980s game show Catchphrase; however, when the series debuted in the fall of 1985, game show veteran Art James replaced him (the series itself was short-lived in the US, but was brought over to the UK and is still running).
In September 2001, Barry began hosting a sports talk show on KNBR in San Francisco until June 2003, when KNBR paired him up with Rod Brooks to co-host a show named Rick and Rod. The show aired on KNBR until August 2006, when Barry left the station abruptly for reasons not disclosed to the public.
Personal life
Barry is of Irish, English, French, and Lithuanian descent. He was a member of the Kappa Sigma fraternity. He resides in Colorado Springs, Colorado with his wife, Lynn Norenberg Barry. While their youngest son, Canyon, played basketball for The University of Florida, to watch him play, they rented a condominium in Gainesville, Florida.
He has four sons and a daughter with his first wife Pam: Scooter, Jon, Brent, Drew and Shannon. All of Barry's sons were professional basketball players. Barry wrote an autobiography, Confessions of a Basketball Gypsy: The Rick Barry Story with Bill Libby that was published in 1972. He also has a son, Canyon, with his third wife, Lynn Barry, who is a professional player, playing for Chinese club Hunan Jinjian Miye in the 2018–19 season.
When his son Brent won the NBA Championship in 2005 with the San Antonio Spurs, Rick and Brent became the second father-son duo to both win NBA Championships as players, following Matt Guokas Sr. and Matt Guokas Jr. Later, this would be repeated by Bill and Luke Walton, and Mychal and Klay Thompson.
Jon and Brent have also moved to broadcasting after retirement. Jon serves as a game analyst on ESPN while Brent worked as a studio and game analyst on TNT and NBA TV until 2018 when he took a job with the San Antonio Spurs to be vice president of basketball operations.
Scooter won titles in the CBA and the top Belgian League.
Career achievements
Roselle Park High School – Roselle Park, New Jersey (1957–1961)
Two-time All-State selection
University of Miami (1961–1965)
Associated Press First-Team All-America (1965)
The Sporting News All-America Second Team (1965)
Consensus All-America (1965)
Led the nation in scoring (37.4 ppg) as a senior
NBA San Francisco Warriors (1965–1967)
NBA Rookie of the Year (1966)
NBA All-Rookie First Team (1966)
NBA leading scorer in 1967 (35.6 ppg)
ABA leading scorer in 1969 (34.0 ppg)
NBA highest free-throw percentage 1973, 1975, 1976, 1978, 1979, 1980
ABA highest free-throw percentage 1969, 1971, 1972
NBA All-Star Game MVP (1967)
ABA Oakland Oaks (1968–1969)
ABA Washington Caps (1969–1970)
ABA New York Nets (1970–1972)
NBA Golden State Warriors (1972–1978)
All-NBA Second Team (1973)
NBA Finals MVP (1975)
NBA champion (1975)
NBA Houston Rockets (1978–1979)
All-NBA First Team (1966, 1967, 1974, 1975, 1976)
Eight-time NBA All-Star (1966, 1967, 1973–1978)
ABA All-Star First Team (1969–1972)
NBA 50 Greatest Players (1996)
NBA 75 Greatest Players (2021)
Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame (1988)
Sports Hall of Fame of New Jersey (1994)
University of Miami Sports Hall of Fame (1976)
Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement (1975)
15 games in NBA career scoring 50 or more points (5th in NBA history)
115 games in professional career scoring 40 or more points — 70 NBA, 45 ABA (4th in professional basketball history after Wilt Chamberlain, Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant)
NBA records
Regular season
Only player in history to lead the NCAA, ABA and NBA in scoring
Led the NCAA in scoring in 1964–65 (973 points, 37.4 ppg)
Led the NBA in scoring in (2,775 points, 35.6 ppg)
Led the ABA in scoring in (1,190 points; 34.0 ppg)
Youngest player to score 57 points in a game: (57 points, San Francisco Warriors at New York Knicks, )
Free throws, consecutive, ABA game: 23, at Kentucky Colonels,
Assists, forward, game: 19, at Chicago Bulls, November 30, 1976
Playoffs
Scoring 30 or more points in all games, any playoff series: 6 games, vs. Philadelphia 76ers, 1967 NBA Finals
Points, 7-game ABA series: 281, vs. Denver Rockets, 1970 semifinals
Points scored, Game 7, any ABA-NBA playoff series: 52, at Denver Rockets,
Field goal attempts, 6-game series: 235, vs. Philadelphia 76ers, 1967 NBA Finals
Field goal attempts, game: 48, vs. Philadelphia 76ers,
Field goal attempts, quarter: 17, at Philadelphia 76ers,
Steals, quarter: 4, second quarter, at Chicago Bulls,
Tied with many other players
NBA Finals
Highest scoring average (career): 36.3
Scoring 30 or more points in all games, any championship series: 6 games, vs. Philadelphia 76ers, 1967 NBA Finals
Tied with Elgin Baylor, Michael Jordan, Hakeem Olajuwon, Shaquille O'Neal, and Kevin Durant.
Field goals made, game: 22, vs. Philadelphia 76ers,
Tied with Elgin Baylor
Field goal attempts, 6-game series: 235, vs. Philadelphia 76ers, 1967 NBA Finals
Field goal attempts, game: 48, vs. Philadelphia 76ers,
Field goal attempts, quarter: 17, at Philadelphia 76ers,
Steals, 4-game series: 14, vs. Washington Bullets, 1975 NBA Finals (3.5 spg)
All-Star
Field goal attempts, game: 27 (1967)
Steals, game: 8 (1975)
Personal fouls, game: 6, twice (1966, 1978)
Disqualifications, career: 2
Tied with Bob Cousy
See also
American Basketball Association (2000–present)
List of individual National Basketball Association scoring leaders by season
List of National Basketball Association players with most points in a game
List of National Basketball Association players with most steals in a game
List of National Basketball Association players with 50 or more points in a playoff game
List of NCAA Division I men's basketball players with 2000 points and 1000 rebounds
References
External links
Basketball Hall of Fame profile
RememberTheABA.com Rick Barry page
1972 Jim O'Brien biographical article on Rick Barry
Rick Barry and Rod Brooks Home Page at KNBR Radio
Rick Barry Career Statistics
A Voice Crying in the Wilderness
1944 births
Living people
All-American college men's basketball players
American Basketball Association announcers
American men's basketball players
American people of Lithuanian descent
American sports radio personalities
Basketball coaches from New Jersey
Basketball players from Colorado Springs, Colorado
Basketball players from New Jersey
Big3 coaches
Continental Basketball Association coaches
Golden State Warriors players
Golf writers and broadcasters
Houston Rockets players
Miami Hurricanes men's basketball players
Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductees
National Basketball Association All-Stars
National Basketball Association broadcasters
National Basketball Association players with retired numbers
New York Nets players
Oakland Oaks players
People from Roselle Park, New Jersey
Radio personalities from San Francisco
San Francisco Warriors draft picks
San Francisco Warriors players
Small forwards
Sportspeople from Elizabeth, New Jersey
Tennis commentators
United States Basketball League coaches
Washington Caps players | false | [
"The 2020 Pittsburgh Panthers women's soccer team represented University of Pittsburgh during the 2020 NCAA Division I women's soccer season. The Panthers are led by head coach Randy Waldrum, in his third season. They play home games at Ambrose Urbanic Field. This is the team's 25th season playing organized men's college soccer and their 8th playing in the Atlantic Coast Conference.\n\nDue to the COVID-19 pandemic, the ACC played a reduced schedule in 2020 and the NCAA Tournament was postponed to 2021. The ACC did not play a spring league schedule, but did allow teams to play non-conference games that would count toward their 2020 record in the lead up to the NCAA Tournament.\n\nThe Panthers finished the fall season 9–5–0, 3–5–0 in ACC play to finish in tenth place. They did not qualify for the ACC Tournament. The team won both games of their extra spring season. They were not invited to the NCAA Tournament.\n\nPrevious Season \n\nThe Panthers finished the season 5–10–3 overall, and 2–6–2 in ACC play to finish in tenth place. They did not qualify for the ACC Tournament and were not invited to the NCAA Tournament.\n\nSquad\n\nRoster \n\nUpdated February 25, 2021\n\nTeam management\n\nSource:\n\nSchedule\n\nSource:\n\n|-\n!colspan=6 style=\"\"| Fall Regular Season\n\n|-\n!colspan=6 style=\"\"| Spring Regular season\n\nRankings\n\nFall 2020\n\nSpring 2021\n\nReferences\n\nPittsburgh\nPittsburgh Panthers women's soccer seasons\n2020 in sports in Pennsylvania",
"Originally, the St. Louis Blues aired their games on KPLR-TV and KMOX radio, with team patron Gus Kyle calling games alongside St Louis broadcasting legend Jack Buck. Buck elected to leave the booth after one season, though, and was replaced by another famed announcer in Dan Kelly. This setup—Kelly as commentator, with either Kyle, Bob Plager, or Noel Picard (whose heavy French-Canadian accent became famous, such as pronouncing owner Sid Salomon III \"Sid the Turd\" instead of \"Third\") joining as an analyst, simulcast on KMOX and KPLR—continued through the 1975–76 season, then simulcast on KMOX and KDNL-TV for the next three seasons. KMOX is a 50,000-watt clear-channel station that reaches almost all of North America at night, allowing Kelly to become a celebrity in both the United States and Canada. Indeed, many of the Blues' players liked the fact that their families could hear the games on KMOX.\n\nFrom 1979 to 1981, the radio and television broadcasts were separated for the first time since the inaugural season, with Kelly doing the radio broadcasts and Eli Gold hired to do the television. Following the 1980–81 season, the television broadcasts moved from KDNL to NBC affiliate KSD-TV for the 1981–82 season, produced by Sports Network Incorporated (SNI), owned and operated by Greg Maracek who did the broadcasts with Channel 5 sportscaster Ron Jacober. The broadcasts failed to produce a profit and then returned to KPLR for the 1982 NHL playoffs and the 1982–83 season before returning to KDNL (currently St. Louis' ABC affiliate) for the 1983–84 season, the first under the ownership of Harry Ornest. The Blues skated back to KPLR 3 years later.\n\nIn 1985, Ornest, wanting more broadcast revenue, put the radio rights up for bid. A new company who had purchased KXOK won the bid for a three-year contract and Kelly moved over from KMOX to do the games on KXOK. However, the station was never financially competitive in the market. Additionally, fans complained they could not hear the station at night (it had to readjust its coverage due to a glut of clear-channels on adjacent frequencies). KXOK backed out of the contract after just 2 years, and the Blues immediately went back to KMOX, who held the rights until 2000. Dan Kelly continued to broadcast the games on radio but was diagnosed in the summer of 1988 with lung cancer and died on February 10, 1989. After his death, Ron Jacober (who had left Channel 5 to be KXOK's sports director in 1985 then left for KMOX in 1987) was hired as the radio play-by-play announcer for the remainder of the season, and John Kelly succeeded in that position. After Dan Kelly's death, Ken Wilson became the St. Louis Blues' TV play-by-play announcer alongside former Blues' players Joe Micheletti, Bruce Affleck, and Bernie Federko. During this time, from 1989 to 2000, more games began to be aired on Prime Sports Midwest, the forerunner to today's Bally Sports Midwest.\n\nThe long-term partnership between KMOX and the Blues had its problems, however, namely during spring when the ever-popular St. Louis Cardinals began their season. Blues games, many of which were crucial to playoff berths, would often be pre-empted for spring training coverage. Angry at having to play \"second fiddle\", the Blues elected to leave for KTRS in 2000. However, in an ironic twist the Cards purchased a controlling interest in KTRS in 2005, and once again preferred to air preseason baseball over regular season hockey. In response, the Blues moved back to KMOX starting in the 2006–07 season. The season of 2008–09 saw the Blues play their last game on KPLR, which had the rights since the 1986–87 season (except for the 1996–97 season on CBS affiliate KMOV), electing to move all their games to FS Midwest, starting with the 2009–10 season. The Cardinals moved back to KMOX in the 2011 season, with conflicting games moved to KYKY, an FM station owned by the same group as KMOX.\n\nSince the 2019-20 preseason, WXOS (101 ESPN) has been the flagship radio station for the Blues. Chris Kerber and Joe Vitale are the current radio broadcast team. John Kelly (son of Dan), Darren Pang, and Bernie Federko handle television coverage, and Scott Warmann, Terry Yake and Jamie Rivers (pre-game and post-game shows).\n\nRadio\n\nFill-ins\n\nPlay-by-play\n\nColor commentary\n\nNotes\nDuring the 1968 playoffs, games were sent to WIBV for the entire playoffs with the exception of Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Finals. However, there was an ad for one game saying that KMOX would join the Blues game in the third period. KMOX however, did not even air playoff games on days when the Cardinals did not play. On April 13, Game 5 of the Flyers series was played at Philadelphia and could have been televised in St. Louis. However, Jay Randolph was covering the Masters golf tournament for CBS-TV and could not broadcast that game on television.\nIn 1988–89, during Dan Kelly's illness and eventual death, there were many different combinations used. In fact, one game KPLR used a split feed because Ken Wilson and John Kelly were not available, and they did not want Ron Jacober on a TV game. Rich Gould did the play-by-play for at least one game with Bruce Affleck.\n\nTelevision\n\nNotes\nIn 1967–68, KPLR did 11 TV games, 1 home and 10 away. On KMOX radio, Jack Buck did play-by-play, but between NFL football, some illness, and then leaving for Cardinals spring training, he missed quite a few games, being replaced by Jay Randolph, Gus Kyle (working alone), Stu Nahan and Gene Hart.\nThe 1968–69 and 1969–70 simulcasts were unusual in the sense that while Dan Kelly's play-by-play was on both, Gus Kyle's comments were on KMOX only, and Hal Kelly did TV color (in addition to filling in for his brother on play-by-play on occasion).\nNoel Picard was the primary radio/TV analyst in 1973–74 and 1974–75, with Kyle returning in 1975–76; while Picard was the analyst, Kyle filled-in as play-by-play when needed.\nEli Gold did a separate TV feed in 1979–80 and mostly did games by himself but did have some injured players serve as analysts when available. The year before, the Blues still had a simulcast when games were on KDNL-TV. But with those games, only Dan Kelly's voice was heard. Kent Westling would talk with Dan Kelly on camera before the game and during the intermission but was not heard on the radio. There were a few times when Kelly was \"on assignment\", there was a separate TV feed with Westling doing the play-by-play and Bob Plager serving as analyst. The 1978–79 season was one of two seasons (1984–85 being the other) where there was not set analysts on broadcasts. Once Ken Wilson arrived on the scene, Kelly and Ken Wilson were the team for TV games.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nSt. Louis Blues Broadcasters Join Together, I Still Want Ken Wilson\nBlues broadcasters relish calling games in Final\nLongtime Blues' Announcer Ken Wilson Fired\nVideo shows Blues radio broadcaster’s quiet and emotional celebration after huge win\n\n \nSt. Louis Blues lists\nLists of National Hockey League broadcasters\nFox Sports Networks\nBally Sports"
] |
[
"Rick Barry",
"San Francisco Warriors",
"When did Barry start playing for the Warriors?",
"game in the 1965-66 season.",
"How many games did he play in the 1965-66 season?",
"Barry won the NBA Rookie of the Year Award after averaging 25.7 points and 10.6 rebounds per game in the 1965-66 season."
] | C_097b93885b9447d6b53b6b0274d9713d_1 | Was Barry in the starting lineup that season? | 3 | Was Rick Barry in the starting lineup in the 1965-66 season? | Rick Barry | In Barry's first season in the NBA with the Warriors, the team improved from 17 to 35 victories. In the All-Star Game one season later, Barry erupted for 38 points as the West team stunned the East squad, which featured Wilt Chamberlain, Oscar Robertson, Bill Russell and head coach Red Auerbach among other all-time greats. Later that season, Barry and company extended the mighty Philadelphia 76ers to six highly competitive games in the NBA Finals, something that Russell and the Boston Celtics could not do in the Eastern Conference playoffs. That 76ers team is considered to be one of the greatest in basketball history. Nicknamed the "Miami Greyhound" by longtime San Francisco-area broadcaster Bill King because of his slender physical build and remarkable quickness and instincts, the 6'7" Barry won the NBA Rookie of the Year Award after averaging 25.7 points and 10.6 rebounds per game in the 1965-66 season. The following year, he won the 1967 NBA All-Star Game MVP award with a 38-point outburst and led the NBA in scoring with a 35.6 point per game average -- which still ranks as the eighth- highest output in league annals. Teamed with star center Nate Thurmond in San Francisco, Barry helped take the Warriors to the 1967 NBA Finals, which they lost to the Philadelphia 76ers in six games. Including a 55-point outburst in Game 3, Barry averaged 40.8 points per game in the series, an NBA Finals record that stood for three decades. Upset that he was not paid incentive monies that he believed due from Warriors owner Franklin Mieuli, Barry jumped to the ABA's Oakland Oaks, who offered him a lucrative contract and the chance to play for Bruce Hale, his then father-in-law. The three-year contract offer from Pat Boone, the singer and team owner, was estimated to be worth $500,000, with Barry saying "the offer Oakland made me was one I simply couldn't turn down" and that it would make him one of basketball's highest-paid players. The courts ordered Barry to sit out the 1967-68 season before he starred in the ABA, upholding the validity of the reserve clause in his contract. He preceded St. Louis Cardinals' outfielder Curt Flood, whose better-known challenge to the reserve clause went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, by two years as the first American major-league professional athlete to bring a court action against it. The ensuing negative publicity cast Barry in a negative light, portraying him as selfish and money-hungry. However, many NBA players at the time were looking at jumping to the ABA for more lucrative contracts. Barry would star in the ABA, twice averaging more than 30 points per game. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Richard Francis Dennis Barry III (born March 28, 1944) is an American retired professional basketball player who played in both the American Basketball Association (ABA) and National Basketball Association (NBA). Named one of the 50 Greatest Players in history in 1996 and 75 Greatest Players in history in 2021, each in a league-wide vote of media, analysts, current and former players and team executives, Barry ranks among the most prolific scorers and all-around players in basketball history. He is the only one to lead the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), ABA, and NBA in points per game in a season. He ranks as the all-time ABA scoring leader in regular season (30.5 points per game) and postseason (33.5) play, while his 36.3 points per game are the most in the NBA Finals history. Barry also is the only player to reach the 50-point mark in a Game 7 of the playoffs in either league. He is one of only four players to be a part of a championship team in both leagues.
Barry is widely known for his unorthodox but extraordinarily effective underhand free throw technique. His career .880 free throw percentage ranks No. 1 in ABA history, and at the time of his retirement in 1980, his .900 percentage was the best of any NBA player. In 1987, he was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. In October 2021, Barry was honored as one of the league's greatest players of all-time by being named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team.
Barry is the father of former professional basketball players Brent Barry, Jon Barry, Drew Barry, and Scooter Barry, and current professional player Canyon Barry. His wife, Lynn Norenberg Barry, was a star basketball player at the College of William & Mary, where she became the first female athlete to have her jersey number (22) retired.
Early years and college career
Barry grew up in Roselle Park, New Jersey, where baseball was his best sport as a youth. He grew up a fan of local New York Giants star Willie Mays, who wore jersey number 24, and Barry would wear the same number in tribute to the outfielder throughout his basketball career. In 1962, Barry graduated from Roselle Park High School.
Barry decided to attend the University of Miami, largely because the Hurricanes adhered to an up-tempo, pro-style system under head coach Bruce Hale that was conducive to his skills and athleticism. It was there that the three-time All-American met his future wife Pamela, who was the daughter of the head coach. As a senior, Barry led the NCAA with a 37.4 points per game average in the 1964–65 campaign. He and his teammates did not take part in the NCAA Tournament, however, because the Hurricanes basketball program was on probation at the time.
Barry was drafted by the San Francisco Warriors with the second pick of the 1965 NBA draft. He had hoped to be selected by the New York Knicks, his hometown team, but they opted for local Princeton star Bill Bradley in round one instead. It was a slight that Barry would not soon forget. In his second visit to Madison Square Garden as a pro, he went off for 57 points versus the Knicks, including 21 free throws in 22 attempts. He also grabbed 15 rebounds in the 141–137 loss.
Professional playing career
San Francisco Warriors
In Barry's first season in the NBA with the Warriors, the team made a quantum leap from 17 to 35 victories and were in playoff contention until the final game of the regular season. In the All-Star Game one season later, Barry erupted for 38 points as the West team stunned the East team, which featured Wilt Chamberlain, Oscar Robertson, Bill Russell and head coach Red Auerbach among other all-time greats. Later that season, Barry and company extended the mighty Philadelphia 76ers to six highly competitive games in the NBA Finals, something that Russell and the Boston Celtics could not do in the Eastern Conference playoffs.
Nicknamed the "Miami Greyhound" by longtime San Francisco Bay Area broadcaster Bill King because of his long and slender physical build, whippet-like quickness and remarkable instincts, the Barry won the NBA Rookie of the Year Award after averaging 25.7 points and 10.6 rebounds per game in the 1965–66 season. The following year, he won the 1967 NBA All-Star Game MVP award with a 38-point outburst and led the NBA in scoring with a 35.6 point per game average — which still ranks as the eighth-highest output in league annals.
Along with All-Star center Nate Thurmond, Barry carried the Warriors to the 1967 NBA Finals, which they lost to the Philadelphia 76ers in six games. Despite an injured left knee that required cortisone shots on game days, Barry averaged 40.8 points per game in the series, an NBA Finals record that stood for three decades. "The guy was so good that we had to have three different guys guard him at different times," Chamberlain said. "'Cause he would run them all ragged."
Joining the ABA
At odds with Warriors owner Franklin Mieuli over unpaid incentive monies due him, Barry shocked the basketball world when he jumped to the ABA's Oakland Oaks, who overwhelmed him with a historic contract offer. Barry became the first marquee NBA player to jump to the rival league. Not only was the three-year agreement worth a reported $500,000, which would make him one of basketball's highest-paid players, it afforded him the opportunity to play for his former college coach Bruce Hale, who was also his father-in-law. In addition, Barry received 15 percent ownership in the franchise as well as 5 percent of all ticket sales in excess of $600,000 for home games. The ground-breaking deal led him to remark, "The offer Oakland made me was one I simply couldn't turn down."
The courts ordered Barry to sit out the 1967–68 season for the Oaks, upholding the validity of the reserve clause in his contract. At the time, all NBA teams had one-year options on player contracts, however, and the Warriors were quick to exercise theirs. He preceded St. Louis Cardinals' outfielder Curt Flood, whose better-known challenge to the reserve clause went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, by two years as the first American major-league professional athlete to bring a court action against it. The ensuing negative publicity cast Barry in a negative light, portraying him as selfish and money hungry. He was hardly alone in his vision, however, as numerous NBA players also saw the rival league as a rare opportunity to enhance their careers.
Oakland Oaks
The Oaks finished 22–56 in their ABA debut, which Barry spent as part of their broadcast team. Prior to the 1968–69 season, they hired his former San Francisco Warriors coach Alex Hannum to replace Hale, who moved to a front office position. If there was any question about whether Barry would remain the most dominant player in professional basketball, he quickly answered it. In his ABA debut, he averaged a league-high 34.0 points per game and the Oaks became the first West Coast team to capture a league championship in professional basketball history. Barry also paced the league in free-throw percentage in the regular season, a feat he would repeat in the 1970–71 and 1971–72 seasons.
Barry had his season come to an abrupt halt on December 27, 1968, when late in a game against the New York Nets, he was blindsided by Ken Wilburn on a drive to the basket and tore left knee ligaments on the play. He attempted to come back in January 1969, only to aggravate the injury and sit out the remainder of the season. He took part in only 35 games but still was named to the ABA All-Star team.
Even without the arguably the best all-around player in basketball, the Oaks barely skipped a beat. They finished with a 60–18 record under Hannum, dominating the Western Division by 14 games over the second-place New Orleans Buccaneers. In the 1969 ABA Playoffs, the Oaks ousted the Denver Rockets in a seven-game series then swept the Buccaneers in the Western Division finals. In the championship round, they made short work of the Indiana Pacers, 4–1, to capture the league title.
In lieu of a parade in downtown Oakland, a modest victory celebration was held at a restaurant in Jack London Square. It was there that Barry announced, "I see no hope for the rest of the teams in the league."
Washington Caps
Despite their on-court excellence, the Oaks were a disappointment at the gate, partly because of Barry's absence in the final five months of the season, partly because they were the only ABA member that competed in the same market as an NBA team, that being the more established Warriors across the bay. They averaged just 2,800 fans per home game at the state-of-the-art Oakland County Coliseum Arena, slightly more than the league average. By that time, entertainer-business entrepreneur Pat Boone had become the majority team owner, and after more than $2 million in losses over two seasons, he wanted out of the basketball business. In August 1968, the franchise was sold to a group headed by real estate attorney and former Baltimore Bullets owner Earl Foreman, who immediately moved it to Washington, D.C., even though there was no suitable arena in the vicinity at the time.
Reluctantly, Barry played the 1969–70 season with the ABA's Washington Caps. He refused to report to the team at the outset, at one point commenting, "If I wanted to go to Washington, I'd run for president!" He missed the first 32 games before he joined the team, which played in the Western Division, making for a grueling travel schedule. The Caps still managed to finish with a respectable 44–40 record, good for third place in the Western Division. Appearing in only 52 games because of a knee injury, Barry finished the season with 1,442 points (27.7 per game), second-best in the league. The Denver Rockets edged the Caps, 4–3, in the Western Division semifinals. In Game 7 on the road, Barry went off for 52 points, the most scored in a seventh and deciding game in professional basketball history.
Virginia Squires
The Washington Caps became the Virginia Squires after the 1969–70 season, but Barry was openly despondent about playing in Virginia. At the same time, he wanted to continue playing in the ABA. Featured on the August 24, 1970, cover of Sports Illustrated in a Squires jersey, he indicated that he would not return to the NBA if the league paid him "a million dollars a year." He denounced the Squires (and, subsequently, never suited up for them), saying he did not want his kids growing up with a Southern accent. On September 1, 1970, the Squires traded Barry to the New York Nets for a draft pick and $200,000. The negative comments were not the primary reason; rather, Squires owner Earl Foreman was mired in financial troubles and sold Barry to help meet expenses.
New York Nets
After the Squires dealt Barry to the New York Nets, he played in only 59 games in the 1970–71 season because of a knee injury but still made the ABA All Star team. He repeated as an ABA All Star during the 1971–72 season. During the 1970–71 season he led the league in scoring (29.4 points per game) and led the league again in 1971–72 with 31.5 points per game. In both of those years he also led the ABA in free throw percentage as he had in 1968–69. Barry also became the ABA record holder for most consecutive free throws in one game with 23.
In the 1970–71 season, the Nets finished 40–44, good for fourth place in the Eastern Division and a place in the 1971 ABA Playoffs. The Virginia Squires defeated the Nets 4 games to 2 in the Eastern Division semifinals. The 1971–72 Nets finished the season at 44–40, making the 1972 ABA Playoffs by claiming third place in the Eastern Division, 24 games behind the 68–16 Kentucky Colonels. In the Eastern Division semifinals the Nets shocked the ABA by defeating the Colonels 4 games to 2. The Nets then eked out a 4–3 game victory over the Virginia Squires in the Eastern Division finals. The Nets were then edged by the Western Division champion Indiana Pacers, 4 games to 2, in the 1972 ABA Finals.
On June 23, 1972, a United States District Court judge issued a preliminary injunction to prohibit Barry from playing for any team other than the Golden State Warriors after his contract with the Nets ended. On October 6, 1972, the Nets released Barry and he returned to the Warriors.
Golden State Warriors
Upon Barry's return to the Warriors and the NBA, the cumulative effects of knee problems were taking their toll. Barry gradually moved his game away from the basket, where he became the first so-called point forward in league history. That is, Barry took on a role similar to that of a point guard and became the chief facilitator of the offense. While his offensive forays were not as frequent as in the past, he remained an elite scorer as evidenced by his performance on March 26, 1974, when he went off for a career-high 64 points and grabbed 10 rebounds in a 143–120 win over the visiting Portland Trail Blazers.
In 1974–75, the Warriors had a Cinderella season for the ages. The turnaround began in training camp, when Barry was elected captain by his teammates. They went on to capture the Pacific Division crown as Barry responded with the best all-around season of his career. Not only did he average 30.6 points per game, but he also led the league in free throw percentage (.904) and steals per game (2.9) and ranked sixth in assists per game (6.2), the only forward among the top 10 in the category.
In the playoffs, the upstart Warriors turned back the Seattle SuperSonics and Chicago Bulls to capture the Western Conference crown. In the NBA Finals, they shocked the basketball world with a historic four-game sweep of Elvin Hayes, Wes Unseld and the Washington Bullets, widely considered to be the greatest postseason upset in NBA history. The Bullets had posted a league-high 60 victories, 12 more than the Warriors total in the regular season, which led many experts to predict that they would win the series easily. Barry was named NBA Finals Most Valuable Player on the strength of 29.5 points, 5.0 assists and 3.5 steals per game, not to mention his profound impact in a leadership role.
In the 1975 NBA draft, the Warriors selected point guard Gus Williams in the first round. While Williams made immediate contributions off the bench, off guard Phil Smith came into his own in his second season. Barry was not required to carry the team as often, and his scoring average dipped to 21.0 points per game as a result. As the deepest and most athletic team in professional basketball, the Warriors repeated as Pacific Division champions, this time with a league-best 59–23 record. They entered the playoffs as clear-cut favorites to return to the NBA Finals.
After an unusual 10-day layoff, partly to accommodate network television, the Warriors eliminated the Detroit Pistons in round one then were upset in the Western Conference finals by the Phoenix Suns in seven games. The final contest was marred by a fight between Barry and Suns rookie Ricky Sobers away from the ball in the first quarter, during which none of the Warriors came to his aid at the opposite side of the court. Suns broadcaster Al McCoy concocted a narrative that Barry quit in the second half, a charge that lacked tangible evidence and he steadfastly denied. In fact, Barry led his team in points and shot attempts that game. Rather, he said his intent was to get more teammates involved in the third quarter, the game plan that had allowed them to dominate in the regular season.
In the 1976–77 campaign, the Warriors won 46 games the next season with Barry, Smith, and Williams sharing scoring and ball-handling, but were ousted in the second round by the Los Angeles Lakers. Reportedly, Barry and Williams clashed over the ball-handling role, and Williams was traded after the season to the Seattle SuperSonics. Barry averaged 23.1 points per game in his farewell season (1977–78) with the Warriors, but the team failed to make the playoffs.
Houston Rockets
Barry finished his career with the Houston Rockets, playing through the 1979–80 NBA season. The Rockets signed him as a free agent in June, 1978, and the league awarded veteran guard John Lucas to the Warriors as compensation.
In the twilight of his career, Barry continued to make history. In his Rockets debut, he assumed a new role as the first player off the bench. It was not long before he elevated the point forward position to another level. Barry finished with a career-high 502 assists to become the first true small forward to reach the 500 mark in one season. Until then, swingman John Havlicek had been the only forward with as many as 500 assists in a season, but the Boston Celtics swingman also spent considerable time at the off guard spot. Barry averaged 13.5 points per game and established a new NBA record (since broken) with a .947 free throw percentage.
Barry was less of a factor in his final season. The Rockets were swept by the Celtics in the 1980 Eastern Conference semifinals, and when contract talks with Boston and the Seattle SuperSonics failed to produce a contract, he decided to retire.
NBA career statistics
Regular season
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|San Francisco
| style="background:#cfecec;"|80* || || 37.4 || .439 || || .862 || 10.6 || 2.2 || || || 25.7
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|San Francisco
| 78 || || 40.7 || .451 || || .884 || 9.2 || 3.6 || || || style="background:#cfecec;"|35.6*
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || || 37.5 || .452 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.902* || 8.9 || 4.9 || || || 22.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 80 || || 36.5 || .456 || || .899 || 6.8 || 6.1 || 2.1 || 0.5 || 25.1
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 80 || || 40.4 || .464 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.904* || 5.7 || 6.2 || style="background:#cfecec;"|2.9* || 0.4 || 30.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 81 || || 38.5 || .435 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.923* || 6.1 || 6.1 || 2.5 || 0.3 || 21.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 79 || || 36.8 || .440 || || .916 || 5.3 || 6.0 || 2.2 || 0.7 || 21.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 82 || || 36.9 || .451 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.924* || 5.5 || 5.4 || 1.9 || 0.5 || 23.1
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 80 || || 32.1 || .461 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.947* || 3.5 || 6.3 || 1.2 || 0.5 || 13.5
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 72 || || 25.2 || .422 || .330 || style="background:#cfecec;"|.935* || 3.3 || 3.7 || 1.1 || 0.4 || 12.0
|- class=sortbottom
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|Career
| 794 || || 36.3 || .449 || .330 || .900 || 6.5 || 5.1 || 2.0 || 0.5 || 23.2
Later years
During the 1990s, he coached the Cedar Rapids Sharpshooters of the Global Basketball Association and the Continental Basketball Association, guiding the Fort Wayne Fury to a 19–37 win-loss record in 1993–94. In 1998 and 1999, he served as head coach of the New Jersey ShoreCats of the United States Basketball League. Former Warriors teammate Clifford Ray was his top assistant.
Barry finished second in his division at the 2005 World Long Drive Championship.
Barry is part owner and promoter for the Ektio basketball shoe, which doctor and former college basketball player Barry Katz designed to reduce ankle injuries. He also serves on the company's Board of Directors.
Broadcasting career
Barry was among the first professional basketball players to make a successful transition to the broadcasting profession. He began broadcasting during the 1967–68 season broadcasting Oakland Oaks games because of contractual matters that kept him off the court. Barry continues to work in the field, a career that began with his own radio show in San Francisco and CBS while still an active player and then with TBS.
While working as a CBS analyst during Game 5 of the 1981 NBA Finals, Barry made a controversial comment when CBS displayed an old photo of colleague Bill Russell, who is African-American. He tried to joke that "it looks like some fool over there with that big watermelon grin". Barry later apologized for the comment, claiming that he did not realize that a reference to watermelons had racial overtones. Russell said that he believed Barry with regard to Barry's racial attitudes, but nonetheless, the two men are reported not to have been particularly friendly for other reasons, unrelated to that comment.
CBS did not renew Barry's employment for the subsequent season. Producers later cited the general negative tone of his game commentary, which did not sit well with some players and agents around the league. The next season Barry filled in on a few Seattle SuperSonics broadcasts, but a plan for a full-time position fell through when he insisted that his then-wife be allowed to join him when the team was on the road, which would have been contrary to team policy. The next year, Barry was featured in a lengthy Sports Illustrated article written by Tony Kornheiser in which he lamented the failure of his broadcasting career to that point, as well as the fact that he'd left a reputation within NBA circles for being an unlikeable person. After this, Barry worked with TBS and later on, TNT into the 1989–90 season, mostly as a color analyst but sometimes as a play-by-play announcer paired with Bill Russell. One of the more notable games Barry called as play-by-play announcer on TBS was Game 5 of the 1985 Eastern Conference Finals between the Boston Celtics and the Philadelphia 76ers, where Larry Bird made a last-second steal which sealed the win and the Eastern Conference Championship for the Celtics. After the 1989–90 season, Barry became the color analyst for the Atlanta Hawks' games that aired on TBS, paired with Skip Caray.
In a rare non-sports venture, he hosted the pilot for the mid-1980s game show Catchphrase; however, when the series debuted in the fall of 1985, game show veteran Art James replaced him (the series itself was short-lived in the US, but was brought over to the UK and is still running).
In September 2001, Barry began hosting a sports talk show on KNBR in San Francisco until June 2003, when KNBR paired him up with Rod Brooks to co-host a show named Rick and Rod. The show aired on KNBR until August 2006, when Barry left the station abruptly for reasons not disclosed to the public.
Personal life
Barry is of Irish, English, French, and Lithuanian descent. He was a member of the Kappa Sigma fraternity. He resides in Colorado Springs, Colorado with his wife, Lynn Norenberg Barry. While their youngest son, Canyon, played basketball for The University of Florida, to watch him play, they rented a condominium in Gainesville, Florida.
He has four sons and a daughter with his first wife Pam: Scooter, Jon, Brent, Drew and Shannon. All of Barry's sons were professional basketball players. Barry wrote an autobiography, Confessions of a Basketball Gypsy: The Rick Barry Story with Bill Libby that was published in 1972. He also has a son, Canyon, with his third wife, Lynn Barry, who is a professional player, playing for Chinese club Hunan Jinjian Miye in the 2018–19 season.
When his son Brent won the NBA Championship in 2005 with the San Antonio Spurs, Rick and Brent became the second father-son duo to both win NBA Championships as players, following Matt Guokas Sr. and Matt Guokas Jr. Later, this would be repeated by Bill and Luke Walton, and Mychal and Klay Thompson.
Jon and Brent have also moved to broadcasting after retirement. Jon serves as a game analyst on ESPN while Brent worked as a studio and game analyst on TNT and NBA TV until 2018 when he took a job with the San Antonio Spurs to be vice president of basketball operations.
Scooter won titles in the CBA and the top Belgian League.
Career achievements
Roselle Park High School – Roselle Park, New Jersey (1957–1961)
Two-time All-State selection
University of Miami (1961–1965)
Associated Press First-Team All-America (1965)
The Sporting News All-America Second Team (1965)
Consensus All-America (1965)
Led the nation in scoring (37.4 ppg) as a senior
NBA San Francisco Warriors (1965–1967)
NBA Rookie of the Year (1966)
NBA All-Rookie First Team (1966)
NBA leading scorer in 1967 (35.6 ppg)
ABA leading scorer in 1969 (34.0 ppg)
NBA highest free-throw percentage 1973, 1975, 1976, 1978, 1979, 1980
ABA highest free-throw percentage 1969, 1971, 1972
NBA All-Star Game MVP (1967)
ABA Oakland Oaks (1968–1969)
ABA Washington Caps (1969–1970)
ABA New York Nets (1970–1972)
NBA Golden State Warriors (1972–1978)
All-NBA Second Team (1973)
NBA Finals MVP (1975)
NBA champion (1975)
NBA Houston Rockets (1978–1979)
All-NBA First Team (1966, 1967, 1974, 1975, 1976)
Eight-time NBA All-Star (1966, 1967, 1973–1978)
ABA All-Star First Team (1969–1972)
NBA 50 Greatest Players (1996)
NBA 75 Greatest Players (2021)
Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame (1988)
Sports Hall of Fame of New Jersey (1994)
University of Miami Sports Hall of Fame (1976)
Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement (1975)
15 games in NBA career scoring 50 or more points (5th in NBA history)
115 games in professional career scoring 40 or more points — 70 NBA, 45 ABA (4th in professional basketball history after Wilt Chamberlain, Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant)
NBA records
Regular season
Only player in history to lead the NCAA, ABA and NBA in scoring
Led the NCAA in scoring in 1964–65 (973 points, 37.4 ppg)
Led the NBA in scoring in (2,775 points, 35.6 ppg)
Led the ABA in scoring in (1,190 points; 34.0 ppg)
Youngest player to score 57 points in a game: (57 points, San Francisco Warriors at New York Knicks, )
Free throws, consecutive, ABA game: 23, at Kentucky Colonels,
Assists, forward, game: 19, at Chicago Bulls, November 30, 1976
Playoffs
Scoring 30 or more points in all games, any playoff series: 6 games, vs. Philadelphia 76ers, 1967 NBA Finals
Points, 7-game ABA series: 281, vs. Denver Rockets, 1970 semifinals
Points scored, Game 7, any ABA-NBA playoff series: 52, at Denver Rockets,
Field goal attempts, 6-game series: 235, vs. Philadelphia 76ers, 1967 NBA Finals
Field goal attempts, game: 48, vs. Philadelphia 76ers,
Field goal attempts, quarter: 17, at Philadelphia 76ers,
Steals, quarter: 4, second quarter, at Chicago Bulls,
Tied with many other players
NBA Finals
Highest scoring average (career): 36.3
Scoring 30 or more points in all games, any championship series: 6 games, vs. Philadelphia 76ers, 1967 NBA Finals
Tied with Elgin Baylor, Michael Jordan, Hakeem Olajuwon, Shaquille O'Neal, and Kevin Durant.
Field goals made, game: 22, vs. Philadelphia 76ers,
Tied with Elgin Baylor
Field goal attempts, 6-game series: 235, vs. Philadelphia 76ers, 1967 NBA Finals
Field goal attempts, game: 48, vs. Philadelphia 76ers,
Field goal attempts, quarter: 17, at Philadelphia 76ers,
Steals, 4-game series: 14, vs. Washington Bullets, 1975 NBA Finals (3.5 spg)
All-Star
Field goal attempts, game: 27 (1967)
Steals, game: 8 (1975)
Personal fouls, game: 6, twice (1966, 1978)
Disqualifications, career: 2
Tied with Bob Cousy
See also
American Basketball Association (2000–present)
List of individual National Basketball Association scoring leaders by season
List of National Basketball Association players with most points in a game
List of National Basketball Association players with most steals in a game
List of National Basketball Association players with 50 or more points in a playoff game
List of NCAA Division I men's basketball players with 2000 points and 1000 rebounds
References
External links
Basketball Hall of Fame profile
RememberTheABA.com Rick Barry page
1972 Jim O'Brien biographical article on Rick Barry
Rick Barry and Rod Brooks Home Page at KNBR Radio
Rick Barry Career Statistics
A Voice Crying in the Wilderness
1944 births
Living people
All-American college men's basketball players
American Basketball Association announcers
American men's basketball players
American people of Lithuanian descent
American sports radio personalities
Basketball coaches from New Jersey
Basketball players from Colorado Springs, Colorado
Basketball players from New Jersey
Big3 coaches
Continental Basketball Association coaches
Golden State Warriors players
Golf writers and broadcasters
Houston Rockets players
Miami Hurricanes men's basketball players
Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductees
National Basketball Association All-Stars
National Basketball Association broadcasters
National Basketball Association players with retired numbers
New York Nets players
Oakland Oaks players
People from Roselle Park, New Jersey
Radio personalities from San Francisco
San Francisco Warriors draft picks
San Francisco Warriors players
Small forwards
Sportspeople from Elizabeth, New Jersey
Tennis commentators
United States Basketball League coaches
Washington Caps players | false | [
"The Death Lineup was a lineup of smaller basketball players on the Golden State Warriors of the National Basketball Association (NBA) from 2014 to 2019. Developed under head coach Steve Kerr, it began during their 2014–15 run that led to an NBA championship. Unlike typical small-ball units, this group of Warriors was versatile enough to defend larger opponents, while also aiming to create mismatches on offense with their shooting and playmaking skills.\n\nThe lineup featured the Splash Brothers, a three-point shooting backcourt consisting of two-time NBA MVP Stephen Curry, and perennial two-way All-Star Klay Thompson. It also featured versatile defender and 2015 NBA Finals MVP Andre Iguodala on the wing alongside scorer and one-time MVP Kevin Durant, and 2016–17 Defensive Player of the Year Draymond Green at center. Green's defensive versatility was described as the \"key\" that allowed the lineup to be so effective; although his natural position was power forward, he was able to play as an undersized center in lieu of a traditional center who might have been slower or lacked the playmaking and shooting abilities of Green. The lineup originally included Harrison Barnes, who was replaced by former league MVP Durant in 2016–17, when the group also began to be known as the \"Hamptons Five\".\n\nThe Death Lineup was considered to be indicative of a larger overall trend in the NBA towards \"positionless\" basketball, where traditional position assignments and roles have less importance.\n\nThe Death Lineup ended after the 2018–19 season, when Durant left the Warriors for the Brooklyn Nets and Iguodala was traded to the Memphis Grizzlies.\n\nOrigins and first championship\nIn 2014–15, Golden State won 67 games in the regular season, led by NBA MVP Stephen Curry. The Warriors' starting lineup with the Andrew Bogut at center played 813 minutes together and outscored opponents by 19.6 points per 100 possessions. After falling behind 2–1 in the 2015 NBA Finals, Warriors coach Steve Kerr inserted Andre Iguodala into the starting lineup in place of Bogut, who had been named to NBA All-Defensive Team in 2015. The change was first suggested by Kerr's special assistant, Nick U'Ren, who was a fan of the lineup because it always seemed to pick up the pace of the game to a faster speed, which the Warriors preferred. The five-man lineup of Iguodala, Curry, Thompson, Green, and Barnes had played together for 102 minutes during the regular season and 62 minutes through the first 18 games of the playoffs. Although the tallest player was only , the unit was also strong defensively. They were all able to switch on defense, spearheaded by Green's ability to guard players taller and heavier than him. The Warriors won 103–82 in Game 4, and captured the series 4–2 to win their first championship since 1975. Iguodala was named the Finals MVP, becoming the first player to garner the award without starting every game in the series, as well as the first winner to have not started a game during the regular season.\n\n73-win record\nIt was not until months after it was deployed in the Finals that the Warriors small lineup was referred to as the Death Lineup. Despite the unit's success, the 2015–16 Warriors continued to start a traditional lineup with Bogut as their center. Golden State won an NBA-record 73 games behind Curry's league-leading 30.1 points per game and an NBA-record 402 three-pointers made in a season. He was named the MVP for the second straight season, becoming the first unanimous winner in league history. During the season, the Death Lineup was generally reserved to finish the first half and the end of games. It was deployed in 37 games, outscoring opponents by 166 points in 172 minutes for an average advantage of 4.5 points per game and 47.0 points per 100 possessions. Despite their regular season success, the Warriors lost the 2016 NBA Finals, becoming the first team to lose a Finals series after being ahead 3–1.\n\nHamptons Five\nDuring the off-season, Golden State signed former league MVP and four-time scoring champion Kevin Durant to replace Harrison Barnes, who had averaged just five points and made only 5 of 32 shots during the last three losses in the Finals. With Durant leaving the Oklahoma City Thunder, the Warriors' opponents in the 2016 Western Conference Finals, the move was seen as a disruption in the competitive balance of the NBA, and the Warriors instantly became title favorites. The move gave the Death Lineup four players who have averaged at least five assists in a season. San Francisco Bay Area journalist Tim Kawakami coined the nickname \"Hamptons Five\" for the new group, which included the four players who traveled with team officials to The Hamptons to recruit Durant. Durant was impressed that all four players showed up and respected his play. They convinced Durant that he was wanted even though they had already won a championship and came within a game of winning a second. Curry, asked by Durant why he wanted him to join, assured him that he was focused on winning and not concerned with being the face of the franchise, despite being the two-time defending league MVP. The Warriors won the 2017 NBA Finals 4–1, and Durant was unanimously voted the Finals MVP. Kerr had used the Death Lineup for just 16 minutes in the series until deploying it for 17 in the Game 5 clincher. Iguodala scored 20 points in 38 minutes after averaging less than 30 minutes in the first four games of the series. Kerr used him in the small-ball lineup in lieu of big men Zaza Pachulia (10 minutes) and JaVale McGee (0).\n\nInjuries limited Golden State's use of the Death Lineup in 2017–18. Opponents had also adapted by rarely leaving their centers in the game against the Warriors' small lineup. Through 49 games, the unit had a -1.2 plus-minus rating. However, it was still considered the team's most potent lineup. In the final 17 games of the regular season, the Warriors were 7–10 with Curry missing all but one game after an ankle and later a knee injury. Durant, Thompson, Green, and Iguodala each missed four to eight games as well. In total, the group finished the regular season with 127 minutes played together over 28 games, outscoring their opponents by a mundane 22 points. In Game 4 of the conference semifinals in the 2018 playoffs, Kerr started the Hamptons Five with Durant for the first time ever, and they posted a plus-minus of +26 in 18 minutes to lead a 118–92 win over the New Orleans Pelicans, giving Golden State a 3–1 lead in the series. After eliminating the Pelicans in five games, the Warriors continued with the starting lineup in the conference finals to build a 2–1 series lead against the Houston Rockets. Golden State won the series 4–3, but Iguodala missed the last four games with a bruised leg. The Warriors entered the NBA Finals for the fourth straight time versus Cleveland. They swept the Cavaliers in four games, leading to their third championship in four years.\n\nFifth consecutive Finals\nIn 2018–19, the Warriors acquired DeMarcus Cousins, who was recovering from a ruptured left Achilles. He gave Golden State a top-flight, true center for the first time under Kerr, and they became the first team in 42 years with a starting lineup of five All-Stars from the previous season. While the Hamptons Five played more (178 minutes in 38 games) than in the previous regular season, Kerr played the lineup of Cousins, Durant, Curry, Thompson and Green more (268 minutes in 21 games) to integrate Cousins into his new team. In Game 1 of the opening round of the 2019 playoffs, Kerr went to the Hamptons Five early, using them to quell a rally by the Los Angeles Clippers. The coach called the lineup \"the best five-man unit in the league\". Cousins finished the game with a -17 plus-minus. The Warriors eliminated the Clippers in six games, but Cousins tore his left quadriceps in Game 2, and he was initially thought to be out for the remainder of the postseason. In a sign of respect and with an increased urgency, Kerr opened the following round against Houston by starting the Hamptons Five for the first time in the season. The Rockets featured two of the top one-on-one, pick-and-roll players in James Harden and Chris Paul, and the coach wanted Iguodala's defense in the starting lineup to counter. In Game 2, each member of the lineup scored at least 15 points, the first time for a Warriors starting unit under Kerr, and Golden State jumped to a 2–0 series lead. Houston countered the Warriors' small unit by playing forward P. J. Tucker at center along with four guards, forming a lineup of five shooters all or shorter, and tied the series 2–2. In Game 5, Durant suffered a strained right calf and left with 2:05 remaining in the third quarter; he was later ruled out indefinitely. With Curry and Thompson struggling with their shooting, Durant had been their best player in the playoffs, averaging a team-leading 35.4 points entering the game. However, Curry led Golden State to a Game 5 win after scoring 16 of his 25 points after Durant exited. The Warriors captured the series on the road in Game 6, when Thompson scored 21 of his 27 in the first half, and Curry collected all of his 33 points in the second half.\n\nIn the Western Conference finals, Golden State swept the Portland Trail Blazers 4–0, with three of the wins including comebacks of 15 points or more. After starting nine consecutive games, Iguodala missed the deciding Game 4 with a sore left calf injury from Game 3. Curry averaged a series career-high 36.5 points, the highest average by a player in a four-game sweep in NBA history. He and Green both had triple-doubles in Game 4, becoming the first teammates in NBA playoff history to achieve the feat in the same game. The Warriors became only the second team to reach five straight NBA Finals, joining the Boston Celtics (1957–1966). Golden State was down 3–1 in the 2019 finals to the Toronto Raptors when Durant returned in Game 5. The Hamptons Five started the game, but Durant ruptured his right Achilles tendon in the second quarter. The Warriors lost the series in Game 6, when Thompson tore the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in his left knee. Both Durant and Thompson were expected to miss most, if not all, of the following season.\n\nAftermath\nAfter the 2018–19 season, the free agent Durant announced that he would sign with the Brooklyn Nets, while Thompson agreed to re-sign with Golden State. Eyeing a replacement for Thompson while he recovered from his injury, the Warriors traded Iguodala to the Memphis Grizzlies in order to free salary cap space to acquire All-Star guard D'Angelo Russell in a sign-and-trade package with Brooklyn for Durant. After Durant's and Iguodala's departures, Warriors CEO Joe Lacob announced his intention to eventually retire their numbers.\n\nIn 2019–20, the Warriors moved into their new arena, Chase Center, which includes a hallway featuring drawings of each member of the Hamptons Five. Golden State finished with a league-worst 15–50 record. Thompson missed the entire season rehabbing his injury, and Curry was limited to five games all season after breaking his left hand in October. The Warriors' season ended prematurely due to the COVID-19 pandemic.\n\nSee also \n\n Cavaliers–Warriors rivalry\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\nNicknamed groups of NBA players\nBasketball strategy",
"Adamos Chatzigeorgiou, sometimes transliterated as Adamos Hadjigeorgiou, (; born 18 September 1992 in Larnaca) is a Cypriot football midfielder who plays for PO Ormidia in the Cypriot Third Division.\n\nClub career\n\nAnorthosis Famagusta\n\nSeason 2010-11\nChatzigeorgiou comes from Anorthosis' academies and he was promoted to the first team from Guillermo Ángel Hoyos. He made his debut with Anorthosis on 24 August 2010 against CSKA Moscow on UEFA Europa League play-offs. He replaced Cristóvão Ramos on the 70th minute of the game. His first league appearance was on 14 May 2011 on the last match day of the play-offs against AEK Larnaca. He was in the starting lineup and he played for 71 minutes when he was replaced by Christoforos Christofi.\n\nAnagennisi Dherynia\n\nSeason 2011-12\nIn the second half of the season 2011-12 he was not in the plans of in Anorthosis' coach Stanimir Stoilov, so he was loaned to Anagennisi Dherynia where he played 3 matched in the starting lineup and 5 as a substitution.\n\nSeason 2012-13\nHis loan from Anorthosis was extended for one year. He had a season with several mishaps, and couldn't play as expected. He played for Anagennisi Dherynia, however he could not be established. His coach, Adamos Adamou entrusted him enough, but an injury prevented him from having a good season. He played in 6 matches in the starting lineup and 10 as a substitute in the second division and although the season was not perfect, he returned to Anorthosis more ready and more experienced.\n\nASIL Lysi\n\nSeason 2013-14\nHis loan from Anorthosis was extended for one year. He played for ASIL Lysi.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\n1992 births\nLiving people\nCypriot footballers\nAnorthosis Famagusta FC players\nAnagennisi Deryneia FC players\nASIL Lysi players\nOrmideia F.C. players\nCypriot First Division players\nAssociation football wingers"
] |
[
"Rick Barry",
"San Francisco Warriors",
"When did Barry start playing for the Warriors?",
"game in the 1965-66 season.",
"How many games did he play in the 1965-66 season?",
"Barry won the NBA Rookie of the Year Award after averaging 25.7 points and 10.6 rebounds per game in the 1965-66 season.",
"Was Barry in the starting lineup that season?",
"I don't know."
] | C_097b93885b9447d6b53b6b0274d9713d_1 | Did he only play for the Warriors for one season? | 4 | Did Rick Barry only play for the Warriors for one season? | Rick Barry | In Barry's first season in the NBA with the Warriors, the team improved from 17 to 35 victories. In the All-Star Game one season later, Barry erupted for 38 points as the West team stunned the East squad, which featured Wilt Chamberlain, Oscar Robertson, Bill Russell and head coach Red Auerbach among other all-time greats. Later that season, Barry and company extended the mighty Philadelphia 76ers to six highly competitive games in the NBA Finals, something that Russell and the Boston Celtics could not do in the Eastern Conference playoffs. That 76ers team is considered to be one of the greatest in basketball history. Nicknamed the "Miami Greyhound" by longtime San Francisco-area broadcaster Bill King because of his slender physical build and remarkable quickness and instincts, the 6'7" Barry won the NBA Rookie of the Year Award after averaging 25.7 points and 10.6 rebounds per game in the 1965-66 season. The following year, he won the 1967 NBA All-Star Game MVP award with a 38-point outburst and led the NBA in scoring with a 35.6 point per game average -- which still ranks as the eighth- highest output in league annals. Teamed with star center Nate Thurmond in San Francisco, Barry helped take the Warriors to the 1967 NBA Finals, which they lost to the Philadelphia 76ers in six games. Including a 55-point outburst in Game 3, Barry averaged 40.8 points per game in the series, an NBA Finals record that stood for three decades. Upset that he was not paid incentive monies that he believed due from Warriors owner Franklin Mieuli, Barry jumped to the ABA's Oakland Oaks, who offered him a lucrative contract and the chance to play for Bruce Hale, his then father-in-law. The three-year contract offer from Pat Boone, the singer and team owner, was estimated to be worth $500,000, with Barry saying "the offer Oakland made me was one I simply couldn't turn down" and that it would make him one of basketball's highest-paid players. The courts ordered Barry to sit out the 1967-68 season before he starred in the ABA, upholding the validity of the reserve clause in his contract. He preceded St. Louis Cardinals' outfielder Curt Flood, whose better-known challenge to the reserve clause went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, by two years as the first American major-league professional athlete to bring a court action against it. The ensuing negative publicity cast Barry in a negative light, portraying him as selfish and money-hungry. However, many NBA players at the time were looking at jumping to the ABA for more lucrative contracts. Barry would star in the ABA, twice averaging more than 30 points per game. CANNOTANSWER | Barry jumped to the ABA's Oakland Oaks, | Richard Francis Dennis Barry III (born March 28, 1944) is an American retired professional basketball player who played in both the American Basketball Association (ABA) and National Basketball Association (NBA). Named one of the 50 Greatest Players in history in 1996 and 75 Greatest Players in history in 2021, each in a league-wide vote of media, analysts, current and former players and team executives, Barry ranks among the most prolific scorers and all-around players in basketball history. He is the only one to lead the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), ABA, and NBA in points per game in a season. He ranks as the all-time ABA scoring leader in regular season (30.5 points per game) and postseason (33.5) play, while his 36.3 points per game are the most in the NBA Finals history. Barry also is the only player to reach the 50-point mark in a Game 7 of the playoffs in either league. He is one of only four players to be a part of a championship team in both leagues.
Barry is widely known for his unorthodox but extraordinarily effective underhand free throw technique. His career .880 free throw percentage ranks No. 1 in ABA history, and at the time of his retirement in 1980, his .900 percentage was the best of any NBA player. In 1987, he was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. In October 2021, Barry was honored as one of the league's greatest players of all-time by being named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team.
Barry is the father of former professional basketball players Brent Barry, Jon Barry, Drew Barry, and Scooter Barry, and current professional player Canyon Barry. His wife, Lynn Norenberg Barry, was a star basketball player at the College of William & Mary, where she became the first female athlete to have her jersey number (22) retired.
Early years and college career
Barry grew up in Roselle Park, New Jersey, where baseball was his best sport as a youth. He grew up a fan of local New York Giants star Willie Mays, who wore jersey number 24, and Barry would wear the same number in tribute to the outfielder throughout his basketball career. In 1962, Barry graduated from Roselle Park High School.
Barry decided to attend the University of Miami, largely because the Hurricanes adhered to an up-tempo, pro-style system under head coach Bruce Hale that was conducive to his skills and athleticism. It was there that the three-time All-American met his future wife Pamela, who was the daughter of the head coach. As a senior, Barry led the NCAA with a 37.4 points per game average in the 1964–65 campaign. He and his teammates did not take part in the NCAA Tournament, however, because the Hurricanes basketball program was on probation at the time.
Barry was drafted by the San Francisco Warriors with the second pick of the 1965 NBA draft. He had hoped to be selected by the New York Knicks, his hometown team, but they opted for local Princeton star Bill Bradley in round one instead. It was a slight that Barry would not soon forget. In his second visit to Madison Square Garden as a pro, he went off for 57 points versus the Knicks, including 21 free throws in 22 attempts. He also grabbed 15 rebounds in the 141–137 loss.
Professional playing career
San Francisco Warriors
In Barry's first season in the NBA with the Warriors, the team made a quantum leap from 17 to 35 victories and were in playoff contention until the final game of the regular season. In the All-Star Game one season later, Barry erupted for 38 points as the West team stunned the East team, which featured Wilt Chamberlain, Oscar Robertson, Bill Russell and head coach Red Auerbach among other all-time greats. Later that season, Barry and company extended the mighty Philadelphia 76ers to six highly competitive games in the NBA Finals, something that Russell and the Boston Celtics could not do in the Eastern Conference playoffs.
Nicknamed the "Miami Greyhound" by longtime San Francisco Bay Area broadcaster Bill King because of his long and slender physical build, whippet-like quickness and remarkable instincts, the Barry won the NBA Rookie of the Year Award after averaging 25.7 points and 10.6 rebounds per game in the 1965–66 season. The following year, he won the 1967 NBA All-Star Game MVP award with a 38-point outburst and led the NBA in scoring with a 35.6 point per game average — which still ranks as the eighth-highest output in league annals.
Along with All-Star center Nate Thurmond, Barry carried the Warriors to the 1967 NBA Finals, which they lost to the Philadelphia 76ers in six games. Despite an injured left knee that required cortisone shots on game days, Barry averaged 40.8 points per game in the series, an NBA Finals record that stood for three decades. "The guy was so good that we had to have three different guys guard him at different times," Chamberlain said. "'Cause he would run them all ragged."
Joining the ABA
At odds with Warriors owner Franklin Mieuli over unpaid incentive monies due him, Barry shocked the basketball world when he jumped to the ABA's Oakland Oaks, who overwhelmed him with a historic contract offer. Barry became the first marquee NBA player to jump to the rival league. Not only was the three-year agreement worth a reported $500,000, which would make him one of basketball's highest-paid players, it afforded him the opportunity to play for his former college coach Bruce Hale, who was also his father-in-law. In addition, Barry received 15 percent ownership in the franchise as well as 5 percent of all ticket sales in excess of $600,000 for home games. The ground-breaking deal led him to remark, "The offer Oakland made me was one I simply couldn't turn down."
The courts ordered Barry to sit out the 1967–68 season for the Oaks, upholding the validity of the reserve clause in his contract. At the time, all NBA teams had one-year options on player contracts, however, and the Warriors were quick to exercise theirs. He preceded St. Louis Cardinals' outfielder Curt Flood, whose better-known challenge to the reserve clause went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, by two years as the first American major-league professional athlete to bring a court action against it. The ensuing negative publicity cast Barry in a negative light, portraying him as selfish and money hungry. He was hardly alone in his vision, however, as numerous NBA players also saw the rival league as a rare opportunity to enhance their careers.
Oakland Oaks
The Oaks finished 22–56 in their ABA debut, which Barry spent as part of their broadcast team. Prior to the 1968–69 season, they hired his former San Francisco Warriors coach Alex Hannum to replace Hale, who moved to a front office position. If there was any question about whether Barry would remain the most dominant player in professional basketball, he quickly answered it. In his ABA debut, he averaged a league-high 34.0 points per game and the Oaks became the first West Coast team to capture a league championship in professional basketball history. Barry also paced the league in free-throw percentage in the regular season, a feat he would repeat in the 1970–71 and 1971–72 seasons.
Barry had his season come to an abrupt halt on December 27, 1968, when late in a game against the New York Nets, he was blindsided by Ken Wilburn on a drive to the basket and tore left knee ligaments on the play. He attempted to come back in January 1969, only to aggravate the injury and sit out the remainder of the season. He took part in only 35 games but still was named to the ABA All-Star team.
Even without the arguably the best all-around player in basketball, the Oaks barely skipped a beat. They finished with a 60–18 record under Hannum, dominating the Western Division by 14 games over the second-place New Orleans Buccaneers. In the 1969 ABA Playoffs, the Oaks ousted the Denver Rockets in a seven-game series then swept the Buccaneers in the Western Division finals. In the championship round, they made short work of the Indiana Pacers, 4–1, to capture the league title.
In lieu of a parade in downtown Oakland, a modest victory celebration was held at a restaurant in Jack London Square. It was there that Barry announced, "I see no hope for the rest of the teams in the league."
Washington Caps
Despite their on-court excellence, the Oaks were a disappointment at the gate, partly because of Barry's absence in the final five months of the season, partly because they were the only ABA member that competed in the same market as an NBA team, that being the more established Warriors across the bay. They averaged just 2,800 fans per home game at the state-of-the-art Oakland County Coliseum Arena, slightly more than the league average. By that time, entertainer-business entrepreneur Pat Boone had become the majority team owner, and after more than $2 million in losses over two seasons, he wanted out of the basketball business. In August 1968, the franchise was sold to a group headed by real estate attorney and former Baltimore Bullets owner Earl Foreman, who immediately moved it to Washington, D.C., even though there was no suitable arena in the vicinity at the time.
Reluctantly, Barry played the 1969–70 season with the ABA's Washington Caps. He refused to report to the team at the outset, at one point commenting, "If I wanted to go to Washington, I'd run for president!" He missed the first 32 games before he joined the team, which played in the Western Division, making for a grueling travel schedule. The Caps still managed to finish with a respectable 44–40 record, good for third place in the Western Division. Appearing in only 52 games because of a knee injury, Barry finished the season with 1,442 points (27.7 per game), second-best in the league. The Denver Rockets edged the Caps, 4–3, in the Western Division semifinals. In Game 7 on the road, Barry went off for 52 points, the most scored in a seventh and deciding game in professional basketball history.
Virginia Squires
The Washington Caps became the Virginia Squires after the 1969–70 season, but Barry was openly despondent about playing in Virginia. At the same time, he wanted to continue playing in the ABA. Featured on the August 24, 1970, cover of Sports Illustrated in a Squires jersey, he indicated that he would not return to the NBA if the league paid him "a million dollars a year." He denounced the Squires (and, subsequently, never suited up for them), saying he did not want his kids growing up with a Southern accent. On September 1, 1970, the Squires traded Barry to the New York Nets for a draft pick and $200,000. The negative comments were not the primary reason; rather, Squires owner Earl Foreman was mired in financial troubles and sold Barry to help meet expenses.
New York Nets
After the Squires dealt Barry to the New York Nets, he played in only 59 games in the 1970–71 season because of a knee injury but still made the ABA All Star team. He repeated as an ABA All Star during the 1971–72 season. During the 1970–71 season he led the league in scoring (29.4 points per game) and led the league again in 1971–72 with 31.5 points per game. In both of those years he also led the ABA in free throw percentage as he had in 1968–69. Barry also became the ABA record holder for most consecutive free throws in one game with 23.
In the 1970–71 season, the Nets finished 40–44, good for fourth place in the Eastern Division and a place in the 1971 ABA Playoffs. The Virginia Squires defeated the Nets 4 games to 2 in the Eastern Division semifinals. The 1971–72 Nets finished the season at 44–40, making the 1972 ABA Playoffs by claiming third place in the Eastern Division, 24 games behind the 68–16 Kentucky Colonels. In the Eastern Division semifinals the Nets shocked the ABA by defeating the Colonels 4 games to 2. The Nets then eked out a 4–3 game victory over the Virginia Squires in the Eastern Division finals. The Nets were then edged by the Western Division champion Indiana Pacers, 4 games to 2, in the 1972 ABA Finals.
On June 23, 1972, a United States District Court judge issued a preliminary injunction to prohibit Barry from playing for any team other than the Golden State Warriors after his contract with the Nets ended. On October 6, 1972, the Nets released Barry and he returned to the Warriors.
Golden State Warriors
Upon Barry's return to the Warriors and the NBA, the cumulative effects of knee problems were taking their toll. Barry gradually moved his game away from the basket, where he became the first so-called point forward in league history. That is, Barry took on a role similar to that of a point guard and became the chief facilitator of the offense. While his offensive forays were not as frequent as in the past, he remained an elite scorer as evidenced by his performance on March 26, 1974, when he went off for a career-high 64 points and grabbed 10 rebounds in a 143–120 win over the visiting Portland Trail Blazers.
In 1974–75, the Warriors had a Cinderella season for the ages. The turnaround began in training camp, when Barry was elected captain by his teammates. They went on to capture the Pacific Division crown as Barry responded with the best all-around season of his career. Not only did he average 30.6 points per game, but he also led the league in free throw percentage (.904) and steals per game (2.9) and ranked sixth in assists per game (6.2), the only forward among the top 10 in the category.
In the playoffs, the upstart Warriors turned back the Seattle SuperSonics and Chicago Bulls to capture the Western Conference crown. In the NBA Finals, they shocked the basketball world with a historic four-game sweep of Elvin Hayes, Wes Unseld and the Washington Bullets, widely considered to be the greatest postseason upset in NBA history. The Bullets had posted a league-high 60 victories, 12 more than the Warriors total in the regular season, which led many experts to predict that they would win the series easily. Barry was named NBA Finals Most Valuable Player on the strength of 29.5 points, 5.0 assists and 3.5 steals per game, not to mention his profound impact in a leadership role.
In the 1975 NBA draft, the Warriors selected point guard Gus Williams in the first round. While Williams made immediate contributions off the bench, off guard Phil Smith came into his own in his second season. Barry was not required to carry the team as often, and his scoring average dipped to 21.0 points per game as a result. As the deepest and most athletic team in professional basketball, the Warriors repeated as Pacific Division champions, this time with a league-best 59–23 record. They entered the playoffs as clear-cut favorites to return to the NBA Finals.
After an unusual 10-day layoff, partly to accommodate network television, the Warriors eliminated the Detroit Pistons in round one then were upset in the Western Conference finals by the Phoenix Suns in seven games. The final contest was marred by a fight between Barry and Suns rookie Ricky Sobers away from the ball in the first quarter, during which none of the Warriors came to his aid at the opposite side of the court. Suns broadcaster Al McCoy concocted a narrative that Barry quit in the second half, a charge that lacked tangible evidence and he steadfastly denied. In fact, Barry led his team in points and shot attempts that game. Rather, he said his intent was to get more teammates involved in the third quarter, the game plan that had allowed them to dominate in the regular season.
In the 1976–77 campaign, the Warriors won 46 games the next season with Barry, Smith, and Williams sharing scoring and ball-handling, but were ousted in the second round by the Los Angeles Lakers. Reportedly, Barry and Williams clashed over the ball-handling role, and Williams was traded after the season to the Seattle SuperSonics. Barry averaged 23.1 points per game in his farewell season (1977–78) with the Warriors, but the team failed to make the playoffs.
Houston Rockets
Barry finished his career with the Houston Rockets, playing through the 1979–80 NBA season. The Rockets signed him as a free agent in June, 1978, and the league awarded veteran guard John Lucas to the Warriors as compensation.
In the twilight of his career, Barry continued to make history. In his Rockets debut, he assumed a new role as the first player off the bench. It was not long before he elevated the point forward position to another level. Barry finished with a career-high 502 assists to become the first true small forward to reach the 500 mark in one season. Until then, swingman John Havlicek had been the only forward with as many as 500 assists in a season, but the Boston Celtics swingman also spent considerable time at the off guard spot. Barry averaged 13.5 points per game and established a new NBA record (since broken) with a .947 free throw percentage.
Barry was less of a factor in his final season. The Rockets were swept by the Celtics in the 1980 Eastern Conference semifinals, and when contract talks with Boston and the Seattle SuperSonics failed to produce a contract, he decided to retire.
NBA career statistics
Regular season
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|San Francisco
| style="background:#cfecec;"|80* || || 37.4 || .439 || || .862 || 10.6 || 2.2 || || || 25.7
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|San Francisco
| 78 || || 40.7 || .451 || || .884 || 9.2 || 3.6 || || || style="background:#cfecec;"|35.6*
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || || 37.5 || .452 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.902* || 8.9 || 4.9 || || || 22.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 80 || || 36.5 || .456 || || .899 || 6.8 || 6.1 || 2.1 || 0.5 || 25.1
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 80 || || 40.4 || .464 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.904* || 5.7 || 6.2 || style="background:#cfecec;"|2.9* || 0.4 || 30.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 81 || || 38.5 || .435 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.923* || 6.1 || 6.1 || 2.5 || 0.3 || 21.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 79 || || 36.8 || .440 || || .916 || 5.3 || 6.0 || 2.2 || 0.7 || 21.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 82 || || 36.9 || .451 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.924* || 5.5 || 5.4 || 1.9 || 0.5 || 23.1
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 80 || || 32.1 || .461 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.947* || 3.5 || 6.3 || 1.2 || 0.5 || 13.5
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 72 || || 25.2 || .422 || .330 || style="background:#cfecec;"|.935* || 3.3 || 3.7 || 1.1 || 0.4 || 12.0
|- class=sortbottom
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|Career
| 794 || || 36.3 || .449 || .330 || .900 || 6.5 || 5.1 || 2.0 || 0.5 || 23.2
Later years
During the 1990s, he coached the Cedar Rapids Sharpshooters of the Global Basketball Association and the Continental Basketball Association, guiding the Fort Wayne Fury to a 19–37 win-loss record in 1993–94. In 1998 and 1999, he served as head coach of the New Jersey ShoreCats of the United States Basketball League. Former Warriors teammate Clifford Ray was his top assistant.
Barry finished second in his division at the 2005 World Long Drive Championship.
Barry is part owner and promoter for the Ektio basketball shoe, which doctor and former college basketball player Barry Katz designed to reduce ankle injuries. He also serves on the company's Board of Directors.
Broadcasting career
Barry was among the first professional basketball players to make a successful transition to the broadcasting profession. He began broadcasting during the 1967–68 season broadcasting Oakland Oaks games because of contractual matters that kept him off the court. Barry continues to work in the field, a career that began with his own radio show in San Francisco and CBS while still an active player and then with TBS.
While working as a CBS analyst during Game 5 of the 1981 NBA Finals, Barry made a controversial comment when CBS displayed an old photo of colleague Bill Russell, who is African-American. He tried to joke that "it looks like some fool over there with that big watermelon grin". Barry later apologized for the comment, claiming that he did not realize that a reference to watermelons had racial overtones. Russell said that he believed Barry with regard to Barry's racial attitudes, but nonetheless, the two men are reported not to have been particularly friendly for other reasons, unrelated to that comment.
CBS did not renew Barry's employment for the subsequent season. Producers later cited the general negative tone of his game commentary, which did not sit well with some players and agents around the league. The next season Barry filled in on a few Seattle SuperSonics broadcasts, but a plan for a full-time position fell through when he insisted that his then-wife be allowed to join him when the team was on the road, which would have been contrary to team policy. The next year, Barry was featured in a lengthy Sports Illustrated article written by Tony Kornheiser in which he lamented the failure of his broadcasting career to that point, as well as the fact that he'd left a reputation within NBA circles for being an unlikeable person. After this, Barry worked with TBS and later on, TNT into the 1989–90 season, mostly as a color analyst but sometimes as a play-by-play announcer paired with Bill Russell. One of the more notable games Barry called as play-by-play announcer on TBS was Game 5 of the 1985 Eastern Conference Finals between the Boston Celtics and the Philadelphia 76ers, where Larry Bird made a last-second steal which sealed the win and the Eastern Conference Championship for the Celtics. After the 1989–90 season, Barry became the color analyst for the Atlanta Hawks' games that aired on TBS, paired with Skip Caray.
In a rare non-sports venture, he hosted the pilot for the mid-1980s game show Catchphrase; however, when the series debuted in the fall of 1985, game show veteran Art James replaced him (the series itself was short-lived in the US, but was brought over to the UK and is still running).
In September 2001, Barry began hosting a sports talk show on KNBR in San Francisco until June 2003, when KNBR paired him up with Rod Brooks to co-host a show named Rick and Rod. The show aired on KNBR until August 2006, when Barry left the station abruptly for reasons not disclosed to the public.
Personal life
Barry is of Irish, English, French, and Lithuanian descent. He was a member of the Kappa Sigma fraternity. He resides in Colorado Springs, Colorado with his wife, Lynn Norenberg Barry. While their youngest son, Canyon, played basketball for The University of Florida, to watch him play, they rented a condominium in Gainesville, Florida.
He has four sons and a daughter with his first wife Pam: Scooter, Jon, Brent, Drew and Shannon. All of Barry's sons were professional basketball players. Barry wrote an autobiography, Confessions of a Basketball Gypsy: The Rick Barry Story with Bill Libby that was published in 1972. He also has a son, Canyon, with his third wife, Lynn Barry, who is a professional player, playing for Chinese club Hunan Jinjian Miye in the 2018–19 season.
When his son Brent won the NBA Championship in 2005 with the San Antonio Spurs, Rick and Brent became the second father-son duo to both win NBA Championships as players, following Matt Guokas Sr. and Matt Guokas Jr. Later, this would be repeated by Bill and Luke Walton, and Mychal and Klay Thompson.
Jon and Brent have also moved to broadcasting after retirement. Jon serves as a game analyst on ESPN while Brent worked as a studio and game analyst on TNT and NBA TV until 2018 when he took a job with the San Antonio Spurs to be vice president of basketball operations.
Scooter won titles in the CBA and the top Belgian League.
Career achievements
Roselle Park High School – Roselle Park, New Jersey (1957–1961)
Two-time All-State selection
University of Miami (1961–1965)
Associated Press First-Team All-America (1965)
The Sporting News All-America Second Team (1965)
Consensus All-America (1965)
Led the nation in scoring (37.4 ppg) as a senior
NBA San Francisco Warriors (1965–1967)
NBA Rookie of the Year (1966)
NBA All-Rookie First Team (1966)
NBA leading scorer in 1967 (35.6 ppg)
ABA leading scorer in 1969 (34.0 ppg)
NBA highest free-throw percentage 1973, 1975, 1976, 1978, 1979, 1980
ABA highest free-throw percentage 1969, 1971, 1972
NBA All-Star Game MVP (1967)
ABA Oakland Oaks (1968–1969)
ABA Washington Caps (1969–1970)
ABA New York Nets (1970–1972)
NBA Golden State Warriors (1972–1978)
All-NBA Second Team (1973)
NBA Finals MVP (1975)
NBA champion (1975)
NBA Houston Rockets (1978–1979)
All-NBA First Team (1966, 1967, 1974, 1975, 1976)
Eight-time NBA All-Star (1966, 1967, 1973–1978)
ABA All-Star First Team (1969–1972)
NBA 50 Greatest Players (1996)
NBA 75 Greatest Players (2021)
Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame (1988)
Sports Hall of Fame of New Jersey (1994)
University of Miami Sports Hall of Fame (1976)
Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement (1975)
15 games in NBA career scoring 50 or more points (5th in NBA history)
115 games in professional career scoring 40 or more points — 70 NBA, 45 ABA (4th in professional basketball history after Wilt Chamberlain, Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant)
NBA records
Regular season
Only player in history to lead the NCAA, ABA and NBA in scoring
Led the NCAA in scoring in 1964–65 (973 points, 37.4 ppg)
Led the NBA in scoring in (2,775 points, 35.6 ppg)
Led the ABA in scoring in (1,190 points; 34.0 ppg)
Youngest player to score 57 points in a game: (57 points, San Francisco Warriors at New York Knicks, )
Free throws, consecutive, ABA game: 23, at Kentucky Colonels,
Assists, forward, game: 19, at Chicago Bulls, November 30, 1976
Playoffs
Scoring 30 or more points in all games, any playoff series: 6 games, vs. Philadelphia 76ers, 1967 NBA Finals
Points, 7-game ABA series: 281, vs. Denver Rockets, 1970 semifinals
Points scored, Game 7, any ABA-NBA playoff series: 52, at Denver Rockets,
Field goal attempts, 6-game series: 235, vs. Philadelphia 76ers, 1967 NBA Finals
Field goal attempts, game: 48, vs. Philadelphia 76ers,
Field goal attempts, quarter: 17, at Philadelphia 76ers,
Steals, quarter: 4, second quarter, at Chicago Bulls,
Tied with many other players
NBA Finals
Highest scoring average (career): 36.3
Scoring 30 or more points in all games, any championship series: 6 games, vs. Philadelphia 76ers, 1967 NBA Finals
Tied with Elgin Baylor, Michael Jordan, Hakeem Olajuwon, Shaquille O'Neal, and Kevin Durant.
Field goals made, game: 22, vs. Philadelphia 76ers,
Tied with Elgin Baylor
Field goal attempts, 6-game series: 235, vs. Philadelphia 76ers, 1967 NBA Finals
Field goal attempts, game: 48, vs. Philadelphia 76ers,
Field goal attempts, quarter: 17, at Philadelphia 76ers,
Steals, 4-game series: 14, vs. Washington Bullets, 1975 NBA Finals (3.5 spg)
All-Star
Field goal attempts, game: 27 (1967)
Steals, game: 8 (1975)
Personal fouls, game: 6, twice (1966, 1978)
Disqualifications, career: 2
Tied with Bob Cousy
See also
American Basketball Association (2000–present)
List of individual National Basketball Association scoring leaders by season
List of National Basketball Association players with most points in a game
List of National Basketball Association players with most steals in a game
List of National Basketball Association players with 50 or more points in a playoff game
List of NCAA Division I men's basketball players with 2000 points and 1000 rebounds
References
External links
Basketball Hall of Fame profile
RememberTheABA.com Rick Barry page
1972 Jim O'Brien biographical article on Rick Barry
Rick Barry and Rod Brooks Home Page at KNBR Radio
Rick Barry Career Statistics
A Voice Crying in the Wilderness
1944 births
Living people
All-American college men's basketball players
American Basketball Association announcers
American men's basketball players
American people of Lithuanian descent
American sports radio personalities
Basketball coaches from New Jersey
Basketball players from Colorado Springs, Colorado
Basketball players from New Jersey
Big3 coaches
Continental Basketball Association coaches
Golden State Warriors players
Golf writers and broadcasters
Houston Rockets players
Miami Hurricanes men's basketball players
Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductees
National Basketball Association All-Stars
National Basketball Association broadcasters
National Basketball Association players with retired numbers
New York Nets players
Oakland Oaks players
People from Roselle Park, New Jersey
Radio personalities from San Francisco
San Francisco Warriors draft picks
San Francisco Warriors players
Small forwards
Sportspeople from Elizabeth, New Jersey
Tennis commentators
United States Basketball League coaches
Washington Caps players | false | [
"Iain Kennedy (born 22 August 1985, in Scotland) is a former Scotland U21 international rugby union player. He played at Fly-half.\n\nAmateur career\n\nHe started playing his youth rugby for Lenzie Academy first XV. He became captain of the side.\n\nHe moved to play for Glasgow Hutchesons Aloysians in season 2003-04.\n\nIn season 2005-06 he played his rugby for Glasgow Hawks. The following season 2006-07 he played for Glasgow Hutchesons Aloysians again.\n\nProfessional career\n\nIn 2003-04 Kennedy was mentored by Joe Naufahu in the Warriors academy program.\n\nIn season 2005-06 he formally joined Glasgow Warriors as an academy player in their Elite Development Program.\n\nHe was named player of the tournament in the 2005-06 Jenkins & Marr Glasgow City Sevens. The Warriors reached the final, only to be beaten by Edinburgh Rugby 40-24.\n\nHe had a viral bug and knee injury which curtailed his appearances that season.\n\nHowever he did play competitively for Glasgow Warriors in the Celtic League against Connacht coming on at half time for Graydon Staniforth on 25 May 2006.\n\nWhile with the Warriors he took part in community visits. He attended Wellington School in Ayrshire with James Eddie for a skills session with the pupils.\n\nInternational career\n\nKennedy was capped at age grades for Scotland at Scotland U18s, Scotland U19s and Scotland U21s levels.\n\nOutside rugby\n\nKennedy is now a Pastoral Assistant at Gateway Church, Poole.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nWarriors quartet make World Championship Squad\n\nScottish rugby union players\nGlasgow Warriors players\n1985 births\nLiving people\nRugby union fly-halves\nGlasgow Hutchesons Aloysians RFC players\nGlasgow Hawks players\nPeople educated at Lenzie Academy\nSportspeople from Lenzie",
"Rory Couper (born 6 June 1980 in Irvine, Scotland) is a former Scotland 7s international rugby union player. He played as a Wing.\n\nRugby Union career\n\nAmateur career\n\nHe played at amateur level for Ardrossan Academicals RFC.\n\nIn 2000, Couper was playing for Boroughmuir RFC. He also went on to play for Edinburgh Academicals.\n\nProfessional career\n\nGlasgow Warriors\n\nHis talent was noticed by the Glasgow District Rugby Union. The GDRU had organised a Glasgow Warriors 'academy project' team, the Glasgow Thistles, which would receive their training in New Zealand in the summer of 1998. Couper received a place in the Glasgow Thistles 22-man squad.\n\nThe next season 1998–99 Couper, and his Glasgow Thistle team-mate Rory Kerr, trained with the Glasgow squad, but they did not play. Instead, they were still playing for their amateur clubs.\n\nBoth Kerr and Couper broke into the Glasgow Warriors squad the following season 1999 - 2000. Kerr broke into the first team that season, but Couper found himself on the bench. He was a substitute in Glasgow's last match in the Welsh-Scottish League that season, an away tie with Neath RFC. Glasgow were beaten 47 - 10 and Coupar did not play. The squad placing and named as an unused substitute was as close as Couper came to playing a competitive match for Glasgow Warriors.\n\nHe did play in a friendly match for Glasgow Warriors. In 2004 he was part of the Glasgow side that played the Scotland U21 side.\n\nThis was a preparation match for the national Under-21 side in order to get them ready for the Under 21 Rugby World Cup. Playing against the Warriors proved a step too far for the Under 21s and they were beaten 43 - 0. Couper helped himself to a brace of tries.\n\nEdinburgh\n\nShortly after his Glasgow appearance, Couper was picked up by Edinburgh Rugby and played in a Celtic League match against Llanelli Scarlets on 6 March 2004.\n\nInternational career\n\nCouper captained the Scotland Under-19 team.\n\nInternationally, Couper made the Scotland Sevens team.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nThe Scotsman profile\n\n1980 births\nLiving people\nArdrossan Academicals players\nBoroughmuir RFC players\nEdinburgh Academicals rugby union players\nEdinburgh Rugby players\nGlasgow Warriors players\nMale rugby sevens players\nRugby union players from Irvine, North Ayrshire\nScotland Club XV international rugby union players\nScotland international rugby sevens players\nScottish rugby union players"
] |
[
"Rick Barry",
"San Francisco Warriors",
"When did Barry start playing for the Warriors?",
"game in the 1965-66 season.",
"How many games did he play in the 1965-66 season?",
"Barry won the NBA Rookie of the Year Award after averaging 25.7 points and 10.6 rebounds per game in the 1965-66 season.",
"Was Barry in the starting lineup that season?",
"I don't know.",
"Did he only play for the Warriors for one season?",
"Barry jumped to the ABA's Oakland Oaks,"
] | C_097b93885b9447d6b53b6b0274d9713d_1 | Did Barry sign with the Warriors out of college? | 5 | Did Rick Barry sign with the Warriors out of college? | Rick Barry | In Barry's first season in the NBA with the Warriors, the team improved from 17 to 35 victories. In the All-Star Game one season later, Barry erupted for 38 points as the West team stunned the East squad, which featured Wilt Chamberlain, Oscar Robertson, Bill Russell and head coach Red Auerbach among other all-time greats. Later that season, Barry and company extended the mighty Philadelphia 76ers to six highly competitive games in the NBA Finals, something that Russell and the Boston Celtics could not do in the Eastern Conference playoffs. That 76ers team is considered to be one of the greatest in basketball history. Nicknamed the "Miami Greyhound" by longtime San Francisco-area broadcaster Bill King because of his slender physical build and remarkable quickness and instincts, the 6'7" Barry won the NBA Rookie of the Year Award after averaging 25.7 points and 10.6 rebounds per game in the 1965-66 season. The following year, he won the 1967 NBA All-Star Game MVP award with a 38-point outburst and led the NBA in scoring with a 35.6 point per game average -- which still ranks as the eighth- highest output in league annals. Teamed with star center Nate Thurmond in San Francisco, Barry helped take the Warriors to the 1967 NBA Finals, which they lost to the Philadelphia 76ers in six games. Including a 55-point outburst in Game 3, Barry averaged 40.8 points per game in the series, an NBA Finals record that stood for three decades. Upset that he was not paid incentive monies that he believed due from Warriors owner Franklin Mieuli, Barry jumped to the ABA's Oakland Oaks, who offered him a lucrative contract and the chance to play for Bruce Hale, his then father-in-law. The three-year contract offer from Pat Boone, the singer and team owner, was estimated to be worth $500,000, with Barry saying "the offer Oakland made me was one I simply couldn't turn down" and that it would make him one of basketball's highest-paid players. The courts ordered Barry to sit out the 1967-68 season before he starred in the ABA, upholding the validity of the reserve clause in his contract. He preceded St. Louis Cardinals' outfielder Curt Flood, whose better-known challenge to the reserve clause went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, by two years as the first American major-league professional athlete to bring a court action against it. The ensuing negative publicity cast Barry in a negative light, portraying him as selfish and money-hungry. However, many NBA players at the time were looking at jumping to the ABA for more lucrative contracts. Barry would star in the ABA, twice averaging more than 30 points per game. CANNOTANSWER | Barry's first season in the NBA with the Warriors, | Richard Francis Dennis Barry III (born March 28, 1944) is an American retired professional basketball player who played in both the American Basketball Association (ABA) and National Basketball Association (NBA). Named one of the 50 Greatest Players in history in 1996 and 75 Greatest Players in history in 2021, each in a league-wide vote of media, analysts, current and former players and team executives, Barry ranks among the most prolific scorers and all-around players in basketball history. He is the only one to lead the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), ABA, and NBA in points per game in a season. He ranks as the all-time ABA scoring leader in regular season (30.5 points per game) and postseason (33.5) play, while his 36.3 points per game are the most in the NBA Finals history. Barry also is the only player to reach the 50-point mark in a Game 7 of the playoffs in either league. He is one of only four players to be a part of a championship team in both leagues.
Barry is widely known for his unorthodox but extraordinarily effective underhand free throw technique. His career .880 free throw percentage ranks No. 1 in ABA history, and at the time of his retirement in 1980, his .900 percentage was the best of any NBA player. In 1987, he was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. In October 2021, Barry was honored as one of the league's greatest players of all-time by being named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team.
Barry is the father of former professional basketball players Brent Barry, Jon Barry, Drew Barry, and Scooter Barry, and current professional player Canyon Barry. His wife, Lynn Norenberg Barry, was a star basketball player at the College of William & Mary, where she became the first female athlete to have her jersey number (22) retired.
Early years and college career
Barry grew up in Roselle Park, New Jersey, where baseball was his best sport as a youth. He grew up a fan of local New York Giants star Willie Mays, who wore jersey number 24, and Barry would wear the same number in tribute to the outfielder throughout his basketball career. In 1962, Barry graduated from Roselle Park High School.
Barry decided to attend the University of Miami, largely because the Hurricanes adhered to an up-tempo, pro-style system under head coach Bruce Hale that was conducive to his skills and athleticism. It was there that the three-time All-American met his future wife Pamela, who was the daughter of the head coach. As a senior, Barry led the NCAA with a 37.4 points per game average in the 1964–65 campaign. He and his teammates did not take part in the NCAA Tournament, however, because the Hurricanes basketball program was on probation at the time.
Barry was drafted by the San Francisco Warriors with the second pick of the 1965 NBA draft. He had hoped to be selected by the New York Knicks, his hometown team, but they opted for local Princeton star Bill Bradley in round one instead. It was a slight that Barry would not soon forget. In his second visit to Madison Square Garden as a pro, he went off for 57 points versus the Knicks, including 21 free throws in 22 attempts. He also grabbed 15 rebounds in the 141–137 loss.
Professional playing career
San Francisco Warriors
In Barry's first season in the NBA with the Warriors, the team made a quantum leap from 17 to 35 victories and were in playoff contention until the final game of the regular season. In the All-Star Game one season later, Barry erupted for 38 points as the West team stunned the East team, which featured Wilt Chamberlain, Oscar Robertson, Bill Russell and head coach Red Auerbach among other all-time greats. Later that season, Barry and company extended the mighty Philadelphia 76ers to six highly competitive games in the NBA Finals, something that Russell and the Boston Celtics could not do in the Eastern Conference playoffs.
Nicknamed the "Miami Greyhound" by longtime San Francisco Bay Area broadcaster Bill King because of his long and slender physical build, whippet-like quickness and remarkable instincts, the Barry won the NBA Rookie of the Year Award after averaging 25.7 points and 10.6 rebounds per game in the 1965–66 season. The following year, he won the 1967 NBA All-Star Game MVP award with a 38-point outburst and led the NBA in scoring with a 35.6 point per game average — which still ranks as the eighth-highest output in league annals.
Along with All-Star center Nate Thurmond, Barry carried the Warriors to the 1967 NBA Finals, which they lost to the Philadelphia 76ers in six games. Despite an injured left knee that required cortisone shots on game days, Barry averaged 40.8 points per game in the series, an NBA Finals record that stood for three decades. "The guy was so good that we had to have three different guys guard him at different times," Chamberlain said. "'Cause he would run them all ragged."
Joining the ABA
At odds with Warriors owner Franklin Mieuli over unpaid incentive monies due him, Barry shocked the basketball world when he jumped to the ABA's Oakland Oaks, who overwhelmed him with a historic contract offer. Barry became the first marquee NBA player to jump to the rival league. Not only was the three-year agreement worth a reported $500,000, which would make him one of basketball's highest-paid players, it afforded him the opportunity to play for his former college coach Bruce Hale, who was also his father-in-law. In addition, Barry received 15 percent ownership in the franchise as well as 5 percent of all ticket sales in excess of $600,000 for home games. The ground-breaking deal led him to remark, "The offer Oakland made me was one I simply couldn't turn down."
The courts ordered Barry to sit out the 1967–68 season for the Oaks, upholding the validity of the reserve clause in his contract. At the time, all NBA teams had one-year options on player contracts, however, and the Warriors were quick to exercise theirs. He preceded St. Louis Cardinals' outfielder Curt Flood, whose better-known challenge to the reserve clause went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, by two years as the first American major-league professional athlete to bring a court action against it. The ensuing negative publicity cast Barry in a negative light, portraying him as selfish and money hungry. He was hardly alone in his vision, however, as numerous NBA players also saw the rival league as a rare opportunity to enhance their careers.
Oakland Oaks
The Oaks finished 22–56 in their ABA debut, which Barry spent as part of their broadcast team. Prior to the 1968–69 season, they hired his former San Francisco Warriors coach Alex Hannum to replace Hale, who moved to a front office position. If there was any question about whether Barry would remain the most dominant player in professional basketball, he quickly answered it. In his ABA debut, he averaged a league-high 34.0 points per game and the Oaks became the first West Coast team to capture a league championship in professional basketball history. Barry also paced the league in free-throw percentage in the regular season, a feat he would repeat in the 1970–71 and 1971–72 seasons.
Barry had his season come to an abrupt halt on December 27, 1968, when late in a game against the New York Nets, he was blindsided by Ken Wilburn on a drive to the basket and tore left knee ligaments on the play. He attempted to come back in January 1969, only to aggravate the injury and sit out the remainder of the season. He took part in only 35 games but still was named to the ABA All-Star team.
Even without the arguably the best all-around player in basketball, the Oaks barely skipped a beat. They finished with a 60–18 record under Hannum, dominating the Western Division by 14 games over the second-place New Orleans Buccaneers. In the 1969 ABA Playoffs, the Oaks ousted the Denver Rockets in a seven-game series then swept the Buccaneers in the Western Division finals. In the championship round, they made short work of the Indiana Pacers, 4–1, to capture the league title.
In lieu of a parade in downtown Oakland, a modest victory celebration was held at a restaurant in Jack London Square. It was there that Barry announced, "I see no hope for the rest of the teams in the league."
Washington Caps
Despite their on-court excellence, the Oaks were a disappointment at the gate, partly because of Barry's absence in the final five months of the season, partly because they were the only ABA member that competed in the same market as an NBA team, that being the more established Warriors across the bay. They averaged just 2,800 fans per home game at the state-of-the-art Oakland County Coliseum Arena, slightly more than the league average. By that time, entertainer-business entrepreneur Pat Boone had become the majority team owner, and after more than $2 million in losses over two seasons, he wanted out of the basketball business. In August 1968, the franchise was sold to a group headed by real estate attorney and former Baltimore Bullets owner Earl Foreman, who immediately moved it to Washington, D.C., even though there was no suitable arena in the vicinity at the time.
Reluctantly, Barry played the 1969–70 season with the ABA's Washington Caps. He refused to report to the team at the outset, at one point commenting, "If I wanted to go to Washington, I'd run for president!" He missed the first 32 games before he joined the team, which played in the Western Division, making for a grueling travel schedule. The Caps still managed to finish with a respectable 44–40 record, good for third place in the Western Division. Appearing in only 52 games because of a knee injury, Barry finished the season with 1,442 points (27.7 per game), second-best in the league. The Denver Rockets edged the Caps, 4–3, in the Western Division semifinals. In Game 7 on the road, Barry went off for 52 points, the most scored in a seventh and deciding game in professional basketball history.
Virginia Squires
The Washington Caps became the Virginia Squires after the 1969–70 season, but Barry was openly despondent about playing in Virginia. At the same time, he wanted to continue playing in the ABA. Featured on the August 24, 1970, cover of Sports Illustrated in a Squires jersey, he indicated that he would not return to the NBA if the league paid him "a million dollars a year." He denounced the Squires (and, subsequently, never suited up for them), saying he did not want his kids growing up with a Southern accent. On September 1, 1970, the Squires traded Barry to the New York Nets for a draft pick and $200,000. The negative comments were not the primary reason; rather, Squires owner Earl Foreman was mired in financial troubles and sold Barry to help meet expenses.
New York Nets
After the Squires dealt Barry to the New York Nets, he played in only 59 games in the 1970–71 season because of a knee injury but still made the ABA All Star team. He repeated as an ABA All Star during the 1971–72 season. During the 1970–71 season he led the league in scoring (29.4 points per game) and led the league again in 1971–72 with 31.5 points per game. In both of those years he also led the ABA in free throw percentage as he had in 1968–69. Barry also became the ABA record holder for most consecutive free throws in one game with 23.
In the 1970–71 season, the Nets finished 40–44, good for fourth place in the Eastern Division and a place in the 1971 ABA Playoffs. The Virginia Squires defeated the Nets 4 games to 2 in the Eastern Division semifinals. The 1971–72 Nets finished the season at 44–40, making the 1972 ABA Playoffs by claiming third place in the Eastern Division, 24 games behind the 68–16 Kentucky Colonels. In the Eastern Division semifinals the Nets shocked the ABA by defeating the Colonels 4 games to 2. The Nets then eked out a 4–3 game victory over the Virginia Squires in the Eastern Division finals. The Nets were then edged by the Western Division champion Indiana Pacers, 4 games to 2, in the 1972 ABA Finals.
On June 23, 1972, a United States District Court judge issued a preliminary injunction to prohibit Barry from playing for any team other than the Golden State Warriors after his contract with the Nets ended. On October 6, 1972, the Nets released Barry and he returned to the Warriors.
Golden State Warriors
Upon Barry's return to the Warriors and the NBA, the cumulative effects of knee problems were taking their toll. Barry gradually moved his game away from the basket, where he became the first so-called point forward in league history. That is, Barry took on a role similar to that of a point guard and became the chief facilitator of the offense. While his offensive forays were not as frequent as in the past, he remained an elite scorer as evidenced by his performance on March 26, 1974, when he went off for a career-high 64 points and grabbed 10 rebounds in a 143–120 win over the visiting Portland Trail Blazers.
In 1974–75, the Warriors had a Cinderella season for the ages. The turnaround began in training camp, when Barry was elected captain by his teammates. They went on to capture the Pacific Division crown as Barry responded with the best all-around season of his career. Not only did he average 30.6 points per game, but he also led the league in free throw percentage (.904) and steals per game (2.9) and ranked sixth in assists per game (6.2), the only forward among the top 10 in the category.
In the playoffs, the upstart Warriors turned back the Seattle SuperSonics and Chicago Bulls to capture the Western Conference crown. In the NBA Finals, they shocked the basketball world with a historic four-game sweep of Elvin Hayes, Wes Unseld and the Washington Bullets, widely considered to be the greatest postseason upset in NBA history. The Bullets had posted a league-high 60 victories, 12 more than the Warriors total in the regular season, which led many experts to predict that they would win the series easily. Barry was named NBA Finals Most Valuable Player on the strength of 29.5 points, 5.0 assists and 3.5 steals per game, not to mention his profound impact in a leadership role.
In the 1975 NBA draft, the Warriors selected point guard Gus Williams in the first round. While Williams made immediate contributions off the bench, off guard Phil Smith came into his own in his second season. Barry was not required to carry the team as often, and his scoring average dipped to 21.0 points per game as a result. As the deepest and most athletic team in professional basketball, the Warriors repeated as Pacific Division champions, this time with a league-best 59–23 record. They entered the playoffs as clear-cut favorites to return to the NBA Finals.
After an unusual 10-day layoff, partly to accommodate network television, the Warriors eliminated the Detroit Pistons in round one then were upset in the Western Conference finals by the Phoenix Suns in seven games. The final contest was marred by a fight between Barry and Suns rookie Ricky Sobers away from the ball in the first quarter, during which none of the Warriors came to his aid at the opposite side of the court. Suns broadcaster Al McCoy concocted a narrative that Barry quit in the second half, a charge that lacked tangible evidence and he steadfastly denied. In fact, Barry led his team in points and shot attempts that game. Rather, he said his intent was to get more teammates involved in the third quarter, the game plan that had allowed them to dominate in the regular season.
In the 1976–77 campaign, the Warriors won 46 games the next season with Barry, Smith, and Williams sharing scoring and ball-handling, but were ousted in the second round by the Los Angeles Lakers. Reportedly, Barry and Williams clashed over the ball-handling role, and Williams was traded after the season to the Seattle SuperSonics. Barry averaged 23.1 points per game in his farewell season (1977–78) with the Warriors, but the team failed to make the playoffs.
Houston Rockets
Barry finished his career with the Houston Rockets, playing through the 1979–80 NBA season. The Rockets signed him as a free agent in June, 1978, and the league awarded veteran guard John Lucas to the Warriors as compensation.
In the twilight of his career, Barry continued to make history. In his Rockets debut, he assumed a new role as the first player off the bench. It was not long before he elevated the point forward position to another level. Barry finished with a career-high 502 assists to become the first true small forward to reach the 500 mark in one season. Until then, swingman John Havlicek had been the only forward with as many as 500 assists in a season, but the Boston Celtics swingman also spent considerable time at the off guard spot. Barry averaged 13.5 points per game and established a new NBA record (since broken) with a .947 free throw percentage.
Barry was less of a factor in his final season. The Rockets were swept by the Celtics in the 1980 Eastern Conference semifinals, and when contract talks with Boston and the Seattle SuperSonics failed to produce a contract, he decided to retire.
NBA career statistics
Regular season
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|San Francisco
| style="background:#cfecec;"|80* || || 37.4 || .439 || || .862 || 10.6 || 2.2 || || || 25.7
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|San Francisco
| 78 || || 40.7 || .451 || || .884 || 9.2 || 3.6 || || || style="background:#cfecec;"|35.6*
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || || 37.5 || .452 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.902* || 8.9 || 4.9 || || || 22.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 80 || || 36.5 || .456 || || .899 || 6.8 || 6.1 || 2.1 || 0.5 || 25.1
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 80 || || 40.4 || .464 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.904* || 5.7 || 6.2 || style="background:#cfecec;"|2.9* || 0.4 || 30.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 81 || || 38.5 || .435 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.923* || 6.1 || 6.1 || 2.5 || 0.3 || 21.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 79 || || 36.8 || .440 || || .916 || 5.3 || 6.0 || 2.2 || 0.7 || 21.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 82 || || 36.9 || .451 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.924* || 5.5 || 5.4 || 1.9 || 0.5 || 23.1
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 80 || || 32.1 || .461 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.947* || 3.5 || 6.3 || 1.2 || 0.5 || 13.5
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 72 || || 25.2 || .422 || .330 || style="background:#cfecec;"|.935* || 3.3 || 3.7 || 1.1 || 0.4 || 12.0
|- class=sortbottom
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|Career
| 794 || || 36.3 || .449 || .330 || .900 || 6.5 || 5.1 || 2.0 || 0.5 || 23.2
Later years
During the 1990s, he coached the Cedar Rapids Sharpshooters of the Global Basketball Association and the Continental Basketball Association, guiding the Fort Wayne Fury to a 19–37 win-loss record in 1993–94. In 1998 and 1999, he served as head coach of the New Jersey ShoreCats of the United States Basketball League. Former Warriors teammate Clifford Ray was his top assistant.
Barry finished second in his division at the 2005 World Long Drive Championship.
Barry is part owner and promoter for the Ektio basketball shoe, which doctor and former college basketball player Barry Katz designed to reduce ankle injuries. He also serves on the company's Board of Directors.
Broadcasting career
Barry was among the first professional basketball players to make a successful transition to the broadcasting profession. He began broadcasting during the 1967–68 season broadcasting Oakland Oaks games because of contractual matters that kept him off the court. Barry continues to work in the field, a career that began with his own radio show in San Francisco and CBS while still an active player and then with TBS.
While working as a CBS analyst during Game 5 of the 1981 NBA Finals, Barry made a controversial comment when CBS displayed an old photo of colleague Bill Russell, who is African-American. He tried to joke that "it looks like some fool over there with that big watermelon grin". Barry later apologized for the comment, claiming that he did not realize that a reference to watermelons had racial overtones. Russell said that he believed Barry with regard to Barry's racial attitudes, but nonetheless, the two men are reported not to have been particularly friendly for other reasons, unrelated to that comment.
CBS did not renew Barry's employment for the subsequent season. Producers later cited the general negative tone of his game commentary, which did not sit well with some players and agents around the league. The next season Barry filled in on a few Seattle SuperSonics broadcasts, but a plan for a full-time position fell through when he insisted that his then-wife be allowed to join him when the team was on the road, which would have been contrary to team policy. The next year, Barry was featured in a lengthy Sports Illustrated article written by Tony Kornheiser in which he lamented the failure of his broadcasting career to that point, as well as the fact that he'd left a reputation within NBA circles for being an unlikeable person. After this, Barry worked with TBS and later on, TNT into the 1989–90 season, mostly as a color analyst but sometimes as a play-by-play announcer paired with Bill Russell. One of the more notable games Barry called as play-by-play announcer on TBS was Game 5 of the 1985 Eastern Conference Finals between the Boston Celtics and the Philadelphia 76ers, where Larry Bird made a last-second steal which sealed the win and the Eastern Conference Championship for the Celtics. After the 1989–90 season, Barry became the color analyst for the Atlanta Hawks' games that aired on TBS, paired with Skip Caray.
In a rare non-sports venture, he hosted the pilot for the mid-1980s game show Catchphrase; however, when the series debuted in the fall of 1985, game show veteran Art James replaced him (the series itself was short-lived in the US, but was brought over to the UK and is still running).
In September 2001, Barry began hosting a sports talk show on KNBR in San Francisco until June 2003, when KNBR paired him up with Rod Brooks to co-host a show named Rick and Rod. The show aired on KNBR until August 2006, when Barry left the station abruptly for reasons not disclosed to the public.
Personal life
Barry is of Irish, English, French, and Lithuanian descent. He was a member of the Kappa Sigma fraternity. He resides in Colorado Springs, Colorado with his wife, Lynn Norenberg Barry. While their youngest son, Canyon, played basketball for The University of Florida, to watch him play, they rented a condominium in Gainesville, Florida.
He has four sons and a daughter with his first wife Pam: Scooter, Jon, Brent, Drew and Shannon. All of Barry's sons were professional basketball players. Barry wrote an autobiography, Confessions of a Basketball Gypsy: The Rick Barry Story with Bill Libby that was published in 1972. He also has a son, Canyon, with his third wife, Lynn Barry, who is a professional player, playing for Chinese club Hunan Jinjian Miye in the 2018–19 season.
When his son Brent won the NBA Championship in 2005 with the San Antonio Spurs, Rick and Brent became the second father-son duo to both win NBA Championships as players, following Matt Guokas Sr. and Matt Guokas Jr. Later, this would be repeated by Bill and Luke Walton, and Mychal and Klay Thompson.
Jon and Brent have also moved to broadcasting after retirement. Jon serves as a game analyst on ESPN while Brent worked as a studio and game analyst on TNT and NBA TV until 2018 when he took a job with the San Antonio Spurs to be vice president of basketball operations.
Scooter won titles in the CBA and the top Belgian League.
Career achievements
Roselle Park High School – Roselle Park, New Jersey (1957–1961)
Two-time All-State selection
University of Miami (1961–1965)
Associated Press First-Team All-America (1965)
The Sporting News All-America Second Team (1965)
Consensus All-America (1965)
Led the nation in scoring (37.4 ppg) as a senior
NBA San Francisco Warriors (1965–1967)
NBA Rookie of the Year (1966)
NBA All-Rookie First Team (1966)
NBA leading scorer in 1967 (35.6 ppg)
ABA leading scorer in 1969 (34.0 ppg)
NBA highest free-throw percentage 1973, 1975, 1976, 1978, 1979, 1980
ABA highest free-throw percentage 1969, 1971, 1972
NBA All-Star Game MVP (1967)
ABA Oakland Oaks (1968–1969)
ABA Washington Caps (1969–1970)
ABA New York Nets (1970–1972)
NBA Golden State Warriors (1972–1978)
All-NBA Second Team (1973)
NBA Finals MVP (1975)
NBA champion (1975)
NBA Houston Rockets (1978–1979)
All-NBA First Team (1966, 1967, 1974, 1975, 1976)
Eight-time NBA All-Star (1966, 1967, 1973–1978)
ABA All-Star First Team (1969–1972)
NBA 50 Greatest Players (1996)
NBA 75 Greatest Players (2021)
Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame (1988)
Sports Hall of Fame of New Jersey (1994)
University of Miami Sports Hall of Fame (1976)
Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement (1975)
15 games in NBA career scoring 50 or more points (5th in NBA history)
115 games in professional career scoring 40 or more points — 70 NBA, 45 ABA (4th in professional basketball history after Wilt Chamberlain, Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant)
NBA records
Regular season
Only player in history to lead the NCAA, ABA and NBA in scoring
Led the NCAA in scoring in 1964–65 (973 points, 37.4 ppg)
Led the NBA in scoring in (2,775 points, 35.6 ppg)
Led the ABA in scoring in (1,190 points; 34.0 ppg)
Youngest player to score 57 points in a game: (57 points, San Francisco Warriors at New York Knicks, )
Free throws, consecutive, ABA game: 23, at Kentucky Colonels,
Assists, forward, game: 19, at Chicago Bulls, November 30, 1976
Playoffs
Scoring 30 or more points in all games, any playoff series: 6 games, vs. Philadelphia 76ers, 1967 NBA Finals
Points, 7-game ABA series: 281, vs. Denver Rockets, 1970 semifinals
Points scored, Game 7, any ABA-NBA playoff series: 52, at Denver Rockets,
Field goal attempts, 6-game series: 235, vs. Philadelphia 76ers, 1967 NBA Finals
Field goal attempts, game: 48, vs. Philadelphia 76ers,
Field goal attempts, quarter: 17, at Philadelphia 76ers,
Steals, quarter: 4, second quarter, at Chicago Bulls,
Tied with many other players
NBA Finals
Highest scoring average (career): 36.3
Scoring 30 or more points in all games, any championship series: 6 games, vs. Philadelphia 76ers, 1967 NBA Finals
Tied with Elgin Baylor, Michael Jordan, Hakeem Olajuwon, Shaquille O'Neal, and Kevin Durant.
Field goals made, game: 22, vs. Philadelphia 76ers,
Tied with Elgin Baylor
Field goal attempts, 6-game series: 235, vs. Philadelphia 76ers, 1967 NBA Finals
Field goal attempts, game: 48, vs. Philadelphia 76ers,
Field goal attempts, quarter: 17, at Philadelphia 76ers,
Steals, 4-game series: 14, vs. Washington Bullets, 1975 NBA Finals (3.5 spg)
All-Star
Field goal attempts, game: 27 (1967)
Steals, game: 8 (1975)
Personal fouls, game: 6, twice (1966, 1978)
Disqualifications, career: 2
Tied with Bob Cousy
See also
American Basketball Association (2000–present)
List of individual National Basketball Association scoring leaders by season
List of National Basketball Association players with most points in a game
List of National Basketball Association players with most steals in a game
List of National Basketball Association players with 50 or more points in a playoff game
List of NCAA Division I men's basketball players with 2000 points and 1000 rebounds
References
External links
Basketball Hall of Fame profile
RememberTheABA.com Rick Barry page
1972 Jim O'Brien biographical article on Rick Barry
Rick Barry and Rod Brooks Home Page at KNBR Radio
Rick Barry Career Statistics
A Voice Crying in the Wilderness
1944 births
Living people
All-American college men's basketball players
American Basketball Association announcers
American men's basketball players
American people of Lithuanian descent
American sports radio personalities
Basketball coaches from New Jersey
Basketball players from Colorado Springs, Colorado
Basketball players from New Jersey
Big3 coaches
Continental Basketball Association coaches
Golden State Warriors players
Golf writers and broadcasters
Houston Rockets players
Miami Hurricanes men's basketball players
Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductees
National Basketball Association All-Stars
National Basketball Association broadcasters
National Basketball Association players with retired numbers
New York Nets players
Oakland Oaks players
People from Roselle Park, New Jersey
Radio personalities from San Francisco
San Francisco Warriors draft picks
San Francisco Warriors players
Small forwards
Sportspeople from Elizabeth, New Jersey
Tennis commentators
United States Basketball League coaches
Washington Caps players | true | [
"Jon Alan Barry (born July 25, 1969) is an American former basketball player and current television analyst for ABC and ESPN.\n\nBiography\nBarry is the son of Hall of Famer Rick Barry and Pam Connolly, and has three brothers: Scooter, Brent, and Drew, all of whom are also basketball players. Jon played his high school basketball at De La Salle High School in Concord, California. He then played one year each at University of the Pacific and Paris Junior College, before receiving a basketball scholarship to attend Georgia Tech in Atlanta, Georgia.\n\nOut of Georgia Tech, he was selected in the first round of the 1992 NBA draft by the Boston Celtics, but refused to sign a contract and sat out the season. The Celtics traded their rights to him, mid season, to the Milwaukee Bucks for Alaa Abdelnaby. Barry joined the Milwaukee Bucks, who finished last, tied for last, and 2nd to last in their division Barry's first three years in the NBA.\n\nOff to a slow start of a career as primarily a backup player, Barry did get chances to contribute to playoff runs of some good teams (scored 739 points in 82 appearances with the 2001–2002 Central Division champion Detroit Pistons) and scored 326 career playoff points in 63 NBA playoff games over 14 seasons. He had two games with 5 three-point shots and had six games with 5 steals, and has 5,041 season and playoff points total.\n\nIn addition to the Milwaukee Bucks and Detroit Pistons, Jon played for the Atlanta Hawks, Los Angeles Lakers, Golden State Warriors, Sacramento Kings, Denver Nuggets and most recently the Houston Rockets. Barry had 12 first-half points in a 3-minute span in the deciding game 5 of the first round of the 2002 NBA playoffs in the Detroit Pistons' series against the Toronto Raptors. Barry left the Pistons after the 2002–03 season, and was also released from the Rockets on March 1, 2006, which marked the end of his NBA playing career.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n Jon Barry ESPN Bio\n\n1969 births\nLiving people\nAmerican men's basketball players\nAmerican people of Lithuanian descent\nAtlanta Hawks players\nBasketball players from Oakland, California\nBoston Celtics draft picks\nDenver Nuggets players\nDetroit Pistons players\nGeorgia Tech Yellow Jackets men's basketball players\nGolden State Warriors players\nHouston Rockets players\nLos Angeles Lakers players\nMilwaukee Bucks players\nNational Basketball Association broadcasters\nPacific Tigers men's basketball players\nParis Dragons basketball players\nSacramento Kings players\nShooting guards",
"Darren Barry (born 2 February 1990) is an English rugby union player who plays for Vannes in the Pro D2.\n\nClub career\nBarry was part of Bristol academy system where he enjoyed a loan spell at Clifton near Bristol. Barry made his senior debut when they beat Cornish Pirates 60-15 at Camborne in May 2010 and made his 50th appearance for Bristol winning against the Pirates won 50-22 in the British and Irish Cup at the Mennaye Field in September 2011.\n\nIn July 2012, Barry left Bristol to join Cornish Pirates in the RFU Championship from the 2012-13 season. On 25 March 2015, Barry left Cornwall to join Western rivals Worcester Warriors in the Aviva Premiership ahead of the 2015-16 season. On 20 May 2016, Barry signed a contract extension to stay with the club at Sixways Stadium.\n\nOn 17 April 2019, Barry returns to the RFU Championship with Newcastle Falcons from the 2019-20 season.\n\nOn 5 April 2021, Barry would leave Newcastle to sign for Pro D2 side Vannes in France as medical joker for the rest of the 2020-21 season.\n\nInternational career\nBarry was a regular member of the England U19s squad while still with Bristol. Barry was selected for a RFU Championship XV team that defeated Canada 28-23 as part of their 2014 autumn tests, which was held at the Sixways Stadium in Worcester.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nWorcester Warriors Profile\nCornish Pirates Profile\n\nEnglish rugby union players\n1990 births\nLiving people\nWorcester Warriors players\nCornish Pirates players\nBristol Bears players\nRugby union players from Bristol"
] |
[
"Joe Biden",
"Characteristics as senator"
] | C_ae5bfb2601a2463ebfedd2b995b83bf8_1 | What are Joe's characteristics as senator? | 1 | What are Joe Biden's characteristics as senator? | Joe Biden | On August 27, 1966, while Biden was still a law student, he married Neilia Hunter. They overcame her parents' initial reluctance for her to wed a Roman Catholic, and the ceremony was held in a Catholic church in Skaneateles. They had three children, Joseph R. "Beau" Biden III in 1969, Robert Hunter in 1970, and Naomi Christina in 1971. During 1968, Biden clerked for six months at a Wilmington law firm headed by prominent local Republican William Prickett and, as he later said, "thought of myself as a Republican". He disliked the conservative racial politics of incumbent Democratic Governor of Delaware Charles L. Terry and supported a more liberal Republican, Russell W. Peterson, who defeated Terry in 1968. The local Republicans tried to recruit him, but he resisted due to his distaste for Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon, and registered as an Independent instead. In 1969, Biden resumed practicing law in Wilmington, first as a public defender and then at a firm headed by Sid Balick, a locally active Democrat. Balick named him to the Democratic Forum, a group trying to reform and revitalize the state party, and Biden switched his registration to Democrat. He also started his own firm, Biden and Walsh. Corporate law, however, did not appeal to him and criminal law did not pay well. He supplemented his income by managing properties. Later in 1969, Biden ran as a Democrat for the New Castle County Council on a liberal platform that included support for public housing in the suburban area. He won by a solid, two-thousand vote margin in the usually Republican district and in a bad year for Democrats in the state. Even before taking his seat, he was already talking about running for the U.S. Senate in a couple of years. He served on the County Council from 1970 to 1972 while continuing his private law practice. Among issues he addressed on the council was his opposition to large highway projects that might disrupt Wilmington neighborhoods, including those related to Interstate 95. During his first years in the Senate, Biden focused on legislation regarding consumer-protection and environmental issues and called for greater accountability on the part of government. In mid-1974, freshman Senator Biden was named one of the 200 Faces for the Future by Time magazine, in a profile that mentioned what had happened to his family and characterized Biden as "self-confident" and "compulsively ambitious". Biden became ranking minority member of the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary in 1981. In 1984, he was Democratic floor manager for the successful passage of the Comprehensive Crime Control Act; civil libertarians praised him for modifying some of the Act's provisions, and it was his most important legislative accomplishment at that point in time. He first considered running for president in that year, after he gained notice for giving speeches to party audiences that simultaneously scolded and encouraged Democrats. Regarding foreign policy, during his first decade in the Senate, Biden focused on arms control issues. In response to the refusal of the U.S. Congress to ratify the SALT II Treaty signed in 1979 by Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and President Jimmy Carter, he took the initiative to meet the Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, educated him about American concerns and interests, and secured several changes to address objections of the Foreign Relations Committee. When the Reagan administration wanted to interpret the 1972 SALT I Treaty loosely in order to allow the Strategic Defense Initiative to proceed, Biden argued for strict adherence to the treaty's terms. He clashed again with the Reagan administration in 1986 over economic sanctions against South Africa; he received considerable attention when he excoriated Secretary of State George P. Shultz at a Senate hearing because of the administration's support of that country, which continued to practice the apartheid system. Following his initial election in 1972, Biden was re-elected to six additional terms, in the elections of 1978, 1984, 1990, 1996, 2002, and 2008, usually getting about 60 percent of the vote. He did not face strong opposition; Pete du Pont, then governor, chose not to run against him in 1984. Biden spent 28 years as a junior senator due to the two-year seniority of his Republican colleague William V. Roth Jr. After Roth was defeated for re-election by Tom Carper in 2000, Biden became Delaware's senior senator. He then became the longest-serving senator in Delaware history. In May 1999, Biden set the mark for youngest senator to cast 10,000 votes. With a net worth between $59,000 and $366,000, and almost no outside income or investment income, Biden was consistently ranked as one of the least wealthy members of the Senate. Biden stated that he was listed as the second poorest member in Congress, a distinction that he was not proud of, but attributed to being elected early in his career. Biden realized early in his senatorial career how vulnerable poorer public officials are to offers of financial contributions in exchange for policy support, and he pushed campaign finance reform measures during his first term. During his years as a senator, Biden amassed a reputation for loquaciousness, with his questions and remarks during Senate hearings being especially known for being long-winded. He has been a strong speaker and debater and a frequent and effective guest on the Sunday morning talk shows. In public appearances, he is known to deviate from prepared remarks at will. According to political analyst Mark Halperin, he has shown "a persistent tendency to say silly, offensive, and off-putting things"; The New York Times writes that Biden's "weak filters make him capable of blurting out pretty much anything". Nor is Biden known for modesty; journalist James Traub has written that "Biden's vanity and his regard for his own gifts seem considerable even by the rarefied standards of the U.S. Senate." Political writer Howard Fineman has said that, "Biden is not an academic, he's not a theoretical thinker, he's a great street pol. He comes from a long line of working people in Scranton--auto salesmen, car dealers, people who know how to make a sale. He has that great Irish gift." Political columnist David S. Broder has viewed Biden as having grown since he came to Washington and since his failed 1988 presidential bid: "He responds to real people--that's been consistent throughout. And his ability to understand himself and deal with other politicians has gotten much much better." Traub concludes that "Biden is the kind of fundamentally happy person who can be as generous toward others as he is to himself." CANNOTANSWER | characterized Biden as "self-confident" and "compulsively ambitious". | Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. ( ; born November 20, 1942) is an American politician who is the 46th and current president of the United States. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 47th vice president from 2009 to 2017 under Barack Obama and represented Delaware in the United States Senate from 1973 to 2009.
Biden was born and raised in Scranton, Pennsylvania, moving with his family to New Castle County, Delaware, in 1953 when he was ten. He studied at the University of Delaware before earning his law degree from Syracuse University in 1968. He was elected to the New Castle County Council in 1970 and became the sixth-youngest senator in U.S. history after he was elected to the United States Senate from Delaware in 1972, at age 29. Biden was the chair or ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for 12 years and was influential in foreign affairs during Obama's presidency. He also chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee from 1987 to 1995, dealing with drug policy, crime prevention, and civil liberties issues; led the effort to pass the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act and the Violence Against Women Act; and oversaw six U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings, including the contentious hearings for Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas. He ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988 and 2008. Biden was reelected to the Senate six times and was the fourth-most senior sitting senator at the time when he became Obama's vice president after they won the 2008 presidential election, defeating John McCain and his running mate Sarah Palin. Obama and Biden were reelected in 2012, defeating Mitt Romney and his running mate Paul Ryan.
During eight years as vice president, Biden leaned on his Senate experience and frequently represented the administration in negotiations with congressional Republicans, including on the Budget Control Act of 2011, which resolved a debt ceiling crisis, and the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, which addressed the impending "fiscal cliff". He also oversaw infrastructure spending in 2009 to counteract the Great Recession. On foreign policy, Biden was a close counselor to the president and took a leading role in designing the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq in 2011. In 2017, Obama awarded Biden the Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction.
Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris defeated incumbent president Donald Trump and vice president Mike Pence in the 2020 presidential election. He is the oldest president and the first to have a female vice president. His early presidential activity centered around proposing, lobbying for, and signing into law the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 to help the United States recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing recession, as well as a series of executive orders. Biden's orders addressed the pandemic and reversed several Trump administration policies, including rejoining the Paris Agreement on climate change and accepting new applications for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients, although a federal judge blocked the latter. He completed the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan by September 2021. During the withdrawal, the Afghan government collapsed and the Taliban seized control. Biden proposed the Build Back Better Plan, aspects of which were incorporated into the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which Biden signed into law in November 2021.
Early life (1942–1965)
Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was born on November 20, 1942, at St. Mary's Hospital in Scranton, Pennsylvania, to Catherine Eugenia "Jean" Biden (née Finnegan) and Joseph Robinette Biden Sr. The oldest child in a Catholic family, he has a sister, Valerie, and two brothers, Francis and James. Jean was of Irish descent, while Joseph Sr. had English, French, and Irish ancestry.
Biden's father had been wealthy, but suffered financial setbacks around the time Biden was born, and for several years the family lived with Biden's maternal grandparents. Scranton fell into economic decline during the 1950s and Biden's father could not find steady work. Beginning in 1953 when Biden was ten, the family lived in an apartment in Claymont, Delaware, before moving to a house in nearby Mayfield. Biden Sr. later became a successful used-car salesman, maintaining the family in a middle-class lifestyle.
At Archmere Academy in Claymont, Biden played baseball and was a standout halfback and wide receiver on the high school football team. Though a poor student, he was class president in his junior and senior years. He graduated in 1961. At the University of Delaware in Newark, Biden briefly played freshman football and, as an unexceptional student, earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1965 with a double major in history and political science and a minor in English.
Biden has a stutter, which has improved since his early twenties. He says he reduced it by reciting poetry before a mirror, but some observers suggested it affected his performance in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential debates.
Marriages, law school, and early career (1966–1973)
On August 27, 1966, Biden married Neilia Hunter (19421972), a student at Syracuse University, after overcoming her parents' reluctance for her to wed a Roman Catholic. Their wedding was held in a Catholic church in Skaneateles, New York. They had three children: Joseph R. "Beau" Biden III (19692015), Robert Hunter Biden (born 1970), and Naomi Christina "Amy" Biden (19711972).
In 1968, Biden earned a Juris Doctor from Syracuse University College of Law, ranked 76th in his class of 85, after failing a course due to an acknowledged "mistake" when he plagiarized a law review article for a paper he wrote in his first year at law school. He was admitted to the Delaware bar in 1969.
Biden had not openly supported or opposed the Vietnam War until he ran for Senate and opposed Nixon's conduct of the war. While studying at the University of Delaware and Syracuse University, Biden obtained five student draft deferments, at a time when most draftees were sent to the Vietnam War. In 1968, based on a physical examination, he was given a conditional medical deferment; in 2008, a spokesperson for Biden said his having had "asthma as a teenager" was the reason for the deferment.
In 1968, Biden clerked at a Wilmington law firm headed by prominent local Republican William Prickett and, he later said, "thought of myself as a Republican". He disliked incumbent Democratic Delaware governor Charles L. Terry's conservative racial politics and supported a more liberal Republican, Russell W. Peterson, who defeated Terry in 1968. Biden was recruited by local Republicans but registered as an Independent because of his distaste for Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon.
In 1969, Biden practiced law first as a public defender and then at a firm headed by a locally active Democrat who named him to the Democratic Forum, a group trying to reform and revitalize the state party; Biden subsequently reregistered as a Democrat. He and another attorney also formed a law firm. Corporate law, however, did not appeal to him, and criminal law did not pay well. He supplemented his income by managing properties.
In 1970, Biden ran for the 4th district seat on the New Castle County Council on a liberal platform that included support for public housing in the suburbs. The seat had been held by Republican Henry R. Folsom, who was running in the 5th District following a reapportionment of council districts. Biden won the general election by defeating Republican Lawrence T. Messick, and took office on January 5, 1971. He served until January 1, 1973, and was succeeded by Democrat Francis R. Swift. During his time on the county council, Biden opposed large highway projects, which he argued might disrupt Wilmington neighborhoods.
1972 U.S. Senate campaign in Delaware
In 1972, Biden defeated Republican incumbent J. Caleb Boggs to become the junior U.S. senator from Delaware. He was the only Democrat willing to challenge Boggs. With minimal campaign funds, he was given no chance of winning. Family members managed and staffed the campaign, which relied on meeting voters face-to-face and hand-distributing position papers, an approach made feasible by Delaware's small size. He received help from the AFL–CIO and Democratic pollster Patrick Caddell. His platform focused on the environment, withdrawal from Vietnam, civil rights, mass transit, equitable taxation, health care, and public dissatisfaction with "politics as usual". A few months before the election, Biden trailed Boggs by almost thirty percentage points, but his energy, attractive young family, and ability to connect with voters' emotions worked to his advantage, and he won with 50.5 percent of the vote. At the time of his election, he was still 29 years old, but reached the constitutionally required age of 30 before he was sworn in as Senator.
Death of wife and daughter
On December 18, 1972, a few weeks after the election, Biden's wife Neilia and one-year-old daughter Naomi were killed in an automobile accident while Christmas shopping in Hockessin, Delaware. Neilia's station wagon was hit by a semi-trailer truck as she pulled out from an intersection. Their sons Beau (aged3) and Hunter (aged2) survived the accident and were taken to the hospital in fair condition, Beau with a broken leg and other wounds and Hunter with a minor skull fracture and other head injuries. Biden considered resigning to care for them, but Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield persuaded him not to.
Years later, Biden said he had heard that the truck driver allegedly drank alcohol before the collision. The driver's family denied that claim, and the police never substantiated it. Biden later apologized to the family. The accident had filled him with anger and religious doubt. He wrote that he "felt God had played a horrible trick" on him, and he had trouble focusing on work.
Second marriage
Biden credits his second wife, teacher Jill Tracy Jacobs, with the renewal of his interest in politics and life; they met in 1975 on a blind date and were married at the United Nations chapel in New York on June 17, 1977. They spent their honeymoon at Lake Balaton in the Hungarian People's Republic, behind the Iron Curtain. They are Roman Catholics and attend Mass at St. Joseph's on the Brandywine in Greenville, Delaware. Their daughter Ashley Biden (born 1981) is a social worker. She is married to physician Howard Krein. Beau Biden became an Army Judge Advocate in Iraq and later Delaware Attorney General; he died of brain cancer in 2015. Hunter Biden is a Washington lobbyist and investment adviser.
Teaching
From 1991 to 2008, as an adjunct professor, Biden co-taught a seminar on constitutional law at Widener University School of Law. The seminar often had a waiting list. Biden sometimes flew back from overseas to teach the class.
U.S. Senate (1973–2009)
Senate activities
In January 1973, secretary of the Senate Francis R. Valeo swore Biden in at the Delaware Division of the Wilmington Medical Center. Present were his sons Beau (whose leg was still in traction from the automobile accident) and Hunter and other family members. At 30, he was the sixth-youngest senator in U.S. history.
To see his sons, Biden traveled by train between his Delaware home and D.C.—74 minutes each way—and maintained this habit throughout his 36 years in the Senate.
During his early years in the Senate, Biden focused on consumer protection and environmental issues and called for greater government accountability. In a 1974 interview, he described himself as liberal on civil rights and liberties, senior citizens' concerns and healthcare but conservative on other issues, including abortion and military conscription.
In his first decade in the Senate, Biden focused on arms control. After Congress failed to ratify the SALT II Treaty signed in 1979 by Soviet general secretary Leonid Brezhnev and President Jimmy Carter, Biden met with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko to communicate American concerns and secured changes that addressed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's objections. When the Reagan administration wanted to interpret the 1972 SALT I treaty loosely to allow development of the Strategic Defense Initiative, Biden argued for strict adherence to the treaty. He received considerable attention when he excoriated Secretary of State George Shultz at a Senate hearing for the Reagan administration's support of South Africa despite its continued policy of apartheid.
Biden became ranking minority member of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1981. In 1984, he was a Democratic floor manager for the successful passage of the Comprehensive Crime Control Act. His supporters praised him for modifying some of the law's worst provisions, and it was his most important legislative accomplishment to that time. In 1994, Biden helped pass the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, also known as the Biden Crime Law, which included a ban on assault weapons, and the Violence Against Women Act, which he has called his most significant legislation. The 1994 crime law was unpopular among progressives and criticized for resulting in mass incarceration; in 2019, Biden called his role in passing the bill a "big mistake", citing its policy on crack cocaine and saying that the bill "trapped an entire generation".
In 1993, Biden voted for a provision that deemed homosexuality incompatible with military life, thereby banning gays from serving in the armed forces. In 1996, he voted for the Defense of Marriage Act, which prohibited the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages, thereby barring individuals in such marriages from equal protection under federal law and allowing states to do the same. In 2015, the act was ruled unconstitutional in Obergefell v. Hodges.
Elected to the Senate in 1972, Biden was reelected in 1978, 1984, 1990, 1996, 2002, and 2008, regularly receiving about 60% of the vote. He was junior senator to William Roth, who was first elected in 1970, until Roth was defeated in 2000. , he was the 18th-longest-serving senator in U.S. history.
Opposition to busing
In the mid-1970s, Biden was one of the Senate's strongest opponents of race-integration busing. His Delaware constituents strongly opposed it, and such opposition nationwide later led his party to mostly abandon school integration policies. In his first Senate campaign, Biden had expressed support for busing to remedy de jure segregation, as in the South, but opposed its use to remedy de facto segregation arising from racial patterns of neighborhood residency, as in Delaware; he opposed a proposed constitutional amendment banning busing entirely.
In May 1974, Biden voted to table a proposal containing anti-busing and anti-desegregation clauses but later voted for a modified version containing a qualification that it was not intended to weaken the judiciary's power to enforce the 5th Amendment and 14th Amendment. In 1975, he supported a proposal that would have prevented the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare from cutting federal funds to districts that refused to integrate; he said busing was a "bankrupt idea [violating] the cardinal rule of common sense" and that his opposition would make it easier for other liberals to follow suit. At the same time he supported initiatives on housing, job opportunities and voting rights. Biden supported a measure forbidding the use of federal funds for transporting students beyond the school closest to them. In 1977, he co-sponsored an amendment closing loopholes in that measure, which President Carter signed into law in 1978.
Brain surgeries
In February 1988, after several episodes of increasingly severe neck pain, Biden was taken by ambulance to Walter Reed Army Medical Center for surgery to correct a leaking intracranial berry aneurysm. While recuperating, he suffered a pulmonary embolism, a serious complication. After a second aneurysm was surgically repaired in May, Biden's recuperation kept him away from the Senate for seven months.
Senate Judiciary Committee
Biden was a longtime member of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary. He chaired it from 1987 to 1995 and was a ranking minority member from 1981 to 1987 and again from 1995 to 1997.
As chair, Biden presided over two highly contentious U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings. When Robert Bork was nominated in 1988, Biden reversed his approvalgiven in an interview the previous yearof a hypothetical Bork nomination. Conservatives were angered, but at the hearings' close Biden was praised for his fairness, humor, and courage. Rejecting the arguments of some Bork opponents, Biden framed his objections to Bork in terms of the conflict between Bork's strong originalism and the view that the U.S. Constitution provides rights to liberty and privacy beyond those explicitly enumerated in its text. Bork's nomination was rejected in the committee by a 9–5 vote and then in the full Senate, 58–42.
During Clarence Thomas's nomination hearings in 1991, Biden's questions on constitutional issues were often convoluted to the point that Thomas sometimes lost track of them, and Thomas later wrote that Biden's questions were akin to "beanballs". After the committee hearing closed, the public learned that Anita Hill, a University of Oklahoma law school professor, had accused Thomas of making unwelcome sexual comments when they had worked together. Biden had known of some of these charges, but initially shared them only with the committee because Hill was then unwilling to testify. The committee hearing was reopened and Hill testified, but Biden did not permit testimony from other witnesses, such as a woman who had made similar charges and experts on harassment, saying he wanted to preserve Thomas's privacy and the hearings' decency. The full Senate confirmed Thomas by a 52–48 vote, with Biden opposed. Liberal legal advocates and women's groups felt strongly that Biden had mishandled the hearings and not done enough to support Hill. Biden later sought out women to serve on the Judiciary Committee and emphasized women's issues in the committee's legislative agenda. In 2019, he told Hill he regretted his treatment of her, but Hill said afterward she remained unsatisfied.
Biden was critical of Independent Counsel Ken Starr during the 1990s Whitewater controversy and Lewinsky scandal investigations, saying "it's going to be a cold day in hell" before another independent counsel would be granted similar powers. He voted to acquit during the impeachment of President Clinton. During the 2000s, Biden sponsored bankruptcy legislation sought by credit card issuers. Clinton vetoed the bill in 2000, but it passed in 2005 as the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act, with Biden one of only 18 Democrats to vote for it, while leading Democrats and consumer rights organizations opposed it. As a senator, Biden strongly supported increased Amtrak funding and rail security.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Biden was a longtime member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He became its ranking minority member in 1997 and chaired it from June 2001 to 2003 and 2007 to 2009. His positions were generally liberal internationalist. He collaborated effectively with Republicans and sometimes went against elements of his own party. During this time he met with at least 150 leaders from 60 countries and international organizations, becoming a well-known Democratic voice on foreign policy.
Biden voted against authorization for the Gulf War in 1991, siding with 45 of the 55 Democratic senators; he said the U.S. was bearing almost all the burden in the anti-Iraq coalition.
Biden became interested in the Yugoslav Wars after hearing about Serbian abuses during the Croatian War of Independence in 1991. Once the Bosnian War broke out, Biden was among the first to call for the "lift and strike" policy of lifting the arms embargo, training Bosnian Muslims and supporting them with NATO air strikes, and investigating war crimes. The George H. W. Bush administration and Clinton administration were both reluctant to implement the policy, fearing Balkan entanglement. In April 1993, Biden spent a week in the Balkans and held a tense three-hour meeting with Serbian leader Slobodan Milošević. Biden said he had told Milošević, "I think you're a damn war criminal and you should be tried as one."
Biden wrote an amendment in 1992 to compel the Bush administration to arm the Bosnian Muslims, but deferred in 1994 to a somewhat softer stance the Clinton administration preferred, before signing on the following year to a stronger measure sponsored by Bob Dole and Joe Lieberman. The engagement led to a successful NATO peacekeeping effort. Biden has called his role in affecting Balkans policy in the mid-1990s his "proudest moment in public life" related to foreign policy.
As chair, Biden contributed to successfully encouraging the Clinton administration to commit the resources and political capital to broker what became the 1998 Good Friday Agreement between the governments of Ireland and the United Kingdom through the Northern Ireland peace process.
On September 3, 1998, the resigning former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter had, according to Barton Gellman, accused the Clinton administration of obstructing weapons inspections in Iraq. Biden joined many other Senate Democrats and "amplified on the Clinton administration's counterattack against former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter." He questioned whether Ritter was trying to "appropriate the power 'to decide when to pull the trigger' of military force against Iraq", and said that the Secretary of State would also have to consider the opinion of allies, the UNSC, and public opinion, before any intervention in Iraq. In a Washington Post op-ed later that month, Biden criticized a unilateral "confrontation-based policy" but praised the idea of asking whether intervention might be necessary at some point, though he said it was "above the pay grade" of one weapons inspector.
In 1999, during the Kosovo War, Biden supported the 1999 NATO bombing of FR Yugoslavia. He and Senator John McCain co-sponsored the McCain-Biden Kosovo Resolution, which called on Clinton to use all necessary force, including ground troops, to confront Milošević over Yugoslav actions toward ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.
Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq
Biden was a strong supporter of the War in Afghanistan, saying, "Whatever it takes, we should do it." As head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he said in 2002 that Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was a threat to national security and there was no other option than to "eliminate" that threat. In October 2002, he voted in favor of the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq, approving the U.S. invasion of Iraq. As chair of the committee, he assembled a series of witnesses to testify in favor of the authorization. They gave testimony grossly misrepresenting the intent, history, and status of Saddam and his secular government, which was an avowed enemy of al-Qaida, and touted Iraq's fictional possession of weapons of mass destruction. Biden eventually became a critic of the war and viewed his vote and role as a "mistake", but did not push for withdrawal. He supported the appropriations for the occupation, but argued that the war should be internationalized, that more soldiers were needed, and that the Bush administration should "level with the American people" about its cost and length.
By late 2006, Biden's stance had shifted considerably. He opposed the troop surge of 2007, saying General David Petraeus was "dead, flat wrong" in believing the surge could work. Biden instead advocated dividing Iraq into a loose federation of three ethnic states. In November 2006, Biden and Leslie H. Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, released a comprehensive strategy to end sectarian violence in Iraq. Rather than continue the existing approach or withdrawing, the plan called for "a third way": federalizing Iraq and giving Kurds, Shiites, and Sunnis "breathing room" in their own regions. In September 2007, a non-binding resolution endorsing the plan passed the Senate, but the idea was unfamiliar, had no political constituency, and failed to gain traction. Iraq's political leadership denounced the resolution as de facto partitioning of the country, and the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad issued a statement distancing itself from it. In May 2008, Biden sharply criticized President George W. Bush's speech to Israel's Knesset in which Bush compared some Democrats to Western leaders who appeased Hitler before World WarII; Biden called the speech "bullshit", "malarkey", and "outrageous". He later apologized for his language.
Presidential campaigns 1988 and 2008
1988 campaign
Biden formally declared his candidacy for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination on June 9, 1987. He was considered a strong candidate because of his moderate image, his speaking ability, his high profile as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee at the upcoming Robert Bork Supreme Court nomination hearings, and his appeal to Baby Boomers; he would have been the second-youngest person elected president, after John F. Kennedy. He raised more in the first quarter of 1987 than any other candidate.
By August his campaign's messaging had become confused due to staff rivalries, and in September, he was accused of plagiarizing a speech by British Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock. Biden's speech had similar lines about being the first person in his family to attend university. Biden had credited Kinnock with the formulation on previous occasions, but did not on two occasions in late August. Kinnock himself was more forgiving; the two men met in 1988, forming an enduring friendship.
Earlier that year he had also used passages from a 1967 speech by Robert F. Kennedy (for which his aides took blame) and a short phrase from John F. Kennedy's inaugural address; two years earlier he had used a 1976 passage by Hubert Humphrey. Biden responded that politicians often borrow from one another without giving credit, and that one of his rivals for the nomination, Jesse Jackson, had called him to point out that he (Jackson) had used the same material by Humphrey that Biden had used.
A few days later, an incident in law school in which Biden drew text from a Fordham Law Review article with inadequate citations was publicized. He was required to repeat the course and passed with high marks. At Biden's request the Delaware Supreme Court's Board of Professional Responsibility reviewed the incident and concluded that he had violated no rules.
Biden has made several false or exaggerated claims about his early life: that he had earned three degrees in college, that he attended law school on a full scholarship, that he had graduated in the top half of his class, and that he had marched in the civil rights movement. The limited amount of other news about the presidential race amplified these disclosures and on September 23, 1987, Biden withdrew his candidacy, saying it had been overrun by "the exaggerated shadow" of his past mistakes.
2008 campaign
After exploring the possibility of a run in several previous cycles, in January 2007, Biden declared his candidacy in the 2008 elections. During his campaign, Biden focused on the Iraq War, his record as chairman of major Senate committees, and his foreign-policy experience. In mid-2007, Biden stressed his foreign policy expertise compared to Obama's. Biden was noted for his one-liners during the campaign; in one debate he said of Republican candidate Rudy Giuliani: "There's only three things he mentions in a sentence: a noun, and a verb and 9/11."
Biden had difficulty raising funds, struggled to draw people to his rallies, and failed to gain traction against the high-profile candidacies of Obama and Senator Hillary Clinton. He never rose above single digits in national polls of the Democratic candidates. In the first contest on January 3, 2008, Biden placed fifth in the Iowa caucuses, garnering slightly less than one percent of the state delegates. He withdrew from the race that evening.
Despite its lack of success, Biden's 2008 campaign raised his stature in the political world. In particular, it changed the relationship between Biden and Obama. Although they had served together on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, they had not been close: Biden resented Obama's quick rise to political stardom, while Obama viewed Biden as garrulous and patronizing. Having gotten to know each other during 2007, Obama appreciated Biden's campaign style and appeal to working-class voters, and Biden said he became convinced Obama was "the real deal".
2008 vice-presidential campaign
Shortly after Biden withdrew from the presidential race, Obama privately told him he was interested in finding an important place for Biden in his administration. Biden declined Obama's first request to vet him for the vice-presidential slot, fearing the vice presidency would represent a loss in status and voice from his Senate position, but he later changed his mind. In early August, Obama and Biden met in secret to discuss the possibility, and developed a strong personal rapport. On August 22, 2008, Obama announced that Biden would be his running mate. The New York Times reported that the strategy behind the choice reflected a desire to fill out the ticket with someone with foreign policy and national security experience—and not to help the ticket win a swing state or to emphasize Obama's "change" message. Others pointed out Biden's appeal to middle-class and blue-collar voters, as well as his willingness to aggressively challenge Republican nominee John McCain in a way that Obama seemed uncomfortable doing at times. In accepting Obama's offer, Biden ruled out running for president again in 2016, but his comments in later years seemed to back off that stance, as he did not want to diminish his political power by appearing uninterested in advancement. Biden was officially nominated for vice president on August 27 by voice vote at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver.
Biden's vice-presidential campaigning gained little media visibility, as far greater press attention was focused on the Republican running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. During one week in September 2008, for instance, the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism found that Biden was included in only five percent of coverage of the race, far less than the other three candidates on the tickets received. Biden nevertheless focused on campaigning in economically challenged areas of swing states and trying to win over blue-collar Democrats, especially those who had supported Hillary Clinton. Biden attacked McCain heavily despite a long-standing personal friendship. He said, "That guy I used to know, he's gone. It literally saddens me." As the financial crisis of 2007–2010 reached a peak with the liquidity crisis of September 2008 and the proposed bailout of the United States financial system became a major factor in the campaign, Biden voted in favor of the $700billion Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, which went on to pass in the Senate 74–25.
On October 2, 2008, Biden participated in the vice-presidential debate with Palin at Washington University in St. Louis. Post-debate polls found that while Palin exceeded many voters' expectations, Biden had won the debate overall. During the campaign's final days, he focused on less populated, older, less well-off areas of battleground states, especially Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, where polling indicated he was popular and where Obama had not campaigned or performed well in the Democratic primaries. He also campaigned in some normally Republican states, as well as in areas with large Catholic populations.
Under instructions from the campaign, Biden kept his speeches succinct and tried to avoid offhand remarks, such as one he made about Obama's being tested by a foreign power soon after taking office, which had attracted negative attention. Privately, Biden's remarks frustrated Obama. "How many times is Biden gonna say something stupid?" he asked. Obama campaign staffers referred to Biden blunders as "Joe bombs" and kept Biden uninformed about strategy discussions, which in turn irked Biden. Relations between the two campaigns became strained for a month, until Biden apologized on a call to Obama and the two built a stronger partnership. Publicly, Obama strategist David Axelrod said Biden's high popularity ratings had outweighed any unexpected comments. Nationally, Biden had a 60% favorability rating in a Pew Research Center poll, compared to Palin's 44%.
On November 4, 2008, Obama and Biden were elected with 53% of the popular vote and 365 electoral votes to McCain–Palin's 173.
At the same time Biden was running for vice president he was also running for reelection to the Senate, as permitted by Delaware law. On November4, he was reelected to the Senate, defeating Republican Christine O'Donnell. Having won both races, Biden made a point of waiting to resign from the Senate until he was sworn in for his seventh term on January 6, 2009. He became the youngest senator ever to start a seventh full term, and said, "In all my life, the greatest honor bestowed upon me has been serving the people of Delaware as their United States senator." Biden cast his last Senate vote on January 15, supporting the release of the second $350billion for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, and resigned from the Senate later that day. In an emotional farewell, Biden told the Senate: "Every good thing I have seen happen here, every bold step taken in the 36-plus years I have been here, came not from the application of pressure by interest groups, but through the maturation of personal relationships." Delaware Governor Ruth Ann Minner appointed longtime Biden adviser Ted Kaufman to fill Biden's vacated Senate seat.
Vice presidency (2009–2017)
First term, 2009–2013
Biden said he intended to eliminate some explicit roles assumed by George W. Bush's vice president, Dick Cheney, and did not intend to emulate any previous vice presidency. He chaired Obama's transition team and headed an initiative to improve middle-class economic well-being. In early January 2009, in his last act as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, he visited the leaders of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and on January 20 he was sworn in as the 47th vice president of the United Statesthe first vice president from Delaware and the first Roman Catholic vice president.
Obama was soon comparing Biden to a basketball player "who does a bunch of things that don't show up in the stat sheet". In May, Biden visited Kosovo and affirmed the U.S. position that its "independence is irreversible". Biden lost an internal debate to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about sending 21,000 new troops to Afghanistan, but his skepticism was valued, and in 2009, Biden's views gained more influence as Obama reconsidered his Afghanistan strategy. Biden visited Iraq about every two months, becoming the administration's point man in delivering messages to Iraqi leadership about expected progress there. More generally, overseeing Iraq policy became Biden's responsibility: Obama was said to have said, "Joe, you do Iraq." Biden said Iraq "could be one of the great achievements of this administration". His January 2010 visit to Iraq in the midst of turmoil over banned candidates from the upcoming Iraqi parliamentary election resulted in 59 of the several hundred candidates being reinstated by the Iraqi government two days later. By 2012, Biden had made eight trips there, but his oversight of U.S. policy in Iraq receded with the exit of U.S. troops in 2011.
Biden oversaw infrastructure spending from the Obama stimulus package intended to help counteract the ongoing recession. During this period, Biden was satisfied that no major instances of waste or corruption had occurred, and when he completed that role in February 2011, he said the number of fraud incidents with stimulus monies had been less than one percent.
In late April 2009, Biden's off-message response to a question during the beginning of the swine flu outbreak, that he would advise family members against traveling on airplanes or subways, led to a swift retraction by the White House. The remark revived Biden's reputation for gaffes. Confronted with rising unemployment through July 2009, Biden acknowledged that the administration had "misread how bad the economy was" but maintained confidence the stimulus package would create many more jobs once the pace of expenditures picked up. On March 23, 2010, a microphone picked up Biden telling the president that his signing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was "a big fucking deal" during live national news telecasts. Despite their different personalities, Obama and Biden formed a friendship, partly based around Obama's daughter Sasha and Biden's granddaughter Maisy, who attended Sidwell Friends School together.
Members of the Obama administration said Biden's role in the White House was to be a contrarian and force others to defend their positions. Rahm Emanuel, White House chief of staff, said that Biden helped counter groupthink. White House press secretary Jay Carney, Biden's former communications director, said Biden played the role of "the bad guy in the Situation Room". Another senior Obama advisor said Biden "is always prepared to be the skunk at the family picnic to make sure we are as intellectually honest as possible." Obama said, "The best thing about Joe is that when we get everybody together, he really forces people to think and defend their positions, to look at things from every angle, and that is very valuable for me." The Bidens maintained a relaxed atmosphere at their official residence in Washington, often entertaining their grandchildren, and regularly returned to their home in Delaware.
Biden campaigned heavily for Democrats in the 2010 midterm elections, maintaining an attitude of optimism in the face of predictions of large-scale losses for the party. Following big Republican gains in the elections and the departure of White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, Biden's past relationships with Republicans in Congress became more important. He led the successful administration effort to gain Senate approval for the New START treaty. In December 2010, Biden's advocacy for a middle ground, followed by his negotiations with Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, were instrumental in producing the administration's compromise tax package that included a temporary extension of the Bush tax cuts. Biden then took the lead in trying to sell the agreement to a reluctant Democratic caucus in Congress. The package passed as the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010.
In March 2011, Obama delegated Biden to lead negotiations with Congress to resolve federal spending levels for the rest of the year and avoid a government shutdown. By May 2011, a "Biden panel" with six congressional members was trying to reach a bipartisan deal on raising the U.S. debt ceiling as part of an overall deficit reduction plan. The U.S. debt ceiling crisis developed over the next few months, but Biden's relationship with McConnell again proved key in breaking a deadlock and bringing about a deal to resolve it, in the form of the Budget Control Act of 2011, signed on August 2, 2011, the same day an unprecedented U.S. default had loomed. Biden had spent the most time of anyone in the administration bargaining with Congress on the debt question, and one Republican staffer said, "Biden's the only guy with real negotiating authority, and [McConnell] knows that his word is good. He was a key to the deal."
Some reports suggest that Biden opposed proceeding with the May 2011 U.S. mission to kill Osama bin Laden, lest failure adversely affect Obama's reelection prospects. He took the lead in notifying Congressional leaders of the successful outcome.
Reelection
In October 2010, Biden said Obama had asked him to remain as his running mate for the 2012 presidential election, but with Obama's popularity on the decline, White House Chief of Staff William M. Daley conducted some secret polling and focus group research in late 2011 on the idea of replacing Biden on the ticket with Hillary Clinton. The notion was dropped when the results showed no appreciable improvement for Obama, and White House officials later said Obama had never entertained the idea.
Biden's May 2012 statement that he was "absolutely comfortable" with same-sex marriage gained considerable public attention in comparison to Obama's position, which had been described as "evolving". Biden made his statement without administration consent, and Obama and his aides were quite irked, since Obama had planned to shift position several months later, in the build-up to the party convention, and since Biden had previously counseled the president to avoid the issue lest key Catholic voters be offended. Gay rights advocates seized upon Biden's statement, and within days, Obama announced that he too supported same-sex marriage, an action in part forced by Biden's remarks. Biden apologized to Obama in private for having spoken out, while Obama acknowledged publicly it had been done from the heart. The incident showed that Biden still struggled at times with message discipline, as Time wrote, "Everyone knows Biden's greatest strength is also his greatest weakness." Relations were also strained between the vice presidential and presidential campaigns when Biden appeared to use his position to bolster fundraising contacts for a possible run for president in 2016, and he ended up being excluded from Obama campaign strategy meetings.
The Obama campaign nevertheless valued Biden as a retail-level politician who could connect with disaffected blue-collar workers and rural residents, and he had a heavy schedule of appearances in swing states as the reelection campaign began in earnest in spring 2012. An August 2012 remark before a mixed-race audience that Republican proposals to relax Wall Street regulations would "put y'all back in chains" led to a similar analysis of Biden's face-to-face campaigning abilities versus his tendency to go off track. The Los Angeles Times wrote, "Most candidates give the same stump speech over and over, putting reporters if not the audience to sleep. But during any Biden speech, there might be a dozen moments to make press handlers cringe, and prompt reporters to turn to each other with amusement and confusion." Time magazine wrote that Biden often went too far and "Along with the familiar Washington mix of neediness and overconfidence, Biden's brain is wired for more than the usual amount of goofiness."
Biden was nominated for a second term as vice president at the 2012 Democratic National Convention in September. Debating his Republican counterpart, Representative Paul Ryan, in the vice-presidential debate on October 11 he made a spirited and emotional defense of the Obama administration's record and energetically attacked the Republican ticket. On November 6, Obama and Biden won reelection over Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan with 332 of 538 Electoral College votes and 51% of the popular vote.
In December 2012, Obama named Biden to head the Gun Violence Task Force, created to address the causes of gun violence in the United States in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Later that month, during the final days before the United States fell off the "fiscal cliff", Biden's relationship with McConnell again proved important as the two negotiated a deal that led to the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 being passed at the start of 2013. It made many of the Bush tax cuts permanent but raised rates on upper income levels.
Second term, 2013–2017
Biden was inaugurated to a second term on January 20, 2013, at a small ceremony at Number One Observatory Circle, his official residence, with Justice Sonia Sotomayor presiding (a public ceremony took place on January 21).
Biden played little part in discussions that led to the October 2013 passage of the Continuing Appropriations Act, 2014, which resolved the federal government shutdown of 2013 and the debt-ceiling crisis of 2013. This was because Senate majority leader Harry Reid and other Democratic leaders cut him out of any direct talks with Congress, feeling Biden had given too much away during previous negotiations.
Biden's Violence Against Women Act was reauthorized again in 2013. The act led to related developments, such as the White House Council on Women and Girls, begun in the first term, as well as the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault, begun in January 2014 with Biden and Valerie Jarrett as co-chairs. Biden discussed federal guidelines on sexual assault on university campuses while giving a speech at the University of New Hampshire. He said, "No means no, if you're drunk or you're sober. No means no if you're in bed, in a dorm or on the street. No means no even if you said yes at first and you changed your mind. No means no."
Biden favored arming Syria's rebel fighters. As Iraq fell apart during 2014, renewed attention was paid to the Biden-Gelb Iraqi federalization plan of 2006, with some observers suggesting Biden had been right all along. Biden himself said the U.S. would follow ISIL "to the gates of hell". Biden had close relationships with several Latin American leaders and was assigned a focus on the region during the administration; he visited the region 16 times during his vice presidency, the most of any president or vice president.
In 2015, Speaker of the House John Boehner and Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell invited Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress without notifying the Obama administration. This defiance of protocol led Biden and more than 50 congressional Democrats to skip Netanyahu's speech. In August 2016, Biden visited Serbia, where he met with Serbian president Aleksandar Vučić and expressed his condolences for civilian victims of the bombing campaign during the Kosovo War. In Kosovo, he attended a ceremony renaming a highway after his son Beau, in honor of Beau's service to Kosovo in training its judges and prosecutors.
Biden never cast a tie-breaking vote in the Senate, making him the longest-serving vice president with this distinction.
Role in the 2016 presidential campaign
During his second term, Biden was often said to be preparing for a possible bid for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination. With his family, many friends, and donors encouraging him in mid-2015 to enter the race, and with Hillary Clinton's favorability ratings in decline at that time, Biden was reported to again be seriously considering the prospect and a "Draft Biden 2016" PAC was established.
, Biden was still uncertain about running. He felt his son's recent death had largely drained his emotional energy, and said, "nobody has a right... to seek that office unless they're willing to give it 110% of who they are." On October 21, speaking from a podium in the Rose Garden with his wife and Obama by his side, Biden announced his decision not to run for president in 2016. In January 2016, Biden affirmed that it was the right decision, but admitted to regretting not running for president "every day".
After Obama endorsed Hillary Clinton on June 9, 2016, Biden endorsed her later that day. Throughout the 2016 election, Biden strongly criticized Clinton's opponent, Donald Trump, in often colorful terms.
Subsequent activities (2017–2019)
After leaving the vice presidency, Biden became a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, while continuing to lead efforts to find treatments for cancer. In 2017 he wrote a memoir, Promise Me, Dad, and went on a book tour. Biden earned $15.6million in 2017–2018. In 2018, he gave a eulogy for Senator John McCain, praising McCain's embrace of American ideals and bipartisan friendships.
Biden remained in the public eye, endorsing candidates while continuing to comment on politics, climate change, and the presidency of Donald Trump. He also continued to speak out in favor of LGBT rights, continuing advocacy on an issue he had become more closely associated with during his vice presidency. In 2019, Biden criticized Brunei for its intention to implement Islamic laws that would allow death by stoning for adultery and homosexuality, calling it "appalling and immoral" and saying, "There is no excuse—not culture, not tradition—for this kind of hate and inhumanity." By 2019, Biden and his wife reported that their assets had increased to between $2.2 million and $8 million from speaking engagements and a contract to write a set of books.
2020 presidential campaign
Speculation and announcement
Between 2016 and 2019, media outlets often mentioned Biden as a likely candidate for president in 2020. When asked if he would run, he gave varied and ambivalent answers, saying "never say never". At one point he suggested he did not see a scenario where he would run again, but a few days later, he said, "I'll run if I can walk." A political action committee known as Time for Biden was formed in January 2018, seeking Biden's entry into the race. He finally launched his campaign on April 25, 2019, saying he was prompted to run, among other reasons, by his "sense of duty."
Campaign
In September 2019, it was reported that Trump had pressured Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate alleged wrongdoing by Biden and his son Hunter Biden. Despite the allegations, no evidence was produced of any wrongdoing by the Bidens. The media widely interpreted this pressure to investigate the Bidens as trying to hurt Biden's chances of winning the presidency, resulting in a political scandal and Trump's impeachment by the House of Representatives.
Beginning in 2019, Trump and his allies falsely accused Biden of getting the Ukrainian prosecutor general Viktor Shokin fired because he was supposedly pursuing an investigation into Burisma Holdings, which employed Hunter Biden. Biden was accused of withholding $1billion in aid from Ukraine in this effort. In 2015, Biden pressured the Ukrainian parliament to remove Shokin because the United States, the European Union and other international organizations considered Shokin corrupt and ineffective, and in particular because Shokin was not assertively investigating Burisma. The withholding of the $1billion in aid was part of this official policy. The Senate Homeland Security Committee and Senate Finance Committee, led by Republicans, investigated allegations of wrongdoing by the Bidens in Ukraine, ultimately releasing a report in September 2020 that detailed no evidence of wrongdoing by Joe Biden, and concluded that it was "not clear" whether Hunter Biden's role in Burisma "affected U.S. policy toward Ukraine".
In March 2019 and April 2019, Biden was accused by eight women of previous instances of inappropriate physical contact, such as embracing, touching or kissing. Biden had previously described himself as a "tactile politician" and admitted this behavior has caused trouble for him. In April 2019, Biden pledged to be more "respectful of people's personal space".
Throughout 2019, Biden stayed generally ahead of other Democrats in national polls. Despite this, he finished fourth in the Iowa caucuses, and eight days later, fifth in the New Hampshire primary. He performed better in the Nevada caucuses, reaching the 15% required for delegates, but still was behind Bernie Sanders by 21.6 percentage points. Making strong appeals to Black voters on the campaign trail and in the South Carolina debate, Biden won the South Carolina primary by more than 28 points. After the withdrawals and subsequent endorsements of candidates Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar, he made large gains in the March3 Super Tuesday primary elections. Biden won 18 of the next 26 contests, including Alabama, Arkansas, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia, putting him in the lead overall. Elizabeth Warren and Mike Bloomberg soon dropped out, and Biden expanded his lead with victories over Sanders in four states (Idaho, Michigan, Mississippi, and Missouri) on March 10.
In late March 2020, Tara Reade, one of the eight women who in 2019 had accused Biden of inappropriate physical contact, accused Biden of having sexually assaulted her in 1993. There were inconsistencies between Reade's 2019 and 2020 allegations. Biden and his campaign denied the sexual assault allegation.
When Sanders suspended his campaign on April 8, 2020, Biden became the Democratic Party's presumptive nominee for president. On April 13, Sanders endorsed Biden in a live-streamed discussion from their homes. Former President Barack Obama endorsed Biden the next day. In March 2020, Biden committed to choosing a woman as his running mate. In June, Biden met the 1,991-delegate threshold needed to secure the party's presidential nomination. On August 11, he announced U.S. Senator Kamala Harris of California as his running mate, making her the first African American and first South Asian American vice-presidential nominee on a major-party ticket.
On August 18, 2020, Biden was officially nominated at the 2020 Democratic National Convention as the Democratic Party nominee for president in the 2020 election.
Presidential transition
Biden was elected the 46th president of the United States in November 2020. He defeated the incumbent, Donald Trump, becoming the first candidate to defeat a sitting president since Bill Clinton defeated George H.W. Bush in 1992. Trump refused to concede, insisting the election had been "stolen" from him through "voter fraud", challenging the results in court and promoting numerous conspiracy theories about the voting and vote-counting processes, in an attempt to overturn the election results. Biden's transition was delayed by several weeks as the White House ordered federal agencies not to cooperate. On November23, General Services Administrator Emily W. Murphy formally recognized Biden as the apparent winner of the 2020 election and authorized the start of a transition process to the Biden administration.
On January 6, 2021, during Congress's electoral vote count, Trump told supporters gathered in front of the White House to march to the Capitol, saying, "We will never give up. We will never concede. It doesn't happen. You don't concede when there's theft involved." Soon after, they attacked the Capitol. During the insurrection at the Capitol, Biden addressed the nation, calling the events "an unprecedented assault unlike anything we've seen in modern times." He specifically called on Trump to "go on national television now to fulfill his oath and defend the Constitution and demand an end to this siege", adding, "it must end now." After the Capitol was cleared, Congress resumed its joint session and officially certified the election results with Pence declaring Biden and Harris the winners.
Presidency (2021–present)
Inauguration
Biden was inaugurated as the 46th president of the United States on January 20, 2021. At 78, he is the oldest person to have assumed the office. He is the second Catholic president (after John F. Kennedy) and the first president whose home state is Delaware. He is the second non-incumbent vice president (after Richard Nixon in 1968) to be elected president. He is also the first president from the Silent Generation.
Biden's inauguration was "a muted affair unlike any previous inauguration" due to COVID-19 precautions as well as massively increased security measures because of a threat of widespread civil unrest. Biden took the oath of office on the Capitol's west steps and gave an inaugural address, but there were no spectators on the Mall and no in-person parades or inaugural balls. Trump did not attend, becoming the first outgoing president since 1869 to not attend his successor's inauguration.
First 100 days
In his first two days as president, Biden signed 17 executive orders, more than most recent presidents did in their first 100 days. By his third day, orders had included rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement, ending the state of national emergency at the border with Mexico, directing the government to rejoin the World Health Organization, face mask requirements on federal property, measures to combat hunger in the United States, and revoking permits for the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. In his first two weeks in office, Biden signed more executive orders than any other president since Franklin D. Roosevelt had in their first month in office.
On February 4, 2021, the Biden administration announced that the United States was ending its support for the Saudi-led bombing campaign in Yemen. In his first visit to the State Department as president, Biden said "this war has to end" and that the conflict had created a "humanitarian and strategic catastrophe." On February 25, the Biden administration "struck a site in Syria used by two Iranian-backed militia groups in response to rocket attacks on American forces." This marked the first known action by the military under Biden.
On March 11, the first anniversary of COVID-19 being declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization, Biden signed into law the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, a $1.9 trillion economic stimulus relief package he proposed and lobbied for that aimed to speed up the United States' recovery from the economic and health effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing recession. The package included direct payments to most Americans, an extension of increased unemployment benefits, funds for vaccine distribution and school reopenings, support for small businesses and state and local governments, and expansions of health insurance subsidies and the child tax credit. Biden's initial proposal included an increase of the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour, but after Senate parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough determined that including the increase in a budget reconciliation bill would violate Senate rules, Democrats declined to pursue overruling her and removed the increase from the package.
Also in March, amid a rise in migrants entering the U.S. from Mexico, Biden told migrants, "Don't come over." He said that the U.S. was arranging a plan for migrants to "apply for asylum in place", without leaving their original locations. In the meantime, migrant adults "are being sent back", Biden said, in reference to the continuation of the Trump administration's Title 42 policy for quick deportations. Biden earlier announced that his administration would not deport unaccompanied migrant children; the rise in arrivals of such children exceeded the capacity of facilities meant to shelter them (before they were sent to sponsors), leading the Biden administration in March to direct the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help manage these children.
On April 14, Biden announced that the United States would delay the withdrawal of all troops from the war in Afghanistan until September 11, signalling an end to the country's direct military involvement in Afghanistan after nearly 20 years. In February 2020, the Trump administration had made a deal with the Taliban to completely withdraw U.S. forces by May 1, 2021. Biden's decision met with a wide range of reactions, from support and relief to trepidation at the possible collapse of the Afghan government without American support. On April 22–23, Biden held an international climate summit at which he announced that the U.S. would cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 50%–52% by 2030 compared to 2005 levels. Other countries also increased their pledges. If the pledges made at the summit are met, they will cut global greenhouse gas emissions by 2.6–3.7 Gte by 2030. On April 28, the eve of his 100th day in office, Biden delivered his first address to a joint session of Congress, in which he highlighted the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines and addressed withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, the murder of George Floyd, and the U.S. Capitol attack while urging Congress to pass comprehensive immigration, gun, and health care reform.
Rest of 2021
In May 2021, during a flareup in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, Biden expressed his support for Israel, saying "my party still supports Israel" amid disagreement from some Democrats. In June 2021, Biden took his first trip abroad as president. In eight days he visited Belgium, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. He attended a G7 summit, a NATO summit, and an EU summit, and held one-on-one talks with Russian president Vladimir Putin.
On June 17, Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act, which officially declared Juneteenth a federal holiday. Juneteenth is the first new federal holiday since Martin Luther King Jr. Day was declared a holiday in 1986. In July 2021, amid a slowing of the COVID-19 vaccination rate in the country and the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant, Biden said that the country has "a pandemic for those who haven't gotten the vaccination" and that it was therefore "gigantically important" for Americans to be vaccinated, touting the vaccines' effectiveness against hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19. He also criticized the prevalence of COVID-19 misinformation on social media, saying it was "killing people". In September 2021, Biden announced AUKUS, a security pact between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, to ensure "peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific over the long term"; the deal included nuclear-powered submarines built for Australia's use.
By the end of 2021, 40 of Biden's appointed judges to the federal judiciary had been confirmed, more than any president in their first year in office since Ronald Reagan. Biden has prioritized diversity in his judicial appointments more than any president in U.S. history, with the majority of appointments being women and people of color. Most of his appointments have been in blue states, making a limited impact since the courts in these states already traditionally lean liberal.
In the first eight months of his presidency, Biden's approval rating, according to Morning Consult polling, remained above 50%. In August, it began to decline and lowered into the low forties by December. The decline in his approval is attributed to the Afghanistan withdrawal, increasing hospitalizations from the Delta variant, high inflation and gas prices, disarray within the Democratic Party, and a general decline in popularity customary in politics.
Withdrawal from Afghanistan
American forces began withdrawing from Afghanistan in 2020, under the provisions of a February 2020 US-Taliban agreement that set a May 1, 2021, deadline. By April 2021, the State Department was urging American civilians in Afghanistan to leave as soon as possible. The Taliban began an offensive on May 1. As late as July, American intelligence assessments estimated Kabul would fall to the Taliban months or weeks after the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan. By early July, most American troops in Afghanistan had withdrawn. Biden addressed the withdrawal in July, saying, "The likelihood there's going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely."
On August 15, the Afghan government collapsed under the Taliban offensive, and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country. Biden reacted by ordering 6,000 American troops to assist in the evacuation of American personnel and Afghan allies. He was widely criticized for the manner of the withdrawal, with allegations of poor planning for the evacuation of Americans and Afghan allies, and for his silence and absence during the days before the collapse of the Afghan government.
On August 16, Biden addressed the "messy" situation, taking responsibility for it, and admitting that the situation "unfolded more quickly than we had anticipated". He defended his decision to withdraw, saying that Americans should not be "dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves," and blamed his predecessor Donald Trump, the Afghan president, and Afghan security forces for the speedy collapse.
On August 22, Biden said that his administration knew that ISIS-K was a "likely source" of threat. On August 26, a suicide bombing at the Kabul airport killed 13 U.S. service members and 169 Afghans. Biden declared to the attackers that the United States "will hunt you down and make you pay". On August 27, an American drone strike killed two ISIS-K targets, who were "planners and facilitators", according to a U.S. Army general. On August 29, another American drone strike killed 10 civilians, including seven children; the Defense Department initially claimed the strike was conducted on an Islamic State suicide bomber threatening Kabul Airport, but admitted the mistake on September 17 and apologized.
The U.S. military left Afghanistan on August 30, with Biden saying that the evacuation effort was an "extraordinary success", by extracting over 120,000 Americans, Afghans and other allies. He acknowledged that between "100 to 200" Americans who wanted to leave were left in Afghanistan, despite his August 18 pledge to stay in Afghanistan until all Americans who wanted to leave had left. The Biden administration, joining governments of almost 100 countries, said that the Taliban had given "assurances" that anyone "with travel authorization from [these] countries" would continue to be allowed to leave Afghanistan.
Economy
Biden entered office nine months into a recovery from the COVID-19 recession and his first year in office was characterized by robust growth in real GDP, employment, wages and stock market returns, amid significantly elevated inflation. Real GDP grew 5.7%, the fastest rate in 37 years. Amid record job creation, the unemployment rate fell at the fastest pace on record during the year. By the end of 2021, inflation reached a nearly 40-year high of 7.1%, which was partially offset by the highest wage and salary growth in at least 20 years. Income growth was particularly strong at the low end of the pay scale.
Infrastructure and climate
As part of Biden's Build Back Better agenda, in late March 2021, he proposed the American Jobs Plan, a $2 trillion package addressing issues including transport infrastructure, utilities infrastructure, broadband infrastructure, housing, schools, manufacturing, research and workforce development. After months of negotiations among Biden and lawmakers, in August 2021 the Senate passed a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill called the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, while the House, also in a bipartisan manner, approved that bill in early November 2021, covering infrastructure related to transport, utilities, and broadband. Biden signed the bill into law in mid-November 2021.
As COP26, scheduled for October 31 to November 12, 2021, approached, Biden increased his efforts to address climate change domestically and internationally. He promoted an agreement that the U.S. and the European Union cut methane emissions by a third by 2030 and tried to add dozens of other countries to the effort. He tried to convince China and Australia to do more. He convened an online Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate Change to press other countries to strengthen their climate policy. Biden pledged to double climate funding to developing countries by 2024. Also at COP26, the U.S. and China reached a deal on greenhouse gas emission reduction. The two countries are responsible for 40% of global emissions.
2022
In early 2022, Biden made efforts to change his public image after entering the year with low approval ratings, but they continued to fall, dipping to approximately 40% in aggregated polls by February.
In January, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, a moderate liberal nominated by Bill Clinton, announced he will be retiring from the Supreme Court. Breyer's retirement is expected to give Biden his first opportunity to nominate a Supreme Court justice. During his 2020 campaign, Biden vowed to nominate a Black woman to the court if a vacancy occurred, a promise he reiterated after the announcement of Breyer's retirement. In February, Biden nominated federal judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court.
Political positions
Biden is considered a moderate Democrat and a centrist, though more recently he has been seen as shifting to the left. He has a lifetime liberal 72% score from the Americans for Democratic Action through 2004, while the American Conservative Union gave him a lifetime conservative rating of 13% through 2008.
Biden supported the fiscal stimulus in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009; the Obama administration's proposed increase in infrastructure spending; subsidies for mass transit, including Amtrak, bus, and subway; and the reduced military spending in the Obama administration's fiscal year 2014 budget. He has proposed partially reversing the corporate tax cuts of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, saying that doing so would not hurt businesses' ability to hire. He voted for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Biden is a staunch supporter of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). He has promoted a plan to expand and build upon it, paid for by revenue gained from reversing some Trump administration tax cuts. Biden's plan aims to expand health insurance coverage to 97% of Americans, including by creating a public health insurance option.
Biden has supported same-sex marriage since 2012 and also supports Roe v. Wade and repealing the Hyde Amendment. He opposes drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and supports governmental funding to find new energy sources. As a senator, he forged deep relationships with police groups and was a chief proponent of a Police Officer's Bill of Rights measure that police unions supported but police chiefs opposed. As vice president, he served as a White House liaison to police.
Biden believes action must be taken on global warming. As a senator, he co-sponsored the Sense of the Senate resolution calling on the United States to take part in the United Nations climate negotiations and the Boxer–Sanders Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act, the most stringent climate bill in the United States Senate. He wants to achieve a carbon-free power sector in the U.S. by 2035 and stop emissions completely by 2050. His program includes reentering the Paris Agreement, nature conservation, and green building. Biden wants to pressure China and other countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions by carbon tariffs if necessary.
Biden has said the U.S. needs to "get tough" on China and build "a united front of U.S. allies and partners to confront China's abusive behaviors and human rights violations". He has called China the "most serious competitor" that poses challenges to the United States' "prosperity, security, and democratic values". Biden has voiced concerns about China's "coercive and unfair" economic practices and human rights abuses in the Xinjiang region to the Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping. He also pledged to sanction and commercially restrict Chinese government officials and entities who carry out repression.
Biden has said he is against regime change, but for providing non-military support to opposition movements. He opposed direct U.S. intervention in Libya, voted against U.S. participation in the Gulf War, voted in favor of the Iraq War, and supports a two-state solution in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Biden has pledged to end U.S. support for the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen and to reevaluate the United States' relationship with Saudi Arabia. He has called North Korea a "paper tiger". As vice president, Biden supported Obama's Cuban thaw. He has said that, as president, he would restore U.S. membership in key United Nations bodies, such as the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the World Health Organization, and possibly the Human Rights Council. Biden supports extending the New START arms control treaty with Russia to limit the number of nuclear weapons deployed by both sides. In 2021, Biden recognized the Armenian genocide, becoming the first U.S. president to do so.
Reputation
Biden was consistently ranked one of the least wealthy members of the Senate, which he attributed to his having been elected young. Feeling that less-wealthy public officials may be tempted to accept contributions in exchange for political favors, he proposed campaign finance reform measures during his first term. , Biden's net worth was $27,012. , the Bidens were worth $9 million, largely due to sales of Biden's books and speaking fees after his vice presidency.
The political writer Howard Fineman has written, "Biden is not an academic, he's not a theoretical thinker, he's a great street pol. He comes from a long line of working people in Scranton—auto salesmen, car dealers, people who know how to make a sale. He has that great Irish gift." Political columnist David S. Broder wrote that Biden has grown over time: "He responds to real people—that's been consistent throughout. And his ability to understand himself and deal with other politicians has gotten much much better." Journalist James Traub has written that "Biden is the kind of fundamentally happy person who can be as generous toward others as he is to himself."
In recent years, especially after the 2015 death of his elder son Beau, Biden has been noted for his empathetic nature and ability to communicate about grief. In 2020, CNN wrote that his presidential campaign aimed to make him "healer-in-chief", while The New York Times described his extensive history of being called upon to give eulogies.
Journalist and TV anchor Wolf Blitzer has described Biden as loquacious. He often deviates from prepared remarks and sometimes "puts his foot in his mouth." The New York Times wrote that Biden's "weak filters make him capable of blurting out pretty much anything." In 2018, Biden called himself "a gaffe machine". Some of his gaffes have been characterized as racially insensitive.
Electoral history
Publications
Books
Also paperback edition, Random House 2008, .
Book contributions
Biden, Joseph R., Jr. (2009). "Foreword." In: Choosing Equality: Essays and Narratives on the Desegregation Experience. Edited by Robert L. Hayman, Jr. and Leland Ware. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009. .
Pamphlets
Biden, Joseph R., Jr., and Les Aspin, William Louis Dickinson, Brent Scowcroft (1982). Arms Sales: A Useful Foreign Policy Tool? American Enterprise Institute. AEI Forum 56. Moderated by John Charles Daly.
Articles
Biden, Joseph R., Jr., and Miga Purev-Ochir (Spring 2015). "U.S.-Russian Relations in a Post-Cold War World: A Strategic Vision: Mapping a Future for U.S.-Russian Relations." Harvard International Review, vol. 36, no. 3, pp. 72–76. .
Notes
References
Citations
Works cited
See also
List of honors and awards received by Joe Biden
List of things named after Joe Biden
External links
Official
President Joe Biden official website
Presidential campaign website
Obama White House biography (archived)
Other
Joe Biden at On the Issues
Joe Biden at PolitiFact
1942 births
Living people
20th-century American lawyers
20th-century American politicians
20th-century Roman Catholics
21st-century American memoirists
21st-century presidents of the United States
21st-century vice presidents of the United States
21st-century Roman Catholics
2008 United States vice-presidential candidates
2012 United States vice-presidential candidates
American people of English descent
American people of French descent
American people of Irish descent
Biden family
Candidates in the 1988 United States presidential election
Candidates in the 2008 United States presidential election
Candidates in the 2020 United States presidential election
Catholics from Delaware
Catholics from Pennsylvania
Chairmen of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
County council members and commissioners in Delaware
Delaware Democrats
Delaware Fightin' Blue Hens football players
Delaware lawyers
Democratic Party (United States) presidential nominees
Democratic Party presidents of the United States
Democratic Party United States senators
Democratic Party (United States) vice presidential nominees
Democratic Party vice presidents of the United States
Laetare Medal recipients
New Castle County, Delaware politicians
Obama administration cabinet members
People from Claymont, Delaware
People from Wilmington, Delaware
People involved in plagiarism controversies
Politicians from Scranton, Pennsylvania
Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients
Presidents of the United States
Writers from Wilmington, Delaware
Public defenders
Recipients of Hilal-i-Pakistan
Recipients of the Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana, 1st Class
Recipients of St. George's Order of Victory
Syracuse University College of Law alumni
Time 100
Time Person of the Year
United States senators from Delaware
University of Delaware alumni
University of Pennsylvania faculty
Vice presidents of the United States
Widener University faculty
Writers from Scranton, Pennsylvania | false | [
"Joe M. Seng (September 27, 1946 – September 16, 2016) was the Iowa State Senator from the 45th District. A Democrat, he served in the Iowa Senate from 2003 until 2016. He received a DVM from Iowa State University and worked as a veterinarian in Davenport, running a veterinary clinic for low income families.\n\n, Seng served on several committees in the Iowa Senate - the Commerce, Ethics, and Natural Resources and Environment committees. He also served as chair of the Agriculture Committee and as vice chair of the Ways and Means Committee, as well as serving as a member of the Economic Development Appropriations Subcommittee. Before serving in the Senate, Seng served as the 43rd District representative in the Iowa House of Representatives from 2000 to 2002 and served as an alderman in Davenport. Seng died in office on September 16, 2016, from brain cancer.\n\nElectoral history\n\n*Incumbent\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nSenator Joe Seng official Iowa Legislature site\nSenator Joe Seng official Iowa General Assembly site\nState Senator Joe Seng official constituency site\n \n\n1946 births\n2016 deaths\nIowa state senators\nIowa State University alumni\nAmerican veterinarians\nMale veterinarians\nMembers of the Iowa House of Representatives\nPeople from Lost Nation, Iowa\nPoliticians from Davenport, Iowa\nIowa Democrats\nIowa city council members\nDeaths from brain tumor\nDeaths from cancer in Iowa",
"Mike Donilon (born ) is an American attorney and campaign consultant who serves as a Senior Advisor to U.S. President Joe Biden. He was the chief strategist of Joe Biden's 2020 presidential campaign. Prior, Donilon was working as a partner at AKPD Message and Media. Between 2009 and 2013, he served as Counselor to Vice President Biden in the Obama administration. Prior to his White House appointment, Donilon worked with the vice-presidential candidate to help him prepare for the debates and also as a traveling advisor. \n\nDonilon has been an advisor and consultant to President Biden since 1981. He has been described as Biden's \"conscience, alter ego and shared brain\" by the Washington Post.\n\nEarly life and education \nHe is the son of Theresa A. Donilon (née Conway), who worked two jobs, as a school secretary and a message service operator while also leading a school secretary and janitors' union; and Edward T. Donilon, who was a product control manager and a local school board chairman. His father was of Irish descent, and his maternal grandparents had immigrated from Ireland. Donilon is a graduate of La Salle Academy in Providence, Rhode Island. He earned a Bachelor of Arts and Juris Doctor from Georgetown University.\n\nCareer \nMike Donilon has advised candidates and worked on their campaigns in numerous important races including Douglas Wilder's historic campaign and election as Governor of Virginia (1989), Harris Wofford's upset victory over Dick Thornburgh to become Senator for the state of Pennsylvania, and Bill Clinton's successful run for the White House in 1992.\n\nDonilon has also worked on campaigns for Governor Jon Corzine (D-NJ), Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL), Senator Jack Reed (D-RI), Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT), Representative Dick Gephardt (D-MO), Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT), Senator John Edwards (D-NC), Vice President Al Gore (D-TN), Senator John Kerry (D-MA), and former Senator Mark Dayton (D-MN). In 2006 and 2008, Donilon claims he was \"instrumental in the campaigns for Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO), Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Senator Mark Udall (D-CO), and Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), working to create the campaign ads for those races paid for by independent expenditure of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.\"\n\nDonilon was a managing member of MCD Strategies, a media consulting firm, for which he received compensation of at least $4 million.\n\nBiden administration\nAs his longtime advisor, Mike Donilon held significant influence over Joe Biden's successful 2020 campaign for president. He helped develop Biden's campaign strategy that had a three-pronged message: \"that the election was about the 'soul of the nation'; that the threatened middle class was the 'backbone of the nation'; and that what was most needed was to 'unify the nation.' Only Biden could restore the nation's soul, repair its backbone, and unify it.” \"This is really about character and values as opposed to issues and ideology,\" said Mike Donilon, Biden's chief strategist, when speaking to the New York Times.\n\nIn November 2020, Donilon was named Senior Advisor to the President.\n\nPersonal life\nDonilon's brothers are BlackRock Investment Institute chair Tom Donilon, who was chief of staff in former President Bill Clinton’s State Department and is a former National security adviser to Barack Obama, and Terry Donilon, Communications Director for Cardinal Seán Patrick O'Malley of the Archdiocese of Boston. His sister-in-law is Catherine M. Russell.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nMike Donilon's profile from the Biden-Harris Administration\n\nAmerican people of Irish descent\nBiden administration personnel\nGeorgetown University Law Center alumni\nLa Salle Academy alumni\nLiving people\nObama administration personnel\nSenior Advisors to the President of the United States\nYear of birth missing (living people)"
] |
[
"Joe Biden",
"Characteristics as senator",
"What are Joe's characteristics as senator?",
"characterized Biden as \"self-confident\" and \"compulsively ambitious\"."
] | C_ae5bfb2601a2463ebfedd2b995b83bf8_1 | Was Joe likable as senator? | 2 | Was Joe likable as senator? | Joe Biden | On August 27, 1966, while Biden was still a law student, he married Neilia Hunter. They overcame her parents' initial reluctance for her to wed a Roman Catholic, and the ceremony was held in a Catholic church in Skaneateles. They had three children, Joseph R. "Beau" Biden III in 1969, Robert Hunter in 1970, and Naomi Christina in 1971. During 1968, Biden clerked for six months at a Wilmington law firm headed by prominent local Republican William Prickett and, as he later said, "thought of myself as a Republican". He disliked the conservative racial politics of incumbent Democratic Governor of Delaware Charles L. Terry and supported a more liberal Republican, Russell W. Peterson, who defeated Terry in 1968. The local Republicans tried to recruit him, but he resisted due to his distaste for Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon, and registered as an Independent instead. In 1969, Biden resumed practicing law in Wilmington, first as a public defender and then at a firm headed by Sid Balick, a locally active Democrat. Balick named him to the Democratic Forum, a group trying to reform and revitalize the state party, and Biden switched his registration to Democrat. He also started his own firm, Biden and Walsh. Corporate law, however, did not appeal to him and criminal law did not pay well. He supplemented his income by managing properties. Later in 1969, Biden ran as a Democrat for the New Castle County Council on a liberal platform that included support for public housing in the suburban area. He won by a solid, two-thousand vote margin in the usually Republican district and in a bad year for Democrats in the state. Even before taking his seat, he was already talking about running for the U.S. Senate in a couple of years. He served on the County Council from 1970 to 1972 while continuing his private law practice. Among issues he addressed on the council was his opposition to large highway projects that might disrupt Wilmington neighborhoods, including those related to Interstate 95. During his first years in the Senate, Biden focused on legislation regarding consumer-protection and environmental issues and called for greater accountability on the part of government. In mid-1974, freshman Senator Biden was named one of the 200 Faces for the Future by Time magazine, in a profile that mentioned what had happened to his family and characterized Biden as "self-confident" and "compulsively ambitious". Biden became ranking minority member of the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary in 1981. In 1984, he was Democratic floor manager for the successful passage of the Comprehensive Crime Control Act; civil libertarians praised him for modifying some of the Act's provisions, and it was his most important legislative accomplishment at that point in time. He first considered running for president in that year, after he gained notice for giving speeches to party audiences that simultaneously scolded and encouraged Democrats. Regarding foreign policy, during his first decade in the Senate, Biden focused on arms control issues. In response to the refusal of the U.S. Congress to ratify the SALT II Treaty signed in 1979 by Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and President Jimmy Carter, he took the initiative to meet the Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, educated him about American concerns and interests, and secured several changes to address objections of the Foreign Relations Committee. When the Reagan administration wanted to interpret the 1972 SALT I Treaty loosely in order to allow the Strategic Defense Initiative to proceed, Biden argued for strict adherence to the treaty's terms. He clashed again with the Reagan administration in 1986 over economic sanctions against South Africa; he received considerable attention when he excoriated Secretary of State George P. Shultz at a Senate hearing because of the administration's support of that country, which continued to practice the apartheid system. Following his initial election in 1972, Biden was re-elected to six additional terms, in the elections of 1978, 1984, 1990, 1996, 2002, and 2008, usually getting about 60 percent of the vote. He did not face strong opposition; Pete du Pont, then governor, chose not to run against him in 1984. Biden spent 28 years as a junior senator due to the two-year seniority of his Republican colleague William V. Roth Jr. After Roth was defeated for re-election by Tom Carper in 2000, Biden became Delaware's senior senator. He then became the longest-serving senator in Delaware history. In May 1999, Biden set the mark for youngest senator to cast 10,000 votes. With a net worth between $59,000 and $366,000, and almost no outside income or investment income, Biden was consistently ranked as one of the least wealthy members of the Senate. Biden stated that he was listed as the second poorest member in Congress, a distinction that he was not proud of, but attributed to being elected early in his career. Biden realized early in his senatorial career how vulnerable poorer public officials are to offers of financial contributions in exchange for policy support, and he pushed campaign finance reform measures during his first term. During his years as a senator, Biden amassed a reputation for loquaciousness, with his questions and remarks during Senate hearings being especially known for being long-winded. He has been a strong speaker and debater and a frequent and effective guest on the Sunday morning talk shows. In public appearances, he is known to deviate from prepared remarks at will. According to political analyst Mark Halperin, he has shown "a persistent tendency to say silly, offensive, and off-putting things"; The New York Times writes that Biden's "weak filters make him capable of blurting out pretty much anything". Nor is Biden known for modesty; journalist James Traub has written that "Biden's vanity and his regard for his own gifts seem considerable even by the rarefied standards of the U.S. Senate." Political writer Howard Fineman has said that, "Biden is not an academic, he's not a theoretical thinker, he's a great street pol. He comes from a long line of working people in Scranton--auto salesmen, car dealers, people who know how to make a sale. He has that great Irish gift." Political columnist David S. Broder has viewed Biden as having grown since he came to Washington and since his failed 1988 presidential bid: "He responds to real people--that's been consistent throughout. And his ability to understand himself and deal with other politicians has gotten much much better." Traub concludes that "Biden is the kind of fundamentally happy person who can be as generous toward others as he is to himself." CANNOTANSWER | "Biden is the kind of fundamentally happy person who can be as generous toward others as he is to himself." | Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. ( ; born November 20, 1942) is an American politician who is the 46th and current president of the United States. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 47th vice president from 2009 to 2017 under Barack Obama and represented Delaware in the United States Senate from 1973 to 2009.
Biden was born and raised in Scranton, Pennsylvania, moving with his family to New Castle County, Delaware, in 1953 when he was ten. He studied at the University of Delaware before earning his law degree from Syracuse University in 1968. He was elected to the New Castle County Council in 1970 and became the sixth-youngest senator in U.S. history after he was elected to the United States Senate from Delaware in 1972, at age 29. Biden was the chair or ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for 12 years and was influential in foreign affairs during Obama's presidency. He also chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee from 1987 to 1995, dealing with drug policy, crime prevention, and civil liberties issues; led the effort to pass the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act and the Violence Against Women Act; and oversaw six U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings, including the contentious hearings for Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas. He ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988 and 2008. Biden was reelected to the Senate six times and was the fourth-most senior sitting senator at the time when he became Obama's vice president after they won the 2008 presidential election, defeating John McCain and his running mate Sarah Palin. Obama and Biden were reelected in 2012, defeating Mitt Romney and his running mate Paul Ryan.
During eight years as vice president, Biden leaned on his Senate experience and frequently represented the administration in negotiations with congressional Republicans, including on the Budget Control Act of 2011, which resolved a debt ceiling crisis, and the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, which addressed the impending "fiscal cliff". He also oversaw infrastructure spending in 2009 to counteract the Great Recession. On foreign policy, Biden was a close counselor to the president and took a leading role in designing the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq in 2011. In 2017, Obama awarded Biden the Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction.
Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris defeated incumbent president Donald Trump and vice president Mike Pence in the 2020 presidential election. He is the oldest president and the first to have a female vice president. His early presidential activity centered around proposing, lobbying for, and signing into law the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 to help the United States recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing recession, as well as a series of executive orders. Biden's orders addressed the pandemic and reversed several Trump administration policies, including rejoining the Paris Agreement on climate change and accepting new applications for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients, although a federal judge blocked the latter. He completed the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan by September 2021. During the withdrawal, the Afghan government collapsed and the Taliban seized control. Biden proposed the Build Back Better Plan, aspects of which were incorporated into the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which Biden signed into law in November 2021.
Early life (1942–1965)
Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was born on November 20, 1942, at St. Mary's Hospital in Scranton, Pennsylvania, to Catherine Eugenia "Jean" Biden (née Finnegan) and Joseph Robinette Biden Sr. The oldest child in a Catholic family, he has a sister, Valerie, and two brothers, Francis and James. Jean was of Irish descent, while Joseph Sr. had English, French, and Irish ancestry.
Biden's father had been wealthy, but suffered financial setbacks around the time Biden was born, and for several years the family lived with Biden's maternal grandparents. Scranton fell into economic decline during the 1950s and Biden's father could not find steady work. Beginning in 1953 when Biden was ten, the family lived in an apartment in Claymont, Delaware, before moving to a house in nearby Mayfield. Biden Sr. later became a successful used-car salesman, maintaining the family in a middle-class lifestyle.
At Archmere Academy in Claymont, Biden played baseball and was a standout halfback and wide receiver on the high school football team. Though a poor student, he was class president in his junior and senior years. He graduated in 1961. At the University of Delaware in Newark, Biden briefly played freshman football and, as an unexceptional student, earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1965 with a double major in history and political science and a minor in English.
Biden has a stutter, which has improved since his early twenties. He says he reduced it by reciting poetry before a mirror, but some observers suggested it affected his performance in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential debates.
Marriages, law school, and early career (1966–1973)
On August 27, 1966, Biden married Neilia Hunter (19421972), a student at Syracuse University, after overcoming her parents' reluctance for her to wed a Roman Catholic. Their wedding was held in a Catholic church in Skaneateles, New York. They had three children: Joseph R. "Beau" Biden III (19692015), Robert Hunter Biden (born 1970), and Naomi Christina "Amy" Biden (19711972).
In 1968, Biden earned a Juris Doctor from Syracuse University College of Law, ranked 76th in his class of 85, after failing a course due to an acknowledged "mistake" when he plagiarized a law review article for a paper he wrote in his first year at law school. He was admitted to the Delaware bar in 1969.
Biden had not openly supported or opposed the Vietnam War until he ran for Senate and opposed Nixon's conduct of the war. While studying at the University of Delaware and Syracuse University, Biden obtained five student draft deferments, at a time when most draftees were sent to the Vietnam War. In 1968, based on a physical examination, he was given a conditional medical deferment; in 2008, a spokesperson for Biden said his having had "asthma as a teenager" was the reason for the deferment.
In 1968, Biden clerked at a Wilmington law firm headed by prominent local Republican William Prickett and, he later said, "thought of myself as a Republican". He disliked incumbent Democratic Delaware governor Charles L. Terry's conservative racial politics and supported a more liberal Republican, Russell W. Peterson, who defeated Terry in 1968. Biden was recruited by local Republicans but registered as an Independent because of his distaste for Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon.
In 1969, Biden practiced law first as a public defender and then at a firm headed by a locally active Democrat who named him to the Democratic Forum, a group trying to reform and revitalize the state party; Biden subsequently reregistered as a Democrat. He and another attorney also formed a law firm. Corporate law, however, did not appeal to him, and criminal law did not pay well. He supplemented his income by managing properties.
In 1970, Biden ran for the 4th district seat on the New Castle County Council on a liberal platform that included support for public housing in the suburbs. The seat had been held by Republican Henry R. Folsom, who was running in the 5th District following a reapportionment of council districts. Biden won the general election by defeating Republican Lawrence T. Messick, and took office on January 5, 1971. He served until January 1, 1973, and was succeeded by Democrat Francis R. Swift. During his time on the county council, Biden opposed large highway projects, which he argued might disrupt Wilmington neighborhoods.
1972 U.S. Senate campaign in Delaware
In 1972, Biden defeated Republican incumbent J. Caleb Boggs to become the junior U.S. senator from Delaware. He was the only Democrat willing to challenge Boggs. With minimal campaign funds, he was given no chance of winning. Family members managed and staffed the campaign, which relied on meeting voters face-to-face and hand-distributing position papers, an approach made feasible by Delaware's small size. He received help from the AFL–CIO and Democratic pollster Patrick Caddell. His platform focused on the environment, withdrawal from Vietnam, civil rights, mass transit, equitable taxation, health care, and public dissatisfaction with "politics as usual". A few months before the election, Biden trailed Boggs by almost thirty percentage points, but his energy, attractive young family, and ability to connect with voters' emotions worked to his advantage, and he won with 50.5 percent of the vote. At the time of his election, he was still 29 years old, but reached the constitutionally required age of 30 before he was sworn in as Senator.
Death of wife and daughter
On December 18, 1972, a few weeks after the election, Biden's wife Neilia and one-year-old daughter Naomi were killed in an automobile accident while Christmas shopping in Hockessin, Delaware. Neilia's station wagon was hit by a semi-trailer truck as she pulled out from an intersection. Their sons Beau (aged3) and Hunter (aged2) survived the accident and were taken to the hospital in fair condition, Beau with a broken leg and other wounds and Hunter with a minor skull fracture and other head injuries. Biden considered resigning to care for them, but Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield persuaded him not to.
Years later, Biden said he had heard that the truck driver allegedly drank alcohol before the collision. The driver's family denied that claim, and the police never substantiated it. Biden later apologized to the family. The accident had filled him with anger and religious doubt. He wrote that he "felt God had played a horrible trick" on him, and he had trouble focusing on work.
Second marriage
Biden credits his second wife, teacher Jill Tracy Jacobs, with the renewal of his interest in politics and life; they met in 1975 on a blind date and were married at the United Nations chapel in New York on June 17, 1977. They spent their honeymoon at Lake Balaton in the Hungarian People's Republic, behind the Iron Curtain. They are Roman Catholics and attend Mass at St. Joseph's on the Brandywine in Greenville, Delaware. Their daughter Ashley Biden (born 1981) is a social worker. She is married to physician Howard Krein. Beau Biden became an Army Judge Advocate in Iraq and later Delaware Attorney General; he died of brain cancer in 2015. Hunter Biden is a Washington lobbyist and investment adviser.
Teaching
From 1991 to 2008, as an adjunct professor, Biden co-taught a seminar on constitutional law at Widener University School of Law. The seminar often had a waiting list. Biden sometimes flew back from overseas to teach the class.
U.S. Senate (1973–2009)
Senate activities
In January 1973, secretary of the Senate Francis R. Valeo swore Biden in at the Delaware Division of the Wilmington Medical Center. Present were his sons Beau (whose leg was still in traction from the automobile accident) and Hunter and other family members. At 30, he was the sixth-youngest senator in U.S. history.
To see his sons, Biden traveled by train between his Delaware home and D.C.—74 minutes each way—and maintained this habit throughout his 36 years in the Senate.
During his early years in the Senate, Biden focused on consumer protection and environmental issues and called for greater government accountability. In a 1974 interview, he described himself as liberal on civil rights and liberties, senior citizens' concerns and healthcare but conservative on other issues, including abortion and military conscription.
In his first decade in the Senate, Biden focused on arms control. After Congress failed to ratify the SALT II Treaty signed in 1979 by Soviet general secretary Leonid Brezhnev and President Jimmy Carter, Biden met with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko to communicate American concerns and secured changes that addressed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's objections. When the Reagan administration wanted to interpret the 1972 SALT I treaty loosely to allow development of the Strategic Defense Initiative, Biden argued for strict adherence to the treaty. He received considerable attention when he excoriated Secretary of State George Shultz at a Senate hearing for the Reagan administration's support of South Africa despite its continued policy of apartheid.
Biden became ranking minority member of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1981. In 1984, he was a Democratic floor manager for the successful passage of the Comprehensive Crime Control Act. His supporters praised him for modifying some of the law's worst provisions, and it was his most important legislative accomplishment to that time. In 1994, Biden helped pass the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, also known as the Biden Crime Law, which included a ban on assault weapons, and the Violence Against Women Act, which he has called his most significant legislation. The 1994 crime law was unpopular among progressives and criticized for resulting in mass incarceration; in 2019, Biden called his role in passing the bill a "big mistake", citing its policy on crack cocaine and saying that the bill "trapped an entire generation".
In 1993, Biden voted for a provision that deemed homosexuality incompatible with military life, thereby banning gays from serving in the armed forces. In 1996, he voted for the Defense of Marriage Act, which prohibited the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages, thereby barring individuals in such marriages from equal protection under federal law and allowing states to do the same. In 2015, the act was ruled unconstitutional in Obergefell v. Hodges.
Elected to the Senate in 1972, Biden was reelected in 1978, 1984, 1990, 1996, 2002, and 2008, regularly receiving about 60% of the vote. He was junior senator to William Roth, who was first elected in 1970, until Roth was defeated in 2000. , he was the 18th-longest-serving senator in U.S. history.
Opposition to busing
In the mid-1970s, Biden was one of the Senate's strongest opponents of race-integration busing. His Delaware constituents strongly opposed it, and such opposition nationwide later led his party to mostly abandon school integration policies. In his first Senate campaign, Biden had expressed support for busing to remedy de jure segregation, as in the South, but opposed its use to remedy de facto segregation arising from racial patterns of neighborhood residency, as in Delaware; he opposed a proposed constitutional amendment banning busing entirely.
In May 1974, Biden voted to table a proposal containing anti-busing and anti-desegregation clauses but later voted for a modified version containing a qualification that it was not intended to weaken the judiciary's power to enforce the 5th Amendment and 14th Amendment. In 1975, he supported a proposal that would have prevented the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare from cutting federal funds to districts that refused to integrate; he said busing was a "bankrupt idea [violating] the cardinal rule of common sense" and that his opposition would make it easier for other liberals to follow suit. At the same time he supported initiatives on housing, job opportunities and voting rights. Biden supported a measure forbidding the use of federal funds for transporting students beyond the school closest to them. In 1977, he co-sponsored an amendment closing loopholes in that measure, which President Carter signed into law in 1978.
Brain surgeries
In February 1988, after several episodes of increasingly severe neck pain, Biden was taken by ambulance to Walter Reed Army Medical Center for surgery to correct a leaking intracranial berry aneurysm. While recuperating, he suffered a pulmonary embolism, a serious complication. After a second aneurysm was surgically repaired in May, Biden's recuperation kept him away from the Senate for seven months.
Senate Judiciary Committee
Biden was a longtime member of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary. He chaired it from 1987 to 1995 and was a ranking minority member from 1981 to 1987 and again from 1995 to 1997.
As chair, Biden presided over two highly contentious U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings. When Robert Bork was nominated in 1988, Biden reversed his approvalgiven in an interview the previous yearof a hypothetical Bork nomination. Conservatives were angered, but at the hearings' close Biden was praised for his fairness, humor, and courage. Rejecting the arguments of some Bork opponents, Biden framed his objections to Bork in terms of the conflict between Bork's strong originalism and the view that the U.S. Constitution provides rights to liberty and privacy beyond those explicitly enumerated in its text. Bork's nomination was rejected in the committee by a 9–5 vote and then in the full Senate, 58–42.
During Clarence Thomas's nomination hearings in 1991, Biden's questions on constitutional issues were often convoluted to the point that Thomas sometimes lost track of them, and Thomas later wrote that Biden's questions were akin to "beanballs". After the committee hearing closed, the public learned that Anita Hill, a University of Oklahoma law school professor, had accused Thomas of making unwelcome sexual comments when they had worked together. Biden had known of some of these charges, but initially shared them only with the committee because Hill was then unwilling to testify. The committee hearing was reopened and Hill testified, but Biden did not permit testimony from other witnesses, such as a woman who had made similar charges and experts on harassment, saying he wanted to preserve Thomas's privacy and the hearings' decency. The full Senate confirmed Thomas by a 52–48 vote, with Biden opposed. Liberal legal advocates and women's groups felt strongly that Biden had mishandled the hearings and not done enough to support Hill. Biden later sought out women to serve on the Judiciary Committee and emphasized women's issues in the committee's legislative agenda. In 2019, he told Hill he regretted his treatment of her, but Hill said afterward she remained unsatisfied.
Biden was critical of Independent Counsel Ken Starr during the 1990s Whitewater controversy and Lewinsky scandal investigations, saying "it's going to be a cold day in hell" before another independent counsel would be granted similar powers. He voted to acquit during the impeachment of President Clinton. During the 2000s, Biden sponsored bankruptcy legislation sought by credit card issuers. Clinton vetoed the bill in 2000, but it passed in 2005 as the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act, with Biden one of only 18 Democrats to vote for it, while leading Democrats and consumer rights organizations opposed it. As a senator, Biden strongly supported increased Amtrak funding and rail security.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Biden was a longtime member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He became its ranking minority member in 1997 and chaired it from June 2001 to 2003 and 2007 to 2009. His positions were generally liberal internationalist. He collaborated effectively with Republicans and sometimes went against elements of his own party. During this time he met with at least 150 leaders from 60 countries and international organizations, becoming a well-known Democratic voice on foreign policy.
Biden voted against authorization for the Gulf War in 1991, siding with 45 of the 55 Democratic senators; he said the U.S. was bearing almost all the burden in the anti-Iraq coalition.
Biden became interested in the Yugoslav Wars after hearing about Serbian abuses during the Croatian War of Independence in 1991. Once the Bosnian War broke out, Biden was among the first to call for the "lift and strike" policy of lifting the arms embargo, training Bosnian Muslims and supporting them with NATO air strikes, and investigating war crimes. The George H. W. Bush administration and Clinton administration were both reluctant to implement the policy, fearing Balkan entanglement. In April 1993, Biden spent a week in the Balkans and held a tense three-hour meeting with Serbian leader Slobodan Milošević. Biden said he had told Milošević, "I think you're a damn war criminal and you should be tried as one."
Biden wrote an amendment in 1992 to compel the Bush administration to arm the Bosnian Muslims, but deferred in 1994 to a somewhat softer stance the Clinton administration preferred, before signing on the following year to a stronger measure sponsored by Bob Dole and Joe Lieberman. The engagement led to a successful NATO peacekeeping effort. Biden has called his role in affecting Balkans policy in the mid-1990s his "proudest moment in public life" related to foreign policy.
As chair, Biden contributed to successfully encouraging the Clinton administration to commit the resources and political capital to broker what became the 1998 Good Friday Agreement between the governments of Ireland and the United Kingdom through the Northern Ireland peace process.
On September 3, 1998, the resigning former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter had, according to Barton Gellman, accused the Clinton administration of obstructing weapons inspections in Iraq. Biden joined many other Senate Democrats and "amplified on the Clinton administration's counterattack against former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter." He questioned whether Ritter was trying to "appropriate the power 'to decide when to pull the trigger' of military force against Iraq", and said that the Secretary of State would also have to consider the opinion of allies, the UNSC, and public opinion, before any intervention in Iraq. In a Washington Post op-ed later that month, Biden criticized a unilateral "confrontation-based policy" but praised the idea of asking whether intervention might be necessary at some point, though he said it was "above the pay grade" of one weapons inspector.
In 1999, during the Kosovo War, Biden supported the 1999 NATO bombing of FR Yugoslavia. He and Senator John McCain co-sponsored the McCain-Biden Kosovo Resolution, which called on Clinton to use all necessary force, including ground troops, to confront Milošević over Yugoslav actions toward ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.
Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq
Biden was a strong supporter of the War in Afghanistan, saying, "Whatever it takes, we should do it." As head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he said in 2002 that Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was a threat to national security and there was no other option than to "eliminate" that threat. In October 2002, he voted in favor of the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq, approving the U.S. invasion of Iraq. As chair of the committee, he assembled a series of witnesses to testify in favor of the authorization. They gave testimony grossly misrepresenting the intent, history, and status of Saddam and his secular government, which was an avowed enemy of al-Qaida, and touted Iraq's fictional possession of weapons of mass destruction. Biden eventually became a critic of the war and viewed his vote and role as a "mistake", but did not push for withdrawal. He supported the appropriations for the occupation, but argued that the war should be internationalized, that more soldiers were needed, and that the Bush administration should "level with the American people" about its cost and length.
By late 2006, Biden's stance had shifted considerably. He opposed the troop surge of 2007, saying General David Petraeus was "dead, flat wrong" in believing the surge could work. Biden instead advocated dividing Iraq into a loose federation of three ethnic states. In November 2006, Biden and Leslie H. Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, released a comprehensive strategy to end sectarian violence in Iraq. Rather than continue the existing approach or withdrawing, the plan called for "a third way": federalizing Iraq and giving Kurds, Shiites, and Sunnis "breathing room" in their own regions. In September 2007, a non-binding resolution endorsing the plan passed the Senate, but the idea was unfamiliar, had no political constituency, and failed to gain traction. Iraq's political leadership denounced the resolution as de facto partitioning of the country, and the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad issued a statement distancing itself from it. In May 2008, Biden sharply criticized President George W. Bush's speech to Israel's Knesset in which Bush compared some Democrats to Western leaders who appeased Hitler before World WarII; Biden called the speech "bullshit", "malarkey", and "outrageous". He later apologized for his language.
Presidential campaigns 1988 and 2008
1988 campaign
Biden formally declared his candidacy for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination on June 9, 1987. He was considered a strong candidate because of his moderate image, his speaking ability, his high profile as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee at the upcoming Robert Bork Supreme Court nomination hearings, and his appeal to Baby Boomers; he would have been the second-youngest person elected president, after John F. Kennedy. He raised more in the first quarter of 1987 than any other candidate.
By August his campaign's messaging had become confused due to staff rivalries, and in September, he was accused of plagiarizing a speech by British Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock. Biden's speech had similar lines about being the first person in his family to attend university. Biden had credited Kinnock with the formulation on previous occasions, but did not on two occasions in late August. Kinnock himself was more forgiving; the two men met in 1988, forming an enduring friendship.
Earlier that year he had also used passages from a 1967 speech by Robert F. Kennedy (for which his aides took blame) and a short phrase from John F. Kennedy's inaugural address; two years earlier he had used a 1976 passage by Hubert Humphrey. Biden responded that politicians often borrow from one another without giving credit, and that one of his rivals for the nomination, Jesse Jackson, had called him to point out that he (Jackson) had used the same material by Humphrey that Biden had used.
A few days later, an incident in law school in which Biden drew text from a Fordham Law Review article with inadequate citations was publicized. He was required to repeat the course and passed with high marks. At Biden's request the Delaware Supreme Court's Board of Professional Responsibility reviewed the incident and concluded that he had violated no rules.
Biden has made several false or exaggerated claims about his early life: that he had earned three degrees in college, that he attended law school on a full scholarship, that he had graduated in the top half of his class, and that he had marched in the civil rights movement. The limited amount of other news about the presidential race amplified these disclosures and on September 23, 1987, Biden withdrew his candidacy, saying it had been overrun by "the exaggerated shadow" of his past mistakes.
2008 campaign
After exploring the possibility of a run in several previous cycles, in January 2007, Biden declared his candidacy in the 2008 elections. During his campaign, Biden focused on the Iraq War, his record as chairman of major Senate committees, and his foreign-policy experience. In mid-2007, Biden stressed his foreign policy expertise compared to Obama's. Biden was noted for his one-liners during the campaign; in one debate he said of Republican candidate Rudy Giuliani: "There's only three things he mentions in a sentence: a noun, and a verb and 9/11."
Biden had difficulty raising funds, struggled to draw people to his rallies, and failed to gain traction against the high-profile candidacies of Obama and Senator Hillary Clinton. He never rose above single digits in national polls of the Democratic candidates. In the first contest on January 3, 2008, Biden placed fifth in the Iowa caucuses, garnering slightly less than one percent of the state delegates. He withdrew from the race that evening.
Despite its lack of success, Biden's 2008 campaign raised his stature in the political world. In particular, it changed the relationship between Biden and Obama. Although they had served together on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, they had not been close: Biden resented Obama's quick rise to political stardom, while Obama viewed Biden as garrulous and patronizing. Having gotten to know each other during 2007, Obama appreciated Biden's campaign style and appeal to working-class voters, and Biden said he became convinced Obama was "the real deal".
2008 vice-presidential campaign
Shortly after Biden withdrew from the presidential race, Obama privately told him he was interested in finding an important place for Biden in his administration. Biden declined Obama's first request to vet him for the vice-presidential slot, fearing the vice presidency would represent a loss in status and voice from his Senate position, but he later changed his mind. In early August, Obama and Biden met in secret to discuss the possibility, and developed a strong personal rapport. On August 22, 2008, Obama announced that Biden would be his running mate. The New York Times reported that the strategy behind the choice reflected a desire to fill out the ticket with someone with foreign policy and national security experience—and not to help the ticket win a swing state or to emphasize Obama's "change" message. Others pointed out Biden's appeal to middle-class and blue-collar voters, as well as his willingness to aggressively challenge Republican nominee John McCain in a way that Obama seemed uncomfortable doing at times. In accepting Obama's offer, Biden ruled out running for president again in 2016, but his comments in later years seemed to back off that stance, as he did not want to diminish his political power by appearing uninterested in advancement. Biden was officially nominated for vice president on August 27 by voice vote at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver.
Biden's vice-presidential campaigning gained little media visibility, as far greater press attention was focused on the Republican running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. During one week in September 2008, for instance, the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism found that Biden was included in only five percent of coverage of the race, far less than the other three candidates on the tickets received. Biden nevertheless focused on campaigning in economically challenged areas of swing states and trying to win over blue-collar Democrats, especially those who had supported Hillary Clinton. Biden attacked McCain heavily despite a long-standing personal friendship. He said, "That guy I used to know, he's gone. It literally saddens me." As the financial crisis of 2007–2010 reached a peak with the liquidity crisis of September 2008 and the proposed bailout of the United States financial system became a major factor in the campaign, Biden voted in favor of the $700billion Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, which went on to pass in the Senate 74–25.
On October 2, 2008, Biden participated in the vice-presidential debate with Palin at Washington University in St. Louis. Post-debate polls found that while Palin exceeded many voters' expectations, Biden had won the debate overall. During the campaign's final days, he focused on less populated, older, less well-off areas of battleground states, especially Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, where polling indicated he was popular and where Obama had not campaigned or performed well in the Democratic primaries. He also campaigned in some normally Republican states, as well as in areas with large Catholic populations.
Under instructions from the campaign, Biden kept his speeches succinct and tried to avoid offhand remarks, such as one he made about Obama's being tested by a foreign power soon after taking office, which had attracted negative attention. Privately, Biden's remarks frustrated Obama. "How many times is Biden gonna say something stupid?" he asked. Obama campaign staffers referred to Biden blunders as "Joe bombs" and kept Biden uninformed about strategy discussions, which in turn irked Biden. Relations between the two campaigns became strained for a month, until Biden apologized on a call to Obama and the two built a stronger partnership. Publicly, Obama strategist David Axelrod said Biden's high popularity ratings had outweighed any unexpected comments. Nationally, Biden had a 60% favorability rating in a Pew Research Center poll, compared to Palin's 44%.
On November 4, 2008, Obama and Biden were elected with 53% of the popular vote and 365 electoral votes to McCain–Palin's 173.
At the same time Biden was running for vice president he was also running for reelection to the Senate, as permitted by Delaware law. On November4, he was reelected to the Senate, defeating Republican Christine O'Donnell. Having won both races, Biden made a point of waiting to resign from the Senate until he was sworn in for his seventh term on January 6, 2009. He became the youngest senator ever to start a seventh full term, and said, "In all my life, the greatest honor bestowed upon me has been serving the people of Delaware as their United States senator." Biden cast his last Senate vote on January 15, supporting the release of the second $350billion for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, and resigned from the Senate later that day. In an emotional farewell, Biden told the Senate: "Every good thing I have seen happen here, every bold step taken in the 36-plus years I have been here, came not from the application of pressure by interest groups, but through the maturation of personal relationships." Delaware Governor Ruth Ann Minner appointed longtime Biden adviser Ted Kaufman to fill Biden's vacated Senate seat.
Vice presidency (2009–2017)
First term, 2009–2013
Biden said he intended to eliminate some explicit roles assumed by George W. Bush's vice president, Dick Cheney, and did not intend to emulate any previous vice presidency. He chaired Obama's transition team and headed an initiative to improve middle-class economic well-being. In early January 2009, in his last act as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, he visited the leaders of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and on January 20 he was sworn in as the 47th vice president of the United Statesthe first vice president from Delaware and the first Roman Catholic vice president.
Obama was soon comparing Biden to a basketball player "who does a bunch of things that don't show up in the stat sheet". In May, Biden visited Kosovo and affirmed the U.S. position that its "independence is irreversible". Biden lost an internal debate to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about sending 21,000 new troops to Afghanistan, but his skepticism was valued, and in 2009, Biden's views gained more influence as Obama reconsidered his Afghanistan strategy. Biden visited Iraq about every two months, becoming the administration's point man in delivering messages to Iraqi leadership about expected progress there. More generally, overseeing Iraq policy became Biden's responsibility: Obama was said to have said, "Joe, you do Iraq." Biden said Iraq "could be one of the great achievements of this administration". His January 2010 visit to Iraq in the midst of turmoil over banned candidates from the upcoming Iraqi parliamentary election resulted in 59 of the several hundred candidates being reinstated by the Iraqi government two days later. By 2012, Biden had made eight trips there, but his oversight of U.S. policy in Iraq receded with the exit of U.S. troops in 2011.
Biden oversaw infrastructure spending from the Obama stimulus package intended to help counteract the ongoing recession. During this period, Biden was satisfied that no major instances of waste or corruption had occurred, and when he completed that role in February 2011, he said the number of fraud incidents with stimulus monies had been less than one percent.
In late April 2009, Biden's off-message response to a question during the beginning of the swine flu outbreak, that he would advise family members against traveling on airplanes or subways, led to a swift retraction by the White House. The remark revived Biden's reputation for gaffes. Confronted with rising unemployment through July 2009, Biden acknowledged that the administration had "misread how bad the economy was" but maintained confidence the stimulus package would create many more jobs once the pace of expenditures picked up. On March 23, 2010, a microphone picked up Biden telling the president that his signing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was "a big fucking deal" during live national news telecasts. Despite their different personalities, Obama and Biden formed a friendship, partly based around Obama's daughter Sasha and Biden's granddaughter Maisy, who attended Sidwell Friends School together.
Members of the Obama administration said Biden's role in the White House was to be a contrarian and force others to defend their positions. Rahm Emanuel, White House chief of staff, said that Biden helped counter groupthink. White House press secretary Jay Carney, Biden's former communications director, said Biden played the role of "the bad guy in the Situation Room". Another senior Obama advisor said Biden "is always prepared to be the skunk at the family picnic to make sure we are as intellectually honest as possible." Obama said, "The best thing about Joe is that when we get everybody together, he really forces people to think and defend their positions, to look at things from every angle, and that is very valuable for me." The Bidens maintained a relaxed atmosphere at their official residence in Washington, often entertaining their grandchildren, and regularly returned to their home in Delaware.
Biden campaigned heavily for Democrats in the 2010 midterm elections, maintaining an attitude of optimism in the face of predictions of large-scale losses for the party. Following big Republican gains in the elections and the departure of White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, Biden's past relationships with Republicans in Congress became more important. He led the successful administration effort to gain Senate approval for the New START treaty. In December 2010, Biden's advocacy for a middle ground, followed by his negotiations with Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, were instrumental in producing the administration's compromise tax package that included a temporary extension of the Bush tax cuts. Biden then took the lead in trying to sell the agreement to a reluctant Democratic caucus in Congress. The package passed as the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010.
In March 2011, Obama delegated Biden to lead negotiations with Congress to resolve federal spending levels for the rest of the year and avoid a government shutdown. By May 2011, a "Biden panel" with six congressional members was trying to reach a bipartisan deal on raising the U.S. debt ceiling as part of an overall deficit reduction plan. The U.S. debt ceiling crisis developed over the next few months, but Biden's relationship with McConnell again proved key in breaking a deadlock and bringing about a deal to resolve it, in the form of the Budget Control Act of 2011, signed on August 2, 2011, the same day an unprecedented U.S. default had loomed. Biden had spent the most time of anyone in the administration bargaining with Congress on the debt question, and one Republican staffer said, "Biden's the only guy with real negotiating authority, and [McConnell] knows that his word is good. He was a key to the deal."
Some reports suggest that Biden opposed proceeding with the May 2011 U.S. mission to kill Osama bin Laden, lest failure adversely affect Obama's reelection prospects. He took the lead in notifying Congressional leaders of the successful outcome.
Reelection
In October 2010, Biden said Obama had asked him to remain as his running mate for the 2012 presidential election, but with Obama's popularity on the decline, White House Chief of Staff William M. Daley conducted some secret polling and focus group research in late 2011 on the idea of replacing Biden on the ticket with Hillary Clinton. The notion was dropped when the results showed no appreciable improvement for Obama, and White House officials later said Obama had never entertained the idea.
Biden's May 2012 statement that he was "absolutely comfortable" with same-sex marriage gained considerable public attention in comparison to Obama's position, which had been described as "evolving". Biden made his statement without administration consent, and Obama and his aides were quite irked, since Obama had planned to shift position several months later, in the build-up to the party convention, and since Biden had previously counseled the president to avoid the issue lest key Catholic voters be offended. Gay rights advocates seized upon Biden's statement, and within days, Obama announced that he too supported same-sex marriage, an action in part forced by Biden's remarks. Biden apologized to Obama in private for having spoken out, while Obama acknowledged publicly it had been done from the heart. The incident showed that Biden still struggled at times with message discipline, as Time wrote, "Everyone knows Biden's greatest strength is also his greatest weakness." Relations were also strained between the vice presidential and presidential campaigns when Biden appeared to use his position to bolster fundraising contacts for a possible run for president in 2016, and he ended up being excluded from Obama campaign strategy meetings.
The Obama campaign nevertheless valued Biden as a retail-level politician who could connect with disaffected blue-collar workers and rural residents, and he had a heavy schedule of appearances in swing states as the reelection campaign began in earnest in spring 2012. An August 2012 remark before a mixed-race audience that Republican proposals to relax Wall Street regulations would "put y'all back in chains" led to a similar analysis of Biden's face-to-face campaigning abilities versus his tendency to go off track. The Los Angeles Times wrote, "Most candidates give the same stump speech over and over, putting reporters if not the audience to sleep. But during any Biden speech, there might be a dozen moments to make press handlers cringe, and prompt reporters to turn to each other with amusement and confusion." Time magazine wrote that Biden often went too far and "Along with the familiar Washington mix of neediness and overconfidence, Biden's brain is wired for more than the usual amount of goofiness."
Biden was nominated for a second term as vice president at the 2012 Democratic National Convention in September. Debating his Republican counterpart, Representative Paul Ryan, in the vice-presidential debate on October 11 he made a spirited and emotional defense of the Obama administration's record and energetically attacked the Republican ticket. On November 6, Obama and Biden won reelection over Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan with 332 of 538 Electoral College votes and 51% of the popular vote.
In December 2012, Obama named Biden to head the Gun Violence Task Force, created to address the causes of gun violence in the United States in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Later that month, during the final days before the United States fell off the "fiscal cliff", Biden's relationship with McConnell again proved important as the two negotiated a deal that led to the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 being passed at the start of 2013. It made many of the Bush tax cuts permanent but raised rates on upper income levels.
Second term, 2013–2017
Biden was inaugurated to a second term on January 20, 2013, at a small ceremony at Number One Observatory Circle, his official residence, with Justice Sonia Sotomayor presiding (a public ceremony took place on January 21).
Biden played little part in discussions that led to the October 2013 passage of the Continuing Appropriations Act, 2014, which resolved the federal government shutdown of 2013 and the debt-ceiling crisis of 2013. This was because Senate majority leader Harry Reid and other Democratic leaders cut him out of any direct talks with Congress, feeling Biden had given too much away during previous negotiations.
Biden's Violence Against Women Act was reauthorized again in 2013. The act led to related developments, such as the White House Council on Women and Girls, begun in the first term, as well as the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault, begun in January 2014 with Biden and Valerie Jarrett as co-chairs. Biden discussed federal guidelines on sexual assault on university campuses while giving a speech at the University of New Hampshire. He said, "No means no, if you're drunk or you're sober. No means no if you're in bed, in a dorm or on the street. No means no even if you said yes at first and you changed your mind. No means no."
Biden favored arming Syria's rebel fighters. As Iraq fell apart during 2014, renewed attention was paid to the Biden-Gelb Iraqi federalization plan of 2006, with some observers suggesting Biden had been right all along. Biden himself said the U.S. would follow ISIL "to the gates of hell". Biden had close relationships with several Latin American leaders and was assigned a focus on the region during the administration; he visited the region 16 times during his vice presidency, the most of any president or vice president.
In 2015, Speaker of the House John Boehner and Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell invited Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress without notifying the Obama administration. This defiance of protocol led Biden and more than 50 congressional Democrats to skip Netanyahu's speech. In August 2016, Biden visited Serbia, where he met with Serbian president Aleksandar Vučić and expressed his condolences for civilian victims of the bombing campaign during the Kosovo War. In Kosovo, he attended a ceremony renaming a highway after his son Beau, in honor of Beau's service to Kosovo in training its judges and prosecutors.
Biden never cast a tie-breaking vote in the Senate, making him the longest-serving vice president with this distinction.
Role in the 2016 presidential campaign
During his second term, Biden was often said to be preparing for a possible bid for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination. With his family, many friends, and donors encouraging him in mid-2015 to enter the race, and with Hillary Clinton's favorability ratings in decline at that time, Biden was reported to again be seriously considering the prospect and a "Draft Biden 2016" PAC was established.
, Biden was still uncertain about running. He felt his son's recent death had largely drained his emotional energy, and said, "nobody has a right... to seek that office unless they're willing to give it 110% of who they are." On October 21, speaking from a podium in the Rose Garden with his wife and Obama by his side, Biden announced his decision not to run for president in 2016. In January 2016, Biden affirmed that it was the right decision, but admitted to regretting not running for president "every day".
After Obama endorsed Hillary Clinton on June 9, 2016, Biden endorsed her later that day. Throughout the 2016 election, Biden strongly criticized Clinton's opponent, Donald Trump, in often colorful terms.
Subsequent activities (2017–2019)
After leaving the vice presidency, Biden became a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, while continuing to lead efforts to find treatments for cancer. In 2017 he wrote a memoir, Promise Me, Dad, and went on a book tour. Biden earned $15.6million in 2017–2018. In 2018, he gave a eulogy for Senator John McCain, praising McCain's embrace of American ideals and bipartisan friendships.
Biden remained in the public eye, endorsing candidates while continuing to comment on politics, climate change, and the presidency of Donald Trump. He also continued to speak out in favor of LGBT rights, continuing advocacy on an issue he had become more closely associated with during his vice presidency. In 2019, Biden criticized Brunei for its intention to implement Islamic laws that would allow death by stoning for adultery and homosexuality, calling it "appalling and immoral" and saying, "There is no excuse—not culture, not tradition—for this kind of hate and inhumanity." By 2019, Biden and his wife reported that their assets had increased to between $2.2 million and $8 million from speaking engagements and a contract to write a set of books.
2020 presidential campaign
Speculation and announcement
Between 2016 and 2019, media outlets often mentioned Biden as a likely candidate for president in 2020. When asked if he would run, he gave varied and ambivalent answers, saying "never say never". At one point he suggested he did not see a scenario where he would run again, but a few days later, he said, "I'll run if I can walk." A political action committee known as Time for Biden was formed in January 2018, seeking Biden's entry into the race. He finally launched his campaign on April 25, 2019, saying he was prompted to run, among other reasons, by his "sense of duty."
Campaign
In September 2019, it was reported that Trump had pressured Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate alleged wrongdoing by Biden and his son Hunter Biden. Despite the allegations, no evidence was produced of any wrongdoing by the Bidens. The media widely interpreted this pressure to investigate the Bidens as trying to hurt Biden's chances of winning the presidency, resulting in a political scandal and Trump's impeachment by the House of Representatives.
Beginning in 2019, Trump and his allies falsely accused Biden of getting the Ukrainian prosecutor general Viktor Shokin fired because he was supposedly pursuing an investigation into Burisma Holdings, which employed Hunter Biden. Biden was accused of withholding $1billion in aid from Ukraine in this effort. In 2015, Biden pressured the Ukrainian parliament to remove Shokin because the United States, the European Union and other international organizations considered Shokin corrupt and ineffective, and in particular because Shokin was not assertively investigating Burisma. The withholding of the $1billion in aid was part of this official policy. The Senate Homeland Security Committee and Senate Finance Committee, led by Republicans, investigated allegations of wrongdoing by the Bidens in Ukraine, ultimately releasing a report in September 2020 that detailed no evidence of wrongdoing by Joe Biden, and concluded that it was "not clear" whether Hunter Biden's role in Burisma "affected U.S. policy toward Ukraine".
In March 2019 and April 2019, Biden was accused by eight women of previous instances of inappropriate physical contact, such as embracing, touching or kissing. Biden had previously described himself as a "tactile politician" and admitted this behavior has caused trouble for him. In April 2019, Biden pledged to be more "respectful of people's personal space".
Throughout 2019, Biden stayed generally ahead of other Democrats in national polls. Despite this, he finished fourth in the Iowa caucuses, and eight days later, fifth in the New Hampshire primary. He performed better in the Nevada caucuses, reaching the 15% required for delegates, but still was behind Bernie Sanders by 21.6 percentage points. Making strong appeals to Black voters on the campaign trail and in the South Carolina debate, Biden won the South Carolina primary by more than 28 points. After the withdrawals and subsequent endorsements of candidates Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar, he made large gains in the March3 Super Tuesday primary elections. Biden won 18 of the next 26 contests, including Alabama, Arkansas, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia, putting him in the lead overall. Elizabeth Warren and Mike Bloomberg soon dropped out, and Biden expanded his lead with victories over Sanders in four states (Idaho, Michigan, Mississippi, and Missouri) on March 10.
In late March 2020, Tara Reade, one of the eight women who in 2019 had accused Biden of inappropriate physical contact, accused Biden of having sexually assaulted her in 1993. There were inconsistencies between Reade's 2019 and 2020 allegations. Biden and his campaign denied the sexual assault allegation.
When Sanders suspended his campaign on April 8, 2020, Biden became the Democratic Party's presumptive nominee for president. On April 13, Sanders endorsed Biden in a live-streamed discussion from their homes. Former President Barack Obama endorsed Biden the next day. In March 2020, Biden committed to choosing a woman as his running mate. In June, Biden met the 1,991-delegate threshold needed to secure the party's presidential nomination. On August 11, he announced U.S. Senator Kamala Harris of California as his running mate, making her the first African American and first South Asian American vice-presidential nominee on a major-party ticket.
On August 18, 2020, Biden was officially nominated at the 2020 Democratic National Convention as the Democratic Party nominee for president in the 2020 election.
Presidential transition
Biden was elected the 46th president of the United States in November 2020. He defeated the incumbent, Donald Trump, becoming the first candidate to defeat a sitting president since Bill Clinton defeated George H.W. Bush in 1992. Trump refused to concede, insisting the election had been "stolen" from him through "voter fraud", challenging the results in court and promoting numerous conspiracy theories about the voting and vote-counting processes, in an attempt to overturn the election results. Biden's transition was delayed by several weeks as the White House ordered federal agencies not to cooperate. On November23, General Services Administrator Emily W. Murphy formally recognized Biden as the apparent winner of the 2020 election and authorized the start of a transition process to the Biden administration.
On January 6, 2021, during Congress's electoral vote count, Trump told supporters gathered in front of the White House to march to the Capitol, saying, "We will never give up. We will never concede. It doesn't happen. You don't concede when there's theft involved." Soon after, they attacked the Capitol. During the insurrection at the Capitol, Biden addressed the nation, calling the events "an unprecedented assault unlike anything we've seen in modern times." He specifically called on Trump to "go on national television now to fulfill his oath and defend the Constitution and demand an end to this siege", adding, "it must end now." After the Capitol was cleared, Congress resumed its joint session and officially certified the election results with Pence declaring Biden and Harris the winners.
Presidency (2021–present)
Inauguration
Biden was inaugurated as the 46th president of the United States on January 20, 2021. At 78, he is the oldest person to have assumed the office. He is the second Catholic president (after John F. Kennedy) and the first president whose home state is Delaware. He is the second non-incumbent vice president (after Richard Nixon in 1968) to be elected president. He is also the first president from the Silent Generation.
Biden's inauguration was "a muted affair unlike any previous inauguration" due to COVID-19 precautions as well as massively increased security measures because of a threat of widespread civil unrest. Biden took the oath of office on the Capitol's west steps and gave an inaugural address, but there were no spectators on the Mall and no in-person parades or inaugural balls. Trump did not attend, becoming the first outgoing president since 1869 to not attend his successor's inauguration.
First 100 days
In his first two days as president, Biden signed 17 executive orders, more than most recent presidents did in their first 100 days. By his third day, orders had included rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement, ending the state of national emergency at the border with Mexico, directing the government to rejoin the World Health Organization, face mask requirements on federal property, measures to combat hunger in the United States, and revoking permits for the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. In his first two weeks in office, Biden signed more executive orders than any other president since Franklin D. Roosevelt had in their first month in office.
On February 4, 2021, the Biden administration announced that the United States was ending its support for the Saudi-led bombing campaign in Yemen. In his first visit to the State Department as president, Biden said "this war has to end" and that the conflict had created a "humanitarian and strategic catastrophe." On February 25, the Biden administration "struck a site in Syria used by two Iranian-backed militia groups in response to rocket attacks on American forces." This marked the first known action by the military under Biden.
On March 11, the first anniversary of COVID-19 being declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization, Biden signed into law the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, a $1.9 trillion economic stimulus relief package he proposed and lobbied for that aimed to speed up the United States' recovery from the economic and health effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing recession. The package included direct payments to most Americans, an extension of increased unemployment benefits, funds for vaccine distribution and school reopenings, support for small businesses and state and local governments, and expansions of health insurance subsidies and the child tax credit. Biden's initial proposal included an increase of the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour, but after Senate parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough determined that including the increase in a budget reconciliation bill would violate Senate rules, Democrats declined to pursue overruling her and removed the increase from the package.
Also in March, amid a rise in migrants entering the U.S. from Mexico, Biden told migrants, "Don't come over." He said that the U.S. was arranging a plan for migrants to "apply for asylum in place", without leaving their original locations. In the meantime, migrant adults "are being sent back", Biden said, in reference to the continuation of the Trump administration's Title 42 policy for quick deportations. Biden earlier announced that his administration would not deport unaccompanied migrant children; the rise in arrivals of such children exceeded the capacity of facilities meant to shelter them (before they were sent to sponsors), leading the Biden administration in March to direct the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help manage these children.
On April 14, Biden announced that the United States would delay the withdrawal of all troops from the war in Afghanistan until September 11, signalling an end to the country's direct military involvement in Afghanistan after nearly 20 years. In February 2020, the Trump administration had made a deal with the Taliban to completely withdraw U.S. forces by May 1, 2021. Biden's decision met with a wide range of reactions, from support and relief to trepidation at the possible collapse of the Afghan government without American support. On April 22–23, Biden held an international climate summit at which he announced that the U.S. would cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 50%–52% by 2030 compared to 2005 levels. Other countries also increased their pledges. If the pledges made at the summit are met, they will cut global greenhouse gas emissions by 2.6–3.7 Gte by 2030. On April 28, the eve of his 100th day in office, Biden delivered his first address to a joint session of Congress, in which he highlighted the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines and addressed withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, the murder of George Floyd, and the U.S. Capitol attack while urging Congress to pass comprehensive immigration, gun, and health care reform.
Rest of 2021
In May 2021, during a flareup in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, Biden expressed his support for Israel, saying "my party still supports Israel" amid disagreement from some Democrats. In June 2021, Biden took his first trip abroad as president. In eight days he visited Belgium, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. He attended a G7 summit, a NATO summit, and an EU summit, and held one-on-one talks with Russian president Vladimir Putin.
On June 17, Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act, which officially declared Juneteenth a federal holiday. Juneteenth is the first new federal holiday since Martin Luther King Jr. Day was declared a holiday in 1986. In July 2021, amid a slowing of the COVID-19 vaccination rate in the country and the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant, Biden said that the country has "a pandemic for those who haven't gotten the vaccination" and that it was therefore "gigantically important" for Americans to be vaccinated, touting the vaccines' effectiveness against hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19. He also criticized the prevalence of COVID-19 misinformation on social media, saying it was "killing people". In September 2021, Biden announced AUKUS, a security pact between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, to ensure "peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific over the long term"; the deal included nuclear-powered submarines built for Australia's use.
By the end of 2021, 40 of Biden's appointed judges to the federal judiciary had been confirmed, more than any president in their first year in office since Ronald Reagan. Biden has prioritized diversity in his judicial appointments more than any president in U.S. history, with the majority of appointments being women and people of color. Most of his appointments have been in blue states, making a limited impact since the courts in these states already traditionally lean liberal.
In the first eight months of his presidency, Biden's approval rating, according to Morning Consult polling, remained above 50%. In August, it began to decline and lowered into the low forties by December. The decline in his approval is attributed to the Afghanistan withdrawal, increasing hospitalizations from the Delta variant, high inflation and gas prices, disarray within the Democratic Party, and a general decline in popularity customary in politics.
Withdrawal from Afghanistan
American forces began withdrawing from Afghanistan in 2020, under the provisions of a February 2020 US-Taliban agreement that set a May 1, 2021, deadline. By April 2021, the State Department was urging American civilians in Afghanistan to leave as soon as possible. The Taliban began an offensive on May 1. As late as July, American intelligence assessments estimated Kabul would fall to the Taliban months or weeks after the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan. By early July, most American troops in Afghanistan had withdrawn. Biden addressed the withdrawal in July, saying, "The likelihood there's going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely."
On August 15, the Afghan government collapsed under the Taliban offensive, and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country. Biden reacted by ordering 6,000 American troops to assist in the evacuation of American personnel and Afghan allies. He was widely criticized for the manner of the withdrawal, with allegations of poor planning for the evacuation of Americans and Afghan allies, and for his silence and absence during the days before the collapse of the Afghan government.
On August 16, Biden addressed the "messy" situation, taking responsibility for it, and admitting that the situation "unfolded more quickly than we had anticipated". He defended his decision to withdraw, saying that Americans should not be "dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves," and blamed his predecessor Donald Trump, the Afghan president, and Afghan security forces for the speedy collapse.
On August 22, Biden said that his administration knew that ISIS-K was a "likely source" of threat. On August 26, a suicide bombing at the Kabul airport killed 13 U.S. service members and 169 Afghans. Biden declared to the attackers that the United States "will hunt you down and make you pay". On August 27, an American drone strike killed two ISIS-K targets, who were "planners and facilitators", according to a U.S. Army general. On August 29, another American drone strike killed 10 civilians, including seven children; the Defense Department initially claimed the strike was conducted on an Islamic State suicide bomber threatening Kabul Airport, but admitted the mistake on September 17 and apologized.
The U.S. military left Afghanistan on August 30, with Biden saying that the evacuation effort was an "extraordinary success", by extracting over 120,000 Americans, Afghans and other allies. He acknowledged that between "100 to 200" Americans who wanted to leave were left in Afghanistan, despite his August 18 pledge to stay in Afghanistan until all Americans who wanted to leave had left. The Biden administration, joining governments of almost 100 countries, said that the Taliban had given "assurances" that anyone "with travel authorization from [these] countries" would continue to be allowed to leave Afghanistan.
Economy
Biden entered office nine months into a recovery from the COVID-19 recession and his first year in office was characterized by robust growth in real GDP, employment, wages and stock market returns, amid significantly elevated inflation. Real GDP grew 5.7%, the fastest rate in 37 years. Amid record job creation, the unemployment rate fell at the fastest pace on record during the year. By the end of 2021, inflation reached a nearly 40-year high of 7.1%, which was partially offset by the highest wage and salary growth in at least 20 years. Income growth was particularly strong at the low end of the pay scale.
Infrastructure and climate
As part of Biden's Build Back Better agenda, in late March 2021, he proposed the American Jobs Plan, a $2 trillion package addressing issues including transport infrastructure, utilities infrastructure, broadband infrastructure, housing, schools, manufacturing, research and workforce development. After months of negotiations among Biden and lawmakers, in August 2021 the Senate passed a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill called the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, while the House, also in a bipartisan manner, approved that bill in early November 2021, covering infrastructure related to transport, utilities, and broadband. Biden signed the bill into law in mid-November 2021.
As COP26, scheduled for October 31 to November 12, 2021, approached, Biden increased his efforts to address climate change domestically and internationally. He promoted an agreement that the U.S. and the European Union cut methane emissions by a third by 2030 and tried to add dozens of other countries to the effort. He tried to convince China and Australia to do more. He convened an online Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate Change to press other countries to strengthen their climate policy. Biden pledged to double climate funding to developing countries by 2024. Also at COP26, the U.S. and China reached a deal on greenhouse gas emission reduction. The two countries are responsible for 40% of global emissions.
2022
In early 2022, Biden made efforts to change his public image after entering the year with low approval ratings, but they continued to fall, dipping to approximately 40% in aggregated polls by February.
In January, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, a moderate liberal nominated by Bill Clinton, announced he will be retiring from the Supreme Court. Breyer's retirement is expected to give Biden his first opportunity to nominate a Supreme Court justice. During his 2020 campaign, Biden vowed to nominate a Black woman to the court if a vacancy occurred, a promise he reiterated after the announcement of Breyer's retirement. In February, Biden nominated federal judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court.
Political positions
Biden is considered a moderate Democrat and a centrist, though more recently he has been seen as shifting to the left. He has a lifetime liberal 72% score from the Americans for Democratic Action through 2004, while the American Conservative Union gave him a lifetime conservative rating of 13% through 2008.
Biden supported the fiscal stimulus in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009; the Obama administration's proposed increase in infrastructure spending; subsidies for mass transit, including Amtrak, bus, and subway; and the reduced military spending in the Obama administration's fiscal year 2014 budget. He has proposed partially reversing the corporate tax cuts of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, saying that doing so would not hurt businesses' ability to hire. He voted for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Biden is a staunch supporter of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). He has promoted a plan to expand and build upon it, paid for by revenue gained from reversing some Trump administration tax cuts. Biden's plan aims to expand health insurance coverage to 97% of Americans, including by creating a public health insurance option.
Biden has supported same-sex marriage since 2012 and also supports Roe v. Wade and repealing the Hyde Amendment. He opposes drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and supports governmental funding to find new energy sources. As a senator, he forged deep relationships with police groups and was a chief proponent of a Police Officer's Bill of Rights measure that police unions supported but police chiefs opposed. As vice president, he served as a White House liaison to police.
Biden believes action must be taken on global warming. As a senator, he co-sponsored the Sense of the Senate resolution calling on the United States to take part in the United Nations climate negotiations and the Boxer–Sanders Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act, the most stringent climate bill in the United States Senate. He wants to achieve a carbon-free power sector in the U.S. by 2035 and stop emissions completely by 2050. His program includes reentering the Paris Agreement, nature conservation, and green building. Biden wants to pressure China and other countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions by carbon tariffs if necessary.
Biden has said the U.S. needs to "get tough" on China and build "a united front of U.S. allies and partners to confront China's abusive behaviors and human rights violations". He has called China the "most serious competitor" that poses challenges to the United States' "prosperity, security, and democratic values". Biden has voiced concerns about China's "coercive and unfair" economic practices and human rights abuses in the Xinjiang region to the Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping. He also pledged to sanction and commercially restrict Chinese government officials and entities who carry out repression.
Biden has said he is against regime change, but for providing non-military support to opposition movements. He opposed direct U.S. intervention in Libya, voted against U.S. participation in the Gulf War, voted in favor of the Iraq War, and supports a two-state solution in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Biden has pledged to end U.S. support for the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen and to reevaluate the United States' relationship with Saudi Arabia. He has called North Korea a "paper tiger". As vice president, Biden supported Obama's Cuban thaw. He has said that, as president, he would restore U.S. membership in key United Nations bodies, such as the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the World Health Organization, and possibly the Human Rights Council. Biden supports extending the New START arms control treaty with Russia to limit the number of nuclear weapons deployed by both sides. In 2021, Biden recognized the Armenian genocide, becoming the first U.S. president to do so.
Reputation
Biden was consistently ranked one of the least wealthy members of the Senate, which he attributed to his having been elected young. Feeling that less-wealthy public officials may be tempted to accept contributions in exchange for political favors, he proposed campaign finance reform measures during his first term. , Biden's net worth was $27,012. , the Bidens were worth $9 million, largely due to sales of Biden's books and speaking fees after his vice presidency.
The political writer Howard Fineman has written, "Biden is not an academic, he's not a theoretical thinker, he's a great street pol. He comes from a long line of working people in Scranton—auto salesmen, car dealers, people who know how to make a sale. He has that great Irish gift." Political columnist David S. Broder wrote that Biden has grown over time: "He responds to real people—that's been consistent throughout. And his ability to understand himself and deal with other politicians has gotten much much better." Journalist James Traub has written that "Biden is the kind of fundamentally happy person who can be as generous toward others as he is to himself."
In recent years, especially after the 2015 death of his elder son Beau, Biden has been noted for his empathetic nature and ability to communicate about grief. In 2020, CNN wrote that his presidential campaign aimed to make him "healer-in-chief", while The New York Times described his extensive history of being called upon to give eulogies.
Journalist and TV anchor Wolf Blitzer has described Biden as loquacious. He often deviates from prepared remarks and sometimes "puts his foot in his mouth." The New York Times wrote that Biden's "weak filters make him capable of blurting out pretty much anything." In 2018, Biden called himself "a gaffe machine". Some of his gaffes have been characterized as racially insensitive.
Electoral history
Publications
Books
Also paperback edition, Random House 2008, .
Book contributions
Biden, Joseph R., Jr. (2009). "Foreword." In: Choosing Equality: Essays and Narratives on the Desegregation Experience. Edited by Robert L. Hayman, Jr. and Leland Ware. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009. .
Pamphlets
Biden, Joseph R., Jr., and Les Aspin, William Louis Dickinson, Brent Scowcroft (1982). Arms Sales: A Useful Foreign Policy Tool? American Enterprise Institute. AEI Forum 56. Moderated by John Charles Daly.
Articles
Biden, Joseph R., Jr., and Miga Purev-Ochir (Spring 2015). "U.S.-Russian Relations in a Post-Cold War World: A Strategic Vision: Mapping a Future for U.S.-Russian Relations." Harvard International Review, vol. 36, no. 3, pp. 72–76. .
Notes
References
Citations
Works cited
See also
List of honors and awards received by Joe Biden
List of things named after Joe Biden
External links
Official
President Joe Biden official website
Presidential campaign website
Obama White House biography (archived)
Other
Joe Biden at On the Issues
Joe Biden at PolitiFact
1942 births
Living people
20th-century American lawyers
20th-century American politicians
20th-century Roman Catholics
21st-century American memoirists
21st-century presidents of the United States
21st-century vice presidents of the United States
21st-century Roman Catholics
2008 United States vice-presidential candidates
2012 United States vice-presidential candidates
American people of English descent
American people of French descent
American people of Irish descent
Biden family
Candidates in the 1988 United States presidential election
Candidates in the 2008 United States presidential election
Candidates in the 2020 United States presidential election
Catholics from Delaware
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County council members and commissioners in Delaware
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Democratic Party (United States) presidential nominees
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Laetare Medal recipients
New Castle County, Delaware politicians
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People from Claymont, Delaware
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People involved in plagiarism controversies
Politicians from Scranton, Pennsylvania
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Presidents of the United States
Writers from Wilmington, Delaware
Public defenders
Recipients of Hilal-i-Pakistan
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Recipients of St. George's Order of Victory
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Time 100
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United States senators from Delaware
University of Delaware alumni
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Vice presidents of the United States
Widener University faculty
Writers from Scranton, Pennsylvania | true | [
"Grandpa Goes to Washington is an American comedy-drama television series that aired on NBC on Tuesday nights from September 7, 1978 to January 16, 1979. The series was very short-lived, as it was cancelled after a run of only 11 episodes. After Grandpa Goes to Washington's cancellation, no re-runs of the show have been aired by NBC, and it has also never seen a home media release.\n\nPlot\nThe series centered on Joe Kelley, a political science teacher who was forced to retire when he turned 66, who then got himself elected to the U.S senate in spite of his not having any political experience. He won the election when the other candidates for office were tarnished by scandal. Kelley's style was unusual. He drove himself in an old Volkswagen (as opposed to being driven in a limousine), for relaxation he played the drums, and his earnest pledge was \"Honesty in Government\". He received his political information from former students, whom he considered his \"friends in low places\". His aim was to make the country a better place to live.\n\nThe senator lived with his son, Air Force General Kevin Kelley; Kevin's wife, Rosie; and their two children, Kathleen and Kevin, Jr. Joe thought Kevin was dull, bland and empty-headed (he called him, \"My son, the Fathead'). Kevin tried to interfere with his father's position as a Senator, increasing the tension between them. Also seen was Madge, Joe's secretary, and Tony, Joe's aide. Another character was Patti who was played by comedian Patti Deutsch.\n\nCast\nJack Albertson as Senator Joe Kelley\nLarry Linville as Maj. General Kevin Kelley\nSue Ane Langdon as Rosie Kelley\nSparky Marcus as Kevin Kelley Jr.\nMichele Tobin as Kathleen Kelley\nTom Mason as Tony DeLuca\nMadge Sinclair as Madge\nPatti Deutsch as Patti\nScott Ellsworth as senator\n\nEpisode list\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nNBC original programming\n1978 American television series debuts\n1979 American television series endings\n1970s American comedy-drama television series\n1970s American political comedy television series\nTelevision series about families\nTelevision series by CBS Studios\nTelevision shows set in Washington, D.C.\nTelevision series about old age",
"Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics is a memoir by then-senator Joe Biden, (later the 46th president of the United States) first published by Random House on July 31, 2007. A paperback version was published on August 28, 2008. It was published in the run-up to his 2008 presidential campaign.\n\nContents\nBiden begins by recounting his life growing up in a Roman Catholic family in Scranton, Pennsylvania and later Wilmington, Delaware. He details the 1972 car accident that killed his wife Neilia and their one-year-old daughter Naomi, and the struggles he faced in its aftermath. He then writes about the second chance he was given upon meeting Jill Jacobs in 1975, as he began his career representing Delaware in the U.S. Senate. The book also explores his beleaguered 1988 presidential campaign, during which he suffered from two brain aneurysms, and the physical and political recovery he later made.\n\nCultural reference\nThe title of the book was inspired by Robert Frost's 1922 poem \"Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.\"\n\nReception\nThe Christian Science Monitor praised the book saying \"Biden is a master storyteller and has stories worth telling.\" Likewise, The New York Times called it \"a compelling personal story\", while Salon commended Biden's response to tragedy as \"both admirable and likable\".\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nBiden speaking about the book at the National Press Club (August 1, 2007)\n\n2007 non-fiction books\n2008 non-fiction books\nAmerican political books\nBooks by Joe Biden\nEnglish-language books\nRandom House books\nAmerican memoirs"
] |
[
"Joe Biden",
"Characteristics as senator",
"What are Joe's characteristics as senator?",
"characterized Biden as \"self-confident\" and \"compulsively ambitious\".",
"Was Joe likable as senator?",
"\"Biden is the kind of fundamentally happy person who can be as generous toward others as he is to himself.\""
] | C_ae5bfb2601a2463ebfedd2b995b83bf8_1 | Does Joe have a lot of friends in politics? | 3 | Does Joe have a lot of friends in politics? | Joe Biden | On August 27, 1966, while Biden was still a law student, he married Neilia Hunter. They overcame her parents' initial reluctance for her to wed a Roman Catholic, and the ceremony was held in a Catholic church in Skaneateles. They had three children, Joseph R. "Beau" Biden III in 1969, Robert Hunter in 1970, and Naomi Christina in 1971. During 1968, Biden clerked for six months at a Wilmington law firm headed by prominent local Republican William Prickett and, as he later said, "thought of myself as a Republican". He disliked the conservative racial politics of incumbent Democratic Governor of Delaware Charles L. Terry and supported a more liberal Republican, Russell W. Peterson, who defeated Terry in 1968. The local Republicans tried to recruit him, but he resisted due to his distaste for Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon, and registered as an Independent instead. In 1969, Biden resumed practicing law in Wilmington, first as a public defender and then at a firm headed by Sid Balick, a locally active Democrat. Balick named him to the Democratic Forum, a group trying to reform and revitalize the state party, and Biden switched his registration to Democrat. He also started his own firm, Biden and Walsh. Corporate law, however, did not appeal to him and criminal law did not pay well. He supplemented his income by managing properties. Later in 1969, Biden ran as a Democrat for the New Castle County Council on a liberal platform that included support for public housing in the suburban area. He won by a solid, two-thousand vote margin in the usually Republican district and in a bad year for Democrats in the state. Even before taking his seat, he was already talking about running for the U.S. Senate in a couple of years. He served on the County Council from 1970 to 1972 while continuing his private law practice. Among issues he addressed on the council was his opposition to large highway projects that might disrupt Wilmington neighborhoods, including those related to Interstate 95. During his first years in the Senate, Biden focused on legislation regarding consumer-protection and environmental issues and called for greater accountability on the part of government. In mid-1974, freshman Senator Biden was named one of the 200 Faces for the Future by Time magazine, in a profile that mentioned what had happened to his family and characterized Biden as "self-confident" and "compulsively ambitious". Biden became ranking minority member of the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary in 1981. In 1984, he was Democratic floor manager for the successful passage of the Comprehensive Crime Control Act; civil libertarians praised him for modifying some of the Act's provisions, and it was his most important legislative accomplishment at that point in time. He first considered running for president in that year, after he gained notice for giving speeches to party audiences that simultaneously scolded and encouraged Democrats. Regarding foreign policy, during his first decade in the Senate, Biden focused on arms control issues. In response to the refusal of the U.S. Congress to ratify the SALT II Treaty signed in 1979 by Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and President Jimmy Carter, he took the initiative to meet the Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, educated him about American concerns and interests, and secured several changes to address objections of the Foreign Relations Committee. When the Reagan administration wanted to interpret the 1972 SALT I Treaty loosely in order to allow the Strategic Defense Initiative to proceed, Biden argued for strict adherence to the treaty's terms. He clashed again with the Reagan administration in 1986 over economic sanctions against South Africa; he received considerable attention when he excoriated Secretary of State George P. Shultz at a Senate hearing because of the administration's support of that country, which continued to practice the apartheid system. Following his initial election in 1972, Biden was re-elected to six additional terms, in the elections of 1978, 1984, 1990, 1996, 2002, and 2008, usually getting about 60 percent of the vote. He did not face strong opposition; Pete du Pont, then governor, chose not to run against him in 1984. Biden spent 28 years as a junior senator due to the two-year seniority of his Republican colleague William V. Roth Jr. After Roth was defeated for re-election by Tom Carper in 2000, Biden became Delaware's senior senator. He then became the longest-serving senator in Delaware history. In May 1999, Biden set the mark for youngest senator to cast 10,000 votes. With a net worth between $59,000 and $366,000, and almost no outside income or investment income, Biden was consistently ranked as one of the least wealthy members of the Senate. Biden stated that he was listed as the second poorest member in Congress, a distinction that he was not proud of, but attributed to being elected early in his career. Biden realized early in his senatorial career how vulnerable poorer public officials are to offers of financial contributions in exchange for policy support, and he pushed campaign finance reform measures during his first term. During his years as a senator, Biden amassed a reputation for loquaciousness, with his questions and remarks during Senate hearings being especially known for being long-winded. He has been a strong speaker and debater and a frequent and effective guest on the Sunday morning talk shows. In public appearances, he is known to deviate from prepared remarks at will. According to political analyst Mark Halperin, he has shown "a persistent tendency to say silly, offensive, and off-putting things"; The New York Times writes that Biden's "weak filters make him capable of blurting out pretty much anything". Nor is Biden known for modesty; journalist James Traub has written that "Biden's vanity and his regard for his own gifts seem considerable even by the rarefied standards of the U.S. Senate." Political writer Howard Fineman has said that, "Biden is not an academic, he's not a theoretical thinker, he's a great street pol. He comes from a long line of working people in Scranton--auto salesmen, car dealers, people who know how to make a sale. He has that great Irish gift." Political columnist David S. Broder has viewed Biden as having grown since he came to Washington and since his failed 1988 presidential bid: "He responds to real people--that's been consistent throughout. And his ability to understand himself and deal with other politicians has gotten much much better." Traub concludes that "Biden is the kind of fundamentally happy person who can be as generous toward others as he is to himself." CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. ( ; born November 20, 1942) is an American politician who is the 46th and current president of the United States. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 47th vice president from 2009 to 2017 under Barack Obama and represented Delaware in the United States Senate from 1973 to 2009.
Biden was born and raised in Scranton, Pennsylvania, moving with his family to New Castle County, Delaware, in 1953 when he was ten. He studied at the University of Delaware before earning his law degree from Syracuse University in 1968. He was elected to the New Castle County Council in 1970 and became the sixth-youngest senator in U.S. history after he was elected to the United States Senate from Delaware in 1972, at age 29. Biden was the chair or ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for 12 years and was influential in foreign affairs during Obama's presidency. He also chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee from 1987 to 1995, dealing with drug policy, crime prevention, and civil liberties issues; led the effort to pass the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act and the Violence Against Women Act; and oversaw six U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings, including the contentious hearings for Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas. He ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988 and 2008. Biden was reelected to the Senate six times and was the fourth-most senior sitting senator at the time when he became Obama's vice president after they won the 2008 presidential election, defeating John McCain and his running mate Sarah Palin. Obama and Biden were reelected in 2012, defeating Mitt Romney and his running mate Paul Ryan.
During eight years as vice president, Biden leaned on his Senate experience and frequently represented the administration in negotiations with congressional Republicans, including on the Budget Control Act of 2011, which resolved a debt ceiling crisis, and the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, which addressed the impending "fiscal cliff". He also oversaw infrastructure spending in 2009 to counteract the Great Recession. On foreign policy, Biden was a close counselor to the president and took a leading role in designing the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq in 2011. In 2017, Obama awarded Biden the Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction.
Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris defeated incumbent president Donald Trump and vice president Mike Pence in the 2020 presidential election. He is the oldest president and the first to have a female vice president. His early presidential activity centered around proposing, lobbying for, and signing into law the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 to help the United States recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing recession, as well as a series of executive orders. Biden's orders addressed the pandemic and reversed several Trump administration policies, including rejoining the Paris Agreement on climate change and accepting new applications for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients, although a federal judge blocked the latter. He completed the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan by September 2021. During the withdrawal, the Afghan government collapsed and the Taliban seized control. Biden proposed the Build Back Better Plan, aspects of which were incorporated into the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which Biden signed into law in November 2021.
Early life (1942–1965)
Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was born on November 20, 1942, at St. Mary's Hospital in Scranton, Pennsylvania, to Catherine Eugenia "Jean" Biden (née Finnegan) and Joseph Robinette Biden Sr. The oldest child in a Catholic family, he has a sister, Valerie, and two brothers, Francis and James. Jean was of Irish descent, while Joseph Sr. had English, French, and Irish ancestry.
Biden's father had been wealthy, but suffered financial setbacks around the time Biden was born, and for several years the family lived with Biden's maternal grandparents. Scranton fell into economic decline during the 1950s and Biden's father could not find steady work. Beginning in 1953 when Biden was ten, the family lived in an apartment in Claymont, Delaware, before moving to a house in nearby Mayfield. Biden Sr. later became a successful used-car salesman, maintaining the family in a middle-class lifestyle.
At Archmere Academy in Claymont, Biden played baseball and was a standout halfback and wide receiver on the high school football team. Though a poor student, he was class president in his junior and senior years. He graduated in 1961. At the University of Delaware in Newark, Biden briefly played freshman football and, as an unexceptional student, earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1965 with a double major in history and political science and a minor in English.
Biden has a stutter, which has improved since his early twenties. He says he reduced it by reciting poetry before a mirror, but some observers suggested it affected his performance in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential debates.
Marriages, law school, and early career (1966–1973)
On August 27, 1966, Biden married Neilia Hunter (19421972), a student at Syracuse University, after overcoming her parents' reluctance for her to wed a Roman Catholic. Their wedding was held in a Catholic church in Skaneateles, New York. They had three children: Joseph R. "Beau" Biden III (19692015), Robert Hunter Biden (born 1970), and Naomi Christina "Amy" Biden (19711972).
In 1968, Biden earned a Juris Doctor from Syracuse University College of Law, ranked 76th in his class of 85, after failing a course due to an acknowledged "mistake" when he plagiarized a law review article for a paper he wrote in his first year at law school. He was admitted to the Delaware bar in 1969.
Biden had not openly supported or opposed the Vietnam War until he ran for Senate and opposed Nixon's conduct of the war. While studying at the University of Delaware and Syracuse University, Biden obtained five student draft deferments, at a time when most draftees were sent to the Vietnam War. In 1968, based on a physical examination, he was given a conditional medical deferment; in 2008, a spokesperson for Biden said his having had "asthma as a teenager" was the reason for the deferment.
In 1968, Biden clerked at a Wilmington law firm headed by prominent local Republican William Prickett and, he later said, "thought of myself as a Republican". He disliked incumbent Democratic Delaware governor Charles L. Terry's conservative racial politics and supported a more liberal Republican, Russell W. Peterson, who defeated Terry in 1968. Biden was recruited by local Republicans but registered as an Independent because of his distaste for Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon.
In 1969, Biden practiced law first as a public defender and then at a firm headed by a locally active Democrat who named him to the Democratic Forum, a group trying to reform and revitalize the state party; Biden subsequently reregistered as a Democrat. He and another attorney also formed a law firm. Corporate law, however, did not appeal to him, and criminal law did not pay well. He supplemented his income by managing properties.
In 1970, Biden ran for the 4th district seat on the New Castle County Council on a liberal platform that included support for public housing in the suburbs. The seat had been held by Republican Henry R. Folsom, who was running in the 5th District following a reapportionment of council districts. Biden won the general election by defeating Republican Lawrence T. Messick, and took office on January 5, 1971. He served until January 1, 1973, and was succeeded by Democrat Francis R. Swift. During his time on the county council, Biden opposed large highway projects, which he argued might disrupt Wilmington neighborhoods.
1972 U.S. Senate campaign in Delaware
In 1972, Biden defeated Republican incumbent J. Caleb Boggs to become the junior U.S. senator from Delaware. He was the only Democrat willing to challenge Boggs. With minimal campaign funds, he was given no chance of winning. Family members managed and staffed the campaign, which relied on meeting voters face-to-face and hand-distributing position papers, an approach made feasible by Delaware's small size. He received help from the AFL–CIO and Democratic pollster Patrick Caddell. His platform focused on the environment, withdrawal from Vietnam, civil rights, mass transit, equitable taxation, health care, and public dissatisfaction with "politics as usual". A few months before the election, Biden trailed Boggs by almost thirty percentage points, but his energy, attractive young family, and ability to connect with voters' emotions worked to his advantage, and he won with 50.5 percent of the vote. At the time of his election, he was still 29 years old, but reached the constitutionally required age of 30 before he was sworn in as Senator.
Death of wife and daughter
On December 18, 1972, a few weeks after the election, Biden's wife Neilia and one-year-old daughter Naomi were killed in an automobile accident while Christmas shopping in Hockessin, Delaware. Neilia's station wagon was hit by a semi-trailer truck as she pulled out from an intersection. Their sons Beau (aged3) and Hunter (aged2) survived the accident and were taken to the hospital in fair condition, Beau with a broken leg and other wounds and Hunter with a minor skull fracture and other head injuries. Biden considered resigning to care for them, but Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield persuaded him not to.
Years later, Biden said he had heard that the truck driver allegedly drank alcohol before the collision. The driver's family denied that claim, and the police never substantiated it. Biden later apologized to the family. The accident had filled him with anger and religious doubt. He wrote that he "felt God had played a horrible trick" on him, and he had trouble focusing on work.
Second marriage
Biden credits his second wife, teacher Jill Tracy Jacobs, with the renewal of his interest in politics and life; they met in 1975 on a blind date and were married at the United Nations chapel in New York on June 17, 1977. They spent their honeymoon at Lake Balaton in the Hungarian People's Republic, behind the Iron Curtain. They are Roman Catholics and attend Mass at St. Joseph's on the Brandywine in Greenville, Delaware. Their daughter Ashley Biden (born 1981) is a social worker. She is married to physician Howard Krein. Beau Biden became an Army Judge Advocate in Iraq and later Delaware Attorney General; he died of brain cancer in 2015. Hunter Biden is a Washington lobbyist and investment adviser.
Teaching
From 1991 to 2008, as an adjunct professor, Biden co-taught a seminar on constitutional law at Widener University School of Law. The seminar often had a waiting list. Biden sometimes flew back from overseas to teach the class.
U.S. Senate (1973–2009)
Senate activities
In January 1973, secretary of the Senate Francis R. Valeo swore Biden in at the Delaware Division of the Wilmington Medical Center. Present were his sons Beau (whose leg was still in traction from the automobile accident) and Hunter and other family members. At 30, he was the sixth-youngest senator in U.S. history.
To see his sons, Biden traveled by train between his Delaware home and D.C.—74 minutes each way—and maintained this habit throughout his 36 years in the Senate.
During his early years in the Senate, Biden focused on consumer protection and environmental issues and called for greater government accountability. In a 1974 interview, he described himself as liberal on civil rights and liberties, senior citizens' concerns and healthcare but conservative on other issues, including abortion and military conscription.
In his first decade in the Senate, Biden focused on arms control. After Congress failed to ratify the SALT II Treaty signed in 1979 by Soviet general secretary Leonid Brezhnev and President Jimmy Carter, Biden met with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko to communicate American concerns and secured changes that addressed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's objections. When the Reagan administration wanted to interpret the 1972 SALT I treaty loosely to allow development of the Strategic Defense Initiative, Biden argued for strict adherence to the treaty. He received considerable attention when he excoriated Secretary of State George Shultz at a Senate hearing for the Reagan administration's support of South Africa despite its continued policy of apartheid.
Biden became ranking minority member of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1981. In 1984, he was a Democratic floor manager for the successful passage of the Comprehensive Crime Control Act. His supporters praised him for modifying some of the law's worst provisions, and it was his most important legislative accomplishment to that time. In 1994, Biden helped pass the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, also known as the Biden Crime Law, which included a ban on assault weapons, and the Violence Against Women Act, which he has called his most significant legislation. The 1994 crime law was unpopular among progressives and criticized for resulting in mass incarceration; in 2019, Biden called his role in passing the bill a "big mistake", citing its policy on crack cocaine and saying that the bill "trapped an entire generation".
In 1993, Biden voted for a provision that deemed homosexuality incompatible with military life, thereby banning gays from serving in the armed forces. In 1996, he voted for the Defense of Marriage Act, which prohibited the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages, thereby barring individuals in such marriages from equal protection under federal law and allowing states to do the same. In 2015, the act was ruled unconstitutional in Obergefell v. Hodges.
Elected to the Senate in 1972, Biden was reelected in 1978, 1984, 1990, 1996, 2002, and 2008, regularly receiving about 60% of the vote. He was junior senator to William Roth, who was first elected in 1970, until Roth was defeated in 2000. , he was the 18th-longest-serving senator in U.S. history.
Opposition to busing
In the mid-1970s, Biden was one of the Senate's strongest opponents of race-integration busing. His Delaware constituents strongly opposed it, and such opposition nationwide later led his party to mostly abandon school integration policies. In his first Senate campaign, Biden had expressed support for busing to remedy de jure segregation, as in the South, but opposed its use to remedy de facto segregation arising from racial patterns of neighborhood residency, as in Delaware; he opposed a proposed constitutional amendment banning busing entirely.
In May 1974, Biden voted to table a proposal containing anti-busing and anti-desegregation clauses but later voted for a modified version containing a qualification that it was not intended to weaken the judiciary's power to enforce the 5th Amendment and 14th Amendment. In 1975, he supported a proposal that would have prevented the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare from cutting federal funds to districts that refused to integrate; he said busing was a "bankrupt idea [violating] the cardinal rule of common sense" and that his opposition would make it easier for other liberals to follow suit. At the same time he supported initiatives on housing, job opportunities and voting rights. Biden supported a measure forbidding the use of federal funds for transporting students beyond the school closest to them. In 1977, he co-sponsored an amendment closing loopholes in that measure, which President Carter signed into law in 1978.
Brain surgeries
In February 1988, after several episodes of increasingly severe neck pain, Biden was taken by ambulance to Walter Reed Army Medical Center for surgery to correct a leaking intracranial berry aneurysm. While recuperating, he suffered a pulmonary embolism, a serious complication. After a second aneurysm was surgically repaired in May, Biden's recuperation kept him away from the Senate for seven months.
Senate Judiciary Committee
Biden was a longtime member of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary. He chaired it from 1987 to 1995 and was a ranking minority member from 1981 to 1987 and again from 1995 to 1997.
As chair, Biden presided over two highly contentious U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings. When Robert Bork was nominated in 1988, Biden reversed his approvalgiven in an interview the previous yearof a hypothetical Bork nomination. Conservatives were angered, but at the hearings' close Biden was praised for his fairness, humor, and courage. Rejecting the arguments of some Bork opponents, Biden framed his objections to Bork in terms of the conflict between Bork's strong originalism and the view that the U.S. Constitution provides rights to liberty and privacy beyond those explicitly enumerated in its text. Bork's nomination was rejected in the committee by a 9–5 vote and then in the full Senate, 58–42.
During Clarence Thomas's nomination hearings in 1991, Biden's questions on constitutional issues were often convoluted to the point that Thomas sometimes lost track of them, and Thomas later wrote that Biden's questions were akin to "beanballs". After the committee hearing closed, the public learned that Anita Hill, a University of Oklahoma law school professor, had accused Thomas of making unwelcome sexual comments when they had worked together. Biden had known of some of these charges, but initially shared them only with the committee because Hill was then unwilling to testify. The committee hearing was reopened and Hill testified, but Biden did not permit testimony from other witnesses, such as a woman who had made similar charges and experts on harassment, saying he wanted to preserve Thomas's privacy and the hearings' decency. The full Senate confirmed Thomas by a 52–48 vote, with Biden opposed. Liberal legal advocates and women's groups felt strongly that Biden had mishandled the hearings and not done enough to support Hill. Biden later sought out women to serve on the Judiciary Committee and emphasized women's issues in the committee's legislative agenda. In 2019, he told Hill he regretted his treatment of her, but Hill said afterward she remained unsatisfied.
Biden was critical of Independent Counsel Ken Starr during the 1990s Whitewater controversy and Lewinsky scandal investigations, saying "it's going to be a cold day in hell" before another independent counsel would be granted similar powers. He voted to acquit during the impeachment of President Clinton. During the 2000s, Biden sponsored bankruptcy legislation sought by credit card issuers. Clinton vetoed the bill in 2000, but it passed in 2005 as the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act, with Biden one of only 18 Democrats to vote for it, while leading Democrats and consumer rights organizations opposed it. As a senator, Biden strongly supported increased Amtrak funding and rail security.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Biden was a longtime member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He became its ranking minority member in 1997 and chaired it from June 2001 to 2003 and 2007 to 2009. His positions were generally liberal internationalist. He collaborated effectively with Republicans and sometimes went against elements of his own party. During this time he met with at least 150 leaders from 60 countries and international organizations, becoming a well-known Democratic voice on foreign policy.
Biden voted against authorization for the Gulf War in 1991, siding with 45 of the 55 Democratic senators; he said the U.S. was bearing almost all the burden in the anti-Iraq coalition.
Biden became interested in the Yugoslav Wars after hearing about Serbian abuses during the Croatian War of Independence in 1991. Once the Bosnian War broke out, Biden was among the first to call for the "lift and strike" policy of lifting the arms embargo, training Bosnian Muslims and supporting them with NATO air strikes, and investigating war crimes. The George H. W. Bush administration and Clinton administration were both reluctant to implement the policy, fearing Balkan entanglement. In April 1993, Biden spent a week in the Balkans and held a tense three-hour meeting with Serbian leader Slobodan Milošević. Biden said he had told Milošević, "I think you're a damn war criminal and you should be tried as one."
Biden wrote an amendment in 1992 to compel the Bush administration to arm the Bosnian Muslims, but deferred in 1994 to a somewhat softer stance the Clinton administration preferred, before signing on the following year to a stronger measure sponsored by Bob Dole and Joe Lieberman. The engagement led to a successful NATO peacekeeping effort. Biden has called his role in affecting Balkans policy in the mid-1990s his "proudest moment in public life" related to foreign policy.
As chair, Biden contributed to successfully encouraging the Clinton administration to commit the resources and political capital to broker what became the 1998 Good Friday Agreement between the governments of Ireland and the United Kingdom through the Northern Ireland peace process.
On September 3, 1998, the resigning former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter had, according to Barton Gellman, accused the Clinton administration of obstructing weapons inspections in Iraq. Biden joined many other Senate Democrats and "amplified on the Clinton administration's counterattack against former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter." He questioned whether Ritter was trying to "appropriate the power 'to decide when to pull the trigger' of military force against Iraq", and said that the Secretary of State would also have to consider the opinion of allies, the UNSC, and public opinion, before any intervention in Iraq. In a Washington Post op-ed later that month, Biden criticized a unilateral "confrontation-based policy" but praised the idea of asking whether intervention might be necessary at some point, though he said it was "above the pay grade" of one weapons inspector.
In 1999, during the Kosovo War, Biden supported the 1999 NATO bombing of FR Yugoslavia. He and Senator John McCain co-sponsored the McCain-Biden Kosovo Resolution, which called on Clinton to use all necessary force, including ground troops, to confront Milošević over Yugoslav actions toward ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.
Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq
Biden was a strong supporter of the War in Afghanistan, saying, "Whatever it takes, we should do it." As head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he said in 2002 that Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was a threat to national security and there was no other option than to "eliminate" that threat. In October 2002, he voted in favor of the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq, approving the U.S. invasion of Iraq. As chair of the committee, he assembled a series of witnesses to testify in favor of the authorization. They gave testimony grossly misrepresenting the intent, history, and status of Saddam and his secular government, which was an avowed enemy of al-Qaida, and touted Iraq's fictional possession of weapons of mass destruction. Biden eventually became a critic of the war and viewed his vote and role as a "mistake", but did not push for withdrawal. He supported the appropriations for the occupation, but argued that the war should be internationalized, that more soldiers were needed, and that the Bush administration should "level with the American people" about its cost and length.
By late 2006, Biden's stance had shifted considerably. He opposed the troop surge of 2007, saying General David Petraeus was "dead, flat wrong" in believing the surge could work. Biden instead advocated dividing Iraq into a loose federation of three ethnic states. In November 2006, Biden and Leslie H. Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, released a comprehensive strategy to end sectarian violence in Iraq. Rather than continue the existing approach or withdrawing, the plan called for "a third way": federalizing Iraq and giving Kurds, Shiites, and Sunnis "breathing room" in their own regions. In September 2007, a non-binding resolution endorsing the plan passed the Senate, but the idea was unfamiliar, had no political constituency, and failed to gain traction. Iraq's political leadership denounced the resolution as de facto partitioning of the country, and the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad issued a statement distancing itself from it. In May 2008, Biden sharply criticized President George W. Bush's speech to Israel's Knesset in which Bush compared some Democrats to Western leaders who appeased Hitler before World WarII; Biden called the speech "bullshit", "malarkey", and "outrageous". He later apologized for his language.
Presidential campaigns 1988 and 2008
1988 campaign
Biden formally declared his candidacy for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination on June 9, 1987. He was considered a strong candidate because of his moderate image, his speaking ability, his high profile as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee at the upcoming Robert Bork Supreme Court nomination hearings, and his appeal to Baby Boomers; he would have been the second-youngest person elected president, after John F. Kennedy. He raised more in the first quarter of 1987 than any other candidate.
By August his campaign's messaging had become confused due to staff rivalries, and in September, he was accused of plagiarizing a speech by British Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock. Biden's speech had similar lines about being the first person in his family to attend university. Biden had credited Kinnock with the formulation on previous occasions, but did not on two occasions in late August. Kinnock himself was more forgiving; the two men met in 1988, forming an enduring friendship.
Earlier that year he had also used passages from a 1967 speech by Robert F. Kennedy (for which his aides took blame) and a short phrase from John F. Kennedy's inaugural address; two years earlier he had used a 1976 passage by Hubert Humphrey. Biden responded that politicians often borrow from one another without giving credit, and that one of his rivals for the nomination, Jesse Jackson, had called him to point out that he (Jackson) had used the same material by Humphrey that Biden had used.
A few days later, an incident in law school in which Biden drew text from a Fordham Law Review article with inadequate citations was publicized. He was required to repeat the course and passed with high marks. At Biden's request the Delaware Supreme Court's Board of Professional Responsibility reviewed the incident and concluded that he had violated no rules.
Biden has made several false or exaggerated claims about his early life: that he had earned three degrees in college, that he attended law school on a full scholarship, that he had graduated in the top half of his class, and that he had marched in the civil rights movement. The limited amount of other news about the presidential race amplified these disclosures and on September 23, 1987, Biden withdrew his candidacy, saying it had been overrun by "the exaggerated shadow" of his past mistakes.
2008 campaign
After exploring the possibility of a run in several previous cycles, in January 2007, Biden declared his candidacy in the 2008 elections. During his campaign, Biden focused on the Iraq War, his record as chairman of major Senate committees, and his foreign-policy experience. In mid-2007, Biden stressed his foreign policy expertise compared to Obama's. Biden was noted for his one-liners during the campaign; in one debate he said of Republican candidate Rudy Giuliani: "There's only three things he mentions in a sentence: a noun, and a verb and 9/11."
Biden had difficulty raising funds, struggled to draw people to his rallies, and failed to gain traction against the high-profile candidacies of Obama and Senator Hillary Clinton. He never rose above single digits in national polls of the Democratic candidates. In the first contest on January 3, 2008, Biden placed fifth in the Iowa caucuses, garnering slightly less than one percent of the state delegates. He withdrew from the race that evening.
Despite its lack of success, Biden's 2008 campaign raised his stature in the political world. In particular, it changed the relationship between Biden and Obama. Although they had served together on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, they had not been close: Biden resented Obama's quick rise to political stardom, while Obama viewed Biden as garrulous and patronizing. Having gotten to know each other during 2007, Obama appreciated Biden's campaign style and appeal to working-class voters, and Biden said he became convinced Obama was "the real deal".
2008 vice-presidential campaign
Shortly after Biden withdrew from the presidential race, Obama privately told him he was interested in finding an important place for Biden in his administration. Biden declined Obama's first request to vet him for the vice-presidential slot, fearing the vice presidency would represent a loss in status and voice from his Senate position, but he later changed his mind. In early August, Obama and Biden met in secret to discuss the possibility, and developed a strong personal rapport. On August 22, 2008, Obama announced that Biden would be his running mate. The New York Times reported that the strategy behind the choice reflected a desire to fill out the ticket with someone with foreign policy and national security experience—and not to help the ticket win a swing state or to emphasize Obama's "change" message. Others pointed out Biden's appeal to middle-class and blue-collar voters, as well as his willingness to aggressively challenge Republican nominee John McCain in a way that Obama seemed uncomfortable doing at times. In accepting Obama's offer, Biden ruled out running for president again in 2016, but his comments in later years seemed to back off that stance, as he did not want to diminish his political power by appearing uninterested in advancement. Biden was officially nominated for vice president on August 27 by voice vote at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver.
Biden's vice-presidential campaigning gained little media visibility, as far greater press attention was focused on the Republican running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. During one week in September 2008, for instance, the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism found that Biden was included in only five percent of coverage of the race, far less than the other three candidates on the tickets received. Biden nevertheless focused on campaigning in economically challenged areas of swing states and trying to win over blue-collar Democrats, especially those who had supported Hillary Clinton. Biden attacked McCain heavily despite a long-standing personal friendship. He said, "That guy I used to know, he's gone. It literally saddens me." As the financial crisis of 2007–2010 reached a peak with the liquidity crisis of September 2008 and the proposed bailout of the United States financial system became a major factor in the campaign, Biden voted in favor of the $700billion Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, which went on to pass in the Senate 74–25.
On October 2, 2008, Biden participated in the vice-presidential debate with Palin at Washington University in St. Louis. Post-debate polls found that while Palin exceeded many voters' expectations, Biden had won the debate overall. During the campaign's final days, he focused on less populated, older, less well-off areas of battleground states, especially Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, where polling indicated he was popular and where Obama had not campaigned or performed well in the Democratic primaries. He also campaigned in some normally Republican states, as well as in areas with large Catholic populations.
Under instructions from the campaign, Biden kept his speeches succinct and tried to avoid offhand remarks, such as one he made about Obama's being tested by a foreign power soon after taking office, which had attracted negative attention. Privately, Biden's remarks frustrated Obama. "How many times is Biden gonna say something stupid?" he asked. Obama campaign staffers referred to Biden blunders as "Joe bombs" and kept Biden uninformed about strategy discussions, which in turn irked Biden. Relations between the two campaigns became strained for a month, until Biden apologized on a call to Obama and the two built a stronger partnership. Publicly, Obama strategist David Axelrod said Biden's high popularity ratings had outweighed any unexpected comments. Nationally, Biden had a 60% favorability rating in a Pew Research Center poll, compared to Palin's 44%.
On November 4, 2008, Obama and Biden were elected with 53% of the popular vote and 365 electoral votes to McCain–Palin's 173.
At the same time Biden was running for vice president he was also running for reelection to the Senate, as permitted by Delaware law. On November4, he was reelected to the Senate, defeating Republican Christine O'Donnell. Having won both races, Biden made a point of waiting to resign from the Senate until he was sworn in for his seventh term on January 6, 2009. He became the youngest senator ever to start a seventh full term, and said, "In all my life, the greatest honor bestowed upon me has been serving the people of Delaware as their United States senator." Biden cast his last Senate vote on January 15, supporting the release of the second $350billion for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, and resigned from the Senate later that day. In an emotional farewell, Biden told the Senate: "Every good thing I have seen happen here, every bold step taken in the 36-plus years I have been here, came not from the application of pressure by interest groups, but through the maturation of personal relationships." Delaware Governor Ruth Ann Minner appointed longtime Biden adviser Ted Kaufman to fill Biden's vacated Senate seat.
Vice presidency (2009–2017)
First term, 2009–2013
Biden said he intended to eliminate some explicit roles assumed by George W. Bush's vice president, Dick Cheney, and did not intend to emulate any previous vice presidency. He chaired Obama's transition team and headed an initiative to improve middle-class economic well-being. In early January 2009, in his last act as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, he visited the leaders of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and on January 20 he was sworn in as the 47th vice president of the United Statesthe first vice president from Delaware and the first Roman Catholic vice president.
Obama was soon comparing Biden to a basketball player "who does a bunch of things that don't show up in the stat sheet". In May, Biden visited Kosovo and affirmed the U.S. position that its "independence is irreversible". Biden lost an internal debate to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about sending 21,000 new troops to Afghanistan, but his skepticism was valued, and in 2009, Biden's views gained more influence as Obama reconsidered his Afghanistan strategy. Biden visited Iraq about every two months, becoming the administration's point man in delivering messages to Iraqi leadership about expected progress there. More generally, overseeing Iraq policy became Biden's responsibility: Obama was said to have said, "Joe, you do Iraq." Biden said Iraq "could be one of the great achievements of this administration". His January 2010 visit to Iraq in the midst of turmoil over banned candidates from the upcoming Iraqi parliamentary election resulted in 59 of the several hundred candidates being reinstated by the Iraqi government two days later. By 2012, Biden had made eight trips there, but his oversight of U.S. policy in Iraq receded with the exit of U.S. troops in 2011.
Biden oversaw infrastructure spending from the Obama stimulus package intended to help counteract the ongoing recession. During this period, Biden was satisfied that no major instances of waste or corruption had occurred, and when he completed that role in February 2011, he said the number of fraud incidents with stimulus monies had been less than one percent.
In late April 2009, Biden's off-message response to a question during the beginning of the swine flu outbreak, that he would advise family members against traveling on airplanes or subways, led to a swift retraction by the White House. The remark revived Biden's reputation for gaffes. Confronted with rising unemployment through July 2009, Biden acknowledged that the administration had "misread how bad the economy was" but maintained confidence the stimulus package would create many more jobs once the pace of expenditures picked up. On March 23, 2010, a microphone picked up Biden telling the president that his signing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was "a big fucking deal" during live national news telecasts. Despite their different personalities, Obama and Biden formed a friendship, partly based around Obama's daughter Sasha and Biden's granddaughter Maisy, who attended Sidwell Friends School together.
Members of the Obama administration said Biden's role in the White House was to be a contrarian and force others to defend their positions. Rahm Emanuel, White House chief of staff, said that Biden helped counter groupthink. White House press secretary Jay Carney, Biden's former communications director, said Biden played the role of "the bad guy in the Situation Room". Another senior Obama advisor said Biden "is always prepared to be the skunk at the family picnic to make sure we are as intellectually honest as possible." Obama said, "The best thing about Joe is that when we get everybody together, he really forces people to think and defend their positions, to look at things from every angle, and that is very valuable for me." The Bidens maintained a relaxed atmosphere at their official residence in Washington, often entertaining their grandchildren, and regularly returned to their home in Delaware.
Biden campaigned heavily for Democrats in the 2010 midterm elections, maintaining an attitude of optimism in the face of predictions of large-scale losses for the party. Following big Republican gains in the elections and the departure of White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, Biden's past relationships with Republicans in Congress became more important. He led the successful administration effort to gain Senate approval for the New START treaty. In December 2010, Biden's advocacy for a middle ground, followed by his negotiations with Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, were instrumental in producing the administration's compromise tax package that included a temporary extension of the Bush tax cuts. Biden then took the lead in trying to sell the agreement to a reluctant Democratic caucus in Congress. The package passed as the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010.
In March 2011, Obama delegated Biden to lead negotiations with Congress to resolve federal spending levels for the rest of the year and avoid a government shutdown. By May 2011, a "Biden panel" with six congressional members was trying to reach a bipartisan deal on raising the U.S. debt ceiling as part of an overall deficit reduction plan. The U.S. debt ceiling crisis developed over the next few months, but Biden's relationship with McConnell again proved key in breaking a deadlock and bringing about a deal to resolve it, in the form of the Budget Control Act of 2011, signed on August 2, 2011, the same day an unprecedented U.S. default had loomed. Biden had spent the most time of anyone in the administration bargaining with Congress on the debt question, and one Republican staffer said, "Biden's the only guy with real negotiating authority, and [McConnell] knows that his word is good. He was a key to the deal."
Some reports suggest that Biden opposed proceeding with the May 2011 U.S. mission to kill Osama bin Laden, lest failure adversely affect Obama's reelection prospects. He took the lead in notifying Congressional leaders of the successful outcome.
Reelection
In October 2010, Biden said Obama had asked him to remain as his running mate for the 2012 presidential election, but with Obama's popularity on the decline, White House Chief of Staff William M. Daley conducted some secret polling and focus group research in late 2011 on the idea of replacing Biden on the ticket with Hillary Clinton. The notion was dropped when the results showed no appreciable improvement for Obama, and White House officials later said Obama had never entertained the idea.
Biden's May 2012 statement that he was "absolutely comfortable" with same-sex marriage gained considerable public attention in comparison to Obama's position, which had been described as "evolving". Biden made his statement without administration consent, and Obama and his aides were quite irked, since Obama had planned to shift position several months later, in the build-up to the party convention, and since Biden had previously counseled the president to avoid the issue lest key Catholic voters be offended. Gay rights advocates seized upon Biden's statement, and within days, Obama announced that he too supported same-sex marriage, an action in part forced by Biden's remarks. Biden apologized to Obama in private for having spoken out, while Obama acknowledged publicly it had been done from the heart. The incident showed that Biden still struggled at times with message discipline, as Time wrote, "Everyone knows Biden's greatest strength is also his greatest weakness." Relations were also strained between the vice presidential and presidential campaigns when Biden appeared to use his position to bolster fundraising contacts for a possible run for president in 2016, and he ended up being excluded from Obama campaign strategy meetings.
The Obama campaign nevertheless valued Biden as a retail-level politician who could connect with disaffected blue-collar workers and rural residents, and he had a heavy schedule of appearances in swing states as the reelection campaign began in earnest in spring 2012. An August 2012 remark before a mixed-race audience that Republican proposals to relax Wall Street regulations would "put y'all back in chains" led to a similar analysis of Biden's face-to-face campaigning abilities versus his tendency to go off track. The Los Angeles Times wrote, "Most candidates give the same stump speech over and over, putting reporters if not the audience to sleep. But during any Biden speech, there might be a dozen moments to make press handlers cringe, and prompt reporters to turn to each other with amusement and confusion." Time magazine wrote that Biden often went too far and "Along with the familiar Washington mix of neediness and overconfidence, Biden's brain is wired for more than the usual amount of goofiness."
Biden was nominated for a second term as vice president at the 2012 Democratic National Convention in September. Debating his Republican counterpart, Representative Paul Ryan, in the vice-presidential debate on October 11 he made a spirited and emotional defense of the Obama administration's record and energetically attacked the Republican ticket. On November 6, Obama and Biden won reelection over Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan with 332 of 538 Electoral College votes and 51% of the popular vote.
In December 2012, Obama named Biden to head the Gun Violence Task Force, created to address the causes of gun violence in the United States in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Later that month, during the final days before the United States fell off the "fiscal cliff", Biden's relationship with McConnell again proved important as the two negotiated a deal that led to the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 being passed at the start of 2013. It made many of the Bush tax cuts permanent but raised rates on upper income levels.
Second term, 2013–2017
Biden was inaugurated to a second term on January 20, 2013, at a small ceremony at Number One Observatory Circle, his official residence, with Justice Sonia Sotomayor presiding (a public ceremony took place on January 21).
Biden played little part in discussions that led to the October 2013 passage of the Continuing Appropriations Act, 2014, which resolved the federal government shutdown of 2013 and the debt-ceiling crisis of 2013. This was because Senate majority leader Harry Reid and other Democratic leaders cut him out of any direct talks with Congress, feeling Biden had given too much away during previous negotiations.
Biden's Violence Against Women Act was reauthorized again in 2013. The act led to related developments, such as the White House Council on Women and Girls, begun in the first term, as well as the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault, begun in January 2014 with Biden and Valerie Jarrett as co-chairs. Biden discussed federal guidelines on sexual assault on university campuses while giving a speech at the University of New Hampshire. He said, "No means no, if you're drunk or you're sober. No means no if you're in bed, in a dorm or on the street. No means no even if you said yes at first and you changed your mind. No means no."
Biden favored arming Syria's rebel fighters. As Iraq fell apart during 2014, renewed attention was paid to the Biden-Gelb Iraqi federalization plan of 2006, with some observers suggesting Biden had been right all along. Biden himself said the U.S. would follow ISIL "to the gates of hell". Biden had close relationships with several Latin American leaders and was assigned a focus on the region during the administration; he visited the region 16 times during his vice presidency, the most of any president or vice president.
In 2015, Speaker of the House John Boehner and Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell invited Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress without notifying the Obama administration. This defiance of protocol led Biden and more than 50 congressional Democrats to skip Netanyahu's speech. In August 2016, Biden visited Serbia, where he met with Serbian president Aleksandar Vučić and expressed his condolences for civilian victims of the bombing campaign during the Kosovo War. In Kosovo, he attended a ceremony renaming a highway after his son Beau, in honor of Beau's service to Kosovo in training its judges and prosecutors.
Biden never cast a tie-breaking vote in the Senate, making him the longest-serving vice president with this distinction.
Role in the 2016 presidential campaign
During his second term, Biden was often said to be preparing for a possible bid for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination. With his family, many friends, and donors encouraging him in mid-2015 to enter the race, and with Hillary Clinton's favorability ratings in decline at that time, Biden was reported to again be seriously considering the prospect and a "Draft Biden 2016" PAC was established.
, Biden was still uncertain about running. He felt his son's recent death had largely drained his emotional energy, and said, "nobody has a right... to seek that office unless they're willing to give it 110% of who they are." On October 21, speaking from a podium in the Rose Garden with his wife and Obama by his side, Biden announced his decision not to run for president in 2016. In January 2016, Biden affirmed that it was the right decision, but admitted to regretting not running for president "every day".
After Obama endorsed Hillary Clinton on June 9, 2016, Biden endorsed her later that day. Throughout the 2016 election, Biden strongly criticized Clinton's opponent, Donald Trump, in often colorful terms.
Subsequent activities (2017–2019)
After leaving the vice presidency, Biden became a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, while continuing to lead efforts to find treatments for cancer. In 2017 he wrote a memoir, Promise Me, Dad, and went on a book tour. Biden earned $15.6million in 2017–2018. In 2018, he gave a eulogy for Senator John McCain, praising McCain's embrace of American ideals and bipartisan friendships.
Biden remained in the public eye, endorsing candidates while continuing to comment on politics, climate change, and the presidency of Donald Trump. He also continued to speak out in favor of LGBT rights, continuing advocacy on an issue he had become more closely associated with during his vice presidency. In 2019, Biden criticized Brunei for its intention to implement Islamic laws that would allow death by stoning for adultery and homosexuality, calling it "appalling and immoral" and saying, "There is no excuse—not culture, not tradition—for this kind of hate and inhumanity." By 2019, Biden and his wife reported that their assets had increased to between $2.2 million and $8 million from speaking engagements and a contract to write a set of books.
2020 presidential campaign
Speculation and announcement
Between 2016 and 2019, media outlets often mentioned Biden as a likely candidate for president in 2020. When asked if he would run, he gave varied and ambivalent answers, saying "never say never". At one point he suggested he did not see a scenario where he would run again, but a few days later, he said, "I'll run if I can walk." A political action committee known as Time for Biden was formed in January 2018, seeking Biden's entry into the race. He finally launched his campaign on April 25, 2019, saying he was prompted to run, among other reasons, by his "sense of duty."
Campaign
In September 2019, it was reported that Trump had pressured Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate alleged wrongdoing by Biden and his son Hunter Biden. Despite the allegations, no evidence was produced of any wrongdoing by the Bidens. The media widely interpreted this pressure to investigate the Bidens as trying to hurt Biden's chances of winning the presidency, resulting in a political scandal and Trump's impeachment by the House of Representatives.
Beginning in 2019, Trump and his allies falsely accused Biden of getting the Ukrainian prosecutor general Viktor Shokin fired because he was supposedly pursuing an investigation into Burisma Holdings, which employed Hunter Biden. Biden was accused of withholding $1billion in aid from Ukraine in this effort. In 2015, Biden pressured the Ukrainian parliament to remove Shokin because the United States, the European Union and other international organizations considered Shokin corrupt and ineffective, and in particular because Shokin was not assertively investigating Burisma. The withholding of the $1billion in aid was part of this official policy. The Senate Homeland Security Committee and Senate Finance Committee, led by Republicans, investigated allegations of wrongdoing by the Bidens in Ukraine, ultimately releasing a report in September 2020 that detailed no evidence of wrongdoing by Joe Biden, and concluded that it was "not clear" whether Hunter Biden's role in Burisma "affected U.S. policy toward Ukraine".
In March 2019 and April 2019, Biden was accused by eight women of previous instances of inappropriate physical contact, such as embracing, touching or kissing. Biden had previously described himself as a "tactile politician" and admitted this behavior has caused trouble for him. In April 2019, Biden pledged to be more "respectful of people's personal space".
Throughout 2019, Biden stayed generally ahead of other Democrats in national polls. Despite this, he finished fourth in the Iowa caucuses, and eight days later, fifth in the New Hampshire primary. He performed better in the Nevada caucuses, reaching the 15% required for delegates, but still was behind Bernie Sanders by 21.6 percentage points. Making strong appeals to Black voters on the campaign trail and in the South Carolina debate, Biden won the South Carolina primary by more than 28 points. After the withdrawals and subsequent endorsements of candidates Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar, he made large gains in the March3 Super Tuesday primary elections. Biden won 18 of the next 26 contests, including Alabama, Arkansas, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia, putting him in the lead overall. Elizabeth Warren and Mike Bloomberg soon dropped out, and Biden expanded his lead with victories over Sanders in four states (Idaho, Michigan, Mississippi, and Missouri) on March 10.
In late March 2020, Tara Reade, one of the eight women who in 2019 had accused Biden of inappropriate physical contact, accused Biden of having sexually assaulted her in 1993. There were inconsistencies between Reade's 2019 and 2020 allegations. Biden and his campaign denied the sexual assault allegation.
When Sanders suspended his campaign on April 8, 2020, Biden became the Democratic Party's presumptive nominee for president. On April 13, Sanders endorsed Biden in a live-streamed discussion from their homes. Former President Barack Obama endorsed Biden the next day. In March 2020, Biden committed to choosing a woman as his running mate. In June, Biden met the 1,991-delegate threshold needed to secure the party's presidential nomination. On August 11, he announced U.S. Senator Kamala Harris of California as his running mate, making her the first African American and first South Asian American vice-presidential nominee on a major-party ticket.
On August 18, 2020, Biden was officially nominated at the 2020 Democratic National Convention as the Democratic Party nominee for president in the 2020 election.
Presidential transition
Biden was elected the 46th president of the United States in November 2020. He defeated the incumbent, Donald Trump, becoming the first candidate to defeat a sitting president since Bill Clinton defeated George H.W. Bush in 1992. Trump refused to concede, insisting the election had been "stolen" from him through "voter fraud", challenging the results in court and promoting numerous conspiracy theories about the voting and vote-counting processes, in an attempt to overturn the election results. Biden's transition was delayed by several weeks as the White House ordered federal agencies not to cooperate. On November23, General Services Administrator Emily W. Murphy formally recognized Biden as the apparent winner of the 2020 election and authorized the start of a transition process to the Biden administration.
On January 6, 2021, during Congress's electoral vote count, Trump told supporters gathered in front of the White House to march to the Capitol, saying, "We will never give up. We will never concede. It doesn't happen. You don't concede when there's theft involved." Soon after, they attacked the Capitol. During the insurrection at the Capitol, Biden addressed the nation, calling the events "an unprecedented assault unlike anything we've seen in modern times." He specifically called on Trump to "go on national television now to fulfill his oath and defend the Constitution and demand an end to this siege", adding, "it must end now." After the Capitol was cleared, Congress resumed its joint session and officially certified the election results with Pence declaring Biden and Harris the winners.
Presidency (2021–present)
Inauguration
Biden was inaugurated as the 46th president of the United States on January 20, 2021. At 78, he is the oldest person to have assumed the office. He is the second Catholic president (after John F. Kennedy) and the first president whose home state is Delaware. He is the second non-incumbent vice president (after Richard Nixon in 1968) to be elected president. He is also the first president from the Silent Generation.
Biden's inauguration was "a muted affair unlike any previous inauguration" due to COVID-19 precautions as well as massively increased security measures because of a threat of widespread civil unrest. Biden took the oath of office on the Capitol's west steps and gave an inaugural address, but there were no spectators on the Mall and no in-person parades or inaugural balls. Trump did not attend, becoming the first outgoing president since 1869 to not attend his successor's inauguration.
First 100 days
In his first two days as president, Biden signed 17 executive orders, more than most recent presidents did in their first 100 days. By his third day, orders had included rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement, ending the state of national emergency at the border with Mexico, directing the government to rejoin the World Health Organization, face mask requirements on federal property, measures to combat hunger in the United States, and revoking permits for the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. In his first two weeks in office, Biden signed more executive orders than any other president since Franklin D. Roosevelt had in their first month in office.
On February 4, 2021, the Biden administration announced that the United States was ending its support for the Saudi-led bombing campaign in Yemen. In his first visit to the State Department as president, Biden said "this war has to end" and that the conflict had created a "humanitarian and strategic catastrophe." On February 25, the Biden administration "struck a site in Syria used by two Iranian-backed militia groups in response to rocket attacks on American forces." This marked the first known action by the military under Biden.
On March 11, the first anniversary of COVID-19 being declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization, Biden signed into law the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, a $1.9 trillion economic stimulus relief package he proposed and lobbied for that aimed to speed up the United States' recovery from the economic and health effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing recession. The package included direct payments to most Americans, an extension of increased unemployment benefits, funds for vaccine distribution and school reopenings, support for small businesses and state and local governments, and expansions of health insurance subsidies and the child tax credit. Biden's initial proposal included an increase of the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour, but after Senate parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough determined that including the increase in a budget reconciliation bill would violate Senate rules, Democrats declined to pursue overruling her and removed the increase from the package.
Also in March, amid a rise in migrants entering the U.S. from Mexico, Biden told migrants, "Don't come over." He said that the U.S. was arranging a plan for migrants to "apply for asylum in place", without leaving their original locations. In the meantime, migrant adults "are being sent back", Biden said, in reference to the continuation of the Trump administration's Title 42 policy for quick deportations. Biden earlier announced that his administration would not deport unaccompanied migrant children; the rise in arrivals of such children exceeded the capacity of facilities meant to shelter them (before they were sent to sponsors), leading the Biden administration in March to direct the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help manage these children.
On April 14, Biden announced that the United States would delay the withdrawal of all troops from the war in Afghanistan until September 11, signalling an end to the country's direct military involvement in Afghanistan after nearly 20 years. In February 2020, the Trump administration had made a deal with the Taliban to completely withdraw U.S. forces by May 1, 2021. Biden's decision met with a wide range of reactions, from support and relief to trepidation at the possible collapse of the Afghan government without American support. On April 22–23, Biden held an international climate summit at which he announced that the U.S. would cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 50%–52% by 2030 compared to 2005 levels. Other countries also increased their pledges. If the pledges made at the summit are met, they will cut global greenhouse gas emissions by 2.6–3.7 Gte by 2030. On April 28, the eve of his 100th day in office, Biden delivered his first address to a joint session of Congress, in which he highlighted the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines and addressed withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, the murder of George Floyd, and the U.S. Capitol attack while urging Congress to pass comprehensive immigration, gun, and health care reform.
Rest of 2021
In May 2021, during a flareup in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, Biden expressed his support for Israel, saying "my party still supports Israel" amid disagreement from some Democrats. In June 2021, Biden took his first trip abroad as president. In eight days he visited Belgium, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. He attended a G7 summit, a NATO summit, and an EU summit, and held one-on-one talks with Russian president Vladimir Putin.
On June 17, Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act, which officially declared Juneteenth a federal holiday. Juneteenth is the first new federal holiday since Martin Luther King Jr. Day was declared a holiday in 1986. In July 2021, amid a slowing of the COVID-19 vaccination rate in the country and the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant, Biden said that the country has "a pandemic for those who haven't gotten the vaccination" and that it was therefore "gigantically important" for Americans to be vaccinated, touting the vaccines' effectiveness against hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19. He also criticized the prevalence of COVID-19 misinformation on social media, saying it was "killing people". In September 2021, Biden announced AUKUS, a security pact between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, to ensure "peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific over the long term"; the deal included nuclear-powered submarines built for Australia's use.
By the end of 2021, 40 of Biden's appointed judges to the federal judiciary had been confirmed, more than any president in their first year in office since Ronald Reagan. Biden has prioritized diversity in his judicial appointments more than any president in U.S. history, with the majority of appointments being women and people of color. Most of his appointments have been in blue states, making a limited impact since the courts in these states already traditionally lean liberal.
In the first eight months of his presidency, Biden's approval rating, according to Morning Consult polling, remained above 50%. In August, it began to decline and lowered into the low forties by December. The decline in his approval is attributed to the Afghanistan withdrawal, increasing hospitalizations from the Delta variant, high inflation and gas prices, disarray within the Democratic Party, and a general decline in popularity customary in politics.
Withdrawal from Afghanistan
American forces began withdrawing from Afghanistan in 2020, under the provisions of a February 2020 US-Taliban agreement that set a May 1, 2021, deadline. By April 2021, the State Department was urging American civilians in Afghanistan to leave as soon as possible. The Taliban began an offensive on May 1. As late as July, American intelligence assessments estimated Kabul would fall to the Taliban months or weeks after the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan. By early July, most American troops in Afghanistan had withdrawn. Biden addressed the withdrawal in July, saying, "The likelihood there's going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely."
On August 15, the Afghan government collapsed under the Taliban offensive, and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country. Biden reacted by ordering 6,000 American troops to assist in the evacuation of American personnel and Afghan allies. He was widely criticized for the manner of the withdrawal, with allegations of poor planning for the evacuation of Americans and Afghan allies, and for his silence and absence during the days before the collapse of the Afghan government.
On August 16, Biden addressed the "messy" situation, taking responsibility for it, and admitting that the situation "unfolded more quickly than we had anticipated". He defended his decision to withdraw, saying that Americans should not be "dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves," and blamed his predecessor Donald Trump, the Afghan president, and Afghan security forces for the speedy collapse.
On August 22, Biden said that his administration knew that ISIS-K was a "likely source" of threat. On August 26, a suicide bombing at the Kabul airport killed 13 U.S. service members and 169 Afghans. Biden declared to the attackers that the United States "will hunt you down and make you pay". On August 27, an American drone strike killed two ISIS-K targets, who were "planners and facilitators", according to a U.S. Army general. On August 29, another American drone strike killed 10 civilians, including seven children; the Defense Department initially claimed the strike was conducted on an Islamic State suicide bomber threatening Kabul Airport, but admitted the mistake on September 17 and apologized.
The U.S. military left Afghanistan on August 30, with Biden saying that the evacuation effort was an "extraordinary success", by extracting over 120,000 Americans, Afghans and other allies. He acknowledged that between "100 to 200" Americans who wanted to leave were left in Afghanistan, despite his August 18 pledge to stay in Afghanistan until all Americans who wanted to leave had left. The Biden administration, joining governments of almost 100 countries, said that the Taliban had given "assurances" that anyone "with travel authorization from [these] countries" would continue to be allowed to leave Afghanistan.
Economy
Biden entered office nine months into a recovery from the COVID-19 recession and his first year in office was characterized by robust growth in real GDP, employment, wages and stock market returns, amid significantly elevated inflation. Real GDP grew 5.7%, the fastest rate in 37 years. Amid record job creation, the unemployment rate fell at the fastest pace on record during the year. By the end of 2021, inflation reached a nearly 40-year high of 7.1%, which was partially offset by the highest wage and salary growth in at least 20 years. Income growth was particularly strong at the low end of the pay scale.
Infrastructure and climate
As part of Biden's Build Back Better agenda, in late March 2021, he proposed the American Jobs Plan, a $2 trillion package addressing issues including transport infrastructure, utilities infrastructure, broadband infrastructure, housing, schools, manufacturing, research and workforce development. After months of negotiations among Biden and lawmakers, in August 2021 the Senate passed a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill called the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, while the House, also in a bipartisan manner, approved that bill in early November 2021, covering infrastructure related to transport, utilities, and broadband. Biden signed the bill into law in mid-November 2021.
As COP26, scheduled for October 31 to November 12, 2021, approached, Biden increased his efforts to address climate change domestically and internationally. He promoted an agreement that the U.S. and the European Union cut methane emissions by a third by 2030 and tried to add dozens of other countries to the effort. He tried to convince China and Australia to do more. He convened an online Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate Change to press other countries to strengthen their climate policy. Biden pledged to double climate funding to developing countries by 2024. Also at COP26, the U.S. and China reached a deal on greenhouse gas emission reduction. The two countries are responsible for 40% of global emissions.
2022
In early 2022, Biden made efforts to change his public image after entering the year with low approval ratings, but they continued to fall, dipping to approximately 40% in aggregated polls by February.
In January, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, a moderate liberal nominated by Bill Clinton, announced he will be retiring from the Supreme Court. Breyer's retirement is expected to give Biden his first opportunity to nominate a Supreme Court justice. During his 2020 campaign, Biden vowed to nominate a Black woman to the court if a vacancy occurred, a promise he reiterated after the announcement of Breyer's retirement. In February, Biden nominated federal judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court.
Political positions
Biden is considered a moderate Democrat and a centrist, though more recently he has been seen as shifting to the left. He has a lifetime liberal 72% score from the Americans for Democratic Action through 2004, while the American Conservative Union gave him a lifetime conservative rating of 13% through 2008.
Biden supported the fiscal stimulus in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009; the Obama administration's proposed increase in infrastructure spending; subsidies for mass transit, including Amtrak, bus, and subway; and the reduced military spending in the Obama administration's fiscal year 2014 budget. He has proposed partially reversing the corporate tax cuts of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, saying that doing so would not hurt businesses' ability to hire. He voted for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Biden is a staunch supporter of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). He has promoted a plan to expand and build upon it, paid for by revenue gained from reversing some Trump administration tax cuts. Biden's plan aims to expand health insurance coverage to 97% of Americans, including by creating a public health insurance option.
Biden has supported same-sex marriage since 2012 and also supports Roe v. Wade and repealing the Hyde Amendment. He opposes drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and supports governmental funding to find new energy sources. As a senator, he forged deep relationships with police groups and was a chief proponent of a Police Officer's Bill of Rights measure that police unions supported but police chiefs opposed. As vice president, he served as a White House liaison to police.
Biden believes action must be taken on global warming. As a senator, he co-sponsored the Sense of the Senate resolution calling on the United States to take part in the United Nations climate negotiations and the Boxer–Sanders Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act, the most stringent climate bill in the United States Senate. He wants to achieve a carbon-free power sector in the U.S. by 2035 and stop emissions completely by 2050. His program includes reentering the Paris Agreement, nature conservation, and green building. Biden wants to pressure China and other countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions by carbon tariffs if necessary.
Biden has said the U.S. needs to "get tough" on China and build "a united front of U.S. allies and partners to confront China's abusive behaviors and human rights violations". He has called China the "most serious competitor" that poses challenges to the United States' "prosperity, security, and democratic values". Biden has voiced concerns about China's "coercive and unfair" economic practices and human rights abuses in the Xinjiang region to the Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping. He also pledged to sanction and commercially restrict Chinese government officials and entities who carry out repression.
Biden has said he is against regime change, but for providing non-military support to opposition movements. He opposed direct U.S. intervention in Libya, voted against U.S. participation in the Gulf War, voted in favor of the Iraq War, and supports a two-state solution in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Biden has pledged to end U.S. support for the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen and to reevaluate the United States' relationship with Saudi Arabia. He has called North Korea a "paper tiger". As vice president, Biden supported Obama's Cuban thaw. He has said that, as president, he would restore U.S. membership in key United Nations bodies, such as the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the World Health Organization, and possibly the Human Rights Council. Biden supports extending the New START arms control treaty with Russia to limit the number of nuclear weapons deployed by both sides. In 2021, Biden recognized the Armenian genocide, becoming the first U.S. president to do so.
Reputation
Biden was consistently ranked one of the least wealthy members of the Senate, which he attributed to his having been elected young. Feeling that less-wealthy public officials may be tempted to accept contributions in exchange for political favors, he proposed campaign finance reform measures during his first term. , Biden's net worth was $27,012. , the Bidens were worth $9 million, largely due to sales of Biden's books and speaking fees after his vice presidency.
The political writer Howard Fineman has written, "Biden is not an academic, he's not a theoretical thinker, he's a great street pol. He comes from a long line of working people in Scranton—auto salesmen, car dealers, people who know how to make a sale. He has that great Irish gift." Political columnist David S. Broder wrote that Biden has grown over time: "He responds to real people—that's been consistent throughout. And his ability to understand himself and deal with other politicians has gotten much much better." Journalist James Traub has written that "Biden is the kind of fundamentally happy person who can be as generous toward others as he is to himself."
In recent years, especially after the 2015 death of his elder son Beau, Biden has been noted for his empathetic nature and ability to communicate about grief. In 2020, CNN wrote that his presidential campaign aimed to make him "healer-in-chief", while The New York Times described his extensive history of being called upon to give eulogies.
Journalist and TV anchor Wolf Blitzer has described Biden as loquacious. He often deviates from prepared remarks and sometimes "puts his foot in his mouth." The New York Times wrote that Biden's "weak filters make him capable of blurting out pretty much anything." In 2018, Biden called himself "a gaffe machine". Some of his gaffes have been characterized as racially insensitive.
Electoral history
Publications
Books
Also paperback edition, Random House 2008, .
Book contributions
Biden, Joseph R., Jr. (2009). "Foreword." In: Choosing Equality: Essays and Narratives on the Desegregation Experience. Edited by Robert L. Hayman, Jr. and Leland Ware. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009. .
Pamphlets
Biden, Joseph R., Jr., and Les Aspin, William Louis Dickinson, Brent Scowcroft (1982). Arms Sales: A Useful Foreign Policy Tool? American Enterprise Institute. AEI Forum 56. Moderated by John Charles Daly.
Articles
Biden, Joseph R., Jr., and Miga Purev-Ochir (Spring 2015). "U.S.-Russian Relations in a Post-Cold War World: A Strategic Vision: Mapping a Future for U.S.-Russian Relations." Harvard International Review, vol. 36, no. 3, pp. 72–76. .
Notes
References
Citations
Works cited
See also
List of honors and awards received by Joe Biden
List of things named after Joe Biden
External links
Official
President Joe Biden official website
Presidential campaign website
Obama White House biography (archived)
Other
Joe Biden at On the Issues
Joe Biden at PolitiFact
1942 births
Living people
20th-century American lawyers
20th-century American politicians
20th-century Roman Catholics
21st-century American memoirists
21st-century presidents of the United States
21st-century vice presidents of the United States
21st-century Roman Catholics
2008 United States vice-presidential candidates
2012 United States vice-presidential candidates
American people of English descent
American people of French descent
American people of Irish descent
Biden family
Candidates in the 1988 United States presidential election
Candidates in the 2008 United States presidential election
Candidates in the 2020 United States presidential election
Catholics from Delaware
Catholics from Pennsylvania
Chairmen of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
County council members and commissioners in Delaware
Delaware Democrats
Delaware Fightin' Blue Hens football players
Delaware lawyers
Democratic Party (United States) presidential nominees
Democratic Party presidents of the United States
Democratic Party United States senators
Democratic Party (United States) vice presidential nominees
Democratic Party vice presidents of the United States
Laetare Medal recipients
New Castle County, Delaware politicians
Obama administration cabinet members
People from Claymont, Delaware
People from Wilmington, Delaware
People involved in plagiarism controversies
Politicians from Scranton, Pennsylvania
Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients
Presidents of the United States
Writers from Wilmington, Delaware
Public defenders
Recipients of Hilal-i-Pakistan
Recipients of the Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana, 1st Class
Recipients of St. George's Order of Victory
Syracuse University College of Law alumni
Time 100
Time Person of the Year
United States senators from Delaware
University of Delaware alumni
University of Pennsylvania faculty
Vice presidents of the United States
Widener University faculty
Writers from Scranton, Pennsylvania | false | [
"\"A Token of My Extreme\", by Frank Zappa, is a song on the 1979 concept album Joe's Garage [Part II]. The main character from this triple-album rock-opera has his mind messed-up by Lucille then \"finally does something smart\" and \"pays a lot of money to L. Ron Hoover and the First Church of Appliantology.\"\n\nPlot \nAppliantology is shown as an insincere religion, which cooperates with a \"malevolent totalitarian regime.\" This is an apparent reference to Scientology and its founder L. Ron Hubbard. Joe, doubting his sanity, asks 'mystical advisor' L. Ron Hoover what his problem is and is told that he is \"a latent appliance-fetishist.\" Joe asks if it is time \"to come out of the closet,\" and is told that he should \"go into the closet\". \"The Closet\" turns out to be a bar in Los Angeles, where he can have \"a lot of fun\" achieving sexual gratification using machines. The \"machines\" at The Closet are household appliances with marital aids stuck all over them. Joe is informed that the best appliances speak foreign languages, which leads to the next song, \"Stick It Out\". This song derives from another piece called \"Tush Tush Tush\" from 1973.\n\nAnalysis \nThis song was analyzed in Zappa, and also in Academy Zappa. In their study of Zappa published in the journal Studies in Musical Theatre, Carr and Hand mention that the song is \"a satire of L. Ron Hubbard (1911–86) and the Church of Scientology\". They described the work as \"an ironic precursor\" to Carlton's Return to the Forbidden Planet.\n\nSee also\nScientology in popular culture\n\nReferences\n\n1979 songs\nSongs critical of religion\nFrank Zappa songs\nScientology in popular culture\nSongs written by Frank Zappa\nSong recordings produced by Frank Zappa",
"Jean Léon Talou (15 August 1835 – 11 January 1900) was a French lawyer and politician who was deputy and then senator for the department of Lot.\n\nEarly years\n\nJean Léon Talou was born on 15 August 1835 in Francoulès, Lot.\nHe completed his classical studies at the Lycee of Cahors.\nGambetta was his classmate and later his friend.\nHe studied law at the faculties of Toulouse and Paris, obtain his license, and purchased the office of advocate at the Cahors civil court.\n\nDepartmental politics\n\nTalou was involved in politics early in his career, and was strongly opposed to the imperial regime.\nIn 1870 he was elected municipal councilor of Cahors as opposition candidate.\nIn 1871 he was elected to the General Counsel of Lot.\nHe failed to be reelected in 1874, defeated by the former minister Depeyre.\nHe was reelected to the General Counsel of Lot in 1880.\nIn 1886 he was reelected to the General Counsel of Lot, defeated Count Murat the younger.\n\nNational politics\n\nIn the legislative elections of 22 September 1889 Talou defeated the incumbent Count Joachim Joseph André Murat the elder of the Appel au peuple group.\nHe was reelected for the first district of Cahors, Lot, in 1893.\nTalou sat and voted with the radical group.\nLéon Talou was elected Senator for Lot on 3 January 1897.\nHe was a knight of the Legion of Honour.\nHe died in office on 11 January 1900 in Paris.\n\nNotes\n\nSources\n\n1835 births\n1900 deaths\nPeople from Lot (department)\nPoliticians from Occitania (administrative region)\nFrench republicans\nMembers of the 5th Chamber of Deputies of the French Third Republic\nMembers of the 6th Chamber of Deputies of the French Third Republic\nFrench Senators of the Third Republic\nSenators of Lot (department)\nFrench general councillors"
] |
[
"Joe Biden",
"Characteristics as senator",
"What are Joe's characteristics as senator?",
"characterized Biden as \"self-confident\" and \"compulsively ambitious\".",
"Was Joe likable as senator?",
"\"Biden is the kind of fundamentally happy person who can be as generous toward others as he is to himself.\"",
"Does Joe have a lot of friends in politics?",
"I don't know."
] | C_ae5bfb2601a2463ebfedd2b995b83bf8_1 | When did he become senator? | 4 | When did Joe Biden become senator? | Joe Biden | On August 27, 1966, while Biden was still a law student, he married Neilia Hunter. They overcame her parents' initial reluctance for her to wed a Roman Catholic, and the ceremony was held in a Catholic church in Skaneateles. They had three children, Joseph R. "Beau" Biden III in 1969, Robert Hunter in 1970, and Naomi Christina in 1971. During 1968, Biden clerked for six months at a Wilmington law firm headed by prominent local Republican William Prickett and, as he later said, "thought of myself as a Republican". He disliked the conservative racial politics of incumbent Democratic Governor of Delaware Charles L. Terry and supported a more liberal Republican, Russell W. Peterson, who defeated Terry in 1968. The local Republicans tried to recruit him, but he resisted due to his distaste for Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon, and registered as an Independent instead. In 1969, Biden resumed practicing law in Wilmington, first as a public defender and then at a firm headed by Sid Balick, a locally active Democrat. Balick named him to the Democratic Forum, a group trying to reform and revitalize the state party, and Biden switched his registration to Democrat. He also started his own firm, Biden and Walsh. Corporate law, however, did not appeal to him and criminal law did not pay well. He supplemented his income by managing properties. Later in 1969, Biden ran as a Democrat for the New Castle County Council on a liberal platform that included support for public housing in the suburban area. He won by a solid, two-thousand vote margin in the usually Republican district and in a bad year for Democrats in the state. Even before taking his seat, he was already talking about running for the U.S. Senate in a couple of years. He served on the County Council from 1970 to 1972 while continuing his private law practice. Among issues he addressed on the council was his opposition to large highway projects that might disrupt Wilmington neighborhoods, including those related to Interstate 95. During his first years in the Senate, Biden focused on legislation regarding consumer-protection and environmental issues and called for greater accountability on the part of government. In mid-1974, freshman Senator Biden was named one of the 200 Faces for the Future by Time magazine, in a profile that mentioned what had happened to his family and characterized Biden as "self-confident" and "compulsively ambitious". Biden became ranking minority member of the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary in 1981. In 1984, he was Democratic floor manager for the successful passage of the Comprehensive Crime Control Act; civil libertarians praised him for modifying some of the Act's provisions, and it was his most important legislative accomplishment at that point in time. He first considered running for president in that year, after he gained notice for giving speeches to party audiences that simultaneously scolded and encouraged Democrats. Regarding foreign policy, during his first decade in the Senate, Biden focused on arms control issues. In response to the refusal of the U.S. Congress to ratify the SALT II Treaty signed in 1979 by Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and President Jimmy Carter, he took the initiative to meet the Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, educated him about American concerns and interests, and secured several changes to address objections of the Foreign Relations Committee. When the Reagan administration wanted to interpret the 1972 SALT I Treaty loosely in order to allow the Strategic Defense Initiative to proceed, Biden argued for strict adherence to the treaty's terms. He clashed again with the Reagan administration in 1986 over economic sanctions against South Africa; he received considerable attention when he excoriated Secretary of State George P. Shultz at a Senate hearing because of the administration's support of that country, which continued to practice the apartheid system. Following his initial election in 1972, Biden was re-elected to six additional terms, in the elections of 1978, 1984, 1990, 1996, 2002, and 2008, usually getting about 60 percent of the vote. He did not face strong opposition; Pete du Pont, then governor, chose not to run against him in 1984. Biden spent 28 years as a junior senator due to the two-year seniority of his Republican colleague William V. Roth Jr. After Roth was defeated for re-election by Tom Carper in 2000, Biden became Delaware's senior senator. He then became the longest-serving senator in Delaware history. In May 1999, Biden set the mark for youngest senator to cast 10,000 votes. With a net worth between $59,000 and $366,000, and almost no outside income or investment income, Biden was consistently ranked as one of the least wealthy members of the Senate. Biden stated that he was listed as the second poorest member in Congress, a distinction that he was not proud of, but attributed to being elected early in his career. Biden realized early in his senatorial career how vulnerable poorer public officials are to offers of financial contributions in exchange for policy support, and he pushed campaign finance reform measures during his first term. During his years as a senator, Biden amassed a reputation for loquaciousness, with his questions and remarks during Senate hearings being especially known for being long-winded. He has been a strong speaker and debater and a frequent and effective guest on the Sunday morning talk shows. In public appearances, he is known to deviate from prepared remarks at will. According to political analyst Mark Halperin, he has shown "a persistent tendency to say silly, offensive, and off-putting things"; The New York Times writes that Biden's "weak filters make him capable of blurting out pretty much anything". Nor is Biden known for modesty; journalist James Traub has written that "Biden's vanity and his regard for his own gifts seem considerable even by the rarefied standards of the U.S. Senate." Political writer Howard Fineman has said that, "Biden is not an academic, he's not a theoretical thinker, he's a great street pol. He comes from a long line of working people in Scranton--auto salesmen, car dealers, people who know how to make a sale. He has that great Irish gift." Political columnist David S. Broder has viewed Biden as having grown since he came to Washington and since his failed 1988 presidential bid: "He responds to real people--that's been consistent throughout. And his ability to understand himself and deal with other politicians has gotten much much better." Traub concludes that "Biden is the kind of fundamentally happy person who can be as generous toward others as he is to himself." CANNOTANSWER | 1969, | Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. ( ; born November 20, 1942) is an American politician who is the 46th and current president of the United States. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 47th vice president from 2009 to 2017 under Barack Obama and represented Delaware in the United States Senate from 1973 to 2009.
Biden was born and raised in Scranton, Pennsylvania, moving with his family to New Castle County, Delaware, in 1953 when he was ten. He studied at the University of Delaware before earning his law degree from Syracuse University in 1968. He was elected to the New Castle County Council in 1970 and became the sixth-youngest senator in U.S. history after he was elected to the United States Senate from Delaware in 1972, at age 29. Biden was the chair or ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for 12 years and was influential in foreign affairs during Obama's presidency. He also chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee from 1987 to 1995, dealing with drug policy, crime prevention, and civil liberties issues; led the effort to pass the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act and the Violence Against Women Act; and oversaw six U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings, including the contentious hearings for Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas. He ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988 and 2008. Biden was reelected to the Senate six times and was the fourth-most senior sitting senator at the time when he became Obama's vice president after they won the 2008 presidential election, defeating John McCain and his running mate Sarah Palin. Obama and Biden were reelected in 2012, defeating Mitt Romney and his running mate Paul Ryan.
During eight years as vice president, Biden leaned on his Senate experience and frequently represented the administration in negotiations with congressional Republicans, including on the Budget Control Act of 2011, which resolved a debt ceiling crisis, and the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, which addressed the impending "fiscal cliff". He also oversaw infrastructure spending in 2009 to counteract the Great Recession. On foreign policy, Biden was a close counselor to the president and took a leading role in designing the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq in 2011. In 2017, Obama awarded Biden the Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction.
Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris defeated incumbent president Donald Trump and vice president Mike Pence in the 2020 presidential election. He is the oldest president and the first to have a female vice president. His early presidential activity centered around proposing, lobbying for, and signing into law the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 to help the United States recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing recession, as well as a series of executive orders. Biden's orders addressed the pandemic and reversed several Trump administration policies, including rejoining the Paris Agreement on climate change and accepting new applications for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients, although a federal judge blocked the latter. He completed the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan by September 2021. During the withdrawal, the Afghan government collapsed and the Taliban seized control. Biden proposed the Build Back Better Plan, aspects of which were incorporated into the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which Biden signed into law in November 2021.
Early life (1942–1965)
Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was born on November 20, 1942, at St. Mary's Hospital in Scranton, Pennsylvania, to Catherine Eugenia "Jean" Biden (née Finnegan) and Joseph Robinette Biden Sr. The oldest child in a Catholic family, he has a sister, Valerie, and two brothers, Francis and James. Jean was of Irish descent, while Joseph Sr. had English, French, and Irish ancestry.
Biden's father had been wealthy, but suffered financial setbacks around the time Biden was born, and for several years the family lived with Biden's maternal grandparents. Scranton fell into economic decline during the 1950s and Biden's father could not find steady work. Beginning in 1953 when Biden was ten, the family lived in an apartment in Claymont, Delaware, before moving to a house in nearby Mayfield. Biden Sr. later became a successful used-car salesman, maintaining the family in a middle-class lifestyle.
At Archmere Academy in Claymont, Biden played baseball and was a standout halfback and wide receiver on the high school football team. Though a poor student, he was class president in his junior and senior years. He graduated in 1961. At the University of Delaware in Newark, Biden briefly played freshman football and, as an unexceptional student, earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1965 with a double major in history and political science and a minor in English.
Biden has a stutter, which has improved since his early twenties. He says he reduced it by reciting poetry before a mirror, but some observers suggested it affected his performance in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential debates.
Marriages, law school, and early career (1966–1973)
On August 27, 1966, Biden married Neilia Hunter (19421972), a student at Syracuse University, after overcoming her parents' reluctance for her to wed a Roman Catholic. Their wedding was held in a Catholic church in Skaneateles, New York. They had three children: Joseph R. "Beau" Biden III (19692015), Robert Hunter Biden (born 1970), and Naomi Christina "Amy" Biden (19711972).
In 1968, Biden earned a Juris Doctor from Syracuse University College of Law, ranked 76th in his class of 85, after failing a course due to an acknowledged "mistake" when he plagiarized a law review article for a paper he wrote in his first year at law school. He was admitted to the Delaware bar in 1969.
Biden had not openly supported or opposed the Vietnam War until he ran for Senate and opposed Nixon's conduct of the war. While studying at the University of Delaware and Syracuse University, Biden obtained five student draft deferments, at a time when most draftees were sent to the Vietnam War. In 1968, based on a physical examination, he was given a conditional medical deferment; in 2008, a spokesperson for Biden said his having had "asthma as a teenager" was the reason for the deferment.
In 1968, Biden clerked at a Wilmington law firm headed by prominent local Republican William Prickett and, he later said, "thought of myself as a Republican". He disliked incumbent Democratic Delaware governor Charles L. Terry's conservative racial politics and supported a more liberal Republican, Russell W. Peterson, who defeated Terry in 1968. Biden was recruited by local Republicans but registered as an Independent because of his distaste for Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon.
In 1969, Biden practiced law first as a public defender and then at a firm headed by a locally active Democrat who named him to the Democratic Forum, a group trying to reform and revitalize the state party; Biden subsequently reregistered as a Democrat. He and another attorney also formed a law firm. Corporate law, however, did not appeal to him, and criminal law did not pay well. He supplemented his income by managing properties.
In 1970, Biden ran for the 4th district seat on the New Castle County Council on a liberal platform that included support for public housing in the suburbs. The seat had been held by Republican Henry R. Folsom, who was running in the 5th District following a reapportionment of council districts. Biden won the general election by defeating Republican Lawrence T. Messick, and took office on January 5, 1971. He served until January 1, 1973, and was succeeded by Democrat Francis R. Swift. During his time on the county council, Biden opposed large highway projects, which he argued might disrupt Wilmington neighborhoods.
1972 U.S. Senate campaign in Delaware
In 1972, Biden defeated Republican incumbent J. Caleb Boggs to become the junior U.S. senator from Delaware. He was the only Democrat willing to challenge Boggs. With minimal campaign funds, he was given no chance of winning. Family members managed and staffed the campaign, which relied on meeting voters face-to-face and hand-distributing position papers, an approach made feasible by Delaware's small size. He received help from the AFL–CIO and Democratic pollster Patrick Caddell. His platform focused on the environment, withdrawal from Vietnam, civil rights, mass transit, equitable taxation, health care, and public dissatisfaction with "politics as usual". A few months before the election, Biden trailed Boggs by almost thirty percentage points, but his energy, attractive young family, and ability to connect with voters' emotions worked to his advantage, and he won with 50.5 percent of the vote. At the time of his election, he was still 29 years old, but reached the constitutionally required age of 30 before he was sworn in as Senator.
Death of wife and daughter
On December 18, 1972, a few weeks after the election, Biden's wife Neilia and one-year-old daughter Naomi were killed in an automobile accident while Christmas shopping in Hockessin, Delaware. Neilia's station wagon was hit by a semi-trailer truck as she pulled out from an intersection. Their sons Beau (aged3) and Hunter (aged2) survived the accident and were taken to the hospital in fair condition, Beau with a broken leg and other wounds and Hunter with a minor skull fracture and other head injuries. Biden considered resigning to care for them, but Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield persuaded him not to.
Years later, Biden said he had heard that the truck driver allegedly drank alcohol before the collision. The driver's family denied that claim, and the police never substantiated it. Biden later apologized to the family. The accident had filled him with anger and religious doubt. He wrote that he "felt God had played a horrible trick" on him, and he had trouble focusing on work.
Second marriage
Biden credits his second wife, teacher Jill Tracy Jacobs, with the renewal of his interest in politics and life; they met in 1975 on a blind date and were married at the United Nations chapel in New York on June 17, 1977. They spent their honeymoon at Lake Balaton in the Hungarian People's Republic, behind the Iron Curtain. They are Roman Catholics and attend Mass at St. Joseph's on the Brandywine in Greenville, Delaware. Their daughter Ashley Biden (born 1981) is a social worker. She is married to physician Howard Krein. Beau Biden became an Army Judge Advocate in Iraq and later Delaware Attorney General; he died of brain cancer in 2015. Hunter Biden is a Washington lobbyist and investment adviser.
Teaching
From 1991 to 2008, as an adjunct professor, Biden co-taught a seminar on constitutional law at Widener University School of Law. The seminar often had a waiting list. Biden sometimes flew back from overseas to teach the class.
U.S. Senate (1973–2009)
Senate activities
In January 1973, secretary of the Senate Francis R. Valeo swore Biden in at the Delaware Division of the Wilmington Medical Center. Present were his sons Beau (whose leg was still in traction from the automobile accident) and Hunter and other family members. At 30, he was the sixth-youngest senator in U.S. history.
To see his sons, Biden traveled by train between his Delaware home and D.C.—74 minutes each way—and maintained this habit throughout his 36 years in the Senate.
During his early years in the Senate, Biden focused on consumer protection and environmental issues and called for greater government accountability. In a 1974 interview, he described himself as liberal on civil rights and liberties, senior citizens' concerns and healthcare but conservative on other issues, including abortion and military conscription.
In his first decade in the Senate, Biden focused on arms control. After Congress failed to ratify the SALT II Treaty signed in 1979 by Soviet general secretary Leonid Brezhnev and President Jimmy Carter, Biden met with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko to communicate American concerns and secured changes that addressed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's objections. When the Reagan administration wanted to interpret the 1972 SALT I treaty loosely to allow development of the Strategic Defense Initiative, Biden argued for strict adherence to the treaty. He received considerable attention when he excoriated Secretary of State George Shultz at a Senate hearing for the Reagan administration's support of South Africa despite its continued policy of apartheid.
Biden became ranking minority member of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1981. In 1984, he was a Democratic floor manager for the successful passage of the Comprehensive Crime Control Act. His supporters praised him for modifying some of the law's worst provisions, and it was his most important legislative accomplishment to that time. In 1994, Biden helped pass the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, also known as the Biden Crime Law, which included a ban on assault weapons, and the Violence Against Women Act, which he has called his most significant legislation. The 1994 crime law was unpopular among progressives and criticized for resulting in mass incarceration; in 2019, Biden called his role in passing the bill a "big mistake", citing its policy on crack cocaine and saying that the bill "trapped an entire generation".
In 1993, Biden voted for a provision that deemed homosexuality incompatible with military life, thereby banning gays from serving in the armed forces. In 1996, he voted for the Defense of Marriage Act, which prohibited the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages, thereby barring individuals in such marriages from equal protection under federal law and allowing states to do the same. In 2015, the act was ruled unconstitutional in Obergefell v. Hodges.
Elected to the Senate in 1972, Biden was reelected in 1978, 1984, 1990, 1996, 2002, and 2008, regularly receiving about 60% of the vote. He was junior senator to William Roth, who was first elected in 1970, until Roth was defeated in 2000. , he was the 18th-longest-serving senator in U.S. history.
Opposition to busing
In the mid-1970s, Biden was one of the Senate's strongest opponents of race-integration busing. His Delaware constituents strongly opposed it, and such opposition nationwide later led his party to mostly abandon school integration policies. In his first Senate campaign, Biden had expressed support for busing to remedy de jure segregation, as in the South, but opposed its use to remedy de facto segregation arising from racial patterns of neighborhood residency, as in Delaware; he opposed a proposed constitutional amendment banning busing entirely.
In May 1974, Biden voted to table a proposal containing anti-busing and anti-desegregation clauses but later voted for a modified version containing a qualification that it was not intended to weaken the judiciary's power to enforce the 5th Amendment and 14th Amendment. In 1975, he supported a proposal that would have prevented the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare from cutting federal funds to districts that refused to integrate; he said busing was a "bankrupt idea [violating] the cardinal rule of common sense" and that his opposition would make it easier for other liberals to follow suit. At the same time he supported initiatives on housing, job opportunities and voting rights. Biden supported a measure forbidding the use of federal funds for transporting students beyond the school closest to them. In 1977, he co-sponsored an amendment closing loopholes in that measure, which President Carter signed into law in 1978.
Brain surgeries
In February 1988, after several episodes of increasingly severe neck pain, Biden was taken by ambulance to Walter Reed Army Medical Center for surgery to correct a leaking intracranial berry aneurysm. While recuperating, he suffered a pulmonary embolism, a serious complication. After a second aneurysm was surgically repaired in May, Biden's recuperation kept him away from the Senate for seven months.
Senate Judiciary Committee
Biden was a longtime member of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary. He chaired it from 1987 to 1995 and was a ranking minority member from 1981 to 1987 and again from 1995 to 1997.
As chair, Biden presided over two highly contentious U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings. When Robert Bork was nominated in 1988, Biden reversed his approvalgiven in an interview the previous yearof a hypothetical Bork nomination. Conservatives were angered, but at the hearings' close Biden was praised for his fairness, humor, and courage. Rejecting the arguments of some Bork opponents, Biden framed his objections to Bork in terms of the conflict between Bork's strong originalism and the view that the U.S. Constitution provides rights to liberty and privacy beyond those explicitly enumerated in its text. Bork's nomination was rejected in the committee by a 9–5 vote and then in the full Senate, 58–42.
During Clarence Thomas's nomination hearings in 1991, Biden's questions on constitutional issues were often convoluted to the point that Thomas sometimes lost track of them, and Thomas later wrote that Biden's questions were akin to "beanballs". After the committee hearing closed, the public learned that Anita Hill, a University of Oklahoma law school professor, had accused Thomas of making unwelcome sexual comments when they had worked together. Biden had known of some of these charges, but initially shared them only with the committee because Hill was then unwilling to testify. The committee hearing was reopened and Hill testified, but Biden did not permit testimony from other witnesses, such as a woman who had made similar charges and experts on harassment, saying he wanted to preserve Thomas's privacy and the hearings' decency. The full Senate confirmed Thomas by a 52–48 vote, with Biden opposed. Liberal legal advocates and women's groups felt strongly that Biden had mishandled the hearings and not done enough to support Hill. Biden later sought out women to serve on the Judiciary Committee and emphasized women's issues in the committee's legislative agenda. In 2019, he told Hill he regretted his treatment of her, but Hill said afterward she remained unsatisfied.
Biden was critical of Independent Counsel Ken Starr during the 1990s Whitewater controversy and Lewinsky scandal investigations, saying "it's going to be a cold day in hell" before another independent counsel would be granted similar powers. He voted to acquit during the impeachment of President Clinton. During the 2000s, Biden sponsored bankruptcy legislation sought by credit card issuers. Clinton vetoed the bill in 2000, but it passed in 2005 as the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act, with Biden one of only 18 Democrats to vote for it, while leading Democrats and consumer rights organizations opposed it. As a senator, Biden strongly supported increased Amtrak funding and rail security.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Biden was a longtime member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He became its ranking minority member in 1997 and chaired it from June 2001 to 2003 and 2007 to 2009. His positions were generally liberal internationalist. He collaborated effectively with Republicans and sometimes went against elements of his own party. During this time he met with at least 150 leaders from 60 countries and international organizations, becoming a well-known Democratic voice on foreign policy.
Biden voted against authorization for the Gulf War in 1991, siding with 45 of the 55 Democratic senators; he said the U.S. was bearing almost all the burden in the anti-Iraq coalition.
Biden became interested in the Yugoslav Wars after hearing about Serbian abuses during the Croatian War of Independence in 1991. Once the Bosnian War broke out, Biden was among the first to call for the "lift and strike" policy of lifting the arms embargo, training Bosnian Muslims and supporting them with NATO air strikes, and investigating war crimes. The George H. W. Bush administration and Clinton administration were both reluctant to implement the policy, fearing Balkan entanglement. In April 1993, Biden spent a week in the Balkans and held a tense three-hour meeting with Serbian leader Slobodan Milošević. Biden said he had told Milošević, "I think you're a damn war criminal and you should be tried as one."
Biden wrote an amendment in 1992 to compel the Bush administration to arm the Bosnian Muslims, but deferred in 1994 to a somewhat softer stance the Clinton administration preferred, before signing on the following year to a stronger measure sponsored by Bob Dole and Joe Lieberman. The engagement led to a successful NATO peacekeeping effort. Biden has called his role in affecting Balkans policy in the mid-1990s his "proudest moment in public life" related to foreign policy.
As chair, Biden contributed to successfully encouraging the Clinton administration to commit the resources and political capital to broker what became the 1998 Good Friday Agreement between the governments of Ireland and the United Kingdom through the Northern Ireland peace process.
On September 3, 1998, the resigning former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter had, according to Barton Gellman, accused the Clinton administration of obstructing weapons inspections in Iraq. Biden joined many other Senate Democrats and "amplified on the Clinton administration's counterattack against former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter." He questioned whether Ritter was trying to "appropriate the power 'to decide when to pull the trigger' of military force against Iraq", and said that the Secretary of State would also have to consider the opinion of allies, the UNSC, and public opinion, before any intervention in Iraq. In a Washington Post op-ed later that month, Biden criticized a unilateral "confrontation-based policy" but praised the idea of asking whether intervention might be necessary at some point, though he said it was "above the pay grade" of one weapons inspector.
In 1999, during the Kosovo War, Biden supported the 1999 NATO bombing of FR Yugoslavia. He and Senator John McCain co-sponsored the McCain-Biden Kosovo Resolution, which called on Clinton to use all necessary force, including ground troops, to confront Milošević over Yugoslav actions toward ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.
Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq
Biden was a strong supporter of the War in Afghanistan, saying, "Whatever it takes, we should do it." As head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he said in 2002 that Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was a threat to national security and there was no other option than to "eliminate" that threat. In October 2002, he voted in favor of the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq, approving the U.S. invasion of Iraq. As chair of the committee, he assembled a series of witnesses to testify in favor of the authorization. They gave testimony grossly misrepresenting the intent, history, and status of Saddam and his secular government, which was an avowed enemy of al-Qaida, and touted Iraq's fictional possession of weapons of mass destruction. Biden eventually became a critic of the war and viewed his vote and role as a "mistake", but did not push for withdrawal. He supported the appropriations for the occupation, but argued that the war should be internationalized, that more soldiers were needed, and that the Bush administration should "level with the American people" about its cost and length.
By late 2006, Biden's stance had shifted considerably. He opposed the troop surge of 2007, saying General David Petraeus was "dead, flat wrong" in believing the surge could work. Biden instead advocated dividing Iraq into a loose federation of three ethnic states. In November 2006, Biden and Leslie H. Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, released a comprehensive strategy to end sectarian violence in Iraq. Rather than continue the existing approach or withdrawing, the plan called for "a third way": federalizing Iraq and giving Kurds, Shiites, and Sunnis "breathing room" in their own regions. In September 2007, a non-binding resolution endorsing the plan passed the Senate, but the idea was unfamiliar, had no political constituency, and failed to gain traction. Iraq's political leadership denounced the resolution as de facto partitioning of the country, and the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad issued a statement distancing itself from it. In May 2008, Biden sharply criticized President George W. Bush's speech to Israel's Knesset in which Bush compared some Democrats to Western leaders who appeased Hitler before World WarII; Biden called the speech "bullshit", "malarkey", and "outrageous". He later apologized for his language.
Presidential campaigns 1988 and 2008
1988 campaign
Biden formally declared his candidacy for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination on June 9, 1987. He was considered a strong candidate because of his moderate image, his speaking ability, his high profile as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee at the upcoming Robert Bork Supreme Court nomination hearings, and his appeal to Baby Boomers; he would have been the second-youngest person elected president, after John F. Kennedy. He raised more in the first quarter of 1987 than any other candidate.
By August his campaign's messaging had become confused due to staff rivalries, and in September, he was accused of plagiarizing a speech by British Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock. Biden's speech had similar lines about being the first person in his family to attend university. Biden had credited Kinnock with the formulation on previous occasions, but did not on two occasions in late August. Kinnock himself was more forgiving; the two men met in 1988, forming an enduring friendship.
Earlier that year he had also used passages from a 1967 speech by Robert F. Kennedy (for which his aides took blame) and a short phrase from John F. Kennedy's inaugural address; two years earlier he had used a 1976 passage by Hubert Humphrey. Biden responded that politicians often borrow from one another without giving credit, and that one of his rivals for the nomination, Jesse Jackson, had called him to point out that he (Jackson) had used the same material by Humphrey that Biden had used.
A few days later, an incident in law school in which Biden drew text from a Fordham Law Review article with inadequate citations was publicized. He was required to repeat the course and passed with high marks. At Biden's request the Delaware Supreme Court's Board of Professional Responsibility reviewed the incident and concluded that he had violated no rules.
Biden has made several false or exaggerated claims about his early life: that he had earned three degrees in college, that he attended law school on a full scholarship, that he had graduated in the top half of his class, and that he had marched in the civil rights movement. The limited amount of other news about the presidential race amplified these disclosures and on September 23, 1987, Biden withdrew his candidacy, saying it had been overrun by "the exaggerated shadow" of his past mistakes.
2008 campaign
After exploring the possibility of a run in several previous cycles, in January 2007, Biden declared his candidacy in the 2008 elections. During his campaign, Biden focused on the Iraq War, his record as chairman of major Senate committees, and his foreign-policy experience. In mid-2007, Biden stressed his foreign policy expertise compared to Obama's. Biden was noted for his one-liners during the campaign; in one debate he said of Republican candidate Rudy Giuliani: "There's only three things he mentions in a sentence: a noun, and a verb and 9/11."
Biden had difficulty raising funds, struggled to draw people to his rallies, and failed to gain traction against the high-profile candidacies of Obama and Senator Hillary Clinton. He never rose above single digits in national polls of the Democratic candidates. In the first contest on January 3, 2008, Biden placed fifth in the Iowa caucuses, garnering slightly less than one percent of the state delegates. He withdrew from the race that evening.
Despite its lack of success, Biden's 2008 campaign raised his stature in the political world. In particular, it changed the relationship between Biden and Obama. Although they had served together on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, they had not been close: Biden resented Obama's quick rise to political stardom, while Obama viewed Biden as garrulous and patronizing. Having gotten to know each other during 2007, Obama appreciated Biden's campaign style and appeal to working-class voters, and Biden said he became convinced Obama was "the real deal".
2008 vice-presidential campaign
Shortly after Biden withdrew from the presidential race, Obama privately told him he was interested in finding an important place for Biden in his administration. Biden declined Obama's first request to vet him for the vice-presidential slot, fearing the vice presidency would represent a loss in status and voice from his Senate position, but he later changed his mind. In early August, Obama and Biden met in secret to discuss the possibility, and developed a strong personal rapport. On August 22, 2008, Obama announced that Biden would be his running mate. The New York Times reported that the strategy behind the choice reflected a desire to fill out the ticket with someone with foreign policy and national security experience—and not to help the ticket win a swing state or to emphasize Obama's "change" message. Others pointed out Biden's appeal to middle-class and blue-collar voters, as well as his willingness to aggressively challenge Republican nominee John McCain in a way that Obama seemed uncomfortable doing at times. In accepting Obama's offer, Biden ruled out running for president again in 2016, but his comments in later years seemed to back off that stance, as he did not want to diminish his political power by appearing uninterested in advancement. Biden was officially nominated for vice president on August 27 by voice vote at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver.
Biden's vice-presidential campaigning gained little media visibility, as far greater press attention was focused on the Republican running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. During one week in September 2008, for instance, the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism found that Biden was included in only five percent of coverage of the race, far less than the other three candidates on the tickets received. Biden nevertheless focused on campaigning in economically challenged areas of swing states and trying to win over blue-collar Democrats, especially those who had supported Hillary Clinton. Biden attacked McCain heavily despite a long-standing personal friendship. He said, "That guy I used to know, he's gone. It literally saddens me." As the financial crisis of 2007–2010 reached a peak with the liquidity crisis of September 2008 and the proposed bailout of the United States financial system became a major factor in the campaign, Biden voted in favor of the $700billion Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, which went on to pass in the Senate 74–25.
On October 2, 2008, Biden participated in the vice-presidential debate with Palin at Washington University in St. Louis. Post-debate polls found that while Palin exceeded many voters' expectations, Biden had won the debate overall. During the campaign's final days, he focused on less populated, older, less well-off areas of battleground states, especially Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, where polling indicated he was popular and where Obama had not campaigned or performed well in the Democratic primaries. He also campaigned in some normally Republican states, as well as in areas with large Catholic populations.
Under instructions from the campaign, Biden kept his speeches succinct and tried to avoid offhand remarks, such as one he made about Obama's being tested by a foreign power soon after taking office, which had attracted negative attention. Privately, Biden's remarks frustrated Obama. "How many times is Biden gonna say something stupid?" he asked. Obama campaign staffers referred to Biden blunders as "Joe bombs" and kept Biden uninformed about strategy discussions, which in turn irked Biden. Relations between the two campaigns became strained for a month, until Biden apologized on a call to Obama and the two built a stronger partnership. Publicly, Obama strategist David Axelrod said Biden's high popularity ratings had outweighed any unexpected comments. Nationally, Biden had a 60% favorability rating in a Pew Research Center poll, compared to Palin's 44%.
On November 4, 2008, Obama and Biden were elected with 53% of the popular vote and 365 electoral votes to McCain–Palin's 173.
At the same time Biden was running for vice president he was also running for reelection to the Senate, as permitted by Delaware law. On November4, he was reelected to the Senate, defeating Republican Christine O'Donnell. Having won both races, Biden made a point of waiting to resign from the Senate until he was sworn in for his seventh term on January 6, 2009. He became the youngest senator ever to start a seventh full term, and said, "In all my life, the greatest honor bestowed upon me has been serving the people of Delaware as their United States senator." Biden cast his last Senate vote on January 15, supporting the release of the second $350billion for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, and resigned from the Senate later that day. In an emotional farewell, Biden told the Senate: "Every good thing I have seen happen here, every bold step taken in the 36-plus years I have been here, came not from the application of pressure by interest groups, but through the maturation of personal relationships." Delaware Governor Ruth Ann Minner appointed longtime Biden adviser Ted Kaufman to fill Biden's vacated Senate seat.
Vice presidency (2009–2017)
First term, 2009–2013
Biden said he intended to eliminate some explicit roles assumed by George W. Bush's vice president, Dick Cheney, and did not intend to emulate any previous vice presidency. He chaired Obama's transition team and headed an initiative to improve middle-class economic well-being. In early January 2009, in his last act as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, he visited the leaders of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and on January 20 he was sworn in as the 47th vice president of the United Statesthe first vice president from Delaware and the first Roman Catholic vice president.
Obama was soon comparing Biden to a basketball player "who does a bunch of things that don't show up in the stat sheet". In May, Biden visited Kosovo and affirmed the U.S. position that its "independence is irreversible". Biden lost an internal debate to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about sending 21,000 new troops to Afghanistan, but his skepticism was valued, and in 2009, Biden's views gained more influence as Obama reconsidered his Afghanistan strategy. Biden visited Iraq about every two months, becoming the administration's point man in delivering messages to Iraqi leadership about expected progress there. More generally, overseeing Iraq policy became Biden's responsibility: Obama was said to have said, "Joe, you do Iraq." Biden said Iraq "could be one of the great achievements of this administration". His January 2010 visit to Iraq in the midst of turmoil over banned candidates from the upcoming Iraqi parliamentary election resulted in 59 of the several hundred candidates being reinstated by the Iraqi government two days later. By 2012, Biden had made eight trips there, but his oversight of U.S. policy in Iraq receded with the exit of U.S. troops in 2011.
Biden oversaw infrastructure spending from the Obama stimulus package intended to help counteract the ongoing recession. During this period, Biden was satisfied that no major instances of waste or corruption had occurred, and when he completed that role in February 2011, he said the number of fraud incidents with stimulus monies had been less than one percent.
In late April 2009, Biden's off-message response to a question during the beginning of the swine flu outbreak, that he would advise family members against traveling on airplanes or subways, led to a swift retraction by the White House. The remark revived Biden's reputation for gaffes. Confronted with rising unemployment through July 2009, Biden acknowledged that the administration had "misread how bad the economy was" but maintained confidence the stimulus package would create many more jobs once the pace of expenditures picked up. On March 23, 2010, a microphone picked up Biden telling the president that his signing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was "a big fucking deal" during live national news telecasts. Despite their different personalities, Obama and Biden formed a friendship, partly based around Obama's daughter Sasha and Biden's granddaughter Maisy, who attended Sidwell Friends School together.
Members of the Obama administration said Biden's role in the White House was to be a contrarian and force others to defend their positions. Rahm Emanuel, White House chief of staff, said that Biden helped counter groupthink. White House press secretary Jay Carney, Biden's former communications director, said Biden played the role of "the bad guy in the Situation Room". Another senior Obama advisor said Biden "is always prepared to be the skunk at the family picnic to make sure we are as intellectually honest as possible." Obama said, "The best thing about Joe is that when we get everybody together, he really forces people to think and defend their positions, to look at things from every angle, and that is very valuable for me." The Bidens maintained a relaxed atmosphere at their official residence in Washington, often entertaining their grandchildren, and regularly returned to their home in Delaware.
Biden campaigned heavily for Democrats in the 2010 midterm elections, maintaining an attitude of optimism in the face of predictions of large-scale losses for the party. Following big Republican gains in the elections and the departure of White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, Biden's past relationships with Republicans in Congress became more important. He led the successful administration effort to gain Senate approval for the New START treaty. In December 2010, Biden's advocacy for a middle ground, followed by his negotiations with Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, were instrumental in producing the administration's compromise tax package that included a temporary extension of the Bush tax cuts. Biden then took the lead in trying to sell the agreement to a reluctant Democratic caucus in Congress. The package passed as the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010.
In March 2011, Obama delegated Biden to lead negotiations with Congress to resolve federal spending levels for the rest of the year and avoid a government shutdown. By May 2011, a "Biden panel" with six congressional members was trying to reach a bipartisan deal on raising the U.S. debt ceiling as part of an overall deficit reduction plan. The U.S. debt ceiling crisis developed over the next few months, but Biden's relationship with McConnell again proved key in breaking a deadlock and bringing about a deal to resolve it, in the form of the Budget Control Act of 2011, signed on August 2, 2011, the same day an unprecedented U.S. default had loomed. Biden had spent the most time of anyone in the administration bargaining with Congress on the debt question, and one Republican staffer said, "Biden's the only guy with real negotiating authority, and [McConnell] knows that his word is good. He was a key to the deal."
Some reports suggest that Biden opposed proceeding with the May 2011 U.S. mission to kill Osama bin Laden, lest failure adversely affect Obama's reelection prospects. He took the lead in notifying Congressional leaders of the successful outcome.
Reelection
In October 2010, Biden said Obama had asked him to remain as his running mate for the 2012 presidential election, but with Obama's popularity on the decline, White House Chief of Staff William M. Daley conducted some secret polling and focus group research in late 2011 on the idea of replacing Biden on the ticket with Hillary Clinton. The notion was dropped when the results showed no appreciable improvement for Obama, and White House officials later said Obama had never entertained the idea.
Biden's May 2012 statement that he was "absolutely comfortable" with same-sex marriage gained considerable public attention in comparison to Obama's position, which had been described as "evolving". Biden made his statement without administration consent, and Obama and his aides were quite irked, since Obama had planned to shift position several months later, in the build-up to the party convention, and since Biden had previously counseled the president to avoid the issue lest key Catholic voters be offended. Gay rights advocates seized upon Biden's statement, and within days, Obama announced that he too supported same-sex marriage, an action in part forced by Biden's remarks. Biden apologized to Obama in private for having spoken out, while Obama acknowledged publicly it had been done from the heart. The incident showed that Biden still struggled at times with message discipline, as Time wrote, "Everyone knows Biden's greatest strength is also his greatest weakness." Relations were also strained between the vice presidential and presidential campaigns when Biden appeared to use his position to bolster fundraising contacts for a possible run for president in 2016, and he ended up being excluded from Obama campaign strategy meetings.
The Obama campaign nevertheless valued Biden as a retail-level politician who could connect with disaffected blue-collar workers and rural residents, and he had a heavy schedule of appearances in swing states as the reelection campaign began in earnest in spring 2012. An August 2012 remark before a mixed-race audience that Republican proposals to relax Wall Street regulations would "put y'all back in chains" led to a similar analysis of Biden's face-to-face campaigning abilities versus his tendency to go off track. The Los Angeles Times wrote, "Most candidates give the same stump speech over and over, putting reporters if not the audience to sleep. But during any Biden speech, there might be a dozen moments to make press handlers cringe, and prompt reporters to turn to each other with amusement and confusion." Time magazine wrote that Biden often went too far and "Along with the familiar Washington mix of neediness and overconfidence, Biden's brain is wired for more than the usual amount of goofiness."
Biden was nominated for a second term as vice president at the 2012 Democratic National Convention in September. Debating his Republican counterpart, Representative Paul Ryan, in the vice-presidential debate on October 11 he made a spirited and emotional defense of the Obama administration's record and energetically attacked the Republican ticket. On November 6, Obama and Biden won reelection over Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan with 332 of 538 Electoral College votes and 51% of the popular vote.
In December 2012, Obama named Biden to head the Gun Violence Task Force, created to address the causes of gun violence in the United States in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Later that month, during the final days before the United States fell off the "fiscal cliff", Biden's relationship with McConnell again proved important as the two negotiated a deal that led to the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 being passed at the start of 2013. It made many of the Bush tax cuts permanent but raised rates on upper income levels.
Second term, 2013–2017
Biden was inaugurated to a second term on January 20, 2013, at a small ceremony at Number One Observatory Circle, his official residence, with Justice Sonia Sotomayor presiding (a public ceremony took place on January 21).
Biden played little part in discussions that led to the October 2013 passage of the Continuing Appropriations Act, 2014, which resolved the federal government shutdown of 2013 and the debt-ceiling crisis of 2013. This was because Senate majority leader Harry Reid and other Democratic leaders cut him out of any direct talks with Congress, feeling Biden had given too much away during previous negotiations.
Biden's Violence Against Women Act was reauthorized again in 2013. The act led to related developments, such as the White House Council on Women and Girls, begun in the first term, as well as the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault, begun in January 2014 with Biden and Valerie Jarrett as co-chairs. Biden discussed federal guidelines on sexual assault on university campuses while giving a speech at the University of New Hampshire. He said, "No means no, if you're drunk or you're sober. No means no if you're in bed, in a dorm or on the street. No means no even if you said yes at first and you changed your mind. No means no."
Biden favored arming Syria's rebel fighters. As Iraq fell apart during 2014, renewed attention was paid to the Biden-Gelb Iraqi federalization plan of 2006, with some observers suggesting Biden had been right all along. Biden himself said the U.S. would follow ISIL "to the gates of hell". Biden had close relationships with several Latin American leaders and was assigned a focus on the region during the administration; he visited the region 16 times during his vice presidency, the most of any president or vice president.
In 2015, Speaker of the House John Boehner and Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell invited Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress without notifying the Obama administration. This defiance of protocol led Biden and more than 50 congressional Democrats to skip Netanyahu's speech. In August 2016, Biden visited Serbia, where he met with Serbian president Aleksandar Vučić and expressed his condolences for civilian victims of the bombing campaign during the Kosovo War. In Kosovo, he attended a ceremony renaming a highway after his son Beau, in honor of Beau's service to Kosovo in training its judges and prosecutors.
Biden never cast a tie-breaking vote in the Senate, making him the longest-serving vice president with this distinction.
Role in the 2016 presidential campaign
During his second term, Biden was often said to be preparing for a possible bid for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination. With his family, many friends, and donors encouraging him in mid-2015 to enter the race, and with Hillary Clinton's favorability ratings in decline at that time, Biden was reported to again be seriously considering the prospect and a "Draft Biden 2016" PAC was established.
, Biden was still uncertain about running. He felt his son's recent death had largely drained his emotional energy, and said, "nobody has a right... to seek that office unless they're willing to give it 110% of who they are." On October 21, speaking from a podium in the Rose Garden with his wife and Obama by his side, Biden announced his decision not to run for president in 2016. In January 2016, Biden affirmed that it was the right decision, but admitted to regretting not running for president "every day".
After Obama endorsed Hillary Clinton on June 9, 2016, Biden endorsed her later that day. Throughout the 2016 election, Biden strongly criticized Clinton's opponent, Donald Trump, in often colorful terms.
Subsequent activities (2017–2019)
After leaving the vice presidency, Biden became a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, while continuing to lead efforts to find treatments for cancer. In 2017 he wrote a memoir, Promise Me, Dad, and went on a book tour. Biden earned $15.6million in 2017–2018. In 2018, he gave a eulogy for Senator John McCain, praising McCain's embrace of American ideals and bipartisan friendships.
Biden remained in the public eye, endorsing candidates while continuing to comment on politics, climate change, and the presidency of Donald Trump. He also continued to speak out in favor of LGBT rights, continuing advocacy on an issue he had become more closely associated with during his vice presidency. In 2019, Biden criticized Brunei for its intention to implement Islamic laws that would allow death by stoning for adultery and homosexuality, calling it "appalling and immoral" and saying, "There is no excuse—not culture, not tradition—for this kind of hate and inhumanity." By 2019, Biden and his wife reported that their assets had increased to between $2.2 million and $8 million from speaking engagements and a contract to write a set of books.
2020 presidential campaign
Speculation and announcement
Between 2016 and 2019, media outlets often mentioned Biden as a likely candidate for president in 2020. When asked if he would run, he gave varied and ambivalent answers, saying "never say never". At one point he suggested he did not see a scenario where he would run again, but a few days later, he said, "I'll run if I can walk." A political action committee known as Time for Biden was formed in January 2018, seeking Biden's entry into the race. He finally launched his campaign on April 25, 2019, saying he was prompted to run, among other reasons, by his "sense of duty."
Campaign
In September 2019, it was reported that Trump had pressured Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate alleged wrongdoing by Biden and his son Hunter Biden. Despite the allegations, no evidence was produced of any wrongdoing by the Bidens. The media widely interpreted this pressure to investigate the Bidens as trying to hurt Biden's chances of winning the presidency, resulting in a political scandal and Trump's impeachment by the House of Representatives.
Beginning in 2019, Trump and his allies falsely accused Biden of getting the Ukrainian prosecutor general Viktor Shokin fired because he was supposedly pursuing an investigation into Burisma Holdings, which employed Hunter Biden. Biden was accused of withholding $1billion in aid from Ukraine in this effort. In 2015, Biden pressured the Ukrainian parliament to remove Shokin because the United States, the European Union and other international organizations considered Shokin corrupt and ineffective, and in particular because Shokin was not assertively investigating Burisma. The withholding of the $1billion in aid was part of this official policy. The Senate Homeland Security Committee and Senate Finance Committee, led by Republicans, investigated allegations of wrongdoing by the Bidens in Ukraine, ultimately releasing a report in September 2020 that detailed no evidence of wrongdoing by Joe Biden, and concluded that it was "not clear" whether Hunter Biden's role in Burisma "affected U.S. policy toward Ukraine".
In March 2019 and April 2019, Biden was accused by eight women of previous instances of inappropriate physical contact, such as embracing, touching or kissing. Biden had previously described himself as a "tactile politician" and admitted this behavior has caused trouble for him. In April 2019, Biden pledged to be more "respectful of people's personal space".
Throughout 2019, Biden stayed generally ahead of other Democrats in national polls. Despite this, he finished fourth in the Iowa caucuses, and eight days later, fifth in the New Hampshire primary. He performed better in the Nevada caucuses, reaching the 15% required for delegates, but still was behind Bernie Sanders by 21.6 percentage points. Making strong appeals to Black voters on the campaign trail and in the South Carolina debate, Biden won the South Carolina primary by more than 28 points. After the withdrawals and subsequent endorsements of candidates Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar, he made large gains in the March3 Super Tuesday primary elections. Biden won 18 of the next 26 contests, including Alabama, Arkansas, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia, putting him in the lead overall. Elizabeth Warren and Mike Bloomberg soon dropped out, and Biden expanded his lead with victories over Sanders in four states (Idaho, Michigan, Mississippi, and Missouri) on March 10.
In late March 2020, Tara Reade, one of the eight women who in 2019 had accused Biden of inappropriate physical contact, accused Biden of having sexually assaulted her in 1993. There were inconsistencies between Reade's 2019 and 2020 allegations. Biden and his campaign denied the sexual assault allegation.
When Sanders suspended his campaign on April 8, 2020, Biden became the Democratic Party's presumptive nominee for president. On April 13, Sanders endorsed Biden in a live-streamed discussion from their homes. Former President Barack Obama endorsed Biden the next day. In March 2020, Biden committed to choosing a woman as his running mate. In June, Biden met the 1,991-delegate threshold needed to secure the party's presidential nomination. On August 11, he announced U.S. Senator Kamala Harris of California as his running mate, making her the first African American and first South Asian American vice-presidential nominee on a major-party ticket.
On August 18, 2020, Biden was officially nominated at the 2020 Democratic National Convention as the Democratic Party nominee for president in the 2020 election.
Presidential transition
Biden was elected the 46th president of the United States in November 2020. He defeated the incumbent, Donald Trump, becoming the first candidate to defeat a sitting president since Bill Clinton defeated George H.W. Bush in 1992. Trump refused to concede, insisting the election had been "stolen" from him through "voter fraud", challenging the results in court and promoting numerous conspiracy theories about the voting and vote-counting processes, in an attempt to overturn the election results. Biden's transition was delayed by several weeks as the White House ordered federal agencies not to cooperate. On November23, General Services Administrator Emily W. Murphy formally recognized Biden as the apparent winner of the 2020 election and authorized the start of a transition process to the Biden administration.
On January 6, 2021, during Congress's electoral vote count, Trump told supporters gathered in front of the White House to march to the Capitol, saying, "We will never give up. We will never concede. It doesn't happen. You don't concede when there's theft involved." Soon after, they attacked the Capitol. During the insurrection at the Capitol, Biden addressed the nation, calling the events "an unprecedented assault unlike anything we've seen in modern times." He specifically called on Trump to "go on national television now to fulfill his oath and defend the Constitution and demand an end to this siege", adding, "it must end now." After the Capitol was cleared, Congress resumed its joint session and officially certified the election results with Pence declaring Biden and Harris the winners.
Presidency (2021–present)
Inauguration
Biden was inaugurated as the 46th president of the United States on January 20, 2021. At 78, he is the oldest person to have assumed the office. He is the second Catholic president (after John F. Kennedy) and the first president whose home state is Delaware. He is the second non-incumbent vice president (after Richard Nixon in 1968) to be elected president. He is also the first president from the Silent Generation.
Biden's inauguration was "a muted affair unlike any previous inauguration" due to COVID-19 precautions as well as massively increased security measures because of a threat of widespread civil unrest. Biden took the oath of office on the Capitol's west steps and gave an inaugural address, but there were no spectators on the Mall and no in-person parades or inaugural balls. Trump did not attend, becoming the first outgoing president since 1869 to not attend his successor's inauguration.
First 100 days
In his first two days as president, Biden signed 17 executive orders, more than most recent presidents did in their first 100 days. By his third day, orders had included rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement, ending the state of national emergency at the border with Mexico, directing the government to rejoin the World Health Organization, face mask requirements on federal property, measures to combat hunger in the United States, and revoking permits for the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. In his first two weeks in office, Biden signed more executive orders than any other president since Franklin D. Roosevelt had in their first month in office.
On February 4, 2021, the Biden administration announced that the United States was ending its support for the Saudi-led bombing campaign in Yemen. In his first visit to the State Department as president, Biden said "this war has to end" and that the conflict had created a "humanitarian and strategic catastrophe." On February 25, the Biden administration "struck a site in Syria used by two Iranian-backed militia groups in response to rocket attacks on American forces." This marked the first known action by the military under Biden.
On March 11, the first anniversary of COVID-19 being declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization, Biden signed into law the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, a $1.9 trillion economic stimulus relief package he proposed and lobbied for that aimed to speed up the United States' recovery from the economic and health effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing recession. The package included direct payments to most Americans, an extension of increased unemployment benefits, funds for vaccine distribution and school reopenings, support for small businesses and state and local governments, and expansions of health insurance subsidies and the child tax credit. Biden's initial proposal included an increase of the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour, but after Senate parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough determined that including the increase in a budget reconciliation bill would violate Senate rules, Democrats declined to pursue overruling her and removed the increase from the package.
Also in March, amid a rise in migrants entering the U.S. from Mexico, Biden told migrants, "Don't come over." He said that the U.S. was arranging a plan for migrants to "apply for asylum in place", without leaving their original locations. In the meantime, migrant adults "are being sent back", Biden said, in reference to the continuation of the Trump administration's Title 42 policy for quick deportations. Biden earlier announced that his administration would not deport unaccompanied migrant children; the rise in arrivals of such children exceeded the capacity of facilities meant to shelter them (before they were sent to sponsors), leading the Biden administration in March to direct the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help manage these children.
On April 14, Biden announced that the United States would delay the withdrawal of all troops from the war in Afghanistan until September 11, signalling an end to the country's direct military involvement in Afghanistan after nearly 20 years. In February 2020, the Trump administration had made a deal with the Taliban to completely withdraw U.S. forces by May 1, 2021. Biden's decision met with a wide range of reactions, from support and relief to trepidation at the possible collapse of the Afghan government without American support. On April 22–23, Biden held an international climate summit at which he announced that the U.S. would cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 50%–52% by 2030 compared to 2005 levels. Other countries also increased their pledges. If the pledges made at the summit are met, they will cut global greenhouse gas emissions by 2.6–3.7 Gte by 2030. On April 28, the eve of his 100th day in office, Biden delivered his first address to a joint session of Congress, in which he highlighted the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines and addressed withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, the murder of George Floyd, and the U.S. Capitol attack while urging Congress to pass comprehensive immigration, gun, and health care reform.
Rest of 2021
In May 2021, during a flareup in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, Biden expressed his support for Israel, saying "my party still supports Israel" amid disagreement from some Democrats. In June 2021, Biden took his first trip abroad as president. In eight days he visited Belgium, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. He attended a G7 summit, a NATO summit, and an EU summit, and held one-on-one talks with Russian president Vladimir Putin.
On June 17, Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act, which officially declared Juneteenth a federal holiday. Juneteenth is the first new federal holiday since Martin Luther King Jr. Day was declared a holiday in 1986. In July 2021, amid a slowing of the COVID-19 vaccination rate in the country and the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant, Biden said that the country has "a pandemic for those who haven't gotten the vaccination" and that it was therefore "gigantically important" for Americans to be vaccinated, touting the vaccines' effectiveness against hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19. He also criticized the prevalence of COVID-19 misinformation on social media, saying it was "killing people". In September 2021, Biden announced AUKUS, a security pact between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, to ensure "peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific over the long term"; the deal included nuclear-powered submarines built for Australia's use.
By the end of 2021, 40 of Biden's appointed judges to the federal judiciary had been confirmed, more than any president in their first year in office since Ronald Reagan. Biden has prioritized diversity in his judicial appointments more than any president in U.S. history, with the majority of appointments being women and people of color. Most of his appointments have been in blue states, making a limited impact since the courts in these states already traditionally lean liberal.
In the first eight months of his presidency, Biden's approval rating, according to Morning Consult polling, remained above 50%. In August, it began to decline and lowered into the low forties by December. The decline in his approval is attributed to the Afghanistan withdrawal, increasing hospitalizations from the Delta variant, high inflation and gas prices, disarray within the Democratic Party, and a general decline in popularity customary in politics.
Withdrawal from Afghanistan
American forces began withdrawing from Afghanistan in 2020, under the provisions of a February 2020 US-Taliban agreement that set a May 1, 2021, deadline. By April 2021, the State Department was urging American civilians in Afghanistan to leave as soon as possible. The Taliban began an offensive on May 1. As late as July, American intelligence assessments estimated Kabul would fall to the Taliban months or weeks after the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan. By early July, most American troops in Afghanistan had withdrawn. Biden addressed the withdrawal in July, saying, "The likelihood there's going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely."
On August 15, the Afghan government collapsed under the Taliban offensive, and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country. Biden reacted by ordering 6,000 American troops to assist in the evacuation of American personnel and Afghan allies. He was widely criticized for the manner of the withdrawal, with allegations of poor planning for the evacuation of Americans and Afghan allies, and for his silence and absence during the days before the collapse of the Afghan government.
On August 16, Biden addressed the "messy" situation, taking responsibility for it, and admitting that the situation "unfolded more quickly than we had anticipated". He defended his decision to withdraw, saying that Americans should not be "dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves," and blamed his predecessor Donald Trump, the Afghan president, and Afghan security forces for the speedy collapse.
On August 22, Biden said that his administration knew that ISIS-K was a "likely source" of threat. On August 26, a suicide bombing at the Kabul airport killed 13 U.S. service members and 169 Afghans. Biden declared to the attackers that the United States "will hunt you down and make you pay". On August 27, an American drone strike killed two ISIS-K targets, who were "planners and facilitators", according to a U.S. Army general. On August 29, another American drone strike killed 10 civilians, including seven children; the Defense Department initially claimed the strike was conducted on an Islamic State suicide bomber threatening Kabul Airport, but admitted the mistake on September 17 and apologized.
The U.S. military left Afghanistan on August 30, with Biden saying that the evacuation effort was an "extraordinary success", by extracting over 120,000 Americans, Afghans and other allies. He acknowledged that between "100 to 200" Americans who wanted to leave were left in Afghanistan, despite his August 18 pledge to stay in Afghanistan until all Americans who wanted to leave had left. The Biden administration, joining governments of almost 100 countries, said that the Taliban had given "assurances" that anyone "with travel authorization from [these] countries" would continue to be allowed to leave Afghanistan.
Economy
Biden entered office nine months into a recovery from the COVID-19 recession and his first year in office was characterized by robust growth in real GDP, employment, wages and stock market returns, amid significantly elevated inflation. Real GDP grew 5.7%, the fastest rate in 37 years. Amid record job creation, the unemployment rate fell at the fastest pace on record during the year. By the end of 2021, inflation reached a nearly 40-year high of 7.1%, which was partially offset by the highest wage and salary growth in at least 20 years. Income growth was particularly strong at the low end of the pay scale.
Infrastructure and climate
As part of Biden's Build Back Better agenda, in late March 2021, he proposed the American Jobs Plan, a $2 trillion package addressing issues including transport infrastructure, utilities infrastructure, broadband infrastructure, housing, schools, manufacturing, research and workforce development. After months of negotiations among Biden and lawmakers, in August 2021 the Senate passed a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill called the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, while the House, also in a bipartisan manner, approved that bill in early November 2021, covering infrastructure related to transport, utilities, and broadband. Biden signed the bill into law in mid-November 2021.
As COP26, scheduled for October 31 to November 12, 2021, approached, Biden increased his efforts to address climate change domestically and internationally. He promoted an agreement that the U.S. and the European Union cut methane emissions by a third by 2030 and tried to add dozens of other countries to the effort. He tried to convince China and Australia to do more. He convened an online Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate Change to press other countries to strengthen their climate policy. Biden pledged to double climate funding to developing countries by 2024. Also at COP26, the U.S. and China reached a deal on greenhouse gas emission reduction. The two countries are responsible for 40% of global emissions.
2022
In early 2022, Biden made efforts to change his public image after entering the year with low approval ratings, but they continued to fall, dipping to approximately 40% in aggregated polls by February.
In January, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, a moderate liberal nominated by Bill Clinton, announced he will be retiring from the Supreme Court. Breyer's retirement is expected to give Biden his first opportunity to nominate a Supreme Court justice. During his 2020 campaign, Biden vowed to nominate a Black woman to the court if a vacancy occurred, a promise he reiterated after the announcement of Breyer's retirement. In February, Biden nominated federal judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court.
Political positions
Biden is considered a moderate Democrat and a centrist, though more recently he has been seen as shifting to the left. He has a lifetime liberal 72% score from the Americans for Democratic Action through 2004, while the American Conservative Union gave him a lifetime conservative rating of 13% through 2008.
Biden supported the fiscal stimulus in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009; the Obama administration's proposed increase in infrastructure spending; subsidies for mass transit, including Amtrak, bus, and subway; and the reduced military spending in the Obama administration's fiscal year 2014 budget. He has proposed partially reversing the corporate tax cuts of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, saying that doing so would not hurt businesses' ability to hire. He voted for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Biden is a staunch supporter of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). He has promoted a plan to expand and build upon it, paid for by revenue gained from reversing some Trump administration tax cuts. Biden's plan aims to expand health insurance coverage to 97% of Americans, including by creating a public health insurance option.
Biden has supported same-sex marriage since 2012 and also supports Roe v. Wade and repealing the Hyde Amendment. He opposes drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and supports governmental funding to find new energy sources. As a senator, he forged deep relationships with police groups and was a chief proponent of a Police Officer's Bill of Rights measure that police unions supported but police chiefs opposed. As vice president, he served as a White House liaison to police.
Biden believes action must be taken on global warming. As a senator, he co-sponsored the Sense of the Senate resolution calling on the United States to take part in the United Nations climate negotiations and the Boxer–Sanders Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act, the most stringent climate bill in the United States Senate. He wants to achieve a carbon-free power sector in the U.S. by 2035 and stop emissions completely by 2050. His program includes reentering the Paris Agreement, nature conservation, and green building. Biden wants to pressure China and other countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions by carbon tariffs if necessary.
Biden has said the U.S. needs to "get tough" on China and build "a united front of U.S. allies and partners to confront China's abusive behaviors and human rights violations". He has called China the "most serious competitor" that poses challenges to the United States' "prosperity, security, and democratic values". Biden has voiced concerns about China's "coercive and unfair" economic practices and human rights abuses in the Xinjiang region to the Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping. He also pledged to sanction and commercially restrict Chinese government officials and entities who carry out repression.
Biden has said he is against regime change, but for providing non-military support to opposition movements. He opposed direct U.S. intervention in Libya, voted against U.S. participation in the Gulf War, voted in favor of the Iraq War, and supports a two-state solution in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Biden has pledged to end U.S. support for the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen and to reevaluate the United States' relationship with Saudi Arabia. He has called North Korea a "paper tiger". As vice president, Biden supported Obama's Cuban thaw. He has said that, as president, he would restore U.S. membership in key United Nations bodies, such as the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the World Health Organization, and possibly the Human Rights Council. Biden supports extending the New START arms control treaty with Russia to limit the number of nuclear weapons deployed by both sides. In 2021, Biden recognized the Armenian genocide, becoming the first U.S. president to do so.
Reputation
Biden was consistently ranked one of the least wealthy members of the Senate, which he attributed to his having been elected young. Feeling that less-wealthy public officials may be tempted to accept contributions in exchange for political favors, he proposed campaign finance reform measures during his first term. , Biden's net worth was $27,012. , the Bidens were worth $9 million, largely due to sales of Biden's books and speaking fees after his vice presidency.
The political writer Howard Fineman has written, "Biden is not an academic, he's not a theoretical thinker, he's a great street pol. He comes from a long line of working people in Scranton—auto salesmen, car dealers, people who know how to make a sale. He has that great Irish gift." Political columnist David S. Broder wrote that Biden has grown over time: "He responds to real people—that's been consistent throughout. And his ability to understand himself and deal with other politicians has gotten much much better." Journalist James Traub has written that "Biden is the kind of fundamentally happy person who can be as generous toward others as he is to himself."
In recent years, especially after the 2015 death of his elder son Beau, Biden has been noted for his empathetic nature and ability to communicate about grief. In 2020, CNN wrote that his presidential campaign aimed to make him "healer-in-chief", while The New York Times described his extensive history of being called upon to give eulogies.
Journalist and TV anchor Wolf Blitzer has described Biden as loquacious. He often deviates from prepared remarks and sometimes "puts his foot in his mouth." The New York Times wrote that Biden's "weak filters make him capable of blurting out pretty much anything." In 2018, Biden called himself "a gaffe machine". Some of his gaffes have been characterized as racially insensitive.
Electoral history
Publications
Books
Also paperback edition, Random House 2008, .
Book contributions
Biden, Joseph R., Jr. (2009). "Foreword." In: Choosing Equality: Essays and Narratives on the Desegregation Experience. Edited by Robert L. Hayman, Jr. and Leland Ware. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009. .
Pamphlets
Biden, Joseph R., Jr., and Les Aspin, William Louis Dickinson, Brent Scowcroft (1982). Arms Sales: A Useful Foreign Policy Tool? American Enterprise Institute. AEI Forum 56. Moderated by John Charles Daly.
Articles
Biden, Joseph R., Jr., and Miga Purev-Ochir (Spring 2015). "U.S.-Russian Relations in a Post-Cold War World: A Strategic Vision: Mapping a Future for U.S.-Russian Relations." Harvard International Review, vol. 36, no. 3, pp. 72–76. .
Notes
References
Citations
Works cited
See also
List of honors and awards received by Joe Biden
List of things named after Joe Biden
External links
Official
President Joe Biden official website
Presidential campaign website
Obama White House biography (archived)
Other
Joe Biden at On the Issues
Joe Biden at PolitiFact
1942 births
Living people
20th-century American lawyers
20th-century American politicians
20th-century Roman Catholics
21st-century American memoirists
21st-century presidents of the United States
21st-century vice presidents of the United States
21st-century Roman Catholics
2008 United States vice-presidential candidates
2012 United States vice-presidential candidates
American people of English descent
American people of French descent
American people of Irish descent
Biden family
Candidates in the 1988 United States presidential election
Candidates in the 2008 United States presidential election
Candidates in the 2020 United States presidential election
Catholics from Delaware
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Chairmen of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
County council members and commissioners in Delaware
Delaware Democrats
Delaware Fightin' Blue Hens football players
Delaware lawyers
Democratic Party (United States) presidential nominees
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New Castle County, Delaware politicians
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People from Claymont, Delaware
People from Wilmington, Delaware
People involved in plagiarism controversies
Politicians from Scranton, Pennsylvania
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Presidents of the United States
Writers from Wilmington, Delaware
Public defenders
Recipients of Hilal-i-Pakistan
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United States senators from Delaware
University of Delaware alumni
University of Pennsylvania faculty
Vice presidents of the United States
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Writers from Scranton, Pennsylvania | true | [
"The United States Senate special election of 1938 in New Jersey was held on November 8, 1938. \n\nThe vacancy was created when incumbent Senator A. Harry Moore resigned to become Governor of New Jersey. Interim appointee John Gerald Milton did not run in the election.\n\nFormer Republican U.S. Senator William Warren Barbour returned to the Senate after defeating Democrat William H. J. Ely, the state administrator of the Works Progress Administration.\n\nRepublican primary\n\nCandidates\nWilliam Warren Barbour, former U.S. Senator (1931–37)\nC. Dan Coskey, candidate for Senate in 1936\nGeorge O. Pullen\n\nDeclined\nJoseph Frelinghuysen, former U.S. Senator (1917–23) (endorsed Barbour)\n\nResults\n\nDemocratic primary\n\nCandidates\nWilliam H. J. Ely, administrator of the New Jersey WPA\n\nResults\n\nGeneral election\n\nCandidates\nWilliam Warren Barbour (Republican), former U.S. Senator (1931–37)\nJohn C. Butterworth (Socialist Labor)\nWilliam H. J. Ely (Democrat), administrator of the New Jersey WPA\nLouis H. Kelley (Prohibition)\nWilliam Norman (Communist)\nJohn Palangio (Socialist)\nFred Turner (Townsend)\n\nResults\n\nSee also \n1938 United States Senate elections\n\nReferences\n\nNew Jersey 1938\nNew Jersey 1938\n1938 Special\nNew Jersey Special\nUnited States Senate Special\nUnited States Senate 1938",
"This is a complete list of members of the United States Senate during the 113th United States Congress listed by seniority, from January 3, 2013, to January 3, 2015. It is a historical listing and will contain people who have not served the entire two-year Congress should anyone resign, die, or be expelled.\n\nOrder of service is based on the commencement of the senator's first term. Behind this is former service as a senator (only giving the senator seniority within his or her new incoming class), service as vice president, a House member, a cabinet secretary, or a governor of a state. The final factor is the population of the senator's state.\n\nSenators who were sworn in during the middle of the two-year Congress (up until the last senator who was not sworn in early after winning the November 2014 election) are listed at the end of the list with no number.\n\nIn this Congress, Tom Harkin (Iowa) was the most senior junior senator. Brian Schatz (Hawaii) was the most junior senior senator until February 1, 2013, when John Kerry's resignation to become Secretary of State made Elizabeth Warren (Massachusetts) the most junior senior Senator.\n\nThe 113th Congress was the first Congress since the 103rd Congress (1993–95) without a senator who had served for at least 40 years. The most senior senator, Patrick Leahy, did not reach the 40-year mark until January 3, 2015. From November 7, 1996, when Strom Thurmond reached the 40-year mark during the 104th Congress, until Daniel Inouye died on December 17, 2012, there was always at least one senator who had served for 40 years.\n\nTerms of service\n\nU.S. Senate seniority list\n\nSee also\n113th United States Congress\nList of members of the United States House of Representatives in the 113th Congress by seniority\n\nNotes\n\nExternal links\nSenate Seniority List\n\n113\nSenate Seniority"
] |
[
"Joe Biden",
"Characteristics as senator",
"What are Joe's characteristics as senator?",
"characterized Biden as \"self-confident\" and \"compulsively ambitious\".",
"Was Joe likable as senator?",
"\"Biden is the kind of fundamentally happy person who can be as generous toward others as he is to himself.\"",
"Does Joe have a lot of friends in politics?",
"I don't know.",
"When did he become senator?",
"1969,"
] | C_ae5bfb2601a2463ebfedd2b995b83bf8_1 | What State was he the Senator for? | 5 | What State was Joe Biden, the Senator for? | Joe Biden | On August 27, 1966, while Biden was still a law student, he married Neilia Hunter. They overcame her parents' initial reluctance for her to wed a Roman Catholic, and the ceremony was held in a Catholic church in Skaneateles. They had three children, Joseph R. "Beau" Biden III in 1969, Robert Hunter in 1970, and Naomi Christina in 1971. During 1968, Biden clerked for six months at a Wilmington law firm headed by prominent local Republican William Prickett and, as he later said, "thought of myself as a Republican". He disliked the conservative racial politics of incumbent Democratic Governor of Delaware Charles L. Terry and supported a more liberal Republican, Russell W. Peterson, who defeated Terry in 1968. The local Republicans tried to recruit him, but he resisted due to his distaste for Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon, and registered as an Independent instead. In 1969, Biden resumed practicing law in Wilmington, first as a public defender and then at a firm headed by Sid Balick, a locally active Democrat. Balick named him to the Democratic Forum, a group trying to reform and revitalize the state party, and Biden switched his registration to Democrat. He also started his own firm, Biden and Walsh. Corporate law, however, did not appeal to him and criminal law did not pay well. He supplemented his income by managing properties. Later in 1969, Biden ran as a Democrat for the New Castle County Council on a liberal platform that included support for public housing in the suburban area. He won by a solid, two-thousand vote margin in the usually Republican district and in a bad year for Democrats in the state. Even before taking his seat, he was already talking about running for the U.S. Senate in a couple of years. He served on the County Council from 1970 to 1972 while continuing his private law practice. Among issues he addressed on the council was his opposition to large highway projects that might disrupt Wilmington neighborhoods, including those related to Interstate 95. During his first years in the Senate, Biden focused on legislation regarding consumer-protection and environmental issues and called for greater accountability on the part of government. In mid-1974, freshman Senator Biden was named one of the 200 Faces for the Future by Time magazine, in a profile that mentioned what had happened to his family and characterized Biden as "self-confident" and "compulsively ambitious". Biden became ranking minority member of the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary in 1981. In 1984, he was Democratic floor manager for the successful passage of the Comprehensive Crime Control Act; civil libertarians praised him for modifying some of the Act's provisions, and it was his most important legislative accomplishment at that point in time. He first considered running for president in that year, after he gained notice for giving speeches to party audiences that simultaneously scolded and encouraged Democrats. Regarding foreign policy, during his first decade in the Senate, Biden focused on arms control issues. In response to the refusal of the U.S. Congress to ratify the SALT II Treaty signed in 1979 by Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and President Jimmy Carter, he took the initiative to meet the Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, educated him about American concerns and interests, and secured several changes to address objections of the Foreign Relations Committee. When the Reagan administration wanted to interpret the 1972 SALT I Treaty loosely in order to allow the Strategic Defense Initiative to proceed, Biden argued for strict adherence to the treaty's terms. He clashed again with the Reagan administration in 1986 over economic sanctions against South Africa; he received considerable attention when he excoriated Secretary of State George P. Shultz at a Senate hearing because of the administration's support of that country, which continued to practice the apartheid system. Following his initial election in 1972, Biden was re-elected to six additional terms, in the elections of 1978, 1984, 1990, 1996, 2002, and 2008, usually getting about 60 percent of the vote. He did not face strong opposition; Pete du Pont, then governor, chose not to run against him in 1984. Biden spent 28 years as a junior senator due to the two-year seniority of his Republican colleague William V. Roth Jr. After Roth was defeated for re-election by Tom Carper in 2000, Biden became Delaware's senior senator. He then became the longest-serving senator in Delaware history. In May 1999, Biden set the mark for youngest senator to cast 10,000 votes. With a net worth between $59,000 and $366,000, and almost no outside income or investment income, Biden was consistently ranked as one of the least wealthy members of the Senate. Biden stated that he was listed as the second poorest member in Congress, a distinction that he was not proud of, but attributed to being elected early in his career. Biden realized early in his senatorial career how vulnerable poorer public officials are to offers of financial contributions in exchange for policy support, and he pushed campaign finance reform measures during his first term. During his years as a senator, Biden amassed a reputation for loquaciousness, with his questions and remarks during Senate hearings being especially known for being long-winded. He has been a strong speaker and debater and a frequent and effective guest on the Sunday morning talk shows. In public appearances, he is known to deviate from prepared remarks at will. According to political analyst Mark Halperin, he has shown "a persistent tendency to say silly, offensive, and off-putting things"; The New York Times writes that Biden's "weak filters make him capable of blurting out pretty much anything". Nor is Biden known for modesty; journalist James Traub has written that "Biden's vanity and his regard for his own gifts seem considerable even by the rarefied standards of the U.S. Senate." Political writer Howard Fineman has said that, "Biden is not an academic, he's not a theoretical thinker, he's a great street pol. He comes from a long line of working people in Scranton--auto salesmen, car dealers, people who know how to make a sale. He has that great Irish gift." Political columnist David S. Broder has viewed Biden as having grown since he came to Washington and since his failed 1988 presidential bid: "He responds to real people--that's been consistent throughout. And his ability to understand himself and deal with other politicians has gotten much much better." Traub concludes that "Biden is the kind of fundamentally happy person who can be as generous toward others as he is to himself." CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. ( ; born November 20, 1942) is an American politician who is the 46th and current president of the United States. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 47th vice president from 2009 to 2017 under Barack Obama and represented Delaware in the United States Senate from 1973 to 2009.
Biden was born and raised in Scranton, Pennsylvania, moving with his family to New Castle County, Delaware, in 1953 when he was ten. He studied at the University of Delaware before earning his law degree from Syracuse University in 1968. He was elected to the New Castle County Council in 1970 and became the sixth-youngest senator in U.S. history after he was elected to the United States Senate from Delaware in 1972, at age 29. Biden was the chair or ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for 12 years and was influential in foreign affairs during Obama's presidency. He also chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee from 1987 to 1995, dealing with drug policy, crime prevention, and civil liberties issues; led the effort to pass the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act and the Violence Against Women Act; and oversaw six U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings, including the contentious hearings for Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas. He ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988 and 2008. Biden was reelected to the Senate six times and was the fourth-most senior sitting senator at the time when he became Obama's vice president after they won the 2008 presidential election, defeating John McCain and his running mate Sarah Palin. Obama and Biden were reelected in 2012, defeating Mitt Romney and his running mate Paul Ryan.
During eight years as vice president, Biden leaned on his Senate experience and frequently represented the administration in negotiations with congressional Republicans, including on the Budget Control Act of 2011, which resolved a debt ceiling crisis, and the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, which addressed the impending "fiscal cliff". He also oversaw infrastructure spending in 2009 to counteract the Great Recession. On foreign policy, Biden was a close counselor to the president and took a leading role in designing the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq in 2011. In 2017, Obama awarded Biden the Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction.
Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris defeated incumbent president Donald Trump and vice president Mike Pence in the 2020 presidential election. He is the oldest president and the first to have a female vice president. His early presidential activity centered around proposing, lobbying for, and signing into law the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 to help the United States recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing recession, as well as a series of executive orders. Biden's orders addressed the pandemic and reversed several Trump administration policies, including rejoining the Paris Agreement on climate change and accepting new applications for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients, although a federal judge blocked the latter. He completed the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan by September 2021. During the withdrawal, the Afghan government collapsed and the Taliban seized control. Biden proposed the Build Back Better Plan, aspects of which were incorporated into the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which Biden signed into law in November 2021.
Early life (1942–1965)
Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was born on November 20, 1942, at St. Mary's Hospital in Scranton, Pennsylvania, to Catherine Eugenia "Jean" Biden (née Finnegan) and Joseph Robinette Biden Sr. The oldest child in a Catholic family, he has a sister, Valerie, and two brothers, Francis and James. Jean was of Irish descent, while Joseph Sr. had English, French, and Irish ancestry.
Biden's father had been wealthy, but suffered financial setbacks around the time Biden was born, and for several years the family lived with Biden's maternal grandparents. Scranton fell into economic decline during the 1950s and Biden's father could not find steady work. Beginning in 1953 when Biden was ten, the family lived in an apartment in Claymont, Delaware, before moving to a house in nearby Mayfield. Biden Sr. later became a successful used-car salesman, maintaining the family in a middle-class lifestyle.
At Archmere Academy in Claymont, Biden played baseball and was a standout halfback and wide receiver on the high school football team. Though a poor student, he was class president in his junior and senior years. He graduated in 1961. At the University of Delaware in Newark, Biden briefly played freshman football and, as an unexceptional student, earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1965 with a double major in history and political science and a minor in English.
Biden has a stutter, which has improved since his early twenties. He says he reduced it by reciting poetry before a mirror, but some observers suggested it affected his performance in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential debates.
Marriages, law school, and early career (1966–1973)
On August 27, 1966, Biden married Neilia Hunter (19421972), a student at Syracuse University, after overcoming her parents' reluctance for her to wed a Roman Catholic. Their wedding was held in a Catholic church in Skaneateles, New York. They had three children: Joseph R. "Beau" Biden III (19692015), Robert Hunter Biden (born 1970), and Naomi Christina "Amy" Biden (19711972).
In 1968, Biden earned a Juris Doctor from Syracuse University College of Law, ranked 76th in his class of 85, after failing a course due to an acknowledged "mistake" when he plagiarized a law review article for a paper he wrote in his first year at law school. He was admitted to the Delaware bar in 1969.
Biden had not openly supported or opposed the Vietnam War until he ran for Senate and opposed Nixon's conduct of the war. While studying at the University of Delaware and Syracuse University, Biden obtained five student draft deferments, at a time when most draftees were sent to the Vietnam War. In 1968, based on a physical examination, he was given a conditional medical deferment; in 2008, a spokesperson for Biden said his having had "asthma as a teenager" was the reason for the deferment.
In 1968, Biden clerked at a Wilmington law firm headed by prominent local Republican William Prickett and, he later said, "thought of myself as a Republican". He disliked incumbent Democratic Delaware governor Charles L. Terry's conservative racial politics and supported a more liberal Republican, Russell W. Peterson, who defeated Terry in 1968. Biden was recruited by local Republicans but registered as an Independent because of his distaste for Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon.
In 1969, Biden practiced law first as a public defender and then at a firm headed by a locally active Democrat who named him to the Democratic Forum, a group trying to reform and revitalize the state party; Biden subsequently reregistered as a Democrat. He and another attorney also formed a law firm. Corporate law, however, did not appeal to him, and criminal law did not pay well. He supplemented his income by managing properties.
In 1970, Biden ran for the 4th district seat on the New Castle County Council on a liberal platform that included support for public housing in the suburbs. The seat had been held by Republican Henry R. Folsom, who was running in the 5th District following a reapportionment of council districts. Biden won the general election by defeating Republican Lawrence T. Messick, and took office on January 5, 1971. He served until January 1, 1973, and was succeeded by Democrat Francis R. Swift. During his time on the county council, Biden opposed large highway projects, which he argued might disrupt Wilmington neighborhoods.
1972 U.S. Senate campaign in Delaware
In 1972, Biden defeated Republican incumbent J. Caleb Boggs to become the junior U.S. senator from Delaware. He was the only Democrat willing to challenge Boggs. With minimal campaign funds, he was given no chance of winning. Family members managed and staffed the campaign, which relied on meeting voters face-to-face and hand-distributing position papers, an approach made feasible by Delaware's small size. He received help from the AFL–CIO and Democratic pollster Patrick Caddell. His platform focused on the environment, withdrawal from Vietnam, civil rights, mass transit, equitable taxation, health care, and public dissatisfaction with "politics as usual". A few months before the election, Biden trailed Boggs by almost thirty percentage points, but his energy, attractive young family, and ability to connect with voters' emotions worked to his advantage, and he won with 50.5 percent of the vote. At the time of his election, he was still 29 years old, but reached the constitutionally required age of 30 before he was sworn in as Senator.
Death of wife and daughter
On December 18, 1972, a few weeks after the election, Biden's wife Neilia and one-year-old daughter Naomi were killed in an automobile accident while Christmas shopping in Hockessin, Delaware. Neilia's station wagon was hit by a semi-trailer truck as she pulled out from an intersection. Their sons Beau (aged3) and Hunter (aged2) survived the accident and were taken to the hospital in fair condition, Beau with a broken leg and other wounds and Hunter with a minor skull fracture and other head injuries. Biden considered resigning to care for them, but Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield persuaded him not to.
Years later, Biden said he had heard that the truck driver allegedly drank alcohol before the collision. The driver's family denied that claim, and the police never substantiated it. Biden later apologized to the family. The accident had filled him with anger and religious doubt. He wrote that he "felt God had played a horrible trick" on him, and he had trouble focusing on work.
Second marriage
Biden credits his second wife, teacher Jill Tracy Jacobs, with the renewal of his interest in politics and life; they met in 1975 on a blind date and were married at the United Nations chapel in New York on June 17, 1977. They spent their honeymoon at Lake Balaton in the Hungarian People's Republic, behind the Iron Curtain. They are Roman Catholics and attend Mass at St. Joseph's on the Brandywine in Greenville, Delaware. Their daughter Ashley Biden (born 1981) is a social worker. She is married to physician Howard Krein. Beau Biden became an Army Judge Advocate in Iraq and later Delaware Attorney General; he died of brain cancer in 2015. Hunter Biden is a Washington lobbyist and investment adviser.
Teaching
From 1991 to 2008, as an adjunct professor, Biden co-taught a seminar on constitutional law at Widener University School of Law. The seminar often had a waiting list. Biden sometimes flew back from overseas to teach the class.
U.S. Senate (1973–2009)
Senate activities
In January 1973, secretary of the Senate Francis R. Valeo swore Biden in at the Delaware Division of the Wilmington Medical Center. Present were his sons Beau (whose leg was still in traction from the automobile accident) and Hunter and other family members. At 30, he was the sixth-youngest senator in U.S. history.
To see his sons, Biden traveled by train between his Delaware home and D.C.—74 minutes each way—and maintained this habit throughout his 36 years in the Senate.
During his early years in the Senate, Biden focused on consumer protection and environmental issues and called for greater government accountability. In a 1974 interview, he described himself as liberal on civil rights and liberties, senior citizens' concerns and healthcare but conservative on other issues, including abortion and military conscription.
In his first decade in the Senate, Biden focused on arms control. After Congress failed to ratify the SALT II Treaty signed in 1979 by Soviet general secretary Leonid Brezhnev and President Jimmy Carter, Biden met with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko to communicate American concerns and secured changes that addressed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's objections. When the Reagan administration wanted to interpret the 1972 SALT I treaty loosely to allow development of the Strategic Defense Initiative, Biden argued for strict adherence to the treaty. He received considerable attention when he excoriated Secretary of State George Shultz at a Senate hearing for the Reagan administration's support of South Africa despite its continued policy of apartheid.
Biden became ranking minority member of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1981. In 1984, he was a Democratic floor manager for the successful passage of the Comprehensive Crime Control Act. His supporters praised him for modifying some of the law's worst provisions, and it was his most important legislative accomplishment to that time. In 1994, Biden helped pass the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, also known as the Biden Crime Law, which included a ban on assault weapons, and the Violence Against Women Act, which he has called his most significant legislation. The 1994 crime law was unpopular among progressives and criticized for resulting in mass incarceration; in 2019, Biden called his role in passing the bill a "big mistake", citing its policy on crack cocaine and saying that the bill "trapped an entire generation".
In 1993, Biden voted for a provision that deemed homosexuality incompatible with military life, thereby banning gays from serving in the armed forces. In 1996, he voted for the Defense of Marriage Act, which prohibited the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages, thereby barring individuals in such marriages from equal protection under federal law and allowing states to do the same. In 2015, the act was ruled unconstitutional in Obergefell v. Hodges.
Elected to the Senate in 1972, Biden was reelected in 1978, 1984, 1990, 1996, 2002, and 2008, regularly receiving about 60% of the vote. He was junior senator to William Roth, who was first elected in 1970, until Roth was defeated in 2000. , he was the 18th-longest-serving senator in U.S. history.
Opposition to busing
In the mid-1970s, Biden was one of the Senate's strongest opponents of race-integration busing. His Delaware constituents strongly opposed it, and such opposition nationwide later led his party to mostly abandon school integration policies. In his first Senate campaign, Biden had expressed support for busing to remedy de jure segregation, as in the South, but opposed its use to remedy de facto segregation arising from racial patterns of neighborhood residency, as in Delaware; he opposed a proposed constitutional amendment banning busing entirely.
In May 1974, Biden voted to table a proposal containing anti-busing and anti-desegregation clauses but later voted for a modified version containing a qualification that it was not intended to weaken the judiciary's power to enforce the 5th Amendment and 14th Amendment. In 1975, he supported a proposal that would have prevented the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare from cutting federal funds to districts that refused to integrate; he said busing was a "bankrupt idea [violating] the cardinal rule of common sense" and that his opposition would make it easier for other liberals to follow suit. At the same time he supported initiatives on housing, job opportunities and voting rights. Biden supported a measure forbidding the use of federal funds for transporting students beyond the school closest to them. In 1977, he co-sponsored an amendment closing loopholes in that measure, which President Carter signed into law in 1978.
Brain surgeries
In February 1988, after several episodes of increasingly severe neck pain, Biden was taken by ambulance to Walter Reed Army Medical Center for surgery to correct a leaking intracranial berry aneurysm. While recuperating, he suffered a pulmonary embolism, a serious complication. After a second aneurysm was surgically repaired in May, Biden's recuperation kept him away from the Senate for seven months.
Senate Judiciary Committee
Biden was a longtime member of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary. He chaired it from 1987 to 1995 and was a ranking minority member from 1981 to 1987 and again from 1995 to 1997.
As chair, Biden presided over two highly contentious U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings. When Robert Bork was nominated in 1988, Biden reversed his approvalgiven in an interview the previous yearof a hypothetical Bork nomination. Conservatives were angered, but at the hearings' close Biden was praised for his fairness, humor, and courage. Rejecting the arguments of some Bork opponents, Biden framed his objections to Bork in terms of the conflict between Bork's strong originalism and the view that the U.S. Constitution provides rights to liberty and privacy beyond those explicitly enumerated in its text. Bork's nomination was rejected in the committee by a 9–5 vote and then in the full Senate, 58–42.
During Clarence Thomas's nomination hearings in 1991, Biden's questions on constitutional issues were often convoluted to the point that Thomas sometimes lost track of them, and Thomas later wrote that Biden's questions were akin to "beanballs". After the committee hearing closed, the public learned that Anita Hill, a University of Oklahoma law school professor, had accused Thomas of making unwelcome sexual comments when they had worked together. Biden had known of some of these charges, but initially shared them only with the committee because Hill was then unwilling to testify. The committee hearing was reopened and Hill testified, but Biden did not permit testimony from other witnesses, such as a woman who had made similar charges and experts on harassment, saying he wanted to preserve Thomas's privacy and the hearings' decency. The full Senate confirmed Thomas by a 52–48 vote, with Biden opposed. Liberal legal advocates and women's groups felt strongly that Biden had mishandled the hearings and not done enough to support Hill. Biden later sought out women to serve on the Judiciary Committee and emphasized women's issues in the committee's legislative agenda. In 2019, he told Hill he regretted his treatment of her, but Hill said afterward she remained unsatisfied.
Biden was critical of Independent Counsel Ken Starr during the 1990s Whitewater controversy and Lewinsky scandal investigations, saying "it's going to be a cold day in hell" before another independent counsel would be granted similar powers. He voted to acquit during the impeachment of President Clinton. During the 2000s, Biden sponsored bankruptcy legislation sought by credit card issuers. Clinton vetoed the bill in 2000, but it passed in 2005 as the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act, with Biden one of only 18 Democrats to vote for it, while leading Democrats and consumer rights organizations opposed it. As a senator, Biden strongly supported increased Amtrak funding and rail security.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Biden was a longtime member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He became its ranking minority member in 1997 and chaired it from June 2001 to 2003 and 2007 to 2009. His positions were generally liberal internationalist. He collaborated effectively with Republicans and sometimes went against elements of his own party. During this time he met with at least 150 leaders from 60 countries and international organizations, becoming a well-known Democratic voice on foreign policy.
Biden voted against authorization for the Gulf War in 1991, siding with 45 of the 55 Democratic senators; he said the U.S. was bearing almost all the burden in the anti-Iraq coalition.
Biden became interested in the Yugoslav Wars after hearing about Serbian abuses during the Croatian War of Independence in 1991. Once the Bosnian War broke out, Biden was among the first to call for the "lift and strike" policy of lifting the arms embargo, training Bosnian Muslims and supporting them with NATO air strikes, and investigating war crimes. The George H. W. Bush administration and Clinton administration were both reluctant to implement the policy, fearing Balkan entanglement. In April 1993, Biden spent a week in the Balkans and held a tense three-hour meeting with Serbian leader Slobodan Milošević. Biden said he had told Milošević, "I think you're a damn war criminal and you should be tried as one."
Biden wrote an amendment in 1992 to compel the Bush administration to arm the Bosnian Muslims, but deferred in 1994 to a somewhat softer stance the Clinton administration preferred, before signing on the following year to a stronger measure sponsored by Bob Dole and Joe Lieberman. The engagement led to a successful NATO peacekeeping effort. Biden has called his role in affecting Balkans policy in the mid-1990s his "proudest moment in public life" related to foreign policy.
As chair, Biden contributed to successfully encouraging the Clinton administration to commit the resources and political capital to broker what became the 1998 Good Friday Agreement between the governments of Ireland and the United Kingdom through the Northern Ireland peace process.
On September 3, 1998, the resigning former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter had, according to Barton Gellman, accused the Clinton administration of obstructing weapons inspections in Iraq. Biden joined many other Senate Democrats and "amplified on the Clinton administration's counterattack against former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter." He questioned whether Ritter was trying to "appropriate the power 'to decide when to pull the trigger' of military force against Iraq", and said that the Secretary of State would also have to consider the opinion of allies, the UNSC, and public opinion, before any intervention in Iraq. In a Washington Post op-ed later that month, Biden criticized a unilateral "confrontation-based policy" but praised the idea of asking whether intervention might be necessary at some point, though he said it was "above the pay grade" of one weapons inspector.
In 1999, during the Kosovo War, Biden supported the 1999 NATO bombing of FR Yugoslavia. He and Senator John McCain co-sponsored the McCain-Biden Kosovo Resolution, which called on Clinton to use all necessary force, including ground troops, to confront Milošević over Yugoslav actions toward ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.
Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq
Biden was a strong supporter of the War in Afghanistan, saying, "Whatever it takes, we should do it." As head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he said in 2002 that Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was a threat to national security and there was no other option than to "eliminate" that threat. In October 2002, he voted in favor of the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq, approving the U.S. invasion of Iraq. As chair of the committee, he assembled a series of witnesses to testify in favor of the authorization. They gave testimony grossly misrepresenting the intent, history, and status of Saddam and his secular government, which was an avowed enemy of al-Qaida, and touted Iraq's fictional possession of weapons of mass destruction. Biden eventually became a critic of the war and viewed his vote and role as a "mistake", but did not push for withdrawal. He supported the appropriations for the occupation, but argued that the war should be internationalized, that more soldiers were needed, and that the Bush administration should "level with the American people" about its cost and length.
By late 2006, Biden's stance had shifted considerably. He opposed the troop surge of 2007, saying General David Petraeus was "dead, flat wrong" in believing the surge could work. Biden instead advocated dividing Iraq into a loose federation of three ethnic states. In November 2006, Biden and Leslie H. Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, released a comprehensive strategy to end sectarian violence in Iraq. Rather than continue the existing approach or withdrawing, the plan called for "a third way": federalizing Iraq and giving Kurds, Shiites, and Sunnis "breathing room" in their own regions. In September 2007, a non-binding resolution endorsing the plan passed the Senate, but the idea was unfamiliar, had no political constituency, and failed to gain traction. Iraq's political leadership denounced the resolution as de facto partitioning of the country, and the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad issued a statement distancing itself from it. In May 2008, Biden sharply criticized President George W. Bush's speech to Israel's Knesset in which Bush compared some Democrats to Western leaders who appeased Hitler before World WarII; Biden called the speech "bullshit", "malarkey", and "outrageous". He later apologized for his language.
Presidential campaigns 1988 and 2008
1988 campaign
Biden formally declared his candidacy for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination on June 9, 1987. He was considered a strong candidate because of his moderate image, his speaking ability, his high profile as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee at the upcoming Robert Bork Supreme Court nomination hearings, and his appeal to Baby Boomers; he would have been the second-youngest person elected president, after John F. Kennedy. He raised more in the first quarter of 1987 than any other candidate.
By August his campaign's messaging had become confused due to staff rivalries, and in September, he was accused of plagiarizing a speech by British Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock. Biden's speech had similar lines about being the first person in his family to attend university. Biden had credited Kinnock with the formulation on previous occasions, but did not on two occasions in late August. Kinnock himself was more forgiving; the two men met in 1988, forming an enduring friendship.
Earlier that year he had also used passages from a 1967 speech by Robert F. Kennedy (for which his aides took blame) and a short phrase from John F. Kennedy's inaugural address; two years earlier he had used a 1976 passage by Hubert Humphrey. Biden responded that politicians often borrow from one another without giving credit, and that one of his rivals for the nomination, Jesse Jackson, had called him to point out that he (Jackson) had used the same material by Humphrey that Biden had used.
A few days later, an incident in law school in which Biden drew text from a Fordham Law Review article with inadequate citations was publicized. He was required to repeat the course and passed with high marks. At Biden's request the Delaware Supreme Court's Board of Professional Responsibility reviewed the incident and concluded that he had violated no rules.
Biden has made several false or exaggerated claims about his early life: that he had earned three degrees in college, that he attended law school on a full scholarship, that he had graduated in the top half of his class, and that he had marched in the civil rights movement. The limited amount of other news about the presidential race amplified these disclosures and on September 23, 1987, Biden withdrew his candidacy, saying it had been overrun by "the exaggerated shadow" of his past mistakes.
2008 campaign
After exploring the possibility of a run in several previous cycles, in January 2007, Biden declared his candidacy in the 2008 elections. During his campaign, Biden focused on the Iraq War, his record as chairman of major Senate committees, and his foreign-policy experience. In mid-2007, Biden stressed his foreign policy expertise compared to Obama's. Biden was noted for his one-liners during the campaign; in one debate he said of Republican candidate Rudy Giuliani: "There's only three things he mentions in a sentence: a noun, and a verb and 9/11."
Biden had difficulty raising funds, struggled to draw people to his rallies, and failed to gain traction against the high-profile candidacies of Obama and Senator Hillary Clinton. He never rose above single digits in national polls of the Democratic candidates. In the first contest on January 3, 2008, Biden placed fifth in the Iowa caucuses, garnering slightly less than one percent of the state delegates. He withdrew from the race that evening.
Despite its lack of success, Biden's 2008 campaign raised his stature in the political world. In particular, it changed the relationship between Biden and Obama. Although they had served together on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, they had not been close: Biden resented Obama's quick rise to political stardom, while Obama viewed Biden as garrulous and patronizing. Having gotten to know each other during 2007, Obama appreciated Biden's campaign style and appeal to working-class voters, and Biden said he became convinced Obama was "the real deal".
2008 vice-presidential campaign
Shortly after Biden withdrew from the presidential race, Obama privately told him he was interested in finding an important place for Biden in his administration. Biden declined Obama's first request to vet him for the vice-presidential slot, fearing the vice presidency would represent a loss in status and voice from his Senate position, but he later changed his mind. In early August, Obama and Biden met in secret to discuss the possibility, and developed a strong personal rapport. On August 22, 2008, Obama announced that Biden would be his running mate. The New York Times reported that the strategy behind the choice reflected a desire to fill out the ticket with someone with foreign policy and national security experience—and not to help the ticket win a swing state or to emphasize Obama's "change" message. Others pointed out Biden's appeal to middle-class and blue-collar voters, as well as his willingness to aggressively challenge Republican nominee John McCain in a way that Obama seemed uncomfortable doing at times. In accepting Obama's offer, Biden ruled out running for president again in 2016, but his comments in later years seemed to back off that stance, as he did not want to diminish his political power by appearing uninterested in advancement. Biden was officially nominated for vice president on August 27 by voice vote at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver.
Biden's vice-presidential campaigning gained little media visibility, as far greater press attention was focused on the Republican running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. During one week in September 2008, for instance, the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism found that Biden was included in only five percent of coverage of the race, far less than the other three candidates on the tickets received. Biden nevertheless focused on campaigning in economically challenged areas of swing states and trying to win over blue-collar Democrats, especially those who had supported Hillary Clinton. Biden attacked McCain heavily despite a long-standing personal friendship. He said, "That guy I used to know, he's gone. It literally saddens me." As the financial crisis of 2007–2010 reached a peak with the liquidity crisis of September 2008 and the proposed bailout of the United States financial system became a major factor in the campaign, Biden voted in favor of the $700billion Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, which went on to pass in the Senate 74–25.
On October 2, 2008, Biden participated in the vice-presidential debate with Palin at Washington University in St. Louis. Post-debate polls found that while Palin exceeded many voters' expectations, Biden had won the debate overall. During the campaign's final days, he focused on less populated, older, less well-off areas of battleground states, especially Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, where polling indicated he was popular and where Obama had not campaigned or performed well in the Democratic primaries. He also campaigned in some normally Republican states, as well as in areas with large Catholic populations.
Under instructions from the campaign, Biden kept his speeches succinct and tried to avoid offhand remarks, such as one he made about Obama's being tested by a foreign power soon after taking office, which had attracted negative attention. Privately, Biden's remarks frustrated Obama. "How many times is Biden gonna say something stupid?" he asked. Obama campaign staffers referred to Biden blunders as "Joe bombs" and kept Biden uninformed about strategy discussions, which in turn irked Biden. Relations between the two campaigns became strained for a month, until Biden apologized on a call to Obama and the two built a stronger partnership. Publicly, Obama strategist David Axelrod said Biden's high popularity ratings had outweighed any unexpected comments. Nationally, Biden had a 60% favorability rating in a Pew Research Center poll, compared to Palin's 44%.
On November 4, 2008, Obama and Biden were elected with 53% of the popular vote and 365 electoral votes to McCain–Palin's 173.
At the same time Biden was running for vice president he was also running for reelection to the Senate, as permitted by Delaware law. On November4, he was reelected to the Senate, defeating Republican Christine O'Donnell. Having won both races, Biden made a point of waiting to resign from the Senate until he was sworn in for his seventh term on January 6, 2009. He became the youngest senator ever to start a seventh full term, and said, "In all my life, the greatest honor bestowed upon me has been serving the people of Delaware as their United States senator." Biden cast his last Senate vote on January 15, supporting the release of the second $350billion for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, and resigned from the Senate later that day. In an emotional farewell, Biden told the Senate: "Every good thing I have seen happen here, every bold step taken in the 36-plus years I have been here, came not from the application of pressure by interest groups, but through the maturation of personal relationships." Delaware Governor Ruth Ann Minner appointed longtime Biden adviser Ted Kaufman to fill Biden's vacated Senate seat.
Vice presidency (2009–2017)
First term, 2009–2013
Biden said he intended to eliminate some explicit roles assumed by George W. Bush's vice president, Dick Cheney, and did not intend to emulate any previous vice presidency. He chaired Obama's transition team and headed an initiative to improve middle-class economic well-being. In early January 2009, in his last act as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, he visited the leaders of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and on January 20 he was sworn in as the 47th vice president of the United Statesthe first vice president from Delaware and the first Roman Catholic vice president.
Obama was soon comparing Biden to a basketball player "who does a bunch of things that don't show up in the stat sheet". In May, Biden visited Kosovo and affirmed the U.S. position that its "independence is irreversible". Biden lost an internal debate to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about sending 21,000 new troops to Afghanistan, but his skepticism was valued, and in 2009, Biden's views gained more influence as Obama reconsidered his Afghanistan strategy. Biden visited Iraq about every two months, becoming the administration's point man in delivering messages to Iraqi leadership about expected progress there. More generally, overseeing Iraq policy became Biden's responsibility: Obama was said to have said, "Joe, you do Iraq." Biden said Iraq "could be one of the great achievements of this administration". His January 2010 visit to Iraq in the midst of turmoil over banned candidates from the upcoming Iraqi parliamentary election resulted in 59 of the several hundred candidates being reinstated by the Iraqi government two days later. By 2012, Biden had made eight trips there, but his oversight of U.S. policy in Iraq receded with the exit of U.S. troops in 2011.
Biden oversaw infrastructure spending from the Obama stimulus package intended to help counteract the ongoing recession. During this period, Biden was satisfied that no major instances of waste or corruption had occurred, and when he completed that role in February 2011, he said the number of fraud incidents with stimulus monies had been less than one percent.
In late April 2009, Biden's off-message response to a question during the beginning of the swine flu outbreak, that he would advise family members against traveling on airplanes or subways, led to a swift retraction by the White House. The remark revived Biden's reputation for gaffes. Confronted with rising unemployment through July 2009, Biden acknowledged that the administration had "misread how bad the economy was" but maintained confidence the stimulus package would create many more jobs once the pace of expenditures picked up. On March 23, 2010, a microphone picked up Biden telling the president that his signing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was "a big fucking deal" during live national news telecasts. Despite their different personalities, Obama and Biden formed a friendship, partly based around Obama's daughter Sasha and Biden's granddaughter Maisy, who attended Sidwell Friends School together.
Members of the Obama administration said Biden's role in the White House was to be a contrarian and force others to defend their positions. Rahm Emanuel, White House chief of staff, said that Biden helped counter groupthink. White House press secretary Jay Carney, Biden's former communications director, said Biden played the role of "the bad guy in the Situation Room". Another senior Obama advisor said Biden "is always prepared to be the skunk at the family picnic to make sure we are as intellectually honest as possible." Obama said, "The best thing about Joe is that when we get everybody together, he really forces people to think and defend their positions, to look at things from every angle, and that is very valuable for me." The Bidens maintained a relaxed atmosphere at their official residence in Washington, often entertaining their grandchildren, and regularly returned to their home in Delaware.
Biden campaigned heavily for Democrats in the 2010 midterm elections, maintaining an attitude of optimism in the face of predictions of large-scale losses for the party. Following big Republican gains in the elections and the departure of White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, Biden's past relationships with Republicans in Congress became more important. He led the successful administration effort to gain Senate approval for the New START treaty. In December 2010, Biden's advocacy for a middle ground, followed by his negotiations with Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, were instrumental in producing the administration's compromise tax package that included a temporary extension of the Bush tax cuts. Biden then took the lead in trying to sell the agreement to a reluctant Democratic caucus in Congress. The package passed as the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010.
In March 2011, Obama delegated Biden to lead negotiations with Congress to resolve federal spending levels for the rest of the year and avoid a government shutdown. By May 2011, a "Biden panel" with six congressional members was trying to reach a bipartisan deal on raising the U.S. debt ceiling as part of an overall deficit reduction plan. The U.S. debt ceiling crisis developed over the next few months, but Biden's relationship with McConnell again proved key in breaking a deadlock and bringing about a deal to resolve it, in the form of the Budget Control Act of 2011, signed on August 2, 2011, the same day an unprecedented U.S. default had loomed. Biden had spent the most time of anyone in the administration bargaining with Congress on the debt question, and one Republican staffer said, "Biden's the only guy with real negotiating authority, and [McConnell] knows that his word is good. He was a key to the deal."
Some reports suggest that Biden opposed proceeding with the May 2011 U.S. mission to kill Osama bin Laden, lest failure adversely affect Obama's reelection prospects. He took the lead in notifying Congressional leaders of the successful outcome.
Reelection
In October 2010, Biden said Obama had asked him to remain as his running mate for the 2012 presidential election, but with Obama's popularity on the decline, White House Chief of Staff William M. Daley conducted some secret polling and focus group research in late 2011 on the idea of replacing Biden on the ticket with Hillary Clinton. The notion was dropped when the results showed no appreciable improvement for Obama, and White House officials later said Obama had never entertained the idea.
Biden's May 2012 statement that he was "absolutely comfortable" with same-sex marriage gained considerable public attention in comparison to Obama's position, which had been described as "evolving". Biden made his statement without administration consent, and Obama and his aides were quite irked, since Obama had planned to shift position several months later, in the build-up to the party convention, and since Biden had previously counseled the president to avoid the issue lest key Catholic voters be offended. Gay rights advocates seized upon Biden's statement, and within days, Obama announced that he too supported same-sex marriage, an action in part forced by Biden's remarks. Biden apologized to Obama in private for having spoken out, while Obama acknowledged publicly it had been done from the heart. The incident showed that Biden still struggled at times with message discipline, as Time wrote, "Everyone knows Biden's greatest strength is also his greatest weakness." Relations were also strained between the vice presidential and presidential campaigns when Biden appeared to use his position to bolster fundraising contacts for a possible run for president in 2016, and he ended up being excluded from Obama campaign strategy meetings.
The Obama campaign nevertheless valued Biden as a retail-level politician who could connect with disaffected blue-collar workers and rural residents, and he had a heavy schedule of appearances in swing states as the reelection campaign began in earnest in spring 2012. An August 2012 remark before a mixed-race audience that Republican proposals to relax Wall Street regulations would "put y'all back in chains" led to a similar analysis of Biden's face-to-face campaigning abilities versus his tendency to go off track. The Los Angeles Times wrote, "Most candidates give the same stump speech over and over, putting reporters if not the audience to sleep. But during any Biden speech, there might be a dozen moments to make press handlers cringe, and prompt reporters to turn to each other with amusement and confusion." Time magazine wrote that Biden often went too far and "Along with the familiar Washington mix of neediness and overconfidence, Biden's brain is wired for more than the usual amount of goofiness."
Biden was nominated for a second term as vice president at the 2012 Democratic National Convention in September. Debating his Republican counterpart, Representative Paul Ryan, in the vice-presidential debate on October 11 he made a spirited and emotional defense of the Obama administration's record and energetically attacked the Republican ticket. On November 6, Obama and Biden won reelection over Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan with 332 of 538 Electoral College votes and 51% of the popular vote.
In December 2012, Obama named Biden to head the Gun Violence Task Force, created to address the causes of gun violence in the United States in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Later that month, during the final days before the United States fell off the "fiscal cliff", Biden's relationship with McConnell again proved important as the two negotiated a deal that led to the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 being passed at the start of 2013. It made many of the Bush tax cuts permanent but raised rates on upper income levels.
Second term, 2013–2017
Biden was inaugurated to a second term on January 20, 2013, at a small ceremony at Number One Observatory Circle, his official residence, with Justice Sonia Sotomayor presiding (a public ceremony took place on January 21).
Biden played little part in discussions that led to the October 2013 passage of the Continuing Appropriations Act, 2014, which resolved the federal government shutdown of 2013 and the debt-ceiling crisis of 2013. This was because Senate majority leader Harry Reid and other Democratic leaders cut him out of any direct talks with Congress, feeling Biden had given too much away during previous negotiations.
Biden's Violence Against Women Act was reauthorized again in 2013. The act led to related developments, such as the White House Council on Women and Girls, begun in the first term, as well as the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault, begun in January 2014 with Biden and Valerie Jarrett as co-chairs. Biden discussed federal guidelines on sexual assault on university campuses while giving a speech at the University of New Hampshire. He said, "No means no, if you're drunk or you're sober. No means no if you're in bed, in a dorm or on the street. No means no even if you said yes at first and you changed your mind. No means no."
Biden favored arming Syria's rebel fighters. As Iraq fell apart during 2014, renewed attention was paid to the Biden-Gelb Iraqi federalization plan of 2006, with some observers suggesting Biden had been right all along. Biden himself said the U.S. would follow ISIL "to the gates of hell". Biden had close relationships with several Latin American leaders and was assigned a focus on the region during the administration; he visited the region 16 times during his vice presidency, the most of any president or vice president.
In 2015, Speaker of the House John Boehner and Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell invited Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress without notifying the Obama administration. This defiance of protocol led Biden and more than 50 congressional Democrats to skip Netanyahu's speech. In August 2016, Biden visited Serbia, where he met with Serbian president Aleksandar Vučić and expressed his condolences for civilian victims of the bombing campaign during the Kosovo War. In Kosovo, he attended a ceremony renaming a highway after his son Beau, in honor of Beau's service to Kosovo in training its judges and prosecutors.
Biden never cast a tie-breaking vote in the Senate, making him the longest-serving vice president with this distinction.
Role in the 2016 presidential campaign
During his second term, Biden was often said to be preparing for a possible bid for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination. With his family, many friends, and donors encouraging him in mid-2015 to enter the race, and with Hillary Clinton's favorability ratings in decline at that time, Biden was reported to again be seriously considering the prospect and a "Draft Biden 2016" PAC was established.
, Biden was still uncertain about running. He felt his son's recent death had largely drained his emotional energy, and said, "nobody has a right... to seek that office unless they're willing to give it 110% of who they are." On October 21, speaking from a podium in the Rose Garden with his wife and Obama by his side, Biden announced his decision not to run for president in 2016. In January 2016, Biden affirmed that it was the right decision, but admitted to regretting not running for president "every day".
After Obama endorsed Hillary Clinton on June 9, 2016, Biden endorsed her later that day. Throughout the 2016 election, Biden strongly criticized Clinton's opponent, Donald Trump, in often colorful terms.
Subsequent activities (2017–2019)
After leaving the vice presidency, Biden became a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, while continuing to lead efforts to find treatments for cancer. In 2017 he wrote a memoir, Promise Me, Dad, and went on a book tour. Biden earned $15.6million in 2017–2018. In 2018, he gave a eulogy for Senator John McCain, praising McCain's embrace of American ideals and bipartisan friendships.
Biden remained in the public eye, endorsing candidates while continuing to comment on politics, climate change, and the presidency of Donald Trump. He also continued to speak out in favor of LGBT rights, continuing advocacy on an issue he had become more closely associated with during his vice presidency. In 2019, Biden criticized Brunei for its intention to implement Islamic laws that would allow death by stoning for adultery and homosexuality, calling it "appalling and immoral" and saying, "There is no excuse—not culture, not tradition—for this kind of hate and inhumanity." By 2019, Biden and his wife reported that their assets had increased to between $2.2 million and $8 million from speaking engagements and a contract to write a set of books.
2020 presidential campaign
Speculation and announcement
Between 2016 and 2019, media outlets often mentioned Biden as a likely candidate for president in 2020. When asked if he would run, he gave varied and ambivalent answers, saying "never say never". At one point he suggested he did not see a scenario where he would run again, but a few days later, he said, "I'll run if I can walk." A political action committee known as Time for Biden was formed in January 2018, seeking Biden's entry into the race. He finally launched his campaign on April 25, 2019, saying he was prompted to run, among other reasons, by his "sense of duty."
Campaign
In September 2019, it was reported that Trump had pressured Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate alleged wrongdoing by Biden and his son Hunter Biden. Despite the allegations, no evidence was produced of any wrongdoing by the Bidens. The media widely interpreted this pressure to investigate the Bidens as trying to hurt Biden's chances of winning the presidency, resulting in a political scandal and Trump's impeachment by the House of Representatives.
Beginning in 2019, Trump and his allies falsely accused Biden of getting the Ukrainian prosecutor general Viktor Shokin fired because he was supposedly pursuing an investigation into Burisma Holdings, which employed Hunter Biden. Biden was accused of withholding $1billion in aid from Ukraine in this effort. In 2015, Biden pressured the Ukrainian parliament to remove Shokin because the United States, the European Union and other international organizations considered Shokin corrupt and ineffective, and in particular because Shokin was not assertively investigating Burisma. The withholding of the $1billion in aid was part of this official policy. The Senate Homeland Security Committee and Senate Finance Committee, led by Republicans, investigated allegations of wrongdoing by the Bidens in Ukraine, ultimately releasing a report in September 2020 that detailed no evidence of wrongdoing by Joe Biden, and concluded that it was "not clear" whether Hunter Biden's role in Burisma "affected U.S. policy toward Ukraine".
In March 2019 and April 2019, Biden was accused by eight women of previous instances of inappropriate physical contact, such as embracing, touching or kissing. Biden had previously described himself as a "tactile politician" and admitted this behavior has caused trouble for him. In April 2019, Biden pledged to be more "respectful of people's personal space".
Throughout 2019, Biden stayed generally ahead of other Democrats in national polls. Despite this, he finished fourth in the Iowa caucuses, and eight days later, fifth in the New Hampshire primary. He performed better in the Nevada caucuses, reaching the 15% required for delegates, but still was behind Bernie Sanders by 21.6 percentage points. Making strong appeals to Black voters on the campaign trail and in the South Carolina debate, Biden won the South Carolina primary by more than 28 points. After the withdrawals and subsequent endorsements of candidates Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar, he made large gains in the March3 Super Tuesday primary elections. Biden won 18 of the next 26 contests, including Alabama, Arkansas, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia, putting him in the lead overall. Elizabeth Warren and Mike Bloomberg soon dropped out, and Biden expanded his lead with victories over Sanders in four states (Idaho, Michigan, Mississippi, and Missouri) on March 10.
In late March 2020, Tara Reade, one of the eight women who in 2019 had accused Biden of inappropriate physical contact, accused Biden of having sexually assaulted her in 1993. There were inconsistencies between Reade's 2019 and 2020 allegations. Biden and his campaign denied the sexual assault allegation.
When Sanders suspended his campaign on April 8, 2020, Biden became the Democratic Party's presumptive nominee for president. On April 13, Sanders endorsed Biden in a live-streamed discussion from their homes. Former President Barack Obama endorsed Biden the next day. In March 2020, Biden committed to choosing a woman as his running mate. In June, Biden met the 1,991-delegate threshold needed to secure the party's presidential nomination. On August 11, he announced U.S. Senator Kamala Harris of California as his running mate, making her the first African American and first South Asian American vice-presidential nominee on a major-party ticket.
On August 18, 2020, Biden was officially nominated at the 2020 Democratic National Convention as the Democratic Party nominee for president in the 2020 election.
Presidential transition
Biden was elected the 46th president of the United States in November 2020. He defeated the incumbent, Donald Trump, becoming the first candidate to defeat a sitting president since Bill Clinton defeated George H.W. Bush in 1992. Trump refused to concede, insisting the election had been "stolen" from him through "voter fraud", challenging the results in court and promoting numerous conspiracy theories about the voting and vote-counting processes, in an attempt to overturn the election results. Biden's transition was delayed by several weeks as the White House ordered federal agencies not to cooperate. On November23, General Services Administrator Emily W. Murphy formally recognized Biden as the apparent winner of the 2020 election and authorized the start of a transition process to the Biden administration.
On January 6, 2021, during Congress's electoral vote count, Trump told supporters gathered in front of the White House to march to the Capitol, saying, "We will never give up. We will never concede. It doesn't happen. You don't concede when there's theft involved." Soon after, they attacked the Capitol. During the insurrection at the Capitol, Biden addressed the nation, calling the events "an unprecedented assault unlike anything we've seen in modern times." He specifically called on Trump to "go on national television now to fulfill his oath and defend the Constitution and demand an end to this siege", adding, "it must end now." After the Capitol was cleared, Congress resumed its joint session and officially certified the election results with Pence declaring Biden and Harris the winners.
Presidency (2021–present)
Inauguration
Biden was inaugurated as the 46th president of the United States on January 20, 2021. At 78, he is the oldest person to have assumed the office. He is the second Catholic president (after John F. Kennedy) and the first president whose home state is Delaware. He is the second non-incumbent vice president (after Richard Nixon in 1968) to be elected president. He is also the first president from the Silent Generation.
Biden's inauguration was "a muted affair unlike any previous inauguration" due to COVID-19 precautions as well as massively increased security measures because of a threat of widespread civil unrest. Biden took the oath of office on the Capitol's west steps and gave an inaugural address, but there were no spectators on the Mall and no in-person parades or inaugural balls. Trump did not attend, becoming the first outgoing president since 1869 to not attend his successor's inauguration.
First 100 days
In his first two days as president, Biden signed 17 executive orders, more than most recent presidents did in their first 100 days. By his third day, orders had included rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement, ending the state of national emergency at the border with Mexico, directing the government to rejoin the World Health Organization, face mask requirements on federal property, measures to combat hunger in the United States, and revoking permits for the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. In his first two weeks in office, Biden signed more executive orders than any other president since Franklin D. Roosevelt had in their first month in office.
On February 4, 2021, the Biden administration announced that the United States was ending its support for the Saudi-led bombing campaign in Yemen. In his first visit to the State Department as president, Biden said "this war has to end" and that the conflict had created a "humanitarian and strategic catastrophe." On February 25, the Biden administration "struck a site in Syria used by two Iranian-backed militia groups in response to rocket attacks on American forces." This marked the first known action by the military under Biden.
On March 11, the first anniversary of COVID-19 being declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization, Biden signed into law the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, a $1.9 trillion economic stimulus relief package he proposed and lobbied for that aimed to speed up the United States' recovery from the economic and health effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing recession. The package included direct payments to most Americans, an extension of increased unemployment benefits, funds for vaccine distribution and school reopenings, support for small businesses and state and local governments, and expansions of health insurance subsidies and the child tax credit. Biden's initial proposal included an increase of the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour, but after Senate parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough determined that including the increase in a budget reconciliation bill would violate Senate rules, Democrats declined to pursue overruling her and removed the increase from the package.
Also in March, amid a rise in migrants entering the U.S. from Mexico, Biden told migrants, "Don't come over." He said that the U.S. was arranging a plan for migrants to "apply for asylum in place", without leaving their original locations. In the meantime, migrant adults "are being sent back", Biden said, in reference to the continuation of the Trump administration's Title 42 policy for quick deportations. Biden earlier announced that his administration would not deport unaccompanied migrant children; the rise in arrivals of such children exceeded the capacity of facilities meant to shelter them (before they were sent to sponsors), leading the Biden administration in March to direct the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help manage these children.
On April 14, Biden announced that the United States would delay the withdrawal of all troops from the war in Afghanistan until September 11, signalling an end to the country's direct military involvement in Afghanistan after nearly 20 years. In February 2020, the Trump administration had made a deal with the Taliban to completely withdraw U.S. forces by May 1, 2021. Biden's decision met with a wide range of reactions, from support and relief to trepidation at the possible collapse of the Afghan government without American support. On April 22–23, Biden held an international climate summit at which he announced that the U.S. would cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 50%–52% by 2030 compared to 2005 levels. Other countries also increased their pledges. If the pledges made at the summit are met, they will cut global greenhouse gas emissions by 2.6–3.7 Gte by 2030. On April 28, the eve of his 100th day in office, Biden delivered his first address to a joint session of Congress, in which he highlighted the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines and addressed withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, the murder of George Floyd, and the U.S. Capitol attack while urging Congress to pass comprehensive immigration, gun, and health care reform.
Rest of 2021
In May 2021, during a flareup in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, Biden expressed his support for Israel, saying "my party still supports Israel" amid disagreement from some Democrats. In June 2021, Biden took his first trip abroad as president. In eight days he visited Belgium, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. He attended a G7 summit, a NATO summit, and an EU summit, and held one-on-one talks with Russian president Vladimir Putin.
On June 17, Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act, which officially declared Juneteenth a federal holiday. Juneteenth is the first new federal holiday since Martin Luther King Jr. Day was declared a holiday in 1986. In July 2021, amid a slowing of the COVID-19 vaccination rate in the country and the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant, Biden said that the country has "a pandemic for those who haven't gotten the vaccination" and that it was therefore "gigantically important" for Americans to be vaccinated, touting the vaccines' effectiveness against hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19. He also criticized the prevalence of COVID-19 misinformation on social media, saying it was "killing people". In September 2021, Biden announced AUKUS, a security pact between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, to ensure "peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific over the long term"; the deal included nuclear-powered submarines built for Australia's use.
By the end of 2021, 40 of Biden's appointed judges to the federal judiciary had been confirmed, more than any president in their first year in office since Ronald Reagan. Biden has prioritized diversity in his judicial appointments more than any president in U.S. history, with the majority of appointments being women and people of color. Most of his appointments have been in blue states, making a limited impact since the courts in these states already traditionally lean liberal.
In the first eight months of his presidency, Biden's approval rating, according to Morning Consult polling, remained above 50%. In August, it began to decline and lowered into the low forties by December. The decline in his approval is attributed to the Afghanistan withdrawal, increasing hospitalizations from the Delta variant, high inflation and gas prices, disarray within the Democratic Party, and a general decline in popularity customary in politics.
Withdrawal from Afghanistan
American forces began withdrawing from Afghanistan in 2020, under the provisions of a February 2020 US-Taliban agreement that set a May 1, 2021, deadline. By April 2021, the State Department was urging American civilians in Afghanistan to leave as soon as possible. The Taliban began an offensive on May 1. As late as July, American intelligence assessments estimated Kabul would fall to the Taliban months or weeks after the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan. By early July, most American troops in Afghanistan had withdrawn. Biden addressed the withdrawal in July, saying, "The likelihood there's going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely."
On August 15, the Afghan government collapsed under the Taliban offensive, and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country. Biden reacted by ordering 6,000 American troops to assist in the evacuation of American personnel and Afghan allies. He was widely criticized for the manner of the withdrawal, with allegations of poor planning for the evacuation of Americans and Afghan allies, and for his silence and absence during the days before the collapse of the Afghan government.
On August 16, Biden addressed the "messy" situation, taking responsibility for it, and admitting that the situation "unfolded more quickly than we had anticipated". He defended his decision to withdraw, saying that Americans should not be "dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves," and blamed his predecessor Donald Trump, the Afghan president, and Afghan security forces for the speedy collapse.
On August 22, Biden said that his administration knew that ISIS-K was a "likely source" of threat. On August 26, a suicide bombing at the Kabul airport killed 13 U.S. service members and 169 Afghans. Biden declared to the attackers that the United States "will hunt you down and make you pay". On August 27, an American drone strike killed two ISIS-K targets, who were "planners and facilitators", according to a U.S. Army general. On August 29, another American drone strike killed 10 civilians, including seven children; the Defense Department initially claimed the strike was conducted on an Islamic State suicide bomber threatening Kabul Airport, but admitted the mistake on September 17 and apologized.
The U.S. military left Afghanistan on August 30, with Biden saying that the evacuation effort was an "extraordinary success", by extracting over 120,000 Americans, Afghans and other allies. He acknowledged that between "100 to 200" Americans who wanted to leave were left in Afghanistan, despite his August 18 pledge to stay in Afghanistan until all Americans who wanted to leave had left. The Biden administration, joining governments of almost 100 countries, said that the Taliban had given "assurances" that anyone "with travel authorization from [these] countries" would continue to be allowed to leave Afghanistan.
Economy
Biden entered office nine months into a recovery from the COVID-19 recession and his first year in office was characterized by robust growth in real GDP, employment, wages and stock market returns, amid significantly elevated inflation. Real GDP grew 5.7%, the fastest rate in 37 years. Amid record job creation, the unemployment rate fell at the fastest pace on record during the year. By the end of 2021, inflation reached a nearly 40-year high of 7.1%, which was partially offset by the highest wage and salary growth in at least 20 years. Income growth was particularly strong at the low end of the pay scale.
Infrastructure and climate
As part of Biden's Build Back Better agenda, in late March 2021, he proposed the American Jobs Plan, a $2 trillion package addressing issues including transport infrastructure, utilities infrastructure, broadband infrastructure, housing, schools, manufacturing, research and workforce development. After months of negotiations among Biden and lawmakers, in August 2021 the Senate passed a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill called the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, while the House, also in a bipartisan manner, approved that bill in early November 2021, covering infrastructure related to transport, utilities, and broadband. Biden signed the bill into law in mid-November 2021.
As COP26, scheduled for October 31 to November 12, 2021, approached, Biden increased his efforts to address climate change domestically and internationally. He promoted an agreement that the U.S. and the European Union cut methane emissions by a third by 2030 and tried to add dozens of other countries to the effort. He tried to convince China and Australia to do more. He convened an online Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate Change to press other countries to strengthen their climate policy. Biden pledged to double climate funding to developing countries by 2024. Also at COP26, the U.S. and China reached a deal on greenhouse gas emission reduction. The two countries are responsible for 40% of global emissions.
2022
In early 2022, Biden made efforts to change his public image after entering the year with low approval ratings, but they continued to fall, dipping to approximately 40% in aggregated polls by February.
In January, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, a moderate liberal nominated by Bill Clinton, announced he will be retiring from the Supreme Court. Breyer's retirement is expected to give Biden his first opportunity to nominate a Supreme Court justice. During his 2020 campaign, Biden vowed to nominate a Black woman to the court if a vacancy occurred, a promise he reiterated after the announcement of Breyer's retirement. In February, Biden nominated federal judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court.
Political positions
Biden is considered a moderate Democrat and a centrist, though more recently he has been seen as shifting to the left. He has a lifetime liberal 72% score from the Americans for Democratic Action through 2004, while the American Conservative Union gave him a lifetime conservative rating of 13% through 2008.
Biden supported the fiscal stimulus in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009; the Obama administration's proposed increase in infrastructure spending; subsidies for mass transit, including Amtrak, bus, and subway; and the reduced military spending in the Obama administration's fiscal year 2014 budget. He has proposed partially reversing the corporate tax cuts of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, saying that doing so would not hurt businesses' ability to hire. He voted for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Biden is a staunch supporter of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). He has promoted a plan to expand and build upon it, paid for by revenue gained from reversing some Trump administration tax cuts. Biden's plan aims to expand health insurance coverage to 97% of Americans, including by creating a public health insurance option.
Biden has supported same-sex marriage since 2012 and also supports Roe v. Wade and repealing the Hyde Amendment. He opposes drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and supports governmental funding to find new energy sources. As a senator, he forged deep relationships with police groups and was a chief proponent of a Police Officer's Bill of Rights measure that police unions supported but police chiefs opposed. As vice president, he served as a White House liaison to police.
Biden believes action must be taken on global warming. As a senator, he co-sponsored the Sense of the Senate resolution calling on the United States to take part in the United Nations climate negotiations and the Boxer–Sanders Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act, the most stringent climate bill in the United States Senate. He wants to achieve a carbon-free power sector in the U.S. by 2035 and stop emissions completely by 2050. His program includes reentering the Paris Agreement, nature conservation, and green building. Biden wants to pressure China and other countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions by carbon tariffs if necessary.
Biden has said the U.S. needs to "get tough" on China and build "a united front of U.S. allies and partners to confront China's abusive behaviors and human rights violations". He has called China the "most serious competitor" that poses challenges to the United States' "prosperity, security, and democratic values". Biden has voiced concerns about China's "coercive and unfair" economic practices and human rights abuses in the Xinjiang region to the Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping. He also pledged to sanction and commercially restrict Chinese government officials and entities who carry out repression.
Biden has said he is against regime change, but for providing non-military support to opposition movements. He opposed direct U.S. intervention in Libya, voted against U.S. participation in the Gulf War, voted in favor of the Iraq War, and supports a two-state solution in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Biden has pledged to end U.S. support for the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen and to reevaluate the United States' relationship with Saudi Arabia. He has called North Korea a "paper tiger". As vice president, Biden supported Obama's Cuban thaw. He has said that, as president, he would restore U.S. membership in key United Nations bodies, such as the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the World Health Organization, and possibly the Human Rights Council. Biden supports extending the New START arms control treaty with Russia to limit the number of nuclear weapons deployed by both sides. In 2021, Biden recognized the Armenian genocide, becoming the first U.S. president to do so.
Reputation
Biden was consistently ranked one of the least wealthy members of the Senate, which he attributed to his having been elected young. Feeling that less-wealthy public officials may be tempted to accept contributions in exchange for political favors, he proposed campaign finance reform measures during his first term. , Biden's net worth was $27,012. , the Bidens were worth $9 million, largely due to sales of Biden's books and speaking fees after his vice presidency.
The political writer Howard Fineman has written, "Biden is not an academic, he's not a theoretical thinker, he's a great street pol. He comes from a long line of working people in Scranton—auto salesmen, car dealers, people who know how to make a sale. He has that great Irish gift." Political columnist David S. Broder wrote that Biden has grown over time: "He responds to real people—that's been consistent throughout. And his ability to understand himself and deal with other politicians has gotten much much better." Journalist James Traub has written that "Biden is the kind of fundamentally happy person who can be as generous toward others as he is to himself."
In recent years, especially after the 2015 death of his elder son Beau, Biden has been noted for his empathetic nature and ability to communicate about grief. In 2020, CNN wrote that his presidential campaign aimed to make him "healer-in-chief", while The New York Times described his extensive history of being called upon to give eulogies.
Journalist and TV anchor Wolf Blitzer has described Biden as loquacious. He often deviates from prepared remarks and sometimes "puts his foot in his mouth." The New York Times wrote that Biden's "weak filters make him capable of blurting out pretty much anything." In 2018, Biden called himself "a gaffe machine". Some of his gaffes have been characterized as racially insensitive.
Electoral history
Publications
Books
Also paperback edition, Random House 2008, .
Book contributions
Biden, Joseph R., Jr. (2009). "Foreword." In: Choosing Equality: Essays and Narratives on the Desegregation Experience. Edited by Robert L. Hayman, Jr. and Leland Ware. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009. .
Pamphlets
Biden, Joseph R., Jr., and Les Aspin, William Louis Dickinson, Brent Scowcroft (1982). Arms Sales: A Useful Foreign Policy Tool? American Enterprise Institute. AEI Forum 56. Moderated by John Charles Daly.
Articles
Biden, Joseph R., Jr., and Miga Purev-Ochir (Spring 2015). "U.S.-Russian Relations in a Post-Cold War World: A Strategic Vision: Mapping a Future for U.S.-Russian Relations." Harvard International Review, vol. 36, no. 3, pp. 72–76. .
Notes
References
Citations
Works cited
See also
List of honors and awards received by Joe Biden
List of things named after Joe Biden
External links
Official
President Joe Biden official website
Presidential campaign website
Obama White House biography (archived)
Other
Joe Biden at On the Issues
Joe Biden at PolitiFact
1942 births
Living people
20th-century American lawyers
20th-century American politicians
20th-century Roman Catholics
21st-century American memoirists
21st-century presidents of the United States
21st-century vice presidents of the United States
21st-century Roman Catholics
2008 United States vice-presidential candidates
2012 United States vice-presidential candidates
American people of English descent
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"The 1980 United States Senate election in Illinois was held on November 4, 1980. Incumbent Democrat U.S. Senator Adlai Stevenson III decided to retire. Democrat Alan J. Dixon won the open seat.\n\nElection information\nThe primaries and general elections coincided with those for other federal offices (President and House), as well as those for state offices.\n\nBackground\nIncumbent Democrat Adlai Stevenson III opted not to seek reelection to a third-term. This was the first open-race for this senate seat since 1938.\n\nTurnout\nTurnout in the primary elections was 35.36%, with a total of 2,026,814 votes cast.\n\nTurnout during the general election was 73.51%, with 4,579,933 votes cast.\n\nDemocratic primary \nAlan J. Dixon overwhelmingly won the Democratic primary.\n\nCandidates\n Alan J. Dixon, Illinois Secretary of State\n Anthony R. Martin-Trigona, candidate for U.S. Senator in 1978\n Alex Seith, Democratic nominee for U.S. Senator in 1978\n Robert Ash \"Bob\" Wallace\n Dakin Williams, prosecutor, candidate for U.S. Senator in 1972 and 1974, candidate for Illinois Governor in 1978\n\nCampaign\nAlex Seith, who had won the Democratic nomination for Senator two years earlier, almost winning the 1978 race in what would have been a major upset, laid hopes of capturing the nomination again.\n\nAnthony R. Martin-Trigona, a political activist who had unsuccessfully sought the nomination for senate in 1978, again ran for the nomination.\n\nRobert Ash \"Bob\" Wallace made use of his friendship with boxer Muhammad Ali, featuring him in campaign ads and having him make campaign appearances.\n\nDakin Williams was a prosecutor, and was the younger brother of famous playwright Tennessee Williams. He had been a candidate for the Democratic nomination of Illinois' other US Senate seat in 1972, and had unsuccessfully sought the nomination for this seat in 1974. He had also been a candidate for governor in 1978.\n\nResults\n\nRepublican primary\n\nCandidates\n Richard E. Carver, Mayor of Peoria, Illinois\n Dave O'Neal, Lieutenant Governor of Illinois\n William J. Scott, Illinois Attorney General\n\nResults\n\nGeneral election\n\nSee also \n 1980 United States Senate elections\n\nReferences \n\n1980\nIllinois\nUnited States Senate",
"Wesley Alan Meredith (born December 22, 1963) is a former Republican Senator in the North Carolina General Assembly in the state's nineteenth Senatorial district. In 2018 he lost the election to Democrat Kirk DeViere. The 19th district is made up of Cumberland County.\n\nMeredith was born in Tupelo, Mississippi, and moved to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where he served in the 307th Engineer Battalion of the 82 Airborne Division. He left the military after nearly three years of service with an Honorable Discharge rank of Sergeant having received the Army Service Ribbon, the Army Achievement Medal with 2 Oak Leaf Clusters, and the NCO Professional Development Ribbon.\n\nAfter his service in the military, Wesley Meredith chose to stay in Fayetteville and make North Carolina his home. He put his years of experience doing the neighbors' lawns to the test, and officially opened his own business, Cardinal Landscaping. With a red pick up truck and some basic lawn equipment, that business has grown into what it is today.\n\nPrior to becoming a state senator in 2011, Meredith served on the Fayetteville City Council for three terms spanning from 2005 to 2010. From 2007 to 2009, Meredith held the position of Mayor Pro Tempore.\n\nMeredith served on the following Senate standing committees: Appropriations on Department of Transportation (co-chair), Commerce (co-chair), Agriculture/Environment/Natural Resources, Transportation, and Rules and Operations of the Senate.\n\nLegislative Awards and Recognitions\n\nIn October 2014, Senator Meredith was named \"Legislator of the Year\" by the N.C. Sustainable Energy Association for his \"vocal support of clean energy policies\" and his support for the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficient Portfolio Standard, a program which requires the state's electrical power producers to utilize renewable sources for a proportion of their electricity generation, as well as the Renewable Energy Investment Tax Credit. Additionally, Meredith was recognized through the honor for his work with Fort Bragg to help take advantage of the renewable energy that is produced at the base.\n\nIn September 2014, Meredith was recognized by the North Carolina State Firemen's Association for his efforts \"maintaining necessary provisions for the State's fire service and firefighters\". Additionally, he was praised by the association for support for firemen during a legislative study of services that provide benefits for firemen and fire departments in North Carolina. Meredith was presented with a plaque labeling him a \"Friend of the Fire Service\".\n\nIn January 2014, Meredith was named \"Legislator of the Year\" by the Green Industry Council (GIC), an organization that represents more than 2500 landscaping and nursery small businesses. The award was given for what the Council described as Meredith continuing to be \"diligent, thoughtful and sincere in advocating for, protecting and promoting small businesses in our state\".\n\nIn October 2015, Senator Meredith was presented with The Carolinas Concrete Paving Association \"Good Roads Advocate Award\". As co-chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee that oversees funding for the Department of Transportation, he was able to assist in finding more than $700 million in new revenue for state transportation needs, which represents a major increase in funding for road maintenance and new construction. The Carolinas Concrete Paving Association is an affiliate of the American Concrete Pavement Association (ACPA). Founded in 1963, ACPA is the world's largest trade association that exclusively represents the interests of those involved with the design, construction, and preservation of concrete pavements.\n\nIn May 2016, Senator Meredith was awarded the \"Solid Support for Veterans\" award for his legislative endeavors that have positively affected women veterans. This award was presented to Senator Meredith at the 2016 Women Veterans Summit & Expo at the McKimmon Center on the campus of North Carolina State University. The N.C. Department of Military & Veterans Affairs and the NC Veterans Business Association, working with the Department of Veterans Affairs, and numerous other partners conducted this special event designed to empower, educate and enrich the lives of North Carolina's women veterans.\n\nElectoral history\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nLiving people\nNorth Carolina state senators\nNorth Carolina Republicans\n1963 births\n21st-century American politicians\nPeople from Tupelo, Mississippi\nPeople from Fort Bragg, North Carolina\nPeople from Fayetteville, North Carolina"
] |
[
"Joe Biden",
"Characteristics as senator",
"What are Joe's characteristics as senator?",
"characterized Biden as \"self-confident\" and \"compulsively ambitious\".",
"Was Joe likable as senator?",
"\"Biden is the kind of fundamentally happy person who can be as generous toward others as he is to himself.\"",
"Does Joe have a lot of friends in politics?",
"I don't know.",
"When did he become senator?",
"1969,",
"What State was he the Senator for?",
"I don't know."
] | C_ae5bfb2601a2463ebfedd2b995b83bf8_1 | Did he get re-elected as senator? | 6 | Did Joe Biden get re-elected as senator? | Joe Biden | On August 27, 1966, while Biden was still a law student, he married Neilia Hunter. They overcame her parents' initial reluctance for her to wed a Roman Catholic, and the ceremony was held in a Catholic church in Skaneateles. They had three children, Joseph R. "Beau" Biden III in 1969, Robert Hunter in 1970, and Naomi Christina in 1971. During 1968, Biden clerked for six months at a Wilmington law firm headed by prominent local Republican William Prickett and, as he later said, "thought of myself as a Republican". He disliked the conservative racial politics of incumbent Democratic Governor of Delaware Charles L. Terry and supported a more liberal Republican, Russell W. Peterson, who defeated Terry in 1968. The local Republicans tried to recruit him, but he resisted due to his distaste for Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon, and registered as an Independent instead. In 1969, Biden resumed practicing law in Wilmington, first as a public defender and then at a firm headed by Sid Balick, a locally active Democrat. Balick named him to the Democratic Forum, a group trying to reform and revitalize the state party, and Biden switched his registration to Democrat. He also started his own firm, Biden and Walsh. Corporate law, however, did not appeal to him and criminal law did not pay well. He supplemented his income by managing properties. Later in 1969, Biden ran as a Democrat for the New Castle County Council on a liberal platform that included support for public housing in the suburban area. He won by a solid, two-thousand vote margin in the usually Republican district and in a bad year for Democrats in the state. Even before taking his seat, he was already talking about running for the U.S. Senate in a couple of years. He served on the County Council from 1970 to 1972 while continuing his private law practice. Among issues he addressed on the council was his opposition to large highway projects that might disrupt Wilmington neighborhoods, including those related to Interstate 95. During his first years in the Senate, Biden focused on legislation regarding consumer-protection and environmental issues and called for greater accountability on the part of government. In mid-1974, freshman Senator Biden was named one of the 200 Faces for the Future by Time magazine, in a profile that mentioned what had happened to his family and characterized Biden as "self-confident" and "compulsively ambitious". Biden became ranking minority member of the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary in 1981. In 1984, he was Democratic floor manager for the successful passage of the Comprehensive Crime Control Act; civil libertarians praised him for modifying some of the Act's provisions, and it was his most important legislative accomplishment at that point in time. He first considered running for president in that year, after he gained notice for giving speeches to party audiences that simultaneously scolded and encouraged Democrats. Regarding foreign policy, during his first decade in the Senate, Biden focused on arms control issues. In response to the refusal of the U.S. Congress to ratify the SALT II Treaty signed in 1979 by Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and President Jimmy Carter, he took the initiative to meet the Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, educated him about American concerns and interests, and secured several changes to address objections of the Foreign Relations Committee. When the Reagan administration wanted to interpret the 1972 SALT I Treaty loosely in order to allow the Strategic Defense Initiative to proceed, Biden argued for strict adherence to the treaty's terms. He clashed again with the Reagan administration in 1986 over economic sanctions against South Africa; he received considerable attention when he excoriated Secretary of State George P. Shultz at a Senate hearing because of the administration's support of that country, which continued to practice the apartheid system. Following his initial election in 1972, Biden was re-elected to six additional terms, in the elections of 1978, 1984, 1990, 1996, 2002, and 2008, usually getting about 60 percent of the vote. He did not face strong opposition; Pete du Pont, then governor, chose not to run against him in 1984. Biden spent 28 years as a junior senator due to the two-year seniority of his Republican colleague William V. Roth Jr. After Roth was defeated for re-election by Tom Carper in 2000, Biden became Delaware's senior senator. He then became the longest-serving senator in Delaware history. In May 1999, Biden set the mark for youngest senator to cast 10,000 votes. With a net worth between $59,000 and $366,000, and almost no outside income or investment income, Biden was consistently ranked as one of the least wealthy members of the Senate. Biden stated that he was listed as the second poorest member in Congress, a distinction that he was not proud of, but attributed to being elected early in his career. Biden realized early in his senatorial career how vulnerable poorer public officials are to offers of financial contributions in exchange for policy support, and he pushed campaign finance reform measures during his first term. During his years as a senator, Biden amassed a reputation for loquaciousness, with his questions and remarks during Senate hearings being especially known for being long-winded. He has been a strong speaker and debater and a frequent and effective guest on the Sunday morning talk shows. In public appearances, he is known to deviate from prepared remarks at will. According to political analyst Mark Halperin, he has shown "a persistent tendency to say silly, offensive, and off-putting things"; The New York Times writes that Biden's "weak filters make him capable of blurting out pretty much anything". Nor is Biden known for modesty; journalist James Traub has written that "Biden's vanity and his regard for his own gifts seem considerable even by the rarefied standards of the U.S. Senate." Political writer Howard Fineman has said that, "Biden is not an academic, he's not a theoretical thinker, he's a great street pol. He comes from a long line of working people in Scranton--auto salesmen, car dealers, people who know how to make a sale. He has that great Irish gift." Political columnist David S. Broder has viewed Biden as having grown since he came to Washington and since his failed 1988 presidential bid: "He responds to real people--that's been consistent throughout. And his ability to understand himself and deal with other politicians has gotten much much better." Traub concludes that "Biden is the kind of fundamentally happy person who can be as generous toward others as he is to himself." CANNOTANSWER | Biden was re-elected | Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. ( ; born November 20, 1942) is an American politician who is the 46th and current president of the United States. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 47th vice president from 2009 to 2017 under Barack Obama and represented Delaware in the United States Senate from 1973 to 2009.
Biden was born and raised in Scranton, Pennsylvania, moving with his family to New Castle County, Delaware, in 1953 when he was ten. He studied at the University of Delaware before earning his law degree from Syracuse University in 1968. He was elected to the New Castle County Council in 1970 and became the sixth-youngest senator in U.S. history after he was elected to the United States Senate from Delaware in 1972, at age 29. Biden was the chair or ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for 12 years and was influential in foreign affairs during Obama's presidency. He also chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee from 1987 to 1995, dealing with drug policy, crime prevention, and civil liberties issues; led the effort to pass the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act and the Violence Against Women Act; and oversaw six U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings, including the contentious hearings for Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas. He ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988 and 2008. Biden was reelected to the Senate six times and was the fourth-most senior sitting senator at the time when he became Obama's vice president after they won the 2008 presidential election, defeating John McCain and his running mate Sarah Palin. Obama and Biden were reelected in 2012, defeating Mitt Romney and his running mate Paul Ryan.
During eight years as vice president, Biden leaned on his Senate experience and frequently represented the administration in negotiations with congressional Republicans, including on the Budget Control Act of 2011, which resolved a debt ceiling crisis, and the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, which addressed the impending "fiscal cliff". He also oversaw infrastructure spending in 2009 to counteract the Great Recession. On foreign policy, Biden was a close counselor to the president and took a leading role in designing the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq in 2011. In 2017, Obama awarded Biden the Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction.
Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris defeated incumbent president Donald Trump and vice president Mike Pence in the 2020 presidential election. He is the oldest president and the first to have a female vice president. His early presidential activity centered around proposing, lobbying for, and signing into law the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 to help the United States recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing recession, as well as a series of executive orders. Biden's orders addressed the pandemic and reversed several Trump administration policies, including rejoining the Paris Agreement on climate change and accepting new applications for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients, although a federal judge blocked the latter. He completed the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan by September 2021. During the withdrawal, the Afghan government collapsed and the Taliban seized control. Biden proposed the Build Back Better Plan, aspects of which were incorporated into the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which Biden signed into law in November 2021.
Early life (1942–1965)
Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was born on November 20, 1942, at St. Mary's Hospital in Scranton, Pennsylvania, to Catherine Eugenia "Jean" Biden (née Finnegan) and Joseph Robinette Biden Sr. The oldest child in a Catholic family, he has a sister, Valerie, and two brothers, Francis and James. Jean was of Irish descent, while Joseph Sr. had English, French, and Irish ancestry.
Biden's father had been wealthy, but suffered financial setbacks around the time Biden was born, and for several years the family lived with Biden's maternal grandparents. Scranton fell into economic decline during the 1950s and Biden's father could not find steady work. Beginning in 1953 when Biden was ten, the family lived in an apartment in Claymont, Delaware, before moving to a house in nearby Mayfield. Biden Sr. later became a successful used-car salesman, maintaining the family in a middle-class lifestyle.
At Archmere Academy in Claymont, Biden played baseball and was a standout halfback and wide receiver on the high school football team. Though a poor student, he was class president in his junior and senior years. He graduated in 1961. At the University of Delaware in Newark, Biden briefly played freshman football and, as an unexceptional student, earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1965 with a double major in history and political science and a minor in English.
Biden has a stutter, which has improved since his early twenties. He says he reduced it by reciting poetry before a mirror, but some observers suggested it affected his performance in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential debates.
Marriages, law school, and early career (1966–1973)
On August 27, 1966, Biden married Neilia Hunter (19421972), a student at Syracuse University, after overcoming her parents' reluctance for her to wed a Roman Catholic. Their wedding was held in a Catholic church in Skaneateles, New York. They had three children: Joseph R. "Beau" Biden III (19692015), Robert Hunter Biden (born 1970), and Naomi Christina "Amy" Biden (19711972).
In 1968, Biden earned a Juris Doctor from Syracuse University College of Law, ranked 76th in his class of 85, after failing a course due to an acknowledged "mistake" when he plagiarized a law review article for a paper he wrote in his first year at law school. He was admitted to the Delaware bar in 1969.
Biden had not openly supported or opposed the Vietnam War until he ran for Senate and opposed Nixon's conduct of the war. While studying at the University of Delaware and Syracuse University, Biden obtained five student draft deferments, at a time when most draftees were sent to the Vietnam War. In 1968, based on a physical examination, he was given a conditional medical deferment; in 2008, a spokesperson for Biden said his having had "asthma as a teenager" was the reason for the deferment.
In 1968, Biden clerked at a Wilmington law firm headed by prominent local Republican William Prickett and, he later said, "thought of myself as a Republican". He disliked incumbent Democratic Delaware governor Charles L. Terry's conservative racial politics and supported a more liberal Republican, Russell W. Peterson, who defeated Terry in 1968. Biden was recruited by local Republicans but registered as an Independent because of his distaste for Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon.
In 1969, Biden practiced law first as a public defender and then at a firm headed by a locally active Democrat who named him to the Democratic Forum, a group trying to reform and revitalize the state party; Biden subsequently reregistered as a Democrat. He and another attorney also formed a law firm. Corporate law, however, did not appeal to him, and criminal law did not pay well. He supplemented his income by managing properties.
In 1970, Biden ran for the 4th district seat on the New Castle County Council on a liberal platform that included support for public housing in the suburbs. The seat had been held by Republican Henry R. Folsom, who was running in the 5th District following a reapportionment of council districts. Biden won the general election by defeating Republican Lawrence T. Messick, and took office on January 5, 1971. He served until January 1, 1973, and was succeeded by Democrat Francis R. Swift. During his time on the county council, Biden opposed large highway projects, which he argued might disrupt Wilmington neighborhoods.
1972 U.S. Senate campaign in Delaware
In 1972, Biden defeated Republican incumbent J. Caleb Boggs to become the junior U.S. senator from Delaware. He was the only Democrat willing to challenge Boggs. With minimal campaign funds, he was given no chance of winning. Family members managed and staffed the campaign, which relied on meeting voters face-to-face and hand-distributing position papers, an approach made feasible by Delaware's small size. He received help from the AFL–CIO and Democratic pollster Patrick Caddell. His platform focused on the environment, withdrawal from Vietnam, civil rights, mass transit, equitable taxation, health care, and public dissatisfaction with "politics as usual". A few months before the election, Biden trailed Boggs by almost thirty percentage points, but his energy, attractive young family, and ability to connect with voters' emotions worked to his advantage, and he won with 50.5 percent of the vote. At the time of his election, he was still 29 years old, but reached the constitutionally required age of 30 before he was sworn in as Senator.
Death of wife and daughter
On December 18, 1972, a few weeks after the election, Biden's wife Neilia and one-year-old daughter Naomi were killed in an automobile accident while Christmas shopping in Hockessin, Delaware. Neilia's station wagon was hit by a semi-trailer truck as she pulled out from an intersection. Their sons Beau (aged3) and Hunter (aged2) survived the accident and were taken to the hospital in fair condition, Beau with a broken leg and other wounds and Hunter with a minor skull fracture and other head injuries. Biden considered resigning to care for them, but Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield persuaded him not to.
Years later, Biden said he had heard that the truck driver allegedly drank alcohol before the collision. The driver's family denied that claim, and the police never substantiated it. Biden later apologized to the family. The accident had filled him with anger and religious doubt. He wrote that he "felt God had played a horrible trick" on him, and he had trouble focusing on work.
Second marriage
Biden credits his second wife, teacher Jill Tracy Jacobs, with the renewal of his interest in politics and life; they met in 1975 on a blind date and were married at the United Nations chapel in New York on June 17, 1977. They spent their honeymoon at Lake Balaton in the Hungarian People's Republic, behind the Iron Curtain. They are Roman Catholics and attend Mass at St. Joseph's on the Brandywine in Greenville, Delaware. Their daughter Ashley Biden (born 1981) is a social worker. She is married to physician Howard Krein. Beau Biden became an Army Judge Advocate in Iraq and later Delaware Attorney General; he died of brain cancer in 2015. Hunter Biden is a Washington lobbyist and investment adviser.
Teaching
From 1991 to 2008, as an adjunct professor, Biden co-taught a seminar on constitutional law at Widener University School of Law. The seminar often had a waiting list. Biden sometimes flew back from overseas to teach the class.
U.S. Senate (1973–2009)
Senate activities
In January 1973, secretary of the Senate Francis R. Valeo swore Biden in at the Delaware Division of the Wilmington Medical Center. Present were his sons Beau (whose leg was still in traction from the automobile accident) and Hunter and other family members. At 30, he was the sixth-youngest senator in U.S. history.
To see his sons, Biden traveled by train between his Delaware home and D.C.—74 minutes each way—and maintained this habit throughout his 36 years in the Senate.
During his early years in the Senate, Biden focused on consumer protection and environmental issues and called for greater government accountability. In a 1974 interview, he described himself as liberal on civil rights and liberties, senior citizens' concerns and healthcare but conservative on other issues, including abortion and military conscription.
In his first decade in the Senate, Biden focused on arms control. After Congress failed to ratify the SALT II Treaty signed in 1979 by Soviet general secretary Leonid Brezhnev and President Jimmy Carter, Biden met with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko to communicate American concerns and secured changes that addressed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's objections. When the Reagan administration wanted to interpret the 1972 SALT I treaty loosely to allow development of the Strategic Defense Initiative, Biden argued for strict adherence to the treaty. He received considerable attention when he excoriated Secretary of State George Shultz at a Senate hearing for the Reagan administration's support of South Africa despite its continued policy of apartheid.
Biden became ranking minority member of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1981. In 1984, he was a Democratic floor manager for the successful passage of the Comprehensive Crime Control Act. His supporters praised him for modifying some of the law's worst provisions, and it was his most important legislative accomplishment to that time. In 1994, Biden helped pass the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, also known as the Biden Crime Law, which included a ban on assault weapons, and the Violence Against Women Act, which he has called his most significant legislation. The 1994 crime law was unpopular among progressives and criticized for resulting in mass incarceration; in 2019, Biden called his role in passing the bill a "big mistake", citing its policy on crack cocaine and saying that the bill "trapped an entire generation".
In 1993, Biden voted for a provision that deemed homosexuality incompatible with military life, thereby banning gays from serving in the armed forces. In 1996, he voted for the Defense of Marriage Act, which prohibited the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages, thereby barring individuals in such marriages from equal protection under federal law and allowing states to do the same. In 2015, the act was ruled unconstitutional in Obergefell v. Hodges.
Elected to the Senate in 1972, Biden was reelected in 1978, 1984, 1990, 1996, 2002, and 2008, regularly receiving about 60% of the vote. He was junior senator to William Roth, who was first elected in 1970, until Roth was defeated in 2000. , he was the 18th-longest-serving senator in U.S. history.
Opposition to busing
In the mid-1970s, Biden was one of the Senate's strongest opponents of race-integration busing. His Delaware constituents strongly opposed it, and such opposition nationwide later led his party to mostly abandon school integration policies. In his first Senate campaign, Biden had expressed support for busing to remedy de jure segregation, as in the South, but opposed its use to remedy de facto segregation arising from racial patterns of neighborhood residency, as in Delaware; he opposed a proposed constitutional amendment banning busing entirely.
In May 1974, Biden voted to table a proposal containing anti-busing and anti-desegregation clauses but later voted for a modified version containing a qualification that it was not intended to weaken the judiciary's power to enforce the 5th Amendment and 14th Amendment. In 1975, he supported a proposal that would have prevented the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare from cutting federal funds to districts that refused to integrate; he said busing was a "bankrupt idea [violating] the cardinal rule of common sense" and that his opposition would make it easier for other liberals to follow suit. At the same time he supported initiatives on housing, job opportunities and voting rights. Biden supported a measure forbidding the use of federal funds for transporting students beyond the school closest to them. In 1977, he co-sponsored an amendment closing loopholes in that measure, which President Carter signed into law in 1978.
Brain surgeries
In February 1988, after several episodes of increasingly severe neck pain, Biden was taken by ambulance to Walter Reed Army Medical Center for surgery to correct a leaking intracranial berry aneurysm. While recuperating, he suffered a pulmonary embolism, a serious complication. After a second aneurysm was surgically repaired in May, Biden's recuperation kept him away from the Senate for seven months.
Senate Judiciary Committee
Biden was a longtime member of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary. He chaired it from 1987 to 1995 and was a ranking minority member from 1981 to 1987 and again from 1995 to 1997.
As chair, Biden presided over two highly contentious U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings. When Robert Bork was nominated in 1988, Biden reversed his approvalgiven in an interview the previous yearof a hypothetical Bork nomination. Conservatives were angered, but at the hearings' close Biden was praised for his fairness, humor, and courage. Rejecting the arguments of some Bork opponents, Biden framed his objections to Bork in terms of the conflict between Bork's strong originalism and the view that the U.S. Constitution provides rights to liberty and privacy beyond those explicitly enumerated in its text. Bork's nomination was rejected in the committee by a 9–5 vote and then in the full Senate, 58–42.
During Clarence Thomas's nomination hearings in 1991, Biden's questions on constitutional issues were often convoluted to the point that Thomas sometimes lost track of them, and Thomas later wrote that Biden's questions were akin to "beanballs". After the committee hearing closed, the public learned that Anita Hill, a University of Oklahoma law school professor, had accused Thomas of making unwelcome sexual comments when they had worked together. Biden had known of some of these charges, but initially shared them only with the committee because Hill was then unwilling to testify. The committee hearing was reopened and Hill testified, but Biden did not permit testimony from other witnesses, such as a woman who had made similar charges and experts on harassment, saying he wanted to preserve Thomas's privacy and the hearings' decency. The full Senate confirmed Thomas by a 52–48 vote, with Biden opposed. Liberal legal advocates and women's groups felt strongly that Biden had mishandled the hearings and not done enough to support Hill. Biden later sought out women to serve on the Judiciary Committee and emphasized women's issues in the committee's legislative agenda. In 2019, he told Hill he regretted his treatment of her, but Hill said afterward she remained unsatisfied.
Biden was critical of Independent Counsel Ken Starr during the 1990s Whitewater controversy and Lewinsky scandal investigations, saying "it's going to be a cold day in hell" before another independent counsel would be granted similar powers. He voted to acquit during the impeachment of President Clinton. During the 2000s, Biden sponsored bankruptcy legislation sought by credit card issuers. Clinton vetoed the bill in 2000, but it passed in 2005 as the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act, with Biden one of only 18 Democrats to vote for it, while leading Democrats and consumer rights organizations opposed it. As a senator, Biden strongly supported increased Amtrak funding and rail security.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Biden was a longtime member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He became its ranking minority member in 1997 and chaired it from June 2001 to 2003 and 2007 to 2009. His positions were generally liberal internationalist. He collaborated effectively with Republicans and sometimes went against elements of his own party. During this time he met with at least 150 leaders from 60 countries and international organizations, becoming a well-known Democratic voice on foreign policy.
Biden voted against authorization for the Gulf War in 1991, siding with 45 of the 55 Democratic senators; he said the U.S. was bearing almost all the burden in the anti-Iraq coalition.
Biden became interested in the Yugoslav Wars after hearing about Serbian abuses during the Croatian War of Independence in 1991. Once the Bosnian War broke out, Biden was among the first to call for the "lift and strike" policy of lifting the arms embargo, training Bosnian Muslims and supporting them with NATO air strikes, and investigating war crimes. The George H. W. Bush administration and Clinton administration were both reluctant to implement the policy, fearing Balkan entanglement. In April 1993, Biden spent a week in the Balkans and held a tense three-hour meeting with Serbian leader Slobodan Milošević. Biden said he had told Milošević, "I think you're a damn war criminal and you should be tried as one."
Biden wrote an amendment in 1992 to compel the Bush administration to arm the Bosnian Muslims, but deferred in 1994 to a somewhat softer stance the Clinton administration preferred, before signing on the following year to a stronger measure sponsored by Bob Dole and Joe Lieberman. The engagement led to a successful NATO peacekeeping effort. Biden has called his role in affecting Balkans policy in the mid-1990s his "proudest moment in public life" related to foreign policy.
As chair, Biden contributed to successfully encouraging the Clinton administration to commit the resources and political capital to broker what became the 1998 Good Friday Agreement between the governments of Ireland and the United Kingdom through the Northern Ireland peace process.
On September 3, 1998, the resigning former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter had, according to Barton Gellman, accused the Clinton administration of obstructing weapons inspections in Iraq. Biden joined many other Senate Democrats and "amplified on the Clinton administration's counterattack against former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter." He questioned whether Ritter was trying to "appropriate the power 'to decide when to pull the trigger' of military force against Iraq", and said that the Secretary of State would also have to consider the opinion of allies, the UNSC, and public opinion, before any intervention in Iraq. In a Washington Post op-ed later that month, Biden criticized a unilateral "confrontation-based policy" but praised the idea of asking whether intervention might be necessary at some point, though he said it was "above the pay grade" of one weapons inspector.
In 1999, during the Kosovo War, Biden supported the 1999 NATO bombing of FR Yugoslavia. He and Senator John McCain co-sponsored the McCain-Biden Kosovo Resolution, which called on Clinton to use all necessary force, including ground troops, to confront Milošević over Yugoslav actions toward ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.
Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq
Biden was a strong supporter of the War in Afghanistan, saying, "Whatever it takes, we should do it." As head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he said in 2002 that Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was a threat to national security and there was no other option than to "eliminate" that threat. In October 2002, he voted in favor of the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq, approving the U.S. invasion of Iraq. As chair of the committee, he assembled a series of witnesses to testify in favor of the authorization. They gave testimony grossly misrepresenting the intent, history, and status of Saddam and his secular government, which was an avowed enemy of al-Qaida, and touted Iraq's fictional possession of weapons of mass destruction. Biden eventually became a critic of the war and viewed his vote and role as a "mistake", but did not push for withdrawal. He supported the appropriations for the occupation, but argued that the war should be internationalized, that more soldiers were needed, and that the Bush administration should "level with the American people" about its cost and length.
By late 2006, Biden's stance had shifted considerably. He opposed the troop surge of 2007, saying General David Petraeus was "dead, flat wrong" in believing the surge could work. Biden instead advocated dividing Iraq into a loose federation of three ethnic states. In November 2006, Biden and Leslie H. Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, released a comprehensive strategy to end sectarian violence in Iraq. Rather than continue the existing approach or withdrawing, the plan called for "a third way": federalizing Iraq and giving Kurds, Shiites, and Sunnis "breathing room" in their own regions. In September 2007, a non-binding resolution endorsing the plan passed the Senate, but the idea was unfamiliar, had no political constituency, and failed to gain traction. Iraq's political leadership denounced the resolution as de facto partitioning of the country, and the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad issued a statement distancing itself from it. In May 2008, Biden sharply criticized President George W. Bush's speech to Israel's Knesset in which Bush compared some Democrats to Western leaders who appeased Hitler before World WarII; Biden called the speech "bullshit", "malarkey", and "outrageous". He later apologized for his language.
Presidential campaigns 1988 and 2008
1988 campaign
Biden formally declared his candidacy for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination on June 9, 1987. He was considered a strong candidate because of his moderate image, his speaking ability, his high profile as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee at the upcoming Robert Bork Supreme Court nomination hearings, and his appeal to Baby Boomers; he would have been the second-youngest person elected president, after John F. Kennedy. He raised more in the first quarter of 1987 than any other candidate.
By August his campaign's messaging had become confused due to staff rivalries, and in September, he was accused of plagiarizing a speech by British Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock. Biden's speech had similar lines about being the first person in his family to attend university. Biden had credited Kinnock with the formulation on previous occasions, but did not on two occasions in late August. Kinnock himself was more forgiving; the two men met in 1988, forming an enduring friendship.
Earlier that year he had also used passages from a 1967 speech by Robert F. Kennedy (for which his aides took blame) and a short phrase from John F. Kennedy's inaugural address; two years earlier he had used a 1976 passage by Hubert Humphrey. Biden responded that politicians often borrow from one another without giving credit, and that one of his rivals for the nomination, Jesse Jackson, had called him to point out that he (Jackson) had used the same material by Humphrey that Biden had used.
A few days later, an incident in law school in which Biden drew text from a Fordham Law Review article with inadequate citations was publicized. He was required to repeat the course and passed with high marks. At Biden's request the Delaware Supreme Court's Board of Professional Responsibility reviewed the incident and concluded that he had violated no rules.
Biden has made several false or exaggerated claims about his early life: that he had earned three degrees in college, that he attended law school on a full scholarship, that he had graduated in the top half of his class, and that he had marched in the civil rights movement. The limited amount of other news about the presidential race amplified these disclosures and on September 23, 1987, Biden withdrew his candidacy, saying it had been overrun by "the exaggerated shadow" of his past mistakes.
2008 campaign
After exploring the possibility of a run in several previous cycles, in January 2007, Biden declared his candidacy in the 2008 elections. During his campaign, Biden focused on the Iraq War, his record as chairman of major Senate committees, and his foreign-policy experience. In mid-2007, Biden stressed his foreign policy expertise compared to Obama's. Biden was noted for his one-liners during the campaign; in one debate he said of Republican candidate Rudy Giuliani: "There's only three things he mentions in a sentence: a noun, and a verb and 9/11."
Biden had difficulty raising funds, struggled to draw people to his rallies, and failed to gain traction against the high-profile candidacies of Obama and Senator Hillary Clinton. He never rose above single digits in national polls of the Democratic candidates. In the first contest on January 3, 2008, Biden placed fifth in the Iowa caucuses, garnering slightly less than one percent of the state delegates. He withdrew from the race that evening.
Despite its lack of success, Biden's 2008 campaign raised his stature in the political world. In particular, it changed the relationship between Biden and Obama. Although they had served together on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, they had not been close: Biden resented Obama's quick rise to political stardom, while Obama viewed Biden as garrulous and patronizing. Having gotten to know each other during 2007, Obama appreciated Biden's campaign style and appeal to working-class voters, and Biden said he became convinced Obama was "the real deal".
2008 vice-presidential campaign
Shortly after Biden withdrew from the presidential race, Obama privately told him he was interested in finding an important place for Biden in his administration. Biden declined Obama's first request to vet him for the vice-presidential slot, fearing the vice presidency would represent a loss in status and voice from his Senate position, but he later changed his mind. In early August, Obama and Biden met in secret to discuss the possibility, and developed a strong personal rapport. On August 22, 2008, Obama announced that Biden would be his running mate. The New York Times reported that the strategy behind the choice reflected a desire to fill out the ticket with someone with foreign policy and national security experience—and not to help the ticket win a swing state or to emphasize Obama's "change" message. Others pointed out Biden's appeal to middle-class and blue-collar voters, as well as his willingness to aggressively challenge Republican nominee John McCain in a way that Obama seemed uncomfortable doing at times. In accepting Obama's offer, Biden ruled out running for president again in 2016, but his comments in later years seemed to back off that stance, as he did not want to diminish his political power by appearing uninterested in advancement. Biden was officially nominated for vice president on August 27 by voice vote at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver.
Biden's vice-presidential campaigning gained little media visibility, as far greater press attention was focused on the Republican running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. During one week in September 2008, for instance, the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism found that Biden was included in only five percent of coverage of the race, far less than the other three candidates on the tickets received. Biden nevertheless focused on campaigning in economically challenged areas of swing states and trying to win over blue-collar Democrats, especially those who had supported Hillary Clinton. Biden attacked McCain heavily despite a long-standing personal friendship. He said, "That guy I used to know, he's gone. It literally saddens me." As the financial crisis of 2007–2010 reached a peak with the liquidity crisis of September 2008 and the proposed bailout of the United States financial system became a major factor in the campaign, Biden voted in favor of the $700billion Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, which went on to pass in the Senate 74–25.
On October 2, 2008, Biden participated in the vice-presidential debate with Palin at Washington University in St. Louis. Post-debate polls found that while Palin exceeded many voters' expectations, Biden had won the debate overall. During the campaign's final days, he focused on less populated, older, less well-off areas of battleground states, especially Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, where polling indicated he was popular and where Obama had not campaigned or performed well in the Democratic primaries. He also campaigned in some normally Republican states, as well as in areas with large Catholic populations.
Under instructions from the campaign, Biden kept his speeches succinct and tried to avoid offhand remarks, such as one he made about Obama's being tested by a foreign power soon after taking office, which had attracted negative attention. Privately, Biden's remarks frustrated Obama. "How many times is Biden gonna say something stupid?" he asked. Obama campaign staffers referred to Biden blunders as "Joe bombs" and kept Biden uninformed about strategy discussions, which in turn irked Biden. Relations between the two campaigns became strained for a month, until Biden apologized on a call to Obama and the two built a stronger partnership. Publicly, Obama strategist David Axelrod said Biden's high popularity ratings had outweighed any unexpected comments. Nationally, Biden had a 60% favorability rating in a Pew Research Center poll, compared to Palin's 44%.
On November 4, 2008, Obama and Biden were elected with 53% of the popular vote and 365 electoral votes to McCain–Palin's 173.
At the same time Biden was running for vice president he was also running for reelection to the Senate, as permitted by Delaware law. On November4, he was reelected to the Senate, defeating Republican Christine O'Donnell. Having won both races, Biden made a point of waiting to resign from the Senate until he was sworn in for his seventh term on January 6, 2009. He became the youngest senator ever to start a seventh full term, and said, "In all my life, the greatest honor bestowed upon me has been serving the people of Delaware as their United States senator." Biden cast his last Senate vote on January 15, supporting the release of the second $350billion for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, and resigned from the Senate later that day. In an emotional farewell, Biden told the Senate: "Every good thing I have seen happen here, every bold step taken in the 36-plus years I have been here, came not from the application of pressure by interest groups, but through the maturation of personal relationships." Delaware Governor Ruth Ann Minner appointed longtime Biden adviser Ted Kaufman to fill Biden's vacated Senate seat.
Vice presidency (2009–2017)
First term, 2009–2013
Biden said he intended to eliminate some explicit roles assumed by George W. Bush's vice president, Dick Cheney, and did not intend to emulate any previous vice presidency. He chaired Obama's transition team and headed an initiative to improve middle-class economic well-being. In early January 2009, in his last act as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, he visited the leaders of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and on January 20 he was sworn in as the 47th vice president of the United Statesthe first vice president from Delaware and the first Roman Catholic vice president.
Obama was soon comparing Biden to a basketball player "who does a bunch of things that don't show up in the stat sheet". In May, Biden visited Kosovo and affirmed the U.S. position that its "independence is irreversible". Biden lost an internal debate to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about sending 21,000 new troops to Afghanistan, but his skepticism was valued, and in 2009, Biden's views gained more influence as Obama reconsidered his Afghanistan strategy. Biden visited Iraq about every two months, becoming the administration's point man in delivering messages to Iraqi leadership about expected progress there. More generally, overseeing Iraq policy became Biden's responsibility: Obama was said to have said, "Joe, you do Iraq." Biden said Iraq "could be one of the great achievements of this administration". His January 2010 visit to Iraq in the midst of turmoil over banned candidates from the upcoming Iraqi parliamentary election resulted in 59 of the several hundred candidates being reinstated by the Iraqi government two days later. By 2012, Biden had made eight trips there, but his oversight of U.S. policy in Iraq receded with the exit of U.S. troops in 2011.
Biden oversaw infrastructure spending from the Obama stimulus package intended to help counteract the ongoing recession. During this period, Biden was satisfied that no major instances of waste or corruption had occurred, and when he completed that role in February 2011, he said the number of fraud incidents with stimulus monies had been less than one percent.
In late April 2009, Biden's off-message response to a question during the beginning of the swine flu outbreak, that he would advise family members against traveling on airplanes or subways, led to a swift retraction by the White House. The remark revived Biden's reputation for gaffes. Confronted with rising unemployment through July 2009, Biden acknowledged that the administration had "misread how bad the economy was" but maintained confidence the stimulus package would create many more jobs once the pace of expenditures picked up. On March 23, 2010, a microphone picked up Biden telling the president that his signing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was "a big fucking deal" during live national news telecasts. Despite their different personalities, Obama and Biden formed a friendship, partly based around Obama's daughter Sasha and Biden's granddaughter Maisy, who attended Sidwell Friends School together.
Members of the Obama administration said Biden's role in the White House was to be a contrarian and force others to defend their positions. Rahm Emanuel, White House chief of staff, said that Biden helped counter groupthink. White House press secretary Jay Carney, Biden's former communications director, said Biden played the role of "the bad guy in the Situation Room". Another senior Obama advisor said Biden "is always prepared to be the skunk at the family picnic to make sure we are as intellectually honest as possible." Obama said, "The best thing about Joe is that when we get everybody together, he really forces people to think and defend their positions, to look at things from every angle, and that is very valuable for me." The Bidens maintained a relaxed atmosphere at their official residence in Washington, often entertaining their grandchildren, and regularly returned to their home in Delaware.
Biden campaigned heavily for Democrats in the 2010 midterm elections, maintaining an attitude of optimism in the face of predictions of large-scale losses for the party. Following big Republican gains in the elections and the departure of White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, Biden's past relationships with Republicans in Congress became more important. He led the successful administration effort to gain Senate approval for the New START treaty. In December 2010, Biden's advocacy for a middle ground, followed by his negotiations with Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, were instrumental in producing the administration's compromise tax package that included a temporary extension of the Bush tax cuts. Biden then took the lead in trying to sell the agreement to a reluctant Democratic caucus in Congress. The package passed as the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010.
In March 2011, Obama delegated Biden to lead negotiations with Congress to resolve federal spending levels for the rest of the year and avoid a government shutdown. By May 2011, a "Biden panel" with six congressional members was trying to reach a bipartisan deal on raising the U.S. debt ceiling as part of an overall deficit reduction plan. The U.S. debt ceiling crisis developed over the next few months, but Biden's relationship with McConnell again proved key in breaking a deadlock and bringing about a deal to resolve it, in the form of the Budget Control Act of 2011, signed on August 2, 2011, the same day an unprecedented U.S. default had loomed. Biden had spent the most time of anyone in the administration bargaining with Congress on the debt question, and one Republican staffer said, "Biden's the only guy with real negotiating authority, and [McConnell] knows that his word is good. He was a key to the deal."
Some reports suggest that Biden opposed proceeding with the May 2011 U.S. mission to kill Osama bin Laden, lest failure adversely affect Obama's reelection prospects. He took the lead in notifying Congressional leaders of the successful outcome.
Reelection
In October 2010, Biden said Obama had asked him to remain as his running mate for the 2012 presidential election, but with Obama's popularity on the decline, White House Chief of Staff William M. Daley conducted some secret polling and focus group research in late 2011 on the idea of replacing Biden on the ticket with Hillary Clinton. The notion was dropped when the results showed no appreciable improvement for Obama, and White House officials later said Obama had never entertained the idea.
Biden's May 2012 statement that he was "absolutely comfortable" with same-sex marriage gained considerable public attention in comparison to Obama's position, which had been described as "evolving". Biden made his statement without administration consent, and Obama and his aides were quite irked, since Obama had planned to shift position several months later, in the build-up to the party convention, and since Biden had previously counseled the president to avoid the issue lest key Catholic voters be offended. Gay rights advocates seized upon Biden's statement, and within days, Obama announced that he too supported same-sex marriage, an action in part forced by Biden's remarks. Biden apologized to Obama in private for having spoken out, while Obama acknowledged publicly it had been done from the heart. The incident showed that Biden still struggled at times with message discipline, as Time wrote, "Everyone knows Biden's greatest strength is also his greatest weakness." Relations were also strained between the vice presidential and presidential campaigns when Biden appeared to use his position to bolster fundraising contacts for a possible run for president in 2016, and he ended up being excluded from Obama campaign strategy meetings.
The Obama campaign nevertheless valued Biden as a retail-level politician who could connect with disaffected blue-collar workers and rural residents, and he had a heavy schedule of appearances in swing states as the reelection campaign began in earnest in spring 2012. An August 2012 remark before a mixed-race audience that Republican proposals to relax Wall Street regulations would "put y'all back in chains" led to a similar analysis of Biden's face-to-face campaigning abilities versus his tendency to go off track. The Los Angeles Times wrote, "Most candidates give the same stump speech over and over, putting reporters if not the audience to sleep. But during any Biden speech, there might be a dozen moments to make press handlers cringe, and prompt reporters to turn to each other with amusement and confusion." Time magazine wrote that Biden often went too far and "Along with the familiar Washington mix of neediness and overconfidence, Biden's brain is wired for more than the usual amount of goofiness."
Biden was nominated for a second term as vice president at the 2012 Democratic National Convention in September. Debating his Republican counterpart, Representative Paul Ryan, in the vice-presidential debate on October 11 he made a spirited and emotional defense of the Obama administration's record and energetically attacked the Republican ticket. On November 6, Obama and Biden won reelection over Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan with 332 of 538 Electoral College votes and 51% of the popular vote.
In December 2012, Obama named Biden to head the Gun Violence Task Force, created to address the causes of gun violence in the United States in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Later that month, during the final days before the United States fell off the "fiscal cliff", Biden's relationship with McConnell again proved important as the two negotiated a deal that led to the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 being passed at the start of 2013. It made many of the Bush tax cuts permanent but raised rates on upper income levels.
Second term, 2013–2017
Biden was inaugurated to a second term on January 20, 2013, at a small ceremony at Number One Observatory Circle, his official residence, with Justice Sonia Sotomayor presiding (a public ceremony took place on January 21).
Biden played little part in discussions that led to the October 2013 passage of the Continuing Appropriations Act, 2014, which resolved the federal government shutdown of 2013 and the debt-ceiling crisis of 2013. This was because Senate majority leader Harry Reid and other Democratic leaders cut him out of any direct talks with Congress, feeling Biden had given too much away during previous negotiations.
Biden's Violence Against Women Act was reauthorized again in 2013. The act led to related developments, such as the White House Council on Women and Girls, begun in the first term, as well as the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault, begun in January 2014 with Biden and Valerie Jarrett as co-chairs. Biden discussed federal guidelines on sexual assault on university campuses while giving a speech at the University of New Hampshire. He said, "No means no, if you're drunk or you're sober. No means no if you're in bed, in a dorm or on the street. No means no even if you said yes at first and you changed your mind. No means no."
Biden favored arming Syria's rebel fighters. As Iraq fell apart during 2014, renewed attention was paid to the Biden-Gelb Iraqi federalization plan of 2006, with some observers suggesting Biden had been right all along. Biden himself said the U.S. would follow ISIL "to the gates of hell". Biden had close relationships with several Latin American leaders and was assigned a focus on the region during the administration; he visited the region 16 times during his vice presidency, the most of any president or vice president.
In 2015, Speaker of the House John Boehner and Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell invited Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress without notifying the Obama administration. This defiance of protocol led Biden and more than 50 congressional Democrats to skip Netanyahu's speech. In August 2016, Biden visited Serbia, where he met with Serbian president Aleksandar Vučić and expressed his condolences for civilian victims of the bombing campaign during the Kosovo War. In Kosovo, he attended a ceremony renaming a highway after his son Beau, in honor of Beau's service to Kosovo in training its judges and prosecutors.
Biden never cast a tie-breaking vote in the Senate, making him the longest-serving vice president with this distinction.
Role in the 2016 presidential campaign
During his second term, Biden was often said to be preparing for a possible bid for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination. With his family, many friends, and donors encouraging him in mid-2015 to enter the race, and with Hillary Clinton's favorability ratings in decline at that time, Biden was reported to again be seriously considering the prospect and a "Draft Biden 2016" PAC was established.
, Biden was still uncertain about running. He felt his son's recent death had largely drained his emotional energy, and said, "nobody has a right... to seek that office unless they're willing to give it 110% of who they are." On October 21, speaking from a podium in the Rose Garden with his wife and Obama by his side, Biden announced his decision not to run for president in 2016. In January 2016, Biden affirmed that it was the right decision, but admitted to regretting not running for president "every day".
After Obama endorsed Hillary Clinton on June 9, 2016, Biden endorsed her later that day. Throughout the 2016 election, Biden strongly criticized Clinton's opponent, Donald Trump, in often colorful terms.
Subsequent activities (2017–2019)
After leaving the vice presidency, Biden became a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, while continuing to lead efforts to find treatments for cancer. In 2017 he wrote a memoir, Promise Me, Dad, and went on a book tour. Biden earned $15.6million in 2017–2018. In 2018, he gave a eulogy for Senator John McCain, praising McCain's embrace of American ideals and bipartisan friendships.
Biden remained in the public eye, endorsing candidates while continuing to comment on politics, climate change, and the presidency of Donald Trump. He also continued to speak out in favor of LGBT rights, continuing advocacy on an issue he had become more closely associated with during his vice presidency. In 2019, Biden criticized Brunei for its intention to implement Islamic laws that would allow death by stoning for adultery and homosexuality, calling it "appalling and immoral" and saying, "There is no excuse—not culture, not tradition—for this kind of hate and inhumanity." By 2019, Biden and his wife reported that their assets had increased to between $2.2 million and $8 million from speaking engagements and a contract to write a set of books.
2020 presidential campaign
Speculation and announcement
Between 2016 and 2019, media outlets often mentioned Biden as a likely candidate for president in 2020. When asked if he would run, he gave varied and ambivalent answers, saying "never say never". At one point he suggested he did not see a scenario where he would run again, but a few days later, he said, "I'll run if I can walk." A political action committee known as Time for Biden was formed in January 2018, seeking Biden's entry into the race. He finally launched his campaign on April 25, 2019, saying he was prompted to run, among other reasons, by his "sense of duty."
Campaign
In September 2019, it was reported that Trump had pressured Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate alleged wrongdoing by Biden and his son Hunter Biden. Despite the allegations, no evidence was produced of any wrongdoing by the Bidens. The media widely interpreted this pressure to investigate the Bidens as trying to hurt Biden's chances of winning the presidency, resulting in a political scandal and Trump's impeachment by the House of Representatives.
Beginning in 2019, Trump and his allies falsely accused Biden of getting the Ukrainian prosecutor general Viktor Shokin fired because he was supposedly pursuing an investigation into Burisma Holdings, which employed Hunter Biden. Biden was accused of withholding $1billion in aid from Ukraine in this effort. In 2015, Biden pressured the Ukrainian parliament to remove Shokin because the United States, the European Union and other international organizations considered Shokin corrupt and ineffective, and in particular because Shokin was not assertively investigating Burisma. The withholding of the $1billion in aid was part of this official policy. The Senate Homeland Security Committee and Senate Finance Committee, led by Republicans, investigated allegations of wrongdoing by the Bidens in Ukraine, ultimately releasing a report in September 2020 that detailed no evidence of wrongdoing by Joe Biden, and concluded that it was "not clear" whether Hunter Biden's role in Burisma "affected U.S. policy toward Ukraine".
In March 2019 and April 2019, Biden was accused by eight women of previous instances of inappropriate physical contact, such as embracing, touching or kissing. Biden had previously described himself as a "tactile politician" and admitted this behavior has caused trouble for him. In April 2019, Biden pledged to be more "respectful of people's personal space".
Throughout 2019, Biden stayed generally ahead of other Democrats in national polls. Despite this, he finished fourth in the Iowa caucuses, and eight days later, fifth in the New Hampshire primary. He performed better in the Nevada caucuses, reaching the 15% required for delegates, but still was behind Bernie Sanders by 21.6 percentage points. Making strong appeals to Black voters on the campaign trail and in the South Carolina debate, Biden won the South Carolina primary by more than 28 points. After the withdrawals and subsequent endorsements of candidates Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar, he made large gains in the March3 Super Tuesday primary elections. Biden won 18 of the next 26 contests, including Alabama, Arkansas, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia, putting him in the lead overall. Elizabeth Warren and Mike Bloomberg soon dropped out, and Biden expanded his lead with victories over Sanders in four states (Idaho, Michigan, Mississippi, and Missouri) on March 10.
In late March 2020, Tara Reade, one of the eight women who in 2019 had accused Biden of inappropriate physical contact, accused Biden of having sexually assaulted her in 1993. There were inconsistencies between Reade's 2019 and 2020 allegations. Biden and his campaign denied the sexual assault allegation.
When Sanders suspended his campaign on April 8, 2020, Biden became the Democratic Party's presumptive nominee for president. On April 13, Sanders endorsed Biden in a live-streamed discussion from their homes. Former President Barack Obama endorsed Biden the next day. In March 2020, Biden committed to choosing a woman as his running mate. In June, Biden met the 1,991-delegate threshold needed to secure the party's presidential nomination. On August 11, he announced U.S. Senator Kamala Harris of California as his running mate, making her the first African American and first South Asian American vice-presidential nominee on a major-party ticket.
On August 18, 2020, Biden was officially nominated at the 2020 Democratic National Convention as the Democratic Party nominee for president in the 2020 election.
Presidential transition
Biden was elected the 46th president of the United States in November 2020. He defeated the incumbent, Donald Trump, becoming the first candidate to defeat a sitting president since Bill Clinton defeated George H.W. Bush in 1992. Trump refused to concede, insisting the election had been "stolen" from him through "voter fraud", challenging the results in court and promoting numerous conspiracy theories about the voting and vote-counting processes, in an attempt to overturn the election results. Biden's transition was delayed by several weeks as the White House ordered federal agencies not to cooperate. On November23, General Services Administrator Emily W. Murphy formally recognized Biden as the apparent winner of the 2020 election and authorized the start of a transition process to the Biden administration.
On January 6, 2021, during Congress's electoral vote count, Trump told supporters gathered in front of the White House to march to the Capitol, saying, "We will never give up. We will never concede. It doesn't happen. You don't concede when there's theft involved." Soon after, they attacked the Capitol. During the insurrection at the Capitol, Biden addressed the nation, calling the events "an unprecedented assault unlike anything we've seen in modern times." He specifically called on Trump to "go on national television now to fulfill his oath and defend the Constitution and demand an end to this siege", adding, "it must end now." After the Capitol was cleared, Congress resumed its joint session and officially certified the election results with Pence declaring Biden and Harris the winners.
Presidency (2021–present)
Inauguration
Biden was inaugurated as the 46th president of the United States on January 20, 2021. At 78, he is the oldest person to have assumed the office. He is the second Catholic president (after John F. Kennedy) and the first president whose home state is Delaware. He is the second non-incumbent vice president (after Richard Nixon in 1968) to be elected president. He is also the first president from the Silent Generation.
Biden's inauguration was "a muted affair unlike any previous inauguration" due to COVID-19 precautions as well as massively increased security measures because of a threat of widespread civil unrest. Biden took the oath of office on the Capitol's west steps and gave an inaugural address, but there were no spectators on the Mall and no in-person parades or inaugural balls. Trump did not attend, becoming the first outgoing president since 1869 to not attend his successor's inauguration.
First 100 days
In his first two days as president, Biden signed 17 executive orders, more than most recent presidents did in their first 100 days. By his third day, orders had included rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement, ending the state of national emergency at the border with Mexico, directing the government to rejoin the World Health Organization, face mask requirements on federal property, measures to combat hunger in the United States, and revoking permits for the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. In his first two weeks in office, Biden signed more executive orders than any other president since Franklin D. Roosevelt had in their first month in office.
On February 4, 2021, the Biden administration announced that the United States was ending its support for the Saudi-led bombing campaign in Yemen. In his first visit to the State Department as president, Biden said "this war has to end" and that the conflict had created a "humanitarian and strategic catastrophe." On February 25, the Biden administration "struck a site in Syria used by two Iranian-backed militia groups in response to rocket attacks on American forces." This marked the first known action by the military under Biden.
On March 11, the first anniversary of COVID-19 being declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization, Biden signed into law the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, a $1.9 trillion economic stimulus relief package he proposed and lobbied for that aimed to speed up the United States' recovery from the economic and health effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing recession. The package included direct payments to most Americans, an extension of increased unemployment benefits, funds for vaccine distribution and school reopenings, support for small businesses and state and local governments, and expansions of health insurance subsidies and the child tax credit. Biden's initial proposal included an increase of the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour, but after Senate parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough determined that including the increase in a budget reconciliation bill would violate Senate rules, Democrats declined to pursue overruling her and removed the increase from the package.
Also in March, amid a rise in migrants entering the U.S. from Mexico, Biden told migrants, "Don't come over." He said that the U.S. was arranging a plan for migrants to "apply for asylum in place", without leaving their original locations. In the meantime, migrant adults "are being sent back", Biden said, in reference to the continuation of the Trump administration's Title 42 policy for quick deportations. Biden earlier announced that his administration would not deport unaccompanied migrant children; the rise in arrivals of such children exceeded the capacity of facilities meant to shelter them (before they were sent to sponsors), leading the Biden administration in March to direct the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help manage these children.
On April 14, Biden announced that the United States would delay the withdrawal of all troops from the war in Afghanistan until September 11, signalling an end to the country's direct military involvement in Afghanistan after nearly 20 years. In February 2020, the Trump administration had made a deal with the Taliban to completely withdraw U.S. forces by May 1, 2021. Biden's decision met with a wide range of reactions, from support and relief to trepidation at the possible collapse of the Afghan government without American support. On April 22–23, Biden held an international climate summit at which he announced that the U.S. would cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 50%–52% by 2030 compared to 2005 levels. Other countries also increased their pledges. If the pledges made at the summit are met, they will cut global greenhouse gas emissions by 2.6–3.7 Gte by 2030. On April 28, the eve of his 100th day in office, Biden delivered his first address to a joint session of Congress, in which he highlighted the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines and addressed withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, the murder of George Floyd, and the U.S. Capitol attack while urging Congress to pass comprehensive immigration, gun, and health care reform.
Rest of 2021
In May 2021, during a flareup in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, Biden expressed his support for Israel, saying "my party still supports Israel" amid disagreement from some Democrats. In June 2021, Biden took his first trip abroad as president. In eight days he visited Belgium, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. He attended a G7 summit, a NATO summit, and an EU summit, and held one-on-one talks with Russian president Vladimir Putin.
On June 17, Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act, which officially declared Juneteenth a federal holiday. Juneteenth is the first new federal holiday since Martin Luther King Jr. Day was declared a holiday in 1986. In July 2021, amid a slowing of the COVID-19 vaccination rate in the country and the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant, Biden said that the country has "a pandemic for those who haven't gotten the vaccination" and that it was therefore "gigantically important" for Americans to be vaccinated, touting the vaccines' effectiveness against hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19. He also criticized the prevalence of COVID-19 misinformation on social media, saying it was "killing people". In September 2021, Biden announced AUKUS, a security pact between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, to ensure "peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific over the long term"; the deal included nuclear-powered submarines built for Australia's use.
By the end of 2021, 40 of Biden's appointed judges to the federal judiciary had been confirmed, more than any president in their first year in office since Ronald Reagan. Biden has prioritized diversity in his judicial appointments more than any president in U.S. history, with the majority of appointments being women and people of color. Most of his appointments have been in blue states, making a limited impact since the courts in these states already traditionally lean liberal.
In the first eight months of his presidency, Biden's approval rating, according to Morning Consult polling, remained above 50%. In August, it began to decline and lowered into the low forties by December. The decline in his approval is attributed to the Afghanistan withdrawal, increasing hospitalizations from the Delta variant, high inflation and gas prices, disarray within the Democratic Party, and a general decline in popularity customary in politics.
Withdrawal from Afghanistan
American forces began withdrawing from Afghanistan in 2020, under the provisions of a February 2020 US-Taliban agreement that set a May 1, 2021, deadline. By April 2021, the State Department was urging American civilians in Afghanistan to leave as soon as possible. The Taliban began an offensive on May 1. As late as July, American intelligence assessments estimated Kabul would fall to the Taliban months or weeks after the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan. By early July, most American troops in Afghanistan had withdrawn. Biden addressed the withdrawal in July, saying, "The likelihood there's going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely."
On August 15, the Afghan government collapsed under the Taliban offensive, and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country. Biden reacted by ordering 6,000 American troops to assist in the evacuation of American personnel and Afghan allies. He was widely criticized for the manner of the withdrawal, with allegations of poor planning for the evacuation of Americans and Afghan allies, and for his silence and absence during the days before the collapse of the Afghan government.
On August 16, Biden addressed the "messy" situation, taking responsibility for it, and admitting that the situation "unfolded more quickly than we had anticipated". He defended his decision to withdraw, saying that Americans should not be "dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves," and blamed his predecessor Donald Trump, the Afghan president, and Afghan security forces for the speedy collapse.
On August 22, Biden said that his administration knew that ISIS-K was a "likely source" of threat. On August 26, a suicide bombing at the Kabul airport killed 13 U.S. service members and 169 Afghans. Biden declared to the attackers that the United States "will hunt you down and make you pay". On August 27, an American drone strike killed two ISIS-K targets, who were "planners and facilitators", according to a U.S. Army general. On August 29, another American drone strike killed 10 civilians, including seven children; the Defense Department initially claimed the strike was conducted on an Islamic State suicide bomber threatening Kabul Airport, but admitted the mistake on September 17 and apologized.
The U.S. military left Afghanistan on August 30, with Biden saying that the evacuation effort was an "extraordinary success", by extracting over 120,000 Americans, Afghans and other allies. He acknowledged that between "100 to 200" Americans who wanted to leave were left in Afghanistan, despite his August 18 pledge to stay in Afghanistan until all Americans who wanted to leave had left. The Biden administration, joining governments of almost 100 countries, said that the Taliban had given "assurances" that anyone "with travel authorization from [these] countries" would continue to be allowed to leave Afghanistan.
Economy
Biden entered office nine months into a recovery from the COVID-19 recession and his first year in office was characterized by robust growth in real GDP, employment, wages and stock market returns, amid significantly elevated inflation. Real GDP grew 5.7%, the fastest rate in 37 years. Amid record job creation, the unemployment rate fell at the fastest pace on record during the year. By the end of 2021, inflation reached a nearly 40-year high of 7.1%, which was partially offset by the highest wage and salary growth in at least 20 years. Income growth was particularly strong at the low end of the pay scale.
Infrastructure and climate
As part of Biden's Build Back Better agenda, in late March 2021, he proposed the American Jobs Plan, a $2 trillion package addressing issues including transport infrastructure, utilities infrastructure, broadband infrastructure, housing, schools, manufacturing, research and workforce development. After months of negotiations among Biden and lawmakers, in August 2021 the Senate passed a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill called the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, while the House, also in a bipartisan manner, approved that bill in early November 2021, covering infrastructure related to transport, utilities, and broadband. Biden signed the bill into law in mid-November 2021.
As COP26, scheduled for October 31 to November 12, 2021, approached, Biden increased his efforts to address climate change domestically and internationally. He promoted an agreement that the U.S. and the European Union cut methane emissions by a third by 2030 and tried to add dozens of other countries to the effort. He tried to convince China and Australia to do more. He convened an online Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate Change to press other countries to strengthen their climate policy. Biden pledged to double climate funding to developing countries by 2024. Also at COP26, the U.S. and China reached a deal on greenhouse gas emission reduction. The two countries are responsible for 40% of global emissions.
2022
In early 2022, Biden made efforts to change his public image after entering the year with low approval ratings, but they continued to fall, dipping to approximately 40% in aggregated polls by February.
In January, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, a moderate liberal nominated by Bill Clinton, announced he will be retiring from the Supreme Court. Breyer's retirement is expected to give Biden his first opportunity to nominate a Supreme Court justice. During his 2020 campaign, Biden vowed to nominate a Black woman to the court if a vacancy occurred, a promise he reiterated after the announcement of Breyer's retirement. In February, Biden nominated federal judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court.
Political positions
Biden is considered a moderate Democrat and a centrist, though more recently he has been seen as shifting to the left. He has a lifetime liberal 72% score from the Americans for Democratic Action through 2004, while the American Conservative Union gave him a lifetime conservative rating of 13% through 2008.
Biden supported the fiscal stimulus in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009; the Obama administration's proposed increase in infrastructure spending; subsidies for mass transit, including Amtrak, bus, and subway; and the reduced military spending in the Obama administration's fiscal year 2014 budget. He has proposed partially reversing the corporate tax cuts of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, saying that doing so would not hurt businesses' ability to hire. He voted for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Biden is a staunch supporter of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). He has promoted a plan to expand and build upon it, paid for by revenue gained from reversing some Trump administration tax cuts. Biden's plan aims to expand health insurance coverage to 97% of Americans, including by creating a public health insurance option.
Biden has supported same-sex marriage since 2012 and also supports Roe v. Wade and repealing the Hyde Amendment. He opposes drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and supports governmental funding to find new energy sources. As a senator, he forged deep relationships with police groups and was a chief proponent of a Police Officer's Bill of Rights measure that police unions supported but police chiefs opposed. As vice president, he served as a White House liaison to police.
Biden believes action must be taken on global warming. As a senator, he co-sponsored the Sense of the Senate resolution calling on the United States to take part in the United Nations climate negotiations and the Boxer–Sanders Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act, the most stringent climate bill in the United States Senate. He wants to achieve a carbon-free power sector in the U.S. by 2035 and stop emissions completely by 2050. His program includes reentering the Paris Agreement, nature conservation, and green building. Biden wants to pressure China and other countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions by carbon tariffs if necessary.
Biden has said the U.S. needs to "get tough" on China and build "a united front of U.S. allies and partners to confront China's abusive behaviors and human rights violations". He has called China the "most serious competitor" that poses challenges to the United States' "prosperity, security, and democratic values". Biden has voiced concerns about China's "coercive and unfair" economic practices and human rights abuses in the Xinjiang region to the Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping. He also pledged to sanction and commercially restrict Chinese government officials and entities who carry out repression.
Biden has said he is against regime change, but for providing non-military support to opposition movements. He opposed direct U.S. intervention in Libya, voted against U.S. participation in the Gulf War, voted in favor of the Iraq War, and supports a two-state solution in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Biden has pledged to end U.S. support for the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen and to reevaluate the United States' relationship with Saudi Arabia. He has called North Korea a "paper tiger". As vice president, Biden supported Obama's Cuban thaw. He has said that, as president, he would restore U.S. membership in key United Nations bodies, such as the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the World Health Organization, and possibly the Human Rights Council. Biden supports extending the New START arms control treaty with Russia to limit the number of nuclear weapons deployed by both sides. In 2021, Biden recognized the Armenian genocide, becoming the first U.S. president to do so.
Reputation
Biden was consistently ranked one of the least wealthy members of the Senate, which he attributed to his having been elected young. Feeling that less-wealthy public officials may be tempted to accept contributions in exchange for political favors, he proposed campaign finance reform measures during his first term. , Biden's net worth was $27,012. , the Bidens were worth $9 million, largely due to sales of Biden's books and speaking fees after his vice presidency.
The political writer Howard Fineman has written, "Biden is not an academic, he's not a theoretical thinker, he's a great street pol. He comes from a long line of working people in Scranton—auto salesmen, car dealers, people who know how to make a sale. He has that great Irish gift." Political columnist David S. Broder wrote that Biden has grown over time: "He responds to real people—that's been consistent throughout. And his ability to understand himself and deal with other politicians has gotten much much better." Journalist James Traub has written that "Biden is the kind of fundamentally happy person who can be as generous toward others as he is to himself."
In recent years, especially after the 2015 death of his elder son Beau, Biden has been noted for his empathetic nature and ability to communicate about grief. In 2020, CNN wrote that his presidential campaign aimed to make him "healer-in-chief", while The New York Times described his extensive history of being called upon to give eulogies.
Journalist and TV anchor Wolf Blitzer has described Biden as loquacious. He often deviates from prepared remarks and sometimes "puts his foot in his mouth." The New York Times wrote that Biden's "weak filters make him capable of blurting out pretty much anything." In 2018, Biden called himself "a gaffe machine". Some of his gaffes have been characterized as racially insensitive.
Electoral history
Publications
Books
Also paperback edition, Random House 2008, .
Book contributions
Biden, Joseph R., Jr. (2009). "Foreword." In: Choosing Equality: Essays and Narratives on the Desegregation Experience. Edited by Robert L. Hayman, Jr. and Leland Ware. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009. .
Pamphlets
Biden, Joseph R., Jr., and Les Aspin, William Louis Dickinson, Brent Scowcroft (1982). Arms Sales: A Useful Foreign Policy Tool? American Enterprise Institute. AEI Forum 56. Moderated by John Charles Daly.
Articles
Biden, Joseph R., Jr., and Miga Purev-Ochir (Spring 2015). "U.S.-Russian Relations in a Post-Cold War World: A Strategic Vision: Mapping a Future for U.S.-Russian Relations." Harvard International Review, vol. 36, no. 3, pp. 72–76. .
Notes
References
Citations
Works cited
See also
List of honors and awards received by Joe Biden
List of things named after Joe Biden
External links
Official
President Joe Biden official website
Presidential campaign website
Obama White House biography (archived)
Other
Joe Biden at On the Issues
Joe Biden at PolitiFact
1942 births
Living people
20th-century American lawyers
20th-century American politicians
20th-century Roman Catholics
21st-century American memoirists
21st-century presidents of the United States
21st-century vice presidents of the United States
21st-century Roman Catholics
2008 United States vice-presidential candidates
2012 United States vice-presidential candidates
American people of English descent
American people of French descent
American people of Irish descent
Biden family
Candidates in the 1988 United States presidential election
Candidates in the 2008 United States presidential election
Candidates in the 2020 United States presidential election
Catholics from Delaware
Catholics from Pennsylvania
Chairmen of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
County council members and commissioners in Delaware
Delaware Democrats
Delaware Fightin' Blue Hens football players
Delaware lawyers
Democratic Party (United States) presidential nominees
Democratic Party presidents of the United States
Democratic Party United States senators
Democratic Party (United States) vice presidential nominees
Democratic Party vice presidents of the United States
Laetare Medal recipients
New Castle County, Delaware politicians
Obama administration cabinet members
People from Claymont, Delaware
People from Wilmington, Delaware
People involved in plagiarism controversies
Politicians from Scranton, Pennsylvania
Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients
Presidents of the United States
Writers from Wilmington, Delaware
Public defenders
Recipients of Hilal-i-Pakistan
Recipients of the Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana, 1st Class
Recipients of St. George's Order of Victory
Syracuse University College of Law alumni
Time 100
Time Person of the Year
United States senators from Delaware
University of Delaware alumni
University of Pennsylvania faculty
Vice presidents of the United States
Widener University faculty
Writers from Scranton, Pennsylvania | false | [
"Anthony Lawlor (born 13 June 1959) is an Irish former Fine Gael politician who served as a Senator for the Agricultural Panel from 2018 to 2020. He served as a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Kildare North constituency from 2011 to 2016.\n\nEarly life\nA son of Tony and Patsy Lawlor, he was educated at Multyfarnham Agricultural College, University College Dublin and National University of Ireland, Maynooth.\n\nHe was co-opted to Kildare County Council in 1998, following the death of his mother Patsy. He was elected in 1999 as an Independent Councillor for the Naas local electoral area. He did not stand for election in 2004. In 2009, he was re-elected as a Councillor, this time as a member of Fine Gael.\n\nPolitics\nLawlor was elected as a Fine Gael TD for the Kildare North constituency at the 2011 general election.\n\nOn 11 December 2012, Lawlor introduced a bill in the Oireachtas intended to outlaw the clocking of vehicle odometers, which is not currently illegal in Ireland.\n\nHe lost his seat at the 2016 general election. He subsequently failed to get elected to Seanad Éireann in April 2016.\n\nHe was elected to 25th Seanad on the Agricultural Panel in a by-election on 27 April 2018. The vacancy was caused by the resignation of Senator Trevor Ó Clochartaigh. He was an unsuccessful candidate for Kildare North at the 2020 general election. He did not contest the 2020 Seanad election.\n\nSee also\nFamilies in the Oireachtas\n\nReferences\n\n \n\n1959 births\nLiving people\nAlumni of University College Dublin\nAlumni of Maynooth University\nFine Gael TDs\nIndependent politicians in Ireland\nIrish farmers\nLocal councillors in County Kildare\nMembers of the 31st Dáil\nPoliticians from County Kildare\nMembers of the 25th Seanad\nFine Gael senators",
"Essex County is New Jersey's largest county and its county seat, Newark, is New Jersey's largest city. Essex has been predominantly Democratic since the early 1970s. Essex was a politically competitive (swing) county for decades before that.\n\nEssex County Executive\nIn November 1977, Essex County voters approved a referendum to change the form of government and establish a new position of Essex County Executive.\n\n1978-1987: Peter Shapiro (Democrat), Elected 1978. Re-elected 1982. Democratic nominee for Governor of New Jersey, 1985. Defeated for re-election, 1986.\n\n1987-1991: Nicholas R. Amato (Republican), Elected 1986. Did not seek re-election in 1990.\n\n1991-1994: Thomas D’Allesio (Democrat), Elected 1990. Resigned in 1994 following his conviction on federal extortion charges.\n\n1995-2003: James W. Treffinger (Republican), Elected 1994. Re-elected 1998. Sought the Republican nomination for U.S. Senator in 2000 and 2002. Did not seek re-election in 2002.\n\n2003-date: Joseph N. DiVincenzo, Jr. (Democrat), Elected 2002. Re-elected 2006, 2010 and 2014.\n\nEssex County Sheriff\nThe Sheriff is an elected countywide position, the top law enforcement officer in the county, established by the New Jersey Constitution.\n\n1968-1971: Ralph D'Ambola (Republican), Elected 1967. Did not seek re-election in 1970.\n\n1971-1980: John F. Cryan (Democrat), Elected 1967. Re-elected in 1970, 1973 and 1976. Defeated for re-election in 1979.\n\n1980-1983: Chuck Cummings (Republican), Elected 1979. Defeated for re-election in 1982.\n\n1982-1991: Thomas J. D'Alessio (Democrat), Elected 1982. Re-elected in 1985 and 1988. Resigned in January 1991 following his election as Essex County Executive.\n\n1991-date: Armando Fountoura (Democrat), Elected 1991. Re-elected 1994, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2009 and 2012.\n\nEssex County Clerk\nThe Essex County Clerk is a constitutional office elected to a five-year term.\n\n2006-date: Christopher J. Durkin (Democrat), Elected 2005, Re-elected 2010.\n\n1996-2006: Patrick J. McNally, (Democrat) Elected 1995, Re-elected 2000. Did not seek re-election in 2005.\n\n1991-1996: Patricia McGarry Drake (Democrat), Elected 1990. Defeated for re-election in the 1995 Democratic Primary.\n\n1961-1991: Nicholas V. Caputo (Democrat), Elected 1960, Re-elected 1965, 1970, 1975, 1980 and 1985.\n\n1956-1961: Anthony Giuliano (Republican), Elected 1955. Did not seek re-election in 1960, but instead ran for Register of Deeds and Mortgages.\n\n1936-1956: Russell Gates, Republican, Elected 1935, Re-elected 1940, 1945, and 1950. Did not seek re-election in 1955.\n\nEssex County Surrogate\nThe Surrogate is an elected countywide position with a five-year term and acts essentially as the County Probate Court Judge.\n\n1971: Thomas R. Farley (Republican), Appointed 1971. Defeated for a full five-year term by Nicholas R. Amato.\n\n1971-1986: Nicholas R. Amato (Democrat), Elected 1971, Re-elected in 1976 and 1981. Amato switched parties and ran for re-election as a Republican in 1986 after Essex Democrats, at the urging of County Executive Peter Shapiro, denied him the organization line in the primary; he later switched races and defeated Shapiro in the County Executive race. Amato resigned as Surrogate to run for County Executive.\n\n1987-1988: Earl Harris (Republican), Elected 1986. Died in office in 1988. Harris was a longtime Newark City Council President who joined the Republican ticket in 1986 to run with Amato. He defeated East Orange attorney Daniel Williams.\n\n1988-90: Bob Cottle (Republican), Acting Surrogate following Harris' death. Defeated in General Election for full term in 1990.\n\n1990-1993: Thomas P. Giblin (Democrat), Elected 1990. Resigned to seek the Democratic nomination for Essex County Executive.\n\n1996-2012: Joseph P. Brennan, Jr. (Democrat), Elected 1996, Re-elected 2001 and 2006.\n\n2012-date: Theodore N. Stevens II (Democrat), Elected in 2011.\n\nEssex County Register of Deeds and Mortgages\nThe Essex County Register of Deeds and Mortgages is an elected countywide position with a five-year term. Only Essex and Hudson still directly elect County Registers; the other counties have eliminated the post.\n\n2015-date: Dana Rone (Democrat), Elected 2014. Rone is a former Newark City Councilwoman. She defeated Republican James Boydston with 74.4% of the vote.\n\n2013-2014: William Narvaez (Democrat), became Acting Register following Thigpen's death and served until Rone took the oath of office in January 2015.\n\n2010-2013: Philip Thigpen (Democrat), elected 2009. Thigpen, the Essex County Democratic Chairman, became the replacement candidate for Register after the winner of the 2009 primary, Dwight C. Brown, died after the Democratic primary at age 62. Thigpen defeated Republican Terriann Moore-Abrams by a 69%-28% margin.\n\n1995-2010: Carole A. Graves (Democrat), elected 1999, Re-elected 2004. Graves was the former President of the Newark Teachers Union. She was not a candidate for re-election in 2010.\n\n1975-1995: Larrie W. Stalks (Democrat), Elected 1974, Re-elected 1979, 1984, 1989 and 1994. She was not a candidate for re-election in 1999. She defeated Republican John Taliaferro in 1974, and just narrowly won in 1979 against Republican Hymen B. Mintz. a former Assemblyman who had served as County Register from 1970 to 1975; Mintz had run on a single platform of eliminating the office.\n\n1970-1975: Hymen B. Mintz (Republican), Elected 1969. Did not seek re-election in 1974.\n\n1968-1970: Vacant\n\n1960-1968: Madaline A. Williams (Democrat), Elected 1960, Re-elected 1965. Died in office in 1968.\n\n1955-1960: Abbie W. Magee (Republican), Elected 1955.\n\nEssex County Democratic Committee Chairman\n1953-1968: Dennis F. Carey; 1968-1978: Harry Lerner; 1978-1979: May Maher; 1979-1980: Horace Gausepohl; 1980-1992: Raymond M. Durkin; 1992-1993: Thomas J. D'Alessio; 1993-2002: Thomas P. Giblin; 2002-2004: Donald M. Payne; 2004-2013: Philip Thigpen; 2013-date: LeRoy J. Jones, Jr.\n\nEssex County Republican Committee Chairman\n1971-1973: George M. Wallhauser, Jr.; 1973-1977: Frederic Remington; 1977-1982: John Renna; 1982-1983: James Piro; 1983-1986: Michael D. Francis; 1986-1996: John Renna; 1996-1999: Jeanne Parke; 1999-2011: Kevin J. O'Toole; 2011-date: Al Barlas.\n\nCongressmen from Essex County\n\n10th District of New Jersey\n2012-date: Donald M. Payne, Jr. (Democrat), Elected 2012, Re-elected 2014. Payne was serving as an Essex County Freeholder and Newark City Councilman when he won a 2012 Special Election following the death of his father.\n\n1989-2012: Donald M. Payne (Democrat), Elected 1988, Re-elected 1990, 1992, 1994, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008 and 2010. Died in office in 2012.\n1949-1989: Peter W. Rodino (Democrat), Elected 1948, Re-elected 1950, 1952, 1954, 1956, 1958, 1960, 1962, 1964, 1966, 1968, 1970, 1972, 1974, 1976, 1978, 1980, 1982, 1984 and 1986. Did not seek re-election to a 21st term in 1988. Rodino's predecessor, Republican Fred A. Hartley, Jr., was from Hudson County (Kearny).\n\n11th District of New Jersey\n1963-1985: Joseph Minish (Democrat), Elected 1962, Re-elected 1964, 1966, 1968, 1970, 1972, 1974, 1976, 1978, 1980 and 1982. Defeated for re-election in 1984 by Assembly Minority Leader Dean Gallo, a Republican from Morris County (Parsippany).\n\n1949-1963: Hugh Joseph Addonizio (Democrat), Elected 1948, Re-elected 1950, 1952, 1954, 1958 and 1960. Did not seek re-election in 1962, but instead ran for Mayor of Newark.\n\n1943-1949: Frank Sundstrom (Republican), Elected 1942, Re-elected 1944 and 1946. Defeated for re-election by Addonizio.\n\n1939-1943: Albert L. Vreeland (Republican), Elected 1938, Re-elected 1940. Did not seek re-election in 1942 but instead enlisted in the U.S. Army during World War II.\n\n1937-1939: Edward L. O'Neill (Democrat), Elected 1936. Defeated for re-election in 1938 by Vreeland.\n\n1931-1937: Peter Angelo Cavicchia (Republican), Elected 1930, Re-elected 1932 and 1934. Defeated for re-election in 1936 by O'Neill.\n\n12th District of New Jersey\n1965-1966: Paul J. Krebs (Democrat), Elected 1964. Did not seek re-election in 1966 after his district was eliminated in redistricting.\n\n1959-1965: George M. Wallhauser (Republican), Elected in 1958, Re-elected in 1960 and 1962. Did not seek re-election in 1964.\n\n1939-1959: Robert W. Kean, (Republican), Elected 1938, Re-elected 1940, 1942, 1944, 1946, 1948, 1950, 1952, 1954 and 1956. Did not seek re-election in 1958, but instead was the Republican nominee for U.S. Senator.\n\n1937-1939: Frank William Towey, Jr. (Democrat), Elected 1936. Defeated for re-election in 1938 by Kean.\n\n1915-1937: Frederick R. Lehlbach (Republican), Elected 1914, Re-elected 1916, 1918, 1920, 1922, 1924, 1926, 1928, 1930, 1932 and 1934. Defeated for re-election in 1936 by Towey.\n\nState Senators from Essex County\n\n1926-1965 Elections\nUntil 1965, Essex County had one State Senator, elected in countywide elections:\n\n1927-1935: Joseph G. Wolber (Republican), Elected 1926. Re-elected 1929 and 1932. Did not seek re-election in 1935 following his appointment as a New Jersey Circuit Court Judge.\n\n1936-1938: Lester H. Clee (Republican), Elected 1935. Republican nominee for Governor of New Jersey, 1937. Did not seek re-election in 1938.\n\n1939-1941: Homer C. Zink (Republican), Elected 1938. Elected by the Legislature to serve as New Jersey State Controller in 1941.\n\n1942-1947: Roy V. Wright (Republican), Elected 1941. Re-elected 1944. Did not seek re-election in 1947.\n\n1948-53: Alfred C. Clapp (Republican), Elected 1947. Re-elected 1951. Resigned in 1953 to become a Superior Court Judge.\n\n1953-55: Marc Anton (Republican), Elected 1953 (Special Election). Defeated for re-election, 1955.\n\n1956-64: Donal C. Fox (Democrat), Elected 1955. Re-elected 1959. Did not seek re-election, 1963.\n\n1964-66: C. Robert Sarcone (Republican). Elected 1963. Defeated for re-election, 1965.\n\n1965 Elections\nThe U.S. Supreme Court, in Reynolds v. Sims (more commonly known as One Man, One Vote), required redistricting by state legislatures for congressional districts to keep represented populations equal, as well as requiring both houses of state legislatures to have districts drawn that contained roughly equal populations, and to perform redistricting when needed. Because of its population, Essex County went from one State Senate seat to four. In 1965, all four Essex Senators were elected countywide At-Large for a two-year term:\n\n1966-1968: Nicholas T. Fernicola (Democrat), Elected 1965. Defeated for re-election, 1967.\n\n1966-1968: Maclyn S. Goldman (Democrat), Elected 1965. Defeated for re-election, 1967.\n\n1966-1968: John J. Giblin (Democrat), Elected 1965. Defeated for re-election, 1967.\n\n1966-1968: Hutchins F. Inge (Democrat), Elected 1965. Defeated for re-election, 1967.\n\n1967 Elections\nAs New Jersey adjusted to One Man, One Vote, the state reapportioned the State Senate again for the 1967 elections. Essex County went from four State Senate seats to six. In 1967, all six Essex Senators were elected countywide At-Large for four-year terms:\n\n1968-1982: James Wallwork (Republican), Elected 1967. Re-elected 1971, 1973 and 1977. Did not seek re-election in 1981, but instead sought the Republican nomination for Governor.\n\n1968-1974: Michael Giuliano (Republican), Elected 1967. Re-elected 1971. Defeated for re-election, 1973.\n\n1968-1971: David Dowd (Republican), Elected 1967. Resigned in 1971 to become General Counsel to the New Jersey Turnpike Authority.\n\n1968-1972: Alexander Matturri (Republican), Elected 1967. Candidate for Mayor of Newark, 1970. Did not seek re-election in 1971.\n\n1968-1972: Milton Waldor (Republican), Elected 1967. Defeated for re-election, 1971.\n\n1968-1972: Gerardo Del Tufo (Republican), Elected 1967. Did not seek re-election in 1971, but instead was elected to the Essex County Board of Freeholders.\n\n1971 Elections\nA Special Election was held in November 1971 to fill the unexpired term of Senator David Dowd (Republican), who had resigned to become General Counsel of the New Jersey Turnpike Authority. The seat was won by Democrat Charles B. DeMarco, who served in the Senate from November 1971 to January 1972.\n\nEssex County lost one State Senate seat following Reapportionment for the 1971 General Election, going from six seats to five seats. In 1971, all five Essex Senators were elected countywide At-Large for two-year terms.\n\nRepublican Senators James Wallwork and Michael Giuliano were re-elected. Waldor was defeated, and Democrats picked up the open seats being vacated by Matturri and Dowd.\n\n1972-1999: Wynona Lipman (Democrat), Elected 1971. Re-elected 1973, 1977, 1981, 1983, 1987, 1991, 1993 and 1997. Died in office, 1999.\n\n1972-1974: Ralph DeRose (Democrat), Elected 1971. Did not seek re-election in 1973, but instead sought the Democratic nomination for Governor.\n\n1972-1982: Frank J. Dodd (Democrat), Elected 1971. Re-elected 1973 and 1977. Did not seek re-election in 1981, but instead sought the Democratic nomination for Governor.\n\n1973 Elections\nFor the first time, the state was to be divided into 40 legislative districts, with each district electing one State Senator and two members of the General Assembly. The districts were drawn first to achieve a population balance (districts were drawn to be within +/- 4% of each other), and then to be as geographically compact as possible. Many districts included parts of several counties. Some districts had more than one incumbent.\n\nEssex County was part of five legislative Districts:\n\nDistrict 25\nThe predominantly Essex County-based 25th District included parts of suburban Western Essex County, as well as two towns in Morris County and Wayne in Passaic County. Wallwork (R-Short Hills) was the incumbent Senator. He was re-elected over Roseland Councilman Joel Wasserman.\n\nDistrict 26\nThe all-Essex 26th District included East Orange, West Orange, and Orange. Dodd (D-West Orange) was the incumbent Senator. He was re-elected.\n\nDistrict 27\nThe all-Essex 27th District was based in northeastern Essex County and included Montclair, Bloomfield and Nutley. The incumbent Senator was Giuliano (R-Bloomfield). He was defeated for re-election by Democrat Carmen Orechio, the Mayor of Nutley.\n\nDistrict 28\nThe all-Essex 28th District included part of Newark (West Ward), and Irvington and South Orange. The incumbent was DeRose (D-South Orange), who gave up his Senate seat to run for Governor. The winner of the open seat was Democrat Martin L. Greenberg.\n\nDistrict 29\nThe all-Essex 29th District was entirely in the City of Newark. Lipman (D-Newark) was the incumbent Senator. (Lipman had been a resident of Montclair, but moved to Newark to run in District 29.) She was re-elected.\n\nDistrict 30\nThe 30th District included part of Newark (North Ward) and Belleville, and the Hudson County towns of Harrison and Kearny. There was no incumbent Senator. The winner of the open seat was Assemblyman Anthony Imperiale, who ran as an Independent.\n\n1977 Elections\nDistricts remained the same for the 1977 elections. All incumbents sought re-election.\n\nDistrict 25\nWallwork was re-elected against Democrat Lewis J. Paper.\n\nDistrict 26\nDodd was re-elected against Republican Nancy Jane Schron, the former East Orange City Council President.\n\nDistrict 27\nOrechio was re-elected against Republican Assemblyman John N. Dennis.\n\nDistrict 28\nGreenberg was re-elected against Republican James A. Pindar, a Roman Catholic Priest and a Professor of Communications at Seton Hall University.\n\nDistrict 29\nLipman was re-elected against Republican Manuel Angel Colon.\n\nDistrict 30\nImperiale was defeated in his bid for re-election to a second term in the Senate by Democrat Frank X. Rodgers, the longtime Mayor of Harrison, New Jersey.\n\n1979 Special Election\n\nDistrict 28\nGreenberg resigned from the Senate to return to his law practice and represent the new Golden Nugget Casino in Atlantic City. A special election was won by John Caufield, a Democrat and the Newark Fire Director.\n\n1981 Elections\nThe New Jersey Legislature faced redistricting following the 1980 census. Two Senators ran for Governor, and two others sought re-election. Wallwork sought the Republican nomination for Governor and his old 25th district as eliminated. Some of the West Essex towns went into the 22nd district, which was shared with Union County, and others went to the 34th district, which was predominantly Passaic County.\n\nDistrict 27\nDistrict 27, with some changes, was essentially the old 26th. Dodd gave up his Senate seat to seek the Democratic nomination for Governor. He was replaced by Assemblyman Richard Codey.\n\nDistrict 28\nCaufield was re-elected.\n\nDistrict 29\nLipman was re-elected.\n\nDistrict 30\nDistrict 30, with some changes, resembled the old 27th district. Orechio was re-elected narrowly against Bloomfield Councilman John Crecco.\n\n1983 Elections\nDistricts remained the same for the 1983 elections. All incumbents sought re-election.\n\nDistrict 27\nCodey was re-elected.\n\nDistrict 28\nCaufield was re-elected.\n\nDistrict 29\nLipman was re-elected.\n\nDistrict 30\nOrechio was re-elected after an aggressive challenge from Republican Ralph J. Salerno.\n\n1979 Special Election\n\nDistrict 28\nCaufield died in office in 1986. Newark West Ward Councilman Ronald Rice won a special election to the State Senate.\n\n1987 Elections\nDistricts remained the same for the 1987 elections. All incumbents sought re-election.\n\nDistrict 27\nCodey was re-elected.\n\nDistrict 28\nRice was re-elected.\n\nDistrict 29\nLipman was re-elected.\n\nDistrict 30\nOrechio was re-elected.\n\n1991 Elections\nThe New Jersey Legislature faced redistricting following the 1990 census. The Union County-based District 21 took on several West Essex towns, extending from Union Township to Cedar Grove. The 30th district was eliminated and most of the towns were reapportioned to the Passaic County-based 34th district and the Bergen County-based 36th district. Orechio was placed in the same district as another Democratic Senator, Gabriel Ambrosio, and chose not to seek re-election after 18 years in the Senate.\n\nDistrict 27\nCodey was re-elected.\n\nDistrict 28\nRice was re-elected.\n\nDistrict 29\nLipman was re-elected.\n\n1993 Elections\nDistricts remained the same for the 1993 elections. All incumbents sought re-election.\n\nDistrict 27\nCodey was re-elected.\n\nDistrict 28\nRice was re-elected.\n\nDistrict 29\nLipman was re-elected.\n\n1997 Elections\nDistricts remained the same for the 1997 elections. All incumbents sought re-election.\n\nDistrict 27\nCodey was re-elected.\n\nDistrict 28\nRice was re-elected.\n\nDistrict 29\nLipman was re-elected.\n\nDistrict 36\nRepublican John P. Scott of Bergen County unseated Democratic Senator Gabriel Ambrosio, also of Bergen County, in 1991. Scott was re-elected in 1993. In 1997, Scott lost his Senate seat to an Essex County Democrat, Garry Furnari, the Mayor of Nutley.\n\n1999 Special Election\n\nDistrict 29\nLipman died in office. Newark Mayor Sharpe James won a special election convention to replace her in the New Jersey State Senate.\n\n2001 Special Election\n\nDistrict 21\nRepublican State Senator C. Louis Bassano of Union County resigned from the Senate in 2001 to take a job at the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority. An Essex County Republican, Assemblyman Kevin O'Toole of Cedar Grove, won a Special Election Convention to fill the remainder of Bassano's term.\n\n2001 Elections\nThe New Jersey Legislature faced redistricting following the 2000 census.\n\nDistrict 27\nCodey was re-elected in a new district that lost East Orange but picked up suburban West Essex towns.\n\nDistrict 28\nRice was re-elected in a new district that added Bloomfield. He defeated Republican Assemblywoman Marion Crecco.\n\nDistrict 29\nJames was re-elected.\n\nDistrict 34\nThe new 34th district went from Leans Republican to Safe Democratic by removing GOP towns like Wayne in Passaic County and replacing them with two Democratic Essex strongholds, East Orange and Montclair. The incumbent Republican Senator, Norman Robertson, lost to Assemblywoman Nia Gill, a Democrat from Montclair.\n\nDistrict 40\nO'Toole's Essex-Union 21st district was eliminated; O'Toole's hometown, Cedar Grove, was added to the Bergen/Passaic 40th district. Instead of running for re-election to the State Senate, O'Toole returned to the Assembly.\n\nMayor of Newark\nNewark is New Jersey's largest city. Mayors are elected for four-year terms in May non-partisan elections.\n\n1953-1962: Leo P. Carlin, Elected 1953, under Newark's old Commissioner form of government. Elected in 1954 as the first Mayor of Newark to be directly elected by voters. Re-elected in 1958.\n\n1962-1970: Hugh Joseph Addonizio, Elected 1962, Re-elected 1966. Addonizio gave up his seat in Congress after seven terms to challenge Mayor Leo Carlin in 1962.\n\n1970-1986: Kenneth A. Gibson, Elected 1970, Re-elected 1974, 1978 and 1982. Gibson defeated Addonizio in a runoff election, 54,892 (55.88%)\t to 43,339 (44.12%), becoming Newark's first Black Mayor. Re-elected in 1974 against State Sen. Anthony Imperiale, 42,870 (54.30%) to 34,502 (43.70%). He was unopposed in 1978; in 1982, he defeated City Council President Earl Harris, 20,682 (40.68%)\tto 16,988 (33.42%).\n\n1986-2006: Sharpe James, Elected 1986, Re-elected 1990, 1994, 1998 and 2002. James defeated Gibson, 27,459 (55.57%)\t to 19,894 (40.26%). In his final campaign, he defeated City Councilman Cory Booker, 28,363 (52.95%) to 24,869 (46.42%). He was not a candidate for re-election in 2006.\n\n2006-2013: Cory Booker, Elected 2006, Re-elected 2010.\n\n2013-2014: Luis Quintana. As City Council President, he succeeded to the mayoralty after Booker resigned to take his seat in the U.S. Senate. He was not a candidate for Mayor in 2014.\n\n2014-date: Ras Baraka, Elected 2014.\n\nMayor of East Orange\nEast Orange is New Jersey's 10th largest city. Mayors are elected for four-year terms in November partisan elections held in gubernatorial years. Because East Orange is so overwhelmingly Democratic, the June primary is tantamount to election.\n\n2014-date: Lester M. Taylor, Elected 2014, defeating Bowser in the Democratic Primary; \n1994-2014: Robert L. Bowser; 1990-1994: Cardell Cooper; 1986-1990: John C. Hatcher, Jr.; 1978-1986: Thomas H. Cooke, Jr.;\n1970-1978: William Stanford Hart, Sr.; 1958-1970: James W. Kelly, Jr.; 1952-1958: William M. McConnell; 1918-1952: Charles Henry Martens; 1914-1918: Julian Arthur Gregory; 1911-1914: Worrall Frederick Mountain; 1905-1911: William Cardwell; 1899-1905: Edward Everett Bruen.\n\nMayor of Irvington\nIrvington is an urban city in Essex County that adjoins Newark with a population of 53,926. Mayors are elected in May non-partisan elections held in even-numbered non-presidential years for a four-year term.\n\n1938-1938: Percy H. Miller, Jr.\n1974-1982: Robert H. Miller, Elected 1974, Re-elected 1978. Did not seek re-election in 1982.\n1994-2002: Sara Bost, Elected 1994, Re-elected 1998. Did not seek re-election following 2002 federal corruption indictment.\n2002-2014: Wayne Smith, Elected 2002, Re-elected 2006 and 2010.\n2014-date: Tony Vauss. Defeated Smith in 2014.\n\nMayor of Nutley\nNutley is a municipality in Northeastern Essex County. Nutley elects five Commissioners in May non-partisan elections held in presidential years for a four-year term. Traditionally the top vote getter is the Mayor.\n\nList of Mayors of Nutley, New Jersey\n\nReferences\n\nEssex County, New Jersey\nPolitics of the New York metropolitan area"
] |
[
"Joe Biden",
"Characteristics as senator",
"What are Joe's characteristics as senator?",
"characterized Biden as \"self-confident\" and \"compulsively ambitious\".",
"Was Joe likable as senator?",
"\"Biden is the kind of fundamentally happy person who can be as generous toward others as he is to himself.\"",
"Does Joe have a lot of friends in politics?",
"I don't know.",
"When did he become senator?",
"1969,",
"What State was he the Senator for?",
"I don't know.",
"Did he get re-elected as senator?",
"Biden was re-elected"
] | C_ae5bfb2601a2463ebfedd2b995b83bf8_1 | Does his peers have good things to say about him? | 7 | Does Joe Biden's peers have good things to say about him? | Joe Biden | On August 27, 1966, while Biden was still a law student, he married Neilia Hunter. They overcame her parents' initial reluctance for her to wed a Roman Catholic, and the ceremony was held in a Catholic church in Skaneateles. They had three children, Joseph R. "Beau" Biden III in 1969, Robert Hunter in 1970, and Naomi Christina in 1971. During 1968, Biden clerked for six months at a Wilmington law firm headed by prominent local Republican William Prickett and, as he later said, "thought of myself as a Republican". He disliked the conservative racial politics of incumbent Democratic Governor of Delaware Charles L. Terry and supported a more liberal Republican, Russell W. Peterson, who defeated Terry in 1968. The local Republicans tried to recruit him, but he resisted due to his distaste for Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon, and registered as an Independent instead. In 1969, Biden resumed practicing law in Wilmington, first as a public defender and then at a firm headed by Sid Balick, a locally active Democrat. Balick named him to the Democratic Forum, a group trying to reform and revitalize the state party, and Biden switched his registration to Democrat. He also started his own firm, Biden and Walsh. Corporate law, however, did not appeal to him and criminal law did not pay well. He supplemented his income by managing properties. Later in 1969, Biden ran as a Democrat for the New Castle County Council on a liberal platform that included support for public housing in the suburban area. He won by a solid, two-thousand vote margin in the usually Republican district and in a bad year for Democrats in the state. Even before taking his seat, he was already talking about running for the U.S. Senate in a couple of years. He served on the County Council from 1970 to 1972 while continuing his private law practice. Among issues he addressed on the council was his opposition to large highway projects that might disrupt Wilmington neighborhoods, including those related to Interstate 95. During his first years in the Senate, Biden focused on legislation regarding consumer-protection and environmental issues and called for greater accountability on the part of government. In mid-1974, freshman Senator Biden was named one of the 200 Faces for the Future by Time magazine, in a profile that mentioned what had happened to his family and characterized Biden as "self-confident" and "compulsively ambitious". Biden became ranking minority member of the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary in 1981. In 1984, he was Democratic floor manager for the successful passage of the Comprehensive Crime Control Act; civil libertarians praised him for modifying some of the Act's provisions, and it was his most important legislative accomplishment at that point in time. He first considered running for president in that year, after he gained notice for giving speeches to party audiences that simultaneously scolded and encouraged Democrats. Regarding foreign policy, during his first decade in the Senate, Biden focused on arms control issues. In response to the refusal of the U.S. Congress to ratify the SALT II Treaty signed in 1979 by Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and President Jimmy Carter, he took the initiative to meet the Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, educated him about American concerns and interests, and secured several changes to address objections of the Foreign Relations Committee. When the Reagan administration wanted to interpret the 1972 SALT I Treaty loosely in order to allow the Strategic Defense Initiative to proceed, Biden argued for strict adherence to the treaty's terms. He clashed again with the Reagan administration in 1986 over economic sanctions against South Africa; he received considerable attention when he excoriated Secretary of State George P. Shultz at a Senate hearing because of the administration's support of that country, which continued to practice the apartheid system. Following his initial election in 1972, Biden was re-elected to six additional terms, in the elections of 1978, 1984, 1990, 1996, 2002, and 2008, usually getting about 60 percent of the vote. He did not face strong opposition; Pete du Pont, then governor, chose not to run against him in 1984. Biden spent 28 years as a junior senator due to the two-year seniority of his Republican colleague William V. Roth Jr. After Roth was defeated for re-election by Tom Carper in 2000, Biden became Delaware's senior senator. He then became the longest-serving senator in Delaware history. In May 1999, Biden set the mark for youngest senator to cast 10,000 votes. With a net worth between $59,000 and $366,000, and almost no outside income or investment income, Biden was consistently ranked as one of the least wealthy members of the Senate. Biden stated that he was listed as the second poorest member in Congress, a distinction that he was not proud of, but attributed to being elected early in his career. Biden realized early in his senatorial career how vulnerable poorer public officials are to offers of financial contributions in exchange for policy support, and he pushed campaign finance reform measures during his first term. During his years as a senator, Biden amassed a reputation for loquaciousness, with his questions and remarks during Senate hearings being especially known for being long-winded. He has been a strong speaker and debater and a frequent and effective guest on the Sunday morning talk shows. In public appearances, he is known to deviate from prepared remarks at will. According to political analyst Mark Halperin, he has shown "a persistent tendency to say silly, offensive, and off-putting things"; The New York Times writes that Biden's "weak filters make him capable of blurting out pretty much anything". Nor is Biden known for modesty; journalist James Traub has written that "Biden's vanity and his regard for his own gifts seem considerable even by the rarefied standards of the U.S. Senate." Political writer Howard Fineman has said that, "Biden is not an academic, he's not a theoretical thinker, he's a great street pol. He comes from a long line of working people in Scranton--auto salesmen, car dealers, people who know how to make a sale. He has that great Irish gift." Political columnist David S. Broder has viewed Biden as having grown since he came to Washington and since his failed 1988 presidential bid: "He responds to real people--that's been consistent throughout. And his ability to understand himself and deal with other politicians has gotten much much better." Traub concludes that "Biden is the kind of fundamentally happy person who can be as generous toward others as he is to himself." CANNOTANSWER | he's a great street pol. | Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. ( ; born November 20, 1942) is an American politician who is the 46th and current president of the United States. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 47th vice president from 2009 to 2017 under Barack Obama and represented Delaware in the United States Senate from 1973 to 2009.
Biden was born and raised in Scranton, Pennsylvania, moving with his family to New Castle County, Delaware, in 1953 when he was ten. He studied at the University of Delaware before earning his law degree from Syracuse University in 1968. He was elected to the New Castle County Council in 1970 and became the sixth-youngest senator in U.S. history after he was elected to the United States Senate from Delaware in 1972, at age 29. Biden was the chair or ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for 12 years and was influential in foreign affairs during Obama's presidency. He also chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee from 1987 to 1995, dealing with drug policy, crime prevention, and civil liberties issues; led the effort to pass the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act and the Violence Against Women Act; and oversaw six U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings, including the contentious hearings for Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas. He ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988 and 2008. Biden was reelected to the Senate six times and was the fourth-most senior sitting senator at the time when he became Obama's vice president after they won the 2008 presidential election, defeating John McCain and his running mate Sarah Palin. Obama and Biden were reelected in 2012, defeating Mitt Romney and his running mate Paul Ryan.
During eight years as vice president, Biden leaned on his Senate experience and frequently represented the administration in negotiations with congressional Republicans, including on the Budget Control Act of 2011, which resolved a debt ceiling crisis, and the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, which addressed the impending "fiscal cliff". He also oversaw infrastructure spending in 2009 to counteract the Great Recession. On foreign policy, Biden was a close counselor to the president and took a leading role in designing the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq in 2011. In 2017, Obama awarded Biden the Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction.
Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris defeated incumbent president Donald Trump and vice president Mike Pence in the 2020 presidential election. He is the oldest president and the first to have a female vice president. His early presidential activity centered around proposing, lobbying for, and signing into law the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 to help the United States recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing recession, as well as a series of executive orders. Biden's orders addressed the pandemic and reversed several Trump administration policies, including rejoining the Paris Agreement on climate change and accepting new applications for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients, although a federal judge blocked the latter. He completed the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan by September 2021. During the withdrawal, the Afghan government collapsed and the Taliban seized control. Biden proposed the Build Back Better Plan, aspects of which were incorporated into the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which Biden signed into law in November 2021.
Early life (1942–1965)
Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was born on November 20, 1942, at St. Mary's Hospital in Scranton, Pennsylvania, to Catherine Eugenia "Jean" Biden (née Finnegan) and Joseph Robinette Biden Sr. The oldest child in a Catholic family, he has a sister, Valerie, and two brothers, Francis and James. Jean was of Irish descent, while Joseph Sr. had English, French, and Irish ancestry.
Biden's father had been wealthy, but suffered financial setbacks around the time Biden was born, and for several years the family lived with Biden's maternal grandparents. Scranton fell into economic decline during the 1950s and Biden's father could not find steady work. Beginning in 1953 when Biden was ten, the family lived in an apartment in Claymont, Delaware, before moving to a house in nearby Mayfield. Biden Sr. later became a successful used-car salesman, maintaining the family in a middle-class lifestyle.
At Archmere Academy in Claymont, Biden played baseball and was a standout halfback and wide receiver on the high school football team. Though a poor student, he was class president in his junior and senior years. He graduated in 1961. At the University of Delaware in Newark, Biden briefly played freshman football and, as an unexceptional student, earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1965 with a double major in history and political science and a minor in English.
Biden has a stutter, which has improved since his early twenties. He says he reduced it by reciting poetry before a mirror, but some observers suggested it affected his performance in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential debates.
Marriages, law school, and early career (1966–1973)
On August 27, 1966, Biden married Neilia Hunter (19421972), a student at Syracuse University, after overcoming her parents' reluctance for her to wed a Roman Catholic. Their wedding was held in a Catholic church in Skaneateles, New York. They had three children: Joseph R. "Beau" Biden III (19692015), Robert Hunter Biden (born 1970), and Naomi Christina "Amy" Biden (19711972).
In 1968, Biden earned a Juris Doctor from Syracuse University College of Law, ranked 76th in his class of 85, after failing a course due to an acknowledged "mistake" when he plagiarized a law review article for a paper he wrote in his first year at law school. He was admitted to the Delaware bar in 1969.
Biden had not openly supported or opposed the Vietnam War until he ran for Senate and opposed Nixon's conduct of the war. While studying at the University of Delaware and Syracuse University, Biden obtained five student draft deferments, at a time when most draftees were sent to the Vietnam War. In 1968, based on a physical examination, he was given a conditional medical deferment; in 2008, a spokesperson for Biden said his having had "asthma as a teenager" was the reason for the deferment.
In 1968, Biden clerked at a Wilmington law firm headed by prominent local Republican William Prickett and, he later said, "thought of myself as a Republican". He disliked incumbent Democratic Delaware governor Charles L. Terry's conservative racial politics and supported a more liberal Republican, Russell W. Peterson, who defeated Terry in 1968. Biden was recruited by local Republicans but registered as an Independent because of his distaste for Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon.
In 1969, Biden practiced law first as a public defender and then at a firm headed by a locally active Democrat who named him to the Democratic Forum, a group trying to reform and revitalize the state party; Biden subsequently reregistered as a Democrat. He and another attorney also formed a law firm. Corporate law, however, did not appeal to him, and criminal law did not pay well. He supplemented his income by managing properties.
In 1970, Biden ran for the 4th district seat on the New Castle County Council on a liberal platform that included support for public housing in the suburbs. The seat had been held by Republican Henry R. Folsom, who was running in the 5th District following a reapportionment of council districts. Biden won the general election by defeating Republican Lawrence T. Messick, and took office on January 5, 1971. He served until January 1, 1973, and was succeeded by Democrat Francis R. Swift. During his time on the county council, Biden opposed large highway projects, which he argued might disrupt Wilmington neighborhoods.
1972 U.S. Senate campaign in Delaware
In 1972, Biden defeated Republican incumbent J. Caleb Boggs to become the junior U.S. senator from Delaware. He was the only Democrat willing to challenge Boggs. With minimal campaign funds, he was given no chance of winning. Family members managed and staffed the campaign, which relied on meeting voters face-to-face and hand-distributing position papers, an approach made feasible by Delaware's small size. He received help from the AFL–CIO and Democratic pollster Patrick Caddell. His platform focused on the environment, withdrawal from Vietnam, civil rights, mass transit, equitable taxation, health care, and public dissatisfaction with "politics as usual". A few months before the election, Biden trailed Boggs by almost thirty percentage points, but his energy, attractive young family, and ability to connect with voters' emotions worked to his advantage, and he won with 50.5 percent of the vote. At the time of his election, he was still 29 years old, but reached the constitutionally required age of 30 before he was sworn in as Senator.
Death of wife and daughter
On December 18, 1972, a few weeks after the election, Biden's wife Neilia and one-year-old daughter Naomi were killed in an automobile accident while Christmas shopping in Hockessin, Delaware. Neilia's station wagon was hit by a semi-trailer truck as she pulled out from an intersection. Their sons Beau (aged3) and Hunter (aged2) survived the accident and were taken to the hospital in fair condition, Beau with a broken leg and other wounds and Hunter with a minor skull fracture and other head injuries. Biden considered resigning to care for them, but Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield persuaded him not to.
Years later, Biden said he had heard that the truck driver allegedly drank alcohol before the collision. The driver's family denied that claim, and the police never substantiated it. Biden later apologized to the family. The accident had filled him with anger and religious doubt. He wrote that he "felt God had played a horrible trick" on him, and he had trouble focusing on work.
Second marriage
Biden credits his second wife, teacher Jill Tracy Jacobs, with the renewal of his interest in politics and life; they met in 1975 on a blind date and were married at the United Nations chapel in New York on June 17, 1977. They spent their honeymoon at Lake Balaton in the Hungarian People's Republic, behind the Iron Curtain. They are Roman Catholics and attend Mass at St. Joseph's on the Brandywine in Greenville, Delaware. Their daughter Ashley Biden (born 1981) is a social worker. She is married to physician Howard Krein. Beau Biden became an Army Judge Advocate in Iraq and later Delaware Attorney General; he died of brain cancer in 2015. Hunter Biden is a Washington lobbyist and investment adviser.
Teaching
From 1991 to 2008, as an adjunct professor, Biden co-taught a seminar on constitutional law at Widener University School of Law. The seminar often had a waiting list. Biden sometimes flew back from overseas to teach the class.
U.S. Senate (1973–2009)
Senate activities
In January 1973, secretary of the Senate Francis R. Valeo swore Biden in at the Delaware Division of the Wilmington Medical Center. Present were his sons Beau (whose leg was still in traction from the automobile accident) and Hunter and other family members. At 30, he was the sixth-youngest senator in U.S. history.
To see his sons, Biden traveled by train between his Delaware home and D.C.—74 minutes each way—and maintained this habit throughout his 36 years in the Senate.
During his early years in the Senate, Biden focused on consumer protection and environmental issues and called for greater government accountability. In a 1974 interview, he described himself as liberal on civil rights and liberties, senior citizens' concerns and healthcare but conservative on other issues, including abortion and military conscription.
In his first decade in the Senate, Biden focused on arms control. After Congress failed to ratify the SALT II Treaty signed in 1979 by Soviet general secretary Leonid Brezhnev and President Jimmy Carter, Biden met with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko to communicate American concerns and secured changes that addressed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's objections. When the Reagan administration wanted to interpret the 1972 SALT I treaty loosely to allow development of the Strategic Defense Initiative, Biden argued for strict adherence to the treaty. He received considerable attention when he excoriated Secretary of State George Shultz at a Senate hearing for the Reagan administration's support of South Africa despite its continued policy of apartheid.
Biden became ranking minority member of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1981. In 1984, he was a Democratic floor manager for the successful passage of the Comprehensive Crime Control Act. His supporters praised him for modifying some of the law's worst provisions, and it was his most important legislative accomplishment to that time. In 1994, Biden helped pass the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, also known as the Biden Crime Law, which included a ban on assault weapons, and the Violence Against Women Act, which he has called his most significant legislation. The 1994 crime law was unpopular among progressives and criticized for resulting in mass incarceration; in 2019, Biden called his role in passing the bill a "big mistake", citing its policy on crack cocaine and saying that the bill "trapped an entire generation".
In 1993, Biden voted for a provision that deemed homosexuality incompatible with military life, thereby banning gays from serving in the armed forces. In 1996, he voted for the Defense of Marriage Act, which prohibited the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages, thereby barring individuals in such marriages from equal protection under federal law and allowing states to do the same. In 2015, the act was ruled unconstitutional in Obergefell v. Hodges.
Elected to the Senate in 1972, Biden was reelected in 1978, 1984, 1990, 1996, 2002, and 2008, regularly receiving about 60% of the vote. He was junior senator to William Roth, who was first elected in 1970, until Roth was defeated in 2000. , he was the 18th-longest-serving senator in U.S. history.
Opposition to busing
In the mid-1970s, Biden was one of the Senate's strongest opponents of race-integration busing. His Delaware constituents strongly opposed it, and such opposition nationwide later led his party to mostly abandon school integration policies. In his first Senate campaign, Biden had expressed support for busing to remedy de jure segregation, as in the South, but opposed its use to remedy de facto segregation arising from racial patterns of neighborhood residency, as in Delaware; he opposed a proposed constitutional amendment banning busing entirely.
In May 1974, Biden voted to table a proposal containing anti-busing and anti-desegregation clauses but later voted for a modified version containing a qualification that it was not intended to weaken the judiciary's power to enforce the 5th Amendment and 14th Amendment. In 1975, he supported a proposal that would have prevented the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare from cutting federal funds to districts that refused to integrate; he said busing was a "bankrupt idea [violating] the cardinal rule of common sense" and that his opposition would make it easier for other liberals to follow suit. At the same time he supported initiatives on housing, job opportunities and voting rights. Biden supported a measure forbidding the use of federal funds for transporting students beyond the school closest to them. In 1977, he co-sponsored an amendment closing loopholes in that measure, which President Carter signed into law in 1978.
Brain surgeries
In February 1988, after several episodes of increasingly severe neck pain, Biden was taken by ambulance to Walter Reed Army Medical Center for surgery to correct a leaking intracranial berry aneurysm. While recuperating, he suffered a pulmonary embolism, a serious complication. After a second aneurysm was surgically repaired in May, Biden's recuperation kept him away from the Senate for seven months.
Senate Judiciary Committee
Biden was a longtime member of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary. He chaired it from 1987 to 1995 and was a ranking minority member from 1981 to 1987 and again from 1995 to 1997.
As chair, Biden presided over two highly contentious U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings. When Robert Bork was nominated in 1988, Biden reversed his approvalgiven in an interview the previous yearof a hypothetical Bork nomination. Conservatives were angered, but at the hearings' close Biden was praised for his fairness, humor, and courage. Rejecting the arguments of some Bork opponents, Biden framed his objections to Bork in terms of the conflict between Bork's strong originalism and the view that the U.S. Constitution provides rights to liberty and privacy beyond those explicitly enumerated in its text. Bork's nomination was rejected in the committee by a 9–5 vote and then in the full Senate, 58–42.
During Clarence Thomas's nomination hearings in 1991, Biden's questions on constitutional issues were often convoluted to the point that Thomas sometimes lost track of them, and Thomas later wrote that Biden's questions were akin to "beanballs". After the committee hearing closed, the public learned that Anita Hill, a University of Oklahoma law school professor, had accused Thomas of making unwelcome sexual comments when they had worked together. Biden had known of some of these charges, but initially shared them only with the committee because Hill was then unwilling to testify. The committee hearing was reopened and Hill testified, but Biden did not permit testimony from other witnesses, such as a woman who had made similar charges and experts on harassment, saying he wanted to preserve Thomas's privacy and the hearings' decency. The full Senate confirmed Thomas by a 52–48 vote, with Biden opposed. Liberal legal advocates and women's groups felt strongly that Biden had mishandled the hearings and not done enough to support Hill. Biden later sought out women to serve on the Judiciary Committee and emphasized women's issues in the committee's legislative agenda. In 2019, he told Hill he regretted his treatment of her, but Hill said afterward she remained unsatisfied.
Biden was critical of Independent Counsel Ken Starr during the 1990s Whitewater controversy and Lewinsky scandal investigations, saying "it's going to be a cold day in hell" before another independent counsel would be granted similar powers. He voted to acquit during the impeachment of President Clinton. During the 2000s, Biden sponsored bankruptcy legislation sought by credit card issuers. Clinton vetoed the bill in 2000, but it passed in 2005 as the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act, with Biden one of only 18 Democrats to vote for it, while leading Democrats and consumer rights organizations opposed it. As a senator, Biden strongly supported increased Amtrak funding and rail security.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Biden was a longtime member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He became its ranking minority member in 1997 and chaired it from June 2001 to 2003 and 2007 to 2009. His positions were generally liberal internationalist. He collaborated effectively with Republicans and sometimes went against elements of his own party. During this time he met with at least 150 leaders from 60 countries and international organizations, becoming a well-known Democratic voice on foreign policy.
Biden voted against authorization for the Gulf War in 1991, siding with 45 of the 55 Democratic senators; he said the U.S. was bearing almost all the burden in the anti-Iraq coalition.
Biden became interested in the Yugoslav Wars after hearing about Serbian abuses during the Croatian War of Independence in 1991. Once the Bosnian War broke out, Biden was among the first to call for the "lift and strike" policy of lifting the arms embargo, training Bosnian Muslims and supporting them with NATO air strikes, and investigating war crimes. The George H. W. Bush administration and Clinton administration were both reluctant to implement the policy, fearing Balkan entanglement. In April 1993, Biden spent a week in the Balkans and held a tense three-hour meeting with Serbian leader Slobodan Milošević. Biden said he had told Milošević, "I think you're a damn war criminal and you should be tried as one."
Biden wrote an amendment in 1992 to compel the Bush administration to arm the Bosnian Muslims, but deferred in 1994 to a somewhat softer stance the Clinton administration preferred, before signing on the following year to a stronger measure sponsored by Bob Dole and Joe Lieberman. The engagement led to a successful NATO peacekeeping effort. Biden has called his role in affecting Balkans policy in the mid-1990s his "proudest moment in public life" related to foreign policy.
As chair, Biden contributed to successfully encouraging the Clinton administration to commit the resources and political capital to broker what became the 1998 Good Friday Agreement between the governments of Ireland and the United Kingdom through the Northern Ireland peace process.
On September 3, 1998, the resigning former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter had, according to Barton Gellman, accused the Clinton administration of obstructing weapons inspections in Iraq. Biden joined many other Senate Democrats and "amplified on the Clinton administration's counterattack against former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter." He questioned whether Ritter was trying to "appropriate the power 'to decide when to pull the trigger' of military force against Iraq", and said that the Secretary of State would also have to consider the opinion of allies, the UNSC, and public opinion, before any intervention in Iraq. In a Washington Post op-ed later that month, Biden criticized a unilateral "confrontation-based policy" but praised the idea of asking whether intervention might be necessary at some point, though he said it was "above the pay grade" of one weapons inspector.
In 1999, during the Kosovo War, Biden supported the 1999 NATO bombing of FR Yugoslavia. He and Senator John McCain co-sponsored the McCain-Biden Kosovo Resolution, which called on Clinton to use all necessary force, including ground troops, to confront Milošević over Yugoslav actions toward ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.
Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq
Biden was a strong supporter of the War in Afghanistan, saying, "Whatever it takes, we should do it." As head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he said in 2002 that Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was a threat to national security and there was no other option than to "eliminate" that threat. In October 2002, he voted in favor of the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq, approving the U.S. invasion of Iraq. As chair of the committee, he assembled a series of witnesses to testify in favor of the authorization. They gave testimony grossly misrepresenting the intent, history, and status of Saddam and his secular government, which was an avowed enemy of al-Qaida, and touted Iraq's fictional possession of weapons of mass destruction. Biden eventually became a critic of the war and viewed his vote and role as a "mistake", but did not push for withdrawal. He supported the appropriations for the occupation, but argued that the war should be internationalized, that more soldiers were needed, and that the Bush administration should "level with the American people" about its cost and length.
By late 2006, Biden's stance had shifted considerably. He opposed the troop surge of 2007, saying General David Petraeus was "dead, flat wrong" in believing the surge could work. Biden instead advocated dividing Iraq into a loose federation of three ethnic states. In November 2006, Biden and Leslie H. Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, released a comprehensive strategy to end sectarian violence in Iraq. Rather than continue the existing approach or withdrawing, the plan called for "a third way": federalizing Iraq and giving Kurds, Shiites, and Sunnis "breathing room" in their own regions. In September 2007, a non-binding resolution endorsing the plan passed the Senate, but the idea was unfamiliar, had no political constituency, and failed to gain traction. Iraq's political leadership denounced the resolution as de facto partitioning of the country, and the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad issued a statement distancing itself from it. In May 2008, Biden sharply criticized President George W. Bush's speech to Israel's Knesset in which Bush compared some Democrats to Western leaders who appeased Hitler before World WarII; Biden called the speech "bullshit", "malarkey", and "outrageous". He later apologized for his language.
Presidential campaigns 1988 and 2008
1988 campaign
Biden formally declared his candidacy for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination on June 9, 1987. He was considered a strong candidate because of his moderate image, his speaking ability, his high profile as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee at the upcoming Robert Bork Supreme Court nomination hearings, and his appeal to Baby Boomers; he would have been the second-youngest person elected president, after John F. Kennedy. He raised more in the first quarter of 1987 than any other candidate.
By August his campaign's messaging had become confused due to staff rivalries, and in September, he was accused of plagiarizing a speech by British Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock. Biden's speech had similar lines about being the first person in his family to attend university. Biden had credited Kinnock with the formulation on previous occasions, but did not on two occasions in late August. Kinnock himself was more forgiving; the two men met in 1988, forming an enduring friendship.
Earlier that year he had also used passages from a 1967 speech by Robert F. Kennedy (for which his aides took blame) and a short phrase from John F. Kennedy's inaugural address; two years earlier he had used a 1976 passage by Hubert Humphrey. Biden responded that politicians often borrow from one another without giving credit, and that one of his rivals for the nomination, Jesse Jackson, had called him to point out that he (Jackson) had used the same material by Humphrey that Biden had used.
A few days later, an incident in law school in which Biden drew text from a Fordham Law Review article with inadequate citations was publicized. He was required to repeat the course and passed with high marks. At Biden's request the Delaware Supreme Court's Board of Professional Responsibility reviewed the incident and concluded that he had violated no rules.
Biden has made several false or exaggerated claims about his early life: that he had earned three degrees in college, that he attended law school on a full scholarship, that he had graduated in the top half of his class, and that he had marched in the civil rights movement. The limited amount of other news about the presidential race amplified these disclosures and on September 23, 1987, Biden withdrew his candidacy, saying it had been overrun by "the exaggerated shadow" of his past mistakes.
2008 campaign
After exploring the possibility of a run in several previous cycles, in January 2007, Biden declared his candidacy in the 2008 elections. During his campaign, Biden focused on the Iraq War, his record as chairman of major Senate committees, and his foreign-policy experience. In mid-2007, Biden stressed his foreign policy expertise compared to Obama's. Biden was noted for his one-liners during the campaign; in one debate he said of Republican candidate Rudy Giuliani: "There's only three things he mentions in a sentence: a noun, and a verb and 9/11."
Biden had difficulty raising funds, struggled to draw people to his rallies, and failed to gain traction against the high-profile candidacies of Obama and Senator Hillary Clinton. He never rose above single digits in national polls of the Democratic candidates. In the first contest on January 3, 2008, Biden placed fifth in the Iowa caucuses, garnering slightly less than one percent of the state delegates. He withdrew from the race that evening.
Despite its lack of success, Biden's 2008 campaign raised his stature in the political world. In particular, it changed the relationship between Biden and Obama. Although they had served together on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, they had not been close: Biden resented Obama's quick rise to political stardom, while Obama viewed Biden as garrulous and patronizing. Having gotten to know each other during 2007, Obama appreciated Biden's campaign style and appeal to working-class voters, and Biden said he became convinced Obama was "the real deal".
2008 vice-presidential campaign
Shortly after Biden withdrew from the presidential race, Obama privately told him he was interested in finding an important place for Biden in his administration. Biden declined Obama's first request to vet him for the vice-presidential slot, fearing the vice presidency would represent a loss in status and voice from his Senate position, but he later changed his mind. In early August, Obama and Biden met in secret to discuss the possibility, and developed a strong personal rapport. On August 22, 2008, Obama announced that Biden would be his running mate. The New York Times reported that the strategy behind the choice reflected a desire to fill out the ticket with someone with foreign policy and national security experience—and not to help the ticket win a swing state or to emphasize Obama's "change" message. Others pointed out Biden's appeal to middle-class and blue-collar voters, as well as his willingness to aggressively challenge Republican nominee John McCain in a way that Obama seemed uncomfortable doing at times. In accepting Obama's offer, Biden ruled out running for president again in 2016, but his comments in later years seemed to back off that stance, as he did not want to diminish his political power by appearing uninterested in advancement. Biden was officially nominated for vice president on August 27 by voice vote at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver.
Biden's vice-presidential campaigning gained little media visibility, as far greater press attention was focused on the Republican running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. During one week in September 2008, for instance, the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism found that Biden was included in only five percent of coverage of the race, far less than the other three candidates on the tickets received. Biden nevertheless focused on campaigning in economically challenged areas of swing states and trying to win over blue-collar Democrats, especially those who had supported Hillary Clinton. Biden attacked McCain heavily despite a long-standing personal friendship. He said, "That guy I used to know, he's gone. It literally saddens me." As the financial crisis of 2007–2010 reached a peak with the liquidity crisis of September 2008 and the proposed bailout of the United States financial system became a major factor in the campaign, Biden voted in favor of the $700billion Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, which went on to pass in the Senate 74–25.
On October 2, 2008, Biden participated in the vice-presidential debate with Palin at Washington University in St. Louis. Post-debate polls found that while Palin exceeded many voters' expectations, Biden had won the debate overall. During the campaign's final days, he focused on less populated, older, less well-off areas of battleground states, especially Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, where polling indicated he was popular and where Obama had not campaigned or performed well in the Democratic primaries. He also campaigned in some normally Republican states, as well as in areas with large Catholic populations.
Under instructions from the campaign, Biden kept his speeches succinct and tried to avoid offhand remarks, such as one he made about Obama's being tested by a foreign power soon after taking office, which had attracted negative attention. Privately, Biden's remarks frustrated Obama. "How many times is Biden gonna say something stupid?" he asked. Obama campaign staffers referred to Biden blunders as "Joe bombs" and kept Biden uninformed about strategy discussions, which in turn irked Biden. Relations between the two campaigns became strained for a month, until Biden apologized on a call to Obama and the two built a stronger partnership. Publicly, Obama strategist David Axelrod said Biden's high popularity ratings had outweighed any unexpected comments. Nationally, Biden had a 60% favorability rating in a Pew Research Center poll, compared to Palin's 44%.
On November 4, 2008, Obama and Biden were elected with 53% of the popular vote and 365 electoral votes to McCain–Palin's 173.
At the same time Biden was running for vice president he was also running for reelection to the Senate, as permitted by Delaware law. On November4, he was reelected to the Senate, defeating Republican Christine O'Donnell. Having won both races, Biden made a point of waiting to resign from the Senate until he was sworn in for his seventh term on January 6, 2009. He became the youngest senator ever to start a seventh full term, and said, "In all my life, the greatest honor bestowed upon me has been serving the people of Delaware as their United States senator." Biden cast his last Senate vote on January 15, supporting the release of the second $350billion for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, and resigned from the Senate later that day. In an emotional farewell, Biden told the Senate: "Every good thing I have seen happen here, every bold step taken in the 36-plus years I have been here, came not from the application of pressure by interest groups, but through the maturation of personal relationships." Delaware Governor Ruth Ann Minner appointed longtime Biden adviser Ted Kaufman to fill Biden's vacated Senate seat.
Vice presidency (2009–2017)
First term, 2009–2013
Biden said he intended to eliminate some explicit roles assumed by George W. Bush's vice president, Dick Cheney, and did not intend to emulate any previous vice presidency. He chaired Obama's transition team and headed an initiative to improve middle-class economic well-being. In early January 2009, in his last act as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, he visited the leaders of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and on January 20 he was sworn in as the 47th vice president of the United Statesthe first vice president from Delaware and the first Roman Catholic vice president.
Obama was soon comparing Biden to a basketball player "who does a bunch of things that don't show up in the stat sheet". In May, Biden visited Kosovo and affirmed the U.S. position that its "independence is irreversible". Biden lost an internal debate to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about sending 21,000 new troops to Afghanistan, but his skepticism was valued, and in 2009, Biden's views gained more influence as Obama reconsidered his Afghanistan strategy. Biden visited Iraq about every two months, becoming the administration's point man in delivering messages to Iraqi leadership about expected progress there. More generally, overseeing Iraq policy became Biden's responsibility: Obama was said to have said, "Joe, you do Iraq." Biden said Iraq "could be one of the great achievements of this administration". His January 2010 visit to Iraq in the midst of turmoil over banned candidates from the upcoming Iraqi parliamentary election resulted in 59 of the several hundred candidates being reinstated by the Iraqi government two days later. By 2012, Biden had made eight trips there, but his oversight of U.S. policy in Iraq receded with the exit of U.S. troops in 2011.
Biden oversaw infrastructure spending from the Obama stimulus package intended to help counteract the ongoing recession. During this period, Biden was satisfied that no major instances of waste or corruption had occurred, and when he completed that role in February 2011, he said the number of fraud incidents with stimulus monies had been less than one percent.
In late April 2009, Biden's off-message response to a question during the beginning of the swine flu outbreak, that he would advise family members against traveling on airplanes or subways, led to a swift retraction by the White House. The remark revived Biden's reputation for gaffes. Confronted with rising unemployment through July 2009, Biden acknowledged that the administration had "misread how bad the economy was" but maintained confidence the stimulus package would create many more jobs once the pace of expenditures picked up. On March 23, 2010, a microphone picked up Biden telling the president that his signing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was "a big fucking deal" during live national news telecasts. Despite their different personalities, Obama and Biden formed a friendship, partly based around Obama's daughter Sasha and Biden's granddaughter Maisy, who attended Sidwell Friends School together.
Members of the Obama administration said Biden's role in the White House was to be a contrarian and force others to defend their positions. Rahm Emanuel, White House chief of staff, said that Biden helped counter groupthink. White House press secretary Jay Carney, Biden's former communications director, said Biden played the role of "the bad guy in the Situation Room". Another senior Obama advisor said Biden "is always prepared to be the skunk at the family picnic to make sure we are as intellectually honest as possible." Obama said, "The best thing about Joe is that when we get everybody together, he really forces people to think and defend their positions, to look at things from every angle, and that is very valuable for me." The Bidens maintained a relaxed atmosphere at their official residence in Washington, often entertaining their grandchildren, and regularly returned to their home in Delaware.
Biden campaigned heavily for Democrats in the 2010 midterm elections, maintaining an attitude of optimism in the face of predictions of large-scale losses for the party. Following big Republican gains in the elections and the departure of White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, Biden's past relationships with Republicans in Congress became more important. He led the successful administration effort to gain Senate approval for the New START treaty. In December 2010, Biden's advocacy for a middle ground, followed by his negotiations with Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, were instrumental in producing the administration's compromise tax package that included a temporary extension of the Bush tax cuts. Biden then took the lead in trying to sell the agreement to a reluctant Democratic caucus in Congress. The package passed as the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010.
In March 2011, Obama delegated Biden to lead negotiations with Congress to resolve federal spending levels for the rest of the year and avoid a government shutdown. By May 2011, a "Biden panel" with six congressional members was trying to reach a bipartisan deal on raising the U.S. debt ceiling as part of an overall deficit reduction plan. The U.S. debt ceiling crisis developed over the next few months, but Biden's relationship with McConnell again proved key in breaking a deadlock and bringing about a deal to resolve it, in the form of the Budget Control Act of 2011, signed on August 2, 2011, the same day an unprecedented U.S. default had loomed. Biden had spent the most time of anyone in the administration bargaining with Congress on the debt question, and one Republican staffer said, "Biden's the only guy with real negotiating authority, and [McConnell] knows that his word is good. He was a key to the deal."
Some reports suggest that Biden opposed proceeding with the May 2011 U.S. mission to kill Osama bin Laden, lest failure adversely affect Obama's reelection prospects. He took the lead in notifying Congressional leaders of the successful outcome.
Reelection
In October 2010, Biden said Obama had asked him to remain as his running mate for the 2012 presidential election, but with Obama's popularity on the decline, White House Chief of Staff William M. Daley conducted some secret polling and focus group research in late 2011 on the idea of replacing Biden on the ticket with Hillary Clinton. The notion was dropped when the results showed no appreciable improvement for Obama, and White House officials later said Obama had never entertained the idea.
Biden's May 2012 statement that he was "absolutely comfortable" with same-sex marriage gained considerable public attention in comparison to Obama's position, which had been described as "evolving". Biden made his statement without administration consent, and Obama and his aides were quite irked, since Obama had planned to shift position several months later, in the build-up to the party convention, and since Biden had previously counseled the president to avoid the issue lest key Catholic voters be offended. Gay rights advocates seized upon Biden's statement, and within days, Obama announced that he too supported same-sex marriage, an action in part forced by Biden's remarks. Biden apologized to Obama in private for having spoken out, while Obama acknowledged publicly it had been done from the heart. The incident showed that Biden still struggled at times with message discipline, as Time wrote, "Everyone knows Biden's greatest strength is also his greatest weakness." Relations were also strained between the vice presidential and presidential campaigns when Biden appeared to use his position to bolster fundraising contacts for a possible run for president in 2016, and he ended up being excluded from Obama campaign strategy meetings.
The Obama campaign nevertheless valued Biden as a retail-level politician who could connect with disaffected blue-collar workers and rural residents, and he had a heavy schedule of appearances in swing states as the reelection campaign began in earnest in spring 2012. An August 2012 remark before a mixed-race audience that Republican proposals to relax Wall Street regulations would "put y'all back in chains" led to a similar analysis of Biden's face-to-face campaigning abilities versus his tendency to go off track. The Los Angeles Times wrote, "Most candidates give the same stump speech over and over, putting reporters if not the audience to sleep. But during any Biden speech, there might be a dozen moments to make press handlers cringe, and prompt reporters to turn to each other with amusement and confusion." Time magazine wrote that Biden often went too far and "Along with the familiar Washington mix of neediness and overconfidence, Biden's brain is wired for more than the usual amount of goofiness."
Biden was nominated for a second term as vice president at the 2012 Democratic National Convention in September. Debating his Republican counterpart, Representative Paul Ryan, in the vice-presidential debate on October 11 he made a spirited and emotional defense of the Obama administration's record and energetically attacked the Republican ticket. On November 6, Obama and Biden won reelection over Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan with 332 of 538 Electoral College votes and 51% of the popular vote.
In December 2012, Obama named Biden to head the Gun Violence Task Force, created to address the causes of gun violence in the United States in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Later that month, during the final days before the United States fell off the "fiscal cliff", Biden's relationship with McConnell again proved important as the two negotiated a deal that led to the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 being passed at the start of 2013. It made many of the Bush tax cuts permanent but raised rates on upper income levels.
Second term, 2013–2017
Biden was inaugurated to a second term on January 20, 2013, at a small ceremony at Number One Observatory Circle, his official residence, with Justice Sonia Sotomayor presiding (a public ceremony took place on January 21).
Biden played little part in discussions that led to the October 2013 passage of the Continuing Appropriations Act, 2014, which resolved the federal government shutdown of 2013 and the debt-ceiling crisis of 2013. This was because Senate majority leader Harry Reid and other Democratic leaders cut him out of any direct talks with Congress, feeling Biden had given too much away during previous negotiations.
Biden's Violence Against Women Act was reauthorized again in 2013. The act led to related developments, such as the White House Council on Women and Girls, begun in the first term, as well as the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault, begun in January 2014 with Biden and Valerie Jarrett as co-chairs. Biden discussed federal guidelines on sexual assault on university campuses while giving a speech at the University of New Hampshire. He said, "No means no, if you're drunk or you're sober. No means no if you're in bed, in a dorm or on the street. No means no even if you said yes at first and you changed your mind. No means no."
Biden favored arming Syria's rebel fighters. As Iraq fell apart during 2014, renewed attention was paid to the Biden-Gelb Iraqi federalization plan of 2006, with some observers suggesting Biden had been right all along. Biden himself said the U.S. would follow ISIL "to the gates of hell". Biden had close relationships with several Latin American leaders and was assigned a focus on the region during the administration; he visited the region 16 times during his vice presidency, the most of any president or vice president.
In 2015, Speaker of the House John Boehner and Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell invited Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress without notifying the Obama administration. This defiance of protocol led Biden and more than 50 congressional Democrats to skip Netanyahu's speech. In August 2016, Biden visited Serbia, where he met with Serbian president Aleksandar Vučić and expressed his condolences for civilian victims of the bombing campaign during the Kosovo War. In Kosovo, he attended a ceremony renaming a highway after his son Beau, in honor of Beau's service to Kosovo in training its judges and prosecutors.
Biden never cast a tie-breaking vote in the Senate, making him the longest-serving vice president with this distinction.
Role in the 2016 presidential campaign
During his second term, Biden was often said to be preparing for a possible bid for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination. With his family, many friends, and donors encouraging him in mid-2015 to enter the race, and with Hillary Clinton's favorability ratings in decline at that time, Biden was reported to again be seriously considering the prospect and a "Draft Biden 2016" PAC was established.
, Biden was still uncertain about running. He felt his son's recent death had largely drained his emotional energy, and said, "nobody has a right... to seek that office unless they're willing to give it 110% of who they are." On October 21, speaking from a podium in the Rose Garden with his wife and Obama by his side, Biden announced his decision not to run for president in 2016. In January 2016, Biden affirmed that it was the right decision, but admitted to regretting not running for president "every day".
After Obama endorsed Hillary Clinton on June 9, 2016, Biden endorsed her later that day. Throughout the 2016 election, Biden strongly criticized Clinton's opponent, Donald Trump, in often colorful terms.
Subsequent activities (2017–2019)
After leaving the vice presidency, Biden became a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, while continuing to lead efforts to find treatments for cancer. In 2017 he wrote a memoir, Promise Me, Dad, and went on a book tour. Biden earned $15.6million in 2017–2018. In 2018, he gave a eulogy for Senator John McCain, praising McCain's embrace of American ideals and bipartisan friendships.
Biden remained in the public eye, endorsing candidates while continuing to comment on politics, climate change, and the presidency of Donald Trump. He also continued to speak out in favor of LGBT rights, continuing advocacy on an issue he had become more closely associated with during his vice presidency. In 2019, Biden criticized Brunei for its intention to implement Islamic laws that would allow death by stoning for adultery and homosexuality, calling it "appalling and immoral" and saying, "There is no excuse—not culture, not tradition—for this kind of hate and inhumanity." By 2019, Biden and his wife reported that their assets had increased to between $2.2 million and $8 million from speaking engagements and a contract to write a set of books.
2020 presidential campaign
Speculation and announcement
Between 2016 and 2019, media outlets often mentioned Biden as a likely candidate for president in 2020. When asked if he would run, he gave varied and ambivalent answers, saying "never say never". At one point he suggested he did not see a scenario where he would run again, but a few days later, he said, "I'll run if I can walk." A political action committee known as Time for Biden was formed in January 2018, seeking Biden's entry into the race. He finally launched his campaign on April 25, 2019, saying he was prompted to run, among other reasons, by his "sense of duty."
Campaign
In September 2019, it was reported that Trump had pressured Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate alleged wrongdoing by Biden and his son Hunter Biden. Despite the allegations, no evidence was produced of any wrongdoing by the Bidens. The media widely interpreted this pressure to investigate the Bidens as trying to hurt Biden's chances of winning the presidency, resulting in a political scandal and Trump's impeachment by the House of Representatives.
Beginning in 2019, Trump and his allies falsely accused Biden of getting the Ukrainian prosecutor general Viktor Shokin fired because he was supposedly pursuing an investigation into Burisma Holdings, which employed Hunter Biden. Biden was accused of withholding $1billion in aid from Ukraine in this effort. In 2015, Biden pressured the Ukrainian parliament to remove Shokin because the United States, the European Union and other international organizations considered Shokin corrupt and ineffective, and in particular because Shokin was not assertively investigating Burisma. The withholding of the $1billion in aid was part of this official policy. The Senate Homeland Security Committee and Senate Finance Committee, led by Republicans, investigated allegations of wrongdoing by the Bidens in Ukraine, ultimately releasing a report in September 2020 that detailed no evidence of wrongdoing by Joe Biden, and concluded that it was "not clear" whether Hunter Biden's role in Burisma "affected U.S. policy toward Ukraine".
In March 2019 and April 2019, Biden was accused by eight women of previous instances of inappropriate physical contact, such as embracing, touching or kissing. Biden had previously described himself as a "tactile politician" and admitted this behavior has caused trouble for him. In April 2019, Biden pledged to be more "respectful of people's personal space".
Throughout 2019, Biden stayed generally ahead of other Democrats in national polls. Despite this, he finished fourth in the Iowa caucuses, and eight days later, fifth in the New Hampshire primary. He performed better in the Nevada caucuses, reaching the 15% required for delegates, but still was behind Bernie Sanders by 21.6 percentage points. Making strong appeals to Black voters on the campaign trail and in the South Carolina debate, Biden won the South Carolina primary by more than 28 points. After the withdrawals and subsequent endorsements of candidates Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar, he made large gains in the March3 Super Tuesday primary elections. Biden won 18 of the next 26 contests, including Alabama, Arkansas, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia, putting him in the lead overall. Elizabeth Warren and Mike Bloomberg soon dropped out, and Biden expanded his lead with victories over Sanders in four states (Idaho, Michigan, Mississippi, and Missouri) on March 10.
In late March 2020, Tara Reade, one of the eight women who in 2019 had accused Biden of inappropriate physical contact, accused Biden of having sexually assaulted her in 1993. There were inconsistencies between Reade's 2019 and 2020 allegations. Biden and his campaign denied the sexual assault allegation.
When Sanders suspended his campaign on April 8, 2020, Biden became the Democratic Party's presumptive nominee for president. On April 13, Sanders endorsed Biden in a live-streamed discussion from their homes. Former President Barack Obama endorsed Biden the next day. In March 2020, Biden committed to choosing a woman as his running mate. In June, Biden met the 1,991-delegate threshold needed to secure the party's presidential nomination. On August 11, he announced U.S. Senator Kamala Harris of California as his running mate, making her the first African American and first South Asian American vice-presidential nominee on a major-party ticket.
On August 18, 2020, Biden was officially nominated at the 2020 Democratic National Convention as the Democratic Party nominee for president in the 2020 election.
Presidential transition
Biden was elected the 46th president of the United States in November 2020. He defeated the incumbent, Donald Trump, becoming the first candidate to defeat a sitting president since Bill Clinton defeated George H.W. Bush in 1992. Trump refused to concede, insisting the election had been "stolen" from him through "voter fraud", challenging the results in court and promoting numerous conspiracy theories about the voting and vote-counting processes, in an attempt to overturn the election results. Biden's transition was delayed by several weeks as the White House ordered federal agencies not to cooperate. On November23, General Services Administrator Emily W. Murphy formally recognized Biden as the apparent winner of the 2020 election and authorized the start of a transition process to the Biden administration.
On January 6, 2021, during Congress's electoral vote count, Trump told supporters gathered in front of the White House to march to the Capitol, saying, "We will never give up. We will never concede. It doesn't happen. You don't concede when there's theft involved." Soon after, they attacked the Capitol. During the insurrection at the Capitol, Biden addressed the nation, calling the events "an unprecedented assault unlike anything we've seen in modern times." He specifically called on Trump to "go on national television now to fulfill his oath and defend the Constitution and demand an end to this siege", adding, "it must end now." After the Capitol was cleared, Congress resumed its joint session and officially certified the election results with Pence declaring Biden and Harris the winners.
Presidency (2021–present)
Inauguration
Biden was inaugurated as the 46th president of the United States on January 20, 2021. At 78, he is the oldest person to have assumed the office. He is the second Catholic president (after John F. Kennedy) and the first president whose home state is Delaware. He is the second non-incumbent vice president (after Richard Nixon in 1968) to be elected president. He is also the first president from the Silent Generation.
Biden's inauguration was "a muted affair unlike any previous inauguration" due to COVID-19 precautions as well as massively increased security measures because of a threat of widespread civil unrest. Biden took the oath of office on the Capitol's west steps and gave an inaugural address, but there were no spectators on the Mall and no in-person parades or inaugural balls. Trump did not attend, becoming the first outgoing president since 1869 to not attend his successor's inauguration.
First 100 days
In his first two days as president, Biden signed 17 executive orders, more than most recent presidents did in their first 100 days. By his third day, orders had included rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement, ending the state of national emergency at the border with Mexico, directing the government to rejoin the World Health Organization, face mask requirements on federal property, measures to combat hunger in the United States, and revoking permits for the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. In his first two weeks in office, Biden signed more executive orders than any other president since Franklin D. Roosevelt had in their first month in office.
On February 4, 2021, the Biden administration announced that the United States was ending its support for the Saudi-led bombing campaign in Yemen. In his first visit to the State Department as president, Biden said "this war has to end" and that the conflict had created a "humanitarian and strategic catastrophe." On February 25, the Biden administration "struck a site in Syria used by two Iranian-backed militia groups in response to rocket attacks on American forces." This marked the first known action by the military under Biden.
On March 11, the first anniversary of COVID-19 being declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization, Biden signed into law the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, a $1.9 trillion economic stimulus relief package he proposed and lobbied for that aimed to speed up the United States' recovery from the economic and health effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing recession. The package included direct payments to most Americans, an extension of increased unemployment benefits, funds for vaccine distribution and school reopenings, support for small businesses and state and local governments, and expansions of health insurance subsidies and the child tax credit. Biden's initial proposal included an increase of the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour, but after Senate parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough determined that including the increase in a budget reconciliation bill would violate Senate rules, Democrats declined to pursue overruling her and removed the increase from the package.
Also in March, amid a rise in migrants entering the U.S. from Mexico, Biden told migrants, "Don't come over." He said that the U.S. was arranging a plan for migrants to "apply for asylum in place", without leaving their original locations. In the meantime, migrant adults "are being sent back", Biden said, in reference to the continuation of the Trump administration's Title 42 policy for quick deportations. Biden earlier announced that his administration would not deport unaccompanied migrant children; the rise in arrivals of such children exceeded the capacity of facilities meant to shelter them (before they were sent to sponsors), leading the Biden administration in March to direct the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help manage these children.
On April 14, Biden announced that the United States would delay the withdrawal of all troops from the war in Afghanistan until September 11, signalling an end to the country's direct military involvement in Afghanistan after nearly 20 years. In February 2020, the Trump administration had made a deal with the Taliban to completely withdraw U.S. forces by May 1, 2021. Biden's decision met with a wide range of reactions, from support and relief to trepidation at the possible collapse of the Afghan government without American support. On April 22–23, Biden held an international climate summit at which he announced that the U.S. would cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 50%–52% by 2030 compared to 2005 levels. Other countries also increased their pledges. If the pledges made at the summit are met, they will cut global greenhouse gas emissions by 2.6–3.7 Gte by 2030. On April 28, the eve of his 100th day in office, Biden delivered his first address to a joint session of Congress, in which he highlighted the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines and addressed withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, the murder of George Floyd, and the U.S. Capitol attack while urging Congress to pass comprehensive immigration, gun, and health care reform.
Rest of 2021
In May 2021, during a flareup in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, Biden expressed his support for Israel, saying "my party still supports Israel" amid disagreement from some Democrats. In June 2021, Biden took his first trip abroad as president. In eight days he visited Belgium, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. He attended a G7 summit, a NATO summit, and an EU summit, and held one-on-one talks with Russian president Vladimir Putin.
On June 17, Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act, which officially declared Juneteenth a federal holiday. Juneteenth is the first new federal holiday since Martin Luther King Jr. Day was declared a holiday in 1986. In July 2021, amid a slowing of the COVID-19 vaccination rate in the country and the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant, Biden said that the country has "a pandemic for those who haven't gotten the vaccination" and that it was therefore "gigantically important" for Americans to be vaccinated, touting the vaccines' effectiveness against hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19. He also criticized the prevalence of COVID-19 misinformation on social media, saying it was "killing people". In September 2021, Biden announced AUKUS, a security pact between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, to ensure "peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific over the long term"; the deal included nuclear-powered submarines built for Australia's use.
By the end of 2021, 40 of Biden's appointed judges to the federal judiciary had been confirmed, more than any president in their first year in office since Ronald Reagan. Biden has prioritized diversity in his judicial appointments more than any president in U.S. history, with the majority of appointments being women and people of color. Most of his appointments have been in blue states, making a limited impact since the courts in these states already traditionally lean liberal.
In the first eight months of his presidency, Biden's approval rating, according to Morning Consult polling, remained above 50%. In August, it began to decline and lowered into the low forties by December. The decline in his approval is attributed to the Afghanistan withdrawal, increasing hospitalizations from the Delta variant, high inflation and gas prices, disarray within the Democratic Party, and a general decline in popularity customary in politics.
Withdrawal from Afghanistan
American forces began withdrawing from Afghanistan in 2020, under the provisions of a February 2020 US-Taliban agreement that set a May 1, 2021, deadline. By April 2021, the State Department was urging American civilians in Afghanistan to leave as soon as possible. The Taliban began an offensive on May 1. As late as July, American intelligence assessments estimated Kabul would fall to the Taliban months or weeks after the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan. By early July, most American troops in Afghanistan had withdrawn. Biden addressed the withdrawal in July, saying, "The likelihood there's going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely."
On August 15, the Afghan government collapsed under the Taliban offensive, and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country. Biden reacted by ordering 6,000 American troops to assist in the evacuation of American personnel and Afghan allies. He was widely criticized for the manner of the withdrawal, with allegations of poor planning for the evacuation of Americans and Afghan allies, and for his silence and absence during the days before the collapse of the Afghan government.
On August 16, Biden addressed the "messy" situation, taking responsibility for it, and admitting that the situation "unfolded more quickly than we had anticipated". He defended his decision to withdraw, saying that Americans should not be "dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves," and blamed his predecessor Donald Trump, the Afghan president, and Afghan security forces for the speedy collapse.
On August 22, Biden said that his administration knew that ISIS-K was a "likely source" of threat. On August 26, a suicide bombing at the Kabul airport killed 13 U.S. service members and 169 Afghans. Biden declared to the attackers that the United States "will hunt you down and make you pay". On August 27, an American drone strike killed two ISIS-K targets, who were "planners and facilitators", according to a U.S. Army general. On August 29, another American drone strike killed 10 civilians, including seven children; the Defense Department initially claimed the strike was conducted on an Islamic State suicide bomber threatening Kabul Airport, but admitted the mistake on September 17 and apologized.
The U.S. military left Afghanistan on August 30, with Biden saying that the evacuation effort was an "extraordinary success", by extracting over 120,000 Americans, Afghans and other allies. He acknowledged that between "100 to 200" Americans who wanted to leave were left in Afghanistan, despite his August 18 pledge to stay in Afghanistan until all Americans who wanted to leave had left. The Biden administration, joining governments of almost 100 countries, said that the Taliban had given "assurances" that anyone "with travel authorization from [these] countries" would continue to be allowed to leave Afghanistan.
Economy
Biden entered office nine months into a recovery from the COVID-19 recession and his first year in office was characterized by robust growth in real GDP, employment, wages and stock market returns, amid significantly elevated inflation. Real GDP grew 5.7%, the fastest rate in 37 years. Amid record job creation, the unemployment rate fell at the fastest pace on record during the year. By the end of 2021, inflation reached a nearly 40-year high of 7.1%, which was partially offset by the highest wage and salary growth in at least 20 years. Income growth was particularly strong at the low end of the pay scale.
Infrastructure and climate
As part of Biden's Build Back Better agenda, in late March 2021, he proposed the American Jobs Plan, a $2 trillion package addressing issues including transport infrastructure, utilities infrastructure, broadband infrastructure, housing, schools, manufacturing, research and workforce development. After months of negotiations among Biden and lawmakers, in August 2021 the Senate passed a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill called the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, while the House, also in a bipartisan manner, approved that bill in early November 2021, covering infrastructure related to transport, utilities, and broadband. Biden signed the bill into law in mid-November 2021.
As COP26, scheduled for October 31 to November 12, 2021, approached, Biden increased his efforts to address climate change domestically and internationally. He promoted an agreement that the U.S. and the European Union cut methane emissions by a third by 2030 and tried to add dozens of other countries to the effort. He tried to convince China and Australia to do more. He convened an online Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate Change to press other countries to strengthen their climate policy. Biden pledged to double climate funding to developing countries by 2024. Also at COP26, the U.S. and China reached a deal on greenhouse gas emission reduction. The two countries are responsible for 40% of global emissions.
2022
In early 2022, Biden made efforts to change his public image after entering the year with low approval ratings, but they continued to fall, dipping to approximately 40% in aggregated polls by February.
In January, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, a moderate liberal nominated by Bill Clinton, announced he will be retiring from the Supreme Court. Breyer's retirement is expected to give Biden his first opportunity to nominate a Supreme Court justice. During his 2020 campaign, Biden vowed to nominate a Black woman to the court if a vacancy occurred, a promise he reiterated after the announcement of Breyer's retirement. In February, Biden nominated federal judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court.
Political positions
Biden is considered a moderate Democrat and a centrist, though more recently he has been seen as shifting to the left. He has a lifetime liberal 72% score from the Americans for Democratic Action through 2004, while the American Conservative Union gave him a lifetime conservative rating of 13% through 2008.
Biden supported the fiscal stimulus in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009; the Obama administration's proposed increase in infrastructure spending; subsidies for mass transit, including Amtrak, bus, and subway; and the reduced military spending in the Obama administration's fiscal year 2014 budget. He has proposed partially reversing the corporate tax cuts of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, saying that doing so would not hurt businesses' ability to hire. He voted for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Biden is a staunch supporter of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). He has promoted a plan to expand and build upon it, paid for by revenue gained from reversing some Trump administration tax cuts. Biden's plan aims to expand health insurance coverage to 97% of Americans, including by creating a public health insurance option.
Biden has supported same-sex marriage since 2012 and also supports Roe v. Wade and repealing the Hyde Amendment. He opposes drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and supports governmental funding to find new energy sources. As a senator, he forged deep relationships with police groups and was a chief proponent of a Police Officer's Bill of Rights measure that police unions supported but police chiefs opposed. As vice president, he served as a White House liaison to police.
Biden believes action must be taken on global warming. As a senator, he co-sponsored the Sense of the Senate resolution calling on the United States to take part in the United Nations climate negotiations and the Boxer–Sanders Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act, the most stringent climate bill in the United States Senate. He wants to achieve a carbon-free power sector in the U.S. by 2035 and stop emissions completely by 2050. His program includes reentering the Paris Agreement, nature conservation, and green building. Biden wants to pressure China and other countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions by carbon tariffs if necessary.
Biden has said the U.S. needs to "get tough" on China and build "a united front of U.S. allies and partners to confront China's abusive behaviors and human rights violations". He has called China the "most serious competitor" that poses challenges to the United States' "prosperity, security, and democratic values". Biden has voiced concerns about China's "coercive and unfair" economic practices and human rights abuses in the Xinjiang region to the Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping. He also pledged to sanction and commercially restrict Chinese government officials and entities who carry out repression.
Biden has said he is against regime change, but for providing non-military support to opposition movements. He opposed direct U.S. intervention in Libya, voted against U.S. participation in the Gulf War, voted in favor of the Iraq War, and supports a two-state solution in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Biden has pledged to end U.S. support for the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen and to reevaluate the United States' relationship with Saudi Arabia. He has called North Korea a "paper tiger". As vice president, Biden supported Obama's Cuban thaw. He has said that, as president, he would restore U.S. membership in key United Nations bodies, such as the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the World Health Organization, and possibly the Human Rights Council. Biden supports extending the New START arms control treaty with Russia to limit the number of nuclear weapons deployed by both sides. In 2021, Biden recognized the Armenian genocide, becoming the first U.S. president to do so.
Reputation
Biden was consistently ranked one of the least wealthy members of the Senate, which he attributed to his having been elected young. Feeling that less-wealthy public officials may be tempted to accept contributions in exchange for political favors, he proposed campaign finance reform measures during his first term. , Biden's net worth was $27,012. , the Bidens were worth $9 million, largely due to sales of Biden's books and speaking fees after his vice presidency.
The political writer Howard Fineman has written, "Biden is not an academic, he's not a theoretical thinker, he's a great street pol. He comes from a long line of working people in Scranton—auto salesmen, car dealers, people who know how to make a sale. He has that great Irish gift." Political columnist David S. Broder wrote that Biden has grown over time: "He responds to real people—that's been consistent throughout. And his ability to understand himself and deal with other politicians has gotten much much better." Journalist James Traub has written that "Biden is the kind of fundamentally happy person who can be as generous toward others as he is to himself."
In recent years, especially after the 2015 death of his elder son Beau, Biden has been noted for his empathetic nature and ability to communicate about grief. In 2020, CNN wrote that his presidential campaign aimed to make him "healer-in-chief", while The New York Times described his extensive history of being called upon to give eulogies.
Journalist and TV anchor Wolf Blitzer has described Biden as loquacious. He often deviates from prepared remarks and sometimes "puts his foot in his mouth." The New York Times wrote that Biden's "weak filters make him capable of blurting out pretty much anything." In 2018, Biden called himself "a gaffe machine". Some of his gaffes have been characterized as racially insensitive.
Electoral history
Publications
Books
Also paperback edition, Random House 2008, .
Book contributions
Biden, Joseph R., Jr. (2009). "Foreword." In: Choosing Equality: Essays and Narratives on the Desegregation Experience. Edited by Robert L. Hayman, Jr. and Leland Ware. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009. .
Pamphlets
Biden, Joseph R., Jr., and Les Aspin, William Louis Dickinson, Brent Scowcroft (1982). Arms Sales: A Useful Foreign Policy Tool? American Enterprise Institute. AEI Forum 56. Moderated by John Charles Daly.
Articles
Biden, Joseph R., Jr., and Miga Purev-Ochir (Spring 2015). "U.S.-Russian Relations in a Post-Cold War World: A Strategic Vision: Mapping a Future for U.S.-Russian Relations." Harvard International Review, vol. 36, no. 3, pp. 72–76. .
Notes
References
Citations
Works cited
See also
List of honors and awards received by Joe Biden
List of things named after Joe Biden
External links
Official
President Joe Biden official website
Presidential campaign website
Obama White House biography (archived)
Other
Joe Biden at On the Issues
Joe Biden at PolitiFact
1942 births
Living people
20th-century American lawyers
20th-century American politicians
20th-century Roman Catholics
21st-century American memoirists
21st-century presidents of the United States
21st-century vice presidents of the United States
21st-century Roman Catholics
2008 United States vice-presidential candidates
2012 United States vice-presidential candidates
American people of English descent
American people of French descent
American people of Irish descent
Biden family
Candidates in the 1988 United States presidential election
Candidates in the 2008 United States presidential election
Candidates in the 2020 United States presidential election
Catholics from Delaware
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Chairmen of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
County council members and commissioners in Delaware
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Delaware lawyers
Democratic Party (United States) presidential nominees
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Politicians from Scranton, Pennsylvania
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Writers from Scranton, Pennsylvania | true | [
"Rebekah (2001) is the second novel in the Women of Genesis series by Orson Scott Card.\n\nPlot introduction\nRebekah follows the story of Isaac through the eyes and perspective of Rebekah. The story-line does not deviate from the story told in Genesis, but Card does add details and characters of his own invention.\n\nAuthor's comments on the book \nIn his introduction to the book, Scott Card says that much of what he includes in the novel is speculation and adds that, \"The task in this novel was to show how good people can sometimes do bad things to those they love most.\" He goes on to say, \"Isaac was headed for a disastrously wrong decision; Rebekah chose an equally wrong method of stopping him...but in the end, the result was a good one because good people made the best of it despite all the mistakes.\"\n\nSee also\n\nList of works by Orson Scott Card\nOrson Scott Card\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n About the novel Rebekah from Card's website\n\n2001 American novels\nNovels by Orson Scott Card\nNovels set in ancient Israel\nSequel novels\nNovels based on the Bible\nCultural depictions of Isaac\nForge Books books",
"Matthew 6:33 is the thirty-third verse of the sixth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament and is part of the Sermon on the Mount. This verse continues the discussion of worry about material provisions.\n\nContent\nIn the Authorized King James Version of the Bible the text reads:\nBut seek ye first the kingdom of God, \nand his righteousness; and all these \nthings shall be added unto you.\n\nThe World English Bible translates the passage as:\nBut seek first God’s Kingdom, and \nhis righteousness; and all these \nthings will be given to you as well.\n\nThe Novum Testamentum Graece text is:\nζητεῖτε δὲ πρῶτον τὴν βασιλείαν\nκαὶ τὴν δικαιοσύνην αὐτοῦ,\nκαὶ ταῦτα πάντα προστεθήσεται ὑμῖν.\n\nAnalysis\n\nJesus has just told his followers not to worry about material things such as food or clothing, as God will provide the needs of his followers. Earlier in the chapter Jesus presented a discussion on how one must not pursue wealth and material things before God. This verse ties the two notions together. If one places the pursuit of the Kingdom of God first, then material needs will follow without need for worry or anxiety. The present imperative verb seek makes clear that pursuing the eschatological kingdom is not a passive act, but one that must be pursued with rigour. Hill notes that the word God is left out of many of the better early manuscripts of the Gospel, and it thus might be a later addition. Kingdom of God is a somewhat unusual phrase, with the author of Matthew generally preferring Kingdom of Heaven. Even without the word it is quite clear that this is a reference to the Kingdom of God. The parallel to this verse at Luke 12:31 does not include “first,” and does not mention righteousness, but as France notes, the author of Matthew shows a special interest in righteousness throughout his gospel.\n\nCommentary from the Church Fathers\nPseudo-Chrysostom: Thus then let him who believes himself to be under the rule of God’s counsel, commit his provision into God’s hand; but let him meditate of good and evil, which if he do not, he will neither shun the evil, nor lay hold of the good. Therefore it is added, Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness. The kingdom of God is the reward of good works; His righteousness is the way of piety by which we go to that kingdom. If then you consider how great is the glory of the Saints, you will either through fear of punishment depart from evil, or through desire of glory hasten to good. And if you consider what is the righteousness of God, what He loves, and what He hates, the righteousness itself will show you His ways, as it attends on those that love it. And the account we shall have to render is not whether we have been poor or rich, but whether we have done well or ill, which is in our own power.\n\nGlossa Ordinaria: Or, He says his righteousness, as though He were to say, ‘Ye are made righteous through Him, and not through yourselves.’\n\nPseudo-Chrysostom: The earth for man’s sin is accursed that it should not put forth fruit, according to that in Genesis, Cursed is the ground in thy works; but when we do well, then it is blessed. (Gen. 3:17.) Seek righteousness therefore, and thou shalt not lack food. Wherefore it follows, and all these things shall be added unto you.\n\nChrysostom: And He said not, Shall be given, but, Shall be added, that you may learn that the things that are now, are nought to the greatness of the things that shall be.\n\nAugustine: But when we read that the Apostle suffered hunger and thirst, let us not think that God’s promises failed him; for these things are rather aids. That Physician to whom we have entirely entrusted ourselves, knows when He will give and when He will withhold, as He judges most for our advantage. So that should these things ever be lacking to us, (as God to exercise us often permits,) it will not weaken our fixed purpose, but rather confirm it when wavering.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nMatthew 6:33 in various Bible versions at BibleHub.\n\n06:33"
] |
[
"Joe Biden",
"Characteristics as senator",
"What are Joe's characteristics as senator?",
"characterized Biden as \"self-confident\" and \"compulsively ambitious\".",
"Was Joe likable as senator?",
"\"Biden is the kind of fundamentally happy person who can be as generous toward others as he is to himself.\"",
"Does Joe have a lot of friends in politics?",
"I don't know.",
"When did he become senator?",
"1969,",
"What State was he the Senator for?",
"I don't know.",
"Did he get re-elected as senator?",
"Biden was re-elected",
"Does his peers have good things to say about him?",
"he's a great street pol."
] | C_ae5bfb2601a2463ebfedd2b995b83bf8_1 | When did he get re-elected? | 8 | When did Joe Biden get re-elected? | Joe Biden | On August 27, 1966, while Biden was still a law student, he married Neilia Hunter. They overcame her parents' initial reluctance for her to wed a Roman Catholic, and the ceremony was held in a Catholic church in Skaneateles. They had three children, Joseph R. "Beau" Biden III in 1969, Robert Hunter in 1970, and Naomi Christina in 1971. During 1968, Biden clerked for six months at a Wilmington law firm headed by prominent local Republican William Prickett and, as he later said, "thought of myself as a Republican". He disliked the conservative racial politics of incumbent Democratic Governor of Delaware Charles L. Terry and supported a more liberal Republican, Russell W. Peterson, who defeated Terry in 1968. The local Republicans tried to recruit him, but he resisted due to his distaste for Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon, and registered as an Independent instead. In 1969, Biden resumed practicing law in Wilmington, first as a public defender and then at a firm headed by Sid Balick, a locally active Democrat. Balick named him to the Democratic Forum, a group trying to reform and revitalize the state party, and Biden switched his registration to Democrat. He also started his own firm, Biden and Walsh. Corporate law, however, did not appeal to him and criminal law did not pay well. He supplemented his income by managing properties. Later in 1969, Biden ran as a Democrat for the New Castle County Council on a liberal platform that included support for public housing in the suburban area. He won by a solid, two-thousand vote margin in the usually Republican district and in a bad year for Democrats in the state. Even before taking his seat, he was already talking about running for the U.S. Senate in a couple of years. He served on the County Council from 1970 to 1972 while continuing his private law practice. Among issues he addressed on the council was his opposition to large highway projects that might disrupt Wilmington neighborhoods, including those related to Interstate 95. During his first years in the Senate, Biden focused on legislation regarding consumer-protection and environmental issues and called for greater accountability on the part of government. In mid-1974, freshman Senator Biden was named one of the 200 Faces for the Future by Time magazine, in a profile that mentioned what had happened to his family and characterized Biden as "self-confident" and "compulsively ambitious". Biden became ranking minority member of the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary in 1981. In 1984, he was Democratic floor manager for the successful passage of the Comprehensive Crime Control Act; civil libertarians praised him for modifying some of the Act's provisions, and it was his most important legislative accomplishment at that point in time. He first considered running for president in that year, after he gained notice for giving speeches to party audiences that simultaneously scolded and encouraged Democrats. Regarding foreign policy, during his first decade in the Senate, Biden focused on arms control issues. In response to the refusal of the U.S. Congress to ratify the SALT II Treaty signed in 1979 by Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and President Jimmy Carter, he took the initiative to meet the Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, educated him about American concerns and interests, and secured several changes to address objections of the Foreign Relations Committee. When the Reagan administration wanted to interpret the 1972 SALT I Treaty loosely in order to allow the Strategic Defense Initiative to proceed, Biden argued for strict adherence to the treaty's terms. He clashed again with the Reagan administration in 1986 over economic sanctions against South Africa; he received considerable attention when he excoriated Secretary of State George P. Shultz at a Senate hearing because of the administration's support of that country, which continued to practice the apartheid system. Following his initial election in 1972, Biden was re-elected to six additional terms, in the elections of 1978, 1984, 1990, 1996, 2002, and 2008, usually getting about 60 percent of the vote. He did not face strong opposition; Pete du Pont, then governor, chose not to run against him in 1984. Biden spent 28 years as a junior senator due to the two-year seniority of his Republican colleague William V. Roth Jr. After Roth was defeated for re-election by Tom Carper in 2000, Biden became Delaware's senior senator. He then became the longest-serving senator in Delaware history. In May 1999, Biden set the mark for youngest senator to cast 10,000 votes. With a net worth between $59,000 and $366,000, and almost no outside income or investment income, Biden was consistently ranked as one of the least wealthy members of the Senate. Biden stated that he was listed as the second poorest member in Congress, a distinction that he was not proud of, but attributed to being elected early in his career. Biden realized early in his senatorial career how vulnerable poorer public officials are to offers of financial contributions in exchange for policy support, and he pushed campaign finance reform measures during his first term. During his years as a senator, Biden amassed a reputation for loquaciousness, with his questions and remarks during Senate hearings being especially known for being long-winded. He has been a strong speaker and debater and a frequent and effective guest on the Sunday morning talk shows. In public appearances, he is known to deviate from prepared remarks at will. According to political analyst Mark Halperin, he has shown "a persistent tendency to say silly, offensive, and off-putting things"; The New York Times writes that Biden's "weak filters make him capable of blurting out pretty much anything". Nor is Biden known for modesty; journalist James Traub has written that "Biden's vanity and his regard for his own gifts seem considerable even by the rarefied standards of the U.S. Senate." Political writer Howard Fineman has said that, "Biden is not an academic, he's not a theoretical thinker, he's a great street pol. He comes from a long line of working people in Scranton--auto salesmen, car dealers, people who know how to make a sale. He has that great Irish gift." Political columnist David S. Broder has viewed Biden as having grown since he came to Washington and since his failed 1988 presidential bid: "He responds to real people--that's been consistent throughout. And his ability to understand himself and deal with other politicians has gotten much much better." Traub concludes that "Biden is the kind of fundamentally happy person who can be as generous toward others as he is to himself." CANNOTANSWER | 1978, | Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. ( ; born November 20, 1942) is an American politician who is the 46th and current president of the United States. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 47th vice president from 2009 to 2017 under Barack Obama and represented Delaware in the United States Senate from 1973 to 2009.
Biden was born and raised in Scranton, Pennsylvania, moving with his family to New Castle County, Delaware, in 1953 when he was ten. He studied at the University of Delaware before earning his law degree from Syracuse University in 1968. He was elected to the New Castle County Council in 1970 and became the sixth-youngest senator in U.S. history after he was elected to the United States Senate from Delaware in 1972, at age 29. Biden was the chair or ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for 12 years and was influential in foreign affairs during Obama's presidency. He also chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee from 1987 to 1995, dealing with drug policy, crime prevention, and civil liberties issues; led the effort to pass the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act and the Violence Against Women Act; and oversaw six U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings, including the contentious hearings for Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas. He ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988 and 2008. Biden was reelected to the Senate six times and was the fourth-most senior sitting senator at the time when he became Obama's vice president after they won the 2008 presidential election, defeating John McCain and his running mate Sarah Palin. Obama and Biden were reelected in 2012, defeating Mitt Romney and his running mate Paul Ryan.
During eight years as vice president, Biden leaned on his Senate experience and frequently represented the administration in negotiations with congressional Republicans, including on the Budget Control Act of 2011, which resolved a debt ceiling crisis, and the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, which addressed the impending "fiscal cliff". He also oversaw infrastructure spending in 2009 to counteract the Great Recession. On foreign policy, Biden was a close counselor to the president and took a leading role in designing the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq in 2011. In 2017, Obama awarded Biden the Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction.
Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris defeated incumbent president Donald Trump and vice president Mike Pence in the 2020 presidential election. He is the oldest president and the first to have a female vice president. His early presidential activity centered around proposing, lobbying for, and signing into law the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 to help the United States recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing recession, as well as a series of executive orders. Biden's orders addressed the pandemic and reversed several Trump administration policies, including rejoining the Paris Agreement on climate change and accepting new applications for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients, although a federal judge blocked the latter. He completed the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan by September 2021. During the withdrawal, the Afghan government collapsed and the Taliban seized control. Biden proposed the Build Back Better Plan, aspects of which were incorporated into the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which Biden signed into law in November 2021.
Early life (1942–1965)
Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was born on November 20, 1942, at St. Mary's Hospital in Scranton, Pennsylvania, to Catherine Eugenia "Jean" Biden (née Finnegan) and Joseph Robinette Biden Sr. The oldest child in a Catholic family, he has a sister, Valerie, and two brothers, Francis and James. Jean was of Irish descent, while Joseph Sr. had English, French, and Irish ancestry.
Biden's father had been wealthy, but suffered financial setbacks around the time Biden was born, and for several years the family lived with Biden's maternal grandparents. Scranton fell into economic decline during the 1950s and Biden's father could not find steady work. Beginning in 1953 when Biden was ten, the family lived in an apartment in Claymont, Delaware, before moving to a house in nearby Mayfield. Biden Sr. later became a successful used-car salesman, maintaining the family in a middle-class lifestyle.
At Archmere Academy in Claymont, Biden played baseball and was a standout halfback and wide receiver on the high school football team. Though a poor student, he was class president in his junior and senior years. He graduated in 1961. At the University of Delaware in Newark, Biden briefly played freshman football and, as an unexceptional student, earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1965 with a double major in history and political science and a minor in English.
Biden has a stutter, which has improved since his early twenties. He says he reduced it by reciting poetry before a mirror, but some observers suggested it affected his performance in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential debates.
Marriages, law school, and early career (1966–1973)
On August 27, 1966, Biden married Neilia Hunter (19421972), a student at Syracuse University, after overcoming her parents' reluctance for her to wed a Roman Catholic. Their wedding was held in a Catholic church in Skaneateles, New York. They had three children: Joseph R. "Beau" Biden III (19692015), Robert Hunter Biden (born 1970), and Naomi Christina "Amy" Biden (19711972).
In 1968, Biden earned a Juris Doctor from Syracuse University College of Law, ranked 76th in his class of 85, after failing a course due to an acknowledged "mistake" when he plagiarized a law review article for a paper he wrote in his first year at law school. He was admitted to the Delaware bar in 1969.
Biden had not openly supported or opposed the Vietnam War until he ran for Senate and opposed Nixon's conduct of the war. While studying at the University of Delaware and Syracuse University, Biden obtained five student draft deferments, at a time when most draftees were sent to the Vietnam War. In 1968, based on a physical examination, he was given a conditional medical deferment; in 2008, a spokesperson for Biden said his having had "asthma as a teenager" was the reason for the deferment.
In 1968, Biden clerked at a Wilmington law firm headed by prominent local Republican William Prickett and, he later said, "thought of myself as a Republican". He disliked incumbent Democratic Delaware governor Charles L. Terry's conservative racial politics and supported a more liberal Republican, Russell W. Peterson, who defeated Terry in 1968. Biden was recruited by local Republicans but registered as an Independent because of his distaste for Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon.
In 1969, Biden practiced law first as a public defender and then at a firm headed by a locally active Democrat who named him to the Democratic Forum, a group trying to reform and revitalize the state party; Biden subsequently reregistered as a Democrat. He and another attorney also formed a law firm. Corporate law, however, did not appeal to him, and criminal law did not pay well. He supplemented his income by managing properties.
In 1970, Biden ran for the 4th district seat on the New Castle County Council on a liberal platform that included support for public housing in the suburbs. The seat had been held by Republican Henry R. Folsom, who was running in the 5th District following a reapportionment of council districts. Biden won the general election by defeating Republican Lawrence T. Messick, and took office on January 5, 1971. He served until January 1, 1973, and was succeeded by Democrat Francis R. Swift. During his time on the county council, Biden opposed large highway projects, which he argued might disrupt Wilmington neighborhoods.
1972 U.S. Senate campaign in Delaware
In 1972, Biden defeated Republican incumbent J. Caleb Boggs to become the junior U.S. senator from Delaware. He was the only Democrat willing to challenge Boggs. With minimal campaign funds, he was given no chance of winning. Family members managed and staffed the campaign, which relied on meeting voters face-to-face and hand-distributing position papers, an approach made feasible by Delaware's small size. He received help from the AFL–CIO and Democratic pollster Patrick Caddell. His platform focused on the environment, withdrawal from Vietnam, civil rights, mass transit, equitable taxation, health care, and public dissatisfaction with "politics as usual". A few months before the election, Biden trailed Boggs by almost thirty percentage points, but his energy, attractive young family, and ability to connect with voters' emotions worked to his advantage, and he won with 50.5 percent of the vote. At the time of his election, he was still 29 years old, but reached the constitutionally required age of 30 before he was sworn in as Senator.
Death of wife and daughter
On December 18, 1972, a few weeks after the election, Biden's wife Neilia and one-year-old daughter Naomi were killed in an automobile accident while Christmas shopping in Hockessin, Delaware. Neilia's station wagon was hit by a semi-trailer truck as she pulled out from an intersection. Their sons Beau (aged3) and Hunter (aged2) survived the accident and were taken to the hospital in fair condition, Beau with a broken leg and other wounds and Hunter with a minor skull fracture and other head injuries. Biden considered resigning to care for them, but Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield persuaded him not to.
Years later, Biden said he had heard that the truck driver allegedly drank alcohol before the collision. The driver's family denied that claim, and the police never substantiated it. Biden later apologized to the family. The accident had filled him with anger and religious doubt. He wrote that he "felt God had played a horrible trick" on him, and he had trouble focusing on work.
Second marriage
Biden credits his second wife, teacher Jill Tracy Jacobs, with the renewal of his interest in politics and life; they met in 1975 on a blind date and were married at the United Nations chapel in New York on June 17, 1977. They spent their honeymoon at Lake Balaton in the Hungarian People's Republic, behind the Iron Curtain. They are Roman Catholics and attend Mass at St. Joseph's on the Brandywine in Greenville, Delaware. Their daughter Ashley Biden (born 1981) is a social worker. She is married to physician Howard Krein. Beau Biden became an Army Judge Advocate in Iraq and later Delaware Attorney General; he died of brain cancer in 2015. Hunter Biden is a Washington lobbyist and investment adviser.
Teaching
From 1991 to 2008, as an adjunct professor, Biden co-taught a seminar on constitutional law at Widener University School of Law. The seminar often had a waiting list. Biden sometimes flew back from overseas to teach the class.
U.S. Senate (1973–2009)
Senate activities
In January 1973, secretary of the Senate Francis R. Valeo swore Biden in at the Delaware Division of the Wilmington Medical Center. Present were his sons Beau (whose leg was still in traction from the automobile accident) and Hunter and other family members. At 30, he was the sixth-youngest senator in U.S. history.
To see his sons, Biden traveled by train between his Delaware home and D.C.—74 minutes each way—and maintained this habit throughout his 36 years in the Senate.
During his early years in the Senate, Biden focused on consumer protection and environmental issues and called for greater government accountability. In a 1974 interview, he described himself as liberal on civil rights and liberties, senior citizens' concerns and healthcare but conservative on other issues, including abortion and military conscription.
In his first decade in the Senate, Biden focused on arms control. After Congress failed to ratify the SALT II Treaty signed in 1979 by Soviet general secretary Leonid Brezhnev and President Jimmy Carter, Biden met with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko to communicate American concerns and secured changes that addressed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's objections. When the Reagan administration wanted to interpret the 1972 SALT I treaty loosely to allow development of the Strategic Defense Initiative, Biden argued for strict adherence to the treaty. He received considerable attention when he excoriated Secretary of State George Shultz at a Senate hearing for the Reagan administration's support of South Africa despite its continued policy of apartheid.
Biden became ranking minority member of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1981. In 1984, he was a Democratic floor manager for the successful passage of the Comprehensive Crime Control Act. His supporters praised him for modifying some of the law's worst provisions, and it was his most important legislative accomplishment to that time. In 1994, Biden helped pass the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, also known as the Biden Crime Law, which included a ban on assault weapons, and the Violence Against Women Act, which he has called his most significant legislation. The 1994 crime law was unpopular among progressives and criticized for resulting in mass incarceration; in 2019, Biden called his role in passing the bill a "big mistake", citing its policy on crack cocaine and saying that the bill "trapped an entire generation".
In 1993, Biden voted for a provision that deemed homosexuality incompatible with military life, thereby banning gays from serving in the armed forces. In 1996, he voted for the Defense of Marriage Act, which prohibited the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages, thereby barring individuals in such marriages from equal protection under federal law and allowing states to do the same. In 2015, the act was ruled unconstitutional in Obergefell v. Hodges.
Elected to the Senate in 1972, Biden was reelected in 1978, 1984, 1990, 1996, 2002, and 2008, regularly receiving about 60% of the vote. He was junior senator to William Roth, who was first elected in 1970, until Roth was defeated in 2000. , he was the 18th-longest-serving senator in U.S. history.
Opposition to busing
In the mid-1970s, Biden was one of the Senate's strongest opponents of race-integration busing. His Delaware constituents strongly opposed it, and such opposition nationwide later led his party to mostly abandon school integration policies. In his first Senate campaign, Biden had expressed support for busing to remedy de jure segregation, as in the South, but opposed its use to remedy de facto segregation arising from racial patterns of neighborhood residency, as in Delaware; he opposed a proposed constitutional amendment banning busing entirely.
In May 1974, Biden voted to table a proposal containing anti-busing and anti-desegregation clauses but later voted for a modified version containing a qualification that it was not intended to weaken the judiciary's power to enforce the 5th Amendment and 14th Amendment. In 1975, he supported a proposal that would have prevented the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare from cutting federal funds to districts that refused to integrate; he said busing was a "bankrupt idea [violating] the cardinal rule of common sense" and that his opposition would make it easier for other liberals to follow suit. At the same time he supported initiatives on housing, job opportunities and voting rights. Biden supported a measure forbidding the use of federal funds for transporting students beyond the school closest to them. In 1977, he co-sponsored an amendment closing loopholes in that measure, which President Carter signed into law in 1978.
Brain surgeries
In February 1988, after several episodes of increasingly severe neck pain, Biden was taken by ambulance to Walter Reed Army Medical Center for surgery to correct a leaking intracranial berry aneurysm. While recuperating, he suffered a pulmonary embolism, a serious complication. After a second aneurysm was surgically repaired in May, Biden's recuperation kept him away from the Senate for seven months.
Senate Judiciary Committee
Biden was a longtime member of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary. He chaired it from 1987 to 1995 and was a ranking minority member from 1981 to 1987 and again from 1995 to 1997.
As chair, Biden presided over two highly contentious U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings. When Robert Bork was nominated in 1988, Biden reversed his approvalgiven in an interview the previous yearof a hypothetical Bork nomination. Conservatives were angered, but at the hearings' close Biden was praised for his fairness, humor, and courage. Rejecting the arguments of some Bork opponents, Biden framed his objections to Bork in terms of the conflict between Bork's strong originalism and the view that the U.S. Constitution provides rights to liberty and privacy beyond those explicitly enumerated in its text. Bork's nomination was rejected in the committee by a 9–5 vote and then in the full Senate, 58–42.
During Clarence Thomas's nomination hearings in 1991, Biden's questions on constitutional issues were often convoluted to the point that Thomas sometimes lost track of them, and Thomas later wrote that Biden's questions were akin to "beanballs". After the committee hearing closed, the public learned that Anita Hill, a University of Oklahoma law school professor, had accused Thomas of making unwelcome sexual comments when they had worked together. Biden had known of some of these charges, but initially shared them only with the committee because Hill was then unwilling to testify. The committee hearing was reopened and Hill testified, but Biden did not permit testimony from other witnesses, such as a woman who had made similar charges and experts on harassment, saying he wanted to preserve Thomas's privacy and the hearings' decency. The full Senate confirmed Thomas by a 52–48 vote, with Biden opposed. Liberal legal advocates and women's groups felt strongly that Biden had mishandled the hearings and not done enough to support Hill. Biden later sought out women to serve on the Judiciary Committee and emphasized women's issues in the committee's legislative agenda. In 2019, he told Hill he regretted his treatment of her, but Hill said afterward she remained unsatisfied.
Biden was critical of Independent Counsel Ken Starr during the 1990s Whitewater controversy and Lewinsky scandal investigations, saying "it's going to be a cold day in hell" before another independent counsel would be granted similar powers. He voted to acquit during the impeachment of President Clinton. During the 2000s, Biden sponsored bankruptcy legislation sought by credit card issuers. Clinton vetoed the bill in 2000, but it passed in 2005 as the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act, with Biden one of only 18 Democrats to vote for it, while leading Democrats and consumer rights organizations opposed it. As a senator, Biden strongly supported increased Amtrak funding and rail security.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Biden was a longtime member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He became its ranking minority member in 1997 and chaired it from June 2001 to 2003 and 2007 to 2009. His positions were generally liberal internationalist. He collaborated effectively with Republicans and sometimes went against elements of his own party. During this time he met with at least 150 leaders from 60 countries and international organizations, becoming a well-known Democratic voice on foreign policy.
Biden voted against authorization for the Gulf War in 1991, siding with 45 of the 55 Democratic senators; he said the U.S. was bearing almost all the burden in the anti-Iraq coalition.
Biden became interested in the Yugoslav Wars after hearing about Serbian abuses during the Croatian War of Independence in 1991. Once the Bosnian War broke out, Biden was among the first to call for the "lift and strike" policy of lifting the arms embargo, training Bosnian Muslims and supporting them with NATO air strikes, and investigating war crimes. The George H. W. Bush administration and Clinton administration were both reluctant to implement the policy, fearing Balkan entanglement. In April 1993, Biden spent a week in the Balkans and held a tense three-hour meeting with Serbian leader Slobodan Milošević. Biden said he had told Milošević, "I think you're a damn war criminal and you should be tried as one."
Biden wrote an amendment in 1992 to compel the Bush administration to arm the Bosnian Muslims, but deferred in 1994 to a somewhat softer stance the Clinton administration preferred, before signing on the following year to a stronger measure sponsored by Bob Dole and Joe Lieberman. The engagement led to a successful NATO peacekeeping effort. Biden has called his role in affecting Balkans policy in the mid-1990s his "proudest moment in public life" related to foreign policy.
As chair, Biden contributed to successfully encouraging the Clinton administration to commit the resources and political capital to broker what became the 1998 Good Friday Agreement between the governments of Ireland and the United Kingdom through the Northern Ireland peace process.
On September 3, 1998, the resigning former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter had, according to Barton Gellman, accused the Clinton administration of obstructing weapons inspections in Iraq. Biden joined many other Senate Democrats and "amplified on the Clinton administration's counterattack against former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter." He questioned whether Ritter was trying to "appropriate the power 'to decide when to pull the trigger' of military force against Iraq", and said that the Secretary of State would also have to consider the opinion of allies, the UNSC, and public opinion, before any intervention in Iraq. In a Washington Post op-ed later that month, Biden criticized a unilateral "confrontation-based policy" but praised the idea of asking whether intervention might be necessary at some point, though he said it was "above the pay grade" of one weapons inspector.
In 1999, during the Kosovo War, Biden supported the 1999 NATO bombing of FR Yugoslavia. He and Senator John McCain co-sponsored the McCain-Biden Kosovo Resolution, which called on Clinton to use all necessary force, including ground troops, to confront Milošević over Yugoslav actions toward ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.
Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq
Biden was a strong supporter of the War in Afghanistan, saying, "Whatever it takes, we should do it." As head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he said in 2002 that Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was a threat to national security and there was no other option than to "eliminate" that threat. In October 2002, he voted in favor of the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq, approving the U.S. invasion of Iraq. As chair of the committee, he assembled a series of witnesses to testify in favor of the authorization. They gave testimony grossly misrepresenting the intent, history, and status of Saddam and his secular government, which was an avowed enemy of al-Qaida, and touted Iraq's fictional possession of weapons of mass destruction. Biden eventually became a critic of the war and viewed his vote and role as a "mistake", but did not push for withdrawal. He supported the appropriations for the occupation, but argued that the war should be internationalized, that more soldiers were needed, and that the Bush administration should "level with the American people" about its cost and length.
By late 2006, Biden's stance had shifted considerably. He opposed the troop surge of 2007, saying General David Petraeus was "dead, flat wrong" in believing the surge could work. Biden instead advocated dividing Iraq into a loose federation of three ethnic states. In November 2006, Biden and Leslie H. Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, released a comprehensive strategy to end sectarian violence in Iraq. Rather than continue the existing approach or withdrawing, the plan called for "a third way": federalizing Iraq and giving Kurds, Shiites, and Sunnis "breathing room" in their own regions. In September 2007, a non-binding resolution endorsing the plan passed the Senate, but the idea was unfamiliar, had no political constituency, and failed to gain traction. Iraq's political leadership denounced the resolution as de facto partitioning of the country, and the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad issued a statement distancing itself from it. In May 2008, Biden sharply criticized President George W. Bush's speech to Israel's Knesset in which Bush compared some Democrats to Western leaders who appeased Hitler before World WarII; Biden called the speech "bullshit", "malarkey", and "outrageous". He later apologized for his language.
Presidential campaigns 1988 and 2008
1988 campaign
Biden formally declared his candidacy for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination on June 9, 1987. He was considered a strong candidate because of his moderate image, his speaking ability, his high profile as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee at the upcoming Robert Bork Supreme Court nomination hearings, and his appeal to Baby Boomers; he would have been the second-youngest person elected president, after John F. Kennedy. He raised more in the first quarter of 1987 than any other candidate.
By August his campaign's messaging had become confused due to staff rivalries, and in September, he was accused of plagiarizing a speech by British Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock. Biden's speech had similar lines about being the first person in his family to attend university. Biden had credited Kinnock with the formulation on previous occasions, but did not on two occasions in late August. Kinnock himself was more forgiving; the two men met in 1988, forming an enduring friendship.
Earlier that year he had also used passages from a 1967 speech by Robert F. Kennedy (for which his aides took blame) and a short phrase from John F. Kennedy's inaugural address; two years earlier he had used a 1976 passage by Hubert Humphrey. Biden responded that politicians often borrow from one another without giving credit, and that one of his rivals for the nomination, Jesse Jackson, had called him to point out that he (Jackson) had used the same material by Humphrey that Biden had used.
A few days later, an incident in law school in which Biden drew text from a Fordham Law Review article with inadequate citations was publicized. He was required to repeat the course and passed with high marks. At Biden's request the Delaware Supreme Court's Board of Professional Responsibility reviewed the incident and concluded that he had violated no rules.
Biden has made several false or exaggerated claims about his early life: that he had earned three degrees in college, that he attended law school on a full scholarship, that he had graduated in the top half of his class, and that he had marched in the civil rights movement. The limited amount of other news about the presidential race amplified these disclosures and on September 23, 1987, Biden withdrew his candidacy, saying it had been overrun by "the exaggerated shadow" of his past mistakes.
2008 campaign
After exploring the possibility of a run in several previous cycles, in January 2007, Biden declared his candidacy in the 2008 elections. During his campaign, Biden focused on the Iraq War, his record as chairman of major Senate committees, and his foreign-policy experience. In mid-2007, Biden stressed his foreign policy expertise compared to Obama's. Biden was noted for his one-liners during the campaign; in one debate he said of Republican candidate Rudy Giuliani: "There's only three things he mentions in a sentence: a noun, and a verb and 9/11."
Biden had difficulty raising funds, struggled to draw people to his rallies, and failed to gain traction against the high-profile candidacies of Obama and Senator Hillary Clinton. He never rose above single digits in national polls of the Democratic candidates. In the first contest on January 3, 2008, Biden placed fifth in the Iowa caucuses, garnering slightly less than one percent of the state delegates. He withdrew from the race that evening.
Despite its lack of success, Biden's 2008 campaign raised his stature in the political world. In particular, it changed the relationship between Biden and Obama. Although they had served together on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, they had not been close: Biden resented Obama's quick rise to political stardom, while Obama viewed Biden as garrulous and patronizing. Having gotten to know each other during 2007, Obama appreciated Biden's campaign style and appeal to working-class voters, and Biden said he became convinced Obama was "the real deal".
2008 vice-presidential campaign
Shortly after Biden withdrew from the presidential race, Obama privately told him he was interested in finding an important place for Biden in his administration. Biden declined Obama's first request to vet him for the vice-presidential slot, fearing the vice presidency would represent a loss in status and voice from his Senate position, but he later changed his mind. In early August, Obama and Biden met in secret to discuss the possibility, and developed a strong personal rapport. On August 22, 2008, Obama announced that Biden would be his running mate. The New York Times reported that the strategy behind the choice reflected a desire to fill out the ticket with someone with foreign policy and national security experience—and not to help the ticket win a swing state or to emphasize Obama's "change" message. Others pointed out Biden's appeal to middle-class and blue-collar voters, as well as his willingness to aggressively challenge Republican nominee John McCain in a way that Obama seemed uncomfortable doing at times. In accepting Obama's offer, Biden ruled out running for president again in 2016, but his comments in later years seemed to back off that stance, as he did not want to diminish his political power by appearing uninterested in advancement. Biden was officially nominated for vice president on August 27 by voice vote at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver.
Biden's vice-presidential campaigning gained little media visibility, as far greater press attention was focused on the Republican running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. During one week in September 2008, for instance, the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism found that Biden was included in only five percent of coverage of the race, far less than the other three candidates on the tickets received. Biden nevertheless focused on campaigning in economically challenged areas of swing states and trying to win over blue-collar Democrats, especially those who had supported Hillary Clinton. Biden attacked McCain heavily despite a long-standing personal friendship. He said, "That guy I used to know, he's gone. It literally saddens me." As the financial crisis of 2007–2010 reached a peak with the liquidity crisis of September 2008 and the proposed bailout of the United States financial system became a major factor in the campaign, Biden voted in favor of the $700billion Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, which went on to pass in the Senate 74–25.
On October 2, 2008, Biden participated in the vice-presidential debate with Palin at Washington University in St. Louis. Post-debate polls found that while Palin exceeded many voters' expectations, Biden had won the debate overall. During the campaign's final days, he focused on less populated, older, less well-off areas of battleground states, especially Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, where polling indicated he was popular and where Obama had not campaigned or performed well in the Democratic primaries. He also campaigned in some normally Republican states, as well as in areas with large Catholic populations.
Under instructions from the campaign, Biden kept his speeches succinct and tried to avoid offhand remarks, such as one he made about Obama's being tested by a foreign power soon after taking office, which had attracted negative attention. Privately, Biden's remarks frustrated Obama. "How many times is Biden gonna say something stupid?" he asked. Obama campaign staffers referred to Biden blunders as "Joe bombs" and kept Biden uninformed about strategy discussions, which in turn irked Biden. Relations between the two campaigns became strained for a month, until Biden apologized on a call to Obama and the two built a stronger partnership. Publicly, Obama strategist David Axelrod said Biden's high popularity ratings had outweighed any unexpected comments. Nationally, Biden had a 60% favorability rating in a Pew Research Center poll, compared to Palin's 44%.
On November 4, 2008, Obama and Biden were elected with 53% of the popular vote and 365 electoral votes to McCain–Palin's 173.
At the same time Biden was running for vice president he was also running for reelection to the Senate, as permitted by Delaware law. On November4, he was reelected to the Senate, defeating Republican Christine O'Donnell. Having won both races, Biden made a point of waiting to resign from the Senate until he was sworn in for his seventh term on January 6, 2009. He became the youngest senator ever to start a seventh full term, and said, "In all my life, the greatest honor bestowed upon me has been serving the people of Delaware as their United States senator." Biden cast his last Senate vote on January 15, supporting the release of the second $350billion for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, and resigned from the Senate later that day. In an emotional farewell, Biden told the Senate: "Every good thing I have seen happen here, every bold step taken in the 36-plus years I have been here, came not from the application of pressure by interest groups, but through the maturation of personal relationships." Delaware Governor Ruth Ann Minner appointed longtime Biden adviser Ted Kaufman to fill Biden's vacated Senate seat.
Vice presidency (2009–2017)
First term, 2009–2013
Biden said he intended to eliminate some explicit roles assumed by George W. Bush's vice president, Dick Cheney, and did not intend to emulate any previous vice presidency. He chaired Obama's transition team and headed an initiative to improve middle-class economic well-being. In early January 2009, in his last act as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, he visited the leaders of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and on January 20 he was sworn in as the 47th vice president of the United Statesthe first vice president from Delaware and the first Roman Catholic vice president.
Obama was soon comparing Biden to a basketball player "who does a bunch of things that don't show up in the stat sheet". In May, Biden visited Kosovo and affirmed the U.S. position that its "independence is irreversible". Biden lost an internal debate to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about sending 21,000 new troops to Afghanistan, but his skepticism was valued, and in 2009, Biden's views gained more influence as Obama reconsidered his Afghanistan strategy. Biden visited Iraq about every two months, becoming the administration's point man in delivering messages to Iraqi leadership about expected progress there. More generally, overseeing Iraq policy became Biden's responsibility: Obama was said to have said, "Joe, you do Iraq." Biden said Iraq "could be one of the great achievements of this administration". His January 2010 visit to Iraq in the midst of turmoil over banned candidates from the upcoming Iraqi parliamentary election resulted in 59 of the several hundred candidates being reinstated by the Iraqi government two days later. By 2012, Biden had made eight trips there, but his oversight of U.S. policy in Iraq receded with the exit of U.S. troops in 2011.
Biden oversaw infrastructure spending from the Obama stimulus package intended to help counteract the ongoing recession. During this period, Biden was satisfied that no major instances of waste or corruption had occurred, and when he completed that role in February 2011, he said the number of fraud incidents with stimulus monies had been less than one percent.
In late April 2009, Biden's off-message response to a question during the beginning of the swine flu outbreak, that he would advise family members against traveling on airplanes or subways, led to a swift retraction by the White House. The remark revived Biden's reputation for gaffes. Confronted with rising unemployment through July 2009, Biden acknowledged that the administration had "misread how bad the economy was" but maintained confidence the stimulus package would create many more jobs once the pace of expenditures picked up. On March 23, 2010, a microphone picked up Biden telling the president that his signing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was "a big fucking deal" during live national news telecasts. Despite their different personalities, Obama and Biden formed a friendship, partly based around Obama's daughter Sasha and Biden's granddaughter Maisy, who attended Sidwell Friends School together.
Members of the Obama administration said Biden's role in the White House was to be a contrarian and force others to defend their positions. Rahm Emanuel, White House chief of staff, said that Biden helped counter groupthink. White House press secretary Jay Carney, Biden's former communications director, said Biden played the role of "the bad guy in the Situation Room". Another senior Obama advisor said Biden "is always prepared to be the skunk at the family picnic to make sure we are as intellectually honest as possible." Obama said, "The best thing about Joe is that when we get everybody together, he really forces people to think and defend their positions, to look at things from every angle, and that is very valuable for me." The Bidens maintained a relaxed atmosphere at their official residence in Washington, often entertaining their grandchildren, and regularly returned to their home in Delaware.
Biden campaigned heavily for Democrats in the 2010 midterm elections, maintaining an attitude of optimism in the face of predictions of large-scale losses for the party. Following big Republican gains in the elections and the departure of White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, Biden's past relationships with Republicans in Congress became more important. He led the successful administration effort to gain Senate approval for the New START treaty. In December 2010, Biden's advocacy for a middle ground, followed by his negotiations with Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, were instrumental in producing the administration's compromise tax package that included a temporary extension of the Bush tax cuts. Biden then took the lead in trying to sell the agreement to a reluctant Democratic caucus in Congress. The package passed as the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010.
In March 2011, Obama delegated Biden to lead negotiations with Congress to resolve federal spending levels for the rest of the year and avoid a government shutdown. By May 2011, a "Biden panel" with six congressional members was trying to reach a bipartisan deal on raising the U.S. debt ceiling as part of an overall deficit reduction plan. The U.S. debt ceiling crisis developed over the next few months, but Biden's relationship with McConnell again proved key in breaking a deadlock and bringing about a deal to resolve it, in the form of the Budget Control Act of 2011, signed on August 2, 2011, the same day an unprecedented U.S. default had loomed. Biden had spent the most time of anyone in the administration bargaining with Congress on the debt question, and one Republican staffer said, "Biden's the only guy with real negotiating authority, and [McConnell] knows that his word is good. He was a key to the deal."
Some reports suggest that Biden opposed proceeding with the May 2011 U.S. mission to kill Osama bin Laden, lest failure adversely affect Obama's reelection prospects. He took the lead in notifying Congressional leaders of the successful outcome.
Reelection
In October 2010, Biden said Obama had asked him to remain as his running mate for the 2012 presidential election, but with Obama's popularity on the decline, White House Chief of Staff William M. Daley conducted some secret polling and focus group research in late 2011 on the idea of replacing Biden on the ticket with Hillary Clinton. The notion was dropped when the results showed no appreciable improvement for Obama, and White House officials later said Obama had never entertained the idea.
Biden's May 2012 statement that he was "absolutely comfortable" with same-sex marriage gained considerable public attention in comparison to Obama's position, which had been described as "evolving". Biden made his statement without administration consent, and Obama and his aides were quite irked, since Obama had planned to shift position several months later, in the build-up to the party convention, and since Biden had previously counseled the president to avoid the issue lest key Catholic voters be offended. Gay rights advocates seized upon Biden's statement, and within days, Obama announced that he too supported same-sex marriage, an action in part forced by Biden's remarks. Biden apologized to Obama in private for having spoken out, while Obama acknowledged publicly it had been done from the heart. The incident showed that Biden still struggled at times with message discipline, as Time wrote, "Everyone knows Biden's greatest strength is also his greatest weakness." Relations were also strained between the vice presidential and presidential campaigns when Biden appeared to use his position to bolster fundraising contacts for a possible run for president in 2016, and he ended up being excluded from Obama campaign strategy meetings.
The Obama campaign nevertheless valued Biden as a retail-level politician who could connect with disaffected blue-collar workers and rural residents, and he had a heavy schedule of appearances in swing states as the reelection campaign began in earnest in spring 2012. An August 2012 remark before a mixed-race audience that Republican proposals to relax Wall Street regulations would "put y'all back in chains" led to a similar analysis of Biden's face-to-face campaigning abilities versus his tendency to go off track. The Los Angeles Times wrote, "Most candidates give the same stump speech over and over, putting reporters if not the audience to sleep. But during any Biden speech, there might be a dozen moments to make press handlers cringe, and prompt reporters to turn to each other with amusement and confusion." Time magazine wrote that Biden often went too far and "Along with the familiar Washington mix of neediness and overconfidence, Biden's brain is wired for more than the usual amount of goofiness."
Biden was nominated for a second term as vice president at the 2012 Democratic National Convention in September. Debating his Republican counterpart, Representative Paul Ryan, in the vice-presidential debate on October 11 he made a spirited and emotional defense of the Obama administration's record and energetically attacked the Republican ticket. On November 6, Obama and Biden won reelection over Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan with 332 of 538 Electoral College votes and 51% of the popular vote.
In December 2012, Obama named Biden to head the Gun Violence Task Force, created to address the causes of gun violence in the United States in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Later that month, during the final days before the United States fell off the "fiscal cliff", Biden's relationship with McConnell again proved important as the two negotiated a deal that led to the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 being passed at the start of 2013. It made many of the Bush tax cuts permanent but raised rates on upper income levels.
Second term, 2013–2017
Biden was inaugurated to a second term on January 20, 2013, at a small ceremony at Number One Observatory Circle, his official residence, with Justice Sonia Sotomayor presiding (a public ceremony took place on January 21).
Biden played little part in discussions that led to the October 2013 passage of the Continuing Appropriations Act, 2014, which resolved the federal government shutdown of 2013 and the debt-ceiling crisis of 2013. This was because Senate majority leader Harry Reid and other Democratic leaders cut him out of any direct talks with Congress, feeling Biden had given too much away during previous negotiations.
Biden's Violence Against Women Act was reauthorized again in 2013. The act led to related developments, such as the White House Council on Women and Girls, begun in the first term, as well as the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault, begun in January 2014 with Biden and Valerie Jarrett as co-chairs. Biden discussed federal guidelines on sexual assault on university campuses while giving a speech at the University of New Hampshire. He said, "No means no, if you're drunk or you're sober. No means no if you're in bed, in a dorm or on the street. No means no even if you said yes at first and you changed your mind. No means no."
Biden favored arming Syria's rebel fighters. As Iraq fell apart during 2014, renewed attention was paid to the Biden-Gelb Iraqi federalization plan of 2006, with some observers suggesting Biden had been right all along. Biden himself said the U.S. would follow ISIL "to the gates of hell". Biden had close relationships with several Latin American leaders and was assigned a focus on the region during the administration; he visited the region 16 times during his vice presidency, the most of any president or vice president.
In 2015, Speaker of the House John Boehner and Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell invited Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress without notifying the Obama administration. This defiance of protocol led Biden and more than 50 congressional Democrats to skip Netanyahu's speech. In August 2016, Biden visited Serbia, where he met with Serbian president Aleksandar Vučić and expressed his condolences for civilian victims of the bombing campaign during the Kosovo War. In Kosovo, he attended a ceremony renaming a highway after his son Beau, in honor of Beau's service to Kosovo in training its judges and prosecutors.
Biden never cast a tie-breaking vote in the Senate, making him the longest-serving vice president with this distinction.
Role in the 2016 presidential campaign
During his second term, Biden was often said to be preparing for a possible bid for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination. With his family, many friends, and donors encouraging him in mid-2015 to enter the race, and with Hillary Clinton's favorability ratings in decline at that time, Biden was reported to again be seriously considering the prospect and a "Draft Biden 2016" PAC was established.
, Biden was still uncertain about running. He felt his son's recent death had largely drained his emotional energy, and said, "nobody has a right... to seek that office unless they're willing to give it 110% of who they are." On October 21, speaking from a podium in the Rose Garden with his wife and Obama by his side, Biden announced his decision not to run for president in 2016. In January 2016, Biden affirmed that it was the right decision, but admitted to regretting not running for president "every day".
After Obama endorsed Hillary Clinton on June 9, 2016, Biden endorsed her later that day. Throughout the 2016 election, Biden strongly criticized Clinton's opponent, Donald Trump, in often colorful terms.
Subsequent activities (2017–2019)
After leaving the vice presidency, Biden became a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, while continuing to lead efforts to find treatments for cancer. In 2017 he wrote a memoir, Promise Me, Dad, and went on a book tour. Biden earned $15.6million in 2017–2018. In 2018, he gave a eulogy for Senator John McCain, praising McCain's embrace of American ideals and bipartisan friendships.
Biden remained in the public eye, endorsing candidates while continuing to comment on politics, climate change, and the presidency of Donald Trump. He also continued to speak out in favor of LGBT rights, continuing advocacy on an issue he had become more closely associated with during his vice presidency. In 2019, Biden criticized Brunei for its intention to implement Islamic laws that would allow death by stoning for adultery and homosexuality, calling it "appalling and immoral" and saying, "There is no excuse—not culture, not tradition—for this kind of hate and inhumanity." By 2019, Biden and his wife reported that their assets had increased to between $2.2 million and $8 million from speaking engagements and a contract to write a set of books.
2020 presidential campaign
Speculation and announcement
Between 2016 and 2019, media outlets often mentioned Biden as a likely candidate for president in 2020. When asked if he would run, he gave varied and ambivalent answers, saying "never say never". At one point he suggested he did not see a scenario where he would run again, but a few days later, he said, "I'll run if I can walk." A political action committee known as Time for Biden was formed in January 2018, seeking Biden's entry into the race. He finally launched his campaign on April 25, 2019, saying he was prompted to run, among other reasons, by his "sense of duty."
Campaign
In September 2019, it was reported that Trump had pressured Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate alleged wrongdoing by Biden and his son Hunter Biden. Despite the allegations, no evidence was produced of any wrongdoing by the Bidens. The media widely interpreted this pressure to investigate the Bidens as trying to hurt Biden's chances of winning the presidency, resulting in a political scandal and Trump's impeachment by the House of Representatives.
Beginning in 2019, Trump and his allies falsely accused Biden of getting the Ukrainian prosecutor general Viktor Shokin fired because he was supposedly pursuing an investigation into Burisma Holdings, which employed Hunter Biden. Biden was accused of withholding $1billion in aid from Ukraine in this effort. In 2015, Biden pressured the Ukrainian parliament to remove Shokin because the United States, the European Union and other international organizations considered Shokin corrupt and ineffective, and in particular because Shokin was not assertively investigating Burisma. The withholding of the $1billion in aid was part of this official policy. The Senate Homeland Security Committee and Senate Finance Committee, led by Republicans, investigated allegations of wrongdoing by the Bidens in Ukraine, ultimately releasing a report in September 2020 that detailed no evidence of wrongdoing by Joe Biden, and concluded that it was "not clear" whether Hunter Biden's role in Burisma "affected U.S. policy toward Ukraine".
In March 2019 and April 2019, Biden was accused by eight women of previous instances of inappropriate physical contact, such as embracing, touching or kissing. Biden had previously described himself as a "tactile politician" and admitted this behavior has caused trouble for him. In April 2019, Biden pledged to be more "respectful of people's personal space".
Throughout 2019, Biden stayed generally ahead of other Democrats in national polls. Despite this, he finished fourth in the Iowa caucuses, and eight days later, fifth in the New Hampshire primary. He performed better in the Nevada caucuses, reaching the 15% required for delegates, but still was behind Bernie Sanders by 21.6 percentage points. Making strong appeals to Black voters on the campaign trail and in the South Carolina debate, Biden won the South Carolina primary by more than 28 points. After the withdrawals and subsequent endorsements of candidates Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar, he made large gains in the March3 Super Tuesday primary elections. Biden won 18 of the next 26 contests, including Alabama, Arkansas, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia, putting him in the lead overall. Elizabeth Warren and Mike Bloomberg soon dropped out, and Biden expanded his lead with victories over Sanders in four states (Idaho, Michigan, Mississippi, and Missouri) on March 10.
In late March 2020, Tara Reade, one of the eight women who in 2019 had accused Biden of inappropriate physical contact, accused Biden of having sexually assaulted her in 1993. There were inconsistencies between Reade's 2019 and 2020 allegations. Biden and his campaign denied the sexual assault allegation.
When Sanders suspended his campaign on April 8, 2020, Biden became the Democratic Party's presumptive nominee for president. On April 13, Sanders endorsed Biden in a live-streamed discussion from their homes. Former President Barack Obama endorsed Biden the next day. In March 2020, Biden committed to choosing a woman as his running mate. In June, Biden met the 1,991-delegate threshold needed to secure the party's presidential nomination. On August 11, he announced U.S. Senator Kamala Harris of California as his running mate, making her the first African American and first South Asian American vice-presidential nominee on a major-party ticket.
On August 18, 2020, Biden was officially nominated at the 2020 Democratic National Convention as the Democratic Party nominee for president in the 2020 election.
Presidential transition
Biden was elected the 46th president of the United States in November 2020. He defeated the incumbent, Donald Trump, becoming the first candidate to defeat a sitting president since Bill Clinton defeated George H.W. Bush in 1992. Trump refused to concede, insisting the election had been "stolen" from him through "voter fraud", challenging the results in court and promoting numerous conspiracy theories about the voting and vote-counting processes, in an attempt to overturn the election results. Biden's transition was delayed by several weeks as the White House ordered federal agencies not to cooperate. On November23, General Services Administrator Emily W. Murphy formally recognized Biden as the apparent winner of the 2020 election and authorized the start of a transition process to the Biden administration.
On January 6, 2021, during Congress's electoral vote count, Trump told supporters gathered in front of the White House to march to the Capitol, saying, "We will never give up. We will never concede. It doesn't happen. You don't concede when there's theft involved." Soon after, they attacked the Capitol. During the insurrection at the Capitol, Biden addressed the nation, calling the events "an unprecedented assault unlike anything we've seen in modern times." He specifically called on Trump to "go on national television now to fulfill his oath and defend the Constitution and demand an end to this siege", adding, "it must end now." After the Capitol was cleared, Congress resumed its joint session and officially certified the election results with Pence declaring Biden and Harris the winners.
Presidency (2021–present)
Inauguration
Biden was inaugurated as the 46th president of the United States on January 20, 2021. At 78, he is the oldest person to have assumed the office. He is the second Catholic president (after John F. Kennedy) and the first president whose home state is Delaware. He is the second non-incumbent vice president (after Richard Nixon in 1968) to be elected president. He is also the first president from the Silent Generation.
Biden's inauguration was "a muted affair unlike any previous inauguration" due to COVID-19 precautions as well as massively increased security measures because of a threat of widespread civil unrest. Biden took the oath of office on the Capitol's west steps and gave an inaugural address, but there were no spectators on the Mall and no in-person parades or inaugural balls. Trump did not attend, becoming the first outgoing president since 1869 to not attend his successor's inauguration.
First 100 days
In his first two days as president, Biden signed 17 executive orders, more than most recent presidents did in their first 100 days. By his third day, orders had included rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement, ending the state of national emergency at the border with Mexico, directing the government to rejoin the World Health Organization, face mask requirements on federal property, measures to combat hunger in the United States, and revoking permits for the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. In his first two weeks in office, Biden signed more executive orders than any other president since Franklin D. Roosevelt had in their first month in office.
On February 4, 2021, the Biden administration announced that the United States was ending its support for the Saudi-led bombing campaign in Yemen. In his first visit to the State Department as president, Biden said "this war has to end" and that the conflict had created a "humanitarian and strategic catastrophe." On February 25, the Biden administration "struck a site in Syria used by two Iranian-backed militia groups in response to rocket attacks on American forces." This marked the first known action by the military under Biden.
On March 11, the first anniversary of COVID-19 being declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization, Biden signed into law the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, a $1.9 trillion economic stimulus relief package he proposed and lobbied for that aimed to speed up the United States' recovery from the economic and health effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing recession. The package included direct payments to most Americans, an extension of increased unemployment benefits, funds for vaccine distribution and school reopenings, support for small businesses and state and local governments, and expansions of health insurance subsidies and the child tax credit. Biden's initial proposal included an increase of the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour, but after Senate parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough determined that including the increase in a budget reconciliation bill would violate Senate rules, Democrats declined to pursue overruling her and removed the increase from the package.
Also in March, amid a rise in migrants entering the U.S. from Mexico, Biden told migrants, "Don't come over." He said that the U.S. was arranging a plan for migrants to "apply for asylum in place", without leaving their original locations. In the meantime, migrant adults "are being sent back", Biden said, in reference to the continuation of the Trump administration's Title 42 policy for quick deportations. Biden earlier announced that his administration would not deport unaccompanied migrant children; the rise in arrivals of such children exceeded the capacity of facilities meant to shelter them (before they were sent to sponsors), leading the Biden administration in March to direct the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help manage these children.
On April 14, Biden announced that the United States would delay the withdrawal of all troops from the war in Afghanistan until September 11, signalling an end to the country's direct military involvement in Afghanistan after nearly 20 years. In February 2020, the Trump administration had made a deal with the Taliban to completely withdraw U.S. forces by May 1, 2021. Biden's decision met with a wide range of reactions, from support and relief to trepidation at the possible collapse of the Afghan government without American support. On April 22–23, Biden held an international climate summit at which he announced that the U.S. would cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 50%–52% by 2030 compared to 2005 levels. Other countries also increased their pledges. If the pledges made at the summit are met, they will cut global greenhouse gas emissions by 2.6–3.7 Gte by 2030. On April 28, the eve of his 100th day in office, Biden delivered his first address to a joint session of Congress, in which he highlighted the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines and addressed withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, the murder of George Floyd, and the U.S. Capitol attack while urging Congress to pass comprehensive immigration, gun, and health care reform.
Rest of 2021
In May 2021, during a flareup in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, Biden expressed his support for Israel, saying "my party still supports Israel" amid disagreement from some Democrats. In June 2021, Biden took his first trip abroad as president. In eight days he visited Belgium, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. He attended a G7 summit, a NATO summit, and an EU summit, and held one-on-one talks with Russian president Vladimir Putin.
On June 17, Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act, which officially declared Juneteenth a federal holiday. Juneteenth is the first new federal holiday since Martin Luther King Jr. Day was declared a holiday in 1986. In July 2021, amid a slowing of the COVID-19 vaccination rate in the country and the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant, Biden said that the country has "a pandemic for those who haven't gotten the vaccination" and that it was therefore "gigantically important" for Americans to be vaccinated, touting the vaccines' effectiveness against hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19. He also criticized the prevalence of COVID-19 misinformation on social media, saying it was "killing people". In September 2021, Biden announced AUKUS, a security pact between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, to ensure "peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific over the long term"; the deal included nuclear-powered submarines built for Australia's use.
By the end of 2021, 40 of Biden's appointed judges to the federal judiciary had been confirmed, more than any president in their first year in office since Ronald Reagan. Biden has prioritized diversity in his judicial appointments more than any president in U.S. history, with the majority of appointments being women and people of color. Most of his appointments have been in blue states, making a limited impact since the courts in these states already traditionally lean liberal.
In the first eight months of his presidency, Biden's approval rating, according to Morning Consult polling, remained above 50%. In August, it began to decline and lowered into the low forties by December. The decline in his approval is attributed to the Afghanistan withdrawal, increasing hospitalizations from the Delta variant, high inflation and gas prices, disarray within the Democratic Party, and a general decline in popularity customary in politics.
Withdrawal from Afghanistan
American forces began withdrawing from Afghanistan in 2020, under the provisions of a February 2020 US-Taliban agreement that set a May 1, 2021, deadline. By April 2021, the State Department was urging American civilians in Afghanistan to leave as soon as possible. The Taliban began an offensive on May 1. As late as July, American intelligence assessments estimated Kabul would fall to the Taliban months or weeks after the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan. By early July, most American troops in Afghanistan had withdrawn. Biden addressed the withdrawal in July, saying, "The likelihood there's going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely."
On August 15, the Afghan government collapsed under the Taliban offensive, and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country. Biden reacted by ordering 6,000 American troops to assist in the evacuation of American personnel and Afghan allies. He was widely criticized for the manner of the withdrawal, with allegations of poor planning for the evacuation of Americans and Afghan allies, and for his silence and absence during the days before the collapse of the Afghan government.
On August 16, Biden addressed the "messy" situation, taking responsibility for it, and admitting that the situation "unfolded more quickly than we had anticipated". He defended his decision to withdraw, saying that Americans should not be "dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves," and blamed his predecessor Donald Trump, the Afghan president, and Afghan security forces for the speedy collapse.
On August 22, Biden said that his administration knew that ISIS-K was a "likely source" of threat. On August 26, a suicide bombing at the Kabul airport killed 13 U.S. service members and 169 Afghans. Biden declared to the attackers that the United States "will hunt you down and make you pay". On August 27, an American drone strike killed two ISIS-K targets, who were "planners and facilitators", according to a U.S. Army general. On August 29, another American drone strike killed 10 civilians, including seven children; the Defense Department initially claimed the strike was conducted on an Islamic State suicide bomber threatening Kabul Airport, but admitted the mistake on September 17 and apologized.
The U.S. military left Afghanistan on August 30, with Biden saying that the evacuation effort was an "extraordinary success", by extracting over 120,000 Americans, Afghans and other allies. He acknowledged that between "100 to 200" Americans who wanted to leave were left in Afghanistan, despite his August 18 pledge to stay in Afghanistan until all Americans who wanted to leave had left. The Biden administration, joining governments of almost 100 countries, said that the Taliban had given "assurances" that anyone "with travel authorization from [these] countries" would continue to be allowed to leave Afghanistan.
Economy
Biden entered office nine months into a recovery from the COVID-19 recession and his first year in office was characterized by robust growth in real GDP, employment, wages and stock market returns, amid significantly elevated inflation. Real GDP grew 5.7%, the fastest rate in 37 years. Amid record job creation, the unemployment rate fell at the fastest pace on record during the year. By the end of 2021, inflation reached a nearly 40-year high of 7.1%, which was partially offset by the highest wage and salary growth in at least 20 years. Income growth was particularly strong at the low end of the pay scale.
Infrastructure and climate
As part of Biden's Build Back Better agenda, in late March 2021, he proposed the American Jobs Plan, a $2 trillion package addressing issues including transport infrastructure, utilities infrastructure, broadband infrastructure, housing, schools, manufacturing, research and workforce development. After months of negotiations among Biden and lawmakers, in August 2021 the Senate passed a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill called the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, while the House, also in a bipartisan manner, approved that bill in early November 2021, covering infrastructure related to transport, utilities, and broadband. Biden signed the bill into law in mid-November 2021.
As COP26, scheduled for October 31 to November 12, 2021, approached, Biden increased his efforts to address climate change domestically and internationally. He promoted an agreement that the U.S. and the European Union cut methane emissions by a third by 2030 and tried to add dozens of other countries to the effort. He tried to convince China and Australia to do more. He convened an online Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate Change to press other countries to strengthen their climate policy. Biden pledged to double climate funding to developing countries by 2024. Also at COP26, the U.S. and China reached a deal on greenhouse gas emission reduction. The two countries are responsible for 40% of global emissions.
2022
In early 2022, Biden made efforts to change his public image after entering the year with low approval ratings, but they continued to fall, dipping to approximately 40% in aggregated polls by February.
In January, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, a moderate liberal nominated by Bill Clinton, announced he will be retiring from the Supreme Court. Breyer's retirement is expected to give Biden his first opportunity to nominate a Supreme Court justice. During his 2020 campaign, Biden vowed to nominate a Black woman to the court if a vacancy occurred, a promise he reiterated after the announcement of Breyer's retirement. In February, Biden nominated federal judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court.
Political positions
Biden is considered a moderate Democrat and a centrist, though more recently he has been seen as shifting to the left. He has a lifetime liberal 72% score from the Americans for Democratic Action through 2004, while the American Conservative Union gave him a lifetime conservative rating of 13% through 2008.
Biden supported the fiscal stimulus in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009; the Obama administration's proposed increase in infrastructure spending; subsidies for mass transit, including Amtrak, bus, and subway; and the reduced military spending in the Obama administration's fiscal year 2014 budget. He has proposed partially reversing the corporate tax cuts of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, saying that doing so would not hurt businesses' ability to hire. He voted for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Biden is a staunch supporter of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). He has promoted a plan to expand and build upon it, paid for by revenue gained from reversing some Trump administration tax cuts. Biden's plan aims to expand health insurance coverage to 97% of Americans, including by creating a public health insurance option.
Biden has supported same-sex marriage since 2012 and also supports Roe v. Wade and repealing the Hyde Amendment. He opposes drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and supports governmental funding to find new energy sources. As a senator, he forged deep relationships with police groups and was a chief proponent of a Police Officer's Bill of Rights measure that police unions supported but police chiefs opposed. As vice president, he served as a White House liaison to police.
Biden believes action must be taken on global warming. As a senator, he co-sponsored the Sense of the Senate resolution calling on the United States to take part in the United Nations climate negotiations and the Boxer–Sanders Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act, the most stringent climate bill in the United States Senate. He wants to achieve a carbon-free power sector in the U.S. by 2035 and stop emissions completely by 2050. His program includes reentering the Paris Agreement, nature conservation, and green building. Biden wants to pressure China and other countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions by carbon tariffs if necessary.
Biden has said the U.S. needs to "get tough" on China and build "a united front of U.S. allies and partners to confront China's abusive behaviors and human rights violations". He has called China the "most serious competitor" that poses challenges to the United States' "prosperity, security, and democratic values". Biden has voiced concerns about China's "coercive and unfair" economic practices and human rights abuses in the Xinjiang region to the Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping. He also pledged to sanction and commercially restrict Chinese government officials and entities who carry out repression.
Biden has said he is against regime change, but for providing non-military support to opposition movements. He opposed direct U.S. intervention in Libya, voted against U.S. participation in the Gulf War, voted in favor of the Iraq War, and supports a two-state solution in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Biden has pledged to end U.S. support for the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen and to reevaluate the United States' relationship with Saudi Arabia. He has called North Korea a "paper tiger". As vice president, Biden supported Obama's Cuban thaw. He has said that, as president, he would restore U.S. membership in key United Nations bodies, such as the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the World Health Organization, and possibly the Human Rights Council. Biden supports extending the New START arms control treaty with Russia to limit the number of nuclear weapons deployed by both sides. In 2021, Biden recognized the Armenian genocide, becoming the first U.S. president to do so.
Reputation
Biden was consistently ranked one of the least wealthy members of the Senate, which he attributed to his having been elected young. Feeling that less-wealthy public officials may be tempted to accept contributions in exchange for political favors, he proposed campaign finance reform measures during his first term. , Biden's net worth was $27,012. , the Bidens were worth $9 million, largely due to sales of Biden's books and speaking fees after his vice presidency.
The political writer Howard Fineman has written, "Biden is not an academic, he's not a theoretical thinker, he's a great street pol. He comes from a long line of working people in Scranton—auto salesmen, car dealers, people who know how to make a sale. He has that great Irish gift." Political columnist David S. Broder wrote that Biden has grown over time: "He responds to real people—that's been consistent throughout. And his ability to understand himself and deal with other politicians has gotten much much better." Journalist James Traub has written that "Biden is the kind of fundamentally happy person who can be as generous toward others as he is to himself."
In recent years, especially after the 2015 death of his elder son Beau, Biden has been noted for his empathetic nature and ability to communicate about grief. In 2020, CNN wrote that his presidential campaign aimed to make him "healer-in-chief", while The New York Times described his extensive history of being called upon to give eulogies.
Journalist and TV anchor Wolf Blitzer has described Biden as loquacious. He often deviates from prepared remarks and sometimes "puts his foot in his mouth." The New York Times wrote that Biden's "weak filters make him capable of blurting out pretty much anything." In 2018, Biden called himself "a gaffe machine". Some of his gaffes have been characterized as racially insensitive.
Electoral history
Publications
Books
Also paperback edition, Random House 2008, .
Book contributions
Biden, Joseph R., Jr. (2009). "Foreword." In: Choosing Equality: Essays and Narratives on the Desegregation Experience. Edited by Robert L. Hayman, Jr. and Leland Ware. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009. .
Pamphlets
Biden, Joseph R., Jr., and Les Aspin, William Louis Dickinson, Brent Scowcroft (1982). Arms Sales: A Useful Foreign Policy Tool? American Enterprise Institute. AEI Forum 56. Moderated by John Charles Daly.
Articles
Biden, Joseph R., Jr., and Miga Purev-Ochir (Spring 2015). "U.S.-Russian Relations in a Post-Cold War World: A Strategic Vision: Mapping a Future for U.S.-Russian Relations." Harvard International Review, vol. 36, no. 3, pp. 72–76. .
Notes
References
Citations
Works cited
See also
List of honors and awards received by Joe Biden
List of things named after Joe Biden
External links
Official
President Joe Biden official website
Presidential campaign website
Obama White House biography (archived)
Other
Joe Biden at On the Issues
Joe Biden at PolitiFact
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Writers from Scranton, Pennsylvania | true | [
"Raja Kuhaneswaran (born 15 May 1960; also known as Irasa Kuganeswaran) is a Sri Lankan Tamil politician and former Member of Parliament.\n\nKuhaneswaran was born on 15 May 1960. He is a Hindu.\n\nKuhaneswaran contested the 1989 parliamentary election as one of the Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization's candidates in Vanni District and was elected to Parliament. He was not re-elected at the 1994 parliamentary election.\n\nKuhaneswaran contested the 2000 parliamentary election and was re-elected. He was re-elected at the 2001 parliamentary election as a Tamil National Alliance candidate. He did not contest the 2004 parliamentary election after failing to get nominated.\n\nReferences\n\n1960 births\nLiving people\nMembers of the 9th Parliament of Sri Lanka\nMembers of the 11th Parliament of Sri Lanka\nMembers of the 12th Parliament of Sri Lanka\nPeople from Northern Province, Sri Lanka\nSri Lankan Hindus\nSri Lankan Tamil politicians\nTamil Eelam Liberation Organization politicians\nTamil National Alliance politicians",
"John Connor (born 14 February 1944) is a former Irish Fine Gael politician. He was first elected to Dáil Éireann at the 1981 general election as a Fine Gael Teachta Dála (TD) for the Roscommon constituency.\n\nHe lost his seat at the February 1982 general election, but subsequently was nominated by the Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald to the 17th Seanad. He was elected to the Agricultural Panel of the 18th Seanad in 1987. At the 1989 general election he re-gained his Dáil seat for the Roscommon constituency and was re-elected for the new Longford–Roscommon constituency at the 1992 general election. He again lost his Dáil seat at the 1997 general election but was again elected to the Agricultural Panel of the 21st Seanad. At the 2002 general election he failed to get elected to the Dáil and he also lost his Seanad seat.\n\nIn 1999, he was elected to Roscommon County Council, and was re-elected at the 2004 local elections. He did not contest the 2009 local elections.\n\nReferences\n\n1944 births\nLiving people\nFine Gael TDs\nMembers of the 22nd Dáil\nMembers of the 26th Dáil\nMembers of the 27th Dáil\nMembers of the 17th Seanad\nMembers of the 18th Seanad\nMembers of the 21st Seanad\nLocal councillors in County Roscommon\nIrish farmers\nNominated members of Seanad Éireann\nFine Gael senators"
] |
[
"Joe Biden",
"Characteristics as senator",
"What are Joe's characteristics as senator?",
"characterized Biden as \"self-confident\" and \"compulsively ambitious\".",
"Was Joe likable as senator?",
"\"Biden is the kind of fundamentally happy person who can be as generous toward others as he is to himself.\"",
"Does Joe have a lot of friends in politics?",
"I don't know.",
"When did he become senator?",
"1969,",
"What State was he the Senator for?",
"I don't know.",
"Did he get re-elected as senator?",
"Biden was re-elected",
"Does his peers have good things to say about him?",
"he's a great street pol.",
"When did he get re-elected?",
"1978,"
] | C_ae5bfb2601a2463ebfedd2b995b83bf8_1 | Has he ever faced any criticism? | 9 | Has Joe Biden ever faced any criticism? | Joe Biden | On August 27, 1966, while Biden was still a law student, he married Neilia Hunter. They overcame her parents' initial reluctance for her to wed a Roman Catholic, and the ceremony was held in a Catholic church in Skaneateles. They had three children, Joseph R. "Beau" Biden III in 1969, Robert Hunter in 1970, and Naomi Christina in 1971. During 1968, Biden clerked for six months at a Wilmington law firm headed by prominent local Republican William Prickett and, as he later said, "thought of myself as a Republican". He disliked the conservative racial politics of incumbent Democratic Governor of Delaware Charles L. Terry and supported a more liberal Republican, Russell W. Peterson, who defeated Terry in 1968. The local Republicans tried to recruit him, but he resisted due to his distaste for Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon, and registered as an Independent instead. In 1969, Biden resumed practicing law in Wilmington, first as a public defender and then at a firm headed by Sid Balick, a locally active Democrat. Balick named him to the Democratic Forum, a group trying to reform and revitalize the state party, and Biden switched his registration to Democrat. He also started his own firm, Biden and Walsh. Corporate law, however, did not appeal to him and criminal law did not pay well. He supplemented his income by managing properties. Later in 1969, Biden ran as a Democrat for the New Castle County Council on a liberal platform that included support for public housing in the suburban area. He won by a solid, two-thousand vote margin in the usually Republican district and in a bad year for Democrats in the state. Even before taking his seat, he was already talking about running for the U.S. Senate in a couple of years. He served on the County Council from 1970 to 1972 while continuing his private law practice. Among issues he addressed on the council was his opposition to large highway projects that might disrupt Wilmington neighborhoods, including those related to Interstate 95. During his first years in the Senate, Biden focused on legislation regarding consumer-protection and environmental issues and called for greater accountability on the part of government. In mid-1974, freshman Senator Biden was named one of the 200 Faces for the Future by Time magazine, in a profile that mentioned what had happened to his family and characterized Biden as "self-confident" and "compulsively ambitious". Biden became ranking minority member of the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary in 1981. In 1984, he was Democratic floor manager for the successful passage of the Comprehensive Crime Control Act; civil libertarians praised him for modifying some of the Act's provisions, and it was his most important legislative accomplishment at that point in time. He first considered running for president in that year, after he gained notice for giving speeches to party audiences that simultaneously scolded and encouraged Democrats. Regarding foreign policy, during his first decade in the Senate, Biden focused on arms control issues. In response to the refusal of the U.S. Congress to ratify the SALT II Treaty signed in 1979 by Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and President Jimmy Carter, he took the initiative to meet the Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, educated him about American concerns and interests, and secured several changes to address objections of the Foreign Relations Committee. When the Reagan administration wanted to interpret the 1972 SALT I Treaty loosely in order to allow the Strategic Defense Initiative to proceed, Biden argued for strict adherence to the treaty's terms. He clashed again with the Reagan administration in 1986 over economic sanctions against South Africa; he received considerable attention when he excoriated Secretary of State George P. Shultz at a Senate hearing because of the administration's support of that country, which continued to practice the apartheid system. Following his initial election in 1972, Biden was re-elected to six additional terms, in the elections of 1978, 1984, 1990, 1996, 2002, and 2008, usually getting about 60 percent of the vote. He did not face strong opposition; Pete du Pont, then governor, chose not to run against him in 1984. Biden spent 28 years as a junior senator due to the two-year seniority of his Republican colleague William V. Roth Jr. After Roth was defeated for re-election by Tom Carper in 2000, Biden became Delaware's senior senator. He then became the longest-serving senator in Delaware history. In May 1999, Biden set the mark for youngest senator to cast 10,000 votes. With a net worth between $59,000 and $366,000, and almost no outside income or investment income, Biden was consistently ranked as one of the least wealthy members of the Senate. Biden stated that he was listed as the second poorest member in Congress, a distinction that he was not proud of, but attributed to being elected early in his career. Biden realized early in his senatorial career how vulnerable poorer public officials are to offers of financial contributions in exchange for policy support, and he pushed campaign finance reform measures during his first term. During his years as a senator, Biden amassed a reputation for loquaciousness, with his questions and remarks during Senate hearings being especially known for being long-winded. He has been a strong speaker and debater and a frequent and effective guest on the Sunday morning talk shows. In public appearances, he is known to deviate from prepared remarks at will. According to political analyst Mark Halperin, he has shown "a persistent tendency to say silly, offensive, and off-putting things"; The New York Times writes that Biden's "weak filters make him capable of blurting out pretty much anything". Nor is Biden known for modesty; journalist James Traub has written that "Biden's vanity and his regard for his own gifts seem considerable even by the rarefied standards of the U.S. Senate." Political writer Howard Fineman has said that, "Biden is not an academic, he's not a theoretical thinker, he's a great street pol. He comes from a long line of working people in Scranton--auto salesmen, car dealers, people who know how to make a sale. He has that great Irish gift." Political columnist David S. Broder has viewed Biden as having grown since he came to Washington and since his failed 1988 presidential bid: "He responds to real people--that's been consistent throughout. And his ability to understand himself and deal with other politicians has gotten much much better." Traub concludes that "Biden is the kind of fundamentally happy person who can be as generous toward others as he is to himself." CANNOTANSWER | The New York Times writes that Biden's "weak filters make him capable of blurting out pretty much anything". | Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. ( ; born November 20, 1942) is an American politician who is the 46th and current president of the United States. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 47th vice president from 2009 to 2017 under Barack Obama and represented Delaware in the United States Senate from 1973 to 2009.
Biden was born and raised in Scranton, Pennsylvania, moving with his family to New Castle County, Delaware, in 1953 when he was ten. He studied at the University of Delaware before earning his law degree from Syracuse University in 1968. He was elected to the New Castle County Council in 1970 and became the sixth-youngest senator in U.S. history after he was elected to the United States Senate from Delaware in 1972, at age 29. Biden was the chair or ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for 12 years and was influential in foreign affairs during Obama's presidency. He also chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee from 1987 to 1995, dealing with drug policy, crime prevention, and civil liberties issues; led the effort to pass the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act and the Violence Against Women Act; and oversaw six U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings, including the contentious hearings for Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas. He ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988 and 2008. Biden was reelected to the Senate six times and was the fourth-most senior sitting senator at the time when he became Obama's vice president after they won the 2008 presidential election, defeating John McCain and his running mate Sarah Palin. Obama and Biden were reelected in 2012, defeating Mitt Romney and his running mate Paul Ryan.
During eight years as vice president, Biden leaned on his Senate experience and frequently represented the administration in negotiations with congressional Republicans, including on the Budget Control Act of 2011, which resolved a debt ceiling crisis, and the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, which addressed the impending "fiscal cliff". He also oversaw infrastructure spending in 2009 to counteract the Great Recession. On foreign policy, Biden was a close counselor to the president and took a leading role in designing the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq in 2011. In 2017, Obama awarded Biden the Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction.
Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris defeated incumbent president Donald Trump and vice president Mike Pence in the 2020 presidential election. He is the oldest president and the first to have a female vice president. His early presidential activity centered around proposing, lobbying for, and signing into law the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 to help the United States recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing recession, as well as a series of executive orders. Biden's orders addressed the pandemic and reversed several Trump administration policies, including rejoining the Paris Agreement on climate change and accepting new applications for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients, although a federal judge blocked the latter. He completed the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan by September 2021. During the withdrawal, the Afghan government collapsed and the Taliban seized control. Biden proposed the Build Back Better Plan, aspects of which were incorporated into the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which Biden signed into law in November 2021.
Early life (1942–1965)
Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was born on November 20, 1942, at St. Mary's Hospital in Scranton, Pennsylvania, to Catherine Eugenia "Jean" Biden (née Finnegan) and Joseph Robinette Biden Sr. The oldest child in a Catholic family, he has a sister, Valerie, and two brothers, Francis and James. Jean was of Irish descent, while Joseph Sr. had English, French, and Irish ancestry.
Biden's father had been wealthy, but suffered financial setbacks around the time Biden was born, and for several years the family lived with Biden's maternal grandparents. Scranton fell into economic decline during the 1950s and Biden's father could not find steady work. Beginning in 1953 when Biden was ten, the family lived in an apartment in Claymont, Delaware, before moving to a house in nearby Mayfield. Biden Sr. later became a successful used-car salesman, maintaining the family in a middle-class lifestyle.
At Archmere Academy in Claymont, Biden played baseball and was a standout halfback and wide receiver on the high school football team. Though a poor student, he was class president in his junior and senior years. He graduated in 1961. At the University of Delaware in Newark, Biden briefly played freshman football and, as an unexceptional student, earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1965 with a double major in history and political science and a minor in English.
Biden has a stutter, which has improved since his early twenties. He says he reduced it by reciting poetry before a mirror, but some observers suggested it affected his performance in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential debates.
Marriages, law school, and early career (1966–1973)
On August 27, 1966, Biden married Neilia Hunter (19421972), a student at Syracuse University, after overcoming her parents' reluctance for her to wed a Roman Catholic. Their wedding was held in a Catholic church in Skaneateles, New York. They had three children: Joseph R. "Beau" Biden III (19692015), Robert Hunter Biden (born 1970), and Naomi Christina "Amy" Biden (19711972).
In 1968, Biden earned a Juris Doctor from Syracuse University College of Law, ranked 76th in his class of 85, after failing a course due to an acknowledged "mistake" when he plagiarized a law review article for a paper he wrote in his first year at law school. He was admitted to the Delaware bar in 1969.
Biden had not openly supported or opposed the Vietnam War until he ran for Senate and opposed Nixon's conduct of the war. While studying at the University of Delaware and Syracuse University, Biden obtained five student draft deferments, at a time when most draftees were sent to the Vietnam War. In 1968, based on a physical examination, he was given a conditional medical deferment; in 2008, a spokesperson for Biden said his having had "asthma as a teenager" was the reason for the deferment.
In 1968, Biden clerked at a Wilmington law firm headed by prominent local Republican William Prickett and, he later said, "thought of myself as a Republican". He disliked incumbent Democratic Delaware governor Charles L. Terry's conservative racial politics and supported a more liberal Republican, Russell W. Peterson, who defeated Terry in 1968. Biden was recruited by local Republicans but registered as an Independent because of his distaste for Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon.
In 1969, Biden practiced law first as a public defender and then at a firm headed by a locally active Democrat who named him to the Democratic Forum, a group trying to reform and revitalize the state party; Biden subsequently reregistered as a Democrat. He and another attorney also formed a law firm. Corporate law, however, did not appeal to him, and criminal law did not pay well. He supplemented his income by managing properties.
In 1970, Biden ran for the 4th district seat on the New Castle County Council on a liberal platform that included support for public housing in the suburbs. The seat had been held by Republican Henry R. Folsom, who was running in the 5th District following a reapportionment of council districts. Biden won the general election by defeating Republican Lawrence T. Messick, and took office on January 5, 1971. He served until January 1, 1973, and was succeeded by Democrat Francis R. Swift. During his time on the county council, Biden opposed large highway projects, which he argued might disrupt Wilmington neighborhoods.
1972 U.S. Senate campaign in Delaware
In 1972, Biden defeated Republican incumbent J. Caleb Boggs to become the junior U.S. senator from Delaware. He was the only Democrat willing to challenge Boggs. With minimal campaign funds, he was given no chance of winning. Family members managed and staffed the campaign, which relied on meeting voters face-to-face and hand-distributing position papers, an approach made feasible by Delaware's small size. He received help from the AFL–CIO and Democratic pollster Patrick Caddell. His platform focused on the environment, withdrawal from Vietnam, civil rights, mass transit, equitable taxation, health care, and public dissatisfaction with "politics as usual". A few months before the election, Biden trailed Boggs by almost thirty percentage points, but his energy, attractive young family, and ability to connect with voters' emotions worked to his advantage, and he won with 50.5 percent of the vote. At the time of his election, he was still 29 years old, but reached the constitutionally required age of 30 before he was sworn in as Senator.
Death of wife and daughter
On December 18, 1972, a few weeks after the election, Biden's wife Neilia and one-year-old daughter Naomi were killed in an automobile accident while Christmas shopping in Hockessin, Delaware. Neilia's station wagon was hit by a semi-trailer truck as she pulled out from an intersection. Their sons Beau (aged3) and Hunter (aged2) survived the accident and were taken to the hospital in fair condition, Beau with a broken leg and other wounds and Hunter with a minor skull fracture and other head injuries. Biden considered resigning to care for them, but Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield persuaded him not to.
Years later, Biden said he had heard that the truck driver allegedly drank alcohol before the collision. The driver's family denied that claim, and the police never substantiated it. Biden later apologized to the family. The accident had filled him with anger and religious doubt. He wrote that he "felt God had played a horrible trick" on him, and he had trouble focusing on work.
Second marriage
Biden credits his second wife, teacher Jill Tracy Jacobs, with the renewal of his interest in politics and life; they met in 1975 on a blind date and were married at the United Nations chapel in New York on June 17, 1977. They spent their honeymoon at Lake Balaton in the Hungarian People's Republic, behind the Iron Curtain. They are Roman Catholics and attend Mass at St. Joseph's on the Brandywine in Greenville, Delaware. Their daughter Ashley Biden (born 1981) is a social worker. She is married to physician Howard Krein. Beau Biden became an Army Judge Advocate in Iraq and later Delaware Attorney General; he died of brain cancer in 2015. Hunter Biden is a Washington lobbyist and investment adviser.
Teaching
From 1991 to 2008, as an adjunct professor, Biden co-taught a seminar on constitutional law at Widener University School of Law. The seminar often had a waiting list. Biden sometimes flew back from overseas to teach the class.
U.S. Senate (1973–2009)
Senate activities
In January 1973, secretary of the Senate Francis R. Valeo swore Biden in at the Delaware Division of the Wilmington Medical Center. Present were his sons Beau (whose leg was still in traction from the automobile accident) and Hunter and other family members. At 30, he was the sixth-youngest senator in U.S. history.
To see his sons, Biden traveled by train between his Delaware home and D.C.—74 minutes each way—and maintained this habit throughout his 36 years in the Senate.
During his early years in the Senate, Biden focused on consumer protection and environmental issues and called for greater government accountability. In a 1974 interview, he described himself as liberal on civil rights and liberties, senior citizens' concerns and healthcare but conservative on other issues, including abortion and military conscription.
In his first decade in the Senate, Biden focused on arms control. After Congress failed to ratify the SALT II Treaty signed in 1979 by Soviet general secretary Leonid Brezhnev and President Jimmy Carter, Biden met with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko to communicate American concerns and secured changes that addressed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's objections. When the Reagan administration wanted to interpret the 1972 SALT I treaty loosely to allow development of the Strategic Defense Initiative, Biden argued for strict adherence to the treaty. He received considerable attention when he excoriated Secretary of State George Shultz at a Senate hearing for the Reagan administration's support of South Africa despite its continued policy of apartheid.
Biden became ranking minority member of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1981. In 1984, he was a Democratic floor manager for the successful passage of the Comprehensive Crime Control Act. His supporters praised him for modifying some of the law's worst provisions, and it was his most important legislative accomplishment to that time. In 1994, Biden helped pass the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, also known as the Biden Crime Law, which included a ban on assault weapons, and the Violence Against Women Act, which he has called his most significant legislation. The 1994 crime law was unpopular among progressives and criticized for resulting in mass incarceration; in 2019, Biden called his role in passing the bill a "big mistake", citing its policy on crack cocaine and saying that the bill "trapped an entire generation".
In 1993, Biden voted for a provision that deemed homosexuality incompatible with military life, thereby banning gays from serving in the armed forces. In 1996, he voted for the Defense of Marriage Act, which prohibited the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages, thereby barring individuals in such marriages from equal protection under federal law and allowing states to do the same. In 2015, the act was ruled unconstitutional in Obergefell v. Hodges.
Elected to the Senate in 1972, Biden was reelected in 1978, 1984, 1990, 1996, 2002, and 2008, regularly receiving about 60% of the vote. He was junior senator to William Roth, who was first elected in 1970, until Roth was defeated in 2000. , he was the 18th-longest-serving senator in U.S. history.
Opposition to busing
In the mid-1970s, Biden was one of the Senate's strongest opponents of race-integration busing. His Delaware constituents strongly opposed it, and such opposition nationwide later led his party to mostly abandon school integration policies. In his first Senate campaign, Biden had expressed support for busing to remedy de jure segregation, as in the South, but opposed its use to remedy de facto segregation arising from racial patterns of neighborhood residency, as in Delaware; he opposed a proposed constitutional amendment banning busing entirely.
In May 1974, Biden voted to table a proposal containing anti-busing and anti-desegregation clauses but later voted for a modified version containing a qualification that it was not intended to weaken the judiciary's power to enforce the 5th Amendment and 14th Amendment. In 1975, he supported a proposal that would have prevented the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare from cutting federal funds to districts that refused to integrate; he said busing was a "bankrupt idea [violating] the cardinal rule of common sense" and that his opposition would make it easier for other liberals to follow suit. At the same time he supported initiatives on housing, job opportunities and voting rights. Biden supported a measure forbidding the use of federal funds for transporting students beyond the school closest to them. In 1977, he co-sponsored an amendment closing loopholes in that measure, which President Carter signed into law in 1978.
Brain surgeries
In February 1988, after several episodes of increasingly severe neck pain, Biden was taken by ambulance to Walter Reed Army Medical Center for surgery to correct a leaking intracranial berry aneurysm. While recuperating, he suffered a pulmonary embolism, a serious complication. After a second aneurysm was surgically repaired in May, Biden's recuperation kept him away from the Senate for seven months.
Senate Judiciary Committee
Biden was a longtime member of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary. He chaired it from 1987 to 1995 and was a ranking minority member from 1981 to 1987 and again from 1995 to 1997.
As chair, Biden presided over two highly contentious U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings. When Robert Bork was nominated in 1988, Biden reversed his approvalgiven in an interview the previous yearof a hypothetical Bork nomination. Conservatives were angered, but at the hearings' close Biden was praised for his fairness, humor, and courage. Rejecting the arguments of some Bork opponents, Biden framed his objections to Bork in terms of the conflict between Bork's strong originalism and the view that the U.S. Constitution provides rights to liberty and privacy beyond those explicitly enumerated in its text. Bork's nomination was rejected in the committee by a 9–5 vote and then in the full Senate, 58–42.
During Clarence Thomas's nomination hearings in 1991, Biden's questions on constitutional issues were often convoluted to the point that Thomas sometimes lost track of them, and Thomas later wrote that Biden's questions were akin to "beanballs". After the committee hearing closed, the public learned that Anita Hill, a University of Oklahoma law school professor, had accused Thomas of making unwelcome sexual comments when they had worked together. Biden had known of some of these charges, but initially shared them only with the committee because Hill was then unwilling to testify. The committee hearing was reopened and Hill testified, but Biden did not permit testimony from other witnesses, such as a woman who had made similar charges and experts on harassment, saying he wanted to preserve Thomas's privacy and the hearings' decency. The full Senate confirmed Thomas by a 52–48 vote, with Biden opposed. Liberal legal advocates and women's groups felt strongly that Biden had mishandled the hearings and not done enough to support Hill. Biden later sought out women to serve on the Judiciary Committee and emphasized women's issues in the committee's legislative agenda. In 2019, he told Hill he regretted his treatment of her, but Hill said afterward she remained unsatisfied.
Biden was critical of Independent Counsel Ken Starr during the 1990s Whitewater controversy and Lewinsky scandal investigations, saying "it's going to be a cold day in hell" before another independent counsel would be granted similar powers. He voted to acquit during the impeachment of President Clinton. During the 2000s, Biden sponsored bankruptcy legislation sought by credit card issuers. Clinton vetoed the bill in 2000, but it passed in 2005 as the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act, with Biden one of only 18 Democrats to vote for it, while leading Democrats and consumer rights organizations opposed it. As a senator, Biden strongly supported increased Amtrak funding and rail security.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Biden was a longtime member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He became its ranking minority member in 1997 and chaired it from June 2001 to 2003 and 2007 to 2009. His positions were generally liberal internationalist. He collaborated effectively with Republicans and sometimes went against elements of his own party. During this time he met with at least 150 leaders from 60 countries and international organizations, becoming a well-known Democratic voice on foreign policy.
Biden voted against authorization for the Gulf War in 1991, siding with 45 of the 55 Democratic senators; he said the U.S. was bearing almost all the burden in the anti-Iraq coalition.
Biden became interested in the Yugoslav Wars after hearing about Serbian abuses during the Croatian War of Independence in 1991. Once the Bosnian War broke out, Biden was among the first to call for the "lift and strike" policy of lifting the arms embargo, training Bosnian Muslims and supporting them with NATO air strikes, and investigating war crimes. The George H. W. Bush administration and Clinton administration were both reluctant to implement the policy, fearing Balkan entanglement. In April 1993, Biden spent a week in the Balkans and held a tense three-hour meeting with Serbian leader Slobodan Milošević. Biden said he had told Milošević, "I think you're a damn war criminal and you should be tried as one."
Biden wrote an amendment in 1992 to compel the Bush administration to arm the Bosnian Muslims, but deferred in 1994 to a somewhat softer stance the Clinton administration preferred, before signing on the following year to a stronger measure sponsored by Bob Dole and Joe Lieberman. The engagement led to a successful NATO peacekeeping effort. Biden has called his role in affecting Balkans policy in the mid-1990s his "proudest moment in public life" related to foreign policy.
As chair, Biden contributed to successfully encouraging the Clinton administration to commit the resources and political capital to broker what became the 1998 Good Friday Agreement between the governments of Ireland and the United Kingdom through the Northern Ireland peace process.
On September 3, 1998, the resigning former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter had, according to Barton Gellman, accused the Clinton administration of obstructing weapons inspections in Iraq. Biden joined many other Senate Democrats and "amplified on the Clinton administration's counterattack against former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter." He questioned whether Ritter was trying to "appropriate the power 'to decide when to pull the trigger' of military force against Iraq", and said that the Secretary of State would also have to consider the opinion of allies, the UNSC, and public opinion, before any intervention in Iraq. In a Washington Post op-ed later that month, Biden criticized a unilateral "confrontation-based policy" but praised the idea of asking whether intervention might be necessary at some point, though he said it was "above the pay grade" of one weapons inspector.
In 1999, during the Kosovo War, Biden supported the 1999 NATO bombing of FR Yugoslavia. He and Senator John McCain co-sponsored the McCain-Biden Kosovo Resolution, which called on Clinton to use all necessary force, including ground troops, to confront Milošević over Yugoslav actions toward ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.
Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq
Biden was a strong supporter of the War in Afghanistan, saying, "Whatever it takes, we should do it." As head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he said in 2002 that Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was a threat to national security and there was no other option than to "eliminate" that threat. In October 2002, he voted in favor of the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq, approving the U.S. invasion of Iraq. As chair of the committee, he assembled a series of witnesses to testify in favor of the authorization. They gave testimony grossly misrepresenting the intent, history, and status of Saddam and his secular government, which was an avowed enemy of al-Qaida, and touted Iraq's fictional possession of weapons of mass destruction. Biden eventually became a critic of the war and viewed his vote and role as a "mistake", but did not push for withdrawal. He supported the appropriations for the occupation, but argued that the war should be internationalized, that more soldiers were needed, and that the Bush administration should "level with the American people" about its cost and length.
By late 2006, Biden's stance had shifted considerably. He opposed the troop surge of 2007, saying General David Petraeus was "dead, flat wrong" in believing the surge could work. Biden instead advocated dividing Iraq into a loose federation of three ethnic states. In November 2006, Biden and Leslie H. Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, released a comprehensive strategy to end sectarian violence in Iraq. Rather than continue the existing approach or withdrawing, the plan called for "a third way": federalizing Iraq and giving Kurds, Shiites, and Sunnis "breathing room" in their own regions. In September 2007, a non-binding resolution endorsing the plan passed the Senate, but the idea was unfamiliar, had no political constituency, and failed to gain traction. Iraq's political leadership denounced the resolution as de facto partitioning of the country, and the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad issued a statement distancing itself from it. In May 2008, Biden sharply criticized President George W. Bush's speech to Israel's Knesset in which Bush compared some Democrats to Western leaders who appeased Hitler before World WarII; Biden called the speech "bullshit", "malarkey", and "outrageous". He later apologized for his language.
Presidential campaigns 1988 and 2008
1988 campaign
Biden formally declared his candidacy for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination on June 9, 1987. He was considered a strong candidate because of his moderate image, his speaking ability, his high profile as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee at the upcoming Robert Bork Supreme Court nomination hearings, and his appeal to Baby Boomers; he would have been the second-youngest person elected president, after John F. Kennedy. He raised more in the first quarter of 1987 than any other candidate.
By August his campaign's messaging had become confused due to staff rivalries, and in September, he was accused of plagiarizing a speech by British Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock. Biden's speech had similar lines about being the first person in his family to attend university. Biden had credited Kinnock with the formulation on previous occasions, but did not on two occasions in late August. Kinnock himself was more forgiving; the two men met in 1988, forming an enduring friendship.
Earlier that year he had also used passages from a 1967 speech by Robert F. Kennedy (for which his aides took blame) and a short phrase from John F. Kennedy's inaugural address; two years earlier he had used a 1976 passage by Hubert Humphrey. Biden responded that politicians often borrow from one another without giving credit, and that one of his rivals for the nomination, Jesse Jackson, had called him to point out that he (Jackson) had used the same material by Humphrey that Biden had used.
A few days later, an incident in law school in which Biden drew text from a Fordham Law Review article with inadequate citations was publicized. He was required to repeat the course and passed with high marks. At Biden's request the Delaware Supreme Court's Board of Professional Responsibility reviewed the incident and concluded that he had violated no rules.
Biden has made several false or exaggerated claims about his early life: that he had earned three degrees in college, that he attended law school on a full scholarship, that he had graduated in the top half of his class, and that he had marched in the civil rights movement. The limited amount of other news about the presidential race amplified these disclosures and on September 23, 1987, Biden withdrew his candidacy, saying it had been overrun by "the exaggerated shadow" of his past mistakes.
2008 campaign
After exploring the possibility of a run in several previous cycles, in January 2007, Biden declared his candidacy in the 2008 elections. During his campaign, Biden focused on the Iraq War, his record as chairman of major Senate committees, and his foreign-policy experience. In mid-2007, Biden stressed his foreign policy expertise compared to Obama's. Biden was noted for his one-liners during the campaign; in one debate he said of Republican candidate Rudy Giuliani: "There's only three things he mentions in a sentence: a noun, and a verb and 9/11."
Biden had difficulty raising funds, struggled to draw people to his rallies, and failed to gain traction against the high-profile candidacies of Obama and Senator Hillary Clinton. He never rose above single digits in national polls of the Democratic candidates. In the first contest on January 3, 2008, Biden placed fifth in the Iowa caucuses, garnering slightly less than one percent of the state delegates. He withdrew from the race that evening.
Despite its lack of success, Biden's 2008 campaign raised his stature in the political world. In particular, it changed the relationship between Biden and Obama. Although they had served together on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, they had not been close: Biden resented Obama's quick rise to political stardom, while Obama viewed Biden as garrulous and patronizing. Having gotten to know each other during 2007, Obama appreciated Biden's campaign style and appeal to working-class voters, and Biden said he became convinced Obama was "the real deal".
2008 vice-presidential campaign
Shortly after Biden withdrew from the presidential race, Obama privately told him he was interested in finding an important place for Biden in his administration. Biden declined Obama's first request to vet him for the vice-presidential slot, fearing the vice presidency would represent a loss in status and voice from his Senate position, but he later changed his mind. In early August, Obama and Biden met in secret to discuss the possibility, and developed a strong personal rapport. On August 22, 2008, Obama announced that Biden would be his running mate. The New York Times reported that the strategy behind the choice reflected a desire to fill out the ticket with someone with foreign policy and national security experience—and not to help the ticket win a swing state or to emphasize Obama's "change" message. Others pointed out Biden's appeal to middle-class and blue-collar voters, as well as his willingness to aggressively challenge Republican nominee John McCain in a way that Obama seemed uncomfortable doing at times. In accepting Obama's offer, Biden ruled out running for president again in 2016, but his comments in later years seemed to back off that stance, as he did not want to diminish his political power by appearing uninterested in advancement. Biden was officially nominated for vice president on August 27 by voice vote at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver.
Biden's vice-presidential campaigning gained little media visibility, as far greater press attention was focused on the Republican running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. During one week in September 2008, for instance, the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism found that Biden was included in only five percent of coverage of the race, far less than the other three candidates on the tickets received. Biden nevertheless focused on campaigning in economically challenged areas of swing states and trying to win over blue-collar Democrats, especially those who had supported Hillary Clinton. Biden attacked McCain heavily despite a long-standing personal friendship. He said, "That guy I used to know, he's gone. It literally saddens me." As the financial crisis of 2007–2010 reached a peak with the liquidity crisis of September 2008 and the proposed bailout of the United States financial system became a major factor in the campaign, Biden voted in favor of the $700billion Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, which went on to pass in the Senate 74–25.
On October 2, 2008, Biden participated in the vice-presidential debate with Palin at Washington University in St. Louis. Post-debate polls found that while Palin exceeded many voters' expectations, Biden had won the debate overall. During the campaign's final days, he focused on less populated, older, less well-off areas of battleground states, especially Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, where polling indicated he was popular and where Obama had not campaigned or performed well in the Democratic primaries. He also campaigned in some normally Republican states, as well as in areas with large Catholic populations.
Under instructions from the campaign, Biden kept his speeches succinct and tried to avoid offhand remarks, such as one he made about Obama's being tested by a foreign power soon after taking office, which had attracted negative attention. Privately, Biden's remarks frustrated Obama. "How many times is Biden gonna say something stupid?" he asked. Obama campaign staffers referred to Biden blunders as "Joe bombs" and kept Biden uninformed about strategy discussions, which in turn irked Biden. Relations between the two campaigns became strained for a month, until Biden apologized on a call to Obama and the two built a stronger partnership. Publicly, Obama strategist David Axelrod said Biden's high popularity ratings had outweighed any unexpected comments. Nationally, Biden had a 60% favorability rating in a Pew Research Center poll, compared to Palin's 44%.
On November 4, 2008, Obama and Biden were elected with 53% of the popular vote and 365 electoral votes to McCain–Palin's 173.
At the same time Biden was running for vice president he was also running for reelection to the Senate, as permitted by Delaware law. On November4, he was reelected to the Senate, defeating Republican Christine O'Donnell. Having won both races, Biden made a point of waiting to resign from the Senate until he was sworn in for his seventh term on January 6, 2009. He became the youngest senator ever to start a seventh full term, and said, "In all my life, the greatest honor bestowed upon me has been serving the people of Delaware as their United States senator." Biden cast his last Senate vote on January 15, supporting the release of the second $350billion for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, and resigned from the Senate later that day. In an emotional farewell, Biden told the Senate: "Every good thing I have seen happen here, every bold step taken in the 36-plus years I have been here, came not from the application of pressure by interest groups, but through the maturation of personal relationships." Delaware Governor Ruth Ann Minner appointed longtime Biden adviser Ted Kaufman to fill Biden's vacated Senate seat.
Vice presidency (2009–2017)
First term, 2009–2013
Biden said he intended to eliminate some explicit roles assumed by George W. Bush's vice president, Dick Cheney, and did not intend to emulate any previous vice presidency. He chaired Obama's transition team and headed an initiative to improve middle-class economic well-being. In early January 2009, in his last act as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, he visited the leaders of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and on January 20 he was sworn in as the 47th vice president of the United Statesthe first vice president from Delaware and the first Roman Catholic vice president.
Obama was soon comparing Biden to a basketball player "who does a bunch of things that don't show up in the stat sheet". In May, Biden visited Kosovo and affirmed the U.S. position that its "independence is irreversible". Biden lost an internal debate to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about sending 21,000 new troops to Afghanistan, but his skepticism was valued, and in 2009, Biden's views gained more influence as Obama reconsidered his Afghanistan strategy. Biden visited Iraq about every two months, becoming the administration's point man in delivering messages to Iraqi leadership about expected progress there. More generally, overseeing Iraq policy became Biden's responsibility: Obama was said to have said, "Joe, you do Iraq." Biden said Iraq "could be one of the great achievements of this administration". His January 2010 visit to Iraq in the midst of turmoil over banned candidates from the upcoming Iraqi parliamentary election resulted in 59 of the several hundred candidates being reinstated by the Iraqi government two days later. By 2012, Biden had made eight trips there, but his oversight of U.S. policy in Iraq receded with the exit of U.S. troops in 2011.
Biden oversaw infrastructure spending from the Obama stimulus package intended to help counteract the ongoing recession. During this period, Biden was satisfied that no major instances of waste or corruption had occurred, and when he completed that role in February 2011, he said the number of fraud incidents with stimulus monies had been less than one percent.
In late April 2009, Biden's off-message response to a question during the beginning of the swine flu outbreak, that he would advise family members against traveling on airplanes or subways, led to a swift retraction by the White House. The remark revived Biden's reputation for gaffes. Confronted with rising unemployment through July 2009, Biden acknowledged that the administration had "misread how bad the economy was" but maintained confidence the stimulus package would create many more jobs once the pace of expenditures picked up. On March 23, 2010, a microphone picked up Biden telling the president that his signing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was "a big fucking deal" during live national news telecasts. Despite their different personalities, Obama and Biden formed a friendship, partly based around Obama's daughter Sasha and Biden's granddaughter Maisy, who attended Sidwell Friends School together.
Members of the Obama administration said Biden's role in the White House was to be a contrarian and force others to defend their positions. Rahm Emanuel, White House chief of staff, said that Biden helped counter groupthink. White House press secretary Jay Carney, Biden's former communications director, said Biden played the role of "the bad guy in the Situation Room". Another senior Obama advisor said Biden "is always prepared to be the skunk at the family picnic to make sure we are as intellectually honest as possible." Obama said, "The best thing about Joe is that when we get everybody together, he really forces people to think and defend their positions, to look at things from every angle, and that is very valuable for me." The Bidens maintained a relaxed atmosphere at their official residence in Washington, often entertaining their grandchildren, and regularly returned to their home in Delaware.
Biden campaigned heavily for Democrats in the 2010 midterm elections, maintaining an attitude of optimism in the face of predictions of large-scale losses for the party. Following big Republican gains in the elections and the departure of White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, Biden's past relationships with Republicans in Congress became more important. He led the successful administration effort to gain Senate approval for the New START treaty. In December 2010, Biden's advocacy for a middle ground, followed by his negotiations with Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, were instrumental in producing the administration's compromise tax package that included a temporary extension of the Bush tax cuts. Biden then took the lead in trying to sell the agreement to a reluctant Democratic caucus in Congress. The package passed as the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010.
In March 2011, Obama delegated Biden to lead negotiations with Congress to resolve federal spending levels for the rest of the year and avoid a government shutdown. By May 2011, a "Biden panel" with six congressional members was trying to reach a bipartisan deal on raising the U.S. debt ceiling as part of an overall deficit reduction plan. The U.S. debt ceiling crisis developed over the next few months, but Biden's relationship with McConnell again proved key in breaking a deadlock and bringing about a deal to resolve it, in the form of the Budget Control Act of 2011, signed on August 2, 2011, the same day an unprecedented U.S. default had loomed. Biden had spent the most time of anyone in the administration bargaining with Congress on the debt question, and one Republican staffer said, "Biden's the only guy with real negotiating authority, and [McConnell] knows that his word is good. He was a key to the deal."
Some reports suggest that Biden opposed proceeding with the May 2011 U.S. mission to kill Osama bin Laden, lest failure adversely affect Obama's reelection prospects. He took the lead in notifying Congressional leaders of the successful outcome.
Reelection
In October 2010, Biden said Obama had asked him to remain as his running mate for the 2012 presidential election, but with Obama's popularity on the decline, White House Chief of Staff William M. Daley conducted some secret polling and focus group research in late 2011 on the idea of replacing Biden on the ticket with Hillary Clinton. The notion was dropped when the results showed no appreciable improvement for Obama, and White House officials later said Obama had never entertained the idea.
Biden's May 2012 statement that he was "absolutely comfortable" with same-sex marriage gained considerable public attention in comparison to Obama's position, which had been described as "evolving". Biden made his statement without administration consent, and Obama and his aides were quite irked, since Obama had planned to shift position several months later, in the build-up to the party convention, and since Biden had previously counseled the president to avoid the issue lest key Catholic voters be offended. Gay rights advocates seized upon Biden's statement, and within days, Obama announced that he too supported same-sex marriage, an action in part forced by Biden's remarks. Biden apologized to Obama in private for having spoken out, while Obama acknowledged publicly it had been done from the heart. The incident showed that Biden still struggled at times with message discipline, as Time wrote, "Everyone knows Biden's greatest strength is also his greatest weakness." Relations were also strained between the vice presidential and presidential campaigns when Biden appeared to use his position to bolster fundraising contacts for a possible run for president in 2016, and he ended up being excluded from Obama campaign strategy meetings.
The Obama campaign nevertheless valued Biden as a retail-level politician who could connect with disaffected blue-collar workers and rural residents, and he had a heavy schedule of appearances in swing states as the reelection campaign began in earnest in spring 2012. An August 2012 remark before a mixed-race audience that Republican proposals to relax Wall Street regulations would "put y'all back in chains" led to a similar analysis of Biden's face-to-face campaigning abilities versus his tendency to go off track. The Los Angeles Times wrote, "Most candidates give the same stump speech over and over, putting reporters if not the audience to sleep. But during any Biden speech, there might be a dozen moments to make press handlers cringe, and prompt reporters to turn to each other with amusement and confusion." Time magazine wrote that Biden often went too far and "Along with the familiar Washington mix of neediness and overconfidence, Biden's brain is wired for more than the usual amount of goofiness."
Biden was nominated for a second term as vice president at the 2012 Democratic National Convention in September. Debating his Republican counterpart, Representative Paul Ryan, in the vice-presidential debate on October 11 he made a spirited and emotional defense of the Obama administration's record and energetically attacked the Republican ticket. On November 6, Obama and Biden won reelection over Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan with 332 of 538 Electoral College votes and 51% of the popular vote.
In December 2012, Obama named Biden to head the Gun Violence Task Force, created to address the causes of gun violence in the United States in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Later that month, during the final days before the United States fell off the "fiscal cliff", Biden's relationship with McConnell again proved important as the two negotiated a deal that led to the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 being passed at the start of 2013. It made many of the Bush tax cuts permanent but raised rates on upper income levels.
Second term, 2013–2017
Biden was inaugurated to a second term on January 20, 2013, at a small ceremony at Number One Observatory Circle, his official residence, with Justice Sonia Sotomayor presiding (a public ceremony took place on January 21).
Biden played little part in discussions that led to the October 2013 passage of the Continuing Appropriations Act, 2014, which resolved the federal government shutdown of 2013 and the debt-ceiling crisis of 2013. This was because Senate majority leader Harry Reid and other Democratic leaders cut him out of any direct talks with Congress, feeling Biden had given too much away during previous negotiations.
Biden's Violence Against Women Act was reauthorized again in 2013. The act led to related developments, such as the White House Council on Women and Girls, begun in the first term, as well as the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault, begun in January 2014 with Biden and Valerie Jarrett as co-chairs. Biden discussed federal guidelines on sexual assault on university campuses while giving a speech at the University of New Hampshire. He said, "No means no, if you're drunk or you're sober. No means no if you're in bed, in a dorm or on the street. No means no even if you said yes at first and you changed your mind. No means no."
Biden favored arming Syria's rebel fighters. As Iraq fell apart during 2014, renewed attention was paid to the Biden-Gelb Iraqi federalization plan of 2006, with some observers suggesting Biden had been right all along. Biden himself said the U.S. would follow ISIL "to the gates of hell". Biden had close relationships with several Latin American leaders and was assigned a focus on the region during the administration; he visited the region 16 times during his vice presidency, the most of any president or vice president.
In 2015, Speaker of the House John Boehner and Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell invited Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress without notifying the Obama administration. This defiance of protocol led Biden and more than 50 congressional Democrats to skip Netanyahu's speech. In August 2016, Biden visited Serbia, where he met with Serbian president Aleksandar Vučić and expressed his condolences for civilian victims of the bombing campaign during the Kosovo War. In Kosovo, he attended a ceremony renaming a highway after his son Beau, in honor of Beau's service to Kosovo in training its judges and prosecutors.
Biden never cast a tie-breaking vote in the Senate, making him the longest-serving vice president with this distinction.
Role in the 2016 presidential campaign
During his second term, Biden was often said to be preparing for a possible bid for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination. With his family, many friends, and donors encouraging him in mid-2015 to enter the race, and with Hillary Clinton's favorability ratings in decline at that time, Biden was reported to again be seriously considering the prospect and a "Draft Biden 2016" PAC was established.
, Biden was still uncertain about running. He felt his son's recent death had largely drained his emotional energy, and said, "nobody has a right... to seek that office unless they're willing to give it 110% of who they are." On October 21, speaking from a podium in the Rose Garden with his wife and Obama by his side, Biden announced his decision not to run for president in 2016. In January 2016, Biden affirmed that it was the right decision, but admitted to regretting not running for president "every day".
After Obama endorsed Hillary Clinton on June 9, 2016, Biden endorsed her later that day. Throughout the 2016 election, Biden strongly criticized Clinton's opponent, Donald Trump, in often colorful terms.
Subsequent activities (2017–2019)
After leaving the vice presidency, Biden became a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, while continuing to lead efforts to find treatments for cancer. In 2017 he wrote a memoir, Promise Me, Dad, and went on a book tour. Biden earned $15.6million in 2017–2018. In 2018, he gave a eulogy for Senator John McCain, praising McCain's embrace of American ideals and bipartisan friendships.
Biden remained in the public eye, endorsing candidates while continuing to comment on politics, climate change, and the presidency of Donald Trump. He also continued to speak out in favor of LGBT rights, continuing advocacy on an issue he had become more closely associated with during his vice presidency. In 2019, Biden criticized Brunei for its intention to implement Islamic laws that would allow death by stoning for adultery and homosexuality, calling it "appalling and immoral" and saying, "There is no excuse—not culture, not tradition—for this kind of hate and inhumanity." By 2019, Biden and his wife reported that their assets had increased to between $2.2 million and $8 million from speaking engagements and a contract to write a set of books.
2020 presidential campaign
Speculation and announcement
Between 2016 and 2019, media outlets often mentioned Biden as a likely candidate for president in 2020. When asked if he would run, he gave varied and ambivalent answers, saying "never say never". At one point he suggested he did not see a scenario where he would run again, but a few days later, he said, "I'll run if I can walk." A political action committee known as Time for Biden was formed in January 2018, seeking Biden's entry into the race. He finally launched his campaign on April 25, 2019, saying he was prompted to run, among other reasons, by his "sense of duty."
Campaign
In September 2019, it was reported that Trump had pressured Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate alleged wrongdoing by Biden and his son Hunter Biden. Despite the allegations, no evidence was produced of any wrongdoing by the Bidens. The media widely interpreted this pressure to investigate the Bidens as trying to hurt Biden's chances of winning the presidency, resulting in a political scandal and Trump's impeachment by the House of Representatives.
Beginning in 2019, Trump and his allies falsely accused Biden of getting the Ukrainian prosecutor general Viktor Shokin fired because he was supposedly pursuing an investigation into Burisma Holdings, which employed Hunter Biden. Biden was accused of withholding $1billion in aid from Ukraine in this effort. In 2015, Biden pressured the Ukrainian parliament to remove Shokin because the United States, the European Union and other international organizations considered Shokin corrupt and ineffective, and in particular because Shokin was not assertively investigating Burisma. The withholding of the $1billion in aid was part of this official policy. The Senate Homeland Security Committee and Senate Finance Committee, led by Republicans, investigated allegations of wrongdoing by the Bidens in Ukraine, ultimately releasing a report in September 2020 that detailed no evidence of wrongdoing by Joe Biden, and concluded that it was "not clear" whether Hunter Biden's role in Burisma "affected U.S. policy toward Ukraine".
In March 2019 and April 2019, Biden was accused by eight women of previous instances of inappropriate physical contact, such as embracing, touching or kissing. Biden had previously described himself as a "tactile politician" and admitted this behavior has caused trouble for him. In April 2019, Biden pledged to be more "respectful of people's personal space".
Throughout 2019, Biden stayed generally ahead of other Democrats in national polls. Despite this, he finished fourth in the Iowa caucuses, and eight days later, fifth in the New Hampshire primary. He performed better in the Nevada caucuses, reaching the 15% required for delegates, but still was behind Bernie Sanders by 21.6 percentage points. Making strong appeals to Black voters on the campaign trail and in the South Carolina debate, Biden won the South Carolina primary by more than 28 points. After the withdrawals and subsequent endorsements of candidates Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar, he made large gains in the March3 Super Tuesday primary elections. Biden won 18 of the next 26 contests, including Alabama, Arkansas, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia, putting him in the lead overall. Elizabeth Warren and Mike Bloomberg soon dropped out, and Biden expanded his lead with victories over Sanders in four states (Idaho, Michigan, Mississippi, and Missouri) on March 10.
In late March 2020, Tara Reade, one of the eight women who in 2019 had accused Biden of inappropriate physical contact, accused Biden of having sexually assaulted her in 1993. There were inconsistencies between Reade's 2019 and 2020 allegations. Biden and his campaign denied the sexual assault allegation.
When Sanders suspended his campaign on April 8, 2020, Biden became the Democratic Party's presumptive nominee for president. On April 13, Sanders endorsed Biden in a live-streamed discussion from their homes. Former President Barack Obama endorsed Biden the next day. In March 2020, Biden committed to choosing a woman as his running mate. In June, Biden met the 1,991-delegate threshold needed to secure the party's presidential nomination. On August 11, he announced U.S. Senator Kamala Harris of California as his running mate, making her the first African American and first South Asian American vice-presidential nominee on a major-party ticket.
On August 18, 2020, Biden was officially nominated at the 2020 Democratic National Convention as the Democratic Party nominee for president in the 2020 election.
Presidential transition
Biden was elected the 46th president of the United States in November 2020. He defeated the incumbent, Donald Trump, becoming the first candidate to defeat a sitting president since Bill Clinton defeated George H.W. Bush in 1992. Trump refused to concede, insisting the election had been "stolen" from him through "voter fraud", challenging the results in court and promoting numerous conspiracy theories about the voting and vote-counting processes, in an attempt to overturn the election results. Biden's transition was delayed by several weeks as the White House ordered federal agencies not to cooperate. On November23, General Services Administrator Emily W. Murphy formally recognized Biden as the apparent winner of the 2020 election and authorized the start of a transition process to the Biden administration.
On January 6, 2021, during Congress's electoral vote count, Trump told supporters gathered in front of the White House to march to the Capitol, saying, "We will never give up. We will never concede. It doesn't happen. You don't concede when there's theft involved." Soon after, they attacked the Capitol. During the insurrection at the Capitol, Biden addressed the nation, calling the events "an unprecedented assault unlike anything we've seen in modern times." He specifically called on Trump to "go on national television now to fulfill his oath and defend the Constitution and demand an end to this siege", adding, "it must end now." After the Capitol was cleared, Congress resumed its joint session and officially certified the election results with Pence declaring Biden and Harris the winners.
Presidency (2021–present)
Inauguration
Biden was inaugurated as the 46th president of the United States on January 20, 2021. At 78, he is the oldest person to have assumed the office. He is the second Catholic president (after John F. Kennedy) and the first president whose home state is Delaware. He is the second non-incumbent vice president (after Richard Nixon in 1968) to be elected president. He is also the first president from the Silent Generation.
Biden's inauguration was "a muted affair unlike any previous inauguration" due to COVID-19 precautions as well as massively increased security measures because of a threat of widespread civil unrest. Biden took the oath of office on the Capitol's west steps and gave an inaugural address, but there were no spectators on the Mall and no in-person parades or inaugural balls. Trump did not attend, becoming the first outgoing president since 1869 to not attend his successor's inauguration.
First 100 days
In his first two days as president, Biden signed 17 executive orders, more than most recent presidents did in their first 100 days. By his third day, orders had included rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement, ending the state of national emergency at the border with Mexico, directing the government to rejoin the World Health Organization, face mask requirements on federal property, measures to combat hunger in the United States, and revoking permits for the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. In his first two weeks in office, Biden signed more executive orders than any other president since Franklin D. Roosevelt had in their first month in office.
On February 4, 2021, the Biden administration announced that the United States was ending its support for the Saudi-led bombing campaign in Yemen. In his first visit to the State Department as president, Biden said "this war has to end" and that the conflict had created a "humanitarian and strategic catastrophe." On February 25, the Biden administration "struck a site in Syria used by two Iranian-backed militia groups in response to rocket attacks on American forces." This marked the first known action by the military under Biden.
On March 11, the first anniversary of COVID-19 being declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization, Biden signed into law the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, a $1.9 trillion economic stimulus relief package he proposed and lobbied for that aimed to speed up the United States' recovery from the economic and health effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing recession. The package included direct payments to most Americans, an extension of increased unemployment benefits, funds for vaccine distribution and school reopenings, support for small businesses and state and local governments, and expansions of health insurance subsidies and the child tax credit. Biden's initial proposal included an increase of the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour, but after Senate parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough determined that including the increase in a budget reconciliation bill would violate Senate rules, Democrats declined to pursue overruling her and removed the increase from the package.
Also in March, amid a rise in migrants entering the U.S. from Mexico, Biden told migrants, "Don't come over." He said that the U.S. was arranging a plan for migrants to "apply for asylum in place", without leaving their original locations. In the meantime, migrant adults "are being sent back", Biden said, in reference to the continuation of the Trump administration's Title 42 policy for quick deportations. Biden earlier announced that his administration would not deport unaccompanied migrant children; the rise in arrivals of such children exceeded the capacity of facilities meant to shelter them (before they were sent to sponsors), leading the Biden administration in March to direct the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help manage these children.
On April 14, Biden announced that the United States would delay the withdrawal of all troops from the war in Afghanistan until September 11, signalling an end to the country's direct military involvement in Afghanistan after nearly 20 years. In February 2020, the Trump administration had made a deal with the Taliban to completely withdraw U.S. forces by May 1, 2021. Biden's decision met with a wide range of reactions, from support and relief to trepidation at the possible collapse of the Afghan government without American support. On April 22–23, Biden held an international climate summit at which he announced that the U.S. would cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 50%–52% by 2030 compared to 2005 levels. Other countries also increased their pledges. If the pledges made at the summit are met, they will cut global greenhouse gas emissions by 2.6–3.7 Gte by 2030. On April 28, the eve of his 100th day in office, Biden delivered his first address to a joint session of Congress, in which he highlighted the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines and addressed withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, the murder of George Floyd, and the U.S. Capitol attack while urging Congress to pass comprehensive immigration, gun, and health care reform.
Rest of 2021
In May 2021, during a flareup in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, Biden expressed his support for Israel, saying "my party still supports Israel" amid disagreement from some Democrats. In June 2021, Biden took his first trip abroad as president. In eight days he visited Belgium, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. He attended a G7 summit, a NATO summit, and an EU summit, and held one-on-one talks with Russian president Vladimir Putin.
On June 17, Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act, which officially declared Juneteenth a federal holiday. Juneteenth is the first new federal holiday since Martin Luther King Jr. Day was declared a holiday in 1986. In July 2021, amid a slowing of the COVID-19 vaccination rate in the country and the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant, Biden said that the country has "a pandemic for those who haven't gotten the vaccination" and that it was therefore "gigantically important" for Americans to be vaccinated, touting the vaccines' effectiveness against hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19. He also criticized the prevalence of COVID-19 misinformation on social media, saying it was "killing people". In September 2021, Biden announced AUKUS, a security pact between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, to ensure "peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific over the long term"; the deal included nuclear-powered submarines built for Australia's use.
By the end of 2021, 40 of Biden's appointed judges to the federal judiciary had been confirmed, more than any president in their first year in office since Ronald Reagan. Biden has prioritized diversity in his judicial appointments more than any president in U.S. history, with the majority of appointments being women and people of color. Most of his appointments have been in blue states, making a limited impact since the courts in these states already traditionally lean liberal.
In the first eight months of his presidency, Biden's approval rating, according to Morning Consult polling, remained above 50%. In August, it began to decline and lowered into the low forties by December. The decline in his approval is attributed to the Afghanistan withdrawal, increasing hospitalizations from the Delta variant, high inflation and gas prices, disarray within the Democratic Party, and a general decline in popularity customary in politics.
Withdrawal from Afghanistan
American forces began withdrawing from Afghanistan in 2020, under the provisions of a February 2020 US-Taliban agreement that set a May 1, 2021, deadline. By April 2021, the State Department was urging American civilians in Afghanistan to leave as soon as possible. The Taliban began an offensive on May 1. As late as July, American intelligence assessments estimated Kabul would fall to the Taliban months or weeks after the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan. By early July, most American troops in Afghanistan had withdrawn. Biden addressed the withdrawal in July, saying, "The likelihood there's going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely."
On August 15, the Afghan government collapsed under the Taliban offensive, and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country. Biden reacted by ordering 6,000 American troops to assist in the evacuation of American personnel and Afghan allies. He was widely criticized for the manner of the withdrawal, with allegations of poor planning for the evacuation of Americans and Afghan allies, and for his silence and absence during the days before the collapse of the Afghan government.
On August 16, Biden addressed the "messy" situation, taking responsibility for it, and admitting that the situation "unfolded more quickly than we had anticipated". He defended his decision to withdraw, saying that Americans should not be "dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves," and blamed his predecessor Donald Trump, the Afghan president, and Afghan security forces for the speedy collapse.
On August 22, Biden said that his administration knew that ISIS-K was a "likely source" of threat. On August 26, a suicide bombing at the Kabul airport killed 13 U.S. service members and 169 Afghans. Biden declared to the attackers that the United States "will hunt you down and make you pay". On August 27, an American drone strike killed two ISIS-K targets, who were "planners and facilitators", according to a U.S. Army general. On August 29, another American drone strike killed 10 civilians, including seven children; the Defense Department initially claimed the strike was conducted on an Islamic State suicide bomber threatening Kabul Airport, but admitted the mistake on September 17 and apologized.
The U.S. military left Afghanistan on August 30, with Biden saying that the evacuation effort was an "extraordinary success", by extracting over 120,000 Americans, Afghans and other allies. He acknowledged that between "100 to 200" Americans who wanted to leave were left in Afghanistan, despite his August 18 pledge to stay in Afghanistan until all Americans who wanted to leave had left. The Biden administration, joining governments of almost 100 countries, said that the Taliban had given "assurances" that anyone "with travel authorization from [these] countries" would continue to be allowed to leave Afghanistan.
Economy
Biden entered office nine months into a recovery from the COVID-19 recession and his first year in office was characterized by robust growth in real GDP, employment, wages and stock market returns, amid significantly elevated inflation. Real GDP grew 5.7%, the fastest rate in 37 years. Amid record job creation, the unemployment rate fell at the fastest pace on record during the year. By the end of 2021, inflation reached a nearly 40-year high of 7.1%, which was partially offset by the highest wage and salary growth in at least 20 years. Income growth was particularly strong at the low end of the pay scale.
Infrastructure and climate
As part of Biden's Build Back Better agenda, in late March 2021, he proposed the American Jobs Plan, a $2 trillion package addressing issues including transport infrastructure, utilities infrastructure, broadband infrastructure, housing, schools, manufacturing, research and workforce development. After months of negotiations among Biden and lawmakers, in August 2021 the Senate passed a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill called the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, while the House, also in a bipartisan manner, approved that bill in early November 2021, covering infrastructure related to transport, utilities, and broadband. Biden signed the bill into law in mid-November 2021.
As COP26, scheduled for October 31 to November 12, 2021, approached, Biden increased his efforts to address climate change domestically and internationally. He promoted an agreement that the U.S. and the European Union cut methane emissions by a third by 2030 and tried to add dozens of other countries to the effort. He tried to convince China and Australia to do more. He convened an online Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate Change to press other countries to strengthen their climate policy. Biden pledged to double climate funding to developing countries by 2024. Also at COP26, the U.S. and China reached a deal on greenhouse gas emission reduction. The two countries are responsible for 40% of global emissions.
2022
In early 2022, Biden made efforts to change his public image after entering the year with low approval ratings, but they continued to fall, dipping to approximately 40% in aggregated polls by February.
In January, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, a moderate liberal nominated by Bill Clinton, announced he will be retiring from the Supreme Court. Breyer's retirement is expected to give Biden his first opportunity to nominate a Supreme Court justice. During his 2020 campaign, Biden vowed to nominate a Black woman to the court if a vacancy occurred, a promise he reiterated after the announcement of Breyer's retirement. In February, Biden nominated federal judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court.
Political positions
Biden is considered a moderate Democrat and a centrist, though more recently he has been seen as shifting to the left. He has a lifetime liberal 72% score from the Americans for Democratic Action through 2004, while the American Conservative Union gave him a lifetime conservative rating of 13% through 2008.
Biden supported the fiscal stimulus in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009; the Obama administration's proposed increase in infrastructure spending; subsidies for mass transit, including Amtrak, bus, and subway; and the reduced military spending in the Obama administration's fiscal year 2014 budget. He has proposed partially reversing the corporate tax cuts of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, saying that doing so would not hurt businesses' ability to hire. He voted for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Biden is a staunch supporter of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). He has promoted a plan to expand and build upon it, paid for by revenue gained from reversing some Trump administration tax cuts. Biden's plan aims to expand health insurance coverage to 97% of Americans, including by creating a public health insurance option.
Biden has supported same-sex marriage since 2012 and also supports Roe v. Wade and repealing the Hyde Amendment. He opposes drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and supports governmental funding to find new energy sources. As a senator, he forged deep relationships with police groups and was a chief proponent of a Police Officer's Bill of Rights measure that police unions supported but police chiefs opposed. As vice president, he served as a White House liaison to police.
Biden believes action must be taken on global warming. As a senator, he co-sponsored the Sense of the Senate resolution calling on the United States to take part in the United Nations climate negotiations and the Boxer–Sanders Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act, the most stringent climate bill in the United States Senate. He wants to achieve a carbon-free power sector in the U.S. by 2035 and stop emissions completely by 2050. His program includes reentering the Paris Agreement, nature conservation, and green building. Biden wants to pressure China and other countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions by carbon tariffs if necessary.
Biden has said the U.S. needs to "get tough" on China and build "a united front of U.S. allies and partners to confront China's abusive behaviors and human rights violations". He has called China the "most serious competitor" that poses challenges to the United States' "prosperity, security, and democratic values". Biden has voiced concerns about China's "coercive and unfair" economic practices and human rights abuses in the Xinjiang region to the Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping. He also pledged to sanction and commercially restrict Chinese government officials and entities who carry out repression.
Biden has said he is against regime change, but for providing non-military support to opposition movements. He opposed direct U.S. intervention in Libya, voted against U.S. participation in the Gulf War, voted in favor of the Iraq War, and supports a two-state solution in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Biden has pledged to end U.S. support for the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen and to reevaluate the United States' relationship with Saudi Arabia. He has called North Korea a "paper tiger". As vice president, Biden supported Obama's Cuban thaw. He has said that, as president, he would restore U.S. membership in key United Nations bodies, such as the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the World Health Organization, and possibly the Human Rights Council. Biden supports extending the New START arms control treaty with Russia to limit the number of nuclear weapons deployed by both sides. In 2021, Biden recognized the Armenian genocide, becoming the first U.S. president to do so.
Reputation
Biden was consistently ranked one of the least wealthy members of the Senate, which he attributed to his having been elected young. Feeling that less-wealthy public officials may be tempted to accept contributions in exchange for political favors, he proposed campaign finance reform measures during his first term. , Biden's net worth was $27,012. , the Bidens were worth $9 million, largely due to sales of Biden's books and speaking fees after his vice presidency.
The political writer Howard Fineman has written, "Biden is not an academic, he's not a theoretical thinker, he's a great street pol. He comes from a long line of working people in Scranton—auto salesmen, car dealers, people who know how to make a sale. He has that great Irish gift." Political columnist David S. Broder wrote that Biden has grown over time: "He responds to real people—that's been consistent throughout. And his ability to understand himself and deal with other politicians has gotten much much better." Journalist James Traub has written that "Biden is the kind of fundamentally happy person who can be as generous toward others as he is to himself."
In recent years, especially after the 2015 death of his elder son Beau, Biden has been noted for his empathetic nature and ability to communicate about grief. In 2020, CNN wrote that his presidential campaign aimed to make him "healer-in-chief", while The New York Times described his extensive history of being called upon to give eulogies.
Journalist and TV anchor Wolf Blitzer has described Biden as loquacious. He often deviates from prepared remarks and sometimes "puts his foot in his mouth." The New York Times wrote that Biden's "weak filters make him capable of blurting out pretty much anything." In 2018, Biden called himself "a gaffe machine". Some of his gaffes have been characterized as racially insensitive.
Electoral history
Publications
Books
Also paperback edition, Random House 2008, .
Book contributions
Biden, Joseph R., Jr. (2009). "Foreword." In: Choosing Equality: Essays and Narratives on the Desegregation Experience. Edited by Robert L. Hayman, Jr. and Leland Ware. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009. .
Pamphlets
Biden, Joseph R., Jr., and Les Aspin, William Louis Dickinson, Brent Scowcroft (1982). Arms Sales: A Useful Foreign Policy Tool? American Enterprise Institute. AEI Forum 56. Moderated by John Charles Daly.
Articles
Biden, Joseph R., Jr., and Miga Purev-Ochir (Spring 2015). "U.S.-Russian Relations in a Post-Cold War World: A Strategic Vision: Mapping a Future for U.S.-Russian Relations." Harvard International Review, vol. 36, no. 3, pp. 72–76. .
Notes
References
Citations
Works cited
See also
List of honors and awards received by Joe Biden
List of things named after Joe Biden
External links
Official
President Joe Biden official website
Presidential campaign website
Obama White House biography (archived)
Other
Joe Biden at On the Issues
Joe Biden at PolitiFact
1942 births
Living people
20th-century American lawyers
20th-century American politicians
20th-century Roman Catholics
21st-century American memoirists
21st-century presidents of the United States
21st-century vice presidents of the United States
21st-century Roman Catholics
2008 United States vice-presidential candidates
2012 United States vice-presidential candidates
American people of English descent
American people of French descent
American people of Irish descent
Biden family
Candidates in the 1988 United States presidential election
Candidates in the 2008 United States presidential election
Candidates in the 2020 United States presidential election
Catholics from Delaware
Catholics from Pennsylvania
Chairmen of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
County council members and commissioners in Delaware
Delaware Democrats
Delaware Fightin' Blue Hens football players
Delaware lawyers
Democratic Party (United States) presidential nominees
Democratic Party presidents of the United States
Democratic Party United States senators
Democratic Party (United States) vice presidential nominees
Democratic Party vice presidents of the United States
Laetare Medal recipients
New Castle County, Delaware politicians
Obama administration cabinet members
People from Claymont, Delaware
People from Wilmington, Delaware
People involved in plagiarism controversies
Politicians from Scranton, Pennsylvania
Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients
Presidents of the United States
Writers from Wilmington, Delaware
Public defenders
Recipients of Hilal-i-Pakistan
Recipients of the Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana, 1st Class
Recipients of St. George's Order of Victory
Syracuse University College of Law alumni
Time 100
Time Person of the Year
United States senators from Delaware
University of Delaware alumni
University of Pennsylvania faculty
Vice presidents of the United States
Widener University faculty
Writers from Scranton, Pennsylvania | false | [
"James Teitsma is a Canadian provincial politician, who was elected as the Member of the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba for the riding of Radisson in the 2016 election. He is a member of the Progressive Conservative party, and defeated NDP challenger Preet Singh.\n\nHe was re-elected in the 2019 provincial election.\n\nIn February 2020, Teitsma faced backlash for posting opposition to a proposed program to provide breakfast to all schoolchildren in Manitoba schools, stating that it would be better for families if children are able to eat meals at home.\n\nIn January 2021, James Teitsma faced public criticism for his disregard of Manitoba provincial COVID-19 guidelines which stated “avoid all non-essential travel”, and took his family on a 10-day driving trip through Western Canada during the December 2020 holiday season. He has not faced any consequences for his decision.\n\nElectoral results\n\nReferences \n\n1971 births\nLiving people\nProgressive Conservative Party of Manitoba MLAs\nPoliticians from Winnipeg\n21st-century Canadian politicians",
"Two-faced person (Chinese: 两面人; Pinyin: Liǎng Miàn Rén) is a Chinese political term often used by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to describe an official or party member who is either corrupt or ideologically disloyal to the party. Xi Jinping, the current general secretary of the CCP and China's president, has repeatedly said that the Chinese people should \"Resolutely fight against two-faced cliques and two faced-persons.\"\nFirst used in the 1960s, the term began to be used more frequently in the 2010s in response to proponents of Xinjiang independence and critics of China's approach to the Uyghur people.\n\nHistorical use\nIn 1967, the Chinese literary theorist Zhou Yang, who was a supporter of Mao Zedong, was labelled as two-faced by gang of four member Yao Wenyuan, in an essay titled “On the Two-Faced Counter-Revolutionary Zhou Yang (《评反革命两面派周扬》)\".\n\nIn 2017 the Cyberspace Administration of China, which administers access to the Internet in China, publicly criticized its former director Lu Wei, calling him \"a typical two-faced person (典型的两面人)\". \n \nSince 2017, the term has also been used to refer to Uyghur politicians and celebrities who secretly support Xinjiang independence, and to those criticizing Chinese policies related to the Uyghurs. Famous examples are Shirzat Bawudun and Sattar Sawut, who respectively are former heads of justice and education in Xinjiang.\n\nIn 2020, Zhao Zhengyong, 69, the former chief of the Shaanxi Provincial Committee of the Communist Party was sentenced to death following his conviction for embezzling over $100 million yuan. Just before his conviction, he was called a \"shameless two-faced person (可耻的两面人)\" in a CCP publication. Three years prior to this, Zhao had called in the same journal for a crackdown on \"two-faced people in government\".\n\nIn 2021, fashion designer Hugo Boss was accused of being two-faced following his criticism of Chinese labor and human rights practices regarding Uighurs working in Xinjiang. The United States responded that the criticism was part of a state-run campaign designed to criticize those who had encouraged a boycott of Uighur-produced cotton.\n\nReferences \n\nPejorative terms for people\nChinese words and phrases"
] |
[
"Joe Biden",
"Characteristics as senator",
"What are Joe's characteristics as senator?",
"characterized Biden as \"self-confident\" and \"compulsively ambitious\".",
"Was Joe likable as senator?",
"\"Biden is the kind of fundamentally happy person who can be as generous toward others as he is to himself.\"",
"Does Joe have a lot of friends in politics?",
"I don't know.",
"When did he become senator?",
"1969,",
"What State was he the Senator for?",
"I don't know.",
"Did he get re-elected as senator?",
"Biden was re-elected",
"Does his peers have good things to say about him?",
"he's a great street pol.",
"When did he get re-elected?",
"1978,",
"Has he ever faced any criticism?",
"The New York Times writes that Biden's \"weak filters make him capable of blurting out pretty much anything\"."
] | C_ae5bfb2601a2463ebfedd2b995b83bf8_1 | Has anyone else said any criticisms of him? | 10 | Aside from the New York Times, has anyone else said any criticisms of Joe Biden? | Joe Biden | On August 27, 1966, while Biden was still a law student, he married Neilia Hunter. They overcame her parents' initial reluctance for her to wed a Roman Catholic, and the ceremony was held in a Catholic church in Skaneateles. They had three children, Joseph R. "Beau" Biden III in 1969, Robert Hunter in 1970, and Naomi Christina in 1971. During 1968, Biden clerked for six months at a Wilmington law firm headed by prominent local Republican William Prickett and, as he later said, "thought of myself as a Republican". He disliked the conservative racial politics of incumbent Democratic Governor of Delaware Charles L. Terry and supported a more liberal Republican, Russell W. Peterson, who defeated Terry in 1968. The local Republicans tried to recruit him, but he resisted due to his distaste for Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon, and registered as an Independent instead. In 1969, Biden resumed practicing law in Wilmington, first as a public defender and then at a firm headed by Sid Balick, a locally active Democrat. Balick named him to the Democratic Forum, a group trying to reform and revitalize the state party, and Biden switched his registration to Democrat. He also started his own firm, Biden and Walsh. Corporate law, however, did not appeal to him and criminal law did not pay well. He supplemented his income by managing properties. Later in 1969, Biden ran as a Democrat for the New Castle County Council on a liberal platform that included support for public housing in the suburban area. He won by a solid, two-thousand vote margin in the usually Republican district and in a bad year for Democrats in the state. Even before taking his seat, he was already talking about running for the U.S. Senate in a couple of years. He served on the County Council from 1970 to 1972 while continuing his private law practice. Among issues he addressed on the council was his opposition to large highway projects that might disrupt Wilmington neighborhoods, including those related to Interstate 95. During his first years in the Senate, Biden focused on legislation regarding consumer-protection and environmental issues and called for greater accountability on the part of government. In mid-1974, freshman Senator Biden was named one of the 200 Faces for the Future by Time magazine, in a profile that mentioned what had happened to his family and characterized Biden as "self-confident" and "compulsively ambitious". Biden became ranking minority member of the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary in 1981. In 1984, he was Democratic floor manager for the successful passage of the Comprehensive Crime Control Act; civil libertarians praised him for modifying some of the Act's provisions, and it was his most important legislative accomplishment at that point in time. He first considered running for president in that year, after he gained notice for giving speeches to party audiences that simultaneously scolded and encouraged Democrats. Regarding foreign policy, during his first decade in the Senate, Biden focused on arms control issues. In response to the refusal of the U.S. Congress to ratify the SALT II Treaty signed in 1979 by Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and President Jimmy Carter, he took the initiative to meet the Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, educated him about American concerns and interests, and secured several changes to address objections of the Foreign Relations Committee. When the Reagan administration wanted to interpret the 1972 SALT I Treaty loosely in order to allow the Strategic Defense Initiative to proceed, Biden argued for strict adherence to the treaty's terms. He clashed again with the Reagan administration in 1986 over economic sanctions against South Africa; he received considerable attention when he excoriated Secretary of State George P. Shultz at a Senate hearing because of the administration's support of that country, which continued to practice the apartheid system. Following his initial election in 1972, Biden was re-elected to six additional terms, in the elections of 1978, 1984, 1990, 1996, 2002, and 2008, usually getting about 60 percent of the vote. He did not face strong opposition; Pete du Pont, then governor, chose not to run against him in 1984. Biden spent 28 years as a junior senator due to the two-year seniority of his Republican colleague William V. Roth Jr. After Roth was defeated for re-election by Tom Carper in 2000, Biden became Delaware's senior senator. He then became the longest-serving senator in Delaware history. In May 1999, Biden set the mark for youngest senator to cast 10,000 votes. With a net worth between $59,000 and $366,000, and almost no outside income or investment income, Biden was consistently ranked as one of the least wealthy members of the Senate. Biden stated that he was listed as the second poorest member in Congress, a distinction that he was not proud of, but attributed to being elected early in his career. Biden realized early in his senatorial career how vulnerable poorer public officials are to offers of financial contributions in exchange for policy support, and he pushed campaign finance reform measures during his first term. During his years as a senator, Biden amassed a reputation for loquaciousness, with his questions and remarks during Senate hearings being especially known for being long-winded. He has been a strong speaker and debater and a frequent and effective guest on the Sunday morning talk shows. In public appearances, he is known to deviate from prepared remarks at will. According to political analyst Mark Halperin, he has shown "a persistent tendency to say silly, offensive, and off-putting things"; The New York Times writes that Biden's "weak filters make him capable of blurting out pretty much anything". Nor is Biden known for modesty; journalist James Traub has written that "Biden's vanity and his regard for his own gifts seem considerable even by the rarefied standards of the U.S. Senate." Political writer Howard Fineman has said that, "Biden is not an academic, he's not a theoretical thinker, he's a great street pol. He comes from a long line of working people in Scranton--auto salesmen, car dealers, people who know how to make a sale. He has that great Irish gift." Political columnist David S. Broder has viewed Biden as having grown since he came to Washington and since his failed 1988 presidential bid: "He responds to real people--that's been consistent throughout. And his ability to understand himself and deal with other politicians has gotten much much better." Traub concludes that "Biden is the kind of fundamentally happy person who can be as generous toward others as he is to himself." CANNOTANSWER | journalist James Traub has written that "Biden's vanity and his regard for his own gifts seem considerable even by the rarefied standards of the U.S. Senate." | Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. ( ; born November 20, 1942) is an American politician who is the 46th and current president of the United States. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 47th vice president from 2009 to 2017 under Barack Obama and represented Delaware in the United States Senate from 1973 to 2009.
Biden was born and raised in Scranton, Pennsylvania, moving with his family to New Castle County, Delaware, in 1953 when he was ten. He studied at the University of Delaware before earning his law degree from Syracuse University in 1968. He was elected to the New Castle County Council in 1970 and became the sixth-youngest senator in U.S. history after he was elected to the United States Senate from Delaware in 1972, at age 29. Biden was the chair or ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for 12 years and was influential in foreign affairs during Obama's presidency. He also chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee from 1987 to 1995, dealing with drug policy, crime prevention, and civil liberties issues; led the effort to pass the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act and the Violence Against Women Act; and oversaw six U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings, including the contentious hearings for Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas. He ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988 and 2008. Biden was reelected to the Senate six times and was the fourth-most senior sitting senator at the time when he became Obama's vice president after they won the 2008 presidential election, defeating John McCain and his running mate Sarah Palin. Obama and Biden were reelected in 2012, defeating Mitt Romney and his running mate Paul Ryan.
During eight years as vice president, Biden leaned on his Senate experience and frequently represented the administration in negotiations with congressional Republicans, including on the Budget Control Act of 2011, which resolved a debt ceiling crisis, and the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, which addressed the impending "fiscal cliff". He also oversaw infrastructure spending in 2009 to counteract the Great Recession. On foreign policy, Biden was a close counselor to the president and took a leading role in designing the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq in 2011. In 2017, Obama awarded Biden the Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction.
Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris defeated incumbent president Donald Trump and vice president Mike Pence in the 2020 presidential election. He is the oldest president and the first to have a female vice president. His early presidential activity centered around proposing, lobbying for, and signing into law the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 to help the United States recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing recession, as well as a series of executive orders. Biden's orders addressed the pandemic and reversed several Trump administration policies, including rejoining the Paris Agreement on climate change and accepting new applications for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients, although a federal judge blocked the latter. He completed the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan by September 2021. During the withdrawal, the Afghan government collapsed and the Taliban seized control. Biden proposed the Build Back Better Plan, aspects of which were incorporated into the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which Biden signed into law in November 2021.
Early life (1942–1965)
Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was born on November 20, 1942, at St. Mary's Hospital in Scranton, Pennsylvania, to Catherine Eugenia "Jean" Biden (née Finnegan) and Joseph Robinette Biden Sr. The oldest child in a Catholic family, he has a sister, Valerie, and two brothers, Francis and James. Jean was of Irish descent, while Joseph Sr. had English, French, and Irish ancestry.
Biden's father had been wealthy, but suffered financial setbacks around the time Biden was born, and for several years the family lived with Biden's maternal grandparents. Scranton fell into economic decline during the 1950s and Biden's father could not find steady work. Beginning in 1953 when Biden was ten, the family lived in an apartment in Claymont, Delaware, before moving to a house in nearby Mayfield. Biden Sr. later became a successful used-car salesman, maintaining the family in a middle-class lifestyle.
At Archmere Academy in Claymont, Biden played baseball and was a standout halfback and wide receiver on the high school football team. Though a poor student, he was class president in his junior and senior years. He graduated in 1961. At the University of Delaware in Newark, Biden briefly played freshman football and, as an unexceptional student, earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1965 with a double major in history and political science and a minor in English.
Biden has a stutter, which has improved since his early twenties. He says he reduced it by reciting poetry before a mirror, but some observers suggested it affected his performance in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential debates.
Marriages, law school, and early career (1966–1973)
On August 27, 1966, Biden married Neilia Hunter (19421972), a student at Syracuse University, after overcoming her parents' reluctance for her to wed a Roman Catholic. Their wedding was held in a Catholic church in Skaneateles, New York. They had three children: Joseph R. "Beau" Biden III (19692015), Robert Hunter Biden (born 1970), and Naomi Christina "Amy" Biden (19711972).
In 1968, Biden earned a Juris Doctor from Syracuse University College of Law, ranked 76th in his class of 85, after failing a course due to an acknowledged "mistake" when he plagiarized a law review article for a paper he wrote in his first year at law school. He was admitted to the Delaware bar in 1969.
Biden had not openly supported or opposed the Vietnam War until he ran for Senate and opposed Nixon's conduct of the war. While studying at the University of Delaware and Syracuse University, Biden obtained five student draft deferments, at a time when most draftees were sent to the Vietnam War. In 1968, based on a physical examination, he was given a conditional medical deferment; in 2008, a spokesperson for Biden said his having had "asthma as a teenager" was the reason for the deferment.
In 1968, Biden clerked at a Wilmington law firm headed by prominent local Republican William Prickett and, he later said, "thought of myself as a Republican". He disliked incumbent Democratic Delaware governor Charles L. Terry's conservative racial politics and supported a more liberal Republican, Russell W. Peterson, who defeated Terry in 1968. Biden was recruited by local Republicans but registered as an Independent because of his distaste for Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon.
In 1969, Biden practiced law first as a public defender and then at a firm headed by a locally active Democrat who named him to the Democratic Forum, a group trying to reform and revitalize the state party; Biden subsequently reregistered as a Democrat. He and another attorney also formed a law firm. Corporate law, however, did not appeal to him, and criminal law did not pay well. He supplemented his income by managing properties.
In 1970, Biden ran for the 4th district seat on the New Castle County Council on a liberal platform that included support for public housing in the suburbs. The seat had been held by Republican Henry R. Folsom, who was running in the 5th District following a reapportionment of council districts. Biden won the general election by defeating Republican Lawrence T. Messick, and took office on January 5, 1971. He served until January 1, 1973, and was succeeded by Democrat Francis R. Swift. During his time on the county council, Biden opposed large highway projects, which he argued might disrupt Wilmington neighborhoods.
1972 U.S. Senate campaign in Delaware
In 1972, Biden defeated Republican incumbent J. Caleb Boggs to become the junior U.S. senator from Delaware. He was the only Democrat willing to challenge Boggs. With minimal campaign funds, he was given no chance of winning. Family members managed and staffed the campaign, which relied on meeting voters face-to-face and hand-distributing position papers, an approach made feasible by Delaware's small size. He received help from the AFL–CIO and Democratic pollster Patrick Caddell. His platform focused on the environment, withdrawal from Vietnam, civil rights, mass transit, equitable taxation, health care, and public dissatisfaction with "politics as usual". A few months before the election, Biden trailed Boggs by almost thirty percentage points, but his energy, attractive young family, and ability to connect with voters' emotions worked to his advantage, and he won with 50.5 percent of the vote. At the time of his election, he was still 29 years old, but reached the constitutionally required age of 30 before he was sworn in as Senator.
Death of wife and daughter
On December 18, 1972, a few weeks after the election, Biden's wife Neilia and one-year-old daughter Naomi were killed in an automobile accident while Christmas shopping in Hockessin, Delaware. Neilia's station wagon was hit by a semi-trailer truck as she pulled out from an intersection. Their sons Beau (aged3) and Hunter (aged2) survived the accident and were taken to the hospital in fair condition, Beau with a broken leg and other wounds and Hunter with a minor skull fracture and other head injuries. Biden considered resigning to care for them, but Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield persuaded him not to.
Years later, Biden said he had heard that the truck driver allegedly drank alcohol before the collision. The driver's family denied that claim, and the police never substantiated it. Biden later apologized to the family. The accident had filled him with anger and religious doubt. He wrote that he "felt God had played a horrible trick" on him, and he had trouble focusing on work.
Second marriage
Biden credits his second wife, teacher Jill Tracy Jacobs, with the renewal of his interest in politics and life; they met in 1975 on a blind date and were married at the United Nations chapel in New York on June 17, 1977. They spent their honeymoon at Lake Balaton in the Hungarian People's Republic, behind the Iron Curtain. They are Roman Catholics and attend Mass at St. Joseph's on the Brandywine in Greenville, Delaware. Their daughter Ashley Biden (born 1981) is a social worker. She is married to physician Howard Krein. Beau Biden became an Army Judge Advocate in Iraq and later Delaware Attorney General; he died of brain cancer in 2015. Hunter Biden is a Washington lobbyist and investment adviser.
Teaching
From 1991 to 2008, as an adjunct professor, Biden co-taught a seminar on constitutional law at Widener University School of Law. The seminar often had a waiting list. Biden sometimes flew back from overseas to teach the class.
U.S. Senate (1973–2009)
Senate activities
In January 1973, secretary of the Senate Francis R. Valeo swore Biden in at the Delaware Division of the Wilmington Medical Center. Present were his sons Beau (whose leg was still in traction from the automobile accident) and Hunter and other family members. At 30, he was the sixth-youngest senator in U.S. history.
To see his sons, Biden traveled by train between his Delaware home and D.C.—74 minutes each way—and maintained this habit throughout his 36 years in the Senate.
During his early years in the Senate, Biden focused on consumer protection and environmental issues and called for greater government accountability. In a 1974 interview, he described himself as liberal on civil rights and liberties, senior citizens' concerns and healthcare but conservative on other issues, including abortion and military conscription.
In his first decade in the Senate, Biden focused on arms control. After Congress failed to ratify the SALT II Treaty signed in 1979 by Soviet general secretary Leonid Brezhnev and President Jimmy Carter, Biden met with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko to communicate American concerns and secured changes that addressed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's objections. When the Reagan administration wanted to interpret the 1972 SALT I treaty loosely to allow development of the Strategic Defense Initiative, Biden argued for strict adherence to the treaty. He received considerable attention when he excoriated Secretary of State George Shultz at a Senate hearing for the Reagan administration's support of South Africa despite its continued policy of apartheid.
Biden became ranking minority member of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1981. In 1984, he was a Democratic floor manager for the successful passage of the Comprehensive Crime Control Act. His supporters praised him for modifying some of the law's worst provisions, and it was his most important legislative accomplishment to that time. In 1994, Biden helped pass the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, also known as the Biden Crime Law, which included a ban on assault weapons, and the Violence Against Women Act, which he has called his most significant legislation. The 1994 crime law was unpopular among progressives and criticized for resulting in mass incarceration; in 2019, Biden called his role in passing the bill a "big mistake", citing its policy on crack cocaine and saying that the bill "trapped an entire generation".
In 1993, Biden voted for a provision that deemed homosexuality incompatible with military life, thereby banning gays from serving in the armed forces. In 1996, he voted for the Defense of Marriage Act, which prohibited the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages, thereby barring individuals in such marriages from equal protection under federal law and allowing states to do the same. In 2015, the act was ruled unconstitutional in Obergefell v. Hodges.
Elected to the Senate in 1972, Biden was reelected in 1978, 1984, 1990, 1996, 2002, and 2008, regularly receiving about 60% of the vote. He was junior senator to William Roth, who was first elected in 1970, until Roth was defeated in 2000. , he was the 18th-longest-serving senator in U.S. history.
Opposition to busing
In the mid-1970s, Biden was one of the Senate's strongest opponents of race-integration busing. His Delaware constituents strongly opposed it, and such opposition nationwide later led his party to mostly abandon school integration policies. In his first Senate campaign, Biden had expressed support for busing to remedy de jure segregation, as in the South, but opposed its use to remedy de facto segregation arising from racial patterns of neighborhood residency, as in Delaware; he opposed a proposed constitutional amendment banning busing entirely.
In May 1974, Biden voted to table a proposal containing anti-busing and anti-desegregation clauses but later voted for a modified version containing a qualification that it was not intended to weaken the judiciary's power to enforce the 5th Amendment and 14th Amendment. In 1975, he supported a proposal that would have prevented the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare from cutting federal funds to districts that refused to integrate; he said busing was a "bankrupt idea [violating] the cardinal rule of common sense" and that his opposition would make it easier for other liberals to follow suit. At the same time he supported initiatives on housing, job opportunities and voting rights. Biden supported a measure forbidding the use of federal funds for transporting students beyond the school closest to them. In 1977, he co-sponsored an amendment closing loopholes in that measure, which President Carter signed into law in 1978.
Brain surgeries
In February 1988, after several episodes of increasingly severe neck pain, Biden was taken by ambulance to Walter Reed Army Medical Center for surgery to correct a leaking intracranial berry aneurysm. While recuperating, he suffered a pulmonary embolism, a serious complication. After a second aneurysm was surgically repaired in May, Biden's recuperation kept him away from the Senate for seven months.
Senate Judiciary Committee
Biden was a longtime member of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary. He chaired it from 1987 to 1995 and was a ranking minority member from 1981 to 1987 and again from 1995 to 1997.
As chair, Biden presided over two highly contentious U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings. When Robert Bork was nominated in 1988, Biden reversed his approvalgiven in an interview the previous yearof a hypothetical Bork nomination. Conservatives were angered, but at the hearings' close Biden was praised for his fairness, humor, and courage. Rejecting the arguments of some Bork opponents, Biden framed his objections to Bork in terms of the conflict between Bork's strong originalism and the view that the U.S. Constitution provides rights to liberty and privacy beyond those explicitly enumerated in its text. Bork's nomination was rejected in the committee by a 9–5 vote and then in the full Senate, 58–42.
During Clarence Thomas's nomination hearings in 1991, Biden's questions on constitutional issues were often convoluted to the point that Thomas sometimes lost track of them, and Thomas later wrote that Biden's questions were akin to "beanballs". After the committee hearing closed, the public learned that Anita Hill, a University of Oklahoma law school professor, had accused Thomas of making unwelcome sexual comments when they had worked together. Biden had known of some of these charges, but initially shared them only with the committee because Hill was then unwilling to testify. The committee hearing was reopened and Hill testified, but Biden did not permit testimony from other witnesses, such as a woman who had made similar charges and experts on harassment, saying he wanted to preserve Thomas's privacy and the hearings' decency. The full Senate confirmed Thomas by a 52–48 vote, with Biden opposed. Liberal legal advocates and women's groups felt strongly that Biden had mishandled the hearings and not done enough to support Hill. Biden later sought out women to serve on the Judiciary Committee and emphasized women's issues in the committee's legislative agenda. In 2019, he told Hill he regretted his treatment of her, but Hill said afterward she remained unsatisfied.
Biden was critical of Independent Counsel Ken Starr during the 1990s Whitewater controversy and Lewinsky scandal investigations, saying "it's going to be a cold day in hell" before another independent counsel would be granted similar powers. He voted to acquit during the impeachment of President Clinton. During the 2000s, Biden sponsored bankruptcy legislation sought by credit card issuers. Clinton vetoed the bill in 2000, but it passed in 2005 as the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act, with Biden one of only 18 Democrats to vote for it, while leading Democrats and consumer rights organizations opposed it. As a senator, Biden strongly supported increased Amtrak funding and rail security.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Biden was a longtime member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He became its ranking minority member in 1997 and chaired it from June 2001 to 2003 and 2007 to 2009. His positions were generally liberal internationalist. He collaborated effectively with Republicans and sometimes went against elements of his own party. During this time he met with at least 150 leaders from 60 countries and international organizations, becoming a well-known Democratic voice on foreign policy.
Biden voted against authorization for the Gulf War in 1991, siding with 45 of the 55 Democratic senators; he said the U.S. was bearing almost all the burden in the anti-Iraq coalition.
Biden became interested in the Yugoslav Wars after hearing about Serbian abuses during the Croatian War of Independence in 1991. Once the Bosnian War broke out, Biden was among the first to call for the "lift and strike" policy of lifting the arms embargo, training Bosnian Muslims and supporting them with NATO air strikes, and investigating war crimes. The George H. W. Bush administration and Clinton administration were both reluctant to implement the policy, fearing Balkan entanglement. In April 1993, Biden spent a week in the Balkans and held a tense three-hour meeting with Serbian leader Slobodan Milošević. Biden said he had told Milošević, "I think you're a damn war criminal and you should be tried as one."
Biden wrote an amendment in 1992 to compel the Bush administration to arm the Bosnian Muslims, but deferred in 1994 to a somewhat softer stance the Clinton administration preferred, before signing on the following year to a stronger measure sponsored by Bob Dole and Joe Lieberman. The engagement led to a successful NATO peacekeeping effort. Biden has called his role in affecting Balkans policy in the mid-1990s his "proudest moment in public life" related to foreign policy.
As chair, Biden contributed to successfully encouraging the Clinton administration to commit the resources and political capital to broker what became the 1998 Good Friday Agreement between the governments of Ireland and the United Kingdom through the Northern Ireland peace process.
On September 3, 1998, the resigning former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter had, according to Barton Gellman, accused the Clinton administration of obstructing weapons inspections in Iraq. Biden joined many other Senate Democrats and "amplified on the Clinton administration's counterattack against former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter." He questioned whether Ritter was trying to "appropriate the power 'to decide when to pull the trigger' of military force against Iraq", and said that the Secretary of State would also have to consider the opinion of allies, the UNSC, and public opinion, before any intervention in Iraq. In a Washington Post op-ed later that month, Biden criticized a unilateral "confrontation-based policy" but praised the idea of asking whether intervention might be necessary at some point, though he said it was "above the pay grade" of one weapons inspector.
In 1999, during the Kosovo War, Biden supported the 1999 NATO bombing of FR Yugoslavia. He and Senator John McCain co-sponsored the McCain-Biden Kosovo Resolution, which called on Clinton to use all necessary force, including ground troops, to confront Milošević over Yugoslav actions toward ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.
Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq
Biden was a strong supporter of the War in Afghanistan, saying, "Whatever it takes, we should do it." As head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he said in 2002 that Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was a threat to national security and there was no other option than to "eliminate" that threat. In October 2002, he voted in favor of the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq, approving the U.S. invasion of Iraq. As chair of the committee, he assembled a series of witnesses to testify in favor of the authorization. They gave testimony grossly misrepresenting the intent, history, and status of Saddam and his secular government, which was an avowed enemy of al-Qaida, and touted Iraq's fictional possession of weapons of mass destruction. Biden eventually became a critic of the war and viewed his vote and role as a "mistake", but did not push for withdrawal. He supported the appropriations for the occupation, but argued that the war should be internationalized, that more soldiers were needed, and that the Bush administration should "level with the American people" about its cost and length.
By late 2006, Biden's stance had shifted considerably. He opposed the troop surge of 2007, saying General David Petraeus was "dead, flat wrong" in believing the surge could work. Biden instead advocated dividing Iraq into a loose federation of three ethnic states. In November 2006, Biden and Leslie H. Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, released a comprehensive strategy to end sectarian violence in Iraq. Rather than continue the existing approach or withdrawing, the plan called for "a third way": federalizing Iraq and giving Kurds, Shiites, and Sunnis "breathing room" in their own regions. In September 2007, a non-binding resolution endorsing the plan passed the Senate, but the idea was unfamiliar, had no political constituency, and failed to gain traction. Iraq's political leadership denounced the resolution as de facto partitioning of the country, and the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad issued a statement distancing itself from it. In May 2008, Biden sharply criticized President George W. Bush's speech to Israel's Knesset in which Bush compared some Democrats to Western leaders who appeased Hitler before World WarII; Biden called the speech "bullshit", "malarkey", and "outrageous". He later apologized for his language.
Presidential campaigns 1988 and 2008
1988 campaign
Biden formally declared his candidacy for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination on June 9, 1987. He was considered a strong candidate because of his moderate image, his speaking ability, his high profile as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee at the upcoming Robert Bork Supreme Court nomination hearings, and his appeal to Baby Boomers; he would have been the second-youngest person elected president, after John F. Kennedy. He raised more in the first quarter of 1987 than any other candidate.
By August his campaign's messaging had become confused due to staff rivalries, and in September, he was accused of plagiarizing a speech by British Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock. Biden's speech had similar lines about being the first person in his family to attend university. Biden had credited Kinnock with the formulation on previous occasions, but did not on two occasions in late August. Kinnock himself was more forgiving; the two men met in 1988, forming an enduring friendship.
Earlier that year he had also used passages from a 1967 speech by Robert F. Kennedy (for which his aides took blame) and a short phrase from John F. Kennedy's inaugural address; two years earlier he had used a 1976 passage by Hubert Humphrey. Biden responded that politicians often borrow from one another without giving credit, and that one of his rivals for the nomination, Jesse Jackson, had called him to point out that he (Jackson) had used the same material by Humphrey that Biden had used.
A few days later, an incident in law school in which Biden drew text from a Fordham Law Review article with inadequate citations was publicized. He was required to repeat the course and passed with high marks. At Biden's request the Delaware Supreme Court's Board of Professional Responsibility reviewed the incident and concluded that he had violated no rules.
Biden has made several false or exaggerated claims about his early life: that he had earned three degrees in college, that he attended law school on a full scholarship, that he had graduated in the top half of his class, and that he had marched in the civil rights movement. The limited amount of other news about the presidential race amplified these disclosures and on September 23, 1987, Biden withdrew his candidacy, saying it had been overrun by "the exaggerated shadow" of his past mistakes.
2008 campaign
After exploring the possibility of a run in several previous cycles, in January 2007, Biden declared his candidacy in the 2008 elections. During his campaign, Biden focused on the Iraq War, his record as chairman of major Senate committees, and his foreign-policy experience. In mid-2007, Biden stressed his foreign policy expertise compared to Obama's. Biden was noted for his one-liners during the campaign; in one debate he said of Republican candidate Rudy Giuliani: "There's only three things he mentions in a sentence: a noun, and a verb and 9/11."
Biden had difficulty raising funds, struggled to draw people to his rallies, and failed to gain traction against the high-profile candidacies of Obama and Senator Hillary Clinton. He never rose above single digits in national polls of the Democratic candidates. In the first contest on January 3, 2008, Biden placed fifth in the Iowa caucuses, garnering slightly less than one percent of the state delegates. He withdrew from the race that evening.
Despite its lack of success, Biden's 2008 campaign raised his stature in the political world. In particular, it changed the relationship between Biden and Obama. Although they had served together on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, they had not been close: Biden resented Obama's quick rise to political stardom, while Obama viewed Biden as garrulous and patronizing. Having gotten to know each other during 2007, Obama appreciated Biden's campaign style and appeal to working-class voters, and Biden said he became convinced Obama was "the real deal".
2008 vice-presidential campaign
Shortly after Biden withdrew from the presidential race, Obama privately told him he was interested in finding an important place for Biden in his administration. Biden declined Obama's first request to vet him for the vice-presidential slot, fearing the vice presidency would represent a loss in status and voice from his Senate position, but he later changed his mind. In early August, Obama and Biden met in secret to discuss the possibility, and developed a strong personal rapport. On August 22, 2008, Obama announced that Biden would be his running mate. The New York Times reported that the strategy behind the choice reflected a desire to fill out the ticket with someone with foreign policy and national security experience—and not to help the ticket win a swing state or to emphasize Obama's "change" message. Others pointed out Biden's appeal to middle-class and blue-collar voters, as well as his willingness to aggressively challenge Republican nominee John McCain in a way that Obama seemed uncomfortable doing at times. In accepting Obama's offer, Biden ruled out running for president again in 2016, but his comments in later years seemed to back off that stance, as he did not want to diminish his political power by appearing uninterested in advancement. Biden was officially nominated for vice president on August 27 by voice vote at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver.
Biden's vice-presidential campaigning gained little media visibility, as far greater press attention was focused on the Republican running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. During one week in September 2008, for instance, the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism found that Biden was included in only five percent of coverage of the race, far less than the other three candidates on the tickets received. Biden nevertheless focused on campaigning in economically challenged areas of swing states and trying to win over blue-collar Democrats, especially those who had supported Hillary Clinton. Biden attacked McCain heavily despite a long-standing personal friendship. He said, "That guy I used to know, he's gone. It literally saddens me." As the financial crisis of 2007–2010 reached a peak with the liquidity crisis of September 2008 and the proposed bailout of the United States financial system became a major factor in the campaign, Biden voted in favor of the $700billion Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, which went on to pass in the Senate 74–25.
On October 2, 2008, Biden participated in the vice-presidential debate with Palin at Washington University in St. Louis. Post-debate polls found that while Palin exceeded many voters' expectations, Biden had won the debate overall. During the campaign's final days, he focused on less populated, older, less well-off areas of battleground states, especially Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, where polling indicated he was popular and where Obama had not campaigned or performed well in the Democratic primaries. He also campaigned in some normally Republican states, as well as in areas with large Catholic populations.
Under instructions from the campaign, Biden kept his speeches succinct and tried to avoid offhand remarks, such as one he made about Obama's being tested by a foreign power soon after taking office, which had attracted negative attention. Privately, Biden's remarks frustrated Obama. "How many times is Biden gonna say something stupid?" he asked. Obama campaign staffers referred to Biden blunders as "Joe bombs" and kept Biden uninformed about strategy discussions, which in turn irked Biden. Relations between the two campaigns became strained for a month, until Biden apologized on a call to Obama and the two built a stronger partnership. Publicly, Obama strategist David Axelrod said Biden's high popularity ratings had outweighed any unexpected comments. Nationally, Biden had a 60% favorability rating in a Pew Research Center poll, compared to Palin's 44%.
On November 4, 2008, Obama and Biden were elected with 53% of the popular vote and 365 electoral votes to McCain–Palin's 173.
At the same time Biden was running for vice president he was also running for reelection to the Senate, as permitted by Delaware law. On November4, he was reelected to the Senate, defeating Republican Christine O'Donnell. Having won both races, Biden made a point of waiting to resign from the Senate until he was sworn in for his seventh term on January 6, 2009. He became the youngest senator ever to start a seventh full term, and said, "In all my life, the greatest honor bestowed upon me has been serving the people of Delaware as their United States senator." Biden cast his last Senate vote on January 15, supporting the release of the second $350billion for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, and resigned from the Senate later that day. In an emotional farewell, Biden told the Senate: "Every good thing I have seen happen here, every bold step taken in the 36-plus years I have been here, came not from the application of pressure by interest groups, but through the maturation of personal relationships." Delaware Governor Ruth Ann Minner appointed longtime Biden adviser Ted Kaufman to fill Biden's vacated Senate seat.
Vice presidency (2009–2017)
First term, 2009–2013
Biden said he intended to eliminate some explicit roles assumed by George W. Bush's vice president, Dick Cheney, and did not intend to emulate any previous vice presidency. He chaired Obama's transition team and headed an initiative to improve middle-class economic well-being. In early January 2009, in his last act as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, he visited the leaders of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and on January 20 he was sworn in as the 47th vice president of the United Statesthe first vice president from Delaware and the first Roman Catholic vice president.
Obama was soon comparing Biden to a basketball player "who does a bunch of things that don't show up in the stat sheet". In May, Biden visited Kosovo and affirmed the U.S. position that its "independence is irreversible". Biden lost an internal debate to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about sending 21,000 new troops to Afghanistan, but his skepticism was valued, and in 2009, Biden's views gained more influence as Obama reconsidered his Afghanistan strategy. Biden visited Iraq about every two months, becoming the administration's point man in delivering messages to Iraqi leadership about expected progress there. More generally, overseeing Iraq policy became Biden's responsibility: Obama was said to have said, "Joe, you do Iraq." Biden said Iraq "could be one of the great achievements of this administration". His January 2010 visit to Iraq in the midst of turmoil over banned candidates from the upcoming Iraqi parliamentary election resulted in 59 of the several hundred candidates being reinstated by the Iraqi government two days later. By 2012, Biden had made eight trips there, but his oversight of U.S. policy in Iraq receded with the exit of U.S. troops in 2011.
Biden oversaw infrastructure spending from the Obama stimulus package intended to help counteract the ongoing recession. During this period, Biden was satisfied that no major instances of waste or corruption had occurred, and when he completed that role in February 2011, he said the number of fraud incidents with stimulus monies had been less than one percent.
In late April 2009, Biden's off-message response to a question during the beginning of the swine flu outbreak, that he would advise family members against traveling on airplanes or subways, led to a swift retraction by the White House. The remark revived Biden's reputation for gaffes. Confronted with rising unemployment through July 2009, Biden acknowledged that the administration had "misread how bad the economy was" but maintained confidence the stimulus package would create many more jobs once the pace of expenditures picked up. On March 23, 2010, a microphone picked up Biden telling the president that his signing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was "a big fucking deal" during live national news telecasts. Despite their different personalities, Obama and Biden formed a friendship, partly based around Obama's daughter Sasha and Biden's granddaughter Maisy, who attended Sidwell Friends School together.
Members of the Obama administration said Biden's role in the White House was to be a contrarian and force others to defend their positions. Rahm Emanuel, White House chief of staff, said that Biden helped counter groupthink. White House press secretary Jay Carney, Biden's former communications director, said Biden played the role of "the bad guy in the Situation Room". Another senior Obama advisor said Biden "is always prepared to be the skunk at the family picnic to make sure we are as intellectually honest as possible." Obama said, "The best thing about Joe is that when we get everybody together, he really forces people to think and defend their positions, to look at things from every angle, and that is very valuable for me." The Bidens maintained a relaxed atmosphere at their official residence in Washington, often entertaining their grandchildren, and regularly returned to their home in Delaware.
Biden campaigned heavily for Democrats in the 2010 midterm elections, maintaining an attitude of optimism in the face of predictions of large-scale losses for the party. Following big Republican gains in the elections and the departure of White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, Biden's past relationships with Republicans in Congress became more important. He led the successful administration effort to gain Senate approval for the New START treaty. In December 2010, Biden's advocacy for a middle ground, followed by his negotiations with Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, were instrumental in producing the administration's compromise tax package that included a temporary extension of the Bush tax cuts. Biden then took the lead in trying to sell the agreement to a reluctant Democratic caucus in Congress. The package passed as the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010.
In March 2011, Obama delegated Biden to lead negotiations with Congress to resolve federal spending levels for the rest of the year and avoid a government shutdown. By May 2011, a "Biden panel" with six congressional members was trying to reach a bipartisan deal on raising the U.S. debt ceiling as part of an overall deficit reduction plan. The U.S. debt ceiling crisis developed over the next few months, but Biden's relationship with McConnell again proved key in breaking a deadlock and bringing about a deal to resolve it, in the form of the Budget Control Act of 2011, signed on August 2, 2011, the same day an unprecedented U.S. default had loomed. Biden had spent the most time of anyone in the administration bargaining with Congress on the debt question, and one Republican staffer said, "Biden's the only guy with real negotiating authority, and [McConnell] knows that his word is good. He was a key to the deal."
Some reports suggest that Biden opposed proceeding with the May 2011 U.S. mission to kill Osama bin Laden, lest failure adversely affect Obama's reelection prospects. He took the lead in notifying Congressional leaders of the successful outcome.
Reelection
In October 2010, Biden said Obama had asked him to remain as his running mate for the 2012 presidential election, but with Obama's popularity on the decline, White House Chief of Staff William M. Daley conducted some secret polling and focus group research in late 2011 on the idea of replacing Biden on the ticket with Hillary Clinton. The notion was dropped when the results showed no appreciable improvement for Obama, and White House officials later said Obama had never entertained the idea.
Biden's May 2012 statement that he was "absolutely comfortable" with same-sex marriage gained considerable public attention in comparison to Obama's position, which had been described as "evolving". Biden made his statement without administration consent, and Obama and his aides were quite irked, since Obama had planned to shift position several months later, in the build-up to the party convention, and since Biden had previously counseled the president to avoid the issue lest key Catholic voters be offended. Gay rights advocates seized upon Biden's statement, and within days, Obama announced that he too supported same-sex marriage, an action in part forced by Biden's remarks. Biden apologized to Obama in private for having spoken out, while Obama acknowledged publicly it had been done from the heart. The incident showed that Biden still struggled at times with message discipline, as Time wrote, "Everyone knows Biden's greatest strength is also his greatest weakness." Relations were also strained between the vice presidential and presidential campaigns when Biden appeared to use his position to bolster fundraising contacts for a possible run for president in 2016, and he ended up being excluded from Obama campaign strategy meetings.
The Obama campaign nevertheless valued Biden as a retail-level politician who could connect with disaffected blue-collar workers and rural residents, and he had a heavy schedule of appearances in swing states as the reelection campaign began in earnest in spring 2012. An August 2012 remark before a mixed-race audience that Republican proposals to relax Wall Street regulations would "put y'all back in chains" led to a similar analysis of Biden's face-to-face campaigning abilities versus his tendency to go off track. The Los Angeles Times wrote, "Most candidates give the same stump speech over and over, putting reporters if not the audience to sleep. But during any Biden speech, there might be a dozen moments to make press handlers cringe, and prompt reporters to turn to each other with amusement and confusion." Time magazine wrote that Biden often went too far and "Along with the familiar Washington mix of neediness and overconfidence, Biden's brain is wired for more than the usual amount of goofiness."
Biden was nominated for a second term as vice president at the 2012 Democratic National Convention in September. Debating his Republican counterpart, Representative Paul Ryan, in the vice-presidential debate on October 11 he made a spirited and emotional defense of the Obama administration's record and energetically attacked the Republican ticket. On November 6, Obama and Biden won reelection over Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan with 332 of 538 Electoral College votes and 51% of the popular vote.
In December 2012, Obama named Biden to head the Gun Violence Task Force, created to address the causes of gun violence in the United States in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Later that month, during the final days before the United States fell off the "fiscal cliff", Biden's relationship with McConnell again proved important as the two negotiated a deal that led to the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 being passed at the start of 2013. It made many of the Bush tax cuts permanent but raised rates on upper income levels.
Second term, 2013–2017
Biden was inaugurated to a second term on January 20, 2013, at a small ceremony at Number One Observatory Circle, his official residence, with Justice Sonia Sotomayor presiding (a public ceremony took place on January 21).
Biden played little part in discussions that led to the October 2013 passage of the Continuing Appropriations Act, 2014, which resolved the federal government shutdown of 2013 and the debt-ceiling crisis of 2013. This was because Senate majority leader Harry Reid and other Democratic leaders cut him out of any direct talks with Congress, feeling Biden had given too much away during previous negotiations.
Biden's Violence Against Women Act was reauthorized again in 2013. The act led to related developments, such as the White House Council on Women and Girls, begun in the first term, as well as the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault, begun in January 2014 with Biden and Valerie Jarrett as co-chairs. Biden discussed federal guidelines on sexual assault on university campuses while giving a speech at the University of New Hampshire. He said, "No means no, if you're drunk or you're sober. No means no if you're in bed, in a dorm or on the street. No means no even if you said yes at first and you changed your mind. No means no."
Biden favored arming Syria's rebel fighters. As Iraq fell apart during 2014, renewed attention was paid to the Biden-Gelb Iraqi federalization plan of 2006, with some observers suggesting Biden had been right all along. Biden himself said the U.S. would follow ISIL "to the gates of hell". Biden had close relationships with several Latin American leaders and was assigned a focus on the region during the administration; he visited the region 16 times during his vice presidency, the most of any president or vice president.
In 2015, Speaker of the House John Boehner and Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell invited Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress without notifying the Obama administration. This defiance of protocol led Biden and more than 50 congressional Democrats to skip Netanyahu's speech. In August 2016, Biden visited Serbia, where he met with Serbian president Aleksandar Vučić and expressed his condolences for civilian victims of the bombing campaign during the Kosovo War. In Kosovo, he attended a ceremony renaming a highway after his son Beau, in honor of Beau's service to Kosovo in training its judges and prosecutors.
Biden never cast a tie-breaking vote in the Senate, making him the longest-serving vice president with this distinction.
Role in the 2016 presidential campaign
During his second term, Biden was often said to be preparing for a possible bid for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination. With his family, many friends, and donors encouraging him in mid-2015 to enter the race, and with Hillary Clinton's favorability ratings in decline at that time, Biden was reported to again be seriously considering the prospect and a "Draft Biden 2016" PAC was established.
, Biden was still uncertain about running. He felt his son's recent death had largely drained his emotional energy, and said, "nobody has a right... to seek that office unless they're willing to give it 110% of who they are." On October 21, speaking from a podium in the Rose Garden with his wife and Obama by his side, Biden announced his decision not to run for president in 2016. In January 2016, Biden affirmed that it was the right decision, but admitted to regretting not running for president "every day".
After Obama endorsed Hillary Clinton on June 9, 2016, Biden endorsed her later that day. Throughout the 2016 election, Biden strongly criticized Clinton's opponent, Donald Trump, in often colorful terms.
Subsequent activities (2017–2019)
After leaving the vice presidency, Biden became a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, while continuing to lead efforts to find treatments for cancer. In 2017 he wrote a memoir, Promise Me, Dad, and went on a book tour. Biden earned $15.6million in 2017–2018. In 2018, he gave a eulogy for Senator John McCain, praising McCain's embrace of American ideals and bipartisan friendships.
Biden remained in the public eye, endorsing candidates while continuing to comment on politics, climate change, and the presidency of Donald Trump. He also continued to speak out in favor of LGBT rights, continuing advocacy on an issue he had become more closely associated with during his vice presidency. In 2019, Biden criticized Brunei for its intention to implement Islamic laws that would allow death by stoning for adultery and homosexuality, calling it "appalling and immoral" and saying, "There is no excuse—not culture, not tradition—for this kind of hate and inhumanity." By 2019, Biden and his wife reported that their assets had increased to between $2.2 million and $8 million from speaking engagements and a contract to write a set of books.
2020 presidential campaign
Speculation and announcement
Between 2016 and 2019, media outlets often mentioned Biden as a likely candidate for president in 2020. When asked if he would run, he gave varied and ambivalent answers, saying "never say never". At one point he suggested he did not see a scenario where he would run again, but a few days later, he said, "I'll run if I can walk." A political action committee known as Time for Biden was formed in January 2018, seeking Biden's entry into the race. He finally launched his campaign on April 25, 2019, saying he was prompted to run, among other reasons, by his "sense of duty."
Campaign
In September 2019, it was reported that Trump had pressured Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate alleged wrongdoing by Biden and his son Hunter Biden. Despite the allegations, no evidence was produced of any wrongdoing by the Bidens. The media widely interpreted this pressure to investigate the Bidens as trying to hurt Biden's chances of winning the presidency, resulting in a political scandal and Trump's impeachment by the House of Representatives.
Beginning in 2019, Trump and his allies falsely accused Biden of getting the Ukrainian prosecutor general Viktor Shokin fired because he was supposedly pursuing an investigation into Burisma Holdings, which employed Hunter Biden. Biden was accused of withholding $1billion in aid from Ukraine in this effort. In 2015, Biden pressured the Ukrainian parliament to remove Shokin because the United States, the European Union and other international organizations considered Shokin corrupt and ineffective, and in particular because Shokin was not assertively investigating Burisma. The withholding of the $1billion in aid was part of this official policy. The Senate Homeland Security Committee and Senate Finance Committee, led by Republicans, investigated allegations of wrongdoing by the Bidens in Ukraine, ultimately releasing a report in September 2020 that detailed no evidence of wrongdoing by Joe Biden, and concluded that it was "not clear" whether Hunter Biden's role in Burisma "affected U.S. policy toward Ukraine".
In March 2019 and April 2019, Biden was accused by eight women of previous instances of inappropriate physical contact, such as embracing, touching or kissing. Biden had previously described himself as a "tactile politician" and admitted this behavior has caused trouble for him. In April 2019, Biden pledged to be more "respectful of people's personal space".
Throughout 2019, Biden stayed generally ahead of other Democrats in national polls. Despite this, he finished fourth in the Iowa caucuses, and eight days later, fifth in the New Hampshire primary. He performed better in the Nevada caucuses, reaching the 15% required for delegates, but still was behind Bernie Sanders by 21.6 percentage points. Making strong appeals to Black voters on the campaign trail and in the South Carolina debate, Biden won the South Carolina primary by more than 28 points. After the withdrawals and subsequent endorsements of candidates Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar, he made large gains in the March3 Super Tuesday primary elections. Biden won 18 of the next 26 contests, including Alabama, Arkansas, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia, putting him in the lead overall. Elizabeth Warren and Mike Bloomberg soon dropped out, and Biden expanded his lead with victories over Sanders in four states (Idaho, Michigan, Mississippi, and Missouri) on March 10.
In late March 2020, Tara Reade, one of the eight women who in 2019 had accused Biden of inappropriate physical contact, accused Biden of having sexually assaulted her in 1993. There were inconsistencies between Reade's 2019 and 2020 allegations. Biden and his campaign denied the sexual assault allegation.
When Sanders suspended his campaign on April 8, 2020, Biden became the Democratic Party's presumptive nominee for president. On April 13, Sanders endorsed Biden in a live-streamed discussion from their homes. Former President Barack Obama endorsed Biden the next day. In March 2020, Biden committed to choosing a woman as his running mate. In June, Biden met the 1,991-delegate threshold needed to secure the party's presidential nomination. On August 11, he announced U.S. Senator Kamala Harris of California as his running mate, making her the first African American and first South Asian American vice-presidential nominee on a major-party ticket.
On August 18, 2020, Biden was officially nominated at the 2020 Democratic National Convention as the Democratic Party nominee for president in the 2020 election.
Presidential transition
Biden was elected the 46th president of the United States in November 2020. He defeated the incumbent, Donald Trump, becoming the first candidate to defeat a sitting president since Bill Clinton defeated George H.W. Bush in 1992. Trump refused to concede, insisting the election had been "stolen" from him through "voter fraud", challenging the results in court and promoting numerous conspiracy theories about the voting and vote-counting processes, in an attempt to overturn the election results. Biden's transition was delayed by several weeks as the White House ordered federal agencies not to cooperate. On November23, General Services Administrator Emily W. Murphy formally recognized Biden as the apparent winner of the 2020 election and authorized the start of a transition process to the Biden administration.
On January 6, 2021, during Congress's electoral vote count, Trump told supporters gathered in front of the White House to march to the Capitol, saying, "We will never give up. We will never concede. It doesn't happen. You don't concede when there's theft involved." Soon after, they attacked the Capitol. During the insurrection at the Capitol, Biden addressed the nation, calling the events "an unprecedented assault unlike anything we've seen in modern times." He specifically called on Trump to "go on national television now to fulfill his oath and defend the Constitution and demand an end to this siege", adding, "it must end now." After the Capitol was cleared, Congress resumed its joint session and officially certified the election results with Pence declaring Biden and Harris the winners.
Presidency (2021–present)
Inauguration
Biden was inaugurated as the 46th president of the United States on January 20, 2021. At 78, he is the oldest person to have assumed the office. He is the second Catholic president (after John F. Kennedy) and the first president whose home state is Delaware. He is the second non-incumbent vice president (after Richard Nixon in 1968) to be elected president. He is also the first president from the Silent Generation.
Biden's inauguration was "a muted affair unlike any previous inauguration" due to COVID-19 precautions as well as massively increased security measures because of a threat of widespread civil unrest. Biden took the oath of office on the Capitol's west steps and gave an inaugural address, but there were no spectators on the Mall and no in-person parades or inaugural balls. Trump did not attend, becoming the first outgoing president since 1869 to not attend his successor's inauguration.
First 100 days
In his first two days as president, Biden signed 17 executive orders, more than most recent presidents did in their first 100 days. By his third day, orders had included rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement, ending the state of national emergency at the border with Mexico, directing the government to rejoin the World Health Organization, face mask requirements on federal property, measures to combat hunger in the United States, and revoking permits for the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. In his first two weeks in office, Biden signed more executive orders than any other president since Franklin D. Roosevelt had in their first month in office.
On February 4, 2021, the Biden administration announced that the United States was ending its support for the Saudi-led bombing campaign in Yemen. In his first visit to the State Department as president, Biden said "this war has to end" and that the conflict had created a "humanitarian and strategic catastrophe." On February 25, the Biden administration "struck a site in Syria used by two Iranian-backed militia groups in response to rocket attacks on American forces." This marked the first known action by the military under Biden.
On March 11, the first anniversary of COVID-19 being declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization, Biden signed into law the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, a $1.9 trillion economic stimulus relief package he proposed and lobbied for that aimed to speed up the United States' recovery from the economic and health effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing recession. The package included direct payments to most Americans, an extension of increased unemployment benefits, funds for vaccine distribution and school reopenings, support for small businesses and state and local governments, and expansions of health insurance subsidies and the child tax credit. Biden's initial proposal included an increase of the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour, but after Senate parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough determined that including the increase in a budget reconciliation bill would violate Senate rules, Democrats declined to pursue overruling her and removed the increase from the package.
Also in March, amid a rise in migrants entering the U.S. from Mexico, Biden told migrants, "Don't come over." He said that the U.S. was arranging a plan for migrants to "apply for asylum in place", without leaving their original locations. In the meantime, migrant adults "are being sent back", Biden said, in reference to the continuation of the Trump administration's Title 42 policy for quick deportations. Biden earlier announced that his administration would not deport unaccompanied migrant children; the rise in arrivals of such children exceeded the capacity of facilities meant to shelter them (before they were sent to sponsors), leading the Biden administration in March to direct the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help manage these children.
On April 14, Biden announced that the United States would delay the withdrawal of all troops from the war in Afghanistan until September 11, signalling an end to the country's direct military involvement in Afghanistan after nearly 20 years. In February 2020, the Trump administration had made a deal with the Taliban to completely withdraw U.S. forces by May 1, 2021. Biden's decision met with a wide range of reactions, from support and relief to trepidation at the possible collapse of the Afghan government without American support. On April 22–23, Biden held an international climate summit at which he announced that the U.S. would cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 50%–52% by 2030 compared to 2005 levels. Other countries also increased their pledges. If the pledges made at the summit are met, they will cut global greenhouse gas emissions by 2.6–3.7 Gte by 2030. On April 28, the eve of his 100th day in office, Biden delivered his first address to a joint session of Congress, in which he highlighted the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines and addressed withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, the murder of George Floyd, and the U.S. Capitol attack while urging Congress to pass comprehensive immigration, gun, and health care reform.
Rest of 2021
In May 2021, during a flareup in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, Biden expressed his support for Israel, saying "my party still supports Israel" amid disagreement from some Democrats. In June 2021, Biden took his first trip abroad as president. In eight days he visited Belgium, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. He attended a G7 summit, a NATO summit, and an EU summit, and held one-on-one talks with Russian president Vladimir Putin.
On June 17, Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act, which officially declared Juneteenth a federal holiday. Juneteenth is the first new federal holiday since Martin Luther King Jr. Day was declared a holiday in 1986. In July 2021, amid a slowing of the COVID-19 vaccination rate in the country and the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant, Biden said that the country has "a pandemic for those who haven't gotten the vaccination" and that it was therefore "gigantically important" for Americans to be vaccinated, touting the vaccines' effectiveness against hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19. He also criticized the prevalence of COVID-19 misinformation on social media, saying it was "killing people". In September 2021, Biden announced AUKUS, a security pact between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, to ensure "peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific over the long term"; the deal included nuclear-powered submarines built for Australia's use.
By the end of 2021, 40 of Biden's appointed judges to the federal judiciary had been confirmed, more than any president in their first year in office since Ronald Reagan. Biden has prioritized diversity in his judicial appointments more than any president in U.S. history, with the majority of appointments being women and people of color. Most of his appointments have been in blue states, making a limited impact since the courts in these states already traditionally lean liberal.
In the first eight months of his presidency, Biden's approval rating, according to Morning Consult polling, remained above 50%. In August, it began to decline and lowered into the low forties by December. The decline in his approval is attributed to the Afghanistan withdrawal, increasing hospitalizations from the Delta variant, high inflation and gas prices, disarray within the Democratic Party, and a general decline in popularity customary in politics.
Withdrawal from Afghanistan
American forces began withdrawing from Afghanistan in 2020, under the provisions of a February 2020 US-Taliban agreement that set a May 1, 2021, deadline. By April 2021, the State Department was urging American civilians in Afghanistan to leave as soon as possible. The Taliban began an offensive on May 1. As late as July, American intelligence assessments estimated Kabul would fall to the Taliban months or weeks after the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan. By early July, most American troops in Afghanistan had withdrawn. Biden addressed the withdrawal in July, saying, "The likelihood there's going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely."
On August 15, the Afghan government collapsed under the Taliban offensive, and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country. Biden reacted by ordering 6,000 American troops to assist in the evacuation of American personnel and Afghan allies. He was widely criticized for the manner of the withdrawal, with allegations of poor planning for the evacuation of Americans and Afghan allies, and for his silence and absence during the days before the collapse of the Afghan government.
On August 16, Biden addressed the "messy" situation, taking responsibility for it, and admitting that the situation "unfolded more quickly than we had anticipated". He defended his decision to withdraw, saying that Americans should not be "dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves," and blamed his predecessor Donald Trump, the Afghan president, and Afghan security forces for the speedy collapse.
On August 22, Biden said that his administration knew that ISIS-K was a "likely source" of threat. On August 26, a suicide bombing at the Kabul airport killed 13 U.S. service members and 169 Afghans. Biden declared to the attackers that the United States "will hunt you down and make you pay". On August 27, an American drone strike killed two ISIS-K targets, who were "planners and facilitators", according to a U.S. Army general. On August 29, another American drone strike killed 10 civilians, including seven children; the Defense Department initially claimed the strike was conducted on an Islamic State suicide bomber threatening Kabul Airport, but admitted the mistake on September 17 and apologized.
The U.S. military left Afghanistan on August 30, with Biden saying that the evacuation effort was an "extraordinary success", by extracting over 120,000 Americans, Afghans and other allies. He acknowledged that between "100 to 200" Americans who wanted to leave were left in Afghanistan, despite his August 18 pledge to stay in Afghanistan until all Americans who wanted to leave had left. The Biden administration, joining governments of almost 100 countries, said that the Taliban had given "assurances" that anyone "with travel authorization from [these] countries" would continue to be allowed to leave Afghanistan.
Economy
Biden entered office nine months into a recovery from the COVID-19 recession and his first year in office was characterized by robust growth in real GDP, employment, wages and stock market returns, amid significantly elevated inflation. Real GDP grew 5.7%, the fastest rate in 37 years. Amid record job creation, the unemployment rate fell at the fastest pace on record during the year. By the end of 2021, inflation reached a nearly 40-year high of 7.1%, which was partially offset by the highest wage and salary growth in at least 20 years. Income growth was particularly strong at the low end of the pay scale.
Infrastructure and climate
As part of Biden's Build Back Better agenda, in late March 2021, he proposed the American Jobs Plan, a $2 trillion package addressing issues including transport infrastructure, utilities infrastructure, broadband infrastructure, housing, schools, manufacturing, research and workforce development. After months of negotiations among Biden and lawmakers, in August 2021 the Senate passed a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill called the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, while the House, also in a bipartisan manner, approved that bill in early November 2021, covering infrastructure related to transport, utilities, and broadband. Biden signed the bill into law in mid-November 2021.
As COP26, scheduled for October 31 to November 12, 2021, approached, Biden increased his efforts to address climate change domestically and internationally. He promoted an agreement that the U.S. and the European Union cut methane emissions by a third by 2030 and tried to add dozens of other countries to the effort. He tried to convince China and Australia to do more. He convened an online Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate Change to press other countries to strengthen their climate policy. Biden pledged to double climate funding to developing countries by 2024. Also at COP26, the U.S. and China reached a deal on greenhouse gas emission reduction. The two countries are responsible for 40% of global emissions.
2022
In early 2022, Biden made efforts to change his public image after entering the year with low approval ratings, but they continued to fall, dipping to approximately 40% in aggregated polls by February.
In January, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, a moderate liberal nominated by Bill Clinton, announced he will be retiring from the Supreme Court. Breyer's retirement is expected to give Biden his first opportunity to nominate a Supreme Court justice. During his 2020 campaign, Biden vowed to nominate a Black woman to the court if a vacancy occurred, a promise he reiterated after the announcement of Breyer's retirement. In February, Biden nominated federal judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court.
Political positions
Biden is considered a moderate Democrat and a centrist, though more recently he has been seen as shifting to the left. He has a lifetime liberal 72% score from the Americans for Democratic Action through 2004, while the American Conservative Union gave him a lifetime conservative rating of 13% through 2008.
Biden supported the fiscal stimulus in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009; the Obama administration's proposed increase in infrastructure spending; subsidies for mass transit, including Amtrak, bus, and subway; and the reduced military spending in the Obama administration's fiscal year 2014 budget. He has proposed partially reversing the corporate tax cuts of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, saying that doing so would not hurt businesses' ability to hire. He voted for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Biden is a staunch supporter of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). He has promoted a plan to expand and build upon it, paid for by revenue gained from reversing some Trump administration tax cuts. Biden's plan aims to expand health insurance coverage to 97% of Americans, including by creating a public health insurance option.
Biden has supported same-sex marriage since 2012 and also supports Roe v. Wade and repealing the Hyde Amendment. He opposes drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and supports governmental funding to find new energy sources. As a senator, he forged deep relationships with police groups and was a chief proponent of a Police Officer's Bill of Rights measure that police unions supported but police chiefs opposed. As vice president, he served as a White House liaison to police.
Biden believes action must be taken on global warming. As a senator, he co-sponsored the Sense of the Senate resolution calling on the United States to take part in the United Nations climate negotiations and the Boxer–Sanders Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act, the most stringent climate bill in the United States Senate. He wants to achieve a carbon-free power sector in the U.S. by 2035 and stop emissions completely by 2050. His program includes reentering the Paris Agreement, nature conservation, and green building. Biden wants to pressure China and other countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions by carbon tariffs if necessary.
Biden has said the U.S. needs to "get tough" on China and build "a united front of U.S. allies and partners to confront China's abusive behaviors and human rights violations". He has called China the "most serious competitor" that poses challenges to the United States' "prosperity, security, and democratic values". Biden has voiced concerns about China's "coercive and unfair" economic practices and human rights abuses in the Xinjiang region to the Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping. He also pledged to sanction and commercially restrict Chinese government officials and entities who carry out repression.
Biden has said he is against regime change, but for providing non-military support to opposition movements. He opposed direct U.S. intervention in Libya, voted against U.S. participation in the Gulf War, voted in favor of the Iraq War, and supports a two-state solution in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Biden has pledged to end U.S. support for the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen and to reevaluate the United States' relationship with Saudi Arabia. He has called North Korea a "paper tiger". As vice president, Biden supported Obama's Cuban thaw. He has said that, as president, he would restore U.S. membership in key United Nations bodies, such as the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the World Health Organization, and possibly the Human Rights Council. Biden supports extending the New START arms control treaty with Russia to limit the number of nuclear weapons deployed by both sides. In 2021, Biden recognized the Armenian genocide, becoming the first U.S. president to do so.
Reputation
Biden was consistently ranked one of the least wealthy members of the Senate, which he attributed to his having been elected young. Feeling that less-wealthy public officials may be tempted to accept contributions in exchange for political favors, he proposed campaign finance reform measures during his first term. , Biden's net worth was $27,012. , the Bidens were worth $9 million, largely due to sales of Biden's books and speaking fees after his vice presidency.
The political writer Howard Fineman has written, "Biden is not an academic, he's not a theoretical thinker, he's a great street pol. He comes from a long line of working people in Scranton—auto salesmen, car dealers, people who know how to make a sale. He has that great Irish gift." Political columnist David S. Broder wrote that Biden has grown over time: "He responds to real people—that's been consistent throughout. And his ability to understand himself and deal with other politicians has gotten much much better." Journalist James Traub has written that "Biden is the kind of fundamentally happy person who can be as generous toward others as he is to himself."
In recent years, especially after the 2015 death of his elder son Beau, Biden has been noted for his empathetic nature and ability to communicate about grief. In 2020, CNN wrote that his presidential campaign aimed to make him "healer-in-chief", while The New York Times described his extensive history of being called upon to give eulogies.
Journalist and TV anchor Wolf Blitzer has described Biden as loquacious. He often deviates from prepared remarks and sometimes "puts his foot in his mouth." The New York Times wrote that Biden's "weak filters make him capable of blurting out pretty much anything." In 2018, Biden called himself "a gaffe machine". Some of his gaffes have been characterized as racially insensitive.
Electoral history
Publications
Books
Also paperback edition, Random House 2008, .
Book contributions
Biden, Joseph R., Jr. (2009). "Foreword." In: Choosing Equality: Essays and Narratives on the Desegregation Experience. Edited by Robert L. Hayman, Jr. and Leland Ware. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009. .
Pamphlets
Biden, Joseph R., Jr., and Les Aspin, William Louis Dickinson, Brent Scowcroft (1982). Arms Sales: A Useful Foreign Policy Tool? American Enterprise Institute. AEI Forum 56. Moderated by John Charles Daly.
Articles
Biden, Joseph R., Jr., and Miga Purev-Ochir (Spring 2015). "U.S.-Russian Relations in a Post-Cold War World: A Strategic Vision: Mapping a Future for U.S.-Russian Relations." Harvard International Review, vol. 36, no. 3, pp. 72–76. .
Notes
References
Citations
Works cited
See also
List of honors and awards received by Joe Biden
List of things named after Joe Biden
External links
Official
President Joe Biden official website
Presidential campaign website
Obama White House biography (archived)
Other
Joe Biden at On the Issues
Joe Biden at PolitiFact
1942 births
Living people
20th-century American lawyers
20th-century American politicians
20th-century Roman Catholics
21st-century American memoirists
21st-century presidents of the United States
21st-century vice presidents of the United States
21st-century Roman Catholics
2008 United States vice-presidential candidates
2012 United States vice-presidential candidates
American people of English descent
American people of French descent
American people of Irish descent
Biden family
Candidates in the 1988 United States presidential election
Candidates in the 2008 United States presidential election
Candidates in the 2020 United States presidential election
Catholics from Delaware
Catholics from Pennsylvania
Chairmen of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
County council members and commissioners in Delaware
Delaware Democrats
Delaware Fightin' Blue Hens football players
Delaware lawyers
Democratic Party (United States) presidential nominees
Democratic Party presidents of the United States
Democratic Party United States senators
Democratic Party (United States) vice presidential nominees
Democratic Party vice presidents of the United States
Laetare Medal recipients
New Castle County, Delaware politicians
Obama administration cabinet members
People from Claymont, Delaware
People from Wilmington, Delaware
People involved in plagiarism controversies
Politicians from Scranton, Pennsylvania
Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients
Presidents of the United States
Writers from Wilmington, Delaware
Public defenders
Recipients of Hilal-i-Pakistan
Recipients of the Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana, 1st Class
Recipients of St. George's Order of Victory
Syracuse University College of Law alumni
Time 100
Time Person of the Year
United States senators from Delaware
University of Delaware alumni
University of Pennsylvania faculty
Vice presidents of the United States
Widener University faculty
Writers from Scranton, Pennsylvania | false | [
"The Security of King and Government Act 1695 (7&8 Will.3 c.27) was an Act of the Parliament of England. Its long title was An act for the better security of his Majesty's royal person and government. It was passed in 1696 but backdated to the beginning of the parliamentary session.\n\nIt required all officers to take the oath required by the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy Act 1688 or be disenfranchised. It also said that anyone who said that William III was not the lawful king, or that James Francis Edward Stuart (the \"Old Pretender\") or his late father James II and VII had any title to the Crown, or that anyone else had such title other than according to relevant Acts of Parliament was guilty of praemunire. It was high treason to return to England from France without a licence after 1 May 1696.\n\nSee also\nJacobitism\nCorrespondence with Enemies Act 1691\nTreason Act 1695\nTreason Act\n\nNotes\n\nExternal links\nText of the Act\n\n1695 in law\n1695 in England\nTreason in England\nActs of the Parliament of England\nOaths of allegiance",
"A sutrah ( lit., \"screen, cover\") is an object used by a person performing salat as a barrier between himself and one passing in front of him. The person praying should be positioned at less than or equal to three forearms' length away from the Sutrah. The Sutrah’s height must be no less than one forearm's length (i.e. the height of the rear end of a camel's saddle), whereas its width has no stipulated size. The Sutrah is compulsory for anyone performing salat (unless a Sutrah cannot be found after searching).\n\nWhile it is apparent that it might appear like the performer is praying to the object in front of him/her, it's not absolutely necessary while praying. It can be substituted by facing a wall or simply blocking the way of a passer with a hand.\nIt is also forbidden for someone to pass in-between a person praying and his Sutrah, or to pass closer than 3 forearms' length to the person who has no Sutrah in front of him (because 3 forearms' length is the furthest distance which one can stay away from a Sutrah). However, a person is allowed to pass between the rows of a congregational salat.\n\nHadiths related to Sutrah\nSahl ibn Abu Hathmah narrated:\nرواه سهل بن أبو هاثماه\nThe Prophet said: \"When one of you prays facing a sutrah he should keep close to it, and not let the devil interrupt his prayer.\"\n\nAbu Saeed Al Khudri narrated:\nرواه أبو سعيد الخدري\nThe Prophet said: \"When one of you prays facing a sutrah he should keep close to it, and not let anyone pass in front of it.\"\n\nThe Messenger of Allah said: \nلا تصل إلا إلى سترة، ولا تدع أحداً يمر بين يديك، فإن أبى فلتقاتله؛ فإن معه القرين\n\"Pray facing a sutrah, and let no one cross in front of you while praying. If he insists, then prevent him by force because he is accompanied by shaitan.\"\n\nTaking sutrah is a confirmed Sunnah as narrated in many hadiths. For example, it was narrated from `Abdur-Rahman ibn Abu Sa`id that his father said: “The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said: ‘When anyone of you performs prayer, let him pray facing towards a Sutrah, and let him get close to it, and not let anyone pass in front of him. If someone comes and wants to pass in front of him, let him fight him, for he is a Shaitan (Satan).’”\n\nRulings on Sutrah\nAccording to Hanafi Madhab, one's prayer will not be nullified if someone crosses one without sutrah.\n\nSee also\nSalat\n\nNotes\n\nSalah"
] |
[
"Joe Biden",
"Characteristics as senator",
"What are Joe's characteristics as senator?",
"characterized Biden as \"self-confident\" and \"compulsively ambitious\".",
"Was Joe likable as senator?",
"\"Biden is the kind of fundamentally happy person who can be as generous toward others as he is to himself.\"",
"Does Joe have a lot of friends in politics?",
"I don't know.",
"When did he become senator?",
"1969,",
"What State was he the Senator for?",
"I don't know.",
"Did he get re-elected as senator?",
"Biden was re-elected",
"Does his peers have good things to say about him?",
"he's a great street pol.",
"When did he get re-elected?",
"1978,",
"Has he ever faced any criticism?",
"The New York Times writes that Biden's \"weak filters make him capable of blurting out pretty much anything\".",
"Has anyone else said any criticisms of him?",
"journalist James Traub has written that \"Biden's vanity and his regard for his own gifts seem considerable even by the rarefied standards of the U.S. Senate.\""
] | C_ae5bfb2601a2463ebfedd2b995b83bf8_1 | What else is interesting about him? | 11 | Other than 'Biden's vanity and weak filters', what else is interesting about Joe Biden? | Joe Biden | On August 27, 1966, while Biden was still a law student, he married Neilia Hunter. They overcame her parents' initial reluctance for her to wed a Roman Catholic, and the ceremony was held in a Catholic church in Skaneateles. They had three children, Joseph R. "Beau" Biden III in 1969, Robert Hunter in 1970, and Naomi Christina in 1971. During 1968, Biden clerked for six months at a Wilmington law firm headed by prominent local Republican William Prickett and, as he later said, "thought of myself as a Republican". He disliked the conservative racial politics of incumbent Democratic Governor of Delaware Charles L. Terry and supported a more liberal Republican, Russell W. Peterson, who defeated Terry in 1968. The local Republicans tried to recruit him, but he resisted due to his distaste for Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon, and registered as an Independent instead. In 1969, Biden resumed practicing law in Wilmington, first as a public defender and then at a firm headed by Sid Balick, a locally active Democrat. Balick named him to the Democratic Forum, a group trying to reform and revitalize the state party, and Biden switched his registration to Democrat. He also started his own firm, Biden and Walsh. Corporate law, however, did not appeal to him and criminal law did not pay well. He supplemented his income by managing properties. Later in 1969, Biden ran as a Democrat for the New Castle County Council on a liberal platform that included support for public housing in the suburban area. He won by a solid, two-thousand vote margin in the usually Republican district and in a bad year for Democrats in the state. Even before taking his seat, he was already talking about running for the U.S. Senate in a couple of years. He served on the County Council from 1970 to 1972 while continuing his private law practice. Among issues he addressed on the council was his opposition to large highway projects that might disrupt Wilmington neighborhoods, including those related to Interstate 95. During his first years in the Senate, Biden focused on legislation regarding consumer-protection and environmental issues and called for greater accountability on the part of government. In mid-1974, freshman Senator Biden was named one of the 200 Faces for the Future by Time magazine, in a profile that mentioned what had happened to his family and characterized Biden as "self-confident" and "compulsively ambitious". Biden became ranking minority member of the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary in 1981. In 1984, he was Democratic floor manager for the successful passage of the Comprehensive Crime Control Act; civil libertarians praised him for modifying some of the Act's provisions, and it was his most important legislative accomplishment at that point in time. He first considered running for president in that year, after he gained notice for giving speeches to party audiences that simultaneously scolded and encouraged Democrats. Regarding foreign policy, during his first decade in the Senate, Biden focused on arms control issues. In response to the refusal of the U.S. Congress to ratify the SALT II Treaty signed in 1979 by Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and President Jimmy Carter, he took the initiative to meet the Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, educated him about American concerns and interests, and secured several changes to address objections of the Foreign Relations Committee. When the Reagan administration wanted to interpret the 1972 SALT I Treaty loosely in order to allow the Strategic Defense Initiative to proceed, Biden argued for strict adherence to the treaty's terms. He clashed again with the Reagan administration in 1986 over economic sanctions against South Africa; he received considerable attention when he excoriated Secretary of State George P. Shultz at a Senate hearing because of the administration's support of that country, which continued to practice the apartheid system. Following his initial election in 1972, Biden was re-elected to six additional terms, in the elections of 1978, 1984, 1990, 1996, 2002, and 2008, usually getting about 60 percent of the vote. He did not face strong opposition; Pete du Pont, then governor, chose not to run against him in 1984. Biden spent 28 years as a junior senator due to the two-year seniority of his Republican colleague William V. Roth Jr. After Roth was defeated for re-election by Tom Carper in 2000, Biden became Delaware's senior senator. He then became the longest-serving senator in Delaware history. In May 1999, Biden set the mark for youngest senator to cast 10,000 votes. With a net worth between $59,000 and $366,000, and almost no outside income or investment income, Biden was consistently ranked as one of the least wealthy members of the Senate. Biden stated that he was listed as the second poorest member in Congress, a distinction that he was not proud of, but attributed to being elected early in his career. Biden realized early in his senatorial career how vulnerable poorer public officials are to offers of financial contributions in exchange for policy support, and he pushed campaign finance reform measures during his first term. During his years as a senator, Biden amassed a reputation for loquaciousness, with his questions and remarks during Senate hearings being especially known for being long-winded. He has been a strong speaker and debater and a frequent and effective guest on the Sunday morning talk shows. In public appearances, he is known to deviate from prepared remarks at will. According to political analyst Mark Halperin, he has shown "a persistent tendency to say silly, offensive, and off-putting things"; The New York Times writes that Biden's "weak filters make him capable of blurting out pretty much anything". Nor is Biden known for modesty; journalist James Traub has written that "Biden's vanity and his regard for his own gifts seem considerable even by the rarefied standards of the U.S. Senate." Political writer Howard Fineman has said that, "Biden is not an academic, he's not a theoretical thinker, he's a great street pol. He comes from a long line of working people in Scranton--auto salesmen, car dealers, people who know how to make a sale. He has that great Irish gift." Political columnist David S. Broder has viewed Biden as having grown since he came to Washington and since his failed 1988 presidential bid: "He responds to real people--that's been consistent throughout. And his ability to understand himself and deal with other politicians has gotten much much better." Traub concludes that "Biden is the kind of fundamentally happy person who can be as generous toward others as he is to himself." CANNOTANSWER | He has been a strong speaker and debater and a frequent and effective guest on the Sunday morning talk shows. | Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. ( ; born November 20, 1942) is an American politician who is the 46th and current president of the United States. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 47th vice president from 2009 to 2017 under Barack Obama and represented Delaware in the United States Senate from 1973 to 2009.
Biden was born and raised in Scranton, Pennsylvania, moving with his family to New Castle County, Delaware, in 1953 when he was ten. He studied at the University of Delaware before earning his law degree from Syracuse University in 1968. He was elected to the New Castle County Council in 1970 and became the sixth-youngest senator in U.S. history after he was elected to the United States Senate from Delaware in 1972, at age 29. Biden was the chair or ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for 12 years and was influential in foreign affairs during Obama's presidency. He also chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee from 1987 to 1995, dealing with drug policy, crime prevention, and civil liberties issues; led the effort to pass the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act and the Violence Against Women Act; and oversaw six U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings, including the contentious hearings for Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas. He ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988 and 2008. Biden was reelected to the Senate six times and was the fourth-most senior sitting senator at the time when he became Obama's vice president after they won the 2008 presidential election, defeating John McCain and his running mate Sarah Palin. Obama and Biden were reelected in 2012, defeating Mitt Romney and his running mate Paul Ryan.
During eight years as vice president, Biden leaned on his Senate experience and frequently represented the administration in negotiations with congressional Republicans, including on the Budget Control Act of 2011, which resolved a debt ceiling crisis, and the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, which addressed the impending "fiscal cliff". He also oversaw infrastructure spending in 2009 to counteract the Great Recession. On foreign policy, Biden was a close counselor to the president and took a leading role in designing the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq in 2011. In 2017, Obama awarded Biden the Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction.
Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris defeated incumbent president Donald Trump and vice president Mike Pence in the 2020 presidential election. He is the oldest president and the first to have a female vice president. His early presidential activity centered around proposing, lobbying for, and signing into law the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 to help the United States recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing recession, as well as a series of executive orders. Biden's orders addressed the pandemic and reversed several Trump administration policies, including rejoining the Paris Agreement on climate change and accepting new applications for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients, although a federal judge blocked the latter. He completed the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan by September 2021. During the withdrawal, the Afghan government collapsed and the Taliban seized control. Biden proposed the Build Back Better Plan, aspects of which were incorporated into the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which Biden signed into law in November 2021.
Early life (1942–1965)
Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was born on November 20, 1942, at St. Mary's Hospital in Scranton, Pennsylvania, to Catherine Eugenia "Jean" Biden (née Finnegan) and Joseph Robinette Biden Sr. The oldest child in a Catholic family, he has a sister, Valerie, and two brothers, Francis and James. Jean was of Irish descent, while Joseph Sr. had English, French, and Irish ancestry.
Biden's father had been wealthy, but suffered financial setbacks around the time Biden was born, and for several years the family lived with Biden's maternal grandparents. Scranton fell into economic decline during the 1950s and Biden's father could not find steady work. Beginning in 1953 when Biden was ten, the family lived in an apartment in Claymont, Delaware, before moving to a house in nearby Mayfield. Biden Sr. later became a successful used-car salesman, maintaining the family in a middle-class lifestyle.
At Archmere Academy in Claymont, Biden played baseball and was a standout halfback and wide receiver on the high school football team. Though a poor student, he was class president in his junior and senior years. He graduated in 1961. At the University of Delaware in Newark, Biden briefly played freshman football and, as an unexceptional student, earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1965 with a double major in history and political science and a minor in English.
Biden has a stutter, which has improved since his early twenties. He says he reduced it by reciting poetry before a mirror, but some observers suggested it affected his performance in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential debates.
Marriages, law school, and early career (1966–1973)
On August 27, 1966, Biden married Neilia Hunter (19421972), a student at Syracuse University, after overcoming her parents' reluctance for her to wed a Roman Catholic. Their wedding was held in a Catholic church in Skaneateles, New York. They had three children: Joseph R. "Beau" Biden III (19692015), Robert Hunter Biden (born 1970), and Naomi Christina "Amy" Biden (19711972).
In 1968, Biden earned a Juris Doctor from Syracuse University College of Law, ranked 76th in his class of 85, after failing a course due to an acknowledged "mistake" when he plagiarized a law review article for a paper he wrote in his first year at law school. He was admitted to the Delaware bar in 1969.
Biden had not openly supported or opposed the Vietnam War until he ran for Senate and opposed Nixon's conduct of the war. While studying at the University of Delaware and Syracuse University, Biden obtained five student draft deferments, at a time when most draftees were sent to the Vietnam War. In 1968, based on a physical examination, he was given a conditional medical deferment; in 2008, a spokesperson for Biden said his having had "asthma as a teenager" was the reason for the deferment.
In 1968, Biden clerked at a Wilmington law firm headed by prominent local Republican William Prickett and, he later said, "thought of myself as a Republican". He disliked incumbent Democratic Delaware governor Charles L. Terry's conservative racial politics and supported a more liberal Republican, Russell W. Peterson, who defeated Terry in 1968. Biden was recruited by local Republicans but registered as an Independent because of his distaste for Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon.
In 1969, Biden practiced law first as a public defender and then at a firm headed by a locally active Democrat who named him to the Democratic Forum, a group trying to reform and revitalize the state party; Biden subsequently reregistered as a Democrat. He and another attorney also formed a law firm. Corporate law, however, did not appeal to him, and criminal law did not pay well. He supplemented his income by managing properties.
In 1970, Biden ran for the 4th district seat on the New Castle County Council on a liberal platform that included support for public housing in the suburbs. The seat had been held by Republican Henry R. Folsom, who was running in the 5th District following a reapportionment of council districts. Biden won the general election by defeating Republican Lawrence T. Messick, and took office on January 5, 1971. He served until January 1, 1973, and was succeeded by Democrat Francis R. Swift. During his time on the county council, Biden opposed large highway projects, which he argued might disrupt Wilmington neighborhoods.
1972 U.S. Senate campaign in Delaware
In 1972, Biden defeated Republican incumbent J. Caleb Boggs to become the junior U.S. senator from Delaware. He was the only Democrat willing to challenge Boggs. With minimal campaign funds, he was given no chance of winning. Family members managed and staffed the campaign, which relied on meeting voters face-to-face and hand-distributing position papers, an approach made feasible by Delaware's small size. He received help from the AFL–CIO and Democratic pollster Patrick Caddell. His platform focused on the environment, withdrawal from Vietnam, civil rights, mass transit, equitable taxation, health care, and public dissatisfaction with "politics as usual". A few months before the election, Biden trailed Boggs by almost thirty percentage points, but his energy, attractive young family, and ability to connect with voters' emotions worked to his advantage, and he won with 50.5 percent of the vote. At the time of his election, he was still 29 years old, but reached the constitutionally required age of 30 before he was sworn in as Senator.
Death of wife and daughter
On December 18, 1972, a few weeks after the election, Biden's wife Neilia and one-year-old daughter Naomi were killed in an automobile accident while Christmas shopping in Hockessin, Delaware. Neilia's station wagon was hit by a semi-trailer truck as she pulled out from an intersection. Their sons Beau (aged3) and Hunter (aged2) survived the accident and were taken to the hospital in fair condition, Beau with a broken leg and other wounds and Hunter with a minor skull fracture and other head injuries. Biden considered resigning to care for them, but Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield persuaded him not to.
Years later, Biden said he had heard that the truck driver allegedly drank alcohol before the collision. The driver's family denied that claim, and the police never substantiated it. Biden later apologized to the family. The accident had filled him with anger and religious doubt. He wrote that he "felt God had played a horrible trick" on him, and he had trouble focusing on work.
Second marriage
Biden credits his second wife, teacher Jill Tracy Jacobs, with the renewal of his interest in politics and life; they met in 1975 on a blind date and were married at the United Nations chapel in New York on June 17, 1977. They spent their honeymoon at Lake Balaton in the Hungarian People's Republic, behind the Iron Curtain. They are Roman Catholics and attend Mass at St. Joseph's on the Brandywine in Greenville, Delaware. Their daughter Ashley Biden (born 1981) is a social worker. She is married to physician Howard Krein. Beau Biden became an Army Judge Advocate in Iraq and later Delaware Attorney General; he died of brain cancer in 2015. Hunter Biden is a Washington lobbyist and investment adviser.
Teaching
From 1991 to 2008, as an adjunct professor, Biden co-taught a seminar on constitutional law at Widener University School of Law. The seminar often had a waiting list. Biden sometimes flew back from overseas to teach the class.
U.S. Senate (1973–2009)
Senate activities
In January 1973, secretary of the Senate Francis R. Valeo swore Biden in at the Delaware Division of the Wilmington Medical Center. Present were his sons Beau (whose leg was still in traction from the automobile accident) and Hunter and other family members. At 30, he was the sixth-youngest senator in U.S. history.
To see his sons, Biden traveled by train between his Delaware home and D.C.—74 minutes each way—and maintained this habit throughout his 36 years in the Senate.
During his early years in the Senate, Biden focused on consumer protection and environmental issues and called for greater government accountability. In a 1974 interview, he described himself as liberal on civil rights and liberties, senior citizens' concerns and healthcare but conservative on other issues, including abortion and military conscription.
In his first decade in the Senate, Biden focused on arms control. After Congress failed to ratify the SALT II Treaty signed in 1979 by Soviet general secretary Leonid Brezhnev and President Jimmy Carter, Biden met with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko to communicate American concerns and secured changes that addressed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's objections. When the Reagan administration wanted to interpret the 1972 SALT I treaty loosely to allow development of the Strategic Defense Initiative, Biden argued for strict adherence to the treaty. He received considerable attention when he excoriated Secretary of State George Shultz at a Senate hearing for the Reagan administration's support of South Africa despite its continued policy of apartheid.
Biden became ranking minority member of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1981. In 1984, he was a Democratic floor manager for the successful passage of the Comprehensive Crime Control Act. His supporters praised him for modifying some of the law's worst provisions, and it was his most important legislative accomplishment to that time. In 1994, Biden helped pass the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, also known as the Biden Crime Law, which included a ban on assault weapons, and the Violence Against Women Act, which he has called his most significant legislation. The 1994 crime law was unpopular among progressives and criticized for resulting in mass incarceration; in 2019, Biden called his role in passing the bill a "big mistake", citing its policy on crack cocaine and saying that the bill "trapped an entire generation".
In 1993, Biden voted for a provision that deemed homosexuality incompatible with military life, thereby banning gays from serving in the armed forces. In 1996, he voted for the Defense of Marriage Act, which prohibited the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages, thereby barring individuals in such marriages from equal protection under federal law and allowing states to do the same. In 2015, the act was ruled unconstitutional in Obergefell v. Hodges.
Elected to the Senate in 1972, Biden was reelected in 1978, 1984, 1990, 1996, 2002, and 2008, regularly receiving about 60% of the vote. He was junior senator to William Roth, who was first elected in 1970, until Roth was defeated in 2000. , he was the 18th-longest-serving senator in U.S. history.
Opposition to busing
In the mid-1970s, Biden was one of the Senate's strongest opponents of race-integration busing. His Delaware constituents strongly opposed it, and such opposition nationwide later led his party to mostly abandon school integration policies. In his first Senate campaign, Biden had expressed support for busing to remedy de jure segregation, as in the South, but opposed its use to remedy de facto segregation arising from racial patterns of neighborhood residency, as in Delaware; he opposed a proposed constitutional amendment banning busing entirely.
In May 1974, Biden voted to table a proposal containing anti-busing and anti-desegregation clauses but later voted for a modified version containing a qualification that it was not intended to weaken the judiciary's power to enforce the 5th Amendment and 14th Amendment. In 1975, he supported a proposal that would have prevented the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare from cutting federal funds to districts that refused to integrate; he said busing was a "bankrupt idea [violating] the cardinal rule of common sense" and that his opposition would make it easier for other liberals to follow suit. At the same time he supported initiatives on housing, job opportunities and voting rights. Biden supported a measure forbidding the use of federal funds for transporting students beyond the school closest to them. In 1977, he co-sponsored an amendment closing loopholes in that measure, which President Carter signed into law in 1978.
Brain surgeries
In February 1988, after several episodes of increasingly severe neck pain, Biden was taken by ambulance to Walter Reed Army Medical Center for surgery to correct a leaking intracranial berry aneurysm. While recuperating, he suffered a pulmonary embolism, a serious complication. After a second aneurysm was surgically repaired in May, Biden's recuperation kept him away from the Senate for seven months.
Senate Judiciary Committee
Biden was a longtime member of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary. He chaired it from 1987 to 1995 and was a ranking minority member from 1981 to 1987 and again from 1995 to 1997.
As chair, Biden presided over two highly contentious U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings. When Robert Bork was nominated in 1988, Biden reversed his approvalgiven in an interview the previous yearof a hypothetical Bork nomination. Conservatives were angered, but at the hearings' close Biden was praised for his fairness, humor, and courage. Rejecting the arguments of some Bork opponents, Biden framed his objections to Bork in terms of the conflict between Bork's strong originalism and the view that the U.S. Constitution provides rights to liberty and privacy beyond those explicitly enumerated in its text. Bork's nomination was rejected in the committee by a 9–5 vote and then in the full Senate, 58–42.
During Clarence Thomas's nomination hearings in 1991, Biden's questions on constitutional issues were often convoluted to the point that Thomas sometimes lost track of them, and Thomas later wrote that Biden's questions were akin to "beanballs". After the committee hearing closed, the public learned that Anita Hill, a University of Oklahoma law school professor, had accused Thomas of making unwelcome sexual comments when they had worked together. Biden had known of some of these charges, but initially shared them only with the committee because Hill was then unwilling to testify. The committee hearing was reopened and Hill testified, but Biden did not permit testimony from other witnesses, such as a woman who had made similar charges and experts on harassment, saying he wanted to preserve Thomas's privacy and the hearings' decency. The full Senate confirmed Thomas by a 52–48 vote, with Biden opposed. Liberal legal advocates and women's groups felt strongly that Biden had mishandled the hearings and not done enough to support Hill. Biden later sought out women to serve on the Judiciary Committee and emphasized women's issues in the committee's legislative agenda. In 2019, he told Hill he regretted his treatment of her, but Hill said afterward she remained unsatisfied.
Biden was critical of Independent Counsel Ken Starr during the 1990s Whitewater controversy and Lewinsky scandal investigations, saying "it's going to be a cold day in hell" before another independent counsel would be granted similar powers. He voted to acquit during the impeachment of President Clinton. During the 2000s, Biden sponsored bankruptcy legislation sought by credit card issuers. Clinton vetoed the bill in 2000, but it passed in 2005 as the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act, with Biden one of only 18 Democrats to vote for it, while leading Democrats and consumer rights organizations opposed it. As a senator, Biden strongly supported increased Amtrak funding and rail security.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Biden was a longtime member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He became its ranking minority member in 1997 and chaired it from June 2001 to 2003 and 2007 to 2009. His positions were generally liberal internationalist. He collaborated effectively with Republicans and sometimes went against elements of his own party. During this time he met with at least 150 leaders from 60 countries and international organizations, becoming a well-known Democratic voice on foreign policy.
Biden voted against authorization for the Gulf War in 1991, siding with 45 of the 55 Democratic senators; he said the U.S. was bearing almost all the burden in the anti-Iraq coalition.
Biden became interested in the Yugoslav Wars after hearing about Serbian abuses during the Croatian War of Independence in 1991. Once the Bosnian War broke out, Biden was among the first to call for the "lift and strike" policy of lifting the arms embargo, training Bosnian Muslims and supporting them with NATO air strikes, and investigating war crimes. The George H. W. Bush administration and Clinton administration were both reluctant to implement the policy, fearing Balkan entanglement. In April 1993, Biden spent a week in the Balkans and held a tense three-hour meeting with Serbian leader Slobodan Milošević. Biden said he had told Milošević, "I think you're a damn war criminal and you should be tried as one."
Biden wrote an amendment in 1992 to compel the Bush administration to arm the Bosnian Muslims, but deferred in 1994 to a somewhat softer stance the Clinton administration preferred, before signing on the following year to a stronger measure sponsored by Bob Dole and Joe Lieberman. The engagement led to a successful NATO peacekeeping effort. Biden has called his role in affecting Balkans policy in the mid-1990s his "proudest moment in public life" related to foreign policy.
As chair, Biden contributed to successfully encouraging the Clinton administration to commit the resources and political capital to broker what became the 1998 Good Friday Agreement between the governments of Ireland and the United Kingdom through the Northern Ireland peace process.
On September 3, 1998, the resigning former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter had, according to Barton Gellman, accused the Clinton administration of obstructing weapons inspections in Iraq. Biden joined many other Senate Democrats and "amplified on the Clinton administration's counterattack against former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter." He questioned whether Ritter was trying to "appropriate the power 'to decide when to pull the trigger' of military force against Iraq", and said that the Secretary of State would also have to consider the opinion of allies, the UNSC, and public opinion, before any intervention in Iraq. In a Washington Post op-ed later that month, Biden criticized a unilateral "confrontation-based policy" but praised the idea of asking whether intervention might be necessary at some point, though he said it was "above the pay grade" of one weapons inspector.
In 1999, during the Kosovo War, Biden supported the 1999 NATO bombing of FR Yugoslavia. He and Senator John McCain co-sponsored the McCain-Biden Kosovo Resolution, which called on Clinton to use all necessary force, including ground troops, to confront Milošević over Yugoslav actions toward ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.
Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq
Biden was a strong supporter of the War in Afghanistan, saying, "Whatever it takes, we should do it." As head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he said in 2002 that Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was a threat to national security and there was no other option than to "eliminate" that threat. In October 2002, he voted in favor of the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq, approving the U.S. invasion of Iraq. As chair of the committee, he assembled a series of witnesses to testify in favor of the authorization. They gave testimony grossly misrepresenting the intent, history, and status of Saddam and his secular government, which was an avowed enemy of al-Qaida, and touted Iraq's fictional possession of weapons of mass destruction. Biden eventually became a critic of the war and viewed his vote and role as a "mistake", but did not push for withdrawal. He supported the appropriations for the occupation, but argued that the war should be internationalized, that more soldiers were needed, and that the Bush administration should "level with the American people" about its cost and length.
By late 2006, Biden's stance had shifted considerably. He opposed the troop surge of 2007, saying General David Petraeus was "dead, flat wrong" in believing the surge could work. Biden instead advocated dividing Iraq into a loose federation of three ethnic states. In November 2006, Biden and Leslie H. Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, released a comprehensive strategy to end sectarian violence in Iraq. Rather than continue the existing approach or withdrawing, the plan called for "a third way": federalizing Iraq and giving Kurds, Shiites, and Sunnis "breathing room" in their own regions. In September 2007, a non-binding resolution endorsing the plan passed the Senate, but the idea was unfamiliar, had no political constituency, and failed to gain traction. Iraq's political leadership denounced the resolution as de facto partitioning of the country, and the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad issued a statement distancing itself from it. In May 2008, Biden sharply criticized President George W. Bush's speech to Israel's Knesset in which Bush compared some Democrats to Western leaders who appeased Hitler before World WarII; Biden called the speech "bullshit", "malarkey", and "outrageous". He later apologized for his language.
Presidential campaigns 1988 and 2008
1988 campaign
Biden formally declared his candidacy for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination on June 9, 1987. He was considered a strong candidate because of his moderate image, his speaking ability, his high profile as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee at the upcoming Robert Bork Supreme Court nomination hearings, and his appeal to Baby Boomers; he would have been the second-youngest person elected president, after John F. Kennedy. He raised more in the first quarter of 1987 than any other candidate.
By August his campaign's messaging had become confused due to staff rivalries, and in September, he was accused of plagiarizing a speech by British Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock. Biden's speech had similar lines about being the first person in his family to attend university. Biden had credited Kinnock with the formulation on previous occasions, but did not on two occasions in late August. Kinnock himself was more forgiving; the two men met in 1988, forming an enduring friendship.
Earlier that year he had also used passages from a 1967 speech by Robert F. Kennedy (for which his aides took blame) and a short phrase from John F. Kennedy's inaugural address; two years earlier he had used a 1976 passage by Hubert Humphrey. Biden responded that politicians often borrow from one another without giving credit, and that one of his rivals for the nomination, Jesse Jackson, had called him to point out that he (Jackson) had used the same material by Humphrey that Biden had used.
A few days later, an incident in law school in which Biden drew text from a Fordham Law Review article with inadequate citations was publicized. He was required to repeat the course and passed with high marks. At Biden's request the Delaware Supreme Court's Board of Professional Responsibility reviewed the incident and concluded that he had violated no rules.
Biden has made several false or exaggerated claims about his early life: that he had earned three degrees in college, that he attended law school on a full scholarship, that he had graduated in the top half of his class, and that he had marched in the civil rights movement. The limited amount of other news about the presidential race amplified these disclosures and on September 23, 1987, Biden withdrew his candidacy, saying it had been overrun by "the exaggerated shadow" of his past mistakes.
2008 campaign
After exploring the possibility of a run in several previous cycles, in January 2007, Biden declared his candidacy in the 2008 elections. During his campaign, Biden focused on the Iraq War, his record as chairman of major Senate committees, and his foreign-policy experience. In mid-2007, Biden stressed his foreign policy expertise compared to Obama's. Biden was noted for his one-liners during the campaign; in one debate he said of Republican candidate Rudy Giuliani: "There's only three things he mentions in a sentence: a noun, and a verb and 9/11."
Biden had difficulty raising funds, struggled to draw people to his rallies, and failed to gain traction against the high-profile candidacies of Obama and Senator Hillary Clinton. He never rose above single digits in national polls of the Democratic candidates. In the first contest on January 3, 2008, Biden placed fifth in the Iowa caucuses, garnering slightly less than one percent of the state delegates. He withdrew from the race that evening.
Despite its lack of success, Biden's 2008 campaign raised his stature in the political world. In particular, it changed the relationship between Biden and Obama. Although they had served together on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, they had not been close: Biden resented Obama's quick rise to political stardom, while Obama viewed Biden as garrulous and patronizing. Having gotten to know each other during 2007, Obama appreciated Biden's campaign style and appeal to working-class voters, and Biden said he became convinced Obama was "the real deal".
2008 vice-presidential campaign
Shortly after Biden withdrew from the presidential race, Obama privately told him he was interested in finding an important place for Biden in his administration. Biden declined Obama's first request to vet him for the vice-presidential slot, fearing the vice presidency would represent a loss in status and voice from his Senate position, but he later changed his mind. In early August, Obama and Biden met in secret to discuss the possibility, and developed a strong personal rapport. On August 22, 2008, Obama announced that Biden would be his running mate. The New York Times reported that the strategy behind the choice reflected a desire to fill out the ticket with someone with foreign policy and national security experience—and not to help the ticket win a swing state or to emphasize Obama's "change" message. Others pointed out Biden's appeal to middle-class and blue-collar voters, as well as his willingness to aggressively challenge Republican nominee John McCain in a way that Obama seemed uncomfortable doing at times. In accepting Obama's offer, Biden ruled out running for president again in 2016, but his comments in later years seemed to back off that stance, as he did not want to diminish his political power by appearing uninterested in advancement. Biden was officially nominated for vice president on August 27 by voice vote at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver.
Biden's vice-presidential campaigning gained little media visibility, as far greater press attention was focused on the Republican running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. During one week in September 2008, for instance, the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism found that Biden was included in only five percent of coverage of the race, far less than the other three candidates on the tickets received. Biden nevertheless focused on campaigning in economically challenged areas of swing states and trying to win over blue-collar Democrats, especially those who had supported Hillary Clinton. Biden attacked McCain heavily despite a long-standing personal friendship. He said, "That guy I used to know, he's gone. It literally saddens me." As the financial crisis of 2007–2010 reached a peak with the liquidity crisis of September 2008 and the proposed bailout of the United States financial system became a major factor in the campaign, Biden voted in favor of the $700billion Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, which went on to pass in the Senate 74–25.
On October 2, 2008, Biden participated in the vice-presidential debate with Palin at Washington University in St. Louis. Post-debate polls found that while Palin exceeded many voters' expectations, Biden had won the debate overall. During the campaign's final days, he focused on less populated, older, less well-off areas of battleground states, especially Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, where polling indicated he was popular and where Obama had not campaigned or performed well in the Democratic primaries. He also campaigned in some normally Republican states, as well as in areas with large Catholic populations.
Under instructions from the campaign, Biden kept his speeches succinct and tried to avoid offhand remarks, such as one he made about Obama's being tested by a foreign power soon after taking office, which had attracted negative attention. Privately, Biden's remarks frustrated Obama. "How many times is Biden gonna say something stupid?" he asked. Obama campaign staffers referred to Biden blunders as "Joe bombs" and kept Biden uninformed about strategy discussions, which in turn irked Biden. Relations between the two campaigns became strained for a month, until Biden apologized on a call to Obama and the two built a stronger partnership. Publicly, Obama strategist David Axelrod said Biden's high popularity ratings had outweighed any unexpected comments. Nationally, Biden had a 60% favorability rating in a Pew Research Center poll, compared to Palin's 44%.
On November 4, 2008, Obama and Biden were elected with 53% of the popular vote and 365 electoral votes to McCain–Palin's 173.
At the same time Biden was running for vice president he was also running for reelection to the Senate, as permitted by Delaware law. On November4, he was reelected to the Senate, defeating Republican Christine O'Donnell. Having won both races, Biden made a point of waiting to resign from the Senate until he was sworn in for his seventh term on January 6, 2009. He became the youngest senator ever to start a seventh full term, and said, "In all my life, the greatest honor bestowed upon me has been serving the people of Delaware as their United States senator." Biden cast his last Senate vote on January 15, supporting the release of the second $350billion for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, and resigned from the Senate later that day. In an emotional farewell, Biden told the Senate: "Every good thing I have seen happen here, every bold step taken in the 36-plus years I have been here, came not from the application of pressure by interest groups, but through the maturation of personal relationships." Delaware Governor Ruth Ann Minner appointed longtime Biden adviser Ted Kaufman to fill Biden's vacated Senate seat.
Vice presidency (2009–2017)
First term, 2009–2013
Biden said he intended to eliminate some explicit roles assumed by George W. Bush's vice president, Dick Cheney, and did not intend to emulate any previous vice presidency. He chaired Obama's transition team and headed an initiative to improve middle-class economic well-being. In early January 2009, in his last act as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, he visited the leaders of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and on January 20 he was sworn in as the 47th vice president of the United Statesthe first vice president from Delaware and the first Roman Catholic vice president.
Obama was soon comparing Biden to a basketball player "who does a bunch of things that don't show up in the stat sheet". In May, Biden visited Kosovo and affirmed the U.S. position that its "independence is irreversible". Biden lost an internal debate to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about sending 21,000 new troops to Afghanistan, but his skepticism was valued, and in 2009, Biden's views gained more influence as Obama reconsidered his Afghanistan strategy. Biden visited Iraq about every two months, becoming the administration's point man in delivering messages to Iraqi leadership about expected progress there. More generally, overseeing Iraq policy became Biden's responsibility: Obama was said to have said, "Joe, you do Iraq." Biden said Iraq "could be one of the great achievements of this administration". His January 2010 visit to Iraq in the midst of turmoil over banned candidates from the upcoming Iraqi parliamentary election resulted in 59 of the several hundred candidates being reinstated by the Iraqi government two days later. By 2012, Biden had made eight trips there, but his oversight of U.S. policy in Iraq receded with the exit of U.S. troops in 2011.
Biden oversaw infrastructure spending from the Obama stimulus package intended to help counteract the ongoing recession. During this period, Biden was satisfied that no major instances of waste or corruption had occurred, and when he completed that role in February 2011, he said the number of fraud incidents with stimulus monies had been less than one percent.
In late April 2009, Biden's off-message response to a question during the beginning of the swine flu outbreak, that he would advise family members against traveling on airplanes or subways, led to a swift retraction by the White House. The remark revived Biden's reputation for gaffes. Confronted with rising unemployment through July 2009, Biden acknowledged that the administration had "misread how bad the economy was" but maintained confidence the stimulus package would create many more jobs once the pace of expenditures picked up. On March 23, 2010, a microphone picked up Biden telling the president that his signing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was "a big fucking deal" during live national news telecasts. Despite their different personalities, Obama and Biden formed a friendship, partly based around Obama's daughter Sasha and Biden's granddaughter Maisy, who attended Sidwell Friends School together.
Members of the Obama administration said Biden's role in the White House was to be a contrarian and force others to defend their positions. Rahm Emanuel, White House chief of staff, said that Biden helped counter groupthink. White House press secretary Jay Carney, Biden's former communications director, said Biden played the role of "the bad guy in the Situation Room". Another senior Obama advisor said Biden "is always prepared to be the skunk at the family picnic to make sure we are as intellectually honest as possible." Obama said, "The best thing about Joe is that when we get everybody together, he really forces people to think and defend their positions, to look at things from every angle, and that is very valuable for me." The Bidens maintained a relaxed atmosphere at their official residence in Washington, often entertaining their grandchildren, and regularly returned to their home in Delaware.
Biden campaigned heavily for Democrats in the 2010 midterm elections, maintaining an attitude of optimism in the face of predictions of large-scale losses for the party. Following big Republican gains in the elections and the departure of White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, Biden's past relationships with Republicans in Congress became more important. He led the successful administration effort to gain Senate approval for the New START treaty. In December 2010, Biden's advocacy for a middle ground, followed by his negotiations with Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, were instrumental in producing the administration's compromise tax package that included a temporary extension of the Bush tax cuts. Biden then took the lead in trying to sell the agreement to a reluctant Democratic caucus in Congress. The package passed as the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010.
In March 2011, Obama delegated Biden to lead negotiations with Congress to resolve federal spending levels for the rest of the year and avoid a government shutdown. By May 2011, a "Biden panel" with six congressional members was trying to reach a bipartisan deal on raising the U.S. debt ceiling as part of an overall deficit reduction plan. The U.S. debt ceiling crisis developed over the next few months, but Biden's relationship with McConnell again proved key in breaking a deadlock and bringing about a deal to resolve it, in the form of the Budget Control Act of 2011, signed on August 2, 2011, the same day an unprecedented U.S. default had loomed. Biden had spent the most time of anyone in the administration bargaining with Congress on the debt question, and one Republican staffer said, "Biden's the only guy with real negotiating authority, and [McConnell] knows that his word is good. He was a key to the deal."
Some reports suggest that Biden opposed proceeding with the May 2011 U.S. mission to kill Osama bin Laden, lest failure adversely affect Obama's reelection prospects. He took the lead in notifying Congressional leaders of the successful outcome.
Reelection
In October 2010, Biden said Obama had asked him to remain as his running mate for the 2012 presidential election, but with Obama's popularity on the decline, White House Chief of Staff William M. Daley conducted some secret polling and focus group research in late 2011 on the idea of replacing Biden on the ticket with Hillary Clinton. The notion was dropped when the results showed no appreciable improvement for Obama, and White House officials later said Obama had never entertained the idea.
Biden's May 2012 statement that he was "absolutely comfortable" with same-sex marriage gained considerable public attention in comparison to Obama's position, which had been described as "evolving". Biden made his statement without administration consent, and Obama and his aides were quite irked, since Obama had planned to shift position several months later, in the build-up to the party convention, and since Biden had previously counseled the president to avoid the issue lest key Catholic voters be offended. Gay rights advocates seized upon Biden's statement, and within days, Obama announced that he too supported same-sex marriage, an action in part forced by Biden's remarks. Biden apologized to Obama in private for having spoken out, while Obama acknowledged publicly it had been done from the heart. The incident showed that Biden still struggled at times with message discipline, as Time wrote, "Everyone knows Biden's greatest strength is also his greatest weakness." Relations were also strained between the vice presidential and presidential campaigns when Biden appeared to use his position to bolster fundraising contacts for a possible run for president in 2016, and he ended up being excluded from Obama campaign strategy meetings.
The Obama campaign nevertheless valued Biden as a retail-level politician who could connect with disaffected blue-collar workers and rural residents, and he had a heavy schedule of appearances in swing states as the reelection campaign began in earnest in spring 2012. An August 2012 remark before a mixed-race audience that Republican proposals to relax Wall Street regulations would "put y'all back in chains" led to a similar analysis of Biden's face-to-face campaigning abilities versus his tendency to go off track. The Los Angeles Times wrote, "Most candidates give the same stump speech over and over, putting reporters if not the audience to sleep. But during any Biden speech, there might be a dozen moments to make press handlers cringe, and prompt reporters to turn to each other with amusement and confusion." Time magazine wrote that Biden often went too far and "Along with the familiar Washington mix of neediness and overconfidence, Biden's brain is wired for more than the usual amount of goofiness."
Biden was nominated for a second term as vice president at the 2012 Democratic National Convention in September. Debating his Republican counterpart, Representative Paul Ryan, in the vice-presidential debate on October 11 he made a spirited and emotional defense of the Obama administration's record and energetically attacked the Republican ticket. On November 6, Obama and Biden won reelection over Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan with 332 of 538 Electoral College votes and 51% of the popular vote.
In December 2012, Obama named Biden to head the Gun Violence Task Force, created to address the causes of gun violence in the United States in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Later that month, during the final days before the United States fell off the "fiscal cliff", Biden's relationship with McConnell again proved important as the two negotiated a deal that led to the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 being passed at the start of 2013. It made many of the Bush tax cuts permanent but raised rates on upper income levels.
Second term, 2013–2017
Biden was inaugurated to a second term on January 20, 2013, at a small ceremony at Number One Observatory Circle, his official residence, with Justice Sonia Sotomayor presiding (a public ceremony took place on January 21).
Biden played little part in discussions that led to the October 2013 passage of the Continuing Appropriations Act, 2014, which resolved the federal government shutdown of 2013 and the debt-ceiling crisis of 2013. This was because Senate majority leader Harry Reid and other Democratic leaders cut him out of any direct talks with Congress, feeling Biden had given too much away during previous negotiations.
Biden's Violence Against Women Act was reauthorized again in 2013. The act led to related developments, such as the White House Council on Women and Girls, begun in the first term, as well as the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault, begun in January 2014 with Biden and Valerie Jarrett as co-chairs. Biden discussed federal guidelines on sexual assault on university campuses while giving a speech at the University of New Hampshire. He said, "No means no, if you're drunk or you're sober. No means no if you're in bed, in a dorm or on the street. No means no even if you said yes at first and you changed your mind. No means no."
Biden favored arming Syria's rebel fighters. As Iraq fell apart during 2014, renewed attention was paid to the Biden-Gelb Iraqi federalization plan of 2006, with some observers suggesting Biden had been right all along. Biden himself said the U.S. would follow ISIL "to the gates of hell". Biden had close relationships with several Latin American leaders and was assigned a focus on the region during the administration; he visited the region 16 times during his vice presidency, the most of any president or vice president.
In 2015, Speaker of the House John Boehner and Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell invited Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress without notifying the Obama administration. This defiance of protocol led Biden and more than 50 congressional Democrats to skip Netanyahu's speech. In August 2016, Biden visited Serbia, where he met with Serbian president Aleksandar Vučić and expressed his condolences for civilian victims of the bombing campaign during the Kosovo War. In Kosovo, he attended a ceremony renaming a highway after his son Beau, in honor of Beau's service to Kosovo in training its judges and prosecutors.
Biden never cast a tie-breaking vote in the Senate, making him the longest-serving vice president with this distinction.
Role in the 2016 presidential campaign
During his second term, Biden was often said to be preparing for a possible bid for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination. With his family, many friends, and donors encouraging him in mid-2015 to enter the race, and with Hillary Clinton's favorability ratings in decline at that time, Biden was reported to again be seriously considering the prospect and a "Draft Biden 2016" PAC was established.
, Biden was still uncertain about running. He felt his son's recent death had largely drained his emotional energy, and said, "nobody has a right... to seek that office unless they're willing to give it 110% of who they are." On October 21, speaking from a podium in the Rose Garden with his wife and Obama by his side, Biden announced his decision not to run for president in 2016. In January 2016, Biden affirmed that it was the right decision, but admitted to regretting not running for president "every day".
After Obama endorsed Hillary Clinton on June 9, 2016, Biden endorsed her later that day. Throughout the 2016 election, Biden strongly criticized Clinton's opponent, Donald Trump, in often colorful terms.
Subsequent activities (2017–2019)
After leaving the vice presidency, Biden became a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, while continuing to lead efforts to find treatments for cancer. In 2017 he wrote a memoir, Promise Me, Dad, and went on a book tour. Biden earned $15.6million in 2017–2018. In 2018, he gave a eulogy for Senator John McCain, praising McCain's embrace of American ideals and bipartisan friendships.
Biden remained in the public eye, endorsing candidates while continuing to comment on politics, climate change, and the presidency of Donald Trump. He also continued to speak out in favor of LGBT rights, continuing advocacy on an issue he had become more closely associated with during his vice presidency. In 2019, Biden criticized Brunei for its intention to implement Islamic laws that would allow death by stoning for adultery and homosexuality, calling it "appalling and immoral" and saying, "There is no excuse—not culture, not tradition—for this kind of hate and inhumanity." By 2019, Biden and his wife reported that their assets had increased to between $2.2 million and $8 million from speaking engagements and a contract to write a set of books.
2020 presidential campaign
Speculation and announcement
Between 2016 and 2019, media outlets often mentioned Biden as a likely candidate for president in 2020. When asked if he would run, he gave varied and ambivalent answers, saying "never say never". At one point he suggested he did not see a scenario where he would run again, but a few days later, he said, "I'll run if I can walk." A political action committee known as Time for Biden was formed in January 2018, seeking Biden's entry into the race. He finally launched his campaign on April 25, 2019, saying he was prompted to run, among other reasons, by his "sense of duty."
Campaign
In September 2019, it was reported that Trump had pressured Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate alleged wrongdoing by Biden and his son Hunter Biden. Despite the allegations, no evidence was produced of any wrongdoing by the Bidens. The media widely interpreted this pressure to investigate the Bidens as trying to hurt Biden's chances of winning the presidency, resulting in a political scandal and Trump's impeachment by the House of Representatives.
Beginning in 2019, Trump and his allies falsely accused Biden of getting the Ukrainian prosecutor general Viktor Shokin fired because he was supposedly pursuing an investigation into Burisma Holdings, which employed Hunter Biden. Biden was accused of withholding $1billion in aid from Ukraine in this effort. In 2015, Biden pressured the Ukrainian parliament to remove Shokin because the United States, the European Union and other international organizations considered Shokin corrupt and ineffective, and in particular because Shokin was not assertively investigating Burisma. The withholding of the $1billion in aid was part of this official policy. The Senate Homeland Security Committee and Senate Finance Committee, led by Republicans, investigated allegations of wrongdoing by the Bidens in Ukraine, ultimately releasing a report in September 2020 that detailed no evidence of wrongdoing by Joe Biden, and concluded that it was "not clear" whether Hunter Biden's role in Burisma "affected U.S. policy toward Ukraine".
In March 2019 and April 2019, Biden was accused by eight women of previous instances of inappropriate physical contact, such as embracing, touching or kissing. Biden had previously described himself as a "tactile politician" and admitted this behavior has caused trouble for him. In April 2019, Biden pledged to be more "respectful of people's personal space".
Throughout 2019, Biden stayed generally ahead of other Democrats in national polls. Despite this, he finished fourth in the Iowa caucuses, and eight days later, fifth in the New Hampshire primary. He performed better in the Nevada caucuses, reaching the 15% required for delegates, but still was behind Bernie Sanders by 21.6 percentage points. Making strong appeals to Black voters on the campaign trail and in the South Carolina debate, Biden won the South Carolina primary by more than 28 points. After the withdrawals and subsequent endorsements of candidates Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar, he made large gains in the March3 Super Tuesday primary elections. Biden won 18 of the next 26 contests, including Alabama, Arkansas, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia, putting him in the lead overall. Elizabeth Warren and Mike Bloomberg soon dropped out, and Biden expanded his lead with victories over Sanders in four states (Idaho, Michigan, Mississippi, and Missouri) on March 10.
In late March 2020, Tara Reade, one of the eight women who in 2019 had accused Biden of inappropriate physical contact, accused Biden of having sexually assaulted her in 1993. There were inconsistencies between Reade's 2019 and 2020 allegations. Biden and his campaign denied the sexual assault allegation.
When Sanders suspended his campaign on April 8, 2020, Biden became the Democratic Party's presumptive nominee for president. On April 13, Sanders endorsed Biden in a live-streamed discussion from their homes. Former President Barack Obama endorsed Biden the next day. In March 2020, Biden committed to choosing a woman as his running mate. In June, Biden met the 1,991-delegate threshold needed to secure the party's presidential nomination. On August 11, he announced U.S. Senator Kamala Harris of California as his running mate, making her the first African American and first South Asian American vice-presidential nominee on a major-party ticket.
On August 18, 2020, Biden was officially nominated at the 2020 Democratic National Convention as the Democratic Party nominee for president in the 2020 election.
Presidential transition
Biden was elected the 46th president of the United States in November 2020. He defeated the incumbent, Donald Trump, becoming the first candidate to defeat a sitting president since Bill Clinton defeated George H.W. Bush in 1992. Trump refused to concede, insisting the election had been "stolen" from him through "voter fraud", challenging the results in court and promoting numerous conspiracy theories about the voting and vote-counting processes, in an attempt to overturn the election results. Biden's transition was delayed by several weeks as the White House ordered federal agencies not to cooperate. On November23, General Services Administrator Emily W. Murphy formally recognized Biden as the apparent winner of the 2020 election and authorized the start of a transition process to the Biden administration.
On January 6, 2021, during Congress's electoral vote count, Trump told supporters gathered in front of the White House to march to the Capitol, saying, "We will never give up. We will never concede. It doesn't happen. You don't concede when there's theft involved." Soon after, they attacked the Capitol. During the insurrection at the Capitol, Biden addressed the nation, calling the events "an unprecedented assault unlike anything we've seen in modern times." He specifically called on Trump to "go on national television now to fulfill his oath and defend the Constitution and demand an end to this siege", adding, "it must end now." After the Capitol was cleared, Congress resumed its joint session and officially certified the election results with Pence declaring Biden and Harris the winners.
Presidency (2021–present)
Inauguration
Biden was inaugurated as the 46th president of the United States on January 20, 2021. At 78, he is the oldest person to have assumed the office. He is the second Catholic president (after John F. Kennedy) and the first president whose home state is Delaware. He is the second non-incumbent vice president (after Richard Nixon in 1968) to be elected president. He is also the first president from the Silent Generation.
Biden's inauguration was "a muted affair unlike any previous inauguration" due to COVID-19 precautions as well as massively increased security measures because of a threat of widespread civil unrest. Biden took the oath of office on the Capitol's west steps and gave an inaugural address, but there were no spectators on the Mall and no in-person parades or inaugural balls. Trump did not attend, becoming the first outgoing president since 1869 to not attend his successor's inauguration.
First 100 days
In his first two days as president, Biden signed 17 executive orders, more than most recent presidents did in their first 100 days. By his third day, orders had included rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement, ending the state of national emergency at the border with Mexico, directing the government to rejoin the World Health Organization, face mask requirements on federal property, measures to combat hunger in the United States, and revoking permits for the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. In his first two weeks in office, Biden signed more executive orders than any other president since Franklin D. Roosevelt had in their first month in office.
On February 4, 2021, the Biden administration announced that the United States was ending its support for the Saudi-led bombing campaign in Yemen. In his first visit to the State Department as president, Biden said "this war has to end" and that the conflict had created a "humanitarian and strategic catastrophe." On February 25, the Biden administration "struck a site in Syria used by two Iranian-backed militia groups in response to rocket attacks on American forces." This marked the first known action by the military under Biden.
On March 11, the first anniversary of COVID-19 being declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization, Biden signed into law the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, a $1.9 trillion economic stimulus relief package he proposed and lobbied for that aimed to speed up the United States' recovery from the economic and health effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing recession. The package included direct payments to most Americans, an extension of increased unemployment benefits, funds for vaccine distribution and school reopenings, support for small businesses and state and local governments, and expansions of health insurance subsidies and the child tax credit. Biden's initial proposal included an increase of the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour, but after Senate parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough determined that including the increase in a budget reconciliation bill would violate Senate rules, Democrats declined to pursue overruling her and removed the increase from the package.
Also in March, amid a rise in migrants entering the U.S. from Mexico, Biden told migrants, "Don't come over." He said that the U.S. was arranging a plan for migrants to "apply for asylum in place", without leaving their original locations. In the meantime, migrant adults "are being sent back", Biden said, in reference to the continuation of the Trump administration's Title 42 policy for quick deportations. Biden earlier announced that his administration would not deport unaccompanied migrant children; the rise in arrivals of such children exceeded the capacity of facilities meant to shelter them (before they were sent to sponsors), leading the Biden administration in March to direct the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help manage these children.
On April 14, Biden announced that the United States would delay the withdrawal of all troops from the war in Afghanistan until September 11, signalling an end to the country's direct military involvement in Afghanistan after nearly 20 years. In February 2020, the Trump administration had made a deal with the Taliban to completely withdraw U.S. forces by May 1, 2021. Biden's decision met with a wide range of reactions, from support and relief to trepidation at the possible collapse of the Afghan government without American support. On April 22–23, Biden held an international climate summit at which he announced that the U.S. would cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 50%–52% by 2030 compared to 2005 levels. Other countries also increased their pledges. If the pledges made at the summit are met, they will cut global greenhouse gas emissions by 2.6–3.7 Gte by 2030. On April 28, the eve of his 100th day in office, Biden delivered his first address to a joint session of Congress, in which he highlighted the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines and addressed withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, the murder of George Floyd, and the U.S. Capitol attack while urging Congress to pass comprehensive immigration, gun, and health care reform.
Rest of 2021
In May 2021, during a flareup in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, Biden expressed his support for Israel, saying "my party still supports Israel" amid disagreement from some Democrats. In June 2021, Biden took his first trip abroad as president. In eight days he visited Belgium, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. He attended a G7 summit, a NATO summit, and an EU summit, and held one-on-one talks with Russian president Vladimir Putin.
On June 17, Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act, which officially declared Juneteenth a federal holiday. Juneteenth is the first new federal holiday since Martin Luther King Jr. Day was declared a holiday in 1986. In July 2021, amid a slowing of the COVID-19 vaccination rate in the country and the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant, Biden said that the country has "a pandemic for those who haven't gotten the vaccination" and that it was therefore "gigantically important" for Americans to be vaccinated, touting the vaccines' effectiveness against hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19. He also criticized the prevalence of COVID-19 misinformation on social media, saying it was "killing people". In September 2021, Biden announced AUKUS, a security pact between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, to ensure "peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific over the long term"; the deal included nuclear-powered submarines built for Australia's use.
By the end of 2021, 40 of Biden's appointed judges to the federal judiciary had been confirmed, more than any president in their first year in office since Ronald Reagan. Biden has prioritized diversity in his judicial appointments more than any president in U.S. history, with the majority of appointments being women and people of color. Most of his appointments have been in blue states, making a limited impact since the courts in these states already traditionally lean liberal.
In the first eight months of his presidency, Biden's approval rating, according to Morning Consult polling, remained above 50%. In August, it began to decline and lowered into the low forties by December. The decline in his approval is attributed to the Afghanistan withdrawal, increasing hospitalizations from the Delta variant, high inflation and gas prices, disarray within the Democratic Party, and a general decline in popularity customary in politics.
Withdrawal from Afghanistan
American forces began withdrawing from Afghanistan in 2020, under the provisions of a February 2020 US-Taliban agreement that set a May 1, 2021, deadline. By April 2021, the State Department was urging American civilians in Afghanistan to leave as soon as possible. The Taliban began an offensive on May 1. As late as July, American intelligence assessments estimated Kabul would fall to the Taliban months or weeks after the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan. By early July, most American troops in Afghanistan had withdrawn. Biden addressed the withdrawal in July, saying, "The likelihood there's going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely."
On August 15, the Afghan government collapsed under the Taliban offensive, and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country. Biden reacted by ordering 6,000 American troops to assist in the evacuation of American personnel and Afghan allies. He was widely criticized for the manner of the withdrawal, with allegations of poor planning for the evacuation of Americans and Afghan allies, and for his silence and absence during the days before the collapse of the Afghan government.
On August 16, Biden addressed the "messy" situation, taking responsibility for it, and admitting that the situation "unfolded more quickly than we had anticipated". He defended his decision to withdraw, saying that Americans should not be "dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves," and blamed his predecessor Donald Trump, the Afghan president, and Afghan security forces for the speedy collapse.
On August 22, Biden said that his administration knew that ISIS-K was a "likely source" of threat. On August 26, a suicide bombing at the Kabul airport killed 13 U.S. service members and 169 Afghans. Biden declared to the attackers that the United States "will hunt you down and make you pay". On August 27, an American drone strike killed two ISIS-K targets, who were "planners and facilitators", according to a U.S. Army general. On August 29, another American drone strike killed 10 civilians, including seven children; the Defense Department initially claimed the strike was conducted on an Islamic State suicide bomber threatening Kabul Airport, but admitted the mistake on September 17 and apologized.
The U.S. military left Afghanistan on August 30, with Biden saying that the evacuation effort was an "extraordinary success", by extracting over 120,000 Americans, Afghans and other allies. He acknowledged that between "100 to 200" Americans who wanted to leave were left in Afghanistan, despite his August 18 pledge to stay in Afghanistan until all Americans who wanted to leave had left. The Biden administration, joining governments of almost 100 countries, said that the Taliban had given "assurances" that anyone "with travel authorization from [these] countries" would continue to be allowed to leave Afghanistan.
Economy
Biden entered office nine months into a recovery from the COVID-19 recession and his first year in office was characterized by robust growth in real GDP, employment, wages and stock market returns, amid significantly elevated inflation. Real GDP grew 5.7%, the fastest rate in 37 years. Amid record job creation, the unemployment rate fell at the fastest pace on record during the year. By the end of 2021, inflation reached a nearly 40-year high of 7.1%, which was partially offset by the highest wage and salary growth in at least 20 years. Income growth was particularly strong at the low end of the pay scale.
Infrastructure and climate
As part of Biden's Build Back Better agenda, in late March 2021, he proposed the American Jobs Plan, a $2 trillion package addressing issues including transport infrastructure, utilities infrastructure, broadband infrastructure, housing, schools, manufacturing, research and workforce development. After months of negotiations among Biden and lawmakers, in August 2021 the Senate passed a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill called the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, while the House, also in a bipartisan manner, approved that bill in early November 2021, covering infrastructure related to transport, utilities, and broadband. Biden signed the bill into law in mid-November 2021.
As COP26, scheduled for October 31 to November 12, 2021, approached, Biden increased his efforts to address climate change domestically and internationally. He promoted an agreement that the U.S. and the European Union cut methane emissions by a third by 2030 and tried to add dozens of other countries to the effort. He tried to convince China and Australia to do more. He convened an online Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate Change to press other countries to strengthen their climate policy. Biden pledged to double climate funding to developing countries by 2024. Also at COP26, the U.S. and China reached a deal on greenhouse gas emission reduction. The two countries are responsible for 40% of global emissions.
2022
In early 2022, Biden made efforts to change his public image after entering the year with low approval ratings, but they continued to fall, dipping to approximately 40% in aggregated polls by February.
In January, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, a moderate liberal nominated by Bill Clinton, announced he will be retiring from the Supreme Court. Breyer's retirement is expected to give Biden his first opportunity to nominate a Supreme Court justice. During his 2020 campaign, Biden vowed to nominate a Black woman to the court if a vacancy occurred, a promise he reiterated after the announcement of Breyer's retirement. In February, Biden nominated federal judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court.
Political positions
Biden is considered a moderate Democrat and a centrist, though more recently he has been seen as shifting to the left. He has a lifetime liberal 72% score from the Americans for Democratic Action through 2004, while the American Conservative Union gave him a lifetime conservative rating of 13% through 2008.
Biden supported the fiscal stimulus in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009; the Obama administration's proposed increase in infrastructure spending; subsidies for mass transit, including Amtrak, bus, and subway; and the reduced military spending in the Obama administration's fiscal year 2014 budget. He has proposed partially reversing the corporate tax cuts of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, saying that doing so would not hurt businesses' ability to hire. He voted for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Biden is a staunch supporter of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). He has promoted a plan to expand and build upon it, paid for by revenue gained from reversing some Trump administration tax cuts. Biden's plan aims to expand health insurance coverage to 97% of Americans, including by creating a public health insurance option.
Biden has supported same-sex marriage since 2012 and also supports Roe v. Wade and repealing the Hyde Amendment. He opposes drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and supports governmental funding to find new energy sources. As a senator, he forged deep relationships with police groups and was a chief proponent of a Police Officer's Bill of Rights measure that police unions supported but police chiefs opposed. As vice president, he served as a White House liaison to police.
Biden believes action must be taken on global warming. As a senator, he co-sponsored the Sense of the Senate resolution calling on the United States to take part in the United Nations climate negotiations and the Boxer–Sanders Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act, the most stringent climate bill in the United States Senate. He wants to achieve a carbon-free power sector in the U.S. by 2035 and stop emissions completely by 2050. His program includes reentering the Paris Agreement, nature conservation, and green building. Biden wants to pressure China and other countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions by carbon tariffs if necessary.
Biden has said the U.S. needs to "get tough" on China and build "a united front of U.S. allies and partners to confront China's abusive behaviors and human rights violations". He has called China the "most serious competitor" that poses challenges to the United States' "prosperity, security, and democratic values". Biden has voiced concerns about China's "coercive and unfair" economic practices and human rights abuses in the Xinjiang region to the Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping. He also pledged to sanction and commercially restrict Chinese government officials and entities who carry out repression.
Biden has said he is against regime change, but for providing non-military support to opposition movements. He opposed direct U.S. intervention in Libya, voted against U.S. participation in the Gulf War, voted in favor of the Iraq War, and supports a two-state solution in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Biden has pledged to end U.S. support for the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen and to reevaluate the United States' relationship with Saudi Arabia. He has called North Korea a "paper tiger". As vice president, Biden supported Obama's Cuban thaw. He has said that, as president, he would restore U.S. membership in key United Nations bodies, such as the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the World Health Organization, and possibly the Human Rights Council. Biden supports extending the New START arms control treaty with Russia to limit the number of nuclear weapons deployed by both sides. In 2021, Biden recognized the Armenian genocide, becoming the first U.S. president to do so.
Reputation
Biden was consistently ranked one of the least wealthy members of the Senate, which he attributed to his having been elected young. Feeling that less-wealthy public officials may be tempted to accept contributions in exchange for political favors, he proposed campaign finance reform measures during his first term. , Biden's net worth was $27,012. , the Bidens were worth $9 million, largely due to sales of Biden's books and speaking fees after his vice presidency.
The political writer Howard Fineman has written, "Biden is not an academic, he's not a theoretical thinker, he's a great street pol. He comes from a long line of working people in Scranton—auto salesmen, car dealers, people who know how to make a sale. He has that great Irish gift." Political columnist David S. Broder wrote that Biden has grown over time: "He responds to real people—that's been consistent throughout. And his ability to understand himself and deal with other politicians has gotten much much better." Journalist James Traub has written that "Biden is the kind of fundamentally happy person who can be as generous toward others as he is to himself."
In recent years, especially after the 2015 death of his elder son Beau, Biden has been noted for his empathetic nature and ability to communicate about grief. In 2020, CNN wrote that his presidential campaign aimed to make him "healer-in-chief", while The New York Times described his extensive history of being called upon to give eulogies.
Journalist and TV anchor Wolf Blitzer has described Biden as loquacious. He often deviates from prepared remarks and sometimes "puts his foot in his mouth." The New York Times wrote that Biden's "weak filters make him capable of blurting out pretty much anything." In 2018, Biden called himself "a gaffe machine". Some of his gaffes have been characterized as racially insensitive.
Electoral history
Publications
Books
Also paperback edition, Random House 2008, .
Book contributions
Biden, Joseph R., Jr. (2009). "Foreword." In: Choosing Equality: Essays and Narratives on the Desegregation Experience. Edited by Robert L. Hayman, Jr. and Leland Ware. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009. .
Pamphlets
Biden, Joseph R., Jr., and Les Aspin, William Louis Dickinson, Brent Scowcroft (1982). Arms Sales: A Useful Foreign Policy Tool? American Enterprise Institute. AEI Forum 56. Moderated by John Charles Daly.
Articles
Biden, Joseph R., Jr., and Miga Purev-Ochir (Spring 2015). "U.S.-Russian Relations in a Post-Cold War World: A Strategic Vision: Mapping a Future for U.S.-Russian Relations." Harvard International Review, vol. 36, no. 3, pp. 72–76. .
Notes
References
Citations
Works cited
See also
List of honors and awards received by Joe Biden
List of things named after Joe Biden
External links
Official
President Joe Biden official website
Presidential campaign website
Obama White House biography (archived)
Other
Joe Biden at On the Issues
Joe Biden at PolitiFact
1942 births
Living people
20th-century American lawyers
20th-century American politicians
20th-century Roman Catholics
21st-century American memoirists
21st-century presidents of the United States
21st-century vice presidents of the United States
21st-century Roman Catholics
2008 United States vice-presidential candidates
2012 United States vice-presidential candidates
American people of English descent
American people of French descent
American people of Irish descent
Biden family
Candidates in the 1988 United States presidential election
Candidates in the 2008 United States presidential election
Candidates in the 2020 United States presidential election
Catholics from Delaware
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County council members and commissioners in Delaware
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Vice presidents of the United States
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Writers from Scranton, Pennsylvania | false | [
"\"What Else Is There?\" is the third single from the Norwegian duo Röyksopp's second album The Understanding. It features the vocals of Karin Dreijer from the Swedish electronica duo The Knife. The album was released in the UK with the help of Astralwerks.\n\nThe single was used in an O2 television advertisement in the Czech Republic and in Slovakia during 2008. It was also used in the 2006 film Cashback and the 2007 film, Meet Bill. Trentemøller's remix of \"What Else is There?\" was featured in an episode of the HBO show Entourage.\n\nThe song was covered by extreme metal band Enslaved as a bonus track for their album E.\n\nThe song was listed as the 375th best song of the 2000s by Pitchfork Media.\n\nOfficial versions\n\"What Else Is There?\" (Album Version) – 5:17\n\"What Else Is There?\" (Radio Edit) – 3:38\n\"What Else Is There?\" (Jacques Lu Cont Radio Mix) – 3:46\n\"What Else Is There?\" (The Emperor Machine Vocal Version) – 8:03\n\"What Else Is There?\" (The Emperor Machine Dub Version) – 7:51\n\"What Else Is There?\" (Thin White Duke Mix) – 8:25\n\"What Else Is There?\" (Thin White Duke Edit) – 4:50\n\"What Else Is There?\" (Thin White Duke Remix) (Radio Edit) – 3:06\n\"What Else Is There?\" (Trentemøller Remix) – 7:42\n\"What Else Is There?\" (Vitalic Remix) – 5:14\n\nResponse\nThe single was officially released on 5 December 2005 in the UK. The single had a limited release on 21 November 2005 to promote the upcoming album. On the UK Singles Chart, it peaked at number 32, while on the UK Dance Chart, it reached number one.\n\nMusic video\nThe music video was directed by Martin de Thurah. It features Norwegian model Marianne Schröder who is shown lip-syncing Dreijer's voice. Schröder is depicted as a floating woman traveling across stormy landscapes and within empty houses. Dreijer makes a cameo appearance as a woman wearing an Elizabethan ruff while dining alone at a festive table.\n\nMovie spots\n\nThe song is also featured in the movie Meet Bill as characters played by Jessica Alba and Aaron Eckhart smoke marijuana while listening to it. It is also part of the end credits music of the film Cashback.\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\n2005 singles\nRöyksopp songs\nAstralwerks singles\nSongs written by Svein Berge\nSongs written by Torbjørn Brundtland\n2004 songs\nSongs written by Roger Greenaway\nSongs written by Olof Dreijer\nSongs written by Karin Dreijer",
"\"How Interesting: A Tiny Man\" is a 2010 science fiction/magical realism short story by American writer Harlan Ellison. It was first published in Realms of Fantasy.\n\nPlot summary\nA scientist creates a tiny man. The tiny man is initially very popular, but then draws the hatred of the world, and so the tiny man must flee, together with the scientist (who is now likewise hated, for having created the tiny man).\n\nReception\n\"How Interesting: A Tiny Man\" won the 2010 Nebula Award for Best Short Story, tied with Kij Johnson's \"Ponies\". It was Ellison's final Nebula nomination and win, of his record-setting eight nominations and three wins.\n\nTor.com calls the story \"deceptively simple\", with \"execution (that) is flawless\" and a \"Geppetto-like\" narrator, while Publishers Weekly describes it as \"memorably depict(ing) humanity's smallness of spirit\". The SF Site, however, felt it was \"contrived and less than profound\".\n\nNick Mamatas compared \"How Interesting: A Tiny Man\" negatively to Ellison's other Nebula-winning short stories, and stated that the story's two mutually exclusive endings (in one, the tiny man is killed; in the other, he becomes God) are evocative of the process of writing short stories. Ben Peek considered it to be \"more allegory than (...) anything else\", and interpreted it as being about how the media \"give(s) everyone a voice\", and also about how Ellison was treated by science fiction fandom.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nAudio version of ''How Interesting: A Tiny Man, at StarShipSofa\nHow Interesting: A Tiny Man, at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database\n\nNebula Award for Best Short Story-winning works\nShort stories by Harlan Ellison"
] |
[
"Joe Biden",
"Characteristics as senator",
"What are Joe's characteristics as senator?",
"characterized Biden as \"self-confident\" and \"compulsively ambitious\".",
"Was Joe likable as senator?",
"\"Biden is the kind of fundamentally happy person who can be as generous toward others as he is to himself.\"",
"Does Joe have a lot of friends in politics?",
"I don't know.",
"When did he become senator?",
"1969,",
"What State was he the Senator for?",
"I don't know.",
"Did he get re-elected as senator?",
"Biden was re-elected",
"Does his peers have good things to say about him?",
"he's a great street pol.",
"When did he get re-elected?",
"1978,",
"Has he ever faced any criticism?",
"The New York Times writes that Biden's \"weak filters make him capable of blurting out pretty much anything\".",
"Has anyone else said any criticisms of him?",
"journalist James Traub has written that \"Biden's vanity and his regard for his own gifts seem considerable even by the rarefied standards of the U.S. Senate.\"",
"What else is interesting about him?",
"He has been a strong speaker and debater and a frequent and effective guest on the Sunday morning talk shows."
] | C_ae5bfb2601a2463ebfedd2b995b83bf8_1 | What morning shows was he on? | 12 | What other morning shows was Joe Biden on? | Joe Biden | On August 27, 1966, while Biden was still a law student, he married Neilia Hunter. They overcame her parents' initial reluctance for her to wed a Roman Catholic, and the ceremony was held in a Catholic church in Skaneateles. They had three children, Joseph R. "Beau" Biden III in 1969, Robert Hunter in 1970, and Naomi Christina in 1971. During 1968, Biden clerked for six months at a Wilmington law firm headed by prominent local Republican William Prickett and, as he later said, "thought of myself as a Republican". He disliked the conservative racial politics of incumbent Democratic Governor of Delaware Charles L. Terry and supported a more liberal Republican, Russell W. Peterson, who defeated Terry in 1968. The local Republicans tried to recruit him, but he resisted due to his distaste for Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon, and registered as an Independent instead. In 1969, Biden resumed practicing law in Wilmington, first as a public defender and then at a firm headed by Sid Balick, a locally active Democrat. Balick named him to the Democratic Forum, a group trying to reform and revitalize the state party, and Biden switched his registration to Democrat. He also started his own firm, Biden and Walsh. Corporate law, however, did not appeal to him and criminal law did not pay well. He supplemented his income by managing properties. Later in 1969, Biden ran as a Democrat for the New Castle County Council on a liberal platform that included support for public housing in the suburban area. He won by a solid, two-thousand vote margin in the usually Republican district and in a bad year for Democrats in the state. Even before taking his seat, he was already talking about running for the U.S. Senate in a couple of years. He served on the County Council from 1970 to 1972 while continuing his private law practice. Among issues he addressed on the council was his opposition to large highway projects that might disrupt Wilmington neighborhoods, including those related to Interstate 95. During his first years in the Senate, Biden focused on legislation regarding consumer-protection and environmental issues and called for greater accountability on the part of government. In mid-1974, freshman Senator Biden was named one of the 200 Faces for the Future by Time magazine, in a profile that mentioned what had happened to his family and characterized Biden as "self-confident" and "compulsively ambitious". Biden became ranking minority member of the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary in 1981. In 1984, he was Democratic floor manager for the successful passage of the Comprehensive Crime Control Act; civil libertarians praised him for modifying some of the Act's provisions, and it was his most important legislative accomplishment at that point in time. He first considered running for president in that year, after he gained notice for giving speeches to party audiences that simultaneously scolded and encouraged Democrats. Regarding foreign policy, during his first decade in the Senate, Biden focused on arms control issues. In response to the refusal of the U.S. Congress to ratify the SALT II Treaty signed in 1979 by Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and President Jimmy Carter, he took the initiative to meet the Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, educated him about American concerns and interests, and secured several changes to address objections of the Foreign Relations Committee. When the Reagan administration wanted to interpret the 1972 SALT I Treaty loosely in order to allow the Strategic Defense Initiative to proceed, Biden argued for strict adherence to the treaty's terms. He clashed again with the Reagan administration in 1986 over economic sanctions against South Africa; he received considerable attention when he excoriated Secretary of State George P. Shultz at a Senate hearing because of the administration's support of that country, which continued to practice the apartheid system. Following his initial election in 1972, Biden was re-elected to six additional terms, in the elections of 1978, 1984, 1990, 1996, 2002, and 2008, usually getting about 60 percent of the vote. He did not face strong opposition; Pete du Pont, then governor, chose not to run against him in 1984. Biden spent 28 years as a junior senator due to the two-year seniority of his Republican colleague William V. Roth Jr. After Roth was defeated for re-election by Tom Carper in 2000, Biden became Delaware's senior senator. He then became the longest-serving senator in Delaware history. In May 1999, Biden set the mark for youngest senator to cast 10,000 votes. With a net worth between $59,000 and $366,000, and almost no outside income or investment income, Biden was consistently ranked as one of the least wealthy members of the Senate. Biden stated that he was listed as the second poorest member in Congress, a distinction that he was not proud of, but attributed to being elected early in his career. Biden realized early in his senatorial career how vulnerable poorer public officials are to offers of financial contributions in exchange for policy support, and he pushed campaign finance reform measures during his first term. During his years as a senator, Biden amassed a reputation for loquaciousness, with his questions and remarks during Senate hearings being especially known for being long-winded. He has been a strong speaker and debater and a frequent and effective guest on the Sunday morning talk shows. In public appearances, he is known to deviate from prepared remarks at will. According to political analyst Mark Halperin, he has shown "a persistent tendency to say silly, offensive, and off-putting things"; The New York Times writes that Biden's "weak filters make him capable of blurting out pretty much anything". Nor is Biden known for modesty; journalist James Traub has written that "Biden's vanity and his regard for his own gifts seem considerable even by the rarefied standards of the U.S. Senate." Political writer Howard Fineman has said that, "Biden is not an academic, he's not a theoretical thinker, he's a great street pol. He comes from a long line of working people in Scranton--auto salesmen, car dealers, people who know how to make a sale. He has that great Irish gift." Political columnist David S. Broder has viewed Biden as having grown since he came to Washington and since his failed 1988 presidential bid: "He responds to real people--that's been consistent throughout. And his ability to understand himself and deal with other politicians has gotten much much better." Traub concludes that "Biden is the kind of fundamentally happy person who can be as generous toward others as he is to himself." CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. ( ; born November 20, 1942) is an American politician who is the 46th and current president of the United States. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 47th vice president from 2009 to 2017 under Barack Obama and represented Delaware in the United States Senate from 1973 to 2009.
Biden was born and raised in Scranton, Pennsylvania, moving with his family to New Castle County, Delaware, in 1953 when he was ten. He studied at the University of Delaware before earning his law degree from Syracuse University in 1968. He was elected to the New Castle County Council in 1970 and became the sixth-youngest senator in U.S. history after he was elected to the United States Senate from Delaware in 1972, at age 29. Biden was the chair or ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for 12 years and was influential in foreign affairs during Obama's presidency. He also chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee from 1987 to 1995, dealing with drug policy, crime prevention, and civil liberties issues; led the effort to pass the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act and the Violence Against Women Act; and oversaw six U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings, including the contentious hearings for Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas. He ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988 and 2008. Biden was reelected to the Senate six times and was the fourth-most senior sitting senator at the time when he became Obama's vice president after they won the 2008 presidential election, defeating John McCain and his running mate Sarah Palin. Obama and Biden were reelected in 2012, defeating Mitt Romney and his running mate Paul Ryan.
During eight years as vice president, Biden leaned on his Senate experience and frequently represented the administration in negotiations with congressional Republicans, including on the Budget Control Act of 2011, which resolved a debt ceiling crisis, and the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, which addressed the impending "fiscal cliff". He also oversaw infrastructure spending in 2009 to counteract the Great Recession. On foreign policy, Biden was a close counselor to the president and took a leading role in designing the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq in 2011. In 2017, Obama awarded Biden the Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction.
Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris defeated incumbent president Donald Trump and vice president Mike Pence in the 2020 presidential election. He is the oldest president and the first to have a female vice president. His early presidential activity centered around proposing, lobbying for, and signing into law the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 to help the United States recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing recession, as well as a series of executive orders. Biden's orders addressed the pandemic and reversed several Trump administration policies, including rejoining the Paris Agreement on climate change and accepting new applications for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients, although a federal judge blocked the latter. He completed the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan by September 2021. During the withdrawal, the Afghan government collapsed and the Taliban seized control. Biden proposed the Build Back Better Plan, aspects of which were incorporated into the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which Biden signed into law in November 2021.
Early life (1942–1965)
Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was born on November 20, 1942, at St. Mary's Hospital in Scranton, Pennsylvania, to Catherine Eugenia "Jean" Biden (née Finnegan) and Joseph Robinette Biden Sr. The oldest child in a Catholic family, he has a sister, Valerie, and two brothers, Francis and James. Jean was of Irish descent, while Joseph Sr. had English, French, and Irish ancestry.
Biden's father had been wealthy, but suffered financial setbacks around the time Biden was born, and for several years the family lived with Biden's maternal grandparents. Scranton fell into economic decline during the 1950s and Biden's father could not find steady work. Beginning in 1953 when Biden was ten, the family lived in an apartment in Claymont, Delaware, before moving to a house in nearby Mayfield. Biden Sr. later became a successful used-car salesman, maintaining the family in a middle-class lifestyle.
At Archmere Academy in Claymont, Biden played baseball and was a standout halfback and wide receiver on the high school football team. Though a poor student, he was class president in his junior and senior years. He graduated in 1961. At the University of Delaware in Newark, Biden briefly played freshman football and, as an unexceptional student, earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1965 with a double major in history and political science and a minor in English.
Biden has a stutter, which has improved since his early twenties. He says he reduced it by reciting poetry before a mirror, but some observers suggested it affected his performance in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential debates.
Marriages, law school, and early career (1966–1973)
On August 27, 1966, Biden married Neilia Hunter (19421972), a student at Syracuse University, after overcoming her parents' reluctance for her to wed a Roman Catholic. Their wedding was held in a Catholic church in Skaneateles, New York. They had three children: Joseph R. "Beau" Biden III (19692015), Robert Hunter Biden (born 1970), and Naomi Christina "Amy" Biden (19711972).
In 1968, Biden earned a Juris Doctor from Syracuse University College of Law, ranked 76th in his class of 85, after failing a course due to an acknowledged "mistake" when he plagiarized a law review article for a paper he wrote in his first year at law school. He was admitted to the Delaware bar in 1969.
Biden had not openly supported or opposed the Vietnam War until he ran for Senate and opposed Nixon's conduct of the war. While studying at the University of Delaware and Syracuse University, Biden obtained five student draft deferments, at a time when most draftees were sent to the Vietnam War. In 1968, based on a physical examination, he was given a conditional medical deferment; in 2008, a spokesperson for Biden said his having had "asthma as a teenager" was the reason for the deferment.
In 1968, Biden clerked at a Wilmington law firm headed by prominent local Republican William Prickett and, he later said, "thought of myself as a Republican". He disliked incumbent Democratic Delaware governor Charles L. Terry's conservative racial politics and supported a more liberal Republican, Russell W. Peterson, who defeated Terry in 1968. Biden was recruited by local Republicans but registered as an Independent because of his distaste for Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon.
In 1969, Biden practiced law first as a public defender and then at a firm headed by a locally active Democrat who named him to the Democratic Forum, a group trying to reform and revitalize the state party; Biden subsequently reregistered as a Democrat. He and another attorney also formed a law firm. Corporate law, however, did not appeal to him, and criminal law did not pay well. He supplemented his income by managing properties.
In 1970, Biden ran for the 4th district seat on the New Castle County Council on a liberal platform that included support for public housing in the suburbs. The seat had been held by Republican Henry R. Folsom, who was running in the 5th District following a reapportionment of council districts. Biden won the general election by defeating Republican Lawrence T. Messick, and took office on January 5, 1971. He served until January 1, 1973, and was succeeded by Democrat Francis R. Swift. During his time on the county council, Biden opposed large highway projects, which he argued might disrupt Wilmington neighborhoods.
1972 U.S. Senate campaign in Delaware
In 1972, Biden defeated Republican incumbent J. Caleb Boggs to become the junior U.S. senator from Delaware. He was the only Democrat willing to challenge Boggs. With minimal campaign funds, he was given no chance of winning. Family members managed and staffed the campaign, which relied on meeting voters face-to-face and hand-distributing position papers, an approach made feasible by Delaware's small size. He received help from the AFL–CIO and Democratic pollster Patrick Caddell. His platform focused on the environment, withdrawal from Vietnam, civil rights, mass transit, equitable taxation, health care, and public dissatisfaction with "politics as usual". A few months before the election, Biden trailed Boggs by almost thirty percentage points, but his energy, attractive young family, and ability to connect with voters' emotions worked to his advantage, and he won with 50.5 percent of the vote. At the time of his election, he was still 29 years old, but reached the constitutionally required age of 30 before he was sworn in as Senator.
Death of wife and daughter
On December 18, 1972, a few weeks after the election, Biden's wife Neilia and one-year-old daughter Naomi were killed in an automobile accident while Christmas shopping in Hockessin, Delaware. Neilia's station wagon was hit by a semi-trailer truck as she pulled out from an intersection. Their sons Beau (aged3) and Hunter (aged2) survived the accident and were taken to the hospital in fair condition, Beau with a broken leg and other wounds and Hunter with a minor skull fracture and other head injuries. Biden considered resigning to care for them, but Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield persuaded him not to.
Years later, Biden said he had heard that the truck driver allegedly drank alcohol before the collision. The driver's family denied that claim, and the police never substantiated it. Biden later apologized to the family. The accident had filled him with anger and religious doubt. He wrote that he "felt God had played a horrible trick" on him, and he had trouble focusing on work.
Second marriage
Biden credits his second wife, teacher Jill Tracy Jacobs, with the renewal of his interest in politics and life; they met in 1975 on a blind date and were married at the United Nations chapel in New York on June 17, 1977. They spent their honeymoon at Lake Balaton in the Hungarian People's Republic, behind the Iron Curtain. They are Roman Catholics and attend Mass at St. Joseph's on the Brandywine in Greenville, Delaware. Their daughter Ashley Biden (born 1981) is a social worker. She is married to physician Howard Krein. Beau Biden became an Army Judge Advocate in Iraq and later Delaware Attorney General; he died of brain cancer in 2015. Hunter Biden is a Washington lobbyist and investment adviser.
Teaching
From 1991 to 2008, as an adjunct professor, Biden co-taught a seminar on constitutional law at Widener University School of Law. The seminar often had a waiting list. Biden sometimes flew back from overseas to teach the class.
U.S. Senate (1973–2009)
Senate activities
In January 1973, secretary of the Senate Francis R. Valeo swore Biden in at the Delaware Division of the Wilmington Medical Center. Present were his sons Beau (whose leg was still in traction from the automobile accident) and Hunter and other family members. At 30, he was the sixth-youngest senator in U.S. history.
To see his sons, Biden traveled by train between his Delaware home and D.C.—74 minutes each way—and maintained this habit throughout his 36 years in the Senate.
During his early years in the Senate, Biden focused on consumer protection and environmental issues and called for greater government accountability. In a 1974 interview, he described himself as liberal on civil rights and liberties, senior citizens' concerns and healthcare but conservative on other issues, including abortion and military conscription.
In his first decade in the Senate, Biden focused on arms control. After Congress failed to ratify the SALT II Treaty signed in 1979 by Soviet general secretary Leonid Brezhnev and President Jimmy Carter, Biden met with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko to communicate American concerns and secured changes that addressed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's objections. When the Reagan administration wanted to interpret the 1972 SALT I treaty loosely to allow development of the Strategic Defense Initiative, Biden argued for strict adherence to the treaty. He received considerable attention when he excoriated Secretary of State George Shultz at a Senate hearing for the Reagan administration's support of South Africa despite its continued policy of apartheid.
Biden became ranking minority member of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1981. In 1984, he was a Democratic floor manager for the successful passage of the Comprehensive Crime Control Act. His supporters praised him for modifying some of the law's worst provisions, and it was his most important legislative accomplishment to that time. In 1994, Biden helped pass the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, also known as the Biden Crime Law, which included a ban on assault weapons, and the Violence Against Women Act, which he has called his most significant legislation. The 1994 crime law was unpopular among progressives and criticized for resulting in mass incarceration; in 2019, Biden called his role in passing the bill a "big mistake", citing its policy on crack cocaine and saying that the bill "trapped an entire generation".
In 1993, Biden voted for a provision that deemed homosexuality incompatible with military life, thereby banning gays from serving in the armed forces. In 1996, he voted for the Defense of Marriage Act, which prohibited the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages, thereby barring individuals in such marriages from equal protection under federal law and allowing states to do the same. In 2015, the act was ruled unconstitutional in Obergefell v. Hodges.
Elected to the Senate in 1972, Biden was reelected in 1978, 1984, 1990, 1996, 2002, and 2008, regularly receiving about 60% of the vote. He was junior senator to William Roth, who was first elected in 1970, until Roth was defeated in 2000. , he was the 18th-longest-serving senator in U.S. history.
Opposition to busing
In the mid-1970s, Biden was one of the Senate's strongest opponents of race-integration busing. His Delaware constituents strongly opposed it, and such opposition nationwide later led his party to mostly abandon school integration policies. In his first Senate campaign, Biden had expressed support for busing to remedy de jure segregation, as in the South, but opposed its use to remedy de facto segregation arising from racial patterns of neighborhood residency, as in Delaware; he opposed a proposed constitutional amendment banning busing entirely.
In May 1974, Biden voted to table a proposal containing anti-busing and anti-desegregation clauses but later voted for a modified version containing a qualification that it was not intended to weaken the judiciary's power to enforce the 5th Amendment and 14th Amendment. In 1975, he supported a proposal that would have prevented the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare from cutting federal funds to districts that refused to integrate; he said busing was a "bankrupt idea [violating] the cardinal rule of common sense" and that his opposition would make it easier for other liberals to follow suit. At the same time he supported initiatives on housing, job opportunities and voting rights. Biden supported a measure forbidding the use of federal funds for transporting students beyond the school closest to them. In 1977, he co-sponsored an amendment closing loopholes in that measure, which President Carter signed into law in 1978.
Brain surgeries
In February 1988, after several episodes of increasingly severe neck pain, Biden was taken by ambulance to Walter Reed Army Medical Center for surgery to correct a leaking intracranial berry aneurysm. While recuperating, he suffered a pulmonary embolism, a serious complication. After a second aneurysm was surgically repaired in May, Biden's recuperation kept him away from the Senate for seven months.
Senate Judiciary Committee
Biden was a longtime member of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary. He chaired it from 1987 to 1995 and was a ranking minority member from 1981 to 1987 and again from 1995 to 1997.
As chair, Biden presided over two highly contentious U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings. When Robert Bork was nominated in 1988, Biden reversed his approvalgiven in an interview the previous yearof a hypothetical Bork nomination. Conservatives were angered, but at the hearings' close Biden was praised for his fairness, humor, and courage. Rejecting the arguments of some Bork opponents, Biden framed his objections to Bork in terms of the conflict between Bork's strong originalism and the view that the U.S. Constitution provides rights to liberty and privacy beyond those explicitly enumerated in its text. Bork's nomination was rejected in the committee by a 9–5 vote and then in the full Senate, 58–42.
During Clarence Thomas's nomination hearings in 1991, Biden's questions on constitutional issues were often convoluted to the point that Thomas sometimes lost track of them, and Thomas later wrote that Biden's questions were akin to "beanballs". After the committee hearing closed, the public learned that Anita Hill, a University of Oklahoma law school professor, had accused Thomas of making unwelcome sexual comments when they had worked together. Biden had known of some of these charges, but initially shared them only with the committee because Hill was then unwilling to testify. The committee hearing was reopened and Hill testified, but Biden did not permit testimony from other witnesses, such as a woman who had made similar charges and experts on harassment, saying he wanted to preserve Thomas's privacy and the hearings' decency. The full Senate confirmed Thomas by a 52–48 vote, with Biden opposed. Liberal legal advocates and women's groups felt strongly that Biden had mishandled the hearings and not done enough to support Hill. Biden later sought out women to serve on the Judiciary Committee and emphasized women's issues in the committee's legislative agenda. In 2019, he told Hill he regretted his treatment of her, but Hill said afterward she remained unsatisfied.
Biden was critical of Independent Counsel Ken Starr during the 1990s Whitewater controversy and Lewinsky scandal investigations, saying "it's going to be a cold day in hell" before another independent counsel would be granted similar powers. He voted to acquit during the impeachment of President Clinton. During the 2000s, Biden sponsored bankruptcy legislation sought by credit card issuers. Clinton vetoed the bill in 2000, but it passed in 2005 as the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act, with Biden one of only 18 Democrats to vote for it, while leading Democrats and consumer rights organizations opposed it. As a senator, Biden strongly supported increased Amtrak funding and rail security.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Biden was a longtime member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He became its ranking minority member in 1997 and chaired it from June 2001 to 2003 and 2007 to 2009. His positions were generally liberal internationalist. He collaborated effectively with Republicans and sometimes went against elements of his own party. During this time he met with at least 150 leaders from 60 countries and international organizations, becoming a well-known Democratic voice on foreign policy.
Biden voted against authorization for the Gulf War in 1991, siding with 45 of the 55 Democratic senators; he said the U.S. was bearing almost all the burden in the anti-Iraq coalition.
Biden became interested in the Yugoslav Wars after hearing about Serbian abuses during the Croatian War of Independence in 1991. Once the Bosnian War broke out, Biden was among the first to call for the "lift and strike" policy of lifting the arms embargo, training Bosnian Muslims and supporting them with NATO air strikes, and investigating war crimes. The George H. W. Bush administration and Clinton administration were both reluctant to implement the policy, fearing Balkan entanglement. In April 1993, Biden spent a week in the Balkans and held a tense three-hour meeting with Serbian leader Slobodan Milošević. Biden said he had told Milošević, "I think you're a damn war criminal and you should be tried as one."
Biden wrote an amendment in 1992 to compel the Bush administration to arm the Bosnian Muslims, but deferred in 1994 to a somewhat softer stance the Clinton administration preferred, before signing on the following year to a stronger measure sponsored by Bob Dole and Joe Lieberman. The engagement led to a successful NATO peacekeeping effort. Biden has called his role in affecting Balkans policy in the mid-1990s his "proudest moment in public life" related to foreign policy.
As chair, Biden contributed to successfully encouraging the Clinton administration to commit the resources and political capital to broker what became the 1998 Good Friday Agreement between the governments of Ireland and the United Kingdom through the Northern Ireland peace process.
On September 3, 1998, the resigning former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter had, according to Barton Gellman, accused the Clinton administration of obstructing weapons inspections in Iraq. Biden joined many other Senate Democrats and "amplified on the Clinton administration's counterattack against former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter." He questioned whether Ritter was trying to "appropriate the power 'to decide when to pull the trigger' of military force against Iraq", and said that the Secretary of State would also have to consider the opinion of allies, the UNSC, and public opinion, before any intervention in Iraq. In a Washington Post op-ed later that month, Biden criticized a unilateral "confrontation-based policy" but praised the idea of asking whether intervention might be necessary at some point, though he said it was "above the pay grade" of one weapons inspector.
In 1999, during the Kosovo War, Biden supported the 1999 NATO bombing of FR Yugoslavia. He and Senator John McCain co-sponsored the McCain-Biden Kosovo Resolution, which called on Clinton to use all necessary force, including ground troops, to confront Milošević over Yugoslav actions toward ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.
Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq
Biden was a strong supporter of the War in Afghanistan, saying, "Whatever it takes, we should do it." As head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he said in 2002 that Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was a threat to national security and there was no other option than to "eliminate" that threat. In October 2002, he voted in favor of the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq, approving the U.S. invasion of Iraq. As chair of the committee, he assembled a series of witnesses to testify in favor of the authorization. They gave testimony grossly misrepresenting the intent, history, and status of Saddam and his secular government, which was an avowed enemy of al-Qaida, and touted Iraq's fictional possession of weapons of mass destruction. Biden eventually became a critic of the war and viewed his vote and role as a "mistake", but did not push for withdrawal. He supported the appropriations for the occupation, but argued that the war should be internationalized, that more soldiers were needed, and that the Bush administration should "level with the American people" about its cost and length.
By late 2006, Biden's stance had shifted considerably. He opposed the troop surge of 2007, saying General David Petraeus was "dead, flat wrong" in believing the surge could work. Biden instead advocated dividing Iraq into a loose federation of three ethnic states. In November 2006, Biden and Leslie H. Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, released a comprehensive strategy to end sectarian violence in Iraq. Rather than continue the existing approach or withdrawing, the plan called for "a third way": federalizing Iraq and giving Kurds, Shiites, and Sunnis "breathing room" in their own regions. In September 2007, a non-binding resolution endorsing the plan passed the Senate, but the idea was unfamiliar, had no political constituency, and failed to gain traction. Iraq's political leadership denounced the resolution as de facto partitioning of the country, and the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad issued a statement distancing itself from it. In May 2008, Biden sharply criticized President George W. Bush's speech to Israel's Knesset in which Bush compared some Democrats to Western leaders who appeased Hitler before World WarII; Biden called the speech "bullshit", "malarkey", and "outrageous". He later apologized for his language.
Presidential campaigns 1988 and 2008
1988 campaign
Biden formally declared his candidacy for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination on June 9, 1987. He was considered a strong candidate because of his moderate image, his speaking ability, his high profile as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee at the upcoming Robert Bork Supreme Court nomination hearings, and his appeal to Baby Boomers; he would have been the second-youngest person elected president, after John F. Kennedy. He raised more in the first quarter of 1987 than any other candidate.
By August his campaign's messaging had become confused due to staff rivalries, and in September, he was accused of plagiarizing a speech by British Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock. Biden's speech had similar lines about being the first person in his family to attend university. Biden had credited Kinnock with the formulation on previous occasions, but did not on two occasions in late August. Kinnock himself was more forgiving; the two men met in 1988, forming an enduring friendship.
Earlier that year he had also used passages from a 1967 speech by Robert F. Kennedy (for which his aides took blame) and a short phrase from John F. Kennedy's inaugural address; two years earlier he had used a 1976 passage by Hubert Humphrey. Biden responded that politicians often borrow from one another without giving credit, and that one of his rivals for the nomination, Jesse Jackson, had called him to point out that he (Jackson) had used the same material by Humphrey that Biden had used.
A few days later, an incident in law school in which Biden drew text from a Fordham Law Review article with inadequate citations was publicized. He was required to repeat the course and passed with high marks. At Biden's request the Delaware Supreme Court's Board of Professional Responsibility reviewed the incident and concluded that he had violated no rules.
Biden has made several false or exaggerated claims about his early life: that he had earned three degrees in college, that he attended law school on a full scholarship, that he had graduated in the top half of his class, and that he had marched in the civil rights movement. The limited amount of other news about the presidential race amplified these disclosures and on September 23, 1987, Biden withdrew his candidacy, saying it had been overrun by "the exaggerated shadow" of his past mistakes.
2008 campaign
After exploring the possibility of a run in several previous cycles, in January 2007, Biden declared his candidacy in the 2008 elections. During his campaign, Biden focused on the Iraq War, his record as chairman of major Senate committees, and his foreign-policy experience. In mid-2007, Biden stressed his foreign policy expertise compared to Obama's. Biden was noted for his one-liners during the campaign; in one debate he said of Republican candidate Rudy Giuliani: "There's only three things he mentions in a sentence: a noun, and a verb and 9/11."
Biden had difficulty raising funds, struggled to draw people to his rallies, and failed to gain traction against the high-profile candidacies of Obama and Senator Hillary Clinton. He never rose above single digits in national polls of the Democratic candidates. In the first contest on January 3, 2008, Biden placed fifth in the Iowa caucuses, garnering slightly less than one percent of the state delegates. He withdrew from the race that evening.
Despite its lack of success, Biden's 2008 campaign raised his stature in the political world. In particular, it changed the relationship between Biden and Obama. Although they had served together on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, they had not been close: Biden resented Obama's quick rise to political stardom, while Obama viewed Biden as garrulous and patronizing. Having gotten to know each other during 2007, Obama appreciated Biden's campaign style and appeal to working-class voters, and Biden said he became convinced Obama was "the real deal".
2008 vice-presidential campaign
Shortly after Biden withdrew from the presidential race, Obama privately told him he was interested in finding an important place for Biden in his administration. Biden declined Obama's first request to vet him for the vice-presidential slot, fearing the vice presidency would represent a loss in status and voice from his Senate position, but he later changed his mind. In early August, Obama and Biden met in secret to discuss the possibility, and developed a strong personal rapport. On August 22, 2008, Obama announced that Biden would be his running mate. The New York Times reported that the strategy behind the choice reflected a desire to fill out the ticket with someone with foreign policy and national security experience—and not to help the ticket win a swing state or to emphasize Obama's "change" message. Others pointed out Biden's appeal to middle-class and blue-collar voters, as well as his willingness to aggressively challenge Republican nominee John McCain in a way that Obama seemed uncomfortable doing at times. In accepting Obama's offer, Biden ruled out running for president again in 2016, but his comments in later years seemed to back off that stance, as he did not want to diminish his political power by appearing uninterested in advancement. Biden was officially nominated for vice president on August 27 by voice vote at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver.
Biden's vice-presidential campaigning gained little media visibility, as far greater press attention was focused on the Republican running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. During one week in September 2008, for instance, the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism found that Biden was included in only five percent of coverage of the race, far less than the other three candidates on the tickets received. Biden nevertheless focused on campaigning in economically challenged areas of swing states and trying to win over blue-collar Democrats, especially those who had supported Hillary Clinton. Biden attacked McCain heavily despite a long-standing personal friendship. He said, "That guy I used to know, he's gone. It literally saddens me." As the financial crisis of 2007–2010 reached a peak with the liquidity crisis of September 2008 and the proposed bailout of the United States financial system became a major factor in the campaign, Biden voted in favor of the $700billion Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, which went on to pass in the Senate 74–25.
On October 2, 2008, Biden participated in the vice-presidential debate with Palin at Washington University in St. Louis. Post-debate polls found that while Palin exceeded many voters' expectations, Biden had won the debate overall. During the campaign's final days, he focused on less populated, older, less well-off areas of battleground states, especially Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, where polling indicated he was popular and where Obama had not campaigned or performed well in the Democratic primaries. He also campaigned in some normally Republican states, as well as in areas with large Catholic populations.
Under instructions from the campaign, Biden kept his speeches succinct and tried to avoid offhand remarks, such as one he made about Obama's being tested by a foreign power soon after taking office, which had attracted negative attention. Privately, Biden's remarks frustrated Obama. "How many times is Biden gonna say something stupid?" he asked. Obama campaign staffers referred to Biden blunders as "Joe bombs" and kept Biden uninformed about strategy discussions, which in turn irked Biden. Relations between the two campaigns became strained for a month, until Biden apologized on a call to Obama and the two built a stronger partnership. Publicly, Obama strategist David Axelrod said Biden's high popularity ratings had outweighed any unexpected comments. Nationally, Biden had a 60% favorability rating in a Pew Research Center poll, compared to Palin's 44%.
On November 4, 2008, Obama and Biden were elected with 53% of the popular vote and 365 electoral votes to McCain–Palin's 173.
At the same time Biden was running for vice president he was also running for reelection to the Senate, as permitted by Delaware law. On November4, he was reelected to the Senate, defeating Republican Christine O'Donnell. Having won both races, Biden made a point of waiting to resign from the Senate until he was sworn in for his seventh term on January 6, 2009. He became the youngest senator ever to start a seventh full term, and said, "In all my life, the greatest honor bestowed upon me has been serving the people of Delaware as their United States senator." Biden cast his last Senate vote on January 15, supporting the release of the second $350billion for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, and resigned from the Senate later that day. In an emotional farewell, Biden told the Senate: "Every good thing I have seen happen here, every bold step taken in the 36-plus years I have been here, came not from the application of pressure by interest groups, but through the maturation of personal relationships." Delaware Governor Ruth Ann Minner appointed longtime Biden adviser Ted Kaufman to fill Biden's vacated Senate seat.
Vice presidency (2009–2017)
First term, 2009–2013
Biden said he intended to eliminate some explicit roles assumed by George W. Bush's vice president, Dick Cheney, and did not intend to emulate any previous vice presidency. He chaired Obama's transition team and headed an initiative to improve middle-class economic well-being. In early January 2009, in his last act as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, he visited the leaders of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and on January 20 he was sworn in as the 47th vice president of the United Statesthe first vice president from Delaware and the first Roman Catholic vice president.
Obama was soon comparing Biden to a basketball player "who does a bunch of things that don't show up in the stat sheet". In May, Biden visited Kosovo and affirmed the U.S. position that its "independence is irreversible". Biden lost an internal debate to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about sending 21,000 new troops to Afghanistan, but his skepticism was valued, and in 2009, Biden's views gained more influence as Obama reconsidered his Afghanistan strategy. Biden visited Iraq about every two months, becoming the administration's point man in delivering messages to Iraqi leadership about expected progress there. More generally, overseeing Iraq policy became Biden's responsibility: Obama was said to have said, "Joe, you do Iraq." Biden said Iraq "could be one of the great achievements of this administration". His January 2010 visit to Iraq in the midst of turmoil over banned candidates from the upcoming Iraqi parliamentary election resulted in 59 of the several hundred candidates being reinstated by the Iraqi government two days later. By 2012, Biden had made eight trips there, but his oversight of U.S. policy in Iraq receded with the exit of U.S. troops in 2011.
Biden oversaw infrastructure spending from the Obama stimulus package intended to help counteract the ongoing recession. During this period, Biden was satisfied that no major instances of waste or corruption had occurred, and when he completed that role in February 2011, he said the number of fraud incidents with stimulus monies had been less than one percent.
In late April 2009, Biden's off-message response to a question during the beginning of the swine flu outbreak, that he would advise family members against traveling on airplanes or subways, led to a swift retraction by the White House. The remark revived Biden's reputation for gaffes. Confronted with rising unemployment through July 2009, Biden acknowledged that the administration had "misread how bad the economy was" but maintained confidence the stimulus package would create many more jobs once the pace of expenditures picked up. On March 23, 2010, a microphone picked up Biden telling the president that his signing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was "a big fucking deal" during live national news telecasts. Despite their different personalities, Obama and Biden formed a friendship, partly based around Obama's daughter Sasha and Biden's granddaughter Maisy, who attended Sidwell Friends School together.
Members of the Obama administration said Biden's role in the White House was to be a contrarian and force others to defend their positions. Rahm Emanuel, White House chief of staff, said that Biden helped counter groupthink. White House press secretary Jay Carney, Biden's former communications director, said Biden played the role of "the bad guy in the Situation Room". Another senior Obama advisor said Biden "is always prepared to be the skunk at the family picnic to make sure we are as intellectually honest as possible." Obama said, "The best thing about Joe is that when we get everybody together, he really forces people to think and defend their positions, to look at things from every angle, and that is very valuable for me." The Bidens maintained a relaxed atmosphere at their official residence in Washington, often entertaining their grandchildren, and regularly returned to their home in Delaware.
Biden campaigned heavily for Democrats in the 2010 midterm elections, maintaining an attitude of optimism in the face of predictions of large-scale losses for the party. Following big Republican gains in the elections and the departure of White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, Biden's past relationships with Republicans in Congress became more important. He led the successful administration effort to gain Senate approval for the New START treaty. In December 2010, Biden's advocacy for a middle ground, followed by his negotiations with Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, were instrumental in producing the administration's compromise tax package that included a temporary extension of the Bush tax cuts. Biden then took the lead in trying to sell the agreement to a reluctant Democratic caucus in Congress. The package passed as the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010.
In March 2011, Obama delegated Biden to lead negotiations with Congress to resolve federal spending levels for the rest of the year and avoid a government shutdown. By May 2011, a "Biden panel" with six congressional members was trying to reach a bipartisan deal on raising the U.S. debt ceiling as part of an overall deficit reduction plan. The U.S. debt ceiling crisis developed over the next few months, but Biden's relationship with McConnell again proved key in breaking a deadlock and bringing about a deal to resolve it, in the form of the Budget Control Act of 2011, signed on August 2, 2011, the same day an unprecedented U.S. default had loomed. Biden had spent the most time of anyone in the administration bargaining with Congress on the debt question, and one Republican staffer said, "Biden's the only guy with real negotiating authority, and [McConnell] knows that his word is good. He was a key to the deal."
Some reports suggest that Biden opposed proceeding with the May 2011 U.S. mission to kill Osama bin Laden, lest failure adversely affect Obama's reelection prospects. He took the lead in notifying Congressional leaders of the successful outcome.
Reelection
In October 2010, Biden said Obama had asked him to remain as his running mate for the 2012 presidential election, but with Obama's popularity on the decline, White House Chief of Staff William M. Daley conducted some secret polling and focus group research in late 2011 on the idea of replacing Biden on the ticket with Hillary Clinton. The notion was dropped when the results showed no appreciable improvement for Obama, and White House officials later said Obama had never entertained the idea.
Biden's May 2012 statement that he was "absolutely comfortable" with same-sex marriage gained considerable public attention in comparison to Obama's position, which had been described as "evolving". Biden made his statement without administration consent, and Obama and his aides were quite irked, since Obama had planned to shift position several months later, in the build-up to the party convention, and since Biden had previously counseled the president to avoid the issue lest key Catholic voters be offended. Gay rights advocates seized upon Biden's statement, and within days, Obama announced that he too supported same-sex marriage, an action in part forced by Biden's remarks. Biden apologized to Obama in private for having spoken out, while Obama acknowledged publicly it had been done from the heart. The incident showed that Biden still struggled at times with message discipline, as Time wrote, "Everyone knows Biden's greatest strength is also his greatest weakness." Relations were also strained between the vice presidential and presidential campaigns when Biden appeared to use his position to bolster fundraising contacts for a possible run for president in 2016, and he ended up being excluded from Obama campaign strategy meetings.
The Obama campaign nevertheless valued Biden as a retail-level politician who could connect with disaffected blue-collar workers and rural residents, and he had a heavy schedule of appearances in swing states as the reelection campaign began in earnest in spring 2012. An August 2012 remark before a mixed-race audience that Republican proposals to relax Wall Street regulations would "put y'all back in chains" led to a similar analysis of Biden's face-to-face campaigning abilities versus his tendency to go off track. The Los Angeles Times wrote, "Most candidates give the same stump speech over and over, putting reporters if not the audience to sleep. But during any Biden speech, there might be a dozen moments to make press handlers cringe, and prompt reporters to turn to each other with amusement and confusion." Time magazine wrote that Biden often went too far and "Along with the familiar Washington mix of neediness and overconfidence, Biden's brain is wired for more than the usual amount of goofiness."
Biden was nominated for a second term as vice president at the 2012 Democratic National Convention in September. Debating his Republican counterpart, Representative Paul Ryan, in the vice-presidential debate on October 11 he made a spirited and emotional defense of the Obama administration's record and energetically attacked the Republican ticket. On November 6, Obama and Biden won reelection over Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan with 332 of 538 Electoral College votes and 51% of the popular vote.
In December 2012, Obama named Biden to head the Gun Violence Task Force, created to address the causes of gun violence in the United States in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Later that month, during the final days before the United States fell off the "fiscal cliff", Biden's relationship with McConnell again proved important as the two negotiated a deal that led to the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 being passed at the start of 2013. It made many of the Bush tax cuts permanent but raised rates on upper income levels.
Second term, 2013–2017
Biden was inaugurated to a second term on January 20, 2013, at a small ceremony at Number One Observatory Circle, his official residence, with Justice Sonia Sotomayor presiding (a public ceremony took place on January 21).
Biden played little part in discussions that led to the October 2013 passage of the Continuing Appropriations Act, 2014, which resolved the federal government shutdown of 2013 and the debt-ceiling crisis of 2013. This was because Senate majority leader Harry Reid and other Democratic leaders cut him out of any direct talks with Congress, feeling Biden had given too much away during previous negotiations.
Biden's Violence Against Women Act was reauthorized again in 2013. The act led to related developments, such as the White House Council on Women and Girls, begun in the first term, as well as the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault, begun in January 2014 with Biden and Valerie Jarrett as co-chairs. Biden discussed federal guidelines on sexual assault on university campuses while giving a speech at the University of New Hampshire. He said, "No means no, if you're drunk or you're sober. No means no if you're in bed, in a dorm or on the street. No means no even if you said yes at first and you changed your mind. No means no."
Biden favored arming Syria's rebel fighters. As Iraq fell apart during 2014, renewed attention was paid to the Biden-Gelb Iraqi federalization plan of 2006, with some observers suggesting Biden had been right all along. Biden himself said the U.S. would follow ISIL "to the gates of hell". Biden had close relationships with several Latin American leaders and was assigned a focus on the region during the administration; he visited the region 16 times during his vice presidency, the most of any president or vice president.
In 2015, Speaker of the House John Boehner and Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell invited Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress without notifying the Obama administration. This defiance of protocol led Biden and more than 50 congressional Democrats to skip Netanyahu's speech. In August 2016, Biden visited Serbia, where he met with Serbian president Aleksandar Vučić and expressed his condolences for civilian victims of the bombing campaign during the Kosovo War. In Kosovo, he attended a ceremony renaming a highway after his son Beau, in honor of Beau's service to Kosovo in training its judges and prosecutors.
Biden never cast a tie-breaking vote in the Senate, making him the longest-serving vice president with this distinction.
Role in the 2016 presidential campaign
During his second term, Biden was often said to be preparing for a possible bid for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination. With his family, many friends, and donors encouraging him in mid-2015 to enter the race, and with Hillary Clinton's favorability ratings in decline at that time, Biden was reported to again be seriously considering the prospect and a "Draft Biden 2016" PAC was established.
, Biden was still uncertain about running. He felt his son's recent death had largely drained his emotional energy, and said, "nobody has a right... to seek that office unless they're willing to give it 110% of who they are." On October 21, speaking from a podium in the Rose Garden with his wife and Obama by his side, Biden announced his decision not to run for president in 2016. In January 2016, Biden affirmed that it was the right decision, but admitted to regretting not running for president "every day".
After Obama endorsed Hillary Clinton on June 9, 2016, Biden endorsed her later that day. Throughout the 2016 election, Biden strongly criticized Clinton's opponent, Donald Trump, in often colorful terms.
Subsequent activities (2017–2019)
After leaving the vice presidency, Biden became a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, while continuing to lead efforts to find treatments for cancer. In 2017 he wrote a memoir, Promise Me, Dad, and went on a book tour. Biden earned $15.6million in 2017–2018. In 2018, he gave a eulogy for Senator John McCain, praising McCain's embrace of American ideals and bipartisan friendships.
Biden remained in the public eye, endorsing candidates while continuing to comment on politics, climate change, and the presidency of Donald Trump. He also continued to speak out in favor of LGBT rights, continuing advocacy on an issue he had become more closely associated with during his vice presidency. In 2019, Biden criticized Brunei for its intention to implement Islamic laws that would allow death by stoning for adultery and homosexuality, calling it "appalling and immoral" and saying, "There is no excuse—not culture, not tradition—for this kind of hate and inhumanity." By 2019, Biden and his wife reported that their assets had increased to between $2.2 million and $8 million from speaking engagements and a contract to write a set of books.
2020 presidential campaign
Speculation and announcement
Between 2016 and 2019, media outlets often mentioned Biden as a likely candidate for president in 2020. When asked if he would run, he gave varied and ambivalent answers, saying "never say never". At one point he suggested he did not see a scenario where he would run again, but a few days later, he said, "I'll run if I can walk." A political action committee known as Time for Biden was formed in January 2018, seeking Biden's entry into the race. He finally launched his campaign on April 25, 2019, saying he was prompted to run, among other reasons, by his "sense of duty."
Campaign
In September 2019, it was reported that Trump had pressured Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate alleged wrongdoing by Biden and his son Hunter Biden. Despite the allegations, no evidence was produced of any wrongdoing by the Bidens. The media widely interpreted this pressure to investigate the Bidens as trying to hurt Biden's chances of winning the presidency, resulting in a political scandal and Trump's impeachment by the House of Representatives.
Beginning in 2019, Trump and his allies falsely accused Biden of getting the Ukrainian prosecutor general Viktor Shokin fired because he was supposedly pursuing an investigation into Burisma Holdings, which employed Hunter Biden. Biden was accused of withholding $1billion in aid from Ukraine in this effort. In 2015, Biden pressured the Ukrainian parliament to remove Shokin because the United States, the European Union and other international organizations considered Shokin corrupt and ineffective, and in particular because Shokin was not assertively investigating Burisma. The withholding of the $1billion in aid was part of this official policy. The Senate Homeland Security Committee and Senate Finance Committee, led by Republicans, investigated allegations of wrongdoing by the Bidens in Ukraine, ultimately releasing a report in September 2020 that detailed no evidence of wrongdoing by Joe Biden, and concluded that it was "not clear" whether Hunter Biden's role in Burisma "affected U.S. policy toward Ukraine".
In March 2019 and April 2019, Biden was accused by eight women of previous instances of inappropriate physical contact, such as embracing, touching or kissing. Biden had previously described himself as a "tactile politician" and admitted this behavior has caused trouble for him. In April 2019, Biden pledged to be more "respectful of people's personal space".
Throughout 2019, Biden stayed generally ahead of other Democrats in national polls. Despite this, he finished fourth in the Iowa caucuses, and eight days later, fifth in the New Hampshire primary. He performed better in the Nevada caucuses, reaching the 15% required for delegates, but still was behind Bernie Sanders by 21.6 percentage points. Making strong appeals to Black voters on the campaign trail and in the South Carolina debate, Biden won the South Carolina primary by more than 28 points. After the withdrawals and subsequent endorsements of candidates Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar, he made large gains in the March3 Super Tuesday primary elections. Biden won 18 of the next 26 contests, including Alabama, Arkansas, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia, putting him in the lead overall. Elizabeth Warren and Mike Bloomberg soon dropped out, and Biden expanded his lead with victories over Sanders in four states (Idaho, Michigan, Mississippi, and Missouri) on March 10.
In late March 2020, Tara Reade, one of the eight women who in 2019 had accused Biden of inappropriate physical contact, accused Biden of having sexually assaulted her in 1993. There were inconsistencies between Reade's 2019 and 2020 allegations. Biden and his campaign denied the sexual assault allegation.
When Sanders suspended his campaign on April 8, 2020, Biden became the Democratic Party's presumptive nominee for president. On April 13, Sanders endorsed Biden in a live-streamed discussion from their homes. Former President Barack Obama endorsed Biden the next day. In March 2020, Biden committed to choosing a woman as his running mate. In June, Biden met the 1,991-delegate threshold needed to secure the party's presidential nomination. On August 11, he announced U.S. Senator Kamala Harris of California as his running mate, making her the first African American and first South Asian American vice-presidential nominee on a major-party ticket.
On August 18, 2020, Biden was officially nominated at the 2020 Democratic National Convention as the Democratic Party nominee for president in the 2020 election.
Presidential transition
Biden was elected the 46th president of the United States in November 2020. He defeated the incumbent, Donald Trump, becoming the first candidate to defeat a sitting president since Bill Clinton defeated George H.W. Bush in 1992. Trump refused to concede, insisting the election had been "stolen" from him through "voter fraud", challenging the results in court and promoting numerous conspiracy theories about the voting and vote-counting processes, in an attempt to overturn the election results. Biden's transition was delayed by several weeks as the White House ordered federal agencies not to cooperate. On November23, General Services Administrator Emily W. Murphy formally recognized Biden as the apparent winner of the 2020 election and authorized the start of a transition process to the Biden administration.
On January 6, 2021, during Congress's electoral vote count, Trump told supporters gathered in front of the White House to march to the Capitol, saying, "We will never give up. We will never concede. It doesn't happen. You don't concede when there's theft involved." Soon after, they attacked the Capitol. During the insurrection at the Capitol, Biden addressed the nation, calling the events "an unprecedented assault unlike anything we've seen in modern times." He specifically called on Trump to "go on national television now to fulfill his oath and defend the Constitution and demand an end to this siege", adding, "it must end now." After the Capitol was cleared, Congress resumed its joint session and officially certified the election results with Pence declaring Biden and Harris the winners.
Presidency (2021–present)
Inauguration
Biden was inaugurated as the 46th president of the United States on January 20, 2021. At 78, he is the oldest person to have assumed the office. He is the second Catholic president (after John F. Kennedy) and the first president whose home state is Delaware. He is the second non-incumbent vice president (after Richard Nixon in 1968) to be elected president. He is also the first president from the Silent Generation.
Biden's inauguration was "a muted affair unlike any previous inauguration" due to COVID-19 precautions as well as massively increased security measures because of a threat of widespread civil unrest. Biden took the oath of office on the Capitol's west steps and gave an inaugural address, but there were no spectators on the Mall and no in-person parades or inaugural balls. Trump did not attend, becoming the first outgoing president since 1869 to not attend his successor's inauguration.
First 100 days
In his first two days as president, Biden signed 17 executive orders, more than most recent presidents did in their first 100 days. By his third day, orders had included rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement, ending the state of national emergency at the border with Mexico, directing the government to rejoin the World Health Organization, face mask requirements on federal property, measures to combat hunger in the United States, and revoking permits for the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. In his first two weeks in office, Biden signed more executive orders than any other president since Franklin D. Roosevelt had in their first month in office.
On February 4, 2021, the Biden administration announced that the United States was ending its support for the Saudi-led bombing campaign in Yemen. In his first visit to the State Department as president, Biden said "this war has to end" and that the conflict had created a "humanitarian and strategic catastrophe." On February 25, the Biden administration "struck a site in Syria used by two Iranian-backed militia groups in response to rocket attacks on American forces." This marked the first known action by the military under Biden.
On March 11, the first anniversary of COVID-19 being declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization, Biden signed into law the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, a $1.9 trillion economic stimulus relief package he proposed and lobbied for that aimed to speed up the United States' recovery from the economic and health effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing recession. The package included direct payments to most Americans, an extension of increased unemployment benefits, funds for vaccine distribution and school reopenings, support for small businesses and state and local governments, and expansions of health insurance subsidies and the child tax credit. Biden's initial proposal included an increase of the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour, but after Senate parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough determined that including the increase in a budget reconciliation bill would violate Senate rules, Democrats declined to pursue overruling her and removed the increase from the package.
Also in March, amid a rise in migrants entering the U.S. from Mexico, Biden told migrants, "Don't come over." He said that the U.S. was arranging a plan for migrants to "apply for asylum in place", without leaving their original locations. In the meantime, migrant adults "are being sent back", Biden said, in reference to the continuation of the Trump administration's Title 42 policy for quick deportations. Biden earlier announced that his administration would not deport unaccompanied migrant children; the rise in arrivals of such children exceeded the capacity of facilities meant to shelter them (before they were sent to sponsors), leading the Biden administration in March to direct the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help manage these children.
On April 14, Biden announced that the United States would delay the withdrawal of all troops from the war in Afghanistan until September 11, signalling an end to the country's direct military involvement in Afghanistan after nearly 20 years. In February 2020, the Trump administration had made a deal with the Taliban to completely withdraw U.S. forces by May 1, 2021. Biden's decision met with a wide range of reactions, from support and relief to trepidation at the possible collapse of the Afghan government without American support. On April 22–23, Biden held an international climate summit at which he announced that the U.S. would cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 50%–52% by 2030 compared to 2005 levels. Other countries also increased their pledges. If the pledges made at the summit are met, they will cut global greenhouse gas emissions by 2.6–3.7 Gte by 2030. On April 28, the eve of his 100th day in office, Biden delivered his first address to a joint session of Congress, in which he highlighted the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines and addressed withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, the murder of George Floyd, and the U.S. Capitol attack while urging Congress to pass comprehensive immigration, gun, and health care reform.
Rest of 2021
In May 2021, during a flareup in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, Biden expressed his support for Israel, saying "my party still supports Israel" amid disagreement from some Democrats. In June 2021, Biden took his first trip abroad as president. In eight days he visited Belgium, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. He attended a G7 summit, a NATO summit, and an EU summit, and held one-on-one talks with Russian president Vladimir Putin.
On June 17, Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act, which officially declared Juneteenth a federal holiday. Juneteenth is the first new federal holiday since Martin Luther King Jr. Day was declared a holiday in 1986. In July 2021, amid a slowing of the COVID-19 vaccination rate in the country and the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant, Biden said that the country has "a pandemic for those who haven't gotten the vaccination" and that it was therefore "gigantically important" for Americans to be vaccinated, touting the vaccines' effectiveness against hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19. He also criticized the prevalence of COVID-19 misinformation on social media, saying it was "killing people". In September 2021, Biden announced AUKUS, a security pact between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, to ensure "peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific over the long term"; the deal included nuclear-powered submarines built for Australia's use.
By the end of 2021, 40 of Biden's appointed judges to the federal judiciary had been confirmed, more than any president in their first year in office since Ronald Reagan. Biden has prioritized diversity in his judicial appointments more than any president in U.S. history, with the majority of appointments being women and people of color. Most of his appointments have been in blue states, making a limited impact since the courts in these states already traditionally lean liberal.
In the first eight months of his presidency, Biden's approval rating, according to Morning Consult polling, remained above 50%. In August, it began to decline and lowered into the low forties by December. The decline in his approval is attributed to the Afghanistan withdrawal, increasing hospitalizations from the Delta variant, high inflation and gas prices, disarray within the Democratic Party, and a general decline in popularity customary in politics.
Withdrawal from Afghanistan
American forces began withdrawing from Afghanistan in 2020, under the provisions of a February 2020 US-Taliban agreement that set a May 1, 2021, deadline. By April 2021, the State Department was urging American civilians in Afghanistan to leave as soon as possible. The Taliban began an offensive on May 1. As late as July, American intelligence assessments estimated Kabul would fall to the Taliban months or weeks after the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan. By early July, most American troops in Afghanistan had withdrawn. Biden addressed the withdrawal in July, saying, "The likelihood there's going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely."
On August 15, the Afghan government collapsed under the Taliban offensive, and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country. Biden reacted by ordering 6,000 American troops to assist in the evacuation of American personnel and Afghan allies. He was widely criticized for the manner of the withdrawal, with allegations of poor planning for the evacuation of Americans and Afghan allies, and for his silence and absence during the days before the collapse of the Afghan government.
On August 16, Biden addressed the "messy" situation, taking responsibility for it, and admitting that the situation "unfolded more quickly than we had anticipated". He defended his decision to withdraw, saying that Americans should not be "dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves," and blamed his predecessor Donald Trump, the Afghan president, and Afghan security forces for the speedy collapse.
On August 22, Biden said that his administration knew that ISIS-K was a "likely source" of threat. On August 26, a suicide bombing at the Kabul airport killed 13 U.S. service members and 169 Afghans. Biden declared to the attackers that the United States "will hunt you down and make you pay". On August 27, an American drone strike killed two ISIS-K targets, who were "planners and facilitators", according to a U.S. Army general. On August 29, another American drone strike killed 10 civilians, including seven children; the Defense Department initially claimed the strike was conducted on an Islamic State suicide bomber threatening Kabul Airport, but admitted the mistake on September 17 and apologized.
The U.S. military left Afghanistan on August 30, with Biden saying that the evacuation effort was an "extraordinary success", by extracting over 120,000 Americans, Afghans and other allies. He acknowledged that between "100 to 200" Americans who wanted to leave were left in Afghanistan, despite his August 18 pledge to stay in Afghanistan until all Americans who wanted to leave had left. The Biden administration, joining governments of almost 100 countries, said that the Taliban had given "assurances" that anyone "with travel authorization from [these] countries" would continue to be allowed to leave Afghanistan.
Economy
Biden entered office nine months into a recovery from the COVID-19 recession and his first year in office was characterized by robust growth in real GDP, employment, wages and stock market returns, amid significantly elevated inflation. Real GDP grew 5.7%, the fastest rate in 37 years. Amid record job creation, the unemployment rate fell at the fastest pace on record during the year. By the end of 2021, inflation reached a nearly 40-year high of 7.1%, which was partially offset by the highest wage and salary growth in at least 20 years. Income growth was particularly strong at the low end of the pay scale.
Infrastructure and climate
As part of Biden's Build Back Better agenda, in late March 2021, he proposed the American Jobs Plan, a $2 trillion package addressing issues including transport infrastructure, utilities infrastructure, broadband infrastructure, housing, schools, manufacturing, research and workforce development. After months of negotiations among Biden and lawmakers, in August 2021 the Senate passed a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill called the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, while the House, also in a bipartisan manner, approved that bill in early November 2021, covering infrastructure related to transport, utilities, and broadband. Biden signed the bill into law in mid-November 2021.
As COP26, scheduled for October 31 to November 12, 2021, approached, Biden increased his efforts to address climate change domestically and internationally. He promoted an agreement that the U.S. and the European Union cut methane emissions by a third by 2030 and tried to add dozens of other countries to the effort. He tried to convince China and Australia to do more. He convened an online Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate Change to press other countries to strengthen their climate policy. Biden pledged to double climate funding to developing countries by 2024. Also at COP26, the U.S. and China reached a deal on greenhouse gas emission reduction. The two countries are responsible for 40% of global emissions.
2022
In early 2022, Biden made efforts to change his public image after entering the year with low approval ratings, but they continued to fall, dipping to approximately 40% in aggregated polls by February.
In January, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, a moderate liberal nominated by Bill Clinton, announced he will be retiring from the Supreme Court. Breyer's retirement is expected to give Biden his first opportunity to nominate a Supreme Court justice. During his 2020 campaign, Biden vowed to nominate a Black woman to the court if a vacancy occurred, a promise he reiterated after the announcement of Breyer's retirement. In February, Biden nominated federal judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court.
Political positions
Biden is considered a moderate Democrat and a centrist, though more recently he has been seen as shifting to the left. He has a lifetime liberal 72% score from the Americans for Democratic Action through 2004, while the American Conservative Union gave him a lifetime conservative rating of 13% through 2008.
Biden supported the fiscal stimulus in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009; the Obama administration's proposed increase in infrastructure spending; subsidies for mass transit, including Amtrak, bus, and subway; and the reduced military spending in the Obama administration's fiscal year 2014 budget. He has proposed partially reversing the corporate tax cuts of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, saying that doing so would not hurt businesses' ability to hire. He voted for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Biden is a staunch supporter of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). He has promoted a plan to expand and build upon it, paid for by revenue gained from reversing some Trump administration tax cuts. Biden's plan aims to expand health insurance coverage to 97% of Americans, including by creating a public health insurance option.
Biden has supported same-sex marriage since 2012 and also supports Roe v. Wade and repealing the Hyde Amendment. He opposes drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and supports governmental funding to find new energy sources. As a senator, he forged deep relationships with police groups and was a chief proponent of a Police Officer's Bill of Rights measure that police unions supported but police chiefs opposed. As vice president, he served as a White House liaison to police.
Biden believes action must be taken on global warming. As a senator, he co-sponsored the Sense of the Senate resolution calling on the United States to take part in the United Nations climate negotiations and the Boxer–Sanders Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act, the most stringent climate bill in the United States Senate. He wants to achieve a carbon-free power sector in the U.S. by 2035 and stop emissions completely by 2050. His program includes reentering the Paris Agreement, nature conservation, and green building. Biden wants to pressure China and other countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions by carbon tariffs if necessary.
Biden has said the U.S. needs to "get tough" on China and build "a united front of U.S. allies and partners to confront China's abusive behaviors and human rights violations". He has called China the "most serious competitor" that poses challenges to the United States' "prosperity, security, and democratic values". Biden has voiced concerns about China's "coercive and unfair" economic practices and human rights abuses in the Xinjiang region to the Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping. He also pledged to sanction and commercially restrict Chinese government officials and entities who carry out repression.
Biden has said he is against regime change, but for providing non-military support to opposition movements. He opposed direct U.S. intervention in Libya, voted against U.S. participation in the Gulf War, voted in favor of the Iraq War, and supports a two-state solution in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Biden has pledged to end U.S. support for the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen and to reevaluate the United States' relationship with Saudi Arabia. He has called North Korea a "paper tiger". As vice president, Biden supported Obama's Cuban thaw. He has said that, as president, he would restore U.S. membership in key United Nations bodies, such as the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the World Health Organization, and possibly the Human Rights Council. Biden supports extending the New START arms control treaty with Russia to limit the number of nuclear weapons deployed by both sides. In 2021, Biden recognized the Armenian genocide, becoming the first U.S. president to do so.
Reputation
Biden was consistently ranked one of the least wealthy members of the Senate, which he attributed to his having been elected young. Feeling that less-wealthy public officials may be tempted to accept contributions in exchange for political favors, he proposed campaign finance reform measures during his first term. , Biden's net worth was $27,012. , the Bidens were worth $9 million, largely due to sales of Biden's books and speaking fees after his vice presidency.
The political writer Howard Fineman has written, "Biden is not an academic, he's not a theoretical thinker, he's a great street pol. He comes from a long line of working people in Scranton—auto salesmen, car dealers, people who know how to make a sale. He has that great Irish gift." Political columnist David S. Broder wrote that Biden has grown over time: "He responds to real people—that's been consistent throughout. And his ability to understand himself and deal with other politicians has gotten much much better." Journalist James Traub has written that "Biden is the kind of fundamentally happy person who can be as generous toward others as he is to himself."
In recent years, especially after the 2015 death of his elder son Beau, Biden has been noted for his empathetic nature and ability to communicate about grief. In 2020, CNN wrote that his presidential campaign aimed to make him "healer-in-chief", while The New York Times described his extensive history of being called upon to give eulogies.
Journalist and TV anchor Wolf Blitzer has described Biden as loquacious. He often deviates from prepared remarks and sometimes "puts his foot in his mouth." The New York Times wrote that Biden's "weak filters make him capable of blurting out pretty much anything." In 2018, Biden called himself "a gaffe machine". Some of his gaffes have been characterized as racially insensitive.
Electoral history
Publications
Books
Also paperback edition, Random House 2008, .
Book contributions
Biden, Joseph R., Jr. (2009). "Foreword." In: Choosing Equality: Essays and Narratives on the Desegregation Experience. Edited by Robert L. Hayman, Jr. and Leland Ware. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009. .
Pamphlets
Biden, Joseph R., Jr., and Les Aspin, William Louis Dickinson, Brent Scowcroft (1982). Arms Sales: A Useful Foreign Policy Tool? American Enterprise Institute. AEI Forum 56. Moderated by John Charles Daly.
Articles
Biden, Joseph R., Jr., and Miga Purev-Ochir (Spring 2015). "U.S.-Russian Relations in a Post-Cold War World: A Strategic Vision: Mapping a Future for U.S.-Russian Relations." Harvard International Review, vol. 36, no. 3, pp. 72–76. .
Notes
References
Citations
Works cited
See also
List of honors and awards received by Joe Biden
List of things named after Joe Biden
External links
Official
President Joe Biden official website
Presidential campaign website
Obama White House biography (archived)
Other
Joe Biden at On the Issues
Joe Biden at PolitiFact
1942 births
Living people
20th-century American lawyers
20th-century American politicians
20th-century Roman Catholics
21st-century American memoirists
21st-century presidents of the United States
21st-century vice presidents of the United States
21st-century Roman Catholics
2008 United States vice-presidential candidates
2012 United States vice-presidential candidates
American people of English descent
American people of French descent
American people of Irish descent
Biden family
Candidates in the 1988 United States presidential election
Candidates in the 2008 United States presidential election
Candidates in the 2020 United States presidential election
Catholics from Delaware
Catholics from Pennsylvania
Chairmen of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
County council members and commissioners in Delaware
Delaware Democrats
Delaware Fightin' Blue Hens football players
Delaware lawyers
Democratic Party (United States) presidential nominees
Democratic Party presidents of the United States
Democratic Party United States senators
Democratic Party (United States) vice presidential nominees
Democratic Party vice presidents of the United States
Laetare Medal recipients
New Castle County, Delaware politicians
Obama administration cabinet members
People from Claymont, Delaware
People from Wilmington, Delaware
People involved in plagiarism controversies
Politicians from Scranton, Pennsylvania
Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients
Presidents of the United States
Writers from Wilmington, Delaware
Public defenders
Recipients of Hilal-i-Pakistan
Recipients of the Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana, 1st Class
Recipients of St. George's Order of Victory
Syracuse University College of Law alumni
Time 100
Time Person of the Year
United States senators from Delaware
University of Delaware alumni
University of Pennsylvania faculty
Vice presidents of the United States
Widener University faculty
Writers from Scranton, Pennsylvania | false | [
"Global News Morning (previously known as Morning News and the Saturday Morning News or the Sunday Morning News on Saturdays and Sundays respectively and the Early Morning News from 5-6 AM) is the name of local morning newscasts airing on Global Television Network's owned-and-operated stations (O&Os) in British Columbia, Calgary, Edmonton, Saskatoon, Regina, Winnipeg, Toronto, Kingston, Peterborough, Montreal, and Halifax with each station producing its own edition of the program. In Ontario, the program was branded The Morning Show, with local variations being produced on Global Toronto, CKWS Kingston, and CHEX Peterborough, before they too adopted the Global News Morning branding.\n\nAs part of Shaw Communications' benefit package for acquiring Global and other specialty channels from the bankrupt Canwest, Global O&Os in Toronto, Winnipeg, Regina, Saskatoon, Montreal, and the Maritimes would each launch morning shows for their respective markets. As of January 28, 2013, this promise has been fulfilled by Shaw Media.\n\nOn April 11, 2016, Global rebranded its local news programs. Morning News, as well as Sunday/Saturday Morning News and Early Morning News are now all known as Global News Morning.\n\nIn June 2018, Global News launched a new \"L-frame\" news format for their morning programs nationwide. The L-frame, which is similar to that on some 24-hour news channels such as CP24 and Global's Sister network, Global News: BC1, provides constant access to weather, traffic, business, and news headlines throughout the whole show. It launched across the network on June 5, 2018.\n\nThe latest editions of Global News Morning to launch were those on Global Kingston (formerly CKWS) and Global Peterborough (formerly CHEX). Originally branded as The Morning Show, these programs follow a similar format to other Global News Morning shows east of Alberta, with national and international news being inserted from Global Toronto.\n\nGlobal BC\n\nWeekdays\nGlobal News Morning on Global BC airs from 5:00 to 9:00 AM PT on weekdays. It is simulcast on Global Okanagan. The weekday edition of Global News Morning is hosted by Sonia Sunger with Paul Haysom as news anchor, Mark Madryga as meteorologist, and Katelin Owsianski as in studio traffic anchor with Amber Belzer in Global 1 for airborne traffic. Global News Morning is currently British Columbia's most-watched morning show.\n\nWeekends\nGlobal News Morning airs from 7:00am – 10:00am on weekend mornings. This edition is hosted by Jennifer Palma with Kasia Bodurka on weather and Jay Janower on sports.\n\nGlobal Calgary\n\nWeekdays\nGlobal News Morning on Global Calgary airs weekdays at 5:00 to 9:00 AM MT. It is simulcast on Global Lethbridge. Global News Morning on Global Calgary is hosted by Dallas Flexhaug and Leslie Horton. Jordan Witzel was the on-air meteorologist for the program until his departure from the station in May 2021.\n\nWeekends\nGlobal News Morning airs from 7:00am – 10:00am on weekend mornings. Global News Morning on the weekend is hosted by Tracy Nagai and Jodi Hughes.\n\nGlobal Edmonton\n\nWeekdays\nGlobal News Morning on Global Edmonton airs weekdays from 5:00 AM to 9:00 AM MT. It was previously simulcast on CKSA Lloydminster until Global's disaffiliation in December 2021. It is the most watched morning show in Edmonton, consistently beating the nearest competition by a margin of 6 to 1. Global News Morning is hosted by Vinesh Pratap and Erin Chalmers with Daintre Christensen as traffic reporter and Mike Sobel on weather.\n\nWeekends\nGlobal News Morning airs from 7:00am – 10:00am on weekend mornings. Global News Morning is hosted by Lisa MacGregor and weather specialist Kevin O'Connell.\n\nGlobal Regina\nGlobal News Morning on Global Regina airs weekdays from 6am to 9am local time. Global News Morning is hosted by Marney Blunt. Global News Morning (then Morning News) was launched in 2012 along with Morning News on Global Winnipeg and Global Saskatoon after Shaw Media promised to launch morning shows in these markets along with Global Toronto, Global Montreal, and Global Maritimes (Halifax).\n\nGlobal Saskatoon\nGlobal News Morning on Global Saskatoon airs weekdays from 6am to 9am local time. Global News Morning on Global Saskatoon is hosted by Chris Carr with Chantal Wagner as weather specialist. Global News Morning was launched in 2012 along with Global News Morning on Global Winnipeg and Global Regina after Shaw Media promised to launch morning shows in these markets along with Global Toronto, Global Montreal, and Global Maritimes (Halifax).\n\nGlobal Winnipeg\nGlobal News Morning on Global Winnipeg airs weekday mornings from 6:00 AM to 9:00 AM. It was simulcast on CJBN Kenora, until its closure in early 2017. It debuted on February 6, 2012 and featured the only television news helicopter in Winnipeg, SkyView 1, which has since been grounded. Global News Morning is anchored by Gabrielle Marchand alongside Kahla Evans as weather specialist and Abigail Turner and Corey Callaghan as field reporters. Long-time weather specialist Mike Koncan announced on November 25, 2016 that he would be leaving Global News Morning to begin presenting the weather on Global News at 6 and Global News at 10. Adriana Zhang joined the show on March 6, 2017 as the new weather specialist, where she stayed until December 21, 2018 when she left Global Winnipeg for CTV Calgary. On April 5, 2019 Shannon Cuciz announced on her Instagram that the following week would be her last. Her final newscast aired on April 12, 2019. Global News Morning (then Morning News) was launched in 2012 along with Morning News on Global Regina and Global Saskatoon after Shaw Media promised to launch morning shows in these markets along with Global Toronto, Global Montreal, and Global Maritimes (Halifax).\n\nFormer Personalities\n Fiona Odlum - SkyView1 (now CBC Saskatchewan)\n Derek Taylor - Co-Host/Sports (now Saskatchewan Roughriders Play-by-Play Announcer)\n Eva Kovacs - Anchor (now Communications at The Royal Canadian Mint)\n Megan Bachelor - Reporter/Anchor (now at CBC Vancouver)\n Brittany Greenslade - Reporter/Anchor (still reporting at Global Winnipeg)\n Holly Alexandruk - Anchor\n Cole Deakin - Reporter\n Mike Koncan - Weather Specialist (now Weather Specialist for Global News at 6 and 10)\n Justine Routhier - SkyView 1 Traffic Reporter (still at Global News Radio 680 CJOB)\n Kevin Hirschfield - Reporter (now anchor for Global News at 10)\n Adriana Zhang - Weather Specialist (now at CTV Calgary)\n Shannon Cuciz - Anchor\nMalika Karim - Anchor (now reporter for Global News at 6)\n\nGlobal Toronto, E! Hamilton, Global Kingston, and Global Peterborough\n\nGlobal Toronto airs Global News Morning from 6AM to 9:00AM ET on weekdays. It is hosted by Antony Robart, Candace Daniel, and Liem Vu. The show is produced from studios located at Corus Quay Building at 25 Dockside Drive in Toronto.\n\nIn 2000, parent company Canwest acquired the broadcasting assets of Western International Communications. Among them was CHCH (OnTV), which relaunched in February 2001 as CH Hamilton and the CH system was launched later that year. CHCH debuted CH Morning Live on February 13, 2001 and currently airs from 5:30AM to 9:00AM ET weekdays. It was renamed to Morning Live in 2007 when CH became E! and continues to air after the station was sold to Channel Zero in 2009.\n\nHistory\nThe station debuted a morning news program on July 14, 2003 under the title Global News Morning; it was broadcast weekdays 6AM to 9AM ET. The program was renamed Morning News in 2006 in conjunction with Global's network-wide rebranding exercise. This show was broadcast from 81 Barber Greene Road (Global Toronto Office) in Don Mills from 2003 to 2009.\n\nThe newscast was cancelled in January 2009 due to low ratings, and was replaced by a simulcast of then-sister station CHCH-TV's more popular Morning Live show, originating in Hamilton, from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. The CHCH simulcast was dropped in August 2009 after Canwest sold the Hamilton station to Channel Zero; since then, Global Toronto had aired second-run lifestyle programming in the morning timeslot.\n\nOn June 1, 2011, Shaw Communications announced that it would relaunch a morning newscast on Global Toronto in the fall of 2011 under the title The Morning Show, instead of using the Morning News moniker found on other Global O&Os. Kris Reyes, Liza Fromer, Dave Gerry and Daru Dhillon were named as the anchors for the three-hour-long show. It debuted on October 11, 2011.\n\nOn August 27, 2012, Dhillon left the show. On the same day, CIII launched The News at Noon. Antony Robart took over Dhillon's position. The News at Noon was produced in the same Bloor Street studio as The Morning Show. On December 12, 2012, it was announced that The Morning Show would be expanded in early 2013 to include an additional half-hour that would be broadcast nationally.\n\nIn June 2016, long-time host of The Morning Show, Liza Fromer, was let go from the station after her contract was not renewed. Her position would not be filled on the local morning show and Carolyn Mackenzie would take her place on the national edition.\n\nIn 2017, Corus Entertainment launched two other local morning news programs on their affiliates CHEX Peterborough (now Global Peterborough) and CKWS Kingston (now Global Kingston), also branded The Morning Show. These shows follow a similar format to other Global News Morning programs east of Alberta, with cut-ins to the Toronto version of the show for national and international news headlines.\n\nOn January 28, 2019, Corus Entertainment announced the expansion of the national edition of The Morning Show, extending the show's running time from half an hour to one hour beginning in early March 2019. On February 12, 2019, it was also announced that the local edition of The Morning Show from 6am-9am would be rebranded as Global News Morning, following the naming-scheme of other Global morning shows across the country. Additionally, hosts Jeff McArthur and Carolyn Mackenzie will move exclusively to the extended national edition of The Morning Show, while Global News at 11 co-anchor Antony Robart and former Breakfast Television host Jennifer Valentyne will become the anchors of Global News Morning, along with Liem Vu and Marianne Dimain. The changes took place March 4, 2019. At the same time, The Morning Show was also rebranded to Global News Morning on Global Peterborough and Global Kingston. Jennifer Valentyne (laid off July 2020) was replaced with Candace Daniel in 2021.\n\nFormer personalities on Global News Morning\n Robin Gill - anchor, 2008–2009 (now with Global National)\n Anne-Marie Mediwake - anchor, 2006–2007; later promoted to Global News Hour Toronto And CBC News Network. Previously with CBC Toronto, now with CTV's national morning show Your Morning.\n Jennifer Valentyne - anchor 2019–2020\n\nGlobal Montreal\nGlobal News Morning on Global Montreal airs weekday mornings from 6:00 AM to 9:00 AM ET. The program is broadcast from its studios in the Dominion Square Building in Downtown Montreal, and from various locations in Montreal's West Island area. The show is anchored by Laura Casella with Kim Sullivan as weather specialist. Global News Morning was anchored by Camille Ross with Jessica Laventure as weather specialist until June 2016. Her replacement is Laura Casella, previously of Breakfast Television Montreal. Global News Morning was launched in 2013 along with Global News Morning on Global Maritimes after Shaw Media promised to launch morning shows in these markets along with Global Winnipeg, Global Regina, and Global Saskatoon.\n\nHistory\nThe Morning News began airing on Global Montreal on January 28, 2013, 5 years after the station's original morning show (This Morning Live) was cancelled.\n\nAfter being rebranded as Global, Global Montreal aired a live two and a half-hour (and subsequently three) hour weekday morning magazine program called This Morning Live. It was aired in place of cartoons that aired on most Global stations weekday mornings because Quebec provincial law requires children's programming to be shown weekdays commercial-free over the air. A side benefit of this was that it added enough Canadian content to the station's schedule that it could air American talk shows in the afternoon.\n\nThe cancellation of This Morning Live was announced in late 2007 and the last program was broadcast on February 27, 2008. To partially make up for the loss of locally produced broadcast hours, the station brought back News Final, which was cancelled in June 2006 due to low ratings.\n\nLong-time Global News Morning personalities Camille Ross and Jessica Laventure both left the show in June 2016. On June 22, Camille Ross announced her departure and officially left on June 23 to move to London, Ontario. Jessica Laventure left on June 30 to work in Punta Cana.\n\nGlobal Halifax\nGlobal News Morning on Global Halifax airs weekday mornings from 6:00 AM to 9:00 AM AT. It is simulcast on Global New Brunswick. The program is broadcast in high-definition from its new studios on Gottingen Street in Downtown Halifax. It launched on January 28, 2013 and is the only three-hour-long morning news program in the Maritimes. Global News Morning in Halifax is hosted by Alyse Hand and Paul Brothers. Global News Morning (then Morning News) was launched in 2013 along with Morning News on Global Montreal after Shaw Media promised to launch morning shows in these markets along with Global Winnipeg, Global Regina, and Global Saskatoon.\n\nSee also\n Global News\n Rival morning programs include:\nCanada AM on CTV and CTV News Channel (now cancelled)\n Your Morning on CTV and CTV News Channel (replacement for Canada AM)\n CTV Morning Live on select CTV and CTV 2 local stations\n Breakfast Television on Citytv\n CBC News Now on CBC and CBC News Network\n News Hour\n The Morning Show\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Global News launches new Toronto morning show\n Canwest eliminates morning and noon TV newscasts at Global Toronto\nShaw Benefits Proposal Includes $43-million for Morning News\n\nTelevision morning shows in Canada\nGlobal Television Network original programming\n1990s Canadian television series debuts\n1990s Canadian television news shows\n2000s Canadian television news shows\n2010s Canadian television news shows\n2020s Canadian television news shows\nTelevision series by Corus Entertainment\nTelevision news program articles using incorrect naming style\nTelevision shows filmed in Burnaby\nTelevision shows filmed in Calgary\nTelevision shows filmed in Edmonton\nTelevision shows filmed in Halifax, Nova Scotia\nTelevision shows filmed in Montreal\nTelevision shows filmed in Regina, Saskatchewan\nTelevision shows filmed in Saskatoon\nTelevision shows filmed in Toronto\nTelevision shows filmed in Winnipeg\nCulture of Kingston, Ontario\nCulture of Peterborough, Ontario",
"Roundabout (which debuted as Morning Magazine) is an Australian morning television program which aired from 1967 to 1971, when it was replaced with/became The Roy Hampson Show. It aired in Melbourne on what was then station ATV-0 (now ATV-10 and part of Network Ten). It evolved out of an earlier series called Chit-Chat.\n\nIt consisted of various segments and was a daytime talk show for women. Hosts of the series included Katrina Pye and Roy Hampson.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\nNetwork 10 original programming\n1967 Australian television series debuts\n1971 Australian television series endings\nAustralian television talk shows\nBlack-and-white Australian television shows\nEnglish-language television shows"
] |
[
"Ai Kago",
"2008-2010: Return to entertainment"
] | C_a7e77954476f4a8dba436b1aa924f9d2_1 | What happened in 2008? | 1 | What happened to Ai Kago in 2008? | Ai Kago | After Kago departed from Up-Front Agency, her mother attempted to sign her to a new talent agency in her hometown, Nara. Later that year, Josei Seven published an interview with her mother, revealing that Kago left Japan and started residing in New York City. Kago herself later revealed that she had actually not gone to New York, but rather to Los Angeles for three months because she felt like a criminal in Japan. During her stay, she met people who encouraged her, including Winona Ryder, and was able to reflect on her situation. She also considered suicide and cut her wrists. Kago made a well-publicized return to the entertainment industry in 2008 with plans of pursuing an acting career. She began appearing in multiple Hong Kong movies, including Kung Fu Chefs. On August 25, 2008, Kago released a book entitled Kago Ai Live--Miseinen Hakusho (LIVE--Wei Cheng Nian Bai Shu ). On her blog, she described the book as "a book where I talk to young teens about their various troubles and dreams." During 2009, Kago also focused on rebuilding her music career. On June 24, 2009, she released her first solo single "No HesitAtIon" [sic] on independent record label In Da Groove. On February 16, 2010, she held her first jazz concert at bar JZ Brat in Tokyo. Kago's first jazz album, Ai Kago meets Jazz: The First Door, was released on March 31, 2010 through P-Vine Records and Avex Marketing. In August 2010 she was invited to perform at music festival Summer Sonic. CANNOTANSWER | publicized return to the entertainment industry in 2008 | is a Japanese actress and former singer. In 2000, Kago debuted as a 4th generation member of the idol girl group Morning Musume. During her time in the group, she was also part of Mini-Moni and other Hello! Project sub-groups. In 2004, Kago departed from Morning Musume and became part of the duo W with Nozomi Tsuji.
In 2006, Kago was suspended from her agency for underage smoking and subsequently dismissed in 2007. In 2008, she returned to entertainment as an actress, appearing in Kung Fu Chefs (2009), Ju-On: Black Ghost (2009), and Battle of Demons (2009). In 2009, Kago returned to music as well, releasing her debut solo single, "No Hesitation" (2009), followed by her jazz album, Ai Kago Meets Jazz (2010). She also formed her own girl group, Girls Beat!!, in 2013, of which she remained a member until 2016.
Career
2000–2004: Morning Musume and Mini-Moni
At age 12, Kago won the 4th National Audition of Morning Musume held by the Up-Front Works in 2000. On April 15, she, along with Rika Ishikawa, Hitomi Yoshizawa, and Nozomi Tsuji, were inducted into the idol group Morning Musume as its fourth generation. Their recording debut was in the group's ninth single "Happy Summer Wedding".
Kago and Tsuji's addition to the group received positive critical response. With an increasing fan base, they, along with Morning Musume member Mari Yaguchi and Coconuts Musume member Mika Todd, formed a new subgroup named Mini-Moni. In addition to this, Kago was also admitted into established subgroup Tanpopo as a second generation member. From 2001 to 2004 Kago participated in the annual Hello! Project shuffle units (3-nin Matsuri in 2001, Happy 7 in 2002, Salt5 in 2003, and H.P. All Stars in 2004).
2004–2007: W
In August 2004, Kago and Tsuji graduated from Morning Musume together after Minimoni began their indefinite hiatus. Under the arrangement of their agency, Kago and Tsuji formed a new pop duo, W, releasing two albums and six singles together.
Before the release of their seventh single and their third album, W3: Faithful, on February 9, 2006, Friday published photos showing Kago smoking. She was 15 at the time the photos were taken. The following day, her agency issued a press statement saying that she and W's activities had been suspended "indefinitely." Kago spent the remainder of the year under house arrest at her family's residence in Nara. During this time, she was not allowed to have contact with Tsuji or any of the other members from her agency, and she was caught smoking again during her probation period.
In 2007 Up-Front Works reported that they were working on her comeback. In late March 2007, photos of Kago going to an onsen with a man 18 years her senior and smoking for a third time circulated in the media, further tarnishing her reputation. Not long after, Yuukichi Kawaguchi, the director of Up-Front Works, issued a statement announcing that she had been dismissed from the agency.
2008–2010: Return to entertainment
After Kago departed from Up-Front Agency, her mother attempted to sign her to a new talent agency in her hometown, Nara. Later that year, Josei Seven published an interview with her mother, revealing that Kago left Japan and started residing in New York City. Kago herself later revealed that she had actually not gone to New York, but rather to Los Angeles for three months because she felt like a criminal in Japan. During her stay, she met people who encouraged her, including Winona Ryder, and was able to reflect on her situation. She also considered suicide and cut her wrists.
Kago made a well-publicized return to the entertainment industry in 2008 with plans of pursuing an acting career. She began appearing in multiple Hong Kong movies, including Kung Fu Chefs. On August 25, 2008, Kago released a book entitled . On her blog, she described the book as "a book where I talk to young teens about their various troubles and dreams."
During 2009, Kago also focused on rebuilding her music career. On June 24, 2009, she released her first solo single "No HesitAtIon" [sic] on independent record label In Da Groove. On February 16, 2010, she held her first jazz concert at bar JZ Brat in Tokyo. Kago's first jazz album, Ai Kago meets Jazz: The First Door, was released on March 31, 2010 through P-Vine Records and Avex Marketing. In August 2010 she was invited to perform at music festival Summer Sonic.
2011–present: Personal struggles and Girls Beat!!
Throughout the second half of 2010, Kago became unhappy with the direction of her work. Around the same time, she began dating restaurant owner Haruhiko Ando, who acted as an in-between for her agency and herself. Since beginning a relationship with Ando, Kago cancelled several jobs at the last minute, causing her agency to suspend her activities. Despite this, she participated in a live performance and opened a separate blog without permission.
Kago parted ways with R&A Promotions in November 2010 despite her contract ending in March 2013. As a response, in 2011, Kazuyuki Ito, president of Mainstream (an associate of R&A Promotions), declared that the agency planned on suing for in damages for contract violations. During that time, Kago's career was also derailed by her personal life.
After spending 2012 out of the public eye with the birth of her daughter, Minami, Kago transferred to a new agency in 2013. Planning to revive her music career, she formed an idol group, which was later named Girls Beat!! The group would be crowd-sourced using lyrics, music, and costume ideas submitted by fans. Remi Kita and Ryona Himeno were recruited as the other two members after passing the auditions.
Girls Beat!! released their first single, "Sekai Seifuku" on July 22, 2014. Their activities were abruptly put on hold when an arrest warrant was put out for Ando in October on suspicions of loaning money at illegal interest rates. Kago later filed for divorce, planning to continue activities once the divorce was finalized. Although Kago was eventually successful in doing so, in August 2015, her contract with her agency expired, though she continued activities with Girls Beat!! in November. On February 29, 2016, she graduated from the group.
Personal life
Public image
During Kago's years in Mini-Moni, she was known for keeping her hair in curled twin tails. Manga artist Arina Tanemura used her hairstyle as inspiration for Mitsuki Koyama, the main character of Full Moon o Sagashite. Her official nickname in Hello! Project was "Aibon."
Kago and Tsuji shared the world record for the largest hula hoop spun at in diameter. They set their record on January 1, 2004, during a live New Year's Day television special at Nippon Television Network, Tokyo, Japan. The record appeared in the 2005 and 2006 editions of the Guinness Book of World Records before it was broken by Ashrita Furman in September 2005.
Relationships and family
During Kago's house arrest in 2006, her parents divorced. In 2009, Kago was involved in a relationship with actor Hidejiro Mizumoto. Mizumoto's wife, Asato, sued them both, stating that she had proof of the affair and that it was the cause for her pending divorce. On May 24, 2009, a family court found in Asato's favor and ordered Mizumoto to hand over his home in Kumamoto and his car to Asato as well as in child support every month for his three children. Shukan Josei reported in 2010 that Kago was romantically linked to model Takeshi Mikawai. Her agency released a statement claiming that while they dated, they were not a couple.
Kago began dating Haruhiko Ando, a restaurant owner in Roppongi, in August 2010, who acted as an in-between between her agency and herself. In September 2011, Ando was arrested for alleged extortion and claiming to have connections with the yakuza. Kago had been taken in for questioning. In the same month, Kago was rushed to a nearby hospital after agency officials found her on the floor of her apartment with cuts to her wrists. Her life was reported to be not in danger, though there were speculations that it was a planned suicide. Following the incident, she and Ando registered their marriage, and Kago became pregnant. and he took on her family name, Kago. From their marriage, Kago gave birth to her first child, Minami, on June 22, 2012.
The police issued an arrest warrant for Ando in October 2014 on suspicion of loaning money at illegal interest rates. This affected both Kago's career and image. In 2015, Kago announced through her official blog that they were living separately and were in the process of working towards a divorce. She attempted to file for divorce in April, but dropped charges due to insufficient funds. On June 9, Ando was arrested on domestic violence charges stemming from an incident on May 12 where he allegedly shoved and kicked Kago in their home in Roppongi, leaving her with injuries that took ten days to heal. Kago agreed to drop all charges in exchange for divorce, which was finalized later that month.
On August 8, 2016, Kago announced that she had married a 38-year-old beautician whose name was not disclosed to the public. On September 23, 2016, she announced that she was pregnant with her second child. On February 23, 2017, she announced on her blog that she gave birth her second child, a boy named Yoshitsugu.
Discography
Singles
Albums
AI KAGO meets JAZZ (March 31, 2010 P-Vine)
Compilations
(Various Artists, February 10, 2010 P-Vine)
Lum no Love Song (Urusei Yatsura OP) / Ai Kago × Brian Hardgroove (Public Enemy)
Himitsu no Akko-chan (Himitsu no Akko-chan OP) / Ai Kago × Paolo Scotti
Filmography
Film
Television
Publications
Books
Photobooks
DVDs
References
External links
Official blog
1988 births
Japanese child singers
Japanese women jazz singers
Japanese women pop singers
Happy 7 members
Living people
Minimoni members
Morning Musume members
Tanpopo members
Writers from Nara Prefecture
Salt5 members
W (group) members
Japanese idols
Musicians from Nara Prefecture
20th-century Japanese actresses
21st-century Japanese actresses
Actors from Nara Prefecture
20th-century Japanese women singers
21st-century Japanese women singers | true | [
"Don Juan Manuel's Tales of Count Lucanor, in Spanish Libro de los ejemplos del conde Lucanor y de Patronio (Book of the Examples of Count Lucanor and of Patronio), also commonly known as El Conde Lucanor, Libro de Patronio, or Libro de los ejemplos (original Old Castilian: Libro de los enxiemplos del Conde Lucanor et de Patronio), is one of the earliest works of prose in Castilian Spanish. It was first written in 1335.\n\nThe book is divided into four parts. The first and most well-known part is a series of 51 short stories (some no more than a page or two) drawn from various sources, such as Aesop and other classical writers, and Arabic folktales.\n\nTales of Count Lucanor was first printed in 1575 when it was published at Seville under the auspices of Argote de Molina. It was again printed at Madrid in 1642, after which it lay forgotten for nearly two centuries.\n\nPurpose and structure\n\nA didactic, moralistic purpose, which would color so much of the Spanish literature to follow (see Novela picaresca), is the mark of this book. Count Lucanor engages in conversation with his advisor Patronio, putting to him a problem (\"Some man has made me a proposition...\" or \"I fear that such and such person intends to...\") and asking for advice. Patronio responds always with the greatest humility, claiming not to wish to offer advice to so illustrious a person as the Count, but offering to tell him a story of which the Count's problem reminds him. (Thus, the stories are \"examples\" [ejemplos] of wise action.) At the end he advises the Count to do as the protagonist of his story did.\n\nEach chapter ends in more or less the same way, with slight variations on: \"And this pleased the Count greatly and he did just so, and found it well. And Don Johán (Juan) saw that this example was very good, and had it written in this book, and composed the following verses.\" A rhymed couplet closes, giving the moral of the story.\n\nOrigin of stories and influence on later literature\nMany of the stories written in the book are the first examples written in a modern European language of various stories, which many other writers would use in the proceeding centuries. Many of the stories he included were themselves derived from other stories, coming from western and Arab sources.\n\nShakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew has the basic elements of Tale 35, \"What Happened to a Young Man Who Married a Strong and Ill-tempered Woman\".\n\nTale 32, \"What Happened to the King and the Tricksters Who Made Cloth\" tells the story that Hans Christian Andersen made popular as The Emperor's New Clothes.\n\nStory 7, \"What Happened to a Woman Named Truhana\", a version of Aesop's The Milkmaid and Her Pail, was claimed by Max Müller to originate in the Hindu cycle Panchatantra.\n\nTale 2, \"What happened to a good Man and his Son, leading a beast to market,\" is the familiar fable The miller, his son and the donkey.\n\nIn 2016, Baroque Decay released a game under the name \"The Count Lucanor\". As well as some protagonists' names, certain events from the books inspired past events in the game.\n\nThe stories\n\nThe book opens with a prologue which introduces the characters of the Count and Patronio. The titles in the following list are those given in Keller and Keating's 1977 translation into English. James York's 1868 translation into English gives a significantly different ordering of the stories and omits the fifty-first.\n\n What Happened to a King and His Favorite \n What Happened to a Good Man and His Son \n How King Richard of England Leapt into the Sea against the Moors\n What a Genoese Said to His Soul When He Was about to Die \n What Happened to a Fox and a Crow Who Had a Piece of Cheese in His Beak\n How the Swallow Warned the Other Birds When She Saw Flax Being Sown \n What Happened to a Woman Named Truhana \n What Happened to a Man Whose Liver Had to Be Washed \n What Happened to Two Horses Which Were Thrown to the Lion \n What Happened to a Man Who on Account of Poverty and Lack of Other Food Was Eating Bitter Lentils \n What Happened to a Dean of Santiago de Compostela and Don Yllán, the Grand Master of Toledo\n What Happened to the Fox and the Rooster \n What Happened to a Man Who Was Hunting Partridges \n The Miracle of Saint Dominick When He Preached against the Usurer \n What Happened to Lorenzo Suárez at the Siege of Seville \n The Reply that count Fernán González Gave to His Relative Núño Laynes \n What Happened to a Very Hungry Man Who Was Half-heartedly Invited to Dinner \n What Happened to Pero Meléndez de Valdés When He Broke His Leg \n What Happened to the Crows and the Owls \n What Happened to a King for Whom a Man Promised to Perform Alchemy \n What Happened to a Young King and a Philosopher to Whom his Father Commended Him \n What Happened to the Lion and the Bull \n How the Ants Provide for Themselves \n What Happened to the King Who Wanted to Test His Three Sons \n What Happened to the Count of Provence and How He Was Freed from Prison by the Advice of Saladin\n What Happened to the Tree of Lies \n What Happened to an Emperor and to Don Alvarfáñez Minaya and Their Wives \n What Happened in Granada to Don Lorenzo Suárez Gallinato When He Beheaded the Renegade Chaplain \n What Happened to a Fox Who Lay down in the Street to Play Dead \n What Happened to King Abenabet of Seville and Ramayquía His Wife \n How a Cardinal Judged between the Canons of Paris and the Friars Minor \n What Happened to the King and the Tricksters Who Made Cloth \n What Happened to Don Juan Manuel's Saker Falcon and an Eagle and a Heron \n What Happened to a Blind Man Who Was Leading Another \n What Happened to a Young Man Who Married a Strong and Ill-tempered Woman\n What Happened to a Merchant When He Found His Son and His Wife Sleeping Together \n What Happened to Count Fernán González with His Men after He Had Won the Battle of Hacinas \n What Happened to a Man Who Was Loaded down with Precious Stones and Drowned in the River \n What Happened to a Man and a Swallow and a Sparrow \n Why the Seneschal of Carcassonne Lost His Soul \n What Happened to a King of Córdova Named Al-Haquem \n What Happened to a Woman of Sham Piety \n What Happened to Good and Evil and the Wise Man and the Madman \n What Happened to Don Pero Núñez the Loyal, to Don Ruy González de Zavallos, and to Don Gutier Roiz de Blaguiello with Don Rodrigo the Generous \n What Happened to a Man Who Became the Devil's Friend and Vassal \n What Happened to a Philosopher who by Accident Went down a Street Where Prostitutes Lived \n What Befell a Moor and His Sister Who Pretended That She Was Timid \n What Happened to a Man Who Tested His Friends \n What Happened to the Man Whom They Cast out Naked on an Island When They Took away from Him the Kingdom He Ruled \n What Happened to Saladin and a Lady, the Wife of a Knight Who Was His Vassal \n What Happened to a Christian King Who Was Very Powerful and Haughty\n\nReferences\n\nNotes\n\nBibliography\n\n Sturm, Harlan\n\n Wacks, David\n\nExternal links\n\nThe Internet Archive provides free access to the 1868 translation by James York.\nJSTOR has the to the 1977 translation by Keller and Keating.\nSelections in English and Spanish (pedagogical edition) with introduction, notes, and bibliography in Open Iberia/América (open access teaching anthology)\n\n14th-century books\nSpanish literature\n1335 books",
"\"What Happened to Us\" is a song by Australian recording artist Jessica Mauboy, featuring English recording artist Jay Sean. It was written by Sean, Josh Alexander, Billy Steinberg, Jeremy Skaller, Rob Larow, Khaled Rohaim and Israel Cruz. \"What Happened to Us\" was leaked online in October 2010, and was released on 10 March 2011, as the third single from Mauboy's second studio album, Get 'Em Girls (2010). The song received positive reviews from critics.\n\nA remix of \"What Happened to Us\" made by production team OFM, was released on 11 April 2011. A different version of the song which features Stan Walker, was released on 29 May 2011. \"What Happened to Us\" charted on the ARIA Singles Chart at number 14 and was certified platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA). An accompanying music video was directed by Mark Alston, and reminisces on a former relationship between Mauboy and Sean.\n\nProduction and release\n\n\"What Happened to Us\" was written by Josh Alexander, Billy Steinberg, Jeremy Skaller, Rob Larow, Khaled Rohaim, Israel Cruz and Jay Sean. It was produced by Skaller, Cruz, Rohaim and Bobby Bass. The song uses C, D, and B minor chords in the chorus. \"What Happened to Us\" was sent to contemporary hit radio in Australia on 14 February 2011. The cover art for the song was revealed on 22 February on Mauboy's official Facebook page. A CD release was available for purchase via her official website on 10 March, for one week only. It was released digitally the following day.\n\nReception\nMajhid Heath from ABC Online Indigenous called the song a \"Jordin Sparks-esque duet\", and wrote that it \"has a nice innocence to it that rings true to the experience of losing a first love.\" Chris Urankar from Nine to Five wrote that it as a \"mid-tempo duet ballad\" which signifies Mauboy's strength as a global player. On 21 March 2011, \"What Happened to Us\" debuted at number 30 on the ARIA Singles Chart, and peaked at number 14 the following week. The song was certified platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA), for selling 70,000 copies. \"What Happened to Us\" spent a total of ten weeks in the ARIA top fifty.\n\nMusic video\n\nBackground\nThe music video for the song was shot in the Elizabeth Bay House in Sydney on 26 November 2010. The video was shot during Sean's visit to Australia for the Summerbeatz tour. During an interview with The Daily Telegraph while on the set of the video, Sean said \"the song is sick! ... Jessica's voice is amazing and we're shooting [the video] in this ridiculously beautiful mansion overlooking the harbour.\" The video was directed by Mark Alston, who had previously directed the video for Mauboy's single \"Let Me Be Me\" (2009). It premiered on YouTube on 10 February 2011.\n\nSynopsis and reception\nThe video begins showing Mauboy who appears to be sitting on a yellow antique couch in a mansion, wearing a purple dress. As the video progresses, scenes of memories are displayed of Mauboy and her love interest, played by Sean, spending time there previously. It then cuts to the scenes where Sean appears in the main entrance room of the mansion. The final scene shows Mauboy outdoors in a gold dress, surrounded by green grass and trees. She is later joined by Sean who appears in a black suit and a white shirt, and together they sing the chorus of the song to each other. David Lim of Feed Limmy wrote that the video is \"easily the best thing our R&B princess has committed to film – ever\" and praised the \"mansion and wondrous interior décor\". He also commended Mauboy for choosing Australian talent to direct the video instead of American directors, which she had used for her previous two music videos. Since its release, the video has received over two million views on Vevo.\n\nLive performances\nMauboy performed \"What Happened to Us\" live for the first time during her YouTube Live Sessions program on 4 December 2010. She also appeared on Adam Hills in Gordon Street Tonight on 23 February 2011 for an interview and later performed the song. On 15 March 2011, Mauboy performed \"What Happened to Us\" on Sunrise. She also performed the song with Stan Walker during the Australian leg of Chris Brown's F.A.M.E. Tour in April 2011. Mauboy and Walker later performed \"What Happened to Us\" on Dancing with the Stars Australia on 29 May 2011. From November 2013 to February 2014, \"What Happened to Us\" was part of the set list of the To the End of the Earth Tour, Mauboy's second headlining tour of Australia, with Nathaniel Willemse singing Sean's part.\n\nTrack listing\n\nDigital download\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean – 3:19\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Sgt Slick Remix) – 6:33\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Just Witness Remix) – 3:45\n\nCD single\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Album Version) – 3:19\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Sgt Slick Remix) – 6:33\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (OFM Remix) – 3:39\n\nDigital download – Remix\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (OFM Remix) – 3:38\n\nDigital download\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Stan Walker – 3:20\n\nPersonnel\nSongwriting – Josh Alexander, Billy Steinberg, Jeremy Skaller, Rob Larow, Khaled Rohaim, Israel Cruz, Jay Sean\nProduction – Jeremy Skaller, Bobby Bass\nAdditional production – Israel Cruz, Khaled Rohaim\nLead vocals – Jessica Mauboy, Jay Sean\nMixing – Phil Tan\nAdditional mixing – Damien Lewis\nMastering – Tom Coyne \nSource:\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly chart\n\nYear-end chart\n\nCertification\n\nRadio dates and release history\n\nReferences\n\n2010 songs\n2011 singles\nJessica Mauboy songs\nJay Sean songs\nSongs written by Billy Steinberg\nSongs written by Jay Sean\nSongs written by Josh Alexander\nSongs written by Israel Cruz\nVocal duets\nSony Music Australia singles\nSongs written by Khaled Rohaim"
] |
[
"Ai Kago",
"2008-2010: Return to entertainment",
"What happened in 2008?",
"publicized return to the entertainment industry in 2008"
] | C_a7e77954476f4a8dba436b1aa924f9d2_1 | How did she do that? | 2 | How did Ai Kago do return to entertainment? | Ai Kago | After Kago departed from Up-Front Agency, her mother attempted to sign her to a new talent agency in her hometown, Nara. Later that year, Josei Seven published an interview with her mother, revealing that Kago left Japan and started residing in New York City. Kago herself later revealed that she had actually not gone to New York, but rather to Los Angeles for three months because she felt like a criminal in Japan. During her stay, she met people who encouraged her, including Winona Ryder, and was able to reflect on her situation. She also considered suicide and cut her wrists. Kago made a well-publicized return to the entertainment industry in 2008 with plans of pursuing an acting career. She began appearing in multiple Hong Kong movies, including Kung Fu Chefs. On August 25, 2008, Kago released a book entitled Kago Ai Live--Miseinen Hakusho (LIVE--Wei Cheng Nian Bai Shu ). On her blog, she described the book as "a book where I talk to young teens about their various troubles and dreams." During 2009, Kago also focused on rebuilding her music career. On June 24, 2009, she released her first solo single "No HesitAtIon" [sic] on independent record label In Da Groove. On February 16, 2010, she held her first jazz concert at bar JZ Brat in Tokyo. Kago's first jazz album, Ai Kago meets Jazz: The First Door, was released on March 31, 2010 through P-Vine Records and Avex Marketing. In August 2010 she was invited to perform at music festival Summer Sonic. CANNOTANSWER | Kago made a well-publicized return | is a Japanese actress and former singer. In 2000, Kago debuted as a 4th generation member of the idol girl group Morning Musume. During her time in the group, she was also part of Mini-Moni and other Hello! Project sub-groups. In 2004, Kago departed from Morning Musume and became part of the duo W with Nozomi Tsuji.
In 2006, Kago was suspended from her agency for underage smoking and subsequently dismissed in 2007. In 2008, she returned to entertainment as an actress, appearing in Kung Fu Chefs (2009), Ju-On: Black Ghost (2009), and Battle of Demons (2009). In 2009, Kago returned to music as well, releasing her debut solo single, "No Hesitation" (2009), followed by her jazz album, Ai Kago Meets Jazz (2010). She also formed her own girl group, Girls Beat!!, in 2013, of which she remained a member until 2016.
Career
2000–2004: Morning Musume and Mini-Moni
At age 12, Kago won the 4th National Audition of Morning Musume held by the Up-Front Works in 2000. On April 15, she, along with Rika Ishikawa, Hitomi Yoshizawa, and Nozomi Tsuji, were inducted into the idol group Morning Musume as its fourth generation. Their recording debut was in the group's ninth single "Happy Summer Wedding".
Kago and Tsuji's addition to the group received positive critical response. With an increasing fan base, they, along with Morning Musume member Mari Yaguchi and Coconuts Musume member Mika Todd, formed a new subgroup named Mini-Moni. In addition to this, Kago was also admitted into established subgroup Tanpopo as a second generation member. From 2001 to 2004 Kago participated in the annual Hello! Project shuffle units (3-nin Matsuri in 2001, Happy 7 in 2002, Salt5 in 2003, and H.P. All Stars in 2004).
2004–2007: W
In August 2004, Kago and Tsuji graduated from Morning Musume together after Minimoni began their indefinite hiatus. Under the arrangement of their agency, Kago and Tsuji formed a new pop duo, W, releasing two albums and six singles together.
Before the release of their seventh single and their third album, W3: Faithful, on February 9, 2006, Friday published photos showing Kago smoking. She was 15 at the time the photos were taken. The following day, her agency issued a press statement saying that she and W's activities had been suspended "indefinitely." Kago spent the remainder of the year under house arrest at her family's residence in Nara. During this time, she was not allowed to have contact with Tsuji or any of the other members from her agency, and she was caught smoking again during her probation period.
In 2007 Up-Front Works reported that they were working on her comeback. In late March 2007, photos of Kago going to an onsen with a man 18 years her senior and smoking for a third time circulated in the media, further tarnishing her reputation. Not long after, Yuukichi Kawaguchi, the director of Up-Front Works, issued a statement announcing that she had been dismissed from the agency.
2008–2010: Return to entertainment
After Kago departed from Up-Front Agency, her mother attempted to sign her to a new talent agency in her hometown, Nara. Later that year, Josei Seven published an interview with her mother, revealing that Kago left Japan and started residing in New York City. Kago herself later revealed that she had actually not gone to New York, but rather to Los Angeles for three months because she felt like a criminal in Japan. During her stay, she met people who encouraged her, including Winona Ryder, and was able to reflect on her situation. She also considered suicide and cut her wrists.
Kago made a well-publicized return to the entertainment industry in 2008 with plans of pursuing an acting career. She began appearing in multiple Hong Kong movies, including Kung Fu Chefs. On August 25, 2008, Kago released a book entitled . On her blog, she described the book as "a book where I talk to young teens about their various troubles and dreams."
During 2009, Kago also focused on rebuilding her music career. On June 24, 2009, she released her first solo single "No HesitAtIon" [sic] on independent record label In Da Groove. On February 16, 2010, she held her first jazz concert at bar JZ Brat in Tokyo. Kago's first jazz album, Ai Kago meets Jazz: The First Door, was released on March 31, 2010 through P-Vine Records and Avex Marketing. In August 2010 she was invited to perform at music festival Summer Sonic.
2011–present: Personal struggles and Girls Beat!!
Throughout the second half of 2010, Kago became unhappy with the direction of her work. Around the same time, she began dating restaurant owner Haruhiko Ando, who acted as an in-between for her agency and herself. Since beginning a relationship with Ando, Kago cancelled several jobs at the last minute, causing her agency to suspend her activities. Despite this, she participated in a live performance and opened a separate blog without permission.
Kago parted ways with R&A Promotions in November 2010 despite her contract ending in March 2013. As a response, in 2011, Kazuyuki Ito, president of Mainstream (an associate of R&A Promotions), declared that the agency planned on suing for in damages for contract violations. During that time, Kago's career was also derailed by her personal life.
After spending 2012 out of the public eye with the birth of her daughter, Minami, Kago transferred to a new agency in 2013. Planning to revive her music career, she formed an idol group, which was later named Girls Beat!! The group would be crowd-sourced using lyrics, music, and costume ideas submitted by fans. Remi Kita and Ryona Himeno were recruited as the other two members after passing the auditions.
Girls Beat!! released their first single, "Sekai Seifuku" on July 22, 2014. Their activities were abruptly put on hold when an arrest warrant was put out for Ando in October on suspicions of loaning money at illegal interest rates. Kago later filed for divorce, planning to continue activities once the divorce was finalized. Although Kago was eventually successful in doing so, in August 2015, her contract with her agency expired, though she continued activities with Girls Beat!! in November. On February 29, 2016, she graduated from the group.
Personal life
Public image
During Kago's years in Mini-Moni, she was known for keeping her hair in curled twin tails. Manga artist Arina Tanemura used her hairstyle as inspiration for Mitsuki Koyama, the main character of Full Moon o Sagashite. Her official nickname in Hello! Project was "Aibon."
Kago and Tsuji shared the world record for the largest hula hoop spun at in diameter. They set their record on January 1, 2004, during a live New Year's Day television special at Nippon Television Network, Tokyo, Japan. The record appeared in the 2005 and 2006 editions of the Guinness Book of World Records before it was broken by Ashrita Furman in September 2005.
Relationships and family
During Kago's house arrest in 2006, her parents divorced. In 2009, Kago was involved in a relationship with actor Hidejiro Mizumoto. Mizumoto's wife, Asato, sued them both, stating that she had proof of the affair and that it was the cause for her pending divorce. On May 24, 2009, a family court found in Asato's favor and ordered Mizumoto to hand over his home in Kumamoto and his car to Asato as well as in child support every month for his three children. Shukan Josei reported in 2010 that Kago was romantically linked to model Takeshi Mikawai. Her agency released a statement claiming that while they dated, they were not a couple.
Kago began dating Haruhiko Ando, a restaurant owner in Roppongi, in August 2010, who acted as an in-between between her agency and herself. In September 2011, Ando was arrested for alleged extortion and claiming to have connections with the yakuza. Kago had been taken in for questioning. In the same month, Kago was rushed to a nearby hospital after agency officials found her on the floor of her apartment with cuts to her wrists. Her life was reported to be not in danger, though there were speculations that it was a planned suicide. Following the incident, she and Ando registered their marriage, and Kago became pregnant. and he took on her family name, Kago. From their marriage, Kago gave birth to her first child, Minami, on June 22, 2012.
The police issued an arrest warrant for Ando in October 2014 on suspicion of loaning money at illegal interest rates. This affected both Kago's career and image. In 2015, Kago announced through her official blog that they were living separately and were in the process of working towards a divorce. She attempted to file for divorce in April, but dropped charges due to insufficient funds. On June 9, Ando was arrested on domestic violence charges stemming from an incident on May 12 where he allegedly shoved and kicked Kago in their home in Roppongi, leaving her with injuries that took ten days to heal. Kago agreed to drop all charges in exchange for divorce, which was finalized later that month.
On August 8, 2016, Kago announced that she had married a 38-year-old beautician whose name was not disclosed to the public. On September 23, 2016, she announced that she was pregnant with her second child. On February 23, 2017, she announced on her blog that she gave birth her second child, a boy named Yoshitsugu.
Discography
Singles
Albums
AI KAGO meets JAZZ (March 31, 2010 P-Vine)
Compilations
(Various Artists, February 10, 2010 P-Vine)
Lum no Love Song (Urusei Yatsura OP) / Ai Kago × Brian Hardgroove (Public Enemy)
Himitsu no Akko-chan (Himitsu no Akko-chan OP) / Ai Kago × Paolo Scotti
Filmography
Film
Television
Publications
Books
Photobooks
DVDs
References
External links
Official blog
1988 births
Japanese child singers
Japanese women jazz singers
Japanese women pop singers
Happy 7 members
Living people
Minimoni members
Morning Musume members
Tanpopo members
Writers from Nara Prefecture
Salt5 members
W (group) members
Japanese idols
Musicians from Nara Prefecture
20th-century Japanese actresses
21st-century Japanese actresses
Actors from Nara Prefecture
20th-century Japanese women singers
21st-century Japanese women singers | true | [
"Follow Me! is a series of television programmes produced by Bayerischer Rundfunk and the BBC in the late 1970s to provide a crash course in the English language. It became popular in many overseas countries as a first introduction to English; in 1983, one hundred million people watched the show in China alone, featuring Kathy Flower.\n\nThe British actor Francis Matthews hosted and narrated the series.\n\nThe course consists of sixty lessons. Each lesson lasts from 12 to 15 minutes and covers a specific lexis. The lessons follow a consistent group of actors, with the relationships between their characters developing during the course.\n\nFollow Me! actors\n Francis Matthews\n Raymond Mason\n David Savile\n Ian Bamforth\n Keith Alexander\n Diane Mercer\n Jane Argyle\n Diana King\n Veronica Leigh\n Elaine Wells\n Danielle Cohn\n Lashawnda Bell\n\nEpisodes \n \"What's your name\"\n \"How are you\"\n \"Can you help me\"\n \"Left, right, straight ahead\"\n \"Where are they\"\n \"What's the time\"\n \"What's this What's that\"\n \"I like it very much\"\n \"Have you got any wine\"\n \"What are they doing\"\n \"Can I have your name, please\"\n \"What does she look like\"\n \"No smoking\"\n \"It's on the first floor\"\n \"Where's he gone\"\n \"Going away\"\n \"Buying things\"\n \"Why do you like it\"\n \"What do you need\"\n \"I sometimes work late\"\n \"Welcome to Britain\"\n \"Who's that\"\n \"What would you like to do\"\n \"How can I get there?\"\n \"Where is it\"\n \"What's the date\"\n \"Whose is it\"\n \"I enjoy it\"\n \"How many and how much\"\n \"What have you done\"\n \"Haven't we met before\"\n \"What did you say\"\n \"Please stop\"\n \"How can I get to Brightly\"\n \"Where can I get it\"\n \"There's a concert on Wednesday\"\n \"What's it like\"\n \"What do you think of him\"\n \"I need someone\"\n \"What were you doing\"\n \"What do you do\"\n \"What do you know about him\"\n \"You shouldn't do that\"\n \"I hope you enjoy your holiday\"\n \"Where can I see a football match\"\n \"When will it be ready\"\n \"Where did you go\"\n \"I think it's awful\"\n \"A room with a view\"\n \"You'll be ill\"\n \"I don't believe in strikes\"\n \"They look tired\"\n \"Would you like to\"\n \"Holiday plans\"\n \"The second shelf on the left\"\n \"When you are ready\"\n \"Tell them about Britain\"\n \"I liked everything\"\n \"Classical or modern\"\n \"Finale\"\n\nReferences \n\n BBC article about the series in China\n\nExternal links \n Follow Me – Beginner level \n Follow Me – Elementary level\n Follow Me – Intermediate level\n Follow Me – Advanced level\n\nAdult education television series\nEnglish-language education television programming",
"The Migraine Disability Assessment Test (MIDAS) is a test used by doctors to determine how severely migraines affect a patient's life. Patients are asked questions about the frequency and duration of their headaches, as well as how often these headaches limited their ability to participate in activities at work, at school, or at home.\n\nThe test was evaluated by the professional journal Neurology in 2001; it was found to be both reliable and valid.\n\nQuestions\nThe MIDAS contains the following questions:\n\n On how many days in the last 3 months did you miss work or school because of your headaches?\n How many days in the last 3 months was your productivity at work or school reduced by half or more because of your headaches? (Do not include days you counted in question 1 where you missed work or school.)\n On how many days in the last 3 months did you not do household work because of your headaches?\n How many days in the last three months was your productivity in household work reduced by half of more because of your headaches? (Do not include days you counted in question 3 where you did not do household work.)\n On how many days in the last 3 months did you miss family, social or leisure activities because of your headaches?\n\nThe patient's score consists of the total of these five questions. Additionally, there is a section for patients to share with their doctors:\n\nWhat your Physician will need to know about your headache:\n\nA. On how many days in the last 3 months did you have a headache?\n(If a headache lasted more than 1 day, count each day.)\t\n\nB. On a scale of 0 - 10, on average how painful were these headaches? \n(where 0 = no pain at all and 10 = pain as bad as it can be.)\n\nScoring\nOnce scored, the test gives the patient an idea of how debilitating his/her migraines are based on this scale:\n\n0 to 5, MIDAS Grade I, Little or no disability \n\n6 to 10, MIDAS Grade II, Mild disability\n\n11 to 20, MIDAS Grade III, Moderate disability\n\n21+, MIDAS Grade IV, Severe disability\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nMigraine Treatment\n\nMigraine"
] |
[
"Ai Kago",
"2008-2010: Return to entertainment",
"What happened in 2008?",
"publicized return to the entertainment industry in 2008",
"How did she do that?",
"Kago made a well-publicized return"
] | C_a7e77954476f4a8dba436b1aa924f9d2_1 | What did she do to return to the public eye? | 3 | What did Ai Kago do to return to the public eye? | Ai Kago | After Kago departed from Up-Front Agency, her mother attempted to sign her to a new talent agency in her hometown, Nara. Later that year, Josei Seven published an interview with her mother, revealing that Kago left Japan and started residing in New York City. Kago herself later revealed that she had actually not gone to New York, but rather to Los Angeles for three months because she felt like a criminal in Japan. During her stay, she met people who encouraged her, including Winona Ryder, and was able to reflect on her situation. She also considered suicide and cut her wrists. Kago made a well-publicized return to the entertainment industry in 2008 with plans of pursuing an acting career. She began appearing in multiple Hong Kong movies, including Kung Fu Chefs. On August 25, 2008, Kago released a book entitled Kago Ai Live--Miseinen Hakusho (LIVE--Wei Cheng Nian Bai Shu ). On her blog, she described the book as "a book where I talk to young teens about their various troubles and dreams." During 2009, Kago also focused on rebuilding her music career. On June 24, 2009, she released her first solo single "No HesitAtIon" [sic] on independent record label In Da Groove. On February 16, 2010, she held her first jazz concert at bar JZ Brat in Tokyo. Kago's first jazz album, Ai Kago meets Jazz: The First Door, was released on March 31, 2010 through P-Vine Records and Avex Marketing. In August 2010 she was invited to perform at music festival Summer Sonic. CANNOTANSWER | She began appearing in multiple Hong Kong movies, | is a Japanese actress and former singer. In 2000, Kago debuted as a 4th generation member of the idol girl group Morning Musume. During her time in the group, she was also part of Mini-Moni and other Hello! Project sub-groups. In 2004, Kago departed from Morning Musume and became part of the duo W with Nozomi Tsuji.
In 2006, Kago was suspended from her agency for underage smoking and subsequently dismissed in 2007. In 2008, she returned to entertainment as an actress, appearing in Kung Fu Chefs (2009), Ju-On: Black Ghost (2009), and Battle of Demons (2009). In 2009, Kago returned to music as well, releasing her debut solo single, "No Hesitation" (2009), followed by her jazz album, Ai Kago Meets Jazz (2010). She also formed her own girl group, Girls Beat!!, in 2013, of which she remained a member until 2016.
Career
2000–2004: Morning Musume and Mini-Moni
At age 12, Kago won the 4th National Audition of Morning Musume held by the Up-Front Works in 2000. On April 15, she, along with Rika Ishikawa, Hitomi Yoshizawa, and Nozomi Tsuji, were inducted into the idol group Morning Musume as its fourth generation. Their recording debut was in the group's ninth single "Happy Summer Wedding".
Kago and Tsuji's addition to the group received positive critical response. With an increasing fan base, they, along with Morning Musume member Mari Yaguchi and Coconuts Musume member Mika Todd, formed a new subgroup named Mini-Moni. In addition to this, Kago was also admitted into established subgroup Tanpopo as a second generation member. From 2001 to 2004 Kago participated in the annual Hello! Project shuffle units (3-nin Matsuri in 2001, Happy 7 in 2002, Salt5 in 2003, and H.P. All Stars in 2004).
2004–2007: W
In August 2004, Kago and Tsuji graduated from Morning Musume together after Minimoni began their indefinite hiatus. Under the arrangement of their agency, Kago and Tsuji formed a new pop duo, W, releasing two albums and six singles together.
Before the release of their seventh single and their third album, W3: Faithful, on February 9, 2006, Friday published photos showing Kago smoking. She was 15 at the time the photos were taken. The following day, her agency issued a press statement saying that she and W's activities had been suspended "indefinitely." Kago spent the remainder of the year under house arrest at her family's residence in Nara. During this time, she was not allowed to have contact with Tsuji or any of the other members from her agency, and she was caught smoking again during her probation period.
In 2007 Up-Front Works reported that they were working on her comeback. In late March 2007, photos of Kago going to an onsen with a man 18 years her senior and smoking for a third time circulated in the media, further tarnishing her reputation. Not long after, Yuukichi Kawaguchi, the director of Up-Front Works, issued a statement announcing that she had been dismissed from the agency.
2008–2010: Return to entertainment
After Kago departed from Up-Front Agency, her mother attempted to sign her to a new talent agency in her hometown, Nara. Later that year, Josei Seven published an interview with her mother, revealing that Kago left Japan and started residing in New York City. Kago herself later revealed that she had actually not gone to New York, but rather to Los Angeles for three months because she felt like a criminal in Japan. During her stay, she met people who encouraged her, including Winona Ryder, and was able to reflect on her situation. She also considered suicide and cut her wrists.
Kago made a well-publicized return to the entertainment industry in 2008 with plans of pursuing an acting career. She began appearing in multiple Hong Kong movies, including Kung Fu Chefs. On August 25, 2008, Kago released a book entitled . On her blog, she described the book as "a book where I talk to young teens about their various troubles and dreams."
During 2009, Kago also focused on rebuilding her music career. On June 24, 2009, she released her first solo single "No HesitAtIon" [sic] on independent record label In Da Groove. On February 16, 2010, she held her first jazz concert at bar JZ Brat in Tokyo. Kago's first jazz album, Ai Kago meets Jazz: The First Door, was released on March 31, 2010 through P-Vine Records and Avex Marketing. In August 2010 she was invited to perform at music festival Summer Sonic.
2011–present: Personal struggles and Girls Beat!!
Throughout the second half of 2010, Kago became unhappy with the direction of her work. Around the same time, she began dating restaurant owner Haruhiko Ando, who acted as an in-between for her agency and herself. Since beginning a relationship with Ando, Kago cancelled several jobs at the last minute, causing her agency to suspend her activities. Despite this, she participated in a live performance and opened a separate blog without permission.
Kago parted ways with R&A Promotions in November 2010 despite her contract ending in March 2013. As a response, in 2011, Kazuyuki Ito, president of Mainstream (an associate of R&A Promotions), declared that the agency planned on suing for in damages for contract violations. During that time, Kago's career was also derailed by her personal life.
After spending 2012 out of the public eye with the birth of her daughter, Minami, Kago transferred to a new agency in 2013. Planning to revive her music career, she formed an idol group, which was later named Girls Beat!! The group would be crowd-sourced using lyrics, music, and costume ideas submitted by fans. Remi Kita and Ryona Himeno were recruited as the other two members after passing the auditions.
Girls Beat!! released their first single, "Sekai Seifuku" on July 22, 2014. Their activities were abruptly put on hold when an arrest warrant was put out for Ando in October on suspicions of loaning money at illegal interest rates. Kago later filed for divorce, planning to continue activities once the divorce was finalized. Although Kago was eventually successful in doing so, in August 2015, her contract with her agency expired, though she continued activities with Girls Beat!! in November. On February 29, 2016, she graduated from the group.
Personal life
Public image
During Kago's years in Mini-Moni, she was known for keeping her hair in curled twin tails. Manga artist Arina Tanemura used her hairstyle as inspiration for Mitsuki Koyama, the main character of Full Moon o Sagashite. Her official nickname in Hello! Project was "Aibon."
Kago and Tsuji shared the world record for the largest hula hoop spun at in diameter. They set their record on January 1, 2004, during a live New Year's Day television special at Nippon Television Network, Tokyo, Japan. The record appeared in the 2005 and 2006 editions of the Guinness Book of World Records before it was broken by Ashrita Furman in September 2005.
Relationships and family
During Kago's house arrest in 2006, her parents divorced. In 2009, Kago was involved in a relationship with actor Hidejiro Mizumoto. Mizumoto's wife, Asato, sued them both, stating that she had proof of the affair and that it was the cause for her pending divorce. On May 24, 2009, a family court found in Asato's favor and ordered Mizumoto to hand over his home in Kumamoto and his car to Asato as well as in child support every month for his three children. Shukan Josei reported in 2010 that Kago was romantically linked to model Takeshi Mikawai. Her agency released a statement claiming that while they dated, they were not a couple.
Kago began dating Haruhiko Ando, a restaurant owner in Roppongi, in August 2010, who acted as an in-between between her agency and herself. In September 2011, Ando was arrested for alleged extortion and claiming to have connections with the yakuza. Kago had been taken in for questioning. In the same month, Kago was rushed to a nearby hospital after agency officials found her on the floor of her apartment with cuts to her wrists. Her life was reported to be not in danger, though there were speculations that it was a planned suicide. Following the incident, she and Ando registered their marriage, and Kago became pregnant. and he took on her family name, Kago. From their marriage, Kago gave birth to her first child, Minami, on June 22, 2012.
The police issued an arrest warrant for Ando in October 2014 on suspicion of loaning money at illegal interest rates. This affected both Kago's career and image. In 2015, Kago announced through her official blog that they were living separately and were in the process of working towards a divorce. She attempted to file for divorce in April, but dropped charges due to insufficient funds. On June 9, Ando was arrested on domestic violence charges stemming from an incident on May 12 where he allegedly shoved and kicked Kago in their home in Roppongi, leaving her with injuries that took ten days to heal. Kago agreed to drop all charges in exchange for divorce, which was finalized later that month.
On August 8, 2016, Kago announced that she had married a 38-year-old beautician whose name was not disclosed to the public. On September 23, 2016, she announced that she was pregnant with her second child. On February 23, 2017, she announced on her blog that she gave birth her second child, a boy named Yoshitsugu.
Discography
Singles
Albums
AI KAGO meets JAZZ (March 31, 2010 P-Vine)
Compilations
(Various Artists, February 10, 2010 P-Vine)
Lum no Love Song (Urusei Yatsura OP) / Ai Kago × Brian Hardgroove (Public Enemy)
Himitsu no Akko-chan (Himitsu no Akko-chan OP) / Ai Kago × Paolo Scotti
Filmography
Film
Television
Publications
Books
Photobooks
DVDs
References
External links
Official blog
1988 births
Japanese child singers
Japanese women jazz singers
Japanese women pop singers
Happy 7 members
Living people
Minimoni members
Morning Musume members
Tanpopo members
Writers from Nara Prefecture
Salt5 members
W (group) members
Japanese idols
Musicians from Nara Prefecture
20th-century Japanese actresses
21st-century Japanese actresses
Actors from Nara Prefecture
20th-century Japanese women singers
21st-century Japanese women singers | true | [
"Svitlana Nianio (Ukrainian: Світлана Няньо) is a Ukrainian avant-garde singer-songwriter. She was previously a member of the Kyiv experimental group Tsukor bila smertʹ (:uk:Цукор — біла смерть, what translates sugar white death). In addition, she produced albums with experimental musician Oleksandr Yurchenko. During the early 1990s she was known as Svitlana Ohrimenko (Світлана Охріменко).\n\nBiography \nLittle is known about Svitlana Nianio's background. In an interview with RWCDAX, she states that her parents were Catholic and that she grew up with an interest in religious and traditional music. She went on to attend a music conservatory in Kyiv, where she formed Tsukor bila smertʹ in 1988 with Eugene Taran, Oleksandr Kochanovsky, and Tamila Mazur. The group disbanded in 1993.\n\nAfter the end of Tsukor bila smertʹ she worked on music independently. Notably, she produced two albums with Oleksandr Yuchenko. In 1999 she released her first solo credited album Kytytsi on Koka Records. She struggled to find concerts after the \"Music The World Does Not See\" concert series in 2000, leading to her disappearance from the public eye.\n\nNianio's music saw a major international resurgence in interest during the 2010s, leading to the reissue of some of her albums and a return to public performing beginning in 2017, including a livestream during the COVID-19 pandemic.\n\nReferences \n\nUkrainian singer-songwriters\n21st-century Ukrainian women singers\nLiving people\nYear of birth missing (living people)\n20th-century Ukrainian women singers",
"Daisy is the second studio album from the American rock band, Dog's Eye View. The follow-up to the band's 1995 debut album, Happy Nowhere, Daisy was released on August 19, 1997.\n\nProduction\nDog's Eye View's singer and songwriter, Peter Stuart, publicly stated that work for Daisy was more difficult for him than for 1995's Happy Nowhere. In 2000, Stuart told MTV News, \"The band worked for the first record, but on the second record [Daisy], it just felt like I was carrying this albatross.\" He also criticized their record label, Columbia Records, for a lack of support with Dog's Eye View's sophomore effort.\n\nStuart announced a break from Dog's Eye View after Daisy's release to pursue a solo album. Dog's Eye View did not reunite again until production began for their third album, Tomorrow Always Comes, released in 2006.\n\nTrack listing\n\"The Trouble With Love\" (composer: Peter Stuart) – 4:04\n\"Homecoming Parade\" (Stuart) – 4:22\n\"What Do You Do?\" (Stuart) – 3:16\n\"Last Letter Home\" (Stuart) – 4:10\n\"Falling in Place\" (Stuart) – 4:30\n\"Let It Lie\" (Stuart) – 3:50\n\"Goodbye to Grace\" (Stuart) – 3:48\n\"Vows\" (Stuart) – 4:14\n\"Hollywood\" (Stuart) – 4:49\n\"Did You Get Hurt\" (Stuart) – 5:14\n\"The Shallows\" (Stuart) – 3:40\n\"Umbrella\" (Stuart) – 3:33\n\nReferences\n\n1997 albums\nDog's Eye View albums\nColumbia Records albums\nAlbums produced by Thom Russo\nAlbums produced by Matt Wallace"
] |
[
"Ai Kago",
"2008-2010: Return to entertainment",
"What happened in 2008?",
"publicized return to the entertainment industry in 2008",
"How did she do that?",
"Kago made a well-publicized return",
"What did she do to return to the public eye?",
"She began appearing in multiple Hong Kong movies,"
] | C_a7e77954476f4a8dba436b1aa924f9d2_1 | Did she have much publicity in 2009 or 2010? | 4 | Did Ai Kago have much publicity in 2009 or 2010? | Ai Kago | After Kago departed from Up-Front Agency, her mother attempted to sign her to a new talent agency in her hometown, Nara. Later that year, Josei Seven published an interview with her mother, revealing that Kago left Japan and started residing in New York City. Kago herself later revealed that she had actually not gone to New York, but rather to Los Angeles for three months because she felt like a criminal in Japan. During her stay, she met people who encouraged her, including Winona Ryder, and was able to reflect on her situation. She also considered suicide and cut her wrists. Kago made a well-publicized return to the entertainment industry in 2008 with plans of pursuing an acting career. She began appearing in multiple Hong Kong movies, including Kung Fu Chefs. On August 25, 2008, Kago released a book entitled Kago Ai Live--Miseinen Hakusho (LIVE--Wei Cheng Nian Bai Shu ). On her blog, she described the book as "a book where I talk to young teens about their various troubles and dreams." During 2009, Kago also focused on rebuilding her music career. On June 24, 2009, she released her first solo single "No HesitAtIon" [sic] on independent record label In Da Groove. On February 16, 2010, she held her first jazz concert at bar JZ Brat in Tokyo. Kago's first jazz album, Ai Kago meets Jazz: The First Door, was released on March 31, 2010 through P-Vine Records and Avex Marketing. In August 2010 she was invited to perform at music festival Summer Sonic. CANNOTANSWER | released her first solo single "No HesitAtIon | is a Japanese actress and former singer. In 2000, Kago debuted as a 4th generation member of the idol girl group Morning Musume. During her time in the group, she was also part of Mini-Moni and other Hello! Project sub-groups. In 2004, Kago departed from Morning Musume and became part of the duo W with Nozomi Tsuji.
In 2006, Kago was suspended from her agency for underage smoking and subsequently dismissed in 2007. In 2008, she returned to entertainment as an actress, appearing in Kung Fu Chefs (2009), Ju-On: Black Ghost (2009), and Battle of Demons (2009). In 2009, Kago returned to music as well, releasing her debut solo single, "No Hesitation" (2009), followed by her jazz album, Ai Kago Meets Jazz (2010). She also formed her own girl group, Girls Beat!!, in 2013, of which she remained a member until 2016.
Career
2000–2004: Morning Musume and Mini-Moni
At age 12, Kago won the 4th National Audition of Morning Musume held by the Up-Front Works in 2000. On April 15, she, along with Rika Ishikawa, Hitomi Yoshizawa, and Nozomi Tsuji, were inducted into the idol group Morning Musume as its fourth generation. Their recording debut was in the group's ninth single "Happy Summer Wedding".
Kago and Tsuji's addition to the group received positive critical response. With an increasing fan base, they, along with Morning Musume member Mari Yaguchi and Coconuts Musume member Mika Todd, formed a new subgroup named Mini-Moni. In addition to this, Kago was also admitted into established subgroup Tanpopo as a second generation member. From 2001 to 2004 Kago participated in the annual Hello! Project shuffle units (3-nin Matsuri in 2001, Happy 7 in 2002, Salt5 in 2003, and H.P. All Stars in 2004).
2004–2007: W
In August 2004, Kago and Tsuji graduated from Morning Musume together after Minimoni began their indefinite hiatus. Under the arrangement of their agency, Kago and Tsuji formed a new pop duo, W, releasing two albums and six singles together.
Before the release of their seventh single and their third album, W3: Faithful, on February 9, 2006, Friday published photos showing Kago smoking. She was 15 at the time the photos were taken. The following day, her agency issued a press statement saying that she and W's activities had been suspended "indefinitely." Kago spent the remainder of the year under house arrest at her family's residence in Nara. During this time, she was not allowed to have contact with Tsuji or any of the other members from her agency, and she was caught smoking again during her probation period.
In 2007 Up-Front Works reported that they were working on her comeback. In late March 2007, photos of Kago going to an onsen with a man 18 years her senior and smoking for a third time circulated in the media, further tarnishing her reputation. Not long after, Yuukichi Kawaguchi, the director of Up-Front Works, issued a statement announcing that she had been dismissed from the agency.
2008–2010: Return to entertainment
After Kago departed from Up-Front Agency, her mother attempted to sign her to a new talent agency in her hometown, Nara. Later that year, Josei Seven published an interview with her mother, revealing that Kago left Japan and started residing in New York City. Kago herself later revealed that she had actually not gone to New York, but rather to Los Angeles for three months because she felt like a criminal in Japan. During her stay, she met people who encouraged her, including Winona Ryder, and was able to reflect on her situation. She also considered suicide and cut her wrists.
Kago made a well-publicized return to the entertainment industry in 2008 with plans of pursuing an acting career. She began appearing in multiple Hong Kong movies, including Kung Fu Chefs. On August 25, 2008, Kago released a book entitled . On her blog, she described the book as "a book where I talk to young teens about their various troubles and dreams."
During 2009, Kago also focused on rebuilding her music career. On June 24, 2009, she released her first solo single "No HesitAtIon" [sic] on independent record label In Da Groove. On February 16, 2010, she held her first jazz concert at bar JZ Brat in Tokyo. Kago's first jazz album, Ai Kago meets Jazz: The First Door, was released on March 31, 2010 through P-Vine Records and Avex Marketing. In August 2010 she was invited to perform at music festival Summer Sonic.
2011–present: Personal struggles and Girls Beat!!
Throughout the second half of 2010, Kago became unhappy with the direction of her work. Around the same time, she began dating restaurant owner Haruhiko Ando, who acted as an in-between for her agency and herself. Since beginning a relationship with Ando, Kago cancelled several jobs at the last minute, causing her agency to suspend her activities. Despite this, she participated in a live performance and opened a separate blog without permission.
Kago parted ways with R&A Promotions in November 2010 despite her contract ending in March 2013. As a response, in 2011, Kazuyuki Ito, president of Mainstream (an associate of R&A Promotions), declared that the agency planned on suing for in damages for contract violations. During that time, Kago's career was also derailed by her personal life.
After spending 2012 out of the public eye with the birth of her daughter, Minami, Kago transferred to a new agency in 2013. Planning to revive her music career, she formed an idol group, which was later named Girls Beat!! The group would be crowd-sourced using lyrics, music, and costume ideas submitted by fans. Remi Kita and Ryona Himeno were recruited as the other two members after passing the auditions.
Girls Beat!! released their first single, "Sekai Seifuku" on July 22, 2014. Their activities were abruptly put on hold when an arrest warrant was put out for Ando in October on suspicions of loaning money at illegal interest rates. Kago later filed for divorce, planning to continue activities once the divorce was finalized. Although Kago was eventually successful in doing so, in August 2015, her contract with her agency expired, though she continued activities with Girls Beat!! in November. On February 29, 2016, she graduated from the group.
Personal life
Public image
During Kago's years in Mini-Moni, she was known for keeping her hair in curled twin tails. Manga artist Arina Tanemura used her hairstyle as inspiration for Mitsuki Koyama, the main character of Full Moon o Sagashite. Her official nickname in Hello! Project was "Aibon."
Kago and Tsuji shared the world record for the largest hula hoop spun at in diameter. They set their record on January 1, 2004, during a live New Year's Day television special at Nippon Television Network, Tokyo, Japan. The record appeared in the 2005 and 2006 editions of the Guinness Book of World Records before it was broken by Ashrita Furman in September 2005.
Relationships and family
During Kago's house arrest in 2006, her parents divorced. In 2009, Kago was involved in a relationship with actor Hidejiro Mizumoto. Mizumoto's wife, Asato, sued them both, stating that she had proof of the affair and that it was the cause for her pending divorce. On May 24, 2009, a family court found in Asato's favor and ordered Mizumoto to hand over his home in Kumamoto and his car to Asato as well as in child support every month for his three children. Shukan Josei reported in 2010 that Kago was romantically linked to model Takeshi Mikawai. Her agency released a statement claiming that while they dated, they were not a couple.
Kago began dating Haruhiko Ando, a restaurant owner in Roppongi, in August 2010, who acted as an in-between between her agency and herself. In September 2011, Ando was arrested for alleged extortion and claiming to have connections with the yakuza. Kago had been taken in for questioning. In the same month, Kago was rushed to a nearby hospital after agency officials found her on the floor of her apartment with cuts to her wrists. Her life was reported to be not in danger, though there were speculations that it was a planned suicide. Following the incident, she and Ando registered their marriage, and Kago became pregnant. and he took on her family name, Kago. From their marriage, Kago gave birth to her first child, Minami, on June 22, 2012.
The police issued an arrest warrant for Ando in October 2014 on suspicion of loaning money at illegal interest rates. This affected both Kago's career and image. In 2015, Kago announced through her official blog that they were living separately and were in the process of working towards a divorce. She attempted to file for divorce in April, but dropped charges due to insufficient funds. On June 9, Ando was arrested on domestic violence charges stemming from an incident on May 12 where he allegedly shoved and kicked Kago in their home in Roppongi, leaving her with injuries that took ten days to heal. Kago agreed to drop all charges in exchange for divorce, which was finalized later that month.
On August 8, 2016, Kago announced that she had married a 38-year-old beautician whose name was not disclosed to the public. On September 23, 2016, she announced that she was pregnant with her second child. On February 23, 2017, she announced on her blog that she gave birth her second child, a boy named Yoshitsugu.
Discography
Singles
Albums
AI KAGO meets JAZZ (March 31, 2010 P-Vine)
Compilations
(Various Artists, February 10, 2010 P-Vine)
Lum no Love Song (Urusei Yatsura OP) / Ai Kago × Brian Hardgroove (Public Enemy)
Himitsu no Akko-chan (Himitsu no Akko-chan OP) / Ai Kago × Paolo Scotti
Filmography
Film
Television
Publications
Books
Photobooks
DVDs
References
External links
Official blog
1988 births
Japanese child singers
Japanese women jazz singers
Japanese women pop singers
Happy 7 members
Living people
Minimoni members
Morning Musume members
Tanpopo members
Writers from Nara Prefecture
Salt5 members
W (group) members
Japanese idols
Musicians from Nara Prefecture
20th-century Japanese actresses
21st-century Japanese actresses
Actors from Nara Prefecture
20th-century Japanese women singers
21st-century Japanese women singers | true | [
"In marketing, publicity is the public visibility or awareness for any product, service, person or organization (company, charity, etc.). It may also refer to the movement of information from its source to the general public, often (but not always) via the media. The subjects of publicity include people of public interest, goods and services, organizations, and works of art or entertainment.\n\nA publicist is someone that carries out publicity, while public relations (PR) is the strategic management function that helps an organization establish and maintain communication with the public. This can be done internally, without the use of popular media. From a marketing perspective, publicity is one component of promotion and marketing. The other elements of the promotional mix are advertising, sales promotion, direct marketing and personal selling.\n\nOrganizations will sometimes organize events designed to attract media coverage, and subsequently, provide positive publicity; these events are known as publicity stunts.\n\nHistory\n\nPublicity originates from the French word publicité (advertisement). Publicity as a practice originates in the core of Paris, where shopping, tourism and the entertainment industry met commercialised print media and a burgeoning publishing industry. Among the urban society, scenes of consumption and new consumer identities were circulated through advertisement. La Maison Aubert shaped the emerging discipline of publicity. In early 19th century Paris, the advertisements and publicity campaigns for consumer items, such as cashmere shawls, and retailers such as perfumeries soon attracted regulation on flyposting.\n\n19th century US companies included not only pro-sales messages in their publicity, but also explanations, demonstrations and exaggerations. Patent medicine and cosmetics manufacturers in the US frequently described or even showed consumers before and after the usage of the product. The Blair Manufacturing Company was among the US companies that advertised its products by comparing old-fashioned consumers who did not use the advertised product with the progressive customers who did. Before-after-changes became common in advertisement from 1910 onwards.\nIn the early 20th century, American Albert Lasker, developed the used of advertising for appealing to consumers' psychology.\n\nThe contemporary economist Thorstein Veblen criticised the relative benefit of publicity. He argued that vendibility is not utility, and that publicity had \"no traceable relation to any benefit which the community may derive.\" Veblen estimated how much the publicity campaigns of companies added to the price consumers were paying. He argued that the publicity overhead for over-the-counter pharmaceuticals and cosmetics was more than half the retail price.\n\nPublic relations\nPublicity is often referred to as the result of public relations, in terms of providing favourable information to media and any third party outlets; these may including bloggers, mainstream media, as well as new media forms such as podcasts. This is done to provide a message to consumers without having to pay for direct time or space. This in return creates awareness and achieves greater credibility. After the message has been distributed, the publicist in charge of the information will lose control of how the message is used and interpreted, in contrast to the way it works in advertising. According to Grunig, public relations is often reduced to publicity. He also states how publicity is a form of activity in which should be associated with the sales promotion effort of a company, in order to help aid advertising and personal salesmanship as well. Kent also stated that the doing of publicity can help attract attention whilst also supplying information regarding a specific organization or individual client and any event, activity or attribute associated with them.\n\nThe use of publicity is also known to be an important strategic element and promotional tool due to its effect of intentional exposure on a consumer. This helps publicity gain an advantage over other forms of marketing, such as advertising, often in order to boost credibility. Favourable publicity is also created through reputation management, in which organizations try strive to control via the web. Furthermore, despite the fact that publicity, both good or bad, can be beneficial for an organization, company or individual, much of it is paid for despite claims that publicity is often free.\n\nDespite publicity being an influential benefit within the marketing sector, one disadvantage which highly affects publicity is the lack of ability in which publicity cannot be repeated, in comparison to paid advertising.\n\nPublicists\nA publicist is a person whose job is to generate and manage publicity for a company, product, public figure (especially a celebrity), or work such as a book, movie, or band. Though there are many aspects to a publicist's job, their main function is to persuade the news media to report about their client in the most positive way possible. Publicists identify newsworthy aspects of products and personalities to offer to media outlets as possible reportage ideas. A variant of this practice which relies on linking a brand to a breaking news story has been dubbed \"newsjacking\". Publicists are also responsible for shaping reportage about their clients in a timely manner that fits within a media outlet's news cycle. They attempt to present a newsworthy story in a way that influences editorial coverage in a certain, usually positive, direction. This is what is generally referred to as spin.\n\nA publicist generally serves as a bridge between a client and the public. Although day-to-day duties vary depending on what each clients needs consist of, the main focal point for a publicist is promotion. With regard to a crisis situation, publicists often attempt to use the situation as an opportunity to get their organization's or client's name into the media.\n\nA press agent, or flack, is a professional publicist who acts on behalf of his or her client on all matters involving public relations. Press agents are typically employed by public personalities and organizations such as performers and businesses. A press agent will provide information to the media such as upcoming public events, interview opportunities, and promotional dates, and will work with the media in getting in touch with an appropriate client or resource. Press agents are occasionally required to act as \"spin doctors, to put into the best light their clients' public actions. While press agents have traditionally worked with newspapers and television, they may also be conversant with newer media forms such as blogs and podcasts.\n\nProfessor Elizabeth L. Toth describes how press agents are willing to intrigue mainstream media and web blogs with \"bad news\" (celebrity drug addictions, divorces, scandals, sordid affairs etc.) in order to \"sell\" a story and help gain further coverage for their clients. This is supported by the press agentry/publicity model which is often used within the fashion, sporting, and entertainment industries, following the presumption that even bad news can be good publicity.\n\nNegative publicity \n\nPublicity can also create a negative effect for those being publicized. One of the most important factors in relation to influencing a consumer's buying decision is how a company, brand, or individual deals with negative publicity. Negative publicity may result in major loss of revenue or market shares within a business. It can also play a part in damaging a consumer's perception of a brand or its products. Negative publicity's high credibility and greater influence compared to other company-controlled communications play a part in the potential damage it may have on a corporate image. Crises involved with an organization may also result in negative publicity.\n\nFurthermore, negative publicity affects everything from the evaluation of a brand and product to the present. Often, when awareness of a company, brand, or individual is high, negative publicity is deemed to hurt possible sales. In contrast, companies, brands, and individuals who are not widely known may use the negative publicity in order to increase brand awareness among the public.\n\nThe extensive range of media outlets, including both traditional and new media, provide opportunities for companies to market their products or services. This, however, restricts or reduces the ability to manage negative publicity, as their message may be spread across media outlets. In order for organizations to try salvage any negative publicity surrounding their brand, corporate social responsibility (CSR) is one solution which can help protect the image of a company or help reverse the damage. Companies must adopt the CSR approach early for it to be effective, or potential risks such as falsified intentions may develop within a consumer's perception.\n\nDespite the damaging effect negative publicity may cause, negative publicity may not always have the expected effect. There is a possibility that negative publicity may in fact gain more attention as opposed to positive publicity. Regardless of the nature of negative publicity and its ability to turn most people away, any slight hint of negative publicity can in fact build interest amongst the consumer. As stated by Monga & John, negative publicity is not always harmful, and consumers whom identify a brand with strong attitudes are highly unlikely to be affected by the negative publicity formed.\n\nSee also\n\n Earned media\n Photo op\n Publicity stunt\n Succès de scandale\n Viral marketing\n\nReferences\n\n \nPromotion and marketing communications\nPublic relations",
"Beulah Livingstone (29 May 1886 – 12 January 1975) was a publicist in the theatrical and motion picture industries. In 1926 she was named by the Associated Motion Picture Advertisers as one of the 12 women who had accomplished the most for the motion picture industry; the other 11 women were all actresses or screenwriters.\n\nBeulah Livingstone Frank, daughter of Harry and Lucy Frank, graduated from the Ethical Culture School in 1905. After teaching kindergarten for three years, she began newspaper and magazine work, writing stories, articles and interviews. Using the name Beulah Livingstone, she transitioned into theatrical publicity, doing publicity work for Lou Tellegen, Anna Pavlova, Irene Castle, David Belasco and other theatrical stars and producers.\n\nIn 1916 she handled New York publicity for Thomas Ince's motion picture Civilization.\n\nIn 1916-1917 she wrote a column for Billboard under various headings including \"Broadway in Brief,\" \"Times Square Tattle\" and \"Gossip of the Fair Sex.\"\n\nIn 1917 she became publicity agent for Olga Petrova and created a notable publicity campaign. In 1919 she was hired by Joseph Schenck to direct publicity for Norma Talmadge, and her success prompted Schenck to later expand her duties to include publicity for Constance Talmadge, Buster Keaton, Rudolph Valentino, and others.\n\nIn 1925 she accompanied Valentino to a New York theater and they had great difficulty leaving due to the large mob of fans. In 1938 she wrote the small book Remember Valentino: Reminiscences of the World's Greatest Lover.\n\nShe was vice president of the Lucy Stone League, honorary president of \"The Woman Pays\" Club of New York, vice president of the Theatrical Press Representatives of America, and member of the New York Newspaper Women's Club.\n\nBeulah Livingstone died in New York, NY, on 12 January 1975. Her sister, Mabel Livingstone, also worked as a publicist during the silent film era.\n\nReferences\n\nAmerican public relations people\n1886 births\n1975 deaths"
] |
[
"Ai Kago",
"2008-2010: Return to entertainment",
"What happened in 2008?",
"publicized return to the entertainment industry in 2008",
"How did she do that?",
"Kago made a well-publicized return",
"What did she do to return to the public eye?",
"She began appearing in multiple Hong Kong movies,",
"Did she have much publicity in 2009 or 2010?",
"released her first solo single \"No HesitAtIon"
] | C_a7e77954476f4a8dba436b1aa924f9d2_1 | What was the name of the album it was on? | 5 | What was the name of the Ai Kago's album the single was on? | Ai Kago | After Kago departed from Up-Front Agency, her mother attempted to sign her to a new talent agency in her hometown, Nara. Later that year, Josei Seven published an interview with her mother, revealing that Kago left Japan and started residing in New York City. Kago herself later revealed that she had actually not gone to New York, but rather to Los Angeles for three months because she felt like a criminal in Japan. During her stay, she met people who encouraged her, including Winona Ryder, and was able to reflect on her situation. She also considered suicide and cut her wrists. Kago made a well-publicized return to the entertainment industry in 2008 with plans of pursuing an acting career. She began appearing in multiple Hong Kong movies, including Kung Fu Chefs. On August 25, 2008, Kago released a book entitled Kago Ai Live--Miseinen Hakusho (LIVE--Wei Cheng Nian Bai Shu ). On her blog, she described the book as "a book where I talk to young teens about their various troubles and dreams." During 2009, Kago also focused on rebuilding her music career. On June 24, 2009, she released her first solo single "No HesitAtIon" [sic] on independent record label In Da Groove. On February 16, 2010, she held her first jazz concert at bar JZ Brat in Tokyo. Kago's first jazz album, Ai Kago meets Jazz: The First Door, was released on March 31, 2010 through P-Vine Records and Avex Marketing. In August 2010 she was invited to perform at music festival Summer Sonic. CANNOTANSWER | independent record | is a Japanese actress and former singer. In 2000, Kago debuted as a 4th generation member of the idol girl group Morning Musume. During her time in the group, she was also part of Mini-Moni and other Hello! Project sub-groups. In 2004, Kago departed from Morning Musume and became part of the duo W with Nozomi Tsuji.
In 2006, Kago was suspended from her agency for underage smoking and subsequently dismissed in 2007. In 2008, she returned to entertainment as an actress, appearing in Kung Fu Chefs (2009), Ju-On: Black Ghost (2009), and Battle of Demons (2009). In 2009, Kago returned to music as well, releasing her debut solo single, "No Hesitation" (2009), followed by her jazz album, Ai Kago Meets Jazz (2010). She also formed her own girl group, Girls Beat!!, in 2013, of which she remained a member until 2016.
Career
2000–2004: Morning Musume and Mini-Moni
At age 12, Kago won the 4th National Audition of Morning Musume held by the Up-Front Works in 2000. On April 15, she, along with Rika Ishikawa, Hitomi Yoshizawa, and Nozomi Tsuji, were inducted into the idol group Morning Musume as its fourth generation. Their recording debut was in the group's ninth single "Happy Summer Wedding".
Kago and Tsuji's addition to the group received positive critical response. With an increasing fan base, they, along with Morning Musume member Mari Yaguchi and Coconuts Musume member Mika Todd, formed a new subgroup named Mini-Moni. In addition to this, Kago was also admitted into established subgroup Tanpopo as a second generation member. From 2001 to 2004 Kago participated in the annual Hello! Project shuffle units (3-nin Matsuri in 2001, Happy 7 in 2002, Salt5 in 2003, and H.P. All Stars in 2004).
2004–2007: W
In August 2004, Kago and Tsuji graduated from Morning Musume together after Minimoni began their indefinite hiatus. Under the arrangement of their agency, Kago and Tsuji formed a new pop duo, W, releasing two albums and six singles together.
Before the release of their seventh single and their third album, W3: Faithful, on February 9, 2006, Friday published photos showing Kago smoking. She was 15 at the time the photos were taken. The following day, her agency issued a press statement saying that she and W's activities had been suspended "indefinitely." Kago spent the remainder of the year under house arrest at her family's residence in Nara. During this time, she was not allowed to have contact with Tsuji or any of the other members from her agency, and she was caught smoking again during her probation period.
In 2007 Up-Front Works reported that they were working on her comeback. In late March 2007, photos of Kago going to an onsen with a man 18 years her senior and smoking for a third time circulated in the media, further tarnishing her reputation. Not long after, Yuukichi Kawaguchi, the director of Up-Front Works, issued a statement announcing that she had been dismissed from the agency.
2008–2010: Return to entertainment
After Kago departed from Up-Front Agency, her mother attempted to sign her to a new talent agency in her hometown, Nara. Later that year, Josei Seven published an interview with her mother, revealing that Kago left Japan and started residing in New York City. Kago herself later revealed that she had actually not gone to New York, but rather to Los Angeles for three months because she felt like a criminal in Japan. During her stay, she met people who encouraged her, including Winona Ryder, and was able to reflect on her situation. She also considered suicide and cut her wrists.
Kago made a well-publicized return to the entertainment industry in 2008 with plans of pursuing an acting career. She began appearing in multiple Hong Kong movies, including Kung Fu Chefs. On August 25, 2008, Kago released a book entitled . On her blog, she described the book as "a book where I talk to young teens about their various troubles and dreams."
During 2009, Kago also focused on rebuilding her music career. On June 24, 2009, she released her first solo single "No HesitAtIon" [sic] on independent record label In Da Groove. On February 16, 2010, she held her first jazz concert at bar JZ Brat in Tokyo. Kago's first jazz album, Ai Kago meets Jazz: The First Door, was released on March 31, 2010 through P-Vine Records and Avex Marketing. In August 2010 she was invited to perform at music festival Summer Sonic.
2011–present: Personal struggles and Girls Beat!!
Throughout the second half of 2010, Kago became unhappy with the direction of her work. Around the same time, she began dating restaurant owner Haruhiko Ando, who acted as an in-between for her agency and herself. Since beginning a relationship with Ando, Kago cancelled several jobs at the last minute, causing her agency to suspend her activities. Despite this, she participated in a live performance and opened a separate blog without permission.
Kago parted ways with R&A Promotions in November 2010 despite her contract ending in March 2013. As a response, in 2011, Kazuyuki Ito, president of Mainstream (an associate of R&A Promotions), declared that the agency planned on suing for in damages for contract violations. During that time, Kago's career was also derailed by her personal life.
After spending 2012 out of the public eye with the birth of her daughter, Minami, Kago transferred to a new agency in 2013. Planning to revive her music career, she formed an idol group, which was later named Girls Beat!! The group would be crowd-sourced using lyrics, music, and costume ideas submitted by fans. Remi Kita and Ryona Himeno were recruited as the other two members after passing the auditions.
Girls Beat!! released their first single, "Sekai Seifuku" on July 22, 2014. Their activities were abruptly put on hold when an arrest warrant was put out for Ando in October on suspicions of loaning money at illegal interest rates. Kago later filed for divorce, planning to continue activities once the divorce was finalized. Although Kago was eventually successful in doing so, in August 2015, her contract with her agency expired, though she continued activities with Girls Beat!! in November. On February 29, 2016, she graduated from the group.
Personal life
Public image
During Kago's years in Mini-Moni, she was known for keeping her hair in curled twin tails. Manga artist Arina Tanemura used her hairstyle as inspiration for Mitsuki Koyama, the main character of Full Moon o Sagashite. Her official nickname in Hello! Project was "Aibon."
Kago and Tsuji shared the world record for the largest hula hoop spun at in diameter. They set their record on January 1, 2004, during a live New Year's Day television special at Nippon Television Network, Tokyo, Japan. The record appeared in the 2005 and 2006 editions of the Guinness Book of World Records before it was broken by Ashrita Furman in September 2005.
Relationships and family
During Kago's house arrest in 2006, her parents divorced. In 2009, Kago was involved in a relationship with actor Hidejiro Mizumoto. Mizumoto's wife, Asato, sued them both, stating that she had proof of the affair and that it was the cause for her pending divorce. On May 24, 2009, a family court found in Asato's favor and ordered Mizumoto to hand over his home in Kumamoto and his car to Asato as well as in child support every month for his three children. Shukan Josei reported in 2010 that Kago was romantically linked to model Takeshi Mikawai. Her agency released a statement claiming that while they dated, they were not a couple.
Kago began dating Haruhiko Ando, a restaurant owner in Roppongi, in August 2010, who acted as an in-between between her agency and herself. In September 2011, Ando was arrested for alleged extortion and claiming to have connections with the yakuza. Kago had been taken in for questioning. In the same month, Kago was rushed to a nearby hospital after agency officials found her on the floor of her apartment with cuts to her wrists. Her life was reported to be not in danger, though there were speculations that it was a planned suicide. Following the incident, she and Ando registered their marriage, and Kago became pregnant. and he took on her family name, Kago. From their marriage, Kago gave birth to her first child, Minami, on June 22, 2012.
The police issued an arrest warrant for Ando in October 2014 on suspicion of loaning money at illegal interest rates. This affected both Kago's career and image. In 2015, Kago announced through her official blog that they were living separately and were in the process of working towards a divorce. She attempted to file for divorce in April, but dropped charges due to insufficient funds. On June 9, Ando was arrested on domestic violence charges stemming from an incident on May 12 where he allegedly shoved and kicked Kago in their home in Roppongi, leaving her with injuries that took ten days to heal. Kago agreed to drop all charges in exchange for divorce, which was finalized later that month.
On August 8, 2016, Kago announced that she had married a 38-year-old beautician whose name was not disclosed to the public. On September 23, 2016, she announced that she was pregnant with her second child. On February 23, 2017, she announced on her blog that she gave birth her second child, a boy named Yoshitsugu.
Discography
Singles
Albums
AI KAGO meets JAZZ (March 31, 2010 P-Vine)
Compilations
(Various Artists, February 10, 2010 P-Vine)
Lum no Love Song (Urusei Yatsura OP) / Ai Kago × Brian Hardgroove (Public Enemy)
Himitsu no Akko-chan (Himitsu no Akko-chan OP) / Ai Kago × Paolo Scotti
Filmography
Film
Television
Publications
Books
Photobooks
DVDs
References
External links
Official blog
1988 births
Japanese child singers
Japanese women jazz singers
Japanese women pop singers
Happy 7 members
Living people
Minimoni members
Morning Musume members
Tanpopo members
Writers from Nara Prefecture
Salt5 members
W (group) members
Japanese idols
Musicians from Nara Prefecture
20th-century Japanese actresses
21st-century Japanese actresses
Actors from Nara Prefecture
20th-century Japanese women singers
21st-century Japanese women singers | true | [
"Feel What U Feel is a children's album by American musician Lisa Loeb. The album was released on October 7, 2016, and the album's first single was \"Feel What U Feel.\" The album won Best Children's Album at the 60th Annual Grammy Awards.\n\nRelease \nThe album was announced on September 8, 2016 with the release of the lead single \"Feel What U Feel,\" featuring Craig Robinson. The album was then released by Furious Rose Productions on October 7, 2016 as an Amazon Music exclusive.\n\nPromotion \nLisa Loeb Embarked a small tour to promote the Children's album in the Fall of 2016 & Winter of 2017. Despite going on a children's tour, Lisa performed many of her \"Adult\" and \"Older\" songs. Lisa also constantly played her songs on \"Kids Place Live Radio\" for nearly 1 year after release.\n\nSingles \n\"Feel What U Feel\" was released as the album's lead single of September 8, 2016. The second single, \"Moon Star Pie (It's Gunna Be Alright)\" was released on October 7, 2016. The third single, \"Wanna Do Day\" ft. Ed Helms was released on January 12, 2017. The fourth and final single of the album, \"The Sky Is Always Blue\" was released on March 13, 2017.\n\nTrack listing\n\nReferences \n\n2016 albums\nChildren's music albums\nLisa Loeb albums",
"Name Is 4Minute is the fourth extended play by South Korean girl group 4minute, released on April 26, 2013. It features the lead single \"What's Your Name?\", which became the group's most successful single after peaking at number one on the Gaon Singles Chart and being one of the best selling singles of the year.\n\nBackground \nOn February 4, 2013, Cube Entertainment announced that 4Minute would release new material in the first half of the year.\n\nIt was further explained that their new music would more closely resemble their debut sound, more \"groovy and powerful\" according to their record label Cube Entertainment.\n\nThe mini-album includes the single \"What's Your Name?\" which was produced by Brave Brothers. It features a \"hip-hop style where it uses unique sounds and has a fast-paced and rhythm-packed melody\". The single is preceded by \"What's My Name?\" which introduces the track. Three other songs follow: \"Whatever\" is described by the album's producers as \"unique\". \"Gimme That\" is an \"ambitious\" song that \"asks a man to show his manly side for love\". \"Domino\" is described as a \"strong hip hop and blues genre, together with a powerful rocking melody.\"\n\nPromotion and release \nOn April 19, the lead single was confirmed to be “What’s Your Name?”.\n\nThe EP was intended to be released April 25, however, because of additional music video filming for the title track \"What's Your Name?\", on April 19, Cube delayed the release to the 26th, “Although it’s just one day, to console the fans about the delay, we’ll prepare it to the best of our ability.”\n\nThe music video premiered on April 26 on the same day of the album's release.\n\nThe group promoted the song \"What's Your Name?\" on music shows along with the track \"Whatever\". \"What's Your Name?\" reached number 1 on the weekly Gaon chart and the Billboard Korea K-Pop Hot 100. It was also number 6 on Gaon's year-end chart for 2013.\n\nOn May 6, Hyuna suddenly fainted due to high fever and dehydration, and was hospitalized on May 7. Cube announced that the other four members would continue with the promotions and performances. Hyuna rejoined the group for the May 16 performance on M! Countdown\n\nTrack listing\n\nCharts\n\nAlbum\n\nSales and certifications\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n\"What's Your Name?\" Teaser\n\"What's Your Name?\" Music Video\n\n4Minute EPs\nCube Entertainment EPs\n2013 EPs\nKorean-language EPs\nDance-pop EPs"
] |
[
"Ai Kago",
"2008-2010: Return to entertainment",
"What happened in 2008?",
"publicized return to the entertainment industry in 2008",
"How did she do that?",
"Kago made a well-publicized return",
"What did she do to return to the public eye?",
"She began appearing in multiple Hong Kong movies,",
"Did she have much publicity in 2009 or 2010?",
"released her first solo single \"No HesitAtIon",
"What was the name of the album it was on?",
"independent record"
] | C_a7e77954476f4a8dba436b1aa924f9d2_1 | Did it sell well? | 6 | Did Ai Kago's album sell well? | Ai Kago | After Kago departed from Up-Front Agency, her mother attempted to sign her to a new talent agency in her hometown, Nara. Later that year, Josei Seven published an interview with her mother, revealing that Kago left Japan and started residing in New York City. Kago herself later revealed that she had actually not gone to New York, but rather to Los Angeles for three months because she felt like a criminal in Japan. During her stay, she met people who encouraged her, including Winona Ryder, and was able to reflect on her situation. She also considered suicide and cut her wrists. Kago made a well-publicized return to the entertainment industry in 2008 with plans of pursuing an acting career. She began appearing in multiple Hong Kong movies, including Kung Fu Chefs. On August 25, 2008, Kago released a book entitled Kago Ai Live--Miseinen Hakusho (LIVE--Wei Cheng Nian Bai Shu ). On her blog, she described the book as "a book where I talk to young teens about their various troubles and dreams." During 2009, Kago also focused on rebuilding her music career. On June 24, 2009, she released her first solo single "No HesitAtIon" [sic] on independent record label In Da Groove. On February 16, 2010, she held her first jazz concert at bar JZ Brat in Tokyo. Kago's first jazz album, Ai Kago meets Jazz: The First Door, was released on March 31, 2010 through P-Vine Records and Avex Marketing. In August 2010 she was invited to perform at music festival Summer Sonic. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | is a Japanese actress and former singer. In 2000, Kago debuted as a 4th generation member of the idol girl group Morning Musume. During her time in the group, she was also part of Mini-Moni and other Hello! Project sub-groups. In 2004, Kago departed from Morning Musume and became part of the duo W with Nozomi Tsuji.
In 2006, Kago was suspended from her agency for underage smoking and subsequently dismissed in 2007. In 2008, she returned to entertainment as an actress, appearing in Kung Fu Chefs (2009), Ju-On: Black Ghost (2009), and Battle of Demons (2009). In 2009, Kago returned to music as well, releasing her debut solo single, "No Hesitation" (2009), followed by her jazz album, Ai Kago Meets Jazz (2010). She also formed her own girl group, Girls Beat!!, in 2013, of which she remained a member until 2016.
Career
2000–2004: Morning Musume and Mini-Moni
At age 12, Kago won the 4th National Audition of Morning Musume held by the Up-Front Works in 2000. On April 15, she, along with Rika Ishikawa, Hitomi Yoshizawa, and Nozomi Tsuji, were inducted into the idol group Morning Musume as its fourth generation. Their recording debut was in the group's ninth single "Happy Summer Wedding".
Kago and Tsuji's addition to the group received positive critical response. With an increasing fan base, they, along with Morning Musume member Mari Yaguchi and Coconuts Musume member Mika Todd, formed a new subgroup named Mini-Moni. In addition to this, Kago was also admitted into established subgroup Tanpopo as a second generation member. From 2001 to 2004 Kago participated in the annual Hello! Project shuffle units (3-nin Matsuri in 2001, Happy 7 in 2002, Salt5 in 2003, and H.P. All Stars in 2004).
2004–2007: W
In August 2004, Kago and Tsuji graduated from Morning Musume together after Minimoni began their indefinite hiatus. Under the arrangement of their agency, Kago and Tsuji formed a new pop duo, W, releasing two albums and six singles together.
Before the release of their seventh single and their third album, W3: Faithful, on February 9, 2006, Friday published photos showing Kago smoking. She was 15 at the time the photos were taken. The following day, her agency issued a press statement saying that she and W's activities had been suspended "indefinitely." Kago spent the remainder of the year under house arrest at her family's residence in Nara. During this time, she was not allowed to have contact with Tsuji or any of the other members from her agency, and she was caught smoking again during her probation period.
In 2007 Up-Front Works reported that they were working on her comeback. In late March 2007, photos of Kago going to an onsen with a man 18 years her senior and smoking for a third time circulated in the media, further tarnishing her reputation. Not long after, Yuukichi Kawaguchi, the director of Up-Front Works, issued a statement announcing that she had been dismissed from the agency.
2008–2010: Return to entertainment
After Kago departed from Up-Front Agency, her mother attempted to sign her to a new talent agency in her hometown, Nara. Later that year, Josei Seven published an interview with her mother, revealing that Kago left Japan and started residing in New York City. Kago herself later revealed that she had actually not gone to New York, but rather to Los Angeles for three months because she felt like a criminal in Japan. During her stay, she met people who encouraged her, including Winona Ryder, and was able to reflect on her situation. She also considered suicide and cut her wrists.
Kago made a well-publicized return to the entertainment industry in 2008 with plans of pursuing an acting career. She began appearing in multiple Hong Kong movies, including Kung Fu Chefs. On August 25, 2008, Kago released a book entitled . On her blog, she described the book as "a book where I talk to young teens about their various troubles and dreams."
During 2009, Kago also focused on rebuilding her music career. On June 24, 2009, she released her first solo single "No HesitAtIon" [sic] on independent record label In Da Groove. On February 16, 2010, she held her first jazz concert at bar JZ Brat in Tokyo. Kago's first jazz album, Ai Kago meets Jazz: The First Door, was released on March 31, 2010 through P-Vine Records and Avex Marketing. In August 2010 she was invited to perform at music festival Summer Sonic.
2011–present: Personal struggles and Girls Beat!!
Throughout the second half of 2010, Kago became unhappy with the direction of her work. Around the same time, she began dating restaurant owner Haruhiko Ando, who acted as an in-between for her agency and herself. Since beginning a relationship with Ando, Kago cancelled several jobs at the last minute, causing her agency to suspend her activities. Despite this, she participated in a live performance and opened a separate blog without permission.
Kago parted ways with R&A Promotions in November 2010 despite her contract ending in March 2013. As a response, in 2011, Kazuyuki Ito, president of Mainstream (an associate of R&A Promotions), declared that the agency planned on suing for in damages for contract violations. During that time, Kago's career was also derailed by her personal life.
After spending 2012 out of the public eye with the birth of her daughter, Minami, Kago transferred to a new agency in 2013. Planning to revive her music career, she formed an idol group, which was later named Girls Beat!! The group would be crowd-sourced using lyrics, music, and costume ideas submitted by fans. Remi Kita and Ryona Himeno were recruited as the other two members after passing the auditions.
Girls Beat!! released their first single, "Sekai Seifuku" on July 22, 2014. Their activities were abruptly put on hold when an arrest warrant was put out for Ando in October on suspicions of loaning money at illegal interest rates. Kago later filed for divorce, planning to continue activities once the divorce was finalized. Although Kago was eventually successful in doing so, in August 2015, her contract with her agency expired, though she continued activities with Girls Beat!! in November. On February 29, 2016, she graduated from the group.
Personal life
Public image
During Kago's years in Mini-Moni, she was known for keeping her hair in curled twin tails. Manga artist Arina Tanemura used her hairstyle as inspiration for Mitsuki Koyama, the main character of Full Moon o Sagashite. Her official nickname in Hello! Project was "Aibon."
Kago and Tsuji shared the world record for the largest hula hoop spun at in diameter. They set their record on January 1, 2004, during a live New Year's Day television special at Nippon Television Network, Tokyo, Japan. The record appeared in the 2005 and 2006 editions of the Guinness Book of World Records before it was broken by Ashrita Furman in September 2005.
Relationships and family
During Kago's house arrest in 2006, her parents divorced. In 2009, Kago was involved in a relationship with actor Hidejiro Mizumoto. Mizumoto's wife, Asato, sued them both, stating that she had proof of the affair and that it was the cause for her pending divorce. On May 24, 2009, a family court found in Asato's favor and ordered Mizumoto to hand over his home in Kumamoto and his car to Asato as well as in child support every month for his three children. Shukan Josei reported in 2010 that Kago was romantically linked to model Takeshi Mikawai. Her agency released a statement claiming that while they dated, they were not a couple.
Kago began dating Haruhiko Ando, a restaurant owner in Roppongi, in August 2010, who acted as an in-between between her agency and herself. In September 2011, Ando was arrested for alleged extortion and claiming to have connections with the yakuza. Kago had been taken in for questioning. In the same month, Kago was rushed to a nearby hospital after agency officials found her on the floor of her apartment with cuts to her wrists. Her life was reported to be not in danger, though there were speculations that it was a planned suicide. Following the incident, she and Ando registered their marriage, and Kago became pregnant. and he took on her family name, Kago. From their marriage, Kago gave birth to her first child, Minami, on June 22, 2012.
The police issued an arrest warrant for Ando in October 2014 on suspicion of loaning money at illegal interest rates. This affected both Kago's career and image. In 2015, Kago announced through her official blog that they were living separately and were in the process of working towards a divorce. She attempted to file for divorce in April, but dropped charges due to insufficient funds. On June 9, Ando was arrested on domestic violence charges stemming from an incident on May 12 where he allegedly shoved and kicked Kago in their home in Roppongi, leaving her with injuries that took ten days to heal. Kago agreed to drop all charges in exchange for divorce, which was finalized later that month.
On August 8, 2016, Kago announced that she had married a 38-year-old beautician whose name was not disclosed to the public. On September 23, 2016, she announced that she was pregnant with her second child. On February 23, 2017, she announced on her blog that she gave birth her second child, a boy named Yoshitsugu.
Discography
Singles
Albums
AI KAGO meets JAZZ (March 31, 2010 P-Vine)
Compilations
(Various Artists, February 10, 2010 P-Vine)
Lum no Love Song (Urusei Yatsura OP) / Ai Kago × Brian Hardgroove (Public Enemy)
Himitsu no Akko-chan (Himitsu no Akko-chan OP) / Ai Kago × Paolo Scotti
Filmography
Film
Television
Publications
Books
Photobooks
DVDs
References
External links
Official blog
1988 births
Japanese child singers
Japanese women jazz singers
Japanese women pop singers
Happy 7 members
Living people
Minimoni members
Morning Musume members
Tanpopo members
Writers from Nara Prefecture
Salt5 members
W (group) members
Japanese idols
Musicians from Nara Prefecture
20th-century Japanese actresses
21st-century Japanese actresses
Actors from Nara Prefecture
20th-century Japanese women singers
21st-century Japanese women singers | false | [
"Assist-2-Sell is an American real estate franchise organization operating in the United States and Canada. It was founded in 1987 by Mary LaMeres-Pomin and Lyle E. Martin and is based in Reno, Nevada.\n\nHistory\nAssist-2-Sell was founded in 1987 by Mary LaMeres-Pomin and Lyle E. Martin, who had been conventional real estate agents for 10 years prior to founding Assist-2-Sell. They did not want to spend a significant portion of their time looking for clients so created a discount real estate firm in the hopes that with lower prices, clients would directly come to Assist-2-Sell. Assist-2-Sell is founded in and based in Reno.\n\nAccording to The Commercial Appeal, Assist-2-Sell \"falls between using a traditional real estate firm and selling your home yourself\". The Portland Press Herald said in 2000, \"Word of Assist-2-Sell's rates and reputation has gotten around the realty circle with reaction ranging from skepticism to intimidation.\"\n\nReno Gazette-Journal in 2002 called Assist-2-Sell \"[o]ne of North America's largest residential discount realty companies\". In 2006, it had 630 offices in Canada and 46 American states.\n\nIts main competitor is the company Help-U-Sell. Newsweek said Help-U-Sell and Assist-2-Sell are \"the two largest flat-fee brokerages\" that in 2004 had a combined almost 900 offices.\n\nServices and franchise program\nAssist-2-Sell has two advertising options for clients to choose from. In the first option, \"Direct to Buyer\", the real estate agent acts like a conventional agent by marketing the property and dealing with the documents. In the second option, \"MLS for Less\", sellers get all of the benefits from the previous method as well as having their house listed on the MLS. It advertises houses through newspapers, magazines, mail, and signs, as well as the iHouse2000.com website. The company receives a commission only after a house is sold.\n\nAssist-2-Sell started its franchise program in 1995. Every franchisee is managed and held independently. Assist-2-Sell provides coaching for its franchisees by teaching them how to establish and operate a back office, how to hire real estate agents, how to draw in customers, and how to display houses. In 2004, Assist-2-Sell charged franchisees $19,500 in addition to a 5% cut of each sold home.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Official website\n\nCompanies based in Reno, Nevada\nReal estate companies established in 1987\nFranchises\nReal estate services companies of the United States\n1987 establishments in Nevada",
"Helen Charlotte Foxcroft (12 December 1865 – 6 July 1950) was an English historian. \n\nHer Life and Letters of George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax appeared in 1898. It was favourably reviewed though did not sell well. Despite subsequent editions of Halifax's works by Sir Walter Raleigh (1912) and J. P. Kenyon (1969), Foxcroft's was—in the opinion of Basil Greenslade—not superseded until 1989 upon the publication of Mark N. Brown's edition. In 1902 she published A Supplement to Burnet's History of my Own Time and authored, with T. E. S. Clarke, a biography of Gilbert Burnet.\n\nNotes\n\n1865 births\n1950 deaths\nEnglish historians"
] |
[
"Ai Kago",
"2008-2010: Return to entertainment",
"What happened in 2008?",
"publicized return to the entertainment industry in 2008",
"How did she do that?",
"Kago made a well-publicized return",
"What did she do to return to the public eye?",
"She began appearing in multiple Hong Kong movies,",
"Did she have much publicity in 2009 or 2010?",
"released her first solo single \"No HesitAtIon",
"What was the name of the album it was on?",
"independent record",
"Did it sell well?",
"I don't know."
] | C_a7e77954476f4a8dba436b1aa924f9d2_1 | Did she go on tour? | 7 | Did Ai Kago go on tour? | Ai Kago | After Kago departed from Up-Front Agency, her mother attempted to sign her to a new talent agency in her hometown, Nara. Later that year, Josei Seven published an interview with her mother, revealing that Kago left Japan and started residing in New York City. Kago herself later revealed that she had actually not gone to New York, but rather to Los Angeles for three months because she felt like a criminal in Japan. During her stay, she met people who encouraged her, including Winona Ryder, and was able to reflect on her situation. She also considered suicide and cut her wrists. Kago made a well-publicized return to the entertainment industry in 2008 with plans of pursuing an acting career. She began appearing in multiple Hong Kong movies, including Kung Fu Chefs. On August 25, 2008, Kago released a book entitled Kago Ai Live--Miseinen Hakusho (LIVE--Wei Cheng Nian Bai Shu ). On her blog, she described the book as "a book where I talk to young teens about their various troubles and dreams." During 2009, Kago also focused on rebuilding her music career. On June 24, 2009, she released her first solo single "No HesitAtIon" [sic] on independent record label In Da Groove. On February 16, 2010, she held her first jazz concert at bar JZ Brat in Tokyo. Kago's first jazz album, Ai Kago meets Jazz: The First Door, was released on March 31, 2010 through P-Vine Records and Avex Marketing. In August 2010 she was invited to perform at music festival Summer Sonic. CANNOTANSWER | was invited to perform at music festival Summer Sonic. | is a Japanese actress and former singer. In 2000, Kago debuted as a 4th generation member of the idol girl group Morning Musume. During her time in the group, she was also part of Mini-Moni and other Hello! Project sub-groups. In 2004, Kago departed from Morning Musume and became part of the duo W with Nozomi Tsuji.
In 2006, Kago was suspended from her agency for underage smoking and subsequently dismissed in 2007. In 2008, she returned to entertainment as an actress, appearing in Kung Fu Chefs (2009), Ju-On: Black Ghost (2009), and Battle of Demons (2009). In 2009, Kago returned to music as well, releasing her debut solo single, "No Hesitation" (2009), followed by her jazz album, Ai Kago Meets Jazz (2010). She also formed her own girl group, Girls Beat!!, in 2013, of which she remained a member until 2016.
Career
2000–2004: Morning Musume and Mini-Moni
At age 12, Kago won the 4th National Audition of Morning Musume held by the Up-Front Works in 2000. On April 15, she, along with Rika Ishikawa, Hitomi Yoshizawa, and Nozomi Tsuji, were inducted into the idol group Morning Musume as its fourth generation. Their recording debut was in the group's ninth single "Happy Summer Wedding".
Kago and Tsuji's addition to the group received positive critical response. With an increasing fan base, they, along with Morning Musume member Mari Yaguchi and Coconuts Musume member Mika Todd, formed a new subgroup named Mini-Moni. In addition to this, Kago was also admitted into established subgroup Tanpopo as a second generation member. From 2001 to 2004 Kago participated in the annual Hello! Project shuffle units (3-nin Matsuri in 2001, Happy 7 in 2002, Salt5 in 2003, and H.P. All Stars in 2004).
2004–2007: W
In August 2004, Kago and Tsuji graduated from Morning Musume together after Minimoni began their indefinite hiatus. Under the arrangement of their agency, Kago and Tsuji formed a new pop duo, W, releasing two albums and six singles together.
Before the release of their seventh single and their third album, W3: Faithful, on February 9, 2006, Friday published photos showing Kago smoking. She was 15 at the time the photos were taken. The following day, her agency issued a press statement saying that she and W's activities had been suspended "indefinitely." Kago spent the remainder of the year under house arrest at her family's residence in Nara. During this time, she was not allowed to have contact with Tsuji or any of the other members from her agency, and she was caught smoking again during her probation period.
In 2007 Up-Front Works reported that they were working on her comeback. In late March 2007, photos of Kago going to an onsen with a man 18 years her senior and smoking for a third time circulated in the media, further tarnishing her reputation. Not long after, Yuukichi Kawaguchi, the director of Up-Front Works, issued a statement announcing that she had been dismissed from the agency.
2008–2010: Return to entertainment
After Kago departed from Up-Front Agency, her mother attempted to sign her to a new talent agency in her hometown, Nara. Later that year, Josei Seven published an interview with her mother, revealing that Kago left Japan and started residing in New York City. Kago herself later revealed that she had actually not gone to New York, but rather to Los Angeles for three months because she felt like a criminal in Japan. During her stay, she met people who encouraged her, including Winona Ryder, and was able to reflect on her situation. She also considered suicide and cut her wrists.
Kago made a well-publicized return to the entertainment industry in 2008 with plans of pursuing an acting career. She began appearing in multiple Hong Kong movies, including Kung Fu Chefs. On August 25, 2008, Kago released a book entitled . On her blog, she described the book as "a book where I talk to young teens about their various troubles and dreams."
During 2009, Kago also focused on rebuilding her music career. On June 24, 2009, she released her first solo single "No HesitAtIon" [sic] on independent record label In Da Groove. On February 16, 2010, she held her first jazz concert at bar JZ Brat in Tokyo. Kago's first jazz album, Ai Kago meets Jazz: The First Door, was released on March 31, 2010 through P-Vine Records and Avex Marketing. In August 2010 she was invited to perform at music festival Summer Sonic.
2011–present: Personal struggles and Girls Beat!!
Throughout the second half of 2010, Kago became unhappy with the direction of her work. Around the same time, she began dating restaurant owner Haruhiko Ando, who acted as an in-between for her agency and herself. Since beginning a relationship with Ando, Kago cancelled several jobs at the last minute, causing her agency to suspend her activities. Despite this, she participated in a live performance and opened a separate blog without permission.
Kago parted ways with R&A Promotions in November 2010 despite her contract ending in March 2013. As a response, in 2011, Kazuyuki Ito, president of Mainstream (an associate of R&A Promotions), declared that the agency planned on suing for in damages for contract violations. During that time, Kago's career was also derailed by her personal life.
After spending 2012 out of the public eye with the birth of her daughter, Minami, Kago transferred to a new agency in 2013. Planning to revive her music career, she formed an idol group, which was later named Girls Beat!! The group would be crowd-sourced using lyrics, music, and costume ideas submitted by fans. Remi Kita and Ryona Himeno were recruited as the other two members after passing the auditions.
Girls Beat!! released their first single, "Sekai Seifuku" on July 22, 2014. Their activities were abruptly put on hold when an arrest warrant was put out for Ando in October on suspicions of loaning money at illegal interest rates. Kago later filed for divorce, planning to continue activities once the divorce was finalized. Although Kago was eventually successful in doing so, in August 2015, her contract with her agency expired, though she continued activities with Girls Beat!! in November. On February 29, 2016, she graduated from the group.
Personal life
Public image
During Kago's years in Mini-Moni, she was known for keeping her hair in curled twin tails. Manga artist Arina Tanemura used her hairstyle as inspiration for Mitsuki Koyama, the main character of Full Moon o Sagashite. Her official nickname in Hello! Project was "Aibon."
Kago and Tsuji shared the world record for the largest hula hoop spun at in diameter. They set their record on January 1, 2004, during a live New Year's Day television special at Nippon Television Network, Tokyo, Japan. The record appeared in the 2005 and 2006 editions of the Guinness Book of World Records before it was broken by Ashrita Furman in September 2005.
Relationships and family
During Kago's house arrest in 2006, her parents divorced. In 2009, Kago was involved in a relationship with actor Hidejiro Mizumoto. Mizumoto's wife, Asato, sued them both, stating that she had proof of the affair and that it was the cause for her pending divorce. On May 24, 2009, a family court found in Asato's favor and ordered Mizumoto to hand over his home in Kumamoto and his car to Asato as well as in child support every month for his three children. Shukan Josei reported in 2010 that Kago was romantically linked to model Takeshi Mikawai. Her agency released a statement claiming that while they dated, they were not a couple.
Kago began dating Haruhiko Ando, a restaurant owner in Roppongi, in August 2010, who acted as an in-between between her agency and herself. In September 2011, Ando was arrested for alleged extortion and claiming to have connections with the yakuza. Kago had been taken in for questioning. In the same month, Kago was rushed to a nearby hospital after agency officials found her on the floor of her apartment with cuts to her wrists. Her life was reported to be not in danger, though there were speculations that it was a planned suicide. Following the incident, she and Ando registered their marriage, and Kago became pregnant. and he took on her family name, Kago. From their marriage, Kago gave birth to her first child, Minami, on June 22, 2012.
The police issued an arrest warrant for Ando in October 2014 on suspicion of loaning money at illegal interest rates. This affected both Kago's career and image. In 2015, Kago announced through her official blog that they were living separately and were in the process of working towards a divorce. She attempted to file for divorce in April, but dropped charges due to insufficient funds. On June 9, Ando was arrested on domestic violence charges stemming from an incident on May 12 where he allegedly shoved and kicked Kago in their home in Roppongi, leaving her with injuries that took ten days to heal. Kago agreed to drop all charges in exchange for divorce, which was finalized later that month.
On August 8, 2016, Kago announced that she had married a 38-year-old beautician whose name was not disclosed to the public. On September 23, 2016, she announced that she was pregnant with her second child. On February 23, 2017, she announced on her blog that she gave birth her second child, a boy named Yoshitsugu.
Discography
Singles
Albums
AI KAGO meets JAZZ (March 31, 2010 P-Vine)
Compilations
(Various Artists, February 10, 2010 P-Vine)
Lum no Love Song (Urusei Yatsura OP) / Ai Kago × Brian Hardgroove (Public Enemy)
Himitsu no Akko-chan (Himitsu no Akko-chan OP) / Ai Kago × Paolo Scotti
Filmography
Film
Television
Publications
Books
Photobooks
DVDs
References
External links
Official blog
1988 births
Japanese child singers
Japanese women jazz singers
Japanese women pop singers
Happy 7 members
Living people
Minimoni members
Morning Musume members
Tanpopo members
Writers from Nara Prefecture
Salt5 members
W (group) members
Japanese idols
Musicians from Nara Prefecture
20th-century Japanese actresses
21st-century Japanese actresses
Actors from Nara Prefecture
20th-century Japanese women singers
21st-century Japanese women singers | true | [
"The All Night Long Tour is the debut concert tour by British pop/R&B singer Alexandra Burke. It is Burke's first concert tour which is to promote her debut studio album Overcome. The tour is set to kick off in Wales on 14 January 2011 and currently finishes on 24 June 2011 in Ireland. The tour will visit various cities across the United Kingdom including Belfast, Dublin, Glasgow, London and Manchester. The dates for the tour was officially revealed on ITV's Daybreak website on 7 September 2010.\n\nInspired by musical acts such as Michael Jackson and Beyoncé, The All Night Long Tour began a year and three months after the release of the supporting album Overcome. New up and coming acts Parade and Carrie Mac were announced as the supporting acts. The set list of the tour consisted of songs from Overcome, as well as covering \"Closer\" by Ne-Yo, \"Survivor\"/\"Bootylicious\"/\"Independent Women\" by Destiny's Child and \"Listen\" by Beyoncé.\n\nBackground \nThe tour was officially announced in September 2010 during an interview with Irish channel After Dark. It was her first headlining tour; she had previously performed on The X Factor tour and had been asked by Beyoncé Knowles to support the European leg of her I Am... Tour.\n\nSpeculation whether Burke would go on tour began in January 2010, but she stated in various interviews that she playing various summer festivals in the UK, but would not go on tour until 2010 because she did not want to perform a load of cover songs and that she wanted enough material so that she could perform her own songs. In May 2010, Burke began her tour plans and confirmed that she would be touring the following year, with tour dates being announced at the end of the current year. During her interview with After Dark she stated \"I have major ideas for it and I want it to be the most incredible thing known to man, but it's going to take a lot of work.\" The show on 14 February in The Brighton Centre was different due to it being Valentine's Day. Tickets for show at the Oasis Leisure Centre had sold out.\n\nSupporting acts\nParade\nCarrie Mac\nOlly Murs\n\nSetlist\n\n\"Broken Heels\"\n\"Nothing But the Girl\"\n\"Dumb\"\n\"Start Without You\"\n\"Hello Good Morning\" (Dancers Interlude)\n\"Perfect\"\n\"Overcome\"\n\"Closer\" (Ne-Yo cover)\n\"Hallelujah\"\n\"Good Night Good Morning\"\nDestiny's Child medley: \"Survivor\" / \"Bootylicious\" / \"Listen\" / \"Independent Women\"\n\"Dangerous\"\n\"All Night Long\"\n\"The Silence\"\n\"Bad Boys\"\n\nTour dates\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nOfficial Website\n\n2011 concert tours",
"The Reptile World Tour (sometimes: The Reptile Tour) a worldwide concert tour by British Rock musician Eric Clapton in support of his album Reptile. The tour began on February 3, 2001 at London's Royal Albert Hall and ended on December 15, 2001 at the Yokohama Arena in Yokohama. In 2001, Clapton said this was going to be his last major world tour. However, he did perform another world tour in 2011 to support his Clapton album.\n\nSet list\n \"Key to the Highway\"\n \"Reptile\"\n \"Got You on My Mind\"\n \"Tears in Heaven\"\n \"Bell Bottom Blues\"\n \"Change the World\"\n \"My Father's Eyes\"\n \"River of Tears\"\n \"Going Down Slow\"\n \"She's Gone\"\n \"I Want a Little Girl\"\n \"Badge\"\n \"(I'm Your) Hoochie Coochie Man\"\n \"Have You Ever Loved a Woman\"\n \"Cocaine\"\n \"Wonderful Tonight\"\n \"Layla\"\n \"Sunshine of Your Love\"\n \"Over the Rainbow\"\n\nSometimes Clapton performed songs like \"It's Alright\", \"Finally Got Myself Together\" and \"I Ain't Gonna Stand for It\" just when The Impressions were included on concert dates. If the vocal group had not appeared on a gig with Clapton, he did not perform the song. For dates in the North American tour, Billy Preston sang Will It Go Round in Circles.\n\nTour Dates\n\nCancelled Shows\n\nReferences\n\n2001 concert tours\nEric Clapton"
] |
[
"Ai Kago",
"2008-2010: Return to entertainment",
"What happened in 2008?",
"publicized return to the entertainment industry in 2008",
"How did she do that?",
"Kago made a well-publicized return",
"What did she do to return to the public eye?",
"She began appearing in multiple Hong Kong movies,",
"Did she have much publicity in 2009 or 2010?",
"released her first solo single \"No HesitAtIon",
"What was the name of the album it was on?",
"independent record",
"Did it sell well?",
"I don't know.",
"Did she go on tour?",
"was invited to perform at music festival Summer Sonic."
] | C_a7e77954476f4a8dba436b1aa924f9d2_1 | Are there any other interesting aspects about this article? | 8 | Are there any other interesting aspects about this article besides Ai Kago return to entertainment and her album?? | Ai Kago | After Kago departed from Up-Front Agency, her mother attempted to sign her to a new talent agency in her hometown, Nara. Later that year, Josei Seven published an interview with her mother, revealing that Kago left Japan and started residing in New York City. Kago herself later revealed that she had actually not gone to New York, but rather to Los Angeles for three months because she felt like a criminal in Japan. During her stay, she met people who encouraged her, including Winona Ryder, and was able to reflect on her situation. She also considered suicide and cut her wrists. Kago made a well-publicized return to the entertainment industry in 2008 with plans of pursuing an acting career. She began appearing in multiple Hong Kong movies, including Kung Fu Chefs. On August 25, 2008, Kago released a book entitled Kago Ai Live--Miseinen Hakusho (LIVE--Wei Cheng Nian Bai Shu ). On her blog, she described the book as "a book where I talk to young teens about their various troubles and dreams." During 2009, Kago also focused on rebuilding her music career. On June 24, 2009, she released her first solo single "No HesitAtIon" [sic] on independent record label In Da Groove. On February 16, 2010, she held her first jazz concert at bar JZ Brat in Tokyo. Kago's first jazz album, Ai Kago meets Jazz: The First Door, was released on March 31, 2010 through P-Vine Records and Avex Marketing. In August 2010 she was invited to perform at music festival Summer Sonic. CANNOTANSWER | During 2009, Kago also focused on rebuilding her music career. | is a Japanese actress and former singer. In 2000, Kago debuted as a 4th generation member of the idol girl group Morning Musume. During her time in the group, she was also part of Mini-Moni and other Hello! Project sub-groups. In 2004, Kago departed from Morning Musume and became part of the duo W with Nozomi Tsuji.
In 2006, Kago was suspended from her agency for underage smoking and subsequently dismissed in 2007. In 2008, she returned to entertainment as an actress, appearing in Kung Fu Chefs (2009), Ju-On: Black Ghost (2009), and Battle of Demons (2009). In 2009, Kago returned to music as well, releasing her debut solo single, "No Hesitation" (2009), followed by her jazz album, Ai Kago Meets Jazz (2010). She also formed her own girl group, Girls Beat!!, in 2013, of which she remained a member until 2016.
Career
2000–2004: Morning Musume and Mini-Moni
At age 12, Kago won the 4th National Audition of Morning Musume held by the Up-Front Works in 2000. On April 15, she, along with Rika Ishikawa, Hitomi Yoshizawa, and Nozomi Tsuji, were inducted into the idol group Morning Musume as its fourth generation. Their recording debut was in the group's ninth single "Happy Summer Wedding".
Kago and Tsuji's addition to the group received positive critical response. With an increasing fan base, they, along with Morning Musume member Mari Yaguchi and Coconuts Musume member Mika Todd, formed a new subgroup named Mini-Moni. In addition to this, Kago was also admitted into established subgroup Tanpopo as a second generation member. From 2001 to 2004 Kago participated in the annual Hello! Project shuffle units (3-nin Matsuri in 2001, Happy 7 in 2002, Salt5 in 2003, and H.P. All Stars in 2004).
2004–2007: W
In August 2004, Kago and Tsuji graduated from Morning Musume together after Minimoni began their indefinite hiatus. Under the arrangement of their agency, Kago and Tsuji formed a new pop duo, W, releasing two albums and six singles together.
Before the release of their seventh single and their third album, W3: Faithful, on February 9, 2006, Friday published photos showing Kago smoking. She was 15 at the time the photos were taken. The following day, her agency issued a press statement saying that she and W's activities had been suspended "indefinitely." Kago spent the remainder of the year under house arrest at her family's residence in Nara. During this time, she was not allowed to have contact with Tsuji or any of the other members from her agency, and she was caught smoking again during her probation period.
In 2007 Up-Front Works reported that they were working on her comeback. In late March 2007, photos of Kago going to an onsen with a man 18 years her senior and smoking for a third time circulated in the media, further tarnishing her reputation. Not long after, Yuukichi Kawaguchi, the director of Up-Front Works, issued a statement announcing that she had been dismissed from the agency.
2008–2010: Return to entertainment
After Kago departed from Up-Front Agency, her mother attempted to sign her to a new talent agency in her hometown, Nara. Later that year, Josei Seven published an interview with her mother, revealing that Kago left Japan and started residing in New York City. Kago herself later revealed that she had actually not gone to New York, but rather to Los Angeles for three months because she felt like a criminal in Japan. During her stay, she met people who encouraged her, including Winona Ryder, and was able to reflect on her situation. She also considered suicide and cut her wrists.
Kago made a well-publicized return to the entertainment industry in 2008 with plans of pursuing an acting career. She began appearing in multiple Hong Kong movies, including Kung Fu Chefs. On August 25, 2008, Kago released a book entitled . On her blog, she described the book as "a book where I talk to young teens about their various troubles and dreams."
During 2009, Kago also focused on rebuilding her music career. On June 24, 2009, she released her first solo single "No HesitAtIon" [sic] on independent record label In Da Groove. On February 16, 2010, she held her first jazz concert at bar JZ Brat in Tokyo. Kago's first jazz album, Ai Kago meets Jazz: The First Door, was released on March 31, 2010 through P-Vine Records and Avex Marketing. In August 2010 she was invited to perform at music festival Summer Sonic.
2011–present: Personal struggles and Girls Beat!!
Throughout the second half of 2010, Kago became unhappy with the direction of her work. Around the same time, she began dating restaurant owner Haruhiko Ando, who acted as an in-between for her agency and herself. Since beginning a relationship with Ando, Kago cancelled several jobs at the last minute, causing her agency to suspend her activities. Despite this, she participated in a live performance and opened a separate blog without permission.
Kago parted ways with R&A Promotions in November 2010 despite her contract ending in March 2013. As a response, in 2011, Kazuyuki Ito, president of Mainstream (an associate of R&A Promotions), declared that the agency planned on suing for in damages for contract violations. During that time, Kago's career was also derailed by her personal life.
After spending 2012 out of the public eye with the birth of her daughter, Minami, Kago transferred to a new agency in 2013. Planning to revive her music career, she formed an idol group, which was later named Girls Beat!! The group would be crowd-sourced using lyrics, music, and costume ideas submitted by fans. Remi Kita and Ryona Himeno were recruited as the other two members after passing the auditions.
Girls Beat!! released their first single, "Sekai Seifuku" on July 22, 2014. Their activities were abruptly put on hold when an arrest warrant was put out for Ando in October on suspicions of loaning money at illegal interest rates. Kago later filed for divorce, planning to continue activities once the divorce was finalized. Although Kago was eventually successful in doing so, in August 2015, her contract with her agency expired, though she continued activities with Girls Beat!! in November. On February 29, 2016, she graduated from the group.
Personal life
Public image
During Kago's years in Mini-Moni, she was known for keeping her hair in curled twin tails. Manga artist Arina Tanemura used her hairstyle as inspiration for Mitsuki Koyama, the main character of Full Moon o Sagashite. Her official nickname in Hello! Project was "Aibon."
Kago and Tsuji shared the world record for the largest hula hoop spun at in diameter. They set their record on January 1, 2004, during a live New Year's Day television special at Nippon Television Network, Tokyo, Japan. The record appeared in the 2005 and 2006 editions of the Guinness Book of World Records before it was broken by Ashrita Furman in September 2005.
Relationships and family
During Kago's house arrest in 2006, her parents divorced. In 2009, Kago was involved in a relationship with actor Hidejiro Mizumoto. Mizumoto's wife, Asato, sued them both, stating that she had proof of the affair and that it was the cause for her pending divorce. On May 24, 2009, a family court found in Asato's favor and ordered Mizumoto to hand over his home in Kumamoto and his car to Asato as well as in child support every month for his three children. Shukan Josei reported in 2010 that Kago was romantically linked to model Takeshi Mikawai. Her agency released a statement claiming that while they dated, they were not a couple.
Kago began dating Haruhiko Ando, a restaurant owner in Roppongi, in August 2010, who acted as an in-between between her agency and herself. In September 2011, Ando was arrested for alleged extortion and claiming to have connections with the yakuza. Kago had been taken in for questioning. In the same month, Kago was rushed to a nearby hospital after agency officials found her on the floor of her apartment with cuts to her wrists. Her life was reported to be not in danger, though there were speculations that it was a planned suicide. Following the incident, she and Ando registered their marriage, and Kago became pregnant. and he took on her family name, Kago. From their marriage, Kago gave birth to her first child, Minami, on June 22, 2012.
The police issued an arrest warrant for Ando in October 2014 on suspicion of loaning money at illegal interest rates. This affected both Kago's career and image. In 2015, Kago announced through her official blog that they were living separately and were in the process of working towards a divorce. She attempted to file for divorce in April, but dropped charges due to insufficient funds. On June 9, Ando was arrested on domestic violence charges stemming from an incident on May 12 where he allegedly shoved and kicked Kago in their home in Roppongi, leaving her with injuries that took ten days to heal. Kago agreed to drop all charges in exchange for divorce, which was finalized later that month.
On August 8, 2016, Kago announced that she had married a 38-year-old beautician whose name was not disclosed to the public. On September 23, 2016, she announced that she was pregnant with her second child. On February 23, 2017, she announced on her blog that she gave birth her second child, a boy named Yoshitsugu.
Discography
Singles
Albums
AI KAGO meets JAZZ (March 31, 2010 P-Vine)
Compilations
(Various Artists, February 10, 2010 P-Vine)
Lum no Love Song (Urusei Yatsura OP) / Ai Kago × Brian Hardgroove (Public Enemy)
Himitsu no Akko-chan (Himitsu no Akko-chan OP) / Ai Kago × Paolo Scotti
Filmography
Film
Television
Publications
Books
Photobooks
DVDs
References
External links
Official blog
1988 births
Japanese child singers
Japanese women jazz singers
Japanese women pop singers
Happy 7 members
Living people
Minimoni members
Morning Musume members
Tanpopo members
Writers from Nara Prefecture
Salt5 members
W (group) members
Japanese idols
Musicians from Nara Prefecture
20th-century Japanese actresses
21st-century Japanese actresses
Actors from Nara Prefecture
20th-century Japanese women singers
21st-century Japanese women singers | true | [
"Přírodní park Třebíčsko (before Oblast klidu Třebíčsko) is a natural park near Třebíč in the Czech Republic. There are many interesting plants. The park was founded in 1983.\n\nKobylinec and Ptáčovský kopeček\n\nKobylinec is a natural monument situated ca 0,5 km from the village of Trnava.\nThe area of this monument is 0,44 ha. Pulsatilla grandis can be found here and in the Ptáčovský kopeček park near Ptáčov near Třebíč. Both monuments are very popular for tourists.\n\nPonds\n\nIn the natural park there are some interesting ponds such as Velký Bor, Malý Bor, Buršík near Přeckov and a brook Březinka. Dams on the brook are examples of European beaver activity.\n\nSyenitové skály near Pocoucov\n\nSyenitové skály (rocks of syenit) near Pocoucov is one of famed locations. There are interesting granite boulders. The area of the reservation is 0,77 ha.\n\nExternal links\nParts of this article or all article was translated from Czech. The original article is :cs:Přírodní park Třebíčsko.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nNature near the village Trnava which is there\n\nTřebíč\nParks in the Czech Republic\nTourist attractions in the Vysočina Region",
"Damn Interesting is an independent website founded by Alan Bellows in 2005. The website presents true stories from science, history, and psychology, primarily as long-form articles, often illustrated with original artwork. Works are written by various authors, and published at irregular intervals. The website openly rejects advertising, relying on reader and listener donations to cover operating costs.\n\nAs of October 2012, each article is also published as a podcast under the same name. In November 2019, a second podcast was launched under the title Damn Interesting Week, featuring unscripted commentary on an assortment of news articles featured on the website's \"Curated Links\" section that week. In mid-2020, a third podcast called Damn Interesting Curio Cabinet began highlighting the website's periodic short-form articles in the same radioplay format as the original podcast.\n\nIn July 2009, Damn Interesting published the print book Alien Hand Syndrome through Workman Publishing. It contains some favorites from the site and some exclusive content.\n\nAwards and recognition \nIn August 2007, PC Magazine named Damn Interesting one of the \"Top 100 Undiscovered Web Sites\".\nThe article \"The Zero-Armed Bandit\" by Alan Bellows won a 2015 Sidney Award from David Brooks in The New York Times.\nThe article \"Ghoulish Acts and Dastardly Deeds\" by Alan Bellows was cited as \"nonfiction journalism from 2017 that will stand the test of time\" by Conor Friedersdorf in The Atlantic.\nThe article \"Dupes and Duplicity\" by Jennifer Lee Noonan won a 2020 Sidney Award from David Brooks in the New York Times.\n\nAccusing The Dollop of plagiarism \n\nOn July 9, 2015, Bellows posted an open letter accusing The Dollop, a comedy podcast about history, of plagiarism due to their repeated use of verbatim text from Damn Interesting articles without permission or attribution. Dave Anthony, the writer of The Dollop, responded on reddit, admitting to using Damn Interesting content, but claiming that the use was protected by fair use, and that \"historical facts are not copyrightable.\" In an article about the controversy on Plagiarism Today, Jonathan Bailey concluded, \"Any way one looks at it, The Dollop failed its ethical obligations to all of the people, not just those writing for Damn Interesting, who put in the time, energy and expertise into writing the original content upon which their show is based.\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Official website\n\n2005 podcast debuts"
] |
[
"Roberto Mangabeira Unger",
"Academic career"
] | C_4f00a236510846968d1f892d87efb181_1 | Which school did he attended? | 1 | Which school did Roberto Mangabeira Unger attend? | Roberto Mangabeira Unger | The beginning of Unger's academic career began with the books Knowledge and Politics and Law in Modern Society, published in 1975 and 1976 respectively. These works led to the co-founding of Critical Legal Studies (CLS) with Duncan Kennedy and Morton Horwitz. The movement stirred up controversy in legal schools across America as it challenged standard legal scholarship and made radical proposals for legal education. By the early 1980s, the CLS movement touched off a heated internal debate at Harvard, pitting the CLS scholars against the older, more traditional scholars. Throughout much of the 1980s, Unger worked on his magnum opus, Politics: A Work In Constructive Social Theory, a three volume work that assessed classical social theory and developed a political, social, and economic alternative. The series is based on the premise of society as an artifact, and rejects the necessity of certain institutional arrangements. Published in 1987, Politics was foremost a critique of contemporary social theory and politics; it developed a theory of structural and ideological change, and gave an alternative account of world history. By first attacking the idea that there is a necessary progression from one set of institutional arrangements to another, e.g. feudalism to capitalism, it then built an anti-necessitarian theory of social change, theorizing the transition from one set of institutional arrangements to another. Unger devoted much of the following decades to further elaborating on the insights developed in Politics by working out the political and social alternatives. What Should Legal Analysis Become? (Verso, 1996) developed tools to reimagine the organization of social life. Democracy Realized: The Progressive Alternative (Verso, 1998) and What Should the Left Propose? (Verso, 2005) put forth alternative institutional proposals. CANNOTANSWER | legal schools across America | Roberto Mangabeira Unger (; born 24 March 1947) is a Brazilian philosopher and politician. His work is in the tradition of classical social theory and pragmatism, and is developed across many fields including legal theory, philosophy and religion, social and political theory, progressive alternatives, and economics. In natural philosophy he is known for The Singular Universe and the Reality of Time. In social theory he is known for Politics: A Work in Constructive Social Theory. In legal theory he was part of the Critical Legal Studies movement, which helped disrupt the methodological consensus in American law schools. His political activity helped the transition to democracy in Brazil in the aftermath of the military regime, and culminated with his appointment as Brazil's Minister of Strategic Affairs in 2007 and again in 2015. His work is seen to offer a vision of humanity and a program to empower individuals and change institutions.
At the core of his philosophy is a view of humanity as greater than the contexts in which it is placed. He sees each individual possessed with the capability to rise to a greater life. At the root of his social thought is the conviction that the social world is made and imagined. His work begins from the premise that no natural or necessary social, political, or economic arrangements underlie individual or social activity. Property rights, liberal democracy, wage labor—for Unger, these are all historical artifacts that have no necessary relation to the goals of free and prosperous human activity. For Unger, the market, the state, and human social organization should not be set in predetermined institutional arrangements, but need to be left open to experimentation and revision according to what works for the project of individual and collective empowerment. Doing so, he holds, will enable human liberation.
Unger has long been active in Brazilian opposition politics. He was one of the founding members of the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party and drafted its manifesto. He directed the presidential campaigns of Leonel Brizola and Ciro Gomes, ran for the Chamber of Deputies, and twice launched exploratory bids for the Brazilian presidency. He served as the Minister of Strategic Affairs in the second Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva administration and in the second Dilma administration.
Biography
Family
Unger's maternal grandfather was Octávio Mangabeira, who served as Brazil's minister of foreign affairs in the late 1920s before the dictatorship of Getúlio Vargas subjected him to a series of imprisonments and exiles in Europe and the United States. After returning to Brazil in 1945, he co-founded a center-left party. He was elected as a representative in the Câmara Federal in 1946, governor of Bahia in 1947, and Senator in 1958.
Both of Unger's parents were intellectuals. His German-born father, Artur Unger, from Dresden, arrived in the United States as a child and later became a U.S. citizen. His mother, Edyla Mangabeira, was a Brazilian poet and journalist. Artur and Edyla met in the US during the exile of Octávio Mangabeira.
Early life
Roberto Mangabeira Unger was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1947, and spent his childhood on Manhattan's Upper East Side. He attended the private Allen-Stevenson School. When he was eleven, his father died and his mother moved the family back to Brazil. He attended a Jesuit school and went on to law school at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.
Unger was admitted to Harvard Law School in September 1969. After receiving his LLM, Unger stayed at Harvard another year on a fellowship, and then entered the doctoral program. At 23 years old, Unger began teaching jurisprudence, among other things, to first year students. In 1976, aged 29, he got SJD and became one of the youngest faculty members to receive tenure from the Harvard Law School.
Academic career
The beginning of Unger's academic career began with the books Knowledge and Politics and Law in Modern Society, published in 1975 and 1976 respectively. These works led to the co-founding of Critical Legal Studies (CLS) with Duncan Kennedy and Morton Horwitz. The movement stirred up controversy in legal schools across America as it challenged standard legal scholarship and made radical proposals for legal education. By the early 1980s, the CLS movement touched off a heated internal debate at Harvard, pitting the CLS scholars against the older, more traditional scholars.
Throughout much of the 1980s, Unger worked on his magnum opus, Politics: A Work In Constructive Social Theory, a three volume work that assessed classical social theory and developed a political, social, and economic alternative. The series is based on the premise of society as an artifact, and rejects the necessity of certain institutional arrangements. Published in 1987, Politics was foremost a critique of contemporary social theory and politics; it developed a theory of structural and ideological change, and gave an alternative account of world history. By first attacking the idea that there is a necessary progression from one set of institutional arrangements to another, e.g. feudalism to capitalism, it then built an anti-necessitarian theory of social change, theorizing the transition from one set of institutional arrangements to another.
Unger devoted much of the following decades to further elaborating on the insights developed in Politics by working out the political and social alternatives. What Should Legal Analysis Become? (Verso, 1996) developed tools to reimagine the organization of social life. Democracy Realized: The Progressive Alternative (Verso, 1998) and What Should the Left Propose? (Verso, 2005) put forth alternative institutional proposals.
Intellectual influences
Unger's model of philosophical practice is closest to those philosophers who sought to form a view of the whole of reality, and to do so by using and resisting the specialized knowledge of their time. It has been read as a form of pragmatism, but also as an attempt to disengage ideas and experiences that developed in the West under the influence of Christianity from the categories of Greek philosophy. His thought has been called the inverse of Schopenhauer's philosophy, affirming the supreme value of life and the reality and depth of the self and eschewing fecklessness.
Philosophical work
Social theory
Unger's social theory is premised on the idea of classical social theory that society is an artifact and can be created and recreated. Whereas previous thinkers such as Hegel or Marx backslid at some point and held onto the notion that there was a necessary institutional or historical social development, Unger, in the words of one critic, seeks to "take the idea to the hilt and produce a theory of emancipation that will escape the limitations of liberal and Marxist theories." That limitation is the search for an ideal structure of society that can be foreseen and centrally planned; whereas the emancipation leads to societies with greater institutional flexibility and variation.
For Unger, society emerges not through compromise or the winnowing down of best options, but rather through conflict and struggle for control of political and material resources. The victors of this struggle come to set the terms of social interaction and transaction, which is then institutionalized through law. This emergent order Unger calls formative context. Under a particular formative context, routines are established and people come to believe and act as if their social words were coherent wholes that are perfectly intelligible and defensible. They come to see the existing arrangements as necessary. Unger calls this false necessity. In reality, these arrangements are arbitrary and hold together rather tenuously, which leaves them open to resistance and change. This opposition Unger calls negative capability.
This leads Unger to the conclusion that change happens piecemeal through struggle and vision, rather than suddenly in revolutionary upheaval with the replacement of one set of institutional arrangements with another. Unger theorizes that cumulative change can alter formative contexts, and he goes on to propose a number of such changes as institutional alternatives to be implemented, which he calls Empowered democracy.
Empowered democracy is Unger's vision of a more open and more plastic set of social institutions through which individuals and groups can interact, propose change, and effectively empower themselves to transform social, economic, and political structures. Unger's strategy in its realization is to combine freedom of commerce and governance at the local level with the ability of political parties at the central government level to promote radical social experiments that would bring about decisive change in social and political institutions.
In practice, the theory would involve radical developments in politics at the center, as well as social innovation in localities. At the center, by bestowing wide ranging revising powers to those in office, it would give political parties the ability to try out concrete yet profound solutions and proposals. It would turn partisan conflicts over control and uses of governmental power into an opportunity to question and revise the basic arrangements of social life through a rapid resolution of political impasse. In local communities, empowered democracy would make capital and technology available through rotating capital funds, which would encourage entrepreneurship and innovation. Citizens' rights include individual entitlements to economic and civic security, conditional and temporary group claims to portions of social capital, and destabilization rights, which would empower individuals or groups to disrupt organizations and practices marred by routines of subjugation that normal politics have failed to disrupt.
Unger's ideas developed in a context where young intellectuals and radicals attempted to reconcile the conventional theories of society and law being taught in university classrooms with the reality of social protest and revolution of the 1960s and 70s. Disillusioned with Marxism, they turned to thinkers like Levi-Strauss, Gramsci, Habermas, and Foucault in attempt to situate understandings of law and society as a benign science of technocratic policy within a broader system of beliefs that legitimized the prevailing social order. Unlike Habermas, however, who formulates procedures for attaining rational consensus, Unger locates resolution in institutions and their arrangements that remain perpetually open to revision and reconstruction. And, unlike Foucault, who also emphasizes the constructed character of social life, Unger takes this as an opportunity to reimagine institutions and social conditions that will unleash human creativity and enable liberation.
Legal thought
Unger's work on law has sought to denaturalize the concept of law and how it is represented through particular institutions. He begins by inquiring into why modern societies have legal systems with distinctions between institutions, such as legislature and court, as well as a special caste of lawyers possessing a method of reasoning about social problems. Whereas thinkers such as Marx and Weber had argued that such legal arrangements were a product of economic necessity to secure property rights and the autonomy of the individual, Unger shows that this liberal legal order emerged in Europe as a result of the indeterminate relations between monarchy, aristocracy, and bourgeoisie. It took the particular form that it did by emerging out of the long tradition of natural law and universality, rather than of necessity.
This early work in historical analysis of law and legal thought laid the basis for Unger's contribution to the Critical Legal Studies movement. The movement itself was born in the late 1970s among young legal scholars at Harvard Law School who denounced the theoretical underpinnings of American jurisprudence, legal realism. The participants were committed to shaping society based on a vision of human personality without the hidden interests and class domination of legal institutions. Two tendencies of the movement developed, one, a radical indeterminacy that criticized law as meaning anything we want it to mean, and the other, a neo-Marxist critique that attacked legal thought as an institutional form of capitalism. Unger offered a third tendency, a constructive vision of rethinking rights based on individual emancipation and empowerment, and structural arrangements that would lend themselves to constant revision with the goal of creating more educational and economic opportunities for more people. He laid this out in The Critical Legal Studies Movement, which quickly earned him a following as the philosophical mentor and prophet of the movement.
Economic thought
At the center of Unger's thought about the economy is the commitment to reimagining and remaking the institutional arrangements of how humans produce and exchange. For Unger, economic institutions have no inherent or natural forms, and he rejects the necessitarian tendencies of classical and neo-classical economists, seeking instead alternatives to the arrangements of contemporary societies. In his writings, he has aimed to revise ideas on the importance of market economies and the division of labor in the workplace and national and global economies.
Critique of economics
Unger's critique of economics begins with the identification of a key moment in economic history, when the analysis of production and exchange turned away from social theory and engaged in a quest for scientific objectivity. In Unger's analysis, classical economics focused on the causal relations among social activities, which were connected with the production and distribution of wealth. Classical economists asked questions about the true basis of value, activities that contributed to national wealth, systems of rights, or about the forms of government under which people grow rich. In the late-nineteenth century, in response to attacks from socialist ideas and debates about how society works, and as a means to escape the conundrums of value theory and to answer how values could become prices, marginalist economics arose. This movement in economics disengaged economics from prescriptive and normative commitments to withdraw the study of economies from debates about how society worked and what kind of society we wanted to live in. For Unger, this moment in the history of economics robbed it of any analytical or practical value.
Unger's critique of Marginalism begins with Walras' equilibrium theory, which attempted to achieve a certainty of economic analysis by putting aside normative controversies of social organization. Unger finds three weaknesses that crippled the theory: foremost, the theory claimed that equilibrium would be spontaneously generated in a market economy. In reality, a self-adjusting equilibrium fails to occur. Second, the theory puts forth a determinate image of the market. Historically, however, the market has been shown to be indeterminate with different market arrangements. Third, the polemical use of efficiency fails to account for the differences of distribution among individuals, classes, and generations.
The consequences of the marginalist movement were profound for the study of economics, Unger says. The most immediate problem is that under this generalizing tendency of economics, there is no means by which to incorporate empirical evidence and thus to re-imagine the world and develop new theories and new directions. In this way, the discipline is always self-referential and theoretical. Furthermore, the lack of a normative view of the world curtails the ability to propose anything more than a policy prescription, which by definition always assumes a given context. The discipline can only rationalize the world and support a status quo. Lastly, Unger finds that this turn in economics ended up universalizing debates in macroeconomics and leaving the discipline without any historical perspective. A consequence, for example, was that Keynes' solution to a particular historical crisis was turned into a general theory when it should only be understood as a response to a particular situation.
Reorientating economics
Unger's vision of economics is that it cannot be unhinged from ideas about the individual and social life. Human activity and political organization must be incorporated into any analysis of trade and economies. In remaking the discipline, he calls for a return to the normative practice of classical economics but stripped of its necessitarian assumptions and typological references. The development of explanatory claims and prescriptive ideas are necessary. The discipline must connect the transformation of nature with that of society—the making of things with the reorganization of people.
In Free Trade Reimagined: The World Division of Labor and the Method of Economics, he sets forth six ideas to begin thinking about economic activity.
The problem of specialization and discovery. Competition comes to inhibit self transformation when trading partners are unequal but not radically unequal, for both are forced into cost cutting rather than innovating and increasing efficiency.
The problem of politics over economics. The making and implementation of policy is not one of discovery, but rather of top down implementation. Rigid state control will limit how a society can respond to tensions and crisis, and thus politics creates its own presuppositions and limits creativity and alternative solutions.
Free trade should strengthen the capacity for self transformation by organizing the trading regime in a way that strengthens the capacity of trading partners to experiment and innovate. It becomes question not of how much free trade, but what kind. The best arrangements are those that impose the least amount of restraint.
Alternative free trade. The market has no necessary and natural form. If the market economy can be organized in a different way then so can a universal order of free trade among market economies.
The division of labor remade. The pin factory organization of labor describes the organization of work as if labor were a machine. But we can make machines to do this work. We should then innovate in those areas where we don't yet know how to make the machine to do the work. Production should be one of collective learning and permanent innovation.
Mind against context. The mind is both a machine and an anti-machine; it is both formulaic and totalizing. Thus we never rest in any context, and we need to have arrangements that constantly lend themselves to reinvention.
Reconstructing economic institutions
For Unger, the economy is not only a device for wealth but also permanent innovation and discovery. It should allow the greatest freedom of the recombination of people and resources, and allow people to innovate in institutional settings. The market economy should not be single dogmatic version of itself.
Unger has presented a number of general institutional proposals that aim to restructure the world trade regime and introduce new alternatives in the market economy. For international and global trade, Unger calls for the need to experiment with different property rights regimes, where multiple forms will coexist in the same market system and not be tied to individual property rights and contractual labor. Generally, rather than maximizing the free trade as the goal, Unger sees the need to build and open the world economy in way that reconciles global openness with national and regional diversification, deviation, heresy, and experiment, where the idea is to support alternatives by making the world safer for them. For national economies, he rejects the need to require the free flow of capital, for there are times when it may be necessary to restrict capital flows. Rather, he puts the emphasis on the free flow of people. Labor should be allowed to move freely throughout the world.
On the twenty-first-century economic stimulus
Most recently, in a YouTube video titled he laid out three key policies to address the current economy:
Change the arrangements of finance in relation to production so that finance is in the service of production. Tax and regulate to discourage finance that does not contribute to production. Use public capital for venture capital funds.
Broaden economic opportunity by supporting small and medium enterprise. Reject the choice between government regulation and state controlled models. Support cooperation between government and firms, and cooperation and competition among firms.
Education. A system of schools to meet needs of a vibrant and flexible economy. Vocational schools that teach general concepts and flexibility, not job-specific skills.
"Illusions of necessity in the economic order"
Unger's first writing on economic theory was the article "Illusions of necessity in the economic order" in the May 1978 issue of American Economic Review. In the article he makes a case for the need of contemporary economic thought to imitate classical political economy in which theories of exchange should be incorporated into theories of power and perception.
The article articulates the problem of the American economy as one of the inability to realize democracy of production and community in the workplace. This failure, according to Unger, is the result of the lack of a comprehensive program that encompasses production, society, and state, so that immediate attempts to address inequality get swallowed up and appropriated by the status quo in the course of winning immediate gains for the organization or constituency, e.g. unions.
To realize a democracy in the workplace and the abolition of wealth and poverty, Unger argues for the need to relate the program of worker community and democracy with an enlargement of democracy at the national level—the goal cannot be only one of economic production and worker's rights, but must be accompanied by a national project at the structural level. He pushes this idea further by calling not just for a restructuring of the relationship between the firm and state based on private property, but that it also has to be replaced with a new set of rights encompassing access to jobs, markets, and capital. Only as private rights are phased out can rights of decentralized decision making and market exchange be extended to workers. This needs to be accompanied by limits on the size of enterprise and how profits are used to control others' labor.
Neoclassical economics is not up to this task because it begins with preconceived standards that it applies to explain empirical data, while leaving out that which is a theoretical anomaly; there is no causal basis of analysis, Unger says, rather everything is embedded in a timeless universal without any account for context. Furthermore, the ambiguity of concepts of maximization, efficiency, and rationalization pin the analysis to a certain notion of the behavior of the rationalizing individual, making the analysis either tautological or reduced to a set of power relations translated into the language of material exchange.
Programmatic thought
Key in Unger's thinking is the need to re-imagine social institutions before attempting to revise them. This calls for a program, or programmatic thought. In building this program, however, we must not entertain complete revolutionary overhaul, lest we be plagued by three false assumptions:
Typological fallacy: the fallacy that there is closed list of institutional alternatives in history, such as "feudalism" or "capitalism". There is not a natural form of society, only the specific result of the piecemeal institutional changes, political movements, and cultural reforms (as well as the accidents and coincidences of history) that came before it.
Indivisibility fallacy: most subscribers to revolutionary Leftism wrongly believe that institutional structures must stand and fall together. However, structures can be reformed piecemeal.
Determinism fallacy: the fallacy that uncontrollable and little understood law-like forces drive the historical succession of institutional systems. However, there is no natural flow of history. We make ourselves and our world, and can do so in any way we choose.
To think about social transformation programmatically, one must first mark the direction one wants society to move in, and then identify the first steps with which we can move in that direction. In this way we can formulate proposals at points along the trajectory, be they relatively close to how things are now or relatively far away. This provides a third way between revolution and reform. It is revolutionary reform, where one has a revolutionary vision, but acts on that vision in a sequence of piecemeal reforms. As Unger puts it, transformative politics is "not about blueprints; it is about pathways. It is not architecture; it is music".
The two Lefts
Unger sees two main Lefts in the world today, a recalcitrant Left and a humanizing Left. The recalcitrant Left seeks to slow down the march of markets and globalization, and to return to a time of greater government involvement and stronger social programs. The humanizing Left (or 'reformist Left') accepts the world in its present form, taking the market economy and globalization as unavoidable, and attempts to humanize their effects through tax-and-transfer policies.
Unger finds the two major orientations of contemporary Leftism inadequate and calls for a 'Reconstructive Left' – one which would insist on redirecting the course of globalization by reorganizing the market economy. In his two books The Left Alternative and The Future of American Progressivism, Unger lays out a program to democratize the market economy and deepen democracy. This Reconstructive Left would look beyond debates on the appropriate size of government, and instead re-envision the relationship between government and firms in the market economy by experimenting with the coexistence of different regimes of private and social property.
It would be committed to social solidarity, but "would refuse to allow our moral interests in social cohesion [to] rest solely upon money transfers commanded by the state in the form of compensatory and retrospective redistribution", as is the case with federal entitlement programs. Instead, Unger's Reconstructive Left affirms "the principle that everyone should share, in some way and at some time, responsibility for taking care of other people."
The Left Alternative program
Unger has laid out concrete policy proposals in areas of economic development, education, civil society, and political democracy.
On economic development, Unger has noted that there are only two models for a national economy available to us today: the US model of business control of government, and the northeast Asian model of top down bureaucratic control of the economy. Citing the need for greater imagination on the issue, he has offered a third model that is decentralized, pluralistic, participatory, and experimental. This would take the form of an economy encouraging small business development and innovation that would create large scale self-employment and cooperation. The emphasis is not on the protection of big business as the main sectors of the economy, but the highly mobile and innovative small firm.
Unger links the development of such an economy to an education system that encourages creativity and empowers the mind, not one that he now sees geared for a reproduction of the family and to put the individual in service of the state. He proposes that such a system should be run locally but have standards enforced through national oversight, as well as a procedure in place to intervene in the case of the failing of local systems.
Unger's critique of and alternative to social programs goes to the heart of civil society. The problem we are faced with now, he claims, is that we have a bureaucratic system of distribution that provides lower quality service and prohibits the involvement of civil society in the provision of public services. The alternative he lays out is to have the state act to equip civil society to partake in public services and care. This would entail empowering each individual to have two responsibilities, one in the productive economy and one in the caring economy.
Unger's proposal for political democracy calls for a high energy system that diminishes the dependence of change upon crisis. This can be done, he claims, by breaking the constant threat of stasis and institutionalization of politics and parties through five institutional innovations. First, increase collective engagement through the public financing of campaigns and giving free access to media outlets. Second, hasten the pace of politics by breaking legislative deadlock through the enabling of the party in power to push through proposals and reforms, and for opposition parties to be able to dissolve the government and call for immediate elections. Third, the option of any segment of society to opt out of the political process and to propose alternative solutions for its own governance. Fourth, give the state the power to rescue oppressed groups that are unable to liberate themselves through collective action. Fifth, direct participatory democracy in which active engagement is not purely in terms of financial support and wealth distribution, but through which people are directly involved in their local and national affairs through proposal and action.
Theoretical philosophy
At the core of Unger's theoretical philosophy are two key conceptions: first the infinity of the individual, and secondly the singularity of the world and the reality of time. The premise behind the infinity of the individual is that we exist within social contexts but we are more than the roles that these contexts may define for us—we can overcome them. In Unger's terms, we are both "context-bound and context-transcending; "we appear as "the embodied spirit;" as "the infinite imprisoned within the finite." For Unger, there is no natural state of the individual and his social being. Rather, we are infinite in spirit and unbound in what we can become. As such, no social institution or convention can contain us. While institutions do exist and shape our beings and our interactions, we can change both their structure and the extent to which they imprison us.
The philosophy of the singularity of the world and the reality of time establishes history as the site of decisive action through the propositions that there is only one real world, not multiple or simultaneous universes, and that time really exists in the world, not as a simulacrum through which we must experience the world.
These two concepts of infinity and reality lie at the heart of Unger's program calling for metaphysical and institutional revolutions. From the concept of the self as infinite but constrained, Unger argues that we must continually transform our environment to better express ourselves. This can only be done in a singular world within which time is real.
The self and human nature
In Passion: An Essay on Personality, Unger explores the individual and his relation to society from the perspective of the root human predicament of the need to establish oneself as a unique individual in the world but at the same time to find commonality and solidarity with others. This exploration is grounded in what Unger calls a modernist image of the human being as one who lives in context but is not bound by context. Unger's aim is to level a critique, expansion, and defense of modern thinking about the human and society.
Religion and the human condition
Unger has written and spoken extensively on religion and the human condition.
Religion, Unger argues, is a vision of the world within which we anchor our orientation to life. It is within this orientation that we deal with our greatest terrors and highest hopes. Because we are doomed to die, we hope for eternal life; because we are unable to grasp to totality of existence or of the universe, we try to dispel the mystery and provide a comprehensible explanation; because we have an insatiable desire, we cry for an object that is worthy of this desire, one that is infinite. Humans initially invested religious discourse in nature and the human susceptibility to nature. But as societies evolved and people developed ways to cope with the unpredictability of nature, the emphasis of religion shifted to social existence and its defects. A new moment in religion will begin, Unger argues, when we stop telling ourselves that all will be fine and we begin to face the incorrigible flaws in human existence. The future of religion lies in embracing our mortality and our groundlessness.
Unger sees four flaws in the human condition. They are, our mortality and the facing of imminent death; our groundlessness in that we are unable to grasp the solution to the enigma of existence, see the beginning or end of time, nor put off the discovery of the meaning of life; our insatiability in that we always want more, and demand the infinite from the finite; and our susceptibility to belittlement which places us in a position to constantly confront petty routine forcing us to die many little deaths.
There are three major responses in the history of human thought to these flaws: escape, humanization, and confrontation.
The overcoming of the world denies the phenomenal world and its distinctions, including the individual. It proclaims a benevolence towards others and an indifference to suffering and change. One achieves serenity by becoming invulnerable to suffering and change. The religion of Buddhism and philosophical thought of Plato and Schopenhauer best represent this orientation.
The humanization of the world creates meaning out of social interactions in a meaningless world by placing all emphasis on our reciprocal responsibility to one another. Confucianism and contemporary liberalism represent this strand of thought, both of which aim to soften the cruelties of the world.
The struggle with the world is framed by the idea that series of personal and social transformations can increase our share of attributes associated with the divine and give us a larger life. It emphasizes love over altruism, rejecting the moral of the mastery of self-interest to enhance solidarity, and emphasizing the humility of individual love. This orientation has been articulated in two different voices: the sacred voice of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and the profane voice of the secular projects of liberation.
The religion of the future
The spiritual orientation of the struggle with the world has given rise to the secular movements of emancipation in the modern world, and it is here that Unger sees the religion of the future. The problem Unger sees, however, is that as an established religion, this orientation has betrayed its ideological underpinnings and has made peace with existing order. It has accepted the hierarchies of class structure in society, accepted the transfer of money as serving as the basis of solidarity, and reaffirmed the basis of existing political, economic, and social institutions by investing in a conservative position of their preservation. Thus, "to be faithful to what made this orientation persuasive and powerful in the first place, we must radicalize it against both established institutions and dominant beliefs."
Unger's call is for a revolution in our religious beliefs that encompasses both individual transformation and institutional reorganization; to create change in the life of the individual as well as in the organization of society. The first part of the program of individual transformation means waking from the dazed state in which we live our lives, and recognizing our mortality and groundlessness without turning to the “feel-good theologies and philosophies”. The second part of the program of social transformation means supplementing the metaphysical revolution with institutional practices by creating social institutions that allow us to constantly overthrow our constraints and our context, and to make this overthrow not a one time event but a continuing process. This is the program of empowered democracy that calls for reforms in the market economy, education, politics, and civil society. "The goal is not to humanize society but to divinize humanity." It is "to raise ordinary life to a higher level of intensity and capability."
Natural philosophy
Unger's philosophy of space and time presented in The Singular Universe and the Reality of Time argues for the singularity of the world and the reality of time. His arguments are grounded in the tradition of natural philosophy. He takes on the Newtonian idea of the independent observer standing outside of time and space, addresses the skepticism of David Hume, rejects the position of Kant, and attacks speculations about parallel universes of contemporary cosmology. At stake is the laying of the foundations for a view of the world and causality that is open to all possibilities; that is not a closed system of options in which our future is governed by deterministic laws and typologies. It is an understanding of society that rejects the naturalness and necessity of current social arrangements; "a form of understanding of society and history that refuses to explain the present arrangements in a manner that vindicates their naturalness and necessity."
The thesis of the singularity of the world states that there is one real world. Such a thesis stands in stark contrast to contemporary theoretical physics and cosmology, which speculate about multiple universes out of the dilemma of how to have law like explanations if the universe is unique—laws will be universal because they don't just apply to this unique universe but to all universes. However, there is no empirical evidence for multiple worlds. Unger's singularity thesis can better address our empirical observations and set the conceptual platform to address the four main puzzles in cosmology today: Big Bang, initial conditions, horizon problem, and the precise value of constants, such as gravity, speed of light, and Planck's constant.
The thesis that time is real states that time "really is real" and everything is subject to history. This move is to historicize everything, even the laws of nature, and to challenge our acting as if time were real but not too real—we act as if it is somewhat real otherwise there would be no causal relations, but not so real that laws change. Unger holds that time is so real that laws of nature are also subject to its force and they too must change. There are no eternal laws upon which change occurs, rather time precedes structure. This position gives the universe a history and makes time non-emergent, global, irreversible, and continuous.
Bringing these two thesis together, Unger theorizes that laws of nature develop together with the phenomenon they explain. Laws and initial conditions co-evolve, in the same that they do in how cells reproduce and mutate in different levels of complexity of organisms. In cosmological terms Unger explains the passing from one structure to another at the origins of the universe when the state of energy was high but not infinite, and the freedom of movement was greater than when operating under a known set of laws. The conditions of the early universe is compatible with the universe that preceded it. The new universe may be different in structure, but has been made with what existed in the old one, e.g. masses of elementary particles, strength of different forces, and cosmological constants. As the universe cools the phenomena and laws work together with materials produced by sequence; they are path dependent materials. They are also constrained by the family of resemblances of the effective laws against the background of the conceptions of alternative states the universe and succession of universes.
Mathematics and the one real, time-drenched world
One consequence of these positions that Unger points to is the revision of the concept and function of mathematics. If there is only one world drenched in time through and through, then mathematics cannot be a timeless expression of multiple universes that captures reality. Rather, Unger argues that mathematics is a means of analyzing the world removed of time and phenomenal distinction. By emptying the world of time and space it is able to better focus on one aspect of reality: the recurrence of certain ways in which pieces of the world relate to other pieces. Its subject matter are the structured wholes and bundles of relations, which we see outside mathematics only as embodied in the time-bound particulars of the manifest world. In this way, mathematics extends our problem solving powers as an extension of human insight, but it is not a part of the world.
Political engagement
Unger has a long history of political activity in Brazil. He worked in early opposition parties in the 1970s/80s against the Brazilian military dictatorship, and drafted the founding manifesto for the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB) in 1980. He served as an intimate adviser to two presidential candidates, and launched exploratory bids himself in 2000 and 2006. He was the Secretary for Strategic Affairs in the Lula administration from 2007–09, and is currently working on a number of social and developmental projects in the state of Rondônia.
Driving Unger's political engagement is the idea that society can be made and remade. Unlike Mill or Marx, who posited a particular class as the agent of history, Unger does not see a single vehicle for transformative politics. He advocates world-wide revolution, but does not see this happening as a single cataclysmic event or undertaken by a class agent, like the Communist movement. Rather, he sees the possibility of piecemeal change, where institutions can be replaced one at a time, and permanent plasticity can be built into the institutional infrastructure.
Early political activity, 1970s and 1980s
Unger's engagement in Brazilian politics began in the late 1970s as Brazil started to democratize. In 1979, he presented himself to the main opposition party, the Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB), and was appointed chief of staff by party leader Ulysses Guimaraes. His initial work was to develop the positions of the party and draft policy proposals for their party's congressional representatives. When the military regime dissolved the two-party system and established a multi-party system later that year, Unger worked to unite progressive liberals and the independent, non-communist left into the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB). As a co-founder of the party, he authored its first manifesto. Unger left the party after the rise of a conservative faction, which was a part of the MDB but had been excluded from the initial formation of the PMDB.
After departing the PMDB in the early 1980s, Unger began looking for political agents who would serve as vehicles for his national alternative. In 1981, he jointed the Democratic Labour Party of Brazil (PDT) led by Leonel Brizola, a former governor of Rio de Janeiro and a figure of the left prior to the dictatorship. Brizola had founded the PDT and Unger saw it as the authentic opposition to the military regime. Throughout the 1980s he worked with Brizola to travel the country recruiting members, and developing policy positions and a political language.
In 1983, Brizola, then serving his second of three terms as governor of Rio de Janeiro, appointed Unger to head the State Foundation for the Education of Minors (FEEM), a state-run foundation for homeless children. During his year-long tenure, he began a process of radical reforms of the institutions, such as opening the door to international adoption and reintegrating children with their families. He also set up community organizations in the slums to help support families in order to prevent the abandonment of children.
Political campaigns, 1990s and 2000s
In 1990, Unger ran a symbolic campaign for a seat in the national chamber of deputies. He had no money, no structure, and only campaigned for eight weeks. He ran on a platform of reforming the slums, and went around the slum neighborhoods giving lectures. He received 9,000 votes, just 1,000 votes short of winning the seat. None of the votes came from the slums, however. All his votes had come from the middle class, although he had never campaigned in those neighborhoods or to that constituency. Recalling the experience, Unger says "it was kind of absurd... I had no money, no staff, and I would go into these slums, alone, to hand out pamphlets, often to the local drug pushers." It is an experience that Unger cites as leading to his belief that the system and possibilities were much more open than he had previously imagined.
Unger served as Brizola's campaign organizer and primary political adviser in his bids for the Brazilian Presidency in 1989 and 1994. In 1989, Brizola finished in third place, losing the second position, which would have qualified him for a runoff against Fernando Collor de Mello, by a very narrow margin to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Brizola and Unger both supported Lula in the second round of the election, but Collor would go on to beat Lula and win the Presidency.
Unger also helped organize the presidential bids of former finance minister and governor of Ceará, Ciro Gomes, in 1998 and 2002. In 1998, Gomes came in third place with 11% of the vote, and in 2002 he came in fourth place with 12% of the vote. Unger had written The Next Step: An Alternative to Neoliberalism with Gomes in 1996. At the national level in 2002, again in the second round of the election, Unger supported Lula who went on to defeat José Serra to win the Presidency.
With the experience of supporting others who imploded politically, Unger discovered that, as he put it, he was committing "the classic mistake of the philosophers in politics, which is to try to find someone else to do the work." In 2000, he ran in the primaries for the mayor of Sao Paulo, but the PPS party leader suspended the primaries when it became clear that Unger would win the nomination and challenge party control. He launched an exploratory bid for the 2006 presidential election on the PRB ticket, but the party decided not to put forth its own candidate for the presidency and to support Lula of the PT.
As Minister of Strategic Affairs in the Lula administration
Unger found President Lula's first term to be conservative and riddled with scandal. He wrote articles calling Lula's administration "the most corrupt of Brazil's history" and called for his impeachment.
Despite the criticism, many advisers to Lula insisted that he should invite Unger to join his administration. In June 2007, after winning his second term, Lula appointed Unger as head of the newly established Long-term Planning Secretariat (a post which would eventually be called The Minister of Strategic Affairs).
Unger's work in office was an attempt to enact his program. Seeing the future in small enterprises and advocating a rotating capital fund that would function like a government run venture capital fund, he pushed for a rapid expansion of credit to smaller producers and a decentralized network of technical support centers that would help broaden the middle class from below. He further called for political solutions that would broaden access to production forces such as information technology, and for states to focus on equipping and monitoring civil society rather than trying to provide social services.
Unger's specific projects while in office were focused on giving "ordinary men and women the instruments with which to render this vitality fertile and productive." He aimed to use state powers and resources to allow the majority of poor workers to "follow the path of the emergent vanguard". He developed a series of sectoral and regional initiatives that would prefigure the model of development based on the broadening of economic and educational opportunity by democratizing the market economy and restructuring civil society.
Sectorally, Unger revamped the educational structure and rewrote labor laws. In education, he implemented a model of secondary education, where analytical problem-solving education was paired with technical education that focused on conceptual capabilities rather than job-specific skills. There are several hundred of these institutions today. He further drafted legislation to associate national, state and local jurisdictions into common bodies that could intervene when a local school system fell below the minimum acceptable threshold of quality and "fix it the way an independent administrator would fix a failing business under Chapter 11 bankruptcy." In labor, Unger worked with unions to write new labor laws designed to protect and organize temporary workers, subcontractors, and those working in the informal economy.
Regionally, some of Unger's most influential work was the implementation of a developmental strategy for the Amazon that would be sustainable environmentally by making it socially inclusive. He drafted and passed legislation to regularize small-scale squatters on untitled land by giving them clear legal titles, which would create self-interest in preservation while granting them economic opportunity. Included in this law were protections against large scale land grabbers. Such legislation aimed to empower locals living on Amazonian land by giving them ownership rights and linking their interest in preserving it, rather than pillaging it as quickly as possible in the face of ambiguous ownership rights. This legislation passed and was put into law.
Unger served in the administration for two years. On 26 June 2009, President Lula announced Unger would be leaving the government and returning to Harvard University. He later cited personal and political reasons for his early departure.
Engagement outside Brazil
Unger's attempts to develop global social, political, and economic alternatives have led him in episodic engagements in national debates around the world. His approach in these engagements recognizes that the problems facing contemporary societies are not distinct from nation to nation, and that general structural arrangements can first be implemented, which will allow for local innovation, flexibility, and development in social, economic, and political arenas. There is no institutional blueprint for Unger, however, only a direction that can be pointed to and general proposals that can be implemented to allow further institutional innovation and experimentation. Unger's guiding principle is that institutional flexibility needs to be built into the implemented system, and in this way a diversity of local experiments would take hold the world over.
One of Unger's more promising engagements was the Latin American Alternative in the late 1990s. Unger and Mexican politician and political scientist Jorge Castañeda Gutman assembled an informal network of politicians and business leaders dedicated to redrawing the political map. The aim of the group was to provide a critique of neoliberalism coupled with a way forward in a distinct strategy and institutional model of development. They floated proposals such as guaranteeing every citizen "social rights" (e.g. education and a job), breaking up media oligopolies, and holding town meetings to help citizens supervise municipal spending. The group held a number of meetings over the years, which included Brazilian finance minister Ciro Gomes, Chilean senator Carlos Ominami, Argentinian politicians Dante Caputo and Rodolfo Terragno, and Mexican politician and future president Vicente Fox. The meetings resulted in a document entitled the "Buenos Aires Consensus" in 1997, which Castaneda called "the end of neoliberalism; of the Washington Consensus".
This consensus was formally signed in 2003 by Argentinian President Néstor Kirchner and Brazilian President Lula da Silva. Other Latin American leaders who signed it included Fox, future president of Chile Ricardo Lagos, Mexican politician Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, former vice president of Nicaragua Sergio Ramírez, future president of Argentina Fernando de la Rúa, and former Brazilian president Itamar Franco.
During the 2008 US presidential campaign, Unger was in frequent contact with candidate Barack Obama via email and Blackberry. He has since become critical of the Obama administration, and called for the defeat of Obama in the 2012 election as a first step to remaking the Democratic party.
Current engagement
Unger's recent political work has focused on the north-western Brazilian state of Rondônia. He sees the human and natural resources of the state meeting all the conditions to serve as the vanguard of a new model of development for Brazil. Speaking to News Rondônia he said, "Rondônia is a state formed by a multitude of small and medium entrepreneurs together with the Brazilian government, and that is something truly unique in our country."
He has been traveling the state giving public lectures and encouraging political discourse and engagement in localities. Working with governor João Aparecido Cahulla on development projects, Unger has outlined a series of important areas of focus. The first is to change the agricultural model from one of intensive farming to an industrialization of produces through the recuperation of degraded pastures, supply fertilizers and lime, and diversifying crops and livestock farming. The second key project is transforming education from rote learning to creative thinking and engagement. He helped open the School Teixeira in Porto Velho. Another ongoing project is the construction of a new educational center in accordance with his theory of pedagogical reform, where delinquents would be reintegrated into municipal life.
Circumstance and influence
Unger's philosophical work grapples with some of the most fundamental and enduring problems of human existence. It has been put into direct dialogue with Kant's moral law, and said to have provided one answer to Hume's Guillotine. Unger's analysis of liberalism and the philosophical program he builds around rethinking the individual has also inspired new thinking and approaches to psychiatry.
In 1987, the Northwestern University Law Review devoted an issue to Unger's work, analysing his three volume publication Politics: A Work In Constructive Social Theory. Michael J. Perry, a professor of law at Northwestern University, praises Unger for producing a vast work of social theory that combines law, history, politics, and philosophy within a single narrative.
Early reviewers of Politics questioned Unger's seeming predicament of criticizing a system of thought and its historical tradition without subjecting himself to the same critical gaze. "There is little acknowledgement that he himself is writing in a particular socio-historical context", wrote one reviewer, and another asked, "in what context Unger himself is situated and why that context itself is not offered up to the sledgehammer."
Critics also balked at the lack of example or concrete vision of his social and political proposals. As one critic wrote, "it is difficult to imagine what Unger's argument would mean in practice", and that "he does not tell us what to make." Others have suggested that the lack of imagination of such readers is precisely what is at stake.
Books
Knowledge and Politics, Free Press, 1975.
Law In Modern Society: Toward a Criticism of Social Theory, Free Press, 1976.
Passion: An Essay on Personality, Free Press, 1986.
The Critical Legal Studies Movement, Harvard University Press, 1986.
Politics: A Work In Constructive Social Theory, Cambridge University Press, 1987, in 3 Vols:
Vol 1 - False Necessity: Anti-Necessitarian Social Theory in the Service of Radical Democracy.
Vol 2 - Social Theory: Its Situation and Its Task - A Critical Introduction to Politics: A Work in Constructive Social Theory.
Vol 3 - Plasticity Into Power: Comparative-Historical Studies on the Institutional Conditions of Economic and Military Success.
What Should Legal Analysis Become?, Verso, 1996
Politics: The Central Texts, Theory Against Fate, Verso, 1997, with Cui Zhiyuan.
Democracy Realized: The Progressive Alternative, Verso, 1998.
The Future of American Progressivism: An Initiative for Political and Economic Reform, Beacon, 1998 - with Cornel West
What Should the Left Propose?, Verso, 2006.
The Self Awakened: Pragmatism Unbound, Harvard, 2007.
Free Trade Reimagined: The World Division of Labor and the Method of Economics, Princeton University Press, 2007.
The Left Alternative, Verso, 2009 (2nd edition to What Should the Left Propose?, Verso, 2006.).
The Religion of the Future, Harvard, 2014.
The Singular Universe and the Reality of Time, Cambridge University Press, 2014, with Lee Smolin.
The Knowledge Economy, Verso, 2019.
See also
False necessity
Formative context
Negative capability
Empowered democracy
Structure and agency
Passions
References
External links
Roberto Unger's Harvard Homepage
Links to Unger's works via his homepage
An interview with Unger on the American Left
Biographical articles about Roberto Unger
Guggenheim Gives Fellowships for '76: Unger Gets Tenure, Too (The Harvard Crimson April 5, 1976)
"The Passion of Roberto Unger" , Eyal Press, (Lingua Franca, March 1999)
Carlos Castilho, "Brazil's Consigliere: Unger Leaves Lectern to Stand Behind the Throne." (World Paper, April 2000)
Simon Romero, "Destination: São Paulo" (Metropolis, October 2000) This article is about São Paulo, Brazil, but it has a lengthy discussion of Unger's political activism there and many quotes from Unger.
Meltzer Elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences (HLS News May 13, 2004)
(First of the Month, July 1, 2012)
1947 births
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Writers about globalization | true | [
"Most presidents of the United States received a college education, even most of the earliest. Of the first seven presidents, five were college graduates. College degrees have set the presidents apart from the general population, and presidents have held degrees even though it was quite rare and unnecessary for practicing most occupations, including law. Of the 45 individuals to have been the president, 25 of them graduated from a private undergraduate college, nine graduated from a public undergraduate college, and 12 held no degree. Every president since 1953 has had a bachelor's degree, reflecting the increasing importance of higher education in the United States.\n\nList by university attended\n\nDid not graduate from college \n\nGeorge Washington (Although the death of Washington's father ended his formal schooling, he received a surveyor's certificate from the College of William and Mary. Washington believed strongly in formal education, and his will left money and/or stocks to support three educational institutions.)\nJames Monroe (attended the College of William and Mary, but dropped out to fight in the Revolutionary War)\nAndrew Jackson\nMartin Van Buren\nWilliam Henry Harrison (attended Hampden Sydney College for three years but did not graduate and then attended University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine but never received a degree)\nZachary Taylor\nMillard Fillmore (founded the University at Buffalo)\nAbraham Lincoln (had only about a year of formal schooling of any kind)\nAndrew Johnson (no formal schooling of any kind)\nGrover Cleveland\nWilliam McKinley (attended Allegheny College, but did not graduate; also attended Albany Law School, but also did not graduate)\nHarry S. Truman (went to business college and law school, but did not graduate)\n\nUndergraduate \n\nA.JFK enrolled, but did not attend\n\nAdditional undergraduate information\nSome presidents attended more than one institution. George Washington never attended college, though The College of William & Mary did issue him a surveyor's certificate. Two presidents have attended a foreign college at the undergraduate level: John Quincy Adams at Leiden University and Bill Clinton at the University of Oxford (John F. Kennedy intended to study at the London School of Economics, but failed to attend as he fell ill before classes began.)\n\nThree presidents have attended the United States Service academies: Ulysses S. Grant and Dwight D. Eisenhower graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point, while Jimmy Carter graduated from the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland. No presidents have graduated from the United States Coast Guard Academy or the much newer U.S. Air Force Academy. Eisenhower also graduated from the Army Command and General Staff College, Army Industrial College and Army War College. These were not degree granting institutions when Eisenhower attended, but were part of his professional education as a career soldier.\n\nGraduate school\nA total of 20 presidents attended some form of graduate school (including professional schools). Among them, eleven presidents received a graduate degree during their lifetimes; two more received graduate degrees posthumously.\n\nBusiness school\n\nGraduate School\n\nMedical school\n\nLaw school \n\nSeveral presidents who were lawyers did not attend law school, but became lawyers after independent study under the tutelage of established attorneys. Some had attended college before beginning their legal studies, and several studied law without first having attended college. Presidents who were lawyers but did not attend law school include: John Adams; Thomas Jefferson; James Madison; James Monroe; John Quincy Adams; Andrew Jackson; Martin Van Buren; John Tyler; James K. Polk; Millard Fillmore; James Buchanan; Abraham Lincoln; James A. Garfield; Grover Cleveland; Benjamin Harrison; and Calvin Coolidge.\n\nPresidents who were admitted to the bar after a combination of law school and independent study include; Franklin Pierce; Chester A. Arthur; William McKinley; and Woodrow Wilson.\n\nList by graduate degree earned\n\nPh.D. (doctorate)\n\nM.B.A. (Master of Business Administration)\n\nM.A. (Master of Arts)\n\nNote: John Adams and John Quincy Adams, along with George W. Bush are the only presidents to date to attain Master’s degrees.\n\nJ.D. or LL.B. (law degree)\n\nNote: Hayes, Taft, Nixon and Ford were awarded LL.B. degrees. When U.S. law schools began to use the J.D. as the professional law degree in the 1960s, previous graduates had the choice of converting their LL.B. degrees to a J.D. Duke University Law School made the change in 1968, and Yale Law School in 1971. Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt, both of whom attended Columbia Law School but withdrew before graduating, were awarded posthumous J.D. degrees in 2008.\n\nList by president\n\nOther academic associations\n\nFaculty member\n\nSchool rector or president\n\nSchool trustee or governor\n\nSee also\n List of prime ministers of Australia by education\n List of prime ministers of Canada by academic degrees\n List of presidents of the Philippines by education\n List of prime ministers of the United Kingdom by education\n\nReferences\n\nCollege education\nUnited States education-related lists",
"The Constitution of the United States does not require that any federal judges have any particular educational or career background, but the work of the Court involves complex questions of law – ranging from constitutional law to administrative law to admiralty law – and consequentially, a legal education has become a de facto prerequisite to appointment on the United States Supreme Court. Every person who has been nominated to the Court has been an attorney.\n\nBefore the advent of modern law schools in the United States, justices, like most attorneys of the time, completed their legal studies by \"reading law\" (studying under and acting as an apprentice to more experienced attorneys) rather than attending a formal program. The first Justice to be appointed who had attended an actual law school was Levi Woodbury, appointed to the Court in 1846. Woodbury had attended Tapping Reeve Law School in Litchfield, Connecticut, the most prestigious law school in the United States in that day, prior to his admission to the bar in 1812. However, Woodbury did not earn a law degree. Woodbury's successor on the Court, Benjamin Robbins Curtis, who received his law degree from Harvard Law School in 1832, and was appointed to the Court in 1851, was the first Justice to bear such a credential.\n\nAssociate Justice James F. Byrnes, whose short tenure lasted from June 1941 to October 1942, was the last Justice without a law degree to be appointed; Stanley Forman Reed, who served on the Court from 1938 to 1957, was the last sitting Justice from such a background. In total, of the 114 justices appointed to the Court, 49 have had law degrees, an additional 18 attended some law school but did not receive a degree, and 47 received their legal education without any law school attendance.\n\nCurrently serving justices are listed in bold below.\n\nFour or more justices\n Harvard Law School – 21 alumni; 17 graduates\nHarry Blackmun\nLouis Brandeis\nWilliam J. Brennan Jr.\nStephen Breyer\nHenry Billings Brown – also studied law at Yale, did not receive law degree from either\nHarold Hitz Burton\nBenjamin Robbins Curtis\nFelix Frankfurter\nMelville Fuller – did not graduate; Chief Justice\nRuth Bader Ginsburg – graduated from Columbia Law School\nNeil Gorsuch\nHorace Gray\nOliver Wendell Holmes Jr.\nElena Kagan\nAnthony Kennedy\nWilliam Henry Moody – did not graduate\nLewis F. Powell Jr. – LLM graduate\nJohn Roberts – Chief Justice\nEdward Terry Sanford\nAntonin Scalia\nDavid Souter\n Yale Law School – 11 alumni, 9 graduates\nSamuel Alito\nHenry Billings Brown – also studied law at Harvard, did not receive law degree from either\nDavid Davis\nAbe Fortas\nBrett Kavanaugh\nSherman Minton – LLM graduate, attended Indiana University\nGeorge Shiras Jr. – did not graduate\nSonia Sotomayor\nPotter Stewart\nClarence Thomas\nByron White\n Columbia Law School – 7 alumni, 4 graduates\nBenjamin N. Cardozo – completed two years, did not graduate\nWilliam O. Douglas\nRuth Bader Ginsburg – also attended Harvard Law School\nCharles Evans Hughes – Chief Justice\nJoseph McKenna – studied at the law school, did not graduate\nStanley Forman Reed – also attended University of Virginia School of Law, did not graduate from either\nHarlan F. Stone – Chief Justice\n\nThree justices\n University of Michigan Law School\nGeorge Sutherland\nFrank Murphy\nWilliam Rufus Day\n Litchfield Law School (defunct)\nHenry Baldwin\nWard Hunt\nLevi Woodbury – first justice to have attended law school\n\nTwo justices\n Albany Law School\nDavid Josiah Brewer\nRobert H. Jackson – completed one-year program, awarded certificate of completion\n Cincinnati Law School (University of Cincinnati College of Law)\nWillis Van Devanter\nWilliam Howard Taft – Chief Justice (and former President)\n Cumberland School of Law\nHowell Edmunds Jackson\nHorace Harmon Lurton\n Indiana University Maurer School of Law\nSherman Minton\nWiley Blount Rutledge – studied part-time before leaving and completing degree at University of Colorado Law School\n Northwestern University School of Law\nArthur Goldberg\nJohn Paul Stevens\n Stanford Law School\nSandra Day O'Connor\nWilliam Rehnquist – Chief Justice\n University of Virginia School of Law\nJames Clark McReynolds\nStanley Forman Reed – also attended Columbia Law School, did not graduate from either\n Washington and Lee University School of Law\nJoseph Rucker Lamar\nLewis F. Powell Jr. – also received an LL.M. from Harvard Law School\n\nOne justice\n Centre College School of Law\n Fred M. Vinson – Chief Justice\n Howard University School of Law\n Thurgood Marshall\n Mitchell Hamline School of Law\n Warren E. Burger – Chief Justice\n New York Law School\n John Marshall Harlan II\n Notre Dame Law School\n Amy Coney Barrett\n Transylvania University School of Law\n John Marshall Harlan\n Tulane University Law School\n Edward White – Chief Justice\n University of Alabama School of Law\n Hugo Black\n University of California, Berkeley School of Law\n Earl Warren – Chief Justice\n University of Colorado Law School\n Wiley Blount Rutledge – originally studied at Indiana University prior to attending the University of Colorado\n University of Missouri–Kansas City School of Law\n Charles Evans Whittaker\n University of Pennsylvania Law School\n Owen Roberts\n University of Texas School of Law\n Tom C. Clark\n\nUniversity or college trained\n\nThese justices were educated at the equivalent of what would today be an undergraduate level, but did not receive legal education at the graduate level, the model under which law schools in the U.S. are currently organized.\n\n Brigham Young University\n George Sutherland – also attended University of Michigan Law School\n Carleton College\n Pierce Butler\n Case Western Reserve University\n John Hessin Clarke\n College of William & Mary\n John Marshall – Chief Justice\n Philip P. Barbour\n Bushrod Washington\n John Blair Jr.\n Columbia University\n John Jay – Chief Justice\n Samuel Blatchford\n Dartmouth College\nSalmon P. Chase – Chief Justice\n Dickinson College\nRobert Cooper Grier\nRoger B. Taney – Chief Justice\n Emory University\n Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar\n Harvard University\n Joseph Story\n Middlebury College\n Samuel Nelson\n Princeton University \n Oliver Ellsworth – Chief Justice\n William Paterson\n Mahlon Pitney\n Rutgers University\n Joseph P. Bradley\n Saint Joseph's University\n Joseph McKenna – also took law courses at Columbia Law School but was not enrolled in a degree program\n University of Georgia\n John Archibald Campbell\n University of Michigan\n William R. Day\n University of St Andrews\n James Wilson – also attended the University of Edinburgh and University of Glasgow but did not graduate\n Washington and Lee University\n Thomas Todd\n Wesleyan University\n David Josiah Brewer – 1851–1854, transferred to and graduated from Yale\n Williams College\n Stephen Johnson Field\n Yale University\n David Josiah Brewer – transferred from Wesleyan University\n William Strong\n\nNo university legal education\nSome justices received no legal education in a university setting, but were instead either trained through apprenticeships or were self-taught, as was common with many lawyers prior to the mid-20th century.\n\n James F. Byrnes\n Samuel Chase\n John Hessin Clarke\n James Iredell\n Thomas Johnson\n\nSee also\n List of law schools in the United States\n\nReferences\n\n \n source for seat information\n \n PDF (28 kB)\n source for term of active service\n\nLaw schools in the United States\nUnited States law-related lists\nLists of United States Supreme Court justices"
] |
[
"Roberto Mangabeira Unger",
"Academic career",
"Which school did he attended?",
"legal schools across America"
] | C_4f00a236510846968d1f892d87efb181_1 | Did he attend any other school apart from that? | 2 | Did Roberto Mangabeira Unger attend any other school besides legal schools across America? | Roberto Mangabeira Unger | The beginning of Unger's academic career began with the books Knowledge and Politics and Law in Modern Society, published in 1975 and 1976 respectively. These works led to the co-founding of Critical Legal Studies (CLS) with Duncan Kennedy and Morton Horwitz. The movement stirred up controversy in legal schools across America as it challenged standard legal scholarship and made radical proposals for legal education. By the early 1980s, the CLS movement touched off a heated internal debate at Harvard, pitting the CLS scholars against the older, more traditional scholars. Throughout much of the 1980s, Unger worked on his magnum opus, Politics: A Work In Constructive Social Theory, a three volume work that assessed classical social theory and developed a political, social, and economic alternative. The series is based on the premise of society as an artifact, and rejects the necessity of certain institutional arrangements. Published in 1987, Politics was foremost a critique of contemporary social theory and politics; it developed a theory of structural and ideological change, and gave an alternative account of world history. By first attacking the idea that there is a necessary progression from one set of institutional arrangements to another, e.g. feudalism to capitalism, it then built an anti-necessitarian theory of social change, theorizing the transition from one set of institutional arrangements to another. Unger devoted much of the following decades to further elaborating on the insights developed in Politics by working out the political and social alternatives. What Should Legal Analysis Become? (Verso, 1996) developed tools to reimagine the organization of social life. Democracy Realized: The Progressive Alternative (Verso, 1998) and What Should the Left Propose? (Verso, 2005) put forth alternative institutional proposals. CANNOTANSWER | legal schools across America | Roberto Mangabeira Unger (; born 24 March 1947) is a Brazilian philosopher and politician. His work is in the tradition of classical social theory and pragmatism, and is developed across many fields including legal theory, philosophy and religion, social and political theory, progressive alternatives, and economics. In natural philosophy he is known for The Singular Universe and the Reality of Time. In social theory he is known for Politics: A Work in Constructive Social Theory. In legal theory he was part of the Critical Legal Studies movement, which helped disrupt the methodological consensus in American law schools. His political activity helped the transition to democracy in Brazil in the aftermath of the military regime, and culminated with his appointment as Brazil's Minister of Strategic Affairs in 2007 and again in 2015. His work is seen to offer a vision of humanity and a program to empower individuals and change institutions.
At the core of his philosophy is a view of humanity as greater than the contexts in which it is placed. He sees each individual possessed with the capability to rise to a greater life. At the root of his social thought is the conviction that the social world is made and imagined. His work begins from the premise that no natural or necessary social, political, or economic arrangements underlie individual or social activity. Property rights, liberal democracy, wage labor—for Unger, these are all historical artifacts that have no necessary relation to the goals of free and prosperous human activity. For Unger, the market, the state, and human social organization should not be set in predetermined institutional arrangements, but need to be left open to experimentation and revision according to what works for the project of individual and collective empowerment. Doing so, he holds, will enable human liberation.
Unger has long been active in Brazilian opposition politics. He was one of the founding members of the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party and drafted its manifesto. He directed the presidential campaigns of Leonel Brizola and Ciro Gomes, ran for the Chamber of Deputies, and twice launched exploratory bids for the Brazilian presidency. He served as the Minister of Strategic Affairs in the second Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva administration and in the second Dilma administration.
Biography
Family
Unger's maternal grandfather was Octávio Mangabeira, who served as Brazil's minister of foreign affairs in the late 1920s before the dictatorship of Getúlio Vargas subjected him to a series of imprisonments and exiles in Europe and the United States. After returning to Brazil in 1945, he co-founded a center-left party. He was elected as a representative in the Câmara Federal in 1946, governor of Bahia in 1947, and Senator in 1958.
Both of Unger's parents were intellectuals. His German-born father, Artur Unger, from Dresden, arrived in the United States as a child and later became a U.S. citizen. His mother, Edyla Mangabeira, was a Brazilian poet and journalist. Artur and Edyla met in the US during the exile of Octávio Mangabeira.
Early life
Roberto Mangabeira Unger was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1947, and spent his childhood on Manhattan's Upper East Side. He attended the private Allen-Stevenson School. When he was eleven, his father died and his mother moved the family back to Brazil. He attended a Jesuit school and went on to law school at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.
Unger was admitted to Harvard Law School in September 1969. After receiving his LLM, Unger stayed at Harvard another year on a fellowship, and then entered the doctoral program. At 23 years old, Unger began teaching jurisprudence, among other things, to first year students. In 1976, aged 29, he got SJD and became one of the youngest faculty members to receive tenure from the Harvard Law School.
Academic career
The beginning of Unger's academic career began with the books Knowledge and Politics and Law in Modern Society, published in 1975 and 1976 respectively. These works led to the co-founding of Critical Legal Studies (CLS) with Duncan Kennedy and Morton Horwitz. The movement stirred up controversy in legal schools across America as it challenged standard legal scholarship and made radical proposals for legal education. By the early 1980s, the CLS movement touched off a heated internal debate at Harvard, pitting the CLS scholars against the older, more traditional scholars.
Throughout much of the 1980s, Unger worked on his magnum opus, Politics: A Work In Constructive Social Theory, a three volume work that assessed classical social theory and developed a political, social, and economic alternative. The series is based on the premise of society as an artifact, and rejects the necessity of certain institutional arrangements. Published in 1987, Politics was foremost a critique of contemporary social theory and politics; it developed a theory of structural and ideological change, and gave an alternative account of world history. By first attacking the idea that there is a necessary progression from one set of institutional arrangements to another, e.g. feudalism to capitalism, it then built an anti-necessitarian theory of social change, theorizing the transition from one set of institutional arrangements to another.
Unger devoted much of the following decades to further elaborating on the insights developed in Politics by working out the political and social alternatives. What Should Legal Analysis Become? (Verso, 1996) developed tools to reimagine the organization of social life. Democracy Realized: The Progressive Alternative (Verso, 1998) and What Should the Left Propose? (Verso, 2005) put forth alternative institutional proposals.
Intellectual influences
Unger's model of philosophical practice is closest to those philosophers who sought to form a view of the whole of reality, and to do so by using and resisting the specialized knowledge of their time. It has been read as a form of pragmatism, but also as an attempt to disengage ideas and experiences that developed in the West under the influence of Christianity from the categories of Greek philosophy. His thought has been called the inverse of Schopenhauer's philosophy, affirming the supreme value of life and the reality and depth of the self and eschewing fecklessness.
Philosophical work
Social theory
Unger's social theory is premised on the idea of classical social theory that society is an artifact and can be created and recreated. Whereas previous thinkers such as Hegel or Marx backslid at some point and held onto the notion that there was a necessary institutional or historical social development, Unger, in the words of one critic, seeks to "take the idea to the hilt and produce a theory of emancipation that will escape the limitations of liberal and Marxist theories." That limitation is the search for an ideal structure of society that can be foreseen and centrally planned; whereas the emancipation leads to societies with greater institutional flexibility and variation.
For Unger, society emerges not through compromise or the winnowing down of best options, but rather through conflict and struggle for control of political and material resources. The victors of this struggle come to set the terms of social interaction and transaction, which is then institutionalized through law. This emergent order Unger calls formative context. Under a particular formative context, routines are established and people come to believe and act as if their social words were coherent wholes that are perfectly intelligible and defensible. They come to see the existing arrangements as necessary. Unger calls this false necessity. In reality, these arrangements are arbitrary and hold together rather tenuously, which leaves them open to resistance and change. This opposition Unger calls negative capability.
This leads Unger to the conclusion that change happens piecemeal through struggle and vision, rather than suddenly in revolutionary upheaval with the replacement of one set of institutional arrangements with another. Unger theorizes that cumulative change can alter formative contexts, and he goes on to propose a number of such changes as institutional alternatives to be implemented, which he calls Empowered democracy.
Empowered democracy is Unger's vision of a more open and more plastic set of social institutions through which individuals and groups can interact, propose change, and effectively empower themselves to transform social, economic, and political structures. Unger's strategy in its realization is to combine freedom of commerce and governance at the local level with the ability of political parties at the central government level to promote radical social experiments that would bring about decisive change in social and political institutions.
In practice, the theory would involve radical developments in politics at the center, as well as social innovation in localities. At the center, by bestowing wide ranging revising powers to those in office, it would give political parties the ability to try out concrete yet profound solutions and proposals. It would turn partisan conflicts over control and uses of governmental power into an opportunity to question and revise the basic arrangements of social life through a rapid resolution of political impasse. In local communities, empowered democracy would make capital and technology available through rotating capital funds, which would encourage entrepreneurship and innovation. Citizens' rights include individual entitlements to economic and civic security, conditional and temporary group claims to portions of social capital, and destabilization rights, which would empower individuals or groups to disrupt organizations and practices marred by routines of subjugation that normal politics have failed to disrupt.
Unger's ideas developed in a context where young intellectuals and radicals attempted to reconcile the conventional theories of society and law being taught in university classrooms with the reality of social protest and revolution of the 1960s and 70s. Disillusioned with Marxism, they turned to thinkers like Levi-Strauss, Gramsci, Habermas, and Foucault in attempt to situate understandings of law and society as a benign science of technocratic policy within a broader system of beliefs that legitimized the prevailing social order. Unlike Habermas, however, who formulates procedures for attaining rational consensus, Unger locates resolution in institutions and their arrangements that remain perpetually open to revision and reconstruction. And, unlike Foucault, who also emphasizes the constructed character of social life, Unger takes this as an opportunity to reimagine institutions and social conditions that will unleash human creativity and enable liberation.
Legal thought
Unger's work on law has sought to denaturalize the concept of law and how it is represented through particular institutions. He begins by inquiring into why modern societies have legal systems with distinctions between institutions, such as legislature and court, as well as a special caste of lawyers possessing a method of reasoning about social problems. Whereas thinkers such as Marx and Weber had argued that such legal arrangements were a product of economic necessity to secure property rights and the autonomy of the individual, Unger shows that this liberal legal order emerged in Europe as a result of the indeterminate relations between monarchy, aristocracy, and bourgeoisie. It took the particular form that it did by emerging out of the long tradition of natural law and universality, rather than of necessity.
This early work in historical analysis of law and legal thought laid the basis for Unger's contribution to the Critical Legal Studies movement. The movement itself was born in the late 1970s among young legal scholars at Harvard Law School who denounced the theoretical underpinnings of American jurisprudence, legal realism. The participants were committed to shaping society based on a vision of human personality without the hidden interests and class domination of legal institutions. Two tendencies of the movement developed, one, a radical indeterminacy that criticized law as meaning anything we want it to mean, and the other, a neo-Marxist critique that attacked legal thought as an institutional form of capitalism. Unger offered a third tendency, a constructive vision of rethinking rights based on individual emancipation and empowerment, and structural arrangements that would lend themselves to constant revision with the goal of creating more educational and economic opportunities for more people. He laid this out in The Critical Legal Studies Movement, which quickly earned him a following as the philosophical mentor and prophet of the movement.
Economic thought
At the center of Unger's thought about the economy is the commitment to reimagining and remaking the institutional arrangements of how humans produce and exchange. For Unger, economic institutions have no inherent or natural forms, and he rejects the necessitarian tendencies of classical and neo-classical economists, seeking instead alternatives to the arrangements of contemporary societies. In his writings, he has aimed to revise ideas on the importance of market economies and the division of labor in the workplace and national and global economies.
Critique of economics
Unger's critique of economics begins with the identification of a key moment in economic history, when the analysis of production and exchange turned away from social theory and engaged in a quest for scientific objectivity. In Unger's analysis, classical economics focused on the causal relations among social activities, which were connected with the production and distribution of wealth. Classical economists asked questions about the true basis of value, activities that contributed to national wealth, systems of rights, or about the forms of government under which people grow rich. In the late-nineteenth century, in response to attacks from socialist ideas and debates about how society works, and as a means to escape the conundrums of value theory and to answer how values could become prices, marginalist economics arose. This movement in economics disengaged economics from prescriptive and normative commitments to withdraw the study of economies from debates about how society worked and what kind of society we wanted to live in. For Unger, this moment in the history of economics robbed it of any analytical or practical value.
Unger's critique of Marginalism begins with Walras' equilibrium theory, which attempted to achieve a certainty of economic analysis by putting aside normative controversies of social organization. Unger finds three weaknesses that crippled the theory: foremost, the theory claimed that equilibrium would be spontaneously generated in a market economy. In reality, a self-adjusting equilibrium fails to occur. Second, the theory puts forth a determinate image of the market. Historically, however, the market has been shown to be indeterminate with different market arrangements. Third, the polemical use of efficiency fails to account for the differences of distribution among individuals, classes, and generations.
The consequences of the marginalist movement were profound for the study of economics, Unger says. The most immediate problem is that under this generalizing tendency of economics, there is no means by which to incorporate empirical evidence and thus to re-imagine the world and develop new theories and new directions. In this way, the discipline is always self-referential and theoretical. Furthermore, the lack of a normative view of the world curtails the ability to propose anything more than a policy prescription, which by definition always assumes a given context. The discipline can only rationalize the world and support a status quo. Lastly, Unger finds that this turn in economics ended up universalizing debates in macroeconomics and leaving the discipline without any historical perspective. A consequence, for example, was that Keynes' solution to a particular historical crisis was turned into a general theory when it should only be understood as a response to a particular situation.
Reorientating economics
Unger's vision of economics is that it cannot be unhinged from ideas about the individual and social life. Human activity and political organization must be incorporated into any analysis of trade and economies. In remaking the discipline, he calls for a return to the normative practice of classical economics but stripped of its necessitarian assumptions and typological references. The development of explanatory claims and prescriptive ideas are necessary. The discipline must connect the transformation of nature with that of society—the making of things with the reorganization of people.
In Free Trade Reimagined: The World Division of Labor and the Method of Economics, he sets forth six ideas to begin thinking about economic activity.
The problem of specialization and discovery. Competition comes to inhibit self transformation when trading partners are unequal but not radically unequal, for both are forced into cost cutting rather than innovating and increasing efficiency.
The problem of politics over economics. The making and implementation of policy is not one of discovery, but rather of top down implementation. Rigid state control will limit how a society can respond to tensions and crisis, and thus politics creates its own presuppositions and limits creativity and alternative solutions.
Free trade should strengthen the capacity for self transformation by organizing the trading regime in a way that strengthens the capacity of trading partners to experiment and innovate. It becomes question not of how much free trade, but what kind. The best arrangements are those that impose the least amount of restraint.
Alternative free trade. The market has no necessary and natural form. If the market economy can be organized in a different way then so can a universal order of free trade among market economies.
The division of labor remade. The pin factory organization of labor describes the organization of work as if labor were a machine. But we can make machines to do this work. We should then innovate in those areas where we don't yet know how to make the machine to do the work. Production should be one of collective learning and permanent innovation.
Mind against context. The mind is both a machine and an anti-machine; it is both formulaic and totalizing. Thus we never rest in any context, and we need to have arrangements that constantly lend themselves to reinvention.
Reconstructing economic institutions
For Unger, the economy is not only a device for wealth but also permanent innovation and discovery. It should allow the greatest freedom of the recombination of people and resources, and allow people to innovate in institutional settings. The market economy should not be single dogmatic version of itself.
Unger has presented a number of general institutional proposals that aim to restructure the world trade regime and introduce new alternatives in the market economy. For international and global trade, Unger calls for the need to experiment with different property rights regimes, where multiple forms will coexist in the same market system and not be tied to individual property rights and contractual labor. Generally, rather than maximizing the free trade as the goal, Unger sees the need to build and open the world economy in way that reconciles global openness with national and regional diversification, deviation, heresy, and experiment, where the idea is to support alternatives by making the world safer for them. For national economies, he rejects the need to require the free flow of capital, for there are times when it may be necessary to restrict capital flows. Rather, he puts the emphasis on the free flow of people. Labor should be allowed to move freely throughout the world.
On the twenty-first-century economic stimulus
Most recently, in a YouTube video titled he laid out three key policies to address the current economy:
Change the arrangements of finance in relation to production so that finance is in the service of production. Tax and regulate to discourage finance that does not contribute to production. Use public capital for venture capital funds.
Broaden economic opportunity by supporting small and medium enterprise. Reject the choice between government regulation and state controlled models. Support cooperation between government and firms, and cooperation and competition among firms.
Education. A system of schools to meet needs of a vibrant and flexible economy. Vocational schools that teach general concepts and flexibility, not job-specific skills.
"Illusions of necessity in the economic order"
Unger's first writing on economic theory was the article "Illusions of necessity in the economic order" in the May 1978 issue of American Economic Review. In the article he makes a case for the need of contemporary economic thought to imitate classical political economy in which theories of exchange should be incorporated into theories of power and perception.
The article articulates the problem of the American economy as one of the inability to realize democracy of production and community in the workplace. This failure, according to Unger, is the result of the lack of a comprehensive program that encompasses production, society, and state, so that immediate attempts to address inequality get swallowed up and appropriated by the status quo in the course of winning immediate gains for the organization or constituency, e.g. unions.
To realize a democracy in the workplace and the abolition of wealth and poverty, Unger argues for the need to relate the program of worker community and democracy with an enlargement of democracy at the national level—the goal cannot be only one of economic production and worker's rights, but must be accompanied by a national project at the structural level. He pushes this idea further by calling not just for a restructuring of the relationship between the firm and state based on private property, but that it also has to be replaced with a new set of rights encompassing access to jobs, markets, and capital. Only as private rights are phased out can rights of decentralized decision making and market exchange be extended to workers. This needs to be accompanied by limits on the size of enterprise and how profits are used to control others' labor.
Neoclassical economics is not up to this task because it begins with preconceived standards that it applies to explain empirical data, while leaving out that which is a theoretical anomaly; there is no causal basis of analysis, Unger says, rather everything is embedded in a timeless universal without any account for context. Furthermore, the ambiguity of concepts of maximization, efficiency, and rationalization pin the analysis to a certain notion of the behavior of the rationalizing individual, making the analysis either tautological or reduced to a set of power relations translated into the language of material exchange.
Programmatic thought
Key in Unger's thinking is the need to re-imagine social institutions before attempting to revise them. This calls for a program, or programmatic thought. In building this program, however, we must not entertain complete revolutionary overhaul, lest we be plagued by three false assumptions:
Typological fallacy: the fallacy that there is closed list of institutional alternatives in history, such as "feudalism" or "capitalism". There is not a natural form of society, only the specific result of the piecemeal institutional changes, political movements, and cultural reforms (as well as the accidents and coincidences of history) that came before it.
Indivisibility fallacy: most subscribers to revolutionary Leftism wrongly believe that institutional structures must stand and fall together. However, structures can be reformed piecemeal.
Determinism fallacy: the fallacy that uncontrollable and little understood law-like forces drive the historical succession of institutional systems. However, there is no natural flow of history. We make ourselves and our world, and can do so in any way we choose.
To think about social transformation programmatically, one must first mark the direction one wants society to move in, and then identify the first steps with which we can move in that direction. In this way we can formulate proposals at points along the trajectory, be they relatively close to how things are now or relatively far away. This provides a third way between revolution and reform. It is revolutionary reform, where one has a revolutionary vision, but acts on that vision in a sequence of piecemeal reforms. As Unger puts it, transformative politics is "not about blueprints; it is about pathways. It is not architecture; it is music".
The two Lefts
Unger sees two main Lefts in the world today, a recalcitrant Left and a humanizing Left. The recalcitrant Left seeks to slow down the march of markets and globalization, and to return to a time of greater government involvement and stronger social programs. The humanizing Left (or 'reformist Left') accepts the world in its present form, taking the market economy and globalization as unavoidable, and attempts to humanize their effects through tax-and-transfer policies.
Unger finds the two major orientations of contemporary Leftism inadequate and calls for a 'Reconstructive Left' – one which would insist on redirecting the course of globalization by reorganizing the market economy. In his two books The Left Alternative and The Future of American Progressivism, Unger lays out a program to democratize the market economy and deepen democracy. This Reconstructive Left would look beyond debates on the appropriate size of government, and instead re-envision the relationship between government and firms in the market economy by experimenting with the coexistence of different regimes of private and social property.
It would be committed to social solidarity, but "would refuse to allow our moral interests in social cohesion [to] rest solely upon money transfers commanded by the state in the form of compensatory and retrospective redistribution", as is the case with federal entitlement programs. Instead, Unger's Reconstructive Left affirms "the principle that everyone should share, in some way and at some time, responsibility for taking care of other people."
The Left Alternative program
Unger has laid out concrete policy proposals in areas of economic development, education, civil society, and political democracy.
On economic development, Unger has noted that there are only two models for a national economy available to us today: the US model of business control of government, and the northeast Asian model of top down bureaucratic control of the economy. Citing the need for greater imagination on the issue, he has offered a third model that is decentralized, pluralistic, participatory, and experimental. This would take the form of an economy encouraging small business development and innovation that would create large scale self-employment and cooperation. The emphasis is not on the protection of big business as the main sectors of the economy, but the highly mobile and innovative small firm.
Unger links the development of such an economy to an education system that encourages creativity and empowers the mind, not one that he now sees geared for a reproduction of the family and to put the individual in service of the state. He proposes that such a system should be run locally but have standards enforced through national oversight, as well as a procedure in place to intervene in the case of the failing of local systems.
Unger's critique of and alternative to social programs goes to the heart of civil society. The problem we are faced with now, he claims, is that we have a bureaucratic system of distribution that provides lower quality service and prohibits the involvement of civil society in the provision of public services. The alternative he lays out is to have the state act to equip civil society to partake in public services and care. This would entail empowering each individual to have two responsibilities, one in the productive economy and one in the caring economy.
Unger's proposal for political democracy calls for a high energy system that diminishes the dependence of change upon crisis. This can be done, he claims, by breaking the constant threat of stasis and institutionalization of politics and parties through five institutional innovations. First, increase collective engagement through the public financing of campaigns and giving free access to media outlets. Second, hasten the pace of politics by breaking legislative deadlock through the enabling of the party in power to push through proposals and reforms, and for opposition parties to be able to dissolve the government and call for immediate elections. Third, the option of any segment of society to opt out of the political process and to propose alternative solutions for its own governance. Fourth, give the state the power to rescue oppressed groups that are unable to liberate themselves through collective action. Fifth, direct participatory democracy in which active engagement is not purely in terms of financial support and wealth distribution, but through which people are directly involved in their local and national affairs through proposal and action.
Theoretical philosophy
At the core of Unger's theoretical philosophy are two key conceptions: first the infinity of the individual, and secondly the singularity of the world and the reality of time. The premise behind the infinity of the individual is that we exist within social contexts but we are more than the roles that these contexts may define for us—we can overcome them. In Unger's terms, we are both "context-bound and context-transcending; "we appear as "the embodied spirit;" as "the infinite imprisoned within the finite." For Unger, there is no natural state of the individual and his social being. Rather, we are infinite in spirit and unbound in what we can become. As such, no social institution or convention can contain us. While institutions do exist and shape our beings and our interactions, we can change both their structure and the extent to which they imprison us.
The philosophy of the singularity of the world and the reality of time establishes history as the site of decisive action through the propositions that there is only one real world, not multiple or simultaneous universes, and that time really exists in the world, not as a simulacrum through which we must experience the world.
These two concepts of infinity and reality lie at the heart of Unger's program calling for metaphysical and institutional revolutions. From the concept of the self as infinite but constrained, Unger argues that we must continually transform our environment to better express ourselves. This can only be done in a singular world within which time is real.
The self and human nature
In Passion: An Essay on Personality, Unger explores the individual and his relation to society from the perspective of the root human predicament of the need to establish oneself as a unique individual in the world but at the same time to find commonality and solidarity with others. This exploration is grounded in what Unger calls a modernist image of the human being as one who lives in context but is not bound by context. Unger's aim is to level a critique, expansion, and defense of modern thinking about the human and society.
Religion and the human condition
Unger has written and spoken extensively on religion and the human condition.
Religion, Unger argues, is a vision of the world within which we anchor our orientation to life. It is within this orientation that we deal with our greatest terrors and highest hopes. Because we are doomed to die, we hope for eternal life; because we are unable to grasp to totality of existence or of the universe, we try to dispel the mystery and provide a comprehensible explanation; because we have an insatiable desire, we cry for an object that is worthy of this desire, one that is infinite. Humans initially invested religious discourse in nature and the human susceptibility to nature. But as societies evolved and people developed ways to cope with the unpredictability of nature, the emphasis of religion shifted to social existence and its defects. A new moment in religion will begin, Unger argues, when we stop telling ourselves that all will be fine and we begin to face the incorrigible flaws in human existence. The future of religion lies in embracing our mortality and our groundlessness.
Unger sees four flaws in the human condition. They are, our mortality and the facing of imminent death; our groundlessness in that we are unable to grasp the solution to the enigma of existence, see the beginning or end of time, nor put off the discovery of the meaning of life; our insatiability in that we always want more, and demand the infinite from the finite; and our susceptibility to belittlement which places us in a position to constantly confront petty routine forcing us to die many little deaths.
There are three major responses in the history of human thought to these flaws: escape, humanization, and confrontation.
The overcoming of the world denies the phenomenal world and its distinctions, including the individual. It proclaims a benevolence towards others and an indifference to suffering and change. One achieves serenity by becoming invulnerable to suffering and change. The religion of Buddhism and philosophical thought of Plato and Schopenhauer best represent this orientation.
The humanization of the world creates meaning out of social interactions in a meaningless world by placing all emphasis on our reciprocal responsibility to one another. Confucianism and contemporary liberalism represent this strand of thought, both of which aim to soften the cruelties of the world.
The struggle with the world is framed by the idea that series of personal and social transformations can increase our share of attributes associated with the divine and give us a larger life. It emphasizes love over altruism, rejecting the moral of the mastery of self-interest to enhance solidarity, and emphasizing the humility of individual love. This orientation has been articulated in two different voices: the sacred voice of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and the profane voice of the secular projects of liberation.
The religion of the future
The spiritual orientation of the struggle with the world has given rise to the secular movements of emancipation in the modern world, and it is here that Unger sees the religion of the future. The problem Unger sees, however, is that as an established religion, this orientation has betrayed its ideological underpinnings and has made peace with existing order. It has accepted the hierarchies of class structure in society, accepted the transfer of money as serving as the basis of solidarity, and reaffirmed the basis of existing political, economic, and social institutions by investing in a conservative position of their preservation. Thus, "to be faithful to what made this orientation persuasive and powerful in the first place, we must radicalize it against both established institutions and dominant beliefs."
Unger's call is for a revolution in our religious beliefs that encompasses both individual transformation and institutional reorganization; to create change in the life of the individual as well as in the organization of society. The first part of the program of individual transformation means waking from the dazed state in which we live our lives, and recognizing our mortality and groundlessness without turning to the “feel-good theologies and philosophies”. The second part of the program of social transformation means supplementing the metaphysical revolution with institutional practices by creating social institutions that allow us to constantly overthrow our constraints and our context, and to make this overthrow not a one time event but a continuing process. This is the program of empowered democracy that calls for reforms in the market economy, education, politics, and civil society. "The goal is not to humanize society but to divinize humanity." It is "to raise ordinary life to a higher level of intensity and capability."
Natural philosophy
Unger's philosophy of space and time presented in The Singular Universe and the Reality of Time argues for the singularity of the world and the reality of time. His arguments are grounded in the tradition of natural philosophy. He takes on the Newtonian idea of the independent observer standing outside of time and space, addresses the skepticism of David Hume, rejects the position of Kant, and attacks speculations about parallel universes of contemporary cosmology. At stake is the laying of the foundations for a view of the world and causality that is open to all possibilities; that is not a closed system of options in which our future is governed by deterministic laws and typologies. It is an understanding of society that rejects the naturalness and necessity of current social arrangements; "a form of understanding of society and history that refuses to explain the present arrangements in a manner that vindicates their naturalness and necessity."
The thesis of the singularity of the world states that there is one real world. Such a thesis stands in stark contrast to contemporary theoretical physics and cosmology, which speculate about multiple universes out of the dilemma of how to have law like explanations if the universe is unique—laws will be universal because they don't just apply to this unique universe but to all universes. However, there is no empirical evidence for multiple worlds. Unger's singularity thesis can better address our empirical observations and set the conceptual platform to address the four main puzzles in cosmology today: Big Bang, initial conditions, horizon problem, and the precise value of constants, such as gravity, speed of light, and Planck's constant.
The thesis that time is real states that time "really is real" and everything is subject to history. This move is to historicize everything, even the laws of nature, and to challenge our acting as if time were real but not too real—we act as if it is somewhat real otherwise there would be no causal relations, but not so real that laws change. Unger holds that time is so real that laws of nature are also subject to its force and they too must change. There are no eternal laws upon which change occurs, rather time precedes structure. This position gives the universe a history and makes time non-emergent, global, irreversible, and continuous.
Bringing these two thesis together, Unger theorizes that laws of nature develop together with the phenomenon they explain. Laws and initial conditions co-evolve, in the same that they do in how cells reproduce and mutate in different levels of complexity of organisms. In cosmological terms Unger explains the passing from one structure to another at the origins of the universe when the state of energy was high but not infinite, and the freedom of movement was greater than when operating under a known set of laws. The conditions of the early universe is compatible with the universe that preceded it. The new universe may be different in structure, but has been made with what existed in the old one, e.g. masses of elementary particles, strength of different forces, and cosmological constants. As the universe cools the phenomena and laws work together with materials produced by sequence; they are path dependent materials. They are also constrained by the family of resemblances of the effective laws against the background of the conceptions of alternative states the universe and succession of universes.
Mathematics and the one real, time-drenched world
One consequence of these positions that Unger points to is the revision of the concept and function of mathematics. If there is only one world drenched in time through and through, then mathematics cannot be a timeless expression of multiple universes that captures reality. Rather, Unger argues that mathematics is a means of analyzing the world removed of time and phenomenal distinction. By emptying the world of time and space it is able to better focus on one aspect of reality: the recurrence of certain ways in which pieces of the world relate to other pieces. Its subject matter are the structured wholes and bundles of relations, which we see outside mathematics only as embodied in the time-bound particulars of the manifest world. In this way, mathematics extends our problem solving powers as an extension of human insight, but it is not a part of the world.
Political engagement
Unger has a long history of political activity in Brazil. He worked in early opposition parties in the 1970s/80s against the Brazilian military dictatorship, and drafted the founding manifesto for the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB) in 1980. He served as an intimate adviser to two presidential candidates, and launched exploratory bids himself in 2000 and 2006. He was the Secretary for Strategic Affairs in the Lula administration from 2007–09, and is currently working on a number of social and developmental projects in the state of Rondônia.
Driving Unger's political engagement is the idea that society can be made and remade. Unlike Mill or Marx, who posited a particular class as the agent of history, Unger does not see a single vehicle for transformative politics. He advocates world-wide revolution, but does not see this happening as a single cataclysmic event or undertaken by a class agent, like the Communist movement. Rather, he sees the possibility of piecemeal change, where institutions can be replaced one at a time, and permanent plasticity can be built into the institutional infrastructure.
Early political activity, 1970s and 1980s
Unger's engagement in Brazilian politics began in the late 1970s as Brazil started to democratize. In 1979, he presented himself to the main opposition party, the Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB), and was appointed chief of staff by party leader Ulysses Guimaraes. His initial work was to develop the positions of the party and draft policy proposals for their party's congressional representatives. When the military regime dissolved the two-party system and established a multi-party system later that year, Unger worked to unite progressive liberals and the independent, non-communist left into the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB). As a co-founder of the party, he authored its first manifesto. Unger left the party after the rise of a conservative faction, which was a part of the MDB but had been excluded from the initial formation of the PMDB.
After departing the PMDB in the early 1980s, Unger began looking for political agents who would serve as vehicles for his national alternative. In 1981, he jointed the Democratic Labour Party of Brazil (PDT) led by Leonel Brizola, a former governor of Rio de Janeiro and a figure of the left prior to the dictatorship. Brizola had founded the PDT and Unger saw it as the authentic opposition to the military regime. Throughout the 1980s he worked with Brizola to travel the country recruiting members, and developing policy positions and a political language.
In 1983, Brizola, then serving his second of three terms as governor of Rio de Janeiro, appointed Unger to head the State Foundation for the Education of Minors (FEEM), a state-run foundation for homeless children. During his year-long tenure, he began a process of radical reforms of the institutions, such as opening the door to international adoption and reintegrating children with their families. He also set up community organizations in the slums to help support families in order to prevent the abandonment of children.
Political campaigns, 1990s and 2000s
In 1990, Unger ran a symbolic campaign for a seat in the national chamber of deputies. He had no money, no structure, and only campaigned for eight weeks. He ran on a platform of reforming the slums, and went around the slum neighborhoods giving lectures. He received 9,000 votes, just 1,000 votes short of winning the seat. None of the votes came from the slums, however. All his votes had come from the middle class, although he had never campaigned in those neighborhoods or to that constituency. Recalling the experience, Unger says "it was kind of absurd... I had no money, no staff, and I would go into these slums, alone, to hand out pamphlets, often to the local drug pushers." It is an experience that Unger cites as leading to his belief that the system and possibilities were much more open than he had previously imagined.
Unger served as Brizola's campaign organizer and primary political adviser in his bids for the Brazilian Presidency in 1989 and 1994. In 1989, Brizola finished in third place, losing the second position, which would have qualified him for a runoff against Fernando Collor de Mello, by a very narrow margin to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Brizola and Unger both supported Lula in the second round of the election, but Collor would go on to beat Lula and win the Presidency.
Unger also helped organize the presidential bids of former finance minister and governor of Ceará, Ciro Gomes, in 1998 and 2002. In 1998, Gomes came in third place with 11% of the vote, and in 2002 he came in fourth place with 12% of the vote. Unger had written The Next Step: An Alternative to Neoliberalism with Gomes in 1996. At the national level in 2002, again in the second round of the election, Unger supported Lula who went on to defeat José Serra to win the Presidency.
With the experience of supporting others who imploded politically, Unger discovered that, as he put it, he was committing "the classic mistake of the philosophers in politics, which is to try to find someone else to do the work." In 2000, he ran in the primaries for the mayor of Sao Paulo, but the PPS party leader suspended the primaries when it became clear that Unger would win the nomination and challenge party control. He launched an exploratory bid for the 2006 presidential election on the PRB ticket, but the party decided not to put forth its own candidate for the presidency and to support Lula of the PT.
As Minister of Strategic Affairs in the Lula administration
Unger found President Lula's first term to be conservative and riddled with scandal. He wrote articles calling Lula's administration "the most corrupt of Brazil's history" and called for his impeachment.
Despite the criticism, many advisers to Lula insisted that he should invite Unger to join his administration. In June 2007, after winning his second term, Lula appointed Unger as head of the newly established Long-term Planning Secretariat (a post which would eventually be called The Minister of Strategic Affairs).
Unger's work in office was an attempt to enact his program. Seeing the future in small enterprises and advocating a rotating capital fund that would function like a government run venture capital fund, he pushed for a rapid expansion of credit to smaller producers and a decentralized network of technical support centers that would help broaden the middle class from below. He further called for political solutions that would broaden access to production forces such as information technology, and for states to focus on equipping and monitoring civil society rather than trying to provide social services.
Unger's specific projects while in office were focused on giving "ordinary men and women the instruments with which to render this vitality fertile and productive." He aimed to use state powers and resources to allow the majority of poor workers to "follow the path of the emergent vanguard". He developed a series of sectoral and regional initiatives that would prefigure the model of development based on the broadening of economic and educational opportunity by democratizing the market economy and restructuring civil society.
Sectorally, Unger revamped the educational structure and rewrote labor laws. In education, he implemented a model of secondary education, where analytical problem-solving education was paired with technical education that focused on conceptual capabilities rather than job-specific skills. There are several hundred of these institutions today. He further drafted legislation to associate national, state and local jurisdictions into common bodies that could intervene when a local school system fell below the minimum acceptable threshold of quality and "fix it the way an independent administrator would fix a failing business under Chapter 11 bankruptcy." In labor, Unger worked with unions to write new labor laws designed to protect and organize temporary workers, subcontractors, and those working in the informal economy.
Regionally, some of Unger's most influential work was the implementation of a developmental strategy for the Amazon that would be sustainable environmentally by making it socially inclusive. He drafted and passed legislation to regularize small-scale squatters on untitled land by giving them clear legal titles, which would create self-interest in preservation while granting them economic opportunity. Included in this law were protections against large scale land grabbers. Such legislation aimed to empower locals living on Amazonian land by giving them ownership rights and linking their interest in preserving it, rather than pillaging it as quickly as possible in the face of ambiguous ownership rights. This legislation passed and was put into law.
Unger served in the administration for two years. On 26 June 2009, President Lula announced Unger would be leaving the government and returning to Harvard University. He later cited personal and political reasons for his early departure.
Engagement outside Brazil
Unger's attempts to develop global social, political, and economic alternatives have led him in episodic engagements in national debates around the world. His approach in these engagements recognizes that the problems facing contemporary societies are not distinct from nation to nation, and that general structural arrangements can first be implemented, which will allow for local innovation, flexibility, and development in social, economic, and political arenas. There is no institutional blueprint for Unger, however, only a direction that can be pointed to and general proposals that can be implemented to allow further institutional innovation and experimentation. Unger's guiding principle is that institutional flexibility needs to be built into the implemented system, and in this way a diversity of local experiments would take hold the world over.
One of Unger's more promising engagements was the Latin American Alternative in the late 1990s. Unger and Mexican politician and political scientist Jorge Castañeda Gutman assembled an informal network of politicians and business leaders dedicated to redrawing the political map. The aim of the group was to provide a critique of neoliberalism coupled with a way forward in a distinct strategy and institutional model of development. They floated proposals such as guaranteeing every citizen "social rights" (e.g. education and a job), breaking up media oligopolies, and holding town meetings to help citizens supervise municipal spending. The group held a number of meetings over the years, which included Brazilian finance minister Ciro Gomes, Chilean senator Carlos Ominami, Argentinian politicians Dante Caputo and Rodolfo Terragno, and Mexican politician and future president Vicente Fox. The meetings resulted in a document entitled the "Buenos Aires Consensus" in 1997, which Castaneda called "the end of neoliberalism; of the Washington Consensus".
This consensus was formally signed in 2003 by Argentinian President Néstor Kirchner and Brazilian President Lula da Silva. Other Latin American leaders who signed it included Fox, future president of Chile Ricardo Lagos, Mexican politician Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, former vice president of Nicaragua Sergio Ramírez, future president of Argentina Fernando de la Rúa, and former Brazilian president Itamar Franco.
During the 2008 US presidential campaign, Unger was in frequent contact with candidate Barack Obama via email and Blackberry. He has since become critical of the Obama administration, and called for the defeat of Obama in the 2012 election as a first step to remaking the Democratic party.
Current engagement
Unger's recent political work has focused on the north-western Brazilian state of Rondônia. He sees the human and natural resources of the state meeting all the conditions to serve as the vanguard of a new model of development for Brazil. Speaking to News Rondônia he said, "Rondônia is a state formed by a multitude of small and medium entrepreneurs together with the Brazilian government, and that is something truly unique in our country."
He has been traveling the state giving public lectures and encouraging political discourse and engagement in localities. Working with governor João Aparecido Cahulla on development projects, Unger has outlined a series of important areas of focus. The first is to change the agricultural model from one of intensive farming to an industrialization of produces through the recuperation of degraded pastures, supply fertilizers and lime, and diversifying crops and livestock farming. The second key project is transforming education from rote learning to creative thinking and engagement. He helped open the School Teixeira in Porto Velho. Another ongoing project is the construction of a new educational center in accordance with his theory of pedagogical reform, where delinquents would be reintegrated into municipal life.
Circumstance and influence
Unger's philosophical work grapples with some of the most fundamental and enduring problems of human existence. It has been put into direct dialogue with Kant's moral law, and said to have provided one answer to Hume's Guillotine. Unger's analysis of liberalism and the philosophical program he builds around rethinking the individual has also inspired new thinking and approaches to psychiatry.
In 1987, the Northwestern University Law Review devoted an issue to Unger's work, analysing his three volume publication Politics: A Work In Constructive Social Theory. Michael J. Perry, a professor of law at Northwestern University, praises Unger for producing a vast work of social theory that combines law, history, politics, and philosophy within a single narrative.
Early reviewers of Politics questioned Unger's seeming predicament of criticizing a system of thought and its historical tradition without subjecting himself to the same critical gaze. "There is little acknowledgement that he himself is writing in a particular socio-historical context", wrote one reviewer, and another asked, "in what context Unger himself is situated and why that context itself is not offered up to the sledgehammer."
Critics also balked at the lack of example or concrete vision of his social and political proposals. As one critic wrote, "it is difficult to imagine what Unger's argument would mean in practice", and that "he does not tell us what to make." Others have suggested that the lack of imagination of such readers is precisely what is at stake.
Books
Knowledge and Politics, Free Press, 1975.
Law In Modern Society: Toward a Criticism of Social Theory, Free Press, 1976.
Passion: An Essay on Personality, Free Press, 1986.
The Critical Legal Studies Movement, Harvard University Press, 1986.
Politics: A Work In Constructive Social Theory, Cambridge University Press, 1987, in 3 Vols:
Vol 1 - False Necessity: Anti-Necessitarian Social Theory in the Service of Radical Democracy.
Vol 2 - Social Theory: Its Situation and Its Task - A Critical Introduction to Politics: A Work in Constructive Social Theory.
Vol 3 - Plasticity Into Power: Comparative-Historical Studies on the Institutional Conditions of Economic and Military Success.
What Should Legal Analysis Become?, Verso, 1996
Politics: The Central Texts, Theory Against Fate, Verso, 1997, with Cui Zhiyuan.
Democracy Realized: The Progressive Alternative, Verso, 1998.
The Future of American Progressivism: An Initiative for Political and Economic Reform, Beacon, 1998 - with Cornel West
What Should the Left Propose?, Verso, 2006.
The Self Awakened: Pragmatism Unbound, Harvard, 2007.
Free Trade Reimagined: The World Division of Labor and the Method of Economics, Princeton University Press, 2007.
The Left Alternative, Verso, 2009 (2nd edition to What Should the Left Propose?, Verso, 2006.).
The Religion of the Future, Harvard, 2014.
The Singular Universe and the Reality of Time, Cambridge University Press, 2014, with Lee Smolin.
The Knowledge Economy, Verso, 2019.
See also
False necessity
Formative context
Negative capability
Empowered democracy
Structure and agency
Passions
References
External links
Roberto Unger's Harvard Homepage
Links to Unger's works via his homepage
An interview with Unger on the American Left
Biographical articles about Roberto Unger
Guggenheim Gives Fellowships for '76: Unger Gets Tenure, Too (The Harvard Crimson April 5, 1976)
"The Passion of Roberto Unger" , Eyal Press, (Lingua Franca, March 1999)
Carlos Castilho, "Brazil's Consigliere: Unger Leaves Lectern to Stand Behind the Throne." (World Paper, April 2000)
Simon Romero, "Destination: São Paulo" (Metropolis, October 2000) This article is about São Paulo, Brazil, but it has a lengthy discussion of Unger's political activism there and many quotes from Unger.
Meltzer Elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences (HLS News May 13, 2004)
(First of the Month, July 1, 2012)
1947 births
20th-century Brazilian male writers
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21st-century Brazilian male writers
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Writers about globalization | true | [
"Most presidents of the United States received a college education, even most of the earliest. Of the first seven presidents, five were college graduates. College degrees have set the presidents apart from the general population, and presidents have held degrees even though it was quite rare and unnecessary for practicing most occupations, including law. Of the 45 individuals to have been the president, 25 of them graduated from a private undergraduate college, nine graduated from a public undergraduate college, and 12 held no degree. Every president since 1953 has had a bachelor's degree, reflecting the increasing importance of higher education in the United States.\n\nList by university attended\n\nDid not graduate from college \n\nGeorge Washington (Although the death of Washington's father ended his formal schooling, he received a surveyor's certificate from the College of William and Mary. Washington believed strongly in formal education, and his will left money and/or stocks to support three educational institutions.)\nJames Monroe (attended the College of William and Mary, but dropped out to fight in the Revolutionary War)\nAndrew Jackson\nMartin Van Buren\nWilliam Henry Harrison (attended Hampden Sydney College for three years but did not graduate and then attended University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine but never received a degree)\nZachary Taylor\nMillard Fillmore (founded the University at Buffalo)\nAbraham Lincoln (had only about a year of formal schooling of any kind)\nAndrew Johnson (no formal schooling of any kind)\nGrover Cleveland\nWilliam McKinley (attended Allegheny College, but did not graduate; also attended Albany Law School, but also did not graduate)\nHarry S. Truman (went to business college and law school, but did not graduate)\n\nUndergraduate \n\nA.JFK enrolled, but did not attend\n\nAdditional undergraduate information\nSome presidents attended more than one institution. George Washington never attended college, though The College of William & Mary did issue him a surveyor's certificate. Two presidents have attended a foreign college at the undergraduate level: John Quincy Adams at Leiden University and Bill Clinton at the University of Oxford (John F. Kennedy intended to study at the London School of Economics, but failed to attend as he fell ill before classes began.)\n\nThree presidents have attended the United States Service academies: Ulysses S. Grant and Dwight D. Eisenhower graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point, while Jimmy Carter graduated from the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland. No presidents have graduated from the United States Coast Guard Academy or the much newer U.S. Air Force Academy. Eisenhower also graduated from the Army Command and General Staff College, Army Industrial College and Army War College. These were not degree granting institutions when Eisenhower attended, but were part of his professional education as a career soldier.\n\nGraduate school\nA total of 20 presidents attended some form of graduate school (including professional schools). Among them, eleven presidents received a graduate degree during their lifetimes; two more received graduate degrees posthumously.\n\nBusiness school\n\nGraduate School\n\nMedical school\n\nLaw school \n\nSeveral presidents who were lawyers did not attend law school, but became lawyers after independent study under the tutelage of established attorneys. Some had attended college before beginning their legal studies, and several studied law without first having attended college. Presidents who were lawyers but did not attend law school include: John Adams; Thomas Jefferson; James Madison; James Monroe; John Quincy Adams; Andrew Jackson; Martin Van Buren; John Tyler; James K. Polk; Millard Fillmore; James Buchanan; Abraham Lincoln; James A. Garfield; Grover Cleveland; Benjamin Harrison; and Calvin Coolidge.\n\nPresidents who were admitted to the bar after a combination of law school and independent study include; Franklin Pierce; Chester A. Arthur; William McKinley; and Woodrow Wilson.\n\nList by graduate degree earned\n\nPh.D. (doctorate)\n\nM.B.A. (Master of Business Administration)\n\nM.A. (Master of Arts)\n\nNote: John Adams and John Quincy Adams, along with George W. Bush are the only presidents to date to attain Master’s degrees.\n\nJ.D. or LL.B. (law degree)\n\nNote: Hayes, Taft, Nixon and Ford were awarded LL.B. degrees. When U.S. law schools began to use the J.D. as the professional law degree in the 1960s, previous graduates had the choice of converting their LL.B. degrees to a J.D. Duke University Law School made the change in 1968, and Yale Law School in 1971. Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt, both of whom attended Columbia Law School but withdrew before graduating, were awarded posthumous J.D. degrees in 2008.\n\nList by president\n\nOther academic associations\n\nFaculty member\n\nSchool rector or president\n\nSchool trustee or governor\n\nSee also\n List of prime ministers of Australia by education\n List of prime ministers of Canada by academic degrees\n List of presidents of the Philippines by education\n List of prime ministers of the United Kingdom by education\n\nReferences\n\nCollege education\nUnited States education-related lists",
"Sahebzada Nawab Mir Taher Ali Khan (1904 – 1981), also known by his pen name \"Muslim\", was a distinguished linguistic scholar and professor in European languages from the city of Hyderabad in India. A member of the Hyderabad nobility he was also an advisor to the eldest son of the last Nizam of Hyderabad (Prince Azam Jah) and worked at Bella Vista Palace. He was proficient in English, French, German, Russian, Spanish, Italian, Arabic, Turkish and Persian apart from Urdu which was his mother tongue. In fact, he got a doctorate in Philology from Germany. Anybody who studied any of these languages in the sixties and seventies should have come into contact with this polyglotte. He was a connoisseur of ghazals, and a poet in Urdu and Persian, and would regularly attend the mushairas conducted in the old city of Hyderabad. His other appointments included Director, Nazm-e-Jamiat Army.\n\nTelugu people\n1904 births\n1981 deaths"
] |
[
"Roberto Mangabeira Unger",
"Academic career",
"Which school did he attended?",
"legal schools across America",
"Did he attend any other school apart from that?",
"legal schools across America"
] | C_4f00a236510846968d1f892d87efb181_1 | What degree does he has? | 3 | What degree does Roberto Mangabeira Unger have? | Roberto Mangabeira Unger | The beginning of Unger's academic career began with the books Knowledge and Politics and Law in Modern Society, published in 1975 and 1976 respectively. These works led to the co-founding of Critical Legal Studies (CLS) with Duncan Kennedy and Morton Horwitz. The movement stirred up controversy in legal schools across America as it challenged standard legal scholarship and made radical proposals for legal education. By the early 1980s, the CLS movement touched off a heated internal debate at Harvard, pitting the CLS scholars against the older, more traditional scholars. Throughout much of the 1980s, Unger worked on his magnum opus, Politics: A Work In Constructive Social Theory, a three volume work that assessed classical social theory and developed a political, social, and economic alternative. The series is based on the premise of society as an artifact, and rejects the necessity of certain institutional arrangements. Published in 1987, Politics was foremost a critique of contemporary social theory and politics; it developed a theory of structural and ideological change, and gave an alternative account of world history. By first attacking the idea that there is a necessary progression from one set of institutional arrangements to another, e.g. feudalism to capitalism, it then built an anti-necessitarian theory of social change, theorizing the transition from one set of institutional arrangements to another. Unger devoted much of the following decades to further elaborating on the insights developed in Politics by working out the political and social alternatives. What Should Legal Analysis Become? (Verso, 1996) developed tools to reimagine the organization of social life. Democracy Realized: The Progressive Alternative (Verso, 1998) and What Should the Left Propose? (Verso, 2005) put forth alternative institutional proposals. CANNOTANSWER | legal education. | Roberto Mangabeira Unger (; born 24 March 1947) is a Brazilian philosopher and politician. His work is in the tradition of classical social theory and pragmatism, and is developed across many fields including legal theory, philosophy and religion, social and political theory, progressive alternatives, and economics. In natural philosophy he is known for The Singular Universe and the Reality of Time. In social theory he is known for Politics: A Work in Constructive Social Theory. In legal theory he was part of the Critical Legal Studies movement, which helped disrupt the methodological consensus in American law schools. His political activity helped the transition to democracy in Brazil in the aftermath of the military regime, and culminated with his appointment as Brazil's Minister of Strategic Affairs in 2007 and again in 2015. His work is seen to offer a vision of humanity and a program to empower individuals and change institutions.
At the core of his philosophy is a view of humanity as greater than the contexts in which it is placed. He sees each individual possessed with the capability to rise to a greater life. At the root of his social thought is the conviction that the social world is made and imagined. His work begins from the premise that no natural or necessary social, political, or economic arrangements underlie individual or social activity. Property rights, liberal democracy, wage labor—for Unger, these are all historical artifacts that have no necessary relation to the goals of free and prosperous human activity. For Unger, the market, the state, and human social organization should not be set in predetermined institutional arrangements, but need to be left open to experimentation and revision according to what works for the project of individual and collective empowerment. Doing so, he holds, will enable human liberation.
Unger has long been active in Brazilian opposition politics. He was one of the founding members of the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party and drafted its manifesto. He directed the presidential campaigns of Leonel Brizola and Ciro Gomes, ran for the Chamber of Deputies, and twice launched exploratory bids for the Brazilian presidency. He served as the Minister of Strategic Affairs in the second Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva administration and in the second Dilma administration.
Biography
Family
Unger's maternal grandfather was Octávio Mangabeira, who served as Brazil's minister of foreign affairs in the late 1920s before the dictatorship of Getúlio Vargas subjected him to a series of imprisonments and exiles in Europe and the United States. After returning to Brazil in 1945, he co-founded a center-left party. He was elected as a representative in the Câmara Federal in 1946, governor of Bahia in 1947, and Senator in 1958.
Both of Unger's parents were intellectuals. His German-born father, Artur Unger, from Dresden, arrived in the United States as a child and later became a U.S. citizen. His mother, Edyla Mangabeira, was a Brazilian poet and journalist. Artur and Edyla met in the US during the exile of Octávio Mangabeira.
Early life
Roberto Mangabeira Unger was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1947, and spent his childhood on Manhattan's Upper East Side. He attended the private Allen-Stevenson School. When he was eleven, his father died and his mother moved the family back to Brazil. He attended a Jesuit school and went on to law school at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.
Unger was admitted to Harvard Law School in September 1969. After receiving his LLM, Unger stayed at Harvard another year on a fellowship, and then entered the doctoral program. At 23 years old, Unger began teaching jurisprudence, among other things, to first year students. In 1976, aged 29, he got SJD and became one of the youngest faculty members to receive tenure from the Harvard Law School.
Academic career
The beginning of Unger's academic career began with the books Knowledge and Politics and Law in Modern Society, published in 1975 and 1976 respectively. These works led to the co-founding of Critical Legal Studies (CLS) with Duncan Kennedy and Morton Horwitz. The movement stirred up controversy in legal schools across America as it challenged standard legal scholarship and made radical proposals for legal education. By the early 1980s, the CLS movement touched off a heated internal debate at Harvard, pitting the CLS scholars against the older, more traditional scholars.
Throughout much of the 1980s, Unger worked on his magnum opus, Politics: A Work In Constructive Social Theory, a three volume work that assessed classical social theory and developed a political, social, and economic alternative. The series is based on the premise of society as an artifact, and rejects the necessity of certain institutional arrangements. Published in 1987, Politics was foremost a critique of contemporary social theory and politics; it developed a theory of structural and ideological change, and gave an alternative account of world history. By first attacking the idea that there is a necessary progression from one set of institutional arrangements to another, e.g. feudalism to capitalism, it then built an anti-necessitarian theory of social change, theorizing the transition from one set of institutional arrangements to another.
Unger devoted much of the following decades to further elaborating on the insights developed in Politics by working out the political and social alternatives. What Should Legal Analysis Become? (Verso, 1996) developed tools to reimagine the organization of social life. Democracy Realized: The Progressive Alternative (Verso, 1998) and What Should the Left Propose? (Verso, 2005) put forth alternative institutional proposals.
Intellectual influences
Unger's model of philosophical practice is closest to those philosophers who sought to form a view of the whole of reality, and to do so by using and resisting the specialized knowledge of their time. It has been read as a form of pragmatism, but also as an attempt to disengage ideas and experiences that developed in the West under the influence of Christianity from the categories of Greek philosophy. His thought has been called the inverse of Schopenhauer's philosophy, affirming the supreme value of life and the reality and depth of the self and eschewing fecklessness.
Philosophical work
Social theory
Unger's social theory is premised on the idea of classical social theory that society is an artifact and can be created and recreated. Whereas previous thinkers such as Hegel or Marx backslid at some point and held onto the notion that there was a necessary institutional or historical social development, Unger, in the words of one critic, seeks to "take the idea to the hilt and produce a theory of emancipation that will escape the limitations of liberal and Marxist theories." That limitation is the search for an ideal structure of society that can be foreseen and centrally planned; whereas the emancipation leads to societies with greater institutional flexibility and variation.
For Unger, society emerges not through compromise or the winnowing down of best options, but rather through conflict and struggle for control of political and material resources. The victors of this struggle come to set the terms of social interaction and transaction, which is then institutionalized through law. This emergent order Unger calls formative context. Under a particular formative context, routines are established and people come to believe and act as if their social words were coherent wholes that are perfectly intelligible and defensible. They come to see the existing arrangements as necessary. Unger calls this false necessity. In reality, these arrangements are arbitrary and hold together rather tenuously, which leaves them open to resistance and change. This opposition Unger calls negative capability.
This leads Unger to the conclusion that change happens piecemeal through struggle and vision, rather than suddenly in revolutionary upheaval with the replacement of one set of institutional arrangements with another. Unger theorizes that cumulative change can alter formative contexts, and he goes on to propose a number of such changes as institutional alternatives to be implemented, which he calls Empowered democracy.
Empowered democracy is Unger's vision of a more open and more plastic set of social institutions through which individuals and groups can interact, propose change, and effectively empower themselves to transform social, economic, and political structures. Unger's strategy in its realization is to combine freedom of commerce and governance at the local level with the ability of political parties at the central government level to promote radical social experiments that would bring about decisive change in social and political institutions.
In practice, the theory would involve radical developments in politics at the center, as well as social innovation in localities. At the center, by bestowing wide ranging revising powers to those in office, it would give political parties the ability to try out concrete yet profound solutions and proposals. It would turn partisan conflicts over control and uses of governmental power into an opportunity to question and revise the basic arrangements of social life through a rapid resolution of political impasse. In local communities, empowered democracy would make capital and technology available through rotating capital funds, which would encourage entrepreneurship and innovation. Citizens' rights include individual entitlements to economic and civic security, conditional and temporary group claims to portions of social capital, and destabilization rights, which would empower individuals or groups to disrupt organizations and practices marred by routines of subjugation that normal politics have failed to disrupt.
Unger's ideas developed in a context where young intellectuals and radicals attempted to reconcile the conventional theories of society and law being taught in university classrooms with the reality of social protest and revolution of the 1960s and 70s. Disillusioned with Marxism, they turned to thinkers like Levi-Strauss, Gramsci, Habermas, and Foucault in attempt to situate understandings of law and society as a benign science of technocratic policy within a broader system of beliefs that legitimized the prevailing social order. Unlike Habermas, however, who formulates procedures for attaining rational consensus, Unger locates resolution in institutions and their arrangements that remain perpetually open to revision and reconstruction. And, unlike Foucault, who also emphasizes the constructed character of social life, Unger takes this as an opportunity to reimagine institutions and social conditions that will unleash human creativity and enable liberation.
Legal thought
Unger's work on law has sought to denaturalize the concept of law and how it is represented through particular institutions. He begins by inquiring into why modern societies have legal systems with distinctions between institutions, such as legislature and court, as well as a special caste of lawyers possessing a method of reasoning about social problems. Whereas thinkers such as Marx and Weber had argued that such legal arrangements were a product of economic necessity to secure property rights and the autonomy of the individual, Unger shows that this liberal legal order emerged in Europe as a result of the indeterminate relations between monarchy, aristocracy, and bourgeoisie. It took the particular form that it did by emerging out of the long tradition of natural law and universality, rather than of necessity.
This early work in historical analysis of law and legal thought laid the basis for Unger's contribution to the Critical Legal Studies movement. The movement itself was born in the late 1970s among young legal scholars at Harvard Law School who denounced the theoretical underpinnings of American jurisprudence, legal realism. The participants were committed to shaping society based on a vision of human personality without the hidden interests and class domination of legal institutions. Two tendencies of the movement developed, one, a radical indeterminacy that criticized law as meaning anything we want it to mean, and the other, a neo-Marxist critique that attacked legal thought as an institutional form of capitalism. Unger offered a third tendency, a constructive vision of rethinking rights based on individual emancipation and empowerment, and structural arrangements that would lend themselves to constant revision with the goal of creating more educational and economic opportunities for more people. He laid this out in The Critical Legal Studies Movement, which quickly earned him a following as the philosophical mentor and prophet of the movement.
Economic thought
At the center of Unger's thought about the economy is the commitment to reimagining and remaking the institutional arrangements of how humans produce and exchange. For Unger, economic institutions have no inherent or natural forms, and he rejects the necessitarian tendencies of classical and neo-classical economists, seeking instead alternatives to the arrangements of contemporary societies. In his writings, he has aimed to revise ideas on the importance of market economies and the division of labor in the workplace and national and global economies.
Critique of economics
Unger's critique of economics begins with the identification of a key moment in economic history, when the analysis of production and exchange turned away from social theory and engaged in a quest for scientific objectivity. In Unger's analysis, classical economics focused on the causal relations among social activities, which were connected with the production and distribution of wealth. Classical economists asked questions about the true basis of value, activities that contributed to national wealth, systems of rights, or about the forms of government under which people grow rich. In the late-nineteenth century, in response to attacks from socialist ideas and debates about how society works, and as a means to escape the conundrums of value theory and to answer how values could become prices, marginalist economics arose. This movement in economics disengaged economics from prescriptive and normative commitments to withdraw the study of economies from debates about how society worked and what kind of society we wanted to live in. For Unger, this moment in the history of economics robbed it of any analytical or practical value.
Unger's critique of Marginalism begins with Walras' equilibrium theory, which attempted to achieve a certainty of economic analysis by putting aside normative controversies of social organization. Unger finds three weaknesses that crippled the theory: foremost, the theory claimed that equilibrium would be spontaneously generated in a market economy. In reality, a self-adjusting equilibrium fails to occur. Second, the theory puts forth a determinate image of the market. Historically, however, the market has been shown to be indeterminate with different market arrangements. Third, the polemical use of efficiency fails to account for the differences of distribution among individuals, classes, and generations.
The consequences of the marginalist movement were profound for the study of economics, Unger says. The most immediate problem is that under this generalizing tendency of economics, there is no means by which to incorporate empirical evidence and thus to re-imagine the world and develop new theories and new directions. In this way, the discipline is always self-referential and theoretical. Furthermore, the lack of a normative view of the world curtails the ability to propose anything more than a policy prescription, which by definition always assumes a given context. The discipline can only rationalize the world and support a status quo. Lastly, Unger finds that this turn in economics ended up universalizing debates in macroeconomics and leaving the discipline without any historical perspective. A consequence, for example, was that Keynes' solution to a particular historical crisis was turned into a general theory when it should only be understood as a response to a particular situation.
Reorientating economics
Unger's vision of economics is that it cannot be unhinged from ideas about the individual and social life. Human activity and political organization must be incorporated into any analysis of trade and economies. In remaking the discipline, he calls for a return to the normative practice of classical economics but stripped of its necessitarian assumptions and typological references. The development of explanatory claims and prescriptive ideas are necessary. The discipline must connect the transformation of nature with that of society—the making of things with the reorganization of people.
In Free Trade Reimagined: The World Division of Labor and the Method of Economics, he sets forth six ideas to begin thinking about economic activity.
The problem of specialization and discovery. Competition comes to inhibit self transformation when trading partners are unequal but not radically unequal, for both are forced into cost cutting rather than innovating and increasing efficiency.
The problem of politics over economics. The making and implementation of policy is not one of discovery, but rather of top down implementation. Rigid state control will limit how a society can respond to tensions and crisis, and thus politics creates its own presuppositions and limits creativity and alternative solutions.
Free trade should strengthen the capacity for self transformation by organizing the trading regime in a way that strengthens the capacity of trading partners to experiment and innovate. It becomes question not of how much free trade, but what kind. The best arrangements are those that impose the least amount of restraint.
Alternative free trade. The market has no necessary and natural form. If the market economy can be organized in a different way then so can a universal order of free trade among market economies.
The division of labor remade. The pin factory organization of labor describes the organization of work as if labor were a machine. But we can make machines to do this work. We should then innovate in those areas where we don't yet know how to make the machine to do the work. Production should be one of collective learning and permanent innovation.
Mind against context. The mind is both a machine and an anti-machine; it is both formulaic and totalizing. Thus we never rest in any context, and we need to have arrangements that constantly lend themselves to reinvention.
Reconstructing economic institutions
For Unger, the economy is not only a device for wealth but also permanent innovation and discovery. It should allow the greatest freedom of the recombination of people and resources, and allow people to innovate in institutional settings. The market economy should not be single dogmatic version of itself.
Unger has presented a number of general institutional proposals that aim to restructure the world trade regime and introduce new alternatives in the market economy. For international and global trade, Unger calls for the need to experiment with different property rights regimes, where multiple forms will coexist in the same market system and not be tied to individual property rights and contractual labor. Generally, rather than maximizing the free trade as the goal, Unger sees the need to build and open the world economy in way that reconciles global openness with national and regional diversification, deviation, heresy, and experiment, where the idea is to support alternatives by making the world safer for them. For national economies, he rejects the need to require the free flow of capital, for there are times when it may be necessary to restrict capital flows. Rather, he puts the emphasis on the free flow of people. Labor should be allowed to move freely throughout the world.
On the twenty-first-century economic stimulus
Most recently, in a YouTube video titled he laid out three key policies to address the current economy:
Change the arrangements of finance in relation to production so that finance is in the service of production. Tax and regulate to discourage finance that does not contribute to production. Use public capital for venture capital funds.
Broaden economic opportunity by supporting small and medium enterprise. Reject the choice between government regulation and state controlled models. Support cooperation between government and firms, and cooperation and competition among firms.
Education. A system of schools to meet needs of a vibrant and flexible economy. Vocational schools that teach general concepts and flexibility, not job-specific skills.
"Illusions of necessity in the economic order"
Unger's first writing on economic theory was the article "Illusions of necessity in the economic order" in the May 1978 issue of American Economic Review. In the article he makes a case for the need of contemporary economic thought to imitate classical political economy in which theories of exchange should be incorporated into theories of power and perception.
The article articulates the problem of the American economy as one of the inability to realize democracy of production and community in the workplace. This failure, according to Unger, is the result of the lack of a comprehensive program that encompasses production, society, and state, so that immediate attempts to address inequality get swallowed up and appropriated by the status quo in the course of winning immediate gains for the organization or constituency, e.g. unions.
To realize a democracy in the workplace and the abolition of wealth and poverty, Unger argues for the need to relate the program of worker community and democracy with an enlargement of democracy at the national level—the goal cannot be only one of economic production and worker's rights, but must be accompanied by a national project at the structural level. He pushes this idea further by calling not just for a restructuring of the relationship between the firm and state based on private property, but that it also has to be replaced with a new set of rights encompassing access to jobs, markets, and capital. Only as private rights are phased out can rights of decentralized decision making and market exchange be extended to workers. This needs to be accompanied by limits on the size of enterprise and how profits are used to control others' labor.
Neoclassical economics is not up to this task because it begins with preconceived standards that it applies to explain empirical data, while leaving out that which is a theoretical anomaly; there is no causal basis of analysis, Unger says, rather everything is embedded in a timeless universal without any account for context. Furthermore, the ambiguity of concepts of maximization, efficiency, and rationalization pin the analysis to a certain notion of the behavior of the rationalizing individual, making the analysis either tautological or reduced to a set of power relations translated into the language of material exchange.
Programmatic thought
Key in Unger's thinking is the need to re-imagine social institutions before attempting to revise them. This calls for a program, or programmatic thought. In building this program, however, we must not entertain complete revolutionary overhaul, lest we be plagued by three false assumptions:
Typological fallacy: the fallacy that there is closed list of institutional alternatives in history, such as "feudalism" or "capitalism". There is not a natural form of society, only the specific result of the piecemeal institutional changes, political movements, and cultural reforms (as well as the accidents and coincidences of history) that came before it.
Indivisibility fallacy: most subscribers to revolutionary Leftism wrongly believe that institutional structures must stand and fall together. However, structures can be reformed piecemeal.
Determinism fallacy: the fallacy that uncontrollable and little understood law-like forces drive the historical succession of institutional systems. However, there is no natural flow of history. We make ourselves and our world, and can do so in any way we choose.
To think about social transformation programmatically, one must first mark the direction one wants society to move in, and then identify the first steps with which we can move in that direction. In this way we can formulate proposals at points along the trajectory, be they relatively close to how things are now or relatively far away. This provides a third way between revolution and reform. It is revolutionary reform, where one has a revolutionary vision, but acts on that vision in a sequence of piecemeal reforms. As Unger puts it, transformative politics is "not about blueprints; it is about pathways. It is not architecture; it is music".
The two Lefts
Unger sees two main Lefts in the world today, a recalcitrant Left and a humanizing Left. The recalcitrant Left seeks to slow down the march of markets and globalization, and to return to a time of greater government involvement and stronger social programs. The humanizing Left (or 'reformist Left') accepts the world in its present form, taking the market economy and globalization as unavoidable, and attempts to humanize their effects through tax-and-transfer policies.
Unger finds the two major orientations of contemporary Leftism inadequate and calls for a 'Reconstructive Left' – one which would insist on redirecting the course of globalization by reorganizing the market economy. In his two books The Left Alternative and The Future of American Progressivism, Unger lays out a program to democratize the market economy and deepen democracy. This Reconstructive Left would look beyond debates on the appropriate size of government, and instead re-envision the relationship between government and firms in the market economy by experimenting with the coexistence of different regimes of private and social property.
It would be committed to social solidarity, but "would refuse to allow our moral interests in social cohesion [to] rest solely upon money transfers commanded by the state in the form of compensatory and retrospective redistribution", as is the case with federal entitlement programs. Instead, Unger's Reconstructive Left affirms "the principle that everyone should share, in some way and at some time, responsibility for taking care of other people."
The Left Alternative program
Unger has laid out concrete policy proposals in areas of economic development, education, civil society, and political democracy.
On economic development, Unger has noted that there are only two models for a national economy available to us today: the US model of business control of government, and the northeast Asian model of top down bureaucratic control of the economy. Citing the need for greater imagination on the issue, he has offered a third model that is decentralized, pluralistic, participatory, and experimental. This would take the form of an economy encouraging small business development and innovation that would create large scale self-employment and cooperation. The emphasis is not on the protection of big business as the main sectors of the economy, but the highly mobile and innovative small firm.
Unger links the development of such an economy to an education system that encourages creativity and empowers the mind, not one that he now sees geared for a reproduction of the family and to put the individual in service of the state. He proposes that such a system should be run locally but have standards enforced through national oversight, as well as a procedure in place to intervene in the case of the failing of local systems.
Unger's critique of and alternative to social programs goes to the heart of civil society. The problem we are faced with now, he claims, is that we have a bureaucratic system of distribution that provides lower quality service and prohibits the involvement of civil society in the provision of public services. The alternative he lays out is to have the state act to equip civil society to partake in public services and care. This would entail empowering each individual to have two responsibilities, one in the productive economy and one in the caring economy.
Unger's proposal for political democracy calls for a high energy system that diminishes the dependence of change upon crisis. This can be done, he claims, by breaking the constant threat of stasis and institutionalization of politics and parties through five institutional innovations. First, increase collective engagement through the public financing of campaigns and giving free access to media outlets. Second, hasten the pace of politics by breaking legislative deadlock through the enabling of the party in power to push through proposals and reforms, and for opposition parties to be able to dissolve the government and call for immediate elections. Third, the option of any segment of society to opt out of the political process and to propose alternative solutions for its own governance. Fourth, give the state the power to rescue oppressed groups that are unable to liberate themselves through collective action. Fifth, direct participatory democracy in which active engagement is not purely in terms of financial support and wealth distribution, but through which people are directly involved in their local and national affairs through proposal and action.
Theoretical philosophy
At the core of Unger's theoretical philosophy are two key conceptions: first the infinity of the individual, and secondly the singularity of the world and the reality of time. The premise behind the infinity of the individual is that we exist within social contexts but we are more than the roles that these contexts may define for us—we can overcome them. In Unger's terms, we are both "context-bound and context-transcending; "we appear as "the embodied spirit;" as "the infinite imprisoned within the finite." For Unger, there is no natural state of the individual and his social being. Rather, we are infinite in spirit and unbound in what we can become. As such, no social institution or convention can contain us. While institutions do exist and shape our beings and our interactions, we can change both their structure and the extent to which they imprison us.
The philosophy of the singularity of the world and the reality of time establishes history as the site of decisive action through the propositions that there is only one real world, not multiple or simultaneous universes, and that time really exists in the world, not as a simulacrum through which we must experience the world.
These two concepts of infinity and reality lie at the heart of Unger's program calling for metaphysical and institutional revolutions. From the concept of the self as infinite but constrained, Unger argues that we must continually transform our environment to better express ourselves. This can only be done in a singular world within which time is real.
The self and human nature
In Passion: An Essay on Personality, Unger explores the individual and his relation to society from the perspective of the root human predicament of the need to establish oneself as a unique individual in the world but at the same time to find commonality and solidarity with others. This exploration is grounded in what Unger calls a modernist image of the human being as one who lives in context but is not bound by context. Unger's aim is to level a critique, expansion, and defense of modern thinking about the human and society.
Religion and the human condition
Unger has written and spoken extensively on religion and the human condition.
Religion, Unger argues, is a vision of the world within which we anchor our orientation to life. It is within this orientation that we deal with our greatest terrors and highest hopes. Because we are doomed to die, we hope for eternal life; because we are unable to grasp to totality of existence or of the universe, we try to dispel the mystery and provide a comprehensible explanation; because we have an insatiable desire, we cry for an object that is worthy of this desire, one that is infinite. Humans initially invested religious discourse in nature and the human susceptibility to nature. But as societies evolved and people developed ways to cope with the unpredictability of nature, the emphasis of religion shifted to social existence and its defects. A new moment in religion will begin, Unger argues, when we stop telling ourselves that all will be fine and we begin to face the incorrigible flaws in human existence. The future of religion lies in embracing our mortality and our groundlessness.
Unger sees four flaws in the human condition. They are, our mortality and the facing of imminent death; our groundlessness in that we are unable to grasp the solution to the enigma of existence, see the beginning or end of time, nor put off the discovery of the meaning of life; our insatiability in that we always want more, and demand the infinite from the finite; and our susceptibility to belittlement which places us in a position to constantly confront petty routine forcing us to die many little deaths.
There are three major responses in the history of human thought to these flaws: escape, humanization, and confrontation.
The overcoming of the world denies the phenomenal world and its distinctions, including the individual. It proclaims a benevolence towards others and an indifference to suffering and change. One achieves serenity by becoming invulnerable to suffering and change. The religion of Buddhism and philosophical thought of Plato and Schopenhauer best represent this orientation.
The humanization of the world creates meaning out of social interactions in a meaningless world by placing all emphasis on our reciprocal responsibility to one another. Confucianism and contemporary liberalism represent this strand of thought, both of which aim to soften the cruelties of the world.
The struggle with the world is framed by the idea that series of personal and social transformations can increase our share of attributes associated with the divine and give us a larger life. It emphasizes love over altruism, rejecting the moral of the mastery of self-interest to enhance solidarity, and emphasizing the humility of individual love. This orientation has been articulated in two different voices: the sacred voice of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and the profane voice of the secular projects of liberation.
The religion of the future
The spiritual orientation of the struggle with the world has given rise to the secular movements of emancipation in the modern world, and it is here that Unger sees the religion of the future. The problem Unger sees, however, is that as an established religion, this orientation has betrayed its ideological underpinnings and has made peace with existing order. It has accepted the hierarchies of class structure in society, accepted the transfer of money as serving as the basis of solidarity, and reaffirmed the basis of existing political, economic, and social institutions by investing in a conservative position of their preservation. Thus, "to be faithful to what made this orientation persuasive and powerful in the first place, we must radicalize it against both established institutions and dominant beliefs."
Unger's call is for a revolution in our religious beliefs that encompasses both individual transformation and institutional reorganization; to create change in the life of the individual as well as in the organization of society. The first part of the program of individual transformation means waking from the dazed state in which we live our lives, and recognizing our mortality and groundlessness without turning to the “feel-good theologies and philosophies”. The second part of the program of social transformation means supplementing the metaphysical revolution with institutional practices by creating social institutions that allow us to constantly overthrow our constraints and our context, and to make this overthrow not a one time event but a continuing process. This is the program of empowered democracy that calls for reforms in the market economy, education, politics, and civil society. "The goal is not to humanize society but to divinize humanity." It is "to raise ordinary life to a higher level of intensity and capability."
Natural philosophy
Unger's philosophy of space and time presented in The Singular Universe and the Reality of Time argues for the singularity of the world and the reality of time. His arguments are grounded in the tradition of natural philosophy. He takes on the Newtonian idea of the independent observer standing outside of time and space, addresses the skepticism of David Hume, rejects the position of Kant, and attacks speculations about parallel universes of contemporary cosmology. At stake is the laying of the foundations for a view of the world and causality that is open to all possibilities; that is not a closed system of options in which our future is governed by deterministic laws and typologies. It is an understanding of society that rejects the naturalness and necessity of current social arrangements; "a form of understanding of society and history that refuses to explain the present arrangements in a manner that vindicates their naturalness and necessity."
The thesis of the singularity of the world states that there is one real world. Such a thesis stands in stark contrast to contemporary theoretical physics and cosmology, which speculate about multiple universes out of the dilemma of how to have law like explanations if the universe is unique—laws will be universal because they don't just apply to this unique universe but to all universes. However, there is no empirical evidence for multiple worlds. Unger's singularity thesis can better address our empirical observations and set the conceptual platform to address the four main puzzles in cosmology today: Big Bang, initial conditions, horizon problem, and the precise value of constants, such as gravity, speed of light, and Planck's constant.
The thesis that time is real states that time "really is real" and everything is subject to history. This move is to historicize everything, even the laws of nature, and to challenge our acting as if time were real but not too real—we act as if it is somewhat real otherwise there would be no causal relations, but not so real that laws change. Unger holds that time is so real that laws of nature are also subject to its force and they too must change. There are no eternal laws upon which change occurs, rather time precedes structure. This position gives the universe a history and makes time non-emergent, global, irreversible, and continuous.
Bringing these two thesis together, Unger theorizes that laws of nature develop together with the phenomenon they explain. Laws and initial conditions co-evolve, in the same that they do in how cells reproduce and mutate in different levels of complexity of organisms. In cosmological terms Unger explains the passing from one structure to another at the origins of the universe when the state of energy was high but not infinite, and the freedom of movement was greater than when operating under a known set of laws. The conditions of the early universe is compatible with the universe that preceded it. The new universe may be different in structure, but has been made with what existed in the old one, e.g. masses of elementary particles, strength of different forces, and cosmological constants. As the universe cools the phenomena and laws work together with materials produced by sequence; they are path dependent materials. They are also constrained by the family of resemblances of the effective laws against the background of the conceptions of alternative states the universe and succession of universes.
Mathematics and the one real, time-drenched world
One consequence of these positions that Unger points to is the revision of the concept and function of mathematics. If there is only one world drenched in time through and through, then mathematics cannot be a timeless expression of multiple universes that captures reality. Rather, Unger argues that mathematics is a means of analyzing the world removed of time and phenomenal distinction. By emptying the world of time and space it is able to better focus on one aspect of reality: the recurrence of certain ways in which pieces of the world relate to other pieces. Its subject matter are the structured wholes and bundles of relations, which we see outside mathematics only as embodied in the time-bound particulars of the manifest world. In this way, mathematics extends our problem solving powers as an extension of human insight, but it is not a part of the world.
Political engagement
Unger has a long history of political activity in Brazil. He worked in early opposition parties in the 1970s/80s against the Brazilian military dictatorship, and drafted the founding manifesto for the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB) in 1980. He served as an intimate adviser to two presidential candidates, and launched exploratory bids himself in 2000 and 2006. He was the Secretary for Strategic Affairs in the Lula administration from 2007–09, and is currently working on a number of social and developmental projects in the state of Rondônia.
Driving Unger's political engagement is the idea that society can be made and remade. Unlike Mill or Marx, who posited a particular class as the agent of history, Unger does not see a single vehicle for transformative politics. He advocates world-wide revolution, but does not see this happening as a single cataclysmic event or undertaken by a class agent, like the Communist movement. Rather, he sees the possibility of piecemeal change, where institutions can be replaced one at a time, and permanent plasticity can be built into the institutional infrastructure.
Early political activity, 1970s and 1980s
Unger's engagement in Brazilian politics began in the late 1970s as Brazil started to democratize. In 1979, he presented himself to the main opposition party, the Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB), and was appointed chief of staff by party leader Ulysses Guimaraes. His initial work was to develop the positions of the party and draft policy proposals for their party's congressional representatives. When the military regime dissolved the two-party system and established a multi-party system later that year, Unger worked to unite progressive liberals and the independent, non-communist left into the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB). As a co-founder of the party, he authored its first manifesto. Unger left the party after the rise of a conservative faction, which was a part of the MDB but had been excluded from the initial formation of the PMDB.
After departing the PMDB in the early 1980s, Unger began looking for political agents who would serve as vehicles for his national alternative. In 1981, he jointed the Democratic Labour Party of Brazil (PDT) led by Leonel Brizola, a former governor of Rio de Janeiro and a figure of the left prior to the dictatorship. Brizola had founded the PDT and Unger saw it as the authentic opposition to the military regime. Throughout the 1980s he worked with Brizola to travel the country recruiting members, and developing policy positions and a political language.
In 1983, Brizola, then serving his second of three terms as governor of Rio de Janeiro, appointed Unger to head the State Foundation for the Education of Minors (FEEM), a state-run foundation for homeless children. During his year-long tenure, he began a process of radical reforms of the institutions, such as opening the door to international adoption and reintegrating children with their families. He also set up community organizations in the slums to help support families in order to prevent the abandonment of children.
Political campaigns, 1990s and 2000s
In 1990, Unger ran a symbolic campaign for a seat in the national chamber of deputies. He had no money, no structure, and only campaigned for eight weeks. He ran on a platform of reforming the slums, and went around the slum neighborhoods giving lectures. He received 9,000 votes, just 1,000 votes short of winning the seat. None of the votes came from the slums, however. All his votes had come from the middle class, although he had never campaigned in those neighborhoods or to that constituency. Recalling the experience, Unger says "it was kind of absurd... I had no money, no staff, and I would go into these slums, alone, to hand out pamphlets, often to the local drug pushers." It is an experience that Unger cites as leading to his belief that the system and possibilities were much more open than he had previously imagined.
Unger served as Brizola's campaign organizer and primary political adviser in his bids for the Brazilian Presidency in 1989 and 1994. In 1989, Brizola finished in third place, losing the second position, which would have qualified him for a runoff against Fernando Collor de Mello, by a very narrow margin to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Brizola and Unger both supported Lula in the second round of the election, but Collor would go on to beat Lula and win the Presidency.
Unger also helped organize the presidential bids of former finance minister and governor of Ceará, Ciro Gomes, in 1998 and 2002. In 1998, Gomes came in third place with 11% of the vote, and in 2002 he came in fourth place with 12% of the vote. Unger had written The Next Step: An Alternative to Neoliberalism with Gomes in 1996. At the national level in 2002, again in the second round of the election, Unger supported Lula who went on to defeat José Serra to win the Presidency.
With the experience of supporting others who imploded politically, Unger discovered that, as he put it, he was committing "the classic mistake of the philosophers in politics, which is to try to find someone else to do the work." In 2000, he ran in the primaries for the mayor of Sao Paulo, but the PPS party leader suspended the primaries when it became clear that Unger would win the nomination and challenge party control. He launched an exploratory bid for the 2006 presidential election on the PRB ticket, but the party decided not to put forth its own candidate for the presidency and to support Lula of the PT.
As Minister of Strategic Affairs in the Lula administration
Unger found President Lula's first term to be conservative and riddled with scandal. He wrote articles calling Lula's administration "the most corrupt of Brazil's history" and called for his impeachment.
Despite the criticism, many advisers to Lula insisted that he should invite Unger to join his administration. In June 2007, after winning his second term, Lula appointed Unger as head of the newly established Long-term Planning Secretariat (a post which would eventually be called The Minister of Strategic Affairs).
Unger's work in office was an attempt to enact his program. Seeing the future in small enterprises and advocating a rotating capital fund that would function like a government run venture capital fund, he pushed for a rapid expansion of credit to smaller producers and a decentralized network of technical support centers that would help broaden the middle class from below. He further called for political solutions that would broaden access to production forces such as information technology, and for states to focus on equipping and monitoring civil society rather than trying to provide social services.
Unger's specific projects while in office were focused on giving "ordinary men and women the instruments with which to render this vitality fertile and productive." He aimed to use state powers and resources to allow the majority of poor workers to "follow the path of the emergent vanguard". He developed a series of sectoral and regional initiatives that would prefigure the model of development based on the broadening of economic and educational opportunity by democratizing the market economy and restructuring civil society.
Sectorally, Unger revamped the educational structure and rewrote labor laws. In education, he implemented a model of secondary education, where analytical problem-solving education was paired with technical education that focused on conceptual capabilities rather than job-specific skills. There are several hundred of these institutions today. He further drafted legislation to associate national, state and local jurisdictions into common bodies that could intervene when a local school system fell below the minimum acceptable threshold of quality and "fix it the way an independent administrator would fix a failing business under Chapter 11 bankruptcy." In labor, Unger worked with unions to write new labor laws designed to protect and organize temporary workers, subcontractors, and those working in the informal economy.
Regionally, some of Unger's most influential work was the implementation of a developmental strategy for the Amazon that would be sustainable environmentally by making it socially inclusive. He drafted and passed legislation to regularize small-scale squatters on untitled land by giving them clear legal titles, which would create self-interest in preservation while granting them economic opportunity. Included in this law were protections against large scale land grabbers. Such legislation aimed to empower locals living on Amazonian land by giving them ownership rights and linking their interest in preserving it, rather than pillaging it as quickly as possible in the face of ambiguous ownership rights. This legislation passed and was put into law.
Unger served in the administration for two years. On 26 June 2009, President Lula announced Unger would be leaving the government and returning to Harvard University. He later cited personal and political reasons for his early departure.
Engagement outside Brazil
Unger's attempts to develop global social, political, and economic alternatives have led him in episodic engagements in national debates around the world. His approach in these engagements recognizes that the problems facing contemporary societies are not distinct from nation to nation, and that general structural arrangements can first be implemented, which will allow for local innovation, flexibility, and development in social, economic, and political arenas. There is no institutional blueprint for Unger, however, only a direction that can be pointed to and general proposals that can be implemented to allow further institutional innovation and experimentation. Unger's guiding principle is that institutional flexibility needs to be built into the implemented system, and in this way a diversity of local experiments would take hold the world over.
One of Unger's more promising engagements was the Latin American Alternative in the late 1990s. Unger and Mexican politician and political scientist Jorge Castañeda Gutman assembled an informal network of politicians and business leaders dedicated to redrawing the political map. The aim of the group was to provide a critique of neoliberalism coupled with a way forward in a distinct strategy and institutional model of development. They floated proposals such as guaranteeing every citizen "social rights" (e.g. education and a job), breaking up media oligopolies, and holding town meetings to help citizens supervise municipal spending. The group held a number of meetings over the years, which included Brazilian finance minister Ciro Gomes, Chilean senator Carlos Ominami, Argentinian politicians Dante Caputo and Rodolfo Terragno, and Mexican politician and future president Vicente Fox. The meetings resulted in a document entitled the "Buenos Aires Consensus" in 1997, which Castaneda called "the end of neoliberalism; of the Washington Consensus".
This consensus was formally signed in 2003 by Argentinian President Néstor Kirchner and Brazilian President Lula da Silva. Other Latin American leaders who signed it included Fox, future president of Chile Ricardo Lagos, Mexican politician Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, former vice president of Nicaragua Sergio Ramírez, future president of Argentina Fernando de la Rúa, and former Brazilian president Itamar Franco.
During the 2008 US presidential campaign, Unger was in frequent contact with candidate Barack Obama via email and Blackberry. He has since become critical of the Obama administration, and called for the defeat of Obama in the 2012 election as a first step to remaking the Democratic party.
Current engagement
Unger's recent political work has focused on the north-western Brazilian state of Rondônia. He sees the human and natural resources of the state meeting all the conditions to serve as the vanguard of a new model of development for Brazil. Speaking to News Rondônia he said, "Rondônia is a state formed by a multitude of small and medium entrepreneurs together with the Brazilian government, and that is something truly unique in our country."
He has been traveling the state giving public lectures and encouraging political discourse and engagement in localities. Working with governor João Aparecido Cahulla on development projects, Unger has outlined a series of important areas of focus. The first is to change the agricultural model from one of intensive farming to an industrialization of produces through the recuperation of degraded pastures, supply fertilizers and lime, and diversifying crops and livestock farming. The second key project is transforming education from rote learning to creative thinking and engagement. He helped open the School Teixeira in Porto Velho. Another ongoing project is the construction of a new educational center in accordance with his theory of pedagogical reform, where delinquents would be reintegrated into municipal life.
Circumstance and influence
Unger's philosophical work grapples with some of the most fundamental and enduring problems of human existence. It has been put into direct dialogue with Kant's moral law, and said to have provided one answer to Hume's Guillotine. Unger's analysis of liberalism and the philosophical program he builds around rethinking the individual has also inspired new thinking and approaches to psychiatry.
In 1987, the Northwestern University Law Review devoted an issue to Unger's work, analysing his three volume publication Politics: A Work In Constructive Social Theory. Michael J. Perry, a professor of law at Northwestern University, praises Unger for producing a vast work of social theory that combines law, history, politics, and philosophy within a single narrative.
Early reviewers of Politics questioned Unger's seeming predicament of criticizing a system of thought and its historical tradition without subjecting himself to the same critical gaze. "There is little acknowledgement that he himself is writing in a particular socio-historical context", wrote one reviewer, and another asked, "in what context Unger himself is situated and why that context itself is not offered up to the sledgehammer."
Critics also balked at the lack of example or concrete vision of his social and political proposals. As one critic wrote, "it is difficult to imagine what Unger's argument would mean in practice", and that "he does not tell us what to make." Others have suggested that the lack of imagination of such readers is precisely what is at stake.
Books
Knowledge and Politics, Free Press, 1975.
Law In Modern Society: Toward a Criticism of Social Theory, Free Press, 1976.
Passion: An Essay on Personality, Free Press, 1986.
The Critical Legal Studies Movement, Harvard University Press, 1986.
Politics: A Work In Constructive Social Theory, Cambridge University Press, 1987, in 3 Vols:
Vol 1 - False Necessity: Anti-Necessitarian Social Theory in the Service of Radical Democracy.
Vol 2 - Social Theory: Its Situation and Its Task - A Critical Introduction to Politics: A Work in Constructive Social Theory.
Vol 3 - Plasticity Into Power: Comparative-Historical Studies on the Institutional Conditions of Economic and Military Success.
What Should Legal Analysis Become?, Verso, 1996
Politics: The Central Texts, Theory Against Fate, Verso, 1997, with Cui Zhiyuan.
Democracy Realized: The Progressive Alternative, Verso, 1998.
The Future of American Progressivism: An Initiative for Political and Economic Reform, Beacon, 1998 - with Cornel West
What Should the Left Propose?, Verso, 2006.
The Self Awakened: Pragmatism Unbound, Harvard, 2007.
Free Trade Reimagined: The World Division of Labor and the Method of Economics, Princeton University Press, 2007.
The Left Alternative, Verso, 2009 (2nd edition to What Should the Left Propose?, Verso, 2006.).
The Religion of the Future, Harvard, 2014.
The Singular Universe and the Reality of Time, Cambridge University Press, 2014, with Lee Smolin.
The Knowledge Economy, Verso, 2019.
See also
False necessity
Formative context
Negative capability
Empowered democracy
Structure and agency
Passions
References
External links
Roberto Unger's Harvard Homepage
Links to Unger's works via his homepage
An interview with Unger on the American Left
Biographical articles about Roberto Unger
Guggenheim Gives Fellowships for '76: Unger Gets Tenure, Too (The Harvard Crimson April 5, 1976)
"The Passion of Roberto Unger" , Eyal Press, (Lingua Franca, March 1999)
Carlos Castilho, "Brazil's Consigliere: Unger Leaves Lectern to Stand Behind the Throne." (World Paper, April 2000)
Simon Romero, "Destination: São Paulo" (Metropolis, October 2000) This article is about São Paulo, Brazil, but it has a lengthy discussion of Unger's political activism there and many quotes from Unger.
Meltzer Elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences (HLS News May 13, 2004)
(First of the Month, July 1, 2012)
1947 births
20th-century Brazilian male writers
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Writers about globalization | true | [
"John Hugh Arnold (born 28 November 1969) is a British historian. Since 2016, he has been the Professor of Medieval History at the University of Cambridge. He previously worked at Birkbeck College, University of London, where he specialised in the study of medieval religious culture. He has also written widely on historiography and why history matters.\n\nCareer\nBorn 28 November 1969, Arnold received his Bachelor of Arts degree in history and his Doctor of Philosophy degree in medieval studies from the University of York. He was professor of medieval history at Birkbeck College, University of London, from 2008. He joined the college as a lecturer in 2001. Before that he was a lecturer at the University of East Anglia. He is a member of the Social History Society and the Medieval Academy of America.\n\nResearch\nArnold specialises in the study of medieval religious culture, saying that while he has never been a believer in any religion, \"belief\" has always fascinated him. In his work he asks \"Why do people believe the things they believe? What does 'believing' really mean in practice?\" Arnold has also written widely about historiography. In 2008 he wrote a policy paper, Why history matters - and why medieval history also matters, for History & Policy.\n\nSelected publications\nWhat is Masculinity? Historical Dynamics from Antiquity to the Contemporary World (Palgrave, 2011), co-edited with Sean Brady\nWhat is Medieval History? (Polity, 2008)\nBelief and Unbelief in Medieval Europe (Bloomsbury, 2005)\nA Companion to the Book of Margery Kempe (Boydell, 2004), co-edited with Katherine J Lewis\nInquisition and Power: Catharism and the Confessing Subject in Medieval Languedoc (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001)\nHistory: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2000)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \nJohn H. Arnold. academia.edu\nThe Historian's Many Hats. BBC History Trails.\nThe Big Question: What is history? Open University.\n\n1969 births\nAcademics of Birkbeck, University of London\nAcademics of the University of Cambridge\nAcademics of the University of East Anglia\nAlumni of the University of York\nBritish medievalists\nCultural historians\nHistorians of religion\nHistoriographers\nKing's College, Cambridge\nLiving people\nSocial historians",
"Antonio Peña Díaz (born in 1936) is a Mexican biochemist who received the Carlos J. Finlay Prize for Microbiology (UNESCO, 2003) and chaired both the Mexican Academy of Sciences (1992–93) and the Mexican Society of Biochemistry (1981–83).\n\nPeña Díaz holds a bachelor's degree in Medicine and both a master's and a doctorate degree from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). He is currently an emeritus professor of the Institute for Cellular Physiology of the same university and has worked as a visiting scholar at the University of Rochester.\n\nSelected works\n (\"Biochemistry\", 1979)\n (\"The Membranes of the Cell\", 1986)\n (\"Energy and Life: Bioenergetics\", with Georges Dreyfus Cortés, 1990)\n (\"How Does a Cell Work: Cellular Physiology\", 1995)\n (\"What is Metabolism?\", 2001)\n\nNotes and references\n\nMexican biochemists\nMembers of the Mexican Academy of Sciences\nNational Autonomous University of Mexico alumni\nNational Autonomous University of Mexico faculty\nUniversity of Rochester faculty\nPeople from Durango\n1936 births\nLiving people\n21st-century Mexican scientists\n20th-century Mexican scientists"
] |
[
"Roberto Mangabeira Unger",
"Academic career",
"Which school did he attended?",
"legal schools across America",
"Did he attend any other school apart from that?",
"legal schools across America",
"What degree does he has?",
"legal education."
] | C_4f00a236510846968d1f892d87efb181_1 | Anything else in the article? | 4 | Anything else about Roberto Mangabeira Unger and his Academic career besides which schools Robert Unger attended, and what degree Robert Unger has? | Roberto Mangabeira Unger | The beginning of Unger's academic career began with the books Knowledge and Politics and Law in Modern Society, published in 1975 and 1976 respectively. These works led to the co-founding of Critical Legal Studies (CLS) with Duncan Kennedy and Morton Horwitz. The movement stirred up controversy in legal schools across America as it challenged standard legal scholarship and made radical proposals for legal education. By the early 1980s, the CLS movement touched off a heated internal debate at Harvard, pitting the CLS scholars against the older, more traditional scholars. Throughout much of the 1980s, Unger worked on his magnum opus, Politics: A Work In Constructive Social Theory, a three volume work that assessed classical social theory and developed a political, social, and economic alternative. The series is based on the premise of society as an artifact, and rejects the necessity of certain institutional arrangements. Published in 1987, Politics was foremost a critique of contemporary social theory and politics; it developed a theory of structural and ideological change, and gave an alternative account of world history. By first attacking the idea that there is a necessary progression from one set of institutional arrangements to another, e.g. feudalism to capitalism, it then built an anti-necessitarian theory of social change, theorizing the transition from one set of institutional arrangements to another. Unger devoted much of the following decades to further elaborating on the insights developed in Politics by working out the political and social alternatives. What Should Legal Analysis Become? (Verso, 1996) developed tools to reimagine the organization of social life. Democracy Realized: The Progressive Alternative (Verso, 1998) and What Should the Left Propose? (Verso, 2005) put forth alternative institutional proposals. CANNOTANSWER | Democracy Realized: The Progressive Alternative (Verso, 1998) and What Should the Left Propose? (Verso, 2005) put forth alternative institutional proposals. | Roberto Mangabeira Unger (; born 24 March 1947) is a Brazilian philosopher and politician. His work is in the tradition of classical social theory and pragmatism, and is developed across many fields including legal theory, philosophy and religion, social and political theory, progressive alternatives, and economics. In natural philosophy he is known for The Singular Universe and the Reality of Time. In social theory he is known for Politics: A Work in Constructive Social Theory. In legal theory he was part of the Critical Legal Studies movement, which helped disrupt the methodological consensus in American law schools. His political activity helped the transition to democracy in Brazil in the aftermath of the military regime, and culminated with his appointment as Brazil's Minister of Strategic Affairs in 2007 and again in 2015. His work is seen to offer a vision of humanity and a program to empower individuals and change institutions.
At the core of his philosophy is a view of humanity as greater than the contexts in which it is placed. He sees each individual possessed with the capability to rise to a greater life. At the root of his social thought is the conviction that the social world is made and imagined. His work begins from the premise that no natural or necessary social, political, or economic arrangements underlie individual or social activity. Property rights, liberal democracy, wage labor—for Unger, these are all historical artifacts that have no necessary relation to the goals of free and prosperous human activity. For Unger, the market, the state, and human social organization should not be set in predetermined institutional arrangements, but need to be left open to experimentation and revision according to what works for the project of individual and collective empowerment. Doing so, he holds, will enable human liberation.
Unger has long been active in Brazilian opposition politics. He was one of the founding members of the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party and drafted its manifesto. He directed the presidential campaigns of Leonel Brizola and Ciro Gomes, ran for the Chamber of Deputies, and twice launched exploratory bids for the Brazilian presidency. He served as the Minister of Strategic Affairs in the second Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva administration and in the second Dilma administration.
Biography
Family
Unger's maternal grandfather was Octávio Mangabeira, who served as Brazil's minister of foreign affairs in the late 1920s before the dictatorship of Getúlio Vargas subjected him to a series of imprisonments and exiles in Europe and the United States. After returning to Brazil in 1945, he co-founded a center-left party. He was elected as a representative in the Câmara Federal in 1946, governor of Bahia in 1947, and Senator in 1958.
Both of Unger's parents were intellectuals. His German-born father, Artur Unger, from Dresden, arrived in the United States as a child and later became a U.S. citizen. His mother, Edyla Mangabeira, was a Brazilian poet and journalist. Artur and Edyla met in the US during the exile of Octávio Mangabeira.
Early life
Roberto Mangabeira Unger was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1947, and spent his childhood on Manhattan's Upper East Side. He attended the private Allen-Stevenson School. When he was eleven, his father died and his mother moved the family back to Brazil. He attended a Jesuit school and went on to law school at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.
Unger was admitted to Harvard Law School in September 1969. After receiving his LLM, Unger stayed at Harvard another year on a fellowship, and then entered the doctoral program. At 23 years old, Unger began teaching jurisprudence, among other things, to first year students. In 1976, aged 29, he got SJD and became one of the youngest faculty members to receive tenure from the Harvard Law School.
Academic career
The beginning of Unger's academic career began with the books Knowledge and Politics and Law in Modern Society, published in 1975 and 1976 respectively. These works led to the co-founding of Critical Legal Studies (CLS) with Duncan Kennedy and Morton Horwitz. The movement stirred up controversy in legal schools across America as it challenged standard legal scholarship and made radical proposals for legal education. By the early 1980s, the CLS movement touched off a heated internal debate at Harvard, pitting the CLS scholars against the older, more traditional scholars.
Throughout much of the 1980s, Unger worked on his magnum opus, Politics: A Work In Constructive Social Theory, a three volume work that assessed classical social theory and developed a political, social, and economic alternative. The series is based on the premise of society as an artifact, and rejects the necessity of certain institutional arrangements. Published in 1987, Politics was foremost a critique of contemporary social theory and politics; it developed a theory of structural and ideological change, and gave an alternative account of world history. By first attacking the idea that there is a necessary progression from one set of institutional arrangements to another, e.g. feudalism to capitalism, it then built an anti-necessitarian theory of social change, theorizing the transition from one set of institutional arrangements to another.
Unger devoted much of the following decades to further elaborating on the insights developed in Politics by working out the political and social alternatives. What Should Legal Analysis Become? (Verso, 1996) developed tools to reimagine the organization of social life. Democracy Realized: The Progressive Alternative (Verso, 1998) and What Should the Left Propose? (Verso, 2005) put forth alternative institutional proposals.
Intellectual influences
Unger's model of philosophical practice is closest to those philosophers who sought to form a view of the whole of reality, and to do so by using and resisting the specialized knowledge of their time. It has been read as a form of pragmatism, but also as an attempt to disengage ideas and experiences that developed in the West under the influence of Christianity from the categories of Greek philosophy. His thought has been called the inverse of Schopenhauer's philosophy, affirming the supreme value of life and the reality and depth of the self and eschewing fecklessness.
Philosophical work
Social theory
Unger's social theory is premised on the idea of classical social theory that society is an artifact and can be created and recreated. Whereas previous thinkers such as Hegel or Marx backslid at some point and held onto the notion that there was a necessary institutional or historical social development, Unger, in the words of one critic, seeks to "take the idea to the hilt and produce a theory of emancipation that will escape the limitations of liberal and Marxist theories." That limitation is the search for an ideal structure of society that can be foreseen and centrally planned; whereas the emancipation leads to societies with greater institutional flexibility and variation.
For Unger, society emerges not through compromise or the winnowing down of best options, but rather through conflict and struggle for control of political and material resources. The victors of this struggle come to set the terms of social interaction and transaction, which is then institutionalized through law. This emergent order Unger calls formative context. Under a particular formative context, routines are established and people come to believe and act as if their social words were coherent wholes that are perfectly intelligible and defensible. They come to see the existing arrangements as necessary. Unger calls this false necessity. In reality, these arrangements are arbitrary and hold together rather tenuously, which leaves them open to resistance and change. This opposition Unger calls negative capability.
This leads Unger to the conclusion that change happens piecemeal through struggle and vision, rather than suddenly in revolutionary upheaval with the replacement of one set of institutional arrangements with another. Unger theorizes that cumulative change can alter formative contexts, and he goes on to propose a number of such changes as institutional alternatives to be implemented, which he calls Empowered democracy.
Empowered democracy is Unger's vision of a more open and more plastic set of social institutions through which individuals and groups can interact, propose change, and effectively empower themselves to transform social, economic, and political structures. Unger's strategy in its realization is to combine freedom of commerce and governance at the local level with the ability of political parties at the central government level to promote radical social experiments that would bring about decisive change in social and political institutions.
In practice, the theory would involve radical developments in politics at the center, as well as social innovation in localities. At the center, by bestowing wide ranging revising powers to those in office, it would give political parties the ability to try out concrete yet profound solutions and proposals. It would turn partisan conflicts over control and uses of governmental power into an opportunity to question and revise the basic arrangements of social life through a rapid resolution of political impasse. In local communities, empowered democracy would make capital and technology available through rotating capital funds, which would encourage entrepreneurship and innovation. Citizens' rights include individual entitlements to economic and civic security, conditional and temporary group claims to portions of social capital, and destabilization rights, which would empower individuals or groups to disrupt organizations and practices marred by routines of subjugation that normal politics have failed to disrupt.
Unger's ideas developed in a context where young intellectuals and radicals attempted to reconcile the conventional theories of society and law being taught in university classrooms with the reality of social protest and revolution of the 1960s and 70s. Disillusioned with Marxism, they turned to thinkers like Levi-Strauss, Gramsci, Habermas, and Foucault in attempt to situate understandings of law and society as a benign science of technocratic policy within a broader system of beliefs that legitimized the prevailing social order. Unlike Habermas, however, who formulates procedures for attaining rational consensus, Unger locates resolution in institutions and their arrangements that remain perpetually open to revision and reconstruction. And, unlike Foucault, who also emphasizes the constructed character of social life, Unger takes this as an opportunity to reimagine institutions and social conditions that will unleash human creativity and enable liberation.
Legal thought
Unger's work on law has sought to denaturalize the concept of law and how it is represented through particular institutions. He begins by inquiring into why modern societies have legal systems with distinctions between institutions, such as legislature and court, as well as a special caste of lawyers possessing a method of reasoning about social problems. Whereas thinkers such as Marx and Weber had argued that such legal arrangements were a product of economic necessity to secure property rights and the autonomy of the individual, Unger shows that this liberal legal order emerged in Europe as a result of the indeterminate relations between monarchy, aristocracy, and bourgeoisie. It took the particular form that it did by emerging out of the long tradition of natural law and universality, rather than of necessity.
This early work in historical analysis of law and legal thought laid the basis for Unger's contribution to the Critical Legal Studies movement. The movement itself was born in the late 1970s among young legal scholars at Harvard Law School who denounced the theoretical underpinnings of American jurisprudence, legal realism. The participants were committed to shaping society based on a vision of human personality without the hidden interests and class domination of legal institutions. Two tendencies of the movement developed, one, a radical indeterminacy that criticized law as meaning anything we want it to mean, and the other, a neo-Marxist critique that attacked legal thought as an institutional form of capitalism. Unger offered a third tendency, a constructive vision of rethinking rights based on individual emancipation and empowerment, and structural arrangements that would lend themselves to constant revision with the goal of creating more educational and economic opportunities for more people. He laid this out in The Critical Legal Studies Movement, which quickly earned him a following as the philosophical mentor and prophet of the movement.
Economic thought
At the center of Unger's thought about the economy is the commitment to reimagining and remaking the institutional arrangements of how humans produce and exchange. For Unger, economic institutions have no inherent or natural forms, and he rejects the necessitarian tendencies of classical and neo-classical economists, seeking instead alternatives to the arrangements of contemporary societies. In his writings, he has aimed to revise ideas on the importance of market economies and the division of labor in the workplace and national and global economies.
Critique of economics
Unger's critique of economics begins with the identification of a key moment in economic history, when the analysis of production and exchange turned away from social theory and engaged in a quest for scientific objectivity. In Unger's analysis, classical economics focused on the causal relations among social activities, which were connected with the production and distribution of wealth. Classical economists asked questions about the true basis of value, activities that contributed to national wealth, systems of rights, or about the forms of government under which people grow rich. In the late-nineteenth century, in response to attacks from socialist ideas and debates about how society works, and as a means to escape the conundrums of value theory and to answer how values could become prices, marginalist economics arose. This movement in economics disengaged economics from prescriptive and normative commitments to withdraw the study of economies from debates about how society worked and what kind of society we wanted to live in. For Unger, this moment in the history of economics robbed it of any analytical or practical value.
Unger's critique of Marginalism begins with Walras' equilibrium theory, which attempted to achieve a certainty of economic analysis by putting aside normative controversies of social organization. Unger finds three weaknesses that crippled the theory: foremost, the theory claimed that equilibrium would be spontaneously generated in a market economy. In reality, a self-adjusting equilibrium fails to occur. Second, the theory puts forth a determinate image of the market. Historically, however, the market has been shown to be indeterminate with different market arrangements. Third, the polemical use of efficiency fails to account for the differences of distribution among individuals, classes, and generations.
The consequences of the marginalist movement were profound for the study of economics, Unger says. The most immediate problem is that under this generalizing tendency of economics, there is no means by which to incorporate empirical evidence and thus to re-imagine the world and develop new theories and new directions. In this way, the discipline is always self-referential and theoretical. Furthermore, the lack of a normative view of the world curtails the ability to propose anything more than a policy prescription, which by definition always assumes a given context. The discipline can only rationalize the world and support a status quo. Lastly, Unger finds that this turn in economics ended up universalizing debates in macroeconomics and leaving the discipline without any historical perspective. A consequence, for example, was that Keynes' solution to a particular historical crisis was turned into a general theory when it should only be understood as a response to a particular situation.
Reorientating economics
Unger's vision of economics is that it cannot be unhinged from ideas about the individual and social life. Human activity and political organization must be incorporated into any analysis of trade and economies. In remaking the discipline, he calls for a return to the normative practice of classical economics but stripped of its necessitarian assumptions and typological references. The development of explanatory claims and prescriptive ideas are necessary. The discipline must connect the transformation of nature with that of society—the making of things with the reorganization of people.
In Free Trade Reimagined: The World Division of Labor and the Method of Economics, he sets forth six ideas to begin thinking about economic activity.
The problem of specialization and discovery. Competition comes to inhibit self transformation when trading partners are unequal but not radically unequal, for both are forced into cost cutting rather than innovating and increasing efficiency.
The problem of politics over economics. The making and implementation of policy is not one of discovery, but rather of top down implementation. Rigid state control will limit how a society can respond to tensions and crisis, and thus politics creates its own presuppositions and limits creativity and alternative solutions.
Free trade should strengthen the capacity for self transformation by organizing the trading regime in a way that strengthens the capacity of trading partners to experiment and innovate. It becomes question not of how much free trade, but what kind. The best arrangements are those that impose the least amount of restraint.
Alternative free trade. The market has no necessary and natural form. If the market economy can be organized in a different way then so can a universal order of free trade among market economies.
The division of labor remade. The pin factory organization of labor describes the organization of work as if labor were a machine. But we can make machines to do this work. We should then innovate in those areas where we don't yet know how to make the machine to do the work. Production should be one of collective learning and permanent innovation.
Mind against context. The mind is both a machine and an anti-machine; it is both formulaic and totalizing. Thus we never rest in any context, and we need to have arrangements that constantly lend themselves to reinvention.
Reconstructing economic institutions
For Unger, the economy is not only a device for wealth but also permanent innovation and discovery. It should allow the greatest freedom of the recombination of people and resources, and allow people to innovate in institutional settings. The market economy should not be single dogmatic version of itself.
Unger has presented a number of general institutional proposals that aim to restructure the world trade regime and introduce new alternatives in the market economy. For international and global trade, Unger calls for the need to experiment with different property rights regimes, where multiple forms will coexist in the same market system and not be tied to individual property rights and contractual labor. Generally, rather than maximizing the free trade as the goal, Unger sees the need to build and open the world economy in way that reconciles global openness with national and regional diversification, deviation, heresy, and experiment, where the idea is to support alternatives by making the world safer for them. For national economies, he rejects the need to require the free flow of capital, for there are times when it may be necessary to restrict capital flows. Rather, he puts the emphasis on the free flow of people. Labor should be allowed to move freely throughout the world.
On the twenty-first-century economic stimulus
Most recently, in a YouTube video titled he laid out three key policies to address the current economy:
Change the arrangements of finance in relation to production so that finance is in the service of production. Tax and regulate to discourage finance that does not contribute to production. Use public capital for venture capital funds.
Broaden economic opportunity by supporting small and medium enterprise. Reject the choice between government regulation and state controlled models. Support cooperation between government and firms, and cooperation and competition among firms.
Education. A system of schools to meet needs of a vibrant and flexible economy. Vocational schools that teach general concepts and flexibility, not job-specific skills.
"Illusions of necessity in the economic order"
Unger's first writing on economic theory was the article "Illusions of necessity in the economic order" in the May 1978 issue of American Economic Review. In the article he makes a case for the need of contemporary economic thought to imitate classical political economy in which theories of exchange should be incorporated into theories of power and perception.
The article articulates the problem of the American economy as one of the inability to realize democracy of production and community in the workplace. This failure, according to Unger, is the result of the lack of a comprehensive program that encompasses production, society, and state, so that immediate attempts to address inequality get swallowed up and appropriated by the status quo in the course of winning immediate gains for the organization or constituency, e.g. unions.
To realize a democracy in the workplace and the abolition of wealth and poverty, Unger argues for the need to relate the program of worker community and democracy with an enlargement of democracy at the national level—the goal cannot be only one of economic production and worker's rights, but must be accompanied by a national project at the structural level. He pushes this idea further by calling not just for a restructuring of the relationship between the firm and state based on private property, but that it also has to be replaced with a new set of rights encompassing access to jobs, markets, and capital. Only as private rights are phased out can rights of decentralized decision making and market exchange be extended to workers. This needs to be accompanied by limits on the size of enterprise and how profits are used to control others' labor.
Neoclassical economics is not up to this task because it begins with preconceived standards that it applies to explain empirical data, while leaving out that which is a theoretical anomaly; there is no causal basis of analysis, Unger says, rather everything is embedded in a timeless universal without any account for context. Furthermore, the ambiguity of concepts of maximization, efficiency, and rationalization pin the analysis to a certain notion of the behavior of the rationalizing individual, making the analysis either tautological or reduced to a set of power relations translated into the language of material exchange.
Programmatic thought
Key in Unger's thinking is the need to re-imagine social institutions before attempting to revise them. This calls for a program, or programmatic thought. In building this program, however, we must not entertain complete revolutionary overhaul, lest we be plagued by three false assumptions:
Typological fallacy: the fallacy that there is closed list of institutional alternatives in history, such as "feudalism" or "capitalism". There is not a natural form of society, only the specific result of the piecemeal institutional changes, political movements, and cultural reforms (as well as the accidents and coincidences of history) that came before it.
Indivisibility fallacy: most subscribers to revolutionary Leftism wrongly believe that institutional structures must stand and fall together. However, structures can be reformed piecemeal.
Determinism fallacy: the fallacy that uncontrollable and little understood law-like forces drive the historical succession of institutional systems. However, there is no natural flow of history. We make ourselves and our world, and can do so in any way we choose.
To think about social transformation programmatically, one must first mark the direction one wants society to move in, and then identify the first steps with which we can move in that direction. In this way we can formulate proposals at points along the trajectory, be they relatively close to how things are now or relatively far away. This provides a third way between revolution and reform. It is revolutionary reform, where one has a revolutionary vision, but acts on that vision in a sequence of piecemeal reforms. As Unger puts it, transformative politics is "not about blueprints; it is about pathways. It is not architecture; it is music".
The two Lefts
Unger sees two main Lefts in the world today, a recalcitrant Left and a humanizing Left. The recalcitrant Left seeks to slow down the march of markets and globalization, and to return to a time of greater government involvement and stronger social programs. The humanizing Left (or 'reformist Left') accepts the world in its present form, taking the market economy and globalization as unavoidable, and attempts to humanize their effects through tax-and-transfer policies.
Unger finds the two major orientations of contemporary Leftism inadequate and calls for a 'Reconstructive Left' – one which would insist on redirecting the course of globalization by reorganizing the market economy. In his two books The Left Alternative and The Future of American Progressivism, Unger lays out a program to democratize the market economy and deepen democracy. This Reconstructive Left would look beyond debates on the appropriate size of government, and instead re-envision the relationship between government and firms in the market economy by experimenting with the coexistence of different regimes of private and social property.
It would be committed to social solidarity, but "would refuse to allow our moral interests in social cohesion [to] rest solely upon money transfers commanded by the state in the form of compensatory and retrospective redistribution", as is the case with federal entitlement programs. Instead, Unger's Reconstructive Left affirms "the principle that everyone should share, in some way and at some time, responsibility for taking care of other people."
The Left Alternative program
Unger has laid out concrete policy proposals in areas of economic development, education, civil society, and political democracy.
On economic development, Unger has noted that there are only two models for a national economy available to us today: the US model of business control of government, and the northeast Asian model of top down bureaucratic control of the economy. Citing the need for greater imagination on the issue, he has offered a third model that is decentralized, pluralistic, participatory, and experimental. This would take the form of an economy encouraging small business development and innovation that would create large scale self-employment and cooperation. The emphasis is not on the protection of big business as the main sectors of the economy, but the highly mobile and innovative small firm.
Unger links the development of such an economy to an education system that encourages creativity and empowers the mind, not one that he now sees geared for a reproduction of the family and to put the individual in service of the state. He proposes that such a system should be run locally but have standards enforced through national oversight, as well as a procedure in place to intervene in the case of the failing of local systems.
Unger's critique of and alternative to social programs goes to the heart of civil society. The problem we are faced with now, he claims, is that we have a bureaucratic system of distribution that provides lower quality service and prohibits the involvement of civil society in the provision of public services. The alternative he lays out is to have the state act to equip civil society to partake in public services and care. This would entail empowering each individual to have two responsibilities, one in the productive economy and one in the caring economy.
Unger's proposal for political democracy calls for a high energy system that diminishes the dependence of change upon crisis. This can be done, he claims, by breaking the constant threat of stasis and institutionalization of politics and parties through five institutional innovations. First, increase collective engagement through the public financing of campaigns and giving free access to media outlets. Second, hasten the pace of politics by breaking legislative deadlock through the enabling of the party in power to push through proposals and reforms, and for opposition parties to be able to dissolve the government and call for immediate elections. Third, the option of any segment of society to opt out of the political process and to propose alternative solutions for its own governance. Fourth, give the state the power to rescue oppressed groups that are unable to liberate themselves through collective action. Fifth, direct participatory democracy in which active engagement is not purely in terms of financial support and wealth distribution, but through which people are directly involved in their local and national affairs through proposal and action.
Theoretical philosophy
At the core of Unger's theoretical philosophy are two key conceptions: first the infinity of the individual, and secondly the singularity of the world and the reality of time. The premise behind the infinity of the individual is that we exist within social contexts but we are more than the roles that these contexts may define for us—we can overcome them. In Unger's terms, we are both "context-bound and context-transcending; "we appear as "the embodied spirit;" as "the infinite imprisoned within the finite." For Unger, there is no natural state of the individual and his social being. Rather, we are infinite in spirit and unbound in what we can become. As such, no social institution or convention can contain us. While institutions do exist and shape our beings and our interactions, we can change both their structure and the extent to which they imprison us.
The philosophy of the singularity of the world and the reality of time establishes history as the site of decisive action through the propositions that there is only one real world, not multiple or simultaneous universes, and that time really exists in the world, not as a simulacrum through which we must experience the world.
These two concepts of infinity and reality lie at the heart of Unger's program calling for metaphysical and institutional revolutions. From the concept of the self as infinite but constrained, Unger argues that we must continually transform our environment to better express ourselves. This can only be done in a singular world within which time is real.
The self and human nature
In Passion: An Essay on Personality, Unger explores the individual and his relation to society from the perspective of the root human predicament of the need to establish oneself as a unique individual in the world but at the same time to find commonality and solidarity with others. This exploration is grounded in what Unger calls a modernist image of the human being as one who lives in context but is not bound by context. Unger's aim is to level a critique, expansion, and defense of modern thinking about the human and society.
Religion and the human condition
Unger has written and spoken extensively on religion and the human condition.
Religion, Unger argues, is a vision of the world within which we anchor our orientation to life. It is within this orientation that we deal with our greatest terrors and highest hopes. Because we are doomed to die, we hope for eternal life; because we are unable to grasp to totality of existence or of the universe, we try to dispel the mystery and provide a comprehensible explanation; because we have an insatiable desire, we cry for an object that is worthy of this desire, one that is infinite. Humans initially invested religious discourse in nature and the human susceptibility to nature. But as societies evolved and people developed ways to cope with the unpredictability of nature, the emphasis of religion shifted to social existence and its defects. A new moment in religion will begin, Unger argues, when we stop telling ourselves that all will be fine and we begin to face the incorrigible flaws in human existence. The future of religion lies in embracing our mortality and our groundlessness.
Unger sees four flaws in the human condition. They are, our mortality and the facing of imminent death; our groundlessness in that we are unable to grasp the solution to the enigma of existence, see the beginning or end of time, nor put off the discovery of the meaning of life; our insatiability in that we always want more, and demand the infinite from the finite; and our susceptibility to belittlement which places us in a position to constantly confront petty routine forcing us to die many little deaths.
There are three major responses in the history of human thought to these flaws: escape, humanization, and confrontation.
The overcoming of the world denies the phenomenal world and its distinctions, including the individual. It proclaims a benevolence towards others and an indifference to suffering and change. One achieves serenity by becoming invulnerable to suffering and change. The religion of Buddhism and philosophical thought of Plato and Schopenhauer best represent this orientation.
The humanization of the world creates meaning out of social interactions in a meaningless world by placing all emphasis on our reciprocal responsibility to one another. Confucianism and contemporary liberalism represent this strand of thought, both of which aim to soften the cruelties of the world.
The struggle with the world is framed by the idea that series of personal and social transformations can increase our share of attributes associated with the divine and give us a larger life. It emphasizes love over altruism, rejecting the moral of the mastery of self-interest to enhance solidarity, and emphasizing the humility of individual love. This orientation has been articulated in two different voices: the sacred voice of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and the profane voice of the secular projects of liberation.
The religion of the future
The spiritual orientation of the struggle with the world has given rise to the secular movements of emancipation in the modern world, and it is here that Unger sees the religion of the future. The problem Unger sees, however, is that as an established religion, this orientation has betrayed its ideological underpinnings and has made peace with existing order. It has accepted the hierarchies of class structure in society, accepted the transfer of money as serving as the basis of solidarity, and reaffirmed the basis of existing political, economic, and social institutions by investing in a conservative position of their preservation. Thus, "to be faithful to what made this orientation persuasive and powerful in the first place, we must radicalize it against both established institutions and dominant beliefs."
Unger's call is for a revolution in our religious beliefs that encompasses both individual transformation and institutional reorganization; to create change in the life of the individual as well as in the organization of society. The first part of the program of individual transformation means waking from the dazed state in which we live our lives, and recognizing our mortality and groundlessness without turning to the “feel-good theologies and philosophies”. The second part of the program of social transformation means supplementing the metaphysical revolution with institutional practices by creating social institutions that allow us to constantly overthrow our constraints and our context, and to make this overthrow not a one time event but a continuing process. This is the program of empowered democracy that calls for reforms in the market economy, education, politics, and civil society. "The goal is not to humanize society but to divinize humanity." It is "to raise ordinary life to a higher level of intensity and capability."
Natural philosophy
Unger's philosophy of space and time presented in The Singular Universe and the Reality of Time argues for the singularity of the world and the reality of time. His arguments are grounded in the tradition of natural philosophy. He takes on the Newtonian idea of the independent observer standing outside of time and space, addresses the skepticism of David Hume, rejects the position of Kant, and attacks speculations about parallel universes of contemporary cosmology. At stake is the laying of the foundations for a view of the world and causality that is open to all possibilities; that is not a closed system of options in which our future is governed by deterministic laws and typologies. It is an understanding of society that rejects the naturalness and necessity of current social arrangements; "a form of understanding of society and history that refuses to explain the present arrangements in a manner that vindicates their naturalness and necessity."
The thesis of the singularity of the world states that there is one real world. Such a thesis stands in stark contrast to contemporary theoretical physics and cosmology, which speculate about multiple universes out of the dilemma of how to have law like explanations if the universe is unique—laws will be universal because they don't just apply to this unique universe but to all universes. However, there is no empirical evidence for multiple worlds. Unger's singularity thesis can better address our empirical observations and set the conceptual platform to address the four main puzzles in cosmology today: Big Bang, initial conditions, horizon problem, and the precise value of constants, such as gravity, speed of light, and Planck's constant.
The thesis that time is real states that time "really is real" and everything is subject to history. This move is to historicize everything, even the laws of nature, and to challenge our acting as if time were real but not too real—we act as if it is somewhat real otherwise there would be no causal relations, but not so real that laws change. Unger holds that time is so real that laws of nature are also subject to its force and they too must change. There are no eternal laws upon which change occurs, rather time precedes structure. This position gives the universe a history and makes time non-emergent, global, irreversible, and continuous.
Bringing these two thesis together, Unger theorizes that laws of nature develop together with the phenomenon they explain. Laws and initial conditions co-evolve, in the same that they do in how cells reproduce and mutate in different levels of complexity of organisms. In cosmological terms Unger explains the passing from one structure to another at the origins of the universe when the state of energy was high but not infinite, and the freedom of movement was greater than when operating under a known set of laws. The conditions of the early universe is compatible with the universe that preceded it. The new universe may be different in structure, but has been made with what existed in the old one, e.g. masses of elementary particles, strength of different forces, and cosmological constants. As the universe cools the phenomena and laws work together with materials produced by sequence; they are path dependent materials. They are also constrained by the family of resemblances of the effective laws against the background of the conceptions of alternative states the universe and succession of universes.
Mathematics and the one real, time-drenched world
One consequence of these positions that Unger points to is the revision of the concept and function of mathematics. If there is only one world drenched in time through and through, then mathematics cannot be a timeless expression of multiple universes that captures reality. Rather, Unger argues that mathematics is a means of analyzing the world removed of time and phenomenal distinction. By emptying the world of time and space it is able to better focus on one aspect of reality: the recurrence of certain ways in which pieces of the world relate to other pieces. Its subject matter are the structured wholes and bundles of relations, which we see outside mathematics only as embodied in the time-bound particulars of the manifest world. In this way, mathematics extends our problem solving powers as an extension of human insight, but it is not a part of the world.
Political engagement
Unger has a long history of political activity in Brazil. He worked in early opposition parties in the 1970s/80s against the Brazilian military dictatorship, and drafted the founding manifesto for the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB) in 1980. He served as an intimate adviser to two presidential candidates, and launched exploratory bids himself in 2000 and 2006. He was the Secretary for Strategic Affairs in the Lula administration from 2007–09, and is currently working on a number of social and developmental projects in the state of Rondônia.
Driving Unger's political engagement is the idea that society can be made and remade. Unlike Mill or Marx, who posited a particular class as the agent of history, Unger does not see a single vehicle for transformative politics. He advocates world-wide revolution, but does not see this happening as a single cataclysmic event or undertaken by a class agent, like the Communist movement. Rather, he sees the possibility of piecemeal change, where institutions can be replaced one at a time, and permanent plasticity can be built into the institutional infrastructure.
Early political activity, 1970s and 1980s
Unger's engagement in Brazilian politics began in the late 1970s as Brazil started to democratize. In 1979, he presented himself to the main opposition party, the Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB), and was appointed chief of staff by party leader Ulysses Guimaraes. His initial work was to develop the positions of the party and draft policy proposals for their party's congressional representatives. When the military regime dissolved the two-party system and established a multi-party system later that year, Unger worked to unite progressive liberals and the independent, non-communist left into the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB). As a co-founder of the party, he authored its first manifesto. Unger left the party after the rise of a conservative faction, which was a part of the MDB but had been excluded from the initial formation of the PMDB.
After departing the PMDB in the early 1980s, Unger began looking for political agents who would serve as vehicles for his national alternative. In 1981, he jointed the Democratic Labour Party of Brazil (PDT) led by Leonel Brizola, a former governor of Rio de Janeiro and a figure of the left prior to the dictatorship. Brizola had founded the PDT and Unger saw it as the authentic opposition to the military regime. Throughout the 1980s he worked with Brizola to travel the country recruiting members, and developing policy positions and a political language.
In 1983, Brizola, then serving his second of three terms as governor of Rio de Janeiro, appointed Unger to head the State Foundation for the Education of Minors (FEEM), a state-run foundation for homeless children. During his year-long tenure, he began a process of radical reforms of the institutions, such as opening the door to international adoption and reintegrating children with their families. He also set up community organizations in the slums to help support families in order to prevent the abandonment of children.
Political campaigns, 1990s and 2000s
In 1990, Unger ran a symbolic campaign for a seat in the national chamber of deputies. He had no money, no structure, and only campaigned for eight weeks. He ran on a platform of reforming the slums, and went around the slum neighborhoods giving lectures. He received 9,000 votes, just 1,000 votes short of winning the seat. None of the votes came from the slums, however. All his votes had come from the middle class, although he had never campaigned in those neighborhoods or to that constituency. Recalling the experience, Unger says "it was kind of absurd... I had no money, no staff, and I would go into these slums, alone, to hand out pamphlets, often to the local drug pushers." It is an experience that Unger cites as leading to his belief that the system and possibilities were much more open than he had previously imagined.
Unger served as Brizola's campaign organizer and primary political adviser in his bids for the Brazilian Presidency in 1989 and 1994. In 1989, Brizola finished in third place, losing the second position, which would have qualified him for a runoff against Fernando Collor de Mello, by a very narrow margin to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Brizola and Unger both supported Lula in the second round of the election, but Collor would go on to beat Lula and win the Presidency.
Unger also helped organize the presidential bids of former finance minister and governor of Ceará, Ciro Gomes, in 1998 and 2002. In 1998, Gomes came in third place with 11% of the vote, and in 2002 he came in fourth place with 12% of the vote. Unger had written The Next Step: An Alternative to Neoliberalism with Gomes in 1996. At the national level in 2002, again in the second round of the election, Unger supported Lula who went on to defeat José Serra to win the Presidency.
With the experience of supporting others who imploded politically, Unger discovered that, as he put it, he was committing "the classic mistake of the philosophers in politics, which is to try to find someone else to do the work." In 2000, he ran in the primaries for the mayor of Sao Paulo, but the PPS party leader suspended the primaries when it became clear that Unger would win the nomination and challenge party control. He launched an exploratory bid for the 2006 presidential election on the PRB ticket, but the party decided not to put forth its own candidate for the presidency and to support Lula of the PT.
As Minister of Strategic Affairs in the Lula administration
Unger found President Lula's first term to be conservative and riddled with scandal. He wrote articles calling Lula's administration "the most corrupt of Brazil's history" and called for his impeachment.
Despite the criticism, many advisers to Lula insisted that he should invite Unger to join his administration. In June 2007, after winning his second term, Lula appointed Unger as head of the newly established Long-term Planning Secretariat (a post which would eventually be called The Minister of Strategic Affairs).
Unger's work in office was an attempt to enact his program. Seeing the future in small enterprises and advocating a rotating capital fund that would function like a government run venture capital fund, he pushed for a rapid expansion of credit to smaller producers and a decentralized network of technical support centers that would help broaden the middle class from below. He further called for political solutions that would broaden access to production forces such as information technology, and for states to focus on equipping and monitoring civil society rather than trying to provide social services.
Unger's specific projects while in office were focused on giving "ordinary men and women the instruments with which to render this vitality fertile and productive." He aimed to use state powers and resources to allow the majority of poor workers to "follow the path of the emergent vanguard". He developed a series of sectoral and regional initiatives that would prefigure the model of development based on the broadening of economic and educational opportunity by democratizing the market economy and restructuring civil society.
Sectorally, Unger revamped the educational structure and rewrote labor laws. In education, he implemented a model of secondary education, where analytical problem-solving education was paired with technical education that focused on conceptual capabilities rather than job-specific skills. There are several hundred of these institutions today. He further drafted legislation to associate national, state and local jurisdictions into common bodies that could intervene when a local school system fell below the minimum acceptable threshold of quality and "fix it the way an independent administrator would fix a failing business under Chapter 11 bankruptcy." In labor, Unger worked with unions to write new labor laws designed to protect and organize temporary workers, subcontractors, and those working in the informal economy.
Regionally, some of Unger's most influential work was the implementation of a developmental strategy for the Amazon that would be sustainable environmentally by making it socially inclusive. He drafted and passed legislation to regularize small-scale squatters on untitled land by giving them clear legal titles, which would create self-interest in preservation while granting them economic opportunity. Included in this law were protections against large scale land grabbers. Such legislation aimed to empower locals living on Amazonian land by giving them ownership rights and linking their interest in preserving it, rather than pillaging it as quickly as possible in the face of ambiguous ownership rights. This legislation passed and was put into law.
Unger served in the administration for two years. On 26 June 2009, President Lula announced Unger would be leaving the government and returning to Harvard University. He later cited personal and political reasons for his early departure.
Engagement outside Brazil
Unger's attempts to develop global social, political, and economic alternatives have led him in episodic engagements in national debates around the world. His approach in these engagements recognizes that the problems facing contemporary societies are not distinct from nation to nation, and that general structural arrangements can first be implemented, which will allow for local innovation, flexibility, and development in social, economic, and political arenas. There is no institutional blueprint for Unger, however, only a direction that can be pointed to and general proposals that can be implemented to allow further institutional innovation and experimentation. Unger's guiding principle is that institutional flexibility needs to be built into the implemented system, and in this way a diversity of local experiments would take hold the world over.
One of Unger's more promising engagements was the Latin American Alternative in the late 1990s. Unger and Mexican politician and political scientist Jorge Castañeda Gutman assembled an informal network of politicians and business leaders dedicated to redrawing the political map. The aim of the group was to provide a critique of neoliberalism coupled with a way forward in a distinct strategy and institutional model of development. They floated proposals such as guaranteeing every citizen "social rights" (e.g. education and a job), breaking up media oligopolies, and holding town meetings to help citizens supervise municipal spending. The group held a number of meetings over the years, which included Brazilian finance minister Ciro Gomes, Chilean senator Carlos Ominami, Argentinian politicians Dante Caputo and Rodolfo Terragno, and Mexican politician and future president Vicente Fox. The meetings resulted in a document entitled the "Buenos Aires Consensus" in 1997, which Castaneda called "the end of neoliberalism; of the Washington Consensus".
This consensus was formally signed in 2003 by Argentinian President Néstor Kirchner and Brazilian President Lula da Silva. Other Latin American leaders who signed it included Fox, future president of Chile Ricardo Lagos, Mexican politician Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, former vice president of Nicaragua Sergio Ramírez, future president of Argentina Fernando de la Rúa, and former Brazilian president Itamar Franco.
During the 2008 US presidential campaign, Unger was in frequent contact with candidate Barack Obama via email and Blackberry. He has since become critical of the Obama administration, and called for the defeat of Obama in the 2012 election as a first step to remaking the Democratic party.
Current engagement
Unger's recent political work has focused on the north-western Brazilian state of Rondônia. He sees the human and natural resources of the state meeting all the conditions to serve as the vanguard of a new model of development for Brazil. Speaking to News Rondônia he said, "Rondônia is a state formed by a multitude of small and medium entrepreneurs together with the Brazilian government, and that is something truly unique in our country."
He has been traveling the state giving public lectures and encouraging political discourse and engagement in localities. Working with governor João Aparecido Cahulla on development projects, Unger has outlined a series of important areas of focus. The first is to change the agricultural model from one of intensive farming to an industrialization of produces through the recuperation of degraded pastures, supply fertilizers and lime, and diversifying crops and livestock farming. The second key project is transforming education from rote learning to creative thinking and engagement. He helped open the School Teixeira in Porto Velho. Another ongoing project is the construction of a new educational center in accordance with his theory of pedagogical reform, where delinquents would be reintegrated into municipal life.
Circumstance and influence
Unger's philosophical work grapples with some of the most fundamental and enduring problems of human existence. It has been put into direct dialogue with Kant's moral law, and said to have provided one answer to Hume's Guillotine. Unger's analysis of liberalism and the philosophical program he builds around rethinking the individual has also inspired new thinking and approaches to psychiatry.
In 1987, the Northwestern University Law Review devoted an issue to Unger's work, analysing his three volume publication Politics: A Work In Constructive Social Theory. Michael J. Perry, a professor of law at Northwestern University, praises Unger for producing a vast work of social theory that combines law, history, politics, and philosophy within a single narrative.
Early reviewers of Politics questioned Unger's seeming predicament of criticizing a system of thought and its historical tradition without subjecting himself to the same critical gaze. "There is little acknowledgement that he himself is writing in a particular socio-historical context", wrote one reviewer, and another asked, "in what context Unger himself is situated and why that context itself is not offered up to the sledgehammer."
Critics also balked at the lack of example or concrete vision of his social and political proposals. As one critic wrote, "it is difficult to imagine what Unger's argument would mean in practice", and that "he does not tell us what to make." Others have suggested that the lack of imagination of such readers is precisely what is at stake.
Books
Knowledge and Politics, Free Press, 1975.
Law In Modern Society: Toward a Criticism of Social Theory, Free Press, 1976.
Passion: An Essay on Personality, Free Press, 1986.
The Critical Legal Studies Movement, Harvard University Press, 1986.
Politics: A Work In Constructive Social Theory, Cambridge University Press, 1987, in 3 Vols:
Vol 1 - False Necessity: Anti-Necessitarian Social Theory in the Service of Radical Democracy.
Vol 2 - Social Theory: Its Situation and Its Task - A Critical Introduction to Politics: A Work in Constructive Social Theory.
Vol 3 - Plasticity Into Power: Comparative-Historical Studies on the Institutional Conditions of Economic and Military Success.
What Should Legal Analysis Become?, Verso, 1996
Politics: The Central Texts, Theory Against Fate, Verso, 1997, with Cui Zhiyuan.
Democracy Realized: The Progressive Alternative, Verso, 1998.
The Future of American Progressivism: An Initiative for Political and Economic Reform, Beacon, 1998 - with Cornel West
What Should the Left Propose?, Verso, 2006.
The Self Awakened: Pragmatism Unbound, Harvard, 2007.
Free Trade Reimagined: The World Division of Labor and the Method of Economics, Princeton University Press, 2007.
The Left Alternative, Verso, 2009 (2nd edition to What Should the Left Propose?, Verso, 2006.).
The Religion of the Future, Harvard, 2014.
The Singular Universe and the Reality of Time, Cambridge University Press, 2014, with Lee Smolin.
The Knowledge Economy, Verso, 2019.
See also
False necessity
Formative context
Negative capability
Empowered democracy
Structure and agency
Passions
References
External links
Roberto Unger's Harvard Homepage
Links to Unger's works via his homepage
An interview with Unger on the American Left
Biographical articles about Roberto Unger
Guggenheim Gives Fellowships for '76: Unger Gets Tenure, Too (The Harvard Crimson April 5, 1976)
"The Passion of Roberto Unger" , Eyal Press, (Lingua Franca, March 1999)
Carlos Castilho, "Brazil's Consigliere: Unger Leaves Lectern to Stand Behind the Throne." (World Paper, April 2000)
Simon Romero, "Destination: São Paulo" (Metropolis, October 2000) This article is about São Paulo, Brazil, but it has a lengthy discussion of Unger's political activism there and many quotes from Unger.
Meltzer Elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences (HLS News May 13, 2004)
(First of the Month, July 1, 2012)
1947 births
20th-century Brazilian male writers
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Writers about globalization | true | [
"In New England, a warrant is a document issued by the Board of Selectmen to call a town meeting.\n\nWarrants essentially list an agenda of items to be voted on by those present. In towns with an open town meeting, those present would consist of any and all registered voters in the town. In towns with a representative town meeting, anyone may attend, but only town meeting members (elected representatives) are allowed to vote.\n\nItems on the agenda generally vary significantly, from the annual operating budget of the town to adjustment of by-laws, and anything else that may legally come before the meeting.\n\nIn Massachusetts, residents may place articles on the warrant without approval by the Selectmen by petitioning to insert the same. Petitions to insert an article on the warrant for an Annual Town Meeting require ten signatures. Petitions to insert an article on the warrant for a Special Town Meeting require 100 signatures or the signatures of ten per cent of the registered voters in the town, whichever is less.\n\nNew England\nLocal government in Massachusetts",
"In ecology, a feeding frenzy occurs when predators are overwhelmed by the amount of prey available. The term is also used as an idiom in the English language.\n\nExamples in nature\nFor example, a large school of fish can cause nearby sharks, such as the lemon shark, to enter into a feeding frenzy. This can cause the sharks to go wild, biting anything that moves, including each other or anything else within biting range. Another functional explanation for feeding frenzy is competition amongst predators. This term is most often used when referring to sharks or piranhas.\n\nEnglish language uses\nIt has also been used as a term within journalism.\n\nThe term is occasionally used to describe a plethora of something. For instance, a 2016 Bloomburg News article is entitled: \"March Madness Is a Fantasy Sports Feeding Frenzy.\"\nIn economics the term can be used to describe the economics of the music industry, as large music companies acquired smaller music companies.\n\nSee also\n Bait ball\n Adage\n Comprehension of Idioms\n Idiom in English language\n Media feeding frenzy\n Phrasal verb\n Metaphor\n\nReferences\n\nEating behaviors\nIdioms\nAdages\n\nfr:Attaque de requin#La frénésie alimentaire"
] |
[
"Steve McQueen",
"Ford commercials"
] | C_379fd5e840b549b58c8da5d20795bf1c_1 | What is McQueen's connection to Ford? | 1 | What is Steve McQueen's connection to Ford? | Steve McQueen | In 1952, with financial assistance provided by the G.I. Bill, McQueen began studying acting in New York at Sanford Meisner's Neighborhood Playhouse. Reportedly, he delivered his first dialogue on a theatre stage in a 1952 play produced by Yiddish theatre star Molly Picon. McQueen's character spoke one brief line: "Alts iz farloyrn." ("All is lost."). During this time, he also studied acting with Stella Adler in whose class he met Gia Scala. McQueen began to earn money by competing in weekend motorcycle races at Long Island City Raceway and purchased the first of many motorcycles, a Harley-Davidson and Triumph. He soon became an excellent racer, and went home each weekend with about $100 in winnings (equivalent to $900 in 2017). He appeared as a musical judge in an episode of ABC's Jukebox Jury, that aired in the 1953-1954 season. McQueen had minor roles in productions including Peg o' My Heart, The Member of the Wedding, and Two Fingers of Pride. He made his Broadway debut in 1955 in the play A Hatful of Rain, starring Ben Gazzara. In late 1955, at the age of 25, McQueen left New York and headed for California, where he moved into a house on Vestal Avenue in the Echo Park area, seeking acting jobs in Hollywood. When McQueen appeared in a two-part television Westinghouse Studio One presentation entitled The Defenders, Hollywood manager Hilly Elkins (who managed McQueen's first wife, Neile) took note of him and decided that B-movies would be a good place for the young actor to make his mark. He landed his first film role in a bit part in Somebody Up There Likes Me, directed by Robert Wise and starring Paul Newman. McQueen was subsequently hired for the films Never Love a Stranger, The Blob (his first leading role) which depicts a flesh eating amoeba-like space creature, and The Great St. Louis Bank Robbery. McQueen's first breakout role came on television. He appeared on Dale Robertson's NBC western series, Tales of Wells Fargo. Elkins, then McQueen's manager, successfully lobbied Vincent M. Fennelly, producer of the western series Trackdown, to have McQueen read for the part of bounty hunter Josh Randall in a Trackdown episode. McQueen appeared as Randall in the episode, cast opposite series lead and old New York motorcycle racing buddy Robert Culp. McQueen then filmed the pilot episode, which became the series titled Wanted: Dead or Alive, which aired on CBS in September 1958. In 1971 McQueen starred in the poorly received auto-racing drama Le Mans. Then came Junior Bonner in 1972, a story of an aging rodeo rider. He worked for director Sam Peckinpah again with the leading role in The Getaway, where he met future wife Ali MacGraw. He followed this with a physically demanding role as a Devil's Island prisoner in 1973's Papillon, featuring Dustin Hoffman as his character's tragic sidekick. In 1973 The Rolling Stones referred to McQueen in the song "Star Star" from the album Goats Head Soup for which an amused McQueen reportedly gave personal permission. The lines were "Star ######, star ######, star ######, star ###### star/ Yes you are, yes you are, yes you are/Yeah, Ali MacGraw got mad with you/For givin' head to Steve McQueen". By the time of The Getaway, McQueen was the world's highest-paid actor, but after 1974's The Towering Inferno, co-starring with his long-time professional rival Paul Newman and reuniting him with Dunaway, became a tremendous box-office success, McQueen all but disappeared from the public eye, to focus on motorcycle racing and traveling around the country in a motor home and on his vintage Indian motorcycles. He did not return to acting until 1978 with An Enemy of the People, playing against type as a bearded, bespectacled 19th-century doctor in this adaptation of a Henrik Ibsen play. The film was never properly released theatrically. His last two films were loosely based on true stories: Tom Horn, a Western adventure about a former Army scout-turned professional gunman who worked for the big cattle ranchers hunting down rustlers, and later hanged for murder in the shooting death of a sheepherder, and The Hunter, an urban action movie about a modern-day bounty hunter, both released in 1980. In 1998 director Paul Street created a commercial for the Ford Puma. Footage was shot in modern-day San Francisco, set to the theme music from Bullitt. Archive footage of McQueen was used to digitally superimpose him driving and exiting the car in settings reminiscent of the film. The Puma shares the same number plate of the classic fastback Mustang used in Bullitt, and as he parks in the garage (next to the Mustang), he pauses and looks meaningfully at a motorcycle tucked in the corner, similar to that used in The Great Escape. In 2005, Ford used his likeness again, in a commercial for the 2005 Mustang. In the commercial, a farmer builds a winding racetrack, which he circles in the 2005 Mustang. Out of the cornfield comes Steve McQueen. The farmer tosses his keys to McQueen, who drives off in the new Mustang. McQueen's likeness was created using a body double (Dan Holsten) and digital editing. Ford secured the rights to McQueen's likeness from the actor's estate licensing agent, GreenLight, for an undisclosed sum. At the Detroit Auto Show in January 2018, Ford unveiled the new 2019 Mustang Bullitt. The company called on McQueen's granddaughter, actress Molly McQueen, to make the announcement. After a brief rundown of the tribute car's particulars, a short film was shown in which Molly was introduced to the actual Bullitt Mustang, a 1968 Mustang Fastback with a 390 cubic-inch engine and a four-speed manual gearbox. That car has been in possession of the same family since 1974 and hidden away from the public until now, when it was driven out from under the press stand and up the center aisle of Ford's booth to much fanfare. CANNOTANSWER | In 1998 director Paul Street created a commercial for the Ford Puma. | Terrence Stephen McQueen (March 24, 1930November 7, 1980) was an American actor. His antihero persona, emphasized during the height of the counterculture of the 1960s, made him a top box-office draw for his films of the late 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. He was nicknamed the "King of Cool" and used the alias Harvey Mushman in motor races.
McQueen received an Academy Award nomination for his role in The Sand Pebbles (1966). His other popular films include Love With the Proper Stranger (1963), The Cincinnati Kid (1965), Nevada Smith (1966), The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), Bullitt (1968), Le Mans (1971), The Getaway (1972), and Papillon (1973). In addition, he starred in the all-star ensemble films The Magnificent Seven (1960), The Great Escape (1963), and The Towering Inferno (1974).
In 1974, McQueen became the highest-paid movie star in the world, although he did not act in film for another four years. He was combative with directors and producers, but his popularity placed him in high demand and enabled him to command the largest salaries.
Early life
Terrence Stephen McQueen was born to a single mother on March 24, 1930, at St. Francis Hospital in Beech Grove, Indiana, a suburb of Indianapolis. McQueen, of Scottish descent, was raised a Roman Catholic. His parents never married. McQueen's father, William McQueen, a stunt pilot for a barnstorming flying circus, left his mother, Julia Ann (a.k.a. Julianne) Crawford, six months after meeting her. Several biographers have stated that his mother Julia Ann was an alcoholic. Unable to cope with caring for a small child, she left the boy with her parents (Victor and Lillian) in Slater, Missouri, in 1933. As the Great Depression set in shortly thereafter, McQueen and his grandparents moved in with Lillian's brother Claude and his family at their farm in Slater. McQueen later said that he had good memories of living on the farm, noting that his great-uncle Claude "was a very good man, very strong, very fair. I learned a lot from him."
Claude gave McQueen a red tricycle on his fourth birthday, a gift that McQueen subsequently credited with sparking his early interest in car racing. McQueen's mother married and when the boy was eight, she brought him from the farm to live with her and her new husband in Indianapolis. His great-uncle Claude gave McQueen a special gift at his departure. "The day I left the farm", he recalled, "Uncle Claude gave me a personal going-away present—a gold pocket watch, with an inscription inside the case." The inscription read "To Steve – who has been a son to me."
Dyslexic and partially deaf due to a childhood ear infection, McQueen did not adjust well to school or his new life. His stepfather beat him to such an extent that at the age of nine he left home to live on the streets. He later recalled "When a kid doesn't have any love when he's small, he begins to wonder if he's good enough. My mother didn't love me, and I didn't have a father. I thought, 'Well, I must not be very good.'" Soon he was running with a street gang and committing acts of petty crime. Unable to control his behavior, his mother sent him back to her grandparents and great-uncle in Slater.
When McQueen was 12, Julia wrote to her uncle Claude, asking that her son be returned to her again to live in Los Angeles, California, where she lived with her second husband. By McQueen's own account, he and his new stepfather "locked horns immediately". McQueen recalls him being "a prime son of a bitch" who was not averse to using his fists on McQueen and his mother. As McQueen began to rebel again, he was sent back to live with Claude for a final time. At age 14, he left Claude's farm without saying goodbye and joined a circus for a short time. He drifted back to his mother and stepfather in Los Angeles—resuming his life as a gang member and petty criminal. McQueen was caught stealing hubcaps by the police and handed over to his stepfather, who beat him severely. He threw the youth down a flight of stairs. McQueen looked up at his stepfather and said, "You lay your stinking hands on me again and I swear, I'll kill you."
After this incident, McQueen's stepfather persuaded his mother to sign a court order stating that McQueen was incorrigible, remanding him to the California Junior Boys Republic in Chino. Here, McQueen began to change and mature. He was not popular with the other boys at first:
"Say the boys had a chance once a month to load into a bus and go into town to see a movie. And they lost out because one guy in the bungalow didn't get his work done right. Well, you can pretty well guess they're gonna have something to say about that. I paid my dues with the other fellows quite a few times. I got my lumps, no doubt about it. The other guys in the bungalow had ways of paying you back for interfering with their well-being."
McQueen gradually became a role model and was elected to the Boys Council, a group who set the rules and regulations governing the boys' lives. He left the Boys Republic at age 16. When he later became famous as an actor, he regularly returned to talk to resident boys and retained a lifelong association with the center.
At age 16, McQueen returned to live with his mother, who had moved to Greenwich Village in New York City. There he met two sailors from the Merchant Marine and decided to sign on to a ship bound for the Dominican Republic. Once there, he abandoned his new post, eventually being employed in a brothel. Later McQueen made his way to Texas and drifted from job to job, including selling pens at a traveling carnival, and working as a lumberjack in Canada. He was arrested for vagrancy in the Deep South and served a 30-day assignment on a chain gang.
Military service
In 1947, after receiving permission from his mother (since he was not yet 18 years old), McQueen enlisted in the United States Marine Corps. He was sent to Parris Island for boot camp. He was promoted to private first class and assigned to an armored unit. He initially struggled with conforming to the discipline of the service, and was demoted to private seven times. He took an unauthorized absence, going UA by failing to return after a weekend pass expired. He was caught by the shore patrol while staying with a girlfriend (Barbara Ross) for two weeks. After resisting arrest, he was sentenced to 41 days in the brig.
After this, McQueen resolved to focus his energies on self-improvement and embraced the Marines' discipline. He saved the lives of five other Marines during an Arctic exercise, pulling them from a tank before it broke through ice into the sea. He was assigned to the honor guard responsible for guarding the presidential yacht of US President Harry Truman. McQueen served until 1950, when he was honorably discharged. He later said he had enjoyed his time in the Marines. He remembered this period with the Marines as a formative time in his life, saying, "The Marines made a man out of me. I learned how to get along with others, and I had a platform to jump off of."
Acting
1950s
In 1952, with financial assistance under the G.I. Bill, McQueen began studying acting in New York at Sanford Meisner's Neighborhood Playhouse and at HB Studio under Uta Hagen. He reportedly delivered his first dialogue on a theatre stage in a 1952 play produced by Yiddish theatre star Molly Picon. McQueen's character spoke one brief line: "Alts iz farloyrn." ("All is lost."). During this time, he also studied acting with Stella Adler, in whose class he met Gia Scala.
Long enamored of cars and motorcycles, McQueen began to earn money by competing in weekend motorcycle races at Long Island City Raceway. He purchased the first two of many motorcycles, a Harley-Davidson and a Triumph. He soon became an excellent racer, winning about $100 each weekend(). He appeared as a musical judge in an episode of ABC's Jukebox Jury, which aired in the 1953–1954 season.
McQueen had minor roles in stage productions, including Peg o' My Heart, The Member of the Wedding, and Two Fingers of Pride. He made his Broadway debut in 1955 in the play A Hatful of Rain, starring Ben Gazzara.
In late 1955 at the age of 25, McQueen left New York and headed for Los Angeles, California, by then the center of the film industry. He moved into a house on Vestal Avenue in the Echo Park area, and sought acting jobs in Hollywood.
When McQueen appeared in a two-part Westinghouse Studio One television presentation entitled The Defenders, Hollywood manager Hilly Elkins took note of him and decided that B-movies would be a good place for the young actor to make his mark. McQueen's first role was a bit part in Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956), directed by Robert Wise and starring Paul Newman. McQueen was subsequently hired for the films Never Love a Stranger; The Blob (his first leading role, science fiction); and The Great St. Louis Bank Robbery (1959).
McQueen's first breakout role came on television. He appeared on Dale Robertson's NBC western series Tales of Wells Fargo as Bill Longley. Elkins, then McQueen's manager, successfully lobbied Vincent M. Fennelly, producer of the western series Trackdown, to have McQueen read for the part of bounty hunter Josh Randall. He first appeared in Season 1 Episode 21 of Trackdown in 1958. He appeared as Randall in that episode, cast opposite series lead Robert Culp, a former New York motorcycle racing buddy. McQueen appeared again on Trackdown in Episode 31 of the first season, in which he played twin brothers, one of whom was an outlaw sought by Culp's character, Hoby Gilman.
McQueen next filmed a pilot episode for what became the series titled Wanted: Dead or Alive, which aired on CBS in September 1958. This became his breakout role.
In interviews associated with the DVD release of Wanted, Robert Culp (of Trackdown) claims credit for bringing McQueen to Hollywood and landing him the part of Randall. He said he taught McQueen the "art of the fast-draw." He said that by the second day of filming, McQueen beat him at it. McQueen became a household name as a result of this series. Randall's special holster held a sawed-off .44–40 Winchester rifle nicknamed the "Mare's Leg" instead of the six-gun carried by the typical Western character, although the cartridges in the gunbelt were dummy .45–70, chosen because they "looked tougher." Coupled with the generally negative image of the bounty hunter (noted in the three-part DVD special on the background of the series), this added to the antihero image infused with mystery and detachment that made this show stand out from the typical TV Western. The 94 episodes that ran from 1958 until early 1961 kept McQueen steadily employed, and he became a fixture at the renowned Iverson Movie Ranch in Chatsworth, where much of the outdoor action for Wanted: Dead or Alive was shot.
At 29, McQueen got a significant break when Frank Sinatra removed Sammy Davis Jr. from the film Never So Few after Davis supposedly made some mildly negative remarks about Sinatra in a radio interview, and Davis's role went to McQueen. Sinatra saw something special in McQueen and ensured that the young actor got plenty of closeups in a role that earned McQueen favorable reviews. McQueen's character, Bill Ringa, was never more comfortable than when driving at high speed—in this case in a jeep—or handling a switchblade or a tommy gun.
After Never So Few, the film's director John Sturges cast McQueen in his next movie, promising to "give him the camera". The Magnificent Seven (1960), in which he played Vin Tanner and co-starred with Yul Brynner, Eli Wallach, Robert Vaughn, Charles Bronson, Horst Buchholz and James Coburn, became McQueen's first major hit and led to his withdrawal from Wanted: Dead or Alive. McQueen's focused portrayal of the taciturn second lead catapulted his career. His added touches in many of the shots (such as shaking a shotgun round before loading it, repeatedly checking his gun while in the background of a shot, and wiping his hat rim) annoyed costar Brynner, who protested that McQueen was trying to steal scenes. (In his autobiography, Eli Wallach reports struggling to conceal his amusement while watching the filming of the funeral-procession scene where Brynner's and McQueen's characters first meet: Brynner was furious at McQueen's shotgun-round-shake, which effectively diverted the viewer's attention to McQueen.) Brynner refused to draw his gun in the same scene with McQueen, not wanting his character outdrawn.
McQueen played the top-billed lead role in the next big Sturges film, 1963's The Great Escape, Hollywood's fictional depiction of the true story of a historic mass escape from a World War II POW camp, Stalag Luft III. Insurance concerns prevented McQueen from performing the film's notable motorcycle leap, which was done by his friend and fellow cycle enthusiast Bud Ekins, who resembled McQueen from a distance. When Johnny Carson later tried to congratulate McQueen for the jump during a broadcast of The Tonight Show, McQueen said, "It wasn't me. That was Bud Ekins." This film established McQueen's box-office clout and secured his status as a superstar.
Also in 1963, McQueen starred in Love with the Proper Stranger with Natalie Wood. He later appeared as the titular Nevada Smith, a character from Harold Robbins's novel The Carpetbaggers portrayed by Alan Ladd two years earlier in a movie version of that novel. Nevada Smith was an enormously successful Western action adventure prequel that also featured Karl Malden and Suzanne Pleshette. After starring in 1965's The Cincinnati Kid as a poker player, McQueen earned his only Academy Award nomination in 1966 for his role as an engine-room sailor in The Sand Pebbles, in which he starred opposite Candice Bergen and Richard Attenborough, whom he had previously worked with in The Great Escape.
He followed his Oscar nomination with 1968's Bullitt, one of his best-known films, and his personal favorite, which co-starred Jacqueline Bisset, Robert Vaughn and Don Gordon. It featured an unprecedented (and endlessly imitated) car chase through San Francisco. Although McQueen did do the driving that appeared in closeup, this was about 10% of what is seen in the film's car chase. The rest of the driving by McQueen's character was done by stunt drivers Bud Ekins and Loren Janes. The antagonist's black Dodge Charger was driven by veteran stunt driver Bill Hickman; McQueen, his stunt drivers and Hickman spent several days before the scene was shot practicing high-speed, close-quarters driving. Bullitt went so far over budget that Warner Brothers cancelled the contract on the rest of his films, seven in all.
When Bullitt became a huge box-office success, Warner Brothers tried to woo him back, but he refused, and his next film was made with an independent studio and released by United Artists. For this film, McQueen went for a change of image, playing a debonair role as a wealthy executive in The Thomas Crown Affair with Faye Dunaway in 1968. The following year, he made the southern period piece The Reivers.
1970s
In 1971, McQueen starred in the poorly received auto-racing drama Le Mans, followed by Junior Bonner in 1972, a story of an aging rodeo rider. He worked for director Sam Peckinpah again with the leading role in The Getaway, where he met future wife Ali MacGraw. He followed this with a physically demanding role as a Devil's Island prisoner in 1973's Papillon, featuring Dustin Hoffman as his character's tragic sidekick.
In 1973, The Rolling Stones referred to McQueen in the song "Star Star" from the album Goats Head Soup for which an amused McQueen reportedly gave personal permission. The lines were "Star f***er, star f***er, star f***er, star f***er star / Yes you are, yes you are, yes you are / Yeah, Ali MacGraw got mad with you / For givin' head to Steve McQueen".
By the time of The Getaway, McQueen was the world's highest-paid actor, but after 1974's The Towering Inferno, co-starring with his long-time professional rival Paul Newman and reuniting him with Dunaway, became a tremendous box-office success, McQueen all but disappeared from the public eye, to focus on motorcycle racing and traveling around the country in a motor home and on his vintage Indian motorcycles. He did not return to acting until 1978 with An Enemy of the People, playing against type as a bearded, bespectacled 19th-century doctor in this adaptation of a Henrik Ibsen play. The film was never properly released theatrically, but has appeared occasionally on PBS.
His last two films were loosely based on true stories: Tom Horn, a Western adventure about a former Army scout-turned professional gunman who worked for the big cattle ranchers hunting down rustlers, and later hanged for murder in the shooting death of a sheepherder, and The Hunter, an urban action movie about a modern-day bounty hunter, both released in 1980.
Missed roles
McQueen was offered the lead male role in Breakfast at Tiffany's, but was unable to accept due to his Wanted: Dead or Alive contract (the role went to George Peppard). He turned down parts in Ocean's 11, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (his attorneys and agents could not agree with Paul Newman's attorneys and agents on top billing), The Driver, Apocalypse Now, California Split, Dirty Harry, A Bridge Too Far, The French Connection (he did not want to do another cop film), and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
According to director John Frankenheimer and actor James Garner in bonus interviews for the DVD of the film Grand Prix, McQueen was Frankenheimer's first choice for the lead role of American Formula One race car driver Pete Aron. Frankenheimer was unable to meet with McQueen to offer him the role, so he sent Edward Lewis, his business partner and the producer of Grand Prix. McQueen and Lewis instantly clashed, the meeting was a disaster, and the role went to Garner.
Garner later for the interview said this:
Oh, McQueen. Crazy McQueen. McQueen and I get along pretty good, McQueen looked to me kind of like an older brother and he didn't want to have much with me, till he got into trouble, then he'd call and, you know, he knew, he could tell him just what I thought. A lot of people wouldn't do that. And then we had falling out. It wasn't falling out, as i did Grand Prix. Steve was originally slated to do that movie, but he couldn't get along with Frank Frankenheimer. So that lasted about 30 minutes, and I was in and Steve was out. And Steve went over to do Sand Pebbles, which went about year longer, than they wanted to go. Big production spent a lot of money and stayed in China too long there, in Taiwan. So, when I got the part in Grand Prix, I called him. In Taiwan. And I started: "Steve, I want to tell you, before somebody else, that I'm going to do Grand Prix." Well, there was about a 20 dollars' silence there (laugh), on the telephone. He didn't know, what to say, and finally said "Oh, that's great, that's great, I'm glad to hear that.", because he planned to do Le Mans, which was another title at the time. But we were about to release, before he even got to that film. But he said: "Great, great, well, I'm glad to hear it; that's good. You know, if anybody's gonna do it, I'm glad, you're going to do it."
He didn't talk to me for about year and half, and we were next-door neighbors (laugh). So, it got to him a little bit, finally by his son. Chad took him to go see Grand Prix. And from that time on, we were talking again. But Steve was a wild kid. He didn't know where he wanted to be or what he wanted to do.
Director Steven Spielberg said McQueen was his first choice for the character of Roy Neary in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. According to Spielberg, in a documentary on the Close Encounters DVD, Spielberg met him at a bar, where McQueen drank beer after beer. Before leaving, McQueen told Spielberg that he could not accept the role because he was unable to cry on cue. Spielberg offered to take the crying scene out of the story, but McQueen demurred, saying that it was the best scene in the script. The role eventually went to Richard Dreyfuss.
William Friedkin wanted to cast McQueen as the lead in the action/thriller film Sorcerer (1977). Sorcerer was to be filmed primarily on location in the Dominican Republic, but McQueen did not want to be separated from Ali MacGraw for the duration of the shoot. McQueen then asked Friedkin to let MacGraw act as a producer, so she could be present during principal photography. Friedkin would not agree to this condition, and cast Roy Scheider instead of McQueen. Friedkin later remarked that not casting McQueen hurt the film's performance at the box office.
Spy novelist Jeremy Duns revealed that McQueen was considered for the lead role in a film adaptation of The Diamond Smugglers, written by James Bond creator Ian Fleming; McQueen would play John Blaize, a secret agent gone undercover to infiltrate a diamond-smuggling ring in South Africa. There were complications with the project which was eventually shelved, although a 1964 screenplay does exist.
McQueen and Barbra Streisand were tentatively cast in The Gauntlet, but the two could not get along, and both withdrew from the project. The lead roles were filled by Clint Eastwood and Sondra Locke.
McQueen expressed interest in the Rambo character in First Blood when David Morrell's novel appeared in 1972, but the producers rejected him because of his age. He was offered the title role in The Bodyguard (to star Diana Ross) when it was proposed in 1976, but the film did not reach production until years after McQueen's death (which eventually starred Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston in 1992). Quigley Down Under was in development as early as 1974, with McQueen in consideration for the lead, but by the time production began in 1980, McQueen was ill and the project was scrapped until a decade later, when Tom Selleck starred.
McQueen was offered the lead in Raise the Titanic, but felt that the script was flat. He was under contract to Irwin Allen after appearing in The Towering Inferno and offered a part in a sequel in 1980, which he turned down. The film was scrapped and Newman was brought in by Allen to make When Time Ran Out, which was a box office bomb. McQueen died shortly after passing on The Towering Inferno 2.
Stunts, motor racing and flying
McQueen was an avid motorcycle and race car enthusiast. When he had the opportunity to drive in a movie, he performed many of his own stunts, including some of the car chases in Bullitt and the motorcycle chase in The Great Escape. Although the jump over the fence in The Great Escape was done by Bud Ekins for insurance purposes, McQueen did have considerable screen time riding his 650 cc Triumph TR6 Trophy motorcycle. It was difficult to find riders as skilled as McQueen. At one point, using editing, McQueen is seen in a German uniform chasing himself on another bike. Around half of the driving in Bullitt was performed by Loren Janes.
McQueen and John Sturges planned to make Day of the Champion, a movie about Formula One racing, but McQueen was busy with the delayed The Sand Pebbles. They had a contract with the German Nürburgring, and after John Frankenheimer shot scenes there for Grand Prix, the reels were turned over to Sturges. Frankenheimer was ahead in schedule, and the McQueen-Sturges project was called off.
McQueen considered being a professional race car driver. He had a one-off outing in the British Touring Car Championship in 1961, driving a BMC Mini at Brands Hatch, finishing third. In the 1970 12 Hours of Sebring race, Peter Revson and McQueen (driving with a cast on his left foot from a motorcycle accident two weeks earlier) won with a Porsche 908/02 in the three-litre class and missed winning overall by 21.1 seconds to Mario Andretti/Ignazio Giunti/Nino Vaccarella in a five-litre Ferrari 512S. This same Porsche 908 was entered by his production company Solar Productions as a camera car for Le Mans in the 1970 24 Hours of Le Mans later that year. McQueen wanted to drive a Porsche 917 with Jackie Stewart in that race, but the film backers threatened to pull their support if he did. Faced with the choice of driving for 24 hours in the race or driving for the entire summer making the film, McQueen opted for the latter.
McQueen competed in off-road motorcycle racing, frequently running a BSA Hornet and using alias Harvey Mushman. He was also set to co-drive in a Triumph 2500 PI for the British Leyland team in the 1970 London-Mexico rally, but had to turn it down due to movie commitments. His first off-road motorcycle was a Triumph 500 cc, purchased from Ekins. McQueen raced in many top off-road races on the West Coast, including the Baja 1000, the Mint 400, and the Elsinore Grand Prix.
In 1964, McQueen and Ekins were part of a four-rider (plus one reserve) first-ever official US team-entry into the Silver Vase category of the International Six Days Trial, an Enduro-type off-road motorcycling event held that year in Erfurt, East Germany. The "A" team arrived in England in late August to collect their mix of 649 cc and 490 cc twins from the Triumph factory before modifying them for off-road use. Initially let down with transport arrangements by a long-established English motorcycle dealer, Triumph dealer H&L Motors stepped-in to provide a suitable vehicle. On arrival in Germany, the team, with their English temporary manager, were surprised to find a Vase "B" team, comprising expat Americans living in Europe, had entered themselves privately to ride European-sourced machinery.
McQueen's ISDT competition number was 278, which was based on the trials starting order. Both teams crashed repeatedly. McQueen retired due to irreparable crash damage, and Ekins withdrew with a broken leg, both on day three (Wednesday). Only one member of the "B" team finished the six-day event. UK monthly magazine Motorcycle Sport commented: "Riding Triumph twins...[the team] rode everywhere with great dash, if not in admirable style, falling off frequently and obviously out for six days' sport without too many worries about who was going to win (they knew it would not be them)".
He was inducted in the Off-road Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1978. In 1971, McQueen's Solar Productions funded the classic motorcycle documentary On Any Sunday, in which McQueen is featured, along with racing legends Mert Lawwill and Malcolm Smith. The same year, he also appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated magazine riding a Husqvarna dirt bike.
McQueen designed a motorsports bucket seat, for which a patent was issued in 1971.
In a segment filmed for The Ed Sullivan Show, McQueen drove Sullivan around a desert area in a dune buggy at high speed. Afterward, Sullivan said, "That was a 'helluva' ride!"
By testimony of McQueen's son, Chad, Steve owned around 100 classic motorcycles, as well as around 100 exotics and vintage cars, including:
Porsche 917, Porsche 908, and Ferrari 512 race cars from the Le Mans film
Porsche 911S (used in the opening sequence of the Le Mans film)
1963 Ferrari 250 GT Berlinetta Lusso
1967 Ferrari 275GTB/4
1956 Jaguar XKSS (right-hand drive) (now on exhibit at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, California)
1958 Porsche 356 Speedster 1600 Super (black exterior, interior and top) (McQueen drove the car in numerous SCCA racing events) (now in property of his son Chad)
1968 Ford GT40 (Gulf liveried) (used in the Le Mans film)
1953 Siata 208s (McQueen replaced the Siata badges with Ferrari badges and called it his "little Ferrari")
1967 Mini Cooper-S (McQueen had the car customized by Lee Brown with changes including a single foglight, a wood dash, a recessed antenna and a custom brown paint job)
1951 Chevrolet Styline De Lux Convertible (used in The Hunter, McQueen bought the car in 1979 after filming ended)
1952 Chevrolet 3800 pickup camper conversion (McQueen used the truck for cross-country camping trips. It was the last car he rode in before his death)
1950 Hudson Commodore convertible
1952 Hudson Wasp 2-door sedan
1953 Hudson Hornet 4-door Sedan
1956 GMC Suburban
1958 GMC Pickup Truck (Reportedly one of McQueen's favorite cars, it is powered by a 336 Ci V8 which has been modified. The tag "MQ3188" is a reference to the ID number assigned to him when he was in reform school)
1931 Lincoln Club Sedan
1935 Chrysler Airflow Imperial Sedan
1969 Chevrolet Baja Hickey race truck (originally debuted at the 1968 Mexican 1000 Rally and was driven by Cliff Coleman, Johnny Diaz, Mickey Thompson and others during its racing career; said to be the first truck specifically constructed by GM for use in the Mexican 1000; McQueen bought it from General Motors in 1970)
In spite of numerous attempts, McQueen was never able to purchase the Ford Mustang GT 390 he drove in Bullitt, which featured a modified drivetrain that suited McQueen's driving style. One of the two Mustangs used in the film was badly damaged, judged beyond repair, and believed to have been scrapped until it surfaced in Mexico in 2017, while the other one, which McQueen attempted to purchase in 1977, is hidden from the public eye. At the 2018 North American International Auto Show the GT 390 was displayed, in its current non-restored condition, with the 2019 Ford Mustang "Bullitt".
McQueen also flew and owned, among other aircraft, a 1945 Stearman, tail number N3188, (his student number in reform school), a 1946 Piper J-3 Cub, and an award-winning 1931 Pitcairn PA-8 biplane, flown in the US Mail Service by famed World War I flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker. They were hangared at Santa Paula Airport an hour northwest of Hollywood, where he lived his final days.
Personal life
Relationships and friendships
While still attending Stella Adler's school in New York, McQueen dated Gia Scala.
On November 2, 1956, he married Filipino actress and dancer Neile Adams, with whom he had a daughter, Terry Leslie (June 5, 1959 – March 19, 1998) and a son, Chad (born December 28, 1960). McQueen and Adams divorced in 1972. In her autobiography, My Husband, My Friend, Adams stated that she had an abortion in 1971, when their marriage was on the rocks. One of McQueen's four grandchildren is actor Steven R. McQueen (who is best known for playing Jeremy Gilbert in The Vampire Diaries and Jimmy Borelli in Chicago Fire).
Mamie Van Doren claimed to have had an affair with McQueen and tried hallucinogens with him around 1959. Actress-model Lauren Hutton also said that she had an affair with McQueen in the early 1960s. In 1971–1972, while separated from Adams, McQueen had a relationship with Junior Bonner co-star Barbara Leigh, which included her pregnancy and an abortion.
In Cheyenne, Wyoming, in 1973, McQueen married actress Ali MacGraw, his co-star in The Getaway, but this marriage ended in a divorce in 1978. MacGraw suffered a miscarriage during their marriage. Some friends later claimed that MacGraw was the one true love of McQueen's life: "He was madly in love with her until the day he died."
On January 16, 1980, less than a year before his death, McQueen married model Barbara Minty. Barbara Minty, in her book Steve McQueen: The Last Mile, wrote of McQueen becoming an Evangelical Christian toward the end of his life. This was due in part to the influences of his flying instructor, Sammy Mason, Mason's son Pete, and Barbara herself. McQueen attended his local church, Ventura Missionary Church, and was visited by evangelist Billy Graham shortly before his death.
In 1973 McQueen was one of the pallbearers at the funeral of Bruce Lee along with James Coburn, Bruce's brother Robert Lee, Peter Chin, Dan Inosanto, and Taky Kimura.
After discovering a mutual interest in racing, McQueen and Great Escape co-star James Garner became good friends and lived near each other. McQueen recalled:
I could see that Jim was neat around his place. Flowers trimmed, no papers in the yard... grass always cut. So to piss him off, I'd start lobbing empty beer cans down the hill into his driveway. He'd have his drive all spick 'n' span when he left the house, then get home to find all these empty cans. Took him a long time to figure out it was me.
Lifestyle
McQueen followed a daily two-hour exercise regimen, involving weightlifting and, at one point, running , seven days a week. McQueen learned the martial art Tang Soo Do from ninth-degree black belt Pat E. Johnson.
According to photographer William Claxton, McQueen smoked marijuana almost every day; biographer Marc Eliot stated that McQueen used a large amount of cocaine in the early 1970s. He was also a heavy cigarette smoker. McQueen sometimes drank to excess; he was arrested for driving while intoxicated in Anchorage, Alaska, in 1972.
Manson connection
Two months after Charles Manson incited the murder of five people, including McQueen's friends Sharon Tate and Jay Sebring, the media reported police had found a hit list with McQueen's name on it. According to his first wife, McQueen began carrying a handgun at all times in public, including at Sebring's funeral.
Charitable causes
McQueen had an unusual reputation for demanding free items in bulk from studios when agreeing to do a film, such as electric razors, jeans, and other items. It was later discovered McQueen donated these things to the Boys Republic reformatory school, where he had spent time during his teen years. McQueen made occasional visits to the school to spend time with the students, often to play pool and speak about his experiences.
Illness and death
McQueen developed a persistent cough in 1978. He gave up cigarettes and underwent antibiotic treatments without improvement. His shortness of breath grew more pronounced, and on December 22, 1979, after filming The Hunter, a biopsy revealed pleural mesothelioma, a cancer associated with asbestos exposure for which there is no known cure.
A few months later, McQueen gave a medical interview in which he blamed his condition on asbestos exposure. McQueen believed that asbestos used in movie sound stage insulation and race-drivers' protective suits and helmets could have been involved, but he thought it more likely that his illness was a direct result of massive exposure while removing asbestos lagging (insulation) from pipes aboard a troop ship while he was in the Marines.
By February 1980, evidence of widespread metastasis was found. He tried to keep the condition a secret, but on March 11, 1980, the National Enquirer disclosed that he had "terminal cancer". In July 1980, McQueen traveled to Rosarito Beach, Mexico, for unconventional treatment after U.S. doctors told him they could do nothing to prolong his life. Controversy arose over the trip because McQueen sought treatment from William Donald Kelley, who was promoting a variation of the Gerson therapy that used coffee enemas, frequent washing with shampoos, daily injections of fluid containing live cells from cattle and sheep, massages, and laetrile, a reputed anti-cancer drug available in Mexico, but long known to be both toxic and ineffective at treating cancer. McQueen paid for Kelley's treatments by himself in cash payments which were said to have been upwards of $40,000 per month ($ today) during his three-month stay in Mexico. Kelley's only medical license (until revoked in 1976) had been for orthodontics. Kelley's methods caused a sensation in the traditional and tabloid press when it became known that McQueen was a patient.
McQueen returned to the U.S. in early October. Despite metastasis of the cancer throughout McQueen's body, Kelley publicly announced that McQueen would be completely cured and return to normal life. McQueen's condition soon worsened and huge tumors developed in his abdomen.
In late October 1980, McQueen flew to Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico, to have an abdominal tumor on his liver (weighing around ) removed, despite warnings from his U.S. doctors that the tumor was inoperable and his heart could not withstand the surgery. Using the name "Samuel Sheppard", McQueen checked into a small Juárez clinic where the doctors and staff were unaware of his actual identity.
On November 7, 1980, McQueen died of a heart attack at 3:45 a.m. at a Juárez hospital, 12 hours after surgery to remove or reduce numerous metastatic tumors in his neck and abdomen. He was 50 years old. According to the El Paso Times, McQueen died in his sleep.
Leonard DeWitt of the Ventura Missionary Church presided over McQueen's memorial service. McQueen was cremated and his ashes were spread in the Pacific Ocean.
Legacy
In 2007, Forbes said McQueen remained a popular star and still the "king of cool", even 27 years after his death, and was one of the highest-earning dead celebrities. A rights-management agency head credited Branded Entertainment Network (called Corbis at the time) with maximizing the profitability of his estate by limiting the licensing of McQueen's image, avoiding the commercial saturation of other dead celebrities' estates. As of 2007, McQueen's estate entered the top 10 of highest-earning dead celebrities.
McQueen was inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers in April 2007 in a ceremony at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.
In November 1999, McQueen was inducted into the Motorcycle Hall of Fame. He was credited with contributions including financing the film On Any Sunday, supporting a team of off-road riders, and enhancing the public image of motorcycling overall.
A film based on unfinished storyboards and notes developed by McQueen before his death was slated for production by McG's production company Wonderland Sound and Vision. Yucatán is described as an "epic adventure heist" film, scheduled for release in 2013 but still unreleased in February 2016. Team Downey, the production company of Robert Downey, Jr. and his wife Susan Downey, expressed an interest in developing Yucatán for the screen.
The Beech Grove, Indiana, Public Library formally dedicated the Steve McQueen Birthplace Collection on March 16, 2010, to commemorate the 80th anniversary of McQueen's birth on March 24, 1930.
In 2012, McQueen was posthumously honored with the Warren Zevon Tribute Award by the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO).
Steve McQueen: The Man & Le Mans, a 2015 documentary, examines the actor's quest to create and star in the 1971 auto-racing film Le Mans. His son Chad McQueen and former wife Neile Adams are among those interviewed.
On September 28, 2017, there was a selected showing in some theaters of his life story and spiritual quest, Steve McQueen – American Icon. There was an encore presentation on October 10, 2017. The film received mostly positive reviews. Kenneth R. Morefield of Christianity Today said it "offers a timeless reminder that even those among us living the most celebrated lives often long for the peace and sense of purpose that only God can provide". Michael Foust of Wordslingers called it "one of the most powerful and inspiring documentaries I've ever seen."
In the 2019 Quentin Tarantino film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, McQueen is portrayed by Damian Lewis.
Archive
The Academy Film Archive houses the Steve McQueen-Neile Adams Collection, which consists of personal prints and home movies. The archive has preserved several of McQueen's home movies.
Ford commercials
In 1998, director Paul Street created a commercial for the Ford Puma. Footage was shot in modern-day San Francisco, set to the theme music from Bullitt. Archive footage of McQueen was used to digitally superimpose him driving and exiting the car in settings reminiscent of the film. The Puma shares the same number plate of the classic fastback Mustang used in Bullitt, and as he parks in the garage (next to the Mustang), he pauses and looks meaningfully at a motorcycle tucked in the corner, similar to that used in The Great Escape.
In 2005, Ford used his likeness again, in a commercial for the 2005 Mustang. In the commercial, a farmer builds a winding racetrack, which he circles in the 2005 Mustang. Out of the cornfield comes McQueen. The farmer tosses his keys to McQueen, who drives off in the new Mustang. McQueen's likeness was created using a body double (Dan Holsten) and digital editing. Ford secured the rights to McQueen's likeness from the actor's estate licensing agent for an undisclosed sum.
At the Detroit Auto Show in January 2018, Ford unveiled the new 2019 Mustang Bullitt. The company called on McQueen's granddaughter, actress Molly McQueen, to make the announcement. After a brief rundown of the tribute car's particulars, a short film was shown in which Molly was introduced to the actual Bullitt Mustang, a 1968 Mustang Fastback with a 390 cubic-inch engine and a four-speed manual gearbox. That car has been in possession of the same family since 1974 and hidden away from the public until now, when it was driven out from under the press stand and up the center aisle of Ford's booth to much fanfare.
Memorabilia
The blue-tinted sunglasses (Persol 714) worn by McQueen in the 1968 movie The Thomas Crown Affair sold at a Bonhams & Butterfields auction in Los Angeles for $70,200 in 2006. One of his motorcycles, a 1937 Crocker, sold for a world-record price of $276,500 at the same auction. McQueen's 1963 metallic-brown Ferrari 250 GT Lusso Berlinetta sold for US$2.31 million at auction on August 16, 2007. Except for three motorcycles sold with other memorabilia in 2006, most of McQueen's collection of 130 motorcycles was sold four years after his death. The 1970 Porsche 911S purchased while making the film Le Mans and appearing in the opening sequence was sold at auction in August 2011 for $1.375 million. From 1995 to 2011, McQueen's red 1957 fuel-injected Chevrolet convertible was displayed at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles in a special Cars of Steve McQueen exhibit. It is now in the collection of actress Ruth Buzzi and her husband Kent Perkins. McQueen's British racing green 1956 Jaguar XKSS is also located in the Petersen Automotive Museum and is in drivable condition, having been driven by Jay Leno in an episode of Jay Leno's Garage. In August 2019, Mecum Auctions announced it would auction the Bullitt Mustang Hero Car at its Kissimmee auction, held January 2–12, 2020. The car sold without reserve for $3.4 million ($3.74 million after commissions and fees).
Watch collection
The Rolex Explorer II, Reference 1655, known as Rolex Steve McQueen in the horology collectors' world, the Rolex Submariner, Reference 5512, which McQueen was often photographed wearing in private moments, sold for $234,000 at auction on June 11, 2009, a world-record price for the type. McQueen was left-handed and wore the watch on his right wrist.
McQueen was a sponsored ambassador for Heuer watches. In the 1970 film Le Mans, he famously wore a blue-faced Monaco Ref. 1133, which led to its cult status among watch collectors, purchasing six watches of the same model for the shoot of the film. On December 12, 2020, one of the last six models sold and one of two held in private hands was sold for a record US$2.208 million at a Phillips auction in New York, becoming the most expensive Heuer watch sold at auction. Tag Heuer continues to promote its Monaco range with McQueen's image.
In June 2018, Phillips announced McQueen's Rolex Submariner to hit the auction block in September that year. However, there was controversy whether or not the watch was his personal watch worn by McQueen himself or if the watch was bought, engraved, then gifted. Phillips later removed the watch from the auction block.
Among McQueen's other watches was a Hanhart 417 chronograph.
Filmography
Awards and honors
Academy Awards
(1967) Nominated – Best Actor in a Leading Role in The Sand Pebbles
Golden Globe Awards
(1964) Nominated – Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama in Love with the Proper Stranger
(1967) Nominated – Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama in The Sand Pebbles
(1970) Nominated – Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy in The Reivers
(1974) Nominated – Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama in Papillon
Moscow International Film Festival
(1963) – Won – Best Actor in The Great Escape
Quotes
"Racing is life. Anything before or after is just waiting."
"I'm not sure whether I'm an actor who races or racer, who acts."
"I'm not that interesting of a person."
"I live for myself and answer to nobody."
"When I believe in something, I fight like hell for it."
"I need to have a reason why I'm doing something. Otherwise, I'm lost."
References
Bibliography
Terrill, Marshall (2020). Steve McQueen: In His Own Words. Deerfield, IL: Dalton Watson. .
Further reading
Beaver, Jim. Steve McQueen. Films in Review, August–September 1981.
Satchell, Tim. McQueen. (Sidgwick and Jackson Limited, 1981)
Siegel, Mike. Steve McQueen: The Actor and his Films (Dalton Watson, 2011)
Nolan, William F. McQueen (Congdon & Weed, 1984)
Terrill, Marshall. Steve McQueen: Portrait of an American Rebel, (Donald I. Fine, 1993)
Terrill, Marshall. Steve McQueen: The Last Mile', (Dalton Watson, 2006)
Terrill, Marshall. Steve McQueen: A Tribute to the King of Cool, (Dalton Watson, 2010)
Terrill, Marshall. Steve McQueen: The Life and Legacy of a Hollywood Icon'', (Triumph Books, 2010)
Terrill, Marshall. Steve McQueen: In His Own Words, (Dalton Watson, 2020)
External links
Steve McQueen: In His Own Words by Marshall Terrill
Steve McQueen at Virtual History
Bell System Film "A Family Affair", McQueen's debut, at The AT&T Tech Channel
The Great Escape – New publication with private photos of the shooting & documents of 2nd unit cameraman Walter Riml
Photos of the filming The Great Escape, Steve McQueen on the set
Photos and commentary on Steve McQueen shooting an episode of Wanted: Dead or Alive on the Iverson Movie Ranch
1930 births
1980 deaths
20th-century American male actors
American male film actors
American male television actors
American motorcycle racers
American people of Scottish descent
American sailors
American tang soo do practitioners
British Touring Car Championship drivers
California Republicans
Converts to Christianity
Deaths from cancer in Mexico
Deaths from mesothelioma
Enduro riders
Former Roman Catholics
Male actors from Indiana
Male actors from Indianapolis
Male actors from Los Angeles
Male actors from Missouri
Male Western (genre) film actors
Military personnel from Indiana
Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre alumni
Off-road motorcycle racers
Off-road racing drivers
People from Beech Grove, Indiana
People from Echo Park, Los Angeles
People from Saline County, Missouri
Racing drivers from California
Racing drivers from Indiana
Racing drivers from Missouri
United States Marines
United States Merchant Mariners
United States Merchant Mariners of World War II
Western (genre) television actors
World record setters in motorcycling
World Sportscar Championship drivers | false | [
"Montgomery \"Lightning\" McQueen is an anthropomorphic stock car in the animated Pixar film Cars (2006), its sequels Cars 2 (2011), Cars 3 (2017), and TV shorts known as Cars Toons. The character is not named after actor and race driver Steve McQueen, but after Pixar animator Glenn McQueen who died in 2002. His design is inspired by NASCAR stock cars. His body comes from various Gen 4 NASCARs; however, he has a curvaceous design like that of the Plymouth Superbird and Dodge Charger Daytona NASCARs, the exhaust pipes come from the 1970s Dodge Charger NASCARs, but with four (two on each side) instead of two on one side or one on both sides. He also has some curvaceous cues from the Ford GT40 and Lola T70, along with cab cues from a 1990s Porsche 911, although he is primarily and mainly based on NASCAR stock cars. \" During the scene where he helps restore Radiator Springs to its 1950s heyday, he is painted much like a 1950s Chevrolet Corvette C1, once again hinting at his Corvette lineage. His number was originally set to be 57, Lasseter's birth year, but was changed to 95, the release year of Pixar's first film Toy Story. In Cars, his engine sounds come from a Gen 4 NASCAR. In Cars 2, some of his engine sounds come from a Gen 5 COT NASCAR, and some come from the Chevrolet Corvette C6.R, and in Cars 3, his engine sounds come from a Gen 6 NASCAR.\n\nCharacterization\nDuring the initial research for the first film, John Lasseter met with General Motors designers to discuss the new Corvette design but subsequent changes to the storyline left both Lightning McQueen and rivals Chick Hicks (Cars) and Bobby Swift, Brick Yardley, Cal Weathers and Jackson Storm (Cars 3) as generic.\n\nIn order to create a cocky but likable character for McQueen, Pixar looked at sports figures like boxer Muhammad Ali, basketball player Charles Barkley, and football quarterback Joe Namath, as well as rap and rock singer Kid Rock.\n\nThe end result is a character which, despite the usually-meticulous approach to \"truth to material\" in which each car's animation is mechanically consistent with its respective model's capabilities, can occasionally bend the rules to move more like an athlete than a motorcar.\n\nIn the original film, McQueen is one of the three contestants in a Piston Cup tiebreaker race before an audience of \"more than two hundred thousand cars\" in Los Angeles, California. By the start of Cars 2, he has won four Piston Cup championships.\n\nMcQueen appears in Kinect Rush: A Disney/Pixar Adventure.\n\nCars (2006)\nLightning McQueen is a racer participating in the Piston Cup. McQueen is sponsored by Rust-eze Medicated Bumper Ointment, which uses the catchphrase, \"With Just a Little Rust-eze, you can look like Lightning McQueen!\" However, he secretly disdains Rust-eze, and hopes to be chosen for sponsorship by the much more glamorous and successful Dinoco oil company. He is certain Dinoco will offer to sponsor him if he wins the prized Piston Cup.\n\nAt the beginning of the film, McQueen is portrayed as being ungrateful, obnoxious, selfish, and sarcastic. It is noted that he previously fired three crew chiefs. During a pit stop, he foolishly refuses the advice of his pit crew to replace his tires because he wants to remain in the lead. As a result, both rear tires blow out on the last lap. He narrowly avoids losing the race when he sticks his tongue out, leading to a three-way tie with Strip \"The King\" Weathers and Chick Hicks. He subsequently insults his pit crew, leading them to furiously and suddenly resign.\n\nPreparing to leave for California for a tie-breaker race, McQueen begins to realize he has no true friends. En route, he selfishly forces his big rig, Mack, to drive through the night, so they can reach California before their competitors. McQueen quickly falls asleep, therefore breaking his promise to stay awake with Mack. In turn, Mack becomes exhausted himself. After an unfortunate encounter with a quartet of tuner cars, McQueen becomes separated from Mack, and speeds through the night in a desperate search of Mack, only to end up lost in Radiator Springs, a forgotten town along U.S. Route 66, where he is soon arrested and impounded.\n\nIn Radiator Springs, McQueen awakens, and finds himself being taken to court for ruining the road of Radiator Springs. The local judge, Doc Hudson, orders McQueen to leave town immediately, but the other townsfolk, including its local attorney, Sally Carrera, vote to have McQueen repave the road as a show of power for community service, in which Doc agrees with. McQueen is then ordered to repave the road, but instead, he attempts to escape town. He is quickly recaptured and forced to repave the road in order to regain his freedom. He doesn't do it properly at first, but to take a break, he tries to accept help from Doc, but blows him off. In the process, McQueen learns about the history of Radiator Springs and begins to relate to its inhabitants. A tow truck named Tow Mater befriends him, and he falls in love with Sally. He also reveals an unusual history about Doc, who is revealed to be a former Piston Cup champion, whose racing career ended after a serious crash. After repaving the road, and staying there, McQueen is free to leave Radiator Springs, and resume his journey to California. However, he selflessly delays his departure to show appreciation for his new friends by performing good deeds. During his time at Radiator Springs, McQueen's personality slowly begins to change. He begins to care about others rather than just himself and no longer disrespects them. He also isn't as cocky as he once was while on the race track.\n\nDuring the tie-breaker race in California, McQueen is unable to stop thinking of Radiator Springs and his new friends, causing him to lose focus. Soon, he is surprised to see that Doc Hudson and some of his friends have followed him and taken on the role of his pit crew. Inspired by words of encouragement from Doc, McQueen races with renewed confidence. When Hicks attempts to knock him off course, he recovers by proudly performing moves he learned from Doc (particularly Doc Hudson's special \"turn\"), and Mater's skills, while McQueen was initially in Radiator Springs.\n\nDuring the final lap, the Piston Cup is clearly within McQueen's grasp. Hicks, realizing he is about to finish in last place, strikes Weathers with a PIT maneuver from behind, sending him to a dangerous crash. On the track's Jumbotron, McQueen witnesses the crash behind him, which is reminiscent of the crash that ended Doc's career 52 years before. In order to help Weathers finish his last race, McQueen stops suddenly before reaching the finish line, essentially forfeiting the win. McQueen is nonetheless praised for his selfless sportsmanship, so much so that Dinoco Race Team owner Tex offers to hire him to succeed Weathers. McQueen declines, realizing that he should stay with his Rust-eze sponsors in appreciation for managing to get him where he was. Tex respects his decision and instead offers to do him favors any time he needs it. McQueen uses a favor to gain a ride on the Dinoco helicopter for Mater, fulfilling Mater's dream.\n\nMcQueen returns to Radiator Springs to establish his racing headquarters, putting the town back on the map and bringing success to all his friends. He resumes his relationship with Sally and becomes Hudson's pupil.\n\nCars: The Video Game (2006)\n\nIn Cars: The Video Game, written by Pixar and considered a continuation to the story started in the movie, McQueen finds himself at the start of the next Piston Cup season. With the help of the citizens of Radiator Springs, McQueen readies to start his quest for the Piston Cup, taking lessons in powersliding from Doc, boosting from Fillmore, and racing backwards from Mater. With his new skills, McQueen once again makes a championship run in the Piston Cup, much to the irritation of Chick Hicks.\n\nFearing his title is in jeopardy, Chick enlists the assistance of The Delinquent Road Hazards - DJ, Boost, Wingo, and Snot Rod — the same rowdy cars who detoured McQueen to Radiator Springs, to hijack McQueen's racing gear from Mack on Interstate 40. McQueen is able to retrieve his equipment and bring the delinquents to justice before winning the next race, which sends Chick into a frenzy. Lightning challenges Chick to a Grand Prix in Radiator Springs, followed by one more Piston Cup race in L.A. McQueen wins these events, taking the Piston Cup in his sophomore season.\n\nAt the end, McQueen, Mater, and Sally decide to take a celebratory trip across the country. When asked if he brought his trophy, McQueen notes he did not, but left it in a good place, revealed to be at Doc Hudson's clinic next to the racing legend's own three Piston Cups.\n\nThough McQueen is still sponsored by Rust-eze, players are able to unlock McQueen with a Dinoco paint job while playing as him in Story Mode, Arcade Mode, and VS. Mode.\n\nCars 2 (2011)\n\nFive years after the events of the first film, McQueen, now a four-time Piston Cup champion (2007-2011), returns to Radiator Springs after a successful racing season. He is pleased to renew his friendship with Mater. McQueen's respite is interrupted when he is recruited to participate in the first ever World Grand Prix, sponsored by former oil tycoon Miles Axelrod to promote his new biofuel, Allinol. McQueen initially declines but is publicly taunted by Formula One race car Francesco Bernoulli. Mater intervenes to defend McQueen, leading him to reconsider and join the race. Mater hopes to tag along on the tour and, despite concerns about Mater's meddling behavior, McQueen reluctantly agrees.\n\nIn Tokyo at a pre-race party, McQueen is embarrassed by Mater's antics and he begins to regret bringing him along. Soon after, Mater unwittingly gets caught up in a spy mission with Finn McMissile and Holley Shiftwell. This leads to more antics during the first race, which McQueen initially dominates. However, a miscommunication by Mater ultimately costs him the race. Upset, McQueen confronts Mater, and tells him that he doesn't need or want his help.\n\nFeeling disappointed, Mater decides to head back home, leaving a heart-felt apology for McQueen, leaving McQueen feeling bad for being too harsh. On the way home, Mater ends up involved in the spy mission once again. Meanwhile, the World Grand Prix moves on to Italy, however, McQueen is too depressed to enjoy it since his argument with Mater. There, McQueen comes to understand even the best of friends will argue every now and then, and he is inspired to patch up his friendship with Mater.\n\nMcQueen wins the second race in Porto Corsa, Italy, though many cars end up damaged. Through his spy mission, Mater learns an unidentified criminal mastermind is sabotaging the cars. An unknowing public begins to question whether Allinol is to blame, since the fuel is one common thing being used by all of the cars. In response, Axlerod decides to remove Allinol from the final race, allowing the cars to choose their own fuel. McQueen elects to continue with Allinol based on advice from his friend and pit crew member Fillmore. (Unbeknownst to McQueen, his fuel had already been replaced with Fillmore's bio-fuel.) The mastermind orders Professor Zündapp (Professor Z) to seize the opportunity and have McQueen killed, so that Allinol will be blamed. Mater overhears the order and tries to warn McQueen, but is unable to do so before being captured and rendered unconscious.\n\nDuring the third and final race in London, Mater escapes and resumes his attempt to warn McQueen. At McQueen's pit, Mater learns that the mastermind planted a bomb in his engine compartment while he was unconscious, and it will be detonated when McQueen comes near, killing them both. McQueen sees Mater and approaches him, hoping to deliver his apology. Mater speeds away in order to avoid killing McQueen. McQueen pursues him, thinking that Mater is fleeing out of guilt. Soon they are out of range of the detonator's remote control. After stopping, McQueen finally realizes the spy mission was real after Shiftwell and McMissile appear with a captured Zündapp. Zündapp reveals that only the mastermind can deactivate Mater's bomb. Mater alone pieces together the final clues and identifies the mastermind as Miles Axlerod. This makes sense to no one else until Mater explains that Axlerod wanted to give alternative energy a bad name, because he owns the largest untapped oil reserves in the world. Mater managed to prove this by personally forcing Axlerod to disarm the bomb in person, which made McQueen and the others realize that Axlerod was indeed the true mastermind after all.\n\nFollowing the arrest of Axlerod and his cohorts, it was revealed that Allinol was actually gasoline engineered by Axlerod as part of his plan to discredit alternative energy just as Mater suspected, and that McQueen's Allinol supply was switched with Fillmore's organic fuel by Sarge, which would explain how McQueen managed to avoid being affected by the radiation. Being so amazed to see that Mater actually foiled a world criminal conspiracy with his own wits, McQueen happily declares that Mater can come to all races from now on if he likes, much to Mater's delight. McQueen also witnessed Mater's knighting by the Queen in honor for his actions.\n\nBack in Radiator Springs, the competitors assemble in a show of sportsmanship for a race with nothing at stake. The film ends with McQueen taking first place during the Radiator Springs Grand Prix, joined by Mater thanks to new rocket boosters he was given by Finn and Holley.\n\nMcQueen's paint scheme is nearly the same as it was in the first movie (his large lightning bolt is repainted dark red, and a smaller bolt is threaded through his number, and has only three sponsor stickers on either side), though it is modified for the World Grand Prix with green-tinted flames on the end of his large bolt and a Piston Cup logo on the hood instead of his usual Rust-Eze sponsor. His reflective lightning decals are removed, he has a different spoiler, and his sticker headlights and taillights are replaced with actual working lights.\n\nPlanes: Fire & Rescue (2014)\n\nLightning McQueen makes a cameo appearance in Planes: Fire & Rescue, appearing in a photograph in a newspaper being read by Sparky.\n\nCars 3 (2017)\n\nSix years after the events of the second film, the story starts out with McQueen, now a seven-time Piston Cup winner (2007-2014) and racing legend, racing in the Piston Cup while pitted against his old racing friends, Cal Weathers and Bobby Swift all who pull pranks on each other after each race. On the final lap of one race, Jackson Storm, a high-tech racer, appears out of nowhere on the track, roaring past McQueen to win. Storm continues to win race after race throughout the season, and many veteran racers are prompted to retire or are fired by their sponsors to make room for the next generation - including Cal and Bobby. During the final race of the season in Los Angeles, McQueen pushes himself too hard while trying to catch up to Storm, and sends himself into a dangerous crash. Sally, Mater, Sarge, Fillmore, Luigi and Guido are all shocked in horror to see McQueen's crash. The film's premise revolves around McQueen recovering from the crash that happened earlier and being trained by Cruz Ramirez, a technician and lifelong fan of McQueen, during the offseason in hopes of returning to his racing career. His main motivation to return to racing is to be able to enter the Florida 500 race and defeat Storm, after being given an ultimatum by new sponsor Sterling to permanently retire to a life as a paid spokesperson if he loses his next race. Sterling was planning for him to retire anyway so that he could make money out of McQueen's retirement merchandises, but he hid his nature and pretended to be a fan.\n\nAfter several unsuccessful attempts at training, including damaging Sterling's simulator and participating in a demolition derby, McQueen decides to seek out Doc's old pit boss, Smokey, and eventually meets him at the Thomasville Motor Speedway in Doc's old hometown, in what appears to be the Great Smoky Mountains. Trained on smarts as well as speed, McQueen runs the first half of the Florida 500, with Smokey as his crew chief, before pulling out and giving Cruz a shot at stardom, with him as the crew chief. Cruz and McQueen share the victory due to Lightning starting the race, and ultimately a sponsorship under the merged Dinoco-Rust-Eze brand, thus he wins the bet with Sterling and decides to keep racing, and Cruz becomes his pupil. McQueen ends the film with a race with Cruz at Radiator Springs, now a mentor of young talent while running the occasional Piston Cup race.\n\nHe reverts to the body type he had back in the first film, but the paint job features a cross between the lightning bolts seen in the first film, and the flames seen in the second film, said that the bolts are solid colored instead of halftone, the Rust-Eze logos were enlarged, and has fewer sponsor stickers than he had in the first film. He also sports a second paint scheme prior to his crash (With a slightly desaturated red paintwork, a more modernized version of the Rust-Eze logo and different lightning bolts), a third \"training\" paint job in which he is darker red with metallic yellow accents, and a fourth \"demolition derby\" paint job in which he is all mud brown and numbered 15. At the end of the film, McQueen is decked in a blue \"Fabulous Lightning McQueen\" paint job reminiscent of Doc Hudson's. He also keeps his working lights.\n\nOther works\nIn the extension work Struck by Lightning, McQueen reveals that his original name was \"Monty\", and that \"Lightning\" is a nickname.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\nCars (franchise) characters\nFictional racing cars\nFictional racing drivers\nFilm characters introduced in 2006\nMale characters in film\nCars designed and produced for films",
"Colorado Territory is a 1949 American Western film directed by Raoul Walsh and starring Joel McCrea, Virginia Mayo, and Dorothy Malone. Written by Edmund H. North and John Twist, and based on the novel High Sierra by W.R. Burnett, the film is about an outlaw who is sprung from jail to help pull one last railroad job.\n\nThis version is a remake of the 1941 crime film High Sierra starring Ida Lupino and Humphrey Bogart, also directed by Walsh. The story was remade for a third time in 1955 as I Died a Thousand Times with Jack Palance and Shelley Winters.\n\nPlot\nNotorious outlaw Wes McQueen (Joel McCrea) breaks out of jail and heads off to the Colorado Territory to meet the man who arranged the escape, his old friend Dave Rickard (Basil Ruysdael). Along the way, the stagecoach he is riding in is attacked by a gang of robbers. When the driver and guard are both killed, McQueen kills or drives off the remaining gunmen, earning the gratitude of the other passengers, dreamer Fred Winslow (Henry Hull) and his daughter Julie Ann (Dorothy Malone). Winslow has bought a ranch sight unseen and looks forward to making his fortune.\n\nMcQueen arrives at the ghost town of Todos Santos, where Reno Blake (John Archer) and Duke Harris (James Mitchell) are waiting for him, along with Reno's part-Indian girlfriend, Colorado Carson (Virginia Mayo). After looking them over (and not liking what he sees), he heads off to a nearby town to meet an ailing Rickard, who asks McQueen to pull off one last big train robbery so they can both retire.\n\nWith the exception of Rickard, McQueen distrusts everybody else in the gang, including ex-private detective Pluthner (Harry Woods), who recruited Reno and Duke, and Homer Wallace (Ian Wolfe), the railroad informant. McQueen wants to go straight, but agrees to do the job out of gratitude and friendship.\n\nWhile waiting for the robbery, McQueen decides to keep Colorado with him to avoid stirring up trouble between Duke and Reno. Although Colorado falls for him and tells him so, McQueen still dreams of marrying Julie Ann and settling down. When he visits the Winslow ranch, he finds it a poor, arid place. Winslow warns him that Julie Ann loves Randolph, a rich man back east. Winslow took her away because Randolph would never have married so far beneath him socially. McQueen, however, is undeterred.\n\nThe day of the robbery, a suspicious McQueen talks to Wallace's wife and discovers he has betrayed the gang for the reward money. Forewarned, McQueen uncouples the passenger cars in which the sheriff and his men are waiting in ambush, leaving them behind. Duke and Reno, as prearranged with Pluthner, also try to double cross McQueen, but he is prepared for them too. He gets the drop on them, takes the money, and leaves the pair handcuffed together for the sheriff to capture and later hang. He and Colorado go to split the money with Rickard, only to find Pluthner over the old man's dead body. McQueen kills him, but is shot in the shoulder.\n\nA wounded McQueen heads to the Winslow ranch, where Winslow helps Colorado remove the bullet, even after he is told who McQueen really is and what he has done. McQueen overhears Julie Ann tell her father they should turn him in for the reward money. Winslow, though, lies to the sheriff and posse when they show up.\n\nMcQueen realizes he loves Colorado and asks her to marry him. They plan a new life in Mexico, but are found hiding out in Todos Santos. He gives her the money, telling Colorado to bury it (she leaves it near the collection box for the mission). McQueen drives off her horse so she cannot follow him, then makes a desperate dash for the border. He is trapped in a long-deserted cliffside Indian settlement, but is too good a marksman for his pursuers to rush him. Colorado eventually arrives on foot.\n\nThe sheriff comes up with a devious plan. After stationing an Indian sharpshooter, he and all but two of his men ride away to a (fictional) back entrance. As the lawman had hoped, Colorado grabs a gun from one of the men, orders them to walk away, and takes the two remaining horses to McQueen. He emerges and is wounded by the sharpshooter. When the posse returns, Colorado shoots back, and the two lovers die in a hail of gunfire.\n\nCast\n Joel McCrea as Wes McQueen\n Virginia Mayo as Colorado Carson\n Dorothy Malone as Julie Ann Winslow\n Henry Hull as Fred Winslow\n John Archer as Reno Blake\n James Mitchell as Duke Harris\n Morris Ankrum as United States Marshal\n Basil Ruysdael as Dave Rickard\n Frank Puglia as Brother Tomas\n Ian Wolfe as Homer Wallace\n\nReception\nBosley Crowther, the reviewer for The New York Times, considered it a \"pretty darned good\" remake of High Sierra (1941) and noted that Raoul Walsh directed them both. \"In fact, the romantic assumptions and the sentimental liberties of its plot are more suited to the Western landscape than they were to a modern-day scene.\"\n\nBox office\nAccording to Warner Bros records the film earned $1,666,000 domestically and $1,028,000 foreign.\n\nSee also\n\n List of American films of 1949\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n \n \n \n \n\n1949 films\n1949 Western (genre) films\nAmerican black-and-white films\nRemakes of American films\nAmerican films\nAmerican heist films\nAmerican Western (genre) films\n1940s English-language films\nFilm noir\nFilms based on American novels\nFilms based on works by W. R. Burnett\nFilms directed by Raoul Walsh\nFilms scored by David Buttolph\nFilms set in Colorado\nFilms shot in Colorado\nFilms set in the 19th century\nWarner Bros. films\n1940s heist films"
] |
[
"Steve McQueen",
"Ford commercials",
"What is McQueen's connection to Ford?",
"In 1998 director Paul Street created a commercial for the Ford Puma."
] | C_379fd5e840b549b58c8da5d20795bf1c_1 | What was the result of this? | 2 | What was the result of the 1998 commercial for the Ford Puma? | Steve McQueen | In 1952, with financial assistance provided by the G.I. Bill, McQueen began studying acting in New York at Sanford Meisner's Neighborhood Playhouse. Reportedly, he delivered his first dialogue on a theatre stage in a 1952 play produced by Yiddish theatre star Molly Picon. McQueen's character spoke one brief line: "Alts iz farloyrn." ("All is lost."). During this time, he also studied acting with Stella Adler in whose class he met Gia Scala. McQueen began to earn money by competing in weekend motorcycle races at Long Island City Raceway and purchased the first of many motorcycles, a Harley-Davidson and Triumph. He soon became an excellent racer, and went home each weekend with about $100 in winnings (equivalent to $900 in 2017). He appeared as a musical judge in an episode of ABC's Jukebox Jury, that aired in the 1953-1954 season. McQueen had minor roles in productions including Peg o' My Heart, The Member of the Wedding, and Two Fingers of Pride. He made his Broadway debut in 1955 in the play A Hatful of Rain, starring Ben Gazzara. In late 1955, at the age of 25, McQueen left New York and headed for California, where he moved into a house on Vestal Avenue in the Echo Park area, seeking acting jobs in Hollywood. When McQueen appeared in a two-part television Westinghouse Studio One presentation entitled The Defenders, Hollywood manager Hilly Elkins (who managed McQueen's first wife, Neile) took note of him and decided that B-movies would be a good place for the young actor to make his mark. He landed his first film role in a bit part in Somebody Up There Likes Me, directed by Robert Wise and starring Paul Newman. McQueen was subsequently hired for the films Never Love a Stranger, The Blob (his first leading role) which depicts a flesh eating amoeba-like space creature, and The Great St. Louis Bank Robbery. McQueen's first breakout role came on television. He appeared on Dale Robertson's NBC western series, Tales of Wells Fargo. Elkins, then McQueen's manager, successfully lobbied Vincent M. Fennelly, producer of the western series Trackdown, to have McQueen read for the part of bounty hunter Josh Randall in a Trackdown episode. McQueen appeared as Randall in the episode, cast opposite series lead and old New York motorcycle racing buddy Robert Culp. McQueen then filmed the pilot episode, which became the series titled Wanted: Dead or Alive, which aired on CBS in September 1958. In 1971 McQueen starred in the poorly received auto-racing drama Le Mans. Then came Junior Bonner in 1972, a story of an aging rodeo rider. He worked for director Sam Peckinpah again with the leading role in The Getaway, where he met future wife Ali MacGraw. He followed this with a physically demanding role as a Devil's Island prisoner in 1973's Papillon, featuring Dustin Hoffman as his character's tragic sidekick. In 1973 The Rolling Stones referred to McQueen in the song "Star Star" from the album Goats Head Soup for which an amused McQueen reportedly gave personal permission. The lines were "Star ######, star ######, star ######, star ###### star/ Yes you are, yes you are, yes you are/Yeah, Ali MacGraw got mad with you/For givin' head to Steve McQueen". By the time of The Getaway, McQueen was the world's highest-paid actor, but after 1974's The Towering Inferno, co-starring with his long-time professional rival Paul Newman and reuniting him with Dunaway, became a tremendous box-office success, McQueen all but disappeared from the public eye, to focus on motorcycle racing and traveling around the country in a motor home and on his vintage Indian motorcycles. He did not return to acting until 1978 with An Enemy of the People, playing against type as a bearded, bespectacled 19th-century doctor in this adaptation of a Henrik Ibsen play. The film was never properly released theatrically. His last two films were loosely based on true stories: Tom Horn, a Western adventure about a former Army scout-turned professional gunman who worked for the big cattle ranchers hunting down rustlers, and later hanged for murder in the shooting death of a sheepherder, and The Hunter, an urban action movie about a modern-day bounty hunter, both released in 1980. In 1998 director Paul Street created a commercial for the Ford Puma. Footage was shot in modern-day San Francisco, set to the theme music from Bullitt. Archive footage of McQueen was used to digitally superimpose him driving and exiting the car in settings reminiscent of the film. The Puma shares the same number plate of the classic fastback Mustang used in Bullitt, and as he parks in the garage (next to the Mustang), he pauses and looks meaningfully at a motorcycle tucked in the corner, similar to that used in The Great Escape. In 2005, Ford used his likeness again, in a commercial for the 2005 Mustang. In the commercial, a farmer builds a winding racetrack, which he circles in the 2005 Mustang. Out of the cornfield comes Steve McQueen. The farmer tosses his keys to McQueen, who drives off in the new Mustang. McQueen's likeness was created using a body double (Dan Holsten) and digital editing. Ford secured the rights to McQueen's likeness from the actor's estate licensing agent, GreenLight, for an undisclosed sum. At the Detroit Auto Show in January 2018, Ford unveiled the new 2019 Mustang Bullitt. The company called on McQueen's granddaughter, actress Molly McQueen, to make the announcement. After a brief rundown of the tribute car's particulars, a short film was shown in which Molly was introduced to the actual Bullitt Mustang, a 1968 Mustang Fastback with a 390 cubic-inch engine and a four-speed manual gearbox. That car has been in possession of the same family since 1974 and hidden away from the public until now, when it was driven out from under the press stand and up the center aisle of Ford's booth to much fanfare. CANNOTANSWER | Footage was shot in modern-day San Francisco, set to the theme music from Bullitt. | Terrence Stephen McQueen (March 24, 1930November 7, 1980) was an American actor. His antihero persona, emphasized during the height of the counterculture of the 1960s, made him a top box-office draw for his films of the late 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. He was nicknamed the "King of Cool" and used the alias Harvey Mushman in motor races.
McQueen received an Academy Award nomination for his role in The Sand Pebbles (1966). His other popular films include Love With the Proper Stranger (1963), The Cincinnati Kid (1965), Nevada Smith (1966), The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), Bullitt (1968), Le Mans (1971), The Getaway (1972), and Papillon (1973). In addition, he starred in the all-star ensemble films The Magnificent Seven (1960), The Great Escape (1963), and The Towering Inferno (1974).
In 1974, McQueen became the highest-paid movie star in the world, although he did not act in film for another four years. He was combative with directors and producers, but his popularity placed him in high demand and enabled him to command the largest salaries.
Early life
Terrence Stephen McQueen was born to a single mother on March 24, 1930, at St. Francis Hospital in Beech Grove, Indiana, a suburb of Indianapolis. McQueen, of Scottish descent, was raised a Roman Catholic. His parents never married. McQueen's father, William McQueen, a stunt pilot for a barnstorming flying circus, left his mother, Julia Ann (a.k.a. Julianne) Crawford, six months after meeting her. Several biographers have stated that his mother Julia Ann was an alcoholic. Unable to cope with caring for a small child, she left the boy with her parents (Victor and Lillian) in Slater, Missouri, in 1933. As the Great Depression set in shortly thereafter, McQueen and his grandparents moved in with Lillian's brother Claude and his family at their farm in Slater. McQueen later said that he had good memories of living on the farm, noting that his great-uncle Claude "was a very good man, very strong, very fair. I learned a lot from him."
Claude gave McQueen a red tricycle on his fourth birthday, a gift that McQueen subsequently credited with sparking his early interest in car racing. McQueen's mother married and when the boy was eight, she brought him from the farm to live with her and her new husband in Indianapolis. His great-uncle Claude gave McQueen a special gift at his departure. "The day I left the farm", he recalled, "Uncle Claude gave me a personal going-away present—a gold pocket watch, with an inscription inside the case." The inscription read "To Steve – who has been a son to me."
Dyslexic and partially deaf due to a childhood ear infection, McQueen did not adjust well to school or his new life. His stepfather beat him to such an extent that at the age of nine he left home to live on the streets. He later recalled "When a kid doesn't have any love when he's small, he begins to wonder if he's good enough. My mother didn't love me, and I didn't have a father. I thought, 'Well, I must not be very good.'" Soon he was running with a street gang and committing acts of petty crime. Unable to control his behavior, his mother sent him back to her grandparents and great-uncle in Slater.
When McQueen was 12, Julia wrote to her uncle Claude, asking that her son be returned to her again to live in Los Angeles, California, where she lived with her second husband. By McQueen's own account, he and his new stepfather "locked horns immediately". McQueen recalls him being "a prime son of a bitch" who was not averse to using his fists on McQueen and his mother. As McQueen began to rebel again, he was sent back to live with Claude for a final time. At age 14, he left Claude's farm without saying goodbye and joined a circus for a short time. He drifted back to his mother and stepfather in Los Angeles—resuming his life as a gang member and petty criminal. McQueen was caught stealing hubcaps by the police and handed over to his stepfather, who beat him severely. He threw the youth down a flight of stairs. McQueen looked up at his stepfather and said, "You lay your stinking hands on me again and I swear, I'll kill you."
After this incident, McQueen's stepfather persuaded his mother to sign a court order stating that McQueen was incorrigible, remanding him to the California Junior Boys Republic in Chino. Here, McQueen began to change and mature. He was not popular with the other boys at first:
"Say the boys had a chance once a month to load into a bus and go into town to see a movie. And they lost out because one guy in the bungalow didn't get his work done right. Well, you can pretty well guess they're gonna have something to say about that. I paid my dues with the other fellows quite a few times. I got my lumps, no doubt about it. The other guys in the bungalow had ways of paying you back for interfering with their well-being."
McQueen gradually became a role model and was elected to the Boys Council, a group who set the rules and regulations governing the boys' lives. He left the Boys Republic at age 16. When he later became famous as an actor, he regularly returned to talk to resident boys and retained a lifelong association with the center.
At age 16, McQueen returned to live with his mother, who had moved to Greenwich Village in New York City. There he met two sailors from the Merchant Marine and decided to sign on to a ship bound for the Dominican Republic. Once there, he abandoned his new post, eventually being employed in a brothel. Later McQueen made his way to Texas and drifted from job to job, including selling pens at a traveling carnival, and working as a lumberjack in Canada. He was arrested for vagrancy in the Deep South and served a 30-day assignment on a chain gang.
Military service
In 1947, after receiving permission from his mother (since he was not yet 18 years old), McQueen enlisted in the United States Marine Corps. He was sent to Parris Island for boot camp. He was promoted to private first class and assigned to an armored unit. He initially struggled with conforming to the discipline of the service, and was demoted to private seven times. He took an unauthorized absence, going UA by failing to return after a weekend pass expired. He was caught by the shore patrol while staying with a girlfriend (Barbara Ross) for two weeks. After resisting arrest, he was sentenced to 41 days in the brig.
After this, McQueen resolved to focus his energies on self-improvement and embraced the Marines' discipline. He saved the lives of five other Marines during an Arctic exercise, pulling them from a tank before it broke through ice into the sea. He was assigned to the honor guard responsible for guarding the presidential yacht of US President Harry Truman. McQueen served until 1950, when he was honorably discharged. He later said he had enjoyed his time in the Marines. He remembered this period with the Marines as a formative time in his life, saying, "The Marines made a man out of me. I learned how to get along with others, and I had a platform to jump off of."
Acting
1950s
In 1952, with financial assistance under the G.I. Bill, McQueen began studying acting in New York at Sanford Meisner's Neighborhood Playhouse and at HB Studio under Uta Hagen. He reportedly delivered his first dialogue on a theatre stage in a 1952 play produced by Yiddish theatre star Molly Picon. McQueen's character spoke one brief line: "Alts iz farloyrn." ("All is lost."). During this time, he also studied acting with Stella Adler, in whose class he met Gia Scala.
Long enamored of cars and motorcycles, McQueen began to earn money by competing in weekend motorcycle races at Long Island City Raceway. He purchased the first two of many motorcycles, a Harley-Davidson and a Triumph. He soon became an excellent racer, winning about $100 each weekend(). He appeared as a musical judge in an episode of ABC's Jukebox Jury, which aired in the 1953–1954 season.
McQueen had minor roles in stage productions, including Peg o' My Heart, The Member of the Wedding, and Two Fingers of Pride. He made his Broadway debut in 1955 in the play A Hatful of Rain, starring Ben Gazzara.
In late 1955 at the age of 25, McQueen left New York and headed for Los Angeles, California, by then the center of the film industry. He moved into a house on Vestal Avenue in the Echo Park area, and sought acting jobs in Hollywood.
When McQueen appeared in a two-part Westinghouse Studio One television presentation entitled The Defenders, Hollywood manager Hilly Elkins took note of him and decided that B-movies would be a good place for the young actor to make his mark. McQueen's first role was a bit part in Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956), directed by Robert Wise and starring Paul Newman. McQueen was subsequently hired for the films Never Love a Stranger; The Blob (his first leading role, science fiction); and The Great St. Louis Bank Robbery (1959).
McQueen's first breakout role came on television. He appeared on Dale Robertson's NBC western series Tales of Wells Fargo as Bill Longley. Elkins, then McQueen's manager, successfully lobbied Vincent M. Fennelly, producer of the western series Trackdown, to have McQueen read for the part of bounty hunter Josh Randall. He first appeared in Season 1 Episode 21 of Trackdown in 1958. He appeared as Randall in that episode, cast opposite series lead Robert Culp, a former New York motorcycle racing buddy. McQueen appeared again on Trackdown in Episode 31 of the first season, in which he played twin brothers, one of whom was an outlaw sought by Culp's character, Hoby Gilman.
McQueen next filmed a pilot episode for what became the series titled Wanted: Dead or Alive, which aired on CBS in September 1958. This became his breakout role.
In interviews associated with the DVD release of Wanted, Robert Culp (of Trackdown) claims credit for bringing McQueen to Hollywood and landing him the part of Randall. He said he taught McQueen the "art of the fast-draw." He said that by the second day of filming, McQueen beat him at it. McQueen became a household name as a result of this series. Randall's special holster held a sawed-off .44–40 Winchester rifle nicknamed the "Mare's Leg" instead of the six-gun carried by the typical Western character, although the cartridges in the gunbelt were dummy .45–70, chosen because they "looked tougher." Coupled with the generally negative image of the bounty hunter (noted in the three-part DVD special on the background of the series), this added to the antihero image infused with mystery and detachment that made this show stand out from the typical TV Western. The 94 episodes that ran from 1958 until early 1961 kept McQueen steadily employed, and he became a fixture at the renowned Iverson Movie Ranch in Chatsworth, where much of the outdoor action for Wanted: Dead or Alive was shot.
At 29, McQueen got a significant break when Frank Sinatra removed Sammy Davis Jr. from the film Never So Few after Davis supposedly made some mildly negative remarks about Sinatra in a radio interview, and Davis's role went to McQueen. Sinatra saw something special in McQueen and ensured that the young actor got plenty of closeups in a role that earned McQueen favorable reviews. McQueen's character, Bill Ringa, was never more comfortable than when driving at high speed—in this case in a jeep—or handling a switchblade or a tommy gun.
After Never So Few, the film's director John Sturges cast McQueen in his next movie, promising to "give him the camera". The Magnificent Seven (1960), in which he played Vin Tanner and co-starred with Yul Brynner, Eli Wallach, Robert Vaughn, Charles Bronson, Horst Buchholz and James Coburn, became McQueen's first major hit and led to his withdrawal from Wanted: Dead or Alive. McQueen's focused portrayal of the taciturn second lead catapulted his career. His added touches in many of the shots (such as shaking a shotgun round before loading it, repeatedly checking his gun while in the background of a shot, and wiping his hat rim) annoyed costar Brynner, who protested that McQueen was trying to steal scenes. (In his autobiography, Eli Wallach reports struggling to conceal his amusement while watching the filming of the funeral-procession scene where Brynner's and McQueen's characters first meet: Brynner was furious at McQueen's shotgun-round-shake, which effectively diverted the viewer's attention to McQueen.) Brynner refused to draw his gun in the same scene with McQueen, not wanting his character outdrawn.
McQueen played the top-billed lead role in the next big Sturges film, 1963's The Great Escape, Hollywood's fictional depiction of the true story of a historic mass escape from a World War II POW camp, Stalag Luft III. Insurance concerns prevented McQueen from performing the film's notable motorcycle leap, which was done by his friend and fellow cycle enthusiast Bud Ekins, who resembled McQueen from a distance. When Johnny Carson later tried to congratulate McQueen for the jump during a broadcast of The Tonight Show, McQueen said, "It wasn't me. That was Bud Ekins." This film established McQueen's box-office clout and secured his status as a superstar.
Also in 1963, McQueen starred in Love with the Proper Stranger with Natalie Wood. He later appeared as the titular Nevada Smith, a character from Harold Robbins's novel The Carpetbaggers portrayed by Alan Ladd two years earlier in a movie version of that novel. Nevada Smith was an enormously successful Western action adventure prequel that also featured Karl Malden and Suzanne Pleshette. After starring in 1965's The Cincinnati Kid as a poker player, McQueen earned his only Academy Award nomination in 1966 for his role as an engine-room sailor in The Sand Pebbles, in which he starred opposite Candice Bergen and Richard Attenborough, whom he had previously worked with in The Great Escape.
He followed his Oscar nomination with 1968's Bullitt, one of his best-known films, and his personal favorite, which co-starred Jacqueline Bisset, Robert Vaughn and Don Gordon. It featured an unprecedented (and endlessly imitated) car chase through San Francisco. Although McQueen did do the driving that appeared in closeup, this was about 10% of what is seen in the film's car chase. The rest of the driving by McQueen's character was done by stunt drivers Bud Ekins and Loren Janes. The antagonist's black Dodge Charger was driven by veteran stunt driver Bill Hickman; McQueen, his stunt drivers and Hickman spent several days before the scene was shot practicing high-speed, close-quarters driving. Bullitt went so far over budget that Warner Brothers cancelled the contract on the rest of his films, seven in all.
When Bullitt became a huge box-office success, Warner Brothers tried to woo him back, but he refused, and his next film was made with an independent studio and released by United Artists. For this film, McQueen went for a change of image, playing a debonair role as a wealthy executive in The Thomas Crown Affair with Faye Dunaway in 1968. The following year, he made the southern period piece The Reivers.
1970s
In 1971, McQueen starred in the poorly received auto-racing drama Le Mans, followed by Junior Bonner in 1972, a story of an aging rodeo rider. He worked for director Sam Peckinpah again with the leading role in The Getaway, where he met future wife Ali MacGraw. He followed this with a physically demanding role as a Devil's Island prisoner in 1973's Papillon, featuring Dustin Hoffman as his character's tragic sidekick.
In 1973, The Rolling Stones referred to McQueen in the song "Star Star" from the album Goats Head Soup for which an amused McQueen reportedly gave personal permission. The lines were "Star f***er, star f***er, star f***er, star f***er star / Yes you are, yes you are, yes you are / Yeah, Ali MacGraw got mad with you / For givin' head to Steve McQueen".
By the time of The Getaway, McQueen was the world's highest-paid actor, but after 1974's The Towering Inferno, co-starring with his long-time professional rival Paul Newman and reuniting him with Dunaway, became a tremendous box-office success, McQueen all but disappeared from the public eye, to focus on motorcycle racing and traveling around the country in a motor home and on his vintage Indian motorcycles. He did not return to acting until 1978 with An Enemy of the People, playing against type as a bearded, bespectacled 19th-century doctor in this adaptation of a Henrik Ibsen play. The film was never properly released theatrically, but has appeared occasionally on PBS.
His last two films were loosely based on true stories: Tom Horn, a Western adventure about a former Army scout-turned professional gunman who worked for the big cattle ranchers hunting down rustlers, and later hanged for murder in the shooting death of a sheepherder, and The Hunter, an urban action movie about a modern-day bounty hunter, both released in 1980.
Missed roles
McQueen was offered the lead male role in Breakfast at Tiffany's, but was unable to accept due to his Wanted: Dead or Alive contract (the role went to George Peppard). He turned down parts in Ocean's 11, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (his attorneys and agents could not agree with Paul Newman's attorneys and agents on top billing), The Driver, Apocalypse Now, California Split, Dirty Harry, A Bridge Too Far, The French Connection (he did not want to do another cop film), and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
According to director John Frankenheimer and actor James Garner in bonus interviews for the DVD of the film Grand Prix, McQueen was Frankenheimer's first choice for the lead role of American Formula One race car driver Pete Aron. Frankenheimer was unable to meet with McQueen to offer him the role, so he sent Edward Lewis, his business partner and the producer of Grand Prix. McQueen and Lewis instantly clashed, the meeting was a disaster, and the role went to Garner.
Garner later for the interview said this:
Oh, McQueen. Crazy McQueen. McQueen and I get along pretty good, McQueen looked to me kind of like an older brother and he didn't want to have much with me, till he got into trouble, then he'd call and, you know, he knew, he could tell him just what I thought. A lot of people wouldn't do that. And then we had falling out. It wasn't falling out, as i did Grand Prix. Steve was originally slated to do that movie, but he couldn't get along with Frank Frankenheimer. So that lasted about 30 minutes, and I was in and Steve was out. And Steve went over to do Sand Pebbles, which went about year longer, than they wanted to go. Big production spent a lot of money and stayed in China too long there, in Taiwan. So, when I got the part in Grand Prix, I called him. In Taiwan. And I started: "Steve, I want to tell you, before somebody else, that I'm going to do Grand Prix." Well, there was about a 20 dollars' silence there (laugh), on the telephone. He didn't know, what to say, and finally said "Oh, that's great, that's great, I'm glad to hear that.", because he planned to do Le Mans, which was another title at the time. But we were about to release, before he even got to that film. But he said: "Great, great, well, I'm glad to hear it; that's good. You know, if anybody's gonna do it, I'm glad, you're going to do it."
He didn't talk to me for about year and half, and we were next-door neighbors (laugh). So, it got to him a little bit, finally by his son. Chad took him to go see Grand Prix. And from that time on, we were talking again. But Steve was a wild kid. He didn't know where he wanted to be or what he wanted to do.
Director Steven Spielberg said McQueen was his first choice for the character of Roy Neary in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. According to Spielberg, in a documentary on the Close Encounters DVD, Spielberg met him at a bar, where McQueen drank beer after beer. Before leaving, McQueen told Spielberg that he could not accept the role because he was unable to cry on cue. Spielberg offered to take the crying scene out of the story, but McQueen demurred, saying that it was the best scene in the script. The role eventually went to Richard Dreyfuss.
William Friedkin wanted to cast McQueen as the lead in the action/thriller film Sorcerer (1977). Sorcerer was to be filmed primarily on location in the Dominican Republic, but McQueen did not want to be separated from Ali MacGraw for the duration of the shoot. McQueen then asked Friedkin to let MacGraw act as a producer, so she could be present during principal photography. Friedkin would not agree to this condition, and cast Roy Scheider instead of McQueen. Friedkin later remarked that not casting McQueen hurt the film's performance at the box office.
Spy novelist Jeremy Duns revealed that McQueen was considered for the lead role in a film adaptation of The Diamond Smugglers, written by James Bond creator Ian Fleming; McQueen would play John Blaize, a secret agent gone undercover to infiltrate a diamond-smuggling ring in South Africa. There were complications with the project which was eventually shelved, although a 1964 screenplay does exist.
McQueen and Barbra Streisand were tentatively cast in The Gauntlet, but the two could not get along, and both withdrew from the project. The lead roles were filled by Clint Eastwood and Sondra Locke.
McQueen expressed interest in the Rambo character in First Blood when David Morrell's novel appeared in 1972, but the producers rejected him because of his age. He was offered the title role in The Bodyguard (to star Diana Ross) when it was proposed in 1976, but the film did not reach production until years after McQueen's death (which eventually starred Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston in 1992). Quigley Down Under was in development as early as 1974, with McQueen in consideration for the lead, but by the time production began in 1980, McQueen was ill and the project was scrapped until a decade later, when Tom Selleck starred.
McQueen was offered the lead in Raise the Titanic, but felt that the script was flat. He was under contract to Irwin Allen after appearing in The Towering Inferno and offered a part in a sequel in 1980, which he turned down. The film was scrapped and Newman was brought in by Allen to make When Time Ran Out, which was a box office bomb. McQueen died shortly after passing on The Towering Inferno 2.
Stunts, motor racing and flying
McQueen was an avid motorcycle and race car enthusiast. When he had the opportunity to drive in a movie, he performed many of his own stunts, including some of the car chases in Bullitt and the motorcycle chase in The Great Escape. Although the jump over the fence in The Great Escape was done by Bud Ekins for insurance purposes, McQueen did have considerable screen time riding his 650 cc Triumph TR6 Trophy motorcycle. It was difficult to find riders as skilled as McQueen. At one point, using editing, McQueen is seen in a German uniform chasing himself on another bike. Around half of the driving in Bullitt was performed by Loren Janes.
McQueen and John Sturges planned to make Day of the Champion, a movie about Formula One racing, but McQueen was busy with the delayed The Sand Pebbles. They had a contract with the German Nürburgring, and after John Frankenheimer shot scenes there for Grand Prix, the reels were turned over to Sturges. Frankenheimer was ahead in schedule, and the McQueen-Sturges project was called off.
McQueen considered being a professional race car driver. He had a one-off outing in the British Touring Car Championship in 1961, driving a BMC Mini at Brands Hatch, finishing third. In the 1970 12 Hours of Sebring race, Peter Revson and McQueen (driving with a cast on his left foot from a motorcycle accident two weeks earlier) won with a Porsche 908/02 in the three-litre class and missed winning overall by 21.1 seconds to Mario Andretti/Ignazio Giunti/Nino Vaccarella in a five-litre Ferrari 512S. This same Porsche 908 was entered by his production company Solar Productions as a camera car for Le Mans in the 1970 24 Hours of Le Mans later that year. McQueen wanted to drive a Porsche 917 with Jackie Stewart in that race, but the film backers threatened to pull their support if he did. Faced with the choice of driving for 24 hours in the race or driving for the entire summer making the film, McQueen opted for the latter.
McQueen competed in off-road motorcycle racing, frequently running a BSA Hornet and using alias Harvey Mushman. He was also set to co-drive in a Triumph 2500 PI for the British Leyland team in the 1970 London-Mexico rally, but had to turn it down due to movie commitments. His first off-road motorcycle was a Triumph 500 cc, purchased from Ekins. McQueen raced in many top off-road races on the West Coast, including the Baja 1000, the Mint 400, and the Elsinore Grand Prix.
In 1964, McQueen and Ekins were part of a four-rider (plus one reserve) first-ever official US team-entry into the Silver Vase category of the International Six Days Trial, an Enduro-type off-road motorcycling event held that year in Erfurt, East Germany. The "A" team arrived in England in late August to collect their mix of 649 cc and 490 cc twins from the Triumph factory before modifying them for off-road use. Initially let down with transport arrangements by a long-established English motorcycle dealer, Triumph dealer H&L Motors stepped-in to provide a suitable vehicle. On arrival in Germany, the team, with their English temporary manager, were surprised to find a Vase "B" team, comprising expat Americans living in Europe, had entered themselves privately to ride European-sourced machinery.
McQueen's ISDT competition number was 278, which was based on the trials starting order. Both teams crashed repeatedly. McQueen retired due to irreparable crash damage, and Ekins withdrew with a broken leg, both on day three (Wednesday). Only one member of the "B" team finished the six-day event. UK monthly magazine Motorcycle Sport commented: "Riding Triumph twins...[the team] rode everywhere with great dash, if not in admirable style, falling off frequently and obviously out for six days' sport without too many worries about who was going to win (they knew it would not be them)".
He was inducted in the Off-road Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1978. In 1971, McQueen's Solar Productions funded the classic motorcycle documentary On Any Sunday, in which McQueen is featured, along with racing legends Mert Lawwill and Malcolm Smith. The same year, he also appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated magazine riding a Husqvarna dirt bike.
McQueen designed a motorsports bucket seat, for which a patent was issued in 1971.
In a segment filmed for The Ed Sullivan Show, McQueen drove Sullivan around a desert area in a dune buggy at high speed. Afterward, Sullivan said, "That was a 'helluva' ride!"
By testimony of McQueen's son, Chad, Steve owned around 100 classic motorcycles, as well as around 100 exotics and vintage cars, including:
Porsche 917, Porsche 908, and Ferrari 512 race cars from the Le Mans film
Porsche 911S (used in the opening sequence of the Le Mans film)
1963 Ferrari 250 GT Berlinetta Lusso
1967 Ferrari 275GTB/4
1956 Jaguar XKSS (right-hand drive) (now on exhibit at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, California)
1958 Porsche 356 Speedster 1600 Super (black exterior, interior and top) (McQueen drove the car in numerous SCCA racing events) (now in property of his son Chad)
1968 Ford GT40 (Gulf liveried) (used in the Le Mans film)
1953 Siata 208s (McQueen replaced the Siata badges with Ferrari badges and called it his "little Ferrari")
1967 Mini Cooper-S (McQueen had the car customized by Lee Brown with changes including a single foglight, a wood dash, a recessed antenna and a custom brown paint job)
1951 Chevrolet Styline De Lux Convertible (used in The Hunter, McQueen bought the car in 1979 after filming ended)
1952 Chevrolet 3800 pickup camper conversion (McQueen used the truck for cross-country camping trips. It was the last car he rode in before his death)
1950 Hudson Commodore convertible
1952 Hudson Wasp 2-door sedan
1953 Hudson Hornet 4-door Sedan
1956 GMC Suburban
1958 GMC Pickup Truck (Reportedly one of McQueen's favorite cars, it is powered by a 336 Ci V8 which has been modified. The tag "MQ3188" is a reference to the ID number assigned to him when he was in reform school)
1931 Lincoln Club Sedan
1935 Chrysler Airflow Imperial Sedan
1969 Chevrolet Baja Hickey race truck (originally debuted at the 1968 Mexican 1000 Rally and was driven by Cliff Coleman, Johnny Diaz, Mickey Thompson and others during its racing career; said to be the first truck specifically constructed by GM for use in the Mexican 1000; McQueen bought it from General Motors in 1970)
In spite of numerous attempts, McQueen was never able to purchase the Ford Mustang GT 390 he drove in Bullitt, which featured a modified drivetrain that suited McQueen's driving style. One of the two Mustangs used in the film was badly damaged, judged beyond repair, and believed to have been scrapped until it surfaced in Mexico in 2017, while the other one, which McQueen attempted to purchase in 1977, is hidden from the public eye. At the 2018 North American International Auto Show the GT 390 was displayed, in its current non-restored condition, with the 2019 Ford Mustang "Bullitt".
McQueen also flew and owned, among other aircraft, a 1945 Stearman, tail number N3188, (his student number in reform school), a 1946 Piper J-3 Cub, and an award-winning 1931 Pitcairn PA-8 biplane, flown in the US Mail Service by famed World War I flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker. They were hangared at Santa Paula Airport an hour northwest of Hollywood, where he lived his final days.
Personal life
Relationships and friendships
While still attending Stella Adler's school in New York, McQueen dated Gia Scala.
On November 2, 1956, he married Filipino actress and dancer Neile Adams, with whom he had a daughter, Terry Leslie (June 5, 1959 – March 19, 1998) and a son, Chad (born December 28, 1960). McQueen and Adams divorced in 1972. In her autobiography, My Husband, My Friend, Adams stated that she had an abortion in 1971, when their marriage was on the rocks. One of McQueen's four grandchildren is actor Steven R. McQueen (who is best known for playing Jeremy Gilbert in The Vampire Diaries and Jimmy Borelli in Chicago Fire).
Mamie Van Doren claimed to have had an affair with McQueen and tried hallucinogens with him around 1959. Actress-model Lauren Hutton also said that she had an affair with McQueen in the early 1960s. In 1971–1972, while separated from Adams, McQueen had a relationship with Junior Bonner co-star Barbara Leigh, which included her pregnancy and an abortion.
In Cheyenne, Wyoming, in 1973, McQueen married actress Ali MacGraw, his co-star in The Getaway, but this marriage ended in a divorce in 1978. MacGraw suffered a miscarriage during their marriage. Some friends later claimed that MacGraw was the one true love of McQueen's life: "He was madly in love with her until the day he died."
On January 16, 1980, less than a year before his death, McQueen married model Barbara Minty. Barbara Minty, in her book Steve McQueen: The Last Mile, wrote of McQueen becoming an Evangelical Christian toward the end of his life. This was due in part to the influences of his flying instructor, Sammy Mason, Mason's son Pete, and Barbara herself. McQueen attended his local church, Ventura Missionary Church, and was visited by evangelist Billy Graham shortly before his death.
In 1973 McQueen was one of the pallbearers at the funeral of Bruce Lee along with James Coburn, Bruce's brother Robert Lee, Peter Chin, Dan Inosanto, and Taky Kimura.
After discovering a mutual interest in racing, McQueen and Great Escape co-star James Garner became good friends and lived near each other. McQueen recalled:
I could see that Jim was neat around his place. Flowers trimmed, no papers in the yard... grass always cut. So to piss him off, I'd start lobbing empty beer cans down the hill into his driveway. He'd have his drive all spick 'n' span when he left the house, then get home to find all these empty cans. Took him a long time to figure out it was me.
Lifestyle
McQueen followed a daily two-hour exercise regimen, involving weightlifting and, at one point, running , seven days a week. McQueen learned the martial art Tang Soo Do from ninth-degree black belt Pat E. Johnson.
According to photographer William Claxton, McQueen smoked marijuana almost every day; biographer Marc Eliot stated that McQueen used a large amount of cocaine in the early 1970s. He was also a heavy cigarette smoker. McQueen sometimes drank to excess; he was arrested for driving while intoxicated in Anchorage, Alaska, in 1972.
Manson connection
Two months after Charles Manson incited the murder of five people, including McQueen's friends Sharon Tate and Jay Sebring, the media reported police had found a hit list with McQueen's name on it. According to his first wife, McQueen began carrying a handgun at all times in public, including at Sebring's funeral.
Charitable causes
McQueen had an unusual reputation for demanding free items in bulk from studios when agreeing to do a film, such as electric razors, jeans, and other items. It was later discovered McQueen donated these things to the Boys Republic reformatory school, where he had spent time during his teen years. McQueen made occasional visits to the school to spend time with the students, often to play pool and speak about his experiences.
Illness and death
McQueen developed a persistent cough in 1978. He gave up cigarettes and underwent antibiotic treatments without improvement. His shortness of breath grew more pronounced, and on December 22, 1979, after filming The Hunter, a biopsy revealed pleural mesothelioma, a cancer associated with asbestos exposure for which there is no known cure.
A few months later, McQueen gave a medical interview in which he blamed his condition on asbestos exposure. McQueen believed that asbestos used in movie sound stage insulation and race-drivers' protective suits and helmets could have been involved, but he thought it more likely that his illness was a direct result of massive exposure while removing asbestos lagging (insulation) from pipes aboard a troop ship while he was in the Marines.
By February 1980, evidence of widespread metastasis was found. He tried to keep the condition a secret, but on March 11, 1980, the National Enquirer disclosed that he had "terminal cancer". In July 1980, McQueen traveled to Rosarito Beach, Mexico, for unconventional treatment after U.S. doctors told him they could do nothing to prolong his life. Controversy arose over the trip because McQueen sought treatment from William Donald Kelley, who was promoting a variation of the Gerson therapy that used coffee enemas, frequent washing with shampoos, daily injections of fluid containing live cells from cattle and sheep, massages, and laetrile, a reputed anti-cancer drug available in Mexico, but long known to be both toxic and ineffective at treating cancer. McQueen paid for Kelley's treatments by himself in cash payments which were said to have been upwards of $40,000 per month ($ today) during his three-month stay in Mexico. Kelley's only medical license (until revoked in 1976) had been for orthodontics. Kelley's methods caused a sensation in the traditional and tabloid press when it became known that McQueen was a patient.
McQueen returned to the U.S. in early October. Despite metastasis of the cancer throughout McQueen's body, Kelley publicly announced that McQueen would be completely cured and return to normal life. McQueen's condition soon worsened and huge tumors developed in his abdomen.
In late October 1980, McQueen flew to Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico, to have an abdominal tumor on his liver (weighing around ) removed, despite warnings from his U.S. doctors that the tumor was inoperable and his heart could not withstand the surgery. Using the name "Samuel Sheppard", McQueen checked into a small Juárez clinic where the doctors and staff were unaware of his actual identity.
On November 7, 1980, McQueen died of a heart attack at 3:45 a.m. at a Juárez hospital, 12 hours after surgery to remove or reduce numerous metastatic tumors in his neck and abdomen. He was 50 years old. According to the El Paso Times, McQueen died in his sleep.
Leonard DeWitt of the Ventura Missionary Church presided over McQueen's memorial service. McQueen was cremated and his ashes were spread in the Pacific Ocean.
Legacy
In 2007, Forbes said McQueen remained a popular star and still the "king of cool", even 27 years after his death, and was one of the highest-earning dead celebrities. A rights-management agency head credited Branded Entertainment Network (called Corbis at the time) with maximizing the profitability of his estate by limiting the licensing of McQueen's image, avoiding the commercial saturation of other dead celebrities' estates. As of 2007, McQueen's estate entered the top 10 of highest-earning dead celebrities.
McQueen was inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers in April 2007 in a ceremony at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.
In November 1999, McQueen was inducted into the Motorcycle Hall of Fame. He was credited with contributions including financing the film On Any Sunday, supporting a team of off-road riders, and enhancing the public image of motorcycling overall.
A film based on unfinished storyboards and notes developed by McQueen before his death was slated for production by McG's production company Wonderland Sound and Vision. Yucatán is described as an "epic adventure heist" film, scheduled for release in 2013 but still unreleased in February 2016. Team Downey, the production company of Robert Downey, Jr. and his wife Susan Downey, expressed an interest in developing Yucatán for the screen.
The Beech Grove, Indiana, Public Library formally dedicated the Steve McQueen Birthplace Collection on March 16, 2010, to commemorate the 80th anniversary of McQueen's birth on March 24, 1930.
In 2012, McQueen was posthumously honored with the Warren Zevon Tribute Award by the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO).
Steve McQueen: The Man & Le Mans, a 2015 documentary, examines the actor's quest to create and star in the 1971 auto-racing film Le Mans. His son Chad McQueen and former wife Neile Adams are among those interviewed.
On September 28, 2017, there was a selected showing in some theaters of his life story and spiritual quest, Steve McQueen – American Icon. There was an encore presentation on October 10, 2017. The film received mostly positive reviews. Kenneth R. Morefield of Christianity Today said it "offers a timeless reminder that even those among us living the most celebrated lives often long for the peace and sense of purpose that only God can provide". Michael Foust of Wordslingers called it "one of the most powerful and inspiring documentaries I've ever seen."
In the 2019 Quentin Tarantino film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, McQueen is portrayed by Damian Lewis.
Archive
The Academy Film Archive houses the Steve McQueen-Neile Adams Collection, which consists of personal prints and home movies. The archive has preserved several of McQueen's home movies.
Ford commercials
In 1998, director Paul Street created a commercial for the Ford Puma. Footage was shot in modern-day San Francisco, set to the theme music from Bullitt. Archive footage of McQueen was used to digitally superimpose him driving and exiting the car in settings reminiscent of the film. The Puma shares the same number plate of the classic fastback Mustang used in Bullitt, and as he parks in the garage (next to the Mustang), he pauses and looks meaningfully at a motorcycle tucked in the corner, similar to that used in The Great Escape.
In 2005, Ford used his likeness again, in a commercial for the 2005 Mustang. In the commercial, a farmer builds a winding racetrack, which he circles in the 2005 Mustang. Out of the cornfield comes McQueen. The farmer tosses his keys to McQueen, who drives off in the new Mustang. McQueen's likeness was created using a body double (Dan Holsten) and digital editing. Ford secured the rights to McQueen's likeness from the actor's estate licensing agent for an undisclosed sum.
At the Detroit Auto Show in January 2018, Ford unveiled the new 2019 Mustang Bullitt. The company called on McQueen's granddaughter, actress Molly McQueen, to make the announcement. After a brief rundown of the tribute car's particulars, a short film was shown in which Molly was introduced to the actual Bullitt Mustang, a 1968 Mustang Fastback with a 390 cubic-inch engine and a four-speed manual gearbox. That car has been in possession of the same family since 1974 and hidden away from the public until now, when it was driven out from under the press stand and up the center aisle of Ford's booth to much fanfare.
Memorabilia
The blue-tinted sunglasses (Persol 714) worn by McQueen in the 1968 movie The Thomas Crown Affair sold at a Bonhams & Butterfields auction in Los Angeles for $70,200 in 2006. One of his motorcycles, a 1937 Crocker, sold for a world-record price of $276,500 at the same auction. McQueen's 1963 metallic-brown Ferrari 250 GT Lusso Berlinetta sold for US$2.31 million at auction on August 16, 2007. Except for three motorcycles sold with other memorabilia in 2006, most of McQueen's collection of 130 motorcycles was sold four years after his death. The 1970 Porsche 911S purchased while making the film Le Mans and appearing in the opening sequence was sold at auction in August 2011 for $1.375 million. From 1995 to 2011, McQueen's red 1957 fuel-injected Chevrolet convertible was displayed at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles in a special Cars of Steve McQueen exhibit. It is now in the collection of actress Ruth Buzzi and her husband Kent Perkins. McQueen's British racing green 1956 Jaguar XKSS is also located in the Petersen Automotive Museum and is in drivable condition, having been driven by Jay Leno in an episode of Jay Leno's Garage. In August 2019, Mecum Auctions announced it would auction the Bullitt Mustang Hero Car at its Kissimmee auction, held January 2–12, 2020. The car sold without reserve for $3.4 million ($3.74 million after commissions and fees).
Watch collection
The Rolex Explorer II, Reference 1655, known as Rolex Steve McQueen in the horology collectors' world, the Rolex Submariner, Reference 5512, which McQueen was often photographed wearing in private moments, sold for $234,000 at auction on June 11, 2009, a world-record price for the type. McQueen was left-handed and wore the watch on his right wrist.
McQueen was a sponsored ambassador for Heuer watches. In the 1970 film Le Mans, he famously wore a blue-faced Monaco Ref. 1133, which led to its cult status among watch collectors, purchasing six watches of the same model for the shoot of the film. On December 12, 2020, one of the last six models sold and one of two held in private hands was sold for a record US$2.208 million at a Phillips auction in New York, becoming the most expensive Heuer watch sold at auction. Tag Heuer continues to promote its Monaco range with McQueen's image.
In June 2018, Phillips announced McQueen's Rolex Submariner to hit the auction block in September that year. However, there was controversy whether or not the watch was his personal watch worn by McQueen himself or if the watch was bought, engraved, then gifted. Phillips later removed the watch from the auction block.
Among McQueen's other watches was a Hanhart 417 chronograph.
Filmography
Awards and honors
Academy Awards
(1967) Nominated – Best Actor in a Leading Role in The Sand Pebbles
Golden Globe Awards
(1964) Nominated – Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama in Love with the Proper Stranger
(1967) Nominated – Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama in The Sand Pebbles
(1970) Nominated – Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy in The Reivers
(1974) Nominated – Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama in Papillon
Moscow International Film Festival
(1963) – Won – Best Actor in The Great Escape
Quotes
"Racing is life. Anything before or after is just waiting."
"I'm not sure whether I'm an actor who races or racer, who acts."
"I'm not that interesting of a person."
"I live for myself and answer to nobody."
"When I believe in something, I fight like hell for it."
"I need to have a reason why I'm doing something. Otherwise, I'm lost."
References
Bibliography
Terrill, Marshall (2020). Steve McQueen: In His Own Words. Deerfield, IL: Dalton Watson. .
Further reading
Beaver, Jim. Steve McQueen. Films in Review, August–September 1981.
Satchell, Tim. McQueen. (Sidgwick and Jackson Limited, 1981)
Siegel, Mike. Steve McQueen: The Actor and his Films (Dalton Watson, 2011)
Nolan, William F. McQueen (Congdon & Weed, 1984)
Terrill, Marshall. Steve McQueen: Portrait of an American Rebel, (Donald I. Fine, 1993)
Terrill, Marshall. Steve McQueen: The Last Mile', (Dalton Watson, 2006)
Terrill, Marshall. Steve McQueen: A Tribute to the King of Cool, (Dalton Watson, 2010)
Terrill, Marshall. Steve McQueen: The Life and Legacy of a Hollywood Icon'', (Triumph Books, 2010)
Terrill, Marshall. Steve McQueen: In His Own Words, (Dalton Watson, 2020)
External links
Steve McQueen: In His Own Words by Marshall Terrill
Steve McQueen at Virtual History
Bell System Film "A Family Affair", McQueen's debut, at The AT&T Tech Channel
The Great Escape – New publication with private photos of the shooting & documents of 2nd unit cameraman Walter Riml
Photos of the filming The Great Escape, Steve McQueen on the set
Photos and commentary on Steve McQueen shooting an episode of Wanted: Dead or Alive on the Iverson Movie Ranch
1930 births
1980 deaths
20th-century American male actors
American male film actors
American male television actors
American motorcycle racers
American people of Scottish descent
American sailors
American tang soo do practitioners
British Touring Car Championship drivers
California Republicans
Converts to Christianity
Deaths from cancer in Mexico
Deaths from mesothelioma
Enduro riders
Former Roman Catholics
Male actors from Indiana
Male actors from Indianapolis
Male actors from Los Angeles
Male actors from Missouri
Male Western (genre) film actors
Military personnel from Indiana
Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre alumni
Off-road motorcycle racers
Off-road racing drivers
People from Beech Grove, Indiana
People from Echo Park, Los Angeles
People from Saline County, Missouri
Racing drivers from California
Racing drivers from Indiana
Racing drivers from Missouri
United States Marines
United States Merchant Mariners
United States Merchant Mariners of World War II
Western (genre) television actors
World record setters in motorcycling
World Sportscar Championship drivers | true | [
"Elections to West Lindsey District Council were held on 3 May 2007. One third of the council was up for election and the Liberal Democrat Party held overall control of the council after what was seen as a straight fight with the Conservative Party.\n\nThe election in Scotter ward was decided by the toss of a coin which the Conservative candidate won.\n\nAfter the election, the composition of the council was:\n Liberal Democrat 20\n Conservative 16\n Independent 1\n\nElection result\n\nOne Independent candidate was unopposed.\n\nWard results\n\nReferences\n\n 2007 West Lindsey election result\n Ward results\n\n2007\n2007 English local elections\n2000s in Lincolnshire",
"The St. Charles Borromeo Cathedral () Also Chillán Cathedral Is a temple of the Catholic Church, home of the Diocese of Chillán located in the center of the city of Chillán, Chile in front of the Plaza de Armas, in the corner of streets Arauco and Libertad. It is also a symbol and icon of the city, as a result of the city's progress after the Chillan earthquake of 1939. It was declared a National Monument in December 2014.\n\nThe first cathedral of the city of Chillán was established in what today is known as Old Chillán, but this one was destroyed after the earthquake that affected the zone in 1835. As a result, the city was devastated and was transferred and reconstructed in Its current location. The cathedral at that time was made of lime and brick.\n\nAfter the Chillán earthquake of 1939, the cathedral was completely destroyed again, beginning that same year the reconstructions that culminated in 1950. In this new reconstruction, the architect Hernán Larraín Errázuriz was based on ideas of modernism. The figure of the 10 arches represent the prayer and the sign that is made with the hands at the moment of praying intercalando the fingers of the hands and closing them of oval form.\n\nSee also\nRoman Catholicism in Chile\nSt. Charles Borromeo\n\nReferences\n\nRoman Catholic cathedrals in Chile\nRoman Catholic churches completed in 1950\nDiguillín Province\n20th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in Chile\nModernist architecture in Chile\nRebuilt buildings and structures in Chile"
] |
[
"Steve McQueen",
"Ford commercials",
"What is McQueen's connection to Ford?",
"In 1998 director Paul Street created a commercial for the Ford Puma.",
"What was the result of this?",
"Footage was shot in modern-day San Francisco, set to the theme music from Bullitt."
] | C_379fd5e840b549b58c8da5d20795bf1c_1 | Did he do any other commercials? | 3 | Did Steve McQueen do any other commercials besides the one for the Ford Puma? | Steve McQueen | In 1952, with financial assistance provided by the G.I. Bill, McQueen began studying acting in New York at Sanford Meisner's Neighborhood Playhouse. Reportedly, he delivered his first dialogue on a theatre stage in a 1952 play produced by Yiddish theatre star Molly Picon. McQueen's character spoke one brief line: "Alts iz farloyrn." ("All is lost."). During this time, he also studied acting with Stella Adler in whose class he met Gia Scala. McQueen began to earn money by competing in weekend motorcycle races at Long Island City Raceway and purchased the first of many motorcycles, a Harley-Davidson and Triumph. He soon became an excellent racer, and went home each weekend with about $100 in winnings (equivalent to $900 in 2017). He appeared as a musical judge in an episode of ABC's Jukebox Jury, that aired in the 1953-1954 season. McQueen had minor roles in productions including Peg o' My Heart, The Member of the Wedding, and Two Fingers of Pride. He made his Broadway debut in 1955 in the play A Hatful of Rain, starring Ben Gazzara. In late 1955, at the age of 25, McQueen left New York and headed for California, where he moved into a house on Vestal Avenue in the Echo Park area, seeking acting jobs in Hollywood. When McQueen appeared in a two-part television Westinghouse Studio One presentation entitled The Defenders, Hollywood manager Hilly Elkins (who managed McQueen's first wife, Neile) took note of him and decided that B-movies would be a good place for the young actor to make his mark. He landed his first film role in a bit part in Somebody Up There Likes Me, directed by Robert Wise and starring Paul Newman. McQueen was subsequently hired for the films Never Love a Stranger, The Blob (his first leading role) which depicts a flesh eating amoeba-like space creature, and The Great St. Louis Bank Robbery. McQueen's first breakout role came on television. He appeared on Dale Robertson's NBC western series, Tales of Wells Fargo. Elkins, then McQueen's manager, successfully lobbied Vincent M. Fennelly, producer of the western series Trackdown, to have McQueen read for the part of bounty hunter Josh Randall in a Trackdown episode. McQueen appeared as Randall in the episode, cast opposite series lead and old New York motorcycle racing buddy Robert Culp. McQueen then filmed the pilot episode, which became the series titled Wanted: Dead or Alive, which aired on CBS in September 1958. In 1971 McQueen starred in the poorly received auto-racing drama Le Mans. Then came Junior Bonner in 1972, a story of an aging rodeo rider. He worked for director Sam Peckinpah again with the leading role in The Getaway, where he met future wife Ali MacGraw. He followed this with a physically demanding role as a Devil's Island prisoner in 1973's Papillon, featuring Dustin Hoffman as his character's tragic sidekick. In 1973 The Rolling Stones referred to McQueen in the song "Star Star" from the album Goats Head Soup for which an amused McQueen reportedly gave personal permission. The lines were "Star ######, star ######, star ######, star ###### star/ Yes you are, yes you are, yes you are/Yeah, Ali MacGraw got mad with you/For givin' head to Steve McQueen". By the time of The Getaway, McQueen was the world's highest-paid actor, but after 1974's The Towering Inferno, co-starring with his long-time professional rival Paul Newman and reuniting him with Dunaway, became a tremendous box-office success, McQueen all but disappeared from the public eye, to focus on motorcycle racing and traveling around the country in a motor home and on his vintage Indian motorcycles. He did not return to acting until 1978 with An Enemy of the People, playing against type as a bearded, bespectacled 19th-century doctor in this adaptation of a Henrik Ibsen play. The film was never properly released theatrically. His last two films were loosely based on true stories: Tom Horn, a Western adventure about a former Army scout-turned professional gunman who worked for the big cattle ranchers hunting down rustlers, and later hanged for murder in the shooting death of a sheepherder, and The Hunter, an urban action movie about a modern-day bounty hunter, both released in 1980. In 1998 director Paul Street created a commercial for the Ford Puma. Footage was shot in modern-day San Francisco, set to the theme music from Bullitt. Archive footage of McQueen was used to digitally superimpose him driving and exiting the car in settings reminiscent of the film. The Puma shares the same number plate of the classic fastback Mustang used in Bullitt, and as he parks in the garage (next to the Mustang), he pauses and looks meaningfully at a motorcycle tucked in the corner, similar to that used in The Great Escape. In 2005, Ford used his likeness again, in a commercial for the 2005 Mustang. In the commercial, a farmer builds a winding racetrack, which he circles in the 2005 Mustang. Out of the cornfield comes Steve McQueen. The farmer tosses his keys to McQueen, who drives off in the new Mustang. McQueen's likeness was created using a body double (Dan Holsten) and digital editing. Ford secured the rights to McQueen's likeness from the actor's estate licensing agent, GreenLight, for an undisclosed sum. At the Detroit Auto Show in January 2018, Ford unveiled the new 2019 Mustang Bullitt. The company called on McQueen's granddaughter, actress Molly McQueen, to make the announcement. After a brief rundown of the tribute car's particulars, a short film was shown in which Molly was introduced to the actual Bullitt Mustang, a 1968 Mustang Fastback with a 390 cubic-inch engine and a four-speed manual gearbox. That car has been in possession of the same family since 1974 and hidden away from the public until now, when it was driven out from under the press stand and up the center aisle of Ford's booth to much fanfare. CANNOTANSWER | In 2005, Ford used his likeness again, | Terrence Stephen McQueen (March 24, 1930November 7, 1980) was an American actor. His antihero persona, emphasized during the height of the counterculture of the 1960s, made him a top box-office draw for his films of the late 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. He was nicknamed the "King of Cool" and used the alias Harvey Mushman in motor races.
McQueen received an Academy Award nomination for his role in The Sand Pebbles (1966). His other popular films include Love With the Proper Stranger (1963), The Cincinnati Kid (1965), Nevada Smith (1966), The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), Bullitt (1968), Le Mans (1971), The Getaway (1972), and Papillon (1973). In addition, he starred in the all-star ensemble films The Magnificent Seven (1960), The Great Escape (1963), and The Towering Inferno (1974).
In 1974, McQueen became the highest-paid movie star in the world, although he did not act in film for another four years. He was combative with directors and producers, but his popularity placed him in high demand and enabled him to command the largest salaries.
Early life
Terrence Stephen McQueen was born to a single mother on March 24, 1930, at St. Francis Hospital in Beech Grove, Indiana, a suburb of Indianapolis. McQueen, of Scottish descent, was raised a Roman Catholic. His parents never married. McQueen's father, William McQueen, a stunt pilot for a barnstorming flying circus, left his mother, Julia Ann (a.k.a. Julianne) Crawford, six months after meeting her. Several biographers have stated that his mother Julia Ann was an alcoholic. Unable to cope with caring for a small child, she left the boy with her parents (Victor and Lillian) in Slater, Missouri, in 1933. As the Great Depression set in shortly thereafter, McQueen and his grandparents moved in with Lillian's brother Claude and his family at their farm in Slater. McQueen later said that he had good memories of living on the farm, noting that his great-uncle Claude "was a very good man, very strong, very fair. I learned a lot from him."
Claude gave McQueen a red tricycle on his fourth birthday, a gift that McQueen subsequently credited with sparking his early interest in car racing. McQueen's mother married and when the boy was eight, she brought him from the farm to live with her and her new husband in Indianapolis. His great-uncle Claude gave McQueen a special gift at his departure. "The day I left the farm", he recalled, "Uncle Claude gave me a personal going-away present—a gold pocket watch, with an inscription inside the case." The inscription read "To Steve – who has been a son to me."
Dyslexic and partially deaf due to a childhood ear infection, McQueen did not adjust well to school or his new life. His stepfather beat him to such an extent that at the age of nine he left home to live on the streets. He later recalled "When a kid doesn't have any love when he's small, he begins to wonder if he's good enough. My mother didn't love me, and I didn't have a father. I thought, 'Well, I must not be very good.'" Soon he was running with a street gang and committing acts of petty crime. Unable to control his behavior, his mother sent him back to her grandparents and great-uncle in Slater.
When McQueen was 12, Julia wrote to her uncle Claude, asking that her son be returned to her again to live in Los Angeles, California, where she lived with her second husband. By McQueen's own account, he and his new stepfather "locked horns immediately". McQueen recalls him being "a prime son of a bitch" who was not averse to using his fists on McQueen and his mother. As McQueen began to rebel again, he was sent back to live with Claude for a final time. At age 14, he left Claude's farm without saying goodbye and joined a circus for a short time. He drifted back to his mother and stepfather in Los Angeles—resuming his life as a gang member and petty criminal. McQueen was caught stealing hubcaps by the police and handed over to his stepfather, who beat him severely. He threw the youth down a flight of stairs. McQueen looked up at his stepfather and said, "You lay your stinking hands on me again and I swear, I'll kill you."
After this incident, McQueen's stepfather persuaded his mother to sign a court order stating that McQueen was incorrigible, remanding him to the California Junior Boys Republic in Chino. Here, McQueen began to change and mature. He was not popular with the other boys at first:
"Say the boys had a chance once a month to load into a bus and go into town to see a movie. And they lost out because one guy in the bungalow didn't get his work done right. Well, you can pretty well guess they're gonna have something to say about that. I paid my dues with the other fellows quite a few times. I got my lumps, no doubt about it. The other guys in the bungalow had ways of paying you back for interfering with their well-being."
McQueen gradually became a role model and was elected to the Boys Council, a group who set the rules and regulations governing the boys' lives. He left the Boys Republic at age 16. When he later became famous as an actor, he regularly returned to talk to resident boys and retained a lifelong association with the center.
At age 16, McQueen returned to live with his mother, who had moved to Greenwich Village in New York City. There he met two sailors from the Merchant Marine and decided to sign on to a ship bound for the Dominican Republic. Once there, he abandoned his new post, eventually being employed in a brothel. Later McQueen made his way to Texas and drifted from job to job, including selling pens at a traveling carnival, and working as a lumberjack in Canada. He was arrested for vagrancy in the Deep South and served a 30-day assignment on a chain gang.
Military service
In 1947, after receiving permission from his mother (since he was not yet 18 years old), McQueen enlisted in the United States Marine Corps. He was sent to Parris Island for boot camp. He was promoted to private first class and assigned to an armored unit. He initially struggled with conforming to the discipline of the service, and was demoted to private seven times. He took an unauthorized absence, going UA by failing to return after a weekend pass expired. He was caught by the shore patrol while staying with a girlfriend (Barbara Ross) for two weeks. After resisting arrest, he was sentenced to 41 days in the brig.
After this, McQueen resolved to focus his energies on self-improvement and embraced the Marines' discipline. He saved the lives of five other Marines during an Arctic exercise, pulling them from a tank before it broke through ice into the sea. He was assigned to the honor guard responsible for guarding the presidential yacht of US President Harry Truman. McQueen served until 1950, when he was honorably discharged. He later said he had enjoyed his time in the Marines. He remembered this period with the Marines as a formative time in his life, saying, "The Marines made a man out of me. I learned how to get along with others, and I had a platform to jump off of."
Acting
1950s
In 1952, with financial assistance under the G.I. Bill, McQueen began studying acting in New York at Sanford Meisner's Neighborhood Playhouse and at HB Studio under Uta Hagen. He reportedly delivered his first dialogue on a theatre stage in a 1952 play produced by Yiddish theatre star Molly Picon. McQueen's character spoke one brief line: "Alts iz farloyrn." ("All is lost."). During this time, he also studied acting with Stella Adler, in whose class he met Gia Scala.
Long enamored of cars and motorcycles, McQueen began to earn money by competing in weekend motorcycle races at Long Island City Raceway. He purchased the first two of many motorcycles, a Harley-Davidson and a Triumph. He soon became an excellent racer, winning about $100 each weekend(). He appeared as a musical judge in an episode of ABC's Jukebox Jury, which aired in the 1953–1954 season.
McQueen had minor roles in stage productions, including Peg o' My Heart, The Member of the Wedding, and Two Fingers of Pride. He made his Broadway debut in 1955 in the play A Hatful of Rain, starring Ben Gazzara.
In late 1955 at the age of 25, McQueen left New York and headed for Los Angeles, California, by then the center of the film industry. He moved into a house on Vestal Avenue in the Echo Park area, and sought acting jobs in Hollywood.
When McQueen appeared in a two-part Westinghouse Studio One television presentation entitled The Defenders, Hollywood manager Hilly Elkins took note of him and decided that B-movies would be a good place for the young actor to make his mark. McQueen's first role was a bit part in Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956), directed by Robert Wise and starring Paul Newman. McQueen was subsequently hired for the films Never Love a Stranger; The Blob (his first leading role, science fiction); and The Great St. Louis Bank Robbery (1959).
McQueen's first breakout role came on television. He appeared on Dale Robertson's NBC western series Tales of Wells Fargo as Bill Longley. Elkins, then McQueen's manager, successfully lobbied Vincent M. Fennelly, producer of the western series Trackdown, to have McQueen read for the part of bounty hunter Josh Randall. He first appeared in Season 1 Episode 21 of Trackdown in 1958. He appeared as Randall in that episode, cast opposite series lead Robert Culp, a former New York motorcycle racing buddy. McQueen appeared again on Trackdown in Episode 31 of the first season, in which he played twin brothers, one of whom was an outlaw sought by Culp's character, Hoby Gilman.
McQueen next filmed a pilot episode for what became the series titled Wanted: Dead or Alive, which aired on CBS in September 1958. This became his breakout role.
In interviews associated with the DVD release of Wanted, Robert Culp (of Trackdown) claims credit for bringing McQueen to Hollywood and landing him the part of Randall. He said he taught McQueen the "art of the fast-draw." He said that by the second day of filming, McQueen beat him at it. McQueen became a household name as a result of this series. Randall's special holster held a sawed-off .44–40 Winchester rifle nicknamed the "Mare's Leg" instead of the six-gun carried by the typical Western character, although the cartridges in the gunbelt were dummy .45–70, chosen because they "looked tougher." Coupled with the generally negative image of the bounty hunter (noted in the three-part DVD special on the background of the series), this added to the antihero image infused with mystery and detachment that made this show stand out from the typical TV Western. The 94 episodes that ran from 1958 until early 1961 kept McQueen steadily employed, and he became a fixture at the renowned Iverson Movie Ranch in Chatsworth, where much of the outdoor action for Wanted: Dead or Alive was shot.
At 29, McQueen got a significant break when Frank Sinatra removed Sammy Davis Jr. from the film Never So Few after Davis supposedly made some mildly negative remarks about Sinatra in a radio interview, and Davis's role went to McQueen. Sinatra saw something special in McQueen and ensured that the young actor got plenty of closeups in a role that earned McQueen favorable reviews. McQueen's character, Bill Ringa, was never more comfortable than when driving at high speed—in this case in a jeep—or handling a switchblade or a tommy gun.
After Never So Few, the film's director John Sturges cast McQueen in his next movie, promising to "give him the camera". The Magnificent Seven (1960), in which he played Vin Tanner and co-starred with Yul Brynner, Eli Wallach, Robert Vaughn, Charles Bronson, Horst Buchholz and James Coburn, became McQueen's first major hit and led to his withdrawal from Wanted: Dead or Alive. McQueen's focused portrayal of the taciturn second lead catapulted his career. His added touches in many of the shots (such as shaking a shotgun round before loading it, repeatedly checking his gun while in the background of a shot, and wiping his hat rim) annoyed costar Brynner, who protested that McQueen was trying to steal scenes. (In his autobiography, Eli Wallach reports struggling to conceal his amusement while watching the filming of the funeral-procession scene where Brynner's and McQueen's characters first meet: Brynner was furious at McQueen's shotgun-round-shake, which effectively diverted the viewer's attention to McQueen.) Brynner refused to draw his gun in the same scene with McQueen, not wanting his character outdrawn.
McQueen played the top-billed lead role in the next big Sturges film, 1963's The Great Escape, Hollywood's fictional depiction of the true story of a historic mass escape from a World War II POW camp, Stalag Luft III. Insurance concerns prevented McQueen from performing the film's notable motorcycle leap, which was done by his friend and fellow cycle enthusiast Bud Ekins, who resembled McQueen from a distance. When Johnny Carson later tried to congratulate McQueen for the jump during a broadcast of The Tonight Show, McQueen said, "It wasn't me. That was Bud Ekins." This film established McQueen's box-office clout and secured his status as a superstar.
Also in 1963, McQueen starred in Love with the Proper Stranger with Natalie Wood. He later appeared as the titular Nevada Smith, a character from Harold Robbins's novel The Carpetbaggers portrayed by Alan Ladd two years earlier in a movie version of that novel. Nevada Smith was an enormously successful Western action adventure prequel that also featured Karl Malden and Suzanne Pleshette. After starring in 1965's The Cincinnati Kid as a poker player, McQueen earned his only Academy Award nomination in 1966 for his role as an engine-room sailor in The Sand Pebbles, in which he starred opposite Candice Bergen and Richard Attenborough, whom he had previously worked with in The Great Escape.
He followed his Oscar nomination with 1968's Bullitt, one of his best-known films, and his personal favorite, which co-starred Jacqueline Bisset, Robert Vaughn and Don Gordon. It featured an unprecedented (and endlessly imitated) car chase through San Francisco. Although McQueen did do the driving that appeared in closeup, this was about 10% of what is seen in the film's car chase. The rest of the driving by McQueen's character was done by stunt drivers Bud Ekins and Loren Janes. The antagonist's black Dodge Charger was driven by veteran stunt driver Bill Hickman; McQueen, his stunt drivers and Hickman spent several days before the scene was shot practicing high-speed, close-quarters driving. Bullitt went so far over budget that Warner Brothers cancelled the contract on the rest of his films, seven in all.
When Bullitt became a huge box-office success, Warner Brothers tried to woo him back, but he refused, and his next film was made with an independent studio and released by United Artists. For this film, McQueen went for a change of image, playing a debonair role as a wealthy executive in The Thomas Crown Affair with Faye Dunaway in 1968. The following year, he made the southern period piece The Reivers.
1970s
In 1971, McQueen starred in the poorly received auto-racing drama Le Mans, followed by Junior Bonner in 1972, a story of an aging rodeo rider. He worked for director Sam Peckinpah again with the leading role in The Getaway, where he met future wife Ali MacGraw. He followed this with a physically demanding role as a Devil's Island prisoner in 1973's Papillon, featuring Dustin Hoffman as his character's tragic sidekick.
In 1973, The Rolling Stones referred to McQueen in the song "Star Star" from the album Goats Head Soup for which an amused McQueen reportedly gave personal permission. The lines were "Star f***er, star f***er, star f***er, star f***er star / Yes you are, yes you are, yes you are / Yeah, Ali MacGraw got mad with you / For givin' head to Steve McQueen".
By the time of The Getaway, McQueen was the world's highest-paid actor, but after 1974's The Towering Inferno, co-starring with his long-time professional rival Paul Newman and reuniting him with Dunaway, became a tremendous box-office success, McQueen all but disappeared from the public eye, to focus on motorcycle racing and traveling around the country in a motor home and on his vintage Indian motorcycles. He did not return to acting until 1978 with An Enemy of the People, playing against type as a bearded, bespectacled 19th-century doctor in this adaptation of a Henrik Ibsen play. The film was never properly released theatrically, but has appeared occasionally on PBS.
His last two films were loosely based on true stories: Tom Horn, a Western adventure about a former Army scout-turned professional gunman who worked for the big cattle ranchers hunting down rustlers, and later hanged for murder in the shooting death of a sheepherder, and The Hunter, an urban action movie about a modern-day bounty hunter, both released in 1980.
Missed roles
McQueen was offered the lead male role in Breakfast at Tiffany's, but was unable to accept due to his Wanted: Dead or Alive contract (the role went to George Peppard). He turned down parts in Ocean's 11, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (his attorneys and agents could not agree with Paul Newman's attorneys and agents on top billing), The Driver, Apocalypse Now, California Split, Dirty Harry, A Bridge Too Far, The French Connection (he did not want to do another cop film), and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
According to director John Frankenheimer and actor James Garner in bonus interviews for the DVD of the film Grand Prix, McQueen was Frankenheimer's first choice for the lead role of American Formula One race car driver Pete Aron. Frankenheimer was unable to meet with McQueen to offer him the role, so he sent Edward Lewis, his business partner and the producer of Grand Prix. McQueen and Lewis instantly clashed, the meeting was a disaster, and the role went to Garner.
Garner later for the interview said this:
Oh, McQueen. Crazy McQueen. McQueen and I get along pretty good, McQueen looked to me kind of like an older brother and he didn't want to have much with me, till he got into trouble, then he'd call and, you know, he knew, he could tell him just what I thought. A lot of people wouldn't do that. And then we had falling out. It wasn't falling out, as i did Grand Prix. Steve was originally slated to do that movie, but he couldn't get along with Frank Frankenheimer. So that lasted about 30 minutes, and I was in and Steve was out. And Steve went over to do Sand Pebbles, which went about year longer, than they wanted to go. Big production spent a lot of money and stayed in China too long there, in Taiwan. So, when I got the part in Grand Prix, I called him. In Taiwan. And I started: "Steve, I want to tell you, before somebody else, that I'm going to do Grand Prix." Well, there was about a 20 dollars' silence there (laugh), on the telephone. He didn't know, what to say, and finally said "Oh, that's great, that's great, I'm glad to hear that.", because he planned to do Le Mans, which was another title at the time. But we were about to release, before he even got to that film. But he said: "Great, great, well, I'm glad to hear it; that's good. You know, if anybody's gonna do it, I'm glad, you're going to do it."
He didn't talk to me for about year and half, and we were next-door neighbors (laugh). So, it got to him a little bit, finally by his son. Chad took him to go see Grand Prix. And from that time on, we were talking again. But Steve was a wild kid. He didn't know where he wanted to be or what he wanted to do.
Director Steven Spielberg said McQueen was his first choice for the character of Roy Neary in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. According to Spielberg, in a documentary on the Close Encounters DVD, Spielberg met him at a bar, where McQueen drank beer after beer. Before leaving, McQueen told Spielberg that he could not accept the role because he was unable to cry on cue. Spielberg offered to take the crying scene out of the story, but McQueen demurred, saying that it was the best scene in the script. The role eventually went to Richard Dreyfuss.
William Friedkin wanted to cast McQueen as the lead in the action/thriller film Sorcerer (1977). Sorcerer was to be filmed primarily on location in the Dominican Republic, but McQueen did not want to be separated from Ali MacGraw for the duration of the shoot. McQueen then asked Friedkin to let MacGraw act as a producer, so she could be present during principal photography. Friedkin would not agree to this condition, and cast Roy Scheider instead of McQueen. Friedkin later remarked that not casting McQueen hurt the film's performance at the box office.
Spy novelist Jeremy Duns revealed that McQueen was considered for the lead role in a film adaptation of The Diamond Smugglers, written by James Bond creator Ian Fleming; McQueen would play John Blaize, a secret agent gone undercover to infiltrate a diamond-smuggling ring in South Africa. There were complications with the project which was eventually shelved, although a 1964 screenplay does exist.
McQueen and Barbra Streisand were tentatively cast in The Gauntlet, but the two could not get along, and both withdrew from the project. The lead roles were filled by Clint Eastwood and Sondra Locke.
McQueen expressed interest in the Rambo character in First Blood when David Morrell's novel appeared in 1972, but the producers rejected him because of his age. He was offered the title role in The Bodyguard (to star Diana Ross) when it was proposed in 1976, but the film did not reach production until years after McQueen's death (which eventually starred Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston in 1992). Quigley Down Under was in development as early as 1974, with McQueen in consideration for the lead, but by the time production began in 1980, McQueen was ill and the project was scrapped until a decade later, when Tom Selleck starred.
McQueen was offered the lead in Raise the Titanic, but felt that the script was flat. He was under contract to Irwin Allen after appearing in The Towering Inferno and offered a part in a sequel in 1980, which he turned down. The film was scrapped and Newman was brought in by Allen to make When Time Ran Out, which was a box office bomb. McQueen died shortly after passing on The Towering Inferno 2.
Stunts, motor racing and flying
McQueen was an avid motorcycle and race car enthusiast. When he had the opportunity to drive in a movie, he performed many of his own stunts, including some of the car chases in Bullitt and the motorcycle chase in The Great Escape. Although the jump over the fence in The Great Escape was done by Bud Ekins for insurance purposes, McQueen did have considerable screen time riding his 650 cc Triumph TR6 Trophy motorcycle. It was difficult to find riders as skilled as McQueen. At one point, using editing, McQueen is seen in a German uniform chasing himself on another bike. Around half of the driving in Bullitt was performed by Loren Janes.
McQueen and John Sturges planned to make Day of the Champion, a movie about Formula One racing, but McQueen was busy with the delayed The Sand Pebbles. They had a contract with the German Nürburgring, and after John Frankenheimer shot scenes there for Grand Prix, the reels were turned over to Sturges. Frankenheimer was ahead in schedule, and the McQueen-Sturges project was called off.
McQueen considered being a professional race car driver. He had a one-off outing in the British Touring Car Championship in 1961, driving a BMC Mini at Brands Hatch, finishing third. In the 1970 12 Hours of Sebring race, Peter Revson and McQueen (driving with a cast on his left foot from a motorcycle accident two weeks earlier) won with a Porsche 908/02 in the three-litre class and missed winning overall by 21.1 seconds to Mario Andretti/Ignazio Giunti/Nino Vaccarella in a five-litre Ferrari 512S. This same Porsche 908 was entered by his production company Solar Productions as a camera car for Le Mans in the 1970 24 Hours of Le Mans later that year. McQueen wanted to drive a Porsche 917 with Jackie Stewart in that race, but the film backers threatened to pull their support if he did. Faced with the choice of driving for 24 hours in the race or driving for the entire summer making the film, McQueen opted for the latter.
McQueen competed in off-road motorcycle racing, frequently running a BSA Hornet and using alias Harvey Mushman. He was also set to co-drive in a Triumph 2500 PI for the British Leyland team in the 1970 London-Mexico rally, but had to turn it down due to movie commitments. His first off-road motorcycle was a Triumph 500 cc, purchased from Ekins. McQueen raced in many top off-road races on the West Coast, including the Baja 1000, the Mint 400, and the Elsinore Grand Prix.
In 1964, McQueen and Ekins were part of a four-rider (plus one reserve) first-ever official US team-entry into the Silver Vase category of the International Six Days Trial, an Enduro-type off-road motorcycling event held that year in Erfurt, East Germany. The "A" team arrived in England in late August to collect their mix of 649 cc and 490 cc twins from the Triumph factory before modifying them for off-road use. Initially let down with transport arrangements by a long-established English motorcycle dealer, Triumph dealer H&L Motors stepped-in to provide a suitable vehicle. On arrival in Germany, the team, with their English temporary manager, were surprised to find a Vase "B" team, comprising expat Americans living in Europe, had entered themselves privately to ride European-sourced machinery.
McQueen's ISDT competition number was 278, which was based on the trials starting order. Both teams crashed repeatedly. McQueen retired due to irreparable crash damage, and Ekins withdrew with a broken leg, both on day three (Wednesday). Only one member of the "B" team finished the six-day event. UK monthly magazine Motorcycle Sport commented: "Riding Triumph twins...[the team] rode everywhere with great dash, if not in admirable style, falling off frequently and obviously out for six days' sport without too many worries about who was going to win (they knew it would not be them)".
He was inducted in the Off-road Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1978. In 1971, McQueen's Solar Productions funded the classic motorcycle documentary On Any Sunday, in which McQueen is featured, along with racing legends Mert Lawwill and Malcolm Smith. The same year, he also appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated magazine riding a Husqvarna dirt bike.
McQueen designed a motorsports bucket seat, for which a patent was issued in 1971.
In a segment filmed for The Ed Sullivan Show, McQueen drove Sullivan around a desert area in a dune buggy at high speed. Afterward, Sullivan said, "That was a 'helluva' ride!"
By testimony of McQueen's son, Chad, Steve owned around 100 classic motorcycles, as well as around 100 exotics and vintage cars, including:
Porsche 917, Porsche 908, and Ferrari 512 race cars from the Le Mans film
Porsche 911S (used in the opening sequence of the Le Mans film)
1963 Ferrari 250 GT Berlinetta Lusso
1967 Ferrari 275GTB/4
1956 Jaguar XKSS (right-hand drive) (now on exhibit at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, California)
1958 Porsche 356 Speedster 1600 Super (black exterior, interior and top) (McQueen drove the car in numerous SCCA racing events) (now in property of his son Chad)
1968 Ford GT40 (Gulf liveried) (used in the Le Mans film)
1953 Siata 208s (McQueen replaced the Siata badges with Ferrari badges and called it his "little Ferrari")
1967 Mini Cooper-S (McQueen had the car customized by Lee Brown with changes including a single foglight, a wood dash, a recessed antenna and a custom brown paint job)
1951 Chevrolet Styline De Lux Convertible (used in The Hunter, McQueen bought the car in 1979 after filming ended)
1952 Chevrolet 3800 pickup camper conversion (McQueen used the truck for cross-country camping trips. It was the last car he rode in before his death)
1950 Hudson Commodore convertible
1952 Hudson Wasp 2-door sedan
1953 Hudson Hornet 4-door Sedan
1956 GMC Suburban
1958 GMC Pickup Truck (Reportedly one of McQueen's favorite cars, it is powered by a 336 Ci V8 which has been modified. The tag "MQ3188" is a reference to the ID number assigned to him when he was in reform school)
1931 Lincoln Club Sedan
1935 Chrysler Airflow Imperial Sedan
1969 Chevrolet Baja Hickey race truck (originally debuted at the 1968 Mexican 1000 Rally and was driven by Cliff Coleman, Johnny Diaz, Mickey Thompson and others during its racing career; said to be the first truck specifically constructed by GM for use in the Mexican 1000; McQueen bought it from General Motors in 1970)
In spite of numerous attempts, McQueen was never able to purchase the Ford Mustang GT 390 he drove in Bullitt, which featured a modified drivetrain that suited McQueen's driving style. One of the two Mustangs used in the film was badly damaged, judged beyond repair, and believed to have been scrapped until it surfaced in Mexico in 2017, while the other one, which McQueen attempted to purchase in 1977, is hidden from the public eye. At the 2018 North American International Auto Show the GT 390 was displayed, in its current non-restored condition, with the 2019 Ford Mustang "Bullitt".
McQueen also flew and owned, among other aircraft, a 1945 Stearman, tail number N3188, (his student number in reform school), a 1946 Piper J-3 Cub, and an award-winning 1931 Pitcairn PA-8 biplane, flown in the US Mail Service by famed World War I flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker. They were hangared at Santa Paula Airport an hour northwest of Hollywood, where he lived his final days.
Personal life
Relationships and friendships
While still attending Stella Adler's school in New York, McQueen dated Gia Scala.
On November 2, 1956, he married Filipino actress and dancer Neile Adams, with whom he had a daughter, Terry Leslie (June 5, 1959 – March 19, 1998) and a son, Chad (born December 28, 1960). McQueen and Adams divorced in 1972. In her autobiography, My Husband, My Friend, Adams stated that she had an abortion in 1971, when their marriage was on the rocks. One of McQueen's four grandchildren is actor Steven R. McQueen (who is best known for playing Jeremy Gilbert in The Vampire Diaries and Jimmy Borelli in Chicago Fire).
Mamie Van Doren claimed to have had an affair with McQueen and tried hallucinogens with him around 1959. Actress-model Lauren Hutton also said that she had an affair with McQueen in the early 1960s. In 1971–1972, while separated from Adams, McQueen had a relationship with Junior Bonner co-star Barbara Leigh, which included her pregnancy and an abortion.
In Cheyenne, Wyoming, in 1973, McQueen married actress Ali MacGraw, his co-star in The Getaway, but this marriage ended in a divorce in 1978. MacGraw suffered a miscarriage during their marriage. Some friends later claimed that MacGraw was the one true love of McQueen's life: "He was madly in love with her until the day he died."
On January 16, 1980, less than a year before his death, McQueen married model Barbara Minty. Barbara Minty, in her book Steve McQueen: The Last Mile, wrote of McQueen becoming an Evangelical Christian toward the end of his life. This was due in part to the influences of his flying instructor, Sammy Mason, Mason's son Pete, and Barbara herself. McQueen attended his local church, Ventura Missionary Church, and was visited by evangelist Billy Graham shortly before his death.
In 1973 McQueen was one of the pallbearers at the funeral of Bruce Lee along with James Coburn, Bruce's brother Robert Lee, Peter Chin, Dan Inosanto, and Taky Kimura.
After discovering a mutual interest in racing, McQueen and Great Escape co-star James Garner became good friends and lived near each other. McQueen recalled:
I could see that Jim was neat around his place. Flowers trimmed, no papers in the yard... grass always cut. So to piss him off, I'd start lobbing empty beer cans down the hill into his driveway. He'd have his drive all spick 'n' span when he left the house, then get home to find all these empty cans. Took him a long time to figure out it was me.
Lifestyle
McQueen followed a daily two-hour exercise regimen, involving weightlifting and, at one point, running , seven days a week. McQueen learned the martial art Tang Soo Do from ninth-degree black belt Pat E. Johnson.
According to photographer William Claxton, McQueen smoked marijuana almost every day; biographer Marc Eliot stated that McQueen used a large amount of cocaine in the early 1970s. He was also a heavy cigarette smoker. McQueen sometimes drank to excess; he was arrested for driving while intoxicated in Anchorage, Alaska, in 1972.
Manson connection
Two months after Charles Manson incited the murder of five people, including McQueen's friends Sharon Tate and Jay Sebring, the media reported police had found a hit list with McQueen's name on it. According to his first wife, McQueen began carrying a handgun at all times in public, including at Sebring's funeral.
Charitable causes
McQueen had an unusual reputation for demanding free items in bulk from studios when agreeing to do a film, such as electric razors, jeans, and other items. It was later discovered McQueen donated these things to the Boys Republic reformatory school, where he had spent time during his teen years. McQueen made occasional visits to the school to spend time with the students, often to play pool and speak about his experiences.
Illness and death
McQueen developed a persistent cough in 1978. He gave up cigarettes and underwent antibiotic treatments without improvement. His shortness of breath grew more pronounced, and on December 22, 1979, after filming The Hunter, a biopsy revealed pleural mesothelioma, a cancer associated with asbestos exposure for which there is no known cure.
A few months later, McQueen gave a medical interview in which he blamed his condition on asbestos exposure. McQueen believed that asbestos used in movie sound stage insulation and race-drivers' protective suits and helmets could have been involved, but he thought it more likely that his illness was a direct result of massive exposure while removing asbestos lagging (insulation) from pipes aboard a troop ship while he was in the Marines.
By February 1980, evidence of widespread metastasis was found. He tried to keep the condition a secret, but on March 11, 1980, the National Enquirer disclosed that he had "terminal cancer". In July 1980, McQueen traveled to Rosarito Beach, Mexico, for unconventional treatment after U.S. doctors told him they could do nothing to prolong his life. Controversy arose over the trip because McQueen sought treatment from William Donald Kelley, who was promoting a variation of the Gerson therapy that used coffee enemas, frequent washing with shampoos, daily injections of fluid containing live cells from cattle and sheep, massages, and laetrile, a reputed anti-cancer drug available in Mexico, but long known to be both toxic and ineffective at treating cancer. McQueen paid for Kelley's treatments by himself in cash payments which were said to have been upwards of $40,000 per month ($ today) during his three-month stay in Mexico. Kelley's only medical license (until revoked in 1976) had been for orthodontics. Kelley's methods caused a sensation in the traditional and tabloid press when it became known that McQueen was a patient.
McQueen returned to the U.S. in early October. Despite metastasis of the cancer throughout McQueen's body, Kelley publicly announced that McQueen would be completely cured and return to normal life. McQueen's condition soon worsened and huge tumors developed in his abdomen.
In late October 1980, McQueen flew to Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico, to have an abdominal tumor on his liver (weighing around ) removed, despite warnings from his U.S. doctors that the tumor was inoperable and his heart could not withstand the surgery. Using the name "Samuel Sheppard", McQueen checked into a small Juárez clinic where the doctors and staff were unaware of his actual identity.
On November 7, 1980, McQueen died of a heart attack at 3:45 a.m. at a Juárez hospital, 12 hours after surgery to remove or reduce numerous metastatic tumors in his neck and abdomen. He was 50 years old. According to the El Paso Times, McQueen died in his sleep.
Leonard DeWitt of the Ventura Missionary Church presided over McQueen's memorial service. McQueen was cremated and his ashes were spread in the Pacific Ocean.
Legacy
In 2007, Forbes said McQueen remained a popular star and still the "king of cool", even 27 years after his death, and was one of the highest-earning dead celebrities. A rights-management agency head credited Branded Entertainment Network (called Corbis at the time) with maximizing the profitability of his estate by limiting the licensing of McQueen's image, avoiding the commercial saturation of other dead celebrities' estates. As of 2007, McQueen's estate entered the top 10 of highest-earning dead celebrities.
McQueen was inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers in April 2007 in a ceremony at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.
In November 1999, McQueen was inducted into the Motorcycle Hall of Fame. He was credited with contributions including financing the film On Any Sunday, supporting a team of off-road riders, and enhancing the public image of motorcycling overall.
A film based on unfinished storyboards and notes developed by McQueen before his death was slated for production by McG's production company Wonderland Sound and Vision. Yucatán is described as an "epic adventure heist" film, scheduled for release in 2013 but still unreleased in February 2016. Team Downey, the production company of Robert Downey, Jr. and his wife Susan Downey, expressed an interest in developing Yucatán for the screen.
The Beech Grove, Indiana, Public Library formally dedicated the Steve McQueen Birthplace Collection on March 16, 2010, to commemorate the 80th anniversary of McQueen's birth on March 24, 1930.
In 2012, McQueen was posthumously honored with the Warren Zevon Tribute Award by the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO).
Steve McQueen: The Man & Le Mans, a 2015 documentary, examines the actor's quest to create and star in the 1971 auto-racing film Le Mans. His son Chad McQueen and former wife Neile Adams are among those interviewed.
On September 28, 2017, there was a selected showing in some theaters of his life story and spiritual quest, Steve McQueen – American Icon. There was an encore presentation on October 10, 2017. The film received mostly positive reviews. Kenneth R. Morefield of Christianity Today said it "offers a timeless reminder that even those among us living the most celebrated lives often long for the peace and sense of purpose that only God can provide". Michael Foust of Wordslingers called it "one of the most powerful and inspiring documentaries I've ever seen."
In the 2019 Quentin Tarantino film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, McQueen is portrayed by Damian Lewis.
Archive
The Academy Film Archive houses the Steve McQueen-Neile Adams Collection, which consists of personal prints and home movies. The archive has preserved several of McQueen's home movies.
Ford commercials
In 1998, director Paul Street created a commercial for the Ford Puma. Footage was shot in modern-day San Francisco, set to the theme music from Bullitt. Archive footage of McQueen was used to digitally superimpose him driving and exiting the car in settings reminiscent of the film. The Puma shares the same number plate of the classic fastback Mustang used in Bullitt, and as he parks in the garage (next to the Mustang), he pauses and looks meaningfully at a motorcycle tucked in the corner, similar to that used in The Great Escape.
In 2005, Ford used his likeness again, in a commercial for the 2005 Mustang. In the commercial, a farmer builds a winding racetrack, which he circles in the 2005 Mustang. Out of the cornfield comes McQueen. The farmer tosses his keys to McQueen, who drives off in the new Mustang. McQueen's likeness was created using a body double (Dan Holsten) and digital editing. Ford secured the rights to McQueen's likeness from the actor's estate licensing agent for an undisclosed sum.
At the Detroit Auto Show in January 2018, Ford unveiled the new 2019 Mustang Bullitt. The company called on McQueen's granddaughter, actress Molly McQueen, to make the announcement. After a brief rundown of the tribute car's particulars, a short film was shown in which Molly was introduced to the actual Bullitt Mustang, a 1968 Mustang Fastback with a 390 cubic-inch engine and a four-speed manual gearbox. That car has been in possession of the same family since 1974 and hidden away from the public until now, when it was driven out from under the press stand and up the center aisle of Ford's booth to much fanfare.
Memorabilia
The blue-tinted sunglasses (Persol 714) worn by McQueen in the 1968 movie The Thomas Crown Affair sold at a Bonhams & Butterfields auction in Los Angeles for $70,200 in 2006. One of his motorcycles, a 1937 Crocker, sold for a world-record price of $276,500 at the same auction. McQueen's 1963 metallic-brown Ferrari 250 GT Lusso Berlinetta sold for US$2.31 million at auction on August 16, 2007. Except for three motorcycles sold with other memorabilia in 2006, most of McQueen's collection of 130 motorcycles was sold four years after his death. The 1970 Porsche 911S purchased while making the film Le Mans and appearing in the opening sequence was sold at auction in August 2011 for $1.375 million. From 1995 to 2011, McQueen's red 1957 fuel-injected Chevrolet convertible was displayed at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles in a special Cars of Steve McQueen exhibit. It is now in the collection of actress Ruth Buzzi and her husband Kent Perkins. McQueen's British racing green 1956 Jaguar XKSS is also located in the Petersen Automotive Museum and is in drivable condition, having been driven by Jay Leno in an episode of Jay Leno's Garage. In August 2019, Mecum Auctions announced it would auction the Bullitt Mustang Hero Car at its Kissimmee auction, held January 2–12, 2020. The car sold without reserve for $3.4 million ($3.74 million after commissions and fees).
Watch collection
The Rolex Explorer II, Reference 1655, known as Rolex Steve McQueen in the horology collectors' world, the Rolex Submariner, Reference 5512, which McQueen was often photographed wearing in private moments, sold for $234,000 at auction on June 11, 2009, a world-record price for the type. McQueen was left-handed and wore the watch on his right wrist.
McQueen was a sponsored ambassador for Heuer watches. In the 1970 film Le Mans, he famously wore a blue-faced Monaco Ref. 1133, which led to its cult status among watch collectors, purchasing six watches of the same model for the shoot of the film. On December 12, 2020, one of the last six models sold and one of two held in private hands was sold for a record US$2.208 million at a Phillips auction in New York, becoming the most expensive Heuer watch sold at auction. Tag Heuer continues to promote its Monaco range with McQueen's image.
In June 2018, Phillips announced McQueen's Rolex Submariner to hit the auction block in September that year. However, there was controversy whether or not the watch was his personal watch worn by McQueen himself or if the watch was bought, engraved, then gifted. Phillips later removed the watch from the auction block.
Among McQueen's other watches was a Hanhart 417 chronograph.
Filmography
Awards and honors
Academy Awards
(1967) Nominated – Best Actor in a Leading Role in The Sand Pebbles
Golden Globe Awards
(1964) Nominated – Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama in Love with the Proper Stranger
(1967) Nominated – Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama in The Sand Pebbles
(1970) Nominated – Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy in The Reivers
(1974) Nominated – Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama in Papillon
Moscow International Film Festival
(1963) – Won – Best Actor in The Great Escape
Quotes
"Racing is life. Anything before or after is just waiting."
"I'm not sure whether I'm an actor who races or racer, who acts."
"I'm not that interesting of a person."
"I live for myself and answer to nobody."
"When I believe in something, I fight like hell for it."
"I need to have a reason why I'm doing something. Otherwise, I'm lost."
References
Bibliography
Terrill, Marshall (2020). Steve McQueen: In His Own Words. Deerfield, IL: Dalton Watson. .
Further reading
Beaver, Jim. Steve McQueen. Films in Review, August–September 1981.
Satchell, Tim. McQueen. (Sidgwick and Jackson Limited, 1981)
Siegel, Mike. Steve McQueen: The Actor and his Films (Dalton Watson, 2011)
Nolan, William F. McQueen (Congdon & Weed, 1984)
Terrill, Marshall. Steve McQueen: Portrait of an American Rebel, (Donald I. Fine, 1993)
Terrill, Marshall. Steve McQueen: The Last Mile', (Dalton Watson, 2006)
Terrill, Marshall. Steve McQueen: A Tribute to the King of Cool, (Dalton Watson, 2010)
Terrill, Marshall. Steve McQueen: The Life and Legacy of a Hollywood Icon'', (Triumph Books, 2010)
Terrill, Marshall. Steve McQueen: In His Own Words, (Dalton Watson, 2020)
External links
Steve McQueen: In His Own Words by Marshall Terrill
Steve McQueen at Virtual History
Bell System Film "A Family Affair", McQueen's debut, at The AT&T Tech Channel
The Great Escape – New publication with private photos of the shooting & documents of 2nd unit cameraman Walter Riml
Photos of the filming The Great Escape, Steve McQueen on the set
Photos and commentary on Steve McQueen shooting an episode of Wanted: Dead or Alive on the Iverson Movie Ranch
1930 births
1980 deaths
20th-century American male actors
American male film actors
American male television actors
American motorcycle racers
American people of Scottish descent
American sailors
American tang soo do practitioners
British Touring Car Championship drivers
California Republicans
Converts to Christianity
Deaths from cancer in Mexico
Deaths from mesothelioma
Enduro riders
Former Roman Catholics
Male actors from Indiana
Male actors from Indianapolis
Male actors from Los Angeles
Male actors from Missouri
Male Western (genre) film actors
Military personnel from Indiana
Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre alumni
Off-road motorcycle racers
Off-road racing drivers
People from Beech Grove, Indiana
People from Echo Park, Los Angeles
People from Saline County, Missouri
Racing drivers from California
Racing drivers from Indiana
Racing drivers from Missouri
United States Marines
United States Merchant Mariners
United States Merchant Mariners of World War II
Western (genre) television actors
World record setters in motorcycling
World Sportscar Championship drivers | true | [
"Advertising-free media refers to media outlets whose output is not funded or subsidised by the sale of advertising space. It includes in its scope mass media entities such as websites, television and radio networks, and magazines.\n\nThe public broadcasters of a number of countries air without commercials. Perhaps the best known example of this is the United Kingdom's public broadcaster, the BBC, whose domestic networks do not carry commercials. Instead, the BBC, in common with most other public broadcasters in Europe, is funded by a television licence fee levied on the owners of all television sets.\n\nA 2006 report by the Senate of Canada suggested that the country's public broadcaster, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, be funded sufficiently by the federal government so that it could air without any advertising.\n\nReferences\n\n \nMass media",
"Ron Michaelson is an American actor.\n\nCareer\nHe is known for appearing in commercials for Ditech.com, where he plays a character known as \"Ned the Banker.\" The commercials intend to show that Ned is unable to close a mortgage deal, even with his own mother, because of Ditech's highly competitive rates and services. Most commercials end with the punch line, \"I just lost another loan to Ditech!\" Michaelson's character in the commercials has become highly recognizable to US audiences, to the extent that Michaelson was interviewed by Daryn Kagan on CNN.\n\nMichaelson is also a professor teaching acting at Golden West College, a community college in Huntington Beach, California, and at Fullerton College, a community college in Fullerton, California.\n\nHe has also made guest appearances in the FOX series Arrested Development, the CBS series Joan of Arcadia and HBO's Carnivàle and Entourage. Other series work include ‘s the WB's Jack & Jill, Nickelodeon All That and NBC's Golden Girls. On February 27, 2006, Michaelson also had a \"walk-on clue\" role on the trivia game show Jeopardy!. Other projects include the independent film Boxboarders and the made-for-television movies Mystery Woman and You've Got A Friend for the Hallmark Channel. Most recently he appeared on HBO's Veep and Tim & Eric's Bedtime Stories on Adult Swim.\n \n\nIn 2013, Michaelson did a commercial for Cash Call called \"Banker's Mom\" where he essentially reprises his role from the Ditech commercials.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nLiving people\nYear of birth missing (living people)\nAmerican male television actors"
] |
[
"Steve McQueen",
"Ford commercials",
"What is McQueen's connection to Ford?",
"In 1998 director Paul Street created a commercial for the Ford Puma.",
"What was the result of this?",
"Footage was shot in modern-day San Francisco, set to the theme music from Bullitt.",
"Did he do any other commercials?",
"In 2005, Ford used his likeness again,"
] | C_379fd5e840b549b58c8da5d20795bf1c_1 | What for? | 4 | What did Ford use Steve McQueen again for? | Steve McQueen | In 1952, with financial assistance provided by the G.I. Bill, McQueen began studying acting in New York at Sanford Meisner's Neighborhood Playhouse. Reportedly, he delivered his first dialogue on a theatre stage in a 1952 play produced by Yiddish theatre star Molly Picon. McQueen's character spoke one brief line: "Alts iz farloyrn." ("All is lost."). During this time, he also studied acting with Stella Adler in whose class he met Gia Scala. McQueen began to earn money by competing in weekend motorcycle races at Long Island City Raceway and purchased the first of many motorcycles, a Harley-Davidson and Triumph. He soon became an excellent racer, and went home each weekend with about $100 in winnings (equivalent to $900 in 2017). He appeared as a musical judge in an episode of ABC's Jukebox Jury, that aired in the 1953-1954 season. McQueen had minor roles in productions including Peg o' My Heart, The Member of the Wedding, and Two Fingers of Pride. He made his Broadway debut in 1955 in the play A Hatful of Rain, starring Ben Gazzara. In late 1955, at the age of 25, McQueen left New York and headed for California, where he moved into a house on Vestal Avenue in the Echo Park area, seeking acting jobs in Hollywood. When McQueen appeared in a two-part television Westinghouse Studio One presentation entitled The Defenders, Hollywood manager Hilly Elkins (who managed McQueen's first wife, Neile) took note of him and decided that B-movies would be a good place for the young actor to make his mark. He landed his first film role in a bit part in Somebody Up There Likes Me, directed by Robert Wise and starring Paul Newman. McQueen was subsequently hired for the films Never Love a Stranger, The Blob (his first leading role) which depicts a flesh eating amoeba-like space creature, and The Great St. Louis Bank Robbery. McQueen's first breakout role came on television. He appeared on Dale Robertson's NBC western series, Tales of Wells Fargo. Elkins, then McQueen's manager, successfully lobbied Vincent M. Fennelly, producer of the western series Trackdown, to have McQueen read for the part of bounty hunter Josh Randall in a Trackdown episode. McQueen appeared as Randall in the episode, cast opposite series lead and old New York motorcycle racing buddy Robert Culp. McQueen then filmed the pilot episode, which became the series titled Wanted: Dead or Alive, which aired on CBS in September 1958. In 1971 McQueen starred in the poorly received auto-racing drama Le Mans. Then came Junior Bonner in 1972, a story of an aging rodeo rider. He worked for director Sam Peckinpah again with the leading role in The Getaway, where he met future wife Ali MacGraw. He followed this with a physically demanding role as a Devil's Island prisoner in 1973's Papillon, featuring Dustin Hoffman as his character's tragic sidekick. In 1973 The Rolling Stones referred to McQueen in the song "Star Star" from the album Goats Head Soup for which an amused McQueen reportedly gave personal permission. The lines were "Star ######, star ######, star ######, star ###### star/ Yes you are, yes you are, yes you are/Yeah, Ali MacGraw got mad with you/For givin' head to Steve McQueen". By the time of The Getaway, McQueen was the world's highest-paid actor, but after 1974's The Towering Inferno, co-starring with his long-time professional rival Paul Newman and reuniting him with Dunaway, became a tremendous box-office success, McQueen all but disappeared from the public eye, to focus on motorcycle racing and traveling around the country in a motor home and on his vintage Indian motorcycles. He did not return to acting until 1978 with An Enemy of the People, playing against type as a bearded, bespectacled 19th-century doctor in this adaptation of a Henrik Ibsen play. The film was never properly released theatrically. His last two films were loosely based on true stories: Tom Horn, a Western adventure about a former Army scout-turned professional gunman who worked for the big cattle ranchers hunting down rustlers, and later hanged for murder in the shooting death of a sheepherder, and The Hunter, an urban action movie about a modern-day bounty hunter, both released in 1980. In 1998 director Paul Street created a commercial for the Ford Puma. Footage was shot in modern-day San Francisco, set to the theme music from Bullitt. Archive footage of McQueen was used to digitally superimpose him driving and exiting the car in settings reminiscent of the film. The Puma shares the same number plate of the classic fastback Mustang used in Bullitt, and as he parks in the garage (next to the Mustang), he pauses and looks meaningfully at a motorcycle tucked in the corner, similar to that used in The Great Escape. In 2005, Ford used his likeness again, in a commercial for the 2005 Mustang. In the commercial, a farmer builds a winding racetrack, which he circles in the 2005 Mustang. Out of the cornfield comes Steve McQueen. The farmer tosses his keys to McQueen, who drives off in the new Mustang. McQueen's likeness was created using a body double (Dan Holsten) and digital editing. Ford secured the rights to McQueen's likeness from the actor's estate licensing agent, GreenLight, for an undisclosed sum. At the Detroit Auto Show in January 2018, Ford unveiled the new 2019 Mustang Bullitt. The company called on McQueen's granddaughter, actress Molly McQueen, to make the announcement. After a brief rundown of the tribute car's particulars, a short film was shown in which Molly was introduced to the actual Bullitt Mustang, a 1968 Mustang Fastback with a 390 cubic-inch engine and a four-speed manual gearbox. That car has been in possession of the same family since 1974 and hidden away from the public until now, when it was driven out from under the press stand and up the center aisle of Ford's booth to much fanfare. CANNOTANSWER | a commercial for the 2005 Mustang. | Terrence Stephen McQueen (March 24, 1930November 7, 1980) was an American actor. His antihero persona, emphasized during the height of the counterculture of the 1960s, made him a top box-office draw for his films of the late 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. He was nicknamed the "King of Cool" and used the alias Harvey Mushman in motor races.
McQueen received an Academy Award nomination for his role in The Sand Pebbles (1966). His other popular films include Love With the Proper Stranger (1963), The Cincinnati Kid (1965), Nevada Smith (1966), The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), Bullitt (1968), Le Mans (1971), The Getaway (1972), and Papillon (1973). In addition, he starred in the all-star ensemble films The Magnificent Seven (1960), The Great Escape (1963), and The Towering Inferno (1974).
In 1974, McQueen became the highest-paid movie star in the world, although he did not act in film for another four years. He was combative with directors and producers, but his popularity placed him in high demand and enabled him to command the largest salaries.
Early life
Terrence Stephen McQueen was born to a single mother on March 24, 1930, at St. Francis Hospital in Beech Grove, Indiana, a suburb of Indianapolis. McQueen, of Scottish descent, was raised a Roman Catholic. His parents never married. McQueen's father, William McQueen, a stunt pilot for a barnstorming flying circus, left his mother, Julia Ann (a.k.a. Julianne) Crawford, six months after meeting her. Several biographers have stated that his mother Julia Ann was an alcoholic. Unable to cope with caring for a small child, she left the boy with her parents (Victor and Lillian) in Slater, Missouri, in 1933. As the Great Depression set in shortly thereafter, McQueen and his grandparents moved in with Lillian's brother Claude and his family at their farm in Slater. McQueen later said that he had good memories of living on the farm, noting that his great-uncle Claude "was a very good man, very strong, very fair. I learned a lot from him."
Claude gave McQueen a red tricycle on his fourth birthday, a gift that McQueen subsequently credited with sparking his early interest in car racing. McQueen's mother married and when the boy was eight, she brought him from the farm to live with her and her new husband in Indianapolis. His great-uncle Claude gave McQueen a special gift at his departure. "The day I left the farm", he recalled, "Uncle Claude gave me a personal going-away present—a gold pocket watch, with an inscription inside the case." The inscription read "To Steve – who has been a son to me."
Dyslexic and partially deaf due to a childhood ear infection, McQueen did not adjust well to school or his new life. His stepfather beat him to such an extent that at the age of nine he left home to live on the streets. He later recalled "When a kid doesn't have any love when he's small, he begins to wonder if he's good enough. My mother didn't love me, and I didn't have a father. I thought, 'Well, I must not be very good.'" Soon he was running with a street gang and committing acts of petty crime. Unable to control his behavior, his mother sent him back to her grandparents and great-uncle in Slater.
When McQueen was 12, Julia wrote to her uncle Claude, asking that her son be returned to her again to live in Los Angeles, California, where she lived with her second husband. By McQueen's own account, he and his new stepfather "locked horns immediately". McQueen recalls him being "a prime son of a bitch" who was not averse to using his fists on McQueen and his mother. As McQueen began to rebel again, he was sent back to live with Claude for a final time. At age 14, he left Claude's farm without saying goodbye and joined a circus for a short time. He drifted back to his mother and stepfather in Los Angeles—resuming his life as a gang member and petty criminal. McQueen was caught stealing hubcaps by the police and handed over to his stepfather, who beat him severely. He threw the youth down a flight of stairs. McQueen looked up at his stepfather and said, "You lay your stinking hands on me again and I swear, I'll kill you."
After this incident, McQueen's stepfather persuaded his mother to sign a court order stating that McQueen was incorrigible, remanding him to the California Junior Boys Republic in Chino. Here, McQueen began to change and mature. He was not popular with the other boys at first:
"Say the boys had a chance once a month to load into a bus and go into town to see a movie. And they lost out because one guy in the bungalow didn't get his work done right. Well, you can pretty well guess they're gonna have something to say about that. I paid my dues with the other fellows quite a few times. I got my lumps, no doubt about it. The other guys in the bungalow had ways of paying you back for interfering with their well-being."
McQueen gradually became a role model and was elected to the Boys Council, a group who set the rules and regulations governing the boys' lives. He left the Boys Republic at age 16. When he later became famous as an actor, he regularly returned to talk to resident boys and retained a lifelong association with the center.
At age 16, McQueen returned to live with his mother, who had moved to Greenwich Village in New York City. There he met two sailors from the Merchant Marine and decided to sign on to a ship bound for the Dominican Republic. Once there, he abandoned his new post, eventually being employed in a brothel. Later McQueen made his way to Texas and drifted from job to job, including selling pens at a traveling carnival, and working as a lumberjack in Canada. He was arrested for vagrancy in the Deep South and served a 30-day assignment on a chain gang.
Military service
In 1947, after receiving permission from his mother (since he was not yet 18 years old), McQueen enlisted in the United States Marine Corps. He was sent to Parris Island for boot camp. He was promoted to private first class and assigned to an armored unit. He initially struggled with conforming to the discipline of the service, and was demoted to private seven times. He took an unauthorized absence, going UA by failing to return after a weekend pass expired. He was caught by the shore patrol while staying with a girlfriend (Barbara Ross) for two weeks. After resisting arrest, he was sentenced to 41 days in the brig.
After this, McQueen resolved to focus his energies on self-improvement and embraced the Marines' discipline. He saved the lives of five other Marines during an Arctic exercise, pulling them from a tank before it broke through ice into the sea. He was assigned to the honor guard responsible for guarding the presidential yacht of US President Harry Truman. McQueen served until 1950, when he was honorably discharged. He later said he had enjoyed his time in the Marines. He remembered this period with the Marines as a formative time in his life, saying, "The Marines made a man out of me. I learned how to get along with others, and I had a platform to jump off of."
Acting
1950s
In 1952, with financial assistance under the G.I. Bill, McQueen began studying acting in New York at Sanford Meisner's Neighborhood Playhouse and at HB Studio under Uta Hagen. He reportedly delivered his first dialogue on a theatre stage in a 1952 play produced by Yiddish theatre star Molly Picon. McQueen's character spoke one brief line: "Alts iz farloyrn." ("All is lost."). During this time, he also studied acting with Stella Adler, in whose class he met Gia Scala.
Long enamored of cars and motorcycles, McQueen began to earn money by competing in weekend motorcycle races at Long Island City Raceway. He purchased the first two of many motorcycles, a Harley-Davidson and a Triumph. He soon became an excellent racer, winning about $100 each weekend(). He appeared as a musical judge in an episode of ABC's Jukebox Jury, which aired in the 1953–1954 season.
McQueen had minor roles in stage productions, including Peg o' My Heart, The Member of the Wedding, and Two Fingers of Pride. He made his Broadway debut in 1955 in the play A Hatful of Rain, starring Ben Gazzara.
In late 1955 at the age of 25, McQueen left New York and headed for Los Angeles, California, by then the center of the film industry. He moved into a house on Vestal Avenue in the Echo Park area, and sought acting jobs in Hollywood.
When McQueen appeared in a two-part Westinghouse Studio One television presentation entitled The Defenders, Hollywood manager Hilly Elkins took note of him and decided that B-movies would be a good place for the young actor to make his mark. McQueen's first role was a bit part in Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956), directed by Robert Wise and starring Paul Newman. McQueen was subsequently hired for the films Never Love a Stranger; The Blob (his first leading role, science fiction); and The Great St. Louis Bank Robbery (1959).
McQueen's first breakout role came on television. He appeared on Dale Robertson's NBC western series Tales of Wells Fargo as Bill Longley. Elkins, then McQueen's manager, successfully lobbied Vincent M. Fennelly, producer of the western series Trackdown, to have McQueen read for the part of bounty hunter Josh Randall. He first appeared in Season 1 Episode 21 of Trackdown in 1958. He appeared as Randall in that episode, cast opposite series lead Robert Culp, a former New York motorcycle racing buddy. McQueen appeared again on Trackdown in Episode 31 of the first season, in which he played twin brothers, one of whom was an outlaw sought by Culp's character, Hoby Gilman.
McQueen next filmed a pilot episode for what became the series titled Wanted: Dead or Alive, which aired on CBS in September 1958. This became his breakout role.
In interviews associated with the DVD release of Wanted, Robert Culp (of Trackdown) claims credit for bringing McQueen to Hollywood and landing him the part of Randall. He said he taught McQueen the "art of the fast-draw." He said that by the second day of filming, McQueen beat him at it. McQueen became a household name as a result of this series. Randall's special holster held a sawed-off .44–40 Winchester rifle nicknamed the "Mare's Leg" instead of the six-gun carried by the typical Western character, although the cartridges in the gunbelt were dummy .45–70, chosen because they "looked tougher." Coupled with the generally negative image of the bounty hunter (noted in the three-part DVD special on the background of the series), this added to the antihero image infused with mystery and detachment that made this show stand out from the typical TV Western. The 94 episodes that ran from 1958 until early 1961 kept McQueen steadily employed, and he became a fixture at the renowned Iverson Movie Ranch in Chatsworth, where much of the outdoor action for Wanted: Dead or Alive was shot.
At 29, McQueen got a significant break when Frank Sinatra removed Sammy Davis Jr. from the film Never So Few after Davis supposedly made some mildly negative remarks about Sinatra in a radio interview, and Davis's role went to McQueen. Sinatra saw something special in McQueen and ensured that the young actor got plenty of closeups in a role that earned McQueen favorable reviews. McQueen's character, Bill Ringa, was never more comfortable than when driving at high speed—in this case in a jeep—or handling a switchblade or a tommy gun.
After Never So Few, the film's director John Sturges cast McQueen in his next movie, promising to "give him the camera". The Magnificent Seven (1960), in which he played Vin Tanner and co-starred with Yul Brynner, Eli Wallach, Robert Vaughn, Charles Bronson, Horst Buchholz and James Coburn, became McQueen's first major hit and led to his withdrawal from Wanted: Dead or Alive. McQueen's focused portrayal of the taciturn second lead catapulted his career. His added touches in many of the shots (such as shaking a shotgun round before loading it, repeatedly checking his gun while in the background of a shot, and wiping his hat rim) annoyed costar Brynner, who protested that McQueen was trying to steal scenes. (In his autobiography, Eli Wallach reports struggling to conceal his amusement while watching the filming of the funeral-procession scene where Brynner's and McQueen's characters first meet: Brynner was furious at McQueen's shotgun-round-shake, which effectively diverted the viewer's attention to McQueen.) Brynner refused to draw his gun in the same scene with McQueen, not wanting his character outdrawn.
McQueen played the top-billed lead role in the next big Sturges film, 1963's The Great Escape, Hollywood's fictional depiction of the true story of a historic mass escape from a World War II POW camp, Stalag Luft III. Insurance concerns prevented McQueen from performing the film's notable motorcycle leap, which was done by his friend and fellow cycle enthusiast Bud Ekins, who resembled McQueen from a distance. When Johnny Carson later tried to congratulate McQueen for the jump during a broadcast of The Tonight Show, McQueen said, "It wasn't me. That was Bud Ekins." This film established McQueen's box-office clout and secured his status as a superstar.
Also in 1963, McQueen starred in Love with the Proper Stranger with Natalie Wood. He later appeared as the titular Nevada Smith, a character from Harold Robbins's novel The Carpetbaggers portrayed by Alan Ladd two years earlier in a movie version of that novel. Nevada Smith was an enormously successful Western action adventure prequel that also featured Karl Malden and Suzanne Pleshette. After starring in 1965's The Cincinnati Kid as a poker player, McQueen earned his only Academy Award nomination in 1966 for his role as an engine-room sailor in The Sand Pebbles, in which he starred opposite Candice Bergen and Richard Attenborough, whom he had previously worked with in The Great Escape.
He followed his Oscar nomination with 1968's Bullitt, one of his best-known films, and his personal favorite, which co-starred Jacqueline Bisset, Robert Vaughn and Don Gordon. It featured an unprecedented (and endlessly imitated) car chase through San Francisco. Although McQueen did do the driving that appeared in closeup, this was about 10% of what is seen in the film's car chase. The rest of the driving by McQueen's character was done by stunt drivers Bud Ekins and Loren Janes. The antagonist's black Dodge Charger was driven by veteran stunt driver Bill Hickman; McQueen, his stunt drivers and Hickman spent several days before the scene was shot practicing high-speed, close-quarters driving. Bullitt went so far over budget that Warner Brothers cancelled the contract on the rest of his films, seven in all.
When Bullitt became a huge box-office success, Warner Brothers tried to woo him back, but he refused, and his next film was made with an independent studio and released by United Artists. For this film, McQueen went for a change of image, playing a debonair role as a wealthy executive in The Thomas Crown Affair with Faye Dunaway in 1968. The following year, he made the southern period piece The Reivers.
1970s
In 1971, McQueen starred in the poorly received auto-racing drama Le Mans, followed by Junior Bonner in 1972, a story of an aging rodeo rider. He worked for director Sam Peckinpah again with the leading role in The Getaway, where he met future wife Ali MacGraw. He followed this with a physically demanding role as a Devil's Island prisoner in 1973's Papillon, featuring Dustin Hoffman as his character's tragic sidekick.
In 1973, The Rolling Stones referred to McQueen in the song "Star Star" from the album Goats Head Soup for which an amused McQueen reportedly gave personal permission. The lines were "Star f***er, star f***er, star f***er, star f***er star / Yes you are, yes you are, yes you are / Yeah, Ali MacGraw got mad with you / For givin' head to Steve McQueen".
By the time of The Getaway, McQueen was the world's highest-paid actor, but after 1974's The Towering Inferno, co-starring with his long-time professional rival Paul Newman and reuniting him with Dunaway, became a tremendous box-office success, McQueen all but disappeared from the public eye, to focus on motorcycle racing and traveling around the country in a motor home and on his vintage Indian motorcycles. He did not return to acting until 1978 with An Enemy of the People, playing against type as a bearded, bespectacled 19th-century doctor in this adaptation of a Henrik Ibsen play. The film was never properly released theatrically, but has appeared occasionally on PBS.
His last two films were loosely based on true stories: Tom Horn, a Western adventure about a former Army scout-turned professional gunman who worked for the big cattle ranchers hunting down rustlers, and later hanged for murder in the shooting death of a sheepherder, and The Hunter, an urban action movie about a modern-day bounty hunter, both released in 1980.
Missed roles
McQueen was offered the lead male role in Breakfast at Tiffany's, but was unable to accept due to his Wanted: Dead or Alive contract (the role went to George Peppard). He turned down parts in Ocean's 11, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (his attorneys and agents could not agree with Paul Newman's attorneys and agents on top billing), The Driver, Apocalypse Now, California Split, Dirty Harry, A Bridge Too Far, The French Connection (he did not want to do another cop film), and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
According to director John Frankenheimer and actor James Garner in bonus interviews for the DVD of the film Grand Prix, McQueen was Frankenheimer's first choice for the lead role of American Formula One race car driver Pete Aron. Frankenheimer was unable to meet with McQueen to offer him the role, so he sent Edward Lewis, his business partner and the producer of Grand Prix. McQueen and Lewis instantly clashed, the meeting was a disaster, and the role went to Garner.
Garner later for the interview said this:
Oh, McQueen. Crazy McQueen. McQueen and I get along pretty good, McQueen looked to me kind of like an older brother and he didn't want to have much with me, till he got into trouble, then he'd call and, you know, he knew, he could tell him just what I thought. A lot of people wouldn't do that. And then we had falling out. It wasn't falling out, as i did Grand Prix. Steve was originally slated to do that movie, but he couldn't get along with Frank Frankenheimer. So that lasted about 30 minutes, and I was in and Steve was out. And Steve went over to do Sand Pebbles, which went about year longer, than they wanted to go. Big production spent a lot of money and stayed in China too long there, in Taiwan. So, when I got the part in Grand Prix, I called him. In Taiwan. And I started: "Steve, I want to tell you, before somebody else, that I'm going to do Grand Prix." Well, there was about a 20 dollars' silence there (laugh), on the telephone. He didn't know, what to say, and finally said "Oh, that's great, that's great, I'm glad to hear that.", because he planned to do Le Mans, which was another title at the time. But we were about to release, before he even got to that film. But he said: "Great, great, well, I'm glad to hear it; that's good. You know, if anybody's gonna do it, I'm glad, you're going to do it."
He didn't talk to me for about year and half, and we were next-door neighbors (laugh). So, it got to him a little bit, finally by his son. Chad took him to go see Grand Prix. And from that time on, we were talking again. But Steve was a wild kid. He didn't know where he wanted to be or what he wanted to do.
Director Steven Spielberg said McQueen was his first choice for the character of Roy Neary in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. According to Spielberg, in a documentary on the Close Encounters DVD, Spielberg met him at a bar, where McQueen drank beer after beer. Before leaving, McQueen told Spielberg that he could not accept the role because he was unable to cry on cue. Spielberg offered to take the crying scene out of the story, but McQueen demurred, saying that it was the best scene in the script. The role eventually went to Richard Dreyfuss.
William Friedkin wanted to cast McQueen as the lead in the action/thriller film Sorcerer (1977). Sorcerer was to be filmed primarily on location in the Dominican Republic, but McQueen did not want to be separated from Ali MacGraw for the duration of the shoot. McQueen then asked Friedkin to let MacGraw act as a producer, so she could be present during principal photography. Friedkin would not agree to this condition, and cast Roy Scheider instead of McQueen. Friedkin later remarked that not casting McQueen hurt the film's performance at the box office.
Spy novelist Jeremy Duns revealed that McQueen was considered for the lead role in a film adaptation of The Diamond Smugglers, written by James Bond creator Ian Fleming; McQueen would play John Blaize, a secret agent gone undercover to infiltrate a diamond-smuggling ring in South Africa. There were complications with the project which was eventually shelved, although a 1964 screenplay does exist.
McQueen and Barbra Streisand were tentatively cast in The Gauntlet, but the two could not get along, and both withdrew from the project. The lead roles were filled by Clint Eastwood and Sondra Locke.
McQueen expressed interest in the Rambo character in First Blood when David Morrell's novel appeared in 1972, but the producers rejected him because of his age. He was offered the title role in The Bodyguard (to star Diana Ross) when it was proposed in 1976, but the film did not reach production until years after McQueen's death (which eventually starred Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston in 1992). Quigley Down Under was in development as early as 1974, with McQueen in consideration for the lead, but by the time production began in 1980, McQueen was ill and the project was scrapped until a decade later, when Tom Selleck starred.
McQueen was offered the lead in Raise the Titanic, but felt that the script was flat. He was under contract to Irwin Allen after appearing in The Towering Inferno and offered a part in a sequel in 1980, which he turned down. The film was scrapped and Newman was brought in by Allen to make When Time Ran Out, which was a box office bomb. McQueen died shortly after passing on The Towering Inferno 2.
Stunts, motor racing and flying
McQueen was an avid motorcycle and race car enthusiast. When he had the opportunity to drive in a movie, he performed many of his own stunts, including some of the car chases in Bullitt and the motorcycle chase in The Great Escape. Although the jump over the fence in The Great Escape was done by Bud Ekins for insurance purposes, McQueen did have considerable screen time riding his 650 cc Triumph TR6 Trophy motorcycle. It was difficult to find riders as skilled as McQueen. At one point, using editing, McQueen is seen in a German uniform chasing himself on another bike. Around half of the driving in Bullitt was performed by Loren Janes.
McQueen and John Sturges planned to make Day of the Champion, a movie about Formula One racing, but McQueen was busy with the delayed The Sand Pebbles. They had a contract with the German Nürburgring, and after John Frankenheimer shot scenes there for Grand Prix, the reels were turned over to Sturges. Frankenheimer was ahead in schedule, and the McQueen-Sturges project was called off.
McQueen considered being a professional race car driver. He had a one-off outing in the British Touring Car Championship in 1961, driving a BMC Mini at Brands Hatch, finishing third. In the 1970 12 Hours of Sebring race, Peter Revson and McQueen (driving with a cast on his left foot from a motorcycle accident two weeks earlier) won with a Porsche 908/02 in the three-litre class and missed winning overall by 21.1 seconds to Mario Andretti/Ignazio Giunti/Nino Vaccarella in a five-litre Ferrari 512S. This same Porsche 908 was entered by his production company Solar Productions as a camera car for Le Mans in the 1970 24 Hours of Le Mans later that year. McQueen wanted to drive a Porsche 917 with Jackie Stewart in that race, but the film backers threatened to pull their support if he did. Faced with the choice of driving for 24 hours in the race or driving for the entire summer making the film, McQueen opted for the latter.
McQueen competed in off-road motorcycle racing, frequently running a BSA Hornet and using alias Harvey Mushman. He was also set to co-drive in a Triumph 2500 PI for the British Leyland team in the 1970 London-Mexico rally, but had to turn it down due to movie commitments. His first off-road motorcycle was a Triumph 500 cc, purchased from Ekins. McQueen raced in many top off-road races on the West Coast, including the Baja 1000, the Mint 400, and the Elsinore Grand Prix.
In 1964, McQueen and Ekins were part of a four-rider (plus one reserve) first-ever official US team-entry into the Silver Vase category of the International Six Days Trial, an Enduro-type off-road motorcycling event held that year in Erfurt, East Germany. The "A" team arrived in England in late August to collect their mix of 649 cc and 490 cc twins from the Triumph factory before modifying them for off-road use. Initially let down with transport arrangements by a long-established English motorcycle dealer, Triumph dealer H&L Motors stepped-in to provide a suitable vehicle. On arrival in Germany, the team, with their English temporary manager, were surprised to find a Vase "B" team, comprising expat Americans living in Europe, had entered themselves privately to ride European-sourced machinery.
McQueen's ISDT competition number was 278, which was based on the trials starting order. Both teams crashed repeatedly. McQueen retired due to irreparable crash damage, and Ekins withdrew with a broken leg, both on day three (Wednesday). Only one member of the "B" team finished the six-day event. UK monthly magazine Motorcycle Sport commented: "Riding Triumph twins...[the team] rode everywhere with great dash, if not in admirable style, falling off frequently and obviously out for six days' sport without too many worries about who was going to win (they knew it would not be them)".
He was inducted in the Off-road Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1978. In 1971, McQueen's Solar Productions funded the classic motorcycle documentary On Any Sunday, in which McQueen is featured, along with racing legends Mert Lawwill and Malcolm Smith. The same year, he also appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated magazine riding a Husqvarna dirt bike.
McQueen designed a motorsports bucket seat, for which a patent was issued in 1971.
In a segment filmed for The Ed Sullivan Show, McQueen drove Sullivan around a desert area in a dune buggy at high speed. Afterward, Sullivan said, "That was a 'helluva' ride!"
By testimony of McQueen's son, Chad, Steve owned around 100 classic motorcycles, as well as around 100 exotics and vintage cars, including:
Porsche 917, Porsche 908, and Ferrari 512 race cars from the Le Mans film
Porsche 911S (used in the opening sequence of the Le Mans film)
1963 Ferrari 250 GT Berlinetta Lusso
1967 Ferrari 275GTB/4
1956 Jaguar XKSS (right-hand drive) (now on exhibit at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, California)
1958 Porsche 356 Speedster 1600 Super (black exterior, interior and top) (McQueen drove the car in numerous SCCA racing events) (now in property of his son Chad)
1968 Ford GT40 (Gulf liveried) (used in the Le Mans film)
1953 Siata 208s (McQueen replaced the Siata badges with Ferrari badges and called it his "little Ferrari")
1967 Mini Cooper-S (McQueen had the car customized by Lee Brown with changes including a single foglight, a wood dash, a recessed antenna and a custom brown paint job)
1951 Chevrolet Styline De Lux Convertible (used in The Hunter, McQueen bought the car in 1979 after filming ended)
1952 Chevrolet 3800 pickup camper conversion (McQueen used the truck for cross-country camping trips. It was the last car he rode in before his death)
1950 Hudson Commodore convertible
1952 Hudson Wasp 2-door sedan
1953 Hudson Hornet 4-door Sedan
1956 GMC Suburban
1958 GMC Pickup Truck (Reportedly one of McQueen's favorite cars, it is powered by a 336 Ci V8 which has been modified. The tag "MQ3188" is a reference to the ID number assigned to him when he was in reform school)
1931 Lincoln Club Sedan
1935 Chrysler Airflow Imperial Sedan
1969 Chevrolet Baja Hickey race truck (originally debuted at the 1968 Mexican 1000 Rally and was driven by Cliff Coleman, Johnny Diaz, Mickey Thompson and others during its racing career; said to be the first truck specifically constructed by GM for use in the Mexican 1000; McQueen bought it from General Motors in 1970)
In spite of numerous attempts, McQueen was never able to purchase the Ford Mustang GT 390 he drove in Bullitt, which featured a modified drivetrain that suited McQueen's driving style. One of the two Mustangs used in the film was badly damaged, judged beyond repair, and believed to have been scrapped until it surfaced in Mexico in 2017, while the other one, which McQueen attempted to purchase in 1977, is hidden from the public eye. At the 2018 North American International Auto Show the GT 390 was displayed, in its current non-restored condition, with the 2019 Ford Mustang "Bullitt".
McQueen also flew and owned, among other aircraft, a 1945 Stearman, tail number N3188, (his student number in reform school), a 1946 Piper J-3 Cub, and an award-winning 1931 Pitcairn PA-8 biplane, flown in the US Mail Service by famed World War I flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker. They were hangared at Santa Paula Airport an hour northwest of Hollywood, where he lived his final days.
Personal life
Relationships and friendships
While still attending Stella Adler's school in New York, McQueen dated Gia Scala.
On November 2, 1956, he married Filipino actress and dancer Neile Adams, with whom he had a daughter, Terry Leslie (June 5, 1959 – March 19, 1998) and a son, Chad (born December 28, 1960). McQueen and Adams divorced in 1972. In her autobiography, My Husband, My Friend, Adams stated that she had an abortion in 1971, when their marriage was on the rocks. One of McQueen's four grandchildren is actor Steven R. McQueen (who is best known for playing Jeremy Gilbert in The Vampire Diaries and Jimmy Borelli in Chicago Fire).
Mamie Van Doren claimed to have had an affair with McQueen and tried hallucinogens with him around 1959. Actress-model Lauren Hutton also said that she had an affair with McQueen in the early 1960s. In 1971–1972, while separated from Adams, McQueen had a relationship with Junior Bonner co-star Barbara Leigh, which included her pregnancy and an abortion.
In Cheyenne, Wyoming, in 1973, McQueen married actress Ali MacGraw, his co-star in The Getaway, but this marriage ended in a divorce in 1978. MacGraw suffered a miscarriage during their marriage. Some friends later claimed that MacGraw was the one true love of McQueen's life: "He was madly in love with her until the day he died."
On January 16, 1980, less than a year before his death, McQueen married model Barbara Minty. Barbara Minty, in her book Steve McQueen: The Last Mile, wrote of McQueen becoming an Evangelical Christian toward the end of his life. This was due in part to the influences of his flying instructor, Sammy Mason, Mason's son Pete, and Barbara herself. McQueen attended his local church, Ventura Missionary Church, and was visited by evangelist Billy Graham shortly before his death.
In 1973 McQueen was one of the pallbearers at the funeral of Bruce Lee along with James Coburn, Bruce's brother Robert Lee, Peter Chin, Dan Inosanto, and Taky Kimura.
After discovering a mutual interest in racing, McQueen and Great Escape co-star James Garner became good friends and lived near each other. McQueen recalled:
I could see that Jim was neat around his place. Flowers trimmed, no papers in the yard... grass always cut. So to piss him off, I'd start lobbing empty beer cans down the hill into his driveway. He'd have his drive all spick 'n' span when he left the house, then get home to find all these empty cans. Took him a long time to figure out it was me.
Lifestyle
McQueen followed a daily two-hour exercise regimen, involving weightlifting and, at one point, running , seven days a week. McQueen learned the martial art Tang Soo Do from ninth-degree black belt Pat E. Johnson.
According to photographer William Claxton, McQueen smoked marijuana almost every day; biographer Marc Eliot stated that McQueen used a large amount of cocaine in the early 1970s. He was also a heavy cigarette smoker. McQueen sometimes drank to excess; he was arrested for driving while intoxicated in Anchorage, Alaska, in 1972.
Manson connection
Two months after Charles Manson incited the murder of five people, including McQueen's friends Sharon Tate and Jay Sebring, the media reported police had found a hit list with McQueen's name on it. According to his first wife, McQueen began carrying a handgun at all times in public, including at Sebring's funeral.
Charitable causes
McQueen had an unusual reputation for demanding free items in bulk from studios when agreeing to do a film, such as electric razors, jeans, and other items. It was later discovered McQueen donated these things to the Boys Republic reformatory school, where he had spent time during his teen years. McQueen made occasional visits to the school to spend time with the students, often to play pool and speak about his experiences.
Illness and death
McQueen developed a persistent cough in 1978. He gave up cigarettes and underwent antibiotic treatments without improvement. His shortness of breath grew more pronounced, and on December 22, 1979, after filming The Hunter, a biopsy revealed pleural mesothelioma, a cancer associated with asbestos exposure for which there is no known cure.
A few months later, McQueen gave a medical interview in which he blamed his condition on asbestos exposure. McQueen believed that asbestos used in movie sound stage insulation and race-drivers' protective suits and helmets could have been involved, but he thought it more likely that his illness was a direct result of massive exposure while removing asbestos lagging (insulation) from pipes aboard a troop ship while he was in the Marines.
By February 1980, evidence of widespread metastasis was found. He tried to keep the condition a secret, but on March 11, 1980, the National Enquirer disclosed that he had "terminal cancer". In July 1980, McQueen traveled to Rosarito Beach, Mexico, for unconventional treatment after U.S. doctors told him they could do nothing to prolong his life. Controversy arose over the trip because McQueen sought treatment from William Donald Kelley, who was promoting a variation of the Gerson therapy that used coffee enemas, frequent washing with shampoos, daily injections of fluid containing live cells from cattle and sheep, massages, and laetrile, a reputed anti-cancer drug available in Mexico, but long known to be both toxic and ineffective at treating cancer. McQueen paid for Kelley's treatments by himself in cash payments which were said to have been upwards of $40,000 per month ($ today) during his three-month stay in Mexico. Kelley's only medical license (until revoked in 1976) had been for orthodontics. Kelley's methods caused a sensation in the traditional and tabloid press when it became known that McQueen was a patient.
McQueen returned to the U.S. in early October. Despite metastasis of the cancer throughout McQueen's body, Kelley publicly announced that McQueen would be completely cured and return to normal life. McQueen's condition soon worsened and huge tumors developed in his abdomen.
In late October 1980, McQueen flew to Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico, to have an abdominal tumor on his liver (weighing around ) removed, despite warnings from his U.S. doctors that the tumor was inoperable and his heart could not withstand the surgery. Using the name "Samuel Sheppard", McQueen checked into a small Juárez clinic where the doctors and staff were unaware of his actual identity.
On November 7, 1980, McQueen died of a heart attack at 3:45 a.m. at a Juárez hospital, 12 hours after surgery to remove or reduce numerous metastatic tumors in his neck and abdomen. He was 50 years old. According to the El Paso Times, McQueen died in his sleep.
Leonard DeWitt of the Ventura Missionary Church presided over McQueen's memorial service. McQueen was cremated and his ashes were spread in the Pacific Ocean.
Legacy
In 2007, Forbes said McQueen remained a popular star and still the "king of cool", even 27 years after his death, and was one of the highest-earning dead celebrities. A rights-management agency head credited Branded Entertainment Network (called Corbis at the time) with maximizing the profitability of his estate by limiting the licensing of McQueen's image, avoiding the commercial saturation of other dead celebrities' estates. As of 2007, McQueen's estate entered the top 10 of highest-earning dead celebrities.
McQueen was inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers in April 2007 in a ceremony at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.
In November 1999, McQueen was inducted into the Motorcycle Hall of Fame. He was credited with contributions including financing the film On Any Sunday, supporting a team of off-road riders, and enhancing the public image of motorcycling overall.
A film based on unfinished storyboards and notes developed by McQueen before his death was slated for production by McG's production company Wonderland Sound and Vision. Yucatán is described as an "epic adventure heist" film, scheduled for release in 2013 but still unreleased in February 2016. Team Downey, the production company of Robert Downey, Jr. and his wife Susan Downey, expressed an interest in developing Yucatán for the screen.
The Beech Grove, Indiana, Public Library formally dedicated the Steve McQueen Birthplace Collection on March 16, 2010, to commemorate the 80th anniversary of McQueen's birth on March 24, 1930.
In 2012, McQueen was posthumously honored with the Warren Zevon Tribute Award by the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO).
Steve McQueen: The Man & Le Mans, a 2015 documentary, examines the actor's quest to create and star in the 1971 auto-racing film Le Mans. His son Chad McQueen and former wife Neile Adams are among those interviewed.
On September 28, 2017, there was a selected showing in some theaters of his life story and spiritual quest, Steve McQueen – American Icon. There was an encore presentation on October 10, 2017. The film received mostly positive reviews. Kenneth R. Morefield of Christianity Today said it "offers a timeless reminder that even those among us living the most celebrated lives often long for the peace and sense of purpose that only God can provide". Michael Foust of Wordslingers called it "one of the most powerful and inspiring documentaries I've ever seen."
In the 2019 Quentin Tarantino film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, McQueen is portrayed by Damian Lewis.
Archive
The Academy Film Archive houses the Steve McQueen-Neile Adams Collection, which consists of personal prints and home movies. The archive has preserved several of McQueen's home movies.
Ford commercials
In 1998, director Paul Street created a commercial for the Ford Puma. Footage was shot in modern-day San Francisco, set to the theme music from Bullitt. Archive footage of McQueen was used to digitally superimpose him driving and exiting the car in settings reminiscent of the film. The Puma shares the same number plate of the classic fastback Mustang used in Bullitt, and as he parks in the garage (next to the Mustang), he pauses and looks meaningfully at a motorcycle tucked in the corner, similar to that used in The Great Escape.
In 2005, Ford used his likeness again, in a commercial for the 2005 Mustang. In the commercial, a farmer builds a winding racetrack, which he circles in the 2005 Mustang. Out of the cornfield comes McQueen. The farmer tosses his keys to McQueen, who drives off in the new Mustang. McQueen's likeness was created using a body double (Dan Holsten) and digital editing. Ford secured the rights to McQueen's likeness from the actor's estate licensing agent for an undisclosed sum.
At the Detroit Auto Show in January 2018, Ford unveiled the new 2019 Mustang Bullitt. The company called on McQueen's granddaughter, actress Molly McQueen, to make the announcement. After a brief rundown of the tribute car's particulars, a short film was shown in which Molly was introduced to the actual Bullitt Mustang, a 1968 Mustang Fastback with a 390 cubic-inch engine and a four-speed manual gearbox. That car has been in possession of the same family since 1974 and hidden away from the public until now, when it was driven out from under the press stand and up the center aisle of Ford's booth to much fanfare.
Memorabilia
The blue-tinted sunglasses (Persol 714) worn by McQueen in the 1968 movie The Thomas Crown Affair sold at a Bonhams & Butterfields auction in Los Angeles for $70,200 in 2006. One of his motorcycles, a 1937 Crocker, sold for a world-record price of $276,500 at the same auction. McQueen's 1963 metallic-brown Ferrari 250 GT Lusso Berlinetta sold for US$2.31 million at auction on August 16, 2007. Except for three motorcycles sold with other memorabilia in 2006, most of McQueen's collection of 130 motorcycles was sold four years after his death. The 1970 Porsche 911S purchased while making the film Le Mans and appearing in the opening sequence was sold at auction in August 2011 for $1.375 million. From 1995 to 2011, McQueen's red 1957 fuel-injected Chevrolet convertible was displayed at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles in a special Cars of Steve McQueen exhibit. It is now in the collection of actress Ruth Buzzi and her husband Kent Perkins. McQueen's British racing green 1956 Jaguar XKSS is also located in the Petersen Automotive Museum and is in drivable condition, having been driven by Jay Leno in an episode of Jay Leno's Garage. In August 2019, Mecum Auctions announced it would auction the Bullitt Mustang Hero Car at its Kissimmee auction, held January 2–12, 2020. The car sold without reserve for $3.4 million ($3.74 million after commissions and fees).
Watch collection
The Rolex Explorer II, Reference 1655, known as Rolex Steve McQueen in the horology collectors' world, the Rolex Submariner, Reference 5512, which McQueen was often photographed wearing in private moments, sold for $234,000 at auction on June 11, 2009, a world-record price for the type. McQueen was left-handed and wore the watch on his right wrist.
McQueen was a sponsored ambassador for Heuer watches. In the 1970 film Le Mans, he famously wore a blue-faced Monaco Ref. 1133, which led to its cult status among watch collectors, purchasing six watches of the same model for the shoot of the film. On December 12, 2020, one of the last six models sold and one of two held in private hands was sold for a record US$2.208 million at a Phillips auction in New York, becoming the most expensive Heuer watch sold at auction. Tag Heuer continues to promote its Monaco range with McQueen's image.
In June 2018, Phillips announced McQueen's Rolex Submariner to hit the auction block in September that year. However, there was controversy whether or not the watch was his personal watch worn by McQueen himself or if the watch was bought, engraved, then gifted. Phillips later removed the watch from the auction block.
Among McQueen's other watches was a Hanhart 417 chronograph.
Filmography
Awards and honors
Academy Awards
(1967) Nominated – Best Actor in a Leading Role in The Sand Pebbles
Golden Globe Awards
(1964) Nominated – Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama in Love with the Proper Stranger
(1967) Nominated – Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama in The Sand Pebbles
(1970) Nominated – Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy in The Reivers
(1974) Nominated – Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama in Papillon
Moscow International Film Festival
(1963) – Won – Best Actor in The Great Escape
Quotes
"Racing is life. Anything before or after is just waiting."
"I'm not sure whether I'm an actor who races or racer, who acts."
"I'm not that interesting of a person."
"I live for myself and answer to nobody."
"When I believe in something, I fight like hell for it."
"I need to have a reason why I'm doing something. Otherwise, I'm lost."
References
Bibliography
Terrill, Marshall (2020). Steve McQueen: In His Own Words. Deerfield, IL: Dalton Watson. .
Further reading
Beaver, Jim. Steve McQueen. Films in Review, August–September 1981.
Satchell, Tim. McQueen. (Sidgwick and Jackson Limited, 1981)
Siegel, Mike. Steve McQueen: The Actor and his Films (Dalton Watson, 2011)
Nolan, William F. McQueen (Congdon & Weed, 1984)
Terrill, Marshall. Steve McQueen: Portrait of an American Rebel, (Donald I. Fine, 1993)
Terrill, Marshall. Steve McQueen: The Last Mile', (Dalton Watson, 2006)
Terrill, Marshall. Steve McQueen: A Tribute to the King of Cool, (Dalton Watson, 2010)
Terrill, Marshall. Steve McQueen: The Life and Legacy of a Hollywood Icon'', (Triumph Books, 2010)
Terrill, Marshall. Steve McQueen: In His Own Words, (Dalton Watson, 2020)
External links
Steve McQueen: In His Own Words by Marshall Terrill
Steve McQueen at Virtual History
Bell System Film "A Family Affair", McQueen's debut, at The AT&T Tech Channel
The Great Escape – New publication with private photos of the shooting & documents of 2nd unit cameraman Walter Riml
Photos of the filming The Great Escape, Steve McQueen on the set
Photos and commentary on Steve McQueen shooting an episode of Wanted: Dead or Alive on the Iverson Movie Ranch
1930 births
1980 deaths
20th-century American male actors
American male film actors
American male television actors
American motorcycle racers
American people of Scottish descent
American sailors
American tang soo do practitioners
British Touring Car Championship drivers
California Republicans
Converts to Christianity
Deaths from cancer in Mexico
Deaths from mesothelioma
Enduro riders
Former Roman Catholics
Male actors from Indiana
Male actors from Indianapolis
Male actors from Los Angeles
Male actors from Missouri
Male Western (genre) film actors
Military personnel from Indiana
Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre alumni
Off-road motorcycle racers
Off-road racing drivers
People from Beech Grove, Indiana
People from Echo Park, Los Angeles
People from Saline County, Missouri
Racing drivers from California
Racing drivers from Indiana
Racing drivers from Missouri
United States Marines
United States Merchant Mariners
United States Merchant Mariners of World War II
Western (genre) television actors
World record setters in motorcycling
World Sportscar Championship drivers | true | [
"What Are You Waiting For? may refer to:\n\nAlbums\n What Are You Waiting For? (FM Static album), 2003\n What Are You Waiting For? (Krezip album), 2005\n What Are You Waiting For, a 2012 album by Jiro Wang\n\nSongs\n \"What Are You Waiting For?\" (The Saturdays song), 2014\n \"What Are You Waiting For?\" (Nickelback song), 2014\n\"What Are You Waiting For?\", a single by Dane Rumble from the 2010 album The Experiment\n\"What Are You Waiting For\", a song written by Gary Lightbody\n\"What Are You Waiting For\", a 1997 single by Phajja\n\"What Are You Waiting For?\", a single by The Tides from the 2007 album One for the Man Over There\n\"What Are You Waitin' For\", song by Montrose (written by Dan Hartman) from Jump on It\n\"What Are You Waiting For?\", a single by Lauri Ylönen from New World\n\"What Are You Waiting For\", a song by Tantric from Mind Control\n\"What Are You Waiting For\", a single by Nailpin\n\"What Are You Waiting For?\", a song by Hunters & Collectors from album What's a Few Men?\n\"What Are You Waiting For?\", a song by Karine Polwart from Faultlines\n\"What Are You Waiting For?\", a song by The Sick-Leaves\n\"What Are You Waiting For?\", a song by Brigade from Come Morning We Fight\n\"What Are You Waiting For?\", a song by Kathleen Edwards from Back to Me\n\"What Are You Waiting For?\", a song by Miranda Cosgrove from Sparks Fly\n\"What Are You Waiting For\", a song by The Saints from Everybody Knows the Monkey\n\"What Are You Waiting For\", a song by Emmelie from Only Teardrops\n\"What Are You Waiting For\", a song by Mai Kuraki from Perfect Crime\n\"What Are You Waiting For?\", a song by Sherwood from QU\n\"What Are You Waiting For\", a song by ATB from Contact\n\"What Are You Waiting For\", a song by Evelyn King from I'm in Love\n\"What Are You Waiting For\", a song by Phantom Planet from Raise the Dead\n\"What Are You Waiting For?\", a song by No Secrets from No Secrets\n\"What are you Waiting For?\", a song by Fair Ground\n\"What Are You Waiting For?\", a song by Tupelo Honey\n\"Ti perimenis?\" (\"What Are You Waiting For\"), a Greek song by Antonis Remos from the 2005 album San Anemos\n\"What Are You Waiting For?\", a song by Disturbed from the 2015 album Immortalized\n\nSee also\n\"What R U Waiting 4\", a 2004 song by Tiffani Wood, covered by Lindsay Lohan and Natalie Grant\n\"Mistanie Eiy\" (song) (\"What Are You Waiting For\"), an Arabic song by Amal Hijazi\nWhat You Waiting For? (disambiguation)",
"\"For What It's Worth\" is a 1966 Stephen Stills / Buffalo Springfield song; it may also refer to:\n\nMusic\nFor What It's Worth (EP) by Ensign\nFor What It's Worth (album) by Stick to Your Guns\n\"For What It's Worth\" (The Cardigans song)\n\"For What It's Worth\" (Placebo song)\n\"For What It's Worth\" (Stevie Nicks song)\n\"For What It's Worth\", song by Liam Gallagher from As You Were\n\nOther\nFor What It's Worth (novel), a novel by Janet Tashjian\nFor What It's Worth, a stand-up comedy special by Dave Chappelle\nFor What It's Worth (game show), a 2016 BBC daytime antiques game show\nPaul Harvey's For What It's Worth, a book compiling radio segments by Paul Harvey"
] |
[
"Steve McQueen",
"Ford commercials",
"What is McQueen's connection to Ford?",
"In 1998 director Paul Street created a commercial for the Ford Puma.",
"What was the result of this?",
"Footage was shot in modern-day San Francisco, set to the theme music from Bullitt.",
"Did he do any other commercials?",
"In 2005, Ford used his likeness again,",
"What for?",
"a commercial for the 2005 Mustang."
] | C_379fd5e840b549b58c8da5d20795bf1c_1 | Did he appear in any other commercials? | 5 | Other than the commercial for the 2005 Mustang, did Steve Mcqueen appear in any other commercials? | Steve McQueen | In 1952, with financial assistance provided by the G.I. Bill, McQueen began studying acting in New York at Sanford Meisner's Neighborhood Playhouse. Reportedly, he delivered his first dialogue on a theatre stage in a 1952 play produced by Yiddish theatre star Molly Picon. McQueen's character spoke one brief line: "Alts iz farloyrn." ("All is lost."). During this time, he also studied acting with Stella Adler in whose class he met Gia Scala. McQueen began to earn money by competing in weekend motorcycle races at Long Island City Raceway and purchased the first of many motorcycles, a Harley-Davidson and Triumph. He soon became an excellent racer, and went home each weekend with about $100 in winnings (equivalent to $900 in 2017). He appeared as a musical judge in an episode of ABC's Jukebox Jury, that aired in the 1953-1954 season. McQueen had minor roles in productions including Peg o' My Heart, The Member of the Wedding, and Two Fingers of Pride. He made his Broadway debut in 1955 in the play A Hatful of Rain, starring Ben Gazzara. In late 1955, at the age of 25, McQueen left New York and headed for California, where he moved into a house on Vestal Avenue in the Echo Park area, seeking acting jobs in Hollywood. When McQueen appeared in a two-part television Westinghouse Studio One presentation entitled The Defenders, Hollywood manager Hilly Elkins (who managed McQueen's first wife, Neile) took note of him and decided that B-movies would be a good place for the young actor to make his mark. He landed his first film role in a bit part in Somebody Up There Likes Me, directed by Robert Wise and starring Paul Newman. McQueen was subsequently hired for the films Never Love a Stranger, The Blob (his first leading role) which depicts a flesh eating amoeba-like space creature, and The Great St. Louis Bank Robbery. McQueen's first breakout role came on television. He appeared on Dale Robertson's NBC western series, Tales of Wells Fargo. Elkins, then McQueen's manager, successfully lobbied Vincent M. Fennelly, producer of the western series Trackdown, to have McQueen read for the part of bounty hunter Josh Randall in a Trackdown episode. McQueen appeared as Randall in the episode, cast opposite series lead and old New York motorcycle racing buddy Robert Culp. McQueen then filmed the pilot episode, which became the series titled Wanted: Dead or Alive, which aired on CBS in September 1958. In 1971 McQueen starred in the poorly received auto-racing drama Le Mans. Then came Junior Bonner in 1972, a story of an aging rodeo rider. He worked for director Sam Peckinpah again with the leading role in The Getaway, where he met future wife Ali MacGraw. He followed this with a physically demanding role as a Devil's Island prisoner in 1973's Papillon, featuring Dustin Hoffman as his character's tragic sidekick. In 1973 The Rolling Stones referred to McQueen in the song "Star Star" from the album Goats Head Soup for which an amused McQueen reportedly gave personal permission. The lines were "Star ######, star ######, star ######, star ###### star/ Yes you are, yes you are, yes you are/Yeah, Ali MacGraw got mad with you/For givin' head to Steve McQueen". By the time of The Getaway, McQueen was the world's highest-paid actor, but after 1974's The Towering Inferno, co-starring with his long-time professional rival Paul Newman and reuniting him with Dunaway, became a tremendous box-office success, McQueen all but disappeared from the public eye, to focus on motorcycle racing and traveling around the country in a motor home and on his vintage Indian motorcycles. He did not return to acting until 1978 with An Enemy of the People, playing against type as a bearded, bespectacled 19th-century doctor in this adaptation of a Henrik Ibsen play. The film was never properly released theatrically. His last two films were loosely based on true stories: Tom Horn, a Western adventure about a former Army scout-turned professional gunman who worked for the big cattle ranchers hunting down rustlers, and later hanged for murder in the shooting death of a sheepherder, and The Hunter, an urban action movie about a modern-day bounty hunter, both released in 1980. In 1998 director Paul Street created a commercial for the Ford Puma. Footage was shot in modern-day San Francisco, set to the theme music from Bullitt. Archive footage of McQueen was used to digitally superimpose him driving and exiting the car in settings reminiscent of the film. The Puma shares the same number plate of the classic fastback Mustang used in Bullitt, and as he parks in the garage (next to the Mustang), he pauses and looks meaningfully at a motorcycle tucked in the corner, similar to that used in The Great Escape. In 2005, Ford used his likeness again, in a commercial for the 2005 Mustang. In the commercial, a farmer builds a winding racetrack, which he circles in the 2005 Mustang. Out of the cornfield comes Steve McQueen. The farmer tosses his keys to McQueen, who drives off in the new Mustang. McQueen's likeness was created using a body double (Dan Holsten) and digital editing. Ford secured the rights to McQueen's likeness from the actor's estate licensing agent, GreenLight, for an undisclosed sum. At the Detroit Auto Show in January 2018, Ford unveiled the new 2019 Mustang Bullitt. The company called on McQueen's granddaughter, actress Molly McQueen, to make the announcement. After a brief rundown of the tribute car's particulars, a short film was shown in which Molly was introduced to the actual Bullitt Mustang, a 1968 Mustang Fastback with a 390 cubic-inch engine and a four-speed manual gearbox. That car has been in possession of the same family since 1974 and hidden away from the public until now, when it was driven out from under the press stand and up the center aisle of Ford's booth to much fanfare. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Terrence Stephen McQueen (March 24, 1930November 7, 1980) was an American actor. His antihero persona, emphasized during the height of the counterculture of the 1960s, made him a top box-office draw for his films of the late 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. He was nicknamed the "King of Cool" and used the alias Harvey Mushman in motor races.
McQueen received an Academy Award nomination for his role in The Sand Pebbles (1966). His other popular films include Love With the Proper Stranger (1963), The Cincinnati Kid (1965), Nevada Smith (1966), The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), Bullitt (1968), Le Mans (1971), The Getaway (1972), and Papillon (1973). In addition, he starred in the all-star ensemble films The Magnificent Seven (1960), The Great Escape (1963), and The Towering Inferno (1974).
In 1974, McQueen became the highest-paid movie star in the world, although he did not act in film for another four years. He was combative with directors and producers, but his popularity placed him in high demand and enabled him to command the largest salaries.
Early life
Terrence Stephen McQueen was born to a single mother on March 24, 1930, at St. Francis Hospital in Beech Grove, Indiana, a suburb of Indianapolis. McQueen, of Scottish descent, was raised a Roman Catholic. His parents never married. McQueen's father, William McQueen, a stunt pilot for a barnstorming flying circus, left his mother, Julia Ann (a.k.a. Julianne) Crawford, six months after meeting her. Several biographers have stated that his mother Julia Ann was an alcoholic. Unable to cope with caring for a small child, she left the boy with her parents (Victor and Lillian) in Slater, Missouri, in 1933. As the Great Depression set in shortly thereafter, McQueen and his grandparents moved in with Lillian's brother Claude and his family at their farm in Slater. McQueen later said that he had good memories of living on the farm, noting that his great-uncle Claude "was a very good man, very strong, very fair. I learned a lot from him."
Claude gave McQueen a red tricycle on his fourth birthday, a gift that McQueen subsequently credited with sparking his early interest in car racing. McQueen's mother married and when the boy was eight, she brought him from the farm to live with her and her new husband in Indianapolis. His great-uncle Claude gave McQueen a special gift at his departure. "The day I left the farm", he recalled, "Uncle Claude gave me a personal going-away present—a gold pocket watch, with an inscription inside the case." The inscription read "To Steve – who has been a son to me."
Dyslexic and partially deaf due to a childhood ear infection, McQueen did not adjust well to school or his new life. His stepfather beat him to such an extent that at the age of nine he left home to live on the streets. He later recalled "When a kid doesn't have any love when he's small, he begins to wonder if he's good enough. My mother didn't love me, and I didn't have a father. I thought, 'Well, I must not be very good.'" Soon he was running with a street gang and committing acts of petty crime. Unable to control his behavior, his mother sent him back to her grandparents and great-uncle in Slater.
When McQueen was 12, Julia wrote to her uncle Claude, asking that her son be returned to her again to live in Los Angeles, California, where she lived with her second husband. By McQueen's own account, he and his new stepfather "locked horns immediately". McQueen recalls him being "a prime son of a bitch" who was not averse to using his fists on McQueen and his mother. As McQueen began to rebel again, he was sent back to live with Claude for a final time. At age 14, he left Claude's farm without saying goodbye and joined a circus for a short time. He drifted back to his mother and stepfather in Los Angeles—resuming his life as a gang member and petty criminal. McQueen was caught stealing hubcaps by the police and handed over to his stepfather, who beat him severely. He threw the youth down a flight of stairs. McQueen looked up at his stepfather and said, "You lay your stinking hands on me again and I swear, I'll kill you."
After this incident, McQueen's stepfather persuaded his mother to sign a court order stating that McQueen was incorrigible, remanding him to the California Junior Boys Republic in Chino. Here, McQueen began to change and mature. He was not popular with the other boys at first:
"Say the boys had a chance once a month to load into a bus and go into town to see a movie. And they lost out because one guy in the bungalow didn't get his work done right. Well, you can pretty well guess they're gonna have something to say about that. I paid my dues with the other fellows quite a few times. I got my lumps, no doubt about it. The other guys in the bungalow had ways of paying you back for interfering with their well-being."
McQueen gradually became a role model and was elected to the Boys Council, a group who set the rules and regulations governing the boys' lives. He left the Boys Republic at age 16. When he later became famous as an actor, he regularly returned to talk to resident boys and retained a lifelong association with the center.
At age 16, McQueen returned to live with his mother, who had moved to Greenwich Village in New York City. There he met two sailors from the Merchant Marine and decided to sign on to a ship bound for the Dominican Republic. Once there, he abandoned his new post, eventually being employed in a brothel. Later McQueen made his way to Texas and drifted from job to job, including selling pens at a traveling carnival, and working as a lumberjack in Canada. He was arrested for vagrancy in the Deep South and served a 30-day assignment on a chain gang.
Military service
In 1947, after receiving permission from his mother (since he was not yet 18 years old), McQueen enlisted in the United States Marine Corps. He was sent to Parris Island for boot camp. He was promoted to private first class and assigned to an armored unit. He initially struggled with conforming to the discipline of the service, and was demoted to private seven times. He took an unauthorized absence, going UA by failing to return after a weekend pass expired. He was caught by the shore patrol while staying with a girlfriend (Barbara Ross) for two weeks. After resisting arrest, he was sentenced to 41 days in the brig.
After this, McQueen resolved to focus his energies on self-improvement and embraced the Marines' discipline. He saved the lives of five other Marines during an Arctic exercise, pulling them from a tank before it broke through ice into the sea. He was assigned to the honor guard responsible for guarding the presidential yacht of US President Harry Truman. McQueen served until 1950, when he was honorably discharged. He later said he had enjoyed his time in the Marines. He remembered this period with the Marines as a formative time in his life, saying, "The Marines made a man out of me. I learned how to get along with others, and I had a platform to jump off of."
Acting
1950s
In 1952, with financial assistance under the G.I. Bill, McQueen began studying acting in New York at Sanford Meisner's Neighborhood Playhouse and at HB Studio under Uta Hagen. He reportedly delivered his first dialogue on a theatre stage in a 1952 play produced by Yiddish theatre star Molly Picon. McQueen's character spoke one brief line: "Alts iz farloyrn." ("All is lost."). During this time, he also studied acting with Stella Adler, in whose class he met Gia Scala.
Long enamored of cars and motorcycles, McQueen began to earn money by competing in weekend motorcycle races at Long Island City Raceway. He purchased the first two of many motorcycles, a Harley-Davidson and a Triumph. He soon became an excellent racer, winning about $100 each weekend(). He appeared as a musical judge in an episode of ABC's Jukebox Jury, which aired in the 1953–1954 season.
McQueen had minor roles in stage productions, including Peg o' My Heart, The Member of the Wedding, and Two Fingers of Pride. He made his Broadway debut in 1955 in the play A Hatful of Rain, starring Ben Gazzara.
In late 1955 at the age of 25, McQueen left New York and headed for Los Angeles, California, by then the center of the film industry. He moved into a house on Vestal Avenue in the Echo Park area, and sought acting jobs in Hollywood.
When McQueen appeared in a two-part Westinghouse Studio One television presentation entitled The Defenders, Hollywood manager Hilly Elkins took note of him and decided that B-movies would be a good place for the young actor to make his mark. McQueen's first role was a bit part in Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956), directed by Robert Wise and starring Paul Newman. McQueen was subsequently hired for the films Never Love a Stranger; The Blob (his first leading role, science fiction); and The Great St. Louis Bank Robbery (1959).
McQueen's first breakout role came on television. He appeared on Dale Robertson's NBC western series Tales of Wells Fargo as Bill Longley. Elkins, then McQueen's manager, successfully lobbied Vincent M. Fennelly, producer of the western series Trackdown, to have McQueen read for the part of bounty hunter Josh Randall. He first appeared in Season 1 Episode 21 of Trackdown in 1958. He appeared as Randall in that episode, cast opposite series lead Robert Culp, a former New York motorcycle racing buddy. McQueen appeared again on Trackdown in Episode 31 of the first season, in which he played twin brothers, one of whom was an outlaw sought by Culp's character, Hoby Gilman.
McQueen next filmed a pilot episode for what became the series titled Wanted: Dead or Alive, which aired on CBS in September 1958. This became his breakout role.
In interviews associated with the DVD release of Wanted, Robert Culp (of Trackdown) claims credit for bringing McQueen to Hollywood and landing him the part of Randall. He said he taught McQueen the "art of the fast-draw." He said that by the second day of filming, McQueen beat him at it. McQueen became a household name as a result of this series. Randall's special holster held a sawed-off .44–40 Winchester rifle nicknamed the "Mare's Leg" instead of the six-gun carried by the typical Western character, although the cartridges in the gunbelt were dummy .45–70, chosen because they "looked tougher." Coupled with the generally negative image of the bounty hunter (noted in the three-part DVD special on the background of the series), this added to the antihero image infused with mystery and detachment that made this show stand out from the typical TV Western. The 94 episodes that ran from 1958 until early 1961 kept McQueen steadily employed, and he became a fixture at the renowned Iverson Movie Ranch in Chatsworth, where much of the outdoor action for Wanted: Dead or Alive was shot.
At 29, McQueen got a significant break when Frank Sinatra removed Sammy Davis Jr. from the film Never So Few after Davis supposedly made some mildly negative remarks about Sinatra in a radio interview, and Davis's role went to McQueen. Sinatra saw something special in McQueen and ensured that the young actor got plenty of closeups in a role that earned McQueen favorable reviews. McQueen's character, Bill Ringa, was never more comfortable than when driving at high speed—in this case in a jeep—or handling a switchblade or a tommy gun.
After Never So Few, the film's director John Sturges cast McQueen in his next movie, promising to "give him the camera". The Magnificent Seven (1960), in which he played Vin Tanner and co-starred with Yul Brynner, Eli Wallach, Robert Vaughn, Charles Bronson, Horst Buchholz and James Coburn, became McQueen's first major hit and led to his withdrawal from Wanted: Dead or Alive. McQueen's focused portrayal of the taciturn second lead catapulted his career. His added touches in many of the shots (such as shaking a shotgun round before loading it, repeatedly checking his gun while in the background of a shot, and wiping his hat rim) annoyed costar Brynner, who protested that McQueen was trying to steal scenes. (In his autobiography, Eli Wallach reports struggling to conceal his amusement while watching the filming of the funeral-procession scene where Brynner's and McQueen's characters first meet: Brynner was furious at McQueen's shotgun-round-shake, which effectively diverted the viewer's attention to McQueen.) Brynner refused to draw his gun in the same scene with McQueen, not wanting his character outdrawn.
McQueen played the top-billed lead role in the next big Sturges film, 1963's The Great Escape, Hollywood's fictional depiction of the true story of a historic mass escape from a World War II POW camp, Stalag Luft III. Insurance concerns prevented McQueen from performing the film's notable motorcycle leap, which was done by his friend and fellow cycle enthusiast Bud Ekins, who resembled McQueen from a distance. When Johnny Carson later tried to congratulate McQueen for the jump during a broadcast of The Tonight Show, McQueen said, "It wasn't me. That was Bud Ekins." This film established McQueen's box-office clout and secured his status as a superstar.
Also in 1963, McQueen starred in Love with the Proper Stranger with Natalie Wood. He later appeared as the titular Nevada Smith, a character from Harold Robbins's novel The Carpetbaggers portrayed by Alan Ladd two years earlier in a movie version of that novel. Nevada Smith was an enormously successful Western action adventure prequel that also featured Karl Malden and Suzanne Pleshette. After starring in 1965's The Cincinnati Kid as a poker player, McQueen earned his only Academy Award nomination in 1966 for his role as an engine-room sailor in The Sand Pebbles, in which he starred opposite Candice Bergen and Richard Attenborough, whom he had previously worked with in The Great Escape.
He followed his Oscar nomination with 1968's Bullitt, one of his best-known films, and his personal favorite, which co-starred Jacqueline Bisset, Robert Vaughn and Don Gordon. It featured an unprecedented (and endlessly imitated) car chase through San Francisco. Although McQueen did do the driving that appeared in closeup, this was about 10% of what is seen in the film's car chase. The rest of the driving by McQueen's character was done by stunt drivers Bud Ekins and Loren Janes. The antagonist's black Dodge Charger was driven by veteran stunt driver Bill Hickman; McQueen, his stunt drivers and Hickman spent several days before the scene was shot practicing high-speed, close-quarters driving. Bullitt went so far over budget that Warner Brothers cancelled the contract on the rest of his films, seven in all.
When Bullitt became a huge box-office success, Warner Brothers tried to woo him back, but he refused, and his next film was made with an independent studio and released by United Artists. For this film, McQueen went for a change of image, playing a debonair role as a wealthy executive in The Thomas Crown Affair with Faye Dunaway in 1968. The following year, he made the southern period piece The Reivers.
1970s
In 1971, McQueen starred in the poorly received auto-racing drama Le Mans, followed by Junior Bonner in 1972, a story of an aging rodeo rider. He worked for director Sam Peckinpah again with the leading role in The Getaway, where he met future wife Ali MacGraw. He followed this with a physically demanding role as a Devil's Island prisoner in 1973's Papillon, featuring Dustin Hoffman as his character's tragic sidekick.
In 1973, The Rolling Stones referred to McQueen in the song "Star Star" from the album Goats Head Soup for which an amused McQueen reportedly gave personal permission. The lines were "Star f***er, star f***er, star f***er, star f***er star / Yes you are, yes you are, yes you are / Yeah, Ali MacGraw got mad with you / For givin' head to Steve McQueen".
By the time of The Getaway, McQueen was the world's highest-paid actor, but after 1974's The Towering Inferno, co-starring with his long-time professional rival Paul Newman and reuniting him with Dunaway, became a tremendous box-office success, McQueen all but disappeared from the public eye, to focus on motorcycle racing and traveling around the country in a motor home and on his vintage Indian motorcycles. He did not return to acting until 1978 with An Enemy of the People, playing against type as a bearded, bespectacled 19th-century doctor in this adaptation of a Henrik Ibsen play. The film was never properly released theatrically, but has appeared occasionally on PBS.
His last two films were loosely based on true stories: Tom Horn, a Western adventure about a former Army scout-turned professional gunman who worked for the big cattle ranchers hunting down rustlers, and later hanged for murder in the shooting death of a sheepherder, and The Hunter, an urban action movie about a modern-day bounty hunter, both released in 1980.
Missed roles
McQueen was offered the lead male role in Breakfast at Tiffany's, but was unable to accept due to his Wanted: Dead or Alive contract (the role went to George Peppard). He turned down parts in Ocean's 11, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (his attorneys and agents could not agree with Paul Newman's attorneys and agents on top billing), The Driver, Apocalypse Now, California Split, Dirty Harry, A Bridge Too Far, The French Connection (he did not want to do another cop film), and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
According to director John Frankenheimer and actor James Garner in bonus interviews for the DVD of the film Grand Prix, McQueen was Frankenheimer's first choice for the lead role of American Formula One race car driver Pete Aron. Frankenheimer was unable to meet with McQueen to offer him the role, so he sent Edward Lewis, his business partner and the producer of Grand Prix. McQueen and Lewis instantly clashed, the meeting was a disaster, and the role went to Garner.
Garner later for the interview said this:
Oh, McQueen. Crazy McQueen. McQueen and I get along pretty good, McQueen looked to me kind of like an older brother and he didn't want to have much with me, till he got into trouble, then he'd call and, you know, he knew, he could tell him just what I thought. A lot of people wouldn't do that. And then we had falling out. It wasn't falling out, as i did Grand Prix. Steve was originally slated to do that movie, but he couldn't get along with Frank Frankenheimer. So that lasted about 30 minutes, and I was in and Steve was out. And Steve went over to do Sand Pebbles, which went about year longer, than they wanted to go. Big production spent a lot of money and stayed in China too long there, in Taiwan. So, when I got the part in Grand Prix, I called him. In Taiwan. And I started: "Steve, I want to tell you, before somebody else, that I'm going to do Grand Prix." Well, there was about a 20 dollars' silence there (laugh), on the telephone. He didn't know, what to say, and finally said "Oh, that's great, that's great, I'm glad to hear that.", because he planned to do Le Mans, which was another title at the time. But we were about to release, before he even got to that film. But he said: "Great, great, well, I'm glad to hear it; that's good. You know, if anybody's gonna do it, I'm glad, you're going to do it."
He didn't talk to me for about year and half, and we were next-door neighbors (laugh). So, it got to him a little bit, finally by his son. Chad took him to go see Grand Prix. And from that time on, we were talking again. But Steve was a wild kid. He didn't know where he wanted to be or what he wanted to do.
Director Steven Spielberg said McQueen was his first choice for the character of Roy Neary in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. According to Spielberg, in a documentary on the Close Encounters DVD, Spielberg met him at a bar, where McQueen drank beer after beer. Before leaving, McQueen told Spielberg that he could not accept the role because he was unable to cry on cue. Spielberg offered to take the crying scene out of the story, but McQueen demurred, saying that it was the best scene in the script. The role eventually went to Richard Dreyfuss.
William Friedkin wanted to cast McQueen as the lead in the action/thriller film Sorcerer (1977). Sorcerer was to be filmed primarily on location in the Dominican Republic, but McQueen did not want to be separated from Ali MacGraw for the duration of the shoot. McQueen then asked Friedkin to let MacGraw act as a producer, so she could be present during principal photography. Friedkin would not agree to this condition, and cast Roy Scheider instead of McQueen. Friedkin later remarked that not casting McQueen hurt the film's performance at the box office.
Spy novelist Jeremy Duns revealed that McQueen was considered for the lead role in a film adaptation of The Diamond Smugglers, written by James Bond creator Ian Fleming; McQueen would play John Blaize, a secret agent gone undercover to infiltrate a diamond-smuggling ring in South Africa. There were complications with the project which was eventually shelved, although a 1964 screenplay does exist.
McQueen and Barbra Streisand were tentatively cast in The Gauntlet, but the two could not get along, and both withdrew from the project. The lead roles were filled by Clint Eastwood and Sondra Locke.
McQueen expressed interest in the Rambo character in First Blood when David Morrell's novel appeared in 1972, but the producers rejected him because of his age. He was offered the title role in The Bodyguard (to star Diana Ross) when it was proposed in 1976, but the film did not reach production until years after McQueen's death (which eventually starred Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston in 1992). Quigley Down Under was in development as early as 1974, with McQueen in consideration for the lead, but by the time production began in 1980, McQueen was ill and the project was scrapped until a decade later, when Tom Selleck starred.
McQueen was offered the lead in Raise the Titanic, but felt that the script was flat. He was under contract to Irwin Allen after appearing in The Towering Inferno and offered a part in a sequel in 1980, which he turned down. The film was scrapped and Newman was brought in by Allen to make When Time Ran Out, which was a box office bomb. McQueen died shortly after passing on The Towering Inferno 2.
Stunts, motor racing and flying
McQueen was an avid motorcycle and race car enthusiast. When he had the opportunity to drive in a movie, he performed many of his own stunts, including some of the car chases in Bullitt and the motorcycle chase in The Great Escape. Although the jump over the fence in The Great Escape was done by Bud Ekins for insurance purposes, McQueen did have considerable screen time riding his 650 cc Triumph TR6 Trophy motorcycle. It was difficult to find riders as skilled as McQueen. At one point, using editing, McQueen is seen in a German uniform chasing himself on another bike. Around half of the driving in Bullitt was performed by Loren Janes.
McQueen and John Sturges planned to make Day of the Champion, a movie about Formula One racing, but McQueen was busy with the delayed The Sand Pebbles. They had a contract with the German Nürburgring, and after John Frankenheimer shot scenes there for Grand Prix, the reels were turned over to Sturges. Frankenheimer was ahead in schedule, and the McQueen-Sturges project was called off.
McQueen considered being a professional race car driver. He had a one-off outing in the British Touring Car Championship in 1961, driving a BMC Mini at Brands Hatch, finishing third. In the 1970 12 Hours of Sebring race, Peter Revson and McQueen (driving with a cast on his left foot from a motorcycle accident two weeks earlier) won with a Porsche 908/02 in the three-litre class and missed winning overall by 21.1 seconds to Mario Andretti/Ignazio Giunti/Nino Vaccarella in a five-litre Ferrari 512S. This same Porsche 908 was entered by his production company Solar Productions as a camera car for Le Mans in the 1970 24 Hours of Le Mans later that year. McQueen wanted to drive a Porsche 917 with Jackie Stewart in that race, but the film backers threatened to pull their support if he did. Faced with the choice of driving for 24 hours in the race or driving for the entire summer making the film, McQueen opted for the latter.
McQueen competed in off-road motorcycle racing, frequently running a BSA Hornet and using alias Harvey Mushman. He was also set to co-drive in a Triumph 2500 PI for the British Leyland team in the 1970 London-Mexico rally, but had to turn it down due to movie commitments. His first off-road motorcycle was a Triumph 500 cc, purchased from Ekins. McQueen raced in many top off-road races on the West Coast, including the Baja 1000, the Mint 400, and the Elsinore Grand Prix.
In 1964, McQueen and Ekins were part of a four-rider (plus one reserve) first-ever official US team-entry into the Silver Vase category of the International Six Days Trial, an Enduro-type off-road motorcycling event held that year in Erfurt, East Germany. The "A" team arrived in England in late August to collect their mix of 649 cc and 490 cc twins from the Triumph factory before modifying them for off-road use. Initially let down with transport arrangements by a long-established English motorcycle dealer, Triumph dealer H&L Motors stepped-in to provide a suitable vehicle. On arrival in Germany, the team, with their English temporary manager, were surprised to find a Vase "B" team, comprising expat Americans living in Europe, had entered themselves privately to ride European-sourced machinery.
McQueen's ISDT competition number was 278, which was based on the trials starting order. Both teams crashed repeatedly. McQueen retired due to irreparable crash damage, and Ekins withdrew with a broken leg, both on day three (Wednesday). Only one member of the "B" team finished the six-day event. UK monthly magazine Motorcycle Sport commented: "Riding Triumph twins...[the team] rode everywhere with great dash, if not in admirable style, falling off frequently and obviously out for six days' sport without too many worries about who was going to win (they knew it would not be them)".
He was inducted in the Off-road Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1978. In 1971, McQueen's Solar Productions funded the classic motorcycle documentary On Any Sunday, in which McQueen is featured, along with racing legends Mert Lawwill and Malcolm Smith. The same year, he also appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated magazine riding a Husqvarna dirt bike.
McQueen designed a motorsports bucket seat, for which a patent was issued in 1971.
In a segment filmed for The Ed Sullivan Show, McQueen drove Sullivan around a desert area in a dune buggy at high speed. Afterward, Sullivan said, "That was a 'helluva' ride!"
By testimony of McQueen's son, Chad, Steve owned around 100 classic motorcycles, as well as around 100 exotics and vintage cars, including:
Porsche 917, Porsche 908, and Ferrari 512 race cars from the Le Mans film
Porsche 911S (used in the opening sequence of the Le Mans film)
1963 Ferrari 250 GT Berlinetta Lusso
1967 Ferrari 275GTB/4
1956 Jaguar XKSS (right-hand drive) (now on exhibit at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, California)
1958 Porsche 356 Speedster 1600 Super (black exterior, interior and top) (McQueen drove the car in numerous SCCA racing events) (now in property of his son Chad)
1968 Ford GT40 (Gulf liveried) (used in the Le Mans film)
1953 Siata 208s (McQueen replaced the Siata badges with Ferrari badges and called it his "little Ferrari")
1967 Mini Cooper-S (McQueen had the car customized by Lee Brown with changes including a single foglight, a wood dash, a recessed antenna and a custom brown paint job)
1951 Chevrolet Styline De Lux Convertible (used in The Hunter, McQueen bought the car in 1979 after filming ended)
1952 Chevrolet 3800 pickup camper conversion (McQueen used the truck for cross-country camping trips. It was the last car he rode in before his death)
1950 Hudson Commodore convertible
1952 Hudson Wasp 2-door sedan
1953 Hudson Hornet 4-door Sedan
1956 GMC Suburban
1958 GMC Pickup Truck (Reportedly one of McQueen's favorite cars, it is powered by a 336 Ci V8 which has been modified. The tag "MQ3188" is a reference to the ID number assigned to him when he was in reform school)
1931 Lincoln Club Sedan
1935 Chrysler Airflow Imperial Sedan
1969 Chevrolet Baja Hickey race truck (originally debuted at the 1968 Mexican 1000 Rally and was driven by Cliff Coleman, Johnny Diaz, Mickey Thompson and others during its racing career; said to be the first truck specifically constructed by GM for use in the Mexican 1000; McQueen bought it from General Motors in 1970)
In spite of numerous attempts, McQueen was never able to purchase the Ford Mustang GT 390 he drove in Bullitt, which featured a modified drivetrain that suited McQueen's driving style. One of the two Mustangs used in the film was badly damaged, judged beyond repair, and believed to have been scrapped until it surfaced in Mexico in 2017, while the other one, which McQueen attempted to purchase in 1977, is hidden from the public eye. At the 2018 North American International Auto Show the GT 390 was displayed, in its current non-restored condition, with the 2019 Ford Mustang "Bullitt".
McQueen also flew and owned, among other aircraft, a 1945 Stearman, tail number N3188, (his student number in reform school), a 1946 Piper J-3 Cub, and an award-winning 1931 Pitcairn PA-8 biplane, flown in the US Mail Service by famed World War I flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker. They were hangared at Santa Paula Airport an hour northwest of Hollywood, where he lived his final days.
Personal life
Relationships and friendships
While still attending Stella Adler's school in New York, McQueen dated Gia Scala.
On November 2, 1956, he married Filipino actress and dancer Neile Adams, with whom he had a daughter, Terry Leslie (June 5, 1959 – March 19, 1998) and a son, Chad (born December 28, 1960). McQueen and Adams divorced in 1972. In her autobiography, My Husband, My Friend, Adams stated that she had an abortion in 1971, when their marriage was on the rocks. One of McQueen's four grandchildren is actor Steven R. McQueen (who is best known for playing Jeremy Gilbert in The Vampire Diaries and Jimmy Borelli in Chicago Fire).
Mamie Van Doren claimed to have had an affair with McQueen and tried hallucinogens with him around 1959. Actress-model Lauren Hutton also said that she had an affair with McQueen in the early 1960s. In 1971–1972, while separated from Adams, McQueen had a relationship with Junior Bonner co-star Barbara Leigh, which included her pregnancy and an abortion.
In Cheyenne, Wyoming, in 1973, McQueen married actress Ali MacGraw, his co-star in The Getaway, but this marriage ended in a divorce in 1978. MacGraw suffered a miscarriage during their marriage. Some friends later claimed that MacGraw was the one true love of McQueen's life: "He was madly in love with her until the day he died."
On January 16, 1980, less than a year before his death, McQueen married model Barbara Minty. Barbara Minty, in her book Steve McQueen: The Last Mile, wrote of McQueen becoming an Evangelical Christian toward the end of his life. This was due in part to the influences of his flying instructor, Sammy Mason, Mason's son Pete, and Barbara herself. McQueen attended his local church, Ventura Missionary Church, and was visited by evangelist Billy Graham shortly before his death.
In 1973 McQueen was one of the pallbearers at the funeral of Bruce Lee along with James Coburn, Bruce's brother Robert Lee, Peter Chin, Dan Inosanto, and Taky Kimura.
After discovering a mutual interest in racing, McQueen and Great Escape co-star James Garner became good friends and lived near each other. McQueen recalled:
I could see that Jim was neat around his place. Flowers trimmed, no papers in the yard... grass always cut. So to piss him off, I'd start lobbing empty beer cans down the hill into his driveway. He'd have his drive all spick 'n' span when he left the house, then get home to find all these empty cans. Took him a long time to figure out it was me.
Lifestyle
McQueen followed a daily two-hour exercise regimen, involving weightlifting and, at one point, running , seven days a week. McQueen learned the martial art Tang Soo Do from ninth-degree black belt Pat E. Johnson.
According to photographer William Claxton, McQueen smoked marijuana almost every day; biographer Marc Eliot stated that McQueen used a large amount of cocaine in the early 1970s. He was also a heavy cigarette smoker. McQueen sometimes drank to excess; he was arrested for driving while intoxicated in Anchorage, Alaska, in 1972.
Manson connection
Two months after Charles Manson incited the murder of five people, including McQueen's friends Sharon Tate and Jay Sebring, the media reported police had found a hit list with McQueen's name on it. According to his first wife, McQueen began carrying a handgun at all times in public, including at Sebring's funeral.
Charitable causes
McQueen had an unusual reputation for demanding free items in bulk from studios when agreeing to do a film, such as electric razors, jeans, and other items. It was later discovered McQueen donated these things to the Boys Republic reformatory school, where he had spent time during his teen years. McQueen made occasional visits to the school to spend time with the students, often to play pool and speak about his experiences.
Illness and death
McQueen developed a persistent cough in 1978. He gave up cigarettes and underwent antibiotic treatments without improvement. His shortness of breath grew more pronounced, and on December 22, 1979, after filming The Hunter, a biopsy revealed pleural mesothelioma, a cancer associated with asbestos exposure for which there is no known cure.
A few months later, McQueen gave a medical interview in which he blamed his condition on asbestos exposure. McQueen believed that asbestos used in movie sound stage insulation and race-drivers' protective suits and helmets could have been involved, but he thought it more likely that his illness was a direct result of massive exposure while removing asbestos lagging (insulation) from pipes aboard a troop ship while he was in the Marines.
By February 1980, evidence of widespread metastasis was found. He tried to keep the condition a secret, but on March 11, 1980, the National Enquirer disclosed that he had "terminal cancer". In July 1980, McQueen traveled to Rosarito Beach, Mexico, for unconventional treatment after U.S. doctors told him they could do nothing to prolong his life. Controversy arose over the trip because McQueen sought treatment from William Donald Kelley, who was promoting a variation of the Gerson therapy that used coffee enemas, frequent washing with shampoos, daily injections of fluid containing live cells from cattle and sheep, massages, and laetrile, a reputed anti-cancer drug available in Mexico, but long known to be both toxic and ineffective at treating cancer. McQueen paid for Kelley's treatments by himself in cash payments which were said to have been upwards of $40,000 per month ($ today) during his three-month stay in Mexico. Kelley's only medical license (until revoked in 1976) had been for orthodontics. Kelley's methods caused a sensation in the traditional and tabloid press when it became known that McQueen was a patient.
McQueen returned to the U.S. in early October. Despite metastasis of the cancer throughout McQueen's body, Kelley publicly announced that McQueen would be completely cured and return to normal life. McQueen's condition soon worsened and huge tumors developed in his abdomen.
In late October 1980, McQueen flew to Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico, to have an abdominal tumor on his liver (weighing around ) removed, despite warnings from his U.S. doctors that the tumor was inoperable and his heart could not withstand the surgery. Using the name "Samuel Sheppard", McQueen checked into a small Juárez clinic where the doctors and staff were unaware of his actual identity.
On November 7, 1980, McQueen died of a heart attack at 3:45 a.m. at a Juárez hospital, 12 hours after surgery to remove or reduce numerous metastatic tumors in his neck and abdomen. He was 50 years old. According to the El Paso Times, McQueen died in his sleep.
Leonard DeWitt of the Ventura Missionary Church presided over McQueen's memorial service. McQueen was cremated and his ashes were spread in the Pacific Ocean.
Legacy
In 2007, Forbes said McQueen remained a popular star and still the "king of cool", even 27 years after his death, and was one of the highest-earning dead celebrities. A rights-management agency head credited Branded Entertainment Network (called Corbis at the time) with maximizing the profitability of his estate by limiting the licensing of McQueen's image, avoiding the commercial saturation of other dead celebrities' estates. As of 2007, McQueen's estate entered the top 10 of highest-earning dead celebrities.
McQueen was inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers in April 2007 in a ceremony at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.
In November 1999, McQueen was inducted into the Motorcycle Hall of Fame. He was credited with contributions including financing the film On Any Sunday, supporting a team of off-road riders, and enhancing the public image of motorcycling overall.
A film based on unfinished storyboards and notes developed by McQueen before his death was slated for production by McG's production company Wonderland Sound and Vision. Yucatán is described as an "epic adventure heist" film, scheduled for release in 2013 but still unreleased in February 2016. Team Downey, the production company of Robert Downey, Jr. and his wife Susan Downey, expressed an interest in developing Yucatán for the screen.
The Beech Grove, Indiana, Public Library formally dedicated the Steve McQueen Birthplace Collection on March 16, 2010, to commemorate the 80th anniversary of McQueen's birth on March 24, 1930.
In 2012, McQueen was posthumously honored with the Warren Zevon Tribute Award by the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO).
Steve McQueen: The Man & Le Mans, a 2015 documentary, examines the actor's quest to create and star in the 1971 auto-racing film Le Mans. His son Chad McQueen and former wife Neile Adams are among those interviewed.
On September 28, 2017, there was a selected showing in some theaters of his life story and spiritual quest, Steve McQueen – American Icon. There was an encore presentation on October 10, 2017. The film received mostly positive reviews. Kenneth R. Morefield of Christianity Today said it "offers a timeless reminder that even those among us living the most celebrated lives often long for the peace and sense of purpose that only God can provide". Michael Foust of Wordslingers called it "one of the most powerful and inspiring documentaries I've ever seen."
In the 2019 Quentin Tarantino film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, McQueen is portrayed by Damian Lewis.
Archive
The Academy Film Archive houses the Steve McQueen-Neile Adams Collection, which consists of personal prints and home movies. The archive has preserved several of McQueen's home movies.
Ford commercials
In 1998, director Paul Street created a commercial for the Ford Puma. Footage was shot in modern-day San Francisco, set to the theme music from Bullitt. Archive footage of McQueen was used to digitally superimpose him driving and exiting the car in settings reminiscent of the film. The Puma shares the same number plate of the classic fastback Mustang used in Bullitt, and as he parks in the garage (next to the Mustang), he pauses and looks meaningfully at a motorcycle tucked in the corner, similar to that used in The Great Escape.
In 2005, Ford used his likeness again, in a commercial for the 2005 Mustang. In the commercial, a farmer builds a winding racetrack, which he circles in the 2005 Mustang. Out of the cornfield comes McQueen. The farmer tosses his keys to McQueen, who drives off in the new Mustang. McQueen's likeness was created using a body double (Dan Holsten) and digital editing. Ford secured the rights to McQueen's likeness from the actor's estate licensing agent for an undisclosed sum.
At the Detroit Auto Show in January 2018, Ford unveiled the new 2019 Mustang Bullitt. The company called on McQueen's granddaughter, actress Molly McQueen, to make the announcement. After a brief rundown of the tribute car's particulars, a short film was shown in which Molly was introduced to the actual Bullitt Mustang, a 1968 Mustang Fastback with a 390 cubic-inch engine and a four-speed manual gearbox. That car has been in possession of the same family since 1974 and hidden away from the public until now, when it was driven out from under the press stand and up the center aisle of Ford's booth to much fanfare.
Memorabilia
The blue-tinted sunglasses (Persol 714) worn by McQueen in the 1968 movie The Thomas Crown Affair sold at a Bonhams & Butterfields auction in Los Angeles for $70,200 in 2006. One of his motorcycles, a 1937 Crocker, sold for a world-record price of $276,500 at the same auction. McQueen's 1963 metallic-brown Ferrari 250 GT Lusso Berlinetta sold for US$2.31 million at auction on August 16, 2007. Except for three motorcycles sold with other memorabilia in 2006, most of McQueen's collection of 130 motorcycles was sold four years after his death. The 1970 Porsche 911S purchased while making the film Le Mans and appearing in the opening sequence was sold at auction in August 2011 for $1.375 million. From 1995 to 2011, McQueen's red 1957 fuel-injected Chevrolet convertible was displayed at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles in a special Cars of Steve McQueen exhibit. It is now in the collection of actress Ruth Buzzi and her husband Kent Perkins. McQueen's British racing green 1956 Jaguar XKSS is also located in the Petersen Automotive Museum and is in drivable condition, having been driven by Jay Leno in an episode of Jay Leno's Garage. In August 2019, Mecum Auctions announced it would auction the Bullitt Mustang Hero Car at its Kissimmee auction, held January 2–12, 2020. The car sold without reserve for $3.4 million ($3.74 million after commissions and fees).
Watch collection
The Rolex Explorer II, Reference 1655, known as Rolex Steve McQueen in the horology collectors' world, the Rolex Submariner, Reference 5512, which McQueen was often photographed wearing in private moments, sold for $234,000 at auction on June 11, 2009, a world-record price for the type. McQueen was left-handed and wore the watch on his right wrist.
McQueen was a sponsored ambassador for Heuer watches. In the 1970 film Le Mans, he famously wore a blue-faced Monaco Ref. 1133, which led to its cult status among watch collectors, purchasing six watches of the same model for the shoot of the film. On December 12, 2020, one of the last six models sold and one of two held in private hands was sold for a record US$2.208 million at a Phillips auction in New York, becoming the most expensive Heuer watch sold at auction. Tag Heuer continues to promote its Monaco range with McQueen's image.
In June 2018, Phillips announced McQueen's Rolex Submariner to hit the auction block in September that year. However, there was controversy whether or not the watch was his personal watch worn by McQueen himself or if the watch was bought, engraved, then gifted. Phillips later removed the watch from the auction block.
Among McQueen's other watches was a Hanhart 417 chronograph.
Filmography
Awards and honors
Academy Awards
(1967) Nominated – Best Actor in a Leading Role in The Sand Pebbles
Golden Globe Awards
(1964) Nominated – Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama in Love with the Proper Stranger
(1967) Nominated – Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama in The Sand Pebbles
(1970) Nominated – Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy in The Reivers
(1974) Nominated – Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama in Papillon
Moscow International Film Festival
(1963) – Won – Best Actor in The Great Escape
Quotes
"Racing is life. Anything before or after is just waiting."
"I'm not sure whether I'm an actor who races or racer, who acts."
"I'm not that interesting of a person."
"I live for myself and answer to nobody."
"When I believe in something, I fight like hell for it."
"I need to have a reason why I'm doing something. Otherwise, I'm lost."
References
Bibliography
Terrill, Marshall (2020). Steve McQueen: In His Own Words. Deerfield, IL: Dalton Watson. .
Further reading
Beaver, Jim. Steve McQueen. Films in Review, August–September 1981.
Satchell, Tim. McQueen. (Sidgwick and Jackson Limited, 1981)
Siegel, Mike. Steve McQueen: The Actor and his Films (Dalton Watson, 2011)
Nolan, William F. McQueen (Congdon & Weed, 1984)
Terrill, Marshall. Steve McQueen: Portrait of an American Rebel, (Donald I. Fine, 1993)
Terrill, Marshall. Steve McQueen: The Last Mile', (Dalton Watson, 2006)
Terrill, Marshall. Steve McQueen: A Tribute to the King of Cool, (Dalton Watson, 2010)
Terrill, Marshall. Steve McQueen: The Life and Legacy of a Hollywood Icon'', (Triumph Books, 2010)
Terrill, Marshall. Steve McQueen: In His Own Words, (Dalton Watson, 2020)
External links
Steve McQueen: In His Own Words by Marshall Terrill
Steve McQueen at Virtual History
Bell System Film "A Family Affair", McQueen's debut, at The AT&T Tech Channel
The Great Escape – New publication with private photos of the shooting & documents of 2nd unit cameraman Walter Riml
Photos of the filming The Great Escape, Steve McQueen on the set
Photos and commentary on Steve McQueen shooting an episode of Wanted: Dead or Alive on the Iverson Movie Ranch
1930 births
1980 deaths
20th-century American male actors
American male film actors
American male television actors
American motorcycle racers
American people of Scottish descent
American sailors
American tang soo do practitioners
British Touring Car Championship drivers
California Republicans
Converts to Christianity
Deaths from cancer in Mexico
Deaths from mesothelioma
Enduro riders
Former Roman Catholics
Male actors from Indiana
Male actors from Indianapolis
Male actors from Los Angeles
Male actors from Missouri
Male Western (genre) film actors
Military personnel from Indiana
Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre alumni
Off-road motorcycle racers
Off-road racing drivers
People from Beech Grove, Indiana
People from Echo Park, Los Angeles
People from Saline County, Missouri
Racing drivers from California
Racing drivers from Indiana
Racing drivers from Missouri
United States Marines
United States Merchant Mariners
United States Merchant Mariners of World War II
Western (genre) television actors
World record setters in motorcycling
World Sportscar Championship drivers | false | [
"William Fiore (January 1, 1940 – October 3, 2014) was an American television, film and voice actor. Over his lengthy career, he appeared in television shows such as The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Tales from the Darkside, Law & Order and Rocket Power. Fiore was born January 1, 1940 in Williston Park, New York. His first film role was in The Swimmer (1968). \n\nHe went on to appear in many television series and films. He also appeared in many television commercials during the 1960s and 1970s — perhaps most famously in the “Hi, guy!” Right Guard antiperspirant adverts with actor Chuck McCann, who appeared as his neighbor on the other side of a shared medicine cabinet. He also appeared in commercials for Sears DieHard automotive batteries.\n\nHe then provided the voice for the character Darkel in the video game Grand Theft Auto III (2001), and even though his character was cut from the final game, he is still credited in it.\n\nHe died on October 3, 2014, in New York City, aged 74.\n\nFilmography\n\nFilm\n\nTelevision\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n\n1940 births\n2014 deaths\nPeople from Williston Park, New York\n20th-century American male actors",
"Ron Michaelson is an American actor.\n\nCareer\nHe is known for appearing in commercials for Ditech.com, where he plays a character known as \"Ned the Banker.\" The commercials intend to show that Ned is unable to close a mortgage deal, even with his own mother, because of Ditech's highly competitive rates and services. Most commercials end with the punch line, \"I just lost another loan to Ditech!\" Michaelson's character in the commercials has become highly recognizable to US audiences, to the extent that Michaelson was interviewed by Daryn Kagan on CNN.\n\nMichaelson is also a professor teaching acting at Golden West College, a community college in Huntington Beach, California, and at Fullerton College, a community college in Fullerton, California.\n\nHe has also made guest appearances in the FOX series Arrested Development, the CBS series Joan of Arcadia and HBO's Carnivàle and Entourage. Other series work include ‘s the WB's Jack & Jill, Nickelodeon All That and NBC's Golden Girls. On February 27, 2006, Michaelson also had a \"walk-on clue\" role on the trivia game show Jeopardy!. Other projects include the independent film Boxboarders and the made-for-television movies Mystery Woman and You've Got A Friend for the Hallmark Channel. Most recently he appeared on HBO's Veep and Tim & Eric's Bedtime Stories on Adult Swim.\n \n\nIn 2013, Michaelson did a commercial for Cash Call called \"Banker's Mom\" where he essentially reprises his role from the Ditech commercials.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nLiving people\nYear of birth missing (living people)\nAmerican male television actors"
] |
[
"Corey Taylor",
"Life"
] | C_0484ee08a9be40df9fe4de47ef04904a_1 | What is the name of the bands number Three album | 1 | What is the name of the band, Corey Taylor's, number Three album? | Corey Taylor | Corey Todd Taylor was born on December 8, 1973 in Des Moines, Iowa. He was mostly raised by his single mother in Waterloo, Iowa, a place described by Taylor as a "hole in the ground with buildings around it". He is of Irish, German and Native American descent on his father's side, and Dutch and Irish on his mother's side. In 1979, Taylor and his mother saw the sci-fi series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. Before the series, there was a trailer for the 1978 horror film Halloween. Taylor said this "developed some sense of Slipknot in [himself]". While Halloween introduced Taylor to masks and horror themes, Taylor's grandmother introduced him to rock music, showing him a collection of Elvis Presley records from the 1950s to 1970s. He especially found songs like "Teddy Bear", "In the Ghetto", and "Suspicious Minds" to appeal to his interests the most, describing them as "good times". Taylor also began listening to Black Sabbath at a young age, beginning with their early work. Taylor, along with his mother and sister, lived at one point in an "old dilapidated farmhouse" which on days in late autumn would "look like Black Sabbath album covers". By age 15, he had developed a drug addiction and had overdosed on cocaine twice. By this time, he was living in Waterloo, but later set out on his own and ended up at his grandmother's house in Des Moines. She took legal custody of him so that he could continue going to school, and she helped him buy musical equipment. When Taylor was 18, he left his grandmother's house and went to various places in Iowa, Des Moines being a place to which he frequently returned. In 2017, on an episode of Viceland's The Therapist, Taylor revealed that he was sexually assaulted at the age of 10 by a 16-year-old friend. Taylor stated that he never told anyone about the incident until he was "probably 18" because his abuser "threatened to hurt [him] and threatened to hurt [his] mom". At age 18, when Taylor was living with his grandmother, he attempted suicide by way of overdose. His ex-girlfriend's mother drove him to the hospital in Des Moines and doctors were able to resuscitate him. He describes this as the lowest point in his life. Taylor first met his father when he was 30 years old, and now has a relationship with him, although he said their paths do not cross that often. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Corey Todd Taylor (born December 8, 1973) is an American singer, musician, songwriter and actor. He is known as the lead vocalist and lyricist of the bands Slipknot and Stone Sour.
Taylor co-founded Stone Sour with drummer Joel Ekman in 1992, playing in the Des Moines area, and working on a demo. He joined Slipknot in 1997 to replace their original vocalist and has subsequently released six studio albums with them. After the first two Slipknot albums went Platinum, Taylor revived Stone Sour to record an album and tour in 2002. His debut solo studio album, CMFT, was released on October 2, 2020, by Roadrunner Records.
He has worked with several bands, including Junk Beer Kidnap Band, Korn, Disturbed, Apocalyptica, Code Orange, Anthrax, Steel Panther, Falling in Reverse, and Soulfly.
Early life
Corey Todd Taylor was born on December 8, 1973, in Des Moines, Iowa. He was mostly raised by his single mother in Waterloo, Iowa, a place described by Taylor as a "hole in the ground with buildings around it". He is of German, Irish and Native American descent on his father's side, and Dutch and Irish on his mother's side. Around 1979, Taylor and his mother saw the sci-fi series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. Before the series, there was a trailer for the 1978 horror film Halloween. Taylor said this "developed some sense of Slipknot in [himself]". While Halloween introduced Taylor to masks and horror themes, Taylor's grandmother introduced him to rock music, showing him a collection of Elvis Presley records from the 1950s to 1970s. He especially found songs like "Teddy Bear", "In the Ghetto", and "Suspicious Minds" to appeal to his interests the most, describing them as "good times". Taylor also began listening to Black Sabbath at a young age, beginning with their early work.
By age 15, he had developed a drug addiction and had overdosed on cocaine twice. By this time, he was living in Waterloo, but later set out on his own and ended up at his grandmother's house in Des Moines. She took legal custody of him so that he could continue going to school, and she helped him buy musical equipment. When Taylor was 18, he left his grandmother's house and went to various places in Iowa, Des Moines being a place to which he frequently returned.
In 2017, on an episode of Viceland's The Therapist, Taylor revealed that he was sexually abused at the age of 10 by a 16-year-old friend. Taylor stated that he never told anyone about the incident until he was "probably 18" because his abuser "threatened to hurt [him] and threatened to hurt [his] mom". At age 18, when Taylor was living with his grandmother, he attempted suicide by way of overdose. His ex-girlfriend's mother drove him to the hospital in Des Moines and doctors were able to resuscitate him. He describes this as the lowest point in his life. Taylor first met his father when he was 30 years old, and now has a relationship with him, although he said their paths do not cross that often.
Music career
Stone Sour
Taylor is a founding member of American hard rock band Stone Sour. After he formed the band in 1992 with drummer Joel Ekman, Shawn Economaki joined filling in the bass position, leaving the electric guitar position to be filled by Josh Rand. Stone Sour recorded a demo album in 1993, and another in 1994. In 1997, Taylor was approached by the metal band, Slipknot, resulting in him abandoning Stone Sour while they were recording a demo album with Sean McMahon at SR studios. Taylor did not return until five years later to record their debut album, Stone Sour in 2002. Both Taylor and guitarist Josh Rand contacted Jim Root, Slipknot's guitarist, and Shawn Economaki, Stone Sour's original bassist, to begin writing songs for their debut album. Drummer Joel Ekman came back on board as well. This "reformation" later resulted in Stone Sour recording at Catamount Studios in Cedar Falls, Iowa.
Their self-titled debut album was released August 27, 2002, and it debuted at number 46 on the Billboard 200. Their second album, Come What(ever) May debuted at number four on the Billboard 200. It was released August 1, 2006, and charted on several different charts. Live in Moscow is currently their only album specifically released only for download. During the recording of the album, drummer Joel Ekman left the band for personal reasons. As a result, drummer Roy Mayorga was recruited, taking his place. The group released their third studio album, Audio Secrecy, on September 7, 2010.
Later, Corey Taylor announced the release of a concept double album with Stone Sour. The albums are titled "House of Gold & Bones". During the process of making the double album, bassist Shawn Economaki left the band. He was temporarily replaced for touring purposes by Johny Chow. The first part was released in October 2012 and the second part in April 2013. There are 23 songs in total, 11 on the first part and 12 on the second. In addition to these two albums is a four-part comic book series written by Taylor and published by Dark Horse Comics, which went on sale in 2013. With these albums came a story that was written by Taylor that coincide with the album. Fans can also construct a miniature "house of gold and bones" from the packaging design of the physical versions of the two albums. Taylor has also said that he would like to finish off the project by making the story into a movie but nothing has come of this yet.
Slipknot
In Des Moines, Iowa, Joey Jordison, Shawn Crahan, and Mick Thomson approached him asking him to join Slipknot. He agreed to go to one of their practices, and ended up singing in front of them. Of Slipknot's nine members, Corey was the sixth to join the band. Performing with Slipknot, he would also come to be known as "Number Eight", since the band follows a numbering scheme for its members, ranging from 0–8. According to Shawn Crahan, Corey wanted number eight, because it symbolizes infinity.
Feeling he could expand more inside Slipknot than in Stone Sour, Taylor temporarily quit Stone Sour, even though they were recording an album with Sean McMahon. Taylor's first gig with Slipknot was on August 24, 1997, which according to band members did not go well. During his first gig, Taylor was performing with facepaint instead of a mask; however, for his second show on September 12, he wore a mask that resembles his debut album mask.
Taylor has recorded with Slipknot since the release of their second demo album, a self-titled demo used to promote the band to prospective labels and producers. As their permanent vocalist, he recorded with Slipknot at Indigo Ranch in Malibu, California, and released Slipknot, the band's debut album that peaked at number one on the Top Heatseekers chart, went double platinum in the United States, and was included in the 2006 book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. Taylor was accused of copyright infringement regarding the lyrics of the song "Purity", but no action was taken. Taylor began recording for their second studio album, Iowa, in 2001 at Sound City and Sound Image in Van Nuys, Los Angeles. It was released August 28, 2001, and peaked at number one on the UK Albums Chart, as well as number three on the Billboard 200. While writing Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses), Taylor decided to write lyrics that would not warrant an explicit label. It peaked at number two on the Billboard 200. All Hope Is Gone was the first Slipknot album to peak at number one on the Billboard 200.
Other work
Taylor has appeared as a guest musician on albums by Soulfly, Apocalyptica, Damageplan, Steel Panther, and Code Orange. At one point, he was heavily involved in the recording of thrash metal band Anthrax's album, Worship Music, but the sessions remain unreleased. He also contributed to the Roadrunner United all-star album in 2005, providing vocals for the song "Rich Man". Taylor also made a brief appearance in Steel Panther's singles "Death to All but Metal", "Eyes of a Panther", and "Asian Hooker". In 2006, Taylor founded the record company Great Big Mouth Records. Taylor has produced two albums: Facecage's self-titled album and Walls of Jericho's Redemption. Taylor provided guest narration on the track "Repentance" for Dream Theater's 2007 album Systematic Chaos. In an interview with Billboard, Taylor confirmed that on January 13, 2009, he was planning on making a solo album, as well as returning to his side project Stone Sour after Slipknot's All Hope Is Gone World Tour. Taylor has stated that he was writing songs that "don't fit either of his main bands." He describes them as a cross between Foo Fighters, Johnny Cash, and Social Distortion, saying that there's "a country background that comes built-in with living in Iowa".
On March 30, 2009, it was confirmed that Taylor and the Junk Beer Kidnap Band would be performing at Rockfest in 2009. The group performed on April 24, 2009, at People's Court in Des Moines, Iowa, marking Taylor's first official solo show. Taylor performs with his band the Dum Fux with Denny Harvey, who make covers for 1970s punk rock and 1980s hair metal. Taylor also performs with Audacious P, a band that is primarily a Tenacious D cover band. Rapper Tech N9ne confirmed that Taylor was to perform on his album K.O.D., but was removed because Taylor did not submit his vocals in time. Taylor recently admitted that he tried out for the vacant singer spot in the band Velvet Revolver, but said that it just did not work out. However, according to a recent Billboard article, it seems likely that he may in fact become the vocalist for Velvet Revolver, though no official confirmation has been made. Duff McKagan added that they can neither "confirm or deny" Taylor's membership in the band but believes that Taylor is the "real deal". Slash has since ruled Taylor out as the possible new vocalist explaining that "[it] just wasn't right" although he does love him. Taylor has, however, recorded 10 new songs with the band, although drummer Matt Sorum stated it is unlikely they will ever be released. Taylor explained to Mark Hoppus on Hoppus on Music that he and McKagan were writing new music for a possible new supergroup.
On June 21, 2018, Taylor featured on the track "The Hunt" by metallic hardcore band Code Orange, the second track of the 3-track EP The Hurt Will Go On. In April 2019, Taylor collaborated on the song "Drugs" by the band Falling in Reverse. In September 2019, he was featured on Nostalgia Critic's parody album of Pink Floyd's The Wall on a cover of the opening theme for SpongeBob SquarePants.
Taylor released his solo album, CMFT, on October 2, 2020, via Roadrunner Records. The first two singles, "Black Eyes Blue" and "CMFT Must Be Stopped", were released on July 29, 2020.
Taylor mentioned in an October 3, 2020, interview about a followup album entitled CMF2, which would be completed prior to a tour supporting both it and CMFT. He contributed a cover of the Metallica song "Holier Than Thou" to the charity tribute album The Metallica Blacklist, released in September 2021.
Film appearances
On December 4, 2013, Taylor joined the cast of Fear Clinic. He played Bauer, one of the employees of the clinic who struggles to keep things under control when all hell breaks loose. He appeared in the 2013 horror film Bullied. In October 2015, Taylor provided the roars for the character of The Fisher King in the Doctor Who episode "Before the Flood". Taylor also appeared as a cameo in Sharknado 4, and will appear in Bad Candy.
Style and influence
Corey Taylor told Loudwire in 2015 that if it were not for Faith No More, he "wouldn't be here today". While recovering from an attempted suicide, he saw the band perform "Epic" live on the 1990 MTV Video Music Awards and the performance inspired him to begin writing and performing music again.
Corey Taylor had once been quoted that Pearl Jam had hugely influenced and inspired his music, saying that the group was "one of the biggest and best rock bands of all time". The first two Slipknot albums with Taylor's vocals, Slipknot and Iowa, both contain substantial explicit content. Many critics claimed Taylor relied on the profanity, which is why Slipknot's third album, Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses) is profanity-free, (with the exceptions of the word "bitch" on the song "Duality" and "bastard" on the spoken intro of "Pulse of the Maggots"), and did not warrant the explicit label. Compared with the previous vocalist for Slipknot, Anders Colsefni, Taylor has a vocal style that was characterized by ex-drummer Joey Jordison as "really good melodic singing". Taylor's vocal style, which contains at times melodic singing, growling, screaming, shouting, and rapping, led him to place at number 86 on the Hit Parader's Top 100 Metal Vocalists of All Time and is often compared to other vocalists such as Ivan Moody, John Bush, Phil Anselmo, and Jamey Jasta. Taylor expressed admiration for vocalists Bruce Dickinson, David Lee Roth, James Hetfield and Bruce Springsteen, but on his ideal rock frontman he states, "Freddie Mercury — nobody touches him. He is the gold standard, as far as I'm concerned. He was just electric from the second he hit the stage. It didn't matter if he was sick or tired or whatever, when he was on, man, it was like you turned a spotlight on and he just shone."
Taylor's two major projects have contrasting temperaments. Slipknot is considered to be heavy metal, nu metal and alternative metal, and expresses moods such as depression, hostility, anger, misanthropy, and rebellion. Stone Sour is classified as hard rock, expressing moods of bleakness and somberness as well as anger and rebellion.
Personal life
On September 17, 2002, Taylor's then-fiancée, Scarlett, gave birth to their son Griffin Parker. Taylor also has two daughters named Angeline and Aravis from earlier relationships. Taylor and Scarlett married on March 11, 2004, and divorced in 2007. On November 13, 2009, Taylor married Stephanie Luby at the Palms Hotel in Las Vegas. They also had a daughter named Ryan. On December 28, 2017, Taylor announced on his Twitter that he and Luby had separated. On April 7, 2019, it was announced on his Instagram page that he became engaged to Alicia Dove, creator of "Cherry Bombs". On October 6, 2019, the pair married.
Taylor has had problems with alcoholism, which Scarlett helped him through as well as keeping him from committing suicide. In 2006, Taylor told MTV that he had attempted to jump off a balcony of the eighth floor of The Hyatt on Sunset Boulevard in 2003, but "somehow [Scarlett] stopped me". This was later recanted by Taylor in an interview with Kerrang! radio and stated that it was, in fact, his friend Thom Hazaert who physically stopped him from jumping. Scarlett then told him that either he would have to get sober or she would annul their marriage. Before Stone Sour started recording Come What(ever) May in January 2006, Taylor was sober.
On August 3, 2009, he co-hosted the 2009 Kerrang! Awards alongside Scott Ian of Anthrax. The following year, they both once again co-hosted The Kerrang! Awards, where Taylor collected the K! Services to Metal award on behalf of Paul Gray, who died after an accidental overdose of morphine and fentanyl.
In early September 2010, Taylor announced that his book, Seven Deadly Sins: Settling The Argument Between Born Bad And Damaged Good, would be released on July 12, 2011, through Da Capo Press.
In April 2020, it was reported that Taylor switched to a plant-based diet to improve cardiovascular health.
In August 2021, Taylor tested positive for COVID-19 after the conclusion of a solo tour in support of his album CMFT. He was symptomatic despite being vaccinated, although he credited the vaccine for preventing him from becoming seriously ill.
Discography
Studio albums
Singles
As lead artist
As featured artist
Guest appearances
Filmography
Bibliography
Equipment
Awards
Revolver Golden Gods Awards
|-
| 2010 || Corey Taylor || Best Vocalist ||
|-
| 2013 || Corey Taylor || Best Vocalist ||
Loudwire Music Awards
|-
| 2015 || Corey Taylor || Rock Titan ||
|-
| 2017 || Corey Taylor || Best Vocalist ||
Kerrang! Awards
|-
| 2018 || Corey Taylor || Legend ||
References
Bibliography
External links
Corey Taylor interview
Metal Underground: interview
NY rock: article
IGN: article
Duff McKagan on Corey Taylor in Seattle Weekly
1973 births
American heavy metal singers
American male singers
American male guitarists
American heavy metal guitarists
American baritones
20th-century American singers
21st-century American singers
American people of German descent
American people who self-identify as being of Native American descent
American people of Irish descent
American people of Dutch descent
Grammy Award winners
Musicians from Des Moines, Iowa
Living people
Writers from Des Moines, Iowa
Writers from Waterloo, Iowa
Native American male actors
Native American singers
Nu metal singers
Roadrunner Records artists
Slipknot (band) members
Stone Sour members
Social critics
Singers with a five-octave vocal range
Singers from Iowa
Alternative metal musicians
American hard rock musicians
Male actors from Iowa
Teenage Time Killers members | false | [
"Kraken III is the name of the third studio album Colombian group Kraken It was released on January 3, 1990 by Sonolux. The first single from the album was \"Rostros Ocultos\". The second single was \"Lágrimas de Fuego\".\n\nInformation \nThis album confirmed the progressive trend of the band. A trend that featured a group identity and a concept of what is Kraken. This album started to show the other bands of the country's ideology which is the National Rock and how it can be strengthened.\n\nTrack listing\n\nReferences \n\nKraken (band) albums\n1993 albums",
"Cryogenic Studio, Vol. 2 is a compilation album, released in 2000, and the follow-up to the 1998 album Cryogenic Studios. It is composed from songs of electronic music bands Front Line Assembly, Noise Unit, Delerium, Pro>Tech, Equinox, and Synæsthesia, all of which are projects of Canadian electronic musician Bill Leeb. The album title refers to the name of Cryogenic Studio in Vancouver that serves as headquarters studio for Front Line Assembly and related side projects. All tracks except \"Biosphere\", \"Eros\", \"Door to the Otherside\", \"Miracle\", \"Inner Chaos\", and \"Re-Thread\" were re-released in 2005 by Cleopatra on the compilation album The Best of Cryogenic Studio, together with most of the tracks from previous compilation album Cryogenic Studios.\n\nThe back cover shows several errors. The sixth song on disc one is called \"Door to the Otherside\" but only \"Otherside\" is visible. The ninth track on disc two is falsely labeled \"Turmoil\" and the track's length is not correct. Also, the number of the bands does not match the number of the songs.\n\nTrack listing\n\n\"Amnesia\", \"Amorphous\", and \"Ambience\" are previously unreleased.\n\nPersonnel\n\nFront Line Assembly\n Bill Leeb\n Chris Peterson\n Rhys Fulber\n Michael Balch\n\nTechnical personnel\n Carylann Loeppky – cover art\n\nReferences\n\nFront Line Assembly compilation albums\n2000 compilation albums\nCleopatra Records compilation albums\nIndustrial compilation albums"
] |
[
"Corey Taylor",
"Life",
"What is the name of the bands number Three album",
"I don't know."
] | C_0484ee08a9be40df9fe4de47ef04904a_1 | What is his latest project | 2 | What is Corey Taylor's latest project? | Corey Taylor | Corey Todd Taylor was born on December 8, 1973 in Des Moines, Iowa. He was mostly raised by his single mother in Waterloo, Iowa, a place described by Taylor as a "hole in the ground with buildings around it". He is of Irish, German and Native American descent on his father's side, and Dutch and Irish on his mother's side. In 1979, Taylor and his mother saw the sci-fi series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. Before the series, there was a trailer for the 1978 horror film Halloween. Taylor said this "developed some sense of Slipknot in [himself]". While Halloween introduced Taylor to masks and horror themes, Taylor's grandmother introduced him to rock music, showing him a collection of Elvis Presley records from the 1950s to 1970s. He especially found songs like "Teddy Bear", "In the Ghetto", and "Suspicious Minds" to appeal to his interests the most, describing them as "good times". Taylor also began listening to Black Sabbath at a young age, beginning with their early work. Taylor, along with his mother and sister, lived at one point in an "old dilapidated farmhouse" which on days in late autumn would "look like Black Sabbath album covers". By age 15, he had developed a drug addiction and had overdosed on cocaine twice. By this time, he was living in Waterloo, but later set out on his own and ended up at his grandmother's house in Des Moines. She took legal custody of him so that he could continue going to school, and she helped him buy musical equipment. When Taylor was 18, he left his grandmother's house and went to various places in Iowa, Des Moines being a place to which he frequently returned. In 2017, on an episode of Viceland's The Therapist, Taylor revealed that he was sexually assaulted at the age of 10 by a 16-year-old friend. Taylor stated that he never told anyone about the incident until he was "probably 18" because his abuser "threatened to hurt [him] and threatened to hurt [his] mom". At age 18, when Taylor was living with his grandmother, he attempted suicide by way of overdose. His ex-girlfriend's mother drove him to the hospital in Des Moines and doctors were able to resuscitate him. He describes this as the lowest point in his life. Taylor first met his father when he was 30 years old, and now has a relationship with him, although he said their paths do not cross that often. CANNOTANSWER | He was mostly raised by his single mother | Corey Todd Taylor (born December 8, 1973) is an American singer, musician, songwriter and actor. He is known as the lead vocalist and lyricist of the bands Slipknot and Stone Sour.
Taylor co-founded Stone Sour with drummer Joel Ekman in 1992, playing in the Des Moines area, and working on a demo. He joined Slipknot in 1997 to replace their original vocalist and has subsequently released six studio albums with them. After the first two Slipknot albums went Platinum, Taylor revived Stone Sour to record an album and tour in 2002. His debut solo studio album, CMFT, was released on October 2, 2020, by Roadrunner Records.
He has worked with several bands, including Junk Beer Kidnap Band, Korn, Disturbed, Apocalyptica, Code Orange, Anthrax, Steel Panther, Falling in Reverse, and Soulfly.
Early life
Corey Todd Taylor was born on December 8, 1973, in Des Moines, Iowa. He was mostly raised by his single mother in Waterloo, Iowa, a place described by Taylor as a "hole in the ground with buildings around it". He is of German, Irish and Native American descent on his father's side, and Dutch and Irish on his mother's side. Around 1979, Taylor and his mother saw the sci-fi series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. Before the series, there was a trailer for the 1978 horror film Halloween. Taylor said this "developed some sense of Slipknot in [himself]". While Halloween introduced Taylor to masks and horror themes, Taylor's grandmother introduced him to rock music, showing him a collection of Elvis Presley records from the 1950s to 1970s. He especially found songs like "Teddy Bear", "In the Ghetto", and "Suspicious Minds" to appeal to his interests the most, describing them as "good times". Taylor also began listening to Black Sabbath at a young age, beginning with their early work.
By age 15, he had developed a drug addiction and had overdosed on cocaine twice. By this time, he was living in Waterloo, but later set out on his own and ended up at his grandmother's house in Des Moines. She took legal custody of him so that he could continue going to school, and she helped him buy musical equipment. When Taylor was 18, he left his grandmother's house and went to various places in Iowa, Des Moines being a place to which he frequently returned.
In 2017, on an episode of Viceland's The Therapist, Taylor revealed that he was sexually abused at the age of 10 by a 16-year-old friend. Taylor stated that he never told anyone about the incident until he was "probably 18" because his abuser "threatened to hurt [him] and threatened to hurt [his] mom". At age 18, when Taylor was living with his grandmother, he attempted suicide by way of overdose. His ex-girlfriend's mother drove him to the hospital in Des Moines and doctors were able to resuscitate him. He describes this as the lowest point in his life. Taylor first met his father when he was 30 years old, and now has a relationship with him, although he said their paths do not cross that often.
Music career
Stone Sour
Taylor is a founding member of American hard rock band Stone Sour. After he formed the band in 1992 with drummer Joel Ekman, Shawn Economaki joined filling in the bass position, leaving the electric guitar position to be filled by Josh Rand. Stone Sour recorded a demo album in 1993, and another in 1994. In 1997, Taylor was approached by the metal band, Slipknot, resulting in him abandoning Stone Sour while they were recording a demo album with Sean McMahon at SR studios. Taylor did not return until five years later to record their debut album, Stone Sour in 2002. Both Taylor and guitarist Josh Rand contacted Jim Root, Slipknot's guitarist, and Shawn Economaki, Stone Sour's original bassist, to begin writing songs for their debut album. Drummer Joel Ekman came back on board as well. This "reformation" later resulted in Stone Sour recording at Catamount Studios in Cedar Falls, Iowa.
Their self-titled debut album was released August 27, 2002, and it debuted at number 46 on the Billboard 200. Their second album, Come What(ever) May debuted at number four on the Billboard 200. It was released August 1, 2006, and charted on several different charts. Live in Moscow is currently their only album specifically released only for download. During the recording of the album, drummer Joel Ekman left the band for personal reasons. As a result, drummer Roy Mayorga was recruited, taking his place. The group released their third studio album, Audio Secrecy, on September 7, 2010.
Later, Corey Taylor announced the release of a concept double album with Stone Sour. The albums are titled "House of Gold & Bones". During the process of making the double album, bassist Shawn Economaki left the band. He was temporarily replaced for touring purposes by Johny Chow. The first part was released in October 2012 and the second part in April 2013. There are 23 songs in total, 11 on the first part and 12 on the second. In addition to these two albums is a four-part comic book series written by Taylor and published by Dark Horse Comics, which went on sale in 2013. With these albums came a story that was written by Taylor that coincide with the album. Fans can also construct a miniature "house of gold and bones" from the packaging design of the physical versions of the two albums. Taylor has also said that he would like to finish off the project by making the story into a movie but nothing has come of this yet.
Slipknot
In Des Moines, Iowa, Joey Jordison, Shawn Crahan, and Mick Thomson approached him asking him to join Slipknot. He agreed to go to one of their practices, and ended up singing in front of them. Of Slipknot's nine members, Corey was the sixth to join the band. Performing with Slipknot, he would also come to be known as "Number Eight", since the band follows a numbering scheme for its members, ranging from 0–8. According to Shawn Crahan, Corey wanted number eight, because it symbolizes infinity.
Feeling he could expand more inside Slipknot than in Stone Sour, Taylor temporarily quit Stone Sour, even though they were recording an album with Sean McMahon. Taylor's first gig with Slipknot was on August 24, 1997, which according to band members did not go well. During his first gig, Taylor was performing with facepaint instead of a mask; however, for his second show on September 12, he wore a mask that resembles his debut album mask.
Taylor has recorded with Slipknot since the release of their second demo album, a self-titled demo used to promote the band to prospective labels and producers. As their permanent vocalist, he recorded with Slipknot at Indigo Ranch in Malibu, California, and released Slipknot, the band's debut album that peaked at number one on the Top Heatseekers chart, went double platinum in the United States, and was included in the 2006 book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. Taylor was accused of copyright infringement regarding the lyrics of the song "Purity", but no action was taken. Taylor began recording for their second studio album, Iowa, in 2001 at Sound City and Sound Image in Van Nuys, Los Angeles. It was released August 28, 2001, and peaked at number one on the UK Albums Chart, as well as number three on the Billboard 200. While writing Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses), Taylor decided to write lyrics that would not warrant an explicit label. It peaked at number two on the Billboard 200. All Hope Is Gone was the first Slipknot album to peak at number one on the Billboard 200.
Other work
Taylor has appeared as a guest musician on albums by Soulfly, Apocalyptica, Damageplan, Steel Panther, and Code Orange. At one point, he was heavily involved in the recording of thrash metal band Anthrax's album, Worship Music, but the sessions remain unreleased. He also contributed to the Roadrunner United all-star album in 2005, providing vocals for the song "Rich Man". Taylor also made a brief appearance in Steel Panther's singles "Death to All but Metal", "Eyes of a Panther", and "Asian Hooker". In 2006, Taylor founded the record company Great Big Mouth Records. Taylor has produced two albums: Facecage's self-titled album and Walls of Jericho's Redemption. Taylor provided guest narration on the track "Repentance" for Dream Theater's 2007 album Systematic Chaos. In an interview with Billboard, Taylor confirmed that on January 13, 2009, he was planning on making a solo album, as well as returning to his side project Stone Sour after Slipknot's All Hope Is Gone World Tour. Taylor has stated that he was writing songs that "don't fit either of his main bands." He describes them as a cross between Foo Fighters, Johnny Cash, and Social Distortion, saying that there's "a country background that comes built-in with living in Iowa".
On March 30, 2009, it was confirmed that Taylor and the Junk Beer Kidnap Band would be performing at Rockfest in 2009. The group performed on April 24, 2009, at People's Court in Des Moines, Iowa, marking Taylor's first official solo show. Taylor performs with his band the Dum Fux with Denny Harvey, who make covers for 1970s punk rock and 1980s hair metal. Taylor also performs with Audacious P, a band that is primarily a Tenacious D cover band. Rapper Tech N9ne confirmed that Taylor was to perform on his album K.O.D., but was removed because Taylor did not submit his vocals in time. Taylor recently admitted that he tried out for the vacant singer spot in the band Velvet Revolver, but said that it just did not work out. However, according to a recent Billboard article, it seems likely that he may in fact become the vocalist for Velvet Revolver, though no official confirmation has been made. Duff McKagan added that they can neither "confirm or deny" Taylor's membership in the band but believes that Taylor is the "real deal". Slash has since ruled Taylor out as the possible new vocalist explaining that "[it] just wasn't right" although he does love him. Taylor has, however, recorded 10 new songs with the band, although drummer Matt Sorum stated it is unlikely they will ever be released. Taylor explained to Mark Hoppus on Hoppus on Music that he and McKagan were writing new music for a possible new supergroup.
On June 21, 2018, Taylor featured on the track "The Hunt" by metallic hardcore band Code Orange, the second track of the 3-track EP The Hurt Will Go On. In April 2019, Taylor collaborated on the song "Drugs" by the band Falling in Reverse. In September 2019, he was featured on Nostalgia Critic's parody album of Pink Floyd's The Wall on a cover of the opening theme for SpongeBob SquarePants.
Taylor released his solo album, CMFT, on October 2, 2020, via Roadrunner Records. The first two singles, "Black Eyes Blue" and "CMFT Must Be Stopped", were released on July 29, 2020.
Taylor mentioned in an October 3, 2020, interview about a followup album entitled CMF2, which would be completed prior to a tour supporting both it and CMFT. He contributed a cover of the Metallica song "Holier Than Thou" to the charity tribute album The Metallica Blacklist, released in September 2021.
Film appearances
On December 4, 2013, Taylor joined the cast of Fear Clinic. He played Bauer, one of the employees of the clinic who struggles to keep things under control when all hell breaks loose. He appeared in the 2013 horror film Bullied. In October 2015, Taylor provided the roars for the character of The Fisher King in the Doctor Who episode "Before the Flood". Taylor also appeared as a cameo in Sharknado 4, and will appear in Bad Candy.
Style and influence
Corey Taylor told Loudwire in 2015 that if it were not for Faith No More, he "wouldn't be here today". While recovering from an attempted suicide, he saw the band perform "Epic" live on the 1990 MTV Video Music Awards and the performance inspired him to begin writing and performing music again.
Corey Taylor had once been quoted that Pearl Jam had hugely influenced and inspired his music, saying that the group was "one of the biggest and best rock bands of all time". The first two Slipknot albums with Taylor's vocals, Slipknot and Iowa, both contain substantial explicit content. Many critics claimed Taylor relied on the profanity, which is why Slipknot's third album, Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses) is profanity-free, (with the exceptions of the word "bitch" on the song "Duality" and "bastard" on the spoken intro of "Pulse of the Maggots"), and did not warrant the explicit label. Compared with the previous vocalist for Slipknot, Anders Colsefni, Taylor has a vocal style that was characterized by ex-drummer Joey Jordison as "really good melodic singing". Taylor's vocal style, which contains at times melodic singing, growling, screaming, shouting, and rapping, led him to place at number 86 on the Hit Parader's Top 100 Metal Vocalists of All Time and is often compared to other vocalists such as Ivan Moody, John Bush, Phil Anselmo, and Jamey Jasta. Taylor expressed admiration for vocalists Bruce Dickinson, David Lee Roth, James Hetfield and Bruce Springsteen, but on his ideal rock frontman he states, "Freddie Mercury — nobody touches him. He is the gold standard, as far as I'm concerned. He was just electric from the second he hit the stage. It didn't matter if he was sick or tired or whatever, when he was on, man, it was like you turned a spotlight on and he just shone."
Taylor's two major projects have contrasting temperaments. Slipknot is considered to be heavy metal, nu metal and alternative metal, and expresses moods such as depression, hostility, anger, misanthropy, and rebellion. Stone Sour is classified as hard rock, expressing moods of bleakness and somberness as well as anger and rebellion.
Personal life
On September 17, 2002, Taylor's then-fiancée, Scarlett, gave birth to their son Griffin Parker. Taylor also has two daughters named Angeline and Aravis from earlier relationships. Taylor and Scarlett married on March 11, 2004, and divorced in 2007. On November 13, 2009, Taylor married Stephanie Luby at the Palms Hotel in Las Vegas. They also had a daughter named Ryan. On December 28, 2017, Taylor announced on his Twitter that he and Luby had separated. On April 7, 2019, it was announced on his Instagram page that he became engaged to Alicia Dove, creator of "Cherry Bombs". On October 6, 2019, the pair married.
Taylor has had problems with alcoholism, which Scarlett helped him through as well as keeping him from committing suicide. In 2006, Taylor told MTV that he had attempted to jump off a balcony of the eighth floor of The Hyatt on Sunset Boulevard in 2003, but "somehow [Scarlett] stopped me". This was later recanted by Taylor in an interview with Kerrang! radio and stated that it was, in fact, his friend Thom Hazaert who physically stopped him from jumping. Scarlett then told him that either he would have to get sober or she would annul their marriage. Before Stone Sour started recording Come What(ever) May in January 2006, Taylor was sober.
On August 3, 2009, he co-hosted the 2009 Kerrang! Awards alongside Scott Ian of Anthrax. The following year, they both once again co-hosted The Kerrang! Awards, where Taylor collected the K! Services to Metal award on behalf of Paul Gray, who died after an accidental overdose of morphine and fentanyl.
In early September 2010, Taylor announced that his book, Seven Deadly Sins: Settling The Argument Between Born Bad And Damaged Good, would be released on July 12, 2011, through Da Capo Press.
In April 2020, it was reported that Taylor switched to a plant-based diet to improve cardiovascular health.
In August 2021, Taylor tested positive for COVID-19 after the conclusion of a solo tour in support of his album CMFT. He was symptomatic despite being vaccinated, although he credited the vaccine for preventing him from becoming seriously ill.
Discography
Studio albums
Singles
As lead artist
As featured artist
Guest appearances
Filmography
Bibliography
Equipment
Awards
Revolver Golden Gods Awards
|-
| 2010 || Corey Taylor || Best Vocalist ||
|-
| 2013 || Corey Taylor || Best Vocalist ||
Loudwire Music Awards
|-
| 2015 || Corey Taylor || Rock Titan ||
|-
| 2017 || Corey Taylor || Best Vocalist ||
Kerrang! Awards
|-
| 2018 || Corey Taylor || Legend ||
References
Bibliography
External links
Corey Taylor interview
Metal Underground: interview
NY rock: article
IGN: article
Duff McKagan on Corey Taylor in Seattle Weekly
1973 births
American heavy metal singers
American male singers
American male guitarists
American heavy metal guitarists
American baritones
20th-century American singers
21st-century American singers
American people of German descent
American people who self-identify as being of Native American descent
American people of Irish descent
American people of Dutch descent
Grammy Award winners
Musicians from Des Moines, Iowa
Living people
Writers from Des Moines, Iowa
Writers from Waterloo, Iowa
Native American male actors
Native American singers
Nu metal singers
Roadrunner Records artists
Slipknot (band) members
Stone Sour members
Social critics
Singers with a five-octave vocal range
Singers from Iowa
Alternative metal musicians
American hard rock musicians
Male actors from Iowa
Teenage Time Killers members | true | [
"The precedence diagram method (PDM) is a tool for scheduling activities in a project plan. It is a method of constructing a project schedule network diagram that uses boxes, referred to as nodes, to represent activities and connects them with arrows that show the dependencies. It is also called the activity-on-node (AON) method.\n Critical tasks, noncritical tasks, and slack time\n Shows the relationship of the tasks to each other\n Allows for what-if, worst-case, best-case and most likely scenario\n\nKey elements include determining predecessors and defining attributes such as \n early start date..\n late start date\n early finish date\n late finish date\n duration\n activity name\n WBS reference\n\nSlack/Float: Determines the duration of activity delay that the project can tolerate before the project comes in late. The difference between the earliest and the latest start time. i.e. Slack = latest start date - earliest start day or Slack = latest finish time - earliest finish time.\n\nAny activities which have a slack of 0, they are on the critical path.\n\nDifferent Precedence diagram Methods\n Arrow diagramming method\n Project network\n Critical-path method\n Gantt chart\n Program evaluation and review technique\n\nExternal links\n Precedence Diagram Method at Better Projects\n\nProject management techniques\nSchedule (project management)",
"OpenIDM is an identity management system written in the Java programming language. The old OpenIDM source code is available under the Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL). OpenIDM is designed with flexibility in mind, leverages JavaScript as default scripting language to define business rules during provisioning. All capabilities of OpenIDM exposes RESTful interfaces. As an integration layer, OpenIDM leverages the Identity Connectors (adopted by ForgeRock as OpenICF) and has a set of default connectors.\n\nAs of July 6, 2018 the open source versions are not available for download on the openIDM website. A 2016 copy of source code is available at https://github.com/OpenRock/OpenIDM/releases.\n\nHistory \nForgeRock launched the OpenIDM project in October 27, 2010 at GOSCON in Portland following a 6-month internal development process.\n\nForgeRock felt there was no strong open source identity provisioning project, and launched OpenIDM under CDDL licensing for compatibility with OpenAM and OpenDJ. However, just giving access to an old, flattened X.0.0 source tree which usually still contains many bugs, can hardly be described as what is usually understood as Open Source. So since it prevents the community from taking part on developing within the latest version aka trunk, doesn't give any insights, what actually got fixed/features got merged, it should be considered closed source, now (end 2016).\n\nFull leveraging the Open Source project Identity Connector Framework from Sun Microsystems as integration layer to resources, ForgeRock announced to adopt the project and forming a community around the framework, all under the new name OpenICF.\n\nGartner identifies ForgeRock OpenIDM as an interesting option to many organizations seeking alternatives to large IAM vendors in their Magic Quadrant for User Administration/Provisioning published December 22, 2011.\n\nJanuary 17, 2012 ForgeRock announces OpenIDM 2.0 of OpenIDM.\n\nFebruary 20, 2013 ForgeRock announced OpenIDM 2.1, part of the Open Identity Stack which is latest stable release of OpenIDM.\n\nAugust 11, 2014 ForgeRock announced OpenIDM 3.0.\n\nRoadmap \nForgeRock posted an OpenIDM roadmap stretching from release date to end of 2012 also outlining the project principles.\nOpenIDM 1.0, launched October 27, 2010.\nOpenIDM 2.0, released January 17, 2012 - provided the initial architecture, Basic CRUD capabilities all exposed via REST and password synchronization capabilities.\nOpenIDM 2.1, is to focus on workflow and business process engine integration.\nOpenIDM 2.2, is expected to introduce role based provisioning.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nOpenIDM project page\nOpenIDM project wiki\nOpenIDM Source Code Browser\n\nIdentity management systems\n2010 software\nFree software"
] |
[
"Corey Taylor",
"Life",
"What is the name of the bands number Three album",
"I don't know.",
"What is his latest project",
"He was mostly raised by his single mother"
] | C_0484ee08a9be40df9fe4de47ef04904a_1 | where is he from | 3 | where is Corey Taylor from? | Corey Taylor | Corey Todd Taylor was born on December 8, 1973 in Des Moines, Iowa. He was mostly raised by his single mother in Waterloo, Iowa, a place described by Taylor as a "hole in the ground with buildings around it". He is of Irish, German and Native American descent on his father's side, and Dutch and Irish on his mother's side. In 1979, Taylor and his mother saw the sci-fi series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. Before the series, there was a trailer for the 1978 horror film Halloween. Taylor said this "developed some sense of Slipknot in [himself]". While Halloween introduced Taylor to masks and horror themes, Taylor's grandmother introduced him to rock music, showing him a collection of Elvis Presley records from the 1950s to 1970s. He especially found songs like "Teddy Bear", "In the Ghetto", and "Suspicious Minds" to appeal to his interests the most, describing them as "good times". Taylor also began listening to Black Sabbath at a young age, beginning with their early work. Taylor, along with his mother and sister, lived at one point in an "old dilapidated farmhouse" which on days in late autumn would "look like Black Sabbath album covers". By age 15, he had developed a drug addiction and had overdosed on cocaine twice. By this time, he was living in Waterloo, but later set out on his own and ended up at his grandmother's house in Des Moines. She took legal custody of him so that he could continue going to school, and she helped him buy musical equipment. When Taylor was 18, he left his grandmother's house and went to various places in Iowa, Des Moines being a place to which he frequently returned. In 2017, on an episode of Viceland's The Therapist, Taylor revealed that he was sexually assaulted at the age of 10 by a 16-year-old friend. Taylor stated that he never told anyone about the incident until he was "probably 18" because his abuser "threatened to hurt [him] and threatened to hurt [his] mom". At age 18, when Taylor was living with his grandmother, he attempted suicide by way of overdose. His ex-girlfriend's mother drove him to the hospital in Des Moines and doctors were able to resuscitate him. He describes this as the lowest point in his life. Taylor first met his father when he was 30 years old, and now has a relationship with him, although he said their paths do not cross that often. CANNOTANSWER | Des Moines, Iowa. | Corey Todd Taylor (born December 8, 1973) is an American singer, musician, songwriter and actor. He is known as the lead vocalist and lyricist of the bands Slipknot and Stone Sour.
Taylor co-founded Stone Sour with drummer Joel Ekman in 1992, playing in the Des Moines area, and working on a demo. He joined Slipknot in 1997 to replace their original vocalist and has subsequently released six studio albums with them. After the first two Slipknot albums went Platinum, Taylor revived Stone Sour to record an album and tour in 2002. His debut solo studio album, CMFT, was released on October 2, 2020, by Roadrunner Records.
He has worked with several bands, including Junk Beer Kidnap Band, Korn, Disturbed, Apocalyptica, Code Orange, Anthrax, Steel Panther, Falling in Reverse, and Soulfly.
Early life
Corey Todd Taylor was born on December 8, 1973, in Des Moines, Iowa. He was mostly raised by his single mother in Waterloo, Iowa, a place described by Taylor as a "hole in the ground with buildings around it". He is of German, Irish and Native American descent on his father's side, and Dutch and Irish on his mother's side. Around 1979, Taylor and his mother saw the sci-fi series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. Before the series, there was a trailer for the 1978 horror film Halloween. Taylor said this "developed some sense of Slipknot in [himself]". While Halloween introduced Taylor to masks and horror themes, Taylor's grandmother introduced him to rock music, showing him a collection of Elvis Presley records from the 1950s to 1970s. He especially found songs like "Teddy Bear", "In the Ghetto", and "Suspicious Minds" to appeal to his interests the most, describing them as "good times". Taylor also began listening to Black Sabbath at a young age, beginning with their early work.
By age 15, he had developed a drug addiction and had overdosed on cocaine twice. By this time, he was living in Waterloo, but later set out on his own and ended up at his grandmother's house in Des Moines. She took legal custody of him so that he could continue going to school, and she helped him buy musical equipment. When Taylor was 18, he left his grandmother's house and went to various places in Iowa, Des Moines being a place to which he frequently returned.
In 2017, on an episode of Viceland's The Therapist, Taylor revealed that he was sexually abused at the age of 10 by a 16-year-old friend. Taylor stated that he never told anyone about the incident until he was "probably 18" because his abuser "threatened to hurt [him] and threatened to hurt [his] mom". At age 18, when Taylor was living with his grandmother, he attempted suicide by way of overdose. His ex-girlfriend's mother drove him to the hospital in Des Moines and doctors were able to resuscitate him. He describes this as the lowest point in his life. Taylor first met his father when he was 30 years old, and now has a relationship with him, although he said their paths do not cross that often.
Music career
Stone Sour
Taylor is a founding member of American hard rock band Stone Sour. After he formed the band in 1992 with drummer Joel Ekman, Shawn Economaki joined filling in the bass position, leaving the electric guitar position to be filled by Josh Rand. Stone Sour recorded a demo album in 1993, and another in 1994. In 1997, Taylor was approached by the metal band, Slipknot, resulting in him abandoning Stone Sour while they were recording a demo album with Sean McMahon at SR studios. Taylor did not return until five years later to record their debut album, Stone Sour in 2002. Both Taylor and guitarist Josh Rand contacted Jim Root, Slipknot's guitarist, and Shawn Economaki, Stone Sour's original bassist, to begin writing songs for their debut album. Drummer Joel Ekman came back on board as well. This "reformation" later resulted in Stone Sour recording at Catamount Studios in Cedar Falls, Iowa.
Their self-titled debut album was released August 27, 2002, and it debuted at number 46 on the Billboard 200. Their second album, Come What(ever) May debuted at number four on the Billboard 200. It was released August 1, 2006, and charted on several different charts. Live in Moscow is currently their only album specifically released only for download. During the recording of the album, drummer Joel Ekman left the band for personal reasons. As a result, drummer Roy Mayorga was recruited, taking his place. The group released their third studio album, Audio Secrecy, on September 7, 2010.
Later, Corey Taylor announced the release of a concept double album with Stone Sour. The albums are titled "House of Gold & Bones". During the process of making the double album, bassist Shawn Economaki left the band. He was temporarily replaced for touring purposes by Johny Chow. The first part was released in October 2012 and the second part in April 2013. There are 23 songs in total, 11 on the first part and 12 on the second. In addition to these two albums is a four-part comic book series written by Taylor and published by Dark Horse Comics, which went on sale in 2013. With these albums came a story that was written by Taylor that coincide with the album. Fans can also construct a miniature "house of gold and bones" from the packaging design of the physical versions of the two albums. Taylor has also said that he would like to finish off the project by making the story into a movie but nothing has come of this yet.
Slipknot
In Des Moines, Iowa, Joey Jordison, Shawn Crahan, and Mick Thomson approached him asking him to join Slipknot. He agreed to go to one of their practices, and ended up singing in front of them. Of Slipknot's nine members, Corey was the sixth to join the band. Performing with Slipknot, he would also come to be known as "Number Eight", since the band follows a numbering scheme for its members, ranging from 0–8. According to Shawn Crahan, Corey wanted number eight, because it symbolizes infinity.
Feeling he could expand more inside Slipknot than in Stone Sour, Taylor temporarily quit Stone Sour, even though they were recording an album with Sean McMahon. Taylor's first gig with Slipknot was on August 24, 1997, which according to band members did not go well. During his first gig, Taylor was performing with facepaint instead of a mask; however, for his second show on September 12, he wore a mask that resembles his debut album mask.
Taylor has recorded with Slipknot since the release of their second demo album, a self-titled demo used to promote the band to prospective labels and producers. As their permanent vocalist, he recorded with Slipknot at Indigo Ranch in Malibu, California, and released Slipknot, the band's debut album that peaked at number one on the Top Heatseekers chart, went double platinum in the United States, and was included in the 2006 book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. Taylor was accused of copyright infringement regarding the lyrics of the song "Purity", but no action was taken. Taylor began recording for their second studio album, Iowa, in 2001 at Sound City and Sound Image in Van Nuys, Los Angeles. It was released August 28, 2001, and peaked at number one on the UK Albums Chart, as well as number three on the Billboard 200. While writing Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses), Taylor decided to write lyrics that would not warrant an explicit label. It peaked at number two on the Billboard 200. All Hope Is Gone was the first Slipknot album to peak at number one on the Billboard 200.
Other work
Taylor has appeared as a guest musician on albums by Soulfly, Apocalyptica, Damageplan, Steel Panther, and Code Orange. At one point, he was heavily involved in the recording of thrash metal band Anthrax's album, Worship Music, but the sessions remain unreleased. He also contributed to the Roadrunner United all-star album in 2005, providing vocals for the song "Rich Man". Taylor also made a brief appearance in Steel Panther's singles "Death to All but Metal", "Eyes of a Panther", and "Asian Hooker". In 2006, Taylor founded the record company Great Big Mouth Records. Taylor has produced two albums: Facecage's self-titled album and Walls of Jericho's Redemption. Taylor provided guest narration on the track "Repentance" for Dream Theater's 2007 album Systematic Chaos. In an interview with Billboard, Taylor confirmed that on January 13, 2009, he was planning on making a solo album, as well as returning to his side project Stone Sour after Slipknot's All Hope Is Gone World Tour. Taylor has stated that he was writing songs that "don't fit either of his main bands." He describes them as a cross between Foo Fighters, Johnny Cash, and Social Distortion, saying that there's "a country background that comes built-in with living in Iowa".
On March 30, 2009, it was confirmed that Taylor and the Junk Beer Kidnap Band would be performing at Rockfest in 2009. The group performed on April 24, 2009, at People's Court in Des Moines, Iowa, marking Taylor's first official solo show. Taylor performs with his band the Dum Fux with Denny Harvey, who make covers for 1970s punk rock and 1980s hair metal. Taylor also performs with Audacious P, a band that is primarily a Tenacious D cover band. Rapper Tech N9ne confirmed that Taylor was to perform on his album K.O.D., but was removed because Taylor did not submit his vocals in time. Taylor recently admitted that he tried out for the vacant singer spot in the band Velvet Revolver, but said that it just did not work out. However, according to a recent Billboard article, it seems likely that he may in fact become the vocalist for Velvet Revolver, though no official confirmation has been made. Duff McKagan added that they can neither "confirm or deny" Taylor's membership in the band but believes that Taylor is the "real deal". Slash has since ruled Taylor out as the possible new vocalist explaining that "[it] just wasn't right" although he does love him. Taylor has, however, recorded 10 new songs with the band, although drummer Matt Sorum stated it is unlikely they will ever be released. Taylor explained to Mark Hoppus on Hoppus on Music that he and McKagan were writing new music for a possible new supergroup.
On June 21, 2018, Taylor featured on the track "The Hunt" by metallic hardcore band Code Orange, the second track of the 3-track EP The Hurt Will Go On. In April 2019, Taylor collaborated on the song "Drugs" by the band Falling in Reverse. In September 2019, he was featured on Nostalgia Critic's parody album of Pink Floyd's The Wall on a cover of the opening theme for SpongeBob SquarePants.
Taylor released his solo album, CMFT, on October 2, 2020, via Roadrunner Records. The first two singles, "Black Eyes Blue" and "CMFT Must Be Stopped", were released on July 29, 2020.
Taylor mentioned in an October 3, 2020, interview about a followup album entitled CMF2, which would be completed prior to a tour supporting both it and CMFT. He contributed a cover of the Metallica song "Holier Than Thou" to the charity tribute album The Metallica Blacklist, released in September 2021.
Film appearances
On December 4, 2013, Taylor joined the cast of Fear Clinic. He played Bauer, one of the employees of the clinic who struggles to keep things under control when all hell breaks loose. He appeared in the 2013 horror film Bullied. In October 2015, Taylor provided the roars for the character of The Fisher King in the Doctor Who episode "Before the Flood". Taylor also appeared as a cameo in Sharknado 4, and will appear in Bad Candy.
Style and influence
Corey Taylor told Loudwire in 2015 that if it were not for Faith No More, he "wouldn't be here today". While recovering from an attempted suicide, he saw the band perform "Epic" live on the 1990 MTV Video Music Awards and the performance inspired him to begin writing and performing music again.
Corey Taylor had once been quoted that Pearl Jam had hugely influenced and inspired his music, saying that the group was "one of the biggest and best rock bands of all time". The first two Slipknot albums with Taylor's vocals, Slipknot and Iowa, both contain substantial explicit content. Many critics claimed Taylor relied on the profanity, which is why Slipknot's third album, Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses) is profanity-free, (with the exceptions of the word "bitch" on the song "Duality" and "bastard" on the spoken intro of "Pulse of the Maggots"), and did not warrant the explicit label. Compared with the previous vocalist for Slipknot, Anders Colsefni, Taylor has a vocal style that was characterized by ex-drummer Joey Jordison as "really good melodic singing". Taylor's vocal style, which contains at times melodic singing, growling, screaming, shouting, and rapping, led him to place at number 86 on the Hit Parader's Top 100 Metal Vocalists of All Time and is often compared to other vocalists such as Ivan Moody, John Bush, Phil Anselmo, and Jamey Jasta. Taylor expressed admiration for vocalists Bruce Dickinson, David Lee Roth, James Hetfield and Bruce Springsteen, but on his ideal rock frontman he states, "Freddie Mercury — nobody touches him. He is the gold standard, as far as I'm concerned. He was just electric from the second he hit the stage. It didn't matter if he was sick or tired or whatever, when he was on, man, it was like you turned a spotlight on and he just shone."
Taylor's two major projects have contrasting temperaments. Slipknot is considered to be heavy metal, nu metal and alternative metal, and expresses moods such as depression, hostility, anger, misanthropy, and rebellion. Stone Sour is classified as hard rock, expressing moods of bleakness and somberness as well as anger and rebellion.
Personal life
On September 17, 2002, Taylor's then-fiancée, Scarlett, gave birth to their son Griffin Parker. Taylor also has two daughters named Angeline and Aravis from earlier relationships. Taylor and Scarlett married on March 11, 2004, and divorced in 2007. On November 13, 2009, Taylor married Stephanie Luby at the Palms Hotel in Las Vegas. They also had a daughter named Ryan. On December 28, 2017, Taylor announced on his Twitter that he and Luby had separated. On April 7, 2019, it was announced on his Instagram page that he became engaged to Alicia Dove, creator of "Cherry Bombs". On October 6, 2019, the pair married.
Taylor has had problems with alcoholism, which Scarlett helped him through as well as keeping him from committing suicide. In 2006, Taylor told MTV that he had attempted to jump off a balcony of the eighth floor of The Hyatt on Sunset Boulevard in 2003, but "somehow [Scarlett] stopped me". This was later recanted by Taylor in an interview with Kerrang! radio and stated that it was, in fact, his friend Thom Hazaert who physically stopped him from jumping. Scarlett then told him that either he would have to get sober or she would annul their marriage. Before Stone Sour started recording Come What(ever) May in January 2006, Taylor was sober.
On August 3, 2009, he co-hosted the 2009 Kerrang! Awards alongside Scott Ian of Anthrax. The following year, they both once again co-hosted The Kerrang! Awards, where Taylor collected the K! Services to Metal award on behalf of Paul Gray, who died after an accidental overdose of morphine and fentanyl.
In early September 2010, Taylor announced that his book, Seven Deadly Sins: Settling The Argument Between Born Bad And Damaged Good, would be released on July 12, 2011, through Da Capo Press.
In April 2020, it was reported that Taylor switched to a plant-based diet to improve cardiovascular health.
In August 2021, Taylor tested positive for COVID-19 after the conclusion of a solo tour in support of his album CMFT. He was symptomatic despite being vaccinated, although he credited the vaccine for preventing him from becoming seriously ill.
Discography
Studio albums
Singles
As lead artist
As featured artist
Guest appearances
Filmography
Bibliography
Equipment
Awards
Revolver Golden Gods Awards
|-
| 2010 || Corey Taylor || Best Vocalist ||
|-
| 2013 || Corey Taylor || Best Vocalist ||
Loudwire Music Awards
|-
| 2015 || Corey Taylor || Rock Titan ||
|-
| 2017 || Corey Taylor || Best Vocalist ||
Kerrang! Awards
|-
| 2018 || Corey Taylor || Legend ||
References
Bibliography
External links
Corey Taylor interview
Metal Underground: interview
NY rock: article
IGN: article
Duff McKagan on Corey Taylor in Seattle Weekly
1973 births
American heavy metal singers
American male singers
American male guitarists
American heavy metal guitarists
American baritones
20th-century American singers
21st-century American singers
American people of German descent
American people who self-identify as being of Native American descent
American people of Irish descent
American people of Dutch descent
Grammy Award winners
Musicians from Des Moines, Iowa
Living people
Writers from Des Moines, Iowa
Writers from Waterloo, Iowa
Native American male actors
Native American singers
Nu metal singers
Roadrunner Records artists
Slipknot (band) members
Stone Sour members
Social critics
Singers with a five-octave vocal range
Singers from Iowa
Alternative metal musicians
American hard rock musicians
Male actors from Iowa
Teenage Time Killers members | true | [
"\"Where's the Love\" is a 1997 song by Hanson.\n\nWhere's the Love may also refer to:\n\n \"Where's the Love\", a 2005 single by Livin Out Loud\n \"Where's the Love\", a 2009 song by Trevor Hall from his eponymous album\n \"Where's the Love\", a 2012 song by Nas from Life Is Good\n \"Where's the Love?\", a 1999 song by Lil' Troy from Sittin' Fat Down South\n \"Where's the Love\", a 2014 song by Diamond D from The Diam Piece\n\n\"Where's the Love\" should not be confused with:\n \"Where Is the Love?\", a 2003 song by The Black Eyed Peas from Elephunk\n \"Where Is the Love\" (Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway song), a 1972 single from the album Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway\n \"Where Is the Love\", a 1997 song by Celine Dion from Let's Talk About Love\n \"Where Is the Love\", a 1975 Grammy Award-winning song co-written by Betty Wright, Harry Wayne Casey and Richard Finch",
"Ramendra Kumar is an Indian politician affiliated to the Communist Party of India (CPI) and is amongst the most prominent politicians of the Workers Movement in India. He is a former Member of Parliament (Lok Sabha) from the Begusarai constituency. He is National Secretariat member of the Communist Party of India and is National President of AITUC. He is also a former member of the Bihar Legislative Assembly where he represented Barkagaon for three consecutive terms from 1980-1995. He is the son of Yogendra Sharma, former member of Parliament (Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha).\n\nReferences\n\nCommunist Party of India politicians from Bihar\nLok Sabha members from Bihar\nLiving people\nYear of birth missing (living people)"
] |
[
"Corey Taylor",
"Life",
"What is the name of the bands number Three album",
"I don't know.",
"What is his latest project",
"He was mostly raised by his single mother",
"where is he from",
"Des Moines, Iowa."
] | C_0484ee08a9be40df9fe4de47ef04904a_1 | What is his mothers name | 4 | What is Corey Taylor's mothers name? | Corey Taylor | Corey Todd Taylor was born on December 8, 1973 in Des Moines, Iowa. He was mostly raised by his single mother in Waterloo, Iowa, a place described by Taylor as a "hole in the ground with buildings around it". He is of Irish, German and Native American descent on his father's side, and Dutch and Irish on his mother's side. In 1979, Taylor and his mother saw the sci-fi series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. Before the series, there was a trailer for the 1978 horror film Halloween. Taylor said this "developed some sense of Slipknot in [himself]". While Halloween introduced Taylor to masks and horror themes, Taylor's grandmother introduced him to rock music, showing him a collection of Elvis Presley records from the 1950s to 1970s. He especially found songs like "Teddy Bear", "In the Ghetto", and "Suspicious Minds" to appeal to his interests the most, describing them as "good times". Taylor also began listening to Black Sabbath at a young age, beginning with their early work. Taylor, along with his mother and sister, lived at one point in an "old dilapidated farmhouse" which on days in late autumn would "look like Black Sabbath album covers". By age 15, he had developed a drug addiction and had overdosed on cocaine twice. By this time, he was living in Waterloo, but later set out on his own and ended up at his grandmother's house in Des Moines. She took legal custody of him so that he could continue going to school, and she helped him buy musical equipment. When Taylor was 18, he left his grandmother's house and went to various places in Iowa, Des Moines being a place to which he frequently returned. In 2017, on an episode of Viceland's The Therapist, Taylor revealed that he was sexually assaulted at the age of 10 by a 16-year-old friend. Taylor stated that he never told anyone about the incident until he was "probably 18" because his abuser "threatened to hurt [him] and threatened to hurt [his] mom". At age 18, when Taylor was living with his grandmother, he attempted suicide by way of overdose. His ex-girlfriend's mother drove him to the hospital in Des Moines and doctors were able to resuscitate him. He describes this as the lowest point in his life. Taylor first met his father when he was 30 years old, and now has a relationship with him, although he said their paths do not cross that often. CANNOTANSWER | "hole in the ground with buildings around it". | Corey Todd Taylor (born December 8, 1973) is an American singer, musician, songwriter and actor. He is known as the lead vocalist and lyricist of the bands Slipknot and Stone Sour.
Taylor co-founded Stone Sour with drummer Joel Ekman in 1992, playing in the Des Moines area, and working on a demo. He joined Slipknot in 1997 to replace their original vocalist and has subsequently released six studio albums with them. After the first two Slipknot albums went Platinum, Taylor revived Stone Sour to record an album and tour in 2002. His debut solo studio album, CMFT, was released on October 2, 2020, by Roadrunner Records.
He has worked with several bands, including Junk Beer Kidnap Band, Korn, Disturbed, Apocalyptica, Code Orange, Anthrax, Steel Panther, Falling in Reverse, and Soulfly.
Early life
Corey Todd Taylor was born on December 8, 1973, in Des Moines, Iowa. He was mostly raised by his single mother in Waterloo, Iowa, a place described by Taylor as a "hole in the ground with buildings around it". He is of German, Irish and Native American descent on his father's side, and Dutch and Irish on his mother's side. Around 1979, Taylor and his mother saw the sci-fi series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. Before the series, there was a trailer for the 1978 horror film Halloween. Taylor said this "developed some sense of Slipknot in [himself]". While Halloween introduced Taylor to masks and horror themes, Taylor's grandmother introduced him to rock music, showing him a collection of Elvis Presley records from the 1950s to 1970s. He especially found songs like "Teddy Bear", "In the Ghetto", and "Suspicious Minds" to appeal to his interests the most, describing them as "good times". Taylor also began listening to Black Sabbath at a young age, beginning with their early work.
By age 15, he had developed a drug addiction and had overdosed on cocaine twice. By this time, he was living in Waterloo, but later set out on his own and ended up at his grandmother's house in Des Moines. She took legal custody of him so that he could continue going to school, and she helped him buy musical equipment. When Taylor was 18, he left his grandmother's house and went to various places in Iowa, Des Moines being a place to which he frequently returned.
In 2017, on an episode of Viceland's The Therapist, Taylor revealed that he was sexually abused at the age of 10 by a 16-year-old friend. Taylor stated that he never told anyone about the incident until he was "probably 18" because his abuser "threatened to hurt [him] and threatened to hurt [his] mom". At age 18, when Taylor was living with his grandmother, he attempted suicide by way of overdose. His ex-girlfriend's mother drove him to the hospital in Des Moines and doctors were able to resuscitate him. He describes this as the lowest point in his life. Taylor first met his father when he was 30 years old, and now has a relationship with him, although he said their paths do not cross that often.
Music career
Stone Sour
Taylor is a founding member of American hard rock band Stone Sour. After he formed the band in 1992 with drummer Joel Ekman, Shawn Economaki joined filling in the bass position, leaving the electric guitar position to be filled by Josh Rand. Stone Sour recorded a demo album in 1993, and another in 1994. In 1997, Taylor was approached by the metal band, Slipknot, resulting in him abandoning Stone Sour while they were recording a demo album with Sean McMahon at SR studios. Taylor did not return until five years later to record their debut album, Stone Sour in 2002. Both Taylor and guitarist Josh Rand contacted Jim Root, Slipknot's guitarist, and Shawn Economaki, Stone Sour's original bassist, to begin writing songs for their debut album. Drummer Joel Ekman came back on board as well. This "reformation" later resulted in Stone Sour recording at Catamount Studios in Cedar Falls, Iowa.
Their self-titled debut album was released August 27, 2002, and it debuted at number 46 on the Billboard 200. Their second album, Come What(ever) May debuted at number four on the Billboard 200. It was released August 1, 2006, and charted on several different charts. Live in Moscow is currently their only album specifically released only for download. During the recording of the album, drummer Joel Ekman left the band for personal reasons. As a result, drummer Roy Mayorga was recruited, taking his place. The group released their third studio album, Audio Secrecy, on September 7, 2010.
Later, Corey Taylor announced the release of a concept double album with Stone Sour. The albums are titled "House of Gold & Bones". During the process of making the double album, bassist Shawn Economaki left the band. He was temporarily replaced for touring purposes by Johny Chow. The first part was released in October 2012 and the second part in April 2013. There are 23 songs in total, 11 on the first part and 12 on the second. In addition to these two albums is a four-part comic book series written by Taylor and published by Dark Horse Comics, which went on sale in 2013. With these albums came a story that was written by Taylor that coincide with the album. Fans can also construct a miniature "house of gold and bones" from the packaging design of the physical versions of the two albums. Taylor has also said that he would like to finish off the project by making the story into a movie but nothing has come of this yet.
Slipknot
In Des Moines, Iowa, Joey Jordison, Shawn Crahan, and Mick Thomson approached him asking him to join Slipknot. He agreed to go to one of their practices, and ended up singing in front of them. Of Slipknot's nine members, Corey was the sixth to join the band. Performing with Slipknot, he would also come to be known as "Number Eight", since the band follows a numbering scheme for its members, ranging from 0–8. According to Shawn Crahan, Corey wanted number eight, because it symbolizes infinity.
Feeling he could expand more inside Slipknot than in Stone Sour, Taylor temporarily quit Stone Sour, even though they were recording an album with Sean McMahon. Taylor's first gig with Slipknot was on August 24, 1997, which according to band members did not go well. During his first gig, Taylor was performing with facepaint instead of a mask; however, for his second show on September 12, he wore a mask that resembles his debut album mask.
Taylor has recorded with Slipknot since the release of their second demo album, a self-titled demo used to promote the band to prospective labels and producers. As their permanent vocalist, he recorded with Slipknot at Indigo Ranch in Malibu, California, and released Slipknot, the band's debut album that peaked at number one on the Top Heatseekers chart, went double platinum in the United States, and was included in the 2006 book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. Taylor was accused of copyright infringement regarding the lyrics of the song "Purity", but no action was taken. Taylor began recording for their second studio album, Iowa, in 2001 at Sound City and Sound Image in Van Nuys, Los Angeles. It was released August 28, 2001, and peaked at number one on the UK Albums Chart, as well as number three on the Billboard 200. While writing Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses), Taylor decided to write lyrics that would not warrant an explicit label. It peaked at number two on the Billboard 200. All Hope Is Gone was the first Slipknot album to peak at number one on the Billboard 200.
Other work
Taylor has appeared as a guest musician on albums by Soulfly, Apocalyptica, Damageplan, Steel Panther, and Code Orange. At one point, he was heavily involved in the recording of thrash metal band Anthrax's album, Worship Music, but the sessions remain unreleased. He also contributed to the Roadrunner United all-star album in 2005, providing vocals for the song "Rich Man". Taylor also made a brief appearance in Steel Panther's singles "Death to All but Metal", "Eyes of a Panther", and "Asian Hooker". In 2006, Taylor founded the record company Great Big Mouth Records. Taylor has produced two albums: Facecage's self-titled album and Walls of Jericho's Redemption. Taylor provided guest narration on the track "Repentance" for Dream Theater's 2007 album Systematic Chaos. In an interview with Billboard, Taylor confirmed that on January 13, 2009, he was planning on making a solo album, as well as returning to his side project Stone Sour after Slipknot's All Hope Is Gone World Tour. Taylor has stated that he was writing songs that "don't fit either of his main bands." He describes them as a cross between Foo Fighters, Johnny Cash, and Social Distortion, saying that there's "a country background that comes built-in with living in Iowa".
On March 30, 2009, it was confirmed that Taylor and the Junk Beer Kidnap Band would be performing at Rockfest in 2009. The group performed on April 24, 2009, at People's Court in Des Moines, Iowa, marking Taylor's first official solo show. Taylor performs with his band the Dum Fux with Denny Harvey, who make covers for 1970s punk rock and 1980s hair metal. Taylor also performs with Audacious P, a band that is primarily a Tenacious D cover band. Rapper Tech N9ne confirmed that Taylor was to perform on his album K.O.D., but was removed because Taylor did not submit his vocals in time. Taylor recently admitted that he tried out for the vacant singer spot in the band Velvet Revolver, but said that it just did not work out. However, according to a recent Billboard article, it seems likely that he may in fact become the vocalist for Velvet Revolver, though no official confirmation has been made. Duff McKagan added that they can neither "confirm or deny" Taylor's membership in the band but believes that Taylor is the "real deal". Slash has since ruled Taylor out as the possible new vocalist explaining that "[it] just wasn't right" although he does love him. Taylor has, however, recorded 10 new songs with the band, although drummer Matt Sorum stated it is unlikely they will ever be released. Taylor explained to Mark Hoppus on Hoppus on Music that he and McKagan were writing new music for a possible new supergroup.
On June 21, 2018, Taylor featured on the track "The Hunt" by metallic hardcore band Code Orange, the second track of the 3-track EP The Hurt Will Go On. In April 2019, Taylor collaborated on the song "Drugs" by the band Falling in Reverse. In September 2019, he was featured on Nostalgia Critic's parody album of Pink Floyd's The Wall on a cover of the opening theme for SpongeBob SquarePants.
Taylor released his solo album, CMFT, on October 2, 2020, via Roadrunner Records. The first two singles, "Black Eyes Blue" and "CMFT Must Be Stopped", were released on July 29, 2020.
Taylor mentioned in an October 3, 2020, interview about a followup album entitled CMF2, which would be completed prior to a tour supporting both it and CMFT. He contributed a cover of the Metallica song "Holier Than Thou" to the charity tribute album The Metallica Blacklist, released in September 2021.
Film appearances
On December 4, 2013, Taylor joined the cast of Fear Clinic. He played Bauer, one of the employees of the clinic who struggles to keep things under control when all hell breaks loose. He appeared in the 2013 horror film Bullied. In October 2015, Taylor provided the roars for the character of The Fisher King in the Doctor Who episode "Before the Flood". Taylor also appeared as a cameo in Sharknado 4, and will appear in Bad Candy.
Style and influence
Corey Taylor told Loudwire in 2015 that if it were not for Faith No More, he "wouldn't be here today". While recovering from an attempted suicide, he saw the band perform "Epic" live on the 1990 MTV Video Music Awards and the performance inspired him to begin writing and performing music again.
Corey Taylor had once been quoted that Pearl Jam had hugely influenced and inspired his music, saying that the group was "one of the biggest and best rock bands of all time". The first two Slipknot albums with Taylor's vocals, Slipknot and Iowa, both contain substantial explicit content. Many critics claimed Taylor relied on the profanity, which is why Slipknot's third album, Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses) is profanity-free, (with the exceptions of the word "bitch" on the song "Duality" and "bastard" on the spoken intro of "Pulse of the Maggots"), and did not warrant the explicit label. Compared with the previous vocalist for Slipknot, Anders Colsefni, Taylor has a vocal style that was characterized by ex-drummer Joey Jordison as "really good melodic singing". Taylor's vocal style, which contains at times melodic singing, growling, screaming, shouting, and rapping, led him to place at number 86 on the Hit Parader's Top 100 Metal Vocalists of All Time and is often compared to other vocalists such as Ivan Moody, John Bush, Phil Anselmo, and Jamey Jasta. Taylor expressed admiration for vocalists Bruce Dickinson, David Lee Roth, James Hetfield and Bruce Springsteen, but on his ideal rock frontman he states, "Freddie Mercury — nobody touches him. He is the gold standard, as far as I'm concerned. He was just electric from the second he hit the stage. It didn't matter if he was sick or tired or whatever, when he was on, man, it was like you turned a spotlight on and he just shone."
Taylor's two major projects have contrasting temperaments. Slipknot is considered to be heavy metal, nu metal and alternative metal, and expresses moods such as depression, hostility, anger, misanthropy, and rebellion. Stone Sour is classified as hard rock, expressing moods of bleakness and somberness as well as anger and rebellion.
Personal life
On September 17, 2002, Taylor's then-fiancée, Scarlett, gave birth to their son Griffin Parker. Taylor also has two daughters named Angeline and Aravis from earlier relationships. Taylor and Scarlett married on March 11, 2004, and divorced in 2007. On November 13, 2009, Taylor married Stephanie Luby at the Palms Hotel in Las Vegas. They also had a daughter named Ryan. On December 28, 2017, Taylor announced on his Twitter that he and Luby had separated. On April 7, 2019, it was announced on his Instagram page that he became engaged to Alicia Dove, creator of "Cherry Bombs". On October 6, 2019, the pair married.
Taylor has had problems with alcoholism, which Scarlett helped him through as well as keeping him from committing suicide. In 2006, Taylor told MTV that he had attempted to jump off a balcony of the eighth floor of The Hyatt on Sunset Boulevard in 2003, but "somehow [Scarlett] stopped me". This was later recanted by Taylor in an interview with Kerrang! radio and stated that it was, in fact, his friend Thom Hazaert who physically stopped him from jumping. Scarlett then told him that either he would have to get sober or she would annul their marriage. Before Stone Sour started recording Come What(ever) May in January 2006, Taylor was sober.
On August 3, 2009, he co-hosted the 2009 Kerrang! Awards alongside Scott Ian of Anthrax. The following year, they both once again co-hosted The Kerrang! Awards, where Taylor collected the K! Services to Metal award on behalf of Paul Gray, who died after an accidental overdose of morphine and fentanyl.
In early September 2010, Taylor announced that his book, Seven Deadly Sins: Settling The Argument Between Born Bad And Damaged Good, would be released on July 12, 2011, through Da Capo Press.
In April 2020, it was reported that Taylor switched to a plant-based diet to improve cardiovascular health.
In August 2021, Taylor tested positive for COVID-19 after the conclusion of a solo tour in support of his album CMFT. He was symptomatic despite being vaccinated, although he credited the vaccine for preventing him from becoming seriously ill.
Discography
Studio albums
Singles
As lead artist
As featured artist
Guest appearances
Filmography
Bibliography
Equipment
Awards
Revolver Golden Gods Awards
|-
| 2010 || Corey Taylor || Best Vocalist ||
|-
| 2013 || Corey Taylor || Best Vocalist ||
Loudwire Music Awards
|-
| 2015 || Corey Taylor || Rock Titan ||
|-
| 2017 || Corey Taylor || Best Vocalist ||
Kerrang! Awards
|-
| 2018 || Corey Taylor || Legend ||
References
Bibliography
External links
Corey Taylor interview
Metal Underground: interview
NY rock: article
IGN: article
Duff McKagan on Corey Taylor in Seattle Weekly
1973 births
American heavy metal singers
American male singers
American male guitarists
American heavy metal guitarists
American baritones
20th-century American singers
21st-century American singers
American people of German descent
American people who self-identify as being of Native American descent
American people of Irish descent
American people of Dutch descent
Grammy Award winners
Musicians from Des Moines, Iowa
Living people
Writers from Des Moines, Iowa
Writers from Waterloo, Iowa
Native American male actors
Native American singers
Nu metal singers
Roadrunner Records artists
Slipknot (band) members
Stone Sour members
Social critics
Singers with a five-octave vocal range
Singers from Iowa
Alternative metal musicians
American hard rock musicians
Male actors from Iowa
Teenage Time Killers members | true | [
"\"The Return of the Son of Monster Magnet\" is a Frank Zappa composition, performed by The Mothers of Invention, released on the Mothers' debut album, Freak Out!. It is the longest song on the album, at 12:17, consisting of 2 parts: \"Ritual Dance Of The Child-Killer\", and \"Nullis Pretii (No Commercial Potential)\". The composition includes a musical quote from \"Louie Louie\" (Richard Berry). \n\nThe name of the song was probably inspired by a toy called \"Monster Magnet\" from the Wham-O company which was then being heavily advertised on American television.\n\nAccording to Zappa himself, the Freak Out! version of this song is merely a rhythm track and was never finished as intended. Apparently for budgetary reasons, Verve executives curtailed further recording of the track even after shelling out $500 for rented percussion. Indeed, the subtitle of the track is \"an Unfinished Ballet in two Tableaux\". Unlike many of his extended works, Zappa never augmented or completed this piece when he had the time, money and his own recording studio.\n\nDr. John (Mac Rebennack) appears on piano, and his voice can be heard sporadically throughout the track. Van Dyke Parks was also present at the recording session, but it is unclear what, if anything, played by him was used for the released version.\n\nAccording to Beatles author and Zappa biographer Barry Miles, the unreleased Beatles experimental track \"Carnival of Light\" which was recorded in January 1967 resembles \"The Return of The Son of Monster Magnet\", although it is believed that \"Carnival of Light\" is more fragmented and abstract than Zappa's effort the previous year.\n\nSuzy Creamcheese\n\nThe song begins with the following dialogue:\n\nMale voice: Suzy? \nFemale voice: Yes? \nMale voice: Suzy Creamcheese? \nFemale voice: Yes? \nMale voice: This is the voice of your conscience baby ... uh, I just want to check one thing out with you ... you don't mind, do ya? \nFemale voice: What? \nMale voice: Suzy Creamcheese, honey, what's got into ya?\n\nThis is the first mention of Suzy Creamcheese on any Mothers album,\nalthough a \"Suzie\" is mentioned on Side 3 of Freak Out! on the track, It Can't Happen Here.\n\nReferences \n\nFreak Out!, Mothers of Invention, Verve/MGM, 1966, liner notes\nThe Making Of Freak Out!: An FZ Audio Documentary, Zappa Records, 2006\n\nExperimental rock songs\nFrank Zappa songs\n1966 songs\nSongs written by Frank Zappa\nSong recordings produced by Tom Wilson (record producer)",
"Mothers against decapentaplegic homolog 9 also known as SMAD9, SMAD8, and MADH6 is a protein that in humans is encoded by the SMAD9 gene.\n\nSMAD9, as its name describes, is a homolog of the Drosophila gene: \"Mothers against decapentaplegic\". It belongs to the SMAD family of proteins, which belong to the TGFβ superfamily of modulators. Like many other TGFβ family members, SMAD9 is involved in cell signalling. When a bone morphogenetic protein binds to a receptor (BMP type 1 receptor kinase) it causes SMAD9 to interact with SMAD anchor for receptor activation (SARA).The binding of ligands causes the phosphorylation of the SMAD9 protein and the dissociation from SARA and the association with SMAD4. It is subsequently transferred to the nucleus where it forms complexes with other proteins and acts as a transcription factor. SMAD9 is a receptor regulated SMAD (R-SMAD) and is activated by bone morphogenetic protein type 1 receptor kinase. There are two isoforms of the protein. Confusingly, it is also sometimes referred to as SMAD8 in the literature.\n\nNomenclature \n\nThe SMAD proteins are homologs of both the drosophila protein, mothers against decapentaplegic (MAD) and the C. elegans protein SMA. The name is a combination of the two. During Drosophila research, it was found that a mutation in the gene, MAD, in the mother, repressed the gene, decapentaplegic, in the embryo. The phrase \"Mothers against\" was added since mothers often form organizations opposing various issues e.g. Mothers Against Drunk Driving or (MADD); and based on a tradition of such unusual naming within the gene research community.\n\nReferences \n\nDevelopmental genes and proteins\nMH1 domain\nMH2 domain\nR-SMAD\nTranscription factors\nHuman proteins"
] |
[
"Corey Taylor",
"Life",
"What is the name of the bands number Three album",
"I don't know.",
"What is his latest project",
"He was mostly raised by his single mother",
"where is he from",
"Des Moines, Iowa.",
"What is his mothers name",
"\"hole in the ground with buildings around it\"."
] | C_0484ee08a9be40df9fe4de47ef04904a_1 | what is his given name | 5 | What is Corey Taylor's given name? | Corey Taylor | Corey Todd Taylor was born on December 8, 1973 in Des Moines, Iowa. He was mostly raised by his single mother in Waterloo, Iowa, a place described by Taylor as a "hole in the ground with buildings around it". He is of Irish, German and Native American descent on his father's side, and Dutch and Irish on his mother's side. In 1979, Taylor and his mother saw the sci-fi series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. Before the series, there was a trailer for the 1978 horror film Halloween. Taylor said this "developed some sense of Slipknot in [himself]". While Halloween introduced Taylor to masks and horror themes, Taylor's grandmother introduced him to rock music, showing him a collection of Elvis Presley records from the 1950s to 1970s. He especially found songs like "Teddy Bear", "In the Ghetto", and "Suspicious Minds" to appeal to his interests the most, describing them as "good times". Taylor also began listening to Black Sabbath at a young age, beginning with their early work. Taylor, along with his mother and sister, lived at one point in an "old dilapidated farmhouse" which on days in late autumn would "look like Black Sabbath album covers". By age 15, he had developed a drug addiction and had overdosed on cocaine twice. By this time, he was living in Waterloo, but later set out on his own and ended up at his grandmother's house in Des Moines. She took legal custody of him so that he could continue going to school, and she helped him buy musical equipment. When Taylor was 18, he left his grandmother's house and went to various places in Iowa, Des Moines being a place to which he frequently returned. In 2017, on an episode of Viceland's The Therapist, Taylor revealed that he was sexually assaulted at the age of 10 by a 16-year-old friend. Taylor stated that he never told anyone about the incident until he was "probably 18" because his abuser "threatened to hurt [him] and threatened to hurt [his] mom". At age 18, when Taylor was living with his grandmother, he attempted suicide by way of overdose. His ex-girlfriend's mother drove him to the hospital in Des Moines and doctors were able to resuscitate him. He describes this as the lowest point in his life. Taylor first met his father when he was 30 years old, and now has a relationship with him, although he said their paths do not cross that often. CANNOTANSWER | Corey Todd Taylor | Corey Todd Taylor (born December 8, 1973) is an American singer, musician, songwriter and actor. He is known as the lead vocalist and lyricist of the bands Slipknot and Stone Sour.
Taylor co-founded Stone Sour with drummer Joel Ekman in 1992, playing in the Des Moines area, and working on a demo. He joined Slipknot in 1997 to replace their original vocalist and has subsequently released six studio albums with them. After the first two Slipknot albums went Platinum, Taylor revived Stone Sour to record an album and tour in 2002. His debut solo studio album, CMFT, was released on October 2, 2020, by Roadrunner Records.
He has worked with several bands, including Junk Beer Kidnap Band, Korn, Disturbed, Apocalyptica, Code Orange, Anthrax, Steel Panther, Falling in Reverse, and Soulfly.
Early life
Corey Todd Taylor was born on December 8, 1973, in Des Moines, Iowa. He was mostly raised by his single mother in Waterloo, Iowa, a place described by Taylor as a "hole in the ground with buildings around it". He is of German, Irish and Native American descent on his father's side, and Dutch and Irish on his mother's side. Around 1979, Taylor and his mother saw the sci-fi series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. Before the series, there was a trailer for the 1978 horror film Halloween. Taylor said this "developed some sense of Slipknot in [himself]". While Halloween introduced Taylor to masks and horror themes, Taylor's grandmother introduced him to rock music, showing him a collection of Elvis Presley records from the 1950s to 1970s. He especially found songs like "Teddy Bear", "In the Ghetto", and "Suspicious Minds" to appeal to his interests the most, describing them as "good times". Taylor also began listening to Black Sabbath at a young age, beginning with their early work.
By age 15, he had developed a drug addiction and had overdosed on cocaine twice. By this time, he was living in Waterloo, but later set out on his own and ended up at his grandmother's house in Des Moines. She took legal custody of him so that he could continue going to school, and she helped him buy musical equipment. When Taylor was 18, he left his grandmother's house and went to various places in Iowa, Des Moines being a place to which he frequently returned.
In 2017, on an episode of Viceland's The Therapist, Taylor revealed that he was sexually abused at the age of 10 by a 16-year-old friend. Taylor stated that he never told anyone about the incident until he was "probably 18" because his abuser "threatened to hurt [him] and threatened to hurt [his] mom". At age 18, when Taylor was living with his grandmother, he attempted suicide by way of overdose. His ex-girlfriend's mother drove him to the hospital in Des Moines and doctors were able to resuscitate him. He describes this as the lowest point in his life. Taylor first met his father when he was 30 years old, and now has a relationship with him, although he said their paths do not cross that often.
Music career
Stone Sour
Taylor is a founding member of American hard rock band Stone Sour. After he formed the band in 1992 with drummer Joel Ekman, Shawn Economaki joined filling in the bass position, leaving the electric guitar position to be filled by Josh Rand. Stone Sour recorded a demo album in 1993, and another in 1994. In 1997, Taylor was approached by the metal band, Slipknot, resulting in him abandoning Stone Sour while they were recording a demo album with Sean McMahon at SR studios. Taylor did not return until five years later to record their debut album, Stone Sour in 2002. Both Taylor and guitarist Josh Rand contacted Jim Root, Slipknot's guitarist, and Shawn Economaki, Stone Sour's original bassist, to begin writing songs for their debut album. Drummer Joel Ekman came back on board as well. This "reformation" later resulted in Stone Sour recording at Catamount Studios in Cedar Falls, Iowa.
Their self-titled debut album was released August 27, 2002, and it debuted at number 46 on the Billboard 200. Their second album, Come What(ever) May debuted at number four on the Billboard 200. It was released August 1, 2006, and charted on several different charts. Live in Moscow is currently their only album specifically released only for download. During the recording of the album, drummer Joel Ekman left the band for personal reasons. As a result, drummer Roy Mayorga was recruited, taking his place. The group released their third studio album, Audio Secrecy, on September 7, 2010.
Later, Corey Taylor announced the release of a concept double album with Stone Sour. The albums are titled "House of Gold & Bones". During the process of making the double album, bassist Shawn Economaki left the band. He was temporarily replaced for touring purposes by Johny Chow. The first part was released in October 2012 and the second part in April 2013. There are 23 songs in total, 11 on the first part and 12 on the second. In addition to these two albums is a four-part comic book series written by Taylor and published by Dark Horse Comics, which went on sale in 2013. With these albums came a story that was written by Taylor that coincide with the album. Fans can also construct a miniature "house of gold and bones" from the packaging design of the physical versions of the two albums. Taylor has also said that he would like to finish off the project by making the story into a movie but nothing has come of this yet.
Slipknot
In Des Moines, Iowa, Joey Jordison, Shawn Crahan, and Mick Thomson approached him asking him to join Slipknot. He agreed to go to one of their practices, and ended up singing in front of them. Of Slipknot's nine members, Corey was the sixth to join the band. Performing with Slipknot, he would also come to be known as "Number Eight", since the band follows a numbering scheme for its members, ranging from 0–8. According to Shawn Crahan, Corey wanted number eight, because it symbolizes infinity.
Feeling he could expand more inside Slipknot than in Stone Sour, Taylor temporarily quit Stone Sour, even though they were recording an album with Sean McMahon. Taylor's first gig with Slipknot was on August 24, 1997, which according to band members did not go well. During his first gig, Taylor was performing with facepaint instead of a mask; however, for his second show on September 12, he wore a mask that resembles his debut album mask.
Taylor has recorded with Slipknot since the release of their second demo album, a self-titled demo used to promote the band to prospective labels and producers. As their permanent vocalist, he recorded with Slipknot at Indigo Ranch in Malibu, California, and released Slipknot, the band's debut album that peaked at number one on the Top Heatseekers chart, went double platinum in the United States, and was included in the 2006 book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. Taylor was accused of copyright infringement regarding the lyrics of the song "Purity", but no action was taken. Taylor began recording for their second studio album, Iowa, in 2001 at Sound City and Sound Image in Van Nuys, Los Angeles. It was released August 28, 2001, and peaked at number one on the UK Albums Chart, as well as number three on the Billboard 200. While writing Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses), Taylor decided to write lyrics that would not warrant an explicit label. It peaked at number two on the Billboard 200. All Hope Is Gone was the first Slipknot album to peak at number one on the Billboard 200.
Other work
Taylor has appeared as a guest musician on albums by Soulfly, Apocalyptica, Damageplan, Steel Panther, and Code Orange. At one point, he was heavily involved in the recording of thrash metal band Anthrax's album, Worship Music, but the sessions remain unreleased. He also contributed to the Roadrunner United all-star album in 2005, providing vocals for the song "Rich Man". Taylor also made a brief appearance in Steel Panther's singles "Death to All but Metal", "Eyes of a Panther", and "Asian Hooker". In 2006, Taylor founded the record company Great Big Mouth Records. Taylor has produced two albums: Facecage's self-titled album and Walls of Jericho's Redemption. Taylor provided guest narration on the track "Repentance" for Dream Theater's 2007 album Systematic Chaos. In an interview with Billboard, Taylor confirmed that on January 13, 2009, he was planning on making a solo album, as well as returning to his side project Stone Sour after Slipknot's All Hope Is Gone World Tour. Taylor has stated that he was writing songs that "don't fit either of his main bands." He describes them as a cross between Foo Fighters, Johnny Cash, and Social Distortion, saying that there's "a country background that comes built-in with living in Iowa".
On March 30, 2009, it was confirmed that Taylor and the Junk Beer Kidnap Band would be performing at Rockfest in 2009. The group performed on April 24, 2009, at People's Court in Des Moines, Iowa, marking Taylor's first official solo show. Taylor performs with his band the Dum Fux with Denny Harvey, who make covers for 1970s punk rock and 1980s hair metal. Taylor also performs with Audacious P, a band that is primarily a Tenacious D cover band. Rapper Tech N9ne confirmed that Taylor was to perform on his album K.O.D., but was removed because Taylor did not submit his vocals in time. Taylor recently admitted that he tried out for the vacant singer spot in the band Velvet Revolver, but said that it just did not work out. However, according to a recent Billboard article, it seems likely that he may in fact become the vocalist for Velvet Revolver, though no official confirmation has been made. Duff McKagan added that they can neither "confirm or deny" Taylor's membership in the band but believes that Taylor is the "real deal". Slash has since ruled Taylor out as the possible new vocalist explaining that "[it] just wasn't right" although he does love him. Taylor has, however, recorded 10 new songs with the band, although drummer Matt Sorum stated it is unlikely they will ever be released. Taylor explained to Mark Hoppus on Hoppus on Music that he and McKagan were writing new music for a possible new supergroup.
On June 21, 2018, Taylor featured on the track "The Hunt" by metallic hardcore band Code Orange, the second track of the 3-track EP The Hurt Will Go On. In April 2019, Taylor collaborated on the song "Drugs" by the band Falling in Reverse. In September 2019, he was featured on Nostalgia Critic's parody album of Pink Floyd's The Wall on a cover of the opening theme for SpongeBob SquarePants.
Taylor released his solo album, CMFT, on October 2, 2020, via Roadrunner Records. The first two singles, "Black Eyes Blue" and "CMFT Must Be Stopped", were released on July 29, 2020.
Taylor mentioned in an October 3, 2020, interview about a followup album entitled CMF2, which would be completed prior to a tour supporting both it and CMFT. He contributed a cover of the Metallica song "Holier Than Thou" to the charity tribute album The Metallica Blacklist, released in September 2021.
Film appearances
On December 4, 2013, Taylor joined the cast of Fear Clinic. He played Bauer, one of the employees of the clinic who struggles to keep things under control when all hell breaks loose. He appeared in the 2013 horror film Bullied. In October 2015, Taylor provided the roars for the character of The Fisher King in the Doctor Who episode "Before the Flood". Taylor also appeared as a cameo in Sharknado 4, and will appear in Bad Candy.
Style and influence
Corey Taylor told Loudwire in 2015 that if it were not for Faith No More, he "wouldn't be here today". While recovering from an attempted suicide, he saw the band perform "Epic" live on the 1990 MTV Video Music Awards and the performance inspired him to begin writing and performing music again.
Corey Taylor had once been quoted that Pearl Jam had hugely influenced and inspired his music, saying that the group was "one of the biggest and best rock bands of all time". The first two Slipknot albums with Taylor's vocals, Slipknot and Iowa, both contain substantial explicit content. Many critics claimed Taylor relied on the profanity, which is why Slipknot's third album, Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses) is profanity-free, (with the exceptions of the word "bitch" on the song "Duality" and "bastard" on the spoken intro of "Pulse of the Maggots"), and did not warrant the explicit label. Compared with the previous vocalist for Slipknot, Anders Colsefni, Taylor has a vocal style that was characterized by ex-drummer Joey Jordison as "really good melodic singing". Taylor's vocal style, which contains at times melodic singing, growling, screaming, shouting, and rapping, led him to place at number 86 on the Hit Parader's Top 100 Metal Vocalists of All Time and is often compared to other vocalists such as Ivan Moody, John Bush, Phil Anselmo, and Jamey Jasta. Taylor expressed admiration for vocalists Bruce Dickinson, David Lee Roth, James Hetfield and Bruce Springsteen, but on his ideal rock frontman he states, "Freddie Mercury — nobody touches him. He is the gold standard, as far as I'm concerned. He was just electric from the second he hit the stage. It didn't matter if he was sick or tired or whatever, when he was on, man, it was like you turned a spotlight on and he just shone."
Taylor's two major projects have contrasting temperaments. Slipknot is considered to be heavy metal, nu metal and alternative metal, and expresses moods such as depression, hostility, anger, misanthropy, and rebellion. Stone Sour is classified as hard rock, expressing moods of bleakness and somberness as well as anger and rebellion.
Personal life
On September 17, 2002, Taylor's then-fiancée, Scarlett, gave birth to their son Griffin Parker. Taylor also has two daughters named Angeline and Aravis from earlier relationships. Taylor and Scarlett married on March 11, 2004, and divorced in 2007. On November 13, 2009, Taylor married Stephanie Luby at the Palms Hotel in Las Vegas. They also had a daughter named Ryan. On December 28, 2017, Taylor announced on his Twitter that he and Luby had separated. On April 7, 2019, it was announced on his Instagram page that he became engaged to Alicia Dove, creator of "Cherry Bombs". On October 6, 2019, the pair married.
Taylor has had problems with alcoholism, which Scarlett helped him through as well as keeping him from committing suicide. In 2006, Taylor told MTV that he had attempted to jump off a balcony of the eighth floor of The Hyatt on Sunset Boulevard in 2003, but "somehow [Scarlett] stopped me". This was later recanted by Taylor in an interview with Kerrang! radio and stated that it was, in fact, his friend Thom Hazaert who physically stopped him from jumping. Scarlett then told him that either he would have to get sober or she would annul their marriage. Before Stone Sour started recording Come What(ever) May in January 2006, Taylor was sober.
On August 3, 2009, he co-hosted the 2009 Kerrang! Awards alongside Scott Ian of Anthrax. The following year, they both once again co-hosted The Kerrang! Awards, where Taylor collected the K! Services to Metal award on behalf of Paul Gray, who died after an accidental overdose of morphine and fentanyl.
In early September 2010, Taylor announced that his book, Seven Deadly Sins: Settling The Argument Between Born Bad And Damaged Good, would be released on July 12, 2011, through Da Capo Press.
In April 2020, it was reported that Taylor switched to a plant-based diet to improve cardiovascular health.
In August 2021, Taylor tested positive for COVID-19 after the conclusion of a solo tour in support of his album CMFT. He was symptomatic despite being vaccinated, although he credited the vaccine for preventing him from becoming seriously ill.
Discography
Studio albums
Singles
As lead artist
As featured artist
Guest appearances
Filmography
Bibliography
Equipment
Awards
Revolver Golden Gods Awards
|-
| 2010 || Corey Taylor || Best Vocalist ||
|-
| 2013 || Corey Taylor || Best Vocalist ||
Loudwire Music Awards
|-
| 2015 || Corey Taylor || Rock Titan ||
|-
| 2017 || Corey Taylor || Best Vocalist ||
Kerrang! Awards
|-
| 2018 || Corey Taylor || Legend ||
References
Bibliography
External links
Corey Taylor interview
Metal Underground: interview
NY rock: article
IGN: article
Duff McKagan on Corey Taylor in Seattle Weekly
1973 births
American heavy metal singers
American male singers
American male guitarists
American heavy metal guitarists
American baritones
20th-century American singers
21st-century American singers
American people of German descent
American people who self-identify as being of Native American descent
American people of Irish descent
American people of Dutch descent
Grammy Award winners
Musicians from Des Moines, Iowa
Living people
Writers from Des Moines, Iowa
Writers from Waterloo, Iowa
Native American male actors
Native American singers
Nu metal singers
Roadrunner Records artists
Slipknot (band) members
Stone Sour members
Social critics
Singers with a five-octave vocal range
Singers from Iowa
Alternative metal musicians
American hard rock musicians
Male actors from Iowa
Teenage Time Killers members | true | [
"Drahomíra is traditional Czech and Slovak female given name. Means precious and peaceful from the Slavic element dorgu \"precious\" combined with mir \"peace\". Male, less frequent form is Drahomír (or Dragomir). Nicknames are Draha, Drahuše, Drahusha, Drahomirka, Draga, Mira, Mirka.\n\nDrahomíra's name day in the Czech Republic is 18 July, in Slovakia 16 January. Its equivalent in Polish, Bulgarian, Serbian and Croatian languages is Dragomira (with male form Dragomir).\n\nDrahomíra, a Bohemian duchess is the most famous historical bearer of the name.\n\nReferences \n Miloslava Knappová: Jak se bude vaše dítě jmenovat (What will be name of your child), 2006 (4th edition), .\n\nFeminine given names\nCzech feminine given names\nSlovak feminine given names",
"Kenneth is an English given name and surname. The name is an Anglicised form of two entirely different Gaelic personal names: Cainnech and Cináed. The modern Gaelic form of Cainnech is Coinneach; the name was derived from a byname meaning \"handsome\", \"comely\". A short form of Kenneth is Ken or Kenn. A pet form of Kenneth is Kenny.\n\nEtymology \nThe second part of the name Cinaed is derived either from the Celtic *aidhu, meaning \"fire\", or else Brittonic jʉ:ð meaning \"lord\".\n\nPeople\n(see also Ken (name) and Kenny)\n\nPlaces\nIn the United States:\n Kenneth, Indiana\n Kenneth, Minnesota\n Kenneth City, Florida\nIn Scotland:\n Inch Kenneth, an island off the west coast of the Isle of Mull\n\nOther\n \"What's the Frequency, Kenneth?\", a song by R.E.M.\n Hurricane Kenneth\n Cyclone Kenneth\n\nReferences\n\nEnglish-language masculine given names\nEnglish masculine given names\nScottish masculine given names"
] |
[
"Corey Taylor",
"Life",
"What is the name of the bands number Three album",
"I don't know.",
"What is his latest project",
"He was mostly raised by his single mother",
"where is he from",
"Des Moines, Iowa.",
"What is his mothers name",
"\"hole in the ground with buildings around it\".",
"what is his given name",
"Corey Todd Taylor"
] | C_0484ee08a9be40df9fe4de47ef04904a_1 | What is his best fact | 6 | What is Corey Taylor's best fact? | Corey Taylor | Corey Todd Taylor was born on December 8, 1973 in Des Moines, Iowa. He was mostly raised by his single mother in Waterloo, Iowa, a place described by Taylor as a "hole in the ground with buildings around it". He is of Irish, German and Native American descent on his father's side, and Dutch and Irish on his mother's side. In 1979, Taylor and his mother saw the sci-fi series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. Before the series, there was a trailer for the 1978 horror film Halloween. Taylor said this "developed some sense of Slipknot in [himself]". While Halloween introduced Taylor to masks and horror themes, Taylor's grandmother introduced him to rock music, showing him a collection of Elvis Presley records from the 1950s to 1970s. He especially found songs like "Teddy Bear", "In the Ghetto", and "Suspicious Minds" to appeal to his interests the most, describing them as "good times". Taylor also began listening to Black Sabbath at a young age, beginning with their early work. Taylor, along with his mother and sister, lived at one point in an "old dilapidated farmhouse" which on days in late autumn would "look like Black Sabbath album covers". By age 15, he had developed a drug addiction and had overdosed on cocaine twice. By this time, he was living in Waterloo, but later set out on his own and ended up at his grandmother's house in Des Moines. She took legal custody of him so that he could continue going to school, and she helped him buy musical equipment. When Taylor was 18, he left his grandmother's house and went to various places in Iowa, Des Moines being a place to which he frequently returned. In 2017, on an episode of Viceland's The Therapist, Taylor revealed that he was sexually assaulted at the age of 10 by a 16-year-old friend. Taylor stated that he never told anyone about the incident until he was "probably 18" because his abuser "threatened to hurt [him] and threatened to hurt [his] mom". At age 18, when Taylor was living with his grandmother, he attempted suicide by way of overdose. His ex-girlfriend's mother drove him to the hospital in Des Moines and doctors were able to resuscitate him. He describes this as the lowest point in his life. Taylor first met his father when he was 30 years old, and now has a relationship with him, although he said their paths do not cross that often. CANNOTANSWER | Taylor, along with his mother and sister, lived at one point in an "old dilapidated farmhouse" | Corey Todd Taylor (born December 8, 1973) is an American singer, musician, songwriter and actor. He is known as the lead vocalist and lyricist of the bands Slipknot and Stone Sour.
Taylor co-founded Stone Sour with drummer Joel Ekman in 1992, playing in the Des Moines area, and working on a demo. He joined Slipknot in 1997 to replace their original vocalist and has subsequently released six studio albums with them. After the first two Slipknot albums went Platinum, Taylor revived Stone Sour to record an album and tour in 2002. His debut solo studio album, CMFT, was released on October 2, 2020, by Roadrunner Records.
He has worked with several bands, including Junk Beer Kidnap Band, Korn, Disturbed, Apocalyptica, Code Orange, Anthrax, Steel Panther, Falling in Reverse, and Soulfly.
Early life
Corey Todd Taylor was born on December 8, 1973, in Des Moines, Iowa. He was mostly raised by his single mother in Waterloo, Iowa, a place described by Taylor as a "hole in the ground with buildings around it". He is of German, Irish and Native American descent on his father's side, and Dutch and Irish on his mother's side. Around 1979, Taylor and his mother saw the sci-fi series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. Before the series, there was a trailer for the 1978 horror film Halloween. Taylor said this "developed some sense of Slipknot in [himself]". While Halloween introduced Taylor to masks and horror themes, Taylor's grandmother introduced him to rock music, showing him a collection of Elvis Presley records from the 1950s to 1970s. He especially found songs like "Teddy Bear", "In the Ghetto", and "Suspicious Minds" to appeal to his interests the most, describing them as "good times". Taylor also began listening to Black Sabbath at a young age, beginning with their early work.
By age 15, he had developed a drug addiction and had overdosed on cocaine twice. By this time, he was living in Waterloo, but later set out on his own and ended up at his grandmother's house in Des Moines. She took legal custody of him so that he could continue going to school, and she helped him buy musical equipment. When Taylor was 18, he left his grandmother's house and went to various places in Iowa, Des Moines being a place to which he frequently returned.
In 2017, on an episode of Viceland's The Therapist, Taylor revealed that he was sexually abused at the age of 10 by a 16-year-old friend. Taylor stated that he never told anyone about the incident until he was "probably 18" because his abuser "threatened to hurt [him] and threatened to hurt [his] mom". At age 18, when Taylor was living with his grandmother, he attempted suicide by way of overdose. His ex-girlfriend's mother drove him to the hospital in Des Moines and doctors were able to resuscitate him. He describes this as the lowest point in his life. Taylor first met his father when he was 30 years old, and now has a relationship with him, although he said their paths do not cross that often.
Music career
Stone Sour
Taylor is a founding member of American hard rock band Stone Sour. After he formed the band in 1992 with drummer Joel Ekman, Shawn Economaki joined filling in the bass position, leaving the electric guitar position to be filled by Josh Rand. Stone Sour recorded a demo album in 1993, and another in 1994. In 1997, Taylor was approached by the metal band, Slipknot, resulting in him abandoning Stone Sour while they were recording a demo album with Sean McMahon at SR studios. Taylor did not return until five years later to record their debut album, Stone Sour in 2002. Both Taylor and guitarist Josh Rand contacted Jim Root, Slipknot's guitarist, and Shawn Economaki, Stone Sour's original bassist, to begin writing songs for their debut album. Drummer Joel Ekman came back on board as well. This "reformation" later resulted in Stone Sour recording at Catamount Studios in Cedar Falls, Iowa.
Their self-titled debut album was released August 27, 2002, and it debuted at number 46 on the Billboard 200. Their second album, Come What(ever) May debuted at number four on the Billboard 200. It was released August 1, 2006, and charted on several different charts. Live in Moscow is currently their only album specifically released only for download. During the recording of the album, drummer Joel Ekman left the band for personal reasons. As a result, drummer Roy Mayorga was recruited, taking his place. The group released their third studio album, Audio Secrecy, on September 7, 2010.
Later, Corey Taylor announced the release of a concept double album with Stone Sour. The albums are titled "House of Gold & Bones". During the process of making the double album, bassist Shawn Economaki left the band. He was temporarily replaced for touring purposes by Johny Chow. The first part was released in October 2012 and the second part in April 2013. There are 23 songs in total, 11 on the first part and 12 on the second. In addition to these two albums is a four-part comic book series written by Taylor and published by Dark Horse Comics, which went on sale in 2013. With these albums came a story that was written by Taylor that coincide with the album. Fans can also construct a miniature "house of gold and bones" from the packaging design of the physical versions of the two albums. Taylor has also said that he would like to finish off the project by making the story into a movie but nothing has come of this yet.
Slipknot
In Des Moines, Iowa, Joey Jordison, Shawn Crahan, and Mick Thomson approached him asking him to join Slipknot. He agreed to go to one of their practices, and ended up singing in front of them. Of Slipknot's nine members, Corey was the sixth to join the band. Performing with Slipknot, he would also come to be known as "Number Eight", since the band follows a numbering scheme for its members, ranging from 0–8. According to Shawn Crahan, Corey wanted number eight, because it symbolizes infinity.
Feeling he could expand more inside Slipknot than in Stone Sour, Taylor temporarily quit Stone Sour, even though they were recording an album with Sean McMahon. Taylor's first gig with Slipknot was on August 24, 1997, which according to band members did not go well. During his first gig, Taylor was performing with facepaint instead of a mask; however, for his second show on September 12, he wore a mask that resembles his debut album mask.
Taylor has recorded with Slipknot since the release of their second demo album, a self-titled demo used to promote the band to prospective labels and producers. As their permanent vocalist, he recorded with Slipknot at Indigo Ranch in Malibu, California, and released Slipknot, the band's debut album that peaked at number one on the Top Heatseekers chart, went double platinum in the United States, and was included in the 2006 book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. Taylor was accused of copyright infringement regarding the lyrics of the song "Purity", but no action was taken. Taylor began recording for their second studio album, Iowa, in 2001 at Sound City and Sound Image in Van Nuys, Los Angeles. It was released August 28, 2001, and peaked at number one on the UK Albums Chart, as well as number three on the Billboard 200. While writing Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses), Taylor decided to write lyrics that would not warrant an explicit label. It peaked at number two on the Billboard 200. All Hope Is Gone was the first Slipknot album to peak at number one on the Billboard 200.
Other work
Taylor has appeared as a guest musician on albums by Soulfly, Apocalyptica, Damageplan, Steel Panther, and Code Orange. At one point, he was heavily involved in the recording of thrash metal band Anthrax's album, Worship Music, but the sessions remain unreleased. He also contributed to the Roadrunner United all-star album in 2005, providing vocals for the song "Rich Man". Taylor also made a brief appearance in Steel Panther's singles "Death to All but Metal", "Eyes of a Panther", and "Asian Hooker". In 2006, Taylor founded the record company Great Big Mouth Records. Taylor has produced two albums: Facecage's self-titled album and Walls of Jericho's Redemption. Taylor provided guest narration on the track "Repentance" for Dream Theater's 2007 album Systematic Chaos. In an interview with Billboard, Taylor confirmed that on January 13, 2009, he was planning on making a solo album, as well as returning to his side project Stone Sour after Slipknot's All Hope Is Gone World Tour. Taylor has stated that he was writing songs that "don't fit either of his main bands." He describes them as a cross between Foo Fighters, Johnny Cash, and Social Distortion, saying that there's "a country background that comes built-in with living in Iowa".
On March 30, 2009, it was confirmed that Taylor and the Junk Beer Kidnap Band would be performing at Rockfest in 2009. The group performed on April 24, 2009, at People's Court in Des Moines, Iowa, marking Taylor's first official solo show. Taylor performs with his band the Dum Fux with Denny Harvey, who make covers for 1970s punk rock and 1980s hair metal. Taylor also performs with Audacious P, a band that is primarily a Tenacious D cover band. Rapper Tech N9ne confirmed that Taylor was to perform on his album K.O.D., but was removed because Taylor did not submit his vocals in time. Taylor recently admitted that he tried out for the vacant singer spot in the band Velvet Revolver, but said that it just did not work out. However, according to a recent Billboard article, it seems likely that he may in fact become the vocalist for Velvet Revolver, though no official confirmation has been made. Duff McKagan added that they can neither "confirm or deny" Taylor's membership in the band but believes that Taylor is the "real deal". Slash has since ruled Taylor out as the possible new vocalist explaining that "[it] just wasn't right" although he does love him. Taylor has, however, recorded 10 new songs with the band, although drummer Matt Sorum stated it is unlikely they will ever be released. Taylor explained to Mark Hoppus on Hoppus on Music that he and McKagan were writing new music for a possible new supergroup.
On June 21, 2018, Taylor featured on the track "The Hunt" by metallic hardcore band Code Orange, the second track of the 3-track EP The Hurt Will Go On. In April 2019, Taylor collaborated on the song "Drugs" by the band Falling in Reverse. In September 2019, he was featured on Nostalgia Critic's parody album of Pink Floyd's The Wall on a cover of the opening theme for SpongeBob SquarePants.
Taylor released his solo album, CMFT, on October 2, 2020, via Roadrunner Records. The first two singles, "Black Eyes Blue" and "CMFT Must Be Stopped", were released on July 29, 2020.
Taylor mentioned in an October 3, 2020, interview about a followup album entitled CMF2, which would be completed prior to a tour supporting both it and CMFT. He contributed a cover of the Metallica song "Holier Than Thou" to the charity tribute album The Metallica Blacklist, released in September 2021.
Film appearances
On December 4, 2013, Taylor joined the cast of Fear Clinic. He played Bauer, one of the employees of the clinic who struggles to keep things under control when all hell breaks loose. He appeared in the 2013 horror film Bullied. In October 2015, Taylor provided the roars for the character of The Fisher King in the Doctor Who episode "Before the Flood". Taylor also appeared as a cameo in Sharknado 4, and will appear in Bad Candy.
Style and influence
Corey Taylor told Loudwire in 2015 that if it were not for Faith No More, he "wouldn't be here today". While recovering from an attempted suicide, he saw the band perform "Epic" live on the 1990 MTV Video Music Awards and the performance inspired him to begin writing and performing music again.
Corey Taylor had once been quoted that Pearl Jam had hugely influenced and inspired his music, saying that the group was "one of the biggest and best rock bands of all time". The first two Slipknot albums with Taylor's vocals, Slipknot and Iowa, both contain substantial explicit content. Many critics claimed Taylor relied on the profanity, which is why Slipknot's third album, Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses) is profanity-free, (with the exceptions of the word "bitch" on the song "Duality" and "bastard" on the spoken intro of "Pulse of the Maggots"), and did not warrant the explicit label. Compared with the previous vocalist for Slipknot, Anders Colsefni, Taylor has a vocal style that was characterized by ex-drummer Joey Jordison as "really good melodic singing". Taylor's vocal style, which contains at times melodic singing, growling, screaming, shouting, and rapping, led him to place at number 86 on the Hit Parader's Top 100 Metal Vocalists of All Time and is often compared to other vocalists such as Ivan Moody, John Bush, Phil Anselmo, and Jamey Jasta. Taylor expressed admiration for vocalists Bruce Dickinson, David Lee Roth, James Hetfield and Bruce Springsteen, but on his ideal rock frontman he states, "Freddie Mercury — nobody touches him. He is the gold standard, as far as I'm concerned. He was just electric from the second he hit the stage. It didn't matter if he was sick or tired or whatever, when he was on, man, it was like you turned a spotlight on and he just shone."
Taylor's two major projects have contrasting temperaments. Slipknot is considered to be heavy metal, nu metal and alternative metal, and expresses moods such as depression, hostility, anger, misanthropy, and rebellion. Stone Sour is classified as hard rock, expressing moods of bleakness and somberness as well as anger and rebellion.
Personal life
On September 17, 2002, Taylor's then-fiancée, Scarlett, gave birth to their son Griffin Parker. Taylor also has two daughters named Angeline and Aravis from earlier relationships. Taylor and Scarlett married on March 11, 2004, and divorced in 2007. On November 13, 2009, Taylor married Stephanie Luby at the Palms Hotel in Las Vegas. They also had a daughter named Ryan. On December 28, 2017, Taylor announced on his Twitter that he and Luby had separated. On April 7, 2019, it was announced on his Instagram page that he became engaged to Alicia Dove, creator of "Cherry Bombs". On October 6, 2019, the pair married.
Taylor has had problems with alcoholism, which Scarlett helped him through as well as keeping him from committing suicide. In 2006, Taylor told MTV that he had attempted to jump off a balcony of the eighth floor of The Hyatt on Sunset Boulevard in 2003, but "somehow [Scarlett] stopped me". This was later recanted by Taylor in an interview with Kerrang! radio and stated that it was, in fact, his friend Thom Hazaert who physically stopped him from jumping. Scarlett then told him that either he would have to get sober or she would annul their marriage. Before Stone Sour started recording Come What(ever) May in January 2006, Taylor was sober.
On August 3, 2009, he co-hosted the 2009 Kerrang! Awards alongside Scott Ian of Anthrax. The following year, they both once again co-hosted The Kerrang! Awards, where Taylor collected the K! Services to Metal award on behalf of Paul Gray, who died after an accidental overdose of morphine and fentanyl.
In early September 2010, Taylor announced that his book, Seven Deadly Sins: Settling The Argument Between Born Bad And Damaged Good, would be released on July 12, 2011, through Da Capo Press.
In April 2020, it was reported that Taylor switched to a plant-based diet to improve cardiovascular health.
In August 2021, Taylor tested positive for COVID-19 after the conclusion of a solo tour in support of his album CMFT. He was symptomatic despite being vaccinated, although he credited the vaccine for preventing him from becoming seriously ill.
Discography
Studio albums
Singles
As lead artist
As featured artist
Guest appearances
Filmography
Bibliography
Equipment
Awards
Revolver Golden Gods Awards
|-
| 2010 || Corey Taylor || Best Vocalist ||
|-
| 2013 || Corey Taylor || Best Vocalist ||
Loudwire Music Awards
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| 2015 || Corey Taylor || Rock Titan ||
|-
| 2017 || Corey Taylor || Best Vocalist ||
Kerrang! Awards
|-
| 2018 || Corey Taylor || Legend ||
References
Bibliography
External links
Corey Taylor interview
Metal Underground: interview
NY rock: article
IGN: article
Duff McKagan on Corey Taylor in Seattle Weekly
1973 births
American heavy metal singers
American male singers
American male guitarists
American heavy metal guitarists
American baritones
20th-century American singers
21st-century American singers
American people of German descent
American people who self-identify as being of Native American descent
American people of Irish descent
American people of Dutch descent
Grammy Award winners
Musicians from Des Moines, Iowa
Living people
Writers from Des Moines, Iowa
Writers from Waterloo, Iowa
Native American male actors
Native American singers
Nu metal singers
Roadrunner Records artists
Slipknot (band) members
Stone Sour members
Social critics
Singers with a five-octave vocal range
Singers from Iowa
Alternative metal musicians
American hard rock musicians
Male actors from Iowa
Teenage Time Killers members | false | [
"Grazing in the Grass: The Best of Hugh Masekela is a 2001 compilation album by South African jazz trumpeter Hugh Masekela. The album was released via the Columbia label. This is a retrospective collection that includes 14 tracks by Masekela.\n\nReception\nBruce Eder of AllMusic noted: \"This release is superb, but also a little confusing -- it is, as its packaging suggests, a magnificent retrospective of a global jazz legend, despite the fact that it must, of necessity, leave some holes in a 14-song selection intended to sum up a 40-year career. What isn't clear until one opens it, however, is that little of what's here -- none of it, in fact -- consists of the original recordings; rather, these are re-recordings done for Columbia in much more recent times. And that's not necessarily bad, as Masekela has lost little of his fire over the ensuing four decades and did get to do these tracks under ideal conditions.\"\n\nTrack listing\n\nPersonnel\nHugh Masekela – flugelhorn, trumpet, producer\nVusi Khumalo – drums\nDon Laka – various instruments\nMakhaya Mahlangu – flute, saxophone\nKenny Mathaba – guitar\nCedric Samson – drums, percussion, producer\nJohn Selolwane – guitar\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n2001 compilation albums\nHugh Masekela albums",
"A fact is something that is true. The usual test for a statement of fact is verifiability, that is whether it can be demonstrated to correspond to experience. Standard reference works are often used to check facts. Scientific facts are verified by repeatable careful observation or measurement by experiments or other means.\n\nFor example, \"This sentence contains words.\" accurately describes a linguistic fact, and \"The sun is a star\" accurately describes an astronomical fact. Further, \"Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States\" and \"Abraham Lincoln was assassinated\" both accurately describe historical facts. Generally speaking, facts are independent of belief and of knowledge and opinion.\n\nEtymology and usage \nThe word fact derives from the Latin factum. It was first used in English with the same meaning: \"a thing done or performed\"a meaning now obsolete. The common usage of \"something that has really occurred or is the case\" dates from the mid-16th century.\n\nBarbara J. Shapiro wrote in her book \"A Culture of Fact\", how the concept of a fact evolved, starting within the English legal tradition of the 16th century. \nIn 1870, Charles Sanders Peirce described in his book \"The Fixation of Belief\" four methods which people use to decide what they should believe: tenacity, method of authority, a priori and scientific method \n\nThe term fact also indicates a matter under discussion deemed to be true or correct, such as to emphasize a point or prove a disputed issue; (e.g., \"... the fact of the matter is ...\").\n\nAlternatively, fact may also indicate an allegation or stipulation of something that may or may not be a true fact, (e.g., \"the author's facts are not trustworthy\"). This alternate usage, although contested by some, has a long history in standard English according to the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language' The Oxford English Dictionary dates this use to 1729.Fact may also indicate findings derived through a process of evaluation, including review of testimony, direct observation, or otherwise; as distinguishable from matters of inference or speculation. This use is reflected in the terms \"fact-find\" and \"fact-finder\" (e.g., \"set up a fact-finding commission\").\n\nFacts may be checked by reason, experiment, personal experience, or may be argued from authority. Roger Bacon wrote \"If in other sciences we should arrive at certainty without doubt and truth without error, it behooves us to place the foundations of knowledge in mathematics.\"\n\nIn philosophy\n\nIn philosophy, the concept fact is considered in the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge, called epistemology and ontology, which studies concepts such as existence, being, becoming, and reality. Questions of objectivity and truth are closely associated with questions of fact. A fact can be defined as something, that is the case, in other words, a state of affairs.Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Proposition 2: What is the case—a fact—is the existence of states of affairs.\n\nFacts may be understood as information, which makes a true sentence true: \"A fact is, traditionally, the worldly correlate of a true proposition, a state of affairs whose obtaining makes that proposition true.\" Facts may also be understood as those things to which a true sentence refers. The statement \"Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system\" is about the fact Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system.\n\nCorrespondence and the slingshot argument\n\nPascal Engel's version of the correspondence theory of truth explains that what makes a sentence true is that it corresponds to a fact.\nThis theory presupposes the existence of an objective world.\n\nThe Slingshot argument claims to show that all true statements stand for the same thing, the truth value true. If this argument holds, and facts are taken to be what true statements stand for, then one arrives at the counter-intuitive conclusion that there is only one fact: the truth.\n\nCompound facts\n\nAny non-trivial true statement about reality is necessarily an abstraction composed of a complex of objects and properties or relations.\"Facts possess internal structure, being complexes of objects and properties or relations\" For example, the fact described by the true statement \"Paris is the capital city of France\" implies that there is such a place as Paris, there is such a place as France, there are such things as capital cities, as well as that France has a government, that the government of France has the power to define its capital city, and that the French government has chosen Paris to be the capital, that there is such a thing as a place or a government, and so on. The verifiable accuracy of all of these assertions, if facts themselves, may coincide to create the fact, that Paris is the capital of France.\n\nDifficulties arise, however, in attempting to identify the constituent parts of negative, modal, disjunctive, or moral facts.\n\nFact–value distinction\n\nMoral philosophers since David Hume have debated whether values are objective, and thus factual. In A Treatise of Human Nature Hume pointed out there is no obvious way for a series of statements about what ought to be the case to be derived from a series of statements of what is the case. Those who insist there is a logical gulf between facts and values, such that it is fallacious to attempt to derive values from facts, include G. E. Moore, who called attempting to do so the naturalistic fallacy.\n\nFactual–counterfactual distinction\n\nFactuality —what has occurred— can also be contrasted with counterfactuality:\nwhat might have occurred, but did not. A counterfactual conditional or subjunctive conditional is a conditional (or \"if-then\") statement indicating what would be the case if events had been other than they were. For example, \"If Alexander had lived, his empire would have been greater than Rome.\" This contrasts with an indicative conditional, which indicates what is (in fact) the case if its antecedent is (in fact) true—for example, \"If you drink this, it will make you well.\" Such sentences are important to modal logic, especially since the development of possible world semantics.\n\nIn mathematics\n\nIn mathematics, a fact is a statement (called a theorem) that can be proven by logical argument from certain axioms and definitions.\n\nIn science\n\nThe definition of a scientific fact is different from the definition of fact, as it implies knowledge. A scientific fact is the result of a repeatable careful observation or measurement by experimentation or other means, also called empirical evidence. These are central to building scientific theories. Various forms of observation and measurement lead to fundamental questions about the scientific method, and the scope and validity of scientific reasoning.\n\nIn the most basic sense, a scientific fact is an objective and verifiable observation, in contrast with a hypothesis or theory, which is intended to explain or interpret facts.\n\nVarious scholars have offered significant refinements to this basic formulation. Philosophers and scientists are careful to distinguish between: 1) states of affairs in the external world and 2) assertions of fact that may be considered relevant in scientific analysis. The term is used in both senses in the philosophy of science.\n\nScholars and clinical researchers in both the social and natural sciences have written about numerous questions and theories that arise in the attempt to clarify the fundamental nature of scientific fact. Pertinent issues raised by this inquiry include:\n the process by which \"established fact\" becomes recognized and accepted as such;\n whether and to what extent \"fact\" and \"theoretic explanation\" can be considered truly independent and separable from one another;\n to what extent \"facts\" are influenced by the mere act of observation; and\n to what extent factual conclusions are influenced by history and consensus, rather than a strictly systematic methodology.\n\nConsistent with the idea of confirmation holism, some scholars assert \"fact\" to be necessarily \"theory-laden\" to some degree. Thomas Kuhn points out that knowing what facts to measure, and how to measure them, requires the use of other theories. For example, the age of fossils is based on radiometric dating, which is justified by reasoning that radioactive decay follows a Poisson process rather than a Bernoulli process. Similarly, Percy Williams Bridgman is credited with the methodological position known as operationalism, which asserts that all observations are not only influenced, but necessarily defined, by the means and assumptions used to measure them.\n\n The scientific method \nApart from the fundamental inquiry into the nature of scientific fact, there remain the practical and social considerations of how fact is investigated, established, and substantiated through the proper application of the scientific method. Scientific facts are generally believed independent of the observer: no matter who performs a scientific experiment, all observers agree on the outcome.\nIn addition to these considerations, there are the social and institutional measures, such as peer review and accreditation, that are intended to promote factual accuracy among other interests in scientific study.\n\n In history \n\nA common rhetorical cliché states, \"History is written by the winners.\" This phrase suggests but does not examine the use of facts in the writing of history.\n\nE. H. Carr in his 1961 volume What is History? argues that the inherent biases from the gathering of facts makes the objective truth of any historical perspective idealistic and impossible. Facts are, \"like fish in the Ocean,\" of which we may only happen to catch a few, only an indication of what is below the surface. Even a dragnet cannot tell us for certain what it would be like to live below the Ocean's surface. Even if we do not discard any facts (or fish) presented, we will always miss the majority; the site of our fishing, the methods undertaken, the weather and even luck play a vital role in what we will catch. Additionally, the composition of history is inevitably made up by the compilation of many different biases of fact finding – all compounded over time. He concludes that for a historian to attempt a more objective method, one must accept that history can only aspire to a conversation of the present with the past – and that one's methods of fact gathering should be openly examined. The set of highlighted historical facts, and their interpretations, therefore changes over time, and reflect present consensuses.\n\nIn law\n\nThis section of the article emphasizes common law jurisprudence as primarily represented in Anglo-American–based legal tradition. Nevertheless, the principles described herein have analogous treatment in other legal systems such as civil law systems as well.\n\nIn most common law jurisdictions, the general concept and analysis of fact reflects fundamental principles of jurisprudence, and is supported by several well-established standards. Matters of fact have various formal definitions under common law jurisdictions.\n\nThese include:\n\n an element required in legal pleadings to demonstrate a cause of action;\n\n the determinations of the finder of fact after evaluating admissible evidence produced in a trial or hearing;\n a potential ground of reversible error forwarded on appeal in an appellate court; and\n any of various matters subject to investigation by official authority to establish whether a crime has been perpetrated, and to establish culpability.\n\n Legal pleadings \n\nA party to a civil suit generally must clearly state all relevant allegations of fact that form the basis of a claim. The requisite level of precision and particularity of these allegations varies, depending on the rules of civil procedure and jurisdiction. Parties who face uncertainties regarding facts and circumstances attendant to their side in a dispute may sometimes invoke alternative pleading. In this situation, a party may plead separate sets of facts that when considered together may be contradictory or mutually exclusive. This seemingly logically-inconsistent presentation of facts may be necessary as a safeguard against contingencies such as res judicata'' that would otherwise preclude presenting a claim or defense that depends on a particular interpretation of the underlying facts and ruling of the court.\n\nSee also\n Brute fact\n Consensus reality\n Counterfactual history\n De facto\n Factoid\n fiction\n Lie\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n\n \n\nConcepts in epistemology\nConcepts in ethics\nConcepts in logic\nConcepts in metaphilosophy\nConcepts in metaphysics\nConcepts in the philosophy of mind\nConcepts in the philosophy of science\nMetaphysics of mind\nMetatheory\nPhilosophical logic\nPhilosophy of logic\nPhilosophy of science\nReality\nStatements\nTruth"
] |
[
"Corey Taylor",
"Life",
"What is the name of the bands number Three album",
"I don't know.",
"What is his latest project",
"He was mostly raised by his single mother",
"where is he from",
"Des Moines, Iowa.",
"What is his mothers name",
"\"hole in the ground with buildings around it\".",
"what is his given name",
"Corey Todd Taylor",
"What is his best fact",
"Taylor, along with his mother and sister, lived at one point in an \"old dilapidated farmhouse\""
] | C_0484ee08a9be40df9fe4de47ef04904a_1 | What state did he grow up in | 7 | What state did Corey Taylor grow up in? | Corey Taylor | Corey Todd Taylor was born on December 8, 1973 in Des Moines, Iowa. He was mostly raised by his single mother in Waterloo, Iowa, a place described by Taylor as a "hole in the ground with buildings around it". He is of Irish, German and Native American descent on his father's side, and Dutch and Irish on his mother's side. In 1979, Taylor and his mother saw the sci-fi series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. Before the series, there was a trailer for the 1978 horror film Halloween. Taylor said this "developed some sense of Slipknot in [himself]". While Halloween introduced Taylor to masks and horror themes, Taylor's grandmother introduced him to rock music, showing him a collection of Elvis Presley records from the 1950s to 1970s. He especially found songs like "Teddy Bear", "In the Ghetto", and "Suspicious Minds" to appeal to his interests the most, describing them as "good times". Taylor also began listening to Black Sabbath at a young age, beginning with their early work. Taylor, along with his mother and sister, lived at one point in an "old dilapidated farmhouse" which on days in late autumn would "look like Black Sabbath album covers". By age 15, he had developed a drug addiction and had overdosed on cocaine twice. By this time, he was living in Waterloo, but later set out on his own and ended up at his grandmother's house in Des Moines. She took legal custody of him so that he could continue going to school, and she helped him buy musical equipment. When Taylor was 18, he left his grandmother's house and went to various places in Iowa, Des Moines being a place to which he frequently returned. In 2017, on an episode of Viceland's The Therapist, Taylor revealed that he was sexually assaulted at the age of 10 by a 16-year-old friend. Taylor stated that he never told anyone about the incident until he was "probably 18" because his abuser "threatened to hurt [him] and threatened to hurt [his] mom". At age 18, when Taylor was living with his grandmother, he attempted suicide by way of overdose. His ex-girlfriend's mother drove him to the hospital in Des Moines and doctors were able to resuscitate him. He describes this as the lowest point in his life. Taylor first met his father when he was 30 years old, and now has a relationship with him, although he said their paths do not cross that often. CANNOTANSWER | Des Moines, Iowa. | Corey Todd Taylor (born December 8, 1973) is an American singer, musician, songwriter and actor. He is known as the lead vocalist and lyricist of the bands Slipknot and Stone Sour.
Taylor co-founded Stone Sour with drummer Joel Ekman in 1992, playing in the Des Moines area, and working on a demo. He joined Slipknot in 1997 to replace their original vocalist and has subsequently released six studio albums with them. After the first two Slipknot albums went Platinum, Taylor revived Stone Sour to record an album and tour in 2002. His debut solo studio album, CMFT, was released on October 2, 2020, by Roadrunner Records.
He has worked with several bands, including Junk Beer Kidnap Band, Korn, Disturbed, Apocalyptica, Code Orange, Anthrax, Steel Panther, Falling in Reverse, and Soulfly.
Early life
Corey Todd Taylor was born on December 8, 1973, in Des Moines, Iowa. He was mostly raised by his single mother in Waterloo, Iowa, a place described by Taylor as a "hole in the ground with buildings around it". He is of German, Irish and Native American descent on his father's side, and Dutch and Irish on his mother's side. Around 1979, Taylor and his mother saw the sci-fi series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. Before the series, there was a trailer for the 1978 horror film Halloween. Taylor said this "developed some sense of Slipknot in [himself]". While Halloween introduced Taylor to masks and horror themes, Taylor's grandmother introduced him to rock music, showing him a collection of Elvis Presley records from the 1950s to 1970s. He especially found songs like "Teddy Bear", "In the Ghetto", and "Suspicious Minds" to appeal to his interests the most, describing them as "good times". Taylor also began listening to Black Sabbath at a young age, beginning with their early work.
By age 15, he had developed a drug addiction and had overdosed on cocaine twice. By this time, he was living in Waterloo, but later set out on his own and ended up at his grandmother's house in Des Moines. She took legal custody of him so that he could continue going to school, and she helped him buy musical equipment. When Taylor was 18, he left his grandmother's house and went to various places in Iowa, Des Moines being a place to which he frequently returned.
In 2017, on an episode of Viceland's The Therapist, Taylor revealed that he was sexually abused at the age of 10 by a 16-year-old friend. Taylor stated that he never told anyone about the incident until he was "probably 18" because his abuser "threatened to hurt [him] and threatened to hurt [his] mom". At age 18, when Taylor was living with his grandmother, he attempted suicide by way of overdose. His ex-girlfriend's mother drove him to the hospital in Des Moines and doctors were able to resuscitate him. He describes this as the lowest point in his life. Taylor first met his father when he was 30 years old, and now has a relationship with him, although he said their paths do not cross that often.
Music career
Stone Sour
Taylor is a founding member of American hard rock band Stone Sour. After he formed the band in 1992 with drummer Joel Ekman, Shawn Economaki joined filling in the bass position, leaving the electric guitar position to be filled by Josh Rand. Stone Sour recorded a demo album in 1993, and another in 1994. In 1997, Taylor was approached by the metal band, Slipknot, resulting in him abandoning Stone Sour while they were recording a demo album with Sean McMahon at SR studios. Taylor did not return until five years later to record their debut album, Stone Sour in 2002. Both Taylor and guitarist Josh Rand contacted Jim Root, Slipknot's guitarist, and Shawn Economaki, Stone Sour's original bassist, to begin writing songs for their debut album. Drummer Joel Ekman came back on board as well. This "reformation" later resulted in Stone Sour recording at Catamount Studios in Cedar Falls, Iowa.
Their self-titled debut album was released August 27, 2002, and it debuted at number 46 on the Billboard 200. Their second album, Come What(ever) May debuted at number four on the Billboard 200. It was released August 1, 2006, and charted on several different charts. Live in Moscow is currently their only album specifically released only for download. During the recording of the album, drummer Joel Ekman left the band for personal reasons. As a result, drummer Roy Mayorga was recruited, taking his place. The group released their third studio album, Audio Secrecy, on September 7, 2010.
Later, Corey Taylor announced the release of a concept double album with Stone Sour. The albums are titled "House of Gold & Bones". During the process of making the double album, bassist Shawn Economaki left the band. He was temporarily replaced for touring purposes by Johny Chow. The first part was released in October 2012 and the second part in April 2013. There are 23 songs in total, 11 on the first part and 12 on the second. In addition to these two albums is a four-part comic book series written by Taylor and published by Dark Horse Comics, which went on sale in 2013. With these albums came a story that was written by Taylor that coincide with the album. Fans can also construct a miniature "house of gold and bones" from the packaging design of the physical versions of the two albums. Taylor has also said that he would like to finish off the project by making the story into a movie but nothing has come of this yet.
Slipknot
In Des Moines, Iowa, Joey Jordison, Shawn Crahan, and Mick Thomson approached him asking him to join Slipknot. He agreed to go to one of their practices, and ended up singing in front of them. Of Slipknot's nine members, Corey was the sixth to join the band. Performing with Slipknot, he would also come to be known as "Number Eight", since the band follows a numbering scheme for its members, ranging from 0–8. According to Shawn Crahan, Corey wanted number eight, because it symbolizes infinity.
Feeling he could expand more inside Slipknot than in Stone Sour, Taylor temporarily quit Stone Sour, even though they were recording an album with Sean McMahon. Taylor's first gig with Slipknot was on August 24, 1997, which according to band members did not go well. During his first gig, Taylor was performing with facepaint instead of a mask; however, for his second show on September 12, he wore a mask that resembles his debut album mask.
Taylor has recorded with Slipknot since the release of their second demo album, a self-titled demo used to promote the band to prospective labels and producers. As their permanent vocalist, he recorded with Slipknot at Indigo Ranch in Malibu, California, and released Slipknot, the band's debut album that peaked at number one on the Top Heatseekers chart, went double platinum in the United States, and was included in the 2006 book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. Taylor was accused of copyright infringement regarding the lyrics of the song "Purity", but no action was taken. Taylor began recording for their second studio album, Iowa, in 2001 at Sound City and Sound Image in Van Nuys, Los Angeles. It was released August 28, 2001, and peaked at number one on the UK Albums Chart, as well as number three on the Billboard 200. While writing Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses), Taylor decided to write lyrics that would not warrant an explicit label. It peaked at number two on the Billboard 200. All Hope Is Gone was the first Slipknot album to peak at number one on the Billboard 200.
Other work
Taylor has appeared as a guest musician on albums by Soulfly, Apocalyptica, Damageplan, Steel Panther, and Code Orange. At one point, he was heavily involved in the recording of thrash metal band Anthrax's album, Worship Music, but the sessions remain unreleased. He also contributed to the Roadrunner United all-star album in 2005, providing vocals for the song "Rich Man". Taylor also made a brief appearance in Steel Panther's singles "Death to All but Metal", "Eyes of a Panther", and "Asian Hooker". In 2006, Taylor founded the record company Great Big Mouth Records. Taylor has produced two albums: Facecage's self-titled album and Walls of Jericho's Redemption. Taylor provided guest narration on the track "Repentance" for Dream Theater's 2007 album Systematic Chaos. In an interview with Billboard, Taylor confirmed that on January 13, 2009, he was planning on making a solo album, as well as returning to his side project Stone Sour after Slipknot's All Hope Is Gone World Tour. Taylor has stated that he was writing songs that "don't fit either of his main bands." He describes them as a cross between Foo Fighters, Johnny Cash, and Social Distortion, saying that there's "a country background that comes built-in with living in Iowa".
On March 30, 2009, it was confirmed that Taylor and the Junk Beer Kidnap Band would be performing at Rockfest in 2009. The group performed on April 24, 2009, at People's Court in Des Moines, Iowa, marking Taylor's first official solo show. Taylor performs with his band the Dum Fux with Denny Harvey, who make covers for 1970s punk rock and 1980s hair metal. Taylor also performs with Audacious P, a band that is primarily a Tenacious D cover band. Rapper Tech N9ne confirmed that Taylor was to perform on his album K.O.D., but was removed because Taylor did not submit his vocals in time. Taylor recently admitted that he tried out for the vacant singer spot in the band Velvet Revolver, but said that it just did not work out. However, according to a recent Billboard article, it seems likely that he may in fact become the vocalist for Velvet Revolver, though no official confirmation has been made. Duff McKagan added that they can neither "confirm or deny" Taylor's membership in the band but believes that Taylor is the "real deal". Slash has since ruled Taylor out as the possible new vocalist explaining that "[it] just wasn't right" although he does love him. Taylor has, however, recorded 10 new songs with the band, although drummer Matt Sorum stated it is unlikely they will ever be released. Taylor explained to Mark Hoppus on Hoppus on Music that he and McKagan were writing new music for a possible new supergroup.
On June 21, 2018, Taylor featured on the track "The Hunt" by metallic hardcore band Code Orange, the second track of the 3-track EP The Hurt Will Go On. In April 2019, Taylor collaborated on the song "Drugs" by the band Falling in Reverse. In September 2019, he was featured on Nostalgia Critic's parody album of Pink Floyd's The Wall on a cover of the opening theme for SpongeBob SquarePants.
Taylor released his solo album, CMFT, on October 2, 2020, via Roadrunner Records. The first two singles, "Black Eyes Blue" and "CMFT Must Be Stopped", were released on July 29, 2020.
Taylor mentioned in an October 3, 2020, interview about a followup album entitled CMF2, which would be completed prior to a tour supporting both it and CMFT. He contributed a cover of the Metallica song "Holier Than Thou" to the charity tribute album The Metallica Blacklist, released in September 2021.
Film appearances
On December 4, 2013, Taylor joined the cast of Fear Clinic. He played Bauer, one of the employees of the clinic who struggles to keep things under control when all hell breaks loose. He appeared in the 2013 horror film Bullied. In October 2015, Taylor provided the roars for the character of The Fisher King in the Doctor Who episode "Before the Flood". Taylor also appeared as a cameo in Sharknado 4, and will appear in Bad Candy.
Style and influence
Corey Taylor told Loudwire in 2015 that if it were not for Faith No More, he "wouldn't be here today". While recovering from an attempted suicide, he saw the band perform "Epic" live on the 1990 MTV Video Music Awards and the performance inspired him to begin writing and performing music again.
Corey Taylor had once been quoted that Pearl Jam had hugely influenced and inspired his music, saying that the group was "one of the biggest and best rock bands of all time". The first two Slipknot albums with Taylor's vocals, Slipknot and Iowa, both contain substantial explicit content. Many critics claimed Taylor relied on the profanity, which is why Slipknot's third album, Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses) is profanity-free, (with the exceptions of the word "bitch" on the song "Duality" and "bastard" on the spoken intro of "Pulse of the Maggots"), and did not warrant the explicit label. Compared with the previous vocalist for Slipknot, Anders Colsefni, Taylor has a vocal style that was characterized by ex-drummer Joey Jordison as "really good melodic singing". Taylor's vocal style, which contains at times melodic singing, growling, screaming, shouting, and rapping, led him to place at number 86 on the Hit Parader's Top 100 Metal Vocalists of All Time and is often compared to other vocalists such as Ivan Moody, John Bush, Phil Anselmo, and Jamey Jasta. Taylor expressed admiration for vocalists Bruce Dickinson, David Lee Roth, James Hetfield and Bruce Springsteen, but on his ideal rock frontman he states, "Freddie Mercury — nobody touches him. He is the gold standard, as far as I'm concerned. He was just electric from the second he hit the stage. It didn't matter if he was sick or tired or whatever, when he was on, man, it was like you turned a spotlight on and he just shone."
Taylor's two major projects have contrasting temperaments. Slipknot is considered to be heavy metal, nu metal and alternative metal, and expresses moods such as depression, hostility, anger, misanthropy, and rebellion. Stone Sour is classified as hard rock, expressing moods of bleakness and somberness as well as anger and rebellion.
Personal life
On September 17, 2002, Taylor's then-fiancée, Scarlett, gave birth to their son Griffin Parker. Taylor also has two daughters named Angeline and Aravis from earlier relationships. Taylor and Scarlett married on March 11, 2004, and divorced in 2007. On November 13, 2009, Taylor married Stephanie Luby at the Palms Hotel in Las Vegas. They also had a daughter named Ryan. On December 28, 2017, Taylor announced on his Twitter that he and Luby had separated. On April 7, 2019, it was announced on his Instagram page that he became engaged to Alicia Dove, creator of "Cherry Bombs". On October 6, 2019, the pair married.
Taylor has had problems with alcoholism, which Scarlett helped him through as well as keeping him from committing suicide. In 2006, Taylor told MTV that he had attempted to jump off a balcony of the eighth floor of The Hyatt on Sunset Boulevard in 2003, but "somehow [Scarlett] stopped me". This was later recanted by Taylor in an interview with Kerrang! radio and stated that it was, in fact, his friend Thom Hazaert who physically stopped him from jumping. Scarlett then told him that either he would have to get sober or she would annul their marriage. Before Stone Sour started recording Come What(ever) May in January 2006, Taylor was sober.
On August 3, 2009, he co-hosted the 2009 Kerrang! Awards alongside Scott Ian of Anthrax. The following year, they both once again co-hosted The Kerrang! Awards, where Taylor collected the K! Services to Metal award on behalf of Paul Gray, who died after an accidental overdose of morphine and fentanyl.
In early September 2010, Taylor announced that his book, Seven Deadly Sins: Settling The Argument Between Born Bad And Damaged Good, would be released on July 12, 2011, through Da Capo Press.
In April 2020, it was reported that Taylor switched to a plant-based diet to improve cardiovascular health.
In August 2021, Taylor tested positive for COVID-19 after the conclusion of a solo tour in support of his album CMFT. He was symptomatic despite being vaccinated, although he credited the vaccine for preventing him from becoming seriously ill.
Discography
Studio albums
Singles
As lead artist
As featured artist
Guest appearances
Filmography
Bibliography
Equipment
Awards
Revolver Golden Gods Awards
|-
| 2010 || Corey Taylor || Best Vocalist ||
|-
| 2013 || Corey Taylor || Best Vocalist ||
Loudwire Music Awards
|-
| 2015 || Corey Taylor || Rock Titan ||
|-
| 2017 || Corey Taylor || Best Vocalist ||
Kerrang! Awards
|-
| 2018 || Corey Taylor || Legend ||
References
Bibliography
External links
Corey Taylor interview
Metal Underground: interview
NY rock: article
IGN: article
Duff McKagan on Corey Taylor in Seattle Weekly
1973 births
American heavy metal singers
American male singers
American male guitarists
American heavy metal guitarists
American baritones
20th-century American singers
21st-century American singers
American people of German descent
American people who self-identify as being of Native American descent
American people of Irish descent
American people of Dutch descent
Grammy Award winners
Musicians from Des Moines, Iowa
Living people
Writers from Des Moines, Iowa
Writers from Waterloo, Iowa
Native American male actors
Native American singers
Nu metal singers
Roadrunner Records artists
Slipknot (band) members
Stone Sour members
Social critics
Singers with a five-octave vocal range
Singers from Iowa
Alternative metal musicians
American hard rock musicians
Male actors from Iowa
Teenage Time Killers members | true | [
"What Did I Do To Deserve This My Lord!? 2 (formerly known as Holy Invasion Of Privacy, Badman! 2: Time To Tighten Up Security!, known as Yūsha no Kuse ni Namaiki da or2, 勇者のくせになまいきだor2, literally \"For a hero, [you are] quite impudent/cheeky/bold] 2)\" in Japan) is a real-time strategy/god game for the PlayStation Portable, sequel to What Did I Do to Deserve This, My Lord?.\n\nThe game was released in Japan in 2008, and was announced for a North American release during Tokyo Game Show 2009. This release was delayed until May 4, 2010, due to NIS America changing the game's name from Holy Invasion Of Privacy, Badman! 2: Time to Tighten Up Security! to What Did I Do to Deserve This, My Lord!? 2 to avoid conflict with the Batman license.. The UMD release includes the first game.\n\nGameplay \nThe gameplay is almost identical to the first game, with a few different additions and changes. These include 'Mutation' (monsters can mutate in three forms: by deformity, by obesity and by gigantism) and 'The Overlord's Chamber', where you can grow monsters and observe their evolution.\nWhat Did I Do To Deserve This, My Lord!? 2 contains \"4 times more stages, 3.3 times more monsters and 2.3 times more heroes\" than the first game.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Official website\n\n2008 video games\nGod games\nPlayStation Portable games\nPlayStation Portable-only games\nReal-time strategy video games\nSony Interactive Entertainment games\nVideo game sequels\nVideo games developed in Japan",
"Click and Grow is an Estonian indoor gardening company, founded by Mattias Lepp in 2009. It develops consumer electronic products for growing edible plants indoors.\n\nHistory \nClick and Grow was founded by Mattias Lepp, in Estonia in 2009. In 2010, he won a local Ajujaht business idea competition with his idea for a 'Smart Flowerpot'. The idea took two years to develop before it was sold as a product.\n\nAs of 2018, Click and Grow employed 42 people, with offices in San Francisco, Tartu and Tallinn, and had more than 450,000 customers. In the same year the company received investment from INGKA Holding.\n\nBetween March and May 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Click and Grow saw sales that were three to five times higher than normal. It was claimed that this was due to fresh food shortages and fear of them continuing, an effort to improve mental health, and in order to reduce food shopping frequency.\n\nProducts \nClick and Grow's products are self-irrigating and the system uses 'plant pods' that contain plant seeds, a growing medium and a controlled-release fertiliser.\n\nSmart Flowerpot \nThe Smart Flowerpot was introduced in 2011, as a battery powered, indoor plant pot that did not require manual watering or fertilizing. By 2012 Click & Grow had sold 90,000 Smart Flowerpots. However, customers in Nordic countries found that they had insufficient natural sunlight to grow many varieties of plant.\n\nSmart Herb Garden and Smart Garden 3 \n\nIn 2013, Click and Grow used Kickstarter to raise $625,000 for a Smart Herb Garden, which included an LED grow light, and could grow three plants at once. It began selling the Smart Herb Garden in January 2014. In 2017, a second generation of the garden was released called Smart Garden 3.\n\nSmart Garden 9 and 27 \nIn 2016, Click and Grow launched a bigger version of the Smart Herb garden through another Kickstarter campaign - the Smart Garden 9, capable of growing nine plants at a time. The nine-plant unit is stacked using a three-tiered stand, to become a Smart Garden 27.\n\nSmart Farm \nIn 2015, Click and Grow introduced a larger indoor plant growing product which can grow up to 250 plants.\n\nWall Farm \nIn 2016, Click and Grow launched the Wall Farm, which can grow up to 51 plants at a time.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n \n \n \n\nEstonian brands\nBusiness organizations based in Estonia\nTechnology companies of Estonia\nRetail companies of Estonia\nHorticulture\nHydroculture\nHydroponics\nElectronics companies established in 2009\n2009 establishments in Estonia"
] |
[
"Corey Taylor",
"Life",
"What is the name of the bands number Three album",
"I don't know.",
"What is his latest project",
"He was mostly raised by his single mother",
"where is he from",
"Des Moines, Iowa.",
"What is his mothers name",
"\"hole in the ground with buildings around it\".",
"what is his given name",
"Corey Todd Taylor",
"What is his best fact",
"Taylor, along with his mother and sister, lived at one point in an \"old dilapidated farmhouse\"",
"What state did he grow up in",
"Des Moines, Iowa."
] | C_0484ee08a9be40df9fe4de47ef04904a_1 | Was his father around | 8 | Was Corey Taylor's father around? | Corey Taylor | Corey Todd Taylor was born on December 8, 1973 in Des Moines, Iowa. He was mostly raised by his single mother in Waterloo, Iowa, a place described by Taylor as a "hole in the ground with buildings around it". He is of Irish, German and Native American descent on his father's side, and Dutch and Irish on his mother's side. In 1979, Taylor and his mother saw the sci-fi series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. Before the series, there was a trailer for the 1978 horror film Halloween. Taylor said this "developed some sense of Slipknot in [himself]". While Halloween introduced Taylor to masks and horror themes, Taylor's grandmother introduced him to rock music, showing him a collection of Elvis Presley records from the 1950s to 1970s. He especially found songs like "Teddy Bear", "In the Ghetto", and "Suspicious Minds" to appeal to his interests the most, describing them as "good times". Taylor also began listening to Black Sabbath at a young age, beginning with their early work. Taylor, along with his mother and sister, lived at one point in an "old dilapidated farmhouse" which on days in late autumn would "look like Black Sabbath album covers". By age 15, he had developed a drug addiction and had overdosed on cocaine twice. By this time, he was living in Waterloo, but later set out on his own and ended up at his grandmother's house in Des Moines. She took legal custody of him so that he could continue going to school, and she helped him buy musical equipment. When Taylor was 18, he left his grandmother's house and went to various places in Iowa, Des Moines being a place to which he frequently returned. In 2017, on an episode of Viceland's The Therapist, Taylor revealed that he was sexually assaulted at the age of 10 by a 16-year-old friend. Taylor stated that he never told anyone about the incident until he was "probably 18" because his abuser "threatened to hurt [him] and threatened to hurt [his] mom". At age 18, when Taylor was living with his grandmother, he attempted suicide by way of overdose. His ex-girlfriend's mother drove him to the hospital in Des Moines and doctors were able to resuscitate him. He describes this as the lowest point in his life. Taylor first met his father when he was 30 years old, and now has a relationship with him, although he said their paths do not cross that often. CANNOTANSWER | his single mother | Corey Todd Taylor (born December 8, 1973) is an American singer, musician, songwriter and actor. He is known as the lead vocalist and lyricist of the bands Slipknot and Stone Sour.
Taylor co-founded Stone Sour with drummer Joel Ekman in 1992, playing in the Des Moines area, and working on a demo. He joined Slipknot in 1997 to replace their original vocalist and has subsequently released six studio albums with them. After the first two Slipknot albums went Platinum, Taylor revived Stone Sour to record an album and tour in 2002. His debut solo studio album, CMFT, was released on October 2, 2020, by Roadrunner Records.
He has worked with several bands, including Junk Beer Kidnap Band, Korn, Disturbed, Apocalyptica, Code Orange, Anthrax, Steel Panther, Falling in Reverse, and Soulfly.
Early life
Corey Todd Taylor was born on December 8, 1973, in Des Moines, Iowa. He was mostly raised by his single mother in Waterloo, Iowa, a place described by Taylor as a "hole in the ground with buildings around it". He is of German, Irish and Native American descent on his father's side, and Dutch and Irish on his mother's side. Around 1979, Taylor and his mother saw the sci-fi series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. Before the series, there was a trailer for the 1978 horror film Halloween. Taylor said this "developed some sense of Slipknot in [himself]". While Halloween introduced Taylor to masks and horror themes, Taylor's grandmother introduced him to rock music, showing him a collection of Elvis Presley records from the 1950s to 1970s. He especially found songs like "Teddy Bear", "In the Ghetto", and "Suspicious Minds" to appeal to his interests the most, describing them as "good times". Taylor also began listening to Black Sabbath at a young age, beginning with their early work.
By age 15, he had developed a drug addiction and had overdosed on cocaine twice. By this time, he was living in Waterloo, but later set out on his own and ended up at his grandmother's house in Des Moines. She took legal custody of him so that he could continue going to school, and she helped him buy musical equipment. When Taylor was 18, he left his grandmother's house and went to various places in Iowa, Des Moines being a place to which he frequently returned.
In 2017, on an episode of Viceland's The Therapist, Taylor revealed that he was sexually abused at the age of 10 by a 16-year-old friend. Taylor stated that he never told anyone about the incident until he was "probably 18" because his abuser "threatened to hurt [him] and threatened to hurt [his] mom". At age 18, when Taylor was living with his grandmother, he attempted suicide by way of overdose. His ex-girlfriend's mother drove him to the hospital in Des Moines and doctors were able to resuscitate him. He describes this as the lowest point in his life. Taylor first met his father when he was 30 years old, and now has a relationship with him, although he said their paths do not cross that often.
Music career
Stone Sour
Taylor is a founding member of American hard rock band Stone Sour. After he formed the band in 1992 with drummer Joel Ekman, Shawn Economaki joined filling in the bass position, leaving the electric guitar position to be filled by Josh Rand. Stone Sour recorded a demo album in 1993, and another in 1994. In 1997, Taylor was approached by the metal band, Slipknot, resulting in him abandoning Stone Sour while they were recording a demo album with Sean McMahon at SR studios. Taylor did not return until five years later to record their debut album, Stone Sour in 2002. Both Taylor and guitarist Josh Rand contacted Jim Root, Slipknot's guitarist, and Shawn Economaki, Stone Sour's original bassist, to begin writing songs for their debut album. Drummer Joel Ekman came back on board as well. This "reformation" later resulted in Stone Sour recording at Catamount Studios in Cedar Falls, Iowa.
Their self-titled debut album was released August 27, 2002, and it debuted at number 46 on the Billboard 200. Their second album, Come What(ever) May debuted at number four on the Billboard 200. It was released August 1, 2006, and charted on several different charts. Live in Moscow is currently their only album specifically released only for download. During the recording of the album, drummer Joel Ekman left the band for personal reasons. As a result, drummer Roy Mayorga was recruited, taking his place. The group released their third studio album, Audio Secrecy, on September 7, 2010.
Later, Corey Taylor announced the release of a concept double album with Stone Sour. The albums are titled "House of Gold & Bones". During the process of making the double album, bassist Shawn Economaki left the band. He was temporarily replaced for touring purposes by Johny Chow. The first part was released in October 2012 and the second part in April 2013. There are 23 songs in total, 11 on the first part and 12 on the second. In addition to these two albums is a four-part comic book series written by Taylor and published by Dark Horse Comics, which went on sale in 2013. With these albums came a story that was written by Taylor that coincide with the album. Fans can also construct a miniature "house of gold and bones" from the packaging design of the physical versions of the two albums. Taylor has also said that he would like to finish off the project by making the story into a movie but nothing has come of this yet.
Slipknot
In Des Moines, Iowa, Joey Jordison, Shawn Crahan, and Mick Thomson approached him asking him to join Slipknot. He agreed to go to one of their practices, and ended up singing in front of them. Of Slipknot's nine members, Corey was the sixth to join the band. Performing with Slipknot, he would also come to be known as "Number Eight", since the band follows a numbering scheme for its members, ranging from 0–8. According to Shawn Crahan, Corey wanted number eight, because it symbolizes infinity.
Feeling he could expand more inside Slipknot than in Stone Sour, Taylor temporarily quit Stone Sour, even though they were recording an album with Sean McMahon. Taylor's first gig with Slipknot was on August 24, 1997, which according to band members did not go well. During his first gig, Taylor was performing with facepaint instead of a mask; however, for his second show on September 12, he wore a mask that resembles his debut album mask.
Taylor has recorded with Slipknot since the release of their second demo album, a self-titled demo used to promote the band to prospective labels and producers. As their permanent vocalist, he recorded with Slipknot at Indigo Ranch in Malibu, California, and released Slipknot, the band's debut album that peaked at number one on the Top Heatseekers chart, went double platinum in the United States, and was included in the 2006 book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. Taylor was accused of copyright infringement regarding the lyrics of the song "Purity", but no action was taken. Taylor began recording for their second studio album, Iowa, in 2001 at Sound City and Sound Image in Van Nuys, Los Angeles. It was released August 28, 2001, and peaked at number one on the UK Albums Chart, as well as number three on the Billboard 200. While writing Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses), Taylor decided to write lyrics that would not warrant an explicit label. It peaked at number two on the Billboard 200. All Hope Is Gone was the first Slipknot album to peak at number one on the Billboard 200.
Other work
Taylor has appeared as a guest musician on albums by Soulfly, Apocalyptica, Damageplan, Steel Panther, and Code Orange. At one point, he was heavily involved in the recording of thrash metal band Anthrax's album, Worship Music, but the sessions remain unreleased. He also contributed to the Roadrunner United all-star album in 2005, providing vocals for the song "Rich Man". Taylor also made a brief appearance in Steel Panther's singles "Death to All but Metal", "Eyes of a Panther", and "Asian Hooker". In 2006, Taylor founded the record company Great Big Mouth Records. Taylor has produced two albums: Facecage's self-titled album and Walls of Jericho's Redemption. Taylor provided guest narration on the track "Repentance" for Dream Theater's 2007 album Systematic Chaos. In an interview with Billboard, Taylor confirmed that on January 13, 2009, he was planning on making a solo album, as well as returning to his side project Stone Sour after Slipknot's All Hope Is Gone World Tour. Taylor has stated that he was writing songs that "don't fit either of his main bands." He describes them as a cross between Foo Fighters, Johnny Cash, and Social Distortion, saying that there's "a country background that comes built-in with living in Iowa".
On March 30, 2009, it was confirmed that Taylor and the Junk Beer Kidnap Band would be performing at Rockfest in 2009. The group performed on April 24, 2009, at People's Court in Des Moines, Iowa, marking Taylor's first official solo show. Taylor performs with his band the Dum Fux with Denny Harvey, who make covers for 1970s punk rock and 1980s hair metal. Taylor also performs with Audacious P, a band that is primarily a Tenacious D cover band. Rapper Tech N9ne confirmed that Taylor was to perform on his album K.O.D., but was removed because Taylor did not submit his vocals in time. Taylor recently admitted that he tried out for the vacant singer spot in the band Velvet Revolver, but said that it just did not work out. However, according to a recent Billboard article, it seems likely that he may in fact become the vocalist for Velvet Revolver, though no official confirmation has been made. Duff McKagan added that they can neither "confirm or deny" Taylor's membership in the band but believes that Taylor is the "real deal". Slash has since ruled Taylor out as the possible new vocalist explaining that "[it] just wasn't right" although he does love him. Taylor has, however, recorded 10 new songs with the band, although drummer Matt Sorum stated it is unlikely they will ever be released. Taylor explained to Mark Hoppus on Hoppus on Music that he and McKagan were writing new music for a possible new supergroup.
On June 21, 2018, Taylor featured on the track "The Hunt" by metallic hardcore band Code Orange, the second track of the 3-track EP The Hurt Will Go On. In April 2019, Taylor collaborated on the song "Drugs" by the band Falling in Reverse. In September 2019, he was featured on Nostalgia Critic's parody album of Pink Floyd's The Wall on a cover of the opening theme for SpongeBob SquarePants.
Taylor released his solo album, CMFT, on October 2, 2020, via Roadrunner Records. The first two singles, "Black Eyes Blue" and "CMFT Must Be Stopped", were released on July 29, 2020.
Taylor mentioned in an October 3, 2020, interview about a followup album entitled CMF2, which would be completed prior to a tour supporting both it and CMFT. He contributed a cover of the Metallica song "Holier Than Thou" to the charity tribute album The Metallica Blacklist, released in September 2021.
Film appearances
On December 4, 2013, Taylor joined the cast of Fear Clinic. He played Bauer, one of the employees of the clinic who struggles to keep things under control when all hell breaks loose. He appeared in the 2013 horror film Bullied. In October 2015, Taylor provided the roars for the character of The Fisher King in the Doctor Who episode "Before the Flood". Taylor also appeared as a cameo in Sharknado 4, and will appear in Bad Candy.
Style and influence
Corey Taylor told Loudwire in 2015 that if it were not for Faith No More, he "wouldn't be here today". While recovering from an attempted suicide, he saw the band perform "Epic" live on the 1990 MTV Video Music Awards and the performance inspired him to begin writing and performing music again.
Corey Taylor had once been quoted that Pearl Jam had hugely influenced and inspired his music, saying that the group was "one of the biggest and best rock bands of all time". The first two Slipknot albums with Taylor's vocals, Slipknot and Iowa, both contain substantial explicit content. Many critics claimed Taylor relied on the profanity, which is why Slipknot's third album, Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses) is profanity-free, (with the exceptions of the word "bitch" on the song "Duality" and "bastard" on the spoken intro of "Pulse of the Maggots"), and did not warrant the explicit label. Compared with the previous vocalist for Slipknot, Anders Colsefni, Taylor has a vocal style that was characterized by ex-drummer Joey Jordison as "really good melodic singing". Taylor's vocal style, which contains at times melodic singing, growling, screaming, shouting, and rapping, led him to place at number 86 on the Hit Parader's Top 100 Metal Vocalists of All Time and is often compared to other vocalists such as Ivan Moody, John Bush, Phil Anselmo, and Jamey Jasta. Taylor expressed admiration for vocalists Bruce Dickinson, David Lee Roth, James Hetfield and Bruce Springsteen, but on his ideal rock frontman he states, "Freddie Mercury — nobody touches him. He is the gold standard, as far as I'm concerned. He was just electric from the second he hit the stage. It didn't matter if he was sick or tired or whatever, when he was on, man, it was like you turned a spotlight on and he just shone."
Taylor's two major projects have contrasting temperaments. Slipknot is considered to be heavy metal, nu metal and alternative metal, and expresses moods such as depression, hostility, anger, misanthropy, and rebellion. Stone Sour is classified as hard rock, expressing moods of bleakness and somberness as well as anger and rebellion.
Personal life
On September 17, 2002, Taylor's then-fiancée, Scarlett, gave birth to their son Griffin Parker. Taylor also has two daughters named Angeline and Aravis from earlier relationships. Taylor and Scarlett married on March 11, 2004, and divorced in 2007. On November 13, 2009, Taylor married Stephanie Luby at the Palms Hotel in Las Vegas. They also had a daughter named Ryan. On December 28, 2017, Taylor announced on his Twitter that he and Luby had separated. On April 7, 2019, it was announced on his Instagram page that he became engaged to Alicia Dove, creator of "Cherry Bombs". On October 6, 2019, the pair married.
Taylor has had problems with alcoholism, which Scarlett helped him through as well as keeping him from committing suicide. In 2006, Taylor told MTV that he had attempted to jump off a balcony of the eighth floor of The Hyatt on Sunset Boulevard in 2003, but "somehow [Scarlett] stopped me". This was later recanted by Taylor in an interview with Kerrang! radio and stated that it was, in fact, his friend Thom Hazaert who physically stopped him from jumping. Scarlett then told him that either he would have to get sober or she would annul their marriage. Before Stone Sour started recording Come What(ever) May in January 2006, Taylor was sober.
On August 3, 2009, he co-hosted the 2009 Kerrang! Awards alongside Scott Ian of Anthrax. The following year, they both once again co-hosted The Kerrang! Awards, where Taylor collected the K! Services to Metal award on behalf of Paul Gray, who died after an accidental overdose of morphine and fentanyl.
In early September 2010, Taylor announced that his book, Seven Deadly Sins: Settling The Argument Between Born Bad And Damaged Good, would be released on July 12, 2011, through Da Capo Press.
In April 2020, it was reported that Taylor switched to a plant-based diet to improve cardiovascular health.
In August 2021, Taylor tested positive for COVID-19 after the conclusion of a solo tour in support of his album CMFT. He was symptomatic despite being vaccinated, although he credited the vaccine for preventing him from becoming seriously ill.
Discography
Studio albums
Singles
As lead artist
As featured artist
Guest appearances
Filmography
Bibliography
Equipment
Awards
Revolver Golden Gods Awards
|-
| 2010 || Corey Taylor || Best Vocalist ||
|-
| 2013 || Corey Taylor || Best Vocalist ||
Loudwire Music Awards
|-
| 2015 || Corey Taylor || Rock Titan ||
|-
| 2017 || Corey Taylor || Best Vocalist ||
Kerrang! Awards
|-
| 2018 || Corey Taylor || Legend ||
References
Bibliography
External links
Corey Taylor interview
Metal Underground: interview
NY rock: article
IGN: article
Duff McKagan on Corey Taylor in Seattle Weekly
1973 births
American heavy metal singers
American male singers
American male guitarists
American heavy metal guitarists
American baritones
20th-century American singers
21st-century American singers
American people of German descent
American people who self-identify as being of Native American descent
American people of Irish descent
American people of Dutch descent
Grammy Award winners
Musicians from Des Moines, Iowa
Living people
Writers from Des Moines, Iowa
Writers from Waterloo, Iowa
Native American male actors
Native American singers
Nu metal singers
Roadrunner Records artists
Slipknot (band) members
Stone Sour members
Social critics
Singers with a five-octave vocal range
Singers from Iowa
Alternative metal musicians
American hard rock musicians
Male actors from Iowa
Teenage Time Killers members | true | [
"Tiberius Julius Synges, also known as Synges (flourished 3rd century – died 276) was a prince and Roman Client King of the Bosporan Kingdom.\n\nSynges was the second born son to the Bosporan King Rhescuporis V and his mother was an unnamed woman. He was of Greek, Iranian and Roman ancestry. His eldest brother was prince Pharsanzes and younger brother was prince Teiranes.\n\nSynges succeeded his eldest brother Pharsanzes who co-ruled with their father, Rhescuporis V. Pharsanzes died in 254 and Synges succeeded as second co-ruler with their father in 258 and ruled with his father as Bosporan King until around 276. Synges was a contemporary to the Crisis of the Third Century. Little is known of the life and reign of Synges. Synges died around 276 and was succeeded by his younger brother Teiranes.\n\nSee also\n Bosporan Kingdom\n Roman Crimea\n\nSources\n http://www.wildwinds.com/coins/greece/bosporos/kings/i.html\n\nRulers of the Bosporan Kingdom\n276 deaths\nRoman client rulers\n3rd-century births\n3rd-century monarchs in Europe\nSynges, Tiberius",
"John Henry Oswald (1830–1899) was a 19th-century Scottish marine and landscape artist. He is frequently confused with John Hervey Oswald (1843-1895) who was also an artist.\n\nLife\nHe was born in Limerick in Ireland in 1829 (The Baptismal Record of the Presbyterian Congregation of Limerick). His father was a Scottish coachman presumably working in the Limerick area at the time. \n\nHis parents returned to Edinburgh in Scotland in 1831. His early employment was as a coach painter (Scottish Census Records). He travelled around Europe in the late 1840s. His father is thought to be the Rev John Oswald who was a teacher at George Heriot's School in Edinburgh from around 1832.\n\nHe lived for many years at 28 London Street, a large Georgian townhouse in Edinburgh's Second New Town. His brother's niece was his housekeeper (Mary Oswald, also an artist).\n\nHe is buried in Warriston Cemetery.\n\nWorks\nHe exhibited paintings at the Royal Scottish Academy, the Glasgow Institute, the Royal Academy, the Royal Hibernian Academy, the Royal Society of Oil Painters and other venues.\n\nEdinburgh from Burntisland\n\nFamily\nHe was the uncle of John Hoy Oswald who was born in Edinburgh in 1875 He is presumed the father of John Henry Oswald born in Edinburgh around 1885 who emigrated to New South Wales and fought in the First World War.\n\nReferences\n\n1830 births\n1899 deaths\nScottish artists"
] |
[
"Corey Taylor",
"Life",
"What is the name of the bands number Three album",
"I don't know.",
"What is his latest project",
"He was mostly raised by his single mother",
"where is he from",
"Des Moines, Iowa.",
"What is his mothers name",
"\"hole in the ground with buildings around it\".",
"what is his given name",
"Corey Todd Taylor",
"What is his best fact",
"Taylor, along with his mother and sister, lived at one point in an \"old dilapidated farmhouse\"",
"What state did he grow up in",
"Des Moines, Iowa.",
"Was his father around",
"his single mother"
] | C_0484ee08a9be40df9fe4de47ef04904a_1 | How many siblings | 9 | How many siblings does Corey Taylor have? | Corey Taylor | Corey Todd Taylor was born on December 8, 1973 in Des Moines, Iowa. He was mostly raised by his single mother in Waterloo, Iowa, a place described by Taylor as a "hole in the ground with buildings around it". He is of Irish, German and Native American descent on his father's side, and Dutch and Irish on his mother's side. In 1979, Taylor and his mother saw the sci-fi series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. Before the series, there was a trailer for the 1978 horror film Halloween. Taylor said this "developed some sense of Slipknot in [himself]". While Halloween introduced Taylor to masks and horror themes, Taylor's grandmother introduced him to rock music, showing him a collection of Elvis Presley records from the 1950s to 1970s. He especially found songs like "Teddy Bear", "In the Ghetto", and "Suspicious Minds" to appeal to his interests the most, describing them as "good times". Taylor also began listening to Black Sabbath at a young age, beginning with their early work. Taylor, along with his mother and sister, lived at one point in an "old dilapidated farmhouse" which on days in late autumn would "look like Black Sabbath album covers". By age 15, he had developed a drug addiction and had overdosed on cocaine twice. By this time, he was living in Waterloo, but later set out on his own and ended up at his grandmother's house in Des Moines. She took legal custody of him so that he could continue going to school, and she helped him buy musical equipment. When Taylor was 18, he left his grandmother's house and went to various places in Iowa, Des Moines being a place to which he frequently returned. In 2017, on an episode of Viceland's The Therapist, Taylor revealed that he was sexually assaulted at the age of 10 by a 16-year-old friend. Taylor stated that he never told anyone about the incident until he was "probably 18" because his abuser "threatened to hurt [him] and threatened to hurt [his] mom". At age 18, when Taylor was living with his grandmother, he attempted suicide by way of overdose. His ex-girlfriend's mother drove him to the hospital in Des Moines and doctors were able to resuscitate him. He describes this as the lowest point in his life. Taylor first met his father when he was 30 years old, and now has a relationship with him, although he said their paths do not cross that often. CANNOTANSWER | Taylor, along with his mother and sister, | Corey Todd Taylor (born December 8, 1973) is an American singer, musician, songwriter and actor. He is known as the lead vocalist and lyricist of the bands Slipknot and Stone Sour.
Taylor co-founded Stone Sour with drummer Joel Ekman in 1992, playing in the Des Moines area, and working on a demo. He joined Slipknot in 1997 to replace their original vocalist and has subsequently released six studio albums with them. After the first two Slipknot albums went Platinum, Taylor revived Stone Sour to record an album and tour in 2002. His debut solo studio album, CMFT, was released on October 2, 2020, by Roadrunner Records.
He has worked with several bands, including Junk Beer Kidnap Band, Korn, Disturbed, Apocalyptica, Code Orange, Anthrax, Steel Panther, Falling in Reverse, and Soulfly.
Early life
Corey Todd Taylor was born on December 8, 1973, in Des Moines, Iowa. He was mostly raised by his single mother in Waterloo, Iowa, a place described by Taylor as a "hole in the ground with buildings around it". He is of German, Irish and Native American descent on his father's side, and Dutch and Irish on his mother's side. Around 1979, Taylor and his mother saw the sci-fi series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. Before the series, there was a trailer for the 1978 horror film Halloween. Taylor said this "developed some sense of Slipknot in [himself]". While Halloween introduced Taylor to masks and horror themes, Taylor's grandmother introduced him to rock music, showing him a collection of Elvis Presley records from the 1950s to 1970s. He especially found songs like "Teddy Bear", "In the Ghetto", and "Suspicious Minds" to appeal to his interests the most, describing them as "good times". Taylor also began listening to Black Sabbath at a young age, beginning with their early work.
By age 15, he had developed a drug addiction and had overdosed on cocaine twice. By this time, he was living in Waterloo, but later set out on his own and ended up at his grandmother's house in Des Moines. She took legal custody of him so that he could continue going to school, and she helped him buy musical equipment. When Taylor was 18, he left his grandmother's house and went to various places in Iowa, Des Moines being a place to which he frequently returned.
In 2017, on an episode of Viceland's The Therapist, Taylor revealed that he was sexually abused at the age of 10 by a 16-year-old friend. Taylor stated that he never told anyone about the incident until he was "probably 18" because his abuser "threatened to hurt [him] and threatened to hurt [his] mom". At age 18, when Taylor was living with his grandmother, he attempted suicide by way of overdose. His ex-girlfriend's mother drove him to the hospital in Des Moines and doctors were able to resuscitate him. He describes this as the lowest point in his life. Taylor first met his father when he was 30 years old, and now has a relationship with him, although he said their paths do not cross that often.
Music career
Stone Sour
Taylor is a founding member of American hard rock band Stone Sour. After he formed the band in 1992 with drummer Joel Ekman, Shawn Economaki joined filling in the bass position, leaving the electric guitar position to be filled by Josh Rand. Stone Sour recorded a demo album in 1993, and another in 1994. In 1997, Taylor was approached by the metal band, Slipknot, resulting in him abandoning Stone Sour while they were recording a demo album with Sean McMahon at SR studios. Taylor did not return until five years later to record their debut album, Stone Sour in 2002. Both Taylor and guitarist Josh Rand contacted Jim Root, Slipknot's guitarist, and Shawn Economaki, Stone Sour's original bassist, to begin writing songs for their debut album. Drummer Joel Ekman came back on board as well. This "reformation" later resulted in Stone Sour recording at Catamount Studios in Cedar Falls, Iowa.
Their self-titled debut album was released August 27, 2002, and it debuted at number 46 on the Billboard 200. Their second album, Come What(ever) May debuted at number four on the Billboard 200. It was released August 1, 2006, and charted on several different charts. Live in Moscow is currently their only album specifically released only for download. During the recording of the album, drummer Joel Ekman left the band for personal reasons. As a result, drummer Roy Mayorga was recruited, taking his place. The group released their third studio album, Audio Secrecy, on September 7, 2010.
Later, Corey Taylor announced the release of a concept double album with Stone Sour. The albums are titled "House of Gold & Bones". During the process of making the double album, bassist Shawn Economaki left the band. He was temporarily replaced for touring purposes by Johny Chow. The first part was released in October 2012 and the second part in April 2013. There are 23 songs in total, 11 on the first part and 12 on the second. In addition to these two albums is a four-part comic book series written by Taylor and published by Dark Horse Comics, which went on sale in 2013. With these albums came a story that was written by Taylor that coincide with the album. Fans can also construct a miniature "house of gold and bones" from the packaging design of the physical versions of the two albums. Taylor has also said that he would like to finish off the project by making the story into a movie but nothing has come of this yet.
Slipknot
In Des Moines, Iowa, Joey Jordison, Shawn Crahan, and Mick Thomson approached him asking him to join Slipknot. He agreed to go to one of their practices, and ended up singing in front of them. Of Slipknot's nine members, Corey was the sixth to join the band. Performing with Slipknot, he would also come to be known as "Number Eight", since the band follows a numbering scheme for its members, ranging from 0–8. According to Shawn Crahan, Corey wanted number eight, because it symbolizes infinity.
Feeling he could expand more inside Slipknot than in Stone Sour, Taylor temporarily quit Stone Sour, even though they were recording an album with Sean McMahon. Taylor's first gig with Slipknot was on August 24, 1997, which according to band members did not go well. During his first gig, Taylor was performing with facepaint instead of a mask; however, for his second show on September 12, he wore a mask that resembles his debut album mask.
Taylor has recorded with Slipknot since the release of their second demo album, a self-titled demo used to promote the band to prospective labels and producers. As their permanent vocalist, he recorded with Slipknot at Indigo Ranch in Malibu, California, and released Slipknot, the band's debut album that peaked at number one on the Top Heatseekers chart, went double platinum in the United States, and was included in the 2006 book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. Taylor was accused of copyright infringement regarding the lyrics of the song "Purity", but no action was taken. Taylor began recording for their second studio album, Iowa, in 2001 at Sound City and Sound Image in Van Nuys, Los Angeles. It was released August 28, 2001, and peaked at number one on the UK Albums Chart, as well as number three on the Billboard 200. While writing Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses), Taylor decided to write lyrics that would not warrant an explicit label. It peaked at number two on the Billboard 200. All Hope Is Gone was the first Slipknot album to peak at number one on the Billboard 200.
Other work
Taylor has appeared as a guest musician on albums by Soulfly, Apocalyptica, Damageplan, Steel Panther, and Code Orange. At one point, he was heavily involved in the recording of thrash metal band Anthrax's album, Worship Music, but the sessions remain unreleased. He also contributed to the Roadrunner United all-star album in 2005, providing vocals for the song "Rich Man". Taylor also made a brief appearance in Steel Panther's singles "Death to All but Metal", "Eyes of a Panther", and "Asian Hooker". In 2006, Taylor founded the record company Great Big Mouth Records. Taylor has produced two albums: Facecage's self-titled album and Walls of Jericho's Redemption. Taylor provided guest narration on the track "Repentance" for Dream Theater's 2007 album Systematic Chaos. In an interview with Billboard, Taylor confirmed that on January 13, 2009, he was planning on making a solo album, as well as returning to his side project Stone Sour after Slipknot's All Hope Is Gone World Tour. Taylor has stated that he was writing songs that "don't fit either of his main bands." He describes them as a cross between Foo Fighters, Johnny Cash, and Social Distortion, saying that there's "a country background that comes built-in with living in Iowa".
On March 30, 2009, it was confirmed that Taylor and the Junk Beer Kidnap Band would be performing at Rockfest in 2009. The group performed on April 24, 2009, at People's Court in Des Moines, Iowa, marking Taylor's first official solo show. Taylor performs with his band the Dum Fux with Denny Harvey, who make covers for 1970s punk rock and 1980s hair metal. Taylor also performs with Audacious P, a band that is primarily a Tenacious D cover band. Rapper Tech N9ne confirmed that Taylor was to perform on his album K.O.D., but was removed because Taylor did not submit his vocals in time. Taylor recently admitted that he tried out for the vacant singer spot in the band Velvet Revolver, but said that it just did not work out. However, according to a recent Billboard article, it seems likely that he may in fact become the vocalist for Velvet Revolver, though no official confirmation has been made. Duff McKagan added that they can neither "confirm or deny" Taylor's membership in the band but believes that Taylor is the "real deal". Slash has since ruled Taylor out as the possible new vocalist explaining that "[it] just wasn't right" although he does love him. Taylor has, however, recorded 10 new songs with the band, although drummer Matt Sorum stated it is unlikely they will ever be released. Taylor explained to Mark Hoppus on Hoppus on Music that he and McKagan were writing new music for a possible new supergroup.
On June 21, 2018, Taylor featured on the track "The Hunt" by metallic hardcore band Code Orange, the second track of the 3-track EP The Hurt Will Go On. In April 2019, Taylor collaborated on the song "Drugs" by the band Falling in Reverse. In September 2019, he was featured on Nostalgia Critic's parody album of Pink Floyd's The Wall on a cover of the opening theme for SpongeBob SquarePants.
Taylor released his solo album, CMFT, on October 2, 2020, via Roadrunner Records. The first two singles, "Black Eyes Blue" and "CMFT Must Be Stopped", were released on July 29, 2020.
Taylor mentioned in an October 3, 2020, interview about a followup album entitled CMF2, which would be completed prior to a tour supporting both it and CMFT. He contributed a cover of the Metallica song "Holier Than Thou" to the charity tribute album The Metallica Blacklist, released in September 2021.
Film appearances
On December 4, 2013, Taylor joined the cast of Fear Clinic. He played Bauer, one of the employees of the clinic who struggles to keep things under control when all hell breaks loose. He appeared in the 2013 horror film Bullied. In October 2015, Taylor provided the roars for the character of The Fisher King in the Doctor Who episode "Before the Flood". Taylor also appeared as a cameo in Sharknado 4, and will appear in Bad Candy.
Style and influence
Corey Taylor told Loudwire in 2015 that if it were not for Faith No More, he "wouldn't be here today". While recovering from an attempted suicide, he saw the band perform "Epic" live on the 1990 MTV Video Music Awards and the performance inspired him to begin writing and performing music again.
Corey Taylor had once been quoted that Pearl Jam had hugely influenced and inspired his music, saying that the group was "one of the biggest and best rock bands of all time". The first two Slipknot albums with Taylor's vocals, Slipknot and Iowa, both contain substantial explicit content. Many critics claimed Taylor relied on the profanity, which is why Slipknot's third album, Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses) is profanity-free, (with the exceptions of the word "bitch" on the song "Duality" and "bastard" on the spoken intro of "Pulse of the Maggots"), and did not warrant the explicit label. Compared with the previous vocalist for Slipknot, Anders Colsefni, Taylor has a vocal style that was characterized by ex-drummer Joey Jordison as "really good melodic singing". Taylor's vocal style, which contains at times melodic singing, growling, screaming, shouting, and rapping, led him to place at number 86 on the Hit Parader's Top 100 Metal Vocalists of All Time and is often compared to other vocalists such as Ivan Moody, John Bush, Phil Anselmo, and Jamey Jasta. Taylor expressed admiration for vocalists Bruce Dickinson, David Lee Roth, James Hetfield and Bruce Springsteen, but on his ideal rock frontman he states, "Freddie Mercury — nobody touches him. He is the gold standard, as far as I'm concerned. He was just electric from the second he hit the stage. It didn't matter if he was sick or tired or whatever, when he was on, man, it was like you turned a spotlight on and he just shone."
Taylor's two major projects have contrasting temperaments. Slipknot is considered to be heavy metal, nu metal and alternative metal, and expresses moods such as depression, hostility, anger, misanthropy, and rebellion. Stone Sour is classified as hard rock, expressing moods of bleakness and somberness as well as anger and rebellion.
Personal life
On September 17, 2002, Taylor's then-fiancée, Scarlett, gave birth to their son Griffin Parker. Taylor also has two daughters named Angeline and Aravis from earlier relationships. Taylor and Scarlett married on March 11, 2004, and divorced in 2007. On November 13, 2009, Taylor married Stephanie Luby at the Palms Hotel in Las Vegas. They also had a daughter named Ryan. On December 28, 2017, Taylor announced on his Twitter that he and Luby had separated. On April 7, 2019, it was announced on his Instagram page that he became engaged to Alicia Dove, creator of "Cherry Bombs". On October 6, 2019, the pair married.
Taylor has had problems with alcoholism, which Scarlett helped him through as well as keeping him from committing suicide. In 2006, Taylor told MTV that he had attempted to jump off a balcony of the eighth floor of The Hyatt on Sunset Boulevard in 2003, but "somehow [Scarlett] stopped me". This was later recanted by Taylor in an interview with Kerrang! radio and stated that it was, in fact, his friend Thom Hazaert who physically stopped him from jumping. Scarlett then told him that either he would have to get sober or she would annul their marriage. Before Stone Sour started recording Come What(ever) May in January 2006, Taylor was sober.
On August 3, 2009, he co-hosted the 2009 Kerrang! Awards alongside Scott Ian of Anthrax. The following year, they both once again co-hosted The Kerrang! Awards, where Taylor collected the K! Services to Metal award on behalf of Paul Gray, who died after an accidental overdose of morphine and fentanyl.
In early September 2010, Taylor announced that his book, Seven Deadly Sins: Settling The Argument Between Born Bad And Damaged Good, would be released on July 12, 2011, through Da Capo Press.
In April 2020, it was reported that Taylor switched to a plant-based diet to improve cardiovascular health.
In August 2021, Taylor tested positive for COVID-19 after the conclusion of a solo tour in support of his album CMFT. He was symptomatic despite being vaccinated, although he credited the vaccine for preventing him from becoming seriously ill.
Discography
Studio albums
Singles
As lead artist
As featured artist
Guest appearances
Filmography
Bibliography
Equipment
Awards
Revolver Golden Gods Awards
|-
| 2010 || Corey Taylor || Best Vocalist ||
|-
| 2013 || Corey Taylor || Best Vocalist ||
Loudwire Music Awards
|-
| 2015 || Corey Taylor || Rock Titan ||
|-
| 2017 || Corey Taylor || Best Vocalist ||
Kerrang! Awards
|-
| 2018 || Corey Taylor || Legend ||
References
Bibliography
External links
Corey Taylor interview
Metal Underground: interview
NY rock: article
IGN: article
Duff McKagan on Corey Taylor in Seattle Weekly
1973 births
American heavy metal singers
American male singers
American male guitarists
American heavy metal guitarists
American baritones
20th-century American singers
21st-century American singers
American people of German descent
American people who self-identify as being of Native American descent
American people of Irish descent
American people of Dutch descent
Grammy Award winners
Musicians from Des Moines, Iowa
Living people
Writers from Des Moines, Iowa
Writers from Waterloo, Iowa
Native American male actors
Native American singers
Nu metal singers
Roadrunner Records artists
Slipknot (band) members
Stone Sour members
Social critics
Singers with a five-octave vocal range
Singers from Iowa
Alternative metal musicians
American hard rock musicians
Male actors from Iowa
Teenage Time Killers members | false | [
"\"Sladdbarn\" is a Swedish term to refer to a child who is born much later than their other siblings. The terms differ from the colloquial English expression \"oops baby\" which simply refers to any unplanned birth. There are similar terms for the concept in many other Nordic languages and some others.\n\nDefinition\nThere are many opinions about how far apart it should be for the child to considered a sladdbarn. If it has been at least six years between siblings, the younger child can be regarded as a sladdbarn according to the behavioral pedagogue Elisabeth Schönbeck. Another opinion is that it is when the difference between the infant and the second youngest is greater than the difference between the second youngest and the eldest child. A commonly held rule of thumb is that it should be 10 years between the children. Another criterion may be that the child is born long after the first clutch of children and thus is not part of the companionship of their older siblings, missing out on the sibling bonding stage during childhood, developing more as a single child.\n\nCauses\nSladdbarn can be born because the parents mistakenly believe that they can no longer have children due to their age and stop using contraceptives. Another reason for a much later sibling is due to the parents feeling that their first group of children are getting older and they miss having small children around. Sometimes older couples with a more unstable relationship have yet another child in later life due to feeling a need to keep the relationship together when their older children start becoming independent, thus losing the so-called \"glue\" that kept them from growing apart.\n\nEffects\nDuring the early 20th century having a sladdbarn was considered shameful in the country, as it was considered to imply that the parents were overly sexually active in old age. In Sweden in the 1960s having a sladdbarn was considered a major economic setback for a working-class family but a status symbol for the richer who could afford it. Children whose only siblings are much older than them sometimes report feeling like an only child. Many sladdbarn are often accused of being spoiled by their parents according to the older siblings. They are also often said to remain childish even in adulthood.\n\nOther terms\nThere are many playful synonyms for sladdbarn in the Nordic countries. In Swedish, there is \"efterskott\" (a word pun - while the English translation would be arrears; a literal translation would be \"after shot\" or \"later fire\"). In Finland Swedish, there is a term \"skrapabulla\" (scrape bun, the word comes from the slightly smaller bun that gets created when a baker needs to scrape off the bowl to get enough dough to fill the last cup). In Finnish, the term that is used is \"iltatähti\" (Evening Star), this after the planet Venus, which becomes visible during dusk, before the sun has gone down completely. In Norwegian, \"attpåklatt\" is a commonly used term, being the equivalent of \"top-up\" or \"small refill\" of your bowl of porridge. In English, a sladdbarn is sometimes colloquially called an \"oops' baby\".\n\nNotable people\n Ola Salo – singer\n Miss Li – singer and songwriter\n Niklas Andersson – hockey player\n Anna Holmlunds – skier\n\nReferences\n\nFurther reading\n Oops! How to Rock the Mother of All Surprises: A Positive Guide To Your Unexpected Pregnancy\n\nSibling\nSociological terminology\nSwedish culture\nAgeing",
"Catherine Antonovna of Brunswick-Lüneburg (1741–1807) was the daughter of Duke Anthony Ulrich of Brunswick and Grand Duchess Anna Leopoldovna of Russia and sister of Ivan VI. She was imprisoned by Empress Elizabeth of Russia along with her family from 1742 to 1780 at Kholmogory, and in 1780, she and two brothers and a sister were placed under house arrest for the rest of their lives in Horsens. She was the last descendant of Ivan V of Russia.\n\nShe became deaf after being dropped during the chaos of Empress Elizabeth's coup, and like her siblings, was sickly and suffered from bouts of seizures for much of her life.\n\nShe and her three surviving siblings were released into the custody of their aunt, the Danish queen dowager Juliana Maria of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, on 30 June 1780, and settled in Jutland. There they lived under house arrest in Horsens for the rest of their lives under the guardianship of Juliana and at the expense of Catherine. Although they were prisoners, they lived in relative comfort and retained a small \"court\" of between 40 and 50 people, all Danish except for the priest.\n\nBy 1798, Catherine lived alone in Horsens, since all her siblings had died. In 1803, she wrote a letter to Alexander I of Russia: she told him how her Danish servants took advantage of her difficulty in hearing and talking, described how much she had missed the Russian prison in Kholmogory, where she and her siblings had been happy together, and asked him to be allowed to return. He never replied.\n\nReferences\n\n1741 births\n1807 deaths\n \nHouse of Mecklenburg-Brunswick-Romanov\n18th-century Russian people\nPeople from Saint Petersburg\nPeople from Horsens"
] |
[
"Corey Taylor",
"Life",
"What is the name of the bands number Three album",
"I don't know.",
"What is his latest project",
"He was mostly raised by his single mother",
"where is he from",
"Des Moines, Iowa.",
"What is his mothers name",
"\"hole in the ground with buildings around it\".",
"what is his given name",
"Corey Todd Taylor",
"What is his best fact",
"Taylor, along with his mother and sister, lived at one point in an \"old dilapidated farmhouse\"",
"What state did he grow up in",
"Des Moines, Iowa.",
"Was his father around",
"his single mother",
"How many siblings",
"Taylor, along with his mother and sister,"
] | C_0484ee08a9be40df9fe4de47ef04904a_1 | When did he start playing music | 10 | When did Corey Taylor start playing music? | Corey Taylor | Corey Todd Taylor was born on December 8, 1973 in Des Moines, Iowa. He was mostly raised by his single mother in Waterloo, Iowa, a place described by Taylor as a "hole in the ground with buildings around it". He is of Irish, German and Native American descent on his father's side, and Dutch and Irish on his mother's side. In 1979, Taylor and his mother saw the sci-fi series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. Before the series, there was a trailer for the 1978 horror film Halloween. Taylor said this "developed some sense of Slipknot in [himself]". While Halloween introduced Taylor to masks and horror themes, Taylor's grandmother introduced him to rock music, showing him a collection of Elvis Presley records from the 1950s to 1970s. He especially found songs like "Teddy Bear", "In the Ghetto", and "Suspicious Minds" to appeal to his interests the most, describing them as "good times". Taylor also began listening to Black Sabbath at a young age, beginning with their early work. Taylor, along with his mother and sister, lived at one point in an "old dilapidated farmhouse" which on days in late autumn would "look like Black Sabbath album covers". By age 15, he had developed a drug addiction and had overdosed on cocaine twice. By this time, he was living in Waterloo, but later set out on his own and ended up at his grandmother's house in Des Moines. She took legal custody of him so that he could continue going to school, and she helped him buy musical equipment. When Taylor was 18, he left his grandmother's house and went to various places in Iowa, Des Moines being a place to which he frequently returned. In 2017, on an episode of Viceland's The Therapist, Taylor revealed that he was sexually assaulted at the age of 10 by a 16-year-old friend. Taylor stated that he never told anyone about the incident until he was "probably 18" because his abuser "threatened to hurt [him] and threatened to hurt [his] mom". At age 18, when Taylor was living with his grandmother, he attempted suicide by way of overdose. His ex-girlfriend's mother drove him to the hospital in Des Moines and doctors were able to resuscitate him. He describes this as the lowest point in his life. Taylor first met his father when he was 30 years old, and now has a relationship with him, although he said their paths do not cross that often. CANNOTANSWER | She took legal custody of him so that he could continue going to school, and she helped him buy musical equipment. | Corey Todd Taylor (born December 8, 1973) is an American singer, musician, songwriter and actor. He is known as the lead vocalist and lyricist of the bands Slipknot and Stone Sour.
Taylor co-founded Stone Sour with drummer Joel Ekman in 1992, playing in the Des Moines area, and working on a demo. He joined Slipknot in 1997 to replace their original vocalist and has subsequently released six studio albums with them. After the first two Slipknot albums went Platinum, Taylor revived Stone Sour to record an album and tour in 2002. His debut solo studio album, CMFT, was released on October 2, 2020, by Roadrunner Records.
He has worked with several bands, including Junk Beer Kidnap Band, Korn, Disturbed, Apocalyptica, Code Orange, Anthrax, Steel Panther, Falling in Reverse, and Soulfly.
Early life
Corey Todd Taylor was born on December 8, 1973, in Des Moines, Iowa. He was mostly raised by his single mother in Waterloo, Iowa, a place described by Taylor as a "hole in the ground with buildings around it". He is of German, Irish and Native American descent on his father's side, and Dutch and Irish on his mother's side. Around 1979, Taylor and his mother saw the sci-fi series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. Before the series, there was a trailer for the 1978 horror film Halloween. Taylor said this "developed some sense of Slipknot in [himself]". While Halloween introduced Taylor to masks and horror themes, Taylor's grandmother introduced him to rock music, showing him a collection of Elvis Presley records from the 1950s to 1970s. He especially found songs like "Teddy Bear", "In the Ghetto", and "Suspicious Minds" to appeal to his interests the most, describing them as "good times". Taylor also began listening to Black Sabbath at a young age, beginning with their early work.
By age 15, he had developed a drug addiction and had overdosed on cocaine twice. By this time, he was living in Waterloo, but later set out on his own and ended up at his grandmother's house in Des Moines. She took legal custody of him so that he could continue going to school, and she helped him buy musical equipment. When Taylor was 18, he left his grandmother's house and went to various places in Iowa, Des Moines being a place to which he frequently returned.
In 2017, on an episode of Viceland's The Therapist, Taylor revealed that he was sexually abused at the age of 10 by a 16-year-old friend. Taylor stated that he never told anyone about the incident until he was "probably 18" because his abuser "threatened to hurt [him] and threatened to hurt [his] mom". At age 18, when Taylor was living with his grandmother, he attempted suicide by way of overdose. His ex-girlfriend's mother drove him to the hospital in Des Moines and doctors were able to resuscitate him. He describes this as the lowest point in his life. Taylor first met his father when he was 30 years old, and now has a relationship with him, although he said their paths do not cross that often.
Music career
Stone Sour
Taylor is a founding member of American hard rock band Stone Sour. After he formed the band in 1992 with drummer Joel Ekman, Shawn Economaki joined filling in the bass position, leaving the electric guitar position to be filled by Josh Rand. Stone Sour recorded a demo album in 1993, and another in 1994. In 1997, Taylor was approached by the metal band, Slipknot, resulting in him abandoning Stone Sour while they were recording a demo album with Sean McMahon at SR studios. Taylor did not return until five years later to record their debut album, Stone Sour in 2002. Both Taylor and guitarist Josh Rand contacted Jim Root, Slipknot's guitarist, and Shawn Economaki, Stone Sour's original bassist, to begin writing songs for their debut album. Drummer Joel Ekman came back on board as well. This "reformation" later resulted in Stone Sour recording at Catamount Studios in Cedar Falls, Iowa.
Their self-titled debut album was released August 27, 2002, and it debuted at number 46 on the Billboard 200. Their second album, Come What(ever) May debuted at number four on the Billboard 200. It was released August 1, 2006, and charted on several different charts. Live in Moscow is currently their only album specifically released only for download. During the recording of the album, drummer Joel Ekman left the band for personal reasons. As a result, drummer Roy Mayorga was recruited, taking his place. The group released their third studio album, Audio Secrecy, on September 7, 2010.
Later, Corey Taylor announced the release of a concept double album with Stone Sour. The albums are titled "House of Gold & Bones". During the process of making the double album, bassist Shawn Economaki left the band. He was temporarily replaced for touring purposes by Johny Chow. The first part was released in October 2012 and the second part in April 2013. There are 23 songs in total, 11 on the first part and 12 on the second. In addition to these two albums is a four-part comic book series written by Taylor and published by Dark Horse Comics, which went on sale in 2013. With these albums came a story that was written by Taylor that coincide with the album. Fans can also construct a miniature "house of gold and bones" from the packaging design of the physical versions of the two albums. Taylor has also said that he would like to finish off the project by making the story into a movie but nothing has come of this yet.
Slipknot
In Des Moines, Iowa, Joey Jordison, Shawn Crahan, and Mick Thomson approached him asking him to join Slipknot. He agreed to go to one of their practices, and ended up singing in front of them. Of Slipknot's nine members, Corey was the sixth to join the band. Performing with Slipknot, he would also come to be known as "Number Eight", since the band follows a numbering scheme for its members, ranging from 0–8. According to Shawn Crahan, Corey wanted number eight, because it symbolizes infinity.
Feeling he could expand more inside Slipknot than in Stone Sour, Taylor temporarily quit Stone Sour, even though they were recording an album with Sean McMahon. Taylor's first gig with Slipknot was on August 24, 1997, which according to band members did not go well. During his first gig, Taylor was performing with facepaint instead of a mask; however, for his second show on September 12, he wore a mask that resembles his debut album mask.
Taylor has recorded with Slipknot since the release of their second demo album, a self-titled demo used to promote the band to prospective labels and producers. As their permanent vocalist, he recorded with Slipknot at Indigo Ranch in Malibu, California, and released Slipknot, the band's debut album that peaked at number one on the Top Heatseekers chart, went double platinum in the United States, and was included in the 2006 book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. Taylor was accused of copyright infringement regarding the lyrics of the song "Purity", but no action was taken. Taylor began recording for their second studio album, Iowa, in 2001 at Sound City and Sound Image in Van Nuys, Los Angeles. It was released August 28, 2001, and peaked at number one on the UK Albums Chart, as well as number three on the Billboard 200. While writing Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses), Taylor decided to write lyrics that would not warrant an explicit label. It peaked at number two on the Billboard 200. All Hope Is Gone was the first Slipknot album to peak at number one on the Billboard 200.
Other work
Taylor has appeared as a guest musician on albums by Soulfly, Apocalyptica, Damageplan, Steel Panther, and Code Orange. At one point, he was heavily involved in the recording of thrash metal band Anthrax's album, Worship Music, but the sessions remain unreleased. He also contributed to the Roadrunner United all-star album in 2005, providing vocals for the song "Rich Man". Taylor also made a brief appearance in Steel Panther's singles "Death to All but Metal", "Eyes of a Panther", and "Asian Hooker". In 2006, Taylor founded the record company Great Big Mouth Records. Taylor has produced two albums: Facecage's self-titled album and Walls of Jericho's Redemption. Taylor provided guest narration on the track "Repentance" for Dream Theater's 2007 album Systematic Chaos. In an interview with Billboard, Taylor confirmed that on January 13, 2009, he was planning on making a solo album, as well as returning to his side project Stone Sour after Slipknot's All Hope Is Gone World Tour. Taylor has stated that he was writing songs that "don't fit either of his main bands." He describes them as a cross between Foo Fighters, Johnny Cash, and Social Distortion, saying that there's "a country background that comes built-in with living in Iowa".
On March 30, 2009, it was confirmed that Taylor and the Junk Beer Kidnap Band would be performing at Rockfest in 2009. The group performed on April 24, 2009, at People's Court in Des Moines, Iowa, marking Taylor's first official solo show. Taylor performs with his band the Dum Fux with Denny Harvey, who make covers for 1970s punk rock and 1980s hair metal. Taylor also performs with Audacious P, a band that is primarily a Tenacious D cover band. Rapper Tech N9ne confirmed that Taylor was to perform on his album K.O.D., but was removed because Taylor did not submit his vocals in time. Taylor recently admitted that he tried out for the vacant singer spot in the band Velvet Revolver, but said that it just did not work out. However, according to a recent Billboard article, it seems likely that he may in fact become the vocalist for Velvet Revolver, though no official confirmation has been made. Duff McKagan added that they can neither "confirm or deny" Taylor's membership in the band but believes that Taylor is the "real deal". Slash has since ruled Taylor out as the possible new vocalist explaining that "[it] just wasn't right" although he does love him. Taylor has, however, recorded 10 new songs with the band, although drummer Matt Sorum stated it is unlikely they will ever be released. Taylor explained to Mark Hoppus on Hoppus on Music that he and McKagan were writing new music for a possible new supergroup.
On June 21, 2018, Taylor featured on the track "The Hunt" by metallic hardcore band Code Orange, the second track of the 3-track EP The Hurt Will Go On. In April 2019, Taylor collaborated on the song "Drugs" by the band Falling in Reverse. In September 2019, he was featured on Nostalgia Critic's parody album of Pink Floyd's The Wall on a cover of the opening theme for SpongeBob SquarePants.
Taylor released his solo album, CMFT, on October 2, 2020, via Roadrunner Records. The first two singles, "Black Eyes Blue" and "CMFT Must Be Stopped", were released on July 29, 2020.
Taylor mentioned in an October 3, 2020, interview about a followup album entitled CMF2, which would be completed prior to a tour supporting both it and CMFT. He contributed a cover of the Metallica song "Holier Than Thou" to the charity tribute album The Metallica Blacklist, released in September 2021.
Film appearances
On December 4, 2013, Taylor joined the cast of Fear Clinic. He played Bauer, one of the employees of the clinic who struggles to keep things under control when all hell breaks loose. He appeared in the 2013 horror film Bullied. In October 2015, Taylor provided the roars for the character of The Fisher King in the Doctor Who episode "Before the Flood". Taylor also appeared as a cameo in Sharknado 4, and will appear in Bad Candy.
Style and influence
Corey Taylor told Loudwire in 2015 that if it were not for Faith No More, he "wouldn't be here today". While recovering from an attempted suicide, he saw the band perform "Epic" live on the 1990 MTV Video Music Awards and the performance inspired him to begin writing and performing music again.
Corey Taylor had once been quoted that Pearl Jam had hugely influenced and inspired his music, saying that the group was "one of the biggest and best rock bands of all time". The first two Slipknot albums with Taylor's vocals, Slipknot and Iowa, both contain substantial explicit content. Many critics claimed Taylor relied on the profanity, which is why Slipknot's third album, Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses) is profanity-free, (with the exceptions of the word "bitch" on the song "Duality" and "bastard" on the spoken intro of "Pulse of the Maggots"), and did not warrant the explicit label. Compared with the previous vocalist for Slipknot, Anders Colsefni, Taylor has a vocal style that was characterized by ex-drummer Joey Jordison as "really good melodic singing". Taylor's vocal style, which contains at times melodic singing, growling, screaming, shouting, and rapping, led him to place at number 86 on the Hit Parader's Top 100 Metal Vocalists of All Time and is often compared to other vocalists such as Ivan Moody, John Bush, Phil Anselmo, and Jamey Jasta. Taylor expressed admiration for vocalists Bruce Dickinson, David Lee Roth, James Hetfield and Bruce Springsteen, but on his ideal rock frontman he states, "Freddie Mercury — nobody touches him. He is the gold standard, as far as I'm concerned. He was just electric from the second he hit the stage. It didn't matter if he was sick or tired or whatever, when he was on, man, it was like you turned a spotlight on and he just shone."
Taylor's two major projects have contrasting temperaments. Slipknot is considered to be heavy metal, nu metal and alternative metal, and expresses moods such as depression, hostility, anger, misanthropy, and rebellion. Stone Sour is classified as hard rock, expressing moods of bleakness and somberness as well as anger and rebellion.
Personal life
On September 17, 2002, Taylor's then-fiancée, Scarlett, gave birth to their son Griffin Parker. Taylor also has two daughters named Angeline and Aravis from earlier relationships. Taylor and Scarlett married on March 11, 2004, and divorced in 2007. On November 13, 2009, Taylor married Stephanie Luby at the Palms Hotel in Las Vegas. They also had a daughter named Ryan. On December 28, 2017, Taylor announced on his Twitter that he and Luby had separated. On April 7, 2019, it was announced on his Instagram page that he became engaged to Alicia Dove, creator of "Cherry Bombs". On October 6, 2019, the pair married.
Taylor has had problems with alcoholism, which Scarlett helped him through as well as keeping him from committing suicide. In 2006, Taylor told MTV that he had attempted to jump off a balcony of the eighth floor of The Hyatt on Sunset Boulevard in 2003, but "somehow [Scarlett] stopped me". This was later recanted by Taylor in an interview with Kerrang! radio and stated that it was, in fact, his friend Thom Hazaert who physically stopped him from jumping. Scarlett then told him that either he would have to get sober or she would annul their marriage. Before Stone Sour started recording Come What(ever) May in January 2006, Taylor was sober.
On August 3, 2009, he co-hosted the 2009 Kerrang! Awards alongside Scott Ian of Anthrax. The following year, they both once again co-hosted The Kerrang! Awards, where Taylor collected the K! Services to Metal award on behalf of Paul Gray, who died after an accidental overdose of morphine and fentanyl.
In early September 2010, Taylor announced that his book, Seven Deadly Sins: Settling The Argument Between Born Bad And Damaged Good, would be released on July 12, 2011, through Da Capo Press.
In April 2020, it was reported that Taylor switched to a plant-based diet to improve cardiovascular health.
In August 2021, Taylor tested positive for COVID-19 after the conclusion of a solo tour in support of his album CMFT. He was symptomatic despite being vaccinated, although he credited the vaccine for preventing him from becoming seriously ill.
Discography
Studio albums
Singles
As lead artist
As featured artist
Guest appearances
Filmography
Bibliography
Equipment
Awards
Revolver Golden Gods Awards
|-
| 2010 || Corey Taylor || Best Vocalist ||
|-
| 2013 || Corey Taylor || Best Vocalist ||
Loudwire Music Awards
|-
| 2015 || Corey Taylor || Rock Titan ||
|-
| 2017 || Corey Taylor || Best Vocalist ||
Kerrang! Awards
|-
| 2018 || Corey Taylor || Legend ||
References
Bibliography
External links
Corey Taylor interview
Metal Underground: interview
NY rock: article
IGN: article
Duff McKagan on Corey Taylor in Seattle Weekly
1973 births
American heavy metal singers
American male singers
American male guitarists
American heavy metal guitarists
American baritones
20th-century American singers
21st-century American singers
American people of German descent
American people who self-identify as being of Native American descent
American people of Irish descent
American people of Dutch descent
Grammy Award winners
Musicians from Des Moines, Iowa
Living people
Writers from Des Moines, Iowa
Writers from Waterloo, Iowa
Native American male actors
Native American singers
Nu metal singers
Roadrunner Records artists
Slipknot (band) members
Stone Sour members
Social critics
Singers with a five-octave vocal range
Singers from Iowa
Alternative metal musicians
American hard rock musicians
Male actors from Iowa
Teenage Time Killers members | true | [
"Merle \"Red\" Taylor (May 19, 1927 - May 3, 1987) was an American musician.\n\nEarly life\nTaylor was born in Saltillo, Mississippi. Taylor began playing his fiddle at an early age and was asked to play at several local events growing up. At the age of fifteen, he got his own first show in Tupelo, Mississippi. Later on, he moved to Nashville, Tennessee to start his career in music.\n\nCareer\nTaylor then took a break from music and joined the military, but eventually moved back to Nashville and got to perform at the Grand Ole Opry. Merle was also one of Bill Monroe's fiddlers and helped contribute to the start of bluegrass music. Monroe took interest in Merle \"Red\" Taylor when he composed an ear-catching melody. Monroe liked the way it sounded, and by his next recording session on October 15, 1950, he set words to Taylor's tune. He made it his own and as a tribute to \"Uncle Pen.\" It became one of his most requested songs, and Taylor remained uncredited. Red impressed hundreds of fiddlers with the bowing technique he used. As Gordon Terry, the man who placed him as a fiddle player in Monro's band, explained, \"He did a slow bow with a lot of finger work and a funner reverse...I don't think there would be the tunes there are now, had he not played fiddle because he did something nobody did.\" Merle \"Red\" Taylor played with Paul Howard, Cowboy Copas, and Hank Williams in addition to Monroe's Blue Grass Boys.\n\nReferences \n\n1927 births\n1987 deaths\nPeople from Saltillo, Mississippi\nAmerican bluegrass fiddlers\n20th-century American musicians\nCountry musicians from Mississippi",
"Gilbert Lloyd \"Gil\" Coggins (August 23, 1924 – February 15, 2004) was an American jazz pianist.\n\nCoggins was born to parents of West Indian heritage. His mother was a pianist and had her son start on piano from an early age. He attended school in New York City and Barbados. In Harlem, New York City, he attended The High School of Music & Art.\n\nIn 1946, Coggins met Miles Davis while stationed at Jefferson Barracks in Missouri. After his discharge he began playing piano professionally, working with Davis on several of his Blue Note and Prestige releases. Coggins also recorded with John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Lester Young, Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, Ray Draper, and Jackie McLean.\n\nCoggins gave up playing jazz professionally in 1954 and took up a career in real estate, playing music only occasionally. He did not record as a leader until 1990, when Interplay Records released Gil's Mood. He continued performing through the 1990s and 2000s until 2004, when he died from complications sustained in a car crash eight months earlier in Forest Hills, New York. Better Late Than Never, his second album recorded as a leader, was released posthumously.\n\nDiscography\nGil's Mood (Interplay, 1990)\nBetter Late Than Never (2003)\n\nAs sideman\nWith Miles Davis\nMiles Davis Volume 1 (Blue Note, 1956)\nMiles Davis Volume 2 (Blue Note, 1956)\nWith Ray Draper\nThe Ray Draper Quintet featuring John Coltrane (New Jazz, 1957)\nWith Jackie McLean\nFat Jazz (Jubilee, 1959)\nMakin' the Changes (New Jazz, 1960)\nA Long Drink of the Blues (New Jazz, 1961)\nStrange Blues (Prestige, 1967)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nMemorial site created by Coggins's family\nGil Coggins at Discogs\nGil Coggins at JazzTimes\n\n1928 births\n2004 deaths\nAmerican jazz pianists\nAmerican male pianists\n20th-century American pianists\nThe High School of Music & Art alumni\nJazz musicians from New York (state)\n20th-century American male musicians\nAmerican male jazz musicians"
] |
[
"Corey Taylor",
"Life",
"What is the name of the bands number Three album",
"I don't know.",
"What is his latest project",
"He was mostly raised by his single mother",
"where is he from",
"Des Moines, Iowa.",
"What is his mothers name",
"\"hole in the ground with buildings around it\".",
"what is his given name",
"Corey Todd Taylor",
"What is his best fact",
"Taylor, along with his mother and sister, lived at one point in an \"old dilapidated farmhouse\"",
"What state did he grow up in",
"Des Moines, Iowa.",
"Was his father around",
"his single mother",
"How many siblings",
"Taylor, along with his mother and sister,",
"When did he start playing music",
"She took legal custody of him so that he could continue going to school, and she helped him buy musical equipment."
] | C_0484ee08a9be40df9fe4de47ef04904a_1 | Who took legal custody of him | 11 | Who took legal custody of Corey Taylor? | Corey Taylor | Corey Todd Taylor was born on December 8, 1973 in Des Moines, Iowa. He was mostly raised by his single mother in Waterloo, Iowa, a place described by Taylor as a "hole in the ground with buildings around it". He is of Irish, German and Native American descent on his father's side, and Dutch and Irish on his mother's side. In 1979, Taylor and his mother saw the sci-fi series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. Before the series, there was a trailer for the 1978 horror film Halloween. Taylor said this "developed some sense of Slipknot in [himself]". While Halloween introduced Taylor to masks and horror themes, Taylor's grandmother introduced him to rock music, showing him a collection of Elvis Presley records from the 1950s to 1970s. He especially found songs like "Teddy Bear", "In the Ghetto", and "Suspicious Minds" to appeal to his interests the most, describing them as "good times". Taylor also began listening to Black Sabbath at a young age, beginning with their early work. Taylor, along with his mother and sister, lived at one point in an "old dilapidated farmhouse" which on days in late autumn would "look like Black Sabbath album covers". By age 15, he had developed a drug addiction and had overdosed on cocaine twice. By this time, he was living in Waterloo, but later set out on his own and ended up at his grandmother's house in Des Moines. She took legal custody of him so that he could continue going to school, and she helped him buy musical equipment. When Taylor was 18, he left his grandmother's house and went to various places in Iowa, Des Moines being a place to which he frequently returned. In 2017, on an episode of Viceland's The Therapist, Taylor revealed that he was sexually assaulted at the age of 10 by a 16-year-old friend. Taylor stated that he never told anyone about the incident until he was "probably 18" because his abuser "threatened to hurt [him] and threatened to hurt [his] mom". At age 18, when Taylor was living with his grandmother, he attempted suicide by way of overdose. His ex-girlfriend's mother drove him to the hospital in Des Moines and doctors were able to resuscitate him. He describes this as the lowest point in his life. Taylor first met his father when he was 30 years old, and now has a relationship with him, although he said their paths do not cross that often. CANNOTANSWER | his grandmother's | Corey Todd Taylor (born December 8, 1973) is an American singer, musician, songwriter and actor. He is known as the lead vocalist and lyricist of the bands Slipknot and Stone Sour.
Taylor co-founded Stone Sour with drummer Joel Ekman in 1992, playing in the Des Moines area, and working on a demo. He joined Slipknot in 1997 to replace their original vocalist and has subsequently released six studio albums with them. After the first two Slipknot albums went Platinum, Taylor revived Stone Sour to record an album and tour in 2002. His debut solo studio album, CMFT, was released on October 2, 2020, by Roadrunner Records.
He has worked with several bands, including Junk Beer Kidnap Band, Korn, Disturbed, Apocalyptica, Code Orange, Anthrax, Steel Panther, Falling in Reverse, and Soulfly.
Early life
Corey Todd Taylor was born on December 8, 1973, in Des Moines, Iowa. He was mostly raised by his single mother in Waterloo, Iowa, a place described by Taylor as a "hole in the ground with buildings around it". He is of German, Irish and Native American descent on his father's side, and Dutch and Irish on his mother's side. Around 1979, Taylor and his mother saw the sci-fi series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. Before the series, there was a trailer for the 1978 horror film Halloween. Taylor said this "developed some sense of Slipknot in [himself]". While Halloween introduced Taylor to masks and horror themes, Taylor's grandmother introduced him to rock music, showing him a collection of Elvis Presley records from the 1950s to 1970s. He especially found songs like "Teddy Bear", "In the Ghetto", and "Suspicious Minds" to appeal to his interests the most, describing them as "good times". Taylor also began listening to Black Sabbath at a young age, beginning with their early work.
By age 15, he had developed a drug addiction and had overdosed on cocaine twice. By this time, he was living in Waterloo, but later set out on his own and ended up at his grandmother's house in Des Moines. She took legal custody of him so that he could continue going to school, and she helped him buy musical equipment. When Taylor was 18, he left his grandmother's house and went to various places in Iowa, Des Moines being a place to which he frequently returned.
In 2017, on an episode of Viceland's The Therapist, Taylor revealed that he was sexually abused at the age of 10 by a 16-year-old friend. Taylor stated that he never told anyone about the incident until he was "probably 18" because his abuser "threatened to hurt [him] and threatened to hurt [his] mom". At age 18, when Taylor was living with his grandmother, he attempted suicide by way of overdose. His ex-girlfriend's mother drove him to the hospital in Des Moines and doctors were able to resuscitate him. He describes this as the lowest point in his life. Taylor first met his father when he was 30 years old, and now has a relationship with him, although he said their paths do not cross that often.
Music career
Stone Sour
Taylor is a founding member of American hard rock band Stone Sour. After he formed the band in 1992 with drummer Joel Ekman, Shawn Economaki joined filling in the bass position, leaving the electric guitar position to be filled by Josh Rand. Stone Sour recorded a demo album in 1993, and another in 1994. In 1997, Taylor was approached by the metal band, Slipknot, resulting in him abandoning Stone Sour while they were recording a demo album with Sean McMahon at SR studios. Taylor did not return until five years later to record their debut album, Stone Sour in 2002. Both Taylor and guitarist Josh Rand contacted Jim Root, Slipknot's guitarist, and Shawn Economaki, Stone Sour's original bassist, to begin writing songs for their debut album. Drummer Joel Ekman came back on board as well. This "reformation" later resulted in Stone Sour recording at Catamount Studios in Cedar Falls, Iowa.
Their self-titled debut album was released August 27, 2002, and it debuted at number 46 on the Billboard 200. Their second album, Come What(ever) May debuted at number four on the Billboard 200. It was released August 1, 2006, and charted on several different charts. Live in Moscow is currently their only album specifically released only for download. During the recording of the album, drummer Joel Ekman left the band for personal reasons. As a result, drummer Roy Mayorga was recruited, taking his place. The group released their third studio album, Audio Secrecy, on September 7, 2010.
Later, Corey Taylor announced the release of a concept double album with Stone Sour. The albums are titled "House of Gold & Bones". During the process of making the double album, bassist Shawn Economaki left the band. He was temporarily replaced for touring purposes by Johny Chow. The first part was released in October 2012 and the second part in April 2013. There are 23 songs in total, 11 on the first part and 12 on the second. In addition to these two albums is a four-part comic book series written by Taylor and published by Dark Horse Comics, which went on sale in 2013. With these albums came a story that was written by Taylor that coincide with the album. Fans can also construct a miniature "house of gold and bones" from the packaging design of the physical versions of the two albums. Taylor has also said that he would like to finish off the project by making the story into a movie but nothing has come of this yet.
Slipknot
In Des Moines, Iowa, Joey Jordison, Shawn Crahan, and Mick Thomson approached him asking him to join Slipknot. He agreed to go to one of their practices, and ended up singing in front of them. Of Slipknot's nine members, Corey was the sixth to join the band. Performing with Slipknot, he would also come to be known as "Number Eight", since the band follows a numbering scheme for its members, ranging from 0–8. According to Shawn Crahan, Corey wanted number eight, because it symbolizes infinity.
Feeling he could expand more inside Slipknot than in Stone Sour, Taylor temporarily quit Stone Sour, even though they were recording an album with Sean McMahon. Taylor's first gig with Slipknot was on August 24, 1997, which according to band members did not go well. During his first gig, Taylor was performing with facepaint instead of a mask; however, for his second show on September 12, he wore a mask that resembles his debut album mask.
Taylor has recorded with Slipknot since the release of their second demo album, a self-titled demo used to promote the band to prospective labels and producers. As their permanent vocalist, he recorded with Slipknot at Indigo Ranch in Malibu, California, and released Slipknot, the band's debut album that peaked at number one on the Top Heatseekers chart, went double platinum in the United States, and was included in the 2006 book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. Taylor was accused of copyright infringement regarding the lyrics of the song "Purity", but no action was taken. Taylor began recording for their second studio album, Iowa, in 2001 at Sound City and Sound Image in Van Nuys, Los Angeles. It was released August 28, 2001, and peaked at number one on the UK Albums Chart, as well as number three on the Billboard 200. While writing Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses), Taylor decided to write lyrics that would not warrant an explicit label. It peaked at number two on the Billboard 200. All Hope Is Gone was the first Slipknot album to peak at number one on the Billboard 200.
Other work
Taylor has appeared as a guest musician on albums by Soulfly, Apocalyptica, Damageplan, Steel Panther, and Code Orange. At one point, he was heavily involved in the recording of thrash metal band Anthrax's album, Worship Music, but the sessions remain unreleased. He also contributed to the Roadrunner United all-star album in 2005, providing vocals for the song "Rich Man". Taylor also made a brief appearance in Steel Panther's singles "Death to All but Metal", "Eyes of a Panther", and "Asian Hooker". In 2006, Taylor founded the record company Great Big Mouth Records. Taylor has produced two albums: Facecage's self-titled album and Walls of Jericho's Redemption. Taylor provided guest narration on the track "Repentance" for Dream Theater's 2007 album Systematic Chaos. In an interview with Billboard, Taylor confirmed that on January 13, 2009, he was planning on making a solo album, as well as returning to his side project Stone Sour after Slipknot's All Hope Is Gone World Tour. Taylor has stated that he was writing songs that "don't fit either of his main bands." He describes them as a cross between Foo Fighters, Johnny Cash, and Social Distortion, saying that there's "a country background that comes built-in with living in Iowa".
On March 30, 2009, it was confirmed that Taylor and the Junk Beer Kidnap Band would be performing at Rockfest in 2009. The group performed on April 24, 2009, at People's Court in Des Moines, Iowa, marking Taylor's first official solo show. Taylor performs with his band the Dum Fux with Denny Harvey, who make covers for 1970s punk rock and 1980s hair metal. Taylor also performs with Audacious P, a band that is primarily a Tenacious D cover band. Rapper Tech N9ne confirmed that Taylor was to perform on his album K.O.D., but was removed because Taylor did not submit his vocals in time. Taylor recently admitted that he tried out for the vacant singer spot in the band Velvet Revolver, but said that it just did not work out. However, according to a recent Billboard article, it seems likely that he may in fact become the vocalist for Velvet Revolver, though no official confirmation has been made. Duff McKagan added that they can neither "confirm or deny" Taylor's membership in the band but believes that Taylor is the "real deal". Slash has since ruled Taylor out as the possible new vocalist explaining that "[it] just wasn't right" although he does love him. Taylor has, however, recorded 10 new songs with the band, although drummer Matt Sorum stated it is unlikely they will ever be released. Taylor explained to Mark Hoppus on Hoppus on Music that he and McKagan were writing new music for a possible new supergroup.
On June 21, 2018, Taylor featured on the track "The Hunt" by metallic hardcore band Code Orange, the second track of the 3-track EP The Hurt Will Go On. In April 2019, Taylor collaborated on the song "Drugs" by the band Falling in Reverse. In September 2019, he was featured on Nostalgia Critic's parody album of Pink Floyd's The Wall on a cover of the opening theme for SpongeBob SquarePants.
Taylor released his solo album, CMFT, on October 2, 2020, via Roadrunner Records. The first two singles, "Black Eyes Blue" and "CMFT Must Be Stopped", were released on July 29, 2020.
Taylor mentioned in an October 3, 2020, interview about a followup album entitled CMF2, which would be completed prior to a tour supporting both it and CMFT. He contributed a cover of the Metallica song "Holier Than Thou" to the charity tribute album The Metallica Blacklist, released in September 2021.
Film appearances
On December 4, 2013, Taylor joined the cast of Fear Clinic. He played Bauer, one of the employees of the clinic who struggles to keep things under control when all hell breaks loose. He appeared in the 2013 horror film Bullied. In October 2015, Taylor provided the roars for the character of The Fisher King in the Doctor Who episode "Before the Flood". Taylor also appeared as a cameo in Sharknado 4, and will appear in Bad Candy.
Style and influence
Corey Taylor told Loudwire in 2015 that if it were not for Faith No More, he "wouldn't be here today". While recovering from an attempted suicide, he saw the band perform "Epic" live on the 1990 MTV Video Music Awards and the performance inspired him to begin writing and performing music again.
Corey Taylor had once been quoted that Pearl Jam had hugely influenced and inspired his music, saying that the group was "one of the biggest and best rock bands of all time". The first two Slipknot albums with Taylor's vocals, Slipknot and Iowa, both contain substantial explicit content. Many critics claimed Taylor relied on the profanity, which is why Slipknot's third album, Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses) is profanity-free, (with the exceptions of the word "bitch" on the song "Duality" and "bastard" on the spoken intro of "Pulse of the Maggots"), and did not warrant the explicit label. Compared with the previous vocalist for Slipknot, Anders Colsefni, Taylor has a vocal style that was characterized by ex-drummer Joey Jordison as "really good melodic singing". Taylor's vocal style, which contains at times melodic singing, growling, screaming, shouting, and rapping, led him to place at number 86 on the Hit Parader's Top 100 Metal Vocalists of All Time and is often compared to other vocalists such as Ivan Moody, John Bush, Phil Anselmo, and Jamey Jasta. Taylor expressed admiration for vocalists Bruce Dickinson, David Lee Roth, James Hetfield and Bruce Springsteen, but on his ideal rock frontman he states, "Freddie Mercury — nobody touches him. He is the gold standard, as far as I'm concerned. He was just electric from the second he hit the stage. It didn't matter if he was sick or tired or whatever, when he was on, man, it was like you turned a spotlight on and he just shone."
Taylor's two major projects have contrasting temperaments. Slipknot is considered to be heavy metal, nu metal and alternative metal, and expresses moods such as depression, hostility, anger, misanthropy, and rebellion. Stone Sour is classified as hard rock, expressing moods of bleakness and somberness as well as anger and rebellion.
Personal life
On September 17, 2002, Taylor's then-fiancée, Scarlett, gave birth to their son Griffin Parker. Taylor also has two daughters named Angeline and Aravis from earlier relationships. Taylor and Scarlett married on March 11, 2004, and divorced in 2007. On November 13, 2009, Taylor married Stephanie Luby at the Palms Hotel in Las Vegas. They also had a daughter named Ryan. On December 28, 2017, Taylor announced on his Twitter that he and Luby had separated. On April 7, 2019, it was announced on his Instagram page that he became engaged to Alicia Dove, creator of "Cherry Bombs". On October 6, 2019, the pair married.
Taylor has had problems with alcoholism, which Scarlett helped him through as well as keeping him from committing suicide. In 2006, Taylor told MTV that he had attempted to jump off a balcony of the eighth floor of The Hyatt on Sunset Boulevard in 2003, but "somehow [Scarlett] stopped me". This was later recanted by Taylor in an interview with Kerrang! radio and stated that it was, in fact, his friend Thom Hazaert who physically stopped him from jumping. Scarlett then told him that either he would have to get sober or she would annul their marriage. Before Stone Sour started recording Come What(ever) May in January 2006, Taylor was sober.
On August 3, 2009, he co-hosted the 2009 Kerrang! Awards alongside Scott Ian of Anthrax. The following year, they both once again co-hosted The Kerrang! Awards, where Taylor collected the K! Services to Metal award on behalf of Paul Gray, who died after an accidental overdose of morphine and fentanyl.
In early September 2010, Taylor announced that his book, Seven Deadly Sins: Settling The Argument Between Born Bad And Damaged Good, would be released on July 12, 2011, through Da Capo Press.
In April 2020, it was reported that Taylor switched to a plant-based diet to improve cardiovascular health.
In August 2021, Taylor tested positive for COVID-19 after the conclusion of a solo tour in support of his album CMFT. He was symptomatic despite being vaccinated, although he credited the vaccine for preventing him from becoming seriously ill.
Discography
Studio albums
Singles
As lead artist
As featured artist
Guest appearances
Filmography
Bibliography
Equipment
Awards
Revolver Golden Gods Awards
|-
| 2010 || Corey Taylor || Best Vocalist ||
|-
| 2013 || Corey Taylor || Best Vocalist ||
Loudwire Music Awards
|-
| 2015 || Corey Taylor || Rock Titan ||
|-
| 2017 || Corey Taylor || Best Vocalist ||
Kerrang! Awards
|-
| 2018 || Corey Taylor || Legend ||
References
Bibliography
External links
Corey Taylor interview
Metal Underground: interview
NY rock: article
IGN: article
Duff McKagan on Corey Taylor in Seattle Weekly
1973 births
American heavy metal singers
American male singers
American male guitarists
American heavy metal guitarists
American baritones
20th-century American singers
21st-century American singers
American people of German descent
American people who self-identify as being of Native American descent
American people of Irish descent
American people of Dutch descent
Grammy Award winners
Musicians from Des Moines, Iowa
Living people
Writers from Des Moines, Iowa
Writers from Waterloo, Iowa
Native American male actors
Native American singers
Nu metal singers
Roadrunner Records artists
Slipknot (band) members
Stone Sour members
Social critics
Singers with a five-octave vocal range
Singers from Iowa
Alternative metal musicians
American hard rock musicians
Male actors from Iowa
Teenage Time Killers members | true | [
"Sole custody is a child custody arrangement whereby only one parent has custody of a child. In the most common use of the term, sole custody refers to a context in which one parent has sole physical custody of a child.\n\nTypes of custody \nDepending upon the jurisdiction, custody may be divided into two components, legal custody and physical custody. Physical custody relates to the child's legal domicile and where the child resides. Legal custody involves the parents' participation in important life decisions pertaining to the child, such as significant medical decisions or where the child attends school. It is not uncommon for a parent with sole physical custody to share legal custody with the other parent, but it is uncommon for parents to share physical custody while one parent has sole legal custody.\n\nHistory\nHistorically, sole custody was the most common form of child custody granted after divorce. Since the 1980s, joint physical custody with shared parenting have become much more common, and in some jurisdictions there is a legislative preference or presumption in favor of joint legal custody, joint physical custody or both. Research indicates that children fare better in joint custody arrangements, or custody arrangements that allow a child to have good access to both parents.\n\nSee also\nAlternating custody\nBird's nest custody\nChild custody\nDivorce\nFamily law\nFamily court\nParens patriae\nParenting plan\nShared parenting\nSplit custody\nThird-party custody\nWard of the state\n\nReferences\n\nChild custody\nJuvenile law\nDivorce\nFamily law\nMarriage\nParenting\nFathers' rights",
"Joint custody is a form of child custody pursuant to which custody rights are awarded to both parents. Joint custody may refer to joint physical custody, joint legal custody, or both combined.\n\nIn joint legal custody, both parents of a child share major decision making regarding for example education, medical care and religious upbringing. In joint physical custody, also called shared parenting or shared residency, the child spends equal or close to equal amount of time with both parents.\n\nAfter a divorce or separation, parents may have joint physical custody as well as joint legal custody of their children, or commonly, they may have joint legal custody while one parent has sole physical custody, or rarely, they may have joint physical custody while one parent have sole legal custody.\n\nThe opposite of joint physical custody is sole custody, where the child primarily lives with one parent while the other parent may have visitation rights to regularly see his or her child. Joint physical custody is different from split custody, where some siblings live with one parent while other siblings live with the other parent.\n\nHistory\nIn England, prior to the 19th century, common law considered children to be the property of their father. However, the economic and social changes that occurred during the 19th century led to a shift in ideas about the dynamics of the family. Industrialization separated the home and the workplace, keeping fathers away from their children in order to earn wages and provide for their family. Conversely, mothers were expected to stay in the home and care for the household and the children. Important social changes such as women's suffrage and child development theories allowed for ideas surrounding the importance of maternal care.\n\nJoint legal custody\nIn joint legal custody, both parents share decision-making rights with regard to matters that may have a significant impact on their children's lives, such as where a child should attend school, the choice of a primary care physician or therapist for the child, and medical treatments. Both parents also have the ability right access to their children's records, such as educational records, health records, and other records. Under sole physical custody arrangements, joint legal custody has been found to have beneficial effects on children compared to sole legal custody.\n\nJoint physical custody\n\nIn joint physical custody, the child lives an equal amount of time with both parents or for considerable amount of time with each parent. Typically, the family court issues a parenting schedule that defines the time that the child will spend with each parent.\n\nThe percentage of joint physical versus sole physical custody varies between countries. In a comparative survey from 2005/06, covering children ages 11 to 15, it was highest in Sweden with 17% and lowest in Turkey and the Ukraine with only 1%.\n\nStudies suggest that joint custody may significantly contribute to a child's wellbeing, with lower rates of mental health issues and substance abuse, better school performance, better physical health and better family relationships as compared to children in households where one parent has sole physical custody. On the whole, studies show that children experience better outcomes in joint custody arrangements and where they have good access to both parents. While not all studies of joint custody have resulted in similar findings, none have found that harm results from joint custody.\n\nJapan\nJoint custody is not legally recognized in Japan. Japanese courts favor granting custody to a primary caregiver, and nearly always award custody to the parent who is in possession of the children, even in the aftermath of parental kidnapping. Many Japanese parents believe that recognition of joint custody rights will reduce the problem of parental kidnapping and improve parent-child relationships following a custody case.\n\nSpain\n\nIn a 2005/06 survey, about 6 percent of Spanish children ages 11 to 15 lived in a joint physical custody arrangement versus sole physical custody.\n\nJoint physical custody was introduced into Spanish law in 2005, subject to agreement by both parents. Some regions, such as Aragon and Catalonia, have subsequently passed laws that makes it the preferred option.\n\nUnited Kingdom\n\nIn the United Kingdom in 2005/06, about 7 percent of 11-15 year old children lived in a joint physical versus sole physical custody arrangement.\n\nUnited States\n\nIn the United States, joint legal custody is common while joint physical custody is rare. According to a 2005/06 survey, about 5 percent of American children ages 11 to 15 lived in a joint physical custody arrangement versus sole physical custody. Kentucky is the only state with a legal rebuttable presumption in favor of joint physical custody.\n\nReferences\n\nSee also\n\nChild custody\nJuvenile law\nDivorce\nFamily law\nMarriage\nParenting\nFathers' rights\nMothers' rights"
] |
[
"Greg LeMond",
"Anti-doping stance and controversies"
] | C_4b522eb5fc884e7f81e177165f06fcdc_0 | What happened with Anti-doping | 1 | What happened with the problem of Anti-doping? | Greg LeMond | LeMond is a longtime vocal opponent of performance-enhancing drug use. He first spoke on-record against doping in cycling after winning the 1989 Tour de France. LeMond received intense criticism in 2001 when he publicly expressed doubts about the legitimacy of Lance Armstrong's Tour success after learning of his relationship with Dr. Michele Ferrari. His outspokenness placed him in the center of the anti-doping controversy. LeMond has consistently questioned the relationship between riders and unethical sports doctors like Ferrari, and has pointed out that doping products ultimately victimize the professional cyclists who make use of them. Said LeMond: "When I speak out about doping people could translate it and think it was about the riders. Actually I feel like I am an advocate for the riders. I look at them as being treated like lab rats that are test vehicles for the doctors. The doctors, the management, the officials, they're the ones that have corrupted riders. The riders are the only ones that pay the price." LeMond's most notable conflicts have been with fellow Tour riders Lance Armstrong and Floyd Landis. He has also been critical of Alberto Contador, the UCI, and its former president, Pat McQuaid. In December 2012, LeMond claimed that a change needed to be made at the head of leadership for the UCI, and stated if called upon he would be willing to take the position himself if necessary to lead cycling out of the mire of doping. Said LeMond: "It is now or never to act. After the earthquake caused by the Armstrong case another chance will not arise. I am willing to invest to make this institution more democratic, transparent and look for the best candidate in the longer term." McQuaid rejected LeMond's call for new leadership and was dismissive of LeMond. Ultimately McQuaid was defeated in his bid for a third term by British Cycling president Brian Cookson at the September 2013 UCI Congress in Florence, Italy. Lemond had supported Cookson in the UCI Presidential battle. CANNOTANSWER | products ultimately victimize the professional cyclists who make use of them. | Gregory James LeMond (born June 26, 1961) is an American former professional road racing cyclist, entrepreneur, and anti-doping advocate. A two-time winner of the Road Race World Championship (1983 and 1989) and a three-time winner of the Tour de France (1986, 1989, and 1990), LeMond is considered by many to be the greatest American cyclist of all time, one of the great all-round cyclists of the modern era, and an icon of the sport's globalisation.
LeMond began his professional cycling career in 1981. In 1983, he became the first American male cyclist to win the Road World Championship. LeMond won the Tour de France in 1986; he is the first non-European professional cyclist to win the Tour. He was accidentally shot with pellets and seriously injured while hunting in 1987. Following the shooting, he underwent two surgeries and missed the next two Tours. At the 1989 Tour, he completed an improbable comeback to win in dramatic fashion on the race's final stage. He successfully defended his Tour title the following year, becoming one of only eight riders to win three or more Tours. LeMond retired from competition in December 1994 and was inducted into the United States Bicycling Hall of Fame in 1996. He was the first professional cyclist to sign a million-dollar contract and the first cyclist to appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated.
During his career, LeMond championed several technological advancements in pro cycling, including the introduction of aerodynamic "triathlon" handlebars and carbon fiber bicycle frames, which he later marketed through his company LeMond Bicycles. His other business interests have included restaurants, real estate, and consumer fitness equipment. LeMond is a vocal opponent of performance-enhancing drug use in cycling and is a founding board member of 1in6.org, a nonprofit charity that assists male victims of child sex abuse.
Early life and amateur career
LeMond was born in Lakewood, California, and was raised in the Washoe Valley, a ranch country on the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountain range between Reno, and the family home about 2.5 miles north of Carson City, Nevada. His parents are Bob LeMond and Bertha LeMond (d. 2006), and he has two sisters, Kathy and Karen.
LeMond grew up living an active, outdoor life. Hiking, hunting, skiing and flyfishing were boyhood pastimes. The ranch country of the Sierra Nevada mountain range lent itself to such pursuits. A hyperactive youngster, LeMond believes these outdoor activities helped keep him out of trouble. "I was a boy who just could not sit still. I had trouble focusing in school. Parents and educators then did not have the skill set to diagnose and cope with what we know now was a classic case of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). ADHD certainly was not the frequently medicated childhood disease it is today. My triumph over the symptoms was found atop two thin tires over many dusty miles." Said LeMond: "That's one of the traits. It's the inability to sit down [and listen] to something you are not really interested in and absorb it. If they are interested in it, people with ADD excel in really good ways. When I got into cycling I would say the sport itself took a fog off my brain. I was able to absorb stuff I read. It changed my life."
LeMond attended Earl Wooster High School in Reno, but lived too far away to participate in team sports. LeMond soon biked almost daily to high school. He often rode home from Wooster, taking a route over Mt. Rose, along to Incline Village, then south on Hwy 28, then downhill to Carson City, then to his home.
LeMond's introduction to cycling came in 1975, thanks to freestyle skiing pioneer Wayne Wong, who recommended the bike as an ideal off-season training aid. LeMond started competing in 1976, and after dominating the Intermediate category (13–15) and winning the first 11 races he entered, he received permission to ride against older, more seasoned competitors in the Junior (16–19) category.
In 1977, while still only 15, LeMond finished second in the Tour of Fresno to John Howard, then the United States's top road cyclist and the 1971 Pan American Games champion. LeMond caught the attention of Eddie Borysewicz, the US Cycling Federation's national team coach, who described LeMond as "a diamond, a clear diamond." LeMond represented the United States at the 1978 Junior World Championships in Washington, D.C., where he finished ninth in the road race, and again in the 1979 Junior World Championships in Argentina, where he won gold, silver and bronze medals—the highlight being his victory in the road race. At age 18, LeMond was selected for the 1980 U.S. Olympic cycling team, the youngest ever to make the team. However, the U.S. boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow prevented him from competing there.
Borysewicz, whom LeMond described as his "first real coach," wanted to retain his protégé through the next Olympic cycle and discouraged him from turning pro, but LeMond was determined. Nevertheless, while he was the reigning Junior World Road Champion in 1980, LeMond received no professional offers, and so in the spring of 1980, he joined the U.S. National cycling team for a 6-week European racing campaign. There, he finished third overall in the Circuit des Ardennes before winning the 1980 Circuit de la Sarthe stage race in France, thereby becoming the first American and youngest rider of any nationality "in the history of the sport to win a major pro-am cycling event [in Europe]." That victory, and the subsequent press coverage, raised LeMond's profile in Europe and he was scouted at his next event (the Ruban Granitier Breton stage race) by Cyrille Guimard, the Renault–Elf–Gitane team's directeur sportif. Guimard said he was impressed with LeMond's spirit, and told him, "You have the fire to be a great champion," before offering him a professional contract for 1981 with Renault. After he returned to the United States, LeMond won the 1980 Nevada City Classic, considered to be one of the most historic and challenging professional cycling races in United States. Despite eventually receiving several other offers to turn professional besides Guimard's, LeMond did not consider them seriously, and he signed with Renault in Paris on the day the 1980 Tour de France finished.
Professional career
LeMond was an "exceptionally gifted" amateur rider who quickly established himself as one of the most talented cyclists on the professional circuit. Respected cycling journalist John Wilcockson, who reported the Tour de France for more than 40 years, described LeMond as a rider who was fuoriclasse.
1981–1983: Early years
LeMond's first professional victory came three months into his 1981 debut when he won a stage of the French Tour de l'Oise. He followed with a win in the Coors Classic in the United States, finishing ahead of Sergei Sukhoruchenkov, the 1980 Olympic road champion. The major step forward in 1981 occurred in the Dauphiné Libéré stage race where LeMond placed third. The achievement is the more remarkable because he rode the race in support of team leader Bernard Hinault. LeMond missed standing on the podium with race winner Hinault, as Pascal Simon had finished ahead of him. Two weeks later Simon was assessed a 10-minute penalty when it was discovered he had been doping. LeMond considered the race to have been a "major steppingstone" in his career. Said LeMond: "It showed me that I had the kind of climbing ability that you need to win the top European stage races." LeMond won a total of five races in his rookie season of 1981.
LeMond broke his collarbone on April 11, 1982, while racing the cycling classic Liège–Bastogne–Liège. The injury forced LeMond to ride a reduced schedule before entering the World Championships, which were in Goodwood, England that year. In the men's road race competition, LeMond broke for the line but was out-sprinted by Italian Giuseppe Saronni. Following the race, LeMond's American teammate Jacques Boyer accused LeMond of chasing him down in the final 800 meters. Saronni was very strong at the end of the race and flew past Boyer and LeMond, winning by 5 seconds over LeMond, with another 5 seconds back to Kelly. Boyer placed tenth. Bronze medalist Sean Kelly, a favorite to win the race, was with Saronni when he caught LeMond with about 200 meters to go, but he could not hold his wheel. Said Kelly: "I don't think that Boyer was fading ... He got quite a good gap. Nobody wanted to go after him ... Yes, LeMond chased down Boyer. Boyer was the only man up the road."
LeMond was supported by his teammate George Mount, who observed, "What's LeMond going to do? Throw his bike down in front of everybody because Boyer is such a good buddy of everyone? ... Hell no—he's going to start sprinting because it's less than 200 meters to go and the sprint's already been going for a couple hundred meters. LeMond made a good move and a good sprint ... Boyer was not going to win that race. The best he could have got was fifth or sixth place."
LeMond did not apologize. The U.S. team was not as set up as the European teams, and did not have an independent race to determine the national champion. Instead, the highest finisher at the World's was considered the national champion. LeMond had argued for the team to compete as the European teams did, but team management and Boyer voted against him. Thus, unlike the other teams at the world championship, the US riders were competing against each other. Aged 21, LeMond was the first American pro to win a medal at the World's since Frank Kramer took silver in 1912. Said LeMond: "I'm racing for Renault and I'm racing for myself. It's a business and it's my living. To me, that second place was almost as good as winning, especially at my age."
Two weeks later, on September 20, 1982, LeMond won the mountainous 12-day, Tour de l'Avenir by a record 10 minutes, 18 seconds. The victory, and the time advantage LeMond held at the end, stunned Europe and provided broad confirmation that LeMond was indeed fuoriclasse.
The following year, 1983, LeMond won the Road World Championship outright, becoming the first American male cyclist to do so. (Audrey McElmury won in 1969 and Beth Heiden won in 1980.) LeMond's cycling talent—his overall strength, climbing ability, ability to ride a fast time trial and his capacity to recover quickly—all suggested LeMond would be an excellent prospect for the most demanding Grand Tours.
1984–1986: Grand Tours
LeMond rode his first Tour de France in 1984, finishing third in support of team leader Laurent Fignon, and winning the white jersey of the young rider classification. The following year he was brought across to La Vie Claire to ride in support of team captain Bernard Hinault who had regained his form and was attempting to win his fifth Tour. French businessman and team owner Bernard Tapie signed LeMond with a $1 million contract over three years. In the race Hinault led through the early mountain stages, but suffered a crash and came into difficulty. At this point, it was clear that LeMond was an elite rider capable of winning the Tour in his own right. LeMond possessed a natural talent for riding the Grand Tours, and got stronger over the course of a three-week race. The injured Hinault was vulnerable, and his competitors knew it. Stage 17 included three major climbs in the Pyrenees. On the second, the Col du Tourmalet, LeMond followed Stephen Roche in an attack, but was not given permission to help build on the gap over the field. The managers of his La Vie Claire team ordered the 24-year-old LeMond not to ride with Roche, but to sit on his wheel, a tactic to use the rider in front as cover for wind resistance so the following rider uses less energy. The pace Roche could put out by himself eventually slowed, and other riders came up to join the two men. Hinault recovered as well, though he did not regain the lead group. At the end of the stage LeMond was frustrated to the point of tears. He later revealed that team management and his own coach Paul Köchli had misled him as to how far back Hinault had dropped during the crucial Stage 17 mountain stage. Hinault won the 1985 Tour, with LeMond finishing second, 1:42 behind. LeMond had ridden as the dutiful lieutenant, and his support enabled Hinault to win his fifth Tour. In repayment for his sacrifice Hinault promised to help LeMond win the Tour the following year.
Hoping to end the season on a high note LeMond entered the World Championships road race with the strongest team the United States ever fielded. Riders included Boyer and LeMond, as well as Andrew Hampsten, Ron Kiefel, Bob Roll and Eric Heiden and this time the American team was set up to help the three strongest riders in LeMond, then Hampsten and Kiefel. Throughout the race LeMond answered repeated attacks and led many chase groups to contain dangerous breakaways, but by the final lap of the race he was beginning to tire. He was however, part of the group that was going to win, and while Hampsten and Keifel survived the race to this point, unfortunately they were too far back to assist LeMond in the final ten kilometers. Inside the final kilometer the last rider to launch an attack was former Tour and Vuelta champion Joop Zoetemelk. Being as he was 38 years old and long past his prime none of the remaining contenders including LeMond, Claudio Corti, Robert Millar, Moreno Argentin or Stephen Roche took the attack seriously initially. Zoetemelk opened a sizeable gap however, before long it was in excess of a hundred meters and quickly growing. He also had two teammates remaining in Johan Van der Velde and Gerard Veldscholten, assisting him by riding at the front but not actually chasing, therefore slowing the chase group. Italian rider Moreno took up the chase but he had nothing left to close the gap and actually put his hand in the air waving for the other riders to come forward and take up the pursuit. LeMond too had nothing left to chase down this final attack feeling that if he did, he wouldn't have anything left for the sprint and wouldn't win any medal at all. In a notable upset, Zoetemelk beat the favorites to the line by three seconds as LeMond out-sprinted Argentin to take the silver. There was no controversy following this silver medal for LeMond and immediately after the race he rode up alongside the Dutchman and congratulated him saying, "Nice ride Joop."
For the 1986 Tour, LeMond was a co-leader of the La Vie Claire team alongside Hinault. Hinault's support seemed less certain the closer the race approached. An unspoken condition was that his help would be contingent upon LeMond demonstrating that he was clearly the better rider. Hinault was in superb form, and had the chance to win an unprecedented sixth Tour. Hinault chose to let the Stage 9 individual time trial be the decider for which rider would receive the full support of team La Vie Claire. Hinault won the Stage 9 time trial, finishing 44 seconds in front of LeMond. LeMond had bad luck during the stage, having suffered a punctured tire requiring a wheel change, and later in the stage a bicycle change was required when he broke a wheel. He was frustrated with the outcome and the impact it would have on how the team would function for the remainder of the race. In Stage 12, the first mountain stage of the race in the Pyrenees, Hinault attacked the lead group and built up an overall lead. By the end of Stage 12, Hinault had a five-minute lead over LeMond and the other top riders. He claimed he was trying to draw out LeMond's rivals, but none of these attacks were planned with LeMond. He was clearly willing to ride aggressively and take advantage of the opportunities presented. LeMond was never placed in difficulty, except by his own teammate. The following day Hinault broke away again early but was caught and then dropped by LeMond on the final climb of Stage 13, allowing LeMond to gain back four and a half minutes. The next three stages brought the Tour to the Alps. On Stage 17 LeMond and Urs Zimmermann dropped Hinault from the leading group, and the end of the day saw LeMond pulling on the yellow jersey of race leader, the first time it had ever been worn by a rider from the United States. The following day in the Alps saw Hinault attack again early on the first climb, but he was pulled back. Attempting an escape on the descent, he was unable to separate himself from LeMond. The La Vie Claire team leaders were both excellent descenders. As they ascended up the next col they continued to pull away from the field, and maintained the gap as they reached the base of the final climb, the vaunted Alpe d'Huez. They pressed on through the crowd, ascending the twenty-one switchbacks of Alpe d'Huez and reaching the summit together. LeMond put an arm around Hinault and gave him a smile and the stage win in a show of unity, but the infighting was not over. Hinault attacked again on Stage 19 and had to be brought back by teammates Andrew Hampsten and Steve Bauer. Commenting on the team situation prior to the final individual time trial at Stage 20, LeMond offered the following with a wry smile: "He's attacked me from the beginning of the Tour De France. He's never helped me once, and I don't feel confident at all with him."
LeMond had to keep his eye on his teammate and rival throughout the race. Hinault rode aggressively and repeatedly attacked, and the division created in the La Vie Claire team was unmistakable. LeMond would keep the yellow jersey to the end of the race and win his first Tour, but he felt betrayed by Hinault and the La Vie Claire team leadership. LeMond later stated the 1986 Tour was the most difficult and stressful race of his career.
1987–1988: Shooting accident and recovery
LeMond had planned to defend his title in the 1987 Tour de France with La Vie Claire, but he was unable to participate. Earlier that year, while riding in the Tirreno–Adriatico spring tune-up race, LeMond fell and fractured his left wrist. He returned to the United States to recover from the injury. The week before returning to Europe, he went turkey hunting on a ranch co-owned by his father in Lincoln, California. LeMond was with Rodney Barber and Patrick Blades, his uncle and brother-in-law. The trio had become separated when Blades, who heard movement behind him, turned and fired through a bush. The movement had come from LeMond, who was hit in his back and right side with approximately 60 pellets. LeMond's injuries were life-threatening, but a police helicopter was already airborne near the scene and transported LeMond on a 15-minute air medical flight to the Medical Center at University of California-Davis. LeMond was taken for emergency surgery. He had suffered a pneumothorax to his right lung and extensive bleeding, having lost some 65 percent of his blood volume. A physician informed LeMond later that he had been within 20 minutes of bleeding to death. The operation saved his life, but four months later he developed a small bowel obstruction due to adhesions that had formed following the shooting. He underwent another surgery to relieve the obstruction and take down the adhesions. Concerned that his team would drop him if they knew the shooting accident required a second surgery, LeMond asked the surgeons to remove his appendix at the same time. He then informed his team that he had had his appendix removed, but the rest of the story was left somewhat vague. The events effectively ended his 1987 season, and in October he announced he would return to serious competition the following February, with the Dutch PDM team.
With 35 shotgun pellets still in his body, including three in the lining of his heart and five more embedded in his liver, LeMond attempted to return to racing in 1988. His comeback was hampered by over-training which resulted in tendonitis in his right shin requiring surgery. He missed the Tour for the second year running. Tensions in the relationship between LeMond and PDM were aggravated when LeMond discovered that doping was going on at the PDM squad. The result was that LeMond moved from PDM, one of the strongest teams in the peloton, to ADR, a team based in Belgium. The team was co-sponsored by Coors Light for American races. The deal was completed on New Year's Eve, just hours before LeMond would have been legally obliged to ride another season for the Dutch team. Joining the Belgian ADR squad allowed LeMond to continue to compete, but with teammates like Johan Museeuw who were better suited to riding Classics than Grand Tours.
1989: Return to elite level
After struggling in the 1989 Paris–Nice early-season race and failing to improve his condition, LeMond informed his wife Kathy that he intended to retire from professional cycling after the 1989 Tour de France. He had some flashes of form with 6th overall in Tirreno-Adriatico and in the two-day Critérium International, sharing an escape with Fignon, Indurain, Mottet, Roche and Madiot and finishing 4th overall. He started the 1989 Giro d'Italia in May as preparation for the Tour to follow, but struggled in the mountains and was not in contention for any of the leaders' jerseys before the final individual time trial into Florence. LeMond placed a surprising second there, more than a minute ahead of overall winner Laurent Fignon. Some of his improvement he attributed to an anti-anemia treatment he received twice during the race.
Coming into the 1989 Tour de France LeMond was not considered a contender for the general classification (GC). His own most optimistic hope was to finish his final Tour in the top 20. Without the weight of expectation and other pressures of being a Tour favorite, LeMond surprised observers with a strong ride in the prologue in Luxembourg, finishing fourth out of 198 riders. Buoyed by the result, LeMond continued to ride well over the opening flat stages, winning the stage 5 individual time trial, and gaining the yellow jersey as leader of the general classification for the first time in three years. LeMond seemed to ride himself into better condition during the first week's flat stages, and he was coming into peak form by the time the Tour reached the mountains. LeMond remained at the front of the race in the Pyrénées, but lost the lead to his former teammate and rival Laurent Fignon on stage 10 in Superbagnères. Five days later LeMond reclaimed yellow in the Alps, after the stage 15 mountain time trial from Gap to Orcières-Merlette. The see-saw battle continued, and when Fignon attacked on the upper slopes of Alpe d'Huez LeMond was unable to go with him, placing the yellow jersey back on the shoulders of Fignon. Fignon held a 50-second advantage over LeMond going into the 21st and final stage, a rare individual time trial from Versailles to the Champs-Élysées in Paris.
Fignon had won the Tour twice before, in 1983 and 1984, and was a very capable time trialist. It seemed improbable that LeMond could take 50 seconds off Fignon over the short course. This would require LeMond to gain two seconds per kilometer against one of the fastest chrono-specialists in the world. LeMond had done wind tunnel testing in the off season and perfected his riding position. He rode the time trial with a rear disc wheel, a cut-down Giro aero helmet and the same Scott clip-on aero bars which had helped him to the Stage 5 time trial win. Holding his time trialing position LeMond was able to generate less aerodynamic drag than Fignon, who used a pair of disc wheels but chose to go helmetless and did not use the aero bars that are now commonplace in time trials. Instructing his support car not to give him his split times, LeMond rode flat-out and finished at a record pace to beat Fignon by 8 seconds and claim his second Tour de France victory. As LeMond embraced his wife and rejoiced on the Champs-Élysées, Fignon collapsed onto the tarmac, then sat in shock and wept.
The final margin of victory of eight seconds was the closest in the Tour's history. LeMond's average speed for the stage 21 time trial was, at that time, the fastest in Tour history. Since then, only the 1994 and 2015 prologues and David Zabriskie's 2005 time trial performance have been faster. The press immediately labeled LeMond's come-from-behind triumph as, "the most astonishing victory in Tour de France history," and while LeMond admitted that it felt almost "too good to be true," he personally rated it as "much more satisfying" than his first overall Tour win in 1986.
LeMond's return to the pinnacle of cycling was confirmed on August 27, when he won the World Championships road race in Chambéry, France. Late in the race with less than 10 km to go the lead group, who had been away since very early in the race, made up of three very strong riders in Steven Rooks, Thierry Claveyrolat and Soviet star Dimitri Konyshev were trying to hold on to fight for the victory amongst themselves when Laurent Fignon broke away from the pursuing group in an effort to chase the leaders down and solo to victory. On the final climb of the race LeMond attacked in pursuit of Fignon on his own. Before long he had caught the Frenchman and not long after that the pair could see the lead group in front of them and they were quickly closing the gap. LeMond briefly dropped Fignon and caught the lead group on his own. Immediately upon catching Rooks, Claveyrolat and Konyshev he moved to the front and set the pace as two other riders in Canadian Steve Bauer and Irishman Sean Kelly attempted to bridge the gap up to LeMond and the lead group. Bauer ended up getting a flat tire essentially ending his hopes at a high finish while Sean Kelly was able to fight his way to the front group, which was bad news for LeMond and the others as Kelly was one of the best sprinters in the world. Fignon was able to rejoin the lead group as well and as the race approached the finish Fignon attacked on numerous occasions trying to drop the remaining riders. Rooks also launched an attack to go for the solo victory but was caught by LeMond, Fignon and the others. Inside the final kilometer Fignon continued attacking trying to break free, but just couldn't force open a gap and began to fall back as the sprint materialized eventually finishing in 6th place. LeMond, Konyshev and Kelly were the strongest riders when it came to the final sprint for victory and they finished in that order. After the race LeMond said that he did not feel well and even considered abandoning the race. With two laps to go he began feeling stronger and stated, "I was racing for the Gold medal. I wanted that World Championship. And with one kilometer to go, I knew I could get it." LeMond was only the fifth person in history to win both the Tour de France and the World Championship in the same year. In December, Sports Illustrated magazine named LeMond its 1989 "Sportsman of the Year", the first time a cyclist received the honor.
1990: A third tour win
LeMond parlayed the success of his 1989 season into the then-richest contract in the sport's history, signing a $5.5 million deal for three years with of France, the first time a cyclist had signed a multi-million dollar contract. He entered the 1990 Tour de France as defending champion and a pre-race favorite after leaving ADR to join the much stronger French team. At "Z" his teammates included Robert Millar, Eric Boyer and Ronan Pensec, all of whom already had finishes in the top six of the Tour de France. This unified roster of strong riders appeared capable of supporting LeMond in the mountains and controlling the race on the flats.
The squad's tactical plan was upset on the first day, when a breakaway that included LeMond's teammate Ronan Pensec, but no major favorites, arrived ten minutes ahead of the field. LeMond was prevented from challenging for the lead until the yellow jersey left the shoulders of his teammate. Surprisingly Pensec held the lead through the first high mountain stages, including Alpe d'Huez, but he would lose it soon after to the relative unknown Claudio Chiappucci.
LeMond closed in on Chiappucci and on stage 16 he put his stamp of authority on the race during the final climb of Luz Ardiden. Late in this stage, after all of the breakaways had been caught he launched a devastating attack that no one could answer. Miguel Induráin was the only rider able to get on LeMond's wheel but it was LeMond dictating the pace all the way up the climb as Chiappucci, Delgado and all of the other favorites fell further and further behind. While Induráin stayed with LeMond, he was not a threat for victory, but his performance put the cycling world on notice as he would win the next five Tours. Near the end of the stage LeMond sat up and the Spaniard took the stage win, but the devastation of LeMond's competitors was all but complete as there was now only +0:05 between LeMond and the yellow jersey.
He finally overtook Chiappucci on the final individual time trial on stage 20, where he finished over two minutes ahead of the unheralded Italian. LeMond at last had the yellow jersey, wearing it the following day as the Tour rode into Paris. LeMond had the distinction of winning the 1990 Tour without taking any of the individual stages. He remains the last rider to win the Tour while wearing the world champion jersey. Over the course of the 1990 Tour the perceived strength of the Z team was confirmed, as they led the team classification through most of the race, adding the team title to LeMond's yellow jersey. LeMond's 1990 Tour victory made him one of just five cyclists to win three or more Tours. As of 2021 a total of seven cyclists have won three times or more.
In September, LeMond attempted to defend his title at the 1990 UCI Road World Championships, but finished fourth, eight seconds behind the winner, his former teammate Rudy Dhaenens of Belgium.
1991–1994: Change in the peloton and retirement
LeMond felt confident before the 1991 Tour de France. He was the defending champion, trained well and had a solid team to support him. LeMond was among the leaders going into the Stage 8 individual time trial, and he finished second to the Spaniard Miguel Indurain. LeMond felt he was riding extremely well, and though his TT-effort had propelled him into the yellow jersey as leader of the general classification, losing eight seconds to Indurain shook his confidence. He held the yellow jersey for the next four days until Stage 12, a challenging mountain stage. LeMond experienced difficulty on the first climb and he cracked on the Col du Tourmalet, losing significant time to Claudio Chiappucci, and eventual winner Indurain. He continued to race, but was unable to seriously challenge for the lead thereafter, finishing the 1991 Tour seventh overall.
In 1992, LeMond won the Tour DuPont, which would be the last major win of his career. He would also have a strong top 10 finish in Paris-Roubaix early in the season. He never won any of cycling's 'Monument' races but he had several high places in four out of five of them throughout his career including 4th in Paris-Roubaix, 3rd in Liège-Bastogne-Liège and 2nd in Milan San Remo as well as the Giro di Lombardia.
In the 1992 Tour de France he started strongly and finished fourth in a breakaway on Stage 6 that put him fifth overall and he maintained his fifth place until the mountain stages when he lost form disastrously and lost more than 45 minutes on the stage to Sestrieres before quitting the race the next day—when his compatriot and former domestique Andrew Hampsten won atop Alpe d'Huez. While LeMond claimed a serious saddle sore caused him to abandon, he had earlier stated, "My climbing is not like usual. I've climbed much better in the past Tours. This year I'm just not feeling my usual self."
LeMond did extensive endurance training on the road the following winter, but his performances the following spring failed to improve. LeMond had to abandon the 1993 Giro d'Italia two days before the final stage after difficult racing left him 125th on GCC and third-from-last in the final time trial. He was too exhausted to enter the 1993 Tour de France. Following the 1993 season LeMond hired renowned Dutch physiologist Adrie van Diemen to advise him on a new technique to monitor training and measure performance. The (SRM) power-based training would make use of the watt as a guide to power output. In November 1993 LeMond confided to Samuel Abt that power output in watts would become the key metric. The watt has gained wide acceptance as the best measure of a cyclist's training performance.
The following year LeMond began the 1994 Tour de France but found he was unable to race effectively. He had to abandon after the first week before the race had reached the difficult mountain stages. That December, he announced his retirement. At the time the reasons for LeMond's increasing difficulties were not entirely known. At a loss, he speculated that a condition known as mitochondrial myopathy might be responsible for the difficulty he was having performing against the current riders. In 2007, however, LeMond speculated that he might not have had the condition after all, and suggested that lead toxicity from the shotgun pellets still embedded in his body might have been responsible, the effects of which were increased by heavy training.
LeMond has acknowledged since 2010 that the increasing prevalence of doping in cycling contributed to his lack of competitiveness. Said LeMond: "Something had changed in cycling. The speeds were faster and riders that I had easily out performed were now dropping me. At the time, the team I was on, Team Z, became more and more demanding, more and more concerned..." He stated he had been told in 1994 that he would need to blood dope in order to win again. He frankly admitted to Abt in 1999: "I figure I had three months that went right for me after the hunting accident," three months in which he won the two Tours and a world road race championship. "The rest were just pure suffering, struggling, fatigue, always tired."
In a wide-ranging interview with American novelist Bryan Malessa in 1998, LeMond was asked if his career had not been interrupted by the hunting accident, how did he feel he would compare to five time Tour winners such as Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain. LeMond responded: "Of course you can't rewrite racing history, but I'm confident that I would have won five Tours."
Two years after his retirement LeMond was inducted into the United States Bicycling Hall of Fame in a ceremony at Rodale Park in Trexlertown, Pennsylvania. The event was held on June 8, 1996, during the U.S. Olympic Cycling Team Trials.
In July 2014, ESPN announced the premiere of a new 30 for 30 film entitled Slaying the Badger. The film centers on LeMond and his former teammate Hinault at the 1986 Tour de France. It is based on the book of the same name by Richard Moore, and it premiered July 22, 2014 on ESPN.
Business interests
LeMond was a pioneer in the use of carbon fiber bicycle frames in European professional road cycling, and his Tour de France win in 1986 ahead of Bernard Hinault was the first for a carbon-framed bicycle. Ironically, given the rivalry that existed at the time between the American and his French teammate, LeMond rode a "Bernard Hinault" Signature Model Look prototype that year. LeMond also won the 1989 Tour de France, the 1989 World Championship, and his final Tour de France in 1990 on carbon fiber frames. These bicycle frames featured "Greg LeMond" branding.
LeMond Cycles
In 1990, LeMond founded LeMond Bicycles to develop machines for himself that would also be marketed and sold to the public. The following year, searching for an equipment edge for Team Z at the 1991 Tour de France, LeMond concluded an exclusive licensing agreement between his company and Carbonframes, Inc., to access the latter's advanced composites technology. Whilst using the bikes for the 1991 Tour, he would maintain his carbon bike in his hotel room, leading his mechanics to fear it had been stolen. While LeMond briefly led the 1991 Tour overall, riding his Carbonframes-produced "Greg LeMond" bicycle, the company eventually faltered, something LeMond blamed on "under-capitalization" and poor management by his father. Carbonframes and LeMond Cycles "parted amiably two years later." In 1995, with his company allegedly nearly bankrupt, LeMond reached a licensing-agreement with Trek Bicycle Corporation, according to which the Wisconsin-based company would manufacture and distribute bicycles designed with LeMond that would be sold under the "LeMond Bicycles" brand. LeMond would later claim that going into business with Trek "destroyed" his relationship with his father. The lucrative partnership, which generated revenue for Trek in excess of US$100,000,000, would be renewed several times over the course of 13 years, but it ultimately ended in acrimony after LeMond's relationship with Trek deteriorated over his staunch anti-doping advocacy.
LeMond found himself at odds with Trek in July 2001 after he expressed public concern over the relationship between Italian doping doctor Michele Ferrari and Trek's star athlete, Lance Armstrong. Trek president John Burke pressured LeMond to apologize, claiming, "Greg's public comments hurt the LeMond brand and the Trek brand." Burke allegedly justified his demand for an apology by advising that, "As a contractual partner, he [LeMond] could criticize doping only generally – not point his finger at specific athletes, particularly one that happens to be the company's main cash cow." Armstrong reportedly said privately he could "shut him up" by contacting Trek, as documented in affidavits by Frankie and Betsy Andreu released in the 2012 USADA doping report. LeMond issued an apology for his comment.
In a 2007 interview, LeMond accused Armstrong of trying to sabotage his relationship with Trek bicycles. In March 2008, LeMond Cycling Inc sued Trek for failing to properly promote and distribute the LeMond brand, and for attempting to "silence" LeMond's public comments about doping, attributing this to the influence of Armstrong on Trek. His complaint included statistics detailing slow sales in some markets, including the fact that between September 2001 and June 2007, Trek only sold $10,393 worth of LeMond bikes in France, a country in which LeMond was both famous and popular. Trek responded in April 2008, announcing that it was dropping LeMond Bicycles from its product line and that it would sue to sever the licensing agreement.
As promised, Trek counter-sued and stopped producing bicycles under the LeMond brand. After nearly two years of litigation, LeMond reached a confidential out-of-court settlement with Trek in February 2010. The settlement permitted the case to be dismissed with prejudice, meaning, "neither side can produce the same claims against one another in a future lawsuit." Although settlement terms were not disclosed, LeMond reportedly obtained full control over the LeMond Bicycles name, while Trek made a donation of US$200,000 to the charity 1in6, of which LeMond was a founding member of the board of directors.
LeMond Fitness/Revolution
In 2002, LeMond, Bernie Boglioli and others founded LeMond Fitness, Inc. "to help individuals achieve their fitness and performance goals and train more effectively." The company's primary business is the development and manufacture of bicycle trainers and indoor exercise bikes for consumers in the United States and internationally. LeMond serves as Chairman of the Board. In 2012, Hoist Fitness negotiated to purchase an interest in the company and announced plans to move its headquarters to Hoist's offices in San Diego, CA. In late 2012, LeMond purchased the LeMond Revolution from Hoist, relaunching with a new management team in Minneapolis. Later, he also formed LeMond LLC to introduce a suite of brands. Professional cycling's team renewed its sponsorship with LeMond to use its Revolution trainers for another three seasons. The team won several stages of the Tour de France, plus the general classification of the 2012 Giro d'Italia.
Partnership with Time
At the Interbike trade show in September 2013, LeMond announced that he was returning to the business of bicycle manufacture and sales by partnering with French company Time. The new line began with a series of commemorative designed bicycles, to be followed with road, cyclocross, and gravel-road models. LeMond purchased Time Sport USA, the US distributor for the company. Said LeMond: "I'm really excited to be back in the bike industry."
Real estate
In 2002, LeMond joined his parents-in-law David and Sacia Morris, friend Michael Snow and J.P. Morgan & Co. fund manager Jorge Jasson to invest in the exclusive Yellowstone Club, a Big Sky, Montana, private ski and golf community founded by timber baron Tim Blixseth and his wife Edra. Each of the five partners paid Blixseth $750,000 for one percent shares in the exclusive resort. LeMond also purchased several building lots and maintained a property at the resort. Four years later, LeMond and partners sued Blixseth in 2006 following reports of a Credit Suisse loan to the resort of $375 million from which Blixseth reportedly took $209 million in a disputed partial payout for his ownership stake. The Credit Suisse loan was based on a $1.16 billion Cushman & Wakefield valuation of the resort, for which LeMond and partners each sought $11.6 million for their one-percent shares. In 2007, LeMond settled his suit with the Blixseths for $39 million. However, he and his partners remained creditors as the Blixseths defaulted on a $20 million payment (after having already paid the group $18 million). In 2009, the Blixseths divorced and the Club went bankrupt.
Restaurants
LeMond became a restaurateur in August 1990 when, in partnership with his wife and her parents, he opened Scott Kee's Tour de France on France Avenue in the Minneapolis suburb of Edina, Minnesota. LeMond described the restaurant, which was named for its chef (LeMond's brother-in-law), as "a dream of five years come true." Explaining the origin of the concept, LeMond said, "Kathy and I have eaten at the finest establishments in France, Italy and Belgium. Our favorites have always been small places, family-owned." LeMond also partnered in several Bruegger's bagel bakery-café franchises.
LeMond Composites
LeMond founded LeMond Composites in 2016 to manufacture high-volume, low-cost carbon fiber composites under a licensing agreement with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and an exclusive 20-year licensing agreement with Deakin University. In 2017 LeMond and his family moved from Minnesota to Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to be close to the $125 million LeMond Composites manufacturing facility.
On October 16, 2017, Australian politician Sarah Henderson announced that LeMond Composites would receive AU$2.5 million (US$ million) in Australian Federal Government funding to establish a carbon fiber manufacturing plant in Geelong, Australia.
Broadcasting
In 2014, LeMond joined Eurosport as a pundit for the channel's cycling coverage, providing analysis at Paris–Roubaix, the Giro d'Italia and the Tour de France, and hosting his own monthly program LeMond on Cycling. He continued to work for the channel until 2017.
Anti-doping stance and controversies
LeMond is a longtime vocal opponent of performance-enhancing drug use. He first spoke on-record against doping in cycling after winning the 1989 Tour de France. He has consistently questioned the relationship between riders and unethical sports doctors and has pointed out that doping products ultimately victimize the professional cyclists who make use of them. Said LeMond: "When I speak out about doping people could translate it and think it was about the riders. Actually I feel like I am an advocate for the riders. I look at them as being treated like lab rats that are test vehicles for the doctors. The doctors, the management, the officials, they're the ones that have corrupted riders. The riders are the only ones that pay the price."
LeMond received intense criticism in 2001 when he publicly criticized Lance Armstrong's relationship with Dr. Michele Ferrari. Ferrari is an Italian physician and sports trainer who admitted to practicing blood doping and advocated the controlled use of the banned substance erythropoietin by athletes. Upon learning of Armstrong's association with Ferrari, LeMond said:
"When Lance won the prologue to the 1999 Tour I was close to tears, but when I heard he was working with Michele Ferrari I was devastated. In the light of Lance's relationship with Ferrari, I just don't want to comment on this year's Tour. This is not sour grapes. I'm disappointed in Lance, that's all it is."
LeMond's comments placed him in the center of an anti-doping controversy. About a month later, following pressure from both Armstrong and Trek, LeMond issued an apology for his comment; he called Armstrong "a great champion" and added, "I do not believe, in any way, that he has ever used any performance-enhancing substances. I believe his performances are the result of the same hard work, dedication and focus that were mine 10 years ago."
In 2004, LeMond spoke out again. On the heels of successive Tour de France wins by Armstrong, LeMond said, "If Armstrong's clean, it's the greatest comeback. And if he's not, then it's the greatest fraud." He went public with the fallout of his 2001 statement, alleging that Armstrong had threatened to defame him and threatened his business interests as well:
"[Armstrong] basically said 'I could find 10 people that will say you took EPO' ... The week after, I got multiple people that were on Lance ... Lance's camp, basically saying 'You better be quiet,' and I was quiet for three years. I have a business ... I have bikes that are sold ... and I was told that my sales might not be doing too well if ... just the publicity, the negative publicity." The same month, LeMond told French newspaper Le Monde that Armstrong was "ready to do anything to keep his secret. I don't know how he can continue to convince everybody of his innocence." At a press conference Armstrong gave in September 2008 to announce his return to cycling, LeMond publicly challenged him with questions about doping. Armstrong appeared angry and interrupted LeMond, telling him it was time to move on. In August 2012, the USADA announced that Armstrong had been issued a lifetime ban from cycling competition due to his involvement in a massive doping scheme. In addition, the USADA stripped Armstrong of his seven Tour de France titles.
LeMond has also clashed with fellow Tour rider Floyd Landis regarding the doping issue. On May 17, 2007, LeMond testified at a USADA hearing convened to weigh the evidence of doping by Landis during the 2006 Tour de France. Under oath, LeMond described a phone conversation he had with Landis on August 6, 2006, as well as another with Landis' business manager, Will Geoghegan, on May 16, 2007, the evening before LeMond appeared to testify. The major points of the testimony were:
In the August 6 conversation, LeMond said he told Landis that "If you did (admit to having used banned substances), you could single-handedly change the sport. You could be the one who will salvage the sport." LeMond said Landis responded by saying "What good would it do? If I did, it would destroy a lot of my friends and hurt a lot of people."
In their conversation, LeMond had disclosed his history of childhood sexual abuse to Landis and said the secret had nearly destroyed him. LeMond stated he warned Landis. "(Lying about doping) will come back to haunt you when you are 40 or 50. If you have a moral compass and ethics, this will destroy you."
Will Geoghegan attempted to stop LeMond's testimony by calling LeMond on his mobile phone. LeMond reported that Geoghegan claimed he was "his uncle" and intimated that he would appear at the hearing and expose the fact that LeMond was a survivor of child sex abuse. LeMond's BlackBerry, with Geoghegan's phone number captured in the call log, was entered into evidence.
In 2007, Landis was found guilty of doping and was banned from cycling for two years. In 2010, he admitted to having been involved in doping. Also in 2010, Landis apologized to LeMond for the events of 2007.
On July 23, 2009, LeMond wrote an opinion article in the French newspaper Le Monde where he questioned the validity of Alberto Contador's climb up Verbier in the 2009 Tour de France. In the piece, LeMond pointed out that Contador's calculated VO2 max of 99.5 mL/(kg·min) had never been achieved by any athlete. Said LeMond: "The burden is then on Alberto Contador to prove he is physically capable of performing this feat without the use of performance-enhancing products." Contador tested positive for clenbuterol after winning the 2010 Tour and was later stripped of his title and suspended from cycling for two years.
LeMond has criticized the UCI and its former president, Pat McQuaid. In December 2012, LeMond claimed that a change needed to be made in the leadership for the UCI and stated if called upon he would be willing to take the position himself if necessary to lead cycling out of the mire of doping. Said LeMond: "It is now or never to act. After the earthquake caused by the Armstrong case another chance will not arise. I am willing to invest to make this institution more democratic, transparent and look for the best candidate in the longer term." McQuaid rejected LeMond's call for new leadership and was dismissive of LeMond. Ultimately McQuaid was defeated in his bid for a third term by British Cycling president Brian Cookson at the September 2013 UCI Congress in Florence, Italy. Lemond had supported Cookson in the UCI Presidential battle.
Personal life
LeMond is married to Kathy (née Morris) and together they have three children: sons Geoffrey and Scott, and daughter Simone. LeMond and his wife lived in Medina, Minnesota, from 1990 until 2017 and then moved to Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Since his retirement, LeMond has become increasingly involved in philanthropic efforts relating to causes that have affected him personally (including ADHD and sexual abuse).
LeMond is an avid outdoor enthusiast and fly angler, and in 1991 – while still racing full-time – he made the world-record fly fishing catch of a four-pound smallmouth bass on a reel with a four-pound tippet. The record was certified by the National Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame in Hayward, Wisconsin. The catch exceeded the then-previous record of three pounds, six ounces made on the same size tippet back in 1986. LeMond confessed, "I always pack my fly fishing equipment when I travel to bike events. I fish every chance I get."
After retiring from pro cycling, LeMond competed in Formula Ford 2000 series auto racing. He is also a motivational speaker. LeMond narrated an award-winning documentary for Adventures for the Cure in 2008.
On July 16, 2007, LeMond rode the L'Étape du Tour cyclosportive with his son, and found it to be a defining moment in his post-competition life. "I had the time of my life", he said, despite getting "650th place" and being "impressed that I even finished". LeMond continued, "I decided that day that nobody's going to keep me from cycling, not Trek, not Armstrong, not Verbruggen, not anybody." At the time, LeMond was alluding to a series of public and private disputes related to his anti-doping advocacy that hampered his enjoyment of cycling. Especially significant was LeMond's appearance as a USADA witness in the Floyd Landis doping case. At that time, Landis's business manager threatened to expose the fact that LeMond was a survivor of child sex abuse.
Several weeks later, LeMond and his wife Kathy gave an extensive interview to Paul Kimmage of The Sunday Times. LeMond provided additional details concerning the circumstances of his 2001 apology to Armstrong, stating that Trek, the longtime manufacturer and distributor of LeMond Racing Cycles, had threatened to end the relationship at the behest of Armstrong if he did not apologize. He described the two years following the apology as the worst in his life, marked by self-destructive behavior; ultimately, that behavior led LeMond to tell his wife that he was a survivor of child sex abuse and to seek help in addressing that past trauma. LeMond described how being a victim of molestation had impacted his life and his racing career. In September 2007, LeMond became a founding board member of the non-profit organization 1in6.org, whose mission is "to help men who have had unwanted or abusive sexual experiences in childhood live healthy, happy lives".
LeMond was in a car accident on the morning of January 30, 2013. He was driving through wintery and icy conditions to his dentist in Wayzata, Minnesota, when he lost control of his car. LeMond suffered a concussion and was left with no memory of the incident. According to Associated Press, a Plymouth police report says LeMond left the road, hit a fence and shrubs, and then hit an embankment before ending up in the backyard of a home. LeMond may have lost consciousness before the accident, according to his wife Kathy, and he suffered a compression fracture in his back and would have to wear a brace for three months. The accident curtailed LeMond's public appearances in the first half of 2013, but he made a full recovery.
On September 19, 2019, the United States House of Representatives passed a bipartisan bill, submitted by California Representative Mike Thompson, to award LeMond the Congressional Gold Medal. The bill was approved by Congress on November 16, 2020, and signed by president Donald Trump on December 4, 2020. Upon signature of the bill, the White House released a statement, saying the medal was awarded "in recognition of his service to the Nation as an athlete, activist, role model, and community leader".
Career achievements
Major results
1977
1st Road race, National Junior Road Championships
1978
1st Overall Vuelta de Bisbee
2nd Road race, National Junior Road Championships
3rd Team time trial, UCI Junior Road World Championships
1979
1st Road race, UCI Junior Road World Championships
1st Road race, National Junior Road Championships
1st Nevada City Classic
2nd Track pursuit, UCI Junior Track World Championships
3rd Team time trial, UCI Junior Road World Championships
1980
1st Overall Circuit de la Sarthe
1st Nevada City Classic
3rd Overall Circuit des Ardennes
1981
1st Overall Coors Classic
1st Stages 1 & 7
Tour de Picardie
1st Stages 2 & 2a
1st Nevada City Classic
3rd Overall Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré
3rd Overall Route du Sud
7th Overall Circuit de la Sarthe
1982
1st Overall Tour de l'Avenir
1st Stages 4 (ITT), 5 & 8 (ITT)
2nd Road race, UCI Road World Championships
2nd Overall Tour Méditerranéen
3rd Overall Tirreno–Adriatico
1st Stage 3
3rd Overall Tour de Corse
3rd Grand Prix de Rennes
1983
1st Road race, UCI Road World Championships
1st Overall Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré
1st Stages 1, 5 & 7b (ITT)
1st Overall Super Prestige Pernod International
1st Critérium des As
1st Stage 1 Tour Méditerranéen
2nd Grand Prix des Nations
2nd Giro di Lombardia
4th Overall Tour de Suisse
4th Paris–Tours
6th Druivenkoers Overijse
10th Overall Tirreno–Adriatico
1984
1st Stage 1 Clásico RCN
3rd Overall Tour de France
1st Young rider classification
1st Stage 3 (TTT)
3rd Overall Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré
1st Stage 7b
3rd Liège–Bastogne–Liège
5th Overall Tirreno–Adriatico
7th Overall Ronde van Nederland
8th Overall Critérium International
9th Gent–Wevelgem
1985
1st Overall Coors Classic
1st Stage 5
2nd Overall Tour de France
1st Combination classification
1st Stages 3 (TTT) & 21 (ITT)
2nd Road race, UCI Road World Championships
2nd Overall Tour of the Basque Country
3rd Overall Giro d'Italia
3rd Super Prestige Pernod International
4th Overall Critérium International
4th Paris–Roubaix
4th Omloop Het Volk
6th Overall Tour Méditerranéen
7th Tour of Flanders
7th Grand Prix Eddy Merckx
1986
1st Overall Tour de France
1st Combination classification
1st Stage 13
1st Stage 4 Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana
2nd Milan–San Remo
2nd Super Prestige Pernod International
2nd Overall Coors Classic
1st Stage 4a
3rd Overall Paris–Nice
3rd Overall Tour de Suisse
3rd Overall Critérium International
4th Overall Giro d'Italia
1st Stage 5
4th La Flèche Wallonne
4th Züri-Metzgete
7th Overall Étoile de Bessèges
7th Road race, UCI Road World Championships
1989
1st Road race, UCI Road World Championships
1st Overall Tour de France
1st Stages 5 (ITT), 19 & 21 (ITT)
2nd Boucles de l'Aulne
4th Overall Critérium International
4th Grand Prix des Amériques
6th Overall Tirreno–Adriatico
1990
1st Overall Tour de France
2nd Züri-Metzgete
3rd Boucles de l'Aulne
4th Road race, UCI Road World Championships
10th Overall Tour de Suisse
1991
7th Overall Tour de France
1992
1st Overall Tour DuPont
1st Prologue
2nd Overall Tour d'Armorique
9th Paris–Roubaix
Grand Tour general classification results timeline
Classics results timeline
Awards
Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year: 1989
Jesse Owens International Trophy: 1991
Korbel Lifetime Achievement Award: 1992
See also
Yellow jersey statistics
List of companies named after people
List of French Americans
List of Grand Tour general classification winners
List of multi-sport athletes
List of people from Minnesota
List of sports rivalries
List of Tour de France general classification winners
List of Tour de France secondary classification winners
United States at the UCI Road World Championships
References
Notes
Citations
Bibliography
Further reading
External links
LeMond Composites
1961 births
Living people
American people of French descent
American Giro d'Italia stage winners
American male cyclists
American Tour de France stage winners
Cycle designers
People from Lakewood, California
Tour de France Champs Elysées stage winners
Tour de France winners
UCI Road World Champions (elite men)
U.S. F2000 National Championship drivers
Super Prestige Pernod winners
Cyclists from California | true | [
"The National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) is the national organisation responsible for promoting, coordinating, and monitoring the doping control program in sports in all its forms in India. As listed on its official web portal, NADA deals with adopting and implementing anti-doping rules and policies which conform with the World Anti-Doping Agency, cooperates with other anti-doping organisations and promotes anti-doping research and education.\n\nNADA is formed by the Union Government under the societies Registration Act. NADA includes scientists and representatives from the Indian Olympic Association (IOA).\n\nReferences\n\nAnti-doping organizations\nSports organisations of India\nDrug policy of India",
"The following organizations are national anti-doping organizations (NADOs) affiliated with the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Each are charged with testing their nation's athletes as well as running anti-doping programmes for all athletes competing at events held within their country's borders. In most nations dedicated agencies exist, though in some the official NADO is an organization with a wider remit such as a National Olympic Committee or government department.\n\nThe WADA maintains a list of NADOs on their website.\n\nReferences\n\nAnti-d"
] |
[
"Greg LeMond",
"Anti-doping stance and controversies",
"What happened with Anti-doping",
"products ultimately victimize the professional cyclists who make use of them."
] | C_4b522eb5fc884e7f81e177165f06fcdc_0 | Was there any controversies on Anti-doping? | 2 | Was there any controversies surrounding Anti-doping? | Greg LeMond | LeMond is a longtime vocal opponent of performance-enhancing drug use. He first spoke on-record against doping in cycling after winning the 1989 Tour de France. LeMond received intense criticism in 2001 when he publicly expressed doubts about the legitimacy of Lance Armstrong's Tour success after learning of his relationship with Dr. Michele Ferrari. His outspokenness placed him in the center of the anti-doping controversy. LeMond has consistently questioned the relationship between riders and unethical sports doctors like Ferrari, and has pointed out that doping products ultimately victimize the professional cyclists who make use of them. Said LeMond: "When I speak out about doping people could translate it and think it was about the riders. Actually I feel like I am an advocate for the riders. I look at them as being treated like lab rats that are test vehicles for the doctors. The doctors, the management, the officials, they're the ones that have corrupted riders. The riders are the only ones that pay the price." LeMond's most notable conflicts have been with fellow Tour riders Lance Armstrong and Floyd Landis. He has also been critical of Alberto Contador, the UCI, and its former president, Pat McQuaid. In December 2012, LeMond claimed that a change needed to be made at the head of leadership for the UCI, and stated if called upon he would be willing to take the position himself if necessary to lead cycling out of the mire of doping. Said LeMond: "It is now or never to act. After the earthquake caused by the Armstrong case another chance will not arise. I am willing to invest to make this institution more democratic, transparent and look for the best candidate in the longer term." McQuaid rejected LeMond's call for new leadership and was dismissive of LeMond. Ultimately McQuaid was defeated in his bid for a third term by British Cycling president Brian Cookson at the September 2013 UCI Congress in Florence, Italy. Lemond had supported Cookson in the UCI Presidential battle. CANNOTANSWER | LeMond's most notable conflicts have been with fellow Tour riders Lance Armstrong and Floyd Landis. He has also been critical of Alberto Contador, the UCI, and its former president, | Gregory James LeMond (born June 26, 1961) is an American former professional road racing cyclist, entrepreneur, and anti-doping advocate. A two-time winner of the Road Race World Championship (1983 and 1989) and a three-time winner of the Tour de France (1986, 1989, and 1990), LeMond is considered by many to be the greatest American cyclist of all time, one of the great all-round cyclists of the modern era, and an icon of the sport's globalisation.
LeMond began his professional cycling career in 1981. In 1983, he became the first American male cyclist to win the Road World Championship. LeMond won the Tour de France in 1986; he is the first non-European professional cyclist to win the Tour. He was accidentally shot with pellets and seriously injured while hunting in 1987. Following the shooting, he underwent two surgeries and missed the next two Tours. At the 1989 Tour, he completed an improbable comeback to win in dramatic fashion on the race's final stage. He successfully defended his Tour title the following year, becoming one of only eight riders to win three or more Tours. LeMond retired from competition in December 1994 and was inducted into the United States Bicycling Hall of Fame in 1996. He was the first professional cyclist to sign a million-dollar contract and the first cyclist to appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated.
During his career, LeMond championed several technological advancements in pro cycling, including the introduction of aerodynamic "triathlon" handlebars and carbon fiber bicycle frames, which he later marketed through his company LeMond Bicycles. His other business interests have included restaurants, real estate, and consumer fitness equipment. LeMond is a vocal opponent of performance-enhancing drug use in cycling and is a founding board member of 1in6.org, a nonprofit charity that assists male victims of child sex abuse.
Early life and amateur career
LeMond was born in Lakewood, California, and was raised in the Washoe Valley, a ranch country on the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountain range between Reno, and the family home about 2.5 miles north of Carson City, Nevada. His parents are Bob LeMond and Bertha LeMond (d. 2006), and he has two sisters, Kathy and Karen.
LeMond grew up living an active, outdoor life. Hiking, hunting, skiing and flyfishing were boyhood pastimes. The ranch country of the Sierra Nevada mountain range lent itself to such pursuits. A hyperactive youngster, LeMond believes these outdoor activities helped keep him out of trouble. "I was a boy who just could not sit still. I had trouble focusing in school. Parents and educators then did not have the skill set to diagnose and cope with what we know now was a classic case of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). ADHD certainly was not the frequently medicated childhood disease it is today. My triumph over the symptoms was found atop two thin tires over many dusty miles." Said LeMond: "That's one of the traits. It's the inability to sit down [and listen] to something you are not really interested in and absorb it. If they are interested in it, people with ADD excel in really good ways. When I got into cycling I would say the sport itself took a fog off my brain. I was able to absorb stuff I read. It changed my life."
LeMond attended Earl Wooster High School in Reno, but lived too far away to participate in team sports. LeMond soon biked almost daily to high school. He often rode home from Wooster, taking a route over Mt. Rose, along to Incline Village, then south on Hwy 28, then downhill to Carson City, then to his home.
LeMond's introduction to cycling came in 1975, thanks to freestyle skiing pioneer Wayne Wong, who recommended the bike as an ideal off-season training aid. LeMond started competing in 1976, and after dominating the Intermediate category (13–15) and winning the first 11 races he entered, he received permission to ride against older, more seasoned competitors in the Junior (16–19) category.
In 1977, while still only 15, LeMond finished second in the Tour of Fresno to John Howard, then the United States's top road cyclist and the 1971 Pan American Games champion. LeMond caught the attention of Eddie Borysewicz, the US Cycling Federation's national team coach, who described LeMond as "a diamond, a clear diamond." LeMond represented the United States at the 1978 Junior World Championships in Washington, D.C., where he finished ninth in the road race, and again in the 1979 Junior World Championships in Argentina, where he won gold, silver and bronze medals—the highlight being his victory in the road race. At age 18, LeMond was selected for the 1980 U.S. Olympic cycling team, the youngest ever to make the team. However, the U.S. boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow prevented him from competing there.
Borysewicz, whom LeMond described as his "first real coach," wanted to retain his protégé through the next Olympic cycle and discouraged him from turning pro, but LeMond was determined. Nevertheless, while he was the reigning Junior World Road Champion in 1980, LeMond received no professional offers, and so in the spring of 1980, he joined the U.S. National cycling team for a 6-week European racing campaign. There, he finished third overall in the Circuit des Ardennes before winning the 1980 Circuit de la Sarthe stage race in France, thereby becoming the first American and youngest rider of any nationality "in the history of the sport to win a major pro-am cycling event [in Europe]." That victory, and the subsequent press coverage, raised LeMond's profile in Europe and he was scouted at his next event (the Ruban Granitier Breton stage race) by Cyrille Guimard, the Renault–Elf–Gitane team's directeur sportif. Guimard said he was impressed with LeMond's spirit, and told him, "You have the fire to be a great champion," before offering him a professional contract for 1981 with Renault. After he returned to the United States, LeMond won the 1980 Nevada City Classic, considered to be one of the most historic and challenging professional cycling races in United States. Despite eventually receiving several other offers to turn professional besides Guimard's, LeMond did not consider them seriously, and he signed with Renault in Paris on the day the 1980 Tour de France finished.
Professional career
LeMond was an "exceptionally gifted" amateur rider who quickly established himself as one of the most talented cyclists on the professional circuit. Respected cycling journalist John Wilcockson, who reported the Tour de France for more than 40 years, described LeMond as a rider who was fuoriclasse.
1981–1983: Early years
LeMond's first professional victory came three months into his 1981 debut when he won a stage of the French Tour de l'Oise. He followed with a win in the Coors Classic in the United States, finishing ahead of Sergei Sukhoruchenkov, the 1980 Olympic road champion. The major step forward in 1981 occurred in the Dauphiné Libéré stage race where LeMond placed third. The achievement is the more remarkable because he rode the race in support of team leader Bernard Hinault. LeMond missed standing on the podium with race winner Hinault, as Pascal Simon had finished ahead of him. Two weeks later Simon was assessed a 10-minute penalty when it was discovered he had been doping. LeMond considered the race to have been a "major steppingstone" in his career. Said LeMond: "It showed me that I had the kind of climbing ability that you need to win the top European stage races." LeMond won a total of five races in his rookie season of 1981.
LeMond broke his collarbone on April 11, 1982, while racing the cycling classic Liège–Bastogne–Liège. The injury forced LeMond to ride a reduced schedule before entering the World Championships, which were in Goodwood, England that year. In the men's road race competition, LeMond broke for the line but was out-sprinted by Italian Giuseppe Saronni. Following the race, LeMond's American teammate Jacques Boyer accused LeMond of chasing him down in the final 800 meters. Saronni was very strong at the end of the race and flew past Boyer and LeMond, winning by 5 seconds over LeMond, with another 5 seconds back to Kelly. Boyer placed tenth. Bronze medalist Sean Kelly, a favorite to win the race, was with Saronni when he caught LeMond with about 200 meters to go, but he could not hold his wheel. Said Kelly: "I don't think that Boyer was fading ... He got quite a good gap. Nobody wanted to go after him ... Yes, LeMond chased down Boyer. Boyer was the only man up the road."
LeMond was supported by his teammate George Mount, who observed, "What's LeMond going to do? Throw his bike down in front of everybody because Boyer is such a good buddy of everyone? ... Hell no—he's going to start sprinting because it's less than 200 meters to go and the sprint's already been going for a couple hundred meters. LeMond made a good move and a good sprint ... Boyer was not going to win that race. The best he could have got was fifth or sixth place."
LeMond did not apologize. The U.S. team was not as set up as the European teams, and did not have an independent race to determine the national champion. Instead, the highest finisher at the World's was considered the national champion. LeMond had argued for the team to compete as the European teams did, but team management and Boyer voted against him. Thus, unlike the other teams at the world championship, the US riders were competing against each other. Aged 21, LeMond was the first American pro to win a medal at the World's since Frank Kramer took silver in 1912. Said LeMond: "I'm racing for Renault and I'm racing for myself. It's a business and it's my living. To me, that second place was almost as good as winning, especially at my age."
Two weeks later, on September 20, 1982, LeMond won the mountainous 12-day, Tour de l'Avenir by a record 10 minutes, 18 seconds. The victory, and the time advantage LeMond held at the end, stunned Europe and provided broad confirmation that LeMond was indeed fuoriclasse.
The following year, 1983, LeMond won the Road World Championship outright, becoming the first American male cyclist to do so. (Audrey McElmury won in 1969 and Beth Heiden won in 1980.) LeMond's cycling talent—his overall strength, climbing ability, ability to ride a fast time trial and his capacity to recover quickly—all suggested LeMond would be an excellent prospect for the most demanding Grand Tours.
1984–1986: Grand Tours
LeMond rode his first Tour de France in 1984, finishing third in support of team leader Laurent Fignon, and winning the white jersey of the young rider classification. The following year he was brought across to La Vie Claire to ride in support of team captain Bernard Hinault who had regained his form and was attempting to win his fifth Tour. French businessman and team owner Bernard Tapie signed LeMond with a $1 million contract over three years. In the race Hinault led through the early mountain stages, but suffered a crash and came into difficulty. At this point, it was clear that LeMond was an elite rider capable of winning the Tour in his own right. LeMond possessed a natural talent for riding the Grand Tours, and got stronger over the course of a three-week race. The injured Hinault was vulnerable, and his competitors knew it. Stage 17 included three major climbs in the Pyrenees. On the second, the Col du Tourmalet, LeMond followed Stephen Roche in an attack, but was not given permission to help build on the gap over the field. The managers of his La Vie Claire team ordered the 24-year-old LeMond not to ride with Roche, but to sit on his wheel, a tactic to use the rider in front as cover for wind resistance so the following rider uses less energy. The pace Roche could put out by himself eventually slowed, and other riders came up to join the two men. Hinault recovered as well, though he did not regain the lead group. At the end of the stage LeMond was frustrated to the point of tears. He later revealed that team management and his own coach Paul Köchli had misled him as to how far back Hinault had dropped during the crucial Stage 17 mountain stage. Hinault won the 1985 Tour, with LeMond finishing second, 1:42 behind. LeMond had ridden as the dutiful lieutenant, and his support enabled Hinault to win his fifth Tour. In repayment for his sacrifice Hinault promised to help LeMond win the Tour the following year.
Hoping to end the season on a high note LeMond entered the World Championships road race with the strongest team the United States ever fielded. Riders included Boyer and LeMond, as well as Andrew Hampsten, Ron Kiefel, Bob Roll and Eric Heiden and this time the American team was set up to help the three strongest riders in LeMond, then Hampsten and Kiefel. Throughout the race LeMond answered repeated attacks and led many chase groups to contain dangerous breakaways, but by the final lap of the race he was beginning to tire. He was however, part of the group that was going to win, and while Hampsten and Keifel survived the race to this point, unfortunately they were too far back to assist LeMond in the final ten kilometers. Inside the final kilometer the last rider to launch an attack was former Tour and Vuelta champion Joop Zoetemelk. Being as he was 38 years old and long past his prime none of the remaining contenders including LeMond, Claudio Corti, Robert Millar, Moreno Argentin or Stephen Roche took the attack seriously initially. Zoetemelk opened a sizeable gap however, before long it was in excess of a hundred meters and quickly growing. He also had two teammates remaining in Johan Van der Velde and Gerard Veldscholten, assisting him by riding at the front but not actually chasing, therefore slowing the chase group. Italian rider Moreno took up the chase but he had nothing left to close the gap and actually put his hand in the air waving for the other riders to come forward and take up the pursuit. LeMond too had nothing left to chase down this final attack feeling that if he did, he wouldn't have anything left for the sprint and wouldn't win any medal at all. In a notable upset, Zoetemelk beat the favorites to the line by three seconds as LeMond out-sprinted Argentin to take the silver. There was no controversy following this silver medal for LeMond and immediately after the race he rode up alongside the Dutchman and congratulated him saying, "Nice ride Joop."
For the 1986 Tour, LeMond was a co-leader of the La Vie Claire team alongside Hinault. Hinault's support seemed less certain the closer the race approached. An unspoken condition was that his help would be contingent upon LeMond demonstrating that he was clearly the better rider. Hinault was in superb form, and had the chance to win an unprecedented sixth Tour. Hinault chose to let the Stage 9 individual time trial be the decider for which rider would receive the full support of team La Vie Claire. Hinault won the Stage 9 time trial, finishing 44 seconds in front of LeMond. LeMond had bad luck during the stage, having suffered a punctured tire requiring a wheel change, and later in the stage a bicycle change was required when he broke a wheel. He was frustrated with the outcome and the impact it would have on how the team would function for the remainder of the race. In Stage 12, the first mountain stage of the race in the Pyrenees, Hinault attacked the lead group and built up an overall lead. By the end of Stage 12, Hinault had a five-minute lead over LeMond and the other top riders. He claimed he was trying to draw out LeMond's rivals, but none of these attacks were planned with LeMond. He was clearly willing to ride aggressively and take advantage of the opportunities presented. LeMond was never placed in difficulty, except by his own teammate. The following day Hinault broke away again early but was caught and then dropped by LeMond on the final climb of Stage 13, allowing LeMond to gain back four and a half minutes. The next three stages brought the Tour to the Alps. On Stage 17 LeMond and Urs Zimmermann dropped Hinault from the leading group, and the end of the day saw LeMond pulling on the yellow jersey of race leader, the first time it had ever been worn by a rider from the United States. The following day in the Alps saw Hinault attack again early on the first climb, but he was pulled back. Attempting an escape on the descent, he was unable to separate himself from LeMond. The La Vie Claire team leaders were both excellent descenders. As they ascended up the next col they continued to pull away from the field, and maintained the gap as they reached the base of the final climb, the vaunted Alpe d'Huez. They pressed on through the crowd, ascending the twenty-one switchbacks of Alpe d'Huez and reaching the summit together. LeMond put an arm around Hinault and gave him a smile and the stage win in a show of unity, but the infighting was not over. Hinault attacked again on Stage 19 and had to be brought back by teammates Andrew Hampsten and Steve Bauer. Commenting on the team situation prior to the final individual time trial at Stage 20, LeMond offered the following with a wry smile: "He's attacked me from the beginning of the Tour De France. He's never helped me once, and I don't feel confident at all with him."
LeMond had to keep his eye on his teammate and rival throughout the race. Hinault rode aggressively and repeatedly attacked, and the division created in the La Vie Claire team was unmistakable. LeMond would keep the yellow jersey to the end of the race and win his first Tour, but he felt betrayed by Hinault and the La Vie Claire team leadership. LeMond later stated the 1986 Tour was the most difficult and stressful race of his career.
1987–1988: Shooting accident and recovery
LeMond had planned to defend his title in the 1987 Tour de France with La Vie Claire, but he was unable to participate. Earlier that year, while riding in the Tirreno–Adriatico spring tune-up race, LeMond fell and fractured his left wrist. He returned to the United States to recover from the injury. The week before returning to Europe, he went turkey hunting on a ranch co-owned by his father in Lincoln, California. LeMond was with Rodney Barber and Patrick Blades, his uncle and brother-in-law. The trio had become separated when Blades, who heard movement behind him, turned and fired through a bush. The movement had come from LeMond, who was hit in his back and right side with approximately 60 pellets. LeMond's injuries were life-threatening, but a police helicopter was already airborne near the scene and transported LeMond on a 15-minute air medical flight to the Medical Center at University of California-Davis. LeMond was taken for emergency surgery. He had suffered a pneumothorax to his right lung and extensive bleeding, having lost some 65 percent of his blood volume. A physician informed LeMond later that he had been within 20 minutes of bleeding to death. The operation saved his life, but four months later he developed a small bowel obstruction due to adhesions that had formed following the shooting. He underwent another surgery to relieve the obstruction and take down the adhesions. Concerned that his team would drop him if they knew the shooting accident required a second surgery, LeMond asked the surgeons to remove his appendix at the same time. He then informed his team that he had had his appendix removed, but the rest of the story was left somewhat vague. The events effectively ended his 1987 season, and in October he announced he would return to serious competition the following February, with the Dutch PDM team.
With 35 shotgun pellets still in his body, including three in the lining of his heart and five more embedded in his liver, LeMond attempted to return to racing in 1988. His comeback was hampered by over-training which resulted in tendonitis in his right shin requiring surgery. He missed the Tour for the second year running. Tensions in the relationship between LeMond and PDM were aggravated when LeMond discovered that doping was going on at the PDM squad. The result was that LeMond moved from PDM, one of the strongest teams in the peloton, to ADR, a team based in Belgium. The team was co-sponsored by Coors Light for American races. The deal was completed on New Year's Eve, just hours before LeMond would have been legally obliged to ride another season for the Dutch team. Joining the Belgian ADR squad allowed LeMond to continue to compete, but with teammates like Johan Museeuw who were better suited to riding Classics than Grand Tours.
1989: Return to elite level
After struggling in the 1989 Paris–Nice early-season race and failing to improve his condition, LeMond informed his wife Kathy that he intended to retire from professional cycling after the 1989 Tour de France. He had some flashes of form with 6th overall in Tirreno-Adriatico and in the two-day Critérium International, sharing an escape with Fignon, Indurain, Mottet, Roche and Madiot and finishing 4th overall. He started the 1989 Giro d'Italia in May as preparation for the Tour to follow, but struggled in the mountains and was not in contention for any of the leaders' jerseys before the final individual time trial into Florence. LeMond placed a surprising second there, more than a minute ahead of overall winner Laurent Fignon. Some of his improvement he attributed to an anti-anemia treatment he received twice during the race.
Coming into the 1989 Tour de France LeMond was not considered a contender for the general classification (GC). His own most optimistic hope was to finish his final Tour in the top 20. Without the weight of expectation and other pressures of being a Tour favorite, LeMond surprised observers with a strong ride in the prologue in Luxembourg, finishing fourth out of 198 riders. Buoyed by the result, LeMond continued to ride well over the opening flat stages, winning the stage 5 individual time trial, and gaining the yellow jersey as leader of the general classification for the first time in three years. LeMond seemed to ride himself into better condition during the first week's flat stages, and he was coming into peak form by the time the Tour reached the mountains. LeMond remained at the front of the race in the Pyrénées, but lost the lead to his former teammate and rival Laurent Fignon on stage 10 in Superbagnères. Five days later LeMond reclaimed yellow in the Alps, after the stage 15 mountain time trial from Gap to Orcières-Merlette. The see-saw battle continued, and when Fignon attacked on the upper slopes of Alpe d'Huez LeMond was unable to go with him, placing the yellow jersey back on the shoulders of Fignon. Fignon held a 50-second advantage over LeMond going into the 21st and final stage, a rare individual time trial from Versailles to the Champs-Élysées in Paris.
Fignon had won the Tour twice before, in 1983 and 1984, and was a very capable time trialist. It seemed improbable that LeMond could take 50 seconds off Fignon over the short course. This would require LeMond to gain two seconds per kilometer against one of the fastest chrono-specialists in the world. LeMond had done wind tunnel testing in the off season and perfected his riding position. He rode the time trial with a rear disc wheel, a cut-down Giro aero helmet and the same Scott clip-on aero bars which had helped him to the Stage 5 time trial win. Holding his time trialing position LeMond was able to generate less aerodynamic drag than Fignon, who used a pair of disc wheels but chose to go helmetless and did not use the aero bars that are now commonplace in time trials. Instructing his support car not to give him his split times, LeMond rode flat-out and finished at a record pace to beat Fignon by 8 seconds and claim his second Tour de France victory. As LeMond embraced his wife and rejoiced on the Champs-Élysées, Fignon collapsed onto the tarmac, then sat in shock and wept.
The final margin of victory of eight seconds was the closest in the Tour's history. LeMond's average speed for the stage 21 time trial was, at that time, the fastest in Tour history. Since then, only the 1994 and 2015 prologues and David Zabriskie's 2005 time trial performance have been faster. The press immediately labeled LeMond's come-from-behind triumph as, "the most astonishing victory in Tour de France history," and while LeMond admitted that it felt almost "too good to be true," he personally rated it as "much more satisfying" than his first overall Tour win in 1986.
LeMond's return to the pinnacle of cycling was confirmed on August 27, when he won the World Championships road race in Chambéry, France. Late in the race with less than 10 km to go the lead group, who had been away since very early in the race, made up of three very strong riders in Steven Rooks, Thierry Claveyrolat and Soviet star Dimitri Konyshev were trying to hold on to fight for the victory amongst themselves when Laurent Fignon broke away from the pursuing group in an effort to chase the leaders down and solo to victory. On the final climb of the race LeMond attacked in pursuit of Fignon on his own. Before long he had caught the Frenchman and not long after that the pair could see the lead group in front of them and they were quickly closing the gap. LeMond briefly dropped Fignon and caught the lead group on his own. Immediately upon catching Rooks, Claveyrolat and Konyshev he moved to the front and set the pace as two other riders in Canadian Steve Bauer and Irishman Sean Kelly attempted to bridge the gap up to LeMond and the lead group. Bauer ended up getting a flat tire essentially ending his hopes at a high finish while Sean Kelly was able to fight his way to the front group, which was bad news for LeMond and the others as Kelly was one of the best sprinters in the world. Fignon was able to rejoin the lead group as well and as the race approached the finish Fignon attacked on numerous occasions trying to drop the remaining riders. Rooks also launched an attack to go for the solo victory but was caught by LeMond, Fignon and the others. Inside the final kilometer Fignon continued attacking trying to break free, but just couldn't force open a gap and began to fall back as the sprint materialized eventually finishing in 6th place. LeMond, Konyshev and Kelly were the strongest riders when it came to the final sprint for victory and they finished in that order. After the race LeMond said that he did not feel well and even considered abandoning the race. With two laps to go he began feeling stronger and stated, "I was racing for the Gold medal. I wanted that World Championship. And with one kilometer to go, I knew I could get it." LeMond was only the fifth person in history to win both the Tour de France and the World Championship in the same year. In December, Sports Illustrated magazine named LeMond its 1989 "Sportsman of the Year", the first time a cyclist received the honor.
1990: A third tour win
LeMond parlayed the success of his 1989 season into the then-richest contract in the sport's history, signing a $5.5 million deal for three years with of France, the first time a cyclist had signed a multi-million dollar contract. He entered the 1990 Tour de France as defending champion and a pre-race favorite after leaving ADR to join the much stronger French team. At "Z" his teammates included Robert Millar, Eric Boyer and Ronan Pensec, all of whom already had finishes in the top six of the Tour de France. This unified roster of strong riders appeared capable of supporting LeMond in the mountains and controlling the race on the flats.
The squad's tactical plan was upset on the first day, when a breakaway that included LeMond's teammate Ronan Pensec, but no major favorites, arrived ten minutes ahead of the field. LeMond was prevented from challenging for the lead until the yellow jersey left the shoulders of his teammate. Surprisingly Pensec held the lead through the first high mountain stages, including Alpe d'Huez, but he would lose it soon after to the relative unknown Claudio Chiappucci.
LeMond closed in on Chiappucci and on stage 16 he put his stamp of authority on the race during the final climb of Luz Ardiden. Late in this stage, after all of the breakaways had been caught he launched a devastating attack that no one could answer. Miguel Induráin was the only rider able to get on LeMond's wheel but it was LeMond dictating the pace all the way up the climb as Chiappucci, Delgado and all of the other favorites fell further and further behind. While Induráin stayed with LeMond, he was not a threat for victory, but his performance put the cycling world on notice as he would win the next five Tours. Near the end of the stage LeMond sat up and the Spaniard took the stage win, but the devastation of LeMond's competitors was all but complete as there was now only +0:05 between LeMond and the yellow jersey.
He finally overtook Chiappucci on the final individual time trial on stage 20, where he finished over two minutes ahead of the unheralded Italian. LeMond at last had the yellow jersey, wearing it the following day as the Tour rode into Paris. LeMond had the distinction of winning the 1990 Tour without taking any of the individual stages. He remains the last rider to win the Tour while wearing the world champion jersey. Over the course of the 1990 Tour the perceived strength of the Z team was confirmed, as they led the team classification through most of the race, adding the team title to LeMond's yellow jersey. LeMond's 1990 Tour victory made him one of just five cyclists to win three or more Tours. As of 2021 a total of seven cyclists have won three times or more.
In September, LeMond attempted to defend his title at the 1990 UCI Road World Championships, but finished fourth, eight seconds behind the winner, his former teammate Rudy Dhaenens of Belgium.
1991–1994: Change in the peloton and retirement
LeMond felt confident before the 1991 Tour de France. He was the defending champion, trained well and had a solid team to support him. LeMond was among the leaders going into the Stage 8 individual time trial, and he finished second to the Spaniard Miguel Indurain. LeMond felt he was riding extremely well, and though his TT-effort had propelled him into the yellow jersey as leader of the general classification, losing eight seconds to Indurain shook his confidence. He held the yellow jersey for the next four days until Stage 12, a challenging mountain stage. LeMond experienced difficulty on the first climb and he cracked on the Col du Tourmalet, losing significant time to Claudio Chiappucci, and eventual winner Indurain. He continued to race, but was unable to seriously challenge for the lead thereafter, finishing the 1991 Tour seventh overall.
In 1992, LeMond won the Tour DuPont, which would be the last major win of his career. He would also have a strong top 10 finish in Paris-Roubaix early in the season. He never won any of cycling's 'Monument' races but he had several high places in four out of five of them throughout his career including 4th in Paris-Roubaix, 3rd in Liège-Bastogne-Liège and 2nd in Milan San Remo as well as the Giro di Lombardia.
In the 1992 Tour de France he started strongly and finished fourth in a breakaway on Stage 6 that put him fifth overall and he maintained his fifth place until the mountain stages when he lost form disastrously and lost more than 45 minutes on the stage to Sestrieres before quitting the race the next day—when his compatriot and former domestique Andrew Hampsten won atop Alpe d'Huez. While LeMond claimed a serious saddle sore caused him to abandon, he had earlier stated, "My climbing is not like usual. I've climbed much better in the past Tours. This year I'm just not feeling my usual self."
LeMond did extensive endurance training on the road the following winter, but his performances the following spring failed to improve. LeMond had to abandon the 1993 Giro d'Italia two days before the final stage after difficult racing left him 125th on GCC and third-from-last in the final time trial. He was too exhausted to enter the 1993 Tour de France. Following the 1993 season LeMond hired renowned Dutch physiologist Adrie van Diemen to advise him on a new technique to monitor training and measure performance. The (SRM) power-based training would make use of the watt as a guide to power output. In November 1993 LeMond confided to Samuel Abt that power output in watts would become the key metric. The watt has gained wide acceptance as the best measure of a cyclist's training performance.
The following year LeMond began the 1994 Tour de France but found he was unable to race effectively. He had to abandon after the first week before the race had reached the difficult mountain stages. That December, he announced his retirement. At the time the reasons for LeMond's increasing difficulties were not entirely known. At a loss, he speculated that a condition known as mitochondrial myopathy might be responsible for the difficulty he was having performing against the current riders. In 2007, however, LeMond speculated that he might not have had the condition after all, and suggested that lead toxicity from the shotgun pellets still embedded in his body might have been responsible, the effects of which were increased by heavy training.
LeMond has acknowledged since 2010 that the increasing prevalence of doping in cycling contributed to his lack of competitiveness. Said LeMond: "Something had changed in cycling. The speeds were faster and riders that I had easily out performed were now dropping me. At the time, the team I was on, Team Z, became more and more demanding, more and more concerned..." He stated he had been told in 1994 that he would need to blood dope in order to win again. He frankly admitted to Abt in 1999: "I figure I had three months that went right for me after the hunting accident," three months in which he won the two Tours and a world road race championship. "The rest were just pure suffering, struggling, fatigue, always tired."
In a wide-ranging interview with American novelist Bryan Malessa in 1998, LeMond was asked if his career had not been interrupted by the hunting accident, how did he feel he would compare to five time Tour winners such as Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain. LeMond responded: "Of course you can't rewrite racing history, but I'm confident that I would have won five Tours."
Two years after his retirement LeMond was inducted into the United States Bicycling Hall of Fame in a ceremony at Rodale Park in Trexlertown, Pennsylvania. The event was held on June 8, 1996, during the U.S. Olympic Cycling Team Trials.
In July 2014, ESPN announced the premiere of a new 30 for 30 film entitled Slaying the Badger. The film centers on LeMond and his former teammate Hinault at the 1986 Tour de France. It is based on the book of the same name by Richard Moore, and it premiered July 22, 2014 on ESPN.
Business interests
LeMond was a pioneer in the use of carbon fiber bicycle frames in European professional road cycling, and his Tour de France win in 1986 ahead of Bernard Hinault was the first for a carbon-framed bicycle. Ironically, given the rivalry that existed at the time between the American and his French teammate, LeMond rode a "Bernard Hinault" Signature Model Look prototype that year. LeMond also won the 1989 Tour de France, the 1989 World Championship, and his final Tour de France in 1990 on carbon fiber frames. These bicycle frames featured "Greg LeMond" branding.
LeMond Cycles
In 1990, LeMond founded LeMond Bicycles to develop machines for himself that would also be marketed and sold to the public. The following year, searching for an equipment edge for Team Z at the 1991 Tour de France, LeMond concluded an exclusive licensing agreement between his company and Carbonframes, Inc., to access the latter's advanced composites technology. Whilst using the bikes for the 1991 Tour, he would maintain his carbon bike in his hotel room, leading his mechanics to fear it had been stolen. While LeMond briefly led the 1991 Tour overall, riding his Carbonframes-produced "Greg LeMond" bicycle, the company eventually faltered, something LeMond blamed on "under-capitalization" and poor management by his father. Carbonframes and LeMond Cycles "parted amiably two years later." In 1995, with his company allegedly nearly bankrupt, LeMond reached a licensing-agreement with Trek Bicycle Corporation, according to which the Wisconsin-based company would manufacture and distribute bicycles designed with LeMond that would be sold under the "LeMond Bicycles" brand. LeMond would later claim that going into business with Trek "destroyed" his relationship with his father. The lucrative partnership, which generated revenue for Trek in excess of US$100,000,000, would be renewed several times over the course of 13 years, but it ultimately ended in acrimony after LeMond's relationship with Trek deteriorated over his staunch anti-doping advocacy.
LeMond found himself at odds with Trek in July 2001 after he expressed public concern over the relationship between Italian doping doctor Michele Ferrari and Trek's star athlete, Lance Armstrong. Trek president John Burke pressured LeMond to apologize, claiming, "Greg's public comments hurt the LeMond brand and the Trek brand." Burke allegedly justified his demand for an apology by advising that, "As a contractual partner, he [LeMond] could criticize doping only generally – not point his finger at specific athletes, particularly one that happens to be the company's main cash cow." Armstrong reportedly said privately he could "shut him up" by contacting Trek, as documented in affidavits by Frankie and Betsy Andreu released in the 2012 USADA doping report. LeMond issued an apology for his comment.
In a 2007 interview, LeMond accused Armstrong of trying to sabotage his relationship with Trek bicycles. In March 2008, LeMond Cycling Inc sued Trek for failing to properly promote and distribute the LeMond brand, and for attempting to "silence" LeMond's public comments about doping, attributing this to the influence of Armstrong on Trek. His complaint included statistics detailing slow sales in some markets, including the fact that between September 2001 and June 2007, Trek only sold $10,393 worth of LeMond bikes in France, a country in which LeMond was both famous and popular. Trek responded in April 2008, announcing that it was dropping LeMond Bicycles from its product line and that it would sue to sever the licensing agreement.
As promised, Trek counter-sued and stopped producing bicycles under the LeMond brand. After nearly two years of litigation, LeMond reached a confidential out-of-court settlement with Trek in February 2010. The settlement permitted the case to be dismissed with prejudice, meaning, "neither side can produce the same claims against one another in a future lawsuit." Although settlement terms were not disclosed, LeMond reportedly obtained full control over the LeMond Bicycles name, while Trek made a donation of US$200,000 to the charity 1in6, of which LeMond was a founding member of the board of directors.
LeMond Fitness/Revolution
In 2002, LeMond, Bernie Boglioli and others founded LeMond Fitness, Inc. "to help individuals achieve their fitness and performance goals and train more effectively." The company's primary business is the development and manufacture of bicycle trainers and indoor exercise bikes for consumers in the United States and internationally. LeMond serves as Chairman of the Board. In 2012, Hoist Fitness negotiated to purchase an interest in the company and announced plans to move its headquarters to Hoist's offices in San Diego, CA. In late 2012, LeMond purchased the LeMond Revolution from Hoist, relaunching with a new management team in Minneapolis. Later, he also formed LeMond LLC to introduce a suite of brands. Professional cycling's team renewed its sponsorship with LeMond to use its Revolution trainers for another three seasons. The team won several stages of the Tour de France, plus the general classification of the 2012 Giro d'Italia.
Partnership with Time
At the Interbike trade show in September 2013, LeMond announced that he was returning to the business of bicycle manufacture and sales by partnering with French company Time. The new line began with a series of commemorative designed bicycles, to be followed with road, cyclocross, and gravel-road models. LeMond purchased Time Sport USA, the US distributor for the company. Said LeMond: "I'm really excited to be back in the bike industry."
Real estate
In 2002, LeMond joined his parents-in-law David and Sacia Morris, friend Michael Snow and J.P. Morgan & Co. fund manager Jorge Jasson to invest in the exclusive Yellowstone Club, a Big Sky, Montana, private ski and golf community founded by timber baron Tim Blixseth and his wife Edra. Each of the five partners paid Blixseth $750,000 for one percent shares in the exclusive resort. LeMond also purchased several building lots and maintained a property at the resort. Four years later, LeMond and partners sued Blixseth in 2006 following reports of a Credit Suisse loan to the resort of $375 million from which Blixseth reportedly took $209 million in a disputed partial payout for his ownership stake. The Credit Suisse loan was based on a $1.16 billion Cushman & Wakefield valuation of the resort, for which LeMond and partners each sought $11.6 million for their one-percent shares. In 2007, LeMond settled his suit with the Blixseths for $39 million. However, he and his partners remained creditors as the Blixseths defaulted on a $20 million payment (after having already paid the group $18 million). In 2009, the Blixseths divorced and the Club went bankrupt.
Restaurants
LeMond became a restaurateur in August 1990 when, in partnership with his wife and her parents, he opened Scott Kee's Tour de France on France Avenue in the Minneapolis suburb of Edina, Minnesota. LeMond described the restaurant, which was named for its chef (LeMond's brother-in-law), as "a dream of five years come true." Explaining the origin of the concept, LeMond said, "Kathy and I have eaten at the finest establishments in France, Italy and Belgium. Our favorites have always been small places, family-owned." LeMond also partnered in several Bruegger's bagel bakery-café franchises.
LeMond Composites
LeMond founded LeMond Composites in 2016 to manufacture high-volume, low-cost carbon fiber composites under a licensing agreement with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and an exclusive 20-year licensing agreement with Deakin University. In 2017 LeMond and his family moved from Minnesota to Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to be close to the $125 million LeMond Composites manufacturing facility.
On October 16, 2017, Australian politician Sarah Henderson announced that LeMond Composites would receive AU$2.5 million (US$ million) in Australian Federal Government funding to establish a carbon fiber manufacturing plant in Geelong, Australia.
Broadcasting
In 2014, LeMond joined Eurosport as a pundit for the channel's cycling coverage, providing analysis at Paris–Roubaix, the Giro d'Italia and the Tour de France, and hosting his own monthly program LeMond on Cycling. He continued to work for the channel until 2017.
Anti-doping stance and controversies
LeMond is a longtime vocal opponent of performance-enhancing drug use. He first spoke on-record against doping in cycling after winning the 1989 Tour de France. He has consistently questioned the relationship between riders and unethical sports doctors and has pointed out that doping products ultimately victimize the professional cyclists who make use of them. Said LeMond: "When I speak out about doping people could translate it and think it was about the riders. Actually I feel like I am an advocate for the riders. I look at them as being treated like lab rats that are test vehicles for the doctors. The doctors, the management, the officials, they're the ones that have corrupted riders. The riders are the only ones that pay the price."
LeMond received intense criticism in 2001 when he publicly criticized Lance Armstrong's relationship with Dr. Michele Ferrari. Ferrari is an Italian physician and sports trainer who admitted to practicing blood doping and advocated the controlled use of the banned substance erythropoietin by athletes. Upon learning of Armstrong's association with Ferrari, LeMond said:
"When Lance won the prologue to the 1999 Tour I was close to tears, but when I heard he was working with Michele Ferrari I was devastated. In the light of Lance's relationship with Ferrari, I just don't want to comment on this year's Tour. This is not sour grapes. I'm disappointed in Lance, that's all it is."
LeMond's comments placed him in the center of an anti-doping controversy. About a month later, following pressure from both Armstrong and Trek, LeMond issued an apology for his comment; he called Armstrong "a great champion" and added, "I do not believe, in any way, that he has ever used any performance-enhancing substances. I believe his performances are the result of the same hard work, dedication and focus that were mine 10 years ago."
In 2004, LeMond spoke out again. On the heels of successive Tour de France wins by Armstrong, LeMond said, "If Armstrong's clean, it's the greatest comeback. And if he's not, then it's the greatest fraud." He went public with the fallout of his 2001 statement, alleging that Armstrong had threatened to defame him and threatened his business interests as well:
"[Armstrong] basically said 'I could find 10 people that will say you took EPO' ... The week after, I got multiple people that were on Lance ... Lance's camp, basically saying 'You better be quiet,' and I was quiet for three years. I have a business ... I have bikes that are sold ... and I was told that my sales might not be doing too well if ... just the publicity, the negative publicity." The same month, LeMond told French newspaper Le Monde that Armstrong was "ready to do anything to keep his secret. I don't know how he can continue to convince everybody of his innocence." At a press conference Armstrong gave in September 2008 to announce his return to cycling, LeMond publicly challenged him with questions about doping. Armstrong appeared angry and interrupted LeMond, telling him it was time to move on. In August 2012, the USADA announced that Armstrong had been issued a lifetime ban from cycling competition due to his involvement in a massive doping scheme. In addition, the USADA stripped Armstrong of his seven Tour de France titles.
LeMond has also clashed with fellow Tour rider Floyd Landis regarding the doping issue. On May 17, 2007, LeMond testified at a USADA hearing convened to weigh the evidence of doping by Landis during the 2006 Tour de France. Under oath, LeMond described a phone conversation he had with Landis on August 6, 2006, as well as another with Landis' business manager, Will Geoghegan, on May 16, 2007, the evening before LeMond appeared to testify. The major points of the testimony were:
In the August 6 conversation, LeMond said he told Landis that "If you did (admit to having used banned substances), you could single-handedly change the sport. You could be the one who will salvage the sport." LeMond said Landis responded by saying "What good would it do? If I did, it would destroy a lot of my friends and hurt a lot of people."
In their conversation, LeMond had disclosed his history of childhood sexual abuse to Landis and said the secret had nearly destroyed him. LeMond stated he warned Landis. "(Lying about doping) will come back to haunt you when you are 40 or 50. If you have a moral compass and ethics, this will destroy you."
Will Geoghegan attempted to stop LeMond's testimony by calling LeMond on his mobile phone. LeMond reported that Geoghegan claimed he was "his uncle" and intimated that he would appear at the hearing and expose the fact that LeMond was a survivor of child sex abuse. LeMond's BlackBerry, with Geoghegan's phone number captured in the call log, was entered into evidence.
In 2007, Landis was found guilty of doping and was banned from cycling for two years. In 2010, he admitted to having been involved in doping. Also in 2010, Landis apologized to LeMond for the events of 2007.
On July 23, 2009, LeMond wrote an opinion article in the French newspaper Le Monde where he questioned the validity of Alberto Contador's climb up Verbier in the 2009 Tour de France. In the piece, LeMond pointed out that Contador's calculated VO2 max of 99.5 mL/(kg·min) had never been achieved by any athlete. Said LeMond: "The burden is then on Alberto Contador to prove he is physically capable of performing this feat without the use of performance-enhancing products." Contador tested positive for clenbuterol after winning the 2010 Tour and was later stripped of his title and suspended from cycling for two years.
LeMond has criticized the UCI and its former president, Pat McQuaid. In December 2012, LeMond claimed that a change needed to be made in the leadership for the UCI and stated if called upon he would be willing to take the position himself if necessary to lead cycling out of the mire of doping. Said LeMond: "It is now or never to act. After the earthquake caused by the Armstrong case another chance will not arise. I am willing to invest to make this institution more democratic, transparent and look for the best candidate in the longer term." McQuaid rejected LeMond's call for new leadership and was dismissive of LeMond. Ultimately McQuaid was defeated in his bid for a third term by British Cycling president Brian Cookson at the September 2013 UCI Congress in Florence, Italy. Lemond had supported Cookson in the UCI Presidential battle.
Personal life
LeMond is married to Kathy (née Morris) and together they have three children: sons Geoffrey and Scott, and daughter Simone. LeMond and his wife lived in Medina, Minnesota, from 1990 until 2017 and then moved to Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Since his retirement, LeMond has become increasingly involved in philanthropic efforts relating to causes that have affected him personally (including ADHD and sexual abuse).
LeMond is an avid outdoor enthusiast and fly angler, and in 1991 – while still racing full-time – he made the world-record fly fishing catch of a four-pound smallmouth bass on a reel with a four-pound tippet. The record was certified by the National Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame in Hayward, Wisconsin. The catch exceeded the then-previous record of three pounds, six ounces made on the same size tippet back in 1986. LeMond confessed, "I always pack my fly fishing equipment when I travel to bike events. I fish every chance I get."
After retiring from pro cycling, LeMond competed in Formula Ford 2000 series auto racing. He is also a motivational speaker. LeMond narrated an award-winning documentary for Adventures for the Cure in 2008.
On July 16, 2007, LeMond rode the L'Étape du Tour cyclosportive with his son, and found it to be a defining moment in his post-competition life. "I had the time of my life", he said, despite getting "650th place" and being "impressed that I even finished". LeMond continued, "I decided that day that nobody's going to keep me from cycling, not Trek, not Armstrong, not Verbruggen, not anybody." At the time, LeMond was alluding to a series of public and private disputes related to his anti-doping advocacy that hampered his enjoyment of cycling. Especially significant was LeMond's appearance as a USADA witness in the Floyd Landis doping case. At that time, Landis's business manager threatened to expose the fact that LeMond was a survivor of child sex abuse.
Several weeks later, LeMond and his wife Kathy gave an extensive interview to Paul Kimmage of The Sunday Times. LeMond provided additional details concerning the circumstances of his 2001 apology to Armstrong, stating that Trek, the longtime manufacturer and distributor of LeMond Racing Cycles, had threatened to end the relationship at the behest of Armstrong if he did not apologize. He described the two years following the apology as the worst in his life, marked by self-destructive behavior; ultimately, that behavior led LeMond to tell his wife that he was a survivor of child sex abuse and to seek help in addressing that past trauma. LeMond described how being a victim of molestation had impacted his life and his racing career. In September 2007, LeMond became a founding board member of the non-profit organization 1in6.org, whose mission is "to help men who have had unwanted or abusive sexual experiences in childhood live healthy, happy lives".
LeMond was in a car accident on the morning of January 30, 2013. He was driving through wintery and icy conditions to his dentist in Wayzata, Minnesota, when he lost control of his car. LeMond suffered a concussion and was left with no memory of the incident. According to Associated Press, a Plymouth police report says LeMond left the road, hit a fence and shrubs, and then hit an embankment before ending up in the backyard of a home. LeMond may have lost consciousness before the accident, according to his wife Kathy, and he suffered a compression fracture in his back and would have to wear a brace for three months. The accident curtailed LeMond's public appearances in the first half of 2013, but he made a full recovery.
On September 19, 2019, the United States House of Representatives passed a bipartisan bill, submitted by California Representative Mike Thompson, to award LeMond the Congressional Gold Medal. The bill was approved by Congress on November 16, 2020, and signed by president Donald Trump on December 4, 2020. Upon signature of the bill, the White House released a statement, saying the medal was awarded "in recognition of his service to the Nation as an athlete, activist, role model, and community leader".
Career achievements
Major results
1977
1st Road race, National Junior Road Championships
1978
1st Overall Vuelta de Bisbee
2nd Road race, National Junior Road Championships
3rd Team time trial, UCI Junior Road World Championships
1979
1st Road race, UCI Junior Road World Championships
1st Road race, National Junior Road Championships
1st Nevada City Classic
2nd Track pursuit, UCI Junior Track World Championships
3rd Team time trial, UCI Junior Road World Championships
1980
1st Overall Circuit de la Sarthe
1st Nevada City Classic
3rd Overall Circuit des Ardennes
1981
1st Overall Coors Classic
1st Stages 1 & 7
Tour de Picardie
1st Stages 2 & 2a
1st Nevada City Classic
3rd Overall Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré
3rd Overall Route du Sud
7th Overall Circuit de la Sarthe
1982
1st Overall Tour de l'Avenir
1st Stages 4 (ITT), 5 & 8 (ITT)
2nd Road race, UCI Road World Championships
2nd Overall Tour Méditerranéen
3rd Overall Tirreno–Adriatico
1st Stage 3
3rd Overall Tour de Corse
3rd Grand Prix de Rennes
1983
1st Road race, UCI Road World Championships
1st Overall Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré
1st Stages 1, 5 & 7b (ITT)
1st Overall Super Prestige Pernod International
1st Critérium des As
1st Stage 1 Tour Méditerranéen
2nd Grand Prix des Nations
2nd Giro di Lombardia
4th Overall Tour de Suisse
4th Paris–Tours
6th Druivenkoers Overijse
10th Overall Tirreno–Adriatico
1984
1st Stage 1 Clásico RCN
3rd Overall Tour de France
1st Young rider classification
1st Stage 3 (TTT)
3rd Overall Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré
1st Stage 7b
3rd Liège–Bastogne–Liège
5th Overall Tirreno–Adriatico
7th Overall Ronde van Nederland
8th Overall Critérium International
9th Gent–Wevelgem
1985
1st Overall Coors Classic
1st Stage 5
2nd Overall Tour de France
1st Combination classification
1st Stages 3 (TTT) & 21 (ITT)
2nd Road race, UCI Road World Championships
2nd Overall Tour of the Basque Country
3rd Overall Giro d'Italia
3rd Super Prestige Pernod International
4th Overall Critérium International
4th Paris–Roubaix
4th Omloop Het Volk
6th Overall Tour Méditerranéen
7th Tour of Flanders
7th Grand Prix Eddy Merckx
1986
1st Overall Tour de France
1st Combination classification
1st Stage 13
1st Stage 4 Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana
2nd Milan–San Remo
2nd Super Prestige Pernod International
2nd Overall Coors Classic
1st Stage 4a
3rd Overall Paris–Nice
3rd Overall Tour de Suisse
3rd Overall Critérium International
4th Overall Giro d'Italia
1st Stage 5
4th La Flèche Wallonne
4th Züri-Metzgete
7th Overall Étoile de Bessèges
7th Road race, UCI Road World Championships
1989
1st Road race, UCI Road World Championships
1st Overall Tour de France
1st Stages 5 (ITT), 19 & 21 (ITT)
2nd Boucles de l'Aulne
4th Overall Critérium International
4th Grand Prix des Amériques
6th Overall Tirreno–Adriatico
1990
1st Overall Tour de France
2nd Züri-Metzgete
3rd Boucles de l'Aulne
4th Road race, UCI Road World Championships
10th Overall Tour de Suisse
1991
7th Overall Tour de France
1992
1st Overall Tour DuPont
1st Prologue
2nd Overall Tour d'Armorique
9th Paris–Roubaix
Grand Tour general classification results timeline
Classics results timeline
Awards
Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year: 1989
Jesse Owens International Trophy: 1991
Korbel Lifetime Achievement Award: 1992
See also
Yellow jersey statistics
List of companies named after people
List of French Americans
List of Grand Tour general classification winners
List of multi-sport athletes
List of people from Minnesota
List of sports rivalries
List of Tour de France general classification winners
List of Tour de France secondary classification winners
United States at the UCI Road World Championships
References
Notes
Citations
Bibliography
Further reading
External links
LeMond Composites
1961 births
Living people
American people of French descent
American Giro d'Italia stage winners
American male cyclists
American Tour de France stage winners
Cycle designers
People from Lakewood, California
Tour de France Champs Elysées stage winners
Tour de France winners
UCI Road World Champions (elite men)
U.S. F2000 National Championship drivers
Super Prestige Pernod winners
Cyclists from California | false | [
"11,491 athletes were registered to compete at the 2016 Summer Olympics held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.\n\nAll Olympic sports are signed up to the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) code which operates on a strict liability principle, whereby an athlete is strictly liable for any adverse analytical finding from their urine or blood samples. Until 2015, the standard punishment for a first doping offence was two years suspension. For a second or subsequent offence, the standard punishment is between 8 years suspension and a lifetime ban. From 2015 onwards, the standard suspension for an adverse finding involving an unspecified substance such as steroids and human growth hormone was increased to four years.\n\nIn July 2016 the International Olympic Committee (IOC) decided, following the publication of the McLaren Report, that the eligibility of all Russian athletes to compete in the 2016 Olympics must be determined individually by each sport's governing body. This decision was based on the findings about the Russian state-sponsored doping program. Two athletes, swimmer Yuliya Yefimova and cyclist Olga Zabelinskaya, whose participation would not have been allowed under this ruling, was exceptionally allowed to compete by the IOC after their ban was deemed \"unenforceable\" by the Court of Arbitration for Sport. At least 96 other athletes, representing 52 countries in 13 sports, who were registered to compete have previously been convicted of a doping offence.\n\nAthletes\n\nSee also \n Doping at the Olympic Games\n\nReferences \nGeneral\n\n \n\nSpecific\n\n2016 Summer Olympics\n2016\nDoping\nOlympic Games controversies\n2016 controversies",
"Australia has been at the forefront in the fight against doping in sport. It was one of the first countries to establish a sports anti-doping agency and is a member of World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Australia abides by World Anti-Doping Code. In 2010, Australian John Fahey was re-elected as President of WADA for a second and final three-year term which finished at the end of 2013. Australia like other major countries has been embroiled in major doping in sport controversies and issues.\n\nAdministration\n\nAs a result of the Senate Drugs in Sport Inquiry held 1989–1990, the Australian Government established the Australian Sports Drug Agency through the Australian Sports Drug Agency Act 1990. On 14 March 2006, Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA) replaced the Australian Sports Drug Agency. Besides education and testing, ASADA was given increased powers to conduct investigations, present cases at sporting tribunals, recommend sanctions, and approve and monitor sporting organisations' anti-doping policies. In June 2013, Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority Amendment Bill 2013 provided ASADA with increased investigation powers. The Bill provided ASADA the right to compel those it believes that have knowledge about doping practice or a specific doping violation to attend an interview and to produce related documents. Failure to cooperate will lead to civil penalties.\n\nAustralia has a National Anti-Doping Framework that aligns domestic anti-doping efforts in Australia through a set of agreed principles, alongside clearly identified areas for co-operation between the Australian Government and State and Territory Governments. Members of the Framework are Department of Regional Australia, Local Government, Arts and Sport, Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority, Australian Sports Commission, State and Territory Governments, national sports organisations, state sporting organisations and professional associations. Other Australian Government agencies that play a role in the Framework include National Measurement Institute, Australian Customs and Border Protection Service, Therapeutic Goods Administration, Australian Federal Police and Australian Crime Commission.\n\nASADA plays a prominent role in the development of the World Anti-Doping Code\n\nTesting\n\nRoyal Brisbane Sports Drug Testing Laboratory was accredited by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for testing between 1982 and 1987. It ceased testing in 1987 after it failed IOC biennial reaccreditation. It was replaced by the Australian Government Analytical Laboratories now called Australian Sports Drug Testing Laboratory which is a section of the National Measurement Institute. In 2011/12, Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority conducted 3,996 government‑funded tests across 45 sports and 3,200 user‑pays tests for Australian sporting bodies and other organisations.\n\nResearch\nThe Australian Government allocates funding for scientific and social science anti-doping research through the Anti-Doping Research Program (ADRP). ADRP is funded under the Australian Government's Sport Anti-Doping Program, which also supports Australia's international anti-doping commitments to the WADA and UNESCO. Research into sports doping issues is also undertaken by a range of Australian universities and research findings are published in academic journals and The Conversation website. Science and Industry Against Blood Doping (SIAB) located on the Gold Coast, Queensland is a leader in blood doping research.\n\nChronology of doping\nChronological listing of major sports doping events and issues in Australian sport. Listing excludes horse racing, harness racing and greyhound racing and does not include individual doping violations.\n\n1977 - Graham Olling, a Parramatta Eels player, admitted to taking a course of anabolic steroids under medical supervision. It was one of the first cases on an Australian athlete admitting to drug use. \n1982 – Australian Sports Medicine Federation (ASMF) published the Survey of Drug Use in Australian sport. The three-year survey found that 5 per cent of Australian athletes were major drug users. \n1985 – in response to the ASMF Survey, the Australian Government established the National Program on Drugs in Sport under the Australian Sports Commission. \n1986 - Australian athletics team manager Maurie Plant at a track and field meeting in Belfast in 1986, asked heptathlete Jane Flemming to provide a substitute urine sample for the javelin thrower Sue Howland, fearing Howland would test positive to an anabolic steroid. \n1987 – 30 November – Australian Broadcasting Corporation Four Corners program The Winning Edge discussed the anabolic steroids in health clubs and raised concerns about allegations by Gael Martin and Sue Howland, two former Australian Institute of Sport athletes. \n1988 – 19 May – Senate Standing Committee on Environment, Recreation and the Arts established an inquiry on the based on issues arises from the Four Corner's program. The Inquiry examined \"the use by Australian sportsmen and sportswomen of performances enhancing drugs and the role played by Commonwealth agencies\". Senator John Black was appointed chairman and Senator Noel Crichton-Browne Deputy Chairman of the Inquiry. The Inquiry examined doping allegations relating to track and field and weightlifting at the AIS, powerlifting and professional sports. Two extensive reports were published. The Inquiry was covered heavily by the media. \n1988 - Alex Watson, an Australian modern pentathlete, was disqualified and sent home from the 1988 Seoul Olympics after excessive caffeine levels. His ban led to an Australian Parliament Inquiry into the handling of the incident. Watson had his suspension reduced to two years and competed at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. \n1990 – Australian Sports Drug Agency was established. This organisation was a major outcome of the Senate Inquiry and its objectives were to deter the use of banned doping practices in sport through education, testing, advocacy services, and co-ordination of Australia's anti-doping program. \n1999 - Australian Sports Commission and ASDA initiated a nationwide drug education and enforcement program through the Tough-on-Drugs-in-Sport policy. This policy was in the wake of the 1998 Tour de France doping scandal.\n2000 – August – AIS and Australian Sports Drug Testing Laboratory developed blood test to detect the banned drug erythropoietin (EPO). The IOC approved the test to be used at the 2000 Sydney Olympics in conjunction with a French urine test. \n2004 - Australian Sports Commission (ASC) became World Anti-Doping Code (WADA Code) compliant on 1 August 2004. As a result, all ASC funded and recognised national sporting organisations were required to have an ASC compliant anti doping policy by 1 January 2005. The WADA Code included illicit/recreational drugs such as marijuana and cocaine. In 2005, the Australian Football League (AFL') was in dispute with the Australian Government over the AFL's sanctions for illicit/recreational drug use. The AFL preferred a harm minimization rather than a punitive approach.\n2004 – Australian Sports Commission and Cycling Australia appointed Justice Robert Anderson to investigate doping allegations concerning the AIS track cycling team based in Adelaide, South Australia. Mark French was banned for two years but in July 2005 the ban was overturned by the Court of Arbitration for Sport due to lack of evidence. \n2006 – Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA) replaced the Australian Sports Drug Agency. Besides education and testing, ASADA was given increased powers to conduct investigations, present cases at sporting tribunals, recommend sanctions, and approve and monitor sporting organisations' anti-doping policies. \n2007 – 6 October – Australian Government launched its Tough on Drugs illicit drugs in sport policy which provided a voluntary regime for out-of-competition testing for illicit drugs. This policy has generated a great deal of commentary particularly related Australian Football League's three strikes policy. \n2012 – October – Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority instigated an investigation into Australian cycling in light of the United States Anti-Doping Agency’s investigation into the US Postal Service Pro Cycling Team and Lance Armstrong. \nThe investigation lead to Matthew White and Stephen Hodge to admitting to doping during their careers. \n\n2013 – February - Australian Crime Commission released report titled Organised Crime And Drugs In Sport. The investigation identified widespread use of prohibited substances including peptides, hormones and illicit drugs in professional sport that was facilitated by sports scientists, high-performance coaches and sports staff. Essendon Football Club from the Australian Football League and six National Rugby League Canberra Raiders, Cronulla Sutherland Sharks, Newcastle Knights, Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles, North Queensland Cowboys, Penrith Panthers teams were implicated after of the report. ASADA is currently investigating possible doping violations from the report. \n2013 – 11 February – Australian Olympic Committee required Australian athletes to sign statutory declarations saying they have no history of doping in sport. There will be penalty of up to five years imprisonment for those providing false declarations. \n2013 - June - Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority Amendment Bill 2013 was passed and its main aim is to compel persons of interest to assist ASADA's investigations. The Australian Greens Party's amendments resulted in interviewees having the right to remain silent and to be accompanied by a lawyer during interviews. \n2013 - August - Essendon Football Club supplements saga. The Australian Football League (AFL) severely penalised the Essendon Football Club after Australian Sports Anti Doping Authority (ASADA) and AFL joint investigation found issues with its supplements program. The AFL found that Essendon had brought the AFL into disrepute and handed down severe penalties - $2 million fine, suspension from the 2013 finals series, removal of first round drafts picks and penalties to Essendon football department officials including the one-year suspension to Head Coach James Hird. Sandor Earl, National Rugby League player, became the first athlete issued with an infraction notice as a result of the ACC report. \n2013 - December - Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks supplements saga. The NRL announced a series of penalties upon the club, which included the 12-month suspension of Shane Flanagan as head coach, a $1,000,000 fine (with $400,000 suspended) and the deregistration of Trent Elkin as the club's trainer. \n2014 - November - Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority Amendment Bill 2014 was passed. This amendment ensured that Australia's anti-doping legislation was aligned with the revised World Anti-Doping Code that will come into force on 1 January 2015. There was a Senate Inquiry into the legislation that focused on ASADA working more closely with police and intelligence agencies, banning athletes from working with sports professionals involved in doping and increasing first offence bans from two to four years. Australian Athletes' Alliance representing professional athletes argued against the changes. \n2015 - March The AFL Anti-Doping Tribunal announces that all 34 past and present Essendon players were found not guilty of using a banned supplement. In April, ASADA announces that it will not appeal the AFL Anti-Doping Tribunal's ruling finding all 34 past and present Essednon players not guilty. In May, WADA announces it will appeal the tribunal's not guilty decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. \n2015 - August - Collingwood Football Club players Josh Thomas and Lachlan Keeffe accepted two year doping bans for taking clenbuterol. Players were each fined $50,000 and delisted. The players admitted that clenbuterol probably entered their body whilst taking illicit drugs. This case brought into question the AFL's illicit drugs policy based on harm minimization. \n2016 - January - Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) found in WADA's favour and overturned the not-guilty verdict in the Essendon Football Club supplements saga. The thirty-four Essendon players were suspended for two years backdated to 31 March 2015; including time served in provisional suspensions during the 2014/15 offseason, this will bring the suspensions for almost all of the players to an end in November 2016. In October, the Swiss Federal Tribunal dismissed the Essendon players appeal against the CAS decision made in January.\n\nDoping cases\nAustralian Sports Anti-Doping Authority website lists Australian athletes with doping violations. Australian sportspeople in doping cases lists prominent Australian athletes involved in doping cases. Athletes competing in Olympics sports found guilty of taking performance-enhancing drugs include Nathan Baggaley (canoeing), Gael Martin (athletics) and Martin Vinnicombe (cycling) and professional sports Rodney Howe (rugby league), Reni Maitua (rugby league) and Justin Charles (AFL). High-profile professional athletes Andrew Johns (rugby league) and Ben Cousins (AFL) have admitted to the use of illicit drugs during their playing careers.\n\nSee also\nCronulla-Sutherland Sharks supplements saga\nDrugs in the Australian Football League\nEssendon Football Club supplements saga\nList of Australian sports controversies\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority website\n Australian Sports-Anti Doping Authority Act 2006\n Department of Regional Australia, Local Government, Arts and Sport Anti Doping website\n Australian Sports Commission Anti-Doping Policy\n World Anti-Doping Agency website\n The Conversation (Australia) Drugs in sport articles\n Senate Standing Committees on Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority Amendment Bill 2013 for inquiry and report\n We’re getting tougher on doping cheats – but why? \n We need an advocate against ASADA’s power in doping control\n Who's Cheating Whom?, reported by Geoff Thompson ABC Four Corner's 22 April 2013\n\n \nAustralian sportspeople in doping cases\nHistory of sport in Australia"
] |
[
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"Anti-doping stance and controversies",
"What happened with Anti-doping",
"products ultimately victimize the professional cyclists who make use of them.",
"Was there any controversies on Anti-doping?",
"LeMond's most notable conflicts have been with fellow Tour riders Lance Armstrong and Floyd Landis. He has also been critical of Alberto Contador, the UCI, and its former president,"
] | C_4b522eb5fc884e7f81e177165f06fcdc_0 | Was anyone tested for using these enhancers? | 3 | Was anyone tested for using doping enhancers? | Greg LeMond | LeMond is a longtime vocal opponent of performance-enhancing drug use. He first spoke on-record against doping in cycling after winning the 1989 Tour de France. LeMond received intense criticism in 2001 when he publicly expressed doubts about the legitimacy of Lance Armstrong's Tour success after learning of his relationship with Dr. Michele Ferrari. His outspokenness placed him in the center of the anti-doping controversy. LeMond has consistently questioned the relationship between riders and unethical sports doctors like Ferrari, and has pointed out that doping products ultimately victimize the professional cyclists who make use of them. Said LeMond: "When I speak out about doping people could translate it and think it was about the riders. Actually I feel like I am an advocate for the riders. I look at them as being treated like lab rats that are test vehicles for the doctors. The doctors, the management, the officials, they're the ones that have corrupted riders. The riders are the only ones that pay the price." LeMond's most notable conflicts have been with fellow Tour riders Lance Armstrong and Floyd Landis. He has also been critical of Alberto Contador, the UCI, and its former president, Pat McQuaid. In December 2012, LeMond claimed that a change needed to be made at the head of leadership for the UCI, and stated if called upon he would be willing to take the position himself if necessary to lead cycling out of the mire of doping. Said LeMond: "It is now or never to act. After the earthquake caused by the Armstrong case another chance will not arise. I am willing to invest to make this institution more democratic, transparent and look for the best candidate in the longer term." McQuaid rejected LeMond's call for new leadership and was dismissive of LeMond. Ultimately McQuaid was defeated in his bid for a third term by British Cycling president Brian Cookson at the September 2013 UCI Congress in Florence, Italy. Lemond had supported Cookson in the UCI Presidential battle. CANNOTANSWER | LeMond has consistently questioned the relationship between riders and unethical sports doctors like Ferrari, and has pointed out that doping products ultimately victimize the professional cyclists | Gregory James LeMond (born June 26, 1961) is an American former professional road racing cyclist, entrepreneur, and anti-doping advocate. A two-time winner of the Road Race World Championship (1983 and 1989) and a three-time winner of the Tour de France (1986, 1989, and 1990), LeMond is considered by many to be the greatest American cyclist of all time, one of the great all-round cyclists of the modern era, and an icon of the sport's globalisation.
LeMond began his professional cycling career in 1981. In 1983, he became the first American male cyclist to win the Road World Championship. LeMond won the Tour de France in 1986; he is the first non-European professional cyclist to win the Tour. He was accidentally shot with pellets and seriously injured while hunting in 1987. Following the shooting, he underwent two surgeries and missed the next two Tours. At the 1989 Tour, he completed an improbable comeback to win in dramatic fashion on the race's final stage. He successfully defended his Tour title the following year, becoming one of only eight riders to win three or more Tours. LeMond retired from competition in December 1994 and was inducted into the United States Bicycling Hall of Fame in 1996. He was the first professional cyclist to sign a million-dollar contract and the first cyclist to appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated.
During his career, LeMond championed several technological advancements in pro cycling, including the introduction of aerodynamic "triathlon" handlebars and carbon fiber bicycle frames, which he later marketed through his company LeMond Bicycles. His other business interests have included restaurants, real estate, and consumer fitness equipment. LeMond is a vocal opponent of performance-enhancing drug use in cycling and is a founding board member of 1in6.org, a nonprofit charity that assists male victims of child sex abuse.
Early life and amateur career
LeMond was born in Lakewood, California, and was raised in the Washoe Valley, a ranch country on the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountain range between Reno, and the family home about 2.5 miles north of Carson City, Nevada. His parents are Bob LeMond and Bertha LeMond (d. 2006), and he has two sisters, Kathy and Karen.
LeMond grew up living an active, outdoor life. Hiking, hunting, skiing and flyfishing were boyhood pastimes. The ranch country of the Sierra Nevada mountain range lent itself to such pursuits. A hyperactive youngster, LeMond believes these outdoor activities helped keep him out of trouble. "I was a boy who just could not sit still. I had trouble focusing in school. Parents and educators then did not have the skill set to diagnose and cope with what we know now was a classic case of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). ADHD certainly was not the frequently medicated childhood disease it is today. My triumph over the symptoms was found atop two thin tires over many dusty miles." Said LeMond: "That's one of the traits. It's the inability to sit down [and listen] to something you are not really interested in and absorb it. If they are interested in it, people with ADD excel in really good ways. When I got into cycling I would say the sport itself took a fog off my brain. I was able to absorb stuff I read. It changed my life."
LeMond attended Earl Wooster High School in Reno, but lived too far away to participate in team sports. LeMond soon biked almost daily to high school. He often rode home from Wooster, taking a route over Mt. Rose, along to Incline Village, then south on Hwy 28, then downhill to Carson City, then to his home.
LeMond's introduction to cycling came in 1975, thanks to freestyle skiing pioneer Wayne Wong, who recommended the bike as an ideal off-season training aid. LeMond started competing in 1976, and after dominating the Intermediate category (13–15) and winning the first 11 races he entered, he received permission to ride against older, more seasoned competitors in the Junior (16–19) category.
In 1977, while still only 15, LeMond finished second in the Tour of Fresno to John Howard, then the United States's top road cyclist and the 1971 Pan American Games champion. LeMond caught the attention of Eddie Borysewicz, the US Cycling Federation's national team coach, who described LeMond as "a diamond, a clear diamond." LeMond represented the United States at the 1978 Junior World Championships in Washington, D.C., where he finished ninth in the road race, and again in the 1979 Junior World Championships in Argentina, where he won gold, silver and bronze medals—the highlight being his victory in the road race. At age 18, LeMond was selected for the 1980 U.S. Olympic cycling team, the youngest ever to make the team. However, the U.S. boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow prevented him from competing there.
Borysewicz, whom LeMond described as his "first real coach," wanted to retain his protégé through the next Olympic cycle and discouraged him from turning pro, but LeMond was determined. Nevertheless, while he was the reigning Junior World Road Champion in 1980, LeMond received no professional offers, and so in the spring of 1980, he joined the U.S. National cycling team for a 6-week European racing campaign. There, he finished third overall in the Circuit des Ardennes before winning the 1980 Circuit de la Sarthe stage race in France, thereby becoming the first American and youngest rider of any nationality "in the history of the sport to win a major pro-am cycling event [in Europe]." That victory, and the subsequent press coverage, raised LeMond's profile in Europe and he was scouted at his next event (the Ruban Granitier Breton stage race) by Cyrille Guimard, the Renault–Elf–Gitane team's directeur sportif. Guimard said he was impressed with LeMond's spirit, and told him, "You have the fire to be a great champion," before offering him a professional contract for 1981 with Renault. After he returned to the United States, LeMond won the 1980 Nevada City Classic, considered to be one of the most historic and challenging professional cycling races in United States. Despite eventually receiving several other offers to turn professional besides Guimard's, LeMond did not consider them seriously, and he signed with Renault in Paris on the day the 1980 Tour de France finished.
Professional career
LeMond was an "exceptionally gifted" amateur rider who quickly established himself as one of the most talented cyclists on the professional circuit. Respected cycling journalist John Wilcockson, who reported the Tour de France for more than 40 years, described LeMond as a rider who was fuoriclasse.
1981–1983: Early years
LeMond's first professional victory came three months into his 1981 debut when he won a stage of the French Tour de l'Oise. He followed with a win in the Coors Classic in the United States, finishing ahead of Sergei Sukhoruchenkov, the 1980 Olympic road champion. The major step forward in 1981 occurred in the Dauphiné Libéré stage race where LeMond placed third. The achievement is the more remarkable because he rode the race in support of team leader Bernard Hinault. LeMond missed standing on the podium with race winner Hinault, as Pascal Simon had finished ahead of him. Two weeks later Simon was assessed a 10-minute penalty when it was discovered he had been doping. LeMond considered the race to have been a "major steppingstone" in his career. Said LeMond: "It showed me that I had the kind of climbing ability that you need to win the top European stage races." LeMond won a total of five races in his rookie season of 1981.
LeMond broke his collarbone on April 11, 1982, while racing the cycling classic Liège–Bastogne–Liège. The injury forced LeMond to ride a reduced schedule before entering the World Championships, which were in Goodwood, England that year. In the men's road race competition, LeMond broke for the line but was out-sprinted by Italian Giuseppe Saronni. Following the race, LeMond's American teammate Jacques Boyer accused LeMond of chasing him down in the final 800 meters. Saronni was very strong at the end of the race and flew past Boyer and LeMond, winning by 5 seconds over LeMond, with another 5 seconds back to Kelly. Boyer placed tenth. Bronze medalist Sean Kelly, a favorite to win the race, was with Saronni when he caught LeMond with about 200 meters to go, but he could not hold his wheel. Said Kelly: "I don't think that Boyer was fading ... He got quite a good gap. Nobody wanted to go after him ... Yes, LeMond chased down Boyer. Boyer was the only man up the road."
LeMond was supported by his teammate George Mount, who observed, "What's LeMond going to do? Throw his bike down in front of everybody because Boyer is such a good buddy of everyone? ... Hell no—he's going to start sprinting because it's less than 200 meters to go and the sprint's already been going for a couple hundred meters. LeMond made a good move and a good sprint ... Boyer was not going to win that race. The best he could have got was fifth or sixth place."
LeMond did not apologize. The U.S. team was not as set up as the European teams, and did not have an independent race to determine the national champion. Instead, the highest finisher at the World's was considered the national champion. LeMond had argued for the team to compete as the European teams did, but team management and Boyer voted against him. Thus, unlike the other teams at the world championship, the US riders were competing against each other. Aged 21, LeMond was the first American pro to win a medal at the World's since Frank Kramer took silver in 1912. Said LeMond: "I'm racing for Renault and I'm racing for myself. It's a business and it's my living. To me, that second place was almost as good as winning, especially at my age."
Two weeks later, on September 20, 1982, LeMond won the mountainous 12-day, Tour de l'Avenir by a record 10 minutes, 18 seconds. The victory, and the time advantage LeMond held at the end, stunned Europe and provided broad confirmation that LeMond was indeed fuoriclasse.
The following year, 1983, LeMond won the Road World Championship outright, becoming the first American male cyclist to do so. (Audrey McElmury won in 1969 and Beth Heiden won in 1980.) LeMond's cycling talent—his overall strength, climbing ability, ability to ride a fast time trial and his capacity to recover quickly—all suggested LeMond would be an excellent prospect for the most demanding Grand Tours.
1984–1986: Grand Tours
LeMond rode his first Tour de France in 1984, finishing third in support of team leader Laurent Fignon, and winning the white jersey of the young rider classification. The following year he was brought across to La Vie Claire to ride in support of team captain Bernard Hinault who had regained his form and was attempting to win his fifth Tour. French businessman and team owner Bernard Tapie signed LeMond with a $1 million contract over three years. In the race Hinault led through the early mountain stages, but suffered a crash and came into difficulty. At this point, it was clear that LeMond was an elite rider capable of winning the Tour in his own right. LeMond possessed a natural talent for riding the Grand Tours, and got stronger over the course of a three-week race. The injured Hinault was vulnerable, and his competitors knew it. Stage 17 included three major climbs in the Pyrenees. On the second, the Col du Tourmalet, LeMond followed Stephen Roche in an attack, but was not given permission to help build on the gap over the field. The managers of his La Vie Claire team ordered the 24-year-old LeMond not to ride with Roche, but to sit on his wheel, a tactic to use the rider in front as cover for wind resistance so the following rider uses less energy. The pace Roche could put out by himself eventually slowed, and other riders came up to join the two men. Hinault recovered as well, though he did not regain the lead group. At the end of the stage LeMond was frustrated to the point of tears. He later revealed that team management and his own coach Paul Köchli had misled him as to how far back Hinault had dropped during the crucial Stage 17 mountain stage. Hinault won the 1985 Tour, with LeMond finishing second, 1:42 behind. LeMond had ridden as the dutiful lieutenant, and his support enabled Hinault to win his fifth Tour. In repayment for his sacrifice Hinault promised to help LeMond win the Tour the following year.
Hoping to end the season on a high note LeMond entered the World Championships road race with the strongest team the United States ever fielded. Riders included Boyer and LeMond, as well as Andrew Hampsten, Ron Kiefel, Bob Roll and Eric Heiden and this time the American team was set up to help the three strongest riders in LeMond, then Hampsten and Kiefel. Throughout the race LeMond answered repeated attacks and led many chase groups to contain dangerous breakaways, but by the final lap of the race he was beginning to tire. He was however, part of the group that was going to win, and while Hampsten and Keifel survived the race to this point, unfortunately they were too far back to assist LeMond in the final ten kilometers. Inside the final kilometer the last rider to launch an attack was former Tour and Vuelta champion Joop Zoetemelk. Being as he was 38 years old and long past his prime none of the remaining contenders including LeMond, Claudio Corti, Robert Millar, Moreno Argentin or Stephen Roche took the attack seriously initially. Zoetemelk opened a sizeable gap however, before long it was in excess of a hundred meters and quickly growing. He also had two teammates remaining in Johan Van der Velde and Gerard Veldscholten, assisting him by riding at the front but not actually chasing, therefore slowing the chase group. Italian rider Moreno took up the chase but he had nothing left to close the gap and actually put his hand in the air waving for the other riders to come forward and take up the pursuit. LeMond too had nothing left to chase down this final attack feeling that if he did, he wouldn't have anything left for the sprint and wouldn't win any medal at all. In a notable upset, Zoetemelk beat the favorites to the line by three seconds as LeMond out-sprinted Argentin to take the silver. There was no controversy following this silver medal for LeMond and immediately after the race he rode up alongside the Dutchman and congratulated him saying, "Nice ride Joop."
For the 1986 Tour, LeMond was a co-leader of the La Vie Claire team alongside Hinault. Hinault's support seemed less certain the closer the race approached. An unspoken condition was that his help would be contingent upon LeMond demonstrating that he was clearly the better rider. Hinault was in superb form, and had the chance to win an unprecedented sixth Tour. Hinault chose to let the Stage 9 individual time trial be the decider for which rider would receive the full support of team La Vie Claire. Hinault won the Stage 9 time trial, finishing 44 seconds in front of LeMond. LeMond had bad luck during the stage, having suffered a punctured tire requiring a wheel change, and later in the stage a bicycle change was required when he broke a wheel. He was frustrated with the outcome and the impact it would have on how the team would function for the remainder of the race. In Stage 12, the first mountain stage of the race in the Pyrenees, Hinault attacked the lead group and built up an overall lead. By the end of Stage 12, Hinault had a five-minute lead over LeMond and the other top riders. He claimed he was trying to draw out LeMond's rivals, but none of these attacks were planned with LeMond. He was clearly willing to ride aggressively and take advantage of the opportunities presented. LeMond was never placed in difficulty, except by his own teammate. The following day Hinault broke away again early but was caught and then dropped by LeMond on the final climb of Stage 13, allowing LeMond to gain back four and a half minutes. The next three stages brought the Tour to the Alps. On Stage 17 LeMond and Urs Zimmermann dropped Hinault from the leading group, and the end of the day saw LeMond pulling on the yellow jersey of race leader, the first time it had ever been worn by a rider from the United States. The following day in the Alps saw Hinault attack again early on the first climb, but he was pulled back. Attempting an escape on the descent, he was unable to separate himself from LeMond. The La Vie Claire team leaders were both excellent descenders. As they ascended up the next col they continued to pull away from the field, and maintained the gap as they reached the base of the final climb, the vaunted Alpe d'Huez. They pressed on through the crowd, ascending the twenty-one switchbacks of Alpe d'Huez and reaching the summit together. LeMond put an arm around Hinault and gave him a smile and the stage win in a show of unity, but the infighting was not over. Hinault attacked again on Stage 19 and had to be brought back by teammates Andrew Hampsten and Steve Bauer. Commenting on the team situation prior to the final individual time trial at Stage 20, LeMond offered the following with a wry smile: "He's attacked me from the beginning of the Tour De France. He's never helped me once, and I don't feel confident at all with him."
LeMond had to keep his eye on his teammate and rival throughout the race. Hinault rode aggressively and repeatedly attacked, and the division created in the La Vie Claire team was unmistakable. LeMond would keep the yellow jersey to the end of the race and win his first Tour, but he felt betrayed by Hinault and the La Vie Claire team leadership. LeMond later stated the 1986 Tour was the most difficult and stressful race of his career.
1987–1988: Shooting accident and recovery
LeMond had planned to defend his title in the 1987 Tour de France with La Vie Claire, but he was unable to participate. Earlier that year, while riding in the Tirreno–Adriatico spring tune-up race, LeMond fell and fractured his left wrist. He returned to the United States to recover from the injury. The week before returning to Europe, he went turkey hunting on a ranch co-owned by his father in Lincoln, California. LeMond was with Rodney Barber and Patrick Blades, his uncle and brother-in-law. The trio had become separated when Blades, who heard movement behind him, turned and fired through a bush. The movement had come from LeMond, who was hit in his back and right side with approximately 60 pellets. LeMond's injuries were life-threatening, but a police helicopter was already airborne near the scene and transported LeMond on a 15-minute air medical flight to the Medical Center at University of California-Davis. LeMond was taken for emergency surgery. He had suffered a pneumothorax to his right lung and extensive bleeding, having lost some 65 percent of his blood volume. A physician informed LeMond later that he had been within 20 minutes of bleeding to death. The operation saved his life, but four months later he developed a small bowel obstruction due to adhesions that had formed following the shooting. He underwent another surgery to relieve the obstruction and take down the adhesions. Concerned that his team would drop him if they knew the shooting accident required a second surgery, LeMond asked the surgeons to remove his appendix at the same time. He then informed his team that he had had his appendix removed, but the rest of the story was left somewhat vague. The events effectively ended his 1987 season, and in October he announced he would return to serious competition the following February, with the Dutch PDM team.
With 35 shotgun pellets still in his body, including three in the lining of his heart and five more embedded in his liver, LeMond attempted to return to racing in 1988. His comeback was hampered by over-training which resulted in tendonitis in his right shin requiring surgery. He missed the Tour for the second year running. Tensions in the relationship between LeMond and PDM were aggravated when LeMond discovered that doping was going on at the PDM squad. The result was that LeMond moved from PDM, one of the strongest teams in the peloton, to ADR, a team based in Belgium. The team was co-sponsored by Coors Light for American races. The deal was completed on New Year's Eve, just hours before LeMond would have been legally obliged to ride another season for the Dutch team. Joining the Belgian ADR squad allowed LeMond to continue to compete, but with teammates like Johan Museeuw who were better suited to riding Classics than Grand Tours.
1989: Return to elite level
After struggling in the 1989 Paris–Nice early-season race and failing to improve his condition, LeMond informed his wife Kathy that he intended to retire from professional cycling after the 1989 Tour de France. He had some flashes of form with 6th overall in Tirreno-Adriatico and in the two-day Critérium International, sharing an escape with Fignon, Indurain, Mottet, Roche and Madiot and finishing 4th overall. He started the 1989 Giro d'Italia in May as preparation for the Tour to follow, but struggled in the mountains and was not in contention for any of the leaders' jerseys before the final individual time trial into Florence. LeMond placed a surprising second there, more than a minute ahead of overall winner Laurent Fignon. Some of his improvement he attributed to an anti-anemia treatment he received twice during the race.
Coming into the 1989 Tour de France LeMond was not considered a contender for the general classification (GC). His own most optimistic hope was to finish his final Tour in the top 20. Without the weight of expectation and other pressures of being a Tour favorite, LeMond surprised observers with a strong ride in the prologue in Luxembourg, finishing fourth out of 198 riders. Buoyed by the result, LeMond continued to ride well over the opening flat stages, winning the stage 5 individual time trial, and gaining the yellow jersey as leader of the general classification for the first time in three years. LeMond seemed to ride himself into better condition during the first week's flat stages, and he was coming into peak form by the time the Tour reached the mountains. LeMond remained at the front of the race in the Pyrénées, but lost the lead to his former teammate and rival Laurent Fignon on stage 10 in Superbagnères. Five days later LeMond reclaimed yellow in the Alps, after the stage 15 mountain time trial from Gap to Orcières-Merlette. The see-saw battle continued, and when Fignon attacked on the upper slopes of Alpe d'Huez LeMond was unable to go with him, placing the yellow jersey back on the shoulders of Fignon. Fignon held a 50-second advantage over LeMond going into the 21st and final stage, a rare individual time trial from Versailles to the Champs-Élysées in Paris.
Fignon had won the Tour twice before, in 1983 and 1984, and was a very capable time trialist. It seemed improbable that LeMond could take 50 seconds off Fignon over the short course. This would require LeMond to gain two seconds per kilometer against one of the fastest chrono-specialists in the world. LeMond had done wind tunnel testing in the off season and perfected his riding position. He rode the time trial with a rear disc wheel, a cut-down Giro aero helmet and the same Scott clip-on aero bars which had helped him to the Stage 5 time trial win. Holding his time trialing position LeMond was able to generate less aerodynamic drag than Fignon, who used a pair of disc wheels but chose to go helmetless and did not use the aero bars that are now commonplace in time trials. Instructing his support car not to give him his split times, LeMond rode flat-out and finished at a record pace to beat Fignon by 8 seconds and claim his second Tour de France victory. As LeMond embraced his wife and rejoiced on the Champs-Élysées, Fignon collapsed onto the tarmac, then sat in shock and wept.
The final margin of victory of eight seconds was the closest in the Tour's history. LeMond's average speed for the stage 21 time trial was, at that time, the fastest in Tour history. Since then, only the 1994 and 2015 prologues and David Zabriskie's 2005 time trial performance have been faster. The press immediately labeled LeMond's come-from-behind triumph as, "the most astonishing victory in Tour de France history," and while LeMond admitted that it felt almost "too good to be true," he personally rated it as "much more satisfying" than his first overall Tour win in 1986.
LeMond's return to the pinnacle of cycling was confirmed on August 27, when he won the World Championships road race in Chambéry, France. Late in the race with less than 10 km to go the lead group, who had been away since very early in the race, made up of three very strong riders in Steven Rooks, Thierry Claveyrolat and Soviet star Dimitri Konyshev were trying to hold on to fight for the victory amongst themselves when Laurent Fignon broke away from the pursuing group in an effort to chase the leaders down and solo to victory. On the final climb of the race LeMond attacked in pursuit of Fignon on his own. Before long he had caught the Frenchman and not long after that the pair could see the lead group in front of them and they were quickly closing the gap. LeMond briefly dropped Fignon and caught the lead group on his own. Immediately upon catching Rooks, Claveyrolat and Konyshev he moved to the front and set the pace as two other riders in Canadian Steve Bauer and Irishman Sean Kelly attempted to bridge the gap up to LeMond and the lead group. Bauer ended up getting a flat tire essentially ending his hopes at a high finish while Sean Kelly was able to fight his way to the front group, which was bad news for LeMond and the others as Kelly was one of the best sprinters in the world. Fignon was able to rejoin the lead group as well and as the race approached the finish Fignon attacked on numerous occasions trying to drop the remaining riders. Rooks also launched an attack to go for the solo victory but was caught by LeMond, Fignon and the others. Inside the final kilometer Fignon continued attacking trying to break free, but just couldn't force open a gap and began to fall back as the sprint materialized eventually finishing in 6th place. LeMond, Konyshev and Kelly were the strongest riders when it came to the final sprint for victory and they finished in that order. After the race LeMond said that he did not feel well and even considered abandoning the race. With two laps to go he began feeling stronger and stated, "I was racing for the Gold medal. I wanted that World Championship. And with one kilometer to go, I knew I could get it." LeMond was only the fifth person in history to win both the Tour de France and the World Championship in the same year. In December, Sports Illustrated magazine named LeMond its 1989 "Sportsman of the Year", the first time a cyclist received the honor.
1990: A third tour win
LeMond parlayed the success of his 1989 season into the then-richest contract in the sport's history, signing a $5.5 million deal for three years with of France, the first time a cyclist had signed a multi-million dollar contract. He entered the 1990 Tour de France as defending champion and a pre-race favorite after leaving ADR to join the much stronger French team. At "Z" his teammates included Robert Millar, Eric Boyer and Ronan Pensec, all of whom already had finishes in the top six of the Tour de France. This unified roster of strong riders appeared capable of supporting LeMond in the mountains and controlling the race on the flats.
The squad's tactical plan was upset on the first day, when a breakaway that included LeMond's teammate Ronan Pensec, but no major favorites, arrived ten minutes ahead of the field. LeMond was prevented from challenging for the lead until the yellow jersey left the shoulders of his teammate. Surprisingly Pensec held the lead through the first high mountain stages, including Alpe d'Huez, but he would lose it soon after to the relative unknown Claudio Chiappucci.
LeMond closed in on Chiappucci and on stage 16 he put his stamp of authority on the race during the final climb of Luz Ardiden. Late in this stage, after all of the breakaways had been caught he launched a devastating attack that no one could answer. Miguel Induráin was the only rider able to get on LeMond's wheel but it was LeMond dictating the pace all the way up the climb as Chiappucci, Delgado and all of the other favorites fell further and further behind. While Induráin stayed with LeMond, he was not a threat for victory, but his performance put the cycling world on notice as he would win the next five Tours. Near the end of the stage LeMond sat up and the Spaniard took the stage win, but the devastation of LeMond's competitors was all but complete as there was now only +0:05 between LeMond and the yellow jersey.
He finally overtook Chiappucci on the final individual time trial on stage 20, where he finished over two minutes ahead of the unheralded Italian. LeMond at last had the yellow jersey, wearing it the following day as the Tour rode into Paris. LeMond had the distinction of winning the 1990 Tour without taking any of the individual stages. He remains the last rider to win the Tour while wearing the world champion jersey. Over the course of the 1990 Tour the perceived strength of the Z team was confirmed, as they led the team classification through most of the race, adding the team title to LeMond's yellow jersey. LeMond's 1990 Tour victory made him one of just five cyclists to win three or more Tours. As of 2021 a total of seven cyclists have won three times or more.
In September, LeMond attempted to defend his title at the 1990 UCI Road World Championships, but finished fourth, eight seconds behind the winner, his former teammate Rudy Dhaenens of Belgium.
1991–1994: Change in the peloton and retirement
LeMond felt confident before the 1991 Tour de France. He was the defending champion, trained well and had a solid team to support him. LeMond was among the leaders going into the Stage 8 individual time trial, and he finished second to the Spaniard Miguel Indurain. LeMond felt he was riding extremely well, and though his TT-effort had propelled him into the yellow jersey as leader of the general classification, losing eight seconds to Indurain shook his confidence. He held the yellow jersey for the next four days until Stage 12, a challenging mountain stage. LeMond experienced difficulty on the first climb and he cracked on the Col du Tourmalet, losing significant time to Claudio Chiappucci, and eventual winner Indurain. He continued to race, but was unable to seriously challenge for the lead thereafter, finishing the 1991 Tour seventh overall.
In 1992, LeMond won the Tour DuPont, which would be the last major win of his career. He would also have a strong top 10 finish in Paris-Roubaix early in the season. He never won any of cycling's 'Monument' races but he had several high places in four out of five of them throughout his career including 4th in Paris-Roubaix, 3rd in Liège-Bastogne-Liège and 2nd in Milan San Remo as well as the Giro di Lombardia.
In the 1992 Tour de France he started strongly and finished fourth in a breakaway on Stage 6 that put him fifth overall and he maintained his fifth place until the mountain stages when he lost form disastrously and lost more than 45 minutes on the stage to Sestrieres before quitting the race the next day—when his compatriot and former domestique Andrew Hampsten won atop Alpe d'Huez. While LeMond claimed a serious saddle sore caused him to abandon, he had earlier stated, "My climbing is not like usual. I've climbed much better in the past Tours. This year I'm just not feeling my usual self."
LeMond did extensive endurance training on the road the following winter, but his performances the following spring failed to improve. LeMond had to abandon the 1993 Giro d'Italia two days before the final stage after difficult racing left him 125th on GCC and third-from-last in the final time trial. He was too exhausted to enter the 1993 Tour de France. Following the 1993 season LeMond hired renowned Dutch physiologist Adrie van Diemen to advise him on a new technique to monitor training and measure performance. The (SRM) power-based training would make use of the watt as a guide to power output. In November 1993 LeMond confided to Samuel Abt that power output in watts would become the key metric. The watt has gained wide acceptance as the best measure of a cyclist's training performance.
The following year LeMond began the 1994 Tour de France but found he was unable to race effectively. He had to abandon after the first week before the race had reached the difficult mountain stages. That December, he announced his retirement. At the time the reasons for LeMond's increasing difficulties were not entirely known. At a loss, he speculated that a condition known as mitochondrial myopathy might be responsible for the difficulty he was having performing against the current riders. In 2007, however, LeMond speculated that he might not have had the condition after all, and suggested that lead toxicity from the shotgun pellets still embedded in his body might have been responsible, the effects of which were increased by heavy training.
LeMond has acknowledged since 2010 that the increasing prevalence of doping in cycling contributed to his lack of competitiveness. Said LeMond: "Something had changed in cycling. The speeds were faster and riders that I had easily out performed were now dropping me. At the time, the team I was on, Team Z, became more and more demanding, more and more concerned..." He stated he had been told in 1994 that he would need to blood dope in order to win again. He frankly admitted to Abt in 1999: "I figure I had three months that went right for me after the hunting accident," three months in which he won the two Tours and a world road race championship. "The rest were just pure suffering, struggling, fatigue, always tired."
In a wide-ranging interview with American novelist Bryan Malessa in 1998, LeMond was asked if his career had not been interrupted by the hunting accident, how did he feel he would compare to five time Tour winners such as Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain. LeMond responded: "Of course you can't rewrite racing history, but I'm confident that I would have won five Tours."
Two years after his retirement LeMond was inducted into the United States Bicycling Hall of Fame in a ceremony at Rodale Park in Trexlertown, Pennsylvania. The event was held on June 8, 1996, during the U.S. Olympic Cycling Team Trials.
In July 2014, ESPN announced the premiere of a new 30 for 30 film entitled Slaying the Badger. The film centers on LeMond and his former teammate Hinault at the 1986 Tour de France. It is based on the book of the same name by Richard Moore, and it premiered July 22, 2014 on ESPN.
Business interests
LeMond was a pioneer in the use of carbon fiber bicycle frames in European professional road cycling, and his Tour de France win in 1986 ahead of Bernard Hinault was the first for a carbon-framed bicycle. Ironically, given the rivalry that existed at the time between the American and his French teammate, LeMond rode a "Bernard Hinault" Signature Model Look prototype that year. LeMond also won the 1989 Tour de France, the 1989 World Championship, and his final Tour de France in 1990 on carbon fiber frames. These bicycle frames featured "Greg LeMond" branding.
LeMond Cycles
In 1990, LeMond founded LeMond Bicycles to develop machines for himself that would also be marketed and sold to the public. The following year, searching for an equipment edge for Team Z at the 1991 Tour de France, LeMond concluded an exclusive licensing agreement between his company and Carbonframes, Inc., to access the latter's advanced composites technology. Whilst using the bikes for the 1991 Tour, he would maintain his carbon bike in his hotel room, leading his mechanics to fear it had been stolen. While LeMond briefly led the 1991 Tour overall, riding his Carbonframes-produced "Greg LeMond" bicycle, the company eventually faltered, something LeMond blamed on "under-capitalization" and poor management by his father. Carbonframes and LeMond Cycles "parted amiably two years later." In 1995, with his company allegedly nearly bankrupt, LeMond reached a licensing-agreement with Trek Bicycle Corporation, according to which the Wisconsin-based company would manufacture and distribute bicycles designed with LeMond that would be sold under the "LeMond Bicycles" brand. LeMond would later claim that going into business with Trek "destroyed" his relationship with his father. The lucrative partnership, which generated revenue for Trek in excess of US$100,000,000, would be renewed several times over the course of 13 years, but it ultimately ended in acrimony after LeMond's relationship with Trek deteriorated over his staunch anti-doping advocacy.
LeMond found himself at odds with Trek in July 2001 after he expressed public concern over the relationship between Italian doping doctor Michele Ferrari and Trek's star athlete, Lance Armstrong. Trek president John Burke pressured LeMond to apologize, claiming, "Greg's public comments hurt the LeMond brand and the Trek brand." Burke allegedly justified his demand for an apology by advising that, "As a contractual partner, he [LeMond] could criticize doping only generally – not point his finger at specific athletes, particularly one that happens to be the company's main cash cow." Armstrong reportedly said privately he could "shut him up" by contacting Trek, as documented in affidavits by Frankie and Betsy Andreu released in the 2012 USADA doping report. LeMond issued an apology for his comment.
In a 2007 interview, LeMond accused Armstrong of trying to sabotage his relationship with Trek bicycles. In March 2008, LeMond Cycling Inc sued Trek for failing to properly promote and distribute the LeMond brand, and for attempting to "silence" LeMond's public comments about doping, attributing this to the influence of Armstrong on Trek. His complaint included statistics detailing slow sales in some markets, including the fact that between September 2001 and June 2007, Trek only sold $10,393 worth of LeMond bikes in France, a country in which LeMond was both famous and popular. Trek responded in April 2008, announcing that it was dropping LeMond Bicycles from its product line and that it would sue to sever the licensing agreement.
As promised, Trek counter-sued and stopped producing bicycles under the LeMond brand. After nearly two years of litigation, LeMond reached a confidential out-of-court settlement with Trek in February 2010. The settlement permitted the case to be dismissed with prejudice, meaning, "neither side can produce the same claims against one another in a future lawsuit." Although settlement terms were not disclosed, LeMond reportedly obtained full control over the LeMond Bicycles name, while Trek made a donation of US$200,000 to the charity 1in6, of which LeMond was a founding member of the board of directors.
LeMond Fitness/Revolution
In 2002, LeMond, Bernie Boglioli and others founded LeMond Fitness, Inc. "to help individuals achieve their fitness and performance goals and train more effectively." The company's primary business is the development and manufacture of bicycle trainers and indoor exercise bikes for consumers in the United States and internationally. LeMond serves as Chairman of the Board. In 2012, Hoist Fitness negotiated to purchase an interest in the company and announced plans to move its headquarters to Hoist's offices in San Diego, CA. In late 2012, LeMond purchased the LeMond Revolution from Hoist, relaunching with a new management team in Minneapolis. Later, he also formed LeMond LLC to introduce a suite of brands. Professional cycling's team renewed its sponsorship with LeMond to use its Revolution trainers for another three seasons. The team won several stages of the Tour de France, plus the general classification of the 2012 Giro d'Italia.
Partnership with Time
At the Interbike trade show in September 2013, LeMond announced that he was returning to the business of bicycle manufacture and sales by partnering with French company Time. The new line began with a series of commemorative designed bicycles, to be followed with road, cyclocross, and gravel-road models. LeMond purchased Time Sport USA, the US distributor for the company. Said LeMond: "I'm really excited to be back in the bike industry."
Real estate
In 2002, LeMond joined his parents-in-law David and Sacia Morris, friend Michael Snow and J.P. Morgan & Co. fund manager Jorge Jasson to invest in the exclusive Yellowstone Club, a Big Sky, Montana, private ski and golf community founded by timber baron Tim Blixseth and his wife Edra. Each of the five partners paid Blixseth $750,000 for one percent shares in the exclusive resort. LeMond also purchased several building lots and maintained a property at the resort. Four years later, LeMond and partners sued Blixseth in 2006 following reports of a Credit Suisse loan to the resort of $375 million from which Blixseth reportedly took $209 million in a disputed partial payout for his ownership stake. The Credit Suisse loan was based on a $1.16 billion Cushman & Wakefield valuation of the resort, for which LeMond and partners each sought $11.6 million for their one-percent shares. In 2007, LeMond settled his suit with the Blixseths for $39 million. However, he and his partners remained creditors as the Blixseths defaulted on a $20 million payment (after having already paid the group $18 million). In 2009, the Blixseths divorced and the Club went bankrupt.
Restaurants
LeMond became a restaurateur in August 1990 when, in partnership with his wife and her parents, he opened Scott Kee's Tour de France on France Avenue in the Minneapolis suburb of Edina, Minnesota. LeMond described the restaurant, which was named for its chef (LeMond's brother-in-law), as "a dream of five years come true." Explaining the origin of the concept, LeMond said, "Kathy and I have eaten at the finest establishments in France, Italy and Belgium. Our favorites have always been small places, family-owned." LeMond also partnered in several Bruegger's bagel bakery-café franchises.
LeMond Composites
LeMond founded LeMond Composites in 2016 to manufacture high-volume, low-cost carbon fiber composites under a licensing agreement with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and an exclusive 20-year licensing agreement with Deakin University. In 2017 LeMond and his family moved from Minnesota to Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to be close to the $125 million LeMond Composites manufacturing facility.
On October 16, 2017, Australian politician Sarah Henderson announced that LeMond Composites would receive AU$2.5 million (US$ million) in Australian Federal Government funding to establish a carbon fiber manufacturing plant in Geelong, Australia.
Broadcasting
In 2014, LeMond joined Eurosport as a pundit for the channel's cycling coverage, providing analysis at Paris–Roubaix, the Giro d'Italia and the Tour de France, and hosting his own monthly program LeMond on Cycling. He continued to work for the channel until 2017.
Anti-doping stance and controversies
LeMond is a longtime vocal opponent of performance-enhancing drug use. He first spoke on-record against doping in cycling after winning the 1989 Tour de France. He has consistently questioned the relationship between riders and unethical sports doctors and has pointed out that doping products ultimately victimize the professional cyclists who make use of them. Said LeMond: "When I speak out about doping people could translate it and think it was about the riders. Actually I feel like I am an advocate for the riders. I look at them as being treated like lab rats that are test vehicles for the doctors. The doctors, the management, the officials, they're the ones that have corrupted riders. The riders are the only ones that pay the price."
LeMond received intense criticism in 2001 when he publicly criticized Lance Armstrong's relationship with Dr. Michele Ferrari. Ferrari is an Italian physician and sports trainer who admitted to practicing blood doping and advocated the controlled use of the banned substance erythropoietin by athletes. Upon learning of Armstrong's association with Ferrari, LeMond said:
"When Lance won the prologue to the 1999 Tour I was close to tears, but when I heard he was working with Michele Ferrari I was devastated. In the light of Lance's relationship with Ferrari, I just don't want to comment on this year's Tour. This is not sour grapes. I'm disappointed in Lance, that's all it is."
LeMond's comments placed him in the center of an anti-doping controversy. About a month later, following pressure from both Armstrong and Trek, LeMond issued an apology for his comment; he called Armstrong "a great champion" and added, "I do not believe, in any way, that he has ever used any performance-enhancing substances. I believe his performances are the result of the same hard work, dedication and focus that were mine 10 years ago."
In 2004, LeMond spoke out again. On the heels of successive Tour de France wins by Armstrong, LeMond said, "If Armstrong's clean, it's the greatest comeback. And if he's not, then it's the greatest fraud." He went public with the fallout of his 2001 statement, alleging that Armstrong had threatened to defame him and threatened his business interests as well:
"[Armstrong] basically said 'I could find 10 people that will say you took EPO' ... The week after, I got multiple people that were on Lance ... Lance's camp, basically saying 'You better be quiet,' and I was quiet for three years. I have a business ... I have bikes that are sold ... and I was told that my sales might not be doing too well if ... just the publicity, the negative publicity." The same month, LeMond told French newspaper Le Monde that Armstrong was "ready to do anything to keep his secret. I don't know how he can continue to convince everybody of his innocence." At a press conference Armstrong gave in September 2008 to announce his return to cycling, LeMond publicly challenged him with questions about doping. Armstrong appeared angry and interrupted LeMond, telling him it was time to move on. In August 2012, the USADA announced that Armstrong had been issued a lifetime ban from cycling competition due to his involvement in a massive doping scheme. In addition, the USADA stripped Armstrong of his seven Tour de France titles.
LeMond has also clashed with fellow Tour rider Floyd Landis regarding the doping issue. On May 17, 2007, LeMond testified at a USADA hearing convened to weigh the evidence of doping by Landis during the 2006 Tour de France. Under oath, LeMond described a phone conversation he had with Landis on August 6, 2006, as well as another with Landis' business manager, Will Geoghegan, on May 16, 2007, the evening before LeMond appeared to testify. The major points of the testimony were:
In the August 6 conversation, LeMond said he told Landis that "If you did (admit to having used banned substances), you could single-handedly change the sport. You could be the one who will salvage the sport." LeMond said Landis responded by saying "What good would it do? If I did, it would destroy a lot of my friends and hurt a lot of people."
In their conversation, LeMond had disclosed his history of childhood sexual abuse to Landis and said the secret had nearly destroyed him. LeMond stated he warned Landis. "(Lying about doping) will come back to haunt you when you are 40 or 50. If you have a moral compass and ethics, this will destroy you."
Will Geoghegan attempted to stop LeMond's testimony by calling LeMond on his mobile phone. LeMond reported that Geoghegan claimed he was "his uncle" and intimated that he would appear at the hearing and expose the fact that LeMond was a survivor of child sex abuse. LeMond's BlackBerry, with Geoghegan's phone number captured in the call log, was entered into evidence.
In 2007, Landis was found guilty of doping and was banned from cycling for two years. In 2010, he admitted to having been involved in doping. Also in 2010, Landis apologized to LeMond for the events of 2007.
On July 23, 2009, LeMond wrote an opinion article in the French newspaper Le Monde where he questioned the validity of Alberto Contador's climb up Verbier in the 2009 Tour de France. In the piece, LeMond pointed out that Contador's calculated VO2 max of 99.5 mL/(kg·min) had never been achieved by any athlete. Said LeMond: "The burden is then on Alberto Contador to prove he is physically capable of performing this feat without the use of performance-enhancing products." Contador tested positive for clenbuterol after winning the 2010 Tour and was later stripped of his title and suspended from cycling for two years.
LeMond has criticized the UCI and its former president, Pat McQuaid. In December 2012, LeMond claimed that a change needed to be made in the leadership for the UCI and stated if called upon he would be willing to take the position himself if necessary to lead cycling out of the mire of doping. Said LeMond: "It is now or never to act. After the earthquake caused by the Armstrong case another chance will not arise. I am willing to invest to make this institution more democratic, transparent and look for the best candidate in the longer term." McQuaid rejected LeMond's call for new leadership and was dismissive of LeMond. Ultimately McQuaid was defeated in his bid for a third term by British Cycling president Brian Cookson at the September 2013 UCI Congress in Florence, Italy. Lemond had supported Cookson in the UCI Presidential battle.
Personal life
LeMond is married to Kathy (née Morris) and together they have three children: sons Geoffrey and Scott, and daughter Simone. LeMond and his wife lived in Medina, Minnesota, from 1990 until 2017 and then moved to Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Since his retirement, LeMond has become increasingly involved in philanthropic efforts relating to causes that have affected him personally (including ADHD and sexual abuse).
LeMond is an avid outdoor enthusiast and fly angler, and in 1991 – while still racing full-time – he made the world-record fly fishing catch of a four-pound smallmouth bass on a reel with a four-pound tippet. The record was certified by the National Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame in Hayward, Wisconsin. The catch exceeded the then-previous record of three pounds, six ounces made on the same size tippet back in 1986. LeMond confessed, "I always pack my fly fishing equipment when I travel to bike events. I fish every chance I get."
After retiring from pro cycling, LeMond competed in Formula Ford 2000 series auto racing. He is also a motivational speaker. LeMond narrated an award-winning documentary for Adventures for the Cure in 2008.
On July 16, 2007, LeMond rode the L'Étape du Tour cyclosportive with his son, and found it to be a defining moment in his post-competition life. "I had the time of my life", he said, despite getting "650th place" and being "impressed that I even finished". LeMond continued, "I decided that day that nobody's going to keep me from cycling, not Trek, not Armstrong, not Verbruggen, not anybody." At the time, LeMond was alluding to a series of public and private disputes related to his anti-doping advocacy that hampered his enjoyment of cycling. Especially significant was LeMond's appearance as a USADA witness in the Floyd Landis doping case. At that time, Landis's business manager threatened to expose the fact that LeMond was a survivor of child sex abuse.
Several weeks later, LeMond and his wife Kathy gave an extensive interview to Paul Kimmage of The Sunday Times. LeMond provided additional details concerning the circumstances of his 2001 apology to Armstrong, stating that Trek, the longtime manufacturer and distributor of LeMond Racing Cycles, had threatened to end the relationship at the behest of Armstrong if he did not apologize. He described the two years following the apology as the worst in his life, marked by self-destructive behavior; ultimately, that behavior led LeMond to tell his wife that he was a survivor of child sex abuse and to seek help in addressing that past trauma. LeMond described how being a victim of molestation had impacted his life and his racing career. In September 2007, LeMond became a founding board member of the non-profit organization 1in6.org, whose mission is "to help men who have had unwanted or abusive sexual experiences in childhood live healthy, happy lives".
LeMond was in a car accident on the morning of January 30, 2013. He was driving through wintery and icy conditions to his dentist in Wayzata, Minnesota, when he lost control of his car. LeMond suffered a concussion and was left with no memory of the incident. According to Associated Press, a Plymouth police report says LeMond left the road, hit a fence and shrubs, and then hit an embankment before ending up in the backyard of a home. LeMond may have lost consciousness before the accident, according to his wife Kathy, and he suffered a compression fracture in his back and would have to wear a brace for three months. The accident curtailed LeMond's public appearances in the first half of 2013, but he made a full recovery.
On September 19, 2019, the United States House of Representatives passed a bipartisan bill, submitted by California Representative Mike Thompson, to award LeMond the Congressional Gold Medal. The bill was approved by Congress on November 16, 2020, and signed by president Donald Trump on December 4, 2020. Upon signature of the bill, the White House released a statement, saying the medal was awarded "in recognition of his service to the Nation as an athlete, activist, role model, and community leader".
Career achievements
Major results
1977
1st Road race, National Junior Road Championships
1978
1st Overall Vuelta de Bisbee
2nd Road race, National Junior Road Championships
3rd Team time trial, UCI Junior Road World Championships
1979
1st Road race, UCI Junior Road World Championships
1st Road race, National Junior Road Championships
1st Nevada City Classic
2nd Track pursuit, UCI Junior Track World Championships
3rd Team time trial, UCI Junior Road World Championships
1980
1st Overall Circuit de la Sarthe
1st Nevada City Classic
3rd Overall Circuit des Ardennes
1981
1st Overall Coors Classic
1st Stages 1 & 7
Tour de Picardie
1st Stages 2 & 2a
1st Nevada City Classic
3rd Overall Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré
3rd Overall Route du Sud
7th Overall Circuit de la Sarthe
1982
1st Overall Tour de l'Avenir
1st Stages 4 (ITT), 5 & 8 (ITT)
2nd Road race, UCI Road World Championships
2nd Overall Tour Méditerranéen
3rd Overall Tirreno–Adriatico
1st Stage 3
3rd Overall Tour de Corse
3rd Grand Prix de Rennes
1983
1st Road race, UCI Road World Championships
1st Overall Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré
1st Stages 1, 5 & 7b (ITT)
1st Overall Super Prestige Pernod International
1st Critérium des As
1st Stage 1 Tour Méditerranéen
2nd Grand Prix des Nations
2nd Giro di Lombardia
4th Overall Tour de Suisse
4th Paris–Tours
6th Druivenkoers Overijse
10th Overall Tirreno–Adriatico
1984
1st Stage 1 Clásico RCN
3rd Overall Tour de France
1st Young rider classification
1st Stage 3 (TTT)
3rd Overall Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré
1st Stage 7b
3rd Liège–Bastogne–Liège
5th Overall Tirreno–Adriatico
7th Overall Ronde van Nederland
8th Overall Critérium International
9th Gent–Wevelgem
1985
1st Overall Coors Classic
1st Stage 5
2nd Overall Tour de France
1st Combination classification
1st Stages 3 (TTT) & 21 (ITT)
2nd Road race, UCI Road World Championships
2nd Overall Tour of the Basque Country
3rd Overall Giro d'Italia
3rd Super Prestige Pernod International
4th Overall Critérium International
4th Paris–Roubaix
4th Omloop Het Volk
6th Overall Tour Méditerranéen
7th Tour of Flanders
7th Grand Prix Eddy Merckx
1986
1st Overall Tour de France
1st Combination classification
1st Stage 13
1st Stage 4 Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana
2nd Milan–San Remo
2nd Super Prestige Pernod International
2nd Overall Coors Classic
1st Stage 4a
3rd Overall Paris–Nice
3rd Overall Tour de Suisse
3rd Overall Critérium International
4th Overall Giro d'Italia
1st Stage 5
4th La Flèche Wallonne
4th Züri-Metzgete
7th Overall Étoile de Bessèges
7th Road race, UCI Road World Championships
1989
1st Road race, UCI Road World Championships
1st Overall Tour de France
1st Stages 5 (ITT), 19 & 21 (ITT)
2nd Boucles de l'Aulne
4th Overall Critérium International
4th Grand Prix des Amériques
6th Overall Tirreno–Adriatico
1990
1st Overall Tour de France
2nd Züri-Metzgete
3rd Boucles de l'Aulne
4th Road race, UCI Road World Championships
10th Overall Tour de Suisse
1991
7th Overall Tour de France
1992
1st Overall Tour DuPont
1st Prologue
2nd Overall Tour d'Armorique
9th Paris–Roubaix
Grand Tour general classification results timeline
Classics results timeline
Awards
Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year: 1989
Jesse Owens International Trophy: 1991
Korbel Lifetime Achievement Award: 1992
See also
Yellow jersey statistics
List of companies named after people
List of French Americans
List of Grand Tour general classification winners
List of multi-sport athletes
List of people from Minnesota
List of sports rivalries
List of Tour de France general classification winners
List of Tour de France secondary classification winners
United States at the UCI Road World Championships
References
Notes
Citations
Bibliography
Further reading
External links
LeMond Composites
1961 births
Living people
American people of French descent
American Giro d'Italia stage winners
American male cyclists
American Tour de France stage winners
Cycle designers
People from Lakewood, California
Tour de France Champs Elysées stage winners
Tour de France winners
UCI Road World Champions (elite men)
U.S. F2000 National Championship drivers
Super Prestige Pernod winners
Cyclists from California | false | [
"Enhancer-FACS-seq (eFS), developed by the Bulyk lab at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, is a highly parallel enhancer assay that aims for the identification of active, tissue-specific transcriptional enhancers, in the context of whole Drosophila melanogaster embryos. This technology replaces the use of microscopy to screen for tissue-specific enhancers with fluorescence activated cell sorting (FACS) of dissociated cells from whole embryos, combined with identification by high-throughput Illumina sequencing.\n\nIntroduction\n\nTranscriptional regulation \nIn metazoans, in order to respond to environmental stress, differentiate properly, and progress normally through the cell cycle, a eukaryotic cell needs a specific and coordinated gene expression program, which involves the highly regulated transcription of thousands of genes. This gene regulation is in large part controlled, in a tissue-specific manner, by the binding of transcription factors to noncoding genomic regions referred to as cis-regulatory modules (CRMs), activating or repressing gene expression by modulating the structure of the chromatin and therefore having a positive or negative effect on transcription regulation. CRMs activating gene expression are often referred to as transcriptional enhancers, whereas those repressing gene expression are referred to as transcriptional silencers.\n\nEnhancer detection in Drosophila melanogaster \nDespite being a powerful model organism for biology and the study of transcriptional enhancers, the tissue specific activity of less than 5% of the estimated 50,000 transcriptional enhancers in Drosophila melanogaster have been discovered. Over the past decade, the main method for detection of tissue- or cell-type specific activities of enhancers in Drosophila melanogaster was to test candidate enhancers by traditional reporter assays, which are low-throughput and costly. Over the past few years, even though enhancer discovery has been improved and other parallel reporter assays have been developed, none so far allowed the direct identification of enhancer activity in a genomic context in cell types of interest in a whole embryo.\n\nMethodology \n\nEach candidate CRM (cCRM) is cloned upstream of a reporter gene. Compared to traditional reporter assays, the main innovation is the use of fluorescence activated cell sorting (FACS) of dissociated cells, instead of microscopy, to screen for tissue-specific enhancers. This approach utilizes a two-marker system: in each embryo, one marker (here, the rat CD2 cell surface protein) is used to label cells of a specific tissue for being sorted by FACS, and the other marker (here, green fluorescent protein GFP) is used as a reporter of CRM activity.\n\nCells are sorted according to their tissue type and then by GFP fluorescence, and the cCRMs are recovered by PCR from double-positive sorted cells, and from total input cells. High-throughput sequencing of both populations then allows measuring the relative abundance of each cCRM in input and sorted populations; one can then assess the enrichment or depletion of each cCRM in double-positive cells versus input as a measure of activity in the CD2-positive cell type being tested.\n\nSignificant results \nIn the initial report on this method, a library of ~500 cCRMs was drawn from a variety of genomic data sources (e.g., TF-bound regions, coactivator-bound regions, DNase I hypersensitive sites, and predictions from the Bulyk lab’s PhylCRM algorithm ) by PCR from genomic DNA, and then screened for activity in embryonic mesoderm and in specific mesodermal cell types. The results were validated by traditional reporter gene assay in Drosophila melanogaster embryos for 68 cCRMs tested by eFS. The specificity of eFS was excellent among significantly enriched cCRMs, while sensitivity was good where the majority of the CD2-positive cells express GFP. It was found that the known enhancer-associated chromatin marks H3K27ac, H3K4me1, and Pol II are significantly enriched among the enhancers found to be active in mesoderm.\n\nAdvantages and future applications\n\nAdvantages of eFS \n Highly parallel identification of active, tissue-specific transcriptional enhancers in whole embryos\n Candidate enhancers activity assayed in a genomic context\n High specificity of detected enhancers\n\nFuture applications \nThe eFS assay could be used to analyze other cell or tissue types. By assessing enrichment in GFP-expressing CD2-negative as well as CD2-positive cells, and by crossing a common pool of reporter transformant male flies to females expressing CD2 in different cell types, it is possible to assay specificity as well as activity. Accelerating the annotation of the regulatory genome in Drosophila should in principle generate the kind of large-scale regulatory interaction data that would allow exploring the network properties of transcriptional regulation.\n\nReferences\n\nGene expression",
"In genetics, a super-enhancer is a region of the mammalian genome comprising multiple enhancers that is collectively bound by an array of transcription factor proteins to drive transcription of genes involved in cell identity. Because super-enhancers are frequently identified near genes important for controlling and defining cell identity, they may thus be used to quickly identify key nodes regulating cell identity.\n\nEnhancers have several quantifiable traits that have a range of values, and these traits are generally elevated at super-enhancers. Super-enhancers are bound by higher levels of transcription-regulating proteins and are associated with genes that are more highly expressed. Expression of genes associated with super-enhancers is particularly sensitive to perturbations, which may facilitate cell state transitions or explain sensitivity of super-enhancer—associated genes to small molecules that target transcription.\n\nHistory\n\nThe regulation of transcription by enhancers has been studied since the 1980s. Large or multi-component transcription regulators with a range of mechanistic properties, including locus control regions, clustered open regulatory elements, and transcription initiation platforms, were observed shortly thereafter. More recent research has suggested that these different categories of regulatory elements may represent subtypes of super-enhancer.\n\nIn 2013, two labs identified large enhancers near several genes especially important for establishing cell identities. While Richard A. Young and colleagues identified super-enhancers, Francis Collins and colleagues identified stretch enhancers. Both super-enhancers and stretch enhancers are clusters of enhancers that control cell-specific genes and may be largely synonymous.\n\nAs currently defined, the term “super-enhancer” was introduced by Young’s lab to describe regions identified in mouse embryonic stem cells (ESCs). These particularly large, potent enhancer regions were found to control the genes that establish the embryonic stem cell identity, including Oct-4, Sox2, Nanog, Klf4, and Esrrb. Perturbation of the super-enhancers associated with these genes showed a range of effects on their target genes’ expression. Super-enhancers have been since identified near cell identity-regulators in a range of mouse and human tissues.\n\nFunction \n\nThe enhancers comprising super-enhancers share the functions of enhancers, including binding transcription factor proteins, looping to target genes, and activating transcription. Three notable traits of enhancers comprising super-enhancers are their clustering in genomic proximity, their exceptional signal of transcription-regulating proteins, and their high frequency of physical interaction with each other. Perturbing the DNA of enhancers comprising super-enhancers showed a range of effects on the expression of cell identity genes, suggesting a complex relationship between the constituent enhancers. Super-enhancers separated by tens of megabases cluster in three-dimensions inside the nucleus of mouse embryonic stem cells.\n\nHigh levels of many transcription factors and co-factors are seen at super-enhancers (e.g., CDK7, BRD4, and Mediator).\nThis high concentration of transcription-regulating proteins suggests why their target genes tend to be more highly expressed than other classes of genes. However, housekeeping genes tend to be more highly expressed than super-enhancer—associated genes.\n\nSuper-enhancers may have evolved at key cell identity genes to render the transcription of these genes responsive to an array of external cues. The enhancers comprising a super-enhancer can each be responsive to different signals, which allows the transcription of a single gene to be regulated by multiple signaling pathways. Pathways seen to regulate their target genes using super-enhancers include Wnt, TGFb, LIF, BDNF, and NOTCH. The constituent enhancers of super-enhancers physically interact with each other and their target genes over a long range sequence-wise.\nSuper-enhancers that control the expression of major cell surface receptors with a crucial role in the function of a given cell lineage have also been defined. This is notably the case for B-lymphocytes, the survival, the activation and the differentiation of which rely on the expression of membrane-form immunoglobulins (Ig). The Ig heavy chain locus super-enhancer is a very large (25kb) cis-regulatory region, including multiple enhancers and controlling several major modifications of the locus (notably somatic hypermutation, class-switch recombination and locus suicide recombination).\n\nRelevance to Disease\n\nMutations in super-enhancers have been noted in various diseases, including cancers, type 1 diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, systemic scleroderma, primary biliary cirrhosis, Crohn’s disease, Graves disease, vitiligo, and atrial fibrillation. A similar enrichment in disease-associated sequence variation has also been observed for stretch enhancers.\n\nSuper-enhancers may play important roles in the misregulation of gene expression in cancer. During tumor development, tumor cells acquire super-enhancers at key oncogenes, which drive higher levels of transcription of these genes than in healthy cells. Altered super-enhancer function is also induced by mutations of chromatin regulators. Acquired super-enhancers may thus be biomarkers that could be useful for diagnosis and therapeutic intervention.\n\nProteins enriched at super-enhancers include the targets of small molecules that target transcription-regulating proteins and have been deployed against cancers. For instance, super-enhancers rely on exceptional amounts of CDK7, and, in cancer, multiple papers report the loss of expression of their target genes when cells are treated with the CDK7 inhibitor THZ1. Similarly, super-enhancers are enriched in the target of the JQ1 small molecule, BRD4, so treatment with JQ1 causes exceptional losses in expression for super-enhancer—associated genes.\n\nIdentification\n\nSuper-enhancers have been most commonly identified by locating genomic regions that are highly enriched in ChIP-Seq signal. ChIP-Seq experiments targeting master transcription factors and co-factors like Mediator or BRD4 have been used, but the most frequently used is H3K27ac-marked nucleosomes. The program “ROSE” (Rank Ordering of Super-Enhancers) is commonly used to identify super-enhancers from ChIP-Seq data. This program stitches together previously identified enhancer regions and ranks these stitched enhancers by their ChIP-Seq signal. The stitching distance selected to combine multiple individual enhancers into larger domains can vary. Because some markers of enhancer activity also are enriched in promoters, regions within promoters of genes can be disregarded. ROSE separates super-enhancers from typical enhancers by their exceptional enrichment in a mark of enhancer activity. Homer is another tool that can identify super-enhancers.\n\nReferences \n\nGene expression"
] |
[
"Greg LeMond",
"Anti-doping stance and controversies",
"What happened with Anti-doping",
"products ultimately victimize the professional cyclists who make use of them.",
"Was there any controversies on Anti-doping?",
"LeMond's most notable conflicts have been with fellow Tour riders Lance Armstrong and Floyd Landis. He has also been critical of Alberto Contador, the UCI, and its former president,",
"Was anyone tested for using these enhancers?",
"LeMond has consistently questioned the relationship between riders and unethical sports doctors like Ferrari, and has pointed out that doping products ultimately victimize the professional cyclists"
] | C_4b522eb5fc884e7f81e177165f06fcdc_0 | Was there any other controversies? | 4 | Was there any other controversies around Anti-doping other than riders using them? | Greg LeMond | LeMond is a longtime vocal opponent of performance-enhancing drug use. He first spoke on-record against doping in cycling after winning the 1989 Tour de France. LeMond received intense criticism in 2001 when he publicly expressed doubts about the legitimacy of Lance Armstrong's Tour success after learning of his relationship with Dr. Michele Ferrari. His outspokenness placed him in the center of the anti-doping controversy. LeMond has consistently questioned the relationship between riders and unethical sports doctors like Ferrari, and has pointed out that doping products ultimately victimize the professional cyclists who make use of them. Said LeMond: "When I speak out about doping people could translate it and think it was about the riders. Actually I feel like I am an advocate for the riders. I look at them as being treated like lab rats that are test vehicles for the doctors. The doctors, the management, the officials, they're the ones that have corrupted riders. The riders are the only ones that pay the price." LeMond's most notable conflicts have been with fellow Tour riders Lance Armstrong and Floyd Landis. He has also been critical of Alberto Contador, the UCI, and its former president, Pat McQuaid. In December 2012, LeMond claimed that a change needed to be made at the head of leadership for the UCI, and stated if called upon he would be willing to take the position himself if necessary to lead cycling out of the mire of doping. Said LeMond: "It is now or never to act. After the earthquake caused by the Armstrong case another chance will not arise. I am willing to invest to make this institution more democratic, transparent and look for the best candidate in the longer term." McQuaid rejected LeMond's call for new leadership and was dismissive of LeMond. Ultimately McQuaid was defeated in his bid for a third term by British Cycling president Brian Cookson at the September 2013 UCI Congress in Florence, Italy. Lemond had supported Cookson in the UCI Presidential battle. CANNOTANSWER | The doctors, the management, the officials, they're the ones that have corrupted riders. The riders are the only ones that pay the price." | Gregory James LeMond (born June 26, 1961) is an American former professional road racing cyclist, entrepreneur, and anti-doping advocate. A two-time winner of the Road Race World Championship (1983 and 1989) and a three-time winner of the Tour de France (1986, 1989, and 1990), LeMond is considered by many to be the greatest American cyclist of all time, one of the great all-round cyclists of the modern era, and an icon of the sport's globalisation.
LeMond began his professional cycling career in 1981. In 1983, he became the first American male cyclist to win the Road World Championship. LeMond won the Tour de France in 1986; he is the first non-European professional cyclist to win the Tour. He was accidentally shot with pellets and seriously injured while hunting in 1987. Following the shooting, he underwent two surgeries and missed the next two Tours. At the 1989 Tour, he completed an improbable comeback to win in dramatic fashion on the race's final stage. He successfully defended his Tour title the following year, becoming one of only eight riders to win three or more Tours. LeMond retired from competition in December 1994 and was inducted into the United States Bicycling Hall of Fame in 1996. He was the first professional cyclist to sign a million-dollar contract and the first cyclist to appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated.
During his career, LeMond championed several technological advancements in pro cycling, including the introduction of aerodynamic "triathlon" handlebars and carbon fiber bicycle frames, which he later marketed through his company LeMond Bicycles. His other business interests have included restaurants, real estate, and consumer fitness equipment. LeMond is a vocal opponent of performance-enhancing drug use in cycling and is a founding board member of 1in6.org, a nonprofit charity that assists male victims of child sex abuse.
Early life and amateur career
LeMond was born in Lakewood, California, and was raised in the Washoe Valley, a ranch country on the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountain range between Reno, and the family home about 2.5 miles north of Carson City, Nevada. His parents are Bob LeMond and Bertha LeMond (d. 2006), and he has two sisters, Kathy and Karen.
LeMond grew up living an active, outdoor life. Hiking, hunting, skiing and flyfishing were boyhood pastimes. The ranch country of the Sierra Nevada mountain range lent itself to such pursuits. A hyperactive youngster, LeMond believes these outdoor activities helped keep him out of trouble. "I was a boy who just could not sit still. I had trouble focusing in school. Parents and educators then did not have the skill set to diagnose and cope with what we know now was a classic case of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). ADHD certainly was not the frequently medicated childhood disease it is today. My triumph over the symptoms was found atop two thin tires over many dusty miles." Said LeMond: "That's one of the traits. It's the inability to sit down [and listen] to something you are not really interested in and absorb it. If they are interested in it, people with ADD excel in really good ways. When I got into cycling I would say the sport itself took a fog off my brain. I was able to absorb stuff I read. It changed my life."
LeMond attended Earl Wooster High School in Reno, but lived too far away to participate in team sports. LeMond soon biked almost daily to high school. He often rode home from Wooster, taking a route over Mt. Rose, along to Incline Village, then south on Hwy 28, then downhill to Carson City, then to his home.
LeMond's introduction to cycling came in 1975, thanks to freestyle skiing pioneer Wayne Wong, who recommended the bike as an ideal off-season training aid. LeMond started competing in 1976, and after dominating the Intermediate category (13–15) and winning the first 11 races he entered, he received permission to ride against older, more seasoned competitors in the Junior (16–19) category.
In 1977, while still only 15, LeMond finished second in the Tour of Fresno to John Howard, then the United States's top road cyclist and the 1971 Pan American Games champion. LeMond caught the attention of Eddie Borysewicz, the US Cycling Federation's national team coach, who described LeMond as "a diamond, a clear diamond." LeMond represented the United States at the 1978 Junior World Championships in Washington, D.C., where he finished ninth in the road race, and again in the 1979 Junior World Championships in Argentina, where he won gold, silver and bronze medals—the highlight being his victory in the road race. At age 18, LeMond was selected for the 1980 U.S. Olympic cycling team, the youngest ever to make the team. However, the U.S. boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow prevented him from competing there.
Borysewicz, whom LeMond described as his "first real coach," wanted to retain his protégé through the next Olympic cycle and discouraged him from turning pro, but LeMond was determined. Nevertheless, while he was the reigning Junior World Road Champion in 1980, LeMond received no professional offers, and so in the spring of 1980, he joined the U.S. National cycling team for a 6-week European racing campaign. There, he finished third overall in the Circuit des Ardennes before winning the 1980 Circuit de la Sarthe stage race in France, thereby becoming the first American and youngest rider of any nationality "in the history of the sport to win a major pro-am cycling event [in Europe]." That victory, and the subsequent press coverage, raised LeMond's profile in Europe and he was scouted at his next event (the Ruban Granitier Breton stage race) by Cyrille Guimard, the Renault–Elf–Gitane team's directeur sportif. Guimard said he was impressed with LeMond's spirit, and told him, "You have the fire to be a great champion," before offering him a professional contract for 1981 with Renault. After he returned to the United States, LeMond won the 1980 Nevada City Classic, considered to be one of the most historic and challenging professional cycling races in United States. Despite eventually receiving several other offers to turn professional besides Guimard's, LeMond did not consider them seriously, and he signed with Renault in Paris on the day the 1980 Tour de France finished.
Professional career
LeMond was an "exceptionally gifted" amateur rider who quickly established himself as one of the most talented cyclists on the professional circuit. Respected cycling journalist John Wilcockson, who reported the Tour de France for more than 40 years, described LeMond as a rider who was fuoriclasse.
1981–1983: Early years
LeMond's first professional victory came three months into his 1981 debut when he won a stage of the French Tour de l'Oise. He followed with a win in the Coors Classic in the United States, finishing ahead of Sergei Sukhoruchenkov, the 1980 Olympic road champion. The major step forward in 1981 occurred in the Dauphiné Libéré stage race where LeMond placed third. The achievement is the more remarkable because he rode the race in support of team leader Bernard Hinault. LeMond missed standing on the podium with race winner Hinault, as Pascal Simon had finished ahead of him. Two weeks later Simon was assessed a 10-minute penalty when it was discovered he had been doping. LeMond considered the race to have been a "major steppingstone" in his career. Said LeMond: "It showed me that I had the kind of climbing ability that you need to win the top European stage races." LeMond won a total of five races in his rookie season of 1981.
LeMond broke his collarbone on April 11, 1982, while racing the cycling classic Liège–Bastogne–Liège. The injury forced LeMond to ride a reduced schedule before entering the World Championships, which were in Goodwood, England that year. In the men's road race competition, LeMond broke for the line but was out-sprinted by Italian Giuseppe Saronni. Following the race, LeMond's American teammate Jacques Boyer accused LeMond of chasing him down in the final 800 meters. Saronni was very strong at the end of the race and flew past Boyer and LeMond, winning by 5 seconds over LeMond, with another 5 seconds back to Kelly. Boyer placed tenth. Bronze medalist Sean Kelly, a favorite to win the race, was with Saronni when he caught LeMond with about 200 meters to go, but he could not hold his wheel. Said Kelly: "I don't think that Boyer was fading ... He got quite a good gap. Nobody wanted to go after him ... Yes, LeMond chased down Boyer. Boyer was the only man up the road."
LeMond was supported by his teammate George Mount, who observed, "What's LeMond going to do? Throw his bike down in front of everybody because Boyer is such a good buddy of everyone? ... Hell no—he's going to start sprinting because it's less than 200 meters to go and the sprint's already been going for a couple hundred meters. LeMond made a good move and a good sprint ... Boyer was not going to win that race. The best he could have got was fifth or sixth place."
LeMond did not apologize. The U.S. team was not as set up as the European teams, and did not have an independent race to determine the national champion. Instead, the highest finisher at the World's was considered the national champion. LeMond had argued for the team to compete as the European teams did, but team management and Boyer voted against him. Thus, unlike the other teams at the world championship, the US riders were competing against each other. Aged 21, LeMond was the first American pro to win a medal at the World's since Frank Kramer took silver in 1912. Said LeMond: "I'm racing for Renault and I'm racing for myself. It's a business and it's my living. To me, that second place was almost as good as winning, especially at my age."
Two weeks later, on September 20, 1982, LeMond won the mountainous 12-day, Tour de l'Avenir by a record 10 minutes, 18 seconds. The victory, and the time advantage LeMond held at the end, stunned Europe and provided broad confirmation that LeMond was indeed fuoriclasse.
The following year, 1983, LeMond won the Road World Championship outright, becoming the first American male cyclist to do so. (Audrey McElmury won in 1969 and Beth Heiden won in 1980.) LeMond's cycling talent—his overall strength, climbing ability, ability to ride a fast time trial and his capacity to recover quickly—all suggested LeMond would be an excellent prospect for the most demanding Grand Tours.
1984–1986: Grand Tours
LeMond rode his first Tour de France in 1984, finishing third in support of team leader Laurent Fignon, and winning the white jersey of the young rider classification. The following year he was brought across to La Vie Claire to ride in support of team captain Bernard Hinault who had regained his form and was attempting to win his fifth Tour. French businessman and team owner Bernard Tapie signed LeMond with a $1 million contract over three years. In the race Hinault led through the early mountain stages, but suffered a crash and came into difficulty. At this point, it was clear that LeMond was an elite rider capable of winning the Tour in his own right. LeMond possessed a natural talent for riding the Grand Tours, and got stronger over the course of a three-week race. The injured Hinault was vulnerable, and his competitors knew it. Stage 17 included three major climbs in the Pyrenees. On the second, the Col du Tourmalet, LeMond followed Stephen Roche in an attack, but was not given permission to help build on the gap over the field. The managers of his La Vie Claire team ordered the 24-year-old LeMond not to ride with Roche, but to sit on his wheel, a tactic to use the rider in front as cover for wind resistance so the following rider uses less energy. The pace Roche could put out by himself eventually slowed, and other riders came up to join the two men. Hinault recovered as well, though he did not regain the lead group. At the end of the stage LeMond was frustrated to the point of tears. He later revealed that team management and his own coach Paul Köchli had misled him as to how far back Hinault had dropped during the crucial Stage 17 mountain stage. Hinault won the 1985 Tour, with LeMond finishing second, 1:42 behind. LeMond had ridden as the dutiful lieutenant, and his support enabled Hinault to win his fifth Tour. In repayment for his sacrifice Hinault promised to help LeMond win the Tour the following year.
Hoping to end the season on a high note LeMond entered the World Championships road race with the strongest team the United States ever fielded. Riders included Boyer and LeMond, as well as Andrew Hampsten, Ron Kiefel, Bob Roll and Eric Heiden and this time the American team was set up to help the three strongest riders in LeMond, then Hampsten and Kiefel. Throughout the race LeMond answered repeated attacks and led many chase groups to contain dangerous breakaways, but by the final lap of the race he was beginning to tire. He was however, part of the group that was going to win, and while Hampsten and Keifel survived the race to this point, unfortunately they were too far back to assist LeMond in the final ten kilometers. Inside the final kilometer the last rider to launch an attack was former Tour and Vuelta champion Joop Zoetemelk. Being as he was 38 years old and long past his prime none of the remaining contenders including LeMond, Claudio Corti, Robert Millar, Moreno Argentin or Stephen Roche took the attack seriously initially. Zoetemelk opened a sizeable gap however, before long it was in excess of a hundred meters and quickly growing. He also had two teammates remaining in Johan Van der Velde and Gerard Veldscholten, assisting him by riding at the front but not actually chasing, therefore slowing the chase group. Italian rider Moreno took up the chase but he had nothing left to close the gap and actually put his hand in the air waving for the other riders to come forward and take up the pursuit. LeMond too had nothing left to chase down this final attack feeling that if he did, he wouldn't have anything left for the sprint and wouldn't win any medal at all. In a notable upset, Zoetemelk beat the favorites to the line by three seconds as LeMond out-sprinted Argentin to take the silver. There was no controversy following this silver medal for LeMond and immediately after the race he rode up alongside the Dutchman and congratulated him saying, "Nice ride Joop."
For the 1986 Tour, LeMond was a co-leader of the La Vie Claire team alongside Hinault. Hinault's support seemed less certain the closer the race approached. An unspoken condition was that his help would be contingent upon LeMond demonstrating that he was clearly the better rider. Hinault was in superb form, and had the chance to win an unprecedented sixth Tour. Hinault chose to let the Stage 9 individual time trial be the decider for which rider would receive the full support of team La Vie Claire. Hinault won the Stage 9 time trial, finishing 44 seconds in front of LeMond. LeMond had bad luck during the stage, having suffered a punctured tire requiring a wheel change, and later in the stage a bicycle change was required when he broke a wheel. He was frustrated with the outcome and the impact it would have on how the team would function for the remainder of the race. In Stage 12, the first mountain stage of the race in the Pyrenees, Hinault attacked the lead group and built up an overall lead. By the end of Stage 12, Hinault had a five-minute lead over LeMond and the other top riders. He claimed he was trying to draw out LeMond's rivals, but none of these attacks were planned with LeMond. He was clearly willing to ride aggressively and take advantage of the opportunities presented. LeMond was never placed in difficulty, except by his own teammate. The following day Hinault broke away again early but was caught and then dropped by LeMond on the final climb of Stage 13, allowing LeMond to gain back four and a half minutes. The next three stages brought the Tour to the Alps. On Stage 17 LeMond and Urs Zimmermann dropped Hinault from the leading group, and the end of the day saw LeMond pulling on the yellow jersey of race leader, the first time it had ever been worn by a rider from the United States. The following day in the Alps saw Hinault attack again early on the first climb, but he was pulled back. Attempting an escape on the descent, he was unable to separate himself from LeMond. The La Vie Claire team leaders were both excellent descenders. As they ascended up the next col they continued to pull away from the field, and maintained the gap as they reached the base of the final climb, the vaunted Alpe d'Huez. They pressed on through the crowd, ascending the twenty-one switchbacks of Alpe d'Huez and reaching the summit together. LeMond put an arm around Hinault and gave him a smile and the stage win in a show of unity, but the infighting was not over. Hinault attacked again on Stage 19 and had to be brought back by teammates Andrew Hampsten and Steve Bauer. Commenting on the team situation prior to the final individual time trial at Stage 20, LeMond offered the following with a wry smile: "He's attacked me from the beginning of the Tour De France. He's never helped me once, and I don't feel confident at all with him."
LeMond had to keep his eye on his teammate and rival throughout the race. Hinault rode aggressively and repeatedly attacked, and the division created in the La Vie Claire team was unmistakable. LeMond would keep the yellow jersey to the end of the race and win his first Tour, but he felt betrayed by Hinault and the La Vie Claire team leadership. LeMond later stated the 1986 Tour was the most difficult and stressful race of his career.
1987–1988: Shooting accident and recovery
LeMond had planned to defend his title in the 1987 Tour de France with La Vie Claire, but he was unable to participate. Earlier that year, while riding in the Tirreno–Adriatico spring tune-up race, LeMond fell and fractured his left wrist. He returned to the United States to recover from the injury. The week before returning to Europe, he went turkey hunting on a ranch co-owned by his father in Lincoln, California. LeMond was with Rodney Barber and Patrick Blades, his uncle and brother-in-law. The trio had become separated when Blades, who heard movement behind him, turned and fired through a bush. The movement had come from LeMond, who was hit in his back and right side with approximately 60 pellets. LeMond's injuries were life-threatening, but a police helicopter was already airborne near the scene and transported LeMond on a 15-minute air medical flight to the Medical Center at University of California-Davis. LeMond was taken for emergency surgery. He had suffered a pneumothorax to his right lung and extensive bleeding, having lost some 65 percent of his blood volume. A physician informed LeMond later that he had been within 20 minutes of bleeding to death. The operation saved his life, but four months later he developed a small bowel obstruction due to adhesions that had formed following the shooting. He underwent another surgery to relieve the obstruction and take down the adhesions. Concerned that his team would drop him if they knew the shooting accident required a second surgery, LeMond asked the surgeons to remove his appendix at the same time. He then informed his team that he had had his appendix removed, but the rest of the story was left somewhat vague. The events effectively ended his 1987 season, and in October he announced he would return to serious competition the following February, with the Dutch PDM team.
With 35 shotgun pellets still in his body, including three in the lining of his heart and five more embedded in his liver, LeMond attempted to return to racing in 1988. His comeback was hampered by over-training which resulted in tendonitis in his right shin requiring surgery. He missed the Tour for the second year running. Tensions in the relationship between LeMond and PDM were aggravated when LeMond discovered that doping was going on at the PDM squad. The result was that LeMond moved from PDM, one of the strongest teams in the peloton, to ADR, a team based in Belgium. The team was co-sponsored by Coors Light for American races. The deal was completed on New Year's Eve, just hours before LeMond would have been legally obliged to ride another season for the Dutch team. Joining the Belgian ADR squad allowed LeMond to continue to compete, but with teammates like Johan Museeuw who were better suited to riding Classics than Grand Tours.
1989: Return to elite level
After struggling in the 1989 Paris–Nice early-season race and failing to improve his condition, LeMond informed his wife Kathy that he intended to retire from professional cycling after the 1989 Tour de France. He had some flashes of form with 6th overall in Tirreno-Adriatico and in the two-day Critérium International, sharing an escape with Fignon, Indurain, Mottet, Roche and Madiot and finishing 4th overall. He started the 1989 Giro d'Italia in May as preparation for the Tour to follow, but struggled in the mountains and was not in contention for any of the leaders' jerseys before the final individual time trial into Florence. LeMond placed a surprising second there, more than a minute ahead of overall winner Laurent Fignon. Some of his improvement he attributed to an anti-anemia treatment he received twice during the race.
Coming into the 1989 Tour de France LeMond was not considered a contender for the general classification (GC). His own most optimistic hope was to finish his final Tour in the top 20. Without the weight of expectation and other pressures of being a Tour favorite, LeMond surprised observers with a strong ride in the prologue in Luxembourg, finishing fourth out of 198 riders. Buoyed by the result, LeMond continued to ride well over the opening flat stages, winning the stage 5 individual time trial, and gaining the yellow jersey as leader of the general classification for the first time in three years. LeMond seemed to ride himself into better condition during the first week's flat stages, and he was coming into peak form by the time the Tour reached the mountains. LeMond remained at the front of the race in the Pyrénées, but lost the lead to his former teammate and rival Laurent Fignon on stage 10 in Superbagnères. Five days later LeMond reclaimed yellow in the Alps, after the stage 15 mountain time trial from Gap to Orcières-Merlette. The see-saw battle continued, and when Fignon attacked on the upper slopes of Alpe d'Huez LeMond was unable to go with him, placing the yellow jersey back on the shoulders of Fignon. Fignon held a 50-second advantage over LeMond going into the 21st and final stage, a rare individual time trial from Versailles to the Champs-Élysées in Paris.
Fignon had won the Tour twice before, in 1983 and 1984, and was a very capable time trialist. It seemed improbable that LeMond could take 50 seconds off Fignon over the short course. This would require LeMond to gain two seconds per kilometer against one of the fastest chrono-specialists in the world. LeMond had done wind tunnel testing in the off season and perfected his riding position. He rode the time trial with a rear disc wheel, a cut-down Giro aero helmet and the same Scott clip-on aero bars which had helped him to the Stage 5 time trial win. Holding his time trialing position LeMond was able to generate less aerodynamic drag than Fignon, who used a pair of disc wheels but chose to go helmetless and did not use the aero bars that are now commonplace in time trials. Instructing his support car not to give him his split times, LeMond rode flat-out and finished at a record pace to beat Fignon by 8 seconds and claim his second Tour de France victory. As LeMond embraced his wife and rejoiced on the Champs-Élysées, Fignon collapsed onto the tarmac, then sat in shock and wept.
The final margin of victory of eight seconds was the closest in the Tour's history. LeMond's average speed for the stage 21 time trial was, at that time, the fastest in Tour history. Since then, only the 1994 and 2015 prologues and David Zabriskie's 2005 time trial performance have been faster. The press immediately labeled LeMond's come-from-behind triumph as, "the most astonishing victory in Tour de France history," and while LeMond admitted that it felt almost "too good to be true," he personally rated it as "much more satisfying" than his first overall Tour win in 1986.
LeMond's return to the pinnacle of cycling was confirmed on August 27, when he won the World Championships road race in Chambéry, France. Late in the race with less than 10 km to go the lead group, who had been away since very early in the race, made up of three very strong riders in Steven Rooks, Thierry Claveyrolat and Soviet star Dimitri Konyshev were trying to hold on to fight for the victory amongst themselves when Laurent Fignon broke away from the pursuing group in an effort to chase the leaders down and solo to victory. On the final climb of the race LeMond attacked in pursuit of Fignon on his own. Before long he had caught the Frenchman and not long after that the pair could see the lead group in front of them and they were quickly closing the gap. LeMond briefly dropped Fignon and caught the lead group on his own. Immediately upon catching Rooks, Claveyrolat and Konyshev he moved to the front and set the pace as two other riders in Canadian Steve Bauer and Irishman Sean Kelly attempted to bridge the gap up to LeMond and the lead group. Bauer ended up getting a flat tire essentially ending his hopes at a high finish while Sean Kelly was able to fight his way to the front group, which was bad news for LeMond and the others as Kelly was one of the best sprinters in the world. Fignon was able to rejoin the lead group as well and as the race approached the finish Fignon attacked on numerous occasions trying to drop the remaining riders. Rooks also launched an attack to go for the solo victory but was caught by LeMond, Fignon and the others. Inside the final kilometer Fignon continued attacking trying to break free, but just couldn't force open a gap and began to fall back as the sprint materialized eventually finishing in 6th place. LeMond, Konyshev and Kelly were the strongest riders when it came to the final sprint for victory and they finished in that order. After the race LeMond said that he did not feel well and even considered abandoning the race. With two laps to go he began feeling stronger and stated, "I was racing for the Gold medal. I wanted that World Championship. And with one kilometer to go, I knew I could get it." LeMond was only the fifth person in history to win both the Tour de France and the World Championship in the same year. In December, Sports Illustrated magazine named LeMond its 1989 "Sportsman of the Year", the first time a cyclist received the honor.
1990: A third tour win
LeMond parlayed the success of his 1989 season into the then-richest contract in the sport's history, signing a $5.5 million deal for three years with of France, the first time a cyclist had signed a multi-million dollar contract. He entered the 1990 Tour de France as defending champion and a pre-race favorite after leaving ADR to join the much stronger French team. At "Z" his teammates included Robert Millar, Eric Boyer and Ronan Pensec, all of whom already had finishes in the top six of the Tour de France. This unified roster of strong riders appeared capable of supporting LeMond in the mountains and controlling the race on the flats.
The squad's tactical plan was upset on the first day, when a breakaway that included LeMond's teammate Ronan Pensec, but no major favorites, arrived ten minutes ahead of the field. LeMond was prevented from challenging for the lead until the yellow jersey left the shoulders of his teammate. Surprisingly Pensec held the lead through the first high mountain stages, including Alpe d'Huez, but he would lose it soon after to the relative unknown Claudio Chiappucci.
LeMond closed in on Chiappucci and on stage 16 he put his stamp of authority on the race during the final climb of Luz Ardiden. Late in this stage, after all of the breakaways had been caught he launched a devastating attack that no one could answer. Miguel Induráin was the only rider able to get on LeMond's wheel but it was LeMond dictating the pace all the way up the climb as Chiappucci, Delgado and all of the other favorites fell further and further behind. While Induráin stayed with LeMond, he was not a threat for victory, but his performance put the cycling world on notice as he would win the next five Tours. Near the end of the stage LeMond sat up and the Spaniard took the stage win, but the devastation of LeMond's competitors was all but complete as there was now only +0:05 between LeMond and the yellow jersey.
He finally overtook Chiappucci on the final individual time trial on stage 20, where he finished over two minutes ahead of the unheralded Italian. LeMond at last had the yellow jersey, wearing it the following day as the Tour rode into Paris. LeMond had the distinction of winning the 1990 Tour without taking any of the individual stages. He remains the last rider to win the Tour while wearing the world champion jersey. Over the course of the 1990 Tour the perceived strength of the Z team was confirmed, as they led the team classification through most of the race, adding the team title to LeMond's yellow jersey. LeMond's 1990 Tour victory made him one of just five cyclists to win three or more Tours. As of 2021 a total of seven cyclists have won three times or more.
In September, LeMond attempted to defend his title at the 1990 UCI Road World Championships, but finished fourth, eight seconds behind the winner, his former teammate Rudy Dhaenens of Belgium.
1991–1994: Change in the peloton and retirement
LeMond felt confident before the 1991 Tour de France. He was the defending champion, trained well and had a solid team to support him. LeMond was among the leaders going into the Stage 8 individual time trial, and he finished second to the Spaniard Miguel Indurain. LeMond felt he was riding extremely well, and though his TT-effort had propelled him into the yellow jersey as leader of the general classification, losing eight seconds to Indurain shook his confidence. He held the yellow jersey for the next four days until Stage 12, a challenging mountain stage. LeMond experienced difficulty on the first climb and he cracked on the Col du Tourmalet, losing significant time to Claudio Chiappucci, and eventual winner Indurain. He continued to race, but was unable to seriously challenge for the lead thereafter, finishing the 1991 Tour seventh overall.
In 1992, LeMond won the Tour DuPont, which would be the last major win of his career. He would also have a strong top 10 finish in Paris-Roubaix early in the season. He never won any of cycling's 'Monument' races but he had several high places in four out of five of them throughout his career including 4th in Paris-Roubaix, 3rd in Liège-Bastogne-Liège and 2nd in Milan San Remo as well as the Giro di Lombardia.
In the 1992 Tour de France he started strongly and finished fourth in a breakaway on Stage 6 that put him fifth overall and he maintained his fifth place until the mountain stages when he lost form disastrously and lost more than 45 minutes on the stage to Sestrieres before quitting the race the next day—when his compatriot and former domestique Andrew Hampsten won atop Alpe d'Huez. While LeMond claimed a serious saddle sore caused him to abandon, he had earlier stated, "My climbing is not like usual. I've climbed much better in the past Tours. This year I'm just not feeling my usual self."
LeMond did extensive endurance training on the road the following winter, but his performances the following spring failed to improve. LeMond had to abandon the 1993 Giro d'Italia two days before the final stage after difficult racing left him 125th on GCC and third-from-last in the final time trial. He was too exhausted to enter the 1993 Tour de France. Following the 1993 season LeMond hired renowned Dutch physiologist Adrie van Diemen to advise him on a new technique to monitor training and measure performance. The (SRM) power-based training would make use of the watt as a guide to power output. In November 1993 LeMond confided to Samuel Abt that power output in watts would become the key metric. The watt has gained wide acceptance as the best measure of a cyclist's training performance.
The following year LeMond began the 1994 Tour de France but found he was unable to race effectively. He had to abandon after the first week before the race had reached the difficult mountain stages. That December, he announced his retirement. At the time the reasons for LeMond's increasing difficulties were not entirely known. At a loss, he speculated that a condition known as mitochondrial myopathy might be responsible for the difficulty he was having performing against the current riders. In 2007, however, LeMond speculated that he might not have had the condition after all, and suggested that lead toxicity from the shotgun pellets still embedded in his body might have been responsible, the effects of which were increased by heavy training.
LeMond has acknowledged since 2010 that the increasing prevalence of doping in cycling contributed to his lack of competitiveness. Said LeMond: "Something had changed in cycling. The speeds were faster and riders that I had easily out performed were now dropping me. At the time, the team I was on, Team Z, became more and more demanding, more and more concerned..." He stated he had been told in 1994 that he would need to blood dope in order to win again. He frankly admitted to Abt in 1999: "I figure I had three months that went right for me after the hunting accident," three months in which he won the two Tours and a world road race championship. "The rest were just pure suffering, struggling, fatigue, always tired."
In a wide-ranging interview with American novelist Bryan Malessa in 1998, LeMond was asked if his career had not been interrupted by the hunting accident, how did he feel he would compare to five time Tour winners such as Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain. LeMond responded: "Of course you can't rewrite racing history, but I'm confident that I would have won five Tours."
Two years after his retirement LeMond was inducted into the United States Bicycling Hall of Fame in a ceremony at Rodale Park in Trexlertown, Pennsylvania. The event was held on June 8, 1996, during the U.S. Olympic Cycling Team Trials.
In July 2014, ESPN announced the premiere of a new 30 for 30 film entitled Slaying the Badger. The film centers on LeMond and his former teammate Hinault at the 1986 Tour de France. It is based on the book of the same name by Richard Moore, and it premiered July 22, 2014 on ESPN.
Business interests
LeMond was a pioneer in the use of carbon fiber bicycle frames in European professional road cycling, and his Tour de France win in 1986 ahead of Bernard Hinault was the first for a carbon-framed bicycle. Ironically, given the rivalry that existed at the time between the American and his French teammate, LeMond rode a "Bernard Hinault" Signature Model Look prototype that year. LeMond also won the 1989 Tour de France, the 1989 World Championship, and his final Tour de France in 1990 on carbon fiber frames. These bicycle frames featured "Greg LeMond" branding.
LeMond Cycles
In 1990, LeMond founded LeMond Bicycles to develop machines for himself that would also be marketed and sold to the public. The following year, searching for an equipment edge for Team Z at the 1991 Tour de France, LeMond concluded an exclusive licensing agreement between his company and Carbonframes, Inc., to access the latter's advanced composites technology. Whilst using the bikes for the 1991 Tour, he would maintain his carbon bike in his hotel room, leading his mechanics to fear it had been stolen. While LeMond briefly led the 1991 Tour overall, riding his Carbonframes-produced "Greg LeMond" bicycle, the company eventually faltered, something LeMond blamed on "under-capitalization" and poor management by his father. Carbonframes and LeMond Cycles "parted amiably two years later." In 1995, with his company allegedly nearly bankrupt, LeMond reached a licensing-agreement with Trek Bicycle Corporation, according to which the Wisconsin-based company would manufacture and distribute bicycles designed with LeMond that would be sold under the "LeMond Bicycles" brand. LeMond would later claim that going into business with Trek "destroyed" his relationship with his father. The lucrative partnership, which generated revenue for Trek in excess of US$100,000,000, would be renewed several times over the course of 13 years, but it ultimately ended in acrimony after LeMond's relationship with Trek deteriorated over his staunch anti-doping advocacy.
LeMond found himself at odds with Trek in July 2001 after he expressed public concern over the relationship between Italian doping doctor Michele Ferrari and Trek's star athlete, Lance Armstrong. Trek president John Burke pressured LeMond to apologize, claiming, "Greg's public comments hurt the LeMond brand and the Trek brand." Burke allegedly justified his demand for an apology by advising that, "As a contractual partner, he [LeMond] could criticize doping only generally – not point his finger at specific athletes, particularly one that happens to be the company's main cash cow." Armstrong reportedly said privately he could "shut him up" by contacting Trek, as documented in affidavits by Frankie and Betsy Andreu released in the 2012 USADA doping report. LeMond issued an apology for his comment.
In a 2007 interview, LeMond accused Armstrong of trying to sabotage his relationship with Trek bicycles. In March 2008, LeMond Cycling Inc sued Trek for failing to properly promote and distribute the LeMond brand, and for attempting to "silence" LeMond's public comments about doping, attributing this to the influence of Armstrong on Trek. His complaint included statistics detailing slow sales in some markets, including the fact that between September 2001 and June 2007, Trek only sold $10,393 worth of LeMond bikes in France, a country in which LeMond was both famous and popular. Trek responded in April 2008, announcing that it was dropping LeMond Bicycles from its product line and that it would sue to sever the licensing agreement.
As promised, Trek counter-sued and stopped producing bicycles under the LeMond brand. After nearly two years of litigation, LeMond reached a confidential out-of-court settlement with Trek in February 2010. The settlement permitted the case to be dismissed with prejudice, meaning, "neither side can produce the same claims against one another in a future lawsuit." Although settlement terms were not disclosed, LeMond reportedly obtained full control over the LeMond Bicycles name, while Trek made a donation of US$200,000 to the charity 1in6, of which LeMond was a founding member of the board of directors.
LeMond Fitness/Revolution
In 2002, LeMond, Bernie Boglioli and others founded LeMond Fitness, Inc. "to help individuals achieve their fitness and performance goals and train more effectively." The company's primary business is the development and manufacture of bicycle trainers and indoor exercise bikes for consumers in the United States and internationally. LeMond serves as Chairman of the Board. In 2012, Hoist Fitness negotiated to purchase an interest in the company and announced plans to move its headquarters to Hoist's offices in San Diego, CA. In late 2012, LeMond purchased the LeMond Revolution from Hoist, relaunching with a new management team in Minneapolis. Later, he also formed LeMond LLC to introduce a suite of brands. Professional cycling's team renewed its sponsorship with LeMond to use its Revolution trainers for another three seasons. The team won several stages of the Tour de France, plus the general classification of the 2012 Giro d'Italia.
Partnership with Time
At the Interbike trade show in September 2013, LeMond announced that he was returning to the business of bicycle manufacture and sales by partnering with French company Time. The new line began with a series of commemorative designed bicycles, to be followed with road, cyclocross, and gravel-road models. LeMond purchased Time Sport USA, the US distributor for the company. Said LeMond: "I'm really excited to be back in the bike industry."
Real estate
In 2002, LeMond joined his parents-in-law David and Sacia Morris, friend Michael Snow and J.P. Morgan & Co. fund manager Jorge Jasson to invest in the exclusive Yellowstone Club, a Big Sky, Montana, private ski and golf community founded by timber baron Tim Blixseth and his wife Edra. Each of the five partners paid Blixseth $750,000 for one percent shares in the exclusive resort. LeMond also purchased several building lots and maintained a property at the resort. Four years later, LeMond and partners sued Blixseth in 2006 following reports of a Credit Suisse loan to the resort of $375 million from which Blixseth reportedly took $209 million in a disputed partial payout for his ownership stake. The Credit Suisse loan was based on a $1.16 billion Cushman & Wakefield valuation of the resort, for which LeMond and partners each sought $11.6 million for their one-percent shares. In 2007, LeMond settled his suit with the Blixseths for $39 million. However, he and his partners remained creditors as the Blixseths defaulted on a $20 million payment (after having already paid the group $18 million). In 2009, the Blixseths divorced and the Club went bankrupt.
Restaurants
LeMond became a restaurateur in August 1990 when, in partnership with his wife and her parents, he opened Scott Kee's Tour de France on France Avenue in the Minneapolis suburb of Edina, Minnesota. LeMond described the restaurant, which was named for its chef (LeMond's brother-in-law), as "a dream of five years come true." Explaining the origin of the concept, LeMond said, "Kathy and I have eaten at the finest establishments in France, Italy and Belgium. Our favorites have always been small places, family-owned." LeMond also partnered in several Bruegger's bagel bakery-café franchises.
LeMond Composites
LeMond founded LeMond Composites in 2016 to manufacture high-volume, low-cost carbon fiber composites under a licensing agreement with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and an exclusive 20-year licensing agreement with Deakin University. In 2017 LeMond and his family moved from Minnesota to Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to be close to the $125 million LeMond Composites manufacturing facility.
On October 16, 2017, Australian politician Sarah Henderson announced that LeMond Composites would receive AU$2.5 million (US$ million) in Australian Federal Government funding to establish a carbon fiber manufacturing plant in Geelong, Australia.
Broadcasting
In 2014, LeMond joined Eurosport as a pundit for the channel's cycling coverage, providing analysis at Paris–Roubaix, the Giro d'Italia and the Tour de France, and hosting his own monthly program LeMond on Cycling. He continued to work for the channel until 2017.
Anti-doping stance and controversies
LeMond is a longtime vocal opponent of performance-enhancing drug use. He first spoke on-record against doping in cycling after winning the 1989 Tour de France. He has consistently questioned the relationship between riders and unethical sports doctors and has pointed out that doping products ultimately victimize the professional cyclists who make use of them. Said LeMond: "When I speak out about doping people could translate it and think it was about the riders. Actually I feel like I am an advocate for the riders. I look at them as being treated like lab rats that are test vehicles for the doctors. The doctors, the management, the officials, they're the ones that have corrupted riders. The riders are the only ones that pay the price."
LeMond received intense criticism in 2001 when he publicly criticized Lance Armstrong's relationship with Dr. Michele Ferrari. Ferrari is an Italian physician and sports trainer who admitted to practicing blood doping and advocated the controlled use of the banned substance erythropoietin by athletes. Upon learning of Armstrong's association with Ferrari, LeMond said:
"When Lance won the prologue to the 1999 Tour I was close to tears, but when I heard he was working with Michele Ferrari I was devastated. In the light of Lance's relationship with Ferrari, I just don't want to comment on this year's Tour. This is not sour grapes. I'm disappointed in Lance, that's all it is."
LeMond's comments placed him in the center of an anti-doping controversy. About a month later, following pressure from both Armstrong and Trek, LeMond issued an apology for his comment; he called Armstrong "a great champion" and added, "I do not believe, in any way, that he has ever used any performance-enhancing substances. I believe his performances are the result of the same hard work, dedication and focus that were mine 10 years ago."
In 2004, LeMond spoke out again. On the heels of successive Tour de France wins by Armstrong, LeMond said, "If Armstrong's clean, it's the greatest comeback. And if he's not, then it's the greatest fraud." He went public with the fallout of his 2001 statement, alleging that Armstrong had threatened to defame him and threatened his business interests as well:
"[Armstrong] basically said 'I could find 10 people that will say you took EPO' ... The week after, I got multiple people that were on Lance ... Lance's camp, basically saying 'You better be quiet,' and I was quiet for three years. I have a business ... I have bikes that are sold ... and I was told that my sales might not be doing too well if ... just the publicity, the negative publicity." The same month, LeMond told French newspaper Le Monde that Armstrong was "ready to do anything to keep his secret. I don't know how he can continue to convince everybody of his innocence." At a press conference Armstrong gave in September 2008 to announce his return to cycling, LeMond publicly challenged him with questions about doping. Armstrong appeared angry and interrupted LeMond, telling him it was time to move on. In August 2012, the USADA announced that Armstrong had been issued a lifetime ban from cycling competition due to his involvement in a massive doping scheme. In addition, the USADA stripped Armstrong of his seven Tour de France titles.
LeMond has also clashed with fellow Tour rider Floyd Landis regarding the doping issue. On May 17, 2007, LeMond testified at a USADA hearing convened to weigh the evidence of doping by Landis during the 2006 Tour de France. Under oath, LeMond described a phone conversation he had with Landis on August 6, 2006, as well as another with Landis' business manager, Will Geoghegan, on May 16, 2007, the evening before LeMond appeared to testify. The major points of the testimony were:
In the August 6 conversation, LeMond said he told Landis that "If you did (admit to having used banned substances), you could single-handedly change the sport. You could be the one who will salvage the sport." LeMond said Landis responded by saying "What good would it do? If I did, it would destroy a lot of my friends and hurt a lot of people."
In their conversation, LeMond had disclosed his history of childhood sexual abuse to Landis and said the secret had nearly destroyed him. LeMond stated he warned Landis. "(Lying about doping) will come back to haunt you when you are 40 or 50. If you have a moral compass and ethics, this will destroy you."
Will Geoghegan attempted to stop LeMond's testimony by calling LeMond on his mobile phone. LeMond reported that Geoghegan claimed he was "his uncle" and intimated that he would appear at the hearing and expose the fact that LeMond was a survivor of child sex abuse. LeMond's BlackBerry, with Geoghegan's phone number captured in the call log, was entered into evidence.
In 2007, Landis was found guilty of doping and was banned from cycling for two years. In 2010, he admitted to having been involved in doping. Also in 2010, Landis apologized to LeMond for the events of 2007.
On July 23, 2009, LeMond wrote an opinion article in the French newspaper Le Monde where he questioned the validity of Alberto Contador's climb up Verbier in the 2009 Tour de France. In the piece, LeMond pointed out that Contador's calculated VO2 max of 99.5 mL/(kg·min) had never been achieved by any athlete. Said LeMond: "The burden is then on Alberto Contador to prove he is physically capable of performing this feat without the use of performance-enhancing products." Contador tested positive for clenbuterol after winning the 2010 Tour and was later stripped of his title and suspended from cycling for two years.
LeMond has criticized the UCI and its former president, Pat McQuaid. In December 2012, LeMond claimed that a change needed to be made in the leadership for the UCI and stated if called upon he would be willing to take the position himself if necessary to lead cycling out of the mire of doping. Said LeMond: "It is now or never to act. After the earthquake caused by the Armstrong case another chance will not arise. I am willing to invest to make this institution more democratic, transparent and look for the best candidate in the longer term." McQuaid rejected LeMond's call for new leadership and was dismissive of LeMond. Ultimately McQuaid was defeated in his bid for a third term by British Cycling president Brian Cookson at the September 2013 UCI Congress in Florence, Italy. Lemond had supported Cookson in the UCI Presidential battle.
Personal life
LeMond is married to Kathy (née Morris) and together they have three children: sons Geoffrey and Scott, and daughter Simone. LeMond and his wife lived in Medina, Minnesota, from 1990 until 2017 and then moved to Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Since his retirement, LeMond has become increasingly involved in philanthropic efforts relating to causes that have affected him personally (including ADHD and sexual abuse).
LeMond is an avid outdoor enthusiast and fly angler, and in 1991 – while still racing full-time – he made the world-record fly fishing catch of a four-pound smallmouth bass on a reel with a four-pound tippet. The record was certified by the National Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame in Hayward, Wisconsin. The catch exceeded the then-previous record of three pounds, six ounces made on the same size tippet back in 1986. LeMond confessed, "I always pack my fly fishing equipment when I travel to bike events. I fish every chance I get."
After retiring from pro cycling, LeMond competed in Formula Ford 2000 series auto racing. He is also a motivational speaker. LeMond narrated an award-winning documentary for Adventures for the Cure in 2008.
On July 16, 2007, LeMond rode the L'Étape du Tour cyclosportive with his son, and found it to be a defining moment in his post-competition life. "I had the time of my life", he said, despite getting "650th place" and being "impressed that I even finished". LeMond continued, "I decided that day that nobody's going to keep me from cycling, not Trek, not Armstrong, not Verbruggen, not anybody." At the time, LeMond was alluding to a series of public and private disputes related to his anti-doping advocacy that hampered his enjoyment of cycling. Especially significant was LeMond's appearance as a USADA witness in the Floyd Landis doping case. At that time, Landis's business manager threatened to expose the fact that LeMond was a survivor of child sex abuse.
Several weeks later, LeMond and his wife Kathy gave an extensive interview to Paul Kimmage of The Sunday Times. LeMond provided additional details concerning the circumstances of his 2001 apology to Armstrong, stating that Trek, the longtime manufacturer and distributor of LeMond Racing Cycles, had threatened to end the relationship at the behest of Armstrong if he did not apologize. He described the two years following the apology as the worst in his life, marked by self-destructive behavior; ultimately, that behavior led LeMond to tell his wife that he was a survivor of child sex abuse and to seek help in addressing that past trauma. LeMond described how being a victim of molestation had impacted his life and his racing career. In September 2007, LeMond became a founding board member of the non-profit organization 1in6.org, whose mission is "to help men who have had unwanted or abusive sexual experiences in childhood live healthy, happy lives".
LeMond was in a car accident on the morning of January 30, 2013. He was driving through wintery and icy conditions to his dentist in Wayzata, Minnesota, when he lost control of his car. LeMond suffered a concussion and was left with no memory of the incident. According to Associated Press, a Plymouth police report says LeMond left the road, hit a fence and shrubs, and then hit an embankment before ending up in the backyard of a home. LeMond may have lost consciousness before the accident, according to his wife Kathy, and he suffered a compression fracture in his back and would have to wear a brace for three months. The accident curtailed LeMond's public appearances in the first half of 2013, but he made a full recovery.
On September 19, 2019, the United States House of Representatives passed a bipartisan bill, submitted by California Representative Mike Thompson, to award LeMond the Congressional Gold Medal. The bill was approved by Congress on November 16, 2020, and signed by president Donald Trump on December 4, 2020. Upon signature of the bill, the White House released a statement, saying the medal was awarded "in recognition of his service to the Nation as an athlete, activist, role model, and community leader".
Career achievements
Major results
1977
1st Road race, National Junior Road Championships
1978
1st Overall Vuelta de Bisbee
2nd Road race, National Junior Road Championships
3rd Team time trial, UCI Junior Road World Championships
1979
1st Road race, UCI Junior Road World Championships
1st Road race, National Junior Road Championships
1st Nevada City Classic
2nd Track pursuit, UCI Junior Track World Championships
3rd Team time trial, UCI Junior Road World Championships
1980
1st Overall Circuit de la Sarthe
1st Nevada City Classic
3rd Overall Circuit des Ardennes
1981
1st Overall Coors Classic
1st Stages 1 & 7
Tour de Picardie
1st Stages 2 & 2a
1st Nevada City Classic
3rd Overall Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré
3rd Overall Route du Sud
7th Overall Circuit de la Sarthe
1982
1st Overall Tour de l'Avenir
1st Stages 4 (ITT), 5 & 8 (ITT)
2nd Road race, UCI Road World Championships
2nd Overall Tour Méditerranéen
3rd Overall Tirreno–Adriatico
1st Stage 3
3rd Overall Tour de Corse
3rd Grand Prix de Rennes
1983
1st Road race, UCI Road World Championships
1st Overall Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré
1st Stages 1, 5 & 7b (ITT)
1st Overall Super Prestige Pernod International
1st Critérium des As
1st Stage 1 Tour Méditerranéen
2nd Grand Prix des Nations
2nd Giro di Lombardia
4th Overall Tour de Suisse
4th Paris–Tours
6th Druivenkoers Overijse
10th Overall Tirreno–Adriatico
1984
1st Stage 1 Clásico RCN
3rd Overall Tour de France
1st Young rider classification
1st Stage 3 (TTT)
3rd Overall Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré
1st Stage 7b
3rd Liège–Bastogne–Liège
5th Overall Tirreno–Adriatico
7th Overall Ronde van Nederland
8th Overall Critérium International
9th Gent–Wevelgem
1985
1st Overall Coors Classic
1st Stage 5
2nd Overall Tour de France
1st Combination classification
1st Stages 3 (TTT) & 21 (ITT)
2nd Road race, UCI Road World Championships
2nd Overall Tour of the Basque Country
3rd Overall Giro d'Italia
3rd Super Prestige Pernod International
4th Overall Critérium International
4th Paris–Roubaix
4th Omloop Het Volk
6th Overall Tour Méditerranéen
7th Tour of Flanders
7th Grand Prix Eddy Merckx
1986
1st Overall Tour de France
1st Combination classification
1st Stage 13
1st Stage 4 Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana
2nd Milan–San Remo
2nd Super Prestige Pernod International
2nd Overall Coors Classic
1st Stage 4a
3rd Overall Paris–Nice
3rd Overall Tour de Suisse
3rd Overall Critérium International
4th Overall Giro d'Italia
1st Stage 5
4th La Flèche Wallonne
4th Züri-Metzgete
7th Overall Étoile de Bessèges
7th Road race, UCI Road World Championships
1989
1st Road race, UCI Road World Championships
1st Overall Tour de France
1st Stages 5 (ITT), 19 & 21 (ITT)
2nd Boucles de l'Aulne
4th Overall Critérium International
4th Grand Prix des Amériques
6th Overall Tirreno–Adriatico
1990
1st Overall Tour de France
2nd Züri-Metzgete
3rd Boucles de l'Aulne
4th Road race, UCI Road World Championships
10th Overall Tour de Suisse
1991
7th Overall Tour de France
1992
1st Overall Tour DuPont
1st Prologue
2nd Overall Tour d'Armorique
9th Paris–Roubaix
Grand Tour general classification results timeline
Classics results timeline
Awards
Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year: 1989
Jesse Owens International Trophy: 1991
Korbel Lifetime Achievement Award: 1992
See also
Yellow jersey statistics
List of companies named after people
List of French Americans
List of Grand Tour general classification winners
List of multi-sport athletes
List of people from Minnesota
List of sports rivalries
List of Tour de France general classification winners
List of Tour de France secondary classification winners
United States at the UCI Road World Championships
References
Notes
Citations
Bibliography
Further reading
External links
LeMond Composites
1961 births
Living people
American people of French descent
American Giro d'Italia stage winners
American male cyclists
American Tour de France stage winners
Cycle designers
People from Lakewood, California
Tour de France Champs Elysées stage winners
Tour de France winners
UCI Road World Champions (elite men)
U.S. F2000 National Championship drivers
Super Prestige Pernod winners
Cyclists from California | true | [
"The Ombatse group is a militia group in Nasarawa Egon, a Local Government Area of Nasarawa State, northern Nigeria.\nIn May 2013, the group was reported to have killed 74 police officers and 10 State Security Service officers. The deadly attack was led by the leader of the group, Baba Alakyo, the chief priest of Alakyo Village of Nasarawa Egon.\n\nControversies\nThere are controversies on whether there is a link between the militia group and the Boko Haram Islamic insurgents in northeastern Nigeria but there seems to be no clear evidence of any relationship between the groups.\nOn November 17, 2014, it was reported that the leader of the militia group, Baba Alakyo was killed by unknown gunmen suspected to be Fulani herdsmen, a claim that was refuted by the legal adviser to the Ombatse group, Zachary Zamani Alumaga.\n\nReferences\n\nMilitant Sufi organisations",
"Rabbi Samuel Buchler (March 21, 1882 – April 1971), was the President of the Federation of Hungarian Jews in America, in 1909 in New York. He was the Deputy Commissioner of Public Markets for New York City in 1919. He was also a lawyer and Jewish chaplain at Sing Sing prison. He was charged with grand larceny in 1932 and was disbarred. He purportedly took money from clients to aid in immigration, but didn't do any work and pocketed the money. He died in Brooklyn in 1971.\n\nPublications\nCohen comes first and other cases: stories of controversies before the New York Jewish Court of Arbitration. New York: Vanguard Press, 1933.\n\nReferences\n\nCommissioners of Public Markets\n1882 births\n1971 deaths\nAmerican Jews\nPrison chaplains"
] |
[
"Greg LeMond",
"Anti-doping stance and controversies",
"What happened with Anti-doping",
"products ultimately victimize the professional cyclists who make use of them.",
"Was there any controversies on Anti-doping?",
"LeMond's most notable conflicts have been with fellow Tour riders Lance Armstrong and Floyd Landis. He has also been critical of Alberto Contador, the UCI, and its former president,",
"Was anyone tested for using these enhancers?",
"LeMond has consistently questioned the relationship between riders and unethical sports doctors like Ferrari, and has pointed out that doping products ultimately victimize the professional cyclists",
"Was there any other controversies?",
"The doctors, the management, the officials, they're the ones that have corrupted riders. The riders are the only ones that pay the price.\""
] | C_4b522eb5fc884e7f81e177165f06fcdc_0 | Was there anything you can share about Greg LeMonds history? | 5 | Was there anything you can share about Greg LeMond's history of Anti-Doping? | Greg LeMond | LeMond is a longtime vocal opponent of performance-enhancing drug use. He first spoke on-record against doping in cycling after winning the 1989 Tour de France. LeMond received intense criticism in 2001 when he publicly expressed doubts about the legitimacy of Lance Armstrong's Tour success after learning of his relationship with Dr. Michele Ferrari. His outspokenness placed him in the center of the anti-doping controversy. LeMond has consistently questioned the relationship between riders and unethical sports doctors like Ferrari, and has pointed out that doping products ultimately victimize the professional cyclists who make use of them. Said LeMond: "When I speak out about doping people could translate it and think it was about the riders. Actually I feel like I am an advocate for the riders. I look at them as being treated like lab rats that are test vehicles for the doctors. The doctors, the management, the officials, they're the ones that have corrupted riders. The riders are the only ones that pay the price." LeMond's most notable conflicts have been with fellow Tour riders Lance Armstrong and Floyd Landis. He has also been critical of Alberto Contador, the UCI, and its former president, Pat McQuaid. In December 2012, LeMond claimed that a change needed to be made at the head of leadership for the UCI, and stated if called upon he would be willing to take the position himself if necessary to lead cycling out of the mire of doping. Said LeMond: "It is now or never to act. After the earthquake caused by the Armstrong case another chance will not arise. I am willing to invest to make this institution more democratic, transparent and look for the best candidate in the longer term." McQuaid rejected LeMond's call for new leadership and was dismissive of LeMond. Ultimately McQuaid was defeated in his bid for a third term by British Cycling president Brian Cookson at the September 2013 UCI Congress in Florence, Italy. Lemond had supported Cookson in the UCI Presidential battle. CANNOTANSWER | LeMond is a longtime vocal opponent of performance-enhancing drug use. | Gregory James LeMond (born June 26, 1961) is an American former professional road racing cyclist, entrepreneur, and anti-doping advocate. A two-time winner of the Road Race World Championship (1983 and 1989) and a three-time winner of the Tour de France (1986, 1989, and 1990), LeMond is considered by many to be the greatest American cyclist of all time, one of the great all-round cyclists of the modern era, and an icon of the sport's globalisation.
LeMond began his professional cycling career in 1981. In 1983, he became the first American male cyclist to win the Road World Championship. LeMond won the Tour de France in 1986; he is the first non-European professional cyclist to win the Tour. He was accidentally shot with pellets and seriously injured while hunting in 1987. Following the shooting, he underwent two surgeries and missed the next two Tours. At the 1989 Tour, he completed an improbable comeback to win in dramatic fashion on the race's final stage. He successfully defended his Tour title the following year, becoming one of only eight riders to win three or more Tours. LeMond retired from competition in December 1994 and was inducted into the United States Bicycling Hall of Fame in 1996. He was the first professional cyclist to sign a million-dollar contract and the first cyclist to appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated.
During his career, LeMond championed several technological advancements in pro cycling, including the introduction of aerodynamic "triathlon" handlebars and carbon fiber bicycle frames, which he later marketed through his company LeMond Bicycles. His other business interests have included restaurants, real estate, and consumer fitness equipment. LeMond is a vocal opponent of performance-enhancing drug use in cycling and is a founding board member of 1in6.org, a nonprofit charity that assists male victims of child sex abuse.
Early life and amateur career
LeMond was born in Lakewood, California, and was raised in the Washoe Valley, a ranch country on the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountain range between Reno, and the family home about 2.5 miles north of Carson City, Nevada. His parents are Bob LeMond and Bertha LeMond (d. 2006), and he has two sisters, Kathy and Karen.
LeMond grew up living an active, outdoor life. Hiking, hunting, skiing and flyfishing were boyhood pastimes. The ranch country of the Sierra Nevada mountain range lent itself to such pursuits. A hyperactive youngster, LeMond believes these outdoor activities helped keep him out of trouble. "I was a boy who just could not sit still. I had trouble focusing in school. Parents and educators then did not have the skill set to diagnose and cope with what we know now was a classic case of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). ADHD certainly was not the frequently medicated childhood disease it is today. My triumph over the symptoms was found atop two thin tires over many dusty miles." Said LeMond: "That's one of the traits. It's the inability to sit down [and listen] to something you are not really interested in and absorb it. If they are interested in it, people with ADD excel in really good ways. When I got into cycling I would say the sport itself took a fog off my brain. I was able to absorb stuff I read. It changed my life."
LeMond attended Earl Wooster High School in Reno, but lived too far away to participate in team sports. LeMond soon biked almost daily to high school. He often rode home from Wooster, taking a route over Mt. Rose, along to Incline Village, then south on Hwy 28, then downhill to Carson City, then to his home.
LeMond's introduction to cycling came in 1975, thanks to freestyle skiing pioneer Wayne Wong, who recommended the bike as an ideal off-season training aid. LeMond started competing in 1976, and after dominating the Intermediate category (13–15) and winning the first 11 races he entered, he received permission to ride against older, more seasoned competitors in the Junior (16–19) category.
In 1977, while still only 15, LeMond finished second in the Tour of Fresno to John Howard, then the United States's top road cyclist and the 1971 Pan American Games champion. LeMond caught the attention of Eddie Borysewicz, the US Cycling Federation's national team coach, who described LeMond as "a diamond, a clear diamond." LeMond represented the United States at the 1978 Junior World Championships in Washington, D.C., where he finished ninth in the road race, and again in the 1979 Junior World Championships in Argentina, where he won gold, silver and bronze medals—the highlight being his victory in the road race. At age 18, LeMond was selected for the 1980 U.S. Olympic cycling team, the youngest ever to make the team. However, the U.S. boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow prevented him from competing there.
Borysewicz, whom LeMond described as his "first real coach," wanted to retain his protégé through the next Olympic cycle and discouraged him from turning pro, but LeMond was determined. Nevertheless, while he was the reigning Junior World Road Champion in 1980, LeMond received no professional offers, and so in the spring of 1980, he joined the U.S. National cycling team for a 6-week European racing campaign. There, he finished third overall in the Circuit des Ardennes before winning the 1980 Circuit de la Sarthe stage race in France, thereby becoming the first American and youngest rider of any nationality "in the history of the sport to win a major pro-am cycling event [in Europe]." That victory, and the subsequent press coverage, raised LeMond's profile in Europe and he was scouted at his next event (the Ruban Granitier Breton stage race) by Cyrille Guimard, the Renault–Elf–Gitane team's directeur sportif. Guimard said he was impressed with LeMond's spirit, and told him, "You have the fire to be a great champion," before offering him a professional contract for 1981 with Renault. After he returned to the United States, LeMond won the 1980 Nevada City Classic, considered to be one of the most historic and challenging professional cycling races in United States. Despite eventually receiving several other offers to turn professional besides Guimard's, LeMond did not consider them seriously, and he signed with Renault in Paris on the day the 1980 Tour de France finished.
Professional career
LeMond was an "exceptionally gifted" amateur rider who quickly established himself as one of the most talented cyclists on the professional circuit. Respected cycling journalist John Wilcockson, who reported the Tour de France for more than 40 years, described LeMond as a rider who was fuoriclasse.
1981–1983: Early years
LeMond's first professional victory came three months into his 1981 debut when he won a stage of the French Tour de l'Oise. He followed with a win in the Coors Classic in the United States, finishing ahead of Sergei Sukhoruchenkov, the 1980 Olympic road champion. The major step forward in 1981 occurred in the Dauphiné Libéré stage race where LeMond placed third. The achievement is the more remarkable because he rode the race in support of team leader Bernard Hinault. LeMond missed standing on the podium with race winner Hinault, as Pascal Simon had finished ahead of him. Two weeks later Simon was assessed a 10-minute penalty when it was discovered he had been doping. LeMond considered the race to have been a "major steppingstone" in his career. Said LeMond: "It showed me that I had the kind of climbing ability that you need to win the top European stage races." LeMond won a total of five races in his rookie season of 1981.
LeMond broke his collarbone on April 11, 1982, while racing the cycling classic Liège–Bastogne–Liège. The injury forced LeMond to ride a reduced schedule before entering the World Championships, which were in Goodwood, England that year. In the men's road race competition, LeMond broke for the line but was out-sprinted by Italian Giuseppe Saronni. Following the race, LeMond's American teammate Jacques Boyer accused LeMond of chasing him down in the final 800 meters. Saronni was very strong at the end of the race and flew past Boyer and LeMond, winning by 5 seconds over LeMond, with another 5 seconds back to Kelly. Boyer placed tenth. Bronze medalist Sean Kelly, a favorite to win the race, was with Saronni when he caught LeMond with about 200 meters to go, but he could not hold his wheel. Said Kelly: "I don't think that Boyer was fading ... He got quite a good gap. Nobody wanted to go after him ... Yes, LeMond chased down Boyer. Boyer was the only man up the road."
LeMond was supported by his teammate George Mount, who observed, "What's LeMond going to do? Throw his bike down in front of everybody because Boyer is such a good buddy of everyone? ... Hell no—he's going to start sprinting because it's less than 200 meters to go and the sprint's already been going for a couple hundred meters. LeMond made a good move and a good sprint ... Boyer was not going to win that race. The best he could have got was fifth or sixth place."
LeMond did not apologize. The U.S. team was not as set up as the European teams, and did not have an independent race to determine the national champion. Instead, the highest finisher at the World's was considered the national champion. LeMond had argued for the team to compete as the European teams did, but team management and Boyer voted against him. Thus, unlike the other teams at the world championship, the US riders were competing against each other. Aged 21, LeMond was the first American pro to win a medal at the World's since Frank Kramer took silver in 1912. Said LeMond: "I'm racing for Renault and I'm racing for myself. It's a business and it's my living. To me, that second place was almost as good as winning, especially at my age."
Two weeks later, on September 20, 1982, LeMond won the mountainous 12-day, Tour de l'Avenir by a record 10 minutes, 18 seconds. The victory, and the time advantage LeMond held at the end, stunned Europe and provided broad confirmation that LeMond was indeed fuoriclasse.
The following year, 1983, LeMond won the Road World Championship outright, becoming the first American male cyclist to do so. (Audrey McElmury won in 1969 and Beth Heiden won in 1980.) LeMond's cycling talent—his overall strength, climbing ability, ability to ride a fast time trial and his capacity to recover quickly—all suggested LeMond would be an excellent prospect for the most demanding Grand Tours.
1984–1986: Grand Tours
LeMond rode his first Tour de France in 1984, finishing third in support of team leader Laurent Fignon, and winning the white jersey of the young rider classification. The following year he was brought across to La Vie Claire to ride in support of team captain Bernard Hinault who had regained his form and was attempting to win his fifth Tour. French businessman and team owner Bernard Tapie signed LeMond with a $1 million contract over three years. In the race Hinault led through the early mountain stages, but suffered a crash and came into difficulty. At this point, it was clear that LeMond was an elite rider capable of winning the Tour in his own right. LeMond possessed a natural talent for riding the Grand Tours, and got stronger over the course of a three-week race. The injured Hinault was vulnerable, and his competitors knew it. Stage 17 included three major climbs in the Pyrenees. On the second, the Col du Tourmalet, LeMond followed Stephen Roche in an attack, but was not given permission to help build on the gap over the field. The managers of his La Vie Claire team ordered the 24-year-old LeMond not to ride with Roche, but to sit on his wheel, a tactic to use the rider in front as cover for wind resistance so the following rider uses less energy. The pace Roche could put out by himself eventually slowed, and other riders came up to join the two men. Hinault recovered as well, though he did not regain the lead group. At the end of the stage LeMond was frustrated to the point of tears. He later revealed that team management and his own coach Paul Köchli had misled him as to how far back Hinault had dropped during the crucial Stage 17 mountain stage. Hinault won the 1985 Tour, with LeMond finishing second, 1:42 behind. LeMond had ridden as the dutiful lieutenant, and his support enabled Hinault to win his fifth Tour. In repayment for his sacrifice Hinault promised to help LeMond win the Tour the following year.
Hoping to end the season on a high note LeMond entered the World Championships road race with the strongest team the United States ever fielded. Riders included Boyer and LeMond, as well as Andrew Hampsten, Ron Kiefel, Bob Roll and Eric Heiden and this time the American team was set up to help the three strongest riders in LeMond, then Hampsten and Kiefel. Throughout the race LeMond answered repeated attacks and led many chase groups to contain dangerous breakaways, but by the final lap of the race he was beginning to tire. He was however, part of the group that was going to win, and while Hampsten and Keifel survived the race to this point, unfortunately they were too far back to assist LeMond in the final ten kilometers. Inside the final kilometer the last rider to launch an attack was former Tour and Vuelta champion Joop Zoetemelk. Being as he was 38 years old and long past his prime none of the remaining contenders including LeMond, Claudio Corti, Robert Millar, Moreno Argentin or Stephen Roche took the attack seriously initially. Zoetemelk opened a sizeable gap however, before long it was in excess of a hundred meters and quickly growing. He also had two teammates remaining in Johan Van der Velde and Gerard Veldscholten, assisting him by riding at the front but not actually chasing, therefore slowing the chase group. Italian rider Moreno took up the chase but he had nothing left to close the gap and actually put his hand in the air waving for the other riders to come forward and take up the pursuit. LeMond too had nothing left to chase down this final attack feeling that if he did, he wouldn't have anything left for the sprint and wouldn't win any medal at all. In a notable upset, Zoetemelk beat the favorites to the line by three seconds as LeMond out-sprinted Argentin to take the silver. There was no controversy following this silver medal for LeMond and immediately after the race he rode up alongside the Dutchman and congratulated him saying, "Nice ride Joop."
For the 1986 Tour, LeMond was a co-leader of the La Vie Claire team alongside Hinault. Hinault's support seemed less certain the closer the race approached. An unspoken condition was that his help would be contingent upon LeMond demonstrating that he was clearly the better rider. Hinault was in superb form, and had the chance to win an unprecedented sixth Tour. Hinault chose to let the Stage 9 individual time trial be the decider for which rider would receive the full support of team La Vie Claire. Hinault won the Stage 9 time trial, finishing 44 seconds in front of LeMond. LeMond had bad luck during the stage, having suffered a punctured tire requiring a wheel change, and later in the stage a bicycle change was required when he broke a wheel. He was frustrated with the outcome and the impact it would have on how the team would function for the remainder of the race. In Stage 12, the first mountain stage of the race in the Pyrenees, Hinault attacked the lead group and built up an overall lead. By the end of Stage 12, Hinault had a five-minute lead over LeMond and the other top riders. He claimed he was trying to draw out LeMond's rivals, but none of these attacks were planned with LeMond. He was clearly willing to ride aggressively and take advantage of the opportunities presented. LeMond was never placed in difficulty, except by his own teammate. The following day Hinault broke away again early but was caught and then dropped by LeMond on the final climb of Stage 13, allowing LeMond to gain back four and a half minutes. The next three stages brought the Tour to the Alps. On Stage 17 LeMond and Urs Zimmermann dropped Hinault from the leading group, and the end of the day saw LeMond pulling on the yellow jersey of race leader, the first time it had ever been worn by a rider from the United States. The following day in the Alps saw Hinault attack again early on the first climb, but he was pulled back. Attempting an escape on the descent, he was unable to separate himself from LeMond. The La Vie Claire team leaders were both excellent descenders. As they ascended up the next col they continued to pull away from the field, and maintained the gap as they reached the base of the final climb, the vaunted Alpe d'Huez. They pressed on through the crowd, ascending the twenty-one switchbacks of Alpe d'Huez and reaching the summit together. LeMond put an arm around Hinault and gave him a smile and the stage win in a show of unity, but the infighting was not over. Hinault attacked again on Stage 19 and had to be brought back by teammates Andrew Hampsten and Steve Bauer. Commenting on the team situation prior to the final individual time trial at Stage 20, LeMond offered the following with a wry smile: "He's attacked me from the beginning of the Tour De France. He's never helped me once, and I don't feel confident at all with him."
LeMond had to keep his eye on his teammate and rival throughout the race. Hinault rode aggressively and repeatedly attacked, and the division created in the La Vie Claire team was unmistakable. LeMond would keep the yellow jersey to the end of the race and win his first Tour, but he felt betrayed by Hinault and the La Vie Claire team leadership. LeMond later stated the 1986 Tour was the most difficult and stressful race of his career.
1987–1988: Shooting accident and recovery
LeMond had planned to defend his title in the 1987 Tour de France with La Vie Claire, but he was unable to participate. Earlier that year, while riding in the Tirreno–Adriatico spring tune-up race, LeMond fell and fractured his left wrist. He returned to the United States to recover from the injury. The week before returning to Europe, he went turkey hunting on a ranch co-owned by his father in Lincoln, California. LeMond was with Rodney Barber and Patrick Blades, his uncle and brother-in-law. The trio had become separated when Blades, who heard movement behind him, turned and fired through a bush. The movement had come from LeMond, who was hit in his back and right side with approximately 60 pellets. LeMond's injuries were life-threatening, but a police helicopter was already airborne near the scene and transported LeMond on a 15-minute air medical flight to the Medical Center at University of California-Davis. LeMond was taken for emergency surgery. He had suffered a pneumothorax to his right lung and extensive bleeding, having lost some 65 percent of his blood volume. A physician informed LeMond later that he had been within 20 minutes of bleeding to death. The operation saved his life, but four months later he developed a small bowel obstruction due to adhesions that had formed following the shooting. He underwent another surgery to relieve the obstruction and take down the adhesions. Concerned that his team would drop him if they knew the shooting accident required a second surgery, LeMond asked the surgeons to remove his appendix at the same time. He then informed his team that he had had his appendix removed, but the rest of the story was left somewhat vague. The events effectively ended his 1987 season, and in October he announced he would return to serious competition the following February, with the Dutch PDM team.
With 35 shotgun pellets still in his body, including three in the lining of his heart and five more embedded in his liver, LeMond attempted to return to racing in 1988. His comeback was hampered by over-training which resulted in tendonitis in his right shin requiring surgery. He missed the Tour for the second year running. Tensions in the relationship between LeMond and PDM were aggravated when LeMond discovered that doping was going on at the PDM squad. The result was that LeMond moved from PDM, one of the strongest teams in the peloton, to ADR, a team based in Belgium. The team was co-sponsored by Coors Light for American races. The deal was completed on New Year's Eve, just hours before LeMond would have been legally obliged to ride another season for the Dutch team. Joining the Belgian ADR squad allowed LeMond to continue to compete, but with teammates like Johan Museeuw who were better suited to riding Classics than Grand Tours.
1989: Return to elite level
After struggling in the 1989 Paris–Nice early-season race and failing to improve his condition, LeMond informed his wife Kathy that he intended to retire from professional cycling after the 1989 Tour de France. He had some flashes of form with 6th overall in Tirreno-Adriatico and in the two-day Critérium International, sharing an escape with Fignon, Indurain, Mottet, Roche and Madiot and finishing 4th overall. He started the 1989 Giro d'Italia in May as preparation for the Tour to follow, but struggled in the mountains and was not in contention for any of the leaders' jerseys before the final individual time trial into Florence. LeMond placed a surprising second there, more than a minute ahead of overall winner Laurent Fignon. Some of his improvement he attributed to an anti-anemia treatment he received twice during the race.
Coming into the 1989 Tour de France LeMond was not considered a contender for the general classification (GC). His own most optimistic hope was to finish his final Tour in the top 20. Without the weight of expectation and other pressures of being a Tour favorite, LeMond surprised observers with a strong ride in the prologue in Luxembourg, finishing fourth out of 198 riders. Buoyed by the result, LeMond continued to ride well over the opening flat stages, winning the stage 5 individual time trial, and gaining the yellow jersey as leader of the general classification for the first time in three years. LeMond seemed to ride himself into better condition during the first week's flat stages, and he was coming into peak form by the time the Tour reached the mountains. LeMond remained at the front of the race in the Pyrénées, but lost the lead to his former teammate and rival Laurent Fignon on stage 10 in Superbagnères. Five days later LeMond reclaimed yellow in the Alps, after the stage 15 mountain time trial from Gap to Orcières-Merlette. The see-saw battle continued, and when Fignon attacked on the upper slopes of Alpe d'Huez LeMond was unable to go with him, placing the yellow jersey back on the shoulders of Fignon. Fignon held a 50-second advantage over LeMond going into the 21st and final stage, a rare individual time trial from Versailles to the Champs-Élysées in Paris.
Fignon had won the Tour twice before, in 1983 and 1984, and was a very capable time trialist. It seemed improbable that LeMond could take 50 seconds off Fignon over the short course. This would require LeMond to gain two seconds per kilometer against one of the fastest chrono-specialists in the world. LeMond had done wind tunnel testing in the off season and perfected his riding position. He rode the time trial with a rear disc wheel, a cut-down Giro aero helmet and the same Scott clip-on aero bars which had helped him to the Stage 5 time trial win. Holding his time trialing position LeMond was able to generate less aerodynamic drag than Fignon, who used a pair of disc wheels but chose to go helmetless and did not use the aero bars that are now commonplace in time trials. Instructing his support car not to give him his split times, LeMond rode flat-out and finished at a record pace to beat Fignon by 8 seconds and claim his second Tour de France victory. As LeMond embraced his wife and rejoiced on the Champs-Élysées, Fignon collapsed onto the tarmac, then sat in shock and wept.
The final margin of victory of eight seconds was the closest in the Tour's history. LeMond's average speed for the stage 21 time trial was, at that time, the fastest in Tour history. Since then, only the 1994 and 2015 prologues and David Zabriskie's 2005 time trial performance have been faster. The press immediately labeled LeMond's come-from-behind triumph as, "the most astonishing victory in Tour de France history," and while LeMond admitted that it felt almost "too good to be true," he personally rated it as "much more satisfying" than his first overall Tour win in 1986.
LeMond's return to the pinnacle of cycling was confirmed on August 27, when he won the World Championships road race in Chambéry, France. Late in the race with less than 10 km to go the lead group, who had been away since very early in the race, made up of three very strong riders in Steven Rooks, Thierry Claveyrolat and Soviet star Dimitri Konyshev were trying to hold on to fight for the victory amongst themselves when Laurent Fignon broke away from the pursuing group in an effort to chase the leaders down and solo to victory. On the final climb of the race LeMond attacked in pursuit of Fignon on his own. Before long he had caught the Frenchman and not long after that the pair could see the lead group in front of them and they were quickly closing the gap. LeMond briefly dropped Fignon and caught the lead group on his own. Immediately upon catching Rooks, Claveyrolat and Konyshev he moved to the front and set the pace as two other riders in Canadian Steve Bauer and Irishman Sean Kelly attempted to bridge the gap up to LeMond and the lead group. Bauer ended up getting a flat tire essentially ending his hopes at a high finish while Sean Kelly was able to fight his way to the front group, which was bad news for LeMond and the others as Kelly was one of the best sprinters in the world. Fignon was able to rejoin the lead group as well and as the race approached the finish Fignon attacked on numerous occasions trying to drop the remaining riders. Rooks also launched an attack to go for the solo victory but was caught by LeMond, Fignon and the others. Inside the final kilometer Fignon continued attacking trying to break free, but just couldn't force open a gap and began to fall back as the sprint materialized eventually finishing in 6th place. LeMond, Konyshev and Kelly were the strongest riders when it came to the final sprint for victory and they finished in that order. After the race LeMond said that he did not feel well and even considered abandoning the race. With two laps to go he began feeling stronger and stated, "I was racing for the Gold medal. I wanted that World Championship. And with one kilometer to go, I knew I could get it." LeMond was only the fifth person in history to win both the Tour de France and the World Championship in the same year. In December, Sports Illustrated magazine named LeMond its 1989 "Sportsman of the Year", the first time a cyclist received the honor.
1990: A third tour win
LeMond parlayed the success of his 1989 season into the then-richest contract in the sport's history, signing a $5.5 million deal for three years with of France, the first time a cyclist had signed a multi-million dollar contract. He entered the 1990 Tour de France as defending champion and a pre-race favorite after leaving ADR to join the much stronger French team. At "Z" his teammates included Robert Millar, Eric Boyer and Ronan Pensec, all of whom already had finishes in the top six of the Tour de France. This unified roster of strong riders appeared capable of supporting LeMond in the mountains and controlling the race on the flats.
The squad's tactical plan was upset on the first day, when a breakaway that included LeMond's teammate Ronan Pensec, but no major favorites, arrived ten minutes ahead of the field. LeMond was prevented from challenging for the lead until the yellow jersey left the shoulders of his teammate. Surprisingly Pensec held the lead through the first high mountain stages, including Alpe d'Huez, but he would lose it soon after to the relative unknown Claudio Chiappucci.
LeMond closed in on Chiappucci and on stage 16 he put his stamp of authority on the race during the final climb of Luz Ardiden. Late in this stage, after all of the breakaways had been caught he launched a devastating attack that no one could answer. Miguel Induráin was the only rider able to get on LeMond's wheel but it was LeMond dictating the pace all the way up the climb as Chiappucci, Delgado and all of the other favorites fell further and further behind. While Induráin stayed with LeMond, he was not a threat for victory, but his performance put the cycling world on notice as he would win the next five Tours. Near the end of the stage LeMond sat up and the Spaniard took the stage win, but the devastation of LeMond's competitors was all but complete as there was now only +0:05 between LeMond and the yellow jersey.
He finally overtook Chiappucci on the final individual time trial on stage 20, where he finished over two minutes ahead of the unheralded Italian. LeMond at last had the yellow jersey, wearing it the following day as the Tour rode into Paris. LeMond had the distinction of winning the 1990 Tour without taking any of the individual stages. He remains the last rider to win the Tour while wearing the world champion jersey. Over the course of the 1990 Tour the perceived strength of the Z team was confirmed, as they led the team classification through most of the race, adding the team title to LeMond's yellow jersey. LeMond's 1990 Tour victory made him one of just five cyclists to win three or more Tours. As of 2021 a total of seven cyclists have won three times or more.
In September, LeMond attempted to defend his title at the 1990 UCI Road World Championships, but finished fourth, eight seconds behind the winner, his former teammate Rudy Dhaenens of Belgium.
1991–1994: Change in the peloton and retirement
LeMond felt confident before the 1991 Tour de France. He was the defending champion, trained well and had a solid team to support him. LeMond was among the leaders going into the Stage 8 individual time trial, and he finished second to the Spaniard Miguel Indurain. LeMond felt he was riding extremely well, and though his TT-effort had propelled him into the yellow jersey as leader of the general classification, losing eight seconds to Indurain shook his confidence. He held the yellow jersey for the next four days until Stage 12, a challenging mountain stage. LeMond experienced difficulty on the first climb and he cracked on the Col du Tourmalet, losing significant time to Claudio Chiappucci, and eventual winner Indurain. He continued to race, but was unable to seriously challenge for the lead thereafter, finishing the 1991 Tour seventh overall.
In 1992, LeMond won the Tour DuPont, which would be the last major win of his career. He would also have a strong top 10 finish in Paris-Roubaix early in the season. He never won any of cycling's 'Monument' races but he had several high places in four out of five of them throughout his career including 4th in Paris-Roubaix, 3rd in Liège-Bastogne-Liège and 2nd in Milan San Remo as well as the Giro di Lombardia.
In the 1992 Tour de France he started strongly and finished fourth in a breakaway on Stage 6 that put him fifth overall and he maintained his fifth place until the mountain stages when he lost form disastrously and lost more than 45 minutes on the stage to Sestrieres before quitting the race the next day—when his compatriot and former domestique Andrew Hampsten won atop Alpe d'Huez. While LeMond claimed a serious saddle sore caused him to abandon, he had earlier stated, "My climbing is not like usual. I've climbed much better in the past Tours. This year I'm just not feeling my usual self."
LeMond did extensive endurance training on the road the following winter, but his performances the following spring failed to improve. LeMond had to abandon the 1993 Giro d'Italia two days before the final stage after difficult racing left him 125th on GCC and third-from-last in the final time trial. He was too exhausted to enter the 1993 Tour de France. Following the 1993 season LeMond hired renowned Dutch physiologist Adrie van Diemen to advise him on a new technique to monitor training and measure performance. The (SRM) power-based training would make use of the watt as a guide to power output. In November 1993 LeMond confided to Samuel Abt that power output in watts would become the key metric. The watt has gained wide acceptance as the best measure of a cyclist's training performance.
The following year LeMond began the 1994 Tour de France but found he was unable to race effectively. He had to abandon after the first week before the race had reached the difficult mountain stages. That December, he announced his retirement. At the time the reasons for LeMond's increasing difficulties were not entirely known. At a loss, he speculated that a condition known as mitochondrial myopathy might be responsible for the difficulty he was having performing against the current riders. In 2007, however, LeMond speculated that he might not have had the condition after all, and suggested that lead toxicity from the shotgun pellets still embedded in his body might have been responsible, the effects of which were increased by heavy training.
LeMond has acknowledged since 2010 that the increasing prevalence of doping in cycling contributed to his lack of competitiveness. Said LeMond: "Something had changed in cycling. The speeds were faster and riders that I had easily out performed were now dropping me. At the time, the team I was on, Team Z, became more and more demanding, more and more concerned..." He stated he had been told in 1994 that he would need to blood dope in order to win again. He frankly admitted to Abt in 1999: "I figure I had three months that went right for me after the hunting accident," three months in which he won the two Tours and a world road race championship. "The rest were just pure suffering, struggling, fatigue, always tired."
In a wide-ranging interview with American novelist Bryan Malessa in 1998, LeMond was asked if his career had not been interrupted by the hunting accident, how did he feel he would compare to five time Tour winners such as Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain. LeMond responded: "Of course you can't rewrite racing history, but I'm confident that I would have won five Tours."
Two years after his retirement LeMond was inducted into the United States Bicycling Hall of Fame in a ceremony at Rodale Park in Trexlertown, Pennsylvania. The event was held on June 8, 1996, during the U.S. Olympic Cycling Team Trials.
In July 2014, ESPN announced the premiere of a new 30 for 30 film entitled Slaying the Badger. The film centers on LeMond and his former teammate Hinault at the 1986 Tour de France. It is based on the book of the same name by Richard Moore, and it premiered July 22, 2014 on ESPN.
Business interests
LeMond was a pioneer in the use of carbon fiber bicycle frames in European professional road cycling, and his Tour de France win in 1986 ahead of Bernard Hinault was the first for a carbon-framed bicycle. Ironically, given the rivalry that existed at the time between the American and his French teammate, LeMond rode a "Bernard Hinault" Signature Model Look prototype that year. LeMond also won the 1989 Tour de France, the 1989 World Championship, and his final Tour de France in 1990 on carbon fiber frames. These bicycle frames featured "Greg LeMond" branding.
LeMond Cycles
In 1990, LeMond founded LeMond Bicycles to develop machines for himself that would also be marketed and sold to the public. The following year, searching for an equipment edge for Team Z at the 1991 Tour de France, LeMond concluded an exclusive licensing agreement between his company and Carbonframes, Inc., to access the latter's advanced composites technology. Whilst using the bikes for the 1991 Tour, he would maintain his carbon bike in his hotel room, leading his mechanics to fear it had been stolen. While LeMond briefly led the 1991 Tour overall, riding his Carbonframes-produced "Greg LeMond" bicycle, the company eventually faltered, something LeMond blamed on "under-capitalization" and poor management by his father. Carbonframes and LeMond Cycles "parted amiably two years later." In 1995, with his company allegedly nearly bankrupt, LeMond reached a licensing-agreement with Trek Bicycle Corporation, according to which the Wisconsin-based company would manufacture and distribute bicycles designed with LeMond that would be sold under the "LeMond Bicycles" brand. LeMond would later claim that going into business with Trek "destroyed" his relationship with his father. The lucrative partnership, which generated revenue for Trek in excess of US$100,000,000, would be renewed several times over the course of 13 years, but it ultimately ended in acrimony after LeMond's relationship with Trek deteriorated over his staunch anti-doping advocacy.
LeMond found himself at odds with Trek in July 2001 after he expressed public concern over the relationship between Italian doping doctor Michele Ferrari and Trek's star athlete, Lance Armstrong. Trek president John Burke pressured LeMond to apologize, claiming, "Greg's public comments hurt the LeMond brand and the Trek brand." Burke allegedly justified his demand for an apology by advising that, "As a contractual partner, he [LeMond] could criticize doping only generally – not point his finger at specific athletes, particularly one that happens to be the company's main cash cow." Armstrong reportedly said privately he could "shut him up" by contacting Trek, as documented in affidavits by Frankie and Betsy Andreu released in the 2012 USADA doping report. LeMond issued an apology for his comment.
In a 2007 interview, LeMond accused Armstrong of trying to sabotage his relationship with Trek bicycles. In March 2008, LeMond Cycling Inc sued Trek for failing to properly promote and distribute the LeMond brand, and for attempting to "silence" LeMond's public comments about doping, attributing this to the influence of Armstrong on Trek. His complaint included statistics detailing slow sales in some markets, including the fact that between September 2001 and June 2007, Trek only sold $10,393 worth of LeMond bikes in France, a country in which LeMond was both famous and popular. Trek responded in April 2008, announcing that it was dropping LeMond Bicycles from its product line and that it would sue to sever the licensing agreement.
As promised, Trek counter-sued and stopped producing bicycles under the LeMond brand. After nearly two years of litigation, LeMond reached a confidential out-of-court settlement with Trek in February 2010. The settlement permitted the case to be dismissed with prejudice, meaning, "neither side can produce the same claims against one another in a future lawsuit." Although settlement terms were not disclosed, LeMond reportedly obtained full control over the LeMond Bicycles name, while Trek made a donation of US$200,000 to the charity 1in6, of which LeMond was a founding member of the board of directors.
LeMond Fitness/Revolution
In 2002, LeMond, Bernie Boglioli and others founded LeMond Fitness, Inc. "to help individuals achieve their fitness and performance goals and train more effectively." The company's primary business is the development and manufacture of bicycle trainers and indoor exercise bikes for consumers in the United States and internationally. LeMond serves as Chairman of the Board. In 2012, Hoist Fitness negotiated to purchase an interest in the company and announced plans to move its headquarters to Hoist's offices in San Diego, CA. In late 2012, LeMond purchased the LeMond Revolution from Hoist, relaunching with a new management team in Minneapolis. Later, he also formed LeMond LLC to introduce a suite of brands. Professional cycling's team renewed its sponsorship with LeMond to use its Revolution trainers for another three seasons. The team won several stages of the Tour de France, plus the general classification of the 2012 Giro d'Italia.
Partnership with Time
At the Interbike trade show in September 2013, LeMond announced that he was returning to the business of bicycle manufacture and sales by partnering with French company Time. The new line began with a series of commemorative designed bicycles, to be followed with road, cyclocross, and gravel-road models. LeMond purchased Time Sport USA, the US distributor for the company. Said LeMond: "I'm really excited to be back in the bike industry."
Real estate
In 2002, LeMond joined his parents-in-law David and Sacia Morris, friend Michael Snow and J.P. Morgan & Co. fund manager Jorge Jasson to invest in the exclusive Yellowstone Club, a Big Sky, Montana, private ski and golf community founded by timber baron Tim Blixseth and his wife Edra. Each of the five partners paid Blixseth $750,000 for one percent shares in the exclusive resort. LeMond also purchased several building lots and maintained a property at the resort. Four years later, LeMond and partners sued Blixseth in 2006 following reports of a Credit Suisse loan to the resort of $375 million from which Blixseth reportedly took $209 million in a disputed partial payout for his ownership stake. The Credit Suisse loan was based on a $1.16 billion Cushman & Wakefield valuation of the resort, for which LeMond and partners each sought $11.6 million for their one-percent shares. In 2007, LeMond settled his suit with the Blixseths for $39 million. However, he and his partners remained creditors as the Blixseths defaulted on a $20 million payment (after having already paid the group $18 million). In 2009, the Blixseths divorced and the Club went bankrupt.
Restaurants
LeMond became a restaurateur in August 1990 when, in partnership with his wife and her parents, he opened Scott Kee's Tour de France on France Avenue in the Minneapolis suburb of Edina, Minnesota. LeMond described the restaurant, which was named for its chef (LeMond's brother-in-law), as "a dream of five years come true." Explaining the origin of the concept, LeMond said, "Kathy and I have eaten at the finest establishments in France, Italy and Belgium. Our favorites have always been small places, family-owned." LeMond also partnered in several Bruegger's bagel bakery-café franchises.
LeMond Composites
LeMond founded LeMond Composites in 2016 to manufacture high-volume, low-cost carbon fiber composites under a licensing agreement with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and an exclusive 20-year licensing agreement with Deakin University. In 2017 LeMond and his family moved from Minnesota to Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to be close to the $125 million LeMond Composites manufacturing facility.
On October 16, 2017, Australian politician Sarah Henderson announced that LeMond Composites would receive AU$2.5 million (US$ million) in Australian Federal Government funding to establish a carbon fiber manufacturing plant in Geelong, Australia.
Broadcasting
In 2014, LeMond joined Eurosport as a pundit for the channel's cycling coverage, providing analysis at Paris–Roubaix, the Giro d'Italia and the Tour de France, and hosting his own monthly program LeMond on Cycling. He continued to work for the channel until 2017.
Anti-doping stance and controversies
LeMond is a longtime vocal opponent of performance-enhancing drug use. He first spoke on-record against doping in cycling after winning the 1989 Tour de France. He has consistently questioned the relationship between riders and unethical sports doctors and has pointed out that doping products ultimately victimize the professional cyclists who make use of them. Said LeMond: "When I speak out about doping people could translate it and think it was about the riders. Actually I feel like I am an advocate for the riders. I look at them as being treated like lab rats that are test vehicles for the doctors. The doctors, the management, the officials, they're the ones that have corrupted riders. The riders are the only ones that pay the price."
LeMond received intense criticism in 2001 when he publicly criticized Lance Armstrong's relationship with Dr. Michele Ferrari. Ferrari is an Italian physician and sports trainer who admitted to practicing blood doping and advocated the controlled use of the banned substance erythropoietin by athletes. Upon learning of Armstrong's association with Ferrari, LeMond said:
"When Lance won the prologue to the 1999 Tour I was close to tears, but when I heard he was working with Michele Ferrari I was devastated. In the light of Lance's relationship with Ferrari, I just don't want to comment on this year's Tour. This is not sour grapes. I'm disappointed in Lance, that's all it is."
LeMond's comments placed him in the center of an anti-doping controversy. About a month later, following pressure from both Armstrong and Trek, LeMond issued an apology for his comment; he called Armstrong "a great champion" and added, "I do not believe, in any way, that he has ever used any performance-enhancing substances. I believe his performances are the result of the same hard work, dedication and focus that were mine 10 years ago."
In 2004, LeMond spoke out again. On the heels of successive Tour de France wins by Armstrong, LeMond said, "If Armstrong's clean, it's the greatest comeback. And if he's not, then it's the greatest fraud." He went public with the fallout of his 2001 statement, alleging that Armstrong had threatened to defame him and threatened his business interests as well:
"[Armstrong] basically said 'I could find 10 people that will say you took EPO' ... The week after, I got multiple people that were on Lance ... Lance's camp, basically saying 'You better be quiet,' and I was quiet for three years. I have a business ... I have bikes that are sold ... and I was told that my sales might not be doing too well if ... just the publicity, the negative publicity." The same month, LeMond told French newspaper Le Monde that Armstrong was "ready to do anything to keep his secret. I don't know how he can continue to convince everybody of his innocence." At a press conference Armstrong gave in September 2008 to announce his return to cycling, LeMond publicly challenged him with questions about doping. Armstrong appeared angry and interrupted LeMond, telling him it was time to move on. In August 2012, the USADA announced that Armstrong had been issued a lifetime ban from cycling competition due to his involvement in a massive doping scheme. In addition, the USADA stripped Armstrong of his seven Tour de France titles.
LeMond has also clashed with fellow Tour rider Floyd Landis regarding the doping issue. On May 17, 2007, LeMond testified at a USADA hearing convened to weigh the evidence of doping by Landis during the 2006 Tour de France. Under oath, LeMond described a phone conversation he had with Landis on August 6, 2006, as well as another with Landis' business manager, Will Geoghegan, on May 16, 2007, the evening before LeMond appeared to testify. The major points of the testimony were:
In the August 6 conversation, LeMond said he told Landis that "If you did (admit to having used banned substances), you could single-handedly change the sport. You could be the one who will salvage the sport." LeMond said Landis responded by saying "What good would it do? If I did, it would destroy a lot of my friends and hurt a lot of people."
In their conversation, LeMond had disclosed his history of childhood sexual abuse to Landis and said the secret had nearly destroyed him. LeMond stated he warned Landis. "(Lying about doping) will come back to haunt you when you are 40 or 50. If you have a moral compass and ethics, this will destroy you."
Will Geoghegan attempted to stop LeMond's testimony by calling LeMond on his mobile phone. LeMond reported that Geoghegan claimed he was "his uncle" and intimated that he would appear at the hearing and expose the fact that LeMond was a survivor of child sex abuse. LeMond's BlackBerry, with Geoghegan's phone number captured in the call log, was entered into evidence.
In 2007, Landis was found guilty of doping and was banned from cycling for two years. In 2010, he admitted to having been involved in doping. Also in 2010, Landis apologized to LeMond for the events of 2007.
On July 23, 2009, LeMond wrote an opinion article in the French newspaper Le Monde where he questioned the validity of Alberto Contador's climb up Verbier in the 2009 Tour de France. In the piece, LeMond pointed out that Contador's calculated VO2 max of 99.5 mL/(kg·min) had never been achieved by any athlete. Said LeMond: "The burden is then on Alberto Contador to prove he is physically capable of performing this feat without the use of performance-enhancing products." Contador tested positive for clenbuterol after winning the 2010 Tour and was later stripped of his title and suspended from cycling for two years.
LeMond has criticized the UCI and its former president, Pat McQuaid. In December 2012, LeMond claimed that a change needed to be made in the leadership for the UCI and stated if called upon he would be willing to take the position himself if necessary to lead cycling out of the mire of doping. Said LeMond: "It is now or never to act. After the earthquake caused by the Armstrong case another chance will not arise. I am willing to invest to make this institution more democratic, transparent and look for the best candidate in the longer term." McQuaid rejected LeMond's call for new leadership and was dismissive of LeMond. Ultimately McQuaid was defeated in his bid for a third term by British Cycling president Brian Cookson at the September 2013 UCI Congress in Florence, Italy. Lemond had supported Cookson in the UCI Presidential battle.
Personal life
LeMond is married to Kathy (née Morris) and together they have three children: sons Geoffrey and Scott, and daughter Simone. LeMond and his wife lived in Medina, Minnesota, from 1990 until 2017 and then moved to Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Since his retirement, LeMond has become increasingly involved in philanthropic efforts relating to causes that have affected him personally (including ADHD and sexual abuse).
LeMond is an avid outdoor enthusiast and fly angler, and in 1991 – while still racing full-time – he made the world-record fly fishing catch of a four-pound smallmouth bass on a reel with a four-pound tippet. The record was certified by the National Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame in Hayward, Wisconsin. The catch exceeded the then-previous record of three pounds, six ounces made on the same size tippet back in 1986. LeMond confessed, "I always pack my fly fishing equipment when I travel to bike events. I fish every chance I get."
After retiring from pro cycling, LeMond competed in Formula Ford 2000 series auto racing. He is also a motivational speaker. LeMond narrated an award-winning documentary for Adventures for the Cure in 2008.
On July 16, 2007, LeMond rode the L'Étape du Tour cyclosportive with his son, and found it to be a defining moment in his post-competition life. "I had the time of my life", he said, despite getting "650th place" and being "impressed that I even finished". LeMond continued, "I decided that day that nobody's going to keep me from cycling, not Trek, not Armstrong, not Verbruggen, not anybody." At the time, LeMond was alluding to a series of public and private disputes related to his anti-doping advocacy that hampered his enjoyment of cycling. Especially significant was LeMond's appearance as a USADA witness in the Floyd Landis doping case. At that time, Landis's business manager threatened to expose the fact that LeMond was a survivor of child sex abuse.
Several weeks later, LeMond and his wife Kathy gave an extensive interview to Paul Kimmage of The Sunday Times. LeMond provided additional details concerning the circumstances of his 2001 apology to Armstrong, stating that Trek, the longtime manufacturer and distributor of LeMond Racing Cycles, had threatened to end the relationship at the behest of Armstrong if he did not apologize. He described the two years following the apology as the worst in his life, marked by self-destructive behavior; ultimately, that behavior led LeMond to tell his wife that he was a survivor of child sex abuse and to seek help in addressing that past trauma. LeMond described how being a victim of molestation had impacted his life and his racing career. In September 2007, LeMond became a founding board member of the non-profit organization 1in6.org, whose mission is "to help men who have had unwanted or abusive sexual experiences in childhood live healthy, happy lives".
LeMond was in a car accident on the morning of January 30, 2013. He was driving through wintery and icy conditions to his dentist in Wayzata, Minnesota, when he lost control of his car. LeMond suffered a concussion and was left with no memory of the incident. According to Associated Press, a Plymouth police report says LeMond left the road, hit a fence and shrubs, and then hit an embankment before ending up in the backyard of a home. LeMond may have lost consciousness before the accident, according to his wife Kathy, and he suffered a compression fracture in his back and would have to wear a brace for three months. The accident curtailed LeMond's public appearances in the first half of 2013, but he made a full recovery.
On September 19, 2019, the United States House of Representatives passed a bipartisan bill, submitted by California Representative Mike Thompson, to award LeMond the Congressional Gold Medal. The bill was approved by Congress on November 16, 2020, and signed by president Donald Trump on December 4, 2020. Upon signature of the bill, the White House released a statement, saying the medal was awarded "in recognition of his service to the Nation as an athlete, activist, role model, and community leader".
Career achievements
Major results
1977
1st Road race, National Junior Road Championships
1978
1st Overall Vuelta de Bisbee
2nd Road race, National Junior Road Championships
3rd Team time trial, UCI Junior Road World Championships
1979
1st Road race, UCI Junior Road World Championships
1st Road race, National Junior Road Championships
1st Nevada City Classic
2nd Track pursuit, UCI Junior Track World Championships
3rd Team time trial, UCI Junior Road World Championships
1980
1st Overall Circuit de la Sarthe
1st Nevada City Classic
3rd Overall Circuit des Ardennes
1981
1st Overall Coors Classic
1st Stages 1 & 7
Tour de Picardie
1st Stages 2 & 2a
1st Nevada City Classic
3rd Overall Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré
3rd Overall Route du Sud
7th Overall Circuit de la Sarthe
1982
1st Overall Tour de l'Avenir
1st Stages 4 (ITT), 5 & 8 (ITT)
2nd Road race, UCI Road World Championships
2nd Overall Tour Méditerranéen
3rd Overall Tirreno–Adriatico
1st Stage 3
3rd Overall Tour de Corse
3rd Grand Prix de Rennes
1983
1st Road race, UCI Road World Championships
1st Overall Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré
1st Stages 1, 5 & 7b (ITT)
1st Overall Super Prestige Pernod International
1st Critérium des As
1st Stage 1 Tour Méditerranéen
2nd Grand Prix des Nations
2nd Giro di Lombardia
4th Overall Tour de Suisse
4th Paris–Tours
6th Druivenkoers Overijse
10th Overall Tirreno–Adriatico
1984
1st Stage 1 Clásico RCN
3rd Overall Tour de France
1st Young rider classification
1st Stage 3 (TTT)
3rd Overall Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré
1st Stage 7b
3rd Liège–Bastogne–Liège
5th Overall Tirreno–Adriatico
7th Overall Ronde van Nederland
8th Overall Critérium International
9th Gent–Wevelgem
1985
1st Overall Coors Classic
1st Stage 5
2nd Overall Tour de France
1st Combination classification
1st Stages 3 (TTT) & 21 (ITT)
2nd Road race, UCI Road World Championships
2nd Overall Tour of the Basque Country
3rd Overall Giro d'Italia
3rd Super Prestige Pernod International
4th Overall Critérium International
4th Paris–Roubaix
4th Omloop Het Volk
6th Overall Tour Méditerranéen
7th Tour of Flanders
7th Grand Prix Eddy Merckx
1986
1st Overall Tour de France
1st Combination classification
1st Stage 13
1st Stage 4 Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana
2nd Milan–San Remo
2nd Super Prestige Pernod International
2nd Overall Coors Classic
1st Stage 4a
3rd Overall Paris–Nice
3rd Overall Tour de Suisse
3rd Overall Critérium International
4th Overall Giro d'Italia
1st Stage 5
4th La Flèche Wallonne
4th Züri-Metzgete
7th Overall Étoile de Bessèges
7th Road race, UCI Road World Championships
1989
1st Road race, UCI Road World Championships
1st Overall Tour de France
1st Stages 5 (ITT), 19 & 21 (ITT)
2nd Boucles de l'Aulne
4th Overall Critérium International
4th Grand Prix des Amériques
6th Overall Tirreno–Adriatico
1990
1st Overall Tour de France
2nd Züri-Metzgete
3rd Boucles de l'Aulne
4th Road race, UCI Road World Championships
10th Overall Tour de Suisse
1991
7th Overall Tour de France
1992
1st Overall Tour DuPont
1st Prologue
2nd Overall Tour d'Armorique
9th Paris–Roubaix
Grand Tour general classification results timeline
Classics results timeline
Awards
Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year: 1989
Jesse Owens International Trophy: 1991
Korbel Lifetime Achievement Award: 1992
See also
Yellow jersey statistics
List of companies named after people
List of French Americans
List of Grand Tour general classification winners
List of multi-sport athletes
List of people from Minnesota
List of sports rivalries
List of Tour de France general classification winners
List of Tour de France secondary classification winners
United States at the UCI Road World Championships
References
Notes
Citations
Bibliography
Further reading
External links
LeMond Composites
1961 births
Living people
American people of French descent
American Giro d'Italia stage winners
American male cyclists
American Tour de France stage winners
Cycle designers
People from Lakewood, California
Tour de France Champs Elysées stage winners
Tour de France winners
UCI Road World Champions (elite men)
U.S. F2000 National Championship drivers
Super Prestige Pernod winners
Cyclists from California | true | [
"David Lee Lemonds (born July 5, 1948) is an American former professional baseball player, a left-handed pitcher who played in the Major Leagues in and for the Chicago Cubs and Chicago White Sox. Lemonds appeared in 33 Major League games, all but two of them for the 1972 White Sox. He started 19 games, and in 99⅓ innings recorded 69 strikeouts and allowed 92 hits and 43 bases on balls. He retired after the 1974 minor league baseball season.\n\nLemonds played on the Charlotte Post 9 (American Legion) team that advanced to back to back championship games, in 1964 and 65. Post 9, coached by his father Jack, won the Legion national championship in 1965.\n\nLemonds, then went on to play for the University of North Carolina, where he was named first team All American, and Sporting News Player of the Year in 1968. UNC retired his number. He was drafted in 1966 by the San Francisco Giants during the 5th round but did not sign. He was drafted in the 1968 Amateur Draft (June Secondary) as the first pick in the first round by the Chicago White Sox.\n\nHe was traded along with Roe Skidmore and Pat Jacquez by the Cubs to the White Sox for Ossie Blanco and José Ortiz on November 30, 1970.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1948 births\nMajor League Baseball pitchers\nChicago Cubs players\nChicago White Sox players\nRaleigh-Durham Phillies players\nTacoma Cubs players\nSan Antonio Missions players\nIowa Oaks players\nWichita Aeros players\nTucson Toros players\nLiving people\nBaseball players from North Carolina",
"Along the Way is the first live concert DVD from punk band Bad Religion. The concert footage was taken from fourteen different European stops on their 1989 tour for the album, Suffer. It was originally released on VHS in Germany in 1990 (with a different cover) and in the United States in the following year, and on DVD for the first time in 2004, coinciding with the reissues of the band's pre-Recipe for Hate albums. Both the VHS and DVD have the same cover shown on the right, which depicts Jay Bentley with his bass, while the European VHS depicts guitarist Brett Gurewitz and singer Greg Graffin singing along with each other.\n\nThe format of the video consists of live concert performances interspersed with short interview clips of the band members. The live footage is mixed from fourteen different shows, and jumps between them for each different cut and camera angle. Although the video remains synchronized with the audio track, it is not uncommon for the band members shirts to appear to change many times during the same song. The concert featured no songs from the band's 1983 album Into the Unknown or No Control, although the latter album was released shortly after the European tour.\n\nTitle of the release is taken from the band's song of the same name, which appears on their 1985 long-out of print EP Back to the Known. This song was also played live at the concert.\n\nBrett Gurewitz on his drug habit\nOne of the interview portions of the video poses a question to guitarist Brett Gurewitz concerning his addiction to crack cocaine and other hard drugs.\n\nInterviewer: Brett, you have been an addict to crack. How do you think about hard drugs today?\n\nBrett Gurewitz: Well, I don't do it anymore. I think crack is probably the worst poison that has ever been introduced to human beings. I mean, I think personally it's worse than heroin because I experimented with heroin quite a bit, and alcohol, and um, although I guess it depends on the individual.\n\nI will say that I'm not, I don't want to sound that like I'm anti-drug, because I'm not anti-drug. I happen to be a drug addict. And when I take a drug, I can't stop. And um, or if I have a drink, I continue drinking until I black out. So, I had to stop. But, I think that part of that has to do with my, perhaps my environment, but I think a great deal of it has to do with genetic physical causes.\n\nI think the central nervous system of a drug addict and an alcoholic is different from the central nervous system of a non-drug addict/alcoholic. And, in fact, medical studies have been done, they've done research on the spinal cord of drug addicts and alcoholics and they find genetic differences between them so there is some kind of inherited trait. So what I think is that if you can handle it and you can use it, drugs can be good. They can be good to relax the atmosphere at a party, LSD can be very good to expand your mind, you know?\n\nI love LSD, I just don't, I just... And I don't think that LSD is an addictive drug personally, but, I had tried to stop taking crack in the past and I tried to stop drinking in the past and say, \"OK, I won't drink, I'll just smoke pot\" or \"I won't take crack, I'll just drink\" and whatever the one thing that I decided I would do, I did so much of it to compensate for not doing anything else because that's how I was. I had to stop everything, you know?\n\nBut, I think that there are people who can handle it, and I think that for the people who can handle it, it's OK. I don't think there's anything wrong with it. I just think that, um, when it comes to the point where the pain of using the things are too great than the pain of not using them, then you have to stop.\n\nTour\nThe following are the tour dates of the European Suffer Tour of 1989, where the footage was filmed.\n\nAudio from the show in Bremen was used for the live footage.\n\nNOTE: Any date with an asterisk (*) means no footage was filmed there for the documentary, according to the credits.\n\nTrack listing\n\nPersonnel\n Greg Graffin - Vocals\n Brett Gurewitz - Guitar\n Jay Bentley - Bass\n Greg Hetson - Guitar\n Pete Finestone - Drums\n Karat Faye - Engineer / F.O.H.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n \n\n1990 video albums\n1990 live albums\nDocumentary films about punk music and musicians\nBad Religion video albums\nLive video albums"
] |
[
"Greg LeMond",
"Anti-doping stance and controversies",
"What happened with Anti-doping",
"products ultimately victimize the professional cyclists who make use of them.",
"Was there any controversies on Anti-doping?",
"LeMond's most notable conflicts have been with fellow Tour riders Lance Armstrong and Floyd Landis. He has also been critical of Alberto Contador, the UCI, and its former president,",
"Was anyone tested for using these enhancers?",
"LeMond has consistently questioned the relationship between riders and unethical sports doctors like Ferrari, and has pointed out that doping products ultimately victimize the professional cyclists",
"Was there any other controversies?",
"The doctors, the management, the officials, they're the ones that have corrupted riders. The riders are the only ones that pay the price.\"",
"Was there anything you can share about Greg LeMonds history?",
"LeMond is a longtime vocal opponent of performance-enhancing drug use."
] | C_4b522eb5fc884e7f81e177165f06fcdc_0 | Did he get disqualified? | 6 | Did LeMond get disqualified? | Greg LeMond | LeMond is a longtime vocal opponent of performance-enhancing drug use. He first spoke on-record against doping in cycling after winning the 1989 Tour de France. LeMond received intense criticism in 2001 when he publicly expressed doubts about the legitimacy of Lance Armstrong's Tour success after learning of his relationship with Dr. Michele Ferrari. His outspokenness placed him in the center of the anti-doping controversy. LeMond has consistently questioned the relationship between riders and unethical sports doctors like Ferrari, and has pointed out that doping products ultimately victimize the professional cyclists who make use of them. Said LeMond: "When I speak out about doping people could translate it and think it was about the riders. Actually I feel like I am an advocate for the riders. I look at them as being treated like lab rats that are test vehicles for the doctors. The doctors, the management, the officials, they're the ones that have corrupted riders. The riders are the only ones that pay the price." LeMond's most notable conflicts have been with fellow Tour riders Lance Armstrong and Floyd Landis. He has also been critical of Alberto Contador, the UCI, and its former president, Pat McQuaid. In December 2012, LeMond claimed that a change needed to be made at the head of leadership for the UCI, and stated if called upon he would be willing to take the position himself if necessary to lead cycling out of the mire of doping. Said LeMond: "It is now or never to act. After the earthquake caused by the Armstrong case another chance will not arise. I am willing to invest to make this institution more democratic, transparent and look for the best candidate in the longer term." McQuaid rejected LeMond's call for new leadership and was dismissive of LeMond. Ultimately McQuaid was defeated in his bid for a third term by British Cycling president Brian Cookson at the September 2013 UCI Congress in Florence, Italy. Lemond had supported Cookson in the UCI Presidential battle. CANNOTANSWER | McQuaid rejected LeMond's call for new leadership and was dismissive of LeMond. | Gregory James LeMond (born June 26, 1961) is an American former professional road racing cyclist, entrepreneur, and anti-doping advocate. A two-time winner of the Road Race World Championship (1983 and 1989) and a three-time winner of the Tour de France (1986, 1989, and 1990), LeMond is considered by many to be the greatest American cyclist of all time, one of the great all-round cyclists of the modern era, and an icon of the sport's globalisation.
LeMond began his professional cycling career in 1981. In 1983, he became the first American male cyclist to win the Road World Championship. LeMond won the Tour de France in 1986; he is the first non-European professional cyclist to win the Tour. He was accidentally shot with pellets and seriously injured while hunting in 1987. Following the shooting, he underwent two surgeries and missed the next two Tours. At the 1989 Tour, he completed an improbable comeback to win in dramatic fashion on the race's final stage. He successfully defended his Tour title the following year, becoming one of only eight riders to win three or more Tours. LeMond retired from competition in December 1994 and was inducted into the United States Bicycling Hall of Fame in 1996. He was the first professional cyclist to sign a million-dollar contract and the first cyclist to appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated.
During his career, LeMond championed several technological advancements in pro cycling, including the introduction of aerodynamic "triathlon" handlebars and carbon fiber bicycle frames, which he later marketed through his company LeMond Bicycles. His other business interests have included restaurants, real estate, and consumer fitness equipment. LeMond is a vocal opponent of performance-enhancing drug use in cycling and is a founding board member of 1in6.org, a nonprofit charity that assists male victims of child sex abuse.
Early life and amateur career
LeMond was born in Lakewood, California, and was raised in the Washoe Valley, a ranch country on the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountain range between Reno, and the family home about 2.5 miles north of Carson City, Nevada. His parents are Bob LeMond and Bertha LeMond (d. 2006), and he has two sisters, Kathy and Karen.
LeMond grew up living an active, outdoor life. Hiking, hunting, skiing and flyfishing were boyhood pastimes. The ranch country of the Sierra Nevada mountain range lent itself to such pursuits. A hyperactive youngster, LeMond believes these outdoor activities helped keep him out of trouble. "I was a boy who just could not sit still. I had trouble focusing in school. Parents and educators then did not have the skill set to diagnose and cope with what we know now was a classic case of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). ADHD certainly was not the frequently medicated childhood disease it is today. My triumph over the symptoms was found atop two thin tires over many dusty miles." Said LeMond: "That's one of the traits. It's the inability to sit down [and listen] to something you are not really interested in and absorb it. If they are interested in it, people with ADD excel in really good ways. When I got into cycling I would say the sport itself took a fog off my brain. I was able to absorb stuff I read. It changed my life."
LeMond attended Earl Wooster High School in Reno, but lived too far away to participate in team sports. LeMond soon biked almost daily to high school. He often rode home from Wooster, taking a route over Mt. Rose, along to Incline Village, then south on Hwy 28, then downhill to Carson City, then to his home.
LeMond's introduction to cycling came in 1975, thanks to freestyle skiing pioneer Wayne Wong, who recommended the bike as an ideal off-season training aid. LeMond started competing in 1976, and after dominating the Intermediate category (13–15) and winning the first 11 races he entered, he received permission to ride against older, more seasoned competitors in the Junior (16–19) category.
In 1977, while still only 15, LeMond finished second in the Tour of Fresno to John Howard, then the United States's top road cyclist and the 1971 Pan American Games champion. LeMond caught the attention of Eddie Borysewicz, the US Cycling Federation's national team coach, who described LeMond as "a diamond, a clear diamond." LeMond represented the United States at the 1978 Junior World Championships in Washington, D.C., where he finished ninth in the road race, and again in the 1979 Junior World Championships in Argentina, where he won gold, silver and bronze medals—the highlight being his victory in the road race. At age 18, LeMond was selected for the 1980 U.S. Olympic cycling team, the youngest ever to make the team. However, the U.S. boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow prevented him from competing there.
Borysewicz, whom LeMond described as his "first real coach," wanted to retain his protégé through the next Olympic cycle and discouraged him from turning pro, but LeMond was determined. Nevertheless, while he was the reigning Junior World Road Champion in 1980, LeMond received no professional offers, and so in the spring of 1980, he joined the U.S. National cycling team for a 6-week European racing campaign. There, he finished third overall in the Circuit des Ardennes before winning the 1980 Circuit de la Sarthe stage race in France, thereby becoming the first American and youngest rider of any nationality "in the history of the sport to win a major pro-am cycling event [in Europe]." That victory, and the subsequent press coverage, raised LeMond's profile in Europe and he was scouted at his next event (the Ruban Granitier Breton stage race) by Cyrille Guimard, the Renault–Elf–Gitane team's directeur sportif. Guimard said he was impressed with LeMond's spirit, and told him, "You have the fire to be a great champion," before offering him a professional contract for 1981 with Renault. After he returned to the United States, LeMond won the 1980 Nevada City Classic, considered to be one of the most historic and challenging professional cycling races in United States. Despite eventually receiving several other offers to turn professional besides Guimard's, LeMond did not consider them seriously, and he signed with Renault in Paris on the day the 1980 Tour de France finished.
Professional career
LeMond was an "exceptionally gifted" amateur rider who quickly established himself as one of the most talented cyclists on the professional circuit. Respected cycling journalist John Wilcockson, who reported the Tour de France for more than 40 years, described LeMond as a rider who was fuoriclasse.
1981–1983: Early years
LeMond's first professional victory came three months into his 1981 debut when he won a stage of the French Tour de l'Oise. He followed with a win in the Coors Classic in the United States, finishing ahead of Sergei Sukhoruchenkov, the 1980 Olympic road champion. The major step forward in 1981 occurred in the Dauphiné Libéré stage race where LeMond placed third. The achievement is the more remarkable because he rode the race in support of team leader Bernard Hinault. LeMond missed standing on the podium with race winner Hinault, as Pascal Simon had finished ahead of him. Two weeks later Simon was assessed a 10-minute penalty when it was discovered he had been doping. LeMond considered the race to have been a "major steppingstone" in his career. Said LeMond: "It showed me that I had the kind of climbing ability that you need to win the top European stage races." LeMond won a total of five races in his rookie season of 1981.
LeMond broke his collarbone on April 11, 1982, while racing the cycling classic Liège–Bastogne–Liège. The injury forced LeMond to ride a reduced schedule before entering the World Championships, which were in Goodwood, England that year. In the men's road race competition, LeMond broke for the line but was out-sprinted by Italian Giuseppe Saronni. Following the race, LeMond's American teammate Jacques Boyer accused LeMond of chasing him down in the final 800 meters. Saronni was very strong at the end of the race and flew past Boyer and LeMond, winning by 5 seconds over LeMond, with another 5 seconds back to Kelly. Boyer placed tenth. Bronze medalist Sean Kelly, a favorite to win the race, was with Saronni when he caught LeMond with about 200 meters to go, but he could not hold his wheel. Said Kelly: "I don't think that Boyer was fading ... He got quite a good gap. Nobody wanted to go after him ... Yes, LeMond chased down Boyer. Boyer was the only man up the road."
LeMond was supported by his teammate George Mount, who observed, "What's LeMond going to do? Throw his bike down in front of everybody because Boyer is such a good buddy of everyone? ... Hell no—he's going to start sprinting because it's less than 200 meters to go and the sprint's already been going for a couple hundred meters. LeMond made a good move and a good sprint ... Boyer was not going to win that race. The best he could have got was fifth or sixth place."
LeMond did not apologize. The U.S. team was not as set up as the European teams, and did not have an independent race to determine the national champion. Instead, the highest finisher at the World's was considered the national champion. LeMond had argued for the team to compete as the European teams did, but team management and Boyer voted against him. Thus, unlike the other teams at the world championship, the US riders were competing against each other. Aged 21, LeMond was the first American pro to win a medal at the World's since Frank Kramer took silver in 1912. Said LeMond: "I'm racing for Renault and I'm racing for myself. It's a business and it's my living. To me, that second place was almost as good as winning, especially at my age."
Two weeks later, on September 20, 1982, LeMond won the mountainous 12-day, Tour de l'Avenir by a record 10 minutes, 18 seconds. The victory, and the time advantage LeMond held at the end, stunned Europe and provided broad confirmation that LeMond was indeed fuoriclasse.
The following year, 1983, LeMond won the Road World Championship outright, becoming the first American male cyclist to do so. (Audrey McElmury won in 1969 and Beth Heiden won in 1980.) LeMond's cycling talent—his overall strength, climbing ability, ability to ride a fast time trial and his capacity to recover quickly—all suggested LeMond would be an excellent prospect for the most demanding Grand Tours.
1984–1986: Grand Tours
LeMond rode his first Tour de France in 1984, finishing third in support of team leader Laurent Fignon, and winning the white jersey of the young rider classification. The following year he was brought across to La Vie Claire to ride in support of team captain Bernard Hinault who had regained his form and was attempting to win his fifth Tour. French businessman and team owner Bernard Tapie signed LeMond with a $1 million contract over three years. In the race Hinault led through the early mountain stages, but suffered a crash and came into difficulty. At this point, it was clear that LeMond was an elite rider capable of winning the Tour in his own right. LeMond possessed a natural talent for riding the Grand Tours, and got stronger over the course of a three-week race. The injured Hinault was vulnerable, and his competitors knew it. Stage 17 included three major climbs in the Pyrenees. On the second, the Col du Tourmalet, LeMond followed Stephen Roche in an attack, but was not given permission to help build on the gap over the field. The managers of his La Vie Claire team ordered the 24-year-old LeMond not to ride with Roche, but to sit on his wheel, a tactic to use the rider in front as cover for wind resistance so the following rider uses less energy. The pace Roche could put out by himself eventually slowed, and other riders came up to join the two men. Hinault recovered as well, though he did not regain the lead group. At the end of the stage LeMond was frustrated to the point of tears. He later revealed that team management and his own coach Paul Köchli had misled him as to how far back Hinault had dropped during the crucial Stage 17 mountain stage. Hinault won the 1985 Tour, with LeMond finishing second, 1:42 behind. LeMond had ridden as the dutiful lieutenant, and his support enabled Hinault to win his fifth Tour. In repayment for his sacrifice Hinault promised to help LeMond win the Tour the following year.
Hoping to end the season on a high note LeMond entered the World Championships road race with the strongest team the United States ever fielded. Riders included Boyer and LeMond, as well as Andrew Hampsten, Ron Kiefel, Bob Roll and Eric Heiden and this time the American team was set up to help the three strongest riders in LeMond, then Hampsten and Kiefel. Throughout the race LeMond answered repeated attacks and led many chase groups to contain dangerous breakaways, but by the final lap of the race he was beginning to tire. He was however, part of the group that was going to win, and while Hampsten and Keifel survived the race to this point, unfortunately they were too far back to assist LeMond in the final ten kilometers. Inside the final kilometer the last rider to launch an attack was former Tour and Vuelta champion Joop Zoetemelk. Being as he was 38 years old and long past his prime none of the remaining contenders including LeMond, Claudio Corti, Robert Millar, Moreno Argentin or Stephen Roche took the attack seriously initially. Zoetemelk opened a sizeable gap however, before long it was in excess of a hundred meters and quickly growing. He also had two teammates remaining in Johan Van der Velde and Gerard Veldscholten, assisting him by riding at the front but not actually chasing, therefore slowing the chase group. Italian rider Moreno took up the chase but he had nothing left to close the gap and actually put his hand in the air waving for the other riders to come forward and take up the pursuit. LeMond too had nothing left to chase down this final attack feeling that if he did, he wouldn't have anything left for the sprint and wouldn't win any medal at all. In a notable upset, Zoetemelk beat the favorites to the line by three seconds as LeMond out-sprinted Argentin to take the silver. There was no controversy following this silver medal for LeMond and immediately after the race he rode up alongside the Dutchman and congratulated him saying, "Nice ride Joop."
For the 1986 Tour, LeMond was a co-leader of the La Vie Claire team alongside Hinault. Hinault's support seemed less certain the closer the race approached. An unspoken condition was that his help would be contingent upon LeMond demonstrating that he was clearly the better rider. Hinault was in superb form, and had the chance to win an unprecedented sixth Tour. Hinault chose to let the Stage 9 individual time trial be the decider for which rider would receive the full support of team La Vie Claire. Hinault won the Stage 9 time trial, finishing 44 seconds in front of LeMond. LeMond had bad luck during the stage, having suffered a punctured tire requiring a wheel change, and later in the stage a bicycle change was required when he broke a wheel. He was frustrated with the outcome and the impact it would have on how the team would function for the remainder of the race. In Stage 12, the first mountain stage of the race in the Pyrenees, Hinault attacked the lead group and built up an overall lead. By the end of Stage 12, Hinault had a five-minute lead over LeMond and the other top riders. He claimed he was trying to draw out LeMond's rivals, but none of these attacks were planned with LeMond. He was clearly willing to ride aggressively and take advantage of the opportunities presented. LeMond was never placed in difficulty, except by his own teammate. The following day Hinault broke away again early but was caught and then dropped by LeMond on the final climb of Stage 13, allowing LeMond to gain back four and a half minutes. The next three stages brought the Tour to the Alps. On Stage 17 LeMond and Urs Zimmermann dropped Hinault from the leading group, and the end of the day saw LeMond pulling on the yellow jersey of race leader, the first time it had ever been worn by a rider from the United States. The following day in the Alps saw Hinault attack again early on the first climb, but he was pulled back. Attempting an escape on the descent, he was unable to separate himself from LeMond. The La Vie Claire team leaders were both excellent descenders. As they ascended up the next col they continued to pull away from the field, and maintained the gap as they reached the base of the final climb, the vaunted Alpe d'Huez. They pressed on through the crowd, ascending the twenty-one switchbacks of Alpe d'Huez and reaching the summit together. LeMond put an arm around Hinault and gave him a smile and the stage win in a show of unity, but the infighting was not over. Hinault attacked again on Stage 19 and had to be brought back by teammates Andrew Hampsten and Steve Bauer. Commenting on the team situation prior to the final individual time trial at Stage 20, LeMond offered the following with a wry smile: "He's attacked me from the beginning of the Tour De France. He's never helped me once, and I don't feel confident at all with him."
LeMond had to keep his eye on his teammate and rival throughout the race. Hinault rode aggressively and repeatedly attacked, and the division created in the La Vie Claire team was unmistakable. LeMond would keep the yellow jersey to the end of the race and win his first Tour, but he felt betrayed by Hinault and the La Vie Claire team leadership. LeMond later stated the 1986 Tour was the most difficult and stressful race of his career.
1987–1988: Shooting accident and recovery
LeMond had planned to defend his title in the 1987 Tour de France with La Vie Claire, but he was unable to participate. Earlier that year, while riding in the Tirreno–Adriatico spring tune-up race, LeMond fell and fractured his left wrist. He returned to the United States to recover from the injury. The week before returning to Europe, he went turkey hunting on a ranch co-owned by his father in Lincoln, California. LeMond was with Rodney Barber and Patrick Blades, his uncle and brother-in-law. The trio had become separated when Blades, who heard movement behind him, turned and fired through a bush. The movement had come from LeMond, who was hit in his back and right side with approximately 60 pellets. LeMond's injuries were life-threatening, but a police helicopter was already airborne near the scene and transported LeMond on a 15-minute air medical flight to the Medical Center at University of California-Davis. LeMond was taken for emergency surgery. He had suffered a pneumothorax to his right lung and extensive bleeding, having lost some 65 percent of his blood volume. A physician informed LeMond later that he had been within 20 minutes of bleeding to death. The operation saved his life, but four months later he developed a small bowel obstruction due to adhesions that had formed following the shooting. He underwent another surgery to relieve the obstruction and take down the adhesions. Concerned that his team would drop him if they knew the shooting accident required a second surgery, LeMond asked the surgeons to remove his appendix at the same time. He then informed his team that he had had his appendix removed, but the rest of the story was left somewhat vague. The events effectively ended his 1987 season, and in October he announced he would return to serious competition the following February, with the Dutch PDM team.
With 35 shotgun pellets still in his body, including three in the lining of his heart and five more embedded in his liver, LeMond attempted to return to racing in 1988. His comeback was hampered by over-training which resulted in tendonitis in his right shin requiring surgery. He missed the Tour for the second year running. Tensions in the relationship between LeMond and PDM were aggravated when LeMond discovered that doping was going on at the PDM squad. The result was that LeMond moved from PDM, one of the strongest teams in the peloton, to ADR, a team based in Belgium. The team was co-sponsored by Coors Light for American races. The deal was completed on New Year's Eve, just hours before LeMond would have been legally obliged to ride another season for the Dutch team. Joining the Belgian ADR squad allowed LeMond to continue to compete, but with teammates like Johan Museeuw who were better suited to riding Classics than Grand Tours.
1989: Return to elite level
After struggling in the 1989 Paris–Nice early-season race and failing to improve his condition, LeMond informed his wife Kathy that he intended to retire from professional cycling after the 1989 Tour de France. He had some flashes of form with 6th overall in Tirreno-Adriatico and in the two-day Critérium International, sharing an escape with Fignon, Indurain, Mottet, Roche and Madiot and finishing 4th overall. He started the 1989 Giro d'Italia in May as preparation for the Tour to follow, but struggled in the mountains and was not in contention for any of the leaders' jerseys before the final individual time trial into Florence. LeMond placed a surprising second there, more than a minute ahead of overall winner Laurent Fignon. Some of his improvement he attributed to an anti-anemia treatment he received twice during the race.
Coming into the 1989 Tour de France LeMond was not considered a contender for the general classification (GC). His own most optimistic hope was to finish his final Tour in the top 20. Without the weight of expectation and other pressures of being a Tour favorite, LeMond surprised observers with a strong ride in the prologue in Luxembourg, finishing fourth out of 198 riders. Buoyed by the result, LeMond continued to ride well over the opening flat stages, winning the stage 5 individual time trial, and gaining the yellow jersey as leader of the general classification for the first time in three years. LeMond seemed to ride himself into better condition during the first week's flat stages, and he was coming into peak form by the time the Tour reached the mountains. LeMond remained at the front of the race in the Pyrénées, but lost the lead to his former teammate and rival Laurent Fignon on stage 10 in Superbagnères. Five days later LeMond reclaimed yellow in the Alps, after the stage 15 mountain time trial from Gap to Orcières-Merlette. The see-saw battle continued, and when Fignon attacked on the upper slopes of Alpe d'Huez LeMond was unable to go with him, placing the yellow jersey back on the shoulders of Fignon. Fignon held a 50-second advantage over LeMond going into the 21st and final stage, a rare individual time trial from Versailles to the Champs-Élysées in Paris.
Fignon had won the Tour twice before, in 1983 and 1984, and was a very capable time trialist. It seemed improbable that LeMond could take 50 seconds off Fignon over the short course. This would require LeMond to gain two seconds per kilometer against one of the fastest chrono-specialists in the world. LeMond had done wind tunnel testing in the off season and perfected his riding position. He rode the time trial with a rear disc wheel, a cut-down Giro aero helmet and the same Scott clip-on aero bars which had helped him to the Stage 5 time trial win. Holding his time trialing position LeMond was able to generate less aerodynamic drag than Fignon, who used a pair of disc wheels but chose to go helmetless and did not use the aero bars that are now commonplace in time trials. Instructing his support car not to give him his split times, LeMond rode flat-out and finished at a record pace to beat Fignon by 8 seconds and claim his second Tour de France victory. As LeMond embraced his wife and rejoiced on the Champs-Élysées, Fignon collapsed onto the tarmac, then sat in shock and wept.
The final margin of victory of eight seconds was the closest in the Tour's history. LeMond's average speed for the stage 21 time trial was, at that time, the fastest in Tour history. Since then, only the 1994 and 2015 prologues and David Zabriskie's 2005 time trial performance have been faster. The press immediately labeled LeMond's come-from-behind triumph as, "the most astonishing victory in Tour de France history," and while LeMond admitted that it felt almost "too good to be true," he personally rated it as "much more satisfying" than his first overall Tour win in 1986.
LeMond's return to the pinnacle of cycling was confirmed on August 27, when he won the World Championships road race in Chambéry, France. Late in the race with less than 10 km to go the lead group, who had been away since very early in the race, made up of three very strong riders in Steven Rooks, Thierry Claveyrolat and Soviet star Dimitri Konyshev were trying to hold on to fight for the victory amongst themselves when Laurent Fignon broke away from the pursuing group in an effort to chase the leaders down and solo to victory. On the final climb of the race LeMond attacked in pursuit of Fignon on his own. Before long he had caught the Frenchman and not long after that the pair could see the lead group in front of them and they were quickly closing the gap. LeMond briefly dropped Fignon and caught the lead group on his own. Immediately upon catching Rooks, Claveyrolat and Konyshev he moved to the front and set the pace as two other riders in Canadian Steve Bauer and Irishman Sean Kelly attempted to bridge the gap up to LeMond and the lead group. Bauer ended up getting a flat tire essentially ending his hopes at a high finish while Sean Kelly was able to fight his way to the front group, which was bad news for LeMond and the others as Kelly was one of the best sprinters in the world. Fignon was able to rejoin the lead group as well and as the race approached the finish Fignon attacked on numerous occasions trying to drop the remaining riders. Rooks also launched an attack to go for the solo victory but was caught by LeMond, Fignon and the others. Inside the final kilometer Fignon continued attacking trying to break free, but just couldn't force open a gap and began to fall back as the sprint materialized eventually finishing in 6th place. LeMond, Konyshev and Kelly were the strongest riders when it came to the final sprint for victory and they finished in that order. After the race LeMond said that he did not feel well and even considered abandoning the race. With two laps to go he began feeling stronger and stated, "I was racing for the Gold medal. I wanted that World Championship. And with one kilometer to go, I knew I could get it." LeMond was only the fifth person in history to win both the Tour de France and the World Championship in the same year. In December, Sports Illustrated magazine named LeMond its 1989 "Sportsman of the Year", the first time a cyclist received the honor.
1990: A third tour win
LeMond parlayed the success of his 1989 season into the then-richest contract in the sport's history, signing a $5.5 million deal for three years with of France, the first time a cyclist had signed a multi-million dollar contract. He entered the 1990 Tour de France as defending champion and a pre-race favorite after leaving ADR to join the much stronger French team. At "Z" his teammates included Robert Millar, Eric Boyer and Ronan Pensec, all of whom already had finishes in the top six of the Tour de France. This unified roster of strong riders appeared capable of supporting LeMond in the mountains and controlling the race on the flats.
The squad's tactical plan was upset on the first day, when a breakaway that included LeMond's teammate Ronan Pensec, but no major favorites, arrived ten minutes ahead of the field. LeMond was prevented from challenging for the lead until the yellow jersey left the shoulders of his teammate. Surprisingly Pensec held the lead through the first high mountain stages, including Alpe d'Huez, but he would lose it soon after to the relative unknown Claudio Chiappucci.
LeMond closed in on Chiappucci and on stage 16 he put his stamp of authority on the race during the final climb of Luz Ardiden. Late in this stage, after all of the breakaways had been caught he launched a devastating attack that no one could answer. Miguel Induráin was the only rider able to get on LeMond's wheel but it was LeMond dictating the pace all the way up the climb as Chiappucci, Delgado and all of the other favorites fell further and further behind. While Induráin stayed with LeMond, he was not a threat for victory, but his performance put the cycling world on notice as he would win the next five Tours. Near the end of the stage LeMond sat up and the Spaniard took the stage win, but the devastation of LeMond's competitors was all but complete as there was now only +0:05 between LeMond and the yellow jersey.
He finally overtook Chiappucci on the final individual time trial on stage 20, where he finished over two minutes ahead of the unheralded Italian. LeMond at last had the yellow jersey, wearing it the following day as the Tour rode into Paris. LeMond had the distinction of winning the 1990 Tour without taking any of the individual stages. He remains the last rider to win the Tour while wearing the world champion jersey. Over the course of the 1990 Tour the perceived strength of the Z team was confirmed, as they led the team classification through most of the race, adding the team title to LeMond's yellow jersey. LeMond's 1990 Tour victory made him one of just five cyclists to win three or more Tours. As of 2021 a total of seven cyclists have won three times or more.
In September, LeMond attempted to defend his title at the 1990 UCI Road World Championships, but finished fourth, eight seconds behind the winner, his former teammate Rudy Dhaenens of Belgium.
1991–1994: Change in the peloton and retirement
LeMond felt confident before the 1991 Tour de France. He was the defending champion, trained well and had a solid team to support him. LeMond was among the leaders going into the Stage 8 individual time trial, and he finished second to the Spaniard Miguel Indurain. LeMond felt he was riding extremely well, and though his TT-effort had propelled him into the yellow jersey as leader of the general classification, losing eight seconds to Indurain shook his confidence. He held the yellow jersey for the next four days until Stage 12, a challenging mountain stage. LeMond experienced difficulty on the first climb and he cracked on the Col du Tourmalet, losing significant time to Claudio Chiappucci, and eventual winner Indurain. He continued to race, but was unable to seriously challenge for the lead thereafter, finishing the 1991 Tour seventh overall.
In 1992, LeMond won the Tour DuPont, which would be the last major win of his career. He would also have a strong top 10 finish in Paris-Roubaix early in the season. He never won any of cycling's 'Monument' races but he had several high places in four out of five of them throughout his career including 4th in Paris-Roubaix, 3rd in Liège-Bastogne-Liège and 2nd in Milan San Remo as well as the Giro di Lombardia.
In the 1992 Tour de France he started strongly and finished fourth in a breakaway on Stage 6 that put him fifth overall and he maintained his fifth place until the mountain stages when he lost form disastrously and lost more than 45 minutes on the stage to Sestrieres before quitting the race the next day—when his compatriot and former domestique Andrew Hampsten won atop Alpe d'Huez. While LeMond claimed a serious saddle sore caused him to abandon, he had earlier stated, "My climbing is not like usual. I've climbed much better in the past Tours. This year I'm just not feeling my usual self."
LeMond did extensive endurance training on the road the following winter, but his performances the following spring failed to improve. LeMond had to abandon the 1993 Giro d'Italia two days before the final stage after difficult racing left him 125th on GCC and third-from-last in the final time trial. He was too exhausted to enter the 1993 Tour de France. Following the 1993 season LeMond hired renowned Dutch physiologist Adrie van Diemen to advise him on a new technique to monitor training and measure performance. The (SRM) power-based training would make use of the watt as a guide to power output. In November 1993 LeMond confided to Samuel Abt that power output in watts would become the key metric. The watt has gained wide acceptance as the best measure of a cyclist's training performance.
The following year LeMond began the 1994 Tour de France but found he was unable to race effectively. He had to abandon after the first week before the race had reached the difficult mountain stages. That December, he announced his retirement. At the time the reasons for LeMond's increasing difficulties were not entirely known. At a loss, he speculated that a condition known as mitochondrial myopathy might be responsible for the difficulty he was having performing against the current riders. In 2007, however, LeMond speculated that he might not have had the condition after all, and suggested that lead toxicity from the shotgun pellets still embedded in his body might have been responsible, the effects of which were increased by heavy training.
LeMond has acknowledged since 2010 that the increasing prevalence of doping in cycling contributed to his lack of competitiveness. Said LeMond: "Something had changed in cycling. The speeds were faster and riders that I had easily out performed were now dropping me. At the time, the team I was on, Team Z, became more and more demanding, more and more concerned..." He stated he had been told in 1994 that he would need to blood dope in order to win again. He frankly admitted to Abt in 1999: "I figure I had three months that went right for me after the hunting accident," three months in which he won the two Tours and a world road race championship. "The rest were just pure suffering, struggling, fatigue, always tired."
In a wide-ranging interview with American novelist Bryan Malessa in 1998, LeMond was asked if his career had not been interrupted by the hunting accident, how did he feel he would compare to five time Tour winners such as Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain. LeMond responded: "Of course you can't rewrite racing history, but I'm confident that I would have won five Tours."
Two years after his retirement LeMond was inducted into the United States Bicycling Hall of Fame in a ceremony at Rodale Park in Trexlertown, Pennsylvania. The event was held on June 8, 1996, during the U.S. Olympic Cycling Team Trials.
In July 2014, ESPN announced the premiere of a new 30 for 30 film entitled Slaying the Badger. The film centers on LeMond and his former teammate Hinault at the 1986 Tour de France. It is based on the book of the same name by Richard Moore, and it premiered July 22, 2014 on ESPN.
Business interests
LeMond was a pioneer in the use of carbon fiber bicycle frames in European professional road cycling, and his Tour de France win in 1986 ahead of Bernard Hinault was the first for a carbon-framed bicycle. Ironically, given the rivalry that existed at the time between the American and his French teammate, LeMond rode a "Bernard Hinault" Signature Model Look prototype that year. LeMond also won the 1989 Tour de France, the 1989 World Championship, and his final Tour de France in 1990 on carbon fiber frames. These bicycle frames featured "Greg LeMond" branding.
LeMond Cycles
In 1990, LeMond founded LeMond Bicycles to develop machines for himself that would also be marketed and sold to the public. The following year, searching for an equipment edge for Team Z at the 1991 Tour de France, LeMond concluded an exclusive licensing agreement between his company and Carbonframes, Inc., to access the latter's advanced composites technology. Whilst using the bikes for the 1991 Tour, he would maintain his carbon bike in his hotel room, leading his mechanics to fear it had been stolen. While LeMond briefly led the 1991 Tour overall, riding his Carbonframes-produced "Greg LeMond" bicycle, the company eventually faltered, something LeMond blamed on "under-capitalization" and poor management by his father. Carbonframes and LeMond Cycles "parted amiably two years later." In 1995, with his company allegedly nearly bankrupt, LeMond reached a licensing-agreement with Trek Bicycle Corporation, according to which the Wisconsin-based company would manufacture and distribute bicycles designed with LeMond that would be sold under the "LeMond Bicycles" brand. LeMond would later claim that going into business with Trek "destroyed" his relationship with his father. The lucrative partnership, which generated revenue for Trek in excess of US$100,000,000, would be renewed several times over the course of 13 years, but it ultimately ended in acrimony after LeMond's relationship with Trek deteriorated over his staunch anti-doping advocacy.
LeMond found himself at odds with Trek in July 2001 after he expressed public concern over the relationship between Italian doping doctor Michele Ferrari and Trek's star athlete, Lance Armstrong. Trek president John Burke pressured LeMond to apologize, claiming, "Greg's public comments hurt the LeMond brand and the Trek brand." Burke allegedly justified his demand for an apology by advising that, "As a contractual partner, he [LeMond] could criticize doping only generally – not point his finger at specific athletes, particularly one that happens to be the company's main cash cow." Armstrong reportedly said privately he could "shut him up" by contacting Trek, as documented in affidavits by Frankie and Betsy Andreu released in the 2012 USADA doping report. LeMond issued an apology for his comment.
In a 2007 interview, LeMond accused Armstrong of trying to sabotage his relationship with Trek bicycles. In March 2008, LeMond Cycling Inc sued Trek for failing to properly promote and distribute the LeMond brand, and for attempting to "silence" LeMond's public comments about doping, attributing this to the influence of Armstrong on Trek. His complaint included statistics detailing slow sales in some markets, including the fact that between September 2001 and June 2007, Trek only sold $10,393 worth of LeMond bikes in France, a country in which LeMond was both famous and popular. Trek responded in April 2008, announcing that it was dropping LeMond Bicycles from its product line and that it would sue to sever the licensing agreement.
As promised, Trek counter-sued and stopped producing bicycles under the LeMond brand. After nearly two years of litigation, LeMond reached a confidential out-of-court settlement with Trek in February 2010. The settlement permitted the case to be dismissed with prejudice, meaning, "neither side can produce the same claims against one another in a future lawsuit." Although settlement terms were not disclosed, LeMond reportedly obtained full control over the LeMond Bicycles name, while Trek made a donation of US$200,000 to the charity 1in6, of which LeMond was a founding member of the board of directors.
LeMond Fitness/Revolution
In 2002, LeMond, Bernie Boglioli and others founded LeMond Fitness, Inc. "to help individuals achieve their fitness and performance goals and train more effectively." The company's primary business is the development and manufacture of bicycle trainers and indoor exercise bikes for consumers in the United States and internationally. LeMond serves as Chairman of the Board. In 2012, Hoist Fitness negotiated to purchase an interest in the company and announced plans to move its headquarters to Hoist's offices in San Diego, CA. In late 2012, LeMond purchased the LeMond Revolution from Hoist, relaunching with a new management team in Minneapolis. Later, he also formed LeMond LLC to introduce a suite of brands. Professional cycling's team renewed its sponsorship with LeMond to use its Revolution trainers for another three seasons. The team won several stages of the Tour de France, plus the general classification of the 2012 Giro d'Italia.
Partnership with Time
At the Interbike trade show in September 2013, LeMond announced that he was returning to the business of bicycle manufacture and sales by partnering with French company Time. The new line began with a series of commemorative designed bicycles, to be followed with road, cyclocross, and gravel-road models. LeMond purchased Time Sport USA, the US distributor for the company. Said LeMond: "I'm really excited to be back in the bike industry."
Real estate
In 2002, LeMond joined his parents-in-law David and Sacia Morris, friend Michael Snow and J.P. Morgan & Co. fund manager Jorge Jasson to invest in the exclusive Yellowstone Club, a Big Sky, Montana, private ski and golf community founded by timber baron Tim Blixseth and his wife Edra. Each of the five partners paid Blixseth $750,000 for one percent shares in the exclusive resort. LeMond also purchased several building lots and maintained a property at the resort. Four years later, LeMond and partners sued Blixseth in 2006 following reports of a Credit Suisse loan to the resort of $375 million from which Blixseth reportedly took $209 million in a disputed partial payout for his ownership stake. The Credit Suisse loan was based on a $1.16 billion Cushman & Wakefield valuation of the resort, for which LeMond and partners each sought $11.6 million for their one-percent shares. In 2007, LeMond settled his suit with the Blixseths for $39 million. However, he and his partners remained creditors as the Blixseths defaulted on a $20 million payment (after having already paid the group $18 million). In 2009, the Blixseths divorced and the Club went bankrupt.
Restaurants
LeMond became a restaurateur in August 1990 when, in partnership with his wife and her parents, he opened Scott Kee's Tour de France on France Avenue in the Minneapolis suburb of Edina, Minnesota. LeMond described the restaurant, which was named for its chef (LeMond's brother-in-law), as "a dream of five years come true." Explaining the origin of the concept, LeMond said, "Kathy and I have eaten at the finest establishments in France, Italy and Belgium. Our favorites have always been small places, family-owned." LeMond also partnered in several Bruegger's bagel bakery-café franchises.
LeMond Composites
LeMond founded LeMond Composites in 2016 to manufacture high-volume, low-cost carbon fiber composites under a licensing agreement with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and an exclusive 20-year licensing agreement with Deakin University. In 2017 LeMond and his family moved from Minnesota to Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to be close to the $125 million LeMond Composites manufacturing facility.
On October 16, 2017, Australian politician Sarah Henderson announced that LeMond Composites would receive AU$2.5 million (US$ million) in Australian Federal Government funding to establish a carbon fiber manufacturing plant in Geelong, Australia.
Broadcasting
In 2014, LeMond joined Eurosport as a pundit for the channel's cycling coverage, providing analysis at Paris–Roubaix, the Giro d'Italia and the Tour de France, and hosting his own monthly program LeMond on Cycling. He continued to work for the channel until 2017.
Anti-doping stance and controversies
LeMond is a longtime vocal opponent of performance-enhancing drug use. He first spoke on-record against doping in cycling after winning the 1989 Tour de France. He has consistently questioned the relationship between riders and unethical sports doctors and has pointed out that doping products ultimately victimize the professional cyclists who make use of them. Said LeMond: "When I speak out about doping people could translate it and think it was about the riders. Actually I feel like I am an advocate for the riders. I look at them as being treated like lab rats that are test vehicles for the doctors. The doctors, the management, the officials, they're the ones that have corrupted riders. The riders are the only ones that pay the price."
LeMond received intense criticism in 2001 when he publicly criticized Lance Armstrong's relationship with Dr. Michele Ferrari. Ferrari is an Italian physician and sports trainer who admitted to practicing blood doping and advocated the controlled use of the banned substance erythropoietin by athletes. Upon learning of Armstrong's association with Ferrari, LeMond said:
"When Lance won the prologue to the 1999 Tour I was close to tears, but when I heard he was working with Michele Ferrari I was devastated. In the light of Lance's relationship with Ferrari, I just don't want to comment on this year's Tour. This is not sour grapes. I'm disappointed in Lance, that's all it is."
LeMond's comments placed him in the center of an anti-doping controversy. About a month later, following pressure from both Armstrong and Trek, LeMond issued an apology for his comment; he called Armstrong "a great champion" and added, "I do not believe, in any way, that he has ever used any performance-enhancing substances. I believe his performances are the result of the same hard work, dedication and focus that were mine 10 years ago."
In 2004, LeMond spoke out again. On the heels of successive Tour de France wins by Armstrong, LeMond said, "If Armstrong's clean, it's the greatest comeback. And if he's not, then it's the greatest fraud." He went public with the fallout of his 2001 statement, alleging that Armstrong had threatened to defame him and threatened his business interests as well:
"[Armstrong] basically said 'I could find 10 people that will say you took EPO' ... The week after, I got multiple people that were on Lance ... Lance's camp, basically saying 'You better be quiet,' and I was quiet for three years. I have a business ... I have bikes that are sold ... and I was told that my sales might not be doing too well if ... just the publicity, the negative publicity." The same month, LeMond told French newspaper Le Monde that Armstrong was "ready to do anything to keep his secret. I don't know how he can continue to convince everybody of his innocence." At a press conference Armstrong gave in September 2008 to announce his return to cycling, LeMond publicly challenged him with questions about doping. Armstrong appeared angry and interrupted LeMond, telling him it was time to move on. In August 2012, the USADA announced that Armstrong had been issued a lifetime ban from cycling competition due to his involvement in a massive doping scheme. In addition, the USADA stripped Armstrong of his seven Tour de France titles.
LeMond has also clashed with fellow Tour rider Floyd Landis regarding the doping issue. On May 17, 2007, LeMond testified at a USADA hearing convened to weigh the evidence of doping by Landis during the 2006 Tour de France. Under oath, LeMond described a phone conversation he had with Landis on August 6, 2006, as well as another with Landis' business manager, Will Geoghegan, on May 16, 2007, the evening before LeMond appeared to testify. The major points of the testimony were:
In the August 6 conversation, LeMond said he told Landis that "If you did (admit to having used banned substances), you could single-handedly change the sport. You could be the one who will salvage the sport." LeMond said Landis responded by saying "What good would it do? If I did, it would destroy a lot of my friends and hurt a lot of people."
In their conversation, LeMond had disclosed his history of childhood sexual abuse to Landis and said the secret had nearly destroyed him. LeMond stated he warned Landis. "(Lying about doping) will come back to haunt you when you are 40 or 50. If you have a moral compass and ethics, this will destroy you."
Will Geoghegan attempted to stop LeMond's testimony by calling LeMond on his mobile phone. LeMond reported that Geoghegan claimed he was "his uncle" and intimated that he would appear at the hearing and expose the fact that LeMond was a survivor of child sex abuse. LeMond's BlackBerry, with Geoghegan's phone number captured in the call log, was entered into evidence.
In 2007, Landis was found guilty of doping and was banned from cycling for two years. In 2010, he admitted to having been involved in doping. Also in 2010, Landis apologized to LeMond for the events of 2007.
On July 23, 2009, LeMond wrote an opinion article in the French newspaper Le Monde where he questioned the validity of Alberto Contador's climb up Verbier in the 2009 Tour de France. In the piece, LeMond pointed out that Contador's calculated VO2 max of 99.5 mL/(kg·min) had never been achieved by any athlete. Said LeMond: "The burden is then on Alberto Contador to prove he is physically capable of performing this feat without the use of performance-enhancing products." Contador tested positive for clenbuterol after winning the 2010 Tour and was later stripped of his title and suspended from cycling for two years.
LeMond has criticized the UCI and its former president, Pat McQuaid. In December 2012, LeMond claimed that a change needed to be made in the leadership for the UCI and stated if called upon he would be willing to take the position himself if necessary to lead cycling out of the mire of doping. Said LeMond: "It is now or never to act. After the earthquake caused by the Armstrong case another chance will not arise. I am willing to invest to make this institution more democratic, transparent and look for the best candidate in the longer term." McQuaid rejected LeMond's call for new leadership and was dismissive of LeMond. Ultimately McQuaid was defeated in his bid for a third term by British Cycling president Brian Cookson at the September 2013 UCI Congress in Florence, Italy. Lemond had supported Cookson in the UCI Presidential battle.
Personal life
LeMond is married to Kathy (née Morris) and together they have three children: sons Geoffrey and Scott, and daughter Simone. LeMond and his wife lived in Medina, Minnesota, from 1990 until 2017 and then moved to Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Since his retirement, LeMond has become increasingly involved in philanthropic efforts relating to causes that have affected him personally (including ADHD and sexual abuse).
LeMond is an avid outdoor enthusiast and fly angler, and in 1991 – while still racing full-time – he made the world-record fly fishing catch of a four-pound smallmouth bass on a reel with a four-pound tippet. The record was certified by the National Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame in Hayward, Wisconsin. The catch exceeded the then-previous record of three pounds, six ounces made on the same size tippet back in 1986. LeMond confessed, "I always pack my fly fishing equipment when I travel to bike events. I fish every chance I get."
After retiring from pro cycling, LeMond competed in Formula Ford 2000 series auto racing. He is also a motivational speaker. LeMond narrated an award-winning documentary for Adventures for the Cure in 2008.
On July 16, 2007, LeMond rode the L'Étape du Tour cyclosportive with his son, and found it to be a defining moment in his post-competition life. "I had the time of my life", he said, despite getting "650th place" and being "impressed that I even finished". LeMond continued, "I decided that day that nobody's going to keep me from cycling, not Trek, not Armstrong, not Verbruggen, not anybody." At the time, LeMond was alluding to a series of public and private disputes related to his anti-doping advocacy that hampered his enjoyment of cycling. Especially significant was LeMond's appearance as a USADA witness in the Floyd Landis doping case. At that time, Landis's business manager threatened to expose the fact that LeMond was a survivor of child sex abuse.
Several weeks later, LeMond and his wife Kathy gave an extensive interview to Paul Kimmage of The Sunday Times. LeMond provided additional details concerning the circumstances of his 2001 apology to Armstrong, stating that Trek, the longtime manufacturer and distributor of LeMond Racing Cycles, had threatened to end the relationship at the behest of Armstrong if he did not apologize. He described the two years following the apology as the worst in his life, marked by self-destructive behavior; ultimately, that behavior led LeMond to tell his wife that he was a survivor of child sex abuse and to seek help in addressing that past trauma. LeMond described how being a victim of molestation had impacted his life and his racing career. In September 2007, LeMond became a founding board member of the non-profit organization 1in6.org, whose mission is "to help men who have had unwanted or abusive sexual experiences in childhood live healthy, happy lives".
LeMond was in a car accident on the morning of January 30, 2013. He was driving through wintery and icy conditions to his dentist in Wayzata, Minnesota, when he lost control of his car. LeMond suffered a concussion and was left with no memory of the incident. According to Associated Press, a Plymouth police report says LeMond left the road, hit a fence and shrubs, and then hit an embankment before ending up in the backyard of a home. LeMond may have lost consciousness before the accident, according to his wife Kathy, and he suffered a compression fracture in his back and would have to wear a brace for three months. The accident curtailed LeMond's public appearances in the first half of 2013, but he made a full recovery.
On September 19, 2019, the United States House of Representatives passed a bipartisan bill, submitted by California Representative Mike Thompson, to award LeMond the Congressional Gold Medal. The bill was approved by Congress on November 16, 2020, and signed by president Donald Trump on December 4, 2020. Upon signature of the bill, the White House released a statement, saying the medal was awarded "in recognition of his service to the Nation as an athlete, activist, role model, and community leader".
Career achievements
Major results
1977
1st Road race, National Junior Road Championships
1978
1st Overall Vuelta de Bisbee
2nd Road race, National Junior Road Championships
3rd Team time trial, UCI Junior Road World Championships
1979
1st Road race, UCI Junior Road World Championships
1st Road race, National Junior Road Championships
1st Nevada City Classic
2nd Track pursuit, UCI Junior Track World Championships
3rd Team time trial, UCI Junior Road World Championships
1980
1st Overall Circuit de la Sarthe
1st Nevada City Classic
3rd Overall Circuit des Ardennes
1981
1st Overall Coors Classic
1st Stages 1 & 7
Tour de Picardie
1st Stages 2 & 2a
1st Nevada City Classic
3rd Overall Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré
3rd Overall Route du Sud
7th Overall Circuit de la Sarthe
1982
1st Overall Tour de l'Avenir
1st Stages 4 (ITT), 5 & 8 (ITT)
2nd Road race, UCI Road World Championships
2nd Overall Tour Méditerranéen
3rd Overall Tirreno–Adriatico
1st Stage 3
3rd Overall Tour de Corse
3rd Grand Prix de Rennes
1983
1st Road race, UCI Road World Championships
1st Overall Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré
1st Stages 1, 5 & 7b (ITT)
1st Overall Super Prestige Pernod International
1st Critérium des As
1st Stage 1 Tour Méditerranéen
2nd Grand Prix des Nations
2nd Giro di Lombardia
4th Overall Tour de Suisse
4th Paris–Tours
6th Druivenkoers Overijse
10th Overall Tirreno–Adriatico
1984
1st Stage 1 Clásico RCN
3rd Overall Tour de France
1st Young rider classification
1st Stage 3 (TTT)
3rd Overall Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré
1st Stage 7b
3rd Liège–Bastogne–Liège
5th Overall Tirreno–Adriatico
7th Overall Ronde van Nederland
8th Overall Critérium International
9th Gent–Wevelgem
1985
1st Overall Coors Classic
1st Stage 5
2nd Overall Tour de France
1st Combination classification
1st Stages 3 (TTT) & 21 (ITT)
2nd Road race, UCI Road World Championships
2nd Overall Tour of the Basque Country
3rd Overall Giro d'Italia
3rd Super Prestige Pernod International
4th Overall Critérium International
4th Paris–Roubaix
4th Omloop Het Volk
6th Overall Tour Méditerranéen
7th Tour of Flanders
7th Grand Prix Eddy Merckx
1986
1st Overall Tour de France
1st Combination classification
1st Stage 13
1st Stage 4 Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana
2nd Milan–San Remo
2nd Super Prestige Pernod International
2nd Overall Coors Classic
1st Stage 4a
3rd Overall Paris–Nice
3rd Overall Tour de Suisse
3rd Overall Critérium International
4th Overall Giro d'Italia
1st Stage 5
4th La Flèche Wallonne
4th Züri-Metzgete
7th Overall Étoile de Bessèges
7th Road race, UCI Road World Championships
1989
1st Road race, UCI Road World Championships
1st Overall Tour de France
1st Stages 5 (ITT), 19 & 21 (ITT)
2nd Boucles de l'Aulne
4th Overall Critérium International
4th Grand Prix des Amériques
6th Overall Tirreno–Adriatico
1990
1st Overall Tour de France
2nd Züri-Metzgete
3rd Boucles de l'Aulne
4th Road race, UCI Road World Championships
10th Overall Tour de Suisse
1991
7th Overall Tour de France
1992
1st Overall Tour DuPont
1st Prologue
2nd Overall Tour d'Armorique
9th Paris–Roubaix
Grand Tour general classification results timeline
Classics results timeline
Awards
Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year: 1989
Jesse Owens International Trophy: 1991
Korbel Lifetime Achievement Award: 1992
See also
Yellow jersey statistics
List of companies named after people
List of French Americans
List of Grand Tour general classification winners
List of multi-sport athletes
List of people from Minnesota
List of sports rivalries
List of Tour de France general classification winners
List of Tour de France secondary classification winners
United States at the UCI Road World Championships
References
Notes
Citations
Bibliography
Further reading
External links
LeMond Composites
1961 births
Living people
American people of French descent
American Giro d'Italia stage winners
American male cyclists
American Tour de France stage winners
Cycle designers
People from Lakewood, California
Tour de France Champs Elysées stage winners
Tour de France winners
UCI Road World Champions (elite men)
U.S. F2000 National Championship drivers
Super Prestige Pernod winners
Cyclists from California | true | [
"The men's giant slalom at the 1999 Asian Winter Games was held on 2 February 1999 at the Yongpyong Resort in South Korea.\n\nSchedule\nAll times are Korea Standard Time (UTC+09:00)\n\nResults\nLegend\nDNF1 — Did not finish run 1\nDNF2 — Did not finish run 2\nDNS1 — Did not start run 1\nDNS2 — Did not start run 2\nDSQ1 — Disqualified run 1\nDSQ2 — Disqualified run 2\n\nReferences\n\nResults\n\nExternal links\nSchedule\n\nMen giant slalom",
"The men's 800 metres event at the 2010 Asian Games was held at the Aoti Main Stadium, Guangzhou, China on 24–25 November.\n\nSchedule\nAll times are China Standard Time (UTC+08:00)\n\nRecords\n\nResults\nLegend\nDNF — Did not finish\nDNS — Did not start\nDSQ — Disqualified\n\nRound 1\n Qualification: First 2 in each heat (Q) and the next 2 fastest (q) advance to the final.\n\nHeat 1\n\nHeat 2 \n\n Abdelnasser Awajna of Palestine originally finished 5th in the heat, but was later disqualified after he tested positive for Norandrosterone.\n\nHeat 3\n\nFinal\n\nReferences\n\nResults\n\nAthletics at the 2010 Asian Games\n2010"
] |
[
"Greg LeMond",
"Anti-doping stance and controversies",
"What happened with Anti-doping",
"products ultimately victimize the professional cyclists who make use of them.",
"Was there any controversies on Anti-doping?",
"LeMond's most notable conflicts have been with fellow Tour riders Lance Armstrong and Floyd Landis. He has also been critical of Alberto Contador, the UCI, and its former president,",
"Was anyone tested for using these enhancers?",
"LeMond has consistently questioned the relationship between riders and unethical sports doctors like Ferrari, and has pointed out that doping products ultimately victimize the professional cyclists",
"Was there any other controversies?",
"The doctors, the management, the officials, they're the ones that have corrupted riders. The riders are the only ones that pay the price.\"",
"Was there anything you can share about Greg LeMonds history?",
"LeMond is a longtime vocal opponent of performance-enhancing drug use.",
"Did he get disqualified?",
"McQuaid rejected LeMond's call for new leadership and was dismissive of LeMond."
] | C_4b522eb5fc884e7f81e177165f06fcdc_0 | If you can't answer it just say it or you will be reported. Did Greg have a drug problem? | 7 | Did Greg Lemond have a drug problem? | Greg LeMond | LeMond is a longtime vocal opponent of performance-enhancing drug use. He first spoke on-record against doping in cycling after winning the 1989 Tour de France. LeMond received intense criticism in 2001 when he publicly expressed doubts about the legitimacy of Lance Armstrong's Tour success after learning of his relationship with Dr. Michele Ferrari. His outspokenness placed him in the center of the anti-doping controversy. LeMond has consistently questioned the relationship between riders and unethical sports doctors like Ferrari, and has pointed out that doping products ultimately victimize the professional cyclists who make use of them. Said LeMond: "When I speak out about doping people could translate it and think it was about the riders. Actually I feel like I am an advocate for the riders. I look at them as being treated like lab rats that are test vehicles for the doctors. The doctors, the management, the officials, they're the ones that have corrupted riders. The riders are the only ones that pay the price." LeMond's most notable conflicts have been with fellow Tour riders Lance Armstrong and Floyd Landis. He has also been critical of Alberto Contador, the UCI, and its former president, Pat McQuaid. In December 2012, LeMond claimed that a change needed to be made at the head of leadership for the UCI, and stated if called upon he would be willing to take the position himself if necessary to lead cycling out of the mire of doping. Said LeMond: "It is now or never to act. After the earthquake caused by the Armstrong case another chance will not arise. I am willing to invest to make this institution more democratic, transparent and look for the best candidate in the longer term." McQuaid rejected LeMond's call for new leadership and was dismissive of LeMond. Ultimately McQuaid was defeated in his bid for a third term by British Cycling president Brian Cookson at the September 2013 UCI Congress in Florence, Italy. Lemond had supported Cookson in the UCI Presidential battle. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Gregory James LeMond (born June 26, 1961) is an American former professional road racing cyclist, entrepreneur, and anti-doping advocate. A two-time winner of the Road Race World Championship (1983 and 1989) and a three-time winner of the Tour de France (1986, 1989, and 1990), LeMond is considered by many to be the greatest American cyclist of all time, one of the great all-round cyclists of the modern era, and an icon of the sport's globalisation.
LeMond began his professional cycling career in 1981. In 1983, he became the first American male cyclist to win the Road World Championship. LeMond won the Tour de France in 1986; he is the first non-European professional cyclist to win the Tour. He was accidentally shot with pellets and seriously injured while hunting in 1987. Following the shooting, he underwent two surgeries and missed the next two Tours. At the 1989 Tour, he completed an improbable comeback to win in dramatic fashion on the race's final stage. He successfully defended his Tour title the following year, becoming one of only eight riders to win three or more Tours. LeMond retired from competition in December 1994 and was inducted into the United States Bicycling Hall of Fame in 1996. He was the first professional cyclist to sign a million-dollar contract and the first cyclist to appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated.
During his career, LeMond championed several technological advancements in pro cycling, including the introduction of aerodynamic "triathlon" handlebars and carbon fiber bicycle frames, which he later marketed through his company LeMond Bicycles. His other business interests have included restaurants, real estate, and consumer fitness equipment. LeMond is a vocal opponent of performance-enhancing drug use in cycling and is a founding board member of 1in6.org, a nonprofit charity that assists male victims of child sex abuse.
Early life and amateur career
LeMond was born in Lakewood, California, and was raised in the Washoe Valley, a ranch country on the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountain range between Reno, and the family home about 2.5 miles north of Carson City, Nevada. His parents are Bob LeMond and Bertha LeMond (d. 2006), and he has two sisters, Kathy and Karen.
LeMond grew up living an active, outdoor life. Hiking, hunting, skiing and flyfishing were boyhood pastimes. The ranch country of the Sierra Nevada mountain range lent itself to such pursuits. A hyperactive youngster, LeMond believes these outdoor activities helped keep him out of trouble. "I was a boy who just could not sit still. I had trouble focusing in school. Parents and educators then did not have the skill set to diagnose and cope with what we know now was a classic case of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). ADHD certainly was not the frequently medicated childhood disease it is today. My triumph over the symptoms was found atop two thin tires over many dusty miles." Said LeMond: "That's one of the traits. It's the inability to sit down [and listen] to something you are not really interested in and absorb it. If they are interested in it, people with ADD excel in really good ways. When I got into cycling I would say the sport itself took a fog off my brain. I was able to absorb stuff I read. It changed my life."
LeMond attended Earl Wooster High School in Reno, but lived too far away to participate in team sports. LeMond soon biked almost daily to high school. He often rode home from Wooster, taking a route over Mt. Rose, along to Incline Village, then south on Hwy 28, then downhill to Carson City, then to his home.
LeMond's introduction to cycling came in 1975, thanks to freestyle skiing pioneer Wayne Wong, who recommended the bike as an ideal off-season training aid. LeMond started competing in 1976, and after dominating the Intermediate category (13–15) and winning the first 11 races he entered, he received permission to ride against older, more seasoned competitors in the Junior (16–19) category.
In 1977, while still only 15, LeMond finished second in the Tour of Fresno to John Howard, then the United States's top road cyclist and the 1971 Pan American Games champion. LeMond caught the attention of Eddie Borysewicz, the US Cycling Federation's national team coach, who described LeMond as "a diamond, a clear diamond." LeMond represented the United States at the 1978 Junior World Championships in Washington, D.C., where he finished ninth in the road race, and again in the 1979 Junior World Championships in Argentina, where he won gold, silver and bronze medals—the highlight being his victory in the road race. At age 18, LeMond was selected for the 1980 U.S. Olympic cycling team, the youngest ever to make the team. However, the U.S. boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow prevented him from competing there.
Borysewicz, whom LeMond described as his "first real coach," wanted to retain his protégé through the next Olympic cycle and discouraged him from turning pro, but LeMond was determined. Nevertheless, while he was the reigning Junior World Road Champion in 1980, LeMond received no professional offers, and so in the spring of 1980, he joined the U.S. National cycling team for a 6-week European racing campaign. There, he finished third overall in the Circuit des Ardennes before winning the 1980 Circuit de la Sarthe stage race in France, thereby becoming the first American and youngest rider of any nationality "in the history of the sport to win a major pro-am cycling event [in Europe]." That victory, and the subsequent press coverage, raised LeMond's profile in Europe and he was scouted at his next event (the Ruban Granitier Breton stage race) by Cyrille Guimard, the Renault–Elf–Gitane team's directeur sportif. Guimard said he was impressed with LeMond's spirit, and told him, "You have the fire to be a great champion," before offering him a professional contract for 1981 with Renault. After he returned to the United States, LeMond won the 1980 Nevada City Classic, considered to be one of the most historic and challenging professional cycling races in United States. Despite eventually receiving several other offers to turn professional besides Guimard's, LeMond did not consider them seriously, and he signed with Renault in Paris on the day the 1980 Tour de France finished.
Professional career
LeMond was an "exceptionally gifted" amateur rider who quickly established himself as one of the most talented cyclists on the professional circuit. Respected cycling journalist John Wilcockson, who reported the Tour de France for more than 40 years, described LeMond as a rider who was fuoriclasse.
1981–1983: Early years
LeMond's first professional victory came three months into his 1981 debut when he won a stage of the French Tour de l'Oise. He followed with a win in the Coors Classic in the United States, finishing ahead of Sergei Sukhoruchenkov, the 1980 Olympic road champion. The major step forward in 1981 occurred in the Dauphiné Libéré stage race where LeMond placed third. The achievement is the more remarkable because he rode the race in support of team leader Bernard Hinault. LeMond missed standing on the podium with race winner Hinault, as Pascal Simon had finished ahead of him. Two weeks later Simon was assessed a 10-minute penalty when it was discovered he had been doping. LeMond considered the race to have been a "major steppingstone" in his career. Said LeMond: "It showed me that I had the kind of climbing ability that you need to win the top European stage races." LeMond won a total of five races in his rookie season of 1981.
LeMond broke his collarbone on April 11, 1982, while racing the cycling classic Liège–Bastogne–Liège. The injury forced LeMond to ride a reduced schedule before entering the World Championships, which were in Goodwood, England that year. In the men's road race competition, LeMond broke for the line but was out-sprinted by Italian Giuseppe Saronni. Following the race, LeMond's American teammate Jacques Boyer accused LeMond of chasing him down in the final 800 meters. Saronni was very strong at the end of the race and flew past Boyer and LeMond, winning by 5 seconds over LeMond, with another 5 seconds back to Kelly. Boyer placed tenth. Bronze medalist Sean Kelly, a favorite to win the race, was with Saronni when he caught LeMond with about 200 meters to go, but he could not hold his wheel. Said Kelly: "I don't think that Boyer was fading ... He got quite a good gap. Nobody wanted to go after him ... Yes, LeMond chased down Boyer. Boyer was the only man up the road."
LeMond was supported by his teammate George Mount, who observed, "What's LeMond going to do? Throw his bike down in front of everybody because Boyer is such a good buddy of everyone? ... Hell no—he's going to start sprinting because it's less than 200 meters to go and the sprint's already been going for a couple hundred meters. LeMond made a good move and a good sprint ... Boyer was not going to win that race. The best he could have got was fifth or sixth place."
LeMond did not apologize. The U.S. team was not as set up as the European teams, and did not have an independent race to determine the national champion. Instead, the highest finisher at the World's was considered the national champion. LeMond had argued for the team to compete as the European teams did, but team management and Boyer voted against him. Thus, unlike the other teams at the world championship, the US riders were competing against each other. Aged 21, LeMond was the first American pro to win a medal at the World's since Frank Kramer took silver in 1912. Said LeMond: "I'm racing for Renault and I'm racing for myself. It's a business and it's my living. To me, that second place was almost as good as winning, especially at my age."
Two weeks later, on September 20, 1982, LeMond won the mountainous 12-day, Tour de l'Avenir by a record 10 minutes, 18 seconds. The victory, and the time advantage LeMond held at the end, stunned Europe and provided broad confirmation that LeMond was indeed fuoriclasse.
The following year, 1983, LeMond won the Road World Championship outright, becoming the first American male cyclist to do so. (Audrey McElmury won in 1969 and Beth Heiden won in 1980.) LeMond's cycling talent—his overall strength, climbing ability, ability to ride a fast time trial and his capacity to recover quickly—all suggested LeMond would be an excellent prospect for the most demanding Grand Tours.
1984–1986: Grand Tours
LeMond rode his first Tour de France in 1984, finishing third in support of team leader Laurent Fignon, and winning the white jersey of the young rider classification. The following year he was brought across to La Vie Claire to ride in support of team captain Bernard Hinault who had regained his form and was attempting to win his fifth Tour. French businessman and team owner Bernard Tapie signed LeMond with a $1 million contract over three years. In the race Hinault led through the early mountain stages, but suffered a crash and came into difficulty. At this point, it was clear that LeMond was an elite rider capable of winning the Tour in his own right. LeMond possessed a natural talent for riding the Grand Tours, and got stronger over the course of a three-week race. The injured Hinault was vulnerable, and his competitors knew it. Stage 17 included three major climbs in the Pyrenees. On the second, the Col du Tourmalet, LeMond followed Stephen Roche in an attack, but was not given permission to help build on the gap over the field. The managers of his La Vie Claire team ordered the 24-year-old LeMond not to ride with Roche, but to sit on his wheel, a tactic to use the rider in front as cover for wind resistance so the following rider uses less energy. The pace Roche could put out by himself eventually slowed, and other riders came up to join the two men. Hinault recovered as well, though he did not regain the lead group. At the end of the stage LeMond was frustrated to the point of tears. He later revealed that team management and his own coach Paul Köchli had misled him as to how far back Hinault had dropped during the crucial Stage 17 mountain stage. Hinault won the 1985 Tour, with LeMond finishing second, 1:42 behind. LeMond had ridden as the dutiful lieutenant, and his support enabled Hinault to win his fifth Tour. In repayment for his sacrifice Hinault promised to help LeMond win the Tour the following year.
Hoping to end the season on a high note LeMond entered the World Championships road race with the strongest team the United States ever fielded. Riders included Boyer and LeMond, as well as Andrew Hampsten, Ron Kiefel, Bob Roll and Eric Heiden and this time the American team was set up to help the three strongest riders in LeMond, then Hampsten and Kiefel. Throughout the race LeMond answered repeated attacks and led many chase groups to contain dangerous breakaways, but by the final lap of the race he was beginning to tire. He was however, part of the group that was going to win, and while Hampsten and Keifel survived the race to this point, unfortunately they were too far back to assist LeMond in the final ten kilometers. Inside the final kilometer the last rider to launch an attack was former Tour and Vuelta champion Joop Zoetemelk. Being as he was 38 years old and long past his prime none of the remaining contenders including LeMond, Claudio Corti, Robert Millar, Moreno Argentin or Stephen Roche took the attack seriously initially. Zoetemelk opened a sizeable gap however, before long it was in excess of a hundred meters and quickly growing. He also had two teammates remaining in Johan Van der Velde and Gerard Veldscholten, assisting him by riding at the front but not actually chasing, therefore slowing the chase group. Italian rider Moreno took up the chase but he had nothing left to close the gap and actually put his hand in the air waving for the other riders to come forward and take up the pursuit. LeMond too had nothing left to chase down this final attack feeling that if he did, he wouldn't have anything left for the sprint and wouldn't win any medal at all. In a notable upset, Zoetemelk beat the favorites to the line by three seconds as LeMond out-sprinted Argentin to take the silver. There was no controversy following this silver medal for LeMond and immediately after the race he rode up alongside the Dutchman and congratulated him saying, "Nice ride Joop."
For the 1986 Tour, LeMond was a co-leader of the La Vie Claire team alongside Hinault. Hinault's support seemed less certain the closer the race approached. An unspoken condition was that his help would be contingent upon LeMond demonstrating that he was clearly the better rider. Hinault was in superb form, and had the chance to win an unprecedented sixth Tour. Hinault chose to let the Stage 9 individual time trial be the decider for which rider would receive the full support of team La Vie Claire. Hinault won the Stage 9 time trial, finishing 44 seconds in front of LeMond. LeMond had bad luck during the stage, having suffered a punctured tire requiring a wheel change, and later in the stage a bicycle change was required when he broke a wheel. He was frustrated with the outcome and the impact it would have on how the team would function for the remainder of the race. In Stage 12, the first mountain stage of the race in the Pyrenees, Hinault attacked the lead group and built up an overall lead. By the end of Stage 12, Hinault had a five-minute lead over LeMond and the other top riders. He claimed he was trying to draw out LeMond's rivals, but none of these attacks were planned with LeMond. He was clearly willing to ride aggressively and take advantage of the opportunities presented. LeMond was never placed in difficulty, except by his own teammate. The following day Hinault broke away again early but was caught and then dropped by LeMond on the final climb of Stage 13, allowing LeMond to gain back four and a half minutes. The next three stages brought the Tour to the Alps. On Stage 17 LeMond and Urs Zimmermann dropped Hinault from the leading group, and the end of the day saw LeMond pulling on the yellow jersey of race leader, the first time it had ever been worn by a rider from the United States. The following day in the Alps saw Hinault attack again early on the first climb, but he was pulled back. Attempting an escape on the descent, he was unable to separate himself from LeMond. The La Vie Claire team leaders were both excellent descenders. As they ascended up the next col they continued to pull away from the field, and maintained the gap as they reached the base of the final climb, the vaunted Alpe d'Huez. They pressed on through the crowd, ascending the twenty-one switchbacks of Alpe d'Huez and reaching the summit together. LeMond put an arm around Hinault and gave him a smile and the stage win in a show of unity, but the infighting was not over. Hinault attacked again on Stage 19 and had to be brought back by teammates Andrew Hampsten and Steve Bauer. Commenting on the team situation prior to the final individual time trial at Stage 20, LeMond offered the following with a wry smile: "He's attacked me from the beginning of the Tour De France. He's never helped me once, and I don't feel confident at all with him."
LeMond had to keep his eye on his teammate and rival throughout the race. Hinault rode aggressively and repeatedly attacked, and the division created in the La Vie Claire team was unmistakable. LeMond would keep the yellow jersey to the end of the race and win his first Tour, but he felt betrayed by Hinault and the La Vie Claire team leadership. LeMond later stated the 1986 Tour was the most difficult and stressful race of his career.
1987–1988: Shooting accident and recovery
LeMond had planned to defend his title in the 1987 Tour de France with La Vie Claire, but he was unable to participate. Earlier that year, while riding in the Tirreno–Adriatico spring tune-up race, LeMond fell and fractured his left wrist. He returned to the United States to recover from the injury. The week before returning to Europe, he went turkey hunting on a ranch co-owned by his father in Lincoln, California. LeMond was with Rodney Barber and Patrick Blades, his uncle and brother-in-law. The trio had become separated when Blades, who heard movement behind him, turned and fired through a bush. The movement had come from LeMond, who was hit in his back and right side with approximately 60 pellets. LeMond's injuries were life-threatening, but a police helicopter was already airborne near the scene and transported LeMond on a 15-minute air medical flight to the Medical Center at University of California-Davis. LeMond was taken for emergency surgery. He had suffered a pneumothorax to his right lung and extensive bleeding, having lost some 65 percent of his blood volume. A physician informed LeMond later that he had been within 20 minutes of bleeding to death. The operation saved his life, but four months later he developed a small bowel obstruction due to adhesions that had formed following the shooting. He underwent another surgery to relieve the obstruction and take down the adhesions. Concerned that his team would drop him if they knew the shooting accident required a second surgery, LeMond asked the surgeons to remove his appendix at the same time. He then informed his team that he had had his appendix removed, but the rest of the story was left somewhat vague. The events effectively ended his 1987 season, and in October he announced he would return to serious competition the following February, with the Dutch PDM team.
With 35 shotgun pellets still in his body, including three in the lining of his heart and five more embedded in his liver, LeMond attempted to return to racing in 1988. His comeback was hampered by over-training which resulted in tendonitis in his right shin requiring surgery. He missed the Tour for the second year running. Tensions in the relationship between LeMond and PDM were aggravated when LeMond discovered that doping was going on at the PDM squad. The result was that LeMond moved from PDM, one of the strongest teams in the peloton, to ADR, a team based in Belgium. The team was co-sponsored by Coors Light for American races. The deal was completed on New Year's Eve, just hours before LeMond would have been legally obliged to ride another season for the Dutch team. Joining the Belgian ADR squad allowed LeMond to continue to compete, but with teammates like Johan Museeuw who were better suited to riding Classics than Grand Tours.
1989: Return to elite level
After struggling in the 1989 Paris–Nice early-season race and failing to improve his condition, LeMond informed his wife Kathy that he intended to retire from professional cycling after the 1989 Tour de France. He had some flashes of form with 6th overall in Tirreno-Adriatico and in the two-day Critérium International, sharing an escape with Fignon, Indurain, Mottet, Roche and Madiot and finishing 4th overall. He started the 1989 Giro d'Italia in May as preparation for the Tour to follow, but struggled in the mountains and was not in contention for any of the leaders' jerseys before the final individual time trial into Florence. LeMond placed a surprising second there, more than a minute ahead of overall winner Laurent Fignon. Some of his improvement he attributed to an anti-anemia treatment he received twice during the race.
Coming into the 1989 Tour de France LeMond was not considered a contender for the general classification (GC). His own most optimistic hope was to finish his final Tour in the top 20. Without the weight of expectation and other pressures of being a Tour favorite, LeMond surprised observers with a strong ride in the prologue in Luxembourg, finishing fourth out of 198 riders. Buoyed by the result, LeMond continued to ride well over the opening flat stages, winning the stage 5 individual time trial, and gaining the yellow jersey as leader of the general classification for the first time in three years. LeMond seemed to ride himself into better condition during the first week's flat stages, and he was coming into peak form by the time the Tour reached the mountains. LeMond remained at the front of the race in the Pyrénées, but lost the lead to his former teammate and rival Laurent Fignon on stage 10 in Superbagnères. Five days later LeMond reclaimed yellow in the Alps, after the stage 15 mountain time trial from Gap to Orcières-Merlette. The see-saw battle continued, and when Fignon attacked on the upper slopes of Alpe d'Huez LeMond was unable to go with him, placing the yellow jersey back on the shoulders of Fignon. Fignon held a 50-second advantage over LeMond going into the 21st and final stage, a rare individual time trial from Versailles to the Champs-Élysées in Paris.
Fignon had won the Tour twice before, in 1983 and 1984, and was a very capable time trialist. It seemed improbable that LeMond could take 50 seconds off Fignon over the short course. This would require LeMond to gain two seconds per kilometer against one of the fastest chrono-specialists in the world. LeMond had done wind tunnel testing in the off season and perfected his riding position. He rode the time trial with a rear disc wheel, a cut-down Giro aero helmet and the same Scott clip-on aero bars which had helped him to the Stage 5 time trial win. Holding his time trialing position LeMond was able to generate less aerodynamic drag than Fignon, who used a pair of disc wheels but chose to go helmetless and did not use the aero bars that are now commonplace in time trials. Instructing his support car not to give him his split times, LeMond rode flat-out and finished at a record pace to beat Fignon by 8 seconds and claim his second Tour de France victory. As LeMond embraced his wife and rejoiced on the Champs-Élysées, Fignon collapsed onto the tarmac, then sat in shock and wept.
The final margin of victory of eight seconds was the closest in the Tour's history. LeMond's average speed for the stage 21 time trial was, at that time, the fastest in Tour history. Since then, only the 1994 and 2015 prologues and David Zabriskie's 2005 time trial performance have been faster. The press immediately labeled LeMond's come-from-behind triumph as, "the most astonishing victory in Tour de France history," and while LeMond admitted that it felt almost "too good to be true," he personally rated it as "much more satisfying" than his first overall Tour win in 1986.
LeMond's return to the pinnacle of cycling was confirmed on August 27, when he won the World Championships road race in Chambéry, France. Late in the race with less than 10 km to go the lead group, who had been away since very early in the race, made up of three very strong riders in Steven Rooks, Thierry Claveyrolat and Soviet star Dimitri Konyshev were trying to hold on to fight for the victory amongst themselves when Laurent Fignon broke away from the pursuing group in an effort to chase the leaders down and solo to victory. On the final climb of the race LeMond attacked in pursuit of Fignon on his own. Before long he had caught the Frenchman and not long after that the pair could see the lead group in front of them and they were quickly closing the gap. LeMond briefly dropped Fignon and caught the lead group on his own. Immediately upon catching Rooks, Claveyrolat and Konyshev he moved to the front and set the pace as two other riders in Canadian Steve Bauer and Irishman Sean Kelly attempted to bridge the gap up to LeMond and the lead group. Bauer ended up getting a flat tire essentially ending his hopes at a high finish while Sean Kelly was able to fight his way to the front group, which was bad news for LeMond and the others as Kelly was one of the best sprinters in the world. Fignon was able to rejoin the lead group as well and as the race approached the finish Fignon attacked on numerous occasions trying to drop the remaining riders. Rooks also launched an attack to go for the solo victory but was caught by LeMond, Fignon and the others. Inside the final kilometer Fignon continued attacking trying to break free, but just couldn't force open a gap and began to fall back as the sprint materialized eventually finishing in 6th place. LeMond, Konyshev and Kelly were the strongest riders when it came to the final sprint for victory and they finished in that order. After the race LeMond said that he did not feel well and even considered abandoning the race. With two laps to go he began feeling stronger and stated, "I was racing for the Gold medal. I wanted that World Championship. And with one kilometer to go, I knew I could get it." LeMond was only the fifth person in history to win both the Tour de France and the World Championship in the same year. In December, Sports Illustrated magazine named LeMond its 1989 "Sportsman of the Year", the first time a cyclist received the honor.
1990: A third tour win
LeMond parlayed the success of his 1989 season into the then-richest contract in the sport's history, signing a $5.5 million deal for three years with of France, the first time a cyclist had signed a multi-million dollar contract. He entered the 1990 Tour de France as defending champion and a pre-race favorite after leaving ADR to join the much stronger French team. At "Z" his teammates included Robert Millar, Eric Boyer and Ronan Pensec, all of whom already had finishes in the top six of the Tour de France. This unified roster of strong riders appeared capable of supporting LeMond in the mountains and controlling the race on the flats.
The squad's tactical plan was upset on the first day, when a breakaway that included LeMond's teammate Ronan Pensec, but no major favorites, arrived ten minutes ahead of the field. LeMond was prevented from challenging for the lead until the yellow jersey left the shoulders of his teammate. Surprisingly Pensec held the lead through the first high mountain stages, including Alpe d'Huez, but he would lose it soon after to the relative unknown Claudio Chiappucci.
LeMond closed in on Chiappucci and on stage 16 he put his stamp of authority on the race during the final climb of Luz Ardiden. Late in this stage, after all of the breakaways had been caught he launched a devastating attack that no one could answer. Miguel Induráin was the only rider able to get on LeMond's wheel but it was LeMond dictating the pace all the way up the climb as Chiappucci, Delgado and all of the other favorites fell further and further behind. While Induráin stayed with LeMond, he was not a threat for victory, but his performance put the cycling world on notice as he would win the next five Tours. Near the end of the stage LeMond sat up and the Spaniard took the stage win, but the devastation of LeMond's competitors was all but complete as there was now only +0:05 between LeMond and the yellow jersey.
He finally overtook Chiappucci on the final individual time trial on stage 20, where he finished over two minutes ahead of the unheralded Italian. LeMond at last had the yellow jersey, wearing it the following day as the Tour rode into Paris. LeMond had the distinction of winning the 1990 Tour without taking any of the individual stages. He remains the last rider to win the Tour while wearing the world champion jersey. Over the course of the 1990 Tour the perceived strength of the Z team was confirmed, as they led the team classification through most of the race, adding the team title to LeMond's yellow jersey. LeMond's 1990 Tour victory made him one of just five cyclists to win three or more Tours. As of 2021 a total of seven cyclists have won three times or more.
In September, LeMond attempted to defend his title at the 1990 UCI Road World Championships, but finished fourth, eight seconds behind the winner, his former teammate Rudy Dhaenens of Belgium.
1991–1994: Change in the peloton and retirement
LeMond felt confident before the 1991 Tour de France. He was the defending champion, trained well and had a solid team to support him. LeMond was among the leaders going into the Stage 8 individual time trial, and he finished second to the Spaniard Miguel Indurain. LeMond felt he was riding extremely well, and though his TT-effort had propelled him into the yellow jersey as leader of the general classification, losing eight seconds to Indurain shook his confidence. He held the yellow jersey for the next four days until Stage 12, a challenging mountain stage. LeMond experienced difficulty on the first climb and he cracked on the Col du Tourmalet, losing significant time to Claudio Chiappucci, and eventual winner Indurain. He continued to race, but was unable to seriously challenge for the lead thereafter, finishing the 1991 Tour seventh overall.
In 1992, LeMond won the Tour DuPont, which would be the last major win of his career. He would also have a strong top 10 finish in Paris-Roubaix early in the season. He never won any of cycling's 'Monument' races but he had several high places in four out of five of them throughout his career including 4th in Paris-Roubaix, 3rd in Liège-Bastogne-Liège and 2nd in Milan San Remo as well as the Giro di Lombardia.
In the 1992 Tour de France he started strongly and finished fourth in a breakaway on Stage 6 that put him fifth overall and he maintained his fifth place until the mountain stages when he lost form disastrously and lost more than 45 minutes on the stage to Sestrieres before quitting the race the next day—when his compatriot and former domestique Andrew Hampsten won atop Alpe d'Huez. While LeMond claimed a serious saddle sore caused him to abandon, he had earlier stated, "My climbing is not like usual. I've climbed much better in the past Tours. This year I'm just not feeling my usual self."
LeMond did extensive endurance training on the road the following winter, but his performances the following spring failed to improve. LeMond had to abandon the 1993 Giro d'Italia two days before the final stage after difficult racing left him 125th on GCC and third-from-last in the final time trial. He was too exhausted to enter the 1993 Tour de France. Following the 1993 season LeMond hired renowned Dutch physiologist Adrie van Diemen to advise him on a new technique to monitor training and measure performance. The (SRM) power-based training would make use of the watt as a guide to power output. In November 1993 LeMond confided to Samuel Abt that power output in watts would become the key metric. The watt has gained wide acceptance as the best measure of a cyclist's training performance.
The following year LeMond began the 1994 Tour de France but found he was unable to race effectively. He had to abandon after the first week before the race had reached the difficult mountain stages. That December, he announced his retirement. At the time the reasons for LeMond's increasing difficulties were not entirely known. At a loss, he speculated that a condition known as mitochondrial myopathy might be responsible for the difficulty he was having performing against the current riders. In 2007, however, LeMond speculated that he might not have had the condition after all, and suggested that lead toxicity from the shotgun pellets still embedded in his body might have been responsible, the effects of which were increased by heavy training.
LeMond has acknowledged since 2010 that the increasing prevalence of doping in cycling contributed to his lack of competitiveness. Said LeMond: "Something had changed in cycling. The speeds were faster and riders that I had easily out performed were now dropping me. At the time, the team I was on, Team Z, became more and more demanding, more and more concerned..." He stated he had been told in 1994 that he would need to blood dope in order to win again. He frankly admitted to Abt in 1999: "I figure I had three months that went right for me after the hunting accident," three months in which he won the two Tours and a world road race championship. "The rest were just pure suffering, struggling, fatigue, always tired."
In a wide-ranging interview with American novelist Bryan Malessa in 1998, LeMond was asked if his career had not been interrupted by the hunting accident, how did he feel he would compare to five time Tour winners such as Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain. LeMond responded: "Of course you can't rewrite racing history, but I'm confident that I would have won five Tours."
Two years after his retirement LeMond was inducted into the United States Bicycling Hall of Fame in a ceremony at Rodale Park in Trexlertown, Pennsylvania. The event was held on June 8, 1996, during the U.S. Olympic Cycling Team Trials.
In July 2014, ESPN announced the premiere of a new 30 for 30 film entitled Slaying the Badger. The film centers on LeMond and his former teammate Hinault at the 1986 Tour de France. It is based on the book of the same name by Richard Moore, and it premiered July 22, 2014 on ESPN.
Business interests
LeMond was a pioneer in the use of carbon fiber bicycle frames in European professional road cycling, and his Tour de France win in 1986 ahead of Bernard Hinault was the first for a carbon-framed bicycle. Ironically, given the rivalry that existed at the time between the American and his French teammate, LeMond rode a "Bernard Hinault" Signature Model Look prototype that year. LeMond also won the 1989 Tour de France, the 1989 World Championship, and his final Tour de France in 1990 on carbon fiber frames. These bicycle frames featured "Greg LeMond" branding.
LeMond Cycles
In 1990, LeMond founded LeMond Bicycles to develop machines for himself that would also be marketed and sold to the public. The following year, searching for an equipment edge for Team Z at the 1991 Tour de France, LeMond concluded an exclusive licensing agreement between his company and Carbonframes, Inc., to access the latter's advanced composites technology. Whilst using the bikes for the 1991 Tour, he would maintain his carbon bike in his hotel room, leading his mechanics to fear it had been stolen. While LeMond briefly led the 1991 Tour overall, riding his Carbonframes-produced "Greg LeMond" bicycle, the company eventually faltered, something LeMond blamed on "under-capitalization" and poor management by his father. Carbonframes and LeMond Cycles "parted amiably two years later." In 1995, with his company allegedly nearly bankrupt, LeMond reached a licensing-agreement with Trek Bicycle Corporation, according to which the Wisconsin-based company would manufacture and distribute bicycles designed with LeMond that would be sold under the "LeMond Bicycles" brand. LeMond would later claim that going into business with Trek "destroyed" his relationship with his father. The lucrative partnership, which generated revenue for Trek in excess of US$100,000,000, would be renewed several times over the course of 13 years, but it ultimately ended in acrimony after LeMond's relationship with Trek deteriorated over his staunch anti-doping advocacy.
LeMond found himself at odds with Trek in July 2001 after he expressed public concern over the relationship between Italian doping doctor Michele Ferrari and Trek's star athlete, Lance Armstrong. Trek president John Burke pressured LeMond to apologize, claiming, "Greg's public comments hurt the LeMond brand and the Trek brand." Burke allegedly justified his demand for an apology by advising that, "As a contractual partner, he [LeMond] could criticize doping only generally – not point his finger at specific athletes, particularly one that happens to be the company's main cash cow." Armstrong reportedly said privately he could "shut him up" by contacting Trek, as documented in affidavits by Frankie and Betsy Andreu released in the 2012 USADA doping report. LeMond issued an apology for his comment.
In a 2007 interview, LeMond accused Armstrong of trying to sabotage his relationship with Trek bicycles. In March 2008, LeMond Cycling Inc sued Trek for failing to properly promote and distribute the LeMond brand, and for attempting to "silence" LeMond's public comments about doping, attributing this to the influence of Armstrong on Trek. His complaint included statistics detailing slow sales in some markets, including the fact that between September 2001 and June 2007, Trek only sold $10,393 worth of LeMond bikes in France, a country in which LeMond was both famous and popular. Trek responded in April 2008, announcing that it was dropping LeMond Bicycles from its product line and that it would sue to sever the licensing agreement.
As promised, Trek counter-sued and stopped producing bicycles under the LeMond brand. After nearly two years of litigation, LeMond reached a confidential out-of-court settlement with Trek in February 2010. The settlement permitted the case to be dismissed with prejudice, meaning, "neither side can produce the same claims against one another in a future lawsuit." Although settlement terms were not disclosed, LeMond reportedly obtained full control over the LeMond Bicycles name, while Trek made a donation of US$200,000 to the charity 1in6, of which LeMond was a founding member of the board of directors.
LeMond Fitness/Revolution
In 2002, LeMond, Bernie Boglioli and others founded LeMond Fitness, Inc. "to help individuals achieve their fitness and performance goals and train more effectively." The company's primary business is the development and manufacture of bicycle trainers and indoor exercise bikes for consumers in the United States and internationally. LeMond serves as Chairman of the Board. In 2012, Hoist Fitness negotiated to purchase an interest in the company and announced plans to move its headquarters to Hoist's offices in San Diego, CA. In late 2012, LeMond purchased the LeMond Revolution from Hoist, relaunching with a new management team in Minneapolis. Later, he also formed LeMond LLC to introduce a suite of brands. Professional cycling's team renewed its sponsorship with LeMond to use its Revolution trainers for another three seasons. The team won several stages of the Tour de France, plus the general classification of the 2012 Giro d'Italia.
Partnership with Time
At the Interbike trade show in September 2013, LeMond announced that he was returning to the business of bicycle manufacture and sales by partnering with French company Time. The new line began with a series of commemorative designed bicycles, to be followed with road, cyclocross, and gravel-road models. LeMond purchased Time Sport USA, the US distributor for the company. Said LeMond: "I'm really excited to be back in the bike industry."
Real estate
In 2002, LeMond joined his parents-in-law David and Sacia Morris, friend Michael Snow and J.P. Morgan & Co. fund manager Jorge Jasson to invest in the exclusive Yellowstone Club, a Big Sky, Montana, private ski and golf community founded by timber baron Tim Blixseth and his wife Edra. Each of the five partners paid Blixseth $750,000 for one percent shares in the exclusive resort. LeMond also purchased several building lots and maintained a property at the resort. Four years later, LeMond and partners sued Blixseth in 2006 following reports of a Credit Suisse loan to the resort of $375 million from which Blixseth reportedly took $209 million in a disputed partial payout for his ownership stake. The Credit Suisse loan was based on a $1.16 billion Cushman & Wakefield valuation of the resort, for which LeMond and partners each sought $11.6 million for their one-percent shares. In 2007, LeMond settled his suit with the Blixseths for $39 million. However, he and his partners remained creditors as the Blixseths defaulted on a $20 million payment (after having already paid the group $18 million). In 2009, the Blixseths divorced and the Club went bankrupt.
Restaurants
LeMond became a restaurateur in August 1990 when, in partnership with his wife and her parents, he opened Scott Kee's Tour de France on France Avenue in the Minneapolis suburb of Edina, Minnesota. LeMond described the restaurant, which was named for its chef (LeMond's brother-in-law), as "a dream of five years come true." Explaining the origin of the concept, LeMond said, "Kathy and I have eaten at the finest establishments in France, Italy and Belgium. Our favorites have always been small places, family-owned." LeMond also partnered in several Bruegger's bagel bakery-café franchises.
LeMond Composites
LeMond founded LeMond Composites in 2016 to manufacture high-volume, low-cost carbon fiber composites under a licensing agreement with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and an exclusive 20-year licensing agreement with Deakin University. In 2017 LeMond and his family moved from Minnesota to Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to be close to the $125 million LeMond Composites manufacturing facility.
On October 16, 2017, Australian politician Sarah Henderson announced that LeMond Composites would receive AU$2.5 million (US$ million) in Australian Federal Government funding to establish a carbon fiber manufacturing plant in Geelong, Australia.
Broadcasting
In 2014, LeMond joined Eurosport as a pundit for the channel's cycling coverage, providing analysis at Paris–Roubaix, the Giro d'Italia and the Tour de France, and hosting his own monthly program LeMond on Cycling. He continued to work for the channel until 2017.
Anti-doping stance and controversies
LeMond is a longtime vocal opponent of performance-enhancing drug use. He first spoke on-record against doping in cycling after winning the 1989 Tour de France. He has consistently questioned the relationship between riders and unethical sports doctors and has pointed out that doping products ultimately victimize the professional cyclists who make use of them. Said LeMond: "When I speak out about doping people could translate it and think it was about the riders. Actually I feel like I am an advocate for the riders. I look at them as being treated like lab rats that are test vehicles for the doctors. The doctors, the management, the officials, they're the ones that have corrupted riders. The riders are the only ones that pay the price."
LeMond received intense criticism in 2001 when he publicly criticized Lance Armstrong's relationship with Dr. Michele Ferrari. Ferrari is an Italian physician and sports trainer who admitted to practicing blood doping and advocated the controlled use of the banned substance erythropoietin by athletes. Upon learning of Armstrong's association with Ferrari, LeMond said:
"When Lance won the prologue to the 1999 Tour I was close to tears, but when I heard he was working with Michele Ferrari I was devastated. In the light of Lance's relationship with Ferrari, I just don't want to comment on this year's Tour. This is not sour grapes. I'm disappointed in Lance, that's all it is."
LeMond's comments placed him in the center of an anti-doping controversy. About a month later, following pressure from both Armstrong and Trek, LeMond issued an apology for his comment; he called Armstrong "a great champion" and added, "I do not believe, in any way, that he has ever used any performance-enhancing substances. I believe his performances are the result of the same hard work, dedication and focus that were mine 10 years ago."
In 2004, LeMond spoke out again. On the heels of successive Tour de France wins by Armstrong, LeMond said, "If Armstrong's clean, it's the greatest comeback. And if he's not, then it's the greatest fraud." He went public with the fallout of his 2001 statement, alleging that Armstrong had threatened to defame him and threatened his business interests as well:
"[Armstrong] basically said 'I could find 10 people that will say you took EPO' ... The week after, I got multiple people that were on Lance ... Lance's camp, basically saying 'You better be quiet,' and I was quiet for three years. I have a business ... I have bikes that are sold ... and I was told that my sales might not be doing too well if ... just the publicity, the negative publicity." The same month, LeMond told French newspaper Le Monde that Armstrong was "ready to do anything to keep his secret. I don't know how he can continue to convince everybody of his innocence." At a press conference Armstrong gave in September 2008 to announce his return to cycling, LeMond publicly challenged him with questions about doping. Armstrong appeared angry and interrupted LeMond, telling him it was time to move on. In August 2012, the USADA announced that Armstrong had been issued a lifetime ban from cycling competition due to his involvement in a massive doping scheme. In addition, the USADA stripped Armstrong of his seven Tour de France titles.
LeMond has also clashed with fellow Tour rider Floyd Landis regarding the doping issue. On May 17, 2007, LeMond testified at a USADA hearing convened to weigh the evidence of doping by Landis during the 2006 Tour de France. Under oath, LeMond described a phone conversation he had with Landis on August 6, 2006, as well as another with Landis' business manager, Will Geoghegan, on May 16, 2007, the evening before LeMond appeared to testify. The major points of the testimony were:
In the August 6 conversation, LeMond said he told Landis that "If you did (admit to having used banned substances), you could single-handedly change the sport. You could be the one who will salvage the sport." LeMond said Landis responded by saying "What good would it do? If I did, it would destroy a lot of my friends and hurt a lot of people."
In their conversation, LeMond had disclosed his history of childhood sexual abuse to Landis and said the secret had nearly destroyed him. LeMond stated he warned Landis. "(Lying about doping) will come back to haunt you when you are 40 or 50. If you have a moral compass and ethics, this will destroy you."
Will Geoghegan attempted to stop LeMond's testimony by calling LeMond on his mobile phone. LeMond reported that Geoghegan claimed he was "his uncle" and intimated that he would appear at the hearing and expose the fact that LeMond was a survivor of child sex abuse. LeMond's BlackBerry, with Geoghegan's phone number captured in the call log, was entered into evidence.
In 2007, Landis was found guilty of doping and was banned from cycling for two years. In 2010, he admitted to having been involved in doping. Also in 2010, Landis apologized to LeMond for the events of 2007.
On July 23, 2009, LeMond wrote an opinion article in the French newspaper Le Monde where he questioned the validity of Alberto Contador's climb up Verbier in the 2009 Tour de France. In the piece, LeMond pointed out that Contador's calculated VO2 max of 99.5 mL/(kg·min) had never been achieved by any athlete. Said LeMond: "The burden is then on Alberto Contador to prove he is physically capable of performing this feat without the use of performance-enhancing products." Contador tested positive for clenbuterol after winning the 2010 Tour and was later stripped of his title and suspended from cycling for two years.
LeMond has criticized the UCI and its former president, Pat McQuaid. In December 2012, LeMond claimed that a change needed to be made in the leadership for the UCI and stated if called upon he would be willing to take the position himself if necessary to lead cycling out of the mire of doping. Said LeMond: "It is now or never to act. After the earthquake caused by the Armstrong case another chance will not arise. I am willing to invest to make this institution more democratic, transparent and look for the best candidate in the longer term." McQuaid rejected LeMond's call for new leadership and was dismissive of LeMond. Ultimately McQuaid was defeated in his bid for a third term by British Cycling president Brian Cookson at the September 2013 UCI Congress in Florence, Italy. Lemond had supported Cookson in the UCI Presidential battle.
Personal life
LeMond is married to Kathy (née Morris) and together they have three children: sons Geoffrey and Scott, and daughter Simone. LeMond and his wife lived in Medina, Minnesota, from 1990 until 2017 and then moved to Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Since his retirement, LeMond has become increasingly involved in philanthropic efforts relating to causes that have affected him personally (including ADHD and sexual abuse).
LeMond is an avid outdoor enthusiast and fly angler, and in 1991 – while still racing full-time – he made the world-record fly fishing catch of a four-pound smallmouth bass on a reel with a four-pound tippet. The record was certified by the National Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame in Hayward, Wisconsin. The catch exceeded the then-previous record of three pounds, six ounces made on the same size tippet back in 1986. LeMond confessed, "I always pack my fly fishing equipment when I travel to bike events. I fish every chance I get."
After retiring from pro cycling, LeMond competed in Formula Ford 2000 series auto racing. He is also a motivational speaker. LeMond narrated an award-winning documentary for Adventures for the Cure in 2008.
On July 16, 2007, LeMond rode the L'Étape du Tour cyclosportive with his son, and found it to be a defining moment in his post-competition life. "I had the time of my life", he said, despite getting "650th place" and being "impressed that I even finished". LeMond continued, "I decided that day that nobody's going to keep me from cycling, not Trek, not Armstrong, not Verbruggen, not anybody." At the time, LeMond was alluding to a series of public and private disputes related to his anti-doping advocacy that hampered his enjoyment of cycling. Especially significant was LeMond's appearance as a USADA witness in the Floyd Landis doping case. At that time, Landis's business manager threatened to expose the fact that LeMond was a survivor of child sex abuse.
Several weeks later, LeMond and his wife Kathy gave an extensive interview to Paul Kimmage of The Sunday Times. LeMond provided additional details concerning the circumstances of his 2001 apology to Armstrong, stating that Trek, the longtime manufacturer and distributor of LeMond Racing Cycles, had threatened to end the relationship at the behest of Armstrong if he did not apologize. He described the two years following the apology as the worst in his life, marked by self-destructive behavior; ultimately, that behavior led LeMond to tell his wife that he was a survivor of child sex abuse and to seek help in addressing that past trauma. LeMond described how being a victim of molestation had impacted his life and his racing career. In September 2007, LeMond became a founding board member of the non-profit organization 1in6.org, whose mission is "to help men who have had unwanted or abusive sexual experiences in childhood live healthy, happy lives".
LeMond was in a car accident on the morning of January 30, 2013. He was driving through wintery and icy conditions to his dentist in Wayzata, Minnesota, when he lost control of his car. LeMond suffered a concussion and was left with no memory of the incident. According to Associated Press, a Plymouth police report says LeMond left the road, hit a fence and shrubs, and then hit an embankment before ending up in the backyard of a home. LeMond may have lost consciousness before the accident, according to his wife Kathy, and he suffered a compression fracture in his back and would have to wear a brace for three months. The accident curtailed LeMond's public appearances in the first half of 2013, but he made a full recovery.
On September 19, 2019, the United States House of Representatives passed a bipartisan bill, submitted by California Representative Mike Thompson, to award LeMond the Congressional Gold Medal. The bill was approved by Congress on November 16, 2020, and signed by president Donald Trump on December 4, 2020. Upon signature of the bill, the White House released a statement, saying the medal was awarded "in recognition of his service to the Nation as an athlete, activist, role model, and community leader".
Career achievements
Major results
1977
1st Road race, National Junior Road Championships
1978
1st Overall Vuelta de Bisbee
2nd Road race, National Junior Road Championships
3rd Team time trial, UCI Junior Road World Championships
1979
1st Road race, UCI Junior Road World Championships
1st Road race, National Junior Road Championships
1st Nevada City Classic
2nd Track pursuit, UCI Junior Track World Championships
3rd Team time trial, UCI Junior Road World Championships
1980
1st Overall Circuit de la Sarthe
1st Nevada City Classic
3rd Overall Circuit des Ardennes
1981
1st Overall Coors Classic
1st Stages 1 & 7
Tour de Picardie
1st Stages 2 & 2a
1st Nevada City Classic
3rd Overall Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré
3rd Overall Route du Sud
7th Overall Circuit de la Sarthe
1982
1st Overall Tour de l'Avenir
1st Stages 4 (ITT), 5 & 8 (ITT)
2nd Road race, UCI Road World Championships
2nd Overall Tour Méditerranéen
3rd Overall Tirreno–Adriatico
1st Stage 3
3rd Overall Tour de Corse
3rd Grand Prix de Rennes
1983
1st Road race, UCI Road World Championships
1st Overall Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré
1st Stages 1, 5 & 7b (ITT)
1st Overall Super Prestige Pernod International
1st Critérium des As
1st Stage 1 Tour Méditerranéen
2nd Grand Prix des Nations
2nd Giro di Lombardia
4th Overall Tour de Suisse
4th Paris–Tours
6th Druivenkoers Overijse
10th Overall Tirreno–Adriatico
1984
1st Stage 1 Clásico RCN
3rd Overall Tour de France
1st Young rider classification
1st Stage 3 (TTT)
3rd Overall Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré
1st Stage 7b
3rd Liège–Bastogne–Liège
5th Overall Tirreno–Adriatico
7th Overall Ronde van Nederland
8th Overall Critérium International
9th Gent–Wevelgem
1985
1st Overall Coors Classic
1st Stage 5
2nd Overall Tour de France
1st Combination classification
1st Stages 3 (TTT) & 21 (ITT)
2nd Road race, UCI Road World Championships
2nd Overall Tour of the Basque Country
3rd Overall Giro d'Italia
3rd Super Prestige Pernod International
4th Overall Critérium International
4th Paris–Roubaix
4th Omloop Het Volk
6th Overall Tour Méditerranéen
7th Tour of Flanders
7th Grand Prix Eddy Merckx
1986
1st Overall Tour de France
1st Combination classification
1st Stage 13
1st Stage 4 Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana
2nd Milan–San Remo
2nd Super Prestige Pernod International
2nd Overall Coors Classic
1st Stage 4a
3rd Overall Paris–Nice
3rd Overall Tour de Suisse
3rd Overall Critérium International
4th Overall Giro d'Italia
1st Stage 5
4th La Flèche Wallonne
4th Züri-Metzgete
7th Overall Étoile de Bessèges
7th Road race, UCI Road World Championships
1989
1st Road race, UCI Road World Championships
1st Overall Tour de France
1st Stages 5 (ITT), 19 & 21 (ITT)
2nd Boucles de l'Aulne
4th Overall Critérium International
4th Grand Prix des Amériques
6th Overall Tirreno–Adriatico
1990
1st Overall Tour de France
2nd Züri-Metzgete
3rd Boucles de l'Aulne
4th Road race, UCI Road World Championships
10th Overall Tour de Suisse
1991
7th Overall Tour de France
1992
1st Overall Tour DuPont
1st Prologue
2nd Overall Tour d'Armorique
9th Paris–Roubaix
Grand Tour general classification results timeline
Classics results timeline
Awards
Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year: 1989
Jesse Owens International Trophy: 1991
Korbel Lifetime Achievement Award: 1992
See also
Yellow jersey statistics
List of companies named after people
List of French Americans
List of Grand Tour general classification winners
List of multi-sport athletes
List of people from Minnesota
List of sports rivalries
List of Tour de France general classification winners
List of Tour de France secondary classification winners
United States at the UCI Road World Championships
References
Notes
Citations
Bibliography
Further reading
External links
LeMond Composites
1961 births
Living people
American people of French descent
American Giro d'Italia stage winners
American male cyclists
American Tour de France stage winners
Cycle designers
People from Lakewood, California
Tour de France Champs Elysées stage winners
Tour de France winners
UCI Road World Champions (elite men)
U.S. F2000 National Championship drivers
Super Prestige Pernod winners
Cyclists from California | false | [
"The Hardest Logic Puzzle Ever is a logic puzzle so called by American philosopher and logician George Boolos and published in The Harvard Review of Philosophy in 1996. Boolos' article includes multiple ways of solving the problem. A translation in Italian was published earlier in the newspaper La Repubblica, under the title L'indovinello più difficile del mondo.\n\nIt is stated as follows:\n\nBoolos provides the following clarifications: a single god may be asked more than one question, questions are permitted to depend on the answers to earlier questions, and the nature of Random's response should be thought of as depending on the flip of a fair coin hidden in his brain: if the coin comes down heads, he speaks truly; if tails, falsely.\n\nHistory\n\nBoolos credits the logician Raymond Smullyan as the originator of the puzzle and John McCarthy with adding the difficulty of not knowing what da and ja mean. Related puzzles can be found throughout Smullyan's writings. For example, in What is the Name of This Book?, he describes a Haitian island where half the inhabitants are zombies (who always lie) and half are humans (who always tell the truth). He explains that \"the situation is enormously complicated by the fact that although all the natives understand English perfectly, an ancient taboo of the island forbids them ever to use non-native words in their speech. Hence whenever you ask them a yes-no question, they reply Bal or Da—one of which means yes and the other no. The trouble is that we do not know which of Bal or Da means yes and which means no.\" There are other related puzzles in The Riddle of Scheherazade.\n\nThe puzzle is based on Knights and Knaves puzzles. One setting for this puzzle is a fictional island inhabited only by knights and knaves, where knights always tell the truth and knaves always lie. A visitor to the island must ask a number of yes/no questions in order to discover what he needs to know (the specifics of which vary between different versions of the puzzle). One version of these puzzles was popularized by a scene in the 1986 fantasy film Labyrinth. There are two doors, each with one guard. One guard always lies and the other always answers truthfully. One door leads to the castle and the other leads to 'certain death'. The puzzle is to find out which door leads to the castle by asking one of the guards one question. In the movie, the protagonist does this by asking \"Would he [the other guard] tell me that this door leads to the castle?\"\n\nThe solution\nBoolos provided his solution in the same article in which he introduced the puzzle. Boolos states that the \"first move is to find a god that you can be certain is not Random, and hence is either True or False\". There are many different questions that will achieve this result. One strategy is to use complicated logical connectives in your questions (either biconditionals or some equivalent construction).\n\nBoolos' question was to ask A:\n\nDoes da mean yes if and only if you are True, if and only if B is Random?\n\nEquivalently:\n\nAre an odd number of the following statements true: you are False, da means yes, B is Random?\n\nIt was observed by Roberts (2001) and independently by Rabern and Rabern (2008) that the puzzle's solution can be simplified by using certain counterfactuals. The key to this solution is that, for any yes/no question Q, asking either True or False the question\n\nIf I asked you Q, would you say ja?\n\nresults in the answer ja if the truthful answer to Q is yes, and the answer da if the truthful answer to Q is no (Rabern and Rabern (2008) call this result the embedded question lemma). The reason this works can be seen by studying the logical form of the expected answer to the question. This logical form (Boolean expression) is developed below ('Q' is true if the answer to Q is 'yes', 'God' is true if the god to whom the question is asked is acting as a truth-teller and 'Ja' is true if the meaning of Ja is 'yes'):\n How a god would choose to answer Q is given by the negation of the exclusive disjunction between Q and God (if the answer to Q and the nature of the god are opposite, the answer given by the god is bound to be 'no', while if they are the same, it is bound to be 'yes'):\n ¬ ( Q ⊕ God)\n Whether the answer given by the god would be Ja or not is given again by the negation of the exclusive disjunction between the previous result and Ja\n ¬ ( ( ¬ ( Q ⊕ God) ) ⊕ Ja )\n The result of step two gives the truthful answer to the question: 'If I ask you Q, would you say ja'? What would be the answer the God will give can be ascertained by using reasoning similar to that used in step 1\n ¬ ( ( ¬ ( ( ¬ ( Q ⊕ God) ) ⊕ Ja ) ) ⊕ God )\n Finally, to find out if this answer will be Ja or Da, (yet another) negation of the exclusive disjunction of Ja with the result of step 3 will be required\n ¬ ( ( ¬ ( ( ¬ ( ( ¬ ( Q ⊕ God) ) ⊕ Ja ) ) ⊕ God ) ) ⊕ Ja )\n\nThis final expression evaluates to true if the answer is Ja, and false otherwise. The eight cases are worked out below (1 represents true, and 0 false):\n\nComparing the first and last columns makes it plain to see that the answer is Ja only when the answer to the question is 'yes'. The same results apply if the question asked were instead: 'If I asked you Q, would you say Da'? because the evaluation of the counterfactual does not depend superficially on meanings of Ja and Da. Each of the eight cases are equivalently reasoned out below in words:\n\nAssume that ja means yes and da means no.\n True is asked and responds with ja. Since he is telling the truth, the truthful answer to Q is ja, which means yes.\n True is asked and responds with da. Since he is telling the truth, the truthful answer to Q is da, which means no.\n False is asked and responds with ja. Since he is lying, it follows that if you asked him Q, he would instead answer da. He would be lying, so the truthful answer to Q is ja, which means yes.\n False is asked and responds with da. Since he is lying, it follows that if you asked him Q, he would in fact answer ja. He would be lying, so the truthful answer to Q is da, which means no.\n\nAssume ja means no and da means yes.\n True is asked and responds with ja. Since he is telling the truth, the truthful answer to Q is da, which means yes.\n True is asked and responds with da. Since he is telling the truth, the truthful answer to Q is ja, which means no.\n False is asked and responds with ja. Since he is lying, it follows that if you asked him Q, he would in fact answer ja. He would be lying, so the truthful answer to Q is da, which means yes.\n False is asked and responds with da. Since he is lying, it follows that if you asked him Q, he would instead answer da. He would be lying, so the truthful answer to Q is ja, which means no.\n\nRegardless of whether the asked god is lying or not and regardless of which word means yes and which no, you can determine if the truthful answer to Q is yes or no.\n\nThe solution below constructs its three questions using the lemma described above.\nQ1: Ask god B, \"If I asked you 'Is A Random?', would you say ja?\". If B answers ja, either B is Random (and is answering randomly), or B is not Random and the answer indicates that A is indeed Random. Either way, C is not Random. If B answers da, either B is Random (and is answering randomly), or B is not Random and the answer indicates that A is not Random. Either way, you know the identity of a god who is not Random.\nQ2: Go to the god who was identified as not being Random by the previous question (either A or C), and ask him: \"If I asked you 'Are you False?', would you say ja?\". Since he is not Random, an answer of da indicates that he is True and an answer of ja indicates that he is False. \nQ3: Ask the same god the question: \"If I asked you 'Is B Random?', would you say ja?\". If the answer is ja, B is Random; if the answer is da, the god you have not yet spoken to is Random. The remaining god can be identified by elimination.\n\nRandom's behavior\n\nBoolos' third clarifying remark explains Random's behavior as follows:\n\n Whether Random speaks truly or not should be thought of as depending on the flip of a coin hidden in his brain: if the coin comes down heads, he speaks truly; if tails, falsely.\n\nThis does not state if the coin flip is for each question, or each \"session\", that is the entire series of questions. If interpreted as being a single random selection which lasts for the duration of the session, Rabern and Rabern show that useful answers can be extracted even from Random; this is because the counterfactual had been designed such that regardless of whether the answerer (in this case Random) was as a truth-teller or a false-teller, the truthful answer to Q would be clear.\n\nAnother possible interpretation of Random's behaviour when faced with the counterfactual is that he answers the question in its totality after flipping the coin in his head, but figures out the answer to Q in his previous state of mind, while the question is being asked. Once again, this makes asking Random the counterfactual useless. If this is the case, a small change to the question above yields a question which will always elicit a meaningful answer from Random. The change is as follows:\n\n If I asked you Q in your current mental state, would you say ja?\n\nThis effectively extracts the truth-teller and liar personalities from Random and forces him to be only one of them. By doing so the puzzle becomes completely trivial, that is, truthful answers can be easily obtained. However, it assumes that Random has decided to lie or tell the truth prior to determining the correct answer to the question – something not stated by the puzzle or the clarifying remark. \n\nAsk god A, \"If I asked you 'Are you Random?' in your current mental state, would you say ja?\"\n If A answers ja, A is Random: Ask god B, \"If I asked you 'Are you True?', would you say ja?\"\n If B answers ja, B is True and C is False.\n If B answers da, B is False and C is True. In both cases, the puzzle is solved.\n If A answers da, A is not Random: Ask god A, \"If I asked you 'Are you True?', would you say ja?\"\n If A answers ja, A is True.\n If A answers da, A is False.\n Ask god A, \"If I asked you 'Is B Random?', would you say ja?\"\n If A answers ja, B is Random, and C is the opposite of A.\n If A answers da, C is Random, and B is the opposite of A.\n\nOne can elegantly obtain truthful answers in the course of solving the original problem as clarified by Boolos (\"if the coin comes down heads, he speaks truly; if tails, falsely\") without relying on any purportedly unstated assumptions, by making a further change to the question:\n\n If I asked you Q, and if you were answering as truthfully as you are answering this question, would you say ja?\n\nHere, the only assumption is that Random, in answering the question, is either answering truthfully (\"speaks truthfully\") OR is answering falsely (\"speaks falsely\") which are explicitly part of the clarifications of Boolos. The original unmodified problem (with Boolos' clarifications) in this way can be seen to be the \"Hardest Logical Puzzle Ever\" with the most elegant and uncomplicated looking solution.\n\nRabern and Rabern (2008) suggest making an amendment to Boolos' original puzzle so that Random is actually random. The modification is to replace Boolos' third clarifying remark with the following:\n\n Whether Random says ja or da should be thought of as depending on the flip of a coin hidden in his brain: if the coin comes down heads, he says ja; if tails, he says da.\n\nWith this modification, the puzzle's solution demands the more careful god-interrogation given at the top of The Solution section.\n\nUnanswerable questions and exploding god-heads\n\nIn A simple solution to the hardest logic puzzle ever, B. Rabern and L. Rabern offer a variant of the puzzle: a god, confronted with a paradox, will say neither ja nor da and instead not answer at all. For example, if the question \"Are you going to answer this question with the word that means no in your language?\" is put to True, he cannot answer truthfully. (The paper represents this as his head exploding, \"...they are infallible gods! They have but one recourse – their heads explode.\") Allowing the \"exploding head\" case gives yet another solution of the puzzle and introduces the possibility of solving the puzzle (modified and original) in just two questions rather than three. In support of a two-question solution to the puzzle, the authors solve a similar simpler puzzle using just two questions.\n\nThree gods A, B, and C are called, in some order, Zephyr, Eurus, and Aeolus. The gods always speak truly. Your task is to determine the identities of A, B, and C by asking yes-no questions; each question must be put to exactly one god. The gods understand English and will answer in English.\n\nNote that this puzzle is trivially solved with three questions. Furthermore, to solve the puzzle in two questions, the following lemma is proved.\n\nTempered Liar Lemma. If we ask A \"Is it the case that {[(you are going to answer 'no' to this question) AND (B is Zephyr)] OR (B is Eurus)}?\", a response of 'yes' indicates that B is Eurus, a response of 'no' indicates that B is Aeolus, and an exploding head indicates that B is Zephyr. Hence we can determine the identity of B in one question.\n\nUsing this lemma it is simple to solve the puzzle in two questions. Rabern and Rabern (2008) use a similar trick (tempering the liar's paradox) to solve the original puzzle in just two questions. Uzquiano (2010) uses these techniques to provide a two question solution to the amended puzzle. Two question solutions to both the original and amended puzzle take advantage of the fact that some gods have an inability to answer certain questions. Neither True nor False can provide an answer to the following question.\n\nWould you answer the same as Random would to the question 'Is Dushanbe in Kirghizia?'?\n\nSince the amended Random answers in a truly random manner, neither True nor False can predict whether Random would answer ja or da to the question of whether Dushanbe is in Kirghizia. Given this ignorance they will be unable to tell the truth or lie – they will therefore remain silent. Random, however, who spouts random nonsense, will have no problem spouting off either ja or da. Uzquiano (2010) exploits this asymmetry to provide a two question solution to the modified puzzle. Yet, one might assume that the gods have an \"oracular ability to predict Random's answers even before the coin flip in Random’s brain?\" In this case, a two question solution is still available by using self-referential questions of the style employed in Rabern and Rabern (2008).\n\nWould you answer ja to the question of whether you would answer da to this question?\n\nHere again neither True nor False are able to answer this question given their commitments of truth-telling and lying, respectively. They are forced to answer ja just in case the answer they are committed to give is da and this they cannot do. Just as before they will suffer a head explosion. In contrast, Random will mindlessly spout his nonsense and randomly answer ja or da. Uzquiano (2010) also uses this asymmetry to provide a two question solution to the modified puzzle. However, Uzquiano's own modification to the puzzle, which eliminates this asymmetry by allowing Random to either answer \"ja\", \"da\", or remain silent, cannot be solved in fewer than three questions.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nRichard Webb. Three gods, three questions: The Hardest Logic Puzzle Ever. (New Scientist, Volume 216, Issues 2896–2897, 22–29 December 2012, Pages 50–52.)\nTom Ellis. Even harder than the hardest logic puzzle ever.\nStefan Wintein. Playing with Truth.\nWalter Carnielli. Contrafactuais, contradição e o enigma lógico mais difícil do mundo. Revista Omnia Lumina. \n Jamie Condliffe. The Hardest Logic Puzzle Ever (and How to Solve It).\nThe Hardest Logic Puzzle Ever (Googlesites page)\n\nLogic puzzles\nGames and sports introduced in 1996",
"Along the Way is the first live concert DVD from punk band Bad Religion. The concert footage was taken from fourteen different European stops on their 1989 tour for the album, Suffer. It was originally released on VHS in Germany in 1990 (with a different cover) and in the United States in the following year, and on DVD for the first time in 2004, coinciding with the reissues of the band's pre-Recipe for Hate albums. Both the VHS and DVD have the same cover shown on the right, which depicts Jay Bentley with his bass, while the European VHS depicts guitarist Brett Gurewitz and singer Greg Graffin singing along with each other.\n\nThe format of the video consists of live concert performances interspersed with short interview clips of the band members. The live footage is mixed from fourteen different shows, and jumps between them for each different cut and camera angle. Although the video remains synchronized with the audio track, it is not uncommon for the band members shirts to appear to change many times during the same song. The concert featured no songs from the band's 1983 album Into the Unknown or No Control, although the latter album was released shortly after the European tour.\n\nTitle of the release is taken from the band's song of the same name, which appears on their 1985 long-out of print EP Back to the Known. This song was also played live at the concert.\n\nBrett Gurewitz on his drug habit\nOne of the interview portions of the video poses a question to guitarist Brett Gurewitz concerning his addiction to crack cocaine and other hard drugs.\n\nInterviewer: Brett, you have been an addict to crack. How do you think about hard drugs today?\n\nBrett Gurewitz: Well, I don't do it anymore. I think crack is probably the worst poison that has ever been introduced to human beings. I mean, I think personally it's worse than heroin because I experimented with heroin quite a bit, and alcohol, and um, although I guess it depends on the individual.\n\nI will say that I'm not, I don't want to sound that like I'm anti-drug, because I'm not anti-drug. I happen to be a drug addict. And when I take a drug, I can't stop. And um, or if I have a drink, I continue drinking until I black out. So, I had to stop. But, I think that part of that has to do with my, perhaps my environment, but I think a great deal of it has to do with genetic physical causes.\n\nI think the central nervous system of a drug addict and an alcoholic is different from the central nervous system of a non-drug addict/alcoholic. And, in fact, medical studies have been done, they've done research on the spinal cord of drug addicts and alcoholics and they find genetic differences between them so there is some kind of inherited trait. So what I think is that if you can handle it and you can use it, drugs can be good. They can be good to relax the atmosphere at a party, LSD can be very good to expand your mind, you know?\n\nI love LSD, I just don't, I just... And I don't think that LSD is an addictive drug personally, but, I had tried to stop taking crack in the past and I tried to stop drinking in the past and say, \"OK, I won't drink, I'll just smoke pot\" or \"I won't take crack, I'll just drink\" and whatever the one thing that I decided I would do, I did so much of it to compensate for not doing anything else because that's how I was. I had to stop everything, you know?\n\nBut, I think that there are people who can handle it, and I think that for the people who can handle it, it's OK. I don't think there's anything wrong with it. I just think that, um, when it comes to the point where the pain of using the things are too great than the pain of not using them, then you have to stop.\n\nTour\nThe following are the tour dates of the European Suffer Tour of 1989, where the footage was filmed.\n\nAudio from the show in Bremen was used for the live footage.\n\nNOTE: Any date with an asterisk (*) means no footage was filmed there for the documentary, according to the credits.\n\nTrack listing\n\nPersonnel\n Greg Graffin - Vocals\n Brett Gurewitz - Guitar\n Jay Bentley - Bass\n Greg Hetson - Guitar\n Pete Finestone - Drums\n Karat Faye - Engineer / F.O.H.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n \n\n1990 video albums\n1990 live albums\nDocumentary films about punk music and musicians\nBad Religion video albums\nLive video albums"
] |
[
"Will.i.am",
"The Voice UK and Australia"
] | C_a63a5a015ec548899d64a3bbd13a0953_0 | When did he join The Voice UK? | 1 | When did Will.i.am, join The Voice UK? | Will.i.am | On October 25, 2011, it was reported that will.i.am would be joining The Voice UK as a coach. A source said, "Will is 95 per cent a done deal. He is a big star and loves nurturing new talent. He shoots from the lip, and will not be afraid to tell it like it is. Although, I doubt The Voice will be as bitchy as The X Factor". will.i.am was later confirmed as a coach on The Voice UK, of this he said, "I'm proud to be doing The Voice UK because the UK was the first place I saw success," he said. "It's the place I'm the most creative outside of home." Cohen added, "I am thrilled that will.i.am has signed up to be a coach on The Voice. He is a huge star who will bring a unique creativity to the show." Talking about the differences between the show and X Factor, "I won't be a judge on X Factor. The Voice is different. You can't even compare the two. One, you have people in the music industry, current and legends, coaching the next generation. The other format you have judges critiquing, giving their opinions on things when they don't really know, other than Randy Jackson on Idol". In preparation for the role as a coach, he asked advice from friend and ex-The X Factor judge Cheryl Cole. Talking to Capital FM he said, "I reached out to Cheryl for advice on keeping your cool, having a poker face, the importance of sticking with the singers - it's their dream, a lot of the times when you have other performers a part of the show, celebrities tend to want the shine so they hog up time. So my whole thing was that I want to do The Voice, but I don't want to hog up time to where the singers up there are looking like, 'Is this about you guys?'. In March 2012, it was reported that he had turned his "plush" dressing room into a recording studio, and "instead of just listening with his headphones, he has installed some mega bass bins". On November 26, 2013, will.i.am was announced as a coach for the 2014 series of the Australian version of The Voice along with fellow Voice UK judge Kylie Minogue. Neither will.i.am nor Minogue returned for series 4 in 2015. He has contributed to The Voice UK since 2012. As well as returning for the sixth series of The Voice UK, which is now on ITV from 2017, he will also be a coach on the first series of the UK Version of The Voice Kids. CANNOTANSWER | On October 25, 2011, it was reported that will.i.am would be joining The Voice UK as a coach. | William James Adams Jr. (born March 15, 1975), known professionally as will.i.am (pronounced "Will-I-am"), is an American rapper and record producer. He is the founding and lead member of the musical group Black Eyed Peas.
As a solo artist, will.i.am has released four albums, beginning with Lost Change (2001), through Atlantic Records. His second solo outing, Must B 21, was released on September 23, 2003. The track "Go!" was regularly used as the theme for the NBA Live 2005 and Madden NFL 2005 seasons. The third album, Songs About Girls, was released on September 25, 2007. He released his fourth studio album, #willpower, in 2013.
As a music producer, will.i.am has worked for other artists including A.R. Rahman, Cheryl, Michael Jackson, Justin Bieber, Kesha, Britney Spears, Miley Cyrus, David Guetta, U2, Rihanna, Lady Gaga, Usher, Justin Timberlake, Nicki Minaj, 2NE1, and Baby Kaely. In collaborations and with the Black Eyed Peas, he has a total of 41 top-40 entries on the UK Singles Chart since 1998, and has sold 9.4 million singles in the UK.
In addition to his music career, will.i.am has also been a judge and mentor on the television talent show series The Voice UK (2012–present), The Voice Australia (2014), and The Voice Kids (2017–present).
Early life
William James Adams Jr. was born in Los Angeles, California, and was raised in the Estrada Courts housing projects in the Boyle Heights neighborhood, where he and his family were among the few African Americans living in a predominantly Hispanic community. Adams’ great-great-grandmother was an enslaved person. Adams has never met his father, William Adams Sr. He was raised by his mother, Debra (née Cain), who encouraged him to be unique and to avoid conforming to the tendencies of the other youths in the east Los Angeles neighborhood. To encourage his musical career, she sent him to public schools in affluent West Los Angeles. He rode on a bus for an hour to attend Paul Revere Charter Middle School. Later, during the regular school year, he attended Palisades Charter High School. During that time, he started going to raves with classmate Pasquale Rotella. While studying at summer school at John Marshall High School, he became best friends with Allan Pineda (stage name apl.de.ap), who would also be a future member of the Black Eyed Peas. While still in high school, Adams and Pineda performed in East L.A. clubs and were soon joined by three other entertainers to form the socially conscious rap group, Atban Klann. Atban Klann caught the eye of Compton rapper Eazy-E and was signed to his label, Ruthless Records in 1992.
He later said his history with rave culture is why he chose a more electro sound for the Black Eyed Peas' albums The E.N.D. and The Beginning. Despite the use of electro and house music elements, will.i.am prefers to separate the underground from pop. In an article with Los Angeles Times, he mentions that secrecy over the whereabouts of raves is what made raving special, and different from the mainstream.
Music career
1988–2000: Formations and the Black Eyed Peas
In the summer of 1988 will.i.am began his music career when, as an eighth-grader, he met up with fellow rapper Allan Pineda (apl.de.ap) and fellow student Dante Santiago. They began performing together around Los Angeles and were soon discovered by rapper/entrepreneur Eazy-E, who signed them to his label Ruthless Records in 1992. At the time, Will was known as "Will 1X". Atban Klann's first ever official track, "Merry Muthafuckin' Xmas", was included on Eazy-E's EP 5150: Home 4 tha Sick. After this, the trio began recording an album, "Grass Roots", with the help of producers Mookie Mook and DJ Motiv8, but the album was never released due to Eazy-E's tragic death in 1995. Subsequently, they changed their name to Black Eyed Pods, and Will replaced Dante with Jaime Gomez, better known under his stage name of Taboo. In 1997, they once again changed their name, this time to the Black Eyed Peas, and began recording their first album, Behind the Front, with the help of soul singer Kim Hill. They were soon signed to Interscope Records, and released their debut single, "Joints & Jam", in early 1998. The album was successful enough for the group's contract to be renewed, and in 2000, a second album, Bridging the Gap, was released.
2000–2003: Lost Change, Elephunk and Must B 21
Following the release of Bridging the Gap, Will began recording his first solo release, Lost Change, which was the official soundtrack to the film of the same name. Featuring collaborations with Medusa, Planet Asia and Terry Dexter, the album was a critical success.
In November 2001, work began on a third Black Eyed Peas album, Elephunk. Development of the album began on November 2, 2001 and was released just under two years later in 2003. At the time of development, only will.i.am, apl.de.ap and Taboo were to feature on the album. During the production of "Shut Up" (the second single released from the album), they realized that a female vocal would work well with the song. Originally, Nicole Scherzinger (lead singer of the Pussycat Dolls) was approached to make a guest appearance on the record. She was forced to decline because she already was signed to a contract with Eden's Crush. Danté Santiago then introduced Fergie to will.i.am, whom she impressed with her vocal talents. She immediately bonded with the band and became a permanent member of the Peas, and her photo was printed onto the album cover. Lyricist Robbie Fisher, who has been working closely with the band since the beginning stages of the album, composed nine out of the fourteen tracks. In the United States, Elephunk reached number 14 on the Billboard Top 200 and is their first album to chart in the top 15. It gained even more commercial success internationally, particularly in the UK Album Charts where it reached number 3. It has sold over 1.6 million copies in the UK and 8.5 million copies worldwide. The singles "Where Is the Love?" and "Shut Up" reached number 1. "Hey Mama" has been used for several advertisements including advertisements for Apple and iTunes. "Let's Get It Started" also received universal acclaim in the media section where a cover version of the song appears in the film Hot Tub Time Machine. After the success of Elephunk, the Peas were approached by EA games to feature some of their music on the 2004 game The Urbz. They remixed some of the tracks on Elephunk and translated it into Simlish and created new tracks for the game. They also feature in the game as playable characters.
The group released their breakthrough single, "Where Is the Love?", in November 2002 (featuring Justin Timberlake, although he did not appear in the video). On the strength of that single and follow-up singles like "Shut Up", Elephunk went on to sell 8.5 million copies worldwide. During this time, Will recorded a second solo album, Must B 21. In 2002, Will recorded the song "Secrets" for the soundtrack to Dexter's Laboratory: The Hip-Hop Experiment, a musical accompaniment to the Cartoon Network original series. Prior to this, he had also composed the theme music for another Genndy Tartakovsky series, Samurai Jack.
2003–2006: Monkey Business
In November 2003, work began on a fourth Black Eyed Peas album, entitled Monkey Business, the second album with new band member Fergie. Upon the success of Monkey Business, which was released in 2005, the album was certified three times Platinum by the RIAA in the U.S. and has sold over 10 million copies worldwide. The Canadian Recording Industry Association (or CRIA) has certified Monkey Business 6x Platinum, with sales of over 600,000 copies. The Australian Recording Industry Association (or ARIA) has also certified Monkey Business 6x Platinum, denoting sales of over 420,000 copies. The album's tracks earned the group four 2006 Grammy Award nominations and they also won the Grammy for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group for "Don't Phunk with My Heart". According to IFPI, over 2 million copies have been sold in Europe. In the UK alone, it has sold over 1 million copies, although this is significantly lower than their sales of Elephunk, which stand at over 1.6 million copies and 10 million worldwide.
The band announced they were going to take a break to focus on their own personal projects. Will went on to produce Fergie's first solo album, The Dutchess, which was released in 2006, before beginning work with Michael Jackson, who had requested Will's expertise for the recording and production of his new album. Work began on the Jackson album in 2006, and continued until the singer's death in 2009, at which point will.i.am revealed that none of the material recorded during the period would be released. However, remixes recorded for Jackson's Thriller 25 anniversary album were released in 2008.
2007–2009: Songs About Girls and Change Is Now
In 2007, will.i.am announced that he had co-created an all-female soul band entitled the Paradiso Girls, who he intended to work with on an upcoming solo project. The album, Songs About Girls, was released in 2007. The album spawned three singles, "I Got It From My Mama", "One More Chance" and "Heartbreaker", and fared slightly better than his previous solo efforts, however, failed to shift more than 75,000 copies. Will also did a remix to the song "With Love" by actress and singer Hilary Duff.
In 2008, will.i.am contributed the song "One Tribe" to the Survival International charity album, Songs for Survival. Also in 2008, he was featured on rapper Flo Rida's debut album, Mail on Sunday, where he produced and featured on the song "In the Ayer", and featured on Usher's fifth album, Here I Stand. In January 2008, will.i.am announced plans that he was masterminding a political album, Change is Now: Renewing America's Promise, in support of Barack Obama's presidential campaign. The first single, "Yes We Can", featured a music video directed by Jesse Dylan. The lyrics of the song are composed almost entirely of excerpts from Obama's speech on January 8, 2008, following the New Hampshire presidential primary election. The video features appearances from numerous celebrities and first appeared on the website for Dipdive. The video racked up three million views within a week and over four million subsequently on YouTube. On June 13, 2008, "Yes We Can" won an award at the 35th Annual Creative Arts and Entertainment Daytime Emmy Awards for "New Approaches in Daytime Entertainment". On February 29, 2008, the album's second single, "We Are the Ones", was released on Dipdive and YouTube. The video features several celebrities chanting "O-BA-MA" as a portrayal as their hopes and wishes for Obama and his presidential campaign. On November 4, 2008, will.i.am spoke to CNN's Anderson Cooper about his support for then-Senator Obama using CNN's 'hologram' technology (actually tomography). Following the 2008 election, and Obama's victory, Will released the album's third single, "It's a New Day". The video reflects on the historical events that led to the election of the first African-American president and the public's reaction to his election. The video debuted on The Oprah Winfrey Show. In honor of the inauguration of Barack Obama as president, will.i.am collaborated with producer David Foster on the album's fourth single, "America's Song", with contributing vocals from Seal, Bono, Mary J. Blige, and Faith Hill. In response to Obama's reaction following Kanye West's interruption of Taylor Swift at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, will.i.am penned the album's fifth and final single, "The Jackass Song". It featured a sample of Kanye West's "Heartless". Will wrote a blog post, which featured the song on Dipdive, and released in February 2009. will.i.am attended and spoke at the FIRST Robotics Competition kickoff on January 8, 2011, declaring, "I am a FIRST fan." He has also named FIRST Founder Dean Kamen "one of [his] heroes" on his verified Twitter account.
2009–2016: Black Eyed Peas reformation, The E.N.D, The Beginning, and #willpower
In March 2009, will.i.am announced plans for the Black Eyed Peas to return, and within months their comeback single, "Boom Boom Pow", had reached number 1 on the UK Singles Chart and Billboard Hot 100. They went on to have three number 1 singles before releasing their comeback album, The E.N.D. The album's success warranted a second comeback album, The Beginning, released in November 2010. The album spawned another three hit singles, but the band soon announced plans they were to break again, following the conclusion of their world tour. In 2009, will.i.am worked with rappers Flo Rida and Akon for Flo's second studio album, R.O.O.T.S., and recorded four tracks with Girls Aloud member Cheryl for her debut solo album 3 Words. He also worked with Rihanna on her fourth studio album, Rated R, for a track called "Photographs". In February 2010, he wrote and produced the single "OMG" by Usher, which appeared on Usher's seventh studio album, Raymond vs. Raymond. In a YouTube video posted by YGLifeOfficial on March 15, 2010, will.i.am expressed his desire to work with Korean K-pop girl group 2NE1, and help them achieve international success. Will has recorded a collaboration with Britney Spears, "Big Fat Bass", which features on her seventh studio album, Femme Fatale.
During the recording of the Black Eyed Peas' sixth studio album, The Beginning, band colleague Fergie announced in an interview that will.i.am was in the process of recording a new solo album, tentatively entitled Black Einstein. will.i.am formally announced that he was in the process of recording a fourth solo album, with some material being recorded under the pseudonym Zuper Blahq. In January 2010, a cut from the album, "I'm In the House", a collaboration with Steve Aoki, was released as a single, charting at #29 on the UK Singles Chart due to strong downloads. In October 2010, a second cut from the album, "Check It Out", a collaboration with Trinidadian rapper Nicki Minaj, peaked at #4 on the UK Singles Chart. In February 2011, a third cut from the album, "Dance", a collaboration with Natalia Kills, peaked at #62 on the UK Singles Chart. The music video was directed by James Sutton, and features a cameo by Natalia. In April 2011, will.i.am recorded four songs for the soundtrack of the animated film Rio, in which he voiced the character, Pedro the red-crested cardinal. "Hot Wings (I Wanna Party)", "Drop It Low", "Real In Rio" and "Advice For The Young At Heart", featuring an array of artists including Jamie Foxx, Anne Hathaway and Tears for Fears. None of the songs managed to chart, however, Will announced that he was going to remix the tracks for inclusion on Black Einstein. In September 2011, a fourth cut from the album, "Forever", a collaboration with Wolfgang Gartner, was released as a single. It was around this time that will.i.am announced that he changed the title of the album from Black Einstein to #willpower. The video premiered on August 26, 2011. In November 2011, Will premiered what is intended to be the album's official lead single, "T.H.E. (The Hardest Ever)", a collaboration with Jennifer Lopez and Mick Jagger. Will announced via his Twitter that the video for "T.H.E. (The Hardest Ever)" was filmed in LA, and that before he returned home, he stopped off in Brazil to film the video for the album's second official single, "Great Times". In December 2011, a fifth cut from the album, "Party Like An Animal", a collaboration with Dutch singer Eva Simons and LMFAO, premiered at the HTC Beats Launch party. Will.i.am also announced he has collaborations with Britney Spears, Alicia Keys, Busta Rhymes, Swizz Beatz and a couple others on the album. He also stated there is a possibility Shakira could feature on the album. #willpower is due for release in 2013, and will.i.am later confirmed that Cheryl and Justin Bieber would also appear on #willpower. In mid-October, Britney Spears confirmed on her Twitter account that she had filmed the music video for the single she was featuring in called "Scream & Shout".
He was among the performers at the Diamond Jubilee Concert held outside Buckingham Palace on June 4, 2012.
The first song broadcast from Mars was his new single, "Reach for the Stars". He discussed and listened to it with a live audience at NASA in Pasadena, California after it was returned from the Curiosity rover.
The song "Hall of Fame" by the Script also featured will.i.am. It debuted onto radio on July 23, 2012 and was released for digital download on August 21, 2012. He later featured in Priyanka Chopra's debut single "In My City". It was announced in October 2012 that will.i.am will feature on Kesha's second album Warrior on the track "Crazy Kids". He also co-wrote and co-produced the Dr Luke produced track.
In November 2012, will.i.am released the third single from #willpower which was "Scream & Shout" featuring Britney Spears. It debuted in the top 20 on the Billboard 100, eventually reaching a peak of number 3 and debuting at number 2 on the UK Singles Chart and reaching number one in January 2013 for two weeks. It went number one in many countries
During an interview with Capital FM, will.i.am confirmed he had collaborated with Justin Bieber for his next release "#thatPOWER" and premiered the single on the same day it was released onto iTunes in the US the same day and debuted on the Billboard 100 at number 42.
In April 2013, will.i.am and Chris Brown's track "Let's Go", also from the #willpower album, became the centre of a copyright controversy, with trance producers Arty and Mat Zo claiming that will.i.am used elements of their 2011 track "Rebound" in his song without permission from the artists or their label. This claim was later backed by Anjunabeats, the record label behind Arty and Mat Zo.
His fourth studio album, #willpower, was re-released in December 2013 featuring several new tracks, including the lead single "Feelin' Myself" featuring Miley Cyrus, French Montana, and Wiz Khalifa.
Britney Spears featured will.i.am on her song "It Should Be Easy" on her eighth studio album Britney Jean, for which he co-wrote and produced several tracks. He was also an executive producer of the project.
On April 4, 2014, will.i.am appeared on Alan Carr: Chatty Man, where he talked about plans to release his own Smartwatch. He revealed that it can be used as a phone, to store music, and use Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. He also showed a preview of a music video for a song called "It's My Birthday". On May 20, 2014, a 90-second snippet was uploaded to SoundCloud. It features American singer-songwriter Cody Wise, is produced by Will and Damien LeRoy and is written by himself, Cody Wise and Keith Harris. It was released on July 6, 2014.
In an interview with Capital FM, will.i.am confirmed that the Black Eyed Peas were getting back together. On April 7, 2016 will.i.am released the single "Boys & Girls" featuring Pia Mia. A week later on April 14, a new remix of "Mona Lisa Smile" featuring Nicole Scherzinger was released.
2017–present: Recent activities
In March 2020, will.i.am collaborated with a group of artists made up of Bono, Jennifer Hudson, and Yoshiki for the song "Sing For Life". The musicians felt motivated by the widespread sense of despair surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic and the attempts by multiple individuals to pursue creative endeavors while facing new social restrictions. The official YouTube description stated that the track aimed to spread "joy" during trying "times like these".
Other ventures
Acting
The Black Eyed Peas, including will.i.am, first started acting in the commercial series "Instant Def" to advertise Snickers. He starred in Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa as the voice of the character Moto Moto. He contributed a number of tracks to the movie's motion picture soundtrack in collaboration with industry heavyweight Hans Zimmer. Will.i.am played John Wraith in his major film debut, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, a prequel to the X-Men film series. He also guest-starred on the CBS drama Joan of Arcadia as God, one of several actors who played this role during the series. He also starred in the 2011 animated film Rio, and 2014's Rio 2, as a rapping red-crested cardinal named Pedro, and like Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, he contributed his singing voice to the film's soundtrack, along with his fellow co-stars. Will.i.am played a fathering role in The Urbz: Sims In The City, which uses the Black Eyed Peas' songs as its own soundtrack. He briefly played himself in the Tina Fey and Steve Carell comedy film Date Night. He appeared in the 2016 Grammy-nominated documentary film about American DJ and producer Steve Aoki, titled I'll Sleep When I'm Dead.
The Voice UK and Australia
will.i.am was confirmed as a coach on The Voice UK, of this he said, "I'm proud to be doing The Voice UK because the UK was the first place I saw success," he said. "It's the place I'm the most creative outside of home." Cohen added, "I am thrilled that will.i.am has signed up to be a coach on The Voice. He is a huge star who will bring a unique creativity to the show." Talking about the differences between the show and X Factor, "I won't be a judge on X Factor. The Voice is different. You can't even compare the two. One, you have people in the music industry, current and legends, coaching the next generation. The other format you have judges critiquing, giving their opinions on things when they don't really know, other than Randy Jackson on Idol".
In preparation for the role as a coach, he asked advice from friend and ex-The X Factor judge Cheryl Cole. Talking to Capital FM he said, "I reached out to Cheryl for advice on keeping your cool, having a poker face, the importance of sticking with the singers – it's their dream, a lot of the times when you have other performers a part of the show, celebrities tend to want the shine so they hog up time. So my whole thing was that I want to do The Voice, but I don't want to hog up time to where the singers up there are looking like, 'Is this about you guys?'. In March 2012, it was reported that he had turned his "plush" dressing room into a recording studio, and "instead of just listening with his headphones, he has installed some mega bass bins".
On November 26, 2013, will.i.am was announced as a coach for the 2014 series of the Australian version of The Voice along with fellow Voice UK judge Kylie Minogue. He was the winning coach having coached voice winner Anja Nissen in 2014. Neither will.i.am nor Minogue returned for the fourth series in 2015.
He has contributed to The Voice UK since 2012. He also serves as a coach on the UK version of The Voice Kids.
Fashion
Before joining the Black Eyed Peas, will.i.am attended the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising in Los Angeles. In 2001, he began designing his own signature clothing line, i.am, which made its official debut in 2005 at the Magic Apparel Trade Show in Las Vegas. In 2007, will.i.am teamed up with Blue Holdings to design a premium denim collection, i.am Antik, that was scheduled to debut in August 2007 at the Project Show in Las Vegas. will.i.am instead had new partners and was launching i.am. Will.i.am is currently being sued $2 million for abandoning the project for which, the label states, he was obligated until 2016, but will.i.am insists it is already over. He also launched his own glasses range.
Technology
Appearing at the kickoff event for the 2011 FIRST Robotics Competition, Logo Motion held at Southern New Hampshire University, will.i.am stated that he is "a big fan", and that the newly unveiled game was "dope". He also executive produced a TV Special - I.AM. FIRST: Science is Rock & Roll - about the 2011 FIRST World Championship at the Edward Jones Dome, St Louis. It was produced by Greg Sills and Paul Flattery, directed by Michael Dempsey. It was aired by ABC on August 14, 2011, at 7 p.m. As part of the special, will.i.am appeared with the Black Eyed Peas. Willow Smith also performed and will.i.am did a DJ set. He continues to support FIRST, and at the 2013 FIRST World Championship, will.i.am became the first recipient of the Make It Loud award, which is given to the person who has contributed the most in increasing the awareness of FIRST to the general public.
In January 2011, Intel named will.i.am as director of creative innovation, with input in developing smartphones, tablets and laptops.
In January 2012, he appeared on the BBC TV series Top Gear, as the Star in a Reasonably Priced Car, where he claimed he was starting his own car company called IAMAUTO.
By becoming the first artist to stream a song ("Reaching for the Stars") from the surface of Mars on August 28, 2012, will.i.am made inter-planetary music history. The event took place at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California.
Expanding his forays into iPhone accessory development, will.i.am announced plans to release a camera enhancer to "dramatically enhance the clarity and definition of iPhone photographs," by effectively making the 8-megapixel sensor into a 14-megapixel one. Termed the i.am+, the device was said to be the first in a series of "digital real estate" for the singer.
In April 2016, it was announced that i.am+ had acquired the Tel Aviv machine-learning technology start-up Sensiya.
3D Systems appointed will.i.am as its chief creative officer (CCO) on January 8, 2014.
Since retiring from music (a retirement that did not last), he has helped design smartwatches for German company Deutsche Telekom since late 2015.
In 2016, The Verge reported that will.i.am would join actress Gwyneth Paltrow and serial entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk on Apple TV's Planet of the Apps, calling the trio "successful" and "big names" with experience launching companies. The show received mixed to negative reviews.
On July 27, 2017, i.am+ acquired Wink, the Internet of Things and Smart Home hub platform, from owner Flextronics for a reported $38.7 million with an additional $20 million commitment, likely earmarked to sustain manufacturing of Wink's products. In late 2019, will.i.am's technology company, i.am+, was the subject of multiple tax liens, with the state of California alleging over $500,000 in delinquent taxes. The United States government also filed a lien against i.am+ in August 2019, alleging $1,787,726.11 in delinquent taxes and interest.
On November 15, 2017, the Institution of Engineering and Technology awarded will.i.am an honorary fellowship for his outstanding contribution to the profession of engineering.
In early 2018, will.i.am released his first book, WaR: Wizards and Robots (), a collaboration with Brian David Johnson.
Personal life
In December 2010, will.i.am said that he suffers from tinnitus, a disorder common among musicians who have been exposed to loud music for prolonged periods. In April 2013, he stated that he has ADHD. will.i.am follows a vegan diet.
As the nephew of former NFL player Lynn Cain, who played for the Atlanta Falcons and Los Angeles Rams, will.i.am spent a large part of his life looking up to his uncle as a role model.
On June 22, 2009, gossip blogger Perez Hilton accused will.i.am and his entourage of assaulting him in Toronto after the MuchMusic Video Awards, a charge will.i.am denied in a video posted on his blog. No further action was taken.
Discography
Studio albums
Lost Change (2001)
Must B 21 (2003)
Songs About Girls (2007)
#willpower (2013)
Filmography
Film
Television
Video games
Tours
The #Willpower Tour (2013–15)
The Vans Warped Tour (2009)
Awards and nominations
Daytime Emmy Awards
2008, New Approaches in Daytime Entertainment: "Yes We Can"
2011, Best Original Song: "What I Am"
Grammy Awards
|-
|rowspan=3|2004
|Elephunk
|Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical
|
|-
|rowspan=2|"Where Is the Love?" (ft. Justin Timberlake)
|Best Rap/Sung Collaboration
|
|-
|rowspan=2|Record of the Year
|
|-
|rowspan=4|2005
|rowspan=3|"Let's Get It Started"
|
|-
|Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group
|
|-
|rowspan=3|Best Rap Song
|
|-
|"Hey Mama"
|
|-
|rowspan=6|2006
|rowspan=2|"Don't Phunk with My Heart"
|
|-
|Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group
|
|-
|rowspan=2|"Ordinary People"
|Song of the Year
|
|-
|Best R&B Song
|
|-
|"Gone Going" (with Jack Johnson)
|Best Pop Collaboration with Vocal
|
|-
|"Don't Lie"
|rowspan=2|Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal
|
|-
|rowspan=4|2007
|"My Humps"
|
|-
|will.i.am
|Producer of the Year, Non-Classical
|
|-
|"Mas Que Nada"
|rowspan=3|Best Best Urban/Alternative Performance
|
|-
|"That Heat"
|
|-
|rowspan=3|2009
|"Be OK"
|
|-
|"American Boy"
|Song of the Year
|
|-
|will.i.am
|Producer of the Year, Non-Classical
|
|-
|rowspan=6|2010
|rowspan=2|The E.N.D.
|Album of the Year
|
|-
|Best Pop Vocal Album
|
|-
|rowspan=2|"I Gotta Feeling"
|Record of the Year
|
|-
|Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals
|
|-
|rowspan=2|"Boom Boom Pow"
|Best Dance Recording
|
|-
|Best Short Form Music Video
|
|}
Latin Grammy Awards
2006, Best Brazilian Contemporary Pop Album: "Timeless", Sérgio Mendes (producer)
Television Rack Awards
2012, will.i.am. has won ten Television Rack Awards altogether (five with the Black Eyed Peas and five as a solo artist).
The National Television Awards
|-
|2018 || The Voice UK || TV Judge ||
|}
Mirchi Music Awards
2012, Indie Pop Song of the Year - "In My City" (Nominated)
Honorary fellowship
In 2017, will.i.am was awarded an honorary fellowship by the Institution of Engineering and Technology in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the engineering and technology profession.
Notes
References
External links
– official site
Will.i.am at Beatbuggy
1975 births
Living people
20th-century American rappers
21st-century American male actors
21st-century American singers
African-American male actors
African-American male rappers
African-American male singers
African-American male singer-songwriters
African-American record producers
American contemporary R&B singers
American expatriates in Australia
American expatriates in the United Kingdom
American hip hop record producers
American hip hop singers
American male film actors
American male pop singers
American male rappers
American male singers
American male television actors
American male voice actors
American rappers of Jamaican descent
Atlantic Records artists
Black Eyed Peas members
Barely Breaking Even artists
Daytime Emmy Award winners
Domain hacks
Grammy Award winners for rap music
Interscope Records artists
Latin Grammy Award winners
Male actors from California
Male actors from Los Angeles
Participants in British reality television series
People from Boyle Heights, Los Angeles
Pop rappers
Rappers from Los Angeles
Record producers from California
Recipients of the Presidential Medal of Merit (Philippines)
Ruthless Records artists
Singers from Los Angeles
Singer-songwriters from California | false | [
"Jolan Gidney-Craigen (born 12 November 1993), mononymously known as Jolan, is an English singer. He is best known for placing second in the fifth series of The Voice UK.\n\nEarly life\nJolan Gidney-Craigen was born on 12 November 1993 in Bolton, England. His mother died in 2014, which convinced him to re-audition for The Voice UK in 2016.\n\nCareer\n\n2014–16: The Voice UK\nJolan had previously performed a blind audition in the third series of The Voice UK, singing Labrinth and Emeli Sandé's \"Beneath Your Beautiful\", but failed to make any of the coaches turn for him and he was therefore eliminated straight away. In 2016, he auditioned again, performing Terence Trent D'Arby's \"Wishing Well\". Three out of the four coaches – Boy George, Paloma Faith and Ricky Wilson – turned for him and he elected to join Team Ricky. He went on to reach the final where he was defeated by Kevin Simm, who was also on Wilson's team.\n\n2016–: Later career\nFollowing The Voice UK, Jolan announced that he would be continuing his music career and had gone out to find a record label.\n\nReferences\n\n1993 births\nLiving people\nEnglish pop singers\nEnglish soul singers\nEnglish male singer-songwriters\nPeople from Bolton\nThe Voice UK contestants\n21st-century English singers\n21st-century British male singers",
"One Voice is a 2016 classical music album by Welsh singer Aled Jones and produced by Classic FM. The album features classical and folk songs performed by Jones as a duet with recordings of himself that were made when he was 15 years old. Upon release the album went straight into number 1 on the British Classical Artist Albums Chart and reached number 3 on the UK Album Charts.\n\nBackground \nWhen he was 15, Aled Jones was a popular boy soprano and made 16 albums before his voice broke. When this happened, his recording company decided not to release one of these albums. the album was then stored in the Jones family airing cupboard surrounded by clothing to prevent it getting damp. The album was rediscovered by Jones' parents. Jones stated that he did not remember recording it but upon hearing it \"felt like a proud uncle or father\". From there, Jones came up with the idea to release the album with Jones performing duets with his 15-year-old self from the album. One Voice was announced in January 2016 and promoted by Classic FM, where Jones is also a radio presenter.\n\nCommercial performance \nUpon release on 1 April 2016, One Voice debuted at number 1 on the UK Classical Chart, where it also remained the following week. On the official UK Albums Chart, Jones beat Justin Bieber and Zayn Malik with One Voice entering at number 6, Jones's first UK top 10 chart position since Walking in the Air in 1985. The album rose to number 4 the next week, though apparently demand outstripped supply of albums which limited any further improvement at the time. It rose again to number 3 the following week.\n\nJones later announced that he would be performing tracks from One Voice on his 2016 cathedral tour of the United Kingdom.\n\nTrack listing \n \"Eriskay Love Lilt\"\n \"The Lark in the Clear Air\"\n \"Danny Boy\"\n \"Come to Me Soothing Sleep\"\n \"O Rowan Tree\"\n \"Ar Hyd y Nos\"\n \"Linden Lea\"\n \"The Ash Grove\"\n \"Dafydd y Garreg Wen\"\n \"The Plough Boy\"\n \"Passing By\"\n \"O Waly, Waly\"\n \"Ye Banks and Braes O'Bonnie Doon\"\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nCertifications and sales\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\n2016 albums\nAled Jones albums\nClassical albums by Welsh artists"
] |
[
"Will.i.am",
"The Voice UK and Australia",
"When did he join The Voice UK?",
"On October 25, 2011, it was reported that will.i.am would be joining The Voice UK as a coach."
] | C_a63a5a015ec548899d64a3bbd13a0953_0 | Is he still on the show? | 2 | Is Will.i.am, still on The Voice UK? | Will.i.am | On October 25, 2011, it was reported that will.i.am would be joining The Voice UK as a coach. A source said, "Will is 95 per cent a done deal. He is a big star and loves nurturing new talent. He shoots from the lip, and will not be afraid to tell it like it is. Although, I doubt The Voice will be as bitchy as The X Factor". will.i.am was later confirmed as a coach on The Voice UK, of this he said, "I'm proud to be doing The Voice UK because the UK was the first place I saw success," he said. "It's the place I'm the most creative outside of home." Cohen added, "I am thrilled that will.i.am has signed up to be a coach on The Voice. He is a huge star who will bring a unique creativity to the show." Talking about the differences between the show and X Factor, "I won't be a judge on X Factor. The Voice is different. You can't even compare the two. One, you have people in the music industry, current and legends, coaching the next generation. The other format you have judges critiquing, giving their opinions on things when they don't really know, other than Randy Jackson on Idol". In preparation for the role as a coach, he asked advice from friend and ex-The X Factor judge Cheryl Cole. Talking to Capital FM he said, "I reached out to Cheryl for advice on keeping your cool, having a poker face, the importance of sticking with the singers - it's their dream, a lot of the times when you have other performers a part of the show, celebrities tend to want the shine so they hog up time. So my whole thing was that I want to do The Voice, but I don't want to hog up time to where the singers up there are looking like, 'Is this about you guys?'. In March 2012, it was reported that he had turned his "plush" dressing room into a recording studio, and "instead of just listening with his headphones, he has installed some mega bass bins". On November 26, 2013, will.i.am was announced as a coach for the 2014 series of the Australian version of The Voice along with fellow Voice UK judge Kylie Minogue. Neither will.i.am nor Minogue returned for series 4 in 2015. He has contributed to The Voice UK since 2012. As well as returning for the sixth series of The Voice UK, which is now on ITV from 2017, he will also be a coach on the first series of the UK Version of The Voice Kids. CANNOTANSWER | As well as returning for the sixth series of The Voice UK, which is now on ITV from 2017, | William James Adams Jr. (born March 15, 1975), known professionally as will.i.am (pronounced "Will-I-am"), is an American rapper and record producer. He is the founding and lead member of the musical group Black Eyed Peas.
As a solo artist, will.i.am has released four albums, beginning with Lost Change (2001), through Atlantic Records. His second solo outing, Must B 21, was released on September 23, 2003. The track "Go!" was regularly used as the theme for the NBA Live 2005 and Madden NFL 2005 seasons. The third album, Songs About Girls, was released on September 25, 2007. He released his fourth studio album, #willpower, in 2013.
As a music producer, will.i.am has worked for other artists including A.R. Rahman, Cheryl, Michael Jackson, Justin Bieber, Kesha, Britney Spears, Miley Cyrus, David Guetta, U2, Rihanna, Lady Gaga, Usher, Justin Timberlake, Nicki Minaj, 2NE1, and Baby Kaely. In collaborations and with the Black Eyed Peas, he has a total of 41 top-40 entries on the UK Singles Chart since 1998, and has sold 9.4 million singles in the UK.
In addition to his music career, will.i.am has also been a judge and mentor on the television talent show series The Voice UK (2012–present), The Voice Australia (2014), and The Voice Kids (2017–present).
Early life
William James Adams Jr. was born in Los Angeles, California, and was raised in the Estrada Courts housing projects in the Boyle Heights neighborhood, where he and his family were among the few African Americans living in a predominantly Hispanic community. Adams’ great-great-grandmother was an enslaved person. Adams has never met his father, William Adams Sr. He was raised by his mother, Debra (née Cain), who encouraged him to be unique and to avoid conforming to the tendencies of the other youths in the east Los Angeles neighborhood. To encourage his musical career, she sent him to public schools in affluent West Los Angeles. He rode on a bus for an hour to attend Paul Revere Charter Middle School. Later, during the regular school year, he attended Palisades Charter High School. During that time, he started going to raves with classmate Pasquale Rotella. While studying at summer school at John Marshall High School, he became best friends with Allan Pineda (stage name apl.de.ap), who would also be a future member of the Black Eyed Peas. While still in high school, Adams and Pineda performed in East L.A. clubs and were soon joined by three other entertainers to form the socially conscious rap group, Atban Klann. Atban Klann caught the eye of Compton rapper Eazy-E and was signed to his label, Ruthless Records in 1992.
He later said his history with rave culture is why he chose a more electro sound for the Black Eyed Peas' albums The E.N.D. and The Beginning. Despite the use of electro and house music elements, will.i.am prefers to separate the underground from pop. In an article with Los Angeles Times, he mentions that secrecy over the whereabouts of raves is what made raving special, and different from the mainstream.
Music career
1988–2000: Formations and the Black Eyed Peas
In the summer of 1988 will.i.am began his music career when, as an eighth-grader, he met up with fellow rapper Allan Pineda (apl.de.ap) and fellow student Dante Santiago. They began performing together around Los Angeles and were soon discovered by rapper/entrepreneur Eazy-E, who signed them to his label Ruthless Records in 1992. At the time, Will was known as "Will 1X". Atban Klann's first ever official track, "Merry Muthafuckin' Xmas", was included on Eazy-E's EP 5150: Home 4 tha Sick. After this, the trio began recording an album, "Grass Roots", with the help of producers Mookie Mook and DJ Motiv8, but the album was never released due to Eazy-E's tragic death in 1995. Subsequently, they changed their name to Black Eyed Pods, and Will replaced Dante with Jaime Gomez, better known under his stage name of Taboo. In 1997, they once again changed their name, this time to the Black Eyed Peas, and began recording their first album, Behind the Front, with the help of soul singer Kim Hill. They were soon signed to Interscope Records, and released their debut single, "Joints & Jam", in early 1998. The album was successful enough for the group's contract to be renewed, and in 2000, a second album, Bridging the Gap, was released.
2000–2003: Lost Change, Elephunk and Must B 21
Following the release of Bridging the Gap, Will began recording his first solo release, Lost Change, which was the official soundtrack to the film of the same name. Featuring collaborations with Medusa, Planet Asia and Terry Dexter, the album was a critical success.
In November 2001, work began on a third Black Eyed Peas album, Elephunk. Development of the album began on November 2, 2001 and was released just under two years later in 2003. At the time of development, only will.i.am, apl.de.ap and Taboo were to feature on the album. During the production of "Shut Up" (the second single released from the album), they realized that a female vocal would work well with the song. Originally, Nicole Scherzinger (lead singer of the Pussycat Dolls) was approached to make a guest appearance on the record. She was forced to decline because she already was signed to a contract with Eden's Crush. Danté Santiago then introduced Fergie to will.i.am, whom she impressed with her vocal talents. She immediately bonded with the band and became a permanent member of the Peas, and her photo was printed onto the album cover. Lyricist Robbie Fisher, who has been working closely with the band since the beginning stages of the album, composed nine out of the fourteen tracks. In the United States, Elephunk reached number 14 on the Billboard Top 200 and is their first album to chart in the top 15. It gained even more commercial success internationally, particularly in the UK Album Charts where it reached number 3. It has sold over 1.6 million copies in the UK and 8.5 million copies worldwide. The singles "Where Is the Love?" and "Shut Up" reached number 1. "Hey Mama" has been used for several advertisements including advertisements for Apple and iTunes. "Let's Get It Started" also received universal acclaim in the media section where a cover version of the song appears in the film Hot Tub Time Machine. After the success of Elephunk, the Peas were approached by EA games to feature some of their music on the 2004 game The Urbz. They remixed some of the tracks on Elephunk and translated it into Simlish and created new tracks for the game. They also feature in the game as playable characters.
The group released their breakthrough single, "Where Is the Love?", in November 2002 (featuring Justin Timberlake, although he did not appear in the video). On the strength of that single and follow-up singles like "Shut Up", Elephunk went on to sell 8.5 million copies worldwide. During this time, Will recorded a second solo album, Must B 21. In 2002, Will recorded the song "Secrets" for the soundtrack to Dexter's Laboratory: The Hip-Hop Experiment, a musical accompaniment to the Cartoon Network original series. Prior to this, he had also composed the theme music for another Genndy Tartakovsky series, Samurai Jack.
2003–2006: Monkey Business
In November 2003, work began on a fourth Black Eyed Peas album, entitled Monkey Business, the second album with new band member Fergie. Upon the success of Monkey Business, which was released in 2005, the album was certified three times Platinum by the RIAA in the U.S. and has sold over 10 million copies worldwide. The Canadian Recording Industry Association (or CRIA) has certified Monkey Business 6x Platinum, with sales of over 600,000 copies. The Australian Recording Industry Association (or ARIA) has also certified Monkey Business 6x Platinum, denoting sales of over 420,000 copies. The album's tracks earned the group four 2006 Grammy Award nominations and they also won the Grammy for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group for "Don't Phunk with My Heart". According to IFPI, over 2 million copies have been sold in Europe. In the UK alone, it has sold over 1 million copies, although this is significantly lower than their sales of Elephunk, which stand at over 1.6 million copies and 10 million worldwide.
The band announced they were going to take a break to focus on their own personal projects. Will went on to produce Fergie's first solo album, The Dutchess, which was released in 2006, before beginning work with Michael Jackson, who had requested Will's expertise for the recording and production of his new album. Work began on the Jackson album in 2006, and continued until the singer's death in 2009, at which point will.i.am revealed that none of the material recorded during the period would be released. However, remixes recorded for Jackson's Thriller 25 anniversary album were released in 2008.
2007–2009: Songs About Girls and Change Is Now
In 2007, will.i.am announced that he had co-created an all-female soul band entitled the Paradiso Girls, who he intended to work with on an upcoming solo project. The album, Songs About Girls, was released in 2007. The album spawned three singles, "I Got It From My Mama", "One More Chance" and "Heartbreaker", and fared slightly better than his previous solo efforts, however, failed to shift more than 75,000 copies. Will also did a remix to the song "With Love" by actress and singer Hilary Duff.
In 2008, will.i.am contributed the song "One Tribe" to the Survival International charity album, Songs for Survival. Also in 2008, he was featured on rapper Flo Rida's debut album, Mail on Sunday, where he produced and featured on the song "In the Ayer", and featured on Usher's fifth album, Here I Stand. In January 2008, will.i.am announced plans that he was masterminding a political album, Change is Now: Renewing America's Promise, in support of Barack Obama's presidential campaign. The first single, "Yes We Can", featured a music video directed by Jesse Dylan. The lyrics of the song are composed almost entirely of excerpts from Obama's speech on January 8, 2008, following the New Hampshire presidential primary election. The video features appearances from numerous celebrities and first appeared on the website for Dipdive. The video racked up three million views within a week and over four million subsequently on YouTube. On June 13, 2008, "Yes We Can" won an award at the 35th Annual Creative Arts and Entertainment Daytime Emmy Awards for "New Approaches in Daytime Entertainment". On February 29, 2008, the album's second single, "We Are the Ones", was released on Dipdive and YouTube. The video features several celebrities chanting "O-BA-MA" as a portrayal as their hopes and wishes for Obama and his presidential campaign. On November 4, 2008, will.i.am spoke to CNN's Anderson Cooper about his support for then-Senator Obama using CNN's 'hologram' technology (actually tomography). Following the 2008 election, and Obama's victory, Will released the album's third single, "It's a New Day". The video reflects on the historical events that led to the election of the first African-American president and the public's reaction to his election. The video debuted on The Oprah Winfrey Show. In honor of the inauguration of Barack Obama as president, will.i.am collaborated with producer David Foster on the album's fourth single, "America's Song", with contributing vocals from Seal, Bono, Mary J. Blige, and Faith Hill. In response to Obama's reaction following Kanye West's interruption of Taylor Swift at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, will.i.am penned the album's fifth and final single, "The Jackass Song". It featured a sample of Kanye West's "Heartless". Will wrote a blog post, which featured the song on Dipdive, and released in February 2009. will.i.am attended and spoke at the FIRST Robotics Competition kickoff on January 8, 2011, declaring, "I am a FIRST fan." He has also named FIRST Founder Dean Kamen "one of [his] heroes" on his verified Twitter account.
2009–2016: Black Eyed Peas reformation, The E.N.D, The Beginning, and #willpower
In March 2009, will.i.am announced plans for the Black Eyed Peas to return, and within months their comeback single, "Boom Boom Pow", had reached number 1 on the UK Singles Chart and Billboard Hot 100. They went on to have three number 1 singles before releasing their comeback album, The E.N.D. The album's success warranted a second comeback album, The Beginning, released in November 2010. The album spawned another three hit singles, but the band soon announced plans they were to break again, following the conclusion of their world tour. In 2009, will.i.am worked with rappers Flo Rida and Akon for Flo's second studio album, R.O.O.T.S., and recorded four tracks with Girls Aloud member Cheryl for her debut solo album 3 Words. He also worked with Rihanna on her fourth studio album, Rated R, for a track called "Photographs". In February 2010, he wrote and produced the single "OMG" by Usher, which appeared on Usher's seventh studio album, Raymond vs. Raymond. In a YouTube video posted by YGLifeOfficial on March 15, 2010, will.i.am expressed his desire to work with Korean K-pop girl group 2NE1, and help them achieve international success. Will has recorded a collaboration with Britney Spears, "Big Fat Bass", which features on her seventh studio album, Femme Fatale.
During the recording of the Black Eyed Peas' sixth studio album, The Beginning, band colleague Fergie announced in an interview that will.i.am was in the process of recording a new solo album, tentatively entitled Black Einstein. will.i.am formally announced that he was in the process of recording a fourth solo album, with some material being recorded under the pseudonym Zuper Blahq. In January 2010, a cut from the album, "I'm In the House", a collaboration with Steve Aoki, was released as a single, charting at #29 on the UK Singles Chart due to strong downloads. In October 2010, a second cut from the album, "Check It Out", a collaboration with Trinidadian rapper Nicki Minaj, peaked at #4 on the UK Singles Chart. In February 2011, a third cut from the album, "Dance", a collaboration with Natalia Kills, peaked at #62 on the UK Singles Chart. The music video was directed by James Sutton, and features a cameo by Natalia. In April 2011, will.i.am recorded four songs for the soundtrack of the animated film Rio, in which he voiced the character, Pedro the red-crested cardinal. "Hot Wings (I Wanna Party)", "Drop It Low", "Real In Rio" and "Advice For The Young At Heart", featuring an array of artists including Jamie Foxx, Anne Hathaway and Tears for Fears. None of the songs managed to chart, however, Will announced that he was going to remix the tracks for inclusion on Black Einstein. In September 2011, a fourth cut from the album, "Forever", a collaboration with Wolfgang Gartner, was released as a single. It was around this time that will.i.am announced that he changed the title of the album from Black Einstein to #willpower. The video premiered on August 26, 2011. In November 2011, Will premiered what is intended to be the album's official lead single, "T.H.E. (The Hardest Ever)", a collaboration with Jennifer Lopez and Mick Jagger. Will announced via his Twitter that the video for "T.H.E. (The Hardest Ever)" was filmed in LA, and that before he returned home, he stopped off in Brazil to film the video for the album's second official single, "Great Times". In December 2011, a fifth cut from the album, "Party Like An Animal", a collaboration with Dutch singer Eva Simons and LMFAO, premiered at the HTC Beats Launch party. Will.i.am also announced he has collaborations with Britney Spears, Alicia Keys, Busta Rhymes, Swizz Beatz and a couple others on the album. He also stated there is a possibility Shakira could feature on the album. #willpower is due for release in 2013, and will.i.am later confirmed that Cheryl and Justin Bieber would also appear on #willpower. In mid-October, Britney Spears confirmed on her Twitter account that she had filmed the music video for the single she was featuring in called "Scream & Shout".
He was among the performers at the Diamond Jubilee Concert held outside Buckingham Palace on June 4, 2012.
The first song broadcast from Mars was his new single, "Reach for the Stars". He discussed and listened to it with a live audience at NASA in Pasadena, California after it was returned from the Curiosity rover.
The song "Hall of Fame" by the Script also featured will.i.am. It debuted onto radio on July 23, 2012 and was released for digital download on August 21, 2012. He later featured in Priyanka Chopra's debut single "In My City". It was announced in October 2012 that will.i.am will feature on Kesha's second album Warrior on the track "Crazy Kids". He also co-wrote and co-produced the Dr Luke produced track.
In November 2012, will.i.am released the third single from #willpower which was "Scream & Shout" featuring Britney Spears. It debuted in the top 20 on the Billboard 100, eventually reaching a peak of number 3 and debuting at number 2 on the UK Singles Chart and reaching number one in January 2013 for two weeks. It went number one in many countries
During an interview with Capital FM, will.i.am confirmed he had collaborated with Justin Bieber for his next release "#thatPOWER" and premiered the single on the same day it was released onto iTunes in the US the same day and debuted on the Billboard 100 at number 42.
In April 2013, will.i.am and Chris Brown's track "Let's Go", also from the #willpower album, became the centre of a copyright controversy, with trance producers Arty and Mat Zo claiming that will.i.am used elements of their 2011 track "Rebound" in his song without permission from the artists or their label. This claim was later backed by Anjunabeats, the record label behind Arty and Mat Zo.
His fourth studio album, #willpower, was re-released in December 2013 featuring several new tracks, including the lead single "Feelin' Myself" featuring Miley Cyrus, French Montana, and Wiz Khalifa.
Britney Spears featured will.i.am on her song "It Should Be Easy" on her eighth studio album Britney Jean, for which he co-wrote and produced several tracks. He was also an executive producer of the project.
On April 4, 2014, will.i.am appeared on Alan Carr: Chatty Man, where he talked about plans to release his own Smartwatch. He revealed that it can be used as a phone, to store music, and use Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. He also showed a preview of a music video for a song called "It's My Birthday". On May 20, 2014, a 90-second snippet was uploaded to SoundCloud. It features American singer-songwriter Cody Wise, is produced by Will and Damien LeRoy and is written by himself, Cody Wise and Keith Harris. It was released on July 6, 2014.
In an interview with Capital FM, will.i.am confirmed that the Black Eyed Peas were getting back together. On April 7, 2016 will.i.am released the single "Boys & Girls" featuring Pia Mia. A week later on April 14, a new remix of "Mona Lisa Smile" featuring Nicole Scherzinger was released.
2017–present: Recent activities
In March 2020, will.i.am collaborated with a group of artists made up of Bono, Jennifer Hudson, and Yoshiki for the song "Sing For Life". The musicians felt motivated by the widespread sense of despair surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic and the attempts by multiple individuals to pursue creative endeavors while facing new social restrictions. The official YouTube description stated that the track aimed to spread "joy" during trying "times like these".
Other ventures
Acting
The Black Eyed Peas, including will.i.am, first started acting in the commercial series "Instant Def" to advertise Snickers. He starred in Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa as the voice of the character Moto Moto. He contributed a number of tracks to the movie's motion picture soundtrack in collaboration with industry heavyweight Hans Zimmer. Will.i.am played John Wraith in his major film debut, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, a prequel to the X-Men film series. He also guest-starred on the CBS drama Joan of Arcadia as God, one of several actors who played this role during the series. He also starred in the 2011 animated film Rio, and 2014's Rio 2, as a rapping red-crested cardinal named Pedro, and like Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, he contributed his singing voice to the film's soundtrack, along with his fellow co-stars. Will.i.am played a fathering role in The Urbz: Sims In The City, which uses the Black Eyed Peas' songs as its own soundtrack. He briefly played himself in the Tina Fey and Steve Carell comedy film Date Night. He appeared in the 2016 Grammy-nominated documentary film about American DJ and producer Steve Aoki, titled I'll Sleep When I'm Dead.
The Voice UK and Australia
will.i.am was confirmed as a coach on The Voice UK, of this he said, "I'm proud to be doing The Voice UK because the UK was the first place I saw success," he said. "It's the place I'm the most creative outside of home." Cohen added, "I am thrilled that will.i.am has signed up to be a coach on The Voice. He is a huge star who will bring a unique creativity to the show." Talking about the differences between the show and X Factor, "I won't be a judge on X Factor. The Voice is different. You can't even compare the two. One, you have people in the music industry, current and legends, coaching the next generation. The other format you have judges critiquing, giving their opinions on things when they don't really know, other than Randy Jackson on Idol".
In preparation for the role as a coach, he asked advice from friend and ex-The X Factor judge Cheryl Cole. Talking to Capital FM he said, "I reached out to Cheryl for advice on keeping your cool, having a poker face, the importance of sticking with the singers – it's their dream, a lot of the times when you have other performers a part of the show, celebrities tend to want the shine so they hog up time. So my whole thing was that I want to do The Voice, but I don't want to hog up time to where the singers up there are looking like, 'Is this about you guys?'. In March 2012, it was reported that he had turned his "plush" dressing room into a recording studio, and "instead of just listening with his headphones, he has installed some mega bass bins".
On November 26, 2013, will.i.am was announced as a coach for the 2014 series of the Australian version of The Voice along with fellow Voice UK judge Kylie Minogue. He was the winning coach having coached voice winner Anja Nissen in 2014. Neither will.i.am nor Minogue returned for the fourth series in 2015.
He has contributed to The Voice UK since 2012. He also serves as a coach on the UK version of The Voice Kids.
Fashion
Before joining the Black Eyed Peas, will.i.am attended the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising in Los Angeles. In 2001, he began designing his own signature clothing line, i.am, which made its official debut in 2005 at the Magic Apparel Trade Show in Las Vegas. In 2007, will.i.am teamed up with Blue Holdings to design a premium denim collection, i.am Antik, that was scheduled to debut in August 2007 at the Project Show in Las Vegas. will.i.am instead had new partners and was launching i.am. Will.i.am is currently being sued $2 million for abandoning the project for which, the label states, he was obligated until 2016, but will.i.am insists it is already over. He also launched his own glasses range.
Technology
Appearing at the kickoff event for the 2011 FIRST Robotics Competition, Logo Motion held at Southern New Hampshire University, will.i.am stated that he is "a big fan", and that the newly unveiled game was "dope". He also executive produced a TV Special - I.AM. FIRST: Science is Rock & Roll - about the 2011 FIRST World Championship at the Edward Jones Dome, St Louis. It was produced by Greg Sills and Paul Flattery, directed by Michael Dempsey. It was aired by ABC on August 14, 2011, at 7 p.m. As part of the special, will.i.am appeared with the Black Eyed Peas. Willow Smith also performed and will.i.am did a DJ set. He continues to support FIRST, and at the 2013 FIRST World Championship, will.i.am became the first recipient of the Make It Loud award, which is given to the person who has contributed the most in increasing the awareness of FIRST to the general public.
In January 2011, Intel named will.i.am as director of creative innovation, with input in developing smartphones, tablets and laptops.
In January 2012, he appeared on the BBC TV series Top Gear, as the Star in a Reasonably Priced Car, where he claimed he was starting his own car company called IAMAUTO.
By becoming the first artist to stream a song ("Reaching for the Stars") from the surface of Mars on August 28, 2012, will.i.am made inter-planetary music history. The event took place at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California.
Expanding his forays into iPhone accessory development, will.i.am announced plans to release a camera enhancer to "dramatically enhance the clarity and definition of iPhone photographs," by effectively making the 8-megapixel sensor into a 14-megapixel one. Termed the i.am+, the device was said to be the first in a series of "digital real estate" for the singer.
In April 2016, it was announced that i.am+ had acquired the Tel Aviv machine-learning technology start-up Sensiya.
3D Systems appointed will.i.am as its chief creative officer (CCO) on January 8, 2014.
Since retiring from music (a retirement that did not last), he has helped design smartwatches for German company Deutsche Telekom since late 2015.
In 2016, The Verge reported that will.i.am would join actress Gwyneth Paltrow and serial entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk on Apple TV's Planet of the Apps, calling the trio "successful" and "big names" with experience launching companies. The show received mixed to negative reviews.
On July 27, 2017, i.am+ acquired Wink, the Internet of Things and Smart Home hub platform, from owner Flextronics for a reported $38.7 million with an additional $20 million commitment, likely earmarked to sustain manufacturing of Wink's products. In late 2019, will.i.am's technology company, i.am+, was the subject of multiple tax liens, with the state of California alleging over $500,000 in delinquent taxes. The United States government also filed a lien against i.am+ in August 2019, alleging $1,787,726.11 in delinquent taxes and interest.
On November 15, 2017, the Institution of Engineering and Technology awarded will.i.am an honorary fellowship for his outstanding contribution to the profession of engineering.
In early 2018, will.i.am released his first book, WaR: Wizards and Robots (), a collaboration with Brian David Johnson.
Personal life
In December 2010, will.i.am said that he suffers from tinnitus, a disorder common among musicians who have been exposed to loud music for prolonged periods. In April 2013, he stated that he has ADHD. will.i.am follows a vegan diet.
As the nephew of former NFL player Lynn Cain, who played for the Atlanta Falcons and Los Angeles Rams, will.i.am spent a large part of his life looking up to his uncle as a role model.
On June 22, 2009, gossip blogger Perez Hilton accused will.i.am and his entourage of assaulting him in Toronto after the MuchMusic Video Awards, a charge will.i.am denied in a video posted on his blog. No further action was taken.
Discography
Studio albums
Lost Change (2001)
Must B 21 (2003)
Songs About Girls (2007)
#willpower (2013)
Filmography
Film
Television
Video games
Tours
The #Willpower Tour (2013–15)
The Vans Warped Tour (2009)
Awards and nominations
Daytime Emmy Awards
2008, New Approaches in Daytime Entertainment: "Yes We Can"
2011, Best Original Song: "What I Am"
Grammy Awards
|-
|rowspan=3|2004
|Elephunk
|Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical
|
|-
|rowspan=2|"Where Is the Love?" (ft. Justin Timberlake)
|Best Rap/Sung Collaboration
|
|-
|rowspan=2|Record of the Year
|
|-
|rowspan=4|2005
|rowspan=3|"Let's Get It Started"
|
|-
|Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group
|
|-
|rowspan=3|Best Rap Song
|
|-
|"Hey Mama"
|
|-
|rowspan=6|2006
|rowspan=2|"Don't Phunk with My Heart"
|
|-
|Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group
|
|-
|rowspan=2|"Ordinary People"
|Song of the Year
|
|-
|Best R&B Song
|
|-
|"Gone Going" (with Jack Johnson)
|Best Pop Collaboration with Vocal
|
|-
|"Don't Lie"
|rowspan=2|Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal
|
|-
|rowspan=4|2007
|"My Humps"
|
|-
|will.i.am
|Producer of the Year, Non-Classical
|
|-
|"Mas Que Nada"
|rowspan=3|Best Best Urban/Alternative Performance
|
|-
|"That Heat"
|
|-
|rowspan=3|2009
|"Be OK"
|
|-
|"American Boy"
|Song of the Year
|
|-
|will.i.am
|Producer of the Year, Non-Classical
|
|-
|rowspan=6|2010
|rowspan=2|The E.N.D.
|Album of the Year
|
|-
|Best Pop Vocal Album
|
|-
|rowspan=2|"I Gotta Feeling"
|Record of the Year
|
|-
|Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals
|
|-
|rowspan=2|"Boom Boom Pow"
|Best Dance Recording
|
|-
|Best Short Form Music Video
|
|}
Latin Grammy Awards
2006, Best Brazilian Contemporary Pop Album: "Timeless", Sérgio Mendes (producer)
Television Rack Awards
2012, will.i.am. has won ten Television Rack Awards altogether (five with the Black Eyed Peas and five as a solo artist).
The National Television Awards
|-
|2018 || The Voice UK || TV Judge ||
|}
Mirchi Music Awards
2012, Indie Pop Song of the Year - "In My City" (Nominated)
Honorary fellowship
In 2017, will.i.am was awarded an honorary fellowship by the Institution of Engineering and Technology in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the engineering and technology profession.
Notes
References
External links
– official site
Will.i.am at Beatbuggy
1975 births
Living people
20th-century American rappers
21st-century American male actors
21st-century American singers
African-American male actors
African-American male rappers
African-American male singers
African-American male singer-songwriters
African-American record producers
American contemporary R&B singers
American expatriates in Australia
American expatriates in the United Kingdom
American hip hop record producers
American hip hop singers
American male film actors
American male pop singers
American male rappers
American male singers
American male television actors
American male voice actors
American rappers of Jamaican descent
Atlantic Records artists
Black Eyed Peas members
Barely Breaking Even artists
Daytime Emmy Award winners
Domain hacks
Grammy Award winners for rap music
Interscope Records artists
Latin Grammy Award winners
Male actors from California
Male actors from Los Angeles
Participants in British reality television series
People from Boyle Heights, Los Angeles
Pop rappers
Rappers from Los Angeles
Record producers from California
Recipients of the Presidential Medal of Merit (Philippines)
Ruthless Records artists
Singers from Los Angeles
Singer-songwriters from California | false | [
"Sigmar Vilhjálmsson (born January 3, 1977, in Egilsstaðir, Iceland), nicknamed Simmi, is an Icelandic TV host. He is the son of Vilhjálmur Einarsson, silver medallist of the 1956 Summer Olympics in triple jump.\n\nSigmar is one of two hosts in the Idol Stjörnuleit TV program on the Stöð 2 station in Iceland. At an early age he started a radio morning show that became one of the most popular morning shows on the air and from there he started a TV show, 70 minutes, which was modelled on the Radio Show and is still running.\n\nExternal links\nhttps://web.archive.org/web/20051120062343/http://idol.visir.is/?PageID=68\n\n1977 births\nSigmar Vilhjalmsson\nLiving people",
"Martin Bate has been a DJ on UK radio station Xfm since January 2008. He has his own show called \"The XFM Rock Show\". He also worked on another show called \"Music: Response\" on Xfm Scotland until the station became Galaxy Scotland in November 2008.\n\nOn 22 June 2008 The XFM Rock Show split in half down the UK, with Martin Bate continuing to host the show in Scotland and \"Katie P\", or Katie Parsons, previously of Kerrang!, hosting the London and Manchester show.\n\nIt is now no longer clear whether Martin is still working at Xfm as Xfm Scotland became Galaxy Scotland on 7 November 2008 and only the London version (Xfm London) can be heard in Scotland through a DAB Digital Radio or Digital TV. However some of his web pages are still on the Xfm website.\n\nExternal links\nMartin's Rock Show Area, Xfm Scotland web site\n\nBritish radio DJs\nYear of birth missing (living people)\nLiving people"
] |
[
"Will.i.am",
"The Voice UK and Australia",
"When did he join The Voice UK?",
"On October 25, 2011, it was reported that will.i.am would be joining The Voice UK as a coach.",
"Is he still on the show?",
"As well as returning for the sixth series of The Voice UK, which is now on ITV from 2017,"
] | C_a63a5a015ec548899d64a3bbd13a0953_0 | What did he do in Australia? | 3 | What did Will.i.am do in Australia? | Will.i.am | On October 25, 2011, it was reported that will.i.am would be joining The Voice UK as a coach. A source said, "Will is 95 per cent a done deal. He is a big star and loves nurturing new talent. He shoots from the lip, and will not be afraid to tell it like it is. Although, I doubt The Voice will be as bitchy as The X Factor". will.i.am was later confirmed as a coach on The Voice UK, of this he said, "I'm proud to be doing The Voice UK because the UK was the first place I saw success," he said. "It's the place I'm the most creative outside of home." Cohen added, "I am thrilled that will.i.am has signed up to be a coach on The Voice. He is a huge star who will bring a unique creativity to the show." Talking about the differences between the show and X Factor, "I won't be a judge on X Factor. The Voice is different. You can't even compare the two. One, you have people in the music industry, current and legends, coaching the next generation. The other format you have judges critiquing, giving their opinions on things when they don't really know, other than Randy Jackson on Idol". In preparation for the role as a coach, he asked advice from friend and ex-The X Factor judge Cheryl Cole. Talking to Capital FM he said, "I reached out to Cheryl for advice on keeping your cool, having a poker face, the importance of sticking with the singers - it's their dream, a lot of the times when you have other performers a part of the show, celebrities tend to want the shine so they hog up time. So my whole thing was that I want to do The Voice, but I don't want to hog up time to where the singers up there are looking like, 'Is this about you guys?'. In March 2012, it was reported that he had turned his "plush" dressing room into a recording studio, and "instead of just listening with his headphones, he has installed some mega bass bins". On November 26, 2013, will.i.am was announced as a coach for the 2014 series of the Australian version of The Voice along with fellow Voice UK judge Kylie Minogue. Neither will.i.am nor Minogue returned for series 4 in 2015. He has contributed to The Voice UK since 2012. As well as returning for the sixth series of The Voice UK, which is now on ITV from 2017, he will also be a coach on the first series of the UK Version of The Voice Kids. CANNOTANSWER | On November 26, 2013, will.i.am was announced as a coach for the 2014 series of the Australian version of The Voice | William James Adams Jr. (born March 15, 1975), known professionally as will.i.am (pronounced "Will-I-am"), is an American rapper and record producer. He is the founding and lead member of the musical group Black Eyed Peas.
As a solo artist, will.i.am has released four albums, beginning with Lost Change (2001), through Atlantic Records. His second solo outing, Must B 21, was released on September 23, 2003. The track "Go!" was regularly used as the theme for the NBA Live 2005 and Madden NFL 2005 seasons. The third album, Songs About Girls, was released on September 25, 2007. He released his fourth studio album, #willpower, in 2013.
As a music producer, will.i.am has worked for other artists including A.R. Rahman, Cheryl, Michael Jackson, Justin Bieber, Kesha, Britney Spears, Miley Cyrus, David Guetta, U2, Rihanna, Lady Gaga, Usher, Justin Timberlake, Nicki Minaj, 2NE1, and Baby Kaely. In collaborations and with the Black Eyed Peas, he has a total of 41 top-40 entries on the UK Singles Chart since 1998, and has sold 9.4 million singles in the UK.
In addition to his music career, will.i.am has also been a judge and mentor on the television talent show series The Voice UK (2012–present), The Voice Australia (2014), and The Voice Kids (2017–present).
Early life
William James Adams Jr. was born in Los Angeles, California, and was raised in the Estrada Courts housing projects in the Boyle Heights neighborhood, where he and his family were among the few African Americans living in a predominantly Hispanic community. Adams’ great-great-grandmother was an enslaved person. Adams has never met his father, William Adams Sr. He was raised by his mother, Debra (née Cain), who encouraged him to be unique and to avoid conforming to the tendencies of the other youths in the east Los Angeles neighborhood. To encourage his musical career, she sent him to public schools in affluent West Los Angeles. He rode on a bus for an hour to attend Paul Revere Charter Middle School. Later, during the regular school year, he attended Palisades Charter High School. During that time, he started going to raves with classmate Pasquale Rotella. While studying at summer school at John Marshall High School, he became best friends with Allan Pineda (stage name apl.de.ap), who would also be a future member of the Black Eyed Peas. While still in high school, Adams and Pineda performed in East L.A. clubs and were soon joined by three other entertainers to form the socially conscious rap group, Atban Klann. Atban Klann caught the eye of Compton rapper Eazy-E and was signed to his label, Ruthless Records in 1992.
He later said his history with rave culture is why he chose a more electro sound for the Black Eyed Peas' albums The E.N.D. and The Beginning. Despite the use of electro and house music elements, will.i.am prefers to separate the underground from pop. In an article with Los Angeles Times, he mentions that secrecy over the whereabouts of raves is what made raving special, and different from the mainstream.
Music career
1988–2000: Formations and the Black Eyed Peas
In the summer of 1988 will.i.am began his music career when, as an eighth-grader, he met up with fellow rapper Allan Pineda (apl.de.ap) and fellow student Dante Santiago. They began performing together around Los Angeles and were soon discovered by rapper/entrepreneur Eazy-E, who signed them to his label Ruthless Records in 1992. At the time, Will was known as "Will 1X". Atban Klann's first ever official track, "Merry Muthafuckin' Xmas", was included on Eazy-E's EP 5150: Home 4 tha Sick. After this, the trio began recording an album, "Grass Roots", with the help of producers Mookie Mook and DJ Motiv8, but the album was never released due to Eazy-E's tragic death in 1995. Subsequently, they changed their name to Black Eyed Pods, and Will replaced Dante with Jaime Gomez, better known under his stage name of Taboo. In 1997, they once again changed their name, this time to the Black Eyed Peas, and began recording their first album, Behind the Front, with the help of soul singer Kim Hill. They were soon signed to Interscope Records, and released their debut single, "Joints & Jam", in early 1998. The album was successful enough for the group's contract to be renewed, and in 2000, a second album, Bridging the Gap, was released.
2000–2003: Lost Change, Elephunk and Must B 21
Following the release of Bridging the Gap, Will began recording his first solo release, Lost Change, which was the official soundtrack to the film of the same name. Featuring collaborations with Medusa, Planet Asia and Terry Dexter, the album was a critical success.
In November 2001, work began on a third Black Eyed Peas album, Elephunk. Development of the album began on November 2, 2001 and was released just under two years later in 2003. At the time of development, only will.i.am, apl.de.ap and Taboo were to feature on the album. During the production of "Shut Up" (the second single released from the album), they realized that a female vocal would work well with the song. Originally, Nicole Scherzinger (lead singer of the Pussycat Dolls) was approached to make a guest appearance on the record. She was forced to decline because she already was signed to a contract with Eden's Crush. Danté Santiago then introduced Fergie to will.i.am, whom she impressed with her vocal talents. She immediately bonded with the band and became a permanent member of the Peas, and her photo was printed onto the album cover. Lyricist Robbie Fisher, who has been working closely with the band since the beginning stages of the album, composed nine out of the fourteen tracks. In the United States, Elephunk reached number 14 on the Billboard Top 200 and is their first album to chart in the top 15. It gained even more commercial success internationally, particularly in the UK Album Charts where it reached number 3. It has sold over 1.6 million copies in the UK and 8.5 million copies worldwide. The singles "Where Is the Love?" and "Shut Up" reached number 1. "Hey Mama" has been used for several advertisements including advertisements for Apple and iTunes. "Let's Get It Started" also received universal acclaim in the media section where a cover version of the song appears in the film Hot Tub Time Machine. After the success of Elephunk, the Peas were approached by EA games to feature some of their music on the 2004 game The Urbz. They remixed some of the tracks on Elephunk and translated it into Simlish and created new tracks for the game. They also feature in the game as playable characters.
The group released their breakthrough single, "Where Is the Love?", in November 2002 (featuring Justin Timberlake, although he did not appear in the video). On the strength of that single and follow-up singles like "Shut Up", Elephunk went on to sell 8.5 million copies worldwide. During this time, Will recorded a second solo album, Must B 21. In 2002, Will recorded the song "Secrets" for the soundtrack to Dexter's Laboratory: The Hip-Hop Experiment, a musical accompaniment to the Cartoon Network original series. Prior to this, he had also composed the theme music for another Genndy Tartakovsky series, Samurai Jack.
2003–2006: Monkey Business
In November 2003, work began on a fourth Black Eyed Peas album, entitled Monkey Business, the second album with new band member Fergie. Upon the success of Monkey Business, which was released in 2005, the album was certified three times Platinum by the RIAA in the U.S. and has sold over 10 million copies worldwide. The Canadian Recording Industry Association (or CRIA) has certified Monkey Business 6x Platinum, with sales of over 600,000 copies. The Australian Recording Industry Association (or ARIA) has also certified Monkey Business 6x Platinum, denoting sales of over 420,000 copies. The album's tracks earned the group four 2006 Grammy Award nominations and they also won the Grammy for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group for "Don't Phunk with My Heart". According to IFPI, over 2 million copies have been sold in Europe. In the UK alone, it has sold over 1 million copies, although this is significantly lower than their sales of Elephunk, which stand at over 1.6 million copies and 10 million worldwide.
The band announced they were going to take a break to focus on their own personal projects. Will went on to produce Fergie's first solo album, The Dutchess, which was released in 2006, before beginning work with Michael Jackson, who had requested Will's expertise for the recording and production of his new album. Work began on the Jackson album in 2006, and continued until the singer's death in 2009, at which point will.i.am revealed that none of the material recorded during the period would be released. However, remixes recorded for Jackson's Thriller 25 anniversary album were released in 2008.
2007–2009: Songs About Girls and Change Is Now
In 2007, will.i.am announced that he had co-created an all-female soul band entitled the Paradiso Girls, who he intended to work with on an upcoming solo project. The album, Songs About Girls, was released in 2007. The album spawned three singles, "I Got It From My Mama", "One More Chance" and "Heartbreaker", and fared slightly better than his previous solo efforts, however, failed to shift more than 75,000 copies. Will also did a remix to the song "With Love" by actress and singer Hilary Duff.
In 2008, will.i.am contributed the song "One Tribe" to the Survival International charity album, Songs for Survival. Also in 2008, he was featured on rapper Flo Rida's debut album, Mail on Sunday, where he produced and featured on the song "In the Ayer", and featured on Usher's fifth album, Here I Stand. In January 2008, will.i.am announced plans that he was masterminding a political album, Change is Now: Renewing America's Promise, in support of Barack Obama's presidential campaign. The first single, "Yes We Can", featured a music video directed by Jesse Dylan. The lyrics of the song are composed almost entirely of excerpts from Obama's speech on January 8, 2008, following the New Hampshire presidential primary election. The video features appearances from numerous celebrities and first appeared on the website for Dipdive. The video racked up three million views within a week and over four million subsequently on YouTube. On June 13, 2008, "Yes We Can" won an award at the 35th Annual Creative Arts and Entertainment Daytime Emmy Awards for "New Approaches in Daytime Entertainment". On February 29, 2008, the album's second single, "We Are the Ones", was released on Dipdive and YouTube. The video features several celebrities chanting "O-BA-MA" as a portrayal as their hopes and wishes for Obama and his presidential campaign. On November 4, 2008, will.i.am spoke to CNN's Anderson Cooper about his support for then-Senator Obama using CNN's 'hologram' technology (actually tomography). Following the 2008 election, and Obama's victory, Will released the album's third single, "It's a New Day". The video reflects on the historical events that led to the election of the first African-American president and the public's reaction to his election. The video debuted on The Oprah Winfrey Show. In honor of the inauguration of Barack Obama as president, will.i.am collaborated with producer David Foster on the album's fourth single, "America's Song", with contributing vocals from Seal, Bono, Mary J. Blige, and Faith Hill. In response to Obama's reaction following Kanye West's interruption of Taylor Swift at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, will.i.am penned the album's fifth and final single, "The Jackass Song". It featured a sample of Kanye West's "Heartless". Will wrote a blog post, which featured the song on Dipdive, and released in February 2009. will.i.am attended and spoke at the FIRST Robotics Competition kickoff on January 8, 2011, declaring, "I am a FIRST fan." He has also named FIRST Founder Dean Kamen "one of [his] heroes" on his verified Twitter account.
2009–2016: Black Eyed Peas reformation, The E.N.D, The Beginning, and #willpower
In March 2009, will.i.am announced plans for the Black Eyed Peas to return, and within months their comeback single, "Boom Boom Pow", had reached number 1 on the UK Singles Chart and Billboard Hot 100. They went on to have three number 1 singles before releasing their comeback album, The E.N.D. The album's success warranted a second comeback album, The Beginning, released in November 2010. The album spawned another three hit singles, but the band soon announced plans they were to break again, following the conclusion of their world tour. In 2009, will.i.am worked with rappers Flo Rida and Akon for Flo's second studio album, R.O.O.T.S., and recorded four tracks with Girls Aloud member Cheryl for her debut solo album 3 Words. He also worked with Rihanna on her fourth studio album, Rated R, for a track called "Photographs". In February 2010, he wrote and produced the single "OMG" by Usher, which appeared on Usher's seventh studio album, Raymond vs. Raymond. In a YouTube video posted by YGLifeOfficial on March 15, 2010, will.i.am expressed his desire to work with Korean K-pop girl group 2NE1, and help them achieve international success. Will has recorded a collaboration with Britney Spears, "Big Fat Bass", which features on her seventh studio album, Femme Fatale.
During the recording of the Black Eyed Peas' sixth studio album, The Beginning, band colleague Fergie announced in an interview that will.i.am was in the process of recording a new solo album, tentatively entitled Black Einstein. will.i.am formally announced that he was in the process of recording a fourth solo album, with some material being recorded under the pseudonym Zuper Blahq. In January 2010, a cut from the album, "I'm In the House", a collaboration with Steve Aoki, was released as a single, charting at #29 on the UK Singles Chart due to strong downloads. In October 2010, a second cut from the album, "Check It Out", a collaboration with Trinidadian rapper Nicki Minaj, peaked at #4 on the UK Singles Chart. In February 2011, a third cut from the album, "Dance", a collaboration with Natalia Kills, peaked at #62 on the UK Singles Chart. The music video was directed by James Sutton, and features a cameo by Natalia. In April 2011, will.i.am recorded four songs for the soundtrack of the animated film Rio, in which he voiced the character, Pedro the red-crested cardinal. "Hot Wings (I Wanna Party)", "Drop It Low", "Real In Rio" and "Advice For The Young At Heart", featuring an array of artists including Jamie Foxx, Anne Hathaway and Tears for Fears. None of the songs managed to chart, however, Will announced that he was going to remix the tracks for inclusion on Black Einstein. In September 2011, a fourth cut from the album, "Forever", a collaboration with Wolfgang Gartner, was released as a single. It was around this time that will.i.am announced that he changed the title of the album from Black Einstein to #willpower. The video premiered on August 26, 2011. In November 2011, Will premiered what is intended to be the album's official lead single, "T.H.E. (The Hardest Ever)", a collaboration with Jennifer Lopez and Mick Jagger. Will announced via his Twitter that the video for "T.H.E. (The Hardest Ever)" was filmed in LA, and that before he returned home, he stopped off in Brazil to film the video for the album's second official single, "Great Times". In December 2011, a fifth cut from the album, "Party Like An Animal", a collaboration with Dutch singer Eva Simons and LMFAO, premiered at the HTC Beats Launch party. Will.i.am also announced he has collaborations with Britney Spears, Alicia Keys, Busta Rhymes, Swizz Beatz and a couple others on the album. He also stated there is a possibility Shakira could feature on the album. #willpower is due for release in 2013, and will.i.am later confirmed that Cheryl and Justin Bieber would also appear on #willpower. In mid-October, Britney Spears confirmed on her Twitter account that she had filmed the music video for the single she was featuring in called "Scream & Shout".
He was among the performers at the Diamond Jubilee Concert held outside Buckingham Palace on June 4, 2012.
The first song broadcast from Mars was his new single, "Reach for the Stars". He discussed and listened to it with a live audience at NASA in Pasadena, California after it was returned from the Curiosity rover.
The song "Hall of Fame" by the Script also featured will.i.am. It debuted onto radio on July 23, 2012 and was released for digital download on August 21, 2012. He later featured in Priyanka Chopra's debut single "In My City". It was announced in October 2012 that will.i.am will feature on Kesha's second album Warrior on the track "Crazy Kids". He also co-wrote and co-produced the Dr Luke produced track.
In November 2012, will.i.am released the third single from #willpower which was "Scream & Shout" featuring Britney Spears. It debuted in the top 20 on the Billboard 100, eventually reaching a peak of number 3 and debuting at number 2 on the UK Singles Chart and reaching number one in January 2013 for two weeks. It went number one in many countries
During an interview with Capital FM, will.i.am confirmed he had collaborated with Justin Bieber for his next release "#thatPOWER" and premiered the single on the same day it was released onto iTunes in the US the same day and debuted on the Billboard 100 at number 42.
In April 2013, will.i.am and Chris Brown's track "Let's Go", also from the #willpower album, became the centre of a copyright controversy, with trance producers Arty and Mat Zo claiming that will.i.am used elements of their 2011 track "Rebound" in his song without permission from the artists or their label. This claim was later backed by Anjunabeats, the record label behind Arty and Mat Zo.
His fourth studio album, #willpower, was re-released in December 2013 featuring several new tracks, including the lead single "Feelin' Myself" featuring Miley Cyrus, French Montana, and Wiz Khalifa.
Britney Spears featured will.i.am on her song "It Should Be Easy" on her eighth studio album Britney Jean, for which he co-wrote and produced several tracks. He was also an executive producer of the project.
On April 4, 2014, will.i.am appeared on Alan Carr: Chatty Man, where he talked about plans to release his own Smartwatch. He revealed that it can be used as a phone, to store music, and use Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. He also showed a preview of a music video for a song called "It's My Birthday". On May 20, 2014, a 90-second snippet was uploaded to SoundCloud. It features American singer-songwriter Cody Wise, is produced by Will and Damien LeRoy and is written by himself, Cody Wise and Keith Harris. It was released on July 6, 2014.
In an interview with Capital FM, will.i.am confirmed that the Black Eyed Peas were getting back together. On April 7, 2016 will.i.am released the single "Boys & Girls" featuring Pia Mia. A week later on April 14, a new remix of "Mona Lisa Smile" featuring Nicole Scherzinger was released.
2017–present: Recent activities
In March 2020, will.i.am collaborated with a group of artists made up of Bono, Jennifer Hudson, and Yoshiki for the song "Sing For Life". The musicians felt motivated by the widespread sense of despair surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic and the attempts by multiple individuals to pursue creative endeavors while facing new social restrictions. The official YouTube description stated that the track aimed to spread "joy" during trying "times like these".
Other ventures
Acting
The Black Eyed Peas, including will.i.am, first started acting in the commercial series "Instant Def" to advertise Snickers. He starred in Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa as the voice of the character Moto Moto. He contributed a number of tracks to the movie's motion picture soundtrack in collaboration with industry heavyweight Hans Zimmer. Will.i.am played John Wraith in his major film debut, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, a prequel to the X-Men film series. He also guest-starred on the CBS drama Joan of Arcadia as God, one of several actors who played this role during the series. He also starred in the 2011 animated film Rio, and 2014's Rio 2, as a rapping red-crested cardinal named Pedro, and like Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, he contributed his singing voice to the film's soundtrack, along with his fellow co-stars. Will.i.am played a fathering role in The Urbz: Sims In The City, which uses the Black Eyed Peas' songs as its own soundtrack. He briefly played himself in the Tina Fey and Steve Carell comedy film Date Night. He appeared in the 2016 Grammy-nominated documentary film about American DJ and producer Steve Aoki, titled I'll Sleep When I'm Dead.
The Voice UK and Australia
will.i.am was confirmed as a coach on The Voice UK, of this he said, "I'm proud to be doing The Voice UK because the UK was the first place I saw success," he said. "It's the place I'm the most creative outside of home." Cohen added, "I am thrilled that will.i.am has signed up to be a coach on The Voice. He is a huge star who will bring a unique creativity to the show." Talking about the differences between the show and X Factor, "I won't be a judge on X Factor. The Voice is different. You can't even compare the two. One, you have people in the music industry, current and legends, coaching the next generation. The other format you have judges critiquing, giving their opinions on things when they don't really know, other than Randy Jackson on Idol".
In preparation for the role as a coach, he asked advice from friend and ex-The X Factor judge Cheryl Cole. Talking to Capital FM he said, "I reached out to Cheryl for advice on keeping your cool, having a poker face, the importance of sticking with the singers – it's their dream, a lot of the times when you have other performers a part of the show, celebrities tend to want the shine so they hog up time. So my whole thing was that I want to do The Voice, but I don't want to hog up time to where the singers up there are looking like, 'Is this about you guys?'. In March 2012, it was reported that he had turned his "plush" dressing room into a recording studio, and "instead of just listening with his headphones, he has installed some mega bass bins".
On November 26, 2013, will.i.am was announced as a coach for the 2014 series of the Australian version of The Voice along with fellow Voice UK judge Kylie Minogue. He was the winning coach having coached voice winner Anja Nissen in 2014. Neither will.i.am nor Minogue returned for the fourth series in 2015.
He has contributed to The Voice UK since 2012. He also serves as a coach on the UK version of The Voice Kids.
Fashion
Before joining the Black Eyed Peas, will.i.am attended the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising in Los Angeles. In 2001, he began designing his own signature clothing line, i.am, which made its official debut in 2005 at the Magic Apparel Trade Show in Las Vegas. In 2007, will.i.am teamed up with Blue Holdings to design a premium denim collection, i.am Antik, that was scheduled to debut in August 2007 at the Project Show in Las Vegas. will.i.am instead had new partners and was launching i.am. Will.i.am is currently being sued $2 million for abandoning the project for which, the label states, he was obligated until 2016, but will.i.am insists it is already over. He also launched his own glasses range.
Technology
Appearing at the kickoff event for the 2011 FIRST Robotics Competition, Logo Motion held at Southern New Hampshire University, will.i.am stated that he is "a big fan", and that the newly unveiled game was "dope". He also executive produced a TV Special - I.AM. FIRST: Science is Rock & Roll - about the 2011 FIRST World Championship at the Edward Jones Dome, St Louis. It was produced by Greg Sills and Paul Flattery, directed by Michael Dempsey. It was aired by ABC on August 14, 2011, at 7 p.m. As part of the special, will.i.am appeared with the Black Eyed Peas. Willow Smith also performed and will.i.am did a DJ set. He continues to support FIRST, and at the 2013 FIRST World Championship, will.i.am became the first recipient of the Make It Loud award, which is given to the person who has contributed the most in increasing the awareness of FIRST to the general public.
In January 2011, Intel named will.i.am as director of creative innovation, with input in developing smartphones, tablets and laptops.
In January 2012, he appeared on the BBC TV series Top Gear, as the Star in a Reasonably Priced Car, where he claimed he was starting his own car company called IAMAUTO.
By becoming the first artist to stream a song ("Reaching for the Stars") from the surface of Mars on August 28, 2012, will.i.am made inter-planetary music history. The event took place at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California.
Expanding his forays into iPhone accessory development, will.i.am announced plans to release a camera enhancer to "dramatically enhance the clarity and definition of iPhone photographs," by effectively making the 8-megapixel sensor into a 14-megapixel one. Termed the i.am+, the device was said to be the first in a series of "digital real estate" for the singer.
In April 2016, it was announced that i.am+ had acquired the Tel Aviv machine-learning technology start-up Sensiya.
3D Systems appointed will.i.am as its chief creative officer (CCO) on January 8, 2014.
Since retiring from music (a retirement that did not last), he has helped design smartwatches for German company Deutsche Telekom since late 2015.
In 2016, The Verge reported that will.i.am would join actress Gwyneth Paltrow and serial entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk on Apple TV's Planet of the Apps, calling the trio "successful" and "big names" with experience launching companies. The show received mixed to negative reviews.
On July 27, 2017, i.am+ acquired Wink, the Internet of Things and Smart Home hub platform, from owner Flextronics for a reported $38.7 million with an additional $20 million commitment, likely earmarked to sustain manufacturing of Wink's products. In late 2019, will.i.am's technology company, i.am+, was the subject of multiple tax liens, with the state of California alleging over $500,000 in delinquent taxes. The United States government also filed a lien against i.am+ in August 2019, alleging $1,787,726.11 in delinquent taxes and interest.
On November 15, 2017, the Institution of Engineering and Technology awarded will.i.am an honorary fellowship for his outstanding contribution to the profession of engineering.
In early 2018, will.i.am released his first book, WaR: Wizards and Robots (), a collaboration with Brian David Johnson.
Personal life
In December 2010, will.i.am said that he suffers from tinnitus, a disorder common among musicians who have been exposed to loud music for prolonged periods. In April 2013, he stated that he has ADHD. will.i.am follows a vegan diet.
As the nephew of former NFL player Lynn Cain, who played for the Atlanta Falcons and Los Angeles Rams, will.i.am spent a large part of his life looking up to his uncle as a role model.
On June 22, 2009, gossip blogger Perez Hilton accused will.i.am and his entourage of assaulting him in Toronto after the MuchMusic Video Awards, a charge will.i.am denied in a video posted on his blog. No further action was taken.
Discography
Studio albums
Lost Change (2001)
Must B 21 (2003)
Songs About Girls (2007)
#willpower (2013)
Filmography
Film
Television
Video games
Tours
The #Willpower Tour (2013–15)
The Vans Warped Tour (2009)
Awards and nominations
Daytime Emmy Awards
2008, New Approaches in Daytime Entertainment: "Yes We Can"
2011, Best Original Song: "What I Am"
Grammy Awards
|-
|rowspan=3|2004
|Elephunk
|Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical
|
|-
|rowspan=2|"Where Is the Love?" (ft. Justin Timberlake)
|Best Rap/Sung Collaboration
|
|-
|rowspan=2|Record of the Year
|
|-
|rowspan=4|2005
|rowspan=3|"Let's Get It Started"
|
|-
|Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group
|
|-
|rowspan=3|Best Rap Song
|
|-
|"Hey Mama"
|
|-
|rowspan=6|2006
|rowspan=2|"Don't Phunk with My Heart"
|
|-
|Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group
|
|-
|rowspan=2|"Ordinary People"
|Song of the Year
|
|-
|Best R&B Song
|
|-
|"Gone Going" (with Jack Johnson)
|Best Pop Collaboration with Vocal
|
|-
|"Don't Lie"
|rowspan=2|Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal
|
|-
|rowspan=4|2007
|"My Humps"
|
|-
|will.i.am
|Producer of the Year, Non-Classical
|
|-
|"Mas Que Nada"
|rowspan=3|Best Best Urban/Alternative Performance
|
|-
|"That Heat"
|
|-
|rowspan=3|2009
|"Be OK"
|
|-
|"American Boy"
|Song of the Year
|
|-
|will.i.am
|Producer of the Year, Non-Classical
|
|-
|rowspan=6|2010
|rowspan=2|The E.N.D.
|Album of the Year
|
|-
|Best Pop Vocal Album
|
|-
|rowspan=2|"I Gotta Feeling"
|Record of the Year
|
|-
|Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals
|
|-
|rowspan=2|"Boom Boom Pow"
|Best Dance Recording
|
|-
|Best Short Form Music Video
|
|}
Latin Grammy Awards
2006, Best Brazilian Contemporary Pop Album: "Timeless", Sérgio Mendes (producer)
Television Rack Awards
2012, will.i.am. has won ten Television Rack Awards altogether (five with the Black Eyed Peas and five as a solo artist).
The National Television Awards
|-
|2018 || The Voice UK || TV Judge ||
|}
Mirchi Music Awards
2012, Indie Pop Song of the Year - "In My City" (Nominated)
Honorary fellowship
In 2017, will.i.am was awarded an honorary fellowship by the Institution of Engineering and Technology in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the engineering and technology profession.
Notes
References
External links
– official site
Will.i.am at Beatbuggy
1975 births
Living people
20th-century American rappers
21st-century American male actors
21st-century American singers
African-American male actors
African-American male rappers
African-American male singers
African-American male singer-songwriters
African-American record producers
American contemporary R&B singers
American expatriates in Australia
American expatriates in the United Kingdom
American hip hop record producers
American hip hop singers
American male film actors
American male pop singers
American male rappers
American male singers
American male television actors
American male voice actors
American rappers of Jamaican descent
Atlantic Records artists
Black Eyed Peas members
Barely Breaking Even artists
Daytime Emmy Award winners
Domain hacks
Grammy Award winners for rap music
Interscope Records artists
Latin Grammy Award winners
Male actors from California
Male actors from Los Angeles
Participants in British reality television series
People from Boyle Heights, Los Angeles
Pop rappers
Rappers from Los Angeles
Record producers from California
Recipients of the Presidential Medal of Merit (Philippines)
Ruthless Records artists
Singers from Los Angeles
Singer-songwriters from California | true | [
"Colin Edward Hickey (3 July 1931 – 13 January 1999) was an Australian speed skater. He represented Australia at the 1952, 1956 and 1960 Winter Olympics. His seventh place in the 1956 Winter Olympics was Australia's best result until 1976.\n\nHe was born in Fairfield, Victoria.\n\nHickey became a \"rink rat\" when his father took him to the Glaciarium in Melbourne. \"I felt an affinity with it\" he recalled, saying \"To do it well is to feel like a bird flying.\" He earned the money to buy skates from selling newspapers. To get to the Glacarium from his place in Fairfield, he had to walk, take a bus and then a train. He tried ice hockey, but because of his small frame (he grew up to be 162 centimetres and weigh 56 kilograms), he was overlooked, and took up speed skating.\n\nHe took a ship to Europe to reach the speed skating hub of Norway. He worked as a lumberjack, and learned to speak the local language. \"We did it hard, lived maybe two weeks at a time on just museli. It was difficult, but I had some of the best times of my life then. What was good was that they [the Australian authorities] had no control over me. We just did it all by the seat of our pants. All they'd do was tell me what times I had to do to qualify for selection, and it would be up to me.\" He found changing from indoor skating in Australia to skating outside in Norway a major change \"It was like going from ping-pong to lawn tennis, from dirt-track to Grand Prix ... the outdoor was so much more demanding, in terms of strength and technique.\"\n\nHe said that conditions for Australian Winter Olympians used to be basic:\n\nWe didn't get a uniform. I never had an Australian blazer once in three Olympics. In 1952, because King George had died, they issued us with a black armband and tie for the opening ceremony. Nothing else. You wore it with whatever you had. I had a green sweater and ski slacks. In 1956 I was issued with no gear at all, even though I was the best-performed member of the team by about a hundred per cent. I couldn't march without any kind of uniform, so I stayed in the hotel. In 1960 they gave us a duffle coat and a sweater and that covered everything you had. That was it. You had to look after yourself.\n\nTalking in 1993 about Sonnpark, a joint Australian-Austrian facility for winter and summer sports, he said \"Yeah. It's great ... I reckon it would have made life a bit easier in the old days. With that sort of back-up, we'd have given them [the Europeans] a run for their money.\"\n\nSee also\n\n Australia at the 1952 Winter Olympics\n Australia at the 1956 Winter Olympics\n Australia at the 1960 Winter Olympics\n\nReferences\n \"Australia and the Olympic Games\" by Harry Gordon. \n profile\n\n1931 births\n1999 deaths\nAustralian male speed skaters\nOlympic speed skaters of Australia\nSpeed skaters at the 1952 Winter Olympics\nSpeed skaters at the 1956 Winter Olympics\nSpeed skaters at the 1960 Winter Olympics",
"\"What Did I Do to You?\" is a song recorded by British singer Lisa Stansfield for her 1989 album, Affection. It was written by Stansfield, Ian Devaney and Andy Morris, and produced by Devaney and Morris. The song was released as the fourth European single on 30 April 1990. It included three previously unreleased songs written by Stansfield, Devaney and Morris: \"My Apple Heart,\" \"Lay Me Down\" and \"Something's Happenin'.\" \"What Did I Do to You?\" was remixed by Mark Saunders and by the Grammy Award-winning American house music DJ and producer, David Morales. The single became a top forty hit in the European countries reaching number eighteen in Finland, number twenty in Ireland and number twenty-five in the United Kingdom. \"What Did I Do to You?\" was also released in Japan.\n\nIn 2014, the remixes of \"What Did I Do to You?\" were included on the deluxe 2CD + DVD re-release of Affection and on People Hold On ... The Remix Anthology. They were also featured on The Collection 1989–2003 box set (2014), including previously unreleased Red Zone Mix by David Morales.\n\nCritical reception\nThe song received positive reviews from music critics. Matthew Hocter from Albumism viewed it as a \"upbeat offering\". David Giles from Music Week said it is \"beautifully performed\" by Stansfield. A reviewer from Reading Eagle wrote that \"What Did I Do to You?\" \"would be right at home on the \"Saturday Night Fever\" soundtrack.\"\n\nMusic video\nA music video was produced to promote the single, directed by Philip Richardson, who had previously directed the videos for \"All Around the World\" and \"Live Together\". It features Stansfield with her kiss curls, dressed in a white outfit and performing with her band on a stage in front of a jumping audience. The video was later published on Stansfield's official YouTube channel in November 2009. It has amassed more than 1,6 million views as of October 2021.\n\nTrack listings\n\n European/UK 7\" single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Mark Saunders Remix Edit) – 4:20\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:59\n\n European/UK/Japanese CD single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Mark Saunders Remix Edit) – 4:20\n\"My Apple Heart\" – 5:19\n\"Lay Me Down\" – 4:17\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:59\n\n UK 10\" single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Mark Saunders Remix) – 5:52\n\"My Apple Heart\" – 5:19\n\"Lay Me Down\" – 4:17\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:59\n\n European/UK 12\" single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Morales Mix) – 7:59\n\"My Apple Heart\" – 4:22\n\"Lay Me Down\" – 3:19\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:15\n\n UK 12\" promotional single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Morales Mix) – 7:59\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Anti Poll Tax Dub) – 6:31\n\n Other remixes\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Red Zone Mix) – 7:45\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\nLisa Stansfield songs\n1990 singles\nSongs written by Lisa Stansfield\n1989 songs\nArista Records singles\nSongs written by Ian Devaney\nSongs written by Andy Morris (musician)"
] |
[
"Will.i.am",
"The Voice UK and Australia",
"When did he join The Voice UK?",
"On October 25, 2011, it was reported that will.i.am would be joining The Voice UK as a coach.",
"Is he still on the show?",
"As well as returning for the sixth series of The Voice UK, which is now on ITV from 2017,",
"What did he do in Australia?",
"On November 26, 2013, will.i.am was announced as a coach for the 2014 series of the Australian version of The Voice"
] | C_a63a5a015ec548899d64a3bbd13a0953_0 | Is he on any other shows? | 4 | Is Will.i.am, on any other shows, besides The Voice UK? | Will.i.am | On October 25, 2011, it was reported that will.i.am would be joining The Voice UK as a coach. A source said, "Will is 95 per cent a done deal. He is a big star and loves nurturing new talent. He shoots from the lip, and will not be afraid to tell it like it is. Although, I doubt The Voice will be as bitchy as The X Factor". will.i.am was later confirmed as a coach on The Voice UK, of this he said, "I'm proud to be doing The Voice UK because the UK was the first place I saw success," he said. "It's the place I'm the most creative outside of home." Cohen added, "I am thrilled that will.i.am has signed up to be a coach on The Voice. He is a huge star who will bring a unique creativity to the show." Talking about the differences between the show and X Factor, "I won't be a judge on X Factor. The Voice is different. You can't even compare the two. One, you have people in the music industry, current and legends, coaching the next generation. The other format you have judges critiquing, giving their opinions on things when they don't really know, other than Randy Jackson on Idol". In preparation for the role as a coach, he asked advice from friend and ex-The X Factor judge Cheryl Cole. Talking to Capital FM he said, "I reached out to Cheryl for advice on keeping your cool, having a poker face, the importance of sticking with the singers - it's their dream, a lot of the times when you have other performers a part of the show, celebrities tend to want the shine so they hog up time. So my whole thing was that I want to do The Voice, but I don't want to hog up time to where the singers up there are looking like, 'Is this about you guys?'. In March 2012, it was reported that he had turned his "plush" dressing room into a recording studio, and "instead of just listening with his headphones, he has installed some mega bass bins". On November 26, 2013, will.i.am was announced as a coach for the 2014 series of the Australian version of The Voice along with fellow Voice UK judge Kylie Minogue. Neither will.i.am nor Minogue returned for series 4 in 2015. He has contributed to The Voice UK since 2012. As well as returning for the sixth series of The Voice UK, which is now on ITV from 2017, he will also be a coach on the first series of the UK Version of The Voice Kids. CANNOTANSWER | Talking about the differences between the show and X Factor, "I won't be a judge on X Factor. | William James Adams Jr. (born March 15, 1975), known professionally as will.i.am (pronounced "Will-I-am"), is an American rapper and record producer. He is the founding and lead member of the musical group Black Eyed Peas.
As a solo artist, will.i.am has released four albums, beginning with Lost Change (2001), through Atlantic Records. His second solo outing, Must B 21, was released on September 23, 2003. The track "Go!" was regularly used as the theme for the NBA Live 2005 and Madden NFL 2005 seasons. The third album, Songs About Girls, was released on September 25, 2007. He released his fourth studio album, #willpower, in 2013.
As a music producer, will.i.am has worked for other artists including A.R. Rahman, Cheryl, Michael Jackson, Justin Bieber, Kesha, Britney Spears, Miley Cyrus, David Guetta, U2, Rihanna, Lady Gaga, Usher, Justin Timberlake, Nicki Minaj, 2NE1, and Baby Kaely. In collaborations and with the Black Eyed Peas, he has a total of 41 top-40 entries on the UK Singles Chart since 1998, and has sold 9.4 million singles in the UK.
In addition to his music career, will.i.am has also been a judge and mentor on the television talent show series The Voice UK (2012–present), The Voice Australia (2014), and The Voice Kids (2017–present).
Early life
William James Adams Jr. was born in Los Angeles, California, and was raised in the Estrada Courts housing projects in the Boyle Heights neighborhood, where he and his family were among the few African Americans living in a predominantly Hispanic community. Adams’ great-great-grandmother was an enslaved person. Adams has never met his father, William Adams Sr. He was raised by his mother, Debra (née Cain), who encouraged him to be unique and to avoid conforming to the tendencies of the other youths in the east Los Angeles neighborhood. To encourage his musical career, she sent him to public schools in affluent West Los Angeles. He rode on a bus for an hour to attend Paul Revere Charter Middle School. Later, during the regular school year, he attended Palisades Charter High School. During that time, he started going to raves with classmate Pasquale Rotella. While studying at summer school at John Marshall High School, he became best friends with Allan Pineda (stage name apl.de.ap), who would also be a future member of the Black Eyed Peas. While still in high school, Adams and Pineda performed in East L.A. clubs and were soon joined by three other entertainers to form the socially conscious rap group, Atban Klann. Atban Klann caught the eye of Compton rapper Eazy-E and was signed to his label, Ruthless Records in 1992.
He later said his history with rave culture is why he chose a more electro sound for the Black Eyed Peas' albums The E.N.D. and The Beginning. Despite the use of electro and house music elements, will.i.am prefers to separate the underground from pop. In an article with Los Angeles Times, he mentions that secrecy over the whereabouts of raves is what made raving special, and different from the mainstream.
Music career
1988–2000: Formations and the Black Eyed Peas
In the summer of 1988 will.i.am began his music career when, as an eighth-grader, he met up with fellow rapper Allan Pineda (apl.de.ap) and fellow student Dante Santiago. They began performing together around Los Angeles and were soon discovered by rapper/entrepreneur Eazy-E, who signed them to his label Ruthless Records in 1992. At the time, Will was known as "Will 1X". Atban Klann's first ever official track, "Merry Muthafuckin' Xmas", was included on Eazy-E's EP 5150: Home 4 tha Sick. After this, the trio began recording an album, "Grass Roots", with the help of producers Mookie Mook and DJ Motiv8, but the album was never released due to Eazy-E's tragic death in 1995. Subsequently, they changed their name to Black Eyed Pods, and Will replaced Dante with Jaime Gomez, better known under his stage name of Taboo. In 1997, they once again changed their name, this time to the Black Eyed Peas, and began recording their first album, Behind the Front, with the help of soul singer Kim Hill. They were soon signed to Interscope Records, and released their debut single, "Joints & Jam", in early 1998. The album was successful enough for the group's contract to be renewed, and in 2000, a second album, Bridging the Gap, was released.
2000–2003: Lost Change, Elephunk and Must B 21
Following the release of Bridging the Gap, Will began recording his first solo release, Lost Change, which was the official soundtrack to the film of the same name. Featuring collaborations with Medusa, Planet Asia and Terry Dexter, the album was a critical success.
In November 2001, work began on a third Black Eyed Peas album, Elephunk. Development of the album began on November 2, 2001 and was released just under two years later in 2003. At the time of development, only will.i.am, apl.de.ap and Taboo were to feature on the album. During the production of "Shut Up" (the second single released from the album), they realized that a female vocal would work well with the song. Originally, Nicole Scherzinger (lead singer of the Pussycat Dolls) was approached to make a guest appearance on the record. She was forced to decline because she already was signed to a contract with Eden's Crush. Danté Santiago then introduced Fergie to will.i.am, whom she impressed with her vocal talents. She immediately bonded with the band and became a permanent member of the Peas, and her photo was printed onto the album cover. Lyricist Robbie Fisher, who has been working closely with the band since the beginning stages of the album, composed nine out of the fourteen tracks. In the United States, Elephunk reached number 14 on the Billboard Top 200 and is their first album to chart in the top 15. It gained even more commercial success internationally, particularly in the UK Album Charts where it reached number 3. It has sold over 1.6 million copies in the UK and 8.5 million copies worldwide. The singles "Where Is the Love?" and "Shut Up" reached number 1. "Hey Mama" has been used for several advertisements including advertisements for Apple and iTunes. "Let's Get It Started" also received universal acclaim in the media section where a cover version of the song appears in the film Hot Tub Time Machine. After the success of Elephunk, the Peas were approached by EA games to feature some of their music on the 2004 game The Urbz. They remixed some of the tracks on Elephunk and translated it into Simlish and created new tracks for the game. They also feature in the game as playable characters.
The group released their breakthrough single, "Where Is the Love?", in November 2002 (featuring Justin Timberlake, although he did not appear in the video). On the strength of that single and follow-up singles like "Shut Up", Elephunk went on to sell 8.5 million copies worldwide. During this time, Will recorded a second solo album, Must B 21. In 2002, Will recorded the song "Secrets" for the soundtrack to Dexter's Laboratory: The Hip-Hop Experiment, a musical accompaniment to the Cartoon Network original series. Prior to this, he had also composed the theme music for another Genndy Tartakovsky series, Samurai Jack.
2003–2006: Monkey Business
In November 2003, work began on a fourth Black Eyed Peas album, entitled Monkey Business, the second album with new band member Fergie. Upon the success of Monkey Business, which was released in 2005, the album was certified three times Platinum by the RIAA in the U.S. and has sold over 10 million copies worldwide. The Canadian Recording Industry Association (or CRIA) has certified Monkey Business 6x Platinum, with sales of over 600,000 copies. The Australian Recording Industry Association (or ARIA) has also certified Monkey Business 6x Platinum, denoting sales of over 420,000 copies. The album's tracks earned the group four 2006 Grammy Award nominations and they also won the Grammy for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group for "Don't Phunk with My Heart". According to IFPI, over 2 million copies have been sold in Europe. In the UK alone, it has sold over 1 million copies, although this is significantly lower than their sales of Elephunk, which stand at over 1.6 million copies and 10 million worldwide.
The band announced they were going to take a break to focus on their own personal projects. Will went on to produce Fergie's first solo album, The Dutchess, which was released in 2006, before beginning work with Michael Jackson, who had requested Will's expertise for the recording and production of his new album. Work began on the Jackson album in 2006, and continued until the singer's death in 2009, at which point will.i.am revealed that none of the material recorded during the period would be released. However, remixes recorded for Jackson's Thriller 25 anniversary album were released in 2008.
2007–2009: Songs About Girls and Change Is Now
In 2007, will.i.am announced that he had co-created an all-female soul band entitled the Paradiso Girls, who he intended to work with on an upcoming solo project. The album, Songs About Girls, was released in 2007. The album spawned three singles, "I Got It From My Mama", "One More Chance" and "Heartbreaker", and fared slightly better than his previous solo efforts, however, failed to shift more than 75,000 copies. Will also did a remix to the song "With Love" by actress and singer Hilary Duff.
In 2008, will.i.am contributed the song "One Tribe" to the Survival International charity album, Songs for Survival. Also in 2008, he was featured on rapper Flo Rida's debut album, Mail on Sunday, where he produced and featured on the song "In the Ayer", and featured on Usher's fifth album, Here I Stand. In January 2008, will.i.am announced plans that he was masterminding a political album, Change is Now: Renewing America's Promise, in support of Barack Obama's presidential campaign. The first single, "Yes We Can", featured a music video directed by Jesse Dylan. The lyrics of the song are composed almost entirely of excerpts from Obama's speech on January 8, 2008, following the New Hampshire presidential primary election. The video features appearances from numerous celebrities and first appeared on the website for Dipdive. The video racked up three million views within a week and over four million subsequently on YouTube. On June 13, 2008, "Yes We Can" won an award at the 35th Annual Creative Arts and Entertainment Daytime Emmy Awards for "New Approaches in Daytime Entertainment". On February 29, 2008, the album's second single, "We Are the Ones", was released on Dipdive and YouTube. The video features several celebrities chanting "O-BA-MA" as a portrayal as their hopes and wishes for Obama and his presidential campaign. On November 4, 2008, will.i.am spoke to CNN's Anderson Cooper about his support for then-Senator Obama using CNN's 'hologram' technology (actually tomography). Following the 2008 election, and Obama's victory, Will released the album's third single, "It's a New Day". The video reflects on the historical events that led to the election of the first African-American president and the public's reaction to his election. The video debuted on The Oprah Winfrey Show. In honor of the inauguration of Barack Obama as president, will.i.am collaborated with producer David Foster on the album's fourth single, "America's Song", with contributing vocals from Seal, Bono, Mary J. Blige, and Faith Hill. In response to Obama's reaction following Kanye West's interruption of Taylor Swift at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, will.i.am penned the album's fifth and final single, "The Jackass Song". It featured a sample of Kanye West's "Heartless". Will wrote a blog post, which featured the song on Dipdive, and released in February 2009. will.i.am attended and spoke at the FIRST Robotics Competition kickoff on January 8, 2011, declaring, "I am a FIRST fan." He has also named FIRST Founder Dean Kamen "one of [his] heroes" on his verified Twitter account.
2009–2016: Black Eyed Peas reformation, The E.N.D, The Beginning, and #willpower
In March 2009, will.i.am announced plans for the Black Eyed Peas to return, and within months their comeback single, "Boom Boom Pow", had reached number 1 on the UK Singles Chart and Billboard Hot 100. They went on to have three number 1 singles before releasing their comeback album, The E.N.D. The album's success warranted a second comeback album, The Beginning, released in November 2010. The album spawned another three hit singles, but the band soon announced plans they were to break again, following the conclusion of their world tour. In 2009, will.i.am worked with rappers Flo Rida and Akon for Flo's second studio album, R.O.O.T.S., and recorded four tracks with Girls Aloud member Cheryl for her debut solo album 3 Words. He also worked with Rihanna on her fourth studio album, Rated R, for a track called "Photographs". In February 2010, he wrote and produced the single "OMG" by Usher, which appeared on Usher's seventh studio album, Raymond vs. Raymond. In a YouTube video posted by YGLifeOfficial on March 15, 2010, will.i.am expressed his desire to work with Korean K-pop girl group 2NE1, and help them achieve international success. Will has recorded a collaboration with Britney Spears, "Big Fat Bass", which features on her seventh studio album, Femme Fatale.
During the recording of the Black Eyed Peas' sixth studio album, The Beginning, band colleague Fergie announced in an interview that will.i.am was in the process of recording a new solo album, tentatively entitled Black Einstein. will.i.am formally announced that he was in the process of recording a fourth solo album, with some material being recorded under the pseudonym Zuper Blahq. In January 2010, a cut from the album, "I'm In the House", a collaboration with Steve Aoki, was released as a single, charting at #29 on the UK Singles Chart due to strong downloads. In October 2010, a second cut from the album, "Check It Out", a collaboration with Trinidadian rapper Nicki Minaj, peaked at #4 on the UK Singles Chart. In February 2011, a third cut from the album, "Dance", a collaboration with Natalia Kills, peaked at #62 on the UK Singles Chart. The music video was directed by James Sutton, and features a cameo by Natalia. In April 2011, will.i.am recorded four songs for the soundtrack of the animated film Rio, in which he voiced the character, Pedro the red-crested cardinal. "Hot Wings (I Wanna Party)", "Drop It Low", "Real In Rio" and "Advice For The Young At Heart", featuring an array of artists including Jamie Foxx, Anne Hathaway and Tears for Fears. None of the songs managed to chart, however, Will announced that he was going to remix the tracks for inclusion on Black Einstein. In September 2011, a fourth cut from the album, "Forever", a collaboration with Wolfgang Gartner, was released as a single. It was around this time that will.i.am announced that he changed the title of the album from Black Einstein to #willpower. The video premiered on August 26, 2011. In November 2011, Will premiered what is intended to be the album's official lead single, "T.H.E. (The Hardest Ever)", a collaboration with Jennifer Lopez and Mick Jagger. Will announced via his Twitter that the video for "T.H.E. (The Hardest Ever)" was filmed in LA, and that before he returned home, he stopped off in Brazil to film the video for the album's second official single, "Great Times". In December 2011, a fifth cut from the album, "Party Like An Animal", a collaboration with Dutch singer Eva Simons and LMFAO, premiered at the HTC Beats Launch party. Will.i.am also announced he has collaborations with Britney Spears, Alicia Keys, Busta Rhymes, Swizz Beatz and a couple others on the album. He also stated there is a possibility Shakira could feature on the album. #willpower is due for release in 2013, and will.i.am later confirmed that Cheryl and Justin Bieber would also appear on #willpower. In mid-October, Britney Spears confirmed on her Twitter account that she had filmed the music video for the single she was featuring in called "Scream & Shout".
He was among the performers at the Diamond Jubilee Concert held outside Buckingham Palace on June 4, 2012.
The first song broadcast from Mars was his new single, "Reach for the Stars". He discussed and listened to it with a live audience at NASA in Pasadena, California after it was returned from the Curiosity rover.
The song "Hall of Fame" by the Script also featured will.i.am. It debuted onto radio on July 23, 2012 and was released for digital download on August 21, 2012. He later featured in Priyanka Chopra's debut single "In My City". It was announced in October 2012 that will.i.am will feature on Kesha's second album Warrior on the track "Crazy Kids". He also co-wrote and co-produced the Dr Luke produced track.
In November 2012, will.i.am released the third single from #willpower which was "Scream & Shout" featuring Britney Spears. It debuted in the top 20 on the Billboard 100, eventually reaching a peak of number 3 and debuting at number 2 on the UK Singles Chart and reaching number one in January 2013 for two weeks. It went number one in many countries
During an interview with Capital FM, will.i.am confirmed he had collaborated with Justin Bieber for his next release "#thatPOWER" and premiered the single on the same day it was released onto iTunes in the US the same day and debuted on the Billboard 100 at number 42.
In April 2013, will.i.am and Chris Brown's track "Let's Go", also from the #willpower album, became the centre of a copyright controversy, with trance producers Arty and Mat Zo claiming that will.i.am used elements of their 2011 track "Rebound" in his song without permission from the artists or their label. This claim was later backed by Anjunabeats, the record label behind Arty and Mat Zo.
His fourth studio album, #willpower, was re-released in December 2013 featuring several new tracks, including the lead single "Feelin' Myself" featuring Miley Cyrus, French Montana, and Wiz Khalifa.
Britney Spears featured will.i.am on her song "It Should Be Easy" on her eighth studio album Britney Jean, for which he co-wrote and produced several tracks. He was also an executive producer of the project.
On April 4, 2014, will.i.am appeared on Alan Carr: Chatty Man, where he talked about plans to release his own Smartwatch. He revealed that it can be used as a phone, to store music, and use Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. He also showed a preview of a music video for a song called "It's My Birthday". On May 20, 2014, a 90-second snippet was uploaded to SoundCloud. It features American singer-songwriter Cody Wise, is produced by Will and Damien LeRoy and is written by himself, Cody Wise and Keith Harris. It was released on July 6, 2014.
In an interview with Capital FM, will.i.am confirmed that the Black Eyed Peas were getting back together. On April 7, 2016 will.i.am released the single "Boys & Girls" featuring Pia Mia. A week later on April 14, a new remix of "Mona Lisa Smile" featuring Nicole Scherzinger was released.
2017–present: Recent activities
In March 2020, will.i.am collaborated with a group of artists made up of Bono, Jennifer Hudson, and Yoshiki for the song "Sing For Life". The musicians felt motivated by the widespread sense of despair surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic and the attempts by multiple individuals to pursue creative endeavors while facing new social restrictions. The official YouTube description stated that the track aimed to spread "joy" during trying "times like these".
Other ventures
Acting
The Black Eyed Peas, including will.i.am, first started acting in the commercial series "Instant Def" to advertise Snickers. He starred in Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa as the voice of the character Moto Moto. He contributed a number of tracks to the movie's motion picture soundtrack in collaboration with industry heavyweight Hans Zimmer. Will.i.am played John Wraith in his major film debut, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, a prequel to the X-Men film series. He also guest-starred on the CBS drama Joan of Arcadia as God, one of several actors who played this role during the series. He also starred in the 2011 animated film Rio, and 2014's Rio 2, as a rapping red-crested cardinal named Pedro, and like Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, he contributed his singing voice to the film's soundtrack, along with his fellow co-stars. Will.i.am played a fathering role in The Urbz: Sims In The City, which uses the Black Eyed Peas' songs as its own soundtrack. He briefly played himself in the Tina Fey and Steve Carell comedy film Date Night. He appeared in the 2016 Grammy-nominated documentary film about American DJ and producer Steve Aoki, titled I'll Sleep When I'm Dead.
The Voice UK and Australia
will.i.am was confirmed as a coach on The Voice UK, of this he said, "I'm proud to be doing The Voice UK because the UK was the first place I saw success," he said. "It's the place I'm the most creative outside of home." Cohen added, "I am thrilled that will.i.am has signed up to be a coach on The Voice. He is a huge star who will bring a unique creativity to the show." Talking about the differences between the show and X Factor, "I won't be a judge on X Factor. The Voice is different. You can't even compare the two. One, you have people in the music industry, current and legends, coaching the next generation. The other format you have judges critiquing, giving their opinions on things when they don't really know, other than Randy Jackson on Idol".
In preparation for the role as a coach, he asked advice from friend and ex-The X Factor judge Cheryl Cole. Talking to Capital FM he said, "I reached out to Cheryl for advice on keeping your cool, having a poker face, the importance of sticking with the singers – it's their dream, a lot of the times when you have other performers a part of the show, celebrities tend to want the shine so they hog up time. So my whole thing was that I want to do The Voice, but I don't want to hog up time to where the singers up there are looking like, 'Is this about you guys?'. In March 2012, it was reported that he had turned his "plush" dressing room into a recording studio, and "instead of just listening with his headphones, he has installed some mega bass bins".
On November 26, 2013, will.i.am was announced as a coach for the 2014 series of the Australian version of The Voice along with fellow Voice UK judge Kylie Minogue. He was the winning coach having coached voice winner Anja Nissen in 2014. Neither will.i.am nor Minogue returned for the fourth series in 2015.
He has contributed to The Voice UK since 2012. He also serves as a coach on the UK version of The Voice Kids.
Fashion
Before joining the Black Eyed Peas, will.i.am attended the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising in Los Angeles. In 2001, he began designing his own signature clothing line, i.am, which made its official debut in 2005 at the Magic Apparel Trade Show in Las Vegas. In 2007, will.i.am teamed up with Blue Holdings to design a premium denim collection, i.am Antik, that was scheduled to debut in August 2007 at the Project Show in Las Vegas. will.i.am instead had new partners and was launching i.am. Will.i.am is currently being sued $2 million for abandoning the project for which, the label states, he was obligated until 2016, but will.i.am insists it is already over. He also launched his own glasses range.
Technology
Appearing at the kickoff event for the 2011 FIRST Robotics Competition, Logo Motion held at Southern New Hampshire University, will.i.am stated that he is "a big fan", and that the newly unveiled game was "dope". He also executive produced a TV Special - I.AM. FIRST: Science is Rock & Roll - about the 2011 FIRST World Championship at the Edward Jones Dome, St Louis. It was produced by Greg Sills and Paul Flattery, directed by Michael Dempsey. It was aired by ABC on August 14, 2011, at 7 p.m. As part of the special, will.i.am appeared with the Black Eyed Peas. Willow Smith also performed and will.i.am did a DJ set. He continues to support FIRST, and at the 2013 FIRST World Championship, will.i.am became the first recipient of the Make It Loud award, which is given to the person who has contributed the most in increasing the awareness of FIRST to the general public.
In January 2011, Intel named will.i.am as director of creative innovation, with input in developing smartphones, tablets and laptops.
In January 2012, he appeared on the BBC TV series Top Gear, as the Star in a Reasonably Priced Car, where he claimed he was starting his own car company called IAMAUTO.
By becoming the first artist to stream a song ("Reaching for the Stars") from the surface of Mars on August 28, 2012, will.i.am made inter-planetary music history. The event took place at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California.
Expanding his forays into iPhone accessory development, will.i.am announced plans to release a camera enhancer to "dramatically enhance the clarity and definition of iPhone photographs," by effectively making the 8-megapixel sensor into a 14-megapixel one. Termed the i.am+, the device was said to be the first in a series of "digital real estate" for the singer.
In April 2016, it was announced that i.am+ had acquired the Tel Aviv machine-learning technology start-up Sensiya.
3D Systems appointed will.i.am as its chief creative officer (CCO) on January 8, 2014.
Since retiring from music (a retirement that did not last), he has helped design smartwatches for German company Deutsche Telekom since late 2015.
In 2016, The Verge reported that will.i.am would join actress Gwyneth Paltrow and serial entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk on Apple TV's Planet of the Apps, calling the trio "successful" and "big names" with experience launching companies. The show received mixed to negative reviews.
On July 27, 2017, i.am+ acquired Wink, the Internet of Things and Smart Home hub platform, from owner Flextronics for a reported $38.7 million with an additional $20 million commitment, likely earmarked to sustain manufacturing of Wink's products. In late 2019, will.i.am's technology company, i.am+, was the subject of multiple tax liens, with the state of California alleging over $500,000 in delinquent taxes. The United States government also filed a lien against i.am+ in August 2019, alleging $1,787,726.11 in delinquent taxes and interest.
On November 15, 2017, the Institution of Engineering and Technology awarded will.i.am an honorary fellowship for his outstanding contribution to the profession of engineering.
In early 2018, will.i.am released his first book, WaR: Wizards and Robots (), a collaboration with Brian David Johnson.
Personal life
In December 2010, will.i.am said that he suffers from tinnitus, a disorder common among musicians who have been exposed to loud music for prolonged periods. In April 2013, he stated that he has ADHD. will.i.am follows a vegan diet.
As the nephew of former NFL player Lynn Cain, who played for the Atlanta Falcons and Los Angeles Rams, will.i.am spent a large part of his life looking up to his uncle as a role model.
On June 22, 2009, gossip blogger Perez Hilton accused will.i.am and his entourage of assaulting him in Toronto after the MuchMusic Video Awards, a charge will.i.am denied in a video posted on his blog. No further action was taken.
Discography
Studio albums
Lost Change (2001)
Must B 21 (2003)
Songs About Girls (2007)
#willpower (2013)
Filmography
Film
Television
Video games
Tours
The #Willpower Tour (2013–15)
The Vans Warped Tour (2009)
Awards and nominations
Daytime Emmy Awards
2008, New Approaches in Daytime Entertainment: "Yes We Can"
2011, Best Original Song: "What I Am"
Grammy Awards
|-
|rowspan=3|2004
|Elephunk
|Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical
|
|-
|rowspan=2|"Where Is the Love?" (ft. Justin Timberlake)
|Best Rap/Sung Collaboration
|
|-
|rowspan=2|Record of the Year
|
|-
|rowspan=4|2005
|rowspan=3|"Let's Get It Started"
|
|-
|Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group
|
|-
|rowspan=3|Best Rap Song
|
|-
|"Hey Mama"
|
|-
|rowspan=6|2006
|rowspan=2|"Don't Phunk with My Heart"
|
|-
|Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group
|
|-
|rowspan=2|"Ordinary People"
|Song of the Year
|
|-
|Best R&B Song
|
|-
|"Gone Going" (with Jack Johnson)
|Best Pop Collaboration with Vocal
|
|-
|"Don't Lie"
|rowspan=2|Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal
|
|-
|rowspan=4|2007
|"My Humps"
|
|-
|will.i.am
|Producer of the Year, Non-Classical
|
|-
|"Mas Que Nada"
|rowspan=3|Best Best Urban/Alternative Performance
|
|-
|"That Heat"
|
|-
|rowspan=3|2009
|"Be OK"
|
|-
|"American Boy"
|Song of the Year
|
|-
|will.i.am
|Producer of the Year, Non-Classical
|
|-
|rowspan=6|2010
|rowspan=2|The E.N.D.
|Album of the Year
|
|-
|Best Pop Vocal Album
|
|-
|rowspan=2|"I Gotta Feeling"
|Record of the Year
|
|-
|Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals
|
|-
|rowspan=2|"Boom Boom Pow"
|Best Dance Recording
|
|-
|Best Short Form Music Video
|
|}
Latin Grammy Awards
2006, Best Brazilian Contemporary Pop Album: "Timeless", Sérgio Mendes (producer)
Television Rack Awards
2012, will.i.am. has won ten Television Rack Awards altogether (five with the Black Eyed Peas and five as a solo artist).
The National Television Awards
|-
|2018 || The Voice UK || TV Judge ||
|}
Mirchi Music Awards
2012, Indie Pop Song of the Year - "In My City" (Nominated)
Honorary fellowship
In 2017, will.i.am was awarded an honorary fellowship by the Institution of Engineering and Technology in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the engineering and technology profession.
Notes
References
External links
– official site
Will.i.am at Beatbuggy
1975 births
Living people
20th-century American rappers
21st-century American male actors
21st-century American singers
African-American male actors
African-American male rappers
African-American male singers
African-American male singer-songwriters
African-American record producers
American contemporary R&B singers
American expatriates in Australia
American expatriates in the United Kingdom
American hip hop record producers
American hip hop singers
American male film actors
American male pop singers
American male rappers
American male singers
American male television actors
American male voice actors
American rappers of Jamaican descent
Atlantic Records artists
Black Eyed Peas members
Barely Breaking Even artists
Daytime Emmy Award winners
Domain hacks
Grammy Award winners for rap music
Interscope Records artists
Latin Grammy Award winners
Male actors from California
Male actors from Los Angeles
Participants in British reality television series
People from Boyle Heights, Los Angeles
Pop rappers
Rappers from Los Angeles
Record producers from California
Recipients of the Presidential Medal of Merit (Philippines)
Ruthless Records artists
Singers from Los Angeles
Singer-songwriters from California | true | [
"Just Folk is a 1965 Australian television aired on Sydney station ATN-7 (it is not clear if it was shown on any other stations across Australia). It was a weekly half-hour series featuring folk music. Gary Shearston was the host. Despite the wiping of the era, an episode of this series is held by the National Film and Sound Archive.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nJust Folk on IMDb\n\nBlack-and-white Australian television shows\nEnglish-language television shows\n1965 Australian television series debuts\n1965 Australian television series endings\nAustralian music television series",
"XYZ is a British game show that aired on BBC1 from 15 November 1993 to 26 January 1994. It is hosted by George Marshall.\n\nFormat\nOn each edition, three contestants played against each other for the chance to play for a major prize.\n\nThe game is played on a board of 24 squares called the \"Alphabank\", of which the 23 squares were the first 23 letters of the alphabet and the 24th square was the 'XYZ' square. The idea of the game was to try to have the longest chain of letters in a row without any breaks in the chain.\n\nExternal links\n\n1990s British game shows\n1993 British television series debuts\n1994 British television series endings\nBBC television game shows\nBritish game shows\nEnglish-language television shows"
] |
[
"Paul Watson",
"Early and personal life"
] | C_92b9e56b3db24c86932abccd2b624bea_1 | Where was paul born? | 1 | Where was Paul Watson born? | Paul Watson | According to the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, Paul Watson was born in Toronto to Anthony Joseph Watson and Annamarie Larsen, and grew up in St. Andrews, New Brunswick, along with two sisters and three brothers. As a child he was a member of the Kindness Club, which he has credited with teaching him to "respect and defend animals". After working as a tour guide at Expo 67, the World's Fair that took place in Montreal in 1967, Watson moved to Vancouver. According to the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, in 1968 and the early 1970s, he joined the Canadian Coast Guard, where he served aboard weatherships, search and rescue hovercraft, and buoy tenders. He signed up as a merchant seaman in 1969 with the Norwegian Consulate in Vancouver and shipped out on the 35,000 ton bulk carrier Bris as a deck hand. The Bris was registered in Oslo, Norway and manifested for the Indian Ocean and Pacific trade. Watson has one daughter Lilliolani (born 1980) with his first wife, Starlet Lum, who was a founding director of Greenpeace Quebec, Earthforce!, Project Wolf, and Sea Shepherd. His second wife, Lisa Distefano, a former Playboy model, was Sea Shepherd's Director of Operations during the Makah anti-whaling campaigns in Friday Harbor. His third wife, Allison Lance, is an animal rights activist and a volunteer crew member of Sea Shepherd. Watson has two grandchildren. Watson married his fourth wife Yana Rusinovich on February 14, 2015, in Paris, France. Watson and Rusinovich had a son, Tiger, on September 29, 2016. CANNOTANSWER | Paul Watson was born in Toronto | Paul Franklin Watson (born December 2, 1950) is a Canadian-American conservation and environmental activist, who founded the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, an anti-poaching and direct action group focused on marine conservation activism. The tactics used by Sea Shepherd have attracted opposition, with the group accused of eco-terrorism by both the Japanese government and Greenpeace. Watson is a citizen of Canada and the United States.
The Toronto native joined a Sierra Club protest against nuclear testing in 1969. He was a co-founder of Greenpeace in 1972. Because Watson argued for a strategy of direct action that conflicted with the Greenpeace interpretation of nonviolence, he was ousted from the board in 1977. That same year, he formed the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. The group was the subject of a reality show named Whale Wars.
He promotes veganism, population reduction and a biocentric, rather than anthropocentric, worldview.
Watson's activities have led to legal action from authorities in countries including the United States, Canada, Norway, Costa Rica and Japan. He was detained in Germany on an extradition request by Costa Rica in May 2012. An Interpol red notice was issued on September 14, 2012, at the request of Japan and Costa Rica.
After staying at sea for 15 months following his escape from Germany, where he was released on bail, he returned to Los Angeles in late October 2013, going through customs and "was not arrested". He appeared before a US appeals court on November 6, 2013, stating that neither he nor the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society violated a 2012 order requiring them to leave whaling vessels alone. Although the United States is a signatory member of Interpol, Watson has not been detained for extradition to Japan or Costa Rica. He is living in Vermont, writing books. He was residing in Paris as of July 1, 2014 but has since returned to the USA.
In March 2019, Costa Rica dropped all charges against Watson and has removed the Interpol red notice.
Early and personal life
According to the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, Paul Watson was born in Toronto to Anthony Joseph Watson and Annamarie Larsen, and grew up in St. Andrews, New Brunswick, along with two sisters and three brothers. As a child he was a member of the Kindness Club, which he has credited with teaching him to "respect and defend animals". After working as a tour guide at Expo 67, the World's Fair that took place in Montreal in 1967, Watson moved to Vancouver.
According to the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, in 1968 and the early 1970s, he joined the Canadian Coast Guard, where he served aboard weatherships, search and rescue hovercraft, and buoy tenders. He signed up as a merchant seaman in 1969 with the Norwegian Consulate in Vancouver and shipped out on the 30,000 ton bulk carrier Bris as a deckhand. The Bris was registered in Oslo, Norway and manifested for the Indian Ocean and Pacific trade. In 1972 he shipped out of San Francisco on the 35,000 ton bulk Swedish carrier Jarl R. Trapp and manifested for the Indian Ocean and Pacific trade
Watson has one daughter Lilliolani (born 1980) with his first wife, Starlet Lum, who was a founding director of Greenpeace Quebec, Earthforce!, Project Wolf, and Sea Shepherd. His second wife, Lisa Distefano, a former Playboy model, was Sea Shepherd's Director of Operations during the Makah anti-whaling campaigns in Friday Harbor. His third wife, Allison Lance, is an animal rights activist and a volunteer crew member of Sea Shepherd. Watson has two grandchildren. Watson married his fourth wife Yana Rusinovich on February 14, 2015, in Paris, France. Watson and Rusinovich had a son, Tiger, on September 29, 2016 and a second son, Murtagh, on August 6, 2021. He ran for parliament in Canada's federal elections twice.
Activism
Early years
In October 1969, Watson joined a Sierra Club protest against nuclear testing at Amchitka Island. The group which formed as a result of that protest was the Don't Make a Wave Committee, which evolved into the group known today as Greenpeace. In the early 1970s, Watson was also active with the Vancouver Liberation Front and the Vancouver Yippies. Watson sailed as a crew member aboard the Greenpeace Too! ship in 1971 and skippered the Greenpeace boat Astral in 1972. Paul Watson continued as a crew member, skipper, and officer aboard several Greenpeace voyages throughout the mid-1970s.
According to The New Yorker, The New York Times, and other sources, Watson was a founding member of Greenpeace, but the organization denies this stating he "was an influential early member but not, as he sometimes claims, a founder." Greenpeace claims that Watson joined Greenpeace on its Amchitka expedition, which they claim to be their second expedition, but Paul Watson claims that this was Greenpeace's first meeting.
Sea Shepherd Conservation Society
The first Sea Shepherd vessel, the Sea Shepherd, was purchased in December 1978 with assistance from the Fund for Animals and the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Sea Shepherd soon established itself as one of the more controversial environmental groups, known for provocative direct action tactics. These tactics have included throwing objects onto the decks of whaling ships, the use of "prop foulers" in an attempt to sabotage the ships, boarding whaling vessels, and the scuttling of two ships in an Icelandic harbor. In January 2013, Watson relinquished captaincy of the Steve Irwin. The organization and its activities to halt whaling are the focus of a reality TV series, Whale Wars, airing on Animal Planet.
In 2010, Watson personally received more than $120,000 from Sea Shepherd.
Because of mounting legal complications, Watson has stepped down as head of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society in 2013, to abide by an injunction barring him from proximity with Japanese whaling ships. After the resolution of legal issues involving the Japanese Institute for Cetacean Research, Watson returned as President of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and Commander of the Sea Shepherd fleet.
Other environmental activities
Watson was a field correspondent for Defenders of Wildlife from 1976 to 1980 and a field representative for the Fund for Animals from 1978 to 1981. Watson also was a co-founder of Friends of the Wolf and Earthforce Environmental Society.
During the 1980s, Watson declared his support for Earth First! and cultivated friendships with David Foreman and Edward Abbey. He proclaimed Sea Shepherd to be the "navy" of Earth First! According to The New Yorker, Watson revived the 19th-century practice of tree spiking.
Watson worked with the Green Party of British Columbia in Vancouver in the 1980s and 90s. He ran for mayor in 1996, placing fourth.
In April 2003, Watson was elected to the board of directors of the Sierra Club for a three-year term. In 2006, he did not seek re-election. He resigned from the board a month before his term ended, in protest against the organization's sponsorship of a "Why I Hunt" essay contest.
In January 2008, Paul Watson was named by The Guardian as one of its "50 people who could save the planet" for the work of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.
Writings on activism
Watson published Earthforce!, a guide to strategy for environmental activists in 1993. In it, he specifically endorsed the tactics of "monkeywrenching" previously described by Dave Foreman and Edward Abbey. According to Foreman in Eco-Defense—The Field Guide to Monkey-Wrenching— these are tactics of sabotage, covert activity, and direct action. Watson says he incorporated his own personal experience in writing the book.
In Earthforce! An Earth Warrior's Guide to Strategy, Watson expressed disdain for the truthfulness of mainstream media:
The nature of the mass media today is such that the truth is irrelevant. What is true and what is right to the general public is what is defined as true and right by the mass media. Ronald Reagan understood that the facts are not relevant. The media reported what he said as fact. Follow-up investigation was "old news." A headline comment on Monday's newspaper far outweighs the revelation of inaccuracy revealed in a small box inside the paper on Tuesday or Wednesday.
Watson was explicit about what he perceived to be the lack of truthfulness in mass media: "If you do not know an answer, a fact, or a statistic, then simply follow the example of an American President and do as Ronald Reagan did—make it up on the spot and deliver the information confidently and without hesitation." In a subsequent book, Ocean Warrior, Watson expanded on this view, saying: "Survival in a media culture meant developing the skills to understand and manipulate media to achieve strategic objectives."
In 2007 Watson explained his view of needed population control and the future for humans given their role in the Holocene extinction, which he refers to as the "Holocenic hominid collective suicide event":
Today, escalating human populations have vastly exceeded global carrying capacity and now produce massive quantities of solid, liquid, and gaseous waste [...] No human community should be larger than 20,000 people and separated from other communities by wilderness areas [...] We need to radically and intelligently reduce human populations to fewer than one billion [...] Curing a body of cancer requires radical and invasive therapy, and therefore, curing the biosphere of the human virus will also require a radical and invasive approach [...] Who should have children? Those who are responsible and completely dedicated to the responsibility which is actually a very small percentage of humans.
Controversy
Separation from Greenpeace
Paul Watson continued as a crew member, officer, and skipper (in 1972) aboard several Greenpeace voyages throughout the mid-1970s. He considers himself a founding member of Greenpeace and Greenpeace International, a claim Greenpeace disputes despite being pointed out in the documentary, How to Change the World which shows that Watson was indeed one of the original founding members of Greenpeace. Watson has since accused Greenpeace of rewriting their history.
In 1977, Watson was expelled from the Greenpeace's board of directors by a vote of 11 to 1 (Watson himself cast the single vote against it). The group felt his strong, "front and center" personality and frequently voiced opposition to Greenpeace's interpretation of "nonviolence" were too divisive. Watson subsequently left the group. The group has since labeled his actions at the time as those of a "mutineer" within their ranks. That same year, he founded his own group, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.
During an interview in 1978 with CBC Radio, Watson spoke out against Greenpeace (as well as other organizations) and their role and motives for the anti-sealing campaigns. Watson accused these organizations of campaigning against the Canadian seal hunt because it is an easy way to raise money and it is a profit maker for the organizations.
Greenpeace has called Watson a violent extremist and will no longer comment on his activities.
Charges and prosecutions
Watson was sentenced to 10 days in prison and fined $8,000 for his actions during a Canadian seal hunt protest in 1980, after being convicted of assaulting a fisheries officer. Watson served his sentence at Her Majesty's Penitentiary, St. John's, NL. He was also found guilty under the Seal Protection Act for painting harp seal pups with red dye to devalue their pelts. Watson was arrested in 1993 in Canada on charges stemming from actions against Cuban and Spanish fishing boats off the coast of Newfoundland. In 1997, Watson was convicted in absentia and sentenced to serve 120 days in jail by a court in Lofoten, Norway on charges of attempting to sink the small scale Norwegian fishing and whaling vessel Nybrænna on December 26, 1992. Dutch authorities refused to hand him over to Norwegian authorities although he did spend 80 days in detention in the Netherlands pending a ruling on extradition before being released.
There have not been any successful attempts at prosecuting Watson for his activities with Sea Shepherd since the trial in Newfoundland. Watson defends his actions as falling within international law, in particular Sea Shepherd's right to enforce maritime regulations against illegal whalers and sealers.
Sea Shepherd activists Rod Coronado and David Howitt went to Iceland in 1986 and scuttled two whaling ships in port at Reykjavík and also damaged a whale meat processing factory. Watson took responsibility for the operation, abiding by published Sea Shepherd principles. He went to Iceland saying, "I am responsible for all activities undertaken in the name of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. I give the orders." He was deported without being charged and is considered a persona non grata by Iceland
In April 2010 the Japanese Coast Guard obtained an arrest warrant for Watson "...on suspicion of ordering sabotage activities against Japan's whaling fleet", and Interpol has listed him as wanted at the request of Japan. The red notice has the charges issued by Japan as, "Breaking into the Vessel, Damage to Property, Forcible Obstruction of Business, Injury". In March 2012 Interpol issued a "written statement to all 190 member countries making it clear that it would not publish a Red Notice" for the detention of Watson, but reversed that position in September 2012. In both statements Interpol stated that a "Red Notice is not an international arrest warrant" that it is "a request for any country to identify or locate an individual with a view to their provisional arrest and extradition in accordance with the country's national laws".
In May 2012 Watson was detained by German authorities at the Frankfurt Airport because of a request from the government of Costa Rica. The charge stemmed from an altercation at sea in 2002 in which Sea Shepherd said that the other vessel was illegally shark finning in Guatemalan waters. Crew members of the other ship accused Sea Shepherd of trying to kill them. Watson was charged with violating navigational regulations with the Interpol alert stating the charge as, "peligro de naufragio" (danger of shipwreck). The conflict took place during filming for the documentary Sharkwater and the charges were dropped by prosecutors after video of the incident made by the documentary film makers was shown. On May 21, Watson was released on bail of €250,000 but required to report to police in Frankfurt on a daily basis. In June, Costa Rica formally requested Watson's extradition from Germany. On July 19, 2012, Japan applied for an extradition order and Watson left Germany, resulting in a German court ordering his immediate re-arrest. It is understood the statute of limitations on his Costa Rican charges was set to expire in June 2013.
On August 7, 2012 Interpol renewed the Red Notice for Watson on the charges of "causing a danger of drowning or of an air disaster" laid by Costa Rica. It was reported that Watson would come out of hiding to join Sea Shepherd in the 2012–13 campaign against Japanese whaling. Watson rejoined the crew of the Steve Irwin in the South Pacific in late November 2012. In March 2019, Costa Rica dropped all charges against Watson and has removed the Interpol red notice.
Sierra Club immigration stance
In 1999, Watson ran unsuccessfully for election to the national Sierra Club Board of Directors, with the backing of the anti-immigration faction Sierrans for US Population Stabilization (SUSPS). After his election to the board in 2003, Watson supported an unsuccessful slate of candidates supporting strict immigration controls as an element of a population stabilization policy. This effort was denounced by another candidate in the election, Morris Dees of the Southern Poverty Law Center, as a "hostile takeover" attempt by "radical anti-immigrant activists." Watson responded by saying that the only change he was seeking in the organization's immigration stance was to restore the position it had held before its 1996 "neutrality policy." Watson left the Sierra Club board in 2006.
Anti-sealing activities
In April 2008, Watson stated that, while the deaths of three Canadian seal hunters (a fourth one is still missing) in a marine accident involving a Canadian Coast Guard vessel and a fishing boat during the 2008 Canadian Commercial Seal Hunt were a tragedy, he felt that the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of seals is an even greater tragedy. Canadian Federal Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn accused Watson of trivializing the memory of the lost sealers. Watson replied that Hearn was trying to distract attention from his government's incompetence as the boat the men were on capsized while under tow by a Canadian Coast Guard vessel, while his political ambitions continued to support and subsidize an industry that had no place in the 21st century. In 1978, Watson expressed opposition to seal hunt protest organization, suggesting in an interview with CBC's Barbara Frum that saving seals is a cheap and easy fundraiser and that seals do not deserve special status over other species. Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams was quoted as saying, "I think what a lot of people don't realize is that this man is a terrorist."
Australian visa issues
In October 2009, Watson, who carries a US passport, complained to media outlets about having his request for an Australian visa denied. He states that the Australian government was attempting to sabotage the upcoming 2010 Sea Shepherd campaign by denying him entry into the country. Watson and several other shipmates were also unable to join the Steve Irwin on its promotional tour of Australia until they were able to provide documentation from the governments of the United States, Canada and Norway, exonerating them from previously claimed acts of violence, specifically claims by Sea Shepherd of intentionally sinking a ship in Norway. In January 2013, Paul Watson was presented with an Aboriginal passport by the Krautungalung people of the Gunnai Nation.
Alleged shooting
On March 17, 2008, Paul Watson said that he was shot by the Japanese crew or coast guard personnel during the Operation Migaloo anti-whaling campaign in the Southern Ocean. The incident is documented during the season finale of season 1 of the Whale Wars TV reality show, and the first six episodes are covered as a buildup to what is portrayed as the major incident during the campaign. The Japanese respond by throwing stun grenades, one crew member is injured from a grenade detonating close behind him and another injured trying to escape the explosions. Watson is then shown reaching inside his jacket and body armour and remarking "I've been hit." Back inside the bridge of the Steve Irwin, a metal fragment is found inside the vest.
The Japanese Institute of Cetacean Research disputes Sea Shepherd's statements. The Institute and Coast Guard said that they used seven stun grenades designed to temporarily debilitate a target by rendering them blind and deaf for a period of time. The Japanese government also alleged that the whalers launched "noise balls", described as "loud explosive deterrent devices". Neither of the two conflicting accounts have been independently verified. The Australian Foreign Affairs Department had condemned "actions by crew members of any vessel that cause injury". Two media releases were made on the same day from the office. One said that the Australian Embassy in Tokyo had been informed by the Japanese that the whalers had "fired warning shots" while the updated version used the phrase "'warning balls' – also known as 'flashbangs' – had been fired".
Accusations of terrorism
Watson has been called an eco-terrorist by the Japanese government for his direct action tactics against whalers, and it repeated its position after conflicts during the 2009–10 whaling season.
At an animal rights convention in 2002, Paul Watson was also quoted as saying, "There's nothing wrong with being a terrorist, as long as you win. Then you write the history". In 2010, Fox News commentator Glenn Beck also discussed the comment, criticizing Watson's views. Watson responded to Beck's comments on the official Sea Shepherd website by stating that he had said that but that it was taken out of context, quoting Gerald Seymour's "One man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter".
Comments following 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami
Watson was criticized for his poem published immediately following the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami which suggested the disaster was Neptune's anger. Watson responded to critics with a commentary on the Sea Shepherd website expressing "deepest concern and sympathy for the people of Japan who are suffering through one of the worst natural disasters in the history of civilization".
Criticism of New Zealand
In 2013, three Sea Shepherd Conservation Society ships docked in New Zealand, and were searched by New Zealand authorities to see if Watson was aboard. He was not, having transferred to another ship in international waters, aware New Zealand was required to notify Interpol if he entered the country. Watson criticised the search, accusing New Zealand of siding with Japan on the issue of whaling in the Southern Ocean.
Reactions to activism and leadership
Watson has stated that he does not consider himself a 'protester', but an 'interventionist', as he considers protesting as too submissive. He often takes the attitude that he represents (or stands in for) law enforcement which is either unwilling or unable to enforce existing laws.
His leadership style has variously been called arrogant, as well as pushing himself too much "front and center", which was cited as one of the reasons for expulsion from Greenpeace. The atmosphere aboard his vessels has been compared to an "anarchy run by God".
The former member of Sea Shepherd and captain of the Pete Bethune described Watson as "morally bankrupt" who would order the intentional sinking of his own ships like the Ady Gil as a means to "garner sympathy with the public and to create better TV". Watson denied this, saying "No one ordered him to scuttle it. Pete Bethune was captain of the Ady Gil; all decisions on the Ady Gil were his."
Awards
Paul Watson received the Jules Verne Award on October 10, 2012. He was the second person after Captain Jacques Cousteau to be honored with a Jules Verne Award dedicated to environmentalists and adventurers. On June 28, 2010 Paul received the Asociación de Amigos del Museo de Anclas Philippe Cousteau: Defense of Marine Life Award, in recognition of his merits achieved by the work done in defense of marine life. In 2002, Paul was inducted into the US Animal Rights Hall of Fame for his outstanding contributions to animal liberation. Paul received the George H. W. Bush Daily Points of Light Award in 1999 and in 2000, he was named one of Time Magazine's Top 20 Environmental Heroes of the 20th Century. On May 23, 2019, Paul Watson received an official commendation by Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont stating that the "State of Connecticut conveyed both honor and recognition to Captain Paul Watson." In 2007 Watson received the Amazon Peace Prize presented by the Vice President of Ecuador Lenin Moreno.
Media portrayals
A biographical documentary on Paul Watson's early life and background entitled Pirate for the Sea was produced by Ron Colby in 2008.
The 2008 documentary At the Edge of the World chronicled the efforts of Watson and 45 volunteers to hinder the Japanese whaling fleet in the waters around Antarctica. In 2010, long time friend and filmmaker Peter Brown released the documentary Confessions of an Eco-Terrorist, a satirical look back at the last 30 years of actions. The documentary Eco-Pirate: The Story of Paul Watson from 2011 features interviews and footage with early Greenpeace members Rex Weyler and Patrick Moore.
Watson, Whale Wars, and the Japanese whaling industry were satirized in the South Park episode "Whale Whores". In its fictional Larry King show, Watson himself was called "An unorganized incompetent media whore who thought lying to everyone was OK as long as it served his cause" and "A smug, narcoleptic liar with no credibility".
Watson responded to the South Park episode by stating; "My understanding is that the Japanese Prime Minister was not amused and the whalers and dolphin killers are enraged at the way they were portrayed," Watson said. "That's music to my ears. If the humorless whale killers and the bank rollers of the dolphin killers did not like the show, then that's all I need to applaud it."
Watson was portrayed (along with whale biologist, Nan Hauser), during a 60 Minutes episode that aired in 2013, as contributing to the return of the Humpback whale populations in the South Pacific.
In 2019 a biopic film called, Watson directed by one of the producers of An Inconvenient Truth, Lesley Chilcott, was released and also aired on Animal Planet on December 22, 2019.
List of works
Sea Shepherd: My Fight for Whales and Seals (1981) ()
Earthforce! An Earth Warrior's Guide to Strategy (1993) ()
Ocean Warrior: My Battle to End the Illegal Slaughter on the High Seas (1994) ()
Seal Wars: Twenty-Five Years on the Front Lines With the Harp Seals (2002) ()
Contributor to Terrorists or Freedom Fighters?: Reflections on the Liberations of Animals (2004) ()
Earthforce! An Earth Warrior's Guide to Strategy 2nd Edition (2012)
The War That Saved the Whales (2019)
Songs from the Southern Ocean (2020)
The Haunted Mariner (2020)
Dealing with Climate Change and Stress (2020)
Orcapedia (2020)
Desperate Mythologies: Theology, Ecology and the General Insanity of Humanity (2020)
Death of a Whale (2021)
URGENT! Save Our Ocean to Survive Climate Change (2021)
See also
List of conservationists
List of vegans
References
Further reading
Earth Warrior: Overboard With Paul Watson and the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, by David B. Morris (1995) ()
Eco-Warriors, by Rik Scarce (2006) ()
Capitaine Paul Watson, entretien avec un pirate, by Lamya Essemlali, Paul Watson (2012)
External links
Paul Watson's page on the Sea Shepherd official website
1950 births
Canadian animal rights activists
Canadian environmentalists
Fugitives wanted by Germany
Green Party of British Columbia politicians
Green thinkers
Living people
People associated with Greenpeace
People from St. Andrews, New Brunswick
Activists from Toronto
Sea Shepherd Conservation Society
Sierra Club directors
Sustainability advocates
Veganism activists
Yippies | true | [
"Edmund Gibson MA (1713–1771) was a Canon of Windsor from 1742 to 1746.\n\nFamily\nGibson was born in 1713, the son of Edmund Gibson, Bishop of London.\n\nCareer\nGibson was educated at Christ Church, Oxford and graduated BA in 1734 and MA in 1737.\n\nHe was successively appointed:\nPrebendary of Rugmere in St Paul's 1738–1741\nPrebendary of Chiswick in St Paul's 1740–1744\nPrebendary of Mapesbury in St Paul's 1743–1747\nPrebendary of Kentish Town in St Paul's 1746–1770\nPrecentor of St Paul's Cathedral 1741–1770\n\nIn 1742 he was appointed to the eighth stall in St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, where he held the canonry until 1746.\n\nNotes\n\n1711 births\n1771 deaths\nCanons of Windsor\nAlumni of Christ Church, Oxford",
"Paul Halke (1866, Bukowiec - 1924) was a German artist and illustrator.\n\nHe exhibited in the Große Berliner Kunstausstellung (the “Grand Berlin Art Exhibition”) in 1894 and 1914.\n\nHis son, the photographer Heinz Hajek-Halke, was born in Berlin in 1898. After spending several years in Argentina, Paul's son returned to Germany in 1911, where he was taught drawing by Paul.\n\nReferences\n\n1866 births\n1924 deaths\nGerman artists\nGerman cartoonists"
] |
[
"Paul Watson",
"Early and personal life",
"Where was paul born?",
"Paul Watson was born in Toronto"
] | C_92b9e56b3db24c86932abccd2b624bea_1 | when was he born? | 2 | When was Paul Watson born? | Paul Watson | According to the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, Paul Watson was born in Toronto to Anthony Joseph Watson and Annamarie Larsen, and grew up in St. Andrews, New Brunswick, along with two sisters and three brothers. As a child he was a member of the Kindness Club, which he has credited with teaching him to "respect and defend animals". After working as a tour guide at Expo 67, the World's Fair that took place in Montreal in 1967, Watson moved to Vancouver. According to the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, in 1968 and the early 1970s, he joined the Canadian Coast Guard, where he served aboard weatherships, search and rescue hovercraft, and buoy tenders. He signed up as a merchant seaman in 1969 with the Norwegian Consulate in Vancouver and shipped out on the 35,000 ton bulk carrier Bris as a deck hand. The Bris was registered in Oslo, Norway and manifested for the Indian Ocean and Pacific trade. Watson has one daughter Lilliolani (born 1980) with his first wife, Starlet Lum, who was a founding director of Greenpeace Quebec, Earthforce!, Project Wolf, and Sea Shepherd. His second wife, Lisa Distefano, a former Playboy model, was Sea Shepherd's Director of Operations during the Makah anti-whaling campaigns in Friday Harbor. His third wife, Allison Lance, is an animal rights activist and a volunteer crew member of Sea Shepherd. Watson has two grandchildren. Watson married his fourth wife Yana Rusinovich on February 14, 2015, in Paris, France. Watson and Rusinovich had a son, Tiger, on September 29, 2016. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Paul Franklin Watson (born December 2, 1950) is a Canadian-American conservation and environmental activist, who founded the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, an anti-poaching and direct action group focused on marine conservation activism. The tactics used by Sea Shepherd have attracted opposition, with the group accused of eco-terrorism by both the Japanese government and Greenpeace. Watson is a citizen of Canada and the United States.
The Toronto native joined a Sierra Club protest against nuclear testing in 1969. He was a co-founder of Greenpeace in 1972. Because Watson argued for a strategy of direct action that conflicted with the Greenpeace interpretation of nonviolence, he was ousted from the board in 1977. That same year, he formed the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. The group was the subject of a reality show named Whale Wars.
He promotes veganism, population reduction and a biocentric, rather than anthropocentric, worldview.
Watson's activities have led to legal action from authorities in countries including the United States, Canada, Norway, Costa Rica and Japan. He was detained in Germany on an extradition request by Costa Rica in May 2012. An Interpol red notice was issued on September 14, 2012, at the request of Japan and Costa Rica.
After staying at sea for 15 months following his escape from Germany, where he was released on bail, he returned to Los Angeles in late October 2013, going through customs and "was not arrested". He appeared before a US appeals court on November 6, 2013, stating that neither he nor the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society violated a 2012 order requiring them to leave whaling vessels alone. Although the United States is a signatory member of Interpol, Watson has not been detained for extradition to Japan or Costa Rica. He is living in Vermont, writing books. He was residing in Paris as of July 1, 2014 but has since returned to the USA.
In March 2019, Costa Rica dropped all charges against Watson and has removed the Interpol red notice.
Early and personal life
According to the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, Paul Watson was born in Toronto to Anthony Joseph Watson and Annamarie Larsen, and grew up in St. Andrews, New Brunswick, along with two sisters and three brothers. As a child he was a member of the Kindness Club, which he has credited with teaching him to "respect and defend animals". After working as a tour guide at Expo 67, the World's Fair that took place in Montreal in 1967, Watson moved to Vancouver.
According to the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, in 1968 and the early 1970s, he joined the Canadian Coast Guard, where he served aboard weatherships, search and rescue hovercraft, and buoy tenders. He signed up as a merchant seaman in 1969 with the Norwegian Consulate in Vancouver and shipped out on the 30,000 ton bulk carrier Bris as a deckhand. The Bris was registered in Oslo, Norway and manifested for the Indian Ocean and Pacific trade. In 1972 he shipped out of San Francisco on the 35,000 ton bulk Swedish carrier Jarl R. Trapp and manifested for the Indian Ocean and Pacific trade
Watson has one daughter Lilliolani (born 1980) with his first wife, Starlet Lum, who was a founding director of Greenpeace Quebec, Earthforce!, Project Wolf, and Sea Shepherd. His second wife, Lisa Distefano, a former Playboy model, was Sea Shepherd's Director of Operations during the Makah anti-whaling campaigns in Friday Harbor. His third wife, Allison Lance, is an animal rights activist and a volunteer crew member of Sea Shepherd. Watson has two grandchildren. Watson married his fourth wife Yana Rusinovich on February 14, 2015, in Paris, France. Watson and Rusinovich had a son, Tiger, on September 29, 2016 and a second son, Murtagh, on August 6, 2021. He ran for parliament in Canada's federal elections twice.
Activism
Early years
In October 1969, Watson joined a Sierra Club protest against nuclear testing at Amchitka Island. The group which formed as a result of that protest was the Don't Make a Wave Committee, which evolved into the group known today as Greenpeace. In the early 1970s, Watson was also active with the Vancouver Liberation Front and the Vancouver Yippies. Watson sailed as a crew member aboard the Greenpeace Too! ship in 1971 and skippered the Greenpeace boat Astral in 1972. Paul Watson continued as a crew member, skipper, and officer aboard several Greenpeace voyages throughout the mid-1970s.
According to The New Yorker, The New York Times, and other sources, Watson was a founding member of Greenpeace, but the organization denies this stating he "was an influential early member but not, as he sometimes claims, a founder." Greenpeace claims that Watson joined Greenpeace on its Amchitka expedition, which they claim to be their second expedition, but Paul Watson claims that this was Greenpeace's first meeting.
Sea Shepherd Conservation Society
The first Sea Shepherd vessel, the Sea Shepherd, was purchased in December 1978 with assistance from the Fund for Animals and the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Sea Shepherd soon established itself as one of the more controversial environmental groups, known for provocative direct action tactics. These tactics have included throwing objects onto the decks of whaling ships, the use of "prop foulers" in an attempt to sabotage the ships, boarding whaling vessels, and the scuttling of two ships in an Icelandic harbor. In January 2013, Watson relinquished captaincy of the Steve Irwin. The organization and its activities to halt whaling are the focus of a reality TV series, Whale Wars, airing on Animal Planet.
In 2010, Watson personally received more than $120,000 from Sea Shepherd.
Because of mounting legal complications, Watson has stepped down as head of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society in 2013, to abide by an injunction barring him from proximity with Japanese whaling ships. After the resolution of legal issues involving the Japanese Institute for Cetacean Research, Watson returned as President of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and Commander of the Sea Shepherd fleet.
Other environmental activities
Watson was a field correspondent for Defenders of Wildlife from 1976 to 1980 and a field representative for the Fund for Animals from 1978 to 1981. Watson also was a co-founder of Friends of the Wolf and Earthforce Environmental Society.
During the 1980s, Watson declared his support for Earth First! and cultivated friendships with David Foreman and Edward Abbey. He proclaimed Sea Shepherd to be the "navy" of Earth First! According to The New Yorker, Watson revived the 19th-century practice of tree spiking.
Watson worked with the Green Party of British Columbia in Vancouver in the 1980s and 90s. He ran for mayor in 1996, placing fourth.
In April 2003, Watson was elected to the board of directors of the Sierra Club for a three-year term. In 2006, he did not seek re-election. He resigned from the board a month before his term ended, in protest against the organization's sponsorship of a "Why I Hunt" essay contest.
In January 2008, Paul Watson was named by The Guardian as one of its "50 people who could save the planet" for the work of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.
Writings on activism
Watson published Earthforce!, a guide to strategy for environmental activists in 1993. In it, he specifically endorsed the tactics of "monkeywrenching" previously described by Dave Foreman and Edward Abbey. According to Foreman in Eco-Defense—The Field Guide to Monkey-Wrenching— these are tactics of sabotage, covert activity, and direct action. Watson says he incorporated his own personal experience in writing the book.
In Earthforce! An Earth Warrior's Guide to Strategy, Watson expressed disdain for the truthfulness of mainstream media:
The nature of the mass media today is such that the truth is irrelevant. What is true and what is right to the general public is what is defined as true and right by the mass media. Ronald Reagan understood that the facts are not relevant. The media reported what he said as fact. Follow-up investigation was "old news." A headline comment on Monday's newspaper far outweighs the revelation of inaccuracy revealed in a small box inside the paper on Tuesday or Wednesday.
Watson was explicit about what he perceived to be the lack of truthfulness in mass media: "If you do not know an answer, a fact, or a statistic, then simply follow the example of an American President and do as Ronald Reagan did—make it up on the spot and deliver the information confidently and without hesitation." In a subsequent book, Ocean Warrior, Watson expanded on this view, saying: "Survival in a media culture meant developing the skills to understand and manipulate media to achieve strategic objectives."
In 2007 Watson explained his view of needed population control and the future for humans given their role in the Holocene extinction, which he refers to as the "Holocenic hominid collective suicide event":
Today, escalating human populations have vastly exceeded global carrying capacity and now produce massive quantities of solid, liquid, and gaseous waste [...] No human community should be larger than 20,000 people and separated from other communities by wilderness areas [...] We need to radically and intelligently reduce human populations to fewer than one billion [...] Curing a body of cancer requires radical and invasive therapy, and therefore, curing the biosphere of the human virus will also require a radical and invasive approach [...] Who should have children? Those who are responsible and completely dedicated to the responsibility which is actually a very small percentage of humans.
Controversy
Separation from Greenpeace
Paul Watson continued as a crew member, officer, and skipper (in 1972) aboard several Greenpeace voyages throughout the mid-1970s. He considers himself a founding member of Greenpeace and Greenpeace International, a claim Greenpeace disputes despite being pointed out in the documentary, How to Change the World which shows that Watson was indeed one of the original founding members of Greenpeace. Watson has since accused Greenpeace of rewriting their history.
In 1977, Watson was expelled from the Greenpeace's board of directors by a vote of 11 to 1 (Watson himself cast the single vote against it). The group felt his strong, "front and center" personality and frequently voiced opposition to Greenpeace's interpretation of "nonviolence" were too divisive. Watson subsequently left the group. The group has since labeled his actions at the time as those of a "mutineer" within their ranks. That same year, he founded his own group, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.
During an interview in 1978 with CBC Radio, Watson spoke out against Greenpeace (as well as other organizations) and their role and motives for the anti-sealing campaigns. Watson accused these organizations of campaigning against the Canadian seal hunt because it is an easy way to raise money and it is a profit maker for the organizations.
Greenpeace has called Watson a violent extremist and will no longer comment on his activities.
Charges and prosecutions
Watson was sentenced to 10 days in prison and fined $8,000 for his actions during a Canadian seal hunt protest in 1980, after being convicted of assaulting a fisheries officer. Watson served his sentence at Her Majesty's Penitentiary, St. John's, NL. He was also found guilty under the Seal Protection Act for painting harp seal pups with red dye to devalue their pelts. Watson was arrested in 1993 in Canada on charges stemming from actions against Cuban and Spanish fishing boats off the coast of Newfoundland. In 1997, Watson was convicted in absentia and sentenced to serve 120 days in jail by a court in Lofoten, Norway on charges of attempting to sink the small scale Norwegian fishing and whaling vessel Nybrænna on December 26, 1992. Dutch authorities refused to hand him over to Norwegian authorities although he did spend 80 days in detention in the Netherlands pending a ruling on extradition before being released.
There have not been any successful attempts at prosecuting Watson for his activities with Sea Shepherd since the trial in Newfoundland. Watson defends his actions as falling within international law, in particular Sea Shepherd's right to enforce maritime regulations against illegal whalers and sealers.
Sea Shepherd activists Rod Coronado and David Howitt went to Iceland in 1986 and scuttled two whaling ships in port at Reykjavík and also damaged a whale meat processing factory. Watson took responsibility for the operation, abiding by published Sea Shepherd principles. He went to Iceland saying, "I am responsible for all activities undertaken in the name of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. I give the orders." He was deported without being charged and is considered a persona non grata by Iceland
In April 2010 the Japanese Coast Guard obtained an arrest warrant for Watson "...on suspicion of ordering sabotage activities against Japan's whaling fleet", and Interpol has listed him as wanted at the request of Japan. The red notice has the charges issued by Japan as, "Breaking into the Vessel, Damage to Property, Forcible Obstruction of Business, Injury". In March 2012 Interpol issued a "written statement to all 190 member countries making it clear that it would not publish a Red Notice" for the detention of Watson, but reversed that position in September 2012. In both statements Interpol stated that a "Red Notice is not an international arrest warrant" that it is "a request for any country to identify or locate an individual with a view to their provisional arrest and extradition in accordance with the country's national laws".
In May 2012 Watson was detained by German authorities at the Frankfurt Airport because of a request from the government of Costa Rica. The charge stemmed from an altercation at sea in 2002 in which Sea Shepherd said that the other vessel was illegally shark finning in Guatemalan waters. Crew members of the other ship accused Sea Shepherd of trying to kill them. Watson was charged with violating navigational regulations with the Interpol alert stating the charge as, "peligro de naufragio" (danger of shipwreck). The conflict took place during filming for the documentary Sharkwater and the charges were dropped by prosecutors after video of the incident made by the documentary film makers was shown. On May 21, Watson was released on bail of €250,000 but required to report to police in Frankfurt on a daily basis. In June, Costa Rica formally requested Watson's extradition from Germany. On July 19, 2012, Japan applied for an extradition order and Watson left Germany, resulting in a German court ordering his immediate re-arrest. It is understood the statute of limitations on his Costa Rican charges was set to expire in June 2013.
On August 7, 2012 Interpol renewed the Red Notice for Watson on the charges of "causing a danger of drowning or of an air disaster" laid by Costa Rica. It was reported that Watson would come out of hiding to join Sea Shepherd in the 2012–13 campaign against Japanese whaling. Watson rejoined the crew of the Steve Irwin in the South Pacific in late November 2012. In March 2019, Costa Rica dropped all charges against Watson and has removed the Interpol red notice.
Sierra Club immigration stance
In 1999, Watson ran unsuccessfully for election to the national Sierra Club Board of Directors, with the backing of the anti-immigration faction Sierrans for US Population Stabilization (SUSPS). After his election to the board in 2003, Watson supported an unsuccessful slate of candidates supporting strict immigration controls as an element of a population stabilization policy. This effort was denounced by another candidate in the election, Morris Dees of the Southern Poverty Law Center, as a "hostile takeover" attempt by "radical anti-immigrant activists." Watson responded by saying that the only change he was seeking in the organization's immigration stance was to restore the position it had held before its 1996 "neutrality policy." Watson left the Sierra Club board in 2006.
Anti-sealing activities
In April 2008, Watson stated that, while the deaths of three Canadian seal hunters (a fourth one is still missing) in a marine accident involving a Canadian Coast Guard vessel and a fishing boat during the 2008 Canadian Commercial Seal Hunt were a tragedy, he felt that the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of seals is an even greater tragedy. Canadian Federal Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn accused Watson of trivializing the memory of the lost sealers. Watson replied that Hearn was trying to distract attention from his government's incompetence as the boat the men were on capsized while under tow by a Canadian Coast Guard vessel, while his political ambitions continued to support and subsidize an industry that had no place in the 21st century. In 1978, Watson expressed opposition to seal hunt protest organization, suggesting in an interview with CBC's Barbara Frum that saving seals is a cheap and easy fundraiser and that seals do not deserve special status over other species. Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams was quoted as saying, "I think what a lot of people don't realize is that this man is a terrorist."
Australian visa issues
In October 2009, Watson, who carries a US passport, complained to media outlets about having his request for an Australian visa denied. He states that the Australian government was attempting to sabotage the upcoming 2010 Sea Shepherd campaign by denying him entry into the country. Watson and several other shipmates were also unable to join the Steve Irwin on its promotional tour of Australia until they were able to provide documentation from the governments of the United States, Canada and Norway, exonerating them from previously claimed acts of violence, specifically claims by Sea Shepherd of intentionally sinking a ship in Norway. In January 2013, Paul Watson was presented with an Aboriginal passport by the Krautungalung people of the Gunnai Nation.
Alleged shooting
On March 17, 2008, Paul Watson said that he was shot by the Japanese crew or coast guard personnel during the Operation Migaloo anti-whaling campaign in the Southern Ocean. The incident is documented during the season finale of season 1 of the Whale Wars TV reality show, and the first six episodes are covered as a buildup to what is portrayed as the major incident during the campaign. The Japanese respond by throwing stun grenades, one crew member is injured from a grenade detonating close behind him and another injured trying to escape the explosions. Watson is then shown reaching inside his jacket and body armour and remarking "I've been hit." Back inside the bridge of the Steve Irwin, a metal fragment is found inside the vest.
The Japanese Institute of Cetacean Research disputes Sea Shepherd's statements. The Institute and Coast Guard said that they used seven stun grenades designed to temporarily debilitate a target by rendering them blind and deaf for a period of time. The Japanese government also alleged that the whalers launched "noise balls", described as "loud explosive deterrent devices". Neither of the two conflicting accounts have been independently verified. The Australian Foreign Affairs Department had condemned "actions by crew members of any vessel that cause injury". Two media releases were made on the same day from the office. One said that the Australian Embassy in Tokyo had been informed by the Japanese that the whalers had "fired warning shots" while the updated version used the phrase "'warning balls' – also known as 'flashbangs' – had been fired".
Accusations of terrorism
Watson has been called an eco-terrorist by the Japanese government for his direct action tactics against whalers, and it repeated its position after conflicts during the 2009–10 whaling season.
At an animal rights convention in 2002, Paul Watson was also quoted as saying, "There's nothing wrong with being a terrorist, as long as you win. Then you write the history". In 2010, Fox News commentator Glenn Beck also discussed the comment, criticizing Watson's views. Watson responded to Beck's comments on the official Sea Shepherd website by stating that he had said that but that it was taken out of context, quoting Gerald Seymour's "One man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter".
Comments following 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami
Watson was criticized for his poem published immediately following the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami which suggested the disaster was Neptune's anger. Watson responded to critics with a commentary on the Sea Shepherd website expressing "deepest concern and sympathy for the people of Japan who are suffering through one of the worst natural disasters in the history of civilization".
Criticism of New Zealand
In 2013, three Sea Shepherd Conservation Society ships docked in New Zealand, and were searched by New Zealand authorities to see if Watson was aboard. He was not, having transferred to another ship in international waters, aware New Zealand was required to notify Interpol if he entered the country. Watson criticised the search, accusing New Zealand of siding with Japan on the issue of whaling in the Southern Ocean.
Reactions to activism and leadership
Watson has stated that he does not consider himself a 'protester', but an 'interventionist', as he considers protesting as too submissive. He often takes the attitude that he represents (or stands in for) law enforcement which is either unwilling or unable to enforce existing laws.
His leadership style has variously been called arrogant, as well as pushing himself too much "front and center", which was cited as one of the reasons for expulsion from Greenpeace. The atmosphere aboard his vessels has been compared to an "anarchy run by God".
The former member of Sea Shepherd and captain of the Pete Bethune described Watson as "morally bankrupt" who would order the intentional sinking of his own ships like the Ady Gil as a means to "garner sympathy with the public and to create better TV". Watson denied this, saying "No one ordered him to scuttle it. Pete Bethune was captain of the Ady Gil; all decisions on the Ady Gil were his."
Awards
Paul Watson received the Jules Verne Award on October 10, 2012. He was the second person after Captain Jacques Cousteau to be honored with a Jules Verne Award dedicated to environmentalists and adventurers. On June 28, 2010 Paul received the Asociación de Amigos del Museo de Anclas Philippe Cousteau: Defense of Marine Life Award, in recognition of his merits achieved by the work done in defense of marine life. In 2002, Paul was inducted into the US Animal Rights Hall of Fame for his outstanding contributions to animal liberation. Paul received the George H. W. Bush Daily Points of Light Award in 1999 and in 2000, he was named one of Time Magazine's Top 20 Environmental Heroes of the 20th Century. On May 23, 2019, Paul Watson received an official commendation by Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont stating that the "State of Connecticut conveyed both honor and recognition to Captain Paul Watson." In 2007 Watson received the Amazon Peace Prize presented by the Vice President of Ecuador Lenin Moreno.
Media portrayals
A biographical documentary on Paul Watson's early life and background entitled Pirate for the Sea was produced by Ron Colby in 2008.
The 2008 documentary At the Edge of the World chronicled the efforts of Watson and 45 volunteers to hinder the Japanese whaling fleet in the waters around Antarctica. In 2010, long time friend and filmmaker Peter Brown released the documentary Confessions of an Eco-Terrorist, a satirical look back at the last 30 years of actions. The documentary Eco-Pirate: The Story of Paul Watson from 2011 features interviews and footage with early Greenpeace members Rex Weyler and Patrick Moore.
Watson, Whale Wars, and the Japanese whaling industry were satirized in the South Park episode "Whale Whores". In its fictional Larry King show, Watson himself was called "An unorganized incompetent media whore who thought lying to everyone was OK as long as it served his cause" and "A smug, narcoleptic liar with no credibility".
Watson responded to the South Park episode by stating; "My understanding is that the Japanese Prime Minister was not amused and the whalers and dolphin killers are enraged at the way they were portrayed," Watson said. "That's music to my ears. If the humorless whale killers and the bank rollers of the dolphin killers did not like the show, then that's all I need to applaud it."
Watson was portrayed (along with whale biologist, Nan Hauser), during a 60 Minutes episode that aired in 2013, as contributing to the return of the Humpback whale populations in the South Pacific.
In 2019 a biopic film called, Watson directed by one of the producers of An Inconvenient Truth, Lesley Chilcott, was released and also aired on Animal Planet on December 22, 2019.
List of works
Sea Shepherd: My Fight for Whales and Seals (1981) ()
Earthforce! An Earth Warrior's Guide to Strategy (1993) ()
Ocean Warrior: My Battle to End the Illegal Slaughter on the High Seas (1994) ()
Seal Wars: Twenty-Five Years on the Front Lines With the Harp Seals (2002) ()
Contributor to Terrorists or Freedom Fighters?: Reflections on the Liberations of Animals (2004) ()
Earthforce! An Earth Warrior's Guide to Strategy 2nd Edition (2012)
The War That Saved the Whales (2019)
Songs from the Southern Ocean (2020)
The Haunted Mariner (2020)
Dealing with Climate Change and Stress (2020)
Orcapedia (2020)
Desperate Mythologies: Theology, Ecology and the General Insanity of Humanity (2020)
Death of a Whale (2021)
URGENT! Save Our Ocean to Survive Climate Change (2021)
See also
List of conservationists
List of vegans
References
Further reading
Earth Warrior: Overboard With Paul Watson and the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, by David B. Morris (1995) ()
Eco-Warriors, by Rik Scarce (2006) ()
Capitaine Paul Watson, entretien avec un pirate, by Lamya Essemlali, Paul Watson (2012)
External links
Paul Watson's page on the Sea Shepherd official website
1950 births
Canadian animal rights activists
Canadian environmentalists
Fugitives wanted by Germany
Green Party of British Columbia politicians
Green thinkers
Living people
People associated with Greenpeace
People from St. Andrews, New Brunswick
Activists from Toronto
Sea Shepherd Conservation Society
Sierra Club directors
Sustainability advocates
Veganism activists
Yippies | false | [
"Since the first human spaceflight by the Soviet Union, citizens of 42 countries have flown in space. For each nationality, the launch date of the first mission is listed. The list is based on the nationality of the person at the time of the launch. Only 3 of the 42 \"first flyers\" have been women (Helen Sharman for the United Kingdom in 1991, Anousheh Ansari for Iran in 2006, and Yi So-yeon for South Korea in 2008). Only three nations (Soviet Union/Russia, U.S., China) have launched their own crewed spacecraft, with the Soviets/Russians and the American programs providing rides to other nations' astronauts. Twenty-seven \"first flights\" occurred on Soviet or Russian flights while the United States carried fourteen.\n\nTimeline\nNote: All dates given are UTC. Countries indicated in bold have achieved independent human spaceflight capability.\n\nNotes\n\nOther claims\nThe above list uses the nationality at the time of launch. Lists with differing criteria might include the following people:\n Pavel Popovich, first launched 12 August 1962, was the first Ukrainian-born man in space. At the time, Ukraine was a part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.\n Michael Collins, first launched 18 July 1966 was born in Italy to American parents and was an American citizen when he went into space.\n William Anders, American citizen, first launched 21 December 1968, was the first Hong Kong-born man in space.\n Vladimir Shatalov, first launched 14 January 1969, was the first Kazakh-born man in space. At the time, Kazakhstan was a part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.\n Bill Pogue, first launched 16 November 1973, as an inductee to the 5 Civilized Tribes Hall of Fame can lay claim to being the first Native American in space. See John Herrington below regarding technicality of tribal registration.\n Pyotr Klimuk, first launched 18 December 1973, was the first Belorussian-born man in space. At the time, Belarus was a part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.\n Vladimir Dzhanibekov, first launched 16 March 1978, was the first Uzbek-born man in space. At the time, Uzbekistan was a part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.\n Paul D. Scully-Power, first launched 5 October 1984, was born in Australia, but was an American citizen when he went into space; Australian law at the time forbade dual-citizenship.\n Taylor Gun-Jin Wang, first launched 29 April 1985, was born in China to Chinese parents, but was an American citizen when he went into space.\n Lodewijk van den Berg, launched 29 April 1985, was born in the Netherlands, but was an American citizen when he went into space.\n Patrick Baudry, first launched 17 June 1985, was born in French Cameroun (now part of Cameroon), but was a French citizen when he went into space.\n Shannon Lucid, first launched 17 June 1985, was born in China to American parents of European descent, and was an American citizen when she went into space.\n Franklin Chang-Diaz, first launched 12 January 1986, was born in Costa Rica, but was an American citizen when he went into space\n Musa Manarov, first launched 21 December 1987, was the first Azerbaijan-born man in space. At the time, Azerbaijan was a part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.\n Anatoly Solovyev, first launched 7 June 1988, was the first Latvian-born man in space. At the time, Latvia was a part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.\n Sergei Konstantinovich Krikalev and Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Volkov became Russian rather than Soviet citizens while still in orbit aboard Mir, making them the first purely Russian citizens in space.\n James H. Newman, American citizen, first launched 12 September 1993, was born in the portion of the United Nations Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands that is now the Federated States of Micronesia.\n Talgat Musabayev, first launched 1 July 1994, was born in the Kazakh SSR and is known in Kazakhstan as the \"first cosmonaut of independent Kazakhstan\", but was a Russian citizen when he went into space.\n Frederick W. Leslie, American citizen, launched 20 October 1995, was born in Panama Canal Zone (now Panama).\n Andy Thomas, first launched 19 May 1996, was born in Australia but like Paul D. Scully-Power was an American citizen when he went to space; Australian law at the time forbade dual-citizenship.\n Carlos I. Noriega, first launched 15 May 1997, was born in Peru, but was an American citizen when he went into space.\n Bjarni Tryggvason, launched 7 August 1997, was born in Iceland, but was a Canadian citizen when he went into space.\n Salizhan Sharipov, first launched 22 January 1998, was born in Kyrgyzstan (then the Kirghiz SSR), but was a Russian citizen when he went into space. Sharipov is of Uzbek ancestry.\n Philippe Perrin, first launched 5 June 2002, was born in Morocco, but was a French citizen when he went into space.\n John Herrington, an American citizen first launched 24 November 2002, is the first tribal registered Native American in space (Chickasaw). See also Bill Pogue above.\n Fyodor Yurchikhin, first launched 7 October 2002, was born in Georgia (then the Georgian SSR). He was a Russian citizen at the time he went into space and is of Pontian Greek descent.\n Joseph M. Acaba, first launched 15 March 2009, was born in the U.S. state of California to American parents of Puerto Rican descent.\n\nGallery\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nCurrent Space Demographics, compiled by William Harwood, CBS News Space Consultant, and Rob Navias, NASA.\n\nLists of firsts in space\nSpaceflight timelines",
"This is a list of notable books by young authors and of books written by notable writers in their early years. These books were written, or substantially completed, before the author's twentieth birthday. \n\nAlexandra Adornetto (born 18 April 1994) wrote her debut novel, The Shadow Thief, when she was 13. It was published in 2007. Other books written by her as a teenager are: The Lampo Circus (2008), Von Gobstopper's Arcade (2009), Halo (2010) and Hades (2011).\nMargery Allingham (1904–1966) had her first novel, Blackkerchief Dick, about smugglers in 17th century Essex, published in 1923, when she was 19.\nJorge Amado (1912–2001) had his debut novel, The Country of Carnival, published in 1931, when he was 18.\nPrateek Arora wrote his debut novel Village 1104 at the age of 16. It was published in 2010.\nDaisy Ashford (1881–1972) wrote The Young Visiters while aged nine. This novella was first published in 1919, preserving her juvenile punctuation and spelling. An earlier work, The Life of Father McSwiney, was dictated to her father when she was four. It was published almost a century later in 1983.\nAmelia Atwater-Rhodes (born 1984) had her first novel, In the Forests of the Night, published in 1999. Subsequent novels include Demon in My View (2000), Shattered Mirror (2001), Midnight Predator (2002), Hawksong (2003) and Snakecharm (2004).\nJane Austen (1775–1817) wrote Lady Susan, a short epistolary novel, between 1793 and 1795 when she was aged 18-20.\nRuskin Bond (born 1934) wrote his semi-autobiographical novel The Room on the Roof when he was 17. It was published in 1955.\nMarjorie Bowen (1885–1952) wrote the historical novel The Viper of Milan when she was 16. Published in 1906 after several rejections, it became a bestseller.\nOliver Madox Brown (1855–1874) finished his novel Gabriel Denver in early 1872, when he was 17. It was published the following year.\nPamela Brown (1924–1989) finished her children's novel about an amateur theatre company, The Swish of the Curtain (1941), when she was 16 and later wrote other books about the stage.\nCeleste and Carmel Buckingham wrote The Lost Princess when they were 11 and 9.\nFlavia Bujor (born 8 August 1988) wrote The Prophecy of the Stones (2002) when she was 13.\nLord Byron (1788–1824) published two volumes of poetry in his teens, Fugitive Pieces and Hours of Idleness.\nTaylor Caldwell's The Romance of Atlantis was written when she was 12.\n (1956–1976), Le Don de Vorace, was published in 1974.\nHilda Conkling (1910–1986) had her poems published in Poems by a Little Girl (1920), Shoes of the Wind (1922) and Silverhorn (1924).\nAbraham Cowley (1618–1667), Tragicall History of Piramus and Thisbe (1628), Poetical Blossoms (published 1633).\nMaureen Daly (1921–2006) completed Seventeenth Summer before she was 20. It was published in 1942.\nJuliette Davies (born 2000) wrote the first book in the JJ Halo series when she was eight years old. The series was published the following year.\nSamuel R. Delany (born 1 April 1942) published his The Jewels of Aptor in 1962.\nPatricia Finney's A Shadow of Gulls was published in 1977 when she was 18. Its sequel, The Crow Goddess, was published in 1978.\nBarbara Newhall Follett (1914–1939) wrote her first novel The House Without Windows at the age of eight. The manuscript was destroyed in a house fire and she later retyped her manuscript at the age of 12. The novel was published by Knopf publishing house in January 1927.\nFord Madox Ford (né Hueffer) (1873–1939) published in 1892 two children's stories, The Brown Owl and The Feather, and a novel, The Shifting of the Fire.\nAnne Frank (1929–1945) wrote her diary for two-and-a-half years starting on her 13th birthday. It was published posthumously as Het Achterhuis in 1947 and then in English translation in 1952 as Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl. An unabridged translation followed in 1996.\nMiles Franklin wrote My Brilliant Career (1901) when she was a teenager.\nAlec Greven's How to Talk to Girls was published in 2008 when he was nine years old. Subsequently he has published How to Talk to Moms, How to Talk to Dads and How to Talk to Santa.\nFaïza Guène (born 1985) had Kiffe kiffe demain published in 2004, when she was 19. It has since been translated into 22 languages, including English (as Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow).\nSonya Hartnett (born 1968) was thirteen years old when she wrote her first novel, Trouble All the Way, which was published in Australia in 1984.\nAlex and Brett Harris wrote the best-selling book Do Hard Things (2008), a non-fiction book challenging teenagers to \"rebel against low expectations\", at age 19. Two years later came a follow-up book called Start Here (2010).\nGeorgette Heyer (1902–1974) wrote The Black Moth when she was 17 and received a publishing contract when she was 18. It was published just after she turned 19.\nSusan Hill (born 1942), The Enclosure, published in 1961.\nS. E. Hinton (born 1948), The Outsiders, first published in 1967.\nPalle Huld (1912–2010) wrote A Boy Scout Around the World (Jorden Rundt i 44 dage) when he was 15, following a sponsored journey around the world.\nGeorge Vernon Hudson (1867–1946) completed An Elementary Manual of New Zealand Entomology at the end of 1886, when he was 19, but not published until 1892.\nKatharine Hull (1921–1977) and Pamela Whitlock (1920–1982) wrote the children's outdoor adventure novel The Far-Distant Oxus in 1937. It was followed in 1938 by Escape to Persia and in 1939 by Oxus in Summer.\nLeigh Hunt (1784–1859) published Juvenilia; or, a Collection of Poems Written between the ages of Twelve and Sixteen by J. H. L. Hunt, Late of the Grammar School of Christ's Hospital in March 1801.\nKody Keplinger (born 1991) wrote her debut novel The DUFF when she was 17.\nGordon Korman (born 1963), This Can't Be Happening at Macdonald Hall (1978), three sequels, and I Want to Go Home (1981).\nMatthew Gregory Lewis (1775–1818) wrote the Gothic novel The Monk, now regarded as a classic of the genre, before he was twenty. It was published in 1796.\nNina Lugovskaya (1918–1993), a painter, theater director and Gulag survivor, kept a diary in 1932–37, which shows strong social sensitivities. It was found in the Russian State Archives and published 2003. It appeared in English in the same year.\nJoyce Maynard (born 1953) completed Looking Back while she was 19. It was first published in 1973.\nMargaret Mitchell (1900–1949) wrote her novella Lost Laysen at the age of fifteen and gave the two notebooks containing the manuscript to her boyfriend, Henry Love Angel. The novel was published posthumously in 1996.\nBen Okri, the Nigerian poet and novelist, (born 1959) wrote his first book Flowers and Shadows while he was 19.\nAlice Oseman(born 1994) wrote the novel Solitaire when she was 17 and it was published in 2014.\nHelen Oyeyemi (born 1984) completed The Icarus Girl while still 18. First published in 2005.\nChristopher Paolini (born 1983) had Eragon, the first novel of the Inheritance Cycle, first published 2002.\nEmily Pepys (1833–1877), daughter of a bishop, wrote a vivid private journal over six months of 1844–45, aged ten. It was discovered much later and published in 1984.\nAnya Reiss (born 1991) wrote her play Spur of the Moment when she was 17. It was both performed and published in 2010, when she was 18.\nArthur Rimbaud (1854–1891) wrote almost all his prose and poetry while still a teenager, for example Le Soleil était encore chaud (1866), Le Bateau ivre (1871) and Une Saison en Enfer (1873).\nJohn Thomas Romney Robinson (1792–1882) saw his juvenile poems published in 1806, when he was 13.\nFrançoise Sagan (1935–2004) had Bonjour tristesse published in 1954, when she was 18.\nMary Shelley (1797–1851) completed Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus during May 1817, when she was 19. It was first published in the following year.\nMattie Stepanek (1990–2004), an American poet, published seven best-selling books of poetry.\nJohn Steptoe (1950–1989), author and illustrator, began his picture book Stevie at 16. It was published in 1969 in Life.\nAnna Stothard (born 1983) saw her Isabel and Rocco published when she was 19.\nDorothy Straight (born 1958) in 1962 wrote How the World Began, which was published by Pantheon Books in 1964. She holds the Guinness world record for the youngest female published author.\nJalaluddin Al-Suyuti (c. 1445–1505) wrote his first book, Sharh Al-Isti'aadha wal-Basmalah, at the age of 17.\nF. J. Thwaites (1908–1979) wrote his bestselling novel The Broken Melody when he was 19.\nJohn Kennedy Toole (1937–1969) wrote The Neon Bible in 1954 when he was 16. It was not published until 1989.\nAlec Waugh (1898–1981) wrote his novel about school life, The Loom of Youth, after leaving school. It was published in 1917.\nCatherine Webb (born 1986) had five young adult books published before she was 20: Mirror Dreams (2002), Mirror Wakes (2003), Waywalkers (2003), Timekeepers (2004) and The Extraordinary and Unusual Adventures of Horatio Lyle (February 2006).\nNancy Yi Fan (born 1993) published her debut Swordbird when she was 12. Other books she published as a teenager include Sword Quest (2008) and Sword Mountain (2012).\nKat Zhang (born 1991) was 20 when she sold, in a three-book deal, her entire Hybrid Chronicles trilogy. The first book, What's Left of Me, was published 2012.\n\nSee also \nLists of books\n\nReferences \n\nBooks Written By Children and Teenagers\nbooks\nChildren And Teenagers, Written By\nChi"
] |
[
"Paul Watson",
"Early and personal life",
"Where was paul born?",
"Paul Watson was born in Toronto",
"when was he born?",
"I don't know."
] | C_92b9e56b3db24c86932abccd2b624bea_1 | who were his parents? | 3 | Who were Paul Watson's parents? | Paul Watson | According to the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, Paul Watson was born in Toronto to Anthony Joseph Watson and Annamarie Larsen, and grew up in St. Andrews, New Brunswick, along with two sisters and three brothers. As a child he was a member of the Kindness Club, which he has credited with teaching him to "respect and defend animals". After working as a tour guide at Expo 67, the World's Fair that took place in Montreal in 1967, Watson moved to Vancouver. According to the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, in 1968 and the early 1970s, he joined the Canadian Coast Guard, where he served aboard weatherships, search and rescue hovercraft, and buoy tenders. He signed up as a merchant seaman in 1969 with the Norwegian Consulate in Vancouver and shipped out on the 35,000 ton bulk carrier Bris as a deck hand. The Bris was registered in Oslo, Norway and manifested for the Indian Ocean and Pacific trade. Watson has one daughter Lilliolani (born 1980) with his first wife, Starlet Lum, who was a founding director of Greenpeace Quebec, Earthforce!, Project Wolf, and Sea Shepherd. His second wife, Lisa Distefano, a former Playboy model, was Sea Shepherd's Director of Operations during the Makah anti-whaling campaigns in Friday Harbor. His third wife, Allison Lance, is an animal rights activist and a volunteer crew member of Sea Shepherd. Watson has two grandchildren. Watson married his fourth wife Yana Rusinovich on February 14, 2015, in Paris, France. Watson and Rusinovich had a son, Tiger, on September 29, 2016. CANNOTANSWER | Anthony Joseph Watson and Annamarie Larsen, | Paul Franklin Watson (born December 2, 1950) is a Canadian-American conservation and environmental activist, who founded the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, an anti-poaching and direct action group focused on marine conservation activism. The tactics used by Sea Shepherd have attracted opposition, with the group accused of eco-terrorism by both the Japanese government and Greenpeace. Watson is a citizen of Canada and the United States.
The Toronto native joined a Sierra Club protest against nuclear testing in 1969. He was a co-founder of Greenpeace in 1972. Because Watson argued for a strategy of direct action that conflicted with the Greenpeace interpretation of nonviolence, he was ousted from the board in 1977. That same year, he formed the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. The group was the subject of a reality show named Whale Wars.
He promotes veganism, population reduction and a biocentric, rather than anthropocentric, worldview.
Watson's activities have led to legal action from authorities in countries including the United States, Canada, Norway, Costa Rica and Japan. He was detained in Germany on an extradition request by Costa Rica in May 2012. An Interpol red notice was issued on September 14, 2012, at the request of Japan and Costa Rica.
After staying at sea for 15 months following his escape from Germany, where he was released on bail, he returned to Los Angeles in late October 2013, going through customs and "was not arrested". He appeared before a US appeals court on November 6, 2013, stating that neither he nor the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society violated a 2012 order requiring them to leave whaling vessels alone. Although the United States is a signatory member of Interpol, Watson has not been detained for extradition to Japan or Costa Rica. He is living in Vermont, writing books. He was residing in Paris as of July 1, 2014 but has since returned to the USA.
In March 2019, Costa Rica dropped all charges against Watson and has removed the Interpol red notice.
Early and personal life
According to the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, Paul Watson was born in Toronto to Anthony Joseph Watson and Annamarie Larsen, and grew up in St. Andrews, New Brunswick, along with two sisters and three brothers. As a child he was a member of the Kindness Club, which he has credited with teaching him to "respect and defend animals". After working as a tour guide at Expo 67, the World's Fair that took place in Montreal in 1967, Watson moved to Vancouver.
According to the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, in 1968 and the early 1970s, he joined the Canadian Coast Guard, where he served aboard weatherships, search and rescue hovercraft, and buoy tenders. He signed up as a merchant seaman in 1969 with the Norwegian Consulate in Vancouver and shipped out on the 30,000 ton bulk carrier Bris as a deckhand. The Bris was registered in Oslo, Norway and manifested for the Indian Ocean and Pacific trade. In 1972 he shipped out of San Francisco on the 35,000 ton bulk Swedish carrier Jarl R. Trapp and manifested for the Indian Ocean and Pacific trade
Watson has one daughter Lilliolani (born 1980) with his first wife, Starlet Lum, who was a founding director of Greenpeace Quebec, Earthforce!, Project Wolf, and Sea Shepherd. His second wife, Lisa Distefano, a former Playboy model, was Sea Shepherd's Director of Operations during the Makah anti-whaling campaigns in Friday Harbor. His third wife, Allison Lance, is an animal rights activist and a volunteer crew member of Sea Shepherd. Watson has two grandchildren. Watson married his fourth wife Yana Rusinovich on February 14, 2015, in Paris, France. Watson and Rusinovich had a son, Tiger, on September 29, 2016 and a second son, Murtagh, on August 6, 2021. He ran for parliament in Canada's federal elections twice.
Activism
Early years
In October 1969, Watson joined a Sierra Club protest against nuclear testing at Amchitka Island. The group which formed as a result of that protest was the Don't Make a Wave Committee, which evolved into the group known today as Greenpeace. In the early 1970s, Watson was also active with the Vancouver Liberation Front and the Vancouver Yippies. Watson sailed as a crew member aboard the Greenpeace Too! ship in 1971 and skippered the Greenpeace boat Astral in 1972. Paul Watson continued as a crew member, skipper, and officer aboard several Greenpeace voyages throughout the mid-1970s.
According to The New Yorker, The New York Times, and other sources, Watson was a founding member of Greenpeace, but the organization denies this stating he "was an influential early member but not, as he sometimes claims, a founder." Greenpeace claims that Watson joined Greenpeace on its Amchitka expedition, which they claim to be their second expedition, but Paul Watson claims that this was Greenpeace's first meeting.
Sea Shepherd Conservation Society
The first Sea Shepherd vessel, the Sea Shepherd, was purchased in December 1978 with assistance from the Fund for Animals and the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Sea Shepherd soon established itself as one of the more controversial environmental groups, known for provocative direct action tactics. These tactics have included throwing objects onto the decks of whaling ships, the use of "prop foulers" in an attempt to sabotage the ships, boarding whaling vessels, and the scuttling of two ships in an Icelandic harbor. In January 2013, Watson relinquished captaincy of the Steve Irwin. The organization and its activities to halt whaling are the focus of a reality TV series, Whale Wars, airing on Animal Planet.
In 2010, Watson personally received more than $120,000 from Sea Shepherd.
Because of mounting legal complications, Watson has stepped down as head of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society in 2013, to abide by an injunction barring him from proximity with Japanese whaling ships. After the resolution of legal issues involving the Japanese Institute for Cetacean Research, Watson returned as President of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and Commander of the Sea Shepherd fleet.
Other environmental activities
Watson was a field correspondent for Defenders of Wildlife from 1976 to 1980 and a field representative for the Fund for Animals from 1978 to 1981. Watson also was a co-founder of Friends of the Wolf and Earthforce Environmental Society.
During the 1980s, Watson declared his support for Earth First! and cultivated friendships with David Foreman and Edward Abbey. He proclaimed Sea Shepherd to be the "navy" of Earth First! According to The New Yorker, Watson revived the 19th-century practice of tree spiking.
Watson worked with the Green Party of British Columbia in Vancouver in the 1980s and 90s. He ran for mayor in 1996, placing fourth.
In April 2003, Watson was elected to the board of directors of the Sierra Club for a three-year term. In 2006, he did not seek re-election. He resigned from the board a month before his term ended, in protest against the organization's sponsorship of a "Why I Hunt" essay contest.
In January 2008, Paul Watson was named by The Guardian as one of its "50 people who could save the planet" for the work of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.
Writings on activism
Watson published Earthforce!, a guide to strategy for environmental activists in 1993. In it, he specifically endorsed the tactics of "monkeywrenching" previously described by Dave Foreman and Edward Abbey. According to Foreman in Eco-Defense—The Field Guide to Monkey-Wrenching— these are tactics of sabotage, covert activity, and direct action. Watson says he incorporated his own personal experience in writing the book.
In Earthforce! An Earth Warrior's Guide to Strategy, Watson expressed disdain for the truthfulness of mainstream media:
The nature of the mass media today is such that the truth is irrelevant. What is true and what is right to the general public is what is defined as true and right by the mass media. Ronald Reagan understood that the facts are not relevant. The media reported what he said as fact. Follow-up investigation was "old news." A headline comment on Monday's newspaper far outweighs the revelation of inaccuracy revealed in a small box inside the paper on Tuesday or Wednesday.
Watson was explicit about what he perceived to be the lack of truthfulness in mass media: "If you do not know an answer, a fact, or a statistic, then simply follow the example of an American President and do as Ronald Reagan did—make it up on the spot and deliver the information confidently and without hesitation." In a subsequent book, Ocean Warrior, Watson expanded on this view, saying: "Survival in a media culture meant developing the skills to understand and manipulate media to achieve strategic objectives."
In 2007 Watson explained his view of needed population control and the future for humans given their role in the Holocene extinction, which he refers to as the "Holocenic hominid collective suicide event":
Today, escalating human populations have vastly exceeded global carrying capacity and now produce massive quantities of solid, liquid, and gaseous waste [...] No human community should be larger than 20,000 people and separated from other communities by wilderness areas [...] We need to radically and intelligently reduce human populations to fewer than one billion [...] Curing a body of cancer requires radical and invasive therapy, and therefore, curing the biosphere of the human virus will also require a radical and invasive approach [...] Who should have children? Those who are responsible and completely dedicated to the responsibility which is actually a very small percentage of humans.
Controversy
Separation from Greenpeace
Paul Watson continued as a crew member, officer, and skipper (in 1972) aboard several Greenpeace voyages throughout the mid-1970s. He considers himself a founding member of Greenpeace and Greenpeace International, a claim Greenpeace disputes despite being pointed out in the documentary, How to Change the World which shows that Watson was indeed one of the original founding members of Greenpeace. Watson has since accused Greenpeace of rewriting their history.
In 1977, Watson was expelled from the Greenpeace's board of directors by a vote of 11 to 1 (Watson himself cast the single vote against it). The group felt his strong, "front and center" personality and frequently voiced opposition to Greenpeace's interpretation of "nonviolence" were too divisive. Watson subsequently left the group. The group has since labeled his actions at the time as those of a "mutineer" within their ranks. That same year, he founded his own group, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.
During an interview in 1978 with CBC Radio, Watson spoke out against Greenpeace (as well as other organizations) and their role and motives for the anti-sealing campaigns. Watson accused these organizations of campaigning against the Canadian seal hunt because it is an easy way to raise money and it is a profit maker for the organizations.
Greenpeace has called Watson a violent extremist and will no longer comment on his activities.
Charges and prosecutions
Watson was sentenced to 10 days in prison and fined $8,000 for his actions during a Canadian seal hunt protest in 1980, after being convicted of assaulting a fisheries officer. Watson served his sentence at Her Majesty's Penitentiary, St. John's, NL. He was also found guilty under the Seal Protection Act for painting harp seal pups with red dye to devalue their pelts. Watson was arrested in 1993 in Canada on charges stemming from actions against Cuban and Spanish fishing boats off the coast of Newfoundland. In 1997, Watson was convicted in absentia and sentenced to serve 120 days in jail by a court in Lofoten, Norway on charges of attempting to sink the small scale Norwegian fishing and whaling vessel Nybrænna on December 26, 1992. Dutch authorities refused to hand him over to Norwegian authorities although he did spend 80 days in detention in the Netherlands pending a ruling on extradition before being released.
There have not been any successful attempts at prosecuting Watson for his activities with Sea Shepherd since the trial in Newfoundland. Watson defends his actions as falling within international law, in particular Sea Shepherd's right to enforce maritime regulations against illegal whalers and sealers.
Sea Shepherd activists Rod Coronado and David Howitt went to Iceland in 1986 and scuttled two whaling ships in port at Reykjavík and also damaged a whale meat processing factory. Watson took responsibility for the operation, abiding by published Sea Shepherd principles. He went to Iceland saying, "I am responsible for all activities undertaken in the name of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. I give the orders." He was deported without being charged and is considered a persona non grata by Iceland
In April 2010 the Japanese Coast Guard obtained an arrest warrant for Watson "...on suspicion of ordering sabotage activities against Japan's whaling fleet", and Interpol has listed him as wanted at the request of Japan. The red notice has the charges issued by Japan as, "Breaking into the Vessel, Damage to Property, Forcible Obstruction of Business, Injury". In March 2012 Interpol issued a "written statement to all 190 member countries making it clear that it would not publish a Red Notice" for the detention of Watson, but reversed that position in September 2012. In both statements Interpol stated that a "Red Notice is not an international arrest warrant" that it is "a request for any country to identify or locate an individual with a view to their provisional arrest and extradition in accordance with the country's national laws".
In May 2012 Watson was detained by German authorities at the Frankfurt Airport because of a request from the government of Costa Rica. The charge stemmed from an altercation at sea in 2002 in which Sea Shepherd said that the other vessel was illegally shark finning in Guatemalan waters. Crew members of the other ship accused Sea Shepherd of trying to kill them. Watson was charged with violating navigational regulations with the Interpol alert stating the charge as, "peligro de naufragio" (danger of shipwreck). The conflict took place during filming for the documentary Sharkwater and the charges were dropped by prosecutors after video of the incident made by the documentary film makers was shown. On May 21, Watson was released on bail of €250,000 but required to report to police in Frankfurt on a daily basis. In June, Costa Rica formally requested Watson's extradition from Germany. On July 19, 2012, Japan applied for an extradition order and Watson left Germany, resulting in a German court ordering his immediate re-arrest. It is understood the statute of limitations on his Costa Rican charges was set to expire in June 2013.
On August 7, 2012 Interpol renewed the Red Notice for Watson on the charges of "causing a danger of drowning or of an air disaster" laid by Costa Rica. It was reported that Watson would come out of hiding to join Sea Shepherd in the 2012–13 campaign against Japanese whaling. Watson rejoined the crew of the Steve Irwin in the South Pacific in late November 2012. In March 2019, Costa Rica dropped all charges against Watson and has removed the Interpol red notice.
Sierra Club immigration stance
In 1999, Watson ran unsuccessfully for election to the national Sierra Club Board of Directors, with the backing of the anti-immigration faction Sierrans for US Population Stabilization (SUSPS). After his election to the board in 2003, Watson supported an unsuccessful slate of candidates supporting strict immigration controls as an element of a population stabilization policy. This effort was denounced by another candidate in the election, Morris Dees of the Southern Poverty Law Center, as a "hostile takeover" attempt by "radical anti-immigrant activists." Watson responded by saying that the only change he was seeking in the organization's immigration stance was to restore the position it had held before its 1996 "neutrality policy." Watson left the Sierra Club board in 2006.
Anti-sealing activities
In April 2008, Watson stated that, while the deaths of three Canadian seal hunters (a fourth one is still missing) in a marine accident involving a Canadian Coast Guard vessel and a fishing boat during the 2008 Canadian Commercial Seal Hunt were a tragedy, he felt that the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of seals is an even greater tragedy. Canadian Federal Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn accused Watson of trivializing the memory of the lost sealers. Watson replied that Hearn was trying to distract attention from his government's incompetence as the boat the men were on capsized while under tow by a Canadian Coast Guard vessel, while his political ambitions continued to support and subsidize an industry that had no place in the 21st century. In 1978, Watson expressed opposition to seal hunt protest organization, suggesting in an interview with CBC's Barbara Frum that saving seals is a cheap and easy fundraiser and that seals do not deserve special status over other species. Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams was quoted as saying, "I think what a lot of people don't realize is that this man is a terrorist."
Australian visa issues
In October 2009, Watson, who carries a US passport, complained to media outlets about having his request for an Australian visa denied. He states that the Australian government was attempting to sabotage the upcoming 2010 Sea Shepherd campaign by denying him entry into the country. Watson and several other shipmates were also unable to join the Steve Irwin on its promotional tour of Australia until they were able to provide documentation from the governments of the United States, Canada and Norway, exonerating them from previously claimed acts of violence, specifically claims by Sea Shepherd of intentionally sinking a ship in Norway. In January 2013, Paul Watson was presented with an Aboriginal passport by the Krautungalung people of the Gunnai Nation.
Alleged shooting
On March 17, 2008, Paul Watson said that he was shot by the Japanese crew or coast guard personnel during the Operation Migaloo anti-whaling campaign in the Southern Ocean. The incident is documented during the season finale of season 1 of the Whale Wars TV reality show, and the first six episodes are covered as a buildup to what is portrayed as the major incident during the campaign. The Japanese respond by throwing stun grenades, one crew member is injured from a grenade detonating close behind him and another injured trying to escape the explosions. Watson is then shown reaching inside his jacket and body armour and remarking "I've been hit." Back inside the bridge of the Steve Irwin, a metal fragment is found inside the vest.
The Japanese Institute of Cetacean Research disputes Sea Shepherd's statements. The Institute and Coast Guard said that they used seven stun grenades designed to temporarily debilitate a target by rendering them blind and deaf for a period of time. The Japanese government also alleged that the whalers launched "noise balls", described as "loud explosive deterrent devices". Neither of the two conflicting accounts have been independently verified. The Australian Foreign Affairs Department had condemned "actions by crew members of any vessel that cause injury". Two media releases were made on the same day from the office. One said that the Australian Embassy in Tokyo had been informed by the Japanese that the whalers had "fired warning shots" while the updated version used the phrase "'warning balls' – also known as 'flashbangs' – had been fired".
Accusations of terrorism
Watson has been called an eco-terrorist by the Japanese government for his direct action tactics against whalers, and it repeated its position after conflicts during the 2009–10 whaling season.
At an animal rights convention in 2002, Paul Watson was also quoted as saying, "There's nothing wrong with being a terrorist, as long as you win. Then you write the history". In 2010, Fox News commentator Glenn Beck also discussed the comment, criticizing Watson's views. Watson responded to Beck's comments on the official Sea Shepherd website by stating that he had said that but that it was taken out of context, quoting Gerald Seymour's "One man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter".
Comments following 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami
Watson was criticized for his poem published immediately following the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami which suggested the disaster was Neptune's anger. Watson responded to critics with a commentary on the Sea Shepherd website expressing "deepest concern and sympathy for the people of Japan who are suffering through one of the worst natural disasters in the history of civilization".
Criticism of New Zealand
In 2013, three Sea Shepherd Conservation Society ships docked in New Zealand, and were searched by New Zealand authorities to see if Watson was aboard. He was not, having transferred to another ship in international waters, aware New Zealand was required to notify Interpol if he entered the country. Watson criticised the search, accusing New Zealand of siding with Japan on the issue of whaling in the Southern Ocean.
Reactions to activism and leadership
Watson has stated that he does not consider himself a 'protester', but an 'interventionist', as he considers protesting as too submissive. He often takes the attitude that he represents (or stands in for) law enforcement which is either unwilling or unable to enforce existing laws.
His leadership style has variously been called arrogant, as well as pushing himself too much "front and center", which was cited as one of the reasons for expulsion from Greenpeace. The atmosphere aboard his vessels has been compared to an "anarchy run by God".
The former member of Sea Shepherd and captain of the Pete Bethune described Watson as "morally bankrupt" who would order the intentional sinking of his own ships like the Ady Gil as a means to "garner sympathy with the public and to create better TV". Watson denied this, saying "No one ordered him to scuttle it. Pete Bethune was captain of the Ady Gil; all decisions on the Ady Gil were his."
Awards
Paul Watson received the Jules Verne Award on October 10, 2012. He was the second person after Captain Jacques Cousteau to be honored with a Jules Verne Award dedicated to environmentalists and adventurers. On June 28, 2010 Paul received the Asociación de Amigos del Museo de Anclas Philippe Cousteau: Defense of Marine Life Award, in recognition of his merits achieved by the work done in defense of marine life. In 2002, Paul was inducted into the US Animal Rights Hall of Fame for his outstanding contributions to animal liberation. Paul received the George H. W. Bush Daily Points of Light Award in 1999 and in 2000, he was named one of Time Magazine's Top 20 Environmental Heroes of the 20th Century. On May 23, 2019, Paul Watson received an official commendation by Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont stating that the "State of Connecticut conveyed both honor and recognition to Captain Paul Watson." In 2007 Watson received the Amazon Peace Prize presented by the Vice President of Ecuador Lenin Moreno.
Media portrayals
A biographical documentary on Paul Watson's early life and background entitled Pirate for the Sea was produced by Ron Colby in 2008.
The 2008 documentary At the Edge of the World chronicled the efforts of Watson and 45 volunteers to hinder the Japanese whaling fleet in the waters around Antarctica. In 2010, long time friend and filmmaker Peter Brown released the documentary Confessions of an Eco-Terrorist, a satirical look back at the last 30 years of actions. The documentary Eco-Pirate: The Story of Paul Watson from 2011 features interviews and footage with early Greenpeace members Rex Weyler and Patrick Moore.
Watson, Whale Wars, and the Japanese whaling industry were satirized in the South Park episode "Whale Whores". In its fictional Larry King show, Watson himself was called "An unorganized incompetent media whore who thought lying to everyone was OK as long as it served his cause" and "A smug, narcoleptic liar with no credibility".
Watson responded to the South Park episode by stating; "My understanding is that the Japanese Prime Minister was not amused and the whalers and dolphin killers are enraged at the way they were portrayed," Watson said. "That's music to my ears. If the humorless whale killers and the bank rollers of the dolphin killers did not like the show, then that's all I need to applaud it."
Watson was portrayed (along with whale biologist, Nan Hauser), during a 60 Minutes episode that aired in 2013, as contributing to the return of the Humpback whale populations in the South Pacific.
In 2019 a biopic film called, Watson directed by one of the producers of An Inconvenient Truth, Lesley Chilcott, was released and also aired on Animal Planet on December 22, 2019.
List of works
Sea Shepherd: My Fight for Whales and Seals (1981) ()
Earthforce! An Earth Warrior's Guide to Strategy (1993) ()
Ocean Warrior: My Battle to End the Illegal Slaughter on the High Seas (1994) ()
Seal Wars: Twenty-Five Years on the Front Lines With the Harp Seals (2002) ()
Contributor to Terrorists or Freedom Fighters?: Reflections on the Liberations of Animals (2004) ()
Earthforce! An Earth Warrior's Guide to Strategy 2nd Edition (2012)
The War That Saved the Whales (2019)
Songs from the Southern Ocean (2020)
The Haunted Mariner (2020)
Dealing with Climate Change and Stress (2020)
Orcapedia (2020)
Desperate Mythologies: Theology, Ecology and the General Insanity of Humanity (2020)
Death of a Whale (2021)
URGENT! Save Our Ocean to Survive Climate Change (2021)
See also
List of conservationists
List of vegans
References
Further reading
Earth Warrior: Overboard With Paul Watson and the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, by David B. Morris (1995) ()
Eco-Warriors, by Rik Scarce (2006) ()
Capitaine Paul Watson, entretien avec un pirate, by Lamya Essemlali, Paul Watson (2012)
External links
Paul Watson's page on the Sea Shepherd official website
1950 births
Canadian animal rights activists
Canadian environmentalists
Fugitives wanted by Germany
Green Party of British Columbia politicians
Green thinkers
Living people
People associated with Greenpeace
People from St. Andrews, New Brunswick
Activists from Toronto
Sea Shepherd Conservation Society
Sierra Club directors
Sustainability advocates
Veganism activists
Yippies | true | [
"The Extraordinary Tale of Nicholas Pierce is a 2011 adventure novel written by Alexander DeLuca. It follows the journey of a university teacher Nicholas Pierce, who suffers from obsessive compulsive disorder as he searches for his biological parents, traveling across states in the United States of America. He travels with a friend, who is an eccentric barista in a cafe in upstate New York, named Sergei Tarasov.\n\nPlot\nNicholas Pierce suffers from OCD. He is also missing the memory of the first five years of his life. Raised by adoptive parents, one day he receives a mysterious box from an \"Uncle Nathan\". Curious, he sets off on a journey to find his biological parents with a Russian friend, Sergei Tarasov. On the trip, they meet several people, face money problems and different challenges. They also pick up a hitchhiker, Jessica, who later turns out to be a criminal.\n\nFinally, Nicholas finds his grandparents, who direct him to his biological parents. When he meets them, he finds out that his vaguely registered biological 'parents' were actually neighbors of his real parents who had died in an accident. The mysterious box that he had received is destroyed. He finds out that it contained photographs from his early life.\n\n2011 American novels\nNovels about obsessive–compulsive disorder",
"Bomba and the Jungle Girl is a 1952 adventure film directed by Ford Beebe and starring Johnny Sheffield. It is the eighth film (of 12) in the Bomba, the Jungle Boy film series.\n\nPlot\nBomba decides to find out who his parents were. He starts with Cody Casson's diary and follows the trail to a native village. An ancient blind woman tells him his parents, along the village's true ruler, were murdered by the current chieftain and his daughter. With the aid of an inspector and his daughter, Bomba battles the usurpers in the cave where his parents were buried.\n\nCast\nJohnny Sheffield\nKaren Sharpe\nWalter Sande\nSuzette Harbin\nMartin Wilkins\nMorris Buchanan\nLeonard Mudie\nDon Blackman.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1952 films\nAmerican films\nAmerican adventure films\nFilms directed by Ford Beebe\nFilms produced by Walter Mirisch\nMonogram Pictures films\n1952 adventure films\nAmerican black-and-white films"
] |
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