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"Sam Harris",
"Islam"
] | C_c485de700c8e4629acfcd27abb8987c1_0 | what does Sam think about Islam? | 1 | what does Sam Harris think about Islam? | Sam Harris | Harris considers Islam to be "especially belligerent and inimical to the norms of civil discourse," relative to other world religions. He asserts that the "dogmatic commitment to using violence to defend one's faith, both from within and without" to varying degrees, is a central Islamic doctrine that is found in few other religions to the same degree, and that "this difference has consequences in the real world." In 2006, after the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy, Harris wrote, "The idea that Islam is a 'peaceful religion hijacked by extremists' is a dangerous fantasy--and it is now a particularly dangerous fantasy for Muslims to indulge. It is not at all clear how we should proceed in our dialogue with the Muslim world, but deluding ourselves with euphemisms is not the answer. It now appears to be a truism in foreign policy circles that real reform in the Muslim world cannot be imposed from the outside. But it is important to recognize why this is so--it is so because the Muslim world is utterly deranged by its religious tribalism. In confronting the religious literalism and ignorance of the Muslim world, we must appreciate how terrifyingly isolated Muslims have become in intellectual terms." He states that his criticism of the religion is aimed not at Muslims as people, but at the doctrine of Islam. Harris wrote a response to controversy over his criticism of Islam, which also aired on a debate hosted by The Huffington Post on whether critics of Islam are unfairly labeled as bigots: Is it really true that the sins for which I hold Islam accountable are "committed at least to an equal extent by many other groups, especially [my] own"? ... The freedom to poke fun at Mormonism is guaranteed [not by the First Amendment but] by the fact that Mormons do not dispatch assassins to silence their critics or summon murderous hordes in response to satire. ... Can any reader of this page imagine the staging of a similar play [to The Book of Mormon] about Islam in the United States, or anywhere else, in the year 2013? ... At this moment in history, there is only one religion that systematically stifles free expression with credible threats of violence. The truth is, we have already lost our First Amendment rights with respect to Islam--and because they brand any observation of this fact a symptom of Islamophobia, Muslim apologists like Greenwald are largely to blame. Harris has criticized common usage of the term "Islamophobia". "My criticism of Islam is a criticism of beliefs and their consequences," he wrote following a controversial clash with Ben Affleck in October 2014 on the show Real Time with Bill Maher, "but my fellow liberals reflexively view it as an expression of intolerance toward people." During an email exchange with Glenn Greenwald, a critic of the New Atheists, Harris argued that "Islamophobia is a term of propaganda designed to protect Islam from the forces of secularism by conflating all criticism of it with racism and xenophobia. And it is doing its job, because people like you have been taken in by it." CANNOTANSWER | Harris considers Islam to be "especially belligerent and inimical to the norms of civil discourse," relative to other world religions. | Samuel Benjamin Harris (born April 9, 1967) is an American philosopher, neuroscientist, author, and podcast host. His work touches on a wide range of topics, including rationality, religion, ethics, free will, neuroscience, meditation, psychedelics, philosophy of mind, politics, terrorism, and artificial intelligence. Harris came to prominence for his criticism of religion, and Islam in particular, and is known as one of the "Four Horsemen" of New Atheism, along with Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel Dennett.
Harris's first book, The End of Faith (2004), won the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction and remained on The New York Times Best Seller list for 33 weeks. Harris has since written six additional books: Letter to a Christian Nation in 2006, The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values in 2010, the long-form essay Lying in 2011, the short book Free Will in 2012, Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion in 2014, and (with British writer Maajid Nawaz) Islam and the Future of Tolerance: A Dialogue in 2015. Harris's work has been translated into over 20 languages.
Harris has debated with many prominent figures on the topics of God or religion, including William Lane Craig, Jordan Peterson, Rick Warren, Andrew Sullivan, Reza Aslan, David Wolpe, Deepak Chopra, Ben Shapiro and Jean Houston. Since September 2013, Harris has hosted the Making Sense podcast (originally titled Waking Up), which has a large listenership. In September 2018, Harris released a meditation app, Waking Up with Sam Harris. Harris's views on free will, race, and Islam have attracted controversy.
Early life and education
Samuel Benjamin Harris was born in Los Angeles, California, on April 9, 1967. He is the son of actor Berkeley Harris, who appeared mainly in Western films, and TV writer and producer Susan Harris (née Spivak), who created Soap (TV series) and The Golden Girls among other series. His father, born in North Carolina, came from a Quaker background, and his mother is Jewish but not religious. He was raised by his mother following his parents' divorce when he was aged two. Harris has stated that his upbringing was entirely secular and that his parents rarely discussed religion, though he also stated that he was not raised as an atheist.
While his original major was in English, Harris became interested in philosophical questions while at Stanford University after an experience with the empathogen–entactogen MDMA (colloquially known as ecstasy or XTC). The experience led him to be interested in the idea that he might be able to achieve spiritual insights without the use of drugs. Leaving Stanford in his second year, a quarter after his psychedelic experience, he visited India and Nepal, where he studied meditation with teachers of Buddhist and Hindu religions, including Dilgo Khyentse. Eleven years later, in 1997, he returned to Stanford, completing a B.A. degree in philosophy in 2000. Harris began writing his first book, The End of Faith, immediately after the September 11 attacks.
He received a Ph.D. in cognitive neuroscience in 2009 from the University of California, Los Angeles, using functional magnetic resonance imaging to conduct research into the neural basis of belief, disbelief, and uncertainty. His thesis was titled The Moral Landscape: How Science Could Determine Human Values. His advisor was Mark S. Cohen.
Career
Writing
Harris's writing focuses on philosophy, neuroscience, and criticism of religion. He came to prominence for his criticism of religion (Islam in particular) and he is described as one of the Four Horsemen of Atheism, along with Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel Dennett. He has written for publications such as The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Economist, London Times, Boston Globe, and The Atlantic. Five of Harris's books have been New York Times bestsellers, and his writing has been translated into over 20 languages. The End of Faith (2004) remained on The New York Times Best Seller list for 33 weeks.
Harris has a chapter giving advice in Tim Ferriss' book Tools of Titans.
Debates on religion
In 2007, Harris engaged in a lengthy debate with conservative commentator Andrew Sullivan on the Internet forum Beliefnet. In April 2007, Harris debated with evangelical pastor Rick Warren for Newsweek magazine. Harris also debated with Rabbi David Wolpe in 2007. In 2010, Harris joined Michael Shermer to debate with Deepak Chopra and Jean Houston on the future of God in a debate hosted by ABC News Nightline. Harris debated with Christian philosopher William Lane Craig in April 2011 on whether there can be an objective morality without God. In June and July 2018, he met with Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson for a series of debates on religion, particularly the relationship between religious values and scientific fact in defining truth. Harris has also debated with the scholar Reza Aslan.
Podcast
In September 2013, Harris began releasing the Waking Up podcast (since re-titled Making Sense). Episodes vary in length but often last over two hours. Releases do not follow a regular schedule. The podcast has a large listenership.
Meditation app
In September 2018, Harris released a meditation course app, Waking Up with Sam Harris. The app provides daily meditations; long guided meditations; daily "Moments" (brief meditations and reminders); conversations with thought leaders in psychology, meditation, philosophy, psychedelics, and other disciplines; a selection of lessons on various topics, such as Mind & Emotion, Free Will, and Doing Good; and more. Users of the app are introduced to a number of types of meditation, such as mindfulness meditation, vipassanā-style meditation, loving-kindness meditation, and Dzogchen.
In September 2020, Harris announced his commitment to donate a least 10% of Waking Up's profits to highly effective charities, thus becoming the first company to sign the Giving What We Can pledge for companies. The pledge was done retroactively, taking into account the profits since the day the app launched 2 years previously.
Views
Religion
Harris is known as one of the most prominent critics of religion, and is a leading figure in the New Atheist movement. Harris is particularly opposed to what he refers to as dogmatic belief, and says that "Pretending to know things one doesn't know is a betrayal of science – and yet it is the lifeblood of religion." While purportedly opposed to religion in general and the belief systems of them, Harris believes that all religions are not created equal. Often invoking Jainism to contrast Islam as a whole, Harris highlights the difference in the specific doctrine and scripture as the main indicator of a religion's value, or lack thereof.
In 2006, Harris described Islam as "all fringe and no center," and wrote in The End of Faith that "the doctrine of Islam [...] represents a unique danger to all of us", arguing that the War on terror is really a war against Islam. In 2014, Harris said he considers Islam to be "especially belligerent and inimical to the norms of civil discourse", as it involves what Harris considers to be "bad ideas, held for bad reasons, leading to bad behavior." In 2015 Harris and secular Islamic activist Maajid Nawaz cowrote Islam and the Future of Tolerance. In this book, Harris argues that the word Islamophobia is a "pernicious meme", a label which prevents discussion about the threat of Islam. Harris has been described in 2020 by Jonathan Matusitz, Associate Professor at the University of Central Florida, as "a champion of the counter-jihad left".
Harris is critical of the Christian right in politics in the United States, blaming them for the political focus on "pseudo-problems like gay marriage." He is also critical of liberal Christianityas represented, for instance, by the theology of Paul Tillichwhich he argues claims to base its beliefs on the Bible despite actually being influenced by secular modernity. He further states that in so doing liberal Christianity provides rhetorical cover to fundamentalists.
Spirituality
Harris holds that there is "nothing irrational about seeking the states of mind that lie at the core of many religions. Compassion, awe, devotion, and feelings of oneness are surely among the most valuable experiences a person can have."
Harris rejects the dichotomy between spirituality and rationality, favoring a middle path that preserves spirituality and science but does not involve religion. He writes that spirituality should be understood in light of scientific disciplines like neuroscience and psychology. Science, he contends, can show how to maximize human well-being, but may fail to answer certain questions about the nature of being, answers to some of which he says are discoverable directly through our experience. His conception of spirituality does not involve a belief in any god.
In Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion (2014), Harris describes his experience with Dzogchen, a Tibetan Buddhist meditation practice, and recommends it to his readers. He writes that the purpose of spirituality (as he defines it – he concedes that the term's uses are diverse and sometimes indefensible) is to become aware that our sense of self is illusory, and says this realization brings both happiness and insight into the nature of consciousness. This process of realization, he argues, is based on experience and is not contingent on faith. Harris especially recommends the “headless” meditation technique as written about by Douglas Harding.
Science and morality
In The Moral Landscape, Harris argues that science answers moral problems and can aid human well-being.
Free will
Harris says that the idea of free will "cannot be mapped on to any conceivable reality" and is incoherent. Harris writes in Free Will that neuroscience "reveals you to be a biochemical puppet."
Social and political views
Harris describes himself as a liberal, and states that he supports raising taxes on the wealthy, decriminalizing drugs and legalizing same-sex marriage. In an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times, Harris said that he supported most of the criticism against Bush administration's war in Iraq, and all criticism of fiscal policy and the administration's treatment of science. Harris also said that liberalism has grown "dangerously out of touch with the realities of our world" when it comes to threats allegedly posed by Islamic fundamentalism. Harris is a registered Democrat.
During the 2016 United States presidential election, Harris supported Hillary Clinton in the Democratic Party presidential primaries against Bernie Sanders, and despite calling her "a terribly flawed candidate for the presidency," he favored her in the general election and came out strongly in opposition to Donald Trump's candidacy. Harris has criticized Trump for lying, stating in 2018 that Trump "has assaulted truth more than anyone in human history." During the 2020 United States presidential election, Harris supported Andrew Yang in the Democratic primaries. Harris also introduced Yang to podcaster Joe Rogan.
Artificial intelligence
Harris has discussed existential risk from artificial general intelligence in depth. He has given a TED talk on the topic, arguing it will be a major threat in the future and criticizing the paucity of human interest on the subject. He argues the dangers from artificial intelligence (AI) follow from three premises: that intelligence is the result of physical information processing, that humans will continue innovation in AI, and that humans are nowhere near the maximum possible extent of intelligence. Harris states that even if superintelligent AI is five to ten decades away, the scale of its implications for human civilization warrant discussion of the issue in the present.
Reception and controversies
Academic and journalistic reception to Harris's works and ideas has been varied.
Harris's first two books, in which he lays out his criticisms of religion, received negative reviews from Christian scholars. From secular sources, the books received a mixture of negative reviews and positive reviews. In his review of The End of Faith, American historian Alexander Saxton criticized what he called Harris's "vitriolic and selective polemic against Islam," (emphasis in original) which he said "obscure[s] the obvious reality that the invasion of Iraq and the War against Terror are driven by religious irrationalities, cultivated and conceded to, at high policy levels in the U.S., and which are at least comparable to the irrationality of Islamic crusaders and Jihadists." By contrast, Stephanie Merritt wrote of the same book that Harris's "central argument in The End of Faith is sound: religion is the only area of human knowledge in which it is still acceptable to hold beliefs dating from antiquity and a modern society should subject those beliefs to the same principles that govern scientific, medical or geographical inquiry – particularly if they are inherently hostile to those with different ideas."
Harris's next two books, which discuss philosophical issues relating to ethics and free will, received several negative academic reviews. In his review of The Moral Landscape, neuroscientist Kenan Malik criticized Harris for not engaging adequately with philosophical literature: "Imagine a sociologist who wrote about evolutionary theory without discussing the work of Darwin, Fisher, Mayr, Hamilton, Trivers or Dawkins on the grounds that he did not come to his conclusions by reading about biology and because discussing concepts such as 'adaptation', 'speciation', 'homology', 'phylogenetics' or 'kin selection' would 'increase the amount of boredom in the universe'. How seriously would we, and should we, take his argument?" Philosopher Daniel Dennett argued that Harris's book Free Will successfully refuted the common understanding of free will, but that he failed to respond adequately to the compatibilist understanding of free will. Dennett said the book was valuable because it expressed the views of many eminent scientists, but that it nonetheless contained a "veritable museum of mistakes" and that "Harris and others need to do their homework if they want to engage with the best thought on the topic." On the other hand, The Moral Landscape received a largely positive review from psychologists James Diller and Andrew Nuzzolilli. Additionally, Free Will received a mixed academic review from philosopher Paul Pardi, who acknowledged that while it suffers from some conceptual confusions and that the core argument is a bit too 'breezy', it serves as a "good primer on key ideas in physicalist theories of freedom and the will".
Harris's book on spirituality and meditation received mainly positive reviews as well as some mixed reviews. It was praised by Frank Bruni, for example, who described it as "so entirely of this moment, so keenly in touch with the growing number of Americans who are willing to say that they do not find the succor they crave, or a truth that makes sense to them, in organized religion."
In April 2017, Harris stirred controversy by hosting the social scientist Charles Murray on his podcast, discussing topics including the heritability of IQ and race and intelligence. Harris stated the invitation was out of indignation at a violent protest against Murray at Middlebury College the month before and not out of particular interest in the material at hand. The podcast episode garnered significant criticism, most notably from Vox and Slate. Harris and Murray were defended by conservative commentators Andrew Sullivan and Kyle Smith, as well as by neuroscientist Richard Haier, who stated that the points Murray claimed were mainstream actually do receive broad scientific support. Harris and Vox editor-at-large Ezra Klein later discussed the affair in a podcast interview, where Klein criticized Harris for rebuking tribalism in the form of identity politics while failing to recognize his own version of tribalism. Hatewatch staff at the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) wrote that members of the "skeptics" movement, of which Harris is "one of the most public faces," help to "channel people into the alt-right." Bari Weiss wrote in her opinion column that the SPLC had misrepresented Harris's views.
Harris was profiled by Weiss in The New York Times as part of the "Intellectual Dark Web" (a term coined semi-ironically by Eric Weinstein). She described the group as "a collection of iconoclastic thinkers, academic renegades and media personalities who are having a rolling conversation – on podcasts, YouTube and Twitter, and in sold-out auditoriums – that sound unlike anything else happening, at least publicly, in the culture right now." In November 2020, Harris stated that he does not identify as a part of that group.
In 2018, Robert Wright, a visiting professor of science and religion at Union Theological Seminary, published an article in Wired criticizing Harris, whom he described as "annoying" and "deluded". Wright wrote that Harris, despite claiming to be a champion of rationality, ignored his own cognitive biases and engaged in faulty and inconsistent arguments in his book The End of Faith. He wrote that "the famous proponent of New Atheism is on a crusade against tribalism but seems oblivious to his own version of it." Wright wrote that these biases are rooted in natural selection and impact everyone, but that they can be mitigated when acknowledged, whereas Harris offered no such acknowledgement.
The UK Business Insider included Harris's podcast in their list of "8 podcasts that will change how you think about human behavior" in 2017, and PC Magazine included it in their list of "The Best Podcasts of 2018." In January 2020, Max Sanderson included Harris's podcast as a "Producer pick" in a "podcasts of the week" section for The Guardian.
Accusations of Anti-Muslim bigotry and Islamophobia
Harris has been accused of Islamophobia by journalist Glenn Greenwald and linguist and political commentator Noam Chomsky. Greenwald characterized some of Harris's statements as Islamophobic, such as: "the people who speak most sensibly about the threat that Islam poses to Europe are actually fascists," and "[t]he only future devout Muslims can envisage – as Muslims – is one in which all infidels have been converted to Islam, politically subjugated, or killed." After Harris and Chomsky exchanged a series of emails on terrorism and U.S. foreign policy in 2015, Chomsky said Harris had not prepared adequately for the exchange and that this revealed his work as unserious. Kyle Schmidlin also wrote in Salon that he considered Chomsky the winner of the exchange because Harris's arguments relied excessively on thought experiments with little application to the real world. In a 2016 interview with Al Jazeera English's UpFront, Chomsky further criticized Harris, saying he "specializes in hysterical, slanderous charges against people he doesn't like."
Harris has countered that his views on this and other topics are frequently misrepresented by "unethical critics" who "deliberately" regard his words out of context. He has also criticized the validity of the term Islamophobia. "My criticism of Islam is a criticism of beliefs and their consequences, but my fellow liberals reflexively view it as an expression of intolerance toward people," he wrote following a disagreement with actor Ben Affleck in October 2014 on the show Real Time with Bill Maher. Affleck had described Harris's and host Bill Maher's views on Muslims as "gross" and "racist," and Harris's statement that "Islam is the mother lode of bad ideas" as an "ugly thing to say." Affleck also compared Harris's and Maher's rhetoric to that of people who use antisemitic canards or define African-Americans in terms of intraracial crime. Several conservative American media pundits in turn criticized Affleck and praised Harris and Maher for broaching the topic, saying that discussing it had become a "taboo."
Harris's dialogue on Islam with Maajid Nawaz received a combination of positive reviews and mixed reviews. Irshad Manji wrote: "Their back-and-forth clarifies multiple confusions that plague the public conversation about Islam." Of Harris specifically, she said "[he] is right that liberals must end their silence about the religious motives behind much Islamist terror. At the same time, he ought to call out another double standard that feeds the liberal reflex to excuse Islamists: Atheists do not make nearly enough noise about hatred toward Muslims."
Hamid Dabashi, a professor at Columbia University accused Sam Harris of being a "new atheist crusader" having never studied Islam thoroughly and having no special insight into any Muslim community on earth. He further accused Harris of engaging in such language to justify Western imperialism in the Muslim world. An article published in The Guardian accused Harris, along with Milo Yiannopoulos of influencing young white men into becoming racists and Anti-Muslim bigots. Harris has also been accused of merging his thoughts with far right ideologies, stating that he advocates the profiling of Muslims, "or anyone who looks like he or she could conceivably be Muslim," at airports.
Harris was also accused of "advancing Neoconservative agendas" by Chris Hedges and for advocating a nuclear first strike policy on Muslims if an Islamist regime ever obtained nuclear weapons, stating in The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason that "in such a situation, the only thing likely to ensure our survival may be a nuclear first strike of our own."
Recognition
Harris's first book, The End of Faith (2004), won the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction.
The Waking Up podcast won the 2017 Webby Award for "People's Voice" in the category "Science & Education" under "Podcasts & Digital Audio".
Harris was included on a list of the "100 Most Spiritually Influential Living People 2019" in the Watkins Review, a publication of Watkins Books, a London esoterica bookshop.
Personal life
Harris is a martial arts student and practices Brazilian jiu-jitsu.
In 2004, he married Annaka Gorton, an author and editor of nonfiction and scientific books after engaging in a common interest about the nature of consciousness. They have two daughters, and live in Los Angeles.
In September 2020, Harris became a member of Giving What We Can, an effective altruism organization whose members pledge to give at least 10% of their income to effective charities, both as an individual and as a company with Waking Up.
Works
Books
Documentary
Amila, D. & Shapiro, J. (2018). Islam and the Future of Tolerance. United States: The Orchard.
Peer-reviewed articles
Notes
References
External links
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"Covering Islam is a 1981 book by Palestinian author Edward Said, in which he discusses how the Western media distorts the image of Islam. Said describes the book as the third and last in a series of books (the first two were Orientalism and The Question of Palestine) in which he analyzes the relations between the Islamic world, Arabs and East and West, France, Great Britain and the United States.\n\nCovering Islam deals with issues during and after the Iranian hostage crisis, and how the Western media has speculated on the realities of Islamic life. Said questions the objectivity of the media, and discusses the relations between knowledge, power and the Western media.\n\nSynopsis\nSaid postulates that, if knowledge is power, those who control the modern Western media (visual and print) are most powerful because they are able to determine what people like or dislike, what they wear and how they wear it, and what they should know and must not know about themselves.\n\nHuman intellect enables a person to think, ponder, contemplate and question. Intellect is, according to Islam, what makes a person unique as an individual. A human, by nature, is a rational being, but the western media wants a person to be irrational—in the sense of accepting or agreeing to an idea without verifying, thinking about or questioning it. In other words, says Said, irrationalism means to let one person think and decide for another—to let one person control others.\n\nSaid refers to the media's ability to control and filter information as an 'invisible screen', releasing what it wants people to know and blacking out what it does not want them to know. In the age of information, Said argues, it is the media that interprets and filters information—and Said claims that the media has determined very selectively what Westerners should and should not know about Islam and the Muslim world. Islam is portrayed as oppressive (women in Hijab); outmoded (hanging, beheading and stoning to death); anti-intellectualist (book burning); restrictive (bans on post- and extramarital affairs, alcohol and gambling); extremist (focusing on Algeria, Lebanon and of course Egypt); backward (Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the Sudan); the cause of worldwide conflict (Palestine, Kashmir and Indonesia); and dangerous (Turkey and Iran).\n\nThe modern Western media, says Said, does not want people to know that in Islam both men and women are equal; that Islam is tough on crime and the causes of crime; that Islam is a religion of knowledge par excellence; that Islam is a religion of strong ethical principles and a firm moral code; that socially Islam stands for equality and brotherhood; that politically Islam stands for unity and humane governance; that economically Islam stands for justice and fairness; and that Islam is at once a profoundly spiritual and a very practical religion. Said claims that untruth and falsehood about Islam and the Muslim world are consistently propagated in the media, in the name of objectivity, liberalism, freedom, democracy and ‘progress’.\n\nReferences\n\n Welty, Gordon. \"Review of Edward Said, Covering Islam, Vintage Books, 1997.\" Dayton Voice, August 10, 1997.\n\n1981 non-fiction books\nEnglish-language books\nPolitical books\nWorks by Edward Said\nBooks about Islam and society\nCriticism of Islam",
"Attaboy Sam! (1992) is a children's novel by Lois Lowry. It is the second book in a series that Lowry wrote about Anastasia and her younger brother Sam. The series is:\n\nAll About Sam (1988) – a mischievous little boy.\nAttaboy Sam! (1992)\nSee You Around, Sam! (1996) – Sam wants fangs and decides to run away to Alaska to get some.\nZooman Sam (1999) – Sam wants to be a zookeeper and is able to (partially) fulfill this ambition by telling his schoolmates about animals.\n\nPlot summary\n\nWhy won't Sam Krupnik allow his mother to enter his bedroom? Why has he started calling his toy box The Lab? And why does he carry a Ziplock bag in his pocket at all times? What's the big secret?\n\nWell, his mother's birthday is approaching, and she has told her family that what she really wants are homemade gifts. Sam has decided to invent a special, surprise perfume just for her — a concoction that will combine all of her favorite smells. But exactly how does one bottle the quirky collection of scents on Mrs. Krupnik's list of favorites?\n\nIf anyone can find a way — or at least have loads of fun trying — it's Sam, Anastasia's precocious younger brother.\n\nLowry's reason for writing the novel \n\n\"Sam was born when Anastasia was ten, and for a long time he existed only in the books about her. But kids liked him. Maybe he reminded them of their own little brothers. So at the request of young readers, I gave Sam his own series.\"\n\nReview \n\n\"Warm, lively, true to children's real inner lives, and laugh-aloud funny all the way.\" — Kirkus Reviews, pointer review School Library Journal Best Books of the Year\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n\n Description of the book from Lowry's website.\nLowry's website\nComplete list of books by Lowry\n\n1993 American novels\nAmerican children's novels\nNovels by Lois Lowry\n1993 children's books"
] |
[
"Sam Harris",
"Islam",
"what does Sam think about Islam?",
"Harris considers Islam to be \"especially belligerent and inimical to the norms of civil discourse,\" relative to other world religions."
] | C_c485de700c8e4629acfcd27abb8987c1_0 | what else does he think about it? | 2 | Besides "belligerent and inimical", what else does Sam Harris think about Islam? | Sam Harris | Harris considers Islam to be "especially belligerent and inimical to the norms of civil discourse," relative to other world religions. He asserts that the "dogmatic commitment to using violence to defend one's faith, both from within and without" to varying degrees, is a central Islamic doctrine that is found in few other religions to the same degree, and that "this difference has consequences in the real world." In 2006, after the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy, Harris wrote, "The idea that Islam is a 'peaceful religion hijacked by extremists' is a dangerous fantasy--and it is now a particularly dangerous fantasy for Muslims to indulge. It is not at all clear how we should proceed in our dialogue with the Muslim world, but deluding ourselves with euphemisms is not the answer. It now appears to be a truism in foreign policy circles that real reform in the Muslim world cannot be imposed from the outside. But it is important to recognize why this is so--it is so because the Muslim world is utterly deranged by its religious tribalism. In confronting the religious literalism and ignorance of the Muslim world, we must appreciate how terrifyingly isolated Muslims have become in intellectual terms." He states that his criticism of the religion is aimed not at Muslims as people, but at the doctrine of Islam. Harris wrote a response to controversy over his criticism of Islam, which also aired on a debate hosted by The Huffington Post on whether critics of Islam are unfairly labeled as bigots: Is it really true that the sins for which I hold Islam accountable are "committed at least to an equal extent by many other groups, especially [my] own"? ... The freedom to poke fun at Mormonism is guaranteed [not by the First Amendment but] by the fact that Mormons do not dispatch assassins to silence their critics or summon murderous hordes in response to satire. ... Can any reader of this page imagine the staging of a similar play [to The Book of Mormon] about Islam in the United States, or anywhere else, in the year 2013? ... At this moment in history, there is only one religion that systematically stifles free expression with credible threats of violence. The truth is, we have already lost our First Amendment rights with respect to Islam--and because they brand any observation of this fact a symptom of Islamophobia, Muslim apologists like Greenwald are largely to blame. Harris has criticized common usage of the term "Islamophobia". "My criticism of Islam is a criticism of beliefs and their consequences," he wrote following a controversial clash with Ben Affleck in October 2014 on the show Real Time with Bill Maher, "but my fellow liberals reflexively view it as an expression of intolerance toward people." During an email exchange with Glenn Greenwald, a critic of the New Atheists, Harris argued that "Islamophobia is a term of propaganda designed to protect Islam from the forces of secularism by conflating all criticism of it with racism and xenophobia. And it is doing its job, because people like you have been taken in by it." CANNOTANSWER | "The idea that Islam is a 'peaceful religion hijacked by extremists' is a dangerous fantasy--and it is now a particularly dangerous fantasy for Muslims to indulge. | Samuel Benjamin Harris (born April 9, 1967) is an American philosopher, neuroscientist, author, and podcast host. His work touches on a wide range of topics, including rationality, religion, ethics, free will, neuroscience, meditation, psychedelics, philosophy of mind, politics, terrorism, and artificial intelligence. Harris came to prominence for his criticism of religion, and Islam in particular, and is known as one of the "Four Horsemen" of New Atheism, along with Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel Dennett.
Harris's first book, The End of Faith (2004), won the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction and remained on The New York Times Best Seller list for 33 weeks. Harris has since written six additional books: Letter to a Christian Nation in 2006, The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values in 2010, the long-form essay Lying in 2011, the short book Free Will in 2012, Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion in 2014, and (with British writer Maajid Nawaz) Islam and the Future of Tolerance: A Dialogue in 2015. Harris's work has been translated into over 20 languages.
Harris has debated with many prominent figures on the topics of God or religion, including William Lane Craig, Jordan Peterson, Rick Warren, Andrew Sullivan, Reza Aslan, David Wolpe, Deepak Chopra, Ben Shapiro and Jean Houston. Since September 2013, Harris has hosted the Making Sense podcast (originally titled Waking Up), which has a large listenership. In September 2018, Harris released a meditation app, Waking Up with Sam Harris. Harris's views on free will, race, and Islam have attracted controversy.
Early life and education
Samuel Benjamin Harris was born in Los Angeles, California, on April 9, 1967. He is the son of actor Berkeley Harris, who appeared mainly in Western films, and TV writer and producer Susan Harris (née Spivak), who created Soap (TV series) and The Golden Girls among other series. His father, born in North Carolina, came from a Quaker background, and his mother is Jewish but not religious. He was raised by his mother following his parents' divorce when he was aged two. Harris has stated that his upbringing was entirely secular and that his parents rarely discussed religion, though he also stated that he was not raised as an atheist.
While his original major was in English, Harris became interested in philosophical questions while at Stanford University after an experience with the empathogen–entactogen MDMA (colloquially known as ecstasy or XTC). The experience led him to be interested in the idea that he might be able to achieve spiritual insights without the use of drugs. Leaving Stanford in his second year, a quarter after his psychedelic experience, he visited India and Nepal, where he studied meditation with teachers of Buddhist and Hindu religions, including Dilgo Khyentse. Eleven years later, in 1997, he returned to Stanford, completing a B.A. degree in philosophy in 2000. Harris began writing his first book, The End of Faith, immediately after the September 11 attacks.
He received a Ph.D. in cognitive neuroscience in 2009 from the University of California, Los Angeles, using functional magnetic resonance imaging to conduct research into the neural basis of belief, disbelief, and uncertainty. His thesis was titled The Moral Landscape: How Science Could Determine Human Values. His advisor was Mark S. Cohen.
Career
Writing
Harris's writing focuses on philosophy, neuroscience, and criticism of religion. He came to prominence for his criticism of religion (Islam in particular) and he is described as one of the Four Horsemen of Atheism, along with Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel Dennett. He has written for publications such as The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Economist, London Times, Boston Globe, and The Atlantic. Five of Harris's books have been New York Times bestsellers, and his writing has been translated into over 20 languages. The End of Faith (2004) remained on The New York Times Best Seller list for 33 weeks.
Harris has a chapter giving advice in Tim Ferriss' book Tools of Titans.
Debates on religion
In 2007, Harris engaged in a lengthy debate with conservative commentator Andrew Sullivan on the Internet forum Beliefnet. In April 2007, Harris debated with evangelical pastor Rick Warren for Newsweek magazine. Harris also debated with Rabbi David Wolpe in 2007. In 2010, Harris joined Michael Shermer to debate with Deepak Chopra and Jean Houston on the future of God in a debate hosted by ABC News Nightline. Harris debated with Christian philosopher William Lane Craig in April 2011 on whether there can be an objective morality without God. In June and July 2018, he met with Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson for a series of debates on religion, particularly the relationship between religious values and scientific fact in defining truth. Harris has also debated with the scholar Reza Aslan.
Podcast
In September 2013, Harris began releasing the Waking Up podcast (since re-titled Making Sense). Episodes vary in length but often last over two hours. Releases do not follow a regular schedule. The podcast has a large listenership.
Meditation app
In September 2018, Harris released a meditation course app, Waking Up with Sam Harris. The app provides daily meditations; long guided meditations; daily "Moments" (brief meditations and reminders); conversations with thought leaders in psychology, meditation, philosophy, psychedelics, and other disciplines; a selection of lessons on various topics, such as Mind & Emotion, Free Will, and Doing Good; and more. Users of the app are introduced to a number of types of meditation, such as mindfulness meditation, vipassanā-style meditation, loving-kindness meditation, and Dzogchen.
In September 2020, Harris announced his commitment to donate a least 10% of Waking Up's profits to highly effective charities, thus becoming the first company to sign the Giving What We Can pledge for companies. The pledge was done retroactively, taking into account the profits since the day the app launched 2 years previously.
Views
Religion
Harris is known as one of the most prominent critics of religion, and is a leading figure in the New Atheist movement. Harris is particularly opposed to what he refers to as dogmatic belief, and says that "Pretending to know things one doesn't know is a betrayal of science – and yet it is the lifeblood of religion." While purportedly opposed to religion in general and the belief systems of them, Harris believes that all religions are not created equal. Often invoking Jainism to contrast Islam as a whole, Harris highlights the difference in the specific doctrine and scripture as the main indicator of a religion's value, or lack thereof.
In 2006, Harris described Islam as "all fringe and no center," and wrote in The End of Faith that "the doctrine of Islam [...] represents a unique danger to all of us", arguing that the War on terror is really a war against Islam. In 2014, Harris said he considers Islam to be "especially belligerent and inimical to the norms of civil discourse", as it involves what Harris considers to be "bad ideas, held for bad reasons, leading to bad behavior." In 2015 Harris and secular Islamic activist Maajid Nawaz cowrote Islam and the Future of Tolerance. In this book, Harris argues that the word Islamophobia is a "pernicious meme", a label which prevents discussion about the threat of Islam. Harris has been described in 2020 by Jonathan Matusitz, Associate Professor at the University of Central Florida, as "a champion of the counter-jihad left".
Harris is critical of the Christian right in politics in the United States, blaming them for the political focus on "pseudo-problems like gay marriage." He is also critical of liberal Christianityas represented, for instance, by the theology of Paul Tillichwhich he argues claims to base its beliefs on the Bible despite actually being influenced by secular modernity. He further states that in so doing liberal Christianity provides rhetorical cover to fundamentalists.
Spirituality
Harris holds that there is "nothing irrational about seeking the states of mind that lie at the core of many religions. Compassion, awe, devotion, and feelings of oneness are surely among the most valuable experiences a person can have."
Harris rejects the dichotomy between spirituality and rationality, favoring a middle path that preserves spirituality and science but does not involve religion. He writes that spirituality should be understood in light of scientific disciplines like neuroscience and psychology. Science, he contends, can show how to maximize human well-being, but may fail to answer certain questions about the nature of being, answers to some of which he says are discoverable directly through our experience. His conception of spirituality does not involve a belief in any god.
In Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion (2014), Harris describes his experience with Dzogchen, a Tibetan Buddhist meditation practice, and recommends it to his readers. He writes that the purpose of spirituality (as he defines it – he concedes that the term's uses are diverse and sometimes indefensible) is to become aware that our sense of self is illusory, and says this realization brings both happiness and insight into the nature of consciousness. This process of realization, he argues, is based on experience and is not contingent on faith. Harris especially recommends the “headless” meditation technique as written about by Douglas Harding.
Science and morality
In The Moral Landscape, Harris argues that science answers moral problems and can aid human well-being.
Free will
Harris says that the idea of free will "cannot be mapped on to any conceivable reality" and is incoherent. Harris writes in Free Will that neuroscience "reveals you to be a biochemical puppet."
Social and political views
Harris describes himself as a liberal, and states that he supports raising taxes on the wealthy, decriminalizing drugs and legalizing same-sex marriage. In an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times, Harris said that he supported most of the criticism against Bush administration's war in Iraq, and all criticism of fiscal policy and the administration's treatment of science. Harris also said that liberalism has grown "dangerously out of touch with the realities of our world" when it comes to threats allegedly posed by Islamic fundamentalism. Harris is a registered Democrat.
During the 2016 United States presidential election, Harris supported Hillary Clinton in the Democratic Party presidential primaries against Bernie Sanders, and despite calling her "a terribly flawed candidate for the presidency," he favored her in the general election and came out strongly in opposition to Donald Trump's candidacy. Harris has criticized Trump for lying, stating in 2018 that Trump "has assaulted truth more than anyone in human history." During the 2020 United States presidential election, Harris supported Andrew Yang in the Democratic primaries. Harris also introduced Yang to podcaster Joe Rogan.
Artificial intelligence
Harris has discussed existential risk from artificial general intelligence in depth. He has given a TED talk on the topic, arguing it will be a major threat in the future and criticizing the paucity of human interest on the subject. He argues the dangers from artificial intelligence (AI) follow from three premises: that intelligence is the result of physical information processing, that humans will continue innovation in AI, and that humans are nowhere near the maximum possible extent of intelligence. Harris states that even if superintelligent AI is five to ten decades away, the scale of its implications for human civilization warrant discussion of the issue in the present.
Reception and controversies
Academic and journalistic reception to Harris's works and ideas has been varied.
Harris's first two books, in which he lays out his criticisms of religion, received negative reviews from Christian scholars. From secular sources, the books received a mixture of negative reviews and positive reviews. In his review of The End of Faith, American historian Alexander Saxton criticized what he called Harris's "vitriolic and selective polemic against Islam," (emphasis in original) which he said "obscure[s] the obvious reality that the invasion of Iraq and the War against Terror are driven by religious irrationalities, cultivated and conceded to, at high policy levels in the U.S., and which are at least comparable to the irrationality of Islamic crusaders and Jihadists." By contrast, Stephanie Merritt wrote of the same book that Harris's "central argument in The End of Faith is sound: religion is the only area of human knowledge in which it is still acceptable to hold beliefs dating from antiquity and a modern society should subject those beliefs to the same principles that govern scientific, medical or geographical inquiry – particularly if they are inherently hostile to those with different ideas."
Harris's next two books, which discuss philosophical issues relating to ethics and free will, received several negative academic reviews. In his review of The Moral Landscape, neuroscientist Kenan Malik criticized Harris for not engaging adequately with philosophical literature: "Imagine a sociologist who wrote about evolutionary theory without discussing the work of Darwin, Fisher, Mayr, Hamilton, Trivers or Dawkins on the grounds that he did not come to his conclusions by reading about biology and because discussing concepts such as 'adaptation', 'speciation', 'homology', 'phylogenetics' or 'kin selection' would 'increase the amount of boredom in the universe'. How seriously would we, and should we, take his argument?" Philosopher Daniel Dennett argued that Harris's book Free Will successfully refuted the common understanding of free will, but that he failed to respond adequately to the compatibilist understanding of free will. Dennett said the book was valuable because it expressed the views of many eminent scientists, but that it nonetheless contained a "veritable museum of mistakes" and that "Harris and others need to do their homework if they want to engage with the best thought on the topic." On the other hand, The Moral Landscape received a largely positive review from psychologists James Diller and Andrew Nuzzolilli. Additionally, Free Will received a mixed academic review from philosopher Paul Pardi, who acknowledged that while it suffers from some conceptual confusions and that the core argument is a bit too 'breezy', it serves as a "good primer on key ideas in physicalist theories of freedom and the will".
Harris's book on spirituality and meditation received mainly positive reviews as well as some mixed reviews. It was praised by Frank Bruni, for example, who described it as "so entirely of this moment, so keenly in touch with the growing number of Americans who are willing to say that they do not find the succor they crave, or a truth that makes sense to them, in organized religion."
In April 2017, Harris stirred controversy by hosting the social scientist Charles Murray on his podcast, discussing topics including the heritability of IQ and race and intelligence. Harris stated the invitation was out of indignation at a violent protest against Murray at Middlebury College the month before and not out of particular interest in the material at hand. The podcast episode garnered significant criticism, most notably from Vox and Slate. Harris and Murray were defended by conservative commentators Andrew Sullivan and Kyle Smith, as well as by neuroscientist Richard Haier, who stated that the points Murray claimed were mainstream actually do receive broad scientific support. Harris and Vox editor-at-large Ezra Klein later discussed the affair in a podcast interview, where Klein criticized Harris for rebuking tribalism in the form of identity politics while failing to recognize his own version of tribalism. Hatewatch staff at the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) wrote that members of the "skeptics" movement, of which Harris is "one of the most public faces," help to "channel people into the alt-right." Bari Weiss wrote in her opinion column that the SPLC had misrepresented Harris's views.
Harris was profiled by Weiss in The New York Times as part of the "Intellectual Dark Web" (a term coined semi-ironically by Eric Weinstein). She described the group as "a collection of iconoclastic thinkers, academic renegades and media personalities who are having a rolling conversation – on podcasts, YouTube and Twitter, and in sold-out auditoriums – that sound unlike anything else happening, at least publicly, in the culture right now." In November 2020, Harris stated that he does not identify as a part of that group.
In 2018, Robert Wright, a visiting professor of science and religion at Union Theological Seminary, published an article in Wired criticizing Harris, whom he described as "annoying" and "deluded". Wright wrote that Harris, despite claiming to be a champion of rationality, ignored his own cognitive biases and engaged in faulty and inconsistent arguments in his book The End of Faith. He wrote that "the famous proponent of New Atheism is on a crusade against tribalism but seems oblivious to his own version of it." Wright wrote that these biases are rooted in natural selection and impact everyone, but that they can be mitigated when acknowledged, whereas Harris offered no such acknowledgement.
The UK Business Insider included Harris's podcast in their list of "8 podcasts that will change how you think about human behavior" in 2017, and PC Magazine included it in their list of "The Best Podcasts of 2018." In January 2020, Max Sanderson included Harris's podcast as a "Producer pick" in a "podcasts of the week" section for The Guardian.
Accusations of Anti-Muslim bigotry and Islamophobia
Harris has been accused of Islamophobia by journalist Glenn Greenwald and linguist and political commentator Noam Chomsky. Greenwald characterized some of Harris's statements as Islamophobic, such as: "the people who speak most sensibly about the threat that Islam poses to Europe are actually fascists," and "[t]he only future devout Muslims can envisage – as Muslims – is one in which all infidels have been converted to Islam, politically subjugated, or killed." After Harris and Chomsky exchanged a series of emails on terrorism and U.S. foreign policy in 2015, Chomsky said Harris had not prepared adequately for the exchange and that this revealed his work as unserious. Kyle Schmidlin also wrote in Salon that he considered Chomsky the winner of the exchange because Harris's arguments relied excessively on thought experiments with little application to the real world. In a 2016 interview with Al Jazeera English's UpFront, Chomsky further criticized Harris, saying he "specializes in hysterical, slanderous charges against people he doesn't like."
Harris has countered that his views on this and other topics are frequently misrepresented by "unethical critics" who "deliberately" regard his words out of context. He has also criticized the validity of the term Islamophobia. "My criticism of Islam is a criticism of beliefs and their consequences, but my fellow liberals reflexively view it as an expression of intolerance toward people," he wrote following a disagreement with actor Ben Affleck in October 2014 on the show Real Time with Bill Maher. Affleck had described Harris's and host Bill Maher's views on Muslims as "gross" and "racist," and Harris's statement that "Islam is the mother lode of bad ideas" as an "ugly thing to say." Affleck also compared Harris's and Maher's rhetoric to that of people who use antisemitic canards or define African-Americans in terms of intraracial crime. Several conservative American media pundits in turn criticized Affleck and praised Harris and Maher for broaching the topic, saying that discussing it had become a "taboo."
Harris's dialogue on Islam with Maajid Nawaz received a combination of positive reviews and mixed reviews. Irshad Manji wrote: "Their back-and-forth clarifies multiple confusions that plague the public conversation about Islam." Of Harris specifically, she said "[he] is right that liberals must end their silence about the religious motives behind much Islamist terror. At the same time, he ought to call out another double standard that feeds the liberal reflex to excuse Islamists: Atheists do not make nearly enough noise about hatred toward Muslims."
Hamid Dabashi, a professor at Columbia University accused Sam Harris of being a "new atheist crusader" having never studied Islam thoroughly and having no special insight into any Muslim community on earth. He further accused Harris of engaging in such language to justify Western imperialism in the Muslim world. An article published in The Guardian accused Harris, along with Milo Yiannopoulos of influencing young white men into becoming racists and Anti-Muslim bigots. Harris has also been accused of merging his thoughts with far right ideologies, stating that he advocates the profiling of Muslims, "or anyone who looks like he or she could conceivably be Muslim," at airports.
Harris was also accused of "advancing Neoconservative agendas" by Chris Hedges and for advocating a nuclear first strike policy on Muslims if an Islamist regime ever obtained nuclear weapons, stating in The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason that "in such a situation, the only thing likely to ensure our survival may be a nuclear first strike of our own."
Recognition
Harris's first book, The End of Faith (2004), won the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction.
The Waking Up podcast won the 2017 Webby Award for "People's Voice" in the category "Science & Education" under "Podcasts & Digital Audio".
Harris was included on a list of the "100 Most Spiritually Influential Living People 2019" in the Watkins Review, a publication of Watkins Books, a London esoterica bookshop.
Personal life
Harris is a martial arts student and practices Brazilian jiu-jitsu.
In 2004, he married Annaka Gorton, an author and editor of nonfiction and scientific books after engaging in a common interest about the nature of consciousness. They have two daughters, and live in Los Angeles.
In September 2020, Harris became a member of Giving What We Can, an effective altruism organization whose members pledge to give at least 10% of their income to effective charities, both as an individual and as a company with Waking Up.
Works
Books
Documentary
Amila, D. & Shapiro, J. (2018). Islam and the Future of Tolerance. United States: The Orchard.
Peer-reviewed articles
Notes
References
External links
1967 births
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Writers from Los Angeles | false | [
"Reach Out is an album recorded by the Four Tops, issued on Motown Records in July 1967. It was the final Four Tops LP to be produced by Motown's main songwriting and production team, Holland–Dozier–Holland, who departed the label in late 1967 over money disputes.\n\nThe group's most successful studio LP, Reach Out includes six of the Four Tops' Top 20 singles: the #1 hit \"Reach Out I'll Be There\", the Top 10 singles \"Standing in the Shadows of Love\", \"Bernadette\", the Top 20 \"7-Rooms of Gloom\", and their Top 20 covers of Tim Hardin's \"If I Were a Carpenter\" and the Left Banke's \"Walk Away Renée\", both of which reached the UK Top 10.\n\nRounding out the LP are a pair of Monkees covers (\"Last Train to Clarksville\" and \"I'm a Believer\"), a cover of The Association's \"Cherish\", and the originals \"Wonderful Baby\" and \"What Else Is There to Do (But Think About You)\". Reach Out was followed one month later by a Four Tops' Greatest Hits album, which contained all of the group's hit singles to that point.\n\nTrack listing\nAll tracks produced by Brian Holland and Lamont Dozier, except for \"Wonderful Baby\", produced by Smokey Robinson; and \"What Else is There to Do (But Think About You)\", produced by Clarence Paul.\n\n\"Reach Out I'll Be There\" (Holland–Dozier–Holland)\n\"Walk Away Renée\" (Michael Brown, Bob Calilli, Tony Sansone)\n\"7-Rooms of Gloom\" (Holland-Dozier-Holland)\n\"If I Were a Carpenter\" (Tim Hardin)\n\"Last Train to Clarksville\" (Tommy Boyce, Bobby Hart)\n\"I'll Turn to Stone\" (Holland-Dozier-Holland, R. Dean Taylor)\n\"I'm a Believer\" (Neil Diamond)\n\"Standing in the Shadows of Love\" (Holland-Dozier-Holland)\n\"Bernadette\" (Holland-Dozier-Holland)\n\"Cherish\" (Terry Kirkman)\n\"Wonderful Baby\" (Smokey Robinson)\n\"What Else Is There to Do (But Think About You)\" (Stevie Wonder, Clarence Paul, Morris Broadnax)\n\nPersonnel\nLevi Stubbs - lead vocals\nAbdul \"Duke\" Fakir, Renaldo \"Obie\" Benson, Lawrence Payton, The Andantes - backing vocals\nThe Funk Brothers - instrumentation\nJames Meese - cover artwork\n\nLegacy\nBoth \"Reach Out I'll Be There\" and \"Standing in the Shadows of Love\" were recorded for inclusion on the album Diana Ross Presents The Jackson 5, with \"Reach Out\" being released on the box set Soulsation!\n\nCritical Reception/Accolades\nReach Out was ranked number 429 in Rolling Stone magazine's 2020 edition of \"The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time\" list.\n\nReferences\n\n1967 albums\nFour Tops albums\nAlbums produced by Smokey Robinson\nAlbums produced by Clarence Paul\nAlbums produced by Brian Holland\nAlbums produced by Lamont Dozier\nAlbums recorded at Hitsville U.S.A.\nMotown albums",
"This is the discography of R&B/Hip hop soul trio, Total.\n\nAlbums\n\nStudio albums\n\nSingles\n\n Notes\n Did not chart on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart (Billboard rules at the time prevented album cuts from charting). Chart peak listed represents the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart.\n\nFeatured singles\n\nGuest appearances\n\nSoundtracks\n\nVideography\n From Total (1996)\n No One Else\n No One Else (Puff Daddy Remix)\n Kissin' You\n Kissin' You / Oh Honey\n Can't You See\n Can't You See (Bad Boy Remix)\n Do You Think About Us\n From Kima, Keisha, and Pam (1998)\n Trippin'\n Sitting Home\n From Soul Food (soundtrack) (1997)\n What About Us? (1997)\n As Guest Artists\n LL Cool J - Loungin' (Who Do U Love?) (1995)\nNotorious B.I.G. \"Hypnotize\" (Pam)\nNotorious B.I.G \"Juicy\" (Keisha & Kima)\n Mase - What You Want (1997)\n Foxy Brown - I Can't (1998)\n Tony Touch - I Wonder Why (He's The Greatest DJ) (2000)\n Cameos\n Craig Mack - Flava In Ya Ear (Remix) (Keisha from Total) (1994)\n The Notorious B.I.G. - One More Chance/Stay With Me (1994)\nSoul For Real - Every Little Thing I Do (1995)\n 112 - Only You - Bad Boy Remix (Keisha from Total) (1996)\n Missy Elliott - The Rain (Supa Supa Fly) (1997)\n Jerome - Too Old For Me (Keisha from Total) (1997)\nLil' Kim - Not Tonight (Remix) (1997)\nThe Lox - We'll Always Love Big Poppa (1998)\nThe Bad Boy Family - You (2001) [Featuring Pam & Keisha]\n\nReferences\n\nTotal discography\nHip hop discographies\nRhythm and blues discographies"
] |
[
"Sam Harris",
"Islam",
"what does Sam think about Islam?",
"Harris considers Islam to be \"especially belligerent and inimical to the norms of civil discourse,\" relative to other world religions.",
"what else does he think about it?",
"\"The idea that Islam is a 'peaceful religion hijacked by extremists' is a dangerous fantasy--and it is now a particularly dangerous fantasy for Muslims to indulge."
] | C_c485de700c8e4629acfcd27abb8987c1_0 | has he been criticized for his beliefs? | 3 | has Sam Harris been criticized for his beliefs? | Sam Harris | Harris considers Islam to be "especially belligerent and inimical to the norms of civil discourse," relative to other world religions. He asserts that the "dogmatic commitment to using violence to defend one's faith, both from within and without" to varying degrees, is a central Islamic doctrine that is found in few other religions to the same degree, and that "this difference has consequences in the real world." In 2006, after the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy, Harris wrote, "The idea that Islam is a 'peaceful religion hijacked by extremists' is a dangerous fantasy--and it is now a particularly dangerous fantasy for Muslims to indulge. It is not at all clear how we should proceed in our dialogue with the Muslim world, but deluding ourselves with euphemisms is not the answer. It now appears to be a truism in foreign policy circles that real reform in the Muslim world cannot be imposed from the outside. But it is important to recognize why this is so--it is so because the Muslim world is utterly deranged by its religious tribalism. In confronting the religious literalism and ignorance of the Muslim world, we must appreciate how terrifyingly isolated Muslims have become in intellectual terms." He states that his criticism of the religion is aimed not at Muslims as people, but at the doctrine of Islam. Harris wrote a response to controversy over his criticism of Islam, which also aired on a debate hosted by The Huffington Post on whether critics of Islam are unfairly labeled as bigots: Is it really true that the sins for which I hold Islam accountable are "committed at least to an equal extent by many other groups, especially [my] own"? ... The freedom to poke fun at Mormonism is guaranteed [not by the First Amendment but] by the fact that Mormons do not dispatch assassins to silence their critics or summon murderous hordes in response to satire. ... Can any reader of this page imagine the staging of a similar play [to The Book of Mormon] about Islam in the United States, or anywhere else, in the year 2013? ... At this moment in history, there is only one religion that systematically stifles free expression with credible threats of violence. The truth is, we have already lost our First Amendment rights with respect to Islam--and because they brand any observation of this fact a symptom of Islamophobia, Muslim apologists like Greenwald are largely to blame. Harris has criticized common usage of the term "Islamophobia". "My criticism of Islam is a criticism of beliefs and their consequences," he wrote following a controversial clash with Ben Affleck in October 2014 on the show Real Time with Bill Maher, "but my fellow liberals reflexively view it as an expression of intolerance toward people." During an email exchange with Glenn Greenwald, a critic of the New Atheists, Harris argued that "Islamophobia is a term of propaganda designed to protect Islam from the forces of secularism by conflating all criticism of it with racism and xenophobia. And it is doing its job, because people like you have been taken in by it." CANNOTANSWER | Islam is a criticism of beliefs and their consequences, | Samuel Benjamin Harris (born April 9, 1967) is an American philosopher, neuroscientist, author, and podcast host. His work touches on a wide range of topics, including rationality, religion, ethics, free will, neuroscience, meditation, psychedelics, philosophy of mind, politics, terrorism, and artificial intelligence. Harris came to prominence for his criticism of religion, and Islam in particular, and is known as one of the "Four Horsemen" of New Atheism, along with Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel Dennett.
Harris's first book, The End of Faith (2004), won the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction and remained on The New York Times Best Seller list for 33 weeks. Harris has since written six additional books: Letter to a Christian Nation in 2006, The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values in 2010, the long-form essay Lying in 2011, the short book Free Will in 2012, Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion in 2014, and (with British writer Maajid Nawaz) Islam and the Future of Tolerance: A Dialogue in 2015. Harris's work has been translated into over 20 languages.
Harris has debated with many prominent figures on the topics of God or religion, including William Lane Craig, Jordan Peterson, Rick Warren, Andrew Sullivan, Reza Aslan, David Wolpe, Deepak Chopra, Ben Shapiro and Jean Houston. Since September 2013, Harris has hosted the Making Sense podcast (originally titled Waking Up), which has a large listenership. In September 2018, Harris released a meditation app, Waking Up with Sam Harris. Harris's views on free will, race, and Islam have attracted controversy.
Early life and education
Samuel Benjamin Harris was born in Los Angeles, California, on April 9, 1967. He is the son of actor Berkeley Harris, who appeared mainly in Western films, and TV writer and producer Susan Harris (née Spivak), who created Soap (TV series) and The Golden Girls among other series. His father, born in North Carolina, came from a Quaker background, and his mother is Jewish but not religious. He was raised by his mother following his parents' divorce when he was aged two. Harris has stated that his upbringing was entirely secular and that his parents rarely discussed religion, though he also stated that he was not raised as an atheist.
While his original major was in English, Harris became interested in philosophical questions while at Stanford University after an experience with the empathogen–entactogen MDMA (colloquially known as ecstasy or XTC). The experience led him to be interested in the idea that he might be able to achieve spiritual insights without the use of drugs. Leaving Stanford in his second year, a quarter after his psychedelic experience, he visited India and Nepal, where he studied meditation with teachers of Buddhist and Hindu religions, including Dilgo Khyentse. Eleven years later, in 1997, he returned to Stanford, completing a B.A. degree in philosophy in 2000. Harris began writing his first book, The End of Faith, immediately after the September 11 attacks.
He received a Ph.D. in cognitive neuroscience in 2009 from the University of California, Los Angeles, using functional magnetic resonance imaging to conduct research into the neural basis of belief, disbelief, and uncertainty. His thesis was titled The Moral Landscape: How Science Could Determine Human Values. His advisor was Mark S. Cohen.
Career
Writing
Harris's writing focuses on philosophy, neuroscience, and criticism of religion. He came to prominence for his criticism of religion (Islam in particular) and he is described as one of the Four Horsemen of Atheism, along with Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel Dennett. He has written for publications such as The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Economist, London Times, Boston Globe, and The Atlantic. Five of Harris's books have been New York Times bestsellers, and his writing has been translated into over 20 languages. The End of Faith (2004) remained on The New York Times Best Seller list for 33 weeks.
Harris has a chapter giving advice in Tim Ferriss' book Tools of Titans.
Debates on religion
In 2007, Harris engaged in a lengthy debate with conservative commentator Andrew Sullivan on the Internet forum Beliefnet. In April 2007, Harris debated with evangelical pastor Rick Warren for Newsweek magazine. Harris also debated with Rabbi David Wolpe in 2007. In 2010, Harris joined Michael Shermer to debate with Deepak Chopra and Jean Houston on the future of God in a debate hosted by ABC News Nightline. Harris debated with Christian philosopher William Lane Craig in April 2011 on whether there can be an objective morality without God. In June and July 2018, he met with Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson for a series of debates on religion, particularly the relationship between religious values and scientific fact in defining truth. Harris has also debated with the scholar Reza Aslan.
Podcast
In September 2013, Harris began releasing the Waking Up podcast (since re-titled Making Sense). Episodes vary in length but often last over two hours. Releases do not follow a regular schedule. The podcast has a large listenership.
Meditation app
In September 2018, Harris released a meditation course app, Waking Up with Sam Harris. The app provides daily meditations; long guided meditations; daily "Moments" (brief meditations and reminders); conversations with thought leaders in psychology, meditation, philosophy, psychedelics, and other disciplines; a selection of lessons on various topics, such as Mind & Emotion, Free Will, and Doing Good; and more. Users of the app are introduced to a number of types of meditation, such as mindfulness meditation, vipassanā-style meditation, loving-kindness meditation, and Dzogchen.
In September 2020, Harris announced his commitment to donate a least 10% of Waking Up's profits to highly effective charities, thus becoming the first company to sign the Giving What We Can pledge for companies. The pledge was done retroactively, taking into account the profits since the day the app launched 2 years previously.
Views
Religion
Harris is known as one of the most prominent critics of religion, and is a leading figure in the New Atheist movement. Harris is particularly opposed to what he refers to as dogmatic belief, and says that "Pretending to know things one doesn't know is a betrayal of science – and yet it is the lifeblood of religion." While purportedly opposed to religion in general and the belief systems of them, Harris believes that all religions are not created equal. Often invoking Jainism to contrast Islam as a whole, Harris highlights the difference in the specific doctrine and scripture as the main indicator of a religion's value, or lack thereof.
In 2006, Harris described Islam as "all fringe and no center," and wrote in The End of Faith that "the doctrine of Islam [...] represents a unique danger to all of us", arguing that the War on terror is really a war against Islam. In 2014, Harris said he considers Islam to be "especially belligerent and inimical to the norms of civil discourse", as it involves what Harris considers to be "bad ideas, held for bad reasons, leading to bad behavior." In 2015 Harris and secular Islamic activist Maajid Nawaz cowrote Islam and the Future of Tolerance. In this book, Harris argues that the word Islamophobia is a "pernicious meme", a label which prevents discussion about the threat of Islam. Harris has been described in 2020 by Jonathan Matusitz, Associate Professor at the University of Central Florida, as "a champion of the counter-jihad left".
Harris is critical of the Christian right in politics in the United States, blaming them for the political focus on "pseudo-problems like gay marriage." He is also critical of liberal Christianityas represented, for instance, by the theology of Paul Tillichwhich he argues claims to base its beliefs on the Bible despite actually being influenced by secular modernity. He further states that in so doing liberal Christianity provides rhetorical cover to fundamentalists.
Spirituality
Harris holds that there is "nothing irrational about seeking the states of mind that lie at the core of many religions. Compassion, awe, devotion, and feelings of oneness are surely among the most valuable experiences a person can have."
Harris rejects the dichotomy between spirituality and rationality, favoring a middle path that preserves spirituality and science but does not involve religion. He writes that spirituality should be understood in light of scientific disciplines like neuroscience and psychology. Science, he contends, can show how to maximize human well-being, but may fail to answer certain questions about the nature of being, answers to some of which he says are discoverable directly through our experience. His conception of spirituality does not involve a belief in any god.
In Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion (2014), Harris describes his experience with Dzogchen, a Tibetan Buddhist meditation practice, and recommends it to his readers. He writes that the purpose of spirituality (as he defines it – he concedes that the term's uses are diverse and sometimes indefensible) is to become aware that our sense of self is illusory, and says this realization brings both happiness and insight into the nature of consciousness. This process of realization, he argues, is based on experience and is not contingent on faith. Harris especially recommends the “headless” meditation technique as written about by Douglas Harding.
Science and morality
In The Moral Landscape, Harris argues that science answers moral problems and can aid human well-being.
Free will
Harris says that the idea of free will "cannot be mapped on to any conceivable reality" and is incoherent. Harris writes in Free Will that neuroscience "reveals you to be a biochemical puppet."
Social and political views
Harris describes himself as a liberal, and states that he supports raising taxes on the wealthy, decriminalizing drugs and legalizing same-sex marriage. In an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times, Harris said that he supported most of the criticism against Bush administration's war in Iraq, and all criticism of fiscal policy and the administration's treatment of science. Harris also said that liberalism has grown "dangerously out of touch with the realities of our world" when it comes to threats allegedly posed by Islamic fundamentalism. Harris is a registered Democrat.
During the 2016 United States presidential election, Harris supported Hillary Clinton in the Democratic Party presidential primaries against Bernie Sanders, and despite calling her "a terribly flawed candidate for the presidency," he favored her in the general election and came out strongly in opposition to Donald Trump's candidacy. Harris has criticized Trump for lying, stating in 2018 that Trump "has assaulted truth more than anyone in human history." During the 2020 United States presidential election, Harris supported Andrew Yang in the Democratic primaries. Harris also introduced Yang to podcaster Joe Rogan.
Artificial intelligence
Harris has discussed existential risk from artificial general intelligence in depth. He has given a TED talk on the topic, arguing it will be a major threat in the future and criticizing the paucity of human interest on the subject. He argues the dangers from artificial intelligence (AI) follow from three premises: that intelligence is the result of physical information processing, that humans will continue innovation in AI, and that humans are nowhere near the maximum possible extent of intelligence. Harris states that even if superintelligent AI is five to ten decades away, the scale of its implications for human civilization warrant discussion of the issue in the present.
Reception and controversies
Academic and journalistic reception to Harris's works and ideas has been varied.
Harris's first two books, in which he lays out his criticisms of religion, received negative reviews from Christian scholars. From secular sources, the books received a mixture of negative reviews and positive reviews. In his review of The End of Faith, American historian Alexander Saxton criticized what he called Harris's "vitriolic and selective polemic against Islam," (emphasis in original) which he said "obscure[s] the obvious reality that the invasion of Iraq and the War against Terror are driven by religious irrationalities, cultivated and conceded to, at high policy levels in the U.S., and which are at least comparable to the irrationality of Islamic crusaders and Jihadists." By contrast, Stephanie Merritt wrote of the same book that Harris's "central argument in The End of Faith is sound: religion is the only area of human knowledge in which it is still acceptable to hold beliefs dating from antiquity and a modern society should subject those beliefs to the same principles that govern scientific, medical or geographical inquiry – particularly if they are inherently hostile to those with different ideas."
Harris's next two books, which discuss philosophical issues relating to ethics and free will, received several negative academic reviews. In his review of The Moral Landscape, neuroscientist Kenan Malik criticized Harris for not engaging adequately with philosophical literature: "Imagine a sociologist who wrote about evolutionary theory without discussing the work of Darwin, Fisher, Mayr, Hamilton, Trivers or Dawkins on the grounds that he did not come to his conclusions by reading about biology and because discussing concepts such as 'adaptation', 'speciation', 'homology', 'phylogenetics' or 'kin selection' would 'increase the amount of boredom in the universe'. How seriously would we, and should we, take his argument?" Philosopher Daniel Dennett argued that Harris's book Free Will successfully refuted the common understanding of free will, but that he failed to respond adequately to the compatibilist understanding of free will. Dennett said the book was valuable because it expressed the views of many eminent scientists, but that it nonetheless contained a "veritable museum of mistakes" and that "Harris and others need to do their homework if they want to engage with the best thought on the topic." On the other hand, The Moral Landscape received a largely positive review from psychologists James Diller and Andrew Nuzzolilli. Additionally, Free Will received a mixed academic review from philosopher Paul Pardi, who acknowledged that while it suffers from some conceptual confusions and that the core argument is a bit too 'breezy', it serves as a "good primer on key ideas in physicalist theories of freedom and the will".
Harris's book on spirituality and meditation received mainly positive reviews as well as some mixed reviews. It was praised by Frank Bruni, for example, who described it as "so entirely of this moment, so keenly in touch with the growing number of Americans who are willing to say that they do not find the succor they crave, or a truth that makes sense to them, in organized religion."
In April 2017, Harris stirred controversy by hosting the social scientist Charles Murray on his podcast, discussing topics including the heritability of IQ and race and intelligence. Harris stated the invitation was out of indignation at a violent protest against Murray at Middlebury College the month before and not out of particular interest in the material at hand. The podcast episode garnered significant criticism, most notably from Vox and Slate. Harris and Murray were defended by conservative commentators Andrew Sullivan and Kyle Smith, as well as by neuroscientist Richard Haier, who stated that the points Murray claimed were mainstream actually do receive broad scientific support. Harris and Vox editor-at-large Ezra Klein later discussed the affair in a podcast interview, where Klein criticized Harris for rebuking tribalism in the form of identity politics while failing to recognize his own version of tribalism. Hatewatch staff at the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) wrote that members of the "skeptics" movement, of which Harris is "one of the most public faces," help to "channel people into the alt-right." Bari Weiss wrote in her opinion column that the SPLC had misrepresented Harris's views.
Harris was profiled by Weiss in The New York Times as part of the "Intellectual Dark Web" (a term coined semi-ironically by Eric Weinstein). She described the group as "a collection of iconoclastic thinkers, academic renegades and media personalities who are having a rolling conversation – on podcasts, YouTube and Twitter, and in sold-out auditoriums – that sound unlike anything else happening, at least publicly, in the culture right now." In November 2020, Harris stated that he does not identify as a part of that group.
In 2018, Robert Wright, a visiting professor of science and religion at Union Theological Seminary, published an article in Wired criticizing Harris, whom he described as "annoying" and "deluded". Wright wrote that Harris, despite claiming to be a champion of rationality, ignored his own cognitive biases and engaged in faulty and inconsistent arguments in his book The End of Faith. He wrote that "the famous proponent of New Atheism is on a crusade against tribalism but seems oblivious to his own version of it." Wright wrote that these biases are rooted in natural selection and impact everyone, but that they can be mitigated when acknowledged, whereas Harris offered no such acknowledgement.
The UK Business Insider included Harris's podcast in their list of "8 podcasts that will change how you think about human behavior" in 2017, and PC Magazine included it in their list of "The Best Podcasts of 2018." In January 2020, Max Sanderson included Harris's podcast as a "Producer pick" in a "podcasts of the week" section for The Guardian.
Accusations of Anti-Muslim bigotry and Islamophobia
Harris has been accused of Islamophobia by journalist Glenn Greenwald and linguist and political commentator Noam Chomsky. Greenwald characterized some of Harris's statements as Islamophobic, such as: "the people who speak most sensibly about the threat that Islam poses to Europe are actually fascists," and "[t]he only future devout Muslims can envisage – as Muslims – is one in which all infidels have been converted to Islam, politically subjugated, or killed." After Harris and Chomsky exchanged a series of emails on terrorism and U.S. foreign policy in 2015, Chomsky said Harris had not prepared adequately for the exchange and that this revealed his work as unserious. Kyle Schmidlin also wrote in Salon that he considered Chomsky the winner of the exchange because Harris's arguments relied excessively on thought experiments with little application to the real world. In a 2016 interview with Al Jazeera English's UpFront, Chomsky further criticized Harris, saying he "specializes in hysterical, slanderous charges against people he doesn't like."
Harris has countered that his views on this and other topics are frequently misrepresented by "unethical critics" who "deliberately" regard his words out of context. He has also criticized the validity of the term Islamophobia. "My criticism of Islam is a criticism of beliefs and their consequences, but my fellow liberals reflexively view it as an expression of intolerance toward people," he wrote following a disagreement with actor Ben Affleck in October 2014 on the show Real Time with Bill Maher. Affleck had described Harris's and host Bill Maher's views on Muslims as "gross" and "racist," and Harris's statement that "Islam is the mother lode of bad ideas" as an "ugly thing to say." Affleck also compared Harris's and Maher's rhetoric to that of people who use antisemitic canards or define African-Americans in terms of intraracial crime. Several conservative American media pundits in turn criticized Affleck and praised Harris and Maher for broaching the topic, saying that discussing it had become a "taboo."
Harris's dialogue on Islam with Maajid Nawaz received a combination of positive reviews and mixed reviews. Irshad Manji wrote: "Their back-and-forth clarifies multiple confusions that plague the public conversation about Islam." Of Harris specifically, she said "[he] is right that liberals must end their silence about the religious motives behind much Islamist terror. At the same time, he ought to call out another double standard that feeds the liberal reflex to excuse Islamists: Atheists do not make nearly enough noise about hatred toward Muslims."
Hamid Dabashi, a professor at Columbia University accused Sam Harris of being a "new atheist crusader" having never studied Islam thoroughly and having no special insight into any Muslim community on earth. He further accused Harris of engaging in such language to justify Western imperialism in the Muslim world. An article published in The Guardian accused Harris, along with Milo Yiannopoulos of influencing young white men into becoming racists and Anti-Muslim bigots. Harris has also been accused of merging his thoughts with far right ideologies, stating that he advocates the profiling of Muslims, "or anyone who looks like he or she could conceivably be Muslim," at airports.
Harris was also accused of "advancing Neoconservative agendas" by Chris Hedges and for advocating a nuclear first strike policy on Muslims if an Islamist regime ever obtained nuclear weapons, stating in The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason that "in such a situation, the only thing likely to ensure our survival may be a nuclear first strike of our own."
Recognition
Harris's first book, The End of Faith (2004), won the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction.
The Waking Up podcast won the 2017 Webby Award for "People's Voice" in the category "Science & Education" under "Podcasts & Digital Audio".
Harris was included on a list of the "100 Most Spiritually Influential Living People 2019" in the Watkins Review, a publication of Watkins Books, a London esoterica bookshop.
Personal life
Harris is a martial arts student and practices Brazilian jiu-jitsu.
In 2004, he married Annaka Gorton, an author and editor of nonfiction and scientific books after engaging in a common interest about the nature of consciousness. They have two daughters, and live in Los Angeles.
In September 2020, Harris became a member of Giving What We Can, an effective altruism organization whose members pledge to give at least 10% of their income to effective charities, both as an individual and as a company with Waking Up.
Works
Books
Documentary
Amila, D. & Shapiro, J. (2018). Islam and the Future of Tolerance. United States: The Orchard.
Peer-reviewed articles
Notes
References
External links
1967 births
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Writers from Los Angeles | true | [
"Tom Kawcyznski is a white separatist who produces a coronavirus-related podcast which has been criticized for pushing misinformation. Kawcyznski was town manager of Jackman, Maine until he was fired for promoting white supremacist content on social media.\n\nPodcasting\nKawcyznski began producing the podcast \"Coronavirus Central\" in 2020. In this podcast, Kawcyznski brands himself as a coronavirus expert, though he has been criticized for spreading incorrect, alarmist, and conspiracy-laden content, including the unproven idea that COVID-19 was engineered in a lab. The podcast has also been criticized in terms of quality, with Vulture describing it as \"long and poorly edited, packed with rambles and recitations of scientific papers of dubious fidelity.\" This podcast has attracted considerable viewing, rising as high as fifth spot on Apple's 'Health & Fitness' chart in February 2020 and remaining largely in the top twenty podcasts in that category. Kawcyznski claims that his podcast receives around twenty-thousand listeners per episode (though this claim cannot be easily verified). The podcast argued that the government is incompetent and supported several conspiracy theories about the coronavirus, including that it was man-made.\n\nKawcyznski has also guested on others' podcasts. In January 2020, he joined on Christopher Cantwell's podcast, a white supremacist who came to prominence following the 2017 Charlottesville Unite the Right rally.\n\nWhite separatism\nKawcyznski has expressed beliefs described by various outlets as a white separatist or white nationalist. The Southern Poverty Law Center describes New Albion, a white separatist group Kawcyznski started, as a white nationalist hate group. Kawcynzski was fired in January 2018 after less than a year as town manager of Jackman, Maine due to his posts on social media calling for racial segregation and condemning Islam.\n\nKawcyznski argues that he is not racist, not a white supremacist, and not anti-Islam. He argues that his view are misrepresented and that he accepts anyone whose culture is \"rooted in western civilization.\"\n\nThe Anti-Defamation League (ADL) notes that, though Kawcyznski's views align with those of the alt-right, he chooses to deliberatively obfuscate his beliefs in most public spaces. However, argues the ADL, Kawcyznski speaks more clearly on Gab, where he makes more clearly racist statements and at times talks explicitly about his communication strategy. He said in 2017, \"I’m putting a happy face on #AltRight thinking that brings normies in.\"\n\nPersonal life\nCrash Barry describes some details of Kawcyznski's personal life in a profile for Mainer News. He notes that Kawcyznski was born in Arizona in 1980 and graduated from Swarthmore College in 2003. Kawcyznski has worked in a variety of positions, including in procurement for a construction company in New Hampshire. Kawcyznski is married to Dana Steele. Barry describes Steele as more blatant in her neo-Nazi views than Kawcyznski, and Kawcyznski has said on Gab that Steele \"is considerably more radical\" than he is.\n\nBarry notes that, following college, Kawcyznski launched two short-lived political runs. He first rang for Congress as Libertarian, and later ran for the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. In both cases, he left the race before Election Day. Kawcyznski later moved to New Hampshire to join the Free State Project, an effort launched with the goal to create a libertarian stronghold. While in New Hampshire, he volunteered as a state campaign organizer for Donald Trump. \n\nIn 2017 Kawcyznski moved from Arizona to Jackman, Maine, a town of 1000 near the US-Canada border. He argues that he identifies as neither Republican nor Democrat, though he voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 election.\n\nReference \n\n1980 births\nLiving people\nAlt-right writers\nMaine city managers\nAmerican conspiracy theorists\nAmerican podcasters\nAmerican white nationalists\nPeople from Somerset County, Maine\nPeople from Arizona\nSwarthmore College alumni",
"United States presidential vacations, or vacations taken by the presidents of the United States, have often been contentious.\n\nHistory\nSince the time of Ulysses S. Grant in 1874, Martha's Vineyard has been a popular vacation site for presidents. Presidents who have taken a vacation there include Presidents John F. Kennedy, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama.\n\nThe presidential vacations can be risky in terms of popularity and practical safety:\n\nJohn Adams was criticized for spending time caring for his ailing wife.\nJames Garfield was shot while leaving Washington for his vacation.\nTheodore Roosevelt was criticized for leaving Washington for months at a time.\nFranklin Roosevelt was criticized for spending time on his yacht.\nGeorge W. Bush was often criticized by Democrats for taking long vacations to his ranch in Crawford, Texas during the Iraq war.\nBarack Obama's vacations have been scrutinized by the media. During the 2007–2012 recession he was criticized for vacationing at Martha's Vineyard.\nDonald Trump: In May 2019 Trump was criticized for various expenses; such as, golf trips having cost taxpayers at least $102 million in extra travel and security expenses, trips to Florida having cost $81 million, his trips to New Jersey costing $17 million, his 2018 two days in Scotland costing at least $3 million, and $1 million for a trip to his resort in Los Angeles. During most of his presidency, he used the concept of \"working-vacations\" to justify most of his trips, especially after making remarks such as \"I would not be a president who took vacations. I would not be a president that takes time off.\"\n\nKnown totals\n\nSources:\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n \"Top Presidential Vacation Spots\", The Washington Times\n\nPresidency of the United States"
] |
[
"Sam Harris",
"Islam",
"what does Sam think about Islam?",
"Harris considers Islam to be \"especially belligerent and inimical to the norms of civil discourse,\" relative to other world religions.",
"what else does he think about it?",
"\"The idea that Islam is a 'peaceful religion hijacked by extremists' is a dangerous fantasy--and it is now a particularly dangerous fantasy for Muslims to indulge.",
"has he been criticized for his beliefs?",
"Islam is a criticism of beliefs and their consequences,"
] | C_c485de700c8e4629acfcd27abb8987c1_0 | what do critics have to say to him? | 4 | what do critics have to say to Sam Harris? | Sam Harris | Harris considers Islam to be "especially belligerent and inimical to the norms of civil discourse," relative to other world religions. He asserts that the "dogmatic commitment to using violence to defend one's faith, both from within and without" to varying degrees, is a central Islamic doctrine that is found in few other religions to the same degree, and that "this difference has consequences in the real world." In 2006, after the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy, Harris wrote, "The idea that Islam is a 'peaceful religion hijacked by extremists' is a dangerous fantasy--and it is now a particularly dangerous fantasy for Muslims to indulge. It is not at all clear how we should proceed in our dialogue with the Muslim world, but deluding ourselves with euphemisms is not the answer. It now appears to be a truism in foreign policy circles that real reform in the Muslim world cannot be imposed from the outside. But it is important to recognize why this is so--it is so because the Muslim world is utterly deranged by its religious tribalism. In confronting the religious literalism and ignorance of the Muslim world, we must appreciate how terrifyingly isolated Muslims have become in intellectual terms." He states that his criticism of the religion is aimed not at Muslims as people, but at the doctrine of Islam. Harris wrote a response to controversy over his criticism of Islam, which also aired on a debate hosted by The Huffington Post on whether critics of Islam are unfairly labeled as bigots: Is it really true that the sins for which I hold Islam accountable are "committed at least to an equal extent by many other groups, especially [my] own"? ... The freedom to poke fun at Mormonism is guaranteed [not by the First Amendment but] by the fact that Mormons do not dispatch assassins to silence their critics or summon murderous hordes in response to satire. ... Can any reader of this page imagine the staging of a similar play [to The Book of Mormon] about Islam in the United States, or anywhere else, in the year 2013? ... At this moment in history, there is only one religion that systematically stifles free expression with credible threats of violence. The truth is, we have already lost our First Amendment rights with respect to Islam--and because they brand any observation of this fact a symptom of Islamophobia, Muslim apologists like Greenwald are largely to blame. Harris has criticized common usage of the term "Islamophobia". "My criticism of Islam is a criticism of beliefs and their consequences," he wrote following a controversial clash with Ben Affleck in October 2014 on the show Real Time with Bill Maher, "but my fellow liberals reflexively view it as an expression of intolerance toward people." During an email exchange with Glenn Greenwald, a critic of the New Atheists, Harris argued that "Islamophobia is a term of propaganda designed to protect Islam from the forces of secularism by conflating all criticism of it with racism and xenophobia. And it is doing its job, because people like you have been taken in by it." CANNOTANSWER | we have already lost our First Amendment rights with respect to Islam--and because they brand any observation of this fact a symptom of Islamophobia, | Samuel Benjamin Harris (born April 9, 1967) is an American philosopher, neuroscientist, author, and podcast host. His work touches on a wide range of topics, including rationality, religion, ethics, free will, neuroscience, meditation, psychedelics, philosophy of mind, politics, terrorism, and artificial intelligence. Harris came to prominence for his criticism of religion, and Islam in particular, and is known as one of the "Four Horsemen" of New Atheism, along with Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel Dennett.
Harris's first book, The End of Faith (2004), won the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction and remained on The New York Times Best Seller list for 33 weeks. Harris has since written six additional books: Letter to a Christian Nation in 2006, The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values in 2010, the long-form essay Lying in 2011, the short book Free Will in 2012, Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion in 2014, and (with British writer Maajid Nawaz) Islam and the Future of Tolerance: A Dialogue in 2015. Harris's work has been translated into over 20 languages.
Harris has debated with many prominent figures on the topics of God or religion, including William Lane Craig, Jordan Peterson, Rick Warren, Andrew Sullivan, Reza Aslan, David Wolpe, Deepak Chopra, Ben Shapiro and Jean Houston. Since September 2013, Harris has hosted the Making Sense podcast (originally titled Waking Up), which has a large listenership. In September 2018, Harris released a meditation app, Waking Up with Sam Harris. Harris's views on free will, race, and Islam have attracted controversy.
Early life and education
Samuel Benjamin Harris was born in Los Angeles, California, on April 9, 1967. He is the son of actor Berkeley Harris, who appeared mainly in Western films, and TV writer and producer Susan Harris (née Spivak), who created Soap (TV series) and The Golden Girls among other series. His father, born in North Carolina, came from a Quaker background, and his mother is Jewish but not religious. He was raised by his mother following his parents' divorce when he was aged two. Harris has stated that his upbringing was entirely secular and that his parents rarely discussed religion, though he also stated that he was not raised as an atheist.
While his original major was in English, Harris became interested in philosophical questions while at Stanford University after an experience with the empathogen–entactogen MDMA (colloquially known as ecstasy or XTC). The experience led him to be interested in the idea that he might be able to achieve spiritual insights without the use of drugs. Leaving Stanford in his second year, a quarter after his psychedelic experience, he visited India and Nepal, where he studied meditation with teachers of Buddhist and Hindu religions, including Dilgo Khyentse. Eleven years later, in 1997, he returned to Stanford, completing a B.A. degree in philosophy in 2000. Harris began writing his first book, The End of Faith, immediately after the September 11 attacks.
He received a Ph.D. in cognitive neuroscience in 2009 from the University of California, Los Angeles, using functional magnetic resonance imaging to conduct research into the neural basis of belief, disbelief, and uncertainty. His thesis was titled The Moral Landscape: How Science Could Determine Human Values. His advisor was Mark S. Cohen.
Career
Writing
Harris's writing focuses on philosophy, neuroscience, and criticism of religion. He came to prominence for his criticism of religion (Islam in particular) and he is described as one of the Four Horsemen of Atheism, along with Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel Dennett. He has written for publications such as The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Economist, London Times, Boston Globe, and The Atlantic. Five of Harris's books have been New York Times bestsellers, and his writing has been translated into over 20 languages. The End of Faith (2004) remained on The New York Times Best Seller list for 33 weeks.
Harris has a chapter giving advice in Tim Ferriss' book Tools of Titans.
Debates on religion
In 2007, Harris engaged in a lengthy debate with conservative commentator Andrew Sullivan on the Internet forum Beliefnet. In April 2007, Harris debated with evangelical pastor Rick Warren for Newsweek magazine. Harris also debated with Rabbi David Wolpe in 2007. In 2010, Harris joined Michael Shermer to debate with Deepak Chopra and Jean Houston on the future of God in a debate hosted by ABC News Nightline. Harris debated with Christian philosopher William Lane Craig in April 2011 on whether there can be an objective morality without God. In June and July 2018, he met with Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson for a series of debates on religion, particularly the relationship between religious values and scientific fact in defining truth. Harris has also debated with the scholar Reza Aslan.
Podcast
In September 2013, Harris began releasing the Waking Up podcast (since re-titled Making Sense). Episodes vary in length but often last over two hours. Releases do not follow a regular schedule. The podcast has a large listenership.
Meditation app
In September 2018, Harris released a meditation course app, Waking Up with Sam Harris. The app provides daily meditations; long guided meditations; daily "Moments" (brief meditations and reminders); conversations with thought leaders in psychology, meditation, philosophy, psychedelics, and other disciplines; a selection of lessons on various topics, such as Mind & Emotion, Free Will, and Doing Good; and more. Users of the app are introduced to a number of types of meditation, such as mindfulness meditation, vipassanā-style meditation, loving-kindness meditation, and Dzogchen.
In September 2020, Harris announced his commitment to donate a least 10% of Waking Up's profits to highly effective charities, thus becoming the first company to sign the Giving What We Can pledge for companies. The pledge was done retroactively, taking into account the profits since the day the app launched 2 years previously.
Views
Religion
Harris is known as one of the most prominent critics of religion, and is a leading figure in the New Atheist movement. Harris is particularly opposed to what he refers to as dogmatic belief, and says that "Pretending to know things one doesn't know is a betrayal of science – and yet it is the lifeblood of religion." While purportedly opposed to religion in general and the belief systems of them, Harris believes that all religions are not created equal. Often invoking Jainism to contrast Islam as a whole, Harris highlights the difference in the specific doctrine and scripture as the main indicator of a religion's value, or lack thereof.
In 2006, Harris described Islam as "all fringe and no center," and wrote in The End of Faith that "the doctrine of Islam [...] represents a unique danger to all of us", arguing that the War on terror is really a war against Islam. In 2014, Harris said he considers Islam to be "especially belligerent and inimical to the norms of civil discourse", as it involves what Harris considers to be "bad ideas, held for bad reasons, leading to bad behavior." In 2015 Harris and secular Islamic activist Maajid Nawaz cowrote Islam and the Future of Tolerance. In this book, Harris argues that the word Islamophobia is a "pernicious meme", a label which prevents discussion about the threat of Islam. Harris has been described in 2020 by Jonathan Matusitz, Associate Professor at the University of Central Florida, as "a champion of the counter-jihad left".
Harris is critical of the Christian right in politics in the United States, blaming them for the political focus on "pseudo-problems like gay marriage." He is also critical of liberal Christianityas represented, for instance, by the theology of Paul Tillichwhich he argues claims to base its beliefs on the Bible despite actually being influenced by secular modernity. He further states that in so doing liberal Christianity provides rhetorical cover to fundamentalists.
Spirituality
Harris holds that there is "nothing irrational about seeking the states of mind that lie at the core of many religions. Compassion, awe, devotion, and feelings of oneness are surely among the most valuable experiences a person can have."
Harris rejects the dichotomy between spirituality and rationality, favoring a middle path that preserves spirituality and science but does not involve religion. He writes that spirituality should be understood in light of scientific disciplines like neuroscience and psychology. Science, he contends, can show how to maximize human well-being, but may fail to answer certain questions about the nature of being, answers to some of which he says are discoverable directly through our experience. His conception of spirituality does not involve a belief in any god.
In Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion (2014), Harris describes his experience with Dzogchen, a Tibetan Buddhist meditation practice, and recommends it to his readers. He writes that the purpose of spirituality (as he defines it – he concedes that the term's uses are diverse and sometimes indefensible) is to become aware that our sense of self is illusory, and says this realization brings both happiness and insight into the nature of consciousness. This process of realization, he argues, is based on experience and is not contingent on faith. Harris especially recommends the “headless” meditation technique as written about by Douglas Harding.
Science and morality
In The Moral Landscape, Harris argues that science answers moral problems and can aid human well-being.
Free will
Harris says that the idea of free will "cannot be mapped on to any conceivable reality" and is incoherent. Harris writes in Free Will that neuroscience "reveals you to be a biochemical puppet."
Social and political views
Harris describes himself as a liberal, and states that he supports raising taxes on the wealthy, decriminalizing drugs and legalizing same-sex marriage. In an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times, Harris said that he supported most of the criticism against Bush administration's war in Iraq, and all criticism of fiscal policy and the administration's treatment of science. Harris also said that liberalism has grown "dangerously out of touch with the realities of our world" when it comes to threats allegedly posed by Islamic fundamentalism. Harris is a registered Democrat.
During the 2016 United States presidential election, Harris supported Hillary Clinton in the Democratic Party presidential primaries against Bernie Sanders, and despite calling her "a terribly flawed candidate for the presidency," he favored her in the general election and came out strongly in opposition to Donald Trump's candidacy. Harris has criticized Trump for lying, stating in 2018 that Trump "has assaulted truth more than anyone in human history." During the 2020 United States presidential election, Harris supported Andrew Yang in the Democratic primaries. Harris also introduced Yang to podcaster Joe Rogan.
Artificial intelligence
Harris has discussed existential risk from artificial general intelligence in depth. He has given a TED talk on the topic, arguing it will be a major threat in the future and criticizing the paucity of human interest on the subject. He argues the dangers from artificial intelligence (AI) follow from three premises: that intelligence is the result of physical information processing, that humans will continue innovation in AI, and that humans are nowhere near the maximum possible extent of intelligence. Harris states that even if superintelligent AI is five to ten decades away, the scale of its implications for human civilization warrant discussion of the issue in the present.
Reception and controversies
Academic and journalistic reception to Harris's works and ideas has been varied.
Harris's first two books, in which he lays out his criticisms of religion, received negative reviews from Christian scholars. From secular sources, the books received a mixture of negative reviews and positive reviews. In his review of The End of Faith, American historian Alexander Saxton criticized what he called Harris's "vitriolic and selective polemic against Islam," (emphasis in original) which he said "obscure[s] the obvious reality that the invasion of Iraq and the War against Terror are driven by religious irrationalities, cultivated and conceded to, at high policy levels in the U.S., and which are at least comparable to the irrationality of Islamic crusaders and Jihadists." By contrast, Stephanie Merritt wrote of the same book that Harris's "central argument in The End of Faith is sound: religion is the only area of human knowledge in which it is still acceptable to hold beliefs dating from antiquity and a modern society should subject those beliefs to the same principles that govern scientific, medical or geographical inquiry – particularly if they are inherently hostile to those with different ideas."
Harris's next two books, which discuss philosophical issues relating to ethics and free will, received several negative academic reviews. In his review of The Moral Landscape, neuroscientist Kenan Malik criticized Harris for not engaging adequately with philosophical literature: "Imagine a sociologist who wrote about evolutionary theory without discussing the work of Darwin, Fisher, Mayr, Hamilton, Trivers or Dawkins on the grounds that he did not come to his conclusions by reading about biology and because discussing concepts such as 'adaptation', 'speciation', 'homology', 'phylogenetics' or 'kin selection' would 'increase the amount of boredom in the universe'. How seriously would we, and should we, take his argument?" Philosopher Daniel Dennett argued that Harris's book Free Will successfully refuted the common understanding of free will, but that he failed to respond adequately to the compatibilist understanding of free will. Dennett said the book was valuable because it expressed the views of many eminent scientists, but that it nonetheless contained a "veritable museum of mistakes" and that "Harris and others need to do their homework if they want to engage with the best thought on the topic." On the other hand, The Moral Landscape received a largely positive review from psychologists James Diller and Andrew Nuzzolilli. Additionally, Free Will received a mixed academic review from philosopher Paul Pardi, who acknowledged that while it suffers from some conceptual confusions and that the core argument is a bit too 'breezy', it serves as a "good primer on key ideas in physicalist theories of freedom and the will".
Harris's book on spirituality and meditation received mainly positive reviews as well as some mixed reviews. It was praised by Frank Bruni, for example, who described it as "so entirely of this moment, so keenly in touch with the growing number of Americans who are willing to say that they do not find the succor they crave, or a truth that makes sense to them, in organized religion."
In April 2017, Harris stirred controversy by hosting the social scientist Charles Murray on his podcast, discussing topics including the heritability of IQ and race and intelligence. Harris stated the invitation was out of indignation at a violent protest against Murray at Middlebury College the month before and not out of particular interest in the material at hand. The podcast episode garnered significant criticism, most notably from Vox and Slate. Harris and Murray were defended by conservative commentators Andrew Sullivan and Kyle Smith, as well as by neuroscientist Richard Haier, who stated that the points Murray claimed were mainstream actually do receive broad scientific support. Harris and Vox editor-at-large Ezra Klein later discussed the affair in a podcast interview, where Klein criticized Harris for rebuking tribalism in the form of identity politics while failing to recognize his own version of tribalism. Hatewatch staff at the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) wrote that members of the "skeptics" movement, of which Harris is "one of the most public faces," help to "channel people into the alt-right." Bari Weiss wrote in her opinion column that the SPLC had misrepresented Harris's views.
Harris was profiled by Weiss in The New York Times as part of the "Intellectual Dark Web" (a term coined semi-ironically by Eric Weinstein). She described the group as "a collection of iconoclastic thinkers, academic renegades and media personalities who are having a rolling conversation – on podcasts, YouTube and Twitter, and in sold-out auditoriums – that sound unlike anything else happening, at least publicly, in the culture right now." In November 2020, Harris stated that he does not identify as a part of that group.
In 2018, Robert Wright, a visiting professor of science and religion at Union Theological Seminary, published an article in Wired criticizing Harris, whom he described as "annoying" and "deluded". Wright wrote that Harris, despite claiming to be a champion of rationality, ignored his own cognitive biases and engaged in faulty and inconsistent arguments in his book The End of Faith. He wrote that "the famous proponent of New Atheism is on a crusade against tribalism but seems oblivious to his own version of it." Wright wrote that these biases are rooted in natural selection and impact everyone, but that they can be mitigated when acknowledged, whereas Harris offered no such acknowledgement.
The UK Business Insider included Harris's podcast in their list of "8 podcasts that will change how you think about human behavior" in 2017, and PC Magazine included it in their list of "The Best Podcasts of 2018." In January 2020, Max Sanderson included Harris's podcast as a "Producer pick" in a "podcasts of the week" section for The Guardian.
Accusations of Anti-Muslim bigotry and Islamophobia
Harris has been accused of Islamophobia by journalist Glenn Greenwald and linguist and political commentator Noam Chomsky. Greenwald characterized some of Harris's statements as Islamophobic, such as: "the people who speak most sensibly about the threat that Islam poses to Europe are actually fascists," and "[t]he only future devout Muslims can envisage – as Muslims – is one in which all infidels have been converted to Islam, politically subjugated, or killed." After Harris and Chomsky exchanged a series of emails on terrorism and U.S. foreign policy in 2015, Chomsky said Harris had not prepared adequately for the exchange and that this revealed his work as unserious. Kyle Schmidlin also wrote in Salon that he considered Chomsky the winner of the exchange because Harris's arguments relied excessively on thought experiments with little application to the real world. In a 2016 interview with Al Jazeera English's UpFront, Chomsky further criticized Harris, saying he "specializes in hysterical, slanderous charges against people he doesn't like."
Harris has countered that his views on this and other topics are frequently misrepresented by "unethical critics" who "deliberately" regard his words out of context. He has also criticized the validity of the term Islamophobia. "My criticism of Islam is a criticism of beliefs and their consequences, but my fellow liberals reflexively view it as an expression of intolerance toward people," he wrote following a disagreement with actor Ben Affleck in October 2014 on the show Real Time with Bill Maher. Affleck had described Harris's and host Bill Maher's views on Muslims as "gross" and "racist," and Harris's statement that "Islam is the mother lode of bad ideas" as an "ugly thing to say." Affleck also compared Harris's and Maher's rhetoric to that of people who use antisemitic canards or define African-Americans in terms of intraracial crime. Several conservative American media pundits in turn criticized Affleck and praised Harris and Maher for broaching the topic, saying that discussing it had become a "taboo."
Harris's dialogue on Islam with Maajid Nawaz received a combination of positive reviews and mixed reviews. Irshad Manji wrote: "Their back-and-forth clarifies multiple confusions that plague the public conversation about Islam." Of Harris specifically, she said "[he] is right that liberals must end their silence about the religious motives behind much Islamist terror. At the same time, he ought to call out another double standard that feeds the liberal reflex to excuse Islamists: Atheists do not make nearly enough noise about hatred toward Muslims."
Hamid Dabashi, a professor at Columbia University accused Sam Harris of being a "new atheist crusader" having never studied Islam thoroughly and having no special insight into any Muslim community on earth. He further accused Harris of engaging in such language to justify Western imperialism in the Muslim world. An article published in The Guardian accused Harris, along with Milo Yiannopoulos of influencing young white men into becoming racists and Anti-Muslim bigots. Harris has also been accused of merging his thoughts with far right ideologies, stating that he advocates the profiling of Muslims, "or anyone who looks like he or she could conceivably be Muslim," at airports.
Harris was also accused of "advancing Neoconservative agendas" by Chris Hedges and for advocating a nuclear first strike policy on Muslims if an Islamist regime ever obtained nuclear weapons, stating in The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason that "in such a situation, the only thing likely to ensure our survival may be a nuclear first strike of our own."
Recognition
Harris's first book, The End of Faith (2004), won the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction.
The Waking Up podcast won the 2017 Webby Award for "People's Voice" in the category "Science & Education" under "Podcasts & Digital Audio".
Harris was included on a list of the "100 Most Spiritually Influential Living People 2019" in the Watkins Review, a publication of Watkins Books, a London esoterica bookshop.
Personal life
Harris is a martial arts student and practices Brazilian jiu-jitsu.
In 2004, he married Annaka Gorton, an author and editor of nonfiction and scientific books after engaging in a common interest about the nature of consciousness. They have two daughters, and live in Los Angeles.
In September 2020, Harris became a member of Giving What We Can, an effective altruism organization whose members pledge to give at least 10% of their income to effective charities, both as an individual and as a company with Waking Up.
Works
Books
Documentary
Amila, D. & Shapiro, J. (2018). Islam and the Future of Tolerance. United States: The Orchard.
Peer-reviewed articles
Notes
References
External links
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Writers from Los Angeles | false | [
"\n\nTrack listing\n Opening Overture\n \"I Get a Kick Out of You\" (Cole Porter)\n \"You Are the Sunshine of My Life\" (Stevie Wonder)\n \"You Will Be My Music\" (Joe Raposo)\n \"Don't Worry 'bout Me\" (Ted Koehler, Rube Bloom)\n \"If\" (David Gates)\n \"Bad, Bad Leroy Brown\" (Jim Croce)\n \"Ol' Man River\" (Jerome Kern, Oscar Hammerstein II)\n Famous Monologue\n Saloon Trilogy: \"Last Night When We Were Young\"/\"Violets for Your Furs\"/\"Here's That Rainy Day\" (Harold Arlen, E.Y. Harburg)/(Matt Dennis, Tom Adair)/(Jimmy Van Heusen, Johnny Burke)\n \"I've Got You Under My Skin\" (Porter)\n \"My Kind of Town\" (Sammy Cahn, Van Heusen)\n \"Let Me Try Again\" (Paul Anka, Cahn, Michel Jourdan)\n \"The Lady Is a Tramp\" (Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart)\n \"My Way\" (Anka, Claude Francois, Jacques Revaux, Gilles Thibaut)\n\nFrank Sinatra's Monologue About the Australian Press\nI do believe this is my interval, as we say... We've been having a marvelous time being chased around the country for three days. You know, I think it's worth mentioning because it's so idiotic, it's so ridiculous what's been happening. We came all the way to Australia because I chose to come here. I haven't been here for a long time and I wanted to come back for a few days. Wait now, wait. I'm not buttering anybody at all. I don't have to. I really don't have to. I like coming here. I like the people. I love your attitude. I like the booze and the beer and everything else that comes into the scene. I also like the way the country's growing and it's a swinging place.\n\nSo we come here and what happens? We gotta run all day long because of the parasites who chase us with automobiles. That's dangerous, too, on the road, you know. Might cause an accident. They won't quit. They wonder why I won't talk to them. I wouldn't drink their water, let alone talk to them. And if any of you folks in the press are in the audience, please quote me properly. Don't mix it up, do it exactly as I'm saying it, please. Write it down very clearly. One idiot called me up and he wanted to know what I had for breakfast. What the hell does he care what I had for breakfast? I was about to tell him what I did after breakfast. Oh, boy, they're murder! We have a name in the States for their counterparts: They're called parasites. Because they take and take and take and never give, absolutely, never give. I don't care what you think about any press in the world, I say they're bums and they'll always be bums, everyone of them. There are just a few exceptions to the rule. Some good editorial writers who don't go out in the street and chase people around. Critics don't bother me, because if I do badly, I know I'm bad before they even write it, and if I'm good, I know I'm good before they write it. It's true. I know best about myself. So, a critic is a critic. He doesn't anger me. It's the scandal man who bugs you, drives you crazy. It's the two-bit-type work that they do. They're pimps. They're just crazy, you know. And the broads who work in the press are the hookers of the press. Need I explain that to you? I might offer them a buck and a half... I'm not sure. I once gave a chick in Washington $2 and I overpaid her, I found out. She didn't even bathe. Imagine what that was like, ha, ha.\n\nNow, it's a good thing I'm not angry. Really. It's a good thing I'm not angry. I couldn't care less. The press of the world never made a person a star who was untalented, nor did they ever hurt any artist who was talented. So we, who have God-given talent, say, \"To hell with them.\" It doesn't make any difference, you know. And I want to say one more thing. From what I see what's happened since I was last here... what, 16 years ago? Twelve years ago. From what I've seen to happen with the type of news that they print in this town shocked me. And do you know what is devastating? It's old-fashioned. It was done in America and England twenty years ago. And they're catching up with it now, with the scandal sheet. They're rags, that's what they are. You use them to train your dog and your parrot. What else do I have to say? Oh, I guess that's it. That'll keep them talking to themselves for a while. I think most of them are a bunch of fags anyway. Never did a hard day's work in their life. I love when they say, \"What do you mean, you won't stand still when I take your picture?\" All of a sudden, they're God. We gotta do what they want us to do. It's incredible. A pox on them... Now, let's get down to some serious business here...\n\nSee also\nConcerts of Frank Sinatra\n\nFrank Sinatra",
"What Do You Say may refer to:\n\"What Do You Say\" (Reba McEntire song)\n\"What Do You Say\" (Filter song)"
] |
[
"Sam Harris",
"Islam",
"what does Sam think about Islam?",
"Harris considers Islam to be \"especially belligerent and inimical to the norms of civil discourse,\" relative to other world religions.",
"what else does he think about it?",
"\"The idea that Islam is a 'peaceful religion hijacked by extremists' is a dangerous fantasy--and it is now a particularly dangerous fantasy for Muslims to indulge.",
"has he been criticized for his beliefs?",
"Islam is a criticism of beliefs and their consequences,",
"what do critics have to say to him?",
"we have already lost our First Amendment rights with respect to Islam--and because they brand any observation of this fact a symptom of Islamophobia,"
] | C_c485de700c8e4629acfcd27abb8987c1_0 | did he have any controversies? | 5 | did Sam Harris have any controversies? | Sam Harris | Harris considers Islam to be "especially belligerent and inimical to the norms of civil discourse," relative to other world religions. He asserts that the "dogmatic commitment to using violence to defend one's faith, both from within and without" to varying degrees, is a central Islamic doctrine that is found in few other religions to the same degree, and that "this difference has consequences in the real world." In 2006, after the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy, Harris wrote, "The idea that Islam is a 'peaceful religion hijacked by extremists' is a dangerous fantasy--and it is now a particularly dangerous fantasy for Muslims to indulge. It is not at all clear how we should proceed in our dialogue with the Muslim world, but deluding ourselves with euphemisms is not the answer. It now appears to be a truism in foreign policy circles that real reform in the Muslim world cannot be imposed from the outside. But it is important to recognize why this is so--it is so because the Muslim world is utterly deranged by its religious tribalism. In confronting the religious literalism and ignorance of the Muslim world, we must appreciate how terrifyingly isolated Muslims have become in intellectual terms." He states that his criticism of the religion is aimed not at Muslims as people, but at the doctrine of Islam. Harris wrote a response to controversy over his criticism of Islam, which also aired on a debate hosted by The Huffington Post on whether critics of Islam are unfairly labeled as bigots: Is it really true that the sins for which I hold Islam accountable are "committed at least to an equal extent by many other groups, especially [my] own"? ... The freedom to poke fun at Mormonism is guaranteed [not by the First Amendment but] by the fact that Mormons do not dispatch assassins to silence their critics or summon murderous hordes in response to satire. ... Can any reader of this page imagine the staging of a similar play [to The Book of Mormon] about Islam in the United States, or anywhere else, in the year 2013? ... At this moment in history, there is only one religion that systematically stifles free expression with credible threats of violence. The truth is, we have already lost our First Amendment rights with respect to Islam--and because they brand any observation of this fact a symptom of Islamophobia, Muslim apologists like Greenwald are largely to blame. Harris has criticized common usage of the term "Islamophobia". "My criticism of Islam is a criticism of beliefs and their consequences," he wrote following a controversial clash with Ben Affleck in October 2014 on the show Real Time with Bill Maher, "but my fellow liberals reflexively view it as an expression of intolerance toward people." During an email exchange with Glenn Greenwald, a critic of the New Atheists, Harris argued that "Islamophobia is a term of propaganda designed to protect Islam from the forces of secularism by conflating all criticism of it with racism and xenophobia. And it is doing its job, because people like you have been taken in by it." CANNOTANSWER | controversy over his criticism of Islam, which also aired on a debate hosted by The Huffington Post on whether critics of Islam are unfairly labeled as bigots: | Samuel Benjamin Harris (born April 9, 1967) is an American philosopher, neuroscientist, author, and podcast host. His work touches on a wide range of topics, including rationality, religion, ethics, free will, neuroscience, meditation, psychedelics, philosophy of mind, politics, terrorism, and artificial intelligence. Harris came to prominence for his criticism of religion, and Islam in particular, and is known as one of the "Four Horsemen" of New Atheism, along with Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel Dennett.
Harris's first book, The End of Faith (2004), won the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction and remained on The New York Times Best Seller list for 33 weeks. Harris has since written six additional books: Letter to a Christian Nation in 2006, The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values in 2010, the long-form essay Lying in 2011, the short book Free Will in 2012, Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion in 2014, and (with British writer Maajid Nawaz) Islam and the Future of Tolerance: A Dialogue in 2015. Harris's work has been translated into over 20 languages.
Harris has debated with many prominent figures on the topics of God or religion, including William Lane Craig, Jordan Peterson, Rick Warren, Andrew Sullivan, Reza Aslan, David Wolpe, Deepak Chopra, Ben Shapiro and Jean Houston. Since September 2013, Harris has hosted the Making Sense podcast (originally titled Waking Up), which has a large listenership. In September 2018, Harris released a meditation app, Waking Up with Sam Harris. Harris's views on free will, race, and Islam have attracted controversy.
Early life and education
Samuel Benjamin Harris was born in Los Angeles, California, on April 9, 1967. He is the son of actor Berkeley Harris, who appeared mainly in Western films, and TV writer and producer Susan Harris (née Spivak), who created Soap (TV series) and The Golden Girls among other series. His father, born in North Carolina, came from a Quaker background, and his mother is Jewish but not religious. He was raised by his mother following his parents' divorce when he was aged two. Harris has stated that his upbringing was entirely secular and that his parents rarely discussed religion, though he also stated that he was not raised as an atheist.
While his original major was in English, Harris became interested in philosophical questions while at Stanford University after an experience with the empathogen–entactogen MDMA (colloquially known as ecstasy or XTC). The experience led him to be interested in the idea that he might be able to achieve spiritual insights without the use of drugs. Leaving Stanford in his second year, a quarter after his psychedelic experience, he visited India and Nepal, where he studied meditation with teachers of Buddhist and Hindu religions, including Dilgo Khyentse. Eleven years later, in 1997, he returned to Stanford, completing a B.A. degree in philosophy in 2000. Harris began writing his first book, The End of Faith, immediately after the September 11 attacks.
He received a Ph.D. in cognitive neuroscience in 2009 from the University of California, Los Angeles, using functional magnetic resonance imaging to conduct research into the neural basis of belief, disbelief, and uncertainty. His thesis was titled The Moral Landscape: How Science Could Determine Human Values. His advisor was Mark S. Cohen.
Career
Writing
Harris's writing focuses on philosophy, neuroscience, and criticism of religion. He came to prominence for his criticism of religion (Islam in particular) and he is described as one of the Four Horsemen of Atheism, along with Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel Dennett. He has written for publications such as The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Economist, London Times, Boston Globe, and The Atlantic. Five of Harris's books have been New York Times bestsellers, and his writing has been translated into over 20 languages. The End of Faith (2004) remained on The New York Times Best Seller list for 33 weeks.
Harris has a chapter giving advice in Tim Ferriss' book Tools of Titans.
Debates on religion
In 2007, Harris engaged in a lengthy debate with conservative commentator Andrew Sullivan on the Internet forum Beliefnet. In April 2007, Harris debated with evangelical pastor Rick Warren for Newsweek magazine. Harris also debated with Rabbi David Wolpe in 2007. In 2010, Harris joined Michael Shermer to debate with Deepak Chopra and Jean Houston on the future of God in a debate hosted by ABC News Nightline. Harris debated with Christian philosopher William Lane Craig in April 2011 on whether there can be an objective morality without God. In June and July 2018, he met with Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson for a series of debates on religion, particularly the relationship between religious values and scientific fact in defining truth. Harris has also debated with the scholar Reza Aslan.
Podcast
In September 2013, Harris began releasing the Waking Up podcast (since re-titled Making Sense). Episodes vary in length but often last over two hours. Releases do not follow a regular schedule. The podcast has a large listenership.
Meditation app
In September 2018, Harris released a meditation course app, Waking Up with Sam Harris. The app provides daily meditations; long guided meditations; daily "Moments" (brief meditations and reminders); conversations with thought leaders in psychology, meditation, philosophy, psychedelics, and other disciplines; a selection of lessons on various topics, such as Mind & Emotion, Free Will, and Doing Good; and more. Users of the app are introduced to a number of types of meditation, such as mindfulness meditation, vipassanā-style meditation, loving-kindness meditation, and Dzogchen.
In September 2020, Harris announced his commitment to donate a least 10% of Waking Up's profits to highly effective charities, thus becoming the first company to sign the Giving What We Can pledge for companies. The pledge was done retroactively, taking into account the profits since the day the app launched 2 years previously.
Views
Religion
Harris is known as one of the most prominent critics of religion, and is a leading figure in the New Atheist movement. Harris is particularly opposed to what he refers to as dogmatic belief, and says that "Pretending to know things one doesn't know is a betrayal of science – and yet it is the lifeblood of religion." While purportedly opposed to religion in general and the belief systems of them, Harris believes that all religions are not created equal. Often invoking Jainism to contrast Islam as a whole, Harris highlights the difference in the specific doctrine and scripture as the main indicator of a religion's value, or lack thereof.
In 2006, Harris described Islam as "all fringe and no center," and wrote in The End of Faith that "the doctrine of Islam [...] represents a unique danger to all of us", arguing that the War on terror is really a war against Islam. In 2014, Harris said he considers Islam to be "especially belligerent and inimical to the norms of civil discourse", as it involves what Harris considers to be "bad ideas, held for bad reasons, leading to bad behavior." In 2015 Harris and secular Islamic activist Maajid Nawaz cowrote Islam and the Future of Tolerance. In this book, Harris argues that the word Islamophobia is a "pernicious meme", a label which prevents discussion about the threat of Islam. Harris has been described in 2020 by Jonathan Matusitz, Associate Professor at the University of Central Florida, as "a champion of the counter-jihad left".
Harris is critical of the Christian right in politics in the United States, blaming them for the political focus on "pseudo-problems like gay marriage." He is also critical of liberal Christianityas represented, for instance, by the theology of Paul Tillichwhich he argues claims to base its beliefs on the Bible despite actually being influenced by secular modernity. He further states that in so doing liberal Christianity provides rhetorical cover to fundamentalists.
Spirituality
Harris holds that there is "nothing irrational about seeking the states of mind that lie at the core of many religions. Compassion, awe, devotion, and feelings of oneness are surely among the most valuable experiences a person can have."
Harris rejects the dichotomy between spirituality and rationality, favoring a middle path that preserves spirituality and science but does not involve religion. He writes that spirituality should be understood in light of scientific disciplines like neuroscience and psychology. Science, he contends, can show how to maximize human well-being, but may fail to answer certain questions about the nature of being, answers to some of which he says are discoverable directly through our experience. His conception of spirituality does not involve a belief in any god.
In Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion (2014), Harris describes his experience with Dzogchen, a Tibetan Buddhist meditation practice, and recommends it to his readers. He writes that the purpose of spirituality (as he defines it – he concedes that the term's uses are diverse and sometimes indefensible) is to become aware that our sense of self is illusory, and says this realization brings both happiness and insight into the nature of consciousness. This process of realization, he argues, is based on experience and is not contingent on faith. Harris especially recommends the “headless” meditation technique as written about by Douglas Harding.
Science and morality
In The Moral Landscape, Harris argues that science answers moral problems and can aid human well-being.
Free will
Harris says that the idea of free will "cannot be mapped on to any conceivable reality" and is incoherent. Harris writes in Free Will that neuroscience "reveals you to be a biochemical puppet."
Social and political views
Harris describes himself as a liberal, and states that he supports raising taxes on the wealthy, decriminalizing drugs and legalizing same-sex marriage. In an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times, Harris said that he supported most of the criticism against Bush administration's war in Iraq, and all criticism of fiscal policy and the administration's treatment of science. Harris also said that liberalism has grown "dangerously out of touch with the realities of our world" when it comes to threats allegedly posed by Islamic fundamentalism. Harris is a registered Democrat.
During the 2016 United States presidential election, Harris supported Hillary Clinton in the Democratic Party presidential primaries against Bernie Sanders, and despite calling her "a terribly flawed candidate for the presidency," he favored her in the general election and came out strongly in opposition to Donald Trump's candidacy. Harris has criticized Trump for lying, stating in 2018 that Trump "has assaulted truth more than anyone in human history." During the 2020 United States presidential election, Harris supported Andrew Yang in the Democratic primaries. Harris also introduced Yang to podcaster Joe Rogan.
Artificial intelligence
Harris has discussed existential risk from artificial general intelligence in depth. He has given a TED talk on the topic, arguing it will be a major threat in the future and criticizing the paucity of human interest on the subject. He argues the dangers from artificial intelligence (AI) follow from three premises: that intelligence is the result of physical information processing, that humans will continue innovation in AI, and that humans are nowhere near the maximum possible extent of intelligence. Harris states that even if superintelligent AI is five to ten decades away, the scale of its implications for human civilization warrant discussion of the issue in the present.
Reception and controversies
Academic and journalistic reception to Harris's works and ideas has been varied.
Harris's first two books, in which he lays out his criticisms of religion, received negative reviews from Christian scholars. From secular sources, the books received a mixture of negative reviews and positive reviews. In his review of The End of Faith, American historian Alexander Saxton criticized what he called Harris's "vitriolic and selective polemic against Islam," (emphasis in original) which he said "obscure[s] the obvious reality that the invasion of Iraq and the War against Terror are driven by religious irrationalities, cultivated and conceded to, at high policy levels in the U.S., and which are at least comparable to the irrationality of Islamic crusaders and Jihadists." By contrast, Stephanie Merritt wrote of the same book that Harris's "central argument in The End of Faith is sound: religion is the only area of human knowledge in which it is still acceptable to hold beliefs dating from antiquity and a modern society should subject those beliefs to the same principles that govern scientific, medical or geographical inquiry – particularly if they are inherently hostile to those with different ideas."
Harris's next two books, which discuss philosophical issues relating to ethics and free will, received several negative academic reviews. In his review of The Moral Landscape, neuroscientist Kenan Malik criticized Harris for not engaging adequately with philosophical literature: "Imagine a sociologist who wrote about evolutionary theory without discussing the work of Darwin, Fisher, Mayr, Hamilton, Trivers or Dawkins on the grounds that he did not come to his conclusions by reading about biology and because discussing concepts such as 'adaptation', 'speciation', 'homology', 'phylogenetics' or 'kin selection' would 'increase the amount of boredom in the universe'. How seriously would we, and should we, take his argument?" Philosopher Daniel Dennett argued that Harris's book Free Will successfully refuted the common understanding of free will, but that he failed to respond adequately to the compatibilist understanding of free will. Dennett said the book was valuable because it expressed the views of many eminent scientists, but that it nonetheless contained a "veritable museum of mistakes" and that "Harris and others need to do their homework if they want to engage with the best thought on the topic." On the other hand, The Moral Landscape received a largely positive review from psychologists James Diller and Andrew Nuzzolilli. Additionally, Free Will received a mixed academic review from philosopher Paul Pardi, who acknowledged that while it suffers from some conceptual confusions and that the core argument is a bit too 'breezy', it serves as a "good primer on key ideas in physicalist theories of freedom and the will".
Harris's book on spirituality and meditation received mainly positive reviews as well as some mixed reviews. It was praised by Frank Bruni, for example, who described it as "so entirely of this moment, so keenly in touch with the growing number of Americans who are willing to say that they do not find the succor they crave, or a truth that makes sense to them, in organized religion."
In April 2017, Harris stirred controversy by hosting the social scientist Charles Murray on his podcast, discussing topics including the heritability of IQ and race and intelligence. Harris stated the invitation was out of indignation at a violent protest against Murray at Middlebury College the month before and not out of particular interest in the material at hand. The podcast episode garnered significant criticism, most notably from Vox and Slate. Harris and Murray were defended by conservative commentators Andrew Sullivan and Kyle Smith, as well as by neuroscientist Richard Haier, who stated that the points Murray claimed were mainstream actually do receive broad scientific support. Harris and Vox editor-at-large Ezra Klein later discussed the affair in a podcast interview, where Klein criticized Harris for rebuking tribalism in the form of identity politics while failing to recognize his own version of tribalism. Hatewatch staff at the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) wrote that members of the "skeptics" movement, of which Harris is "one of the most public faces," help to "channel people into the alt-right." Bari Weiss wrote in her opinion column that the SPLC had misrepresented Harris's views.
Harris was profiled by Weiss in The New York Times as part of the "Intellectual Dark Web" (a term coined semi-ironically by Eric Weinstein). She described the group as "a collection of iconoclastic thinkers, academic renegades and media personalities who are having a rolling conversation – on podcasts, YouTube and Twitter, and in sold-out auditoriums – that sound unlike anything else happening, at least publicly, in the culture right now." In November 2020, Harris stated that he does not identify as a part of that group.
In 2018, Robert Wright, a visiting professor of science and religion at Union Theological Seminary, published an article in Wired criticizing Harris, whom he described as "annoying" and "deluded". Wright wrote that Harris, despite claiming to be a champion of rationality, ignored his own cognitive biases and engaged in faulty and inconsistent arguments in his book The End of Faith. He wrote that "the famous proponent of New Atheism is on a crusade against tribalism but seems oblivious to his own version of it." Wright wrote that these biases are rooted in natural selection and impact everyone, but that they can be mitigated when acknowledged, whereas Harris offered no such acknowledgement.
The UK Business Insider included Harris's podcast in their list of "8 podcasts that will change how you think about human behavior" in 2017, and PC Magazine included it in their list of "The Best Podcasts of 2018." In January 2020, Max Sanderson included Harris's podcast as a "Producer pick" in a "podcasts of the week" section for The Guardian.
Accusations of Anti-Muslim bigotry and Islamophobia
Harris has been accused of Islamophobia by journalist Glenn Greenwald and linguist and political commentator Noam Chomsky. Greenwald characterized some of Harris's statements as Islamophobic, such as: "the people who speak most sensibly about the threat that Islam poses to Europe are actually fascists," and "[t]he only future devout Muslims can envisage – as Muslims – is one in which all infidels have been converted to Islam, politically subjugated, or killed." After Harris and Chomsky exchanged a series of emails on terrorism and U.S. foreign policy in 2015, Chomsky said Harris had not prepared adequately for the exchange and that this revealed his work as unserious. Kyle Schmidlin also wrote in Salon that he considered Chomsky the winner of the exchange because Harris's arguments relied excessively on thought experiments with little application to the real world. In a 2016 interview with Al Jazeera English's UpFront, Chomsky further criticized Harris, saying he "specializes in hysterical, slanderous charges against people he doesn't like."
Harris has countered that his views on this and other topics are frequently misrepresented by "unethical critics" who "deliberately" regard his words out of context. He has also criticized the validity of the term Islamophobia. "My criticism of Islam is a criticism of beliefs and their consequences, but my fellow liberals reflexively view it as an expression of intolerance toward people," he wrote following a disagreement with actor Ben Affleck in October 2014 on the show Real Time with Bill Maher. Affleck had described Harris's and host Bill Maher's views on Muslims as "gross" and "racist," and Harris's statement that "Islam is the mother lode of bad ideas" as an "ugly thing to say." Affleck also compared Harris's and Maher's rhetoric to that of people who use antisemitic canards or define African-Americans in terms of intraracial crime. Several conservative American media pundits in turn criticized Affleck and praised Harris and Maher for broaching the topic, saying that discussing it had become a "taboo."
Harris's dialogue on Islam with Maajid Nawaz received a combination of positive reviews and mixed reviews. Irshad Manji wrote: "Their back-and-forth clarifies multiple confusions that plague the public conversation about Islam." Of Harris specifically, she said "[he] is right that liberals must end their silence about the religious motives behind much Islamist terror. At the same time, he ought to call out another double standard that feeds the liberal reflex to excuse Islamists: Atheists do not make nearly enough noise about hatred toward Muslims."
Hamid Dabashi, a professor at Columbia University accused Sam Harris of being a "new atheist crusader" having never studied Islam thoroughly and having no special insight into any Muslim community on earth. He further accused Harris of engaging in such language to justify Western imperialism in the Muslim world. An article published in The Guardian accused Harris, along with Milo Yiannopoulos of influencing young white men into becoming racists and Anti-Muslim bigots. Harris has also been accused of merging his thoughts with far right ideologies, stating that he advocates the profiling of Muslims, "or anyone who looks like he or she could conceivably be Muslim," at airports.
Harris was also accused of "advancing Neoconservative agendas" by Chris Hedges and for advocating a nuclear first strike policy on Muslims if an Islamist regime ever obtained nuclear weapons, stating in The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason that "in such a situation, the only thing likely to ensure our survival may be a nuclear first strike of our own."
Recognition
Harris's first book, The End of Faith (2004), won the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction.
The Waking Up podcast won the 2017 Webby Award for "People's Voice" in the category "Science & Education" under "Podcasts & Digital Audio".
Harris was included on a list of the "100 Most Spiritually Influential Living People 2019" in the Watkins Review, a publication of Watkins Books, a London esoterica bookshop.
Personal life
Harris is a martial arts student and practices Brazilian jiu-jitsu.
In 2004, he married Annaka Gorton, an author and editor of nonfiction and scientific books after engaging in a common interest about the nature of consciousness. They have two daughters, and live in Los Angeles.
In September 2020, Harris became a member of Giving What We Can, an effective altruism organization whose members pledge to give at least 10% of their income to effective charities, both as an individual and as a company with Waking Up.
Works
Books
Documentary
Amila, D. & Shapiro, J. (2018). Islam and the Future of Tolerance. United States: The Orchard.
Peer-reviewed articles
Notes
References
External links
1967 births
21st-century American essayists
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Activists from California
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Consciousness researchers and theorists
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Writers from Los Angeles | false | [
"Whang-od Academy, also known as Learn The Ancient Art of Tattooing, was a planned paid online course on traditional tattooing featuring Whang-od. It was planned to be hosted at Nas Academy, an online education platform by Arab-Israeli video blogger Nuseir Yassin who is also known as Nas Daily.\n\nNas Daily was subject to controversy, after Whang-od's grandniece Grace Palicas alleged that he did not obtained proper consent from the elder tattooist for the online course. The incident has received attention from the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) which maintains that prior consent is needed from the entire Butbut community, of which Whang-od is a part of, for the online course.\n\nBackground\nIn late June 2021, Nas Academy announced that it would be collaborating with 12 Filipinos for its online courses which included traditional tattooist Whang-Od. Whang-od is a Kalinga artist who is known for her people's traditional tattoo practice of batok. The course was available at the Nas Academy platform at a price of (around US$15). It includes three videos, ranging from 4 and a half minutes to 18 minutes long, and two live sessions with trainers.\n\nReception\nOn August 4, 2021, Whang-od's grandniece and apprentice Grace Palicas called the online course a \"scam\" in a Facebook post published in the Tattooed by Apo Whang Od group page adding that her grandmother did not sign any contract and that she did not understand translators she dealt with in connection with the online course. In behalf of the Butbot tribe, of which Whang-od is a part of, Palicas also relayed concerns of their community's art and culture being exploited. The Whang-od Academy was taken down in the same day reportedly in exchange of Nas Academy's request for Palicas deleting her posts. Nas Academy added that the course takedown was temporarily done out of respect of Whang-od's family while it \"resolves any issues that have arisen from these falsehoods\".\n\nIn response, Nas Daily released a 22-second video showing Whang-od, joined by niece Estella Palingdao, use her thumbprint to sign a contract. The video was used a proof that Whang-od and his immediate family consented the setting up of the online course. According to Nas Daily, Palingdao served as translator and witness to the contract signing. The following day, the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) announced that it conducting its own probe to determine \"whether proper consultations have been undertaken\". The NPIC noted that despite the contract, Nas Daily should have secured Free and Prior Informed Consent (FPIC) from the Butbut community under the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (IPRA) of 1997 where \"manifestations of indigenous culture\" for commercial use is only allowed with FPIC from the Indigenous Cultural Communities/Indigenous Peoples (ICCs/IPs) involved.\n\nNas Daily's Facebook page lost around 500,000 followers three days after Palicas's accusation. Nas Daily had 20.5 million followers in August 3, 2021.\n\nNas Academy Philippines announced on August 8, 2021 that it would stop its operations until further notice, while it works with the NCIP to \"ensure that all proper processes are followed\" which meant that its new customers won't be able to purchase any courses.\n\nReferences\n\nTraditional knowledge\nPhilippine intellectual property law\nIgorot\nFilipino tattooing\nEducational materials\nInternet-related controversies\nArt controversies\nControversies in the Philippines\nInternet properties established in 2021\nIndigenous rights",
"Michel Hayek (Arabic: ميشال حايك) is a Lebanese psychic and clairvoyant, who created a lot of controversies through his traditional yearly New Year's Eve's television predictions appearances, which started on the LBC, and later MTV. Some have called him Nostradamus of the Middle-East.\n\nBiography \nBorn in 1967 at Beit Chabab to a butcher, as a child he predicted about his family and friends but was not taken seriously. \n\nHe started working in the field of predictions in 1985, and traveled around the world for 13 years, drawing the attention of the media and newspapers, but it was with the launch of Arab satellite televisions that became famous.\n\nHe does not offer his prediction services to ordinary people, but only to politicians and international firms like in the United States, Britain and Australia. He has built relationships with the Lebanese politicians, and he claimed that over 35 percent of politicians resort to fortunetelling.\n\nHe is a businessman with investments in many areas such as real estate.\n\nHis predictions \n In 2006 he did not make any predictions, because of his notoriety growing so much in the country.\n In 2020 he predicted the horrific Beirut Port explosion, by saying he pictured fire, ash and smoke at the port of Beirut. \n In 2021 he predicted akkar explosion\n\nSkepticism \nThe skeptics see that his work depends on coincidence and they say that the Arab Spring event was not mentioned in his predictions except in small talks that did not match the strength of the event, and that his error rate is very large and his forecasts are very generic and abstract in many cases, which could be applied to any event that happens. KATA\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n\nPsychics\nClairvoyants\n1967 births\nLiving people"
] |
[
"Sam Harris",
"Islam",
"what does Sam think about Islam?",
"Harris considers Islam to be \"especially belligerent and inimical to the norms of civil discourse,\" relative to other world religions.",
"what else does he think about it?",
"\"The idea that Islam is a 'peaceful religion hijacked by extremists' is a dangerous fantasy--and it is now a particularly dangerous fantasy for Muslims to indulge.",
"has he been criticized for his beliefs?",
"Islam is a criticism of beliefs and their consequences,",
"what do critics have to say to him?",
"we have already lost our First Amendment rights with respect to Islam--and because they brand any observation of this fact a symptom of Islamophobia,",
"did he have any controversies?",
"controversy over his criticism of Islam, which also aired on a debate hosted by The Huffington Post on whether critics of Islam are unfairly labeled as bigots:"
] | C_c485de700c8e4629acfcd27abb8987c1_0 | how did he handle the controversies? | 6 | how did Sam Harris handle the controversies? | Sam Harris | Harris considers Islam to be "especially belligerent and inimical to the norms of civil discourse," relative to other world religions. He asserts that the "dogmatic commitment to using violence to defend one's faith, both from within and without" to varying degrees, is a central Islamic doctrine that is found in few other religions to the same degree, and that "this difference has consequences in the real world." In 2006, after the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy, Harris wrote, "The idea that Islam is a 'peaceful religion hijacked by extremists' is a dangerous fantasy--and it is now a particularly dangerous fantasy for Muslims to indulge. It is not at all clear how we should proceed in our dialogue with the Muslim world, but deluding ourselves with euphemisms is not the answer. It now appears to be a truism in foreign policy circles that real reform in the Muslim world cannot be imposed from the outside. But it is important to recognize why this is so--it is so because the Muslim world is utterly deranged by its religious tribalism. In confronting the religious literalism and ignorance of the Muslim world, we must appreciate how terrifyingly isolated Muslims have become in intellectual terms." He states that his criticism of the religion is aimed not at Muslims as people, but at the doctrine of Islam. Harris wrote a response to controversy over his criticism of Islam, which also aired on a debate hosted by The Huffington Post on whether critics of Islam are unfairly labeled as bigots: Is it really true that the sins for which I hold Islam accountable are "committed at least to an equal extent by many other groups, especially [my] own"? ... The freedom to poke fun at Mormonism is guaranteed [not by the First Amendment but] by the fact that Mormons do not dispatch assassins to silence their critics or summon murderous hordes in response to satire. ... Can any reader of this page imagine the staging of a similar play [to The Book of Mormon] about Islam in the United States, or anywhere else, in the year 2013? ... At this moment in history, there is only one religion that systematically stifles free expression with credible threats of violence. The truth is, we have already lost our First Amendment rights with respect to Islam--and because they brand any observation of this fact a symptom of Islamophobia, Muslim apologists like Greenwald are largely to blame. Harris has criticized common usage of the term "Islamophobia". "My criticism of Islam is a criticism of beliefs and their consequences," he wrote following a controversial clash with Ben Affleck in October 2014 on the show Real Time with Bill Maher, "but my fellow liberals reflexively view it as an expression of intolerance toward people." During an email exchange with Glenn Greenwald, a critic of the New Atheists, Harris argued that "Islamophobia is a term of propaganda designed to protect Islam from the forces of secularism by conflating all criticism of it with racism and xenophobia. And it is doing its job, because people like you have been taken in by it." CANNOTANSWER | Harris has criticized common usage of the term "Islamophobia". "My criticism of Islam is a criticism of beliefs and their consequences, | Samuel Benjamin Harris (born April 9, 1967) is an American philosopher, neuroscientist, author, and podcast host. His work touches on a wide range of topics, including rationality, religion, ethics, free will, neuroscience, meditation, psychedelics, philosophy of mind, politics, terrorism, and artificial intelligence. Harris came to prominence for his criticism of religion, and Islam in particular, and is known as one of the "Four Horsemen" of New Atheism, along with Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel Dennett.
Harris's first book, The End of Faith (2004), won the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction and remained on The New York Times Best Seller list for 33 weeks. Harris has since written six additional books: Letter to a Christian Nation in 2006, The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values in 2010, the long-form essay Lying in 2011, the short book Free Will in 2012, Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion in 2014, and (with British writer Maajid Nawaz) Islam and the Future of Tolerance: A Dialogue in 2015. Harris's work has been translated into over 20 languages.
Harris has debated with many prominent figures on the topics of God or religion, including William Lane Craig, Jordan Peterson, Rick Warren, Andrew Sullivan, Reza Aslan, David Wolpe, Deepak Chopra, Ben Shapiro and Jean Houston. Since September 2013, Harris has hosted the Making Sense podcast (originally titled Waking Up), which has a large listenership. In September 2018, Harris released a meditation app, Waking Up with Sam Harris. Harris's views on free will, race, and Islam have attracted controversy.
Early life and education
Samuel Benjamin Harris was born in Los Angeles, California, on April 9, 1967. He is the son of actor Berkeley Harris, who appeared mainly in Western films, and TV writer and producer Susan Harris (née Spivak), who created Soap (TV series) and The Golden Girls among other series. His father, born in North Carolina, came from a Quaker background, and his mother is Jewish but not religious. He was raised by his mother following his parents' divorce when he was aged two. Harris has stated that his upbringing was entirely secular and that his parents rarely discussed religion, though he also stated that he was not raised as an atheist.
While his original major was in English, Harris became interested in philosophical questions while at Stanford University after an experience with the empathogen–entactogen MDMA (colloquially known as ecstasy or XTC). The experience led him to be interested in the idea that he might be able to achieve spiritual insights without the use of drugs. Leaving Stanford in his second year, a quarter after his psychedelic experience, he visited India and Nepal, where he studied meditation with teachers of Buddhist and Hindu religions, including Dilgo Khyentse. Eleven years later, in 1997, he returned to Stanford, completing a B.A. degree in philosophy in 2000. Harris began writing his first book, The End of Faith, immediately after the September 11 attacks.
He received a Ph.D. in cognitive neuroscience in 2009 from the University of California, Los Angeles, using functional magnetic resonance imaging to conduct research into the neural basis of belief, disbelief, and uncertainty. His thesis was titled The Moral Landscape: How Science Could Determine Human Values. His advisor was Mark S. Cohen.
Career
Writing
Harris's writing focuses on philosophy, neuroscience, and criticism of religion. He came to prominence for his criticism of religion (Islam in particular) and he is described as one of the Four Horsemen of Atheism, along with Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel Dennett. He has written for publications such as The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Economist, London Times, Boston Globe, and The Atlantic. Five of Harris's books have been New York Times bestsellers, and his writing has been translated into over 20 languages. The End of Faith (2004) remained on The New York Times Best Seller list for 33 weeks.
Harris has a chapter giving advice in Tim Ferriss' book Tools of Titans.
Debates on religion
In 2007, Harris engaged in a lengthy debate with conservative commentator Andrew Sullivan on the Internet forum Beliefnet. In April 2007, Harris debated with evangelical pastor Rick Warren for Newsweek magazine. Harris also debated with Rabbi David Wolpe in 2007. In 2010, Harris joined Michael Shermer to debate with Deepak Chopra and Jean Houston on the future of God in a debate hosted by ABC News Nightline. Harris debated with Christian philosopher William Lane Craig in April 2011 on whether there can be an objective morality without God. In June and July 2018, he met with Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson for a series of debates on religion, particularly the relationship between religious values and scientific fact in defining truth. Harris has also debated with the scholar Reza Aslan.
Podcast
In September 2013, Harris began releasing the Waking Up podcast (since re-titled Making Sense). Episodes vary in length but often last over two hours. Releases do not follow a regular schedule. The podcast has a large listenership.
Meditation app
In September 2018, Harris released a meditation course app, Waking Up with Sam Harris. The app provides daily meditations; long guided meditations; daily "Moments" (brief meditations and reminders); conversations with thought leaders in psychology, meditation, philosophy, psychedelics, and other disciplines; a selection of lessons on various topics, such as Mind & Emotion, Free Will, and Doing Good; and more. Users of the app are introduced to a number of types of meditation, such as mindfulness meditation, vipassanā-style meditation, loving-kindness meditation, and Dzogchen.
In September 2020, Harris announced his commitment to donate a least 10% of Waking Up's profits to highly effective charities, thus becoming the first company to sign the Giving What We Can pledge for companies. The pledge was done retroactively, taking into account the profits since the day the app launched 2 years previously.
Views
Religion
Harris is known as one of the most prominent critics of religion, and is a leading figure in the New Atheist movement. Harris is particularly opposed to what he refers to as dogmatic belief, and says that "Pretending to know things one doesn't know is a betrayal of science – and yet it is the lifeblood of religion." While purportedly opposed to religion in general and the belief systems of them, Harris believes that all religions are not created equal. Often invoking Jainism to contrast Islam as a whole, Harris highlights the difference in the specific doctrine and scripture as the main indicator of a religion's value, or lack thereof.
In 2006, Harris described Islam as "all fringe and no center," and wrote in The End of Faith that "the doctrine of Islam [...] represents a unique danger to all of us", arguing that the War on terror is really a war against Islam. In 2014, Harris said he considers Islam to be "especially belligerent and inimical to the norms of civil discourse", as it involves what Harris considers to be "bad ideas, held for bad reasons, leading to bad behavior." In 2015 Harris and secular Islamic activist Maajid Nawaz cowrote Islam and the Future of Tolerance. In this book, Harris argues that the word Islamophobia is a "pernicious meme", a label which prevents discussion about the threat of Islam. Harris has been described in 2020 by Jonathan Matusitz, Associate Professor at the University of Central Florida, as "a champion of the counter-jihad left".
Harris is critical of the Christian right in politics in the United States, blaming them for the political focus on "pseudo-problems like gay marriage." He is also critical of liberal Christianityas represented, for instance, by the theology of Paul Tillichwhich he argues claims to base its beliefs on the Bible despite actually being influenced by secular modernity. He further states that in so doing liberal Christianity provides rhetorical cover to fundamentalists.
Spirituality
Harris holds that there is "nothing irrational about seeking the states of mind that lie at the core of many religions. Compassion, awe, devotion, and feelings of oneness are surely among the most valuable experiences a person can have."
Harris rejects the dichotomy between spirituality and rationality, favoring a middle path that preserves spirituality and science but does not involve religion. He writes that spirituality should be understood in light of scientific disciplines like neuroscience and psychology. Science, he contends, can show how to maximize human well-being, but may fail to answer certain questions about the nature of being, answers to some of which he says are discoverable directly through our experience. His conception of spirituality does not involve a belief in any god.
In Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion (2014), Harris describes his experience with Dzogchen, a Tibetan Buddhist meditation practice, and recommends it to his readers. He writes that the purpose of spirituality (as he defines it – he concedes that the term's uses are diverse and sometimes indefensible) is to become aware that our sense of self is illusory, and says this realization brings both happiness and insight into the nature of consciousness. This process of realization, he argues, is based on experience and is not contingent on faith. Harris especially recommends the “headless” meditation technique as written about by Douglas Harding.
Science and morality
In The Moral Landscape, Harris argues that science answers moral problems and can aid human well-being.
Free will
Harris says that the idea of free will "cannot be mapped on to any conceivable reality" and is incoherent. Harris writes in Free Will that neuroscience "reveals you to be a biochemical puppet."
Social and political views
Harris describes himself as a liberal, and states that he supports raising taxes on the wealthy, decriminalizing drugs and legalizing same-sex marriage. In an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times, Harris said that he supported most of the criticism against Bush administration's war in Iraq, and all criticism of fiscal policy and the administration's treatment of science. Harris also said that liberalism has grown "dangerously out of touch with the realities of our world" when it comes to threats allegedly posed by Islamic fundamentalism. Harris is a registered Democrat.
During the 2016 United States presidential election, Harris supported Hillary Clinton in the Democratic Party presidential primaries against Bernie Sanders, and despite calling her "a terribly flawed candidate for the presidency," he favored her in the general election and came out strongly in opposition to Donald Trump's candidacy. Harris has criticized Trump for lying, stating in 2018 that Trump "has assaulted truth more than anyone in human history." During the 2020 United States presidential election, Harris supported Andrew Yang in the Democratic primaries. Harris also introduced Yang to podcaster Joe Rogan.
Artificial intelligence
Harris has discussed existential risk from artificial general intelligence in depth. He has given a TED talk on the topic, arguing it will be a major threat in the future and criticizing the paucity of human interest on the subject. He argues the dangers from artificial intelligence (AI) follow from three premises: that intelligence is the result of physical information processing, that humans will continue innovation in AI, and that humans are nowhere near the maximum possible extent of intelligence. Harris states that even if superintelligent AI is five to ten decades away, the scale of its implications for human civilization warrant discussion of the issue in the present.
Reception and controversies
Academic and journalistic reception to Harris's works and ideas has been varied.
Harris's first two books, in which he lays out his criticisms of religion, received negative reviews from Christian scholars. From secular sources, the books received a mixture of negative reviews and positive reviews. In his review of The End of Faith, American historian Alexander Saxton criticized what he called Harris's "vitriolic and selective polemic against Islam," (emphasis in original) which he said "obscure[s] the obvious reality that the invasion of Iraq and the War against Terror are driven by religious irrationalities, cultivated and conceded to, at high policy levels in the U.S., and which are at least comparable to the irrationality of Islamic crusaders and Jihadists." By contrast, Stephanie Merritt wrote of the same book that Harris's "central argument in The End of Faith is sound: religion is the only area of human knowledge in which it is still acceptable to hold beliefs dating from antiquity and a modern society should subject those beliefs to the same principles that govern scientific, medical or geographical inquiry – particularly if they are inherently hostile to those with different ideas."
Harris's next two books, which discuss philosophical issues relating to ethics and free will, received several negative academic reviews. In his review of The Moral Landscape, neuroscientist Kenan Malik criticized Harris for not engaging adequately with philosophical literature: "Imagine a sociologist who wrote about evolutionary theory without discussing the work of Darwin, Fisher, Mayr, Hamilton, Trivers or Dawkins on the grounds that he did not come to his conclusions by reading about biology and because discussing concepts such as 'adaptation', 'speciation', 'homology', 'phylogenetics' or 'kin selection' would 'increase the amount of boredom in the universe'. How seriously would we, and should we, take his argument?" Philosopher Daniel Dennett argued that Harris's book Free Will successfully refuted the common understanding of free will, but that he failed to respond adequately to the compatibilist understanding of free will. Dennett said the book was valuable because it expressed the views of many eminent scientists, but that it nonetheless contained a "veritable museum of mistakes" and that "Harris and others need to do their homework if they want to engage with the best thought on the topic." On the other hand, The Moral Landscape received a largely positive review from psychologists James Diller and Andrew Nuzzolilli. Additionally, Free Will received a mixed academic review from philosopher Paul Pardi, who acknowledged that while it suffers from some conceptual confusions and that the core argument is a bit too 'breezy', it serves as a "good primer on key ideas in physicalist theories of freedom and the will".
Harris's book on spirituality and meditation received mainly positive reviews as well as some mixed reviews. It was praised by Frank Bruni, for example, who described it as "so entirely of this moment, so keenly in touch with the growing number of Americans who are willing to say that they do not find the succor they crave, or a truth that makes sense to them, in organized religion."
In April 2017, Harris stirred controversy by hosting the social scientist Charles Murray on his podcast, discussing topics including the heritability of IQ and race and intelligence. Harris stated the invitation was out of indignation at a violent protest against Murray at Middlebury College the month before and not out of particular interest in the material at hand. The podcast episode garnered significant criticism, most notably from Vox and Slate. Harris and Murray were defended by conservative commentators Andrew Sullivan and Kyle Smith, as well as by neuroscientist Richard Haier, who stated that the points Murray claimed were mainstream actually do receive broad scientific support. Harris and Vox editor-at-large Ezra Klein later discussed the affair in a podcast interview, where Klein criticized Harris for rebuking tribalism in the form of identity politics while failing to recognize his own version of tribalism. Hatewatch staff at the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) wrote that members of the "skeptics" movement, of which Harris is "one of the most public faces," help to "channel people into the alt-right." Bari Weiss wrote in her opinion column that the SPLC had misrepresented Harris's views.
Harris was profiled by Weiss in The New York Times as part of the "Intellectual Dark Web" (a term coined semi-ironically by Eric Weinstein). She described the group as "a collection of iconoclastic thinkers, academic renegades and media personalities who are having a rolling conversation – on podcasts, YouTube and Twitter, and in sold-out auditoriums – that sound unlike anything else happening, at least publicly, in the culture right now." In November 2020, Harris stated that he does not identify as a part of that group.
In 2018, Robert Wright, a visiting professor of science and religion at Union Theological Seminary, published an article in Wired criticizing Harris, whom he described as "annoying" and "deluded". Wright wrote that Harris, despite claiming to be a champion of rationality, ignored his own cognitive biases and engaged in faulty and inconsistent arguments in his book The End of Faith. He wrote that "the famous proponent of New Atheism is on a crusade against tribalism but seems oblivious to his own version of it." Wright wrote that these biases are rooted in natural selection and impact everyone, but that they can be mitigated when acknowledged, whereas Harris offered no such acknowledgement.
The UK Business Insider included Harris's podcast in their list of "8 podcasts that will change how you think about human behavior" in 2017, and PC Magazine included it in their list of "The Best Podcasts of 2018." In January 2020, Max Sanderson included Harris's podcast as a "Producer pick" in a "podcasts of the week" section for The Guardian.
Accusations of Anti-Muslim bigotry and Islamophobia
Harris has been accused of Islamophobia by journalist Glenn Greenwald and linguist and political commentator Noam Chomsky. Greenwald characterized some of Harris's statements as Islamophobic, such as: "the people who speak most sensibly about the threat that Islam poses to Europe are actually fascists," and "[t]he only future devout Muslims can envisage – as Muslims – is one in which all infidels have been converted to Islam, politically subjugated, or killed." After Harris and Chomsky exchanged a series of emails on terrorism and U.S. foreign policy in 2015, Chomsky said Harris had not prepared adequately for the exchange and that this revealed his work as unserious. Kyle Schmidlin also wrote in Salon that he considered Chomsky the winner of the exchange because Harris's arguments relied excessively on thought experiments with little application to the real world. In a 2016 interview with Al Jazeera English's UpFront, Chomsky further criticized Harris, saying he "specializes in hysterical, slanderous charges against people he doesn't like."
Harris has countered that his views on this and other topics are frequently misrepresented by "unethical critics" who "deliberately" regard his words out of context. He has also criticized the validity of the term Islamophobia. "My criticism of Islam is a criticism of beliefs and their consequences, but my fellow liberals reflexively view it as an expression of intolerance toward people," he wrote following a disagreement with actor Ben Affleck in October 2014 on the show Real Time with Bill Maher. Affleck had described Harris's and host Bill Maher's views on Muslims as "gross" and "racist," and Harris's statement that "Islam is the mother lode of bad ideas" as an "ugly thing to say." Affleck also compared Harris's and Maher's rhetoric to that of people who use antisemitic canards or define African-Americans in terms of intraracial crime. Several conservative American media pundits in turn criticized Affleck and praised Harris and Maher for broaching the topic, saying that discussing it had become a "taboo."
Harris's dialogue on Islam with Maajid Nawaz received a combination of positive reviews and mixed reviews. Irshad Manji wrote: "Their back-and-forth clarifies multiple confusions that plague the public conversation about Islam." Of Harris specifically, she said "[he] is right that liberals must end their silence about the religious motives behind much Islamist terror. At the same time, he ought to call out another double standard that feeds the liberal reflex to excuse Islamists: Atheists do not make nearly enough noise about hatred toward Muslims."
Hamid Dabashi, a professor at Columbia University accused Sam Harris of being a "new atheist crusader" having never studied Islam thoroughly and having no special insight into any Muslim community on earth. He further accused Harris of engaging in such language to justify Western imperialism in the Muslim world. An article published in The Guardian accused Harris, along with Milo Yiannopoulos of influencing young white men into becoming racists and Anti-Muslim bigots. Harris has also been accused of merging his thoughts with far right ideologies, stating that he advocates the profiling of Muslims, "or anyone who looks like he or she could conceivably be Muslim," at airports.
Harris was also accused of "advancing Neoconservative agendas" by Chris Hedges and for advocating a nuclear first strike policy on Muslims if an Islamist regime ever obtained nuclear weapons, stating in The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason that "in such a situation, the only thing likely to ensure our survival may be a nuclear first strike of our own."
Recognition
Harris's first book, The End of Faith (2004), won the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction.
The Waking Up podcast won the 2017 Webby Award for "People's Voice" in the category "Science & Education" under "Podcasts & Digital Audio".
Harris was included on a list of the "100 Most Spiritually Influential Living People 2019" in the Watkins Review, a publication of Watkins Books, a London esoterica bookshop.
Personal life
Harris is a martial arts student and practices Brazilian jiu-jitsu.
In 2004, he married Annaka Gorton, an author and editor of nonfiction and scientific books after engaging in a common interest about the nature of consciousness. They have two daughters, and live in Los Angeles.
In September 2020, Harris became a member of Giving What We Can, an effective altruism organization whose members pledge to give at least 10% of their income to effective charities, both as an individual and as a company with Waking Up.
Works
Books
Documentary
Amila, D. & Shapiro, J. (2018). Islam and the Future of Tolerance. United States: The Orchard.
Peer-reviewed articles
Notes
References
External links
1967 births
21st-century American essayists
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"The Man Who Broke Into Auschwitz is the title of an autobiographical book by Denis Avey, who is a recipient of a British Hero of the Holocaust award. The book was written together with Rob Broomby and published by Hodder in 2011. It carries a foreword by Sir Martin Gilbert. The novelist James Long assisted with research and helped to edit and structure the manuscript.\n\nBook synopsis\nDenis Avey relates his wartime service and how he came to be held prisoner in E715A, a camp for Allied Prisoners of War adjacent to Auschwitz. He describes how he exchanged uniforms with a Jewish inmate of Auschwitz III in order to enter this camp to discover more about conditions there, with a view to reporting these to the authorities after the war. He also relates how he smuggled cigarettes to another Jewish inmate Ernst Lobethal, having obtained these from Lobethal’s sister in Britain. He was convinced that Ernst had died by early 1945, because he could not have survived the death marches when the camp was evacuated. He also said that after the war the authorities were not interested in his story and he kept silence for more than half a century. Eventually he did begin to disclose his story and it came to the attention of the BBC. Rob Broomby was able to trace Lobethal’s sister Susanne and her son had a copy of a video recording which her brother had made before his death for the USC Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education in which he describes how a British POW known as 'Ginger' smuggled the cigarettes to him and how these saved his life by enabling him to exchange them for food and to have new soles put on his boots which enabled him to survive the death march.\n\nControversy\n\nThe World Jewish Congress asked the publisher to have the book verified. Questions have also been raised by British writer, Guy Walters, as to whether Avey actually managed to 'smuggle himself' into Auschwitz. For the paperback edition of Avey's book the publishers issued 'notes on sources' by Broomby and Long, responding to some of the questions raised, available on the publisher's website. However, Avey's application for the \"Righteous Among the Nations\" award was turned down by Yad Vashem because his story could not be substantiated. Dr. Piotr Setkiewicz, head of research at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum told Reuters that he does not think the swap described in the book ever happened. Setkiewicz added that Avey's description of Auschwitz III does not conform to known facts about it, beginning with the \"Arbeit Macht Frei\" sign upon its entrance, which almost certainly did not exist. He added:\n\"Perhaps 80 or 90% of what Mr. Avey says is true, but the problem is that deniers have this wonderful habit of fixing on every single thing which is obviously not true.\"\n\nSee also\n Angel at the Fence memoir written by Herman Rosenblat\n\nReferences \n\n2011 non-fiction books\nBritish autobiographies\nPersonal accounts of the Holocaust\nHodder & Stoughton books\n2011 controversies\nControversies in the United Kingdom",
"Good Day, Fellow!' 'Axe Handle! (Norwegian: \"God dag, mann!\" \"Økseskaft!\") is a Scandinavian folktale, collected by Asbjørnsen and Moe.\n\nPlot\nA deaf or hard of hearing ferryman has a wife, two sons and a daughter. They fritter away all their money, and leave him to pay the bill when their credit runs out.\n\nHe sees the bailiff coming in the distance and decides to be clever and prepare his answers ahead of time. He reasons that the first thing the man will ask will be about what he is carving. He will say that it is an axe handle. He thinks that the other questions will be about the length of the axe handle, his ferry, his mare and the way to the cowshed.\n\nHowever, the first thing the bailiff says is \"Good day, fellow!\" He replies \"Axe handle!\", thinking himself clever.\n\nNext the bailiff asks how far it is to the inn. \"Up to this knot!\" he replies, pointing to the axe handle.\n\nThe bailiff shakes his head and stares at him.\n\n\"Where is your wife, man?\" he says.\n\n\"I'm going to tar her,\" says the ferryman. \"She's lying on the beach, cracked at both ends.\"\n\n\"Where is your daughter?\"\n\n\"Oh, she's in the stable, big with foal,\" he says, still thinking himself clever.\n\nThe bailiff finally gets angry with him and shouts, \"Go to the devil, fool that you are!\"\n\n\"Oh, it's not far away, when you're over the hill, you're almost there,\" says the man.\n\nInfluence\nThe phrase \"Goddag mann, økseskaft!\" (Good day fellow axe handle) has become a common idiom for a non sequitur, not just in Norway but also the rest of Scandinavia (\"Goddag, yxskaft!\" in Swedish, \"Goddag mand, økseskaft!\" in Danish and \"Hyvää päivää, kirvesvartta!\" in Finnish).\n\nThe folktale was later published in the widely used Swedish elementary school book by Anna Maria Roos in 1912.\n\nA similar tale appears in a 1985 collection of folktales given an erotic twist, by Erik Høvring.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n\n Økse-skaft The Danish Dictionary \n \n\nScandinavian folklore\nIdioms"
] |
[
"Sam Harris",
"Islam",
"what does Sam think about Islam?",
"Harris considers Islam to be \"especially belligerent and inimical to the norms of civil discourse,\" relative to other world religions.",
"what else does he think about it?",
"\"The idea that Islam is a 'peaceful religion hijacked by extremists' is a dangerous fantasy--and it is now a particularly dangerous fantasy for Muslims to indulge.",
"has he been criticized for his beliefs?",
"Islam is a criticism of beliefs and their consequences,",
"what do critics have to say to him?",
"we have already lost our First Amendment rights with respect to Islam--and because they brand any observation of this fact a symptom of Islamophobia,",
"did he have any controversies?",
"controversy over his criticism of Islam, which also aired on a debate hosted by The Huffington Post on whether critics of Islam are unfairly labeled as bigots:",
"how did he handle the controversies?",
"Harris has criticized common usage of the term \"Islamophobia\". \"My criticism of Islam is a criticism of beliefs and their consequences,"
] | C_c485de700c8e4629acfcd27abb8987c1_0 | what else is interesting in the article? | 7 | Besides Sam Harris' controversies, what else is interesting in the article? | Sam Harris | Harris considers Islam to be "especially belligerent and inimical to the norms of civil discourse," relative to other world religions. He asserts that the "dogmatic commitment to using violence to defend one's faith, both from within and without" to varying degrees, is a central Islamic doctrine that is found in few other religions to the same degree, and that "this difference has consequences in the real world." In 2006, after the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy, Harris wrote, "The idea that Islam is a 'peaceful religion hijacked by extremists' is a dangerous fantasy--and it is now a particularly dangerous fantasy for Muslims to indulge. It is not at all clear how we should proceed in our dialogue with the Muslim world, but deluding ourselves with euphemisms is not the answer. It now appears to be a truism in foreign policy circles that real reform in the Muslim world cannot be imposed from the outside. But it is important to recognize why this is so--it is so because the Muslim world is utterly deranged by its religious tribalism. In confronting the religious literalism and ignorance of the Muslim world, we must appreciate how terrifyingly isolated Muslims have become in intellectual terms." He states that his criticism of the religion is aimed not at Muslims as people, but at the doctrine of Islam. Harris wrote a response to controversy over his criticism of Islam, which also aired on a debate hosted by The Huffington Post on whether critics of Islam are unfairly labeled as bigots: Is it really true that the sins for which I hold Islam accountable are "committed at least to an equal extent by many other groups, especially [my] own"? ... The freedom to poke fun at Mormonism is guaranteed [not by the First Amendment but] by the fact that Mormons do not dispatch assassins to silence their critics or summon murderous hordes in response to satire. ... Can any reader of this page imagine the staging of a similar play [to The Book of Mormon] about Islam in the United States, or anywhere else, in the year 2013? ... At this moment in history, there is only one religion that systematically stifles free expression with credible threats of violence. The truth is, we have already lost our First Amendment rights with respect to Islam--and because they brand any observation of this fact a symptom of Islamophobia, Muslim apologists like Greenwald are largely to blame. Harris has criticized common usage of the term "Islamophobia". "My criticism of Islam is a criticism of beliefs and their consequences," he wrote following a controversial clash with Ben Affleck in October 2014 on the show Real Time with Bill Maher, "but my fellow liberals reflexively view it as an expression of intolerance toward people." During an email exchange with Glenn Greenwald, a critic of the New Atheists, Harris argued that "Islamophobia is a term of propaganda designed to protect Islam from the forces of secularism by conflating all criticism of it with racism and xenophobia. And it is doing its job, because people like you have been taken in by it." CANNOTANSWER | He states that his criticism of the religion is aimed not at Muslims as people, but at the doctrine of Islam. | Samuel Benjamin Harris (born April 9, 1967) is an American philosopher, neuroscientist, author, and podcast host. His work touches on a wide range of topics, including rationality, religion, ethics, free will, neuroscience, meditation, psychedelics, philosophy of mind, politics, terrorism, and artificial intelligence. Harris came to prominence for his criticism of religion, and Islam in particular, and is known as one of the "Four Horsemen" of New Atheism, along with Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel Dennett.
Harris's first book, The End of Faith (2004), won the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction and remained on The New York Times Best Seller list for 33 weeks. Harris has since written six additional books: Letter to a Christian Nation in 2006, The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values in 2010, the long-form essay Lying in 2011, the short book Free Will in 2012, Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion in 2014, and (with British writer Maajid Nawaz) Islam and the Future of Tolerance: A Dialogue in 2015. Harris's work has been translated into over 20 languages.
Harris has debated with many prominent figures on the topics of God or religion, including William Lane Craig, Jordan Peterson, Rick Warren, Andrew Sullivan, Reza Aslan, David Wolpe, Deepak Chopra, Ben Shapiro and Jean Houston. Since September 2013, Harris has hosted the Making Sense podcast (originally titled Waking Up), which has a large listenership. In September 2018, Harris released a meditation app, Waking Up with Sam Harris. Harris's views on free will, race, and Islam have attracted controversy.
Early life and education
Samuel Benjamin Harris was born in Los Angeles, California, on April 9, 1967. He is the son of actor Berkeley Harris, who appeared mainly in Western films, and TV writer and producer Susan Harris (née Spivak), who created Soap (TV series) and The Golden Girls among other series. His father, born in North Carolina, came from a Quaker background, and his mother is Jewish but not religious. He was raised by his mother following his parents' divorce when he was aged two. Harris has stated that his upbringing was entirely secular and that his parents rarely discussed religion, though he also stated that he was not raised as an atheist.
While his original major was in English, Harris became interested in philosophical questions while at Stanford University after an experience with the empathogen–entactogen MDMA (colloquially known as ecstasy or XTC). The experience led him to be interested in the idea that he might be able to achieve spiritual insights without the use of drugs. Leaving Stanford in his second year, a quarter after his psychedelic experience, he visited India and Nepal, where he studied meditation with teachers of Buddhist and Hindu religions, including Dilgo Khyentse. Eleven years later, in 1997, he returned to Stanford, completing a B.A. degree in philosophy in 2000. Harris began writing his first book, The End of Faith, immediately after the September 11 attacks.
He received a Ph.D. in cognitive neuroscience in 2009 from the University of California, Los Angeles, using functional magnetic resonance imaging to conduct research into the neural basis of belief, disbelief, and uncertainty. His thesis was titled The Moral Landscape: How Science Could Determine Human Values. His advisor was Mark S. Cohen.
Career
Writing
Harris's writing focuses on philosophy, neuroscience, and criticism of religion. He came to prominence for his criticism of religion (Islam in particular) and he is described as one of the Four Horsemen of Atheism, along with Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel Dennett. He has written for publications such as The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Economist, London Times, Boston Globe, and The Atlantic. Five of Harris's books have been New York Times bestsellers, and his writing has been translated into over 20 languages. The End of Faith (2004) remained on The New York Times Best Seller list for 33 weeks.
Harris has a chapter giving advice in Tim Ferriss' book Tools of Titans.
Debates on religion
In 2007, Harris engaged in a lengthy debate with conservative commentator Andrew Sullivan on the Internet forum Beliefnet. In April 2007, Harris debated with evangelical pastor Rick Warren for Newsweek magazine. Harris also debated with Rabbi David Wolpe in 2007. In 2010, Harris joined Michael Shermer to debate with Deepak Chopra and Jean Houston on the future of God in a debate hosted by ABC News Nightline. Harris debated with Christian philosopher William Lane Craig in April 2011 on whether there can be an objective morality without God. In June and July 2018, he met with Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson for a series of debates on religion, particularly the relationship between religious values and scientific fact in defining truth. Harris has also debated with the scholar Reza Aslan.
Podcast
In September 2013, Harris began releasing the Waking Up podcast (since re-titled Making Sense). Episodes vary in length but often last over two hours. Releases do not follow a regular schedule. The podcast has a large listenership.
Meditation app
In September 2018, Harris released a meditation course app, Waking Up with Sam Harris. The app provides daily meditations; long guided meditations; daily "Moments" (brief meditations and reminders); conversations with thought leaders in psychology, meditation, philosophy, psychedelics, and other disciplines; a selection of lessons on various topics, such as Mind & Emotion, Free Will, and Doing Good; and more. Users of the app are introduced to a number of types of meditation, such as mindfulness meditation, vipassanā-style meditation, loving-kindness meditation, and Dzogchen.
In September 2020, Harris announced his commitment to donate a least 10% of Waking Up's profits to highly effective charities, thus becoming the first company to sign the Giving What We Can pledge for companies. The pledge was done retroactively, taking into account the profits since the day the app launched 2 years previously.
Views
Religion
Harris is known as one of the most prominent critics of religion, and is a leading figure in the New Atheist movement. Harris is particularly opposed to what he refers to as dogmatic belief, and says that "Pretending to know things one doesn't know is a betrayal of science – and yet it is the lifeblood of religion." While purportedly opposed to religion in general and the belief systems of them, Harris believes that all religions are not created equal. Often invoking Jainism to contrast Islam as a whole, Harris highlights the difference in the specific doctrine and scripture as the main indicator of a religion's value, or lack thereof.
In 2006, Harris described Islam as "all fringe and no center," and wrote in The End of Faith that "the doctrine of Islam [...] represents a unique danger to all of us", arguing that the War on terror is really a war against Islam. In 2014, Harris said he considers Islam to be "especially belligerent and inimical to the norms of civil discourse", as it involves what Harris considers to be "bad ideas, held for bad reasons, leading to bad behavior." In 2015 Harris and secular Islamic activist Maajid Nawaz cowrote Islam and the Future of Tolerance. In this book, Harris argues that the word Islamophobia is a "pernicious meme", a label which prevents discussion about the threat of Islam. Harris has been described in 2020 by Jonathan Matusitz, Associate Professor at the University of Central Florida, as "a champion of the counter-jihad left".
Harris is critical of the Christian right in politics in the United States, blaming them for the political focus on "pseudo-problems like gay marriage." He is also critical of liberal Christianityas represented, for instance, by the theology of Paul Tillichwhich he argues claims to base its beliefs on the Bible despite actually being influenced by secular modernity. He further states that in so doing liberal Christianity provides rhetorical cover to fundamentalists.
Spirituality
Harris holds that there is "nothing irrational about seeking the states of mind that lie at the core of many religions. Compassion, awe, devotion, and feelings of oneness are surely among the most valuable experiences a person can have."
Harris rejects the dichotomy between spirituality and rationality, favoring a middle path that preserves spirituality and science but does not involve religion. He writes that spirituality should be understood in light of scientific disciplines like neuroscience and psychology. Science, he contends, can show how to maximize human well-being, but may fail to answer certain questions about the nature of being, answers to some of which he says are discoverable directly through our experience. His conception of spirituality does not involve a belief in any god.
In Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion (2014), Harris describes his experience with Dzogchen, a Tibetan Buddhist meditation practice, and recommends it to his readers. He writes that the purpose of spirituality (as he defines it – he concedes that the term's uses are diverse and sometimes indefensible) is to become aware that our sense of self is illusory, and says this realization brings both happiness and insight into the nature of consciousness. This process of realization, he argues, is based on experience and is not contingent on faith. Harris especially recommends the “headless” meditation technique as written about by Douglas Harding.
Science and morality
In The Moral Landscape, Harris argues that science answers moral problems and can aid human well-being.
Free will
Harris says that the idea of free will "cannot be mapped on to any conceivable reality" and is incoherent. Harris writes in Free Will that neuroscience "reveals you to be a biochemical puppet."
Social and political views
Harris describes himself as a liberal, and states that he supports raising taxes on the wealthy, decriminalizing drugs and legalizing same-sex marriage. In an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times, Harris said that he supported most of the criticism against Bush administration's war in Iraq, and all criticism of fiscal policy and the administration's treatment of science. Harris also said that liberalism has grown "dangerously out of touch with the realities of our world" when it comes to threats allegedly posed by Islamic fundamentalism. Harris is a registered Democrat.
During the 2016 United States presidential election, Harris supported Hillary Clinton in the Democratic Party presidential primaries against Bernie Sanders, and despite calling her "a terribly flawed candidate for the presidency," he favored her in the general election and came out strongly in opposition to Donald Trump's candidacy. Harris has criticized Trump for lying, stating in 2018 that Trump "has assaulted truth more than anyone in human history." During the 2020 United States presidential election, Harris supported Andrew Yang in the Democratic primaries. Harris also introduced Yang to podcaster Joe Rogan.
Artificial intelligence
Harris has discussed existential risk from artificial general intelligence in depth. He has given a TED talk on the topic, arguing it will be a major threat in the future and criticizing the paucity of human interest on the subject. He argues the dangers from artificial intelligence (AI) follow from three premises: that intelligence is the result of physical information processing, that humans will continue innovation in AI, and that humans are nowhere near the maximum possible extent of intelligence. Harris states that even if superintelligent AI is five to ten decades away, the scale of its implications for human civilization warrant discussion of the issue in the present.
Reception and controversies
Academic and journalistic reception to Harris's works and ideas has been varied.
Harris's first two books, in which he lays out his criticisms of religion, received negative reviews from Christian scholars. From secular sources, the books received a mixture of negative reviews and positive reviews. In his review of The End of Faith, American historian Alexander Saxton criticized what he called Harris's "vitriolic and selective polemic against Islam," (emphasis in original) which he said "obscure[s] the obvious reality that the invasion of Iraq and the War against Terror are driven by religious irrationalities, cultivated and conceded to, at high policy levels in the U.S., and which are at least comparable to the irrationality of Islamic crusaders and Jihadists." By contrast, Stephanie Merritt wrote of the same book that Harris's "central argument in The End of Faith is sound: religion is the only area of human knowledge in which it is still acceptable to hold beliefs dating from antiquity and a modern society should subject those beliefs to the same principles that govern scientific, medical or geographical inquiry – particularly if they are inherently hostile to those with different ideas."
Harris's next two books, which discuss philosophical issues relating to ethics and free will, received several negative academic reviews. In his review of The Moral Landscape, neuroscientist Kenan Malik criticized Harris for not engaging adequately with philosophical literature: "Imagine a sociologist who wrote about evolutionary theory without discussing the work of Darwin, Fisher, Mayr, Hamilton, Trivers or Dawkins on the grounds that he did not come to his conclusions by reading about biology and because discussing concepts such as 'adaptation', 'speciation', 'homology', 'phylogenetics' or 'kin selection' would 'increase the amount of boredom in the universe'. How seriously would we, and should we, take his argument?" Philosopher Daniel Dennett argued that Harris's book Free Will successfully refuted the common understanding of free will, but that he failed to respond adequately to the compatibilist understanding of free will. Dennett said the book was valuable because it expressed the views of many eminent scientists, but that it nonetheless contained a "veritable museum of mistakes" and that "Harris and others need to do their homework if they want to engage with the best thought on the topic." On the other hand, The Moral Landscape received a largely positive review from psychologists James Diller and Andrew Nuzzolilli. Additionally, Free Will received a mixed academic review from philosopher Paul Pardi, who acknowledged that while it suffers from some conceptual confusions and that the core argument is a bit too 'breezy', it serves as a "good primer on key ideas in physicalist theories of freedom and the will".
Harris's book on spirituality and meditation received mainly positive reviews as well as some mixed reviews. It was praised by Frank Bruni, for example, who described it as "so entirely of this moment, so keenly in touch with the growing number of Americans who are willing to say that they do not find the succor they crave, or a truth that makes sense to them, in organized religion."
In April 2017, Harris stirred controversy by hosting the social scientist Charles Murray on his podcast, discussing topics including the heritability of IQ and race and intelligence. Harris stated the invitation was out of indignation at a violent protest against Murray at Middlebury College the month before and not out of particular interest in the material at hand. The podcast episode garnered significant criticism, most notably from Vox and Slate. Harris and Murray were defended by conservative commentators Andrew Sullivan and Kyle Smith, as well as by neuroscientist Richard Haier, who stated that the points Murray claimed were mainstream actually do receive broad scientific support. Harris and Vox editor-at-large Ezra Klein later discussed the affair in a podcast interview, where Klein criticized Harris for rebuking tribalism in the form of identity politics while failing to recognize his own version of tribalism. Hatewatch staff at the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) wrote that members of the "skeptics" movement, of which Harris is "one of the most public faces," help to "channel people into the alt-right." Bari Weiss wrote in her opinion column that the SPLC had misrepresented Harris's views.
Harris was profiled by Weiss in The New York Times as part of the "Intellectual Dark Web" (a term coined semi-ironically by Eric Weinstein). She described the group as "a collection of iconoclastic thinkers, academic renegades and media personalities who are having a rolling conversation – on podcasts, YouTube and Twitter, and in sold-out auditoriums – that sound unlike anything else happening, at least publicly, in the culture right now." In November 2020, Harris stated that he does not identify as a part of that group.
In 2018, Robert Wright, a visiting professor of science and religion at Union Theological Seminary, published an article in Wired criticizing Harris, whom he described as "annoying" and "deluded". Wright wrote that Harris, despite claiming to be a champion of rationality, ignored his own cognitive biases and engaged in faulty and inconsistent arguments in his book The End of Faith. He wrote that "the famous proponent of New Atheism is on a crusade against tribalism but seems oblivious to his own version of it." Wright wrote that these biases are rooted in natural selection and impact everyone, but that they can be mitigated when acknowledged, whereas Harris offered no such acknowledgement.
The UK Business Insider included Harris's podcast in their list of "8 podcasts that will change how you think about human behavior" in 2017, and PC Magazine included it in their list of "The Best Podcasts of 2018." In January 2020, Max Sanderson included Harris's podcast as a "Producer pick" in a "podcasts of the week" section for The Guardian.
Accusations of Anti-Muslim bigotry and Islamophobia
Harris has been accused of Islamophobia by journalist Glenn Greenwald and linguist and political commentator Noam Chomsky. Greenwald characterized some of Harris's statements as Islamophobic, such as: "the people who speak most sensibly about the threat that Islam poses to Europe are actually fascists," and "[t]he only future devout Muslims can envisage – as Muslims – is one in which all infidels have been converted to Islam, politically subjugated, or killed." After Harris and Chomsky exchanged a series of emails on terrorism and U.S. foreign policy in 2015, Chomsky said Harris had not prepared adequately for the exchange and that this revealed his work as unserious. Kyle Schmidlin also wrote in Salon that he considered Chomsky the winner of the exchange because Harris's arguments relied excessively on thought experiments with little application to the real world. In a 2016 interview with Al Jazeera English's UpFront, Chomsky further criticized Harris, saying he "specializes in hysterical, slanderous charges against people he doesn't like."
Harris has countered that his views on this and other topics are frequently misrepresented by "unethical critics" who "deliberately" regard his words out of context. He has also criticized the validity of the term Islamophobia. "My criticism of Islam is a criticism of beliefs and their consequences, but my fellow liberals reflexively view it as an expression of intolerance toward people," he wrote following a disagreement with actor Ben Affleck in October 2014 on the show Real Time with Bill Maher. Affleck had described Harris's and host Bill Maher's views on Muslims as "gross" and "racist," and Harris's statement that "Islam is the mother lode of bad ideas" as an "ugly thing to say." Affleck also compared Harris's and Maher's rhetoric to that of people who use antisemitic canards or define African-Americans in terms of intraracial crime. Several conservative American media pundits in turn criticized Affleck and praised Harris and Maher for broaching the topic, saying that discussing it had become a "taboo."
Harris's dialogue on Islam with Maajid Nawaz received a combination of positive reviews and mixed reviews. Irshad Manji wrote: "Their back-and-forth clarifies multiple confusions that plague the public conversation about Islam." Of Harris specifically, she said "[he] is right that liberals must end their silence about the religious motives behind much Islamist terror. At the same time, he ought to call out another double standard that feeds the liberal reflex to excuse Islamists: Atheists do not make nearly enough noise about hatred toward Muslims."
Hamid Dabashi, a professor at Columbia University accused Sam Harris of being a "new atheist crusader" having never studied Islam thoroughly and having no special insight into any Muslim community on earth. He further accused Harris of engaging in such language to justify Western imperialism in the Muslim world. An article published in The Guardian accused Harris, along with Milo Yiannopoulos of influencing young white men into becoming racists and Anti-Muslim bigots. Harris has also been accused of merging his thoughts with far right ideologies, stating that he advocates the profiling of Muslims, "or anyone who looks like he or she could conceivably be Muslim," at airports.
Harris was also accused of "advancing Neoconservative agendas" by Chris Hedges and for advocating a nuclear first strike policy on Muslims if an Islamist regime ever obtained nuclear weapons, stating in The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason that "in such a situation, the only thing likely to ensure our survival may be a nuclear first strike of our own."
Recognition
Harris's first book, The End of Faith (2004), won the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction.
The Waking Up podcast won the 2017 Webby Award for "People's Voice" in the category "Science & Education" under "Podcasts & Digital Audio".
Harris was included on a list of the "100 Most Spiritually Influential Living People 2019" in the Watkins Review, a publication of Watkins Books, a London esoterica bookshop.
Personal life
Harris is a martial arts student and practices Brazilian jiu-jitsu.
In 2004, he married Annaka Gorton, an author and editor of nonfiction and scientific books after engaging in a common interest about the nature of consciousness. They have two daughters, and live in Los Angeles.
In September 2020, Harris became a member of Giving What We Can, an effective altruism organization whose members pledge to give at least 10% of their income to effective charities, both as an individual and as a company with Waking Up.
Works
Books
Documentary
Amila, D. & Shapiro, J. (2018). Islam and the Future of Tolerance. United States: The Orchard.
Peer-reviewed articles
Notes
References
External links
1967 births
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Writers from Los Angeles | 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",
"\"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"
] |
[
"Dixie Dean",
"Legacy"
] | C_849b52a446d2486385000852e8a9f90d_0 | What is Dean's legacy? | 1 | What is Dixie Dean's legacy? | Dixie Dean | Dean was an internationally known figure. Military records show that during the Second World War, an Italian prisoner of war was captured by British troops in the Western Desert and told his captors "f**k your Winston Churchill and f**k your Dixie Dean". One of the soldiers present was Liverpool-born Patrick Connelly, who later went into show business using the pseudonym "Bill Dean". Everton arranged a testimonial for Dean on 7 April 1964. Over 34,000 people saw teams from Scotland and England (composed of players from Everton and Liverpool) compete; The "Scots" (with one Englishman and one Welshman) won, 3-1. The match raised PS7,000 for Dean. Dean's 1933 FA Cup winners medal sold for PS18,213 at auction in March 2001. In May 2001 local sculptor Tom Murphy created a statue of Dean, which was erected outside the park end of Goodison Park at a cost of PS75,000 with the inscription "Footballer, Gentleman, Evertonian". In 2002, Dean was an inaugural inductee to the English Football Hall of Fame. There is an annual Dixie Dean award, which is given to the Merseyside player of the year; it has been won by players from his former clubs (Tranmere and Everton) and Liverpool F.C. When asked if he thought his record of scoring 60 goals in a season would be broken, Dean said: "People ask me if that 60-goal record will ever be beaten. I think it will. But there's only one man who'll do it. That's the fellow that walks on the water. I think he's about the only one." In total, Dean scored 383 goals for Everton in 433 appearances--an exceptional strike-rate which includes 37 hat-tricks. He was known as a sporting player, never booked or sent off during his career despite rough treatment and provocation from opponents. Only Arthur Rowley has scored more English-league career goals; however, while Rowley made 619 appearances and scored 433 goals (0.70 goals per game) Dean scored 379 goals in 438 games (0.87 goals per game). CANNOTANSWER | Dean was an inaugural inductee to the English Football Hall of Fame. | William Ralph "Dixie" Dean (22 January 1907 – 1 March 1980) was an English footballer who played as a centre forward. He is regarded as one of the greatest centre-forwards of all time and was inducted into the English Football Hall of Fame in 2002.
Born in Birkenhead, he began his career at his hometown club Tranmere Rovers before moving on to Everton, the club he had supported as a child. A prolific goalscorer, he was particularly known for having a penchant for scoring goals with his head, courtesy of his elevation and athleticism, as well as his powerful and accurate heading ability, which has led pundits to describe him as one of the greatest aerial specialists of all time. Dean played the majority of his career at Everton before injuries caught up with him and he moved on to new challenges at Notts County. He is best known for his exploits during the 1927–28 season, which saw him score a record 60 league goals. He also scored 18 goals in 16 appearances for England.
A statue of Dean was unveiled outside Goodison Park in May 2001. A year later, he became one of 22 players inducted into the inaugural English Football Hall of Fame. Dean was the first Everton player to wear the number-9 shirt.
Early years
Dean was born at 313 Laird Street in Birkenhead, Cheshire, across the River Mersey from Liverpool. Dean's family on both sides hailed from Chester. He was the grandson of Ralph Brett, a train driver who drove the royal train during the reign of George V. Dean grew up as a supporter of Everton thanks to the efforts of his father, William Sr., who took him to a match during the 1914–1915 title-winning season.
Dean's childhood coincided with the First World War, and between the ages of 7 and 11 he delivered cow's milk to local families as part of the war effort: "Well, it was war time you see, so you were grafting all the time. I used to take milk out. I'd be up at half-past four in the morning and go down and get the ponies and the milk floats, then I'd come out to this place in Upton, between Upton and Arrowe Park, and Burgess' Farm was there. We used to collect the milk in the big urns and take it out to people's houses, serving it out of the ladle. And not only that, you had an allotment, and that was in school time. And there was no such thing as pinching and stealing and all that bloody caper. In those days, you were growing all that stuff and you needed it for the war time."
Dean attended Laird Street School, but felt he received no formal education: "My only lesson was football ... I used to give the pens out on Friday afternoons ... the ink, and the chalks. That was the only job I had in school ... I never had any lessons." When he turned 11 he attended Albert (Memorial) Industrial School, a borstal school in Birkenhead, because of the football facilities on offer. The Dean family home had little room for him due to the family's size; Dean was happy with the arrangement, since he could play on the school's football team. Dean falsely told fellow pupils he had been caught stealing, since he wanted to be "one of the boys".
He left school at 14 and worked for Wirral Railway as an apprentice fitter; his father also worked there, and had been working since he was 11 years old for Great Western Railway. The elder Dean later became a train driver before moving to Birkenhead to work for Wirral Railway, to be closer to his future wife (and William Jr.'s mother) Sarah. Dean's father would later retire with the company.
Dean took a night job so that he could concentrate on his first love, football: "The other two apprentice fitters, they didn't like the night job because there were too many bloody rats around there, coming out of the Anglo-Oil company and the Vacuum Oil Company ... rats as big as whippets. So I took their night job, and of course, I could always have a game of football then." Dean would kick the trespassing rats against the wall.
The sons of Dean's manager at Wirral Railway were directors of New Brighton A.F.C., and they were interested in signing Dean. However, Dean told the club he was not interested in signing and instead played for local team Pensby United in Pensby. It was at Pensby United where Dean attracted the attention of a Tranmere Rovers scout.
"Dixie" nickname
Some said that Dean and his family disliked his nickname, and preferred people to call him "Bill" or "Billy". The popular theory regarding how Dean acquired his nickname is that he did so in his youth, perhaps due to his dark complexion and hair (which bore a resemblance to people from the Southern United States). In Dean's obituary in The Times, Geoffrey Green suggested that the nickname was taken from a "Dixie" song that was popular during Dean's childhood; there was "something of the Uncle Tom about his features".
Alternatively, Tranmere Rovers club historian Gilbert Upton uncovered evidence, verified by Dean's late Godmother, that the name "Dixie" was a corruption of his childhood nickname, Digsy (acquired from his approach to the children's game of tag, where Dean would dig his fist into a girl's back— hence "Digsy").
Club career
Tranmere Rovers
He played football for Laird Street School, Moreton Bible Class, Heswell and Pensby United. He then joined the pro ranks with his local club, Tranmere Rovers in November 1923. He was 16 at the time.
Whilst at Tranmere, he was on the receiving end of a tough challenge which resulted in him losing a testicle in a reserve game against Altrincham. Immediately following the challenge, a teammate rubbed the area to ease the pain. Dean shouted "Don't rub 'em, count 'em!"
In his 16 months at Tranmere spanning seasons 1923/24 and 1924/25 he scored 27 goals in 30 league appearances. All 27 were in the second of those two seasons in which he averaged exactly a goal per game. His exploits attracted the interest of many clubs across England, including Arsenal and Newcastle United. Upon leaving Tranmere Rovers, secretary Bert Cooke reneged on an agreement to pay 10 percent of the transfer fee to Dean. Dean was paid one percent of the fee, which he gave to his parents (who donated it to Birkenhead General Hospital).
Everton
His father had taken him to a league game at Goodison Park when he was eight years old. It was a dream come true for Dean when Everton secretary Thomas H. McIntosh arranged to meet him at the Woodside Hotel in 1925. Dean was so excited that he ran the distance from his home in north Birkenhead to the riverside to meet him. He signed for Everton in March 1925 having just turned 18.
He later revealed that he expected a £300 signing fee to be given to his parents when he transferred to Everton. They received only £30, and Tranmere Rovers manager Bert Cooke told him "that's all the League will allow". Dean appealed to John McKenna, chairman of the Football Association, but was told "I'm afraid you've signed, and that's it." Dean signed for Everton for £3,000, then a record fee received for Tranmere Rovers. He made an immediate impact, scoring 32 goals in his first full season. A motorcycling accident at Holywell, North Wales in summer 1926 left Dean with a fractured skull and jaw, and doctors were unsure whether he would be able to play again. In his next game for Everton he scored using his head, leading Evertonians to joke that the doctor left a metal plate in Dean's head.
Dean's greatest point of note is that he is still the only player in English football to score 60 league goals in one season (1927–28). At that season's end he was 21 years old. Middlesbrough's George Camsell, who holds the highest goals-to-games ratio for England, had scored 59 league goals the previous season, although this was in the Second Division.
In that 1927-28 season Everton won the First Division title. When they were relegated to Second Division in 1930 Dean stayed with them. The club went on to immediately win the Second Division in 1931, followed by the First Division again in 1932. They then immediately won the FA Cup in 1933 (in which he scored in the final) – a sequence unmatched since.
In December 1933, Dean issued a public appeal to have stolen goods returned to him. The Times issued a statement: "Dixie Dean, the Everton and England forward appeals to the thief who robbed him of an international cap and presentation clock to return them. His house in Caldy Road, Walton, Liverpool was entered in his absence over Christmas, and the thief left behind gold watches and jewelry (sic)." By then, Dean was captain of the side. However, the harsh physical demands of the game (as it was played then) took their toll and he was dropped from the first team in 1937.
Notts County
Dean went on to play for Notts County for one season, in which he scored three goals in nine games.
Sligo Rovers
At age 32, Dean signed for Irish team Sligo Rovers in January 1939 to help the club in their FAI Cup campaign. On his arrival, the Railway station in Sligo was said to be filled with locals trying to catch a glimpse of him. Dean scored ten goals in seven games for the club, including five in a 7–1 win over Waterford (which remains a club record for the most goals scored in a single game). He also played in four Cup matches, scoring once (in the 1–1 final against Shelbourne, who won the replay 1–0). Dean's runner-up medal was later stolen from his hotel room; on a return trip to Ireland to watch Rovers 39 years later in the 1978 FAI Cup final, a package was delivered to his hotel room with the medal inside.
Hurst
Dean ended his professional playing days with Hurst (now Ashton United) in the Cheshire County League 1939–40 season, managing two games (and one goal) before the outbreak of war truncated his career. He made his debut in a 4–0 loss to Stalybridge Celtic; 5,600 people attended the game, paying sixpence, earning the club gate receipts of £140.
International career
Dean made his début for the England national football team against British rivals Wales at the Racecourse Ground in Wrexham in February 1927, less than a month after his 20th birthday. His final game for England came in a 1–0 victory over Ireland in October 1932 at Blackpool F.C.'s Bloomfield Road, when Dean was 25 years old.
Dean was involved in the 1927 and 1929 editions of the British Home Championship. During the 1927 edition, Dean scored four goals in his two games for England and scored twice against Scotland at Hampden Park. Despite the loss, the Scots won the competition overall and applauded Dean (who finished the tournament as top scorer). In the 1929 edition, he scored in his only outing against Ireland at Goodison Park.
The only international competitions outside the British Home Championship during Dean's international career were the 1928 and 1936 Olympic Games and the inaugural FIFA World Cup, which took place in 1930; however, neither Great Britain nor England participated. Dean represented England 16 times, scoring 18 goals in 9 games (including hat-tricks against Belgium and Luxembourg).
Personal life and post-football career
Dean became a Freemason in 1931 while playing for Everton and England. He was initiated in Randle Holme Lodge, No. 3261, in Birkenhead on 18 February 1931.
After retiring, he went on to run the Dublin Packet pub in Chester (Everton and the Dublin Packet commemorate this with memorabilia) and work at Littlewoods football pools as a porter at their Walton Hall Avenue offices, where he was remembered by fellow workers as a quiet, unassuming man.
Declining health and death
In January 1972, Dean was admitted to St Catherine's hospital in Birkenhead suffering from the effects of influenza and was released a month later. In November 1976, he had his right leg amputated due to a blood clot; his health was declining, and he became increasingly homebound.
Dean died on 1 March 1980 at age 73 after suffering a heart attack at Everton's home ground Goodison Park whilst watching a match against their closest rivals, Liverpool. It was the first time that he had visited Goodison Park in several years, due to ill health. "He belongs to the company of the supremely great, like Beethoven, Shakespeare and Rembrandt", said Bill Shankly. His funeral took place at St James' Church on Laird Street (the street where he was born) in Birkenhead. He was survived by his four children: William, Geoffrey, Ralph and Barbara; he outlived his wife Ethel, who died of a heart attack in 1974 after 43 years of marriage.
Legacy
Dean was an internationally known figure. Military records show that during the Second World War, an Italian prisoner of war was captured by British troops in the Western Desert and told his captors "fuck your Winston Churchill and fuck your Dixie Dean". One of the soldiers present was Liverpool-born Patrick Connelly, who later went into show business using the pseudonym "Bill Dean".
Everton arranged a testimonial for Dean on 7 April 1964. Over 34,000 people saw teams from Scotland and England (composed of players from Everton and Liverpool) compete; The "Scots" (with one Englishman and one Welshman) won, 3–1.
The match raised £7,000 for Dean.
Dean's 1933 FA Cup winners medal sold for £18,213 at auction in March 2001. In May 2001 local sculptor Tom Murphy created a statue of Dean, which was erected outside the Park End of Goodison Park at a cost of £75,000 with the inscription "Footballer, Gentleman, Evertonian". In 2002, Dean was an inaugural inductee to the English Football Hall of Fame. There is an annual Dixie Dean award, which is given to the Merseyside player of the year; it has been won by players from his former clubs (Tranmere and Everton) and Liverpool F.C.
When asked if he thought his record of scoring 60 goals in a season would be broken, Dean said: "People ask me if that 60-goal record will ever be beaten. I think it will. But there's only one man who'll do it. That's the fellow that walks on the water. I think he's about the only one." In total, Dean scored 383 goals for Everton in 433 appearances—an exceptional strike-rate which includes 37 hat-tricks. He was known as a sporting player, never booked or sent off during his career despite rough treatment and provocation from opponents. Only Arthur Rowley has scored more English-league career goals; however, while Rowley made 619 appearances and scored 433 goals (0.70 goals per game) Dean scored 379 goals in 438 games (0.87 goals per game).
In December 1930 and again in October 1931, Dixie Dean became the first Everton player to score two hat-tricks in one month of competitive play. His record stood for nearly 90 years until September 2020, when it was equalled by Dominic Calvert-Lewin.
Dean was mentioned in a series 2 episode of The Thin Blue Line.
Honours and achievements
Everton
Football League First Division: 1927–28, 1931–32
Second Division Championship: 1930–31
FA Charity Shield: 1928, 1932
FA Cup: 1932–33
Central League Championship: 1937–38
Sligo Rovers
League of Ireland runners-up 1938–39
FAI Cup runners-up: 1938–39
England
British Home Championship: 1926–27 (shared), 1931–32 (shared)
Individual
England Caps: 16
England Goals: 18
Football League Representative appearances: 6
Football League Representative goals: 9
Sunday Pictorial Trophy (60 league goals in 1927–28)
Lewis's Medal (Commemorate 200 league goals in 199 appearances)
Hall of Fame Trophy (1971)
Football Writers' Association inscribed silver salver (1976)
English Football Hall of Fame (Inaugural inductee, 2002)
Most goals in an English top-flight season: 60 (1927–28)
Seasonwise World Top Scorer: 1927–28 (60 goals)
Career statistics
Club
International goals
Scores and results list England's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Dean goal.
References
Citations
Sources
External links
English footballers
England international footballers
Association football forwards
Everton F.C. players
Sportspeople from Birkenhead
Notts County F.C. players
Tranmere Rovers F.C. players
Sligo Rovers F.C. players
Ashton United F.C. players
League of Ireland players
York City F.C. wartime guest players
1907 births
1980 deaths
English Football Hall of Fame inductees
English Football League players
First Division/Premier League top scorers
English Football League representative players
FA Cup Final players
English Freemasons | true | [
"Blood Legacy (also called Legacy of Blood and Will to Die) is a 1971 horror film directed by Carl Monson and starring Rodolfo Acosta, Merry Anders, Norman Bartold, John Carradine, and Faith Domergue.\n\nPremise\nAfter a patriarch dies, family members gather in the estate to inherit the fortune. But then someone starts killing them.\n\nCast\nRodolfo Acosta: Sheriff Dan Garcia\nMerry Anders: Laura Dean\nNorman Bartold: Tom Drake\nIvy Bethune: Elga\nJohn Carradine: Christopher Dean\nRichard Davalos: Johnny Dean\nFaith Domergue: Veronica Dean\nBuck Kartalian: Igor Garin\nBrooke Mills: Leslie Dean\nJeff Morrow: Gregory Dean\nJohn Russell: Frank Mantee\nJohn Smith: Dr. Carl Isenburg\nMr. Chin: Chin\n\nPresentations\nHorror hostess Elvira, Mistress of the Dark (Cassandra Peterson) presented Blood Legacy as part of her Movie Macabre series. The film was also riffed by the cast of Cinematic Titanic.\n\nExternal links\n \n\n1971 films\nAmerican horror films\nAmerican films",
"Dino Latino is an album by Dean Martin. Recorded during August 1962, the album is a collection of Latin standards and popular songs composed in the same vein.\n\nDescription\nWhile the A-side of the record features five uptempo songs (among them are \"Mañana\" (popularized by Peggy Lee) and \"South of the Border\", which he later re-recorded for the soundtrack of The Silencers), B-Side consists of five ballads. All songs on the album were arranged and conducted by Don Costa, except for the closing track, \"La Paloma\", which is credited to Chuck Sagle.\n\nReleases\nOriginally released on Frank Sinatra's Reprise label as LP R(S)-6054 ('S' distinguishing the stereo pressing), the album's tracks made their CD debut as part of the Bear Family box set Everybody Loves Somebody (BCD 16343). A subsequent two-on-one CD (together with Dean Martin's preceding album French Style) by Collectors' Choice restored the original running order.\n\nIn early 2014, Martin's entire 1962-1974 Reprise catalogue was acquired by Legacy Recordings, a division of Sony Music. Legacy stated they intended to perform album reissues, Dino Latino among them. The deal also included Martin's final album The Nashville Sessions, recorded 1983 for Warners Music.\n\nTrack listing \nSide 1\n\"(Alla En) El Rancho Grande\" – (Silvano R. Ramos, Bartley Costello) - 2:18\n\"Mañana (Is Soon Enough for Me)\" – (Peggy Lee, Dave Barbour) - 2:33\n\"Tangerine\" – (Victor Schertzinger, Johnny Mercer) - 2:06\n\"South of the Border\" – (Jimmy Kennedy, Michael Carr) - 1:52\n\"In a Little Spanish Town\" – (Mabel Wayne, Sam M. Lewis, Joe Young) - 2:33\nSide 2\n\"What a Diff'rence a Day Made\" – (Maria Grever, Stanley Adams) - 2:46\n\"Magic Is the Moonlight\" – (Grever, Charles Pasquale) - 2:38\n\"Always in My Heart\" – (Ernesto Lecuona, Kim Gannon) - 2:46\n\"Bésame Mucho\" – (Consuelo Velasquez, Sunny Skylar) - 2:27\n\"La Paloma\" – (Sebastián Iradier) - 3:04\nSide 1 recorded August 28, 1962; Side 2, tracks 1–4 recorded August 29, track 5 recorded August 30\n\nReferences\n\n1962 albums\nDean Martin albums\nReprise Records albums\nAlbums arranged by Don Costa\nAlbums conducted by Don Costa\nCollectors' Choice Music albums"
] |
[
"Dixie Dean",
"Legacy",
"What is Dean's legacy?",
"Dean was an inaugural inductee to the English Football Hall of Fame."
] | C_849b52a446d2486385000852e8a9f90d_0 | Did he receive any other awards? | 2 | Did Dixie Dean receive any other awards other than being an inductee to the English Football Hall of Fame? | Dixie Dean | Dean was an internationally known figure. Military records show that during the Second World War, an Italian prisoner of war was captured by British troops in the Western Desert and told his captors "f**k your Winston Churchill and f**k your Dixie Dean". One of the soldiers present was Liverpool-born Patrick Connelly, who later went into show business using the pseudonym "Bill Dean". Everton arranged a testimonial for Dean on 7 April 1964. Over 34,000 people saw teams from Scotland and England (composed of players from Everton and Liverpool) compete; The "Scots" (with one Englishman and one Welshman) won, 3-1. The match raised PS7,000 for Dean. Dean's 1933 FA Cup winners medal sold for PS18,213 at auction in March 2001. In May 2001 local sculptor Tom Murphy created a statue of Dean, which was erected outside the park end of Goodison Park at a cost of PS75,000 with the inscription "Footballer, Gentleman, Evertonian". In 2002, Dean was an inaugural inductee to the English Football Hall of Fame. There is an annual Dixie Dean award, which is given to the Merseyside player of the year; it has been won by players from his former clubs (Tranmere and Everton) and Liverpool F.C. When asked if he thought his record of scoring 60 goals in a season would be broken, Dean said: "People ask me if that 60-goal record will ever be beaten. I think it will. But there's only one man who'll do it. That's the fellow that walks on the water. I think he's about the only one." In total, Dean scored 383 goals for Everton in 433 appearances--an exceptional strike-rate which includes 37 hat-tricks. He was known as a sporting player, never booked or sent off during his career despite rough treatment and provocation from opponents. Only Arthur Rowley has scored more English-league career goals; however, while Rowley made 619 appearances and scored 433 goals (0.70 goals per game) Dean scored 379 goals in 438 games (0.87 goals per game). CANNOTANSWER | In May 2001 local sculptor Tom Murphy created a statue of Dean, which was erected outside the park end of Goodison Park | William Ralph "Dixie" Dean (22 January 1907 – 1 March 1980) was an English footballer who played as a centre forward. He is regarded as one of the greatest centre-forwards of all time and was inducted into the English Football Hall of Fame in 2002.
Born in Birkenhead, he began his career at his hometown club Tranmere Rovers before moving on to Everton, the club he had supported as a child. A prolific goalscorer, he was particularly known for having a penchant for scoring goals with his head, courtesy of his elevation and athleticism, as well as his powerful and accurate heading ability, which has led pundits to describe him as one of the greatest aerial specialists of all time. Dean played the majority of his career at Everton before injuries caught up with him and he moved on to new challenges at Notts County. He is best known for his exploits during the 1927–28 season, which saw him score a record 60 league goals. He also scored 18 goals in 16 appearances for England.
A statue of Dean was unveiled outside Goodison Park in May 2001. A year later, he became one of 22 players inducted into the inaugural English Football Hall of Fame. Dean was the first Everton player to wear the number-9 shirt.
Early years
Dean was born at 313 Laird Street in Birkenhead, Cheshire, across the River Mersey from Liverpool. Dean's family on both sides hailed from Chester. He was the grandson of Ralph Brett, a train driver who drove the royal train during the reign of George V. Dean grew up as a supporter of Everton thanks to the efforts of his father, William Sr., who took him to a match during the 1914–1915 title-winning season.
Dean's childhood coincided with the First World War, and between the ages of 7 and 11 he delivered cow's milk to local families as part of the war effort: "Well, it was war time you see, so you were grafting all the time. I used to take milk out. I'd be up at half-past four in the morning and go down and get the ponies and the milk floats, then I'd come out to this place in Upton, between Upton and Arrowe Park, and Burgess' Farm was there. We used to collect the milk in the big urns and take it out to people's houses, serving it out of the ladle. And not only that, you had an allotment, and that was in school time. And there was no such thing as pinching and stealing and all that bloody caper. In those days, you were growing all that stuff and you needed it for the war time."
Dean attended Laird Street School, but felt he received no formal education: "My only lesson was football ... I used to give the pens out on Friday afternoons ... the ink, and the chalks. That was the only job I had in school ... I never had any lessons." When he turned 11 he attended Albert (Memorial) Industrial School, a borstal school in Birkenhead, because of the football facilities on offer. The Dean family home had little room for him due to the family's size; Dean was happy with the arrangement, since he could play on the school's football team. Dean falsely told fellow pupils he had been caught stealing, since he wanted to be "one of the boys".
He left school at 14 and worked for Wirral Railway as an apprentice fitter; his father also worked there, and had been working since he was 11 years old for Great Western Railway. The elder Dean later became a train driver before moving to Birkenhead to work for Wirral Railway, to be closer to his future wife (and William Jr.'s mother) Sarah. Dean's father would later retire with the company.
Dean took a night job so that he could concentrate on his first love, football: "The other two apprentice fitters, they didn't like the night job because there were too many bloody rats around there, coming out of the Anglo-Oil company and the Vacuum Oil Company ... rats as big as whippets. So I took their night job, and of course, I could always have a game of football then." Dean would kick the trespassing rats against the wall.
The sons of Dean's manager at Wirral Railway were directors of New Brighton A.F.C., and they were interested in signing Dean. However, Dean told the club he was not interested in signing and instead played for local team Pensby United in Pensby. It was at Pensby United where Dean attracted the attention of a Tranmere Rovers scout.
"Dixie" nickname
Some said that Dean and his family disliked his nickname, and preferred people to call him "Bill" or "Billy". The popular theory regarding how Dean acquired his nickname is that he did so in his youth, perhaps due to his dark complexion and hair (which bore a resemblance to people from the Southern United States). In Dean's obituary in The Times, Geoffrey Green suggested that the nickname was taken from a "Dixie" song that was popular during Dean's childhood; there was "something of the Uncle Tom about his features".
Alternatively, Tranmere Rovers club historian Gilbert Upton uncovered evidence, verified by Dean's late Godmother, that the name "Dixie" was a corruption of his childhood nickname, Digsy (acquired from his approach to the children's game of tag, where Dean would dig his fist into a girl's back— hence "Digsy").
Club career
Tranmere Rovers
He played football for Laird Street School, Moreton Bible Class, Heswell and Pensby United. He then joined the pro ranks with his local club, Tranmere Rovers in November 1923. He was 16 at the time.
Whilst at Tranmere, he was on the receiving end of a tough challenge which resulted in him losing a testicle in a reserve game against Altrincham. Immediately following the challenge, a teammate rubbed the area to ease the pain. Dean shouted "Don't rub 'em, count 'em!"
In his 16 months at Tranmere spanning seasons 1923/24 and 1924/25 he scored 27 goals in 30 league appearances. All 27 were in the second of those two seasons in which he averaged exactly a goal per game. His exploits attracted the interest of many clubs across England, including Arsenal and Newcastle United. Upon leaving Tranmere Rovers, secretary Bert Cooke reneged on an agreement to pay 10 percent of the transfer fee to Dean. Dean was paid one percent of the fee, which he gave to his parents (who donated it to Birkenhead General Hospital).
Everton
His father had taken him to a league game at Goodison Park when he was eight years old. It was a dream come true for Dean when Everton secretary Thomas H. McIntosh arranged to meet him at the Woodside Hotel in 1925. Dean was so excited that he ran the distance from his home in north Birkenhead to the riverside to meet him. He signed for Everton in March 1925 having just turned 18.
He later revealed that he expected a £300 signing fee to be given to his parents when he transferred to Everton. They received only £30, and Tranmere Rovers manager Bert Cooke told him "that's all the League will allow". Dean appealed to John McKenna, chairman of the Football Association, but was told "I'm afraid you've signed, and that's it." Dean signed for Everton for £3,000, then a record fee received for Tranmere Rovers. He made an immediate impact, scoring 32 goals in his first full season. A motorcycling accident at Holywell, North Wales in summer 1926 left Dean with a fractured skull and jaw, and doctors were unsure whether he would be able to play again. In his next game for Everton he scored using his head, leading Evertonians to joke that the doctor left a metal plate in Dean's head.
Dean's greatest point of note is that he is still the only player in English football to score 60 league goals in one season (1927–28). At that season's end he was 21 years old. Middlesbrough's George Camsell, who holds the highest goals-to-games ratio for England, had scored 59 league goals the previous season, although this was in the Second Division.
In that 1927-28 season Everton won the First Division title. When they were relegated to Second Division in 1930 Dean stayed with them. The club went on to immediately win the Second Division in 1931, followed by the First Division again in 1932. They then immediately won the FA Cup in 1933 (in which he scored in the final) – a sequence unmatched since.
In December 1933, Dean issued a public appeal to have stolen goods returned to him. The Times issued a statement: "Dixie Dean, the Everton and England forward appeals to the thief who robbed him of an international cap and presentation clock to return them. His house in Caldy Road, Walton, Liverpool was entered in his absence over Christmas, and the thief left behind gold watches and jewelry (sic)." By then, Dean was captain of the side. However, the harsh physical demands of the game (as it was played then) took their toll and he was dropped from the first team in 1937.
Notts County
Dean went on to play for Notts County for one season, in which he scored three goals in nine games.
Sligo Rovers
At age 32, Dean signed for Irish team Sligo Rovers in January 1939 to help the club in their FAI Cup campaign. On his arrival, the Railway station in Sligo was said to be filled with locals trying to catch a glimpse of him. Dean scored ten goals in seven games for the club, including five in a 7–1 win over Waterford (which remains a club record for the most goals scored in a single game). He also played in four Cup matches, scoring once (in the 1–1 final against Shelbourne, who won the replay 1–0). Dean's runner-up medal was later stolen from his hotel room; on a return trip to Ireland to watch Rovers 39 years later in the 1978 FAI Cup final, a package was delivered to his hotel room with the medal inside.
Hurst
Dean ended his professional playing days with Hurst (now Ashton United) in the Cheshire County League 1939–40 season, managing two games (and one goal) before the outbreak of war truncated his career. He made his debut in a 4–0 loss to Stalybridge Celtic; 5,600 people attended the game, paying sixpence, earning the club gate receipts of £140.
International career
Dean made his début for the England national football team against British rivals Wales at the Racecourse Ground in Wrexham in February 1927, less than a month after his 20th birthday. His final game for England came in a 1–0 victory over Ireland in October 1932 at Blackpool F.C.'s Bloomfield Road, when Dean was 25 years old.
Dean was involved in the 1927 and 1929 editions of the British Home Championship. During the 1927 edition, Dean scored four goals in his two games for England and scored twice against Scotland at Hampden Park. Despite the loss, the Scots won the competition overall and applauded Dean (who finished the tournament as top scorer). In the 1929 edition, he scored in his only outing against Ireland at Goodison Park.
The only international competitions outside the British Home Championship during Dean's international career were the 1928 and 1936 Olympic Games and the inaugural FIFA World Cup, which took place in 1930; however, neither Great Britain nor England participated. Dean represented England 16 times, scoring 18 goals in 9 games (including hat-tricks against Belgium and Luxembourg).
Personal life and post-football career
Dean became a Freemason in 1931 while playing for Everton and England. He was initiated in Randle Holme Lodge, No. 3261, in Birkenhead on 18 February 1931.
After retiring, he went on to run the Dublin Packet pub in Chester (Everton and the Dublin Packet commemorate this with memorabilia) and work at Littlewoods football pools as a porter at their Walton Hall Avenue offices, where he was remembered by fellow workers as a quiet, unassuming man.
Declining health and death
In January 1972, Dean was admitted to St Catherine's hospital in Birkenhead suffering from the effects of influenza and was released a month later. In November 1976, he had his right leg amputated due to a blood clot; his health was declining, and he became increasingly homebound.
Dean died on 1 March 1980 at age 73 after suffering a heart attack at Everton's home ground Goodison Park whilst watching a match against their closest rivals, Liverpool. It was the first time that he had visited Goodison Park in several years, due to ill health. "He belongs to the company of the supremely great, like Beethoven, Shakespeare and Rembrandt", said Bill Shankly. His funeral took place at St James' Church on Laird Street (the street where he was born) in Birkenhead. He was survived by his four children: William, Geoffrey, Ralph and Barbara; he outlived his wife Ethel, who died of a heart attack in 1974 after 43 years of marriage.
Legacy
Dean was an internationally known figure. Military records show that during the Second World War, an Italian prisoner of war was captured by British troops in the Western Desert and told his captors "fuck your Winston Churchill and fuck your Dixie Dean". One of the soldiers present was Liverpool-born Patrick Connelly, who later went into show business using the pseudonym "Bill Dean".
Everton arranged a testimonial for Dean on 7 April 1964. Over 34,000 people saw teams from Scotland and England (composed of players from Everton and Liverpool) compete; The "Scots" (with one Englishman and one Welshman) won, 3–1.
The match raised £7,000 for Dean.
Dean's 1933 FA Cup winners medal sold for £18,213 at auction in March 2001. In May 2001 local sculptor Tom Murphy created a statue of Dean, which was erected outside the Park End of Goodison Park at a cost of £75,000 with the inscription "Footballer, Gentleman, Evertonian". In 2002, Dean was an inaugural inductee to the English Football Hall of Fame. There is an annual Dixie Dean award, which is given to the Merseyside player of the year; it has been won by players from his former clubs (Tranmere and Everton) and Liverpool F.C.
When asked if he thought his record of scoring 60 goals in a season would be broken, Dean said: "People ask me if that 60-goal record will ever be beaten. I think it will. But there's only one man who'll do it. That's the fellow that walks on the water. I think he's about the only one." In total, Dean scored 383 goals for Everton in 433 appearances—an exceptional strike-rate which includes 37 hat-tricks. He was known as a sporting player, never booked or sent off during his career despite rough treatment and provocation from opponents. Only Arthur Rowley has scored more English-league career goals; however, while Rowley made 619 appearances and scored 433 goals (0.70 goals per game) Dean scored 379 goals in 438 games (0.87 goals per game).
In December 1930 and again in October 1931, Dixie Dean became the first Everton player to score two hat-tricks in one month of competitive play. His record stood for nearly 90 years until September 2020, when it was equalled by Dominic Calvert-Lewin.
Dean was mentioned in a series 2 episode of The Thin Blue Line.
Honours and achievements
Everton
Football League First Division: 1927–28, 1931–32
Second Division Championship: 1930–31
FA Charity Shield: 1928, 1932
FA Cup: 1932–33
Central League Championship: 1937–38
Sligo Rovers
League of Ireland runners-up 1938–39
FAI Cup runners-up: 1938–39
England
British Home Championship: 1926–27 (shared), 1931–32 (shared)
Individual
England Caps: 16
England Goals: 18
Football League Representative appearances: 6
Football League Representative goals: 9
Sunday Pictorial Trophy (60 league goals in 1927–28)
Lewis's Medal (Commemorate 200 league goals in 199 appearances)
Hall of Fame Trophy (1971)
Football Writers' Association inscribed silver salver (1976)
English Football Hall of Fame (Inaugural inductee, 2002)
Most goals in an English top-flight season: 60 (1927–28)
Seasonwise World Top Scorer: 1927–28 (60 goals)
Career statistics
Club
International goals
Scores and results list England's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Dean goal.
References
Citations
Sources
External links
English footballers
England international footballers
Association football forwards
Everton F.C. players
Sportspeople from Birkenhead
Notts County F.C. players
Tranmere Rovers F.C. players
Sligo Rovers F.C. players
Ashton United F.C. players
League of Ireland players
York City F.C. wartime guest players
1907 births
1980 deaths
English Football Hall of Fame inductees
English Football League players
First Division/Premier League top scorers
English Football League representative players
FA Cup Final players
English Freemasons | true | [
"Below is a list of awards received by Twins since they were formed in 2001 as a cantopop girl group. They average to receive about 2-3 awards in each Hong Kong music awards. Their major accomplishment is in 2007 when they received the Asia Pacific Most Popular Female Artist Award from Jade Solid Gold Top 10 Awards.\n\nBecause of the Edison Chen photo scandal in 2008, Gillian took a short leave from the group. And thus the group did not record any songs or receive any awards between March 2008 to 2009.\n\nCommercial Radio Hong Kong Ultimate Song Chart Awards\nThe Ultimate Song Chart Awards Presentation (叱咤樂壇流行榜頒獎典禮) is a cantopop award ceremony from one of the famous channel in Commercial Radio Hong Kong known as Ultimate 903 (FM 90.3). Unlike other cantopop award ceremonies, this one is judged based on the popularity of the song/artist on the actual radio show.\n\nGlobal Chinese Music Awards\n\nIFPI Hong Kong Sales Awards\nIFPI Awards is given to artists base on the sales in Hong Kong at the end of the year.\n\nJade Solid Gold Top 10 Awards\nThe Jade Solid Gold Songs Awards Ceremony(十大勁歌金曲頒獎典禮) is held annually in Hong Kong since 1984. The awards are based on Jade Solid Gold show on TVB.\n\nMetro Radio Mandarin Music Awards\n\nMetro Showbiz Hit Awards\nThe Metro Showbiz Hit Awards (新城勁爆頒獎禮) is held in Hong Kong annually by Metro Showbiz radio station. It focus mostly in cantopop music.\n\nRTHK Top 10 Gold Songs Awards\nThe RTHK Top 10 Gold Songs Awards Ceremony(十大中文金曲頒獎音樂會) is held annually in Hong Kong since 1978. The awards are determined by Radio and Television Hong Kong based on the work of all Asian artists (mostly cantopop) for the previous year.\n\nSprite Music Awards\nThe Sprite Music Awards Ceremony is an annual event given by Sprite China for work artists performed in previous years; awards received on 2008 are actually for the work and accomplishment for 2007.\n\nReferences\n\nTwins\nCantopop",
"The Drama-Logue Award was an American theater award established in 1977, given by the publishers of Drama-Logue newspaper, a weekly west-coast theater trade publication. Winners were selected by the publication's theater critics, and would receive a certificate at an annual awards ceremony hosted by Drama-Logue founder Bill Bordy. The awards did not require any voting or agreement among critics; each critic could select as many award winners as they wished. As a result, many awards were issued each year. In some years, the number of winners was larger than the seating capacity of the venue where the ceremony was conducted.\n\nThe award categories included Production, Direction, Musical Direction, Choreography, Writing, Performance, Ensemble Performance, Scenic Design, Sound Design, Lighting Design, Costume Design and Hair & Makeup Design.\n\nAcquisition \nIn May 1998, Backstage West bought the Drama-Logue publication, and the two publications merged. The Drama-Logue Awards were subsequently retired and replaced by the Back Stage West Garland Awards.\n\nReferences\n\nAmerican theater awards\nAwards established in 1977\nAwards disestablished in 1998"
] |
[
"Dixie Dean",
"Legacy",
"What is Dean's legacy?",
"Dean was an inaugural inductee to the English Football Hall of Fame.",
"Did he receive any other awards?",
"In May 2001 local sculptor Tom Murphy created a statue of Dean, which was erected outside the park end of Goodison Park"
] | C_849b52a446d2486385000852e8a9f90d_0 | How else has he been honored? | 3 | How else has Dixie Dean been honored other than having a statue of him built? | Dixie Dean | Dean was an internationally known figure. Military records show that during the Second World War, an Italian prisoner of war was captured by British troops in the Western Desert and told his captors "f**k your Winston Churchill and f**k your Dixie Dean". One of the soldiers present was Liverpool-born Patrick Connelly, who later went into show business using the pseudonym "Bill Dean". Everton arranged a testimonial for Dean on 7 April 1964. Over 34,000 people saw teams from Scotland and England (composed of players from Everton and Liverpool) compete; The "Scots" (with one Englishman and one Welshman) won, 3-1. The match raised PS7,000 for Dean. Dean's 1933 FA Cup winners medal sold for PS18,213 at auction in March 2001. In May 2001 local sculptor Tom Murphy created a statue of Dean, which was erected outside the park end of Goodison Park at a cost of PS75,000 with the inscription "Footballer, Gentleman, Evertonian". In 2002, Dean was an inaugural inductee to the English Football Hall of Fame. There is an annual Dixie Dean award, which is given to the Merseyside player of the year; it has been won by players from his former clubs (Tranmere and Everton) and Liverpool F.C. When asked if he thought his record of scoring 60 goals in a season would be broken, Dean said: "People ask me if that 60-goal record will ever be beaten. I think it will. But there's only one man who'll do it. That's the fellow that walks on the water. I think he's about the only one." In total, Dean scored 383 goals for Everton in 433 appearances--an exceptional strike-rate which includes 37 hat-tricks. He was known as a sporting player, never booked or sent off during his career despite rough treatment and provocation from opponents. Only Arthur Rowley has scored more English-league career goals; however, while Rowley made 619 appearances and scored 433 goals (0.70 goals per game) Dean scored 379 goals in 438 games (0.87 goals per game). CANNOTANSWER | There is an annual Dixie Dean award, which is given to the Merseyside player of the year; | William Ralph "Dixie" Dean (22 January 1907 – 1 March 1980) was an English footballer who played as a centre forward. He is regarded as one of the greatest centre-forwards of all time and was inducted into the English Football Hall of Fame in 2002.
Born in Birkenhead, he began his career at his hometown club Tranmere Rovers before moving on to Everton, the club he had supported as a child. A prolific goalscorer, he was particularly known for having a penchant for scoring goals with his head, courtesy of his elevation and athleticism, as well as his powerful and accurate heading ability, which has led pundits to describe him as one of the greatest aerial specialists of all time. Dean played the majority of his career at Everton before injuries caught up with him and he moved on to new challenges at Notts County. He is best known for his exploits during the 1927–28 season, which saw him score a record 60 league goals. He also scored 18 goals in 16 appearances for England.
A statue of Dean was unveiled outside Goodison Park in May 2001. A year later, he became one of 22 players inducted into the inaugural English Football Hall of Fame. Dean was the first Everton player to wear the number-9 shirt.
Early years
Dean was born at 313 Laird Street in Birkenhead, Cheshire, across the River Mersey from Liverpool. Dean's family on both sides hailed from Chester. He was the grandson of Ralph Brett, a train driver who drove the royal train during the reign of George V. Dean grew up as a supporter of Everton thanks to the efforts of his father, William Sr., who took him to a match during the 1914–1915 title-winning season.
Dean's childhood coincided with the First World War, and between the ages of 7 and 11 he delivered cow's milk to local families as part of the war effort: "Well, it was war time you see, so you were grafting all the time. I used to take milk out. I'd be up at half-past four in the morning and go down and get the ponies and the milk floats, then I'd come out to this place in Upton, between Upton and Arrowe Park, and Burgess' Farm was there. We used to collect the milk in the big urns and take it out to people's houses, serving it out of the ladle. And not only that, you had an allotment, and that was in school time. And there was no such thing as pinching and stealing and all that bloody caper. In those days, you were growing all that stuff and you needed it for the war time."
Dean attended Laird Street School, but felt he received no formal education: "My only lesson was football ... I used to give the pens out on Friday afternoons ... the ink, and the chalks. That was the only job I had in school ... I never had any lessons." When he turned 11 he attended Albert (Memorial) Industrial School, a borstal school in Birkenhead, because of the football facilities on offer. The Dean family home had little room for him due to the family's size; Dean was happy with the arrangement, since he could play on the school's football team. Dean falsely told fellow pupils he had been caught stealing, since he wanted to be "one of the boys".
He left school at 14 and worked for Wirral Railway as an apprentice fitter; his father also worked there, and had been working since he was 11 years old for Great Western Railway. The elder Dean later became a train driver before moving to Birkenhead to work for Wirral Railway, to be closer to his future wife (and William Jr.'s mother) Sarah. Dean's father would later retire with the company.
Dean took a night job so that he could concentrate on his first love, football: "The other two apprentice fitters, they didn't like the night job because there were too many bloody rats around there, coming out of the Anglo-Oil company and the Vacuum Oil Company ... rats as big as whippets. So I took their night job, and of course, I could always have a game of football then." Dean would kick the trespassing rats against the wall.
The sons of Dean's manager at Wirral Railway were directors of New Brighton A.F.C., and they were interested in signing Dean. However, Dean told the club he was not interested in signing and instead played for local team Pensby United in Pensby. It was at Pensby United where Dean attracted the attention of a Tranmere Rovers scout.
"Dixie" nickname
Some said that Dean and his family disliked his nickname, and preferred people to call him "Bill" or "Billy". The popular theory regarding how Dean acquired his nickname is that he did so in his youth, perhaps due to his dark complexion and hair (which bore a resemblance to people from the Southern United States). In Dean's obituary in The Times, Geoffrey Green suggested that the nickname was taken from a "Dixie" song that was popular during Dean's childhood; there was "something of the Uncle Tom about his features".
Alternatively, Tranmere Rovers club historian Gilbert Upton uncovered evidence, verified by Dean's late Godmother, that the name "Dixie" was a corruption of his childhood nickname, Digsy (acquired from his approach to the children's game of tag, where Dean would dig his fist into a girl's back— hence "Digsy").
Club career
Tranmere Rovers
He played football for Laird Street School, Moreton Bible Class, Heswell and Pensby United. He then joined the pro ranks with his local club, Tranmere Rovers in November 1923. He was 16 at the time.
Whilst at Tranmere, he was on the receiving end of a tough challenge which resulted in him losing a testicle in a reserve game against Altrincham. Immediately following the challenge, a teammate rubbed the area to ease the pain. Dean shouted "Don't rub 'em, count 'em!"
In his 16 months at Tranmere spanning seasons 1923/24 and 1924/25 he scored 27 goals in 30 league appearances. All 27 were in the second of those two seasons in which he averaged exactly a goal per game. His exploits attracted the interest of many clubs across England, including Arsenal and Newcastle United. Upon leaving Tranmere Rovers, secretary Bert Cooke reneged on an agreement to pay 10 percent of the transfer fee to Dean. Dean was paid one percent of the fee, which he gave to his parents (who donated it to Birkenhead General Hospital).
Everton
His father had taken him to a league game at Goodison Park when he was eight years old. It was a dream come true for Dean when Everton secretary Thomas H. McIntosh arranged to meet him at the Woodside Hotel in 1925. Dean was so excited that he ran the distance from his home in north Birkenhead to the riverside to meet him. He signed for Everton in March 1925 having just turned 18.
He later revealed that he expected a £300 signing fee to be given to his parents when he transferred to Everton. They received only £30, and Tranmere Rovers manager Bert Cooke told him "that's all the League will allow". Dean appealed to John McKenna, chairman of the Football Association, but was told "I'm afraid you've signed, and that's it." Dean signed for Everton for £3,000, then a record fee received for Tranmere Rovers. He made an immediate impact, scoring 32 goals in his first full season. A motorcycling accident at Holywell, North Wales in summer 1926 left Dean with a fractured skull and jaw, and doctors were unsure whether he would be able to play again. In his next game for Everton he scored using his head, leading Evertonians to joke that the doctor left a metal plate in Dean's head.
Dean's greatest point of note is that he is still the only player in English football to score 60 league goals in one season (1927–28). At that season's end he was 21 years old. Middlesbrough's George Camsell, who holds the highest goals-to-games ratio for England, had scored 59 league goals the previous season, although this was in the Second Division.
In that 1927-28 season Everton won the First Division title. When they were relegated to Second Division in 1930 Dean stayed with them. The club went on to immediately win the Second Division in 1931, followed by the First Division again in 1932. They then immediately won the FA Cup in 1933 (in which he scored in the final) – a sequence unmatched since.
In December 1933, Dean issued a public appeal to have stolen goods returned to him. The Times issued a statement: "Dixie Dean, the Everton and England forward appeals to the thief who robbed him of an international cap and presentation clock to return them. His house in Caldy Road, Walton, Liverpool was entered in his absence over Christmas, and the thief left behind gold watches and jewelry (sic)." By then, Dean was captain of the side. However, the harsh physical demands of the game (as it was played then) took their toll and he was dropped from the first team in 1937.
Notts County
Dean went on to play for Notts County for one season, in which he scored three goals in nine games.
Sligo Rovers
At age 32, Dean signed for Irish team Sligo Rovers in January 1939 to help the club in their FAI Cup campaign. On his arrival, the Railway station in Sligo was said to be filled with locals trying to catch a glimpse of him. Dean scored ten goals in seven games for the club, including five in a 7–1 win over Waterford (which remains a club record for the most goals scored in a single game). He also played in four Cup matches, scoring once (in the 1–1 final against Shelbourne, who won the replay 1–0). Dean's runner-up medal was later stolen from his hotel room; on a return trip to Ireland to watch Rovers 39 years later in the 1978 FAI Cup final, a package was delivered to his hotel room with the medal inside.
Hurst
Dean ended his professional playing days with Hurst (now Ashton United) in the Cheshire County League 1939–40 season, managing two games (and one goal) before the outbreak of war truncated his career. He made his debut in a 4–0 loss to Stalybridge Celtic; 5,600 people attended the game, paying sixpence, earning the club gate receipts of £140.
International career
Dean made his début for the England national football team against British rivals Wales at the Racecourse Ground in Wrexham in February 1927, less than a month after his 20th birthday. His final game for England came in a 1–0 victory over Ireland in October 1932 at Blackpool F.C.'s Bloomfield Road, when Dean was 25 years old.
Dean was involved in the 1927 and 1929 editions of the British Home Championship. During the 1927 edition, Dean scored four goals in his two games for England and scored twice against Scotland at Hampden Park. Despite the loss, the Scots won the competition overall and applauded Dean (who finished the tournament as top scorer). In the 1929 edition, he scored in his only outing against Ireland at Goodison Park.
The only international competitions outside the British Home Championship during Dean's international career were the 1928 and 1936 Olympic Games and the inaugural FIFA World Cup, which took place in 1930; however, neither Great Britain nor England participated. Dean represented England 16 times, scoring 18 goals in 9 games (including hat-tricks against Belgium and Luxembourg).
Personal life and post-football career
Dean became a Freemason in 1931 while playing for Everton and England. He was initiated in Randle Holme Lodge, No. 3261, in Birkenhead on 18 February 1931.
After retiring, he went on to run the Dublin Packet pub in Chester (Everton and the Dublin Packet commemorate this with memorabilia) and work at Littlewoods football pools as a porter at their Walton Hall Avenue offices, where he was remembered by fellow workers as a quiet, unassuming man.
Declining health and death
In January 1972, Dean was admitted to St Catherine's hospital in Birkenhead suffering from the effects of influenza and was released a month later. In November 1976, he had his right leg amputated due to a blood clot; his health was declining, and he became increasingly homebound.
Dean died on 1 March 1980 at age 73 after suffering a heart attack at Everton's home ground Goodison Park whilst watching a match against their closest rivals, Liverpool. It was the first time that he had visited Goodison Park in several years, due to ill health. "He belongs to the company of the supremely great, like Beethoven, Shakespeare and Rembrandt", said Bill Shankly. His funeral took place at St James' Church on Laird Street (the street where he was born) in Birkenhead. He was survived by his four children: William, Geoffrey, Ralph and Barbara; he outlived his wife Ethel, who died of a heart attack in 1974 after 43 years of marriage.
Legacy
Dean was an internationally known figure. Military records show that during the Second World War, an Italian prisoner of war was captured by British troops in the Western Desert and told his captors "fuck your Winston Churchill and fuck your Dixie Dean". One of the soldiers present was Liverpool-born Patrick Connelly, who later went into show business using the pseudonym "Bill Dean".
Everton arranged a testimonial for Dean on 7 April 1964. Over 34,000 people saw teams from Scotland and England (composed of players from Everton and Liverpool) compete; The "Scots" (with one Englishman and one Welshman) won, 3–1.
The match raised £7,000 for Dean.
Dean's 1933 FA Cup winners medal sold for £18,213 at auction in March 2001. In May 2001 local sculptor Tom Murphy created a statue of Dean, which was erected outside the Park End of Goodison Park at a cost of £75,000 with the inscription "Footballer, Gentleman, Evertonian". In 2002, Dean was an inaugural inductee to the English Football Hall of Fame. There is an annual Dixie Dean award, which is given to the Merseyside player of the year; it has been won by players from his former clubs (Tranmere and Everton) and Liverpool F.C.
When asked if he thought his record of scoring 60 goals in a season would be broken, Dean said: "People ask me if that 60-goal record will ever be beaten. I think it will. But there's only one man who'll do it. That's the fellow that walks on the water. I think he's about the only one." In total, Dean scored 383 goals for Everton in 433 appearances—an exceptional strike-rate which includes 37 hat-tricks. He was known as a sporting player, never booked or sent off during his career despite rough treatment and provocation from opponents. Only Arthur Rowley has scored more English-league career goals; however, while Rowley made 619 appearances and scored 433 goals (0.70 goals per game) Dean scored 379 goals in 438 games (0.87 goals per game).
In December 1930 and again in October 1931, Dixie Dean became the first Everton player to score two hat-tricks in one month of competitive play. His record stood for nearly 90 years until September 2020, when it was equalled by Dominic Calvert-Lewin.
Dean was mentioned in a series 2 episode of The Thin Blue Line.
Honours and achievements
Everton
Football League First Division: 1927–28, 1931–32
Second Division Championship: 1930–31
FA Charity Shield: 1928, 1932
FA Cup: 1932–33
Central League Championship: 1937–38
Sligo Rovers
League of Ireland runners-up 1938–39
FAI Cup runners-up: 1938–39
England
British Home Championship: 1926–27 (shared), 1931–32 (shared)
Individual
England Caps: 16
England Goals: 18
Football League Representative appearances: 6
Football League Representative goals: 9
Sunday Pictorial Trophy (60 league goals in 1927–28)
Lewis's Medal (Commemorate 200 league goals in 199 appearances)
Hall of Fame Trophy (1971)
Football Writers' Association inscribed silver salver (1976)
English Football Hall of Fame (Inaugural inductee, 2002)
Most goals in an English top-flight season: 60 (1927–28)
Seasonwise World Top Scorer: 1927–28 (60 goals)
Career statistics
Club
International goals
Scores and results list England's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Dean goal.
References
Citations
Sources
External links
English footballers
England international footballers
Association football forwards
Everton F.C. players
Sportspeople from Birkenhead
Notts County F.C. players
Tranmere Rovers F.C. players
Sligo Rovers F.C. players
Ashton United F.C. players
League of Ireland players
York City F.C. wartime guest players
1907 births
1980 deaths
English Football Hall of Fame inductees
English Football League players
First Division/Premier League top scorers
English Football League representative players
FA Cup Final players
English Freemasons | true | [
"The Sporting News Comeback Player of the Year Award is the oldest of three annual awards in Major League Baseball given to one player in each league who has reemerged as a star in that season. It was established in 1965. The winner in each league is selected by the TSN editorial staff.\n\nIn 2005, Major League Baseball officially sponsored its own Comeback Player of the Year Award for the first time. TSN and MLB honored the same players in 2005—Ken Griffey, Jr. in the National League and Jason Giambi in the American League. The Players Choice Awards, awarded by the Major League Baseball Players Association, also began a Comeback Player honor in 1992.\n\nListed below are the players honored with the TSN award by year, name, team and league.\n\nHonorees\n\nNotes\nThe only players to be named twice in the American League are Norm Cash, Boog Powell and Bret Saberhagen.\nThe only players to be named twice in the National League are Andrés Galarraga, Chris Carpenter and Buster Posey.\nThe only player to be named in both leagues is Rick Sutcliffe.\nThe only player to be named posthumously is José Fernández; he died in a boating accident on September 25, 2016.\nSince the official MLB Comeback Player of the Year award began in 2005, the recipients have been identical to the TSN award with the following exceptions: 2008 NL (TSN honored Fernando Tatís, MLB honored Brad Lidge), 2010 AL (TSN honored Vladimir Guerrero, MLB honored Francisco Liriano), 2012 AL (TSN honored Adam Dunn, MLB honored Fernando Rodney), 2016 AL (TSN honored Mark Trumbo, MLB honored Rick Porcello), 2016 NL (TSN honored José Fernández, MLB honored Anthony Rendon), 2018 NL (TSN honored Matt Kemp, MLB honored Jonny Venters), 2019 AL (TSN honored Hunter Pence, MLB honored Carlos Carrasco), and 2020 AL (TSN honored Carlos Carrasco, MLB honored Salvador Pérez).\nBob Uecker has joked that he won the Comeback of the Year Award five years in a row. In reality, he never won the award.\n\nSee also\nBaseball awards\nList of MLB awards\nTSN Player of the Year\nTSN Pitcher of the Year\nTSN Rookie of the Year\nTSN Reliever of the Year\nTSN Manager of the Year\nTSN Executive of the Year\n\nMajor League Baseball trophies and awards\nAwards established in 1965",
"Andrei Aleksandrovich Kostrichkin (; 24 August 1901 – 28 February 1973) was a Soviet actor. He appeared in more than 50 films between 1925 and 1971.\n\nHonored Artist of the RSFSR (1935).\n\nWife actress Yanina Zhejmo. Kostrichkin's daughter Yanina works on duplicating films.\n\nSelected filmography\n\n Mishki versus Yudenich (1925)\n The Devil's Wheel (1926)\n The Overcoat (1926)\n The Club of the Big Deed (1927)\n Little Brother (1927)\n Somebody Else's Coat (1927)\n The New Babylon (1929)\n The Black Sail (1929)\n Our Girls (1930)\n Twenty Two Misfortunes (1930)\n Cities and Years (1930)\n Dead Soul (1930)\n Alone (1931)\n A Man from Prison (1931)\n The Fugitive (1932)\n Three Soldiers (1932)\n Conquerors of the Night (1933)\n The First Platoon (1933)\n Lieutenant Kijé (1934)\n Annenkovshina (1934)\n Ian Knuck's Wedding (1935)\n Treasure of the Sunken Ship (1935)\n Late for a Date (1936)\n Conduit (1936)\n Nightingale (1936)\n Zangezur (1938)\n David Guramishvili (1945)\n Train Departs at 10 (1947)\n Pirogov (1947)\n Tracks in the Snow (1955)\n Other People's Relatives (1955)\n Bonfire of Eternity (1956)\n Road of Truth (1956)\n Danika O'Connor (1956)\n Stepan Kolchugin (1957)\n The Storm (1957)\n Unpaid Debt (1959)\n Two Lives (1961)\n Devil's Dozen (1961)\n Executed at Dawn (1964)\n Three Fat Men (1966)\n The Snow Queen (1966)\n Sing Song, Poet (1973)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nSoviet male film actors\nRussian male film actors\nRussian male silent film actors\n1901 births\n1973 deaths\n20th-century Russian male actors\nHonored Artists of the RSFSR"
] |
[
"Dixie Dean",
"Legacy",
"What is Dean's legacy?",
"Dean was an inaugural inductee to the English Football Hall of Fame.",
"Did he receive any other awards?",
"In May 2001 local sculptor Tom Murphy created a statue of Dean, which was erected outside the park end of Goodison Park",
"How else has he been honored?",
"There is an annual Dixie Dean award, which is given to the Merseyside player of the year;"
] | C_849b52a446d2486385000852e8a9f90d_0 | Did he set any records? | 4 | Did Dixie Dean set any records in football? | Dixie Dean | Dean was an internationally known figure. Military records show that during the Second World War, an Italian prisoner of war was captured by British troops in the Western Desert and told his captors "f**k your Winston Churchill and f**k your Dixie Dean". One of the soldiers present was Liverpool-born Patrick Connelly, who later went into show business using the pseudonym "Bill Dean". Everton arranged a testimonial for Dean on 7 April 1964. Over 34,000 people saw teams from Scotland and England (composed of players from Everton and Liverpool) compete; The "Scots" (with one Englishman and one Welshman) won, 3-1. The match raised PS7,000 for Dean. Dean's 1933 FA Cup winners medal sold for PS18,213 at auction in March 2001. In May 2001 local sculptor Tom Murphy created a statue of Dean, which was erected outside the park end of Goodison Park at a cost of PS75,000 with the inscription "Footballer, Gentleman, Evertonian". In 2002, Dean was an inaugural inductee to the English Football Hall of Fame. There is an annual Dixie Dean award, which is given to the Merseyside player of the year; it has been won by players from his former clubs (Tranmere and Everton) and Liverpool F.C. When asked if he thought his record of scoring 60 goals in a season would be broken, Dean said: "People ask me if that 60-goal record will ever be beaten. I think it will. But there's only one man who'll do it. That's the fellow that walks on the water. I think he's about the only one." In total, Dean scored 383 goals for Everton in 433 appearances--an exceptional strike-rate which includes 37 hat-tricks. He was known as a sporting player, never booked or sent off during his career despite rough treatment and provocation from opponents. Only Arthur Rowley has scored more English-league career goals; however, while Rowley made 619 appearances and scored 433 goals (0.70 goals per game) Dean scored 379 goals in 438 games (0.87 goals per game). CANNOTANSWER | record of scoring 60 goals in a season | William Ralph "Dixie" Dean (22 January 1907 – 1 March 1980) was an English footballer who played as a centre forward. He is regarded as one of the greatest centre-forwards of all time and was inducted into the English Football Hall of Fame in 2002.
Born in Birkenhead, he began his career at his hometown club Tranmere Rovers before moving on to Everton, the club he had supported as a child. A prolific goalscorer, he was particularly known for having a penchant for scoring goals with his head, courtesy of his elevation and athleticism, as well as his powerful and accurate heading ability, which has led pundits to describe him as one of the greatest aerial specialists of all time. Dean played the majority of his career at Everton before injuries caught up with him and he moved on to new challenges at Notts County. He is best known for his exploits during the 1927–28 season, which saw him score a record 60 league goals. He also scored 18 goals in 16 appearances for England.
A statue of Dean was unveiled outside Goodison Park in May 2001. A year later, he became one of 22 players inducted into the inaugural English Football Hall of Fame. Dean was the first Everton player to wear the number-9 shirt.
Early years
Dean was born at 313 Laird Street in Birkenhead, Cheshire, across the River Mersey from Liverpool. Dean's family on both sides hailed from Chester. He was the grandson of Ralph Brett, a train driver who drove the royal train during the reign of George V. Dean grew up as a supporter of Everton thanks to the efforts of his father, William Sr., who took him to a match during the 1914–1915 title-winning season.
Dean's childhood coincided with the First World War, and between the ages of 7 and 11 he delivered cow's milk to local families as part of the war effort: "Well, it was war time you see, so you were grafting all the time. I used to take milk out. I'd be up at half-past four in the morning and go down and get the ponies and the milk floats, then I'd come out to this place in Upton, between Upton and Arrowe Park, and Burgess' Farm was there. We used to collect the milk in the big urns and take it out to people's houses, serving it out of the ladle. And not only that, you had an allotment, and that was in school time. And there was no such thing as pinching and stealing and all that bloody caper. In those days, you were growing all that stuff and you needed it for the war time."
Dean attended Laird Street School, but felt he received no formal education: "My only lesson was football ... I used to give the pens out on Friday afternoons ... the ink, and the chalks. That was the only job I had in school ... I never had any lessons." When he turned 11 he attended Albert (Memorial) Industrial School, a borstal school in Birkenhead, because of the football facilities on offer. The Dean family home had little room for him due to the family's size; Dean was happy with the arrangement, since he could play on the school's football team. Dean falsely told fellow pupils he had been caught stealing, since he wanted to be "one of the boys".
He left school at 14 and worked for Wirral Railway as an apprentice fitter; his father also worked there, and had been working since he was 11 years old for Great Western Railway. The elder Dean later became a train driver before moving to Birkenhead to work for Wirral Railway, to be closer to his future wife (and William Jr.'s mother) Sarah. Dean's father would later retire with the company.
Dean took a night job so that he could concentrate on his first love, football: "The other two apprentice fitters, they didn't like the night job because there were too many bloody rats around there, coming out of the Anglo-Oil company and the Vacuum Oil Company ... rats as big as whippets. So I took their night job, and of course, I could always have a game of football then." Dean would kick the trespassing rats against the wall.
The sons of Dean's manager at Wirral Railway were directors of New Brighton A.F.C., and they were interested in signing Dean. However, Dean told the club he was not interested in signing and instead played for local team Pensby United in Pensby. It was at Pensby United where Dean attracted the attention of a Tranmere Rovers scout.
"Dixie" nickname
Some said that Dean and his family disliked his nickname, and preferred people to call him "Bill" or "Billy". The popular theory regarding how Dean acquired his nickname is that he did so in his youth, perhaps due to his dark complexion and hair (which bore a resemblance to people from the Southern United States). In Dean's obituary in The Times, Geoffrey Green suggested that the nickname was taken from a "Dixie" song that was popular during Dean's childhood; there was "something of the Uncle Tom about his features".
Alternatively, Tranmere Rovers club historian Gilbert Upton uncovered evidence, verified by Dean's late Godmother, that the name "Dixie" was a corruption of his childhood nickname, Digsy (acquired from his approach to the children's game of tag, where Dean would dig his fist into a girl's back— hence "Digsy").
Club career
Tranmere Rovers
He played football for Laird Street School, Moreton Bible Class, Heswell and Pensby United. He then joined the pro ranks with his local club, Tranmere Rovers in November 1923. He was 16 at the time.
Whilst at Tranmere, he was on the receiving end of a tough challenge which resulted in him losing a testicle in a reserve game against Altrincham. Immediately following the challenge, a teammate rubbed the area to ease the pain. Dean shouted "Don't rub 'em, count 'em!"
In his 16 months at Tranmere spanning seasons 1923/24 and 1924/25 he scored 27 goals in 30 league appearances. All 27 were in the second of those two seasons in which he averaged exactly a goal per game. His exploits attracted the interest of many clubs across England, including Arsenal and Newcastle United. Upon leaving Tranmere Rovers, secretary Bert Cooke reneged on an agreement to pay 10 percent of the transfer fee to Dean. Dean was paid one percent of the fee, which he gave to his parents (who donated it to Birkenhead General Hospital).
Everton
His father had taken him to a league game at Goodison Park when he was eight years old. It was a dream come true for Dean when Everton secretary Thomas H. McIntosh arranged to meet him at the Woodside Hotel in 1925. Dean was so excited that he ran the distance from his home in north Birkenhead to the riverside to meet him. He signed for Everton in March 1925 having just turned 18.
He later revealed that he expected a £300 signing fee to be given to his parents when he transferred to Everton. They received only £30, and Tranmere Rovers manager Bert Cooke told him "that's all the League will allow". Dean appealed to John McKenna, chairman of the Football Association, but was told "I'm afraid you've signed, and that's it." Dean signed for Everton for £3,000, then a record fee received for Tranmere Rovers. He made an immediate impact, scoring 32 goals in his first full season. A motorcycling accident at Holywell, North Wales in summer 1926 left Dean with a fractured skull and jaw, and doctors were unsure whether he would be able to play again. In his next game for Everton he scored using his head, leading Evertonians to joke that the doctor left a metal plate in Dean's head.
Dean's greatest point of note is that he is still the only player in English football to score 60 league goals in one season (1927–28). At that season's end he was 21 years old. Middlesbrough's George Camsell, who holds the highest goals-to-games ratio for England, had scored 59 league goals the previous season, although this was in the Second Division.
In that 1927-28 season Everton won the First Division title. When they were relegated to Second Division in 1930 Dean stayed with them. The club went on to immediately win the Second Division in 1931, followed by the First Division again in 1932. They then immediately won the FA Cup in 1933 (in which he scored in the final) – a sequence unmatched since.
In December 1933, Dean issued a public appeal to have stolen goods returned to him. The Times issued a statement: "Dixie Dean, the Everton and England forward appeals to the thief who robbed him of an international cap and presentation clock to return them. His house in Caldy Road, Walton, Liverpool was entered in his absence over Christmas, and the thief left behind gold watches and jewelry (sic)." By then, Dean was captain of the side. However, the harsh physical demands of the game (as it was played then) took their toll and he was dropped from the first team in 1937.
Notts County
Dean went on to play for Notts County for one season, in which he scored three goals in nine games.
Sligo Rovers
At age 32, Dean signed for Irish team Sligo Rovers in January 1939 to help the club in their FAI Cup campaign. On his arrival, the Railway station in Sligo was said to be filled with locals trying to catch a glimpse of him. Dean scored ten goals in seven games for the club, including five in a 7–1 win over Waterford (which remains a club record for the most goals scored in a single game). He also played in four Cup matches, scoring once (in the 1–1 final against Shelbourne, who won the replay 1–0). Dean's runner-up medal was later stolen from his hotel room; on a return trip to Ireland to watch Rovers 39 years later in the 1978 FAI Cup final, a package was delivered to his hotel room with the medal inside.
Hurst
Dean ended his professional playing days with Hurst (now Ashton United) in the Cheshire County League 1939–40 season, managing two games (and one goal) before the outbreak of war truncated his career. He made his debut in a 4–0 loss to Stalybridge Celtic; 5,600 people attended the game, paying sixpence, earning the club gate receipts of £140.
International career
Dean made his début for the England national football team against British rivals Wales at the Racecourse Ground in Wrexham in February 1927, less than a month after his 20th birthday. His final game for England came in a 1–0 victory over Ireland in October 1932 at Blackpool F.C.'s Bloomfield Road, when Dean was 25 years old.
Dean was involved in the 1927 and 1929 editions of the British Home Championship. During the 1927 edition, Dean scored four goals in his two games for England and scored twice against Scotland at Hampden Park. Despite the loss, the Scots won the competition overall and applauded Dean (who finished the tournament as top scorer). In the 1929 edition, he scored in his only outing against Ireland at Goodison Park.
The only international competitions outside the British Home Championship during Dean's international career were the 1928 and 1936 Olympic Games and the inaugural FIFA World Cup, which took place in 1930; however, neither Great Britain nor England participated. Dean represented England 16 times, scoring 18 goals in 9 games (including hat-tricks against Belgium and Luxembourg).
Personal life and post-football career
Dean became a Freemason in 1931 while playing for Everton and England. He was initiated in Randle Holme Lodge, No. 3261, in Birkenhead on 18 February 1931.
After retiring, he went on to run the Dublin Packet pub in Chester (Everton and the Dublin Packet commemorate this with memorabilia) and work at Littlewoods football pools as a porter at their Walton Hall Avenue offices, where he was remembered by fellow workers as a quiet, unassuming man.
Declining health and death
In January 1972, Dean was admitted to St Catherine's hospital in Birkenhead suffering from the effects of influenza and was released a month later. In November 1976, he had his right leg amputated due to a blood clot; his health was declining, and he became increasingly homebound.
Dean died on 1 March 1980 at age 73 after suffering a heart attack at Everton's home ground Goodison Park whilst watching a match against their closest rivals, Liverpool. It was the first time that he had visited Goodison Park in several years, due to ill health. "He belongs to the company of the supremely great, like Beethoven, Shakespeare and Rembrandt", said Bill Shankly. His funeral took place at St James' Church on Laird Street (the street where he was born) in Birkenhead. He was survived by his four children: William, Geoffrey, Ralph and Barbara; he outlived his wife Ethel, who died of a heart attack in 1974 after 43 years of marriage.
Legacy
Dean was an internationally known figure. Military records show that during the Second World War, an Italian prisoner of war was captured by British troops in the Western Desert and told his captors "fuck your Winston Churchill and fuck your Dixie Dean". One of the soldiers present was Liverpool-born Patrick Connelly, who later went into show business using the pseudonym "Bill Dean".
Everton arranged a testimonial for Dean on 7 April 1964. Over 34,000 people saw teams from Scotland and England (composed of players from Everton and Liverpool) compete; The "Scots" (with one Englishman and one Welshman) won, 3–1.
The match raised £7,000 for Dean.
Dean's 1933 FA Cup winners medal sold for £18,213 at auction in March 2001. In May 2001 local sculptor Tom Murphy created a statue of Dean, which was erected outside the Park End of Goodison Park at a cost of £75,000 with the inscription "Footballer, Gentleman, Evertonian". In 2002, Dean was an inaugural inductee to the English Football Hall of Fame. There is an annual Dixie Dean award, which is given to the Merseyside player of the year; it has been won by players from his former clubs (Tranmere and Everton) and Liverpool F.C.
When asked if he thought his record of scoring 60 goals in a season would be broken, Dean said: "People ask me if that 60-goal record will ever be beaten. I think it will. But there's only one man who'll do it. That's the fellow that walks on the water. I think he's about the only one." In total, Dean scored 383 goals for Everton in 433 appearances—an exceptional strike-rate which includes 37 hat-tricks. He was known as a sporting player, never booked or sent off during his career despite rough treatment and provocation from opponents. Only Arthur Rowley has scored more English-league career goals; however, while Rowley made 619 appearances and scored 433 goals (0.70 goals per game) Dean scored 379 goals in 438 games (0.87 goals per game).
In December 1930 and again in October 1931, Dixie Dean became the first Everton player to score two hat-tricks in one month of competitive play. His record stood for nearly 90 years until September 2020, when it was equalled by Dominic Calvert-Lewin.
Dean was mentioned in a series 2 episode of The Thin Blue Line.
Honours and achievements
Everton
Football League First Division: 1927–28, 1931–32
Second Division Championship: 1930–31
FA Charity Shield: 1928, 1932
FA Cup: 1932–33
Central League Championship: 1937–38
Sligo Rovers
League of Ireland runners-up 1938–39
FAI Cup runners-up: 1938–39
England
British Home Championship: 1926–27 (shared), 1931–32 (shared)
Individual
England Caps: 16
England Goals: 18
Football League Representative appearances: 6
Football League Representative goals: 9
Sunday Pictorial Trophy (60 league goals in 1927–28)
Lewis's Medal (Commemorate 200 league goals in 199 appearances)
Hall of Fame Trophy (1971)
Football Writers' Association inscribed silver salver (1976)
English Football Hall of Fame (Inaugural inductee, 2002)
Most goals in an English top-flight season: 60 (1927–28)
Seasonwise World Top Scorer: 1927–28 (60 goals)
Career statistics
Club
International goals
Scores and results list England's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Dean goal.
References
Citations
Sources
External links
English footballers
England international footballers
Association football forwards
Everton F.C. players
Sportspeople from Birkenhead
Notts County F.C. players
Tranmere Rovers F.C. players
Sligo Rovers F.C. players
Ashton United F.C. players
League of Ireland players
York City F.C. wartime guest players
1907 births
1980 deaths
English Football Hall of Fame inductees
English Football League players
First Division/Premier League top scorers
English Football League representative players
FA Cup Final players
English Freemasons | true | [
"Manvel Mamoyan () is an Armenian fitness and bodybuilding trainer, fitness blogger, and three times Guinness World Records holder. He is also a multiple record holder of Armenian Book of Records (Dyutsaznagirk).\n\nBiography\n\nManvel was born on April 6, 1993 in Yerevan. Currently works as fitness and bodybuilding trainer. He has been practising sports since 10, when he started attending Judo classes.\n\nIn 2011-2013 he served in the Armenian Armed Forces.\n\nRecords \n\nUntil 18, Manvel also tried himself in Greco-Roman and freestyle wrestling. Manvel set his 11th record in Armenia when he was only 17. His first record was set in Dyutsaznagirk by doing sit up - abdominal exercise for 2 h. 46 min for 3511 reps. For the second time he appeared in Dyutsaznagirk for the most push-ups with one arm using back of the hand in one minute - 89 reps.\n\n2015-2016 \nAfter returning from the army, Manvel set a Guinness world record in October 23, 2015. He did 27 handstand push-ups in a minute. In order to complete one handstand push-up, Manvel’s elbows had to reach 90 degrees or less and then he had to fully straighten his arms. His legs also had to be straight or cross his ankles. He did the exercise in 48,3 seconds. Manvel didn’t have any injury before his performance, and the record was set. He dedicated his victory to the memory of the Genocide of Armenian and Yazidi people promised to update his record throughout the year.\n\n2016-2017 \nOn 25 August, 2016 Manvel dedicated his record in memory of the victims of the 2016 April Four-Day War unleashed in Nagorno-Karabakh. In response to the murder of Hayk Torosyan, Hrant Gharibyan and his compatriot Kyaram Sloyan by Azeris, Manvel Mamoyan set a new record: however, in August, 2016 he couldn’t exceed the record (84 push-ups) of the Canadian Roy Berger from his first performance in the Freedom Square, Yerevan, by reaching 83 reps. According to the Guinness World Records’ rules the athlete has a right to perform the exercise for 3 sets. Manvel managed to set the desired record from his second performance, after having a rest. By doing push-ups for 86 reps in a minute, the athlete exceeded the previous record and set a record in the Guinness World Records.\n\nIn one his interviews Manvel told about his desire to set 10 records in Guinness World Records in a year, particularly by through the Flag exercise, which was set as a record a few years ago by him and was performed for only 20 seconds. It was included in Dyutsaznagirk. He also mentioned he strives to set records more for Guinness World Records. In 2016 Manvel fell behind 5-6 seconds of setting a new world record and the record was 1 min. 5 sec. 71 millisec.\n\n2017-2018 \nIn 2017 Manvel set 4 records in handstand push-ups. He did the exercise 37 reps in a minute. With this result then he set a new record by doing 37 reps non-stop in a minute. \n\nFor his second record he did the same exercise 55 reps in 3 minutes. However, Manvel's last and most important result was doing push-ups for 352 reps in an hour. According to him, the achieved most result was 300 reps and he wished to surpass that record. \n\nIn 2017 Manvel also set a record for the Most jump squats in one minute (male), with 67 reps per minute.\n\nReferences\n\nBibliography \n \n \n\n1993 births\nLiving people\nGuinness World Records\nSportspeople from Yerevan\nMale bodybuilders",
"3 (sometimes referred to as Emerson, Berry & Palmer) were a short-lived progressive rock band formed by former Emerson, Lake & Palmer members Keith Emerson and Carl Palmer and American multi-instrumentalist Robert Berry in 1988.\n\nAfter one album, To the Power of Three, 3 split up. Emerson & Palmer reunited with Greg Lake for 1992's Black Moon and Berry would form Alliance.\n\nThey performed live, as \"Emerson and Palmer\" (Berry was onstage but unnamed), at the Atlantic Records 40th Anniversary concert in 1988, broadcast on HBO, but only performed a long medley instrumental set including Fanfare for the Common Man, Leonard Bernstein's America, and Dave Brubeck's Blue Rondo, which later became an ELP encore in their 1990s concerts. They did not perform any original ELP material without Lake, nor did they perform any 3 songs since the band's label was Geffen Records.\n\n3 performed at live venues to support their album, sometime in 1988. The three studio musicians were sometimes augmented by Paul Keller on guitar, Debra Parks and Jennifer Steele on backing vocals. Their setlist mainly consisted of material from their album, including \"Runaway\" and an extended jam version of the cover song \"Eight Miles High\". The group did a different arrangement of \"Desde La Vida\". The band did long instrumental jams based on music ELP covered including \"Hoedown\" & \"Fanfare for the Common Man\", but did not do any original ELP compositions. A long, elaborate cover of The Four Tops' \"Standing in the Shadows of Love\" was also included in the set.\n\nTwo live albums were released many years later, both on Rock Beat Records: Live Boston 88 (2015) and Live - Rockin' The Ritz (2017).\n\nIn October 2015, Emerson and Berry signed a contract with Frontiers Records to record a follow-up album at last, to be called 3.2. Emerson's death in March of the following year put a halt to that project. However, in July 2018, Berry released (as 3.2) The Rules Have Changed, built from musical ideas contributed by Emerson, but produced and performed entirely by Berry. A second 3.2 album, Third Impression, was released in 2021.\n\nBand members\nKeith Emerson - keyboards (1988–1989)\nRobert Berry - lead vocals, guitars, bass (1988–1989)\nCarl Palmer - drums, percussion (1988–1989)\n\nLive members\nPaul Keller – guitars (1988–1989)\nDebra Parks - backing vocals (1988-1989)\nJennifer Steele – backing vocals (1988–1989)\n\nDiscography\n\nStudio albums\n\nSingle\n\nReferences\n\nSee also\nEmerson, Lake & Palmer\nEmerson, Lake & Powell\n\nEnglish progressive rock groups\nRock music supergroups\nMusical groups established in 1988\nMusical groups disestablished in 1989\nMusical trios"
] |
[
"Dixie Dean",
"Legacy",
"What is Dean's legacy?",
"Dean was an inaugural inductee to the English Football Hall of Fame.",
"Did he receive any other awards?",
"In May 2001 local sculptor Tom Murphy created a statue of Dean, which was erected outside the park end of Goodison Park",
"How else has he been honored?",
"There is an annual Dixie Dean award, which is given to the Merseyside player of the year;",
"Did he set any records?",
"record of scoring 60 goals in a season"
] | C_849b52a446d2486385000852e8a9f90d_0 | Any other records? | 5 | Any other records Set by Dixie Dean in football other than the 60 goals in one season? | Dixie Dean | Dean was an internationally known figure. Military records show that during the Second World War, an Italian prisoner of war was captured by British troops in the Western Desert and told his captors "f**k your Winston Churchill and f**k your Dixie Dean". One of the soldiers present was Liverpool-born Patrick Connelly, who later went into show business using the pseudonym "Bill Dean". Everton arranged a testimonial for Dean on 7 April 1964. Over 34,000 people saw teams from Scotland and England (composed of players from Everton and Liverpool) compete; The "Scots" (with one Englishman and one Welshman) won, 3-1. The match raised PS7,000 for Dean. Dean's 1933 FA Cup winners medal sold for PS18,213 at auction in March 2001. In May 2001 local sculptor Tom Murphy created a statue of Dean, which was erected outside the park end of Goodison Park at a cost of PS75,000 with the inscription "Footballer, Gentleman, Evertonian". In 2002, Dean was an inaugural inductee to the English Football Hall of Fame. There is an annual Dixie Dean award, which is given to the Merseyside player of the year; it has been won by players from his former clubs (Tranmere and Everton) and Liverpool F.C. When asked if he thought his record of scoring 60 goals in a season would be broken, Dean said: "People ask me if that 60-goal record will ever be beaten. I think it will. But there's only one man who'll do it. That's the fellow that walks on the water. I think he's about the only one." In total, Dean scored 383 goals for Everton in 433 appearances--an exceptional strike-rate which includes 37 hat-tricks. He was known as a sporting player, never booked or sent off during his career despite rough treatment and provocation from opponents. Only Arthur Rowley has scored more English-league career goals; however, while Rowley made 619 appearances and scored 433 goals (0.70 goals per game) Dean scored 379 goals in 438 games (0.87 goals per game). CANNOTANSWER | Dean scored 383 goals for Everton in 433 appearances--an exceptional strike-rate which includes 37 hat-tricks. | William Ralph "Dixie" Dean (22 January 1907 – 1 March 1980) was an English footballer who played as a centre forward. He is regarded as one of the greatest centre-forwards of all time and was inducted into the English Football Hall of Fame in 2002.
Born in Birkenhead, he began his career at his hometown club Tranmere Rovers before moving on to Everton, the club he had supported as a child. A prolific goalscorer, he was particularly known for having a penchant for scoring goals with his head, courtesy of his elevation and athleticism, as well as his powerful and accurate heading ability, which has led pundits to describe him as one of the greatest aerial specialists of all time. Dean played the majority of his career at Everton before injuries caught up with him and he moved on to new challenges at Notts County. He is best known for his exploits during the 1927–28 season, which saw him score a record 60 league goals. He also scored 18 goals in 16 appearances for England.
A statue of Dean was unveiled outside Goodison Park in May 2001. A year later, he became one of 22 players inducted into the inaugural English Football Hall of Fame. Dean was the first Everton player to wear the number-9 shirt.
Early years
Dean was born at 313 Laird Street in Birkenhead, Cheshire, across the River Mersey from Liverpool. Dean's family on both sides hailed from Chester. He was the grandson of Ralph Brett, a train driver who drove the royal train during the reign of George V. Dean grew up as a supporter of Everton thanks to the efforts of his father, William Sr., who took him to a match during the 1914–1915 title-winning season.
Dean's childhood coincided with the First World War, and between the ages of 7 and 11 he delivered cow's milk to local families as part of the war effort: "Well, it was war time you see, so you were grafting all the time. I used to take milk out. I'd be up at half-past four in the morning and go down and get the ponies and the milk floats, then I'd come out to this place in Upton, between Upton and Arrowe Park, and Burgess' Farm was there. We used to collect the milk in the big urns and take it out to people's houses, serving it out of the ladle. And not only that, you had an allotment, and that was in school time. And there was no such thing as pinching and stealing and all that bloody caper. In those days, you were growing all that stuff and you needed it for the war time."
Dean attended Laird Street School, but felt he received no formal education: "My only lesson was football ... I used to give the pens out on Friday afternoons ... the ink, and the chalks. That was the only job I had in school ... I never had any lessons." When he turned 11 he attended Albert (Memorial) Industrial School, a borstal school in Birkenhead, because of the football facilities on offer. The Dean family home had little room for him due to the family's size; Dean was happy with the arrangement, since he could play on the school's football team. Dean falsely told fellow pupils he had been caught stealing, since he wanted to be "one of the boys".
He left school at 14 and worked for Wirral Railway as an apprentice fitter; his father also worked there, and had been working since he was 11 years old for Great Western Railway. The elder Dean later became a train driver before moving to Birkenhead to work for Wirral Railway, to be closer to his future wife (and William Jr.'s mother) Sarah. Dean's father would later retire with the company.
Dean took a night job so that he could concentrate on his first love, football: "The other two apprentice fitters, they didn't like the night job because there were too many bloody rats around there, coming out of the Anglo-Oil company and the Vacuum Oil Company ... rats as big as whippets. So I took their night job, and of course, I could always have a game of football then." Dean would kick the trespassing rats against the wall.
The sons of Dean's manager at Wirral Railway were directors of New Brighton A.F.C., and they were interested in signing Dean. However, Dean told the club he was not interested in signing and instead played for local team Pensby United in Pensby. It was at Pensby United where Dean attracted the attention of a Tranmere Rovers scout.
"Dixie" nickname
Some said that Dean and his family disliked his nickname, and preferred people to call him "Bill" or "Billy". The popular theory regarding how Dean acquired his nickname is that he did so in his youth, perhaps due to his dark complexion and hair (which bore a resemblance to people from the Southern United States). In Dean's obituary in The Times, Geoffrey Green suggested that the nickname was taken from a "Dixie" song that was popular during Dean's childhood; there was "something of the Uncle Tom about his features".
Alternatively, Tranmere Rovers club historian Gilbert Upton uncovered evidence, verified by Dean's late Godmother, that the name "Dixie" was a corruption of his childhood nickname, Digsy (acquired from his approach to the children's game of tag, where Dean would dig his fist into a girl's back— hence "Digsy").
Club career
Tranmere Rovers
He played football for Laird Street School, Moreton Bible Class, Heswell and Pensby United. He then joined the pro ranks with his local club, Tranmere Rovers in November 1923. He was 16 at the time.
Whilst at Tranmere, he was on the receiving end of a tough challenge which resulted in him losing a testicle in a reserve game against Altrincham. Immediately following the challenge, a teammate rubbed the area to ease the pain. Dean shouted "Don't rub 'em, count 'em!"
In his 16 months at Tranmere spanning seasons 1923/24 and 1924/25 he scored 27 goals in 30 league appearances. All 27 were in the second of those two seasons in which he averaged exactly a goal per game. His exploits attracted the interest of many clubs across England, including Arsenal and Newcastle United. Upon leaving Tranmere Rovers, secretary Bert Cooke reneged on an agreement to pay 10 percent of the transfer fee to Dean. Dean was paid one percent of the fee, which he gave to his parents (who donated it to Birkenhead General Hospital).
Everton
His father had taken him to a league game at Goodison Park when he was eight years old. It was a dream come true for Dean when Everton secretary Thomas H. McIntosh arranged to meet him at the Woodside Hotel in 1925. Dean was so excited that he ran the distance from his home in north Birkenhead to the riverside to meet him. He signed for Everton in March 1925 having just turned 18.
He later revealed that he expected a £300 signing fee to be given to his parents when he transferred to Everton. They received only £30, and Tranmere Rovers manager Bert Cooke told him "that's all the League will allow". Dean appealed to John McKenna, chairman of the Football Association, but was told "I'm afraid you've signed, and that's it." Dean signed for Everton for £3,000, then a record fee received for Tranmere Rovers. He made an immediate impact, scoring 32 goals in his first full season. A motorcycling accident at Holywell, North Wales in summer 1926 left Dean with a fractured skull and jaw, and doctors were unsure whether he would be able to play again. In his next game for Everton he scored using his head, leading Evertonians to joke that the doctor left a metal plate in Dean's head.
Dean's greatest point of note is that he is still the only player in English football to score 60 league goals in one season (1927–28). At that season's end he was 21 years old. Middlesbrough's George Camsell, who holds the highest goals-to-games ratio for England, had scored 59 league goals the previous season, although this was in the Second Division.
In that 1927-28 season Everton won the First Division title. When they were relegated to Second Division in 1930 Dean stayed with them. The club went on to immediately win the Second Division in 1931, followed by the First Division again in 1932. They then immediately won the FA Cup in 1933 (in which he scored in the final) – a sequence unmatched since.
In December 1933, Dean issued a public appeal to have stolen goods returned to him. The Times issued a statement: "Dixie Dean, the Everton and England forward appeals to the thief who robbed him of an international cap and presentation clock to return them. His house in Caldy Road, Walton, Liverpool was entered in his absence over Christmas, and the thief left behind gold watches and jewelry (sic)." By then, Dean was captain of the side. However, the harsh physical demands of the game (as it was played then) took their toll and he was dropped from the first team in 1937.
Notts County
Dean went on to play for Notts County for one season, in which he scored three goals in nine games.
Sligo Rovers
At age 32, Dean signed for Irish team Sligo Rovers in January 1939 to help the club in their FAI Cup campaign. On his arrival, the Railway station in Sligo was said to be filled with locals trying to catch a glimpse of him. Dean scored ten goals in seven games for the club, including five in a 7–1 win over Waterford (which remains a club record for the most goals scored in a single game). He also played in four Cup matches, scoring once (in the 1–1 final against Shelbourne, who won the replay 1–0). Dean's runner-up medal was later stolen from his hotel room; on a return trip to Ireland to watch Rovers 39 years later in the 1978 FAI Cup final, a package was delivered to his hotel room with the medal inside.
Hurst
Dean ended his professional playing days with Hurst (now Ashton United) in the Cheshire County League 1939–40 season, managing two games (and one goal) before the outbreak of war truncated his career. He made his debut in a 4–0 loss to Stalybridge Celtic; 5,600 people attended the game, paying sixpence, earning the club gate receipts of £140.
International career
Dean made his début for the England national football team against British rivals Wales at the Racecourse Ground in Wrexham in February 1927, less than a month after his 20th birthday. His final game for England came in a 1–0 victory over Ireland in October 1932 at Blackpool F.C.'s Bloomfield Road, when Dean was 25 years old.
Dean was involved in the 1927 and 1929 editions of the British Home Championship. During the 1927 edition, Dean scored four goals in his two games for England and scored twice against Scotland at Hampden Park. Despite the loss, the Scots won the competition overall and applauded Dean (who finished the tournament as top scorer). In the 1929 edition, he scored in his only outing against Ireland at Goodison Park.
The only international competitions outside the British Home Championship during Dean's international career were the 1928 and 1936 Olympic Games and the inaugural FIFA World Cup, which took place in 1930; however, neither Great Britain nor England participated. Dean represented England 16 times, scoring 18 goals in 9 games (including hat-tricks against Belgium and Luxembourg).
Personal life and post-football career
Dean became a Freemason in 1931 while playing for Everton and England. He was initiated in Randle Holme Lodge, No. 3261, in Birkenhead on 18 February 1931.
After retiring, he went on to run the Dublin Packet pub in Chester (Everton and the Dublin Packet commemorate this with memorabilia) and work at Littlewoods football pools as a porter at their Walton Hall Avenue offices, where he was remembered by fellow workers as a quiet, unassuming man.
Declining health and death
In January 1972, Dean was admitted to St Catherine's hospital in Birkenhead suffering from the effects of influenza and was released a month later. In November 1976, he had his right leg amputated due to a blood clot; his health was declining, and he became increasingly homebound.
Dean died on 1 March 1980 at age 73 after suffering a heart attack at Everton's home ground Goodison Park whilst watching a match against their closest rivals, Liverpool. It was the first time that he had visited Goodison Park in several years, due to ill health. "He belongs to the company of the supremely great, like Beethoven, Shakespeare and Rembrandt", said Bill Shankly. His funeral took place at St James' Church on Laird Street (the street where he was born) in Birkenhead. He was survived by his four children: William, Geoffrey, Ralph and Barbara; he outlived his wife Ethel, who died of a heart attack in 1974 after 43 years of marriage.
Legacy
Dean was an internationally known figure. Military records show that during the Second World War, an Italian prisoner of war was captured by British troops in the Western Desert and told his captors "fuck your Winston Churchill and fuck your Dixie Dean". One of the soldiers present was Liverpool-born Patrick Connelly, who later went into show business using the pseudonym "Bill Dean".
Everton arranged a testimonial for Dean on 7 April 1964. Over 34,000 people saw teams from Scotland and England (composed of players from Everton and Liverpool) compete; The "Scots" (with one Englishman and one Welshman) won, 3–1.
The match raised £7,000 for Dean.
Dean's 1933 FA Cup winners medal sold for £18,213 at auction in March 2001. In May 2001 local sculptor Tom Murphy created a statue of Dean, which was erected outside the Park End of Goodison Park at a cost of £75,000 with the inscription "Footballer, Gentleman, Evertonian". In 2002, Dean was an inaugural inductee to the English Football Hall of Fame. There is an annual Dixie Dean award, which is given to the Merseyside player of the year; it has been won by players from his former clubs (Tranmere and Everton) and Liverpool F.C.
When asked if he thought his record of scoring 60 goals in a season would be broken, Dean said: "People ask me if that 60-goal record will ever be beaten. I think it will. But there's only one man who'll do it. That's the fellow that walks on the water. I think he's about the only one." In total, Dean scored 383 goals for Everton in 433 appearances—an exceptional strike-rate which includes 37 hat-tricks. He was known as a sporting player, never booked or sent off during his career despite rough treatment and provocation from opponents. Only Arthur Rowley has scored more English-league career goals; however, while Rowley made 619 appearances and scored 433 goals (0.70 goals per game) Dean scored 379 goals in 438 games (0.87 goals per game).
In December 1930 and again in October 1931, Dixie Dean became the first Everton player to score two hat-tricks in one month of competitive play. His record stood for nearly 90 years until September 2020, when it was equalled by Dominic Calvert-Lewin.
Dean was mentioned in a series 2 episode of The Thin Blue Line.
Honours and achievements
Everton
Football League First Division: 1927–28, 1931–32
Second Division Championship: 1930–31
FA Charity Shield: 1928, 1932
FA Cup: 1932–33
Central League Championship: 1937–38
Sligo Rovers
League of Ireland runners-up 1938–39
FAI Cup runners-up: 1938–39
England
British Home Championship: 1926–27 (shared), 1931–32 (shared)
Individual
England Caps: 16
England Goals: 18
Football League Representative appearances: 6
Football League Representative goals: 9
Sunday Pictorial Trophy (60 league goals in 1927–28)
Lewis's Medal (Commemorate 200 league goals in 199 appearances)
Hall of Fame Trophy (1971)
Football Writers' Association inscribed silver salver (1976)
English Football Hall of Fame (Inaugural inductee, 2002)
Most goals in an English top-flight season: 60 (1927–28)
Seasonwise World Top Scorer: 1927–28 (60 goals)
Career statistics
Club
International goals
Scores and results list England's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Dean goal.
References
Citations
Sources
External links
English footballers
England international footballers
Association football forwards
Everton F.C. players
Sportspeople from Birkenhead
Notts County F.C. players
Tranmere Rovers F.C. players
Sligo Rovers F.C. players
Ashton United F.C. players
League of Ireland players
York City F.C. wartime guest players
1907 births
1980 deaths
English Football Hall of Fame inductees
English Football League players
First Division/Premier League top scorers
English Football League representative players
FA Cup Final players
English Freemasons | false | [
"Ought was a post-punk band from Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The band consists of Tim Darcy (vocals, guitar), Ben Stidworthy (bass), Matt May (keyboards) and Tim Keen (drums).\n\nHistory \nOught formed in 2011 when its members began living together in a communal band practice space and recorded their earliest material. Their debut EP, New Calm, was released in 2012. After signing with Constellation Records, they released a full-length, More than Any Other Day, in 2014. The album achieved critical acclaim, including a Best New Music accolade from Pitchfork Media. It was noted in numerous year-end lists for 2014 including Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, Drowned In Sound, Loud and Quiet, Exclaim!, Crack Magazine, and Paste. The album reached #20 on the Billboard Heatseekers chart in the United States.\n\nIn October 2014, the band released Once More with Feeling, an EP featuring B-sides from More Than Any Other Day and re-recordings of earlier songs. Sun Coming Down, the band's second full-length album, was released in September 2015.\n\nThe band worked with French producer Nicolas Vernhes on their third studio album, Room Inside the World, which was released February 16, 2018.\n\nOught announced their disbandment in November 2021. A new band with Darcy and Stidworthy as members, Cola, was announced on the same day, along with the release of their debut single \"Blank Curtain.\"\n\nSide projects\nLead singer Tim Darcy released his debut solo album, Saturday Night, in 2017.\n\nMembers\nTim Darcy – guitars, vocals\nMatt May – keyboards\nBen Stidworthy – bass\nTim Keen – drums, violin\n\nDiscography\nStudio albums\nMore than Any Other Day (Constellation Records, 2014)\nSun Coming Down (Constellation Records, 2015)\nRoom Inside the World (Merge Records / Royal Mountain Records, 2018)\n\nEPs\nNew Calm (self-released, 2012)\nOnce More With Feeling EP (Constellation Records, 2014)\nFour Desires (Merge Records, 2018)\n\nReferences\nFootnotes\n\nFurther reading\nBiography at AllMusic\nReview at Rolling Stone\nReview at Drowned in Sound\n\nExternal links\n\nLabel Site at Merge Records\n\nCanadian indie rock groups\nConstellation Records (Canada) artists\nMusical groups from Montreal\nCanadian post-punk music groups\nMusical quartets\nMusical groups established in 2011\nMusical groups disestablished in 2021\n2011 establishments in Quebec\n2021 disestablishments in Quebec\nMerge Records artists",
"Southern California Street Music is Voodoo Glow Skulls' eighth album, released on September 18, 2007, on Victory Records (VR 348).\n\nUnlike most of the band's other albums, it doesn't contain any cover songs. All of its songs were written by Voodoo Glow Skulls.\n\nTrack listing\n\nReferences \n\n2007 albums\nVictory Records albums\nVoodoo Glow Skulls albums"
] |
[
"Dixie Dean",
"Legacy",
"What is Dean's legacy?",
"Dean was an inaugural inductee to the English Football Hall of Fame.",
"Did he receive any other awards?",
"In May 2001 local sculptor Tom Murphy created a statue of Dean, which was erected outside the park end of Goodison Park",
"How else has he been honored?",
"There is an annual Dixie Dean award, which is given to the Merseyside player of the year;",
"Did he set any records?",
"record of scoring 60 goals in a season",
"Any other records?",
"Dean scored 383 goals for Everton in 433 appearances--an exceptional strike-rate which includes 37 hat-tricks."
] | C_849b52a446d2486385000852e8a9f90d_0 | What else is significant about his legacy? | 6 | What else is significant about Dixie Dean legacy other than the football achievements? | Dixie Dean | Dean was an internationally known figure. Military records show that during the Second World War, an Italian prisoner of war was captured by British troops in the Western Desert and told his captors "f**k your Winston Churchill and f**k your Dixie Dean". One of the soldiers present was Liverpool-born Patrick Connelly, who later went into show business using the pseudonym "Bill Dean". Everton arranged a testimonial for Dean on 7 April 1964. Over 34,000 people saw teams from Scotland and England (composed of players from Everton and Liverpool) compete; The "Scots" (with one Englishman and one Welshman) won, 3-1. The match raised PS7,000 for Dean. Dean's 1933 FA Cup winners medal sold for PS18,213 at auction in March 2001. In May 2001 local sculptor Tom Murphy created a statue of Dean, which was erected outside the park end of Goodison Park at a cost of PS75,000 with the inscription "Footballer, Gentleman, Evertonian". In 2002, Dean was an inaugural inductee to the English Football Hall of Fame. There is an annual Dixie Dean award, which is given to the Merseyside player of the year; it has been won by players from his former clubs (Tranmere and Everton) and Liverpool F.C. When asked if he thought his record of scoring 60 goals in a season would be broken, Dean said: "People ask me if that 60-goal record will ever be beaten. I think it will. But there's only one man who'll do it. That's the fellow that walks on the water. I think he's about the only one." In total, Dean scored 383 goals for Everton in 433 appearances--an exceptional strike-rate which includes 37 hat-tricks. He was known as a sporting player, never booked or sent off during his career despite rough treatment and provocation from opponents. Only Arthur Rowley has scored more English-league career goals; however, while Rowley made 619 appearances and scored 433 goals (0.70 goals per game) Dean scored 379 goals in 438 games (0.87 goals per game). CANNOTANSWER | Dean scored 379 goals in 438 games (0.87 goals per game). | William Ralph "Dixie" Dean (22 January 1907 – 1 March 1980) was an English footballer who played as a centre forward. He is regarded as one of the greatest centre-forwards of all time and was inducted into the English Football Hall of Fame in 2002.
Born in Birkenhead, he began his career at his hometown club Tranmere Rovers before moving on to Everton, the club he had supported as a child. A prolific goalscorer, he was particularly known for having a penchant for scoring goals with his head, courtesy of his elevation and athleticism, as well as his powerful and accurate heading ability, which has led pundits to describe him as one of the greatest aerial specialists of all time. Dean played the majority of his career at Everton before injuries caught up with him and he moved on to new challenges at Notts County. He is best known for his exploits during the 1927–28 season, which saw him score a record 60 league goals. He also scored 18 goals in 16 appearances for England.
A statue of Dean was unveiled outside Goodison Park in May 2001. A year later, he became one of 22 players inducted into the inaugural English Football Hall of Fame. Dean was the first Everton player to wear the number-9 shirt.
Early years
Dean was born at 313 Laird Street in Birkenhead, Cheshire, across the River Mersey from Liverpool. Dean's family on both sides hailed from Chester. He was the grandson of Ralph Brett, a train driver who drove the royal train during the reign of George V. Dean grew up as a supporter of Everton thanks to the efforts of his father, William Sr., who took him to a match during the 1914–1915 title-winning season.
Dean's childhood coincided with the First World War, and between the ages of 7 and 11 he delivered cow's milk to local families as part of the war effort: "Well, it was war time you see, so you were grafting all the time. I used to take milk out. I'd be up at half-past four in the morning and go down and get the ponies and the milk floats, then I'd come out to this place in Upton, between Upton and Arrowe Park, and Burgess' Farm was there. We used to collect the milk in the big urns and take it out to people's houses, serving it out of the ladle. And not only that, you had an allotment, and that was in school time. And there was no such thing as pinching and stealing and all that bloody caper. In those days, you were growing all that stuff and you needed it for the war time."
Dean attended Laird Street School, but felt he received no formal education: "My only lesson was football ... I used to give the pens out on Friday afternoons ... the ink, and the chalks. That was the only job I had in school ... I never had any lessons." When he turned 11 he attended Albert (Memorial) Industrial School, a borstal school in Birkenhead, because of the football facilities on offer. The Dean family home had little room for him due to the family's size; Dean was happy with the arrangement, since he could play on the school's football team. Dean falsely told fellow pupils he had been caught stealing, since he wanted to be "one of the boys".
He left school at 14 and worked for Wirral Railway as an apprentice fitter; his father also worked there, and had been working since he was 11 years old for Great Western Railway. The elder Dean later became a train driver before moving to Birkenhead to work for Wirral Railway, to be closer to his future wife (and William Jr.'s mother) Sarah. Dean's father would later retire with the company.
Dean took a night job so that he could concentrate on his first love, football: "The other two apprentice fitters, they didn't like the night job because there were too many bloody rats around there, coming out of the Anglo-Oil company and the Vacuum Oil Company ... rats as big as whippets. So I took their night job, and of course, I could always have a game of football then." Dean would kick the trespassing rats against the wall.
The sons of Dean's manager at Wirral Railway were directors of New Brighton A.F.C., and they were interested in signing Dean. However, Dean told the club he was not interested in signing and instead played for local team Pensby United in Pensby. It was at Pensby United where Dean attracted the attention of a Tranmere Rovers scout.
"Dixie" nickname
Some said that Dean and his family disliked his nickname, and preferred people to call him "Bill" or "Billy". The popular theory regarding how Dean acquired his nickname is that he did so in his youth, perhaps due to his dark complexion and hair (which bore a resemblance to people from the Southern United States). In Dean's obituary in The Times, Geoffrey Green suggested that the nickname was taken from a "Dixie" song that was popular during Dean's childhood; there was "something of the Uncle Tom about his features".
Alternatively, Tranmere Rovers club historian Gilbert Upton uncovered evidence, verified by Dean's late Godmother, that the name "Dixie" was a corruption of his childhood nickname, Digsy (acquired from his approach to the children's game of tag, where Dean would dig his fist into a girl's back— hence "Digsy").
Club career
Tranmere Rovers
He played football for Laird Street School, Moreton Bible Class, Heswell and Pensby United. He then joined the pro ranks with his local club, Tranmere Rovers in November 1923. He was 16 at the time.
Whilst at Tranmere, he was on the receiving end of a tough challenge which resulted in him losing a testicle in a reserve game against Altrincham. Immediately following the challenge, a teammate rubbed the area to ease the pain. Dean shouted "Don't rub 'em, count 'em!"
In his 16 months at Tranmere spanning seasons 1923/24 and 1924/25 he scored 27 goals in 30 league appearances. All 27 were in the second of those two seasons in which he averaged exactly a goal per game. His exploits attracted the interest of many clubs across England, including Arsenal and Newcastle United. Upon leaving Tranmere Rovers, secretary Bert Cooke reneged on an agreement to pay 10 percent of the transfer fee to Dean. Dean was paid one percent of the fee, which he gave to his parents (who donated it to Birkenhead General Hospital).
Everton
His father had taken him to a league game at Goodison Park when he was eight years old. It was a dream come true for Dean when Everton secretary Thomas H. McIntosh arranged to meet him at the Woodside Hotel in 1925. Dean was so excited that he ran the distance from his home in north Birkenhead to the riverside to meet him. He signed for Everton in March 1925 having just turned 18.
He later revealed that he expected a £300 signing fee to be given to his parents when he transferred to Everton. They received only £30, and Tranmere Rovers manager Bert Cooke told him "that's all the League will allow". Dean appealed to John McKenna, chairman of the Football Association, but was told "I'm afraid you've signed, and that's it." Dean signed for Everton for £3,000, then a record fee received for Tranmere Rovers. He made an immediate impact, scoring 32 goals in his first full season. A motorcycling accident at Holywell, North Wales in summer 1926 left Dean with a fractured skull and jaw, and doctors were unsure whether he would be able to play again. In his next game for Everton he scored using his head, leading Evertonians to joke that the doctor left a metal plate in Dean's head.
Dean's greatest point of note is that he is still the only player in English football to score 60 league goals in one season (1927–28). At that season's end he was 21 years old. Middlesbrough's George Camsell, who holds the highest goals-to-games ratio for England, had scored 59 league goals the previous season, although this was in the Second Division.
In that 1927-28 season Everton won the First Division title. When they were relegated to Second Division in 1930 Dean stayed with them. The club went on to immediately win the Second Division in 1931, followed by the First Division again in 1932. They then immediately won the FA Cup in 1933 (in which he scored in the final) – a sequence unmatched since.
In December 1933, Dean issued a public appeal to have stolen goods returned to him. The Times issued a statement: "Dixie Dean, the Everton and England forward appeals to the thief who robbed him of an international cap and presentation clock to return them. His house in Caldy Road, Walton, Liverpool was entered in his absence over Christmas, and the thief left behind gold watches and jewelry (sic)." By then, Dean was captain of the side. However, the harsh physical demands of the game (as it was played then) took their toll and he was dropped from the first team in 1937.
Notts County
Dean went on to play for Notts County for one season, in which he scored three goals in nine games.
Sligo Rovers
At age 32, Dean signed for Irish team Sligo Rovers in January 1939 to help the club in their FAI Cup campaign. On his arrival, the Railway station in Sligo was said to be filled with locals trying to catch a glimpse of him. Dean scored ten goals in seven games for the club, including five in a 7–1 win over Waterford (which remains a club record for the most goals scored in a single game). He also played in four Cup matches, scoring once (in the 1–1 final against Shelbourne, who won the replay 1–0). Dean's runner-up medal was later stolen from his hotel room; on a return trip to Ireland to watch Rovers 39 years later in the 1978 FAI Cup final, a package was delivered to his hotel room with the medal inside.
Hurst
Dean ended his professional playing days with Hurst (now Ashton United) in the Cheshire County League 1939–40 season, managing two games (and one goal) before the outbreak of war truncated his career. He made his debut in a 4–0 loss to Stalybridge Celtic; 5,600 people attended the game, paying sixpence, earning the club gate receipts of £140.
International career
Dean made his début for the England national football team against British rivals Wales at the Racecourse Ground in Wrexham in February 1927, less than a month after his 20th birthday. His final game for England came in a 1–0 victory over Ireland in October 1932 at Blackpool F.C.'s Bloomfield Road, when Dean was 25 years old.
Dean was involved in the 1927 and 1929 editions of the British Home Championship. During the 1927 edition, Dean scored four goals in his two games for England and scored twice against Scotland at Hampden Park. Despite the loss, the Scots won the competition overall and applauded Dean (who finished the tournament as top scorer). In the 1929 edition, he scored in his only outing against Ireland at Goodison Park.
The only international competitions outside the British Home Championship during Dean's international career were the 1928 and 1936 Olympic Games and the inaugural FIFA World Cup, which took place in 1930; however, neither Great Britain nor England participated. Dean represented England 16 times, scoring 18 goals in 9 games (including hat-tricks against Belgium and Luxembourg).
Personal life and post-football career
Dean became a Freemason in 1931 while playing for Everton and England. He was initiated in Randle Holme Lodge, No. 3261, in Birkenhead on 18 February 1931.
After retiring, he went on to run the Dublin Packet pub in Chester (Everton and the Dublin Packet commemorate this with memorabilia) and work at Littlewoods football pools as a porter at their Walton Hall Avenue offices, where he was remembered by fellow workers as a quiet, unassuming man.
Declining health and death
In January 1972, Dean was admitted to St Catherine's hospital in Birkenhead suffering from the effects of influenza and was released a month later. In November 1976, he had his right leg amputated due to a blood clot; his health was declining, and he became increasingly homebound.
Dean died on 1 March 1980 at age 73 after suffering a heart attack at Everton's home ground Goodison Park whilst watching a match against their closest rivals, Liverpool. It was the first time that he had visited Goodison Park in several years, due to ill health. "He belongs to the company of the supremely great, like Beethoven, Shakespeare and Rembrandt", said Bill Shankly. His funeral took place at St James' Church on Laird Street (the street where he was born) in Birkenhead. He was survived by his four children: William, Geoffrey, Ralph and Barbara; he outlived his wife Ethel, who died of a heart attack in 1974 after 43 years of marriage.
Legacy
Dean was an internationally known figure. Military records show that during the Second World War, an Italian prisoner of war was captured by British troops in the Western Desert and told his captors "fuck your Winston Churchill and fuck your Dixie Dean". One of the soldiers present was Liverpool-born Patrick Connelly, who later went into show business using the pseudonym "Bill Dean".
Everton arranged a testimonial for Dean on 7 April 1964. Over 34,000 people saw teams from Scotland and England (composed of players from Everton and Liverpool) compete; The "Scots" (with one Englishman and one Welshman) won, 3–1.
The match raised £7,000 for Dean.
Dean's 1933 FA Cup winners medal sold for £18,213 at auction in March 2001. In May 2001 local sculptor Tom Murphy created a statue of Dean, which was erected outside the Park End of Goodison Park at a cost of £75,000 with the inscription "Footballer, Gentleman, Evertonian". In 2002, Dean was an inaugural inductee to the English Football Hall of Fame. There is an annual Dixie Dean award, which is given to the Merseyside player of the year; it has been won by players from his former clubs (Tranmere and Everton) and Liverpool F.C.
When asked if he thought his record of scoring 60 goals in a season would be broken, Dean said: "People ask me if that 60-goal record will ever be beaten. I think it will. But there's only one man who'll do it. That's the fellow that walks on the water. I think he's about the only one." In total, Dean scored 383 goals for Everton in 433 appearances—an exceptional strike-rate which includes 37 hat-tricks. He was known as a sporting player, never booked or sent off during his career despite rough treatment and provocation from opponents. Only Arthur Rowley has scored more English-league career goals; however, while Rowley made 619 appearances and scored 433 goals (0.70 goals per game) Dean scored 379 goals in 438 games (0.87 goals per game).
In December 1930 and again in October 1931, Dixie Dean became the first Everton player to score two hat-tricks in one month of competitive play. His record stood for nearly 90 years until September 2020, when it was equalled by Dominic Calvert-Lewin.
Dean was mentioned in a series 2 episode of The Thin Blue Line.
Honours and achievements
Everton
Football League First Division: 1927–28, 1931–32
Second Division Championship: 1930–31
FA Charity Shield: 1928, 1932
FA Cup: 1932–33
Central League Championship: 1937–38
Sligo Rovers
League of Ireland runners-up 1938–39
FAI Cup runners-up: 1938–39
England
British Home Championship: 1926–27 (shared), 1931–32 (shared)
Individual
England Caps: 16
England Goals: 18
Football League Representative appearances: 6
Football League Representative goals: 9
Sunday Pictorial Trophy (60 league goals in 1927–28)
Lewis's Medal (Commemorate 200 league goals in 199 appearances)
Hall of Fame Trophy (1971)
Football Writers' Association inscribed silver salver (1976)
English Football Hall of Fame (Inaugural inductee, 2002)
Most goals in an English top-flight season: 60 (1927–28)
Seasonwise World Top Scorer: 1927–28 (60 goals)
Career statistics
Club
International goals
Scores and results list England's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Dean goal.
References
Citations
Sources
External links
English footballers
England international footballers
Association football forwards
Everton F.C. players
Sportspeople from Birkenhead
Notts County F.C. players
Tranmere Rovers F.C. players
Sligo Rovers F.C. players
Ashton United F.C. players
League of Ireland players
York City F.C. wartime guest players
1907 births
1980 deaths
English Football Hall of Fame inductees
English Football League players
First Division/Premier League top scorers
English Football League representative players
FA Cup Final players
English Freemasons | true | [
"\"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",
"Grey Legacy is a science fiction webcomic by Wayne Wise and Fred Wheaton that was originally published in print form. The comic is hosted on Drunk Duck. The comic was among the first ever to win a Xeric Award in 1992.\n\nSynopsis\nGrey Legacy is about Greylock, a student at an interstellar academy, and his rise to fame. Roommate of Lesterfarr, Greylock meets alien Bilmar, who was captured by the university and who pretends to be mute and dumb in order to avoid attention. The three eventually team up in a series of interstellar adventures.\n\nDevelopment\nThroughout the 1980s, Wayne Wise and Fred Wheaton created Grey Legacy as a series of minicomics. The series was eventually published in print as an anthology in 1992 thanks to a grant by the Xeric Foundation. Grey legacy became one of the first four comics to win the Xeric Grant, but the comic series was unable to gain any more significant success throughout the 1990s.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nGrey Legacy on Drunk Duck\nWayne Wise Homepage\nFred Wheaton Homepage\n\n2000s webcomics\n1992 comics debuts\nScience fiction webcomics\nAmerican webcomics\nWebcomics in print\n2007 webcomic debuts"
] |
[
"Glenn Beck",
"Radio"
] | C_d978852d1897400091e5bbbd8041c542_0 | On what radio station did Glenn work at? | 1 | What radio station did Glenn Beck work at? | Glenn Beck | In 1983 he moved to Corpus Christi, Texas, to work at radio station KZFM. In mid-1985, Beck was hired away from KZFM to be the lead DJ for the morning-drive radio broadcast by WRKA in Louisville, Kentucky. His four-hour weekday show was called Captain Beck and the A-Team. Beck had a reputation as a "young up-and-comer". The show was not political and included the usual off-color antics of the genre: juvenile jokes, pranks, and impersonations. The show slipped to third in the market and Beck left abruptly in 1987 amid a dispute with WRKA management. Months later, Beck was hired by Phoenix Top-40 station KOY-FM, then known as Y-95. Beck was partnered with Arizona native Tim Hattrick to co-host a local "morning zoo" program. During his time at Y-95, Beck cultivated a rivalry with local pop radio station KZZP and that station's morning host Bruce Kelly. Through practical jokes and publicity stunts, Beck drew criticism from the staff at Y-95 when the rivalry culminated in Beck telephoning Kelly's wife on-the-air, mocking her recent miscarriage. In 1989, Beck resigned from Y-95 to accept a job in Houston at KRBE, known as Power 104. Beck was subsequently fired in 1990 due to poor ratings. Beck then moved on to Baltimore, Maryland, and the city's leading Top-40 station, WBSB, known as B104. There, he partnered with Pat Gray, a morning DJ. During his tenure at B104, Beck was arrested and jailed for speeding in his DeLorean. According to a former associate, Beck was "completely out of it" when a station manager went to bail him out. When Gray, then Beck were fired, the two men spent six months in Baltimore, planning their next move. In early 1992, Beck and Gray both moved to WKCI-FM (KC101), a Top-40 radio station in New Haven, Connecticut. In 1995, WKCI apologized after Beck and Gray mocked a Chinese-American caller on air who felt offended by a comedy segment by playing a gong sound effect and having executive producer Alf Gagineau mock a Chinese accent. That incident led to protests by activist groups. When Gray left the show to move to Salt Lake City, Beck continued with co-host Vinnie Penn. At the end of 1998, Beck was informed that his contract would not be renewed at the end of 1999. The Glenn Beck Program first aired in 2000 on WFLA (AM) in Tampa, and took their afternoon time slot from eighteenth to first place within a year. In January 2002, Premiere Radio Networks launched the show nationwide on 47 stations. The show then moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, broadcasting from new flagship station WPHT. On November 5, 2007, The New York Times reported that Premiere Radio Networks was extending Beck's contract. By May 2008, it had reached over 280 terrestrial stations as well as XM Satellite. It was ranked 4th in the nation with over six and a half million listeners. As of July 2013, Beck was tied for number four in the ratings behind Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Dave Ramsey. CANNOTANSWER | In 1983 he moved to Corpus Christi, Texas, to work at radio station KZFM. | Glenn Lee Beck (born February 10, 1964) is an American conservative political commentator, conspiracy theorist, radio host, and television producer. He is the CEO, founder, and owner of Mercury Radio Arts, the parent company of his television and radio network TheBlaze. He hosts the Glenn Beck Radio Program, a popular talk-radio show nationally syndicated on Premiere Radio Networks. Beck also hosts the Glenn Beck television program, which ran from January 2006 to October 2008 on HLN, from January 2009 to June 2011 on Fox News and now airs on TheBlaze. Beck has authored six New York Times–bestselling books.
In April 2011, Beck announced that he would "transition off of his daily program" on Fox News, but would continue to team with Fox. Beck's last daily show on the network was June 30, 2011. In 2012, The Hollywood Reporter named Beck on its Digital Power Fifty list. Beck launched TheBlaze in 2011 after leaving Fox News. He currently hosts an hour-long afternoon program, The Glenn Beck Program, on weekdays, and a three-hour morning radio show; both are broadcast on TheBlaze. Beck is also the producer of For the Record on TheBlaze.
During Barack Obama's presidency, Beck promoted many conspiracy theories about Obama, his administration, George Soros, and others.
Early life and education
Beck was born in Everett, Washington, the son of Mary Clara (née Janssen) and William Beck, who lived in Mountlake Terrace, Washington, at the time of their son's birth. The family later moved to Mount Vernon, Washington, where they owned and operated City Bakery in the downtown area. He is descended from German immigrants who came to the United States in the 19th century. Beck was raised as a Roman Catholic and attended Immaculate Conception Catholic School in Mount Vernon.
Glenn and his older sister moved with their mother to Sumner, Washington, attending a Jesuit school in Puyallup. On May 15, 1979, while out on a small boat with a male companion, Beck's mother drowned just west of Tacoma, Washington, in Puget Sound. The man who had taken her out in the boat also drowned. A Tacoma police report stated that Mary Beck "appeared to be a classic drowning victim", but a Coast Guard investigator speculated that she could have intentionally jumped overboard. Beck has described his mother's death as a suicide in interviews during television and radio broadcasts.
After their mother's death, Beck and his older sister moved to their father's home in Bellingham, Washington, where Beck graduated from Sehome High School in June 1982. Beck also regularly vacationed with his maternal grandparents, Ed and Clara Janssen, in Iowa. In the aftermath of his mother's death and subsequent suicide of his stepbrother, Beck has said he used "Dr. Jack Daniel's" to cope. At 18, following his high school graduation, Beck relocated to Provo, Utah, and worked at radio station KAYK. Feeling he "didn't fit in", Beck left Utah after six months, taking a job at Washington, D.C.'s WPGC in February 1983.
Personal life
While working at WPGC, Beck met his first wife, Claire. In 1983, the couple married and had two daughters, Mary and Hannah. Mary developed cerebral palsy as a result of a series of strokes at birth in 1988. The couple divorced in 1994 amid Beck's struggles with substance abuse. He is a recovering alcoholic and drug addict, and has said he has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Beck later admitted that the family problems ranging from the divorce to his substance abuse had a severe negative impact on his children.
By 1994, Beck was suicidal, and he imagined shooting himself to the music of Kurt Cobain. He credits Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) with helping him achieve sobriety. He said he stopped drinking alcohol and smoking cannabis in November 1994, the same month he attended his first AA meeting. Beck later said that he had gotten high every day for the previous 15 years, since the age of 16.
In 1996, while working for a New Haven area radio station, Beck took a theology class at Yale University, with a written recommendation from Senator Joe Lieberman, a Yale alumnus who was a fan of Beck's show at the time. Beck enrolled in an "Early Christology" course, but soon withdrew, marking the extent of his post-secondary education.
Beck then began a "spiritual quest" in which he "sought out answers in churches and bookstores". As he later recounted in his books and stage performances, Beck's first attempt at self-education involved reading the work of six wide-ranging authors, constituting what Beck jokingly calls "the library of a serial killer": Alan Dershowitz, Pope John Paul II, Adolf Hitler, Billy Graham, Carl Sagan, and Friedrich Nietzsche. During this time, Beck's Mormon friend and former radio partner Pat Gray argued in favor of the "comprehensive worldview" offered by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, an offer that Beck rejected until a few years later (Later, after Beck's moving to the New York City area, he had a consultation with Graham, which Beck said touched him strongly).
In 1999, Beck married his second wife, Tania. After they went looking for a faith on a church tour together, they joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in October 1999, partly at the urging of his daughter Mary. Beck was baptized by his old friend, and current-day co-worker Pat Gray. Beck and Tania have had two children together, Raphe (who is adopted) and Cheyenne. Until April 2011, the couple lived in New Canaan, Connecticut, with the four children.
Beck announced in July 2010 that he had been diagnosed with macular dystrophy, saying "A couple of weeks ago I went to the doctor because of my eyes, I can't focus my eyes. He did all kinds of tests and he said, 'you have macular dystrophy ... you could go blind in the next year. Or, you might not. The disorder can make it difficult to read, drive or recognize faces.
In July 2011, Beck leased a house in the Fort Worth suburb of Westlake, Texas. In 2012, he moved his main TV and radio studios to Dallas, Texas.
On November 10, 2014, Beck announced on TheBlaze that he had been suffering from a severe neurological disorder for at least the last five years. He described many strong and debilitating symptoms which made it difficult for him to work, and he also announced that he had "a string of health issues that quite honestly made me look crazy, and quite honestly, I have felt crazy because of them". Beck related that a chiropractor who specializes in "chiropractic neurology", Frederick Carrick, had "diagnosed [him] with several health issues, including an autoimmune disorder, which he didn't name, and adrenal fatigue." Over a period of ten months he had received a series of treatments and felt better. On January 13, 2022, Beck announced that his second case of covid was "getting into my lungs".
Career
In 2002, Beck created the media platform Mercury Radio Arts as the umbrella over his broadcast, publishing, Internet, and live show interests. Beck founded Mercury Radio Arts in 2002, naming it after the Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre, which produced live radio broadcasts during the 1930s. The company produces all of Beck's productions, including his eponymous radio show, books, live stage shows, and his official website.
Radio
In 1983, he moved to Corpus Christi, Texas, to work at radio station KZFM. In mid-1985, Beck was hired away from KZFM to be the lead DJ for the morning-drive radio broadcast by WRKA in Louisville, Kentucky. His four-hour weekday show was called Captain Beck and the A-Team. Beck had a reputation as a "young up-and-comer". The show was not political and included the usual off-color antics of the genre: juvenile jokes, pranks, and impersonations. The show slipped to third in the market and Beck left abruptly in 1987 amid a dispute with WRKA management.
Months later, Beck was hired by Phoenix Top-40 station KOY-FM, then known as Y-95. Beck was partnered with Arizona native Tim Hattrick to co-host a local "morning zoo" program. During his time at Y-95, Beck cultivated a rivalry with local pop radio station KZZP and that station's morning host Bruce Kelly. Through practical jokes and publicity stunts, Beck drew criticism from the staff at Y-95 when the rivalry culminated in Beck telephoning Kelly's wife on-the-air, mocking her recent miscarriage. In 1989, Beck resigned from Y-95 to accept a job in Houston at KRBE, known as Power 104. Beck was subsequently fired in 1990 due to poor ratings.
Beck then moved on to Baltimore, Maryland, and the city's leading Top-40 station, WBSB, known as B104. There, he partnered with Pat Gray, a morning DJ. During his tenure at B104, Beck was arrested and jailed for speeding in his DeLorean. According to a former associate, Beck was "completely out of it" when a station manager went to bail him out. When Gray, then Beck were fired, the two men spent six months in Baltimore, planning their next move. In early 1992, Beck and Gray both moved to WKCI-FM (KC101), a Top-40 radio station in New Haven, Connecticut. In 1995, WKCI apologized after Beck and Gray mocked a Chinese-American caller on air who felt offended by a comedy segment by playing a gong sound effect and having executive producer Alf Gatineau mock a Chinese accent. That incident led to protests by activist groups. When Gray left the show to move to Salt Lake City, Beck continued with co-host Vinnie Penn. At the end of 1998, Beck was informed that his contract would not be renewed at the end of 1999.
The Glenn Beck Program first aired in 2000 on WFLA (AM) in Tampa, and took their afternoon time slot from eighteenth to first place within a year. In January 2002, Premiere Radio Networks launched the show nationwide on 47 stations. The show then moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, broadcasting from new flagship station WPHT. On November 5, 2007, The New York Times reported that Premiere Radio Networks was extending Beck's contract. By May 2008, it had reached over 280 terrestrial stations as well as XM Satellite. It was ranked 4th in the nation with over six and a half million listeners. , Beck was tied for number four in the ratings behind Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Dave Ramsey.
Television
In January 2006, CNN's Headline News announced that Beck would host a nightly news-commentary show in their new prime-time block Headline Prime. The show, simply called Glenn Beck, aired weeknights. CNN Headline News described the show as "an unconventional look at the news of the day featuring his often amusing perspective". At the end of his tenure at CNN-HLN, Beck had the second largest audience behind Nancy Grace. In 2008, Beck won the Marconi Radio Award for Network Syndicated Personality of the Year.
In October 2008, it was announced that Beck would join the Fox News Channel, leaving CNN Headline News. After moving to the Fox News Channel, Beck hosted Glenn Beck, beginning in January 2009, as well as a weekend version. One of his first guests was Alaska Governor Sarah Palin He also had a regular segment every Friday on the Fox News Channel program The O'Reilly Factor titled "At Your Beck and Call". , Beck's program drew more viewers than all three of the competing time-slot shows combined on CNN, MSNBC and HLN.
His show's high ratings did not come without controversy. The Washington Posts Howard Kurtz reported that Beck's use of "distorted or inflammatory rhetoric" had complicated the channel's and their journalists' efforts to neutralize White House criticism that Fox is not really a news organization. Television analyst Andrew Tyndall echoed these sentiments, saying that Beck's incendiary style had created "a real crossroads for Fox News", stating "they're right on the cusp of losing their image as a news organization."
In April 2011, Fox News and Mercury Radio Arts, Beck's production company, announced that Beck would "transition off of his daily program" on Fox News in 2011. His last day at Fox was later announced as June 30. FNC and Beck announced that he would be teaming with Fox to produce a slate of projects for Fox News and its digital properties. Fox News head Roger Ailes later referenced Beck's entrepreneurialism and political movement activism, saying, "His [Beck's] goals were different from our goals ... I need people focused on a daily television show." Beck hosted his last daily show on Fox on June 30, 2011, where he recounted the accomplishments of the show and said, "This show has become a movement. It's not a TV show, and that's why it doesn't belong on television anymore. It belongs in your homes. It belongs in your neighborhoods." In response to critics who said he was fired, Beck pointed out that his final show was airing live. Immediately after the show he did an interview on his new GBTV internet television channel.
TheBlaze TV (formerly GBTV)
Beck's Fox News one-hour show ended June 30, 2011, and a new two-hour show began his television network which started as a subscription-based internet TV network, TheBlaze TV, originally called GBTV, on September 12, 2011. Using a subscription model, it was estimated that Beck is on track to generate $27 million in his first year of operation. This was later upgraded to $40 million by The Wall Street Journal when subscriptions topped 300,000. On September 12, 2012, TheBlaze TV announced that the Dish Network would begin carrying TheBlaze TV. TheBlaze is currently available on over 90 television providers, with eleven of those being in the national top 25.
Books
Mercury Ink has a co-publishing deal with Simon & Schuster and was founded by Glenn Beck in 2011 as the publishing imprint of Mercury Radio Arts. Started in 2011, Mercury Ink publishes adult and young adult novels and non-fiction titles. Including books written by Glenn Beck, authors signed to Mercury Ink include New York Times best seller Richard Paul Evans.
Beck has reached No. 1 on The New York Times Bestseller List in four separate categories : Hardcover Non-Fiction, Paperback Non-Fiction, Hardcover Fiction, and Children's Picture Books.
Beck has a chapter giving advice in Tim Ferriss' book Tools of Titans.
Non Fiction
An Inconvenient Book:Real Solutions to the World's Biggest Problems, .
Glenn Beck's Common Sense:The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government Inspired by Thomas Paine, Threshold Editions, June 16, 2009, .
Arguing With Idiots:How to Stop Small Minds and Big Government, Threshold Editions, September 22, 2009, .
Broke:The Plan to Restore Our Trust, Truth and Treasure Threshold Editions, October 26, 2010, .
The 7:Seven Wonders That Will Change Your Life, co-author Keith Ablow, MD, Threshold Editions, January 4, 2011, .
The Original Argument:The Federalists' Case for the Constitution, Adapted for the 21st Century, Threshold Editions, June 14, 2011, .
Being George Washington:The Indispensable Man, as You've Never Seen Him, Threshold Editions, November 22, 2011, .
Cowards:What Politicians, Radicals, and the Media Refuse to Say, Threshold Editions, June 12, 2012, .
Control:Exposing the Truth About Guns, Threshold Editions, April 30, 2013, .
Miracles and Massacres:True and Untold Stories of the Making of America, Threshold Editions, November 19, 2013, .
Conform:Exposing the Truth About Common Core and Public Education, Threshold Editions, May 6, 2014, .
Dreamers and Deceivers:True Stories of the Heroes and Villains Who Made America, Threshold Editions, August 11, 2015, .
It IS About Islam:Exposing the Truth About ISIS, Al Qaeda, Iran and the Caliphate, Threshold Editions, August 18, 2015, .
Liars:How Progressives Exploit Our Fears For Power and Control Threshold Editions, August 2, 2016, .
Addicted to Outrage:How Thinking Like a Recovering Addict Can Heal the Country, Threshold Editions, September 18, 2018, .
Arguing With Socialist, Threshold Books, April 7, 2020, .
Fiction
The Christmas Sweater, Threshold Editions, November 11, 2008, .
The Overton Window, Threshold Editions, June 15, 2010, .
The Snow Angel, Threshold Editions, October 25, 2011, .
Agenda 21, co-author Harriett Parke, Threshold Editions, November 20, 2012, .
The Eye of Moloch, Threshold Editions, June 11, 2013, .
Agenda 21:Into the Shadows, co-author Harriett Parke, Threshold Editions, January 6, 2015, .
The Immortal Nicholas, Mercury Ink, October 27, 2015, .
Stage shows and speeches
Since 2005, Beck has toured American cities twice a year, presenting a one-man stage show. His stage productions are a mix of stand-up comedy and inspirational speaking. In a critique of his live act, Salon magazine's Steve Almond describes Beck as a "wildly imaginative performer, a man who weds the operatic impulses of the demagogue to the grim mutterings of the conspiracy theorist".
A show from the Beck `08 Unelectable Tour was shown in around 350 movie theaters around the country.
The finale of 2009's Common Sense Comedy Tour was simulcast in over 440 theaters. The events have drawn 200,000 fans in recent years.
In March 2003, Beck ran a series of rallies, which he called Glenn Beck's Rally for America, in support of troops deployed for the upcoming Iraq War. On July 4, 2007, Beck served as host of the 2007 Toyota Tundra "Stadium of Fire" in Provo, Utah. The annual event at LaVell Edwards Stadium on the Brigham Young University campus is presented by America's Freedom Foundation. In May 2008, Beck gave the keynote speech at the NRA convention in Louisville, Kentucky.
In late August 2009, the mayor of Beck's hometown, Mount Vernon, Washington, announced that he would award Beck the Key to the City, designating September 26, 2009, as "Glenn Beck Day". Due to local opposition, the city council voted unanimously to disassociate itself from the award. The key presentation ceremony sold-out the 850 seat McIntyre Hall and an estimated 800 detractors and supporters demonstrated outside the building. Earlier that day, approximately 7,000 people attended the Evergreen Freedom Foundation's "Take the Field with Glenn Beck" at Seattle's Safeco Field.
In December 2009, Beck produced a one-night special film titled "The Christmas Sweater: A Return to Redemption". In January and February 2010, Beck teamed with fellow Fox News host Bill O'Reilly to tour several cities in a live stage show called "The Bold and Fresh Tour 2010". The January 29 show was recorded and broadcast to movie theaters throughout the country.
In July 2013, Beck produced and hosted a one-night stage event called Man in the Moon, held at the USANA Amphitheatre in West Valley City, Utah. The amphitheater sold out all 20,000 of its seats and was released on television and DVD in August 2013. The event was a narrative story told from the point of view of the moon, from the beginnings of the Book of Genesis to the first moon landing. The moon serves as the narrator of the story.
Philanthropy
In 2011, Beck founded the non-profit organization Mercury One, which is designed to sustain itself through its entrepreneurship without the need for grants or donations. In early 2011, Beck began work toward developing a clothing line to be sold to benefit the charity and October 2011, Mercury One began selling the upscale clothing line labeled 1791 exclusively at its website, 1791.com. The clothing in the line's eleven-piece inaugural offering was manufactured by American Mojo of Lowell, Massachusetts.
In July 2014, after tens of thousands of undocumented immigrant children crossed into Texas via the Southern United States border, unaccompanied by parents, Beck announced that he, along with Utah Senator Mike Lee and Texas representative Louie Gohmert, would travel to the U.S.-Mexico border with his charity organization, Mercury One. He stated that they would bring tractor trailers full of food, hot meals, and teddy bears for the unaccompanied minors. While Beck made it clear in interviews that they wanted a full repeal of DACA, Beck also mentioned his belief in the importance of helping these children. "Through no fault of their own, they are caught in political crossfire, and while we continue to put pressure on Washington and change its course of lawlessness, we must also help," Beck said. "It is not either, or. It is both. We have to be active in the political game, and we must open our hearts."
As of 2017, Beck's Nazarene Fund had reportedly relocated 10,524 Christian refugees from northern Iraq and Syria to other host countries, including Australia, the United States, France, Slovakia, Greece, Lebanon, Brazil, and Canada. The fund's website notes 1,646 families have been evacuated from the ISIS ravaged region since its launch in 2014, and 45,000 people have received humanitarian aid as a result of donations to Mercury One.
Projects and rallies
9–12 Project and Tea Party protests
In March 2009, Beck put together a campaign, the 9-12 Project, which is named after nine principles and twelve values that he says embody the spirit of the American people on the day after the September 11 attacks. The Colorado 9–12 Project hosted a "Patriot Camp" for kids in grades 1–5, featuring programs on "our Constitution, the Founding Fathers, and the values and principles that are the cornerstones of our nation".
Restoring Honor rally
The Restoring Honor rally was promoted/hosted by Beck and held at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. on August 28, 2010. The rally—which purported to embrace religious faith and patriotism—was co-sponsored by the Special Operations Warrior Foundation, promoted by FreedomWorks, and supported by the Tea Party movement. Attendance was estimated at 87,000 (± 9,000) based on aerial photos.
"America's First Christmas"
In December 2010, Beck went to Wilmington, Ohio, a town devastated by the late-2000s recession, to host live events to encourage his fans to go to the town to boost the local economy in a project called "America's First Christmas". He hosted an event and his radio and television shows from the local theater.
Restoring Courage 2011 international tour
Beck headlined his "Restoring Courage" events in Jerusalem, Israel, in August 2011 in a campaign Beck said was designed to encourage people worldwide "to stand with the Jewish people". After Jerusalem, Beck visited Cape Town, South Africa, and was scheduled to visit Venezuela.
2012 presidential campaign
Actively supporting Mitt Romney as "perhaps the best-known Mormon after the Republican presidential candidate and a major influence on evangelical Christians, ... Beck has emerged as an unlikely theological bridge between the first Mormon presidential nominee and a critical electorate [evangelicals]", according to a pre-election article in The New York Times. Along with personal campaign appearances in Ohio and Iowa, Beck unusually directly addressed doctrinal issues between Mormons and evangelical Christians—wherein the latter often consider the former a "cult" rather than Christian—on his radio show in September 2012. During the one-hour show in early September, he asked his audience, "Does Mitt Romney's Mormonism make him too scary or weird to be elected president of the United States?" The article concluded by addressing the "fear of making Mormonism mainstream" as a reason Beck could be acceptable to evangelicals and Romney not be, quoting John C. Green, the author of The Faith Factor: How Religion Influences American Elections:
There's a difference between a public figure like Glenn Beck and someone who could be the president of the United States. ... Many evangelicals believe this country was founded by Christian leaders. It is important that the person in the White House be positive about Christianity, if not a devout Christian himself.
Restoring Love rally and "Day of Service"
In August 2012, Beck held a rally at AT&T Stadium in Irving, Texas. The event's theme was service to one's fellow citizens, and loving each other. The event saw a "Day of Service", which saw Mercury One (Beck's charity organization) volunteering to feed homeless and disadvantaged individuals, doing community-building projects, and mowing lawns. The event culminated in a keynote speech presented by Beck imploring the audience to "commit to each other. Go home and wake up your neighbors." In regards to serving fellow Americans, Beck said, "Those who count us out are counting on one weekend of action, one weekend of speeches. One weekend. One day. Please my fellow countrymen, let this be the first of many."
Restoring Unity and Never Again Is Now
In August 2015, Beck and Mercury Radio Arts organized a rally that saw a little over 20,000 people march through the streets of Birmingham, Alabama in a statement of unity and support for the persecuted Christians in Iraq, a cause that Beck's Mercury One charity organization focuses on, and as a call for unity among the American people. After the march, the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex held a rally featuring speakers including Glenn Beck, Ted Cruz, Rafael Cruz, Jon Voight, Alveda King, the niece of Martin Luther King, Jr., and David Barton.
Political views
Beck has described himself as a conservative with libertarian leanings. Among his core values, Beck lists personal responsibility, private charity, the right to life, freedom of religion, limited government, and the family as the cornerstone of society. Beck believes in low national debt, and he has said "A conservative believes that debt creates unhealthy relationships. Everyone, from the government on down, should live within their means and strive for financial independence." He supports individual gun ownership rights, is against gun control legislation, and is a supporter of the NRA and its local state chapters.
Beck rejects the scientific consensus on climate change. Beck contests the evidence, citing personal beliefs, "There is more proof for the resurrection of Jesus than man-made climate change." He also views the American Clean Energy and Security Act as a form of wealth redistribution, and he has promoted a petition rejecting the Kyoto Protocol.
Although opposed to illegal immigration, Beck announced in June and July 2014 that his foundation, Mercury One, would be making efforts to provide food and relief to the large numbers of migrant children. His move was praised by supporters of immigrant rights and freer migration but met with considerable pushback from his supporter base.
On March 18, 2015, Beck officially announced that he had left the Republican Party, saying that the GOP had failed to effectively stand against the president on Obamacare and immigration reform, and because of the GOP establishment's opposition to lawmakers such as Mike Lee and Texas Senator Ted Cruz.
Beck endorsed Cruz in his run for President of the United States in 2016. In October 2016, Beck called opposing Donald Trump a "moral, ethical choice". On the campaign trail in support of Cruz, Beck was quoted as saying "If Donald Trump wins it is going to be a snowball to hell." After Cruz dropped out of the race, Beck endorsed independent Evan McMullin.
On May 18, 2018, on his radio show, Beck predicted Donald Trump would win the 2020 United States presidential election in a "landslide", saying "Here's why I'm predicting a 2020 win. When I saw yesterday how the press was all reporting the same damn story that Donald Trump was calling MS-13 gang members, they left that out of the story, 'animals' they were spinning it as if he was saying that about all immigrants. I had enough. I've had enough ... Gladly, I'll vote for [President Trump] in 2020 and not really even on his record, which we'll talk about here in a second, is pretty damn amazing." Beck went on to say, "I'll vote for him in 2020", and donned a Make America Great Again hat on his television show.
Opposition to progressivism
During his 2010 keynote speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Beck wrote progressivism on a chalkboard and declared, "This is the disease. This is the disease in America", adding that "progressivism is the cancer in America and it is eating our Constitution!" According to Beck, the progressive ideas of men such as John Dewey, Herbert Croly, and Walter Lippmann, influenced the Presidencies of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson; eventually becoming the foundation for President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal. Beck has said that such progressivism infects both main political parties and threatens to "destroy America as it was originally conceived". In Beck's book Common Sense, he argues that "progressivism has less to do with the parties and more to do with individuals who seek to redefine, reshape, and rebuild America into a country where individual liberties and personal property mean nothing if they conflict with the plans and goals of the State."
A collection of progressives, whom Beck has referred to as "Crime Inc.", comprise what Beck contends is a clandestine conspiracy to take over and transform the United States. Some of these individuals include Cass Sunstein, Van Jones, Andy Stern, John Podesta, Wade Rathke, Joel Rogers and Francis Fox Piven. Other figures tied to Beck's "Crime Inc." accusation include Al Gore, Franklin Raines, Maurice Strong, George Soros, John Holdren and President Barack Obama. According to Beck, these individuals already have or are surreptitiously working in unison with an array of organizations and corporations such as Goldman Sachs, Fannie Mae, ACORN, Apollo Alliance, Tides Center, Chicago Climate Exchange, Generation Investment Management, Enterprise Community Partners, Petrobras, Center for American Progress, and the SEIU; to fulfill their progressive agenda. In his quest to root out these "progressives", Beck has compared himself to Israeli Nazi hunters, vowing on his radio show that "to the day I die I am going to be a progressive-hunter. I'm going to find these people that have done this to our country and expose them. I don't care if they're in nursing homes." Beck compared Al Gore to the Nazis while equating the campaign against global warming to the Nazi campaign against the Jews.
Progressive historian Sean Wilentz has denounced what he describes as Beck's progressive-themed conspiracy theories and "gross historical inaccuracies", countering that Beck is merely echoing the decades-old "right-wing extremism" of the John Birch Society. According to Wilentz, Beck's "version of history" places him in a long line of figures who have challenged mainstream political historians and presented an inaccurate opposing view as the truth, stating:
Conservative David Frum, the former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, has also alleged Beck's propensity for negationism, remarking that "Beck offers a story about the American past for people who are feeling right now very angry and alienated. It is different enough from the usual story in that he makes them feel like they've got access to secret knowledge."
In 2020, Beck argued that the election of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders could lead to "another Holocaust."
Barack Obama and the Obama administration
Beck promoted numerous conspiracy theories and falsehoods about President Barack Obama and the Obama administration.
Beck suggested that Obama was building FEMA concentration camps to put opponents in, that Obama was planning to fake a terrorist attack such as the Oklahoma City bombing in order to boost the administration's popularity, and that Obama was the "puppet" of George Soros. He frequently likened Obama and his administration to Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich. Beck falsely claimed that the John Holdren who led the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Obama administration "proposed forcing abortions and putting sterilants in the drinking water to control population."
Beck argued in 2009 that Obama has repeatedly shown "a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture", saying "I'm not saying he doesn't like white people. I'm saying he has a problem. This guy is, I believe, a racist." These remarks drew criticism, and resulted in a boycott which resulted in at least 57 advertisers requesting their ads be removed from his programming. He later apologized for the remarks, telling Fox News Sunday anchor Chris Wallace that he has a "big fat mouth" and miscast as racism what is actually, as he theorizes, Obama's belief in black theology. In November 2012, Beck attempted to auction a mason jar holding an Obama figurine described as being submerged in urine (in fact, submerged in beer). Bidding reached $11,000 before eBay decided to remove the auction and cancel all bids.
In a 2016 interview with The New Yorker, Beck said of his commentary on Obama: "I did a lot of freaking out about Barack Obama." But added, "Obama made me a better man." Beck said that he regrets calling Obama a racist and is a supporter of Black Lives Matter. He said, "There are things unique to the African-American experience that I cannot relate to. I had to listen to them."
Van Jones
In July 2009, Beck began to focus what would become many episodes on his TV and radio shows on Van Jones, special advisor for Green Jobs at Obama's White House Council on Environmental Quality. Beck called Jones, "an avowed, self-avowed, radical revolutionary communist". PolitiFact rated Beck's claim "mostly false", noting that Jones, who has been open about his past as a communist during the early 1990s, had since expressed firmly capitalist beliefs.
Beck also criticized Jones for his involvement in STORM, a Bay Area radical group with Marxist roots, and his support for death row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal, who had been convicted of killing a police officer. Beck spotlighted a video of Jones referring to Republicans as "assholes", and a petition Jones signed suggesting that George W. Bush knowingly let the September 11 attacks happen. Time magazine credited Beck with leading conservatives' attack on Jones.
In a move attributed by The New York Times as a response to the controversies by the White House, which had not seen Jones' position as senior enough to warrant a full vetting, and Jones' decision that "the agenda of this president was bigger than any one individual," Jones resigned his position in September 2009. Jones characterized the attacks from his opponents as a "vicious smear campaign" and an effort to use "lies and distortions to distract and divide".
Cass Sunstein
Cass Sunstein, Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Obama White House, was a frequent target of Glenn Beck's conspiracy theories. Beck led opposition against Sunstein's nomination to the position. Beck described Sunstein as "the most dangerous man in America." Beck suggested that Sunstein was plotting ways to "ban" conspiracy theorizing.
ACORN
In 2009, Beck and other conservative commentators were critical of Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) making multiple claims including voter registration fraud in the 2008 presidential election. In September 2009, he broadcast a series of alleged undercover videos by conservative activists James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles, which portrayed ACORN community organizers offering inappropriate tax and other advice to people who had said they wanted to import "very young" girls from El Salvador to work as child prostitutes. Following the videos' release, the U.S. Census Bureau severed ties with the group while the U.S. House and Senate voted to cut all of its federal funding.
On December 7, 2009, the former Massachusetts Attorney General, after an independent internal investigation of ACORN, found the videos that had been released appeared to have been edited, "in some cases substantially". He found no evidence of criminal conduct by ACORN employees, but concluded that ACORN had poor management practices that contributed to unprofessional actions by a number of its low-level employees. On March 1, 2010, the District Attorney's office for Brooklyn determined that the videos were "heavily edited" and concluded that there was no criminal wrongdoing by the ACORN staff in the videos from the Brooklyn ACORN office. On April 1, 2010, an investigation by the California Attorney General found the videos from Los Angeles, San Diego and San Bernardino to be "heavily edited", and the investigation did not find evidence of criminal conduct on the part of ACORN employees. On June 14, 2010, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) released its findings, which showed that ACORN evidenced no sign that it, or any of its related organizations, mishandled any federal money they had received. In March 2010, ACORN announced it would be closing its offices and disbanding due to loss of funding from government and private donors.
According to a 2010 study in the journal Perspectives on Politics, Beck played a prominent role in media attacks on ACORN.
Satire website
In 2009, lawyers for Beck brought a case (Beck v. Eiland-Hall) against the owner of a satirical website named GlennBeckRapedAndMurderedAYoungGirlIn1990.com with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The claim that the domain name of the website is itself defamatory was described as a first in cyberlaw. Beck's lawyers argued that the site infringed on his trademarked name and that the domain name should be turned over to Beck. The WIPO ruled against Beck, but Eiland-Hall voluntarily transferred the domain to Beck anyway, saying that the First Amendment had been upheld and that he no longer had a use for the domain name.
Jewish Funds for Justice
In January 2011, in protest against what they saw as inappropriate references to the Holocaust and to Nazis by Beck (and by Roger Ailes of Fox News), four hundred rabbis signed an open letter published as a paid advertisement in The Wall Street Journal. The ad was paid for by Jewish Funds for Justice (JFFJ), which had previously called for Beck's firing. The JFFJ have claimed on their website that Beck seems "to draw his material straight from the anti-Semitic forgery, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion". The letter states that Beck and Fox had "diminish[ed] the memory and meaning of the Holocaust when you use it to discredit any individual or organization you disagree with. That is what Fox News has done in recent weeks." In response, a Fox News executive told Reuters the letter was from a "George Soros-backed leftwing political organization".
George Soros conspiracy theories
Beck is a prominent proponent of conspiracy theories about George Soros, a Jewish philanthropist. Beck falsely claimed that Soros as a boy helped to "send the Jews to the death camps." Beck frequently referred to Soros as a puppet-master and repeated the unsubstantiated conspiracy theory that Soros caused the 1997 Asian financial crisis. In 2010, Beck was accused of being anti-Semitic due to his smears against Soros. The Anti-Defamation League said Beck's remarks about Soros sending Jews to the death camps were "horrific" and "totally off-limits."
On February 22, 2011, during a discussion on his radio show about the controversy surrounding his earlier comments about Soros, Beck said "Reform Rabbis are generally political in nature. It's almost like radicalized Islam in a way where it's less about religion than it is about politics." He was quickly criticized by other conservatives, rabbis, and others. The Anti-Defamation League labeled Beck's remarks "bigoted ignorance". On February 24, Beck apologized on air, agreeing that his comments were "ignorant".
In 2016, Beck, a friend of actor and director Mel Gibson claimed he and Gibson shared a conversation in which Gibson claimed Jewish people had stolen a copy of The Passion of the Christ before its official theatrical release, and that Jewish people were assaulting him in the streets.
2011 Norway attacks
Beck condemned the 2011 Norway attacks, but was condemned for his comparison of murdered and surviving members of the Norwegian Workers' Youth League to the Hitler Youth. He said, "There was a shooting at a political camp which sounds a little like, you know, the Hitler Youth or whatever, you know what I mean. Who does a camp for kids that's all about politics? Disturbing." The statement was ill-received in Norway, prompting political commentator and Labour party member Frank Aarebrot to label Beck as a "vulgar propagandist", a "swine" and a "fascist", and Torbjørn Eriksen, former press secretary to Norway's prime minister Jens Stoltenberg, to describe Beck's comment as "a new low", adding that "Glenn Beck's comments are ignorant, incorrect and extremely hurtful". Commentators pointed out that groups affiliated with the Tea Party movement and the Beck-founded 9–12 Project also sponsor politically oriented camp programs for children.
Trump comments and 2016 SIRIUS XM Suspension
Beck opposed Donald Trump during his 2016 campaign for president, comparing him to Adolf Hitler and describing him as "an immoral man who is absent decency or dignity."
Sirius XM suspended Beck on May 31, 2016, for remarks made during an interview a week earlier. During an interview with author Brad Thor about a hypothetical situation where Trump was abusing his power as president and Congress was unable to stop him, Thor asked "what patriot will step up and [assassinate him] if, if, he oversteps his mandate as president?" Thor and the show's general manager both denied that the comments were a call for his assassination. Beck's radio show was moved from the SIRIUS XM Patriot channel to the Triumph channel soon after.
Beck's opposition to Trump did not sit well with many Trump supporters and hurt his businesses and viewership. On May 18, 2018, Beck stated on his radio program that he intended to vote for Trump in the 2020 presidential election, calling Trump's record "pretty damn amazing". Beck said Trump's defeat in the 2020 election would be "the end of the country as we know it."
Influences
Political and historical
An author with ideological influence on Beck is W. Cleon Skousen (1913–2006), a prolific conservative political writer, American constitutionalist and faith based political theorist. As an anti-communist supporter of the John Birch Society, and a limited-government activist, Skousen, who was Mormon, wrote on a wide range of subjects: the Six-Day War, Mormon eschatology, New World Order conspiracies, even parenting. Skousen believed that American political, social, and economic elites were working with communists to foist a world government on the United States. Beck praised Skousen's "words of wisdom" as "divinely inspired", referencing Skousen's The Naked Communist and especially The 5,000 Year Leap (originally published in 1981), which Beck said in 2007 had "changed his life". According to Skousen's nephew, Mark Skousen, Leap reflects Skousen's "passion for the United States Constitution", which he "felt was inspired by God and the reason behind America's success as a nation". The book is recommended by Beck as "required reading" to understand the current American political landscape and become a "September twelfth person". Beck authored a foreword for the 2008 edition of Leap and Beck's on-air recommendations in 2009 propelled the book to number one in the government category on Amazon for several months. In 2010, Matthew Continetti of the conservative Weekly Standard criticized Beck's conspiratorial bent, terming him "a Skousenite". Additionally, Alexander Zaitchik, author of the 2010 book Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance, which features an entire chapter on "The Ghost of Cleon Skousen", refers to Skousen as "Beck's favorite author and biggest influence", while observing he authored four of the 10 books on Beck's 9-12 Project required-reading list.
In his discussion of Beck and Skousen, Continetti said that one of Skousen's works "draws on Carroll Quigley's Tragedy and Hope (1966), which argues that the history of the 20th century is the product of secret societies in conflict". He observed in Beck's novel, The Overton Window (which Beck describes as "faction", or fiction based on fact), a character states: "Carroll Quigley laid open the plan in Tragedy and Hope, the only hope to avoid the tragedy of war was to bind together the economies of the world to foster global stability and peace."
Glenn Beck's viewpoint about early 20th century progressivism is greatly influenced by Ronald J. Pestritto, who teaches at Hillsdale College. The portal page on the GlennBeck.com web site for "American Progressivism" uses Pestritto's teachings and links directly to one of his books. Pestritto wrote an article for The Wall Street Journal detailing "Glenn Beck, Progressives and Me". The New York Times observed when Beck was on his Fox News show, Pestritto was a regular guest.
Princeton University historian Sean Wilentz says that alongside Skousen, Robert W. Welch, Jr., founder of the John Birch Society, is a key ideological foundation of Beck's worldview. According to Wilentz: "[Beck] has brought neo-Birchite ideas to an audience beyond any that Welch or Skousen might have dreamed of."
Other books that Beck regularly cites on his programs are Amity Shlaes's The Forgotten Man, Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism, Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen's A Patriot's History of the United States, and Burton W. Folsom, Jr.'s New Deal or Raw Deal. Beck has also urged his listeners to read The Coming Insurrection, a book by a French Marxist group discussing what they see as the imminent collapse of capitalist culture, and The Creature from Jekyll Island, which argues that aspects of the U.S. Federal Reserve system assault economic civil liberties, by conspiracy theorist G. Edward Griffin.
On June 4, 2010, Beck endorsed Elizabeth Dilling's 1936 work The Red Network: A Who's Who and Handbook of Radicalism for Patriots, remarking "this is a book, The Red Network, this came in from 1936. People – [Joseph] McCarthy was absolutely right ... This is, who were the communists in America." Beck was criticized by an array of people, including Menachem Z. Rosensaft and Joe Conason, who stated that Dilling was an outspoken anti-Semite and a Nazi sympathizer.
Religious
Beck has credited God for saving him from drug and alcohol abuse, professional obscurity, and friendlessness. In 2006, Beck performed a short inspirational monologue in Salt Lake City, Utah, detailing how he was transformed by the "healing power of Jesus Christ", which was released as a CD two years later by Deseret Book, a publishing company owned by the LDS Church, entitled An Unlikely Mormon: The Conversion Story of Glenn Beck.
Writer Joanna Brooks contends that Beck developed his "amalgamation of anti-communism" and "connect-the-dots conspiracy theorizing" only after his entry into the "deeply insular world of Mormon thought and culture". Brooks theorizes that Beck's calls to fasting and prayer are rooted in Mormon collective fasts to address spiritual challenges, while Beck's "overt sentimentality" and penchant for weeping represent the hallmark of a "distinctly Mormon mode of masculinity" where "appropriately-timed displays of tender emotion are displays of power" and spirituality. Philip Barlow, the Arrington chair of Mormon history and culture at Utah State University, has said that Beck's belief that the U.S. Constitution was an "inspired document", his calls for limited government and not exiling God from the public sphere, "have considerable sympathy in Mormonism". Beck has acknowledged that Mormon "doctrine is different" from traditional Christianity, but he said that this was what attracted him to it, stating that "for me some of the things in traditional doctrine just doesn't work."
Public reception
In 2009, Beck's show was one of the highest rated news commentary programs on cable TV. For a Barbara Walters ABC special, Beck was selected as one of America's "Top 10 Most Fascinating People" of 2009. In 2010, Beck was selected for Time'''s top 100 most influential people under the "Leaders" category.
Beck has referred to himself as an entertainer, a commentator rather than a reporter, and a "rodeo clown". He has said that he identifies with Howard Beale, a character portrayed by Peter Finch in the film Network: "When he came out of the rain and he was like, none of this makes any sense. I am that guy."Time magazine described Beck as "the new populist superstar of Fox News" saying it is easier to see a set of attitudes rather than a specific ideology, noting his criticism of Wall Street, yet defending bonuses to AIG, as well as denouncing conspiracy theories about the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) but warning against indoctrination of children by the AmeriCorps program." (Paul Krugman and Mark Potok, on the other hand, have been among those asserting that Beck helps spread "hate" by covering issues that stir up extremists.) What seems to unite Beck's disparate themes, Time argued, is a sense of siege. An earlier cover story in Time described Beck as "a gifted storyteller with a knack for stitching seemingly unrelated data points into possible conspiracies", proclaiming that he has "emerged as a virtuoso on the strings" of conservative discontent by mining "the timeless theme of the corrupt Them thwarting a virtuous Us".
Beck's shows have been described as a "mix of moral lessons, outrage and an apocalyptic view of the future ... capturing the feelings of an alienated class of Americans". One of Beck's Fox News Channel colleagues Shepard Smith, has jokingly called Beck's studio the "fear chamber", with Beck countering that he preferred the term "doom room".
Republican South Carolina U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham criticized Beck as a "cynic" whose show was antithetical to "American values" at The Atlantic's 2009 First Draft of History conference, remarking "Only in America can you make that much money crying." The progressive watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting's (FAIR) Activism Director, Peter Hart, argues that Beck red-baits political adversaries and promotes a paranoid view of progressive politics. Howard Kurtz, of The Washington Post, has remarked that "Love him or hate him, Beck is a talented, often funny broadcaster, a recovering alcoholic with an unabashedly emotional style."
Laura Miller writes in Salon that Beck is a contemporary example of "the paranoid style in American politics" described by historian Richard Hofstader:
Beck has acknowledged accusations of being a conspiracy theorist, stating on his show that there is a "concentrated effort now to label me a conspiracy theorist".
Particularly as a consequence of Beck's Restoring Honor rally in 2010, the fact that Beck is Mormon caused concern amongst some politically sympathetic Christian Evangelicals on theological grounds.Posner, Sarah, Evangelicals have "Deep Concerns" about Beck, Religion Dispatches, September 1, 2010"Does it Matter that Glenn Beck is a Mormon?", The Week, Yahoo!, August 31, 2010 Tom Tradup, vice president at Salem Radio Network, which serves more than 2,000 Christian-themed stations, expressed this sentiment after the rally, stating "Politically, everyone is with it, but theologically, when he says the country should turn back to God, the question is: Which God?" Subsequently, a September 2010 survey conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) and Religion News Service (RNS) found that of those Americans who hold a favorable opinion of Beck, only 45% believe he is the right person to lead a religious movement, with that number further declining to 37% when people are informed he is Mormon. Daniel Cox, director of research for PRRI, summed up this position by stating:
Pete Peterson of Pepperdine's Davenport Institute said that Beck's speech at the rally belonged to an American tradition of calls to personal renewal. Peterson wrote: "A Mormon surrounded onstage by priests, pastors, rabbis, and imams, Beck [gave] one of the more ecumenical jeremiads in history." Evangelical pastor Tony Campolo said in 2010 that conservative evangelicals respond to Beck's framing of conservative economic principles, saying that Beck's and ideological fellow travelers' "marriage between evangelicalism and patriotic nationalism is so strong that anybody who is raising questions about loyalty to the old, lassez-faire capitalist system is ex-post facto unpatriotic, un-American, and by association non-Christian." Newsweek religion reporter Lisa Miller, after quoting Campolo, opined, "It's ironic that Beck, a Mormon, would gain acceptance as a leader of a new Christian coalition. ... Beck's gift ... is to articulate God's special plan for America in such broad strokes that they trample no single creed or doctrine while they move millions with their message."
Critical biographies
In June 2010, investigative reporter Alexander Zaitchik released a critical biography titled Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance, with a title mocking Beck's work, Common Sense. In an interview about the book, Zaitchik theorized, "Beck's politics and his insatiable hunger for money and fame are not mutually exclusive", while stating:
In September 2010, Philadelphia Daily News reporter Will Bunch released The Backlash: Right-Wing Radicals, High-Def Hucksters, and Paranoid Politics in the Age of Obama. One of Bunch's theses is that Beck is nothing more than a morning zoo deejay playing a fictional character as a money-making stunt. Writer Bob Cesca, in a review of Bunch's book, compares Beck to Steve Martin's faith-healer character in the 1992 film Leap of Faith, before describing the "derivative grab bag of other tried and tested personalities" that Bunch contends comprises Beck's persona:
In October 2010 a polemical biography by Dana Milbank was released: Tears of a Clown: Glenn Beck and the Tea Bagging of America.
Satire, spoof and parody
Beck has been the subject of mockery and ridicule by a number of humorists. In response to Beck's animated delivery and views, he was parodied in an impersonation by Jason Sudeikis on Saturday Night Live. The Daily Shows Jon Stewart has spoofed Beck's 9–12 project with his own "11-3 project", consisting of "11 principles and 3 herbs and spices", impersonated Beck's chalk board-related presentation style for an entire show, and quipped about Beck "finally, a guy who says what people who aren't thinking are thinking". Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report satirized Beck's "war room" by creating his own "doom bunker". Through the character Eric Cartman, South Park parodied Beck's television program and his commentary style in the episode "Dances with Smurfs". The Onion, a satirical periodical and faux news site, ran an Onion News Network video "special report" where it lamented that the "victim in a fatal car accident was tragically not Glenn Beck". Meanwhile, the Current TV cartoon SuperNews! ran an animated cartoon feature titled "The Glenn Beck Apocalypse", where Beck is confronted by Jesus Christ who rebukes him as the equivalent of "Sarah Palin farting into a balloon". Political comedian and satirist Bill Maher has mocked Beck's followers as an "army of diabetic mallwalkers", while The Buffalo Beast, named Beck the most loathsome person in America in 2010, declaring "It's like someone found a manic, doom-prophesying hobo in a sandwich board, shaved him, shot him full of Zoloft and gave him a show." The October 30, 2010 Rally To Restore Sanity and/or Fear in Washington, hosted by Comedy Central personalities Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, was conceived as a parody of Beck's earlier Rally to Restore Honor, even though Stewart and Colbert said that they came up with the idea of holding a rally in March and Stewart had put down the deposit for the National Mall before Beck announced his rally.
Defamation lawsuit and settlement
In March 2014, Abdulrahman Alharbi filed suit for defamation in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts against Beck and his business entities, The Blaze and Mercury Radio Arts, along with his distributor Premiere Radio Networks. Alharbi's defamation claim arose from Beck's repeated broadcasts "identifying Alharbi as an active participant" in the Boston Marathon bombing, even after federal authorities cleared Alharbi, who was injured in the attack, of any wrongdoing and confirmed that he was an innocent victim.Josh Gerstein, Glenn Beck reaches settlement with Saudi student over Boston Marathon accusations, Politico (September 13, 2016). In December 2014, the judge rejected Beck's attempt to have the case dismissed. In September 2016, the suit was settled on confidential terms.
See also
Beck University
Conservative talk radio
List of most-listened-to radio programs
Works
Non-fiction
(Audiobook).
An Unlikely Mormon: The Conversion Story of Glenn Beck, Deseret Book 2008 (Audiobook). .
Arguing with Idiots: How to Stop Small Minds and Big Government, Simon & Schuster 2009. .
Glenn Beck's Common Sense: The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government, Simon & Schuster 2009. .Best Sellers: Paperback Nonfiction, The New York Times, October 9, 2009
America's March to Socialism: Why We're One Step Closer to Giant Missile Parades, Simon & Schuster Audio 2009 (Audio CD). .
Idiots Unplugged, Simon & Schuster 2010 (Audio CD). .
Broke: The Plan to Restore Our Trust, Truth, and Treasure, Simon & Schuster 2010. .
The 7: Seven Wonders That Will Change Your Life, Keith Ablow, co-author; Threshold Editions, 2011; .
The Original Argument: The Federalists' Case for the Constitution, Adapted for the 21st Century, with Joshua Charles; Threshold Editions, 2011; .
Liars: How Progressives Exploit Our Fears for Power and Control, Threshold Editions August 2, 2016.
Addicted to Outrage: How Thinking Like a Recovering Addict Can Heal the Country, Threshold Editions September 18, 2018.
The Great Reset: Joe Biden and the Rise of Twenty-First-Century Fascism, Justin Haskins, co-author; Forefront Books, 2021; .
Control Series
Fiction
The Christmas Sweater, Simon & Schuster 2008. .
The Overton Window, Threshold Editions June 2010.
The Eye of Moloch, Threshold Editions June 2013.
Agenda 21: Into the Shadows, Threshold Editions January 2015.
The Immortal Nicholas, Mercury Ink October 2015.
Children's
The Christmas Sweater: A Picture Book, Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing 2009. .
Beck authorized a comic book:
Political Power: Glenn Beck'', by Jerome Maida, Mark Sparacio (illus.); Bluewater Productions, 2011
References
External links
Glenn Beck – The 912 Project
1964 births
Living people
20th-century American male writers
21st-century American male writers
American Christian Zionists
American conspiracy theorists
American entertainment industry businesspeople
Latter Day Saints from Washington (state)
American anti-communists
American libertarians
American magazine founders
American people of German descent
American political commentators
American political writers
American television talk show hosts
Christian libertarians
Blaze Media people
American conservative talk radio hosts
Converts to Mormonism from Roman Catholicism
Former Roman Catholics
Fox News people
Male critics of feminism
People from Everett, Washington
People from Westlake, Texas
Radio personalities from Phoenix, Arizona
Radio personalities from Tampa, Florida
Tea Party movement activists
Texas Independents
Washington (state) Republicans
Writers from Bellingham, Washington
Latter Day Saints from Texas
20th-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American non-fiction writers
American male non-fiction writers | false | [
"Steve Burguiere, known better as \"Stu,\" (born February 9, 1976) is an American radio producer and personality, executive producer and the head writer of The Glenn Beck Program and host on Blaze TV. Burguiere hosted The Wonderful World of Stu until 2019. Early and personal life\n\nBurguiere was born in Tarrytown, New York, and grew up in the state of Connecticut. He became an intern at the New Haven radio station KC101. He started in the promotions department, working his way up to producer of the Glenn Beck Morning Show. He also did voice-over work and recorded commercials for the Metabolife company. While working at KC101, Burguiere met his future wife, Lisa Paige.\n\nCareer\n\nGlenn Beck left KC101 to work in talk radio at WFLA in Tampa. Soon after, Burguiere took his job as co-host of the morning show with Vinnie Penn. After a year, he moved to Tampa to produce the Glenn Beck Program, and host The Stu Show Saturdays on WFLA. Burguiere added bits to the Glenn Beck Program, posing as callers such as the Obama advisor \"Honkey Whitesville\", a parody of real-life Obama advisor Jason Furman and \"Wilfred from Sun City, Florida\". Stu generally provided a friendly and calmer counterpoint to Beck. Burguiere and fellow producer Dan Andros and personality Pat Gray hosted after-show shows on Beck's \"Insider\" audio stream. Burguiere also fills in as host for Beck as needed.\n\nBurguiere co-hosted Pat & Stu with Pat Gray, a 2-hour program airing on TheBlaze weekdays at 12:00 Noon ET. He was also the host of The Wonderful World of Stu'', which aired Friday at 8:00 PM ET. In February 2020, he started hosting a comedy/news program, Stu Does America, on Blaze TV, Blaze Radio and podcasts.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \nThe Glenn Beck Program\n\n1976 births\nLiving people\nAmerican radio producers\nBlaze Media people\nPeople from Tarrytown, New York\nAmerican radio writers",
"Joseph Christopher Glenn (March 23, 1938 – October 17, 2006) was an American radio and television news journalist who worked in broadcasting for over 45 years and spent the final 35 years of his career at CBS, retiring in 2006 at the age of 68.\n\nEarly life\nGlenn was born in New York City. He earned a Bachelor's degree in English from the University of Colorado at Boulder. His early years in broadcasting were spent working for the American Forces Network while he served in the United States Army in 1960.\n\nCareer\nGlenn worked at various radio stations in New York, Connecticut, and Washington, D.C. before joining CBS in 1971. While at CBS, Glenn worked in a variety of capacities in its news organization. He was a narrator for In the News, a long-running Emmy Award-winning TV news program geared toward children and young people, which aired between the network's Saturday morning children's shows. Glenn also appeared on camera as an anchor for the short-lived 30 Minutes, a young people's version of 60 Minutes.\n\nHe served as an anchor for two of the CBS Radio Network's signature news roundups carried by affiliates in the United States - The World Tonight (now the CBS World News Roundup Late Edition) from 1988 to 1999, and the morning CBS World News Roundup from 1999 until his retirement. Glenn's final morning broadcast occurred on February 23, 2006.\n\nFrom 1982 to 1984, Glenn served as a television news anchor on CBS News Nightwatch, which aired from 2-6 a.m. weekdays.\n\nGlenn made his best-known report on January 28, 1986, when he anchored CBS News Radio's live coverage of the launch of the Space Shuttle Challenger. Glenn had just signed off—after what was thought to have been a normal launch—when the shuttle disintegrated, killing the seven astronauts on board. \"I had to get back on the air real fast to describe that, and had a very difficult time doing that,\" he recalled. Glenn and correspondent Frank Mottek (now a reporter at CBS Radio station KNX in Los Angeles) covered the Challenger disaster from that point as a CBS NetAlert bulletin.\n\nGlenn was among the first CBS News correspondents to use a personal computer (an Apple II). Glenn continued to play sound clips in his newscasts from carts long after most of the industry had switched to computer-based playback systems.\n\nDeath\nGlenn, who suffered from liver cancer, died suddenly on October 17, 2006 in Norwalk, Connecticut. Glenn was posthumously inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame in Chicago on November 4.\n\nSee also\nCBS World News Roundup\n\nExternal links\n\nGlenn's final CBS World News Roundup broadcast: 2/23/2006\n CBS Radio news bulletin anchored by Christopher Glenn of the Challenger disaster, 1/28/1986: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4\n\nAmerican radio journalists\nAmerican television journalists\nCBS News people\nDeaths from cancer in Connecticut\nDeaths from liver cancer\nPeople from Norwalk, Connecticut\nUniversity of Colorado Boulder alumni\n1938 births\n2006 deaths\nAmerican male journalists\nJournalists from New York City"
] |
[
"Glenn Beck",
"Radio",
"On what radio station did Glenn work at?",
"In 1983 he moved to Corpus Christi, Texas, to work at radio station KZFM."
] | C_d978852d1897400091e5bbbd8041c542_0 | What was his job at KZFM? | 2 | What was Glenn Beck's job at KZFM? | Glenn Beck | In 1983 he moved to Corpus Christi, Texas, to work at radio station KZFM. In mid-1985, Beck was hired away from KZFM to be the lead DJ for the morning-drive radio broadcast by WRKA in Louisville, Kentucky. His four-hour weekday show was called Captain Beck and the A-Team. Beck had a reputation as a "young up-and-comer". The show was not political and included the usual off-color antics of the genre: juvenile jokes, pranks, and impersonations. The show slipped to third in the market and Beck left abruptly in 1987 amid a dispute with WRKA management. Months later, Beck was hired by Phoenix Top-40 station KOY-FM, then known as Y-95. Beck was partnered with Arizona native Tim Hattrick to co-host a local "morning zoo" program. During his time at Y-95, Beck cultivated a rivalry with local pop radio station KZZP and that station's morning host Bruce Kelly. Through practical jokes and publicity stunts, Beck drew criticism from the staff at Y-95 when the rivalry culminated in Beck telephoning Kelly's wife on-the-air, mocking her recent miscarriage. In 1989, Beck resigned from Y-95 to accept a job in Houston at KRBE, known as Power 104. Beck was subsequently fired in 1990 due to poor ratings. Beck then moved on to Baltimore, Maryland, and the city's leading Top-40 station, WBSB, known as B104. There, he partnered with Pat Gray, a morning DJ. During his tenure at B104, Beck was arrested and jailed for speeding in his DeLorean. According to a former associate, Beck was "completely out of it" when a station manager went to bail him out. When Gray, then Beck were fired, the two men spent six months in Baltimore, planning their next move. In early 1992, Beck and Gray both moved to WKCI-FM (KC101), a Top-40 radio station in New Haven, Connecticut. In 1995, WKCI apologized after Beck and Gray mocked a Chinese-American caller on air who felt offended by a comedy segment by playing a gong sound effect and having executive producer Alf Gagineau mock a Chinese accent. That incident led to protests by activist groups. When Gray left the show to move to Salt Lake City, Beck continued with co-host Vinnie Penn. At the end of 1998, Beck was informed that his contract would not be renewed at the end of 1999. The Glenn Beck Program first aired in 2000 on WFLA (AM) in Tampa, and took their afternoon time slot from eighteenth to first place within a year. In January 2002, Premiere Radio Networks launched the show nationwide on 47 stations. The show then moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, broadcasting from new flagship station WPHT. On November 5, 2007, The New York Times reported that Premiere Radio Networks was extending Beck's contract. By May 2008, it had reached over 280 terrestrial stations as well as XM Satellite. It was ranked 4th in the nation with over six and a half million listeners. As of July 2013, Beck was tied for number four in the ratings behind Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Dave Ramsey. CANNOTANSWER | In mid-1985, Beck was hired away from KZFM to be the lead DJ for the morning-drive radio broadcast by WRKA in Louisville, Kentucky. | Glenn Lee Beck (born February 10, 1964) is an American conservative political commentator, conspiracy theorist, radio host, and television producer. He is the CEO, founder, and owner of Mercury Radio Arts, the parent company of his television and radio network TheBlaze. He hosts the Glenn Beck Radio Program, a popular talk-radio show nationally syndicated on Premiere Radio Networks. Beck also hosts the Glenn Beck television program, which ran from January 2006 to October 2008 on HLN, from January 2009 to June 2011 on Fox News and now airs on TheBlaze. Beck has authored six New York Times–bestselling books.
In April 2011, Beck announced that he would "transition off of his daily program" on Fox News, but would continue to team with Fox. Beck's last daily show on the network was June 30, 2011. In 2012, The Hollywood Reporter named Beck on its Digital Power Fifty list. Beck launched TheBlaze in 2011 after leaving Fox News. He currently hosts an hour-long afternoon program, The Glenn Beck Program, on weekdays, and a three-hour morning radio show; both are broadcast on TheBlaze. Beck is also the producer of For the Record on TheBlaze.
During Barack Obama's presidency, Beck promoted many conspiracy theories about Obama, his administration, George Soros, and others.
Early life and education
Beck was born in Everett, Washington, the son of Mary Clara (née Janssen) and William Beck, who lived in Mountlake Terrace, Washington, at the time of their son's birth. The family later moved to Mount Vernon, Washington, where they owned and operated City Bakery in the downtown area. He is descended from German immigrants who came to the United States in the 19th century. Beck was raised as a Roman Catholic and attended Immaculate Conception Catholic School in Mount Vernon.
Glenn and his older sister moved with their mother to Sumner, Washington, attending a Jesuit school in Puyallup. On May 15, 1979, while out on a small boat with a male companion, Beck's mother drowned just west of Tacoma, Washington, in Puget Sound. The man who had taken her out in the boat also drowned. A Tacoma police report stated that Mary Beck "appeared to be a classic drowning victim", but a Coast Guard investigator speculated that she could have intentionally jumped overboard. Beck has described his mother's death as a suicide in interviews during television and radio broadcasts.
After their mother's death, Beck and his older sister moved to their father's home in Bellingham, Washington, where Beck graduated from Sehome High School in June 1982. Beck also regularly vacationed with his maternal grandparents, Ed and Clara Janssen, in Iowa. In the aftermath of his mother's death and subsequent suicide of his stepbrother, Beck has said he used "Dr. Jack Daniel's" to cope. At 18, following his high school graduation, Beck relocated to Provo, Utah, and worked at radio station KAYK. Feeling he "didn't fit in", Beck left Utah after six months, taking a job at Washington, D.C.'s WPGC in February 1983.
Personal life
While working at WPGC, Beck met his first wife, Claire. In 1983, the couple married and had two daughters, Mary and Hannah. Mary developed cerebral palsy as a result of a series of strokes at birth in 1988. The couple divorced in 1994 amid Beck's struggles with substance abuse. He is a recovering alcoholic and drug addict, and has said he has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Beck later admitted that the family problems ranging from the divorce to his substance abuse had a severe negative impact on his children.
By 1994, Beck was suicidal, and he imagined shooting himself to the music of Kurt Cobain. He credits Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) with helping him achieve sobriety. He said he stopped drinking alcohol and smoking cannabis in November 1994, the same month he attended his first AA meeting. Beck later said that he had gotten high every day for the previous 15 years, since the age of 16.
In 1996, while working for a New Haven area radio station, Beck took a theology class at Yale University, with a written recommendation from Senator Joe Lieberman, a Yale alumnus who was a fan of Beck's show at the time. Beck enrolled in an "Early Christology" course, but soon withdrew, marking the extent of his post-secondary education.
Beck then began a "spiritual quest" in which he "sought out answers in churches and bookstores". As he later recounted in his books and stage performances, Beck's first attempt at self-education involved reading the work of six wide-ranging authors, constituting what Beck jokingly calls "the library of a serial killer": Alan Dershowitz, Pope John Paul II, Adolf Hitler, Billy Graham, Carl Sagan, and Friedrich Nietzsche. During this time, Beck's Mormon friend and former radio partner Pat Gray argued in favor of the "comprehensive worldview" offered by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, an offer that Beck rejected until a few years later (Later, after Beck's moving to the New York City area, he had a consultation with Graham, which Beck said touched him strongly).
In 1999, Beck married his second wife, Tania. After they went looking for a faith on a church tour together, they joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in October 1999, partly at the urging of his daughter Mary. Beck was baptized by his old friend, and current-day co-worker Pat Gray. Beck and Tania have had two children together, Raphe (who is adopted) and Cheyenne. Until April 2011, the couple lived in New Canaan, Connecticut, with the four children.
Beck announced in July 2010 that he had been diagnosed with macular dystrophy, saying "A couple of weeks ago I went to the doctor because of my eyes, I can't focus my eyes. He did all kinds of tests and he said, 'you have macular dystrophy ... you could go blind in the next year. Or, you might not. The disorder can make it difficult to read, drive or recognize faces.
In July 2011, Beck leased a house in the Fort Worth suburb of Westlake, Texas. In 2012, he moved his main TV and radio studios to Dallas, Texas.
On November 10, 2014, Beck announced on TheBlaze that he had been suffering from a severe neurological disorder for at least the last five years. He described many strong and debilitating symptoms which made it difficult for him to work, and he also announced that he had "a string of health issues that quite honestly made me look crazy, and quite honestly, I have felt crazy because of them". Beck related that a chiropractor who specializes in "chiropractic neurology", Frederick Carrick, had "diagnosed [him] with several health issues, including an autoimmune disorder, which he didn't name, and adrenal fatigue." Over a period of ten months he had received a series of treatments and felt better. On January 13, 2022, Beck announced that his second case of covid was "getting into my lungs".
Career
In 2002, Beck created the media platform Mercury Radio Arts as the umbrella over his broadcast, publishing, Internet, and live show interests. Beck founded Mercury Radio Arts in 2002, naming it after the Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre, which produced live radio broadcasts during the 1930s. The company produces all of Beck's productions, including his eponymous radio show, books, live stage shows, and his official website.
Radio
In 1983, he moved to Corpus Christi, Texas, to work at radio station KZFM. In mid-1985, Beck was hired away from KZFM to be the lead DJ for the morning-drive radio broadcast by WRKA in Louisville, Kentucky. His four-hour weekday show was called Captain Beck and the A-Team. Beck had a reputation as a "young up-and-comer". The show was not political and included the usual off-color antics of the genre: juvenile jokes, pranks, and impersonations. The show slipped to third in the market and Beck left abruptly in 1987 amid a dispute with WRKA management.
Months later, Beck was hired by Phoenix Top-40 station KOY-FM, then known as Y-95. Beck was partnered with Arizona native Tim Hattrick to co-host a local "morning zoo" program. During his time at Y-95, Beck cultivated a rivalry with local pop radio station KZZP and that station's morning host Bruce Kelly. Through practical jokes and publicity stunts, Beck drew criticism from the staff at Y-95 when the rivalry culminated in Beck telephoning Kelly's wife on-the-air, mocking her recent miscarriage. In 1989, Beck resigned from Y-95 to accept a job in Houston at KRBE, known as Power 104. Beck was subsequently fired in 1990 due to poor ratings.
Beck then moved on to Baltimore, Maryland, and the city's leading Top-40 station, WBSB, known as B104. There, he partnered with Pat Gray, a morning DJ. During his tenure at B104, Beck was arrested and jailed for speeding in his DeLorean. According to a former associate, Beck was "completely out of it" when a station manager went to bail him out. When Gray, then Beck were fired, the two men spent six months in Baltimore, planning their next move. In early 1992, Beck and Gray both moved to WKCI-FM (KC101), a Top-40 radio station in New Haven, Connecticut. In 1995, WKCI apologized after Beck and Gray mocked a Chinese-American caller on air who felt offended by a comedy segment by playing a gong sound effect and having executive producer Alf Gatineau mock a Chinese accent. That incident led to protests by activist groups. When Gray left the show to move to Salt Lake City, Beck continued with co-host Vinnie Penn. At the end of 1998, Beck was informed that his contract would not be renewed at the end of 1999.
The Glenn Beck Program first aired in 2000 on WFLA (AM) in Tampa, and took their afternoon time slot from eighteenth to first place within a year. In January 2002, Premiere Radio Networks launched the show nationwide on 47 stations. The show then moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, broadcasting from new flagship station WPHT. On November 5, 2007, The New York Times reported that Premiere Radio Networks was extending Beck's contract. By May 2008, it had reached over 280 terrestrial stations as well as XM Satellite. It was ranked 4th in the nation with over six and a half million listeners. , Beck was tied for number four in the ratings behind Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Dave Ramsey.
Television
In January 2006, CNN's Headline News announced that Beck would host a nightly news-commentary show in their new prime-time block Headline Prime. The show, simply called Glenn Beck, aired weeknights. CNN Headline News described the show as "an unconventional look at the news of the day featuring his often amusing perspective". At the end of his tenure at CNN-HLN, Beck had the second largest audience behind Nancy Grace. In 2008, Beck won the Marconi Radio Award for Network Syndicated Personality of the Year.
In October 2008, it was announced that Beck would join the Fox News Channel, leaving CNN Headline News. After moving to the Fox News Channel, Beck hosted Glenn Beck, beginning in January 2009, as well as a weekend version. One of his first guests was Alaska Governor Sarah Palin He also had a regular segment every Friday on the Fox News Channel program The O'Reilly Factor titled "At Your Beck and Call". , Beck's program drew more viewers than all three of the competing time-slot shows combined on CNN, MSNBC and HLN.
His show's high ratings did not come without controversy. The Washington Posts Howard Kurtz reported that Beck's use of "distorted or inflammatory rhetoric" had complicated the channel's and their journalists' efforts to neutralize White House criticism that Fox is not really a news organization. Television analyst Andrew Tyndall echoed these sentiments, saying that Beck's incendiary style had created "a real crossroads for Fox News", stating "they're right on the cusp of losing their image as a news organization."
In April 2011, Fox News and Mercury Radio Arts, Beck's production company, announced that Beck would "transition off of his daily program" on Fox News in 2011. His last day at Fox was later announced as June 30. FNC and Beck announced that he would be teaming with Fox to produce a slate of projects for Fox News and its digital properties. Fox News head Roger Ailes later referenced Beck's entrepreneurialism and political movement activism, saying, "His [Beck's] goals were different from our goals ... I need people focused on a daily television show." Beck hosted his last daily show on Fox on June 30, 2011, where he recounted the accomplishments of the show and said, "This show has become a movement. It's not a TV show, and that's why it doesn't belong on television anymore. It belongs in your homes. It belongs in your neighborhoods." In response to critics who said he was fired, Beck pointed out that his final show was airing live. Immediately after the show he did an interview on his new GBTV internet television channel.
TheBlaze TV (formerly GBTV)
Beck's Fox News one-hour show ended June 30, 2011, and a new two-hour show began his television network which started as a subscription-based internet TV network, TheBlaze TV, originally called GBTV, on September 12, 2011. Using a subscription model, it was estimated that Beck is on track to generate $27 million in his first year of operation. This was later upgraded to $40 million by The Wall Street Journal when subscriptions topped 300,000. On September 12, 2012, TheBlaze TV announced that the Dish Network would begin carrying TheBlaze TV. TheBlaze is currently available on over 90 television providers, with eleven of those being in the national top 25.
Books
Mercury Ink has a co-publishing deal with Simon & Schuster and was founded by Glenn Beck in 2011 as the publishing imprint of Mercury Radio Arts. Started in 2011, Mercury Ink publishes adult and young adult novels and non-fiction titles. Including books written by Glenn Beck, authors signed to Mercury Ink include New York Times best seller Richard Paul Evans.
Beck has reached No. 1 on The New York Times Bestseller List in four separate categories : Hardcover Non-Fiction, Paperback Non-Fiction, Hardcover Fiction, and Children's Picture Books.
Beck has a chapter giving advice in Tim Ferriss' book Tools of Titans.
Non Fiction
An Inconvenient Book:Real Solutions to the World's Biggest Problems, .
Glenn Beck's Common Sense:The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government Inspired by Thomas Paine, Threshold Editions, June 16, 2009, .
Arguing With Idiots:How to Stop Small Minds and Big Government, Threshold Editions, September 22, 2009, .
Broke:The Plan to Restore Our Trust, Truth and Treasure Threshold Editions, October 26, 2010, .
The 7:Seven Wonders That Will Change Your Life, co-author Keith Ablow, MD, Threshold Editions, January 4, 2011, .
The Original Argument:The Federalists' Case for the Constitution, Adapted for the 21st Century, Threshold Editions, June 14, 2011, .
Being George Washington:The Indispensable Man, as You've Never Seen Him, Threshold Editions, November 22, 2011, .
Cowards:What Politicians, Radicals, and the Media Refuse to Say, Threshold Editions, June 12, 2012, .
Control:Exposing the Truth About Guns, Threshold Editions, April 30, 2013, .
Miracles and Massacres:True and Untold Stories of the Making of America, Threshold Editions, November 19, 2013, .
Conform:Exposing the Truth About Common Core and Public Education, Threshold Editions, May 6, 2014, .
Dreamers and Deceivers:True Stories of the Heroes and Villains Who Made America, Threshold Editions, August 11, 2015, .
It IS About Islam:Exposing the Truth About ISIS, Al Qaeda, Iran and the Caliphate, Threshold Editions, August 18, 2015, .
Liars:How Progressives Exploit Our Fears For Power and Control Threshold Editions, August 2, 2016, .
Addicted to Outrage:How Thinking Like a Recovering Addict Can Heal the Country, Threshold Editions, September 18, 2018, .
Arguing With Socialist, Threshold Books, April 7, 2020, .
Fiction
The Christmas Sweater, Threshold Editions, November 11, 2008, .
The Overton Window, Threshold Editions, June 15, 2010, .
The Snow Angel, Threshold Editions, October 25, 2011, .
Agenda 21, co-author Harriett Parke, Threshold Editions, November 20, 2012, .
The Eye of Moloch, Threshold Editions, June 11, 2013, .
Agenda 21:Into the Shadows, co-author Harriett Parke, Threshold Editions, January 6, 2015, .
The Immortal Nicholas, Mercury Ink, October 27, 2015, .
Stage shows and speeches
Since 2005, Beck has toured American cities twice a year, presenting a one-man stage show. His stage productions are a mix of stand-up comedy and inspirational speaking. In a critique of his live act, Salon magazine's Steve Almond describes Beck as a "wildly imaginative performer, a man who weds the operatic impulses of the demagogue to the grim mutterings of the conspiracy theorist".
A show from the Beck `08 Unelectable Tour was shown in around 350 movie theaters around the country.
The finale of 2009's Common Sense Comedy Tour was simulcast in over 440 theaters. The events have drawn 200,000 fans in recent years.
In March 2003, Beck ran a series of rallies, which he called Glenn Beck's Rally for America, in support of troops deployed for the upcoming Iraq War. On July 4, 2007, Beck served as host of the 2007 Toyota Tundra "Stadium of Fire" in Provo, Utah. The annual event at LaVell Edwards Stadium on the Brigham Young University campus is presented by America's Freedom Foundation. In May 2008, Beck gave the keynote speech at the NRA convention in Louisville, Kentucky.
In late August 2009, the mayor of Beck's hometown, Mount Vernon, Washington, announced that he would award Beck the Key to the City, designating September 26, 2009, as "Glenn Beck Day". Due to local opposition, the city council voted unanimously to disassociate itself from the award. The key presentation ceremony sold-out the 850 seat McIntyre Hall and an estimated 800 detractors and supporters demonstrated outside the building. Earlier that day, approximately 7,000 people attended the Evergreen Freedom Foundation's "Take the Field with Glenn Beck" at Seattle's Safeco Field.
In December 2009, Beck produced a one-night special film titled "The Christmas Sweater: A Return to Redemption". In January and February 2010, Beck teamed with fellow Fox News host Bill O'Reilly to tour several cities in a live stage show called "The Bold and Fresh Tour 2010". The January 29 show was recorded and broadcast to movie theaters throughout the country.
In July 2013, Beck produced and hosted a one-night stage event called Man in the Moon, held at the USANA Amphitheatre in West Valley City, Utah. The amphitheater sold out all 20,000 of its seats and was released on television and DVD in August 2013. The event was a narrative story told from the point of view of the moon, from the beginnings of the Book of Genesis to the first moon landing. The moon serves as the narrator of the story.
Philanthropy
In 2011, Beck founded the non-profit organization Mercury One, which is designed to sustain itself through its entrepreneurship without the need for grants or donations. In early 2011, Beck began work toward developing a clothing line to be sold to benefit the charity and October 2011, Mercury One began selling the upscale clothing line labeled 1791 exclusively at its website, 1791.com. The clothing in the line's eleven-piece inaugural offering was manufactured by American Mojo of Lowell, Massachusetts.
In July 2014, after tens of thousands of undocumented immigrant children crossed into Texas via the Southern United States border, unaccompanied by parents, Beck announced that he, along with Utah Senator Mike Lee and Texas representative Louie Gohmert, would travel to the U.S.-Mexico border with his charity organization, Mercury One. He stated that they would bring tractor trailers full of food, hot meals, and teddy bears for the unaccompanied minors. While Beck made it clear in interviews that they wanted a full repeal of DACA, Beck also mentioned his belief in the importance of helping these children. "Through no fault of their own, they are caught in political crossfire, and while we continue to put pressure on Washington and change its course of lawlessness, we must also help," Beck said. "It is not either, or. It is both. We have to be active in the political game, and we must open our hearts."
As of 2017, Beck's Nazarene Fund had reportedly relocated 10,524 Christian refugees from northern Iraq and Syria to other host countries, including Australia, the United States, France, Slovakia, Greece, Lebanon, Brazil, and Canada. The fund's website notes 1,646 families have been evacuated from the ISIS ravaged region since its launch in 2014, and 45,000 people have received humanitarian aid as a result of donations to Mercury One.
Projects and rallies
9–12 Project and Tea Party protests
In March 2009, Beck put together a campaign, the 9-12 Project, which is named after nine principles and twelve values that he says embody the spirit of the American people on the day after the September 11 attacks. The Colorado 9–12 Project hosted a "Patriot Camp" for kids in grades 1–5, featuring programs on "our Constitution, the Founding Fathers, and the values and principles that are the cornerstones of our nation".
Restoring Honor rally
The Restoring Honor rally was promoted/hosted by Beck and held at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. on August 28, 2010. The rally—which purported to embrace religious faith and patriotism—was co-sponsored by the Special Operations Warrior Foundation, promoted by FreedomWorks, and supported by the Tea Party movement. Attendance was estimated at 87,000 (± 9,000) based on aerial photos.
"America's First Christmas"
In December 2010, Beck went to Wilmington, Ohio, a town devastated by the late-2000s recession, to host live events to encourage his fans to go to the town to boost the local economy in a project called "America's First Christmas". He hosted an event and his radio and television shows from the local theater.
Restoring Courage 2011 international tour
Beck headlined his "Restoring Courage" events in Jerusalem, Israel, in August 2011 in a campaign Beck said was designed to encourage people worldwide "to stand with the Jewish people". After Jerusalem, Beck visited Cape Town, South Africa, and was scheduled to visit Venezuela.
2012 presidential campaign
Actively supporting Mitt Romney as "perhaps the best-known Mormon after the Republican presidential candidate and a major influence on evangelical Christians, ... Beck has emerged as an unlikely theological bridge between the first Mormon presidential nominee and a critical electorate [evangelicals]", according to a pre-election article in The New York Times. Along with personal campaign appearances in Ohio and Iowa, Beck unusually directly addressed doctrinal issues between Mormons and evangelical Christians—wherein the latter often consider the former a "cult" rather than Christian—on his radio show in September 2012. During the one-hour show in early September, he asked his audience, "Does Mitt Romney's Mormonism make him too scary or weird to be elected president of the United States?" The article concluded by addressing the "fear of making Mormonism mainstream" as a reason Beck could be acceptable to evangelicals and Romney not be, quoting John C. Green, the author of The Faith Factor: How Religion Influences American Elections:
There's a difference between a public figure like Glenn Beck and someone who could be the president of the United States. ... Many evangelicals believe this country was founded by Christian leaders. It is important that the person in the White House be positive about Christianity, if not a devout Christian himself.
Restoring Love rally and "Day of Service"
In August 2012, Beck held a rally at AT&T Stadium in Irving, Texas. The event's theme was service to one's fellow citizens, and loving each other. The event saw a "Day of Service", which saw Mercury One (Beck's charity organization) volunteering to feed homeless and disadvantaged individuals, doing community-building projects, and mowing lawns. The event culminated in a keynote speech presented by Beck imploring the audience to "commit to each other. Go home and wake up your neighbors." In regards to serving fellow Americans, Beck said, "Those who count us out are counting on one weekend of action, one weekend of speeches. One weekend. One day. Please my fellow countrymen, let this be the first of many."
Restoring Unity and Never Again Is Now
In August 2015, Beck and Mercury Radio Arts organized a rally that saw a little over 20,000 people march through the streets of Birmingham, Alabama in a statement of unity and support for the persecuted Christians in Iraq, a cause that Beck's Mercury One charity organization focuses on, and as a call for unity among the American people. After the march, the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex held a rally featuring speakers including Glenn Beck, Ted Cruz, Rafael Cruz, Jon Voight, Alveda King, the niece of Martin Luther King, Jr., and David Barton.
Political views
Beck has described himself as a conservative with libertarian leanings. Among his core values, Beck lists personal responsibility, private charity, the right to life, freedom of religion, limited government, and the family as the cornerstone of society. Beck believes in low national debt, and he has said "A conservative believes that debt creates unhealthy relationships. Everyone, from the government on down, should live within their means and strive for financial independence." He supports individual gun ownership rights, is against gun control legislation, and is a supporter of the NRA and its local state chapters.
Beck rejects the scientific consensus on climate change. Beck contests the evidence, citing personal beliefs, "There is more proof for the resurrection of Jesus than man-made climate change." He also views the American Clean Energy and Security Act as a form of wealth redistribution, and he has promoted a petition rejecting the Kyoto Protocol.
Although opposed to illegal immigration, Beck announced in June and July 2014 that his foundation, Mercury One, would be making efforts to provide food and relief to the large numbers of migrant children. His move was praised by supporters of immigrant rights and freer migration but met with considerable pushback from his supporter base.
On March 18, 2015, Beck officially announced that he had left the Republican Party, saying that the GOP had failed to effectively stand against the president on Obamacare and immigration reform, and because of the GOP establishment's opposition to lawmakers such as Mike Lee and Texas Senator Ted Cruz.
Beck endorsed Cruz in his run for President of the United States in 2016. In October 2016, Beck called opposing Donald Trump a "moral, ethical choice". On the campaign trail in support of Cruz, Beck was quoted as saying "If Donald Trump wins it is going to be a snowball to hell." After Cruz dropped out of the race, Beck endorsed independent Evan McMullin.
On May 18, 2018, on his radio show, Beck predicted Donald Trump would win the 2020 United States presidential election in a "landslide", saying "Here's why I'm predicting a 2020 win. When I saw yesterday how the press was all reporting the same damn story that Donald Trump was calling MS-13 gang members, they left that out of the story, 'animals' they were spinning it as if he was saying that about all immigrants. I had enough. I've had enough ... Gladly, I'll vote for [President Trump] in 2020 and not really even on his record, which we'll talk about here in a second, is pretty damn amazing." Beck went on to say, "I'll vote for him in 2020", and donned a Make America Great Again hat on his television show.
Opposition to progressivism
During his 2010 keynote speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Beck wrote progressivism on a chalkboard and declared, "This is the disease. This is the disease in America", adding that "progressivism is the cancer in America and it is eating our Constitution!" According to Beck, the progressive ideas of men such as John Dewey, Herbert Croly, and Walter Lippmann, influenced the Presidencies of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson; eventually becoming the foundation for President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal. Beck has said that such progressivism infects both main political parties and threatens to "destroy America as it was originally conceived". In Beck's book Common Sense, he argues that "progressivism has less to do with the parties and more to do with individuals who seek to redefine, reshape, and rebuild America into a country where individual liberties and personal property mean nothing if they conflict with the plans and goals of the State."
A collection of progressives, whom Beck has referred to as "Crime Inc.", comprise what Beck contends is a clandestine conspiracy to take over and transform the United States. Some of these individuals include Cass Sunstein, Van Jones, Andy Stern, John Podesta, Wade Rathke, Joel Rogers and Francis Fox Piven. Other figures tied to Beck's "Crime Inc." accusation include Al Gore, Franklin Raines, Maurice Strong, George Soros, John Holdren and President Barack Obama. According to Beck, these individuals already have or are surreptitiously working in unison with an array of organizations and corporations such as Goldman Sachs, Fannie Mae, ACORN, Apollo Alliance, Tides Center, Chicago Climate Exchange, Generation Investment Management, Enterprise Community Partners, Petrobras, Center for American Progress, and the SEIU; to fulfill their progressive agenda. In his quest to root out these "progressives", Beck has compared himself to Israeli Nazi hunters, vowing on his radio show that "to the day I die I am going to be a progressive-hunter. I'm going to find these people that have done this to our country and expose them. I don't care if they're in nursing homes." Beck compared Al Gore to the Nazis while equating the campaign against global warming to the Nazi campaign against the Jews.
Progressive historian Sean Wilentz has denounced what he describes as Beck's progressive-themed conspiracy theories and "gross historical inaccuracies", countering that Beck is merely echoing the decades-old "right-wing extremism" of the John Birch Society. According to Wilentz, Beck's "version of history" places him in a long line of figures who have challenged mainstream political historians and presented an inaccurate opposing view as the truth, stating:
Conservative David Frum, the former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, has also alleged Beck's propensity for negationism, remarking that "Beck offers a story about the American past for people who are feeling right now very angry and alienated. It is different enough from the usual story in that he makes them feel like they've got access to secret knowledge."
In 2020, Beck argued that the election of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders could lead to "another Holocaust."
Barack Obama and the Obama administration
Beck promoted numerous conspiracy theories and falsehoods about President Barack Obama and the Obama administration.
Beck suggested that Obama was building FEMA concentration camps to put opponents in, that Obama was planning to fake a terrorist attack such as the Oklahoma City bombing in order to boost the administration's popularity, and that Obama was the "puppet" of George Soros. He frequently likened Obama and his administration to Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich. Beck falsely claimed that the John Holdren who led the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Obama administration "proposed forcing abortions and putting sterilants in the drinking water to control population."
Beck argued in 2009 that Obama has repeatedly shown "a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture", saying "I'm not saying he doesn't like white people. I'm saying he has a problem. This guy is, I believe, a racist." These remarks drew criticism, and resulted in a boycott which resulted in at least 57 advertisers requesting their ads be removed from his programming. He later apologized for the remarks, telling Fox News Sunday anchor Chris Wallace that he has a "big fat mouth" and miscast as racism what is actually, as he theorizes, Obama's belief in black theology. In November 2012, Beck attempted to auction a mason jar holding an Obama figurine described as being submerged in urine (in fact, submerged in beer). Bidding reached $11,000 before eBay decided to remove the auction and cancel all bids.
In a 2016 interview with The New Yorker, Beck said of his commentary on Obama: "I did a lot of freaking out about Barack Obama." But added, "Obama made me a better man." Beck said that he regrets calling Obama a racist and is a supporter of Black Lives Matter. He said, "There are things unique to the African-American experience that I cannot relate to. I had to listen to them."
Van Jones
In July 2009, Beck began to focus what would become many episodes on his TV and radio shows on Van Jones, special advisor for Green Jobs at Obama's White House Council on Environmental Quality. Beck called Jones, "an avowed, self-avowed, radical revolutionary communist". PolitiFact rated Beck's claim "mostly false", noting that Jones, who has been open about his past as a communist during the early 1990s, had since expressed firmly capitalist beliefs.
Beck also criticized Jones for his involvement in STORM, a Bay Area radical group with Marxist roots, and his support for death row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal, who had been convicted of killing a police officer. Beck spotlighted a video of Jones referring to Republicans as "assholes", and a petition Jones signed suggesting that George W. Bush knowingly let the September 11 attacks happen. Time magazine credited Beck with leading conservatives' attack on Jones.
In a move attributed by The New York Times as a response to the controversies by the White House, which had not seen Jones' position as senior enough to warrant a full vetting, and Jones' decision that "the agenda of this president was bigger than any one individual," Jones resigned his position in September 2009. Jones characterized the attacks from his opponents as a "vicious smear campaign" and an effort to use "lies and distortions to distract and divide".
Cass Sunstein
Cass Sunstein, Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Obama White House, was a frequent target of Glenn Beck's conspiracy theories. Beck led opposition against Sunstein's nomination to the position. Beck described Sunstein as "the most dangerous man in America." Beck suggested that Sunstein was plotting ways to "ban" conspiracy theorizing.
ACORN
In 2009, Beck and other conservative commentators were critical of Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) making multiple claims including voter registration fraud in the 2008 presidential election. In September 2009, he broadcast a series of alleged undercover videos by conservative activists James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles, which portrayed ACORN community organizers offering inappropriate tax and other advice to people who had said they wanted to import "very young" girls from El Salvador to work as child prostitutes. Following the videos' release, the U.S. Census Bureau severed ties with the group while the U.S. House and Senate voted to cut all of its federal funding.
On December 7, 2009, the former Massachusetts Attorney General, after an independent internal investigation of ACORN, found the videos that had been released appeared to have been edited, "in some cases substantially". He found no evidence of criminal conduct by ACORN employees, but concluded that ACORN had poor management practices that contributed to unprofessional actions by a number of its low-level employees. On March 1, 2010, the District Attorney's office for Brooklyn determined that the videos were "heavily edited" and concluded that there was no criminal wrongdoing by the ACORN staff in the videos from the Brooklyn ACORN office. On April 1, 2010, an investigation by the California Attorney General found the videos from Los Angeles, San Diego and San Bernardino to be "heavily edited", and the investigation did not find evidence of criminal conduct on the part of ACORN employees. On June 14, 2010, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) released its findings, which showed that ACORN evidenced no sign that it, or any of its related organizations, mishandled any federal money they had received. In March 2010, ACORN announced it would be closing its offices and disbanding due to loss of funding from government and private donors.
According to a 2010 study in the journal Perspectives on Politics, Beck played a prominent role in media attacks on ACORN.
Satire website
In 2009, lawyers for Beck brought a case (Beck v. Eiland-Hall) against the owner of a satirical website named GlennBeckRapedAndMurderedAYoungGirlIn1990.com with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The claim that the domain name of the website is itself defamatory was described as a first in cyberlaw. Beck's lawyers argued that the site infringed on his trademarked name and that the domain name should be turned over to Beck. The WIPO ruled against Beck, but Eiland-Hall voluntarily transferred the domain to Beck anyway, saying that the First Amendment had been upheld and that he no longer had a use for the domain name.
Jewish Funds for Justice
In January 2011, in protest against what they saw as inappropriate references to the Holocaust and to Nazis by Beck (and by Roger Ailes of Fox News), four hundred rabbis signed an open letter published as a paid advertisement in The Wall Street Journal. The ad was paid for by Jewish Funds for Justice (JFFJ), which had previously called for Beck's firing. The JFFJ have claimed on their website that Beck seems "to draw his material straight from the anti-Semitic forgery, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion". The letter states that Beck and Fox had "diminish[ed] the memory and meaning of the Holocaust when you use it to discredit any individual or organization you disagree with. That is what Fox News has done in recent weeks." In response, a Fox News executive told Reuters the letter was from a "George Soros-backed leftwing political organization".
George Soros conspiracy theories
Beck is a prominent proponent of conspiracy theories about George Soros, a Jewish philanthropist. Beck falsely claimed that Soros as a boy helped to "send the Jews to the death camps." Beck frequently referred to Soros as a puppet-master and repeated the unsubstantiated conspiracy theory that Soros caused the 1997 Asian financial crisis. In 2010, Beck was accused of being anti-Semitic due to his smears against Soros. The Anti-Defamation League said Beck's remarks about Soros sending Jews to the death camps were "horrific" and "totally off-limits."
On February 22, 2011, during a discussion on his radio show about the controversy surrounding his earlier comments about Soros, Beck said "Reform Rabbis are generally political in nature. It's almost like radicalized Islam in a way where it's less about religion than it is about politics." He was quickly criticized by other conservatives, rabbis, and others. The Anti-Defamation League labeled Beck's remarks "bigoted ignorance". On February 24, Beck apologized on air, agreeing that his comments were "ignorant".
In 2016, Beck, a friend of actor and director Mel Gibson claimed he and Gibson shared a conversation in which Gibson claimed Jewish people had stolen a copy of The Passion of the Christ before its official theatrical release, and that Jewish people were assaulting him in the streets.
2011 Norway attacks
Beck condemned the 2011 Norway attacks, but was condemned for his comparison of murdered and surviving members of the Norwegian Workers' Youth League to the Hitler Youth. He said, "There was a shooting at a political camp which sounds a little like, you know, the Hitler Youth or whatever, you know what I mean. Who does a camp for kids that's all about politics? Disturbing." The statement was ill-received in Norway, prompting political commentator and Labour party member Frank Aarebrot to label Beck as a "vulgar propagandist", a "swine" and a "fascist", and Torbjørn Eriksen, former press secretary to Norway's prime minister Jens Stoltenberg, to describe Beck's comment as "a new low", adding that "Glenn Beck's comments are ignorant, incorrect and extremely hurtful". Commentators pointed out that groups affiliated with the Tea Party movement and the Beck-founded 9–12 Project also sponsor politically oriented camp programs for children.
Trump comments and 2016 SIRIUS XM Suspension
Beck opposed Donald Trump during his 2016 campaign for president, comparing him to Adolf Hitler and describing him as "an immoral man who is absent decency or dignity."
Sirius XM suspended Beck on May 31, 2016, for remarks made during an interview a week earlier. During an interview with author Brad Thor about a hypothetical situation where Trump was abusing his power as president and Congress was unable to stop him, Thor asked "what patriot will step up and [assassinate him] if, if, he oversteps his mandate as president?" Thor and the show's general manager both denied that the comments were a call for his assassination. Beck's radio show was moved from the SIRIUS XM Patriot channel to the Triumph channel soon after.
Beck's opposition to Trump did not sit well with many Trump supporters and hurt his businesses and viewership. On May 18, 2018, Beck stated on his radio program that he intended to vote for Trump in the 2020 presidential election, calling Trump's record "pretty damn amazing". Beck said Trump's defeat in the 2020 election would be "the end of the country as we know it."
Influences
Political and historical
An author with ideological influence on Beck is W. Cleon Skousen (1913–2006), a prolific conservative political writer, American constitutionalist and faith based political theorist. As an anti-communist supporter of the John Birch Society, and a limited-government activist, Skousen, who was Mormon, wrote on a wide range of subjects: the Six-Day War, Mormon eschatology, New World Order conspiracies, even parenting. Skousen believed that American political, social, and economic elites were working with communists to foist a world government on the United States. Beck praised Skousen's "words of wisdom" as "divinely inspired", referencing Skousen's The Naked Communist and especially The 5,000 Year Leap (originally published in 1981), which Beck said in 2007 had "changed his life". According to Skousen's nephew, Mark Skousen, Leap reflects Skousen's "passion for the United States Constitution", which he "felt was inspired by God and the reason behind America's success as a nation". The book is recommended by Beck as "required reading" to understand the current American political landscape and become a "September twelfth person". Beck authored a foreword for the 2008 edition of Leap and Beck's on-air recommendations in 2009 propelled the book to number one in the government category on Amazon for several months. In 2010, Matthew Continetti of the conservative Weekly Standard criticized Beck's conspiratorial bent, terming him "a Skousenite". Additionally, Alexander Zaitchik, author of the 2010 book Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance, which features an entire chapter on "The Ghost of Cleon Skousen", refers to Skousen as "Beck's favorite author and biggest influence", while observing he authored four of the 10 books on Beck's 9-12 Project required-reading list.
In his discussion of Beck and Skousen, Continetti said that one of Skousen's works "draws on Carroll Quigley's Tragedy and Hope (1966), which argues that the history of the 20th century is the product of secret societies in conflict". He observed in Beck's novel, The Overton Window (which Beck describes as "faction", or fiction based on fact), a character states: "Carroll Quigley laid open the plan in Tragedy and Hope, the only hope to avoid the tragedy of war was to bind together the economies of the world to foster global stability and peace."
Glenn Beck's viewpoint about early 20th century progressivism is greatly influenced by Ronald J. Pestritto, who teaches at Hillsdale College. The portal page on the GlennBeck.com web site for "American Progressivism" uses Pestritto's teachings and links directly to one of his books. Pestritto wrote an article for The Wall Street Journal detailing "Glenn Beck, Progressives and Me". The New York Times observed when Beck was on his Fox News show, Pestritto was a regular guest.
Princeton University historian Sean Wilentz says that alongside Skousen, Robert W. Welch, Jr., founder of the John Birch Society, is a key ideological foundation of Beck's worldview. According to Wilentz: "[Beck] has brought neo-Birchite ideas to an audience beyond any that Welch or Skousen might have dreamed of."
Other books that Beck regularly cites on his programs are Amity Shlaes's The Forgotten Man, Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism, Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen's A Patriot's History of the United States, and Burton W. Folsom, Jr.'s New Deal or Raw Deal. Beck has also urged his listeners to read The Coming Insurrection, a book by a French Marxist group discussing what they see as the imminent collapse of capitalist culture, and The Creature from Jekyll Island, which argues that aspects of the U.S. Federal Reserve system assault economic civil liberties, by conspiracy theorist G. Edward Griffin.
On June 4, 2010, Beck endorsed Elizabeth Dilling's 1936 work The Red Network: A Who's Who and Handbook of Radicalism for Patriots, remarking "this is a book, The Red Network, this came in from 1936. People – [Joseph] McCarthy was absolutely right ... This is, who were the communists in America." Beck was criticized by an array of people, including Menachem Z. Rosensaft and Joe Conason, who stated that Dilling was an outspoken anti-Semite and a Nazi sympathizer.
Religious
Beck has credited God for saving him from drug and alcohol abuse, professional obscurity, and friendlessness. In 2006, Beck performed a short inspirational monologue in Salt Lake City, Utah, detailing how he was transformed by the "healing power of Jesus Christ", which was released as a CD two years later by Deseret Book, a publishing company owned by the LDS Church, entitled An Unlikely Mormon: The Conversion Story of Glenn Beck.
Writer Joanna Brooks contends that Beck developed his "amalgamation of anti-communism" and "connect-the-dots conspiracy theorizing" only after his entry into the "deeply insular world of Mormon thought and culture". Brooks theorizes that Beck's calls to fasting and prayer are rooted in Mormon collective fasts to address spiritual challenges, while Beck's "overt sentimentality" and penchant for weeping represent the hallmark of a "distinctly Mormon mode of masculinity" where "appropriately-timed displays of tender emotion are displays of power" and spirituality. Philip Barlow, the Arrington chair of Mormon history and culture at Utah State University, has said that Beck's belief that the U.S. Constitution was an "inspired document", his calls for limited government and not exiling God from the public sphere, "have considerable sympathy in Mormonism". Beck has acknowledged that Mormon "doctrine is different" from traditional Christianity, but he said that this was what attracted him to it, stating that "for me some of the things in traditional doctrine just doesn't work."
Public reception
In 2009, Beck's show was one of the highest rated news commentary programs on cable TV. For a Barbara Walters ABC special, Beck was selected as one of America's "Top 10 Most Fascinating People" of 2009. In 2010, Beck was selected for Time'''s top 100 most influential people under the "Leaders" category.
Beck has referred to himself as an entertainer, a commentator rather than a reporter, and a "rodeo clown". He has said that he identifies with Howard Beale, a character portrayed by Peter Finch in the film Network: "When he came out of the rain and he was like, none of this makes any sense. I am that guy."Time magazine described Beck as "the new populist superstar of Fox News" saying it is easier to see a set of attitudes rather than a specific ideology, noting his criticism of Wall Street, yet defending bonuses to AIG, as well as denouncing conspiracy theories about the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) but warning against indoctrination of children by the AmeriCorps program." (Paul Krugman and Mark Potok, on the other hand, have been among those asserting that Beck helps spread "hate" by covering issues that stir up extremists.) What seems to unite Beck's disparate themes, Time argued, is a sense of siege. An earlier cover story in Time described Beck as "a gifted storyteller with a knack for stitching seemingly unrelated data points into possible conspiracies", proclaiming that he has "emerged as a virtuoso on the strings" of conservative discontent by mining "the timeless theme of the corrupt Them thwarting a virtuous Us".
Beck's shows have been described as a "mix of moral lessons, outrage and an apocalyptic view of the future ... capturing the feelings of an alienated class of Americans". One of Beck's Fox News Channel colleagues Shepard Smith, has jokingly called Beck's studio the "fear chamber", with Beck countering that he preferred the term "doom room".
Republican South Carolina U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham criticized Beck as a "cynic" whose show was antithetical to "American values" at The Atlantic's 2009 First Draft of History conference, remarking "Only in America can you make that much money crying." The progressive watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting's (FAIR) Activism Director, Peter Hart, argues that Beck red-baits political adversaries and promotes a paranoid view of progressive politics. Howard Kurtz, of The Washington Post, has remarked that "Love him or hate him, Beck is a talented, often funny broadcaster, a recovering alcoholic with an unabashedly emotional style."
Laura Miller writes in Salon that Beck is a contemporary example of "the paranoid style in American politics" described by historian Richard Hofstader:
Beck has acknowledged accusations of being a conspiracy theorist, stating on his show that there is a "concentrated effort now to label me a conspiracy theorist".
Particularly as a consequence of Beck's Restoring Honor rally in 2010, the fact that Beck is Mormon caused concern amongst some politically sympathetic Christian Evangelicals on theological grounds.Posner, Sarah, Evangelicals have "Deep Concerns" about Beck, Religion Dispatches, September 1, 2010"Does it Matter that Glenn Beck is a Mormon?", The Week, Yahoo!, August 31, 2010 Tom Tradup, vice president at Salem Radio Network, which serves more than 2,000 Christian-themed stations, expressed this sentiment after the rally, stating "Politically, everyone is with it, but theologically, when he says the country should turn back to God, the question is: Which God?" Subsequently, a September 2010 survey conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) and Religion News Service (RNS) found that of those Americans who hold a favorable opinion of Beck, only 45% believe he is the right person to lead a religious movement, with that number further declining to 37% when people are informed he is Mormon. Daniel Cox, director of research for PRRI, summed up this position by stating:
Pete Peterson of Pepperdine's Davenport Institute said that Beck's speech at the rally belonged to an American tradition of calls to personal renewal. Peterson wrote: "A Mormon surrounded onstage by priests, pastors, rabbis, and imams, Beck [gave] one of the more ecumenical jeremiads in history." Evangelical pastor Tony Campolo said in 2010 that conservative evangelicals respond to Beck's framing of conservative economic principles, saying that Beck's and ideological fellow travelers' "marriage between evangelicalism and patriotic nationalism is so strong that anybody who is raising questions about loyalty to the old, lassez-faire capitalist system is ex-post facto unpatriotic, un-American, and by association non-Christian." Newsweek religion reporter Lisa Miller, after quoting Campolo, opined, "It's ironic that Beck, a Mormon, would gain acceptance as a leader of a new Christian coalition. ... Beck's gift ... is to articulate God's special plan for America in such broad strokes that they trample no single creed or doctrine while they move millions with their message."
Critical biographies
In June 2010, investigative reporter Alexander Zaitchik released a critical biography titled Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance, with a title mocking Beck's work, Common Sense. In an interview about the book, Zaitchik theorized, "Beck's politics and his insatiable hunger for money and fame are not mutually exclusive", while stating:
In September 2010, Philadelphia Daily News reporter Will Bunch released The Backlash: Right-Wing Radicals, High-Def Hucksters, and Paranoid Politics in the Age of Obama. One of Bunch's theses is that Beck is nothing more than a morning zoo deejay playing a fictional character as a money-making stunt. Writer Bob Cesca, in a review of Bunch's book, compares Beck to Steve Martin's faith-healer character in the 1992 film Leap of Faith, before describing the "derivative grab bag of other tried and tested personalities" that Bunch contends comprises Beck's persona:
In October 2010 a polemical biography by Dana Milbank was released: Tears of a Clown: Glenn Beck and the Tea Bagging of America.
Satire, spoof and parody
Beck has been the subject of mockery and ridicule by a number of humorists. In response to Beck's animated delivery and views, he was parodied in an impersonation by Jason Sudeikis on Saturday Night Live. The Daily Shows Jon Stewart has spoofed Beck's 9–12 project with his own "11-3 project", consisting of "11 principles and 3 herbs and spices", impersonated Beck's chalk board-related presentation style for an entire show, and quipped about Beck "finally, a guy who says what people who aren't thinking are thinking". Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report satirized Beck's "war room" by creating his own "doom bunker". Through the character Eric Cartman, South Park parodied Beck's television program and his commentary style in the episode "Dances with Smurfs". The Onion, a satirical periodical and faux news site, ran an Onion News Network video "special report" where it lamented that the "victim in a fatal car accident was tragically not Glenn Beck". Meanwhile, the Current TV cartoon SuperNews! ran an animated cartoon feature titled "The Glenn Beck Apocalypse", where Beck is confronted by Jesus Christ who rebukes him as the equivalent of "Sarah Palin farting into a balloon". Political comedian and satirist Bill Maher has mocked Beck's followers as an "army of diabetic mallwalkers", while The Buffalo Beast, named Beck the most loathsome person in America in 2010, declaring "It's like someone found a manic, doom-prophesying hobo in a sandwich board, shaved him, shot him full of Zoloft and gave him a show." The October 30, 2010 Rally To Restore Sanity and/or Fear in Washington, hosted by Comedy Central personalities Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, was conceived as a parody of Beck's earlier Rally to Restore Honor, even though Stewart and Colbert said that they came up with the idea of holding a rally in March and Stewart had put down the deposit for the National Mall before Beck announced his rally.
Defamation lawsuit and settlement
In March 2014, Abdulrahman Alharbi filed suit for defamation in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts against Beck and his business entities, The Blaze and Mercury Radio Arts, along with his distributor Premiere Radio Networks. Alharbi's defamation claim arose from Beck's repeated broadcasts "identifying Alharbi as an active participant" in the Boston Marathon bombing, even after federal authorities cleared Alharbi, who was injured in the attack, of any wrongdoing and confirmed that he was an innocent victim.Josh Gerstein, Glenn Beck reaches settlement with Saudi student over Boston Marathon accusations, Politico (September 13, 2016). In December 2014, the judge rejected Beck's attempt to have the case dismissed. In September 2016, the suit was settled on confidential terms.
See also
Beck University
Conservative talk radio
List of most-listened-to radio programs
Works
Non-fiction
(Audiobook).
An Unlikely Mormon: The Conversion Story of Glenn Beck, Deseret Book 2008 (Audiobook). .
Arguing with Idiots: How to Stop Small Minds and Big Government, Simon & Schuster 2009. .
Glenn Beck's Common Sense: The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government, Simon & Schuster 2009. .Best Sellers: Paperback Nonfiction, The New York Times, October 9, 2009
America's March to Socialism: Why We're One Step Closer to Giant Missile Parades, Simon & Schuster Audio 2009 (Audio CD). .
Idiots Unplugged, Simon & Schuster 2010 (Audio CD). .
Broke: The Plan to Restore Our Trust, Truth, and Treasure, Simon & Schuster 2010. .
The 7: Seven Wonders That Will Change Your Life, Keith Ablow, co-author; Threshold Editions, 2011; .
The Original Argument: The Federalists' Case for the Constitution, Adapted for the 21st Century, with Joshua Charles; Threshold Editions, 2011; .
Liars: How Progressives Exploit Our Fears for Power and Control, Threshold Editions August 2, 2016.
Addicted to Outrage: How Thinking Like a Recovering Addict Can Heal the Country, Threshold Editions September 18, 2018.
The Great Reset: Joe Biden and the Rise of Twenty-First-Century Fascism, Justin Haskins, co-author; Forefront Books, 2021; .
Control Series
Fiction
The Christmas Sweater, Simon & Schuster 2008. .
The Overton Window, Threshold Editions June 2010.
The Eye of Moloch, Threshold Editions June 2013.
Agenda 21: Into the Shadows, Threshold Editions January 2015.
The Immortal Nicholas, Mercury Ink October 2015.
Children's
The Christmas Sweater: A Picture Book, Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing 2009. .
Beck authorized a comic book:
Political Power: Glenn Beck'', by Jerome Maida, Mark Sparacio (illus.); Bluewater Productions, 2011
References
External links
Glenn Beck – The 912 Project
1964 births
Living people
20th-century American male writers
21st-century American male writers
American Christian Zionists
American conspiracy theorists
American entertainment industry businesspeople
Latter Day Saints from Washington (state)
American anti-communists
American libertarians
American magazine founders
American people of German descent
American political commentators
American political writers
American television talk show hosts
Christian libertarians
Blaze Media people
American conservative talk radio hosts
Converts to Mormonism from Roman Catholicism
Former Roman Catholics
Fox News people
Male critics of feminism
People from Everett, Washington
People from Westlake, Texas
Radio personalities from Phoenix, Arizona
Radio personalities from Tampa, Florida
Tea Party movement activists
Texas Independents
Washington (state) Republicans
Writers from Bellingham, Washington
Latter Day Saints from Texas
20th-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American non-fiction writers
American male non-fiction writers | true | [
"KZFM (Hot Z95) is a Corpus Christi, Texas, United States-based radio station with a Rhythmic Top 40 musical format. It is owned by Malkan Interactive Communications, LLC, and broadcasts on a frequency of 95.5 MHz with an effective radiated power of 100,000 watts. KZFM was once home to radio personality Glenn Beck. The station's studios and offices are located on Leopard Street just west of downtown Corpus Christi, and its transmitter tower is located south of the city in unincorporated Nueces County.\n\nHistory\nThe Coastal Bend got its first FM radio station on June 12, 1954, when KCCT-FM began broadcasting. Prior to its establishment, the nearest FM station was at San Antonio. Originally broadcasting from studios on Staples Street and an antenna on the KVDO-TV tower, the station broadcast classical and semi-classical music, but it was on the air less than a month, reverting to simulcasting the Spanish-language programming of its AM counterpart, KCCT (1150 AM).\n\nKCCT sold the FM outlet in 1957 to Master Music, Inc., which programmed a \"good music\" format and added a subcarrier channel to broadcast background music to stores and offices. The call letters were changed to KDMC on June 24 and again to KMFM in 1960, in the same year that the station increased its effective radiated power to 10,000 watts.\n\nOn May 14, 1964, the station became known as KZFM. Later that year, financial problems prompted Master to take the station silent and put it up for sale. Gulf Business Music, Inc., a consortium primarily owned by the Balthrope family, bought KZFM for $104,250. The Balthropes returned KZFM to the air on December 8 from a new tower atop the 600 Building. Effective radiated power was raised twice in two years, first to 17,500 and then to 41,000 watts.\n\nTexas broadcaster Dudley Waller bought KZFM in 1969 for $50,000. The next year, the station flipped to Top 40. Waller would sell KZFM in 1973 to Texas Media Group. Syndicated talk show host Glenn Beck was the program director/morning show host from 1983 to 1985; he was then hired away by WRKA in Louisville, Kentucky.\n\nKZFM would evolve into a rhythmic direction in the late 1990s. KZFM was voted Radio & Records \"Radio Station of the Year\" for 5 years in a row during the mid-2000s.\n\nIn 2010, while under new management, then-Malkan Broadcasting decided that in an effort to better the company as a whole, would demonstrate a series of changes to its programming operations. This decision resulted in multiple changes to the on-air line ups, including multiple terminations from KZFM, and both of its sister stations, KKBA-FM, and KEYS-AM (which was the hardest hit by the changes due to its lack of authoritative ratings). The changes also brought in multiple, new on-air talents to the radio station. A full talent line up for KZFM can be found at http://www.hotz95.com.\n\nDiscrimination lawsuit\nOn November 12, 2014, as a result of trial by jury, Malkan Interactive Communications was found guilty of discrimination against a number of former employees. Under the verdict, Malkan Interactive Communications, LLC allowed former, non-Hispanic, employees to operate against their agreed non-compete clause while maintaining strict control over other former employees, of whom are Hispanic. The non-compete clause is signed by all employees upon being accepted by management after an initial interview has been completed. The clause is maintained during, and for six months post-employment. It mandates that the employee, current or former, refrain from obtaining employment with other commercial radio and television broadcast entities within the same operating arena, or the same radio and television broadcast market regulated by the Federal Communications Commission.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nKZFM official website\n\nZFM\nRhythmic contemporary radio stations in the United States\nRadio stations established in 1954",
"Gold 104.3 (call sign: 3KKZ) is a radio station broadcasting in Melbourne, Australia. Gold 104.3 is part of the Pure Gold Network (which itself is a part of the Australian Radio Network) and broadcasts on the 104.3 MHz frequency.\n\nHistory\n\n3KZ \n3KZ commenced operations on 8 December 1930. The radio station was initiated by the Industrial Printing and Publicity Group as a means of spreading its message, and in the station's early years, it was broadcast from the Victorian Trades Hall.\n\nIts original frequency was 1350 kHz, moving to 1180 kHz on 1 September 1935. The frequency changed again on 23 November 1978 to 1179 kHz when all Australian AM radio stations were assigned new frequencies as part of the new 9 kHz spacing plan implemented.\n\n3KZ was, along with 3DB, one of the \"old guard\" of Melbourne radio. (Don't Touch That Dial by Wayne Mac) In 1989, 3KZ was one of two successful bidders to convert to the FM band. 3KZ bid A$32 million for the right to convert to the FM band, the highest bid made for FM conversion in Australia. The second highest bid – A$20.1 million – was from radio 3AK (then operated by Bond Media), and the 3rd highest – A$10 million – was from 3TT.\n\nKZFM \nAs a result, 3KZ moved to 104.3 MHz at 12:00 am on 1 January 1990. The station relaunched as KZFM, despite the station's official call sign of 3KKZ, carrying over its successful \"Hits And Memories\" positioner, with some changes to presentation style. KZFM was simulcasted on both 1179 kHz and 104.3 MHz frequencies for one month before the old AM frequency was closed down, to be later reassigned (after 12 months) to 3RPH.\n\nThe KZ switch to FM paid immediate short term dividends, as the new KZFM debuted at number one in the first ratings survey of 1990, breaking an almost three-year dominance by rival Fox FM. However KZFM's success was short-lived, with ratings soon taking a dive and the station going into receivership in 1993. Radio network Austereo soon purchased the station to supplement its popular Fox FM, however after lack of direction from its new parent company, and severe staff reductions, removal of its news room, and other cost cutting measured at KZFM, ownership of which shortly changed to the Australian Radio Network, which was already operating rival radio station 101.1 TT-FM.\n\nGold 104.3 \n\nOn 7 October 1991, the KZFM branding was replaced with a new name of Gold 104 with a revamped playlist predominantly of hit songs from the 1960s and 1970s, under the banner \"Good Times, Great Oldies\". After the change in ownership with the Australian Radio Network, Gold became stable enough to re-build its market position, and return much of its heritage style from its days as 3KZ to the on-air presentation of the station. The original Gold 104 presenters were Shawn Cosgrove, Liz Sullivan, Gavin Wood, Craig Huggins, Bruce Neels, and Phil Baildon.\n\nGold 104.3 and sister station KIIS 101.1 broadcast from shared facilities, in the Pelaco Building in the Melbourne suburb of Richmond. Since the mid 2000s, the station has gradually shifted to a more contemporary format that now predominantly focuses on hits from the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s.\n\nThe current presenters include Christian O'Connell, Craig Huggins, Toni Tenaglia and Dave ‘Higgo’ Higgins.\n\nBreakfast shows since 1999\n Apr 1999 – Dec 2011 – Grubby & Dee Dee for Breakfast\n Jan 2012 – Dec 2015 – Brig & Lehmo for Breakfast\n Jan 2016 – Dec 2017 – Jo & Lehmo for Breakfast\n Jun 2018–present – The Christian O'Connell Show\n\nSee also\n Radio Times\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nGold 104.3\n\nAustralian Radio Network\nClassic hits radio stations in Australia\n3KZ\nGold 104.3\nRadio stations in Melbourne"
] |
[
"Glenn Beck",
"Radio",
"On what radio station did Glenn work at?",
"In 1983 he moved to Corpus Christi, Texas, to work at radio station KZFM.",
"What was his job at KZFM?",
"In mid-1985, Beck was hired away from KZFM to be the lead DJ for the morning-drive radio broadcast by WRKA in Louisville, Kentucky."
] | C_d978852d1897400091e5bbbd8041c542_0 | Did he enjoy his job at WRKA? | 3 | Did Glenn Beck enjoy his job at WRKA? | Glenn Beck | In 1983 he moved to Corpus Christi, Texas, to work at radio station KZFM. In mid-1985, Beck was hired away from KZFM to be the lead DJ for the morning-drive radio broadcast by WRKA in Louisville, Kentucky. His four-hour weekday show was called Captain Beck and the A-Team. Beck had a reputation as a "young up-and-comer". The show was not political and included the usual off-color antics of the genre: juvenile jokes, pranks, and impersonations. The show slipped to third in the market and Beck left abruptly in 1987 amid a dispute with WRKA management. Months later, Beck was hired by Phoenix Top-40 station KOY-FM, then known as Y-95. Beck was partnered with Arizona native Tim Hattrick to co-host a local "morning zoo" program. During his time at Y-95, Beck cultivated a rivalry with local pop radio station KZZP and that station's morning host Bruce Kelly. Through practical jokes and publicity stunts, Beck drew criticism from the staff at Y-95 when the rivalry culminated in Beck telephoning Kelly's wife on-the-air, mocking her recent miscarriage. In 1989, Beck resigned from Y-95 to accept a job in Houston at KRBE, known as Power 104. Beck was subsequently fired in 1990 due to poor ratings. Beck then moved on to Baltimore, Maryland, and the city's leading Top-40 station, WBSB, known as B104. There, he partnered with Pat Gray, a morning DJ. During his tenure at B104, Beck was arrested and jailed for speeding in his DeLorean. According to a former associate, Beck was "completely out of it" when a station manager went to bail him out. When Gray, then Beck were fired, the two men spent six months in Baltimore, planning their next move. In early 1992, Beck and Gray both moved to WKCI-FM (KC101), a Top-40 radio station in New Haven, Connecticut. In 1995, WKCI apologized after Beck and Gray mocked a Chinese-American caller on air who felt offended by a comedy segment by playing a gong sound effect and having executive producer Alf Gagineau mock a Chinese accent. That incident led to protests by activist groups. When Gray left the show to move to Salt Lake City, Beck continued with co-host Vinnie Penn. At the end of 1998, Beck was informed that his contract would not be renewed at the end of 1999. The Glenn Beck Program first aired in 2000 on WFLA (AM) in Tampa, and took their afternoon time slot from eighteenth to first place within a year. In January 2002, Premiere Radio Networks launched the show nationwide on 47 stations. The show then moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, broadcasting from new flagship station WPHT. On November 5, 2007, The New York Times reported that Premiere Radio Networks was extending Beck's contract. By May 2008, it had reached over 280 terrestrial stations as well as XM Satellite. It was ranked 4th in the nation with over six and a half million listeners. As of July 2013, Beck was tied for number four in the ratings behind Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Dave Ramsey. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Glenn Lee Beck (born February 10, 1964) is an American conservative political commentator, conspiracy theorist, radio host, and television producer. He is the CEO, founder, and owner of Mercury Radio Arts, the parent company of his television and radio network TheBlaze. He hosts the Glenn Beck Radio Program, a popular talk-radio show nationally syndicated on Premiere Radio Networks. Beck also hosts the Glenn Beck television program, which ran from January 2006 to October 2008 on HLN, from January 2009 to June 2011 on Fox News and now airs on TheBlaze. Beck has authored six New York Times–bestselling books.
In April 2011, Beck announced that he would "transition off of his daily program" on Fox News, but would continue to team with Fox. Beck's last daily show on the network was June 30, 2011. In 2012, The Hollywood Reporter named Beck on its Digital Power Fifty list. Beck launched TheBlaze in 2011 after leaving Fox News. He currently hosts an hour-long afternoon program, The Glenn Beck Program, on weekdays, and a three-hour morning radio show; both are broadcast on TheBlaze. Beck is also the producer of For the Record on TheBlaze.
During Barack Obama's presidency, Beck promoted many conspiracy theories about Obama, his administration, George Soros, and others.
Early life and education
Beck was born in Everett, Washington, the son of Mary Clara (née Janssen) and William Beck, who lived in Mountlake Terrace, Washington, at the time of their son's birth. The family later moved to Mount Vernon, Washington, where they owned and operated City Bakery in the downtown area. He is descended from German immigrants who came to the United States in the 19th century. Beck was raised as a Roman Catholic and attended Immaculate Conception Catholic School in Mount Vernon.
Glenn and his older sister moved with their mother to Sumner, Washington, attending a Jesuit school in Puyallup. On May 15, 1979, while out on a small boat with a male companion, Beck's mother drowned just west of Tacoma, Washington, in Puget Sound. The man who had taken her out in the boat also drowned. A Tacoma police report stated that Mary Beck "appeared to be a classic drowning victim", but a Coast Guard investigator speculated that she could have intentionally jumped overboard. Beck has described his mother's death as a suicide in interviews during television and radio broadcasts.
After their mother's death, Beck and his older sister moved to their father's home in Bellingham, Washington, where Beck graduated from Sehome High School in June 1982. Beck also regularly vacationed with his maternal grandparents, Ed and Clara Janssen, in Iowa. In the aftermath of his mother's death and subsequent suicide of his stepbrother, Beck has said he used "Dr. Jack Daniel's" to cope. At 18, following his high school graduation, Beck relocated to Provo, Utah, and worked at radio station KAYK. Feeling he "didn't fit in", Beck left Utah after six months, taking a job at Washington, D.C.'s WPGC in February 1983.
Personal life
While working at WPGC, Beck met his first wife, Claire. In 1983, the couple married and had two daughters, Mary and Hannah. Mary developed cerebral palsy as a result of a series of strokes at birth in 1988. The couple divorced in 1994 amid Beck's struggles with substance abuse. He is a recovering alcoholic and drug addict, and has said he has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Beck later admitted that the family problems ranging from the divorce to his substance abuse had a severe negative impact on his children.
By 1994, Beck was suicidal, and he imagined shooting himself to the music of Kurt Cobain. He credits Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) with helping him achieve sobriety. He said he stopped drinking alcohol and smoking cannabis in November 1994, the same month he attended his first AA meeting. Beck later said that he had gotten high every day for the previous 15 years, since the age of 16.
In 1996, while working for a New Haven area radio station, Beck took a theology class at Yale University, with a written recommendation from Senator Joe Lieberman, a Yale alumnus who was a fan of Beck's show at the time. Beck enrolled in an "Early Christology" course, but soon withdrew, marking the extent of his post-secondary education.
Beck then began a "spiritual quest" in which he "sought out answers in churches and bookstores". As he later recounted in his books and stage performances, Beck's first attempt at self-education involved reading the work of six wide-ranging authors, constituting what Beck jokingly calls "the library of a serial killer": Alan Dershowitz, Pope John Paul II, Adolf Hitler, Billy Graham, Carl Sagan, and Friedrich Nietzsche. During this time, Beck's Mormon friend and former radio partner Pat Gray argued in favor of the "comprehensive worldview" offered by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, an offer that Beck rejected until a few years later (Later, after Beck's moving to the New York City area, he had a consultation with Graham, which Beck said touched him strongly).
In 1999, Beck married his second wife, Tania. After they went looking for a faith on a church tour together, they joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in October 1999, partly at the urging of his daughter Mary. Beck was baptized by his old friend, and current-day co-worker Pat Gray. Beck and Tania have had two children together, Raphe (who is adopted) and Cheyenne. Until April 2011, the couple lived in New Canaan, Connecticut, with the four children.
Beck announced in July 2010 that he had been diagnosed with macular dystrophy, saying "A couple of weeks ago I went to the doctor because of my eyes, I can't focus my eyes. He did all kinds of tests and he said, 'you have macular dystrophy ... you could go blind in the next year. Or, you might not. The disorder can make it difficult to read, drive or recognize faces.
In July 2011, Beck leased a house in the Fort Worth suburb of Westlake, Texas. In 2012, he moved his main TV and radio studios to Dallas, Texas.
On November 10, 2014, Beck announced on TheBlaze that he had been suffering from a severe neurological disorder for at least the last five years. He described many strong and debilitating symptoms which made it difficult for him to work, and he also announced that he had "a string of health issues that quite honestly made me look crazy, and quite honestly, I have felt crazy because of them". Beck related that a chiropractor who specializes in "chiropractic neurology", Frederick Carrick, had "diagnosed [him] with several health issues, including an autoimmune disorder, which he didn't name, and adrenal fatigue." Over a period of ten months he had received a series of treatments and felt better. On January 13, 2022, Beck announced that his second case of covid was "getting into my lungs".
Career
In 2002, Beck created the media platform Mercury Radio Arts as the umbrella over his broadcast, publishing, Internet, and live show interests. Beck founded Mercury Radio Arts in 2002, naming it after the Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre, which produced live radio broadcasts during the 1930s. The company produces all of Beck's productions, including his eponymous radio show, books, live stage shows, and his official website.
Radio
In 1983, he moved to Corpus Christi, Texas, to work at radio station KZFM. In mid-1985, Beck was hired away from KZFM to be the lead DJ for the morning-drive radio broadcast by WRKA in Louisville, Kentucky. His four-hour weekday show was called Captain Beck and the A-Team. Beck had a reputation as a "young up-and-comer". The show was not political and included the usual off-color antics of the genre: juvenile jokes, pranks, and impersonations. The show slipped to third in the market and Beck left abruptly in 1987 amid a dispute with WRKA management.
Months later, Beck was hired by Phoenix Top-40 station KOY-FM, then known as Y-95. Beck was partnered with Arizona native Tim Hattrick to co-host a local "morning zoo" program. During his time at Y-95, Beck cultivated a rivalry with local pop radio station KZZP and that station's morning host Bruce Kelly. Through practical jokes and publicity stunts, Beck drew criticism from the staff at Y-95 when the rivalry culminated in Beck telephoning Kelly's wife on-the-air, mocking her recent miscarriage. In 1989, Beck resigned from Y-95 to accept a job in Houston at KRBE, known as Power 104. Beck was subsequently fired in 1990 due to poor ratings.
Beck then moved on to Baltimore, Maryland, and the city's leading Top-40 station, WBSB, known as B104. There, he partnered with Pat Gray, a morning DJ. During his tenure at B104, Beck was arrested and jailed for speeding in his DeLorean. According to a former associate, Beck was "completely out of it" when a station manager went to bail him out. When Gray, then Beck were fired, the two men spent six months in Baltimore, planning their next move. In early 1992, Beck and Gray both moved to WKCI-FM (KC101), a Top-40 radio station in New Haven, Connecticut. In 1995, WKCI apologized after Beck and Gray mocked a Chinese-American caller on air who felt offended by a comedy segment by playing a gong sound effect and having executive producer Alf Gatineau mock a Chinese accent. That incident led to protests by activist groups. When Gray left the show to move to Salt Lake City, Beck continued with co-host Vinnie Penn. At the end of 1998, Beck was informed that his contract would not be renewed at the end of 1999.
The Glenn Beck Program first aired in 2000 on WFLA (AM) in Tampa, and took their afternoon time slot from eighteenth to first place within a year. In January 2002, Premiere Radio Networks launched the show nationwide on 47 stations. The show then moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, broadcasting from new flagship station WPHT. On November 5, 2007, The New York Times reported that Premiere Radio Networks was extending Beck's contract. By May 2008, it had reached over 280 terrestrial stations as well as XM Satellite. It was ranked 4th in the nation with over six and a half million listeners. , Beck was tied for number four in the ratings behind Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Dave Ramsey.
Television
In January 2006, CNN's Headline News announced that Beck would host a nightly news-commentary show in their new prime-time block Headline Prime. The show, simply called Glenn Beck, aired weeknights. CNN Headline News described the show as "an unconventional look at the news of the day featuring his often amusing perspective". At the end of his tenure at CNN-HLN, Beck had the second largest audience behind Nancy Grace. In 2008, Beck won the Marconi Radio Award for Network Syndicated Personality of the Year.
In October 2008, it was announced that Beck would join the Fox News Channel, leaving CNN Headline News. After moving to the Fox News Channel, Beck hosted Glenn Beck, beginning in January 2009, as well as a weekend version. One of his first guests was Alaska Governor Sarah Palin He also had a regular segment every Friday on the Fox News Channel program The O'Reilly Factor titled "At Your Beck and Call". , Beck's program drew more viewers than all three of the competing time-slot shows combined on CNN, MSNBC and HLN.
His show's high ratings did not come without controversy. The Washington Posts Howard Kurtz reported that Beck's use of "distorted or inflammatory rhetoric" had complicated the channel's and their journalists' efforts to neutralize White House criticism that Fox is not really a news organization. Television analyst Andrew Tyndall echoed these sentiments, saying that Beck's incendiary style had created "a real crossroads for Fox News", stating "they're right on the cusp of losing their image as a news organization."
In April 2011, Fox News and Mercury Radio Arts, Beck's production company, announced that Beck would "transition off of his daily program" on Fox News in 2011. His last day at Fox was later announced as June 30. FNC and Beck announced that he would be teaming with Fox to produce a slate of projects for Fox News and its digital properties. Fox News head Roger Ailes later referenced Beck's entrepreneurialism and political movement activism, saying, "His [Beck's] goals were different from our goals ... I need people focused on a daily television show." Beck hosted his last daily show on Fox on June 30, 2011, where he recounted the accomplishments of the show and said, "This show has become a movement. It's not a TV show, and that's why it doesn't belong on television anymore. It belongs in your homes. It belongs in your neighborhoods." In response to critics who said he was fired, Beck pointed out that his final show was airing live. Immediately after the show he did an interview on his new GBTV internet television channel.
TheBlaze TV (formerly GBTV)
Beck's Fox News one-hour show ended June 30, 2011, and a new two-hour show began his television network which started as a subscription-based internet TV network, TheBlaze TV, originally called GBTV, on September 12, 2011. Using a subscription model, it was estimated that Beck is on track to generate $27 million in his first year of operation. This was later upgraded to $40 million by The Wall Street Journal when subscriptions topped 300,000. On September 12, 2012, TheBlaze TV announced that the Dish Network would begin carrying TheBlaze TV. TheBlaze is currently available on over 90 television providers, with eleven of those being in the national top 25.
Books
Mercury Ink has a co-publishing deal with Simon & Schuster and was founded by Glenn Beck in 2011 as the publishing imprint of Mercury Radio Arts. Started in 2011, Mercury Ink publishes adult and young adult novels and non-fiction titles. Including books written by Glenn Beck, authors signed to Mercury Ink include New York Times best seller Richard Paul Evans.
Beck has reached No. 1 on The New York Times Bestseller List in four separate categories : Hardcover Non-Fiction, Paperback Non-Fiction, Hardcover Fiction, and Children's Picture Books.
Beck has a chapter giving advice in Tim Ferriss' book Tools of Titans.
Non Fiction
An Inconvenient Book:Real Solutions to the World's Biggest Problems, .
Glenn Beck's Common Sense:The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government Inspired by Thomas Paine, Threshold Editions, June 16, 2009, .
Arguing With Idiots:How to Stop Small Minds and Big Government, Threshold Editions, September 22, 2009, .
Broke:The Plan to Restore Our Trust, Truth and Treasure Threshold Editions, October 26, 2010, .
The 7:Seven Wonders That Will Change Your Life, co-author Keith Ablow, MD, Threshold Editions, January 4, 2011, .
The Original Argument:The Federalists' Case for the Constitution, Adapted for the 21st Century, Threshold Editions, June 14, 2011, .
Being George Washington:The Indispensable Man, as You've Never Seen Him, Threshold Editions, November 22, 2011, .
Cowards:What Politicians, Radicals, and the Media Refuse to Say, Threshold Editions, June 12, 2012, .
Control:Exposing the Truth About Guns, Threshold Editions, April 30, 2013, .
Miracles and Massacres:True and Untold Stories of the Making of America, Threshold Editions, November 19, 2013, .
Conform:Exposing the Truth About Common Core and Public Education, Threshold Editions, May 6, 2014, .
Dreamers and Deceivers:True Stories of the Heroes and Villains Who Made America, Threshold Editions, August 11, 2015, .
It IS About Islam:Exposing the Truth About ISIS, Al Qaeda, Iran and the Caliphate, Threshold Editions, August 18, 2015, .
Liars:How Progressives Exploit Our Fears For Power and Control Threshold Editions, August 2, 2016, .
Addicted to Outrage:How Thinking Like a Recovering Addict Can Heal the Country, Threshold Editions, September 18, 2018, .
Arguing With Socialist, Threshold Books, April 7, 2020, .
Fiction
The Christmas Sweater, Threshold Editions, November 11, 2008, .
The Overton Window, Threshold Editions, June 15, 2010, .
The Snow Angel, Threshold Editions, October 25, 2011, .
Agenda 21, co-author Harriett Parke, Threshold Editions, November 20, 2012, .
The Eye of Moloch, Threshold Editions, June 11, 2013, .
Agenda 21:Into the Shadows, co-author Harriett Parke, Threshold Editions, January 6, 2015, .
The Immortal Nicholas, Mercury Ink, October 27, 2015, .
Stage shows and speeches
Since 2005, Beck has toured American cities twice a year, presenting a one-man stage show. His stage productions are a mix of stand-up comedy and inspirational speaking. In a critique of his live act, Salon magazine's Steve Almond describes Beck as a "wildly imaginative performer, a man who weds the operatic impulses of the demagogue to the grim mutterings of the conspiracy theorist".
A show from the Beck `08 Unelectable Tour was shown in around 350 movie theaters around the country.
The finale of 2009's Common Sense Comedy Tour was simulcast in over 440 theaters. The events have drawn 200,000 fans in recent years.
In March 2003, Beck ran a series of rallies, which he called Glenn Beck's Rally for America, in support of troops deployed for the upcoming Iraq War. On July 4, 2007, Beck served as host of the 2007 Toyota Tundra "Stadium of Fire" in Provo, Utah. The annual event at LaVell Edwards Stadium on the Brigham Young University campus is presented by America's Freedom Foundation. In May 2008, Beck gave the keynote speech at the NRA convention in Louisville, Kentucky.
In late August 2009, the mayor of Beck's hometown, Mount Vernon, Washington, announced that he would award Beck the Key to the City, designating September 26, 2009, as "Glenn Beck Day". Due to local opposition, the city council voted unanimously to disassociate itself from the award. The key presentation ceremony sold-out the 850 seat McIntyre Hall and an estimated 800 detractors and supporters demonstrated outside the building. Earlier that day, approximately 7,000 people attended the Evergreen Freedom Foundation's "Take the Field with Glenn Beck" at Seattle's Safeco Field.
In December 2009, Beck produced a one-night special film titled "The Christmas Sweater: A Return to Redemption". In January and February 2010, Beck teamed with fellow Fox News host Bill O'Reilly to tour several cities in a live stage show called "The Bold and Fresh Tour 2010". The January 29 show was recorded and broadcast to movie theaters throughout the country.
In July 2013, Beck produced and hosted a one-night stage event called Man in the Moon, held at the USANA Amphitheatre in West Valley City, Utah. The amphitheater sold out all 20,000 of its seats and was released on television and DVD in August 2013. The event was a narrative story told from the point of view of the moon, from the beginnings of the Book of Genesis to the first moon landing. The moon serves as the narrator of the story.
Philanthropy
In 2011, Beck founded the non-profit organization Mercury One, which is designed to sustain itself through its entrepreneurship without the need for grants or donations. In early 2011, Beck began work toward developing a clothing line to be sold to benefit the charity and October 2011, Mercury One began selling the upscale clothing line labeled 1791 exclusively at its website, 1791.com. The clothing in the line's eleven-piece inaugural offering was manufactured by American Mojo of Lowell, Massachusetts.
In July 2014, after tens of thousands of undocumented immigrant children crossed into Texas via the Southern United States border, unaccompanied by parents, Beck announced that he, along with Utah Senator Mike Lee and Texas representative Louie Gohmert, would travel to the U.S.-Mexico border with his charity organization, Mercury One. He stated that they would bring tractor trailers full of food, hot meals, and teddy bears for the unaccompanied minors. While Beck made it clear in interviews that they wanted a full repeal of DACA, Beck also mentioned his belief in the importance of helping these children. "Through no fault of their own, they are caught in political crossfire, and while we continue to put pressure on Washington and change its course of lawlessness, we must also help," Beck said. "It is not either, or. It is both. We have to be active in the political game, and we must open our hearts."
As of 2017, Beck's Nazarene Fund had reportedly relocated 10,524 Christian refugees from northern Iraq and Syria to other host countries, including Australia, the United States, France, Slovakia, Greece, Lebanon, Brazil, and Canada. The fund's website notes 1,646 families have been evacuated from the ISIS ravaged region since its launch in 2014, and 45,000 people have received humanitarian aid as a result of donations to Mercury One.
Projects and rallies
9–12 Project and Tea Party protests
In March 2009, Beck put together a campaign, the 9-12 Project, which is named after nine principles and twelve values that he says embody the spirit of the American people on the day after the September 11 attacks. The Colorado 9–12 Project hosted a "Patriot Camp" for kids in grades 1–5, featuring programs on "our Constitution, the Founding Fathers, and the values and principles that are the cornerstones of our nation".
Restoring Honor rally
The Restoring Honor rally was promoted/hosted by Beck and held at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. on August 28, 2010. The rally—which purported to embrace religious faith and patriotism—was co-sponsored by the Special Operations Warrior Foundation, promoted by FreedomWorks, and supported by the Tea Party movement. Attendance was estimated at 87,000 (± 9,000) based on aerial photos.
"America's First Christmas"
In December 2010, Beck went to Wilmington, Ohio, a town devastated by the late-2000s recession, to host live events to encourage his fans to go to the town to boost the local economy in a project called "America's First Christmas". He hosted an event and his radio and television shows from the local theater.
Restoring Courage 2011 international tour
Beck headlined his "Restoring Courage" events in Jerusalem, Israel, in August 2011 in a campaign Beck said was designed to encourage people worldwide "to stand with the Jewish people". After Jerusalem, Beck visited Cape Town, South Africa, and was scheduled to visit Venezuela.
2012 presidential campaign
Actively supporting Mitt Romney as "perhaps the best-known Mormon after the Republican presidential candidate and a major influence on evangelical Christians, ... Beck has emerged as an unlikely theological bridge between the first Mormon presidential nominee and a critical electorate [evangelicals]", according to a pre-election article in The New York Times. Along with personal campaign appearances in Ohio and Iowa, Beck unusually directly addressed doctrinal issues between Mormons and evangelical Christians—wherein the latter often consider the former a "cult" rather than Christian—on his radio show in September 2012. During the one-hour show in early September, he asked his audience, "Does Mitt Romney's Mormonism make him too scary or weird to be elected president of the United States?" The article concluded by addressing the "fear of making Mormonism mainstream" as a reason Beck could be acceptable to evangelicals and Romney not be, quoting John C. Green, the author of The Faith Factor: How Religion Influences American Elections:
There's a difference between a public figure like Glenn Beck and someone who could be the president of the United States. ... Many evangelicals believe this country was founded by Christian leaders. It is important that the person in the White House be positive about Christianity, if not a devout Christian himself.
Restoring Love rally and "Day of Service"
In August 2012, Beck held a rally at AT&T Stadium in Irving, Texas. The event's theme was service to one's fellow citizens, and loving each other. The event saw a "Day of Service", which saw Mercury One (Beck's charity organization) volunteering to feed homeless and disadvantaged individuals, doing community-building projects, and mowing lawns. The event culminated in a keynote speech presented by Beck imploring the audience to "commit to each other. Go home and wake up your neighbors." In regards to serving fellow Americans, Beck said, "Those who count us out are counting on one weekend of action, one weekend of speeches. One weekend. One day. Please my fellow countrymen, let this be the first of many."
Restoring Unity and Never Again Is Now
In August 2015, Beck and Mercury Radio Arts organized a rally that saw a little over 20,000 people march through the streets of Birmingham, Alabama in a statement of unity and support for the persecuted Christians in Iraq, a cause that Beck's Mercury One charity organization focuses on, and as a call for unity among the American people. After the march, the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex held a rally featuring speakers including Glenn Beck, Ted Cruz, Rafael Cruz, Jon Voight, Alveda King, the niece of Martin Luther King, Jr., and David Barton.
Political views
Beck has described himself as a conservative with libertarian leanings. Among his core values, Beck lists personal responsibility, private charity, the right to life, freedom of religion, limited government, and the family as the cornerstone of society. Beck believes in low national debt, and he has said "A conservative believes that debt creates unhealthy relationships. Everyone, from the government on down, should live within their means and strive for financial independence." He supports individual gun ownership rights, is against gun control legislation, and is a supporter of the NRA and its local state chapters.
Beck rejects the scientific consensus on climate change. Beck contests the evidence, citing personal beliefs, "There is more proof for the resurrection of Jesus than man-made climate change." He also views the American Clean Energy and Security Act as a form of wealth redistribution, and he has promoted a petition rejecting the Kyoto Protocol.
Although opposed to illegal immigration, Beck announced in June and July 2014 that his foundation, Mercury One, would be making efforts to provide food and relief to the large numbers of migrant children. His move was praised by supporters of immigrant rights and freer migration but met with considerable pushback from his supporter base.
On March 18, 2015, Beck officially announced that he had left the Republican Party, saying that the GOP had failed to effectively stand against the president on Obamacare and immigration reform, and because of the GOP establishment's opposition to lawmakers such as Mike Lee and Texas Senator Ted Cruz.
Beck endorsed Cruz in his run for President of the United States in 2016. In October 2016, Beck called opposing Donald Trump a "moral, ethical choice". On the campaign trail in support of Cruz, Beck was quoted as saying "If Donald Trump wins it is going to be a snowball to hell." After Cruz dropped out of the race, Beck endorsed independent Evan McMullin.
On May 18, 2018, on his radio show, Beck predicted Donald Trump would win the 2020 United States presidential election in a "landslide", saying "Here's why I'm predicting a 2020 win. When I saw yesterday how the press was all reporting the same damn story that Donald Trump was calling MS-13 gang members, they left that out of the story, 'animals' they were spinning it as if he was saying that about all immigrants. I had enough. I've had enough ... Gladly, I'll vote for [President Trump] in 2020 and not really even on his record, which we'll talk about here in a second, is pretty damn amazing." Beck went on to say, "I'll vote for him in 2020", and donned a Make America Great Again hat on his television show.
Opposition to progressivism
During his 2010 keynote speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Beck wrote progressivism on a chalkboard and declared, "This is the disease. This is the disease in America", adding that "progressivism is the cancer in America and it is eating our Constitution!" According to Beck, the progressive ideas of men such as John Dewey, Herbert Croly, and Walter Lippmann, influenced the Presidencies of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson; eventually becoming the foundation for President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal. Beck has said that such progressivism infects both main political parties and threatens to "destroy America as it was originally conceived". In Beck's book Common Sense, he argues that "progressivism has less to do with the parties and more to do with individuals who seek to redefine, reshape, and rebuild America into a country where individual liberties and personal property mean nothing if they conflict with the plans and goals of the State."
A collection of progressives, whom Beck has referred to as "Crime Inc.", comprise what Beck contends is a clandestine conspiracy to take over and transform the United States. Some of these individuals include Cass Sunstein, Van Jones, Andy Stern, John Podesta, Wade Rathke, Joel Rogers and Francis Fox Piven. Other figures tied to Beck's "Crime Inc." accusation include Al Gore, Franklin Raines, Maurice Strong, George Soros, John Holdren and President Barack Obama. According to Beck, these individuals already have or are surreptitiously working in unison with an array of organizations and corporations such as Goldman Sachs, Fannie Mae, ACORN, Apollo Alliance, Tides Center, Chicago Climate Exchange, Generation Investment Management, Enterprise Community Partners, Petrobras, Center for American Progress, and the SEIU; to fulfill their progressive agenda. In his quest to root out these "progressives", Beck has compared himself to Israeli Nazi hunters, vowing on his radio show that "to the day I die I am going to be a progressive-hunter. I'm going to find these people that have done this to our country and expose them. I don't care if they're in nursing homes." Beck compared Al Gore to the Nazis while equating the campaign against global warming to the Nazi campaign against the Jews.
Progressive historian Sean Wilentz has denounced what he describes as Beck's progressive-themed conspiracy theories and "gross historical inaccuracies", countering that Beck is merely echoing the decades-old "right-wing extremism" of the John Birch Society. According to Wilentz, Beck's "version of history" places him in a long line of figures who have challenged mainstream political historians and presented an inaccurate opposing view as the truth, stating:
Conservative David Frum, the former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, has also alleged Beck's propensity for negationism, remarking that "Beck offers a story about the American past for people who are feeling right now very angry and alienated. It is different enough from the usual story in that he makes them feel like they've got access to secret knowledge."
In 2020, Beck argued that the election of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders could lead to "another Holocaust."
Barack Obama and the Obama administration
Beck promoted numerous conspiracy theories and falsehoods about President Barack Obama and the Obama administration.
Beck suggested that Obama was building FEMA concentration camps to put opponents in, that Obama was planning to fake a terrorist attack such as the Oklahoma City bombing in order to boost the administration's popularity, and that Obama was the "puppet" of George Soros. He frequently likened Obama and his administration to Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich. Beck falsely claimed that the John Holdren who led the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Obama administration "proposed forcing abortions and putting sterilants in the drinking water to control population."
Beck argued in 2009 that Obama has repeatedly shown "a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture", saying "I'm not saying he doesn't like white people. I'm saying he has a problem. This guy is, I believe, a racist." These remarks drew criticism, and resulted in a boycott which resulted in at least 57 advertisers requesting their ads be removed from his programming. He later apologized for the remarks, telling Fox News Sunday anchor Chris Wallace that he has a "big fat mouth" and miscast as racism what is actually, as he theorizes, Obama's belief in black theology. In November 2012, Beck attempted to auction a mason jar holding an Obama figurine described as being submerged in urine (in fact, submerged in beer). Bidding reached $11,000 before eBay decided to remove the auction and cancel all bids.
In a 2016 interview with The New Yorker, Beck said of his commentary on Obama: "I did a lot of freaking out about Barack Obama." But added, "Obama made me a better man." Beck said that he regrets calling Obama a racist and is a supporter of Black Lives Matter. He said, "There are things unique to the African-American experience that I cannot relate to. I had to listen to them."
Van Jones
In July 2009, Beck began to focus what would become many episodes on his TV and radio shows on Van Jones, special advisor for Green Jobs at Obama's White House Council on Environmental Quality. Beck called Jones, "an avowed, self-avowed, radical revolutionary communist". PolitiFact rated Beck's claim "mostly false", noting that Jones, who has been open about his past as a communist during the early 1990s, had since expressed firmly capitalist beliefs.
Beck also criticized Jones for his involvement in STORM, a Bay Area radical group with Marxist roots, and his support for death row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal, who had been convicted of killing a police officer. Beck spotlighted a video of Jones referring to Republicans as "assholes", and a petition Jones signed suggesting that George W. Bush knowingly let the September 11 attacks happen. Time magazine credited Beck with leading conservatives' attack on Jones.
In a move attributed by The New York Times as a response to the controversies by the White House, which had not seen Jones' position as senior enough to warrant a full vetting, and Jones' decision that "the agenda of this president was bigger than any one individual," Jones resigned his position in September 2009. Jones characterized the attacks from his opponents as a "vicious smear campaign" and an effort to use "lies and distortions to distract and divide".
Cass Sunstein
Cass Sunstein, Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Obama White House, was a frequent target of Glenn Beck's conspiracy theories. Beck led opposition against Sunstein's nomination to the position. Beck described Sunstein as "the most dangerous man in America." Beck suggested that Sunstein was plotting ways to "ban" conspiracy theorizing.
ACORN
In 2009, Beck and other conservative commentators were critical of Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) making multiple claims including voter registration fraud in the 2008 presidential election. In September 2009, he broadcast a series of alleged undercover videos by conservative activists James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles, which portrayed ACORN community organizers offering inappropriate tax and other advice to people who had said they wanted to import "very young" girls from El Salvador to work as child prostitutes. Following the videos' release, the U.S. Census Bureau severed ties with the group while the U.S. House and Senate voted to cut all of its federal funding.
On December 7, 2009, the former Massachusetts Attorney General, after an independent internal investigation of ACORN, found the videos that had been released appeared to have been edited, "in some cases substantially". He found no evidence of criminal conduct by ACORN employees, but concluded that ACORN had poor management practices that contributed to unprofessional actions by a number of its low-level employees. On March 1, 2010, the District Attorney's office for Brooklyn determined that the videos were "heavily edited" and concluded that there was no criminal wrongdoing by the ACORN staff in the videos from the Brooklyn ACORN office. On April 1, 2010, an investigation by the California Attorney General found the videos from Los Angeles, San Diego and San Bernardino to be "heavily edited", and the investigation did not find evidence of criminal conduct on the part of ACORN employees. On June 14, 2010, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) released its findings, which showed that ACORN evidenced no sign that it, or any of its related organizations, mishandled any federal money they had received. In March 2010, ACORN announced it would be closing its offices and disbanding due to loss of funding from government and private donors.
According to a 2010 study in the journal Perspectives on Politics, Beck played a prominent role in media attacks on ACORN.
Satire website
In 2009, lawyers for Beck brought a case (Beck v. Eiland-Hall) against the owner of a satirical website named GlennBeckRapedAndMurderedAYoungGirlIn1990.com with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The claim that the domain name of the website is itself defamatory was described as a first in cyberlaw. Beck's lawyers argued that the site infringed on his trademarked name and that the domain name should be turned over to Beck. The WIPO ruled against Beck, but Eiland-Hall voluntarily transferred the domain to Beck anyway, saying that the First Amendment had been upheld and that he no longer had a use for the domain name.
Jewish Funds for Justice
In January 2011, in protest against what they saw as inappropriate references to the Holocaust and to Nazis by Beck (and by Roger Ailes of Fox News), four hundred rabbis signed an open letter published as a paid advertisement in The Wall Street Journal. The ad was paid for by Jewish Funds for Justice (JFFJ), which had previously called for Beck's firing. The JFFJ have claimed on their website that Beck seems "to draw his material straight from the anti-Semitic forgery, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion". The letter states that Beck and Fox had "diminish[ed] the memory and meaning of the Holocaust when you use it to discredit any individual or organization you disagree with. That is what Fox News has done in recent weeks." In response, a Fox News executive told Reuters the letter was from a "George Soros-backed leftwing political organization".
George Soros conspiracy theories
Beck is a prominent proponent of conspiracy theories about George Soros, a Jewish philanthropist. Beck falsely claimed that Soros as a boy helped to "send the Jews to the death camps." Beck frequently referred to Soros as a puppet-master and repeated the unsubstantiated conspiracy theory that Soros caused the 1997 Asian financial crisis. In 2010, Beck was accused of being anti-Semitic due to his smears against Soros. The Anti-Defamation League said Beck's remarks about Soros sending Jews to the death camps were "horrific" and "totally off-limits."
On February 22, 2011, during a discussion on his radio show about the controversy surrounding his earlier comments about Soros, Beck said "Reform Rabbis are generally political in nature. It's almost like radicalized Islam in a way where it's less about religion than it is about politics." He was quickly criticized by other conservatives, rabbis, and others. The Anti-Defamation League labeled Beck's remarks "bigoted ignorance". On February 24, Beck apologized on air, agreeing that his comments were "ignorant".
In 2016, Beck, a friend of actor and director Mel Gibson claimed he and Gibson shared a conversation in which Gibson claimed Jewish people had stolen a copy of The Passion of the Christ before its official theatrical release, and that Jewish people were assaulting him in the streets.
2011 Norway attacks
Beck condemned the 2011 Norway attacks, but was condemned for his comparison of murdered and surviving members of the Norwegian Workers' Youth League to the Hitler Youth. He said, "There was a shooting at a political camp which sounds a little like, you know, the Hitler Youth or whatever, you know what I mean. Who does a camp for kids that's all about politics? Disturbing." The statement was ill-received in Norway, prompting political commentator and Labour party member Frank Aarebrot to label Beck as a "vulgar propagandist", a "swine" and a "fascist", and Torbjørn Eriksen, former press secretary to Norway's prime minister Jens Stoltenberg, to describe Beck's comment as "a new low", adding that "Glenn Beck's comments are ignorant, incorrect and extremely hurtful". Commentators pointed out that groups affiliated with the Tea Party movement and the Beck-founded 9–12 Project also sponsor politically oriented camp programs for children.
Trump comments and 2016 SIRIUS XM Suspension
Beck opposed Donald Trump during his 2016 campaign for president, comparing him to Adolf Hitler and describing him as "an immoral man who is absent decency or dignity."
Sirius XM suspended Beck on May 31, 2016, for remarks made during an interview a week earlier. During an interview with author Brad Thor about a hypothetical situation where Trump was abusing his power as president and Congress was unable to stop him, Thor asked "what patriot will step up and [assassinate him] if, if, he oversteps his mandate as president?" Thor and the show's general manager both denied that the comments were a call for his assassination. Beck's radio show was moved from the SIRIUS XM Patriot channel to the Triumph channel soon after.
Beck's opposition to Trump did not sit well with many Trump supporters and hurt his businesses and viewership. On May 18, 2018, Beck stated on his radio program that he intended to vote for Trump in the 2020 presidential election, calling Trump's record "pretty damn amazing". Beck said Trump's defeat in the 2020 election would be "the end of the country as we know it."
Influences
Political and historical
An author with ideological influence on Beck is W. Cleon Skousen (1913–2006), a prolific conservative political writer, American constitutionalist and faith based political theorist. As an anti-communist supporter of the John Birch Society, and a limited-government activist, Skousen, who was Mormon, wrote on a wide range of subjects: the Six-Day War, Mormon eschatology, New World Order conspiracies, even parenting. Skousen believed that American political, social, and economic elites were working with communists to foist a world government on the United States. Beck praised Skousen's "words of wisdom" as "divinely inspired", referencing Skousen's The Naked Communist and especially The 5,000 Year Leap (originally published in 1981), which Beck said in 2007 had "changed his life". According to Skousen's nephew, Mark Skousen, Leap reflects Skousen's "passion for the United States Constitution", which he "felt was inspired by God and the reason behind America's success as a nation". The book is recommended by Beck as "required reading" to understand the current American political landscape and become a "September twelfth person". Beck authored a foreword for the 2008 edition of Leap and Beck's on-air recommendations in 2009 propelled the book to number one in the government category on Amazon for several months. In 2010, Matthew Continetti of the conservative Weekly Standard criticized Beck's conspiratorial bent, terming him "a Skousenite". Additionally, Alexander Zaitchik, author of the 2010 book Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance, which features an entire chapter on "The Ghost of Cleon Skousen", refers to Skousen as "Beck's favorite author and biggest influence", while observing he authored four of the 10 books on Beck's 9-12 Project required-reading list.
In his discussion of Beck and Skousen, Continetti said that one of Skousen's works "draws on Carroll Quigley's Tragedy and Hope (1966), which argues that the history of the 20th century is the product of secret societies in conflict". He observed in Beck's novel, The Overton Window (which Beck describes as "faction", or fiction based on fact), a character states: "Carroll Quigley laid open the plan in Tragedy and Hope, the only hope to avoid the tragedy of war was to bind together the economies of the world to foster global stability and peace."
Glenn Beck's viewpoint about early 20th century progressivism is greatly influenced by Ronald J. Pestritto, who teaches at Hillsdale College. The portal page on the GlennBeck.com web site for "American Progressivism" uses Pestritto's teachings and links directly to one of his books. Pestritto wrote an article for The Wall Street Journal detailing "Glenn Beck, Progressives and Me". The New York Times observed when Beck was on his Fox News show, Pestritto was a regular guest.
Princeton University historian Sean Wilentz says that alongside Skousen, Robert W. Welch, Jr., founder of the John Birch Society, is a key ideological foundation of Beck's worldview. According to Wilentz: "[Beck] has brought neo-Birchite ideas to an audience beyond any that Welch or Skousen might have dreamed of."
Other books that Beck regularly cites on his programs are Amity Shlaes's The Forgotten Man, Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism, Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen's A Patriot's History of the United States, and Burton W. Folsom, Jr.'s New Deal or Raw Deal. Beck has also urged his listeners to read The Coming Insurrection, a book by a French Marxist group discussing what they see as the imminent collapse of capitalist culture, and The Creature from Jekyll Island, which argues that aspects of the U.S. Federal Reserve system assault economic civil liberties, by conspiracy theorist G. Edward Griffin.
On June 4, 2010, Beck endorsed Elizabeth Dilling's 1936 work The Red Network: A Who's Who and Handbook of Radicalism for Patriots, remarking "this is a book, The Red Network, this came in from 1936. People – [Joseph] McCarthy was absolutely right ... This is, who were the communists in America." Beck was criticized by an array of people, including Menachem Z. Rosensaft and Joe Conason, who stated that Dilling was an outspoken anti-Semite and a Nazi sympathizer.
Religious
Beck has credited God for saving him from drug and alcohol abuse, professional obscurity, and friendlessness. In 2006, Beck performed a short inspirational monologue in Salt Lake City, Utah, detailing how he was transformed by the "healing power of Jesus Christ", which was released as a CD two years later by Deseret Book, a publishing company owned by the LDS Church, entitled An Unlikely Mormon: The Conversion Story of Glenn Beck.
Writer Joanna Brooks contends that Beck developed his "amalgamation of anti-communism" and "connect-the-dots conspiracy theorizing" only after his entry into the "deeply insular world of Mormon thought and culture". Brooks theorizes that Beck's calls to fasting and prayer are rooted in Mormon collective fasts to address spiritual challenges, while Beck's "overt sentimentality" and penchant for weeping represent the hallmark of a "distinctly Mormon mode of masculinity" where "appropriately-timed displays of tender emotion are displays of power" and spirituality. Philip Barlow, the Arrington chair of Mormon history and culture at Utah State University, has said that Beck's belief that the U.S. Constitution was an "inspired document", his calls for limited government and not exiling God from the public sphere, "have considerable sympathy in Mormonism". Beck has acknowledged that Mormon "doctrine is different" from traditional Christianity, but he said that this was what attracted him to it, stating that "for me some of the things in traditional doctrine just doesn't work."
Public reception
In 2009, Beck's show was one of the highest rated news commentary programs on cable TV. For a Barbara Walters ABC special, Beck was selected as one of America's "Top 10 Most Fascinating People" of 2009. In 2010, Beck was selected for Time'''s top 100 most influential people under the "Leaders" category.
Beck has referred to himself as an entertainer, a commentator rather than a reporter, and a "rodeo clown". He has said that he identifies with Howard Beale, a character portrayed by Peter Finch in the film Network: "When he came out of the rain and he was like, none of this makes any sense. I am that guy."Time magazine described Beck as "the new populist superstar of Fox News" saying it is easier to see a set of attitudes rather than a specific ideology, noting his criticism of Wall Street, yet defending bonuses to AIG, as well as denouncing conspiracy theories about the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) but warning against indoctrination of children by the AmeriCorps program." (Paul Krugman and Mark Potok, on the other hand, have been among those asserting that Beck helps spread "hate" by covering issues that stir up extremists.) What seems to unite Beck's disparate themes, Time argued, is a sense of siege. An earlier cover story in Time described Beck as "a gifted storyteller with a knack for stitching seemingly unrelated data points into possible conspiracies", proclaiming that he has "emerged as a virtuoso on the strings" of conservative discontent by mining "the timeless theme of the corrupt Them thwarting a virtuous Us".
Beck's shows have been described as a "mix of moral lessons, outrage and an apocalyptic view of the future ... capturing the feelings of an alienated class of Americans". One of Beck's Fox News Channel colleagues Shepard Smith, has jokingly called Beck's studio the "fear chamber", with Beck countering that he preferred the term "doom room".
Republican South Carolina U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham criticized Beck as a "cynic" whose show was antithetical to "American values" at The Atlantic's 2009 First Draft of History conference, remarking "Only in America can you make that much money crying." The progressive watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting's (FAIR) Activism Director, Peter Hart, argues that Beck red-baits political adversaries and promotes a paranoid view of progressive politics. Howard Kurtz, of The Washington Post, has remarked that "Love him or hate him, Beck is a talented, often funny broadcaster, a recovering alcoholic with an unabashedly emotional style."
Laura Miller writes in Salon that Beck is a contemporary example of "the paranoid style in American politics" described by historian Richard Hofstader:
Beck has acknowledged accusations of being a conspiracy theorist, stating on his show that there is a "concentrated effort now to label me a conspiracy theorist".
Particularly as a consequence of Beck's Restoring Honor rally in 2010, the fact that Beck is Mormon caused concern amongst some politically sympathetic Christian Evangelicals on theological grounds.Posner, Sarah, Evangelicals have "Deep Concerns" about Beck, Religion Dispatches, September 1, 2010"Does it Matter that Glenn Beck is a Mormon?", The Week, Yahoo!, August 31, 2010 Tom Tradup, vice president at Salem Radio Network, which serves more than 2,000 Christian-themed stations, expressed this sentiment after the rally, stating "Politically, everyone is with it, but theologically, when he says the country should turn back to God, the question is: Which God?" Subsequently, a September 2010 survey conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) and Religion News Service (RNS) found that of those Americans who hold a favorable opinion of Beck, only 45% believe he is the right person to lead a religious movement, with that number further declining to 37% when people are informed he is Mormon. Daniel Cox, director of research for PRRI, summed up this position by stating:
Pete Peterson of Pepperdine's Davenport Institute said that Beck's speech at the rally belonged to an American tradition of calls to personal renewal. Peterson wrote: "A Mormon surrounded onstage by priests, pastors, rabbis, and imams, Beck [gave] one of the more ecumenical jeremiads in history." Evangelical pastor Tony Campolo said in 2010 that conservative evangelicals respond to Beck's framing of conservative economic principles, saying that Beck's and ideological fellow travelers' "marriage between evangelicalism and patriotic nationalism is so strong that anybody who is raising questions about loyalty to the old, lassez-faire capitalist system is ex-post facto unpatriotic, un-American, and by association non-Christian." Newsweek religion reporter Lisa Miller, after quoting Campolo, opined, "It's ironic that Beck, a Mormon, would gain acceptance as a leader of a new Christian coalition. ... Beck's gift ... is to articulate God's special plan for America in such broad strokes that they trample no single creed or doctrine while they move millions with their message."
Critical biographies
In June 2010, investigative reporter Alexander Zaitchik released a critical biography titled Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance, with a title mocking Beck's work, Common Sense. In an interview about the book, Zaitchik theorized, "Beck's politics and his insatiable hunger for money and fame are not mutually exclusive", while stating:
In September 2010, Philadelphia Daily News reporter Will Bunch released The Backlash: Right-Wing Radicals, High-Def Hucksters, and Paranoid Politics in the Age of Obama. One of Bunch's theses is that Beck is nothing more than a morning zoo deejay playing a fictional character as a money-making stunt. Writer Bob Cesca, in a review of Bunch's book, compares Beck to Steve Martin's faith-healer character in the 1992 film Leap of Faith, before describing the "derivative grab bag of other tried and tested personalities" that Bunch contends comprises Beck's persona:
In October 2010 a polemical biography by Dana Milbank was released: Tears of a Clown: Glenn Beck and the Tea Bagging of America.
Satire, spoof and parody
Beck has been the subject of mockery and ridicule by a number of humorists. In response to Beck's animated delivery and views, he was parodied in an impersonation by Jason Sudeikis on Saturday Night Live. The Daily Shows Jon Stewart has spoofed Beck's 9–12 project with his own "11-3 project", consisting of "11 principles and 3 herbs and spices", impersonated Beck's chalk board-related presentation style for an entire show, and quipped about Beck "finally, a guy who says what people who aren't thinking are thinking". Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report satirized Beck's "war room" by creating his own "doom bunker". Through the character Eric Cartman, South Park parodied Beck's television program and his commentary style in the episode "Dances with Smurfs". The Onion, a satirical periodical and faux news site, ran an Onion News Network video "special report" where it lamented that the "victim in a fatal car accident was tragically not Glenn Beck". Meanwhile, the Current TV cartoon SuperNews! ran an animated cartoon feature titled "The Glenn Beck Apocalypse", where Beck is confronted by Jesus Christ who rebukes him as the equivalent of "Sarah Palin farting into a balloon". Political comedian and satirist Bill Maher has mocked Beck's followers as an "army of diabetic mallwalkers", while The Buffalo Beast, named Beck the most loathsome person in America in 2010, declaring "It's like someone found a manic, doom-prophesying hobo in a sandwich board, shaved him, shot him full of Zoloft and gave him a show." The October 30, 2010 Rally To Restore Sanity and/or Fear in Washington, hosted by Comedy Central personalities Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, was conceived as a parody of Beck's earlier Rally to Restore Honor, even though Stewart and Colbert said that they came up with the idea of holding a rally in March and Stewart had put down the deposit for the National Mall before Beck announced his rally.
Defamation lawsuit and settlement
In March 2014, Abdulrahman Alharbi filed suit for defamation in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts against Beck and his business entities, The Blaze and Mercury Radio Arts, along with his distributor Premiere Radio Networks. Alharbi's defamation claim arose from Beck's repeated broadcasts "identifying Alharbi as an active participant" in the Boston Marathon bombing, even after federal authorities cleared Alharbi, who was injured in the attack, of any wrongdoing and confirmed that he was an innocent victim.Josh Gerstein, Glenn Beck reaches settlement with Saudi student over Boston Marathon accusations, Politico (September 13, 2016). In December 2014, the judge rejected Beck's attempt to have the case dismissed. In September 2016, the suit was settled on confidential terms.
See also
Beck University
Conservative talk radio
List of most-listened-to radio programs
Works
Non-fiction
(Audiobook).
An Unlikely Mormon: The Conversion Story of Glenn Beck, Deseret Book 2008 (Audiobook). .
Arguing with Idiots: How to Stop Small Minds and Big Government, Simon & Schuster 2009. .
Glenn Beck's Common Sense: The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government, Simon & Schuster 2009. .Best Sellers: Paperback Nonfiction, The New York Times, October 9, 2009
America's March to Socialism: Why We're One Step Closer to Giant Missile Parades, Simon & Schuster Audio 2009 (Audio CD). .
Idiots Unplugged, Simon & Schuster 2010 (Audio CD). .
Broke: The Plan to Restore Our Trust, Truth, and Treasure, Simon & Schuster 2010. .
The 7: Seven Wonders That Will Change Your Life, Keith Ablow, co-author; Threshold Editions, 2011; .
The Original Argument: The Federalists' Case for the Constitution, Adapted for the 21st Century, with Joshua Charles; Threshold Editions, 2011; .
Liars: How Progressives Exploit Our Fears for Power and Control, Threshold Editions August 2, 2016.
Addicted to Outrage: How Thinking Like a Recovering Addict Can Heal the Country, Threshold Editions September 18, 2018.
The Great Reset: Joe Biden and the Rise of Twenty-First-Century Fascism, Justin Haskins, co-author; Forefront Books, 2021; .
Control Series
Fiction
The Christmas Sweater, Simon & Schuster 2008. .
The Overton Window, Threshold Editions June 2010.
The Eye of Moloch, Threshold Editions June 2013.
Agenda 21: Into the Shadows, Threshold Editions January 2015.
The Immortal Nicholas, Mercury Ink October 2015.
Children's
The Christmas Sweater: A Picture Book, Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing 2009. .
Beck authorized a comic book:
Political Power: Glenn Beck'', by Jerome Maida, Mark Sparacio (illus.); Bluewater Productions, 2011
References
External links
Glenn Beck – The 912 Project
1964 births
Living people
20th-century American male writers
21st-century American male writers
American Christian Zionists
American conspiracy theorists
American entertainment industry businesspeople
Latter Day Saints from Washington (state)
American anti-communists
American libertarians
American magazine founders
American people of German descent
American political commentators
American political writers
American television talk show hosts
Christian libertarians
Blaze Media people
American conservative talk radio hosts
Converts to Mormonism from Roman Catholicism
Former Roman Catholics
Fox News people
Male critics of feminism
People from Everett, Washington
People from Westlake, Texas
Radio personalities from Phoenix, Arizona
Radio personalities from Tampa, Florida
Tea Party movement activists
Texas Independents
Washington (state) Republicans
Writers from Bellingham, Washington
Latter Day Saints from Texas
20th-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American non-fiction writers
American male non-fiction writers | false | [
"WRKA (103.9 FM) is a commercial urban adult contemporary radio station licensed to serve Louisville, Kentucky. Owned by SummitMedia, the station covers the Louisville metropolitan area. The WRKA studios are located in Downtown Louisville, while the transmitter site resides atop the National City Tower. Besides a standard analog transmission, WRKA is available online.\n\nHistory\nIn November 1974, the station signed on the air as WFIA-FM, an FM adjunct to WFIA and owned by AM 900, Inc. The call sign was later changed to WXLN and played Contemporary Christian music.\n\nThe station's first post Christian format was contemporary hit radio as WZKS \"Kiss 104\". Debuting on July 5, 1990, WZKS intended to challenge WDJX, but after WDJX's owners entered into a local marketing agreement to operate the station on January 27, 1992, WZKS simulcast WDJX for nearly a month and a half. After the simulcast broke that March 19, WZKS began stunting by playing songs recorded by Garth Brooks, then switched to country music on March 23., 1992.\n\nDuring this period, 103.9 became the first FM station in the market intended to challenge longtime country leader WAMZ. Initially, 103.9 was known as \"Hot Country 103.9\", which, unlike WAMZ, had no local air talent, instead relying on Westwood One's \"Hot Country\" format. On March 30, 1993, the station was revamped as \"103.9 The Hawk\", added local programming, and changed its call sign to WHKW.\n\nThe format, call letters, and \"The Hawk\" branding were transferred to WKJK (107.7 FM) on May 24, 1994. After that programming move, WHKW adopted an oldies format branded as \"Cool 103.9\", with replacement WQLL calls on June 6. The playlist was changed to all 1970's music, but the \"Cool\" branding was retained.\n\nThe station changed its format to Smooth Jazz on June 3, 1996, and changed its call letters to WSJW. On August 7, 1998, the station changed again to adult contemporary as WMHX \"Mix 103.9\", reviving a format dropped by the former WLRS a year earlier.\n\nAfter the station was purchased by Cox Radio in 1999, WHMX switched to an all-80s hits format branded as \"103.9 The Point\" in November 2000. The call letters were switched to WPTK on November 24, then a month later, on December 20, to WPTI. WPTI dropped the 80s hits format for another attempt at country, branded \"New Country 103.9\", on October 21, 2004. WPTI's call letters were changed to WRKA on July 18, 2008, and the format was changed to Classic Country as \"Country Legends 103.9\" that July 23. The previous country format was moved to the former WRKA, renamed WQNU.\n\nCox Radio, Inc. sold WRKA, along with 22 other stations, to Summit Media LLC for $66.25 million on July 20, 2012; the sale was consummated on May 3, 2013.\n\nOn May 23, 2014, WRKA began stunting by only playing music by Garth Brooks as \"103.9 Garth-FM\" before announcing the station was not able to use Brooks' name due to legal issues. It rebranded as \"XXXXX-FM\" (with the \"XXXXX\" being pronounced on-air as a long beep) and promising a new format to debut the following Monday, June 2, at 7 am. At that time, WRKA relaunched with a 1990s-heavy country format, once again branded as \"103.9 The Hawk\". The first song on \"The Hawk\" was Gone Country by Alan Jackson.\n\nOn December 31, 2018, WRKA dropped the classic country format and began stunting as \"103.9 The Party\" using the slogan, \"Where it's New Year's Eve every day.\" On January 14, 2019, WRKA ended stunting and launched a rhythmic adult contemporary format, branded as \"103.9 The Groove\". In January 2020, WRKA shifted the format from rhythmic adult contemporary to urban adult contemporary, still under the \"103.9 The Groove\" branding.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nUrban adult contemporary radio stations in the United States\nRKA\nRadio stations established in 1974\n1974 establishments in Kentucky",
"WRKA may refer to:\n\n WRKA, a radio station (103.9 FM) licensed to Louisville, Kentucky, United States\n WRKA, the ICAO code for Haliwen Airport in Atambua, Indonesia\n WQNU, a radio station (103.1 FM) licensed to Lyndon, Kentucky, United States, known as WRKA from January 1980 to July 2008"
] |
[
"Glenn Beck",
"Radio",
"On what radio station did Glenn work at?",
"In 1983 he moved to Corpus Christi, Texas, to work at radio station KZFM.",
"What was his job at KZFM?",
"In mid-1985, Beck was hired away from KZFM to be the lead DJ for the morning-drive radio broadcast by WRKA in Louisville, Kentucky.",
"Did he enjoy his job at WRKA?",
"I don't know."
] | C_d978852d1897400091e5bbbd8041c542_0 | Did he ever leave WRKA for another station? | 4 | Aside from WRKA, did Glenn Beck ever work for another station? | Glenn Beck | In 1983 he moved to Corpus Christi, Texas, to work at radio station KZFM. In mid-1985, Beck was hired away from KZFM to be the lead DJ for the morning-drive radio broadcast by WRKA in Louisville, Kentucky. His four-hour weekday show was called Captain Beck and the A-Team. Beck had a reputation as a "young up-and-comer". The show was not political and included the usual off-color antics of the genre: juvenile jokes, pranks, and impersonations. The show slipped to third in the market and Beck left abruptly in 1987 amid a dispute with WRKA management. Months later, Beck was hired by Phoenix Top-40 station KOY-FM, then known as Y-95. Beck was partnered with Arizona native Tim Hattrick to co-host a local "morning zoo" program. During his time at Y-95, Beck cultivated a rivalry with local pop radio station KZZP and that station's morning host Bruce Kelly. Through practical jokes and publicity stunts, Beck drew criticism from the staff at Y-95 when the rivalry culminated in Beck telephoning Kelly's wife on-the-air, mocking her recent miscarriage. In 1989, Beck resigned from Y-95 to accept a job in Houston at KRBE, known as Power 104. Beck was subsequently fired in 1990 due to poor ratings. Beck then moved on to Baltimore, Maryland, and the city's leading Top-40 station, WBSB, known as B104. There, he partnered with Pat Gray, a morning DJ. During his tenure at B104, Beck was arrested and jailed for speeding in his DeLorean. According to a former associate, Beck was "completely out of it" when a station manager went to bail him out. When Gray, then Beck were fired, the two men spent six months in Baltimore, planning their next move. In early 1992, Beck and Gray both moved to WKCI-FM (KC101), a Top-40 radio station in New Haven, Connecticut. In 1995, WKCI apologized after Beck and Gray mocked a Chinese-American caller on air who felt offended by a comedy segment by playing a gong sound effect and having executive producer Alf Gagineau mock a Chinese accent. That incident led to protests by activist groups. When Gray left the show to move to Salt Lake City, Beck continued with co-host Vinnie Penn. At the end of 1998, Beck was informed that his contract would not be renewed at the end of 1999. The Glenn Beck Program first aired in 2000 on WFLA (AM) in Tampa, and took their afternoon time slot from eighteenth to first place within a year. In January 2002, Premiere Radio Networks launched the show nationwide on 47 stations. The show then moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, broadcasting from new flagship station WPHT. On November 5, 2007, The New York Times reported that Premiere Radio Networks was extending Beck's contract. By May 2008, it had reached over 280 terrestrial stations as well as XM Satellite. It was ranked 4th in the nation with over six and a half million listeners. As of July 2013, Beck was tied for number four in the ratings behind Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Dave Ramsey. CANNOTANSWER | The show slipped to third in the market and Beck left abruptly in 1987 amid a dispute with WRKA management. | Glenn Lee Beck (born February 10, 1964) is an American conservative political commentator, conspiracy theorist, radio host, and television producer. He is the CEO, founder, and owner of Mercury Radio Arts, the parent company of his television and radio network TheBlaze. He hosts the Glenn Beck Radio Program, a popular talk-radio show nationally syndicated on Premiere Radio Networks. Beck also hosts the Glenn Beck television program, which ran from January 2006 to October 2008 on HLN, from January 2009 to June 2011 on Fox News and now airs on TheBlaze. Beck has authored six New York Times–bestselling books.
In April 2011, Beck announced that he would "transition off of his daily program" on Fox News, but would continue to team with Fox. Beck's last daily show on the network was June 30, 2011. In 2012, The Hollywood Reporter named Beck on its Digital Power Fifty list. Beck launched TheBlaze in 2011 after leaving Fox News. He currently hosts an hour-long afternoon program, The Glenn Beck Program, on weekdays, and a three-hour morning radio show; both are broadcast on TheBlaze. Beck is also the producer of For the Record on TheBlaze.
During Barack Obama's presidency, Beck promoted many conspiracy theories about Obama, his administration, George Soros, and others.
Early life and education
Beck was born in Everett, Washington, the son of Mary Clara (née Janssen) and William Beck, who lived in Mountlake Terrace, Washington, at the time of their son's birth. The family later moved to Mount Vernon, Washington, where they owned and operated City Bakery in the downtown area. He is descended from German immigrants who came to the United States in the 19th century. Beck was raised as a Roman Catholic and attended Immaculate Conception Catholic School in Mount Vernon.
Glenn and his older sister moved with their mother to Sumner, Washington, attending a Jesuit school in Puyallup. On May 15, 1979, while out on a small boat with a male companion, Beck's mother drowned just west of Tacoma, Washington, in Puget Sound. The man who had taken her out in the boat also drowned. A Tacoma police report stated that Mary Beck "appeared to be a classic drowning victim", but a Coast Guard investigator speculated that she could have intentionally jumped overboard. Beck has described his mother's death as a suicide in interviews during television and radio broadcasts.
After their mother's death, Beck and his older sister moved to their father's home in Bellingham, Washington, where Beck graduated from Sehome High School in June 1982. Beck also regularly vacationed with his maternal grandparents, Ed and Clara Janssen, in Iowa. In the aftermath of his mother's death and subsequent suicide of his stepbrother, Beck has said he used "Dr. Jack Daniel's" to cope. At 18, following his high school graduation, Beck relocated to Provo, Utah, and worked at radio station KAYK. Feeling he "didn't fit in", Beck left Utah after six months, taking a job at Washington, D.C.'s WPGC in February 1983.
Personal life
While working at WPGC, Beck met his first wife, Claire. In 1983, the couple married and had two daughters, Mary and Hannah. Mary developed cerebral palsy as a result of a series of strokes at birth in 1988. The couple divorced in 1994 amid Beck's struggles with substance abuse. He is a recovering alcoholic and drug addict, and has said he has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Beck later admitted that the family problems ranging from the divorce to his substance abuse had a severe negative impact on his children.
By 1994, Beck was suicidal, and he imagined shooting himself to the music of Kurt Cobain. He credits Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) with helping him achieve sobriety. He said he stopped drinking alcohol and smoking cannabis in November 1994, the same month he attended his first AA meeting. Beck later said that he had gotten high every day for the previous 15 years, since the age of 16.
In 1996, while working for a New Haven area radio station, Beck took a theology class at Yale University, with a written recommendation from Senator Joe Lieberman, a Yale alumnus who was a fan of Beck's show at the time. Beck enrolled in an "Early Christology" course, but soon withdrew, marking the extent of his post-secondary education.
Beck then began a "spiritual quest" in which he "sought out answers in churches and bookstores". As he later recounted in his books and stage performances, Beck's first attempt at self-education involved reading the work of six wide-ranging authors, constituting what Beck jokingly calls "the library of a serial killer": Alan Dershowitz, Pope John Paul II, Adolf Hitler, Billy Graham, Carl Sagan, and Friedrich Nietzsche. During this time, Beck's Mormon friend and former radio partner Pat Gray argued in favor of the "comprehensive worldview" offered by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, an offer that Beck rejected until a few years later (Later, after Beck's moving to the New York City area, he had a consultation with Graham, which Beck said touched him strongly).
In 1999, Beck married his second wife, Tania. After they went looking for a faith on a church tour together, they joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in October 1999, partly at the urging of his daughter Mary. Beck was baptized by his old friend, and current-day co-worker Pat Gray. Beck and Tania have had two children together, Raphe (who is adopted) and Cheyenne. Until April 2011, the couple lived in New Canaan, Connecticut, with the four children.
Beck announced in July 2010 that he had been diagnosed with macular dystrophy, saying "A couple of weeks ago I went to the doctor because of my eyes, I can't focus my eyes. He did all kinds of tests and he said, 'you have macular dystrophy ... you could go blind in the next year. Or, you might not. The disorder can make it difficult to read, drive or recognize faces.
In July 2011, Beck leased a house in the Fort Worth suburb of Westlake, Texas. In 2012, he moved his main TV and radio studios to Dallas, Texas.
On November 10, 2014, Beck announced on TheBlaze that he had been suffering from a severe neurological disorder for at least the last five years. He described many strong and debilitating symptoms which made it difficult for him to work, and he also announced that he had "a string of health issues that quite honestly made me look crazy, and quite honestly, I have felt crazy because of them". Beck related that a chiropractor who specializes in "chiropractic neurology", Frederick Carrick, had "diagnosed [him] with several health issues, including an autoimmune disorder, which he didn't name, and adrenal fatigue." Over a period of ten months he had received a series of treatments and felt better. On January 13, 2022, Beck announced that his second case of covid was "getting into my lungs".
Career
In 2002, Beck created the media platform Mercury Radio Arts as the umbrella over his broadcast, publishing, Internet, and live show interests. Beck founded Mercury Radio Arts in 2002, naming it after the Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre, which produced live radio broadcasts during the 1930s. The company produces all of Beck's productions, including his eponymous radio show, books, live stage shows, and his official website.
Radio
In 1983, he moved to Corpus Christi, Texas, to work at radio station KZFM. In mid-1985, Beck was hired away from KZFM to be the lead DJ for the morning-drive radio broadcast by WRKA in Louisville, Kentucky. His four-hour weekday show was called Captain Beck and the A-Team. Beck had a reputation as a "young up-and-comer". The show was not political and included the usual off-color antics of the genre: juvenile jokes, pranks, and impersonations. The show slipped to third in the market and Beck left abruptly in 1987 amid a dispute with WRKA management.
Months later, Beck was hired by Phoenix Top-40 station KOY-FM, then known as Y-95. Beck was partnered with Arizona native Tim Hattrick to co-host a local "morning zoo" program. During his time at Y-95, Beck cultivated a rivalry with local pop radio station KZZP and that station's morning host Bruce Kelly. Through practical jokes and publicity stunts, Beck drew criticism from the staff at Y-95 when the rivalry culminated in Beck telephoning Kelly's wife on-the-air, mocking her recent miscarriage. In 1989, Beck resigned from Y-95 to accept a job in Houston at KRBE, known as Power 104. Beck was subsequently fired in 1990 due to poor ratings.
Beck then moved on to Baltimore, Maryland, and the city's leading Top-40 station, WBSB, known as B104. There, he partnered with Pat Gray, a morning DJ. During his tenure at B104, Beck was arrested and jailed for speeding in his DeLorean. According to a former associate, Beck was "completely out of it" when a station manager went to bail him out. When Gray, then Beck were fired, the two men spent six months in Baltimore, planning their next move. In early 1992, Beck and Gray both moved to WKCI-FM (KC101), a Top-40 radio station in New Haven, Connecticut. In 1995, WKCI apologized after Beck and Gray mocked a Chinese-American caller on air who felt offended by a comedy segment by playing a gong sound effect and having executive producer Alf Gatineau mock a Chinese accent. That incident led to protests by activist groups. When Gray left the show to move to Salt Lake City, Beck continued with co-host Vinnie Penn. At the end of 1998, Beck was informed that his contract would not be renewed at the end of 1999.
The Glenn Beck Program first aired in 2000 on WFLA (AM) in Tampa, and took their afternoon time slot from eighteenth to first place within a year. In January 2002, Premiere Radio Networks launched the show nationwide on 47 stations. The show then moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, broadcasting from new flagship station WPHT. On November 5, 2007, The New York Times reported that Premiere Radio Networks was extending Beck's contract. By May 2008, it had reached over 280 terrestrial stations as well as XM Satellite. It was ranked 4th in the nation with over six and a half million listeners. , Beck was tied for number four in the ratings behind Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Dave Ramsey.
Television
In January 2006, CNN's Headline News announced that Beck would host a nightly news-commentary show in their new prime-time block Headline Prime. The show, simply called Glenn Beck, aired weeknights. CNN Headline News described the show as "an unconventional look at the news of the day featuring his often amusing perspective". At the end of his tenure at CNN-HLN, Beck had the second largest audience behind Nancy Grace. In 2008, Beck won the Marconi Radio Award for Network Syndicated Personality of the Year.
In October 2008, it was announced that Beck would join the Fox News Channel, leaving CNN Headline News. After moving to the Fox News Channel, Beck hosted Glenn Beck, beginning in January 2009, as well as a weekend version. One of his first guests was Alaska Governor Sarah Palin He also had a regular segment every Friday on the Fox News Channel program The O'Reilly Factor titled "At Your Beck and Call". , Beck's program drew more viewers than all three of the competing time-slot shows combined on CNN, MSNBC and HLN.
His show's high ratings did not come without controversy. The Washington Posts Howard Kurtz reported that Beck's use of "distorted or inflammatory rhetoric" had complicated the channel's and their journalists' efforts to neutralize White House criticism that Fox is not really a news organization. Television analyst Andrew Tyndall echoed these sentiments, saying that Beck's incendiary style had created "a real crossroads for Fox News", stating "they're right on the cusp of losing their image as a news organization."
In April 2011, Fox News and Mercury Radio Arts, Beck's production company, announced that Beck would "transition off of his daily program" on Fox News in 2011. His last day at Fox was later announced as June 30. FNC and Beck announced that he would be teaming with Fox to produce a slate of projects for Fox News and its digital properties. Fox News head Roger Ailes later referenced Beck's entrepreneurialism and political movement activism, saying, "His [Beck's] goals were different from our goals ... I need people focused on a daily television show." Beck hosted his last daily show on Fox on June 30, 2011, where he recounted the accomplishments of the show and said, "This show has become a movement. It's not a TV show, and that's why it doesn't belong on television anymore. It belongs in your homes. It belongs in your neighborhoods." In response to critics who said he was fired, Beck pointed out that his final show was airing live. Immediately after the show he did an interview on his new GBTV internet television channel.
TheBlaze TV (formerly GBTV)
Beck's Fox News one-hour show ended June 30, 2011, and a new two-hour show began his television network which started as a subscription-based internet TV network, TheBlaze TV, originally called GBTV, on September 12, 2011. Using a subscription model, it was estimated that Beck is on track to generate $27 million in his first year of operation. This was later upgraded to $40 million by The Wall Street Journal when subscriptions topped 300,000. On September 12, 2012, TheBlaze TV announced that the Dish Network would begin carrying TheBlaze TV. TheBlaze is currently available on over 90 television providers, with eleven of those being in the national top 25.
Books
Mercury Ink has a co-publishing deal with Simon & Schuster and was founded by Glenn Beck in 2011 as the publishing imprint of Mercury Radio Arts. Started in 2011, Mercury Ink publishes adult and young adult novels and non-fiction titles. Including books written by Glenn Beck, authors signed to Mercury Ink include New York Times best seller Richard Paul Evans.
Beck has reached No. 1 on The New York Times Bestseller List in four separate categories : Hardcover Non-Fiction, Paperback Non-Fiction, Hardcover Fiction, and Children's Picture Books.
Beck has a chapter giving advice in Tim Ferriss' book Tools of Titans.
Non Fiction
An Inconvenient Book:Real Solutions to the World's Biggest Problems, .
Glenn Beck's Common Sense:The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government Inspired by Thomas Paine, Threshold Editions, June 16, 2009, .
Arguing With Idiots:How to Stop Small Minds and Big Government, Threshold Editions, September 22, 2009, .
Broke:The Plan to Restore Our Trust, Truth and Treasure Threshold Editions, October 26, 2010, .
The 7:Seven Wonders That Will Change Your Life, co-author Keith Ablow, MD, Threshold Editions, January 4, 2011, .
The Original Argument:The Federalists' Case for the Constitution, Adapted for the 21st Century, Threshold Editions, June 14, 2011, .
Being George Washington:The Indispensable Man, as You've Never Seen Him, Threshold Editions, November 22, 2011, .
Cowards:What Politicians, Radicals, and the Media Refuse to Say, Threshold Editions, June 12, 2012, .
Control:Exposing the Truth About Guns, Threshold Editions, April 30, 2013, .
Miracles and Massacres:True and Untold Stories of the Making of America, Threshold Editions, November 19, 2013, .
Conform:Exposing the Truth About Common Core and Public Education, Threshold Editions, May 6, 2014, .
Dreamers and Deceivers:True Stories of the Heroes and Villains Who Made America, Threshold Editions, August 11, 2015, .
It IS About Islam:Exposing the Truth About ISIS, Al Qaeda, Iran and the Caliphate, Threshold Editions, August 18, 2015, .
Liars:How Progressives Exploit Our Fears For Power and Control Threshold Editions, August 2, 2016, .
Addicted to Outrage:How Thinking Like a Recovering Addict Can Heal the Country, Threshold Editions, September 18, 2018, .
Arguing With Socialist, Threshold Books, April 7, 2020, .
Fiction
The Christmas Sweater, Threshold Editions, November 11, 2008, .
The Overton Window, Threshold Editions, June 15, 2010, .
The Snow Angel, Threshold Editions, October 25, 2011, .
Agenda 21, co-author Harriett Parke, Threshold Editions, November 20, 2012, .
The Eye of Moloch, Threshold Editions, June 11, 2013, .
Agenda 21:Into the Shadows, co-author Harriett Parke, Threshold Editions, January 6, 2015, .
The Immortal Nicholas, Mercury Ink, October 27, 2015, .
Stage shows and speeches
Since 2005, Beck has toured American cities twice a year, presenting a one-man stage show. His stage productions are a mix of stand-up comedy and inspirational speaking. In a critique of his live act, Salon magazine's Steve Almond describes Beck as a "wildly imaginative performer, a man who weds the operatic impulses of the demagogue to the grim mutterings of the conspiracy theorist".
A show from the Beck `08 Unelectable Tour was shown in around 350 movie theaters around the country.
The finale of 2009's Common Sense Comedy Tour was simulcast in over 440 theaters. The events have drawn 200,000 fans in recent years.
In March 2003, Beck ran a series of rallies, which he called Glenn Beck's Rally for America, in support of troops deployed for the upcoming Iraq War. On July 4, 2007, Beck served as host of the 2007 Toyota Tundra "Stadium of Fire" in Provo, Utah. The annual event at LaVell Edwards Stadium on the Brigham Young University campus is presented by America's Freedom Foundation. In May 2008, Beck gave the keynote speech at the NRA convention in Louisville, Kentucky.
In late August 2009, the mayor of Beck's hometown, Mount Vernon, Washington, announced that he would award Beck the Key to the City, designating September 26, 2009, as "Glenn Beck Day". Due to local opposition, the city council voted unanimously to disassociate itself from the award. The key presentation ceremony sold-out the 850 seat McIntyre Hall and an estimated 800 detractors and supporters demonstrated outside the building. Earlier that day, approximately 7,000 people attended the Evergreen Freedom Foundation's "Take the Field with Glenn Beck" at Seattle's Safeco Field.
In December 2009, Beck produced a one-night special film titled "The Christmas Sweater: A Return to Redemption". In January and February 2010, Beck teamed with fellow Fox News host Bill O'Reilly to tour several cities in a live stage show called "The Bold and Fresh Tour 2010". The January 29 show was recorded and broadcast to movie theaters throughout the country.
In July 2013, Beck produced and hosted a one-night stage event called Man in the Moon, held at the USANA Amphitheatre in West Valley City, Utah. The amphitheater sold out all 20,000 of its seats and was released on television and DVD in August 2013. The event was a narrative story told from the point of view of the moon, from the beginnings of the Book of Genesis to the first moon landing. The moon serves as the narrator of the story.
Philanthropy
In 2011, Beck founded the non-profit organization Mercury One, which is designed to sustain itself through its entrepreneurship without the need for grants or donations. In early 2011, Beck began work toward developing a clothing line to be sold to benefit the charity and October 2011, Mercury One began selling the upscale clothing line labeled 1791 exclusively at its website, 1791.com. The clothing in the line's eleven-piece inaugural offering was manufactured by American Mojo of Lowell, Massachusetts.
In July 2014, after tens of thousands of undocumented immigrant children crossed into Texas via the Southern United States border, unaccompanied by parents, Beck announced that he, along with Utah Senator Mike Lee and Texas representative Louie Gohmert, would travel to the U.S.-Mexico border with his charity organization, Mercury One. He stated that they would bring tractor trailers full of food, hot meals, and teddy bears for the unaccompanied minors. While Beck made it clear in interviews that they wanted a full repeal of DACA, Beck also mentioned his belief in the importance of helping these children. "Through no fault of their own, they are caught in political crossfire, and while we continue to put pressure on Washington and change its course of lawlessness, we must also help," Beck said. "It is not either, or. It is both. We have to be active in the political game, and we must open our hearts."
As of 2017, Beck's Nazarene Fund had reportedly relocated 10,524 Christian refugees from northern Iraq and Syria to other host countries, including Australia, the United States, France, Slovakia, Greece, Lebanon, Brazil, and Canada. The fund's website notes 1,646 families have been evacuated from the ISIS ravaged region since its launch in 2014, and 45,000 people have received humanitarian aid as a result of donations to Mercury One.
Projects and rallies
9–12 Project and Tea Party protests
In March 2009, Beck put together a campaign, the 9-12 Project, which is named after nine principles and twelve values that he says embody the spirit of the American people on the day after the September 11 attacks. The Colorado 9–12 Project hosted a "Patriot Camp" for kids in grades 1–5, featuring programs on "our Constitution, the Founding Fathers, and the values and principles that are the cornerstones of our nation".
Restoring Honor rally
The Restoring Honor rally was promoted/hosted by Beck and held at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. on August 28, 2010. The rally—which purported to embrace religious faith and patriotism—was co-sponsored by the Special Operations Warrior Foundation, promoted by FreedomWorks, and supported by the Tea Party movement. Attendance was estimated at 87,000 (± 9,000) based on aerial photos.
"America's First Christmas"
In December 2010, Beck went to Wilmington, Ohio, a town devastated by the late-2000s recession, to host live events to encourage his fans to go to the town to boost the local economy in a project called "America's First Christmas". He hosted an event and his radio and television shows from the local theater.
Restoring Courage 2011 international tour
Beck headlined his "Restoring Courage" events in Jerusalem, Israel, in August 2011 in a campaign Beck said was designed to encourage people worldwide "to stand with the Jewish people". After Jerusalem, Beck visited Cape Town, South Africa, and was scheduled to visit Venezuela.
2012 presidential campaign
Actively supporting Mitt Romney as "perhaps the best-known Mormon after the Republican presidential candidate and a major influence on evangelical Christians, ... Beck has emerged as an unlikely theological bridge between the first Mormon presidential nominee and a critical electorate [evangelicals]", according to a pre-election article in The New York Times. Along with personal campaign appearances in Ohio and Iowa, Beck unusually directly addressed doctrinal issues between Mormons and evangelical Christians—wherein the latter often consider the former a "cult" rather than Christian—on his radio show in September 2012. During the one-hour show in early September, he asked his audience, "Does Mitt Romney's Mormonism make him too scary or weird to be elected president of the United States?" The article concluded by addressing the "fear of making Mormonism mainstream" as a reason Beck could be acceptable to evangelicals and Romney not be, quoting John C. Green, the author of The Faith Factor: How Religion Influences American Elections:
There's a difference between a public figure like Glenn Beck and someone who could be the president of the United States. ... Many evangelicals believe this country was founded by Christian leaders. It is important that the person in the White House be positive about Christianity, if not a devout Christian himself.
Restoring Love rally and "Day of Service"
In August 2012, Beck held a rally at AT&T Stadium in Irving, Texas. The event's theme was service to one's fellow citizens, and loving each other. The event saw a "Day of Service", which saw Mercury One (Beck's charity organization) volunteering to feed homeless and disadvantaged individuals, doing community-building projects, and mowing lawns. The event culminated in a keynote speech presented by Beck imploring the audience to "commit to each other. Go home and wake up your neighbors." In regards to serving fellow Americans, Beck said, "Those who count us out are counting on one weekend of action, one weekend of speeches. One weekend. One day. Please my fellow countrymen, let this be the first of many."
Restoring Unity and Never Again Is Now
In August 2015, Beck and Mercury Radio Arts organized a rally that saw a little over 20,000 people march through the streets of Birmingham, Alabama in a statement of unity and support for the persecuted Christians in Iraq, a cause that Beck's Mercury One charity organization focuses on, and as a call for unity among the American people. After the march, the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex held a rally featuring speakers including Glenn Beck, Ted Cruz, Rafael Cruz, Jon Voight, Alveda King, the niece of Martin Luther King, Jr., and David Barton.
Political views
Beck has described himself as a conservative with libertarian leanings. Among his core values, Beck lists personal responsibility, private charity, the right to life, freedom of religion, limited government, and the family as the cornerstone of society. Beck believes in low national debt, and he has said "A conservative believes that debt creates unhealthy relationships. Everyone, from the government on down, should live within their means and strive for financial independence." He supports individual gun ownership rights, is against gun control legislation, and is a supporter of the NRA and its local state chapters.
Beck rejects the scientific consensus on climate change. Beck contests the evidence, citing personal beliefs, "There is more proof for the resurrection of Jesus than man-made climate change." He also views the American Clean Energy and Security Act as a form of wealth redistribution, and he has promoted a petition rejecting the Kyoto Protocol.
Although opposed to illegal immigration, Beck announced in June and July 2014 that his foundation, Mercury One, would be making efforts to provide food and relief to the large numbers of migrant children. His move was praised by supporters of immigrant rights and freer migration but met with considerable pushback from his supporter base.
On March 18, 2015, Beck officially announced that he had left the Republican Party, saying that the GOP had failed to effectively stand against the president on Obamacare and immigration reform, and because of the GOP establishment's opposition to lawmakers such as Mike Lee and Texas Senator Ted Cruz.
Beck endorsed Cruz in his run for President of the United States in 2016. In October 2016, Beck called opposing Donald Trump a "moral, ethical choice". On the campaign trail in support of Cruz, Beck was quoted as saying "If Donald Trump wins it is going to be a snowball to hell." After Cruz dropped out of the race, Beck endorsed independent Evan McMullin.
On May 18, 2018, on his radio show, Beck predicted Donald Trump would win the 2020 United States presidential election in a "landslide", saying "Here's why I'm predicting a 2020 win. When I saw yesterday how the press was all reporting the same damn story that Donald Trump was calling MS-13 gang members, they left that out of the story, 'animals' they were spinning it as if he was saying that about all immigrants. I had enough. I've had enough ... Gladly, I'll vote for [President Trump] in 2020 and not really even on his record, which we'll talk about here in a second, is pretty damn amazing." Beck went on to say, "I'll vote for him in 2020", and donned a Make America Great Again hat on his television show.
Opposition to progressivism
During his 2010 keynote speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Beck wrote progressivism on a chalkboard and declared, "This is the disease. This is the disease in America", adding that "progressivism is the cancer in America and it is eating our Constitution!" According to Beck, the progressive ideas of men such as John Dewey, Herbert Croly, and Walter Lippmann, influenced the Presidencies of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson; eventually becoming the foundation for President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal. Beck has said that such progressivism infects both main political parties and threatens to "destroy America as it was originally conceived". In Beck's book Common Sense, he argues that "progressivism has less to do with the parties and more to do with individuals who seek to redefine, reshape, and rebuild America into a country where individual liberties and personal property mean nothing if they conflict with the plans and goals of the State."
A collection of progressives, whom Beck has referred to as "Crime Inc.", comprise what Beck contends is a clandestine conspiracy to take over and transform the United States. Some of these individuals include Cass Sunstein, Van Jones, Andy Stern, John Podesta, Wade Rathke, Joel Rogers and Francis Fox Piven. Other figures tied to Beck's "Crime Inc." accusation include Al Gore, Franklin Raines, Maurice Strong, George Soros, John Holdren and President Barack Obama. According to Beck, these individuals already have or are surreptitiously working in unison with an array of organizations and corporations such as Goldman Sachs, Fannie Mae, ACORN, Apollo Alliance, Tides Center, Chicago Climate Exchange, Generation Investment Management, Enterprise Community Partners, Petrobras, Center for American Progress, and the SEIU; to fulfill their progressive agenda. In his quest to root out these "progressives", Beck has compared himself to Israeli Nazi hunters, vowing on his radio show that "to the day I die I am going to be a progressive-hunter. I'm going to find these people that have done this to our country and expose them. I don't care if they're in nursing homes." Beck compared Al Gore to the Nazis while equating the campaign against global warming to the Nazi campaign against the Jews.
Progressive historian Sean Wilentz has denounced what he describes as Beck's progressive-themed conspiracy theories and "gross historical inaccuracies", countering that Beck is merely echoing the decades-old "right-wing extremism" of the John Birch Society. According to Wilentz, Beck's "version of history" places him in a long line of figures who have challenged mainstream political historians and presented an inaccurate opposing view as the truth, stating:
Conservative David Frum, the former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, has also alleged Beck's propensity for negationism, remarking that "Beck offers a story about the American past for people who are feeling right now very angry and alienated. It is different enough from the usual story in that he makes them feel like they've got access to secret knowledge."
In 2020, Beck argued that the election of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders could lead to "another Holocaust."
Barack Obama and the Obama administration
Beck promoted numerous conspiracy theories and falsehoods about President Barack Obama and the Obama administration.
Beck suggested that Obama was building FEMA concentration camps to put opponents in, that Obama was planning to fake a terrorist attack such as the Oklahoma City bombing in order to boost the administration's popularity, and that Obama was the "puppet" of George Soros. He frequently likened Obama and his administration to Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich. Beck falsely claimed that the John Holdren who led the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Obama administration "proposed forcing abortions and putting sterilants in the drinking water to control population."
Beck argued in 2009 that Obama has repeatedly shown "a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture", saying "I'm not saying he doesn't like white people. I'm saying he has a problem. This guy is, I believe, a racist." These remarks drew criticism, and resulted in a boycott which resulted in at least 57 advertisers requesting their ads be removed from his programming. He later apologized for the remarks, telling Fox News Sunday anchor Chris Wallace that he has a "big fat mouth" and miscast as racism what is actually, as he theorizes, Obama's belief in black theology. In November 2012, Beck attempted to auction a mason jar holding an Obama figurine described as being submerged in urine (in fact, submerged in beer). Bidding reached $11,000 before eBay decided to remove the auction and cancel all bids.
In a 2016 interview with The New Yorker, Beck said of his commentary on Obama: "I did a lot of freaking out about Barack Obama." But added, "Obama made me a better man." Beck said that he regrets calling Obama a racist and is a supporter of Black Lives Matter. He said, "There are things unique to the African-American experience that I cannot relate to. I had to listen to them."
Van Jones
In July 2009, Beck began to focus what would become many episodes on his TV and radio shows on Van Jones, special advisor for Green Jobs at Obama's White House Council on Environmental Quality. Beck called Jones, "an avowed, self-avowed, radical revolutionary communist". PolitiFact rated Beck's claim "mostly false", noting that Jones, who has been open about his past as a communist during the early 1990s, had since expressed firmly capitalist beliefs.
Beck also criticized Jones for his involvement in STORM, a Bay Area radical group with Marxist roots, and his support for death row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal, who had been convicted of killing a police officer. Beck spotlighted a video of Jones referring to Republicans as "assholes", and a petition Jones signed suggesting that George W. Bush knowingly let the September 11 attacks happen. Time magazine credited Beck with leading conservatives' attack on Jones.
In a move attributed by The New York Times as a response to the controversies by the White House, which had not seen Jones' position as senior enough to warrant a full vetting, and Jones' decision that "the agenda of this president was bigger than any one individual," Jones resigned his position in September 2009. Jones characterized the attacks from his opponents as a "vicious smear campaign" and an effort to use "lies and distortions to distract and divide".
Cass Sunstein
Cass Sunstein, Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Obama White House, was a frequent target of Glenn Beck's conspiracy theories. Beck led opposition against Sunstein's nomination to the position. Beck described Sunstein as "the most dangerous man in America." Beck suggested that Sunstein was plotting ways to "ban" conspiracy theorizing.
ACORN
In 2009, Beck and other conservative commentators were critical of Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) making multiple claims including voter registration fraud in the 2008 presidential election. In September 2009, he broadcast a series of alleged undercover videos by conservative activists James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles, which portrayed ACORN community organizers offering inappropriate tax and other advice to people who had said they wanted to import "very young" girls from El Salvador to work as child prostitutes. Following the videos' release, the U.S. Census Bureau severed ties with the group while the U.S. House and Senate voted to cut all of its federal funding.
On December 7, 2009, the former Massachusetts Attorney General, after an independent internal investigation of ACORN, found the videos that had been released appeared to have been edited, "in some cases substantially". He found no evidence of criminal conduct by ACORN employees, but concluded that ACORN had poor management practices that contributed to unprofessional actions by a number of its low-level employees. On March 1, 2010, the District Attorney's office for Brooklyn determined that the videos were "heavily edited" and concluded that there was no criminal wrongdoing by the ACORN staff in the videos from the Brooklyn ACORN office. On April 1, 2010, an investigation by the California Attorney General found the videos from Los Angeles, San Diego and San Bernardino to be "heavily edited", and the investigation did not find evidence of criminal conduct on the part of ACORN employees. On June 14, 2010, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) released its findings, which showed that ACORN evidenced no sign that it, or any of its related organizations, mishandled any federal money they had received. In March 2010, ACORN announced it would be closing its offices and disbanding due to loss of funding from government and private donors.
According to a 2010 study in the journal Perspectives on Politics, Beck played a prominent role in media attacks on ACORN.
Satire website
In 2009, lawyers for Beck brought a case (Beck v. Eiland-Hall) against the owner of a satirical website named GlennBeckRapedAndMurderedAYoungGirlIn1990.com with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The claim that the domain name of the website is itself defamatory was described as a first in cyberlaw. Beck's lawyers argued that the site infringed on his trademarked name and that the domain name should be turned over to Beck. The WIPO ruled against Beck, but Eiland-Hall voluntarily transferred the domain to Beck anyway, saying that the First Amendment had been upheld and that he no longer had a use for the domain name.
Jewish Funds for Justice
In January 2011, in protest against what they saw as inappropriate references to the Holocaust and to Nazis by Beck (and by Roger Ailes of Fox News), four hundred rabbis signed an open letter published as a paid advertisement in The Wall Street Journal. The ad was paid for by Jewish Funds for Justice (JFFJ), which had previously called for Beck's firing. The JFFJ have claimed on their website that Beck seems "to draw his material straight from the anti-Semitic forgery, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion". The letter states that Beck and Fox had "diminish[ed] the memory and meaning of the Holocaust when you use it to discredit any individual or organization you disagree with. That is what Fox News has done in recent weeks." In response, a Fox News executive told Reuters the letter was from a "George Soros-backed leftwing political organization".
George Soros conspiracy theories
Beck is a prominent proponent of conspiracy theories about George Soros, a Jewish philanthropist. Beck falsely claimed that Soros as a boy helped to "send the Jews to the death camps." Beck frequently referred to Soros as a puppet-master and repeated the unsubstantiated conspiracy theory that Soros caused the 1997 Asian financial crisis. In 2010, Beck was accused of being anti-Semitic due to his smears against Soros. The Anti-Defamation League said Beck's remarks about Soros sending Jews to the death camps were "horrific" and "totally off-limits."
On February 22, 2011, during a discussion on his radio show about the controversy surrounding his earlier comments about Soros, Beck said "Reform Rabbis are generally political in nature. It's almost like radicalized Islam in a way where it's less about religion than it is about politics." He was quickly criticized by other conservatives, rabbis, and others. The Anti-Defamation League labeled Beck's remarks "bigoted ignorance". On February 24, Beck apologized on air, agreeing that his comments were "ignorant".
In 2016, Beck, a friend of actor and director Mel Gibson claimed he and Gibson shared a conversation in which Gibson claimed Jewish people had stolen a copy of The Passion of the Christ before its official theatrical release, and that Jewish people were assaulting him in the streets.
2011 Norway attacks
Beck condemned the 2011 Norway attacks, but was condemned for his comparison of murdered and surviving members of the Norwegian Workers' Youth League to the Hitler Youth. He said, "There was a shooting at a political camp which sounds a little like, you know, the Hitler Youth or whatever, you know what I mean. Who does a camp for kids that's all about politics? Disturbing." The statement was ill-received in Norway, prompting political commentator and Labour party member Frank Aarebrot to label Beck as a "vulgar propagandist", a "swine" and a "fascist", and Torbjørn Eriksen, former press secretary to Norway's prime minister Jens Stoltenberg, to describe Beck's comment as "a new low", adding that "Glenn Beck's comments are ignorant, incorrect and extremely hurtful". Commentators pointed out that groups affiliated with the Tea Party movement and the Beck-founded 9–12 Project also sponsor politically oriented camp programs for children.
Trump comments and 2016 SIRIUS XM Suspension
Beck opposed Donald Trump during his 2016 campaign for president, comparing him to Adolf Hitler and describing him as "an immoral man who is absent decency or dignity."
Sirius XM suspended Beck on May 31, 2016, for remarks made during an interview a week earlier. During an interview with author Brad Thor about a hypothetical situation where Trump was abusing his power as president and Congress was unable to stop him, Thor asked "what patriot will step up and [assassinate him] if, if, he oversteps his mandate as president?" Thor and the show's general manager both denied that the comments were a call for his assassination. Beck's radio show was moved from the SIRIUS XM Patriot channel to the Triumph channel soon after.
Beck's opposition to Trump did not sit well with many Trump supporters and hurt his businesses and viewership. On May 18, 2018, Beck stated on his radio program that he intended to vote for Trump in the 2020 presidential election, calling Trump's record "pretty damn amazing". Beck said Trump's defeat in the 2020 election would be "the end of the country as we know it."
Influences
Political and historical
An author with ideological influence on Beck is W. Cleon Skousen (1913–2006), a prolific conservative political writer, American constitutionalist and faith based political theorist. As an anti-communist supporter of the John Birch Society, and a limited-government activist, Skousen, who was Mormon, wrote on a wide range of subjects: the Six-Day War, Mormon eschatology, New World Order conspiracies, even parenting. Skousen believed that American political, social, and economic elites were working with communists to foist a world government on the United States. Beck praised Skousen's "words of wisdom" as "divinely inspired", referencing Skousen's The Naked Communist and especially The 5,000 Year Leap (originally published in 1981), which Beck said in 2007 had "changed his life". According to Skousen's nephew, Mark Skousen, Leap reflects Skousen's "passion for the United States Constitution", which he "felt was inspired by God and the reason behind America's success as a nation". The book is recommended by Beck as "required reading" to understand the current American political landscape and become a "September twelfth person". Beck authored a foreword for the 2008 edition of Leap and Beck's on-air recommendations in 2009 propelled the book to number one in the government category on Amazon for several months. In 2010, Matthew Continetti of the conservative Weekly Standard criticized Beck's conspiratorial bent, terming him "a Skousenite". Additionally, Alexander Zaitchik, author of the 2010 book Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance, which features an entire chapter on "The Ghost of Cleon Skousen", refers to Skousen as "Beck's favorite author and biggest influence", while observing he authored four of the 10 books on Beck's 9-12 Project required-reading list.
In his discussion of Beck and Skousen, Continetti said that one of Skousen's works "draws on Carroll Quigley's Tragedy and Hope (1966), which argues that the history of the 20th century is the product of secret societies in conflict". He observed in Beck's novel, The Overton Window (which Beck describes as "faction", or fiction based on fact), a character states: "Carroll Quigley laid open the plan in Tragedy and Hope, the only hope to avoid the tragedy of war was to bind together the economies of the world to foster global stability and peace."
Glenn Beck's viewpoint about early 20th century progressivism is greatly influenced by Ronald J. Pestritto, who teaches at Hillsdale College. The portal page on the GlennBeck.com web site for "American Progressivism" uses Pestritto's teachings and links directly to one of his books. Pestritto wrote an article for The Wall Street Journal detailing "Glenn Beck, Progressives and Me". The New York Times observed when Beck was on his Fox News show, Pestritto was a regular guest.
Princeton University historian Sean Wilentz says that alongside Skousen, Robert W. Welch, Jr., founder of the John Birch Society, is a key ideological foundation of Beck's worldview. According to Wilentz: "[Beck] has brought neo-Birchite ideas to an audience beyond any that Welch or Skousen might have dreamed of."
Other books that Beck regularly cites on his programs are Amity Shlaes's The Forgotten Man, Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism, Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen's A Patriot's History of the United States, and Burton W. Folsom, Jr.'s New Deal or Raw Deal. Beck has also urged his listeners to read The Coming Insurrection, a book by a French Marxist group discussing what they see as the imminent collapse of capitalist culture, and The Creature from Jekyll Island, which argues that aspects of the U.S. Federal Reserve system assault economic civil liberties, by conspiracy theorist G. Edward Griffin.
On June 4, 2010, Beck endorsed Elizabeth Dilling's 1936 work The Red Network: A Who's Who and Handbook of Radicalism for Patriots, remarking "this is a book, The Red Network, this came in from 1936. People – [Joseph] McCarthy was absolutely right ... This is, who were the communists in America." Beck was criticized by an array of people, including Menachem Z. Rosensaft and Joe Conason, who stated that Dilling was an outspoken anti-Semite and a Nazi sympathizer.
Religious
Beck has credited God for saving him from drug and alcohol abuse, professional obscurity, and friendlessness. In 2006, Beck performed a short inspirational monologue in Salt Lake City, Utah, detailing how he was transformed by the "healing power of Jesus Christ", which was released as a CD two years later by Deseret Book, a publishing company owned by the LDS Church, entitled An Unlikely Mormon: The Conversion Story of Glenn Beck.
Writer Joanna Brooks contends that Beck developed his "amalgamation of anti-communism" and "connect-the-dots conspiracy theorizing" only after his entry into the "deeply insular world of Mormon thought and culture". Brooks theorizes that Beck's calls to fasting and prayer are rooted in Mormon collective fasts to address spiritual challenges, while Beck's "overt sentimentality" and penchant for weeping represent the hallmark of a "distinctly Mormon mode of masculinity" where "appropriately-timed displays of tender emotion are displays of power" and spirituality. Philip Barlow, the Arrington chair of Mormon history and culture at Utah State University, has said that Beck's belief that the U.S. Constitution was an "inspired document", his calls for limited government and not exiling God from the public sphere, "have considerable sympathy in Mormonism". Beck has acknowledged that Mormon "doctrine is different" from traditional Christianity, but he said that this was what attracted him to it, stating that "for me some of the things in traditional doctrine just doesn't work."
Public reception
In 2009, Beck's show was one of the highest rated news commentary programs on cable TV. For a Barbara Walters ABC special, Beck was selected as one of America's "Top 10 Most Fascinating People" of 2009. In 2010, Beck was selected for Time'''s top 100 most influential people under the "Leaders" category.
Beck has referred to himself as an entertainer, a commentator rather than a reporter, and a "rodeo clown". He has said that he identifies with Howard Beale, a character portrayed by Peter Finch in the film Network: "When he came out of the rain and he was like, none of this makes any sense. I am that guy."Time magazine described Beck as "the new populist superstar of Fox News" saying it is easier to see a set of attitudes rather than a specific ideology, noting his criticism of Wall Street, yet defending bonuses to AIG, as well as denouncing conspiracy theories about the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) but warning against indoctrination of children by the AmeriCorps program." (Paul Krugman and Mark Potok, on the other hand, have been among those asserting that Beck helps spread "hate" by covering issues that stir up extremists.) What seems to unite Beck's disparate themes, Time argued, is a sense of siege. An earlier cover story in Time described Beck as "a gifted storyteller with a knack for stitching seemingly unrelated data points into possible conspiracies", proclaiming that he has "emerged as a virtuoso on the strings" of conservative discontent by mining "the timeless theme of the corrupt Them thwarting a virtuous Us".
Beck's shows have been described as a "mix of moral lessons, outrage and an apocalyptic view of the future ... capturing the feelings of an alienated class of Americans". One of Beck's Fox News Channel colleagues Shepard Smith, has jokingly called Beck's studio the "fear chamber", with Beck countering that he preferred the term "doom room".
Republican South Carolina U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham criticized Beck as a "cynic" whose show was antithetical to "American values" at The Atlantic's 2009 First Draft of History conference, remarking "Only in America can you make that much money crying." The progressive watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting's (FAIR) Activism Director, Peter Hart, argues that Beck red-baits political adversaries and promotes a paranoid view of progressive politics. Howard Kurtz, of The Washington Post, has remarked that "Love him or hate him, Beck is a talented, often funny broadcaster, a recovering alcoholic with an unabashedly emotional style."
Laura Miller writes in Salon that Beck is a contemporary example of "the paranoid style in American politics" described by historian Richard Hofstader:
Beck has acknowledged accusations of being a conspiracy theorist, stating on his show that there is a "concentrated effort now to label me a conspiracy theorist".
Particularly as a consequence of Beck's Restoring Honor rally in 2010, the fact that Beck is Mormon caused concern amongst some politically sympathetic Christian Evangelicals on theological grounds.Posner, Sarah, Evangelicals have "Deep Concerns" about Beck, Religion Dispatches, September 1, 2010"Does it Matter that Glenn Beck is a Mormon?", The Week, Yahoo!, August 31, 2010 Tom Tradup, vice president at Salem Radio Network, which serves more than 2,000 Christian-themed stations, expressed this sentiment after the rally, stating "Politically, everyone is with it, but theologically, when he says the country should turn back to God, the question is: Which God?" Subsequently, a September 2010 survey conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) and Religion News Service (RNS) found that of those Americans who hold a favorable opinion of Beck, only 45% believe he is the right person to lead a religious movement, with that number further declining to 37% when people are informed he is Mormon. Daniel Cox, director of research for PRRI, summed up this position by stating:
Pete Peterson of Pepperdine's Davenport Institute said that Beck's speech at the rally belonged to an American tradition of calls to personal renewal. Peterson wrote: "A Mormon surrounded onstage by priests, pastors, rabbis, and imams, Beck [gave] one of the more ecumenical jeremiads in history." Evangelical pastor Tony Campolo said in 2010 that conservative evangelicals respond to Beck's framing of conservative economic principles, saying that Beck's and ideological fellow travelers' "marriage between evangelicalism and patriotic nationalism is so strong that anybody who is raising questions about loyalty to the old, lassez-faire capitalist system is ex-post facto unpatriotic, un-American, and by association non-Christian." Newsweek religion reporter Lisa Miller, after quoting Campolo, opined, "It's ironic that Beck, a Mormon, would gain acceptance as a leader of a new Christian coalition. ... Beck's gift ... is to articulate God's special plan for America in such broad strokes that they trample no single creed or doctrine while they move millions with their message."
Critical biographies
In June 2010, investigative reporter Alexander Zaitchik released a critical biography titled Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance, with a title mocking Beck's work, Common Sense. In an interview about the book, Zaitchik theorized, "Beck's politics and his insatiable hunger for money and fame are not mutually exclusive", while stating:
In September 2010, Philadelphia Daily News reporter Will Bunch released The Backlash: Right-Wing Radicals, High-Def Hucksters, and Paranoid Politics in the Age of Obama. One of Bunch's theses is that Beck is nothing more than a morning zoo deejay playing a fictional character as a money-making stunt. Writer Bob Cesca, in a review of Bunch's book, compares Beck to Steve Martin's faith-healer character in the 1992 film Leap of Faith, before describing the "derivative grab bag of other tried and tested personalities" that Bunch contends comprises Beck's persona:
In October 2010 a polemical biography by Dana Milbank was released: Tears of a Clown: Glenn Beck and the Tea Bagging of America.
Satire, spoof and parody
Beck has been the subject of mockery and ridicule by a number of humorists. In response to Beck's animated delivery and views, he was parodied in an impersonation by Jason Sudeikis on Saturday Night Live. The Daily Shows Jon Stewart has spoofed Beck's 9–12 project with his own "11-3 project", consisting of "11 principles and 3 herbs and spices", impersonated Beck's chalk board-related presentation style for an entire show, and quipped about Beck "finally, a guy who says what people who aren't thinking are thinking". Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report satirized Beck's "war room" by creating his own "doom bunker". Through the character Eric Cartman, South Park parodied Beck's television program and his commentary style in the episode "Dances with Smurfs". The Onion, a satirical periodical and faux news site, ran an Onion News Network video "special report" where it lamented that the "victim in a fatal car accident was tragically not Glenn Beck". Meanwhile, the Current TV cartoon SuperNews! ran an animated cartoon feature titled "The Glenn Beck Apocalypse", where Beck is confronted by Jesus Christ who rebukes him as the equivalent of "Sarah Palin farting into a balloon". Political comedian and satirist Bill Maher has mocked Beck's followers as an "army of diabetic mallwalkers", while The Buffalo Beast, named Beck the most loathsome person in America in 2010, declaring "It's like someone found a manic, doom-prophesying hobo in a sandwich board, shaved him, shot him full of Zoloft and gave him a show." The October 30, 2010 Rally To Restore Sanity and/or Fear in Washington, hosted by Comedy Central personalities Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, was conceived as a parody of Beck's earlier Rally to Restore Honor, even though Stewart and Colbert said that they came up with the idea of holding a rally in March and Stewart had put down the deposit for the National Mall before Beck announced his rally.
Defamation lawsuit and settlement
In March 2014, Abdulrahman Alharbi filed suit for defamation in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts against Beck and his business entities, The Blaze and Mercury Radio Arts, along with his distributor Premiere Radio Networks. Alharbi's defamation claim arose from Beck's repeated broadcasts "identifying Alharbi as an active participant" in the Boston Marathon bombing, even after federal authorities cleared Alharbi, who was injured in the attack, of any wrongdoing and confirmed that he was an innocent victim.Josh Gerstein, Glenn Beck reaches settlement with Saudi student over Boston Marathon accusations, Politico (September 13, 2016). In December 2014, the judge rejected Beck's attempt to have the case dismissed. In September 2016, the suit was settled on confidential terms.
See also
Beck University
Conservative talk radio
List of most-listened-to radio programs
Works
Non-fiction
(Audiobook).
An Unlikely Mormon: The Conversion Story of Glenn Beck, Deseret Book 2008 (Audiobook). .
Arguing with Idiots: How to Stop Small Minds and Big Government, Simon & Schuster 2009. .
Glenn Beck's Common Sense: The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government, Simon & Schuster 2009. .Best Sellers: Paperback Nonfiction, The New York Times, October 9, 2009
America's March to Socialism: Why We're One Step Closer to Giant Missile Parades, Simon & Schuster Audio 2009 (Audio CD). .
Idiots Unplugged, Simon & Schuster 2010 (Audio CD). .
Broke: The Plan to Restore Our Trust, Truth, and Treasure, Simon & Schuster 2010. .
The 7: Seven Wonders That Will Change Your Life, Keith Ablow, co-author; Threshold Editions, 2011; .
The Original Argument: The Federalists' Case for the Constitution, Adapted for the 21st Century, with Joshua Charles; Threshold Editions, 2011; .
Liars: How Progressives Exploit Our Fears for Power and Control, Threshold Editions August 2, 2016.
Addicted to Outrage: How Thinking Like a Recovering Addict Can Heal the Country, Threshold Editions September 18, 2018.
The Great Reset: Joe Biden and the Rise of Twenty-First-Century Fascism, Justin Haskins, co-author; Forefront Books, 2021; .
Control Series
Fiction
The Christmas Sweater, Simon & Schuster 2008. .
The Overton Window, Threshold Editions June 2010.
The Eye of Moloch, Threshold Editions June 2013.
Agenda 21: Into the Shadows, Threshold Editions January 2015.
The Immortal Nicholas, Mercury Ink October 2015.
Children's
The Christmas Sweater: A Picture Book, Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing 2009. .
Beck authorized a comic book:
Political Power: Glenn Beck'', by Jerome Maida, Mark Sparacio (illus.); Bluewater Productions, 2011
References
External links
Glenn Beck – The 912 Project
1964 births
Living people
20th-century American male writers
21st-century American male writers
American Christian Zionists
American conspiracy theorists
American entertainment industry businesspeople
Latter Day Saints from Washington (state)
American anti-communists
American libertarians
American magazine founders
American people of German descent
American political commentators
American political writers
American television talk show hosts
Christian libertarians
Blaze Media people
American conservative talk radio hosts
Converts to Mormonism from Roman Catholicism
Former Roman Catholics
Fox News people
Male critics of feminism
People from Everett, Washington
People from Westlake, Texas
Radio personalities from Phoenix, Arizona
Radio personalities from Tampa, Florida
Tea Party movement activists
Texas Independents
Washington (state) Republicans
Writers from Bellingham, Washington
Latter Day Saints from Texas
20th-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American non-fiction writers
American male non-fiction writers | true | [
"WRKA may refer to:\n\n WRKA, a radio station (103.9 FM) licensed to Louisville, Kentucky, United States\n WRKA, the ICAO code for Haliwen Airport in Atambua, Indonesia\n WQNU, a radio station (103.1 FM) licensed to Lyndon, Kentucky, United States, known as WRKA from January 1980 to July 2008",
"WRKA (103.9 FM) is a commercial urban adult contemporary radio station licensed to serve Louisville, Kentucky. Owned by SummitMedia, the station covers the Louisville metropolitan area. The WRKA studios are located in Downtown Louisville, while the transmitter site resides atop the National City Tower. Besides a standard analog transmission, WRKA is available online.\n\nHistory\nIn November 1974, the station signed on the air as WFIA-FM, an FM adjunct to WFIA and owned by AM 900, Inc. The call sign was later changed to WXLN and played Contemporary Christian music.\n\nThe station's first post Christian format was contemporary hit radio as WZKS \"Kiss 104\". Debuting on July 5, 1990, WZKS intended to challenge WDJX, but after WDJX's owners entered into a local marketing agreement to operate the station on January 27, 1992, WZKS simulcast WDJX for nearly a month and a half. After the simulcast broke that March 19, WZKS began stunting by playing songs recorded by Garth Brooks, then switched to country music on March 23., 1992.\n\nDuring this period, 103.9 became the first FM station in the market intended to challenge longtime country leader WAMZ. Initially, 103.9 was known as \"Hot Country 103.9\", which, unlike WAMZ, had no local air talent, instead relying on Westwood One's \"Hot Country\" format. On March 30, 1993, the station was revamped as \"103.9 The Hawk\", added local programming, and changed its call sign to WHKW.\n\nThe format, call letters, and \"The Hawk\" branding were transferred to WKJK (107.7 FM) on May 24, 1994. After that programming move, WHKW adopted an oldies format branded as \"Cool 103.9\", with replacement WQLL calls on June 6. The playlist was changed to all 1970's music, but the \"Cool\" branding was retained.\n\nThe station changed its format to Smooth Jazz on June 3, 1996, and changed its call letters to WSJW. On August 7, 1998, the station changed again to adult contemporary as WMHX \"Mix 103.9\", reviving a format dropped by the former WLRS a year earlier.\n\nAfter the station was purchased by Cox Radio in 1999, WHMX switched to an all-80s hits format branded as \"103.9 The Point\" in November 2000. The call letters were switched to WPTK on November 24, then a month later, on December 20, to WPTI. WPTI dropped the 80s hits format for another attempt at country, branded \"New Country 103.9\", on October 21, 2004. WPTI's call letters were changed to WRKA on July 18, 2008, and the format was changed to Classic Country as \"Country Legends 103.9\" that July 23. The previous country format was moved to the former WRKA, renamed WQNU.\n\nCox Radio, Inc. sold WRKA, along with 22 other stations, to Summit Media LLC for $66.25 million on July 20, 2012; the sale was consummated on May 3, 2013.\n\nOn May 23, 2014, WRKA began stunting by only playing music by Garth Brooks as \"103.9 Garth-FM\" before announcing the station was not able to use Brooks' name due to legal issues. It rebranded as \"XXXXX-FM\" (with the \"XXXXX\" being pronounced on-air as a long beep) and promising a new format to debut the following Monday, June 2, at 7 am. At that time, WRKA relaunched with a 1990s-heavy country format, once again branded as \"103.9 The Hawk\". The first song on \"The Hawk\" was Gone Country by Alan Jackson.\n\nOn December 31, 2018, WRKA dropped the classic country format and began stunting as \"103.9 The Party\" using the slogan, \"Where it's New Year's Eve every day.\" On January 14, 2019, WRKA ended stunting and launched a rhythmic adult contemporary format, branded as \"103.9 The Groove\". In January 2020, WRKA shifted the format from rhythmic adult contemporary to urban adult contemporary, still under the \"103.9 The Groove\" branding.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nUrban adult contemporary radio stations in the United States\nRKA\nRadio stations established in 1974\n1974 establishments in Kentucky"
] |
[
"Glenn Beck",
"Radio",
"On what radio station did Glenn work at?",
"In 1983 he moved to Corpus Christi, Texas, to work at radio station KZFM.",
"What was his job at KZFM?",
"In mid-1985, Beck was hired away from KZFM to be the lead DJ for the morning-drive radio broadcast by WRKA in Louisville, Kentucky.",
"Did he enjoy his job at WRKA?",
"I don't know.",
"Did he ever leave WRKA for another station?",
"The show slipped to third in the market and Beck left abruptly in 1987 amid a dispute with WRKA management."
] | C_d978852d1897400091e5bbbd8041c542_0 | What was the dispute about? | 5 | What was the dispute between WRKA and Glenn Beck about? | Glenn Beck | In 1983 he moved to Corpus Christi, Texas, to work at radio station KZFM. In mid-1985, Beck was hired away from KZFM to be the lead DJ for the morning-drive radio broadcast by WRKA in Louisville, Kentucky. His four-hour weekday show was called Captain Beck and the A-Team. Beck had a reputation as a "young up-and-comer". The show was not political and included the usual off-color antics of the genre: juvenile jokes, pranks, and impersonations. The show slipped to third in the market and Beck left abruptly in 1987 amid a dispute with WRKA management. Months later, Beck was hired by Phoenix Top-40 station KOY-FM, then known as Y-95. Beck was partnered with Arizona native Tim Hattrick to co-host a local "morning zoo" program. During his time at Y-95, Beck cultivated a rivalry with local pop radio station KZZP and that station's morning host Bruce Kelly. Through practical jokes and publicity stunts, Beck drew criticism from the staff at Y-95 when the rivalry culminated in Beck telephoning Kelly's wife on-the-air, mocking her recent miscarriage. In 1989, Beck resigned from Y-95 to accept a job in Houston at KRBE, known as Power 104. Beck was subsequently fired in 1990 due to poor ratings. Beck then moved on to Baltimore, Maryland, and the city's leading Top-40 station, WBSB, known as B104. There, he partnered with Pat Gray, a morning DJ. During his tenure at B104, Beck was arrested and jailed for speeding in his DeLorean. According to a former associate, Beck was "completely out of it" when a station manager went to bail him out. When Gray, then Beck were fired, the two men spent six months in Baltimore, planning their next move. In early 1992, Beck and Gray both moved to WKCI-FM (KC101), a Top-40 radio station in New Haven, Connecticut. In 1995, WKCI apologized after Beck and Gray mocked a Chinese-American caller on air who felt offended by a comedy segment by playing a gong sound effect and having executive producer Alf Gagineau mock a Chinese accent. That incident led to protests by activist groups. When Gray left the show to move to Salt Lake City, Beck continued with co-host Vinnie Penn. At the end of 1998, Beck was informed that his contract would not be renewed at the end of 1999. The Glenn Beck Program first aired in 2000 on WFLA (AM) in Tampa, and took their afternoon time slot from eighteenth to first place within a year. In January 2002, Premiere Radio Networks launched the show nationwide on 47 stations. The show then moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, broadcasting from new flagship station WPHT. On November 5, 2007, The New York Times reported that Premiere Radio Networks was extending Beck's contract. By May 2008, it had reached over 280 terrestrial stations as well as XM Satellite. It was ranked 4th in the nation with over six and a half million listeners. As of July 2013, Beck was tied for number four in the ratings behind Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Dave Ramsey. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Glenn Lee Beck (born February 10, 1964) is an American conservative political commentator, conspiracy theorist, radio host, and television producer. He is the CEO, founder, and owner of Mercury Radio Arts, the parent company of his television and radio network TheBlaze. He hosts the Glenn Beck Radio Program, a popular talk-radio show nationally syndicated on Premiere Radio Networks. Beck also hosts the Glenn Beck television program, which ran from January 2006 to October 2008 on HLN, from January 2009 to June 2011 on Fox News and now airs on TheBlaze. Beck has authored six New York Times–bestselling books.
In April 2011, Beck announced that he would "transition off of his daily program" on Fox News, but would continue to team with Fox. Beck's last daily show on the network was June 30, 2011. In 2012, The Hollywood Reporter named Beck on its Digital Power Fifty list. Beck launched TheBlaze in 2011 after leaving Fox News. He currently hosts an hour-long afternoon program, The Glenn Beck Program, on weekdays, and a three-hour morning radio show; both are broadcast on TheBlaze. Beck is also the producer of For the Record on TheBlaze.
During Barack Obama's presidency, Beck promoted many conspiracy theories about Obama, his administration, George Soros, and others.
Early life and education
Beck was born in Everett, Washington, the son of Mary Clara (née Janssen) and William Beck, who lived in Mountlake Terrace, Washington, at the time of their son's birth. The family later moved to Mount Vernon, Washington, where they owned and operated City Bakery in the downtown area. He is descended from German immigrants who came to the United States in the 19th century. Beck was raised as a Roman Catholic and attended Immaculate Conception Catholic School in Mount Vernon.
Glenn and his older sister moved with their mother to Sumner, Washington, attending a Jesuit school in Puyallup. On May 15, 1979, while out on a small boat with a male companion, Beck's mother drowned just west of Tacoma, Washington, in Puget Sound. The man who had taken her out in the boat also drowned. A Tacoma police report stated that Mary Beck "appeared to be a classic drowning victim", but a Coast Guard investigator speculated that she could have intentionally jumped overboard. Beck has described his mother's death as a suicide in interviews during television and radio broadcasts.
After their mother's death, Beck and his older sister moved to their father's home in Bellingham, Washington, where Beck graduated from Sehome High School in June 1982. Beck also regularly vacationed with his maternal grandparents, Ed and Clara Janssen, in Iowa. In the aftermath of his mother's death and subsequent suicide of his stepbrother, Beck has said he used "Dr. Jack Daniel's" to cope. At 18, following his high school graduation, Beck relocated to Provo, Utah, and worked at radio station KAYK. Feeling he "didn't fit in", Beck left Utah after six months, taking a job at Washington, D.C.'s WPGC in February 1983.
Personal life
While working at WPGC, Beck met his first wife, Claire. In 1983, the couple married and had two daughters, Mary and Hannah. Mary developed cerebral palsy as a result of a series of strokes at birth in 1988. The couple divorced in 1994 amid Beck's struggles with substance abuse. He is a recovering alcoholic and drug addict, and has said he has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Beck later admitted that the family problems ranging from the divorce to his substance abuse had a severe negative impact on his children.
By 1994, Beck was suicidal, and he imagined shooting himself to the music of Kurt Cobain. He credits Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) with helping him achieve sobriety. He said he stopped drinking alcohol and smoking cannabis in November 1994, the same month he attended his first AA meeting. Beck later said that he had gotten high every day for the previous 15 years, since the age of 16.
In 1996, while working for a New Haven area radio station, Beck took a theology class at Yale University, with a written recommendation from Senator Joe Lieberman, a Yale alumnus who was a fan of Beck's show at the time. Beck enrolled in an "Early Christology" course, but soon withdrew, marking the extent of his post-secondary education.
Beck then began a "spiritual quest" in which he "sought out answers in churches and bookstores". As he later recounted in his books and stage performances, Beck's first attempt at self-education involved reading the work of six wide-ranging authors, constituting what Beck jokingly calls "the library of a serial killer": Alan Dershowitz, Pope John Paul II, Adolf Hitler, Billy Graham, Carl Sagan, and Friedrich Nietzsche. During this time, Beck's Mormon friend and former radio partner Pat Gray argued in favor of the "comprehensive worldview" offered by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, an offer that Beck rejected until a few years later (Later, after Beck's moving to the New York City area, he had a consultation with Graham, which Beck said touched him strongly).
In 1999, Beck married his second wife, Tania. After they went looking for a faith on a church tour together, they joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in October 1999, partly at the urging of his daughter Mary. Beck was baptized by his old friend, and current-day co-worker Pat Gray. Beck and Tania have had two children together, Raphe (who is adopted) and Cheyenne. Until April 2011, the couple lived in New Canaan, Connecticut, with the four children.
Beck announced in July 2010 that he had been diagnosed with macular dystrophy, saying "A couple of weeks ago I went to the doctor because of my eyes, I can't focus my eyes. He did all kinds of tests and he said, 'you have macular dystrophy ... you could go blind in the next year. Or, you might not. The disorder can make it difficult to read, drive or recognize faces.
In July 2011, Beck leased a house in the Fort Worth suburb of Westlake, Texas. In 2012, he moved his main TV and radio studios to Dallas, Texas.
On November 10, 2014, Beck announced on TheBlaze that he had been suffering from a severe neurological disorder for at least the last five years. He described many strong and debilitating symptoms which made it difficult for him to work, and he also announced that he had "a string of health issues that quite honestly made me look crazy, and quite honestly, I have felt crazy because of them". Beck related that a chiropractor who specializes in "chiropractic neurology", Frederick Carrick, had "diagnosed [him] with several health issues, including an autoimmune disorder, which he didn't name, and adrenal fatigue." Over a period of ten months he had received a series of treatments and felt better. On January 13, 2022, Beck announced that his second case of covid was "getting into my lungs".
Career
In 2002, Beck created the media platform Mercury Radio Arts as the umbrella over his broadcast, publishing, Internet, and live show interests. Beck founded Mercury Radio Arts in 2002, naming it after the Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre, which produced live radio broadcasts during the 1930s. The company produces all of Beck's productions, including his eponymous radio show, books, live stage shows, and his official website.
Radio
In 1983, he moved to Corpus Christi, Texas, to work at radio station KZFM. In mid-1985, Beck was hired away from KZFM to be the lead DJ for the morning-drive radio broadcast by WRKA in Louisville, Kentucky. His four-hour weekday show was called Captain Beck and the A-Team. Beck had a reputation as a "young up-and-comer". The show was not political and included the usual off-color antics of the genre: juvenile jokes, pranks, and impersonations. The show slipped to third in the market and Beck left abruptly in 1987 amid a dispute with WRKA management.
Months later, Beck was hired by Phoenix Top-40 station KOY-FM, then known as Y-95. Beck was partnered with Arizona native Tim Hattrick to co-host a local "morning zoo" program. During his time at Y-95, Beck cultivated a rivalry with local pop radio station KZZP and that station's morning host Bruce Kelly. Through practical jokes and publicity stunts, Beck drew criticism from the staff at Y-95 when the rivalry culminated in Beck telephoning Kelly's wife on-the-air, mocking her recent miscarriage. In 1989, Beck resigned from Y-95 to accept a job in Houston at KRBE, known as Power 104. Beck was subsequently fired in 1990 due to poor ratings.
Beck then moved on to Baltimore, Maryland, and the city's leading Top-40 station, WBSB, known as B104. There, he partnered with Pat Gray, a morning DJ. During his tenure at B104, Beck was arrested and jailed for speeding in his DeLorean. According to a former associate, Beck was "completely out of it" when a station manager went to bail him out. When Gray, then Beck were fired, the two men spent six months in Baltimore, planning their next move. In early 1992, Beck and Gray both moved to WKCI-FM (KC101), a Top-40 radio station in New Haven, Connecticut. In 1995, WKCI apologized after Beck and Gray mocked a Chinese-American caller on air who felt offended by a comedy segment by playing a gong sound effect and having executive producer Alf Gatineau mock a Chinese accent. That incident led to protests by activist groups. When Gray left the show to move to Salt Lake City, Beck continued with co-host Vinnie Penn. At the end of 1998, Beck was informed that his contract would not be renewed at the end of 1999.
The Glenn Beck Program first aired in 2000 on WFLA (AM) in Tampa, and took their afternoon time slot from eighteenth to first place within a year. In January 2002, Premiere Radio Networks launched the show nationwide on 47 stations. The show then moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, broadcasting from new flagship station WPHT. On November 5, 2007, The New York Times reported that Premiere Radio Networks was extending Beck's contract. By May 2008, it had reached over 280 terrestrial stations as well as XM Satellite. It was ranked 4th in the nation with over six and a half million listeners. , Beck was tied for number four in the ratings behind Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Dave Ramsey.
Television
In January 2006, CNN's Headline News announced that Beck would host a nightly news-commentary show in their new prime-time block Headline Prime. The show, simply called Glenn Beck, aired weeknights. CNN Headline News described the show as "an unconventional look at the news of the day featuring his often amusing perspective". At the end of his tenure at CNN-HLN, Beck had the second largest audience behind Nancy Grace. In 2008, Beck won the Marconi Radio Award for Network Syndicated Personality of the Year.
In October 2008, it was announced that Beck would join the Fox News Channel, leaving CNN Headline News. After moving to the Fox News Channel, Beck hosted Glenn Beck, beginning in January 2009, as well as a weekend version. One of his first guests was Alaska Governor Sarah Palin He also had a regular segment every Friday on the Fox News Channel program The O'Reilly Factor titled "At Your Beck and Call". , Beck's program drew more viewers than all three of the competing time-slot shows combined on CNN, MSNBC and HLN.
His show's high ratings did not come without controversy. The Washington Posts Howard Kurtz reported that Beck's use of "distorted or inflammatory rhetoric" had complicated the channel's and their journalists' efforts to neutralize White House criticism that Fox is not really a news organization. Television analyst Andrew Tyndall echoed these sentiments, saying that Beck's incendiary style had created "a real crossroads for Fox News", stating "they're right on the cusp of losing their image as a news organization."
In April 2011, Fox News and Mercury Radio Arts, Beck's production company, announced that Beck would "transition off of his daily program" on Fox News in 2011. His last day at Fox was later announced as June 30. FNC and Beck announced that he would be teaming with Fox to produce a slate of projects for Fox News and its digital properties. Fox News head Roger Ailes later referenced Beck's entrepreneurialism and political movement activism, saying, "His [Beck's] goals were different from our goals ... I need people focused on a daily television show." Beck hosted his last daily show on Fox on June 30, 2011, where he recounted the accomplishments of the show and said, "This show has become a movement. It's not a TV show, and that's why it doesn't belong on television anymore. It belongs in your homes. It belongs in your neighborhoods." In response to critics who said he was fired, Beck pointed out that his final show was airing live. Immediately after the show he did an interview on his new GBTV internet television channel.
TheBlaze TV (formerly GBTV)
Beck's Fox News one-hour show ended June 30, 2011, and a new two-hour show began his television network which started as a subscription-based internet TV network, TheBlaze TV, originally called GBTV, on September 12, 2011. Using a subscription model, it was estimated that Beck is on track to generate $27 million in his first year of operation. This was later upgraded to $40 million by The Wall Street Journal when subscriptions topped 300,000. On September 12, 2012, TheBlaze TV announced that the Dish Network would begin carrying TheBlaze TV. TheBlaze is currently available on over 90 television providers, with eleven of those being in the national top 25.
Books
Mercury Ink has a co-publishing deal with Simon & Schuster and was founded by Glenn Beck in 2011 as the publishing imprint of Mercury Radio Arts. Started in 2011, Mercury Ink publishes adult and young adult novels and non-fiction titles. Including books written by Glenn Beck, authors signed to Mercury Ink include New York Times best seller Richard Paul Evans.
Beck has reached No. 1 on The New York Times Bestseller List in four separate categories : Hardcover Non-Fiction, Paperback Non-Fiction, Hardcover Fiction, and Children's Picture Books.
Beck has a chapter giving advice in Tim Ferriss' book Tools of Titans.
Non Fiction
An Inconvenient Book:Real Solutions to the World's Biggest Problems, .
Glenn Beck's Common Sense:The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government Inspired by Thomas Paine, Threshold Editions, June 16, 2009, .
Arguing With Idiots:How to Stop Small Minds and Big Government, Threshold Editions, September 22, 2009, .
Broke:The Plan to Restore Our Trust, Truth and Treasure Threshold Editions, October 26, 2010, .
The 7:Seven Wonders That Will Change Your Life, co-author Keith Ablow, MD, Threshold Editions, January 4, 2011, .
The Original Argument:The Federalists' Case for the Constitution, Adapted for the 21st Century, Threshold Editions, June 14, 2011, .
Being George Washington:The Indispensable Man, as You've Never Seen Him, Threshold Editions, November 22, 2011, .
Cowards:What Politicians, Radicals, and the Media Refuse to Say, Threshold Editions, June 12, 2012, .
Control:Exposing the Truth About Guns, Threshold Editions, April 30, 2013, .
Miracles and Massacres:True and Untold Stories of the Making of America, Threshold Editions, November 19, 2013, .
Conform:Exposing the Truth About Common Core and Public Education, Threshold Editions, May 6, 2014, .
Dreamers and Deceivers:True Stories of the Heroes and Villains Who Made America, Threshold Editions, August 11, 2015, .
It IS About Islam:Exposing the Truth About ISIS, Al Qaeda, Iran and the Caliphate, Threshold Editions, August 18, 2015, .
Liars:How Progressives Exploit Our Fears For Power and Control Threshold Editions, August 2, 2016, .
Addicted to Outrage:How Thinking Like a Recovering Addict Can Heal the Country, Threshold Editions, September 18, 2018, .
Arguing With Socialist, Threshold Books, April 7, 2020, .
Fiction
The Christmas Sweater, Threshold Editions, November 11, 2008, .
The Overton Window, Threshold Editions, June 15, 2010, .
The Snow Angel, Threshold Editions, October 25, 2011, .
Agenda 21, co-author Harriett Parke, Threshold Editions, November 20, 2012, .
The Eye of Moloch, Threshold Editions, June 11, 2013, .
Agenda 21:Into the Shadows, co-author Harriett Parke, Threshold Editions, January 6, 2015, .
The Immortal Nicholas, Mercury Ink, October 27, 2015, .
Stage shows and speeches
Since 2005, Beck has toured American cities twice a year, presenting a one-man stage show. His stage productions are a mix of stand-up comedy and inspirational speaking. In a critique of his live act, Salon magazine's Steve Almond describes Beck as a "wildly imaginative performer, a man who weds the operatic impulses of the demagogue to the grim mutterings of the conspiracy theorist".
A show from the Beck `08 Unelectable Tour was shown in around 350 movie theaters around the country.
The finale of 2009's Common Sense Comedy Tour was simulcast in over 440 theaters. The events have drawn 200,000 fans in recent years.
In March 2003, Beck ran a series of rallies, which he called Glenn Beck's Rally for America, in support of troops deployed for the upcoming Iraq War. On July 4, 2007, Beck served as host of the 2007 Toyota Tundra "Stadium of Fire" in Provo, Utah. The annual event at LaVell Edwards Stadium on the Brigham Young University campus is presented by America's Freedom Foundation. In May 2008, Beck gave the keynote speech at the NRA convention in Louisville, Kentucky.
In late August 2009, the mayor of Beck's hometown, Mount Vernon, Washington, announced that he would award Beck the Key to the City, designating September 26, 2009, as "Glenn Beck Day". Due to local opposition, the city council voted unanimously to disassociate itself from the award. The key presentation ceremony sold-out the 850 seat McIntyre Hall and an estimated 800 detractors and supporters demonstrated outside the building. Earlier that day, approximately 7,000 people attended the Evergreen Freedom Foundation's "Take the Field with Glenn Beck" at Seattle's Safeco Field.
In December 2009, Beck produced a one-night special film titled "The Christmas Sweater: A Return to Redemption". In January and February 2010, Beck teamed with fellow Fox News host Bill O'Reilly to tour several cities in a live stage show called "The Bold and Fresh Tour 2010". The January 29 show was recorded and broadcast to movie theaters throughout the country.
In July 2013, Beck produced and hosted a one-night stage event called Man in the Moon, held at the USANA Amphitheatre in West Valley City, Utah. The amphitheater sold out all 20,000 of its seats and was released on television and DVD in August 2013. The event was a narrative story told from the point of view of the moon, from the beginnings of the Book of Genesis to the first moon landing. The moon serves as the narrator of the story.
Philanthropy
In 2011, Beck founded the non-profit organization Mercury One, which is designed to sustain itself through its entrepreneurship without the need for grants or donations. In early 2011, Beck began work toward developing a clothing line to be sold to benefit the charity and October 2011, Mercury One began selling the upscale clothing line labeled 1791 exclusively at its website, 1791.com. The clothing in the line's eleven-piece inaugural offering was manufactured by American Mojo of Lowell, Massachusetts.
In July 2014, after tens of thousands of undocumented immigrant children crossed into Texas via the Southern United States border, unaccompanied by parents, Beck announced that he, along with Utah Senator Mike Lee and Texas representative Louie Gohmert, would travel to the U.S.-Mexico border with his charity organization, Mercury One. He stated that they would bring tractor trailers full of food, hot meals, and teddy bears for the unaccompanied minors. While Beck made it clear in interviews that they wanted a full repeal of DACA, Beck also mentioned his belief in the importance of helping these children. "Through no fault of their own, they are caught in political crossfire, and while we continue to put pressure on Washington and change its course of lawlessness, we must also help," Beck said. "It is not either, or. It is both. We have to be active in the political game, and we must open our hearts."
As of 2017, Beck's Nazarene Fund had reportedly relocated 10,524 Christian refugees from northern Iraq and Syria to other host countries, including Australia, the United States, France, Slovakia, Greece, Lebanon, Brazil, and Canada. The fund's website notes 1,646 families have been evacuated from the ISIS ravaged region since its launch in 2014, and 45,000 people have received humanitarian aid as a result of donations to Mercury One.
Projects and rallies
9–12 Project and Tea Party protests
In March 2009, Beck put together a campaign, the 9-12 Project, which is named after nine principles and twelve values that he says embody the spirit of the American people on the day after the September 11 attacks. The Colorado 9–12 Project hosted a "Patriot Camp" for kids in grades 1–5, featuring programs on "our Constitution, the Founding Fathers, and the values and principles that are the cornerstones of our nation".
Restoring Honor rally
The Restoring Honor rally was promoted/hosted by Beck and held at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. on August 28, 2010. The rally—which purported to embrace religious faith and patriotism—was co-sponsored by the Special Operations Warrior Foundation, promoted by FreedomWorks, and supported by the Tea Party movement. Attendance was estimated at 87,000 (± 9,000) based on aerial photos.
"America's First Christmas"
In December 2010, Beck went to Wilmington, Ohio, a town devastated by the late-2000s recession, to host live events to encourage his fans to go to the town to boost the local economy in a project called "America's First Christmas". He hosted an event and his radio and television shows from the local theater.
Restoring Courage 2011 international tour
Beck headlined his "Restoring Courage" events in Jerusalem, Israel, in August 2011 in a campaign Beck said was designed to encourage people worldwide "to stand with the Jewish people". After Jerusalem, Beck visited Cape Town, South Africa, and was scheduled to visit Venezuela.
2012 presidential campaign
Actively supporting Mitt Romney as "perhaps the best-known Mormon after the Republican presidential candidate and a major influence on evangelical Christians, ... Beck has emerged as an unlikely theological bridge between the first Mormon presidential nominee and a critical electorate [evangelicals]", according to a pre-election article in The New York Times. Along with personal campaign appearances in Ohio and Iowa, Beck unusually directly addressed doctrinal issues between Mormons and evangelical Christians—wherein the latter often consider the former a "cult" rather than Christian—on his radio show in September 2012. During the one-hour show in early September, he asked his audience, "Does Mitt Romney's Mormonism make him too scary or weird to be elected president of the United States?" The article concluded by addressing the "fear of making Mormonism mainstream" as a reason Beck could be acceptable to evangelicals and Romney not be, quoting John C. Green, the author of The Faith Factor: How Religion Influences American Elections:
There's a difference between a public figure like Glenn Beck and someone who could be the president of the United States. ... Many evangelicals believe this country was founded by Christian leaders. It is important that the person in the White House be positive about Christianity, if not a devout Christian himself.
Restoring Love rally and "Day of Service"
In August 2012, Beck held a rally at AT&T Stadium in Irving, Texas. The event's theme was service to one's fellow citizens, and loving each other. The event saw a "Day of Service", which saw Mercury One (Beck's charity organization) volunteering to feed homeless and disadvantaged individuals, doing community-building projects, and mowing lawns. The event culminated in a keynote speech presented by Beck imploring the audience to "commit to each other. Go home and wake up your neighbors." In regards to serving fellow Americans, Beck said, "Those who count us out are counting on one weekend of action, one weekend of speeches. One weekend. One day. Please my fellow countrymen, let this be the first of many."
Restoring Unity and Never Again Is Now
In August 2015, Beck and Mercury Radio Arts organized a rally that saw a little over 20,000 people march through the streets of Birmingham, Alabama in a statement of unity and support for the persecuted Christians in Iraq, a cause that Beck's Mercury One charity organization focuses on, and as a call for unity among the American people. After the march, the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex held a rally featuring speakers including Glenn Beck, Ted Cruz, Rafael Cruz, Jon Voight, Alveda King, the niece of Martin Luther King, Jr., and David Barton.
Political views
Beck has described himself as a conservative with libertarian leanings. Among his core values, Beck lists personal responsibility, private charity, the right to life, freedom of religion, limited government, and the family as the cornerstone of society. Beck believes in low national debt, and he has said "A conservative believes that debt creates unhealthy relationships. Everyone, from the government on down, should live within their means and strive for financial independence." He supports individual gun ownership rights, is against gun control legislation, and is a supporter of the NRA and its local state chapters.
Beck rejects the scientific consensus on climate change. Beck contests the evidence, citing personal beliefs, "There is more proof for the resurrection of Jesus than man-made climate change." He also views the American Clean Energy and Security Act as a form of wealth redistribution, and he has promoted a petition rejecting the Kyoto Protocol.
Although opposed to illegal immigration, Beck announced in June and July 2014 that his foundation, Mercury One, would be making efforts to provide food and relief to the large numbers of migrant children. His move was praised by supporters of immigrant rights and freer migration but met with considerable pushback from his supporter base.
On March 18, 2015, Beck officially announced that he had left the Republican Party, saying that the GOP had failed to effectively stand against the president on Obamacare and immigration reform, and because of the GOP establishment's opposition to lawmakers such as Mike Lee and Texas Senator Ted Cruz.
Beck endorsed Cruz in his run for President of the United States in 2016. In October 2016, Beck called opposing Donald Trump a "moral, ethical choice". On the campaign trail in support of Cruz, Beck was quoted as saying "If Donald Trump wins it is going to be a snowball to hell." After Cruz dropped out of the race, Beck endorsed independent Evan McMullin.
On May 18, 2018, on his radio show, Beck predicted Donald Trump would win the 2020 United States presidential election in a "landslide", saying "Here's why I'm predicting a 2020 win. When I saw yesterday how the press was all reporting the same damn story that Donald Trump was calling MS-13 gang members, they left that out of the story, 'animals' they were spinning it as if he was saying that about all immigrants. I had enough. I've had enough ... Gladly, I'll vote for [President Trump] in 2020 and not really even on his record, which we'll talk about here in a second, is pretty damn amazing." Beck went on to say, "I'll vote for him in 2020", and donned a Make America Great Again hat on his television show.
Opposition to progressivism
During his 2010 keynote speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Beck wrote progressivism on a chalkboard and declared, "This is the disease. This is the disease in America", adding that "progressivism is the cancer in America and it is eating our Constitution!" According to Beck, the progressive ideas of men such as John Dewey, Herbert Croly, and Walter Lippmann, influenced the Presidencies of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson; eventually becoming the foundation for President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal. Beck has said that such progressivism infects both main political parties and threatens to "destroy America as it was originally conceived". In Beck's book Common Sense, he argues that "progressivism has less to do with the parties and more to do with individuals who seek to redefine, reshape, and rebuild America into a country where individual liberties and personal property mean nothing if they conflict with the plans and goals of the State."
A collection of progressives, whom Beck has referred to as "Crime Inc.", comprise what Beck contends is a clandestine conspiracy to take over and transform the United States. Some of these individuals include Cass Sunstein, Van Jones, Andy Stern, John Podesta, Wade Rathke, Joel Rogers and Francis Fox Piven. Other figures tied to Beck's "Crime Inc." accusation include Al Gore, Franklin Raines, Maurice Strong, George Soros, John Holdren and President Barack Obama. According to Beck, these individuals already have or are surreptitiously working in unison with an array of organizations and corporations such as Goldman Sachs, Fannie Mae, ACORN, Apollo Alliance, Tides Center, Chicago Climate Exchange, Generation Investment Management, Enterprise Community Partners, Petrobras, Center for American Progress, and the SEIU; to fulfill their progressive agenda. In his quest to root out these "progressives", Beck has compared himself to Israeli Nazi hunters, vowing on his radio show that "to the day I die I am going to be a progressive-hunter. I'm going to find these people that have done this to our country and expose them. I don't care if they're in nursing homes." Beck compared Al Gore to the Nazis while equating the campaign against global warming to the Nazi campaign against the Jews.
Progressive historian Sean Wilentz has denounced what he describes as Beck's progressive-themed conspiracy theories and "gross historical inaccuracies", countering that Beck is merely echoing the decades-old "right-wing extremism" of the John Birch Society. According to Wilentz, Beck's "version of history" places him in a long line of figures who have challenged mainstream political historians and presented an inaccurate opposing view as the truth, stating:
Conservative David Frum, the former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, has also alleged Beck's propensity for negationism, remarking that "Beck offers a story about the American past for people who are feeling right now very angry and alienated. It is different enough from the usual story in that he makes them feel like they've got access to secret knowledge."
In 2020, Beck argued that the election of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders could lead to "another Holocaust."
Barack Obama and the Obama administration
Beck promoted numerous conspiracy theories and falsehoods about President Barack Obama and the Obama administration.
Beck suggested that Obama was building FEMA concentration camps to put opponents in, that Obama was planning to fake a terrorist attack such as the Oklahoma City bombing in order to boost the administration's popularity, and that Obama was the "puppet" of George Soros. He frequently likened Obama and his administration to Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich. Beck falsely claimed that the John Holdren who led the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Obama administration "proposed forcing abortions and putting sterilants in the drinking water to control population."
Beck argued in 2009 that Obama has repeatedly shown "a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture", saying "I'm not saying he doesn't like white people. I'm saying he has a problem. This guy is, I believe, a racist." These remarks drew criticism, and resulted in a boycott which resulted in at least 57 advertisers requesting their ads be removed from his programming. He later apologized for the remarks, telling Fox News Sunday anchor Chris Wallace that he has a "big fat mouth" and miscast as racism what is actually, as he theorizes, Obama's belief in black theology. In November 2012, Beck attempted to auction a mason jar holding an Obama figurine described as being submerged in urine (in fact, submerged in beer). Bidding reached $11,000 before eBay decided to remove the auction and cancel all bids.
In a 2016 interview with The New Yorker, Beck said of his commentary on Obama: "I did a lot of freaking out about Barack Obama." But added, "Obama made me a better man." Beck said that he regrets calling Obama a racist and is a supporter of Black Lives Matter. He said, "There are things unique to the African-American experience that I cannot relate to. I had to listen to them."
Van Jones
In July 2009, Beck began to focus what would become many episodes on his TV and radio shows on Van Jones, special advisor for Green Jobs at Obama's White House Council on Environmental Quality. Beck called Jones, "an avowed, self-avowed, radical revolutionary communist". PolitiFact rated Beck's claim "mostly false", noting that Jones, who has been open about his past as a communist during the early 1990s, had since expressed firmly capitalist beliefs.
Beck also criticized Jones for his involvement in STORM, a Bay Area radical group with Marxist roots, and his support for death row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal, who had been convicted of killing a police officer. Beck spotlighted a video of Jones referring to Republicans as "assholes", and a petition Jones signed suggesting that George W. Bush knowingly let the September 11 attacks happen. Time magazine credited Beck with leading conservatives' attack on Jones.
In a move attributed by The New York Times as a response to the controversies by the White House, which had not seen Jones' position as senior enough to warrant a full vetting, and Jones' decision that "the agenda of this president was bigger than any one individual," Jones resigned his position in September 2009. Jones characterized the attacks from his opponents as a "vicious smear campaign" and an effort to use "lies and distortions to distract and divide".
Cass Sunstein
Cass Sunstein, Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Obama White House, was a frequent target of Glenn Beck's conspiracy theories. Beck led opposition against Sunstein's nomination to the position. Beck described Sunstein as "the most dangerous man in America." Beck suggested that Sunstein was plotting ways to "ban" conspiracy theorizing.
ACORN
In 2009, Beck and other conservative commentators were critical of Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) making multiple claims including voter registration fraud in the 2008 presidential election. In September 2009, he broadcast a series of alleged undercover videos by conservative activists James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles, which portrayed ACORN community organizers offering inappropriate tax and other advice to people who had said they wanted to import "very young" girls from El Salvador to work as child prostitutes. Following the videos' release, the U.S. Census Bureau severed ties with the group while the U.S. House and Senate voted to cut all of its federal funding.
On December 7, 2009, the former Massachusetts Attorney General, after an independent internal investigation of ACORN, found the videos that had been released appeared to have been edited, "in some cases substantially". He found no evidence of criminal conduct by ACORN employees, but concluded that ACORN had poor management practices that contributed to unprofessional actions by a number of its low-level employees. On March 1, 2010, the District Attorney's office for Brooklyn determined that the videos were "heavily edited" and concluded that there was no criminal wrongdoing by the ACORN staff in the videos from the Brooklyn ACORN office. On April 1, 2010, an investigation by the California Attorney General found the videos from Los Angeles, San Diego and San Bernardino to be "heavily edited", and the investigation did not find evidence of criminal conduct on the part of ACORN employees. On June 14, 2010, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) released its findings, which showed that ACORN evidenced no sign that it, or any of its related organizations, mishandled any federal money they had received. In March 2010, ACORN announced it would be closing its offices and disbanding due to loss of funding from government and private donors.
According to a 2010 study in the journal Perspectives on Politics, Beck played a prominent role in media attacks on ACORN.
Satire website
In 2009, lawyers for Beck brought a case (Beck v. Eiland-Hall) against the owner of a satirical website named GlennBeckRapedAndMurderedAYoungGirlIn1990.com with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The claim that the domain name of the website is itself defamatory was described as a first in cyberlaw. Beck's lawyers argued that the site infringed on his trademarked name and that the domain name should be turned over to Beck. The WIPO ruled against Beck, but Eiland-Hall voluntarily transferred the domain to Beck anyway, saying that the First Amendment had been upheld and that he no longer had a use for the domain name.
Jewish Funds for Justice
In January 2011, in protest against what they saw as inappropriate references to the Holocaust and to Nazis by Beck (and by Roger Ailes of Fox News), four hundred rabbis signed an open letter published as a paid advertisement in The Wall Street Journal. The ad was paid for by Jewish Funds for Justice (JFFJ), which had previously called for Beck's firing. The JFFJ have claimed on their website that Beck seems "to draw his material straight from the anti-Semitic forgery, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion". The letter states that Beck and Fox had "diminish[ed] the memory and meaning of the Holocaust when you use it to discredit any individual or organization you disagree with. That is what Fox News has done in recent weeks." In response, a Fox News executive told Reuters the letter was from a "George Soros-backed leftwing political organization".
George Soros conspiracy theories
Beck is a prominent proponent of conspiracy theories about George Soros, a Jewish philanthropist. Beck falsely claimed that Soros as a boy helped to "send the Jews to the death camps." Beck frequently referred to Soros as a puppet-master and repeated the unsubstantiated conspiracy theory that Soros caused the 1997 Asian financial crisis. In 2010, Beck was accused of being anti-Semitic due to his smears against Soros. The Anti-Defamation League said Beck's remarks about Soros sending Jews to the death camps were "horrific" and "totally off-limits."
On February 22, 2011, during a discussion on his radio show about the controversy surrounding his earlier comments about Soros, Beck said "Reform Rabbis are generally political in nature. It's almost like radicalized Islam in a way where it's less about religion than it is about politics." He was quickly criticized by other conservatives, rabbis, and others. The Anti-Defamation League labeled Beck's remarks "bigoted ignorance". On February 24, Beck apologized on air, agreeing that his comments were "ignorant".
In 2016, Beck, a friend of actor and director Mel Gibson claimed he and Gibson shared a conversation in which Gibson claimed Jewish people had stolen a copy of The Passion of the Christ before its official theatrical release, and that Jewish people were assaulting him in the streets.
2011 Norway attacks
Beck condemned the 2011 Norway attacks, but was condemned for his comparison of murdered and surviving members of the Norwegian Workers' Youth League to the Hitler Youth. He said, "There was a shooting at a political camp which sounds a little like, you know, the Hitler Youth or whatever, you know what I mean. Who does a camp for kids that's all about politics? Disturbing." The statement was ill-received in Norway, prompting political commentator and Labour party member Frank Aarebrot to label Beck as a "vulgar propagandist", a "swine" and a "fascist", and Torbjørn Eriksen, former press secretary to Norway's prime minister Jens Stoltenberg, to describe Beck's comment as "a new low", adding that "Glenn Beck's comments are ignorant, incorrect and extremely hurtful". Commentators pointed out that groups affiliated with the Tea Party movement and the Beck-founded 9–12 Project also sponsor politically oriented camp programs for children.
Trump comments and 2016 SIRIUS XM Suspension
Beck opposed Donald Trump during his 2016 campaign for president, comparing him to Adolf Hitler and describing him as "an immoral man who is absent decency or dignity."
Sirius XM suspended Beck on May 31, 2016, for remarks made during an interview a week earlier. During an interview with author Brad Thor about a hypothetical situation where Trump was abusing his power as president and Congress was unable to stop him, Thor asked "what patriot will step up and [assassinate him] if, if, he oversteps his mandate as president?" Thor and the show's general manager both denied that the comments were a call for his assassination. Beck's radio show was moved from the SIRIUS XM Patriot channel to the Triumph channel soon after.
Beck's opposition to Trump did not sit well with many Trump supporters and hurt his businesses and viewership. On May 18, 2018, Beck stated on his radio program that he intended to vote for Trump in the 2020 presidential election, calling Trump's record "pretty damn amazing". Beck said Trump's defeat in the 2020 election would be "the end of the country as we know it."
Influences
Political and historical
An author with ideological influence on Beck is W. Cleon Skousen (1913–2006), a prolific conservative political writer, American constitutionalist and faith based political theorist. As an anti-communist supporter of the John Birch Society, and a limited-government activist, Skousen, who was Mormon, wrote on a wide range of subjects: the Six-Day War, Mormon eschatology, New World Order conspiracies, even parenting. Skousen believed that American political, social, and economic elites were working with communists to foist a world government on the United States. Beck praised Skousen's "words of wisdom" as "divinely inspired", referencing Skousen's The Naked Communist and especially The 5,000 Year Leap (originally published in 1981), which Beck said in 2007 had "changed his life". According to Skousen's nephew, Mark Skousen, Leap reflects Skousen's "passion for the United States Constitution", which he "felt was inspired by God and the reason behind America's success as a nation". The book is recommended by Beck as "required reading" to understand the current American political landscape and become a "September twelfth person". Beck authored a foreword for the 2008 edition of Leap and Beck's on-air recommendations in 2009 propelled the book to number one in the government category on Amazon for several months. In 2010, Matthew Continetti of the conservative Weekly Standard criticized Beck's conspiratorial bent, terming him "a Skousenite". Additionally, Alexander Zaitchik, author of the 2010 book Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance, which features an entire chapter on "The Ghost of Cleon Skousen", refers to Skousen as "Beck's favorite author and biggest influence", while observing he authored four of the 10 books on Beck's 9-12 Project required-reading list.
In his discussion of Beck and Skousen, Continetti said that one of Skousen's works "draws on Carroll Quigley's Tragedy and Hope (1966), which argues that the history of the 20th century is the product of secret societies in conflict". He observed in Beck's novel, The Overton Window (which Beck describes as "faction", or fiction based on fact), a character states: "Carroll Quigley laid open the plan in Tragedy and Hope, the only hope to avoid the tragedy of war was to bind together the economies of the world to foster global stability and peace."
Glenn Beck's viewpoint about early 20th century progressivism is greatly influenced by Ronald J. Pestritto, who teaches at Hillsdale College. The portal page on the GlennBeck.com web site for "American Progressivism" uses Pestritto's teachings and links directly to one of his books. Pestritto wrote an article for The Wall Street Journal detailing "Glenn Beck, Progressives and Me". The New York Times observed when Beck was on his Fox News show, Pestritto was a regular guest.
Princeton University historian Sean Wilentz says that alongside Skousen, Robert W. Welch, Jr., founder of the John Birch Society, is a key ideological foundation of Beck's worldview. According to Wilentz: "[Beck] has brought neo-Birchite ideas to an audience beyond any that Welch or Skousen might have dreamed of."
Other books that Beck regularly cites on his programs are Amity Shlaes's The Forgotten Man, Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism, Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen's A Patriot's History of the United States, and Burton W. Folsom, Jr.'s New Deal or Raw Deal. Beck has also urged his listeners to read The Coming Insurrection, a book by a French Marxist group discussing what they see as the imminent collapse of capitalist culture, and The Creature from Jekyll Island, which argues that aspects of the U.S. Federal Reserve system assault economic civil liberties, by conspiracy theorist G. Edward Griffin.
On June 4, 2010, Beck endorsed Elizabeth Dilling's 1936 work The Red Network: A Who's Who and Handbook of Radicalism for Patriots, remarking "this is a book, The Red Network, this came in from 1936. People – [Joseph] McCarthy was absolutely right ... This is, who were the communists in America." Beck was criticized by an array of people, including Menachem Z. Rosensaft and Joe Conason, who stated that Dilling was an outspoken anti-Semite and a Nazi sympathizer.
Religious
Beck has credited God for saving him from drug and alcohol abuse, professional obscurity, and friendlessness. In 2006, Beck performed a short inspirational monologue in Salt Lake City, Utah, detailing how he was transformed by the "healing power of Jesus Christ", which was released as a CD two years later by Deseret Book, a publishing company owned by the LDS Church, entitled An Unlikely Mormon: The Conversion Story of Glenn Beck.
Writer Joanna Brooks contends that Beck developed his "amalgamation of anti-communism" and "connect-the-dots conspiracy theorizing" only after his entry into the "deeply insular world of Mormon thought and culture". Brooks theorizes that Beck's calls to fasting and prayer are rooted in Mormon collective fasts to address spiritual challenges, while Beck's "overt sentimentality" and penchant for weeping represent the hallmark of a "distinctly Mormon mode of masculinity" where "appropriately-timed displays of tender emotion are displays of power" and spirituality. Philip Barlow, the Arrington chair of Mormon history and culture at Utah State University, has said that Beck's belief that the U.S. Constitution was an "inspired document", his calls for limited government and not exiling God from the public sphere, "have considerable sympathy in Mormonism". Beck has acknowledged that Mormon "doctrine is different" from traditional Christianity, but he said that this was what attracted him to it, stating that "for me some of the things in traditional doctrine just doesn't work."
Public reception
In 2009, Beck's show was one of the highest rated news commentary programs on cable TV. For a Barbara Walters ABC special, Beck was selected as one of America's "Top 10 Most Fascinating People" of 2009. In 2010, Beck was selected for Time'''s top 100 most influential people under the "Leaders" category.
Beck has referred to himself as an entertainer, a commentator rather than a reporter, and a "rodeo clown". He has said that he identifies with Howard Beale, a character portrayed by Peter Finch in the film Network: "When he came out of the rain and he was like, none of this makes any sense. I am that guy."Time magazine described Beck as "the new populist superstar of Fox News" saying it is easier to see a set of attitudes rather than a specific ideology, noting his criticism of Wall Street, yet defending bonuses to AIG, as well as denouncing conspiracy theories about the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) but warning against indoctrination of children by the AmeriCorps program." (Paul Krugman and Mark Potok, on the other hand, have been among those asserting that Beck helps spread "hate" by covering issues that stir up extremists.) What seems to unite Beck's disparate themes, Time argued, is a sense of siege. An earlier cover story in Time described Beck as "a gifted storyteller with a knack for stitching seemingly unrelated data points into possible conspiracies", proclaiming that he has "emerged as a virtuoso on the strings" of conservative discontent by mining "the timeless theme of the corrupt Them thwarting a virtuous Us".
Beck's shows have been described as a "mix of moral lessons, outrage and an apocalyptic view of the future ... capturing the feelings of an alienated class of Americans". One of Beck's Fox News Channel colleagues Shepard Smith, has jokingly called Beck's studio the "fear chamber", with Beck countering that he preferred the term "doom room".
Republican South Carolina U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham criticized Beck as a "cynic" whose show was antithetical to "American values" at The Atlantic's 2009 First Draft of History conference, remarking "Only in America can you make that much money crying." The progressive watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting's (FAIR) Activism Director, Peter Hart, argues that Beck red-baits political adversaries and promotes a paranoid view of progressive politics. Howard Kurtz, of The Washington Post, has remarked that "Love him or hate him, Beck is a talented, often funny broadcaster, a recovering alcoholic with an unabashedly emotional style."
Laura Miller writes in Salon that Beck is a contemporary example of "the paranoid style in American politics" described by historian Richard Hofstader:
Beck has acknowledged accusations of being a conspiracy theorist, stating on his show that there is a "concentrated effort now to label me a conspiracy theorist".
Particularly as a consequence of Beck's Restoring Honor rally in 2010, the fact that Beck is Mormon caused concern amongst some politically sympathetic Christian Evangelicals on theological grounds.Posner, Sarah, Evangelicals have "Deep Concerns" about Beck, Religion Dispatches, September 1, 2010"Does it Matter that Glenn Beck is a Mormon?", The Week, Yahoo!, August 31, 2010 Tom Tradup, vice president at Salem Radio Network, which serves more than 2,000 Christian-themed stations, expressed this sentiment after the rally, stating "Politically, everyone is with it, but theologically, when he says the country should turn back to God, the question is: Which God?" Subsequently, a September 2010 survey conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) and Religion News Service (RNS) found that of those Americans who hold a favorable opinion of Beck, only 45% believe he is the right person to lead a religious movement, with that number further declining to 37% when people are informed he is Mormon. Daniel Cox, director of research for PRRI, summed up this position by stating:
Pete Peterson of Pepperdine's Davenport Institute said that Beck's speech at the rally belonged to an American tradition of calls to personal renewal. Peterson wrote: "A Mormon surrounded onstage by priests, pastors, rabbis, and imams, Beck [gave] one of the more ecumenical jeremiads in history." Evangelical pastor Tony Campolo said in 2010 that conservative evangelicals respond to Beck's framing of conservative economic principles, saying that Beck's and ideological fellow travelers' "marriage between evangelicalism and patriotic nationalism is so strong that anybody who is raising questions about loyalty to the old, lassez-faire capitalist system is ex-post facto unpatriotic, un-American, and by association non-Christian." Newsweek religion reporter Lisa Miller, after quoting Campolo, opined, "It's ironic that Beck, a Mormon, would gain acceptance as a leader of a new Christian coalition. ... Beck's gift ... is to articulate God's special plan for America in such broad strokes that they trample no single creed or doctrine while they move millions with their message."
Critical biographies
In June 2010, investigative reporter Alexander Zaitchik released a critical biography titled Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance, with a title mocking Beck's work, Common Sense. In an interview about the book, Zaitchik theorized, "Beck's politics and his insatiable hunger for money and fame are not mutually exclusive", while stating:
In September 2010, Philadelphia Daily News reporter Will Bunch released The Backlash: Right-Wing Radicals, High-Def Hucksters, and Paranoid Politics in the Age of Obama. One of Bunch's theses is that Beck is nothing more than a morning zoo deejay playing a fictional character as a money-making stunt. Writer Bob Cesca, in a review of Bunch's book, compares Beck to Steve Martin's faith-healer character in the 1992 film Leap of Faith, before describing the "derivative grab bag of other tried and tested personalities" that Bunch contends comprises Beck's persona:
In October 2010 a polemical biography by Dana Milbank was released: Tears of a Clown: Glenn Beck and the Tea Bagging of America.
Satire, spoof and parody
Beck has been the subject of mockery and ridicule by a number of humorists. In response to Beck's animated delivery and views, he was parodied in an impersonation by Jason Sudeikis on Saturday Night Live. The Daily Shows Jon Stewart has spoofed Beck's 9–12 project with his own "11-3 project", consisting of "11 principles and 3 herbs and spices", impersonated Beck's chalk board-related presentation style for an entire show, and quipped about Beck "finally, a guy who says what people who aren't thinking are thinking". Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report satirized Beck's "war room" by creating his own "doom bunker". Through the character Eric Cartman, South Park parodied Beck's television program and his commentary style in the episode "Dances with Smurfs". The Onion, a satirical periodical and faux news site, ran an Onion News Network video "special report" where it lamented that the "victim in a fatal car accident was tragically not Glenn Beck". Meanwhile, the Current TV cartoon SuperNews! ran an animated cartoon feature titled "The Glenn Beck Apocalypse", where Beck is confronted by Jesus Christ who rebukes him as the equivalent of "Sarah Palin farting into a balloon". Political comedian and satirist Bill Maher has mocked Beck's followers as an "army of diabetic mallwalkers", while The Buffalo Beast, named Beck the most loathsome person in America in 2010, declaring "It's like someone found a manic, doom-prophesying hobo in a sandwich board, shaved him, shot him full of Zoloft and gave him a show." The October 30, 2010 Rally To Restore Sanity and/or Fear in Washington, hosted by Comedy Central personalities Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, was conceived as a parody of Beck's earlier Rally to Restore Honor, even though Stewart and Colbert said that they came up with the idea of holding a rally in March and Stewart had put down the deposit for the National Mall before Beck announced his rally.
Defamation lawsuit and settlement
In March 2014, Abdulrahman Alharbi filed suit for defamation in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts against Beck and his business entities, The Blaze and Mercury Radio Arts, along with his distributor Premiere Radio Networks. Alharbi's defamation claim arose from Beck's repeated broadcasts "identifying Alharbi as an active participant" in the Boston Marathon bombing, even after federal authorities cleared Alharbi, who was injured in the attack, of any wrongdoing and confirmed that he was an innocent victim.Josh Gerstein, Glenn Beck reaches settlement with Saudi student over Boston Marathon accusations, Politico (September 13, 2016). In December 2014, the judge rejected Beck's attempt to have the case dismissed. In September 2016, the suit was settled on confidential terms.
See also
Beck University
Conservative talk radio
List of most-listened-to radio programs
Works
Non-fiction
(Audiobook).
An Unlikely Mormon: The Conversion Story of Glenn Beck, Deseret Book 2008 (Audiobook). .
Arguing with Idiots: How to Stop Small Minds and Big Government, Simon & Schuster 2009. .
Glenn Beck's Common Sense: The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government, Simon & Schuster 2009. .Best Sellers: Paperback Nonfiction, The New York Times, October 9, 2009
America's March to Socialism: Why We're One Step Closer to Giant Missile Parades, Simon & Schuster Audio 2009 (Audio CD). .
Idiots Unplugged, Simon & Schuster 2010 (Audio CD). .
Broke: The Plan to Restore Our Trust, Truth, and Treasure, Simon & Schuster 2010. .
The 7: Seven Wonders That Will Change Your Life, Keith Ablow, co-author; Threshold Editions, 2011; .
The Original Argument: The Federalists' Case for the Constitution, Adapted for the 21st Century, with Joshua Charles; Threshold Editions, 2011; .
Liars: How Progressives Exploit Our Fears for Power and Control, Threshold Editions August 2, 2016.
Addicted to Outrage: How Thinking Like a Recovering Addict Can Heal the Country, Threshold Editions September 18, 2018.
The Great Reset: Joe Biden and the Rise of Twenty-First-Century Fascism, Justin Haskins, co-author; Forefront Books, 2021; .
Control Series
Fiction
The Christmas Sweater, Simon & Schuster 2008. .
The Overton Window, Threshold Editions June 2010.
The Eye of Moloch, Threshold Editions June 2013.
Agenda 21: Into the Shadows, Threshold Editions January 2015.
The Immortal Nicholas, Mercury Ink October 2015.
Children's
The Christmas Sweater: A Picture Book, Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing 2009. .
Beck authorized a comic book:
Political Power: Glenn Beck'', by Jerome Maida, Mark Sparacio (illus.); Bluewater Productions, 2011
References
External links
Glenn Beck – The 912 Project
1964 births
Living people
20th-century American male writers
21st-century American male writers
American Christian Zionists
American conspiracy theorists
American entertainment industry businesspeople
Latter Day Saints from Washington (state)
American anti-communists
American libertarians
American magazine founders
American people of German descent
American political commentators
American political writers
American television talk show hosts
Christian libertarians
Blaze Media people
American conservative talk radio hosts
Converts to Mormonism from Roman Catholicism
Former Roman Catholics
Fox News people
Male critics of feminism
People from Everett, Washington
People from Westlake, Texas
Radio personalities from Phoenix, Arizona
Radio personalities from Tampa, Florida
Tea Party movement activists
Texas Independents
Washington (state) Republicans
Writers from Bellingham, Washington
Latter Day Saints from Texas
20th-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American non-fiction writers
American male non-fiction writers | false | [
"The Global Pound Conference series (GPC) was a series of conferences about alternative dispute resolution (ADR) held in many cities in several countries in 2016/2017. The title of the conference series was \"Shaping the Future of Dispute Resolution & Improving Access to Justice\". It was organised as an initiative of the International Mediation Institute (IMI).\n\nThe series was inspired by Harvard law professor Roscoe Pound and a 1976 conference named for him, which was an impetus for the growth in the popularity of mediation in the USA.\n\nThe GPC series brought Global Pound Conferences to multiple locations around the world in 2016 and 2017, with the aim of raising awareness about the various dispute resolution methods available. It brought together users, providers and advisors to discuss the future direction of ADR. After ending, the GPC platform changed to become the Global Pound Conversation, a blog and research series covering changes and developments in mediation and alternative dispute resolution around the world.\n\nReferences\n\nDispute resolution\nLegal conferences",
"Old Slovakia (, ) is a 1923 historic book about the early history of present-day Slovakia by prominent Czechoslovak historian Václav Chaloupecký. The book, especially his view on the early settlement structure, raised the most notable scholar dispute in interwar Slovakia.\n\nBackground and content \nThe professional Slovak national historiography was de facto established only in the 20th century, after the foundation of Czechoslovakia. The first generation of professional historians came from the Czech lands because the school system in Slovakia was negatively affected by previous Magyarization. Czech scientists helped to establish Slovak academic institutions and to educate the first Slovak professional historians. On the other hand, they often supported the idea of Czechoslovakism what influenced also their professional views. In 1923, a prominent Czech historian Václav Chaloupecký published his work Old Slovakia. The book was the most extensive study about the history of present-day Slovakia between the 11th and the 13th century, when the territory belonged to the Kingdom of Hungary. Chaloupecký described its political development, the formation of administrative units, church institutions and monasteries. These research results were largely accepted also by later science. \n\nChaloupecký also described his views on the settlement of \"Old Slovakia\". The historic core of Old Slovakia, the Váh and Nitra valleys, was inhabited by \"Czechs, it means Slavic tribes speaking the same language as was spoken in Bohemia and Moravia\". The people living in the whole Western Slovakia were considered to be Czechs throughout the Middle Ages even though their language had some regional differences. The Eastern Slovakia was inhabited probably by Bulgarian Slavs, resp. by \"Russians\" (Eastern Slavs). The Central Slovakia was uninbahited until the colonization in the 13th century. Slovak dialects began to emerge only from the 13th century from a mixture of Slavic incomers - the region was colonized from the west, north and east by \"Czechoslovak\", Polish, \"Russian\" (Eastern Slavic) and Romanian population, respectively, in addition to German miners. His opinions about sparse settlement of Slovakia, size of continuous forest areas and ethnic identity of the population was later seen problematic from several perspectives.\n\nDispute about Old Slovakia \nSince the professional research in Slovakia was at the beginning, a qualified criticism of the study was missing. In 1930, Alexander Húščava published a work about colonization of Liptov in the 13th-14th centuries. According to Húščava who was influenced by his teacher Chaloupecký, Liptov was covered by deep forests and settled only in the 13th century. In 1933, Vladimír Šmilauer questioned the theory of Chaloupecký, because it was not compliant with his own research of toponymes. He found out that while Polish and Russian place names in Central Slovakia are missing, the names in the whole Slovakia (Western, Central and Eastern) are phonologically unified. He also observed that the Eastern and Western Slovak dialect were largely uniform in the 13th century what was unlikely to achieve in a short period. More, the adoption of Slavic place names by Hungarians could be explained easier and more naturally, if they came to the land already settled by the Slavs.\n\nChaloupecký a Húščava were then criticized by Daniel Rapant. His answer started the biggest scholar dispute in Slovakia ever. The disputes about the early settlement of Liptov, but also whole northern and central Slovakia became known as The Dispute about Old Liptov (Spor o starý Liptov) and The Dispute about Old Slovakia (Spor o staré Slovensko). The discussion involving other prominent historians and linguists have taken place in several journals in 1932-1934. Rapant, accused of national bias, was a strong supporter of Czech-Slovak collaboration and Czechoslovak state. However, he saw counterproductive to misinterpret the history in the name of Czechoslovakism and he rather preferred scientific objectivity. Rapant proved with the same material they had used that their views are untenable and even the contemporary state of research confirms that the situation in settlement was different. Chaloupecký's opinions were completely refuted by later historic, linguistic and archaeologic research. Already before the end of the 20th century (1996), 11 sites of fortified settlements and 38 other settlements from the 9th century have been unveiled on allegedly uninhabited territory along with another 40 linguistically reconstructed.\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\nCitations\n\nBibliography \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\n1923 non-fiction books\nSlovakia in the Kingdom of Hungary"
] |
[
"Glenn Beck",
"Radio",
"On what radio station did Glenn work at?",
"In 1983 he moved to Corpus Christi, Texas, to work at radio station KZFM.",
"What was his job at KZFM?",
"In mid-1985, Beck was hired away from KZFM to be the lead DJ for the morning-drive radio broadcast by WRKA in Louisville, Kentucky.",
"Did he enjoy his job at WRKA?",
"I don't know.",
"Did he ever leave WRKA for another station?",
"The show slipped to third in the market and Beck left abruptly in 1987 amid a dispute with WRKA management.",
"What was the dispute about?",
"I don't know."
] | C_d978852d1897400091e5bbbd8041c542_0 | Are there any other interesting aspects about this article? | 6 | Other than the dispute with WRKA, is there anything else of interest about Glenn Beck's radio work? | Glenn Beck | In 1983 he moved to Corpus Christi, Texas, to work at radio station KZFM. In mid-1985, Beck was hired away from KZFM to be the lead DJ for the morning-drive radio broadcast by WRKA in Louisville, Kentucky. His four-hour weekday show was called Captain Beck and the A-Team. Beck had a reputation as a "young up-and-comer". The show was not political and included the usual off-color antics of the genre: juvenile jokes, pranks, and impersonations. The show slipped to third in the market and Beck left abruptly in 1987 amid a dispute with WRKA management. Months later, Beck was hired by Phoenix Top-40 station KOY-FM, then known as Y-95. Beck was partnered with Arizona native Tim Hattrick to co-host a local "morning zoo" program. During his time at Y-95, Beck cultivated a rivalry with local pop radio station KZZP and that station's morning host Bruce Kelly. Through practical jokes and publicity stunts, Beck drew criticism from the staff at Y-95 when the rivalry culminated in Beck telephoning Kelly's wife on-the-air, mocking her recent miscarriage. In 1989, Beck resigned from Y-95 to accept a job in Houston at KRBE, known as Power 104. Beck was subsequently fired in 1990 due to poor ratings. Beck then moved on to Baltimore, Maryland, and the city's leading Top-40 station, WBSB, known as B104. There, he partnered with Pat Gray, a morning DJ. During his tenure at B104, Beck was arrested and jailed for speeding in his DeLorean. According to a former associate, Beck was "completely out of it" when a station manager went to bail him out. When Gray, then Beck were fired, the two men spent six months in Baltimore, planning their next move. In early 1992, Beck and Gray both moved to WKCI-FM (KC101), a Top-40 radio station in New Haven, Connecticut. In 1995, WKCI apologized after Beck and Gray mocked a Chinese-American caller on air who felt offended by a comedy segment by playing a gong sound effect and having executive producer Alf Gagineau mock a Chinese accent. That incident led to protests by activist groups. When Gray left the show to move to Salt Lake City, Beck continued with co-host Vinnie Penn. At the end of 1998, Beck was informed that his contract would not be renewed at the end of 1999. The Glenn Beck Program first aired in 2000 on WFLA (AM) in Tampa, and took their afternoon time slot from eighteenth to first place within a year. In January 2002, Premiere Radio Networks launched the show nationwide on 47 stations. The show then moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, broadcasting from new flagship station WPHT. On November 5, 2007, The New York Times reported that Premiere Radio Networks was extending Beck's contract. By May 2008, it had reached over 280 terrestrial stations as well as XM Satellite. It was ranked 4th in the nation with over six and a half million listeners. As of July 2013, Beck was tied for number four in the ratings behind Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Dave Ramsey. CANNOTANSWER | During his time at Y-95, Beck cultivated a rivalry with local pop radio station KZZP and that station's morning host Bruce Kelly. | Glenn Lee Beck (born February 10, 1964) is an American conservative political commentator, conspiracy theorist, radio host, and television producer. He is the CEO, founder, and owner of Mercury Radio Arts, the parent company of his television and radio network TheBlaze. He hosts the Glenn Beck Radio Program, a popular talk-radio show nationally syndicated on Premiere Radio Networks. Beck also hosts the Glenn Beck television program, which ran from January 2006 to October 2008 on HLN, from January 2009 to June 2011 on Fox News and now airs on TheBlaze. Beck has authored six New York Times–bestselling books.
In April 2011, Beck announced that he would "transition off of his daily program" on Fox News, but would continue to team with Fox. Beck's last daily show on the network was June 30, 2011. In 2012, The Hollywood Reporter named Beck on its Digital Power Fifty list. Beck launched TheBlaze in 2011 after leaving Fox News. He currently hosts an hour-long afternoon program, The Glenn Beck Program, on weekdays, and a three-hour morning radio show; both are broadcast on TheBlaze. Beck is also the producer of For the Record on TheBlaze.
During Barack Obama's presidency, Beck promoted many conspiracy theories about Obama, his administration, George Soros, and others.
Early life and education
Beck was born in Everett, Washington, the son of Mary Clara (née Janssen) and William Beck, who lived in Mountlake Terrace, Washington, at the time of their son's birth. The family later moved to Mount Vernon, Washington, where they owned and operated City Bakery in the downtown area. He is descended from German immigrants who came to the United States in the 19th century. Beck was raised as a Roman Catholic and attended Immaculate Conception Catholic School in Mount Vernon.
Glenn and his older sister moved with their mother to Sumner, Washington, attending a Jesuit school in Puyallup. On May 15, 1979, while out on a small boat with a male companion, Beck's mother drowned just west of Tacoma, Washington, in Puget Sound. The man who had taken her out in the boat also drowned. A Tacoma police report stated that Mary Beck "appeared to be a classic drowning victim", but a Coast Guard investigator speculated that she could have intentionally jumped overboard. Beck has described his mother's death as a suicide in interviews during television and radio broadcasts.
After their mother's death, Beck and his older sister moved to their father's home in Bellingham, Washington, where Beck graduated from Sehome High School in June 1982. Beck also regularly vacationed with his maternal grandparents, Ed and Clara Janssen, in Iowa. In the aftermath of his mother's death and subsequent suicide of his stepbrother, Beck has said he used "Dr. Jack Daniel's" to cope. At 18, following his high school graduation, Beck relocated to Provo, Utah, and worked at radio station KAYK. Feeling he "didn't fit in", Beck left Utah after six months, taking a job at Washington, D.C.'s WPGC in February 1983.
Personal life
While working at WPGC, Beck met his first wife, Claire. In 1983, the couple married and had two daughters, Mary and Hannah. Mary developed cerebral palsy as a result of a series of strokes at birth in 1988. The couple divorced in 1994 amid Beck's struggles with substance abuse. He is a recovering alcoholic and drug addict, and has said he has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Beck later admitted that the family problems ranging from the divorce to his substance abuse had a severe negative impact on his children.
By 1994, Beck was suicidal, and he imagined shooting himself to the music of Kurt Cobain. He credits Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) with helping him achieve sobriety. He said he stopped drinking alcohol and smoking cannabis in November 1994, the same month he attended his first AA meeting. Beck later said that he had gotten high every day for the previous 15 years, since the age of 16.
In 1996, while working for a New Haven area radio station, Beck took a theology class at Yale University, with a written recommendation from Senator Joe Lieberman, a Yale alumnus who was a fan of Beck's show at the time. Beck enrolled in an "Early Christology" course, but soon withdrew, marking the extent of his post-secondary education.
Beck then began a "spiritual quest" in which he "sought out answers in churches and bookstores". As he later recounted in his books and stage performances, Beck's first attempt at self-education involved reading the work of six wide-ranging authors, constituting what Beck jokingly calls "the library of a serial killer": Alan Dershowitz, Pope John Paul II, Adolf Hitler, Billy Graham, Carl Sagan, and Friedrich Nietzsche. During this time, Beck's Mormon friend and former radio partner Pat Gray argued in favor of the "comprehensive worldview" offered by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, an offer that Beck rejected until a few years later (Later, after Beck's moving to the New York City area, he had a consultation with Graham, which Beck said touched him strongly).
In 1999, Beck married his second wife, Tania. After they went looking for a faith on a church tour together, they joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in October 1999, partly at the urging of his daughter Mary. Beck was baptized by his old friend, and current-day co-worker Pat Gray. Beck and Tania have had two children together, Raphe (who is adopted) and Cheyenne. Until April 2011, the couple lived in New Canaan, Connecticut, with the four children.
Beck announced in July 2010 that he had been diagnosed with macular dystrophy, saying "A couple of weeks ago I went to the doctor because of my eyes, I can't focus my eyes. He did all kinds of tests and he said, 'you have macular dystrophy ... you could go blind in the next year. Or, you might not. The disorder can make it difficult to read, drive or recognize faces.
In July 2011, Beck leased a house in the Fort Worth suburb of Westlake, Texas. In 2012, he moved his main TV and radio studios to Dallas, Texas.
On November 10, 2014, Beck announced on TheBlaze that he had been suffering from a severe neurological disorder for at least the last five years. He described many strong and debilitating symptoms which made it difficult for him to work, and he also announced that he had "a string of health issues that quite honestly made me look crazy, and quite honestly, I have felt crazy because of them". Beck related that a chiropractor who specializes in "chiropractic neurology", Frederick Carrick, had "diagnosed [him] with several health issues, including an autoimmune disorder, which he didn't name, and adrenal fatigue." Over a period of ten months he had received a series of treatments and felt better. On January 13, 2022, Beck announced that his second case of covid was "getting into my lungs".
Career
In 2002, Beck created the media platform Mercury Radio Arts as the umbrella over his broadcast, publishing, Internet, and live show interests. Beck founded Mercury Radio Arts in 2002, naming it after the Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre, which produced live radio broadcasts during the 1930s. The company produces all of Beck's productions, including his eponymous radio show, books, live stage shows, and his official website.
Radio
In 1983, he moved to Corpus Christi, Texas, to work at radio station KZFM. In mid-1985, Beck was hired away from KZFM to be the lead DJ for the morning-drive radio broadcast by WRKA in Louisville, Kentucky. His four-hour weekday show was called Captain Beck and the A-Team. Beck had a reputation as a "young up-and-comer". The show was not political and included the usual off-color antics of the genre: juvenile jokes, pranks, and impersonations. The show slipped to third in the market and Beck left abruptly in 1987 amid a dispute with WRKA management.
Months later, Beck was hired by Phoenix Top-40 station KOY-FM, then known as Y-95. Beck was partnered with Arizona native Tim Hattrick to co-host a local "morning zoo" program. During his time at Y-95, Beck cultivated a rivalry with local pop radio station KZZP and that station's morning host Bruce Kelly. Through practical jokes and publicity stunts, Beck drew criticism from the staff at Y-95 when the rivalry culminated in Beck telephoning Kelly's wife on-the-air, mocking her recent miscarriage. In 1989, Beck resigned from Y-95 to accept a job in Houston at KRBE, known as Power 104. Beck was subsequently fired in 1990 due to poor ratings.
Beck then moved on to Baltimore, Maryland, and the city's leading Top-40 station, WBSB, known as B104. There, he partnered with Pat Gray, a morning DJ. During his tenure at B104, Beck was arrested and jailed for speeding in his DeLorean. According to a former associate, Beck was "completely out of it" when a station manager went to bail him out. When Gray, then Beck were fired, the two men spent six months in Baltimore, planning their next move. In early 1992, Beck and Gray both moved to WKCI-FM (KC101), a Top-40 radio station in New Haven, Connecticut. In 1995, WKCI apologized after Beck and Gray mocked a Chinese-American caller on air who felt offended by a comedy segment by playing a gong sound effect and having executive producer Alf Gatineau mock a Chinese accent. That incident led to protests by activist groups. When Gray left the show to move to Salt Lake City, Beck continued with co-host Vinnie Penn. At the end of 1998, Beck was informed that his contract would not be renewed at the end of 1999.
The Glenn Beck Program first aired in 2000 on WFLA (AM) in Tampa, and took their afternoon time slot from eighteenth to first place within a year. In January 2002, Premiere Radio Networks launched the show nationwide on 47 stations. The show then moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, broadcasting from new flagship station WPHT. On November 5, 2007, The New York Times reported that Premiere Radio Networks was extending Beck's contract. By May 2008, it had reached over 280 terrestrial stations as well as XM Satellite. It was ranked 4th in the nation with over six and a half million listeners. , Beck was tied for number four in the ratings behind Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Dave Ramsey.
Television
In January 2006, CNN's Headline News announced that Beck would host a nightly news-commentary show in their new prime-time block Headline Prime. The show, simply called Glenn Beck, aired weeknights. CNN Headline News described the show as "an unconventional look at the news of the day featuring his often amusing perspective". At the end of his tenure at CNN-HLN, Beck had the second largest audience behind Nancy Grace. In 2008, Beck won the Marconi Radio Award for Network Syndicated Personality of the Year.
In October 2008, it was announced that Beck would join the Fox News Channel, leaving CNN Headline News. After moving to the Fox News Channel, Beck hosted Glenn Beck, beginning in January 2009, as well as a weekend version. One of his first guests was Alaska Governor Sarah Palin He also had a regular segment every Friday on the Fox News Channel program The O'Reilly Factor titled "At Your Beck and Call". , Beck's program drew more viewers than all three of the competing time-slot shows combined on CNN, MSNBC and HLN.
His show's high ratings did not come without controversy. The Washington Posts Howard Kurtz reported that Beck's use of "distorted or inflammatory rhetoric" had complicated the channel's and their journalists' efforts to neutralize White House criticism that Fox is not really a news organization. Television analyst Andrew Tyndall echoed these sentiments, saying that Beck's incendiary style had created "a real crossroads for Fox News", stating "they're right on the cusp of losing their image as a news organization."
In April 2011, Fox News and Mercury Radio Arts, Beck's production company, announced that Beck would "transition off of his daily program" on Fox News in 2011. His last day at Fox was later announced as June 30. FNC and Beck announced that he would be teaming with Fox to produce a slate of projects for Fox News and its digital properties. Fox News head Roger Ailes later referenced Beck's entrepreneurialism and political movement activism, saying, "His [Beck's] goals were different from our goals ... I need people focused on a daily television show." Beck hosted his last daily show on Fox on June 30, 2011, where he recounted the accomplishments of the show and said, "This show has become a movement. It's not a TV show, and that's why it doesn't belong on television anymore. It belongs in your homes. It belongs in your neighborhoods." In response to critics who said he was fired, Beck pointed out that his final show was airing live. Immediately after the show he did an interview on his new GBTV internet television channel.
TheBlaze TV (formerly GBTV)
Beck's Fox News one-hour show ended June 30, 2011, and a new two-hour show began his television network which started as a subscription-based internet TV network, TheBlaze TV, originally called GBTV, on September 12, 2011. Using a subscription model, it was estimated that Beck is on track to generate $27 million in his first year of operation. This was later upgraded to $40 million by The Wall Street Journal when subscriptions topped 300,000. On September 12, 2012, TheBlaze TV announced that the Dish Network would begin carrying TheBlaze TV. TheBlaze is currently available on over 90 television providers, with eleven of those being in the national top 25.
Books
Mercury Ink has a co-publishing deal with Simon & Schuster and was founded by Glenn Beck in 2011 as the publishing imprint of Mercury Radio Arts. Started in 2011, Mercury Ink publishes adult and young adult novels and non-fiction titles. Including books written by Glenn Beck, authors signed to Mercury Ink include New York Times best seller Richard Paul Evans.
Beck has reached No. 1 on The New York Times Bestseller List in four separate categories : Hardcover Non-Fiction, Paperback Non-Fiction, Hardcover Fiction, and Children's Picture Books.
Beck has a chapter giving advice in Tim Ferriss' book Tools of Titans.
Non Fiction
An Inconvenient Book:Real Solutions to the World's Biggest Problems, .
Glenn Beck's Common Sense:The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government Inspired by Thomas Paine, Threshold Editions, June 16, 2009, .
Arguing With Idiots:How to Stop Small Minds and Big Government, Threshold Editions, September 22, 2009, .
Broke:The Plan to Restore Our Trust, Truth and Treasure Threshold Editions, October 26, 2010, .
The 7:Seven Wonders That Will Change Your Life, co-author Keith Ablow, MD, Threshold Editions, January 4, 2011, .
The Original Argument:The Federalists' Case for the Constitution, Adapted for the 21st Century, Threshold Editions, June 14, 2011, .
Being George Washington:The Indispensable Man, as You've Never Seen Him, Threshold Editions, November 22, 2011, .
Cowards:What Politicians, Radicals, and the Media Refuse to Say, Threshold Editions, June 12, 2012, .
Control:Exposing the Truth About Guns, Threshold Editions, April 30, 2013, .
Miracles and Massacres:True and Untold Stories of the Making of America, Threshold Editions, November 19, 2013, .
Conform:Exposing the Truth About Common Core and Public Education, Threshold Editions, May 6, 2014, .
Dreamers and Deceivers:True Stories of the Heroes and Villains Who Made America, Threshold Editions, August 11, 2015, .
It IS About Islam:Exposing the Truth About ISIS, Al Qaeda, Iran and the Caliphate, Threshold Editions, August 18, 2015, .
Liars:How Progressives Exploit Our Fears For Power and Control Threshold Editions, August 2, 2016, .
Addicted to Outrage:How Thinking Like a Recovering Addict Can Heal the Country, Threshold Editions, September 18, 2018, .
Arguing With Socialist, Threshold Books, April 7, 2020, .
Fiction
The Christmas Sweater, Threshold Editions, November 11, 2008, .
The Overton Window, Threshold Editions, June 15, 2010, .
The Snow Angel, Threshold Editions, October 25, 2011, .
Agenda 21, co-author Harriett Parke, Threshold Editions, November 20, 2012, .
The Eye of Moloch, Threshold Editions, June 11, 2013, .
Agenda 21:Into the Shadows, co-author Harriett Parke, Threshold Editions, January 6, 2015, .
The Immortal Nicholas, Mercury Ink, October 27, 2015, .
Stage shows and speeches
Since 2005, Beck has toured American cities twice a year, presenting a one-man stage show. His stage productions are a mix of stand-up comedy and inspirational speaking. In a critique of his live act, Salon magazine's Steve Almond describes Beck as a "wildly imaginative performer, a man who weds the operatic impulses of the demagogue to the grim mutterings of the conspiracy theorist".
A show from the Beck `08 Unelectable Tour was shown in around 350 movie theaters around the country.
The finale of 2009's Common Sense Comedy Tour was simulcast in over 440 theaters. The events have drawn 200,000 fans in recent years.
In March 2003, Beck ran a series of rallies, which he called Glenn Beck's Rally for America, in support of troops deployed for the upcoming Iraq War. On July 4, 2007, Beck served as host of the 2007 Toyota Tundra "Stadium of Fire" in Provo, Utah. The annual event at LaVell Edwards Stadium on the Brigham Young University campus is presented by America's Freedom Foundation. In May 2008, Beck gave the keynote speech at the NRA convention in Louisville, Kentucky.
In late August 2009, the mayor of Beck's hometown, Mount Vernon, Washington, announced that he would award Beck the Key to the City, designating September 26, 2009, as "Glenn Beck Day". Due to local opposition, the city council voted unanimously to disassociate itself from the award. The key presentation ceremony sold-out the 850 seat McIntyre Hall and an estimated 800 detractors and supporters demonstrated outside the building. Earlier that day, approximately 7,000 people attended the Evergreen Freedom Foundation's "Take the Field with Glenn Beck" at Seattle's Safeco Field.
In December 2009, Beck produced a one-night special film titled "The Christmas Sweater: A Return to Redemption". In January and February 2010, Beck teamed with fellow Fox News host Bill O'Reilly to tour several cities in a live stage show called "The Bold and Fresh Tour 2010". The January 29 show was recorded and broadcast to movie theaters throughout the country.
In July 2013, Beck produced and hosted a one-night stage event called Man in the Moon, held at the USANA Amphitheatre in West Valley City, Utah. The amphitheater sold out all 20,000 of its seats and was released on television and DVD in August 2013. The event was a narrative story told from the point of view of the moon, from the beginnings of the Book of Genesis to the first moon landing. The moon serves as the narrator of the story.
Philanthropy
In 2011, Beck founded the non-profit organization Mercury One, which is designed to sustain itself through its entrepreneurship without the need for grants or donations. In early 2011, Beck began work toward developing a clothing line to be sold to benefit the charity and October 2011, Mercury One began selling the upscale clothing line labeled 1791 exclusively at its website, 1791.com. The clothing in the line's eleven-piece inaugural offering was manufactured by American Mojo of Lowell, Massachusetts.
In July 2014, after tens of thousands of undocumented immigrant children crossed into Texas via the Southern United States border, unaccompanied by parents, Beck announced that he, along with Utah Senator Mike Lee and Texas representative Louie Gohmert, would travel to the U.S.-Mexico border with his charity organization, Mercury One. He stated that they would bring tractor trailers full of food, hot meals, and teddy bears for the unaccompanied minors. While Beck made it clear in interviews that they wanted a full repeal of DACA, Beck also mentioned his belief in the importance of helping these children. "Through no fault of their own, they are caught in political crossfire, and while we continue to put pressure on Washington and change its course of lawlessness, we must also help," Beck said. "It is not either, or. It is both. We have to be active in the political game, and we must open our hearts."
As of 2017, Beck's Nazarene Fund had reportedly relocated 10,524 Christian refugees from northern Iraq and Syria to other host countries, including Australia, the United States, France, Slovakia, Greece, Lebanon, Brazil, and Canada. The fund's website notes 1,646 families have been evacuated from the ISIS ravaged region since its launch in 2014, and 45,000 people have received humanitarian aid as a result of donations to Mercury One.
Projects and rallies
9–12 Project and Tea Party protests
In March 2009, Beck put together a campaign, the 9-12 Project, which is named after nine principles and twelve values that he says embody the spirit of the American people on the day after the September 11 attacks. The Colorado 9–12 Project hosted a "Patriot Camp" for kids in grades 1–5, featuring programs on "our Constitution, the Founding Fathers, and the values and principles that are the cornerstones of our nation".
Restoring Honor rally
The Restoring Honor rally was promoted/hosted by Beck and held at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. on August 28, 2010. The rally—which purported to embrace religious faith and patriotism—was co-sponsored by the Special Operations Warrior Foundation, promoted by FreedomWorks, and supported by the Tea Party movement. Attendance was estimated at 87,000 (± 9,000) based on aerial photos.
"America's First Christmas"
In December 2010, Beck went to Wilmington, Ohio, a town devastated by the late-2000s recession, to host live events to encourage his fans to go to the town to boost the local economy in a project called "America's First Christmas". He hosted an event and his radio and television shows from the local theater.
Restoring Courage 2011 international tour
Beck headlined his "Restoring Courage" events in Jerusalem, Israel, in August 2011 in a campaign Beck said was designed to encourage people worldwide "to stand with the Jewish people". After Jerusalem, Beck visited Cape Town, South Africa, and was scheduled to visit Venezuela.
2012 presidential campaign
Actively supporting Mitt Romney as "perhaps the best-known Mormon after the Republican presidential candidate and a major influence on evangelical Christians, ... Beck has emerged as an unlikely theological bridge between the first Mormon presidential nominee and a critical electorate [evangelicals]", according to a pre-election article in The New York Times. Along with personal campaign appearances in Ohio and Iowa, Beck unusually directly addressed doctrinal issues between Mormons and evangelical Christians—wherein the latter often consider the former a "cult" rather than Christian—on his radio show in September 2012. During the one-hour show in early September, he asked his audience, "Does Mitt Romney's Mormonism make him too scary or weird to be elected president of the United States?" The article concluded by addressing the "fear of making Mormonism mainstream" as a reason Beck could be acceptable to evangelicals and Romney not be, quoting John C. Green, the author of The Faith Factor: How Religion Influences American Elections:
There's a difference between a public figure like Glenn Beck and someone who could be the president of the United States. ... Many evangelicals believe this country was founded by Christian leaders. It is important that the person in the White House be positive about Christianity, if not a devout Christian himself.
Restoring Love rally and "Day of Service"
In August 2012, Beck held a rally at AT&T Stadium in Irving, Texas. The event's theme was service to one's fellow citizens, and loving each other. The event saw a "Day of Service", which saw Mercury One (Beck's charity organization) volunteering to feed homeless and disadvantaged individuals, doing community-building projects, and mowing lawns. The event culminated in a keynote speech presented by Beck imploring the audience to "commit to each other. Go home and wake up your neighbors." In regards to serving fellow Americans, Beck said, "Those who count us out are counting on one weekend of action, one weekend of speeches. One weekend. One day. Please my fellow countrymen, let this be the first of many."
Restoring Unity and Never Again Is Now
In August 2015, Beck and Mercury Radio Arts organized a rally that saw a little over 20,000 people march through the streets of Birmingham, Alabama in a statement of unity and support for the persecuted Christians in Iraq, a cause that Beck's Mercury One charity organization focuses on, and as a call for unity among the American people. After the march, the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex held a rally featuring speakers including Glenn Beck, Ted Cruz, Rafael Cruz, Jon Voight, Alveda King, the niece of Martin Luther King, Jr., and David Barton.
Political views
Beck has described himself as a conservative with libertarian leanings. Among his core values, Beck lists personal responsibility, private charity, the right to life, freedom of religion, limited government, and the family as the cornerstone of society. Beck believes in low national debt, and he has said "A conservative believes that debt creates unhealthy relationships. Everyone, from the government on down, should live within their means and strive for financial independence." He supports individual gun ownership rights, is against gun control legislation, and is a supporter of the NRA and its local state chapters.
Beck rejects the scientific consensus on climate change. Beck contests the evidence, citing personal beliefs, "There is more proof for the resurrection of Jesus than man-made climate change." He also views the American Clean Energy and Security Act as a form of wealth redistribution, and he has promoted a petition rejecting the Kyoto Protocol.
Although opposed to illegal immigration, Beck announced in June and July 2014 that his foundation, Mercury One, would be making efforts to provide food and relief to the large numbers of migrant children. His move was praised by supporters of immigrant rights and freer migration but met with considerable pushback from his supporter base.
On March 18, 2015, Beck officially announced that he had left the Republican Party, saying that the GOP had failed to effectively stand against the president on Obamacare and immigration reform, and because of the GOP establishment's opposition to lawmakers such as Mike Lee and Texas Senator Ted Cruz.
Beck endorsed Cruz in his run for President of the United States in 2016. In October 2016, Beck called opposing Donald Trump a "moral, ethical choice". On the campaign trail in support of Cruz, Beck was quoted as saying "If Donald Trump wins it is going to be a snowball to hell." After Cruz dropped out of the race, Beck endorsed independent Evan McMullin.
On May 18, 2018, on his radio show, Beck predicted Donald Trump would win the 2020 United States presidential election in a "landslide", saying "Here's why I'm predicting a 2020 win. When I saw yesterday how the press was all reporting the same damn story that Donald Trump was calling MS-13 gang members, they left that out of the story, 'animals' they were spinning it as if he was saying that about all immigrants. I had enough. I've had enough ... Gladly, I'll vote for [President Trump] in 2020 and not really even on his record, which we'll talk about here in a second, is pretty damn amazing." Beck went on to say, "I'll vote for him in 2020", and donned a Make America Great Again hat on his television show.
Opposition to progressivism
During his 2010 keynote speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Beck wrote progressivism on a chalkboard and declared, "This is the disease. This is the disease in America", adding that "progressivism is the cancer in America and it is eating our Constitution!" According to Beck, the progressive ideas of men such as John Dewey, Herbert Croly, and Walter Lippmann, influenced the Presidencies of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson; eventually becoming the foundation for President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal. Beck has said that such progressivism infects both main political parties and threatens to "destroy America as it was originally conceived". In Beck's book Common Sense, he argues that "progressivism has less to do with the parties and more to do with individuals who seek to redefine, reshape, and rebuild America into a country where individual liberties and personal property mean nothing if they conflict with the plans and goals of the State."
A collection of progressives, whom Beck has referred to as "Crime Inc.", comprise what Beck contends is a clandestine conspiracy to take over and transform the United States. Some of these individuals include Cass Sunstein, Van Jones, Andy Stern, John Podesta, Wade Rathke, Joel Rogers and Francis Fox Piven. Other figures tied to Beck's "Crime Inc." accusation include Al Gore, Franklin Raines, Maurice Strong, George Soros, John Holdren and President Barack Obama. According to Beck, these individuals already have or are surreptitiously working in unison with an array of organizations and corporations such as Goldman Sachs, Fannie Mae, ACORN, Apollo Alliance, Tides Center, Chicago Climate Exchange, Generation Investment Management, Enterprise Community Partners, Petrobras, Center for American Progress, and the SEIU; to fulfill their progressive agenda. In his quest to root out these "progressives", Beck has compared himself to Israeli Nazi hunters, vowing on his radio show that "to the day I die I am going to be a progressive-hunter. I'm going to find these people that have done this to our country and expose them. I don't care if they're in nursing homes." Beck compared Al Gore to the Nazis while equating the campaign against global warming to the Nazi campaign against the Jews.
Progressive historian Sean Wilentz has denounced what he describes as Beck's progressive-themed conspiracy theories and "gross historical inaccuracies", countering that Beck is merely echoing the decades-old "right-wing extremism" of the John Birch Society. According to Wilentz, Beck's "version of history" places him in a long line of figures who have challenged mainstream political historians and presented an inaccurate opposing view as the truth, stating:
Conservative David Frum, the former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, has also alleged Beck's propensity for negationism, remarking that "Beck offers a story about the American past for people who are feeling right now very angry and alienated. It is different enough from the usual story in that he makes them feel like they've got access to secret knowledge."
In 2020, Beck argued that the election of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders could lead to "another Holocaust."
Barack Obama and the Obama administration
Beck promoted numerous conspiracy theories and falsehoods about President Barack Obama and the Obama administration.
Beck suggested that Obama was building FEMA concentration camps to put opponents in, that Obama was planning to fake a terrorist attack such as the Oklahoma City bombing in order to boost the administration's popularity, and that Obama was the "puppet" of George Soros. He frequently likened Obama and his administration to Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich. Beck falsely claimed that the John Holdren who led the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Obama administration "proposed forcing abortions and putting sterilants in the drinking water to control population."
Beck argued in 2009 that Obama has repeatedly shown "a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture", saying "I'm not saying he doesn't like white people. I'm saying he has a problem. This guy is, I believe, a racist." These remarks drew criticism, and resulted in a boycott which resulted in at least 57 advertisers requesting their ads be removed from his programming. He later apologized for the remarks, telling Fox News Sunday anchor Chris Wallace that he has a "big fat mouth" and miscast as racism what is actually, as he theorizes, Obama's belief in black theology. In November 2012, Beck attempted to auction a mason jar holding an Obama figurine described as being submerged in urine (in fact, submerged in beer). Bidding reached $11,000 before eBay decided to remove the auction and cancel all bids.
In a 2016 interview with The New Yorker, Beck said of his commentary on Obama: "I did a lot of freaking out about Barack Obama." But added, "Obama made me a better man." Beck said that he regrets calling Obama a racist and is a supporter of Black Lives Matter. He said, "There are things unique to the African-American experience that I cannot relate to. I had to listen to them."
Van Jones
In July 2009, Beck began to focus what would become many episodes on his TV and radio shows on Van Jones, special advisor for Green Jobs at Obama's White House Council on Environmental Quality. Beck called Jones, "an avowed, self-avowed, radical revolutionary communist". PolitiFact rated Beck's claim "mostly false", noting that Jones, who has been open about his past as a communist during the early 1990s, had since expressed firmly capitalist beliefs.
Beck also criticized Jones for his involvement in STORM, a Bay Area radical group with Marxist roots, and his support for death row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal, who had been convicted of killing a police officer. Beck spotlighted a video of Jones referring to Republicans as "assholes", and a petition Jones signed suggesting that George W. Bush knowingly let the September 11 attacks happen. Time magazine credited Beck with leading conservatives' attack on Jones.
In a move attributed by The New York Times as a response to the controversies by the White House, which had not seen Jones' position as senior enough to warrant a full vetting, and Jones' decision that "the agenda of this president was bigger than any one individual," Jones resigned his position in September 2009. Jones characterized the attacks from his opponents as a "vicious smear campaign" and an effort to use "lies and distortions to distract and divide".
Cass Sunstein
Cass Sunstein, Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Obama White House, was a frequent target of Glenn Beck's conspiracy theories. Beck led opposition against Sunstein's nomination to the position. Beck described Sunstein as "the most dangerous man in America." Beck suggested that Sunstein was plotting ways to "ban" conspiracy theorizing.
ACORN
In 2009, Beck and other conservative commentators were critical of Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) making multiple claims including voter registration fraud in the 2008 presidential election. In September 2009, he broadcast a series of alleged undercover videos by conservative activists James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles, which portrayed ACORN community organizers offering inappropriate tax and other advice to people who had said they wanted to import "very young" girls from El Salvador to work as child prostitutes. Following the videos' release, the U.S. Census Bureau severed ties with the group while the U.S. House and Senate voted to cut all of its federal funding.
On December 7, 2009, the former Massachusetts Attorney General, after an independent internal investigation of ACORN, found the videos that had been released appeared to have been edited, "in some cases substantially". He found no evidence of criminal conduct by ACORN employees, but concluded that ACORN had poor management practices that contributed to unprofessional actions by a number of its low-level employees. On March 1, 2010, the District Attorney's office for Brooklyn determined that the videos were "heavily edited" and concluded that there was no criminal wrongdoing by the ACORN staff in the videos from the Brooklyn ACORN office. On April 1, 2010, an investigation by the California Attorney General found the videos from Los Angeles, San Diego and San Bernardino to be "heavily edited", and the investigation did not find evidence of criminal conduct on the part of ACORN employees. On June 14, 2010, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) released its findings, which showed that ACORN evidenced no sign that it, or any of its related organizations, mishandled any federal money they had received. In March 2010, ACORN announced it would be closing its offices and disbanding due to loss of funding from government and private donors.
According to a 2010 study in the journal Perspectives on Politics, Beck played a prominent role in media attacks on ACORN.
Satire website
In 2009, lawyers for Beck brought a case (Beck v. Eiland-Hall) against the owner of a satirical website named GlennBeckRapedAndMurderedAYoungGirlIn1990.com with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The claim that the domain name of the website is itself defamatory was described as a first in cyberlaw. Beck's lawyers argued that the site infringed on his trademarked name and that the domain name should be turned over to Beck. The WIPO ruled against Beck, but Eiland-Hall voluntarily transferred the domain to Beck anyway, saying that the First Amendment had been upheld and that he no longer had a use for the domain name.
Jewish Funds for Justice
In January 2011, in protest against what they saw as inappropriate references to the Holocaust and to Nazis by Beck (and by Roger Ailes of Fox News), four hundred rabbis signed an open letter published as a paid advertisement in The Wall Street Journal. The ad was paid for by Jewish Funds for Justice (JFFJ), which had previously called for Beck's firing. The JFFJ have claimed on their website that Beck seems "to draw his material straight from the anti-Semitic forgery, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion". The letter states that Beck and Fox had "diminish[ed] the memory and meaning of the Holocaust when you use it to discredit any individual or organization you disagree with. That is what Fox News has done in recent weeks." In response, a Fox News executive told Reuters the letter was from a "George Soros-backed leftwing political organization".
George Soros conspiracy theories
Beck is a prominent proponent of conspiracy theories about George Soros, a Jewish philanthropist. Beck falsely claimed that Soros as a boy helped to "send the Jews to the death camps." Beck frequently referred to Soros as a puppet-master and repeated the unsubstantiated conspiracy theory that Soros caused the 1997 Asian financial crisis. In 2010, Beck was accused of being anti-Semitic due to his smears against Soros. The Anti-Defamation League said Beck's remarks about Soros sending Jews to the death camps were "horrific" and "totally off-limits."
On February 22, 2011, during a discussion on his radio show about the controversy surrounding his earlier comments about Soros, Beck said "Reform Rabbis are generally political in nature. It's almost like radicalized Islam in a way where it's less about religion than it is about politics." He was quickly criticized by other conservatives, rabbis, and others. The Anti-Defamation League labeled Beck's remarks "bigoted ignorance". On February 24, Beck apologized on air, agreeing that his comments were "ignorant".
In 2016, Beck, a friend of actor and director Mel Gibson claimed he and Gibson shared a conversation in which Gibson claimed Jewish people had stolen a copy of The Passion of the Christ before its official theatrical release, and that Jewish people were assaulting him in the streets.
2011 Norway attacks
Beck condemned the 2011 Norway attacks, but was condemned for his comparison of murdered and surviving members of the Norwegian Workers' Youth League to the Hitler Youth. He said, "There was a shooting at a political camp which sounds a little like, you know, the Hitler Youth or whatever, you know what I mean. Who does a camp for kids that's all about politics? Disturbing." The statement was ill-received in Norway, prompting political commentator and Labour party member Frank Aarebrot to label Beck as a "vulgar propagandist", a "swine" and a "fascist", and Torbjørn Eriksen, former press secretary to Norway's prime minister Jens Stoltenberg, to describe Beck's comment as "a new low", adding that "Glenn Beck's comments are ignorant, incorrect and extremely hurtful". Commentators pointed out that groups affiliated with the Tea Party movement and the Beck-founded 9–12 Project also sponsor politically oriented camp programs for children.
Trump comments and 2016 SIRIUS XM Suspension
Beck opposed Donald Trump during his 2016 campaign for president, comparing him to Adolf Hitler and describing him as "an immoral man who is absent decency or dignity."
Sirius XM suspended Beck on May 31, 2016, for remarks made during an interview a week earlier. During an interview with author Brad Thor about a hypothetical situation where Trump was abusing his power as president and Congress was unable to stop him, Thor asked "what patriot will step up and [assassinate him] if, if, he oversteps his mandate as president?" Thor and the show's general manager both denied that the comments were a call for his assassination. Beck's radio show was moved from the SIRIUS XM Patriot channel to the Triumph channel soon after.
Beck's opposition to Trump did not sit well with many Trump supporters and hurt his businesses and viewership. On May 18, 2018, Beck stated on his radio program that he intended to vote for Trump in the 2020 presidential election, calling Trump's record "pretty damn amazing". Beck said Trump's defeat in the 2020 election would be "the end of the country as we know it."
Influences
Political and historical
An author with ideological influence on Beck is W. Cleon Skousen (1913–2006), a prolific conservative political writer, American constitutionalist and faith based political theorist. As an anti-communist supporter of the John Birch Society, and a limited-government activist, Skousen, who was Mormon, wrote on a wide range of subjects: the Six-Day War, Mormon eschatology, New World Order conspiracies, even parenting. Skousen believed that American political, social, and economic elites were working with communists to foist a world government on the United States. Beck praised Skousen's "words of wisdom" as "divinely inspired", referencing Skousen's The Naked Communist and especially The 5,000 Year Leap (originally published in 1981), which Beck said in 2007 had "changed his life". According to Skousen's nephew, Mark Skousen, Leap reflects Skousen's "passion for the United States Constitution", which he "felt was inspired by God and the reason behind America's success as a nation". The book is recommended by Beck as "required reading" to understand the current American political landscape and become a "September twelfth person". Beck authored a foreword for the 2008 edition of Leap and Beck's on-air recommendations in 2009 propelled the book to number one in the government category on Amazon for several months. In 2010, Matthew Continetti of the conservative Weekly Standard criticized Beck's conspiratorial bent, terming him "a Skousenite". Additionally, Alexander Zaitchik, author of the 2010 book Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance, which features an entire chapter on "The Ghost of Cleon Skousen", refers to Skousen as "Beck's favorite author and biggest influence", while observing he authored four of the 10 books on Beck's 9-12 Project required-reading list.
In his discussion of Beck and Skousen, Continetti said that one of Skousen's works "draws on Carroll Quigley's Tragedy and Hope (1966), which argues that the history of the 20th century is the product of secret societies in conflict". He observed in Beck's novel, The Overton Window (which Beck describes as "faction", or fiction based on fact), a character states: "Carroll Quigley laid open the plan in Tragedy and Hope, the only hope to avoid the tragedy of war was to bind together the economies of the world to foster global stability and peace."
Glenn Beck's viewpoint about early 20th century progressivism is greatly influenced by Ronald J. Pestritto, who teaches at Hillsdale College. The portal page on the GlennBeck.com web site for "American Progressivism" uses Pestritto's teachings and links directly to one of his books. Pestritto wrote an article for The Wall Street Journal detailing "Glenn Beck, Progressives and Me". The New York Times observed when Beck was on his Fox News show, Pestritto was a regular guest.
Princeton University historian Sean Wilentz says that alongside Skousen, Robert W. Welch, Jr., founder of the John Birch Society, is a key ideological foundation of Beck's worldview. According to Wilentz: "[Beck] has brought neo-Birchite ideas to an audience beyond any that Welch or Skousen might have dreamed of."
Other books that Beck regularly cites on his programs are Amity Shlaes's The Forgotten Man, Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism, Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen's A Patriot's History of the United States, and Burton W. Folsom, Jr.'s New Deal or Raw Deal. Beck has also urged his listeners to read The Coming Insurrection, a book by a French Marxist group discussing what they see as the imminent collapse of capitalist culture, and The Creature from Jekyll Island, which argues that aspects of the U.S. Federal Reserve system assault economic civil liberties, by conspiracy theorist G. Edward Griffin.
On June 4, 2010, Beck endorsed Elizabeth Dilling's 1936 work The Red Network: A Who's Who and Handbook of Radicalism for Patriots, remarking "this is a book, The Red Network, this came in from 1936. People – [Joseph] McCarthy was absolutely right ... This is, who were the communists in America." Beck was criticized by an array of people, including Menachem Z. Rosensaft and Joe Conason, who stated that Dilling was an outspoken anti-Semite and a Nazi sympathizer.
Religious
Beck has credited God for saving him from drug and alcohol abuse, professional obscurity, and friendlessness. In 2006, Beck performed a short inspirational monologue in Salt Lake City, Utah, detailing how he was transformed by the "healing power of Jesus Christ", which was released as a CD two years later by Deseret Book, a publishing company owned by the LDS Church, entitled An Unlikely Mormon: The Conversion Story of Glenn Beck.
Writer Joanna Brooks contends that Beck developed his "amalgamation of anti-communism" and "connect-the-dots conspiracy theorizing" only after his entry into the "deeply insular world of Mormon thought and culture". Brooks theorizes that Beck's calls to fasting and prayer are rooted in Mormon collective fasts to address spiritual challenges, while Beck's "overt sentimentality" and penchant for weeping represent the hallmark of a "distinctly Mormon mode of masculinity" where "appropriately-timed displays of tender emotion are displays of power" and spirituality. Philip Barlow, the Arrington chair of Mormon history and culture at Utah State University, has said that Beck's belief that the U.S. Constitution was an "inspired document", his calls for limited government and not exiling God from the public sphere, "have considerable sympathy in Mormonism". Beck has acknowledged that Mormon "doctrine is different" from traditional Christianity, but he said that this was what attracted him to it, stating that "for me some of the things in traditional doctrine just doesn't work."
Public reception
In 2009, Beck's show was one of the highest rated news commentary programs on cable TV. For a Barbara Walters ABC special, Beck was selected as one of America's "Top 10 Most Fascinating People" of 2009. In 2010, Beck was selected for Time'''s top 100 most influential people under the "Leaders" category.
Beck has referred to himself as an entertainer, a commentator rather than a reporter, and a "rodeo clown". He has said that he identifies with Howard Beale, a character portrayed by Peter Finch in the film Network: "When he came out of the rain and he was like, none of this makes any sense. I am that guy."Time magazine described Beck as "the new populist superstar of Fox News" saying it is easier to see a set of attitudes rather than a specific ideology, noting his criticism of Wall Street, yet defending bonuses to AIG, as well as denouncing conspiracy theories about the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) but warning against indoctrination of children by the AmeriCorps program." (Paul Krugman and Mark Potok, on the other hand, have been among those asserting that Beck helps spread "hate" by covering issues that stir up extremists.) What seems to unite Beck's disparate themes, Time argued, is a sense of siege. An earlier cover story in Time described Beck as "a gifted storyteller with a knack for stitching seemingly unrelated data points into possible conspiracies", proclaiming that he has "emerged as a virtuoso on the strings" of conservative discontent by mining "the timeless theme of the corrupt Them thwarting a virtuous Us".
Beck's shows have been described as a "mix of moral lessons, outrage and an apocalyptic view of the future ... capturing the feelings of an alienated class of Americans". One of Beck's Fox News Channel colleagues Shepard Smith, has jokingly called Beck's studio the "fear chamber", with Beck countering that he preferred the term "doom room".
Republican South Carolina U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham criticized Beck as a "cynic" whose show was antithetical to "American values" at The Atlantic's 2009 First Draft of History conference, remarking "Only in America can you make that much money crying." The progressive watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting's (FAIR) Activism Director, Peter Hart, argues that Beck red-baits political adversaries and promotes a paranoid view of progressive politics. Howard Kurtz, of The Washington Post, has remarked that "Love him or hate him, Beck is a talented, often funny broadcaster, a recovering alcoholic with an unabashedly emotional style."
Laura Miller writes in Salon that Beck is a contemporary example of "the paranoid style in American politics" described by historian Richard Hofstader:
Beck has acknowledged accusations of being a conspiracy theorist, stating on his show that there is a "concentrated effort now to label me a conspiracy theorist".
Particularly as a consequence of Beck's Restoring Honor rally in 2010, the fact that Beck is Mormon caused concern amongst some politically sympathetic Christian Evangelicals on theological grounds.Posner, Sarah, Evangelicals have "Deep Concerns" about Beck, Religion Dispatches, September 1, 2010"Does it Matter that Glenn Beck is a Mormon?", The Week, Yahoo!, August 31, 2010 Tom Tradup, vice president at Salem Radio Network, which serves more than 2,000 Christian-themed stations, expressed this sentiment after the rally, stating "Politically, everyone is with it, but theologically, when he says the country should turn back to God, the question is: Which God?" Subsequently, a September 2010 survey conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) and Religion News Service (RNS) found that of those Americans who hold a favorable opinion of Beck, only 45% believe he is the right person to lead a religious movement, with that number further declining to 37% when people are informed he is Mormon. Daniel Cox, director of research for PRRI, summed up this position by stating:
Pete Peterson of Pepperdine's Davenport Institute said that Beck's speech at the rally belonged to an American tradition of calls to personal renewal. Peterson wrote: "A Mormon surrounded onstage by priests, pastors, rabbis, and imams, Beck [gave] one of the more ecumenical jeremiads in history." Evangelical pastor Tony Campolo said in 2010 that conservative evangelicals respond to Beck's framing of conservative economic principles, saying that Beck's and ideological fellow travelers' "marriage between evangelicalism and patriotic nationalism is so strong that anybody who is raising questions about loyalty to the old, lassez-faire capitalist system is ex-post facto unpatriotic, un-American, and by association non-Christian." Newsweek religion reporter Lisa Miller, after quoting Campolo, opined, "It's ironic that Beck, a Mormon, would gain acceptance as a leader of a new Christian coalition. ... Beck's gift ... is to articulate God's special plan for America in such broad strokes that they trample no single creed or doctrine while they move millions with their message."
Critical biographies
In June 2010, investigative reporter Alexander Zaitchik released a critical biography titled Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance, with a title mocking Beck's work, Common Sense. In an interview about the book, Zaitchik theorized, "Beck's politics and his insatiable hunger for money and fame are not mutually exclusive", while stating:
In September 2010, Philadelphia Daily News reporter Will Bunch released The Backlash: Right-Wing Radicals, High-Def Hucksters, and Paranoid Politics in the Age of Obama. One of Bunch's theses is that Beck is nothing more than a morning zoo deejay playing a fictional character as a money-making stunt. Writer Bob Cesca, in a review of Bunch's book, compares Beck to Steve Martin's faith-healer character in the 1992 film Leap of Faith, before describing the "derivative grab bag of other tried and tested personalities" that Bunch contends comprises Beck's persona:
In October 2010 a polemical biography by Dana Milbank was released: Tears of a Clown: Glenn Beck and the Tea Bagging of America.
Satire, spoof and parody
Beck has been the subject of mockery and ridicule by a number of humorists. In response to Beck's animated delivery and views, he was parodied in an impersonation by Jason Sudeikis on Saturday Night Live. The Daily Shows Jon Stewart has spoofed Beck's 9–12 project with his own "11-3 project", consisting of "11 principles and 3 herbs and spices", impersonated Beck's chalk board-related presentation style for an entire show, and quipped about Beck "finally, a guy who says what people who aren't thinking are thinking". Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report satirized Beck's "war room" by creating his own "doom bunker". Through the character Eric Cartman, South Park parodied Beck's television program and his commentary style in the episode "Dances with Smurfs". The Onion, a satirical periodical and faux news site, ran an Onion News Network video "special report" where it lamented that the "victim in a fatal car accident was tragically not Glenn Beck". Meanwhile, the Current TV cartoon SuperNews! ran an animated cartoon feature titled "The Glenn Beck Apocalypse", where Beck is confronted by Jesus Christ who rebukes him as the equivalent of "Sarah Palin farting into a balloon". Political comedian and satirist Bill Maher has mocked Beck's followers as an "army of diabetic mallwalkers", while The Buffalo Beast, named Beck the most loathsome person in America in 2010, declaring "It's like someone found a manic, doom-prophesying hobo in a sandwich board, shaved him, shot him full of Zoloft and gave him a show." The October 30, 2010 Rally To Restore Sanity and/or Fear in Washington, hosted by Comedy Central personalities Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, was conceived as a parody of Beck's earlier Rally to Restore Honor, even though Stewart and Colbert said that they came up with the idea of holding a rally in March and Stewart had put down the deposit for the National Mall before Beck announced his rally.
Defamation lawsuit and settlement
In March 2014, Abdulrahman Alharbi filed suit for defamation in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts against Beck and his business entities, The Blaze and Mercury Radio Arts, along with his distributor Premiere Radio Networks. Alharbi's defamation claim arose from Beck's repeated broadcasts "identifying Alharbi as an active participant" in the Boston Marathon bombing, even after federal authorities cleared Alharbi, who was injured in the attack, of any wrongdoing and confirmed that he was an innocent victim.Josh Gerstein, Glenn Beck reaches settlement with Saudi student over Boston Marathon accusations, Politico (September 13, 2016). In December 2014, the judge rejected Beck's attempt to have the case dismissed. In September 2016, the suit was settled on confidential terms.
See also
Beck University
Conservative talk radio
List of most-listened-to radio programs
Works
Non-fiction
(Audiobook).
An Unlikely Mormon: The Conversion Story of Glenn Beck, Deseret Book 2008 (Audiobook). .
Arguing with Idiots: How to Stop Small Minds and Big Government, Simon & Schuster 2009. .
Glenn Beck's Common Sense: The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government, Simon & Schuster 2009. .Best Sellers: Paperback Nonfiction, The New York Times, October 9, 2009
America's March to Socialism: Why We're One Step Closer to Giant Missile Parades, Simon & Schuster Audio 2009 (Audio CD). .
Idiots Unplugged, Simon & Schuster 2010 (Audio CD). .
Broke: The Plan to Restore Our Trust, Truth, and Treasure, Simon & Schuster 2010. .
The 7: Seven Wonders That Will Change Your Life, Keith Ablow, co-author; Threshold Editions, 2011; .
The Original Argument: The Federalists' Case for the Constitution, Adapted for the 21st Century, with Joshua Charles; Threshold Editions, 2011; .
Liars: How Progressives Exploit Our Fears for Power and Control, Threshold Editions August 2, 2016.
Addicted to Outrage: How Thinking Like a Recovering Addict Can Heal the Country, Threshold Editions September 18, 2018.
The Great Reset: Joe Biden and the Rise of Twenty-First-Century Fascism, Justin Haskins, co-author; Forefront Books, 2021; .
Control Series
Fiction
The Christmas Sweater, Simon & Schuster 2008. .
The Overton Window, Threshold Editions June 2010.
The Eye of Moloch, Threshold Editions June 2013.
Agenda 21: Into the Shadows, Threshold Editions January 2015.
The Immortal Nicholas, Mercury Ink October 2015.
Children's
The Christmas Sweater: A Picture Book, Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing 2009. .
Beck authorized a comic book:
Political Power: Glenn Beck'', by Jerome Maida, Mark Sparacio (illus.); Bluewater Productions, 2011
References
External links
Glenn Beck – The 912 Project
1964 births
Living people
20th-century American male writers
21st-century American male writers
American Christian Zionists
American conspiracy theorists
American entertainment industry businesspeople
Latter Day Saints from Washington (state)
American anti-communists
American libertarians
American magazine founders
American people of German descent
American political commentators
American political writers
American television talk show hosts
Christian libertarians
Blaze Media people
American conservative talk radio hosts
Converts to Mormonism from Roman Catholicism
Former Roman Catholics
Fox News people
Male critics of feminism
People from Everett, Washington
People from Westlake, Texas
Radio personalities from Phoenix, Arizona
Radio personalities from Tampa, Florida
Tea Party movement activists
Texas Independents
Washington (state) Republicans
Writers from Bellingham, Washington
Latter Day Saints from Texas
20th-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American non-fiction writers
American male non-fiction writers | 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"
] |
[
"Glenn Beck",
"Radio",
"On what radio station did Glenn work at?",
"In 1983 he moved to Corpus Christi, Texas, to work at radio station KZFM.",
"What was his job at KZFM?",
"In mid-1985, Beck was hired away from KZFM to be the lead DJ for the morning-drive radio broadcast by WRKA in Louisville, Kentucky.",
"Did he enjoy his job at WRKA?",
"I don't know.",
"Did he ever leave WRKA for another station?",
"The show slipped to third in the market and Beck left abruptly in 1987 amid a dispute with WRKA management.",
"What was the dispute about?",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"During his time at Y-95, Beck cultivated a rivalry with local pop radio station KZZP and that station's morning host Bruce Kelly."
] | C_d978852d1897400091e5bbbd8041c542_0 | What was the rivalry? | 7 | What was the rivalry between Glenn Beck and KZZP's Bruce Kelly? | Glenn Beck | In 1983 he moved to Corpus Christi, Texas, to work at radio station KZFM. In mid-1985, Beck was hired away from KZFM to be the lead DJ for the morning-drive radio broadcast by WRKA in Louisville, Kentucky. His four-hour weekday show was called Captain Beck and the A-Team. Beck had a reputation as a "young up-and-comer". The show was not political and included the usual off-color antics of the genre: juvenile jokes, pranks, and impersonations. The show slipped to third in the market and Beck left abruptly in 1987 amid a dispute with WRKA management. Months later, Beck was hired by Phoenix Top-40 station KOY-FM, then known as Y-95. Beck was partnered with Arizona native Tim Hattrick to co-host a local "morning zoo" program. During his time at Y-95, Beck cultivated a rivalry with local pop radio station KZZP and that station's morning host Bruce Kelly. Through practical jokes and publicity stunts, Beck drew criticism from the staff at Y-95 when the rivalry culminated in Beck telephoning Kelly's wife on-the-air, mocking her recent miscarriage. In 1989, Beck resigned from Y-95 to accept a job in Houston at KRBE, known as Power 104. Beck was subsequently fired in 1990 due to poor ratings. Beck then moved on to Baltimore, Maryland, and the city's leading Top-40 station, WBSB, known as B104. There, he partnered with Pat Gray, a morning DJ. During his tenure at B104, Beck was arrested and jailed for speeding in his DeLorean. According to a former associate, Beck was "completely out of it" when a station manager went to bail him out. When Gray, then Beck were fired, the two men spent six months in Baltimore, planning their next move. In early 1992, Beck and Gray both moved to WKCI-FM (KC101), a Top-40 radio station in New Haven, Connecticut. In 1995, WKCI apologized after Beck and Gray mocked a Chinese-American caller on air who felt offended by a comedy segment by playing a gong sound effect and having executive producer Alf Gagineau mock a Chinese accent. That incident led to protests by activist groups. When Gray left the show to move to Salt Lake City, Beck continued with co-host Vinnie Penn. At the end of 1998, Beck was informed that his contract would not be renewed at the end of 1999. The Glenn Beck Program first aired in 2000 on WFLA (AM) in Tampa, and took their afternoon time slot from eighteenth to first place within a year. In January 2002, Premiere Radio Networks launched the show nationwide on 47 stations. The show then moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, broadcasting from new flagship station WPHT. On November 5, 2007, The New York Times reported that Premiere Radio Networks was extending Beck's contract. By May 2008, it had reached over 280 terrestrial stations as well as XM Satellite. It was ranked 4th in the nation with over six and a half million listeners. As of July 2013, Beck was tied for number four in the ratings behind Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Dave Ramsey. CANNOTANSWER | Through practical jokes and publicity stunts, Beck drew criticism from the staff at Y-95 when the rivalry culminated in Beck telephoning Kelly's wife on-the-air, mocking her recent miscarriage. | Glenn Lee Beck (born February 10, 1964) is an American conservative political commentator, conspiracy theorist, radio host, and television producer. He is the CEO, founder, and owner of Mercury Radio Arts, the parent company of his television and radio network TheBlaze. He hosts the Glenn Beck Radio Program, a popular talk-radio show nationally syndicated on Premiere Radio Networks. Beck also hosts the Glenn Beck television program, which ran from January 2006 to October 2008 on HLN, from January 2009 to June 2011 on Fox News and now airs on TheBlaze. Beck has authored six New York Times–bestselling books.
In April 2011, Beck announced that he would "transition off of his daily program" on Fox News, but would continue to team with Fox. Beck's last daily show on the network was June 30, 2011. In 2012, The Hollywood Reporter named Beck on its Digital Power Fifty list. Beck launched TheBlaze in 2011 after leaving Fox News. He currently hosts an hour-long afternoon program, The Glenn Beck Program, on weekdays, and a three-hour morning radio show; both are broadcast on TheBlaze. Beck is also the producer of For the Record on TheBlaze.
During Barack Obama's presidency, Beck promoted many conspiracy theories about Obama, his administration, George Soros, and others.
Early life and education
Beck was born in Everett, Washington, the son of Mary Clara (née Janssen) and William Beck, who lived in Mountlake Terrace, Washington, at the time of their son's birth. The family later moved to Mount Vernon, Washington, where they owned and operated City Bakery in the downtown area. He is descended from German immigrants who came to the United States in the 19th century. Beck was raised as a Roman Catholic and attended Immaculate Conception Catholic School in Mount Vernon.
Glenn and his older sister moved with their mother to Sumner, Washington, attending a Jesuit school in Puyallup. On May 15, 1979, while out on a small boat with a male companion, Beck's mother drowned just west of Tacoma, Washington, in Puget Sound. The man who had taken her out in the boat also drowned. A Tacoma police report stated that Mary Beck "appeared to be a classic drowning victim", but a Coast Guard investigator speculated that she could have intentionally jumped overboard. Beck has described his mother's death as a suicide in interviews during television and radio broadcasts.
After their mother's death, Beck and his older sister moved to their father's home in Bellingham, Washington, where Beck graduated from Sehome High School in June 1982. Beck also regularly vacationed with his maternal grandparents, Ed and Clara Janssen, in Iowa. In the aftermath of his mother's death and subsequent suicide of his stepbrother, Beck has said he used "Dr. Jack Daniel's" to cope. At 18, following his high school graduation, Beck relocated to Provo, Utah, and worked at radio station KAYK. Feeling he "didn't fit in", Beck left Utah after six months, taking a job at Washington, D.C.'s WPGC in February 1983.
Personal life
While working at WPGC, Beck met his first wife, Claire. In 1983, the couple married and had two daughters, Mary and Hannah. Mary developed cerebral palsy as a result of a series of strokes at birth in 1988. The couple divorced in 1994 amid Beck's struggles with substance abuse. He is a recovering alcoholic and drug addict, and has said he has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Beck later admitted that the family problems ranging from the divorce to his substance abuse had a severe negative impact on his children.
By 1994, Beck was suicidal, and he imagined shooting himself to the music of Kurt Cobain. He credits Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) with helping him achieve sobriety. He said he stopped drinking alcohol and smoking cannabis in November 1994, the same month he attended his first AA meeting. Beck later said that he had gotten high every day for the previous 15 years, since the age of 16.
In 1996, while working for a New Haven area radio station, Beck took a theology class at Yale University, with a written recommendation from Senator Joe Lieberman, a Yale alumnus who was a fan of Beck's show at the time. Beck enrolled in an "Early Christology" course, but soon withdrew, marking the extent of his post-secondary education.
Beck then began a "spiritual quest" in which he "sought out answers in churches and bookstores". As he later recounted in his books and stage performances, Beck's first attempt at self-education involved reading the work of six wide-ranging authors, constituting what Beck jokingly calls "the library of a serial killer": Alan Dershowitz, Pope John Paul II, Adolf Hitler, Billy Graham, Carl Sagan, and Friedrich Nietzsche. During this time, Beck's Mormon friend and former radio partner Pat Gray argued in favor of the "comprehensive worldview" offered by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, an offer that Beck rejected until a few years later (Later, after Beck's moving to the New York City area, he had a consultation with Graham, which Beck said touched him strongly).
In 1999, Beck married his second wife, Tania. After they went looking for a faith on a church tour together, they joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in October 1999, partly at the urging of his daughter Mary. Beck was baptized by his old friend, and current-day co-worker Pat Gray. Beck and Tania have had two children together, Raphe (who is adopted) and Cheyenne. Until April 2011, the couple lived in New Canaan, Connecticut, with the four children.
Beck announced in July 2010 that he had been diagnosed with macular dystrophy, saying "A couple of weeks ago I went to the doctor because of my eyes, I can't focus my eyes. He did all kinds of tests and he said, 'you have macular dystrophy ... you could go blind in the next year. Or, you might not. The disorder can make it difficult to read, drive or recognize faces.
In July 2011, Beck leased a house in the Fort Worth suburb of Westlake, Texas. In 2012, he moved his main TV and radio studios to Dallas, Texas.
On November 10, 2014, Beck announced on TheBlaze that he had been suffering from a severe neurological disorder for at least the last five years. He described many strong and debilitating symptoms which made it difficult for him to work, and he also announced that he had "a string of health issues that quite honestly made me look crazy, and quite honestly, I have felt crazy because of them". Beck related that a chiropractor who specializes in "chiropractic neurology", Frederick Carrick, had "diagnosed [him] with several health issues, including an autoimmune disorder, which he didn't name, and adrenal fatigue." Over a period of ten months he had received a series of treatments and felt better. On January 13, 2022, Beck announced that his second case of covid was "getting into my lungs".
Career
In 2002, Beck created the media platform Mercury Radio Arts as the umbrella over his broadcast, publishing, Internet, and live show interests. Beck founded Mercury Radio Arts in 2002, naming it after the Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre, which produced live radio broadcasts during the 1930s. The company produces all of Beck's productions, including his eponymous radio show, books, live stage shows, and his official website.
Radio
In 1983, he moved to Corpus Christi, Texas, to work at radio station KZFM. In mid-1985, Beck was hired away from KZFM to be the lead DJ for the morning-drive radio broadcast by WRKA in Louisville, Kentucky. His four-hour weekday show was called Captain Beck and the A-Team. Beck had a reputation as a "young up-and-comer". The show was not political and included the usual off-color antics of the genre: juvenile jokes, pranks, and impersonations. The show slipped to third in the market and Beck left abruptly in 1987 amid a dispute with WRKA management.
Months later, Beck was hired by Phoenix Top-40 station KOY-FM, then known as Y-95. Beck was partnered with Arizona native Tim Hattrick to co-host a local "morning zoo" program. During his time at Y-95, Beck cultivated a rivalry with local pop radio station KZZP and that station's morning host Bruce Kelly. Through practical jokes and publicity stunts, Beck drew criticism from the staff at Y-95 when the rivalry culminated in Beck telephoning Kelly's wife on-the-air, mocking her recent miscarriage. In 1989, Beck resigned from Y-95 to accept a job in Houston at KRBE, known as Power 104. Beck was subsequently fired in 1990 due to poor ratings.
Beck then moved on to Baltimore, Maryland, and the city's leading Top-40 station, WBSB, known as B104. There, he partnered with Pat Gray, a morning DJ. During his tenure at B104, Beck was arrested and jailed for speeding in his DeLorean. According to a former associate, Beck was "completely out of it" when a station manager went to bail him out. When Gray, then Beck were fired, the two men spent six months in Baltimore, planning their next move. In early 1992, Beck and Gray both moved to WKCI-FM (KC101), a Top-40 radio station in New Haven, Connecticut. In 1995, WKCI apologized after Beck and Gray mocked a Chinese-American caller on air who felt offended by a comedy segment by playing a gong sound effect and having executive producer Alf Gatineau mock a Chinese accent. That incident led to protests by activist groups. When Gray left the show to move to Salt Lake City, Beck continued with co-host Vinnie Penn. At the end of 1998, Beck was informed that his contract would not be renewed at the end of 1999.
The Glenn Beck Program first aired in 2000 on WFLA (AM) in Tampa, and took their afternoon time slot from eighteenth to first place within a year. In January 2002, Premiere Radio Networks launched the show nationwide on 47 stations. The show then moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, broadcasting from new flagship station WPHT. On November 5, 2007, The New York Times reported that Premiere Radio Networks was extending Beck's contract. By May 2008, it had reached over 280 terrestrial stations as well as XM Satellite. It was ranked 4th in the nation with over six and a half million listeners. , Beck was tied for number four in the ratings behind Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Dave Ramsey.
Television
In January 2006, CNN's Headline News announced that Beck would host a nightly news-commentary show in their new prime-time block Headline Prime. The show, simply called Glenn Beck, aired weeknights. CNN Headline News described the show as "an unconventional look at the news of the day featuring his often amusing perspective". At the end of his tenure at CNN-HLN, Beck had the second largest audience behind Nancy Grace. In 2008, Beck won the Marconi Radio Award for Network Syndicated Personality of the Year.
In October 2008, it was announced that Beck would join the Fox News Channel, leaving CNN Headline News. After moving to the Fox News Channel, Beck hosted Glenn Beck, beginning in January 2009, as well as a weekend version. One of his first guests was Alaska Governor Sarah Palin He also had a regular segment every Friday on the Fox News Channel program The O'Reilly Factor titled "At Your Beck and Call". , Beck's program drew more viewers than all three of the competing time-slot shows combined on CNN, MSNBC and HLN.
His show's high ratings did not come without controversy. The Washington Posts Howard Kurtz reported that Beck's use of "distorted or inflammatory rhetoric" had complicated the channel's and their journalists' efforts to neutralize White House criticism that Fox is not really a news organization. Television analyst Andrew Tyndall echoed these sentiments, saying that Beck's incendiary style had created "a real crossroads for Fox News", stating "they're right on the cusp of losing their image as a news organization."
In April 2011, Fox News and Mercury Radio Arts, Beck's production company, announced that Beck would "transition off of his daily program" on Fox News in 2011. His last day at Fox was later announced as June 30. FNC and Beck announced that he would be teaming with Fox to produce a slate of projects for Fox News and its digital properties. Fox News head Roger Ailes later referenced Beck's entrepreneurialism and political movement activism, saying, "His [Beck's] goals were different from our goals ... I need people focused on a daily television show." Beck hosted his last daily show on Fox on June 30, 2011, where he recounted the accomplishments of the show and said, "This show has become a movement. It's not a TV show, and that's why it doesn't belong on television anymore. It belongs in your homes. It belongs in your neighborhoods." In response to critics who said he was fired, Beck pointed out that his final show was airing live. Immediately after the show he did an interview on his new GBTV internet television channel.
TheBlaze TV (formerly GBTV)
Beck's Fox News one-hour show ended June 30, 2011, and a new two-hour show began his television network which started as a subscription-based internet TV network, TheBlaze TV, originally called GBTV, on September 12, 2011. Using a subscription model, it was estimated that Beck is on track to generate $27 million in his first year of operation. This was later upgraded to $40 million by The Wall Street Journal when subscriptions topped 300,000. On September 12, 2012, TheBlaze TV announced that the Dish Network would begin carrying TheBlaze TV. TheBlaze is currently available on over 90 television providers, with eleven of those being in the national top 25.
Books
Mercury Ink has a co-publishing deal with Simon & Schuster and was founded by Glenn Beck in 2011 as the publishing imprint of Mercury Radio Arts. Started in 2011, Mercury Ink publishes adult and young adult novels and non-fiction titles. Including books written by Glenn Beck, authors signed to Mercury Ink include New York Times best seller Richard Paul Evans.
Beck has reached No. 1 on The New York Times Bestseller List in four separate categories : Hardcover Non-Fiction, Paperback Non-Fiction, Hardcover Fiction, and Children's Picture Books.
Beck has a chapter giving advice in Tim Ferriss' book Tools of Titans.
Non Fiction
An Inconvenient Book:Real Solutions to the World's Biggest Problems, .
Glenn Beck's Common Sense:The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government Inspired by Thomas Paine, Threshold Editions, June 16, 2009, .
Arguing With Idiots:How to Stop Small Minds and Big Government, Threshold Editions, September 22, 2009, .
Broke:The Plan to Restore Our Trust, Truth and Treasure Threshold Editions, October 26, 2010, .
The 7:Seven Wonders That Will Change Your Life, co-author Keith Ablow, MD, Threshold Editions, January 4, 2011, .
The Original Argument:The Federalists' Case for the Constitution, Adapted for the 21st Century, Threshold Editions, June 14, 2011, .
Being George Washington:The Indispensable Man, as You've Never Seen Him, Threshold Editions, November 22, 2011, .
Cowards:What Politicians, Radicals, and the Media Refuse to Say, Threshold Editions, June 12, 2012, .
Control:Exposing the Truth About Guns, Threshold Editions, April 30, 2013, .
Miracles and Massacres:True and Untold Stories of the Making of America, Threshold Editions, November 19, 2013, .
Conform:Exposing the Truth About Common Core and Public Education, Threshold Editions, May 6, 2014, .
Dreamers and Deceivers:True Stories of the Heroes and Villains Who Made America, Threshold Editions, August 11, 2015, .
It IS About Islam:Exposing the Truth About ISIS, Al Qaeda, Iran and the Caliphate, Threshold Editions, August 18, 2015, .
Liars:How Progressives Exploit Our Fears For Power and Control Threshold Editions, August 2, 2016, .
Addicted to Outrage:How Thinking Like a Recovering Addict Can Heal the Country, Threshold Editions, September 18, 2018, .
Arguing With Socialist, Threshold Books, April 7, 2020, .
Fiction
The Christmas Sweater, Threshold Editions, November 11, 2008, .
The Overton Window, Threshold Editions, June 15, 2010, .
The Snow Angel, Threshold Editions, October 25, 2011, .
Agenda 21, co-author Harriett Parke, Threshold Editions, November 20, 2012, .
The Eye of Moloch, Threshold Editions, June 11, 2013, .
Agenda 21:Into the Shadows, co-author Harriett Parke, Threshold Editions, January 6, 2015, .
The Immortal Nicholas, Mercury Ink, October 27, 2015, .
Stage shows and speeches
Since 2005, Beck has toured American cities twice a year, presenting a one-man stage show. His stage productions are a mix of stand-up comedy and inspirational speaking. In a critique of his live act, Salon magazine's Steve Almond describes Beck as a "wildly imaginative performer, a man who weds the operatic impulses of the demagogue to the grim mutterings of the conspiracy theorist".
A show from the Beck `08 Unelectable Tour was shown in around 350 movie theaters around the country.
The finale of 2009's Common Sense Comedy Tour was simulcast in over 440 theaters. The events have drawn 200,000 fans in recent years.
In March 2003, Beck ran a series of rallies, which he called Glenn Beck's Rally for America, in support of troops deployed for the upcoming Iraq War. On July 4, 2007, Beck served as host of the 2007 Toyota Tundra "Stadium of Fire" in Provo, Utah. The annual event at LaVell Edwards Stadium on the Brigham Young University campus is presented by America's Freedom Foundation. In May 2008, Beck gave the keynote speech at the NRA convention in Louisville, Kentucky.
In late August 2009, the mayor of Beck's hometown, Mount Vernon, Washington, announced that he would award Beck the Key to the City, designating September 26, 2009, as "Glenn Beck Day". Due to local opposition, the city council voted unanimously to disassociate itself from the award. The key presentation ceremony sold-out the 850 seat McIntyre Hall and an estimated 800 detractors and supporters demonstrated outside the building. Earlier that day, approximately 7,000 people attended the Evergreen Freedom Foundation's "Take the Field with Glenn Beck" at Seattle's Safeco Field.
In December 2009, Beck produced a one-night special film titled "The Christmas Sweater: A Return to Redemption". In January and February 2010, Beck teamed with fellow Fox News host Bill O'Reilly to tour several cities in a live stage show called "The Bold and Fresh Tour 2010". The January 29 show was recorded and broadcast to movie theaters throughout the country.
In July 2013, Beck produced and hosted a one-night stage event called Man in the Moon, held at the USANA Amphitheatre in West Valley City, Utah. The amphitheater sold out all 20,000 of its seats and was released on television and DVD in August 2013. The event was a narrative story told from the point of view of the moon, from the beginnings of the Book of Genesis to the first moon landing. The moon serves as the narrator of the story.
Philanthropy
In 2011, Beck founded the non-profit organization Mercury One, which is designed to sustain itself through its entrepreneurship without the need for grants or donations. In early 2011, Beck began work toward developing a clothing line to be sold to benefit the charity and October 2011, Mercury One began selling the upscale clothing line labeled 1791 exclusively at its website, 1791.com. The clothing in the line's eleven-piece inaugural offering was manufactured by American Mojo of Lowell, Massachusetts.
In July 2014, after tens of thousands of undocumented immigrant children crossed into Texas via the Southern United States border, unaccompanied by parents, Beck announced that he, along with Utah Senator Mike Lee and Texas representative Louie Gohmert, would travel to the U.S.-Mexico border with his charity organization, Mercury One. He stated that they would bring tractor trailers full of food, hot meals, and teddy bears for the unaccompanied minors. While Beck made it clear in interviews that they wanted a full repeal of DACA, Beck also mentioned his belief in the importance of helping these children. "Through no fault of their own, they are caught in political crossfire, and while we continue to put pressure on Washington and change its course of lawlessness, we must also help," Beck said. "It is not either, or. It is both. We have to be active in the political game, and we must open our hearts."
As of 2017, Beck's Nazarene Fund had reportedly relocated 10,524 Christian refugees from northern Iraq and Syria to other host countries, including Australia, the United States, France, Slovakia, Greece, Lebanon, Brazil, and Canada. The fund's website notes 1,646 families have been evacuated from the ISIS ravaged region since its launch in 2014, and 45,000 people have received humanitarian aid as a result of donations to Mercury One.
Projects and rallies
9–12 Project and Tea Party protests
In March 2009, Beck put together a campaign, the 9-12 Project, which is named after nine principles and twelve values that he says embody the spirit of the American people on the day after the September 11 attacks. The Colorado 9–12 Project hosted a "Patriot Camp" for kids in grades 1–5, featuring programs on "our Constitution, the Founding Fathers, and the values and principles that are the cornerstones of our nation".
Restoring Honor rally
The Restoring Honor rally was promoted/hosted by Beck and held at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. on August 28, 2010. The rally—which purported to embrace religious faith and patriotism—was co-sponsored by the Special Operations Warrior Foundation, promoted by FreedomWorks, and supported by the Tea Party movement. Attendance was estimated at 87,000 (± 9,000) based on aerial photos.
"America's First Christmas"
In December 2010, Beck went to Wilmington, Ohio, a town devastated by the late-2000s recession, to host live events to encourage his fans to go to the town to boost the local economy in a project called "America's First Christmas". He hosted an event and his radio and television shows from the local theater.
Restoring Courage 2011 international tour
Beck headlined his "Restoring Courage" events in Jerusalem, Israel, in August 2011 in a campaign Beck said was designed to encourage people worldwide "to stand with the Jewish people". After Jerusalem, Beck visited Cape Town, South Africa, and was scheduled to visit Venezuela.
2012 presidential campaign
Actively supporting Mitt Romney as "perhaps the best-known Mormon after the Republican presidential candidate and a major influence on evangelical Christians, ... Beck has emerged as an unlikely theological bridge between the first Mormon presidential nominee and a critical electorate [evangelicals]", according to a pre-election article in The New York Times. Along with personal campaign appearances in Ohio and Iowa, Beck unusually directly addressed doctrinal issues between Mormons and evangelical Christians—wherein the latter often consider the former a "cult" rather than Christian—on his radio show in September 2012. During the one-hour show in early September, he asked his audience, "Does Mitt Romney's Mormonism make him too scary or weird to be elected president of the United States?" The article concluded by addressing the "fear of making Mormonism mainstream" as a reason Beck could be acceptable to evangelicals and Romney not be, quoting John C. Green, the author of The Faith Factor: How Religion Influences American Elections:
There's a difference between a public figure like Glenn Beck and someone who could be the president of the United States. ... Many evangelicals believe this country was founded by Christian leaders. It is important that the person in the White House be positive about Christianity, if not a devout Christian himself.
Restoring Love rally and "Day of Service"
In August 2012, Beck held a rally at AT&T Stadium in Irving, Texas. The event's theme was service to one's fellow citizens, and loving each other. The event saw a "Day of Service", which saw Mercury One (Beck's charity organization) volunteering to feed homeless and disadvantaged individuals, doing community-building projects, and mowing lawns. The event culminated in a keynote speech presented by Beck imploring the audience to "commit to each other. Go home and wake up your neighbors." In regards to serving fellow Americans, Beck said, "Those who count us out are counting on one weekend of action, one weekend of speeches. One weekend. One day. Please my fellow countrymen, let this be the first of many."
Restoring Unity and Never Again Is Now
In August 2015, Beck and Mercury Radio Arts organized a rally that saw a little over 20,000 people march through the streets of Birmingham, Alabama in a statement of unity and support for the persecuted Christians in Iraq, a cause that Beck's Mercury One charity organization focuses on, and as a call for unity among the American people. After the march, the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex held a rally featuring speakers including Glenn Beck, Ted Cruz, Rafael Cruz, Jon Voight, Alveda King, the niece of Martin Luther King, Jr., and David Barton.
Political views
Beck has described himself as a conservative with libertarian leanings. Among his core values, Beck lists personal responsibility, private charity, the right to life, freedom of religion, limited government, and the family as the cornerstone of society. Beck believes in low national debt, and he has said "A conservative believes that debt creates unhealthy relationships. Everyone, from the government on down, should live within their means and strive for financial independence." He supports individual gun ownership rights, is against gun control legislation, and is a supporter of the NRA and its local state chapters.
Beck rejects the scientific consensus on climate change. Beck contests the evidence, citing personal beliefs, "There is more proof for the resurrection of Jesus than man-made climate change." He also views the American Clean Energy and Security Act as a form of wealth redistribution, and he has promoted a petition rejecting the Kyoto Protocol.
Although opposed to illegal immigration, Beck announced in June and July 2014 that his foundation, Mercury One, would be making efforts to provide food and relief to the large numbers of migrant children. His move was praised by supporters of immigrant rights and freer migration but met with considerable pushback from his supporter base.
On March 18, 2015, Beck officially announced that he had left the Republican Party, saying that the GOP had failed to effectively stand against the president on Obamacare and immigration reform, and because of the GOP establishment's opposition to lawmakers such as Mike Lee and Texas Senator Ted Cruz.
Beck endorsed Cruz in his run for President of the United States in 2016. In October 2016, Beck called opposing Donald Trump a "moral, ethical choice". On the campaign trail in support of Cruz, Beck was quoted as saying "If Donald Trump wins it is going to be a snowball to hell." After Cruz dropped out of the race, Beck endorsed independent Evan McMullin.
On May 18, 2018, on his radio show, Beck predicted Donald Trump would win the 2020 United States presidential election in a "landslide", saying "Here's why I'm predicting a 2020 win. When I saw yesterday how the press was all reporting the same damn story that Donald Trump was calling MS-13 gang members, they left that out of the story, 'animals' they were spinning it as if he was saying that about all immigrants. I had enough. I've had enough ... Gladly, I'll vote for [President Trump] in 2020 and not really even on his record, which we'll talk about here in a second, is pretty damn amazing." Beck went on to say, "I'll vote for him in 2020", and donned a Make America Great Again hat on his television show.
Opposition to progressivism
During his 2010 keynote speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Beck wrote progressivism on a chalkboard and declared, "This is the disease. This is the disease in America", adding that "progressivism is the cancer in America and it is eating our Constitution!" According to Beck, the progressive ideas of men such as John Dewey, Herbert Croly, and Walter Lippmann, influenced the Presidencies of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson; eventually becoming the foundation for President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal. Beck has said that such progressivism infects both main political parties and threatens to "destroy America as it was originally conceived". In Beck's book Common Sense, he argues that "progressivism has less to do with the parties and more to do with individuals who seek to redefine, reshape, and rebuild America into a country where individual liberties and personal property mean nothing if they conflict with the plans and goals of the State."
A collection of progressives, whom Beck has referred to as "Crime Inc.", comprise what Beck contends is a clandestine conspiracy to take over and transform the United States. Some of these individuals include Cass Sunstein, Van Jones, Andy Stern, John Podesta, Wade Rathke, Joel Rogers and Francis Fox Piven. Other figures tied to Beck's "Crime Inc." accusation include Al Gore, Franklin Raines, Maurice Strong, George Soros, John Holdren and President Barack Obama. According to Beck, these individuals already have or are surreptitiously working in unison with an array of organizations and corporations such as Goldman Sachs, Fannie Mae, ACORN, Apollo Alliance, Tides Center, Chicago Climate Exchange, Generation Investment Management, Enterprise Community Partners, Petrobras, Center for American Progress, and the SEIU; to fulfill their progressive agenda. In his quest to root out these "progressives", Beck has compared himself to Israeli Nazi hunters, vowing on his radio show that "to the day I die I am going to be a progressive-hunter. I'm going to find these people that have done this to our country and expose them. I don't care if they're in nursing homes." Beck compared Al Gore to the Nazis while equating the campaign against global warming to the Nazi campaign against the Jews.
Progressive historian Sean Wilentz has denounced what he describes as Beck's progressive-themed conspiracy theories and "gross historical inaccuracies", countering that Beck is merely echoing the decades-old "right-wing extremism" of the John Birch Society. According to Wilentz, Beck's "version of history" places him in a long line of figures who have challenged mainstream political historians and presented an inaccurate opposing view as the truth, stating:
Conservative David Frum, the former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, has also alleged Beck's propensity for negationism, remarking that "Beck offers a story about the American past for people who are feeling right now very angry and alienated. It is different enough from the usual story in that he makes them feel like they've got access to secret knowledge."
In 2020, Beck argued that the election of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders could lead to "another Holocaust."
Barack Obama and the Obama administration
Beck promoted numerous conspiracy theories and falsehoods about President Barack Obama and the Obama administration.
Beck suggested that Obama was building FEMA concentration camps to put opponents in, that Obama was planning to fake a terrorist attack such as the Oklahoma City bombing in order to boost the administration's popularity, and that Obama was the "puppet" of George Soros. He frequently likened Obama and his administration to Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich. Beck falsely claimed that the John Holdren who led the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Obama administration "proposed forcing abortions and putting sterilants in the drinking water to control population."
Beck argued in 2009 that Obama has repeatedly shown "a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture", saying "I'm not saying he doesn't like white people. I'm saying he has a problem. This guy is, I believe, a racist." These remarks drew criticism, and resulted in a boycott which resulted in at least 57 advertisers requesting their ads be removed from his programming. He later apologized for the remarks, telling Fox News Sunday anchor Chris Wallace that he has a "big fat mouth" and miscast as racism what is actually, as he theorizes, Obama's belief in black theology. In November 2012, Beck attempted to auction a mason jar holding an Obama figurine described as being submerged in urine (in fact, submerged in beer). Bidding reached $11,000 before eBay decided to remove the auction and cancel all bids.
In a 2016 interview with The New Yorker, Beck said of his commentary on Obama: "I did a lot of freaking out about Barack Obama." But added, "Obama made me a better man." Beck said that he regrets calling Obama a racist and is a supporter of Black Lives Matter. He said, "There are things unique to the African-American experience that I cannot relate to. I had to listen to them."
Van Jones
In July 2009, Beck began to focus what would become many episodes on his TV and radio shows on Van Jones, special advisor for Green Jobs at Obama's White House Council on Environmental Quality. Beck called Jones, "an avowed, self-avowed, radical revolutionary communist". PolitiFact rated Beck's claim "mostly false", noting that Jones, who has been open about his past as a communist during the early 1990s, had since expressed firmly capitalist beliefs.
Beck also criticized Jones for his involvement in STORM, a Bay Area radical group with Marxist roots, and his support for death row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal, who had been convicted of killing a police officer. Beck spotlighted a video of Jones referring to Republicans as "assholes", and a petition Jones signed suggesting that George W. Bush knowingly let the September 11 attacks happen. Time magazine credited Beck with leading conservatives' attack on Jones.
In a move attributed by The New York Times as a response to the controversies by the White House, which had not seen Jones' position as senior enough to warrant a full vetting, and Jones' decision that "the agenda of this president was bigger than any one individual," Jones resigned his position in September 2009. Jones characterized the attacks from his opponents as a "vicious smear campaign" and an effort to use "lies and distortions to distract and divide".
Cass Sunstein
Cass Sunstein, Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Obama White House, was a frequent target of Glenn Beck's conspiracy theories. Beck led opposition against Sunstein's nomination to the position. Beck described Sunstein as "the most dangerous man in America." Beck suggested that Sunstein was plotting ways to "ban" conspiracy theorizing.
ACORN
In 2009, Beck and other conservative commentators were critical of Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) making multiple claims including voter registration fraud in the 2008 presidential election. In September 2009, he broadcast a series of alleged undercover videos by conservative activists James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles, which portrayed ACORN community organizers offering inappropriate tax and other advice to people who had said they wanted to import "very young" girls from El Salvador to work as child prostitutes. Following the videos' release, the U.S. Census Bureau severed ties with the group while the U.S. House and Senate voted to cut all of its federal funding.
On December 7, 2009, the former Massachusetts Attorney General, after an independent internal investigation of ACORN, found the videos that had been released appeared to have been edited, "in some cases substantially". He found no evidence of criminal conduct by ACORN employees, but concluded that ACORN had poor management practices that contributed to unprofessional actions by a number of its low-level employees. On March 1, 2010, the District Attorney's office for Brooklyn determined that the videos were "heavily edited" and concluded that there was no criminal wrongdoing by the ACORN staff in the videos from the Brooklyn ACORN office. On April 1, 2010, an investigation by the California Attorney General found the videos from Los Angeles, San Diego and San Bernardino to be "heavily edited", and the investigation did not find evidence of criminal conduct on the part of ACORN employees. On June 14, 2010, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) released its findings, which showed that ACORN evidenced no sign that it, or any of its related organizations, mishandled any federal money they had received. In March 2010, ACORN announced it would be closing its offices and disbanding due to loss of funding from government and private donors.
According to a 2010 study in the journal Perspectives on Politics, Beck played a prominent role in media attacks on ACORN.
Satire website
In 2009, lawyers for Beck brought a case (Beck v. Eiland-Hall) against the owner of a satirical website named GlennBeckRapedAndMurderedAYoungGirlIn1990.com with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The claim that the domain name of the website is itself defamatory was described as a first in cyberlaw. Beck's lawyers argued that the site infringed on his trademarked name and that the domain name should be turned over to Beck. The WIPO ruled against Beck, but Eiland-Hall voluntarily transferred the domain to Beck anyway, saying that the First Amendment had been upheld and that he no longer had a use for the domain name.
Jewish Funds for Justice
In January 2011, in protest against what they saw as inappropriate references to the Holocaust and to Nazis by Beck (and by Roger Ailes of Fox News), four hundred rabbis signed an open letter published as a paid advertisement in The Wall Street Journal. The ad was paid for by Jewish Funds for Justice (JFFJ), which had previously called for Beck's firing. The JFFJ have claimed on their website that Beck seems "to draw his material straight from the anti-Semitic forgery, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion". The letter states that Beck and Fox had "diminish[ed] the memory and meaning of the Holocaust when you use it to discredit any individual or organization you disagree with. That is what Fox News has done in recent weeks." In response, a Fox News executive told Reuters the letter was from a "George Soros-backed leftwing political organization".
George Soros conspiracy theories
Beck is a prominent proponent of conspiracy theories about George Soros, a Jewish philanthropist. Beck falsely claimed that Soros as a boy helped to "send the Jews to the death camps." Beck frequently referred to Soros as a puppet-master and repeated the unsubstantiated conspiracy theory that Soros caused the 1997 Asian financial crisis. In 2010, Beck was accused of being anti-Semitic due to his smears against Soros. The Anti-Defamation League said Beck's remarks about Soros sending Jews to the death camps were "horrific" and "totally off-limits."
On February 22, 2011, during a discussion on his radio show about the controversy surrounding his earlier comments about Soros, Beck said "Reform Rabbis are generally political in nature. It's almost like radicalized Islam in a way where it's less about religion than it is about politics." He was quickly criticized by other conservatives, rabbis, and others. The Anti-Defamation League labeled Beck's remarks "bigoted ignorance". On February 24, Beck apologized on air, agreeing that his comments were "ignorant".
In 2016, Beck, a friend of actor and director Mel Gibson claimed he and Gibson shared a conversation in which Gibson claimed Jewish people had stolen a copy of The Passion of the Christ before its official theatrical release, and that Jewish people were assaulting him in the streets.
2011 Norway attacks
Beck condemned the 2011 Norway attacks, but was condemned for his comparison of murdered and surviving members of the Norwegian Workers' Youth League to the Hitler Youth. He said, "There was a shooting at a political camp which sounds a little like, you know, the Hitler Youth or whatever, you know what I mean. Who does a camp for kids that's all about politics? Disturbing." The statement was ill-received in Norway, prompting political commentator and Labour party member Frank Aarebrot to label Beck as a "vulgar propagandist", a "swine" and a "fascist", and Torbjørn Eriksen, former press secretary to Norway's prime minister Jens Stoltenberg, to describe Beck's comment as "a new low", adding that "Glenn Beck's comments are ignorant, incorrect and extremely hurtful". Commentators pointed out that groups affiliated with the Tea Party movement and the Beck-founded 9–12 Project also sponsor politically oriented camp programs for children.
Trump comments and 2016 SIRIUS XM Suspension
Beck opposed Donald Trump during his 2016 campaign for president, comparing him to Adolf Hitler and describing him as "an immoral man who is absent decency or dignity."
Sirius XM suspended Beck on May 31, 2016, for remarks made during an interview a week earlier. During an interview with author Brad Thor about a hypothetical situation where Trump was abusing his power as president and Congress was unable to stop him, Thor asked "what patriot will step up and [assassinate him] if, if, he oversteps his mandate as president?" Thor and the show's general manager both denied that the comments were a call for his assassination. Beck's radio show was moved from the SIRIUS XM Patriot channel to the Triumph channel soon after.
Beck's opposition to Trump did not sit well with many Trump supporters and hurt his businesses and viewership. On May 18, 2018, Beck stated on his radio program that he intended to vote for Trump in the 2020 presidential election, calling Trump's record "pretty damn amazing". Beck said Trump's defeat in the 2020 election would be "the end of the country as we know it."
Influences
Political and historical
An author with ideological influence on Beck is W. Cleon Skousen (1913–2006), a prolific conservative political writer, American constitutionalist and faith based political theorist. As an anti-communist supporter of the John Birch Society, and a limited-government activist, Skousen, who was Mormon, wrote on a wide range of subjects: the Six-Day War, Mormon eschatology, New World Order conspiracies, even parenting. Skousen believed that American political, social, and economic elites were working with communists to foist a world government on the United States. Beck praised Skousen's "words of wisdom" as "divinely inspired", referencing Skousen's The Naked Communist and especially The 5,000 Year Leap (originally published in 1981), which Beck said in 2007 had "changed his life". According to Skousen's nephew, Mark Skousen, Leap reflects Skousen's "passion for the United States Constitution", which he "felt was inspired by God and the reason behind America's success as a nation". The book is recommended by Beck as "required reading" to understand the current American political landscape and become a "September twelfth person". Beck authored a foreword for the 2008 edition of Leap and Beck's on-air recommendations in 2009 propelled the book to number one in the government category on Amazon for several months. In 2010, Matthew Continetti of the conservative Weekly Standard criticized Beck's conspiratorial bent, terming him "a Skousenite". Additionally, Alexander Zaitchik, author of the 2010 book Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance, which features an entire chapter on "The Ghost of Cleon Skousen", refers to Skousen as "Beck's favorite author and biggest influence", while observing he authored four of the 10 books on Beck's 9-12 Project required-reading list.
In his discussion of Beck and Skousen, Continetti said that one of Skousen's works "draws on Carroll Quigley's Tragedy and Hope (1966), which argues that the history of the 20th century is the product of secret societies in conflict". He observed in Beck's novel, The Overton Window (which Beck describes as "faction", or fiction based on fact), a character states: "Carroll Quigley laid open the plan in Tragedy and Hope, the only hope to avoid the tragedy of war was to bind together the economies of the world to foster global stability and peace."
Glenn Beck's viewpoint about early 20th century progressivism is greatly influenced by Ronald J. Pestritto, who teaches at Hillsdale College. The portal page on the GlennBeck.com web site for "American Progressivism" uses Pestritto's teachings and links directly to one of his books. Pestritto wrote an article for The Wall Street Journal detailing "Glenn Beck, Progressives and Me". The New York Times observed when Beck was on his Fox News show, Pestritto was a regular guest.
Princeton University historian Sean Wilentz says that alongside Skousen, Robert W. Welch, Jr., founder of the John Birch Society, is a key ideological foundation of Beck's worldview. According to Wilentz: "[Beck] has brought neo-Birchite ideas to an audience beyond any that Welch or Skousen might have dreamed of."
Other books that Beck regularly cites on his programs are Amity Shlaes's The Forgotten Man, Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism, Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen's A Patriot's History of the United States, and Burton W. Folsom, Jr.'s New Deal or Raw Deal. Beck has also urged his listeners to read The Coming Insurrection, a book by a French Marxist group discussing what they see as the imminent collapse of capitalist culture, and The Creature from Jekyll Island, which argues that aspects of the U.S. Federal Reserve system assault economic civil liberties, by conspiracy theorist G. Edward Griffin.
On June 4, 2010, Beck endorsed Elizabeth Dilling's 1936 work The Red Network: A Who's Who and Handbook of Radicalism for Patriots, remarking "this is a book, The Red Network, this came in from 1936. People – [Joseph] McCarthy was absolutely right ... This is, who were the communists in America." Beck was criticized by an array of people, including Menachem Z. Rosensaft and Joe Conason, who stated that Dilling was an outspoken anti-Semite and a Nazi sympathizer.
Religious
Beck has credited God for saving him from drug and alcohol abuse, professional obscurity, and friendlessness. In 2006, Beck performed a short inspirational monologue in Salt Lake City, Utah, detailing how he was transformed by the "healing power of Jesus Christ", which was released as a CD two years later by Deseret Book, a publishing company owned by the LDS Church, entitled An Unlikely Mormon: The Conversion Story of Glenn Beck.
Writer Joanna Brooks contends that Beck developed his "amalgamation of anti-communism" and "connect-the-dots conspiracy theorizing" only after his entry into the "deeply insular world of Mormon thought and culture". Brooks theorizes that Beck's calls to fasting and prayer are rooted in Mormon collective fasts to address spiritual challenges, while Beck's "overt sentimentality" and penchant for weeping represent the hallmark of a "distinctly Mormon mode of masculinity" where "appropriately-timed displays of tender emotion are displays of power" and spirituality. Philip Barlow, the Arrington chair of Mormon history and culture at Utah State University, has said that Beck's belief that the U.S. Constitution was an "inspired document", his calls for limited government and not exiling God from the public sphere, "have considerable sympathy in Mormonism". Beck has acknowledged that Mormon "doctrine is different" from traditional Christianity, but he said that this was what attracted him to it, stating that "for me some of the things in traditional doctrine just doesn't work."
Public reception
In 2009, Beck's show was one of the highest rated news commentary programs on cable TV. For a Barbara Walters ABC special, Beck was selected as one of America's "Top 10 Most Fascinating People" of 2009. In 2010, Beck was selected for Time'''s top 100 most influential people under the "Leaders" category.
Beck has referred to himself as an entertainer, a commentator rather than a reporter, and a "rodeo clown". He has said that he identifies with Howard Beale, a character portrayed by Peter Finch in the film Network: "When he came out of the rain and he was like, none of this makes any sense. I am that guy."Time magazine described Beck as "the new populist superstar of Fox News" saying it is easier to see a set of attitudes rather than a specific ideology, noting his criticism of Wall Street, yet defending bonuses to AIG, as well as denouncing conspiracy theories about the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) but warning against indoctrination of children by the AmeriCorps program." (Paul Krugman and Mark Potok, on the other hand, have been among those asserting that Beck helps spread "hate" by covering issues that stir up extremists.) What seems to unite Beck's disparate themes, Time argued, is a sense of siege. An earlier cover story in Time described Beck as "a gifted storyteller with a knack for stitching seemingly unrelated data points into possible conspiracies", proclaiming that he has "emerged as a virtuoso on the strings" of conservative discontent by mining "the timeless theme of the corrupt Them thwarting a virtuous Us".
Beck's shows have been described as a "mix of moral lessons, outrage and an apocalyptic view of the future ... capturing the feelings of an alienated class of Americans". One of Beck's Fox News Channel colleagues Shepard Smith, has jokingly called Beck's studio the "fear chamber", with Beck countering that he preferred the term "doom room".
Republican South Carolina U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham criticized Beck as a "cynic" whose show was antithetical to "American values" at The Atlantic's 2009 First Draft of History conference, remarking "Only in America can you make that much money crying." The progressive watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting's (FAIR) Activism Director, Peter Hart, argues that Beck red-baits political adversaries and promotes a paranoid view of progressive politics. Howard Kurtz, of The Washington Post, has remarked that "Love him or hate him, Beck is a talented, often funny broadcaster, a recovering alcoholic with an unabashedly emotional style."
Laura Miller writes in Salon that Beck is a contemporary example of "the paranoid style in American politics" described by historian Richard Hofstader:
Beck has acknowledged accusations of being a conspiracy theorist, stating on his show that there is a "concentrated effort now to label me a conspiracy theorist".
Particularly as a consequence of Beck's Restoring Honor rally in 2010, the fact that Beck is Mormon caused concern amongst some politically sympathetic Christian Evangelicals on theological grounds.Posner, Sarah, Evangelicals have "Deep Concerns" about Beck, Religion Dispatches, September 1, 2010"Does it Matter that Glenn Beck is a Mormon?", The Week, Yahoo!, August 31, 2010 Tom Tradup, vice president at Salem Radio Network, which serves more than 2,000 Christian-themed stations, expressed this sentiment after the rally, stating "Politically, everyone is with it, but theologically, when he says the country should turn back to God, the question is: Which God?" Subsequently, a September 2010 survey conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) and Religion News Service (RNS) found that of those Americans who hold a favorable opinion of Beck, only 45% believe he is the right person to lead a religious movement, with that number further declining to 37% when people are informed he is Mormon. Daniel Cox, director of research for PRRI, summed up this position by stating:
Pete Peterson of Pepperdine's Davenport Institute said that Beck's speech at the rally belonged to an American tradition of calls to personal renewal. Peterson wrote: "A Mormon surrounded onstage by priests, pastors, rabbis, and imams, Beck [gave] one of the more ecumenical jeremiads in history." Evangelical pastor Tony Campolo said in 2010 that conservative evangelicals respond to Beck's framing of conservative economic principles, saying that Beck's and ideological fellow travelers' "marriage between evangelicalism and patriotic nationalism is so strong that anybody who is raising questions about loyalty to the old, lassez-faire capitalist system is ex-post facto unpatriotic, un-American, and by association non-Christian." Newsweek religion reporter Lisa Miller, after quoting Campolo, opined, "It's ironic that Beck, a Mormon, would gain acceptance as a leader of a new Christian coalition. ... Beck's gift ... is to articulate God's special plan for America in such broad strokes that they trample no single creed or doctrine while they move millions with their message."
Critical biographies
In June 2010, investigative reporter Alexander Zaitchik released a critical biography titled Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance, with a title mocking Beck's work, Common Sense. In an interview about the book, Zaitchik theorized, "Beck's politics and his insatiable hunger for money and fame are not mutually exclusive", while stating:
In September 2010, Philadelphia Daily News reporter Will Bunch released The Backlash: Right-Wing Radicals, High-Def Hucksters, and Paranoid Politics in the Age of Obama. One of Bunch's theses is that Beck is nothing more than a morning zoo deejay playing a fictional character as a money-making stunt. Writer Bob Cesca, in a review of Bunch's book, compares Beck to Steve Martin's faith-healer character in the 1992 film Leap of Faith, before describing the "derivative grab bag of other tried and tested personalities" that Bunch contends comprises Beck's persona:
In October 2010 a polemical biography by Dana Milbank was released: Tears of a Clown: Glenn Beck and the Tea Bagging of America.
Satire, spoof and parody
Beck has been the subject of mockery and ridicule by a number of humorists. In response to Beck's animated delivery and views, he was parodied in an impersonation by Jason Sudeikis on Saturday Night Live. The Daily Shows Jon Stewart has spoofed Beck's 9–12 project with his own "11-3 project", consisting of "11 principles and 3 herbs and spices", impersonated Beck's chalk board-related presentation style for an entire show, and quipped about Beck "finally, a guy who says what people who aren't thinking are thinking". Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report satirized Beck's "war room" by creating his own "doom bunker". Through the character Eric Cartman, South Park parodied Beck's television program and his commentary style in the episode "Dances with Smurfs". The Onion, a satirical periodical and faux news site, ran an Onion News Network video "special report" where it lamented that the "victim in a fatal car accident was tragically not Glenn Beck". Meanwhile, the Current TV cartoon SuperNews! ran an animated cartoon feature titled "The Glenn Beck Apocalypse", where Beck is confronted by Jesus Christ who rebukes him as the equivalent of "Sarah Palin farting into a balloon". Political comedian and satirist Bill Maher has mocked Beck's followers as an "army of diabetic mallwalkers", while The Buffalo Beast, named Beck the most loathsome person in America in 2010, declaring "It's like someone found a manic, doom-prophesying hobo in a sandwich board, shaved him, shot him full of Zoloft and gave him a show." The October 30, 2010 Rally To Restore Sanity and/or Fear in Washington, hosted by Comedy Central personalities Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, was conceived as a parody of Beck's earlier Rally to Restore Honor, even though Stewart and Colbert said that they came up with the idea of holding a rally in March and Stewart had put down the deposit for the National Mall before Beck announced his rally.
Defamation lawsuit and settlement
In March 2014, Abdulrahman Alharbi filed suit for defamation in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts against Beck and his business entities, The Blaze and Mercury Radio Arts, along with his distributor Premiere Radio Networks. Alharbi's defamation claim arose from Beck's repeated broadcasts "identifying Alharbi as an active participant" in the Boston Marathon bombing, even after federal authorities cleared Alharbi, who was injured in the attack, of any wrongdoing and confirmed that he was an innocent victim.Josh Gerstein, Glenn Beck reaches settlement with Saudi student over Boston Marathon accusations, Politico (September 13, 2016). In December 2014, the judge rejected Beck's attempt to have the case dismissed. In September 2016, the suit was settled on confidential terms.
See also
Beck University
Conservative talk radio
List of most-listened-to radio programs
Works
Non-fiction
(Audiobook).
An Unlikely Mormon: The Conversion Story of Glenn Beck, Deseret Book 2008 (Audiobook). .
Arguing with Idiots: How to Stop Small Minds and Big Government, Simon & Schuster 2009. .
Glenn Beck's Common Sense: The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government, Simon & Schuster 2009. .Best Sellers: Paperback Nonfiction, The New York Times, October 9, 2009
America's March to Socialism: Why We're One Step Closer to Giant Missile Parades, Simon & Schuster Audio 2009 (Audio CD). .
Idiots Unplugged, Simon & Schuster 2010 (Audio CD). .
Broke: The Plan to Restore Our Trust, Truth, and Treasure, Simon & Schuster 2010. .
The 7: Seven Wonders That Will Change Your Life, Keith Ablow, co-author; Threshold Editions, 2011; .
The Original Argument: The Federalists' Case for the Constitution, Adapted for the 21st Century, with Joshua Charles; Threshold Editions, 2011; .
Liars: How Progressives Exploit Our Fears for Power and Control, Threshold Editions August 2, 2016.
Addicted to Outrage: How Thinking Like a Recovering Addict Can Heal the Country, Threshold Editions September 18, 2018.
The Great Reset: Joe Biden and the Rise of Twenty-First-Century Fascism, Justin Haskins, co-author; Forefront Books, 2021; .
Control Series
Fiction
The Christmas Sweater, Simon & Schuster 2008. .
The Overton Window, Threshold Editions June 2010.
The Eye of Moloch, Threshold Editions June 2013.
Agenda 21: Into the Shadows, Threshold Editions January 2015.
The Immortal Nicholas, Mercury Ink October 2015.
Children's
The Christmas Sweater: A Picture Book, Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing 2009. .
Beck authorized a comic book:
Political Power: Glenn Beck'', by Jerome Maida, Mark Sparacio (illus.); Bluewater Productions, 2011
References
External links
Glenn Beck – The 912 Project
1964 births
Living people
20th-century American male writers
21st-century American male writers
American Christian Zionists
American conspiracy theorists
American entertainment industry businesspeople
Latter Day Saints from Washington (state)
American anti-communists
American libertarians
American magazine founders
American people of German descent
American political commentators
American political writers
American television talk show hosts
Christian libertarians
Blaze Media people
American conservative talk radio hosts
Converts to Mormonism from Roman Catholicism
Former Roman Catholics
Fox News people
Male critics of feminism
People from Everett, Washington
People from Westlake, Texas
Radio personalities from Phoenix, Arizona
Radio personalities from Tampa, Florida
Tea Party movement activists
Texas Independents
Washington (state) Republicans
Writers from Bellingham, Washington
Latter Day Saints from Texas
20th-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American non-fiction writers
American male non-fiction writers | true | [
"The Utah State–Wyoming football rivalry is an American college football rivalry between the Utah State Aggies and the Wyoming Cowboys. The rivalry is one of the oldest for both schools; it is Utah State's fourth-oldest rivalry and Wyoming's fifth. The schools played for the first time in 1903, a Aggie victory and Utah State leads the series \n\nOn November 25, 2013, “Bridger’s Battle” was announced as the name for the rivalry, after American frontiersman who spent much of his career in the region. A .50 caliber Rocky Mountain Hawken rifle was announced as the trophy for the rivalry, widely considered to be what Bridger carried.\n\nMeetings\nUtah State and Wyoming have a storied history dating back to the early 1900s as both schools were members of the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference (RMAC) from 1916–37 and later members of the Mountain States Conference from 1938–61. Following the dissolution of the Mountain States Conference in 1962, Utah State and Wyoming continued to play almost every year until 1978, then did not play again until 2001. They would meet only four additional times from 2003 to 2011.\n\nUtah State joined the Mountain West Conference in 2013 and was placed in the same division as Wyoming; the rivalry was renewed and is again played an annual basis. The 2020 matchup, scheduled to be played in Laramie, was cancelled due to a spike in cases of COVID-19 within the Utah State program amid the ongoing pandemic.\n\nGame results\n\nSee also \n List of NCAA college football rivalry games\n\nReferences\n\nCollege football rivalries in the United States\nUtah State Aggies football\nWyoming Cowboys football",
"The Kansas–Nebraska football rivalry was an American college football rivalry between the Kansas Jayhawks and Nebraska Cornhuskers. The rivalry dissolved when Nebraska left the Big 12 Conference for the Big Ten Conference in 2010.\n\nHistory\nThe rivalry was a \"border rivalry\", and at the time of its ending was the longest non-interrupted rivalry in college football history at 105 straight games. The final game of the 105-game stretch was a 20–3 Nebraska victory on November 13, 2010. No future games are scheduled.\n\nDuring the 2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, Kansas and Nebraska were among six Big 12 schools that sought entry to the Big Ten Conference, along with Iowa State, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Texas A&M, though Nebraska was the only to join. Missouri and Texas A&M joined the SEC in 2012, while Kansas, Oklahoma, and Iowa State remained in the Big 12.\n\nGame results\n\nSee also \n List of NCAA college football rivalry games\n List of most-played college football series in NCAA Division I\n\nReferences\n\nCollege football rivalries in the United States\nKansas Jayhawks football\nNebraska Cornhuskers football"
] |
[
"Glenn Beck",
"Radio",
"On what radio station did Glenn work at?",
"In 1983 he moved to Corpus Christi, Texas, to work at radio station KZFM.",
"What was his job at KZFM?",
"In mid-1985, Beck was hired away from KZFM to be the lead DJ for the morning-drive radio broadcast by WRKA in Louisville, Kentucky.",
"Did he enjoy his job at WRKA?",
"I don't know.",
"Did he ever leave WRKA for another station?",
"The show slipped to third in the market and Beck left abruptly in 1987 amid a dispute with WRKA management.",
"What was the dispute about?",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"During his time at Y-95, Beck cultivated a rivalry with local pop radio station KZZP and that station's morning host Bruce Kelly.",
"What was the rivalry?",
"Through practical jokes and publicity stunts, Beck drew criticism from the staff at Y-95 when the rivalry culminated in Beck telephoning Kelly's wife on-the-air, mocking her recent miscarriage."
] | C_d978852d1897400091e5bbbd8041c542_0 | What was the public's reaction? | 8 | What was the public's reaction to Glenn Beck's telephoning Bruce Kelly's wife after her miscarriage? | Glenn Beck | In 1983 he moved to Corpus Christi, Texas, to work at radio station KZFM. In mid-1985, Beck was hired away from KZFM to be the lead DJ for the morning-drive radio broadcast by WRKA in Louisville, Kentucky. His four-hour weekday show was called Captain Beck and the A-Team. Beck had a reputation as a "young up-and-comer". The show was not political and included the usual off-color antics of the genre: juvenile jokes, pranks, and impersonations. The show slipped to third in the market and Beck left abruptly in 1987 amid a dispute with WRKA management. Months later, Beck was hired by Phoenix Top-40 station KOY-FM, then known as Y-95. Beck was partnered with Arizona native Tim Hattrick to co-host a local "morning zoo" program. During his time at Y-95, Beck cultivated a rivalry with local pop radio station KZZP and that station's morning host Bruce Kelly. Through practical jokes and publicity stunts, Beck drew criticism from the staff at Y-95 when the rivalry culminated in Beck telephoning Kelly's wife on-the-air, mocking her recent miscarriage. In 1989, Beck resigned from Y-95 to accept a job in Houston at KRBE, known as Power 104. Beck was subsequently fired in 1990 due to poor ratings. Beck then moved on to Baltimore, Maryland, and the city's leading Top-40 station, WBSB, known as B104. There, he partnered with Pat Gray, a morning DJ. During his tenure at B104, Beck was arrested and jailed for speeding in his DeLorean. According to a former associate, Beck was "completely out of it" when a station manager went to bail him out. When Gray, then Beck were fired, the two men spent six months in Baltimore, planning their next move. In early 1992, Beck and Gray both moved to WKCI-FM (KC101), a Top-40 radio station in New Haven, Connecticut. In 1995, WKCI apologized after Beck and Gray mocked a Chinese-American caller on air who felt offended by a comedy segment by playing a gong sound effect and having executive producer Alf Gagineau mock a Chinese accent. That incident led to protests by activist groups. When Gray left the show to move to Salt Lake City, Beck continued with co-host Vinnie Penn. At the end of 1998, Beck was informed that his contract would not be renewed at the end of 1999. The Glenn Beck Program first aired in 2000 on WFLA (AM) in Tampa, and took their afternoon time slot from eighteenth to first place within a year. In January 2002, Premiere Radio Networks launched the show nationwide on 47 stations. The show then moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, broadcasting from new flagship station WPHT. On November 5, 2007, The New York Times reported that Premiere Radio Networks was extending Beck's contract. By May 2008, it had reached over 280 terrestrial stations as well as XM Satellite. It was ranked 4th in the nation with over six and a half million listeners. As of July 2013, Beck was tied for number four in the ratings behind Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Dave Ramsey. CANNOTANSWER | In 1989, Beck resigned from Y-95 to accept a job in Houston at KRBE, known as Power 104. | Glenn Lee Beck (born February 10, 1964) is an American conservative political commentator, conspiracy theorist, radio host, and television producer. He is the CEO, founder, and owner of Mercury Radio Arts, the parent company of his television and radio network TheBlaze. He hosts the Glenn Beck Radio Program, a popular talk-radio show nationally syndicated on Premiere Radio Networks. Beck also hosts the Glenn Beck television program, which ran from January 2006 to October 2008 on HLN, from January 2009 to June 2011 on Fox News and now airs on TheBlaze. Beck has authored six New York Times–bestselling books.
In April 2011, Beck announced that he would "transition off of his daily program" on Fox News, but would continue to team with Fox. Beck's last daily show on the network was June 30, 2011. In 2012, The Hollywood Reporter named Beck on its Digital Power Fifty list. Beck launched TheBlaze in 2011 after leaving Fox News. He currently hosts an hour-long afternoon program, The Glenn Beck Program, on weekdays, and a three-hour morning radio show; both are broadcast on TheBlaze. Beck is also the producer of For the Record on TheBlaze.
During Barack Obama's presidency, Beck promoted many conspiracy theories about Obama, his administration, George Soros, and others.
Early life and education
Beck was born in Everett, Washington, the son of Mary Clara (née Janssen) and William Beck, who lived in Mountlake Terrace, Washington, at the time of their son's birth. The family later moved to Mount Vernon, Washington, where they owned and operated City Bakery in the downtown area. He is descended from German immigrants who came to the United States in the 19th century. Beck was raised as a Roman Catholic and attended Immaculate Conception Catholic School in Mount Vernon.
Glenn and his older sister moved with their mother to Sumner, Washington, attending a Jesuit school in Puyallup. On May 15, 1979, while out on a small boat with a male companion, Beck's mother drowned just west of Tacoma, Washington, in Puget Sound. The man who had taken her out in the boat also drowned. A Tacoma police report stated that Mary Beck "appeared to be a classic drowning victim", but a Coast Guard investigator speculated that she could have intentionally jumped overboard. Beck has described his mother's death as a suicide in interviews during television and radio broadcasts.
After their mother's death, Beck and his older sister moved to their father's home in Bellingham, Washington, where Beck graduated from Sehome High School in June 1982. Beck also regularly vacationed with his maternal grandparents, Ed and Clara Janssen, in Iowa. In the aftermath of his mother's death and subsequent suicide of his stepbrother, Beck has said he used "Dr. Jack Daniel's" to cope. At 18, following his high school graduation, Beck relocated to Provo, Utah, and worked at radio station KAYK. Feeling he "didn't fit in", Beck left Utah after six months, taking a job at Washington, D.C.'s WPGC in February 1983.
Personal life
While working at WPGC, Beck met his first wife, Claire. In 1983, the couple married and had two daughters, Mary and Hannah. Mary developed cerebral palsy as a result of a series of strokes at birth in 1988. The couple divorced in 1994 amid Beck's struggles with substance abuse. He is a recovering alcoholic and drug addict, and has said he has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Beck later admitted that the family problems ranging from the divorce to his substance abuse had a severe negative impact on his children.
By 1994, Beck was suicidal, and he imagined shooting himself to the music of Kurt Cobain. He credits Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) with helping him achieve sobriety. He said he stopped drinking alcohol and smoking cannabis in November 1994, the same month he attended his first AA meeting. Beck later said that he had gotten high every day for the previous 15 years, since the age of 16.
In 1996, while working for a New Haven area radio station, Beck took a theology class at Yale University, with a written recommendation from Senator Joe Lieberman, a Yale alumnus who was a fan of Beck's show at the time. Beck enrolled in an "Early Christology" course, but soon withdrew, marking the extent of his post-secondary education.
Beck then began a "spiritual quest" in which he "sought out answers in churches and bookstores". As he later recounted in his books and stage performances, Beck's first attempt at self-education involved reading the work of six wide-ranging authors, constituting what Beck jokingly calls "the library of a serial killer": Alan Dershowitz, Pope John Paul II, Adolf Hitler, Billy Graham, Carl Sagan, and Friedrich Nietzsche. During this time, Beck's Mormon friend and former radio partner Pat Gray argued in favor of the "comprehensive worldview" offered by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, an offer that Beck rejected until a few years later (Later, after Beck's moving to the New York City area, he had a consultation with Graham, which Beck said touched him strongly).
In 1999, Beck married his second wife, Tania. After they went looking for a faith on a church tour together, they joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in October 1999, partly at the urging of his daughter Mary. Beck was baptized by his old friend, and current-day co-worker Pat Gray. Beck and Tania have had two children together, Raphe (who is adopted) and Cheyenne. Until April 2011, the couple lived in New Canaan, Connecticut, with the four children.
Beck announced in July 2010 that he had been diagnosed with macular dystrophy, saying "A couple of weeks ago I went to the doctor because of my eyes, I can't focus my eyes. He did all kinds of tests and he said, 'you have macular dystrophy ... you could go blind in the next year. Or, you might not. The disorder can make it difficult to read, drive or recognize faces.
In July 2011, Beck leased a house in the Fort Worth suburb of Westlake, Texas. In 2012, he moved his main TV and radio studios to Dallas, Texas.
On November 10, 2014, Beck announced on TheBlaze that he had been suffering from a severe neurological disorder for at least the last five years. He described many strong and debilitating symptoms which made it difficult for him to work, and he also announced that he had "a string of health issues that quite honestly made me look crazy, and quite honestly, I have felt crazy because of them". Beck related that a chiropractor who specializes in "chiropractic neurology", Frederick Carrick, had "diagnosed [him] with several health issues, including an autoimmune disorder, which he didn't name, and adrenal fatigue." Over a period of ten months he had received a series of treatments and felt better. On January 13, 2022, Beck announced that his second case of covid was "getting into my lungs".
Career
In 2002, Beck created the media platform Mercury Radio Arts as the umbrella over his broadcast, publishing, Internet, and live show interests. Beck founded Mercury Radio Arts in 2002, naming it after the Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre, which produced live radio broadcasts during the 1930s. The company produces all of Beck's productions, including his eponymous radio show, books, live stage shows, and his official website.
Radio
In 1983, he moved to Corpus Christi, Texas, to work at radio station KZFM. In mid-1985, Beck was hired away from KZFM to be the lead DJ for the morning-drive radio broadcast by WRKA in Louisville, Kentucky. His four-hour weekday show was called Captain Beck and the A-Team. Beck had a reputation as a "young up-and-comer". The show was not political and included the usual off-color antics of the genre: juvenile jokes, pranks, and impersonations. The show slipped to third in the market and Beck left abruptly in 1987 amid a dispute with WRKA management.
Months later, Beck was hired by Phoenix Top-40 station KOY-FM, then known as Y-95. Beck was partnered with Arizona native Tim Hattrick to co-host a local "morning zoo" program. During his time at Y-95, Beck cultivated a rivalry with local pop radio station KZZP and that station's morning host Bruce Kelly. Through practical jokes and publicity stunts, Beck drew criticism from the staff at Y-95 when the rivalry culminated in Beck telephoning Kelly's wife on-the-air, mocking her recent miscarriage. In 1989, Beck resigned from Y-95 to accept a job in Houston at KRBE, known as Power 104. Beck was subsequently fired in 1990 due to poor ratings.
Beck then moved on to Baltimore, Maryland, and the city's leading Top-40 station, WBSB, known as B104. There, he partnered with Pat Gray, a morning DJ. During his tenure at B104, Beck was arrested and jailed for speeding in his DeLorean. According to a former associate, Beck was "completely out of it" when a station manager went to bail him out. When Gray, then Beck were fired, the two men spent six months in Baltimore, planning their next move. In early 1992, Beck and Gray both moved to WKCI-FM (KC101), a Top-40 radio station in New Haven, Connecticut. In 1995, WKCI apologized after Beck and Gray mocked a Chinese-American caller on air who felt offended by a comedy segment by playing a gong sound effect and having executive producer Alf Gatineau mock a Chinese accent. That incident led to protests by activist groups. When Gray left the show to move to Salt Lake City, Beck continued with co-host Vinnie Penn. At the end of 1998, Beck was informed that his contract would not be renewed at the end of 1999.
The Glenn Beck Program first aired in 2000 on WFLA (AM) in Tampa, and took their afternoon time slot from eighteenth to first place within a year. In January 2002, Premiere Radio Networks launched the show nationwide on 47 stations. The show then moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, broadcasting from new flagship station WPHT. On November 5, 2007, The New York Times reported that Premiere Radio Networks was extending Beck's contract. By May 2008, it had reached over 280 terrestrial stations as well as XM Satellite. It was ranked 4th in the nation with over six and a half million listeners. , Beck was tied for number four in the ratings behind Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Dave Ramsey.
Television
In January 2006, CNN's Headline News announced that Beck would host a nightly news-commentary show in their new prime-time block Headline Prime. The show, simply called Glenn Beck, aired weeknights. CNN Headline News described the show as "an unconventional look at the news of the day featuring his often amusing perspective". At the end of his tenure at CNN-HLN, Beck had the second largest audience behind Nancy Grace. In 2008, Beck won the Marconi Radio Award for Network Syndicated Personality of the Year.
In October 2008, it was announced that Beck would join the Fox News Channel, leaving CNN Headline News. After moving to the Fox News Channel, Beck hosted Glenn Beck, beginning in January 2009, as well as a weekend version. One of his first guests was Alaska Governor Sarah Palin He also had a regular segment every Friday on the Fox News Channel program The O'Reilly Factor titled "At Your Beck and Call". , Beck's program drew more viewers than all three of the competing time-slot shows combined on CNN, MSNBC and HLN.
His show's high ratings did not come without controversy. The Washington Posts Howard Kurtz reported that Beck's use of "distorted or inflammatory rhetoric" had complicated the channel's and their journalists' efforts to neutralize White House criticism that Fox is not really a news organization. Television analyst Andrew Tyndall echoed these sentiments, saying that Beck's incendiary style had created "a real crossroads for Fox News", stating "they're right on the cusp of losing their image as a news organization."
In April 2011, Fox News and Mercury Radio Arts, Beck's production company, announced that Beck would "transition off of his daily program" on Fox News in 2011. His last day at Fox was later announced as June 30. FNC and Beck announced that he would be teaming with Fox to produce a slate of projects for Fox News and its digital properties. Fox News head Roger Ailes later referenced Beck's entrepreneurialism and political movement activism, saying, "His [Beck's] goals were different from our goals ... I need people focused on a daily television show." Beck hosted his last daily show on Fox on June 30, 2011, where he recounted the accomplishments of the show and said, "This show has become a movement. It's not a TV show, and that's why it doesn't belong on television anymore. It belongs in your homes. It belongs in your neighborhoods." In response to critics who said he was fired, Beck pointed out that his final show was airing live. Immediately after the show he did an interview on his new GBTV internet television channel.
TheBlaze TV (formerly GBTV)
Beck's Fox News one-hour show ended June 30, 2011, and a new two-hour show began his television network which started as a subscription-based internet TV network, TheBlaze TV, originally called GBTV, on September 12, 2011. Using a subscription model, it was estimated that Beck is on track to generate $27 million in his first year of operation. This was later upgraded to $40 million by The Wall Street Journal when subscriptions topped 300,000. On September 12, 2012, TheBlaze TV announced that the Dish Network would begin carrying TheBlaze TV. TheBlaze is currently available on over 90 television providers, with eleven of those being in the national top 25.
Books
Mercury Ink has a co-publishing deal with Simon & Schuster and was founded by Glenn Beck in 2011 as the publishing imprint of Mercury Radio Arts. Started in 2011, Mercury Ink publishes adult and young adult novels and non-fiction titles. Including books written by Glenn Beck, authors signed to Mercury Ink include New York Times best seller Richard Paul Evans.
Beck has reached No. 1 on The New York Times Bestseller List in four separate categories : Hardcover Non-Fiction, Paperback Non-Fiction, Hardcover Fiction, and Children's Picture Books.
Beck has a chapter giving advice in Tim Ferriss' book Tools of Titans.
Non Fiction
An Inconvenient Book:Real Solutions to the World's Biggest Problems, .
Glenn Beck's Common Sense:The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government Inspired by Thomas Paine, Threshold Editions, June 16, 2009, .
Arguing With Idiots:How to Stop Small Minds and Big Government, Threshold Editions, September 22, 2009, .
Broke:The Plan to Restore Our Trust, Truth and Treasure Threshold Editions, October 26, 2010, .
The 7:Seven Wonders That Will Change Your Life, co-author Keith Ablow, MD, Threshold Editions, January 4, 2011, .
The Original Argument:The Federalists' Case for the Constitution, Adapted for the 21st Century, Threshold Editions, June 14, 2011, .
Being George Washington:The Indispensable Man, as You've Never Seen Him, Threshold Editions, November 22, 2011, .
Cowards:What Politicians, Radicals, and the Media Refuse to Say, Threshold Editions, June 12, 2012, .
Control:Exposing the Truth About Guns, Threshold Editions, April 30, 2013, .
Miracles and Massacres:True and Untold Stories of the Making of America, Threshold Editions, November 19, 2013, .
Conform:Exposing the Truth About Common Core and Public Education, Threshold Editions, May 6, 2014, .
Dreamers and Deceivers:True Stories of the Heroes and Villains Who Made America, Threshold Editions, August 11, 2015, .
It IS About Islam:Exposing the Truth About ISIS, Al Qaeda, Iran and the Caliphate, Threshold Editions, August 18, 2015, .
Liars:How Progressives Exploit Our Fears For Power and Control Threshold Editions, August 2, 2016, .
Addicted to Outrage:How Thinking Like a Recovering Addict Can Heal the Country, Threshold Editions, September 18, 2018, .
Arguing With Socialist, Threshold Books, April 7, 2020, .
Fiction
The Christmas Sweater, Threshold Editions, November 11, 2008, .
The Overton Window, Threshold Editions, June 15, 2010, .
The Snow Angel, Threshold Editions, October 25, 2011, .
Agenda 21, co-author Harriett Parke, Threshold Editions, November 20, 2012, .
The Eye of Moloch, Threshold Editions, June 11, 2013, .
Agenda 21:Into the Shadows, co-author Harriett Parke, Threshold Editions, January 6, 2015, .
The Immortal Nicholas, Mercury Ink, October 27, 2015, .
Stage shows and speeches
Since 2005, Beck has toured American cities twice a year, presenting a one-man stage show. His stage productions are a mix of stand-up comedy and inspirational speaking. In a critique of his live act, Salon magazine's Steve Almond describes Beck as a "wildly imaginative performer, a man who weds the operatic impulses of the demagogue to the grim mutterings of the conspiracy theorist".
A show from the Beck `08 Unelectable Tour was shown in around 350 movie theaters around the country.
The finale of 2009's Common Sense Comedy Tour was simulcast in over 440 theaters. The events have drawn 200,000 fans in recent years.
In March 2003, Beck ran a series of rallies, which he called Glenn Beck's Rally for America, in support of troops deployed for the upcoming Iraq War. On July 4, 2007, Beck served as host of the 2007 Toyota Tundra "Stadium of Fire" in Provo, Utah. The annual event at LaVell Edwards Stadium on the Brigham Young University campus is presented by America's Freedom Foundation. In May 2008, Beck gave the keynote speech at the NRA convention in Louisville, Kentucky.
In late August 2009, the mayor of Beck's hometown, Mount Vernon, Washington, announced that he would award Beck the Key to the City, designating September 26, 2009, as "Glenn Beck Day". Due to local opposition, the city council voted unanimously to disassociate itself from the award. The key presentation ceremony sold-out the 850 seat McIntyre Hall and an estimated 800 detractors and supporters demonstrated outside the building. Earlier that day, approximately 7,000 people attended the Evergreen Freedom Foundation's "Take the Field with Glenn Beck" at Seattle's Safeco Field.
In December 2009, Beck produced a one-night special film titled "The Christmas Sweater: A Return to Redemption". In January and February 2010, Beck teamed with fellow Fox News host Bill O'Reilly to tour several cities in a live stage show called "The Bold and Fresh Tour 2010". The January 29 show was recorded and broadcast to movie theaters throughout the country.
In July 2013, Beck produced and hosted a one-night stage event called Man in the Moon, held at the USANA Amphitheatre in West Valley City, Utah. The amphitheater sold out all 20,000 of its seats and was released on television and DVD in August 2013. The event was a narrative story told from the point of view of the moon, from the beginnings of the Book of Genesis to the first moon landing. The moon serves as the narrator of the story.
Philanthropy
In 2011, Beck founded the non-profit organization Mercury One, which is designed to sustain itself through its entrepreneurship without the need for grants or donations. In early 2011, Beck began work toward developing a clothing line to be sold to benefit the charity and October 2011, Mercury One began selling the upscale clothing line labeled 1791 exclusively at its website, 1791.com. The clothing in the line's eleven-piece inaugural offering was manufactured by American Mojo of Lowell, Massachusetts.
In July 2014, after tens of thousands of undocumented immigrant children crossed into Texas via the Southern United States border, unaccompanied by parents, Beck announced that he, along with Utah Senator Mike Lee and Texas representative Louie Gohmert, would travel to the U.S.-Mexico border with his charity organization, Mercury One. He stated that they would bring tractor trailers full of food, hot meals, and teddy bears for the unaccompanied minors. While Beck made it clear in interviews that they wanted a full repeal of DACA, Beck also mentioned his belief in the importance of helping these children. "Through no fault of their own, they are caught in political crossfire, and while we continue to put pressure on Washington and change its course of lawlessness, we must also help," Beck said. "It is not either, or. It is both. We have to be active in the political game, and we must open our hearts."
As of 2017, Beck's Nazarene Fund had reportedly relocated 10,524 Christian refugees from northern Iraq and Syria to other host countries, including Australia, the United States, France, Slovakia, Greece, Lebanon, Brazil, and Canada. The fund's website notes 1,646 families have been evacuated from the ISIS ravaged region since its launch in 2014, and 45,000 people have received humanitarian aid as a result of donations to Mercury One.
Projects and rallies
9–12 Project and Tea Party protests
In March 2009, Beck put together a campaign, the 9-12 Project, which is named after nine principles and twelve values that he says embody the spirit of the American people on the day after the September 11 attacks. The Colorado 9–12 Project hosted a "Patriot Camp" for kids in grades 1–5, featuring programs on "our Constitution, the Founding Fathers, and the values and principles that are the cornerstones of our nation".
Restoring Honor rally
The Restoring Honor rally was promoted/hosted by Beck and held at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. on August 28, 2010. The rally—which purported to embrace religious faith and patriotism—was co-sponsored by the Special Operations Warrior Foundation, promoted by FreedomWorks, and supported by the Tea Party movement. Attendance was estimated at 87,000 (± 9,000) based on aerial photos.
"America's First Christmas"
In December 2010, Beck went to Wilmington, Ohio, a town devastated by the late-2000s recession, to host live events to encourage his fans to go to the town to boost the local economy in a project called "America's First Christmas". He hosted an event and his radio and television shows from the local theater.
Restoring Courage 2011 international tour
Beck headlined his "Restoring Courage" events in Jerusalem, Israel, in August 2011 in a campaign Beck said was designed to encourage people worldwide "to stand with the Jewish people". After Jerusalem, Beck visited Cape Town, South Africa, and was scheduled to visit Venezuela.
2012 presidential campaign
Actively supporting Mitt Romney as "perhaps the best-known Mormon after the Republican presidential candidate and a major influence on evangelical Christians, ... Beck has emerged as an unlikely theological bridge between the first Mormon presidential nominee and a critical electorate [evangelicals]", according to a pre-election article in The New York Times. Along with personal campaign appearances in Ohio and Iowa, Beck unusually directly addressed doctrinal issues between Mormons and evangelical Christians—wherein the latter often consider the former a "cult" rather than Christian—on his radio show in September 2012. During the one-hour show in early September, he asked his audience, "Does Mitt Romney's Mormonism make him too scary or weird to be elected president of the United States?" The article concluded by addressing the "fear of making Mormonism mainstream" as a reason Beck could be acceptable to evangelicals and Romney not be, quoting John C. Green, the author of The Faith Factor: How Religion Influences American Elections:
There's a difference between a public figure like Glenn Beck and someone who could be the president of the United States. ... Many evangelicals believe this country was founded by Christian leaders. It is important that the person in the White House be positive about Christianity, if not a devout Christian himself.
Restoring Love rally and "Day of Service"
In August 2012, Beck held a rally at AT&T Stadium in Irving, Texas. The event's theme was service to one's fellow citizens, and loving each other. The event saw a "Day of Service", which saw Mercury One (Beck's charity organization) volunteering to feed homeless and disadvantaged individuals, doing community-building projects, and mowing lawns. The event culminated in a keynote speech presented by Beck imploring the audience to "commit to each other. Go home and wake up your neighbors." In regards to serving fellow Americans, Beck said, "Those who count us out are counting on one weekend of action, one weekend of speeches. One weekend. One day. Please my fellow countrymen, let this be the first of many."
Restoring Unity and Never Again Is Now
In August 2015, Beck and Mercury Radio Arts organized a rally that saw a little over 20,000 people march through the streets of Birmingham, Alabama in a statement of unity and support for the persecuted Christians in Iraq, a cause that Beck's Mercury One charity organization focuses on, and as a call for unity among the American people. After the march, the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex held a rally featuring speakers including Glenn Beck, Ted Cruz, Rafael Cruz, Jon Voight, Alveda King, the niece of Martin Luther King, Jr., and David Barton.
Political views
Beck has described himself as a conservative with libertarian leanings. Among his core values, Beck lists personal responsibility, private charity, the right to life, freedom of religion, limited government, and the family as the cornerstone of society. Beck believes in low national debt, and he has said "A conservative believes that debt creates unhealthy relationships. Everyone, from the government on down, should live within their means and strive for financial independence." He supports individual gun ownership rights, is against gun control legislation, and is a supporter of the NRA and its local state chapters.
Beck rejects the scientific consensus on climate change. Beck contests the evidence, citing personal beliefs, "There is more proof for the resurrection of Jesus than man-made climate change." He also views the American Clean Energy and Security Act as a form of wealth redistribution, and he has promoted a petition rejecting the Kyoto Protocol.
Although opposed to illegal immigration, Beck announced in June and July 2014 that his foundation, Mercury One, would be making efforts to provide food and relief to the large numbers of migrant children. His move was praised by supporters of immigrant rights and freer migration but met with considerable pushback from his supporter base.
On March 18, 2015, Beck officially announced that he had left the Republican Party, saying that the GOP had failed to effectively stand against the president on Obamacare and immigration reform, and because of the GOP establishment's opposition to lawmakers such as Mike Lee and Texas Senator Ted Cruz.
Beck endorsed Cruz in his run for President of the United States in 2016. In October 2016, Beck called opposing Donald Trump a "moral, ethical choice". On the campaign trail in support of Cruz, Beck was quoted as saying "If Donald Trump wins it is going to be a snowball to hell." After Cruz dropped out of the race, Beck endorsed independent Evan McMullin.
On May 18, 2018, on his radio show, Beck predicted Donald Trump would win the 2020 United States presidential election in a "landslide", saying "Here's why I'm predicting a 2020 win. When I saw yesterday how the press was all reporting the same damn story that Donald Trump was calling MS-13 gang members, they left that out of the story, 'animals' they were spinning it as if he was saying that about all immigrants. I had enough. I've had enough ... Gladly, I'll vote for [President Trump] in 2020 and not really even on his record, which we'll talk about here in a second, is pretty damn amazing." Beck went on to say, "I'll vote for him in 2020", and donned a Make America Great Again hat on his television show.
Opposition to progressivism
During his 2010 keynote speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Beck wrote progressivism on a chalkboard and declared, "This is the disease. This is the disease in America", adding that "progressivism is the cancer in America and it is eating our Constitution!" According to Beck, the progressive ideas of men such as John Dewey, Herbert Croly, and Walter Lippmann, influenced the Presidencies of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson; eventually becoming the foundation for President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal. Beck has said that such progressivism infects both main political parties and threatens to "destroy America as it was originally conceived". In Beck's book Common Sense, he argues that "progressivism has less to do with the parties and more to do with individuals who seek to redefine, reshape, and rebuild America into a country where individual liberties and personal property mean nothing if they conflict with the plans and goals of the State."
A collection of progressives, whom Beck has referred to as "Crime Inc.", comprise what Beck contends is a clandestine conspiracy to take over and transform the United States. Some of these individuals include Cass Sunstein, Van Jones, Andy Stern, John Podesta, Wade Rathke, Joel Rogers and Francis Fox Piven. Other figures tied to Beck's "Crime Inc." accusation include Al Gore, Franklin Raines, Maurice Strong, George Soros, John Holdren and President Barack Obama. According to Beck, these individuals already have or are surreptitiously working in unison with an array of organizations and corporations such as Goldman Sachs, Fannie Mae, ACORN, Apollo Alliance, Tides Center, Chicago Climate Exchange, Generation Investment Management, Enterprise Community Partners, Petrobras, Center for American Progress, and the SEIU; to fulfill their progressive agenda. In his quest to root out these "progressives", Beck has compared himself to Israeli Nazi hunters, vowing on his radio show that "to the day I die I am going to be a progressive-hunter. I'm going to find these people that have done this to our country and expose them. I don't care if they're in nursing homes." Beck compared Al Gore to the Nazis while equating the campaign against global warming to the Nazi campaign against the Jews.
Progressive historian Sean Wilentz has denounced what he describes as Beck's progressive-themed conspiracy theories and "gross historical inaccuracies", countering that Beck is merely echoing the decades-old "right-wing extremism" of the John Birch Society. According to Wilentz, Beck's "version of history" places him in a long line of figures who have challenged mainstream political historians and presented an inaccurate opposing view as the truth, stating:
Conservative David Frum, the former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, has also alleged Beck's propensity for negationism, remarking that "Beck offers a story about the American past for people who are feeling right now very angry and alienated. It is different enough from the usual story in that he makes them feel like they've got access to secret knowledge."
In 2020, Beck argued that the election of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders could lead to "another Holocaust."
Barack Obama and the Obama administration
Beck promoted numerous conspiracy theories and falsehoods about President Barack Obama and the Obama administration.
Beck suggested that Obama was building FEMA concentration camps to put opponents in, that Obama was planning to fake a terrorist attack such as the Oklahoma City bombing in order to boost the administration's popularity, and that Obama was the "puppet" of George Soros. He frequently likened Obama and his administration to Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich. Beck falsely claimed that the John Holdren who led the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Obama administration "proposed forcing abortions and putting sterilants in the drinking water to control population."
Beck argued in 2009 that Obama has repeatedly shown "a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture", saying "I'm not saying he doesn't like white people. I'm saying he has a problem. This guy is, I believe, a racist." These remarks drew criticism, and resulted in a boycott which resulted in at least 57 advertisers requesting their ads be removed from his programming. He later apologized for the remarks, telling Fox News Sunday anchor Chris Wallace that he has a "big fat mouth" and miscast as racism what is actually, as he theorizes, Obama's belief in black theology. In November 2012, Beck attempted to auction a mason jar holding an Obama figurine described as being submerged in urine (in fact, submerged in beer). Bidding reached $11,000 before eBay decided to remove the auction and cancel all bids.
In a 2016 interview with The New Yorker, Beck said of his commentary on Obama: "I did a lot of freaking out about Barack Obama." But added, "Obama made me a better man." Beck said that he regrets calling Obama a racist and is a supporter of Black Lives Matter. He said, "There are things unique to the African-American experience that I cannot relate to. I had to listen to them."
Van Jones
In July 2009, Beck began to focus what would become many episodes on his TV and radio shows on Van Jones, special advisor for Green Jobs at Obama's White House Council on Environmental Quality. Beck called Jones, "an avowed, self-avowed, radical revolutionary communist". PolitiFact rated Beck's claim "mostly false", noting that Jones, who has been open about his past as a communist during the early 1990s, had since expressed firmly capitalist beliefs.
Beck also criticized Jones for his involvement in STORM, a Bay Area radical group with Marxist roots, and his support for death row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal, who had been convicted of killing a police officer. Beck spotlighted a video of Jones referring to Republicans as "assholes", and a petition Jones signed suggesting that George W. Bush knowingly let the September 11 attacks happen. Time magazine credited Beck with leading conservatives' attack on Jones.
In a move attributed by The New York Times as a response to the controversies by the White House, which had not seen Jones' position as senior enough to warrant a full vetting, and Jones' decision that "the agenda of this president was bigger than any one individual," Jones resigned his position in September 2009. Jones characterized the attacks from his opponents as a "vicious smear campaign" and an effort to use "lies and distortions to distract and divide".
Cass Sunstein
Cass Sunstein, Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Obama White House, was a frequent target of Glenn Beck's conspiracy theories. Beck led opposition against Sunstein's nomination to the position. Beck described Sunstein as "the most dangerous man in America." Beck suggested that Sunstein was plotting ways to "ban" conspiracy theorizing.
ACORN
In 2009, Beck and other conservative commentators were critical of Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) making multiple claims including voter registration fraud in the 2008 presidential election. In September 2009, he broadcast a series of alleged undercover videos by conservative activists James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles, which portrayed ACORN community organizers offering inappropriate tax and other advice to people who had said they wanted to import "very young" girls from El Salvador to work as child prostitutes. Following the videos' release, the U.S. Census Bureau severed ties with the group while the U.S. House and Senate voted to cut all of its federal funding.
On December 7, 2009, the former Massachusetts Attorney General, after an independent internal investigation of ACORN, found the videos that had been released appeared to have been edited, "in some cases substantially". He found no evidence of criminal conduct by ACORN employees, but concluded that ACORN had poor management practices that contributed to unprofessional actions by a number of its low-level employees. On March 1, 2010, the District Attorney's office for Brooklyn determined that the videos were "heavily edited" and concluded that there was no criminal wrongdoing by the ACORN staff in the videos from the Brooklyn ACORN office. On April 1, 2010, an investigation by the California Attorney General found the videos from Los Angeles, San Diego and San Bernardino to be "heavily edited", and the investigation did not find evidence of criminal conduct on the part of ACORN employees. On June 14, 2010, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) released its findings, which showed that ACORN evidenced no sign that it, or any of its related organizations, mishandled any federal money they had received. In March 2010, ACORN announced it would be closing its offices and disbanding due to loss of funding from government and private donors.
According to a 2010 study in the journal Perspectives on Politics, Beck played a prominent role in media attacks on ACORN.
Satire website
In 2009, lawyers for Beck brought a case (Beck v. Eiland-Hall) against the owner of a satirical website named GlennBeckRapedAndMurderedAYoungGirlIn1990.com with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The claim that the domain name of the website is itself defamatory was described as a first in cyberlaw. Beck's lawyers argued that the site infringed on his trademarked name and that the domain name should be turned over to Beck. The WIPO ruled against Beck, but Eiland-Hall voluntarily transferred the domain to Beck anyway, saying that the First Amendment had been upheld and that he no longer had a use for the domain name.
Jewish Funds for Justice
In January 2011, in protest against what they saw as inappropriate references to the Holocaust and to Nazis by Beck (and by Roger Ailes of Fox News), four hundred rabbis signed an open letter published as a paid advertisement in The Wall Street Journal. The ad was paid for by Jewish Funds for Justice (JFFJ), which had previously called for Beck's firing. The JFFJ have claimed on their website that Beck seems "to draw his material straight from the anti-Semitic forgery, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion". The letter states that Beck and Fox had "diminish[ed] the memory and meaning of the Holocaust when you use it to discredit any individual or organization you disagree with. That is what Fox News has done in recent weeks." In response, a Fox News executive told Reuters the letter was from a "George Soros-backed leftwing political organization".
George Soros conspiracy theories
Beck is a prominent proponent of conspiracy theories about George Soros, a Jewish philanthropist. Beck falsely claimed that Soros as a boy helped to "send the Jews to the death camps." Beck frequently referred to Soros as a puppet-master and repeated the unsubstantiated conspiracy theory that Soros caused the 1997 Asian financial crisis. In 2010, Beck was accused of being anti-Semitic due to his smears against Soros. The Anti-Defamation League said Beck's remarks about Soros sending Jews to the death camps were "horrific" and "totally off-limits."
On February 22, 2011, during a discussion on his radio show about the controversy surrounding his earlier comments about Soros, Beck said "Reform Rabbis are generally political in nature. It's almost like radicalized Islam in a way where it's less about religion than it is about politics." He was quickly criticized by other conservatives, rabbis, and others. The Anti-Defamation League labeled Beck's remarks "bigoted ignorance". On February 24, Beck apologized on air, agreeing that his comments were "ignorant".
In 2016, Beck, a friend of actor and director Mel Gibson claimed he and Gibson shared a conversation in which Gibson claimed Jewish people had stolen a copy of The Passion of the Christ before its official theatrical release, and that Jewish people were assaulting him in the streets.
2011 Norway attacks
Beck condemned the 2011 Norway attacks, but was condemned for his comparison of murdered and surviving members of the Norwegian Workers' Youth League to the Hitler Youth. He said, "There was a shooting at a political camp which sounds a little like, you know, the Hitler Youth or whatever, you know what I mean. Who does a camp for kids that's all about politics? Disturbing." The statement was ill-received in Norway, prompting political commentator and Labour party member Frank Aarebrot to label Beck as a "vulgar propagandist", a "swine" and a "fascist", and Torbjørn Eriksen, former press secretary to Norway's prime minister Jens Stoltenberg, to describe Beck's comment as "a new low", adding that "Glenn Beck's comments are ignorant, incorrect and extremely hurtful". Commentators pointed out that groups affiliated with the Tea Party movement and the Beck-founded 9–12 Project also sponsor politically oriented camp programs for children.
Trump comments and 2016 SIRIUS XM Suspension
Beck opposed Donald Trump during his 2016 campaign for president, comparing him to Adolf Hitler and describing him as "an immoral man who is absent decency or dignity."
Sirius XM suspended Beck on May 31, 2016, for remarks made during an interview a week earlier. During an interview with author Brad Thor about a hypothetical situation where Trump was abusing his power as president and Congress was unable to stop him, Thor asked "what patriot will step up and [assassinate him] if, if, he oversteps his mandate as president?" Thor and the show's general manager both denied that the comments were a call for his assassination. Beck's radio show was moved from the SIRIUS XM Patriot channel to the Triumph channel soon after.
Beck's opposition to Trump did not sit well with many Trump supporters and hurt his businesses and viewership. On May 18, 2018, Beck stated on his radio program that he intended to vote for Trump in the 2020 presidential election, calling Trump's record "pretty damn amazing". Beck said Trump's defeat in the 2020 election would be "the end of the country as we know it."
Influences
Political and historical
An author with ideological influence on Beck is W. Cleon Skousen (1913–2006), a prolific conservative political writer, American constitutionalist and faith based political theorist. As an anti-communist supporter of the John Birch Society, and a limited-government activist, Skousen, who was Mormon, wrote on a wide range of subjects: the Six-Day War, Mormon eschatology, New World Order conspiracies, even parenting. Skousen believed that American political, social, and economic elites were working with communists to foist a world government on the United States. Beck praised Skousen's "words of wisdom" as "divinely inspired", referencing Skousen's The Naked Communist and especially The 5,000 Year Leap (originally published in 1981), which Beck said in 2007 had "changed his life". According to Skousen's nephew, Mark Skousen, Leap reflects Skousen's "passion for the United States Constitution", which he "felt was inspired by God and the reason behind America's success as a nation". The book is recommended by Beck as "required reading" to understand the current American political landscape and become a "September twelfth person". Beck authored a foreword for the 2008 edition of Leap and Beck's on-air recommendations in 2009 propelled the book to number one in the government category on Amazon for several months. In 2010, Matthew Continetti of the conservative Weekly Standard criticized Beck's conspiratorial bent, terming him "a Skousenite". Additionally, Alexander Zaitchik, author of the 2010 book Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance, which features an entire chapter on "The Ghost of Cleon Skousen", refers to Skousen as "Beck's favorite author and biggest influence", while observing he authored four of the 10 books on Beck's 9-12 Project required-reading list.
In his discussion of Beck and Skousen, Continetti said that one of Skousen's works "draws on Carroll Quigley's Tragedy and Hope (1966), which argues that the history of the 20th century is the product of secret societies in conflict". He observed in Beck's novel, The Overton Window (which Beck describes as "faction", or fiction based on fact), a character states: "Carroll Quigley laid open the plan in Tragedy and Hope, the only hope to avoid the tragedy of war was to bind together the economies of the world to foster global stability and peace."
Glenn Beck's viewpoint about early 20th century progressivism is greatly influenced by Ronald J. Pestritto, who teaches at Hillsdale College. The portal page on the GlennBeck.com web site for "American Progressivism" uses Pestritto's teachings and links directly to one of his books. Pestritto wrote an article for The Wall Street Journal detailing "Glenn Beck, Progressives and Me". The New York Times observed when Beck was on his Fox News show, Pestritto was a regular guest.
Princeton University historian Sean Wilentz says that alongside Skousen, Robert W. Welch, Jr., founder of the John Birch Society, is a key ideological foundation of Beck's worldview. According to Wilentz: "[Beck] has brought neo-Birchite ideas to an audience beyond any that Welch or Skousen might have dreamed of."
Other books that Beck regularly cites on his programs are Amity Shlaes's The Forgotten Man, Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism, Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen's A Patriot's History of the United States, and Burton W. Folsom, Jr.'s New Deal or Raw Deal. Beck has also urged his listeners to read The Coming Insurrection, a book by a French Marxist group discussing what they see as the imminent collapse of capitalist culture, and The Creature from Jekyll Island, which argues that aspects of the U.S. Federal Reserve system assault economic civil liberties, by conspiracy theorist G. Edward Griffin.
On June 4, 2010, Beck endorsed Elizabeth Dilling's 1936 work The Red Network: A Who's Who and Handbook of Radicalism for Patriots, remarking "this is a book, The Red Network, this came in from 1936. People – [Joseph] McCarthy was absolutely right ... This is, who were the communists in America." Beck was criticized by an array of people, including Menachem Z. Rosensaft and Joe Conason, who stated that Dilling was an outspoken anti-Semite and a Nazi sympathizer.
Religious
Beck has credited God for saving him from drug and alcohol abuse, professional obscurity, and friendlessness. In 2006, Beck performed a short inspirational monologue in Salt Lake City, Utah, detailing how he was transformed by the "healing power of Jesus Christ", which was released as a CD two years later by Deseret Book, a publishing company owned by the LDS Church, entitled An Unlikely Mormon: The Conversion Story of Glenn Beck.
Writer Joanna Brooks contends that Beck developed his "amalgamation of anti-communism" and "connect-the-dots conspiracy theorizing" only after his entry into the "deeply insular world of Mormon thought and culture". Brooks theorizes that Beck's calls to fasting and prayer are rooted in Mormon collective fasts to address spiritual challenges, while Beck's "overt sentimentality" and penchant for weeping represent the hallmark of a "distinctly Mormon mode of masculinity" where "appropriately-timed displays of tender emotion are displays of power" and spirituality. Philip Barlow, the Arrington chair of Mormon history and culture at Utah State University, has said that Beck's belief that the U.S. Constitution was an "inspired document", his calls for limited government and not exiling God from the public sphere, "have considerable sympathy in Mormonism". Beck has acknowledged that Mormon "doctrine is different" from traditional Christianity, but he said that this was what attracted him to it, stating that "for me some of the things in traditional doctrine just doesn't work."
Public reception
In 2009, Beck's show was one of the highest rated news commentary programs on cable TV. For a Barbara Walters ABC special, Beck was selected as one of America's "Top 10 Most Fascinating People" of 2009. In 2010, Beck was selected for Time'''s top 100 most influential people under the "Leaders" category.
Beck has referred to himself as an entertainer, a commentator rather than a reporter, and a "rodeo clown". He has said that he identifies with Howard Beale, a character portrayed by Peter Finch in the film Network: "When he came out of the rain and he was like, none of this makes any sense. I am that guy."Time magazine described Beck as "the new populist superstar of Fox News" saying it is easier to see a set of attitudes rather than a specific ideology, noting his criticism of Wall Street, yet defending bonuses to AIG, as well as denouncing conspiracy theories about the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) but warning against indoctrination of children by the AmeriCorps program." (Paul Krugman and Mark Potok, on the other hand, have been among those asserting that Beck helps spread "hate" by covering issues that stir up extremists.) What seems to unite Beck's disparate themes, Time argued, is a sense of siege. An earlier cover story in Time described Beck as "a gifted storyteller with a knack for stitching seemingly unrelated data points into possible conspiracies", proclaiming that he has "emerged as a virtuoso on the strings" of conservative discontent by mining "the timeless theme of the corrupt Them thwarting a virtuous Us".
Beck's shows have been described as a "mix of moral lessons, outrage and an apocalyptic view of the future ... capturing the feelings of an alienated class of Americans". One of Beck's Fox News Channel colleagues Shepard Smith, has jokingly called Beck's studio the "fear chamber", with Beck countering that he preferred the term "doom room".
Republican South Carolina U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham criticized Beck as a "cynic" whose show was antithetical to "American values" at The Atlantic's 2009 First Draft of History conference, remarking "Only in America can you make that much money crying." The progressive watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting's (FAIR) Activism Director, Peter Hart, argues that Beck red-baits political adversaries and promotes a paranoid view of progressive politics. Howard Kurtz, of The Washington Post, has remarked that "Love him or hate him, Beck is a talented, often funny broadcaster, a recovering alcoholic with an unabashedly emotional style."
Laura Miller writes in Salon that Beck is a contemporary example of "the paranoid style in American politics" described by historian Richard Hofstader:
Beck has acknowledged accusations of being a conspiracy theorist, stating on his show that there is a "concentrated effort now to label me a conspiracy theorist".
Particularly as a consequence of Beck's Restoring Honor rally in 2010, the fact that Beck is Mormon caused concern amongst some politically sympathetic Christian Evangelicals on theological grounds.Posner, Sarah, Evangelicals have "Deep Concerns" about Beck, Religion Dispatches, September 1, 2010"Does it Matter that Glenn Beck is a Mormon?", The Week, Yahoo!, August 31, 2010 Tom Tradup, vice president at Salem Radio Network, which serves more than 2,000 Christian-themed stations, expressed this sentiment after the rally, stating "Politically, everyone is with it, but theologically, when he says the country should turn back to God, the question is: Which God?" Subsequently, a September 2010 survey conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) and Religion News Service (RNS) found that of those Americans who hold a favorable opinion of Beck, only 45% believe he is the right person to lead a religious movement, with that number further declining to 37% when people are informed he is Mormon. Daniel Cox, director of research for PRRI, summed up this position by stating:
Pete Peterson of Pepperdine's Davenport Institute said that Beck's speech at the rally belonged to an American tradition of calls to personal renewal. Peterson wrote: "A Mormon surrounded onstage by priests, pastors, rabbis, and imams, Beck [gave] one of the more ecumenical jeremiads in history." Evangelical pastor Tony Campolo said in 2010 that conservative evangelicals respond to Beck's framing of conservative economic principles, saying that Beck's and ideological fellow travelers' "marriage between evangelicalism and patriotic nationalism is so strong that anybody who is raising questions about loyalty to the old, lassez-faire capitalist system is ex-post facto unpatriotic, un-American, and by association non-Christian." Newsweek religion reporter Lisa Miller, after quoting Campolo, opined, "It's ironic that Beck, a Mormon, would gain acceptance as a leader of a new Christian coalition. ... Beck's gift ... is to articulate God's special plan for America in such broad strokes that they trample no single creed or doctrine while they move millions with their message."
Critical biographies
In June 2010, investigative reporter Alexander Zaitchik released a critical biography titled Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance, with a title mocking Beck's work, Common Sense. In an interview about the book, Zaitchik theorized, "Beck's politics and his insatiable hunger for money and fame are not mutually exclusive", while stating:
In September 2010, Philadelphia Daily News reporter Will Bunch released The Backlash: Right-Wing Radicals, High-Def Hucksters, and Paranoid Politics in the Age of Obama. One of Bunch's theses is that Beck is nothing more than a morning zoo deejay playing a fictional character as a money-making stunt. Writer Bob Cesca, in a review of Bunch's book, compares Beck to Steve Martin's faith-healer character in the 1992 film Leap of Faith, before describing the "derivative grab bag of other tried and tested personalities" that Bunch contends comprises Beck's persona:
In October 2010 a polemical biography by Dana Milbank was released: Tears of a Clown: Glenn Beck and the Tea Bagging of America.
Satire, spoof and parody
Beck has been the subject of mockery and ridicule by a number of humorists. In response to Beck's animated delivery and views, he was parodied in an impersonation by Jason Sudeikis on Saturday Night Live. The Daily Shows Jon Stewart has spoofed Beck's 9–12 project with his own "11-3 project", consisting of "11 principles and 3 herbs and spices", impersonated Beck's chalk board-related presentation style for an entire show, and quipped about Beck "finally, a guy who says what people who aren't thinking are thinking". Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report satirized Beck's "war room" by creating his own "doom bunker". Through the character Eric Cartman, South Park parodied Beck's television program and his commentary style in the episode "Dances with Smurfs". The Onion, a satirical periodical and faux news site, ran an Onion News Network video "special report" where it lamented that the "victim in a fatal car accident was tragically not Glenn Beck". Meanwhile, the Current TV cartoon SuperNews! ran an animated cartoon feature titled "The Glenn Beck Apocalypse", where Beck is confronted by Jesus Christ who rebukes him as the equivalent of "Sarah Palin farting into a balloon". Political comedian and satirist Bill Maher has mocked Beck's followers as an "army of diabetic mallwalkers", while The Buffalo Beast, named Beck the most loathsome person in America in 2010, declaring "It's like someone found a manic, doom-prophesying hobo in a sandwich board, shaved him, shot him full of Zoloft and gave him a show." The October 30, 2010 Rally To Restore Sanity and/or Fear in Washington, hosted by Comedy Central personalities Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, was conceived as a parody of Beck's earlier Rally to Restore Honor, even though Stewart and Colbert said that they came up with the idea of holding a rally in March and Stewart had put down the deposit for the National Mall before Beck announced his rally.
Defamation lawsuit and settlement
In March 2014, Abdulrahman Alharbi filed suit for defamation in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts against Beck and his business entities, The Blaze and Mercury Radio Arts, along with his distributor Premiere Radio Networks. Alharbi's defamation claim arose from Beck's repeated broadcasts "identifying Alharbi as an active participant" in the Boston Marathon bombing, even after federal authorities cleared Alharbi, who was injured in the attack, of any wrongdoing and confirmed that he was an innocent victim.Josh Gerstein, Glenn Beck reaches settlement with Saudi student over Boston Marathon accusations, Politico (September 13, 2016). In December 2014, the judge rejected Beck's attempt to have the case dismissed. In September 2016, the suit was settled on confidential terms.
See also
Beck University
Conservative talk radio
List of most-listened-to radio programs
Works
Non-fiction
(Audiobook).
An Unlikely Mormon: The Conversion Story of Glenn Beck, Deseret Book 2008 (Audiobook). .
Arguing with Idiots: How to Stop Small Minds and Big Government, Simon & Schuster 2009. .
Glenn Beck's Common Sense: The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government, Simon & Schuster 2009. .Best Sellers: Paperback Nonfiction, The New York Times, October 9, 2009
America's March to Socialism: Why We're One Step Closer to Giant Missile Parades, Simon & Schuster Audio 2009 (Audio CD). .
Idiots Unplugged, Simon & Schuster 2010 (Audio CD). .
Broke: The Plan to Restore Our Trust, Truth, and Treasure, Simon & Schuster 2010. .
The 7: Seven Wonders That Will Change Your Life, Keith Ablow, co-author; Threshold Editions, 2011; .
The Original Argument: The Federalists' Case for the Constitution, Adapted for the 21st Century, with Joshua Charles; Threshold Editions, 2011; .
Liars: How Progressives Exploit Our Fears for Power and Control, Threshold Editions August 2, 2016.
Addicted to Outrage: How Thinking Like a Recovering Addict Can Heal the Country, Threshold Editions September 18, 2018.
The Great Reset: Joe Biden and the Rise of Twenty-First-Century Fascism, Justin Haskins, co-author; Forefront Books, 2021; .
Control Series
Fiction
The Christmas Sweater, Simon & Schuster 2008. .
The Overton Window, Threshold Editions June 2010.
The Eye of Moloch, Threshold Editions June 2013.
Agenda 21: Into the Shadows, Threshold Editions January 2015.
The Immortal Nicholas, Mercury Ink October 2015.
Children's
The Christmas Sweater: A Picture Book, Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing 2009. .
Beck authorized a comic book:
Political Power: Glenn Beck'', by Jerome Maida, Mark Sparacio (illus.); Bluewater Productions, 2011
References
External links
Glenn Beck – The 912 Project
1964 births
Living people
20th-century American male writers
21st-century American male writers
American Christian Zionists
American conspiracy theorists
American entertainment industry businesspeople
Latter Day Saints from Washington (state)
American anti-communists
American libertarians
American magazine founders
American people of German descent
American political commentators
American political writers
American television talk show hosts
Christian libertarians
Blaze Media people
American conservative talk radio hosts
Converts to Mormonism from Roman Catholicism
Former Roman Catholics
Fox News people
Male critics of feminism
People from Everett, Washington
People from Westlake, Texas
Radio personalities from Phoenix, Arizona
Radio personalities from Tampa, Florida
Tea Party movement activists
Texas Independents
Washington (state) Republicans
Writers from Bellingham, Washington
Latter Day Saints from Texas
20th-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American non-fiction writers
American male non-fiction writers | true | [
"In thermochemistry, the Thomsen–Berthelot principle is a hypothesis in the history of chemistry which argued that all chemical changes are accompanied by the production of heat and that processes which occur will be ones in which the most heat is produced. This principle was formulated in slightly different versions by the Danish chemist Julius Thomsen in 1854 and by the French chemist Marcellin Berthelot in 1864. This early postulate in classical thermochemistry became the controversial foundation of a research program that would last three decades.\n\nThis principle came to be associated with what was called the thermal theory of affinity, which postulated that the heat evolved in a chemical reaction was the true measure of its affinity. This hypothesis was later disproved, however, when in 1882 the German scientist Hermann von Helmholtz proved that affinity was not given by the heat evolved in a chemical reaction but rather by the maximum work, or free energy, produced when the reaction was carried out reversibly.\n\nReferences\n\nSee also\nPrinciple of maximum work.\n\nThermochemistry\nObsolete scientific theories",
"EdgeRank is the name commonly given to the algorithm that Facebook uses to determine what articles should be displayed in a user's News Feed. As of 2011, Facebook has stopped using the EdgeRank system and uses a machine learning algorithm that, as of 2013, takes more than 100,000 factors into account.\n\nEdgeRank was developed and implemented by Serkan Piantino.\n\nFormula and factors \nIn 2010, a simplified version of the EdgeRank algorithm was presented as:\n\nwhere:\n is user affinity.\n is how the content is weighted.\n is a time-based decay parameter.\n\n User Affinity: The User Affinity part of the algorithm in Facebook's EdgeRank looks at the relationship and proximity of the user and the content (post/status update).\n Content Weight: What action was taken by the user on the content.\n Time-Based Decay Parameter: New or old. Newer posts tend to hold a higher place than older posts.\n\nSome of the methods that Facebook uses to adjust the parameters are proprietary and not available to the public.\n\nA study has shown that it is possible to hypothesize a disadvantage of the “like” reaction and advantages of other interactions (eg, the “haha” reaction or “comments”) in content algorithmic ranking on Facebook. The „like” button can decrease the organic reach as a “brake effect of viral reach”. The “haha” reaction, “comments” and the “love” reaction could achieve the highest increase in total organic reach.\n\nImpact \n\nEdgeRank and its successors have a broad impact on what users actually see out of what they ostensibly follow: for instance, the selection can produce a filter bubble (if users are exposed to updates which confirm their opinions etc.) or alter people's mood (if users are shown a disproportionate amount of positive or negative updates).\n\nAs a result, for Facebook pages, the typical engagement rate is less than 1% (or less than 0.1% for the bigger ones) and organic reach 10% or less for most non-profits.\n\nAs a consequence, for pages it may be nearly impossible to reach any significant audience without paying to promote their content.\n\nSee also\n PageRank, the ranking algorithm used by Google's search engine\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n edgerank.net\n Facebook - How News Feed Works\n\nFacebook\nAlgorithms"
] |
[
"Glenn Beck",
"Radio",
"On what radio station did Glenn work at?",
"In 1983 he moved to Corpus Christi, Texas, to work at radio station KZFM.",
"What was his job at KZFM?",
"In mid-1985, Beck was hired away from KZFM to be the lead DJ for the morning-drive radio broadcast by WRKA in Louisville, Kentucky.",
"Did he enjoy his job at WRKA?",
"I don't know.",
"Did he ever leave WRKA for another station?",
"The show slipped to third in the market and Beck left abruptly in 1987 amid a dispute with WRKA management.",
"What was the dispute about?",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"During his time at Y-95, Beck cultivated a rivalry with local pop radio station KZZP and that station's morning host Bruce Kelly.",
"What was the rivalry?",
"Through practical jokes and publicity stunts, Beck drew criticism from the staff at Y-95 when the rivalry culminated in Beck telephoning Kelly's wife on-the-air, mocking her recent miscarriage.",
"What was the public's reaction?",
"In 1989, Beck resigned from Y-95 to accept a job in Houston at KRBE, known as Power 104."
] | C_d978852d1897400091e5bbbd8041c542_0 | What was the last station Beck was known to work at? | 9 | What was the last station Beck was known to work at? | Glenn Beck | In 1983 he moved to Corpus Christi, Texas, to work at radio station KZFM. In mid-1985, Beck was hired away from KZFM to be the lead DJ for the morning-drive radio broadcast by WRKA in Louisville, Kentucky. His four-hour weekday show was called Captain Beck and the A-Team. Beck had a reputation as a "young up-and-comer". The show was not political and included the usual off-color antics of the genre: juvenile jokes, pranks, and impersonations. The show slipped to third in the market and Beck left abruptly in 1987 amid a dispute with WRKA management. Months later, Beck was hired by Phoenix Top-40 station KOY-FM, then known as Y-95. Beck was partnered with Arizona native Tim Hattrick to co-host a local "morning zoo" program. During his time at Y-95, Beck cultivated a rivalry with local pop radio station KZZP and that station's morning host Bruce Kelly. Through practical jokes and publicity stunts, Beck drew criticism from the staff at Y-95 when the rivalry culminated in Beck telephoning Kelly's wife on-the-air, mocking her recent miscarriage. In 1989, Beck resigned from Y-95 to accept a job in Houston at KRBE, known as Power 104. Beck was subsequently fired in 1990 due to poor ratings. Beck then moved on to Baltimore, Maryland, and the city's leading Top-40 station, WBSB, known as B104. There, he partnered with Pat Gray, a morning DJ. During his tenure at B104, Beck was arrested and jailed for speeding in his DeLorean. According to a former associate, Beck was "completely out of it" when a station manager went to bail him out. When Gray, then Beck were fired, the two men spent six months in Baltimore, planning their next move. In early 1992, Beck and Gray both moved to WKCI-FM (KC101), a Top-40 radio station in New Haven, Connecticut. In 1995, WKCI apologized after Beck and Gray mocked a Chinese-American caller on air who felt offended by a comedy segment by playing a gong sound effect and having executive producer Alf Gagineau mock a Chinese accent. That incident led to protests by activist groups. When Gray left the show to move to Salt Lake City, Beck continued with co-host Vinnie Penn. At the end of 1998, Beck was informed that his contract would not be renewed at the end of 1999. The Glenn Beck Program first aired in 2000 on WFLA (AM) in Tampa, and took their afternoon time slot from eighteenth to first place within a year. In January 2002, Premiere Radio Networks launched the show nationwide on 47 stations. The show then moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, broadcasting from new flagship station WPHT. On November 5, 2007, The New York Times reported that Premiere Radio Networks was extending Beck's contract. By May 2008, it had reached over 280 terrestrial stations as well as XM Satellite. It was ranked 4th in the nation with over six and a half million listeners. As of July 2013, Beck was tied for number four in the ratings behind Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Dave Ramsey. CANNOTANSWER | The show then moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, broadcasting from new flagship station WPHT. | Glenn Lee Beck (born February 10, 1964) is an American conservative political commentator, conspiracy theorist, radio host, and television producer. He is the CEO, founder, and owner of Mercury Radio Arts, the parent company of his television and radio network TheBlaze. He hosts the Glenn Beck Radio Program, a popular talk-radio show nationally syndicated on Premiere Radio Networks. Beck also hosts the Glenn Beck television program, which ran from January 2006 to October 2008 on HLN, from January 2009 to June 2011 on Fox News and now airs on TheBlaze. Beck has authored six New York Times–bestselling books.
In April 2011, Beck announced that he would "transition off of his daily program" on Fox News, but would continue to team with Fox. Beck's last daily show on the network was June 30, 2011. In 2012, The Hollywood Reporter named Beck on its Digital Power Fifty list. Beck launched TheBlaze in 2011 after leaving Fox News. He currently hosts an hour-long afternoon program, The Glenn Beck Program, on weekdays, and a three-hour morning radio show; both are broadcast on TheBlaze. Beck is also the producer of For the Record on TheBlaze.
During Barack Obama's presidency, Beck promoted many conspiracy theories about Obama, his administration, George Soros, and others.
Early life and education
Beck was born in Everett, Washington, the son of Mary Clara (née Janssen) and William Beck, who lived in Mountlake Terrace, Washington, at the time of their son's birth. The family later moved to Mount Vernon, Washington, where they owned and operated City Bakery in the downtown area. He is descended from German immigrants who came to the United States in the 19th century. Beck was raised as a Roman Catholic and attended Immaculate Conception Catholic School in Mount Vernon.
Glenn and his older sister moved with their mother to Sumner, Washington, attending a Jesuit school in Puyallup. On May 15, 1979, while out on a small boat with a male companion, Beck's mother drowned just west of Tacoma, Washington, in Puget Sound. The man who had taken her out in the boat also drowned. A Tacoma police report stated that Mary Beck "appeared to be a classic drowning victim", but a Coast Guard investigator speculated that she could have intentionally jumped overboard. Beck has described his mother's death as a suicide in interviews during television and radio broadcasts.
After their mother's death, Beck and his older sister moved to their father's home in Bellingham, Washington, where Beck graduated from Sehome High School in June 1982. Beck also regularly vacationed with his maternal grandparents, Ed and Clara Janssen, in Iowa. In the aftermath of his mother's death and subsequent suicide of his stepbrother, Beck has said he used "Dr. Jack Daniel's" to cope. At 18, following his high school graduation, Beck relocated to Provo, Utah, and worked at radio station KAYK. Feeling he "didn't fit in", Beck left Utah after six months, taking a job at Washington, D.C.'s WPGC in February 1983.
Personal life
While working at WPGC, Beck met his first wife, Claire. In 1983, the couple married and had two daughters, Mary and Hannah. Mary developed cerebral palsy as a result of a series of strokes at birth in 1988. The couple divorced in 1994 amid Beck's struggles with substance abuse. He is a recovering alcoholic and drug addict, and has said he has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Beck later admitted that the family problems ranging from the divorce to his substance abuse had a severe negative impact on his children.
By 1994, Beck was suicidal, and he imagined shooting himself to the music of Kurt Cobain. He credits Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) with helping him achieve sobriety. He said he stopped drinking alcohol and smoking cannabis in November 1994, the same month he attended his first AA meeting. Beck later said that he had gotten high every day for the previous 15 years, since the age of 16.
In 1996, while working for a New Haven area radio station, Beck took a theology class at Yale University, with a written recommendation from Senator Joe Lieberman, a Yale alumnus who was a fan of Beck's show at the time. Beck enrolled in an "Early Christology" course, but soon withdrew, marking the extent of his post-secondary education.
Beck then began a "spiritual quest" in which he "sought out answers in churches and bookstores". As he later recounted in his books and stage performances, Beck's first attempt at self-education involved reading the work of six wide-ranging authors, constituting what Beck jokingly calls "the library of a serial killer": Alan Dershowitz, Pope John Paul II, Adolf Hitler, Billy Graham, Carl Sagan, and Friedrich Nietzsche. During this time, Beck's Mormon friend and former radio partner Pat Gray argued in favor of the "comprehensive worldview" offered by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, an offer that Beck rejected until a few years later (Later, after Beck's moving to the New York City area, he had a consultation with Graham, which Beck said touched him strongly).
In 1999, Beck married his second wife, Tania. After they went looking for a faith on a church tour together, they joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in October 1999, partly at the urging of his daughter Mary. Beck was baptized by his old friend, and current-day co-worker Pat Gray. Beck and Tania have had two children together, Raphe (who is adopted) and Cheyenne. Until April 2011, the couple lived in New Canaan, Connecticut, with the four children.
Beck announced in July 2010 that he had been diagnosed with macular dystrophy, saying "A couple of weeks ago I went to the doctor because of my eyes, I can't focus my eyes. He did all kinds of tests and he said, 'you have macular dystrophy ... you could go blind in the next year. Or, you might not. The disorder can make it difficult to read, drive or recognize faces.
In July 2011, Beck leased a house in the Fort Worth suburb of Westlake, Texas. In 2012, he moved his main TV and radio studios to Dallas, Texas.
On November 10, 2014, Beck announced on TheBlaze that he had been suffering from a severe neurological disorder for at least the last five years. He described many strong and debilitating symptoms which made it difficult for him to work, and he also announced that he had "a string of health issues that quite honestly made me look crazy, and quite honestly, I have felt crazy because of them". Beck related that a chiropractor who specializes in "chiropractic neurology", Frederick Carrick, had "diagnosed [him] with several health issues, including an autoimmune disorder, which he didn't name, and adrenal fatigue." Over a period of ten months he had received a series of treatments and felt better. On January 13, 2022, Beck announced that his second case of covid was "getting into my lungs".
Career
In 2002, Beck created the media platform Mercury Radio Arts as the umbrella over his broadcast, publishing, Internet, and live show interests. Beck founded Mercury Radio Arts in 2002, naming it after the Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre, which produced live radio broadcasts during the 1930s. The company produces all of Beck's productions, including his eponymous radio show, books, live stage shows, and his official website.
Radio
In 1983, he moved to Corpus Christi, Texas, to work at radio station KZFM. In mid-1985, Beck was hired away from KZFM to be the lead DJ for the morning-drive radio broadcast by WRKA in Louisville, Kentucky. His four-hour weekday show was called Captain Beck and the A-Team. Beck had a reputation as a "young up-and-comer". The show was not political and included the usual off-color antics of the genre: juvenile jokes, pranks, and impersonations. The show slipped to third in the market and Beck left abruptly in 1987 amid a dispute with WRKA management.
Months later, Beck was hired by Phoenix Top-40 station KOY-FM, then known as Y-95. Beck was partnered with Arizona native Tim Hattrick to co-host a local "morning zoo" program. During his time at Y-95, Beck cultivated a rivalry with local pop radio station KZZP and that station's morning host Bruce Kelly. Through practical jokes and publicity stunts, Beck drew criticism from the staff at Y-95 when the rivalry culminated in Beck telephoning Kelly's wife on-the-air, mocking her recent miscarriage. In 1989, Beck resigned from Y-95 to accept a job in Houston at KRBE, known as Power 104. Beck was subsequently fired in 1990 due to poor ratings.
Beck then moved on to Baltimore, Maryland, and the city's leading Top-40 station, WBSB, known as B104. There, he partnered with Pat Gray, a morning DJ. During his tenure at B104, Beck was arrested and jailed for speeding in his DeLorean. According to a former associate, Beck was "completely out of it" when a station manager went to bail him out. When Gray, then Beck were fired, the two men spent six months in Baltimore, planning their next move. In early 1992, Beck and Gray both moved to WKCI-FM (KC101), a Top-40 radio station in New Haven, Connecticut. In 1995, WKCI apologized after Beck and Gray mocked a Chinese-American caller on air who felt offended by a comedy segment by playing a gong sound effect and having executive producer Alf Gatineau mock a Chinese accent. That incident led to protests by activist groups. When Gray left the show to move to Salt Lake City, Beck continued with co-host Vinnie Penn. At the end of 1998, Beck was informed that his contract would not be renewed at the end of 1999.
The Glenn Beck Program first aired in 2000 on WFLA (AM) in Tampa, and took their afternoon time slot from eighteenth to first place within a year. In January 2002, Premiere Radio Networks launched the show nationwide on 47 stations. The show then moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, broadcasting from new flagship station WPHT. On November 5, 2007, The New York Times reported that Premiere Radio Networks was extending Beck's contract. By May 2008, it had reached over 280 terrestrial stations as well as XM Satellite. It was ranked 4th in the nation with over six and a half million listeners. , Beck was tied for number four in the ratings behind Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Dave Ramsey.
Television
In January 2006, CNN's Headline News announced that Beck would host a nightly news-commentary show in their new prime-time block Headline Prime. The show, simply called Glenn Beck, aired weeknights. CNN Headline News described the show as "an unconventional look at the news of the day featuring his often amusing perspective". At the end of his tenure at CNN-HLN, Beck had the second largest audience behind Nancy Grace. In 2008, Beck won the Marconi Radio Award for Network Syndicated Personality of the Year.
In October 2008, it was announced that Beck would join the Fox News Channel, leaving CNN Headline News. After moving to the Fox News Channel, Beck hosted Glenn Beck, beginning in January 2009, as well as a weekend version. One of his first guests was Alaska Governor Sarah Palin He also had a regular segment every Friday on the Fox News Channel program The O'Reilly Factor titled "At Your Beck and Call". , Beck's program drew more viewers than all three of the competing time-slot shows combined on CNN, MSNBC and HLN.
His show's high ratings did not come without controversy. The Washington Posts Howard Kurtz reported that Beck's use of "distorted or inflammatory rhetoric" had complicated the channel's and their journalists' efforts to neutralize White House criticism that Fox is not really a news organization. Television analyst Andrew Tyndall echoed these sentiments, saying that Beck's incendiary style had created "a real crossroads for Fox News", stating "they're right on the cusp of losing their image as a news organization."
In April 2011, Fox News and Mercury Radio Arts, Beck's production company, announced that Beck would "transition off of his daily program" on Fox News in 2011. His last day at Fox was later announced as June 30. FNC and Beck announced that he would be teaming with Fox to produce a slate of projects for Fox News and its digital properties. Fox News head Roger Ailes later referenced Beck's entrepreneurialism and political movement activism, saying, "His [Beck's] goals were different from our goals ... I need people focused on a daily television show." Beck hosted his last daily show on Fox on June 30, 2011, where he recounted the accomplishments of the show and said, "This show has become a movement. It's not a TV show, and that's why it doesn't belong on television anymore. It belongs in your homes. It belongs in your neighborhoods." In response to critics who said he was fired, Beck pointed out that his final show was airing live. Immediately after the show he did an interview on his new GBTV internet television channel.
TheBlaze TV (formerly GBTV)
Beck's Fox News one-hour show ended June 30, 2011, and a new two-hour show began his television network which started as a subscription-based internet TV network, TheBlaze TV, originally called GBTV, on September 12, 2011. Using a subscription model, it was estimated that Beck is on track to generate $27 million in his first year of operation. This was later upgraded to $40 million by The Wall Street Journal when subscriptions topped 300,000. On September 12, 2012, TheBlaze TV announced that the Dish Network would begin carrying TheBlaze TV. TheBlaze is currently available on over 90 television providers, with eleven of those being in the national top 25.
Books
Mercury Ink has a co-publishing deal with Simon & Schuster and was founded by Glenn Beck in 2011 as the publishing imprint of Mercury Radio Arts. Started in 2011, Mercury Ink publishes adult and young adult novels and non-fiction titles. Including books written by Glenn Beck, authors signed to Mercury Ink include New York Times best seller Richard Paul Evans.
Beck has reached No. 1 on The New York Times Bestseller List in four separate categories : Hardcover Non-Fiction, Paperback Non-Fiction, Hardcover Fiction, and Children's Picture Books.
Beck has a chapter giving advice in Tim Ferriss' book Tools of Titans.
Non Fiction
An Inconvenient Book:Real Solutions to the World's Biggest Problems, .
Glenn Beck's Common Sense:The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government Inspired by Thomas Paine, Threshold Editions, June 16, 2009, .
Arguing With Idiots:How to Stop Small Minds and Big Government, Threshold Editions, September 22, 2009, .
Broke:The Plan to Restore Our Trust, Truth and Treasure Threshold Editions, October 26, 2010, .
The 7:Seven Wonders That Will Change Your Life, co-author Keith Ablow, MD, Threshold Editions, January 4, 2011, .
The Original Argument:The Federalists' Case for the Constitution, Adapted for the 21st Century, Threshold Editions, June 14, 2011, .
Being George Washington:The Indispensable Man, as You've Never Seen Him, Threshold Editions, November 22, 2011, .
Cowards:What Politicians, Radicals, and the Media Refuse to Say, Threshold Editions, June 12, 2012, .
Control:Exposing the Truth About Guns, Threshold Editions, April 30, 2013, .
Miracles and Massacres:True and Untold Stories of the Making of America, Threshold Editions, November 19, 2013, .
Conform:Exposing the Truth About Common Core and Public Education, Threshold Editions, May 6, 2014, .
Dreamers and Deceivers:True Stories of the Heroes and Villains Who Made America, Threshold Editions, August 11, 2015, .
It IS About Islam:Exposing the Truth About ISIS, Al Qaeda, Iran and the Caliphate, Threshold Editions, August 18, 2015, .
Liars:How Progressives Exploit Our Fears For Power and Control Threshold Editions, August 2, 2016, .
Addicted to Outrage:How Thinking Like a Recovering Addict Can Heal the Country, Threshold Editions, September 18, 2018, .
Arguing With Socialist, Threshold Books, April 7, 2020, .
Fiction
The Christmas Sweater, Threshold Editions, November 11, 2008, .
The Overton Window, Threshold Editions, June 15, 2010, .
The Snow Angel, Threshold Editions, October 25, 2011, .
Agenda 21, co-author Harriett Parke, Threshold Editions, November 20, 2012, .
The Eye of Moloch, Threshold Editions, June 11, 2013, .
Agenda 21:Into the Shadows, co-author Harriett Parke, Threshold Editions, January 6, 2015, .
The Immortal Nicholas, Mercury Ink, October 27, 2015, .
Stage shows and speeches
Since 2005, Beck has toured American cities twice a year, presenting a one-man stage show. His stage productions are a mix of stand-up comedy and inspirational speaking. In a critique of his live act, Salon magazine's Steve Almond describes Beck as a "wildly imaginative performer, a man who weds the operatic impulses of the demagogue to the grim mutterings of the conspiracy theorist".
A show from the Beck `08 Unelectable Tour was shown in around 350 movie theaters around the country.
The finale of 2009's Common Sense Comedy Tour was simulcast in over 440 theaters. The events have drawn 200,000 fans in recent years.
In March 2003, Beck ran a series of rallies, which he called Glenn Beck's Rally for America, in support of troops deployed for the upcoming Iraq War. On July 4, 2007, Beck served as host of the 2007 Toyota Tundra "Stadium of Fire" in Provo, Utah. The annual event at LaVell Edwards Stadium on the Brigham Young University campus is presented by America's Freedom Foundation. In May 2008, Beck gave the keynote speech at the NRA convention in Louisville, Kentucky.
In late August 2009, the mayor of Beck's hometown, Mount Vernon, Washington, announced that he would award Beck the Key to the City, designating September 26, 2009, as "Glenn Beck Day". Due to local opposition, the city council voted unanimously to disassociate itself from the award. The key presentation ceremony sold-out the 850 seat McIntyre Hall and an estimated 800 detractors and supporters demonstrated outside the building. Earlier that day, approximately 7,000 people attended the Evergreen Freedom Foundation's "Take the Field with Glenn Beck" at Seattle's Safeco Field.
In December 2009, Beck produced a one-night special film titled "The Christmas Sweater: A Return to Redemption". In January and February 2010, Beck teamed with fellow Fox News host Bill O'Reilly to tour several cities in a live stage show called "The Bold and Fresh Tour 2010". The January 29 show was recorded and broadcast to movie theaters throughout the country.
In July 2013, Beck produced and hosted a one-night stage event called Man in the Moon, held at the USANA Amphitheatre in West Valley City, Utah. The amphitheater sold out all 20,000 of its seats and was released on television and DVD in August 2013. The event was a narrative story told from the point of view of the moon, from the beginnings of the Book of Genesis to the first moon landing. The moon serves as the narrator of the story.
Philanthropy
In 2011, Beck founded the non-profit organization Mercury One, which is designed to sustain itself through its entrepreneurship without the need for grants or donations. In early 2011, Beck began work toward developing a clothing line to be sold to benefit the charity and October 2011, Mercury One began selling the upscale clothing line labeled 1791 exclusively at its website, 1791.com. The clothing in the line's eleven-piece inaugural offering was manufactured by American Mojo of Lowell, Massachusetts.
In July 2014, after tens of thousands of undocumented immigrant children crossed into Texas via the Southern United States border, unaccompanied by parents, Beck announced that he, along with Utah Senator Mike Lee and Texas representative Louie Gohmert, would travel to the U.S.-Mexico border with his charity organization, Mercury One. He stated that they would bring tractor trailers full of food, hot meals, and teddy bears for the unaccompanied minors. While Beck made it clear in interviews that they wanted a full repeal of DACA, Beck also mentioned his belief in the importance of helping these children. "Through no fault of their own, they are caught in political crossfire, and while we continue to put pressure on Washington and change its course of lawlessness, we must also help," Beck said. "It is not either, or. It is both. We have to be active in the political game, and we must open our hearts."
As of 2017, Beck's Nazarene Fund had reportedly relocated 10,524 Christian refugees from northern Iraq and Syria to other host countries, including Australia, the United States, France, Slovakia, Greece, Lebanon, Brazil, and Canada. The fund's website notes 1,646 families have been evacuated from the ISIS ravaged region since its launch in 2014, and 45,000 people have received humanitarian aid as a result of donations to Mercury One.
Projects and rallies
9–12 Project and Tea Party protests
In March 2009, Beck put together a campaign, the 9-12 Project, which is named after nine principles and twelve values that he says embody the spirit of the American people on the day after the September 11 attacks. The Colorado 9–12 Project hosted a "Patriot Camp" for kids in grades 1–5, featuring programs on "our Constitution, the Founding Fathers, and the values and principles that are the cornerstones of our nation".
Restoring Honor rally
The Restoring Honor rally was promoted/hosted by Beck and held at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. on August 28, 2010. The rally—which purported to embrace religious faith and patriotism—was co-sponsored by the Special Operations Warrior Foundation, promoted by FreedomWorks, and supported by the Tea Party movement. Attendance was estimated at 87,000 (± 9,000) based on aerial photos.
"America's First Christmas"
In December 2010, Beck went to Wilmington, Ohio, a town devastated by the late-2000s recession, to host live events to encourage his fans to go to the town to boost the local economy in a project called "America's First Christmas". He hosted an event and his radio and television shows from the local theater.
Restoring Courage 2011 international tour
Beck headlined his "Restoring Courage" events in Jerusalem, Israel, in August 2011 in a campaign Beck said was designed to encourage people worldwide "to stand with the Jewish people". After Jerusalem, Beck visited Cape Town, South Africa, and was scheduled to visit Venezuela.
2012 presidential campaign
Actively supporting Mitt Romney as "perhaps the best-known Mormon after the Republican presidential candidate and a major influence on evangelical Christians, ... Beck has emerged as an unlikely theological bridge between the first Mormon presidential nominee and a critical electorate [evangelicals]", according to a pre-election article in The New York Times. Along with personal campaign appearances in Ohio and Iowa, Beck unusually directly addressed doctrinal issues between Mormons and evangelical Christians—wherein the latter often consider the former a "cult" rather than Christian—on his radio show in September 2012. During the one-hour show in early September, he asked his audience, "Does Mitt Romney's Mormonism make him too scary or weird to be elected president of the United States?" The article concluded by addressing the "fear of making Mormonism mainstream" as a reason Beck could be acceptable to evangelicals and Romney not be, quoting John C. Green, the author of The Faith Factor: How Religion Influences American Elections:
There's a difference between a public figure like Glenn Beck and someone who could be the president of the United States. ... Many evangelicals believe this country was founded by Christian leaders. It is important that the person in the White House be positive about Christianity, if not a devout Christian himself.
Restoring Love rally and "Day of Service"
In August 2012, Beck held a rally at AT&T Stadium in Irving, Texas. The event's theme was service to one's fellow citizens, and loving each other. The event saw a "Day of Service", which saw Mercury One (Beck's charity organization) volunteering to feed homeless and disadvantaged individuals, doing community-building projects, and mowing lawns. The event culminated in a keynote speech presented by Beck imploring the audience to "commit to each other. Go home and wake up your neighbors." In regards to serving fellow Americans, Beck said, "Those who count us out are counting on one weekend of action, one weekend of speeches. One weekend. One day. Please my fellow countrymen, let this be the first of many."
Restoring Unity and Never Again Is Now
In August 2015, Beck and Mercury Radio Arts organized a rally that saw a little over 20,000 people march through the streets of Birmingham, Alabama in a statement of unity and support for the persecuted Christians in Iraq, a cause that Beck's Mercury One charity organization focuses on, and as a call for unity among the American people. After the march, the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex held a rally featuring speakers including Glenn Beck, Ted Cruz, Rafael Cruz, Jon Voight, Alveda King, the niece of Martin Luther King, Jr., and David Barton.
Political views
Beck has described himself as a conservative with libertarian leanings. Among his core values, Beck lists personal responsibility, private charity, the right to life, freedom of religion, limited government, and the family as the cornerstone of society. Beck believes in low national debt, and he has said "A conservative believes that debt creates unhealthy relationships. Everyone, from the government on down, should live within their means and strive for financial independence." He supports individual gun ownership rights, is against gun control legislation, and is a supporter of the NRA and its local state chapters.
Beck rejects the scientific consensus on climate change. Beck contests the evidence, citing personal beliefs, "There is more proof for the resurrection of Jesus than man-made climate change." He also views the American Clean Energy and Security Act as a form of wealth redistribution, and he has promoted a petition rejecting the Kyoto Protocol.
Although opposed to illegal immigration, Beck announced in June and July 2014 that his foundation, Mercury One, would be making efforts to provide food and relief to the large numbers of migrant children. His move was praised by supporters of immigrant rights and freer migration but met with considerable pushback from his supporter base.
On March 18, 2015, Beck officially announced that he had left the Republican Party, saying that the GOP had failed to effectively stand against the president on Obamacare and immigration reform, and because of the GOP establishment's opposition to lawmakers such as Mike Lee and Texas Senator Ted Cruz.
Beck endorsed Cruz in his run for President of the United States in 2016. In October 2016, Beck called opposing Donald Trump a "moral, ethical choice". On the campaign trail in support of Cruz, Beck was quoted as saying "If Donald Trump wins it is going to be a snowball to hell." After Cruz dropped out of the race, Beck endorsed independent Evan McMullin.
On May 18, 2018, on his radio show, Beck predicted Donald Trump would win the 2020 United States presidential election in a "landslide", saying "Here's why I'm predicting a 2020 win. When I saw yesterday how the press was all reporting the same damn story that Donald Trump was calling MS-13 gang members, they left that out of the story, 'animals' they were spinning it as if he was saying that about all immigrants. I had enough. I've had enough ... Gladly, I'll vote for [President Trump] in 2020 and not really even on his record, which we'll talk about here in a second, is pretty damn amazing." Beck went on to say, "I'll vote for him in 2020", and donned a Make America Great Again hat on his television show.
Opposition to progressivism
During his 2010 keynote speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Beck wrote progressivism on a chalkboard and declared, "This is the disease. This is the disease in America", adding that "progressivism is the cancer in America and it is eating our Constitution!" According to Beck, the progressive ideas of men such as John Dewey, Herbert Croly, and Walter Lippmann, influenced the Presidencies of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson; eventually becoming the foundation for President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal. Beck has said that such progressivism infects both main political parties and threatens to "destroy America as it was originally conceived". In Beck's book Common Sense, he argues that "progressivism has less to do with the parties and more to do with individuals who seek to redefine, reshape, and rebuild America into a country where individual liberties and personal property mean nothing if they conflict with the plans and goals of the State."
A collection of progressives, whom Beck has referred to as "Crime Inc.", comprise what Beck contends is a clandestine conspiracy to take over and transform the United States. Some of these individuals include Cass Sunstein, Van Jones, Andy Stern, John Podesta, Wade Rathke, Joel Rogers and Francis Fox Piven. Other figures tied to Beck's "Crime Inc." accusation include Al Gore, Franklin Raines, Maurice Strong, George Soros, John Holdren and President Barack Obama. According to Beck, these individuals already have or are surreptitiously working in unison with an array of organizations and corporations such as Goldman Sachs, Fannie Mae, ACORN, Apollo Alliance, Tides Center, Chicago Climate Exchange, Generation Investment Management, Enterprise Community Partners, Petrobras, Center for American Progress, and the SEIU; to fulfill their progressive agenda. In his quest to root out these "progressives", Beck has compared himself to Israeli Nazi hunters, vowing on his radio show that "to the day I die I am going to be a progressive-hunter. I'm going to find these people that have done this to our country and expose them. I don't care if they're in nursing homes." Beck compared Al Gore to the Nazis while equating the campaign against global warming to the Nazi campaign against the Jews.
Progressive historian Sean Wilentz has denounced what he describes as Beck's progressive-themed conspiracy theories and "gross historical inaccuracies", countering that Beck is merely echoing the decades-old "right-wing extremism" of the John Birch Society. According to Wilentz, Beck's "version of history" places him in a long line of figures who have challenged mainstream political historians and presented an inaccurate opposing view as the truth, stating:
Conservative David Frum, the former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, has also alleged Beck's propensity for negationism, remarking that "Beck offers a story about the American past for people who are feeling right now very angry and alienated. It is different enough from the usual story in that he makes them feel like they've got access to secret knowledge."
In 2020, Beck argued that the election of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders could lead to "another Holocaust."
Barack Obama and the Obama administration
Beck promoted numerous conspiracy theories and falsehoods about President Barack Obama and the Obama administration.
Beck suggested that Obama was building FEMA concentration camps to put opponents in, that Obama was planning to fake a terrorist attack such as the Oklahoma City bombing in order to boost the administration's popularity, and that Obama was the "puppet" of George Soros. He frequently likened Obama and his administration to Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich. Beck falsely claimed that the John Holdren who led the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Obama administration "proposed forcing abortions and putting sterilants in the drinking water to control population."
Beck argued in 2009 that Obama has repeatedly shown "a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture", saying "I'm not saying he doesn't like white people. I'm saying he has a problem. This guy is, I believe, a racist." These remarks drew criticism, and resulted in a boycott which resulted in at least 57 advertisers requesting their ads be removed from his programming. He later apologized for the remarks, telling Fox News Sunday anchor Chris Wallace that he has a "big fat mouth" and miscast as racism what is actually, as he theorizes, Obama's belief in black theology. In November 2012, Beck attempted to auction a mason jar holding an Obama figurine described as being submerged in urine (in fact, submerged in beer). Bidding reached $11,000 before eBay decided to remove the auction and cancel all bids.
In a 2016 interview with The New Yorker, Beck said of his commentary on Obama: "I did a lot of freaking out about Barack Obama." But added, "Obama made me a better man." Beck said that he regrets calling Obama a racist and is a supporter of Black Lives Matter. He said, "There are things unique to the African-American experience that I cannot relate to. I had to listen to them."
Van Jones
In July 2009, Beck began to focus what would become many episodes on his TV and radio shows on Van Jones, special advisor for Green Jobs at Obama's White House Council on Environmental Quality. Beck called Jones, "an avowed, self-avowed, radical revolutionary communist". PolitiFact rated Beck's claim "mostly false", noting that Jones, who has been open about his past as a communist during the early 1990s, had since expressed firmly capitalist beliefs.
Beck also criticized Jones for his involvement in STORM, a Bay Area radical group with Marxist roots, and his support for death row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal, who had been convicted of killing a police officer. Beck spotlighted a video of Jones referring to Republicans as "assholes", and a petition Jones signed suggesting that George W. Bush knowingly let the September 11 attacks happen. Time magazine credited Beck with leading conservatives' attack on Jones.
In a move attributed by The New York Times as a response to the controversies by the White House, which had not seen Jones' position as senior enough to warrant a full vetting, and Jones' decision that "the agenda of this president was bigger than any one individual," Jones resigned his position in September 2009. Jones characterized the attacks from his opponents as a "vicious smear campaign" and an effort to use "lies and distortions to distract and divide".
Cass Sunstein
Cass Sunstein, Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Obama White House, was a frequent target of Glenn Beck's conspiracy theories. Beck led opposition against Sunstein's nomination to the position. Beck described Sunstein as "the most dangerous man in America." Beck suggested that Sunstein was plotting ways to "ban" conspiracy theorizing.
ACORN
In 2009, Beck and other conservative commentators were critical of Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) making multiple claims including voter registration fraud in the 2008 presidential election. In September 2009, he broadcast a series of alleged undercover videos by conservative activists James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles, which portrayed ACORN community organizers offering inappropriate tax and other advice to people who had said they wanted to import "very young" girls from El Salvador to work as child prostitutes. Following the videos' release, the U.S. Census Bureau severed ties with the group while the U.S. House and Senate voted to cut all of its federal funding.
On December 7, 2009, the former Massachusetts Attorney General, after an independent internal investigation of ACORN, found the videos that had been released appeared to have been edited, "in some cases substantially". He found no evidence of criminal conduct by ACORN employees, but concluded that ACORN had poor management practices that contributed to unprofessional actions by a number of its low-level employees. On March 1, 2010, the District Attorney's office for Brooklyn determined that the videos were "heavily edited" and concluded that there was no criminal wrongdoing by the ACORN staff in the videos from the Brooklyn ACORN office. On April 1, 2010, an investigation by the California Attorney General found the videos from Los Angeles, San Diego and San Bernardino to be "heavily edited", and the investigation did not find evidence of criminal conduct on the part of ACORN employees. On June 14, 2010, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) released its findings, which showed that ACORN evidenced no sign that it, or any of its related organizations, mishandled any federal money they had received. In March 2010, ACORN announced it would be closing its offices and disbanding due to loss of funding from government and private donors.
According to a 2010 study in the journal Perspectives on Politics, Beck played a prominent role in media attacks on ACORN.
Satire website
In 2009, lawyers for Beck brought a case (Beck v. Eiland-Hall) against the owner of a satirical website named GlennBeckRapedAndMurderedAYoungGirlIn1990.com with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The claim that the domain name of the website is itself defamatory was described as a first in cyberlaw. Beck's lawyers argued that the site infringed on his trademarked name and that the domain name should be turned over to Beck. The WIPO ruled against Beck, but Eiland-Hall voluntarily transferred the domain to Beck anyway, saying that the First Amendment had been upheld and that he no longer had a use for the domain name.
Jewish Funds for Justice
In January 2011, in protest against what they saw as inappropriate references to the Holocaust and to Nazis by Beck (and by Roger Ailes of Fox News), four hundred rabbis signed an open letter published as a paid advertisement in The Wall Street Journal. The ad was paid for by Jewish Funds for Justice (JFFJ), which had previously called for Beck's firing. The JFFJ have claimed on their website that Beck seems "to draw his material straight from the anti-Semitic forgery, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion". The letter states that Beck and Fox had "diminish[ed] the memory and meaning of the Holocaust when you use it to discredit any individual or organization you disagree with. That is what Fox News has done in recent weeks." In response, a Fox News executive told Reuters the letter was from a "George Soros-backed leftwing political organization".
George Soros conspiracy theories
Beck is a prominent proponent of conspiracy theories about George Soros, a Jewish philanthropist. Beck falsely claimed that Soros as a boy helped to "send the Jews to the death camps." Beck frequently referred to Soros as a puppet-master and repeated the unsubstantiated conspiracy theory that Soros caused the 1997 Asian financial crisis. In 2010, Beck was accused of being anti-Semitic due to his smears against Soros. The Anti-Defamation League said Beck's remarks about Soros sending Jews to the death camps were "horrific" and "totally off-limits."
On February 22, 2011, during a discussion on his radio show about the controversy surrounding his earlier comments about Soros, Beck said "Reform Rabbis are generally political in nature. It's almost like radicalized Islam in a way where it's less about religion than it is about politics." He was quickly criticized by other conservatives, rabbis, and others. The Anti-Defamation League labeled Beck's remarks "bigoted ignorance". On February 24, Beck apologized on air, agreeing that his comments were "ignorant".
In 2016, Beck, a friend of actor and director Mel Gibson claimed he and Gibson shared a conversation in which Gibson claimed Jewish people had stolen a copy of The Passion of the Christ before its official theatrical release, and that Jewish people were assaulting him in the streets.
2011 Norway attacks
Beck condemned the 2011 Norway attacks, but was condemned for his comparison of murdered and surviving members of the Norwegian Workers' Youth League to the Hitler Youth. He said, "There was a shooting at a political camp which sounds a little like, you know, the Hitler Youth or whatever, you know what I mean. Who does a camp for kids that's all about politics? Disturbing." The statement was ill-received in Norway, prompting political commentator and Labour party member Frank Aarebrot to label Beck as a "vulgar propagandist", a "swine" and a "fascist", and Torbjørn Eriksen, former press secretary to Norway's prime minister Jens Stoltenberg, to describe Beck's comment as "a new low", adding that "Glenn Beck's comments are ignorant, incorrect and extremely hurtful". Commentators pointed out that groups affiliated with the Tea Party movement and the Beck-founded 9–12 Project also sponsor politically oriented camp programs for children.
Trump comments and 2016 SIRIUS XM Suspension
Beck opposed Donald Trump during his 2016 campaign for president, comparing him to Adolf Hitler and describing him as "an immoral man who is absent decency or dignity."
Sirius XM suspended Beck on May 31, 2016, for remarks made during an interview a week earlier. During an interview with author Brad Thor about a hypothetical situation where Trump was abusing his power as president and Congress was unable to stop him, Thor asked "what patriot will step up and [assassinate him] if, if, he oversteps his mandate as president?" Thor and the show's general manager both denied that the comments were a call for his assassination. Beck's radio show was moved from the SIRIUS XM Patriot channel to the Triumph channel soon after.
Beck's opposition to Trump did not sit well with many Trump supporters and hurt his businesses and viewership. On May 18, 2018, Beck stated on his radio program that he intended to vote for Trump in the 2020 presidential election, calling Trump's record "pretty damn amazing". Beck said Trump's defeat in the 2020 election would be "the end of the country as we know it."
Influences
Political and historical
An author with ideological influence on Beck is W. Cleon Skousen (1913–2006), a prolific conservative political writer, American constitutionalist and faith based political theorist. As an anti-communist supporter of the John Birch Society, and a limited-government activist, Skousen, who was Mormon, wrote on a wide range of subjects: the Six-Day War, Mormon eschatology, New World Order conspiracies, even parenting. Skousen believed that American political, social, and economic elites were working with communists to foist a world government on the United States. Beck praised Skousen's "words of wisdom" as "divinely inspired", referencing Skousen's The Naked Communist and especially The 5,000 Year Leap (originally published in 1981), which Beck said in 2007 had "changed his life". According to Skousen's nephew, Mark Skousen, Leap reflects Skousen's "passion for the United States Constitution", which he "felt was inspired by God and the reason behind America's success as a nation". The book is recommended by Beck as "required reading" to understand the current American political landscape and become a "September twelfth person". Beck authored a foreword for the 2008 edition of Leap and Beck's on-air recommendations in 2009 propelled the book to number one in the government category on Amazon for several months. In 2010, Matthew Continetti of the conservative Weekly Standard criticized Beck's conspiratorial bent, terming him "a Skousenite". Additionally, Alexander Zaitchik, author of the 2010 book Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance, which features an entire chapter on "The Ghost of Cleon Skousen", refers to Skousen as "Beck's favorite author and biggest influence", while observing he authored four of the 10 books on Beck's 9-12 Project required-reading list.
In his discussion of Beck and Skousen, Continetti said that one of Skousen's works "draws on Carroll Quigley's Tragedy and Hope (1966), which argues that the history of the 20th century is the product of secret societies in conflict". He observed in Beck's novel, The Overton Window (which Beck describes as "faction", or fiction based on fact), a character states: "Carroll Quigley laid open the plan in Tragedy and Hope, the only hope to avoid the tragedy of war was to bind together the economies of the world to foster global stability and peace."
Glenn Beck's viewpoint about early 20th century progressivism is greatly influenced by Ronald J. Pestritto, who teaches at Hillsdale College. The portal page on the GlennBeck.com web site for "American Progressivism" uses Pestritto's teachings and links directly to one of his books. Pestritto wrote an article for The Wall Street Journal detailing "Glenn Beck, Progressives and Me". The New York Times observed when Beck was on his Fox News show, Pestritto was a regular guest.
Princeton University historian Sean Wilentz says that alongside Skousen, Robert W. Welch, Jr., founder of the John Birch Society, is a key ideological foundation of Beck's worldview. According to Wilentz: "[Beck] has brought neo-Birchite ideas to an audience beyond any that Welch or Skousen might have dreamed of."
Other books that Beck regularly cites on his programs are Amity Shlaes's The Forgotten Man, Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism, Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen's A Patriot's History of the United States, and Burton W. Folsom, Jr.'s New Deal or Raw Deal. Beck has also urged his listeners to read The Coming Insurrection, a book by a French Marxist group discussing what they see as the imminent collapse of capitalist culture, and The Creature from Jekyll Island, which argues that aspects of the U.S. Federal Reserve system assault economic civil liberties, by conspiracy theorist G. Edward Griffin.
On June 4, 2010, Beck endorsed Elizabeth Dilling's 1936 work The Red Network: A Who's Who and Handbook of Radicalism for Patriots, remarking "this is a book, The Red Network, this came in from 1936. People – [Joseph] McCarthy was absolutely right ... This is, who were the communists in America." Beck was criticized by an array of people, including Menachem Z. Rosensaft and Joe Conason, who stated that Dilling was an outspoken anti-Semite and a Nazi sympathizer.
Religious
Beck has credited God for saving him from drug and alcohol abuse, professional obscurity, and friendlessness. In 2006, Beck performed a short inspirational monologue in Salt Lake City, Utah, detailing how he was transformed by the "healing power of Jesus Christ", which was released as a CD two years later by Deseret Book, a publishing company owned by the LDS Church, entitled An Unlikely Mormon: The Conversion Story of Glenn Beck.
Writer Joanna Brooks contends that Beck developed his "amalgamation of anti-communism" and "connect-the-dots conspiracy theorizing" only after his entry into the "deeply insular world of Mormon thought and culture". Brooks theorizes that Beck's calls to fasting and prayer are rooted in Mormon collective fasts to address spiritual challenges, while Beck's "overt sentimentality" and penchant for weeping represent the hallmark of a "distinctly Mormon mode of masculinity" where "appropriately-timed displays of tender emotion are displays of power" and spirituality. Philip Barlow, the Arrington chair of Mormon history and culture at Utah State University, has said that Beck's belief that the U.S. Constitution was an "inspired document", his calls for limited government and not exiling God from the public sphere, "have considerable sympathy in Mormonism". Beck has acknowledged that Mormon "doctrine is different" from traditional Christianity, but he said that this was what attracted him to it, stating that "for me some of the things in traditional doctrine just doesn't work."
Public reception
In 2009, Beck's show was one of the highest rated news commentary programs on cable TV. For a Barbara Walters ABC special, Beck was selected as one of America's "Top 10 Most Fascinating People" of 2009. In 2010, Beck was selected for Time'''s top 100 most influential people under the "Leaders" category.
Beck has referred to himself as an entertainer, a commentator rather than a reporter, and a "rodeo clown". He has said that he identifies with Howard Beale, a character portrayed by Peter Finch in the film Network: "When he came out of the rain and he was like, none of this makes any sense. I am that guy."Time magazine described Beck as "the new populist superstar of Fox News" saying it is easier to see a set of attitudes rather than a specific ideology, noting his criticism of Wall Street, yet defending bonuses to AIG, as well as denouncing conspiracy theories about the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) but warning against indoctrination of children by the AmeriCorps program." (Paul Krugman and Mark Potok, on the other hand, have been among those asserting that Beck helps spread "hate" by covering issues that stir up extremists.) What seems to unite Beck's disparate themes, Time argued, is a sense of siege. An earlier cover story in Time described Beck as "a gifted storyteller with a knack for stitching seemingly unrelated data points into possible conspiracies", proclaiming that he has "emerged as a virtuoso on the strings" of conservative discontent by mining "the timeless theme of the corrupt Them thwarting a virtuous Us".
Beck's shows have been described as a "mix of moral lessons, outrage and an apocalyptic view of the future ... capturing the feelings of an alienated class of Americans". One of Beck's Fox News Channel colleagues Shepard Smith, has jokingly called Beck's studio the "fear chamber", with Beck countering that he preferred the term "doom room".
Republican South Carolina U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham criticized Beck as a "cynic" whose show was antithetical to "American values" at The Atlantic's 2009 First Draft of History conference, remarking "Only in America can you make that much money crying." The progressive watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting's (FAIR) Activism Director, Peter Hart, argues that Beck red-baits political adversaries and promotes a paranoid view of progressive politics. Howard Kurtz, of The Washington Post, has remarked that "Love him or hate him, Beck is a talented, often funny broadcaster, a recovering alcoholic with an unabashedly emotional style."
Laura Miller writes in Salon that Beck is a contemporary example of "the paranoid style in American politics" described by historian Richard Hofstader:
Beck has acknowledged accusations of being a conspiracy theorist, stating on his show that there is a "concentrated effort now to label me a conspiracy theorist".
Particularly as a consequence of Beck's Restoring Honor rally in 2010, the fact that Beck is Mormon caused concern amongst some politically sympathetic Christian Evangelicals on theological grounds.Posner, Sarah, Evangelicals have "Deep Concerns" about Beck, Religion Dispatches, September 1, 2010"Does it Matter that Glenn Beck is a Mormon?", The Week, Yahoo!, August 31, 2010 Tom Tradup, vice president at Salem Radio Network, which serves more than 2,000 Christian-themed stations, expressed this sentiment after the rally, stating "Politically, everyone is with it, but theologically, when he says the country should turn back to God, the question is: Which God?" Subsequently, a September 2010 survey conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) and Religion News Service (RNS) found that of those Americans who hold a favorable opinion of Beck, only 45% believe he is the right person to lead a religious movement, with that number further declining to 37% when people are informed he is Mormon. Daniel Cox, director of research for PRRI, summed up this position by stating:
Pete Peterson of Pepperdine's Davenport Institute said that Beck's speech at the rally belonged to an American tradition of calls to personal renewal. Peterson wrote: "A Mormon surrounded onstage by priests, pastors, rabbis, and imams, Beck [gave] one of the more ecumenical jeremiads in history." Evangelical pastor Tony Campolo said in 2010 that conservative evangelicals respond to Beck's framing of conservative economic principles, saying that Beck's and ideological fellow travelers' "marriage between evangelicalism and patriotic nationalism is so strong that anybody who is raising questions about loyalty to the old, lassez-faire capitalist system is ex-post facto unpatriotic, un-American, and by association non-Christian." Newsweek religion reporter Lisa Miller, after quoting Campolo, opined, "It's ironic that Beck, a Mormon, would gain acceptance as a leader of a new Christian coalition. ... Beck's gift ... is to articulate God's special plan for America in such broad strokes that they trample no single creed or doctrine while they move millions with their message."
Critical biographies
In June 2010, investigative reporter Alexander Zaitchik released a critical biography titled Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance, with a title mocking Beck's work, Common Sense. In an interview about the book, Zaitchik theorized, "Beck's politics and his insatiable hunger for money and fame are not mutually exclusive", while stating:
In September 2010, Philadelphia Daily News reporter Will Bunch released The Backlash: Right-Wing Radicals, High-Def Hucksters, and Paranoid Politics in the Age of Obama. One of Bunch's theses is that Beck is nothing more than a morning zoo deejay playing a fictional character as a money-making stunt. Writer Bob Cesca, in a review of Bunch's book, compares Beck to Steve Martin's faith-healer character in the 1992 film Leap of Faith, before describing the "derivative grab bag of other tried and tested personalities" that Bunch contends comprises Beck's persona:
In October 2010 a polemical biography by Dana Milbank was released: Tears of a Clown: Glenn Beck and the Tea Bagging of America.
Satire, spoof and parody
Beck has been the subject of mockery and ridicule by a number of humorists. In response to Beck's animated delivery and views, he was parodied in an impersonation by Jason Sudeikis on Saturday Night Live. The Daily Shows Jon Stewart has spoofed Beck's 9–12 project with his own "11-3 project", consisting of "11 principles and 3 herbs and spices", impersonated Beck's chalk board-related presentation style for an entire show, and quipped about Beck "finally, a guy who says what people who aren't thinking are thinking". Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report satirized Beck's "war room" by creating his own "doom bunker". Through the character Eric Cartman, South Park parodied Beck's television program and his commentary style in the episode "Dances with Smurfs". The Onion, a satirical periodical and faux news site, ran an Onion News Network video "special report" where it lamented that the "victim in a fatal car accident was tragically not Glenn Beck". Meanwhile, the Current TV cartoon SuperNews! ran an animated cartoon feature titled "The Glenn Beck Apocalypse", where Beck is confronted by Jesus Christ who rebukes him as the equivalent of "Sarah Palin farting into a balloon". Political comedian and satirist Bill Maher has mocked Beck's followers as an "army of diabetic mallwalkers", while The Buffalo Beast, named Beck the most loathsome person in America in 2010, declaring "It's like someone found a manic, doom-prophesying hobo in a sandwich board, shaved him, shot him full of Zoloft and gave him a show." The October 30, 2010 Rally To Restore Sanity and/or Fear in Washington, hosted by Comedy Central personalities Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, was conceived as a parody of Beck's earlier Rally to Restore Honor, even though Stewart and Colbert said that they came up with the idea of holding a rally in March and Stewart had put down the deposit for the National Mall before Beck announced his rally.
Defamation lawsuit and settlement
In March 2014, Abdulrahman Alharbi filed suit for defamation in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts against Beck and his business entities, The Blaze and Mercury Radio Arts, along with his distributor Premiere Radio Networks. Alharbi's defamation claim arose from Beck's repeated broadcasts "identifying Alharbi as an active participant" in the Boston Marathon bombing, even after federal authorities cleared Alharbi, who was injured in the attack, of any wrongdoing and confirmed that he was an innocent victim.Josh Gerstein, Glenn Beck reaches settlement with Saudi student over Boston Marathon accusations, Politico (September 13, 2016). In December 2014, the judge rejected Beck's attempt to have the case dismissed. In September 2016, the suit was settled on confidential terms.
See also
Beck University
Conservative talk radio
List of most-listened-to radio programs
Works
Non-fiction
(Audiobook).
An Unlikely Mormon: The Conversion Story of Glenn Beck, Deseret Book 2008 (Audiobook). .
Arguing with Idiots: How to Stop Small Minds and Big Government, Simon & Schuster 2009. .
Glenn Beck's Common Sense: The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government, Simon & Schuster 2009. .Best Sellers: Paperback Nonfiction, The New York Times, October 9, 2009
America's March to Socialism: Why We're One Step Closer to Giant Missile Parades, Simon & Schuster Audio 2009 (Audio CD). .
Idiots Unplugged, Simon & Schuster 2010 (Audio CD). .
Broke: The Plan to Restore Our Trust, Truth, and Treasure, Simon & Schuster 2010. .
The 7: Seven Wonders That Will Change Your Life, Keith Ablow, co-author; Threshold Editions, 2011; .
The Original Argument: The Federalists' Case for the Constitution, Adapted for the 21st Century, with Joshua Charles; Threshold Editions, 2011; .
Liars: How Progressives Exploit Our Fears for Power and Control, Threshold Editions August 2, 2016.
Addicted to Outrage: How Thinking Like a Recovering Addict Can Heal the Country, Threshold Editions September 18, 2018.
The Great Reset: Joe Biden and the Rise of Twenty-First-Century Fascism, Justin Haskins, co-author; Forefront Books, 2021; .
Control Series
Fiction
The Christmas Sweater, Simon & Schuster 2008. .
The Overton Window, Threshold Editions June 2010.
The Eye of Moloch, Threshold Editions June 2013.
Agenda 21: Into the Shadows, Threshold Editions January 2015.
The Immortal Nicholas, Mercury Ink October 2015.
Children's
The Christmas Sweater: A Picture Book, Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing 2009. .
Beck authorized a comic book:
Political Power: Glenn Beck'', by Jerome Maida, Mark Sparacio (illus.); Bluewater Productions, 2011
References
External links
Glenn Beck – The 912 Project
1964 births
Living people
20th-century American male writers
21st-century American male writers
American Christian Zionists
American conspiracy theorists
American entertainment industry businesspeople
Latter Day Saints from Washington (state)
American anti-communists
American libertarians
American magazine founders
American people of German descent
American political commentators
American political writers
American television talk show hosts
Christian libertarians
Blaze Media people
American conservative talk radio hosts
Converts to Mormonism from Roman Catholicism
Former Roman Catholics
Fox News people
Male critics of feminism
People from Everett, Washington
People from Westlake, Texas
Radio personalities from Phoenix, Arizona
Radio personalities from Tampa, Florida
Tea Party movement activists
Texas Independents
Washington (state) Republicans
Writers from Bellingham, Washington
Latter Day Saints from Texas
20th-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American non-fiction writers
American male non-fiction writers | true | [
"Abram Raphael Beck (November 16, 1858 – May 29, 1947) was an American artist born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He is best known for his work related to the Pan-American Exposition.\n\nLife and work\nNamed after the famous painter, Beck was the oldest of the eight children of J. Augustus Beck, an accomplished artist who designed the bas relief at the foot of the Washington Monument. When Beck was 20, after studying with his father, he traveled to Europe for two years to study in Munich with the famous landscape artist, Paul Weber, and then at the Académie Julian in Paris.\n\nAfter his return to the States, Beck began his first major commissioned work, a series of murals for the capitol building in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Around this time he also settled in Lockport, New York and established a studio in Buffalo.\n\nBeck produced a wide variety of artworks including stained glass windows, life size masks, etchings, oils, watercolors, and large murals, including a mural of the opening of the Erie Canal, an oil painting of the pilgrims landing at Plymouth, Massachusetts, and a portrait of General Lafayette among others.\n\nBeck maintained his studio in Buffalo for thirty years. He went on to design the logo for the 1905 Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition in Portland, Oregon. Beck died in 1947 and is buried at the Lockport Glenwood Cemetery.\n\nExposition logo\nThe logo of two women in the shape of North and South America, holding hands through Central America came to be the most recognizable symbol of the Pan-American Exposition. Beck's design was chosen as the official logo by the Pan-American Exposition Company from over 400 entries. It was copyrighted in 1899 and Beck was awarded $100 for his work.\n\nHis design appeared on a variety of souvenirs ranging from paperweights, pins, and postcards to decks of cards, toothpick holders, and clocks, although the Exposition's executive committee had originally planned to use the Beck design \"only for dignified purposes\". Realizing its popularity, however, the committee decided to profit from the design as much as possible by selling it to manufacturers. As a result, the use of the logo was so prevalent that it was on \"everything that didn't move and some things that did.\" Some unofficial variations of the logo also appeared on souvenirs, produced by vendors who wanted to cash in on the familiarity of the Beck logo.\n\nMcKinley's last portrait\nBeck painted what would become President William McKinley's last portrait. During McKinley's visit to Buffalo, Beck arranged to observe McKinley during his tour of the Exposition, including the President's speech to a crowd of 50,000 near the Triumphal Bridge.\n\nWith the preliminary sketches for the portrait completed, Beck left Buffalo for a business trip to New York City. Beck was in New York when McKinley died and he went to work immediately to complete the portrait entitled President McKinley Delivering His Last Great Speech at the Pan-American Exposition, Sept. 5, 1901. The portrait was hung in the U.S. Senate and later became property of the Buffalo History Museum.\n\nSee also\nWilliam McKinley assassination\nNorth Park Theatre\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n The Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society\nList of works by Raphael Beck at Meibohm Fine Arts, East Aurora, NY\n\n1858 births\n1947 deaths\nHistory of Buffalo, New York\n19th-century American painters\nAmerican male painters\n20th-century American painters",
"WTDR-FM (92.7 FM, \"Thunder 92.7\") is a radio station licensed to serve Talladega, Alabama, United States. The station is owned by Jeff Beck, through licensee The Jeff Beck Broadcasting Group, LLC. It airs a combination classic country and country music format.\n\nHistory\nNew FM station WHTB Stereo 93 began broadcasting with 250 watts of effective radiated power at 92.7 MHz on November 10, 1972. The station was launched under the ownership of Jimmy E. Woodward. On April 1, 1985, the station was assigned the call letters WEYY-FM (to match former AM sister station WEYY, now known as WVOK) by the Federal Communications Commission.\n\nIn February 1987, Woodard Broadcasting Company owner Jimmy E. Woodard agreed to sell WEYY-FM to Radio Talladega, Inc. The deal was approved by the FCC on February 25, 1987.\n\nIn August 1992, Radio Talladega, Inc., reached an agreement to sell this station to James H. Jacobs, Jr., and Laura A. Jacobs, the equal co-owners of Jacobs Broadcast Group, Inc. The deal was approved by the FCC on September 16, 1992, and the transaction was consummated on September 30, 1992.\n\nThe station was assigned the WTDR call letters by the FCC on October 25, 2000. The station flipped from country music to a classic country format on January 5, 2009. Less than a year later, however, Thunder began to add country music back into its playlist.\n\nOn September 5, 2012, WTDR, along with its sister station WFZX, were sold to Jeff Beck, owner of The Jeff Beck Broadcasting Group, LLC. On September 12, 2012, the station's call sign was changed to WTDR-FM. The sale of the two stations to Beck was consummated on January 3, 2012, at a purchase price of $745,000.\n\nConstruction permit\nOn November 16, 2005, the station was granted a construction permit to change the station's community of license to Munford, Alabama. The station's effective radiated power would be reduced to 250 watts but the antenna would be raised to a height above average terrain of 481.2 meters (1579 feet) on the tower currently used by television station WCIQ located at 33°29'06\"N, 85°48'32\"W, on the top of Mount Cheaha, the highest point in the state of Alabama. This permit expired on November 16, 2008 with the move not yet completed, but on November 24, 2008, the station applied for an identical construction permit. That application was approved on January 29, 2009 and expired on January 29, 2012 with no action having been taken by the station.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nWTDR official website\n\nTDR-FM\nClassic country radio stations in the United States\nRadio stations established in 1972\nTalladega County, Alabama\n1972 establishments in Alabama"
] |
[
"Theodore Roosevelt",
"Early life and family"
] | C_ea2b2d977c0c4d1d93ec5efce7ee7156_1 | Where was Theodore Roosevelt born? | 1 | Where was Theodore Roosevelt born? | Theodore Roosevelt | Theodore Roosevelt Jr. was born on October 27, 1858, at East 20th Street in New York City. He was the second of four children born to socialite Martha Stewart "Mittie" Bulloch and businessman and philanthropist Theodore Roosevelt Sr. He had an older sister, Anna (nicknamed "Bamie"), a younger brother, Elliott, and a younger sister, Corinne. Elliott was later the father of First Lady Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of Theodore's distant cousin, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. His paternal grandfather was of Dutch descent; his other ancestry included primarily Scottish and Scots-Irish, English and smaller amounts of German, Welsh, and French. Theodore Sr. was the fifth son of businessman Cornelius Van Schaack "C.V.S." Roosevelt and Margaret Barnhill. Theodore's fourth cousin, James Roosevelt I, who was also a businessman, was the father of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Mittie was the younger daughter of Major James Stephens Bulloch and Martha P. "Patsy" Stewart. Through the Van Schaacks, Roosevelt was a descendant of the Schuyler family. Roosevelt's youth was largely shaped by his poor health and debilitating asthma. He repeatedly experienced sudden nighttime asthma attacks that caused the experience of being smothered to death, which terrified both Theodore and his parents. Doctors had no cure. Nevertheless, he was energetic and mischievously inquisitive. His lifelong interest in zoology began at age seven when he saw a dead seal at a local market; after obtaining the seal's head, Roosevelt and two cousins formed what they called the "Roosevelt Museum of Natural History". Having learned the rudiments of taxidermy, he filled his makeshift museum with animals that he killed or caught; he then studied the animals and prepared them for display. At age nine, he recorded his observation of insects in a paper entitled "The Natural History of Insects". Roosevelt's father significantly influenced him. His father was a prominent leader in New York's cultural affairs; he helped to found the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and had been especially active in mobilizing support for the Union during the Civil War, even though his in-laws included Confederate leaders. Roosevelt said, "My father, Theodore Roosevelt, was the best man I ever knew. He combined strength and courage with gentleness, tenderness, and great unselfishness. He would not tolerate in us children selfishness or cruelty, idleness, cowardice, or untruthfulness." Family trips abroad, including tours of Europe in 1869 and 1870, and Egypt in 1872, shaped his cosmopolitan perspective. Hiking with his family in the Alps in 1869, Roosevelt found that he could keep pace with his father. He had discovered the significant benefits of physical exertion to minimize his asthma and bolster his spirits. Roosevelt began a heavy regime of exercise. After being manhandled by two older boys on a camping trip, he found a boxing coach to teach him to fight and strengthen his body. CANNOTANSWER | Theodore Roosevelt Jr. was born on October 27, 1858, at East 20th Street in New York City. | Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or his initials T. R., was an American politician, statesman, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26th president of the United States from 1901 to 1909. He previously served as the 25th vice president under William McKinley from March to September 1901, and as the 33rd governor of New York from 1899 to 1900. Having assumed the presidency after McKinley's assassination, Roosevelt emerged as a leader of the Republican Party and became a driving force for anti-trust and Progressive policies.
Roosevelt was a sickly child with debilitating asthma but partly overcame his health problems by embracing a strenuous lifestyle. He integrated his exuberant personality, a vast range of interests and achievements into a "cowboy" persona defined by robust masculinity. He was home-schooled and began a lifelong naturalist avocation before attending Harvard. His book The Naval War of 1812 (1882) established his reputation as a learned historian and popular writer. Upon entering politics, he became the leader of the reform faction of Republicans in New York's state legislature. His wife and mother both died in the same night and he was psychologically devastated. He recuperated by buying and operating a cattle ranch in the Dakotas. He served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy under President William McKinley and in 1898 helped plan the highly successful naval war against Spain. He resigned to help form and lead the Rough Riders, a unit that fought the Spanish army in Cuba to great publicity. Returning a war hero, he was elected governor of New York in 1898. The New York state party leadership disliked his ambitious agenda and convinced McKinley to make Roosevelt his running mate in the 1900 election. Roosevelt campaigned vigorously, and the McKinley–Roosevelt ticket won a landslide victory based on a platform of victory, peace and prosperity.
Roosevelt assumed the presidency at age 42 after McKinley was assassinated in September 1901. He remains the youngest person to become president of the United States. Roosevelt was a leader of the progressive movement and championed his "Square Deal" domestic policies, promising the average citizen fairness, breaking of trusts, regulation of railroads, and pure food and drugs. He prioritized conservation and established national parks, forests, and monuments intended to preserve the nation's natural resources. In foreign policy, he focused on Central America where he began construction of the Panama Canal. He expanded the Navy and sent the Great White Fleet on a world tour to project American naval power. His successful efforts to broker the end of the Russo-Japanese War won him the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize. Roosevelt was elected to a full term in 1904 and continued to promote progressive policies. He groomed his close friend William Howard Taft to succeed him in the 1908 presidential election.
Roosevelt grew frustrated with Taft's brand of conservatism and belatedly tried to win the 1912 Republican nomination for president. He failed, walked out, and founded the Progressive Party. He ran in the 1912 presidential election and the split allowed the Democratic nominee Woodrow Wilson to win the election. Following the defeat, Roosevelt led a two-year expedition to the Amazon basin where he nearly died of tropical disease. During World War I, he criticized Wilson for keeping the country out of the war; his offer to lead volunteers to France was rejected. He considered running for president again in 1920, but his health continued to deteriorate. He died in 1919. He is generally ranked in polls of historians and political scientists as one of the five best presidents.
Early life and family
Theodore Roosevelt Jr. was born on October 27, 1858, at 28 East 20th Street in Manhattan, New York City. He was the second of four children born to socialite Martha Stewart "Mittie" Bulloch and businessman and philanthropist Theodore Roosevelt Sr. He had an older sister (Anna, nicknamed "Bamie"), a younger brother (Elliott) and a younger sister (Corinne). Elliott was later the father of First Lady Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of Theodore's distant cousin, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. His paternal grandfather was of Dutch descent; his other ancestry included primarily Scottish and Scots-Irish, English and smaller amounts of German, Welsh and French. Theodore Sr. was the fifth son of businessman Cornelius Van Schaack "C. V. S." Roosevelt and Margaret Barnhill as well as a brother of Robert Roosevelt and James A. Roosevelt. Theodore's fourth cousin, James Roosevelt I, who was also a businessman, was the father of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Mittie was the younger daughter of Major James Stephens Bulloch and Martha P. "Patsy" Stewart. Through the Van Schaacks, Roosevelt was a descendant of the Schuyler family.
Roosevelt's youth was largely shaped by his poor health and debilitating asthma. He repeatedly experienced sudden nighttime asthma attacks that caused the experience of being smothered to death, which terrified both Theodore and his parents. Doctors had no cure. Nevertheless, he was energetic and mischievously inquisitive. His lifelong interest in zoology began at age seven when he saw a dead seal at a local market; after obtaining the seal's head, Roosevelt and two cousins formed what they called the "Roosevelt Museum of Natural History". Having learned the rudiments of taxidermy, he filled his makeshift museum with animals that he killed or caught; he then studied the animals and prepared them for exhibition. At age nine, he recorded his observation of insects in a paper entitled "The Natural History of Insects".
Roosevelt's father significantly influenced him. His father was a prominent leader in New York's cultural affairs; he helped to found the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and had been especially active in mobilizing support for the Union during the Civil War, even though his in-laws included Confederate leaders. Roosevelt said, "My father, Theodore Roosevelt, was the best man I ever knew. He combined strength and courage with gentleness, tenderness, and great unselfishness. He would not tolerate in us children selfishness or cruelty, idleness, cowardice, or untruthfulness." Family trips abroad, including tours of Europe in 1869 and 1870, and Egypt in 1872, shaped his cosmopolitan perspective. Hiking with his family in the Alps in 1869, Roosevelt found that he could keep pace with his father. He had discovered the significant benefits of physical exertion to minimize his asthma and bolster his spirits. Roosevelt began a heavy regime of exercise. After being manhandled by two older boys on a camping trip, he found a boxing coach to teach him to fight and strengthen his body.
A 6-year-old Roosevelt witnessed the funeral procession of Abraham Lincoln from his grandfather's mansion in Union Square, New York City where he was photographed in the window along with his brother Elliott, as confirmed by wife Edith who was also present.
Education
Roosevelt was homeschooled, mostly by tutors and his parents. Biographer H. W. Brands argued that "The most obvious drawback to his home schooling was uneven coverage of the various areas of human knowledge." He was solid in geography and bright in history, biology, French, and German; however, he struggled in mathematics and the classical languages. When he entered Harvard College on September 27, 1876, his father advised: "Take care of your morals first, your health next, and finally your studies." His father's sudden death on February 9, 1878, devastated Roosevelt, but he eventually recovered and doubled his activities.
He did well in science, philosophy, and rhetoric courses but continued to struggle in Latin and Greek. He studied biology intently and was already an accomplished naturalist and a published ornithologist. He read prodigiously with an almost photographic memory. While at Harvard, Roosevelt participated in rowing and boxing; he was once runner-up in an intramural boxing tournament. Roosevelt was a member of the Alpha Delta Phi literary society (later the Fly Club), the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity, and the prestigious Porcellian Club; he was also an editor of The Harvard Advocate. In 1880, Roosevelt graduated Phi Beta Kappa (22nd of 177) from Harvard with an A.B. magna cum laude. Biographer Henry Pringle states:
After his father's death, Roosevelt had inherited $65,000 (), enough to live off comfortably for the rest of his life. Roosevelt gave up his earlier plan of studying natural science and instead decided to attend Columbia Law School, moving back into his family's home in New York City. Roosevelt was an able law student, but he often found law to be irrational. He spent much of his time writing a book on the War of 1812.
Determined to enter politics, Roosevelt began attending meetings at Morton Hall, the 59th Street headquarters of New York's 21st District Republican Association. Though Roosevelt's father had been a prominent member of the Republican Party, the younger Roosevelt made an unorthodox career choice for someone of his class, as most of Roosevelt's peers refrained from becoming too closely involved in politics. Roosevelt found allies in the local Republican Party, and he defeated an incumbent Republican state assemblyman closely tied to the political machine of Senator Roscoe Conkling. After his election victory, Roosevelt decided to drop out of law school, later saying, "I intended to be one of the governing class."
Naval history and strategy
While at Harvard, Roosevelt began a systematic study of the role played by the young United States Navy in the War of 1812. Assisted by two uncles, he scrutinized original source materials and official U.S. Navy records, ultimately publishing The Naval War of 1812 in 1882. The book contained drawings of individual and combined ship maneuvers, charts depicting the differences in iron throw weights of cannon shot between rival forces, and analyses of the differences and similarities between British and American leadership down to the ship-to-ship level. Upon release, The Naval War of 1812 was praised for its scholarship and style, and it remains a standard study of the war.
With the publication of The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660–1783 in 1890, Navy Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan was immediately hailed as the world's outstanding naval theorist by the leaders of Europe. Roosevelt paid very close attention to Mahan's emphasis that only a nation with the world's most powerful fleet could dominate the world's oceans, exert its diplomacy to the fullest, and defend its own borders. He incorporated Mahan's ideas into his views on naval strategy for the remainder of his career.
First marriage and widowerhood
In 1880, Roosevelt married socialite Alice Hathaway Lee. Their daughter, Alice Lee Roosevelt, was born on February 12, 1884. Two days later, the new mother died of an undiagnosed case of kidney failure that had been masked by the pregnancy. In his diary, Roosevelt wrote a large 'X' on the page and then, "The light has gone out of my life." His mother, Mittie, had died of typhoid fever eleven hours earlier at 3:00 a.m., in the same house on 57th Street in Manhattan. Distraught, Roosevelt left baby Alice in the care of his sister Bamie while he grieved; he assumed custody of Alice when she was three.
After the deaths of his wife and mother, Roosevelt focused on his work, specifically by re-energizing a legislative investigation into corruption of the New York City government, which arose from a concurrent bill proposing that power be centralized in the mayor's office. For the rest of his life, he rarely spoke about his wife Alice and did not write about her in his autobiography.
Early political career
State Assemblyman
Roosevelt was a member of the New York State Assembly (New York Co., 21st D.) in 1882, 1883 and 1884. He immediately began making his mark, specifically in corporate corruption issues. He blocked a corrupt effort by financier Jay Gould to lower his taxes. Roosevelt exposed suspected collusion in the matter by Judge Theodore Westbrook, and argued for and received approval for an investigation to proceed, aiming for the impeachment of the judge. The investigation committee rejected impeachment, but Roosevelt had exposed the potential corruption in Albany, and thus assumed a high and positive political profile in multiple New York publications.
Roosevelt's anti-corruption efforts helped him win re-election in 1882 by a margin greater than two-to-one, an achievement made even more impressive by the fact that Democratic gubernatorial candidate Grover Cleveland won Roosevelt's district. With Conkling's Stalwart faction of the Republican Party in disarray following the assassination of President James Garfield, Roosevelt won election as the Republican party leader in the state assembly. He allied with Governor Cleveland to win passage of a civil service reform bill. Roosevelt won re-election a second time, and sought the office of Speaker of the New York State Assembly, but was defeated by Titus Sheard in a 41 to 29 vote of the GOP caucus. In his final term, Roosevelt served as Chairman of the Committee on Affairs of Cities; he wrote more bills than any other legislator.
Presidential election of 1884
With numerous presidential hopefuls to choose from, Roosevelt supported Senator George F. Edmunds of Vermont, a colorless reformer. The state GOP preferred the incumbent president, New York City's Chester Arthur, who was known for passing the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act. Arthur, at the time, was suffering from Bright's disease, unknown to the public, and out of duty he did not contest his own nomination. Roosevelt fought hard and succeeded in influencing the Manhattan delegates at the state convention in Utica. He then took control of the state convention, bargaining through the night and outmaneuvering the supporters of Arthur and James G. Blaine; he gained a national reputation as a key person in New York State.
Roosevelt attended the 1884 GOP National Convention in Chicago and gave a speech convincing delegates to nominate African American John R. Lynch, an Edmunds supporter, to be temporary chair. Roosevelt fought alongside the Mugwump reformers; however, Blaine, having gained support from Arthur's and Edmunds's delegates, won the nomination by 541 votes on the fourth ballot. In a crucial moment of his budding political career, Roosevelt resisted the demand of the Mugwumps that he bolt from Blaine. He bragged about his one small success: "We achieved a victory in getting up a combination to beat the Blaine nominee for temporary chairman... To do this needed a mixture of skill, boldness and energy... to get the different factions to come in... to defeat the common foe." He was also impressed by an invitation to speak before an audience of ten thousand, the largest crowd he had addressed up to that date. Having gotten a taste of national politics, Roosevelt felt less aspiration for advocacy on the state level; he then retired to his new "Chimney Butte Ranch" on the Little Missouri River. Roosevelt refused to join other Mugwumps in supporting Grover Cleveland, the governor of New York and the Democratic nominee in the general election. He debated the pros and cons of staying loyal with his political friend, Henry Cabot Lodge. After Blaine won the nomination, Roosevelt had carelessly said that he would give "hearty support to any decent Democrat". He distanced himself from the promise, saying that it had not been meant "for publication". When a reporter asked if he would support Blaine, Roosevelt replied, "That question I decline to answer. It is a subject I do not care to talk about." In the end, he realized that he had to support Blaine to maintain his role in the GOP, and he did so in a press release on July 19. Having lost the support of many reformers, Roosevelt decided to retire from politics and move to North Dakota.
Cattle rancher in Dakota
Roosevelt first visited the Dakota Territory in 1883 to hunt bison. Exhilarated by the western lifestyle, and with the cattle business booming in the territory, Roosevelt invested $14,000 in hopes of becoming a prosperous cattle rancher. For the next several years, he shuttled between his home in New York and his ranch in Dakota.
Following the 1884 presidential election, Roosevelt built a ranch named Elkhorn, which was north of the boomtown of Medora, North Dakota. Roosevelt learned to ride western style, rope, and hunt on the banks of the Little Missouri. Though he earned the respect of the authentic cowboys, they were not overly impressed. However, he identified with the herdsman of history, a man he said possesses "few of the emasculated, milk-and-water moralities admired by the pseudo-philanthropists; but he does possess, to a very high degree, the stern, manly qualities that are invaluable to a nation". He reoriented, and began writing about frontier life for national magazines; he also published three books – Hunting Trips of a Ranchman, Ranch Life and the Hunting-Trail, and The Wilderness Hunter.
Roosevelt brought his desire to address the common interests of citizens to the West. He successfully led efforts to organize ranchers to address problems of overgrazing and other shared concerns; his work resulted in the formation of the Little Missouri Stockmen's Association. He felt compelled to promote conservation and was able to form the Boone and Crockett Club, whose primary goal was the conservation of large game animals and their habitats. After the uniquely severe US winter of 1886–87 wiped out his herd of cattle and those of his competitors, and with it over half of his $80,000 investment, Roosevelt returned to the East. Though his finances suffered from the experience, Roosevelt's time in the West made it impossible to peg him as an ineffectual intellectual, a characterization that could have hampered his political career.
Second marriage
On December 2, 1886, Roosevelt married his childhood and family friend, Edith Kermit Carow. Roosevelt was deeply troubled that his second marriage had taken place so soon after the death of his first wife, and he faced resistance from his sisters. Nonetheless, the couple married at St George's, Hanover Square in London, England. The couple had five children: Theodore "Ted" III in 1887, Kermit in 1889, Ethel in 1891, Archibald in 1894, and Quentin in 1897. The couple also raised Roosevelt's daughter from his first marriage, Alice, who often clashed with her stepmother.
Reentering public life
Upon Roosevelt's return to New York in 1886, Republican leaders quickly approached him about running for mayor of New York City in the city's mayoral election. Roosevelt accepted the nomination despite having little hope of winning the race against United Labor Party candidate Henry George and Democratic candidate Abram Hewitt. Roosevelt campaigned hard for the position, but Hewitt won with 41% (90,552 votes), taking the votes of many Republicans who feared George's radical policies. George was held to 31% (68,110 votes), and Roosevelt took third place with 27% (60,435 votes). Fearing that his political career might never recover, Roosevelt turned his attention to writing The Winning of the West, a historical work tracking the westward movement of Americans; the book was a great success for Roosevelt, earning favorable reviews and selling numerous copies.
Civil Service Commission
After Benjamin Harrison unexpectedly defeated Blaine for the presidential nomination at the 1888 Republican National Convention, Roosevelt gave stump speeches in the Midwest in support of Harrison. On the insistence of Henry Cabot Lodge, President Harrison appointed Roosevelt to the United States Civil Service Commission, where he served until 1895. While many of his predecessors had approached the office as a sinecure, Roosevelt vigorously fought the spoilsmen and demanded enforcement of civil service laws. The New York Sun then described Roosevelt as "irrepressible, belligerent, and enthusiastic". Roosevelt frequently clashed with Postmaster General John Wanamaker, who handed out numerous patronage positions to Harrison supporters, and Roosevelt's attempt to force out several postal workers damaged Harrison politically. Despite Roosevelt's support for Harrison's reelection bid in the presidential election of 1892, the eventual winner, Grover Cleveland, reappointed him to the same post. Roosevelt's close friend and biographer, Joseph Bucklin Bishop, described his assault on the spoils system:
New York City Police Commissioner
In 1894, a group of reform Republicans approached Roosevelt about running for Mayor of New York again; he declined, mostly due to his wife's resistance to being removed from the Washington social set. Soon after he declined, he realized that he had missed an opportunity to reinvigorate a dormant political career. He retreated to the Dakotas for a time; his wife Edith regretted her role in the decision and vowed that there would be no repeat of it.
William Lafayette Strong, a reform-minded Republican, won the 1894 mayoral election and offered Roosevelt a position on the board of the New York City Police Commissioners. Roosevelt became president of the board of commissioners and radically reformed the police force. Roosevelt implemented regular inspections of firearms and annual physical exams, appointed recruits based on their physical and mental qualifications rather than political affiliation, established Meritorious Service Medals, and closed corrupt police hostelries. During his tenure, a Municipal Lodging House was established by the Board of Charities, and Roosevelt required officers to register with the Board; he also had telephones installed in station houses.
In 1894, Roosevelt met Jacob Riis, the muckraking Evening Sun newspaper journalist who was opening the eyes of New Yorkers to the terrible conditions of the city's millions of poor immigrants with such books as How the Other Half Lives. Riis described how his book affected Roosevelt:
Roosevelt made a habit of walking officers' beats late at night and early in the morning to make sure that they were on duty. He made a concerted effort to uniformly enforce New York's Sunday closing law; in this, he ran up against boss Tom Platt as well as Tammany Hall—he was notified that the Police Commission was being legislated out of existence. His crackdowns led to protests and demonstrations. Invited to one large demonstration, not only did he surprisingly accept, he delighted in the insults, caricatures and lampoons directed at him, and earned some surprising good will. Roosevelt chose to defer rather than split with his party. As Governor of New York State, he would later sign an act replacing the Police Commission with a single Police Commissioner.
Emergence as a national figure
Assistant Secretary of the Navy
In the 1896 presidential election, Roosevelt backed Speaker of the House Thomas Brackett Reed for the Republican nomination, but William McKinley won the nomination and defeated William Jennings Bryan in the general election. Roosevelt opposed Bryan's free silver platform, viewing many of Bryan's followers as dangerous fanatics, and Roosevelt gave campaign speeches for McKinley. Urged by Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, President McKinley appointed Roosevelt as the Assistant Secretary of the Navy in 1897. Secretary of the Navy John D. Long was more concerned about formalities than functions, was in poor health, and left many major decisions to Roosevelt. Influenced by Alfred Thayer Mahan, Roosevelt called for a build-up in the country's naval strength, particularly the construction of battleships. Roosevelt also began pressing his national security views regarding the Pacific and the Caribbean on McKinley, and was particularly adamant that Spain be ejected from Cuba. He explained his priorities to one of the Navy's planners in late 1897:
On February 15, 1898, , an armored cruiser, exploded in the harbor of Havana, Cuba, killing hundreds of crew members. While Roosevelt and many other Americans blamed Spain for the explosion, McKinley sought a diplomatic solution. Without approval from Long or McKinley, Roosevelt sent out orders to several naval vessels, directing them to prepare for war. George Dewey, who had received an appointment to lead the Asiatic Squadron with the backing of Roosevelt, later credited his victory at the Battle of Manila Bay to Roosevelt's orders. After finally giving up hope of a peaceful solution, McKinley asked Congress to declare war upon Spain, beginning the Spanish–American War.
War in Cuba
With the beginning of the Spanish–American War in late April 1898, Roosevelt resigned from his post as Assistant Secretary of the Navy. Along with Army Colonel Leonard Wood, he formed the First US Volunteer Cavalry Regiment. His wife and many of his friends begged Roosevelt to remain in his post in Washington, but Roosevelt was determined to see battle. When the newspapers reported the formation of the new regiment, Roosevelt and Wood were flooded with applications from all over the country. Referred to by the press as the "Rough Riders", the regiment was one of many temporary units active only for the duration of the war.
The regiment trained for several weeks in San Antonio, Texas, and in his autobiography, Roosevelt wrote that his prior experience with the New York National Guard had been invaluable, in that it enabled him to immediately begin teaching his men basic soldiering skills. The Rough Riders used some standard issue gear and some of their own design, purchased with gift money. Diversity characterized the regiment, which included Ivy Leaguers, professional and amateur athletes, upscale gentlemen, cowboys, frontiersmen, Native Americans, hunters, miners, prospectors, former soldiers, tradesmen, and sheriffs. The Rough Riders were part of the cavalry division commanded by former Confederate general Joseph Wheeler, which itself was one of three divisions in the V Corps under Lieutenant General William Rufus Shafter. Roosevelt and his men landed in Daiquirí, Cuba, on June 23, 1898, and marched to Siboney. Wheeler sent parts of the 1st and 10th Regular Cavalry on the lower road northwest and sent the "Rough Riders" on the parallel road running along a ridge up from the beach. To throw off his infantry rival, Wheeler left one regiment of his Cavalry Division, the 9th, at Siboney so that he could claim that his move north was only a limited reconnaissance if things went wrong. Roosevelt was promoted to colonel and took command of the regiment when Wood was put in command of the brigade. The Rough Riders had a short, minor skirmish known as the Battle of Las Guasimas; they fought their way through Spanish resistance and, together with the Regulars, forced the Spaniards to abandon their positions.
Under his leadership, the Rough Riders became famous for the charge up Kettle Hill on July 1, 1898, while supporting the regulars. Roosevelt had the only horse, and rode back and forth between rifle pits at the forefront of the advance up Kettle Hill, an advance that he urged despite the absence of any orders from superiors. He was forced to walk up the last part of Kettle Hill because his horse had been entangled in barbed wire. The victories came at a cost of 200 killed and 1,000 wounded.
In August, Roosevelt and other officers demanded that the soldiers be returned home. Roosevelt always recalled the Battle of Kettle Hill (part of the San Juan Heights) as "the great day of my life" and "my crowded hour". In 2001, Roosevelt was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions; he had been nominated during the war, but Army officials, annoyed at his grabbing the headlines, blocked it. After returning to civilian life, Roosevelt preferred to be known as "Colonel Roosevelt" or "The Colonel", though "Teddy" remained much more popular with the public, even though Roosevelt openly despised that moniker. Men working closely with Roosevelt customarily called him "Colonel" or "Theodore". Henceforth, political cartoons of Roosevelt usually depicted him in his Rough Rider garb.
Governor of New York
After leaving Cuba in August 1898, the Rough Riders were transported to a camp at Montauk Point, Long Island, where Roosevelt and his men were briefly quarantined due to the War Department's fear of spreading yellow fever. Shortly after Roosevelt's return to the United States, Republican Congressman Lemuel E. Quigg, a lieutenant of party boss Tom Platt, asked Roosevelt to run in the 1898 gubernatorial election. Platt disliked Roosevelt personally, feared that Roosevelt would oppose Platt's interests in office, and was reluctant to propel Roosevelt to the forefront of national politics. However, Platt also needed a strong candidate due to the unpopularity of the incumbent Republican governor, Frank S. Black, and Roosevelt agreed to become the nominee and to try not to "make war" with the Republican establishment once in office. Roosevelt defeated Black in the Republican caucus by a vote of 753 to 218, and faced Democrat Augustus Van Wyck, a well-respected judge, in the general election. Roosevelt campaigned vigorously on his war record, winning the election by a margin of just one percent.
As governor, Roosevelt learned much about ongoing economic issues and political techniques that later proved valuable in his presidency. He was exposed to the problems of trusts, monopolies, labor relations, and conservation. Chessman argues that Roosevelt's program "rested firmly upon the concept of the square deal by a neutral state". The rules for the Square Deal were "honesty in public affairs, an equitable sharing of privilege and responsibility, and subordination of party and local concerns to the interests of the state at large".
By holding twice-daily press conferences—which was an innovation—Roosevelt remained connected with his middle-class political base. Roosevelt successfully pushed the Ford Franchise-Tax bill, which taxed public franchises granted by the state and controlled by corporations, declaring that "a corporation which derives its powers from the State, should pay to the State a just percentage of its earnings as a return for the privileges it enjoys". He rejected "boss" Thomas C. Platt's worries that this approached Bryanite Socialism, explaining that without it, New York voters might get angry and adopt public ownership of streetcar lines and other franchises.
The New York state government affected many interests, and the power to make appointments to policy-making positions was a key role for the governor. Platt insisted that he be consulted on major appointments; Roosevelt appeared to comply, but then made his own decisions. Historians marvel that Roosevelt managed to appoint so many first-rate men with Platt's approval. He even enlisted Platt's help in securing reform, such as in the spring of 1899, when Platt pressured state senators to vote for a civil service bill that the secretary of the Civil Service Reform Association called "superior to any civil service statute heretofore secured in America".
Chessman argues that as governor, Roosevelt developed the principles that shaped his presidency, especially insistence upon the public responsibility of large corporations, publicity as a first remedy for trusts, regulation of railroad rates, mediation of the conflict of capital and labor, conservation of natural resources and protection of the less fortunate members of society. Roosevelt sought to position himself against the excesses of large corporations on the one hand and radical movements on the other.
As the chief executive of the most populous state in the union, Roosevelt was widely considered a potential future presidential candidate, and supporters such as William Allen White encouraged him to run for president. Roosevelt had no interest in challenging McKinley for the Republican nomination in 1900, and was denied his preferred post of Secretary of War. As his term progressed, Roosevelt pondered a 1904 presidential run, but was uncertain about whether he should seek re-election as governor in 1900.
Vice Presidency (1901)
In November 1899, Vice President Garret Hobart died of heart failure, leaving an open spot on the 1900 Republican national ticket. Though Henry Cabot Lodge and others urged him to run for vice president in 1900, Roosevelt was reluctant to take the powerless position and issued a public statement saying that he would not accept the nomination. Additionally, Roosevelt was informed by President McKinley and campaign manager Mark Hanna that he was not being considered for the role of vice president due to his actions prior to the Spanish–American War. Eager to be rid of Roosevelt, Platt nonetheless began a newspaper campaign in favor of Roosevelt's nomination for the vice presidency. Roosevelt attended the 1900 Republican National Convention as a state delegate and struck a bargain with Platt: Roosevelt would accept the nomination for vice president if the convention offered it to him, but would otherwise serve another term as governor. Platt asked Pennsylvania party boss Matthew Quay to lead the campaign for Roosevelt's nomination, and Quay outmaneuvered Hanna at the convention to put Roosevelt on the ticket. Roosevelt won the nomination unanimously.
Roosevelt's vice-presidential campaigning proved highly energetic and an equal match for Democratic presidential nominee William Jennings Bryan's famous barnstorming style of campaigning. In a whirlwind campaign that displayed his energy to the public, Roosevelt made 480 stops in 23 states. He denounced the radicalism of Bryan, contrasting it with the heroism of the soldiers and sailors who fought and won the war against Spain. Bryan had strongly supported the war itself, but he denounced the annexation of the Philippines as imperialism, which would spoil America's innocence. Roosevelt countered that it was best for the Filipinos to have stability and the Americans to have a proud place in the world. With the nation basking in peace and prosperity, the voters gave McKinley an even larger victory than that which he had achieved in 1896.
After the campaign, Roosevelt took office as vice president in March 1901. The office of vice president was a powerless sinecure and did not suit Roosevelt's aggressive temperament. Roosevelt's six months as vice president were uneventful and boring for a man of action. He had no power; he presided over the Senate for a mere four days before it adjourned. On September 2, 1901, Roosevelt first publicized an aphorism that thrilled his supporters: "Speak softly and carry a big stick, and you will go far."
Presidency (1901–1909)
On September 6, 1901, President McKinley was attending the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York when he was shot by anarchist Leon Czolgosz. Roosevelt was vacationing in Isle La Motte, Vermont, and traveled to Buffalo to visit McKinley in the hospital. It appeared that McKinley would recover, so Roosevelt resumed his vacation in the Adirondack Mountains. When McKinley's condition worsened, Roosevelt again rushed back to Buffalo. McKinley died on September 14, and Roosevelt was informed while he was in North Creek; he continued on to Buffalo and was sworn in as the nation's 26th president at the Ansley Wilcox House.
McKinley's supporters were nervous about the new president, and Hanna was particularly bitter that the man he had opposed so vigorously at the convention had succeeded McKinley. Roosevelt assured party leaders that he intended to adhere to McKinley's policies, and he retained McKinley's Cabinet. Nonetheless, Roosevelt sought to position himself as the party's undisputed leader, seeking to bolster the role of the president and position himself for the 1904 election. The vice presidency remained vacant, as there was no constitutional provision for filling an intra-term vacancy in that office (prior to the 25th Amendment in 1967).
Shortly after taking office, Roosevelt invited Booker T. Washington to dinner at the White House. This sparked a bitter, and at times vicious, reaction among whites across the heavily segregated South. Roosevelt reacted with astonishment and protest, saying that he looked forward to many future dinners with Washington. Upon further reflection, Roosevelt wanted to ensure that this had no effect on political support in the white South, and further dinner invitations to Washington were avoided; their next meeting was scheduled as typical business at 10:00 a.m. instead.
Domestic policies
Trust busting and regulation
For his aggressive use of the 1890 Sherman Antitrust Act, compared to his predecessors, Roosevelt was hailed as the "trust-buster"; but in reality he was more of a trust regulator. Roosevelt viewed big business as a necessary part of the American economy, and sought only to prosecute the "bad trusts" that restrained trade and charged unfair prices. He brought 44 antitrust suits, breaking up the Northern Securities Company, the largest railroad monopoly; and regulating Standard Oil, the largest oil company. Presidents Benjamin Harrison, Grover Cleveland, and William McKinley combined had prosecuted only 18 antitrust violations under the Sherman Antitrust Act.
Bolstered by his party's winning large majorities in the 1902 elections, Roosevelt proposed the creation of the United States Department of Commerce and Labor, which would include the Bureau of Corporations. While Congress was receptive to the Department of Commerce and Labor, it was more skeptical of the antitrust powers that Roosevelt sought to endow within the Bureau of Corporations. Roosevelt successfully appealed to the public to pressure Congress, and Congress overwhelmingly voted to pass Roosevelt's version of the bill.
In a moment of frustration, House Speaker Joseph Gurney Cannon commented on Roosevelt's desire for executive branch control in domestic policy-making: "That fellow at the other end of the avenue wants everything from the birth of Christ to the death of the devil." Biographer Brands states, "Even his friends occasionally wondered whether there wasn't any custom or practice too minor for him to try to regulate, update or otherwise improve." In fact, Roosevelt's willingness to exercise his power included attempted rule changes in the game of football; at the Naval Academy, he sought to force retention of martial arts classes and to revise disciplinary rules. He even ordered changes made in the minting of a coin whose design he disliked, and ordered the Government Printing Office to adopt simplified spellings for a core list of 300 words, according to reformers on the Simplified Spelling Board. He was forced to rescind the latter after substantial ridicule from the press and a resolution of protest from the House of Representatives.
Coal strike
In May 1902, anthracite coal miners went on strike, threatening a national energy shortage. After threatening the coal operators with intervention by federal troops, Roosevelt won their agreement to dispute arbitration by a commission, which succeeded in stopping the strike. The accord with J. P. Morgan resulted in the miners getting more pay for fewer hours, but with no union recognition. Roosevelt said, "My action on labor should always be considered in connection with my action as regards capital, and both are reducible to my favorite formula—a square deal for every man." Roosevelt was the first president to help settle a labor dispute.
Prosecuted misconduct
During Roosevelt's second year in office it was discovered there was corruption in the Indian Service, the Land Office, and the Post Office Department. Roosevelt investigated and prosecuted corrupt Indian agents who had cheated the Creeks and various tribes out of land parcels. Land fraud and speculation were found involving Oregon federal timberlands. In November 1902, Roosevelt and Secretary Ethan A. Hitchcock forced Binger Hermann, the General Land Office Commissioner, to resign from office. On November 6, 1903 Francis J. Heney was appointed special prosecutor and obtained 146 indictments involving an Oregon Land Office bribery ring. U.S. Senator John H. Mitchell was indicted for bribery to expedite illegal land patents, found guilty in July 1905, and sentenced to six months in prison. More corruption was found in the Postal Department, that brought on the indictments of 44 government employees on charges of bribery and fraud. Historians generally agree that Roosevelt moved "quickly and decisively" to prosecute misconduct in his administration.
Railroads
Merchants complained that some railroad rates were too high. In the 1906 Hepburn Act, Roosevelt sought to give the Interstate Commerce Commission the power to regulate rates, but the Senate, led by conservative Nelson Aldrich, fought back. Roosevelt worked with the Democratic Senator Benjamin Tillman to pass the bill. Roosevelt and Aldrich ultimately reached a compromise that gave the ICC the power to replace existing rates with "just-and-reasonable" maximum rates, but allowed railroads to appeal to the federal courts on what was "reasonable". In addition to rate-setting, the Hepburn Act also granted the ICC regulatory power over pipeline fees, storage contracts, and several other aspects of railroad operations.
Pure food and drugs
Roosevelt responded to public anger over the abuses in the food packing industry by pushing Congress to pass the Meat Inspection Act of 1906 and the Pure Food and Drug Act. Though conservatives initially opposed the bill, Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, published in 1906, helped galvanize support for reform. The Meat Inspection Act of 1906 banned misleading labels and preservatives that contained harmful chemicals. The Pure Food and Drug Act banned food and drugs that were impure or falsely labeled from being made, sold, and shipped. Roosevelt also served as honorary president of the American School Hygiene Association from 1907 to 1908, and in 1909 he convened the first White House Conference on the Care of Dependent Children.
Conservation
Of all Roosevelt's achievements, he was proudest of his work in the conservation of natural resources and extending federal protection to land and wildlife. Roosevelt worked closely with Interior Secretary James Rudolph Garfield and Chief of the United States Forest Service Gifford Pinchot to enact a series of conservation programs that often met with resistance from Western members of Congress, such as Charles William Fulton. Nonetheless, Roosevelt established the United States Forest Service, signed into law the creation of five National Parks, and signed the 1906 Antiquities Act, under which he proclaimed 18 new U.S. National Monuments. He also established the first 51 bird reserves, four game preserves, and 150 National Forests. The area of the United States that he placed under public protection totals approximately .
Roosevelt extensively used executive orders on a number of occasions to protect forest and wildlife lands during his tenure as president. By the end of his second term in office, Roosevelt used executive orders to establish of reserved forestry land. Roosevelt was unapologetic about his extensive use of executive orders to protect the environment, despite the perception in Congress that he was encroaching on too many lands. Eventually, Senator Charles Fulton (R-OR) attached an amendment to an agricultural appropriations bill that effectively prevented the president from reserving any further land. Before signing that bill into law, Roosevelt used executive orders to establish an additional 21 forest reserves, waiting until the last minute to sign the bill into law. In total, Roosevelt used executive orders to establish 121 forest reserves in 31 states. Prior to Roosevelt, only one president had issued over 200 executive orders, Grover Cleveland (253). The first 25 presidents issued a total of 1,262 executive orders; Roosevelt issued 1,081.
Foreign policy
Japan
The American annexation of Hawaii in 1898 was stimulated in part by fear that otherwise Japan would dominate the Hawaiian Republic. Similarly, Germany was the alternative to American takeover of the Philippines in 1900, and Tokyo strongly preferred the U.S. to take over. As the U.S. became a naval world power, it needed to find a way to avoid a military confrontation in the Pacific with Japan.
In the 1890s, Roosevelt had been an ardent imperialist and vigorously defended the permanent acquisition of the Philippines in the 1900 campaign. After the local insurrection ended in 1902, he largely lost his imperialist interest in the Philippines and Asian expansion but wished to have a strong U.S. presence in the region as a symbol of democratic values. One of Theodore Roosevelt's priorities during his presidency and afterwards, was the maintenance of friendly relations with Japan. From 1904 to 1905 Japan and Russia were at war. Roosevelt admired the martial courage of the Japanese, and distrusted the reckless German Kaiser. Both sides asked Roosevelt to mediate a peace conference, held successfully in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Roosevelt won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts.
In California, anti-Japanese hostility was growing, and Tokyo protested. Roosevelt negotiated a "Gentleman's Agreement" in 1907. Explicit discrimination against the Japanese was ended, and Japan agreed not to allow unskilled immigrants into the United States. The Great White Fleet of American battleships visited Japan in 1908. Pulitzer prize-winning biographer Henry Pringle states that the great voyage was "the direct result of the Japanese trouble." Roosevelt intended to emphasize the superiority of the American fleet over the smaller Japanese navy, but instead of resentment the visitors arrived to a joyous welcome by Japanese elite as well as the general public. This good-will facilitated the Root–Takahira Agreement of November 1908 which reaffirmed the status quo of Japanese control of Korea and American control of the Philippines.
Europe
Success in the war against Spain and the new empire, plus having the largest economy in the world, meant that the United States had emerged as a world power. Roosevelt searched for ways to win recognition for the position abroad.
Roosevelt also played a major role in mediating the First Moroccan Crisis by calling the Algeciras Conference, which averted war between France and Germany.
Roosevelt's presidency saw the strengthening of ties with Great Britain. The Great Rapprochement had begun with British support of the United States during the Spanish–American War, and it continued as Britain withdrew its fleet from the Caribbean in favor of focusing on the rising German naval threat. In 1901, Britain and the United States signed the Hay–Pauncefote Treaty, abrogating the Clayton–Bulwer Treaty, which had prevented the United States from constructing a canal connecting the Pacific and the Atlantic Ocean. The long-standing Alaska boundary dispute was settled on terms favorable to the United States, as Great Britain was unwilling to alienate the United States over what it considered to be a secondary issue. As Roosevelt later put it, the resolution of the Alaskan boundary dispute "settled the last serious trouble between the British Empire and ourselves."
Latin America and Panama Canal
As president, he primarily focused the nation's overseas ambitions on the Caribbean, especially locations that had a bearing on the defense of his pet project, the Panama Canal. Roosevelt also increased the size of the navy, and by the end of his second term the United States had more battleships than any other country besides Britain. The Panama Canal when it opened in 1914 allowed the U.S. Navy to rapidly move back and forth from the Pacific to the Caribbean to European waters.
In December 1902, the Germans, British, and Italians blockaded the ports of Venezuela in order to force the repayment of delinquent loans. Roosevelt was particularly concerned with the motives of German Emperor Wilhelm II. He succeeded in getting the three nations to agree to arbitration by tribunal at The Hague, and successfully defused the crisis. The latitude granted to the Europeans by the arbiters was in part responsible for the "Roosevelt Corollary" to the Monroe Doctrine, which the President issued in 1904: "Chronic wrongdoing or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation, and in the Western Hemisphere, the adherence of the United States to the Monroe doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power."
The pursuit of an isthmus canal in Central America during this period focused on two possible routes—Nicaragua and Panama, which was then a rebellious district within Colombia. Roosevelt convinced Congress to approve the Panamanian alternative, and a treaty was approved, only to be rejected by the Colombian government. When the Panamanians learned of this, a rebellion followed, was supported by Roosevelt, and succeeded. A treaty with the new Panama government for construction of the canal was then reached in 1903. Roosevelt received criticism for paying the bankrupt Panama Canal Company and the New Panama Canal Company $40,000,000 (equivalent to $ billion in ) for the rights and equipment to build the canal. Critics charged that an American investor syndicate allegedly divided the large payment among themselves. There was also controversy over whether a French company engineer influenced Roosevelt in choosing the Panama route for the canal over the Nicaragua route. Roosevelt denied charges of corruption concerning the canal in a January 8, 1906 message to Congress. In January 1909, Roosevelt, in an unprecedented move, brought criminal libel charges against the New York World and the Indianapolis News known as the "Roosevelt-Panama Libel Cases". Both cases were dismissed by U.S. District Courts, and on January 3, 1911, the U.S. Supreme Court, upon federal appeal, upheld the lower courts' rulings. Historians are sharply critical of Roosevelt's criminal prosecutions of the World and the News, but are divided on whether actual corruption in acquiring and building the Panama Canal took place.
In 1906, following a disputed election, an insurrection ensued in Cuba; Roosevelt sent Taft, the Secretary of War, to monitor the situation; he was convinced that he had the authority to unilaterally authorize Taft to deploy Marines if necessary, without congressional approval.
Examining the work of numerous scholars, Ricard (2014) reports that:
The most striking evolution in the twenty-first-century historiography of Theodore Roosevelt is the switch from a partial arraignment of the imperialist to a quasi-unanimous celebration of the master diplomatist.... [Recent works] have underlined cogently Roosevelt's exceptional statesmanship in the construction of the nascent twentieth-century "special relationship". ...The twenty-sixth president's reputation as a brilliant diplomatist and realpolitician has undeniably reached new heights in the twenty-first century...yet, his Philippine policy still prompts criticism.
Media
Building on McKinley's effective use of the press, Roosevelt made the White House the center of news every day, providing interviews and photo opportunities. After noticing the reporters huddled outside the White House in the rain one day, he gave them their own room inside, effectively inventing the presidential press briefing. The grateful press, with unprecedented access to the White House, rewarded Roosevelt with ample coverage.
Roosevelt normally enjoyed very close relationships with the press, which he used to keep in daily contact with his middle-class base. While out of office, he made a living as a writer and magazine editor. He loved talking with intellectuals, authors, and writers. He drew the line, however, at exposé-oriented scandal-mongering journalists who, during his term, sent magazine subscriptions soaring by their attacks on corrupt politicians, mayors, and corporations. Roosevelt himself was not usually a target, but a speech of his from 1906 coined the term "muckraker" for unscrupulous journalists making wild charges. "The liar", he said, "is no whit better than the thief, and if his mendacity takes the form of slander he may be worse than most thieves."
The press did briefly target Roosevelt in one instance. After 1904, he was periodically criticized for the manner in which he facilitated the construction of the Panama Canal. According to biographer Brands, Roosevelt, near the end of his term, demanded that the Justice Department bring charges of criminal libel against Joseph Pulitzer's New York World. The publication had accused him of "deliberate misstatements of fact" in defense of family members who were criticized as a result of the Panama affair. Though an indictment was obtained, the case was ultimately dismissed in federal court—it was not a federal offense, but one enforceable in state courts. The Justice Department had predicted that result, and had also advised Roosevelt accordingly.
Election of 1904
The control and management of the Republican Party lay in the hands of Ohio Senator and Republican Party chairman Mark Hanna until McKinley's death. Roosevelt and Hanna frequently cooperated during Roosevelt's first term, but Hanna left open the possibility of a challenge to Roosevelt for the 1904 Republican nomination. Roosevelt and Ohio's other Senator, Joseph B. Foraker, forced Hanna's hand by calling for Ohio's state Republican convention to endorse Roosevelt for the 1904 nomination. Unwilling to break with the president, Hanna was forced to publicly endorse Roosevelt. Hanna and Pennsylvania Senator Matthew Quay both died in early 1904, and with the waning of Thomas Platt's power, Roosevelt faced little effective opposition for the 1904 nomination. In deference to Hanna's conservative loyalists, Roosevelt at first offered the party chairmanship to Cornelius Bliss, but he declined. Roosevelt turned to his own man, George B. Cortelyou of New York, the first Secretary of Commerce and Labor. To buttress his hold on the party's nomination, Roosevelt made it clear that anyone opposing Cortelyou would be considered to be opposing the President. The President secured his own nomination, but his preferred vice-presidential running mate, Robert R. Hitt, was not nominated. Senator Charles Warren Fairbanks of Indiana, a favorite of conservatives, gained the nomination.
While Roosevelt followed the tradition of incumbents in not actively campaigning on the stump, he sought to control the campaign's message through specific instructions to Cortelyou. He also attempted to manage the press's release of White House statements by forming the Ananias Club. Any journalist who repeated a statement made by the president without approval was penalized by restriction of further access.
The Democratic Party's nominee in 1904 was Alton Brooks Parker. Democratic newspapers charged that Republicans were extorting large campaign contributions from corporations, putting ultimate responsibility on Roosevelt, himself. Roosevelt denied corruption while at the same time he ordered Cortelyou to return $100,000 (equivalent to $ million in ) of a campaign contribution from Standard Oil. Parker said that Roosevelt was accepting corporate donations to keep damaging information from the Bureau of Corporations from going public. Roosevelt strongly denied Parker's charge and responded that he would "go into the Presidency unhampered by any pledge, promise, or understanding of any kind, sort, or description...". Allegations from Parker and the Democrats, however, had little impact on the election, as Roosevelt promised to give every American a "square deal". Roosevelt won 56% of the popular vote, and Parker received 38%; Roosevelt also won the Electoral College vote, 336 to 140. Before his inauguration ceremony, Roosevelt declared that he would not serve another term. Democrats afterwards would continue to charge Roosevelt and the Republicans of being influenced by corporate donations during Roosevelt's second term.
Second term
As his second term progressed, Roosevelt moved to the left of his Republican Party base and called for a series of reforms, most of which Congress failed to pass. In his last year in office, he was assisted by his friend Archibald Butt (who later perished in the sinking of RMS Titanic). Roosevelt's influence waned as he approached the end of his second term, as his promise to forego a third term made him a lame duck and his concentration of power provoked a backlash from many Congressmen. He sought a national incorporation law (at a time when all corporations had state charters), called for a federal income tax (despite the Supreme Court's ruling in Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co.), and an inheritance tax. In the area of labor legislation, Roosevelt called for limits on the use of court injunctions against labor unions during strikes; injunctions were a powerful weapon that mostly helped business. He wanted an employee liability law for industrial injuries (pre-empting state laws) and an eight-hour work day for federal employees. In other areas he also sought a postal savings system (to provide competition for local banks), and he asked for campaign reform laws.
The election of 1904 continued to be a source of contention between Republicans and Democrats. A Congressional investigation in 1905 revealed that corporate executives donated tens of thousands of dollars in 1904 to the Republican National Committee. In 1908, a month before the general presidential election, Governor Charles N. Haskell of Oklahoma, former Democratic Treasurer, said that Senators beholden to Standard Oil lobbied Roosevelt, in the summer of 1904, to authorize the leasing of Indian oil lands by Standard Oil subsidiaries. He said Roosevelt overruled his Secretary of Interior Ethan A. Hitchcock and granted a pipeline franchise to run through the Osage lands to the Prairie Oil and Gas Company. The New York Sun made a similar accusation and said that Standard Oil, a refinery who financially benefited from the pipeline, had contributed $150,000 to the Republicans in 1904 (equivalent to $ million in ) after Roosevelt's alleged reversal allowing the pipeline franchise. Roosevelt branded Haskell's allegation as "a lie, pure and simple" and obtained a denial from Treasury Secretary Shaw that Roosevelt had neither coerced Shaw nor overruled him.
Post-presidency (1909–1919)
Election of 1908
Roosevelt enjoyed being president and was still relatively youthful, but felt that a limited number of terms provided a check against dictatorship. Roosevelt ultimately decided to stick to his 1904 pledge not to run for a third term. He personally favored Secretary of State Elihu Root as his successor, but Root's ill health made him an unsuitable candidate. New York Governor Charles Evans Hughes loomed as a potentially strong candidate and shared Roosevelt's progressivism, but Roosevelt disliked him and considered him to be too independent. Instead, Roosevelt settled on his Secretary of War, William Howard Taft, who had ably served under Presidents Harrison, McKinley, and Roosevelt in various positions. Roosevelt and Taft had been friends since 1890, and Taft had consistently supported President Roosevelt's policies. Roosevelt was determined to install the successor of his choice, and wrote the following to Taft: "Dear Will: Do you want any action about those federal officials? I will break their necks with the utmost cheerfulness if you say the word!". Just weeks later he branded as "false and malicious" the charge that he was using the offices at his disposal to favor Taft. At the 1908 Republican convention, many chanted for "four years more" of a Roosevelt presidency, but Taft won the nomination after Henry Cabot Lodge made it clear that Roosevelt was not interested in a third term.
In the 1908 election, Taft easily defeated the Democratic nominee, three-time candidate William Jennings Bryan. Taft promoted a progressivism that stressed the rule of law; he preferred that judges rather than administrators or politicians make the basic decisions about fairness. Taft usually proved to be a less adroit politician than Roosevelt and lacked the energy and personal magnetism, along with the publicity devices, the dedicated supporters, and the broad base of public support that made Roosevelt so formidable. When Roosevelt realized that lowering the tariff would risk creating severe tensions inside the Republican Party by pitting producers (manufacturers and farmers) against merchants and consumers, he stopped talking about the issue. Taft ignored the risks and tackled the tariff boldly, encouraging reformers to fight for lower rates, and then cutting deals with conservative leaders that kept overall rates high. The resulting Payne-Aldrich tariff of 1909, signed into law early in President Taft's tenure, was too high for most reformers, and Taft's handling of the tariff alienated all sides. While the crisis was building inside the Party, Roosevelt was touring Africa and Europe, to allow Taft to be his own man.
Africa and Europe (1909–1910)
In March 1909, shortly after the end of his presidency, Roosevelt left New York for the Smithsonian-Roosevelt African Expedition, a safari in east and central Africa. Roosevelt's party landed in Mombasa, East Africa (now Kenya) and traveled to the Belgian Congo (now Democratic Republic of the Congo) before following the Nile to Khartoum in modern Sudan. Financed by Andrew Carnegie and by his own writings, Roosevelt's party hunted for specimens for the Smithsonian Institution and for the American Museum of Natural History in New York. The group, led by the hunter-tracker RJ Cunninghame, included scientists from the Smithsonian, and was joined from time to time by Frederick Selous, the famous big game hunter and explorer. Participants on the expedition included Kermit Roosevelt, Edgar Alexander Mearns, Edmund Heller, and John Alden Loring.
Roosevelt and his companions killed or trapped approximately 11,400 animals, from insects and moles to hippopotamuses and elephants. The 1,000 large animals included 512 big game animals, including six rare white rhinos. Tons of salted animals and their skins were shipped to Washington; it took years to mount them all, and the Smithsonian shared many duplicate specimens with other museums. Regarding the large number of animals taken, Roosevelt said, "I can be condemned only if the existence of the National Museum, the American Museum of Natural History, and all similar zoological institutions are to be condemned". He wrote a detailed account of the safari in the book African Game Trails, recounting the excitement of the chase, the people he met, and the flora and fauna he collected in the name of science.
After his safari, Roosevelt traveled north to embark on a tour of Europe. Stopping first in Egypt, he commented favorably on British rule of the region, giving his opinion that Egypt was not yet ready for independence. He refused a meeting with the Pope due to a dispute over a group of Methodists active in Rome, but met with Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, King George V of Great Britain, and other European leaders. In Oslo, Norway, Roosevelt delivered a speech calling for limitations on naval armaments, a strengthening of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, and the creation of a "League of Peace" among the world powers. He also delivered the Romanes Lecture at Oxford, in which he denounced those who sought parallels between the evolution of animal life and the development of society. Though Roosevelt attempted to avoid domestic politics during his time abroad, he met with Gifford Pinchot, who related his own disappointment with the Taft Administration. Pinchot had been forced to resign as head of the forest service after clashing with Taft's Interior Secretary, Richard Ballinger, who had prioritized development over conservation. Roosevelt returned to the United States in June 1910.
Republican Party schism
Roosevelt had attempted to refashion Taft into a second version of himself, but as soon as Taft began to display his individuality, the former president expressed his disenchantment. He was offended on election night when Taft indicated that his success had been possible not just through the efforts of Roosevelt, but also his brother Charley. Roosevelt was further alienated when Taft, intent on becoming his own man, did not consult him about cabinet appointments. Roosevelt and other progressives were ideologically dissatisfied over Taft's conservation policies and his handling of the tariff when he concentrated more power in the hands of conservative party leaders in Congress. Regarding radicalism and liberalism, Roosevelt wrote a British friend in 1911:
Fundamentally it is the radical liberal with whom I sympathize. He is at least working toward the end for which I think we should all of us strive; and when he adds sanity in moderation to courage and enthusiasm for high ideals he develops into the kind of statesman whom alone I can wholeheartedly support."
Roosevelt urged progressives to take control of the Republican Party at the state and local level and to avoid splitting the party in a way that would hand the presidency to the Democrats in 1912. Additionally, Roosevelt expressed optimism about the Taft Administration after meeting with the president in the White House in June 1910.
In August 1910, Roosevelt gained national attention with a speech at Osawatomie, Kansas, which was the most radical of his career and marked his public break with Taft and the conservative Republicans. Advocating a program of "New Nationalism", Roosevelt emphasized the priority of labor over capital interests, a need to more effectively control corporate creation and combination, and proposed a ban on corporate political contributions. Returning to New York, Roosevelt began a battle to take control of the state Republican party from William Barnes Jr., Tom Platt's successor as the state party boss, whom he would later confront in the Barnes vs. Roosevelt Libel Trial. Taft had pledged his support to Roosevelt in this endeavor, and Roosevelt was outraged when Taft's support failed to materialize at the 1910 state convention. Roosevelt nonetheless campaigned for the Republicans in the 1910 elections, in which the Democrats gained control of the House for the first time since the 1890s. Among the newly elected Democrats was New York state senator Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who argued that he represented his distant cousin's policies better than his Republican opponent.
The Republican progressives interpreted the 1910 defeats as a compelling argument for the complete reorganization of the party in 1911. Senator Robert M. La Follette of Wisconsin joined with Pinchot, William White, and California Governor Hiram Johnson to create the National Progressive Republican League; their objectives were to defeat the power of political bossism at the state level and to replace Taft at the national level. Despite skepticism of La Follette's new league, Roosevelt expressed general support for progressive principles. Between January and April 1911, Roosevelt wrote a series of articles for The Outlook, defending what he called "the great movement of our day, the progressive nationalist movement against special privilege, and in favor of an honest and efficient political and industrial democracy". With Roosevelt apparently uninterested in running in 1912, La Follette declared his own candidacy in June 1911. Roosevelt continually criticized Taft after the 1910 elections, and the break between the two men became final after the Justice Department filed an antitrust lawsuit against US Steel in September 1911; Roosevelt was humiliated by this suit because he had personally approved of an acquisition that the Justice Department was now challenging. However, Roosevelt was still unwilling to run against Taft in 1912; he instead hoped to run in 1916 against whichever Democrat beat Taft in 1912.
Dispute over arbitration treaties
Taft was a major advocate of arbitration as a major reform of the Progressive Era. In 1911 Taft and his Secretary of State Philander C. Knox negotiated major treaties with Great Britain and with France providing that differences be arbitrated. Disputes had to be submitted to the Hague Court or other tribunal. These were signed in August 1911 but had to be ratified by a two-thirds vote of the Senate. Neither Taft nor Knox consulted with members of the Senate during the negotiating process. By then many Republicans were opposed to Taft, and the president felt that lobbying too hard for the treaties might cause their defeat. He made some speeches supporting the treaties in October, but the Senate added amendments Taft could not accept, killing the agreements.
The arbitration issue opens a window on a bitter philosophical dispute among American progressives. Some, led by Taft looked to legal arbitration as the best alternative to warfare. Taft was a constitutional lawyer who later became Chief Justice; he had a deep understanding of the legal issues. Taft's political base was the conservative business community that largely supported peace movements before 1914. However, his mistake, in this case, was a failure to mobilize that base. The businessmen believed that economic rivalries were the cause of war, and that extensive trade led to an interdependent world that would make war a very expensive and useless anachronism.
However, an opposing faction of progressives, led by Roosevelt, ridiculed arbitration as foolhardy idealism, and insisted on the realism of warfare as the only solution to serious international disputes. Roosevelt worked with his close friend Senator Henry Cabot Lodge to impose those amendments that ruined the goals of the treaties. Lodge thought the treaties impinged too much on senatorial prerogatives. Roosevelt, however, was acting to sabotage Taft's campaign promises. At a deeper level, Roosevelt truly believed that arbitration was a naïve solution and the great issues had to be decided by warfare. The Rooseveltian approach incorporated a near-mystical faith of the ennobling nature of war. It endorsed jingoistic nationalism as opposed to the businessmen's calculation of profit and national interest.
Election of 1912
Republican primaries and convention
In November 1911, a group of Ohio Republicans endorsed Roosevelt for the party's nomination for president; the endorsers included James R. Garfield and Dan Hanna. This endorsement was made by leaders of President Taft's home state. Roosevelt conspicuously declined to make a statement—requested by Garfield—that he would flatly refuse a nomination. Soon thereafter, Roosevelt said, "I am really sorry for Taft... I am sure he means well, but he means well feebly, and he does not know how! He is utterly unfit for leadership and this is a time when we need leadership." In January 1912, Roosevelt declared "if the people make a draft on me I shall not decline to serve". Later that year, Roosevelt spoke before the Constitutional Convention in Ohio, openly identifying as a progressive and endorsing progressive reforms—even endorsing popular review of state judicial decisions. In reaction to Roosevelt's proposals for popular overrule of court decisions, Taft said, "Such extremists are not progressives—they are political emotionalists or neurotics".
Roosevelt began to envision himself as the savior of the Republican Party from defeat in the upcoming presidential election. In February 1912, Roosevelt announced in Boston, "I will accept the nomination for president if it is tendered to me. I hope that so far as possible the people may be given the chance through direct primaries to express who shall be the nominee. Elihu Root and Henry Cabot Lodge thought that division of the party would lead to its defeat in the next election, while Taft believed that he would be defeated either in the Republican primary or in the general election.
The 1912 primaries represented the first extensive use of the presidential primary, a reform achievement of the progressive movement. The Republican primaries in the South, where party regulars dominated, went for Taft, as did results in New York, Indiana, Michigan, Kentucky and Massachusetts. Meanwhile, Roosevelt won in Illinois, Minnesota, Nebraska, South Dakota, California, Maryland and Pennsylvania; Roosevelt also won Taft's home state of Ohio. These primary elections, while demonstrating Roosevelt's continuing popularity with the electorate, were not pivotal. The final credentials of the state delegates at the national convention were determined by the national committee, which was controlled by the party leaders, headed by the incumbent president.
Prior to the 1912 Republican National Convention in Chicago, Roosevelt expressed doubt about his prospects for victory, noting that Taft had more delegates and control of the credentials committee. His only hope was to convince party leaders that the nomination of Taft would hand the election to the Democrats, but party leaders were determined not to cede their leadership to Roosevelt. The credentials committee awarded almost all contested delegates to Taft, and Taft won the nomination on the first ballot. Black delegates from the South played a key role: they voted heavily for Taft and put him over the top. La Follette also helped Taft's candidacy; he hoped that a deadlocked convention would result in his own nomination, and refused to release his delegates to support Roosevelt.
The Progressive ("Bull Moose") Party
Once his defeat at the Republican convention appeared probable, Roosevelt announced that he would "accept the progressive nomination on a progressive platform and I shall fight to the end, win or lose". At the same time, Roosevelt prophetically said, "My feeling is that the Democrats will probably win if they nominate a progressive".
Roosevelt left the Republican Party and created the Progressive Party, structuring it as a permanent organization that would field complete tickets at the presidential and state level. The party included Roosevelt and key allies such as Pinchot, Cornelia Bryce Pinchot (Pinchot's wife and a longtime friend of Roosevelt's), and Albert Beveridge. The new party was popularly known as the "Bull Moose Party" after Roosevelt told reporters, "I'm as fit as a bull moose". At the 1912 Progressive National Convention, Roosevelt cried out, "We stand at Armageddon and we battle for the Lord." California Governor Hiram Johnson was nominated as Roosevelt's running mate. Roosevelt's platform echoed his 1907–1908 proposals, calling for vigorous government intervention to protect the people from selfish interests:
Though many Progressive party supporters in the North were supporters of civil rights for blacks, Roosevelt did not give strong support to civil rights and ran a "lily-white" campaign in the South. Rival all-white and all-black delegations from four southern states arrived at the Progressive national convention, and Roosevelt decided to seat the all-white delegations. Nevertheless, he won little support outside mountain Republican strongholds. Out of nearly 1100 counties in the South, Roosevelt won two counties in Alabama, one in Arkansas, seven in North Carolina, three in Georgia, 17 in Tennessee, two in Texas, one in Virginia, and none in Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, or South Carolina.
Assassination attempt
On October 14, 1912, while arriving at a campaign event in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Roosevelt was shot from seven feet away in front of the Gilpatrick Hotel by a delusional saloonkeeper named John Flammang Schrank, who believed that the ghost of assassinated president William McKinley had directed him to kill Roosevelt. The bullet lodged in his chest after penetrating his steel eyeglass case and passing through a 50-page-thick single-folded copy of the speech titled "Progressive Cause Greater Than Any Individual", which he was carrying in his jacket. Schrank was immediately disarmed (by Czech immigrant Frank Bukovsky), captured, and might have been lynched had Roosevelt not shouted for Schrank to remain unharmed. Roosevelt assured the crowd he was all right, then ordered police to take charge of Schrank and to make sure no violence was done to him.
As an experienced hunter and anatomist, Roosevelt correctly concluded that since he was not coughing blood, the bullet had not reached his lung. He declined suggestions to go to the hospital immediately and instead delivered a 90 minute speech with blood seeping into his shirt. His opening comments to the gathered crowd were, "Ladies and gentlemen, I don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot, but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose." Only after finishing his address did he accept medical attention.
Subsequent probes and an x-ray showed that the bullet had lodged in Roosevelt's chest muscle, but did not penetrate the pleura. Doctors concluded that it would be less dangerous to leave it in place than to attempt to remove it, and Roosevelt carried the bullet with him for the rest of his life. Both Taft and Democratic nominee Woodrow Wilson suspended their own campaigning until Roosevelt recovered and resumed his. When asked if the shooting would affect his election campaign, he said to the reporter "I'm fit as a bull moose." The bull moose became a symbol of both Roosevelt and the Progressive Party, and it often was referred to as simply the Bull Moose Party. He spent two weeks recuperating before returning to the campaign trail. He later wrote a friend about the bullet inside him, "I do not mind it any more than if it were in my waistcoat pocket."
Farewell manifesto
On October 20, Roosevelt spoke to a crowd of 16,000 at Madison Square Garden. The speech included: "Perhaps once in a generation, there comes a chance for the people of a country to play their part wisely and fearlessly in some great battle of the age-long warfare for human rights."
Election results
After the Democrats nominated Governor Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey, Roosevelt did not expect to win the general election, as Wilson had compiled a record attractive to many progressive Democrats who might have otherwise considered voting for Roosevelt. Roosevelt still campaigned vigorously, and the election developed into a two-person contest between Wilson and Roosevelt despite Taft's presence in the race. Roosevelt respected Wilson, but the two differed on various issues; Wilson opposed any federal intervention regarding women's suffrage or child labor (he viewed these as state issues), and attacked Roosevelt's tolerance of large businesses.
Roosevelt won 4.1 million votes (27%), compared to Taft's 3.5 million (23%). Wilson gained 6.3 million votes (42% of the total) and a massive landslide in the Electoral College, with 435 electoral votes; Roosevelt won 88 electoral votes, while Taft won 8. Pennsylvania was the only eastern state won by Roosevelt; in the Midwest, he carried Michigan, Minnesota, and South Dakota; in the West, California, and Washington. Wilson's victory represented the first Democratic presidential election victory since Cleveland's 1892 campaign, and it was the party's best performance in the Electoral College since 1852. Roosevelt, meanwhile, garnered a higher share of the popular vote than any other third-party presidential candidate in history and won the most states of any third-party candidate after the Civil War.
South American expedition (1913-1914)
A friend of Roosevelt's, Father John Augustine Zahm, persuaded Roosevelt to participate in an expedition to South America. To finance the expedition, Roosevelt received support from the American Museum of Natural History in return for promising to bring back many new animal specimens. Roosevelt's popular book, Through the Brazilian Wilderness describes his expedition into the Brazilian jungle in 1913 as a member of the Roosevelt-Rondon Scientific Expedition, co-named after its leader, Brazilian explorer Cândido Rondon.
Once in South America, a new, far more ambitious goal was added: to find the headwaters of the Rio da Duvida (Portuguese for "River of Doubt"), and trace it north to the Madeira and thence to the Amazon River. It was later renamed Roosevelt River in honor of the former president. Roosevelt's crew consisted of his son Kermit, Colonel Rondon, naturalist George Kruck Cherrie (sent by the American Museum of Natural History), Brazilian Lieutenant João Lira, team physician Dr. José Antonio Cajazeira, and 16 skilled paddlers and porters. Roosevelt also identified Leo Miller (another AMNH recommendation), Anthony Fiala, Frank Harper, and Jacob Sigg as crew members. The initial expedition started somewhat tenuously on December 9, 1913, at the height of the rainy season. The trip down the River of Doubt started on February 27, 1914.
During the trip down the river, Roosevelt suffered a minor leg wound after he jumped into the river to try to prevent two canoes from smashing against the rocks. The flesh wound he received, however, soon gave him tropical fever that resembled the malaria he had contracted while in Cuba fifteen years before. Because the bullet lodged in his chest from the assassination attempt in 1912 was never removed, his health worsened from the infection. This weakened Roosevelt so greatly that six weeks into the adventure, he had to be attended to day and night by the expedition's physician and his son Kermit. By then, he could not walk because of the infection in his injured leg and an infirmity in the other, which was due to a traffic accident a decade earlier. Roosevelt was riddled with chest pains, fighting a fever that soared to and at times made him delirious, at one point constantly reciting the first two lines of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem "Kubla Khan": "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan / A stately pleasure dome decree". Regarding his condition as a threat to the survival of the others, Roosevelt insisted he be left behind to allow the poorly provisioned expedition to proceed as rapidly as it could, preparing to commit suicide with an overdose of morphine. Only an appeal by his son persuaded him to continue.
Despite Roosevelt's continued decline and loss of over , Colonel Rondon reduced the pace of the expedition to allow for his commission's mapmaking and other geographical tasks, which required regular stops to fix the expedition's position by sun-based survey. Upon Roosevelt's return to New York, friends and family were startled by his physical appearance and fatigue. Roosevelt wrote, perhaps prophetically, to a friend that the trip had cut his life short by ten years. For the rest of his few remaining years, he would be plagued by flare-ups of malaria and leg inflammations so severe as to require surgery. Before Roosevelt had even completed his sea voyage home, critics raised doubts over his claims of exploring and navigating a completely uncharted river over long. When he had recovered sufficiently, he addressed a standing-room-only convention organized in Washington, D.C., by the National Geographic Society and satisfactorily defended his claims.
Final years
Roosevelt returned to the United States in May 1914. Though he was outraged by the Wilson Administration's conclusion of a treaty that expressed "sincere regret" for the way in which the United States had acquired the Panama Canal Zone, he was impressed by many of the reforms passed under Wilson. Roosevelt made several campaign appearances for the Progressives, but the 1914 elections were a disaster for the fledgling third party. Roosevelt began to envision another campaign for president, this time with himself at the head of the Republican Party, but conservative party leaders remained opposed to Roosevelt. In hopes of engineering a joint nomination, the Progressives scheduled the 1916 Progressive National Convention at the same time as the 1916 Republican National Convention. When the Republicans nominated Charles Evans Hughes, Roosevelt declined the Progressive nomination and urged his Progressive followers to support the Republican candidate. Though Roosevelt had long disliked Hughes, he disliked Wilson even more, and he campaigned energetically for the Republican nominee. However, Wilson won the 1916 election by a narrow margin. The Progressives disappeared as a party following the 1916 election, and Roosevelt and many of his followers permanently re-joined the Republican Party.
World War I
When the First World War began in 1914, Roosevelt strongly supported the Allies and demanded a harsher policy against Germany, especially regarding submarine warfare. Roosevelt angrily denounced the foreign policy of President Wilson, calling it a failure regarding the atrocities in Belgium and the violations of American rights. In 1916, while campaigning for Hughes, Roosevelt repeatedly denounced Irish-Americans and German-Americans whom he described as unpatriotic, saying they put the interests of Ireland and Germany ahead of America's by supporting neutrality. He insisted that one had to be 100% American, not a "hyphenated American" who juggled multiple loyalties. In March 1917, Congress gave Roosevelt the authority to raise a maximum of four divisions similar to the Rough Riders, and Major Frederick Russell Burnham was put in charge of both the general organization and recruitment. However, President Wilson announced to the press that he would not send Roosevelt and his volunteers to France, but instead would send an American Expeditionary Force under the command of General John J. Pershing. Roosevelt never forgave Wilson, and quickly published The Foes of Our Own Household, an indictment of the sitting president. Roosevelt's youngest son, Quentin, a pilot with the American forces in France, was killed when shot down behind German lines on July 14, 1918, at the age of 20. It is said that Quentin's death distressed Roosevelt so much that he never recovered from his loss.
League of Nations
Roosevelt was an early supporter of the modern view that there needs to be a global order. In his Nobel prize address of 1910, he said, "it would be a master stroke if those great Powers honestly bent on peace would form a League of Peace, not only to keep the peace among themselves, but to prevent, by force if necessary, its being broken by others." It would have executive power such as the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 lacked. He called for American participation.
When World War I broke out, Roosevelt proposed "a World League for the Peace of Righteousness", in September 1914, which would preserve sovereignty but limit armaments and require arbitration. He added that it should be "solemnly covenanted that if any nations refused to abide by the decisions of such a court, then others draw the sword in behalf of peace and justice." In 1915 he outlined this plan more specifically, urging that nations guarantee their entire military force, if necessary, against any nation that refused to carry out arbitration decrees or violated rights of other nations. Though Roosevelt had some concerns about the impact on United States sovereignty, he insisted that such a league would only work if the United States participated as one of the "joint guarantors". Roosevelt referred to this plan in a 1918 speech as "the most feasible for...a league of nations." By this time Wilson was strongly hostile to Roosevelt and Lodge, and developed his own plans for a rather different League of Nations. It became reality along Wilson's lines at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. Roosevelt denounced Wilson's approach but died before it was adopted at Paris. However, Lodge was willing to accept it with serious reservations. In the end, on March 19, 1920, Wilson had Democratic Senators vote against the League with the Lodge Reservations and the United States never joined the League of Nations.
Final political activities
Roosevelt's attacks on Wilson helped the Republicans win control of Congress in the midterm elections of 1918. He declined a request from New York Republicans to run for another gubernatorial term, but attacked Wilson's Fourteen Points, calling instead for the unconditional surrender of Germany. Though his health was uncertain, he was seen as a leading contender for the 1920 Republican nomination, but insisted that, "If they take me, they'll have to take me without a single modification of the things that I have always stood for! He wrote William Allen White, "I wish to do everything in my power to make the Republican Party the Party of sane, constructive radicalism, just as it was under Lincoln." Accordingly, he told the 1918 state convention of the Maine Republican Party that he stood for old-age pensions, insurance for sickness and unemployment, construction of public housing for low-income families, the reduction of working hours, aid to farmers, and more regulation of large corporations.
While his political profile remained high, Roosevelt's physical condition continued to deteriorate throughout 1918 due to the long-term effects of jungle diseases. He was hospitalized for seven weeks late in the year and never fully recovered.
Death
On the night of January 5, 1919, Roosevelt suffered breathing problems. After receiving treatment from his physician, Dr. George W. Faller, he felt better and went to bed. Roosevelt's last words were "Please put out that light, James" to his family servant James E. Amos. Between 4:00 and 4:15 the next morning, Roosevelt, at the age of 60, died in his sleep at Sagamore Hill after a blood clot detached from a vein and traveled to his lungs.
Upon receiving word of his death, his son Archibald telegraphed his siblings: "The old lion is dead." Woodrow Wilson's vice president, Thomas R. Marshall, said that "Death had to take Roosevelt sleeping, for if he had been awake, there would have been a fight." Following a private farewell service in the North Room at Sagamore Hill, a simple funeral was held at Christ Episcopal Church in Oyster Bay. Vice President Thomas R. Marshall, Charles Evans Hughes, Warren G. Harding, Henry Cabot Lodge, and William Howard Taft were among the mourners. The snow-covered procession route to Youngs Memorial Cemetery was lined with spectators and a squad of mounted policemen who had ridden from New York City. Roosevelt was buried on a hillside overlooking Oyster Bay.
Writer
Roosevelt was a prolific author, writing with passion on subjects ranging from foreign policy to the importance of the national park system. Roosevelt was also an avid reader of poetry. Poet Robert Frost said that Roosevelt "was our kind. He quoted poetry to me. He knew poetry."
As an editor of Outlook magazine, Roosevelt had weekly access to a large, educated national audience. In all, Roosevelt wrote about 18 books (each in several editions), including his autobiography, The Rough Riders, History of the Naval War of 1812, and others on subjects such as ranching, explorations, and wildlife. His most ambitious book was the four volume narrative The Winning of the West, focused on the American frontier in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Roosevelt said that the American character—indeed a new "American race" (ethnic group) had emerged from the heroic wilderness hunters and Indian fighters, acting on the frontier with little government help. Roosevelt also published an account of his 1909–10 African expedition entitled African Game Trails.
In 1907, Roosevelt became embroiled in a widely publicized literary debate known as the nature fakers controversy. A few years earlier, naturalist John Burroughs had published an article entitled "Real and Sham Natural History" in the Atlantic Monthly, attacking popular writers of the day such as Ernest Thompson Seton, Charles G. D. Roberts, and William J. Long for their fantastical representations of wildlife. Roosevelt agreed with Burroughs's criticisms, and published several essays of his own denouncing the booming genre of "naturalistic" animal stories as "yellow journalism of the woods". It was the President himself who popularized the negative term "nature faker" to describe writers who depicted their animal characters with excessive anthropomorphism.
Character and beliefs
Roosevelt intensely disliked being called "Teddy", despite the widespread public association with said moniker, and was quick to point out this to those who referred to him as such, though it would become widely used by newspapers during his political career.
He was an active Freemason and member of the Sons of the American Revolution.
British scholar Marcus Cunliffe evaluates the liberal argument that Roosevelt was an opportunist, exhibitionist, and imperialist. Cunliffe praises TR's versatility, his respect for law, and his sincerity. He argues that Roosevelt's foreign policy was better than his detractors allege. Cunliffe calls him "a big man in several respects," ranking him below Washington, Lincoln, and Jefferson, and on the same level as Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Strenuous life
Roosevelt had a lifelong interest in pursuing what he called, in an 1899 speech, "The Strenuous Life". To this end, he exercised regularly and took up boxing, tennis, hiking, rowing, polo, and horseback riding. He also continued his habit of skinny-dipping in the Potomac River during the winter. As governor of New York, he boxed with sparring partners several times each week, a practice he regularly continued as president until being hit so hard in the face he became blind in his left eye (a fact not made public until many years later). As president, he practiced judo for two 2-month periods in 1902 and 1904, not attaining any rank. Roosevelt began to believe in the utility of jiu-jitsu training after training with Yoshitsugu Yamashita. Concerned that the United States would lose its military supremacy to rising powers like Japan, Roosevelt began to advocate for jiu-jitsu training for American soldiers. Feminists annoyed by the posturing of men like Roosevelt, insisted that women were just as capable of learning jiu-jitsu. To prove their point, Martha Blow Wadsworth and Maria Louise ("Hallie") Davis Elkins hired Fude Yamashita, a highly skilled jiu-jitsu instructor and the wife of Yoshitsugu Yamashita, to teach a jiu-jitsu class for women and girls in Washington, DC in 1904. Women had already begun training in boxing in the United States as a means of personal and political empowerment. Jiu-jitsu training thus soon also became popular with American women, coinciding with the origins of a women's self-defense movement.
Roosevelt was an enthusiastic singlestick player and, according to Harper's Weekly, showed up at a White House reception with his arm bandaged after a bout with General Leonard Wood in 1905. Roosevelt was an avid reader, reading tens of thousands of books, at a rate of several per day in multiple languages. Along with Thomas Jefferson, Roosevelt was the most well-read of all American presidents.
Warrior
Historians have often emphasized Roosevelt's warrior persona. He took aggressive positions regarding war with Spain in 1898, Colombia in 1903, and especially with Germany, from 1915 to 1917. As a demonstration of American naval might, he sent the "Great White Fleet" around the world in 1907–1909. The implicit threat of the "big stick" of military power provided leverage to "speak softly" and quietly resolve conflict in numerous cases. He boasted in his autobiography:
Richard D. White Jr states, "Roosevelt's warrior spirit framed his views of national politics, [and] international relations."
Historian Howard K. Beale has argued:
Religion
Roosevelt attended church regularly and was a lifelong adherent of the Reformed Church in America, an American affiliate of the Dutch Reformed Church. In 1907, concerning the motto "In God We Trust" on money, he wrote, "It seems to me eminently unwise to cheapen such a motto by use on coins, just as it would be to cheapen it by use on postage stamps, or in advertisements." Roosevelt talked a great deal about religion. Biographer Edmund Morris states:
Roosevelt publicly encouraged church attendance and was a conscientious churchgoer himself. When gas rationing was introduced during the First World War, he walked the three miles from his home at Sagamore Hill to the local church and back, even after a serious operation had made it difficult for him to travel by foot. It was said that Roosevelt "allowed no engagement to keep him from going to church," and he remained a fervent advocate of the Bible throughout his adult life. According to Christian F. Reisner, writing in 1922 shortly after Roosevelt's death, "Religion was as natural to Mr. Roosevelt as breathing," and when the travel library for Roosevelt's famous Smithsonian-sponsored African expedition was being assembled, the Bible was, according to his sister, "the first book selected." In an address delivered in his home at Oyster Bay to the Long Island Bible Society in 1901, Roosevelt declared that:
Political positions
When he assumed the presidency, Roosevelt reassured many conservatives, stating, "the mechanism of modern business is so delicate that extreme care must be taken not to interfere with it in a spirit of rashness or ignorance." The following year, Roosevelt asserted the president's independence from business interests by opposing the merger which created the Northern Securities Company, and many were surprised that any president, much less an unelected one, would challenge powerful banker J.P. Morgan. In his last two years as president, Roosevelt became increasingly distrustful of big business, despite its close ties to the Republican Party. Roosevelt sought to replace the 19th-century laissez-faire economic environment with a new economic model which included a larger regulatory role for the federal government. He believed that 19th-century entrepreneurs had risked their fortunes on innovations and new businesses, and that these capitalists had been rightly rewarded. By contrast, he believed that 20th-century capitalists risked little but nonetheless reaped huge and, given the lack of risk, unjust, economic rewards. Without a redistribution of wealth away from the upper class, Roosevelt feared that the country would turn to radicals or fall to revolution. His Square Deal domestic program had three main goals: conservation of natural resources, control of corporations, and consumer protection. The Square Deal evolved into his program of "New Nationalism", which emphasized the priority of labor over capital interests and a need to more effectively control corporate creation and combination, and proposed a ban on corporate political contributions.
Foreign policy beliefs
In the analysis by Henry Kissinger, Theodore Roosevelt was the first president to develop the guideline that it was America's duty to make its enormous power and potential influence felt globally. The idea of being a passive "city on the hill" model that others could look up to, he rejected. Roosevelt, trained in biology, was a social darwinist who believed in survival of the fittest. The international world in his view was a realm of violence and conflict. The United States had all the economic and geographical potential to be the fittest nation on the globe. The United States had a duty to act decisively. For example, in terms of the Monroe Doctrine, America had to prevent European incursions in the Western Hemisphere. But there was more, as he expressed in his famous Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine: the U.S. had to be the policeman of the region because unruly, corrupt smaller nations had to be controlled, and if United States did not do it, European powers would in fact intervene and develop their own base of power in the hemisphere in contravention to the Monroe Doctrine.
Roosevelt was a realist and a conservative. He deplored many of the increasingly popular idealistic liberal themes, such as were promoted by William Jennings Bryan, the anti-imperialists, and Woodrow Wilson. Kissinger says he rejected the efficacy of international law. Roosevelt argue that if a country could not protect its own interests, the international community could not help very much. He ridiculed disarmament proposals that were increasingly common. He saw no likelihood of an international power capable of checking wrongdoing on a major scale. As for world government: I regard the Wilson–Bryan attitude of trusting to fantastic peace treaties, too impossible promises, to all kinds of scraps of paper without any backing in efficient force, as abhorrent. It is infinitely better for a nation and for the world to have the Frederick the Great and Bismarck tradition as regards foreign policy than to have the Bryan or Bryan–Wilson attitude as a permanent national attitude.... A milk-and-water righteousness unbacked by force is...as wicked as and even more mischievous than force divorced from righteousness.
On the positive side, Roosevelt favored spheres of influence, whereby one great power would generally prevail, such as the United States in the Western Hemisphere or Great Britain in the Indian subcontinent. Japan fit that role and he approved. However he had deep distrust of both Germany and Russia.
Legacy
Historians credit Roosevelt for changing the nation's political system by permanently placing the "bully pulpit" of the presidency at center stage and making character as important as the issues. His accomplishments include trust busting and conservationism. He is a hero to liberals and progressives for his proposals in 1907–1912 that presaged the modern welfare state of the New Deal Era, including direct federal taxation, labor reforms, and more direct democracy, while conservationists admire Roosevelt for putting the environment and selflessness towards future generations on the national agenda, and conservatives and nationalists respect his commitment to law and order, civic duty and military values, as well as his personality of individual self-responsibility and hardiness. Dalton says, "Today he is heralded as the architect of the modern presidency, as a world leader who boldly reshaped the office to meet the needs of the new century and redefined America's place in the world."
However, liberals and socialists have criticized him for his interventionist and imperialist approach to nations he considered "uncivilized". Conservatives and libertarians reject his vision of the welfare state and emphasis on the superiority of government over private action. Historians typically rank Roosevelt among the top five presidents in American history.
Persona and masculinity
Dalton says Roosevelt is remembered as, "one of the most picturesque personalities who has ever enlivened the landscape". His friend, historian Henry Adams, proclaimed: "Roosevelt, more than any other man... showed the singular primitive quality that belongs to ultimate matter—the quality that medieval theology assigned to God—he was pure act."
Roosevelt's biographers have stressed his personality. Henry F. Pringle, who won the Pulitzer Prize in biography for his Theodore Roosevelt (1931) stated: "The Theodore Roosevelt of later years was the most adolescent of men… Failure to receive the Medal of Honor for his exploits [in Cuba] had been a grief as real as any of those which swamp childhood in despair. 'You must always remember,' wrote Cecil Spring Rice in 1904, 'that the President is about six.'"
Cooper compared him with Woodrow Wilson and argued that both of them played the roles of warrior and priest. Dalton stressed Roosevelt's strenuous life. Sarah Watts examined the desires of the "Rough Rider in the White House". Brands calls Roosevelt "the last romantic", arguing that his romantic concept of life emerged from his belief that "physical bravery was the highest virtue and war the ultimate test of bravery".
Roosevelt as the exemplar of American masculinity has become a major theme. As president, he repeatedly warned men that they were becoming too office-bound, too complacent, too comfortable with physical ease and moral laxity, and were failing in their duties to propagate the race and exhibit masculine vigor. French historian Serge Ricard says, "the ebullient apostle of the Strenuous Life offers ideal material for a detailed psycho-historical analysis of aggressive manhood in the changing socio-cultural environment of his era; McKinley, Taft, or Wilson would perhaps inadequately serve that purpose". He promoted competitive sports like boxing and jiu-jitsu for physically strengthening American men. He also believed that organizations like the Boy Scouts of America, founded in 1910, could help mold and strengthen the character of American boys. Brands shows that heroic displays of bravery were essential to Roosevelt's image and mission:
Memorials and cultural depictions
Roosevelt was included with Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln at the Mount Rushmore Memorial, designed in 1927 with the approval of Republican President Calvin Coolidge.
For his gallantry at San Juan Hill, Roosevelt's commanders recommended him for the Medal of Honor. However, the initial recommendation lacked any eyewitnesses, and the effort was eventually tainted by Roosevelt's own lobbying of the War Department. In the late 1990s, Roosevelt's supporters again recommended the award, which was denied by the Secretary of the Army on basis that the decorations board determined "Roosevelt's bravery in battle did not rise to the level that would justify the Medal of Honor and, indeed, it did not rise to the level of men who fought in that engagement." Nevertheless, politicians apparently convinced the secretary to reconsider the award a third time and reverse himself, leading to the charge that it was a "politically motivated award." On January 16, 2001, President Bill Clinton awarded Theodore Roosevelt the Medal of Honor posthumously for his charge on San Juan Hill. He is the only president to have received the Medal of Honor.
The United States Navy named two ships for Roosevelt: the , a submarine that was in commission from 1961 to 1982, and the , an aircraft carrier that has been on active duty in the Atlantic Fleet since 1986.
On November 18, 1956, the United States Postal Service released a 6¢ Liberty Issue postage stamp honoring Roosevelt. A 32¢ stamp was issued on February 3, 1998, as part of the Celebrate the Century stamp sheet series. In 2008, Columbia Law School awarded Roosevelt a Juris Doctor degree, posthumously making him a member of the class of 1882.
Roosevelt's "Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick" ideology is still quoted by politicians and columnists in different countries—not only in English, but also in translations to various other languages. Another lasting, popular legacy of Roosevelt is the stuffed toy bears—teddy bears—named after him following an incident on a hunting trip in Mississippi in 1902. Roosevelt has been portrayed in films and television series such as Brighty of the Grand Canyon, The Wind and the Lion, Rough Riders, My Friend Flicka, and Law of the Plainsman. Robin Williams portrayed Roosevelt in the form of a wax mannequin that comes to life in Night at the Museum and its sequels Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian and Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb. In 2017, it was announced that Leonardo DiCaprio will portray Roosevelt in a biopic to be directed by Martin Scorsese.
Moreover, Theodore Roosevelt National Park in the state of North Dakota is named after him. The America the Beautiful Quarters series features Roosevelt riding a horse on the national park's quarter.
Asteroid 188693 Roosevelt, discovered by astronomers with the Catalina Sky Survey in 2005, was named after him. The official was published by the Minor Planet Center on November 8, 2019 ().
In January 2022, after years of lobbying by activists, an equestrian statue of the former president was removed from where it had stood for more than eighty years in front of New York's American Museum of Natural History. Responding to controversy, the museum noted that the design "communicates a racial hierarchy that the museum and members of the public have long found disturbing."
Audiovisual media
Theodore Roosevelt was one of the first presidents whose voice was recorded for posterity. Several of his recorded speeches survive. A 4.6-minute voice recording, which preserves Roosevelt's lower timbre ranges particularly well for its time, is among those available from the Michigan State University libraries (this is the 1912 recording of The Right of the People to Rule, recorded by Edison at Carnegie Hall). The audio clip sponsored by the Authentic History Center includes his defense of the Progressive Party in 1912, wherein he proclaims it the "party of the people" – in contrast with the other major parties.
Roosevelt goes for a ride in Arch Hoxsey's plane in October 1910
In popular culture
Theodore Roosevelt appears as the leader of the American civilization in the Firaxis Games title Civilization VI. His unique ability is Roosevelt Corollary, which gives +5 Combat Strength for all units inside America's home continent, and +1 Appeal to all tiles in cities with a national park.
See also
Notes
References
Bibliography
Full biographies
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, 105 pp, very short biography by leading scholar.
.; also titled Power and responsibility; the life and times of Theodore Roosevelt online free to borrow
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, only volume published, to age 28.
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Personality and activities
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Provides a lesson plan on TR as the historical figure who most exemplifies the quality of masculinity.
. Chronicles the events of TR's presidency during the summers of his two terms.
. The president's use of publicity, rhetoric and force of personality.
; his deadly 1913–14 trip to the Amazon.
, best seller; to 1886.
, to 1884.
. 494 pp.
, examines TR and his family during the World War I period.
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, 240 pp. TR in Africa & Europe, 1909–10
. 289 pp.
, 337 pp; TR's political thought and its significance for republican self-government.
Domestic policies
online review; another online review
Cutright, P.R. (1985) Theodore Roosevelt: The making of a Modern Conservationist (U of Illinois Press.)
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, standard history of his domestic and foreign policy as president.
Bakari, Mohamed El-Kamel. "Mapping the 'Anthropocentric-ecocentric'Dualism in the History of American Presidency: The Good, the Bad, and the Ambivalent." Journal of Studies in Social Sciences 14, no. 2 (2016).
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Redekop, Benjamin. (2015). "Embodying the Story: The Conservation Leadership of Theodore Roosevelt". Leadership (2015) DOI:10.1177/1742715014546875 online
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Politics
. How TR did politics.
, 323 pp.
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. 361 pp.
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. Focus on 1912; online free
. online free
. Attacks TR policies from conservative/libertarian perspective.
Foreign policy, military and naval issues
. online
. excerpt
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. 328 pp.
Kuehn, John T. "Theodore Roosevelt’s Naval Diplomacy: The U.S. Navy and the Birth of the American Century," Naval War College Review (2010) 53#3 online
Livermore, Seward W. "Theodore Roosevelt, the American Navy, and the Venezuelan Crisis of 1902-1903." American Historical Review 51.3 (1946): 452–471. online
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Nester, William R. Theodore Roosevelt and the Art of American Power: An American for All Time. Rowman & Littlefield, 2019. excerpt
Neu, Charles E. "Theodore Roosevelt and American Involvement in the Far East, 1901-1909." Pacific Historical Review 35.4 (1966): 433–449. online
O'Gara, Gordon Carpenter. Theodore Roosevelt and the Rise of the Modern Navy. (Princeton UP, 1943). online
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Oyos, Matthew M. In Command: Theodore Roosevelt and the American Military (2018) online review
Pietrusza, David (2018). TR's Last War: Theodore Roosevelt, the Great War, and a Journey of Triumph and Tragedy
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Thompson, John M. Great Power Rising: Theodore Roosevelt and the Politics of US Foreign Policy (Oxford UP, 2019).
. 196 pp.
Turk, Richard W. The Ambiguous Relationship: Theodore Roosevelt and Alfred Thayer Mahan (1987) [https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article-abstract/93/5/1413/70734 online review
Historiography
Cunliffe, Marcus. "Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States 1901–1908" History Today (Sept 1955) 4#9 pp. 592–601, online.
Ricard, Serge. "The State of Theodore Roosevelt Studies" H-Diplo Essay No. 116 24 October 2014 online
, excerpt and text search, 28 new essays by scholars; focus on historiography. online
Primary sources
Kohn, Edward P., ed. A Most Glorious Ride: The Diaries of Theodore Roosevelt, 1877–1886 (State University of New York Press, 2015), 284 pp.
; vol 2
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, 20 vol.; 18,000 pages containing most of TR's speeches, books and essays, but not his letters; a CD-ROM edition is available; some of TR's books are available online through Project Bartleby
, Roosevelt's opinions on many issues; online version at Theodore Roosevelt.
, 8 vols. Very large collection. vol 1 1868–1898 online free
. online free
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online free to borrow
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External links
Official
White House biography
Organizations
Boone and Crockett Club
Theodore Roosevelt Association
Libraries and collections
Theodore Roosevelt Center at Dickinson State University
Theodore Roosevelt Collection, at the Houghton Library, Harvard University
Julian L. Street Papers on Theodore Roosevelt, at the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library, Princeton University
Doris A. and Lawrence H. Budner Collection on Theodore Roosevelt at the DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University
Theodore Roosevelt's journalism at The Archive of American Journalism
Theodore Roosevelt American Museum of Natural History
Roosevelt Papers, at the Library of Congress
Guide to the Herbert R. Strauss Collection of Theodore Roosevelt Papers 1884–1919 at the University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center
Media
"Life Portrait of Theodore Roosevelt", from C-SPAN's American Presidents: Life Portraits, September 3, 1999
"Writings of Theodore Roosevelt" from C-SPAN's American Writers: A Journey Through History
Other
Almanac of Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt: A Resource Guide – Library of Congress
1858 births
1919 deaths
1900s in the United States
Theodore
19th-century American politicians
19th-century American historians
19th-century American male writers
20th-century American non-fiction writers
20th-century presidents of the United States
20th-century vice presidents of the United States
American autobiographers
American conservationists
American essayists
American explorers
American fishers
American hunters
American male judoka
American male non-fiction writers
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American naval historians
American Nobel laureates
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Articles containing video clips
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20th-century American male writers | false | [
"Theodore Roosevelt IV (June 14, 1914 – May 2, 2001), commonly known as Theodore Roosevelt III, was an American banker, government official, veteran of World War II, and a grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt through his father, Brig. Gen. Theodore Roosevelt Jr., a politician and World War II military leader, and Eleanor Butler Alexander. His name suffix varies since President Roosevelt's father was Theodore Roosevelt Sr., though the same-named son did not commonly use a \"Jr\" name suffix.\n\nEarly life\n\nRoosevelt was born on June 14, 1914 in New York City. He was the second born and the last surviving of four children to Theodore Jr./III and Eleanor Butler Alexander. Theodore had an older sister, Grace Green Roosevelt, who married William McMillan, and two younger brothers, Cornelius Van Schaack Roosevelt III and Quentin Roosevelt II. Following his father, Ted, and paternal grandfather, T. R., Theodore went to Groton School and graduated from Harvard in 1936, where he was a member of the Hasty Pudding Theatricals and the Owl Club. While at Harvard, Roosevelt played for the Harvard Crimson men's soccer team, and was named a second-team All American in 1934.\n\nWhen his grandfather, President Theodore \"T. R.\" Roosevelt Jr., died in 1919, his father took on the \"Junior\" last name suffix. As a result, he was known as Theodore, III rather than Theodore IV. As an Oyster Bay Roosevelt, Ted was a descendant of the Schuyler family. His maternal grandparents are Henry Addison Alexander and Grace Green.\n\nCareer\nAfter graduating from Harvard, Roosevelt worked for the DuPont company from 1936 to 1941.\n\nService in World War II\nFollowing the Roosevelt tradition of military service during times of national emergency, during World War II, Roosevelt volunteered as a Navy pilot, serving as a flag lieutenant (i.e. an aide to an admiral) in the Pacific theater. For his service as a naval aviator, Theodore was awarded the Air Medal. He was promoted to lieutenant on April 1, 1944 and left the Navy as a lieutenant commander.\n\nPost-war life\n\nUpon his return from the Pacific Theater, Theodore joined the Philadelphia brokerage firm of Montgomery, Scott, becoming a partner in 1952. Appointed by Governor James Duff, Ted served as Secretary of Commerce of Pennsylvania from 1949 to 1951.\n\nFor many years, he was president of the Competitive Enterprise System, Inc., a nonprofit organization that promoted free markets in the United States. Roosevelt was a trustee of the Theodore Roosevelt Association (TRA) for many years and a generous supporter of the organization. In recent years, he attended TRA Police Awards ceremonies in Boston and Philadelphia as well as TRA annual meetings in Boston and Norfolk, VA. He was an honorary plank owner in the USS Theodore Roosevelt, and a strong supporter of the efforts to preserve the Pine Knot site in Virginia, his grandparents' presidential retreat.\n\nPersonal life\nOn February 3, 1940, Roosevelt married Anne Mason Babcock (December 3, 1917 — January 29, 2001), daughter of George Wheeler Babcock (May 12, 1879 — November 21, 1950) and Anne Mason Bonnycastle Robinson (January 10, 1886 — February 4, 1923). They had one son:\nTheodore Roosevelt IV (born 1942).\nRoosevelt died on May 2, 2001 in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. He and his wife are buried near Somesville, Maine.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1914 births\n2001 deaths\nHarvard University alumni\nTheodore\nUnited States Navy personnel of World War II\nAmerican people of Dutch descent\nAmerican people of English descent\nAmerican people of French descent\nAmerican people of Scottish descent\nAmerican people of Welsh descent\nRecipients of the Air Medal\nBusinesspeople from New York City\nBurials in Maine\nBulloch family\nSchuyler family\nHarvard Crimson men's soccer players\nSoccer players from New York (state)\nHasty Pudding alumni\nAssociation footballers not categorized by position\nUnited States Navy officers\nAssociation football players not categorized by nationality",
"Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) was the 26th president of the United States, serving from 1901 to 1909.\n\nTheodore Roosevelt may also refer to:\n\nTheodore Roosevelt Sr. (1831–1878), the president's father\nTheodore Roosevelt Jr. (1887–1944), the president's eldest son\nTheodore Roosevelt III (1914–2001), the president's grandson\nTheodore Roosevelt IV (born 1942), the president's great-grandson\n\nSee also\n \nUSS Theodore Roosevelt, several ships\nTheodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography, an autobiographical book by the President of the United States"
] |
[
"Theodore Roosevelt",
"Early life and family",
"Where was Theodore Roosevelt born?",
"Theodore Roosevelt Jr. was born on October 27, 1858, at East 20th Street in New York City."
] | C_ea2b2d977c0c4d1d93ec5efce7ee7156_1 | Who was his mother? | 2 | Who was Theodore Roosevelt's mother? | Theodore Roosevelt | Theodore Roosevelt Jr. was born on October 27, 1858, at East 20th Street in New York City. He was the second of four children born to socialite Martha Stewart "Mittie" Bulloch and businessman and philanthropist Theodore Roosevelt Sr. He had an older sister, Anna (nicknamed "Bamie"), a younger brother, Elliott, and a younger sister, Corinne. Elliott was later the father of First Lady Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of Theodore's distant cousin, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. His paternal grandfather was of Dutch descent; his other ancestry included primarily Scottish and Scots-Irish, English and smaller amounts of German, Welsh, and French. Theodore Sr. was the fifth son of businessman Cornelius Van Schaack "C.V.S." Roosevelt and Margaret Barnhill. Theodore's fourth cousin, James Roosevelt I, who was also a businessman, was the father of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Mittie was the younger daughter of Major James Stephens Bulloch and Martha P. "Patsy" Stewart. Through the Van Schaacks, Roosevelt was a descendant of the Schuyler family. Roosevelt's youth was largely shaped by his poor health and debilitating asthma. He repeatedly experienced sudden nighttime asthma attacks that caused the experience of being smothered to death, which terrified both Theodore and his parents. Doctors had no cure. Nevertheless, he was energetic and mischievously inquisitive. His lifelong interest in zoology began at age seven when he saw a dead seal at a local market; after obtaining the seal's head, Roosevelt and two cousins formed what they called the "Roosevelt Museum of Natural History". Having learned the rudiments of taxidermy, he filled his makeshift museum with animals that he killed or caught; he then studied the animals and prepared them for display. At age nine, he recorded his observation of insects in a paper entitled "The Natural History of Insects". Roosevelt's father significantly influenced him. His father was a prominent leader in New York's cultural affairs; he helped to found the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and had been especially active in mobilizing support for the Union during the Civil War, even though his in-laws included Confederate leaders. Roosevelt said, "My father, Theodore Roosevelt, was the best man I ever knew. He combined strength and courage with gentleness, tenderness, and great unselfishness. He would not tolerate in us children selfishness or cruelty, idleness, cowardice, or untruthfulness." Family trips abroad, including tours of Europe in 1869 and 1870, and Egypt in 1872, shaped his cosmopolitan perspective. Hiking with his family in the Alps in 1869, Roosevelt found that he could keep pace with his father. He had discovered the significant benefits of physical exertion to minimize his asthma and bolster his spirits. Roosevelt began a heavy regime of exercise. After being manhandled by two older boys on a camping trip, he found a boxing coach to teach him to fight and strengthen his body. CANNOTANSWER | socialite Martha Stewart "Mittie" Bulloch | Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or his initials T. R., was an American politician, statesman, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26th president of the United States from 1901 to 1909. He previously served as the 25th vice president under William McKinley from March to September 1901, and as the 33rd governor of New York from 1899 to 1900. Having assumed the presidency after McKinley's assassination, Roosevelt emerged as a leader of the Republican Party and became a driving force for anti-trust and Progressive policies.
Roosevelt was a sickly child with debilitating asthma but partly overcame his health problems by embracing a strenuous lifestyle. He integrated his exuberant personality, a vast range of interests and achievements into a "cowboy" persona defined by robust masculinity. He was home-schooled and began a lifelong naturalist avocation before attending Harvard. His book The Naval War of 1812 (1882) established his reputation as a learned historian and popular writer. Upon entering politics, he became the leader of the reform faction of Republicans in New York's state legislature. His wife and mother both died in the same night and he was psychologically devastated. He recuperated by buying and operating a cattle ranch in the Dakotas. He served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy under President William McKinley and in 1898 helped plan the highly successful naval war against Spain. He resigned to help form and lead the Rough Riders, a unit that fought the Spanish army in Cuba to great publicity. Returning a war hero, he was elected governor of New York in 1898. The New York state party leadership disliked his ambitious agenda and convinced McKinley to make Roosevelt his running mate in the 1900 election. Roosevelt campaigned vigorously, and the McKinley–Roosevelt ticket won a landslide victory based on a platform of victory, peace and prosperity.
Roosevelt assumed the presidency at age 42 after McKinley was assassinated in September 1901. He remains the youngest person to become president of the United States. Roosevelt was a leader of the progressive movement and championed his "Square Deal" domestic policies, promising the average citizen fairness, breaking of trusts, regulation of railroads, and pure food and drugs. He prioritized conservation and established national parks, forests, and monuments intended to preserve the nation's natural resources. In foreign policy, he focused on Central America where he began construction of the Panama Canal. He expanded the Navy and sent the Great White Fleet on a world tour to project American naval power. His successful efforts to broker the end of the Russo-Japanese War won him the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize. Roosevelt was elected to a full term in 1904 and continued to promote progressive policies. He groomed his close friend William Howard Taft to succeed him in the 1908 presidential election.
Roosevelt grew frustrated with Taft's brand of conservatism and belatedly tried to win the 1912 Republican nomination for president. He failed, walked out, and founded the Progressive Party. He ran in the 1912 presidential election and the split allowed the Democratic nominee Woodrow Wilson to win the election. Following the defeat, Roosevelt led a two-year expedition to the Amazon basin where he nearly died of tropical disease. During World War I, he criticized Wilson for keeping the country out of the war; his offer to lead volunteers to France was rejected. He considered running for president again in 1920, but his health continued to deteriorate. He died in 1919. He is generally ranked in polls of historians and political scientists as one of the five best presidents.
Early life and family
Theodore Roosevelt Jr. was born on October 27, 1858, at 28 East 20th Street in Manhattan, New York City. He was the second of four children born to socialite Martha Stewart "Mittie" Bulloch and businessman and philanthropist Theodore Roosevelt Sr. He had an older sister (Anna, nicknamed "Bamie"), a younger brother (Elliott) and a younger sister (Corinne). Elliott was later the father of First Lady Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of Theodore's distant cousin, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. His paternal grandfather was of Dutch descent; his other ancestry included primarily Scottish and Scots-Irish, English and smaller amounts of German, Welsh and French. Theodore Sr. was the fifth son of businessman Cornelius Van Schaack "C. V. S." Roosevelt and Margaret Barnhill as well as a brother of Robert Roosevelt and James A. Roosevelt. Theodore's fourth cousin, James Roosevelt I, who was also a businessman, was the father of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Mittie was the younger daughter of Major James Stephens Bulloch and Martha P. "Patsy" Stewart. Through the Van Schaacks, Roosevelt was a descendant of the Schuyler family.
Roosevelt's youth was largely shaped by his poor health and debilitating asthma. He repeatedly experienced sudden nighttime asthma attacks that caused the experience of being smothered to death, which terrified both Theodore and his parents. Doctors had no cure. Nevertheless, he was energetic and mischievously inquisitive. His lifelong interest in zoology began at age seven when he saw a dead seal at a local market; after obtaining the seal's head, Roosevelt and two cousins formed what they called the "Roosevelt Museum of Natural History". Having learned the rudiments of taxidermy, he filled his makeshift museum with animals that he killed or caught; he then studied the animals and prepared them for exhibition. At age nine, he recorded his observation of insects in a paper entitled "The Natural History of Insects".
Roosevelt's father significantly influenced him. His father was a prominent leader in New York's cultural affairs; he helped to found the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and had been especially active in mobilizing support for the Union during the Civil War, even though his in-laws included Confederate leaders. Roosevelt said, "My father, Theodore Roosevelt, was the best man I ever knew. He combined strength and courage with gentleness, tenderness, and great unselfishness. He would not tolerate in us children selfishness or cruelty, idleness, cowardice, or untruthfulness." Family trips abroad, including tours of Europe in 1869 and 1870, and Egypt in 1872, shaped his cosmopolitan perspective. Hiking with his family in the Alps in 1869, Roosevelt found that he could keep pace with his father. He had discovered the significant benefits of physical exertion to minimize his asthma and bolster his spirits. Roosevelt began a heavy regime of exercise. After being manhandled by two older boys on a camping trip, he found a boxing coach to teach him to fight and strengthen his body.
A 6-year-old Roosevelt witnessed the funeral procession of Abraham Lincoln from his grandfather's mansion in Union Square, New York City where he was photographed in the window along with his brother Elliott, as confirmed by wife Edith who was also present.
Education
Roosevelt was homeschooled, mostly by tutors and his parents. Biographer H. W. Brands argued that "The most obvious drawback to his home schooling was uneven coverage of the various areas of human knowledge." He was solid in geography and bright in history, biology, French, and German; however, he struggled in mathematics and the classical languages. When he entered Harvard College on September 27, 1876, his father advised: "Take care of your morals first, your health next, and finally your studies." His father's sudden death on February 9, 1878, devastated Roosevelt, but he eventually recovered and doubled his activities.
He did well in science, philosophy, and rhetoric courses but continued to struggle in Latin and Greek. He studied biology intently and was already an accomplished naturalist and a published ornithologist. He read prodigiously with an almost photographic memory. While at Harvard, Roosevelt participated in rowing and boxing; he was once runner-up in an intramural boxing tournament. Roosevelt was a member of the Alpha Delta Phi literary society (later the Fly Club), the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity, and the prestigious Porcellian Club; he was also an editor of The Harvard Advocate. In 1880, Roosevelt graduated Phi Beta Kappa (22nd of 177) from Harvard with an A.B. magna cum laude. Biographer Henry Pringle states:
After his father's death, Roosevelt had inherited $65,000 (), enough to live off comfortably for the rest of his life. Roosevelt gave up his earlier plan of studying natural science and instead decided to attend Columbia Law School, moving back into his family's home in New York City. Roosevelt was an able law student, but he often found law to be irrational. He spent much of his time writing a book on the War of 1812.
Determined to enter politics, Roosevelt began attending meetings at Morton Hall, the 59th Street headquarters of New York's 21st District Republican Association. Though Roosevelt's father had been a prominent member of the Republican Party, the younger Roosevelt made an unorthodox career choice for someone of his class, as most of Roosevelt's peers refrained from becoming too closely involved in politics. Roosevelt found allies in the local Republican Party, and he defeated an incumbent Republican state assemblyman closely tied to the political machine of Senator Roscoe Conkling. After his election victory, Roosevelt decided to drop out of law school, later saying, "I intended to be one of the governing class."
Naval history and strategy
While at Harvard, Roosevelt began a systematic study of the role played by the young United States Navy in the War of 1812. Assisted by two uncles, he scrutinized original source materials and official U.S. Navy records, ultimately publishing The Naval War of 1812 in 1882. The book contained drawings of individual and combined ship maneuvers, charts depicting the differences in iron throw weights of cannon shot between rival forces, and analyses of the differences and similarities between British and American leadership down to the ship-to-ship level. Upon release, The Naval War of 1812 was praised for its scholarship and style, and it remains a standard study of the war.
With the publication of The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660–1783 in 1890, Navy Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan was immediately hailed as the world's outstanding naval theorist by the leaders of Europe. Roosevelt paid very close attention to Mahan's emphasis that only a nation with the world's most powerful fleet could dominate the world's oceans, exert its diplomacy to the fullest, and defend its own borders. He incorporated Mahan's ideas into his views on naval strategy for the remainder of his career.
First marriage and widowerhood
In 1880, Roosevelt married socialite Alice Hathaway Lee. Their daughter, Alice Lee Roosevelt, was born on February 12, 1884. Two days later, the new mother died of an undiagnosed case of kidney failure that had been masked by the pregnancy. In his diary, Roosevelt wrote a large 'X' on the page and then, "The light has gone out of my life." His mother, Mittie, had died of typhoid fever eleven hours earlier at 3:00 a.m., in the same house on 57th Street in Manhattan. Distraught, Roosevelt left baby Alice in the care of his sister Bamie while he grieved; he assumed custody of Alice when she was three.
After the deaths of his wife and mother, Roosevelt focused on his work, specifically by re-energizing a legislative investigation into corruption of the New York City government, which arose from a concurrent bill proposing that power be centralized in the mayor's office. For the rest of his life, he rarely spoke about his wife Alice and did not write about her in his autobiography.
Early political career
State Assemblyman
Roosevelt was a member of the New York State Assembly (New York Co., 21st D.) in 1882, 1883 and 1884. He immediately began making his mark, specifically in corporate corruption issues. He blocked a corrupt effort by financier Jay Gould to lower his taxes. Roosevelt exposed suspected collusion in the matter by Judge Theodore Westbrook, and argued for and received approval for an investigation to proceed, aiming for the impeachment of the judge. The investigation committee rejected impeachment, but Roosevelt had exposed the potential corruption in Albany, and thus assumed a high and positive political profile in multiple New York publications.
Roosevelt's anti-corruption efforts helped him win re-election in 1882 by a margin greater than two-to-one, an achievement made even more impressive by the fact that Democratic gubernatorial candidate Grover Cleveland won Roosevelt's district. With Conkling's Stalwart faction of the Republican Party in disarray following the assassination of President James Garfield, Roosevelt won election as the Republican party leader in the state assembly. He allied with Governor Cleveland to win passage of a civil service reform bill. Roosevelt won re-election a second time, and sought the office of Speaker of the New York State Assembly, but was defeated by Titus Sheard in a 41 to 29 vote of the GOP caucus. In his final term, Roosevelt served as Chairman of the Committee on Affairs of Cities; he wrote more bills than any other legislator.
Presidential election of 1884
With numerous presidential hopefuls to choose from, Roosevelt supported Senator George F. Edmunds of Vermont, a colorless reformer. The state GOP preferred the incumbent president, New York City's Chester Arthur, who was known for passing the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act. Arthur, at the time, was suffering from Bright's disease, unknown to the public, and out of duty he did not contest his own nomination. Roosevelt fought hard and succeeded in influencing the Manhattan delegates at the state convention in Utica. He then took control of the state convention, bargaining through the night and outmaneuvering the supporters of Arthur and James G. Blaine; he gained a national reputation as a key person in New York State.
Roosevelt attended the 1884 GOP National Convention in Chicago and gave a speech convincing delegates to nominate African American John R. Lynch, an Edmunds supporter, to be temporary chair. Roosevelt fought alongside the Mugwump reformers; however, Blaine, having gained support from Arthur's and Edmunds's delegates, won the nomination by 541 votes on the fourth ballot. In a crucial moment of his budding political career, Roosevelt resisted the demand of the Mugwumps that he bolt from Blaine. He bragged about his one small success: "We achieved a victory in getting up a combination to beat the Blaine nominee for temporary chairman... To do this needed a mixture of skill, boldness and energy... to get the different factions to come in... to defeat the common foe." He was also impressed by an invitation to speak before an audience of ten thousand, the largest crowd he had addressed up to that date. Having gotten a taste of national politics, Roosevelt felt less aspiration for advocacy on the state level; he then retired to his new "Chimney Butte Ranch" on the Little Missouri River. Roosevelt refused to join other Mugwumps in supporting Grover Cleveland, the governor of New York and the Democratic nominee in the general election. He debated the pros and cons of staying loyal with his political friend, Henry Cabot Lodge. After Blaine won the nomination, Roosevelt had carelessly said that he would give "hearty support to any decent Democrat". He distanced himself from the promise, saying that it had not been meant "for publication". When a reporter asked if he would support Blaine, Roosevelt replied, "That question I decline to answer. It is a subject I do not care to talk about." In the end, he realized that he had to support Blaine to maintain his role in the GOP, and he did so in a press release on July 19. Having lost the support of many reformers, Roosevelt decided to retire from politics and move to North Dakota.
Cattle rancher in Dakota
Roosevelt first visited the Dakota Territory in 1883 to hunt bison. Exhilarated by the western lifestyle, and with the cattle business booming in the territory, Roosevelt invested $14,000 in hopes of becoming a prosperous cattle rancher. For the next several years, he shuttled between his home in New York and his ranch in Dakota.
Following the 1884 presidential election, Roosevelt built a ranch named Elkhorn, which was north of the boomtown of Medora, North Dakota. Roosevelt learned to ride western style, rope, and hunt on the banks of the Little Missouri. Though he earned the respect of the authentic cowboys, they were not overly impressed. However, he identified with the herdsman of history, a man he said possesses "few of the emasculated, milk-and-water moralities admired by the pseudo-philanthropists; but he does possess, to a very high degree, the stern, manly qualities that are invaluable to a nation". He reoriented, and began writing about frontier life for national magazines; he also published three books – Hunting Trips of a Ranchman, Ranch Life and the Hunting-Trail, and The Wilderness Hunter.
Roosevelt brought his desire to address the common interests of citizens to the West. He successfully led efforts to organize ranchers to address problems of overgrazing and other shared concerns; his work resulted in the formation of the Little Missouri Stockmen's Association. He felt compelled to promote conservation and was able to form the Boone and Crockett Club, whose primary goal was the conservation of large game animals and their habitats. After the uniquely severe US winter of 1886–87 wiped out his herd of cattle and those of his competitors, and with it over half of his $80,000 investment, Roosevelt returned to the East. Though his finances suffered from the experience, Roosevelt's time in the West made it impossible to peg him as an ineffectual intellectual, a characterization that could have hampered his political career.
Second marriage
On December 2, 1886, Roosevelt married his childhood and family friend, Edith Kermit Carow. Roosevelt was deeply troubled that his second marriage had taken place so soon after the death of his first wife, and he faced resistance from his sisters. Nonetheless, the couple married at St George's, Hanover Square in London, England. The couple had five children: Theodore "Ted" III in 1887, Kermit in 1889, Ethel in 1891, Archibald in 1894, and Quentin in 1897. The couple also raised Roosevelt's daughter from his first marriage, Alice, who often clashed with her stepmother.
Reentering public life
Upon Roosevelt's return to New York in 1886, Republican leaders quickly approached him about running for mayor of New York City in the city's mayoral election. Roosevelt accepted the nomination despite having little hope of winning the race against United Labor Party candidate Henry George and Democratic candidate Abram Hewitt. Roosevelt campaigned hard for the position, but Hewitt won with 41% (90,552 votes), taking the votes of many Republicans who feared George's radical policies. George was held to 31% (68,110 votes), and Roosevelt took third place with 27% (60,435 votes). Fearing that his political career might never recover, Roosevelt turned his attention to writing The Winning of the West, a historical work tracking the westward movement of Americans; the book was a great success for Roosevelt, earning favorable reviews and selling numerous copies.
Civil Service Commission
After Benjamin Harrison unexpectedly defeated Blaine for the presidential nomination at the 1888 Republican National Convention, Roosevelt gave stump speeches in the Midwest in support of Harrison. On the insistence of Henry Cabot Lodge, President Harrison appointed Roosevelt to the United States Civil Service Commission, where he served until 1895. While many of his predecessors had approached the office as a sinecure, Roosevelt vigorously fought the spoilsmen and demanded enforcement of civil service laws. The New York Sun then described Roosevelt as "irrepressible, belligerent, and enthusiastic". Roosevelt frequently clashed with Postmaster General John Wanamaker, who handed out numerous patronage positions to Harrison supporters, and Roosevelt's attempt to force out several postal workers damaged Harrison politically. Despite Roosevelt's support for Harrison's reelection bid in the presidential election of 1892, the eventual winner, Grover Cleveland, reappointed him to the same post. Roosevelt's close friend and biographer, Joseph Bucklin Bishop, described his assault on the spoils system:
New York City Police Commissioner
In 1894, a group of reform Republicans approached Roosevelt about running for Mayor of New York again; he declined, mostly due to his wife's resistance to being removed from the Washington social set. Soon after he declined, he realized that he had missed an opportunity to reinvigorate a dormant political career. He retreated to the Dakotas for a time; his wife Edith regretted her role in the decision and vowed that there would be no repeat of it.
William Lafayette Strong, a reform-minded Republican, won the 1894 mayoral election and offered Roosevelt a position on the board of the New York City Police Commissioners. Roosevelt became president of the board of commissioners and radically reformed the police force. Roosevelt implemented regular inspections of firearms and annual physical exams, appointed recruits based on their physical and mental qualifications rather than political affiliation, established Meritorious Service Medals, and closed corrupt police hostelries. During his tenure, a Municipal Lodging House was established by the Board of Charities, and Roosevelt required officers to register with the Board; he also had telephones installed in station houses.
In 1894, Roosevelt met Jacob Riis, the muckraking Evening Sun newspaper journalist who was opening the eyes of New Yorkers to the terrible conditions of the city's millions of poor immigrants with such books as How the Other Half Lives. Riis described how his book affected Roosevelt:
Roosevelt made a habit of walking officers' beats late at night and early in the morning to make sure that they were on duty. He made a concerted effort to uniformly enforce New York's Sunday closing law; in this, he ran up against boss Tom Platt as well as Tammany Hall—he was notified that the Police Commission was being legislated out of existence. His crackdowns led to protests and demonstrations. Invited to one large demonstration, not only did he surprisingly accept, he delighted in the insults, caricatures and lampoons directed at him, and earned some surprising good will. Roosevelt chose to defer rather than split with his party. As Governor of New York State, he would later sign an act replacing the Police Commission with a single Police Commissioner.
Emergence as a national figure
Assistant Secretary of the Navy
In the 1896 presidential election, Roosevelt backed Speaker of the House Thomas Brackett Reed for the Republican nomination, but William McKinley won the nomination and defeated William Jennings Bryan in the general election. Roosevelt opposed Bryan's free silver platform, viewing many of Bryan's followers as dangerous fanatics, and Roosevelt gave campaign speeches for McKinley. Urged by Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, President McKinley appointed Roosevelt as the Assistant Secretary of the Navy in 1897. Secretary of the Navy John D. Long was more concerned about formalities than functions, was in poor health, and left many major decisions to Roosevelt. Influenced by Alfred Thayer Mahan, Roosevelt called for a build-up in the country's naval strength, particularly the construction of battleships. Roosevelt also began pressing his national security views regarding the Pacific and the Caribbean on McKinley, and was particularly adamant that Spain be ejected from Cuba. He explained his priorities to one of the Navy's planners in late 1897:
On February 15, 1898, , an armored cruiser, exploded in the harbor of Havana, Cuba, killing hundreds of crew members. While Roosevelt and many other Americans blamed Spain for the explosion, McKinley sought a diplomatic solution. Without approval from Long or McKinley, Roosevelt sent out orders to several naval vessels, directing them to prepare for war. George Dewey, who had received an appointment to lead the Asiatic Squadron with the backing of Roosevelt, later credited his victory at the Battle of Manila Bay to Roosevelt's orders. After finally giving up hope of a peaceful solution, McKinley asked Congress to declare war upon Spain, beginning the Spanish–American War.
War in Cuba
With the beginning of the Spanish–American War in late April 1898, Roosevelt resigned from his post as Assistant Secretary of the Navy. Along with Army Colonel Leonard Wood, he formed the First US Volunteer Cavalry Regiment. His wife and many of his friends begged Roosevelt to remain in his post in Washington, but Roosevelt was determined to see battle. When the newspapers reported the formation of the new regiment, Roosevelt and Wood were flooded with applications from all over the country. Referred to by the press as the "Rough Riders", the regiment was one of many temporary units active only for the duration of the war.
The regiment trained for several weeks in San Antonio, Texas, and in his autobiography, Roosevelt wrote that his prior experience with the New York National Guard had been invaluable, in that it enabled him to immediately begin teaching his men basic soldiering skills. The Rough Riders used some standard issue gear and some of their own design, purchased with gift money. Diversity characterized the regiment, which included Ivy Leaguers, professional and amateur athletes, upscale gentlemen, cowboys, frontiersmen, Native Americans, hunters, miners, prospectors, former soldiers, tradesmen, and sheriffs. The Rough Riders were part of the cavalry division commanded by former Confederate general Joseph Wheeler, which itself was one of three divisions in the V Corps under Lieutenant General William Rufus Shafter. Roosevelt and his men landed in Daiquirí, Cuba, on June 23, 1898, and marched to Siboney. Wheeler sent parts of the 1st and 10th Regular Cavalry on the lower road northwest and sent the "Rough Riders" on the parallel road running along a ridge up from the beach. To throw off his infantry rival, Wheeler left one regiment of his Cavalry Division, the 9th, at Siboney so that he could claim that his move north was only a limited reconnaissance if things went wrong. Roosevelt was promoted to colonel and took command of the regiment when Wood was put in command of the brigade. The Rough Riders had a short, minor skirmish known as the Battle of Las Guasimas; they fought their way through Spanish resistance and, together with the Regulars, forced the Spaniards to abandon their positions.
Under his leadership, the Rough Riders became famous for the charge up Kettle Hill on July 1, 1898, while supporting the regulars. Roosevelt had the only horse, and rode back and forth between rifle pits at the forefront of the advance up Kettle Hill, an advance that he urged despite the absence of any orders from superiors. He was forced to walk up the last part of Kettle Hill because his horse had been entangled in barbed wire. The victories came at a cost of 200 killed and 1,000 wounded.
In August, Roosevelt and other officers demanded that the soldiers be returned home. Roosevelt always recalled the Battle of Kettle Hill (part of the San Juan Heights) as "the great day of my life" and "my crowded hour". In 2001, Roosevelt was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions; he had been nominated during the war, but Army officials, annoyed at his grabbing the headlines, blocked it. After returning to civilian life, Roosevelt preferred to be known as "Colonel Roosevelt" or "The Colonel", though "Teddy" remained much more popular with the public, even though Roosevelt openly despised that moniker. Men working closely with Roosevelt customarily called him "Colonel" or "Theodore". Henceforth, political cartoons of Roosevelt usually depicted him in his Rough Rider garb.
Governor of New York
After leaving Cuba in August 1898, the Rough Riders were transported to a camp at Montauk Point, Long Island, where Roosevelt and his men were briefly quarantined due to the War Department's fear of spreading yellow fever. Shortly after Roosevelt's return to the United States, Republican Congressman Lemuel E. Quigg, a lieutenant of party boss Tom Platt, asked Roosevelt to run in the 1898 gubernatorial election. Platt disliked Roosevelt personally, feared that Roosevelt would oppose Platt's interests in office, and was reluctant to propel Roosevelt to the forefront of national politics. However, Platt also needed a strong candidate due to the unpopularity of the incumbent Republican governor, Frank S. Black, and Roosevelt agreed to become the nominee and to try not to "make war" with the Republican establishment once in office. Roosevelt defeated Black in the Republican caucus by a vote of 753 to 218, and faced Democrat Augustus Van Wyck, a well-respected judge, in the general election. Roosevelt campaigned vigorously on his war record, winning the election by a margin of just one percent.
As governor, Roosevelt learned much about ongoing economic issues and political techniques that later proved valuable in his presidency. He was exposed to the problems of trusts, monopolies, labor relations, and conservation. Chessman argues that Roosevelt's program "rested firmly upon the concept of the square deal by a neutral state". The rules for the Square Deal were "honesty in public affairs, an equitable sharing of privilege and responsibility, and subordination of party and local concerns to the interests of the state at large".
By holding twice-daily press conferences—which was an innovation—Roosevelt remained connected with his middle-class political base. Roosevelt successfully pushed the Ford Franchise-Tax bill, which taxed public franchises granted by the state and controlled by corporations, declaring that "a corporation which derives its powers from the State, should pay to the State a just percentage of its earnings as a return for the privileges it enjoys". He rejected "boss" Thomas C. Platt's worries that this approached Bryanite Socialism, explaining that without it, New York voters might get angry and adopt public ownership of streetcar lines and other franchises.
The New York state government affected many interests, and the power to make appointments to policy-making positions was a key role for the governor. Platt insisted that he be consulted on major appointments; Roosevelt appeared to comply, but then made his own decisions. Historians marvel that Roosevelt managed to appoint so many first-rate men with Platt's approval. He even enlisted Platt's help in securing reform, such as in the spring of 1899, when Platt pressured state senators to vote for a civil service bill that the secretary of the Civil Service Reform Association called "superior to any civil service statute heretofore secured in America".
Chessman argues that as governor, Roosevelt developed the principles that shaped his presidency, especially insistence upon the public responsibility of large corporations, publicity as a first remedy for trusts, regulation of railroad rates, mediation of the conflict of capital and labor, conservation of natural resources and protection of the less fortunate members of society. Roosevelt sought to position himself against the excesses of large corporations on the one hand and radical movements on the other.
As the chief executive of the most populous state in the union, Roosevelt was widely considered a potential future presidential candidate, and supporters such as William Allen White encouraged him to run for president. Roosevelt had no interest in challenging McKinley for the Republican nomination in 1900, and was denied his preferred post of Secretary of War. As his term progressed, Roosevelt pondered a 1904 presidential run, but was uncertain about whether he should seek re-election as governor in 1900.
Vice Presidency (1901)
In November 1899, Vice President Garret Hobart died of heart failure, leaving an open spot on the 1900 Republican national ticket. Though Henry Cabot Lodge and others urged him to run for vice president in 1900, Roosevelt was reluctant to take the powerless position and issued a public statement saying that he would not accept the nomination. Additionally, Roosevelt was informed by President McKinley and campaign manager Mark Hanna that he was not being considered for the role of vice president due to his actions prior to the Spanish–American War. Eager to be rid of Roosevelt, Platt nonetheless began a newspaper campaign in favor of Roosevelt's nomination for the vice presidency. Roosevelt attended the 1900 Republican National Convention as a state delegate and struck a bargain with Platt: Roosevelt would accept the nomination for vice president if the convention offered it to him, but would otherwise serve another term as governor. Platt asked Pennsylvania party boss Matthew Quay to lead the campaign for Roosevelt's nomination, and Quay outmaneuvered Hanna at the convention to put Roosevelt on the ticket. Roosevelt won the nomination unanimously.
Roosevelt's vice-presidential campaigning proved highly energetic and an equal match for Democratic presidential nominee William Jennings Bryan's famous barnstorming style of campaigning. In a whirlwind campaign that displayed his energy to the public, Roosevelt made 480 stops in 23 states. He denounced the radicalism of Bryan, contrasting it with the heroism of the soldiers and sailors who fought and won the war against Spain. Bryan had strongly supported the war itself, but he denounced the annexation of the Philippines as imperialism, which would spoil America's innocence. Roosevelt countered that it was best for the Filipinos to have stability and the Americans to have a proud place in the world. With the nation basking in peace and prosperity, the voters gave McKinley an even larger victory than that which he had achieved in 1896.
After the campaign, Roosevelt took office as vice president in March 1901. The office of vice president was a powerless sinecure and did not suit Roosevelt's aggressive temperament. Roosevelt's six months as vice president were uneventful and boring for a man of action. He had no power; he presided over the Senate for a mere four days before it adjourned. On September 2, 1901, Roosevelt first publicized an aphorism that thrilled his supporters: "Speak softly and carry a big stick, and you will go far."
Presidency (1901–1909)
On September 6, 1901, President McKinley was attending the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York when he was shot by anarchist Leon Czolgosz. Roosevelt was vacationing in Isle La Motte, Vermont, and traveled to Buffalo to visit McKinley in the hospital. It appeared that McKinley would recover, so Roosevelt resumed his vacation in the Adirondack Mountains. When McKinley's condition worsened, Roosevelt again rushed back to Buffalo. McKinley died on September 14, and Roosevelt was informed while he was in North Creek; he continued on to Buffalo and was sworn in as the nation's 26th president at the Ansley Wilcox House.
McKinley's supporters were nervous about the new president, and Hanna was particularly bitter that the man he had opposed so vigorously at the convention had succeeded McKinley. Roosevelt assured party leaders that he intended to adhere to McKinley's policies, and he retained McKinley's Cabinet. Nonetheless, Roosevelt sought to position himself as the party's undisputed leader, seeking to bolster the role of the president and position himself for the 1904 election. The vice presidency remained vacant, as there was no constitutional provision for filling an intra-term vacancy in that office (prior to the 25th Amendment in 1967).
Shortly after taking office, Roosevelt invited Booker T. Washington to dinner at the White House. This sparked a bitter, and at times vicious, reaction among whites across the heavily segregated South. Roosevelt reacted with astonishment and protest, saying that he looked forward to many future dinners with Washington. Upon further reflection, Roosevelt wanted to ensure that this had no effect on political support in the white South, and further dinner invitations to Washington were avoided; their next meeting was scheduled as typical business at 10:00 a.m. instead.
Domestic policies
Trust busting and regulation
For his aggressive use of the 1890 Sherman Antitrust Act, compared to his predecessors, Roosevelt was hailed as the "trust-buster"; but in reality he was more of a trust regulator. Roosevelt viewed big business as a necessary part of the American economy, and sought only to prosecute the "bad trusts" that restrained trade and charged unfair prices. He brought 44 antitrust suits, breaking up the Northern Securities Company, the largest railroad monopoly; and regulating Standard Oil, the largest oil company. Presidents Benjamin Harrison, Grover Cleveland, and William McKinley combined had prosecuted only 18 antitrust violations under the Sherman Antitrust Act.
Bolstered by his party's winning large majorities in the 1902 elections, Roosevelt proposed the creation of the United States Department of Commerce and Labor, which would include the Bureau of Corporations. While Congress was receptive to the Department of Commerce and Labor, it was more skeptical of the antitrust powers that Roosevelt sought to endow within the Bureau of Corporations. Roosevelt successfully appealed to the public to pressure Congress, and Congress overwhelmingly voted to pass Roosevelt's version of the bill.
In a moment of frustration, House Speaker Joseph Gurney Cannon commented on Roosevelt's desire for executive branch control in domestic policy-making: "That fellow at the other end of the avenue wants everything from the birth of Christ to the death of the devil." Biographer Brands states, "Even his friends occasionally wondered whether there wasn't any custom or practice too minor for him to try to regulate, update or otherwise improve." In fact, Roosevelt's willingness to exercise his power included attempted rule changes in the game of football; at the Naval Academy, he sought to force retention of martial arts classes and to revise disciplinary rules. He even ordered changes made in the minting of a coin whose design he disliked, and ordered the Government Printing Office to adopt simplified spellings for a core list of 300 words, according to reformers on the Simplified Spelling Board. He was forced to rescind the latter after substantial ridicule from the press and a resolution of protest from the House of Representatives.
Coal strike
In May 1902, anthracite coal miners went on strike, threatening a national energy shortage. After threatening the coal operators with intervention by federal troops, Roosevelt won their agreement to dispute arbitration by a commission, which succeeded in stopping the strike. The accord with J. P. Morgan resulted in the miners getting more pay for fewer hours, but with no union recognition. Roosevelt said, "My action on labor should always be considered in connection with my action as regards capital, and both are reducible to my favorite formula—a square deal for every man." Roosevelt was the first president to help settle a labor dispute.
Prosecuted misconduct
During Roosevelt's second year in office it was discovered there was corruption in the Indian Service, the Land Office, and the Post Office Department. Roosevelt investigated and prosecuted corrupt Indian agents who had cheated the Creeks and various tribes out of land parcels. Land fraud and speculation were found involving Oregon federal timberlands. In November 1902, Roosevelt and Secretary Ethan A. Hitchcock forced Binger Hermann, the General Land Office Commissioner, to resign from office. On November 6, 1903 Francis J. Heney was appointed special prosecutor and obtained 146 indictments involving an Oregon Land Office bribery ring. U.S. Senator John H. Mitchell was indicted for bribery to expedite illegal land patents, found guilty in July 1905, and sentenced to six months in prison. More corruption was found in the Postal Department, that brought on the indictments of 44 government employees on charges of bribery and fraud. Historians generally agree that Roosevelt moved "quickly and decisively" to prosecute misconduct in his administration.
Railroads
Merchants complained that some railroad rates were too high. In the 1906 Hepburn Act, Roosevelt sought to give the Interstate Commerce Commission the power to regulate rates, but the Senate, led by conservative Nelson Aldrich, fought back. Roosevelt worked with the Democratic Senator Benjamin Tillman to pass the bill. Roosevelt and Aldrich ultimately reached a compromise that gave the ICC the power to replace existing rates with "just-and-reasonable" maximum rates, but allowed railroads to appeal to the federal courts on what was "reasonable". In addition to rate-setting, the Hepburn Act also granted the ICC regulatory power over pipeline fees, storage contracts, and several other aspects of railroad operations.
Pure food and drugs
Roosevelt responded to public anger over the abuses in the food packing industry by pushing Congress to pass the Meat Inspection Act of 1906 and the Pure Food and Drug Act. Though conservatives initially opposed the bill, Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, published in 1906, helped galvanize support for reform. The Meat Inspection Act of 1906 banned misleading labels and preservatives that contained harmful chemicals. The Pure Food and Drug Act banned food and drugs that were impure or falsely labeled from being made, sold, and shipped. Roosevelt also served as honorary president of the American School Hygiene Association from 1907 to 1908, and in 1909 he convened the first White House Conference on the Care of Dependent Children.
Conservation
Of all Roosevelt's achievements, he was proudest of his work in the conservation of natural resources and extending federal protection to land and wildlife. Roosevelt worked closely with Interior Secretary James Rudolph Garfield and Chief of the United States Forest Service Gifford Pinchot to enact a series of conservation programs that often met with resistance from Western members of Congress, such as Charles William Fulton. Nonetheless, Roosevelt established the United States Forest Service, signed into law the creation of five National Parks, and signed the 1906 Antiquities Act, under which he proclaimed 18 new U.S. National Monuments. He also established the first 51 bird reserves, four game preserves, and 150 National Forests. The area of the United States that he placed under public protection totals approximately .
Roosevelt extensively used executive orders on a number of occasions to protect forest and wildlife lands during his tenure as president. By the end of his second term in office, Roosevelt used executive orders to establish of reserved forestry land. Roosevelt was unapologetic about his extensive use of executive orders to protect the environment, despite the perception in Congress that he was encroaching on too many lands. Eventually, Senator Charles Fulton (R-OR) attached an amendment to an agricultural appropriations bill that effectively prevented the president from reserving any further land. Before signing that bill into law, Roosevelt used executive orders to establish an additional 21 forest reserves, waiting until the last minute to sign the bill into law. In total, Roosevelt used executive orders to establish 121 forest reserves in 31 states. Prior to Roosevelt, only one president had issued over 200 executive orders, Grover Cleveland (253). The first 25 presidents issued a total of 1,262 executive orders; Roosevelt issued 1,081.
Foreign policy
Japan
The American annexation of Hawaii in 1898 was stimulated in part by fear that otherwise Japan would dominate the Hawaiian Republic. Similarly, Germany was the alternative to American takeover of the Philippines in 1900, and Tokyo strongly preferred the U.S. to take over. As the U.S. became a naval world power, it needed to find a way to avoid a military confrontation in the Pacific with Japan.
In the 1890s, Roosevelt had been an ardent imperialist and vigorously defended the permanent acquisition of the Philippines in the 1900 campaign. After the local insurrection ended in 1902, he largely lost his imperialist interest in the Philippines and Asian expansion but wished to have a strong U.S. presence in the region as a symbol of democratic values. One of Theodore Roosevelt's priorities during his presidency and afterwards, was the maintenance of friendly relations with Japan. From 1904 to 1905 Japan and Russia were at war. Roosevelt admired the martial courage of the Japanese, and distrusted the reckless German Kaiser. Both sides asked Roosevelt to mediate a peace conference, held successfully in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Roosevelt won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts.
In California, anti-Japanese hostility was growing, and Tokyo protested. Roosevelt negotiated a "Gentleman's Agreement" in 1907. Explicit discrimination against the Japanese was ended, and Japan agreed not to allow unskilled immigrants into the United States. The Great White Fleet of American battleships visited Japan in 1908. Pulitzer prize-winning biographer Henry Pringle states that the great voyage was "the direct result of the Japanese trouble." Roosevelt intended to emphasize the superiority of the American fleet over the smaller Japanese navy, but instead of resentment the visitors arrived to a joyous welcome by Japanese elite as well as the general public. This good-will facilitated the Root–Takahira Agreement of November 1908 which reaffirmed the status quo of Japanese control of Korea and American control of the Philippines.
Europe
Success in the war against Spain and the new empire, plus having the largest economy in the world, meant that the United States had emerged as a world power. Roosevelt searched for ways to win recognition for the position abroad.
Roosevelt also played a major role in mediating the First Moroccan Crisis by calling the Algeciras Conference, which averted war between France and Germany.
Roosevelt's presidency saw the strengthening of ties with Great Britain. The Great Rapprochement had begun with British support of the United States during the Spanish–American War, and it continued as Britain withdrew its fleet from the Caribbean in favor of focusing on the rising German naval threat. In 1901, Britain and the United States signed the Hay–Pauncefote Treaty, abrogating the Clayton–Bulwer Treaty, which had prevented the United States from constructing a canal connecting the Pacific and the Atlantic Ocean. The long-standing Alaska boundary dispute was settled on terms favorable to the United States, as Great Britain was unwilling to alienate the United States over what it considered to be a secondary issue. As Roosevelt later put it, the resolution of the Alaskan boundary dispute "settled the last serious trouble between the British Empire and ourselves."
Latin America and Panama Canal
As president, he primarily focused the nation's overseas ambitions on the Caribbean, especially locations that had a bearing on the defense of his pet project, the Panama Canal. Roosevelt also increased the size of the navy, and by the end of his second term the United States had more battleships than any other country besides Britain. The Panama Canal when it opened in 1914 allowed the U.S. Navy to rapidly move back and forth from the Pacific to the Caribbean to European waters.
In December 1902, the Germans, British, and Italians blockaded the ports of Venezuela in order to force the repayment of delinquent loans. Roosevelt was particularly concerned with the motives of German Emperor Wilhelm II. He succeeded in getting the three nations to agree to arbitration by tribunal at The Hague, and successfully defused the crisis. The latitude granted to the Europeans by the arbiters was in part responsible for the "Roosevelt Corollary" to the Monroe Doctrine, which the President issued in 1904: "Chronic wrongdoing or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation, and in the Western Hemisphere, the adherence of the United States to the Monroe doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power."
The pursuit of an isthmus canal in Central America during this period focused on two possible routes—Nicaragua and Panama, which was then a rebellious district within Colombia. Roosevelt convinced Congress to approve the Panamanian alternative, and a treaty was approved, only to be rejected by the Colombian government. When the Panamanians learned of this, a rebellion followed, was supported by Roosevelt, and succeeded. A treaty with the new Panama government for construction of the canal was then reached in 1903. Roosevelt received criticism for paying the bankrupt Panama Canal Company and the New Panama Canal Company $40,000,000 (equivalent to $ billion in ) for the rights and equipment to build the canal. Critics charged that an American investor syndicate allegedly divided the large payment among themselves. There was also controversy over whether a French company engineer influenced Roosevelt in choosing the Panama route for the canal over the Nicaragua route. Roosevelt denied charges of corruption concerning the canal in a January 8, 1906 message to Congress. In January 1909, Roosevelt, in an unprecedented move, brought criminal libel charges against the New York World and the Indianapolis News known as the "Roosevelt-Panama Libel Cases". Both cases were dismissed by U.S. District Courts, and on January 3, 1911, the U.S. Supreme Court, upon federal appeal, upheld the lower courts' rulings. Historians are sharply critical of Roosevelt's criminal prosecutions of the World and the News, but are divided on whether actual corruption in acquiring and building the Panama Canal took place.
In 1906, following a disputed election, an insurrection ensued in Cuba; Roosevelt sent Taft, the Secretary of War, to monitor the situation; he was convinced that he had the authority to unilaterally authorize Taft to deploy Marines if necessary, without congressional approval.
Examining the work of numerous scholars, Ricard (2014) reports that:
The most striking evolution in the twenty-first-century historiography of Theodore Roosevelt is the switch from a partial arraignment of the imperialist to a quasi-unanimous celebration of the master diplomatist.... [Recent works] have underlined cogently Roosevelt's exceptional statesmanship in the construction of the nascent twentieth-century "special relationship". ...The twenty-sixth president's reputation as a brilliant diplomatist and realpolitician has undeniably reached new heights in the twenty-first century...yet, his Philippine policy still prompts criticism.
Media
Building on McKinley's effective use of the press, Roosevelt made the White House the center of news every day, providing interviews and photo opportunities. After noticing the reporters huddled outside the White House in the rain one day, he gave them their own room inside, effectively inventing the presidential press briefing. The grateful press, with unprecedented access to the White House, rewarded Roosevelt with ample coverage.
Roosevelt normally enjoyed very close relationships with the press, which he used to keep in daily contact with his middle-class base. While out of office, he made a living as a writer and magazine editor. He loved talking with intellectuals, authors, and writers. He drew the line, however, at exposé-oriented scandal-mongering journalists who, during his term, sent magazine subscriptions soaring by their attacks on corrupt politicians, mayors, and corporations. Roosevelt himself was not usually a target, but a speech of his from 1906 coined the term "muckraker" for unscrupulous journalists making wild charges. "The liar", he said, "is no whit better than the thief, and if his mendacity takes the form of slander he may be worse than most thieves."
The press did briefly target Roosevelt in one instance. After 1904, he was periodically criticized for the manner in which he facilitated the construction of the Panama Canal. According to biographer Brands, Roosevelt, near the end of his term, demanded that the Justice Department bring charges of criminal libel against Joseph Pulitzer's New York World. The publication had accused him of "deliberate misstatements of fact" in defense of family members who were criticized as a result of the Panama affair. Though an indictment was obtained, the case was ultimately dismissed in federal court—it was not a federal offense, but one enforceable in state courts. The Justice Department had predicted that result, and had also advised Roosevelt accordingly.
Election of 1904
The control and management of the Republican Party lay in the hands of Ohio Senator and Republican Party chairman Mark Hanna until McKinley's death. Roosevelt and Hanna frequently cooperated during Roosevelt's first term, but Hanna left open the possibility of a challenge to Roosevelt for the 1904 Republican nomination. Roosevelt and Ohio's other Senator, Joseph B. Foraker, forced Hanna's hand by calling for Ohio's state Republican convention to endorse Roosevelt for the 1904 nomination. Unwilling to break with the president, Hanna was forced to publicly endorse Roosevelt. Hanna and Pennsylvania Senator Matthew Quay both died in early 1904, and with the waning of Thomas Platt's power, Roosevelt faced little effective opposition for the 1904 nomination. In deference to Hanna's conservative loyalists, Roosevelt at first offered the party chairmanship to Cornelius Bliss, but he declined. Roosevelt turned to his own man, George B. Cortelyou of New York, the first Secretary of Commerce and Labor. To buttress his hold on the party's nomination, Roosevelt made it clear that anyone opposing Cortelyou would be considered to be opposing the President. The President secured his own nomination, but his preferred vice-presidential running mate, Robert R. Hitt, was not nominated. Senator Charles Warren Fairbanks of Indiana, a favorite of conservatives, gained the nomination.
While Roosevelt followed the tradition of incumbents in not actively campaigning on the stump, he sought to control the campaign's message through specific instructions to Cortelyou. He also attempted to manage the press's release of White House statements by forming the Ananias Club. Any journalist who repeated a statement made by the president without approval was penalized by restriction of further access.
The Democratic Party's nominee in 1904 was Alton Brooks Parker. Democratic newspapers charged that Republicans were extorting large campaign contributions from corporations, putting ultimate responsibility on Roosevelt, himself. Roosevelt denied corruption while at the same time he ordered Cortelyou to return $100,000 (equivalent to $ million in ) of a campaign contribution from Standard Oil. Parker said that Roosevelt was accepting corporate donations to keep damaging information from the Bureau of Corporations from going public. Roosevelt strongly denied Parker's charge and responded that he would "go into the Presidency unhampered by any pledge, promise, or understanding of any kind, sort, or description...". Allegations from Parker and the Democrats, however, had little impact on the election, as Roosevelt promised to give every American a "square deal". Roosevelt won 56% of the popular vote, and Parker received 38%; Roosevelt also won the Electoral College vote, 336 to 140. Before his inauguration ceremony, Roosevelt declared that he would not serve another term. Democrats afterwards would continue to charge Roosevelt and the Republicans of being influenced by corporate donations during Roosevelt's second term.
Second term
As his second term progressed, Roosevelt moved to the left of his Republican Party base and called for a series of reforms, most of which Congress failed to pass. In his last year in office, he was assisted by his friend Archibald Butt (who later perished in the sinking of RMS Titanic). Roosevelt's influence waned as he approached the end of his second term, as his promise to forego a third term made him a lame duck and his concentration of power provoked a backlash from many Congressmen. He sought a national incorporation law (at a time when all corporations had state charters), called for a federal income tax (despite the Supreme Court's ruling in Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co.), and an inheritance tax. In the area of labor legislation, Roosevelt called for limits on the use of court injunctions against labor unions during strikes; injunctions were a powerful weapon that mostly helped business. He wanted an employee liability law for industrial injuries (pre-empting state laws) and an eight-hour work day for federal employees. In other areas he also sought a postal savings system (to provide competition for local banks), and he asked for campaign reform laws.
The election of 1904 continued to be a source of contention between Republicans and Democrats. A Congressional investigation in 1905 revealed that corporate executives donated tens of thousands of dollars in 1904 to the Republican National Committee. In 1908, a month before the general presidential election, Governor Charles N. Haskell of Oklahoma, former Democratic Treasurer, said that Senators beholden to Standard Oil lobbied Roosevelt, in the summer of 1904, to authorize the leasing of Indian oil lands by Standard Oil subsidiaries. He said Roosevelt overruled his Secretary of Interior Ethan A. Hitchcock and granted a pipeline franchise to run through the Osage lands to the Prairie Oil and Gas Company. The New York Sun made a similar accusation and said that Standard Oil, a refinery who financially benefited from the pipeline, had contributed $150,000 to the Republicans in 1904 (equivalent to $ million in ) after Roosevelt's alleged reversal allowing the pipeline franchise. Roosevelt branded Haskell's allegation as "a lie, pure and simple" and obtained a denial from Treasury Secretary Shaw that Roosevelt had neither coerced Shaw nor overruled him.
Post-presidency (1909–1919)
Election of 1908
Roosevelt enjoyed being president and was still relatively youthful, but felt that a limited number of terms provided a check against dictatorship. Roosevelt ultimately decided to stick to his 1904 pledge not to run for a third term. He personally favored Secretary of State Elihu Root as his successor, but Root's ill health made him an unsuitable candidate. New York Governor Charles Evans Hughes loomed as a potentially strong candidate and shared Roosevelt's progressivism, but Roosevelt disliked him and considered him to be too independent. Instead, Roosevelt settled on his Secretary of War, William Howard Taft, who had ably served under Presidents Harrison, McKinley, and Roosevelt in various positions. Roosevelt and Taft had been friends since 1890, and Taft had consistently supported President Roosevelt's policies. Roosevelt was determined to install the successor of his choice, and wrote the following to Taft: "Dear Will: Do you want any action about those federal officials? I will break their necks with the utmost cheerfulness if you say the word!". Just weeks later he branded as "false and malicious" the charge that he was using the offices at his disposal to favor Taft. At the 1908 Republican convention, many chanted for "four years more" of a Roosevelt presidency, but Taft won the nomination after Henry Cabot Lodge made it clear that Roosevelt was not interested in a third term.
In the 1908 election, Taft easily defeated the Democratic nominee, three-time candidate William Jennings Bryan. Taft promoted a progressivism that stressed the rule of law; he preferred that judges rather than administrators or politicians make the basic decisions about fairness. Taft usually proved to be a less adroit politician than Roosevelt and lacked the energy and personal magnetism, along with the publicity devices, the dedicated supporters, and the broad base of public support that made Roosevelt so formidable. When Roosevelt realized that lowering the tariff would risk creating severe tensions inside the Republican Party by pitting producers (manufacturers and farmers) against merchants and consumers, he stopped talking about the issue. Taft ignored the risks and tackled the tariff boldly, encouraging reformers to fight for lower rates, and then cutting deals with conservative leaders that kept overall rates high. The resulting Payne-Aldrich tariff of 1909, signed into law early in President Taft's tenure, was too high for most reformers, and Taft's handling of the tariff alienated all sides. While the crisis was building inside the Party, Roosevelt was touring Africa and Europe, to allow Taft to be his own man.
Africa and Europe (1909–1910)
In March 1909, shortly after the end of his presidency, Roosevelt left New York for the Smithsonian-Roosevelt African Expedition, a safari in east and central Africa. Roosevelt's party landed in Mombasa, East Africa (now Kenya) and traveled to the Belgian Congo (now Democratic Republic of the Congo) before following the Nile to Khartoum in modern Sudan. Financed by Andrew Carnegie and by his own writings, Roosevelt's party hunted for specimens for the Smithsonian Institution and for the American Museum of Natural History in New York. The group, led by the hunter-tracker RJ Cunninghame, included scientists from the Smithsonian, and was joined from time to time by Frederick Selous, the famous big game hunter and explorer. Participants on the expedition included Kermit Roosevelt, Edgar Alexander Mearns, Edmund Heller, and John Alden Loring.
Roosevelt and his companions killed or trapped approximately 11,400 animals, from insects and moles to hippopotamuses and elephants. The 1,000 large animals included 512 big game animals, including six rare white rhinos. Tons of salted animals and their skins were shipped to Washington; it took years to mount them all, and the Smithsonian shared many duplicate specimens with other museums. Regarding the large number of animals taken, Roosevelt said, "I can be condemned only if the existence of the National Museum, the American Museum of Natural History, and all similar zoological institutions are to be condemned". He wrote a detailed account of the safari in the book African Game Trails, recounting the excitement of the chase, the people he met, and the flora and fauna he collected in the name of science.
After his safari, Roosevelt traveled north to embark on a tour of Europe. Stopping first in Egypt, he commented favorably on British rule of the region, giving his opinion that Egypt was not yet ready for independence. He refused a meeting with the Pope due to a dispute over a group of Methodists active in Rome, but met with Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, King George V of Great Britain, and other European leaders. In Oslo, Norway, Roosevelt delivered a speech calling for limitations on naval armaments, a strengthening of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, and the creation of a "League of Peace" among the world powers. He also delivered the Romanes Lecture at Oxford, in which he denounced those who sought parallels between the evolution of animal life and the development of society. Though Roosevelt attempted to avoid domestic politics during his time abroad, he met with Gifford Pinchot, who related his own disappointment with the Taft Administration. Pinchot had been forced to resign as head of the forest service after clashing with Taft's Interior Secretary, Richard Ballinger, who had prioritized development over conservation. Roosevelt returned to the United States in June 1910.
Republican Party schism
Roosevelt had attempted to refashion Taft into a second version of himself, but as soon as Taft began to display his individuality, the former president expressed his disenchantment. He was offended on election night when Taft indicated that his success had been possible not just through the efforts of Roosevelt, but also his brother Charley. Roosevelt was further alienated when Taft, intent on becoming his own man, did not consult him about cabinet appointments. Roosevelt and other progressives were ideologically dissatisfied over Taft's conservation policies and his handling of the tariff when he concentrated more power in the hands of conservative party leaders in Congress. Regarding radicalism and liberalism, Roosevelt wrote a British friend in 1911:
Fundamentally it is the radical liberal with whom I sympathize. He is at least working toward the end for which I think we should all of us strive; and when he adds sanity in moderation to courage and enthusiasm for high ideals he develops into the kind of statesman whom alone I can wholeheartedly support."
Roosevelt urged progressives to take control of the Republican Party at the state and local level and to avoid splitting the party in a way that would hand the presidency to the Democrats in 1912. Additionally, Roosevelt expressed optimism about the Taft Administration after meeting with the president in the White House in June 1910.
In August 1910, Roosevelt gained national attention with a speech at Osawatomie, Kansas, which was the most radical of his career and marked his public break with Taft and the conservative Republicans. Advocating a program of "New Nationalism", Roosevelt emphasized the priority of labor over capital interests, a need to more effectively control corporate creation and combination, and proposed a ban on corporate political contributions. Returning to New York, Roosevelt began a battle to take control of the state Republican party from William Barnes Jr., Tom Platt's successor as the state party boss, whom he would later confront in the Barnes vs. Roosevelt Libel Trial. Taft had pledged his support to Roosevelt in this endeavor, and Roosevelt was outraged when Taft's support failed to materialize at the 1910 state convention. Roosevelt nonetheless campaigned for the Republicans in the 1910 elections, in which the Democrats gained control of the House for the first time since the 1890s. Among the newly elected Democrats was New York state senator Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who argued that he represented his distant cousin's policies better than his Republican opponent.
The Republican progressives interpreted the 1910 defeats as a compelling argument for the complete reorganization of the party in 1911. Senator Robert M. La Follette of Wisconsin joined with Pinchot, William White, and California Governor Hiram Johnson to create the National Progressive Republican League; their objectives were to defeat the power of political bossism at the state level and to replace Taft at the national level. Despite skepticism of La Follette's new league, Roosevelt expressed general support for progressive principles. Between January and April 1911, Roosevelt wrote a series of articles for The Outlook, defending what he called "the great movement of our day, the progressive nationalist movement against special privilege, and in favor of an honest and efficient political and industrial democracy". With Roosevelt apparently uninterested in running in 1912, La Follette declared his own candidacy in June 1911. Roosevelt continually criticized Taft after the 1910 elections, and the break between the two men became final after the Justice Department filed an antitrust lawsuit against US Steel in September 1911; Roosevelt was humiliated by this suit because he had personally approved of an acquisition that the Justice Department was now challenging. However, Roosevelt was still unwilling to run against Taft in 1912; he instead hoped to run in 1916 against whichever Democrat beat Taft in 1912.
Dispute over arbitration treaties
Taft was a major advocate of arbitration as a major reform of the Progressive Era. In 1911 Taft and his Secretary of State Philander C. Knox negotiated major treaties with Great Britain and with France providing that differences be arbitrated. Disputes had to be submitted to the Hague Court or other tribunal. These were signed in August 1911 but had to be ratified by a two-thirds vote of the Senate. Neither Taft nor Knox consulted with members of the Senate during the negotiating process. By then many Republicans were opposed to Taft, and the president felt that lobbying too hard for the treaties might cause their defeat. He made some speeches supporting the treaties in October, but the Senate added amendments Taft could not accept, killing the agreements.
The arbitration issue opens a window on a bitter philosophical dispute among American progressives. Some, led by Taft looked to legal arbitration as the best alternative to warfare. Taft was a constitutional lawyer who later became Chief Justice; he had a deep understanding of the legal issues. Taft's political base was the conservative business community that largely supported peace movements before 1914. However, his mistake, in this case, was a failure to mobilize that base. The businessmen believed that economic rivalries were the cause of war, and that extensive trade led to an interdependent world that would make war a very expensive and useless anachronism.
However, an opposing faction of progressives, led by Roosevelt, ridiculed arbitration as foolhardy idealism, and insisted on the realism of warfare as the only solution to serious international disputes. Roosevelt worked with his close friend Senator Henry Cabot Lodge to impose those amendments that ruined the goals of the treaties. Lodge thought the treaties impinged too much on senatorial prerogatives. Roosevelt, however, was acting to sabotage Taft's campaign promises. At a deeper level, Roosevelt truly believed that arbitration was a naïve solution and the great issues had to be decided by warfare. The Rooseveltian approach incorporated a near-mystical faith of the ennobling nature of war. It endorsed jingoistic nationalism as opposed to the businessmen's calculation of profit and national interest.
Election of 1912
Republican primaries and convention
In November 1911, a group of Ohio Republicans endorsed Roosevelt for the party's nomination for president; the endorsers included James R. Garfield and Dan Hanna. This endorsement was made by leaders of President Taft's home state. Roosevelt conspicuously declined to make a statement—requested by Garfield—that he would flatly refuse a nomination. Soon thereafter, Roosevelt said, "I am really sorry for Taft... I am sure he means well, but he means well feebly, and he does not know how! He is utterly unfit for leadership and this is a time when we need leadership." In January 1912, Roosevelt declared "if the people make a draft on me I shall not decline to serve". Later that year, Roosevelt spoke before the Constitutional Convention in Ohio, openly identifying as a progressive and endorsing progressive reforms—even endorsing popular review of state judicial decisions. In reaction to Roosevelt's proposals for popular overrule of court decisions, Taft said, "Such extremists are not progressives—they are political emotionalists or neurotics".
Roosevelt began to envision himself as the savior of the Republican Party from defeat in the upcoming presidential election. In February 1912, Roosevelt announced in Boston, "I will accept the nomination for president if it is tendered to me. I hope that so far as possible the people may be given the chance through direct primaries to express who shall be the nominee. Elihu Root and Henry Cabot Lodge thought that division of the party would lead to its defeat in the next election, while Taft believed that he would be defeated either in the Republican primary or in the general election.
The 1912 primaries represented the first extensive use of the presidential primary, a reform achievement of the progressive movement. The Republican primaries in the South, where party regulars dominated, went for Taft, as did results in New York, Indiana, Michigan, Kentucky and Massachusetts. Meanwhile, Roosevelt won in Illinois, Minnesota, Nebraska, South Dakota, California, Maryland and Pennsylvania; Roosevelt also won Taft's home state of Ohio. These primary elections, while demonstrating Roosevelt's continuing popularity with the electorate, were not pivotal. The final credentials of the state delegates at the national convention were determined by the national committee, which was controlled by the party leaders, headed by the incumbent president.
Prior to the 1912 Republican National Convention in Chicago, Roosevelt expressed doubt about his prospects for victory, noting that Taft had more delegates and control of the credentials committee. His only hope was to convince party leaders that the nomination of Taft would hand the election to the Democrats, but party leaders were determined not to cede their leadership to Roosevelt. The credentials committee awarded almost all contested delegates to Taft, and Taft won the nomination on the first ballot. Black delegates from the South played a key role: they voted heavily for Taft and put him over the top. La Follette also helped Taft's candidacy; he hoped that a deadlocked convention would result in his own nomination, and refused to release his delegates to support Roosevelt.
The Progressive ("Bull Moose") Party
Once his defeat at the Republican convention appeared probable, Roosevelt announced that he would "accept the progressive nomination on a progressive platform and I shall fight to the end, win or lose". At the same time, Roosevelt prophetically said, "My feeling is that the Democrats will probably win if they nominate a progressive".
Roosevelt left the Republican Party and created the Progressive Party, structuring it as a permanent organization that would field complete tickets at the presidential and state level. The party included Roosevelt and key allies such as Pinchot, Cornelia Bryce Pinchot (Pinchot's wife and a longtime friend of Roosevelt's), and Albert Beveridge. The new party was popularly known as the "Bull Moose Party" after Roosevelt told reporters, "I'm as fit as a bull moose". At the 1912 Progressive National Convention, Roosevelt cried out, "We stand at Armageddon and we battle for the Lord." California Governor Hiram Johnson was nominated as Roosevelt's running mate. Roosevelt's platform echoed his 1907–1908 proposals, calling for vigorous government intervention to protect the people from selfish interests:
Though many Progressive party supporters in the North were supporters of civil rights for blacks, Roosevelt did not give strong support to civil rights and ran a "lily-white" campaign in the South. Rival all-white and all-black delegations from four southern states arrived at the Progressive national convention, and Roosevelt decided to seat the all-white delegations. Nevertheless, he won little support outside mountain Republican strongholds. Out of nearly 1100 counties in the South, Roosevelt won two counties in Alabama, one in Arkansas, seven in North Carolina, three in Georgia, 17 in Tennessee, two in Texas, one in Virginia, and none in Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, or South Carolina.
Assassination attempt
On October 14, 1912, while arriving at a campaign event in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Roosevelt was shot from seven feet away in front of the Gilpatrick Hotel by a delusional saloonkeeper named John Flammang Schrank, who believed that the ghost of assassinated president William McKinley had directed him to kill Roosevelt. The bullet lodged in his chest after penetrating his steel eyeglass case and passing through a 50-page-thick single-folded copy of the speech titled "Progressive Cause Greater Than Any Individual", which he was carrying in his jacket. Schrank was immediately disarmed (by Czech immigrant Frank Bukovsky), captured, and might have been lynched had Roosevelt not shouted for Schrank to remain unharmed. Roosevelt assured the crowd he was all right, then ordered police to take charge of Schrank and to make sure no violence was done to him.
As an experienced hunter and anatomist, Roosevelt correctly concluded that since he was not coughing blood, the bullet had not reached his lung. He declined suggestions to go to the hospital immediately and instead delivered a 90 minute speech with blood seeping into his shirt. His opening comments to the gathered crowd were, "Ladies and gentlemen, I don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot, but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose." Only after finishing his address did he accept medical attention.
Subsequent probes and an x-ray showed that the bullet had lodged in Roosevelt's chest muscle, but did not penetrate the pleura. Doctors concluded that it would be less dangerous to leave it in place than to attempt to remove it, and Roosevelt carried the bullet with him for the rest of his life. Both Taft and Democratic nominee Woodrow Wilson suspended their own campaigning until Roosevelt recovered and resumed his. When asked if the shooting would affect his election campaign, he said to the reporter "I'm fit as a bull moose." The bull moose became a symbol of both Roosevelt and the Progressive Party, and it often was referred to as simply the Bull Moose Party. He spent two weeks recuperating before returning to the campaign trail. He later wrote a friend about the bullet inside him, "I do not mind it any more than if it were in my waistcoat pocket."
Farewell manifesto
On October 20, Roosevelt spoke to a crowd of 16,000 at Madison Square Garden. The speech included: "Perhaps once in a generation, there comes a chance for the people of a country to play their part wisely and fearlessly in some great battle of the age-long warfare for human rights."
Election results
After the Democrats nominated Governor Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey, Roosevelt did not expect to win the general election, as Wilson had compiled a record attractive to many progressive Democrats who might have otherwise considered voting for Roosevelt. Roosevelt still campaigned vigorously, and the election developed into a two-person contest between Wilson and Roosevelt despite Taft's presence in the race. Roosevelt respected Wilson, but the two differed on various issues; Wilson opposed any federal intervention regarding women's suffrage or child labor (he viewed these as state issues), and attacked Roosevelt's tolerance of large businesses.
Roosevelt won 4.1 million votes (27%), compared to Taft's 3.5 million (23%). Wilson gained 6.3 million votes (42% of the total) and a massive landslide in the Electoral College, with 435 electoral votes; Roosevelt won 88 electoral votes, while Taft won 8. Pennsylvania was the only eastern state won by Roosevelt; in the Midwest, he carried Michigan, Minnesota, and South Dakota; in the West, California, and Washington. Wilson's victory represented the first Democratic presidential election victory since Cleveland's 1892 campaign, and it was the party's best performance in the Electoral College since 1852. Roosevelt, meanwhile, garnered a higher share of the popular vote than any other third-party presidential candidate in history and won the most states of any third-party candidate after the Civil War.
South American expedition (1913-1914)
A friend of Roosevelt's, Father John Augustine Zahm, persuaded Roosevelt to participate in an expedition to South America. To finance the expedition, Roosevelt received support from the American Museum of Natural History in return for promising to bring back many new animal specimens. Roosevelt's popular book, Through the Brazilian Wilderness describes his expedition into the Brazilian jungle in 1913 as a member of the Roosevelt-Rondon Scientific Expedition, co-named after its leader, Brazilian explorer Cândido Rondon.
Once in South America, a new, far more ambitious goal was added: to find the headwaters of the Rio da Duvida (Portuguese for "River of Doubt"), and trace it north to the Madeira and thence to the Amazon River. It was later renamed Roosevelt River in honor of the former president. Roosevelt's crew consisted of his son Kermit, Colonel Rondon, naturalist George Kruck Cherrie (sent by the American Museum of Natural History), Brazilian Lieutenant João Lira, team physician Dr. José Antonio Cajazeira, and 16 skilled paddlers and porters. Roosevelt also identified Leo Miller (another AMNH recommendation), Anthony Fiala, Frank Harper, and Jacob Sigg as crew members. The initial expedition started somewhat tenuously on December 9, 1913, at the height of the rainy season. The trip down the River of Doubt started on February 27, 1914.
During the trip down the river, Roosevelt suffered a minor leg wound after he jumped into the river to try to prevent two canoes from smashing against the rocks. The flesh wound he received, however, soon gave him tropical fever that resembled the malaria he had contracted while in Cuba fifteen years before. Because the bullet lodged in his chest from the assassination attempt in 1912 was never removed, his health worsened from the infection. This weakened Roosevelt so greatly that six weeks into the adventure, he had to be attended to day and night by the expedition's physician and his son Kermit. By then, he could not walk because of the infection in his injured leg and an infirmity in the other, which was due to a traffic accident a decade earlier. Roosevelt was riddled with chest pains, fighting a fever that soared to and at times made him delirious, at one point constantly reciting the first two lines of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem "Kubla Khan": "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan / A stately pleasure dome decree". Regarding his condition as a threat to the survival of the others, Roosevelt insisted he be left behind to allow the poorly provisioned expedition to proceed as rapidly as it could, preparing to commit suicide with an overdose of morphine. Only an appeal by his son persuaded him to continue.
Despite Roosevelt's continued decline and loss of over , Colonel Rondon reduced the pace of the expedition to allow for his commission's mapmaking and other geographical tasks, which required regular stops to fix the expedition's position by sun-based survey. Upon Roosevelt's return to New York, friends and family were startled by his physical appearance and fatigue. Roosevelt wrote, perhaps prophetically, to a friend that the trip had cut his life short by ten years. For the rest of his few remaining years, he would be plagued by flare-ups of malaria and leg inflammations so severe as to require surgery. Before Roosevelt had even completed his sea voyage home, critics raised doubts over his claims of exploring and navigating a completely uncharted river over long. When he had recovered sufficiently, he addressed a standing-room-only convention organized in Washington, D.C., by the National Geographic Society and satisfactorily defended his claims.
Final years
Roosevelt returned to the United States in May 1914. Though he was outraged by the Wilson Administration's conclusion of a treaty that expressed "sincere regret" for the way in which the United States had acquired the Panama Canal Zone, he was impressed by many of the reforms passed under Wilson. Roosevelt made several campaign appearances for the Progressives, but the 1914 elections were a disaster for the fledgling third party. Roosevelt began to envision another campaign for president, this time with himself at the head of the Republican Party, but conservative party leaders remained opposed to Roosevelt. In hopes of engineering a joint nomination, the Progressives scheduled the 1916 Progressive National Convention at the same time as the 1916 Republican National Convention. When the Republicans nominated Charles Evans Hughes, Roosevelt declined the Progressive nomination and urged his Progressive followers to support the Republican candidate. Though Roosevelt had long disliked Hughes, he disliked Wilson even more, and he campaigned energetically for the Republican nominee. However, Wilson won the 1916 election by a narrow margin. The Progressives disappeared as a party following the 1916 election, and Roosevelt and many of his followers permanently re-joined the Republican Party.
World War I
When the First World War began in 1914, Roosevelt strongly supported the Allies and demanded a harsher policy against Germany, especially regarding submarine warfare. Roosevelt angrily denounced the foreign policy of President Wilson, calling it a failure regarding the atrocities in Belgium and the violations of American rights. In 1916, while campaigning for Hughes, Roosevelt repeatedly denounced Irish-Americans and German-Americans whom he described as unpatriotic, saying they put the interests of Ireland and Germany ahead of America's by supporting neutrality. He insisted that one had to be 100% American, not a "hyphenated American" who juggled multiple loyalties. In March 1917, Congress gave Roosevelt the authority to raise a maximum of four divisions similar to the Rough Riders, and Major Frederick Russell Burnham was put in charge of both the general organization and recruitment. However, President Wilson announced to the press that he would not send Roosevelt and his volunteers to France, but instead would send an American Expeditionary Force under the command of General John J. Pershing. Roosevelt never forgave Wilson, and quickly published The Foes of Our Own Household, an indictment of the sitting president. Roosevelt's youngest son, Quentin, a pilot with the American forces in France, was killed when shot down behind German lines on July 14, 1918, at the age of 20. It is said that Quentin's death distressed Roosevelt so much that he never recovered from his loss.
League of Nations
Roosevelt was an early supporter of the modern view that there needs to be a global order. In his Nobel prize address of 1910, he said, "it would be a master stroke if those great Powers honestly bent on peace would form a League of Peace, not only to keep the peace among themselves, but to prevent, by force if necessary, its being broken by others." It would have executive power such as the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 lacked. He called for American participation.
When World War I broke out, Roosevelt proposed "a World League for the Peace of Righteousness", in September 1914, which would preserve sovereignty but limit armaments and require arbitration. He added that it should be "solemnly covenanted that if any nations refused to abide by the decisions of such a court, then others draw the sword in behalf of peace and justice." In 1915 he outlined this plan more specifically, urging that nations guarantee their entire military force, if necessary, against any nation that refused to carry out arbitration decrees or violated rights of other nations. Though Roosevelt had some concerns about the impact on United States sovereignty, he insisted that such a league would only work if the United States participated as one of the "joint guarantors". Roosevelt referred to this plan in a 1918 speech as "the most feasible for...a league of nations." By this time Wilson was strongly hostile to Roosevelt and Lodge, and developed his own plans for a rather different League of Nations. It became reality along Wilson's lines at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. Roosevelt denounced Wilson's approach but died before it was adopted at Paris. However, Lodge was willing to accept it with serious reservations. In the end, on March 19, 1920, Wilson had Democratic Senators vote against the League with the Lodge Reservations and the United States never joined the League of Nations.
Final political activities
Roosevelt's attacks on Wilson helped the Republicans win control of Congress in the midterm elections of 1918. He declined a request from New York Republicans to run for another gubernatorial term, but attacked Wilson's Fourteen Points, calling instead for the unconditional surrender of Germany. Though his health was uncertain, he was seen as a leading contender for the 1920 Republican nomination, but insisted that, "If they take me, they'll have to take me without a single modification of the things that I have always stood for! He wrote William Allen White, "I wish to do everything in my power to make the Republican Party the Party of sane, constructive radicalism, just as it was under Lincoln." Accordingly, he told the 1918 state convention of the Maine Republican Party that he stood for old-age pensions, insurance for sickness and unemployment, construction of public housing for low-income families, the reduction of working hours, aid to farmers, and more regulation of large corporations.
While his political profile remained high, Roosevelt's physical condition continued to deteriorate throughout 1918 due to the long-term effects of jungle diseases. He was hospitalized for seven weeks late in the year and never fully recovered.
Death
On the night of January 5, 1919, Roosevelt suffered breathing problems. After receiving treatment from his physician, Dr. George W. Faller, he felt better and went to bed. Roosevelt's last words were "Please put out that light, James" to his family servant James E. Amos. Between 4:00 and 4:15 the next morning, Roosevelt, at the age of 60, died in his sleep at Sagamore Hill after a blood clot detached from a vein and traveled to his lungs.
Upon receiving word of his death, his son Archibald telegraphed his siblings: "The old lion is dead." Woodrow Wilson's vice president, Thomas R. Marshall, said that "Death had to take Roosevelt sleeping, for if he had been awake, there would have been a fight." Following a private farewell service in the North Room at Sagamore Hill, a simple funeral was held at Christ Episcopal Church in Oyster Bay. Vice President Thomas R. Marshall, Charles Evans Hughes, Warren G. Harding, Henry Cabot Lodge, and William Howard Taft were among the mourners. The snow-covered procession route to Youngs Memorial Cemetery was lined with spectators and a squad of mounted policemen who had ridden from New York City. Roosevelt was buried on a hillside overlooking Oyster Bay.
Writer
Roosevelt was a prolific author, writing with passion on subjects ranging from foreign policy to the importance of the national park system. Roosevelt was also an avid reader of poetry. Poet Robert Frost said that Roosevelt "was our kind. He quoted poetry to me. He knew poetry."
As an editor of Outlook magazine, Roosevelt had weekly access to a large, educated national audience. In all, Roosevelt wrote about 18 books (each in several editions), including his autobiography, The Rough Riders, History of the Naval War of 1812, and others on subjects such as ranching, explorations, and wildlife. His most ambitious book was the four volume narrative The Winning of the West, focused on the American frontier in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Roosevelt said that the American character—indeed a new "American race" (ethnic group) had emerged from the heroic wilderness hunters and Indian fighters, acting on the frontier with little government help. Roosevelt also published an account of his 1909–10 African expedition entitled African Game Trails.
In 1907, Roosevelt became embroiled in a widely publicized literary debate known as the nature fakers controversy. A few years earlier, naturalist John Burroughs had published an article entitled "Real and Sham Natural History" in the Atlantic Monthly, attacking popular writers of the day such as Ernest Thompson Seton, Charles G. D. Roberts, and William J. Long for their fantastical representations of wildlife. Roosevelt agreed with Burroughs's criticisms, and published several essays of his own denouncing the booming genre of "naturalistic" animal stories as "yellow journalism of the woods". It was the President himself who popularized the negative term "nature faker" to describe writers who depicted their animal characters with excessive anthropomorphism.
Character and beliefs
Roosevelt intensely disliked being called "Teddy", despite the widespread public association with said moniker, and was quick to point out this to those who referred to him as such, though it would become widely used by newspapers during his political career.
He was an active Freemason and member of the Sons of the American Revolution.
British scholar Marcus Cunliffe evaluates the liberal argument that Roosevelt was an opportunist, exhibitionist, and imperialist. Cunliffe praises TR's versatility, his respect for law, and his sincerity. He argues that Roosevelt's foreign policy was better than his detractors allege. Cunliffe calls him "a big man in several respects," ranking him below Washington, Lincoln, and Jefferson, and on the same level as Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Strenuous life
Roosevelt had a lifelong interest in pursuing what he called, in an 1899 speech, "The Strenuous Life". To this end, he exercised regularly and took up boxing, tennis, hiking, rowing, polo, and horseback riding. He also continued his habit of skinny-dipping in the Potomac River during the winter. As governor of New York, he boxed with sparring partners several times each week, a practice he regularly continued as president until being hit so hard in the face he became blind in his left eye (a fact not made public until many years later). As president, he practiced judo for two 2-month periods in 1902 and 1904, not attaining any rank. Roosevelt began to believe in the utility of jiu-jitsu training after training with Yoshitsugu Yamashita. Concerned that the United States would lose its military supremacy to rising powers like Japan, Roosevelt began to advocate for jiu-jitsu training for American soldiers. Feminists annoyed by the posturing of men like Roosevelt, insisted that women were just as capable of learning jiu-jitsu. To prove their point, Martha Blow Wadsworth and Maria Louise ("Hallie") Davis Elkins hired Fude Yamashita, a highly skilled jiu-jitsu instructor and the wife of Yoshitsugu Yamashita, to teach a jiu-jitsu class for women and girls in Washington, DC in 1904. Women had already begun training in boxing in the United States as a means of personal and political empowerment. Jiu-jitsu training thus soon also became popular with American women, coinciding with the origins of a women's self-defense movement.
Roosevelt was an enthusiastic singlestick player and, according to Harper's Weekly, showed up at a White House reception with his arm bandaged after a bout with General Leonard Wood in 1905. Roosevelt was an avid reader, reading tens of thousands of books, at a rate of several per day in multiple languages. Along with Thomas Jefferson, Roosevelt was the most well-read of all American presidents.
Warrior
Historians have often emphasized Roosevelt's warrior persona. He took aggressive positions regarding war with Spain in 1898, Colombia in 1903, and especially with Germany, from 1915 to 1917. As a demonstration of American naval might, he sent the "Great White Fleet" around the world in 1907–1909. The implicit threat of the "big stick" of military power provided leverage to "speak softly" and quietly resolve conflict in numerous cases. He boasted in his autobiography:
Richard D. White Jr states, "Roosevelt's warrior spirit framed his views of national politics, [and] international relations."
Historian Howard K. Beale has argued:
Religion
Roosevelt attended church regularly and was a lifelong adherent of the Reformed Church in America, an American affiliate of the Dutch Reformed Church. In 1907, concerning the motto "In God We Trust" on money, he wrote, "It seems to me eminently unwise to cheapen such a motto by use on coins, just as it would be to cheapen it by use on postage stamps, or in advertisements." Roosevelt talked a great deal about religion. Biographer Edmund Morris states:
Roosevelt publicly encouraged church attendance and was a conscientious churchgoer himself. When gas rationing was introduced during the First World War, he walked the three miles from his home at Sagamore Hill to the local church and back, even after a serious operation had made it difficult for him to travel by foot. It was said that Roosevelt "allowed no engagement to keep him from going to church," and he remained a fervent advocate of the Bible throughout his adult life. According to Christian F. Reisner, writing in 1922 shortly after Roosevelt's death, "Religion was as natural to Mr. Roosevelt as breathing," and when the travel library for Roosevelt's famous Smithsonian-sponsored African expedition was being assembled, the Bible was, according to his sister, "the first book selected." In an address delivered in his home at Oyster Bay to the Long Island Bible Society in 1901, Roosevelt declared that:
Political positions
When he assumed the presidency, Roosevelt reassured many conservatives, stating, "the mechanism of modern business is so delicate that extreme care must be taken not to interfere with it in a spirit of rashness or ignorance." The following year, Roosevelt asserted the president's independence from business interests by opposing the merger which created the Northern Securities Company, and many were surprised that any president, much less an unelected one, would challenge powerful banker J.P. Morgan. In his last two years as president, Roosevelt became increasingly distrustful of big business, despite its close ties to the Republican Party. Roosevelt sought to replace the 19th-century laissez-faire economic environment with a new economic model which included a larger regulatory role for the federal government. He believed that 19th-century entrepreneurs had risked their fortunes on innovations and new businesses, and that these capitalists had been rightly rewarded. By contrast, he believed that 20th-century capitalists risked little but nonetheless reaped huge and, given the lack of risk, unjust, economic rewards. Without a redistribution of wealth away from the upper class, Roosevelt feared that the country would turn to radicals or fall to revolution. His Square Deal domestic program had three main goals: conservation of natural resources, control of corporations, and consumer protection. The Square Deal evolved into his program of "New Nationalism", which emphasized the priority of labor over capital interests and a need to more effectively control corporate creation and combination, and proposed a ban on corporate political contributions.
Foreign policy beliefs
In the analysis by Henry Kissinger, Theodore Roosevelt was the first president to develop the guideline that it was America's duty to make its enormous power and potential influence felt globally. The idea of being a passive "city on the hill" model that others could look up to, he rejected. Roosevelt, trained in biology, was a social darwinist who believed in survival of the fittest. The international world in his view was a realm of violence and conflict. The United States had all the economic and geographical potential to be the fittest nation on the globe. The United States had a duty to act decisively. For example, in terms of the Monroe Doctrine, America had to prevent European incursions in the Western Hemisphere. But there was more, as he expressed in his famous Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine: the U.S. had to be the policeman of the region because unruly, corrupt smaller nations had to be controlled, and if United States did not do it, European powers would in fact intervene and develop their own base of power in the hemisphere in contravention to the Monroe Doctrine.
Roosevelt was a realist and a conservative. He deplored many of the increasingly popular idealistic liberal themes, such as were promoted by William Jennings Bryan, the anti-imperialists, and Woodrow Wilson. Kissinger says he rejected the efficacy of international law. Roosevelt argue that if a country could not protect its own interests, the international community could not help very much. He ridiculed disarmament proposals that were increasingly common. He saw no likelihood of an international power capable of checking wrongdoing on a major scale. As for world government: I regard the Wilson–Bryan attitude of trusting to fantastic peace treaties, too impossible promises, to all kinds of scraps of paper without any backing in efficient force, as abhorrent. It is infinitely better for a nation and for the world to have the Frederick the Great and Bismarck tradition as regards foreign policy than to have the Bryan or Bryan–Wilson attitude as a permanent national attitude.... A milk-and-water righteousness unbacked by force is...as wicked as and even more mischievous than force divorced from righteousness.
On the positive side, Roosevelt favored spheres of influence, whereby one great power would generally prevail, such as the United States in the Western Hemisphere or Great Britain in the Indian subcontinent. Japan fit that role and he approved. However he had deep distrust of both Germany and Russia.
Legacy
Historians credit Roosevelt for changing the nation's political system by permanently placing the "bully pulpit" of the presidency at center stage and making character as important as the issues. His accomplishments include trust busting and conservationism. He is a hero to liberals and progressives for his proposals in 1907–1912 that presaged the modern welfare state of the New Deal Era, including direct federal taxation, labor reforms, and more direct democracy, while conservationists admire Roosevelt for putting the environment and selflessness towards future generations on the national agenda, and conservatives and nationalists respect his commitment to law and order, civic duty and military values, as well as his personality of individual self-responsibility and hardiness. Dalton says, "Today he is heralded as the architect of the modern presidency, as a world leader who boldly reshaped the office to meet the needs of the new century and redefined America's place in the world."
However, liberals and socialists have criticized him for his interventionist and imperialist approach to nations he considered "uncivilized". Conservatives and libertarians reject his vision of the welfare state and emphasis on the superiority of government over private action. Historians typically rank Roosevelt among the top five presidents in American history.
Persona and masculinity
Dalton says Roosevelt is remembered as, "one of the most picturesque personalities who has ever enlivened the landscape". His friend, historian Henry Adams, proclaimed: "Roosevelt, more than any other man... showed the singular primitive quality that belongs to ultimate matter—the quality that medieval theology assigned to God—he was pure act."
Roosevelt's biographers have stressed his personality. Henry F. Pringle, who won the Pulitzer Prize in biography for his Theodore Roosevelt (1931) stated: "The Theodore Roosevelt of later years was the most adolescent of men… Failure to receive the Medal of Honor for his exploits [in Cuba] had been a grief as real as any of those which swamp childhood in despair. 'You must always remember,' wrote Cecil Spring Rice in 1904, 'that the President is about six.'"
Cooper compared him with Woodrow Wilson and argued that both of them played the roles of warrior and priest. Dalton stressed Roosevelt's strenuous life. Sarah Watts examined the desires of the "Rough Rider in the White House". Brands calls Roosevelt "the last romantic", arguing that his romantic concept of life emerged from his belief that "physical bravery was the highest virtue and war the ultimate test of bravery".
Roosevelt as the exemplar of American masculinity has become a major theme. As president, he repeatedly warned men that they were becoming too office-bound, too complacent, too comfortable with physical ease and moral laxity, and were failing in their duties to propagate the race and exhibit masculine vigor. French historian Serge Ricard says, "the ebullient apostle of the Strenuous Life offers ideal material for a detailed psycho-historical analysis of aggressive manhood in the changing socio-cultural environment of his era; McKinley, Taft, or Wilson would perhaps inadequately serve that purpose". He promoted competitive sports like boxing and jiu-jitsu for physically strengthening American men. He also believed that organizations like the Boy Scouts of America, founded in 1910, could help mold and strengthen the character of American boys. Brands shows that heroic displays of bravery were essential to Roosevelt's image and mission:
Memorials and cultural depictions
Roosevelt was included with Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln at the Mount Rushmore Memorial, designed in 1927 with the approval of Republican President Calvin Coolidge.
For his gallantry at San Juan Hill, Roosevelt's commanders recommended him for the Medal of Honor. However, the initial recommendation lacked any eyewitnesses, and the effort was eventually tainted by Roosevelt's own lobbying of the War Department. In the late 1990s, Roosevelt's supporters again recommended the award, which was denied by the Secretary of the Army on basis that the decorations board determined "Roosevelt's bravery in battle did not rise to the level that would justify the Medal of Honor and, indeed, it did not rise to the level of men who fought in that engagement." Nevertheless, politicians apparently convinced the secretary to reconsider the award a third time and reverse himself, leading to the charge that it was a "politically motivated award." On January 16, 2001, President Bill Clinton awarded Theodore Roosevelt the Medal of Honor posthumously for his charge on San Juan Hill. He is the only president to have received the Medal of Honor.
The United States Navy named two ships for Roosevelt: the , a submarine that was in commission from 1961 to 1982, and the , an aircraft carrier that has been on active duty in the Atlantic Fleet since 1986.
On November 18, 1956, the United States Postal Service released a 6¢ Liberty Issue postage stamp honoring Roosevelt. A 32¢ stamp was issued on February 3, 1998, as part of the Celebrate the Century stamp sheet series. In 2008, Columbia Law School awarded Roosevelt a Juris Doctor degree, posthumously making him a member of the class of 1882.
Roosevelt's "Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick" ideology is still quoted by politicians and columnists in different countries—not only in English, but also in translations to various other languages. Another lasting, popular legacy of Roosevelt is the stuffed toy bears—teddy bears—named after him following an incident on a hunting trip in Mississippi in 1902. Roosevelt has been portrayed in films and television series such as Brighty of the Grand Canyon, The Wind and the Lion, Rough Riders, My Friend Flicka, and Law of the Plainsman. Robin Williams portrayed Roosevelt in the form of a wax mannequin that comes to life in Night at the Museum and its sequels Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian and Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb. In 2017, it was announced that Leonardo DiCaprio will portray Roosevelt in a biopic to be directed by Martin Scorsese.
Moreover, Theodore Roosevelt National Park in the state of North Dakota is named after him. The America the Beautiful Quarters series features Roosevelt riding a horse on the national park's quarter.
Asteroid 188693 Roosevelt, discovered by astronomers with the Catalina Sky Survey in 2005, was named after him. The official was published by the Minor Planet Center on November 8, 2019 ().
In January 2022, after years of lobbying by activists, an equestrian statue of the former president was removed from where it had stood for more than eighty years in front of New York's American Museum of Natural History. Responding to controversy, the museum noted that the design "communicates a racial hierarchy that the museum and members of the public have long found disturbing."
Audiovisual media
Theodore Roosevelt was one of the first presidents whose voice was recorded for posterity. Several of his recorded speeches survive. A 4.6-minute voice recording, which preserves Roosevelt's lower timbre ranges particularly well for its time, is among those available from the Michigan State University libraries (this is the 1912 recording of The Right of the People to Rule, recorded by Edison at Carnegie Hall). The audio clip sponsored by the Authentic History Center includes his defense of the Progressive Party in 1912, wherein he proclaims it the "party of the people" – in contrast with the other major parties.
Roosevelt goes for a ride in Arch Hoxsey's plane in October 1910
In popular culture
Theodore Roosevelt appears as the leader of the American civilization in the Firaxis Games title Civilization VI. His unique ability is Roosevelt Corollary, which gives +5 Combat Strength for all units inside America's home continent, and +1 Appeal to all tiles in cities with a national park.
See also
Notes
References
Bibliography
Full biographies
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, 105 pp, very short biography by leading scholar.
.; also titled Power and responsibility; the life and times of Theodore Roosevelt online free to borrow
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, only volume published, to age 28.
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Personality and activities
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Provides a lesson plan on TR as the historical figure who most exemplifies the quality of masculinity.
. Chronicles the events of TR's presidency during the summers of his two terms.
. The president's use of publicity, rhetoric and force of personality.
; his deadly 1913–14 trip to the Amazon.
, best seller; to 1886.
, to 1884.
. 494 pp.
, examines TR and his family during the World War I period.
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, 240 pp. TR in Africa & Europe, 1909–10
. 289 pp.
, 337 pp; TR's political thought and its significance for republican self-government.
Domestic policies
online review; another online review
Cutright, P.R. (1985) Theodore Roosevelt: The making of a Modern Conservationist (U of Illinois Press.)
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, standard history of his domestic and foreign policy as president.
Bakari, Mohamed El-Kamel. "Mapping the 'Anthropocentric-ecocentric'Dualism in the History of American Presidency: The Good, the Bad, and the Ambivalent." Journal of Studies in Social Sciences 14, no. 2 (2016).
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Redekop, Benjamin. (2015). "Embodying the Story: The Conservation Leadership of Theodore Roosevelt". Leadership (2015) DOI:10.1177/1742715014546875 online
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Politics
. How TR did politics.
, 323 pp.
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. 361 pp.
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. Focus on 1912; online free
. online free
. Attacks TR policies from conservative/libertarian perspective.
Foreign policy, military and naval issues
. online
. excerpt
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. 328 pp.
Kuehn, John T. "Theodore Roosevelt’s Naval Diplomacy: The U.S. Navy and the Birth of the American Century," Naval War College Review (2010) 53#3 online
Livermore, Seward W. "Theodore Roosevelt, the American Navy, and the Venezuelan Crisis of 1902-1903." American Historical Review 51.3 (1946): 452–471. online
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Nester, William R. Theodore Roosevelt and the Art of American Power: An American for All Time. Rowman & Littlefield, 2019. excerpt
Neu, Charles E. "Theodore Roosevelt and American Involvement in the Far East, 1901-1909." Pacific Historical Review 35.4 (1966): 433–449. online
O'Gara, Gordon Carpenter. Theodore Roosevelt and the Rise of the Modern Navy. (Princeton UP, 1943). online
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Oyos, Matthew M. In Command: Theodore Roosevelt and the American Military (2018) online review
Pietrusza, David (2018). TR's Last War: Theodore Roosevelt, the Great War, and a Journey of Triumph and Tragedy
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Thompson, John M. Great Power Rising: Theodore Roosevelt and the Politics of US Foreign Policy (Oxford UP, 2019).
. 196 pp.
Turk, Richard W. The Ambiguous Relationship: Theodore Roosevelt and Alfred Thayer Mahan (1987) [https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article-abstract/93/5/1413/70734 online review
Historiography
Cunliffe, Marcus. "Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States 1901–1908" History Today (Sept 1955) 4#9 pp. 592–601, online.
Ricard, Serge. "The State of Theodore Roosevelt Studies" H-Diplo Essay No. 116 24 October 2014 online
, excerpt and text search, 28 new essays by scholars; focus on historiography. online
Primary sources
Kohn, Edward P., ed. A Most Glorious Ride: The Diaries of Theodore Roosevelt, 1877–1886 (State University of New York Press, 2015), 284 pp.
; vol 2
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, 20 vol.; 18,000 pages containing most of TR's speeches, books and essays, but not his letters; a CD-ROM edition is available; some of TR's books are available online through Project Bartleby
, Roosevelt's opinions on many issues; online version at Theodore Roosevelt.
, 8 vols. Very large collection. vol 1 1868–1898 online free
. online free
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online free to borrow
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External links
Official
White House biography
Organizations
Boone and Crockett Club
Theodore Roosevelt Association
Libraries and collections
Theodore Roosevelt Center at Dickinson State University
Theodore Roosevelt Collection, at the Houghton Library, Harvard University
Julian L. Street Papers on Theodore Roosevelt, at the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library, Princeton University
Doris A. and Lawrence H. Budner Collection on Theodore Roosevelt at the DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University
Theodore Roosevelt's journalism at The Archive of American Journalism
Theodore Roosevelt American Museum of Natural History
Roosevelt Papers, at the Library of Congress
Guide to the Herbert R. Strauss Collection of Theodore Roosevelt Papers 1884–1919 at the University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center
Media
"Life Portrait of Theodore Roosevelt", from C-SPAN's American Presidents: Life Portraits, September 3, 1999
"Writings of Theodore Roosevelt" from C-SPAN's American Writers: A Journey Through History
Other
Almanac of Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt: A Resource Guide – Library of Congress
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20th-century American male writers | true | [
"Kamaanya Kadduwamala was Kabaka of the Kingdom of Buganda from 1814 until 1832. He was the twenty-eighth (28th) Kabaka of Buganda.\n\nClaim to the throne\nHe was the eldest son of Kabaka Semakookiro Wasajja Nabbunga, Kabaka of Buganda, who reigned between 1797 and 1814. His mother was Abakyala Nansikombi Ndwadd'ewazibwa, the Kaddulubaale, of the Nseenene (Grasshopper) Clan. She was his father's first wife. His father married at least fifteen wives. He ascended to the throne upon the death of his father in 1814, assuming the name of Kamaanya. He established his capital at Nsujjumpolu.\n\nMarried life\nLike his father, Kabaka Kamaanya had many wives. He is recorded to have married at least thirty eight (38) wives:\n\n Baakuyiira, daughter of Lule, of the Ngonge clan\n Basiima Mukooki, daughter of Kateesigwa, of the Nkima clan\n Gwowemukira\n Kayaga, daughter of Kiwaalabye, of the Kkobe clan\n Kisirisa, daughter of Walusimbi, of the Ffumbe clan\n Naabakyaala Saamanya, the Kaddulubaale, daughter of Walusimbi, of the Ffumbe clan. She was killed on the orders of her husband.\n Ky'osiby'omunyolo, daughter of Jjumba, of the Nkima clan\n Kyot'owadde, daughter of Kiyaga, of the Mamba clan\n Kyowol'otudde, daughter of Lutalo, of the Ndiga clan\n Lubadde, daughter of Majanja, of the Ngeye clan\n Mpozaaki, daughter of Kateesigwa, of the Nkima clan\n Mubyuwo?, daughter of Nakatanza, of the Lugave clan\n Muteezi, daughter of Nakato, of the Mbogo clan\n Mukwaano, daughter of Mugema, of the Nkima clan\n Nambi, daughter of Lutaaya, of the Ngonge clan\n Naabakyaala Nabikuku, the Kabejja, daughter of Jjumba, of the Nkima clan\n Nabirumbi, daughter of Kisuule of Busoga, of the Ngabi (Reedbuck) clan\n Nabiswaazi, daughter of Jjumba, of the Nkima clan\n Nabyonga, daughter of Mwamba?, of the Lugave clan\n Nabbowa, daughter of Kafumbirwango, of the Lugave clan\n Nakaddu, daughter of Kamyuuka, of the Kkobe clan\n Nakanyike, daughter of Senfuma, of the Mamba clan\n Nakkazi Kannyange, daughter of Ssambwa Katenda, of the Mamba clan\n Nakkazi, daughter of Lutalo, of the Mamba clan\n Nakku, daughter of Walusimbi, of the Ffumbe clan\n Nakyekoledde, daughter of Gabunga, of the Mamba clan\n Nalumansi, daughter of Walusimbi, of the Ffumbe clan\n Namale, daughter of Kiwalabye, of the Kkobe clan\n Namukasa, daughter of Nankere, of the Mamba clan\n Namawuba, daughter of Sempala, of the Ffumbe clan\n Nambi Tebasaanidde, daughter of Mugula, of the Mamba clan\n Namwenyagira, daughter of Kamyuuka, of the Kkobe clan\n Nannozi, daughter of Gomottoka, of the Nvubu clan\n Nankanja, daughter of Terwewalwa, of the Nvubu clan\n Nzaalambi, daughter of Natiigo, of the Lugave clan\n Siribatwaalira, of the Nkima clan\n Tebeemalizibwa, daughter of Mwamba?, of the Lugave clan\n Nanteza\n\nIssue\nHe is recorded to have fathered sixty one (61) sons and several daughters. His son Suuna II, executed fifty eight (58) of his brothers during his reign. The children of Kabaka Kamaanya included:\n\n Prince (Omulangira) Kiggala I, whose mother was Baakuyiira\n Prince (Omulangira) Nakibinge Bawuunyakangu, whose mother was Saamanya. He was killed by being burned alive, on the orders of his father at Busonyi, Busujju County.\n Prince (Omulangira) Kimera, whose mother was Gwowemukira\n Prince (Omulangira) Ndawula, whose mother was Gwowemukira\n Prince (Omulangira) Lule, whose mother was Gwowemukira\n Prince (Omulangira) Kiggala II, whose mother was Gwowemukira\n Prince (Omulangira) Kitereera, whose mother was Gwowemukira\n Princess (Omumbejja) Babirye, whose mother was Kayaga. Twin with Princess Nakato\n Princess (Omumbejja) Nakato, whose mother was Kayaga. Twin with Princess Nakato\n Prince (Omulangira) Kaggwa, whose mother was Kisirisa\n Prince (Omulangira) Bagunyeenyamangu, whose mother was Saamanya\n Prince (Omulangira) Mbajjwe, whose mother was Ky'osiby'omunyolo).\n Prince (Omulangira) Bamweyana, whose mother was Kyootowadde\n Prince (Omulangira) Twaayise, whose mother was Mpozaaki\n Prince (Omulangira) Kyomubi, whose mother was Mukwaano\n Prince (Omulangira) Luwedde, whose mother was Nabiswaazi\n Prince (Omulangira) Kimera, whose mother was Nabbowa\n Prince (Omulangira) Lumansi, whose mother was Nakaddu\n Prince (Omulangira) Tebandeke, whose mother was Nakanyike\n Prince (Omulangira) Suuna Kalema Kansinjo, who succeeded as Kabaka Suuna II Kalema Kansinjo Mukaabya Ssekkyungwa Muteesa I Sewankambo Walugembe Mig'ekyaamye Lukeberwa Kyetutumula Magulunnyondo Lubambula Omutanda Sseggwanga, whose mother was Nakkazi Kannyange\n Prince (Omulangira) Wasajja, whose mother was Nakkazi. He escaped the slaughter of the princes by his brother, Suuna II.\n Prince (Omulangira) Ndawula, whose mother was Nakyekoledde\n Prince (Omulangira) Mutebi, whose mother was Nakyekoledde\n Prince (Omulangira) Mugogo, whose mother was Kyotowadde. He too, escaped the slaughter of the princes by his brother, Suuna II.\n Prince (Omulangira) Kigoye, whose mother was Namale\n Princess (Omumbejja) Ndagire I, whose mother was Namukasa\n Prince (Omulangira) Waswa, whose mother was Nambi Tebasaanidde. Twin with Babirye.\n Princess (Omumbejja) Babirye, whose mother was Nambi Tebasaanidde. Twin with Babirye\n Prince (Omulangira) Kajumba, whose mother was Nambi Tebasaanidde\n Princess (Omumbejja) Ndagire II, whose mother was Nannozi\n Prince (Omulangira) Kizza, whose mother was Nzaalambi\n Princess (Omumbejja) Tajuba, whose mother was Lubadde. She died after 1927.\n Princess (Omumbejja) Nassolo, whose mother Mubyuwo?\n Princess (Omumbejja) Nambi, whose mother was Muteezi\n Princess (Omumbejja) Nakayenga, whose mother was Kyowol'otudde\n Princess (Omumbejja) Namayanja, whose mother was Lubadde\n Princess (Omumbejja) Nabaloga, whose mother was Mpozaaki\n Princess (Omumbejja) Kagere, whose mother was Mubyuwo\n Princess (Omumbejja) Mwannyin'empologoma Nassolo, whose mother was Nabikuku\n Princess (Omumbejja) Nalumansi, whose mother was Nabirumbi\n Princess (Omumbejja) Nakku, whose mother was Nabyonga\n Princess (Omumbejja) Nakalema, whose mother was Nalumansi\n Princess (Omumbejja) Nakangu, whose mother was Nambi\n Princess (Omumbejja) Namika, whose mother was Nakaddu\n Princess (Omumbejja) Nakabiri, whose mother was Namwenyagira\n Princess (Omumbejja) Katalina Nabisubi Mpalikitenda Nakayenga, whose mother was Siribatwaalira. She was born around 1814. She died on 27 January 1907.\n Princess (Omumbejja) Lwantale, whose mother was Siribatwaalira. She was the Naalinnya to Kabaka Suuna II. She died in March 1881.\n Princess (Omumbejja) Nagaddya, whose mother was Tebeemalizibwa\n Princess (Omumbejja) Nassuuna Kyetenga, whose mother was Nankanja\n\nHis reign\nKabaka Kamaanya continued the wars of conquest against the Kingdom's neighbors which led to an expansion of the territory of the Buganda Kingdom. He conquered the ssaza, Buweekula, from Bunyoro and annexed it to Buganda.\n\nThe final years\nKabaka Kamaanya died at Lutengo in 1832. He was buried at Kasengejje, Busiro.\n\nQuotes\nIt is claimed that Kamanya’s original name was Kanakulya Mukasa. But because he was such a tyrant, his contemporaries began to refer to a person of uncontrollable temper with a persecution mania (and indirectly to the king) as a kamanya.\n MM Semakula Kiwanuka, A History of Buganda, 1971\n\nSuccession table\n\nSee also\n Kabaka of Buganda\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nList of the Kings of Buganda\n\nKabakas of Buganda\n19th-century monarchs in Africa\n1832 deaths\nYear of birth unknown",
"Mutebi I was Kabaka of the Kingdom of Buganda between 1674 and 1680. He was the fifteenth (15th) Kabaka of Buganda.\n\nClaim to the throne\nHe was the son of Kabaka Kateregga Kamegere, Kabaka of Buganda, who reigned between 1644 and 1674. His mother was Namutebi of the Mamba clan, the eighth (8th) wife of his father. He ascended the throne following the death of his father in 1674. He established his capital at Muguluka.\n\nMarried Life\nHe married five (5) wives:\n Nabitalo, daughter of Walusimbi, of the Ffumbe clan\n Nabukalu, daughter of Ndugwa, of the Lugave clan\n Naluyima, daughter of Nakatanza, of the Lugave clan\n Namawuba, daughter of Natiigo, of the Lugave clan\n Nampiima, daughter of Kibale, of the Mpeewo clan.\n\nIssue\nHe fathered seven (7) sons:\n Prince (Omulangira) Lukenge, whose mother was Nabitalo\n Kabaka Tebandeke Mujambula, Kabaka of Buganda, who reigned between 1704 and 1724, whose mother was Nabukalu\n Prince (Omulangira) Mpiima, whose mother was Nampiima\n Prince (Omulangira) Kayima, whose mother was Naluyima\n Prince (Omulangira) Mawuba, whose mother was Namawuba\n Prince (Omulangira) Mukama, whose mother was Namawuba\n Prince (Omulangira) Matumbwe, whose mother was Namawuba\n\nThe final years\nHe died at Mbalwa and was buried there. Other credible sources put his burial place at Kongojje, Busiro.\n\nSuccession table\n\nSee also\n Kabaka of Buganda\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nList of the Kings of Buganda\n\nKabakas of Buganda\n17th-century African people\n1680 deaths"
] |
[
"Theodore Roosevelt",
"Early life and family",
"Where was Theodore Roosevelt born?",
"Theodore Roosevelt Jr. was born on October 27, 1858, at East 20th Street in New York City.",
"Who was his mother?",
"socialite Martha Stewart \"Mittie\" Bulloch"
] | C_ea2b2d977c0c4d1d93ec5efce7ee7156_1 | What type of work did his father do? | 3 | What type of work did Theodore Roosevelt's father do? | Theodore Roosevelt | Theodore Roosevelt Jr. was born on October 27, 1858, at East 20th Street in New York City. He was the second of four children born to socialite Martha Stewart "Mittie" Bulloch and businessman and philanthropist Theodore Roosevelt Sr. He had an older sister, Anna (nicknamed "Bamie"), a younger brother, Elliott, and a younger sister, Corinne. Elliott was later the father of First Lady Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of Theodore's distant cousin, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. His paternal grandfather was of Dutch descent; his other ancestry included primarily Scottish and Scots-Irish, English and smaller amounts of German, Welsh, and French. Theodore Sr. was the fifth son of businessman Cornelius Van Schaack "C.V.S." Roosevelt and Margaret Barnhill. Theodore's fourth cousin, James Roosevelt I, who was also a businessman, was the father of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Mittie was the younger daughter of Major James Stephens Bulloch and Martha P. "Patsy" Stewart. Through the Van Schaacks, Roosevelt was a descendant of the Schuyler family. Roosevelt's youth was largely shaped by his poor health and debilitating asthma. He repeatedly experienced sudden nighttime asthma attacks that caused the experience of being smothered to death, which terrified both Theodore and his parents. Doctors had no cure. Nevertheless, he was energetic and mischievously inquisitive. His lifelong interest in zoology began at age seven when he saw a dead seal at a local market; after obtaining the seal's head, Roosevelt and two cousins formed what they called the "Roosevelt Museum of Natural History". Having learned the rudiments of taxidermy, he filled his makeshift museum with animals that he killed or caught; he then studied the animals and prepared them for display. At age nine, he recorded his observation of insects in a paper entitled "The Natural History of Insects". Roosevelt's father significantly influenced him. His father was a prominent leader in New York's cultural affairs; he helped to found the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and had been especially active in mobilizing support for the Union during the Civil War, even though his in-laws included Confederate leaders. Roosevelt said, "My father, Theodore Roosevelt, was the best man I ever knew. He combined strength and courage with gentleness, tenderness, and great unselfishness. He would not tolerate in us children selfishness or cruelty, idleness, cowardice, or untruthfulness." Family trips abroad, including tours of Europe in 1869 and 1870, and Egypt in 1872, shaped his cosmopolitan perspective. Hiking with his family in the Alps in 1869, Roosevelt found that he could keep pace with his father. He had discovered the significant benefits of physical exertion to minimize his asthma and bolster his spirits. Roosevelt began a heavy regime of exercise. After being manhandled by two older boys on a camping trip, he found a boxing coach to teach him to fight and strengthen his body. CANNOTANSWER | businessman and philanthropist | Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or his initials T. R., was an American politician, statesman, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26th president of the United States from 1901 to 1909. He previously served as the 25th vice president under William McKinley from March to September 1901, and as the 33rd governor of New York from 1899 to 1900. Having assumed the presidency after McKinley's assassination, Roosevelt emerged as a leader of the Republican Party and became a driving force for anti-trust and Progressive policies.
Roosevelt was a sickly child with debilitating asthma but partly overcame his health problems by embracing a strenuous lifestyle. He integrated his exuberant personality, a vast range of interests and achievements into a "cowboy" persona defined by robust masculinity. He was home-schooled and began a lifelong naturalist avocation before attending Harvard. His book The Naval War of 1812 (1882) established his reputation as a learned historian and popular writer. Upon entering politics, he became the leader of the reform faction of Republicans in New York's state legislature. His wife and mother both died in the same night and he was psychologically devastated. He recuperated by buying and operating a cattle ranch in the Dakotas. He served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy under President William McKinley and in 1898 helped plan the highly successful naval war against Spain. He resigned to help form and lead the Rough Riders, a unit that fought the Spanish army in Cuba to great publicity. Returning a war hero, he was elected governor of New York in 1898. The New York state party leadership disliked his ambitious agenda and convinced McKinley to make Roosevelt his running mate in the 1900 election. Roosevelt campaigned vigorously, and the McKinley–Roosevelt ticket won a landslide victory based on a platform of victory, peace and prosperity.
Roosevelt assumed the presidency at age 42 after McKinley was assassinated in September 1901. He remains the youngest person to become president of the United States. Roosevelt was a leader of the progressive movement and championed his "Square Deal" domestic policies, promising the average citizen fairness, breaking of trusts, regulation of railroads, and pure food and drugs. He prioritized conservation and established national parks, forests, and monuments intended to preserve the nation's natural resources. In foreign policy, he focused on Central America where he began construction of the Panama Canal. He expanded the Navy and sent the Great White Fleet on a world tour to project American naval power. His successful efforts to broker the end of the Russo-Japanese War won him the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize. Roosevelt was elected to a full term in 1904 and continued to promote progressive policies. He groomed his close friend William Howard Taft to succeed him in the 1908 presidential election.
Roosevelt grew frustrated with Taft's brand of conservatism and belatedly tried to win the 1912 Republican nomination for president. He failed, walked out, and founded the Progressive Party. He ran in the 1912 presidential election and the split allowed the Democratic nominee Woodrow Wilson to win the election. Following the defeat, Roosevelt led a two-year expedition to the Amazon basin where he nearly died of tropical disease. During World War I, he criticized Wilson for keeping the country out of the war; his offer to lead volunteers to France was rejected. He considered running for president again in 1920, but his health continued to deteriorate. He died in 1919. He is generally ranked in polls of historians and political scientists as one of the five best presidents.
Early life and family
Theodore Roosevelt Jr. was born on October 27, 1858, at 28 East 20th Street in Manhattan, New York City. He was the second of four children born to socialite Martha Stewart "Mittie" Bulloch and businessman and philanthropist Theodore Roosevelt Sr. He had an older sister (Anna, nicknamed "Bamie"), a younger brother (Elliott) and a younger sister (Corinne). Elliott was later the father of First Lady Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of Theodore's distant cousin, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. His paternal grandfather was of Dutch descent; his other ancestry included primarily Scottish and Scots-Irish, English and smaller amounts of German, Welsh and French. Theodore Sr. was the fifth son of businessman Cornelius Van Schaack "C. V. S." Roosevelt and Margaret Barnhill as well as a brother of Robert Roosevelt and James A. Roosevelt. Theodore's fourth cousin, James Roosevelt I, who was also a businessman, was the father of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Mittie was the younger daughter of Major James Stephens Bulloch and Martha P. "Patsy" Stewart. Through the Van Schaacks, Roosevelt was a descendant of the Schuyler family.
Roosevelt's youth was largely shaped by his poor health and debilitating asthma. He repeatedly experienced sudden nighttime asthma attacks that caused the experience of being smothered to death, which terrified both Theodore and his parents. Doctors had no cure. Nevertheless, he was energetic and mischievously inquisitive. His lifelong interest in zoology began at age seven when he saw a dead seal at a local market; after obtaining the seal's head, Roosevelt and two cousins formed what they called the "Roosevelt Museum of Natural History". Having learned the rudiments of taxidermy, he filled his makeshift museum with animals that he killed or caught; he then studied the animals and prepared them for exhibition. At age nine, he recorded his observation of insects in a paper entitled "The Natural History of Insects".
Roosevelt's father significantly influenced him. His father was a prominent leader in New York's cultural affairs; he helped to found the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and had been especially active in mobilizing support for the Union during the Civil War, even though his in-laws included Confederate leaders. Roosevelt said, "My father, Theodore Roosevelt, was the best man I ever knew. He combined strength and courage with gentleness, tenderness, and great unselfishness. He would not tolerate in us children selfishness or cruelty, idleness, cowardice, or untruthfulness." Family trips abroad, including tours of Europe in 1869 and 1870, and Egypt in 1872, shaped his cosmopolitan perspective. Hiking with his family in the Alps in 1869, Roosevelt found that he could keep pace with his father. He had discovered the significant benefits of physical exertion to minimize his asthma and bolster his spirits. Roosevelt began a heavy regime of exercise. After being manhandled by two older boys on a camping trip, he found a boxing coach to teach him to fight and strengthen his body.
A 6-year-old Roosevelt witnessed the funeral procession of Abraham Lincoln from his grandfather's mansion in Union Square, New York City where he was photographed in the window along with his brother Elliott, as confirmed by wife Edith who was also present.
Education
Roosevelt was homeschooled, mostly by tutors and his parents. Biographer H. W. Brands argued that "The most obvious drawback to his home schooling was uneven coverage of the various areas of human knowledge." He was solid in geography and bright in history, biology, French, and German; however, he struggled in mathematics and the classical languages. When he entered Harvard College on September 27, 1876, his father advised: "Take care of your morals first, your health next, and finally your studies." His father's sudden death on February 9, 1878, devastated Roosevelt, but he eventually recovered and doubled his activities.
He did well in science, philosophy, and rhetoric courses but continued to struggle in Latin and Greek. He studied biology intently and was already an accomplished naturalist and a published ornithologist. He read prodigiously with an almost photographic memory. While at Harvard, Roosevelt participated in rowing and boxing; he was once runner-up in an intramural boxing tournament. Roosevelt was a member of the Alpha Delta Phi literary society (later the Fly Club), the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity, and the prestigious Porcellian Club; he was also an editor of The Harvard Advocate. In 1880, Roosevelt graduated Phi Beta Kappa (22nd of 177) from Harvard with an A.B. magna cum laude. Biographer Henry Pringle states:
After his father's death, Roosevelt had inherited $65,000 (), enough to live off comfortably for the rest of his life. Roosevelt gave up his earlier plan of studying natural science and instead decided to attend Columbia Law School, moving back into his family's home in New York City. Roosevelt was an able law student, but he often found law to be irrational. He spent much of his time writing a book on the War of 1812.
Determined to enter politics, Roosevelt began attending meetings at Morton Hall, the 59th Street headquarters of New York's 21st District Republican Association. Though Roosevelt's father had been a prominent member of the Republican Party, the younger Roosevelt made an unorthodox career choice for someone of his class, as most of Roosevelt's peers refrained from becoming too closely involved in politics. Roosevelt found allies in the local Republican Party, and he defeated an incumbent Republican state assemblyman closely tied to the political machine of Senator Roscoe Conkling. After his election victory, Roosevelt decided to drop out of law school, later saying, "I intended to be one of the governing class."
Naval history and strategy
While at Harvard, Roosevelt began a systematic study of the role played by the young United States Navy in the War of 1812. Assisted by two uncles, he scrutinized original source materials and official U.S. Navy records, ultimately publishing The Naval War of 1812 in 1882. The book contained drawings of individual and combined ship maneuvers, charts depicting the differences in iron throw weights of cannon shot between rival forces, and analyses of the differences and similarities between British and American leadership down to the ship-to-ship level. Upon release, The Naval War of 1812 was praised for its scholarship and style, and it remains a standard study of the war.
With the publication of The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660–1783 in 1890, Navy Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan was immediately hailed as the world's outstanding naval theorist by the leaders of Europe. Roosevelt paid very close attention to Mahan's emphasis that only a nation with the world's most powerful fleet could dominate the world's oceans, exert its diplomacy to the fullest, and defend its own borders. He incorporated Mahan's ideas into his views on naval strategy for the remainder of his career.
First marriage and widowerhood
In 1880, Roosevelt married socialite Alice Hathaway Lee. Their daughter, Alice Lee Roosevelt, was born on February 12, 1884. Two days later, the new mother died of an undiagnosed case of kidney failure that had been masked by the pregnancy. In his diary, Roosevelt wrote a large 'X' on the page and then, "The light has gone out of my life." His mother, Mittie, had died of typhoid fever eleven hours earlier at 3:00 a.m., in the same house on 57th Street in Manhattan. Distraught, Roosevelt left baby Alice in the care of his sister Bamie while he grieved; he assumed custody of Alice when she was three.
After the deaths of his wife and mother, Roosevelt focused on his work, specifically by re-energizing a legislative investigation into corruption of the New York City government, which arose from a concurrent bill proposing that power be centralized in the mayor's office. For the rest of his life, he rarely spoke about his wife Alice and did not write about her in his autobiography.
Early political career
State Assemblyman
Roosevelt was a member of the New York State Assembly (New York Co., 21st D.) in 1882, 1883 and 1884. He immediately began making his mark, specifically in corporate corruption issues. He blocked a corrupt effort by financier Jay Gould to lower his taxes. Roosevelt exposed suspected collusion in the matter by Judge Theodore Westbrook, and argued for and received approval for an investigation to proceed, aiming for the impeachment of the judge. The investigation committee rejected impeachment, but Roosevelt had exposed the potential corruption in Albany, and thus assumed a high and positive political profile in multiple New York publications.
Roosevelt's anti-corruption efforts helped him win re-election in 1882 by a margin greater than two-to-one, an achievement made even more impressive by the fact that Democratic gubernatorial candidate Grover Cleveland won Roosevelt's district. With Conkling's Stalwart faction of the Republican Party in disarray following the assassination of President James Garfield, Roosevelt won election as the Republican party leader in the state assembly. He allied with Governor Cleveland to win passage of a civil service reform bill. Roosevelt won re-election a second time, and sought the office of Speaker of the New York State Assembly, but was defeated by Titus Sheard in a 41 to 29 vote of the GOP caucus. In his final term, Roosevelt served as Chairman of the Committee on Affairs of Cities; he wrote more bills than any other legislator.
Presidential election of 1884
With numerous presidential hopefuls to choose from, Roosevelt supported Senator George F. Edmunds of Vermont, a colorless reformer. The state GOP preferred the incumbent president, New York City's Chester Arthur, who was known for passing the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act. Arthur, at the time, was suffering from Bright's disease, unknown to the public, and out of duty he did not contest his own nomination. Roosevelt fought hard and succeeded in influencing the Manhattan delegates at the state convention in Utica. He then took control of the state convention, bargaining through the night and outmaneuvering the supporters of Arthur and James G. Blaine; he gained a national reputation as a key person in New York State.
Roosevelt attended the 1884 GOP National Convention in Chicago and gave a speech convincing delegates to nominate African American John R. Lynch, an Edmunds supporter, to be temporary chair. Roosevelt fought alongside the Mugwump reformers; however, Blaine, having gained support from Arthur's and Edmunds's delegates, won the nomination by 541 votes on the fourth ballot. In a crucial moment of his budding political career, Roosevelt resisted the demand of the Mugwumps that he bolt from Blaine. He bragged about his one small success: "We achieved a victory in getting up a combination to beat the Blaine nominee for temporary chairman... To do this needed a mixture of skill, boldness and energy... to get the different factions to come in... to defeat the common foe." He was also impressed by an invitation to speak before an audience of ten thousand, the largest crowd he had addressed up to that date. Having gotten a taste of national politics, Roosevelt felt less aspiration for advocacy on the state level; he then retired to his new "Chimney Butte Ranch" on the Little Missouri River. Roosevelt refused to join other Mugwumps in supporting Grover Cleveland, the governor of New York and the Democratic nominee in the general election. He debated the pros and cons of staying loyal with his political friend, Henry Cabot Lodge. After Blaine won the nomination, Roosevelt had carelessly said that he would give "hearty support to any decent Democrat". He distanced himself from the promise, saying that it had not been meant "for publication". When a reporter asked if he would support Blaine, Roosevelt replied, "That question I decline to answer. It is a subject I do not care to talk about." In the end, he realized that he had to support Blaine to maintain his role in the GOP, and he did so in a press release on July 19. Having lost the support of many reformers, Roosevelt decided to retire from politics and move to North Dakota.
Cattle rancher in Dakota
Roosevelt first visited the Dakota Territory in 1883 to hunt bison. Exhilarated by the western lifestyle, and with the cattle business booming in the territory, Roosevelt invested $14,000 in hopes of becoming a prosperous cattle rancher. For the next several years, he shuttled between his home in New York and his ranch in Dakota.
Following the 1884 presidential election, Roosevelt built a ranch named Elkhorn, which was north of the boomtown of Medora, North Dakota. Roosevelt learned to ride western style, rope, and hunt on the banks of the Little Missouri. Though he earned the respect of the authentic cowboys, they were not overly impressed. However, he identified with the herdsman of history, a man he said possesses "few of the emasculated, milk-and-water moralities admired by the pseudo-philanthropists; but he does possess, to a very high degree, the stern, manly qualities that are invaluable to a nation". He reoriented, and began writing about frontier life for national magazines; he also published three books – Hunting Trips of a Ranchman, Ranch Life and the Hunting-Trail, and The Wilderness Hunter.
Roosevelt brought his desire to address the common interests of citizens to the West. He successfully led efforts to organize ranchers to address problems of overgrazing and other shared concerns; his work resulted in the formation of the Little Missouri Stockmen's Association. He felt compelled to promote conservation and was able to form the Boone and Crockett Club, whose primary goal was the conservation of large game animals and their habitats. After the uniquely severe US winter of 1886–87 wiped out his herd of cattle and those of his competitors, and with it over half of his $80,000 investment, Roosevelt returned to the East. Though his finances suffered from the experience, Roosevelt's time in the West made it impossible to peg him as an ineffectual intellectual, a characterization that could have hampered his political career.
Second marriage
On December 2, 1886, Roosevelt married his childhood and family friend, Edith Kermit Carow. Roosevelt was deeply troubled that his second marriage had taken place so soon after the death of his first wife, and he faced resistance from his sisters. Nonetheless, the couple married at St George's, Hanover Square in London, England. The couple had five children: Theodore "Ted" III in 1887, Kermit in 1889, Ethel in 1891, Archibald in 1894, and Quentin in 1897. The couple also raised Roosevelt's daughter from his first marriage, Alice, who often clashed with her stepmother.
Reentering public life
Upon Roosevelt's return to New York in 1886, Republican leaders quickly approached him about running for mayor of New York City in the city's mayoral election. Roosevelt accepted the nomination despite having little hope of winning the race against United Labor Party candidate Henry George and Democratic candidate Abram Hewitt. Roosevelt campaigned hard for the position, but Hewitt won with 41% (90,552 votes), taking the votes of many Republicans who feared George's radical policies. George was held to 31% (68,110 votes), and Roosevelt took third place with 27% (60,435 votes). Fearing that his political career might never recover, Roosevelt turned his attention to writing The Winning of the West, a historical work tracking the westward movement of Americans; the book was a great success for Roosevelt, earning favorable reviews and selling numerous copies.
Civil Service Commission
After Benjamin Harrison unexpectedly defeated Blaine for the presidential nomination at the 1888 Republican National Convention, Roosevelt gave stump speeches in the Midwest in support of Harrison. On the insistence of Henry Cabot Lodge, President Harrison appointed Roosevelt to the United States Civil Service Commission, where he served until 1895. While many of his predecessors had approached the office as a sinecure, Roosevelt vigorously fought the spoilsmen and demanded enforcement of civil service laws. The New York Sun then described Roosevelt as "irrepressible, belligerent, and enthusiastic". Roosevelt frequently clashed with Postmaster General John Wanamaker, who handed out numerous patronage positions to Harrison supporters, and Roosevelt's attempt to force out several postal workers damaged Harrison politically. Despite Roosevelt's support for Harrison's reelection bid in the presidential election of 1892, the eventual winner, Grover Cleveland, reappointed him to the same post. Roosevelt's close friend and biographer, Joseph Bucklin Bishop, described his assault on the spoils system:
New York City Police Commissioner
In 1894, a group of reform Republicans approached Roosevelt about running for Mayor of New York again; he declined, mostly due to his wife's resistance to being removed from the Washington social set. Soon after he declined, he realized that he had missed an opportunity to reinvigorate a dormant political career. He retreated to the Dakotas for a time; his wife Edith regretted her role in the decision and vowed that there would be no repeat of it.
William Lafayette Strong, a reform-minded Republican, won the 1894 mayoral election and offered Roosevelt a position on the board of the New York City Police Commissioners. Roosevelt became president of the board of commissioners and radically reformed the police force. Roosevelt implemented regular inspections of firearms and annual physical exams, appointed recruits based on their physical and mental qualifications rather than political affiliation, established Meritorious Service Medals, and closed corrupt police hostelries. During his tenure, a Municipal Lodging House was established by the Board of Charities, and Roosevelt required officers to register with the Board; he also had telephones installed in station houses.
In 1894, Roosevelt met Jacob Riis, the muckraking Evening Sun newspaper journalist who was opening the eyes of New Yorkers to the terrible conditions of the city's millions of poor immigrants with such books as How the Other Half Lives. Riis described how his book affected Roosevelt:
Roosevelt made a habit of walking officers' beats late at night and early in the morning to make sure that they were on duty. He made a concerted effort to uniformly enforce New York's Sunday closing law; in this, he ran up against boss Tom Platt as well as Tammany Hall—he was notified that the Police Commission was being legislated out of existence. His crackdowns led to protests and demonstrations. Invited to one large demonstration, not only did he surprisingly accept, he delighted in the insults, caricatures and lampoons directed at him, and earned some surprising good will. Roosevelt chose to defer rather than split with his party. As Governor of New York State, he would later sign an act replacing the Police Commission with a single Police Commissioner.
Emergence as a national figure
Assistant Secretary of the Navy
In the 1896 presidential election, Roosevelt backed Speaker of the House Thomas Brackett Reed for the Republican nomination, but William McKinley won the nomination and defeated William Jennings Bryan in the general election. Roosevelt opposed Bryan's free silver platform, viewing many of Bryan's followers as dangerous fanatics, and Roosevelt gave campaign speeches for McKinley. Urged by Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, President McKinley appointed Roosevelt as the Assistant Secretary of the Navy in 1897. Secretary of the Navy John D. Long was more concerned about formalities than functions, was in poor health, and left many major decisions to Roosevelt. Influenced by Alfred Thayer Mahan, Roosevelt called for a build-up in the country's naval strength, particularly the construction of battleships. Roosevelt also began pressing his national security views regarding the Pacific and the Caribbean on McKinley, and was particularly adamant that Spain be ejected from Cuba. He explained his priorities to one of the Navy's planners in late 1897:
On February 15, 1898, , an armored cruiser, exploded in the harbor of Havana, Cuba, killing hundreds of crew members. While Roosevelt and many other Americans blamed Spain for the explosion, McKinley sought a diplomatic solution. Without approval from Long or McKinley, Roosevelt sent out orders to several naval vessels, directing them to prepare for war. George Dewey, who had received an appointment to lead the Asiatic Squadron with the backing of Roosevelt, later credited his victory at the Battle of Manila Bay to Roosevelt's orders. After finally giving up hope of a peaceful solution, McKinley asked Congress to declare war upon Spain, beginning the Spanish–American War.
War in Cuba
With the beginning of the Spanish–American War in late April 1898, Roosevelt resigned from his post as Assistant Secretary of the Navy. Along with Army Colonel Leonard Wood, he formed the First US Volunteer Cavalry Regiment. His wife and many of his friends begged Roosevelt to remain in his post in Washington, but Roosevelt was determined to see battle. When the newspapers reported the formation of the new regiment, Roosevelt and Wood were flooded with applications from all over the country. Referred to by the press as the "Rough Riders", the regiment was one of many temporary units active only for the duration of the war.
The regiment trained for several weeks in San Antonio, Texas, and in his autobiography, Roosevelt wrote that his prior experience with the New York National Guard had been invaluable, in that it enabled him to immediately begin teaching his men basic soldiering skills. The Rough Riders used some standard issue gear and some of their own design, purchased with gift money. Diversity characterized the regiment, which included Ivy Leaguers, professional and amateur athletes, upscale gentlemen, cowboys, frontiersmen, Native Americans, hunters, miners, prospectors, former soldiers, tradesmen, and sheriffs. The Rough Riders were part of the cavalry division commanded by former Confederate general Joseph Wheeler, which itself was one of three divisions in the V Corps under Lieutenant General William Rufus Shafter. Roosevelt and his men landed in Daiquirí, Cuba, on June 23, 1898, and marched to Siboney. Wheeler sent parts of the 1st and 10th Regular Cavalry on the lower road northwest and sent the "Rough Riders" on the parallel road running along a ridge up from the beach. To throw off his infantry rival, Wheeler left one regiment of his Cavalry Division, the 9th, at Siboney so that he could claim that his move north was only a limited reconnaissance if things went wrong. Roosevelt was promoted to colonel and took command of the regiment when Wood was put in command of the brigade. The Rough Riders had a short, minor skirmish known as the Battle of Las Guasimas; they fought their way through Spanish resistance and, together with the Regulars, forced the Spaniards to abandon their positions.
Under his leadership, the Rough Riders became famous for the charge up Kettle Hill on July 1, 1898, while supporting the regulars. Roosevelt had the only horse, and rode back and forth between rifle pits at the forefront of the advance up Kettle Hill, an advance that he urged despite the absence of any orders from superiors. He was forced to walk up the last part of Kettle Hill because his horse had been entangled in barbed wire. The victories came at a cost of 200 killed and 1,000 wounded.
In August, Roosevelt and other officers demanded that the soldiers be returned home. Roosevelt always recalled the Battle of Kettle Hill (part of the San Juan Heights) as "the great day of my life" and "my crowded hour". In 2001, Roosevelt was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions; he had been nominated during the war, but Army officials, annoyed at his grabbing the headlines, blocked it. After returning to civilian life, Roosevelt preferred to be known as "Colonel Roosevelt" or "The Colonel", though "Teddy" remained much more popular with the public, even though Roosevelt openly despised that moniker. Men working closely with Roosevelt customarily called him "Colonel" or "Theodore". Henceforth, political cartoons of Roosevelt usually depicted him in his Rough Rider garb.
Governor of New York
After leaving Cuba in August 1898, the Rough Riders were transported to a camp at Montauk Point, Long Island, where Roosevelt and his men were briefly quarantined due to the War Department's fear of spreading yellow fever. Shortly after Roosevelt's return to the United States, Republican Congressman Lemuel E. Quigg, a lieutenant of party boss Tom Platt, asked Roosevelt to run in the 1898 gubernatorial election. Platt disliked Roosevelt personally, feared that Roosevelt would oppose Platt's interests in office, and was reluctant to propel Roosevelt to the forefront of national politics. However, Platt also needed a strong candidate due to the unpopularity of the incumbent Republican governor, Frank S. Black, and Roosevelt agreed to become the nominee and to try not to "make war" with the Republican establishment once in office. Roosevelt defeated Black in the Republican caucus by a vote of 753 to 218, and faced Democrat Augustus Van Wyck, a well-respected judge, in the general election. Roosevelt campaigned vigorously on his war record, winning the election by a margin of just one percent.
As governor, Roosevelt learned much about ongoing economic issues and political techniques that later proved valuable in his presidency. He was exposed to the problems of trusts, monopolies, labor relations, and conservation. Chessman argues that Roosevelt's program "rested firmly upon the concept of the square deal by a neutral state". The rules for the Square Deal were "honesty in public affairs, an equitable sharing of privilege and responsibility, and subordination of party and local concerns to the interests of the state at large".
By holding twice-daily press conferences—which was an innovation—Roosevelt remained connected with his middle-class political base. Roosevelt successfully pushed the Ford Franchise-Tax bill, which taxed public franchises granted by the state and controlled by corporations, declaring that "a corporation which derives its powers from the State, should pay to the State a just percentage of its earnings as a return for the privileges it enjoys". He rejected "boss" Thomas C. Platt's worries that this approached Bryanite Socialism, explaining that without it, New York voters might get angry and adopt public ownership of streetcar lines and other franchises.
The New York state government affected many interests, and the power to make appointments to policy-making positions was a key role for the governor. Platt insisted that he be consulted on major appointments; Roosevelt appeared to comply, but then made his own decisions. Historians marvel that Roosevelt managed to appoint so many first-rate men with Platt's approval. He even enlisted Platt's help in securing reform, such as in the spring of 1899, when Platt pressured state senators to vote for a civil service bill that the secretary of the Civil Service Reform Association called "superior to any civil service statute heretofore secured in America".
Chessman argues that as governor, Roosevelt developed the principles that shaped his presidency, especially insistence upon the public responsibility of large corporations, publicity as a first remedy for trusts, regulation of railroad rates, mediation of the conflict of capital and labor, conservation of natural resources and protection of the less fortunate members of society. Roosevelt sought to position himself against the excesses of large corporations on the one hand and radical movements on the other.
As the chief executive of the most populous state in the union, Roosevelt was widely considered a potential future presidential candidate, and supporters such as William Allen White encouraged him to run for president. Roosevelt had no interest in challenging McKinley for the Republican nomination in 1900, and was denied his preferred post of Secretary of War. As his term progressed, Roosevelt pondered a 1904 presidential run, but was uncertain about whether he should seek re-election as governor in 1900.
Vice Presidency (1901)
In November 1899, Vice President Garret Hobart died of heart failure, leaving an open spot on the 1900 Republican national ticket. Though Henry Cabot Lodge and others urged him to run for vice president in 1900, Roosevelt was reluctant to take the powerless position and issued a public statement saying that he would not accept the nomination. Additionally, Roosevelt was informed by President McKinley and campaign manager Mark Hanna that he was not being considered for the role of vice president due to his actions prior to the Spanish–American War. Eager to be rid of Roosevelt, Platt nonetheless began a newspaper campaign in favor of Roosevelt's nomination for the vice presidency. Roosevelt attended the 1900 Republican National Convention as a state delegate and struck a bargain with Platt: Roosevelt would accept the nomination for vice president if the convention offered it to him, but would otherwise serve another term as governor. Platt asked Pennsylvania party boss Matthew Quay to lead the campaign for Roosevelt's nomination, and Quay outmaneuvered Hanna at the convention to put Roosevelt on the ticket. Roosevelt won the nomination unanimously.
Roosevelt's vice-presidential campaigning proved highly energetic and an equal match for Democratic presidential nominee William Jennings Bryan's famous barnstorming style of campaigning. In a whirlwind campaign that displayed his energy to the public, Roosevelt made 480 stops in 23 states. He denounced the radicalism of Bryan, contrasting it with the heroism of the soldiers and sailors who fought and won the war against Spain. Bryan had strongly supported the war itself, but he denounced the annexation of the Philippines as imperialism, which would spoil America's innocence. Roosevelt countered that it was best for the Filipinos to have stability and the Americans to have a proud place in the world. With the nation basking in peace and prosperity, the voters gave McKinley an even larger victory than that which he had achieved in 1896.
After the campaign, Roosevelt took office as vice president in March 1901. The office of vice president was a powerless sinecure and did not suit Roosevelt's aggressive temperament. Roosevelt's six months as vice president were uneventful and boring for a man of action. He had no power; he presided over the Senate for a mere four days before it adjourned. On September 2, 1901, Roosevelt first publicized an aphorism that thrilled his supporters: "Speak softly and carry a big stick, and you will go far."
Presidency (1901–1909)
On September 6, 1901, President McKinley was attending the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York when he was shot by anarchist Leon Czolgosz. Roosevelt was vacationing in Isle La Motte, Vermont, and traveled to Buffalo to visit McKinley in the hospital. It appeared that McKinley would recover, so Roosevelt resumed his vacation in the Adirondack Mountains. When McKinley's condition worsened, Roosevelt again rushed back to Buffalo. McKinley died on September 14, and Roosevelt was informed while he was in North Creek; he continued on to Buffalo and was sworn in as the nation's 26th president at the Ansley Wilcox House.
McKinley's supporters were nervous about the new president, and Hanna was particularly bitter that the man he had opposed so vigorously at the convention had succeeded McKinley. Roosevelt assured party leaders that he intended to adhere to McKinley's policies, and he retained McKinley's Cabinet. Nonetheless, Roosevelt sought to position himself as the party's undisputed leader, seeking to bolster the role of the president and position himself for the 1904 election. The vice presidency remained vacant, as there was no constitutional provision for filling an intra-term vacancy in that office (prior to the 25th Amendment in 1967).
Shortly after taking office, Roosevelt invited Booker T. Washington to dinner at the White House. This sparked a bitter, and at times vicious, reaction among whites across the heavily segregated South. Roosevelt reacted with astonishment and protest, saying that he looked forward to many future dinners with Washington. Upon further reflection, Roosevelt wanted to ensure that this had no effect on political support in the white South, and further dinner invitations to Washington were avoided; their next meeting was scheduled as typical business at 10:00 a.m. instead.
Domestic policies
Trust busting and regulation
For his aggressive use of the 1890 Sherman Antitrust Act, compared to his predecessors, Roosevelt was hailed as the "trust-buster"; but in reality he was more of a trust regulator. Roosevelt viewed big business as a necessary part of the American economy, and sought only to prosecute the "bad trusts" that restrained trade and charged unfair prices. He brought 44 antitrust suits, breaking up the Northern Securities Company, the largest railroad monopoly; and regulating Standard Oil, the largest oil company. Presidents Benjamin Harrison, Grover Cleveland, and William McKinley combined had prosecuted only 18 antitrust violations under the Sherman Antitrust Act.
Bolstered by his party's winning large majorities in the 1902 elections, Roosevelt proposed the creation of the United States Department of Commerce and Labor, which would include the Bureau of Corporations. While Congress was receptive to the Department of Commerce and Labor, it was more skeptical of the antitrust powers that Roosevelt sought to endow within the Bureau of Corporations. Roosevelt successfully appealed to the public to pressure Congress, and Congress overwhelmingly voted to pass Roosevelt's version of the bill.
In a moment of frustration, House Speaker Joseph Gurney Cannon commented on Roosevelt's desire for executive branch control in domestic policy-making: "That fellow at the other end of the avenue wants everything from the birth of Christ to the death of the devil." Biographer Brands states, "Even his friends occasionally wondered whether there wasn't any custom or practice too minor for him to try to regulate, update or otherwise improve." In fact, Roosevelt's willingness to exercise his power included attempted rule changes in the game of football; at the Naval Academy, he sought to force retention of martial arts classes and to revise disciplinary rules. He even ordered changes made in the minting of a coin whose design he disliked, and ordered the Government Printing Office to adopt simplified spellings for a core list of 300 words, according to reformers on the Simplified Spelling Board. He was forced to rescind the latter after substantial ridicule from the press and a resolution of protest from the House of Representatives.
Coal strike
In May 1902, anthracite coal miners went on strike, threatening a national energy shortage. After threatening the coal operators with intervention by federal troops, Roosevelt won their agreement to dispute arbitration by a commission, which succeeded in stopping the strike. The accord with J. P. Morgan resulted in the miners getting more pay for fewer hours, but with no union recognition. Roosevelt said, "My action on labor should always be considered in connection with my action as regards capital, and both are reducible to my favorite formula—a square deal for every man." Roosevelt was the first president to help settle a labor dispute.
Prosecuted misconduct
During Roosevelt's second year in office it was discovered there was corruption in the Indian Service, the Land Office, and the Post Office Department. Roosevelt investigated and prosecuted corrupt Indian agents who had cheated the Creeks and various tribes out of land parcels. Land fraud and speculation were found involving Oregon federal timberlands. In November 1902, Roosevelt and Secretary Ethan A. Hitchcock forced Binger Hermann, the General Land Office Commissioner, to resign from office. On November 6, 1903 Francis J. Heney was appointed special prosecutor and obtained 146 indictments involving an Oregon Land Office bribery ring. U.S. Senator John H. Mitchell was indicted for bribery to expedite illegal land patents, found guilty in July 1905, and sentenced to six months in prison. More corruption was found in the Postal Department, that brought on the indictments of 44 government employees on charges of bribery and fraud. Historians generally agree that Roosevelt moved "quickly and decisively" to prosecute misconduct in his administration.
Railroads
Merchants complained that some railroad rates were too high. In the 1906 Hepburn Act, Roosevelt sought to give the Interstate Commerce Commission the power to regulate rates, but the Senate, led by conservative Nelson Aldrich, fought back. Roosevelt worked with the Democratic Senator Benjamin Tillman to pass the bill. Roosevelt and Aldrich ultimately reached a compromise that gave the ICC the power to replace existing rates with "just-and-reasonable" maximum rates, but allowed railroads to appeal to the federal courts on what was "reasonable". In addition to rate-setting, the Hepburn Act also granted the ICC regulatory power over pipeline fees, storage contracts, and several other aspects of railroad operations.
Pure food and drugs
Roosevelt responded to public anger over the abuses in the food packing industry by pushing Congress to pass the Meat Inspection Act of 1906 and the Pure Food and Drug Act. Though conservatives initially opposed the bill, Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, published in 1906, helped galvanize support for reform. The Meat Inspection Act of 1906 banned misleading labels and preservatives that contained harmful chemicals. The Pure Food and Drug Act banned food and drugs that were impure or falsely labeled from being made, sold, and shipped. Roosevelt also served as honorary president of the American School Hygiene Association from 1907 to 1908, and in 1909 he convened the first White House Conference on the Care of Dependent Children.
Conservation
Of all Roosevelt's achievements, he was proudest of his work in the conservation of natural resources and extending federal protection to land and wildlife. Roosevelt worked closely with Interior Secretary James Rudolph Garfield and Chief of the United States Forest Service Gifford Pinchot to enact a series of conservation programs that often met with resistance from Western members of Congress, such as Charles William Fulton. Nonetheless, Roosevelt established the United States Forest Service, signed into law the creation of five National Parks, and signed the 1906 Antiquities Act, under which he proclaimed 18 new U.S. National Monuments. He also established the first 51 bird reserves, four game preserves, and 150 National Forests. The area of the United States that he placed under public protection totals approximately .
Roosevelt extensively used executive orders on a number of occasions to protect forest and wildlife lands during his tenure as president. By the end of his second term in office, Roosevelt used executive orders to establish of reserved forestry land. Roosevelt was unapologetic about his extensive use of executive orders to protect the environment, despite the perception in Congress that he was encroaching on too many lands. Eventually, Senator Charles Fulton (R-OR) attached an amendment to an agricultural appropriations bill that effectively prevented the president from reserving any further land. Before signing that bill into law, Roosevelt used executive orders to establish an additional 21 forest reserves, waiting until the last minute to sign the bill into law. In total, Roosevelt used executive orders to establish 121 forest reserves in 31 states. Prior to Roosevelt, only one president had issued over 200 executive orders, Grover Cleveland (253). The first 25 presidents issued a total of 1,262 executive orders; Roosevelt issued 1,081.
Foreign policy
Japan
The American annexation of Hawaii in 1898 was stimulated in part by fear that otherwise Japan would dominate the Hawaiian Republic. Similarly, Germany was the alternative to American takeover of the Philippines in 1900, and Tokyo strongly preferred the U.S. to take over. As the U.S. became a naval world power, it needed to find a way to avoid a military confrontation in the Pacific with Japan.
In the 1890s, Roosevelt had been an ardent imperialist and vigorously defended the permanent acquisition of the Philippines in the 1900 campaign. After the local insurrection ended in 1902, he largely lost his imperialist interest in the Philippines and Asian expansion but wished to have a strong U.S. presence in the region as a symbol of democratic values. One of Theodore Roosevelt's priorities during his presidency and afterwards, was the maintenance of friendly relations with Japan. From 1904 to 1905 Japan and Russia were at war. Roosevelt admired the martial courage of the Japanese, and distrusted the reckless German Kaiser. Both sides asked Roosevelt to mediate a peace conference, held successfully in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Roosevelt won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts.
In California, anti-Japanese hostility was growing, and Tokyo protested. Roosevelt negotiated a "Gentleman's Agreement" in 1907. Explicit discrimination against the Japanese was ended, and Japan agreed not to allow unskilled immigrants into the United States. The Great White Fleet of American battleships visited Japan in 1908. Pulitzer prize-winning biographer Henry Pringle states that the great voyage was "the direct result of the Japanese trouble." Roosevelt intended to emphasize the superiority of the American fleet over the smaller Japanese navy, but instead of resentment the visitors arrived to a joyous welcome by Japanese elite as well as the general public. This good-will facilitated the Root–Takahira Agreement of November 1908 which reaffirmed the status quo of Japanese control of Korea and American control of the Philippines.
Europe
Success in the war against Spain and the new empire, plus having the largest economy in the world, meant that the United States had emerged as a world power. Roosevelt searched for ways to win recognition for the position abroad.
Roosevelt also played a major role in mediating the First Moroccan Crisis by calling the Algeciras Conference, which averted war between France and Germany.
Roosevelt's presidency saw the strengthening of ties with Great Britain. The Great Rapprochement had begun with British support of the United States during the Spanish–American War, and it continued as Britain withdrew its fleet from the Caribbean in favor of focusing on the rising German naval threat. In 1901, Britain and the United States signed the Hay–Pauncefote Treaty, abrogating the Clayton–Bulwer Treaty, which had prevented the United States from constructing a canal connecting the Pacific and the Atlantic Ocean. The long-standing Alaska boundary dispute was settled on terms favorable to the United States, as Great Britain was unwilling to alienate the United States over what it considered to be a secondary issue. As Roosevelt later put it, the resolution of the Alaskan boundary dispute "settled the last serious trouble between the British Empire and ourselves."
Latin America and Panama Canal
As president, he primarily focused the nation's overseas ambitions on the Caribbean, especially locations that had a bearing on the defense of his pet project, the Panama Canal. Roosevelt also increased the size of the navy, and by the end of his second term the United States had more battleships than any other country besides Britain. The Panama Canal when it opened in 1914 allowed the U.S. Navy to rapidly move back and forth from the Pacific to the Caribbean to European waters.
In December 1902, the Germans, British, and Italians blockaded the ports of Venezuela in order to force the repayment of delinquent loans. Roosevelt was particularly concerned with the motives of German Emperor Wilhelm II. He succeeded in getting the three nations to agree to arbitration by tribunal at The Hague, and successfully defused the crisis. The latitude granted to the Europeans by the arbiters was in part responsible for the "Roosevelt Corollary" to the Monroe Doctrine, which the President issued in 1904: "Chronic wrongdoing or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation, and in the Western Hemisphere, the adherence of the United States to the Monroe doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power."
The pursuit of an isthmus canal in Central America during this period focused on two possible routes—Nicaragua and Panama, which was then a rebellious district within Colombia. Roosevelt convinced Congress to approve the Panamanian alternative, and a treaty was approved, only to be rejected by the Colombian government. When the Panamanians learned of this, a rebellion followed, was supported by Roosevelt, and succeeded. A treaty with the new Panama government for construction of the canal was then reached in 1903. Roosevelt received criticism for paying the bankrupt Panama Canal Company and the New Panama Canal Company $40,000,000 (equivalent to $ billion in ) for the rights and equipment to build the canal. Critics charged that an American investor syndicate allegedly divided the large payment among themselves. There was also controversy over whether a French company engineer influenced Roosevelt in choosing the Panama route for the canal over the Nicaragua route. Roosevelt denied charges of corruption concerning the canal in a January 8, 1906 message to Congress. In January 1909, Roosevelt, in an unprecedented move, brought criminal libel charges against the New York World and the Indianapolis News known as the "Roosevelt-Panama Libel Cases". Both cases were dismissed by U.S. District Courts, and on January 3, 1911, the U.S. Supreme Court, upon federal appeal, upheld the lower courts' rulings. Historians are sharply critical of Roosevelt's criminal prosecutions of the World and the News, but are divided on whether actual corruption in acquiring and building the Panama Canal took place.
In 1906, following a disputed election, an insurrection ensued in Cuba; Roosevelt sent Taft, the Secretary of War, to monitor the situation; he was convinced that he had the authority to unilaterally authorize Taft to deploy Marines if necessary, without congressional approval.
Examining the work of numerous scholars, Ricard (2014) reports that:
The most striking evolution in the twenty-first-century historiography of Theodore Roosevelt is the switch from a partial arraignment of the imperialist to a quasi-unanimous celebration of the master diplomatist.... [Recent works] have underlined cogently Roosevelt's exceptional statesmanship in the construction of the nascent twentieth-century "special relationship". ...The twenty-sixth president's reputation as a brilliant diplomatist and realpolitician has undeniably reached new heights in the twenty-first century...yet, his Philippine policy still prompts criticism.
Media
Building on McKinley's effective use of the press, Roosevelt made the White House the center of news every day, providing interviews and photo opportunities. After noticing the reporters huddled outside the White House in the rain one day, he gave them their own room inside, effectively inventing the presidential press briefing. The grateful press, with unprecedented access to the White House, rewarded Roosevelt with ample coverage.
Roosevelt normally enjoyed very close relationships with the press, which he used to keep in daily contact with his middle-class base. While out of office, he made a living as a writer and magazine editor. He loved talking with intellectuals, authors, and writers. He drew the line, however, at exposé-oriented scandal-mongering journalists who, during his term, sent magazine subscriptions soaring by their attacks on corrupt politicians, mayors, and corporations. Roosevelt himself was not usually a target, but a speech of his from 1906 coined the term "muckraker" for unscrupulous journalists making wild charges. "The liar", he said, "is no whit better than the thief, and if his mendacity takes the form of slander he may be worse than most thieves."
The press did briefly target Roosevelt in one instance. After 1904, he was periodically criticized for the manner in which he facilitated the construction of the Panama Canal. According to biographer Brands, Roosevelt, near the end of his term, demanded that the Justice Department bring charges of criminal libel against Joseph Pulitzer's New York World. The publication had accused him of "deliberate misstatements of fact" in defense of family members who were criticized as a result of the Panama affair. Though an indictment was obtained, the case was ultimately dismissed in federal court—it was not a federal offense, but one enforceable in state courts. The Justice Department had predicted that result, and had also advised Roosevelt accordingly.
Election of 1904
The control and management of the Republican Party lay in the hands of Ohio Senator and Republican Party chairman Mark Hanna until McKinley's death. Roosevelt and Hanna frequently cooperated during Roosevelt's first term, but Hanna left open the possibility of a challenge to Roosevelt for the 1904 Republican nomination. Roosevelt and Ohio's other Senator, Joseph B. Foraker, forced Hanna's hand by calling for Ohio's state Republican convention to endorse Roosevelt for the 1904 nomination. Unwilling to break with the president, Hanna was forced to publicly endorse Roosevelt. Hanna and Pennsylvania Senator Matthew Quay both died in early 1904, and with the waning of Thomas Platt's power, Roosevelt faced little effective opposition for the 1904 nomination. In deference to Hanna's conservative loyalists, Roosevelt at first offered the party chairmanship to Cornelius Bliss, but he declined. Roosevelt turned to his own man, George B. Cortelyou of New York, the first Secretary of Commerce and Labor. To buttress his hold on the party's nomination, Roosevelt made it clear that anyone opposing Cortelyou would be considered to be opposing the President. The President secured his own nomination, but his preferred vice-presidential running mate, Robert R. Hitt, was not nominated. Senator Charles Warren Fairbanks of Indiana, a favorite of conservatives, gained the nomination.
While Roosevelt followed the tradition of incumbents in not actively campaigning on the stump, he sought to control the campaign's message through specific instructions to Cortelyou. He also attempted to manage the press's release of White House statements by forming the Ananias Club. Any journalist who repeated a statement made by the president without approval was penalized by restriction of further access.
The Democratic Party's nominee in 1904 was Alton Brooks Parker. Democratic newspapers charged that Republicans were extorting large campaign contributions from corporations, putting ultimate responsibility on Roosevelt, himself. Roosevelt denied corruption while at the same time he ordered Cortelyou to return $100,000 (equivalent to $ million in ) of a campaign contribution from Standard Oil. Parker said that Roosevelt was accepting corporate donations to keep damaging information from the Bureau of Corporations from going public. Roosevelt strongly denied Parker's charge and responded that he would "go into the Presidency unhampered by any pledge, promise, or understanding of any kind, sort, or description...". Allegations from Parker and the Democrats, however, had little impact on the election, as Roosevelt promised to give every American a "square deal". Roosevelt won 56% of the popular vote, and Parker received 38%; Roosevelt also won the Electoral College vote, 336 to 140. Before his inauguration ceremony, Roosevelt declared that he would not serve another term. Democrats afterwards would continue to charge Roosevelt and the Republicans of being influenced by corporate donations during Roosevelt's second term.
Second term
As his second term progressed, Roosevelt moved to the left of his Republican Party base and called for a series of reforms, most of which Congress failed to pass. In his last year in office, he was assisted by his friend Archibald Butt (who later perished in the sinking of RMS Titanic). Roosevelt's influence waned as he approached the end of his second term, as his promise to forego a third term made him a lame duck and his concentration of power provoked a backlash from many Congressmen. He sought a national incorporation law (at a time when all corporations had state charters), called for a federal income tax (despite the Supreme Court's ruling in Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co.), and an inheritance tax. In the area of labor legislation, Roosevelt called for limits on the use of court injunctions against labor unions during strikes; injunctions were a powerful weapon that mostly helped business. He wanted an employee liability law for industrial injuries (pre-empting state laws) and an eight-hour work day for federal employees. In other areas he also sought a postal savings system (to provide competition for local banks), and he asked for campaign reform laws.
The election of 1904 continued to be a source of contention between Republicans and Democrats. A Congressional investigation in 1905 revealed that corporate executives donated tens of thousands of dollars in 1904 to the Republican National Committee. In 1908, a month before the general presidential election, Governor Charles N. Haskell of Oklahoma, former Democratic Treasurer, said that Senators beholden to Standard Oil lobbied Roosevelt, in the summer of 1904, to authorize the leasing of Indian oil lands by Standard Oil subsidiaries. He said Roosevelt overruled his Secretary of Interior Ethan A. Hitchcock and granted a pipeline franchise to run through the Osage lands to the Prairie Oil and Gas Company. The New York Sun made a similar accusation and said that Standard Oil, a refinery who financially benefited from the pipeline, had contributed $150,000 to the Republicans in 1904 (equivalent to $ million in ) after Roosevelt's alleged reversal allowing the pipeline franchise. Roosevelt branded Haskell's allegation as "a lie, pure and simple" and obtained a denial from Treasury Secretary Shaw that Roosevelt had neither coerced Shaw nor overruled him.
Post-presidency (1909–1919)
Election of 1908
Roosevelt enjoyed being president and was still relatively youthful, but felt that a limited number of terms provided a check against dictatorship. Roosevelt ultimately decided to stick to his 1904 pledge not to run for a third term. He personally favored Secretary of State Elihu Root as his successor, but Root's ill health made him an unsuitable candidate. New York Governor Charles Evans Hughes loomed as a potentially strong candidate and shared Roosevelt's progressivism, but Roosevelt disliked him and considered him to be too independent. Instead, Roosevelt settled on his Secretary of War, William Howard Taft, who had ably served under Presidents Harrison, McKinley, and Roosevelt in various positions. Roosevelt and Taft had been friends since 1890, and Taft had consistently supported President Roosevelt's policies. Roosevelt was determined to install the successor of his choice, and wrote the following to Taft: "Dear Will: Do you want any action about those federal officials? I will break their necks with the utmost cheerfulness if you say the word!". Just weeks later he branded as "false and malicious" the charge that he was using the offices at his disposal to favor Taft. At the 1908 Republican convention, many chanted for "four years more" of a Roosevelt presidency, but Taft won the nomination after Henry Cabot Lodge made it clear that Roosevelt was not interested in a third term.
In the 1908 election, Taft easily defeated the Democratic nominee, three-time candidate William Jennings Bryan. Taft promoted a progressivism that stressed the rule of law; he preferred that judges rather than administrators or politicians make the basic decisions about fairness. Taft usually proved to be a less adroit politician than Roosevelt and lacked the energy and personal magnetism, along with the publicity devices, the dedicated supporters, and the broad base of public support that made Roosevelt so formidable. When Roosevelt realized that lowering the tariff would risk creating severe tensions inside the Republican Party by pitting producers (manufacturers and farmers) against merchants and consumers, he stopped talking about the issue. Taft ignored the risks and tackled the tariff boldly, encouraging reformers to fight for lower rates, and then cutting deals with conservative leaders that kept overall rates high. The resulting Payne-Aldrich tariff of 1909, signed into law early in President Taft's tenure, was too high for most reformers, and Taft's handling of the tariff alienated all sides. While the crisis was building inside the Party, Roosevelt was touring Africa and Europe, to allow Taft to be his own man.
Africa and Europe (1909–1910)
In March 1909, shortly after the end of his presidency, Roosevelt left New York for the Smithsonian-Roosevelt African Expedition, a safari in east and central Africa. Roosevelt's party landed in Mombasa, East Africa (now Kenya) and traveled to the Belgian Congo (now Democratic Republic of the Congo) before following the Nile to Khartoum in modern Sudan. Financed by Andrew Carnegie and by his own writings, Roosevelt's party hunted for specimens for the Smithsonian Institution and for the American Museum of Natural History in New York. The group, led by the hunter-tracker RJ Cunninghame, included scientists from the Smithsonian, and was joined from time to time by Frederick Selous, the famous big game hunter and explorer. Participants on the expedition included Kermit Roosevelt, Edgar Alexander Mearns, Edmund Heller, and John Alden Loring.
Roosevelt and his companions killed or trapped approximately 11,400 animals, from insects and moles to hippopotamuses and elephants. The 1,000 large animals included 512 big game animals, including six rare white rhinos. Tons of salted animals and their skins were shipped to Washington; it took years to mount them all, and the Smithsonian shared many duplicate specimens with other museums. Regarding the large number of animals taken, Roosevelt said, "I can be condemned only if the existence of the National Museum, the American Museum of Natural History, and all similar zoological institutions are to be condemned". He wrote a detailed account of the safari in the book African Game Trails, recounting the excitement of the chase, the people he met, and the flora and fauna he collected in the name of science.
After his safari, Roosevelt traveled north to embark on a tour of Europe. Stopping first in Egypt, he commented favorably on British rule of the region, giving his opinion that Egypt was not yet ready for independence. He refused a meeting with the Pope due to a dispute over a group of Methodists active in Rome, but met with Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, King George V of Great Britain, and other European leaders. In Oslo, Norway, Roosevelt delivered a speech calling for limitations on naval armaments, a strengthening of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, and the creation of a "League of Peace" among the world powers. He also delivered the Romanes Lecture at Oxford, in which he denounced those who sought parallels between the evolution of animal life and the development of society. Though Roosevelt attempted to avoid domestic politics during his time abroad, he met with Gifford Pinchot, who related his own disappointment with the Taft Administration. Pinchot had been forced to resign as head of the forest service after clashing with Taft's Interior Secretary, Richard Ballinger, who had prioritized development over conservation. Roosevelt returned to the United States in June 1910.
Republican Party schism
Roosevelt had attempted to refashion Taft into a second version of himself, but as soon as Taft began to display his individuality, the former president expressed his disenchantment. He was offended on election night when Taft indicated that his success had been possible not just through the efforts of Roosevelt, but also his brother Charley. Roosevelt was further alienated when Taft, intent on becoming his own man, did not consult him about cabinet appointments. Roosevelt and other progressives were ideologically dissatisfied over Taft's conservation policies and his handling of the tariff when he concentrated more power in the hands of conservative party leaders in Congress. Regarding radicalism and liberalism, Roosevelt wrote a British friend in 1911:
Fundamentally it is the radical liberal with whom I sympathize. He is at least working toward the end for which I think we should all of us strive; and when he adds sanity in moderation to courage and enthusiasm for high ideals he develops into the kind of statesman whom alone I can wholeheartedly support."
Roosevelt urged progressives to take control of the Republican Party at the state and local level and to avoid splitting the party in a way that would hand the presidency to the Democrats in 1912. Additionally, Roosevelt expressed optimism about the Taft Administration after meeting with the president in the White House in June 1910.
In August 1910, Roosevelt gained national attention with a speech at Osawatomie, Kansas, which was the most radical of his career and marked his public break with Taft and the conservative Republicans. Advocating a program of "New Nationalism", Roosevelt emphasized the priority of labor over capital interests, a need to more effectively control corporate creation and combination, and proposed a ban on corporate political contributions. Returning to New York, Roosevelt began a battle to take control of the state Republican party from William Barnes Jr., Tom Platt's successor as the state party boss, whom he would later confront in the Barnes vs. Roosevelt Libel Trial. Taft had pledged his support to Roosevelt in this endeavor, and Roosevelt was outraged when Taft's support failed to materialize at the 1910 state convention. Roosevelt nonetheless campaigned for the Republicans in the 1910 elections, in which the Democrats gained control of the House for the first time since the 1890s. Among the newly elected Democrats was New York state senator Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who argued that he represented his distant cousin's policies better than his Republican opponent.
The Republican progressives interpreted the 1910 defeats as a compelling argument for the complete reorganization of the party in 1911. Senator Robert M. La Follette of Wisconsin joined with Pinchot, William White, and California Governor Hiram Johnson to create the National Progressive Republican League; their objectives were to defeat the power of political bossism at the state level and to replace Taft at the national level. Despite skepticism of La Follette's new league, Roosevelt expressed general support for progressive principles. Between January and April 1911, Roosevelt wrote a series of articles for The Outlook, defending what he called "the great movement of our day, the progressive nationalist movement against special privilege, and in favor of an honest and efficient political and industrial democracy". With Roosevelt apparently uninterested in running in 1912, La Follette declared his own candidacy in June 1911. Roosevelt continually criticized Taft after the 1910 elections, and the break between the two men became final after the Justice Department filed an antitrust lawsuit against US Steel in September 1911; Roosevelt was humiliated by this suit because he had personally approved of an acquisition that the Justice Department was now challenging. However, Roosevelt was still unwilling to run against Taft in 1912; he instead hoped to run in 1916 against whichever Democrat beat Taft in 1912.
Dispute over arbitration treaties
Taft was a major advocate of arbitration as a major reform of the Progressive Era. In 1911 Taft and his Secretary of State Philander C. Knox negotiated major treaties with Great Britain and with France providing that differences be arbitrated. Disputes had to be submitted to the Hague Court or other tribunal. These were signed in August 1911 but had to be ratified by a two-thirds vote of the Senate. Neither Taft nor Knox consulted with members of the Senate during the negotiating process. By then many Republicans were opposed to Taft, and the president felt that lobbying too hard for the treaties might cause their defeat. He made some speeches supporting the treaties in October, but the Senate added amendments Taft could not accept, killing the agreements.
The arbitration issue opens a window on a bitter philosophical dispute among American progressives. Some, led by Taft looked to legal arbitration as the best alternative to warfare. Taft was a constitutional lawyer who later became Chief Justice; he had a deep understanding of the legal issues. Taft's political base was the conservative business community that largely supported peace movements before 1914. However, his mistake, in this case, was a failure to mobilize that base. The businessmen believed that economic rivalries were the cause of war, and that extensive trade led to an interdependent world that would make war a very expensive and useless anachronism.
However, an opposing faction of progressives, led by Roosevelt, ridiculed arbitration as foolhardy idealism, and insisted on the realism of warfare as the only solution to serious international disputes. Roosevelt worked with his close friend Senator Henry Cabot Lodge to impose those amendments that ruined the goals of the treaties. Lodge thought the treaties impinged too much on senatorial prerogatives. Roosevelt, however, was acting to sabotage Taft's campaign promises. At a deeper level, Roosevelt truly believed that arbitration was a naïve solution and the great issues had to be decided by warfare. The Rooseveltian approach incorporated a near-mystical faith of the ennobling nature of war. It endorsed jingoistic nationalism as opposed to the businessmen's calculation of profit and national interest.
Election of 1912
Republican primaries and convention
In November 1911, a group of Ohio Republicans endorsed Roosevelt for the party's nomination for president; the endorsers included James R. Garfield and Dan Hanna. This endorsement was made by leaders of President Taft's home state. Roosevelt conspicuously declined to make a statement—requested by Garfield—that he would flatly refuse a nomination. Soon thereafter, Roosevelt said, "I am really sorry for Taft... I am sure he means well, but he means well feebly, and he does not know how! He is utterly unfit for leadership and this is a time when we need leadership." In January 1912, Roosevelt declared "if the people make a draft on me I shall not decline to serve". Later that year, Roosevelt spoke before the Constitutional Convention in Ohio, openly identifying as a progressive and endorsing progressive reforms—even endorsing popular review of state judicial decisions. In reaction to Roosevelt's proposals for popular overrule of court decisions, Taft said, "Such extremists are not progressives—they are political emotionalists or neurotics".
Roosevelt began to envision himself as the savior of the Republican Party from defeat in the upcoming presidential election. In February 1912, Roosevelt announced in Boston, "I will accept the nomination for president if it is tendered to me. I hope that so far as possible the people may be given the chance through direct primaries to express who shall be the nominee. Elihu Root and Henry Cabot Lodge thought that division of the party would lead to its defeat in the next election, while Taft believed that he would be defeated either in the Republican primary or in the general election.
The 1912 primaries represented the first extensive use of the presidential primary, a reform achievement of the progressive movement. The Republican primaries in the South, where party regulars dominated, went for Taft, as did results in New York, Indiana, Michigan, Kentucky and Massachusetts. Meanwhile, Roosevelt won in Illinois, Minnesota, Nebraska, South Dakota, California, Maryland and Pennsylvania; Roosevelt also won Taft's home state of Ohio. These primary elections, while demonstrating Roosevelt's continuing popularity with the electorate, were not pivotal. The final credentials of the state delegates at the national convention were determined by the national committee, which was controlled by the party leaders, headed by the incumbent president.
Prior to the 1912 Republican National Convention in Chicago, Roosevelt expressed doubt about his prospects for victory, noting that Taft had more delegates and control of the credentials committee. His only hope was to convince party leaders that the nomination of Taft would hand the election to the Democrats, but party leaders were determined not to cede their leadership to Roosevelt. The credentials committee awarded almost all contested delegates to Taft, and Taft won the nomination on the first ballot. Black delegates from the South played a key role: they voted heavily for Taft and put him over the top. La Follette also helped Taft's candidacy; he hoped that a deadlocked convention would result in his own nomination, and refused to release his delegates to support Roosevelt.
The Progressive ("Bull Moose") Party
Once his defeat at the Republican convention appeared probable, Roosevelt announced that he would "accept the progressive nomination on a progressive platform and I shall fight to the end, win or lose". At the same time, Roosevelt prophetically said, "My feeling is that the Democrats will probably win if they nominate a progressive".
Roosevelt left the Republican Party and created the Progressive Party, structuring it as a permanent organization that would field complete tickets at the presidential and state level. The party included Roosevelt and key allies such as Pinchot, Cornelia Bryce Pinchot (Pinchot's wife and a longtime friend of Roosevelt's), and Albert Beveridge. The new party was popularly known as the "Bull Moose Party" after Roosevelt told reporters, "I'm as fit as a bull moose". At the 1912 Progressive National Convention, Roosevelt cried out, "We stand at Armageddon and we battle for the Lord." California Governor Hiram Johnson was nominated as Roosevelt's running mate. Roosevelt's platform echoed his 1907–1908 proposals, calling for vigorous government intervention to protect the people from selfish interests:
Though many Progressive party supporters in the North were supporters of civil rights for blacks, Roosevelt did not give strong support to civil rights and ran a "lily-white" campaign in the South. Rival all-white and all-black delegations from four southern states arrived at the Progressive national convention, and Roosevelt decided to seat the all-white delegations. Nevertheless, he won little support outside mountain Republican strongholds. Out of nearly 1100 counties in the South, Roosevelt won two counties in Alabama, one in Arkansas, seven in North Carolina, three in Georgia, 17 in Tennessee, two in Texas, one in Virginia, and none in Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, or South Carolina.
Assassination attempt
On October 14, 1912, while arriving at a campaign event in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Roosevelt was shot from seven feet away in front of the Gilpatrick Hotel by a delusional saloonkeeper named John Flammang Schrank, who believed that the ghost of assassinated president William McKinley had directed him to kill Roosevelt. The bullet lodged in his chest after penetrating his steel eyeglass case and passing through a 50-page-thick single-folded copy of the speech titled "Progressive Cause Greater Than Any Individual", which he was carrying in his jacket. Schrank was immediately disarmed (by Czech immigrant Frank Bukovsky), captured, and might have been lynched had Roosevelt not shouted for Schrank to remain unharmed. Roosevelt assured the crowd he was all right, then ordered police to take charge of Schrank and to make sure no violence was done to him.
As an experienced hunter and anatomist, Roosevelt correctly concluded that since he was not coughing blood, the bullet had not reached his lung. He declined suggestions to go to the hospital immediately and instead delivered a 90 minute speech with blood seeping into his shirt. His opening comments to the gathered crowd were, "Ladies and gentlemen, I don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot, but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose." Only after finishing his address did he accept medical attention.
Subsequent probes and an x-ray showed that the bullet had lodged in Roosevelt's chest muscle, but did not penetrate the pleura. Doctors concluded that it would be less dangerous to leave it in place than to attempt to remove it, and Roosevelt carried the bullet with him for the rest of his life. Both Taft and Democratic nominee Woodrow Wilson suspended their own campaigning until Roosevelt recovered and resumed his. When asked if the shooting would affect his election campaign, he said to the reporter "I'm fit as a bull moose." The bull moose became a symbol of both Roosevelt and the Progressive Party, and it often was referred to as simply the Bull Moose Party. He spent two weeks recuperating before returning to the campaign trail. He later wrote a friend about the bullet inside him, "I do not mind it any more than if it were in my waistcoat pocket."
Farewell manifesto
On October 20, Roosevelt spoke to a crowd of 16,000 at Madison Square Garden. The speech included: "Perhaps once in a generation, there comes a chance for the people of a country to play their part wisely and fearlessly in some great battle of the age-long warfare for human rights."
Election results
After the Democrats nominated Governor Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey, Roosevelt did not expect to win the general election, as Wilson had compiled a record attractive to many progressive Democrats who might have otherwise considered voting for Roosevelt. Roosevelt still campaigned vigorously, and the election developed into a two-person contest between Wilson and Roosevelt despite Taft's presence in the race. Roosevelt respected Wilson, but the two differed on various issues; Wilson opposed any federal intervention regarding women's suffrage or child labor (he viewed these as state issues), and attacked Roosevelt's tolerance of large businesses.
Roosevelt won 4.1 million votes (27%), compared to Taft's 3.5 million (23%). Wilson gained 6.3 million votes (42% of the total) and a massive landslide in the Electoral College, with 435 electoral votes; Roosevelt won 88 electoral votes, while Taft won 8. Pennsylvania was the only eastern state won by Roosevelt; in the Midwest, he carried Michigan, Minnesota, and South Dakota; in the West, California, and Washington. Wilson's victory represented the first Democratic presidential election victory since Cleveland's 1892 campaign, and it was the party's best performance in the Electoral College since 1852. Roosevelt, meanwhile, garnered a higher share of the popular vote than any other third-party presidential candidate in history and won the most states of any third-party candidate after the Civil War.
South American expedition (1913-1914)
A friend of Roosevelt's, Father John Augustine Zahm, persuaded Roosevelt to participate in an expedition to South America. To finance the expedition, Roosevelt received support from the American Museum of Natural History in return for promising to bring back many new animal specimens. Roosevelt's popular book, Through the Brazilian Wilderness describes his expedition into the Brazilian jungle in 1913 as a member of the Roosevelt-Rondon Scientific Expedition, co-named after its leader, Brazilian explorer Cândido Rondon.
Once in South America, a new, far more ambitious goal was added: to find the headwaters of the Rio da Duvida (Portuguese for "River of Doubt"), and trace it north to the Madeira and thence to the Amazon River. It was later renamed Roosevelt River in honor of the former president. Roosevelt's crew consisted of his son Kermit, Colonel Rondon, naturalist George Kruck Cherrie (sent by the American Museum of Natural History), Brazilian Lieutenant João Lira, team physician Dr. José Antonio Cajazeira, and 16 skilled paddlers and porters. Roosevelt also identified Leo Miller (another AMNH recommendation), Anthony Fiala, Frank Harper, and Jacob Sigg as crew members. The initial expedition started somewhat tenuously on December 9, 1913, at the height of the rainy season. The trip down the River of Doubt started on February 27, 1914.
During the trip down the river, Roosevelt suffered a minor leg wound after he jumped into the river to try to prevent two canoes from smashing against the rocks. The flesh wound he received, however, soon gave him tropical fever that resembled the malaria he had contracted while in Cuba fifteen years before. Because the bullet lodged in his chest from the assassination attempt in 1912 was never removed, his health worsened from the infection. This weakened Roosevelt so greatly that six weeks into the adventure, he had to be attended to day and night by the expedition's physician and his son Kermit. By then, he could not walk because of the infection in his injured leg and an infirmity in the other, which was due to a traffic accident a decade earlier. Roosevelt was riddled with chest pains, fighting a fever that soared to and at times made him delirious, at one point constantly reciting the first two lines of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem "Kubla Khan": "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan / A stately pleasure dome decree". Regarding his condition as a threat to the survival of the others, Roosevelt insisted he be left behind to allow the poorly provisioned expedition to proceed as rapidly as it could, preparing to commit suicide with an overdose of morphine. Only an appeal by his son persuaded him to continue.
Despite Roosevelt's continued decline and loss of over , Colonel Rondon reduced the pace of the expedition to allow for his commission's mapmaking and other geographical tasks, which required regular stops to fix the expedition's position by sun-based survey. Upon Roosevelt's return to New York, friends and family were startled by his physical appearance and fatigue. Roosevelt wrote, perhaps prophetically, to a friend that the trip had cut his life short by ten years. For the rest of his few remaining years, he would be plagued by flare-ups of malaria and leg inflammations so severe as to require surgery. Before Roosevelt had even completed his sea voyage home, critics raised doubts over his claims of exploring and navigating a completely uncharted river over long. When he had recovered sufficiently, he addressed a standing-room-only convention organized in Washington, D.C., by the National Geographic Society and satisfactorily defended his claims.
Final years
Roosevelt returned to the United States in May 1914. Though he was outraged by the Wilson Administration's conclusion of a treaty that expressed "sincere regret" for the way in which the United States had acquired the Panama Canal Zone, he was impressed by many of the reforms passed under Wilson. Roosevelt made several campaign appearances for the Progressives, but the 1914 elections were a disaster for the fledgling third party. Roosevelt began to envision another campaign for president, this time with himself at the head of the Republican Party, but conservative party leaders remained opposed to Roosevelt. In hopes of engineering a joint nomination, the Progressives scheduled the 1916 Progressive National Convention at the same time as the 1916 Republican National Convention. When the Republicans nominated Charles Evans Hughes, Roosevelt declined the Progressive nomination and urged his Progressive followers to support the Republican candidate. Though Roosevelt had long disliked Hughes, he disliked Wilson even more, and he campaigned energetically for the Republican nominee. However, Wilson won the 1916 election by a narrow margin. The Progressives disappeared as a party following the 1916 election, and Roosevelt and many of his followers permanently re-joined the Republican Party.
World War I
When the First World War began in 1914, Roosevelt strongly supported the Allies and demanded a harsher policy against Germany, especially regarding submarine warfare. Roosevelt angrily denounced the foreign policy of President Wilson, calling it a failure regarding the atrocities in Belgium and the violations of American rights. In 1916, while campaigning for Hughes, Roosevelt repeatedly denounced Irish-Americans and German-Americans whom he described as unpatriotic, saying they put the interests of Ireland and Germany ahead of America's by supporting neutrality. He insisted that one had to be 100% American, not a "hyphenated American" who juggled multiple loyalties. In March 1917, Congress gave Roosevelt the authority to raise a maximum of four divisions similar to the Rough Riders, and Major Frederick Russell Burnham was put in charge of both the general organization and recruitment. However, President Wilson announced to the press that he would not send Roosevelt and his volunteers to France, but instead would send an American Expeditionary Force under the command of General John J. Pershing. Roosevelt never forgave Wilson, and quickly published The Foes of Our Own Household, an indictment of the sitting president. Roosevelt's youngest son, Quentin, a pilot with the American forces in France, was killed when shot down behind German lines on July 14, 1918, at the age of 20. It is said that Quentin's death distressed Roosevelt so much that he never recovered from his loss.
League of Nations
Roosevelt was an early supporter of the modern view that there needs to be a global order. In his Nobel prize address of 1910, he said, "it would be a master stroke if those great Powers honestly bent on peace would form a League of Peace, not only to keep the peace among themselves, but to prevent, by force if necessary, its being broken by others." It would have executive power such as the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 lacked. He called for American participation.
When World War I broke out, Roosevelt proposed "a World League for the Peace of Righteousness", in September 1914, which would preserve sovereignty but limit armaments and require arbitration. He added that it should be "solemnly covenanted that if any nations refused to abide by the decisions of such a court, then others draw the sword in behalf of peace and justice." In 1915 he outlined this plan more specifically, urging that nations guarantee their entire military force, if necessary, against any nation that refused to carry out arbitration decrees or violated rights of other nations. Though Roosevelt had some concerns about the impact on United States sovereignty, he insisted that such a league would only work if the United States participated as one of the "joint guarantors". Roosevelt referred to this plan in a 1918 speech as "the most feasible for...a league of nations." By this time Wilson was strongly hostile to Roosevelt and Lodge, and developed his own plans for a rather different League of Nations. It became reality along Wilson's lines at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. Roosevelt denounced Wilson's approach but died before it was adopted at Paris. However, Lodge was willing to accept it with serious reservations. In the end, on March 19, 1920, Wilson had Democratic Senators vote against the League with the Lodge Reservations and the United States never joined the League of Nations.
Final political activities
Roosevelt's attacks on Wilson helped the Republicans win control of Congress in the midterm elections of 1918. He declined a request from New York Republicans to run for another gubernatorial term, but attacked Wilson's Fourteen Points, calling instead for the unconditional surrender of Germany. Though his health was uncertain, he was seen as a leading contender for the 1920 Republican nomination, but insisted that, "If they take me, they'll have to take me without a single modification of the things that I have always stood for! He wrote William Allen White, "I wish to do everything in my power to make the Republican Party the Party of sane, constructive radicalism, just as it was under Lincoln." Accordingly, he told the 1918 state convention of the Maine Republican Party that he stood for old-age pensions, insurance for sickness and unemployment, construction of public housing for low-income families, the reduction of working hours, aid to farmers, and more regulation of large corporations.
While his political profile remained high, Roosevelt's physical condition continued to deteriorate throughout 1918 due to the long-term effects of jungle diseases. He was hospitalized for seven weeks late in the year and never fully recovered.
Death
On the night of January 5, 1919, Roosevelt suffered breathing problems. After receiving treatment from his physician, Dr. George W. Faller, he felt better and went to bed. Roosevelt's last words were "Please put out that light, James" to his family servant James E. Amos. Between 4:00 and 4:15 the next morning, Roosevelt, at the age of 60, died in his sleep at Sagamore Hill after a blood clot detached from a vein and traveled to his lungs.
Upon receiving word of his death, his son Archibald telegraphed his siblings: "The old lion is dead." Woodrow Wilson's vice president, Thomas R. Marshall, said that "Death had to take Roosevelt sleeping, for if he had been awake, there would have been a fight." Following a private farewell service in the North Room at Sagamore Hill, a simple funeral was held at Christ Episcopal Church in Oyster Bay. Vice President Thomas R. Marshall, Charles Evans Hughes, Warren G. Harding, Henry Cabot Lodge, and William Howard Taft were among the mourners. The snow-covered procession route to Youngs Memorial Cemetery was lined with spectators and a squad of mounted policemen who had ridden from New York City. Roosevelt was buried on a hillside overlooking Oyster Bay.
Writer
Roosevelt was a prolific author, writing with passion on subjects ranging from foreign policy to the importance of the national park system. Roosevelt was also an avid reader of poetry. Poet Robert Frost said that Roosevelt "was our kind. He quoted poetry to me. He knew poetry."
As an editor of Outlook magazine, Roosevelt had weekly access to a large, educated national audience. In all, Roosevelt wrote about 18 books (each in several editions), including his autobiography, The Rough Riders, History of the Naval War of 1812, and others on subjects such as ranching, explorations, and wildlife. His most ambitious book was the four volume narrative The Winning of the West, focused on the American frontier in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Roosevelt said that the American character—indeed a new "American race" (ethnic group) had emerged from the heroic wilderness hunters and Indian fighters, acting on the frontier with little government help. Roosevelt also published an account of his 1909–10 African expedition entitled African Game Trails.
In 1907, Roosevelt became embroiled in a widely publicized literary debate known as the nature fakers controversy. A few years earlier, naturalist John Burroughs had published an article entitled "Real and Sham Natural History" in the Atlantic Monthly, attacking popular writers of the day such as Ernest Thompson Seton, Charles G. D. Roberts, and William J. Long for their fantastical representations of wildlife. Roosevelt agreed with Burroughs's criticisms, and published several essays of his own denouncing the booming genre of "naturalistic" animal stories as "yellow journalism of the woods". It was the President himself who popularized the negative term "nature faker" to describe writers who depicted their animal characters with excessive anthropomorphism.
Character and beliefs
Roosevelt intensely disliked being called "Teddy", despite the widespread public association with said moniker, and was quick to point out this to those who referred to him as such, though it would become widely used by newspapers during his political career.
He was an active Freemason and member of the Sons of the American Revolution.
British scholar Marcus Cunliffe evaluates the liberal argument that Roosevelt was an opportunist, exhibitionist, and imperialist. Cunliffe praises TR's versatility, his respect for law, and his sincerity. He argues that Roosevelt's foreign policy was better than his detractors allege. Cunliffe calls him "a big man in several respects," ranking him below Washington, Lincoln, and Jefferson, and on the same level as Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Strenuous life
Roosevelt had a lifelong interest in pursuing what he called, in an 1899 speech, "The Strenuous Life". To this end, he exercised regularly and took up boxing, tennis, hiking, rowing, polo, and horseback riding. He also continued his habit of skinny-dipping in the Potomac River during the winter. As governor of New York, he boxed with sparring partners several times each week, a practice he regularly continued as president until being hit so hard in the face he became blind in his left eye (a fact not made public until many years later). As president, he practiced judo for two 2-month periods in 1902 and 1904, not attaining any rank. Roosevelt began to believe in the utility of jiu-jitsu training after training with Yoshitsugu Yamashita. Concerned that the United States would lose its military supremacy to rising powers like Japan, Roosevelt began to advocate for jiu-jitsu training for American soldiers. Feminists annoyed by the posturing of men like Roosevelt, insisted that women were just as capable of learning jiu-jitsu. To prove their point, Martha Blow Wadsworth and Maria Louise ("Hallie") Davis Elkins hired Fude Yamashita, a highly skilled jiu-jitsu instructor and the wife of Yoshitsugu Yamashita, to teach a jiu-jitsu class for women and girls in Washington, DC in 1904. Women had already begun training in boxing in the United States as a means of personal and political empowerment. Jiu-jitsu training thus soon also became popular with American women, coinciding with the origins of a women's self-defense movement.
Roosevelt was an enthusiastic singlestick player and, according to Harper's Weekly, showed up at a White House reception with his arm bandaged after a bout with General Leonard Wood in 1905. Roosevelt was an avid reader, reading tens of thousands of books, at a rate of several per day in multiple languages. Along with Thomas Jefferson, Roosevelt was the most well-read of all American presidents.
Warrior
Historians have often emphasized Roosevelt's warrior persona. He took aggressive positions regarding war with Spain in 1898, Colombia in 1903, and especially with Germany, from 1915 to 1917. As a demonstration of American naval might, he sent the "Great White Fleet" around the world in 1907–1909. The implicit threat of the "big stick" of military power provided leverage to "speak softly" and quietly resolve conflict in numerous cases. He boasted in his autobiography:
Richard D. White Jr states, "Roosevelt's warrior spirit framed his views of national politics, [and] international relations."
Historian Howard K. Beale has argued:
Religion
Roosevelt attended church regularly and was a lifelong adherent of the Reformed Church in America, an American affiliate of the Dutch Reformed Church. In 1907, concerning the motto "In God We Trust" on money, he wrote, "It seems to me eminently unwise to cheapen such a motto by use on coins, just as it would be to cheapen it by use on postage stamps, or in advertisements." Roosevelt talked a great deal about religion. Biographer Edmund Morris states:
Roosevelt publicly encouraged church attendance and was a conscientious churchgoer himself. When gas rationing was introduced during the First World War, he walked the three miles from his home at Sagamore Hill to the local church and back, even after a serious operation had made it difficult for him to travel by foot. It was said that Roosevelt "allowed no engagement to keep him from going to church," and he remained a fervent advocate of the Bible throughout his adult life. According to Christian F. Reisner, writing in 1922 shortly after Roosevelt's death, "Religion was as natural to Mr. Roosevelt as breathing," and when the travel library for Roosevelt's famous Smithsonian-sponsored African expedition was being assembled, the Bible was, according to his sister, "the first book selected." In an address delivered in his home at Oyster Bay to the Long Island Bible Society in 1901, Roosevelt declared that:
Political positions
When he assumed the presidency, Roosevelt reassured many conservatives, stating, "the mechanism of modern business is so delicate that extreme care must be taken not to interfere with it in a spirit of rashness or ignorance." The following year, Roosevelt asserted the president's independence from business interests by opposing the merger which created the Northern Securities Company, and many were surprised that any president, much less an unelected one, would challenge powerful banker J.P. Morgan. In his last two years as president, Roosevelt became increasingly distrustful of big business, despite its close ties to the Republican Party. Roosevelt sought to replace the 19th-century laissez-faire economic environment with a new economic model which included a larger regulatory role for the federal government. He believed that 19th-century entrepreneurs had risked their fortunes on innovations and new businesses, and that these capitalists had been rightly rewarded. By contrast, he believed that 20th-century capitalists risked little but nonetheless reaped huge and, given the lack of risk, unjust, economic rewards. Without a redistribution of wealth away from the upper class, Roosevelt feared that the country would turn to radicals or fall to revolution. His Square Deal domestic program had three main goals: conservation of natural resources, control of corporations, and consumer protection. The Square Deal evolved into his program of "New Nationalism", which emphasized the priority of labor over capital interests and a need to more effectively control corporate creation and combination, and proposed a ban on corporate political contributions.
Foreign policy beliefs
In the analysis by Henry Kissinger, Theodore Roosevelt was the first president to develop the guideline that it was America's duty to make its enormous power and potential influence felt globally. The idea of being a passive "city on the hill" model that others could look up to, he rejected. Roosevelt, trained in biology, was a social darwinist who believed in survival of the fittest. The international world in his view was a realm of violence and conflict. The United States had all the economic and geographical potential to be the fittest nation on the globe. The United States had a duty to act decisively. For example, in terms of the Monroe Doctrine, America had to prevent European incursions in the Western Hemisphere. But there was more, as he expressed in his famous Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine: the U.S. had to be the policeman of the region because unruly, corrupt smaller nations had to be controlled, and if United States did not do it, European powers would in fact intervene and develop their own base of power in the hemisphere in contravention to the Monroe Doctrine.
Roosevelt was a realist and a conservative. He deplored many of the increasingly popular idealistic liberal themes, such as were promoted by William Jennings Bryan, the anti-imperialists, and Woodrow Wilson. Kissinger says he rejected the efficacy of international law. Roosevelt argue that if a country could not protect its own interests, the international community could not help very much. He ridiculed disarmament proposals that were increasingly common. He saw no likelihood of an international power capable of checking wrongdoing on a major scale. As for world government: I regard the Wilson–Bryan attitude of trusting to fantastic peace treaties, too impossible promises, to all kinds of scraps of paper without any backing in efficient force, as abhorrent. It is infinitely better for a nation and for the world to have the Frederick the Great and Bismarck tradition as regards foreign policy than to have the Bryan or Bryan–Wilson attitude as a permanent national attitude.... A milk-and-water righteousness unbacked by force is...as wicked as and even more mischievous than force divorced from righteousness.
On the positive side, Roosevelt favored spheres of influence, whereby one great power would generally prevail, such as the United States in the Western Hemisphere or Great Britain in the Indian subcontinent. Japan fit that role and he approved. However he had deep distrust of both Germany and Russia.
Legacy
Historians credit Roosevelt for changing the nation's political system by permanently placing the "bully pulpit" of the presidency at center stage and making character as important as the issues. His accomplishments include trust busting and conservationism. He is a hero to liberals and progressives for his proposals in 1907–1912 that presaged the modern welfare state of the New Deal Era, including direct federal taxation, labor reforms, and more direct democracy, while conservationists admire Roosevelt for putting the environment and selflessness towards future generations on the national agenda, and conservatives and nationalists respect his commitment to law and order, civic duty and military values, as well as his personality of individual self-responsibility and hardiness. Dalton says, "Today he is heralded as the architect of the modern presidency, as a world leader who boldly reshaped the office to meet the needs of the new century and redefined America's place in the world."
However, liberals and socialists have criticized him for his interventionist and imperialist approach to nations he considered "uncivilized". Conservatives and libertarians reject his vision of the welfare state and emphasis on the superiority of government over private action. Historians typically rank Roosevelt among the top five presidents in American history.
Persona and masculinity
Dalton says Roosevelt is remembered as, "one of the most picturesque personalities who has ever enlivened the landscape". His friend, historian Henry Adams, proclaimed: "Roosevelt, more than any other man... showed the singular primitive quality that belongs to ultimate matter—the quality that medieval theology assigned to God—he was pure act."
Roosevelt's biographers have stressed his personality. Henry F. Pringle, who won the Pulitzer Prize in biography for his Theodore Roosevelt (1931) stated: "The Theodore Roosevelt of later years was the most adolescent of men… Failure to receive the Medal of Honor for his exploits [in Cuba] had been a grief as real as any of those which swamp childhood in despair. 'You must always remember,' wrote Cecil Spring Rice in 1904, 'that the President is about six.'"
Cooper compared him with Woodrow Wilson and argued that both of them played the roles of warrior and priest. Dalton stressed Roosevelt's strenuous life. Sarah Watts examined the desires of the "Rough Rider in the White House". Brands calls Roosevelt "the last romantic", arguing that his romantic concept of life emerged from his belief that "physical bravery was the highest virtue and war the ultimate test of bravery".
Roosevelt as the exemplar of American masculinity has become a major theme. As president, he repeatedly warned men that they were becoming too office-bound, too complacent, too comfortable with physical ease and moral laxity, and were failing in their duties to propagate the race and exhibit masculine vigor. French historian Serge Ricard says, "the ebullient apostle of the Strenuous Life offers ideal material for a detailed psycho-historical analysis of aggressive manhood in the changing socio-cultural environment of his era; McKinley, Taft, or Wilson would perhaps inadequately serve that purpose". He promoted competitive sports like boxing and jiu-jitsu for physically strengthening American men. He also believed that organizations like the Boy Scouts of America, founded in 1910, could help mold and strengthen the character of American boys. Brands shows that heroic displays of bravery were essential to Roosevelt's image and mission:
Memorials and cultural depictions
Roosevelt was included with Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln at the Mount Rushmore Memorial, designed in 1927 with the approval of Republican President Calvin Coolidge.
For his gallantry at San Juan Hill, Roosevelt's commanders recommended him for the Medal of Honor. However, the initial recommendation lacked any eyewitnesses, and the effort was eventually tainted by Roosevelt's own lobbying of the War Department. In the late 1990s, Roosevelt's supporters again recommended the award, which was denied by the Secretary of the Army on basis that the decorations board determined "Roosevelt's bravery in battle did not rise to the level that would justify the Medal of Honor and, indeed, it did not rise to the level of men who fought in that engagement." Nevertheless, politicians apparently convinced the secretary to reconsider the award a third time and reverse himself, leading to the charge that it was a "politically motivated award." On January 16, 2001, President Bill Clinton awarded Theodore Roosevelt the Medal of Honor posthumously for his charge on San Juan Hill. He is the only president to have received the Medal of Honor.
The United States Navy named two ships for Roosevelt: the , a submarine that was in commission from 1961 to 1982, and the , an aircraft carrier that has been on active duty in the Atlantic Fleet since 1986.
On November 18, 1956, the United States Postal Service released a 6¢ Liberty Issue postage stamp honoring Roosevelt. A 32¢ stamp was issued on February 3, 1998, as part of the Celebrate the Century stamp sheet series. In 2008, Columbia Law School awarded Roosevelt a Juris Doctor degree, posthumously making him a member of the class of 1882.
Roosevelt's "Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick" ideology is still quoted by politicians and columnists in different countries—not only in English, but also in translations to various other languages. Another lasting, popular legacy of Roosevelt is the stuffed toy bears—teddy bears—named after him following an incident on a hunting trip in Mississippi in 1902. Roosevelt has been portrayed in films and television series such as Brighty of the Grand Canyon, The Wind and the Lion, Rough Riders, My Friend Flicka, and Law of the Plainsman. Robin Williams portrayed Roosevelt in the form of a wax mannequin that comes to life in Night at the Museum and its sequels Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian and Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb. In 2017, it was announced that Leonardo DiCaprio will portray Roosevelt in a biopic to be directed by Martin Scorsese.
Moreover, Theodore Roosevelt National Park in the state of North Dakota is named after him. The America the Beautiful Quarters series features Roosevelt riding a horse on the national park's quarter.
Asteroid 188693 Roosevelt, discovered by astronomers with the Catalina Sky Survey in 2005, was named after him. The official was published by the Minor Planet Center on November 8, 2019 ().
In January 2022, after years of lobbying by activists, an equestrian statue of the former president was removed from where it had stood for more than eighty years in front of New York's American Museum of Natural History. Responding to controversy, the museum noted that the design "communicates a racial hierarchy that the museum and members of the public have long found disturbing."
Audiovisual media
Theodore Roosevelt was one of the first presidents whose voice was recorded for posterity. Several of his recorded speeches survive. A 4.6-minute voice recording, which preserves Roosevelt's lower timbre ranges particularly well for its time, is among those available from the Michigan State University libraries (this is the 1912 recording of The Right of the People to Rule, recorded by Edison at Carnegie Hall). The audio clip sponsored by the Authentic History Center includes his defense of the Progressive Party in 1912, wherein he proclaims it the "party of the people" – in contrast with the other major parties.
Roosevelt goes for a ride in Arch Hoxsey's plane in October 1910
In popular culture
Theodore Roosevelt appears as the leader of the American civilization in the Firaxis Games title Civilization VI. His unique ability is Roosevelt Corollary, which gives +5 Combat Strength for all units inside America's home continent, and +1 Appeal to all tiles in cities with a national park.
See also
Notes
References
Bibliography
Full biographies
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, 105 pp, very short biography by leading scholar.
.; also titled Power and responsibility; the life and times of Theodore Roosevelt online free to borrow
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, only volume published, to age 28.
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Personality and activities
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Provides a lesson plan on TR as the historical figure who most exemplifies the quality of masculinity.
. Chronicles the events of TR's presidency during the summers of his two terms.
. The president's use of publicity, rhetoric and force of personality.
; his deadly 1913–14 trip to the Amazon.
, best seller; to 1886.
, to 1884.
. 494 pp.
, examines TR and his family during the World War I period.
.
, 240 pp. TR in Africa & Europe, 1909–10
. 289 pp.
, 337 pp; TR's political thought and its significance for republican self-government.
Domestic policies
online review; another online review
Cutright, P.R. (1985) Theodore Roosevelt: The making of a Modern Conservationist (U of Illinois Press.)
.
, standard history of his domestic and foreign policy as president.
Bakari, Mohamed El-Kamel. "Mapping the 'Anthropocentric-ecocentric'Dualism in the History of American Presidency: The Good, the Bad, and the Ambivalent." Journal of Studies in Social Sciences 14, no. 2 (2016).
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Redekop, Benjamin. (2015). "Embodying the Story: The Conservation Leadership of Theodore Roosevelt". Leadership (2015) DOI:10.1177/1742715014546875 online
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Politics
. How TR did politics.
, 323 pp.
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. 361 pp.
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. Focus on 1912; online free
. online free
. Attacks TR policies from conservative/libertarian perspective.
Foreign policy, military and naval issues
. online
. excerpt
.
. 328 pp.
Kuehn, John T. "Theodore Roosevelt’s Naval Diplomacy: The U.S. Navy and the Birth of the American Century," Naval War College Review (2010) 53#3 online
Livermore, Seward W. "Theodore Roosevelt, the American Navy, and the Venezuelan Crisis of 1902-1903." American Historical Review 51.3 (1946): 452–471. online
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Nester, William R. Theodore Roosevelt and the Art of American Power: An American for All Time. Rowman & Littlefield, 2019. excerpt
Neu, Charles E. "Theodore Roosevelt and American Involvement in the Far East, 1901-1909." Pacific Historical Review 35.4 (1966): 433–449. online
O'Gara, Gordon Carpenter. Theodore Roosevelt and the Rise of the Modern Navy. (Princeton UP, 1943). online
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Oyos, Matthew M. In Command: Theodore Roosevelt and the American Military (2018) online review
Pietrusza, David (2018). TR's Last War: Theodore Roosevelt, the Great War, and a Journey of Triumph and Tragedy
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Thompson, John M. Great Power Rising: Theodore Roosevelt and the Politics of US Foreign Policy (Oxford UP, 2019).
. 196 pp.
Turk, Richard W. The Ambiguous Relationship: Theodore Roosevelt and Alfred Thayer Mahan (1987) [https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article-abstract/93/5/1413/70734 online review
Historiography
Cunliffe, Marcus. "Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States 1901–1908" History Today (Sept 1955) 4#9 pp. 592–601, online.
Ricard, Serge. "The State of Theodore Roosevelt Studies" H-Diplo Essay No. 116 24 October 2014 online
, excerpt and text search, 28 new essays by scholars; focus on historiography. online
Primary sources
Kohn, Edward P., ed. A Most Glorious Ride: The Diaries of Theodore Roosevelt, 1877–1886 (State University of New York Press, 2015), 284 pp.
; vol 2
.
, 20 vol.; 18,000 pages containing most of TR's speeches, books and essays, but not his letters; a CD-ROM edition is available; some of TR's books are available online through Project Bartleby
, Roosevelt's opinions on many issues; online version at Theodore Roosevelt.
, 8 vols. Very large collection. vol 1 1868–1898 online free
. online free
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online free to borrow
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External links
Official
White House biography
Organizations
Boone and Crockett Club
Theodore Roosevelt Association
Libraries and collections
Theodore Roosevelt Center at Dickinson State University
Theodore Roosevelt Collection, at the Houghton Library, Harvard University
Julian L. Street Papers on Theodore Roosevelt, at the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library, Princeton University
Doris A. and Lawrence H. Budner Collection on Theodore Roosevelt at the DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University
Theodore Roosevelt's journalism at The Archive of American Journalism
Theodore Roosevelt American Museum of Natural History
Roosevelt Papers, at the Library of Congress
Guide to the Herbert R. Strauss Collection of Theodore Roosevelt Papers 1884–1919 at the University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center
Media
"Life Portrait of Theodore Roosevelt", from C-SPAN's American Presidents: Life Portraits, September 3, 1999
"Writings of Theodore Roosevelt" from C-SPAN's American Writers: A Journey Through History
Other
Almanac of Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt: A Resource Guide – Library of Congress
1858 births
1919 deaths
1900s in the United States
Theodore
19th-century American politicians
19th-century American historians
19th-century American male writers
20th-century American non-fiction writers
20th-century presidents of the United States
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American autobiographers
American conservationists
American essayists
American explorers
American fishers
American hunters
American male judoka
American male non-fiction writers
American military personnel of the Spanish–American War
American naval historians
American Nobel laureates
American political writers
American shooting survivors
Articles containing video clips
American bibliophiles
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Bulloch family
Burials in New York (state)
Columbia Law School alumni
Deaths from pulmonary embolism
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English-language spelling reform advocates
Explorers of Amazonia
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Harvard College alumni
Members of the American Philosophical Society
Members of the New York State Assembly
Military personnel from New York City
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Nobel Peace Prize laureates
People associated with the American Museum of Natural History
People from Oyster Bay (town), New York
Politicians from New York City
Presidents of the American Historical Association
Presidents of the United States
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Ranchers from North Dakota
Republican Party (United States) presidential nominees
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Rough Riders
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Sons of the American Revolution
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Vice presidents of the United States
Writers from New York (state)
Harvard Advocate alumni
American diarists
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Aphorists
American nationalists
20th-century American male writers | true | [
"A dad joke is a short joke, typically a pun, presented as a one-liner or a question and answer, but not a narrative.\n\nMany dad jokes may be considered anti-jokes, deriving humor from an intentionally funny punchline.\n\nA common type of dad joke goes as follows: A child will say to the father, \"I'm hungry,\" to which the father will reply, \"Hi, Hungry, I'm Dad.\"\n\nWhile the exact origin of the term dad joke is unknown, a writer for the Gettysburg Times wrote an impassioned defence of the genre in June 1987 under the headline \"Don't ban the 'Dad' jokes; preserve and revere them\". The term \"dad jokes\" received mentions in the American sitcom How I Met Your Mother in 2008 and the Australian quiz show Spicks and Specks in 2009. In September 2019, Merriam-Webster added the phrase \"dad joke\" to the dictionary.\n\nExamples \n\n Q: What do you call a dad joke that falls on its head? A: A dud pun.\nQ: On Thanksgiving, why did the turkey cross the table? A: To get to the other sides.\nA ham sandwich walks into a bar and the bartender says...Sorry we don't serve food here.\nQ: What do you call a mermaid on a roof? A: Aerial.\nQ: What does a highlighter say when it answers the phone? A: Yello!!\nI am wrapping Christmas presents. Let’s put on some rap music.\nQ: What's Irish and comes out in the spring? A: Paddy O'Furniture.\nQ: What's orange and sounds like a parrot? A: A carrot.\nQ: What's the opposite of water? A: Yellow snow.\nQ: Where does a sick fish go? A: The doc.\nQ: What do a tick and the Eiffel Tower have in common? A: They're both Paris sites.\nQ What's the difference between a pun and a Dad joke? It will become apparent.\nQ What did the fish say when he swam into the wall? Dam!\nThey've tried to improve the efficiency of wind farms by playing country music around them, but it's not working because they're really just big heavy metal fans.\nI used to be addicted to the hokey pokey, but I turned myself around.\nPlateaus are the highest form of flattery.\nMy uncle just got fired from his job at the cheese factory. He kept getting in the whey.\nGranddad always told me that things could be worse -- I could fall into a deep hole full of water, but I knew he meant well.\nQ: Whose concert costs only 45 cents? 50 Cent featuring Nickelback\n\nSee also \n\n Mom joke\n\nReferences \n\nFatherhood\nHumour\nJokes\nPejorative terms",
"The Way to Wealth is an essay written by Benjamin Franklin in 1758. It is a collection of adages and advice presented in Poor Richard's Almanac during its first 25 years of publication, organized into a speech given by \"Father Abraham\" to a group of people. Many of the phrases Father Abraham quotes continue to be familiar today. The essay's advice is based on the themes of work ethic and frugality.\n\nSome phrases from the almanac quoted in The Way to Wealth include:\n \"There are no gains, without pains\"\n \"One today is worth two tomorrows\"\n \"A life of leisure and a life of laziness are two things\"\n \"Get what you can, and what you get hold\"\n \"Sloth, like rust, consumes faster than labor wears, while the used key is always bright\"\n \"Have you somewhat to do tomorrow, do it today\"\n \"The eye of a master will do more work than both his hands\"\n \"Early to bed, and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise\"\n \"For want of a nail...\"\n\nFurther reading\n\nExternal links \n The Way to Wealth complete text online\n Benjamin Franklin quotes on Wikiquote\n\nWorks by Benjamin Franklin\nSelf-help books\n1758 works\n18th-century essays"
] |
[
"Theodore Roosevelt",
"Early life and family",
"Where was Theodore Roosevelt born?",
"Theodore Roosevelt Jr. was born on October 27, 1858, at East 20th Street in New York City.",
"Who was his mother?",
"socialite Martha Stewart \"Mittie\" Bulloch",
"What type of work did his father do?",
"businessman and philanthropist"
] | C_ea2b2d977c0c4d1d93ec5efce7ee7156_1 | Did Roosevelt have any siblings? | 4 | Did Theodore Roosevelt have any siblings? | Theodore Roosevelt | Theodore Roosevelt Jr. was born on October 27, 1858, at East 20th Street in New York City. He was the second of four children born to socialite Martha Stewart "Mittie" Bulloch and businessman and philanthropist Theodore Roosevelt Sr. He had an older sister, Anna (nicknamed "Bamie"), a younger brother, Elliott, and a younger sister, Corinne. Elliott was later the father of First Lady Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of Theodore's distant cousin, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. His paternal grandfather was of Dutch descent; his other ancestry included primarily Scottish and Scots-Irish, English and smaller amounts of German, Welsh, and French. Theodore Sr. was the fifth son of businessman Cornelius Van Schaack "C.V.S." Roosevelt and Margaret Barnhill. Theodore's fourth cousin, James Roosevelt I, who was also a businessman, was the father of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Mittie was the younger daughter of Major James Stephens Bulloch and Martha P. "Patsy" Stewart. Through the Van Schaacks, Roosevelt was a descendant of the Schuyler family. Roosevelt's youth was largely shaped by his poor health and debilitating asthma. He repeatedly experienced sudden nighttime asthma attacks that caused the experience of being smothered to death, which terrified both Theodore and his parents. Doctors had no cure. Nevertheless, he was energetic and mischievously inquisitive. His lifelong interest in zoology began at age seven when he saw a dead seal at a local market; after obtaining the seal's head, Roosevelt and two cousins formed what they called the "Roosevelt Museum of Natural History". Having learned the rudiments of taxidermy, he filled his makeshift museum with animals that he killed or caught; he then studied the animals and prepared them for display. At age nine, he recorded his observation of insects in a paper entitled "The Natural History of Insects". Roosevelt's father significantly influenced him. His father was a prominent leader in New York's cultural affairs; he helped to found the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and had been especially active in mobilizing support for the Union during the Civil War, even though his in-laws included Confederate leaders. Roosevelt said, "My father, Theodore Roosevelt, was the best man I ever knew. He combined strength and courage with gentleness, tenderness, and great unselfishness. He would not tolerate in us children selfishness or cruelty, idleness, cowardice, or untruthfulness." Family trips abroad, including tours of Europe in 1869 and 1870, and Egypt in 1872, shaped his cosmopolitan perspective. Hiking with his family in the Alps in 1869, Roosevelt found that he could keep pace with his father. He had discovered the significant benefits of physical exertion to minimize his asthma and bolster his spirits. Roosevelt began a heavy regime of exercise. After being manhandled by two older boys on a camping trip, he found a boxing coach to teach him to fight and strengthen his body. CANNOTANSWER | He had an older sister, Anna (nicknamed "Bamie"), a younger brother, Elliott, and a younger sister, Corinne. | Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or his initials T. R., was an American politician, statesman, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26th president of the United States from 1901 to 1909. He previously served as the 25th vice president under William McKinley from March to September 1901, and as the 33rd governor of New York from 1899 to 1900. Having assumed the presidency after McKinley's assassination, Roosevelt emerged as a leader of the Republican Party and became a driving force for anti-trust and Progressive policies.
Roosevelt was a sickly child with debilitating asthma but partly overcame his health problems by embracing a strenuous lifestyle. He integrated his exuberant personality, a vast range of interests and achievements into a "cowboy" persona defined by robust masculinity. He was home-schooled and began a lifelong naturalist avocation before attending Harvard. His book The Naval War of 1812 (1882) established his reputation as a learned historian and popular writer. Upon entering politics, he became the leader of the reform faction of Republicans in New York's state legislature. His wife and mother both died in the same night and he was psychologically devastated. He recuperated by buying and operating a cattle ranch in the Dakotas. He served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy under President William McKinley and in 1898 helped plan the highly successful naval war against Spain. He resigned to help form and lead the Rough Riders, a unit that fought the Spanish army in Cuba to great publicity. Returning a war hero, he was elected governor of New York in 1898. The New York state party leadership disliked his ambitious agenda and convinced McKinley to make Roosevelt his running mate in the 1900 election. Roosevelt campaigned vigorously, and the McKinley–Roosevelt ticket won a landslide victory based on a platform of victory, peace and prosperity.
Roosevelt assumed the presidency at age 42 after McKinley was assassinated in September 1901. He remains the youngest person to become president of the United States. Roosevelt was a leader of the progressive movement and championed his "Square Deal" domestic policies, promising the average citizen fairness, breaking of trusts, regulation of railroads, and pure food and drugs. He prioritized conservation and established national parks, forests, and monuments intended to preserve the nation's natural resources. In foreign policy, he focused on Central America where he began construction of the Panama Canal. He expanded the Navy and sent the Great White Fleet on a world tour to project American naval power. His successful efforts to broker the end of the Russo-Japanese War won him the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize. Roosevelt was elected to a full term in 1904 and continued to promote progressive policies. He groomed his close friend William Howard Taft to succeed him in the 1908 presidential election.
Roosevelt grew frustrated with Taft's brand of conservatism and belatedly tried to win the 1912 Republican nomination for president. He failed, walked out, and founded the Progressive Party. He ran in the 1912 presidential election and the split allowed the Democratic nominee Woodrow Wilson to win the election. Following the defeat, Roosevelt led a two-year expedition to the Amazon basin where he nearly died of tropical disease. During World War I, he criticized Wilson for keeping the country out of the war; his offer to lead volunteers to France was rejected. He considered running for president again in 1920, but his health continued to deteriorate. He died in 1919. He is generally ranked in polls of historians and political scientists as one of the five best presidents.
Early life and family
Theodore Roosevelt Jr. was born on October 27, 1858, at 28 East 20th Street in Manhattan, New York City. He was the second of four children born to socialite Martha Stewart "Mittie" Bulloch and businessman and philanthropist Theodore Roosevelt Sr. He had an older sister (Anna, nicknamed "Bamie"), a younger brother (Elliott) and a younger sister (Corinne). Elliott was later the father of First Lady Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of Theodore's distant cousin, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. His paternal grandfather was of Dutch descent; his other ancestry included primarily Scottish and Scots-Irish, English and smaller amounts of German, Welsh and French. Theodore Sr. was the fifth son of businessman Cornelius Van Schaack "C. V. S." Roosevelt and Margaret Barnhill as well as a brother of Robert Roosevelt and James A. Roosevelt. Theodore's fourth cousin, James Roosevelt I, who was also a businessman, was the father of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Mittie was the younger daughter of Major James Stephens Bulloch and Martha P. "Patsy" Stewart. Through the Van Schaacks, Roosevelt was a descendant of the Schuyler family.
Roosevelt's youth was largely shaped by his poor health and debilitating asthma. He repeatedly experienced sudden nighttime asthma attacks that caused the experience of being smothered to death, which terrified both Theodore and his parents. Doctors had no cure. Nevertheless, he was energetic and mischievously inquisitive. His lifelong interest in zoology began at age seven when he saw a dead seal at a local market; after obtaining the seal's head, Roosevelt and two cousins formed what they called the "Roosevelt Museum of Natural History". Having learned the rudiments of taxidermy, he filled his makeshift museum with animals that he killed or caught; he then studied the animals and prepared them for exhibition. At age nine, he recorded his observation of insects in a paper entitled "The Natural History of Insects".
Roosevelt's father significantly influenced him. His father was a prominent leader in New York's cultural affairs; he helped to found the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and had been especially active in mobilizing support for the Union during the Civil War, even though his in-laws included Confederate leaders. Roosevelt said, "My father, Theodore Roosevelt, was the best man I ever knew. He combined strength and courage with gentleness, tenderness, and great unselfishness. He would not tolerate in us children selfishness or cruelty, idleness, cowardice, or untruthfulness." Family trips abroad, including tours of Europe in 1869 and 1870, and Egypt in 1872, shaped his cosmopolitan perspective. Hiking with his family in the Alps in 1869, Roosevelt found that he could keep pace with his father. He had discovered the significant benefits of physical exertion to minimize his asthma and bolster his spirits. Roosevelt began a heavy regime of exercise. After being manhandled by two older boys on a camping trip, he found a boxing coach to teach him to fight and strengthen his body.
A 6-year-old Roosevelt witnessed the funeral procession of Abraham Lincoln from his grandfather's mansion in Union Square, New York City where he was photographed in the window along with his brother Elliott, as confirmed by wife Edith who was also present.
Education
Roosevelt was homeschooled, mostly by tutors and his parents. Biographer H. W. Brands argued that "The most obvious drawback to his home schooling was uneven coverage of the various areas of human knowledge." He was solid in geography and bright in history, biology, French, and German; however, he struggled in mathematics and the classical languages. When he entered Harvard College on September 27, 1876, his father advised: "Take care of your morals first, your health next, and finally your studies." His father's sudden death on February 9, 1878, devastated Roosevelt, but he eventually recovered and doubled his activities.
He did well in science, philosophy, and rhetoric courses but continued to struggle in Latin and Greek. He studied biology intently and was already an accomplished naturalist and a published ornithologist. He read prodigiously with an almost photographic memory. While at Harvard, Roosevelt participated in rowing and boxing; he was once runner-up in an intramural boxing tournament. Roosevelt was a member of the Alpha Delta Phi literary society (later the Fly Club), the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity, and the prestigious Porcellian Club; he was also an editor of The Harvard Advocate. In 1880, Roosevelt graduated Phi Beta Kappa (22nd of 177) from Harvard with an A.B. magna cum laude. Biographer Henry Pringle states:
After his father's death, Roosevelt had inherited $65,000 (), enough to live off comfortably for the rest of his life. Roosevelt gave up his earlier plan of studying natural science and instead decided to attend Columbia Law School, moving back into his family's home in New York City. Roosevelt was an able law student, but he often found law to be irrational. He spent much of his time writing a book on the War of 1812.
Determined to enter politics, Roosevelt began attending meetings at Morton Hall, the 59th Street headquarters of New York's 21st District Republican Association. Though Roosevelt's father had been a prominent member of the Republican Party, the younger Roosevelt made an unorthodox career choice for someone of his class, as most of Roosevelt's peers refrained from becoming too closely involved in politics. Roosevelt found allies in the local Republican Party, and he defeated an incumbent Republican state assemblyman closely tied to the political machine of Senator Roscoe Conkling. After his election victory, Roosevelt decided to drop out of law school, later saying, "I intended to be one of the governing class."
Naval history and strategy
While at Harvard, Roosevelt began a systematic study of the role played by the young United States Navy in the War of 1812. Assisted by two uncles, he scrutinized original source materials and official U.S. Navy records, ultimately publishing The Naval War of 1812 in 1882. The book contained drawings of individual and combined ship maneuvers, charts depicting the differences in iron throw weights of cannon shot between rival forces, and analyses of the differences and similarities between British and American leadership down to the ship-to-ship level. Upon release, The Naval War of 1812 was praised for its scholarship and style, and it remains a standard study of the war.
With the publication of The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660–1783 in 1890, Navy Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan was immediately hailed as the world's outstanding naval theorist by the leaders of Europe. Roosevelt paid very close attention to Mahan's emphasis that only a nation with the world's most powerful fleet could dominate the world's oceans, exert its diplomacy to the fullest, and defend its own borders. He incorporated Mahan's ideas into his views on naval strategy for the remainder of his career.
First marriage and widowerhood
In 1880, Roosevelt married socialite Alice Hathaway Lee. Their daughter, Alice Lee Roosevelt, was born on February 12, 1884. Two days later, the new mother died of an undiagnosed case of kidney failure that had been masked by the pregnancy. In his diary, Roosevelt wrote a large 'X' on the page and then, "The light has gone out of my life." His mother, Mittie, had died of typhoid fever eleven hours earlier at 3:00 a.m., in the same house on 57th Street in Manhattan. Distraught, Roosevelt left baby Alice in the care of his sister Bamie while he grieved; he assumed custody of Alice when she was three.
After the deaths of his wife and mother, Roosevelt focused on his work, specifically by re-energizing a legislative investigation into corruption of the New York City government, which arose from a concurrent bill proposing that power be centralized in the mayor's office. For the rest of his life, he rarely spoke about his wife Alice and did not write about her in his autobiography.
Early political career
State Assemblyman
Roosevelt was a member of the New York State Assembly (New York Co., 21st D.) in 1882, 1883 and 1884. He immediately began making his mark, specifically in corporate corruption issues. He blocked a corrupt effort by financier Jay Gould to lower his taxes. Roosevelt exposed suspected collusion in the matter by Judge Theodore Westbrook, and argued for and received approval for an investigation to proceed, aiming for the impeachment of the judge. The investigation committee rejected impeachment, but Roosevelt had exposed the potential corruption in Albany, and thus assumed a high and positive political profile in multiple New York publications.
Roosevelt's anti-corruption efforts helped him win re-election in 1882 by a margin greater than two-to-one, an achievement made even more impressive by the fact that Democratic gubernatorial candidate Grover Cleveland won Roosevelt's district. With Conkling's Stalwart faction of the Republican Party in disarray following the assassination of President James Garfield, Roosevelt won election as the Republican party leader in the state assembly. He allied with Governor Cleveland to win passage of a civil service reform bill. Roosevelt won re-election a second time, and sought the office of Speaker of the New York State Assembly, but was defeated by Titus Sheard in a 41 to 29 vote of the GOP caucus. In his final term, Roosevelt served as Chairman of the Committee on Affairs of Cities; he wrote more bills than any other legislator.
Presidential election of 1884
With numerous presidential hopefuls to choose from, Roosevelt supported Senator George F. Edmunds of Vermont, a colorless reformer. The state GOP preferred the incumbent president, New York City's Chester Arthur, who was known for passing the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act. Arthur, at the time, was suffering from Bright's disease, unknown to the public, and out of duty he did not contest his own nomination. Roosevelt fought hard and succeeded in influencing the Manhattan delegates at the state convention in Utica. He then took control of the state convention, bargaining through the night and outmaneuvering the supporters of Arthur and James G. Blaine; he gained a national reputation as a key person in New York State.
Roosevelt attended the 1884 GOP National Convention in Chicago and gave a speech convincing delegates to nominate African American John R. Lynch, an Edmunds supporter, to be temporary chair. Roosevelt fought alongside the Mugwump reformers; however, Blaine, having gained support from Arthur's and Edmunds's delegates, won the nomination by 541 votes on the fourth ballot. In a crucial moment of his budding political career, Roosevelt resisted the demand of the Mugwumps that he bolt from Blaine. He bragged about his one small success: "We achieved a victory in getting up a combination to beat the Blaine nominee for temporary chairman... To do this needed a mixture of skill, boldness and energy... to get the different factions to come in... to defeat the common foe." He was also impressed by an invitation to speak before an audience of ten thousand, the largest crowd he had addressed up to that date. Having gotten a taste of national politics, Roosevelt felt less aspiration for advocacy on the state level; he then retired to his new "Chimney Butte Ranch" on the Little Missouri River. Roosevelt refused to join other Mugwumps in supporting Grover Cleveland, the governor of New York and the Democratic nominee in the general election. He debated the pros and cons of staying loyal with his political friend, Henry Cabot Lodge. After Blaine won the nomination, Roosevelt had carelessly said that he would give "hearty support to any decent Democrat". He distanced himself from the promise, saying that it had not been meant "for publication". When a reporter asked if he would support Blaine, Roosevelt replied, "That question I decline to answer. It is a subject I do not care to talk about." In the end, he realized that he had to support Blaine to maintain his role in the GOP, and he did so in a press release on July 19. Having lost the support of many reformers, Roosevelt decided to retire from politics and move to North Dakota.
Cattle rancher in Dakota
Roosevelt first visited the Dakota Territory in 1883 to hunt bison. Exhilarated by the western lifestyle, and with the cattle business booming in the territory, Roosevelt invested $14,000 in hopes of becoming a prosperous cattle rancher. For the next several years, he shuttled between his home in New York and his ranch in Dakota.
Following the 1884 presidential election, Roosevelt built a ranch named Elkhorn, which was north of the boomtown of Medora, North Dakota. Roosevelt learned to ride western style, rope, and hunt on the banks of the Little Missouri. Though he earned the respect of the authentic cowboys, they were not overly impressed. However, he identified with the herdsman of history, a man he said possesses "few of the emasculated, milk-and-water moralities admired by the pseudo-philanthropists; but he does possess, to a very high degree, the stern, manly qualities that are invaluable to a nation". He reoriented, and began writing about frontier life for national magazines; he also published three books – Hunting Trips of a Ranchman, Ranch Life and the Hunting-Trail, and The Wilderness Hunter.
Roosevelt brought his desire to address the common interests of citizens to the West. He successfully led efforts to organize ranchers to address problems of overgrazing and other shared concerns; his work resulted in the formation of the Little Missouri Stockmen's Association. He felt compelled to promote conservation and was able to form the Boone and Crockett Club, whose primary goal was the conservation of large game animals and their habitats. After the uniquely severe US winter of 1886–87 wiped out his herd of cattle and those of his competitors, and with it over half of his $80,000 investment, Roosevelt returned to the East. Though his finances suffered from the experience, Roosevelt's time in the West made it impossible to peg him as an ineffectual intellectual, a characterization that could have hampered his political career.
Second marriage
On December 2, 1886, Roosevelt married his childhood and family friend, Edith Kermit Carow. Roosevelt was deeply troubled that his second marriage had taken place so soon after the death of his first wife, and he faced resistance from his sisters. Nonetheless, the couple married at St George's, Hanover Square in London, England. The couple had five children: Theodore "Ted" III in 1887, Kermit in 1889, Ethel in 1891, Archibald in 1894, and Quentin in 1897. The couple also raised Roosevelt's daughter from his first marriage, Alice, who often clashed with her stepmother.
Reentering public life
Upon Roosevelt's return to New York in 1886, Republican leaders quickly approached him about running for mayor of New York City in the city's mayoral election. Roosevelt accepted the nomination despite having little hope of winning the race against United Labor Party candidate Henry George and Democratic candidate Abram Hewitt. Roosevelt campaigned hard for the position, but Hewitt won with 41% (90,552 votes), taking the votes of many Republicans who feared George's radical policies. George was held to 31% (68,110 votes), and Roosevelt took third place with 27% (60,435 votes). Fearing that his political career might never recover, Roosevelt turned his attention to writing The Winning of the West, a historical work tracking the westward movement of Americans; the book was a great success for Roosevelt, earning favorable reviews and selling numerous copies.
Civil Service Commission
After Benjamin Harrison unexpectedly defeated Blaine for the presidential nomination at the 1888 Republican National Convention, Roosevelt gave stump speeches in the Midwest in support of Harrison. On the insistence of Henry Cabot Lodge, President Harrison appointed Roosevelt to the United States Civil Service Commission, where he served until 1895. While many of his predecessors had approached the office as a sinecure, Roosevelt vigorously fought the spoilsmen and demanded enforcement of civil service laws. The New York Sun then described Roosevelt as "irrepressible, belligerent, and enthusiastic". Roosevelt frequently clashed with Postmaster General John Wanamaker, who handed out numerous patronage positions to Harrison supporters, and Roosevelt's attempt to force out several postal workers damaged Harrison politically. Despite Roosevelt's support for Harrison's reelection bid in the presidential election of 1892, the eventual winner, Grover Cleveland, reappointed him to the same post. Roosevelt's close friend and biographer, Joseph Bucklin Bishop, described his assault on the spoils system:
New York City Police Commissioner
In 1894, a group of reform Republicans approached Roosevelt about running for Mayor of New York again; he declined, mostly due to his wife's resistance to being removed from the Washington social set. Soon after he declined, he realized that he had missed an opportunity to reinvigorate a dormant political career. He retreated to the Dakotas for a time; his wife Edith regretted her role in the decision and vowed that there would be no repeat of it.
William Lafayette Strong, a reform-minded Republican, won the 1894 mayoral election and offered Roosevelt a position on the board of the New York City Police Commissioners. Roosevelt became president of the board of commissioners and radically reformed the police force. Roosevelt implemented regular inspections of firearms and annual physical exams, appointed recruits based on their physical and mental qualifications rather than political affiliation, established Meritorious Service Medals, and closed corrupt police hostelries. During his tenure, a Municipal Lodging House was established by the Board of Charities, and Roosevelt required officers to register with the Board; he also had telephones installed in station houses.
In 1894, Roosevelt met Jacob Riis, the muckraking Evening Sun newspaper journalist who was opening the eyes of New Yorkers to the terrible conditions of the city's millions of poor immigrants with such books as How the Other Half Lives. Riis described how his book affected Roosevelt:
Roosevelt made a habit of walking officers' beats late at night and early in the morning to make sure that they were on duty. He made a concerted effort to uniformly enforce New York's Sunday closing law; in this, he ran up against boss Tom Platt as well as Tammany Hall—he was notified that the Police Commission was being legislated out of existence. His crackdowns led to protests and demonstrations. Invited to one large demonstration, not only did he surprisingly accept, he delighted in the insults, caricatures and lampoons directed at him, and earned some surprising good will. Roosevelt chose to defer rather than split with his party. As Governor of New York State, he would later sign an act replacing the Police Commission with a single Police Commissioner.
Emergence as a national figure
Assistant Secretary of the Navy
In the 1896 presidential election, Roosevelt backed Speaker of the House Thomas Brackett Reed for the Republican nomination, but William McKinley won the nomination and defeated William Jennings Bryan in the general election. Roosevelt opposed Bryan's free silver platform, viewing many of Bryan's followers as dangerous fanatics, and Roosevelt gave campaign speeches for McKinley. Urged by Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, President McKinley appointed Roosevelt as the Assistant Secretary of the Navy in 1897. Secretary of the Navy John D. Long was more concerned about formalities than functions, was in poor health, and left many major decisions to Roosevelt. Influenced by Alfred Thayer Mahan, Roosevelt called for a build-up in the country's naval strength, particularly the construction of battleships. Roosevelt also began pressing his national security views regarding the Pacific and the Caribbean on McKinley, and was particularly adamant that Spain be ejected from Cuba. He explained his priorities to one of the Navy's planners in late 1897:
On February 15, 1898, , an armored cruiser, exploded in the harbor of Havana, Cuba, killing hundreds of crew members. While Roosevelt and many other Americans blamed Spain for the explosion, McKinley sought a diplomatic solution. Without approval from Long or McKinley, Roosevelt sent out orders to several naval vessels, directing them to prepare for war. George Dewey, who had received an appointment to lead the Asiatic Squadron with the backing of Roosevelt, later credited his victory at the Battle of Manila Bay to Roosevelt's orders. After finally giving up hope of a peaceful solution, McKinley asked Congress to declare war upon Spain, beginning the Spanish–American War.
War in Cuba
With the beginning of the Spanish–American War in late April 1898, Roosevelt resigned from his post as Assistant Secretary of the Navy. Along with Army Colonel Leonard Wood, he formed the First US Volunteer Cavalry Regiment. His wife and many of his friends begged Roosevelt to remain in his post in Washington, but Roosevelt was determined to see battle. When the newspapers reported the formation of the new regiment, Roosevelt and Wood were flooded with applications from all over the country. Referred to by the press as the "Rough Riders", the regiment was one of many temporary units active only for the duration of the war.
The regiment trained for several weeks in San Antonio, Texas, and in his autobiography, Roosevelt wrote that his prior experience with the New York National Guard had been invaluable, in that it enabled him to immediately begin teaching his men basic soldiering skills. The Rough Riders used some standard issue gear and some of their own design, purchased with gift money. Diversity characterized the regiment, which included Ivy Leaguers, professional and amateur athletes, upscale gentlemen, cowboys, frontiersmen, Native Americans, hunters, miners, prospectors, former soldiers, tradesmen, and sheriffs. The Rough Riders were part of the cavalry division commanded by former Confederate general Joseph Wheeler, which itself was one of three divisions in the V Corps under Lieutenant General William Rufus Shafter. Roosevelt and his men landed in Daiquirí, Cuba, on June 23, 1898, and marched to Siboney. Wheeler sent parts of the 1st and 10th Regular Cavalry on the lower road northwest and sent the "Rough Riders" on the parallel road running along a ridge up from the beach. To throw off his infantry rival, Wheeler left one regiment of his Cavalry Division, the 9th, at Siboney so that he could claim that his move north was only a limited reconnaissance if things went wrong. Roosevelt was promoted to colonel and took command of the regiment when Wood was put in command of the brigade. The Rough Riders had a short, minor skirmish known as the Battle of Las Guasimas; they fought their way through Spanish resistance and, together with the Regulars, forced the Spaniards to abandon their positions.
Under his leadership, the Rough Riders became famous for the charge up Kettle Hill on July 1, 1898, while supporting the regulars. Roosevelt had the only horse, and rode back and forth between rifle pits at the forefront of the advance up Kettle Hill, an advance that he urged despite the absence of any orders from superiors. He was forced to walk up the last part of Kettle Hill because his horse had been entangled in barbed wire. The victories came at a cost of 200 killed and 1,000 wounded.
In August, Roosevelt and other officers demanded that the soldiers be returned home. Roosevelt always recalled the Battle of Kettle Hill (part of the San Juan Heights) as "the great day of my life" and "my crowded hour". In 2001, Roosevelt was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions; he had been nominated during the war, but Army officials, annoyed at his grabbing the headlines, blocked it. After returning to civilian life, Roosevelt preferred to be known as "Colonel Roosevelt" or "The Colonel", though "Teddy" remained much more popular with the public, even though Roosevelt openly despised that moniker. Men working closely with Roosevelt customarily called him "Colonel" or "Theodore". Henceforth, political cartoons of Roosevelt usually depicted him in his Rough Rider garb.
Governor of New York
After leaving Cuba in August 1898, the Rough Riders were transported to a camp at Montauk Point, Long Island, where Roosevelt and his men were briefly quarantined due to the War Department's fear of spreading yellow fever. Shortly after Roosevelt's return to the United States, Republican Congressman Lemuel E. Quigg, a lieutenant of party boss Tom Platt, asked Roosevelt to run in the 1898 gubernatorial election. Platt disliked Roosevelt personally, feared that Roosevelt would oppose Platt's interests in office, and was reluctant to propel Roosevelt to the forefront of national politics. However, Platt also needed a strong candidate due to the unpopularity of the incumbent Republican governor, Frank S. Black, and Roosevelt agreed to become the nominee and to try not to "make war" with the Republican establishment once in office. Roosevelt defeated Black in the Republican caucus by a vote of 753 to 218, and faced Democrat Augustus Van Wyck, a well-respected judge, in the general election. Roosevelt campaigned vigorously on his war record, winning the election by a margin of just one percent.
As governor, Roosevelt learned much about ongoing economic issues and political techniques that later proved valuable in his presidency. He was exposed to the problems of trusts, monopolies, labor relations, and conservation. Chessman argues that Roosevelt's program "rested firmly upon the concept of the square deal by a neutral state". The rules for the Square Deal were "honesty in public affairs, an equitable sharing of privilege and responsibility, and subordination of party and local concerns to the interests of the state at large".
By holding twice-daily press conferences—which was an innovation—Roosevelt remained connected with his middle-class political base. Roosevelt successfully pushed the Ford Franchise-Tax bill, which taxed public franchises granted by the state and controlled by corporations, declaring that "a corporation which derives its powers from the State, should pay to the State a just percentage of its earnings as a return for the privileges it enjoys". He rejected "boss" Thomas C. Platt's worries that this approached Bryanite Socialism, explaining that without it, New York voters might get angry and adopt public ownership of streetcar lines and other franchises.
The New York state government affected many interests, and the power to make appointments to policy-making positions was a key role for the governor. Platt insisted that he be consulted on major appointments; Roosevelt appeared to comply, but then made his own decisions. Historians marvel that Roosevelt managed to appoint so many first-rate men with Platt's approval. He even enlisted Platt's help in securing reform, such as in the spring of 1899, when Platt pressured state senators to vote for a civil service bill that the secretary of the Civil Service Reform Association called "superior to any civil service statute heretofore secured in America".
Chessman argues that as governor, Roosevelt developed the principles that shaped his presidency, especially insistence upon the public responsibility of large corporations, publicity as a first remedy for trusts, regulation of railroad rates, mediation of the conflict of capital and labor, conservation of natural resources and protection of the less fortunate members of society. Roosevelt sought to position himself against the excesses of large corporations on the one hand and radical movements on the other.
As the chief executive of the most populous state in the union, Roosevelt was widely considered a potential future presidential candidate, and supporters such as William Allen White encouraged him to run for president. Roosevelt had no interest in challenging McKinley for the Republican nomination in 1900, and was denied his preferred post of Secretary of War. As his term progressed, Roosevelt pondered a 1904 presidential run, but was uncertain about whether he should seek re-election as governor in 1900.
Vice Presidency (1901)
In November 1899, Vice President Garret Hobart died of heart failure, leaving an open spot on the 1900 Republican national ticket. Though Henry Cabot Lodge and others urged him to run for vice president in 1900, Roosevelt was reluctant to take the powerless position and issued a public statement saying that he would not accept the nomination. Additionally, Roosevelt was informed by President McKinley and campaign manager Mark Hanna that he was not being considered for the role of vice president due to his actions prior to the Spanish–American War. Eager to be rid of Roosevelt, Platt nonetheless began a newspaper campaign in favor of Roosevelt's nomination for the vice presidency. Roosevelt attended the 1900 Republican National Convention as a state delegate and struck a bargain with Platt: Roosevelt would accept the nomination for vice president if the convention offered it to him, but would otherwise serve another term as governor. Platt asked Pennsylvania party boss Matthew Quay to lead the campaign for Roosevelt's nomination, and Quay outmaneuvered Hanna at the convention to put Roosevelt on the ticket. Roosevelt won the nomination unanimously.
Roosevelt's vice-presidential campaigning proved highly energetic and an equal match for Democratic presidential nominee William Jennings Bryan's famous barnstorming style of campaigning. In a whirlwind campaign that displayed his energy to the public, Roosevelt made 480 stops in 23 states. He denounced the radicalism of Bryan, contrasting it with the heroism of the soldiers and sailors who fought and won the war against Spain. Bryan had strongly supported the war itself, but he denounced the annexation of the Philippines as imperialism, which would spoil America's innocence. Roosevelt countered that it was best for the Filipinos to have stability and the Americans to have a proud place in the world. With the nation basking in peace and prosperity, the voters gave McKinley an even larger victory than that which he had achieved in 1896.
After the campaign, Roosevelt took office as vice president in March 1901. The office of vice president was a powerless sinecure and did not suit Roosevelt's aggressive temperament. Roosevelt's six months as vice president were uneventful and boring for a man of action. He had no power; he presided over the Senate for a mere four days before it adjourned. On September 2, 1901, Roosevelt first publicized an aphorism that thrilled his supporters: "Speak softly and carry a big stick, and you will go far."
Presidency (1901–1909)
On September 6, 1901, President McKinley was attending the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York when he was shot by anarchist Leon Czolgosz. Roosevelt was vacationing in Isle La Motte, Vermont, and traveled to Buffalo to visit McKinley in the hospital. It appeared that McKinley would recover, so Roosevelt resumed his vacation in the Adirondack Mountains. When McKinley's condition worsened, Roosevelt again rushed back to Buffalo. McKinley died on September 14, and Roosevelt was informed while he was in North Creek; he continued on to Buffalo and was sworn in as the nation's 26th president at the Ansley Wilcox House.
McKinley's supporters were nervous about the new president, and Hanna was particularly bitter that the man he had opposed so vigorously at the convention had succeeded McKinley. Roosevelt assured party leaders that he intended to adhere to McKinley's policies, and he retained McKinley's Cabinet. Nonetheless, Roosevelt sought to position himself as the party's undisputed leader, seeking to bolster the role of the president and position himself for the 1904 election. The vice presidency remained vacant, as there was no constitutional provision for filling an intra-term vacancy in that office (prior to the 25th Amendment in 1967).
Shortly after taking office, Roosevelt invited Booker T. Washington to dinner at the White House. This sparked a bitter, and at times vicious, reaction among whites across the heavily segregated South. Roosevelt reacted with astonishment and protest, saying that he looked forward to many future dinners with Washington. Upon further reflection, Roosevelt wanted to ensure that this had no effect on political support in the white South, and further dinner invitations to Washington were avoided; their next meeting was scheduled as typical business at 10:00 a.m. instead.
Domestic policies
Trust busting and regulation
For his aggressive use of the 1890 Sherman Antitrust Act, compared to his predecessors, Roosevelt was hailed as the "trust-buster"; but in reality he was more of a trust regulator. Roosevelt viewed big business as a necessary part of the American economy, and sought only to prosecute the "bad trusts" that restrained trade and charged unfair prices. He brought 44 antitrust suits, breaking up the Northern Securities Company, the largest railroad monopoly; and regulating Standard Oil, the largest oil company. Presidents Benjamin Harrison, Grover Cleveland, and William McKinley combined had prosecuted only 18 antitrust violations under the Sherman Antitrust Act.
Bolstered by his party's winning large majorities in the 1902 elections, Roosevelt proposed the creation of the United States Department of Commerce and Labor, which would include the Bureau of Corporations. While Congress was receptive to the Department of Commerce and Labor, it was more skeptical of the antitrust powers that Roosevelt sought to endow within the Bureau of Corporations. Roosevelt successfully appealed to the public to pressure Congress, and Congress overwhelmingly voted to pass Roosevelt's version of the bill.
In a moment of frustration, House Speaker Joseph Gurney Cannon commented on Roosevelt's desire for executive branch control in domestic policy-making: "That fellow at the other end of the avenue wants everything from the birth of Christ to the death of the devil." Biographer Brands states, "Even his friends occasionally wondered whether there wasn't any custom or practice too minor for him to try to regulate, update or otherwise improve." In fact, Roosevelt's willingness to exercise his power included attempted rule changes in the game of football; at the Naval Academy, he sought to force retention of martial arts classes and to revise disciplinary rules. He even ordered changes made in the minting of a coin whose design he disliked, and ordered the Government Printing Office to adopt simplified spellings for a core list of 300 words, according to reformers on the Simplified Spelling Board. He was forced to rescind the latter after substantial ridicule from the press and a resolution of protest from the House of Representatives.
Coal strike
In May 1902, anthracite coal miners went on strike, threatening a national energy shortage. After threatening the coal operators with intervention by federal troops, Roosevelt won their agreement to dispute arbitration by a commission, which succeeded in stopping the strike. The accord with J. P. Morgan resulted in the miners getting more pay for fewer hours, but with no union recognition. Roosevelt said, "My action on labor should always be considered in connection with my action as regards capital, and both are reducible to my favorite formula—a square deal for every man." Roosevelt was the first president to help settle a labor dispute.
Prosecuted misconduct
During Roosevelt's second year in office it was discovered there was corruption in the Indian Service, the Land Office, and the Post Office Department. Roosevelt investigated and prosecuted corrupt Indian agents who had cheated the Creeks and various tribes out of land parcels. Land fraud and speculation were found involving Oregon federal timberlands. In November 1902, Roosevelt and Secretary Ethan A. Hitchcock forced Binger Hermann, the General Land Office Commissioner, to resign from office. On November 6, 1903 Francis J. Heney was appointed special prosecutor and obtained 146 indictments involving an Oregon Land Office bribery ring. U.S. Senator John H. Mitchell was indicted for bribery to expedite illegal land patents, found guilty in July 1905, and sentenced to six months in prison. More corruption was found in the Postal Department, that brought on the indictments of 44 government employees on charges of bribery and fraud. Historians generally agree that Roosevelt moved "quickly and decisively" to prosecute misconduct in his administration.
Railroads
Merchants complained that some railroad rates were too high. In the 1906 Hepburn Act, Roosevelt sought to give the Interstate Commerce Commission the power to regulate rates, but the Senate, led by conservative Nelson Aldrich, fought back. Roosevelt worked with the Democratic Senator Benjamin Tillman to pass the bill. Roosevelt and Aldrich ultimately reached a compromise that gave the ICC the power to replace existing rates with "just-and-reasonable" maximum rates, but allowed railroads to appeal to the federal courts on what was "reasonable". In addition to rate-setting, the Hepburn Act also granted the ICC regulatory power over pipeline fees, storage contracts, and several other aspects of railroad operations.
Pure food and drugs
Roosevelt responded to public anger over the abuses in the food packing industry by pushing Congress to pass the Meat Inspection Act of 1906 and the Pure Food and Drug Act. Though conservatives initially opposed the bill, Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, published in 1906, helped galvanize support for reform. The Meat Inspection Act of 1906 banned misleading labels and preservatives that contained harmful chemicals. The Pure Food and Drug Act banned food and drugs that were impure or falsely labeled from being made, sold, and shipped. Roosevelt also served as honorary president of the American School Hygiene Association from 1907 to 1908, and in 1909 he convened the first White House Conference on the Care of Dependent Children.
Conservation
Of all Roosevelt's achievements, he was proudest of his work in the conservation of natural resources and extending federal protection to land and wildlife. Roosevelt worked closely with Interior Secretary James Rudolph Garfield and Chief of the United States Forest Service Gifford Pinchot to enact a series of conservation programs that often met with resistance from Western members of Congress, such as Charles William Fulton. Nonetheless, Roosevelt established the United States Forest Service, signed into law the creation of five National Parks, and signed the 1906 Antiquities Act, under which he proclaimed 18 new U.S. National Monuments. He also established the first 51 bird reserves, four game preserves, and 150 National Forests. The area of the United States that he placed under public protection totals approximately .
Roosevelt extensively used executive orders on a number of occasions to protect forest and wildlife lands during his tenure as president. By the end of his second term in office, Roosevelt used executive orders to establish of reserved forestry land. Roosevelt was unapologetic about his extensive use of executive orders to protect the environment, despite the perception in Congress that he was encroaching on too many lands. Eventually, Senator Charles Fulton (R-OR) attached an amendment to an agricultural appropriations bill that effectively prevented the president from reserving any further land. Before signing that bill into law, Roosevelt used executive orders to establish an additional 21 forest reserves, waiting until the last minute to sign the bill into law. In total, Roosevelt used executive orders to establish 121 forest reserves in 31 states. Prior to Roosevelt, only one president had issued over 200 executive orders, Grover Cleveland (253). The first 25 presidents issued a total of 1,262 executive orders; Roosevelt issued 1,081.
Foreign policy
Japan
The American annexation of Hawaii in 1898 was stimulated in part by fear that otherwise Japan would dominate the Hawaiian Republic. Similarly, Germany was the alternative to American takeover of the Philippines in 1900, and Tokyo strongly preferred the U.S. to take over. As the U.S. became a naval world power, it needed to find a way to avoid a military confrontation in the Pacific with Japan.
In the 1890s, Roosevelt had been an ardent imperialist and vigorously defended the permanent acquisition of the Philippines in the 1900 campaign. After the local insurrection ended in 1902, he largely lost his imperialist interest in the Philippines and Asian expansion but wished to have a strong U.S. presence in the region as a symbol of democratic values. One of Theodore Roosevelt's priorities during his presidency and afterwards, was the maintenance of friendly relations with Japan. From 1904 to 1905 Japan and Russia were at war. Roosevelt admired the martial courage of the Japanese, and distrusted the reckless German Kaiser. Both sides asked Roosevelt to mediate a peace conference, held successfully in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Roosevelt won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts.
In California, anti-Japanese hostility was growing, and Tokyo protested. Roosevelt negotiated a "Gentleman's Agreement" in 1907. Explicit discrimination against the Japanese was ended, and Japan agreed not to allow unskilled immigrants into the United States. The Great White Fleet of American battleships visited Japan in 1908. Pulitzer prize-winning biographer Henry Pringle states that the great voyage was "the direct result of the Japanese trouble." Roosevelt intended to emphasize the superiority of the American fleet over the smaller Japanese navy, but instead of resentment the visitors arrived to a joyous welcome by Japanese elite as well as the general public. This good-will facilitated the Root–Takahira Agreement of November 1908 which reaffirmed the status quo of Japanese control of Korea and American control of the Philippines.
Europe
Success in the war against Spain and the new empire, plus having the largest economy in the world, meant that the United States had emerged as a world power. Roosevelt searched for ways to win recognition for the position abroad.
Roosevelt also played a major role in mediating the First Moroccan Crisis by calling the Algeciras Conference, which averted war between France and Germany.
Roosevelt's presidency saw the strengthening of ties with Great Britain. The Great Rapprochement had begun with British support of the United States during the Spanish–American War, and it continued as Britain withdrew its fleet from the Caribbean in favor of focusing on the rising German naval threat. In 1901, Britain and the United States signed the Hay–Pauncefote Treaty, abrogating the Clayton–Bulwer Treaty, which had prevented the United States from constructing a canal connecting the Pacific and the Atlantic Ocean. The long-standing Alaska boundary dispute was settled on terms favorable to the United States, as Great Britain was unwilling to alienate the United States over what it considered to be a secondary issue. As Roosevelt later put it, the resolution of the Alaskan boundary dispute "settled the last serious trouble between the British Empire and ourselves."
Latin America and Panama Canal
As president, he primarily focused the nation's overseas ambitions on the Caribbean, especially locations that had a bearing on the defense of his pet project, the Panama Canal. Roosevelt also increased the size of the navy, and by the end of his second term the United States had more battleships than any other country besides Britain. The Panama Canal when it opened in 1914 allowed the U.S. Navy to rapidly move back and forth from the Pacific to the Caribbean to European waters.
In December 1902, the Germans, British, and Italians blockaded the ports of Venezuela in order to force the repayment of delinquent loans. Roosevelt was particularly concerned with the motives of German Emperor Wilhelm II. He succeeded in getting the three nations to agree to arbitration by tribunal at The Hague, and successfully defused the crisis. The latitude granted to the Europeans by the arbiters was in part responsible for the "Roosevelt Corollary" to the Monroe Doctrine, which the President issued in 1904: "Chronic wrongdoing or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation, and in the Western Hemisphere, the adherence of the United States to the Monroe doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power."
The pursuit of an isthmus canal in Central America during this period focused on two possible routes—Nicaragua and Panama, which was then a rebellious district within Colombia. Roosevelt convinced Congress to approve the Panamanian alternative, and a treaty was approved, only to be rejected by the Colombian government. When the Panamanians learned of this, a rebellion followed, was supported by Roosevelt, and succeeded. A treaty with the new Panama government for construction of the canal was then reached in 1903. Roosevelt received criticism for paying the bankrupt Panama Canal Company and the New Panama Canal Company $40,000,000 (equivalent to $ billion in ) for the rights and equipment to build the canal. Critics charged that an American investor syndicate allegedly divided the large payment among themselves. There was also controversy over whether a French company engineer influenced Roosevelt in choosing the Panama route for the canal over the Nicaragua route. Roosevelt denied charges of corruption concerning the canal in a January 8, 1906 message to Congress. In January 1909, Roosevelt, in an unprecedented move, brought criminal libel charges against the New York World and the Indianapolis News known as the "Roosevelt-Panama Libel Cases". Both cases were dismissed by U.S. District Courts, and on January 3, 1911, the U.S. Supreme Court, upon federal appeal, upheld the lower courts' rulings. Historians are sharply critical of Roosevelt's criminal prosecutions of the World and the News, but are divided on whether actual corruption in acquiring and building the Panama Canal took place.
In 1906, following a disputed election, an insurrection ensued in Cuba; Roosevelt sent Taft, the Secretary of War, to monitor the situation; he was convinced that he had the authority to unilaterally authorize Taft to deploy Marines if necessary, without congressional approval.
Examining the work of numerous scholars, Ricard (2014) reports that:
The most striking evolution in the twenty-first-century historiography of Theodore Roosevelt is the switch from a partial arraignment of the imperialist to a quasi-unanimous celebration of the master diplomatist.... [Recent works] have underlined cogently Roosevelt's exceptional statesmanship in the construction of the nascent twentieth-century "special relationship". ...The twenty-sixth president's reputation as a brilliant diplomatist and realpolitician has undeniably reached new heights in the twenty-first century...yet, his Philippine policy still prompts criticism.
Media
Building on McKinley's effective use of the press, Roosevelt made the White House the center of news every day, providing interviews and photo opportunities. After noticing the reporters huddled outside the White House in the rain one day, he gave them their own room inside, effectively inventing the presidential press briefing. The grateful press, with unprecedented access to the White House, rewarded Roosevelt with ample coverage.
Roosevelt normally enjoyed very close relationships with the press, which he used to keep in daily contact with his middle-class base. While out of office, he made a living as a writer and magazine editor. He loved talking with intellectuals, authors, and writers. He drew the line, however, at exposé-oriented scandal-mongering journalists who, during his term, sent magazine subscriptions soaring by their attacks on corrupt politicians, mayors, and corporations. Roosevelt himself was not usually a target, but a speech of his from 1906 coined the term "muckraker" for unscrupulous journalists making wild charges. "The liar", he said, "is no whit better than the thief, and if his mendacity takes the form of slander he may be worse than most thieves."
The press did briefly target Roosevelt in one instance. After 1904, he was periodically criticized for the manner in which he facilitated the construction of the Panama Canal. According to biographer Brands, Roosevelt, near the end of his term, demanded that the Justice Department bring charges of criminal libel against Joseph Pulitzer's New York World. The publication had accused him of "deliberate misstatements of fact" in defense of family members who were criticized as a result of the Panama affair. Though an indictment was obtained, the case was ultimately dismissed in federal court—it was not a federal offense, but one enforceable in state courts. The Justice Department had predicted that result, and had also advised Roosevelt accordingly.
Election of 1904
The control and management of the Republican Party lay in the hands of Ohio Senator and Republican Party chairman Mark Hanna until McKinley's death. Roosevelt and Hanna frequently cooperated during Roosevelt's first term, but Hanna left open the possibility of a challenge to Roosevelt for the 1904 Republican nomination. Roosevelt and Ohio's other Senator, Joseph B. Foraker, forced Hanna's hand by calling for Ohio's state Republican convention to endorse Roosevelt for the 1904 nomination. Unwilling to break with the president, Hanna was forced to publicly endorse Roosevelt. Hanna and Pennsylvania Senator Matthew Quay both died in early 1904, and with the waning of Thomas Platt's power, Roosevelt faced little effective opposition for the 1904 nomination. In deference to Hanna's conservative loyalists, Roosevelt at first offered the party chairmanship to Cornelius Bliss, but he declined. Roosevelt turned to his own man, George B. Cortelyou of New York, the first Secretary of Commerce and Labor. To buttress his hold on the party's nomination, Roosevelt made it clear that anyone opposing Cortelyou would be considered to be opposing the President. The President secured his own nomination, but his preferred vice-presidential running mate, Robert R. Hitt, was not nominated. Senator Charles Warren Fairbanks of Indiana, a favorite of conservatives, gained the nomination.
While Roosevelt followed the tradition of incumbents in not actively campaigning on the stump, he sought to control the campaign's message through specific instructions to Cortelyou. He also attempted to manage the press's release of White House statements by forming the Ananias Club. Any journalist who repeated a statement made by the president without approval was penalized by restriction of further access.
The Democratic Party's nominee in 1904 was Alton Brooks Parker. Democratic newspapers charged that Republicans were extorting large campaign contributions from corporations, putting ultimate responsibility on Roosevelt, himself. Roosevelt denied corruption while at the same time he ordered Cortelyou to return $100,000 (equivalent to $ million in ) of a campaign contribution from Standard Oil. Parker said that Roosevelt was accepting corporate donations to keep damaging information from the Bureau of Corporations from going public. Roosevelt strongly denied Parker's charge and responded that he would "go into the Presidency unhampered by any pledge, promise, or understanding of any kind, sort, or description...". Allegations from Parker and the Democrats, however, had little impact on the election, as Roosevelt promised to give every American a "square deal". Roosevelt won 56% of the popular vote, and Parker received 38%; Roosevelt also won the Electoral College vote, 336 to 140. Before his inauguration ceremony, Roosevelt declared that he would not serve another term. Democrats afterwards would continue to charge Roosevelt and the Republicans of being influenced by corporate donations during Roosevelt's second term.
Second term
As his second term progressed, Roosevelt moved to the left of his Republican Party base and called for a series of reforms, most of which Congress failed to pass. In his last year in office, he was assisted by his friend Archibald Butt (who later perished in the sinking of RMS Titanic). Roosevelt's influence waned as he approached the end of his second term, as his promise to forego a third term made him a lame duck and his concentration of power provoked a backlash from many Congressmen. He sought a national incorporation law (at a time when all corporations had state charters), called for a federal income tax (despite the Supreme Court's ruling in Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co.), and an inheritance tax. In the area of labor legislation, Roosevelt called for limits on the use of court injunctions against labor unions during strikes; injunctions were a powerful weapon that mostly helped business. He wanted an employee liability law for industrial injuries (pre-empting state laws) and an eight-hour work day for federal employees. In other areas he also sought a postal savings system (to provide competition for local banks), and he asked for campaign reform laws.
The election of 1904 continued to be a source of contention between Republicans and Democrats. A Congressional investigation in 1905 revealed that corporate executives donated tens of thousands of dollars in 1904 to the Republican National Committee. In 1908, a month before the general presidential election, Governor Charles N. Haskell of Oklahoma, former Democratic Treasurer, said that Senators beholden to Standard Oil lobbied Roosevelt, in the summer of 1904, to authorize the leasing of Indian oil lands by Standard Oil subsidiaries. He said Roosevelt overruled his Secretary of Interior Ethan A. Hitchcock and granted a pipeline franchise to run through the Osage lands to the Prairie Oil and Gas Company. The New York Sun made a similar accusation and said that Standard Oil, a refinery who financially benefited from the pipeline, had contributed $150,000 to the Republicans in 1904 (equivalent to $ million in ) after Roosevelt's alleged reversal allowing the pipeline franchise. Roosevelt branded Haskell's allegation as "a lie, pure and simple" and obtained a denial from Treasury Secretary Shaw that Roosevelt had neither coerced Shaw nor overruled him.
Post-presidency (1909–1919)
Election of 1908
Roosevelt enjoyed being president and was still relatively youthful, but felt that a limited number of terms provided a check against dictatorship. Roosevelt ultimately decided to stick to his 1904 pledge not to run for a third term. He personally favored Secretary of State Elihu Root as his successor, but Root's ill health made him an unsuitable candidate. New York Governor Charles Evans Hughes loomed as a potentially strong candidate and shared Roosevelt's progressivism, but Roosevelt disliked him and considered him to be too independent. Instead, Roosevelt settled on his Secretary of War, William Howard Taft, who had ably served under Presidents Harrison, McKinley, and Roosevelt in various positions. Roosevelt and Taft had been friends since 1890, and Taft had consistently supported President Roosevelt's policies. Roosevelt was determined to install the successor of his choice, and wrote the following to Taft: "Dear Will: Do you want any action about those federal officials? I will break their necks with the utmost cheerfulness if you say the word!". Just weeks later he branded as "false and malicious" the charge that he was using the offices at his disposal to favor Taft. At the 1908 Republican convention, many chanted for "four years more" of a Roosevelt presidency, but Taft won the nomination after Henry Cabot Lodge made it clear that Roosevelt was not interested in a third term.
In the 1908 election, Taft easily defeated the Democratic nominee, three-time candidate William Jennings Bryan. Taft promoted a progressivism that stressed the rule of law; he preferred that judges rather than administrators or politicians make the basic decisions about fairness. Taft usually proved to be a less adroit politician than Roosevelt and lacked the energy and personal magnetism, along with the publicity devices, the dedicated supporters, and the broad base of public support that made Roosevelt so formidable. When Roosevelt realized that lowering the tariff would risk creating severe tensions inside the Republican Party by pitting producers (manufacturers and farmers) against merchants and consumers, he stopped talking about the issue. Taft ignored the risks and tackled the tariff boldly, encouraging reformers to fight for lower rates, and then cutting deals with conservative leaders that kept overall rates high. The resulting Payne-Aldrich tariff of 1909, signed into law early in President Taft's tenure, was too high for most reformers, and Taft's handling of the tariff alienated all sides. While the crisis was building inside the Party, Roosevelt was touring Africa and Europe, to allow Taft to be his own man.
Africa and Europe (1909–1910)
In March 1909, shortly after the end of his presidency, Roosevelt left New York for the Smithsonian-Roosevelt African Expedition, a safari in east and central Africa. Roosevelt's party landed in Mombasa, East Africa (now Kenya) and traveled to the Belgian Congo (now Democratic Republic of the Congo) before following the Nile to Khartoum in modern Sudan. Financed by Andrew Carnegie and by his own writings, Roosevelt's party hunted for specimens for the Smithsonian Institution and for the American Museum of Natural History in New York. The group, led by the hunter-tracker RJ Cunninghame, included scientists from the Smithsonian, and was joined from time to time by Frederick Selous, the famous big game hunter and explorer. Participants on the expedition included Kermit Roosevelt, Edgar Alexander Mearns, Edmund Heller, and John Alden Loring.
Roosevelt and his companions killed or trapped approximately 11,400 animals, from insects and moles to hippopotamuses and elephants. The 1,000 large animals included 512 big game animals, including six rare white rhinos. Tons of salted animals and their skins were shipped to Washington; it took years to mount them all, and the Smithsonian shared many duplicate specimens with other museums. Regarding the large number of animals taken, Roosevelt said, "I can be condemned only if the existence of the National Museum, the American Museum of Natural History, and all similar zoological institutions are to be condemned". He wrote a detailed account of the safari in the book African Game Trails, recounting the excitement of the chase, the people he met, and the flora and fauna he collected in the name of science.
After his safari, Roosevelt traveled north to embark on a tour of Europe. Stopping first in Egypt, he commented favorably on British rule of the region, giving his opinion that Egypt was not yet ready for independence. He refused a meeting with the Pope due to a dispute over a group of Methodists active in Rome, but met with Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, King George V of Great Britain, and other European leaders. In Oslo, Norway, Roosevelt delivered a speech calling for limitations on naval armaments, a strengthening of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, and the creation of a "League of Peace" among the world powers. He also delivered the Romanes Lecture at Oxford, in which he denounced those who sought parallels between the evolution of animal life and the development of society. Though Roosevelt attempted to avoid domestic politics during his time abroad, he met with Gifford Pinchot, who related his own disappointment with the Taft Administration. Pinchot had been forced to resign as head of the forest service after clashing with Taft's Interior Secretary, Richard Ballinger, who had prioritized development over conservation. Roosevelt returned to the United States in June 1910.
Republican Party schism
Roosevelt had attempted to refashion Taft into a second version of himself, but as soon as Taft began to display his individuality, the former president expressed his disenchantment. He was offended on election night when Taft indicated that his success had been possible not just through the efforts of Roosevelt, but also his brother Charley. Roosevelt was further alienated when Taft, intent on becoming his own man, did not consult him about cabinet appointments. Roosevelt and other progressives were ideologically dissatisfied over Taft's conservation policies and his handling of the tariff when he concentrated more power in the hands of conservative party leaders in Congress. Regarding radicalism and liberalism, Roosevelt wrote a British friend in 1911:
Fundamentally it is the radical liberal with whom I sympathize. He is at least working toward the end for which I think we should all of us strive; and when he adds sanity in moderation to courage and enthusiasm for high ideals he develops into the kind of statesman whom alone I can wholeheartedly support."
Roosevelt urged progressives to take control of the Republican Party at the state and local level and to avoid splitting the party in a way that would hand the presidency to the Democrats in 1912. Additionally, Roosevelt expressed optimism about the Taft Administration after meeting with the president in the White House in June 1910.
In August 1910, Roosevelt gained national attention with a speech at Osawatomie, Kansas, which was the most radical of his career and marked his public break with Taft and the conservative Republicans. Advocating a program of "New Nationalism", Roosevelt emphasized the priority of labor over capital interests, a need to more effectively control corporate creation and combination, and proposed a ban on corporate political contributions. Returning to New York, Roosevelt began a battle to take control of the state Republican party from William Barnes Jr., Tom Platt's successor as the state party boss, whom he would later confront in the Barnes vs. Roosevelt Libel Trial. Taft had pledged his support to Roosevelt in this endeavor, and Roosevelt was outraged when Taft's support failed to materialize at the 1910 state convention. Roosevelt nonetheless campaigned for the Republicans in the 1910 elections, in which the Democrats gained control of the House for the first time since the 1890s. Among the newly elected Democrats was New York state senator Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who argued that he represented his distant cousin's policies better than his Republican opponent.
The Republican progressives interpreted the 1910 defeats as a compelling argument for the complete reorganization of the party in 1911. Senator Robert M. La Follette of Wisconsin joined with Pinchot, William White, and California Governor Hiram Johnson to create the National Progressive Republican League; their objectives were to defeat the power of political bossism at the state level and to replace Taft at the national level. Despite skepticism of La Follette's new league, Roosevelt expressed general support for progressive principles. Between January and April 1911, Roosevelt wrote a series of articles for The Outlook, defending what he called "the great movement of our day, the progressive nationalist movement against special privilege, and in favor of an honest and efficient political and industrial democracy". With Roosevelt apparently uninterested in running in 1912, La Follette declared his own candidacy in June 1911. Roosevelt continually criticized Taft after the 1910 elections, and the break between the two men became final after the Justice Department filed an antitrust lawsuit against US Steel in September 1911; Roosevelt was humiliated by this suit because he had personally approved of an acquisition that the Justice Department was now challenging. However, Roosevelt was still unwilling to run against Taft in 1912; he instead hoped to run in 1916 against whichever Democrat beat Taft in 1912.
Dispute over arbitration treaties
Taft was a major advocate of arbitration as a major reform of the Progressive Era. In 1911 Taft and his Secretary of State Philander C. Knox negotiated major treaties with Great Britain and with France providing that differences be arbitrated. Disputes had to be submitted to the Hague Court or other tribunal. These were signed in August 1911 but had to be ratified by a two-thirds vote of the Senate. Neither Taft nor Knox consulted with members of the Senate during the negotiating process. By then many Republicans were opposed to Taft, and the president felt that lobbying too hard for the treaties might cause their defeat. He made some speeches supporting the treaties in October, but the Senate added amendments Taft could not accept, killing the agreements.
The arbitration issue opens a window on a bitter philosophical dispute among American progressives. Some, led by Taft looked to legal arbitration as the best alternative to warfare. Taft was a constitutional lawyer who later became Chief Justice; he had a deep understanding of the legal issues. Taft's political base was the conservative business community that largely supported peace movements before 1914. However, his mistake, in this case, was a failure to mobilize that base. The businessmen believed that economic rivalries were the cause of war, and that extensive trade led to an interdependent world that would make war a very expensive and useless anachronism.
However, an opposing faction of progressives, led by Roosevelt, ridiculed arbitration as foolhardy idealism, and insisted on the realism of warfare as the only solution to serious international disputes. Roosevelt worked with his close friend Senator Henry Cabot Lodge to impose those amendments that ruined the goals of the treaties. Lodge thought the treaties impinged too much on senatorial prerogatives. Roosevelt, however, was acting to sabotage Taft's campaign promises. At a deeper level, Roosevelt truly believed that arbitration was a naïve solution and the great issues had to be decided by warfare. The Rooseveltian approach incorporated a near-mystical faith of the ennobling nature of war. It endorsed jingoistic nationalism as opposed to the businessmen's calculation of profit and national interest.
Election of 1912
Republican primaries and convention
In November 1911, a group of Ohio Republicans endorsed Roosevelt for the party's nomination for president; the endorsers included James R. Garfield and Dan Hanna. This endorsement was made by leaders of President Taft's home state. Roosevelt conspicuously declined to make a statement—requested by Garfield—that he would flatly refuse a nomination. Soon thereafter, Roosevelt said, "I am really sorry for Taft... I am sure he means well, but he means well feebly, and he does not know how! He is utterly unfit for leadership and this is a time when we need leadership." In January 1912, Roosevelt declared "if the people make a draft on me I shall not decline to serve". Later that year, Roosevelt spoke before the Constitutional Convention in Ohio, openly identifying as a progressive and endorsing progressive reforms—even endorsing popular review of state judicial decisions. In reaction to Roosevelt's proposals for popular overrule of court decisions, Taft said, "Such extremists are not progressives—they are political emotionalists or neurotics".
Roosevelt began to envision himself as the savior of the Republican Party from defeat in the upcoming presidential election. In February 1912, Roosevelt announced in Boston, "I will accept the nomination for president if it is tendered to me. I hope that so far as possible the people may be given the chance through direct primaries to express who shall be the nominee. Elihu Root and Henry Cabot Lodge thought that division of the party would lead to its defeat in the next election, while Taft believed that he would be defeated either in the Republican primary or in the general election.
The 1912 primaries represented the first extensive use of the presidential primary, a reform achievement of the progressive movement. The Republican primaries in the South, where party regulars dominated, went for Taft, as did results in New York, Indiana, Michigan, Kentucky and Massachusetts. Meanwhile, Roosevelt won in Illinois, Minnesota, Nebraska, South Dakota, California, Maryland and Pennsylvania; Roosevelt also won Taft's home state of Ohio. These primary elections, while demonstrating Roosevelt's continuing popularity with the electorate, were not pivotal. The final credentials of the state delegates at the national convention were determined by the national committee, which was controlled by the party leaders, headed by the incumbent president.
Prior to the 1912 Republican National Convention in Chicago, Roosevelt expressed doubt about his prospects for victory, noting that Taft had more delegates and control of the credentials committee. His only hope was to convince party leaders that the nomination of Taft would hand the election to the Democrats, but party leaders were determined not to cede their leadership to Roosevelt. The credentials committee awarded almost all contested delegates to Taft, and Taft won the nomination on the first ballot. Black delegates from the South played a key role: they voted heavily for Taft and put him over the top. La Follette also helped Taft's candidacy; he hoped that a deadlocked convention would result in his own nomination, and refused to release his delegates to support Roosevelt.
The Progressive ("Bull Moose") Party
Once his defeat at the Republican convention appeared probable, Roosevelt announced that he would "accept the progressive nomination on a progressive platform and I shall fight to the end, win or lose". At the same time, Roosevelt prophetically said, "My feeling is that the Democrats will probably win if they nominate a progressive".
Roosevelt left the Republican Party and created the Progressive Party, structuring it as a permanent organization that would field complete tickets at the presidential and state level. The party included Roosevelt and key allies such as Pinchot, Cornelia Bryce Pinchot (Pinchot's wife and a longtime friend of Roosevelt's), and Albert Beveridge. The new party was popularly known as the "Bull Moose Party" after Roosevelt told reporters, "I'm as fit as a bull moose". At the 1912 Progressive National Convention, Roosevelt cried out, "We stand at Armageddon and we battle for the Lord." California Governor Hiram Johnson was nominated as Roosevelt's running mate. Roosevelt's platform echoed his 1907–1908 proposals, calling for vigorous government intervention to protect the people from selfish interests:
Though many Progressive party supporters in the North were supporters of civil rights for blacks, Roosevelt did not give strong support to civil rights and ran a "lily-white" campaign in the South. Rival all-white and all-black delegations from four southern states arrived at the Progressive national convention, and Roosevelt decided to seat the all-white delegations. Nevertheless, he won little support outside mountain Republican strongholds. Out of nearly 1100 counties in the South, Roosevelt won two counties in Alabama, one in Arkansas, seven in North Carolina, three in Georgia, 17 in Tennessee, two in Texas, one in Virginia, and none in Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, or South Carolina.
Assassination attempt
On October 14, 1912, while arriving at a campaign event in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Roosevelt was shot from seven feet away in front of the Gilpatrick Hotel by a delusional saloonkeeper named John Flammang Schrank, who believed that the ghost of assassinated president William McKinley had directed him to kill Roosevelt. The bullet lodged in his chest after penetrating his steel eyeglass case and passing through a 50-page-thick single-folded copy of the speech titled "Progressive Cause Greater Than Any Individual", which he was carrying in his jacket. Schrank was immediately disarmed (by Czech immigrant Frank Bukovsky), captured, and might have been lynched had Roosevelt not shouted for Schrank to remain unharmed. Roosevelt assured the crowd he was all right, then ordered police to take charge of Schrank and to make sure no violence was done to him.
As an experienced hunter and anatomist, Roosevelt correctly concluded that since he was not coughing blood, the bullet had not reached his lung. He declined suggestions to go to the hospital immediately and instead delivered a 90 minute speech with blood seeping into his shirt. His opening comments to the gathered crowd were, "Ladies and gentlemen, I don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot, but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose." Only after finishing his address did he accept medical attention.
Subsequent probes and an x-ray showed that the bullet had lodged in Roosevelt's chest muscle, but did not penetrate the pleura. Doctors concluded that it would be less dangerous to leave it in place than to attempt to remove it, and Roosevelt carried the bullet with him for the rest of his life. Both Taft and Democratic nominee Woodrow Wilson suspended their own campaigning until Roosevelt recovered and resumed his. When asked if the shooting would affect his election campaign, he said to the reporter "I'm fit as a bull moose." The bull moose became a symbol of both Roosevelt and the Progressive Party, and it often was referred to as simply the Bull Moose Party. He spent two weeks recuperating before returning to the campaign trail. He later wrote a friend about the bullet inside him, "I do not mind it any more than if it were in my waistcoat pocket."
Farewell manifesto
On October 20, Roosevelt spoke to a crowd of 16,000 at Madison Square Garden. The speech included: "Perhaps once in a generation, there comes a chance for the people of a country to play their part wisely and fearlessly in some great battle of the age-long warfare for human rights."
Election results
After the Democrats nominated Governor Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey, Roosevelt did not expect to win the general election, as Wilson had compiled a record attractive to many progressive Democrats who might have otherwise considered voting for Roosevelt. Roosevelt still campaigned vigorously, and the election developed into a two-person contest between Wilson and Roosevelt despite Taft's presence in the race. Roosevelt respected Wilson, but the two differed on various issues; Wilson opposed any federal intervention regarding women's suffrage or child labor (he viewed these as state issues), and attacked Roosevelt's tolerance of large businesses.
Roosevelt won 4.1 million votes (27%), compared to Taft's 3.5 million (23%). Wilson gained 6.3 million votes (42% of the total) and a massive landslide in the Electoral College, with 435 electoral votes; Roosevelt won 88 electoral votes, while Taft won 8. Pennsylvania was the only eastern state won by Roosevelt; in the Midwest, he carried Michigan, Minnesota, and South Dakota; in the West, California, and Washington. Wilson's victory represented the first Democratic presidential election victory since Cleveland's 1892 campaign, and it was the party's best performance in the Electoral College since 1852. Roosevelt, meanwhile, garnered a higher share of the popular vote than any other third-party presidential candidate in history and won the most states of any third-party candidate after the Civil War.
South American expedition (1913-1914)
A friend of Roosevelt's, Father John Augustine Zahm, persuaded Roosevelt to participate in an expedition to South America. To finance the expedition, Roosevelt received support from the American Museum of Natural History in return for promising to bring back many new animal specimens. Roosevelt's popular book, Through the Brazilian Wilderness describes his expedition into the Brazilian jungle in 1913 as a member of the Roosevelt-Rondon Scientific Expedition, co-named after its leader, Brazilian explorer Cândido Rondon.
Once in South America, a new, far more ambitious goal was added: to find the headwaters of the Rio da Duvida (Portuguese for "River of Doubt"), and trace it north to the Madeira and thence to the Amazon River. It was later renamed Roosevelt River in honor of the former president. Roosevelt's crew consisted of his son Kermit, Colonel Rondon, naturalist George Kruck Cherrie (sent by the American Museum of Natural History), Brazilian Lieutenant João Lira, team physician Dr. José Antonio Cajazeira, and 16 skilled paddlers and porters. Roosevelt also identified Leo Miller (another AMNH recommendation), Anthony Fiala, Frank Harper, and Jacob Sigg as crew members. The initial expedition started somewhat tenuously on December 9, 1913, at the height of the rainy season. The trip down the River of Doubt started on February 27, 1914.
During the trip down the river, Roosevelt suffered a minor leg wound after he jumped into the river to try to prevent two canoes from smashing against the rocks. The flesh wound he received, however, soon gave him tropical fever that resembled the malaria he had contracted while in Cuba fifteen years before. Because the bullet lodged in his chest from the assassination attempt in 1912 was never removed, his health worsened from the infection. This weakened Roosevelt so greatly that six weeks into the adventure, he had to be attended to day and night by the expedition's physician and his son Kermit. By then, he could not walk because of the infection in his injured leg and an infirmity in the other, which was due to a traffic accident a decade earlier. Roosevelt was riddled with chest pains, fighting a fever that soared to and at times made him delirious, at one point constantly reciting the first two lines of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem "Kubla Khan": "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan / A stately pleasure dome decree". Regarding his condition as a threat to the survival of the others, Roosevelt insisted he be left behind to allow the poorly provisioned expedition to proceed as rapidly as it could, preparing to commit suicide with an overdose of morphine. Only an appeal by his son persuaded him to continue.
Despite Roosevelt's continued decline and loss of over , Colonel Rondon reduced the pace of the expedition to allow for his commission's mapmaking and other geographical tasks, which required regular stops to fix the expedition's position by sun-based survey. Upon Roosevelt's return to New York, friends and family were startled by his physical appearance and fatigue. Roosevelt wrote, perhaps prophetically, to a friend that the trip had cut his life short by ten years. For the rest of his few remaining years, he would be plagued by flare-ups of malaria and leg inflammations so severe as to require surgery. Before Roosevelt had even completed his sea voyage home, critics raised doubts over his claims of exploring and navigating a completely uncharted river over long. When he had recovered sufficiently, he addressed a standing-room-only convention organized in Washington, D.C., by the National Geographic Society and satisfactorily defended his claims.
Final years
Roosevelt returned to the United States in May 1914. Though he was outraged by the Wilson Administration's conclusion of a treaty that expressed "sincere regret" for the way in which the United States had acquired the Panama Canal Zone, he was impressed by many of the reforms passed under Wilson. Roosevelt made several campaign appearances for the Progressives, but the 1914 elections were a disaster for the fledgling third party. Roosevelt began to envision another campaign for president, this time with himself at the head of the Republican Party, but conservative party leaders remained opposed to Roosevelt. In hopes of engineering a joint nomination, the Progressives scheduled the 1916 Progressive National Convention at the same time as the 1916 Republican National Convention. When the Republicans nominated Charles Evans Hughes, Roosevelt declined the Progressive nomination and urged his Progressive followers to support the Republican candidate. Though Roosevelt had long disliked Hughes, he disliked Wilson even more, and he campaigned energetically for the Republican nominee. However, Wilson won the 1916 election by a narrow margin. The Progressives disappeared as a party following the 1916 election, and Roosevelt and many of his followers permanently re-joined the Republican Party.
World War I
When the First World War began in 1914, Roosevelt strongly supported the Allies and demanded a harsher policy against Germany, especially regarding submarine warfare. Roosevelt angrily denounced the foreign policy of President Wilson, calling it a failure regarding the atrocities in Belgium and the violations of American rights. In 1916, while campaigning for Hughes, Roosevelt repeatedly denounced Irish-Americans and German-Americans whom he described as unpatriotic, saying they put the interests of Ireland and Germany ahead of America's by supporting neutrality. He insisted that one had to be 100% American, not a "hyphenated American" who juggled multiple loyalties. In March 1917, Congress gave Roosevelt the authority to raise a maximum of four divisions similar to the Rough Riders, and Major Frederick Russell Burnham was put in charge of both the general organization and recruitment. However, President Wilson announced to the press that he would not send Roosevelt and his volunteers to France, but instead would send an American Expeditionary Force under the command of General John J. Pershing. Roosevelt never forgave Wilson, and quickly published The Foes of Our Own Household, an indictment of the sitting president. Roosevelt's youngest son, Quentin, a pilot with the American forces in France, was killed when shot down behind German lines on July 14, 1918, at the age of 20. It is said that Quentin's death distressed Roosevelt so much that he never recovered from his loss.
League of Nations
Roosevelt was an early supporter of the modern view that there needs to be a global order. In his Nobel prize address of 1910, he said, "it would be a master stroke if those great Powers honestly bent on peace would form a League of Peace, not only to keep the peace among themselves, but to prevent, by force if necessary, its being broken by others." It would have executive power such as the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 lacked. He called for American participation.
When World War I broke out, Roosevelt proposed "a World League for the Peace of Righteousness", in September 1914, which would preserve sovereignty but limit armaments and require arbitration. He added that it should be "solemnly covenanted that if any nations refused to abide by the decisions of such a court, then others draw the sword in behalf of peace and justice." In 1915 he outlined this plan more specifically, urging that nations guarantee their entire military force, if necessary, against any nation that refused to carry out arbitration decrees or violated rights of other nations. Though Roosevelt had some concerns about the impact on United States sovereignty, he insisted that such a league would only work if the United States participated as one of the "joint guarantors". Roosevelt referred to this plan in a 1918 speech as "the most feasible for...a league of nations." By this time Wilson was strongly hostile to Roosevelt and Lodge, and developed his own plans for a rather different League of Nations. It became reality along Wilson's lines at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. Roosevelt denounced Wilson's approach but died before it was adopted at Paris. However, Lodge was willing to accept it with serious reservations. In the end, on March 19, 1920, Wilson had Democratic Senators vote against the League with the Lodge Reservations and the United States never joined the League of Nations.
Final political activities
Roosevelt's attacks on Wilson helped the Republicans win control of Congress in the midterm elections of 1918. He declined a request from New York Republicans to run for another gubernatorial term, but attacked Wilson's Fourteen Points, calling instead for the unconditional surrender of Germany. Though his health was uncertain, he was seen as a leading contender for the 1920 Republican nomination, but insisted that, "If they take me, they'll have to take me without a single modification of the things that I have always stood for! He wrote William Allen White, "I wish to do everything in my power to make the Republican Party the Party of sane, constructive radicalism, just as it was under Lincoln." Accordingly, he told the 1918 state convention of the Maine Republican Party that he stood for old-age pensions, insurance for sickness and unemployment, construction of public housing for low-income families, the reduction of working hours, aid to farmers, and more regulation of large corporations.
While his political profile remained high, Roosevelt's physical condition continued to deteriorate throughout 1918 due to the long-term effects of jungle diseases. He was hospitalized for seven weeks late in the year and never fully recovered.
Death
On the night of January 5, 1919, Roosevelt suffered breathing problems. After receiving treatment from his physician, Dr. George W. Faller, he felt better and went to bed. Roosevelt's last words were "Please put out that light, James" to his family servant James E. Amos. Between 4:00 and 4:15 the next morning, Roosevelt, at the age of 60, died in his sleep at Sagamore Hill after a blood clot detached from a vein and traveled to his lungs.
Upon receiving word of his death, his son Archibald telegraphed his siblings: "The old lion is dead." Woodrow Wilson's vice president, Thomas R. Marshall, said that "Death had to take Roosevelt sleeping, for if he had been awake, there would have been a fight." Following a private farewell service in the North Room at Sagamore Hill, a simple funeral was held at Christ Episcopal Church in Oyster Bay. Vice President Thomas R. Marshall, Charles Evans Hughes, Warren G. Harding, Henry Cabot Lodge, and William Howard Taft were among the mourners. The snow-covered procession route to Youngs Memorial Cemetery was lined with spectators and a squad of mounted policemen who had ridden from New York City. Roosevelt was buried on a hillside overlooking Oyster Bay.
Writer
Roosevelt was a prolific author, writing with passion on subjects ranging from foreign policy to the importance of the national park system. Roosevelt was also an avid reader of poetry. Poet Robert Frost said that Roosevelt "was our kind. He quoted poetry to me. He knew poetry."
As an editor of Outlook magazine, Roosevelt had weekly access to a large, educated national audience. In all, Roosevelt wrote about 18 books (each in several editions), including his autobiography, The Rough Riders, History of the Naval War of 1812, and others on subjects such as ranching, explorations, and wildlife. His most ambitious book was the four volume narrative The Winning of the West, focused on the American frontier in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Roosevelt said that the American character—indeed a new "American race" (ethnic group) had emerged from the heroic wilderness hunters and Indian fighters, acting on the frontier with little government help. Roosevelt also published an account of his 1909–10 African expedition entitled African Game Trails.
In 1907, Roosevelt became embroiled in a widely publicized literary debate known as the nature fakers controversy. A few years earlier, naturalist John Burroughs had published an article entitled "Real and Sham Natural History" in the Atlantic Monthly, attacking popular writers of the day such as Ernest Thompson Seton, Charles G. D. Roberts, and William J. Long for their fantastical representations of wildlife. Roosevelt agreed with Burroughs's criticisms, and published several essays of his own denouncing the booming genre of "naturalistic" animal stories as "yellow journalism of the woods". It was the President himself who popularized the negative term "nature faker" to describe writers who depicted their animal characters with excessive anthropomorphism.
Character and beliefs
Roosevelt intensely disliked being called "Teddy", despite the widespread public association with said moniker, and was quick to point out this to those who referred to him as such, though it would become widely used by newspapers during his political career.
He was an active Freemason and member of the Sons of the American Revolution.
British scholar Marcus Cunliffe evaluates the liberal argument that Roosevelt was an opportunist, exhibitionist, and imperialist. Cunliffe praises TR's versatility, his respect for law, and his sincerity. He argues that Roosevelt's foreign policy was better than his detractors allege. Cunliffe calls him "a big man in several respects," ranking him below Washington, Lincoln, and Jefferson, and on the same level as Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Strenuous life
Roosevelt had a lifelong interest in pursuing what he called, in an 1899 speech, "The Strenuous Life". To this end, he exercised regularly and took up boxing, tennis, hiking, rowing, polo, and horseback riding. He also continued his habit of skinny-dipping in the Potomac River during the winter. As governor of New York, he boxed with sparring partners several times each week, a practice he regularly continued as president until being hit so hard in the face he became blind in his left eye (a fact not made public until many years later). As president, he practiced judo for two 2-month periods in 1902 and 1904, not attaining any rank. Roosevelt began to believe in the utility of jiu-jitsu training after training with Yoshitsugu Yamashita. Concerned that the United States would lose its military supremacy to rising powers like Japan, Roosevelt began to advocate for jiu-jitsu training for American soldiers. Feminists annoyed by the posturing of men like Roosevelt, insisted that women were just as capable of learning jiu-jitsu. To prove their point, Martha Blow Wadsworth and Maria Louise ("Hallie") Davis Elkins hired Fude Yamashita, a highly skilled jiu-jitsu instructor and the wife of Yoshitsugu Yamashita, to teach a jiu-jitsu class for women and girls in Washington, DC in 1904. Women had already begun training in boxing in the United States as a means of personal and political empowerment. Jiu-jitsu training thus soon also became popular with American women, coinciding with the origins of a women's self-defense movement.
Roosevelt was an enthusiastic singlestick player and, according to Harper's Weekly, showed up at a White House reception with his arm bandaged after a bout with General Leonard Wood in 1905. Roosevelt was an avid reader, reading tens of thousands of books, at a rate of several per day in multiple languages. Along with Thomas Jefferson, Roosevelt was the most well-read of all American presidents.
Warrior
Historians have often emphasized Roosevelt's warrior persona. He took aggressive positions regarding war with Spain in 1898, Colombia in 1903, and especially with Germany, from 1915 to 1917. As a demonstration of American naval might, he sent the "Great White Fleet" around the world in 1907–1909. The implicit threat of the "big stick" of military power provided leverage to "speak softly" and quietly resolve conflict in numerous cases. He boasted in his autobiography:
Richard D. White Jr states, "Roosevelt's warrior spirit framed his views of national politics, [and] international relations."
Historian Howard K. Beale has argued:
Religion
Roosevelt attended church regularly and was a lifelong adherent of the Reformed Church in America, an American affiliate of the Dutch Reformed Church. In 1907, concerning the motto "In God We Trust" on money, he wrote, "It seems to me eminently unwise to cheapen such a motto by use on coins, just as it would be to cheapen it by use on postage stamps, or in advertisements." Roosevelt talked a great deal about religion. Biographer Edmund Morris states:
Roosevelt publicly encouraged church attendance and was a conscientious churchgoer himself. When gas rationing was introduced during the First World War, he walked the three miles from his home at Sagamore Hill to the local church and back, even after a serious operation had made it difficult for him to travel by foot. It was said that Roosevelt "allowed no engagement to keep him from going to church," and he remained a fervent advocate of the Bible throughout his adult life. According to Christian F. Reisner, writing in 1922 shortly after Roosevelt's death, "Religion was as natural to Mr. Roosevelt as breathing," and when the travel library for Roosevelt's famous Smithsonian-sponsored African expedition was being assembled, the Bible was, according to his sister, "the first book selected." In an address delivered in his home at Oyster Bay to the Long Island Bible Society in 1901, Roosevelt declared that:
Political positions
When he assumed the presidency, Roosevelt reassured many conservatives, stating, "the mechanism of modern business is so delicate that extreme care must be taken not to interfere with it in a spirit of rashness or ignorance." The following year, Roosevelt asserted the president's independence from business interests by opposing the merger which created the Northern Securities Company, and many were surprised that any president, much less an unelected one, would challenge powerful banker J.P. Morgan. In his last two years as president, Roosevelt became increasingly distrustful of big business, despite its close ties to the Republican Party. Roosevelt sought to replace the 19th-century laissez-faire economic environment with a new economic model which included a larger regulatory role for the federal government. He believed that 19th-century entrepreneurs had risked their fortunes on innovations and new businesses, and that these capitalists had been rightly rewarded. By contrast, he believed that 20th-century capitalists risked little but nonetheless reaped huge and, given the lack of risk, unjust, economic rewards. Without a redistribution of wealth away from the upper class, Roosevelt feared that the country would turn to radicals or fall to revolution. His Square Deal domestic program had three main goals: conservation of natural resources, control of corporations, and consumer protection. The Square Deal evolved into his program of "New Nationalism", which emphasized the priority of labor over capital interests and a need to more effectively control corporate creation and combination, and proposed a ban on corporate political contributions.
Foreign policy beliefs
In the analysis by Henry Kissinger, Theodore Roosevelt was the first president to develop the guideline that it was America's duty to make its enormous power and potential influence felt globally. The idea of being a passive "city on the hill" model that others could look up to, he rejected. Roosevelt, trained in biology, was a social darwinist who believed in survival of the fittest. The international world in his view was a realm of violence and conflict. The United States had all the economic and geographical potential to be the fittest nation on the globe. The United States had a duty to act decisively. For example, in terms of the Monroe Doctrine, America had to prevent European incursions in the Western Hemisphere. But there was more, as he expressed in his famous Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine: the U.S. had to be the policeman of the region because unruly, corrupt smaller nations had to be controlled, and if United States did not do it, European powers would in fact intervene and develop their own base of power in the hemisphere in contravention to the Monroe Doctrine.
Roosevelt was a realist and a conservative. He deplored many of the increasingly popular idealistic liberal themes, such as were promoted by William Jennings Bryan, the anti-imperialists, and Woodrow Wilson. Kissinger says he rejected the efficacy of international law. Roosevelt argue that if a country could not protect its own interests, the international community could not help very much. He ridiculed disarmament proposals that were increasingly common. He saw no likelihood of an international power capable of checking wrongdoing on a major scale. As for world government: I regard the Wilson–Bryan attitude of trusting to fantastic peace treaties, too impossible promises, to all kinds of scraps of paper without any backing in efficient force, as abhorrent. It is infinitely better for a nation and for the world to have the Frederick the Great and Bismarck tradition as regards foreign policy than to have the Bryan or Bryan–Wilson attitude as a permanent national attitude.... A milk-and-water righteousness unbacked by force is...as wicked as and even more mischievous than force divorced from righteousness.
On the positive side, Roosevelt favored spheres of influence, whereby one great power would generally prevail, such as the United States in the Western Hemisphere or Great Britain in the Indian subcontinent. Japan fit that role and he approved. However he had deep distrust of both Germany and Russia.
Legacy
Historians credit Roosevelt for changing the nation's political system by permanently placing the "bully pulpit" of the presidency at center stage and making character as important as the issues. His accomplishments include trust busting and conservationism. He is a hero to liberals and progressives for his proposals in 1907–1912 that presaged the modern welfare state of the New Deal Era, including direct federal taxation, labor reforms, and more direct democracy, while conservationists admire Roosevelt for putting the environment and selflessness towards future generations on the national agenda, and conservatives and nationalists respect his commitment to law and order, civic duty and military values, as well as his personality of individual self-responsibility and hardiness. Dalton says, "Today he is heralded as the architect of the modern presidency, as a world leader who boldly reshaped the office to meet the needs of the new century and redefined America's place in the world."
However, liberals and socialists have criticized him for his interventionist and imperialist approach to nations he considered "uncivilized". Conservatives and libertarians reject his vision of the welfare state and emphasis on the superiority of government over private action. Historians typically rank Roosevelt among the top five presidents in American history.
Persona and masculinity
Dalton says Roosevelt is remembered as, "one of the most picturesque personalities who has ever enlivened the landscape". His friend, historian Henry Adams, proclaimed: "Roosevelt, more than any other man... showed the singular primitive quality that belongs to ultimate matter—the quality that medieval theology assigned to God—he was pure act."
Roosevelt's biographers have stressed his personality. Henry F. Pringle, who won the Pulitzer Prize in biography for his Theodore Roosevelt (1931) stated: "The Theodore Roosevelt of later years was the most adolescent of men… Failure to receive the Medal of Honor for his exploits [in Cuba] had been a grief as real as any of those which swamp childhood in despair. 'You must always remember,' wrote Cecil Spring Rice in 1904, 'that the President is about six.'"
Cooper compared him with Woodrow Wilson and argued that both of them played the roles of warrior and priest. Dalton stressed Roosevelt's strenuous life. Sarah Watts examined the desires of the "Rough Rider in the White House". Brands calls Roosevelt "the last romantic", arguing that his romantic concept of life emerged from his belief that "physical bravery was the highest virtue and war the ultimate test of bravery".
Roosevelt as the exemplar of American masculinity has become a major theme. As president, he repeatedly warned men that they were becoming too office-bound, too complacent, too comfortable with physical ease and moral laxity, and were failing in their duties to propagate the race and exhibit masculine vigor. French historian Serge Ricard says, "the ebullient apostle of the Strenuous Life offers ideal material for a detailed psycho-historical analysis of aggressive manhood in the changing socio-cultural environment of his era; McKinley, Taft, or Wilson would perhaps inadequately serve that purpose". He promoted competitive sports like boxing and jiu-jitsu for physically strengthening American men. He also believed that organizations like the Boy Scouts of America, founded in 1910, could help mold and strengthen the character of American boys. Brands shows that heroic displays of bravery were essential to Roosevelt's image and mission:
Memorials and cultural depictions
Roosevelt was included with Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln at the Mount Rushmore Memorial, designed in 1927 with the approval of Republican President Calvin Coolidge.
For his gallantry at San Juan Hill, Roosevelt's commanders recommended him for the Medal of Honor. However, the initial recommendation lacked any eyewitnesses, and the effort was eventually tainted by Roosevelt's own lobbying of the War Department. In the late 1990s, Roosevelt's supporters again recommended the award, which was denied by the Secretary of the Army on basis that the decorations board determined "Roosevelt's bravery in battle did not rise to the level that would justify the Medal of Honor and, indeed, it did not rise to the level of men who fought in that engagement." Nevertheless, politicians apparently convinced the secretary to reconsider the award a third time and reverse himself, leading to the charge that it was a "politically motivated award." On January 16, 2001, President Bill Clinton awarded Theodore Roosevelt the Medal of Honor posthumously for his charge on San Juan Hill. He is the only president to have received the Medal of Honor.
The United States Navy named two ships for Roosevelt: the , a submarine that was in commission from 1961 to 1982, and the , an aircraft carrier that has been on active duty in the Atlantic Fleet since 1986.
On November 18, 1956, the United States Postal Service released a 6¢ Liberty Issue postage stamp honoring Roosevelt. A 32¢ stamp was issued on February 3, 1998, as part of the Celebrate the Century stamp sheet series. In 2008, Columbia Law School awarded Roosevelt a Juris Doctor degree, posthumously making him a member of the class of 1882.
Roosevelt's "Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick" ideology is still quoted by politicians and columnists in different countries—not only in English, but also in translations to various other languages. Another lasting, popular legacy of Roosevelt is the stuffed toy bears—teddy bears—named after him following an incident on a hunting trip in Mississippi in 1902. Roosevelt has been portrayed in films and television series such as Brighty of the Grand Canyon, The Wind and the Lion, Rough Riders, My Friend Flicka, and Law of the Plainsman. Robin Williams portrayed Roosevelt in the form of a wax mannequin that comes to life in Night at the Museum and its sequels Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian and Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb. In 2017, it was announced that Leonardo DiCaprio will portray Roosevelt in a biopic to be directed by Martin Scorsese.
Moreover, Theodore Roosevelt National Park in the state of North Dakota is named after him. The America the Beautiful Quarters series features Roosevelt riding a horse on the national park's quarter.
Asteroid 188693 Roosevelt, discovered by astronomers with the Catalina Sky Survey in 2005, was named after him. The official was published by the Minor Planet Center on November 8, 2019 ().
In January 2022, after years of lobbying by activists, an equestrian statue of the former president was removed from where it had stood for more than eighty years in front of New York's American Museum of Natural History. Responding to controversy, the museum noted that the design "communicates a racial hierarchy that the museum and members of the public have long found disturbing."
Audiovisual media
Theodore Roosevelt was one of the first presidents whose voice was recorded for posterity. Several of his recorded speeches survive. A 4.6-minute voice recording, which preserves Roosevelt's lower timbre ranges particularly well for its time, is among those available from the Michigan State University libraries (this is the 1912 recording of The Right of the People to Rule, recorded by Edison at Carnegie Hall). The audio clip sponsored by the Authentic History Center includes his defense of the Progressive Party in 1912, wherein he proclaims it the "party of the people" – in contrast with the other major parties.
Roosevelt goes for a ride in Arch Hoxsey's plane in October 1910
In popular culture
Theodore Roosevelt appears as the leader of the American civilization in the Firaxis Games title Civilization VI. His unique ability is Roosevelt Corollary, which gives +5 Combat Strength for all units inside America's home continent, and +1 Appeal to all tiles in cities with a national park.
See also
Notes
References
Bibliography
Full biographies
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, 105 pp, very short biography by leading scholar.
.; also titled Power and responsibility; the life and times of Theodore Roosevelt online free to borrow
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, only volume published, to age 28.
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Personality and activities
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Provides a lesson plan on TR as the historical figure who most exemplifies the quality of masculinity.
. Chronicles the events of TR's presidency during the summers of his two terms.
. The president's use of publicity, rhetoric and force of personality.
; his deadly 1913–14 trip to the Amazon.
, best seller; to 1886.
, to 1884.
. 494 pp.
, examines TR and his family during the World War I period.
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, 240 pp. TR in Africa & Europe, 1909–10
. 289 pp.
, 337 pp; TR's political thought and its significance for republican self-government.
Domestic policies
online review; another online review
Cutright, P.R. (1985) Theodore Roosevelt: The making of a Modern Conservationist (U of Illinois Press.)
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, standard history of his domestic and foreign policy as president.
Bakari, Mohamed El-Kamel. "Mapping the 'Anthropocentric-ecocentric'Dualism in the History of American Presidency: The Good, the Bad, and the Ambivalent." Journal of Studies in Social Sciences 14, no. 2 (2016).
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Redekop, Benjamin. (2015). "Embodying the Story: The Conservation Leadership of Theodore Roosevelt". Leadership (2015) DOI:10.1177/1742715014546875 online
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Politics
. How TR did politics.
, 323 pp.
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. 361 pp.
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. Focus on 1912; online free
. online free
. Attacks TR policies from conservative/libertarian perspective.
Foreign policy, military and naval issues
. online
. excerpt
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. 328 pp.
Kuehn, John T. "Theodore Roosevelt’s Naval Diplomacy: The U.S. Navy and the Birth of the American Century," Naval War College Review (2010) 53#3 online
Livermore, Seward W. "Theodore Roosevelt, the American Navy, and the Venezuelan Crisis of 1902-1903." American Historical Review 51.3 (1946): 452–471. online
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Nester, William R. Theodore Roosevelt and the Art of American Power: An American for All Time. Rowman & Littlefield, 2019. excerpt
Neu, Charles E. "Theodore Roosevelt and American Involvement in the Far East, 1901-1909." Pacific Historical Review 35.4 (1966): 433–449. online
O'Gara, Gordon Carpenter. Theodore Roosevelt and the Rise of the Modern Navy. (Princeton UP, 1943). online
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Oyos, Matthew M. In Command: Theodore Roosevelt and the American Military (2018) online review
Pietrusza, David (2018). TR's Last War: Theodore Roosevelt, the Great War, and a Journey of Triumph and Tragedy
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Thompson, John M. Great Power Rising: Theodore Roosevelt and the Politics of US Foreign Policy (Oxford UP, 2019).
. 196 pp.
Turk, Richard W. The Ambiguous Relationship: Theodore Roosevelt and Alfred Thayer Mahan (1987) [https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article-abstract/93/5/1413/70734 online review
Historiography
Cunliffe, Marcus. "Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States 1901–1908" History Today (Sept 1955) 4#9 pp. 592–601, online.
Ricard, Serge. "The State of Theodore Roosevelt Studies" H-Diplo Essay No. 116 24 October 2014 online
, excerpt and text search, 28 new essays by scholars; focus on historiography. online
Primary sources
Kohn, Edward P., ed. A Most Glorious Ride: The Diaries of Theodore Roosevelt, 1877–1886 (State University of New York Press, 2015), 284 pp.
; vol 2
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, 20 vol.; 18,000 pages containing most of TR's speeches, books and essays, but not his letters; a CD-ROM edition is available; some of TR's books are available online through Project Bartleby
, Roosevelt's opinions on many issues; online version at Theodore Roosevelt.
, 8 vols. Very large collection. vol 1 1868–1898 online free
. online free
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online free to borrow
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External links
Official
White House biography
Organizations
Boone and Crockett Club
Theodore Roosevelt Association
Libraries and collections
Theodore Roosevelt Center at Dickinson State University
Theodore Roosevelt Collection, at the Houghton Library, Harvard University
Julian L. Street Papers on Theodore Roosevelt, at the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library, Princeton University
Doris A. and Lawrence H. Budner Collection on Theodore Roosevelt at the DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University
Theodore Roosevelt's journalism at The Archive of American Journalism
Theodore Roosevelt American Museum of Natural History
Roosevelt Papers, at the Library of Congress
Guide to the Herbert R. Strauss Collection of Theodore Roosevelt Papers 1884–1919 at the University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center
Media
"Life Portrait of Theodore Roosevelt", from C-SPAN's American Presidents: Life Portraits, September 3, 1999
"Writings of Theodore Roosevelt" from C-SPAN's American Writers: A Journey Through History
Other
Almanac of Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt: A Resource Guide – Library of Congress
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American nationalists
20th-century American male writers | false | [
"John Aspinwall Roosevelt II (March 13, 1916 – April 27, 1981) was an American businessman and the sixth and last child of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and his wife, Eleanor Roosevelt, and the only Roosevelt son who never sought political office not counting The original Franklin Delano Roosevelt Jr who died in infancy.\n\nEarly life\nJohn Aspinwall Roosevelt II was the youngest child of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. His surviving siblings were Anna E. Roosevelt, James Roosevelt II, Elliott Roosevelt, and Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr. Roosevelt grew up on the Roosevelt estate in Hyde Park, New York and attended preparatory schools The Buckley School and Groton School.\n\nRoosevelt and his next oldest sibling, Franklin Jr., were much closer to their mother than the three older Roosevelt children had been. This was in part because by the time they were born, she was more comfortable in her role as a parent. However, others contend that as a result of his father's disability, \"John had grown up with less emotional connection with his parents than any of the others.\"\n\nBy family consensus, Roosevelt was the son least like his father, which reflected itself politically as well as in many other aspects. James Roosevelt wrote that he \"had the smoothest, least exciting life of all of us.\" \"The youngest, he was also the least close to father.\" And, he was \"the most thoughtful and businesslike of us.\"\n\nHe was five years old when his father Franklin Roosevelt contracted a paralytic illness that confined him in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Conscious of her husband's disability and determined that the younger children should not miss out on the sports and physical activities that their older siblings had enjoyed, Eleanor Roosevelt learned to swim and skate. She also took John and Franklin Jr. camping and to Europe. In 1937, John Roosevelt was involved in a drunken brawl and an attack on the mayor in Cannes that made headlines across the world.\n\nOf John Roosevelt's activities before World War II, a Roosevelt biographer noted: \"When he was a junior at Harvard, FDR got him a summer job working in the forests of Tennessee for the Tennessee Valley Authority. At the end of the experience, his supervisor felt compelled to write Eleanor to say that her youngest son seemed to believe in 'the psychology of making one's way by influence and association rather than by hard work and personal achievement.'\" However, most biographers agree that this judgment was actually far more appropriate for the other sons. After graduation from Harvard, his father's alma mater, John worked at Filene's Department Store in Boston until America entered World War II in 1941.\n\nWorld War II\nOn the eve of World War II, alone among the sons, John Roosevelt announced that he would seek conscientious objector status. Family persuasion ultimately changed his mind, and he served in the United States Navy. He was commissioned an ensign in the United States Navy in early 1941 and served until 1946. James Roosevelt summarized his brother's service:\n\nCareer and politics\nAfter the war, Roosevelt pursued a business career in California as the Regional Merchandising Manager for Grayson & Robertson Stores in Los Angeles. In 1953, he became a partner in a Beverly Hills financial company but left shortly thereafter to take up residence in the family compound in Hyde Park.\n\nUnlike his siblings, Roosevelt intended to \"work his way up\" without seeking to profit from his name and connections. However, his department store work was under the wing and direction of Walter Kirschner, a Roosevelt family friend who mentored and subsidized many of the siblings in the 1940s. He was also involved with Elliott Roosevelt in several businesses, especially in Cuba after Fulgencio Batista took power in 1952.\n\nRoosevelt represented François \"Papa Doc\" Duvalier in the United States and attended his inauguration. By 1958, it was reported that Haiti \"has retained the P.R. firm of Roosevelt, Summers and Hamilton at a fee of $150,000 to act as its public relations consultant for one year.\"\n\nAlthough he never pursued political office, Roosevelt served on the boards of many organizations, including the Greater New York Council of Boy Scouts of America, the Eisenhower Exchange Fellowship, Roosevelt University, the State University of New York, and the Governmental Affairs Committee.\n\nAlthough Roosevelt leaned Republican at an early age, he deliberately kept an apolitical stance until after his father's death. In 1947, John Roosevelt changed his political affiliation to Republican, a gesture his mother interpreted as an attempt to win support from his wife's family, his father-in-law being a staunchly Republican Boston banker. But in 1952, he went beyond paper registration, actively supporting Dwight D. Eisenhower's bid for the Presidency against Democratic nominee Adlai Stevenson, for whom his mother was just as actively campaigning. His defection from the Democratic Party and his subsequent leadership of Citizens for Eisenhower – he vocally defended Eisenhower's running mate, California Senator Richard Nixon, against attacks by his mother – caused considerable family friction.\n\nThe tension was exacerbated when Roosevelt and his family moved into Stone Cottage next door to Eleanor Roosevelt's home at Val-Kill that same year. He and his brother, Elliott, who lived at nearby Top Cottage, did not get along. Elliott left shortly after John and his family arrived. John subsequently acquired what remained of the Hyde Park property Elliott had farmed with Eleanor Roosevelt. More importantly, the presence of John and his family enabled Eleanor Roosevelt to live at Val-Kill until her death in 1962. She saw John's children often and was particularly close to his daughter, Sara \"Sally\" Roosevelt. After Eleanor Roosevelt's death, John kept the papers from her Hyde Park home and New York City apartment.\n\nUranium interests\nAt the height of the Cold War, when the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission was desperately seeking sources of uranium for the production of atomic weapons, Roosevelt became an officer and director of the Standard Uranium Company, reportedly the first and most successful publicly traded uranium corporation, which registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission in early 1954 and soon attracted heavy investments by industrialist Floyd Odlum, one of the wealthiest men in America. Inspired thereby, brother Elliott also formed a uranium company, but it floundered when the ore market collapsed in the late 1950s.\n\nAccording to an authorized biography of San Francisco hotel magnate (and Democratic Party fund-raiser) Benjamin Swig, Roosevelt was also partnered with Swig and Hollywood producer Louis B. Mayer, the powerful \"boss\" of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, in what was probably a related consortium, involving uranium investments in southern Utah.<ref>Walter Blum. Benjamin H. Swig, The Measure of a Man (San Francisco, 1968)</ref>\n\nLater years\nIn 1956, Roosevelt began consulting for the investment firm of Bache and Company, which he joined in 1967, retiring as a vice-president in 1980. At Bache, he managed the Teamsters Union pension funds and was a friend and vocal defender of Jimmy Hoffa until the latter's incarceration.\n\nHis philanthropic activities included serving as a fund raiser with the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, which his father had founded, membership on the executive committee of the Greater New York Council of the Boy Scouts of America and service as a trustee of the State University of New York.\n\nWithin three years of Eleanor Roosevelt's death, John Roosevelt divorced and remarried. In 1970, he sold the Val-Kill properties. Thereafter, he and his second wife lived on an estate in Tuxedo, New York. John Roosevelt died of heart failure in 1981. He was buried in Saint James Episcopal Churchyard.\n\nPersonal life\n\nRoosevelt received his middle name from that of his great-grandmother, Mary Rebecca Aspinwall. His siblings were Anna Eleanor Roosevelt (known as Anna), James Roosevelt II, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Jr. (I) (b./d. 1909), Elliott Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr.\n\nJohn Aspinwall Roosevelt married Anne Lindsay Clark (1916–1973) on June 18, 1938, in Massachusetts. Their children were:\nHaven Clark Roosevelt (born 1940)\nAnne Sturgis \"Nina\" Roosevelt (born 1942)\nSara Delano \"Sally\" Roosevelt (1946–1960); killed in a horseback-riding accident\nJoan Lindsay Roosevelt (1952–1997)\n \nIn 1965, John and Anne Roosevelt obtained a divorce. Anne moved to Mallorca, Spain, where she lived with Elliott Roosevelt's divorced third wife, Faye Emerson. That same year John married Mrs. Irene Boyd McAlpin (born March 8, 1931).\n\nReferences\n\nBibliography\n\n Roosevelt, James: My Parents, A Differing View. Playboy Press, 1976.\n Hansen, Chris: Enfant Terrible: The Times and Schemes of General Elliott Roosevelt. Able Baker Press, 2012.\n Collier, Peter (with David Horowitz): The Roosevelts''. Simon & Schuster, 1994.\n\nExternal links\n\nThe Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum\n\n1916 births\n1981 deaths\nUnited States Navy personnel of World War II\nAmerican people of Dutch descent\nHarvard University alumni\nAmerican people of Scotch-Irish descent\nAmerican people of Scottish descent\nBulloch family\nChildren of presidents of the United States\nDelano family\nPeople from Washington, D.C.\nJohn Aspinwall Roosevelt\nNew York (state) Democrats\nNew York (state) Republicans\nPeople from Hyde Park, New York\nPeople from Tuxedo, New York\nMilitary personnel from New York City\nLivingston family\nBuckley School (New York City) alumni\nAmerican conscientious objectors\nUnited States Navy officers",
"James Alfred Roosevelt (June 13, 1825 – July 15, 1898) was an American businessman and philanthropist. A member of the Roosevelt family, he was an uncle of President Theodore Roosevelt.\n\nEarly life\nRoosevelt was born on June 13, 1825, to Cornelius Van Schaack Roosevelt (1794–1871) and Margaret Barnhill (1799–1861). His siblings were Silas Weir Roosevelt (1823–1870), Cornelius Van Schaack Roosevelt, Jr., Robert Barnhill Roosevelt (1829–1906), Theodore Roosevelt, Sr. (1831–1878), who was married to Martha \"Mittie\" Bulloch (1835–1884), and William Wallace Roosevelt (1834–1835).\n\nCareer\nRoosevelt became a member of his father's mercantile firm, Roosevelt & Son, at the age of twenty, and eventually succeeded him as its head. He was connected with many other institutions, including as vice president of the Chemical Bank of New York; president of the Broadway Improvement Company; vice president of the Bank of Savings; member of the board of managers of the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company; director of the New York Life Insurance Trust.\n\nHe was a trustee to the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children and on the New York Board of Park Commissioners during the William Lafayette Strong Administration. He was a president of Roosevelt Hospital that was founded by his distant cousin James H. Roosevelt.\n\nPersonal life\nOn December 22, 1847, he married Elizabeth Norris Emlen (1825–1912), the daughter of William Fishbourne Emlen (1786–1866) and Mary Parker Norris (1791–1872). Together, they had four children, including:\n\n Mary Emlen Roosevelt (1848–1885)\n Leila Roosevelt (1850–1934), who married Edward Reeve Merritt (1850–1931).\n Alfred Roosevelt (1856–1891), who married Katherine Lowell (1858–1925) in 1882.\n William Emlen Roosevelt (1857–1930), who married Christine Griffin Kean (1858–1936) in 1883.\n\nHe died on July 15, 1898 near Mineola, New York while riding a train on his way home to Oyster Bay, New York.\n\nDescendants\nThrough his son, Alfred, he was the grandfather of Elfrida Roosevelt, who married Sir Orme Bigland Clarke, 4th Baronet, and was the mother of Sir Humphrey Clarke, 5th Baronet.\n\nReferences\n\nSources\n\nJames\nSchuyler family\n1825 births\n1898 deaths\nPeople from Oyster Bay (town), New York\nPhilanthropists from New York (state)\n19th-century American businesspeople"
] |
[
"Theodore Roosevelt",
"Early life and family",
"Where was Theodore Roosevelt born?",
"Theodore Roosevelt Jr. was born on October 27, 1858, at East 20th Street in New York City.",
"Who was his mother?",
"socialite Martha Stewart \"Mittie\" Bulloch",
"What type of work did his father do?",
"businessman and philanthropist",
"Did Roosevelt have any siblings?",
"He had an older sister, Anna (nicknamed \"Bamie\"), a younger brother, Elliott, and a younger sister, Corinne."
] | C_ea2b2d977c0c4d1d93ec5efce7ee7156_1 | What were his interests in his early life? | 5 | What were Theodore Roosevelt's interests in his early life? | Theodore Roosevelt | Theodore Roosevelt Jr. was born on October 27, 1858, at East 20th Street in New York City. He was the second of four children born to socialite Martha Stewart "Mittie" Bulloch and businessman and philanthropist Theodore Roosevelt Sr. He had an older sister, Anna (nicknamed "Bamie"), a younger brother, Elliott, and a younger sister, Corinne. Elliott was later the father of First Lady Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of Theodore's distant cousin, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. His paternal grandfather was of Dutch descent; his other ancestry included primarily Scottish and Scots-Irish, English and smaller amounts of German, Welsh, and French. Theodore Sr. was the fifth son of businessman Cornelius Van Schaack "C.V.S." Roosevelt and Margaret Barnhill. Theodore's fourth cousin, James Roosevelt I, who was also a businessman, was the father of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Mittie was the younger daughter of Major James Stephens Bulloch and Martha P. "Patsy" Stewart. Through the Van Schaacks, Roosevelt was a descendant of the Schuyler family. Roosevelt's youth was largely shaped by his poor health and debilitating asthma. He repeatedly experienced sudden nighttime asthma attacks that caused the experience of being smothered to death, which terrified both Theodore and his parents. Doctors had no cure. Nevertheless, he was energetic and mischievously inquisitive. His lifelong interest in zoology began at age seven when he saw a dead seal at a local market; after obtaining the seal's head, Roosevelt and two cousins formed what they called the "Roosevelt Museum of Natural History". Having learned the rudiments of taxidermy, he filled his makeshift museum with animals that he killed or caught; he then studied the animals and prepared them for display. At age nine, he recorded his observation of insects in a paper entitled "The Natural History of Insects". Roosevelt's father significantly influenced him. His father was a prominent leader in New York's cultural affairs; he helped to found the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and had been especially active in mobilizing support for the Union during the Civil War, even though his in-laws included Confederate leaders. Roosevelt said, "My father, Theodore Roosevelt, was the best man I ever knew. He combined strength and courage with gentleness, tenderness, and great unselfishness. He would not tolerate in us children selfishness or cruelty, idleness, cowardice, or untruthfulness." Family trips abroad, including tours of Europe in 1869 and 1870, and Egypt in 1872, shaped his cosmopolitan perspective. Hiking with his family in the Alps in 1869, Roosevelt found that he could keep pace with his father. He had discovered the significant benefits of physical exertion to minimize his asthma and bolster his spirits. Roosevelt began a heavy regime of exercise. After being manhandled by two older boys on a camping trip, he found a boxing coach to teach him to fight and strengthen his body. CANNOTANSWER | Roosevelt's youth was largely shaped by his poor health and debilitating asthma. | Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or his initials T. R., was an American politician, statesman, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26th president of the United States from 1901 to 1909. He previously served as the 25th vice president under William McKinley from March to September 1901, and as the 33rd governor of New York from 1899 to 1900. Having assumed the presidency after McKinley's assassination, Roosevelt emerged as a leader of the Republican Party and became a driving force for anti-trust and Progressive policies.
Roosevelt was a sickly child with debilitating asthma but partly overcame his health problems by embracing a strenuous lifestyle. He integrated his exuberant personality, a vast range of interests and achievements into a "cowboy" persona defined by robust masculinity. He was home-schooled and began a lifelong naturalist avocation before attending Harvard. His book The Naval War of 1812 (1882) established his reputation as a learned historian and popular writer. Upon entering politics, he became the leader of the reform faction of Republicans in New York's state legislature. His wife and mother both died in the same night and he was psychologically devastated. He recuperated by buying and operating a cattle ranch in the Dakotas. He served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy under President William McKinley and in 1898 helped plan the highly successful naval war against Spain. He resigned to help form and lead the Rough Riders, a unit that fought the Spanish army in Cuba to great publicity. Returning a war hero, he was elected governor of New York in 1898. The New York state party leadership disliked his ambitious agenda and convinced McKinley to make Roosevelt his running mate in the 1900 election. Roosevelt campaigned vigorously, and the McKinley–Roosevelt ticket won a landslide victory based on a platform of victory, peace and prosperity.
Roosevelt assumed the presidency at age 42 after McKinley was assassinated in September 1901. He remains the youngest person to become president of the United States. Roosevelt was a leader of the progressive movement and championed his "Square Deal" domestic policies, promising the average citizen fairness, breaking of trusts, regulation of railroads, and pure food and drugs. He prioritized conservation and established national parks, forests, and monuments intended to preserve the nation's natural resources. In foreign policy, he focused on Central America where he began construction of the Panama Canal. He expanded the Navy and sent the Great White Fleet on a world tour to project American naval power. His successful efforts to broker the end of the Russo-Japanese War won him the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize. Roosevelt was elected to a full term in 1904 and continued to promote progressive policies. He groomed his close friend William Howard Taft to succeed him in the 1908 presidential election.
Roosevelt grew frustrated with Taft's brand of conservatism and belatedly tried to win the 1912 Republican nomination for president. He failed, walked out, and founded the Progressive Party. He ran in the 1912 presidential election and the split allowed the Democratic nominee Woodrow Wilson to win the election. Following the defeat, Roosevelt led a two-year expedition to the Amazon basin where he nearly died of tropical disease. During World War I, he criticized Wilson for keeping the country out of the war; his offer to lead volunteers to France was rejected. He considered running for president again in 1920, but his health continued to deteriorate. He died in 1919. He is generally ranked in polls of historians and political scientists as one of the five best presidents.
Early life and family
Theodore Roosevelt Jr. was born on October 27, 1858, at 28 East 20th Street in Manhattan, New York City. He was the second of four children born to socialite Martha Stewart "Mittie" Bulloch and businessman and philanthropist Theodore Roosevelt Sr. He had an older sister (Anna, nicknamed "Bamie"), a younger brother (Elliott) and a younger sister (Corinne). Elliott was later the father of First Lady Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of Theodore's distant cousin, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. His paternal grandfather was of Dutch descent; his other ancestry included primarily Scottish and Scots-Irish, English and smaller amounts of German, Welsh and French. Theodore Sr. was the fifth son of businessman Cornelius Van Schaack "C. V. S." Roosevelt and Margaret Barnhill as well as a brother of Robert Roosevelt and James A. Roosevelt. Theodore's fourth cousin, James Roosevelt I, who was also a businessman, was the father of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Mittie was the younger daughter of Major James Stephens Bulloch and Martha P. "Patsy" Stewart. Through the Van Schaacks, Roosevelt was a descendant of the Schuyler family.
Roosevelt's youth was largely shaped by his poor health and debilitating asthma. He repeatedly experienced sudden nighttime asthma attacks that caused the experience of being smothered to death, which terrified both Theodore and his parents. Doctors had no cure. Nevertheless, he was energetic and mischievously inquisitive. His lifelong interest in zoology began at age seven when he saw a dead seal at a local market; after obtaining the seal's head, Roosevelt and two cousins formed what they called the "Roosevelt Museum of Natural History". Having learned the rudiments of taxidermy, he filled his makeshift museum with animals that he killed or caught; he then studied the animals and prepared them for exhibition. At age nine, he recorded his observation of insects in a paper entitled "The Natural History of Insects".
Roosevelt's father significantly influenced him. His father was a prominent leader in New York's cultural affairs; he helped to found the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and had been especially active in mobilizing support for the Union during the Civil War, even though his in-laws included Confederate leaders. Roosevelt said, "My father, Theodore Roosevelt, was the best man I ever knew. He combined strength and courage with gentleness, tenderness, and great unselfishness. He would not tolerate in us children selfishness or cruelty, idleness, cowardice, or untruthfulness." Family trips abroad, including tours of Europe in 1869 and 1870, and Egypt in 1872, shaped his cosmopolitan perspective. Hiking with his family in the Alps in 1869, Roosevelt found that he could keep pace with his father. He had discovered the significant benefits of physical exertion to minimize his asthma and bolster his spirits. Roosevelt began a heavy regime of exercise. After being manhandled by two older boys on a camping trip, he found a boxing coach to teach him to fight and strengthen his body.
A 6-year-old Roosevelt witnessed the funeral procession of Abraham Lincoln from his grandfather's mansion in Union Square, New York City where he was photographed in the window along with his brother Elliott, as confirmed by wife Edith who was also present.
Education
Roosevelt was homeschooled, mostly by tutors and his parents. Biographer H. W. Brands argued that "The most obvious drawback to his home schooling was uneven coverage of the various areas of human knowledge." He was solid in geography and bright in history, biology, French, and German; however, he struggled in mathematics and the classical languages. When he entered Harvard College on September 27, 1876, his father advised: "Take care of your morals first, your health next, and finally your studies." His father's sudden death on February 9, 1878, devastated Roosevelt, but he eventually recovered and doubled his activities.
He did well in science, philosophy, and rhetoric courses but continued to struggle in Latin and Greek. He studied biology intently and was already an accomplished naturalist and a published ornithologist. He read prodigiously with an almost photographic memory. While at Harvard, Roosevelt participated in rowing and boxing; he was once runner-up in an intramural boxing tournament. Roosevelt was a member of the Alpha Delta Phi literary society (later the Fly Club), the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity, and the prestigious Porcellian Club; he was also an editor of The Harvard Advocate. In 1880, Roosevelt graduated Phi Beta Kappa (22nd of 177) from Harvard with an A.B. magna cum laude. Biographer Henry Pringle states:
After his father's death, Roosevelt had inherited $65,000 (), enough to live off comfortably for the rest of his life. Roosevelt gave up his earlier plan of studying natural science and instead decided to attend Columbia Law School, moving back into his family's home in New York City. Roosevelt was an able law student, but he often found law to be irrational. He spent much of his time writing a book on the War of 1812.
Determined to enter politics, Roosevelt began attending meetings at Morton Hall, the 59th Street headquarters of New York's 21st District Republican Association. Though Roosevelt's father had been a prominent member of the Republican Party, the younger Roosevelt made an unorthodox career choice for someone of his class, as most of Roosevelt's peers refrained from becoming too closely involved in politics. Roosevelt found allies in the local Republican Party, and he defeated an incumbent Republican state assemblyman closely tied to the political machine of Senator Roscoe Conkling. After his election victory, Roosevelt decided to drop out of law school, later saying, "I intended to be one of the governing class."
Naval history and strategy
While at Harvard, Roosevelt began a systematic study of the role played by the young United States Navy in the War of 1812. Assisted by two uncles, he scrutinized original source materials and official U.S. Navy records, ultimately publishing The Naval War of 1812 in 1882. The book contained drawings of individual and combined ship maneuvers, charts depicting the differences in iron throw weights of cannon shot between rival forces, and analyses of the differences and similarities between British and American leadership down to the ship-to-ship level. Upon release, The Naval War of 1812 was praised for its scholarship and style, and it remains a standard study of the war.
With the publication of The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660–1783 in 1890, Navy Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan was immediately hailed as the world's outstanding naval theorist by the leaders of Europe. Roosevelt paid very close attention to Mahan's emphasis that only a nation with the world's most powerful fleet could dominate the world's oceans, exert its diplomacy to the fullest, and defend its own borders. He incorporated Mahan's ideas into his views on naval strategy for the remainder of his career.
First marriage and widowerhood
In 1880, Roosevelt married socialite Alice Hathaway Lee. Their daughter, Alice Lee Roosevelt, was born on February 12, 1884. Two days later, the new mother died of an undiagnosed case of kidney failure that had been masked by the pregnancy. In his diary, Roosevelt wrote a large 'X' on the page and then, "The light has gone out of my life." His mother, Mittie, had died of typhoid fever eleven hours earlier at 3:00 a.m., in the same house on 57th Street in Manhattan. Distraught, Roosevelt left baby Alice in the care of his sister Bamie while he grieved; he assumed custody of Alice when she was three.
After the deaths of his wife and mother, Roosevelt focused on his work, specifically by re-energizing a legislative investigation into corruption of the New York City government, which arose from a concurrent bill proposing that power be centralized in the mayor's office. For the rest of his life, he rarely spoke about his wife Alice and did not write about her in his autobiography.
Early political career
State Assemblyman
Roosevelt was a member of the New York State Assembly (New York Co., 21st D.) in 1882, 1883 and 1884. He immediately began making his mark, specifically in corporate corruption issues. He blocked a corrupt effort by financier Jay Gould to lower his taxes. Roosevelt exposed suspected collusion in the matter by Judge Theodore Westbrook, and argued for and received approval for an investigation to proceed, aiming for the impeachment of the judge. The investigation committee rejected impeachment, but Roosevelt had exposed the potential corruption in Albany, and thus assumed a high and positive political profile in multiple New York publications.
Roosevelt's anti-corruption efforts helped him win re-election in 1882 by a margin greater than two-to-one, an achievement made even more impressive by the fact that Democratic gubernatorial candidate Grover Cleveland won Roosevelt's district. With Conkling's Stalwart faction of the Republican Party in disarray following the assassination of President James Garfield, Roosevelt won election as the Republican party leader in the state assembly. He allied with Governor Cleveland to win passage of a civil service reform bill. Roosevelt won re-election a second time, and sought the office of Speaker of the New York State Assembly, but was defeated by Titus Sheard in a 41 to 29 vote of the GOP caucus. In his final term, Roosevelt served as Chairman of the Committee on Affairs of Cities; he wrote more bills than any other legislator.
Presidential election of 1884
With numerous presidential hopefuls to choose from, Roosevelt supported Senator George F. Edmunds of Vermont, a colorless reformer. The state GOP preferred the incumbent president, New York City's Chester Arthur, who was known for passing the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act. Arthur, at the time, was suffering from Bright's disease, unknown to the public, and out of duty he did not contest his own nomination. Roosevelt fought hard and succeeded in influencing the Manhattan delegates at the state convention in Utica. He then took control of the state convention, bargaining through the night and outmaneuvering the supporters of Arthur and James G. Blaine; he gained a national reputation as a key person in New York State.
Roosevelt attended the 1884 GOP National Convention in Chicago and gave a speech convincing delegates to nominate African American John R. Lynch, an Edmunds supporter, to be temporary chair. Roosevelt fought alongside the Mugwump reformers; however, Blaine, having gained support from Arthur's and Edmunds's delegates, won the nomination by 541 votes on the fourth ballot. In a crucial moment of his budding political career, Roosevelt resisted the demand of the Mugwumps that he bolt from Blaine. He bragged about his one small success: "We achieved a victory in getting up a combination to beat the Blaine nominee for temporary chairman... To do this needed a mixture of skill, boldness and energy... to get the different factions to come in... to defeat the common foe." He was also impressed by an invitation to speak before an audience of ten thousand, the largest crowd he had addressed up to that date. Having gotten a taste of national politics, Roosevelt felt less aspiration for advocacy on the state level; he then retired to his new "Chimney Butte Ranch" on the Little Missouri River. Roosevelt refused to join other Mugwumps in supporting Grover Cleveland, the governor of New York and the Democratic nominee in the general election. He debated the pros and cons of staying loyal with his political friend, Henry Cabot Lodge. After Blaine won the nomination, Roosevelt had carelessly said that he would give "hearty support to any decent Democrat". He distanced himself from the promise, saying that it had not been meant "for publication". When a reporter asked if he would support Blaine, Roosevelt replied, "That question I decline to answer. It is a subject I do not care to talk about." In the end, he realized that he had to support Blaine to maintain his role in the GOP, and he did so in a press release on July 19. Having lost the support of many reformers, Roosevelt decided to retire from politics and move to North Dakota.
Cattle rancher in Dakota
Roosevelt first visited the Dakota Territory in 1883 to hunt bison. Exhilarated by the western lifestyle, and with the cattle business booming in the territory, Roosevelt invested $14,000 in hopes of becoming a prosperous cattle rancher. For the next several years, he shuttled between his home in New York and his ranch in Dakota.
Following the 1884 presidential election, Roosevelt built a ranch named Elkhorn, which was north of the boomtown of Medora, North Dakota. Roosevelt learned to ride western style, rope, and hunt on the banks of the Little Missouri. Though he earned the respect of the authentic cowboys, they were not overly impressed. However, he identified with the herdsman of history, a man he said possesses "few of the emasculated, milk-and-water moralities admired by the pseudo-philanthropists; but he does possess, to a very high degree, the stern, manly qualities that are invaluable to a nation". He reoriented, and began writing about frontier life for national magazines; he also published three books – Hunting Trips of a Ranchman, Ranch Life and the Hunting-Trail, and The Wilderness Hunter.
Roosevelt brought his desire to address the common interests of citizens to the West. He successfully led efforts to organize ranchers to address problems of overgrazing and other shared concerns; his work resulted in the formation of the Little Missouri Stockmen's Association. He felt compelled to promote conservation and was able to form the Boone and Crockett Club, whose primary goal was the conservation of large game animals and their habitats. After the uniquely severe US winter of 1886–87 wiped out his herd of cattle and those of his competitors, and with it over half of his $80,000 investment, Roosevelt returned to the East. Though his finances suffered from the experience, Roosevelt's time in the West made it impossible to peg him as an ineffectual intellectual, a characterization that could have hampered his political career.
Second marriage
On December 2, 1886, Roosevelt married his childhood and family friend, Edith Kermit Carow. Roosevelt was deeply troubled that his second marriage had taken place so soon after the death of his first wife, and he faced resistance from his sisters. Nonetheless, the couple married at St George's, Hanover Square in London, England. The couple had five children: Theodore "Ted" III in 1887, Kermit in 1889, Ethel in 1891, Archibald in 1894, and Quentin in 1897. The couple also raised Roosevelt's daughter from his first marriage, Alice, who often clashed with her stepmother.
Reentering public life
Upon Roosevelt's return to New York in 1886, Republican leaders quickly approached him about running for mayor of New York City in the city's mayoral election. Roosevelt accepted the nomination despite having little hope of winning the race against United Labor Party candidate Henry George and Democratic candidate Abram Hewitt. Roosevelt campaigned hard for the position, but Hewitt won with 41% (90,552 votes), taking the votes of many Republicans who feared George's radical policies. George was held to 31% (68,110 votes), and Roosevelt took third place with 27% (60,435 votes). Fearing that his political career might never recover, Roosevelt turned his attention to writing The Winning of the West, a historical work tracking the westward movement of Americans; the book was a great success for Roosevelt, earning favorable reviews and selling numerous copies.
Civil Service Commission
After Benjamin Harrison unexpectedly defeated Blaine for the presidential nomination at the 1888 Republican National Convention, Roosevelt gave stump speeches in the Midwest in support of Harrison. On the insistence of Henry Cabot Lodge, President Harrison appointed Roosevelt to the United States Civil Service Commission, where he served until 1895. While many of his predecessors had approached the office as a sinecure, Roosevelt vigorously fought the spoilsmen and demanded enforcement of civil service laws. The New York Sun then described Roosevelt as "irrepressible, belligerent, and enthusiastic". Roosevelt frequently clashed with Postmaster General John Wanamaker, who handed out numerous patronage positions to Harrison supporters, and Roosevelt's attempt to force out several postal workers damaged Harrison politically. Despite Roosevelt's support for Harrison's reelection bid in the presidential election of 1892, the eventual winner, Grover Cleveland, reappointed him to the same post. Roosevelt's close friend and biographer, Joseph Bucklin Bishop, described his assault on the spoils system:
New York City Police Commissioner
In 1894, a group of reform Republicans approached Roosevelt about running for Mayor of New York again; he declined, mostly due to his wife's resistance to being removed from the Washington social set. Soon after he declined, he realized that he had missed an opportunity to reinvigorate a dormant political career. He retreated to the Dakotas for a time; his wife Edith regretted her role in the decision and vowed that there would be no repeat of it.
William Lafayette Strong, a reform-minded Republican, won the 1894 mayoral election and offered Roosevelt a position on the board of the New York City Police Commissioners. Roosevelt became president of the board of commissioners and radically reformed the police force. Roosevelt implemented regular inspections of firearms and annual physical exams, appointed recruits based on their physical and mental qualifications rather than political affiliation, established Meritorious Service Medals, and closed corrupt police hostelries. During his tenure, a Municipal Lodging House was established by the Board of Charities, and Roosevelt required officers to register with the Board; he also had telephones installed in station houses.
In 1894, Roosevelt met Jacob Riis, the muckraking Evening Sun newspaper journalist who was opening the eyes of New Yorkers to the terrible conditions of the city's millions of poor immigrants with such books as How the Other Half Lives. Riis described how his book affected Roosevelt:
Roosevelt made a habit of walking officers' beats late at night and early in the morning to make sure that they were on duty. He made a concerted effort to uniformly enforce New York's Sunday closing law; in this, he ran up against boss Tom Platt as well as Tammany Hall—he was notified that the Police Commission was being legislated out of existence. His crackdowns led to protests and demonstrations. Invited to one large demonstration, not only did he surprisingly accept, he delighted in the insults, caricatures and lampoons directed at him, and earned some surprising good will. Roosevelt chose to defer rather than split with his party. As Governor of New York State, he would later sign an act replacing the Police Commission with a single Police Commissioner.
Emergence as a national figure
Assistant Secretary of the Navy
In the 1896 presidential election, Roosevelt backed Speaker of the House Thomas Brackett Reed for the Republican nomination, but William McKinley won the nomination and defeated William Jennings Bryan in the general election. Roosevelt opposed Bryan's free silver platform, viewing many of Bryan's followers as dangerous fanatics, and Roosevelt gave campaign speeches for McKinley. Urged by Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, President McKinley appointed Roosevelt as the Assistant Secretary of the Navy in 1897. Secretary of the Navy John D. Long was more concerned about formalities than functions, was in poor health, and left many major decisions to Roosevelt. Influenced by Alfred Thayer Mahan, Roosevelt called for a build-up in the country's naval strength, particularly the construction of battleships. Roosevelt also began pressing his national security views regarding the Pacific and the Caribbean on McKinley, and was particularly adamant that Spain be ejected from Cuba. He explained his priorities to one of the Navy's planners in late 1897:
On February 15, 1898, , an armored cruiser, exploded in the harbor of Havana, Cuba, killing hundreds of crew members. While Roosevelt and many other Americans blamed Spain for the explosion, McKinley sought a diplomatic solution. Without approval from Long or McKinley, Roosevelt sent out orders to several naval vessels, directing them to prepare for war. George Dewey, who had received an appointment to lead the Asiatic Squadron with the backing of Roosevelt, later credited his victory at the Battle of Manila Bay to Roosevelt's orders. After finally giving up hope of a peaceful solution, McKinley asked Congress to declare war upon Spain, beginning the Spanish–American War.
War in Cuba
With the beginning of the Spanish–American War in late April 1898, Roosevelt resigned from his post as Assistant Secretary of the Navy. Along with Army Colonel Leonard Wood, he formed the First US Volunteer Cavalry Regiment. His wife and many of his friends begged Roosevelt to remain in his post in Washington, but Roosevelt was determined to see battle. When the newspapers reported the formation of the new regiment, Roosevelt and Wood were flooded with applications from all over the country. Referred to by the press as the "Rough Riders", the regiment was one of many temporary units active only for the duration of the war.
The regiment trained for several weeks in San Antonio, Texas, and in his autobiography, Roosevelt wrote that his prior experience with the New York National Guard had been invaluable, in that it enabled him to immediately begin teaching his men basic soldiering skills. The Rough Riders used some standard issue gear and some of their own design, purchased with gift money. Diversity characterized the regiment, which included Ivy Leaguers, professional and amateur athletes, upscale gentlemen, cowboys, frontiersmen, Native Americans, hunters, miners, prospectors, former soldiers, tradesmen, and sheriffs. The Rough Riders were part of the cavalry division commanded by former Confederate general Joseph Wheeler, which itself was one of three divisions in the V Corps under Lieutenant General William Rufus Shafter. Roosevelt and his men landed in Daiquirí, Cuba, on June 23, 1898, and marched to Siboney. Wheeler sent parts of the 1st and 10th Regular Cavalry on the lower road northwest and sent the "Rough Riders" on the parallel road running along a ridge up from the beach. To throw off his infantry rival, Wheeler left one regiment of his Cavalry Division, the 9th, at Siboney so that he could claim that his move north was only a limited reconnaissance if things went wrong. Roosevelt was promoted to colonel and took command of the regiment when Wood was put in command of the brigade. The Rough Riders had a short, minor skirmish known as the Battle of Las Guasimas; they fought their way through Spanish resistance and, together with the Regulars, forced the Spaniards to abandon their positions.
Under his leadership, the Rough Riders became famous for the charge up Kettle Hill on July 1, 1898, while supporting the regulars. Roosevelt had the only horse, and rode back and forth between rifle pits at the forefront of the advance up Kettle Hill, an advance that he urged despite the absence of any orders from superiors. He was forced to walk up the last part of Kettle Hill because his horse had been entangled in barbed wire. The victories came at a cost of 200 killed and 1,000 wounded.
In August, Roosevelt and other officers demanded that the soldiers be returned home. Roosevelt always recalled the Battle of Kettle Hill (part of the San Juan Heights) as "the great day of my life" and "my crowded hour". In 2001, Roosevelt was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions; he had been nominated during the war, but Army officials, annoyed at his grabbing the headlines, blocked it. After returning to civilian life, Roosevelt preferred to be known as "Colonel Roosevelt" or "The Colonel", though "Teddy" remained much more popular with the public, even though Roosevelt openly despised that moniker. Men working closely with Roosevelt customarily called him "Colonel" or "Theodore". Henceforth, political cartoons of Roosevelt usually depicted him in his Rough Rider garb.
Governor of New York
After leaving Cuba in August 1898, the Rough Riders were transported to a camp at Montauk Point, Long Island, where Roosevelt and his men were briefly quarantined due to the War Department's fear of spreading yellow fever. Shortly after Roosevelt's return to the United States, Republican Congressman Lemuel E. Quigg, a lieutenant of party boss Tom Platt, asked Roosevelt to run in the 1898 gubernatorial election. Platt disliked Roosevelt personally, feared that Roosevelt would oppose Platt's interests in office, and was reluctant to propel Roosevelt to the forefront of national politics. However, Platt also needed a strong candidate due to the unpopularity of the incumbent Republican governor, Frank S. Black, and Roosevelt agreed to become the nominee and to try not to "make war" with the Republican establishment once in office. Roosevelt defeated Black in the Republican caucus by a vote of 753 to 218, and faced Democrat Augustus Van Wyck, a well-respected judge, in the general election. Roosevelt campaigned vigorously on his war record, winning the election by a margin of just one percent.
As governor, Roosevelt learned much about ongoing economic issues and political techniques that later proved valuable in his presidency. He was exposed to the problems of trusts, monopolies, labor relations, and conservation. Chessman argues that Roosevelt's program "rested firmly upon the concept of the square deal by a neutral state". The rules for the Square Deal were "honesty in public affairs, an equitable sharing of privilege and responsibility, and subordination of party and local concerns to the interests of the state at large".
By holding twice-daily press conferences—which was an innovation—Roosevelt remained connected with his middle-class political base. Roosevelt successfully pushed the Ford Franchise-Tax bill, which taxed public franchises granted by the state and controlled by corporations, declaring that "a corporation which derives its powers from the State, should pay to the State a just percentage of its earnings as a return for the privileges it enjoys". He rejected "boss" Thomas C. Platt's worries that this approached Bryanite Socialism, explaining that without it, New York voters might get angry and adopt public ownership of streetcar lines and other franchises.
The New York state government affected many interests, and the power to make appointments to policy-making positions was a key role for the governor. Platt insisted that he be consulted on major appointments; Roosevelt appeared to comply, but then made his own decisions. Historians marvel that Roosevelt managed to appoint so many first-rate men with Platt's approval. He even enlisted Platt's help in securing reform, such as in the spring of 1899, when Platt pressured state senators to vote for a civil service bill that the secretary of the Civil Service Reform Association called "superior to any civil service statute heretofore secured in America".
Chessman argues that as governor, Roosevelt developed the principles that shaped his presidency, especially insistence upon the public responsibility of large corporations, publicity as a first remedy for trusts, regulation of railroad rates, mediation of the conflict of capital and labor, conservation of natural resources and protection of the less fortunate members of society. Roosevelt sought to position himself against the excesses of large corporations on the one hand and radical movements on the other.
As the chief executive of the most populous state in the union, Roosevelt was widely considered a potential future presidential candidate, and supporters such as William Allen White encouraged him to run for president. Roosevelt had no interest in challenging McKinley for the Republican nomination in 1900, and was denied his preferred post of Secretary of War. As his term progressed, Roosevelt pondered a 1904 presidential run, but was uncertain about whether he should seek re-election as governor in 1900.
Vice Presidency (1901)
In November 1899, Vice President Garret Hobart died of heart failure, leaving an open spot on the 1900 Republican national ticket. Though Henry Cabot Lodge and others urged him to run for vice president in 1900, Roosevelt was reluctant to take the powerless position and issued a public statement saying that he would not accept the nomination. Additionally, Roosevelt was informed by President McKinley and campaign manager Mark Hanna that he was not being considered for the role of vice president due to his actions prior to the Spanish–American War. Eager to be rid of Roosevelt, Platt nonetheless began a newspaper campaign in favor of Roosevelt's nomination for the vice presidency. Roosevelt attended the 1900 Republican National Convention as a state delegate and struck a bargain with Platt: Roosevelt would accept the nomination for vice president if the convention offered it to him, but would otherwise serve another term as governor. Platt asked Pennsylvania party boss Matthew Quay to lead the campaign for Roosevelt's nomination, and Quay outmaneuvered Hanna at the convention to put Roosevelt on the ticket. Roosevelt won the nomination unanimously.
Roosevelt's vice-presidential campaigning proved highly energetic and an equal match for Democratic presidential nominee William Jennings Bryan's famous barnstorming style of campaigning. In a whirlwind campaign that displayed his energy to the public, Roosevelt made 480 stops in 23 states. He denounced the radicalism of Bryan, contrasting it with the heroism of the soldiers and sailors who fought and won the war against Spain. Bryan had strongly supported the war itself, but he denounced the annexation of the Philippines as imperialism, which would spoil America's innocence. Roosevelt countered that it was best for the Filipinos to have stability and the Americans to have a proud place in the world. With the nation basking in peace and prosperity, the voters gave McKinley an even larger victory than that which he had achieved in 1896.
After the campaign, Roosevelt took office as vice president in March 1901. The office of vice president was a powerless sinecure and did not suit Roosevelt's aggressive temperament. Roosevelt's six months as vice president were uneventful and boring for a man of action. He had no power; he presided over the Senate for a mere four days before it adjourned. On September 2, 1901, Roosevelt first publicized an aphorism that thrilled his supporters: "Speak softly and carry a big stick, and you will go far."
Presidency (1901–1909)
On September 6, 1901, President McKinley was attending the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York when he was shot by anarchist Leon Czolgosz. Roosevelt was vacationing in Isle La Motte, Vermont, and traveled to Buffalo to visit McKinley in the hospital. It appeared that McKinley would recover, so Roosevelt resumed his vacation in the Adirondack Mountains. When McKinley's condition worsened, Roosevelt again rushed back to Buffalo. McKinley died on September 14, and Roosevelt was informed while he was in North Creek; he continued on to Buffalo and was sworn in as the nation's 26th president at the Ansley Wilcox House.
McKinley's supporters were nervous about the new president, and Hanna was particularly bitter that the man he had opposed so vigorously at the convention had succeeded McKinley. Roosevelt assured party leaders that he intended to adhere to McKinley's policies, and he retained McKinley's Cabinet. Nonetheless, Roosevelt sought to position himself as the party's undisputed leader, seeking to bolster the role of the president and position himself for the 1904 election. The vice presidency remained vacant, as there was no constitutional provision for filling an intra-term vacancy in that office (prior to the 25th Amendment in 1967).
Shortly after taking office, Roosevelt invited Booker T. Washington to dinner at the White House. This sparked a bitter, and at times vicious, reaction among whites across the heavily segregated South. Roosevelt reacted with astonishment and protest, saying that he looked forward to many future dinners with Washington. Upon further reflection, Roosevelt wanted to ensure that this had no effect on political support in the white South, and further dinner invitations to Washington were avoided; their next meeting was scheduled as typical business at 10:00 a.m. instead.
Domestic policies
Trust busting and regulation
For his aggressive use of the 1890 Sherman Antitrust Act, compared to his predecessors, Roosevelt was hailed as the "trust-buster"; but in reality he was more of a trust regulator. Roosevelt viewed big business as a necessary part of the American economy, and sought only to prosecute the "bad trusts" that restrained trade and charged unfair prices. He brought 44 antitrust suits, breaking up the Northern Securities Company, the largest railroad monopoly; and regulating Standard Oil, the largest oil company. Presidents Benjamin Harrison, Grover Cleveland, and William McKinley combined had prosecuted only 18 antitrust violations under the Sherman Antitrust Act.
Bolstered by his party's winning large majorities in the 1902 elections, Roosevelt proposed the creation of the United States Department of Commerce and Labor, which would include the Bureau of Corporations. While Congress was receptive to the Department of Commerce and Labor, it was more skeptical of the antitrust powers that Roosevelt sought to endow within the Bureau of Corporations. Roosevelt successfully appealed to the public to pressure Congress, and Congress overwhelmingly voted to pass Roosevelt's version of the bill.
In a moment of frustration, House Speaker Joseph Gurney Cannon commented on Roosevelt's desire for executive branch control in domestic policy-making: "That fellow at the other end of the avenue wants everything from the birth of Christ to the death of the devil." Biographer Brands states, "Even his friends occasionally wondered whether there wasn't any custom or practice too minor for him to try to regulate, update or otherwise improve." In fact, Roosevelt's willingness to exercise his power included attempted rule changes in the game of football; at the Naval Academy, he sought to force retention of martial arts classes and to revise disciplinary rules. He even ordered changes made in the minting of a coin whose design he disliked, and ordered the Government Printing Office to adopt simplified spellings for a core list of 300 words, according to reformers on the Simplified Spelling Board. He was forced to rescind the latter after substantial ridicule from the press and a resolution of protest from the House of Representatives.
Coal strike
In May 1902, anthracite coal miners went on strike, threatening a national energy shortage. After threatening the coal operators with intervention by federal troops, Roosevelt won their agreement to dispute arbitration by a commission, which succeeded in stopping the strike. The accord with J. P. Morgan resulted in the miners getting more pay for fewer hours, but with no union recognition. Roosevelt said, "My action on labor should always be considered in connection with my action as regards capital, and both are reducible to my favorite formula—a square deal for every man." Roosevelt was the first president to help settle a labor dispute.
Prosecuted misconduct
During Roosevelt's second year in office it was discovered there was corruption in the Indian Service, the Land Office, and the Post Office Department. Roosevelt investigated and prosecuted corrupt Indian agents who had cheated the Creeks and various tribes out of land parcels. Land fraud and speculation were found involving Oregon federal timberlands. In November 1902, Roosevelt and Secretary Ethan A. Hitchcock forced Binger Hermann, the General Land Office Commissioner, to resign from office. On November 6, 1903 Francis J. Heney was appointed special prosecutor and obtained 146 indictments involving an Oregon Land Office bribery ring. U.S. Senator John H. Mitchell was indicted for bribery to expedite illegal land patents, found guilty in July 1905, and sentenced to six months in prison. More corruption was found in the Postal Department, that brought on the indictments of 44 government employees on charges of bribery and fraud. Historians generally agree that Roosevelt moved "quickly and decisively" to prosecute misconduct in his administration.
Railroads
Merchants complained that some railroad rates were too high. In the 1906 Hepburn Act, Roosevelt sought to give the Interstate Commerce Commission the power to regulate rates, but the Senate, led by conservative Nelson Aldrich, fought back. Roosevelt worked with the Democratic Senator Benjamin Tillman to pass the bill. Roosevelt and Aldrich ultimately reached a compromise that gave the ICC the power to replace existing rates with "just-and-reasonable" maximum rates, but allowed railroads to appeal to the federal courts on what was "reasonable". In addition to rate-setting, the Hepburn Act also granted the ICC regulatory power over pipeline fees, storage contracts, and several other aspects of railroad operations.
Pure food and drugs
Roosevelt responded to public anger over the abuses in the food packing industry by pushing Congress to pass the Meat Inspection Act of 1906 and the Pure Food and Drug Act. Though conservatives initially opposed the bill, Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, published in 1906, helped galvanize support for reform. The Meat Inspection Act of 1906 banned misleading labels and preservatives that contained harmful chemicals. The Pure Food and Drug Act banned food and drugs that were impure or falsely labeled from being made, sold, and shipped. Roosevelt also served as honorary president of the American School Hygiene Association from 1907 to 1908, and in 1909 he convened the first White House Conference on the Care of Dependent Children.
Conservation
Of all Roosevelt's achievements, he was proudest of his work in the conservation of natural resources and extending federal protection to land and wildlife. Roosevelt worked closely with Interior Secretary James Rudolph Garfield and Chief of the United States Forest Service Gifford Pinchot to enact a series of conservation programs that often met with resistance from Western members of Congress, such as Charles William Fulton. Nonetheless, Roosevelt established the United States Forest Service, signed into law the creation of five National Parks, and signed the 1906 Antiquities Act, under which he proclaimed 18 new U.S. National Monuments. He also established the first 51 bird reserves, four game preserves, and 150 National Forests. The area of the United States that he placed under public protection totals approximately .
Roosevelt extensively used executive orders on a number of occasions to protect forest and wildlife lands during his tenure as president. By the end of his second term in office, Roosevelt used executive orders to establish of reserved forestry land. Roosevelt was unapologetic about his extensive use of executive orders to protect the environment, despite the perception in Congress that he was encroaching on too many lands. Eventually, Senator Charles Fulton (R-OR) attached an amendment to an agricultural appropriations bill that effectively prevented the president from reserving any further land. Before signing that bill into law, Roosevelt used executive orders to establish an additional 21 forest reserves, waiting until the last minute to sign the bill into law. In total, Roosevelt used executive orders to establish 121 forest reserves in 31 states. Prior to Roosevelt, only one president had issued over 200 executive orders, Grover Cleveland (253). The first 25 presidents issued a total of 1,262 executive orders; Roosevelt issued 1,081.
Foreign policy
Japan
The American annexation of Hawaii in 1898 was stimulated in part by fear that otherwise Japan would dominate the Hawaiian Republic. Similarly, Germany was the alternative to American takeover of the Philippines in 1900, and Tokyo strongly preferred the U.S. to take over. As the U.S. became a naval world power, it needed to find a way to avoid a military confrontation in the Pacific with Japan.
In the 1890s, Roosevelt had been an ardent imperialist and vigorously defended the permanent acquisition of the Philippines in the 1900 campaign. After the local insurrection ended in 1902, he largely lost his imperialist interest in the Philippines and Asian expansion but wished to have a strong U.S. presence in the region as a symbol of democratic values. One of Theodore Roosevelt's priorities during his presidency and afterwards, was the maintenance of friendly relations with Japan. From 1904 to 1905 Japan and Russia were at war. Roosevelt admired the martial courage of the Japanese, and distrusted the reckless German Kaiser. Both sides asked Roosevelt to mediate a peace conference, held successfully in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Roosevelt won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts.
In California, anti-Japanese hostility was growing, and Tokyo protested. Roosevelt negotiated a "Gentleman's Agreement" in 1907. Explicit discrimination against the Japanese was ended, and Japan agreed not to allow unskilled immigrants into the United States. The Great White Fleet of American battleships visited Japan in 1908. Pulitzer prize-winning biographer Henry Pringle states that the great voyage was "the direct result of the Japanese trouble." Roosevelt intended to emphasize the superiority of the American fleet over the smaller Japanese navy, but instead of resentment the visitors arrived to a joyous welcome by Japanese elite as well as the general public. This good-will facilitated the Root–Takahira Agreement of November 1908 which reaffirmed the status quo of Japanese control of Korea and American control of the Philippines.
Europe
Success in the war against Spain and the new empire, plus having the largest economy in the world, meant that the United States had emerged as a world power. Roosevelt searched for ways to win recognition for the position abroad.
Roosevelt also played a major role in mediating the First Moroccan Crisis by calling the Algeciras Conference, which averted war between France and Germany.
Roosevelt's presidency saw the strengthening of ties with Great Britain. The Great Rapprochement had begun with British support of the United States during the Spanish–American War, and it continued as Britain withdrew its fleet from the Caribbean in favor of focusing on the rising German naval threat. In 1901, Britain and the United States signed the Hay–Pauncefote Treaty, abrogating the Clayton–Bulwer Treaty, which had prevented the United States from constructing a canal connecting the Pacific and the Atlantic Ocean. The long-standing Alaska boundary dispute was settled on terms favorable to the United States, as Great Britain was unwilling to alienate the United States over what it considered to be a secondary issue. As Roosevelt later put it, the resolution of the Alaskan boundary dispute "settled the last serious trouble between the British Empire and ourselves."
Latin America and Panama Canal
As president, he primarily focused the nation's overseas ambitions on the Caribbean, especially locations that had a bearing on the defense of his pet project, the Panama Canal. Roosevelt also increased the size of the navy, and by the end of his second term the United States had more battleships than any other country besides Britain. The Panama Canal when it opened in 1914 allowed the U.S. Navy to rapidly move back and forth from the Pacific to the Caribbean to European waters.
In December 1902, the Germans, British, and Italians blockaded the ports of Venezuela in order to force the repayment of delinquent loans. Roosevelt was particularly concerned with the motives of German Emperor Wilhelm II. He succeeded in getting the three nations to agree to arbitration by tribunal at The Hague, and successfully defused the crisis. The latitude granted to the Europeans by the arbiters was in part responsible for the "Roosevelt Corollary" to the Monroe Doctrine, which the President issued in 1904: "Chronic wrongdoing or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation, and in the Western Hemisphere, the adherence of the United States to the Monroe doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power."
The pursuit of an isthmus canal in Central America during this period focused on two possible routes—Nicaragua and Panama, which was then a rebellious district within Colombia. Roosevelt convinced Congress to approve the Panamanian alternative, and a treaty was approved, only to be rejected by the Colombian government. When the Panamanians learned of this, a rebellion followed, was supported by Roosevelt, and succeeded. A treaty with the new Panama government for construction of the canal was then reached in 1903. Roosevelt received criticism for paying the bankrupt Panama Canal Company and the New Panama Canal Company $40,000,000 (equivalent to $ billion in ) for the rights and equipment to build the canal. Critics charged that an American investor syndicate allegedly divided the large payment among themselves. There was also controversy over whether a French company engineer influenced Roosevelt in choosing the Panama route for the canal over the Nicaragua route. Roosevelt denied charges of corruption concerning the canal in a January 8, 1906 message to Congress. In January 1909, Roosevelt, in an unprecedented move, brought criminal libel charges against the New York World and the Indianapolis News known as the "Roosevelt-Panama Libel Cases". Both cases were dismissed by U.S. District Courts, and on January 3, 1911, the U.S. Supreme Court, upon federal appeal, upheld the lower courts' rulings. Historians are sharply critical of Roosevelt's criminal prosecutions of the World and the News, but are divided on whether actual corruption in acquiring and building the Panama Canal took place.
In 1906, following a disputed election, an insurrection ensued in Cuba; Roosevelt sent Taft, the Secretary of War, to monitor the situation; he was convinced that he had the authority to unilaterally authorize Taft to deploy Marines if necessary, without congressional approval.
Examining the work of numerous scholars, Ricard (2014) reports that:
The most striking evolution in the twenty-first-century historiography of Theodore Roosevelt is the switch from a partial arraignment of the imperialist to a quasi-unanimous celebration of the master diplomatist.... [Recent works] have underlined cogently Roosevelt's exceptional statesmanship in the construction of the nascent twentieth-century "special relationship". ...The twenty-sixth president's reputation as a brilliant diplomatist and realpolitician has undeniably reached new heights in the twenty-first century...yet, his Philippine policy still prompts criticism.
Media
Building on McKinley's effective use of the press, Roosevelt made the White House the center of news every day, providing interviews and photo opportunities. After noticing the reporters huddled outside the White House in the rain one day, he gave them their own room inside, effectively inventing the presidential press briefing. The grateful press, with unprecedented access to the White House, rewarded Roosevelt with ample coverage.
Roosevelt normally enjoyed very close relationships with the press, which he used to keep in daily contact with his middle-class base. While out of office, he made a living as a writer and magazine editor. He loved talking with intellectuals, authors, and writers. He drew the line, however, at exposé-oriented scandal-mongering journalists who, during his term, sent magazine subscriptions soaring by their attacks on corrupt politicians, mayors, and corporations. Roosevelt himself was not usually a target, but a speech of his from 1906 coined the term "muckraker" for unscrupulous journalists making wild charges. "The liar", he said, "is no whit better than the thief, and if his mendacity takes the form of slander he may be worse than most thieves."
The press did briefly target Roosevelt in one instance. After 1904, he was periodically criticized for the manner in which he facilitated the construction of the Panama Canal. According to biographer Brands, Roosevelt, near the end of his term, demanded that the Justice Department bring charges of criminal libel against Joseph Pulitzer's New York World. The publication had accused him of "deliberate misstatements of fact" in defense of family members who were criticized as a result of the Panama affair. Though an indictment was obtained, the case was ultimately dismissed in federal court—it was not a federal offense, but one enforceable in state courts. The Justice Department had predicted that result, and had also advised Roosevelt accordingly.
Election of 1904
The control and management of the Republican Party lay in the hands of Ohio Senator and Republican Party chairman Mark Hanna until McKinley's death. Roosevelt and Hanna frequently cooperated during Roosevelt's first term, but Hanna left open the possibility of a challenge to Roosevelt for the 1904 Republican nomination. Roosevelt and Ohio's other Senator, Joseph B. Foraker, forced Hanna's hand by calling for Ohio's state Republican convention to endorse Roosevelt for the 1904 nomination. Unwilling to break with the president, Hanna was forced to publicly endorse Roosevelt. Hanna and Pennsylvania Senator Matthew Quay both died in early 1904, and with the waning of Thomas Platt's power, Roosevelt faced little effective opposition for the 1904 nomination. In deference to Hanna's conservative loyalists, Roosevelt at first offered the party chairmanship to Cornelius Bliss, but he declined. Roosevelt turned to his own man, George B. Cortelyou of New York, the first Secretary of Commerce and Labor. To buttress his hold on the party's nomination, Roosevelt made it clear that anyone opposing Cortelyou would be considered to be opposing the President. The President secured his own nomination, but his preferred vice-presidential running mate, Robert R. Hitt, was not nominated. Senator Charles Warren Fairbanks of Indiana, a favorite of conservatives, gained the nomination.
While Roosevelt followed the tradition of incumbents in not actively campaigning on the stump, he sought to control the campaign's message through specific instructions to Cortelyou. He also attempted to manage the press's release of White House statements by forming the Ananias Club. Any journalist who repeated a statement made by the president without approval was penalized by restriction of further access.
The Democratic Party's nominee in 1904 was Alton Brooks Parker. Democratic newspapers charged that Republicans were extorting large campaign contributions from corporations, putting ultimate responsibility on Roosevelt, himself. Roosevelt denied corruption while at the same time he ordered Cortelyou to return $100,000 (equivalent to $ million in ) of a campaign contribution from Standard Oil. Parker said that Roosevelt was accepting corporate donations to keep damaging information from the Bureau of Corporations from going public. Roosevelt strongly denied Parker's charge and responded that he would "go into the Presidency unhampered by any pledge, promise, or understanding of any kind, sort, or description...". Allegations from Parker and the Democrats, however, had little impact on the election, as Roosevelt promised to give every American a "square deal". Roosevelt won 56% of the popular vote, and Parker received 38%; Roosevelt also won the Electoral College vote, 336 to 140. Before his inauguration ceremony, Roosevelt declared that he would not serve another term. Democrats afterwards would continue to charge Roosevelt and the Republicans of being influenced by corporate donations during Roosevelt's second term.
Second term
As his second term progressed, Roosevelt moved to the left of his Republican Party base and called for a series of reforms, most of which Congress failed to pass. In his last year in office, he was assisted by his friend Archibald Butt (who later perished in the sinking of RMS Titanic). Roosevelt's influence waned as he approached the end of his second term, as his promise to forego a third term made him a lame duck and his concentration of power provoked a backlash from many Congressmen. He sought a national incorporation law (at a time when all corporations had state charters), called for a federal income tax (despite the Supreme Court's ruling in Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co.), and an inheritance tax. In the area of labor legislation, Roosevelt called for limits on the use of court injunctions against labor unions during strikes; injunctions were a powerful weapon that mostly helped business. He wanted an employee liability law for industrial injuries (pre-empting state laws) and an eight-hour work day for federal employees. In other areas he also sought a postal savings system (to provide competition for local banks), and he asked for campaign reform laws.
The election of 1904 continued to be a source of contention between Republicans and Democrats. A Congressional investigation in 1905 revealed that corporate executives donated tens of thousands of dollars in 1904 to the Republican National Committee. In 1908, a month before the general presidential election, Governor Charles N. Haskell of Oklahoma, former Democratic Treasurer, said that Senators beholden to Standard Oil lobbied Roosevelt, in the summer of 1904, to authorize the leasing of Indian oil lands by Standard Oil subsidiaries. He said Roosevelt overruled his Secretary of Interior Ethan A. Hitchcock and granted a pipeline franchise to run through the Osage lands to the Prairie Oil and Gas Company. The New York Sun made a similar accusation and said that Standard Oil, a refinery who financially benefited from the pipeline, had contributed $150,000 to the Republicans in 1904 (equivalent to $ million in ) after Roosevelt's alleged reversal allowing the pipeline franchise. Roosevelt branded Haskell's allegation as "a lie, pure and simple" and obtained a denial from Treasury Secretary Shaw that Roosevelt had neither coerced Shaw nor overruled him.
Post-presidency (1909–1919)
Election of 1908
Roosevelt enjoyed being president and was still relatively youthful, but felt that a limited number of terms provided a check against dictatorship. Roosevelt ultimately decided to stick to his 1904 pledge not to run for a third term. He personally favored Secretary of State Elihu Root as his successor, but Root's ill health made him an unsuitable candidate. New York Governor Charles Evans Hughes loomed as a potentially strong candidate and shared Roosevelt's progressivism, but Roosevelt disliked him and considered him to be too independent. Instead, Roosevelt settled on his Secretary of War, William Howard Taft, who had ably served under Presidents Harrison, McKinley, and Roosevelt in various positions. Roosevelt and Taft had been friends since 1890, and Taft had consistently supported President Roosevelt's policies. Roosevelt was determined to install the successor of his choice, and wrote the following to Taft: "Dear Will: Do you want any action about those federal officials? I will break their necks with the utmost cheerfulness if you say the word!". Just weeks later he branded as "false and malicious" the charge that he was using the offices at his disposal to favor Taft. At the 1908 Republican convention, many chanted for "four years more" of a Roosevelt presidency, but Taft won the nomination after Henry Cabot Lodge made it clear that Roosevelt was not interested in a third term.
In the 1908 election, Taft easily defeated the Democratic nominee, three-time candidate William Jennings Bryan. Taft promoted a progressivism that stressed the rule of law; he preferred that judges rather than administrators or politicians make the basic decisions about fairness. Taft usually proved to be a less adroit politician than Roosevelt and lacked the energy and personal magnetism, along with the publicity devices, the dedicated supporters, and the broad base of public support that made Roosevelt so formidable. When Roosevelt realized that lowering the tariff would risk creating severe tensions inside the Republican Party by pitting producers (manufacturers and farmers) against merchants and consumers, he stopped talking about the issue. Taft ignored the risks and tackled the tariff boldly, encouraging reformers to fight for lower rates, and then cutting deals with conservative leaders that kept overall rates high. The resulting Payne-Aldrich tariff of 1909, signed into law early in President Taft's tenure, was too high for most reformers, and Taft's handling of the tariff alienated all sides. While the crisis was building inside the Party, Roosevelt was touring Africa and Europe, to allow Taft to be his own man.
Africa and Europe (1909–1910)
In March 1909, shortly after the end of his presidency, Roosevelt left New York for the Smithsonian-Roosevelt African Expedition, a safari in east and central Africa. Roosevelt's party landed in Mombasa, East Africa (now Kenya) and traveled to the Belgian Congo (now Democratic Republic of the Congo) before following the Nile to Khartoum in modern Sudan. Financed by Andrew Carnegie and by his own writings, Roosevelt's party hunted for specimens for the Smithsonian Institution and for the American Museum of Natural History in New York. The group, led by the hunter-tracker RJ Cunninghame, included scientists from the Smithsonian, and was joined from time to time by Frederick Selous, the famous big game hunter and explorer. Participants on the expedition included Kermit Roosevelt, Edgar Alexander Mearns, Edmund Heller, and John Alden Loring.
Roosevelt and his companions killed or trapped approximately 11,400 animals, from insects and moles to hippopotamuses and elephants. The 1,000 large animals included 512 big game animals, including six rare white rhinos. Tons of salted animals and their skins were shipped to Washington; it took years to mount them all, and the Smithsonian shared many duplicate specimens with other museums. Regarding the large number of animals taken, Roosevelt said, "I can be condemned only if the existence of the National Museum, the American Museum of Natural History, and all similar zoological institutions are to be condemned". He wrote a detailed account of the safari in the book African Game Trails, recounting the excitement of the chase, the people he met, and the flora and fauna he collected in the name of science.
After his safari, Roosevelt traveled north to embark on a tour of Europe. Stopping first in Egypt, he commented favorably on British rule of the region, giving his opinion that Egypt was not yet ready for independence. He refused a meeting with the Pope due to a dispute over a group of Methodists active in Rome, but met with Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, King George V of Great Britain, and other European leaders. In Oslo, Norway, Roosevelt delivered a speech calling for limitations on naval armaments, a strengthening of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, and the creation of a "League of Peace" among the world powers. He also delivered the Romanes Lecture at Oxford, in which he denounced those who sought parallels between the evolution of animal life and the development of society. Though Roosevelt attempted to avoid domestic politics during his time abroad, he met with Gifford Pinchot, who related his own disappointment with the Taft Administration. Pinchot had been forced to resign as head of the forest service after clashing with Taft's Interior Secretary, Richard Ballinger, who had prioritized development over conservation. Roosevelt returned to the United States in June 1910.
Republican Party schism
Roosevelt had attempted to refashion Taft into a second version of himself, but as soon as Taft began to display his individuality, the former president expressed his disenchantment. He was offended on election night when Taft indicated that his success had been possible not just through the efforts of Roosevelt, but also his brother Charley. Roosevelt was further alienated when Taft, intent on becoming his own man, did not consult him about cabinet appointments. Roosevelt and other progressives were ideologically dissatisfied over Taft's conservation policies and his handling of the tariff when he concentrated more power in the hands of conservative party leaders in Congress. Regarding radicalism and liberalism, Roosevelt wrote a British friend in 1911:
Fundamentally it is the radical liberal with whom I sympathize. He is at least working toward the end for which I think we should all of us strive; and when he adds sanity in moderation to courage and enthusiasm for high ideals he develops into the kind of statesman whom alone I can wholeheartedly support."
Roosevelt urged progressives to take control of the Republican Party at the state and local level and to avoid splitting the party in a way that would hand the presidency to the Democrats in 1912. Additionally, Roosevelt expressed optimism about the Taft Administration after meeting with the president in the White House in June 1910.
In August 1910, Roosevelt gained national attention with a speech at Osawatomie, Kansas, which was the most radical of his career and marked his public break with Taft and the conservative Republicans. Advocating a program of "New Nationalism", Roosevelt emphasized the priority of labor over capital interests, a need to more effectively control corporate creation and combination, and proposed a ban on corporate political contributions. Returning to New York, Roosevelt began a battle to take control of the state Republican party from William Barnes Jr., Tom Platt's successor as the state party boss, whom he would later confront in the Barnes vs. Roosevelt Libel Trial. Taft had pledged his support to Roosevelt in this endeavor, and Roosevelt was outraged when Taft's support failed to materialize at the 1910 state convention. Roosevelt nonetheless campaigned for the Republicans in the 1910 elections, in which the Democrats gained control of the House for the first time since the 1890s. Among the newly elected Democrats was New York state senator Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who argued that he represented his distant cousin's policies better than his Republican opponent.
The Republican progressives interpreted the 1910 defeats as a compelling argument for the complete reorganization of the party in 1911. Senator Robert M. La Follette of Wisconsin joined with Pinchot, William White, and California Governor Hiram Johnson to create the National Progressive Republican League; their objectives were to defeat the power of political bossism at the state level and to replace Taft at the national level. Despite skepticism of La Follette's new league, Roosevelt expressed general support for progressive principles. Between January and April 1911, Roosevelt wrote a series of articles for The Outlook, defending what he called "the great movement of our day, the progressive nationalist movement against special privilege, and in favor of an honest and efficient political and industrial democracy". With Roosevelt apparently uninterested in running in 1912, La Follette declared his own candidacy in June 1911. Roosevelt continually criticized Taft after the 1910 elections, and the break between the two men became final after the Justice Department filed an antitrust lawsuit against US Steel in September 1911; Roosevelt was humiliated by this suit because he had personally approved of an acquisition that the Justice Department was now challenging. However, Roosevelt was still unwilling to run against Taft in 1912; he instead hoped to run in 1916 against whichever Democrat beat Taft in 1912.
Dispute over arbitration treaties
Taft was a major advocate of arbitration as a major reform of the Progressive Era. In 1911 Taft and his Secretary of State Philander C. Knox negotiated major treaties with Great Britain and with France providing that differences be arbitrated. Disputes had to be submitted to the Hague Court or other tribunal. These were signed in August 1911 but had to be ratified by a two-thirds vote of the Senate. Neither Taft nor Knox consulted with members of the Senate during the negotiating process. By then many Republicans were opposed to Taft, and the president felt that lobbying too hard for the treaties might cause their defeat. He made some speeches supporting the treaties in October, but the Senate added amendments Taft could not accept, killing the agreements.
The arbitration issue opens a window on a bitter philosophical dispute among American progressives. Some, led by Taft looked to legal arbitration as the best alternative to warfare. Taft was a constitutional lawyer who later became Chief Justice; he had a deep understanding of the legal issues. Taft's political base was the conservative business community that largely supported peace movements before 1914. However, his mistake, in this case, was a failure to mobilize that base. The businessmen believed that economic rivalries were the cause of war, and that extensive trade led to an interdependent world that would make war a very expensive and useless anachronism.
However, an opposing faction of progressives, led by Roosevelt, ridiculed arbitration as foolhardy idealism, and insisted on the realism of warfare as the only solution to serious international disputes. Roosevelt worked with his close friend Senator Henry Cabot Lodge to impose those amendments that ruined the goals of the treaties. Lodge thought the treaties impinged too much on senatorial prerogatives. Roosevelt, however, was acting to sabotage Taft's campaign promises. At a deeper level, Roosevelt truly believed that arbitration was a naïve solution and the great issues had to be decided by warfare. The Rooseveltian approach incorporated a near-mystical faith of the ennobling nature of war. It endorsed jingoistic nationalism as opposed to the businessmen's calculation of profit and national interest.
Election of 1912
Republican primaries and convention
In November 1911, a group of Ohio Republicans endorsed Roosevelt for the party's nomination for president; the endorsers included James R. Garfield and Dan Hanna. This endorsement was made by leaders of President Taft's home state. Roosevelt conspicuously declined to make a statement—requested by Garfield—that he would flatly refuse a nomination. Soon thereafter, Roosevelt said, "I am really sorry for Taft... I am sure he means well, but he means well feebly, and he does not know how! He is utterly unfit for leadership and this is a time when we need leadership." In January 1912, Roosevelt declared "if the people make a draft on me I shall not decline to serve". Later that year, Roosevelt spoke before the Constitutional Convention in Ohio, openly identifying as a progressive and endorsing progressive reforms—even endorsing popular review of state judicial decisions. In reaction to Roosevelt's proposals for popular overrule of court decisions, Taft said, "Such extremists are not progressives—they are political emotionalists or neurotics".
Roosevelt began to envision himself as the savior of the Republican Party from defeat in the upcoming presidential election. In February 1912, Roosevelt announced in Boston, "I will accept the nomination for president if it is tendered to me. I hope that so far as possible the people may be given the chance through direct primaries to express who shall be the nominee. Elihu Root and Henry Cabot Lodge thought that division of the party would lead to its defeat in the next election, while Taft believed that he would be defeated either in the Republican primary or in the general election.
The 1912 primaries represented the first extensive use of the presidential primary, a reform achievement of the progressive movement. The Republican primaries in the South, where party regulars dominated, went for Taft, as did results in New York, Indiana, Michigan, Kentucky and Massachusetts. Meanwhile, Roosevelt won in Illinois, Minnesota, Nebraska, South Dakota, California, Maryland and Pennsylvania; Roosevelt also won Taft's home state of Ohio. These primary elections, while demonstrating Roosevelt's continuing popularity with the electorate, were not pivotal. The final credentials of the state delegates at the national convention were determined by the national committee, which was controlled by the party leaders, headed by the incumbent president.
Prior to the 1912 Republican National Convention in Chicago, Roosevelt expressed doubt about his prospects for victory, noting that Taft had more delegates and control of the credentials committee. His only hope was to convince party leaders that the nomination of Taft would hand the election to the Democrats, but party leaders were determined not to cede their leadership to Roosevelt. The credentials committee awarded almost all contested delegates to Taft, and Taft won the nomination on the first ballot. Black delegates from the South played a key role: they voted heavily for Taft and put him over the top. La Follette also helped Taft's candidacy; he hoped that a deadlocked convention would result in his own nomination, and refused to release his delegates to support Roosevelt.
The Progressive ("Bull Moose") Party
Once his defeat at the Republican convention appeared probable, Roosevelt announced that he would "accept the progressive nomination on a progressive platform and I shall fight to the end, win or lose". At the same time, Roosevelt prophetically said, "My feeling is that the Democrats will probably win if they nominate a progressive".
Roosevelt left the Republican Party and created the Progressive Party, structuring it as a permanent organization that would field complete tickets at the presidential and state level. The party included Roosevelt and key allies such as Pinchot, Cornelia Bryce Pinchot (Pinchot's wife and a longtime friend of Roosevelt's), and Albert Beveridge. The new party was popularly known as the "Bull Moose Party" after Roosevelt told reporters, "I'm as fit as a bull moose". At the 1912 Progressive National Convention, Roosevelt cried out, "We stand at Armageddon and we battle for the Lord." California Governor Hiram Johnson was nominated as Roosevelt's running mate. Roosevelt's platform echoed his 1907–1908 proposals, calling for vigorous government intervention to protect the people from selfish interests:
Though many Progressive party supporters in the North were supporters of civil rights for blacks, Roosevelt did not give strong support to civil rights and ran a "lily-white" campaign in the South. Rival all-white and all-black delegations from four southern states arrived at the Progressive national convention, and Roosevelt decided to seat the all-white delegations. Nevertheless, he won little support outside mountain Republican strongholds. Out of nearly 1100 counties in the South, Roosevelt won two counties in Alabama, one in Arkansas, seven in North Carolina, three in Georgia, 17 in Tennessee, two in Texas, one in Virginia, and none in Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, or South Carolina.
Assassination attempt
On October 14, 1912, while arriving at a campaign event in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Roosevelt was shot from seven feet away in front of the Gilpatrick Hotel by a delusional saloonkeeper named John Flammang Schrank, who believed that the ghost of assassinated president William McKinley had directed him to kill Roosevelt. The bullet lodged in his chest after penetrating his steel eyeglass case and passing through a 50-page-thick single-folded copy of the speech titled "Progressive Cause Greater Than Any Individual", which he was carrying in his jacket. Schrank was immediately disarmed (by Czech immigrant Frank Bukovsky), captured, and might have been lynched had Roosevelt not shouted for Schrank to remain unharmed. Roosevelt assured the crowd he was all right, then ordered police to take charge of Schrank and to make sure no violence was done to him.
As an experienced hunter and anatomist, Roosevelt correctly concluded that since he was not coughing blood, the bullet had not reached his lung. He declined suggestions to go to the hospital immediately and instead delivered a 90 minute speech with blood seeping into his shirt. His opening comments to the gathered crowd were, "Ladies and gentlemen, I don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot, but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose." Only after finishing his address did he accept medical attention.
Subsequent probes and an x-ray showed that the bullet had lodged in Roosevelt's chest muscle, but did not penetrate the pleura. Doctors concluded that it would be less dangerous to leave it in place than to attempt to remove it, and Roosevelt carried the bullet with him for the rest of his life. Both Taft and Democratic nominee Woodrow Wilson suspended their own campaigning until Roosevelt recovered and resumed his. When asked if the shooting would affect his election campaign, he said to the reporter "I'm fit as a bull moose." The bull moose became a symbol of both Roosevelt and the Progressive Party, and it often was referred to as simply the Bull Moose Party. He spent two weeks recuperating before returning to the campaign trail. He later wrote a friend about the bullet inside him, "I do not mind it any more than if it were in my waistcoat pocket."
Farewell manifesto
On October 20, Roosevelt spoke to a crowd of 16,000 at Madison Square Garden. The speech included: "Perhaps once in a generation, there comes a chance for the people of a country to play their part wisely and fearlessly in some great battle of the age-long warfare for human rights."
Election results
After the Democrats nominated Governor Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey, Roosevelt did not expect to win the general election, as Wilson had compiled a record attractive to many progressive Democrats who might have otherwise considered voting for Roosevelt. Roosevelt still campaigned vigorously, and the election developed into a two-person contest between Wilson and Roosevelt despite Taft's presence in the race. Roosevelt respected Wilson, but the two differed on various issues; Wilson opposed any federal intervention regarding women's suffrage or child labor (he viewed these as state issues), and attacked Roosevelt's tolerance of large businesses.
Roosevelt won 4.1 million votes (27%), compared to Taft's 3.5 million (23%). Wilson gained 6.3 million votes (42% of the total) and a massive landslide in the Electoral College, with 435 electoral votes; Roosevelt won 88 electoral votes, while Taft won 8. Pennsylvania was the only eastern state won by Roosevelt; in the Midwest, he carried Michigan, Minnesota, and South Dakota; in the West, California, and Washington. Wilson's victory represented the first Democratic presidential election victory since Cleveland's 1892 campaign, and it was the party's best performance in the Electoral College since 1852. Roosevelt, meanwhile, garnered a higher share of the popular vote than any other third-party presidential candidate in history and won the most states of any third-party candidate after the Civil War.
South American expedition (1913-1914)
A friend of Roosevelt's, Father John Augustine Zahm, persuaded Roosevelt to participate in an expedition to South America. To finance the expedition, Roosevelt received support from the American Museum of Natural History in return for promising to bring back many new animal specimens. Roosevelt's popular book, Through the Brazilian Wilderness describes his expedition into the Brazilian jungle in 1913 as a member of the Roosevelt-Rondon Scientific Expedition, co-named after its leader, Brazilian explorer Cândido Rondon.
Once in South America, a new, far more ambitious goal was added: to find the headwaters of the Rio da Duvida (Portuguese for "River of Doubt"), and trace it north to the Madeira and thence to the Amazon River. It was later renamed Roosevelt River in honor of the former president. Roosevelt's crew consisted of his son Kermit, Colonel Rondon, naturalist George Kruck Cherrie (sent by the American Museum of Natural History), Brazilian Lieutenant João Lira, team physician Dr. José Antonio Cajazeira, and 16 skilled paddlers and porters. Roosevelt also identified Leo Miller (another AMNH recommendation), Anthony Fiala, Frank Harper, and Jacob Sigg as crew members. The initial expedition started somewhat tenuously on December 9, 1913, at the height of the rainy season. The trip down the River of Doubt started on February 27, 1914.
During the trip down the river, Roosevelt suffered a minor leg wound after he jumped into the river to try to prevent two canoes from smashing against the rocks. The flesh wound he received, however, soon gave him tropical fever that resembled the malaria he had contracted while in Cuba fifteen years before. Because the bullet lodged in his chest from the assassination attempt in 1912 was never removed, his health worsened from the infection. This weakened Roosevelt so greatly that six weeks into the adventure, he had to be attended to day and night by the expedition's physician and his son Kermit. By then, he could not walk because of the infection in his injured leg and an infirmity in the other, which was due to a traffic accident a decade earlier. Roosevelt was riddled with chest pains, fighting a fever that soared to and at times made him delirious, at one point constantly reciting the first two lines of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem "Kubla Khan": "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan / A stately pleasure dome decree". Regarding his condition as a threat to the survival of the others, Roosevelt insisted he be left behind to allow the poorly provisioned expedition to proceed as rapidly as it could, preparing to commit suicide with an overdose of morphine. Only an appeal by his son persuaded him to continue.
Despite Roosevelt's continued decline and loss of over , Colonel Rondon reduced the pace of the expedition to allow for his commission's mapmaking and other geographical tasks, which required regular stops to fix the expedition's position by sun-based survey. Upon Roosevelt's return to New York, friends and family were startled by his physical appearance and fatigue. Roosevelt wrote, perhaps prophetically, to a friend that the trip had cut his life short by ten years. For the rest of his few remaining years, he would be plagued by flare-ups of malaria and leg inflammations so severe as to require surgery. Before Roosevelt had even completed his sea voyage home, critics raised doubts over his claims of exploring and navigating a completely uncharted river over long. When he had recovered sufficiently, he addressed a standing-room-only convention organized in Washington, D.C., by the National Geographic Society and satisfactorily defended his claims.
Final years
Roosevelt returned to the United States in May 1914. Though he was outraged by the Wilson Administration's conclusion of a treaty that expressed "sincere regret" for the way in which the United States had acquired the Panama Canal Zone, he was impressed by many of the reforms passed under Wilson. Roosevelt made several campaign appearances for the Progressives, but the 1914 elections were a disaster for the fledgling third party. Roosevelt began to envision another campaign for president, this time with himself at the head of the Republican Party, but conservative party leaders remained opposed to Roosevelt. In hopes of engineering a joint nomination, the Progressives scheduled the 1916 Progressive National Convention at the same time as the 1916 Republican National Convention. When the Republicans nominated Charles Evans Hughes, Roosevelt declined the Progressive nomination and urged his Progressive followers to support the Republican candidate. Though Roosevelt had long disliked Hughes, he disliked Wilson even more, and he campaigned energetically for the Republican nominee. However, Wilson won the 1916 election by a narrow margin. The Progressives disappeared as a party following the 1916 election, and Roosevelt and many of his followers permanently re-joined the Republican Party.
World War I
When the First World War began in 1914, Roosevelt strongly supported the Allies and demanded a harsher policy against Germany, especially regarding submarine warfare. Roosevelt angrily denounced the foreign policy of President Wilson, calling it a failure regarding the atrocities in Belgium and the violations of American rights. In 1916, while campaigning for Hughes, Roosevelt repeatedly denounced Irish-Americans and German-Americans whom he described as unpatriotic, saying they put the interests of Ireland and Germany ahead of America's by supporting neutrality. He insisted that one had to be 100% American, not a "hyphenated American" who juggled multiple loyalties. In March 1917, Congress gave Roosevelt the authority to raise a maximum of four divisions similar to the Rough Riders, and Major Frederick Russell Burnham was put in charge of both the general organization and recruitment. However, President Wilson announced to the press that he would not send Roosevelt and his volunteers to France, but instead would send an American Expeditionary Force under the command of General John J. Pershing. Roosevelt never forgave Wilson, and quickly published The Foes of Our Own Household, an indictment of the sitting president. Roosevelt's youngest son, Quentin, a pilot with the American forces in France, was killed when shot down behind German lines on July 14, 1918, at the age of 20. It is said that Quentin's death distressed Roosevelt so much that he never recovered from his loss.
League of Nations
Roosevelt was an early supporter of the modern view that there needs to be a global order. In his Nobel prize address of 1910, he said, "it would be a master stroke if those great Powers honestly bent on peace would form a League of Peace, not only to keep the peace among themselves, but to prevent, by force if necessary, its being broken by others." It would have executive power such as the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 lacked. He called for American participation.
When World War I broke out, Roosevelt proposed "a World League for the Peace of Righteousness", in September 1914, which would preserve sovereignty but limit armaments and require arbitration. He added that it should be "solemnly covenanted that if any nations refused to abide by the decisions of such a court, then others draw the sword in behalf of peace and justice." In 1915 he outlined this plan more specifically, urging that nations guarantee their entire military force, if necessary, against any nation that refused to carry out arbitration decrees or violated rights of other nations. Though Roosevelt had some concerns about the impact on United States sovereignty, he insisted that such a league would only work if the United States participated as one of the "joint guarantors". Roosevelt referred to this plan in a 1918 speech as "the most feasible for...a league of nations." By this time Wilson was strongly hostile to Roosevelt and Lodge, and developed his own plans for a rather different League of Nations. It became reality along Wilson's lines at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. Roosevelt denounced Wilson's approach but died before it was adopted at Paris. However, Lodge was willing to accept it with serious reservations. In the end, on March 19, 1920, Wilson had Democratic Senators vote against the League with the Lodge Reservations and the United States never joined the League of Nations.
Final political activities
Roosevelt's attacks on Wilson helped the Republicans win control of Congress in the midterm elections of 1918. He declined a request from New York Republicans to run for another gubernatorial term, but attacked Wilson's Fourteen Points, calling instead for the unconditional surrender of Germany. Though his health was uncertain, he was seen as a leading contender for the 1920 Republican nomination, but insisted that, "If they take me, they'll have to take me without a single modification of the things that I have always stood for! He wrote William Allen White, "I wish to do everything in my power to make the Republican Party the Party of sane, constructive radicalism, just as it was under Lincoln." Accordingly, he told the 1918 state convention of the Maine Republican Party that he stood for old-age pensions, insurance for sickness and unemployment, construction of public housing for low-income families, the reduction of working hours, aid to farmers, and more regulation of large corporations.
While his political profile remained high, Roosevelt's physical condition continued to deteriorate throughout 1918 due to the long-term effects of jungle diseases. He was hospitalized for seven weeks late in the year and never fully recovered.
Death
On the night of January 5, 1919, Roosevelt suffered breathing problems. After receiving treatment from his physician, Dr. George W. Faller, he felt better and went to bed. Roosevelt's last words were "Please put out that light, James" to his family servant James E. Amos. Between 4:00 and 4:15 the next morning, Roosevelt, at the age of 60, died in his sleep at Sagamore Hill after a blood clot detached from a vein and traveled to his lungs.
Upon receiving word of his death, his son Archibald telegraphed his siblings: "The old lion is dead." Woodrow Wilson's vice president, Thomas R. Marshall, said that "Death had to take Roosevelt sleeping, for if he had been awake, there would have been a fight." Following a private farewell service in the North Room at Sagamore Hill, a simple funeral was held at Christ Episcopal Church in Oyster Bay. Vice President Thomas R. Marshall, Charles Evans Hughes, Warren G. Harding, Henry Cabot Lodge, and William Howard Taft were among the mourners. The snow-covered procession route to Youngs Memorial Cemetery was lined with spectators and a squad of mounted policemen who had ridden from New York City. Roosevelt was buried on a hillside overlooking Oyster Bay.
Writer
Roosevelt was a prolific author, writing with passion on subjects ranging from foreign policy to the importance of the national park system. Roosevelt was also an avid reader of poetry. Poet Robert Frost said that Roosevelt "was our kind. He quoted poetry to me. He knew poetry."
As an editor of Outlook magazine, Roosevelt had weekly access to a large, educated national audience. In all, Roosevelt wrote about 18 books (each in several editions), including his autobiography, The Rough Riders, History of the Naval War of 1812, and others on subjects such as ranching, explorations, and wildlife. His most ambitious book was the four volume narrative The Winning of the West, focused on the American frontier in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Roosevelt said that the American character—indeed a new "American race" (ethnic group) had emerged from the heroic wilderness hunters and Indian fighters, acting on the frontier with little government help. Roosevelt also published an account of his 1909–10 African expedition entitled African Game Trails.
In 1907, Roosevelt became embroiled in a widely publicized literary debate known as the nature fakers controversy. A few years earlier, naturalist John Burroughs had published an article entitled "Real and Sham Natural History" in the Atlantic Monthly, attacking popular writers of the day such as Ernest Thompson Seton, Charles G. D. Roberts, and William J. Long for their fantastical representations of wildlife. Roosevelt agreed with Burroughs's criticisms, and published several essays of his own denouncing the booming genre of "naturalistic" animal stories as "yellow journalism of the woods". It was the President himself who popularized the negative term "nature faker" to describe writers who depicted their animal characters with excessive anthropomorphism.
Character and beliefs
Roosevelt intensely disliked being called "Teddy", despite the widespread public association with said moniker, and was quick to point out this to those who referred to him as such, though it would become widely used by newspapers during his political career.
He was an active Freemason and member of the Sons of the American Revolution.
British scholar Marcus Cunliffe evaluates the liberal argument that Roosevelt was an opportunist, exhibitionist, and imperialist. Cunliffe praises TR's versatility, his respect for law, and his sincerity. He argues that Roosevelt's foreign policy was better than his detractors allege. Cunliffe calls him "a big man in several respects," ranking him below Washington, Lincoln, and Jefferson, and on the same level as Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Strenuous life
Roosevelt had a lifelong interest in pursuing what he called, in an 1899 speech, "The Strenuous Life". To this end, he exercised regularly and took up boxing, tennis, hiking, rowing, polo, and horseback riding. He also continued his habit of skinny-dipping in the Potomac River during the winter. As governor of New York, he boxed with sparring partners several times each week, a practice he regularly continued as president until being hit so hard in the face he became blind in his left eye (a fact not made public until many years later). As president, he practiced judo for two 2-month periods in 1902 and 1904, not attaining any rank. Roosevelt began to believe in the utility of jiu-jitsu training after training with Yoshitsugu Yamashita. Concerned that the United States would lose its military supremacy to rising powers like Japan, Roosevelt began to advocate for jiu-jitsu training for American soldiers. Feminists annoyed by the posturing of men like Roosevelt, insisted that women were just as capable of learning jiu-jitsu. To prove their point, Martha Blow Wadsworth and Maria Louise ("Hallie") Davis Elkins hired Fude Yamashita, a highly skilled jiu-jitsu instructor and the wife of Yoshitsugu Yamashita, to teach a jiu-jitsu class for women and girls in Washington, DC in 1904. Women had already begun training in boxing in the United States as a means of personal and political empowerment. Jiu-jitsu training thus soon also became popular with American women, coinciding with the origins of a women's self-defense movement.
Roosevelt was an enthusiastic singlestick player and, according to Harper's Weekly, showed up at a White House reception with his arm bandaged after a bout with General Leonard Wood in 1905. Roosevelt was an avid reader, reading tens of thousands of books, at a rate of several per day in multiple languages. Along with Thomas Jefferson, Roosevelt was the most well-read of all American presidents.
Warrior
Historians have often emphasized Roosevelt's warrior persona. He took aggressive positions regarding war with Spain in 1898, Colombia in 1903, and especially with Germany, from 1915 to 1917. As a demonstration of American naval might, he sent the "Great White Fleet" around the world in 1907–1909. The implicit threat of the "big stick" of military power provided leverage to "speak softly" and quietly resolve conflict in numerous cases. He boasted in his autobiography:
Richard D. White Jr states, "Roosevelt's warrior spirit framed his views of national politics, [and] international relations."
Historian Howard K. Beale has argued:
Religion
Roosevelt attended church regularly and was a lifelong adherent of the Reformed Church in America, an American affiliate of the Dutch Reformed Church. In 1907, concerning the motto "In God We Trust" on money, he wrote, "It seems to me eminently unwise to cheapen such a motto by use on coins, just as it would be to cheapen it by use on postage stamps, or in advertisements." Roosevelt talked a great deal about religion. Biographer Edmund Morris states:
Roosevelt publicly encouraged church attendance and was a conscientious churchgoer himself. When gas rationing was introduced during the First World War, he walked the three miles from his home at Sagamore Hill to the local church and back, even after a serious operation had made it difficult for him to travel by foot. It was said that Roosevelt "allowed no engagement to keep him from going to church," and he remained a fervent advocate of the Bible throughout his adult life. According to Christian F. Reisner, writing in 1922 shortly after Roosevelt's death, "Religion was as natural to Mr. Roosevelt as breathing," and when the travel library for Roosevelt's famous Smithsonian-sponsored African expedition was being assembled, the Bible was, according to his sister, "the first book selected." In an address delivered in his home at Oyster Bay to the Long Island Bible Society in 1901, Roosevelt declared that:
Political positions
When he assumed the presidency, Roosevelt reassured many conservatives, stating, "the mechanism of modern business is so delicate that extreme care must be taken not to interfere with it in a spirit of rashness or ignorance." The following year, Roosevelt asserted the president's independence from business interests by opposing the merger which created the Northern Securities Company, and many were surprised that any president, much less an unelected one, would challenge powerful banker J.P. Morgan. In his last two years as president, Roosevelt became increasingly distrustful of big business, despite its close ties to the Republican Party. Roosevelt sought to replace the 19th-century laissez-faire economic environment with a new economic model which included a larger regulatory role for the federal government. He believed that 19th-century entrepreneurs had risked their fortunes on innovations and new businesses, and that these capitalists had been rightly rewarded. By contrast, he believed that 20th-century capitalists risked little but nonetheless reaped huge and, given the lack of risk, unjust, economic rewards. Without a redistribution of wealth away from the upper class, Roosevelt feared that the country would turn to radicals or fall to revolution. His Square Deal domestic program had three main goals: conservation of natural resources, control of corporations, and consumer protection. The Square Deal evolved into his program of "New Nationalism", which emphasized the priority of labor over capital interests and a need to more effectively control corporate creation and combination, and proposed a ban on corporate political contributions.
Foreign policy beliefs
In the analysis by Henry Kissinger, Theodore Roosevelt was the first president to develop the guideline that it was America's duty to make its enormous power and potential influence felt globally. The idea of being a passive "city on the hill" model that others could look up to, he rejected. Roosevelt, trained in biology, was a social darwinist who believed in survival of the fittest. The international world in his view was a realm of violence and conflict. The United States had all the economic and geographical potential to be the fittest nation on the globe. The United States had a duty to act decisively. For example, in terms of the Monroe Doctrine, America had to prevent European incursions in the Western Hemisphere. But there was more, as he expressed in his famous Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine: the U.S. had to be the policeman of the region because unruly, corrupt smaller nations had to be controlled, and if United States did not do it, European powers would in fact intervene and develop their own base of power in the hemisphere in contravention to the Monroe Doctrine.
Roosevelt was a realist and a conservative. He deplored many of the increasingly popular idealistic liberal themes, such as were promoted by William Jennings Bryan, the anti-imperialists, and Woodrow Wilson. Kissinger says he rejected the efficacy of international law. Roosevelt argue that if a country could not protect its own interests, the international community could not help very much. He ridiculed disarmament proposals that were increasingly common. He saw no likelihood of an international power capable of checking wrongdoing on a major scale. As for world government: I regard the Wilson–Bryan attitude of trusting to fantastic peace treaties, too impossible promises, to all kinds of scraps of paper without any backing in efficient force, as abhorrent. It is infinitely better for a nation and for the world to have the Frederick the Great and Bismarck tradition as regards foreign policy than to have the Bryan or Bryan–Wilson attitude as a permanent national attitude.... A milk-and-water righteousness unbacked by force is...as wicked as and even more mischievous than force divorced from righteousness.
On the positive side, Roosevelt favored spheres of influence, whereby one great power would generally prevail, such as the United States in the Western Hemisphere or Great Britain in the Indian subcontinent. Japan fit that role and he approved. However he had deep distrust of both Germany and Russia.
Legacy
Historians credit Roosevelt for changing the nation's political system by permanently placing the "bully pulpit" of the presidency at center stage and making character as important as the issues. His accomplishments include trust busting and conservationism. He is a hero to liberals and progressives for his proposals in 1907–1912 that presaged the modern welfare state of the New Deal Era, including direct federal taxation, labor reforms, and more direct democracy, while conservationists admire Roosevelt for putting the environment and selflessness towards future generations on the national agenda, and conservatives and nationalists respect his commitment to law and order, civic duty and military values, as well as his personality of individual self-responsibility and hardiness. Dalton says, "Today he is heralded as the architect of the modern presidency, as a world leader who boldly reshaped the office to meet the needs of the new century and redefined America's place in the world."
However, liberals and socialists have criticized him for his interventionist and imperialist approach to nations he considered "uncivilized". Conservatives and libertarians reject his vision of the welfare state and emphasis on the superiority of government over private action. Historians typically rank Roosevelt among the top five presidents in American history.
Persona and masculinity
Dalton says Roosevelt is remembered as, "one of the most picturesque personalities who has ever enlivened the landscape". His friend, historian Henry Adams, proclaimed: "Roosevelt, more than any other man... showed the singular primitive quality that belongs to ultimate matter—the quality that medieval theology assigned to God—he was pure act."
Roosevelt's biographers have stressed his personality. Henry F. Pringle, who won the Pulitzer Prize in biography for his Theodore Roosevelt (1931) stated: "The Theodore Roosevelt of later years was the most adolescent of men… Failure to receive the Medal of Honor for his exploits [in Cuba] had been a grief as real as any of those which swamp childhood in despair. 'You must always remember,' wrote Cecil Spring Rice in 1904, 'that the President is about six.'"
Cooper compared him with Woodrow Wilson and argued that both of them played the roles of warrior and priest. Dalton stressed Roosevelt's strenuous life. Sarah Watts examined the desires of the "Rough Rider in the White House". Brands calls Roosevelt "the last romantic", arguing that his romantic concept of life emerged from his belief that "physical bravery was the highest virtue and war the ultimate test of bravery".
Roosevelt as the exemplar of American masculinity has become a major theme. As president, he repeatedly warned men that they were becoming too office-bound, too complacent, too comfortable with physical ease and moral laxity, and were failing in their duties to propagate the race and exhibit masculine vigor. French historian Serge Ricard says, "the ebullient apostle of the Strenuous Life offers ideal material for a detailed psycho-historical analysis of aggressive manhood in the changing socio-cultural environment of his era; McKinley, Taft, or Wilson would perhaps inadequately serve that purpose". He promoted competitive sports like boxing and jiu-jitsu for physically strengthening American men. He also believed that organizations like the Boy Scouts of America, founded in 1910, could help mold and strengthen the character of American boys. Brands shows that heroic displays of bravery were essential to Roosevelt's image and mission:
Memorials and cultural depictions
Roosevelt was included with Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln at the Mount Rushmore Memorial, designed in 1927 with the approval of Republican President Calvin Coolidge.
For his gallantry at San Juan Hill, Roosevelt's commanders recommended him for the Medal of Honor. However, the initial recommendation lacked any eyewitnesses, and the effort was eventually tainted by Roosevelt's own lobbying of the War Department. In the late 1990s, Roosevelt's supporters again recommended the award, which was denied by the Secretary of the Army on basis that the decorations board determined "Roosevelt's bravery in battle did not rise to the level that would justify the Medal of Honor and, indeed, it did not rise to the level of men who fought in that engagement." Nevertheless, politicians apparently convinced the secretary to reconsider the award a third time and reverse himself, leading to the charge that it was a "politically motivated award." On January 16, 2001, President Bill Clinton awarded Theodore Roosevelt the Medal of Honor posthumously for his charge on San Juan Hill. He is the only president to have received the Medal of Honor.
The United States Navy named two ships for Roosevelt: the , a submarine that was in commission from 1961 to 1982, and the , an aircraft carrier that has been on active duty in the Atlantic Fleet since 1986.
On November 18, 1956, the United States Postal Service released a 6¢ Liberty Issue postage stamp honoring Roosevelt. A 32¢ stamp was issued on February 3, 1998, as part of the Celebrate the Century stamp sheet series. In 2008, Columbia Law School awarded Roosevelt a Juris Doctor degree, posthumously making him a member of the class of 1882.
Roosevelt's "Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick" ideology is still quoted by politicians and columnists in different countries—not only in English, but also in translations to various other languages. Another lasting, popular legacy of Roosevelt is the stuffed toy bears—teddy bears—named after him following an incident on a hunting trip in Mississippi in 1902. Roosevelt has been portrayed in films and television series such as Brighty of the Grand Canyon, The Wind and the Lion, Rough Riders, My Friend Flicka, and Law of the Plainsman. Robin Williams portrayed Roosevelt in the form of a wax mannequin that comes to life in Night at the Museum and its sequels Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian and Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb. In 2017, it was announced that Leonardo DiCaprio will portray Roosevelt in a biopic to be directed by Martin Scorsese.
Moreover, Theodore Roosevelt National Park in the state of North Dakota is named after him. The America the Beautiful Quarters series features Roosevelt riding a horse on the national park's quarter.
Asteroid 188693 Roosevelt, discovered by astronomers with the Catalina Sky Survey in 2005, was named after him. The official was published by the Minor Planet Center on November 8, 2019 ().
In January 2022, after years of lobbying by activists, an equestrian statue of the former president was removed from where it had stood for more than eighty years in front of New York's American Museum of Natural History. Responding to controversy, the museum noted that the design "communicates a racial hierarchy that the museum and members of the public have long found disturbing."
Audiovisual media
Theodore Roosevelt was one of the first presidents whose voice was recorded for posterity. Several of his recorded speeches survive. A 4.6-minute voice recording, which preserves Roosevelt's lower timbre ranges particularly well for its time, is among those available from the Michigan State University libraries (this is the 1912 recording of The Right of the People to Rule, recorded by Edison at Carnegie Hall). The audio clip sponsored by the Authentic History Center includes his defense of the Progressive Party in 1912, wherein he proclaims it the "party of the people" – in contrast with the other major parties.
Roosevelt goes for a ride in Arch Hoxsey's plane in October 1910
In popular culture
Theodore Roosevelt appears as the leader of the American civilization in the Firaxis Games title Civilization VI. His unique ability is Roosevelt Corollary, which gives +5 Combat Strength for all units inside America's home continent, and +1 Appeal to all tiles in cities with a national park.
See also
Notes
References
Bibliography
Full biographies
.
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.
, 105 pp, very short biography by leading scholar.
.; also titled Power and responsibility; the life and times of Theodore Roosevelt online free to borrow
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, only volume published, to age 28.
.
.
Personality and activities
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Provides a lesson plan on TR as the historical figure who most exemplifies the quality of masculinity.
. Chronicles the events of TR's presidency during the summers of his two terms.
. The president's use of publicity, rhetoric and force of personality.
; his deadly 1913–14 trip to the Amazon.
, best seller; to 1886.
, to 1884.
. 494 pp.
, examines TR and his family during the World War I period.
.
, 240 pp. TR in Africa & Europe, 1909–10
. 289 pp.
, 337 pp; TR's political thought and its significance for republican self-government.
Domestic policies
online review; another online review
Cutright, P.R. (1985) Theodore Roosevelt: The making of a Modern Conservationist (U of Illinois Press.)
.
, standard history of his domestic and foreign policy as president.
Bakari, Mohamed El-Kamel. "Mapping the 'Anthropocentric-ecocentric'Dualism in the History of American Presidency: The Good, the Bad, and the Ambivalent." Journal of Studies in Social Sciences 14, no. 2 (2016).
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Redekop, Benjamin. (2015). "Embodying the Story: The Conservation Leadership of Theodore Roosevelt". Leadership (2015) DOI:10.1177/1742715014546875 online
.
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Politics
. How TR did politics.
, 323 pp.
.
.
.
.
. 361 pp.
.
. Focus on 1912; online free
. online free
. Attacks TR policies from conservative/libertarian perspective.
Foreign policy, military and naval issues
. online
. excerpt
.
. 328 pp.
Kuehn, John T. "Theodore Roosevelt’s Naval Diplomacy: The U.S. Navy and the Birth of the American Century," Naval War College Review (2010) 53#3 online
Livermore, Seward W. "Theodore Roosevelt, the American Navy, and the Venezuelan Crisis of 1902-1903." American Historical Review 51.3 (1946): 452–471. online
.
.
Nester, William R. Theodore Roosevelt and the Art of American Power: An American for All Time. Rowman & Littlefield, 2019. excerpt
Neu, Charles E. "Theodore Roosevelt and American Involvement in the Far East, 1901-1909." Pacific Historical Review 35.4 (1966): 433–449. online
O'Gara, Gordon Carpenter. Theodore Roosevelt and the Rise of the Modern Navy. (Princeton UP, 1943). online
.
Oyos, Matthew M. In Command: Theodore Roosevelt and the American Military (2018) online review
Pietrusza, David (2018). TR's Last War: Theodore Roosevelt, the Great War, and a Journey of Triumph and Tragedy
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Thompson, John M. Great Power Rising: Theodore Roosevelt and the Politics of US Foreign Policy (Oxford UP, 2019).
. 196 pp.
Turk, Richard W. The Ambiguous Relationship: Theodore Roosevelt and Alfred Thayer Mahan (1987) [https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article-abstract/93/5/1413/70734 online review
Historiography
Cunliffe, Marcus. "Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States 1901–1908" History Today (Sept 1955) 4#9 pp. 592–601, online.
Ricard, Serge. "The State of Theodore Roosevelt Studies" H-Diplo Essay No. 116 24 October 2014 online
, excerpt and text search, 28 new essays by scholars; focus on historiography. online
Primary sources
Kohn, Edward P., ed. A Most Glorious Ride: The Diaries of Theodore Roosevelt, 1877–1886 (State University of New York Press, 2015), 284 pp.
; vol 2
.
, 20 vol.; 18,000 pages containing most of TR's speeches, books and essays, but not his letters; a CD-ROM edition is available; some of TR's books are available online through Project Bartleby
, Roosevelt's opinions on many issues; online version at Theodore Roosevelt.
, 8 vols. Very large collection. vol 1 1868–1898 online free
. online free
.
.
online free to borrow
.
.
.
External links
Official
White House biography
Organizations
Boone and Crockett Club
Theodore Roosevelt Association
Libraries and collections
Theodore Roosevelt Center at Dickinson State University
Theodore Roosevelt Collection, at the Houghton Library, Harvard University
Julian L. Street Papers on Theodore Roosevelt, at the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library, Princeton University
Doris A. and Lawrence H. Budner Collection on Theodore Roosevelt at the DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University
Theodore Roosevelt's journalism at The Archive of American Journalism
Theodore Roosevelt American Museum of Natural History
Roosevelt Papers, at the Library of Congress
Guide to the Herbert R. Strauss Collection of Theodore Roosevelt Papers 1884–1919 at the University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center
Media
"Life Portrait of Theodore Roosevelt", from C-SPAN's American Presidents: Life Portraits, September 3, 1999
"Writings of Theodore Roosevelt" from C-SPAN's American Writers: A Journey Through History
Other
Almanac of Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt: A Resource Guide – Library of Congress
1858 births
1919 deaths
1900s in the United States
Theodore
19th-century American politicians
19th-century American historians
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20th-century American male writers | true | [
"In European legal history and the philosophy of law, the jurisprudence of interests is a doctrine of legal positivism of the early 20th century, according to which a written law must be interpreted to reflect the interests it is to promote. The main proponents of the jurisprudence of interests were Philipp Heck, Rudolf Müller-Erzbach, Arthur F. Bentley and Roscoe Pound.\n\nThe school of legal positivism passed through the phase of the jurisprudence of interests after the jurisprudence of concepts. In the jurisprudence of interests, one interprets a law essentially in terms of the purposes it is intended to accomplish. This doctrine is characterized by the idea of obedience to law, and subsumption as the resolution of conflicts of interests in the concrete and in the abstract, whereby the interests necessary to life in society, as materialized in that law, should prevail. It is therefore a distinctly teleological school.\n\nSee also \n Jurisprudence of values\n Jurisprudence of concepts\n\nReferences \n\nTheories of law\nLegal positivism",
"Yang Zhu (; ; 440–c.360 BC), also known as Yang Zi or Yangzi (Master Yang), was a Chinese philosopher during the Warring States period. An early ethical egoist alternative to Mohist and Confucian thought, Yang Zhu's surviving ideas appear primarily in the Chinese texts Huainanzi, Lüshi Chunqiu, Mengzi, and possibly the Liezi and Zhuangzi. He founded the philosophical school of Yangism.\n\nThe philosophies attributed to Yang Zhu, as presented in Liezi, clash with the primarily Daoist influence of the rest of the work. Of particular note is his recognition of self-preservation (weiwo 為我), which has led him to be credited with \"the discovery of the body\". In comparison with other Chinese philosophical giants, Yang Zhu has recently faded into relative obscurity, but his influence in his own time was so widespread that Mencius (孟子) described his philosophies along with the antithetical ideas of Mozi (墨子) as \"floods and wild animals that ravage the land\".\n\nViews\n\nMencius's view of Yang Zhu\nAccording to Mencius, “Yang’s principle is, ‘Each for himself’—which does not acknowledge the claims of the sovereign. Mo's principle is, ‘To love all equally’—which does not acknowledge the peculiar affection due to a father. To acknowledge neither king nor father is to be in the state of the beast. If their principles are not stopped, and the principles of Confucius set forth, their perverse speaking will delude the people, and stop up the path of benevolence and righteousness”.\n\nMencius criticized Yang Zhu as one “who would not pluck a hair from his body to benefit the world.” However, Yang Zhu emphasized that self-impairment, symbolized by the plucking of one's hair, would in no way lead to others’ benefit. Although he would not toil for others, he would not harm them for personal gain or advantage, which should be avoided as external to one's nature.\n\nYang Zhu taught, “If everyone does not harm a single hair, and if everyone does not benefit the world, the world will be well governed of itself.” In other words, everyone should mind their own business, neither giving nor taking from others, and be content with what he has, and in that way one will be happy and also contribute to the welfare of the world. When personal interests conflict with collective interests or national interests, more respect and protection of personal interests should be taken. On the surface, this seems to be unfavorable to society and the collective, and it is also the most vulnerable to questioning and criticism. In fact, on the contrary, this has safeguarded both personal interests and social interests. Because the foundation of society exists for people, not people to exist for society.\n\nPhilosophy of nature\n\nAlthough his detractors present him as a hedonist, Epicurean, and egoist, Yang Zhu was, according to contemporary sources, an early Daoist teacher identified with a new philosophical trend toward naturalism as the best means of preserving life in a decadent and turbulent world.\n\nAll beings, thought Yang Zhu, have the survival instinct, but man, the highest of creatures, lacking the strength of animals, must rely on intelligence to survive rather than strength. He felt that strength was despicable when used against others.\n\nPhilosophy of life\nYang Zhu directed his thought to attainment of the spiritual self through self-expression and finding contentment.\nHenri Maspero described Yang's philosophy as \"a mixture of pessimism and fatalism\". The Yang Zhu chapter of Liezi says:\nOne hundred years is the limit of a long life. Not one in a thousand ever attains it. Suppose there is one such person. Infancy and feeble old age take almost half of his time. Rest during sleep at night and what is wasted during the waking hours in the daytime take almost half of that. Pain and sickness, sorrow and suffering, death (of relatives) and worry and fear take almost half of the rest. In the ten and some years that is left, I reckon, there is not one moment in which we can be happy, at ease without worry. This being the case, what is life for? What pleasure is there? For beauty and abundance, that is all. For music and sex, that is all. But the desire for beauty and abundance cannot always be satisfied, and music and sex cannot always be enjoyed. Besides, we are prohibited by punishment and exhorted by rewards, pushed by fame and checked by law. We busily strive for the empty praise which is only temporary, and seek extra glory that would come after death. Being alone ourselves, we pay great care to what our ears hear and what our eyes see, and are much concerned with what is right or wrong for our bodies and minds. Thus we lose the great happiness of the present and cannot give ourselves free rein for a single moment. What is the difference between that and many chains and double prisons?\n\nPhilosophy of death\nYang Zhu agreed with the search for happiness, but he felt one should not strive for life beyond one's allotted span, nor should one unnecessarily shorten one's life. Death is as natural as life, Yang Zhu felt, and therefore should be viewed with neither fear nor awe. Funeral ceremonies are of no worth to the deceased. “Dead people are not concerned whether their bodies are buried in coffins, cremated, dumped in water or in a ditch; nor whether the body is dressed in fine clothes. What matters most is that before death strikes one lives life to the fullest”.\n\nSee also\n Egoism\n Hedonism\n Yangism\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\nChan, Wing-Tsit. 1963. A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy. Princeton University Press.\nWill Durant, Our Oriental Heritage, MJF Books 1963. \nGraham, A.C., Disputers of the Tao: Philosophical Argument in Ancient China (Open Court 1993). \nLiu Wu-Chi, Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Vol. 8, Macmillan Inc. 1967.\nMaspero, Henri. 1978. China in Antiquity. Tr. by Frank A. Kierman Jr. The University of Massachusetts Press.\n\n4th-century BC Chinese philosophers\nAtheist philosophers\nChinese atheists\nZhou dynasty philosophers\nPhilosophical pessimists"
] |
[
"Theodore Roosevelt",
"Early life and family",
"Where was Theodore Roosevelt born?",
"Theodore Roosevelt Jr. was born on October 27, 1858, at East 20th Street in New York City.",
"Who was his mother?",
"socialite Martha Stewart \"Mittie\" Bulloch",
"What type of work did his father do?",
"businessman and philanthropist",
"Did Roosevelt have any siblings?",
"He had an older sister, Anna (nicknamed \"Bamie\"), a younger brother, Elliott, and a younger sister, Corinne.",
"What were his interests in his early life?",
"Roosevelt's youth was largely shaped by his poor health and debilitating asthma."
] | C_ea2b2d977c0c4d1d93ec5efce7ee7156_1 | Did he have any hobbies while growing up? | 6 | Did Theodore Roosevelt have any hobbies while growing up? | Theodore Roosevelt | Theodore Roosevelt Jr. was born on October 27, 1858, at East 20th Street in New York City. He was the second of four children born to socialite Martha Stewart "Mittie" Bulloch and businessman and philanthropist Theodore Roosevelt Sr. He had an older sister, Anna (nicknamed "Bamie"), a younger brother, Elliott, and a younger sister, Corinne. Elliott was later the father of First Lady Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of Theodore's distant cousin, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. His paternal grandfather was of Dutch descent; his other ancestry included primarily Scottish and Scots-Irish, English and smaller amounts of German, Welsh, and French. Theodore Sr. was the fifth son of businessman Cornelius Van Schaack "C.V.S." Roosevelt and Margaret Barnhill. Theodore's fourth cousin, James Roosevelt I, who was also a businessman, was the father of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Mittie was the younger daughter of Major James Stephens Bulloch and Martha P. "Patsy" Stewart. Through the Van Schaacks, Roosevelt was a descendant of the Schuyler family. Roosevelt's youth was largely shaped by his poor health and debilitating asthma. He repeatedly experienced sudden nighttime asthma attacks that caused the experience of being smothered to death, which terrified both Theodore and his parents. Doctors had no cure. Nevertheless, he was energetic and mischievously inquisitive. His lifelong interest in zoology began at age seven when he saw a dead seal at a local market; after obtaining the seal's head, Roosevelt and two cousins formed what they called the "Roosevelt Museum of Natural History". Having learned the rudiments of taxidermy, he filled his makeshift museum with animals that he killed or caught; he then studied the animals and prepared them for display. At age nine, he recorded his observation of insects in a paper entitled "The Natural History of Insects". Roosevelt's father significantly influenced him. His father was a prominent leader in New York's cultural affairs; he helped to found the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and had been especially active in mobilizing support for the Union during the Civil War, even though his in-laws included Confederate leaders. Roosevelt said, "My father, Theodore Roosevelt, was the best man I ever knew. He combined strength and courage with gentleness, tenderness, and great unselfishness. He would not tolerate in us children selfishness or cruelty, idleness, cowardice, or untruthfulness." Family trips abroad, including tours of Europe in 1869 and 1870, and Egypt in 1872, shaped his cosmopolitan perspective. Hiking with his family in the Alps in 1869, Roosevelt found that he could keep pace with his father. He had discovered the significant benefits of physical exertion to minimize his asthma and bolster his spirits. Roosevelt began a heavy regime of exercise. After being manhandled by two older boys on a camping trip, he found a boxing coach to teach him to fight and strengthen his body. CANNOTANSWER | His lifelong interest in zoology began at age seven when he saw a dead seal at a local market; | Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or his initials T. R., was an American politician, statesman, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26th president of the United States from 1901 to 1909. He previously served as the 25th vice president under William McKinley from March to September 1901, and as the 33rd governor of New York from 1899 to 1900. Having assumed the presidency after McKinley's assassination, Roosevelt emerged as a leader of the Republican Party and became a driving force for anti-trust and Progressive policies.
Roosevelt was a sickly child with debilitating asthma but partly overcame his health problems by embracing a strenuous lifestyle. He integrated his exuberant personality, a vast range of interests and achievements into a "cowboy" persona defined by robust masculinity. He was home-schooled and began a lifelong naturalist avocation before attending Harvard. His book The Naval War of 1812 (1882) established his reputation as a learned historian and popular writer. Upon entering politics, he became the leader of the reform faction of Republicans in New York's state legislature. His wife and mother both died in the same night and he was psychologically devastated. He recuperated by buying and operating a cattle ranch in the Dakotas. He served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy under President William McKinley and in 1898 helped plan the highly successful naval war against Spain. He resigned to help form and lead the Rough Riders, a unit that fought the Spanish army in Cuba to great publicity. Returning a war hero, he was elected governor of New York in 1898. The New York state party leadership disliked his ambitious agenda and convinced McKinley to make Roosevelt his running mate in the 1900 election. Roosevelt campaigned vigorously, and the McKinley–Roosevelt ticket won a landslide victory based on a platform of victory, peace and prosperity.
Roosevelt assumed the presidency at age 42 after McKinley was assassinated in September 1901. He remains the youngest person to become president of the United States. Roosevelt was a leader of the progressive movement and championed his "Square Deal" domestic policies, promising the average citizen fairness, breaking of trusts, regulation of railroads, and pure food and drugs. He prioritized conservation and established national parks, forests, and monuments intended to preserve the nation's natural resources. In foreign policy, he focused on Central America where he began construction of the Panama Canal. He expanded the Navy and sent the Great White Fleet on a world tour to project American naval power. His successful efforts to broker the end of the Russo-Japanese War won him the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize. Roosevelt was elected to a full term in 1904 and continued to promote progressive policies. He groomed his close friend William Howard Taft to succeed him in the 1908 presidential election.
Roosevelt grew frustrated with Taft's brand of conservatism and belatedly tried to win the 1912 Republican nomination for president. He failed, walked out, and founded the Progressive Party. He ran in the 1912 presidential election and the split allowed the Democratic nominee Woodrow Wilson to win the election. Following the defeat, Roosevelt led a two-year expedition to the Amazon basin where he nearly died of tropical disease. During World War I, he criticized Wilson for keeping the country out of the war; his offer to lead volunteers to France was rejected. He considered running for president again in 1920, but his health continued to deteriorate. He died in 1919. He is generally ranked in polls of historians and political scientists as one of the five best presidents.
Early life and family
Theodore Roosevelt Jr. was born on October 27, 1858, at 28 East 20th Street in Manhattan, New York City. He was the second of four children born to socialite Martha Stewart "Mittie" Bulloch and businessman and philanthropist Theodore Roosevelt Sr. He had an older sister (Anna, nicknamed "Bamie"), a younger brother (Elliott) and a younger sister (Corinne). Elliott was later the father of First Lady Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of Theodore's distant cousin, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. His paternal grandfather was of Dutch descent; his other ancestry included primarily Scottish and Scots-Irish, English and smaller amounts of German, Welsh and French. Theodore Sr. was the fifth son of businessman Cornelius Van Schaack "C. V. S." Roosevelt and Margaret Barnhill as well as a brother of Robert Roosevelt and James A. Roosevelt. Theodore's fourth cousin, James Roosevelt I, who was also a businessman, was the father of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Mittie was the younger daughter of Major James Stephens Bulloch and Martha P. "Patsy" Stewart. Through the Van Schaacks, Roosevelt was a descendant of the Schuyler family.
Roosevelt's youth was largely shaped by his poor health and debilitating asthma. He repeatedly experienced sudden nighttime asthma attacks that caused the experience of being smothered to death, which terrified both Theodore and his parents. Doctors had no cure. Nevertheless, he was energetic and mischievously inquisitive. His lifelong interest in zoology began at age seven when he saw a dead seal at a local market; after obtaining the seal's head, Roosevelt and two cousins formed what they called the "Roosevelt Museum of Natural History". Having learned the rudiments of taxidermy, he filled his makeshift museum with animals that he killed or caught; he then studied the animals and prepared them for exhibition. At age nine, he recorded his observation of insects in a paper entitled "The Natural History of Insects".
Roosevelt's father significantly influenced him. His father was a prominent leader in New York's cultural affairs; he helped to found the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and had been especially active in mobilizing support for the Union during the Civil War, even though his in-laws included Confederate leaders. Roosevelt said, "My father, Theodore Roosevelt, was the best man I ever knew. He combined strength and courage with gentleness, tenderness, and great unselfishness. He would not tolerate in us children selfishness or cruelty, idleness, cowardice, or untruthfulness." Family trips abroad, including tours of Europe in 1869 and 1870, and Egypt in 1872, shaped his cosmopolitan perspective. Hiking with his family in the Alps in 1869, Roosevelt found that he could keep pace with his father. He had discovered the significant benefits of physical exertion to minimize his asthma and bolster his spirits. Roosevelt began a heavy regime of exercise. After being manhandled by two older boys on a camping trip, he found a boxing coach to teach him to fight and strengthen his body.
A 6-year-old Roosevelt witnessed the funeral procession of Abraham Lincoln from his grandfather's mansion in Union Square, New York City where he was photographed in the window along with his brother Elliott, as confirmed by wife Edith who was also present.
Education
Roosevelt was homeschooled, mostly by tutors and his parents. Biographer H. W. Brands argued that "The most obvious drawback to his home schooling was uneven coverage of the various areas of human knowledge." He was solid in geography and bright in history, biology, French, and German; however, he struggled in mathematics and the classical languages. When he entered Harvard College on September 27, 1876, his father advised: "Take care of your morals first, your health next, and finally your studies." His father's sudden death on February 9, 1878, devastated Roosevelt, but he eventually recovered and doubled his activities.
He did well in science, philosophy, and rhetoric courses but continued to struggle in Latin and Greek. He studied biology intently and was already an accomplished naturalist and a published ornithologist. He read prodigiously with an almost photographic memory. While at Harvard, Roosevelt participated in rowing and boxing; he was once runner-up in an intramural boxing tournament. Roosevelt was a member of the Alpha Delta Phi literary society (later the Fly Club), the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity, and the prestigious Porcellian Club; he was also an editor of The Harvard Advocate. In 1880, Roosevelt graduated Phi Beta Kappa (22nd of 177) from Harvard with an A.B. magna cum laude. Biographer Henry Pringle states:
After his father's death, Roosevelt had inherited $65,000 (), enough to live off comfortably for the rest of his life. Roosevelt gave up his earlier plan of studying natural science and instead decided to attend Columbia Law School, moving back into his family's home in New York City. Roosevelt was an able law student, but he often found law to be irrational. He spent much of his time writing a book on the War of 1812.
Determined to enter politics, Roosevelt began attending meetings at Morton Hall, the 59th Street headquarters of New York's 21st District Republican Association. Though Roosevelt's father had been a prominent member of the Republican Party, the younger Roosevelt made an unorthodox career choice for someone of his class, as most of Roosevelt's peers refrained from becoming too closely involved in politics. Roosevelt found allies in the local Republican Party, and he defeated an incumbent Republican state assemblyman closely tied to the political machine of Senator Roscoe Conkling. After his election victory, Roosevelt decided to drop out of law school, later saying, "I intended to be one of the governing class."
Naval history and strategy
While at Harvard, Roosevelt began a systematic study of the role played by the young United States Navy in the War of 1812. Assisted by two uncles, he scrutinized original source materials and official U.S. Navy records, ultimately publishing The Naval War of 1812 in 1882. The book contained drawings of individual and combined ship maneuvers, charts depicting the differences in iron throw weights of cannon shot between rival forces, and analyses of the differences and similarities between British and American leadership down to the ship-to-ship level. Upon release, The Naval War of 1812 was praised for its scholarship and style, and it remains a standard study of the war.
With the publication of The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660–1783 in 1890, Navy Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan was immediately hailed as the world's outstanding naval theorist by the leaders of Europe. Roosevelt paid very close attention to Mahan's emphasis that only a nation with the world's most powerful fleet could dominate the world's oceans, exert its diplomacy to the fullest, and defend its own borders. He incorporated Mahan's ideas into his views on naval strategy for the remainder of his career.
First marriage and widowerhood
In 1880, Roosevelt married socialite Alice Hathaway Lee. Their daughter, Alice Lee Roosevelt, was born on February 12, 1884. Two days later, the new mother died of an undiagnosed case of kidney failure that had been masked by the pregnancy. In his diary, Roosevelt wrote a large 'X' on the page and then, "The light has gone out of my life." His mother, Mittie, had died of typhoid fever eleven hours earlier at 3:00 a.m., in the same house on 57th Street in Manhattan. Distraught, Roosevelt left baby Alice in the care of his sister Bamie while he grieved; he assumed custody of Alice when she was three.
After the deaths of his wife and mother, Roosevelt focused on his work, specifically by re-energizing a legislative investigation into corruption of the New York City government, which arose from a concurrent bill proposing that power be centralized in the mayor's office. For the rest of his life, he rarely spoke about his wife Alice and did not write about her in his autobiography.
Early political career
State Assemblyman
Roosevelt was a member of the New York State Assembly (New York Co., 21st D.) in 1882, 1883 and 1884. He immediately began making his mark, specifically in corporate corruption issues. He blocked a corrupt effort by financier Jay Gould to lower his taxes. Roosevelt exposed suspected collusion in the matter by Judge Theodore Westbrook, and argued for and received approval for an investigation to proceed, aiming for the impeachment of the judge. The investigation committee rejected impeachment, but Roosevelt had exposed the potential corruption in Albany, and thus assumed a high and positive political profile in multiple New York publications.
Roosevelt's anti-corruption efforts helped him win re-election in 1882 by a margin greater than two-to-one, an achievement made even more impressive by the fact that Democratic gubernatorial candidate Grover Cleveland won Roosevelt's district. With Conkling's Stalwart faction of the Republican Party in disarray following the assassination of President James Garfield, Roosevelt won election as the Republican party leader in the state assembly. He allied with Governor Cleveland to win passage of a civil service reform bill. Roosevelt won re-election a second time, and sought the office of Speaker of the New York State Assembly, but was defeated by Titus Sheard in a 41 to 29 vote of the GOP caucus. In his final term, Roosevelt served as Chairman of the Committee on Affairs of Cities; he wrote more bills than any other legislator.
Presidential election of 1884
With numerous presidential hopefuls to choose from, Roosevelt supported Senator George F. Edmunds of Vermont, a colorless reformer. The state GOP preferred the incumbent president, New York City's Chester Arthur, who was known for passing the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act. Arthur, at the time, was suffering from Bright's disease, unknown to the public, and out of duty he did not contest his own nomination. Roosevelt fought hard and succeeded in influencing the Manhattan delegates at the state convention in Utica. He then took control of the state convention, bargaining through the night and outmaneuvering the supporters of Arthur and James G. Blaine; he gained a national reputation as a key person in New York State.
Roosevelt attended the 1884 GOP National Convention in Chicago and gave a speech convincing delegates to nominate African American John R. Lynch, an Edmunds supporter, to be temporary chair. Roosevelt fought alongside the Mugwump reformers; however, Blaine, having gained support from Arthur's and Edmunds's delegates, won the nomination by 541 votes on the fourth ballot. In a crucial moment of his budding political career, Roosevelt resisted the demand of the Mugwumps that he bolt from Blaine. He bragged about his one small success: "We achieved a victory in getting up a combination to beat the Blaine nominee for temporary chairman... To do this needed a mixture of skill, boldness and energy... to get the different factions to come in... to defeat the common foe." He was also impressed by an invitation to speak before an audience of ten thousand, the largest crowd he had addressed up to that date. Having gotten a taste of national politics, Roosevelt felt less aspiration for advocacy on the state level; he then retired to his new "Chimney Butte Ranch" on the Little Missouri River. Roosevelt refused to join other Mugwumps in supporting Grover Cleveland, the governor of New York and the Democratic nominee in the general election. He debated the pros and cons of staying loyal with his political friend, Henry Cabot Lodge. After Blaine won the nomination, Roosevelt had carelessly said that he would give "hearty support to any decent Democrat". He distanced himself from the promise, saying that it had not been meant "for publication". When a reporter asked if he would support Blaine, Roosevelt replied, "That question I decline to answer. It is a subject I do not care to talk about." In the end, he realized that he had to support Blaine to maintain his role in the GOP, and he did so in a press release on July 19. Having lost the support of many reformers, Roosevelt decided to retire from politics and move to North Dakota.
Cattle rancher in Dakota
Roosevelt first visited the Dakota Territory in 1883 to hunt bison. Exhilarated by the western lifestyle, and with the cattle business booming in the territory, Roosevelt invested $14,000 in hopes of becoming a prosperous cattle rancher. For the next several years, he shuttled between his home in New York and his ranch in Dakota.
Following the 1884 presidential election, Roosevelt built a ranch named Elkhorn, which was north of the boomtown of Medora, North Dakota. Roosevelt learned to ride western style, rope, and hunt on the banks of the Little Missouri. Though he earned the respect of the authentic cowboys, they were not overly impressed. However, he identified with the herdsman of history, a man he said possesses "few of the emasculated, milk-and-water moralities admired by the pseudo-philanthropists; but he does possess, to a very high degree, the stern, manly qualities that are invaluable to a nation". He reoriented, and began writing about frontier life for national magazines; he also published three books – Hunting Trips of a Ranchman, Ranch Life and the Hunting-Trail, and The Wilderness Hunter.
Roosevelt brought his desire to address the common interests of citizens to the West. He successfully led efforts to organize ranchers to address problems of overgrazing and other shared concerns; his work resulted in the formation of the Little Missouri Stockmen's Association. He felt compelled to promote conservation and was able to form the Boone and Crockett Club, whose primary goal was the conservation of large game animals and their habitats. After the uniquely severe US winter of 1886–87 wiped out his herd of cattle and those of his competitors, and with it over half of his $80,000 investment, Roosevelt returned to the East. Though his finances suffered from the experience, Roosevelt's time in the West made it impossible to peg him as an ineffectual intellectual, a characterization that could have hampered his political career.
Second marriage
On December 2, 1886, Roosevelt married his childhood and family friend, Edith Kermit Carow. Roosevelt was deeply troubled that his second marriage had taken place so soon after the death of his first wife, and he faced resistance from his sisters. Nonetheless, the couple married at St George's, Hanover Square in London, England. The couple had five children: Theodore "Ted" III in 1887, Kermit in 1889, Ethel in 1891, Archibald in 1894, and Quentin in 1897. The couple also raised Roosevelt's daughter from his first marriage, Alice, who often clashed with her stepmother.
Reentering public life
Upon Roosevelt's return to New York in 1886, Republican leaders quickly approached him about running for mayor of New York City in the city's mayoral election. Roosevelt accepted the nomination despite having little hope of winning the race against United Labor Party candidate Henry George and Democratic candidate Abram Hewitt. Roosevelt campaigned hard for the position, but Hewitt won with 41% (90,552 votes), taking the votes of many Republicans who feared George's radical policies. George was held to 31% (68,110 votes), and Roosevelt took third place with 27% (60,435 votes). Fearing that his political career might never recover, Roosevelt turned his attention to writing The Winning of the West, a historical work tracking the westward movement of Americans; the book was a great success for Roosevelt, earning favorable reviews and selling numerous copies.
Civil Service Commission
After Benjamin Harrison unexpectedly defeated Blaine for the presidential nomination at the 1888 Republican National Convention, Roosevelt gave stump speeches in the Midwest in support of Harrison. On the insistence of Henry Cabot Lodge, President Harrison appointed Roosevelt to the United States Civil Service Commission, where he served until 1895. While many of his predecessors had approached the office as a sinecure, Roosevelt vigorously fought the spoilsmen and demanded enforcement of civil service laws. The New York Sun then described Roosevelt as "irrepressible, belligerent, and enthusiastic". Roosevelt frequently clashed with Postmaster General John Wanamaker, who handed out numerous patronage positions to Harrison supporters, and Roosevelt's attempt to force out several postal workers damaged Harrison politically. Despite Roosevelt's support for Harrison's reelection bid in the presidential election of 1892, the eventual winner, Grover Cleveland, reappointed him to the same post. Roosevelt's close friend and biographer, Joseph Bucklin Bishop, described his assault on the spoils system:
New York City Police Commissioner
In 1894, a group of reform Republicans approached Roosevelt about running for Mayor of New York again; he declined, mostly due to his wife's resistance to being removed from the Washington social set. Soon after he declined, he realized that he had missed an opportunity to reinvigorate a dormant political career. He retreated to the Dakotas for a time; his wife Edith regretted her role in the decision and vowed that there would be no repeat of it.
William Lafayette Strong, a reform-minded Republican, won the 1894 mayoral election and offered Roosevelt a position on the board of the New York City Police Commissioners. Roosevelt became president of the board of commissioners and radically reformed the police force. Roosevelt implemented regular inspections of firearms and annual physical exams, appointed recruits based on their physical and mental qualifications rather than political affiliation, established Meritorious Service Medals, and closed corrupt police hostelries. During his tenure, a Municipal Lodging House was established by the Board of Charities, and Roosevelt required officers to register with the Board; he also had telephones installed in station houses.
In 1894, Roosevelt met Jacob Riis, the muckraking Evening Sun newspaper journalist who was opening the eyes of New Yorkers to the terrible conditions of the city's millions of poor immigrants with such books as How the Other Half Lives. Riis described how his book affected Roosevelt:
Roosevelt made a habit of walking officers' beats late at night and early in the morning to make sure that they were on duty. He made a concerted effort to uniformly enforce New York's Sunday closing law; in this, he ran up against boss Tom Platt as well as Tammany Hall—he was notified that the Police Commission was being legislated out of existence. His crackdowns led to protests and demonstrations. Invited to one large demonstration, not only did he surprisingly accept, he delighted in the insults, caricatures and lampoons directed at him, and earned some surprising good will. Roosevelt chose to defer rather than split with his party. As Governor of New York State, he would later sign an act replacing the Police Commission with a single Police Commissioner.
Emergence as a national figure
Assistant Secretary of the Navy
In the 1896 presidential election, Roosevelt backed Speaker of the House Thomas Brackett Reed for the Republican nomination, but William McKinley won the nomination and defeated William Jennings Bryan in the general election. Roosevelt opposed Bryan's free silver platform, viewing many of Bryan's followers as dangerous fanatics, and Roosevelt gave campaign speeches for McKinley. Urged by Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, President McKinley appointed Roosevelt as the Assistant Secretary of the Navy in 1897. Secretary of the Navy John D. Long was more concerned about formalities than functions, was in poor health, and left many major decisions to Roosevelt. Influenced by Alfred Thayer Mahan, Roosevelt called for a build-up in the country's naval strength, particularly the construction of battleships. Roosevelt also began pressing his national security views regarding the Pacific and the Caribbean on McKinley, and was particularly adamant that Spain be ejected from Cuba. He explained his priorities to one of the Navy's planners in late 1897:
On February 15, 1898, , an armored cruiser, exploded in the harbor of Havana, Cuba, killing hundreds of crew members. While Roosevelt and many other Americans blamed Spain for the explosion, McKinley sought a diplomatic solution. Without approval from Long or McKinley, Roosevelt sent out orders to several naval vessels, directing them to prepare for war. George Dewey, who had received an appointment to lead the Asiatic Squadron with the backing of Roosevelt, later credited his victory at the Battle of Manila Bay to Roosevelt's orders. After finally giving up hope of a peaceful solution, McKinley asked Congress to declare war upon Spain, beginning the Spanish–American War.
War in Cuba
With the beginning of the Spanish–American War in late April 1898, Roosevelt resigned from his post as Assistant Secretary of the Navy. Along with Army Colonel Leonard Wood, he formed the First US Volunteer Cavalry Regiment. His wife and many of his friends begged Roosevelt to remain in his post in Washington, but Roosevelt was determined to see battle. When the newspapers reported the formation of the new regiment, Roosevelt and Wood were flooded with applications from all over the country. Referred to by the press as the "Rough Riders", the regiment was one of many temporary units active only for the duration of the war.
The regiment trained for several weeks in San Antonio, Texas, and in his autobiography, Roosevelt wrote that his prior experience with the New York National Guard had been invaluable, in that it enabled him to immediately begin teaching his men basic soldiering skills. The Rough Riders used some standard issue gear and some of their own design, purchased with gift money. Diversity characterized the regiment, which included Ivy Leaguers, professional and amateur athletes, upscale gentlemen, cowboys, frontiersmen, Native Americans, hunters, miners, prospectors, former soldiers, tradesmen, and sheriffs. The Rough Riders were part of the cavalry division commanded by former Confederate general Joseph Wheeler, which itself was one of three divisions in the V Corps under Lieutenant General William Rufus Shafter. Roosevelt and his men landed in Daiquirí, Cuba, on June 23, 1898, and marched to Siboney. Wheeler sent parts of the 1st and 10th Regular Cavalry on the lower road northwest and sent the "Rough Riders" on the parallel road running along a ridge up from the beach. To throw off his infantry rival, Wheeler left one regiment of his Cavalry Division, the 9th, at Siboney so that he could claim that his move north was only a limited reconnaissance if things went wrong. Roosevelt was promoted to colonel and took command of the regiment when Wood was put in command of the brigade. The Rough Riders had a short, minor skirmish known as the Battle of Las Guasimas; they fought their way through Spanish resistance and, together with the Regulars, forced the Spaniards to abandon their positions.
Under his leadership, the Rough Riders became famous for the charge up Kettle Hill on July 1, 1898, while supporting the regulars. Roosevelt had the only horse, and rode back and forth between rifle pits at the forefront of the advance up Kettle Hill, an advance that he urged despite the absence of any orders from superiors. He was forced to walk up the last part of Kettle Hill because his horse had been entangled in barbed wire. The victories came at a cost of 200 killed and 1,000 wounded.
In August, Roosevelt and other officers demanded that the soldiers be returned home. Roosevelt always recalled the Battle of Kettle Hill (part of the San Juan Heights) as "the great day of my life" and "my crowded hour". In 2001, Roosevelt was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions; he had been nominated during the war, but Army officials, annoyed at his grabbing the headlines, blocked it. After returning to civilian life, Roosevelt preferred to be known as "Colonel Roosevelt" or "The Colonel", though "Teddy" remained much more popular with the public, even though Roosevelt openly despised that moniker. Men working closely with Roosevelt customarily called him "Colonel" or "Theodore". Henceforth, political cartoons of Roosevelt usually depicted him in his Rough Rider garb.
Governor of New York
After leaving Cuba in August 1898, the Rough Riders were transported to a camp at Montauk Point, Long Island, where Roosevelt and his men were briefly quarantined due to the War Department's fear of spreading yellow fever. Shortly after Roosevelt's return to the United States, Republican Congressman Lemuel E. Quigg, a lieutenant of party boss Tom Platt, asked Roosevelt to run in the 1898 gubernatorial election. Platt disliked Roosevelt personally, feared that Roosevelt would oppose Platt's interests in office, and was reluctant to propel Roosevelt to the forefront of national politics. However, Platt also needed a strong candidate due to the unpopularity of the incumbent Republican governor, Frank S. Black, and Roosevelt agreed to become the nominee and to try not to "make war" with the Republican establishment once in office. Roosevelt defeated Black in the Republican caucus by a vote of 753 to 218, and faced Democrat Augustus Van Wyck, a well-respected judge, in the general election. Roosevelt campaigned vigorously on his war record, winning the election by a margin of just one percent.
As governor, Roosevelt learned much about ongoing economic issues and political techniques that later proved valuable in his presidency. He was exposed to the problems of trusts, monopolies, labor relations, and conservation. Chessman argues that Roosevelt's program "rested firmly upon the concept of the square deal by a neutral state". The rules for the Square Deal were "honesty in public affairs, an equitable sharing of privilege and responsibility, and subordination of party and local concerns to the interests of the state at large".
By holding twice-daily press conferences—which was an innovation—Roosevelt remained connected with his middle-class political base. Roosevelt successfully pushed the Ford Franchise-Tax bill, which taxed public franchises granted by the state and controlled by corporations, declaring that "a corporation which derives its powers from the State, should pay to the State a just percentage of its earnings as a return for the privileges it enjoys". He rejected "boss" Thomas C. Platt's worries that this approached Bryanite Socialism, explaining that without it, New York voters might get angry and adopt public ownership of streetcar lines and other franchises.
The New York state government affected many interests, and the power to make appointments to policy-making positions was a key role for the governor. Platt insisted that he be consulted on major appointments; Roosevelt appeared to comply, but then made his own decisions. Historians marvel that Roosevelt managed to appoint so many first-rate men with Platt's approval. He even enlisted Platt's help in securing reform, such as in the spring of 1899, when Platt pressured state senators to vote for a civil service bill that the secretary of the Civil Service Reform Association called "superior to any civil service statute heretofore secured in America".
Chessman argues that as governor, Roosevelt developed the principles that shaped his presidency, especially insistence upon the public responsibility of large corporations, publicity as a first remedy for trusts, regulation of railroad rates, mediation of the conflict of capital and labor, conservation of natural resources and protection of the less fortunate members of society. Roosevelt sought to position himself against the excesses of large corporations on the one hand and radical movements on the other.
As the chief executive of the most populous state in the union, Roosevelt was widely considered a potential future presidential candidate, and supporters such as William Allen White encouraged him to run for president. Roosevelt had no interest in challenging McKinley for the Republican nomination in 1900, and was denied his preferred post of Secretary of War. As his term progressed, Roosevelt pondered a 1904 presidential run, but was uncertain about whether he should seek re-election as governor in 1900.
Vice Presidency (1901)
In November 1899, Vice President Garret Hobart died of heart failure, leaving an open spot on the 1900 Republican national ticket. Though Henry Cabot Lodge and others urged him to run for vice president in 1900, Roosevelt was reluctant to take the powerless position and issued a public statement saying that he would not accept the nomination. Additionally, Roosevelt was informed by President McKinley and campaign manager Mark Hanna that he was not being considered for the role of vice president due to his actions prior to the Spanish–American War. Eager to be rid of Roosevelt, Platt nonetheless began a newspaper campaign in favor of Roosevelt's nomination for the vice presidency. Roosevelt attended the 1900 Republican National Convention as a state delegate and struck a bargain with Platt: Roosevelt would accept the nomination for vice president if the convention offered it to him, but would otherwise serve another term as governor. Platt asked Pennsylvania party boss Matthew Quay to lead the campaign for Roosevelt's nomination, and Quay outmaneuvered Hanna at the convention to put Roosevelt on the ticket. Roosevelt won the nomination unanimously.
Roosevelt's vice-presidential campaigning proved highly energetic and an equal match for Democratic presidential nominee William Jennings Bryan's famous barnstorming style of campaigning. In a whirlwind campaign that displayed his energy to the public, Roosevelt made 480 stops in 23 states. He denounced the radicalism of Bryan, contrasting it with the heroism of the soldiers and sailors who fought and won the war against Spain. Bryan had strongly supported the war itself, but he denounced the annexation of the Philippines as imperialism, which would spoil America's innocence. Roosevelt countered that it was best for the Filipinos to have stability and the Americans to have a proud place in the world. With the nation basking in peace and prosperity, the voters gave McKinley an even larger victory than that which he had achieved in 1896.
After the campaign, Roosevelt took office as vice president in March 1901. The office of vice president was a powerless sinecure and did not suit Roosevelt's aggressive temperament. Roosevelt's six months as vice president were uneventful and boring for a man of action. He had no power; he presided over the Senate for a mere four days before it adjourned. On September 2, 1901, Roosevelt first publicized an aphorism that thrilled his supporters: "Speak softly and carry a big stick, and you will go far."
Presidency (1901–1909)
On September 6, 1901, President McKinley was attending the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York when he was shot by anarchist Leon Czolgosz. Roosevelt was vacationing in Isle La Motte, Vermont, and traveled to Buffalo to visit McKinley in the hospital. It appeared that McKinley would recover, so Roosevelt resumed his vacation in the Adirondack Mountains. When McKinley's condition worsened, Roosevelt again rushed back to Buffalo. McKinley died on September 14, and Roosevelt was informed while he was in North Creek; he continued on to Buffalo and was sworn in as the nation's 26th president at the Ansley Wilcox House.
McKinley's supporters were nervous about the new president, and Hanna was particularly bitter that the man he had opposed so vigorously at the convention had succeeded McKinley. Roosevelt assured party leaders that he intended to adhere to McKinley's policies, and he retained McKinley's Cabinet. Nonetheless, Roosevelt sought to position himself as the party's undisputed leader, seeking to bolster the role of the president and position himself for the 1904 election. The vice presidency remained vacant, as there was no constitutional provision for filling an intra-term vacancy in that office (prior to the 25th Amendment in 1967).
Shortly after taking office, Roosevelt invited Booker T. Washington to dinner at the White House. This sparked a bitter, and at times vicious, reaction among whites across the heavily segregated South. Roosevelt reacted with astonishment and protest, saying that he looked forward to many future dinners with Washington. Upon further reflection, Roosevelt wanted to ensure that this had no effect on political support in the white South, and further dinner invitations to Washington were avoided; their next meeting was scheduled as typical business at 10:00 a.m. instead.
Domestic policies
Trust busting and regulation
For his aggressive use of the 1890 Sherman Antitrust Act, compared to his predecessors, Roosevelt was hailed as the "trust-buster"; but in reality he was more of a trust regulator. Roosevelt viewed big business as a necessary part of the American economy, and sought only to prosecute the "bad trusts" that restrained trade and charged unfair prices. He brought 44 antitrust suits, breaking up the Northern Securities Company, the largest railroad monopoly; and regulating Standard Oil, the largest oil company. Presidents Benjamin Harrison, Grover Cleveland, and William McKinley combined had prosecuted only 18 antitrust violations under the Sherman Antitrust Act.
Bolstered by his party's winning large majorities in the 1902 elections, Roosevelt proposed the creation of the United States Department of Commerce and Labor, which would include the Bureau of Corporations. While Congress was receptive to the Department of Commerce and Labor, it was more skeptical of the antitrust powers that Roosevelt sought to endow within the Bureau of Corporations. Roosevelt successfully appealed to the public to pressure Congress, and Congress overwhelmingly voted to pass Roosevelt's version of the bill.
In a moment of frustration, House Speaker Joseph Gurney Cannon commented on Roosevelt's desire for executive branch control in domestic policy-making: "That fellow at the other end of the avenue wants everything from the birth of Christ to the death of the devil." Biographer Brands states, "Even his friends occasionally wondered whether there wasn't any custom or practice too minor for him to try to regulate, update or otherwise improve." In fact, Roosevelt's willingness to exercise his power included attempted rule changes in the game of football; at the Naval Academy, he sought to force retention of martial arts classes and to revise disciplinary rules. He even ordered changes made in the minting of a coin whose design he disliked, and ordered the Government Printing Office to adopt simplified spellings for a core list of 300 words, according to reformers on the Simplified Spelling Board. He was forced to rescind the latter after substantial ridicule from the press and a resolution of protest from the House of Representatives.
Coal strike
In May 1902, anthracite coal miners went on strike, threatening a national energy shortage. After threatening the coal operators with intervention by federal troops, Roosevelt won their agreement to dispute arbitration by a commission, which succeeded in stopping the strike. The accord with J. P. Morgan resulted in the miners getting more pay for fewer hours, but with no union recognition. Roosevelt said, "My action on labor should always be considered in connection with my action as regards capital, and both are reducible to my favorite formula—a square deal for every man." Roosevelt was the first president to help settle a labor dispute.
Prosecuted misconduct
During Roosevelt's second year in office it was discovered there was corruption in the Indian Service, the Land Office, and the Post Office Department. Roosevelt investigated and prosecuted corrupt Indian agents who had cheated the Creeks and various tribes out of land parcels. Land fraud and speculation were found involving Oregon federal timberlands. In November 1902, Roosevelt and Secretary Ethan A. Hitchcock forced Binger Hermann, the General Land Office Commissioner, to resign from office. On November 6, 1903 Francis J. Heney was appointed special prosecutor and obtained 146 indictments involving an Oregon Land Office bribery ring. U.S. Senator John H. Mitchell was indicted for bribery to expedite illegal land patents, found guilty in July 1905, and sentenced to six months in prison. More corruption was found in the Postal Department, that brought on the indictments of 44 government employees on charges of bribery and fraud. Historians generally agree that Roosevelt moved "quickly and decisively" to prosecute misconduct in his administration.
Railroads
Merchants complained that some railroad rates were too high. In the 1906 Hepburn Act, Roosevelt sought to give the Interstate Commerce Commission the power to regulate rates, but the Senate, led by conservative Nelson Aldrich, fought back. Roosevelt worked with the Democratic Senator Benjamin Tillman to pass the bill. Roosevelt and Aldrich ultimately reached a compromise that gave the ICC the power to replace existing rates with "just-and-reasonable" maximum rates, but allowed railroads to appeal to the federal courts on what was "reasonable". In addition to rate-setting, the Hepburn Act also granted the ICC regulatory power over pipeline fees, storage contracts, and several other aspects of railroad operations.
Pure food and drugs
Roosevelt responded to public anger over the abuses in the food packing industry by pushing Congress to pass the Meat Inspection Act of 1906 and the Pure Food and Drug Act. Though conservatives initially opposed the bill, Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, published in 1906, helped galvanize support for reform. The Meat Inspection Act of 1906 banned misleading labels and preservatives that contained harmful chemicals. The Pure Food and Drug Act banned food and drugs that were impure or falsely labeled from being made, sold, and shipped. Roosevelt also served as honorary president of the American School Hygiene Association from 1907 to 1908, and in 1909 he convened the first White House Conference on the Care of Dependent Children.
Conservation
Of all Roosevelt's achievements, he was proudest of his work in the conservation of natural resources and extending federal protection to land and wildlife. Roosevelt worked closely with Interior Secretary James Rudolph Garfield and Chief of the United States Forest Service Gifford Pinchot to enact a series of conservation programs that often met with resistance from Western members of Congress, such as Charles William Fulton. Nonetheless, Roosevelt established the United States Forest Service, signed into law the creation of five National Parks, and signed the 1906 Antiquities Act, under which he proclaimed 18 new U.S. National Monuments. He also established the first 51 bird reserves, four game preserves, and 150 National Forests. The area of the United States that he placed under public protection totals approximately .
Roosevelt extensively used executive orders on a number of occasions to protect forest and wildlife lands during his tenure as president. By the end of his second term in office, Roosevelt used executive orders to establish of reserved forestry land. Roosevelt was unapologetic about his extensive use of executive orders to protect the environment, despite the perception in Congress that he was encroaching on too many lands. Eventually, Senator Charles Fulton (R-OR) attached an amendment to an agricultural appropriations bill that effectively prevented the president from reserving any further land. Before signing that bill into law, Roosevelt used executive orders to establish an additional 21 forest reserves, waiting until the last minute to sign the bill into law. In total, Roosevelt used executive orders to establish 121 forest reserves in 31 states. Prior to Roosevelt, only one president had issued over 200 executive orders, Grover Cleveland (253). The first 25 presidents issued a total of 1,262 executive orders; Roosevelt issued 1,081.
Foreign policy
Japan
The American annexation of Hawaii in 1898 was stimulated in part by fear that otherwise Japan would dominate the Hawaiian Republic. Similarly, Germany was the alternative to American takeover of the Philippines in 1900, and Tokyo strongly preferred the U.S. to take over. As the U.S. became a naval world power, it needed to find a way to avoid a military confrontation in the Pacific with Japan.
In the 1890s, Roosevelt had been an ardent imperialist and vigorously defended the permanent acquisition of the Philippines in the 1900 campaign. After the local insurrection ended in 1902, he largely lost his imperialist interest in the Philippines and Asian expansion but wished to have a strong U.S. presence in the region as a symbol of democratic values. One of Theodore Roosevelt's priorities during his presidency and afterwards, was the maintenance of friendly relations with Japan. From 1904 to 1905 Japan and Russia were at war. Roosevelt admired the martial courage of the Japanese, and distrusted the reckless German Kaiser. Both sides asked Roosevelt to mediate a peace conference, held successfully in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Roosevelt won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts.
In California, anti-Japanese hostility was growing, and Tokyo protested. Roosevelt negotiated a "Gentleman's Agreement" in 1907. Explicit discrimination against the Japanese was ended, and Japan agreed not to allow unskilled immigrants into the United States. The Great White Fleet of American battleships visited Japan in 1908. Pulitzer prize-winning biographer Henry Pringle states that the great voyage was "the direct result of the Japanese trouble." Roosevelt intended to emphasize the superiority of the American fleet over the smaller Japanese navy, but instead of resentment the visitors arrived to a joyous welcome by Japanese elite as well as the general public. This good-will facilitated the Root–Takahira Agreement of November 1908 which reaffirmed the status quo of Japanese control of Korea and American control of the Philippines.
Europe
Success in the war against Spain and the new empire, plus having the largest economy in the world, meant that the United States had emerged as a world power. Roosevelt searched for ways to win recognition for the position abroad.
Roosevelt also played a major role in mediating the First Moroccan Crisis by calling the Algeciras Conference, which averted war between France and Germany.
Roosevelt's presidency saw the strengthening of ties with Great Britain. The Great Rapprochement had begun with British support of the United States during the Spanish–American War, and it continued as Britain withdrew its fleet from the Caribbean in favor of focusing on the rising German naval threat. In 1901, Britain and the United States signed the Hay–Pauncefote Treaty, abrogating the Clayton–Bulwer Treaty, which had prevented the United States from constructing a canal connecting the Pacific and the Atlantic Ocean. The long-standing Alaska boundary dispute was settled on terms favorable to the United States, as Great Britain was unwilling to alienate the United States over what it considered to be a secondary issue. As Roosevelt later put it, the resolution of the Alaskan boundary dispute "settled the last serious trouble between the British Empire and ourselves."
Latin America and Panama Canal
As president, he primarily focused the nation's overseas ambitions on the Caribbean, especially locations that had a bearing on the defense of his pet project, the Panama Canal. Roosevelt also increased the size of the navy, and by the end of his second term the United States had more battleships than any other country besides Britain. The Panama Canal when it opened in 1914 allowed the U.S. Navy to rapidly move back and forth from the Pacific to the Caribbean to European waters.
In December 1902, the Germans, British, and Italians blockaded the ports of Venezuela in order to force the repayment of delinquent loans. Roosevelt was particularly concerned with the motives of German Emperor Wilhelm II. He succeeded in getting the three nations to agree to arbitration by tribunal at The Hague, and successfully defused the crisis. The latitude granted to the Europeans by the arbiters was in part responsible for the "Roosevelt Corollary" to the Monroe Doctrine, which the President issued in 1904: "Chronic wrongdoing or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation, and in the Western Hemisphere, the adherence of the United States to the Monroe doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power."
The pursuit of an isthmus canal in Central America during this period focused on two possible routes—Nicaragua and Panama, which was then a rebellious district within Colombia. Roosevelt convinced Congress to approve the Panamanian alternative, and a treaty was approved, only to be rejected by the Colombian government. When the Panamanians learned of this, a rebellion followed, was supported by Roosevelt, and succeeded. A treaty with the new Panama government for construction of the canal was then reached in 1903. Roosevelt received criticism for paying the bankrupt Panama Canal Company and the New Panama Canal Company $40,000,000 (equivalent to $ billion in ) for the rights and equipment to build the canal. Critics charged that an American investor syndicate allegedly divided the large payment among themselves. There was also controversy over whether a French company engineer influenced Roosevelt in choosing the Panama route for the canal over the Nicaragua route. Roosevelt denied charges of corruption concerning the canal in a January 8, 1906 message to Congress. In January 1909, Roosevelt, in an unprecedented move, brought criminal libel charges against the New York World and the Indianapolis News known as the "Roosevelt-Panama Libel Cases". Both cases were dismissed by U.S. District Courts, and on January 3, 1911, the U.S. Supreme Court, upon federal appeal, upheld the lower courts' rulings. Historians are sharply critical of Roosevelt's criminal prosecutions of the World and the News, but are divided on whether actual corruption in acquiring and building the Panama Canal took place.
In 1906, following a disputed election, an insurrection ensued in Cuba; Roosevelt sent Taft, the Secretary of War, to monitor the situation; he was convinced that he had the authority to unilaterally authorize Taft to deploy Marines if necessary, without congressional approval.
Examining the work of numerous scholars, Ricard (2014) reports that:
The most striking evolution in the twenty-first-century historiography of Theodore Roosevelt is the switch from a partial arraignment of the imperialist to a quasi-unanimous celebration of the master diplomatist.... [Recent works] have underlined cogently Roosevelt's exceptional statesmanship in the construction of the nascent twentieth-century "special relationship". ...The twenty-sixth president's reputation as a brilliant diplomatist and realpolitician has undeniably reached new heights in the twenty-first century...yet, his Philippine policy still prompts criticism.
Media
Building on McKinley's effective use of the press, Roosevelt made the White House the center of news every day, providing interviews and photo opportunities. After noticing the reporters huddled outside the White House in the rain one day, he gave them their own room inside, effectively inventing the presidential press briefing. The grateful press, with unprecedented access to the White House, rewarded Roosevelt with ample coverage.
Roosevelt normally enjoyed very close relationships with the press, which he used to keep in daily contact with his middle-class base. While out of office, he made a living as a writer and magazine editor. He loved talking with intellectuals, authors, and writers. He drew the line, however, at exposé-oriented scandal-mongering journalists who, during his term, sent magazine subscriptions soaring by their attacks on corrupt politicians, mayors, and corporations. Roosevelt himself was not usually a target, but a speech of his from 1906 coined the term "muckraker" for unscrupulous journalists making wild charges. "The liar", he said, "is no whit better than the thief, and if his mendacity takes the form of slander he may be worse than most thieves."
The press did briefly target Roosevelt in one instance. After 1904, he was periodically criticized for the manner in which he facilitated the construction of the Panama Canal. According to biographer Brands, Roosevelt, near the end of his term, demanded that the Justice Department bring charges of criminal libel against Joseph Pulitzer's New York World. The publication had accused him of "deliberate misstatements of fact" in defense of family members who were criticized as a result of the Panama affair. Though an indictment was obtained, the case was ultimately dismissed in federal court—it was not a federal offense, but one enforceable in state courts. The Justice Department had predicted that result, and had also advised Roosevelt accordingly.
Election of 1904
The control and management of the Republican Party lay in the hands of Ohio Senator and Republican Party chairman Mark Hanna until McKinley's death. Roosevelt and Hanna frequently cooperated during Roosevelt's first term, but Hanna left open the possibility of a challenge to Roosevelt for the 1904 Republican nomination. Roosevelt and Ohio's other Senator, Joseph B. Foraker, forced Hanna's hand by calling for Ohio's state Republican convention to endorse Roosevelt for the 1904 nomination. Unwilling to break with the president, Hanna was forced to publicly endorse Roosevelt. Hanna and Pennsylvania Senator Matthew Quay both died in early 1904, and with the waning of Thomas Platt's power, Roosevelt faced little effective opposition for the 1904 nomination. In deference to Hanna's conservative loyalists, Roosevelt at first offered the party chairmanship to Cornelius Bliss, but he declined. Roosevelt turned to his own man, George B. Cortelyou of New York, the first Secretary of Commerce and Labor. To buttress his hold on the party's nomination, Roosevelt made it clear that anyone opposing Cortelyou would be considered to be opposing the President. The President secured his own nomination, but his preferred vice-presidential running mate, Robert R. Hitt, was not nominated. Senator Charles Warren Fairbanks of Indiana, a favorite of conservatives, gained the nomination.
While Roosevelt followed the tradition of incumbents in not actively campaigning on the stump, he sought to control the campaign's message through specific instructions to Cortelyou. He also attempted to manage the press's release of White House statements by forming the Ananias Club. Any journalist who repeated a statement made by the president without approval was penalized by restriction of further access.
The Democratic Party's nominee in 1904 was Alton Brooks Parker. Democratic newspapers charged that Republicans were extorting large campaign contributions from corporations, putting ultimate responsibility on Roosevelt, himself. Roosevelt denied corruption while at the same time he ordered Cortelyou to return $100,000 (equivalent to $ million in ) of a campaign contribution from Standard Oil. Parker said that Roosevelt was accepting corporate donations to keep damaging information from the Bureau of Corporations from going public. Roosevelt strongly denied Parker's charge and responded that he would "go into the Presidency unhampered by any pledge, promise, or understanding of any kind, sort, or description...". Allegations from Parker and the Democrats, however, had little impact on the election, as Roosevelt promised to give every American a "square deal". Roosevelt won 56% of the popular vote, and Parker received 38%; Roosevelt also won the Electoral College vote, 336 to 140. Before his inauguration ceremony, Roosevelt declared that he would not serve another term. Democrats afterwards would continue to charge Roosevelt and the Republicans of being influenced by corporate donations during Roosevelt's second term.
Second term
As his second term progressed, Roosevelt moved to the left of his Republican Party base and called for a series of reforms, most of which Congress failed to pass. In his last year in office, he was assisted by his friend Archibald Butt (who later perished in the sinking of RMS Titanic). Roosevelt's influence waned as he approached the end of his second term, as his promise to forego a third term made him a lame duck and his concentration of power provoked a backlash from many Congressmen. He sought a national incorporation law (at a time when all corporations had state charters), called for a federal income tax (despite the Supreme Court's ruling in Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co.), and an inheritance tax. In the area of labor legislation, Roosevelt called for limits on the use of court injunctions against labor unions during strikes; injunctions were a powerful weapon that mostly helped business. He wanted an employee liability law for industrial injuries (pre-empting state laws) and an eight-hour work day for federal employees. In other areas he also sought a postal savings system (to provide competition for local banks), and he asked for campaign reform laws.
The election of 1904 continued to be a source of contention between Republicans and Democrats. A Congressional investigation in 1905 revealed that corporate executives donated tens of thousands of dollars in 1904 to the Republican National Committee. In 1908, a month before the general presidential election, Governor Charles N. Haskell of Oklahoma, former Democratic Treasurer, said that Senators beholden to Standard Oil lobbied Roosevelt, in the summer of 1904, to authorize the leasing of Indian oil lands by Standard Oil subsidiaries. He said Roosevelt overruled his Secretary of Interior Ethan A. Hitchcock and granted a pipeline franchise to run through the Osage lands to the Prairie Oil and Gas Company. The New York Sun made a similar accusation and said that Standard Oil, a refinery who financially benefited from the pipeline, had contributed $150,000 to the Republicans in 1904 (equivalent to $ million in ) after Roosevelt's alleged reversal allowing the pipeline franchise. Roosevelt branded Haskell's allegation as "a lie, pure and simple" and obtained a denial from Treasury Secretary Shaw that Roosevelt had neither coerced Shaw nor overruled him.
Post-presidency (1909–1919)
Election of 1908
Roosevelt enjoyed being president and was still relatively youthful, but felt that a limited number of terms provided a check against dictatorship. Roosevelt ultimately decided to stick to his 1904 pledge not to run for a third term. He personally favored Secretary of State Elihu Root as his successor, but Root's ill health made him an unsuitable candidate. New York Governor Charles Evans Hughes loomed as a potentially strong candidate and shared Roosevelt's progressivism, but Roosevelt disliked him and considered him to be too independent. Instead, Roosevelt settled on his Secretary of War, William Howard Taft, who had ably served under Presidents Harrison, McKinley, and Roosevelt in various positions. Roosevelt and Taft had been friends since 1890, and Taft had consistently supported President Roosevelt's policies. Roosevelt was determined to install the successor of his choice, and wrote the following to Taft: "Dear Will: Do you want any action about those federal officials? I will break their necks with the utmost cheerfulness if you say the word!". Just weeks later he branded as "false and malicious" the charge that he was using the offices at his disposal to favor Taft. At the 1908 Republican convention, many chanted for "four years more" of a Roosevelt presidency, but Taft won the nomination after Henry Cabot Lodge made it clear that Roosevelt was not interested in a third term.
In the 1908 election, Taft easily defeated the Democratic nominee, three-time candidate William Jennings Bryan. Taft promoted a progressivism that stressed the rule of law; he preferred that judges rather than administrators or politicians make the basic decisions about fairness. Taft usually proved to be a less adroit politician than Roosevelt and lacked the energy and personal magnetism, along with the publicity devices, the dedicated supporters, and the broad base of public support that made Roosevelt so formidable. When Roosevelt realized that lowering the tariff would risk creating severe tensions inside the Republican Party by pitting producers (manufacturers and farmers) against merchants and consumers, he stopped talking about the issue. Taft ignored the risks and tackled the tariff boldly, encouraging reformers to fight for lower rates, and then cutting deals with conservative leaders that kept overall rates high. The resulting Payne-Aldrich tariff of 1909, signed into law early in President Taft's tenure, was too high for most reformers, and Taft's handling of the tariff alienated all sides. While the crisis was building inside the Party, Roosevelt was touring Africa and Europe, to allow Taft to be his own man.
Africa and Europe (1909–1910)
In March 1909, shortly after the end of his presidency, Roosevelt left New York for the Smithsonian-Roosevelt African Expedition, a safari in east and central Africa. Roosevelt's party landed in Mombasa, East Africa (now Kenya) and traveled to the Belgian Congo (now Democratic Republic of the Congo) before following the Nile to Khartoum in modern Sudan. Financed by Andrew Carnegie and by his own writings, Roosevelt's party hunted for specimens for the Smithsonian Institution and for the American Museum of Natural History in New York. The group, led by the hunter-tracker RJ Cunninghame, included scientists from the Smithsonian, and was joined from time to time by Frederick Selous, the famous big game hunter and explorer. Participants on the expedition included Kermit Roosevelt, Edgar Alexander Mearns, Edmund Heller, and John Alden Loring.
Roosevelt and his companions killed or trapped approximately 11,400 animals, from insects and moles to hippopotamuses and elephants. The 1,000 large animals included 512 big game animals, including six rare white rhinos. Tons of salted animals and their skins were shipped to Washington; it took years to mount them all, and the Smithsonian shared many duplicate specimens with other museums. Regarding the large number of animals taken, Roosevelt said, "I can be condemned only if the existence of the National Museum, the American Museum of Natural History, and all similar zoological institutions are to be condemned". He wrote a detailed account of the safari in the book African Game Trails, recounting the excitement of the chase, the people he met, and the flora and fauna he collected in the name of science.
After his safari, Roosevelt traveled north to embark on a tour of Europe. Stopping first in Egypt, he commented favorably on British rule of the region, giving his opinion that Egypt was not yet ready for independence. He refused a meeting with the Pope due to a dispute over a group of Methodists active in Rome, but met with Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, King George V of Great Britain, and other European leaders. In Oslo, Norway, Roosevelt delivered a speech calling for limitations on naval armaments, a strengthening of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, and the creation of a "League of Peace" among the world powers. He also delivered the Romanes Lecture at Oxford, in which he denounced those who sought parallels between the evolution of animal life and the development of society. Though Roosevelt attempted to avoid domestic politics during his time abroad, he met with Gifford Pinchot, who related his own disappointment with the Taft Administration. Pinchot had been forced to resign as head of the forest service after clashing with Taft's Interior Secretary, Richard Ballinger, who had prioritized development over conservation. Roosevelt returned to the United States in June 1910.
Republican Party schism
Roosevelt had attempted to refashion Taft into a second version of himself, but as soon as Taft began to display his individuality, the former president expressed his disenchantment. He was offended on election night when Taft indicated that his success had been possible not just through the efforts of Roosevelt, but also his brother Charley. Roosevelt was further alienated when Taft, intent on becoming his own man, did not consult him about cabinet appointments. Roosevelt and other progressives were ideologically dissatisfied over Taft's conservation policies and his handling of the tariff when he concentrated more power in the hands of conservative party leaders in Congress. Regarding radicalism and liberalism, Roosevelt wrote a British friend in 1911:
Fundamentally it is the radical liberal with whom I sympathize. He is at least working toward the end for which I think we should all of us strive; and when he adds sanity in moderation to courage and enthusiasm for high ideals he develops into the kind of statesman whom alone I can wholeheartedly support."
Roosevelt urged progressives to take control of the Republican Party at the state and local level and to avoid splitting the party in a way that would hand the presidency to the Democrats in 1912. Additionally, Roosevelt expressed optimism about the Taft Administration after meeting with the president in the White House in June 1910.
In August 1910, Roosevelt gained national attention with a speech at Osawatomie, Kansas, which was the most radical of his career and marked his public break with Taft and the conservative Republicans. Advocating a program of "New Nationalism", Roosevelt emphasized the priority of labor over capital interests, a need to more effectively control corporate creation and combination, and proposed a ban on corporate political contributions. Returning to New York, Roosevelt began a battle to take control of the state Republican party from William Barnes Jr., Tom Platt's successor as the state party boss, whom he would later confront in the Barnes vs. Roosevelt Libel Trial. Taft had pledged his support to Roosevelt in this endeavor, and Roosevelt was outraged when Taft's support failed to materialize at the 1910 state convention. Roosevelt nonetheless campaigned for the Republicans in the 1910 elections, in which the Democrats gained control of the House for the first time since the 1890s. Among the newly elected Democrats was New York state senator Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who argued that he represented his distant cousin's policies better than his Republican opponent.
The Republican progressives interpreted the 1910 defeats as a compelling argument for the complete reorganization of the party in 1911. Senator Robert M. La Follette of Wisconsin joined with Pinchot, William White, and California Governor Hiram Johnson to create the National Progressive Republican League; their objectives were to defeat the power of political bossism at the state level and to replace Taft at the national level. Despite skepticism of La Follette's new league, Roosevelt expressed general support for progressive principles. Between January and April 1911, Roosevelt wrote a series of articles for The Outlook, defending what he called "the great movement of our day, the progressive nationalist movement against special privilege, and in favor of an honest and efficient political and industrial democracy". With Roosevelt apparently uninterested in running in 1912, La Follette declared his own candidacy in June 1911. Roosevelt continually criticized Taft after the 1910 elections, and the break between the two men became final after the Justice Department filed an antitrust lawsuit against US Steel in September 1911; Roosevelt was humiliated by this suit because he had personally approved of an acquisition that the Justice Department was now challenging. However, Roosevelt was still unwilling to run against Taft in 1912; he instead hoped to run in 1916 against whichever Democrat beat Taft in 1912.
Dispute over arbitration treaties
Taft was a major advocate of arbitration as a major reform of the Progressive Era. In 1911 Taft and his Secretary of State Philander C. Knox negotiated major treaties with Great Britain and with France providing that differences be arbitrated. Disputes had to be submitted to the Hague Court or other tribunal. These were signed in August 1911 but had to be ratified by a two-thirds vote of the Senate. Neither Taft nor Knox consulted with members of the Senate during the negotiating process. By then many Republicans were opposed to Taft, and the president felt that lobbying too hard for the treaties might cause their defeat. He made some speeches supporting the treaties in October, but the Senate added amendments Taft could not accept, killing the agreements.
The arbitration issue opens a window on a bitter philosophical dispute among American progressives. Some, led by Taft looked to legal arbitration as the best alternative to warfare. Taft was a constitutional lawyer who later became Chief Justice; he had a deep understanding of the legal issues. Taft's political base was the conservative business community that largely supported peace movements before 1914. However, his mistake, in this case, was a failure to mobilize that base. The businessmen believed that economic rivalries were the cause of war, and that extensive trade led to an interdependent world that would make war a very expensive and useless anachronism.
However, an opposing faction of progressives, led by Roosevelt, ridiculed arbitration as foolhardy idealism, and insisted on the realism of warfare as the only solution to serious international disputes. Roosevelt worked with his close friend Senator Henry Cabot Lodge to impose those amendments that ruined the goals of the treaties. Lodge thought the treaties impinged too much on senatorial prerogatives. Roosevelt, however, was acting to sabotage Taft's campaign promises. At a deeper level, Roosevelt truly believed that arbitration was a naïve solution and the great issues had to be decided by warfare. The Rooseveltian approach incorporated a near-mystical faith of the ennobling nature of war. It endorsed jingoistic nationalism as opposed to the businessmen's calculation of profit and national interest.
Election of 1912
Republican primaries and convention
In November 1911, a group of Ohio Republicans endorsed Roosevelt for the party's nomination for president; the endorsers included James R. Garfield and Dan Hanna. This endorsement was made by leaders of President Taft's home state. Roosevelt conspicuously declined to make a statement—requested by Garfield—that he would flatly refuse a nomination. Soon thereafter, Roosevelt said, "I am really sorry for Taft... I am sure he means well, but he means well feebly, and he does not know how! He is utterly unfit for leadership and this is a time when we need leadership." In January 1912, Roosevelt declared "if the people make a draft on me I shall not decline to serve". Later that year, Roosevelt spoke before the Constitutional Convention in Ohio, openly identifying as a progressive and endorsing progressive reforms—even endorsing popular review of state judicial decisions. In reaction to Roosevelt's proposals for popular overrule of court decisions, Taft said, "Such extremists are not progressives—they are political emotionalists or neurotics".
Roosevelt began to envision himself as the savior of the Republican Party from defeat in the upcoming presidential election. In February 1912, Roosevelt announced in Boston, "I will accept the nomination for president if it is tendered to me. I hope that so far as possible the people may be given the chance through direct primaries to express who shall be the nominee. Elihu Root and Henry Cabot Lodge thought that division of the party would lead to its defeat in the next election, while Taft believed that he would be defeated either in the Republican primary or in the general election.
The 1912 primaries represented the first extensive use of the presidential primary, a reform achievement of the progressive movement. The Republican primaries in the South, where party regulars dominated, went for Taft, as did results in New York, Indiana, Michigan, Kentucky and Massachusetts. Meanwhile, Roosevelt won in Illinois, Minnesota, Nebraska, South Dakota, California, Maryland and Pennsylvania; Roosevelt also won Taft's home state of Ohio. These primary elections, while demonstrating Roosevelt's continuing popularity with the electorate, were not pivotal. The final credentials of the state delegates at the national convention were determined by the national committee, which was controlled by the party leaders, headed by the incumbent president.
Prior to the 1912 Republican National Convention in Chicago, Roosevelt expressed doubt about his prospects for victory, noting that Taft had more delegates and control of the credentials committee. His only hope was to convince party leaders that the nomination of Taft would hand the election to the Democrats, but party leaders were determined not to cede their leadership to Roosevelt. The credentials committee awarded almost all contested delegates to Taft, and Taft won the nomination on the first ballot. Black delegates from the South played a key role: they voted heavily for Taft and put him over the top. La Follette also helped Taft's candidacy; he hoped that a deadlocked convention would result in his own nomination, and refused to release his delegates to support Roosevelt.
The Progressive ("Bull Moose") Party
Once his defeat at the Republican convention appeared probable, Roosevelt announced that he would "accept the progressive nomination on a progressive platform and I shall fight to the end, win or lose". At the same time, Roosevelt prophetically said, "My feeling is that the Democrats will probably win if they nominate a progressive".
Roosevelt left the Republican Party and created the Progressive Party, structuring it as a permanent organization that would field complete tickets at the presidential and state level. The party included Roosevelt and key allies such as Pinchot, Cornelia Bryce Pinchot (Pinchot's wife and a longtime friend of Roosevelt's), and Albert Beveridge. The new party was popularly known as the "Bull Moose Party" after Roosevelt told reporters, "I'm as fit as a bull moose". At the 1912 Progressive National Convention, Roosevelt cried out, "We stand at Armageddon and we battle for the Lord." California Governor Hiram Johnson was nominated as Roosevelt's running mate. Roosevelt's platform echoed his 1907–1908 proposals, calling for vigorous government intervention to protect the people from selfish interests:
Though many Progressive party supporters in the North were supporters of civil rights for blacks, Roosevelt did not give strong support to civil rights and ran a "lily-white" campaign in the South. Rival all-white and all-black delegations from four southern states arrived at the Progressive national convention, and Roosevelt decided to seat the all-white delegations. Nevertheless, he won little support outside mountain Republican strongholds. Out of nearly 1100 counties in the South, Roosevelt won two counties in Alabama, one in Arkansas, seven in North Carolina, three in Georgia, 17 in Tennessee, two in Texas, one in Virginia, and none in Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, or South Carolina.
Assassination attempt
On October 14, 1912, while arriving at a campaign event in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Roosevelt was shot from seven feet away in front of the Gilpatrick Hotel by a delusional saloonkeeper named John Flammang Schrank, who believed that the ghost of assassinated president William McKinley had directed him to kill Roosevelt. The bullet lodged in his chest after penetrating his steel eyeglass case and passing through a 50-page-thick single-folded copy of the speech titled "Progressive Cause Greater Than Any Individual", which he was carrying in his jacket. Schrank was immediately disarmed (by Czech immigrant Frank Bukovsky), captured, and might have been lynched had Roosevelt not shouted for Schrank to remain unharmed. Roosevelt assured the crowd he was all right, then ordered police to take charge of Schrank and to make sure no violence was done to him.
As an experienced hunter and anatomist, Roosevelt correctly concluded that since he was not coughing blood, the bullet had not reached his lung. He declined suggestions to go to the hospital immediately and instead delivered a 90 minute speech with blood seeping into his shirt. His opening comments to the gathered crowd were, "Ladies and gentlemen, I don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot, but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose." Only after finishing his address did he accept medical attention.
Subsequent probes and an x-ray showed that the bullet had lodged in Roosevelt's chest muscle, but did not penetrate the pleura. Doctors concluded that it would be less dangerous to leave it in place than to attempt to remove it, and Roosevelt carried the bullet with him for the rest of his life. Both Taft and Democratic nominee Woodrow Wilson suspended their own campaigning until Roosevelt recovered and resumed his. When asked if the shooting would affect his election campaign, he said to the reporter "I'm fit as a bull moose." The bull moose became a symbol of both Roosevelt and the Progressive Party, and it often was referred to as simply the Bull Moose Party. He spent two weeks recuperating before returning to the campaign trail. He later wrote a friend about the bullet inside him, "I do not mind it any more than if it were in my waistcoat pocket."
Farewell manifesto
On October 20, Roosevelt spoke to a crowd of 16,000 at Madison Square Garden. The speech included: "Perhaps once in a generation, there comes a chance for the people of a country to play their part wisely and fearlessly in some great battle of the age-long warfare for human rights."
Election results
After the Democrats nominated Governor Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey, Roosevelt did not expect to win the general election, as Wilson had compiled a record attractive to many progressive Democrats who might have otherwise considered voting for Roosevelt. Roosevelt still campaigned vigorously, and the election developed into a two-person contest between Wilson and Roosevelt despite Taft's presence in the race. Roosevelt respected Wilson, but the two differed on various issues; Wilson opposed any federal intervention regarding women's suffrage or child labor (he viewed these as state issues), and attacked Roosevelt's tolerance of large businesses.
Roosevelt won 4.1 million votes (27%), compared to Taft's 3.5 million (23%). Wilson gained 6.3 million votes (42% of the total) and a massive landslide in the Electoral College, with 435 electoral votes; Roosevelt won 88 electoral votes, while Taft won 8. Pennsylvania was the only eastern state won by Roosevelt; in the Midwest, he carried Michigan, Minnesota, and South Dakota; in the West, California, and Washington. Wilson's victory represented the first Democratic presidential election victory since Cleveland's 1892 campaign, and it was the party's best performance in the Electoral College since 1852. Roosevelt, meanwhile, garnered a higher share of the popular vote than any other third-party presidential candidate in history and won the most states of any third-party candidate after the Civil War.
South American expedition (1913-1914)
A friend of Roosevelt's, Father John Augustine Zahm, persuaded Roosevelt to participate in an expedition to South America. To finance the expedition, Roosevelt received support from the American Museum of Natural History in return for promising to bring back many new animal specimens. Roosevelt's popular book, Through the Brazilian Wilderness describes his expedition into the Brazilian jungle in 1913 as a member of the Roosevelt-Rondon Scientific Expedition, co-named after its leader, Brazilian explorer Cândido Rondon.
Once in South America, a new, far more ambitious goal was added: to find the headwaters of the Rio da Duvida (Portuguese for "River of Doubt"), and trace it north to the Madeira and thence to the Amazon River. It was later renamed Roosevelt River in honor of the former president. Roosevelt's crew consisted of his son Kermit, Colonel Rondon, naturalist George Kruck Cherrie (sent by the American Museum of Natural History), Brazilian Lieutenant João Lira, team physician Dr. José Antonio Cajazeira, and 16 skilled paddlers and porters. Roosevelt also identified Leo Miller (another AMNH recommendation), Anthony Fiala, Frank Harper, and Jacob Sigg as crew members. The initial expedition started somewhat tenuously on December 9, 1913, at the height of the rainy season. The trip down the River of Doubt started on February 27, 1914.
During the trip down the river, Roosevelt suffered a minor leg wound after he jumped into the river to try to prevent two canoes from smashing against the rocks. The flesh wound he received, however, soon gave him tropical fever that resembled the malaria he had contracted while in Cuba fifteen years before. Because the bullet lodged in his chest from the assassination attempt in 1912 was never removed, his health worsened from the infection. This weakened Roosevelt so greatly that six weeks into the adventure, he had to be attended to day and night by the expedition's physician and his son Kermit. By then, he could not walk because of the infection in his injured leg and an infirmity in the other, which was due to a traffic accident a decade earlier. Roosevelt was riddled with chest pains, fighting a fever that soared to and at times made him delirious, at one point constantly reciting the first two lines of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem "Kubla Khan": "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan / A stately pleasure dome decree". Regarding his condition as a threat to the survival of the others, Roosevelt insisted he be left behind to allow the poorly provisioned expedition to proceed as rapidly as it could, preparing to commit suicide with an overdose of morphine. Only an appeal by his son persuaded him to continue.
Despite Roosevelt's continued decline and loss of over , Colonel Rondon reduced the pace of the expedition to allow for his commission's mapmaking and other geographical tasks, which required regular stops to fix the expedition's position by sun-based survey. Upon Roosevelt's return to New York, friends and family were startled by his physical appearance and fatigue. Roosevelt wrote, perhaps prophetically, to a friend that the trip had cut his life short by ten years. For the rest of his few remaining years, he would be plagued by flare-ups of malaria and leg inflammations so severe as to require surgery. Before Roosevelt had even completed his sea voyage home, critics raised doubts over his claims of exploring and navigating a completely uncharted river over long. When he had recovered sufficiently, he addressed a standing-room-only convention organized in Washington, D.C., by the National Geographic Society and satisfactorily defended his claims.
Final years
Roosevelt returned to the United States in May 1914. Though he was outraged by the Wilson Administration's conclusion of a treaty that expressed "sincere regret" for the way in which the United States had acquired the Panama Canal Zone, he was impressed by many of the reforms passed under Wilson. Roosevelt made several campaign appearances for the Progressives, but the 1914 elections were a disaster for the fledgling third party. Roosevelt began to envision another campaign for president, this time with himself at the head of the Republican Party, but conservative party leaders remained opposed to Roosevelt. In hopes of engineering a joint nomination, the Progressives scheduled the 1916 Progressive National Convention at the same time as the 1916 Republican National Convention. When the Republicans nominated Charles Evans Hughes, Roosevelt declined the Progressive nomination and urged his Progressive followers to support the Republican candidate. Though Roosevelt had long disliked Hughes, he disliked Wilson even more, and he campaigned energetically for the Republican nominee. However, Wilson won the 1916 election by a narrow margin. The Progressives disappeared as a party following the 1916 election, and Roosevelt and many of his followers permanently re-joined the Republican Party.
World War I
When the First World War began in 1914, Roosevelt strongly supported the Allies and demanded a harsher policy against Germany, especially regarding submarine warfare. Roosevelt angrily denounced the foreign policy of President Wilson, calling it a failure regarding the atrocities in Belgium and the violations of American rights. In 1916, while campaigning for Hughes, Roosevelt repeatedly denounced Irish-Americans and German-Americans whom he described as unpatriotic, saying they put the interests of Ireland and Germany ahead of America's by supporting neutrality. He insisted that one had to be 100% American, not a "hyphenated American" who juggled multiple loyalties. In March 1917, Congress gave Roosevelt the authority to raise a maximum of four divisions similar to the Rough Riders, and Major Frederick Russell Burnham was put in charge of both the general organization and recruitment. However, President Wilson announced to the press that he would not send Roosevelt and his volunteers to France, but instead would send an American Expeditionary Force under the command of General John J. Pershing. Roosevelt never forgave Wilson, and quickly published The Foes of Our Own Household, an indictment of the sitting president. Roosevelt's youngest son, Quentin, a pilot with the American forces in France, was killed when shot down behind German lines on July 14, 1918, at the age of 20. It is said that Quentin's death distressed Roosevelt so much that he never recovered from his loss.
League of Nations
Roosevelt was an early supporter of the modern view that there needs to be a global order. In his Nobel prize address of 1910, he said, "it would be a master stroke if those great Powers honestly bent on peace would form a League of Peace, not only to keep the peace among themselves, but to prevent, by force if necessary, its being broken by others." It would have executive power such as the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 lacked. He called for American participation.
When World War I broke out, Roosevelt proposed "a World League for the Peace of Righteousness", in September 1914, which would preserve sovereignty but limit armaments and require arbitration. He added that it should be "solemnly covenanted that if any nations refused to abide by the decisions of such a court, then others draw the sword in behalf of peace and justice." In 1915 he outlined this plan more specifically, urging that nations guarantee their entire military force, if necessary, against any nation that refused to carry out arbitration decrees or violated rights of other nations. Though Roosevelt had some concerns about the impact on United States sovereignty, he insisted that such a league would only work if the United States participated as one of the "joint guarantors". Roosevelt referred to this plan in a 1918 speech as "the most feasible for...a league of nations." By this time Wilson was strongly hostile to Roosevelt and Lodge, and developed his own plans for a rather different League of Nations. It became reality along Wilson's lines at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. Roosevelt denounced Wilson's approach but died before it was adopted at Paris. However, Lodge was willing to accept it with serious reservations. In the end, on March 19, 1920, Wilson had Democratic Senators vote against the League with the Lodge Reservations and the United States never joined the League of Nations.
Final political activities
Roosevelt's attacks on Wilson helped the Republicans win control of Congress in the midterm elections of 1918. He declined a request from New York Republicans to run for another gubernatorial term, but attacked Wilson's Fourteen Points, calling instead for the unconditional surrender of Germany. Though his health was uncertain, he was seen as a leading contender for the 1920 Republican nomination, but insisted that, "If they take me, they'll have to take me without a single modification of the things that I have always stood for! He wrote William Allen White, "I wish to do everything in my power to make the Republican Party the Party of sane, constructive radicalism, just as it was under Lincoln." Accordingly, he told the 1918 state convention of the Maine Republican Party that he stood for old-age pensions, insurance for sickness and unemployment, construction of public housing for low-income families, the reduction of working hours, aid to farmers, and more regulation of large corporations.
While his political profile remained high, Roosevelt's physical condition continued to deteriorate throughout 1918 due to the long-term effects of jungle diseases. He was hospitalized for seven weeks late in the year and never fully recovered.
Death
On the night of January 5, 1919, Roosevelt suffered breathing problems. After receiving treatment from his physician, Dr. George W. Faller, he felt better and went to bed. Roosevelt's last words were "Please put out that light, James" to his family servant James E. Amos. Between 4:00 and 4:15 the next morning, Roosevelt, at the age of 60, died in his sleep at Sagamore Hill after a blood clot detached from a vein and traveled to his lungs.
Upon receiving word of his death, his son Archibald telegraphed his siblings: "The old lion is dead." Woodrow Wilson's vice president, Thomas R. Marshall, said that "Death had to take Roosevelt sleeping, for if he had been awake, there would have been a fight." Following a private farewell service in the North Room at Sagamore Hill, a simple funeral was held at Christ Episcopal Church in Oyster Bay. Vice President Thomas R. Marshall, Charles Evans Hughes, Warren G. Harding, Henry Cabot Lodge, and William Howard Taft were among the mourners. The snow-covered procession route to Youngs Memorial Cemetery was lined with spectators and a squad of mounted policemen who had ridden from New York City. Roosevelt was buried on a hillside overlooking Oyster Bay.
Writer
Roosevelt was a prolific author, writing with passion on subjects ranging from foreign policy to the importance of the national park system. Roosevelt was also an avid reader of poetry. Poet Robert Frost said that Roosevelt "was our kind. He quoted poetry to me. He knew poetry."
As an editor of Outlook magazine, Roosevelt had weekly access to a large, educated national audience. In all, Roosevelt wrote about 18 books (each in several editions), including his autobiography, The Rough Riders, History of the Naval War of 1812, and others on subjects such as ranching, explorations, and wildlife. His most ambitious book was the four volume narrative The Winning of the West, focused on the American frontier in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Roosevelt said that the American character—indeed a new "American race" (ethnic group) had emerged from the heroic wilderness hunters and Indian fighters, acting on the frontier with little government help. Roosevelt also published an account of his 1909–10 African expedition entitled African Game Trails.
In 1907, Roosevelt became embroiled in a widely publicized literary debate known as the nature fakers controversy. A few years earlier, naturalist John Burroughs had published an article entitled "Real and Sham Natural History" in the Atlantic Monthly, attacking popular writers of the day such as Ernest Thompson Seton, Charles G. D. Roberts, and William J. Long for their fantastical representations of wildlife. Roosevelt agreed with Burroughs's criticisms, and published several essays of his own denouncing the booming genre of "naturalistic" animal stories as "yellow journalism of the woods". It was the President himself who popularized the negative term "nature faker" to describe writers who depicted their animal characters with excessive anthropomorphism.
Character and beliefs
Roosevelt intensely disliked being called "Teddy", despite the widespread public association with said moniker, and was quick to point out this to those who referred to him as such, though it would become widely used by newspapers during his political career.
He was an active Freemason and member of the Sons of the American Revolution.
British scholar Marcus Cunliffe evaluates the liberal argument that Roosevelt was an opportunist, exhibitionist, and imperialist. Cunliffe praises TR's versatility, his respect for law, and his sincerity. He argues that Roosevelt's foreign policy was better than his detractors allege. Cunliffe calls him "a big man in several respects," ranking him below Washington, Lincoln, and Jefferson, and on the same level as Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Strenuous life
Roosevelt had a lifelong interest in pursuing what he called, in an 1899 speech, "The Strenuous Life". To this end, he exercised regularly and took up boxing, tennis, hiking, rowing, polo, and horseback riding. He also continued his habit of skinny-dipping in the Potomac River during the winter. As governor of New York, he boxed with sparring partners several times each week, a practice he regularly continued as president until being hit so hard in the face he became blind in his left eye (a fact not made public until many years later). As president, he practiced judo for two 2-month periods in 1902 and 1904, not attaining any rank. Roosevelt began to believe in the utility of jiu-jitsu training after training with Yoshitsugu Yamashita. Concerned that the United States would lose its military supremacy to rising powers like Japan, Roosevelt began to advocate for jiu-jitsu training for American soldiers. Feminists annoyed by the posturing of men like Roosevelt, insisted that women were just as capable of learning jiu-jitsu. To prove their point, Martha Blow Wadsworth and Maria Louise ("Hallie") Davis Elkins hired Fude Yamashita, a highly skilled jiu-jitsu instructor and the wife of Yoshitsugu Yamashita, to teach a jiu-jitsu class for women and girls in Washington, DC in 1904. Women had already begun training in boxing in the United States as a means of personal and political empowerment. Jiu-jitsu training thus soon also became popular with American women, coinciding with the origins of a women's self-defense movement.
Roosevelt was an enthusiastic singlestick player and, according to Harper's Weekly, showed up at a White House reception with his arm bandaged after a bout with General Leonard Wood in 1905. Roosevelt was an avid reader, reading tens of thousands of books, at a rate of several per day in multiple languages. Along with Thomas Jefferson, Roosevelt was the most well-read of all American presidents.
Warrior
Historians have often emphasized Roosevelt's warrior persona. He took aggressive positions regarding war with Spain in 1898, Colombia in 1903, and especially with Germany, from 1915 to 1917. As a demonstration of American naval might, he sent the "Great White Fleet" around the world in 1907–1909. The implicit threat of the "big stick" of military power provided leverage to "speak softly" and quietly resolve conflict in numerous cases. He boasted in his autobiography:
Richard D. White Jr states, "Roosevelt's warrior spirit framed his views of national politics, [and] international relations."
Historian Howard K. Beale has argued:
Religion
Roosevelt attended church regularly and was a lifelong adherent of the Reformed Church in America, an American affiliate of the Dutch Reformed Church. In 1907, concerning the motto "In God We Trust" on money, he wrote, "It seems to me eminently unwise to cheapen such a motto by use on coins, just as it would be to cheapen it by use on postage stamps, or in advertisements." Roosevelt talked a great deal about religion. Biographer Edmund Morris states:
Roosevelt publicly encouraged church attendance and was a conscientious churchgoer himself. When gas rationing was introduced during the First World War, he walked the three miles from his home at Sagamore Hill to the local church and back, even after a serious operation had made it difficult for him to travel by foot. It was said that Roosevelt "allowed no engagement to keep him from going to church," and he remained a fervent advocate of the Bible throughout his adult life. According to Christian F. Reisner, writing in 1922 shortly after Roosevelt's death, "Religion was as natural to Mr. Roosevelt as breathing," and when the travel library for Roosevelt's famous Smithsonian-sponsored African expedition was being assembled, the Bible was, according to his sister, "the first book selected." In an address delivered in his home at Oyster Bay to the Long Island Bible Society in 1901, Roosevelt declared that:
Political positions
When he assumed the presidency, Roosevelt reassured many conservatives, stating, "the mechanism of modern business is so delicate that extreme care must be taken not to interfere with it in a spirit of rashness or ignorance." The following year, Roosevelt asserted the president's independence from business interests by opposing the merger which created the Northern Securities Company, and many were surprised that any president, much less an unelected one, would challenge powerful banker J.P. Morgan. In his last two years as president, Roosevelt became increasingly distrustful of big business, despite its close ties to the Republican Party. Roosevelt sought to replace the 19th-century laissez-faire economic environment with a new economic model which included a larger regulatory role for the federal government. He believed that 19th-century entrepreneurs had risked their fortunes on innovations and new businesses, and that these capitalists had been rightly rewarded. By contrast, he believed that 20th-century capitalists risked little but nonetheless reaped huge and, given the lack of risk, unjust, economic rewards. Without a redistribution of wealth away from the upper class, Roosevelt feared that the country would turn to radicals or fall to revolution. His Square Deal domestic program had three main goals: conservation of natural resources, control of corporations, and consumer protection. The Square Deal evolved into his program of "New Nationalism", which emphasized the priority of labor over capital interests and a need to more effectively control corporate creation and combination, and proposed a ban on corporate political contributions.
Foreign policy beliefs
In the analysis by Henry Kissinger, Theodore Roosevelt was the first president to develop the guideline that it was America's duty to make its enormous power and potential influence felt globally. The idea of being a passive "city on the hill" model that others could look up to, he rejected. Roosevelt, trained in biology, was a social darwinist who believed in survival of the fittest. The international world in his view was a realm of violence and conflict. The United States had all the economic and geographical potential to be the fittest nation on the globe. The United States had a duty to act decisively. For example, in terms of the Monroe Doctrine, America had to prevent European incursions in the Western Hemisphere. But there was more, as he expressed in his famous Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine: the U.S. had to be the policeman of the region because unruly, corrupt smaller nations had to be controlled, and if United States did not do it, European powers would in fact intervene and develop their own base of power in the hemisphere in contravention to the Monroe Doctrine.
Roosevelt was a realist and a conservative. He deplored many of the increasingly popular idealistic liberal themes, such as were promoted by William Jennings Bryan, the anti-imperialists, and Woodrow Wilson. Kissinger says he rejected the efficacy of international law. Roosevelt argue that if a country could not protect its own interests, the international community could not help very much. He ridiculed disarmament proposals that were increasingly common. He saw no likelihood of an international power capable of checking wrongdoing on a major scale. As for world government: I regard the Wilson–Bryan attitude of trusting to fantastic peace treaties, too impossible promises, to all kinds of scraps of paper without any backing in efficient force, as abhorrent. It is infinitely better for a nation and for the world to have the Frederick the Great and Bismarck tradition as regards foreign policy than to have the Bryan or Bryan–Wilson attitude as a permanent national attitude.... A milk-and-water righteousness unbacked by force is...as wicked as and even more mischievous than force divorced from righteousness.
On the positive side, Roosevelt favored spheres of influence, whereby one great power would generally prevail, such as the United States in the Western Hemisphere or Great Britain in the Indian subcontinent. Japan fit that role and he approved. However he had deep distrust of both Germany and Russia.
Legacy
Historians credit Roosevelt for changing the nation's political system by permanently placing the "bully pulpit" of the presidency at center stage and making character as important as the issues. His accomplishments include trust busting and conservationism. He is a hero to liberals and progressives for his proposals in 1907–1912 that presaged the modern welfare state of the New Deal Era, including direct federal taxation, labor reforms, and more direct democracy, while conservationists admire Roosevelt for putting the environment and selflessness towards future generations on the national agenda, and conservatives and nationalists respect his commitment to law and order, civic duty and military values, as well as his personality of individual self-responsibility and hardiness. Dalton says, "Today he is heralded as the architect of the modern presidency, as a world leader who boldly reshaped the office to meet the needs of the new century and redefined America's place in the world."
However, liberals and socialists have criticized him for his interventionist and imperialist approach to nations he considered "uncivilized". Conservatives and libertarians reject his vision of the welfare state and emphasis on the superiority of government over private action. Historians typically rank Roosevelt among the top five presidents in American history.
Persona and masculinity
Dalton says Roosevelt is remembered as, "one of the most picturesque personalities who has ever enlivened the landscape". His friend, historian Henry Adams, proclaimed: "Roosevelt, more than any other man... showed the singular primitive quality that belongs to ultimate matter—the quality that medieval theology assigned to God—he was pure act."
Roosevelt's biographers have stressed his personality. Henry F. Pringle, who won the Pulitzer Prize in biography for his Theodore Roosevelt (1931) stated: "The Theodore Roosevelt of later years was the most adolescent of men… Failure to receive the Medal of Honor for his exploits [in Cuba] had been a grief as real as any of those which swamp childhood in despair. 'You must always remember,' wrote Cecil Spring Rice in 1904, 'that the President is about six.'"
Cooper compared him with Woodrow Wilson and argued that both of them played the roles of warrior and priest. Dalton stressed Roosevelt's strenuous life. Sarah Watts examined the desires of the "Rough Rider in the White House". Brands calls Roosevelt "the last romantic", arguing that his romantic concept of life emerged from his belief that "physical bravery was the highest virtue and war the ultimate test of bravery".
Roosevelt as the exemplar of American masculinity has become a major theme. As president, he repeatedly warned men that they were becoming too office-bound, too complacent, too comfortable with physical ease and moral laxity, and were failing in their duties to propagate the race and exhibit masculine vigor. French historian Serge Ricard says, "the ebullient apostle of the Strenuous Life offers ideal material for a detailed psycho-historical analysis of aggressive manhood in the changing socio-cultural environment of his era; McKinley, Taft, or Wilson would perhaps inadequately serve that purpose". He promoted competitive sports like boxing and jiu-jitsu for physically strengthening American men. He also believed that organizations like the Boy Scouts of America, founded in 1910, could help mold and strengthen the character of American boys. Brands shows that heroic displays of bravery were essential to Roosevelt's image and mission:
Memorials and cultural depictions
Roosevelt was included with Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln at the Mount Rushmore Memorial, designed in 1927 with the approval of Republican President Calvin Coolidge.
For his gallantry at San Juan Hill, Roosevelt's commanders recommended him for the Medal of Honor. However, the initial recommendation lacked any eyewitnesses, and the effort was eventually tainted by Roosevelt's own lobbying of the War Department. In the late 1990s, Roosevelt's supporters again recommended the award, which was denied by the Secretary of the Army on basis that the decorations board determined "Roosevelt's bravery in battle did not rise to the level that would justify the Medal of Honor and, indeed, it did not rise to the level of men who fought in that engagement." Nevertheless, politicians apparently convinced the secretary to reconsider the award a third time and reverse himself, leading to the charge that it was a "politically motivated award." On January 16, 2001, President Bill Clinton awarded Theodore Roosevelt the Medal of Honor posthumously for his charge on San Juan Hill. He is the only president to have received the Medal of Honor.
The United States Navy named two ships for Roosevelt: the , a submarine that was in commission from 1961 to 1982, and the , an aircraft carrier that has been on active duty in the Atlantic Fleet since 1986.
On November 18, 1956, the United States Postal Service released a 6¢ Liberty Issue postage stamp honoring Roosevelt. A 32¢ stamp was issued on February 3, 1998, as part of the Celebrate the Century stamp sheet series. In 2008, Columbia Law School awarded Roosevelt a Juris Doctor degree, posthumously making him a member of the class of 1882.
Roosevelt's "Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick" ideology is still quoted by politicians and columnists in different countries—not only in English, but also in translations to various other languages. Another lasting, popular legacy of Roosevelt is the stuffed toy bears—teddy bears—named after him following an incident on a hunting trip in Mississippi in 1902. Roosevelt has been portrayed in films and television series such as Brighty of the Grand Canyon, The Wind and the Lion, Rough Riders, My Friend Flicka, and Law of the Plainsman. Robin Williams portrayed Roosevelt in the form of a wax mannequin that comes to life in Night at the Museum and its sequels Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian and Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb. In 2017, it was announced that Leonardo DiCaprio will portray Roosevelt in a biopic to be directed by Martin Scorsese.
Moreover, Theodore Roosevelt National Park in the state of North Dakota is named after him. The America the Beautiful Quarters series features Roosevelt riding a horse on the national park's quarter.
Asteroid 188693 Roosevelt, discovered by astronomers with the Catalina Sky Survey in 2005, was named after him. The official was published by the Minor Planet Center on November 8, 2019 ().
In January 2022, after years of lobbying by activists, an equestrian statue of the former president was removed from where it had stood for more than eighty years in front of New York's American Museum of Natural History. Responding to controversy, the museum noted that the design "communicates a racial hierarchy that the museum and members of the public have long found disturbing."
Audiovisual media
Theodore Roosevelt was one of the first presidents whose voice was recorded for posterity. Several of his recorded speeches survive. A 4.6-minute voice recording, which preserves Roosevelt's lower timbre ranges particularly well for its time, is among those available from the Michigan State University libraries (this is the 1912 recording of The Right of the People to Rule, recorded by Edison at Carnegie Hall). The audio clip sponsored by the Authentic History Center includes his defense of the Progressive Party in 1912, wherein he proclaims it the "party of the people" – in contrast with the other major parties.
Roosevelt goes for a ride in Arch Hoxsey's plane in October 1910
In popular culture
Theodore Roosevelt appears as the leader of the American civilization in the Firaxis Games title Civilization VI. His unique ability is Roosevelt Corollary, which gives +5 Combat Strength for all units inside America's home continent, and +1 Appeal to all tiles in cities with a national park.
See also
Notes
References
Bibliography
Full biographies
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, 105 pp, very short biography by leading scholar.
.; also titled Power and responsibility; the life and times of Theodore Roosevelt online free to borrow
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, only volume published, to age 28.
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Personality and activities
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Provides a lesson plan on TR as the historical figure who most exemplifies the quality of masculinity.
. Chronicles the events of TR's presidency during the summers of his two terms.
. The president's use of publicity, rhetoric and force of personality.
; his deadly 1913–14 trip to the Amazon.
, best seller; to 1886.
, to 1884.
. 494 pp.
, examines TR and his family during the World War I period.
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, 240 pp. TR in Africa & Europe, 1909–10
. 289 pp.
, 337 pp; TR's political thought and its significance for republican self-government.
Domestic policies
online review; another online review
Cutright, P.R. (1985) Theodore Roosevelt: The making of a Modern Conservationist (U of Illinois Press.)
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, standard history of his domestic and foreign policy as president.
Bakari, Mohamed El-Kamel. "Mapping the 'Anthropocentric-ecocentric'Dualism in the History of American Presidency: The Good, the Bad, and the Ambivalent." Journal of Studies in Social Sciences 14, no. 2 (2016).
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Redekop, Benjamin. (2015). "Embodying the Story: The Conservation Leadership of Theodore Roosevelt". Leadership (2015) DOI:10.1177/1742715014546875 online
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Politics
. How TR did politics.
, 323 pp.
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. 361 pp.
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. Focus on 1912; online free
. online free
. Attacks TR policies from conservative/libertarian perspective.
Foreign policy, military and naval issues
. online
. excerpt
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. 328 pp.
Kuehn, John T. "Theodore Roosevelt’s Naval Diplomacy: The U.S. Navy and the Birth of the American Century," Naval War College Review (2010) 53#3 online
Livermore, Seward W. "Theodore Roosevelt, the American Navy, and the Venezuelan Crisis of 1902-1903." American Historical Review 51.3 (1946): 452–471. online
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Nester, William R. Theodore Roosevelt and the Art of American Power: An American for All Time. Rowman & Littlefield, 2019. excerpt
Neu, Charles E. "Theodore Roosevelt and American Involvement in the Far East, 1901-1909." Pacific Historical Review 35.4 (1966): 433–449. online
O'Gara, Gordon Carpenter. Theodore Roosevelt and the Rise of the Modern Navy. (Princeton UP, 1943). online
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Oyos, Matthew M. In Command: Theodore Roosevelt and the American Military (2018) online review
Pietrusza, David (2018). TR's Last War: Theodore Roosevelt, the Great War, and a Journey of Triumph and Tragedy
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Thompson, John M. Great Power Rising: Theodore Roosevelt and the Politics of US Foreign Policy (Oxford UP, 2019).
. 196 pp.
Turk, Richard W. The Ambiguous Relationship: Theodore Roosevelt and Alfred Thayer Mahan (1987) [https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article-abstract/93/5/1413/70734 online review
Historiography
Cunliffe, Marcus. "Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States 1901–1908" History Today (Sept 1955) 4#9 pp. 592–601, online.
Ricard, Serge. "The State of Theodore Roosevelt Studies" H-Diplo Essay No. 116 24 October 2014 online
, excerpt and text search, 28 new essays by scholars; focus on historiography. online
Primary sources
Kohn, Edward P., ed. A Most Glorious Ride: The Diaries of Theodore Roosevelt, 1877–1886 (State University of New York Press, 2015), 284 pp.
; vol 2
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, 20 vol.; 18,000 pages containing most of TR's speeches, books and essays, but not his letters; a CD-ROM edition is available; some of TR's books are available online through Project Bartleby
, Roosevelt's opinions on many issues; online version at Theodore Roosevelt.
, 8 vols. Very large collection. vol 1 1868–1898 online free
. online free
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online free to borrow
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External links
Official
White House biography
Organizations
Boone and Crockett Club
Theodore Roosevelt Association
Libraries and collections
Theodore Roosevelt Center at Dickinson State University
Theodore Roosevelt Collection, at the Houghton Library, Harvard University
Julian L. Street Papers on Theodore Roosevelt, at the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library, Princeton University
Doris A. and Lawrence H. Budner Collection on Theodore Roosevelt at the DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University
Theodore Roosevelt's journalism at The Archive of American Journalism
Theodore Roosevelt American Museum of Natural History
Roosevelt Papers, at the Library of Congress
Guide to the Herbert R. Strauss Collection of Theodore Roosevelt Papers 1884–1919 at the University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center
Media
"Life Portrait of Theodore Roosevelt", from C-SPAN's American Presidents: Life Portraits, September 3, 1999
"Writings of Theodore Roosevelt" from C-SPAN's American Writers: A Journey Through History
Other
Almanac of Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt: A Resource Guide – Library of Congress
1858 births
1919 deaths
1900s in the United States
Theodore
19th-century American politicians
19th-century American historians
19th-century American male writers
20th-century American non-fiction writers
20th-century presidents of the United States
20th-century vice presidents of the United States
American autobiographers
American conservationists
American essayists
American explorers
American fishers
American hunters
American male judoka
American male non-fiction writers
American military personnel of the Spanish–American War
American naval historians
American Nobel laureates
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Deaths from pulmonary embolism
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20th-century American male writers | true | [
"A hobby is considered to be a regular activity that is done for enjoyment, typically during one's leisure time. Hobbies include collecting themed items and objects, engaging in creative and artistic pursuits, playing sports, or pursuing other amusements. Participation in hobbies encourages acquiring substantial skills and knowledge in that area. A list of hobbies changes with renewed interests and developing fashions, making it diverse and lengthy. Hobbies tend to follow trends in society, for example stamp collecting was popular during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as postal systems were the main means of communication, while video games are more popular nowadays following technological advances. The advancing production and technology of the nineteenth century provided workers with more leisure time to engage in hobbies. Because of this, the efforts of people investing in hobbies has increased with time. \n\nHobbyists may be identified under three sub-categories: casual leisure which is intrinsically rewarding, short-lived, pleasurable activity requiring little or no preparation, serious leisure which is the systematic pursuit of an amateur, hobbyist, or volunteer that is substantial, rewarding and results in a sense of accomplishment, and finally project-based leisure which is a short-term, often one-off, project that is rewarding.\n\nEtymology \n\nIn the 16th century, the term \"hobyn\" had the meaning of \"small horse and pony\". The term \"hobby horse\" was documented in a 1557 payment confirmation for a \"Hobbyhorse\" from Reading, England. The item, originally called a \"Tourney Horse\", was made of a wooden or basketwork frame with an artificial tail and head. It was designed for a child to mimic riding a real horse. By 1816 the derivative, \"hobby\", was introduced into the vocabulary of a number of English people. Over the course of subsequent centuries, the term came to be associated with recreation and leisure. In the 17th century, the term was used in a pejorative sense by suggesting that a hobby was a childish pursuit, however, in the 18th century with more industrial society and more leisure time, hobbies took on greater respectability. A hobby is also called a pastime, derived from the use of hobbies to pass the time. A hobby became an activity that is practised regularly and usually with some worthwhile purpose. Hobbies are usually, but not always, practised primarily for interest and enjoyment, rather than financial reward.\n\nHistory \nHobbies were originally described as pursuits that others thought somewhat childish or trivial. However, as early as 1676 Sir Matthew Hale, in Contemplations Moral and Divine, wrote \"Almost every person hath some hobby horse or other wherein he prides himself.\" He was acknowledging that a \"hobby horse\" produces a legitimate sense of pride. By the mid 18th century there was a flourishing of hobbies as working people had more regular hours of work and greater leisure time. They spent more time to pursue interests that brought them satisfaction. However, there was concern that these working people might not use their leisure time in worthwhile pursuits. \"The hope of weaning people away from bad habits by the provision of counter-attractions came to the fore in the 1830s, and has rarely waned since. Initially, the bad habits were perceived to be of a sensual and physical nature, and the counter attractions, or perhaps more accurately alternatives, deliberately cultivated rationality and the intellect.\" The flourishing book and magazine trade of the day encouraged worthwhile hobbies and pursuits. The burgeoning manufacturing trade made materials used in hobbies cheap and was responsive to the changing interests of hobbyists.\n\nThe English have been identified as enthusiastic hobbyists, as George Orwell observed. \"[A]nother English characteristic which is so much a part of us that we barely notice it … is the addiction to hobbies and spare-time occupations, the privateness of English life. We are a nation of flower-lovers, but also a nation of stamp-collectors, pigeon-fanciers, amateur carpenters, coupon-snippers, darts-players, crossword-puzzle fans. All the culture that is most truly native centres round things which even when they are communal are not official—the pub, the football match, the back garden, the fireside and the 'nice cup of tea'.\"\n\nDeciding what to include in a list of hobbies provokes debate because it is difficult to decide which pleasurable pass-times can also be described as hobbies. During the 20th century the term hobby suggested activities, such as stamp collecting, embroidery, knitting, painting, woodwork, and photography. Typically the description did not include activities like listening to music, watching television, or reading. These latter activities bring pleasure, but lack the sense of achievement usually associated with a hobby. They are usually not structured, organised pursuits, as most hobbies are. The pleasure of a hobby is usually associated with making something of value or achieving something of value. \"Such leisure is socially valorised precisely because it produces feelings of satisfaction with something that looks very much like work but that is done of its own sake.\" \"Hobbies are a contradiction: they take work and turn it into leisure, and take leisure and turn it into work.\"\n\nHobbies change with time. In the 21st century, the video game industry is a very large hobby involving millions of kids and adults in various forms of 'play'. Stamp collecting declined along with the importance of the postal system. Woodwork and knitting declined as hobbies, because manufactured goods provide cheap alternatives for handmade goods. Through the internet, an online community has become a hobby for many people; sharing advice, information and support, and in some cases, allowing a traditional hobby, such as collecting, to flourish and support trading in a new environment.\n\nHobbyists \nHobbyists are a part of a wider group of people engaged in leisure pursuits where the boundaries of each group overlap to some extent. The Serious Leisure Perspective groups hobbyists with amateurs and volunteers and identifies three broad groups of leisure activity with hobbies being found mainly in the Serious leisure category. Casual leisure is intrinsically rewarding, short-lived, pleasurable activity requiring little or no preparation. Serious leisure is the systematic pursuit of an amateur, hobbyist, or volunteer that is substantial, rewarding and results in a sense of accomplishment. Finally, project-based leisure is a short-term often a one-off project that is rewarding.\n\nThe terms amateur and hobbyist are often used interchangeably. Stebbins has a framework which distinguishes the terms in a useful categorisation of leisure in which casual leisure is separated from serious Leisure. He describes serious leisure as undertaken by amateurs, hobbyists and volunteers. Amateurs engage in pursuits that have a professional counterpart, such as playing an instrument or astronomy. Hobbyists engage in five broad types of activity: collecting, making and tinkering (like embroidery and car restoration), activity participation (like fishing and singing), sports and games, and liberal-arts hobbies (like languages, cuisine, literature). Volunteers commit to organisations where they work as guides, counsellors, gardeners and so on. The separation of the amateur from the hobbyist is because the amateur has the ethos of the professional practitioner as a guide to practice. An amateur clarinetist is conscious of the role and procedures of a professional clarinetist.\n\nA large proportion of hobbies are mainly solitary in nature. However, individual pursuit of a hobby often includes club memberships, organised sharing of products and regular communication between participants. For many hobbies there is an important role in being in touch with fellow hobbyists. Some hobbies are of communal nature, like choral singing and volunteering.\n\nPeople who engage in hobbies have an interest in and time to pursue them. Children have been an important group of hobbyists because they are enthusiastic for collecting, making and exploring, in addition to this they have the leisure time that allows them to pursue those hobbies. The growth in hobbies occurred during industrialisation which gave workers set time for leisure. During the Depression there was an increase in the participation in hobbies because the unemployed had the time and a desire to be purposefully occupied. Hobbies are often pursued with an increased interest by retired people because they have the time and seek the intellectual and physical stimulation a hobby provides.\n\nTypes of hobbies\n Hobbies are a diverse set of activities and it is difficult to categorize them in a logical manner. The following categorization of hobbies was developed by Stebbins.\n\nCollecting \n\nCollecting includes seeking, locating, acquiring, organizing, cataloging, displaying and storing. Collecting is appealing to many people due to their interest in a particular subject and a desire to categorise and make order out of complexity. Some collectors are generalists, accumulating items from countries of the world. Others focus on a subtopic within their area of interest, perhaps 19th century postage stamps, milk bottle labels from Sussex, or Mongolian harnesses and tack, Firearms (both modern and vintage).\n\nCollecting is an ancient hobby, with the list of coin collectors showing Caesar Augustus as one. Sometimes collectors have turned their hobby into a business, becoming commercial dealers that trade in the items being collected.\n\nAn alternative to collecting physical objects is collecting records of events of a particular kind. Examples include train spotting, bird-watching, aircraft spotting, railfans, and any other form of systematic recording a particular phenomenon. The recording form can be written, photographic, online, etc.\n\nMaking and tinkering \n\nMaking and tinkering includes working on self-motivated projects for fulfillment. These projects may be progressive, irregular tasks performed over a long period of time. Making and Tinkering hobbies include higher-end projects, such as building or restoring a car or building a computer from individual parts, like CPUs and SSDs. For computer savvy do-it-yourself hobbyists, CNC (Computer Numerical Control) machining may also popular. A CNC machine can be assembled and programmed to make different parts from wood or metal. \n\nTinkering is 'dabbling' with the making process, often applied to the hobby of tinkering with car repairs, and various kinds of restoration: of furniture, antique cars, etc. It also applies to household tinkering: repairing a wall, laying a pathway, etc. Examples of Making and Tinkering hobbies include Scale modeling, model engineering, 3D printing, dressmaking, and cooking. \n\nScale modeling is making a replica of a real-life object in a smaller scale and dates back to prehistoric times with small clay \"dolls\" and other children's toys that have been found near known populated areas. Some of the earliest scale models of residences were found in Cucuteni–Trypillia culture in Eastern Europe. These artifacts were dated to be around 3000-6000 BC. Similar models dating back to the same period were found in ancient Egypt, India, China and Mesopotamia archaeological sites.\n\nAt the turn of the Industrial Age and through the 1920s, some families could afford things such as electric trains, wind-up toys (typically boats or cars) and the increasingly valuable tin toy soldiers. Scale modeling as we know it today became popular shortly after World War II. Before 1946, children as well as adults were content in carving and shaping wooden replicas from block wood kits, often depicting enemy aircraft to help with identification in case of an invasion. \n\nWith the advent of modern plastics, the amount of skill required to get the basic shape accurately shown for any given subject was lessened, making it easier for people of all ages to begin assembling replicas in varying scales. Superheroes, aeroplanes, boats, cars, tanks, artillery, and even figures of soldiers became quite popular subjects to build, paint and display. Although almost any subject can be found in almost any scale, there are common scales for such miniatures which remain constant today.\n\nModel engineering refers to building functioning machinery in metal, such as internal combustion motors and live steam models or locomotives. This is a demanding hobby that requires a multitude of large and expensive tools, such as lathes and mills. This hobby originated in the United Kingdom in the late 19th century, later spreading and flourishing in the mid-20th century. Due to the expense and space required, it is becoming rare.\n\n3D Printing is a relatively new technology and already a major hobby as the cost of printers has fallen sharply. It is a good example of how hobbyists quickly engage with new technologies, communicate with one another and become producers related to their former hobby. 3D modeling is the process of making mathematical representations of three dimensional items and is an aspect of 3D printing.\n\nDressmaking has been a major hobby up until the late 20th century, in order to make cheap clothes, but also as a creative design and craft challenge. It has been reduced by the low cost of manufactured clothes.\n\nCooking is for some people an interest, a hobby, a challenge and a source of significant satisfaction. For many other people it is a job, a chore, a duty, like cleaning. In the early 21st century the importance of cooking as a hobby was demonstrated by the high popularity of competitive television cooking programs.\n\nActivity participation \n\nActivity participation includes partaking in \"non-competitive, rule-based pursuits.\"\n\nOutdoor pursuits are the group of activities which occur outdoors. These hobbies include gardening, hill walking, hiking, backpacking, cycling, canoeing, climbing, caving, fishing, hunting, target shooting (informal or formal), wildlife viewing (as birdwatching) and engaging in watersports and snowsports.\n\nOne large subset of outdoor pursuits is gardening. Residential gardening most often takes place in or about one's own residence, in a space referred to as the garden. Although a garden typically is located on the land near a residence, it may also be located on a roof, in an atrium, on a balcony, in a windowbox, or on a patio or vivarium.\n\nGardening also takes place in non-residential green areas, such as parks, public or semi-public gardens (botanical gardens or zoological gardens), amusement and theme parks, along transportation corridors, and around tourist attractions and hotels. In these situations, a staff of gardeners or groundskeepers maintains the gardens.\n\nIndoor gardening is concerned with growing houseplants within a residence or building, in a conservatory, or in a greenhouse. Indoor gardens are sometimes incorporated into air conditioning or heating systems.\n\nWater gardening is concerned with growing plants that have adapted to pools and ponds, along with aquascaping in planted aquariums. Bog gardens are also considered a type of water garden. A simple water garden may consist solely of a tub containing the water and plants.\n\nContainer gardening is concerned with growing plants in containers that are placed above the ground.\n\nLiberal arts pursuits \n\nMany hobbies involve performances by the hobbyist, such as singing, acting, juggling, magic, dancing, playing a musical instrument, martial arts, and other performing arts.\n\nSome hobbies may result in an end product. Examples of this would be woodworking, photography, moviemaking, jewelry making, software projects such as Photoshopping and home music or video production, making bracelets, artistic projects such as drawing, painting, Cosplay (design, creation, and wearing a costume based on an already existing creative property), creating models out of card stock or paper – called papercraft. Many of these fall under the category visual arts.\n\nWriting is often taken up as a hobby by aspiring writers and usually appears in the form of personal blog, guest posting or fan fiction (literary art resulting in creation of written content based on already existing, licensed creative property under specified terms). \n\nReading, books, ebooks, magazines, comics, or newspapers, along with browsing the internet is a common hobby, and one that can trace its origins back hundreds of years. A love of literature, later in life, may be sparked by an interest in reading children's literature as a child. Many of these fall under the category literary arts.\n\nSports and games \n\nStebbins distinguishes an amateur sports person and a hobbyist by suggesting a hobbyist plays in less formal sports, or games that are rule bound and have no professional equivalent. While an amateur sports individual plays a sport with a professional equivalent, such as football or tennis. Amateur sport may range from informal play to highly competitive practice, such as deck tennis or long distance trekking.\n\nThe Department for Culture, Media, and Support in England suggests that playing sports benefits physical and mental health. A positive relationship appeared between engaging in sports and improving overall health.\n\nPsychological role \nDuring the 20th century there was extensive research into the important role that play has in human development. While most evident in childhood, play continues throughout life for many adults in the form of games, hobbies, and sport. Moreover, studies of aging and society support the value of hobbies in healthy aging.\n\nSignificant achievements \nThere have been many instances where hobbyists and amateurs have achieved significant discoveries and developments. These are a small sample.\n\n Amateur astronomers have explored the skies for centuries and there is a long list of Notable amateur astronomers who have made major discoveries. Amateur astronomers Alan Hale and Thomas Bopp discovered the Comet Hale–Bopp.\n A substantial amount of early scientific research came from the amateur activities of the wealthy, such as Antoine Lavoisier's contributions to the science of chemistry. At that time there were few professional scientists and little formal study in the area. Another example is the experimentation in electricity that Benjamin Franklin undertook that resulted in his invention of the lightning rod.\n Open source is a development model using the internet to cooperate on projects. It is most notable in the development of software and widely used software, which has been developed and maintained by large numbers of people, including many home-based amateurs with high level expertise.\n While the general public was not aware of nature observation which was formally conducted as field research, during the 1930s, practitioners of the hobby went on to become the pioneers of the conservation movement that flourished in the UK from 1965 onwards.\n\nSee also \n Avocation\n Entertainment\n Community of interest\n List of hobbies\n Personal life\n Play (activity)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Learn Hobbies Online\n\n \nRecreation\nPersonal life",
"Chang Hao (; born November 7, 1976 in Shanghai) is a professional Go player. He is a 9 dan Go player from China. He is China's best player of the 1990s and one of the best in the world. Growing up he was a prodigy in China, he has won many titles, including three international champions. He is the best friend of Lee Chang-ho, whom he most recently defeated in the final of the 7th Chunlan Cup. Some of his hobbies include playing football, swimming, and traveling. He is married to Zhang Xuan, who is also a Go player.\n\nTitles and runners-up\n \nRanks #3 in the total number of titles in China.\n\nReferences\n\n1976 births\nLiving people\nGo players from Shanghai\nAsian Games medalists in go\nGo players at the 2010 Asian Games\nAsian Games silver medalists for China\nMedalists at the 2010 Asian Games"
] |
[
"Theodore Roosevelt",
"Early life and family",
"Where was Theodore Roosevelt born?",
"Theodore Roosevelt Jr. was born on October 27, 1858, at East 20th Street in New York City.",
"Who was his mother?",
"socialite Martha Stewart \"Mittie\" Bulloch",
"What type of work did his father do?",
"businessman and philanthropist",
"Did Roosevelt have any siblings?",
"He had an older sister, Anna (nicknamed \"Bamie\"), a younger brother, Elliott, and a younger sister, Corinne.",
"What were his interests in his early life?",
"Roosevelt's youth was largely shaped by his poor health and debilitating asthma.",
"Did he have any hobbies while growing up?",
"His lifelong interest in zoology began at age seven when he saw a dead seal at a local market;"
] | C_ea2b2d977c0c4d1d93ec5efce7ee7156_1 | Did he ever overcome his asthma and poor health? | 7 | Did Theodore Roosevelt ever overcome his asthma and poor health? | Theodore Roosevelt | Theodore Roosevelt Jr. was born on October 27, 1858, at East 20th Street in New York City. He was the second of four children born to socialite Martha Stewart "Mittie" Bulloch and businessman and philanthropist Theodore Roosevelt Sr. He had an older sister, Anna (nicknamed "Bamie"), a younger brother, Elliott, and a younger sister, Corinne. Elliott was later the father of First Lady Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of Theodore's distant cousin, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. His paternal grandfather was of Dutch descent; his other ancestry included primarily Scottish and Scots-Irish, English and smaller amounts of German, Welsh, and French. Theodore Sr. was the fifth son of businessman Cornelius Van Schaack "C.V.S." Roosevelt and Margaret Barnhill. Theodore's fourth cousin, James Roosevelt I, who was also a businessman, was the father of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Mittie was the younger daughter of Major James Stephens Bulloch and Martha P. "Patsy" Stewart. Through the Van Schaacks, Roosevelt was a descendant of the Schuyler family. Roosevelt's youth was largely shaped by his poor health and debilitating asthma. He repeatedly experienced sudden nighttime asthma attacks that caused the experience of being smothered to death, which terrified both Theodore and his parents. Doctors had no cure. Nevertheless, he was energetic and mischievously inquisitive. His lifelong interest in zoology began at age seven when he saw a dead seal at a local market; after obtaining the seal's head, Roosevelt and two cousins formed what they called the "Roosevelt Museum of Natural History". Having learned the rudiments of taxidermy, he filled his makeshift museum with animals that he killed or caught; he then studied the animals and prepared them for display. At age nine, he recorded his observation of insects in a paper entitled "The Natural History of Insects". Roosevelt's father significantly influenced him. His father was a prominent leader in New York's cultural affairs; he helped to found the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and had been especially active in mobilizing support for the Union during the Civil War, even though his in-laws included Confederate leaders. Roosevelt said, "My father, Theodore Roosevelt, was the best man I ever knew. He combined strength and courage with gentleness, tenderness, and great unselfishness. He would not tolerate in us children selfishness or cruelty, idleness, cowardice, or untruthfulness." Family trips abroad, including tours of Europe in 1869 and 1870, and Egypt in 1872, shaped his cosmopolitan perspective. Hiking with his family in the Alps in 1869, Roosevelt found that he could keep pace with his father. He had discovered the significant benefits of physical exertion to minimize his asthma and bolster his spirits. Roosevelt began a heavy regime of exercise. After being manhandled by two older boys on a camping trip, he found a boxing coach to teach him to fight and strengthen his body. CANNOTANSWER | Doctors had no cure. | Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or his initials T. R., was an American politician, statesman, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26th president of the United States from 1901 to 1909. He previously served as the 25th vice president under William McKinley from March to September 1901, and as the 33rd governor of New York from 1899 to 1900. Having assumed the presidency after McKinley's assassination, Roosevelt emerged as a leader of the Republican Party and became a driving force for anti-trust and Progressive policies.
Roosevelt was a sickly child with debilitating asthma but partly overcame his health problems by embracing a strenuous lifestyle. He integrated his exuberant personality, a vast range of interests and achievements into a "cowboy" persona defined by robust masculinity. He was home-schooled and began a lifelong naturalist avocation before attending Harvard. His book The Naval War of 1812 (1882) established his reputation as a learned historian and popular writer. Upon entering politics, he became the leader of the reform faction of Republicans in New York's state legislature. His wife and mother both died in the same night and he was psychologically devastated. He recuperated by buying and operating a cattle ranch in the Dakotas. He served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy under President William McKinley and in 1898 helped plan the highly successful naval war against Spain. He resigned to help form and lead the Rough Riders, a unit that fought the Spanish army in Cuba to great publicity. Returning a war hero, he was elected governor of New York in 1898. The New York state party leadership disliked his ambitious agenda and convinced McKinley to make Roosevelt his running mate in the 1900 election. Roosevelt campaigned vigorously, and the McKinley–Roosevelt ticket won a landslide victory based on a platform of victory, peace and prosperity.
Roosevelt assumed the presidency at age 42 after McKinley was assassinated in September 1901. He remains the youngest person to become president of the United States. Roosevelt was a leader of the progressive movement and championed his "Square Deal" domestic policies, promising the average citizen fairness, breaking of trusts, regulation of railroads, and pure food and drugs. He prioritized conservation and established national parks, forests, and monuments intended to preserve the nation's natural resources. In foreign policy, he focused on Central America where he began construction of the Panama Canal. He expanded the Navy and sent the Great White Fleet on a world tour to project American naval power. His successful efforts to broker the end of the Russo-Japanese War won him the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize. Roosevelt was elected to a full term in 1904 and continued to promote progressive policies. He groomed his close friend William Howard Taft to succeed him in the 1908 presidential election.
Roosevelt grew frustrated with Taft's brand of conservatism and belatedly tried to win the 1912 Republican nomination for president. He failed, walked out, and founded the Progressive Party. He ran in the 1912 presidential election and the split allowed the Democratic nominee Woodrow Wilson to win the election. Following the defeat, Roosevelt led a two-year expedition to the Amazon basin where he nearly died of tropical disease. During World War I, he criticized Wilson for keeping the country out of the war; his offer to lead volunteers to France was rejected. He considered running for president again in 1920, but his health continued to deteriorate. He died in 1919. He is generally ranked in polls of historians and political scientists as one of the five best presidents.
Early life and family
Theodore Roosevelt Jr. was born on October 27, 1858, at 28 East 20th Street in Manhattan, New York City. He was the second of four children born to socialite Martha Stewart "Mittie" Bulloch and businessman and philanthropist Theodore Roosevelt Sr. He had an older sister (Anna, nicknamed "Bamie"), a younger brother (Elliott) and a younger sister (Corinne). Elliott was later the father of First Lady Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of Theodore's distant cousin, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. His paternal grandfather was of Dutch descent; his other ancestry included primarily Scottish and Scots-Irish, English and smaller amounts of German, Welsh and French. Theodore Sr. was the fifth son of businessman Cornelius Van Schaack "C. V. S." Roosevelt and Margaret Barnhill as well as a brother of Robert Roosevelt and James A. Roosevelt. Theodore's fourth cousin, James Roosevelt I, who was also a businessman, was the father of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Mittie was the younger daughter of Major James Stephens Bulloch and Martha P. "Patsy" Stewart. Through the Van Schaacks, Roosevelt was a descendant of the Schuyler family.
Roosevelt's youth was largely shaped by his poor health and debilitating asthma. He repeatedly experienced sudden nighttime asthma attacks that caused the experience of being smothered to death, which terrified both Theodore and his parents. Doctors had no cure. Nevertheless, he was energetic and mischievously inquisitive. His lifelong interest in zoology began at age seven when he saw a dead seal at a local market; after obtaining the seal's head, Roosevelt and two cousins formed what they called the "Roosevelt Museum of Natural History". Having learned the rudiments of taxidermy, he filled his makeshift museum with animals that he killed or caught; he then studied the animals and prepared them for exhibition. At age nine, he recorded his observation of insects in a paper entitled "The Natural History of Insects".
Roosevelt's father significantly influenced him. His father was a prominent leader in New York's cultural affairs; he helped to found the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and had been especially active in mobilizing support for the Union during the Civil War, even though his in-laws included Confederate leaders. Roosevelt said, "My father, Theodore Roosevelt, was the best man I ever knew. He combined strength and courage with gentleness, tenderness, and great unselfishness. He would not tolerate in us children selfishness or cruelty, idleness, cowardice, or untruthfulness." Family trips abroad, including tours of Europe in 1869 and 1870, and Egypt in 1872, shaped his cosmopolitan perspective. Hiking with his family in the Alps in 1869, Roosevelt found that he could keep pace with his father. He had discovered the significant benefits of physical exertion to minimize his asthma and bolster his spirits. Roosevelt began a heavy regime of exercise. After being manhandled by two older boys on a camping trip, he found a boxing coach to teach him to fight and strengthen his body.
A 6-year-old Roosevelt witnessed the funeral procession of Abraham Lincoln from his grandfather's mansion in Union Square, New York City where he was photographed in the window along with his brother Elliott, as confirmed by wife Edith who was also present.
Education
Roosevelt was homeschooled, mostly by tutors and his parents. Biographer H. W. Brands argued that "The most obvious drawback to his home schooling was uneven coverage of the various areas of human knowledge." He was solid in geography and bright in history, biology, French, and German; however, he struggled in mathematics and the classical languages. When he entered Harvard College on September 27, 1876, his father advised: "Take care of your morals first, your health next, and finally your studies." His father's sudden death on February 9, 1878, devastated Roosevelt, but he eventually recovered and doubled his activities.
He did well in science, philosophy, and rhetoric courses but continued to struggle in Latin and Greek. He studied biology intently and was already an accomplished naturalist and a published ornithologist. He read prodigiously with an almost photographic memory. While at Harvard, Roosevelt participated in rowing and boxing; he was once runner-up in an intramural boxing tournament. Roosevelt was a member of the Alpha Delta Phi literary society (later the Fly Club), the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity, and the prestigious Porcellian Club; he was also an editor of The Harvard Advocate. In 1880, Roosevelt graduated Phi Beta Kappa (22nd of 177) from Harvard with an A.B. magna cum laude. Biographer Henry Pringle states:
After his father's death, Roosevelt had inherited $65,000 (), enough to live off comfortably for the rest of his life. Roosevelt gave up his earlier plan of studying natural science and instead decided to attend Columbia Law School, moving back into his family's home in New York City. Roosevelt was an able law student, but he often found law to be irrational. He spent much of his time writing a book on the War of 1812.
Determined to enter politics, Roosevelt began attending meetings at Morton Hall, the 59th Street headquarters of New York's 21st District Republican Association. Though Roosevelt's father had been a prominent member of the Republican Party, the younger Roosevelt made an unorthodox career choice for someone of his class, as most of Roosevelt's peers refrained from becoming too closely involved in politics. Roosevelt found allies in the local Republican Party, and he defeated an incumbent Republican state assemblyman closely tied to the political machine of Senator Roscoe Conkling. After his election victory, Roosevelt decided to drop out of law school, later saying, "I intended to be one of the governing class."
Naval history and strategy
While at Harvard, Roosevelt began a systematic study of the role played by the young United States Navy in the War of 1812. Assisted by two uncles, he scrutinized original source materials and official U.S. Navy records, ultimately publishing The Naval War of 1812 in 1882. The book contained drawings of individual and combined ship maneuvers, charts depicting the differences in iron throw weights of cannon shot between rival forces, and analyses of the differences and similarities between British and American leadership down to the ship-to-ship level. Upon release, The Naval War of 1812 was praised for its scholarship and style, and it remains a standard study of the war.
With the publication of The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660–1783 in 1890, Navy Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan was immediately hailed as the world's outstanding naval theorist by the leaders of Europe. Roosevelt paid very close attention to Mahan's emphasis that only a nation with the world's most powerful fleet could dominate the world's oceans, exert its diplomacy to the fullest, and defend its own borders. He incorporated Mahan's ideas into his views on naval strategy for the remainder of his career.
First marriage and widowerhood
In 1880, Roosevelt married socialite Alice Hathaway Lee. Their daughter, Alice Lee Roosevelt, was born on February 12, 1884. Two days later, the new mother died of an undiagnosed case of kidney failure that had been masked by the pregnancy. In his diary, Roosevelt wrote a large 'X' on the page and then, "The light has gone out of my life." His mother, Mittie, had died of typhoid fever eleven hours earlier at 3:00 a.m., in the same house on 57th Street in Manhattan. Distraught, Roosevelt left baby Alice in the care of his sister Bamie while he grieved; he assumed custody of Alice when she was three.
After the deaths of his wife and mother, Roosevelt focused on his work, specifically by re-energizing a legislative investigation into corruption of the New York City government, which arose from a concurrent bill proposing that power be centralized in the mayor's office. For the rest of his life, he rarely spoke about his wife Alice and did not write about her in his autobiography.
Early political career
State Assemblyman
Roosevelt was a member of the New York State Assembly (New York Co., 21st D.) in 1882, 1883 and 1884. He immediately began making his mark, specifically in corporate corruption issues. He blocked a corrupt effort by financier Jay Gould to lower his taxes. Roosevelt exposed suspected collusion in the matter by Judge Theodore Westbrook, and argued for and received approval for an investigation to proceed, aiming for the impeachment of the judge. The investigation committee rejected impeachment, but Roosevelt had exposed the potential corruption in Albany, and thus assumed a high and positive political profile in multiple New York publications.
Roosevelt's anti-corruption efforts helped him win re-election in 1882 by a margin greater than two-to-one, an achievement made even more impressive by the fact that Democratic gubernatorial candidate Grover Cleveland won Roosevelt's district. With Conkling's Stalwart faction of the Republican Party in disarray following the assassination of President James Garfield, Roosevelt won election as the Republican party leader in the state assembly. He allied with Governor Cleveland to win passage of a civil service reform bill. Roosevelt won re-election a second time, and sought the office of Speaker of the New York State Assembly, but was defeated by Titus Sheard in a 41 to 29 vote of the GOP caucus. In his final term, Roosevelt served as Chairman of the Committee on Affairs of Cities; he wrote more bills than any other legislator.
Presidential election of 1884
With numerous presidential hopefuls to choose from, Roosevelt supported Senator George F. Edmunds of Vermont, a colorless reformer. The state GOP preferred the incumbent president, New York City's Chester Arthur, who was known for passing the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act. Arthur, at the time, was suffering from Bright's disease, unknown to the public, and out of duty he did not contest his own nomination. Roosevelt fought hard and succeeded in influencing the Manhattan delegates at the state convention in Utica. He then took control of the state convention, bargaining through the night and outmaneuvering the supporters of Arthur and James G. Blaine; he gained a national reputation as a key person in New York State.
Roosevelt attended the 1884 GOP National Convention in Chicago and gave a speech convincing delegates to nominate African American John R. Lynch, an Edmunds supporter, to be temporary chair. Roosevelt fought alongside the Mugwump reformers; however, Blaine, having gained support from Arthur's and Edmunds's delegates, won the nomination by 541 votes on the fourth ballot. In a crucial moment of his budding political career, Roosevelt resisted the demand of the Mugwumps that he bolt from Blaine. He bragged about his one small success: "We achieved a victory in getting up a combination to beat the Blaine nominee for temporary chairman... To do this needed a mixture of skill, boldness and energy... to get the different factions to come in... to defeat the common foe." He was also impressed by an invitation to speak before an audience of ten thousand, the largest crowd he had addressed up to that date. Having gotten a taste of national politics, Roosevelt felt less aspiration for advocacy on the state level; he then retired to his new "Chimney Butte Ranch" on the Little Missouri River. Roosevelt refused to join other Mugwumps in supporting Grover Cleveland, the governor of New York and the Democratic nominee in the general election. He debated the pros and cons of staying loyal with his political friend, Henry Cabot Lodge. After Blaine won the nomination, Roosevelt had carelessly said that he would give "hearty support to any decent Democrat". He distanced himself from the promise, saying that it had not been meant "for publication". When a reporter asked if he would support Blaine, Roosevelt replied, "That question I decline to answer. It is a subject I do not care to talk about." In the end, he realized that he had to support Blaine to maintain his role in the GOP, and he did so in a press release on July 19. Having lost the support of many reformers, Roosevelt decided to retire from politics and move to North Dakota.
Cattle rancher in Dakota
Roosevelt first visited the Dakota Territory in 1883 to hunt bison. Exhilarated by the western lifestyle, and with the cattle business booming in the territory, Roosevelt invested $14,000 in hopes of becoming a prosperous cattle rancher. For the next several years, he shuttled between his home in New York and his ranch in Dakota.
Following the 1884 presidential election, Roosevelt built a ranch named Elkhorn, which was north of the boomtown of Medora, North Dakota. Roosevelt learned to ride western style, rope, and hunt on the banks of the Little Missouri. Though he earned the respect of the authentic cowboys, they were not overly impressed. However, he identified with the herdsman of history, a man he said possesses "few of the emasculated, milk-and-water moralities admired by the pseudo-philanthropists; but he does possess, to a very high degree, the stern, manly qualities that are invaluable to a nation". He reoriented, and began writing about frontier life for national magazines; he also published three books – Hunting Trips of a Ranchman, Ranch Life and the Hunting-Trail, and The Wilderness Hunter.
Roosevelt brought his desire to address the common interests of citizens to the West. He successfully led efforts to organize ranchers to address problems of overgrazing and other shared concerns; his work resulted in the formation of the Little Missouri Stockmen's Association. He felt compelled to promote conservation and was able to form the Boone and Crockett Club, whose primary goal was the conservation of large game animals and their habitats. After the uniquely severe US winter of 1886–87 wiped out his herd of cattle and those of his competitors, and with it over half of his $80,000 investment, Roosevelt returned to the East. Though his finances suffered from the experience, Roosevelt's time in the West made it impossible to peg him as an ineffectual intellectual, a characterization that could have hampered his political career.
Second marriage
On December 2, 1886, Roosevelt married his childhood and family friend, Edith Kermit Carow. Roosevelt was deeply troubled that his second marriage had taken place so soon after the death of his first wife, and he faced resistance from his sisters. Nonetheless, the couple married at St George's, Hanover Square in London, England. The couple had five children: Theodore "Ted" III in 1887, Kermit in 1889, Ethel in 1891, Archibald in 1894, and Quentin in 1897. The couple also raised Roosevelt's daughter from his first marriage, Alice, who often clashed with her stepmother.
Reentering public life
Upon Roosevelt's return to New York in 1886, Republican leaders quickly approached him about running for mayor of New York City in the city's mayoral election. Roosevelt accepted the nomination despite having little hope of winning the race against United Labor Party candidate Henry George and Democratic candidate Abram Hewitt. Roosevelt campaigned hard for the position, but Hewitt won with 41% (90,552 votes), taking the votes of many Republicans who feared George's radical policies. George was held to 31% (68,110 votes), and Roosevelt took third place with 27% (60,435 votes). Fearing that his political career might never recover, Roosevelt turned his attention to writing The Winning of the West, a historical work tracking the westward movement of Americans; the book was a great success for Roosevelt, earning favorable reviews and selling numerous copies.
Civil Service Commission
After Benjamin Harrison unexpectedly defeated Blaine for the presidential nomination at the 1888 Republican National Convention, Roosevelt gave stump speeches in the Midwest in support of Harrison. On the insistence of Henry Cabot Lodge, President Harrison appointed Roosevelt to the United States Civil Service Commission, where he served until 1895. While many of his predecessors had approached the office as a sinecure, Roosevelt vigorously fought the spoilsmen and demanded enforcement of civil service laws. The New York Sun then described Roosevelt as "irrepressible, belligerent, and enthusiastic". Roosevelt frequently clashed with Postmaster General John Wanamaker, who handed out numerous patronage positions to Harrison supporters, and Roosevelt's attempt to force out several postal workers damaged Harrison politically. Despite Roosevelt's support for Harrison's reelection bid in the presidential election of 1892, the eventual winner, Grover Cleveland, reappointed him to the same post. Roosevelt's close friend and biographer, Joseph Bucklin Bishop, described his assault on the spoils system:
New York City Police Commissioner
In 1894, a group of reform Republicans approached Roosevelt about running for Mayor of New York again; he declined, mostly due to his wife's resistance to being removed from the Washington social set. Soon after he declined, he realized that he had missed an opportunity to reinvigorate a dormant political career. He retreated to the Dakotas for a time; his wife Edith regretted her role in the decision and vowed that there would be no repeat of it.
William Lafayette Strong, a reform-minded Republican, won the 1894 mayoral election and offered Roosevelt a position on the board of the New York City Police Commissioners. Roosevelt became president of the board of commissioners and radically reformed the police force. Roosevelt implemented regular inspections of firearms and annual physical exams, appointed recruits based on their physical and mental qualifications rather than political affiliation, established Meritorious Service Medals, and closed corrupt police hostelries. During his tenure, a Municipal Lodging House was established by the Board of Charities, and Roosevelt required officers to register with the Board; he also had telephones installed in station houses.
In 1894, Roosevelt met Jacob Riis, the muckraking Evening Sun newspaper journalist who was opening the eyes of New Yorkers to the terrible conditions of the city's millions of poor immigrants with such books as How the Other Half Lives. Riis described how his book affected Roosevelt:
Roosevelt made a habit of walking officers' beats late at night and early in the morning to make sure that they were on duty. He made a concerted effort to uniformly enforce New York's Sunday closing law; in this, he ran up against boss Tom Platt as well as Tammany Hall—he was notified that the Police Commission was being legislated out of existence. His crackdowns led to protests and demonstrations. Invited to one large demonstration, not only did he surprisingly accept, he delighted in the insults, caricatures and lampoons directed at him, and earned some surprising good will. Roosevelt chose to defer rather than split with his party. As Governor of New York State, he would later sign an act replacing the Police Commission with a single Police Commissioner.
Emergence as a national figure
Assistant Secretary of the Navy
In the 1896 presidential election, Roosevelt backed Speaker of the House Thomas Brackett Reed for the Republican nomination, but William McKinley won the nomination and defeated William Jennings Bryan in the general election. Roosevelt opposed Bryan's free silver platform, viewing many of Bryan's followers as dangerous fanatics, and Roosevelt gave campaign speeches for McKinley. Urged by Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, President McKinley appointed Roosevelt as the Assistant Secretary of the Navy in 1897. Secretary of the Navy John D. Long was more concerned about formalities than functions, was in poor health, and left many major decisions to Roosevelt. Influenced by Alfred Thayer Mahan, Roosevelt called for a build-up in the country's naval strength, particularly the construction of battleships. Roosevelt also began pressing his national security views regarding the Pacific and the Caribbean on McKinley, and was particularly adamant that Spain be ejected from Cuba. He explained his priorities to one of the Navy's planners in late 1897:
On February 15, 1898, , an armored cruiser, exploded in the harbor of Havana, Cuba, killing hundreds of crew members. While Roosevelt and many other Americans blamed Spain for the explosion, McKinley sought a diplomatic solution. Without approval from Long or McKinley, Roosevelt sent out orders to several naval vessels, directing them to prepare for war. George Dewey, who had received an appointment to lead the Asiatic Squadron with the backing of Roosevelt, later credited his victory at the Battle of Manila Bay to Roosevelt's orders. After finally giving up hope of a peaceful solution, McKinley asked Congress to declare war upon Spain, beginning the Spanish–American War.
War in Cuba
With the beginning of the Spanish–American War in late April 1898, Roosevelt resigned from his post as Assistant Secretary of the Navy. Along with Army Colonel Leonard Wood, he formed the First US Volunteer Cavalry Regiment. His wife and many of his friends begged Roosevelt to remain in his post in Washington, but Roosevelt was determined to see battle. When the newspapers reported the formation of the new regiment, Roosevelt and Wood were flooded with applications from all over the country. Referred to by the press as the "Rough Riders", the regiment was one of many temporary units active only for the duration of the war.
The regiment trained for several weeks in San Antonio, Texas, and in his autobiography, Roosevelt wrote that his prior experience with the New York National Guard had been invaluable, in that it enabled him to immediately begin teaching his men basic soldiering skills. The Rough Riders used some standard issue gear and some of their own design, purchased with gift money. Diversity characterized the regiment, which included Ivy Leaguers, professional and amateur athletes, upscale gentlemen, cowboys, frontiersmen, Native Americans, hunters, miners, prospectors, former soldiers, tradesmen, and sheriffs. The Rough Riders were part of the cavalry division commanded by former Confederate general Joseph Wheeler, which itself was one of three divisions in the V Corps under Lieutenant General William Rufus Shafter. Roosevelt and his men landed in Daiquirí, Cuba, on June 23, 1898, and marched to Siboney. Wheeler sent parts of the 1st and 10th Regular Cavalry on the lower road northwest and sent the "Rough Riders" on the parallel road running along a ridge up from the beach. To throw off his infantry rival, Wheeler left one regiment of his Cavalry Division, the 9th, at Siboney so that he could claim that his move north was only a limited reconnaissance if things went wrong. Roosevelt was promoted to colonel and took command of the regiment when Wood was put in command of the brigade. The Rough Riders had a short, minor skirmish known as the Battle of Las Guasimas; they fought their way through Spanish resistance and, together with the Regulars, forced the Spaniards to abandon their positions.
Under his leadership, the Rough Riders became famous for the charge up Kettle Hill on July 1, 1898, while supporting the regulars. Roosevelt had the only horse, and rode back and forth between rifle pits at the forefront of the advance up Kettle Hill, an advance that he urged despite the absence of any orders from superiors. He was forced to walk up the last part of Kettle Hill because his horse had been entangled in barbed wire. The victories came at a cost of 200 killed and 1,000 wounded.
In August, Roosevelt and other officers demanded that the soldiers be returned home. Roosevelt always recalled the Battle of Kettle Hill (part of the San Juan Heights) as "the great day of my life" and "my crowded hour". In 2001, Roosevelt was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions; he had been nominated during the war, but Army officials, annoyed at his grabbing the headlines, blocked it. After returning to civilian life, Roosevelt preferred to be known as "Colonel Roosevelt" or "The Colonel", though "Teddy" remained much more popular with the public, even though Roosevelt openly despised that moniker. Men working closely with Roosevelt customarily called him "Colonel" or "Theodore". Henceforth, political cartoons of Roosevelt usually depicted him in his Rough Rider garb.
Governor of New York
After leaving Cuba in August 1898, the Rough Riders were transported to a camp at Montauk Point, Long Island, where Roosevelt and his men were briefly quarantined due to the War Department's fear of spreading yellow fever. Shortly after Roosevelt's return to the United States, Republican Congressman Lemuel E. Quigg, a lieutenant of party boss Tom Platt, asked Roosevelt to run in the 1898 gubernatorial election. Platt disliked Roosevelt personally, feared that Roosevelt would oppose Platt's interests in office, and was reluctant to propel Roosevelt to the forefront of national politics. However, Platt also needed a strong candidate due to the unpopularity of the incumbent Republican governor, Frank S. Black, and Roosevelt agreed to become the nominee and to try not to "make war" with the Republican establishment once in office. Roosevelt defeated Black in the Republican caucus by a vote of 753 to 218, and faced Democrat Augustus Van Wyck, a well-respected judge, in the general election. Roosevelt campaigned vigorously on his war record, winning the election by a margin of just one percent.
As governor, Roosevelt learned much about ongoing economic issues and political techniques that later proved valuable in his presidency. He was exposed to the problems of trusts, monopolies, labor relations, and conservation. Chessman argues that Roosevelt's program "rested firmly upon the concept of the square deal by a neutral state". The rules for the Square Deal were "honesty in public affairs, an equitable sharing of privilege and responsibility, and subordination of party and local concerns to the interests of the state at large".
By holding twice-daily press conferences—which was an innovation—Roosevelt remained connected with his middle-class political base. Roosevelt successfully pushed the Ford Franchise-Tax bill, which taxed public franchises granted by the state and controlled by corporations, declaring that "a corporation which derives its powers from the State, should pay to the State a just percentage of its earnings as a return for the privileges it enjoys". He rejected "boss" Thomas C. Platt's worries that this approached Bryanite Socialism, explaining that without it, New York voters might get angry and adopt public ownership of streetcar lines and other franchises.
The New York state government affected many interests, and the power to make appointments to policy-making positions was a key role for the governor. Platt insisted that he be consulted on major appointments; Roosevelt appeared to comply, but then made his own decisions. Historians marvel that Roosevelt managed to appoint so many first-rate men with Platt's approval. He even enlisted Platt's help in securing reform, such as in the spring of 1899, when Platt pressured state senators to vote for a civil service bill that the secretary of the Civil Service Reform Association called "superior to any civil service statute heretofore secured in America".
Chessman argues that as governor, Roosevelt developed the principles that shaped his presidency, especially insistence upon the public responsibility of large corporations, publicity as a first remedy for trusts, regulation of railroad rates, mediation of the conflict of capital and labor, conservation of natural resources and protection of the less fortunate members of society. Roosevelt sought to position himself against the excesses of large corporations on the one hand and radical movements on the other.
As the chief executive of the most populous state in the union, Roosevelt was widely considered a potential future presidential candidate, and supporters such as William Allen White encouraged him to run for president. Roosevelt had no interest in challenging McKinley for the Republican nomination in 1900, and was denied his preferred post of Secretary of War. As his term progressed, Roosevelt pondered a 1904 presidential run, but was uncertain about whether he should seek re-election as governor in 1900.
Vice Presidency (1901)
In November 1899, Vice President Garret Hobart died of heart failure, leaving an open spot on the 1900 Republican national ticket. Though Henry Cabot Lodge and others urged him to run for vice president in 1900, Roosevelt was reluctant to take the powerless position and issued a public statement saying that he would not accept the nomination. Additionally, Roosevelt was informed by President McKinley and campaign manager Mark Hanna that he was not being considered for the role of vice president due to his actions prior to the Spanish–American War. Eager to be rid of Roosevelt, Platt nonetheless began a newspaper campaign in favor of Roosevelt's nomination for the vice presidency. Roosevelt attended the 1900 Republican National Convention as a state delegate and struck a bargain with Platt: Roosevelt would accept the nomination for vice president if the convention offered it to him, but would otherwise serve another term as governor. Platt asked Pennsylvania party boss Matthew Quay to lead the campaign for Roosevelt's nomination, and Quay outmaneuvered Hanna at the convention to put Roosevelt on the ticket. Roosevelt won the nomination unanimously.
Roosevelt's vice-presidential campaigning proved highly energetic and an equal match for Democratic presidential nominee William Jennings Bryan's famous barnstorming style of campaigning. In a whirlwind campaign that displayed his energy to the public, Roosevelt made 480 stops in 23 states. He denounced the radicalism of Bryan, contrasting it with the heroism of the soldiers and sailors who fought and won the war against Spain. Bryan had strongly supported the war itself, but he denounced the annexation of the Philippines as imperialism, which would spoil America's innocence. Roosevelt countered that it was best for the Filipinos to have stability and the Americans to have a proud place in the world. With the nation basking in peace and prosperity, the voters gave McKinley an even larger victory than that which he had achieved in 1896.
After the campaign, Roosevelt took office as vice president in March 1901. The office of vice president was a powerless sinecure and did not suit Roosevelt's aggressive temperament. Roosevelt's six months as vice president were uneventful and boring for a man of action. He had no power; he presided over the Senate for a mere four days before it adjourned. On September 2, 1901, Roosevelt first publicized an aphorism that thrilled his supporters: "Speak softly and carry a big stick, and you will go far."
Presidency (1901–1909)
On September 6, 1901, President McKinley was attending the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York when he was shot by anarchist Leon Czolgosz. Roosevelt was vacationing in Isle La Motte, Vermont, and traveled to Buffalo to visit McKinley in the hospital. It appeared that McKinley would recover, so Roosevelt resumed his vacation in the Adirondack Mountains. When McKinley's condition worsened, Roosevelt again rushed back to Buffalo. McKinley died on September 14, and Roosevelt was informed while he was in North Creek; he continued on to Buffalo and was sworn in as the nation's 26th president at the Ansley Wilcox House.
McKinley's supporters were nervous about the new president, and Hanna was particularly bitter that the man he had opposed so vigorously at the convention had succeeded McKinley. Roosevelt assured party leaders that he intended to adhere to McKinley's policies, and he retained McKinley's Cabinet. Nonetheless, Roosevelt sought to position himself as the party's undisputed leader, seeking to bolster the role of the president and position himself for the 1904 election. The vice presidency remained vacant, as there was no constitutional provision for filling an intra-term vacancy in that office (prior to the 25th Amendment in 1967).
Shortly after taking office, Roosevelt invited Booker T. Washington to dinner at the White House. This sparked a bitter, and at times vicious, reaction among whites across the heavily segregated South. Roosevelt reacted with astonishment and protest, saying that he looked forward to many future dinners with Washington. Upon further reflection, Roosevelt wanted to ensure that this had no effect on political support in the white South, and further dinner invitations to Washington were avoided; their next meeting was scheduled as typical business at 10:00 a.m. instead.
Domestic policies
Trust busting and regulation
For his aggressive use of the 1890 Sherman Antitrust Act, compared to his predecessors, Roosevelt was hailed as the "trust-buster"; but in reality he was more of a trust regulator. Roosevelt viewed big business as a necessary part of the American economy, and sought only to prosecute the "bad trusts" that restrained trade and charged unfair prices. He brought 44 antitrust suits, breaking up the Northern Securities Company, the largest railroad monopoly; and regulating Standard Oil, the largest oil company. Presidents Benjamin Harrison, Grover Cleveland, and William McKinley combined had prosecuted only 18 antitrust violations under the Sherman Antitrust Act.
Bolstered by his party's winning large majorities in the 1902 elections, Roosevelt proposed the creation of the United States Department of Commerce and Labor, which would include the Bureau of Corporations. While Congress was receptive to the Department of Commerce and Labor, it was more skeptical of the antitrust powers that Roosevelt sought to endow within the Bureau of Corporations. Roosevelt successfully appealed to the public to pressure Congress, and Congress overwhelmingly voted to pass Roosevelt's version of the bill.
In a moment of frustration, House Speaker Joseph Gurney Cannon commented on Roosevelt's desire for executive branch control in domestic policy-making: "That fellow at the other end of the avenue wants everything from the birth of Christ to the death of the devil." Biographer Brands states, "Even his friends occasionally wondered whether there wasn't any custom or practice too minor for him to try to regulate, update or otherwise improve." In fact, Roosevelt's willingness to exercise his power included attempted rule changes in the game of football; at the Naval Academy, he sought to force retention of martial arts classes and to revise disciplinary rules. He even ordered changes made in the minting of a coin whose design he disliked, and ordered the Government Printing Office to adopt simplified spellings for a core list of 300 words, according to reformers on the Simplified Spelling Board. He was forced to rescind the latter after substantial ridicule from the press and a resolution of protest from the House of Representatives.
Coal strike
In May 1902, anthracite coal miners went on strike, threatening a national energy shortage. After threatening the coal operators with intervention by federal troops, Roosevelt won their agreement to dispute arbitration by a commission, which succeeded in stopping the strike. The accord with J. P. Morgan resulted in the miners getting more pay for fewer hours, but with no union recognition. Roosevelt said, "My action on labor should always be considered in connection with my action as regards capital, and both are reducible to my favorite formula—a square deal for every man." Roosevelt was the first president to help settle a labor dispute.
Prosecuted misconduct
During Roosevelt's second year in office it was discovered there was corruption in the Indian Service, the Land Office, and the Post Office Department. Roosevelt investigated and prosecuted corrupt Indian agents who had cheated the Creeks and various tribes out of land parcels. Land fraud and speculation were found involving Oregon federal timberlands. In November 1902, Roosevelt and Secretary Ethan A. Hitchcock forced Binger Hermann, the General Land Office Commissioner, to resign from office. On November 6, 1903 Francis J. Heney was appointed special prosecutor and obtained 146 indictments involving an Oregon Land Office bribery ring. U.S. Senator John H. Mitchell was indicted for bribery to expedite illegal land patents, found guilty in July 1905, and sentenced to six months in prison. More corruption was found in the Postal Department, that brought on the indictments of 44 government employees on charges of bribery and fraud. Historians generally agree that Roosevelt moved "quickly and decisively" to prosecute misconduct in his administration.
Railroads
Merchants complained that some railroad rates were too high. In the 1906 Hepburn Act, Roosevelt sought to give the Interstate Commerce Commission the power to regulate rates, but the Senate, led by conservative Nelson Aldrich, fought back. Roosevelt worked with the Democratic Senator Benjamin Tillman to pass the bill. Roosevelt and Aldrich ultimately reached a compromise that gave the ICC the power to replace existing rates with "just-and-reasonable" maximum rates, but allowed railroads to appeal to the federal courts on what was "reasonable". In addition to rate-setting, the Hepburn Act also granted the ICC regulatory power over pipeline fees, storage contracts, and several other aspects of railroad operations.
Pure food and drugs
Roosevelt responded to public anger over the abuses in the food packing industry by pushing Congress to pass the Meat Inspection Act of 1906 and the Pure Food and Drug Act. Though conservatives initially opposed the bill, Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, published in 1906, helped galvanize support for reform. The Meat Inspection Act of 1906 banned misleading labels and preservatives that contained harmful chemicals. The Pure Food and Drug Act banned food and drugs that were impure or falsely labeled from being made, sold, and shipped. Roosevelt also served as honorary president of the American School Hygiene Association from 1907 to 1908, and in 1909 he convened the first White House Conference on the Care of Dependent Children.
Conservation
Of all Roosevelt's achievements, he was proudest of his work in the conservation of natural resources and extending federal protection to land and wildlife. Roosevelt worked closely with Interior Secretary James Rudolph Garfield and Chief of the United States Forest Service Gifford Pinchot to enact a series of conservation programs that often met with resistance from Western members of Congress, such as Charles William Fulton. Nonetheless, Roosevelt established the United States Forest Service, signed into law the creation of five National Parks, and signed the 1906 Antiquities Act, under which he proclaimed 18 new U.S. National Monuments. He also established the first 51 bird reserves, four game preserves, and 150 National Forests. The area of the United States that he placed under public protection totals approximately .
Roosevelt extensively used executive orders on a number of occasions to protect forest and wildlife lands during his tenure as president. By the end of his second term in office, Roosevelt used executive orders to establish of reserved forestry land. Roosevelt was unapologetic about his extensive use of executive orders to protect the environment, despite the perception in Congress that he was encroaching on too many lands. Eventually, Senator Charles Fulton (R-OR) attached an amendment to an agricultural appropriations bill that effectively prevented the president from reserving any further land. Before signing that bill into law, Roosevelt used executive orders to establish an additional 21 forest reserves, waiting until the last minute to sign the bill into law. In total, Roosevelt used executive orders to establish 121 forest reserves in 31 states. Prior to Roosevelt, only one president had issued over 200 executive orders, Grover Cleveland (253). The first 25 presidents issued a total of 1,262 executive orders; Roosevelt issued 1,081.
Foreign policy
Japan
The American annexation of Hawaii in 1898 was stimulated in part by fear that otherwise Japan would dominate the Hawaiian Republic. Similarly, Germany was the alternative to American takeover of the Philippines in 1900, and Tokyo strongly preferred the U.S. to take over. As the U.S. became a naval world power, it needed to find a way to avoid a military confrontation in the Pacific with Japan.
In the 1890s, Roosevelt had been an ardent imperialist and vigorously defended the permanent acquisition of the Philippines in the 1900 campaign. After the local insurrection ended in 1902, he largely lost his imperialist interest in the Philippines and Asian expansion but wished to have a strong U.S. presence in the region as a symbol of democratic values. One of Theodore Roosevelt's priorities during his presidency and afterwards, was the maintenance of friendly relations with Japan. From 1904 to 1905 Japan and Russia were at war. Roosevelt admired the martial courage of the Japanese, and distrusted the reckless German Kaiser. Both sides asked Roosevelt to mediate a peace conference, held successfully in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Roosevelt won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts.
In California, anti-Japanese hostility was growing, and Tokyo protested. Roosevelt negotiated a "Gentleman's Agreement" in 1907. Explicit discrimination against the Japanese was ended, and Japan agreed not to allow unskilled immigrants into the United States. The Great White Fleet of American battleships visited Japan in 1908. Pulitzer prize-winning biographer Henry Pringle states that the great voyage was "the direct result of the Japanese trouble." Roosevelt intended to emphasize the superiority of the American fleet over the smaller Japanese navy, but instead of resentment the visitors arrived to a joyous welcome by Japanese elite as well as the general public. This good-will facilitated the Root–Takahira Agreement of November 1908 which reaffirmed the status quo of Japanese control of Korea and American control of the Philippines.
Europe
Success in the war against Spain and the new empire, plus having the largest economy in the world, meant that the United States had emerged as a world power. Roosevelt searched for ways to win recognition for the position abroad.
Roosevelt also played a major role in mediating the First Moroccan Crisis by calling the Algeciras Conference, which averted war between France and Germany.
Roosevelt's presidency saw the strengthening of ties with Great Britain. The Great Rapprochement had begun with British support of the United States during the Spanish–American War, and it continued as Britain withdrew its fleet from the Caribbean in favor of focusing on the rising German naval threat. In 1901, Britain and the United States signed the Hay–Pauncefote Treaty, abrogating the Clayton–Bulwer Treaty, which had prevented the United States from constructing a canal connecting the Pacific and the Atlantic Ocean. The long-standing Alaska boundary dispute was settled on terms favorable to the United States, as Great Britain was unwilling to alienate the United States over what it considered to be a secondary issue. As Roosevelt later put it, the resolution of the Alaskan boundary dispute "settled the last serious trouble between the British Empire and ourselves."
Latin America and Panama Canal
As president, he primarily focused the nation's overseas ambitions on the Caribbean, especially locations that had a bearing on the defense of his pet project, the Panama Canal. Roosevelt also increased the size of the navy, and by the end of his second term the United States had more battleships than any other country besides Britain. The Panama Canal when it opened in 1914 allowed the U.S. Navy to rapidly move back and forth from the Pacific to the Caribbean to European waters.
In December 1902, the Germans, British, and Italians blockaded the ports of Venezuela in order to force the repayment of delinquent loans. Roosevelt was particularly concerned with the motives of German Emperor Wilhelm II. He succeeded in getting the three nations to agree to arbitration by tribunal at The Hague, and successfully defused the crisis. The latitude granted to the Europeans by the arbiters was in part responsible for the "Roosevelt Corollary" to the Monroe Doctrine, which the President issued in 1904: "Chronic wrongdoing or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation, and in the Western Hemisphere, the adherence of the United States to the Monroe doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power."
The pursuit of an isthmus canal in Central America during this period focused on two possible routes—Nicaragua and Panama, which was then a rebellious district within Colombia. Roosevelt convinced Congress to approve the Panamanian alternative, and a treaty was approved, only to be rejected by the Colombian government. When the Panamanians learned of this, a rebellion followed, was supported by Roosevelt, and succeeded. A treaty with the new Panama government for construction of the canal was then reached in 1903. Roosevelt received criticism for paying the bankrupt Panama Canal Company and the New Panama Canal Company $40,000,000 (equivalent to $ billion in ) for the rights and equipment to build the canal. Critics charged that an American investor syndicate allegedly divided the large payment among themselves. There was also controversy over whether a French company engineer influenced Roosevelt in choosing the Panama route for the canal over the Nicaragua route. Roosevelt denied charges of corruption concerning the canal in a January 8, 1906 message to Congress. In January 1909, Roosevelt, in an unprecedented move, brought criminal libel charges against the New York World and the Indianapolis News known as the "Roosevelt-Panama Libel Cases". Both cases were dismissed by U.S. District Courts, and on January 3, 1911, the U.S. Supreme Court, upon federal appeal, upheld the lower courts' rulings. Historians are sharply critical of Roosevelt's criminal prosecutions of the World and the News, but are divided on whether actual corruption in acquiring and building the Panama Canal took place.
In 1906, following a disputed election, an insurrection ensued in Cuba; Roosevelt sent Taft, the Secretary of War, to monitor the situation; he was convinced that he had the authority to unilaterally authorize Taft to deploy Marines if necessary, without congressional approval.
Examining the work of numerous scholars, Ricard (2014) reports that:
The most striking evolution in the twenty-first-century historiography of Theodore Roosevelt is the switch from a partial arraignment of the imperialist to a quasi-unanimous celebration of the master diplomatist.... [Recent works] have underlined cogently Roosevelt's exceptional statesmanship in the construction of the nascent twentieth-century "special relationship". ...The twenty-sixth president's reputation as a brilliant diplomatist and realpolitician has undeniably reached new heights in the twenty-first century...yet, his Philippine policy still prompts criticism.
Media
Building on McKinley's effective use of the press, Roosevelt made the White House the center of news every day, providing interviews and photo opportunities. After noticing the reporters huddled outside the White House in the rain one day, he gave them their own room inside, effectively inventing the presidential press briefing. The grateful press, with unprecedented access to the White House, rewarded Roosevelt with ample coverage.
Roosevelt normally enjoyed very close relationships with the press, which he used to keep in daily contact with his middle-class base. While out of office, he made a living as a writer and magazine editor. He loved talking with intellectuals, authors, and writers. He drew the line, however, at exposé-oriented scandal-mongering journalists who, during his term, sent magazine subscriptions soaring by their attacks on corrupt politicians, mayors, and corporations. Roosevelt himself was not usually a target, but a speech of his from 1906 coined the term "muckraker" for unscrupulous journalists making wild charges. "The liar", he said, "is no whit better than the thief, and if his mendacity takes the form of slander he may be worse than most thieves."
The press did briefly target Roosevelt in one instance. After 1904, he was periodically criticized for the manner in which he facilitated the construction of the Panama Canal. According to biographer Brands, Roosevelt, near the end of his term, demanded that the Justice Department bring charges of criminal libel against Joseph Pulitzer's New York World. The publication had accused him of "deliberate misstatements of fact" in defense of family members who were criticized as a result of the Panama affair. Though an indictment was obtained, the case was ultimately dismissed in federal court—it was not a federal offense, but one enforceable in state courts. The Justice Department had predicted that result, and had also advised Roosevelt accordingly.
Election of 1904
The control and management of the Republican Party lay in the hands of Ohio Senator and Republican Party chairman Mark Hanna until McKinley's death. Roosevelt and Hanna frequently cooperated during Roosevelt's first term, but Hanna left open the possibility of a challenge to Roosevelt for the 1904 Republican nomination. Roosevelt and Ohio's other Senator, Joseph B. Foraker, forced Hanna's hand by calling for Ohio's state Republican convention to endorse Roosevelt for the 1904 nomination. Unwilling to break with the president, Hanna was forced to publicly endorse Roosevelt. Hanna and Pennsylvania Senator Matthew Quay both died in early 1904, and with the waning of Thomas Platt's power, Roosevelt faced little effective opposition for the 1904 nomination. In deference to Hanna's conservative loyalists, Roosevelt at first offered the party chairmanship to Cornelius Bliss, but he declined. Roosevelt turned to his own man, George B. Cortelyou of New York, the first Secretary of Commerce and Labor. To buttress his hold on the party's nomination, Roosevelt made it clear that anyone opposing Cortelyou would be considered to be opposing the President. The President secured his own nomination, but his preferred vice-presidential running mate, Robert R. Hitt, was not nominated. Senator Charles Warren Fairbanks of Indiana, a favorite of conservatives, gained the nomination.
While Roosevelt followed the tradition of incumbents in not actively campaigning on the stump, he sought to control the campaign's message through specific instructions to Cortelyou. He also attempted to manage the press's release of White House statements by forming the Ananias Club. Any journalist who repeated a statement made by the president without approval was penalized by restriction of further access.
The Democratic Party's nominee in 1904 was Alton Brooks Parker. Democratic newspapers charged that Republicans were extorting large campaign contributions from corporations, putting ultimate responsibility on Roosevelt, himself. Roosevelt denied corruption while at the same time he ordered Cortelyou to return $100,000 (equivalent to $ million in ) of a campaign contribution from Standard Oil. Parker said that Roosevelt was accepting corporate donations to keep damaging information from the Bureau of Corporations from going public. Roosevelt strongly denied Parker's charge and responded that he would "go into the Presidency unhampered by any pledge, promise, or understanding of any kind, sort, or description...". Allegations from Parker and the Democrats, however, had little impact on the election, as Roosevelt promised to give every American a "square deal". Roosevelt won 56% of the popular vote, and Parker received 38%; Roosevelt also won the Electoral College vote, 336 to 140. Before his inauguration ceremony, Roosevelt declared that he would not serve another term. Democrats afterwards would continue to charge Roosevelt and the Republicans of being influenced by corporate donations during Roosevelt's second term.
Second term
As his second term progressed, Roosevelt moved to the left of his Republican Party base and called for a series of reforms, most of which Congress failed to pass. In his last year in office, he was assisted by his friend Archibald Butt (who later perished in the sinking of RMS Titanic). Roosevelt's influence waned as he approached the end of his second term, as his promise to forego a third term made him a lame duck and his concentration of power provoked a backlash from many Congressmen. He sought a national incorporation law (at a time when all corporations had state charters), called for a federal income tax (despite the Supreme Court's ruling in Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co.), and an inheritance tax. In the area of labor legislation, Roosevelt called for limits on the use of court injunctions against labor unions during strikes; injunctions were a powerful weapon that mostly helped business. He wanted an employee liability law for industrial injuries (pre-empting state laws) and an eight-hour work day for federal employees. In other areas he also sought a postal savings system (to provide competition for local banks), and he asked for campaign reform laws.
The election of 1904 continued to be a source of contention between Republicans and Democrats. A Congressional investigation in 1905 revealed that corporate executives donated tens of thousands of dollars in 1904 to the Republican National Committee. In 1908, a month before the general presidential election, Governor Charles N. Haskell of Oklahoma, former Democratic Treasurer, said that Senators beholden to Standard Oil lobbied Roosevelt, in the summer of 1904, to authorize the leasing of Indian oil lands by Standard Oil subsidiaries. He said Roosevelt overruled his Secretary of Interior Ethan A. Hitchcock and granted a pipeline franchise to run through the Osage lands to the Prairie Oil and Gas Company. The New York Sun made a similar accusation and said that Standard Oil, a refinery who financially benefited from the pipeline, had contributed $150,000 to the Republicans in 1904 (equivalent to $ million in ) after Roosevelt's alleged reversal allowing the pipeline franchise. Roosevelt branded Haskell's allegation as "a lie, pure and simple" and obtained a denial from Treasury Secretary Shaw that Roosevelt had neither coerced Shaw nor overruled him.
Post-presidency (1909–1919)
Election of 1908
Roosevelt enjoyed being president and was still relatively youthful, but felt that a limited number of terms provided a check against dictatorship. Roosevelt ultimately decided to stick to his 1904 pledge not to run for a third term. He personally favored Secretary of State Elihu Root as his successor, but Root's ill health made him an unsuitable candidate. New York Governor Charles Evans Hughes loomed as a potentially strong candidate and shared Roosevelt's progressivism, but Roosevelt disliked him and considered him to be too independent. Instead, Roosevelt settled on his Secretary of War, William Howard Taft, who had ably served under Presidents Harrison, McKinley, and Roosevelt in various positions. Roosevelt and Taft had been friends since 1890, and Taft had consistently supported President Roosevelt's policies. Roosevelt was determined to install the successor of his choice, and wrote the following to Taft: "Dear Will: Do you want any action about those federal officials? I will break their necks with the utmost cheerfulness if you say the word!". Just weeks later he branded as "false and malicious" the charge that he was using the offices at his disposal to favor Taft. At the 1908 Republican convention, many chanted for "four years more" of a Roosevelt presidency, but Taft won the nomination after Henry Cabot Lodge made it clear that Roosevelt was not interested in a third term.
In the 1908 election, Taft easily defeated the Democratic nominee, three-time candidate William Jennings Bryan. Taft promoted a progressivism that stressed the rule of law; he preferred that judges rather than administrators or politicians make the basic decisions about fairness. Taft usually proved to be a less adroit politician than Roosevelt and lacked the energy and personal magnetism, along with the publicity devices, the dedicated supporters, and the broad base of public support that made Roosevelt so formidable. When Roosevelt realized that lowering the tariff would risk creating severe tensions inside the Republican Party by pitting producers (manufacturers and farmers) against merchants and consumers, he stopped talking about the issue. Taft ignored the risks and tackled the tariff boldly, encouraging reformers to fight for lower rates, and then cutting deals with conservative leaders that kept overall rates high. The resulting Payne-Aldrich tariff of 1909, signed into law early in President Taft's tenure, was too high for most reformers, and Taft's handling of the tariff alienated all sides. While the crisis was building inside the Party, Roosevelt was touring Africa and Europe, to allow Taft to be his own man.
Africa and Europe (1909–1910)
In March 1909, shortly after the end of his presidency, Roosevelt left New York for the Smithsonian-Roosevelt African Expedition, a safari in east and central Africa. Roosevelt's party landed in Mombasa, East Africa (now Kenya) and traveled to the Belgian Congo (now Democratic Republic of the Congo) before following the Nile to Khartoum in modern Sudan. Financed by Andrew Carnegie and by his own writings, Roosevelt's party hunted for specimens for the Smithsonian Institution and for the American Museum of Natural History in New York. The group, led by the hunter-tracker RJ Cunninghame, included scientists from the Smithsonian, and was joined from time to time by Frederick Selous, the famous big game hunter and explorer. Participants on the expedition included Kermit Roosevelt, Edgar Alexander Mearns, Edmund Heller, and John Alden Loring.
Roosevelt and his companions killed or trapped approximately 11,400 animals, from insects and moles to hippopotamuses and elephants. The 1,000 large animals included 512 big game animals, including six rare white rhinos. Tons of salted animals and their skins were shipped to Washington; it took years to mount them all, and the Smithsonian shared many duplicate specimens with other museums. Regarding the large number of animals taken, Roosevelt said, "I can be condemned only if the existence of the National Museum, the American Museum of Natural History, and all similar zoological institutions are to be condemned". He wrote a detailed account of the safari in the book African Game Trails, recounting the excitement of the chase, the people he met, and the flora and fauna he collected in the name of science.
After his safari, Roosevelt traveled north to embark on a tour of Europe. Stopping first in Egypt, he commented favorably on British rule of the region, giving his opinion that Egypt was not yet ready for independence. He refused a meeting with the Pope due to a dispute over a group of Methodists active in Rome, but met with Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, King George V of Great Britain, and other European leaders. In Oslo, Norway, Roosevelt delivered a speech calling for limitations on naval armaments, a strengthening of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, and the creation of a "League of Peace" among the world powers. He also delivered the Romanes Lecture at Oxford, in which he denounced those who sought parallels between the evolution of animal life and the development of society. Though Roosevelt attempted to avoid domestic politics during his time abroad, he met with Gifford Pinchot, who related his own disappointment with the Taft Administration. Pinchot had been forced to resign as head of the forest service after clashing with Taft's Interior Secretary, Richard Ballinger, who had prioritized development over conservation. Roosevelt returned to the United States in June 1910.
Republican Party schism
Roosevelt had attempted to refashion Taft into a second version of himself, but as soon as Taft began to display his individuality, the former president expressed his disenchantment. He was offended on election night when Taft indicated that his success had been possible not just through the efforts of Roosevelt, but also his brother Charley. Roosevelt was further alienated when Taft, intent on becoming his own man, did not consult him about cabinet appointments. Roosevelt and other progressives were ideologically dissatisfied over Taft's conservation policies and his handling of the tariff when he concentrated more power in the hands of conservative party leaders in Congress. Regarding radicalism and liberalism, Roosevelt wrote a British friend in 1911:
Fundamentally it is the radical liberal with whom I sympathize. He is at least working toward the end for which I think we should all of us strive; and when he adds sanity in moderation to courage and enthusiasm for high ideals he develops into the kind of statesman whom alone I can wholeheartedly support."
Roosevelt urged progressives to take control of the Republican Party at the state and local level and to avoid splitting the party in a way that would hand the presidency to the Democrats in 1912. Additionally, Roosevelt expressed optimism about the Taft Administration after meeting with the president in the White House in June 1910.
In August 1910, Roosevelt gained national attention with a speech at Osawatomie, Kansas, which was the most radical of his career and marked his public break with Taft and the conservative Republicans. Advocating a program of "New Nationalism", Roosevelt emphasized the priority of labor over capital interests, a need to more effectively control corporate creation and combination, and proposed a ban on corporate political contributions. Returning to New York, Roosevelt began a battle to take control of the state Republican party from William Barnes Jr., Tom Platt's successor as the state party boss, whom he would later confront in the Barnes vs. Roosevelt Libel Trial. Taft had pledged his support to Roosevelt in this endeavor, and Roosevelt was outraged when Taft's support failed to materialize at the 1910 state convention. Roosevelt nonetheless campaigned for the Republicans in the 1910 elections, in which the Democrats gained control of the House for the first time since the 1890s. Among the newly elected Democrats was New York state senator Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who argued that he represented his distant cousin's policies better than his Republican opponent.
The Republican progressives interpreted the 1910 defeats as a compelling argument for the complete reorganization of the party in 1911. Senator Robert M. La Follette of Wisconsin joined with Pinchot, William White, and California Governor Hiram Johnson to create the National Progressive Republican League; their objectives were to defeat the power of political bossism at the state level and to replace Taft at the national level. Despite skepticism of La Follette's new league, Roosevelt expressed general support for progressive principles. Between January and April 1911, Roosevelt wrote a series of articles for The Outlook, defending what he called "the great movement of our day, the progressive nationalist movement against special privilege, and in favor of an honest and efficient political and industrial democracy". With Roosevelt apparently uninterested in running in 1912, La Follette declared his own candidacy in June 1911. Roosevelt continually criticized Taft after the 1910 elections, and the break between the two men became final after the Justice Department filed an antitrust lawsuit against US Steel in September 1911; Roosevelt was humiliated by this suit because he had personally approved of an acquisition that the Justice Department was now challenging. However, Roosevelt was still unwilling to run against Taft in 1912; he instead hoped to run in 1916 against whichever Democrat beat Taft in 1912.
Dispute over arbitration treaties
Taft was a major advocate of arbitration as a major reform of the Progressive Era. In 1911 Taft and his Secretary of State Philander C. Knox negotiated major treaties with Great Britain and with France providing that differences be arbitrated. Disputes had to be submitted to the Hague Court or other tribunal. These were signed in August 1911 but had to be ratified by a two-thirds vote of the Senate. Neither Taft nor Knox consulted with members of the Senate during the negotiating process. By then many Republicans were opposed to Taft, and the president felt that lobbying too hard for the treaties might cause their defeat. He made some speeches supporting the treaties in October, but the Senate added amendments Taft could not accept, killing the agreements.
The arbitration issue opens a window on a bitter philosophical dispute among American progressives. Some, led by Taft looked to legal arbitration as the best alternative to warfare. Taft was a constitutional lawyer who later became Chief Justice; he had a deep understanding of the legal issues. Taft's political base was the conservative business community that largely supported peace movements before 1914. However, his mistake, in this case, was a failure to mobilize that base. The businessmen believed that economic rivalries were the cause of war, and that extensive trade led to an interdependent world that would make war a very expensive and useless anachronism.
However, an opposing faction of progressives, led by Roosevelt, ridiculed arbitration as foolhardy idealism, and insisted on the realism of warfare as the only solution to serious international disputes. Roosevelt worked with his close friend Senator Henry Cabot Lodge to impose those amendments that ruined the goals of the treaties. Lodge thought the treaties impinged too much on senatorial prerogatives. Roosevelt, however, was acting to sabotage Taft's campaign promises. At a deeper level, Roosevelt truly believed that arbitration was a naïve solution and the great issues had to be decided by warfare. The Rooseveltian approach incorporated a near-mystical faith of the ennobling nature of war. It endorsed jingoistic nationalism as opposed to the businessmen's calculation of profit and national interest.
Election of 1912
Republican primaries and convention
In November 1911, a group of Ohio Republicans endorsed Roosevelt for the party's nomination for president; the endorsers included James R. Garfield and Dan Hanna. This endorsement was made by leaders of President Taft's home state. Roosevelt conspicuously declined to make a statement—requested by Garfield—that he would flatly refuse a nomination. Soon thereafter, Roosevelt said, "I am really sorry for Taft... I am sure he means well, but he means well feebly, and he does not know how! He is utterly unfit for leadership and this is a time when we need leadership." In January 1912, Roosevelt declared "if the people make a draft on me I shall not decline to serve". Later that year, Roosevelt spoke before the Constitutional Convention in Ohio, openly identifying as a progressive and endorsing progressive reforms—even endorsing popular review of state judicial decisions. In reaction to Roosevelt's proposals for popular overrule of court decisions, Taft said, "Such extremists are not progressives—they are political emotionalists or neurotics".
Roosevelt began to envision himself as the savior of the Republican Party from defeat in the upcoming presidential election. In February 1912, Roosevelt announced in Boston, "I will accept the nomination for president if it is tendered to me. I hope that so far as possible the people may be given the chance through direct primaries to express who shall be the nominee. Elihu Root and Henry Cabot Lodge thought that division of the party would lead to its defeat in the next election, while Taft believed that he would be defeated either in the Republican primary or in the general election.
The 1912 primaries represented the first extensive use of the presidential primary, a reform achievement of the progressive movement. The Republican primaries in the South, where party regulars dominated, went for Taft, as did results in New York, Indiana, Michigan, Kentucky and Massachusetts. Meanwhile, Roosevelt won in Illinois, Minnesota, Nebraska, South Dakota, California, Maryland and Pennsylvania; Roosevelt also won Taft's home state of Ohio. These primary elections, while demonstrating Roosevelt's continuing popularity with the electorate, were not pivotal. The final credentials of the state delegates at the national convention were determined by the national committee, which was controlled by the party leaders, headed by the incumbent president.
Prior to the 1912 Republican National Convention in Chicago, Roosevelt expressed doubt about his prospects for victory, noting that Taft had more delegates and control of the credentials committee. His only hope was to convince party leaders that the nomination of Taft would hand the election to the Democrats, but party leaders were determined not to cede their leadership to Roosevelt. The credentials committee awarded almost all contested delegates to Taft, and Taft won the nomination on the first ballot. Black delegates from the South played a key role: they voted heavily for Taft and put him over the top. La Follette also helped Taft's candidacy; he hoped that a deadlocked convention would result in his own nomination, and refused to release his delegates to support Roosevelt.
The Progressive ("Bull Moose") Party
Once his defeat at the Republican convention appeared probable, Roosevelt announced that he would "accept the progressive nomination on a progressive platform and I shall fight to the end, win or lose". At the same time, Roosevelt prophetically said, "My feeling is that the Democrats will probably win if they nominate a progressive".
Roosevelt left the Republican Party and created the Progressive Party, structuring it as a permanent organization that would field complete tickets at the presidential and state level. The party included Roosevelt and key allies such as Pinchot, Cornelia Bryce Pinchot (Pinchot's wife and a longtime friend of Roosevelt's), and Albert Beveridge. The new party was popularly known as the "Bull Moose Party" after Roosevelt told reporters, "I'm as fit as a bull moose". At the 1912 Progressive National Convention, Roosevelt cried out, "We stand at Armageddon and we battle for the Lord." California Governor Hiram Johnson was nominated as Roosevelt's running mate. Roosevelt's platform echoed his 1907–1908 proposals, calling for vigorous government intervention to protect the people from selfish interests:
Though many Progressive party supporters in the North were supporters of civil rights for blacks, Roosevelt did not give strong support to civil rights and ran a "lily-white" campaign in the South. Rival all-white and all-black delegations from four southern states arrived at the Progressive national convention, and Roosevelt decided to seat the all-white delegations. Nevertheless, he won little support outside mountain Republican strongholds. Out of nearly 1100 counties in the South, Roosevelt won two counties in Alabama, one in Arkansas, seven in North Carolina, three in Georgia, 17 in Tennessee, two in Texas, one in Virginia, and none in Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, or South Carolina.
Assassination attempt
On October 14, 1912, while arriving at a campaign event in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Roosevelt was shot from seven feet away in front of the Gilpatrick Hotel by a delusional saloonkeeper named John Flammang Schrank, who believed that the ghost of assassinated president William McKinley had directed him to kill Roosevelt. The bullet lodged in his chest after penetrating his steel eyeglass case and passing through a 50-page-thick single-folded copy of the speech titled "Progressive Cause Greater Than Any Individual", which he was carrying in his jacket. Schrank was immediately disarmed (by Czech immigrant Frank Bukovsky), captured, and might have been lynched had Roosevelt not shouted for Schrank to remain unharmed. Roosevelt assured the crowd he was all right, then ordered police to take charge of Schrank and to make sure no violence was done to him.
As an experienced hunter and anatomist, Roosevelt correctly concluded that since he was not coughing blood, the bullet had not reached his lung. He declined suggestions to go to the hospital immediately and instead delivered a 90 minute speech with blood seeping into his shirt. His opening comments to the gathered crowd were, "Ladies and gentlemen, I don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot, but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose." Only after finishing his address did he accept medical attention.
Subsequent probes and an x-ray showed that the bullet had lodged in Roosevelt's chest muscle, but did not penetrate the pleura. Doctors concluded that it would be less dangerous to leave it in place than to attempt to remove it, and Roosevelt carried the bullet with him for the rest of his life. Both Taft and Democratic nominee Woodrow Wilson suspended their own campaigning until Roosevelt recovered and resumed his. When asked if the shooting would affect his election campaign, he said to the reporter "I'm fit as a bull moose." The bull moose became a symbol of both Roosevelt and the Progressive Party, and it often was referred to as simply the Bull Moose Party. He spent two weeks recuperating before returning to the campaign trail. He later wrote a friend about the bullet inside him, "I do not mind it any more than if it were in my waistcoat pocket."
Farewell manifesto
On October 20, Roosevelt spoke to a crowd of 16,000 at Madison Square Garden. The speech included: "Perhaps once in a generation, there comes a chance for the people of a country to play their part wisely and fearlessly in some great battle of the age-long warfare for human rights."
Election results
After the Democrats nominated Governor Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey, Roosevelt did not expect to win the general election, as Wilson had compiled a record attractive to many progressive Democrats who might have otherwise considered voting for Roosevelt. Roosevelt still campaigned vigorously, and the election developed into a two-person contest between Wilson and Roosevelt despite Taft's presence in the race. Roosevelt respected Wilson, but the two differed on various issues; Wilson opposed any federal intervention regarding women's suffrage or child labor (he viewed these as state issues), and attacked Roosevelt's tolerance of large businesses.
Roosevelt won 4.1 million votes (27%), compared to Taft's 3.5 million (23%). Wilson gained 6.3 million votes (42% of the total) and a massive landslide in the Electoral College, with 435 electoral votes; Roosevelt won 88 electoral votes, while Taft won 8. Pennsylvania was the only eastern state won by Roosevelt; in the Midwest, he carried Michigan, Minnesota, and South Dakota; in the West, California, and Washington. Wilson's victory represented the first Democratic presidential election victory since Cleveland's 1892 campaign, and it was the party's best performance in the Electoral College since 1852. Roosevelt, meanwhile, garnered a higher share of the popular vote than any other third-party presidential candidate in history and won the most states of any third-party candidate after the Civil War.
South American expedition (1913-1914)
A friend of Roosevelt's, Father John Augustine Zahm, persuaded Roosevelt to participate in an expedition to South America. To finance the expedition, Roosevelt received support from the American Museum of Natural History in return for promising to bring back many new animal specimens. Roosevelt's popular book, Through the Brazilian Wilderness describes his expedition into the Brazilian jungle in 1913 as a member of the Roosevelt-Rondon Scientific Expedition, co-named after its leader, Brazilian explorer Cândido Rondon.
Once in South America, a new, far more ambitious goal was added: to find the headwaters of the Rio da Duvida (Portuguese for "River of Doubt"), and trace it north to the Madeira and thence to the Amazon River. It was later renamed Roosevelt River in honor of the former president. Roosevelt's crew consisted of his son Kermit, Colonel Rondon, naturalist George Kruck Cherrie (sent by the American Museum of Natural History), Brazilian Lieutenant João Lira, team physician Dr. José Antonio Cajazeira, and 16 skilled paddlers and porters. Roosevelt also identified Leo Miller (another AMNH recommendation), Anthony Fiala, Frank Harper, and Jacob Sigg as crew members. The initial expedition started somewhat tenuously on December 9, 1913, at the height of the rainy season. The trip down the River of Doubt started on February 27, 1914.
During the trip down the river, Roosevelt suffered a minor leg wound after he jumped into the river to try to prevent two canoes from smashing against the rocks. The flesh wound he received, however, soon gave him tropical fever that resembled the malaria he had contracted while in Cuba fifteen years before. Because the bullet lodged in his chest from the assassination attempt in 1912 was never removed, his health worsened from the infection. This weakened Roosevelt so greatly that six weeks into the adventure, he had to be attended to day and night by the expedition's physician and his son Kermit. By then, he could not walk because of the infection in his injured leg and an infirmity in the other, which was due to a traffic accident a decade earlier. Roosevelt was riddled with chest pains, fighting a fever that soared to and at times made him delirious, at one point constantly reciting the first two lines of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem "Kubla Khan": "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan / A stately pleasure dome decree". Regarding his condition as a threat to the survival of the others, Roosevelt insisted he be left behind to allow the poorly provisioned expedition to proceed as rapidly as it could, preparing to commit suicide with an overdose of morphine. Only an appeal by his son persuaded him to continue.
Despite Roosevelt's continued decline and loss of over , Colonel Rondon reduced the pace of the expedition to allow for his commission's mapmaking and other geographical tasks, which required regular stops to fix the expedition's position by sun-based survey. Upon Roosevelt's return to New York, friends and family were startled by his physical appearance and fatigue. Roosevelt wrote, perhaps prophetically, to a friend that the trip had cut his life short by ten years. For the rest of his few remaining years, he would be plagued by flare-ups of malaria and leg inflammations so severe as to require surgery. Before Roosevelt had even completed his sea voyage home, critics raised doubts over his claims of exploring and navigating a completely uncharted river over long. When he had recovered sufficiently, he addressed a standing-room-only convention organized in Washington, D.C., by the National Geographic Society and satisfactorily defended his claims.
Final years
Roosevelt returned to the United States in May 1914. Though he was outraged by the Wilson Administration's conclusion of a treaty that expressed "sincere regret" for the way in which the United States had acquired the Panama Canal Zone, he was impressed by many of the reforms passed under Wilson. Roosevelt made several campaign appearances for the Progressives, but the 1914 elections were a disaster for the fledgling third party. Roosevelt began to envision another campaign for president, this time with himself at the head of the Republican Party, but conservative party leaders remained opposed to Roosevelt. In hopes of engineering a joint nomination, the Progressives scheduled the 1916 Progressive National Convention at the same time as the 1916 Republican National Convention. When the Republicans nominated Charles Evans Hughes, Roosevelt declined the Progressive nomination and urged his Progressive followers to support the Republican candidate. Though Roosevelt had long disliked Hughes, he disliked Wilson even more, and he campaigned energetically for the Republican nominee. However, Wilson won the 1916 election by a narrow margin. The Progressives disappeared as a party following the 1916 election, and Roosevelt and many of his followers permanently re-joined the Republican Party.
World War I
When the First World War began in 1914, Roosevelt strongly supported the Allies and demanded a harsher policy against Germany, especially regarding submarine warfare. Roosevelt angrily denounced the foreign policy of President Wilson, calling it a failure regarding the atrocities in Belgium and the violations of American rights. In 1916, while campaigning for Hughes, Roosevelt repeatedly denounced Irish-Americans and German-Americans whom he described as unpatriotic, saying they put the interests of Ireland and Germany ahead of America's by supporting neutrality. He insisted that one had to be 100% American, not a "hyphenated American" who juggled multiple loyalties. In March 1917, Congress gave Roosevelt the authority to raise a maximum of four divisions similar to the Rough Riders, and Major Frederick Russell Burnham was put in charge of both the general organization and recruitment. However, President Wilson announced to the press that he would not send Roosevelt and his volunteers to France, but instead would send an American Expeditionary Force under the command of General John J. Pershing. Roosevelt never forgave Wilson, and quickly published The Foes of Our Own Household, an indictment of the sitting president. Roosevelt's youngest son, Quentin, a pilot with the American forces in France, was killed when shot down behind German lines on July 14, 1918, at the age of 20. It is said that Quentin's death distressed Roosevelt so much that he never recovered from his loss.
League of Nations
Roosevelt was an early supporter of the modern view that there needs to be a global order. In his Nobel prize address of 1910, he said, "it would be a master stroke if those great Powers honestly bent on peace would form a League of Peace, not only to keep the peace among themselves, but to prevent, by force if necessary, its being broken by others." It would have executive power such as the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 lacked. He called for American participation.
When World War I broke out, Roosevelt proposed "a World League for the Peace of Righteousness", in September 1914, which would preserve sovereignty but limit armaments and require arbitration. He added that it should be "solemnly covenanted that if any nations refused to abide by the decisions of such a court, then others draw the sword in behalf of peace and justice." In 1915 he outlined this plan more specifically, urging that nations guarantee their entire military force, if necessary, against any nation that refused to carry out arbitration decrees or violated rights of other nations. Though Roosevelt had some concerns about the impact on United States sovereignty, he insisted that such a league would only work if the United States participated as one of the "joint guarantors". Roosevelt referred to this plan in a 1918 speech as "the most feasible for...a league of nations." By this time Wilson was strongly hostile to Roosevelt and Lodge, and developed his own plans for a rather different League of Nations. It became reality along Wilson's lines at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. Roosevelt denounced Wilson's approach but died before it was adopted at Paris. However, Lodge was willing to accept it with serious reservations. In the end, on March 19, 1920, Wilson had Democratic Senators vote against the League with the Lodge Reservations and the United States never joined the League of Nations.
Final political activities
Roosevelt's attacks on Wilson helped the Republicans win control of Congress in the midterm elections of 1918. He declined a request from New York Republicans to run for another gubernatorial term, but attacked Wilson's Fourteen Points, calling instead for the unconditional surrender of Germany. Though his health was uncertain, he was seen as a leading contender for the 1920 Republican nomination, but insisted that, "If they take me, they'll have to take me without a single modification of the things that I have always stood for! He wrote William Allen White, "I wish to do everything in my power to make the Republican Party the Party of sane, constructive radicalism, just as it was under Lincoln." Accordingly, he told the 1918 state convention of the Maine Republican Party that he stood for old-age pensions, insurance for sickness and unemployment, construction of public housing for low-income families, the reduction of working hours, aid to farmers, and more regulation of large corporations.
While his political profile remained high, Roosevelt's physical condition continued to deteriorate throughout 1918 due to the long-term effects of jungle diseases. He was hospitalized for seven weeks late in the year and never fully recovered.
Death
On the night of January 5, 1919, Roosevelt suffered breathing problems. After receiving treatment from his physician, Dr. George W. Faller, he felt better and went to bed. Roosevelt's last words were "Please put out that light, James" to his family servant James E. Amos. Between 4:00 and 4:15 the next morning, Roosevelt, at the age of 60, died in his sleep at Sagamore Hill after a blood clot detached from a vein and traveled to his lungs.
Upon receiving word of his death, his son Archibald telegraphed his siblings: "The old lion is dead." Woodrow Wilson's vice president, Thomas R. Marshall, said that "Death had to take Roosevelt sleeping, for if he had been awake, there would have been a fight." Following a private farewell service in the North Room at Sagamore Hill, a simple funeral was held at Christ Episcopal Church in Oyster Bay. Vice President Thomas R. Marshall, Charles Evans Hughes, Warren G. Harding, Henry Cabot Lodge, and William Howard Taft were among the mourners. The snow-covered procession route to Youngs Memorial Cemetery was lined with spectators and a squad of mounted policemen who had ridden from New York City. Roosevelt was buried on a hillside overlooking Oyster Bay.
Writer
Roosevelt was a prolific author, writing with passion on subjects ranging from foreign policy to the importance of the national park system. Roosevelt was also an avid reader of poetry. Poet Robert Frost said that Roosevelt "was our kind. He quoted poetry to me. He knew poetry."
As an editor of Outlook magazine, Roosevelt had weekly access to a large, educated national audience. In all, Roosevelt wrote about 18 books (each in several editions), including his autobiography, The Rough Riders, History of the Naval War of 1812, and others on subjects such as ranching, explorations, and wildlife. His most ambitious book was the four volume narrative The Winning of the West, focused on the American frontier in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Roosevelt said that the American character—indeed a new "American race" (ethnic group) had emerged from the heroic wilderness hunters and Indian fighters, acting on the frontier with little government help. Roosevelt also published an account of his 1909–10 African expedition entitled African Game Trails.
In 1907, Roosevelt became embroiled in a widely publicized literary debate known as the nature fakers controversy. A few years earlier, naturalist John Burroughs had published an article entitled "Real and Sham Natural History" in the Atlantic Monthly, attacking popular writers of the day such as Ernest Thompson Seton, Charles G. D. Roberts, and William J. Long for their fantastical representations of wildlife. Roosevelt agreed with Burroughs's criticisms, and published several essays of his own denouncing the booming genre of "naturalistic" animal stories as "yellow journalism of the woods". It was the President himself who popularized the negative term "nature faker" to describe writers who depicted their animal characters with excessive anthropomorphism.
Character and beliefs
Roosevelt intensely disliked being called "Teddy", despite the widespread public association with said moniker, and was quick to point out this to those who referred to him as such, though it would become widely used by newspapers during his political career.
He was an active Freemason and member of the Sons of the American Revolution.
British scholar Marcus Cunliffe evaluates the liberal argument that Roosevelt was an opportunist, exhibitionist, and imperialist. Cunliffe praises TR's versatility, his respect for law, and his sincerity. He argues that Roosevelt's foreign policy was better than his detractors allege. Cunliffe calls him "a big man in several respects," ranking him below Washington, Lincoln, and Jefferson, and on the same level as Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Strenuous life
Roosevelt had a lifelong interest in pursuing what he called, in an 1899 speech, "The Strenuous Life". To this end, he exercised regularly and took up boxing, tennis, hiking, rowing, polo, and horseback riding. He also continued his habit of skinny-dipping in the Potomac River during the winter. As governor of New York, he boxed with sparring partners several times each week, a practice he regularly continued as president until being hit so hard in the face he became blind in his left eye (a fact not made public until many years later). As president, he practiced judo for two 2-month periods in 1902 and 1904, not attaining any rank. Roosevelt began to believe in the utility of jiu-jitsu training after training with Yoshitsugu Yamashita. Concerned that the United States would lose its military supremacy to rising powers like Japan, Roosevelt began to advocate for jiu-jitsu training for American soldiers. Feminists annoyed by the posturing of men like Roosevelt, insisted that women were just as capable of learning jiu-jitsu. To prove their point, Martha Blow Wadsworth and Maria Louise ("Hallie") Davis Elkins hired Fude Yamashita, a highly skilled jiu-jitsu instructor and the wife of Yoshitsugu Yamashita, to teach a jiu-jitsu class for women and girls in Washington, DC in 1904. Women had already begun training in boxing in the United States as a means of personal and political empowerment. Jiu-jitsu training thus soon also became popular with American women, coinciding with the origins of a women's self-defense movement.
Roosevelt was an enthusiastic singlestick player and, according to Harper's Weekly, showed up at a White House reception with his arm bandaged after a bout with General Leonard Wood in 1905. Roosevelt was an avid reader, reading tens of thousands of books, at a rate of several per day in multiple languages. Along with Thomas Jefferson, Roosevelt was the most well-read of all American presidents.
Warrior
Historians have often emphasized Roosevelt's warrior persona. He took aggressive positions regarding war with Spain in 1898, Colombia in 1903, and especially with Germany, from 1915 to 1917. As a demonstration of American naval might, he sent the "Great White Fleet" around the world in 1907–1909. The implicit threat of the "big stick" of military power provided leverage to "speak softly" and quietly resolve conflict in numerous cases. He boasted in his autobiography:
Richard D. White Jr states, "Roosevelt's warrior spirit framed his views of national politics, [and] international relations."
Historian Howard K. Beale has argued:
Religion
Roosevelt attended church regularly and was a lifelong adherent of the Reformed Church in America, an American affiliate of the Dutch Reformed Church. In 1907, concerning the motto "In God We Trust" on money, he wrote, "It seems to me eminently unwise to cheapen such a motto by use on coins, just as it would be to cheapen it by use on postage stamps, or in advertisements." Roosevelt talked a great deal about religion. Biographer Edmund Morris states:
Roosevelt publicly encouraged church attendance and was a conscientious churchgoer himself. When gas rationing was introduced during the First World War, he walked the three miles from his home at Sagamore Hill to the local church and back, even after a serious operation had made it difficult for him to travel by foot. It was said that Roosevelt "allowed no engagement to keep him from going to church," and he remained a fervent advocate of the Bible throughout his adult life. According to Christian F. Reisner, writing in 1922 shortly after Roosevelt's death, "Religion was as natural to Mr. Roosevelt as breathing," and when the travel library for Roosevelt's famous Smithsonian-sponsored African expedition was being assembled, the Bible was, according to his sister, "the first book selected." In an address delivered in his home at Oyster Bay to the Long Island Bible Society in 1901, Roosevelt declared that:
Political positions
When he assumed the presidency, Roosevelt reassured many conservatives, stating, "the mechanism of modern business is so delicate that extreme care must be taken not to interfere with it in a spirit of rashness or ignorance." The following year, Roosevelt asserted the president's independence from business interests by opposing the merger which created the Northern Securities Company, and many were surprised that any president, much less an unelected one, would challenge powerful banker J.P. Morgan. In his last two years as president, Roosevelt became increasingly distrustful of big business, despite its close ties to the Republican Party. Roosevelt sought to replace the 19th-century laissez-faire economic environment with a new economic model which included a larger regulatory role for the federal government. He believed that 19th-century entrepreneurs had risked their fortunes on innovations and new businesses, and that these capitalists had been rightly rewarded. By contrast, he believed that 20th-century capitalists risked little but nonetheless reaped huge and, given the lack of risk, unjust, economic rewards. Without a redistribution of wealth away from the upper class, Roosevelt feared that the country would turn to radicals or fall to revolution. His Square Deal domestic program had three main goals: conservation of natural resources, control of corporations, and consumer protection. The Square Deal evolved into his program of "New Nationalism", which emphasized the priority of labor over capital interests and a need to more effectively control corporate creation and combination, and proposed a ban on corporate political contributions.
Foreign policy beliefs
In the analysis by Henry Kissinger, Theodore Roosevelt was the first president to develop the guideline that it was America's duty to make its enormous power and potential influence felt globally. The idea of being a passive "city on the hill" model that others could look up to, he rejected. Roosevelt, trained in biology, was a social darwinist who believed in survival of the fittest. The international world in his view was a realm of violence and conflict. The United States had all the economic and geographical potential to be the fittest nation on the globe. The United States had a duty to act decisively. For example, in terms of the Monroe Doctrine, America had to prevent European incursions in the Western Hemisphere. But there was more, as he expressed in his famous Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine: the U.S. had to be the policeman of the region because unruly, corrupt smaller nations had to be controlled, and if United States did not do it, European powers would in fact intervene and develop their own base of power in the hemisphere in contravention to the Monroe Doctrine.
Roosevelt was a realist and a conservative. He deplored many of the increasingly popular idealistic liberal themes, such as were promoted by William Jennings Bryan, the anti-imperialists, and Woodrow Wilson. Kissinger says he rejected the efficacy of international law. Roosevelt argue that if a country could not protect its own interests, the international community could not help very much. He ridiculed disarmament proposals that were increasingly common. He saw no likelihood of an international power capable of checking wrongdoing on a major scale. As for world government: I regard the Wilson–Bryan attitude of trusting to fantastic peace treaties, too impossible promises, to all kinds of scraps of paper without any backing in efficient force, as abhorrent. It is infinitely better for a nation and for the world to have the Frederick the Great and Bismarck tradition as regards foreign policy than to have the Bryan or Bryan–Wilson attitude as a permanent national attitude.... A milk-and-water righteousness unbacked by force is...as wicked as and even more mischievous than force divorced from righteousness.
On the positive side, Roosevelt favored spheres of influence, whereby one great power would generally prevail, such as the United States in the Western Hemisphere or Great Britain in the Indian subcontinent. Japan fit that role and he approved. However he had deep distrust of both Germany and Russia.
Legacy
Historians credit Roosevelt for changing the nation's political system by permanently placing the "bully pulpit" of the presidency at center stage and making character as important as the issues. His accomplishments include trust busting and conservationism. He is a hero to liberals and progressives for his proposals in 1907–1912 that presaged the modern welfare state of the New Deal Era, including direct federal taxation, labor reforms, and more direct democracy, while conservationists admire Roosevelt for putting the environment and selflessness towards future generations on the national agenda, and conservatives and nationalists respect his commitment to law and order, civic duty and military values, as well as his personality of individual self-responsibility and hardiness. Dalton says, "Today he is heralded as the architect of the modern presidency, as a world leader who boldly reshaped the office to meet the needs of the new century and redefined America's place in the world."
However, liberals and socialists have criticized him for his interventionist and imperialist approach to nations he considered "uncivilized". Conservatives and libertarians reject his vision of the welfare state and emphasis on the superiority of government over private action. Historians typically rank Roosevelt among the top five presidents in American history.
Persona and masculinity
Dalton says Roosevelt is remembered as, "one of the most picturesque personalities who has ever enlivened the landscape". His friend, historian Henry Adams, proclaimed: "Roosevelt, more than any other man... showed the singular primitive quality that belongs to ultimate matter—the quality that medieval theology assigned to God—he was pure act."
Roosevelt's biographers have stressed his personality. Henry F. Pringle, who won the Pulitzer Prize in biography for his Theodore Roosevelt (1931) stated: "The Theodore Roosevelt of later years was the most adolescent of men… Failure to receive the Medal of Honor for his exploits [in Cuba] had been a grief as real as any of those which swamp childhood in despair. 'You must always remember,' wrote Cecil Spring Rice in 1904, 'that the President is about six.'"
Cooper compared him with Woodrow Wilson and argued that both of them played the roles of warrior and priest. Dalton stressed Roosevelt's strenuous life. Sarah Watts examined the desires of the "Rough Rider in the White House". Brands calls Roosevelt "the last romantic", arguing that his romantic concept of life emerged from his belief that "physical bravery was the highest virtue and war the ultimate test of bravery".
Roosevelt as the exemplar of American masculinity has become a major theme. As president, he repeatedly warned men that they were becoming too office-bound, too complacent, too comfortable with physical ease and moral laxity, and were failing in their duties to propagate the race and exhibit masculine vigor. French historian Serge Ricard says, "the ebullient apostle of the Strenuous Life offers ideal material for a detailed psycho-historical analysis of aggressive manhood in the changing socio-cultural environment of his era; McKinley, Taft, or Wilson would perhaps inadequately serve that purpose". He promoted competitive sports like boxing and jiu-jitsu for physically strengthening American men. He also believed that organizations like the Boy Scouts of America, founded in 1910, could help mold and strengthen the character of American boys. Brands shows that heroic displays of bravery were essential to Roosevelt's image and mission:
Memorials and cultural depictions
Roosevelt was included with Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln at the Mount Rushmore Memorial, designed in 1927 with the approval of Republican President Calvin Coolidge.
For his gallantry at San Juan Hill, Roosevelt's commanders recommended him for the Medal of Honor. However, the initial recommendation lacked any eyewitnesses, and the effort was eventually tainted by Roosevelt's own lobbying of the War Department. In the late 1990s, Roosevelt's supporters again recommended the award, which was denied by the Secretary of the Army on basis that the decorations board determined "Roosevelt's bravery in battle did not rise to the level that would justify the Medal of Honor and, indeed, it did not rise to the level of men who fought in that engagement." Nevertheless, politicians apparently convinced the secretary to reconsider the award a third time and reverse himself, leading to the charge that it was a "politically motivated award." On January 16, 2001, President Bill Clinton awarded Theodore Roosevelt the Medal of Honor posthumously for his charge on San Juan Hill. He is the only president to have received the Medal of Honor.
The United States Navy named two ships for Roosevelt: the , a submarine that was in commission from 1961 to 1982, and the , an aircraft carrier that has been on active duty in the Atlantic Fleet since 1986.
On November 18, 1956, the United States Postal Service released a 6¢ Liberty Issue postage stamp honoring Roosevelt. A 32¢ stamp was issued on February 3, 1998, as part of the Celebrate the Century stamp sheet series. In 2008, Columbia Law School awarded Roosevelt a Juris Doctor degree, posthumously making him a member of the class of 1882.
Roosevelt's "Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick" ideology is still quoted by politicians and columnists in different countries—not only in English, but also in translations to various other languages. Another lasting, popular legacy of Roosevelt is the stuffed toy bears—teddy bears—named after him following an incident on a hunting trip in Mississippi in 1902. Roosevelt has been portrayed in films and television series such as Brighty of the Grand Canyon, The Wind and the Lion, Rough Riders, My Friend Flicka, and Law of the Plainsman. Robin Williams portrayed Roosevelt in the form of a wax mannequin that comes to life in Night at the Museum and its sequels Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian and Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb. In 2017, it was announced that Leonardo DiCaprio will portray Roosevelt in a biopic to be directed by Martin Scorsese.
Moreover, Theodore Roosevelt National Park in the state of North Dakota is named after him. The America the Beautiful Quarters series features Roosevelt riding a horse on the national park's quarter.
Asteroid 188693 Roosevelt, discovered by astronomers with the Catalina Sky Survey in 2005, was named after him. The official was published by the Minor Planet Center on November 8, 2019 ().
In January 2022, after years of lobbying by activists, an equestrian statue of the former president was removed from where it had stood for more than eighty years in front of New York's American Museum of Natural History. Responding to controversy, the museum noted that the design "communicates a racial hierarchy that the museum and members of the public have long found disturbing."
Audiovisual media
Theodore Roosevelt was one of the first presidents whose voice was recorded for posterity. Several of his recorded speeches survive. A 4.6-minute voice recording, which preserves Roosevelt's lower timbre ranges particularly well for its time, is among those available from the Michigan State University libraries (this is the 1912 recording of The Right of the People to Rule, recorded by Edison at Carnegie Hall). The audio clip sponsored by the Authentic History Center includes his defense of the Progressive Party in 1912, wherein he proclaims it the "party of the people" – in contrast with the other major parties.
Roosevelt goes for a ride in Arch Hoxsey's plane in October 1910
In popular culture
Theodore Roosevelt appears as the leader of the American civilization in the Firaxis Games title Civilization VI. His unique ability is Roosevelt Corollary, which gives +5 Combat Strength for all units inside America's home continent, and +1 Appeal to all tiles in cities with a national park.
See also
Notes
References
Bibliography
Full biographies
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, 105 pp, very short biography by leading scholar.
.; also titled Power and responsibility; the life and times of Theodore Roosevelt online free to borrow
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, only volume published, to age 28.
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Personality and activities
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Provides a lesson plan on TR as the historical figure who most exemplifies the quality of masculinity.
. Chronicles the events of TR's presidency during the summers of his two terms.
. The president's use of publicity, rhetoric and force of personality.
; his deadly 1913–14 trip to the Amazon.
, best seller; to 1886.
, to 1884.
. 494 pp.
, examines TR and his family during the World War I period.
.
, 240 pp. TR in Africa & Europe, 1909–10
. 289 pp.
, 337 pp; TR's political thought and its significance for republican self-government.
Domestic policies
online review; another online review
Cutright, P.R. (1985) Theodore Roosevelt: The making of a Modern Conservationist (U of Illinois Press.)
.
, standard history of his domestic and foreign policy as president.
Bakari, Mohamed El-Kamel. "Mapping the 'Anthropocentric-ecocentric'Dualism in the History of American Presidency: The Good, the Bad, and the Ambivalent." Journal of Studies in Social Sciences 14, no. 2 (2016).
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Redekop, Benjamin. (2015). "Embodying the Story: The Conservation Leadership of Theodore Roosevelt". Leadership (2015) DOI:10.1177/1742715014546875 online
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Politics
. How TR did politics.
, 323 pp.
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. 361 pp.
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. Focus on 1912; online free
. online free
. Attacks TR policies from conservative/libertarian perspective.
Foreign policy, military and naval issues
. online
. excerpt
.
. 328 pp.
Kuehn, John T. "Theodore Roosevelt’s Naval Diplomacy: The U.S. Navy and the Birth of the American Century," Naval War College Review (2010) 53#3 online
Livermore, Seward W. "Theodore Roosevelt, the American Navy, and the Venezuelan Crisis of 1902-1903." American Historical Review 51.3 (1946): 452–471. online
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.
Nester, William R. Theodore Roosevelt and the Art of American Power: An American for All Time. Rowman & Littlefield, 2019. excerpt
Neu, Charles E. "Theodore Roosevelt and American Involvement in the Far East, 1901-1909." Pacific Historical Review 35.4 (1966): 433–449. online
O'Gara, Gordon Carpenter. Theodore Roosevelt and the Rise of the Modern Navy. (Princeton UP, 1943). online
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Oyos, Matthew M. In Command: Theodore Roosevelt and the American Military (2018) online review
Pietrusza, David (2018). TR's Last War: Theodore Roosevelt, the Great War, and a Journey of Triumph and Tragedy
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Thompson, John M. Great Power Rising: Theodore Roosevelt and the Politics of US Foreign Policy (Oxford UP, 2019).
. 196 pp.
Turk, Richard W. The Ambiguous Relationship: Theodore Roosevelt and Alfred Thayer Mahan (1987) [https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article-abstract/93/5/1413/70734 online review
Historiography
Cunliffe, Marcus. "Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States 1901–1908" History Today (Sept 1955) 4#9 pp. 592–601, online.
Ricard, Serge. "The State of Theodore Roosevelt Studies" H-Diplo Essay No. 116 24 October 2014 online
, excerpt and text search, 28 new essays by scholars; focus on historiography. online
Primary sources
Kohn, Edward P., ed. A Most Glorious Ride: The Diaries of Theodore Roosevelt, 1877–1886 (State University of New York Press, 2015), 284 pp.
; vol 2
.
, 20 vol.; 18,000 pages containing most of TR's speeches, books and essays, but not his letters; a CD-ROM edition is available; some of TR's books are available online through Project Bartleby
, Roosevelt's opinions on many issues; online version at Theodore Roosevelt.
, 8 vols. Very large collection. vol 1 1868–1898 online free
. online free
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online free to borrow
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External links
Official
White House biography
Organizations
Boone and Crockett Club
Theodore Roosevelt Association
Libraries and collections
Theodore Roosevelt Center at Dickinson State University
Theodore Roosevelt Collection, at the Houghton Library, Harvard University
Julian L. Street Papers on Theodore Roosevelt, at the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library, Princeton University
Doris A. and Lawrence H. Budner Collection on Theodore Roosevelt at the DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University
Theodore Roosevelt's journalism at The Archive of American Journalism
Theodore Roosevelt American Museum of Natural History
Roosevelt Papers, at the Library of Congress
Guide to the Herbert R. Strauss Collection of Theodore Roosevelt Papers 1884–1919 at the University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center
Media
"Life Portrait of Theodore Roosevelt", from C-SPAN's American Presidents: Life Portraits, September 3, 1999
"Writings of Theodore Roosevelt" from C-SPAN's American Writers: A Journey Through History
Other
Almanac of Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt: A Resource Guide – Library of Congress
1858 births
1919 deaths
1900s in the United States
Theodore
19th-century American politicians
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19th-century American male writers
20th-century American non-fiction writers
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American autobiographers
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American male judoka
American male non-fiction writers
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American naval historians
American Nobel laureates
American political writers
American shooting survivors
Articles containing video clips
American bibliophiles
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Burials in New York (state)
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Members of the New York State Assembly
Military personnel from New York City
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Nobel Peace Prize laureates
People associated with the American Museum of Natural History
People from Oyster Bay (town), New York
Politicians from New York City
Presidents of the American Historical Association
Presidents of the United States
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Ranchers from North Dakota
Republican Party (United States) presidential nominees
Republican Party (United States) vice presidential nominees
Republican Party presidents of the United States
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Rough Riders
Schuyler family
Sons of the American Revolution
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United States Army officers
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Candidates in the 1912 United States presidential election
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Vice presidents of the United States
Writers from New York (state)
Harvard Advocate alumni
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Aphorists
American nationalists
20th-century American male writers | true | [
"The Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA) is a medical guidelines organisation which works with public health officials and health care professionals globally to reduce asthma prevalence, morbidity, and mortality. GINA was launched in 1993 as a collaboration between National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health, and the World Health Organization.\n\nWork\nGINA conducts continuous review of scientific publications on asthma and is a leader in disseminating information about the care of patients with asthma. GINA publishes resources such as evidence-based guidelines for asthma management, and runs special events such as World Asthma Day. GINA's guidelines, revised each year, are used by clinicians worldwide.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Link to the GINA asthma website\n\nAsthma organizations\nOrganizations established in 1993\nInternational medical and health organizations",
"Esteban González Burchard, M.D., M.P.H. is an American physician-scientist, specializing in pulmonary and critical care medicine, asthma, genetics, gene-environment interactions, pharmacology, epidemiology, and health disparities. He is the Founder and Director of the Asthma Collaboratory and the Center for Genes, Environment, and Health at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). He is a distinguished tenured professor in the Schools of Pharmacy and Medicine at UCSF and holds dual appointments in the Department of Medicine and the Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences.\n\nDr. Burchard is best known for his work in the health disparities of asthma. Specifically, he founded and directs the largest study of minority children with asthma in the United States, called the Asthma Translational Genomics Collaborative (ATGC). This study involves whole genome sequencing of more than 15,580 minority children with and without asthma. All children with asthma have spirometry and bronchodilator drug response measures. Burchard is also affiliated with the UCSF Institute for Human Genetics and the UCSF Lung Biology Center.\n\nDr. Burchard's team has a wide breadth of expertise in medicine, genetics, epidemiology, and statistics. The lab is cross-functional at its core; statisticians, epidemiologists, physicians, and biologists work together to foster cross-fertilization of ideas in approaching asthma research. Burchard's team focuses on improving health through therapeutics, medicines, medical devices, and diagnostic tests, and is leading the field in asthma genetics. Recently his team was awarded nearly $10 million from the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute to study the early life determinants of asthma in Puerto Rican children. His team in collaboration with National Jewish Health and Centro de Neumología Pediátrica created the Puerto Rican Infant Metagenomic and Epidemiologic study of Respiratory Outcomes (PRIMERO), a birth cohort study of pregnant mothers and their newborns with the aim to help patients and healthcare providers better understand how and why asthma disproportionately impacts Puerto Ricans.\n\nEducation and early life \nEsteban Gonzalez Burchard is a Mexican-American physician-scientist who grew up in San Francisco's Mission District in California. He earned his B.S. in Cellular & Molecular Biology from San Francisco State University in 1990. He was a two time NCAA Academic All-American and California State Finalist in wrestling. He received his M.D. at Stanford University School of Medicine in 1995, and his master’s degree in public health in epidemiology from University of California, Berkeley in 2006. He trained in internal medicine at Harvard's Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Pulmonary/Critical Care Medicine from the University of California, San Francisco, Clinical Effectiveness Research at the Harvard School of Public Health. He completed a one year sabbatical in genetic epidemiology with Neil Risch of Stanford University. He was selected as a Robert Wood Johnson's Amos Medical Faculty Development Program fellow and he used this to obtain a Masters in Public Health with a focus on epidemiology from U.C. Berkeley's School of Public Health.\n\nCareer \nBurchard is The Harry Hind Distinguished Professor in the Schools of Pharmacy and Medicine at UCSF.\n\nBurchard studies gene-environment interactions in asthma, especially in children, and health disparities in the US. As part of this work, he founded and directs the largest study of asthma in minority children in the United States, called the Asthma Translational Genomics Collaborative. This study involves whole genome sequencing of more than 15,000 people. He is involved in the All of Us Initiative at the US National Institutes of Health. He uses his personal experience as a Mexican-American physician-scientist to enhance his research and mentor students and trainees from all walks of life.\n\nAwards, honors, and major lectures \n\n Tenured Professor of Pharmacy and Medicine, UCSF. \nHarry Wm. and Diana V. Hind Distinguished Professor in Pharmaceutical Sciences, UCSF, 2013\n Member, Precision Medicine Initiative Working Group of the Advisory Committee to the NIH Director, 2015\n Lifetime Achievement Award, National Medical Association (NMA), Allergy and Immunology Section, 2018\nKeynote Speaker for the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos/Native Americans in Science (SACNAS), 2019.\n\nReferences \n\nSan Francisco State University alumni\nStanford Medical School alumni\nUniversity of California, San Francisco faculty\nUniversity of California, Berkeley alumni\n21st-century American physicians\nAmerican people of Mexican descent\nYear of birth missing (living people)\nLiving people"
] |
[
"Theodore Roosevelt",
"Early life and family",
"Where was Theodore Roosevelt born?",
"Theodore Roosevelt Jr. was born on October 27, 1858, at East 20th Street in New York City.",
"Who was his mother?",
"socialite Martha Stewart \"Mittie\" Bulloch",
"What type of work did his father do?",
"businessman and philanthropist",
"Did Roosevelt have any siblings?",
"He had an older sister, Anna (nicknamed \"Bamie\"), a younger brother, Elliott, and a younger sister, Corinne.",
"What were his interests in his early life?",
"Roosevelt's youth was largely shaped by his poor health and debilitating asthma.",
"Did he have any hobbies while growing up?",
"His lifelong interest in zoology began at age seven when he saw a dead seal at a local market;",
"Did he ever overcome his asthma and poor health?",
"Doctors had no cure."
] | C_ea2b2d977c0c4d1d93ec5efce7ee7156_1 | Were there any influential figures in his early life? | 8 | Were there any influential figures in Theodore Roosevelt's early life? | Theodore Roosevelt | Theodore Roosevelt Jr. was born on October 27, 1858, at East 20th Street in New York City. He was the second of four children born to socialite Martha Stewart "Mittie" Bulloch and businessman and philanthropist Theodore Roosevelt Sr. He had an older sister, Anna (nicknamed "Bamie"), a younger brother, Elliott, and a younger sister, Corinne. Elliott was later the father of First Lady Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of Theodore's distant cousin, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. His paternal grandfather was of Dutch descent; his other ancestry included primarily Scottish and Scots-Irish, English and smaller amounts of German, Welsh, and French. Theodore Sr. was the fifth son of businessman Cornelius Van Schaack "C.V.S." Roosevelt and Margaret Barnhill. Theodore's fourth cousin, James Roosevelt I, who was also a businessman, was the father of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Mittie was the younger daughter of Major James Stephens Bulloch and Martha P. "Patsy" Stewart. Through the Van Schaacks, Roosevelt was a descendant of the Schuyler family. Roosevelt's youth was largely shaped by his poor health and debilitating asthma. He repeatedly experienced sudden nighttime asthma attacks that caused the experience of being smothered to death, which terrified both Theodore and his parents. Doctors had no cure. Nevertheless, he was energetic and mischievously inquisitive. His lifelong interest in zoology began at age seven when he saw a dead seal at a local market; after obtaining the seal's head, Roosevelt and two cousins formed what they called the "Roosevelt Museum of Natural History". Having learned the rudiments of taxidermy, he filled his makeshift museum with animals that he killed or caught; he then studied the animals and prepared them for display. At age nine, he recorded his observation of insects in a paper entitled "The Natural History of Insects". Roosevelt's father significantly influenced him. His father was a prominent leader in New York's cultural affairs; he helped to found the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and had been especially active in mobilizing support for the Union during the Civil War, even though his in-laws included Confederate leaders. Roosevelt said, "My father, Theodore Roosevelt, was the best man I ever knew. He combined strength and courage with gentleness, tenderness, and great unselfishness. He would not tolerate in us children selfishness or cruelty, idleness, cowardice, or untruthfulness." Family trips abroad, including tours of Europe in 1869 and 1870, and Egypt in 1872, shaped his cosmopolitan perspective. Hiking with his family in the Alps in 1869, Roosevelt found that he could keep pace with his father. He had discovered the significant benefits of physical exertion to minimize his asthma and bolster his spirits. Roosevelt began a heavy regime of exercise. After being manhandled by two older boys on a camping trip, he found a boxing coach to teach him to fight and strengthen his body. CANNOTANSWER | Roosevelt's father significantly influenced him. | Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or his initials T. R., was an American politician, statesman, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26th president of the United States from 1901 to 1909. He previously served as the 25th vice president under William McKinley from March to September 1901, and as the 33rd governor of New York from 1899 to 1900. Having assumed the presidency after McKinley's assassination, Roosevelt emerged as a leader of the Republican Party and became a driving force for anti-trust and Progressive policies.
Roosevelt was a sickly child with debilitating asthma but partly overcame his health problems by embracing a strenuous lifestyle. He integrated his exuberant personality, a vast range of interests and achievements into a "cowboy" persona defined by robust masculinity. He was home-schooled and began a lifelong naturalist avocation before attending Harvard. His book The Naval War of 1812 (1882) established his reputation as a learned historian and popular writer. Upon entering politics, he became the leader of the reform faction of Republicans in New York's state legislature. His wife and mother both died in the same night and he was psychologically devastated. He recuperated by buying and operating a cattle ranch in the Dakotas. He served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy under President William McKinley and in 1898 helped plan the highly successful naval war against Spain. He resigned to help form and lead the Rough Riders, a unit that fought the Spanish army in Cuba to great publicity. Returning a war hero, he was elected governor of New York in 1898. The New York state party leadership disliked his ambitious agenda and convinced McKinley to make Roosevelt his running mate in the 1900 election. Roosevelt campaigned vigorously, and the McKinley–Roosevelt ticket won a landslide victory based on a platform of victory, peace and prosperity.
Roosevelt assumed the presidency at age 42 after McKinley was assassinated in September 1901. He remains the youngest person to become president of the United States. Roosevelt was a leader of the progressive movement and championed his "Square Deal" domestic policies, promising the average citizen fairness, breaking of trusts, regulation of railroads, and pure food and drugs. He prioritized conservation and established national parks, forests, and monuments intended to preserve the nation's natural resources. In foreign policy, he focused on Central America where he began construction of the Panama Canal. He expanded the Navy and sent the Great White Fleet on a world tour to project American naval power. His successful efforts to broker the end of the Russo-Japanese War won him the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize. Roosevelt was elected to a full term in 1904 and continued to promote progressive policies. He groomed his close friend William Howard Taft to succeed him in the 1908 presidential election.
Roosevelt grew frustrated with Taft's brand of conservatism and belatedly tried to win the 1912 Republican nomination for president. He failed, walked out, and founded the Progressive Party. He ran in the 1912 presidential election and the split allowed the Democratic nominee Woodrow Wilson to win the election. Following the defeat, Roosevelt led a two-year expedition to the Amazon basin where he nearly died of tropical disease. During World War I, he criticized Wilson for keeping the country out of the war; his offer to lead volunteers to France was rejected. He considered running for president again in 1920, but his health continued to deteriorate. He died in 1919. He is generally ranked in polls of historians and political scientists as one of the five best presidents.
Early life and family
Theodore Roosevelt Jr. was born on October 27, 1858, at 28 East 20th Street in Manhattan, New York City. He was the second of four children born to socialite Martha Stewart "Mittie" Bulloch and businessman and philanthropist Theodore Roosevelt Sr. He had an older sister (Anna, nicknamed "Bamie"), a younger brother (Elliott) and a younger sister (Corinne). Elliott was later the father of First Lady Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of Theodore's distant cousin, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. His paternal grandfather was of Dutch descent; his other ancestry included primarily Scottish and Scots-Irish, English and smaller amounts of German, Welsh and French. Theodore Sr. was the fifth son of businessman Cornelius Van Schaack "C. V. S." Roosevelt and Margaret Barnhill as well as a brother of Robert Roosevelt and James A. Roosevelt. Theodore's fourth cousin, James Roosevelt I, who was also a businessman, was the father of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Mittie was the younger daughter of Major James Stephens Bulloch and Martha P. "Patsy" Stewart. Through the Van Schaacks, Roosevelt was a descendant of the Schuyler family.
Roosevelt's youth was largely shaped by his poor health and debilitating asthma. He repeatedly experienced sudden nighttime asthma attacks that caused the experience of being smothered to death, which terrified both Theodore and his parents. Doctors had no cure. Nevertheless, he was energetic and mischievously inquisitive. His lifelong interest in zoology began at age seven when he saw a dead seal at a local market; after obtaining the seal's head, Roosevelt and two cousins formed what they called the "Roosevelt Museum of Natural History". Having learned the rudiments of taxidermy, he filled his makeshift museum with animals that he killed or caught; he then studied the animals and prepared them for exhibition. At age nine, he recorded his observation of insects in a paper entitled "The Natural History of Insects".
Roosevelt's father significantly influenced him. His father was a prominent leader in New York's cultural affairs; he helped to found the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and had been especially active in mobilizing support for the Union during the Civil War, even though his in-laws included Confederate leaders. Roosevelt said, "My father, Theodore Roosevelt, was the best man I ever knew. He combined strength and courage with gentleness, tenderness, and great unselfishness. He would not tolerate in us children selfishness or cruelty, idleness, cowardice, or untruthfulness." Family trips abroad, including tours of Europe in 1869 and 1870, and Egypt in 1872, shaped his cosmopolitan perspective. Hiking with his family in the Alps in 1869, Roosevelt found that he could keep pace with his father. He had discovered the significant benefits of physical exertion to minimize his asthma and bolster his spirits. Roosevelt began a heavy regime of exercise. After being manhandled by two older boys on a camping trip, he found a boxing coach to teach him to fight and strengthen his body.
A 6-year-old Roosevelt witnessed the funeral procession of Abraham Lincoln from his grandfather's mansion in Union Square, New York City where he was photographed in the window along with his brother Elliott, as confirmed by wife Edith who was also present.
Education
Roosevelt was homeschooled, mostly by tutors and his parents. Biographer H. W. Brands argued that "The most obvious drawback to his home schooling was uneven coverage of the various areas of human knowledge." He was solid in geography and bright in history, biology, French, and German; however, he struggled in mathematics and the classical languages. When he entered Harvard College on September 27, 1876, his father advised: "Take care of your morals first, your health next, and finally your studies." His father's sudden death on February 9, 1878, devastated Roosevelt, but he eventually recovered and doubled his activities.
He did well in science, philosophy, and rhetoric courses but continued to struggle in Latin and Greek. He studied biology intently and was already an accomplished naturalist and a published ornithologist. He read prodigiously with an almost photographic memory. While at Harvard, Roosevelt participated in rowing and boxing; he was once runner-up in an intramural boxing tournament. Roosevelt was a member of the Alpha Delta Phi literary society (later the Fly Club), the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity, and the prestigious Porcellian Club; he was also an editor of The Harvard Advocate. In 1880, Roosevelt graduated Phi Beta Kappa (22nd of 177) from Harvard with an A.B. magna cum laude. Biographer Henry Pringle states:
After his father's death, Roosevelt had inherited $65,000 (), enough to live off comfortably for the rest of his life. Roosevelt gave up his earlier plan of studying natural science and instead decided to attend Columbia Law School, moving back into his family's home in New York City. Roosevelt was an able law student, but he often found law to be irrational. He spent much of his time writing a book on the War of 1812.
Determined to enter politics, Roosevelt began attending meetings at Morton Hall, the 59th Street headquarters of New York's 21st District Republican Association. Though Roosevelt's father had been a prominent member of the Republican Party, the younger Roosevelt made an unorthodox career choice for someone of his class, as most of Roosevelt's peers refrained from becoming too closely involved in politics. Roosevelt found allies in the local Republican Party, and he defeated an incumbent Republican state assemblyman closely tied to the political machine of Senator Roscoe Conkling. After his election victory, Roosevelt decided to drop out of law school, later saying, "I intended to be one of the governing class."
Naval history and strategy
While at Harvard, Roosevelt began a systematic study of the role played by the young United States Navy in the War of 1812. Assisted by two uncles, he scrutinized original source materials and official U.S. Navy records, ultimately publishing The Naval War of 1812 in 1882. The book contained drawings of individual and combined ship maneuvers, charts depicting the differences in iron throw weights of cannon shot between rival forces, and analyses of the differences and similarities between British and American leadership down to the ship-to-ship level. Upon release, The Naval War of 1812 was praised for its scholarship and style, and it remains a standard study of the war.
With the publication of The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660–1783 in 1890, Navy Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan was immediately hailed as the world's outstanding naval theorist by the leaders of Europe. Roosevelt paid very close attention to Mahan's emphasis that only a nation with the world's most powerful fleet could dominate the world's oceans, exert its diplomacy to the fullest, and defend its own borders. He incorporated Mahan's ideas into his views on naval strategy for the remainder of his career.
First marriage and widowerhood
In 1880, Roosevelt married socialite Alice Hathaway Lee. Their daughter, Alice Lee Roosevelt, was born on February 12, 1884. Two days later, the new mother died of an undiagnosed case of kidney failure that had been masked by the pregnancy. In his diary, Roosevelt wrote a large 'X' on the page and then, "The light has gone out of my life." His mother, Mittie, had died of typhoid fever eleven hours earlier at 3:00 a.m., in the same house on 57th Street in Manhattan. Distraught, Roosevelt left baby Alice in the care of his sister Bamie while he grieved; he assumed custody of Alice when she was three.
After the deaths of his wife and mother, Roosevelt focused on his work, specifically by re-energizing a legislative investigation into corruption of the New York City government, which arose from a concurrent bill proposing that power be centralized in the mayor's office. For the rest of his life, he rarely spoke about his wife Alice and did not write about her in his autobiography.
Early political career
State Assemblyman
Roosevelt was a member of the New York State Assembly (New York Co., 21st D.) in 1882, 1883 and 1884. He immediately began making his mark, specifically in corporate corruption issues. He blocked a corrupt effort by financier Jay Gould to lower his taxes. Roosevelt exposed suspected collusion in the matter by Judge Theodore Westbrook, and argued for and received approval for an investigation to proceed, aiming for the impeachment of the judge. The investigation committee rejected impeachment, but Roosevelt had exposed the potential corruption in Albany, and thus assumed a high and positive political profile in multiple New York publications.
Roosevelt's anti-corruption efforts helped him win re-election in 1882 by a margin greater than two-to-one, an achievement made even more impressive by the fact that Democratic gubernatorial candidate Grover Cleveland won Roosevelt's district. With Conkling's Stalwart faction of the Republican Party in disarray following the assassination of President James Garfield, Roosevelt won election as the Republican party leader in the state assembly. He allied with Governor Cleveland to win passage of a civil service reform bill. Roosevelt won re-election a second time, and sought the office of Speaker of the New York State Assembly, but was defeated by Titus Sheard in a 41 to 29 vote of the GOP caucus. In his final term, Roosevelt served as Chairman of the Committee on Affairs of Cities; he wrote more bills than any other legislator.
Presidential election of 1884
With numerous presidential hopefuls to choose from, Roosevelt supported Senator George F. Edmunds of Vermont, a colorless reformer. The state GOP preferred the incumbent president, New York City's Chester Arthur, who was known for passing the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act. Arthur, at the time, was suffering from Bright's disease, unknown to the public, and out of duty he did not contest his own nomination. Roosevelt fought hard and succeeded in influencing the Manhattan delegates at the state convention in Utica. He then took control of the state convention, bargaining through the night and outmaneuvering the supporters of Arthur and James G. Blaine; he gained a national reputation as a key person in New York State.
Roosevelt attended the 1884 GOP National Convention in Chicago and gave a speech convincing delegates to nominate African American John R. Lynch, an Edmunds supporter, to be temporary chair. Roosevelt fought alongside the Mugwump reformers; however, Blaine, having gained support from Arthur's and Edmunds's delegates, won the nomination by 541 votes on the fourth ballot. In a crucial moment of his budding political career, Roosevelt resisted the demand of the Mugwumps that he bolt from Blaine. He bragged about his one small success: "We achieved a victory in getting up a combination to beat the Blaine nominee for temporary chairman... To do this needed a mixture of skill, boldness and energy... to get the different factions to come in... to defeat the common foe." He was also impressed by an invitation to speak before an audience of ten thousand, the largest crowd he had addressed up to that date. Having gotten a taste of national politics, Roosevelt felt less aspiration for advocacy on the state level; he then retired to his new "Chimney Butte Ranch" on the Little Missouri River. Roosevelt refused to join other Mugwumps in supporting Grover Cleveland, the governor of New York and the Democratic nominee in the general election. He debated the pros and cons of staying loyal with his political friend, Henry Cabot Lodge. After Blaine won the nomination, Roosevelt had carelessly said that he would give "hearty support to any decent Democrat". He distanced himself from the promise, saying that it had not been meant "for publication". When a reporter asked if he would support Blaine, Roosevelt replied, "That question I decline to answer. It is a subject I do not care to talk about." In the end, he realized that he had to support Blaine to maintain his role in the GOP, and he did so in a press release on July 19. Having lost the support of many reformers, Roosevelt decided to retire from politics and move to North Dakota.
Cattle rancher in Dakota
Roosevelt first visited the Dakota Territory in 1883 to hunt bison. Exhilarated by the western lifestyle, and with the cattle business booming in the territory, Roosevelt invested $14,000 in hopes of becoming a prosperous cattle rancher. For the next several years, he shuttled between his home in New York and his ranch in Dakota.
Following the 1884 presidential election, Roosevelt built a ranch named Elkhorn, which was north of the boomtown of Medora, North Dakota. Roosevelt learned to ride western style, rope, and hunt on the banks of the Little Missouri. Though he earned the respect of the authentic cowboys, they were not overly impressed. However, he identified with the herdsman of history, a man he said possesses "few of the emasculated, milk-and-water moralities admired by the pseudo-philanthropists; but he does possess, to a very high degree, the stern, manly qualities that are invaluable to a nation". He reoriented, and began writing about frontier life for national magazines; he also published three books – Hunting Trips of a Ranchman, Ranch Life and the Hunting-Trail, and The Wilderness Hunter.
Roosevelt brought his desire to address the common interests of citizens to the West. He successfully led efforts to organize ranchers to address problems of overgrazing and other shared concerns; his work resulted in the formation of the Little Missouri Stockmen's Association. He felt compelled to promote conservation and was able to form the Boone and Crockett Club, whose primary goal was the conservation of large game animals and their habitats. After the uniquely severe US winter of 1886–87 wiped out his herd of cattle and those of his competitors, and with it over half of his $80,000 investment, Roosevelt returned to the East. Though his finances suffered from the experience, Roosevelt's time in the West made it impossible to peg him as an ineffectual intellectual, a characterization that could have hampered his political career.
Second marriage
On December 2, 1886, Roosevelt married his childhood and family friend, Edith Kermit Carow. Roosevelt was deeply troubled that his second marriage had taken place so soon after the death of his first wife, and he faced resistance from his sisters. Nonetheless, the couple married at St George's, Hanover Square in London, England. The couple had five children: Theodore "Ted" III in 1887, Kermit in 1889, Ethel in 1891, Archibald in 1894, and Quentin in 1897. The couple also raised Roosevelt's daughter from his first marriage, Alice, who often clashed with her stepmother.
Reentering public life
Upon Roosevelt's return to New York in 1886, Republican leaders quickly approached him about running for mayor of New York City in the city's mayoral election. Roosevelt accepted the nomination despite having little hope of winning the race against United Labor Party candidate Henry George and Democratic candidate Abram Hewitt. Roosevelt campaigned hard for the position, but Hewitt won with 41% (90,552 votes), taking the votes of many Republicans who feared George's radical policies. George was held to 31% (68,110 votes), and Roosevelt took third place with 27% (60,435 votes). Fearing that his political career might never recover, Roosevelt turned his attention to writing The Winning of the West, a historical work tracking the westward movement of Americans; the book was a great success for Roosevelt, earning favorable reviews and selling numerous copies.
Civil Service Commission
After Benjamin Harrison unexpectedly defeated Blaine for the presidential nomination at the 1888 Republican National Convention, Roosevelt gave stump speeches in the Midwest in support of Harrison. On the insistence of Henry Cabot Lodge, President Harrison appointed Roosevelt to the United States Civil Service Commission, where he served until 1895. While many of his predecessors had approached the office as a sinecure, Roosevelt vigorously fought the spoilsmen and demanded enforcement of civil service laws. The New York Sun then described Roosevelt as "irrepressible, belligerent, and enthusiastic". Roosevelt frequently clashed with Postmaster General John Wanamaker, who handed out numerous patronage positions to Harrison supporters, and Roosevelt's attempt to force out several postal workers damaged Harrison politically. Despite Roosevelt's support for Harrison's reelection bid in the presidential election of 1892, the eventual winner, Grover Cleveland, reappointed him to the same post. Roosevelt's close friend and biographer, Joseph Bucklin Bishop, described his assault on the spoils system:
New York City Police Commissioner
In 1894, a group of reform Republicans approached Roosevelt about running for Mayor of New York again; he declined, mostly due to his wife's resistance to being removed from the Washington social set. Soon after he declined, he realized that he had missed an opportunity to reinvigorate a dormant political career. He retreated to the Dakotas for a time; his wife Edith regretted her role in the decision and vowed that there would be no repeat of it.
William Lafayette Strong, a reform-minded Republican, won the 1894 mayoral election and offered Roosevelt a position on the board of the New York City Police Commissioners. Roosevelt became president of the board of commissioners and radically reformed the police force. Roosevelt implemented regular inspections of firearms and annual physical exams, appointed recruits based on their physical and mental qualifications rather than political affiliation, established Meritorious Service Medals, and closed corrupt police hostelries. During his tenure, a Municipal Lodging House was established by the Board of Charities, and Roosevelt required officers to register with the Board; he also had telephones installed in station houses.
In 1894, Roosevelt met Jacob Riis, the muckraking Evening Sun newspaper journalist who was opening the eyes of New Yorkers to the terrible conditions of the city's millions of poor immigrants with such books as How the Other Half Lives. Riis described how his book affected Roosevelt:
Roosevelt made a habit of walking officers' beats late at night and early in the morning to make sure that they were on duty. He made a concerted effort to uniformly enforce New York's Sunday closing law; in this, he ran up against boss Tom Platt as well as Tammany Hall—he was notified that the Police Commission was being legislated out of existence. His crackdowns led to protests and demonstrations. Invited to one large demonstration, not only did he surprisingly accept, he delighted in the insults, caricatures and lampoons directed at him, and earned some surprising good will. Roosevelt chose to defer rather than split with his party. As Governor of New York State, he would later sign an act replacing the Police Commission with a single Police Commissioner.
Emergence as a national figure
Assistant Secretary of the Navy
In the 1896 presidential election, Roosevelt backed Speaker of the House Thomas Brackett Reed for the Republican nomination, but William McKinley won the nomination and defeated William Jennings Bryan in the general election. Roosevelt opposed Bryan's free silver platform, viewing many of Bryan's followers as dangerous fanatics, and Roosevelt gave campaign speeches for McKinley. Urged by Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, President McKinley appointed Roosevelt as the Assistant Secretary of the Navy in 1897. Secretary of the Navy John D. Long was more concerned about formalities than functions, was in poor health, and left many major decisions to Roosevelt. Influenced by Alfred Thayer Mahan, Roosevelt called for a build-up in the country's naval strength, particularly the construction of battleships. Roosevelt also began pressing his national security views regarding the Pacific and the Caribbean on McKinley, and was particularly adamant that Spain be ejected from Cuba. He explained his priorities to one of the Navy's planners in late 1897:
On February 15, 1898, , an armored cruiser, exploded in the harbor of Havana, Cuba, killing hundreds of crew members. While Roosevelt and many other Americans blamed Spain for the explosion, McKinley sought a diplomatic solution. Without approval from Long or McKinley, Roosevelt sent out orders to several naval vessels, directing them to prepare for war. George Dewey, who had received an appointment to lead the Asiatic Squadron with the backing of Roosevelt, later credited his victory at the Battle of Manila Bay to Roosevelt's orders. After finally giving up hope of a peaceful solution, McKinley asked Congress to declare war upon Spain, beginning the Spanish–American War.
War in Cuba
With the beginning of the Spanish–American War in late April 1898, Roosevelt resigned from his post as Assistant Secretary of the Navy. Along with Army Colonel Leonard Wood, he formed the First US Volunteer Cavalry Regiment. His wife and many of his friends begged Roosevelt to remain in his post in Washington, but Roosevelt was determined to see battle. When the newspapers reported the formation of the new regiment, Roosevelt and Wood were flooded with applications from all over the country. Referred to by the press as the "Rough Riders", the regiment was one of many temporary units active only for the duration of the war.
The regiment trained for several weeks in San Antonio, Texas, and in his autobiography, Roosevelt wrote that his prior experience with the New York National Guard had been invaluable, in that it enabled him to immediately begin teaching his men basic soldiering skills. The Rough Riders used some standard issue gear and some of their own design, purchased with gift money. Diversity characterized the regiment, which included Ivy Leaguers, professional and amateur athletes, upscale gentlemen, cowboys, frontiersmen, Native Americans, hunters, miners, prospectors, former soldiers, tradesmen, and sheriffs. The Rough Riders were part of the cavalry division commanded by former Confederate general Joseph Wheeler, which itself was one of three divisions in the V Corps under Lieutenant General William Rufus Shafter. Roosevelt and his men landed in Daiquirí, Cuba, on June 23, 1898, and marched to Siboney. Wheeler sent parts of the 1st and 10th Regular Cavalry on the lower road northwest and sent the "Rough Riders" on the parallel road running along a ridge up from the beach. To throw off his infantry rival, Wheeler left one regiment of his Cavalry Division, the 9th, at Siboney so that he could claim that his move north was only a limited reconnaissance if things went wrong. Roosevelt was promoted to colonel and took command of the regiment when Wood was put in command of the brigade. The Rough Riders had a short, minor skirmish known as the Battle of Las Guasimas; they fought their way through Spanish resistance and, together with the Regulars, forced the Spaniards to abandon their positions.
Under his leadership, the Rough Riders became famous for the charge up Kettle Hill on July 1, 1898, while supporting the regulars. Roosevelt had the only horse, and rode back and forth between rifle pits at the forefront of the advance up Kettle Hill, an advance that he urged despite the absence of any orders from superiors. He was forced to walk up the last part of Kettle Hill because his horse had been entangled in barbed wire. The victories came at a cost of 200 killed and 1,000 wounded.
In August, Roosevelt and other officers demanded that the soldiers be returned home. Roosevelt always recalled the Battle of Kettle Hill (part of the San Juan Heights) as "the great day of my life" and "my crowded hour". In 2001, Roosevelt was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions; he had been nominated during the war, but Army officials, annoyed at his grabbing the headlines, blocked it. After returning to civilian life, Roosevelt preferred to be known as "Colonel Roosevelt" or "The Colonel", though "Teddy" remained much more popular with the public, even though Roosevelt openly despised that moniker. Men working closely with Roosevelt customarily called him "Colonel" or "Theodore". Henceforth, political cartoons of Roosevelt usually depicted him in his Rough Rider garb.
Governor of New York
After leaving Cuba in August 1898, the Rough Riders were transported to a camp at Montauk Point, Long Island, where Roosevelt and his men were briefly quarantined due to the War Department's fear of spreading yellow fever. Shortly after Roosevelt's return to the United States, Republican Congressman Lemuel E. Quigg, a lieutenant of party boss Tom Platt, asked Roosevelt to run in the 1898 gubernatorial election. Platt disliked Roosevelt personally, feared that Roosevelt would oppose Platt's interests in office, and was reluctant to propel Roosevelt to the forefront of national politics. However, Platt also needed a strong candidate due to the unpopularity of the incumbent Republican governor, Frank S. Black, and Roosevelt agreed to become the nominee and to try not to "make war" with the Republican establishment once in office. Roosevelt defeated Black in the Republican caucus by a vote of 753 to 218, and faced Democrat Augustus Van Wyck, a well-respected judge, in the general election. Roosevelt campaigned vigorously on his war record, winning the election by a margin of just one percent.
As governor, Roosevelt learned much about ongoing economic issues and political techniques that later proved valuable in his presidency. He was exposed to the problems of trusts, monopolies, labor relations, and conservation. Chessman argues that Roosevelt's program "rested firmly upon the concept of the square deal by a neutral state". The rules for the Square Deal were "honesty in public affairs, an equitable sharing of privilege and responsibility, and subordination of party and local concerns to the interests of the state at large".
By holding twice-daily press conferences—which was an innovation—Roosevelt remained connected with his middle-class political base. Roosevelt successfully pushed the Ford Franchise-Tax bill, which taxed public franchises granted by the state and controlled by corporations, declaring that "a corporation which derives its powers from the State, should pay to the State a just percentage of its earnings as a return for the privileges it enjoys". He rejected "boss" Thomas C. Platt's worries that this approached Bryanite Socialism, explaining that without it, New York voters might get angry and adopt public ownership of streetcar lines and other franchises.
The New York state government affected many interests, and the power to make appointments to policy-making positions was a key role for the governor. Platt insisted that he be consulted on major appointments; Roosevelt appeared to comply, but then made his own decisions. Historians marvel that Roosevelt managed to appoint so many first-rate men with Platt's approval. He even enlisted Platt's help in securing reform, such as in the spring of 1899, when Platt pressured state senators to vote for a civil service bill that the secretary of the Civil Service Reform Association called "superior to any civil service statute heretofore secured in America".
Chessman argues that as governor, Roosevelt developed the principles that shaped his presidency, especially insistence upon the public responsibility of large corporations, publicity as a first remedy for trusts, regulation of railroad rates, mediation of the conflict of capital and labor, conservation of natural resources and protection of the less fortunate members of society. Roosevelt sought to position himself against the excesses of large corporations on the one hand and radical movements on the other.
As the chief executive of the most populous state in the union, Roosevelt was widely considered a potential future presidential candidate, and supporters such as William Allen White encouraged him to run for president. Roosevelt had no interest in challenging McKinley for the Republican nomination in 1900, and was denied his preferred post of Secretary of War. As his term progressed, Roosevelt pondered a 1904 presidential run, but was uncertain about whether he should seek re-election as governor in 1900.
Vice Presidency (1901)
In November 1899, Vice President Garret Hobart died of heart failure, leaving an open spot on the 1900 Republican national ticket. Though Henry Cabot Lodge and others urged him to run for vice president in 1900, Roosevelt was reluctant to take the powerless position and issued a public statement saying that he would not accept the nomination. Additionally, Roosevelt was informed by President McKinley and campaign manager Mark Hanna that he was not being considered for the role of vice president due to his actions prior to the Spanish–American War. Eager to be rid of Roosevelt, Platt nonetheless began a newspaper campaign in favor of Roosevelt's nomination for the vice presidency. Roosevelt attended the 1900 Republican National Convention as a state delegate and struck a bargain with Platt: Roosevelt would accept the nomination for vice president if the convention offered it to him, but would otherwise serve another term as governor. Platt asked Pennsylvania party boss Matthew Quay to lead the campaign for Roosevelt's nomination, and Quay outmaneuvered Hanna at the convention to put Roosevelt on the ticket. Roosevelt won the nomination unanimously.
Roosevelt's vice-presidential campaigning proved highly energetic and an equal match for Democratic presidential nominee William Jennings Bryan's famous barnstorming style of campaigning. In a whirlwind campaign that displayed his energy to the public, Roosevelt made 480 stops in 23 states. He denounced the radicalism of Bryan, contrasting it with the heroism of the soldiers and sailors who fought and won the war against Spain. Bryan had strongly supported the war itself, but he denounced the annexation of the Philippines as imperialism, which would spoil America's innocence. Roosevelt countered that it was best for the Filipinos to have stability and the Americans to have a proud place in the world. With the nation basking in peace and prosperity, the voters gave McKinley an even larger victory than that which he had achieved in 1896.
After the campaign, Roosevelt took office as vice president in March 1901. The office of vice president was a powerless sinecure and did not suit Roosevelt's aggressive temperament. Roosevelt's six months as vice president were uneventful and boring for a man of action. He had no power; he presided over the Senate for a mere four days before it adjourned. On September 2, 1901, Roosevelt first publicized an aphorism that thrilled his supporters: "Speak softly and carry a big stick, and you will go far."
Presidency (1901–1909)
On September 6, 1901, President McKinley was attending the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York when he was shot by anarchist Leon Czolgosz. Roosevelt was vacationing in Isle La Motte, Vermont, and traveled to Buffalo to visit McKinley in the hospital. It appeared that McKinley would recover, so Roosevelt resumed his vacation in the Adirondack Mountains. When McKinley's condition worsened, Roosevelt again rushed back to Buffalo. McKinley died on September 14, and Roosevelt was informed while he was in North Creek; he continued on to Buffalo and was sworn in as the nation's 26th president at the Ansley Wilcox House.
McKinley's supporters were nervous about the new president, and Hanna was particularly bitter that the man he had opposed so vigorously at the convention had succeeded McKinley. Roosevelt assured party leaders that he intended to adhere to McKinley's policies, and he retained McKinley's Cabinet. Nonetheless, Roosevelt sought to position himself as the party's undisputed leader, seeking to bolster the role of the president and position himself for the 1904 election. The vice presidency remained vacant, as there was no constitutional provision for filling an intra-term vacancy in that office (prior to the 25th Amendment in 1967).
Shortly after taking office, Roosevelt invited Booker T. Washington to dinner at the White House. This sparked a bitter, and at times vicious, reaction among whites across the heavily segregated South. Roosevelt reacted with astonishment and protest, saying that he looked forward to many future dinners with Washington. Upon further reflection, Roosevelt wanted to ensure that this had no effect on political support in the white South, and further dinner invitations to Washington were avoided; their next meeting was scheduled as typical business at 10:00 a.m. instead.
Domestic policies
Trust busting and regulation
For his aggressive use of the 1890 Sherman Antitrust Act, compared to his predecessors, Roosevelt was hailed as the "trust-buster"; but in reality he was more of a trust regulator. Roosevelt viewed big business as a necessary part of the American economy, and sought only to prosecute the "bad trusts" that restrained trade and charged unfair prices. He brought 44 antitrust suits, breaking up the Northern Securities Company, the largest railroad monopoly; and regulating Standard Oil, the largest oil company. Presidents Benjamin Harrison, Grover Cleveland, and William McKinley combined had prosecuted only 18 antitrust violations under the Sherman Antitrust Act.
Bolstered by his party's winning large majorities in the 1902 elections, Roosevelt proposed the creation of the United States Department of Commerce and Labor, which would include the Bureau of Corporations. While Congress was receptive to the Department of Commerce and Labor, it was more skeptical of the antitrust powers that Roosevelt sought to endow within the Bureau of Corporations. Roosevelt successfully appealed to the public to pressure Congress, and Congress overwhelmingly voted to pass Roosevelt's version of the bill.
In a moment of frustration, House Speaker Joseph Gurney Cannon commented on Roosevelt's desire for executive branch control in domestic policy-making: "That fellow at the other end of the avenue wants everything from the birth of Christ to the death of the devil." Biographer Brands states, "Even his friends occasionally wondered whether there wasn't any custom or practice too minor for him to try to regulate, update or otherwise improve." In fact, Roosevelt's willingness to exercise his power included attempted rule changes in the game of football; at the Naval Academy, he sought to force retention of martial arts classes and to revise disciplinary rules. He even ordered changes made in the minting of a coin whose design he disliked, and ordered the Government Printing Office to adopt simplified spellings for a core list of 300 words, according to reformers on the Simplified Spelling Board. He was forced to rescind the latter after substantial ridicule from the press and a resolution of protest from the House of Representatives.
Coal strike
In May 1902, anthracite coal miners went on strike, threatening a national energy shortage. After threatening the coal operators with intervention by federal troops, Roosevelt won their agreement to dispute arbitration by a commission, which succeeded in stopping the strike. The accord with J. P. Morgan resulted in the miners getting more pay for fewer hours, but with no union recognition. Roosevelt said, "My action on labor should always be considered in connection with my action as regards capital, and both are reducible to my favorite formula—a square deal for every man." Roosevelt was the first president to help settle a labor dispute.
Prosecuted misconduct
During Roosevelt's second year in office it was discovered there was corruption in the Indian Service, the Land Office, and the Post Office Department. Roosevelt investigated and prosecuted corrupt Indian agents who had cheated the Creeks and various tribes out of land parcels. Land fraud and speculation were found involving Oregon federal timberlands. In November 1902, Roosevelt and Secretary Ethan A. Hitchcock forced Binger Hermann, the General Land Office Commissioner, to resign from office. On November 6, 1903 Francis J. Heney was appointed special prosecutor and obtained 146 indictments involving an Oregon Land Office bribery ring. U.S. Senator John H. Mitchell was indicted for bribery to expedite illegal land patents, found guilty in July 1905, and sentenced to six months in prison. More corruption was found in the Postal Department, that brought on the indictments of 44 government employees on charges of bribery and fraud. Historians generally agree that Roosevelt moved "quickly and decisively" to prosecute misconduct in his administration.
Railroads
Merchants complained that some railroad rates were too high. In the 1906 Hepburn Act, Roosevelt sought to give the Interstate Commerce Commission the power to regulate rates, but the Senate, led by conservative Nelson Aldrich, fought back. Roosevelt worked with the Democratic Senator Benjamin Tillman to pass the bill. Roosevelt and Aldrich ultimately reached a compromise that gave the ICC the power to replace existing rates with "just-and-reasonable" maximum rates, but allowed railroads to appeal to the federal courts on what was "reasonable". In addition to rate-setting, the Hepburn Act also granted the ICC regulatory power over pipeline fees, storage contracts, and several other aspects of railroad operations.
Pure food and drugs
Roosevelt responded to public anger over the abuses in the food packing industry by pushing Congress to pass the Meat Inspection Act of 1906 and the Pure Food and Drug Act. Though conservatives initially opposed the bill, Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, published in 1906, helped galvanize support for reform. The Meat Inspection Act of 1906 banned misleading labels and preservatives that contained harmful chemicals. The Pure Food and Drug Act banned food and drugs that were impure or falsely labeled from being made, sold, and shipped. Roosevelt also served as honorary president of the American School Hygiene Association from 1907 to 1908, and in 1909 he convened the first White House Conference on the Care of Dependent Children.
Conservation
Of all Roosevelt's achievements, he was proudest of his work in the conservation of natural resources and extending federal protection to land and wildlife. Roosevelt worked closely with Interior Secretary James Rudolph Garfield and Chief of the United States Forest Service Gifford Pinchot to enact a series of conservation programs that often met with resistance from Western members of Congress, such as Charles William Fulton. Nonetheless, Roosevelt established the United States Forest Service, signed into law the creation of five National Parks, and signed the 1906 Antiquities Act, under which he proclaimed 18 new U.S. National Monuments. He also established the first 51 bird reserves, four game preserves, and 150 National Forests. The area of the United States that he placed under public protection totals approximately .
Roosevelt extensively used executive orders on a number of occasions to protect forest and wildlife lands during his tenure as president. By the end of his second term in office, Roosevelt used executive orders to establish of reserved forestry land. Roosevelt was unapologetic about his extensive use of executive orders to protect the environment, despite the perception in Congress that he was encroaching on too many lands. Eventually, Senator Charles Fulton (R-OR) attached an amendment to an agricultural appropriations bill that effectively prevented the president from reserving any further land. Before signing that bill into law, Roosevelt used executive orders to establish an additional 21 forest reserves, waiting until the last minute to sign the bill into law. In total, Roosevelt used executive orders to establish 121 forest reserves in 31 states. Prior to Roosevelt, only one president had issued over 200 executive orders, Grover Cleveland (253). The first 25 presidents issued a total of 1,262 executive orders; Roosevelt issued 1,081.
Foreign policy
Japan
The American annexation of Hawaii in 1898 was stimulated in part by fear that otherwise Japan would dominate the Hawaiian Republic. Similarly, Germany was the alternative to American takeover of the Philippines in 1900, and Tokyo strongly preferred the U.S. to take over. As the U.S. became a naval world power, it needed to find a way to avoid a military confrontation in the Pacific with Japan.
In the 1890s, Roosevelt had been an ardent imperialist and vigorously defended the permanent acquisition of the Philippines in the 1900 campaign. After the local insurrection ended in 1902, he largely lost his imperialist interest in the Philippines and Asian expansion but wished to have a strong U.S. presence in the region as a symbol of democratic values. One of Theodore Roosevelt's priorities during his presidency and afterwards, was the maintenance of friendly relations with Japan. From 1904 to 1905 Japan and Russia were at war. Roosevelt admired the martial courage of the Japanese, and distrusted the reckless German Kaiser. Both sides asked Roosevelt to mediate a peace conference, held successfully in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Roosevelt won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts.
In California, anti-Japanese hostility was growing, and Tokyo protested. Roosevelt negotiated a "Gentleman's Agreement" in 1907. Explicit discrimination against the Japanese was ended, and Japan agreed not to allow unskilled immigrants into the United States. The Great White Fleet of American battleships visited Japan in 1908. Pulitzer prize-winning biographer Henry Pringle states that the great voyage was "the direct result of the Japanese trouble." Roosevelt intended to emphasize the superiority of the American fleet over the smaller Japanese navy, but instead of resentment the visitors arrived to a joyous welcome by Japanese elite as well as the general public. This good-will facilitated the Root–Takahira Agreement of November 1908 which reaffirmed the status quo of Japanese control of Korea and American control of the Philippines.
Europe
Success in the war against Spain and the new empire, plus having the largest economy in the world, meant that the United States had emerged as a world power. Roosevelt searched for ways to win recognition for the position abroad.
Roosevelt also played a major role in mediating the First Moroccan Crisis by calling the Algeciras Conference, which averted war between France and Germany.
Roosevelt's presidency saw the strengthening of ties with Great Britain. The Great Rapprochement had begun with British support of the United States during the Spanish–American War, and it continued as Britain withdrew its fleet from the Caribbean in favor of focusing on the rising German naval threat. In 1901, Britain and the United States signed the Hay–Pauncefote Treaty, abrogating the Clayton–Bulwer Treaty, which had prevented the United States from constructing a canal connecting the Pacific and the Atlantic Ocean. The long-standing Alaska boundary dispute was settled on terms favorable to the United States, as Great Britain was unwilling to alienate the United States over what it considered to be a secondary issue. As Roosevelt later put it, the resolution of the Alaskan boundary dispute "settled the last serious trouble between the British Empire and ourselves."
Latin America and Panama Canal
As president, he primarily focused the nation's overseas ambitions on the Caribbean, especially locations that had a bearing on the defense of his pet project, the Panama Canal. Roosevelt also increased the size of the navy, and by the end of his second term the United States had more battleships than any other country besides Britain. The Panama Canal when it opened in 1914 allowed the U.S. Navy to rapidly move back and forth from the Pacific to the Caribbean to European waters.
In December 1902, the Germans, British, and Italians blockaded the ports of Venezuela in order to force the repayment of delinquent loans. Roosevelt was particularly concerned with the motives of German Emperor Wilhelm II. He succeeded in getting the three nations to agree to arbitration by tribunal at The Hague, and successfully defused the crisis. The latitude granted to the Europeans by the arbiters was in part responsible for the "Roosevelt Corollary" to the Monroe Doctrine, which the President issued in 1904: "Chronic wrongdoing or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation, and in the Western Hemisphere, the adherence of the United States to the Monroe doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power."
The pursuit of an isthmus canal in Central America during this period focused on two possible routes—Nicaragua and Panama, which was then a rebellious district within Colombia. Roosevelt convinced Congress to approve the Panamanian alternative, and a treaty was approved, only to be rejected by the Colombian government. When the Panamanians learned of this, a rebellion followed, was supported by Roosevelt, and succeeded. A treaty with the new Panama government for construction of the canal was then reached in 1903. Roosevelt received criticism for paying the bankrupt Panama Canal Company and the New Panama Canal Company $40,000,000 (equivalent to $ billion in ) for the rights and equipment to build the canal. Critics charged that an American investor syndicate allegedly divided the large payment among themselves. There was also controversy over whether a French company engineer influenced Roosevelt in choosing the Panama route for the canal over the Nicaragua route. Roosevelt denied charges of corruption concerning the canal in a January 8, 1906 message to Congress. In January 1909, Roosevelt, in an unprecedented move, brought criminal libel charges against the New York World and the Indianapolis News known as the "Roosevelt-Panama Libel Cases". Both cases were dismissed by U.S. District Courts, and on January 3, 1911, the U.S. Supreme Court, upon federal appeal, upheld the lower courts' rulings. Historians are sharply critical of Roosevelt's criminal prosecutions of the World and the News, but are divided on whether actual corruption in acquiring and building the Panama Canal took place.
In 1906, following a disputed election, an insurrection ensued in Cuba; Roosevelt sent Taft, the Secretary of War, to monitor the situation; he was convinced that he had the authority to unilaterally authorize Taft to deploy Marines if necessary, without congressional approval.
Examining the work of numerous scholars, Ricard (2014) reports that:
The most striking evolution in the twenty-first-century historiography of Theodore Roosevelt is the switch from a partial arraignment of the imperialist to a quasi-unanimous celebration of the master diplomatist.... [Recent works] have underlined cogently Roosevelt's exceptional statesmanship in the construction of the nascent twentieth-century "special relationship". ...The twenty-sixth president's reputation as a brilliant diplomatist and realpolitician has undeniably reached new heights in the twenty-first century...yet, his Philippine policy still prompts criticism.
Media
Building on McKinley's effective use of the press, Roosevelt made the White House the center of news every day, providing interviews and photo opportunities. After noticing the reporters huddled outside the White House in the rain one day, he gave them their own room inside, effectively inventing the presidential press briefing. The grateful press, with unprecedented access to the White House, rewarded Roosevelt with ample coverage.
Roosevelt normally enjoyed very close relationships with the press, which he used to keep in daily contact with his middle-class base. While out of office, he made a living as a writer and magazine editor. He loved talking with intellectuals, authors, and writers. He drew the line, however, at exposé-oriented scandal-mongering journalists who, during his term, sent magazine subscriptions soaring by their attacks on corrupt politicians, mayors, and corporations. Roosevelt himself was not usually a target, but a speech of his from 1906 coined the term "muckraker" for unscrupulous journalists making wild charges. "The liar", he said, "is no whit better than the thief, and if his mendacity takes the form of slander he may be worse than most thieves."
The press did briefly target Roosevelt in one instance. After 1904, he was periodically criticized for the manner in which he facilitated the construction of the Panama Canal. According to biographer Brands, Roosevelt, near the end of his term, demanded that the Justice Department bring charges of criminal libel against Joseph Pulitzer's New York World. The publication had accused him of "deliberate misstatements of fact" in defense of family members who were criticized as a result of the Panama affair. Though an indictment was obtained, the case was ultimately dismissed in federal court—it was not a federal offense, but one enforceable in state courts. The Justice Department had predicted that result, and had also advised Roosevelt accordingly.
Election of 1904
The control and management of the Republican Party lay in the hands of Ohio Senator and Republican Party chairman Mark Hanna until McKinley's death. Roosevelt and Hanna frequently cooperated during Roosevelt's first term, but Hanna left open the possibility of a challenge to Roosevelt for the 1904 Republican nomination. Roosevelt and Ohio's other Senator, Joseph B. Foraker, forced Hanna's hand by calling for Ohio's state Republican convention to endorse Roosevelt for the 1904 nomination. Unwilling to break with the president, Hanna was forced to publicly endorse Roosevelt. Hanna and Pennsylvania Senator Matthew Quay both died in early 1904, and with the waning of Thomas Platt's power, Roosevelt faced little effective opposition for the 1904 nomination. In deference to Hanna's conservative loyalists, Roosevelt at first offered the party chairmanship to Cornelius Bliss, but he declined. Roosevelt turned to his own man, George B. Cortelyou of New York, the first Secretary of Commerce and Labor. To buttress his hold on the party's nomination, Roosevelt made it clear that anyone opposing Cortelyou would be considered to be opposing the President. The President secured his own nomination, but his preferred vice-presidential running mate, Robert R. Hitt, was not nominated. Senator Charles Warren Fairbanks of Indiana, a favorite of conservatives, gained the nomination.
While Roosevelt followed the tradition of incumbents in not actively campaigning on the stump, he sought to control the campaign's message through specific instructions to Cortelyou. He also attempted to manage the press's release of White House statements by forming the Ananias Club. Any journalist who repeated a statement made by the president without approval was penalized by restriction of further access.
The Democratic Party's nominee in 1904 was Alton Brooks Parker. Democratic newspapers charged that Republicans were extorting large campaign contributions from corporations, putting ultimate responsibility on Roosevelt, himself. Roosevelt denied corruption while at the same time he ordered Cortelyou to return $100,000 (equivalent to $ million in ) of a campaign contribution from Standard Oil. Parker said that Roosevelt was accepting corporate donations to keep damaging information from the Bureau of Corporations from going public. Roosevelt strongly denied Parker's charge and responded that he would "go into the Presidency unhampered by any pledge, promise, or understanding of any kind, sort, or description...". Allegations from Parker and the Democrats, however, had little impact on the election, as Roosevelt promised to give every American a "square deal". Roosevelt won 56% of the popular vote, and Parker received 38%; Roosevelt also won the Electoral College vote, 336 to 140. Before his inauguration ceremony, Roosevelt declared that he would not serve another term. Democrats afterwards would continue to charge Roosevelt and the Republicans of being influenced by corporate donations during Roosevelt's second term.
Second term
As his second term progressed, Roosevelt moved to the left of his Republican Party base and called for a series of reforms, most of which Congress failed to pass. In his last year in office, he was assisted by his friend Archibald Butt (who later perished in the sinking of RMS Titanic). Roosevelt's influence waned as he approached the end of his second term, as his promise to forego a third term made him a lame duck and his concentration of power provoked a backlash from many Congressmen. He sought a national incorporation law (at a time when all corporations had state charters), called for a federal income tax (despite the Supreme Court's ruling in Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co.), and an inheritance tax. In the area of labor legislation, Roosevelt called for limits on the use of court injunctions against labor unions during strikes; injunctions were a powerful weapon that mostly helped business. He wanted an employee liability law for industrial injuries (pre-empting state laws) and an eight-hour work day for federal employees. In other areas he also sought a postal savings system (to provide competition for local banks), and he asked for campaign reform laws.
The election of 1904 continued to be a source of contention between Republicans and Democrats. A Congressional investigation in 1905 revealed that corporate executives donated tens of thousands of dollars in 1904 to the Republican National Committee. In 1908, a month before the general presidential election, Governor Charles N. Haskell of Oklahoma, former Democratic Treasurer, said that Senators beholden to Standard Oil lobbied Roosevelt, in the summer of 1904, to authorize the leasing of Indian oil lands by Standard Oil subsidiaries. He said Roosevelt overruled his Secretary of Interior Ethan A. Hitchcock and granted a pipeline franchise to run through the Osage lands to the Prairie Oil and Gas Company. The New York Sun made a similar accusation and said that Standard Oil, a refinery who financially benefited from the pipeline, had contributed $150,000 to the Republicans in 1904 (equivalent to $ million in ) after Roosevelt's alleged reversal allowing the pipeline franchise. Roosevelt branded Haskell's allegation as "a lie, pure and simple" and obtained a denial from Treasury Secretary Shaw that Roosevelt had neither coerced Shaw nor overruled him.
Post-presidency (1909–1919)
Election of 1908
Roosevelt enjoyed being president and was still relatively youthful, but felt that a limited number of terms provided a check against dictatorship. Roosevelt ultimately decided to stick to his 1904 pledge not to run for a third term. He personally favored Secretary of State Elihu Root as his successor, but Root's ill health made him an unsuitable candidate. New York Governor Charles Evans Hughes loomed as a potentially strong candidate and shared Roosevelt's progressivism, but Roosevelt disliked him and considered him to be too independent. Instead, Roosevelt settled on his Secretary of War, William Howard Taft, who had ably served under Presidents Harrison, McKinley, and Roosevelt in various positions. Roosevelt and Taft had been friends since 1890, and Taft had consistently supported President Roosevelt's policies. Roosevelt was determined to install the successor of his choice, and wrote the following to Taft: "Dear Will: Do you want any action about those federal officials? I will break their necks with the utmost cheerfulness if you say the word!". Just weeks later he branded as "false and malicious" the charge that he was using the offices at his disposal to favor Taft. At the 1908 Republican convention, many chanted for "four years more" of a Roosevelt presidency, but Taft won the nomination after Henry Cabot Lodge made it clear that Roosevelt was not interested in a third term.
In the 1908 election, Taft easily defeated the Democratic nominee, three-time candidate William Jennings Bryan. Taft promoted a progressivism that stressed the rule of law; he preferred that judges rather than administrators or politicians make the basic decisions about fairness. Taft usually proved to be a less adroit politician than Roosevelt and lacked the energy and personal magnetism, along with the publicity devices, the dedicated supporters, and the broad base of public support that made Roosevelt so formidable. When Roosevelt realized that lowering the tariff would risk creating severe tensions inside the Republican Party by pitting producers (manufacturers and farmers) against merchants and consumers, he stopped talking about the issue. Taft ignored the risks and tackled the tariff boldly, encouraging reformers to fight for lower rates, and then cutting deals with conservative leaders that kept overall rates high. The resulting Payne-Aldrich tariff of 1909, signed into law early in President Taft's tenure, was too high for most reformers, and Taft's handling of the tariff alienated all sides. While the crisis was building inside the Party, Roosevelt was touring Africa and Europe, to allow Taft to be his own man.
Africa and Europe (1909–1910)
In March 1909, shortly after the end of his presidency, Roosevelt left New York for the Smithsonian-Roosevelt African Expedition, a safari in east and central Africa. Roosevelt's party landed in Mombasa, East Africa (now Kenya) and traveled to the Belgian Congo (now Democratic Republic of the Congo) before following the Nile to Khartoum in modern Sudan. Financed by Andrew Carnegie and by his own writings, Roosevelt's party hunted for specimens for the Smithsonian Institution and for the American Museum of Natural History in New York. The group, led by the hunter-tracker RJ Cunninghame, included scientists from the Smithsonian, and was joined from time to time by Frederick Selous, the famous big game hunter and explorer. Participants on the expedition included Kermit Roosevelt, Edgar Alexander Mearns, Edmund Heller, and John Alden Loring.
Roosevelt and his companions killed or trapped approximately 11,400 animals, from insects and moles to hippopotamuses and elephants. The 1,000 large animals included 512 big game animals, including six rare white rhinos. Tons of salted animals and their skins were shipped to Washington; it took years to mount them all, and the Smithsonian shared many duplicate specimens with other museums. Regarding the large number of animals taken, Roosevelt said, "I can be condemned only if the existence of the National Museum, the American Museum of Natural History, and all similar zoological institutions are to be condemned". He wrote a detailed account of the safari in the book African Game Trails, recounting the excitement of the chase, the people he met, and the flora and fauna he collected in the name of science.
After his safari, Roosevelt traveled north to embark on a tour of Europe. Stopping first in Egypt, he commented favorably on British rule of the region, giving his opinion that Egypt was not yet ready for independence. He refused a meeting with the Pope due to a dispute over a group of Methodists active in Rome, but met with Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, King George V of Great Britain, and other European leaders. In Oslo, Norway, Roosevelt delivered a speech calling for limitations on naval armaments, a strengthening of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, and the creation of a "League of Peace" among the world powers. He also delivered the Romanes Lecture at Oxford, in which he denounced those who sought parallels between the evolution of animal life and the development of society. Though Roosevelt attempted to avoid domestic politics during his time abroad, he met with Gifford Pinchot, who related his own disappointment with the Taft Administration. Pinchot had been forced to resign as head of the forest service after clashing with Taft's Interior Secretary, Richard Ballinger, who had prioritized development over conservation. Roosevelt returned to the United States in June 1910.
Republican Party schism
Roosevelt had attempted to refashion Taft into a second version of himself, but as soon as Taft began to display his individuality, the former president expressed his disenchantment. He was offended on election night when Taft indicated that his success had been possible not just through the efforts of Roosevelt, but also his brother Charley. Roosevelt was further alienated when Taft, intent on becoming his own man, did not consult him about cabinet appointments. Roosevelt and other progressives were ideologically dissatisfied over Taft's conservation policies and his handling of the tariff when he concentrated more power in the hands of conservative party leaders in Congress. Regarding radicalism and liberalism, Roosevelt wrote a British friend in 1911:
Fundamentally it is the radical liberal with whom I sympathize. He is at least working toward the end for which I think we should all of us strive; and when he adds sanity in moderation to courage and enthusiasm for high ideals he develops into the kind of statesman whom alone I can wholeheartedly support."
Roosevelt urged progressives to take control of the Republican Party at the state and local level and to avoid splitting the party in a way that would hand the presidency to the Democrats in 1912. Additionally, Roosevelt expressed optimism about the Taft Administration after meeting with the president in the White House in June 1910.
In August 1910, Roosevelt gained national attention with a speech at Osawatomie, Kansas, which was the most radical of his career and marked his public break with Taft and the conservative Republicans. Advocating a program of "New Nationalism", Roosevelt emphasized the priority of labor over capital interests, a need to more effectively control corporate creation and combination, and proposed a ban on corporate political contributions. Returning to New York, Roosevelt began a battle to take control of the state Republican party from William Barnes Jr., Tom Platt's successor as the state party boss, whom he would later confront in the Barnes vs. Roosevelt Libel Trial. Taft had pledged his support to Roosevelt in this endeavor, and Roosevelt was outraged when Taft's support failed to materialize at the 1910 state convention. Roosevelt nonetheless campaigned for the Republicans in the 1910 elections, in which the Democrats gained control of the House for the first time since the 1890s. Among the newly elected Democrats was New York state senator Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who argued that he represented his distant cousin's policies better than his Republican opponent.
The Republican progressives interpreted the 1910 defeats as a compelling argument for the complete reorganization of the party in 1911. Senator Robert M. La Follette of Wisconsin joined with Pinchot, William White, and California Governor Hiram Johnson to create the National Progressive Republican League; their objectives were to defeat the power of political bossism at the state level and to replace Taft at the national level. Despite skepticism of La Follette's new league, Roosevelt expressed general support for progressive principles. Between January and April 1911, Roosevelt wrote a series of articles for The Outlook, defending what he called "the great movement of our day, the progressive nationalist movement against special privilege, and in favor of an honest and efficient political and industrial democracy". With Roosevelt apparently uninterested in running in 1912, La Follette declared his own candidacy in June 1911. Roosevelt continually criticized Taft after the 1910 elections, and the break between the two men became final after the Justice Department filed an antitrust lawsuit against US Steel in September 1911; Roosevelt was humiliated by this suit because he had personally approved of an acquisition that the Justice Department was now challenging. However, Roosevelt was still unwilling to run against Taft in 1912; he instead hoped to run in 1916 against whichever Democrat beat Taft in 1912.
Dispute over arbitration treaties
Taft was a major advocate of arbitration as a major reform of the Progressive Era. In 1911 Taft and his Secretary of State Philander C. Knox negotiated major treaties with Great Britain and with France providing that differences be arbitrated. Disputes had to be submitted to the Hague Court or other tribunal. These were signed in August 1911 but had to be ratified by a two-thirds vote of the Senate. Neither Taft nor Knox consulted with members of the Senate during the negotiating process. By then many Republicans were opposed to Taft, and the president felt that lobbying too hard for the treaties might cause their defeat. He made some speeches supporting the treaties in October, but the Senate added amendments Taft could not accept, killing the agreements.
The arbitration issue opens a window on a bitter philosophical dispute among American progressives. Some, led by Taft looked to legal arbitration as the best alternative to warfare. Taft was a constitutional lawyer who later became Chief Justice; he had a deep understanding of the legal issues. Taft's political base was the conservative business community that largely supported peace movements before 1914. However, his mistake, in this case, was a failure to mobilize that base. The businessmen believed that economic rivalries were the cause of war, and that extensive trade led to an interdependent world that would make war a very expensive and useless anachronism.
However, an opposing faction of progressives, led by Roosevelt, ridiculed arbitration as foolhardy idealism, and insisted on the realism of warfare as the only solution to serious international disputes. Roosevelt worked with his close friend Senator Henry Cabot Lodge to impose those amendments that ruined the goals of the treaties. Lodge thought the treaties impinged too much on senatorial prerogatives. Roosevelt, however, was acting to sabotage Taft's campaign promises. At a deeper level, Roosevelt truly believed that arbitration was a naïve solution and the great issues had to be decided by warfare. The Rooseveltian approach incorporated a near-mystical faith of the ennobling nature of war. It endorsed jingoistic nationalism as opposed to the businessmen's calculation of profit and national interest.
Election of 1912
Republican primaries and convention
In November 1911, a group of Ohio Republicans endorsed Roosevelt for the party's nomination for president; the endorsers included James R. Garfield and Dan Hanna. This endorsement was made by leaders of President Taft's home state. Roosevelt conspicuously declined to make a statement—requested by Garfield—that he would flatly refuse a nomination. Soon thereafter, Roosevelt said, "I am really sorry for Taft... I am sure he means well, but he means well feebly, and he does not know how! He is utterly unfit for leadership and this is a time when we need leadership." In January 1912, Roosevelt declared "if the people make a draft on me I shall not decline to serve". Later that year, Roosevelt spoke before the Constitutional Convention in Ohio, openly identifying as a progressive and endorsing progressive reforms—even endorsing popular review of state judicial decisions. In reaction to Roosevelt's proposals for popular overrule of court decisions, Taft said, "Such extremists are not progressives—they are political emotionalists or neurotics".
Roosevelt began to envision himself as the savior of the Republican Party from defeat in the upcoming presidential election. In February 1912, Roosevelt announced in Boston, "I will accept the nomination for president if it is tendered to me. I hope that so far as possible the people may be given the chance through direct primaries to express who shall be the nominee. Elihu Root and Henry Cabot Lodge thought that division of the party would lead to its defeat in the next election, while Taft believed that he would be defeated either in the Republican primary or in the general election.
The 1912 primaries represented the first extensive use of the presidential primary, a reform achievement of the progressive movement. The Republican primaries in the South, where party regulars dominated, went for Taft, as did results in New York, Indiana, Michigan, Kentucky and Massachusetts. Meanwhile, Roosevelt won in Illinois, Minnesota, Nebraska, South Dakota, California, Maryland and Pennsylvania; Roosevelt also won Taft's home state of Ohio. These primary elections, while demonstrating Roosevelt's continuing popularity with the electorate, were not pivotal. The final credentials of the state delegates at the national convention were determined by the national committee, which was controlled by the party leaders, headed by the incumbent president.
Prior to the 1912 Republican National Convention in Chicago, Roosevelt expressed doubt about his prospects for victory, noting that Taft had more delegates and control of the credentials committee. His only hope was to convince party leaders that the nomination of Taft would hand the election to the Democrats, but party leaders were determined not to cede their leadership to Roosevelt. The credentials committee awarded almost all contested delegates to Taft, and Taft won the nomination on the first ballot. Black delegates from the South played a key role: they voted heavily for Taft and put him over the top. La Follette also helped Taft's candidacy; he hoped that a deadlocked convention would result in his own nomination, and refused to release his delegates to support Roosevelt.
The Progressive ("Bull Moose") Party
Once his defeat at the Republican convention appeared probable, Roosevelt announced that he would "accept the progressive nomination on a progressive platform and I shall fight to the end, win or lose". At the same time, Roosevelt prophetically said, "My feeling is that the Democrats will probably win if they nominate a progressive".
Roosevelt left the Republican Party and created the Progressive Party, structuring it as a permanent organization that would field complete tickets at the presidential and state level. The party included Roosevelt and key allies such as Pinchot, Cornelia Bryce Pinchot (Pinchot's wife and a longtime friend of Roosevelt's), and Albert Beveridge. The new party was popularly known as the "Bull Moose Party" after Roosevelt told reporters, "I'm as fit as a bull moose". At the 1912 Progressive National Convention, Roosevelt cried out, "We stand at Armageddon and we battle for the Lord." California Governor Hiram Johnson was nominated as Roosevelt's running mate. Roosevelt's platform echoed his 1907–1908 proposals, calling for vigorous government intervention to protect the people from selfish interests:
Though many Progressive party supporters in the North were supporters of civil rights for blacks, Roosevelt did not give strong support to civil rights and ran a "lily-white" campaign in the South. Rival all-white and all-black delegations from four southern states arrived at the Progressive national convention, and Roosevelt decided to seat the all-white delegations. Nevertheless, he won little support outside mountain Republican strongholds. Out of nearly 1100 counties in the South, Roosevelt won two counties in Alabama, one in Arkansas, seven in North Carolina, three in Georgia, 17 in Tennessee, two in Texas, one in Virginia, and none in Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, or South Carolina.
Assassination attempt
On October 14, 1912, while arriving at a campaign event in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Roosevelt was shot from seven feet away in front of the Gilpatrick Hotel by a delusional saloonkeeper named John Flammang Schrank, who believed that the ghost of assassinated president William McKinley had directed him to kill Roosevelt. The bullet lodged in his chest after penetrating his steel eyeglass case and passing through a 50-page-thick single-folded copy of the speech titled "Progressive Cause Greater Than Any Individual", which he was carrying in his jacket. Schrank was immediately disarmed (by Czech immigrant Frank Bukovsky), captured, and might have been lynched had Roosevelt not shouted for Schrank to remain unharmed. Roosevelt assured the crowd he was all right, then ordered police to take charge of Schrank and to make sure no violence was done to him.
As an experienced hunter and anatomist, Roosevelt correctly concluded that since he was not coughing blood, the bullet had not reached his lung. He declined suggestions to go to the hospital immediately and instead delivered a 90 minute speech with blood seeping into his shirt. His opening comments to the gathered crowd were, "Ladies and gentlemen, I don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot, but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose." Only after finishing his address did he accept medical attention.
Subsequent probes and an x-ray showed that the bullet had lodged in Roosevelt's chest muscle, but did not penetrate the pleura. Doctors concluded that it would be less dangerous to leave it in place than to attempt to remove it, and Roosevelt carried the bullet with him for the rest of his life. Both Taft and Democratic nominee Woodrow Wilson suspended their own campaigning until Roosevelt recovered and resumed his. When asked if the shooting would affect his election campaign, he said to the reporter "I'm fit as a bull moose." The bull moose became a symbol of both Roosevelt and the Progressive Party, and it often was referred to as simply the Bull Moose Party. He spent two weeks recuperating before returning to the campaign trail. He later wrote a friend about the bullet inside him, "I do not mind it any more than if it were in my waistcoat pocket."
Farewell manifesto
On October 20, Roosevelt spoke to a crowd of 16,000 at Madison Square Garden. The speech included: "Perhaps once in a generation, there comes a chance for the people of a country to play their part wisely and fearlessly in some great battle of the age-long warfare for human rights."
Election results
After the Democrats nominated Governor Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey, Roosevelt did not expect to win the general election, as Wilson had compiled a record attractive to many progressive Democrats who might have otherwise considered voting for Roosevelt. Roosevelt still campaigned vigorously, and the election developed into a two-person contest between Wilson and Roosevelt despite Taft's presence in the race. Roosevelt respected Wilson, but the two differed on various issues; Wilson opposed any federal intervention regarding women's suffrage or child labor (he viewed these as state issues), and attacked Roosevelt's tolerance of large businesses.
Roosevelt won 4.1 million votes (27%), compared to Taft's 3.5 million (23%). Wilson gained 6.3 million votes (42% of the total) and a massive landslide in the Electoral College, with 435 electoral votes; Roosevelt won 88 electoral votes, while Taft won 8. Pennsylvania was the only eastern state won by Roosevelt; in the Midwest, he carried Michigan, Minnesota, and South Dakota; in the West, California, and Washington. Wilson's victory represented the first Democratic presidential election victory since Cleveland's 1892 campaign, and it was the party's best performance in the Electoral College since 1852. Roosevelt, meanwhile, garnered a higher share of the popular vote than any other third-party presidential candidate in history and won the most states of any third-party candidate after the Civil War.
South American expedition (1913-1914)
A friend of Roosevelt's, Father John Augustine Zahm, persuaded Roosevelt to participate in an expedition to South America. To finance the expedition, Roosevelt received support from the American Museum of Natural History in return for promising to bring back many new animal specimens. Roosevelt's popular book, Through the Brazilian Wilderness describes his expedition into the Brazilian jungle in 1913 as a member of the Roosevelt-Rondon Scientific Expedition, co-named after its leader, Brazilian explorer Cândido Rondon.
Once in South America, a new, far more ambitious goal was added: to find the headwaters of the Rio da Duvida (Portuguese for "River of Doubt"), and trace it north to the Madeira and thence to the Amazon River. It was later renamed Roosevelt River in honor of the former president. Roosevelt's crew consisted of his son Kermit, Colonel Rondon, naturalist George Kruck Cherrie (sent by the American Museum of Natural History), Brazilian Lieutenant João Lira, team physician Dr. José Antonio Cajazeira, and 16 skilled paddlers and porters. Roosevelt also identified Leo Miller (another AMNH recommendation), Anthony Fiala, Frank Harper, and Jacob Sigg as crew members. The initial expedition started somewhat tenuously on December 9, 1913, at the height of the rainy season. The trip down the River of Doubt started on February 27, 1914.
During the trip down the river, Roosevelt suffered a minor leg wound after he jumped into the river to try to prevent two canoes from smashing against the rocks. The flesh wound he received, however, soon gave him tropical fever that resembled the malaria he had contracted while in Cuba fifteen years before. Because the bullet lodged in his chest from the assassination attempt in 1912 was never removed, his health worsened from the infection. This weakened Roosevelt so greatly that six weeks into the adventure, he had to be attended to day and night by the expedition's physician and his son Kermit. By then, he could not walk because of the infection in his injured leg and an infirmity in the other, which was due to a traffic accident a decade earlier. Roosevelt was riddled with chest pains, fighting a fever that soared to and at times made him delirious, at one point constantly reciting the first two lines of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem "Kubla Khan": "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan / A stately pleasure dome decree". Regarding his condition as a threat to the survival of the others, Roosevelt insisted he be left behind to allow the poorly provisioned expedition to proceed as rapidly as it could, preparing to commit suicide with an overdose of morphine. Only an appeal by his son persuaded him to continue.
Despite Roosevelt's continued decline and loss of over , Colonel Rondon reduced the pace of the expedition to allow for his commission's mapmaking and other geographical tasks, which required regular stops to fix the expedition's position by sun-based survey. Upon Roosevelt's return to New York, friends and family were startled by his physical appearance and fatigue. Roosevelt wrote, perhaps prophetically, to a friend that the trip had cut his life short by ten years. For the rest of his few remaining years, he would be plagued by flare-ups of malaria and leg inflammations so severe as to require surgery. Before Roosevelt had even completed his sea voyage home, critics raised doubts over his claims of exploring and navigating a completely uncharted river over long. When he had recovered sufficiently, he addressed a standing-room-only convention organized in Washington, D.C., by the National Geographic Society and satisfactorily defended his claims.
Final years
Roosevelt returned to the United States in May 1914. Though he was outraged by the Wilson Administration's conclusion of a treaty that expressed "sincere regret" for the way in which the United States had acquired the Panama Canal Zone, he was impressed by many of the reforms passed under Wilson. Roosevelt made several campaign appearances for the Progressives, but the 1914 elections were a disaster for the fledgling third party. Roosevelt began to envision another campaign for president, this time with himself at the head of the Republican Party, but conservative party leaders remained opposed to Roosevelt. In hopes of engineering a joint nomination, the Progressives scheduled the 1916 Progressive National Convention at the same time as the 1916 Republican National Convention. When the Republicans nominated Charles Evans Hughes, Roosevelt declined the Progressive nomination and urged his Progressive followers to support the Republican candidate. Though Roosevelt had long disliked Hughes, he disliked Wilson even more, and he campaigned energetically for the Republican nominee. However, Wilson won the 1916 election by a narrow margin. The Progressives disappeared as a party following the 1916 election, and Roosevelt and many of his followers permanently re-joined the Republican Party.
World War I
When the First World War began in 1914, Roosevelt strongly supported the Allies and demanded a harsher policy against Germany, especially regarding submarine warfare. Roosevelt angrily denounced the foreign policy of President Wilson, calling it a failure regarding the atrocities in Belgium and the violations of American rights. In 1916, while campaigning for Hughes, Roosevelt repeatedly denounced Irish-Americans and German-Americans whom he described as unpatriotic, saying they put the interests of Ireland and Germany ahead of America's by supporting neutrality. He insisted that one had to be 100% American, not a "hyphenated American" who juggled multiple loyalties. In March 1917, Congress gave Roosevelt the authority to raise a maximum of four divisions similar to the Rough Riders, and Major Frederick Russell Burnham was put in charge of both the general organization and recruitment. However, President Wilson announced to the press that he would not send Roosevelt and his volunteers to France, but instead would send an American Expeditionary Force under the command of General John J. Pershing. Roosevelt never forgave Wilson, and quickly published The Foes of Our Own Household, an indictment of the sitting president. Roosevelt's youngest son, Quentin, a pilot with the American forces in France, was killed when shot down behind German lines on July 14, 1918, at the age of 20. It is said that Quentin's death distressed Roosevelt so much that he never recovered from his loss.
League of Nations
Roosevelt was an early supporter of the modern view that there needs to be a global order. In his Nobel prize address of 1910, he said, "it would be a master stroke if those great Powers honestly bent on peace would form a League of Peace, not only to keep the peace among themselves, but to prevent, by force if necessary, its being broken by others." It would have executive power such as the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 lacked. He called for American participation.
When World War I broke out, Roosevelt proposed "a World League for the Peace of Righteousness", in September 1914, which would preserve sovereignty but limit armaments and require arbitration. He added that it should be "solemnly covenanted that if any nations refused to abide by the decisions of such a court, then others draw the sword in behalf of peace and justice." In 1915 he outlined this plan more specifically, urging that nations guarantee their entire military force, if necessary, against any nation that refused to carry out arbitration decrees or violated rights of other nations. Though Roosevelt had some concerns about the impact on United States sovereignty, he insisted that such a league would only work if the United States participated as one of the "joint guarantors". Roosevelt referred to this plan in a 1918 speech as "the most feasible for...a league of nations." By this time Wilson was strongly hostile to Roosevelt and Lodge, and developed his own plans for a rather different League of Nations. It became reality along Wilson's lines at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. Roosevelt denounced Wilson's approach but died before it was adopted at Paris. However, Lodge was willing to accept it with serious reservations. In the end, on March 19, 1920, Wilson had Democratic Senators vote against the League with the Lodge Reservations and the United States never joined the League of Nations.
Final political activities
Roosevelt's attacks on Wilson helped the Republicans win control of Congress in the midterm elections of 1918. He declined a request from New York Republicans to run for another gubernatorial term, but attacked Wilson's Fourteen Points, calling instead for the unconditional surrender of Germany. Though his health was uncertain, he was seen as a leading contender for the 1920 Republican nomination, but insisted that, "If they take me, they'll have to take me without a single modification of the things that I have always stood for! He wrote William Allen White, "I wish to do everything in my power to make the Republican Party the Party of sane, constructive radicalism, just as it was under Lincoln." Accordingly, he told the 1918 state convention of the Maine Republican Party that he stood for old-age pensions, insurance for sickness and unemployment, construction of public housing for low-income families, the reduction of working hours, aid to farmers, and more regulation of large corporations.
While his political profile remained high, Roosevelt's physical condition continued to deteriorate throughout 1918 due to the long-term effects of jungle diseases. He was hospitalized for seven weeks late in the year and never fully recovered.
Death
On the night of January 5, 1919, Roosevelt suffered breathing problems. After receiving treatment from his physician, Dr. George W. Faller, he felt better and went to bed. Roosevelt's last words were "Please put out that light, James" to his family servant James E. Amos. Between 4:00 and 4:15 the next morning, Roosevelt, at the age of 60, died in his sleep at Sagamore Hill after a blood clot detached from a vein and traveled to his lungs.
Upon receiving word of his death, his son Archibald telegraphed his siblings: "The old lion is dead." Woodrow Wilson's vice president, Thomas R. Marshall, said that "Death had to take Roosevelt sleeping, for if he had been awake, there would have been a fight." Following a private farewell service in the North Room at Sagamore Hill, a simple funeral was held at Christ Episcopal Church in Oyster Bay. Vice President Thomas R. Marshall, Charles Evans Hughes, Warren G. Harding, Henry Cabot Lodge, and William Howard Taft were among the mourners. The snow-covered procession route to Youngs Memorial Cemetery was lined with spectators and a squad of mounted policemen who had ridden from New York City. Roosevelt was buried on a hillside overlooking Oyster Bay.
Writer
Roosevelt was a prolific author, writing with passion on subjects ranging from foreign policy to the importance of the national park system. Roosevelt was also an avid reader of poetry. Poet Robert Frost said that Roosevelt "was our kind. He quoted poetry to me. He knew poetry."
As an editor of Outlook magazine, Roosevelt had weekly access to a large, educated national audience. In all, Roosevelt wrote about 18 books (each in several editions), including his autobiography, The Rough Riders, History of the Naval War of 1812, and others on subjects such as ranching, explorations, and wildlife. His most ambitious book was the four volume narrative The Winning of the West, focused on the American frontier in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Roosevelt said that the American character—indeed a new "American race" (ethnic group) had emerged from the heroic wilderness hunters and Indian fighters, acting on the frontier with little government help. Roosevelt also published an account of his 1909–10 African expedition entitled African Game Trails.
In 1907, Roosevelt became embroiled in a widely publicized literary debate known as the nature fakers controversy. A few years earlier, naturalist John Burroughs had published an article entitled "Real and Sham Natural History" in the Atlantic Monthly, attacking popular writers of the day such as Ernest Thompson Seton, Charles G. D. Roberts, and William J. Long for their fantastical representations of wildlife. Roosevelt agreed with Burroughs's criticisms, and published several essays of his own denouncing the booming genre of "naturalistic" animal stories as "yellow journalism of the woods". It was the President himself who popularized the negative term "nature faker" to describe writers who depicted their animal characters with excessive anthropomorphism.
Character and beliefs
Roosevelt intensely disliked being called "Teddy", despite the widespread public association with said moniker, and was quick to point out this to those who referred to him as such, though it would become widely used by newspapers during his political career.
He was an active Freemason and member of the Sons of the American Revolution.
British scholar Marcus Cunliffe evaluates the liberal argument that Roosevelt was an opportunist, exhibitionist, and imperialist. Cunliffe praises TR's versatility, his respect for law, and his sincerity. He argues that Roosevelt's foreign policy was better than his detractors allege. Cunliffe calls him "a big man in several respects," ranking him below Washington, Lincoln, and Jefferson, and on the same level as Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Strenuous life
Roosevelt had a lifelong interest in pursuing what he called, in an 1899 speech, "The Strenuous Life". To this end, he exercised regularly and took up boxing, tennis, hiking, rowing, polo, and horseback riding. He also continued his habit of skinny-dipping in the Potomac River during the winter. As governor of New York, he boxed with sparring partners several times each week, a practice he regularly continued as president until being hit so hard in the face he became blind in his left eye (a fact not made public until many years later). As president, he practiced judo for two 2-month periods in 1902 and 1904, not attaining any rank. Roosevelt began to believe in the utility of jiu-jitsu training after training with Yoshitsugu Yamashita. Concerned that the United States would lose its military supremacy to rising powers like Japan, Roosevelt began to advocate for jiu-jitsu training for American soldiers. Feminists annoyed by the posturing of men like Roosevelt, insisted that women were just as capable of learning jiu-jitsu. To prove their point, Martha Blow Wadsworth and Maria Louise ("Hallie") Davis Elkins hired Fude Yamashita, a highly skilled jiu-jitsu instructor and the wife of Yoshitsugu Yamashita, to teach a jiu-jitsu class for women and girls in Washington, DC in 1904. Women had already begun training in boxing in the United States as a means of personal and political empowerment. Jiu-jitsu training thus soon also became popular with American women, coinciding with the origins of a women's self-defense movement.
Roosevelt was an enthusiastic singlestick player and, according to Harper's Weekly, showed up at a White House reception with his arm bandaged after a bout with General Leonard Wood in 1905. Roosevelt was an avid reader, reading tens of thousands of books, at a rate of several per day in multiple languages. Along with Thomas Jefferson, Roosevelt was the most well-read of all American presidents.
Warrior
Historians have often emphasized Roosevelt's warrior persona. He took aggressive positions regarding war with Spain in 1898, Colombia in 1903, and especially with Germany, from 1915 to 1917. As a demonstration of American naval might, he sent the "Great White Fleet" around the world in 1907–1909. The implicit threat of the "big stick" of military power provided leverage to "speak softly" and quietly resolve conflict in numerous cases. He boasted in his autobiography:
Richard D. White Jr states, "Roosevelt's warrior spirit framed his views of national politics, [and] international relations."
Historian Howard K. Beale has argued:
Religion
Roosevelt attended church regularly and was a lifelong adherent of the Reformed Church in America, an American affiliate of the Dutch Reformed Church. In 1907, concerning the motto "In God We Trust" on money, he wrote, "It seems to me eminently unwise to cheapen such a motto by use on coins, just as it would be to cheapen it by use on postage stamps, or in advertisements." Roosevelt talked a great deal about religion. Biographer Edmund Morris states:
Roosevelt publicly encouraged church attendance and was a conscientious churchgoer himself. When gas rationing was introduced during the First World War, he walked the three miles from his home at Sagamore Hill to the local church and back, even after a serious operation had made it difficult for him to travel by foot. It was said that Roosevelt "allowed no engagement to keep him from going to church," and he remained a fervent advocate of the Bible throughout his adult life. According to Christian F. Reisner, writing in 1922 shortly after Roosevelt's death, "Religion was as natural to Mr. Roosevelt as breathing," and when the travel library for Roosevelt's famous Smithsonian-sponsored African expedition was being assembled, the Bible was, according to his sister, "the first book selected." In an address delivered in his home at Oyster Bay to the Long Island Bible Society in 1901, Roosevelt declared that:
Political positions
When he assumed the presidency, Roosevelt reassured many conservatives, stating, "the mechanism of modern business is so delicate that extreme care must be taken not to interfere with it in a spirit of rashness or ignorance." The following year, Roosevelt asserted the president's independence from business interests by opposing the merger which created the Northern Securities Company, and many were surprised that any president, much less an unelected one, would challenge powerful banker J.P. Morgan. In his last two years as president, Roosevelt became increasingly distrustful of big business, despite its close ties to the Republican Party. Roosevelt sought to replace the 19th-century laissez-faire economic environment with a new economic model which included a larger regulatory role for the federal government. He believed that 19th-century entrepreneurs had risked their fortunes on innovations and new businesses, and that these capitalists had been rightly rewarded. By contrast, he believed that 20th-century capitalists risked little but nonetheless reaped huge and, given the lack of risk, unjust, economic rewards. Without a redistribution of wealth away from the upper class, Roosevelt feared that the country would turn to radicals or fall to revolution. His Square Deal domestic program had three main goals: conservation of natural resources, control of corporations, and consumer protection. The Square Deal evolved into his program of "New Nationalism", which emphasized the priority of labor over capital interests and a need to more effectively control corporate creation and combination, and proposed a ban on corporate political contributions.
Foreign policy beliefs
In the analysis by Henry Kissinger, Theodore Roosevelt was the first president to develop the guideline that it was America's duty to make its enormous power and potential influence felt globally. The idea of being a passive "city on the hill" model that others could look up to, he rejected. Roosevelt, trained in biology, was a social darwinist who believed in survival of the fittest. The international world in his view was a realm of violence and conflict. The United States had all the economic and geographical potential to be the fittest nation on the globe. The United States had a duty to act decisively. For example, in terms of the Monroe Doctrine, America had to prevent European incursions in the Western Hemisphere. But there was more, as he expressed in his famous Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine: the U.S. had to be the policeman of the region because unruly, corrupt smaller nations had to be controlled, and if United States did not do it, European powers would in fact intervene and develop their own base of power in the hemisphere in contravention to the Monroe Doctrine.
Roosevelt was a realist and a conservative. He deplored many of the increasingly popular idealistic liberal themes, such as were promoted by William Jennings Bryan, the anti-imperialists, and Woodrow Wilson. Kissinger says he rejected the efficacy of international law. Roosevelt argue that if a country could not protect its own interests, the international community could not help very much. He ridiculed disarmament proposals that were increasingly common. He saw no likelihood of an international power capable of checking wrongdoing on a major scale. As for world government: I regard the Wilson–Bryan attitude of trusting to fantastic peace treaties, too impossible promises, to all kinds of scraps of paper without any backing in efficient force, as abhorrent. It is infinitely better for a nation and for the world to have the Frederick the Great and Bismarck tradition as regards foreign policy than to have the Bryan or Bryan–Wilson attitude as a permanent national attitude.... A milk-and-water righteousness unbacked by force is...as wicked as and even more mischievous than force divorced from righteousness.
On the positive side, Roosevelt favored spheres of influence, whereby one great power would generally prevail, such as the United States in the Western Hemisphere or Great Britain in the Indian subcontinent. Japan fit that role and he approved. However he had deep distrust of both Germany and Russia.
Legacy
Historians credit Roosevelt for changing the nation's political system by permanently placing the "bully pulpit" of the presidency at center stage and making character as important as the issues. His accomplishments include trust busting and conservationism. He is a hero to liberals and progressives for his proposals in 1907–1912 that presaged the modern welfare state of the New Deal Era, including direct federal taxation, labor reforms, and more direct democracy, while conservationists admire Roosevelt for putting the environment and selflessness towards future generations on the national agenda, and conservatives and nationalists respect his commitment to law and order, civic duty and military values, as well as his personality of individual self-responsibility and hardiness. Dalton says, "Today he is heralded as the architect of the modern presidency, as a world leader who boldly reshaped the office to meet the needs of the new century and redefined America's place in the world."
However, liberals and socialists have criticized him for his interventionist and imperialist approach to nations he considered "uncivilized". Conservatives and libertarians reject his vision of the welfare state and emphasis on the superiority of government over private action. Historians typically rank Roosevelt among the top five presidents in American history.
Persona and masculinity
Dalton says Roosevelt is remembered as, "one of the most picturesque personalities who has ever enlivened the landscape". His friend, historian Henry Adams, proclaimed: "Roosevelt, more than any other man... showed the singular primitive quality that belongs to ultimate matter—the quality that medieval theology assigned to God—he was pure act."
Roosevelt's biographers have stressed his personality. Henry F. Pringle, who won the Pulitzer Prize in biography for his Theodore Roosevelt (1931) stated: "The Theodore Roosevelt of later years was the most adolescent of men… Failure to receive the Medal of Honor for his exploits [in Cuba] had been a grief as real as any of those which swamp childhood in despair. 'You must always remember,' wrote Cecil Spring Rice in 1904, 'that the President is about six.'"
Cooper compared him with Woodrow Wilson and argued that both of them played the roles of warrior and priest. Dalton stressed Roosevelt's strenuous life. Sarah Watts examined the desires of the "Rough Rider in the White House". Brands calls Roosevelt "the last romantic", arguing that his romantic concept of life emerged from his belief that "physical bravery was the highest virtue and war the ultimate test of bravery".
Roosevelt as the exemplar of American masculinity has become a major theme. As president, he repeatedly warned men that they were becoming too office-bound, too complacent, too comfortable with physical ease and moral laxity, and were failing in their duties to propagate the race and exhibit masculine vigor. French historian Serge Ricard says, "the ebullient apostle of the Strenuous Life offers ideal material for a detailed psycho-historical analysis of aggressive manhood in the changing socio-cultural environment of his era; McKinley, Taft, or Wilson would perhaps inadequately serve that purpose". He promoted competitive sports like boxing and jiu-jitsu for physically strengthening American men. He also believed that organizations like the Boy Scouts of America, founded in 1910, could help mold and strengthen the character of American boys. Brands shows that heroic displays of bravery were essential to Roosevelt's image and mission:
Memorials and cultural depictions
Roosevelt was included with Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln at the Mount Rushmore Memorial, designed in 1927 with the approval of Republican President Calvin Coolidge.
For his gallantry at San Juan Hill, Roosevelt's commanders recommended him for the Medal of Honor. However, the initial recommendation lacked any eyewitnesses, and the effort was eventually tainted by Roosevelt's own lobbying of the War Department. In the late 1990s, Roosevelt's supporters again recommended the award, which was denied by the Secretary of the Army on basis that the decorations board determined "Roosevelt's bravery in battle did not rise to the level that would justify the Medal of Honor and, indeed, it did not rise to the level of men who fought in that engagement." Nevertheless, politicians apparently convinced the secretary to reconsider the award a third time and reverse himself, leading to the charge that it was a "politically motivated award." On January 16, 2001, President Bill Clinton awarded Theodore Roosevelt the Medal of Honor posthumously for his charge on San Juan Hill. He is the only president to have received the Medal of Honor.
The United States Navy named two ships for Roosevelt: the , a submarine that was in commission from 1961 to 1982, and the , an aircraft carrier that has been on active duty in the Atlantic Fleet since 1986.
On November 18, 1956, the United States Postal Service released a 6¢ Liberty Issue postage stamp honoring Roosevelt. A 32¢ stamp was issued on February 3, 1998, as part of the Celebrate the Century stamp sheet series. In 2008, Columbia Law School awarded Roosevelt a Juris Doctor degree, posthumously making him a member of the class of 1882.
Roosevelt's "Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick" ideology is still quoted by politicians and columnists in different countries—not only in English, but also in translations to various other languages. Another lasting, popular legacy of Roosevelt is the stuffed toy bears—teddy bears—named after him following an incident on a hunting trip in Mississippi in 1902. Roosevelt has been portrayed in films and television series such as Brighty of the Grand Canyon, The Wind and the Lion, Rough Riders, My Friend Flicka, and Law of the Plainsman. Robin Williams portrayed Roosevelt in the form of a wax mannequin that comes to life in Night at the Museum and its sequels Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian and Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb. In 2017, it was announced that Leonardo DiCaprio will portray Roosevelt in a biopic to be directed by Martin Scorsese.
Moreover, Theodore Roosevelt National Park in the state of North Dakota is named after him. The America the Beautiful Quarters series features Roosevelt riding a horse on the national park's quarter.
Asteroid 188693 Roosevelt, discovered by astronomers with the Catalina Sky Survey in 2005, was named after him. The official was published by the Minor Planet Center on November 8, 2019 ().
In January 2022, after years of lobbying by activists, an equestrian statue of the former president was removed from where it had stood for more than eighty years in front of New York's American Museum of Natural History. Responding to controversy, the museum noted that the design "communicates a racial hierarchy that the museum and members of the public have long found disturbing."
Audiovisual media
Theodore Roosevelt was one of the first presidents whose voice was recorded for posterity. Several of his recorded speeches survive. A 4.6-minute voice recording, which preserves Roosevelt's lower timbre ranges particularly well for its time, is among those available from the Michigan State University libraries (this is the 1912 recording of The Right of the People to Rule, recorded by Edison at Carnegie Hall). The audio clip sponsored by the Authentic History Center includes his defense of the Progressive Party in 1912, wherein he proclaims it the "party of the people" – in contrast with the other major parties.
Roosevelt goes for a ride in Arch Hoxsey's plane in October 1910
In popular culture
Theodore Roosevelt appears as the leader of the American civilization in the Firaxis Games title Civilization VI. His unique ability is Roosevelt Corollary, which gives +5 Combat Strength for all units inside America's home continent, and +1 Appeal to all tiles in cities with a national park.
See also
Notes
References
Bibliography
Full biographies
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, 105 pp, very short biography by leading scholar.
.; also titled Power and responsibility; the life and times of Theodore Roosevelt online free to borrow
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, only volume published, to age 28.
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Personality and activities
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Provides a lesson plan on TR as the historical figure who most exemplifies the quality of masculinity.
. Chronicles the events of TR's presidency during the summers of his two terms.
. The president's use of publicity, rhetoric and force of personality.
; his deadly 1913–14 trip to the Amazon.
, best seller; to 1886.
, to 1884.
. 494 pp.
, examines TR and his family during the World War I period.
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, 240 pp. TR in Africa & Europe, 1909–10
. 289 pp.
, 337 pp; TR's political thought and its significance for republican self-government.
Domestic policies
online review; another online review
Cutright, P.R. (1985) Theodore Roosevelt: The making of a Modern Conservationist (U of Illinois Press.)
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, standard history of his domestic and foreign policy as president.
Bakari, Mohamed El-Kamel. "Mapping the 'Anthropocentric-ecocentric'Dualism in the History of American Presidency: The Good, the Bad, and the Ambivalent." Journal of Studies in Social Sciences 14, no. 2 (2016).
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Redekop, Benjamin. (2015). "Embodying the Story: The Conservation Leadership of Theodore Roosevelt". Leadership (2015) DOI:10.1177/1742715014546875 online
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Politics
. How TR did politics.
, 323 pp.
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. 361 pp.
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. Focus on 1912; online free
. online free
. Attacks TR policies from conservative/libertarian perspective.
Foreign policy, military and naval issues
. online
. excerpt
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. 328 pp.
Kuehn, John T. "Theodore Roosevelt’s Naval Diplomacy: The U.S. Navy and the Birth of the American Century," Naval War College Review (2010) 53#3 online
Livermore, Seward W. "Theodore Roosevelt, the American Navy, and the Venezuelan Crisis of 1902-1903." American Historical Review 51.3 (1946): 452–471. online
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Nester, William R. Theodore Roosevelt and the Art of American Power: An American for All Time. Rowman & Littlefield, 2019. excerpt
Neu, Charles E. "Theodore Roosevelt and American Involvement in the Far East, 1901-1909." Pacific Historical Review 35.4 (1966): 433–449. online
O'Gara, Gordon Carpenter. Theodore Roosevelt and the Rise of the Modern Navy. (Princeton UP, 1943). online
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Oyos, Matthew M. In Command: Theodore Roosevelt and the American Military (2018) online review
Pietrusza, David (2018). TR's Last War: Theodore Roosevelt, the Great War, and a Journey of Triumph and Tragedy
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Thompson, John M. Great Power Rising: Theodore Roosevelt and the Politics of US Foreign Policy (Oxford UP, 2019).
. 196 pp.
Turk, Richard W. The Ambiguous Relationship: Theodore Roosevelt and Alfred Thayer Mahan (1987) [https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article-abstract/93/5/1413/70734 online review
Historiography
Cunliffe, Marcus. "Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States 1901–1908" History Today (Sept 1955) 4#9 pp. 592–601, online.
Ricard, Serge. "The State of Theodore Roosevelt Studies" H-Diplo Essay No. 116 24 October 2014 online
, excerpt and text search, 28 new essays by scholars; focus on historiography. online
Primary sources
Kohn, Edward P., ed. A Most Glorious Ride: The Diaries of Theodore Roosevelt, 1877–1886 (State University of New York Press, 2015), 284 pp.
; vol 2
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, 20 vol.; 18,000 pages containing most of TR's speeches, books and essays, but not his letters; a CD-ROM edition is available; some of TR's books are available online through Project Bartleby
, Roosevelt's opinions on many issues; online version at Theodore Roosevelt.
, 8 vols. Very large collection. vol 1 1868–1898 online free
. online free
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online free to borrow
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External links
Official
White House biography
Organizations
Boone and Crockett Club
Theodore Roosevelt Association
Libraries and collections
Theodore Roosevelt Center at Dickinson State University
Theodore Roosevelt Collection, at the Houghton Library, Harvard University
Julian L. Street Papers on Theodore Roosevelt, at the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library, Princeton University
Doris A. and Lawrence H. Budner Collection on Theodore Roosevelt at the DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University
Theodore Roosevelt's journalism at The Archive of American Journalism
Theodore Roosevelt American Museum of Natural History
Roosevelt Papers, at the Library of Congress
Guide to the Herbert R. Strauss Collection of Theodore Roosevelt Papers 1884–1919 at the University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center
Media
"Life Portrait of Theodore Roosevelt", from C-SPAN's American Presidents: Life Portraits, September 3, 1999
"Writings of Theodore Roosevelt" from C-SPAN's American Writers: A Journey Through History
Other
Almanac of Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt: A Resource Guide – Library of Congress
1858 births
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20th-century American male writers | true | [
"Troy Black (born 1983) is an Australian Martial arts Coach.\n\nBlack was recruited by the Australian Institute of Sport at age eight, and went on to be one of the most successful, influential and charismatic figures in Australian martial arts, appearing in magazines, TV shows and the Life: Be In It advertisement series.\n\nAt the age of eighteen, Black represented South Africa in the International Karate Championships, becoming the youngest person ever to win a first place in any senior division.\n\nHe is currently a coach with the Australian National Martial Arts team.\n\nReferences\n\n1983 births\nLiving people\nAustralian male karateka",
"Kim Hyung-gon (; May 31, 1960 – March 11, 2006) was one of the most influential and famous comedians by the time of his death in South Korea. He debuted in 1980, and enjoyed success since then. His comedy routine depicted political figures and corruptions during the time when free speech and other human rights were denied in South Korea. He was also known for making phrase \"잘 돼야 할 텐데\" a hit during the 1990s.Kim also had a nickname called \"Samgyeopsal of terror.\"\n\nLife\nKim was born in Yeongcheon, and as his father was a soldier, he had to move schools multiple times. He participated in a fight for democracy and debuted as a comedian in 1980 at the Tongyang Broadcasting Company comedy contest.Kim was popular for the comedy sketch \"Biryong group\", which satirized the figures from the fifth republic.\n\nDeath\nKim died of a heart attack in a local gym in 2006.\n\nReferences\n\n1960 births\n2006 deaths\nDongguk University alumni\nSouth Korean comedians\n20th-century comedians\nSouth Korean Buddhists"
] |
[
"Theodore Roosevelt",
"Early life and family",
"Where was Theodore Roosevelt born?",
"Theodore Roosevelt Jr. was born on October 27, 1858, at East 20th Street in New York City.",
"Who was his mother?",
"socialite Martha Stewart \"Mittie\" Bulloch",
"What type of work did his father do?",
"businessman and philanthropist",
"Did Roosevelt have any siblings?",
"He had an older sister, Anna (nicknamed \"Bamie\"), a younger brother, Elliott, and a younger sister, Corinne.",
"What were his interests in his early life?",
"Roosevelt's youth was largely shaped by his poor health and debilitating asthma.",
"Did he have any hobbies while growing up?",
"His lifelong interest in zoology began at age seven when he saw a dead seal at a local market;",
"Did he ever overcome his asthma and poor health?",
"Doctors had no cure.",
"Were there any influential figures in his early life?",
"Roosevelt's father significantly influenced him."
] | C_ea2b2d977c0c4d1d93ec5efce7ee7156_1 | Are there any other interesting aspects about this article? | 9 | Other than Theodore Roosevelt's siblings, hobbies, and health, are there any other interesting aspects about this article? | Theodore Roosevelt | Theodore Roosevelt Jr. was born on October 27, 1858, at East 20th Street in New York City. He was the second of four children born to socialite Martha Stewart "Mittie" Bulloch and businessman and philanthropist Theodore Roosevelt Sr. He had an older sister, Anna (nicknamed "Bamie"), a younger brother, Elliott, and a younger sister, Corinne. Elliott was later the father of First Lady Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of Theodore's distant cousin, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. His paternal grandfather was of Dutch descent; his other ancestry included primarily Scottish and Scots-Irish, English and smaller amounts of German, Welsh, and French. Theodore Sr. was the fifth son of businessman Cornelius Van Schaack "C.V.S." Roosevelt and Margaret Barnhill. Theodore's fourth cousin, James Roosevelt I, who was also a businessman, was the father of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Mittie was the younger daughter of Major James Stephens Bulloch and Martha P. "Patsy" Stewart. Through the Van Schaacks, Roosevelt was a descendant of the Schuyler family. Roosevelt's youth was largely shaped by his poor health and debilitating asthma. He repeatedly experienced sudden nighttime asthma attacks that caused the experience of being smothered to death, which terrified both Theodore and his parents. Doctors had no cure. Nevertheless, he was energetic and mischievously inquisitive. His lifelong interest in zoology began at age seven when he saw a dead seal at a local market; after obtaining the seal's head, Roosevelt and two cousins formed what they called the "Roosevelt Museum of Natural History". Having learned the rudiments of taxidermy, he filled his makeshift museum with animals that he killed or caught; he then studied the animals and prepared them for display. At age nine, he recorded his observation of insects in a paper entitled "The Natural History of Insects". Roosevelt's father significantly influenced him. His father was a prominent leader in New York's cultural affairs; he helped to found the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and had been especially active in mobilizing support for the Union during the Civil War, even though his in-laws included Confederate leaders. Roosevelt said, "My father, Theodore Roosevelt, was the best man I ever knew. He combined strength and courage with gentleness, tenderness, and great unselfishness. He would not tolerate in us children selfishness or cruelty, idleness, cowardice, or untruthfulness." Family trips abroad, including tours of Europe in 1869 and 1870, and Egypt in 1872, shaped his cosmopolitan perspective. Hiking with his family in the Alps in 1869, Roosevelt found that he could keep pace with his father. He had discovered the significant benefits of physical exertion to minimize his asthma and bolster his spirits. Roosevelt began a heavy regime of exercise. After being manhandled by two older boys on a camping trip, he found a boxing coach to teach him to fight and strengthen his body. CANNOTANSWER | after obtaining the seal's head, Roosevelt and two cousins formed what they called the "Roosevelt Museum of Natural History". | Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or his initials T. R., was an American politician, statesman, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26th president of the United States from 1901 to 1909. He previously served as the 25th vice president under William McKinley from March to September 1901, and as the 33rd governor of New York from 1899 to 1900. Having assumed the presidency after McKinley's assassination, Roosevelt emerged as a leader of the Republican Party and became a driving force for anti-trust and Progressive policies.
Roosevelt was a sickly child with debilitating asthma but partly overcame his health problems by embracing a strenuous lifestyle. He integrated his exuberant personality, a vast range of interests and achievements into a "cowboy" persona defined by robust masculinity. He was home-schooled and began a lifelong naturalist avocation before attending Harvard. His book The Naval War of 1812 (1882) established his reputation as a learned historian and popular writer. Upon entering politics, he became the leader of the reform faction of Republicans in New York's state legislature. His wife and mother both died in the same night and he was psychologically devastated. He recuperated by buying and operating a cattle ranch in the Dakotas. He served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy under President William McKinley and in 1898 helped plan the highly successful naval war against Spain. He resigned to help form and lead the Rough Riders, a unit that fought the Spanish army in Cuba to great publicity. Returning a war hero, he was elected governor of New York in 1898. The New York state party leadership disliked his ambitious agenda and convinced McKinley to make Roosevelt his running mate in the 1900 election. Roosevelt campaigned vigorously, and the McKinley–Roosevelt ticket won a landslide victory based on a platform of victory, peace and prosperity.
Roosevelt assumed the presidency at age 42 after McKinley was assassinated in September 1901. He remains the youngest person to become president of the United States. Roosevelt was a leader of the progressive movement and championed his "Square Deal" domestic policies, promising the average citizen fairness, breaking of trusts, regulation of railroads, and pure food and drugs. He prioritized conservation and established national parks, forests, and monuments intended to preserve the nation's natural resources. In foreign policy, he focused on Central America where he began construction of the Panama Canal. He expanded the Navy and sent the Great White Fleet on a world tour to project American naval power. His successful efforts to broker the end of the Russo-Japanese War won him the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize. Roosevelt was elected to a full term in 1904 and continued to promote progressive policies. He groomed his close friend William Howard Taft to succeed him in the 1908 presidential election.
Roosevelt grew frustrated with Taft's brand of conservatism and belatedly tried to win the 1912 Republican nomination for president. He failed, walked out, and founded the Progressive Party. He ran in the 1912 presidential election and the split allowed the Democratic nominee Woodrow Wilson to win the election. Following the defeat, Roosevelt led a two-year expedition to the Amazon basin where he nearly died of tropical disease. During World War I, he criticized Wilson for keeping the country out of the war; his offer to lead volunteers to France was rejected. He considered running for president again in 1920, but his health continued to deteriorate. He died in 1919. He is generally ranked in polls of historians and political scientists as one of the five best presidents.
Early life and family
Theodore Roosevelt Jr. was born on October 27, 1858, at 28 East 20th Street in Manhattan, New York City. He was the second of four children born to socialite Martha Stewart "Mittie" Bulloch and businessman and philanthropist Theodore Roosevelt Sr. He had an older sister (Anna, nicknamed "Bamie"), a younger brother (Elliott) and a younger sister (Corinne). Elliott was later the father of First Lady Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of Theodore's distant cousin, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. His paternal grandfather was of Dutch descent; his other ancestry included primarily Scottish and Scots-Irish, English and smaller amounts of German, Welsh and French. Theodore Sr. was the fifth son of businessman Cornelius Van Schaack "C. V. S." Roosevelt and Margaret Barnhill as well as a brother of Robert Roosevelt and James A. Roosevelt. Theodore's fourth cousin, James Roosevelt I, who was also a businessman, was the father of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Mittie was the younger daughter of Major James Stephens Bulloch and Martha P. "Patsy" Stewart. Through the Van Schaacks, Roosevelt was a descendant of the Schuyler family.
Roosevelt's youth was largely shaped by his poor health and debilitating asthma. He repeatedly experienced sudden nighttime asthma attacks that caused the experience of being smothered to death, which terrified both Theodore and his parents. Doctors had no cure. Nevertheless, he was energetic and mischievously inquisitive. His lifelong interest in zoology began at age seven when he saw a dead seal at a local market; after obtaining the seal's head, Roosevelt and two cousins formed what they called the "Roosevelt Museum of Natural History". Having learned the rudiments of taxidermy, he filled his makeshift museum with animals that he killed or caught; he then studied the animals and prepared them for exhibition. At age nine, he recorded his observation of insects in a paper entitled "The Natural History of Insects".
Roosevelt's father significantly influenced him. His father was a prominent leader in New York's cultural affairs; he helped to found the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and had been especially active in mobilizing support for the Union during the Civil War, even though his in-laws included Confederate leaders. Roosevelt said, "My father, Theodore Roosevelt, was the best man I ever knew. He combined strength and courage with gentleness, tenderness, and great unselfishness. He would not tolerate in us children selfishness or cruelty, idleness, cowardice, or untruthfulness." Family trips abroad, including tours of Europe in 1869 and 1870, and Egypt in 1872, shaped his cosmopolitan perspective. Hiking with his family in the Alps in 1869, Roosevelt found that he could keep pace with his father. He had discovered the significant benefits of physical exertion to minimize his asthma and bolster his spirits. Roosevelt began a heavy regime of exercise. After being manhandled by two older boys on a camping trip, he found a boxing coach to teach him to fight and strengthen his body.
A 6-year-old Roosevelt witnessed the funeral procession of Abraham Lincoln from his grandfather's mansion in Union Square, New York City where he was photographed in the window along with his brother Elliott, as confirmed by wife Edith who was also present.
Education
Roosevelt was homeschooled, mostly by tutors and his parents. Biographer H. W. Brands argued that "The most obvious drawback to his home schooling was uneven coverage of the various areas of human knowledge." He was solid in geography and bright in history, biology, French, and German; however, he struggled in mathematics and the classical languages. When he entered Harvard College on September 27, 1876, his father advised: "Take care of your morals first, your health next, and finally your studies." His father's sudden death on February 9, 1878, devastated Roosevelt, but he eventually recovered and doubled his activities.
He did well in science, philosophy, and rhetoric courses but continued to struggle in Latin and Greek. He studied biology intently and was already an accomplished naturalist and a published ornithologist. He read prodigiously with an almost photographic memory. While at Harvard, Roosevelt participated in rowing and boxing; he was once runner-up in an intramural boxing tournament. Roosevelt was a member of the Alpha Delta Phi literary society (later the Fly Club), the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity, and the prestigious Porcellian Club; he was also an editor of The Harvard Advocate. In 1880, Roosevelt graduated Phi Beta Kappa (22nd of 177) from Harvard with an A.B. magna cum laude. Biographer Henry Pringle states:
After his father's death, Roosevelt had inherited $65,000 (), enough to live off comfortably for the rest of his life. Roosevelt gave up his earlier plan of studying natural science and instead decided to attend Columbia Law School, moving back into his family's home in New York City. Roosevelt was an able law student, but he often found law to be irrational. He spent much of his time writing a book on the War of 1812.
Determined to enter politics, Roosevelt began attending meetings at Morton Hall, the 59th Street headquarters of New York's 21st District Republican Association. Though Roosevelt's father had been a prominent member of the Republican Party, the younger Roosevelt made an unorthodox career choice for someone of his class, as most of Roosevelt's peers refrained from becoming too closely involved in politics. Roosevelt found allies in the local Republican Party, and he defeated an incumbent Republican state assemblyman closely tied to the political machine of Senator Roscoe Conkling. After his election victory, Roosevelt decided to drop out of law school, later saying, "I intended to be one of the governing class."
Naval history and strategy
While at Harvard, Roosevelt began a systematic study of the role played by the young United States Navy in the War of 1812. Assisted by two uncles, he scrutinized original source materials and official U.S. Navy records, ultimately publishing The Naval War of 1812 in 1882. The book contained drawings of individual and combined ship maneuvers, charts depicting the differences in iron throw weights of cannon shot between rival forces, and analyses of the differences and similarities between British and American leadership down to the ship-to-ship level. Upon release, The Naval War of 1812 was praised for its scholarship and style, and it remains a standard study of the war.
With the publication of The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660–1783 in 1890, Navy Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan was immediately hailed as the world's outstanding naval theorist by the leaders of Europe. Roosevelt paid very close attention to Mahan's emphasis that only a nation with the world's most powerful fleet could dominate the world's oceans, exert its diplomacy to the fullest, and defend its own borders. He incorporated Mahan's ideas into his views on naval strategy for the remainder of his career.
First marriage and widowerhood
In 1880, Roosevelt married socialite Alice Hathaway Lee. Their daughter, Alice Lee Roosevelt, was born on February 12, 1884. Two days later, the new mother died of an undiagnosed case of kidney failure that had been masked by the pregnancy. In his diary, Roosevelt wrote a large 'X' on the page and then, "The light has gone out of my life." His mother, Mittie, had died of typhoid fever eleven hours earlier at 3:00 a.m., in the same house on 57th Street in Manhattan. Distraught, Roosevelt left baby Alice in the care of his sister Bamie while he grieved; he assumed custody of Alice when she was three.
After the deaths of his wife and mother, Roosevelt focused on his work, specifically by re-energizing a legislative investigation into corruption of the New York City government, which arose from a concurrent bill proposing that power be centralized in the mayor's office. For the rest of his life, he rarely spoke about his wife Alice and did not write about her in his autobiography.
Early political career
State Assemblyman
Roosevelt was a member of the New York State Assembly (New York Co., 21st D.) in 1882, 1883 and 1884. He immediately began making his mark, specifically in corporate corruption issues. He blocked a corrupt effort by financier Jay Gould to lower his taxes. Roosevelt exposed suspected collusion in the matter by Judge Theodore Westbrook, and argued for and received approval for an investigation to proceed, aiming for the impeachment of the judge. The investigation committee rejected impeachment, but Roosevelt had exposed the potential corruption in Albany, and thus assumed a high and positive political profile in multiple New York publications.
Roosevelt's anti-corruption efforts helped him win re-election in 1882 by a margin greater than two-to-one, an achievement made even more impressive by the fact that Democratic gubernatorial candidate Grover Cleveland won Roosevelt's district. With Conkling's Stalwart faction of the Republican Party in disarray following the assassination of President James Garfield, Roosevelt won election as the Republican party leader in the state assembly. He allied with Governor Cleveland to win passage of a civil service reform bill. Roosevelt won re-election a second time, and sought the office of Speaker of the New York State Assembly, but was defeated by Titus Sheard in a 41 to 29 vote of the GOP caucus. In his final term, Roosevelt served as Chairman of the Committee on Affairs of Cities; he wrote more bills than any other legislator.
Presidential election of 1884
With numerous presidential hopefuls to choose from, Roosevelt supported Senator George F. Edmunds of Vermont, a colorless reformer. The state GOP preferred the incumbent president, New York City's Chester Arthur, who was known for passing the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act. Arthur, at the time, was suffering from Bright's disease, unknown to the public, and out of duty he did not contest his own nomination. Roosevelt fought hard and succeeded in influencing the Manhattan delegates at the state convention in Utica. He then took control of the state convention, bargaining through the night and outmaneuvering the supporters of Arthur and James G. Blaine; he gained a national reputation as a key person in New York State.
Roosevelt attended the 1884 GOP National Convention in Chicago and gave a speech convincing delegates to nominate African American John R. Lynch, an Edmunds supporter, to be temporary chair. Roosevelt fought alongside the Mugwump reformers; however, Blaine, having gained support from Arthur's and Edmunds's delegates, won the nomination by 541 votes on the fourth ballot. In a crucial moment of his budding political career, Roosevelt resisted the demand of the Mugwumps that he bolt from Blaine. He bragged about his one small success: "We achieved a victory in getting up a combination to beat the Blaine nominee for temporary chairman... To do this needed a mixture of skill, boldness and energy... to get the different factions to come in... to defeat the common foe." He was also impressed by an invitation to speak before an audience of ten thousand, the largest crowd he had addressed up to that date. Having gotten a taste of national politics, Roosevelt felt less aspiration for advocacy on the state level; he then retired to his new "Chimney Butte Ranch" on the Little Missouri River. Roosevelt refused to join other Mugwumps in supporting Grover Cleveland, the governor of New York and the Democratic nominee in the general election. He debated the pros and cons of staying loyal with his political friend, Henry Cabot Lodge. After Blaine won the nomination, Roosevelt had carelessly said that he would give "hearty support to any decent Democrat". He distanced himself from the promise, saying that it had not been meant "for publication". When a reporter asked if he would support Blaine, Roosevelt replied, "That question I decline to answer. It is a subject I do not care to talk about." In the end, he realized that he had to support Blaine to maintain his role in the GOP, and he did so in a press release on July 19. Having lost the support of many reformers, Roosevelt decided to retire from politics and move to North Dakota.
Cattle rancher in Dakota
Roosevelt first visited the Dakota Territory in 1883 to hunt bison. Exhilarated by the western lifestyle, and with the cattle business booming in the territory, Roosevelt invested $14,000 in hopes of becoming a prosperous cattle rancher. For the next several years, he shuttled between his home in New York and his ranch in Dakota.
Following the 1884 presidential election, Roosevelt built a ranch named Elkhorn, which was north of the boomtown of Medora, North Dakota. Roosevelt learned to ride western style, rope, and hunt on the banks of the Little Missouri. Though he earned the respect of the authentic cowboys, they were not overly impressed. However, he identified with the herdsman of history, a man he said possesses "few of the emasculated, milk-and-water moralities admired by the pseudo-philanthropists; but he does possess, to a very high degree, the stern, manly qualities that are invaluable to a nation". He reoriented, and began writing about frontier life for national magazines; he also published three books – Hunting Trips of a Ranchman, Ranch Life and the Hunting-Trail, and The Wilderness Hunter.
Roosevelt brought his desire to address the common interests of citizens to the West. He successfully led efforts to organize ranchers to address problems of overgrazing and other shared concerns; his work resulted in the formation of the Little Missouri Stockmen's Association. He felt compelled to promote conservation and was able to form the Boone and Crockett Club, whose primary goal was the conservation of large game animals and their habitats. After the uniquely severe US winter of 1886–87 wiped out his herd of cattle and those of his competitors, and with it over half of his $80,000 investment, Roosevelt returned to the East. Though his finances suffered from the experience, Roosevelt's time in the West made it impossible to peg him as an ineffectual intellectual, a characterization that could have hampered his political career.
Second marriage
On December 2, 1886, Roosevelt married his childhood and family friend, Edith Kermit Carow. Roosevelt was deeply troubled that his second marriage had taken place so soon after the death of his first wife, and he faced resistance from his sisters. Nonetheless, the couple married at St George's, Hanover Square in London, England. The couple had five children: Theodore "Ted" III in 1887, Kermit in 1889, Ethel in 1891, Archibald in 1894, and Quentin in 1897. The couple also raised Roosevelt's daughter from his first marriage, Alice, who often clashed with her stepmother.
Reentering public life
Upon Roosevelt's return to New York in 1886, Republican leaders quickly approached him about running for mayor of New York City in the city's mayoral election. Roosevelt accepted the nomination despite having little hope of winning the race against United Labor Party candidate Henry George and Democratic candidate Abram Hewitt. Roosevelt campaigned hard for the position, but Hewitt won with 41% (90,552 votes), taking the votes of many Republicans who feared George's radical policies. George was held to 31% (68,110 votes), and Roosevelt took third place with 27% (60,435 votes). Fearing that his political career might never recover, Roosevelt turned his attention to writing The Winning of the West, a historical work tracking the westward movement of Americans; the book was a great success for Roosevelt, earning favorable reviews and selling numerous copies.
Civil Service Commission
After Benjamin Harrison unexpectedly defeated Blaine for the presidential nomination at the 1888 Republican National Convention, Roosevelt gave stump speeches in the Midwest in support of Harrison. On the insistence of Henry Cabot Lodge, President Harrison appointed Roosevelt to the United States Civil Service Commission, where he served until 1895. While many of his predecessors had approached the office as a sinecure, Roosevelt vigorously fought the spoilsmen and demanded enforcement of civil service laws. The New York Sun then described Roosevelt as "irrepressible, belligerent, and enthusiastic". Roosevelt frequently clashed with Postmaster General John Wanamaker, who handed out numerous patronage positions to Harrison supporters, and Roosevelt's attempt to force out several postal workers damaged Harrison politically. Despite Roosevelt's support for Harrison's reelection bid in the presidential election of 1892, the eventual winner, Grover Cleveland, reappointed him to the same post. Roosevelt's close friend and biographer, Joseph Bucklin Bishop, described his assault on the spoils system:
New York City Police Commissioner
In 1894, a group of reform Republicans approached Roosevelt about running for Mayor of New York again; he declined, mostly due to his wife's resistance to being removed from the Washington social set. Soon after he declined, he realized that he had missed an opportunity to reinvigorate a dormant political career. He retreated to the Dakotas for a time; his wife Edith regretted her role in the decision and vowed that there would be no repeat of it.
William Lafayette Strong, a reform-minded Republican, won the 1894 mayoral election and offered Roosevelt a position on the board of the New York City Police Commissioners. Roosevelt became president of the board of commissioners and radically reformed the police force. Roosevelt implemented regular inspections of firearms and annual physical exams, appointed recruits based on their physical and mental qualifications rather than political affiliation, established Meritorious Service Medals, and closed corrupt police hostelries. During his tenure, a Municipal Lodging House was established by the Board of Charities, and Roosevelt required officers to register with the Board; he also had telephones installed in station houses.
In 1894, Roosevelt met Jacob Riis, the muckraking Evening Sun newspaper journalist who was opening the eyes of New Yorkers to the terrible conditions of the city's millions of poor immigrants with such books as How the Other Half Lives. Riis described how his book affected Roosevelt:
Roosevelt made a habit of walking officers' beats late at night and early in the morning to make sure that they were on duty. He made a concerted effort to uniformly enforce New York's Sunday closing law; in this, he ran up against boss Tom Platt as well as Tammany Hall—he was notified that the Police Commission was being legislated out of existence. His crackdowns led to protests and demonstrations. Invited to one large demonstration, not only did he surprisingly accept, he delighted in the insults, caricatures and lampoons directed at him, and earned some surprising good will. Roosevelt chose to defer rather than split with his party. As Governor of New York State, he would later sign an act replacing the Police Commission with a single Police Commissioner.
Emergence as a national figure
Assistant Secretary of the Navy
In the 1896 presidential election, Roosevelt backed Speaker of the House Thomas Brackett Reed for the Republican nomination, but William McKinley won the nomination and defeated William Jennings Bryan in the general election. Roosevelt opposed Bryan's free silver platform, viewing many of Bryan's followers as dangerous fanatics, and Roosevelt gave campaign speeches for McKinley. Urged by Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, President McKinley appointed Roosevelt as the Assistant Secretary of the Navy in 1897. Secretary of the Navy John D. Long was more concerned about formalities than functions, was in poor health, and left many major decisions to Roosevelt. Influenced by Alfred Thayer Mahan, Roosevelt called for a build-up in the country's naval strength, particularly the construction of battleships. Roosevelt also began pressing his national security views regarding the Pacific and the Caribbean on McKinley, and was particularly adamant that Spain be ejected from Cuba. He explained his priorities to one of the Navy's planners in late 1897:
On February 15, 1898, , an armored cruiser, exploded in the harbor of Havana, Cuba, killing hundreds of crew members. While Roosevelt and many other Americans blamed Spain for the explosion, McKinley sought a diplomatic solution. Without approval from Long or McKinley, Roosevelt sent out orders to several naval vessels, directing them to prepare for war. George Dewey, who had received an appointment to lead the Asiatic Squadron with the backing of Roosevelt, later credited his victory at the Battle of Manila Bay to Roosevelt's orders. After finally giving up hope of a peaceful solution, McKinley asked Congress to declare war upon Spain, beginning the Spanish–American War.
War in Cuba
With the beginning of the Spanish–American War in late April 1898, Roosevelt resigned from his post as Assistant Secretary of the Navy. Along with Army Colonel Leonard Wood, he formed the First US Volunteer Cavalry Regiment. His wife and many of his friends begged Roosevelt to remain in his post in Washington, but Roosevelt was determined to see battle. When the newspapers reported the formation of the new regiment, Roosevelt and Wood were flooded with applications from all over the country. Referred to by the press as the "Rough Riders", the regiment was one of many temporary units active only for the duration of the war.
The regiment trained for several weeks in San Antonio, Texas, and in his autobiography, Roosevelt wrote that his prior experience with the New York National Guard had been invaluable, in that it enabled him to immediately begin teaching his men basic soldiering skills. The Rough Riders used some standard issue gear and some of their own design, purchased with gift money. Diversity characterized the regiment, which included Ivy Leaguers, professional and amateur athletes, upscale gentlemen, cowboys, frontiersmen, Native Americans, hunters, miners, prospectors, former soldiers, tradesmen, and sheriffs. The Rough Riders were part of the cavalry division commanded by former Confederate general Joseph Wheeler, which itself was one of three divisions in the V Corps under Lieutenant General William Rufus Shafter. Roosevelt and his men landed in Daiquirí, Cuba, on June 23, 1898, and marched to Siboney. Wheeler sent parts of the 1st and 10th Regular Cavalry on the lower road northwest and sent the "Rough Riders" on the parallel road running along a ridge up from the beach. To throw off his infantry rival, Wheeler left one regiment of his Cavalry Division, the 9th, at Siboney so that he could claim that his move north was only a limited reconnaissance if things went wrong. Roosevelt was promoted to colonel and took command of the regiment when Wood was put in command of the brigade. The Rough Riders had a short, minor skirmish known as the Battle of Las Guasimas; they fought their way through Spanish resistance and, together with the Regulars, forced the Spaniards to abandon their positions.
Under his leadership, the Rough Riders became famous for the charge up Kettle Hill on July 1, 1898, while supporting the regulars. Roosevelt had the only horse, and rode back and forth between rifle pits at the forefront of the advance up Kettle Hill, an advance that he urged despite the absence of any orders from superiors. He was forced to walk up the last part of Kettle Hill because his horse had been entangled in barbed wire. The victories came at a cost of 200 killed and 1,000 wounded.
In August, Roosevelt and other officers demanded that the soldiers be returned home. Roosevelt always recalled the Battle of Kettle Hill (part of the San Juan Heights) as "the great day of my life" and "my crowded hour". In 2001, Roosevelt was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions; he had been nominated during the war, but Army officials, annoyed at his grabbing the headlines, blocked it. After returning to civilian life, Roosevelt preferred to be known as "Colonel Roosevelt" or "The Colonel", though "Teddy" remained much more popular with the public, even though Roosevelt openly despised that moniker. Men working closely with Roosevelt customarily called him "Colonel" or "Theodore". Henceforth, political cartoons of Roosevelt usually depicted him in his Rough Rider garb.
Governor of New York
After leaving Cuba in August 1898, the Rough Riders were transported to a camp at Montauk Point, Long Island, where Roosevelt and his men were briefly quarantined due to the War Department's fear of spreading yellow fever. Shortly after Roosevelt's return to the United States, Republican Congressman Lemuel E. Quigg, a lieutenant of party boss Tom Platt, asked Roosevelt to run in the 1898 gubernatorial election. Platt disliked Roosevelt personally, feared that Roosevelt would oppose Platt's interests in office, and was reluctant to propel Roosevelt to the forefront of national politics. However, Platt also needed a strong candidate due to the unpopularity of the incumbent Republican governor, Frank S. Black, and Roosevelt agreed to become the nominee and to try not to "make war" with the Republican establishment once in office. Roosevelt defeated Black in the Republican caucus by a vote of 753 to 218, and faced Democrat Augustus Van Wyck, a well-respected judge, in the general election. Roosevelt campaigned vigorously on his war record, winning the election by a margin of just one percent.
As governor, Roosevelt learned much about ongoing economic issues and political techniques that later proved valuable in his presidency. He was exposed to the problems of trusts, monopolies, labor relations, and conservation. Chessman argues that Roosevelt's program "rested firmly upon the concept of the square deal by a neutral state". The rules for the Square Deal were "honesty in public affairs, an equitable sharing of privilege and responsibility, and subordination of party and local concerns to the interests of the state at large".
By holding twice-daily press conferences—which was an innovation—Roosevelt remained connected with his middle-class political base. Roosevelt successfully pushed the Ford Franchise-Tax bill, which taxed public franchises granted by the state and controlled by corporations, declaring that "a corporation which derives its powers from the State, should pay to the State a just percentage of its earnings as a return for the privileges it enjoys". He rejected "boss" Thomas C. Platt's worries that this approached Bryanite Socialism, explaining that without it, New York voters might get angry and adopt public ownership of streetcar lines and other franchises.
The New York state government affected many interests, and the power to make appointments to policy-making positions was a key role for the governor. Platt insisted that he be consulted on major appointments; Roosevelt appeared to comply, but then made his own decisions. Historians marvel that Roosevelt managed to appoint so many first-rate men with Platt's approval. He even enlisted Platt's help in securing reform, such as in the spring of 1899, when Platt pressured state senators to vote for a civil service bill that the secretary of the Civil Service Reform Association called "superior to any civil service statute heretofore secured in America".
Chessman argues that as governor, Roosevelt developed the principles that shaped his presidency, especially insistence upon the public responsibility of large corporations, publicity as a first remedy for trusts, regulation of railroad rates, mediation of the conflict of capital and labor, conservation of natural resources and protection of the less fortunate members of society. Roosevelt sought to position himself against the excesses of large corporations on the one hand and radical movements on the other.
As the chief executive of the most populous state in the union, Roosevelt was widely considered a potential future presidential candidate, and supporters such as William Allen White encouraged him to run for president. Roosevelt had no interest in challenging McKinley for the Republican nomination in 1900, and was denied his preferred post of Secretary of War. As his term progressed, Roosevelt pondered a 1904 presidential run, but was uncertain about whether he should seek re-election as governor in 1900.
Vice Presidency (1901)
In November 1899, Vice President Garret Hobart died of heart failure, leaving an open spot on the 1900 Republican national ticket. Though Henry Cabot Lodge and others urged him to run for vice president in 1900, Roosevelt was reluctant to take the powerless position and issued a public statement saying that he would not accept the nomination. Additionally, Roosevelt was informed by President McKinley and campaign manager Mark Hanna that he was not being considered for the role of vice president due to his actions prior to the Spanish–American War. Eager to be rid of Roosevelt, Platt nonetheless began a newspaper campaign in favor of Roosevelt's nomination for the vice presidency. Roosevelt attended the 1900 Republican National Convention as a state delegate and struck a bargain with Platt: Roosevelt would accept the nomination for vice president if the convention offered it to him, but would otherwise serve another term as governor. Platt asked Pennsylvania party boss Matthew Quay to lead the campaign for Roosevelt's nomination, and Quay outmaneuvered Hanna at the convention to put Roosevelt on the ticket. Roosevelt won the nomination unanimously.
Roosevelt's vice-presidential campaigning proved highly energetic and an equal match for Democratic presidential nominee William Jennings Bryan's famous barnstorming style of campaigning. In a whirlwind campaign that displayed his energy to the public, Roosevelt made 480 stops in 23 states. He denounced the radicalism of Bryan, contrasting it with the heroism of the soldiers and sailors who fought and won the war against Spain. Bryan had strongly supported the war itself, but he denounced the annexation of the Philippines as imperialism, which would spoil America's innocence. Roosevelt countered that it was best for the Filipinos to have stability and the Americans to have a proud place in the world. With the nation basking in peace and prosperity, the voters gave McKinley an even larger victory than that which he had achieved in 1896.
After the campaign, Roosevelt took office as vice president in March 1901. The office of vice president was a powerless sinecure and did not suit Roosevelt's aggressive temperament. Roosevelt's six months as vice president were uneventful and boring for a man of action. He had no power; he presided over the Senate for a mere four days before it adjourned. On September 2, 1901, Roosevelt first publicized an aphorism that thrilled his supporters: "Speak softly and carry a big stick, and you will go far."
Presidency (1901–1909)
On September 6, 1901, President McKinley was attending the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York when he was shot by anarchist Leon Czolgosz. Roosevelt was vacationing in Isle La Motte, Vermont, and traveled to Buffalo to visit McKinley in the hospital. It appeared that McKinley would recover, so Roosevelt resumed his vacation in the Adirondack Mountains. When McKinley's condition worsened, Roosevelt again rushed back to Buffalo. McKinley died on September 14, and Roosevelt was informed while he was in North Creek; he continued on to Buffalo and was sworn in as the nation's 26th president at the Ansley Wilcox House.
McKinley's supporters were nervous about the new president, and Hanna was particularly bitter that the man he had opposed so vigorously at the convention had succeeded McKinley. Roosevelt assured party leaders that he intended to adhere to McKinley's policies, and he retained McKinley's Cabinet. Nonetheless, Roosevelt sought to position himself as the party's undisputed leader, seeking to bolster the role of the president and position himself for the 1904 election. The vice presidency remained vacant, as there was no constitutional provision for filling an intra-term vacancy in that office (prior to the 25th Amendment in 1967).
Shortly after taking office, Roosevelt invited Booker T. Washington to dinner at the White House. This sparked a bitter, and at times vicious, reaction among whites across the heavily segregated South. Roosevelt reacted with astonishment and protest, saying that he looked forward to many future dinners with Washington. Upon further reflection, Roosevelt wanted to ensure that this had no effect on political support in the white South, and further dinner invitations to Washington were avoided; their next meeting was scheduled as typical business at 10:00 a.m. instead.
Domestic policies
Trust busting and regulation
For his aggressive use of the 1890 Sherman Antitrust Act, compared to his predecessors, Roosevelt was hailed as the "trust-buster"; but in reality he was more of a trust regulator. Roosevelt viewed big business as a necessary part of the American economy, and sought only to prosecute the "bad trusts" that restrained trade and charged unfair prices. He brought 44 antitrust suits, breaking up the Northern Securities Company, the largest railroad monopoly; and regulating Standard Oil, the largest oil company. Presidents Benjamin Harrison, Grover Cleveland, and William McKinley combined had prosecuted only 18 antitrust violations under the Sherman Antitrust Act.
Bolstered by his party's winning large majorities in the 1902 elections, Roosevelt proposed the creation of the United States Department of Commerce and Labor, which would include the Bureau of Corporations. While Congress was receptive to the Department of Commerce and Labor, it was more skeptical of the antitrust powers that Roosevelt sought to endow within the Bureau of Corporations. Roosevelt successfully appealed to the public to pressure Congress, and Congress overwhelmingly voted to pass Roosevelt's version of the bill.
In a moment of frustration, House Speaker Joseph Gurney Cannon commented on Roosevelt's desire for executive branch control in domestic policy-making: "That fellow at the other end of the avenue wants everything from the birth of Christ to the death of the devil." Biographer Brands states, "Even his friends occasionally wondered whether there wasn't any custom or practice too minor for him to try to regulate, update or otherwise improve." In fact, Roosevelt's willingness to exercise his power included attempted rule changes in the game of football; at the Naval Academy, he sought to force retention of martial arts classes and to revise disciplinary rules. He even ordered changes made in the minting of a coin whose design he disliked, and ordered the Government Printing Office to adopt simplified spellings for a core list of 300 words, according to reformers on the Simplified Spelling Board. He was forced to rescind the latter after substantial ridicule from the press and a resolution of protest from the House of Representatives.
Coal strike
In May 1902, anthracite coal miners went on strike, threatening a national energy shortage. After threatening the coal operators with intervention by federal troops, Roosevelt won their agreement to dispute arbitration by a commission, which succeeded in stopping the strike. The accord with J. P. Morgan resulted in the miners getting more pay for fewer hours, but with no union recognition. Roosevelt said, "My action on labor should always be considered in connection with my action as regards capital, and both are reducible to my favorite formula—a square deal for every man." Roosevelt was the first president to help settle a labor dispute.
Prosecuted misconduct
During Roosevelt's second year in office it was discovered there was corruption in the Indian Service, the Land Office, and the Post Office Department. Roosevelt investigated and prosecuted corrupt Indian agents who had cheated the Creeks and various tribes out of land parcels. Land fraud and speculation were found involving Oregon federal timberlands. In November 1902, Roosevelt and Secretary Ethan A. Hitchcock forced Binger Hermann, the General Land Office Commissioner, to resign from office. On November 6, 1903 Francis J. Heney was appointed special prosecutor and obtained 146 indictments involving an Oregon Land Office bribery ring. U.S. Senator John H. Mitchell was indicted for bribery to expedite illegal land patents, found guilty in July 1905, and sentenced to six months in prison. More corruption was found in the Postal Department, that brought on the indictments of 44 government employees on charges of bribery and fraud. Historians generally agree that Roosevelt moved "quickly and decisively" to prosecute misconduct in his administration.
Railroads
Merchants complained that some railroad rates were too high. In the 1906 Hepburn Act, Roosevelt sought to give the Interstate Commerce Commission the power to regulate rates, but the Senate, led by conservative Nelson Aldrich, fought back. Roosevelt worked with the Democratic Senator Benjamin Tillman to pass the bill. Roosevelt and Aldrich ultimately reached a compromise that gave the ICC the power to replace existing rates with "just-and-reasonable" maximum rates, but allowed railroads to appeal to the federal courts on what was "reasonable". In addition to rate-setting, the Hepburn Act also granted the ICC regulatory power over pipeline fees, storage contracts, and several other aspects of railroad operations.
Pure food and drugs
Roosevelt responded to public anger over the abuses in the food packing industry by pushing Congress to pass the Meat Inspection Act of 1906 and the Pure Food and Drug Act. Though conservatives initially opposed the bill, Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, published in 1906, helped galvanize support for reform. The Meat Inspection Act of 1906 banned misleading labels and preservatives that contained harmful chemicals. The Pure Food and Drug Act banned food and drugs that were impure or falsely labeled from being made, sold, and shipped. Roosevelt also served as honorary president of the American School Hygiene Association from 1907 to 1908, and in 1909 he convened the first White House Conference on the Care of Dependent Children.
Conservation
Of all Roosevelt's achievements, he was proudest of his work in the conservation of natural resources and extending federal protection to land and wildlife. Roosevelt worked closely with Interior Secretary James Rudolph Garfield and Chief of the United States Forest Service Gifford Pinchot to enact a series of conservation programs that often met with resistance from Western members of Congress, such as Charles William Fulton. Nonetheless, Roosevelt established the United States Forest Service, signed into law the creation of five National Parks, and signed the 1906 Antiquities Act, under which he proclaimed 18 new U.S. National Monuments. He also established the first 51 bird reserves, four game preserves, and 150 National Forests. The area of the United States that he placed under public protection totals approximately .
Roosevelt extensively used executive orders on a number of occasions to protect forest and wildlife lands during his tenure as president. By the end of his second term in office, Roosevelt used executive orders to establish of reserved forestry land. Roosevelt was unapologetic about his extensive use of executive orders to protect the environment, despite the perception in Congress that he was encroaching on too many lands. Eventually, Senator Charles Fulton (R-OR) attached an amendment to an agricultural appropriations bill that effectively prevented the president from reserving any further land. Before signing that bill into law, Roosevelt used executive orders to establish an additional 21 forest reserves, waiting until the last minute to sign the bill into law. In total, Roosevelt used executive orders to establish 121 forest reserves in 31 states. Prior to Roosevelt, only one president had issued over 200 executive orders, Grover Cleveland (253). The first 25 presidents issued a total of 1,262 executive orders; Roosevelt issued 1,081.
Foreign policy
Japan
The American annexation of Hawaii in 1898 was stimulated in part by fear that otherwise Japan would dominate the Hawaiian Republic. Similarly, Germany was the alternative to American takeover of the Philippines in 1900, and Tokyo strongly preferred the U.S. to take over. As the U.S. became a naval world power, it needed to find a way to avoid a military confrontation in the Pacific with Japan.
In the 1890s, Roosevelt had been an ardent imperialist and vigorously defended the permanent acquisition of the Philippines in the 1900 campaign. After the local insurrection ended in 1902, he largely lost his imperialist interest in the Philippines and Asian expansion but wished to have a strong U.S. presence in the region as a symbol of democratic values. One of Theodore Roosevelt's priorities during his presidency and afterwards, was the maintenance of friendly relations with Japan. From 1904 to 1905 Japan and Russia were at war. Roosevelt admired the martial courage of the Japanese, and distrusted the reckless German Kaiser. Both sides asked Roosevelt to mediate a peace conference, held successfully in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Roosevelt won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts.
In California, anti-Japanese hostility was growing, and Tokyo protested. Roosevelt negotiated a "Gentleman's Agreement" in 1907. Explicit discrimination against the Japanese was ended, and Japan agreed not to allow unskilled immigrants into the United States. The Great White Fleet of American battleships visited Japan in 1908. Pulitzer prize-winning biographer Henry Pringle states that the great voyage was "the direct result of the Japanese trouble." Roosevelt intended to emphasize the superiority of the American fleet over the smaller Japanese navy, but instead of resentment the visitors arrived to a joyous welcome by Japanese elite as well as the general public. This good-will facilitated the Root–Takahira Agreement of November 1908 which reaffirmed the status quo of Japanese control of Korea and American control of the Philippines.
Europe
Success in the war against Spain and the new empire, plus having the largest economy in the world, meant that the United States had emerged as a world power. Roosevelt searched for ways to win recognition for the position abroad.
Roosevelt also played a major role in mediating the First Moroccan Crisis by calling the Algeciras Conference, which averted war between France and Germany.
Roosevelt's presidency saw the strengthening of ties with Great Britain. The Great Rapprochement had begun with British support of the United States during the Spanish–American War, and it continued as Britain withdrew its fleet from the Caribbean in favor of focusing on the rising German naval threat. In 1901, Britain and the United States signed the Hay–Pauncefote Treaty, abrogating the Clayton–Bulwer Treaty, which had prevented the United States from constructing a canal connecting the Pacific and the Atlantic Ocean. The long-standing Alaska boundary dispute was settled on terms favorable to the United States, as Great Britain was unwilling to alienate the United States over what it considered to be a secondary issue. As Roosevelt later put it, the resolution of the Alaskan boundary dispute "settled the last serious trouble between the British Empire and ourselves."
Latin America and Panama Canal
As president, he primarily focused the nation's overseas ambitions on the Caribbean, especially locations that had a bearing on the defense of his pet project, the Panama Canal. Roosevelt also increased the size of the navy, and by the end of his second term the United States had more battleships than any other country besides Britain. The Panama Canal when it opened in 1914 allowed the U.S. Navy to rapidly move back and forth from the Pacific to the Caribbean to European waters.
In December 1902, the Germans, British, and Italians blockaded the ports of Venezuela in order to force the repayment of delinquent loans. Roosevelt was particularly concerned with the motives of German Emperor Wilhelm II. He succeeded in getting the three nations to agree to arbitration by tribunal at The Hague, and successfully defused the crisis. The latitude granted to the Europeans by the arbiters was in part responsible for the "Roosevelt Corollary" to the Monroe Doctrine, which the President issued in 1904: "Chronic wrongdoing or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation, and in the Western Hemisphere, the adherence of the United States to the Monroe doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power."
The pursuit of an isthmus canal in Central America during this period focused on two possible routes—Nicaragua and Panama, which was then a rebellious district within Colombia. Roosevelt convinced Congress to approve the Panamanian alternative, and a treaty was approved, only to be rejected by the Colombian government. When the Panamanians learned of this, a rebellion followed, was supported by Roosevelt, and succeeded. A treaty with the new Panama government for construction of the canal was then reached in 1903. Roosevelt received criticism for paying the bankrupt Panama Canal Company and the New Panama Canal Company $40,000,000 (equivalent to $ billion in ) for the rights and equipment to build the canal. Critics charged that an American investor syndicate allegedly divided the large payment among themselves. There was also controversy over whether a French company engineer influenced Roosevelt in choosing the Panama route for the canal over the Nicaragua route. Roosevelt denied charges of corruption concerning the canal in a January 8, 1906 message to Congress. In January 1909, Roosevelt, in an unprecedented move, brought criminal libel charges against the New York World and the Indianapolis News known as the "Roosevelt-Panama Libel Cases". Both cases were dismissed by U.S. District Courts, and on January 3, 1911, the U.S. Supreme Court, upon federal appeal, upheld the lower courts' rulings. Historians are sharply critical of Roosevelt's criminal prosecutions of the World and the News, but are divided on whether actual corruption in acquiring and building the Panama Canal took place.
In 1906, following a disputed election, an insurrection ensued in Cuba; Roosevelt sent Taft, the Secretary of War, to monitor the situation; he was convinced that he had the authority to unilaterally authorize Taft to deploy Marines if necessary, without congressional approval.
Examining the work of numerous scholars, Ricard (2014) reports that:
The most striking evolution in the twenty-first-century historiography of Theodore Roosevelt is the switch from a partial arraignment of the imperialist to a quasi-unanimous celebration of the master diplomatist.... [Recent works] have underlined cogently Roosevelt's exceptional statesmanship in the construction of the nascent twentieth-century "special relationship". ...The twenty-sixth president's reputation as a brilliant diplomatist and realpolitician has undeniably reached new heights in the twenty-first century...yet, his Philippine policy still prompts criticism.
Media
Building on McKinley's effective use of the press, Roosevelt made the White House the center of news every day, providing interviews and photo opportunities. After noticing the reporters huddled outside the White House in the rain one day, he gave them their own room inside, effectively inventing the presidential press briefing. The grateful press, with unprecedented access to the White House, rewarded Roosevelt with ample coverage.
Roosevelt normally enjoyed very close relationships with the press, which he used to keep in daily contact with his middle-class base. While out of office, he made a living as a writer and magazine editor. He loved talking with intellectuals, authors, and writers. He drew the line, however, at exposé-oriented scandal-mongering journalists who, during his term, sent magazine subscriptions soaring by their attacks on corrupt politicians, mayors, and corporations. Roosevelt himself was not usually a target, but a speech of his from 1906 coined the term "muckraker" for unscrupulous journalists making wild charges. "The liar", he said, "is no whit better than the thief, and if his mendacity takes the form of slander he may be worse than most thieves."
The press did briefly target Roosevelt in one instance. After 1904, he was periodically criticized for the manner in which he facilitated the construction of the Panama Canal. According to biographer Brands, Roosevelt, near the end of his term, demanded that the Justice Department bring charges of criminal libel against Joseph Pulitzer's New York World. The publication had accused him of "deliberate misstatements of fact" in defense of family members who were criticized as a result of the Panama affair. Though an indictment was obtained, the case was ultimately dismissed in federal court—it was not a federal offense, but one enforceable in state courts. The Justice Department had predicted that result, and had also advised Roosevelt accordingly.
Election of 1904
The control and management of the Republican Party lay in the hands of Ohio Senator and Republican Party chairman Mark Hanna until McKinley's death. Roosevelt and Hanna frequently cooperated during Roosevelt's first term, but Hanna left open the possibility of a challenge to Roosevelt for the 1904 Republican nomination. Roosevelt and Ohio's other Senator, Joseph B. Foraker, forced Hanna's hand by calling for Ohio's state Republican convention to endorse Roosevelt for the 1904 nomination. Unwilling to break with the president, Hanna was forced to publicly endorse Roosevelt. Hanna and Pennsylvania Senator Matthew Quay both died in early 1904, and with the waning of Thomas Platt's power, Roosevelt faced little effective opposition for the 1904 nomination. In deference to Hanna's conservative loyalists, Roosevelt at first offered the party chairmanship to Cornelius Bliss, but he declined. Roosevelt turned to his own man, George B. Cortelyou of New York, the first Secretary of Commerce and Labor. To buttress his hold on the party's nomination, Roosevelt made it clear that anyone opposing Cortelyou would be considered to be opposing the President. The President secured his own nomination, but his preferred vice-presidential running mate, Robert R. Hitt, was not nominated. Senator Charles Warren Fairbanks of Indiana, a favorite of conservatives, gained the nomination.
While Roosevelt followed the tradition of incumbents in not actively campaigning on the stump, he sought to control the campaign's message through specific instructions to Cortelyou. He also attempted to manage the press's release of White House statements by forming the Ananias Club. Any journalist who repeated a statement made by the president without approval was penalized by restriction of further access.
The Democratic Party's nominee in 1904 was Alton Brooks Parker. Democratic newspapers charged that Republicans were extorting large campaign contributions from corporations, putting ultimate responsibility on Roosevelt, himself. Roosevelt denied corruption while at the same time he ordered Cortelyou to return $100,000 (equivalent to $ million in ) of a campaign contribution from Standard Oil. Parker said that Roosevelt was accepting corporate donations to keep damaging information from the Bureau of Corporations from going public. Roosevelt strongly denied Parker's charge and responded that he would "go into the Presidency unhampered by any pledge, promise, or understanding of any kind, sort, or description...". Allegations from Parker and the Democrats, however, had little impact on the election, as Roosevelt promised to give every American a "square deal". Roosevelt won 56% of the popular vote, and Parker received 38%; Roosevelt also won the Electoral College vote, 336 to 140. Before his inauguration ceremony, Roosevelt declared that he would not serve another term. Democrats afterwards would continue to charge Roosevelt and the Republicans of being influenced by corporate donations during Roosevelt's second term.
Second term
As his second term progressed, Roosevelt moved to the left of his Republican Party base and called for a series of reforms, most of which Congress failed to pass. In his last year in office, he was assisted by his friend Archibald Butt (who later perished in the sinking of RMS Titanic). Roosevelt's influence waned as he approached the end of his second term, as his promise to forego a third term made him a lame duck and his concentration of power provoked a backlash from many Congressmen. He sought a national incorporation law (at a time when all corporations had state charters), called for a federal income tax (despite the Supreme Court's ruling in Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co.), and an inheritance tax. In the area of labor legislation, Roosevelt called for limits on the use of court injunctions against labor unions during strikes; injunctions were a powerful weapon that mostly helped business. He wanted an employee liability law for industrial injuries (pre-empting state laws) and an eight-hour work day for federal employees. In other areas he also sought a postal savings system (to provide competition for local banks), and he asked for campaign reform laws.
The election of 1904 continued to be a source of contention between Republicans and Democrats. A Congressional investigation in 1905 revealed that corporate executives donated tens of thousands of dollars in 1904 to the Republican National Committee. In 1908, a month before the general presidential election, Governor Charles N. Haskell of Oklahoma, former Democratic Treasurer, said that Senators beholden to Standard Oil lobbied Roosevelt, in the summer of 1904, to authorize the leasing of Indian oil lands by Standard Oil subsidiaries. He said Roosevelt overruled his Secretary of Interior Ethan A. Hitchcock and granted a pipeline franchise to run through the Osage lands to the Prairie Oil and Gas Company. The New York Sun made a similar accusation and said that Standard Oil, a refinery who financially benefited from the pipeline, had contributed $150,000 to the Republicans in 1904 (equivalent to $ million in ) after Roosevelt's alleged reversal allowing the pipeline franchise. Roosevelt branded Haskell's allegation as "a lie, pure and simple" and obtained a denial from Treasury Secretary Shaw that Roosevelt had neither coerced Shaw nor overruled him.
Post-presidency (1909–1919)
Election of 1908
Roosevelt enjoyed being president and was still relatively youthful, but felt that a limited number of terms provided a check against dictatorship. Roosevelt ultimately decided to stick to his 1904 pledge not to run for a third term. He personally favored Secretary of State Elihu Root as his successor, but Root's ill health made him an unsuitable candidate. New York Governor Charles Evans Hughes loomed as a potentially strong candidate and shared Roosevelt's progressivism, but Roosevelt disliked him and considered him to be too independent. Instead, Roosevelt settled on his Secretary of War, William Howard Taft, who had ably served under Presidents Harrison, McKinley, and Roosevelt in various positions. Roosevelt and Taft had been friends since 1890, and Taft had consistently supported President Roosevelt's policies. Roosevelt was determined to install the successor of his choice, and wrote the following to Taft: "Dear Will: Do you want any action about those federal officials? I will break their necks with the utmost cheerfulness if you say the word!". Just weeks later he branded as "false and malicious" the charge that he was using the offices at his disposal to favor Taft. At the 1908 Republican convention, many chanted for "four years more" of a Roosevelt presidency, but Taft won the nomination after Henry Cabot Lodge made it clear that Roosevelt was not interested in a third term.
In the 1908 election, Taft easily defeated the Democratic nominee, three-time candidate William Jennings Bryan. Taft promoted a progressivism that stressed the rule of law; he preferred that judges rather than administrators or politicians make the basic decisions about fairness. Taft usually proved to be a less adroit politician than Roosevelt and lacked the energy and personal magnetism, along with the publicity devices, the dedicated supporters, and the broad base of public support that made Roosevelt so formidable. When Roosevelt realized that lowering the tariff would risk creating severe tensions inside the Republican Party by pitting producers (manufacturers and farmers) against merchants and consumers, he stopped talking about the issue. Taft ignored the risks and tackled the tariff boldly, encouraging reformers to fight for lower rates, and then cutting deals with conservative leaders that kept overall rates high. The resulting Payne-Aldrich tariff of 1909, signed into law early in President Taft's tenure, was too high for most reformers, and Taft's handling of the tariff alienated all sides. While the crisis was building inside the Party, Roosevelt was touring Africa and Europe, to allow Taft to be his own man.
Africa and Europe (1909–1910)
In March 1909, shortly after the end of his presidency, Roosevelt left New York for the Smithsonian-Roosevelt African Expedition, a safari in east and central Africa. Roosevelt's party landed in Mombasa, East Africa (now Kenya) and traveled to the Belgian Congo (now Democratic Republic of the Congo) before following the Nile to Khartoum in modern Sudan. Financed by Andrew Carnegie and by his own writings, Roosevelt's party hunted for specimens for the Smithsonian Institution and for the American Museum of Natural History in New York. The group, led by the hunter-tracker RJ Cunninghame, included scientists from the Smithsonian, and was joined from time to time by Frederick Selous, the famous big game hunter and explorer. Participants on the expedition included Kermit Roosevelt, Edgar Alexander Mearns, Edmund Heller, and John Alden Loring.
Roosevelt and his companions killed or trapped approximately 11,400 animals, from insects and moles to hippopotamuses and elephants. The 1,000 large animals included 512 big game animals, including six rare white rhinos. Tons of salted animals and their skins were shipped to Washington; it took years to mount them all, and the Smithsonian shared many duplicate specimens with other museums. Regarding the large number of animals taken, Roosevelt said, "I can be condemned only if the existence of the National Museum, the American Museum of Natural History, and all similar zoological institutions are to be condemned". He wrote a detailed account of the safari in the book African Game Trails, recounting the excitement of the chase, the people he met, and the flora and fauna he collected in the name of science.
After his safari, Roosevelt traveled north to embark on a tour of Europe. Stopping first in Egypt, he commented favorably on British rule of the region, giving his opinion that Egypt was not yet ready for independence. He refused a meeting with the Pope due to a dispute over a group of Methodists active in Rome, but met with Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, King George V of Great Britain, and other European leaders. In Oslo, Norway, Roosevelt delivered a speech calling for limitations on naval armaments, a strengthening of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, and the creation of a "League of Peace" among the world powers. He also delivered the Romanes Lecture at Oxford, in which he denounced those who sought parallels between the evolution of animal life and the development of society. Though Roosevelt attempted to avoid domestic politics during his time abroad, he met with Gifford Pinchot, who related his own disappointment with the Taft Administration. Pinchot had been forced to resign as head of the forest service after clashing with Taft's Interior Secretary, Richard Ballinger, who had prioritized development over conservation. Roosevelt returned to the United States in June 1910.
Republican Party schism
Roosevelt had attempted to refashion Taft into a second version of himself, but as soon as Taft began to display his individuality, the former president expressed his disenchantment. He was offended on election night when Taft indicated that his success had been possible not just through the efforts of Roosevelt, but also his brother Charley. Roosevelt was further alienated when Taft, intent on becoming his own man, did not consult him about cabinet appointments. Roosevelt and other progressives were ideologically dissatisfied over Taft's conservation policies and his handling of the tariff when he concentrated more power in the hands of conservative party leaders in Congress. Regarding radicalism and liberalism, Roosevelt wrote a British friend in 1911:
Fundamentally it is the radical liberal with whom I sympathize. He is at least working toward the end for which I think we should all of us strive; and when he adds sanity in moderation to courage and enthusiasm for high ideals he develops into the kind of statesman whom alone I can wholeheartedly support."
Roosevelt urged progressives to take control of the Republican Party at the state and local level and to avoid splitting the party in a way that would hand the presidency to the Democrats in 1912. Additionally, Roosevelt expressed optimism about the Taft Administration after meeting with the president in the White House in June 1910.
In August 1910, Roosevelt gained national attention with a speech at Osawatomie, Kansas, which was the most radical of his career and marked his public break with Taft and the conservative Republicans. Advocating a program of "New Nationalism", Roosevelt emphasized the priority of labor over capital interests, a need to more effectively control corporate creation and combination, and proposed a ban on corporate political contributions. Returning to New York, Roosevelt began a battle to take control of the state Republican party from William Barnes Jr., Tom Platt's successor as the state party boss, whom he would later confront in the Barnes vs. Roosevelt Libel Trial. Taft had pledged his support to Roosevelt in this endeavor, and Roosevelt was outraged when Taft's support failed to materialize at the 1910 state convention. Roosevelt nonetheless campaigned for the Republicans in the 1910 elections, in which the Democrats gained control of the House for the first time since the 1890s. Among the newly elected Democrats was New York state senator Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who argued that he represented his distant cousin's policies better than his Republican opponent.
The Republican progressives interpreted the 1910 defeats as a compelling argument for the complete reorganization of the party in 1911. Senator Robert M. La Follette of Wisconsin joined with Pinchot, William White, and California Governor Hiram Johnson to create the National Progressive Republican League; their objectives were to defeat the power of political bossism at the state level and to replace Taft at the national level. Despite skepticism of La Follette's new league, Roosevelt expressed general support for progressive principles. Between January and April 1911, Roosevelt wrote a series of articles for The Outlook, defending what he called "the great movement of our day, the progressive nationalist movement against special privilege, and in favor of an honest and efficient political and industrial democracy". With Roosevelt apparently uninterested in running in 1912, La Follette declared his own candidacy in June 1911. Roosevelt continually criticized Taft after the 1910 elections, and the break between the two men became final after the Justice Department filed an antitrust lawsuit against US Steel in September 1911; Roosevelt was humiliated by this suit because he had personally approved of an acquisition that the Justice Department was now challenging. However, Roosevelt was still unwilling to run against Taft in 1912; he instead hoped to run in 1916 against whichever Democrat beat Taft in 1912.
Dispute over arbitration treaties
Taft was a major advocate of arbitration as a major reform of the Progressive Era. In 1911 Taft and his Secretary of State Philander C. Knox negotiated major treaties with Great Britain and with France providing that differences be arbitrated. Disputes had to be submitted to the Hague Court or other tribunal. These were signed in August 1911 but had to be ratified by a two-thirds vote of the Senate. Neither Taft nor Knox consulted with members of the Senate during the negotiating process. By then many Republicans were opposed to Taft, and the president felt that lobbying too hard for the treaties might cause their defeat. He made some speeches supporting the treaties in October, but the Senate added amendments Taft could not accept, killing the agreements.
The arbitration issue opens a window on a bitter philosophical dispute among American progressives. Some, led by Taft looked to legal arbitration as the best alternative to warfare. Taft was a constitutional lawyer who later became Chief Justice; he had a deep understanding of the legal issues. Taft's political base was the conservative business community that largely supported peace movements before 1914. However, his mistake, in this case, was a failure to mobilize that base. The businessmen believed that economic rivalries were the cause of war, and that extensive trade led to an interdependent world that would make war a very expensive and useless anachronism.
However, an opposing faction of progressives, led by Roosevelt, ridiculed arbitration as foolhardy idealism, and insisted on the realism of warfare as the only solution to serious international disputes. Roosevelt worked with his close friend Senator Henry Cabot Lodge to impose those amendments that ruined the goals of the treaties. Lodge thought the treaties impinged too much on senatorial prerogatives. Roosevelt, however, was acting to sabotage Taft's campaign promises. At a deeper level, Roosevelt truly believed that arbitration was a naïve solution and the great issues had to be decided by warfare. The Rooseveltian approach incorporated a near-mystical faith of the ennobling nature of war. It endorsed jingoistic nationalism as opposed to the businessmen's calculation of profit and national interest.
Election of 1912
Republican primaries and convention
In November 1911, a group of Ohio Republicans endorsed Roosevelt for the party's nomination for president; the endorsers included James R. Garfield and Dan Hanna. This endorsement was made by leaders of President Taft's home state. Roosevelt conspicuously declined to make a statement—requested by Garfield—that he would flatly refuse a nomination. Soon thereafter, Roosevelt said, "I am really sorry for Taft... I am sure he means well, but he means well feebly, and he does not know how! He is utterly unfit for leadership and this is a time when we need leadership." In January 1912, Roosevelt declared "if the people make a draft on me I shall not decline to serve". Later that year, Roosevelt spoke before the Constitutional Convention in Ohio, openly identifying as a progressive and endorsing progressive reforms—even endorsing popular review of state judicial decisions. In reaction to Roosevelt's proposals for popular overrule of court decisions, Taft said, "Such extremists are not progressives—they are political emotionalists or neurotics".
Roosevelt began to envision himself as the savior of the Republican Party from defeat in the upcoming presidential election. In February 1912, Roosevelt announced in Boston, "I will accept the nomination for president if it is tendered to me. I hope that so far as possible the people may be given the chance through direct primaries to express who shall be the nominee. Elihu Root and Henry Cabot Lodge thought that division of the party would lead to its defeat in the next election, while Taft believed that he would be defeated either in the Republican primary or in the general election.
The 1912 primaries represented the first extensive use of the presidential primary, a reform achievement of the progressive movement. The Republican primaries in the South, where party regulars dominated, went for Taft, as did results in New York, Indiana, Michigan, Kentucky and Massachusetts. Meanwhile, Roosevelt won in Illinois, Minnesota, Nebraska, South Dakota, California, Maryland and Pennsylvania; Roosevelt also won Taft's home state of Ohio. These primary elections, while demonstrating Roosevelt's continuing popularity with the electorate, were not pivotal. The final credentials of the state delegates at the national convention were determined by the national committee, which was controlled by the party leaders, headed by the incumbent president.
Prior to the 1912 Republican National Convention in Chicago, Roosevelt expressed doubt about his prospects for victory, noting that Taft had more delegates and control of the credentials committee. His only hope was to convince party leaders that the nomination of Taft would hand the election to the Democrats, but party leaders were determined not to cede their leadership to Roosevelt. The credentials committee awarded almost all contested delegates to Taft, and Taft won the nomination on the first ballot. Black delegates from the South played a key role: they voted heavily for Taft and put him over the top. La Follette also helped Taft's candidacy; he hoped that a deadlocked convention would result in his own nomination, and refused to release his delegates to support Roosevelt.
The Progressive ("Bull Moose") Party
Once his defeat at the Republican convention appeared probable, Roosevelt announced that he would "accept the progressive nomination on a progressive platform and I shall fight to the end, win or lose". At the same time, Roosevelt prophetically said, "My feeling is that the Democrats will probably win if they nominate a progressive".
Roosevelt left the Republican Party and created the Progressive Party, structuring it as a permanent organization that would field complete tickets at the presidential and state level. The party included Roosevelt and key allies such as Pinchot, Cornelia Bryce Pinchot (Pinchot's wife and a longtime friend of Roosevelt's), and Albert Beveridge. The new party was popularly known as the "Bull Moose Party" after Roosevelt told reporters, "I'm as fit as a bull moose". At the 1912 Progressive National Convention, Roosevelt cried out, "We stand at Armageddon and we battle for the Lord." California Governor Hiram Johnson was nominated as Roosevelt's running mate. Roosevelt's platform echoed his 1907–1908 proposals, calling for vigorous government intervention to protect the people from selfish interests:
Though many Progressive party supporters in the North were supporters of civil rights for blacks, Roosevelt did not give strong support to civil rights and ran a "lily-white" campaign in the South. Rival all-white and all-black delegations from four southern states arrived at the Progressive national convention, and Roosevelt decided to seat the all-white delegations. Nevertheless, he won little support outside mountain Republican strongholds. Out of nearly 1100 counties in the South, Roosevelt won two counties in Alabama, one in Arkansas, seven in North Carolina, three in Georgia, 17 in Tennessee, two in Texas, one in Virginia, and none in Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, or South Carolina.
Assassination attempt
On October 14, 1912, while arriving at a campaign event in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Roosevelt was shot from seven feet away in front of the Gilpatrick Hotel by a delusional saloonkeeper named John Flammang Schrank, who believed that the ghost of assassinated president William McKinley had directed him to kill Roosevelt. The bullet lodged in his chest after penetrating his steel eyeglass case and passing through a 50-page-thick single-folded copy of the speech titled "Progressive Cause Greater Than Any Individual", which he was carrying in his jacket. Schrank was immediately disarmed (by Czech immigrant Frank Bukovsky), captured, and might have been lynched had Roosevelt not shouted for Schrank to remain unharmed. Roosevelt assured the crowd he was all right, then ordered police to take charge of Schrank and to make sure no violence was done to him.
As an experienced hunter and anatomist, Roosevelt correctly concluded that since he was not coughing blood, the bullet had not reached his lung. He declined suggestions to go to the hospital immediately and instead delivered a 90 minute speech with blood seeping into his shirt. His opening comments to the gathered crowd were, "Ladies and gentlemen, I don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot, but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose." Only after finishing his address did he accept medical attention.
Subsequent probes and an x-ray showed that the bullet had lodged in Roosevelt's chest muscle, but did not penetrate the pleura. Doctors concluded that it would be less dangerous to leave it in place than to attempt to remove it, and Roosevelt carried the bullet with him for the rest of his life. Both Taft and Democratic nominee Woodrow Wilson suspended their own campaigning until Roosevelt recovered and resumed his. When asked if the shooting would affect his election campaign, he said to the reporter "I'm fit as a bull moose." The bull moose became a symbol of both Roosevelt and the Progressive Party, and it often was referred to as simply the Bull Moose Party. He spent two weeks recuperating before returning to the campaign trail. He later wrote a friend about the bullet inside him, "I do not mind it any more than if it were in my waistcoat pocket."
Farewell manifesto
On October 20, Roosevelt spoke to a crowd of 16,000 at Madison Square Garden. The speech included: "Perhaps once in a generation, there comes a chance for the people of a country to play their part wisely and fearlessly in some great battle of the age-long warfare for human rights."
Election results
After the Democrats nominated Governor Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey, Roosevelt did not expect to win the general election, as Wilson had compiled a record attractive to many progressive Democrats who might have otherwise considered voting for Roosevelt. Roosevelt still campaigned vigorously, and the election developed into a two-person contest between Wilson and Roosevelt despite Taft's presence in the race. Roosevelt respected Wilson, but the two differed on various issues; Wilson opposed any federal intervention regarding women's suffrage or child labor (he viewed these as state issues), and attacked Roosevelt's tolerance of large businesses.
Roosevelt won 4.1 million votes (27%), compared to Taft's 3.5 million (23%). Wilson gained 6.3 million votes (42% of the total) and a massive landslide in the Electoral College, with 435 electoral votes; Roosevelt won 88 electoral votes, while Taft won 8. Pennsylvania was the only eastern state won by Roosevelt; in the Midwest, he carried Michigan, Minnesota, and South Dakota; in the West, California, and Washington. Wilson's victory represented the first Democratic presidential election victory since Cleveland's 1892 campaign, and it was the party's best performance in the Electoral College since 1852. Roosevelt, meanwhile, garnered a higher share of the popular vote than any other third-party presidential candidate in history and won the most states of any third-party candidate after the Civil War.
South American expedition (1913-1914)
A friend of Roosevelt's, Father John Augustine Zahm, persuaded Roosevelt to participate in an expedition to South America. To finance the expedition, Roosevelt received support from the American Museum of Natural History in return for promising to bring back many new animal specimens. Roosevelt's popular book, Through the Brazilian Wilderness describes his expedition into the Brazilian jungle in 1913 as a member of the Roosevelt-Rondon Scientific Expedition, co-named after its leader, Brazilian explorer Cândido Rondon.
Once in South America, a new, far more ambitious goal was added: to find the headwaters of the Rio da Duvida (Portuguese for "River of Doubt"), and trace it north to the Madeira and thence to the Amazon River. It was later renamed Roosevelt River in honor of the former president. Roosevelt's crew consisted of his son Kermit, Colonel Rondon, naturalist George Kruck Cherrie (sent by the American Museum of Natural History), Brazilian Lieutenant João Lira, team physician Dr. José Antonio Cajazeira, and 16 skilled paddlers and porters. Roosevelt also identified Leo Miller (another AMNH recommendation), Anthony Fiala, Frank Harper, and Jacob Sigg as crew members. The initial expedition started somewhat tenuously on December 9, 1913, at the height of the rainy season. The trip down the River of Doubt started on February 27, 1914.
During the trip down the river, Roosevelt suffered a minor leg wound after he jumped into the river to try to prevent two canoes from smashing against the rocks. The flesh wound he received, however, soon gave him tropical fever that resembled the malaria he had contracted while in Cuba fifteen years before. Because the bullet lodged in his chest from the assassination attempt in 1912 was never removed, his health worsened from the infection. This weakened Roosevelt so greatly that six weeks into the adventure, he had to be attended to day and night by the expedition's physician and his son Kermit. By then, he could not walk because of the infection in his injured leg and an infirmity in the other, which was due to a traffic accident a decade earlier. Roosevelt was riddled with chest pains, fighting a fever that soared to and at times made him delirious, at one point constantly reciting the first two lines of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem "Kubla Khan": "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan / A stately pleasure dome decree". Regarding his condition as a threat to the survival of the others, Roosevelt insisted he be left behind to allow the poorly provisioned expedition to proceed as rapidly as it could, preparing to commit suicide with an overdose of morphine. Only an appeal by his son persuaded him to continue.
Despite Roosevelt's continued decline and loss of over , Colonel Rondon reduced the pace of the expedition to allow for his commission's mapmaking and other geographical tasks, which required regular stops to fix the expedition's position by sun-based survey. Upon Roosevelt's return to New York, friends and family were startled by his physical appearance and fatigue. Roosevelt wrote, perhaps prophetically, to a friend that the trip had cut his life short by ten years. For the rest of his few remaining years, he would be plagued by flare-ups of malaria and leg inflammations so severe as to require surgery. Before Roosevelt had even completed his sea voyage home, critics raised doubts over his claims of exploring and navigating a completely uncharted river over long. When he had recovered sufficiently, he addressed a standing-room-only convention organized in Washington, D.C., by the National Geographic Society and satisfactorily defended his claims.
Final years
Roosevelt returned to the United States in May 1914. Though he was outraged by the Wilson Administration's conclusion of a treaty that expressed "sincere regret" for the way in which the United States had acquired the Panama Canal Zone, he was impressed by many of the reforms passed under Wilson. Roosevelt made several campaign appearances for the Progressives, but the 1914 elections were a disaster for the fledgling third party. Roosevelt began to envision another campaign for president, this time with himself at the head of the Republican Party, but conservative party leaders remained opposed to Roosevelt. In hopes of engineering a joint nomination, the Progressives scheduled the 1916 Progressive National Convention at the same time as the 1916 Republican National Convention. When the Republicans nominated Charles Evans Hughes, Roosevelt declined the Progressive nomination and urged his Progressive followers to support the Republican candidate. Though Roosevelt had long disliked Hughes, he disliked Wilson even more, and he campaigned energetically for the Republican nominee. However, Wilson won the 1916 election by a narrow margin. The Progressives disappeared as a party following the 1916 election, and Roosevelt and many of his followers permanently re-joined the Republican Party.
World War I
When the First World War began in 1914, Roosevelt strongly supported the Allies and demanded a harsher policy against Germany, especially regarding submarine warfare. Roosevelt angrily denounced the foreign policy of President Wilson, calling it a failure regarding the atrocities in Belgium and the violations of American rights. In 1916, while campaigning for Hughes, Roosevelt repeatedly denounced Irish-Americans and German-Americans whom he described as unpatriotic, saying they put the interests of Ireland and Germany ahead of America's by supporting neutrality. He insisted that one had to be 100% American, not a "hyphenated American" who juggled multiple loyalties. In March 1917, Congress gave Roosevelt the authority to raise a maximum of four divisions similar to the Rough Riders, and Major Frederick Russell Burnham was put in charge of both the general organization and recruitment. However, President Wilson announced to the press that he would not send Roosevelt and his volunteers to France, but instead would send an American Expeditionary Force under the command of General John J. Pershing. Roosevelt never forgave Wilson, and quickly published The Foes of Our Own Household, an indictment of the sitting president. Roosevelt's youngest son, Quentin, a pilot with the American forces in France, was killed when shot down behind German lines on July 14, 1918, at the age of 20. It is said that Quentin's death distressed Roosevelt so much that he never recovered from his loss.
League of Nations
Roosevelt was an early supporter of the modern view that there needs to be a global order. In his Nobel prize address of 1910, he said, "it would be a master stroke if those great Powers honestly bent on peace would form a League of Peace, not only to keep the peace among themselves, but to prevent, by force if necessary, its being broken by others." It would have executive power such as the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 lacked. He called for American participation.
When World War I broke out, Roosevelt proposed "a World League for the Peace of Righteousness", in September 1914, which would preserve sovereignty but limit armaments and require arbitration. He added that it should be "solemnly covenanted that if any nations refused to abide by the decisions of such a court, then others draw the sword in behalf of peace and justice." In 1915 he outlined this plan more specifically, urging that nations guarantee their entire military force, if necessary, against any nation that refused to carry out arbitration decrees or violated rights of other nations. Though Roosevelt had some concerns about the impact on United States sovereignty, he insisted that such a league would only work if the United States participated as one of the "joint guarantors". Roosevelt referred to this plan in a 1918 speech as "the most feasible for...a league of nations." By this time Wilson was strongly hostile to Roosevelt and Lodge, and developed his own plans for a rather different League of Nations. It became reality along Wilson's lines at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. Roosevelt denounced Wilson's approach but died before it was adopted at Paris. However, Lodge was willing to accept it with serious reservations. In the end, on March 19, 1920, Wilson had Democratic Senators vote against the League with the Lodge Reservations and the United States never joined the League of Nations.
Final political activities
Roosevelt's attacks on Wilson helped the Republicans win control of Congress in the midterm elections of 1918. He declined a request from New York Republicans to run for another gubernatorial term, but attacked Wilson's Fourteen Points, calling instead for the unconditional surrender of Germany. Though his health was uncertain, he was seen as a leading contender for the 1920 Republican nomination, but insisted that, "If they take me, they'll have to take me without a single modification of the things that I have always stood for! He wrote William Allen White, "I wish to do everything in my power to make the Republican Party the Party of sane, constructive radicalism, just as it was under Lincoln." Accordingly, he told the 1918 state convention of the Maine Republican Party that he stood for old-age pensions, insurance for sickness and unemployment, construction of public housing for low-income families, the reduction of working hours, aid to farmers, and more regulation of large corporations.
While his political profile remained high, Roosevelt's physical condition continued to deteriorate throughout 1918 due to the long-term effects of jungle diseases. He was hospitalized for seven weeks late in the year and never fully recovered.
Death
On the night of January 5, 1919, Roosevelt suffered breathing problems. After receiving treatment from his physician, Dr. George W. Faller, he felt better and went to bed. Roosevelt's last words were "Please put out that light, James" to his family servant James E. Amos. Between 4:00 and 4:15 the next morning, Roosevelt, at the age of 60, died in his sleep at Sagamore Hill after a blood clot detached from a vein and traveled to his lungs.
Upon receiving word of his death, his son Archibald telegraphed his siblings: "The old lion is dead." Woodrow Wilson's vice president, Thomas R. Marshall, said that "Death had to take Roosevelt sleeping, for if he had been awake, there would have been a fight." Following a private farewell service in the North Room at Sagamore Hill, a simple funeral was held at Christ Episcopal Church in Oyster Bay. Vice President Thomas R. Marshall, Charles Evans Hughes, Warren G. Harding, Henry Cabot Lodge, and William Howard Taft were among the mourners. The snow-covered procession route to Youngs Memorial Cemetery was lined with spectators and a squad of mounted policemen who had ridden from New York City. Roosevelt was buried on a hillside overlooking Oyster Bay.
Writer
Roosevelt was a prolific author, writing with passion on subjects ranging from foreign policy to the importance of the national park system. Roosevelt was also an avid reader of poetry. Poet Robert Frost said that Roosevelt "was our kind. He quoted poetry to me. He knew poetry."
As an editor of Outlook magazine, Roosevelt had weekly access to a large, educated national audience. In all, Roosevelt wrote about 18 books (each in several editions), including his autobiography, The Rough Riders, History of the Naval War of 1812, and others on subjects such as ranching, explorations, and wildlife. His most ambitious book was the four volume narrative The Winning of the West, focused on the American frontier in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Roosevelt said that the American character—indeed a new "American race" (ethnic group) had emerged from the heroic wilderness hunters and Indian fighters, acting on the frontier with little government help. Roosevelt also published an account of his 1909–10 African expedition entitled African Game Trails.
In 1907, Roosevelt became embroiled in a widely publicized literary debate known as the nature fakers controversy. A few years earlier, naturalist John Burroughs had published an article entitled "Real and Sham Natural History" in the Atlantic Monthly, attacking popular writers of the day such as Ernest Thompson Seton, Charles G. D. Roberts, and William J. Long for their fantastical representations of wildlife. Roosevelt agreed with Burroughs's criticisms, and published several essays of his own denouncing the booming genre of "naturalistic" animal stories as "yellow journalism of the woods". It was the President himself who popularized the negative term "nature faker" to describe writers who depicted their animal characters with excessive anthropomorphism.
Character and beliefs
Roosevelt intensely disliked being called "Teddy", despite the widespread public association with said moniker, and was quick to point out this to those who referred to him as such, though it would become widely used by newspapers during his political career.
He was an active Freemason and member of the Sons of the American Revolution.
British scholar Marcus Cunliffe evaluates the liberal argument that Roosevelt was an opportunist, exhibitionist, and imperialist. Cunliffe praises TR's versatility, his respect for law, and his sincerity. He argues that Roosevelt's foreign policy was better than his detractors allege. Cunliffe calls him "a big man in several respects," ranking him below Washington, Lincoln, and Jefferson, and on the same level as Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Strenuous life
Roosevelt had a lifelong interest in pursuing what he called, in an 1899 speech, "The Strenuous Life". To this end, he exercised regularly and took up boxing, tennis, hiking, rowing, polo, and horseback riding. He also continued his habit of skinny-dipping in the Potomac River during the winter. As governor of New York, he boxed with sparring partners several times each week, a practice he regularly continued as president until being hit so hard in the face he became blind in his left eye (a fact not made public until many years later). As president, he practiced judo for two 2-month periods in 1902 and 1904, not attaining any rank. Roosevelt began to believe in the utility of jiu-jitsu training after training with Yoshitsugu Yamashita. Concerned that the United States would lose its military supremacy to rising powers like Japan, Roosevelt began to advocate for jiu-jitsu training for American soldiers. Feminists annoyed by the posturing of men like Roosevelt, insisted that women were just as capable of learning jiu-jitsu. To prove their point, Martha Blow Wadsworth and Maria Louise ("Hallie") Davis Elkins hired Fude Yamashita, a highly skilled jiu-jitsu instructor and the wife of Yoshitsugu Yamashita, to teach a jiu-jitsu class for women and girls in Washington, DC in 1904. Women had already begun training in boxing in the United States as a means of personal and political empowerment. Jiu-jitsu training thus soon also became popular with American women, coinciding with the origins of a women's self-defense movement.
Roosevelt was an enthusiastic singlestick player and, according to Harper's Weekly, showed up at a White House reception with his arm bandaged after a bout with General Leonard Wood in 1905. Roosevelt was an avid reader, reading tens of thousands of books, at a rate of several per day in multiple languages. Along with Thomas Jefferson, Roosevelt was the most well-read of all American presidents.
Warrior
Historians have often emphasized Roosevelt's warrior persona. He took aggressive positions regarding war with Spain in 1898, Colombia in 1903, and especially with Germany, from 1915 to 1917. As a demonstration of American naval might, he sent the "Great White Fleet" around the world in 1907–1909. The implicit threat of the "big stick" of military power provided leverage to "speak softly" and quietly resolve conflict in numerous cases. He boasted in his autobiography:
Richard D. White Jr states, "Roosevelt's warrior spirit framed his views of national politics, [and] international relations."
Historian Howard K. Beale has argued:
Religion
Roosevelt attended church regularly and was a lifelong adherent of the Reformed Church in America, an American affiliate of the Dutch Reformed Church. In 1907, concerning the motto "In God We Trust" on money, he wrote, "It seems to me eminently unwise to cheapen such a motto by use on coins, just as it would be to cheapen it by use on postage stamps, or in advertisements." Roosevelt talked a great deal about religion. Biographer Edmund Morris states:
Roosevelt publicly encouraged church attendance and was a conscientious churchgoer himself. When gas rationing was introduced during the First World War, he walked the three miles from his home at Sagamore Hill to the local church and back, even after a serious operation had made it difficult for him to travel by foot. It was said that Roosevelt "allowed no engagement to keep him from going to church," and he remained a fervent advocate of the Bible throughout his adult life. According to Christian F. Reisner, writing in 1922 shortly after Roosevelt's death, "Religion was as natural to Mr. Roosevelt as breathing," and when the travel library for Roosevelt's famous Smithsonian-sponsored African expedition was being assembled, the Bible was, according to his sister, "the first book selected." In an address delivered in his home at Oyster Bay to the Long Island Bible Society in 1901, Roosevelt declared that:
Political positions
When he assumed the presidency, Roosevelt reassured many conservatives, stating, "the mechanism of modern business is so delicate that extreme care must be taken not to interfere with it in a spirit of rashness or ignorance." The following year, Roosevelt asserted the president's independence from business interests by opposing the merger which created the Northern Securities Company, and many were surprised that any president, much less an unelected one, would challenge powerful banker J.P. Morgan. In his last two years as president, Roosevelt became increasingly distrustful of big business, despite its close ties to the Republican Party. Roosevelt sought to replace the 19th-century laissez-faire economic environment with a new economic model which included a larger regulatory role for the federal government. He believed that 19th-century entrepreneurs had risked their fortunes on innovations and new businesses, and that these capitalists had been rightly rewarded. By contrast, he believed that 20th-century capitalists risked little but nonetheless reaped huge and, given the lack of risk, unjust, economic rewards. Without a redistribution of wealth away from the upper class, Roosevelt feared that the country would turn to radicals or fall to revolution. His Square Deal domestic program had three main goals: conservation of natural resources, control of corporations, and consumer protection. The Square Deal evolved into his program of "New Nationalism", which emphasized the priority of labor over capital interests and a need to more effectively control corporate creation and combination, and proposed a ban on corporate political contributions.
Foreign policy beliefs
In the analysis by Henry Kissinger, Theodore Roosevelt was the first president to develop the guideline that it was America's duty to make its enormous power and potential influence felt globally. The idea of being a passive "city on the hill" model that others could look up to, he rejected. Roosevelt, trained in biology, was a social darwinist who believed in survival of the fittest. The international world in his view was a realm of violence and conflict. The United States had all the economic and geographical potential to be the fittest nation on the globe. The United States had a duty to act decisively. For example, in terms of the Monroe Doctrine, America had to prevent European incursions in the Western Hemisphere. But there was more, as he expressed in his famous Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine: the U.S. had to be the policeman of the region because unruly, corrupt smaller nations had to be controlled, and if United States did not do it, European powers would in fact intervene and develop their own base of power in the hemisphere in contravention to the Monroe Doctrine.
Roosevelt was a realist and a conservative. He deplored many of the increasingly popular idealistic liberal themes, such as were promoted by William Jennings Bryan, the anti-imperialists, and Woodrow Wilson. Kissinger says he rejected the efficacy of international law. Roosevelt argue that if a country could not protect its own interests, the international community could not help very much. He ridiculed disarmament proposals that were increasingly common. He saw no likelihood of an international power capable of checking wrongdoing on a major scale. As for world government: I regard the Wilson–Bryan attitude of trusting to fantastic peace treaties, too impossible promises, to all kinds of scraps of paper without any backing in efficient force, as abhorrent. It is infinitely better for a nation and for the world to have the Frederick the Great and Bismarck tradition as regards foreign policy than to have the Bryan or Bryan–Wilson attitude as a permanent national attitude.... A milk-and-water righteousness unbacked by force is...as wicked as and even more mischievous than force divorced from righteousness.
On the positive side, Roosevelt favored spheres of influence, whereby one great power would generally prevail, such as the United States in the Western Hemisphere or Great Britain in the Indian subcontinent. Japan fit that role and he approved. However he had deep distrust of both Germany and Russia.
Legacy
Historians credit Roosevelt for changing the nation's political system by permanently placing the "bully pulpit" of the presidency at center stage and making character as important as the issues. His accomplishments include trust busting and conservationism. He is a hero to liberals and progressives for his proposals in 1907–1912 that presaged the modern welfare state of the New Deal Era, including direct federal taxation, labor reforms, and more direct democracy, while conservationists admire Roosevelt for putting the environment and selflessness towards future generations on the national agenda, and conservatives and nationalists respect his commitment to law and order, civic duty and military values, as well as his personality of individual self-responsibility and hardiness. Dalton says, "Today he is heralded as the architect of the modern presidency, as a world leader who boldly reshaped the office to meet the needs of the new century and redefined America's place in the world."
However, liberals and socialists have criticized him for his interventionist and imperialist approach to nations he considered "uncivilized". Conservatives and libertarians reject his vision of the welfare state and emphasis on the superiority of government over private action. Historians typically rank Roosevelt among the top five presidents in American history.
Persona and masculinity
Dalton says Roosevelt is remembered as, "one of the most picturesque personalities who has ever enlivened the landscape". His friend, historian Henry Adams, proclaimed: "Roosevelt, more than any other man... showed the singular primitive quality that belongs to ultimate matter—the quality that medieval theology assigned to God—he was pure act."
Roosevelt's biographers have stressed his personality. Henry F. Pringle, who won the Pulitzer Prize in biography for his Theodore Roosevelt (1931) stated: "The Theodore Roosevelt of later years was the most adolescent of men… Failure to receive the Medal of Honor for his exploits [in Cuba] had been a grief as real as any of those which swamp childhood in despair. 'You must always remember,' wrote Cecil Spring Rice in 1904, 'that the President is about six.'"
Cooper compared him with Woodrow Wilson and argued that both of them played the roles of warrior and priest. Dalton stressed Roosevelt's strenuous life. Sarah Watts examined the desires of the "Rough Rider in the White House". Brands calls Roosevelt "the last romantic", arguing that his romantic concept of life emerged from his belief that "physical bravery was the highest virtue and war the ultimate test of bravery".
Roosevelt as the exemplar of American masculinity has become a major theme. As president, he repeatedly warned men that they were becoming too office-bound, too complacent, too comfortable with physical ease and moral laxity, and were failing in their duties to propagate the race and exhibit masculine vigor. French historian Serge Ricard says, "the ebullient apostle of the Strenuous Life offers ideal material for a detailed psycho-historical analysis of aggressive manhood in the changing socio-cultural environment of his era; McKinley, Taft, or Wilson would perhaps inadequately serve that purpose". He promoted competitive sports like boxing and jiu-jitsu for physically strengthening American men. He also believed that organizations like the Boy Scouts of America, founded in 1910, could help mold and strengthen the character of American boys. Brands shows that heroic displays of bravery were essential to Roosevelt's image and mission:
Memorials and cultural depictions
Roosevelt was included with Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln at the Mount Rushmore Memorial, designed in 1927 with the approval of Republican President Calvin Coolidge.
For his gallantry at San Juan Hill, Roosevelt's commanders recommended him for the Medal of Honor. However, the initial recommendation lacked any eyewitnesses, and the effort was eventually tainted by Roosevelt's own lobbying of the War Department. In the late 1990s, Roosevelt's supporters again recommended the award, which was denied by the Secretary of the Army on basis that the decorations board determined "Roosevelt's bravery in battle did not rise to the level that would justify the Medal of Honor and, indeed, it did not rise to the level of men who fought in that engagement." Nevertheless, politicians apparently convinced the secretary to reconsider the award a third time and reverse himself, leading to the charge that it was a "politically motivated award." On January 16, 2001, President Bill Clinton awarded Theodore Roosevelt the Medal of Honor posthumously for his charge on San Juan Hill. He is the only president to have received the Medal of Honor.
The United States Navy named two ships for Roosevelt: the , a submarine that was in commission from 1961 to 1982, and the , an aircraft carrier that has been on active duty in the Atlantic Fleet since 1986.
On November 18, 1956, the United States Postal Service released a 6¢ Liberty Issue postage stamp honoring Roosevelt. A 32¢ stamp was issued on February 3, 1998, as part of the Celebrate the Century stamp sheet series. In 2008, Columbia Law School awarded Roosevelt a Juris Doctor degree, posthumously making him a member of the class of 1882.
Roosevelt's "Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick" ideology is still quoted by politicians and columnists in different countries—not only in English, but also in translations to various other languages. Another lasting, popular legacy of Roosevelt is the stuffed toy bears—teddy bears—named after him following an incident on a hunting trip in Mississippi in 1902. Roosevelt has been portrayed in films and television series such as Brighty of the Grand Canyon, The Wind and the Lion, Rough Riders, My Friend Flicka, and Law of the Plainsman. Robin Williams portrayed Roosevelt in the form of a wax mannequin that comes to life in Night at the Museum and its sequels Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian and Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb. In 2017, it was announced that Leonardo DiCaprio will portray Roosevelt in a biopic to be directed by Martin Scorsese.
Moreover, Theodore Roosevelt National Park in the state of North Dakota is named after him. The America the Beautiful Quarters series features Roosevelt riding a horse on the national park's quarter.
Asteroid 188693 Roosevelt, discovered by astronomers with the Catalina Sky Survey in 2005, was named after him. The official was published by the Minor Planet Center on November 8, 2019 ().
In January 2022, after years of lobbying by activists, an equestrian statue of the former president was removed from where it had stood for more than eighty years in front of New York's American Museum of Natural History. Responding to controversy, the museum noted that the design "communicates a racial hierarchy that the museum and members of the public have long found disturbing."
Audiovisual media
Theodore Roosevelt was one of the first presidents whose voice was recorded for posterity. Several of his recorded speeches survive. A 4.6-minute voice recording, which preserves Roosevelt's lower timbre ranges particularly well for its time, is among those available from the Michigan State University libraries (this is the 1912 recording of The Right of the People to Rule, recorded by Edison at Carnegie Hall). The audio clip sponsored by the Authentic History Center includes his defense of the Progressive Party in 1912, wherein he proclaims it the "party of the people" – in contrast with the other major parties.
Roosevelt goes for a ride in Arch Hoxsey's plane in October 1910
In popular culture
Theodore Roosevelt appears as the leader of the American civilization in the Firaxis Games title Civilization VI. His unique ability is Roosevelt Corollary, which gives +5 Combat Strength for all units inside America's home continent, and +1 Appeal to all tiles in cities with a national park.
See also
Notes
References
Bibliography
Full biographies
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, 105 pp, very short biography by leading scholar.
.; also titled Power and responsibility; the life and times of Theodore Roosevelt online free to borrow
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, only volume published, to age 28.
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Personality and activities
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Provides a lesson plan on TR as the historical figure who most exemplifies the quality of masculinity.
. Chronicles the events of TR's presidency during the summers of his two terms.
. The president's use of publicity, rhetoric and force of personality.
; his deadly 1913–14 trip to the Amazon.
, best seller; to 1886.
, to 1884.
. 494 pp.
, examines TR and his family during the World War I period.
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, 240 pp. TR in Africa & Europe, 1909–10
. 289 pp.
, 337 pp; TR's political thought and its significance for republican self-government.
Domestic policies
online review; another online review
Cutright, P.R. (1985) Theodore Roosevelt: The making of a Modern Conservationist (U of Illinois Press.)
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, standard history of his domestic and foreign policy as president.
Bakari, Mohamed El-Kamel. "Mapping the 'Anthropocentric-ecocentric'Dualism in the History of American Presidency: The Good, the Bad, and the Ambivalent." Journal of Studies in Social Sciences 14, no. 2 (2016).
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Redekop, Benjamin. (2015). "Embodying the Story: The Conservation Leadership of Theodore Roosevelt". Leadership (2015) DOI:10.1177/1742715014546875 online
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Politics
. How TR did politics.
, 323 pp.
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. 361 pp.
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. Focus on 1912; online free
. online free
. Attacks TR policies from conservative/libertarian perspective.
Foreign policy, military and naval issues
. online
. excerpt
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. 328 pp.
Kuehn, John T. "Theodore Roosevelt’s Naval Diplomacy: The U.S. Navy and the Birth of the American Century," Naval War College Review (2010) 53#3 online
Livermore, Seward W. "Theodore Roosevelt, the American Navy, and the Venezuelan Crisis of 1902-1903." American Historical Review 51.3 (1946): 452–471. online
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Nester, William R. Theodore Roosevelt and the Art of American Power: An American for All Time. Rowman & Littlefield, 2019. excerpt
Neu, Charles E. "Theodore Roosevelt and American Involvement in the Far East, 1901-1909." Pacific Historical Review 35.4 (1966): 433–449. online
O'Gara, Gordon Carpenter. Theodore Roosevelt and the Rise of the Modern Navy. (Princeton UP, 1943). online
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Oyos, Matthew M. In Command: Theodore Roosevelt and the American Military (2018) online review
Pietrusza, David (2018). TR's Last War: Theodore Roosevelt, the Great War, and a Journey of Triumph and Tragedy
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Thompson, John M. Great Power Rising: Theodore Roosevelt and the Politics of US Foreign Policy (Oxford UP, 2019).
. 196 pp.
Turk, Richard W. The Ambiguous Relationship: Theodore Roosevelt and Alfred Thayer Mahan (1987) [https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article-abstract/93/5/1413/70734 online review
Historiography
Cunliffe, Marcus. "Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States 1901–1908" History Today (Sept 1955) 4#9 pp. 592–601, online.
Ricard, Serge. "The State of Theodore Roosevelt Studies" H-Diplo Essay No. 116 24 October 2014 online
, excerpt and text search, 28 new essays by scholars; focus on historiography. online
Primary sources
Kohn, Edward P., ed. A Most Glorious Ride: The Diaries of Theodore Roosevelt, 1877–1886 (State University of New York Press, 2015), 284 pp.
; vol 2
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, 20 vol.; 18,000 pages containing most of TR's speeches, books and essays, but not his letters; a CD-ROM edition is available; some of TR's books are available online through Project Bartleby
, Roosevelt's opinions on many issues; online version at Theodore Roosevelt.
, 8 vols. Very large collection. vol 1 1868–1898 online free
. online free
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online free to borrow
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External links
Official
White House biography
Organizations
Boone and Crockett Club
Theodore Roosevelt Association
Libraries and collections
Theodore Roosevelt Center at Dickinson State University
Theodore Roosevelt Collection, at the Houghton Library, Harvard University
Julian L. Street Papers on Theodore Roosevelt, at the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library, Princeton University
Doris A. and Lawrence H. Budner Collection on Theodore Roosevelt at the DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University
Theodore Roosevelt's journalism at The Archive of American Journalism
Theodore Roosevelt American Museum of Natural History
Roosevelt Papers, at the Library of Congress
Guide to the Herbert R. Strauss Collection of Theodore Roosevelt Papers 1884–1919 at the University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center
Media
"Life Portrait of Theodore Roosevelt", from C-SPAN's American Presidents: Life Portraits, September 3, 1999
"Writings of Theodore Roosevelt" from C-SPAN's American Writers: A Journey Through History
Other
Almanac of Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt: A Resource Guide – Library of Congress
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20th-century American male writers | 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"
] |
[
"Theodore Roosevelt",
"Early life and family",
"Where was Theodore Roosevelt born?",
"Theodore Roosevelt Jr. was born on October 27, 1858, at East 20th Street in New York City.",
"Who was his mother?",
"socialite Martha Stewart \"Mittie\" Bulloch",
"What type of work did his father do?",
"businessman and philanthropist",
"Did Roosevelt have any siblings?",
"He had an older sister, Anna (nicknamed \"Bamie\"), a younger brother, Elliott, and a younger sister, Corinne.",
"What were his interests in his early life?",
"Roosevelt's youth was largely shaped by his poor health and debilitating asthma.",
"Did he have any hobbies while growing up?",
"His lifelong interest in zoology began at age seven when he saw a dead seal at a local market;",
"Did he ever overcome his asthma and poor health?",
"Doctors had no cure.",
"Were there any influential figures in his early life?",
"Roosevelt's father significantly influenced him.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"after obtaining the seal's head, Roosevelt and two cousins formed what they called the \"Roosevelt Museum of Natural History\"."
] | C_ea2b2d977c0c4d1d93ec5efce7ee7156_1 | What did he do with the seal's head? | 10 | What did Theodore Roosevelt do with the seal's head? | Theodore Roosevelt | Theodore Roosevelt Jr. was born on October 27, 1858, at East 20th Street in New York City. He was the second of four children born to socialite Martha Stewart "Mittie" Bulloch and businessman and philanthropist Theodore Roosevelt Sr. He had an older sister, Anna (nicknamed "Bamie"), a younger brother, Elliott, and a younger sister, Corinne. Elliott was later the father of First Lady Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of Theodore's distant cousin, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. His paternal grandfather was of Dutch descent; his other ancestry included primarily Scottish and Scots-Irish, English and smaller amounts of German, Welsh, and French. Theodore Sr. was the fifth son of businessman Cornelius Van Schaack "C.V.S." Roosevelt and Margaret Barnhill. Theodore's fourth cousin, James Roosevelt I, who was also a businessman, was the father of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Mittie was the younger daughter of Major James Stephens Bulloch and Martha P. "Patsy" Stewart. Through the Van Schaacks, Roosevelt was a descendant of the Schuyler family. Roosevelt's youth was largely shaped by his poor health and debilitating asthma. He repeatedly experienced sudden nighttime asthma attacks that caused the experience of being smothered to death, which terrified both Theodore and his parents. Doctors had no cure. Nevertheless, he was energetic and mischievously inquisitive. His lifelong interest in zoology began at age seven when he saw a dead seal at a local market; after obtaining the seal's head, Roosevelt and two cousins formed what they called the "Roosevelt Museum of Natural History". Having learned the rudiments of taxidermy, he filled his makeshift museum with animals that he killed or caught; he then studied the animals and prepared them for display. At age nine, he recorded his observation of insects in a paper entitled "The Natural History of Insects". Roosevelt's father significantly influenced him. His father was a prominent leader in New York's cultural affairs; he helped to found the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and had been especially active in mobilizing support for the Union during the Civil War, even though his in-laws included Confederate leaders. Roosevelt said, "My father, Theodore Roosevelt, was the best man I ever knew. He combined strength and courage with gentleness, tenderness, and great unselfishness. He would not tolerate in us children selfishness or cruelty, idleness, cowardice, or untruthfulness." Family trips abroad, including tours of Europe in 1869 and 1870, and Egypt in 1872, shaped his cosmopolitan perspective. Hiking with his family in the Alps in 1869, Roosevelt found that he could keep pace with his father. He had discovered the significant benefits of physical exertion to minimize his asthma and bolster his spirits. Roosevelt began a heavy regime of exercise. After being manhandled by two older boys on a camping trip, he found a boxing coach to teach him to fight and strengthen his body. CANNOTANSWER | Having learned the rudiments of taxidermy, he filled his makeshift museum with animals that he killed or caught; | Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or his initials T. R., was an American politician, statesman, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26th president of the United States from 1901 to 1909. He previously served as the 25th vice president under William McKinley from March to September 1901, and as the 33rd governor of New York from 1899 to 1900. Having assumed the presidency after McKinley's assassination, Roosevelt emerged as a leader of the Republican Party and became a driving force for anti-trust and Progressive policies.
Roosevelt was a sickly child with debilitating asthma but partly overcame his health problems by embracing a strenuous lifestyle. He integrated his exuberant personality, a vast range of interests and achievements into a "cowboy" persona defined by robust masculinity. He was home-schooled and began a lifelong naturalist avocation before attending Harvard. His book The Naval War of 1812 (1882) established his reputation as a learned historian and popular writer. Upon entering politics, he became the leader of the reform faction of Republicans in New York's state legislature. His wife and mother both died in the same night and he was psychologically devastated. He recuperated by buying and operating a cattle ranch in the Dakotas. He served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy under President William McKinley and in 1898 helped plan the highly successful naval war against Spain. He resigned to help form and lead the Rough Riders, a unit that fought the Spanish army in Cuba to great publicity. Returning a war hero, he was elected governor of New York in 1898. The New York state party leadership disliked his ambitious agenda and convinced McKinley to make Roosevelt his running mate in the 1900 election. Roosevelt campaigned vigorously, and the McKinley–Roosevelt ticket won a landslide victory based on a platform of victory, peace and prosperity.
Roosevelt assumed the presidency at age 42 after McKinley was assassinated in September 1901. He remains the youngest person to become president of the United States. Roosevelt was a leader of the progressive movement and championed his "Square Deal" domestic policies, promising the average citizen fairness, breaking of trusts, regulation of railroads, and pure food and drugs. He prioritized conservation and established national parks, forests, and monuments intended to preserve the nation's natural resources. In foreign policy, he focused on Central America where he began construction of the Panama Canal. He expanded the Navy and sent the Great White Fleet on a world tour to project American naval power. His successful efforts to broker the end of the Russo-Japanese War won him the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize. Roosevelt was elected to a full term in 1904 and continued to promote progressive policies. He groomed his close friend William Howard Taft to succeed him in the 1908 presidential election.
Roosevelt grew frustrated with Taft's brand of conservatism and belatedly tried to win the 1912 Republican nomination for president. He failed, walked out, and founded the Progressive Party. He ran in the 1912 presidential election and the split allowed the Democratic nominee Woodrow Wilson to win the election. Following the defeat, Roosevelt led a two-year expedition to the Amazon basin where he nearly died of tropical disease. During World War I, he criticized Wilson for keeping the country out of the war; his offer to lead volunteers to France was rejected. He considered running for president again in 1920, but his health continued to deteriorate. He died in 1919. He is generally ranked in polls of historians and political scientists as one of the five best presidents.
Early life and family
Theodore Roosevelt Jr. was born on October 27, 1858, at 28 East 20th Street in Manhattan, New York City. He was the second of four children born to socialite Martha Stewart "Mittie" Bulloch and businessman and philanthropist Theodore Roosevelt Sr. He had an older sister (Anna, nicknamed "Bamie"), a younger brother (Elliott) and a younger sister (Corinne). Elliott was later the father of First Lady Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of Theodore's distant cousin, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. His paternal grandfather was of Dutch descent; his other ancestry included primarily Scottish and Scots-Irish, English and smaller amounts of German, Welsh and French. Theodore Sr. was the fifth son of businessman Cornelius Van Schaack "C. V. S." Roosevelt and Margaret Barnhill as well as a brother of Robert Roosevelt and James A. Roosevelt. Theodore's fourth cousin, James Roosevelt I, who was also a businessman, was the father of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Mittie was the younger daughter of Major James Stephens Bulloch and Martha P. "Patsy" Stewart. Through the Van Schaacks, Roosevelt was a descendant of the Schuyler family.
Roosevelt's youth was largely shaped by his poor health and debilitating asthma. He repeatedly experienced sudden nighttime asthma attacks that caused the experience of being smothered to death, which terrified both Theodore and his parents. Doctors had no cure. Nevertheless, he was energetic and mischievously inquisitive. His lifelong interest in zoology began at age seven when he saw a dead seal at a local market; after obtaining the seal's head, Roosevelt and two cousins formed what they called the "Roosevelt Museum of Natural History". Having learned the rudiments of taxidermy, he filled his makeshift museum with animals that he killed or caught; he then studied the animals and prepared them for exhibition. At age nine, he recorded his observation of insects in a paper entitled "The Natural History of Insects".
Roosevelt's father significantly influenced him. His father was a prominent leader in New York's cultural affairs; he helped to found the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and had been especially active in mobilizing support for the Union during the Civil War, even though his in-laws included Confederate leaders. Roosevelt said, "My father, Theodore Roosevelt, was the best man I ever knew. He combined strength and courage with gentleness, tenderness, and great unselfishness. He would not tolerate in us children selfishness or cruelty, idleness, cowardice, or untruthfulness." Family trips abroad, including tours of Europe in 1869 and 1870, and Egypt in 1872, shaped his cosmopolitan perspective. Hiking with his family in the Alps in 1869, Roosevelt found that he could keep pace with his father. He had discovered the significant benefits of physical exertion to minimize his asthma and bolster his spirits. Roosevelt began a heavy regime of exercise. After being manhandled by two older boys on a camping trip, he found a boxing coach to teach him to fight and strengthen his body.
A 6-year-old Roosevelt witnessed the funeral procession of Abraham Lincoln from his grandfather's mansion in Union Square, New York City where he was photographed in the window along with his brother Elliott, as confirmed by wife Edith who was also present.
Education
Roosevelt was homeschooled, mostly by tutors and his parents. Biographer H. W. Brands argued that "The most obvious drawback to his home schooling was uneven coverage of the various areas of human knowledge." He was solid in geography and bright in history, biology, French, and German; however, he struggled in mathematics and the classical languages. When he entered Harvard College on September 27, 1876, his father advised: "Take care of your morals first, your health next, and finally your studies." His father's sudden death on February 9, 1878, devastated Roosevelt, but he eventually recovered and doubled his activities.
He did well in science, philosophy, and rhetoric courses but continued to struggle in Latin and Greek. He studied biology intently and was already an accomplished naturalist and a published ornithologist. He read prodigiously with an almost photographic memory. While at Harvard, Roosevelt participated in rowing and boxing; he was once runner-up in an intramural boxing tournament. Roosevelt was a member of the Alpha Delta Phi literary society (later the Fly Club), the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity, and the prestigious Porcellian Club; he was also an editor of The Harvard Advocate. In 1880, Roosevelt graduated Phi Beta Kappa (22nd of 177) from Harvard with an A.B. magna cum laude. Biographer Henry Pringle states:
After his father's death, Roosevelt had inherited $65,000 (), enough to live off comfortably for the rest of his life. Roosevelt gave up his earlier plan of studying natural science and instead decided to attend Columbia Law School, moving back into his family's home in New York City. Roosevelt was an able law student, but he often found law to be irrational. He spent much of his time writing a book on the War of 1812.
Determined to enter politics, Roosevelt began attending meetings at Morton Hall, the 59th Street headquarters of New York's 21st District Republican Association. Though Roosevelt's father had been a prominent member of the Republican Party, the younger Roosevelt made an unorthodox career choice for someone of his class, as most of Roosevelt's peers refrained from becoming too closely involved in politics. Roosevelt found allies in the local Republican Party, and he defeated an incumbent Republican state assemblyman closely tied to the political machine of Senator Roscoe Conkling. After his election victory, Roosevelt decided to drop out of law school, later saying, "I intended to be one of the governing class."
Naval history and strategy
While at Harvard, Roosevelt began a systematic study of the role played by the young United States Navy in the War of 1812. Assisted by two uncles, he scrutinized original source materials and official U.S. Navy records, ultimately publishing The Naval War of 1812 in 1882. The book contained drawings of individual and combined ship maneuvers, charts depicting the differences in iron throw weights of cannon shot between rival forces, and analyses of the differences and similarities between British and American leadership down to the ship-to-ship level. Upon release, The Naval War of 1812 was praised for its scholarship and style, and it remains a standard study of the war.
With the publication of The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660–1783 in 1890, Navy Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan was immediately hailed as the world's outstanding naval theorist by the leaders of Europe. Roosevelt paid very close attention to Mahan's emphasis that only a nation with the world's most powerful fleet could dominate the world's oceans, exert its diplomacy to the fullest, and defend its own borders. He incorporated Mahan's ideas into his views on naval strategy for the remainder of his career.
First marriage and widowerhood
In 1880, Roosevelt married socialite Alice Hathaway Lee. Their daughter, Alice Lee Roosevelt, was born on February 12, 1884. Two days later, the new mother died of an undiagnosed case of kidney failure that had been masked by the pregnancy. In his diary, Roosevelt wrote a large 'X' on the page and then, "The light has gone out of my life." His mother, Mittie, had died of typhoid fever eleven hours earlier at 3:00 a.m., in the same house on 57th Street in Manhattan. Distraught, Roosevelt left baby Alice in the care of his sister Bamie while he grieved; he assumed custody of Alice when she was three.
After the deaths of his wife and mother, Roosevelt focused on his work, specifically by re-energizing a legislative investigation into corruption of the New York City government, which arose from a concurrent bill proposing that power be centralized in the mayor's office. For the rest of his life, he rarely spoke about his wife Alice and did not write about her in his autobiography.
Early political career
State Assemblyman
Roosevelt was a member of the New York State Assembly (New York Co., 21st D.) in 1882, 1883 and 1884. He immediately began making his mark, specifically in corporate corruption issues. He blocked a corrupt effort by financier Jay Gould to lower his taxes. Roosevelt exposed suspected collusion in the matter by Judge Theodore Westbrook, and argued for and received approval for an investigation to proceed, aiming for the impeachment of the judge. The investigation committee rejected impeachment, but Roosevelt had exposed the potential corruption in Albany, and thus assumed a high and positive political profile in multiple New York publications.
Roosevelt's anti-corruption efforts helped him win re-election in 1882 by a margin greater than two-to-one, an achievement made even more impressive by the fact that Democratic gubernatorial candidate Grover Cleveland won Roosevelt's district. With Conkling's Stalwart faction of the Republican Party in disarray following the assassination of President James Garfield, Roosevelt won election as the Republican party leader in the state assembly. He allied with Governor Cleveland to win passage of a civil service reform bill. Roosevelt won re-election a second time, and sought the office of Speaker of the New York State Assembly, but was defeated by Titus Sheard in a 41 to 29 vote of the GOP caucus. In his final term, Roosevelt served as Chairman of the Committee on Affairs of Cities; he wrote more bills than any other legislator.
Presidential election of 1884
With numerous presidential hopefuls to choose from, Roosevelt supported Senator George F. Edmunds of Vermont, a colorless reformer. The state GOP preferred the incumbent president, New York City's Chester Arthur, who was known for passing the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act. Arthur, at the time, was suffering from Bright's disease, unknown to the public, and out of duty he did not contest his own nomination. Roosevelt fought hard and succeeded in influencing the Manhattan delegates at the state convention in Utica. He then took control of the state convention, bargaining through the night and outmaneuvering the supporters of Arthur and James G. Blaine; he gained a national reputation as a key person in New York State.
Roosevelt attended the 1884 GOP National Convention in Chicago and gave a speech convincing delegates to nominate African American John R. Lynch, an Edmunds supporter, to be temporary chair. Roosevelt fought alongside the Mugwump reformers; however, Blaine, having gained support from Arthur's and Edmunds's delegates, won the nomination by 541 votes on the fourth ballot. In a crucial moment of his budding political career, Roosevelt resisted the demand of the Mugwumps that he bolt from Blaine. He bragged about his one small success: "We achieved a victory in getting up a combination to beat the Blaine nominee for temporary chairman... To do this needed a mixture of skill, boldness and energy... to get the different factions to come in... to defeat the common foe." He was also impressed by an invitation to speak before an audience of ten thousand, the largest crowd he had addressed up to that date. Having gotten a taste of national politics, Roosevelt felt less aspiration for advocacy on the state level; he then retired to his new "Chimney Butte Ranch" on the Little Missouri River. Roosevelt refused to join other Mugwumps in supporting Grover Cleveland, the governor of New York and the Democratic nominee in the general election. He debated the pros and cons of staying loyal with his political friend, Henry Cabot Lodge. After Blaine won the nomination, Roosevelt had carelessly said that he would give "hearty support to any decent Democrat". He distanced himself from the promise, saying that it had not been meant "for publication". When a reporter asked if he would support Blaine, Roosevelt replied, "That question I decline to answer. It is a subject I do not care to talk about." In the end, he realized that he had to support Blaine to maintain his role in the GOP, and he did so in a press release on July 19. Having lost the support of many reformers, Roosevelt decided to retire from politics and move to North Dakota.
Cattle rancher in Dakota
Roosevelt first visited the Dakota Territory in 1883 to hunt bison. Exhilarated by the western lifestyle, and with the cattle business booming in the territory, Roosevelt invested $14,000 in hopes of becoming a prosperous cattle rancher. For the next several years, he shuttled between his home in New York and his ranch in Dakota.
Following the 1884 presidential election, Roosevelt built a ranch named Elkhorn, which was north of the boomtown of Medora, North Dakota. Roosevelt learned to ride western style, rope, and hunt on the banks of the Little Missouri. Though he earned the respect of the authentic cowboys, they were not overly impressed. However, he identified with the herdsman of history, a man he said possesses "few of the emasculated, milk-and-water moralities admired by the pseudo-philanthropists; but he does possess, to a very high degree, the stern, manly qualities that are invaluable to a nation". He reoriented, and began writing about frontier life for national magazines; he also published three books – Hunting Trips of a Ranchman, Ranch Life and the Hunting-Trail, and The Wilderness Hunter.
Roosevelt brought his desire to address the common interests of citizens to the West. He successfully led efforts to organize ranchers to address problems of overgrazing and other shared concerns; his work resulted in the formation of the Little Missouri Stockmen's Association. He felt compelled to promote conservation and was able to form the Boone and Crockett Club, whose primary goal was the conservation of large game animals and their habitats. After the uniquely severe US winter of 1886–87 wiped out his herd of cattle and those of his competitors, and with it over half of his $80,000 investment, Roosevelt returned to the East. Though his finances suffered from the experience, Roosevelt's time in the West made it impossible to peg him as an ineffectual intellectual, a characterization that could have hampered his political career.
Second marriage
On December 2, 1886, Roosevelt married his childhood and family friend, Edith Kermit Carow. Roosevelt was deeply troubled that his second marriage had taken place so soon after the death of his first wife, and he faced resistance from his sisters. Nonetheless, the couple married at St George's, Hanover Square in London, England. The couple had five children: Theodore "Ted" III in 1887, Kermit in 1889, Ethel in 1891, Archibald in 1894, and Quentin in 1897. The couple also raised Roosevelt's daughter from his first marriage, Alice, who often clashed with her stepmother.
Reentering public life
Upon Roosevelt's return to New York in 1886, Republican leaders quickly approached him about running for mayor of New York City in the city's mayoral election. Roosevelt accepted the nomination despite having little hope of winning the race against United Labor Party candidate Henry George and Democratic candidate Abram Hewitt. Roosevelt campaigned hard for the position, but Hewitt won with 41% (90,552 votes), taking the votes of many Republicans who feared George's radical policies. George was held to 31% (68,110 votes), and Roosevelt took third place with 27% (60,435 votes). Fearing that his political career might never recover, Roosevelt turned his attention to writing The Winning of the West, a historical work tracking the westward movement of Americans; the book was a great success for Roosevelt, earning favorable reviews and selling numerous copies.
Civil Service Commission
After Benjamin Harrison unexpectedly defeated Blaine for the presidential nomination at the 1888 Republican National Convention, Roosevelt gave stump speeches in the Midwest in support of Harrison. On the insistence of Henry Cabot Lodge, President Harrison appointed Roosevelt to the United States Civil Service Commission, where he served until 1895. While many of his predecessors had approached the office as a sinecure, Roosevelt vigorously fought the spoilsmen and demanded enforcement of civil service laws. The New York Sun then described Roosevelt as "irrepressible, belligerent, and enthusiastic". Roosevelt frequently clashed with Postmaster General John Wanamaker, who handed out numerous patronage positions to Harrison supporters, and Roosevelt's attempt to force out several postal workers damaged Harrison politically. Despite Roosevelt's support for Harrison's reelection bid in the presidential election of 1892, the eventual winner, Grover Cleveland, reappointed him to the same post. Roosevelt's close friend and biographer, Joseph Bucklin Bishop, described his assault on the spoils system:
New York City Police Commissioner
In 1894, a group of reform Republicans approached Roosevelt about running for Mayor of New York again; he declined, mostly due to his wife's resistance to being removed from the Washington social set. Soon after he declined, he realized that he had missed an opportunity to reinvigorate a dormant political career. He retreated to the Dakotas for a time; his wife Edith regretted her role in the decision and vowed that there would be no repeat of it.
William Lafayette Strong, a reform-minded Republican, won the 1894 mayoral election and offered Roosevelt a position on the board of the New York City Police Commissioners. Roosevelt became president of the board of commissioners and radically reformed the police force. Roosevelt implemented regular inspections of firearms and annual physical exams, appointed recruits based on their physical and mental qualifications rather than political affiliation, established Meritorious Service Medals, and closed corrupt police hostelries. During his tenure, a Municipal Lodging House was established by the Board of Charities, and Roosevelt required officers to register with the Board; he also had telephones installed in station houses.
In 1894, Roosevelt met Jacob Riis, the muckraking Evening Sun newspaper journalist who was opening the eyes of New Yorkers to the terrible conditions of the city's millions of poor immigrants with such books as How the Other Half Lives. Riis described how his book affected Roosevelt:
Roosevelt made a habit of walking officers' beats late at night and early in the morning to make sure that they were on duty. He made a concerted effort to uniformly enforce New York's Sunday closing law; in this, he ran up against boss Tom Platt as well as Tammany Hall—he was notified that the Police Commission was being legislated out of existence. His crackdowns led to protests and demonstrations. Invited to one large demonstration, not only did he surprisingly accept, he delighted in the insults, caricatures and lampoons directed at him, and earned some surprising good will. Roosevelt chose to defer rather than split with his party. As Governor of New York State, he would later sign an act replacing the Police Commission with a single Police Commissioner.
Emergence as a national figure
Assistant Secretary of the Navy
In the 1896 presidential election, Roosevelt backed Speaker of the House Thomas Brackett Reed for the Republican nomination, but William McKinley won the nomination and defeated William Jennings Bryan in the general election. Roosevelt opposed Bryan's free silver platform, viewing many of Bryan's followers as dangerous fanatics, and Roosevelt gave campaign speeches for McKinley. Urged by Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, President McKinley appointed Roosevelt as the Assistant Secretary of the Navy in 1897. Secretary of the Navy John D. Long was more concerned about formalities than functions, was in poor health, and left many major decisions to Roosevelt. Influenced by Alfred Thayer Mahan, Roosevelt called for a build-up in the country's naval strength, particularly the construction of battleships. Roosevelt also began pressing his national security views regarding the Pacific and the Caribbean on McKinley, and was particularly adamant that Spain be ejected from Cuba. He explained his priorities to one of the Navy's planners in late 1897:
On February 15, 1898, , an armored cruiser, exploded in the harbor of Havana, Cuba, killing hundreds of crew members. While Roosevelt and many other Americans blamed Spain for the explosion, McKinley sought a diplomatic solution. Without approval from Long or McKinley, Roosevelt sent out orders to several naval vessels, directing them to prepare for war. George Dewey, who had received an appointment to lead the Asiatic Squadron with the backing of Roosevelt, later credited his victory at the Battle of Manila Bay to Roosevelt's orders. After finally giving up hope of a peaceful solution, McKinley asked Congress to declare war upon Spain, beginning the Spanish–American War.
War in Cuba
With the beginning of the Spanish–American War in late April 1898, Roosevelt resigned from his post as Assistant Secretary of the Navy. Along with Army Colonel Leonard Wood, he formed the First US Volunteer Cavalry Regiment. His wife and many of his friends begged Roosevelt to remain in his post in Washington, but Roosevelt was determined to see battle. When the newspapers reported the formation of the new regiment, Roosevelt and Wood were flooded with applications from all over the country. Referred to by the press as the "Rough Riders", the regiment was one of many temporary units active only for the duration of the war.
The regiment trained for several weeks in San Antonio, Texas, and in his autobiography, Roosevelt wrote that his prior experience with the New York National Guard had been invaluable, in that it enabled him to immediately begin teaching his men basic soldiering skills. The Rough Riders used some standard issue gear and some of their own design, purchased with gift money. Diversity characterized the regiment, which included Ivy Leaguers, professional and amateur athletes, upscale gentlemen, cowboys, frontiersmen, Native Americans, hunters, miners, prospectors, former soldiers, tradesmen, and sheriffs. The Rough Riders were part of the cavalry division commanded by former Confederate general Joseph Wheeler, which itself was one of three divisions in the V Corps under Lieutenant General William Rufus Shafter. Roosevelt and his men landed in Daiquirí, Cuba, on June 23, 1898, and marched to Siboney. Wheeler sent parts of the 1st and 10th Regular Cavalry on the lower road northwest and sent the "Rough Riders" on the parallel road running along a ridge up from the beach. To throw off his infantry rival, Wheeler left one regiment of his Cavalry Division, the 9th, at Siboney so that he could claim that his move north was only a limited reconnaissance if things went wrong. Roosevelt was promoted to colonel and took command of the regiment when Wood was put in command of the brigade. The Rough Riders had a short, minor skirmish known as the Battle of Las Guasimas; they fought their way through Spanish resistance and, together with the Regulars, forced the Spaniards to abandon their positions.
Under his leadership, the Rough Riders became famous for the charge up Kettle Hill on July 1, 1898, while supporting the regulars. Roosevelt had the only horse, and rode back and forth between rifle pits at the forefront of the advance up Kettle Hill, an advance that he urged despite the absence of any orders from superiors. He was forced to walk up the last part of Kettle Hill because his horse had been entangled in barbed wire. The victories came at a cost of 200 killed and 1,000 wounded.
In August, Roosevelt and other officers demanded that the soldiers be returned home. Roosevelt always recalled the Battle of Kettle Hill (part of the San Juan Heights) as "the great day of my life" and "my crowded hour". In 2001, Roosevelt was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions; he had been nominated during the war, but Army officials, annoyed at his grabbing the headlines, blocked it. After returning to civilian life, Roosevelt preferred to be known as "Colonel Roosevelt" or "The Colonel", though "Teddy" remained much more popular with the public, even though Roosevelt openly despised that moniker. Men working closely with Roosevelt customarily called him "Colonel" or "Theodore". Henceforth, political cartoons of Roosevelt usually depicted him in his Rough Rider garb.
Governor of New York
After leaving Cuba in August 1898, the Rough Riders were transported to a camp at Montauk Point, Long Island, where Roosevelt and his men were briefly quarantined due to the War Department's fear of spreading yellow fever. Shortly after Roosevelt's return to the United States, Republican Congressman Lemuel E. Quigg, a lieutenant of party boss Tom Platt, asked Roosevelt to run in the 1898 gubernatorial election. Platt disliked Roosevelt personally, feared that Roosevelt would oppose Platt's interests in office, and was reluctant to propel Roosevelt to the forefront of national politics. However, Platt also needed a strong candidate due to the unpopularity of the incumbent Republican governor, Frank S. Black, and Roosevelt agreed to become the nominee and to try not to "make war" with the Republican establishment once in office. Roosevelt defeated Black in the Republican caucus by a vote of 753 to 218, and faced Democrat Augustus Van Wyck, a well-respected judge, in the general election. Roosevelt campaigned vigorously on his war record, winning the election by a margin of just one percent.
As governor, Roosevelt learned much about ongoing economic issues and political techniques that later proved valuable in his presidency. He was exposed to the problems of trusts, monopolies, labor relations, and conservation. Chessman argues that Roosevelt's program "rested firmly upon the concept of the square deal by a neutral state". The rules for the Square Deal were "honesty in public affairs, an equitable sharing of privilege and responsibility, and subordination of party and local concerns to the interests of the state at large".
By holding twice-daily press conferences—which was an innovation—Roosevelt remained connected with his middle-class political base. Roosevelt successfully pushed the Ford Franchise-Tax bill, which taxed public franchises granted by the state and controlled by corporations, declaring that "a corporation which derives its powers from the State, should pay to the State a just percentage of its earnings as a return for the privileges it enjoys". He rejected "boss" Thomas C. Platt's worries that this approached Bryanite Socialism, explaining that without it, New York voters might get angry and adopt public ownership of streetcar lines and other franchises.
The New York state government affected many interests, and the power to make appointments to policy-making positions was a key role for the governor. Platt insisted that he be consulted on major appointments; Roosevelt appeared to comply, but then made his own decisions. Historians marvel that Roosevelt managed to appoint so many first-rate men with Platt's approval. He even enlisted Platt's help in securing reform, such as in the spring of 1899, when Platt pressured state senators to vote for a civil service bill that the secretary of the Civil Service Reform Association called "superior to any civil service statute heretofore secured in America".
Chessman argues that as governor, Roosevelt developed the principles that shaped his presidency, especially insistence upon the public responsibility of large corporations, publicity as a first remedy for trusts, regulation of railroad rates, mediation of the conflict of capital and labor, conservation of natural resources and protection of the less fortunate members of society. Roosevelt sought to position himself against the excesses of large corporations on the one hand and radical movements on the other.
As the chief executive of the most populous state in the union, Roosevelt was widely considered a potential future presidential candidate, and supporters such as William Allen White encouraged him to run for president. Roosevelt had no interest in challenging McKinley for the Republican nomination in 1900, and was denied his preferred post of Secretary of War. As his term progressed, Roosevelt pondered a 1904 presidential run, but was uncertain about whether he should seek re-election as governor in 1900.
Vice Presidency (1901)
In November 1899, Vice President Garret Hobart died of heart failure, leaving an open spot on the 1900 Republican national ticket. Though Henry Cabot Lodge and others urged him to run for vice president in 1900, Roosevelt was reluctant to take the powerless position and issued a public statement saying that he would not accept the nomination. Additionally, Roosevelt was informed by President McKinley and campaign manager Mark Hanna that he was not being considered for the role of vice president due to his actions prior to the Spanish–American War. Eager to be rid of Roosevelt, Platt nonetheless began a newspaper campaign in favor of Roosevelt's nomination for the vice presidency. Roosevelt attended the 1900 Republican National Convention as a state delegate and struck a bargain with Platt: Roosevelt would accept the nomination for vice president if the convention offered it to him, but would otherwise serve another term as governor. Platt asked Pennsylvania party boss Matthew Quay to lead the campaign for Roosevelt's nomination, and Quay outmaneuvered Hanna at the convention to put Roosevelt on the ticket. Roosevelt won the nomination unanimously.
Roosevelt's vice-presidential campaigning proved highly energetic and an equal match for Democratic presidential nominee William Jennings Bryan's famous barnstorming style of campaigning. In a whirlwind campaign that displayed his energy to the public, Roosevelt made 480 stops in 23 states. He denounced the radicalism of Bryan, contrasting it with the heroism of the soldiers and sailors who fought and won the war against Spain. Bryan had strongly supported the war itself, but he denounced the annexation of the Philippines as imperialism, which would spoil America's innocence. Roosevelt countered that it was best for the Filipinos to have stability and the Americans to have a proud place in the world. With the nation basking in peace and prosperity, the voters gave McKinley an even larger victory than that which he had achieved in 1896.
After the campaign, Roosevelt took office as vice president in March 1901. The office of vice president was a powerless sinecure and did not suit Roosevelt's aggressive temperament. Roosevelt's six months as vice president were uneventful and boring for a man of action. He had no power; he presided over the Senate for a mere four days before it adjourned. On September 2, 1901, Roosevelt first publicized an aphorism that thrilled his supporters: "Speak softly and carry a big stick, and you will go far."
Presidency (1901–1909)
On September 6, 1901, President McKinley was attending the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York when he was shot by anarchist Leon Czolgosz. Roosevelt was vacationing in Isle La Motte, Vermont, and traveled to Buffalo to visit McKinley in the hospital. It appeared that McKinley would recover, so Roosevelt resumed his vacation in the Adirondack Mountains. When McKinley's condition worsened, Roosevelt again rushed back to Buffalo. McKinley died on September 14, and Roosevelt was informed while he was in North Creek; he continued on to Buffalo and was sworn in as the nation's 26th president at the Ansley Wilcox House.
McKinley's supporters were nervous about the new president, and Hanna was particularly bitter that the man he had opposed so vigorously at the convention had succeeded McKinley. Roosevelt assured party leaders that he intended to adhere to McKinley's policies, and he retained McKinley's Cabinet. Nonetheless, Roosevelt sought to position himself as the party's undisputed leader, seeking to bolster the role of the president and position himself for the 1904 election. The vice presidency remained vacant, as there was no constitutional provision for filling an intra-term vacancy in that office (prior to the 25th Amendment in 1967).
Shortly after taking office, Roosevelt invited Booker T. Washington to dinner at the White House. This sparked a bitter, and at times vicious, reaction among whites across the heavily segregated South. Roosevelt reacted with astonishment and protest, saying that he looked forward to many future dinners with Washington. Upon further reflection, Roosevelt wanted to ensure that this had no effect on political support in the white South, and further dinner invitations to Washington were avoided; their next meeting was scheduled as typical business at 10:00 a.m. instead.
Domestic policies
Trust busting and regulation
For his aggressive use of the 1890 Sherman Antitrust Act, compared to his predecessors, Roosevelt was hailed as the "trust-buster"; but in reality he was more of a trust regulator. Roosevelt viewed big business as a necessary part of the American economy, and sought only to prosecute the "bad trusts" that restrained trade and charged unfair prices. He brought 44 antitrust suits, breaking up the Northern Securities Company, the largest railroad monopoly; and regulating Standard Oil, the largest oil company. Presidents Benjamin Harrison, Grover Cleveland, and William McKinley combined had prosecuted only 18 antitrust violations under the Sherman Antitrust Act.
Bolstered by his party's winning large majorities in the 1902 elections, Roosevelt proposed the creation of the United States Department of Commerce and Labor, which would include the Bureau of Corporations. While Congress was receptive to the Department of Commerce and Labor, it was more skeptical of the antitrust powers that Roosevelt sought to endow within the Bureau of Corporations. Roosevelt successfully appealed to the public to pressure Congress, and Congress overwhelmingly voted to pass Roosevelt's version of the bill.
In a moment of frustration, House Speaker Joseph Gurney Cannon commented on Roosevelt's desire for executive branch control in domestic policy-making: "That fellow at the other end of the avenue wants everything from the birth of Christ to the death of the devil." Biographer Brands states, "Even his friends occasionally wondered whether there wasn't any custom or practice too minor for him to try to regulate, update or otherwise improve." In fact, Roosevelt's willingness to exercise his power included attempted rule changes in the game of football; at the Naval Academy, he sought to force retention of martial arts classes and to revise disciplinary rules. He even ordered changes made in the minting of a coin whose design he disliked, and ordered the Government Printing Office to adopt simplified spellings for a core list of 300 words, according to reformers on the Simplified Spelling Board. He was forced to rescind the latter after substantial ridicule from the press and a resolution of protest from the House of Representatives.
Coal strike
In May 1902, anthracite coal miners went on strike, threatening a national energy shortage. After threatening the coal operators with intervention by federal troops, Roosevelt won their agreement to dispute arbitration by a commission, which succeeded in stopping the strike. The accord with J. P. Morgan resulted in the miners getting more pay for fewer hours, but with no union recognition. Roosevelt said, "My action on labor should always be considered in connection with my action as regards capital, and both are reducible to my favorite formula—a square deal for every man." Roosevelt was the first president to help settle a labor dispute.
Prosecuted misconduct
During Roosevelt's second year in office it was discovered there was corruption in the Indian Service, the Land Office, and the Post Office Department. Roosevelt investigated and prosecuted corrupt Indian agents who had cheated the Creeks and various tribes out of land parcels. Land fraud and speculation were found involving Oregon federal timberlands. In November 1902, Roosevelt and Secretary Ethan A. Hitchcock forced Binger Hermann, the General Land Office Commissioner, to resign from office. On November 6, 1903 Francis J. Heney was appointed special prosecutor and obtained 146 indictments involving an Oregon Land Office bribery ring. U.S. Senator John H. Mitchell was indicted for bribery to expedite illegal land patents, found guilty in July 1905, and sentenced to six months in prison. More corruption was found in the Postal Department, that brought on the indictments of 44 government employees on charges of bribery and fraud. Historians generally agree that Roosevelt moved "quickly and decisively" to prosecute misconduct in his administration.
Railroads
Merchants complained that some railroad rates were too high. In the 1906 Hepburn Act, Roosevelt sought to give the Interstate Commerce Commission the power to regulate rates, but the Senate, led by conservative Nelson Aldrich, fought back. Roosevelt worked with the Democratic Senator Benjamin Tillman to pass the bill. Roosevelt and Aldrich ultimately reached a compromise that gave the ICC the power to replace existing rates with "just-and-reasonable" maximum rates, but allowed railroads to appeal to the federal courts on what was "reasonable". In addition to rate-setting, the Hepburn Act also granted the ICC regulatory power over pipeline fees, storage contracts, and several other aspects of railroad operations.
Pure food and drugs
Roosevelt responded to public anger over the abuses in the food packing industry by pushing Congress to pass the Meat Inspection Act of 1906 and the Pure Food and Drug Act. Though conservatives initially opposed the bill, Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, published in 1906, helped galvanize support for reform. The Meat Inspection Act of 1906 banned misleading labels and preservatives that contained harmful chemicals. The Pure Food and Drug Act banned food and drugs that were impure or falsely labeled from being made, sold, and shipped. Roosevelt also served as honorary president of the American School Hygiene Association from 1907 to 1908, and in 1909 he convened the first White House Conference on the Care of Dependent Children.
Conservation
Of all Roosevelt's achievements, he was proudest of his work in the conservation of natural resources and extending federal protection to land and wildlife. Roosevelt worked closely with Interior Secretary James Rudolph Garfield and Chief of the United States Forest Service Gifford Pinchot to enact a series of conservation programs that often met with resistance from Western members of Congress, such as Charles William Fulton. Nonetheless, Roosevelt established the United States Forest Service, signed into law the creation of five National Parks, and signed the 1906 Antiquities Act, under which he proclaimed 18 new U.S. National Monuments. He also established the first 51 bird reserves, four game preserves, and 150 National Forests. The area of the United States that he placed under public protection totals approximately .
Roosevelt extensively used executive orders on a number of occasions to protect forest and wildlife lands during his tenure as president. By the end of his second term in office, Roosevelt used executive orders to establish of reserved forestry land. Roosevelt was unapologetic about his extensive use of executive orders to protect the environment, despite the perception in Congress that he was encroaching on too many lands. Eventually, Senator Charles Fulton (R-OR) attached an amendment to an agricultural appropriations bill that effectively prevented the president from reserving any further land. Before signing that bill into law, Roosevelt used executive orders to establish an additional 21 forest reserves, waiting until the last minute to sign the bill into law. In total, Roosevelt used executive orders to establish 121 forest reserves in 31 states. Prior to Roosevelt, only one president had issued over 200 executive orders, Grover Cleveland (253). The first 25 presidents issued a total of 1,262 executive orders; Roosevelt issued 1,081.
Foreign policy
Japan
The American annexation of Hawaii in 1898 was stimulated in part by fear that otherwise Japan would dominate the Hawaiian Republic. Similarly, Germany was the alternative to American takeover of the Philippines in 1900, and Tokyo strongly preferred the U.S. to take over. As the U.S. became a naval world power, it needed to find a way to avoid a military confrontation in the Pacific with Japan.
In the 1890s, Roosevelt had been an ardent imperialist and vigorously defended the permanent acquisition of the Philippines in the 1900 campaign. After the local insurrection ended in 1902, he largely lost his imperialist interest in the Philippines and Asian expansion but wished to have a strong U.S. presence in the region as a symbol of democratic values. One of Theodore Roosevelt's priorities during his presidency and afterwards, was the maintenance of friendly relations with Japan. From 1904 to 1905 Japan and Russia were at war. Roosevelt admired the martial courage of the Japanese, and distrusted the reckless German Kaiser. Both sides asked Roosevelt to mediate a peace conference, held successfully in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Roosevelt won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts.
In California, anti-Japanese hostility was growing, and Tokyo protested. Roosevelt negotiated a "Gentleman's Agreement" in 1907. Explicit discrimination against the Japanese was ended, and Japan agreed not to allow unskilled immigrants into the United States. The Great White Fleet of American battleships visited Japan in 1908. Pulitzer prize-winning biographer Henry Pringle states that the great voyage was "the direct result of the Japanese trouble." Roosevelt intended to emphasize the superiority of the American fleet over the smaller Japanese navy, but instead of resentment the visitors arrived to a joyous welcome by Japanese elite as well as the general public. This good-will facilitated the Root–Takahira Agreement of November 1908 which reaffirmed the status quo of Japanese control of Korea and American control of the Philippines.
Europe
Success in the war against Spain and the new empire, plus having the largest economy in the world, meant that the United States had emerged as a world power. Roosevelt searched for ways to win recognition for the position abroad.
Roosevelt also played a major role in mediating the First Moroccan Crisis by calling the Algeciras Conference, which averted war between France and Germany.
Roosevelt's presidency saw the strengthening of ties with Great Britain. The Great Rapprochement had begun with British support of the United States during the Spanish–American War, and it continued as Britain withdrew its fleet from the Caribbean in favor of focusing on the rising German naval threat. In 1901, Britain and the United States signed the Hay–Pauncefote Treaty, abrogating the Clayton–Bulwer Treaty, which had prevented the United States from constructing a canal connecting the Pacific and the Atlantic Ocean. The long-standing Alaska boundary dispute was settled on terms favorable to the United States, as Great Britain was unwilling to alienate the United States over what it considered to be a secondary issue. As Roosevelt later put it, the resolution of the Alaskan boundary dispute "settled the last serious trouble between the British Empire and ourselves."
Latin America and Panama Canal
As president, he primarily focused the nation's overseas ambitions on the Caribbean, especially locations that had a bearing on the defense of his pet project, the Panama Canal. Roosevelt also increased the size of the navy, and by the end of his second term the United States had more battleships than any other country besides Britain. The Panama Canal when it opened in 1914 allowed the U.S. Navy to rapidly move back and forth from the Pacific to the Caribbean to European waters.
In December 1902, the Germans, British, and Italians blockaded the ports of Venezuela in order to force the repayment of delinquent loans. Roosevelt was particularly concerned with the motives of German Emperor Wilhelm II. He succeeded in getting the three nations to agree to arbitration by tribunal at The Hague, and successfully defused the crisis. The latitude granted to the Europeans by the arbiters was in part responsible for the "Roosevelt Corollary" to the Monroe Doctrine, which the President issued in 1904: "Chronic wrongdoing or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation, and in the Western Hemisphere, the adherence of the United States to the Monroe doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power."
The pursuit of an isthmus canal in Central America during this period focused on two possible routes—Nicaragua and Panama, which was then a rebellious district within Colombia. Roosevelt convinced Congress to approve the Panamanian alternative, and a treaty was approved, only to be rejected by the Colombian government. When the Panamanians learned of this, a rebellion followed, was supported by Roosevelt, and succeeded. A treaty with the new Panama government for construction of the canal was then reached in 1903. Roosevelt received criticism for paying the bankrupt Panama Canal Company and the New Panama Canal Company $40,000,000 (equivalent to $ billion in ) for the rights and equipment to build the canal. Critics charged that an American investor syndicate allegedly divided the large payment among themselves. There was also controversy over whether a French company engineer influenced Roosevelt in choosing the Panama route for the canal over the Nicaragua route. Roosevelt denied charges of corruption concerning the canal in a January 8, 1906 message to Congress. In January 1909, Roosevelt, in an unprecedented move, brought criminal libel charges against the New York World and the Indianapolis News known as the "Roosevelt-Panama Libel Cases". Both cases were dismissed by U.S. District Courts, and on January 3, 1911, the U.S. Supreme Court, upon federal appeal, upheld the lower courts' rulings. Historians are sharply critical of Roosevelt's criminal prosecutions of the World and the News, but are divided on whether actual corruption in acquiring and building the Panama Canal took place.
In 1906, following a disputed election, an insurrection ensued in Cuba; Roosevelt sent Taft, the Secretary of War, to monitor the situation; he was convinced that he had the authority to unilaterally authorize Taft to deploy Marines if necessary, without congressional approval.
Examining the work of numerous scholars, Ricard (2014) reports that:
The most striking evolution in the twenty-first-century historiography of Theodore Roosevelt is the switch from a partial arraignment of the imperialist to a quasi-unanimous celebration of the master diplomatist.... [Recent works] have underlined cogently Roosevelt's exceptional statesmanship in the construction of the nascent twentieth-century "special relationship". ...The twenty-sixth president's reputation as a brilliant diplomatist and realpolitician has undeniably reached new heights in the twenty-first century...yet, his Philippine policy still prompts criticism.
Media
Building on McKinley's effective use of the press, Roosevelt made the White House the center of news every day, providing interviews and photo opportunities. After noticing the reporters huddled outside the White House in the rain one day, he gave them their own room inside, effectively inventing the presidential press briefing. The grateful press, with unprecedented access to the White House, rewarded Roosevelt with ample coverage.
Roosevelt normally enjoyed very close relationships with the press, which he used to keep in daily contact with his middle-class base. While out of office, he made a living as a writer and magazine editor. He loved talking with intellectuals, authors, and writers. He drew the line, however, at exposé-oriented scandal-mongering journalists who, during his term, sent magazine subscriptions soaring by their attacks on corrupt politicians, mayors, and corporations. Roosevelt himself was not usually a target, but a speech of his from 1906 coined the term "muckraker" for unscrupulous journalists making wild charges. "The liar", he said, "is no whit better than the thief, and if his mendacity takes the form of slander he may be worse than most thieves."
The press did briefly target Roosevelt in one instance. After 1904, he was periodically criticized for the manner in which he facilitated the construction of the Panama Canal. According to biographer Brands, Roosevelt, near the end of his term, demanded that the Justice Department bring charges of criminal libel against Joseph Pulitzer's New York World. The publication had accused him of "deliberate misstatements of fact" in defense of family members who were criticized as a result of the Panama affair. Though an indictment was obtained, the case was ultimately dismissed in federal court—it was not a federal offense, but one enforceable in state courts. The Justice Department had predicted that result, and had also advised Roosevelt accordingly.
Election of 1904
The control and management of the Republican Party lay in the hands of Ohio Senator and Republican Party chairman Mark Hanna until McKinley's death. Roosevelt and Hanna frequently cooperated during Roosevelt's first term, but Hanna left open the possibility of a challenge to Roosevelt for the 1904 Republican nomination. Roosevelt and Ohio's other Senator, Joseph B. Foraker, forced Hanna's hand by calling for Ohio's state Republican convention to endorse Roosevelt for the 1904 nomination. Unwilling to break with the president, Hanna was forced to publicly endorse Roosevelt. Hanna and Pennsylvania Senator Matthew Quay both died in early 1904, and with the waning of Thomas Platt's power, Roosevelt faced little effective opposition for the 1904 nomination. In deference to Hanna's conservative loyalists, Roosevelt at first offered the party chairmanship to Cornelius Bliss, but he declined. Roosevelt turned to his own man, George B. Cortelyou of New York, the first Secretary of Commerce and Labor. To buttress his hold on the party's nomination, Roosevelt made it clear that anyone opposing Cortelyou would be considered to be opposing the President. The President secured his own nomination, but his preferred vice-presidential running mate, Robert R. Hitt, was not nominated. Senator Charles Warren Fairbanks of Indiana, a favorite of conservatives, gained the nomination.
While Roosevelt followed the tradition of incumbents in not actively campaigning on the stump, he sought to control the campaign's message through specific instructions to Cortelyou. He also attempted to manage the press's release of White House statements by forming the Ananias Club. Any journalist who repeated a statement made by the president without approval was penalized by restriction of further access.
The Democratic Party's nominee in 1904 was Alton Brooks Parker. Democratic newspapers charged that Republicans were extorting large campaign contributions from corporations, putting ultimate responsibility on Roosevelt, himself. Roosevelt denied corruption while at the same time he ordered Cortelyou to return $100,000 (equivalent to $ million in ) of a campaign contribution from Standard Oil. Parker said that Roosevelt was accepting corporate donations to keep damaging information from the Bureau of Corporations from going public. Roosevelt strongly denied Parker's charge and responded that he would "go into the Presidency unhampered by any pledge, promise, or understanding of any kind, sort, or description...". Allegations from Parker and the Democrats, however, had little impact on the election, as Roosevelt promised to give every American a "square deal". Roosevelt won 56% of the popular vote, and Parker received 38%; Roosevelt also won the Electoral College vote, 336 to 140. Before his inauguration ceremony, Roosevelt declared that he would not serve another term. Democrats afterwards would continue to charge Roosevelt and the Republicans of being influenced by corporate donations during Roosevelt's second term.
Second term
As his second term progressed, Roosevelt moved to the left of his Republican Party base and called for a series of reforms, most of which Congress failed to pass. In his last year in office, he was assisted by his friend Archibald Butt (who later perished in the sinking of RMS Titanic). Roosevelt's influence waned as he approached the end of his second term, as his promise to forego a third term made him a lame duck and his concentration of power provoked a backlash from many Congressmen. He sought a national incorporation law (at a time when all corporations had state charters), called for a federal income tax (despite the Supreme Court's ruling in Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co.), and an inheritance tax. In the area of labor legislation, Roosevelt called for limits on the use of court injunctions against labor unions during strikes; injunctions were a powerful weapon that mostly helped business. He wanted an employee liability law for industrial injuries (pre-empting state laws) and an eight-hour work day for federal employees. In other areas he also sought a postal savings system (to provide competition for local banks), and he asked for campaign reform laws.
The election of 1904 continued to be a source of contention between Republicans and Democrats. A Congressional investigation in 1905 revealed that corporate executives donated tens of thousands of dollars in 1904 to the Republican National Committee. In 1908, a month before the general presidential election, Governor Charles N. Haskell of Oklahoma, former Democratic Treasurer, said that Senators beholden to Standard Oil lobbied Roosevelt, in the summer of 1904, to authorize the leasing of Indian oil lands by Standard Oil subsidiaries. He said Roosevelt overruled his Secretary of Interior Ethan A. Hitchcock and granted a pipeline franchise to run through the Osage lands to the Prairie Oil and Gas Company. The New York Sun made a similar accusation and said that Standard Oil, a refinery who financially benefited from the pipeline, had contributed $150,000 to the Republicans in 1904 (equivalent to $ million in ) after Roosevelt's alleged reversal allowing the pipeline franchise. Roosevelt branded Haskell's allegation as "a lie, pure and simple" and obtained a denial from Treasury Secretary Shaw that Roosevelt had neither coerced Shaw nor overruled him.
Post-presidency (1909–1919)
Election of 1908
Roosevelt enjoyed being president and was still relatively youthful, but felt that a limited number of terms provided a check against dictatorship. Roosevelt ultimately decided to stick to his 1904 pledge not to run for a third term. He personally favored Secretary of State Elihu Root as his successor, but Root's ill health made him an unsuitable candidate. New York Governor Charles Evans Hughes loomed as a potentially strong candidate and shared Roosevelt's progressivism, but Roosevelt disliked him and considered him to be too independent. Instead, Roosevelt settled on his Secretary of War, William Howard Taft, who had ably served under Presidents Harrison, McKinley, and Roosevelt in various positions. Roosevelt and Taft had been friends since 1890, and Taft had consistently supported President Roosevelt's policies. Roosevelt was determined to install the successor of his choice, and wrote the following to Taft: "Dear Will: Do you want any action about those federal officials? I will break their necks with the utmost cheerfulness if you say the word!". Just weeks later he branded as "false and malicious" the charge that he was using the offices at his disposal to favor Taft. At the 1908 Republican convention, many chanted for "four years more" of a Roosevelt presidency, but Taft won the nomination after Henry Cabot Lodge made it clear that Roosevelt was not interested in a third term.
In the 1908 election, Taft easily defeated the Democratic nominee, three-time candidate William Jennings Bryan. Taft promoted a progressivism that stressed the rule of law; he preferred that judges rather than administrators or politicians make the basic decisions about fairness. Taft usually proved to be a less adroit politician than Roosevelt and lacked the energy and personal magnetism, along with the publicity devices, the dedicated supporters, and the broad base of public support that made Roosevelt so formidable. When Roosevelt realized that lowering the tariff would risk creating severe tensions inside the Republican Party by pitting producers (manufacturers and farmers) against merchants and consumers, he stopped talking about the issue. Taft ignored the risks and tackled the tariff boldly, encouraging reformers to fight for lower rates, and then cutting deals with conservative leaders that kept overall rates high. The resulting Payne-Aldrich tariff of 1909, signed into law early in President Taft's tenure, was too high for most reformers, and Taft's handling of the tariff alienated all sides. While the crisis was building inside the Party, Roosevelt was touring Africa and Europe, to allow Taft to be his own man.
Africa and Europe (1909–1910)
In March 1909, shortly after the end of his presidency, Roosevelt left New York for the Smithsonian-Roosevelt African Expedition, a safari in east and central Africa. Roosevelt's party landed in Mombasa, East Africa (now Kenya) and traveled to the Belgian Congo (now Democratic Republic of the Congo) before following the Nile to Khartoum in modern Sudan. Financed by Andrew Carnegie and by his own writings, Roosevelt's party hunted for specimens for the Smithsonian Institution and for the American Museum of Natural History in New York. The group, led by the hunter-tracker RJ Cunninghame, included scientists from the Smithsonian, and was joined from time to time by Frederick Selous, the famous big game hunter and explorer. Participants on the expedition included Kermit Roosevelt, Edgar Alexander Mearns, Edmund Heller, and John Alden Loring.
Roosevelt and his companions killed or trapped approximately 11,400 animals, from insects and moles to hippopotamuses and elephants. The 1,000 large animals included 512 big game animals, including six rare white rhinos. Tons of salted animals and their skins were shipped to Washington; it took years to mount them all, and the Smithsonian shared many duplicate specimens with other museums. Regarding the large number of animals taken, Roosevelt said, "I can be condemned only if the existence of the National Museum, the American Museum of Natural History, and all similar zoological institutions are to be condemned". He wrote a detailed account of the safari in the book African Game Trails, recounting the excitement of the chase, the people he met, and the flora and fauna he collected in the name of science.
After his safari, Roosevelt traveled north to embark on a tour of Europe. Stopping first in Egypt, he commented favorably on British rule of the region, giving his opinion that Egypt was not yet ready for independence. He refused a meeting with the Pope due to a dispute over a group of Methodists active in Rome, but met with Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, King George V of Great Britain, and other European leaders. In Oslo, Norway, Roosevelt delivered a speech calling for limitations on naval armaments, a strengthening of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, and the creation of a "League of Peace" among the world powers. He also delivered the Romanes Lecture at Oxford, in which he denounced those who sought parallels between the evolution of animal life and the development of society. Though Roosevelt attempted to avoid domestic politics during his time abroad, he met with Gifford Pinchot, who related his own disappointment with the Taft Administration. Pinchot had been forced to resign as head of the forest service after clashing with Taft's Interior Secretary, Richard Ballinger, who had prioritized development over conservation. Roosevelt returned to the United States in June 1910.
Republican Party schism
Roosevelt had attempted to refashion Taft into a second version of himself, but as soon as Taft began to display his individuality, the former president expressed his disenchantment. He was offended on election night when Taft indicated that his success had been possible not just through the efforts of Roosevelt, but also his brother Charley. Roosevelt was further alienated when Taft, intent on becoming his own man, did not consult him about cabinet appointments. Roosevelt and other progressives were ideologically dissatisfied over Taft's conservation policies and his handling of the tariff when he concentrated more power in the hands of conservative party leaders in Congress. Regarding radicalism and liberalism, Roosevelt wrote a British friend in 1911:
Fundamentally it is the radical liberal with whom I sympathize. He is at least working toward the end for which I think we should all of us strive; and when he adds sanity in moderation to courage and enthusiasm for high ideals he develops into the kind of statesman whom alone I can wholeheartedly support."
Roosevelt urged progressives to take control of the Republican Party at the state and local level and to avoid splitting the party in a way that would hand the presidency to the Democrats in 1912. Additionally, Roosevelt expressed optimism about the Taft Administration after meeting with the president in the White House in June 1910.
In August 1910, Roosevelt gained national attention with a speech at Osawatomie, Kansas, which was the most radical of his career and marked his public break with Taft and the conservative Republicans. Advocating a program of "New Nationalism", Roosevelt emphasized the priority of labor over capital interests, a need to more effectively control corporate creation and combination, and proposed a ban on corporate political contributions. Returning to New York, Roosevelt began a battle to take control of the state Republican party from William Barnes Jr., Tom Platt's successor as the state party boss, whom he would later confront in the Barnes vs. Roosevelt Libel Trial. Taft had pledged his support to Roosevelt in this endeavor, and Roosevelt was outraged when Taft's support failed to materialize at the 1910 state convention. Roosevelt nonetheless campaigned for the Republicans in the 1910 elections, in which the Democrats gained control of the House for the first time since the 1890s. Among the newly elected Democrats was New York state senator Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who argued that he represented his distant cousin's policies better than his Republican opponent.
The Republican progressives interpreted the 1910 defeats as a compelling argument for the complete reorganization of the party in 1911. Senator Robert M. La Follette of Wisconsin joined with Pinchot, William White, and California Governor Hiram Johnson to create the National Progressive Republican League; their objectives were to defeat the power of political bossism at the state level and to replace Taft at the national level. Despite skepticism of La Follette's new league, Roosevelt expressed general support for progressive principles. Between January and April 1911, Roosevelt wrote a series of articles for The Outlook, defending what he called "the great movement of our day, the progressive nationalist movement against special privilege, and in favor of an honest and efficient political and industrial democracy". With Roosevelt apparently uninterested in running in 1912, La Follette declared his own candidacy in June 1911. Roosevelt continually criticized Taft after the 1910 elections, and the break between the two men became final after the Justice Department filed an antitrust lawsuit against US Steel in September 1911; Roosevelt was humiliated by this suit because he had personally approved of an acquisition that the Justice Department was now challenging. However, Roosevelt was still unwilling to run against Taft in 1912; he instead hoped to run in 1916 against whichever Democrat beat Taft in 1912.
Dispute over arbitration treaties
Taft was a major advocate of arbitration as a major reform of the Progressive Era. In 1911 Taft and his Secretary of State Philander C. Knox negotiated major treaties with Great Britain and with France providing that differences be arbitrated. Disputes had to be submitted to the Hague Court or other tribunal. These were signed in August 1911 but had to be ratified by a two-thirds vote of the Senate. Neither Taft nor Knox consulted with members of the Senate during the negotiating process. By then many Republicans were opposed to Taft, and the president felt that lobbying too hard for the treaties might cause their defeat. He made some speeches supporting the treaties in October, but the Senate added amendments Taft could not accept, killing the agreements.
The arbitration issue opens a window on a bitter philosophical dispute among American progressives. Some, led by Taft looked to legal arbitration as the best alternative to warfare. Taft was a constitutional lawyer who later became Chief Justice; he had a deep understanding of the legal issues. Taft's political base was the conservative business community that largely supported peace movements before 1914. However, his mistake, in this case, was a failure to mobilize that base. The businessmen believed that economic rivalries were the cause of war, and that extensive trade led to an interdependent world that would make war a very expensive and useless anachronism.
However, an opposing faction of progressives, led by Roosevelt, ridiculed arbitration as foolhardy idealism, and insisted on the realism of warfare as the only solution to serious international disputes. Roosevelt worked with his close friend Senator Henry Cabot Lodge to impose those amendments that ruined the goals of the treaties. Lodge thought the treaties impinged too much on senatorial prerogatives. Roosevelt, however, was acting to sabotage Taft's campaign promises. At a deeper level, Roosevelt truly believed that arbitration was a naïve solution and the great issues had to be decided by warfare. The Rooseveltian approach incorporated a near-mystical faith of the ennobling nature of war. It endorsed jingoistic nationalism as opposed to the businessmen's calculation of profit and national interest.
Election of 1912
Republican primaries and convention
In November 1911, a group of Ohio Republicans endorsed Roosevelt for the party's nomination for president; the endorsers included James R. Garfield and Dan Hanna. This endorsement was made by leaders of President Taft's home state. Roosevelt conspicuously declined to make a statement—requested by Garfield—that he would flatly refuse a nomination. Soon thereafter, Roosevelt said, "I am really sorry for Taft... I am sure he means well, but he means well feebly, and he does not know how! He is utterly unfit for leadership and this is a time when we need leadership." In January 1912, Roosevelt declared "if the people make a draft on me I shall not decline to serve". Later that year, Roosevelt spoke before the Constitutional Convention in Ohio, openly identifying as a progressive and endorsing progressive reforms—even endorsing popular review of state judicial decisions. In reaction to Roosevelt's proposals for popular overrule of court decisions, Taft said, "Such extremists are not progressives—they are political emotionalists or neurotics".
Roosevelt began to envision himself as the savior of the Republican Party from defeat in the upcoming presidential election. In February 1912, Roosevelt announced in Boston, "I will accept the nomination for president if it is tendered to me. I hope that so far as possible the people may be given the chance through direct primaries to express who shall be the nominee. Elihu Root and Henry Cabot Lodge thought that division of the party would lead to its defeat in the next election, while Taft believed that he would be defeated either in the Republican primary or in the general election.
The 1912 primaries represented the first extensive use of the presidential primary, a reform achievement of the progressive movement. The Republican primaries in the South, where party regulars dominated, went for Taft, as did results in New York, Indiana, Michigan, Kentucky and Massachusetts. Meanwhile, Roosevelt won in Illinois, Minnesota, Nebraska, South Dakota, California, Maryland and Pennsylvania; Roosevelt also won Taft's home state of Ohio. These primary elections, while demonstrating Roosevelt's continuing popularity with the electorate, were not pivotal. The final credentials of the state delegates at the national convention were determined by the national committee, which was controlled by the party leaders, headed by the incumbent president.
Prior to the 1912 Republican National Convention in Chicago, Roosevelt expressed doubt about his prospects for victory, noting that Taft had more delegates and control of the credentials committee. His only hope was to convince party leaders that the nomination of Taft would hand the election to the Democrats, but party leaders were determined not to cede their leadership to Roosevelt. The credentials committee awarded almost all contested delegates to Taft, and Taft won the nomination on the first ballot. Black delegates from the South played a key role: they voted heavily for Taft and put him over the top. La Follette also helped Taft's candidacy; he hoped that a deadlocked convention would result in his own nomination, and refused to release his delegates to support Roosevelt.
The Progressive ("Bull Moose") Party
Once his defeat at the Republican convention appeared probable, Roosevelt announced that he would "accept the progressive nomination on a progressive platform and I shall fight to the end, win or lose". At the same time, Roosevelt prophetically said, "My feeling is that the Democrats will probably win if they nominate a progressive".
Roosevelt left the Republican Party and created the Progressive Party, structuring it as a permanent organization that would field complete tickets at the presidential and state level. The party included Roosevelt and key allies such as Pinchot, Cornelia Bryce Pinchot (Pinchot's wife and a longtime friend of Roosevelt's), and Albert Beveridge. The new party was popularly known as the "Bull Moose Party" after Roosevelt told reporters, "I'm as fit as a bull moose". At the 1912 Progressive National Convention, Roosevelt cried out, "We stand at Armageddon and we battle for the Lord." California Governor Hiram Johnson was nominated as Roosevelt's running mate. Roosevelt's platform echoed his 1907–1908 proposals, calling for vigorous government intervention to protect the people from selfish interests:
Though many Progressive party supporters in the North were supporters of civil rights for blacks, Roosevelt did not give strong support to civil rights and ran a "lily-white" campaign in the South. Rival all-white and all-black delegations from four southern states arrived at the Progressive national convention, and Roosevelt decided to seat the all-white delegations. Nevertheless, he won little support outside mountain Republican strongholds. Out of nearly 1100 counties in the South, Roosevelt won two counties in Alabama, one in Arkansas, seven in North Carolina, three in Georgia, 17 in Tennessee, two in Texas, one in Virginia, and none in Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, or South Carolina.
Assassination attempt
On October 14, 1912, while arriving at a campaign event in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Roosevelt was shot from seven feet away in front of the Gilpatrick Hotel by a delusional saloonkeeper named John Flammang Schrank, who believed that the ghost of assassinated president William McKinley had directed him to kill Roosevelt. The bullet lodged in his chest after penetrating his steel eyeglass case and passing through a 50-page-thick single-folded copy of the speech titled "Progressive Cause Greater Than Any Individual", which he was carrying in his jacket. Schrank was immediately disarmed (by Czech immigrant Frank Bukovsky), captured, and might have been lynched had Roosevelt not shouted for Schrank to remain unharmed. Roosevelt assured the crowd he was all right, then ordered police to take charge of Schrank and to make sure no violence was done to him.
As an experienced hunter and anatomist, Roosevelt correctly concluded that since he was not coughing blood, the bullet had not reached his lung. He declined suggestions to go to the hospital immediately and instead delivered a 90 minute speech with blood seeping into his shirt. His opening comments to the gathered crowd were, "Ladies and gentlemen, I don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot, but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose." Only after finishing his address did he accept medical attention.
Subsequent probes and an x-ray showed that the bullet had lodged in Roosevelt's chest muscle, but did not penetrate the pleura. Doctors concluded that it would be less dangerous to leave it in place than to attempt to remove it, and Roosevelt carried the bullet with him for the rest of his life. Both Taft and Democratic nominee Woodrow Wilson suspended their own campaigning until Roosevelt recovered and resumed his. When asked if the shooting would affect his election campaign, he said to the reporter "I'm fit as a bull moose." The bull moose became a symbol of both Roosevelt and the Progressive Party, and it often was referred to as simply the Bull Moose Party. He spent two weeks recuperating before returning to the campaign trail. He later wrote a friend about the bullet inside him, "I do not mind it any more than if it were in my waistcoat pocket."
Farewell manifesto
On October 20, Roosevelt spoke to a crowd of 16,000 at Madison Square Garden. The speech included: "Perhaps once in a generation, there comes a chance for the people of a country to play their part wisely and fearlessly in some great battle of the age-long warfare for human rights."
Election results
After the Democrats nominated Governor Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey, Roosevelt did not expect to win the general election, as Wilson had compiled a record attractive to many progressive Democrats who might have otherwise considered voting for Roosevelt. Roosevelt still campaigned vigorously, and the election developed into a two-person contest between Wilson and Roosevelt despite Taft's presence in the race. Roosevelt respected Wilson, but the two differed on various issues; Wilson opposed any federal intervention regarding women's suffrage or child labor (he viewed these as state issues), and attacked Roosevelt's tolerance of large businesses.
Roosevelt won 4.1 million votes (27%), compared to Taft's 3.5 million (23%). Wilson gained 6.3 million votes (42% of the total) and a massive landslide in the Electoral College, with 435 electoral votes; Roosevelt won 88 electoral votes, while Taft won 8. Pennsylvania was the only eastern state won by Roosevelt; in the Midwest, he carried Michigan, Minnesota, and South Dakota; in the West, California, and Washington. Wilson's victory represented the first Democratic presidential election victory since Cleveland's 1892 campaign, and it was the party's best performance in the Electoral College since 1852. Roosevelt, meanwhile, garnered a higher share of the popular vote than any other third-party presidential candidate in history and won the most states of any third-party candidate after the Civil War.
South American expedition (1913-1914)
A friend of Roosevelt's, Father John Augustine Zahm, persuaded Roosevelt to participate in an expedition to South America. To finance the expedition, Roosevelt received support from the American Museum of Natural History in return for promising to bring back many new animal specimens. Roosevelt's popular book, Through the Brazilian Wilderness describes his expedition into the Brazilian jungle in 1913 as a member of the Roosevelt-Rondon Scientific Expedition, co-named after its leader, Brazilian explorer Cândido Rondon.
Once in South America, a new, far more ambitious goal was added: to find the headwaters of the Rio da Duvida (Portuguese for "River of Doubt"), and trace it north to the Madeira and thence to the Amazon River. It was later renamed Roosevelt River in honor of the former president. Roosevelt's crew consisted of his son Kermit, Colonel Rondon, naturalist George Kruck Cherrie (sent by the American Museum of Natural History), Brazilian Lieutenant João Lira, team physician Dr. José Antonio Cajazeira, and 16 skilled paddlers and porters. Roosevelt also identified Leo Miller (another AMNH recommendation), Anthony Fiala, Frank Harper, and Jacob Sigg as crew members. The initial expedition started somewhat tenuously on December 9, 1913, at the height of the rainy season. The trip down the River of Doubt started on February 27, 1914.
During the trip down the river, Roosevelt suffered a minor leg wound after he jumped into the river to try to prevent two canoes from smashing against the rocks. The flesh wound he received, however, soon gave him tropical fever that resembled the malaria he had contracted while in Cuba fifteen years before. Because the bullet lodged in his chest from the assassination attempt in 1912 was never removed, his health worsened from the infection. This weakened Roosevelt so greatly that six weeks into the adventure, he had to be attended to day and night by the expedition's physician and his son Kermit. By then, he could not walk because of the infection in his injured leg and an infirmity in the other, which was due to a traffic accident a decade earlier. Roosevelt was riddled with chest pains, fighting a fever that soared to and at times made him delirious, at one point constantly reciting the first two lines of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem "Kubla Khan": "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan / A stately pleasure dome decree". Regarding his condition as a threat to the survival of the others, Roosevelt insisted he be left behind to allow the poorly provisioned expedition to proceed as rapidly as it could, preparing to commit suicide with an overdose of morphine. Only an appeal by his son persuaded him to continue.
Despite Roosevelt's continued decline and loss of over , Colonel Rondon reduced the pace of the expedition to allow for his commission's mapmaking and other geographical tasks, which required regular stops to fix the expedition's position by sun-based survey. Upon Roosevelt's return to New York, friends and family were startled by his physical appearance and fatigue. Roosevelt wrote, perhaps prophetically, to a friend that the trip had cut his life short by ten years. For the rest of his few remaining years, he would be plagued by flare-ups of malaria and leg inflammations so severe as to require surgery. Before Roosevelt had even completed his sea voyage home, critics raised doubts over his claims of exploring and navigating a completely uncharted river over long. When he had recovered sufficiently, he addressed a standing-room-only convention organized in Washington, D.C., by the National Geographic Society and satisfactorily defended his claims.
Final years
Roosevelt returned to the United States in May 1914. Though he was outraged by the Wilson Administration's conclusion of a treaty that expressed "sincere regret" for the way in which the United States had acquired the Panama Canal Zone, he was impressed by many of the reforms passed under Wilson. Roosevelt made several campaign appearances for the Progressives, but the 1914 elections were a disaster for the fledgling third party. Roosevelt began to envision another campaign for president, this time with himself at the head of the Republican Party, but conservative party leaders remained opposed to Roosevelt. In hopes of engineering a joint nomination, the Progressives scheduled the 1916 Progressive National Convention at the same time as the 1916 Republican National Convention. When the Republicans nominated Charles Evans Hughes, Roosevelt declined the Progressive nomination and urged his Progressive followers to support the Republican candidate. Though Roosevelt had long disliked Hughes, he disliked Wilson even more, and he campaigned energetically for the Republican nominee. However, Wilson won the 1916 election by a narrow margin. The Progressives disappeared as a party following the 1916 election, and Roosevelt and many of his followers permanently re-joined the Republican Party.
World War I
When the First World War began in 1914, Roosevelt strongly supported the Allies and demanded a harsher policy against Germany, especially regarding submarine warfare. Roosevelt angrily denounced the foreign policy of President Wilson, calling it a failure regarding the atrocities in Belgium and the violations of American rights. In 1916, while campaigning for Hughes, Roosevelt repeatedly denounced Irish-Americans and German-Americans whom he described as unpatriotic, saying they put the interests of Ireland and Germany ahead of America's by supporting neutrality. He insisted that one had to be 100% American, not a "hyphenated American" who juggled multiple loyalties. In March 1917, Congress gave Roosevelt the authority to raise a maximum of four divisions similar to the Rough Riders, and Major Frederick Russell Burnham was put in charge of both the general organization and recruitment. However, President Wilson announced to the press that he would not send Roosevelt and his volunteers to France, but instead would send an American Expeditionary Force under the command of General John J. Pershing. Roosevelt never forgave Wilson, and quickly published The Foes of Our Own Household, an indictment of the sitting president. Roosevelt's youngest son, Quentin, a pilot with the American forces in France, was killed when shot down behind German lines on July 14, 1918, at the age of 20. It is said that Quentin's death distressed Roosevelt so much that he never recovered from his loss.
League of Nations
Roosevelt was an early supporter of the modern view that there needs to be a global order. In his Nobel prize address of 1910, he said, "it would be a master stroke if those great Powers honestly bent on peace would form a League of Peace, not only to keep the peace among themselves, but to prevent, by force if necessary, its being broken by others." It would have executive power such as the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 lacked. He called for American participation.
When World War I broke out, Roosevelt proposed "a World League for the Peace of Righteousness", in September 1914, which would preserve sovereignty but limit armaments and require arbitration. He added that it should be "solemnly covenanted that if any nations refused to abide by the decisions of such a court, then others draw the sword in behalf of peace and justice." In 1915 he outlined this plan more specifically, urging that nations guarantee their entire military force, if necessary, against any nation that refused to carry out arbitration decrees or violated rights of other nations. Though Roosevelt had some concerns about the impact on United States sovereignty, he insisted that such a league would only work if the United States participated as one of the "joint guarantors". Roosevelt referred to this plan in a 1918 speech as "the most feasible for...a league of nations." By this time Wilson was strongly hostile to Roosevelt and Lodge, and developed his own plans for a rather different League of Nations. It became reality along Wilson's lines at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. Roosevelt denounced Wilson's approach but died before it was adopted at Paris. However, Lodge was willing to accept it with serious reservations. In the end, on March 19, 1920, Wilson had Democratic Senators vote against the League with the Lodge Reservations and the United States never joined the League of Nations.
Final political activities
Roosevelt's attacks on Wilson helped the Republicans win control of Congress in the midterm elections of 1918. He declined a request from New York Republicans to run for another gubernatorial term, but attacked Wilson's Fourteen Points, calling instead for the unconditional surrender of Germany. Though his health was uncertain, he was seen as a leading contender for the 1920 Republican nomination, but insisted that, "If they take me, they'll have to take me without a single modification of the things that I have always stood for! He wrote William Allen White, "I wish to do everything in my power to make the Republican Party the Party of sane, constructive radicalism, just as it was under Lincoln." Accordingly, he told the 1918 state convention of the Maine Republican Party that he stood for old-age pensions, insurance for sickness and unemployment, construction of public housing for low-income families, the reduction of working hours, aid to farmers, and more regulation of large corporations.
While his political profile remained high, Roosevelt's physical condition continued to deteriorate throughout 1918 due to the long-term effects of jungle diseases. He was hospitalized for seven weeks late in the year and never fully recovered.
Death
On the night of January 5, 1919, Roosevelt suffered breathing problems. After receiving treatment from his physician, Dr. George W. Faller, he felt better and went to bed. Roosevelt's last words were "Please put out that light, James" to his family servant James E. Amos. Between 4:00 and 4:15 the next morning, Roosevelt, at the age of 60, died in his sleep at Sagamore Hill after a blood clot detached from a vein and traveled to his lungs.
Upon receiving word of his death, his son Archibald telegraphed his siblings: "The old lion is dead." Woodrow Wilson's vice president, Thomas R. Marshall, said that "Death had to take Roosevelt sleeping, for if he had been awake, there would have been a fight." Following a private farewell service in the North Room at Sagamore Hill, a simple funeral was held at Christ Episcopal Church in Oyster Bay. Vice President Thomas R. Marshall, Charles Evans Hughes, Warren G. Harding, Henry Cabot Lodge, and William Howard Taft were among the mourners. The snow-covered procession route to Youngs Memorial Cemetery was lined with spectators and a squad of mounted policemen who had ridden from New York City. Roosevelt was buried on a hillside overlooking Oyster Bay.
Writer
Roosevelt was a prolific author, writing with passion on subjects ranging from foreign policy to the importance of the national park system. Roosevelt was also an avid reader of poetry. Poet Robert Frost said that Roosevelt "was our kind. He quoted poetry to me. He knew poetry."
As an editor of Outlook magazine, Roosevelt had weekly access to a large, educated national audience. In all, Roosevelt wrote about 18 books (each in several editions), including his autobiography, The Rough Riders, History of the Naval War of 1812, and others on subjects such as ranching, explorations, and wildlife. His most ambitious book was the four volume narrative The Winning of the West, focused on the American frontier in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Roosevelt said that the American character—indeed a new "American race" (ethnic group) had emerged from the heroic wilderness hunters and Indian fighters, acting on the frontier with little government help. Roosevelt also published an account of his 1909–10 African expedition entitled African Game Trails.
In 1907, Roosevelt became embroiled in a widely publicized literary debate known as the nature fakers controversy. A few years earlier, naturalist John Burroughs had published an article entitled "Real and Sham Natural History" in the Atlantic Monthly, attacking popular writers of the day such as Ernest Thompson Seton, Charles G. D. Roberts, and William J. Long for their fantastical representations of wildlife. Roosevelt agreed with Burroughs's criticisms, and published several essays of his own denouncing the booming genre of "naturalistic" animal stories as "yellow journalism of the woods". It was the President himself who popularized the negative term "nature faker" to describe writers who depicted their animal characters with excessive anthropomorphism.
Character and beliefs
Roosevelt intensely disliked being called "Teddy", despite the widespread public association with said moniker, and was quick to point out this to those who referred to him as such, though it would become widely used by newspapers during his political career.
He was an active Freemason and member of the Sons of the American Revolution.
British scholar Marcus Cunliffe evaluates the liberal argument that Roosevelt was an opportunist, exhibitionist, and imperialist. Cunliffe praises TR's versatility, his respect for law, and his sincerity. He argues that Roosevelt's foreign policy was better than his detractors allege. Cunliffe calls him "a big man in several respects," ranking him below Washington, Lincoln, and Jefferson, and on the same level as Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Strenuous life
Roosevelt had a lifelong interest in pursuing what he called, in an 1899 speech, "The Strenuous Life". To this end, he exercised regularly and took up boxing, tennis, hiking, rowing, polo, and horseback riding. He also continued his habit of skinny-dipping in the Potomac River during the winter. As governor of New York, he boxed with sparring partners several times each week, a practice he regularly continued as president until being hit so hard in the face he became blind in his left eye (a fact not made public until many years later). As president, he practiced judo for two 2-month periods in 1902 and 1904, not attaining any rank. Roosevelt began to believe in the utility of jiu-jitsu training after training with Yoshitsugu Yamashita. Concerned that the United States would lose its military supremacy to rising powers like Japan, Roosevelt began to advocate for jiu-jitsu training for American soldiers. Feminists annoyed by the posturing of men like Roosevelt, insisted that women were just as capable of learning jiu-jitsu. To prove their point, Martha Blow Wadsworth and Maria Louise ("Hallie") Davis Elkins hired Fude Yamashita, a highly skilled jiu-jitsu instructor and the wife of Yoshitsugu Yamashita, to teach a jiu-jitsu class for women and girls in Washington, DC in 1904. Women had already begun training in boxing in the United States as a means of personal and political empowerment. Jiu-jitsu training thus soon also became popular with American women, coinciding with the origins of a women's self-defense movement.
Roosevelt was an enthusiastic singlestick player and, according to Harper's Weekly, showed up at a White House reception with his arm bandaged after a bout with General Leonard Wood in 1905. Roosevelt was an avid reader, reading tens of thousands of books, at a rate of several per day in multiple languages. Along with Thomas Jefferson, Roosevelt was the most well-read of all American presidents.
Warrior
Historians have often emphasized Roosevelt's warrior persona. He took aggressive positions regarding war with Spain in 1898, Colombia in 1903, and especially with Germany, from 1915 to 1917. As a demonstration of American naval might, he sent the "Great White Fleet" around the world in 1907–1909. The implicit threat of the "big stick" of military power provided leverage to "speak softly" and quietly resolve conflict in numerous cases. He boasted in his autobiography:
Richard D. White Jr states, "Roosevelt's warrior spirit framed his views of national politics, [and] international relations."
Historian Howard K. Beale has argued:
Religion
Roosevelt attended church regularly and was a lifelong adherent of the Reformed Church in America, an American affiliate of the Dutch Reformed Church. In 1907, concerning the motto "In God We Trust" on money, he wrote, "It seems to me eminently unwise to cheapen such a motto by use on coins, just as it would be to cheapen it by use on postage stamps, or in advertisements." Roosevelt talked a great deal about religion. Biographer Edmund Morris states:
Roosevelt publicly encouraged church attendance and was a conscientious churchgoer himself. When gas rationing was introduced during the First World War, he walked the three miles from his home at Sagamore Hill to the local church and back, even after a serious operation had made it difficult for him to travel by foot. It was said that Roosevelt "allowed no engagement to keep him from going to church," and he remained a fervent advocate of the Bible throughout his adult life. According to Christian F. Reisner, writing in 1922 shortly after Roosevelt's death, "Religion was as natural to Mr. Roosevelt as breathing," and when the travel library for Roosevelt's famous Smithsonian-sponsored African expedition was being assembled, the Bible was, according to his sister, "the first book selected." In an address delivered in his home at Oyster Bay to the Long Island Bible Society in 1901, Roosevelt declared that:
Political positions
When he assumed the presidency, Roosevelt reassured many conservatives, stating, "the mechanism of modern business is so delicate that extreme care must be taken not to interfere with it in a spirit of rashness or ignorance." The following year, Roosevelt asserted the president's independence from business interests by opposing the merger which created the Northern Securities Company, and many were surprised that any president, much less an unelected one, would challenge powerful banker J.P. Morgan. In his last two years as president, Roosevelt became increasingly distrustful of big business, despite its close ties to the Republican Party. Roosevelt sought to replace the 19th-century laissez-faire economic environment with a new economic model which included a larger regulatory role for the federal government. He believed that 19th-century entrepreneurs had risked their fortunes on innovations and new businesses, and that these capitalists had been rightly rewarded. By contrast, he believed that 20th-century capitalists risked little but nonetheless reaped huge and, given the lack of risk, unjust, economic rewards. Without a redistribution of wealth away from the upper class, Roosevelt feared that the country would turn to radicals or fall to revolution. His Square Deal domestic program had three main goals: conservation of natural resources, control of corporations, and consumer protection. The Square Deal evolved into his program of "New Nationalism", which emphasized the priority of labor over capital interests and a need to more effectively control corporate creation and combination, and proposed a ban on corporate political contributions.
Foreign policy beliefs
In the analysis by Henry Kissinger, Theodore Roosevelt was the first president to develop the guideline that it was America's duty to make its enormous power and potential influence felt globally. The idea of being a passive "city on the hill" model that others could look up to, he rejected. Roosevelt, trained in biology, was a social darwinist who believed in survival of the fittest. The international world in his view was a realm of violence and conflict. The United States had all the economic and geographical potential to be the fittest nation on the globe. The United States had a duty to act decisively. For example, in terms of the Monroe Doctrine, America had to prevent European incursions in the Western Hemisphere. But there was more, as he expressed in his famous Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine: the U.S. had to be the policeman of the region because unruly, corrupt smaller nations had to be controlled, and if United States did not do it, European powers would in fact intervene and develop their own base of power in the hemisphere in contravention to the Monroe Doctrine.
Roosevelt was a realist and a conservative. He deplored many of the increasingly popular idealistic liberal themes, such as were promoted by William Jennings Bryan, the anti-imperialists, and Woodrow Wilson. Kissinger says he rejected the efficacy of international law. Roosevelt argue that if a country could not protect its own interests, the international community could not help very much. He ridiculed disarmament proposals that were increasingly common. He saw no likelihood of an international power capable of checking wrongdoing on a major scale. As for world government: I regard the Wilson–Bryan attitude of trusting to fantastic peace treaties, too impossible promises, to all kinds of scraps of paper without any backing in efficient force, as abhorrent. It is infinitely better for a nation and for the world to have the Frederick the Great and Bismarck tradition as regards foreign policy than to have the Bryan or Bryan–Wilson attitude as a permanent national attitude.... A milk-and-water righteousness unbacked by force is...as wicked as and even more mischievous than force divorced from righteousness.
On the positive side, Roosevelt favored spheres of influence, whereby one great power would generally prevail, such as the United States in the Western Hemisphere or Great Britain in the Indian subcontinent. Japan fit that role and he approved. However he had deep distrust of both Germany and Russia.
Legacy
Historians credit Roosevelt for changing the nation's political system by permanently placing the "bully pulpit" of the presidency at center stage and making character as important as the issues. His accomplishments include trust busting and conservationism. He is a hero to liberals and progressives for his proposals in 1907–1912 that presaged the modern welfare state of the New Deal Era, including direct federal taxation, labor reforms, and more direct democracy, while conservationists admire Roosevelt for putting the environment and selflessness towards future generations on the national agenda, and conservatives and nationalists respect his commitment to law and order, civic duty and military values, as well as his personality of individual self-responsibility and hardiness. Dalton says, "Today he is heralded as the architect of the modern presidency, as a world leader who boldly reshaped the office to meet the needs of the new century and redefined America's place in the world."
However, liberals and socialists have criticized him for his interventionist and imperialist approach to nations he considered "uncivilized". Conservatives and libertarians reject his vision of the welfare state and emphasis on the superiority of government over private action. Historians typically rank Roosevelt among the top five presidents in American history.
Persona and masculinity
Dalton says Roosevelt is remembered as, "one of the most picturesque personalities who has ever enlivened the landscape". His friend, historian Henry Adams, proclaimed: "Roosevelt, more than any other man... showed the singular primitive quality that belongs to ultimate matter—the quality that medieval theology assigned to God—he was pure act."
Roosevelt's biographers have stressed his personality. Henry F. Pringle, who won the Pulitzer Prize in biography for his Theodore Roosevelt (1931) stated: "The Theodore Roosevelt of later years was the most adolescent of men… Failure to receive the Medal of Honor for his exploits [in Cuba] had been a grief as real as any of those which swamp childhood in despair. 'You must always remember,' wrote Cecil Spring Rice in 1904, 'that the President is about six.'"
Cooper compared him with Woodrow Wilson and argued that both of them played the roles of warrior and priest. Dalton stressed Roosevelt's strenuous life. Sarah Watts examined the desires of the "Rough Rider in the White House". Brands calls Roosevelt "the last romantic", arguing that his romantic concept of life emerged from his belief that "physical bravery was the highest virtue and war the ultimate test of bravery".
Roosevelt as the exemplar of American masculinity has become a major theme. As president, he repeatedly warned men that they were becoming too office-bound, too complacent, too comfortable with physical ease and moral laxity, and were failing in their duties to propagate the race and exhibit masculine vigor. French historian Serge Ricard says, "the ebullient apostle of the Strenuous Life offers ideal material for a detailed psycho-historical analysis of aggressive manhood in the changing socio-cultural environment of his era; McKinley, Taft, or Wilson would perhaps inadequately serve that purpose". He promoted competitive sports like boxing and jiu-jitsu for physically strengthening American men. He also believed that organizations like the Boy Scouts of America, founded in 1910, could help mold and strengthen the character of American boys. Brands shows that heroic displays of bravery were essential to Roosevelt's image and mission:
Memorials and cultural depictions
Roosevelt was included with Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln at the Mount Rushmore Memorial, designed in 1927 with the approval of Republican President Calvin Coolidge.
For his gallantry at San Juan Hill, Roosevelt's commanders recommended him for the Medal of Honor. However, the initial recommendation lacked any eyewitnesses, and the effort was eventually tainted by Roosevelt's own lobbying of the War Department. In the late 1990s, Roosevelt's supporters again recommended the award, which was denied by the Secretary of the Army on basis that the decorations board determined "Roosevelt's bravery in battle did not rise to the level that would justify the Medal of Honor and, indeed, it did not rise to the level of men who fought in that engagement." Nevertheless, politicians apparently convinced the secretary to reconsider the award a third time and reverse himself, leading to the charge that it was a "politically motivated award." On January 16, 2001, President Bill Clinton awarded Theodore Roosevelt the Medal of Honor posthumously for his charge on San Juan Hill. He is the only president to have received the Medal of Honor.
The United States Navy named two ships for Roosevelt: the , a submarine that was in commission from 1961 to 1982, and the , an aircraft carrier that has been on active duty in the Atlantic Fleet since 1986.
On November 18, 1956, the United States Postal Service released a 6¢ Liberty Issue postage stamp honoring Roosevelt. A 32¢ stamp was issued on February 3, 1998, as part of the Celebrate the Century stamp sheet series. In 2008, Columbia Law School awarded Roosevelt a Juris Doctor degree, posthumously making him a member of the class of 1882.
Roosevelt's "Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick" ideology is still quoted by politicians and columnists in different countries—not only in English, but also in translations to various other languages. Another lasting, popular legacy of Roosevelt is the stuffed toy bears—teddy bears—named after him following an incident on a hunting trip in Mississippi in 1902. Roosevelt has been portrayed in films and television series such as Brighty of the Grand Canyon, The Wind and the Lion, Rough Riders, My Friend Flicka, and Law of the Plainsman. Robin Williams portrayed Roosevelt in the form of a wax mannequin that comes to life in Night at the Museum and its sequels Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian and Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb. In 2017, it was announced that Leonardo DiCaprio will portray Roosevelt in a biopic to be directed by Martin Scorsese.
Moreover, Theodore Roosevelt National Park in the state of North Dakota is named after him. The America the Beautiful Quarters series features Roosevelt riding a horse on the national park's quarter.
Asteroid 188693 Roosevelt, discovered by astronomers with the Catalina Sky Survey in 2005, was named after him. The official was published by the Minor Planet Center on November 8, 2019 ().
In January 2022, after years of lobbying by activists, an equestrian statue of the former president was removed from where it had stood for more than eighty years in front of New York's American Museum of Natural History. Responding to controversy, the museum noted that the design "communicates a racial hierarchy that the museum and members of the public have long found disturbing."
Audiovisual media
Theodore Roosevelt was one of the first presidents whose voice was recorded for posterity. Several of his recorded speeches survive. A 4.6-minute voice recording, which preserves Roosevelt's lower timbre ranges particularly well for its time, is among those available from the Michigan State University libraries (this is the 1912 recording of The Right of the People to Rule, recorded by Edison at Carnegie Hall). The audio clip sponsored by the Authentic History Center includes his defense of the Progressive Party in 1912, wherein he proclaims it the "party of the people" – in contrast with the other major parties.
Roosevelt goes for a ride in Arch Hoxsey's plane in October 1910
In popular culture
Theodore Roosevelt appears as the leader of the American civilization in the Firaxis Games title Civilization VI. His unique ability is Roosevelt Corollary, which gives +5 Combat Strength for all units inside America's home continent, and +1 Appeal to all tiles in cities with a national park.
See also
Notes
References
Bibliography
Full biographies
.
.
.
, 105 pp, very short biography by leading scholar.
.; also titled Power and responsibility; the life and times of Theodore Roosevelt online free to borrow
.
.
.
, only volume published, to age 28.
.
.
Personality and activities
.
.
Provides a lesson plan on TR as the historical figure who most exemplifies the quality of masculinity.
. Chronicles the events of TR's presidency during the summers of his two terms.
. The president's use of publicity, rhetoric and force of personality.
; his deadly 1913–14 trip to the Amazon.
, best seller; to 1886.
, to 1884.
. 494 pp.
, examines TR and his family during the World War I period.
.
, 240 pp. TR in Africa & Europe, 1909–10
. 289 pp.
, 337 pp; TR's political thought and its significance for republican self-government.
Domestic policies
online review; another online review
Cutright, P.R. (1985) Theodore Roosevelt: The making of a Modern Conservationist (U of Illinois Press.)
.
, standard history of his domestic and foreign policy as president.
Bakari, Mohamed El-Kamel. "Mapping the 'Anthropocentric-ecocentric'Dualism in the History of American Presidency: The Good, the Bad, and the Ambivalent." Journal of Studies in Social Sciences 14, no. 2 (2016).
.
.
Redekop, Benjamin. (2015). "Embodying the Story: The Conservation Leadership of Theodore Roosevelt". Leadership (2015) DOI:10.1177/1742715014546875 online
.
.
Politics
. How TR did politics.
, 323 pp.
.
.
.
.
. 361 pp.
.
. Focus on 1912; online free
. online free
. Attacks TR policies from conservative/libertarian perspective.
Foreign policy, military and naval issues
. online
. excerpt
.
. 328 pp.
Kuehn, John T. "Theodore Roosevelt’s Naval Diplomacy: The U.S. Navy and the Birth of the American Century," Naval War College Review (2010) 53#3 online
Livermore, Seward W. "Theodore Roosevelt, the American Navy, and the Venezuelan Crisis of 1902-1903." American Historical Review 51.3 (1946): 452–471. online
.
.
Nester, William R. Theodore Roosevelt and the Art of American Power: An American for All Time. Rowman & Littlefield, 2019. excerpt
Neu, Charles E. "Theodore Roosevelt and American Involvement in the Far East, 1901-1909." Pacific Historical Review 35.4 (1966): 433–449. online
O'Gara, Gordon Carpenter. Theodore Roosevelt and the Rise of the Modern Navy. (Princeton UP, 1943). online
.
Oyos, Matthew M. In Command: Theodore Roosevelt and the American Military (2018) online review
Pietrusza, David (2018). TR's Last War: Theodore Roosevelt, the Great War, and a Journey of Triumph and Tragedy
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.
.
.
Thompson, John M. Great Power Rising: Theodore Roosevelt and the Politics of US Foreign Policy (Oxford UP, 2019).
. 196 pp.
Turk, Richard W. The Ambiguous Relationship: Theodore Roosevelt and Alfred Thayer Mahan (1987) [https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article-abstract/93/5/1413/70734 online review
Historiography
Cunliffe, Marcus. "Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States 1901–1908" History Today (Sept 1955) 4#9 pp. 592–601, online.
Ricard, Serge. "The State of Theodore Roosevelt Studies" H-Diplo Essay No. 116 24 October 2014 online
, excerpt and text search, 28 new essays by scholars; focus on historiography. online
Primary sources
Kohn, Edward P., ed. A Most Glorious Ride: The Diaries of Theodore Roosevelt, 1877–1886 (State University of New York Press, 2015), 284 pp.
; vol 2
.
, 20 vol.; 18,000 pages containing most of TR's speeches, books and essays, but not his letters; a CD-ROM edition is available; some of TR's books are available online through Project Bartleby
, Roosevelt's opinions on many issues; online version at Theodore Roosevelt.
, 8 vols. Very large collection. vol 1 1868–1898 online free
. online free
.
.
online free to borrow
.
.
.
External links
Official
White House biography
Organizations
Boone and Crockett Club
Theodore Roosevelt Association
Libraries and collections
Theodore Roosevelt Center at Dickinson State University
Theodore Roosevelt Collection, at the Houghton Library, Harvard University
Julian L. Street Papers on Theodore Roosevelt, at the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library, Princeton University
Doris A. and Lawrence H. Budner Collection on Theodore Roosevelt at the DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University
Theodore Roosevelt's journalism at The Archive of American Journalism
Theodore Roosevelt American Museum of Natural History
Roosevelt Papers, at the Library of Congress
Guide to the Herbert R. Strauss Collection of Theodore Roosevelt Papers 1884–1919 at the University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center
Media
"Life Portrait of Theodore Roosevelt", from C-SPAN's American Presidents: Life Portraits, September 3, 1999
"Writings of Theodore Roosevelt" from C-SPAN's American Writers: A Journey Through History
Other
Almanac of Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt: A Resource Guide – Library of Congress
1858 births
1919 deaths
1900s in the United States
Theodore
19th-century American politicians
19th-century American historians
19th-century American male writers
20th-century American non-fiction writers
20th-century presidents of the United States
20th-century vice presidents of the United States
American autobiographers
American conservationists
American essayists
American explorers
American fishers
American hunters
American male judoka
American male non-fiction writers
American military personnel of the Spanish–American War
American naval historians
American Nobel laureates
American political writers
American shooting survivors
Articles containing video clips
American bibliophiles
American people of Dutch descent
Bulloch family
Burials in New York (state)
Columbia Law School alumni
Deaths from pulmonary embolism
New York City Police Commissioners
English-language spelling reform advocates
Explorers of Amazonia
American Freemasons
Governors of New York (state)
Hall of Fame for Great Americans inductees
Harvard College alumni
Members of the American Philosophical Society
Members of the New York State Assembly
Military personnel from New York City
New York (state) Progressives (1912)
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Nobel Peace Prize laureates
People associated with the American Museum of Natural History
People from Oyster Bay (town), New York
Politicians from New York City
Presidents of the American Historical Association
Presidents of the United States
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Ranchers from North Dakota
Republican Party (United States) presidential nominees
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Rough Riders
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Sons of the American Revolution
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Vice presidents of the United States
Writers from New York (state)
Harvard Advocate alumni
American diarists
American political party founders
Aphorists
American nationalists
20th-century American male writers | true | [
"Kiviuq (also spelled \"Qiviuq,\" \"Kiviok\" and other variants) is a legendary hero of the epic stories of the Inuit of the Arctic regions of northern Canada, Alaska and Greenland.\n\nKiviuq is an eternal Inuit wanderer. Spirits, giants, cannibals, bears and sea monsters intermingle in Kiviuq's world, creating havoc for him. He walks, or travels by dog sled, kayak, or may be borne by huge fishes. His supernatural powers allow him to overcome all manner of obstacles in his travels across the North.\n\nStories about Kiviuq's many adventures are told across the Arctic. Kiviuq has lived a long time and has had many lives. Versions of his adventures vary with the location and the storyteller. In Greenland he is known as \"Qooqa\" and in Alaska he is called \"Qayaq\". Qajaq is short for Qajartuarungnertoq - 'He who shall always long to go roaming in his qajaq').\n\nFranz Boas\nFranz Boas identified the Kiviuk legend as one of the best known of the circumpolar Inuit adventure hunter-hero-traveler legends.\n\nVersions of the legend\n\nOne well-known legend of Kiviuq tells of his friendship with the grandson of an old woman. Everyone abuses and makes fun of the boy except Kiviuq. The old woman decides to get revenge. She changes her grandson into a seal and has him swim out to sea. The men follow the seal, intending to hunt it. Before the hunters reach it, however, the old woman creates a storm and drowns everyone but the seal and Kiviuq. The seal swims safely back to shore, where the old woman turns him back into a boy. Kiviuq drifts away in his kayak continuing his adventures and living with people of many foreign lands.\n\nNetsilik\nIn a story from the Netsilik Region, the world ends when Kiviuq's face transforms completely into stone. Currently, after about 100 years of change, his face is half stone.\n\nInuit elders say that he is in his last life now, on an adventure somewhere. However, before he dies he will return to see his people. Oral tradition has preserved many versions of the Kiviuq story-cycle, and today, a new generation of Inuit storytellers is bringing the tales to life in written or graphic form.\n\nQikiqtaarjuk, once a Hudson Bay island and now part of the mainland is associated with Kiviuq.\n\nKivalliq\nIn the Kivalliq region, the story tells of an orphan boy who lived with his grandmother. The boy would be teased and bullied every day by other boys. He would go home crying every day with ripped clothes. His poor grandmother would have to sew perfectly good clothes every day with her poor eyesight. She grew tired of all the bullying her grandson went through that she had a plan.\n\nThere was a seal that had been caught for them as they couldn't provide for themselves. With that seal, she asked her grandson to skin it carefully and not to puncture any holes in the skin. So as she said, the boy skinned it carefully and with no punctures. Then she asked him to put the skin on and make sure he could see through the little eye holes as if he were a seal. He followed her instructions, then he was asked to put his head in a pail of water and stay in there until he needed to breathe again. So the boy did as his grandmother asked and after he did it, he had to do it over and over until he could stay in the water so long that the sun moved when he finally comes up for air. The grandmother was so satisfied that she told him to secretly go into the water with the seal skin on and get the mean boys to notice him as if he were a seal. After he gets noticed, he had to lure them out to the ocean. The boy did what his grandmother told him to do. The mean boys noticed him and thought he was a seal. Among the mean boys were Kiviuq and his brother.\n\nAfter he lured them out to sea, they say he waved his arms and legs and cried as if he was a baby and asked for the wind to come. It is believed that when you were born and whatever the weather is on that day, it belongs to you. So in this case, the boy called for the wind and it came to him drowning all the mean boys but Kiviuq.\n\nKiviuq was a strong boy; he fought and fought against the waves. He did this for many days until he found land. It is believed that he is still out there living, so old that he is hard as stone, but his heart is still beating. If his heart stops beating, they say the world will end.\n\nIn Inuit art\nThe Kiviok legend is depicted in numerous works by Canadian Inuit artists such as Jessie Oonark (1906-1985) and her daughters, Janet Kigusiuq, Victoria Mamnguqsualuk, and Miriam Marealik Qiyuk.\nKigusiuq and Mamnguqsllaluk learned the stories from their grandparents in the 1930s and 1940s. Oonark's mother and father and her mother-in-law Naatak, were storytellers who shared them with their grandchildren. Oonark's well-known drawing and 1970 print by the same name–\"Dream of the Bird Woman\"–refers to the Kiviuq (Qiviuk)., an Inuk who faced dangerous obstacles in his journeys by kayak, which was described by Franz Boas as the most widely known Inuit legend in the circumpolar region.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Kiviuq's Journey stories from Inuit Elders across Nunavut (in English and Inuktitut)\n\nInuit mythology",
"Mickey and the Seal is a cartoon short created by Walt Disney in 1948. It was nominated for Academy Award for Animated Short Film, but lost to Tom and Jerry cartoon The Little Orphan, which shared one of seven Oscars for the Tom and Jerry series. It was the 122nd short in the Mickey Mouse film series to be released, and the second produced that year.\n\nPlot\nMickey Mouse visits the seal exhibit at a zoo. He makes the seals perform tricks by feeding them fish. One young seal escapes from the exhibit to get more fish and ends up inside Mickey's basket. Mickey takes the basket home, where Pluto is begging for food. When Mickey puts the basket down, Pluto goes to investigate but is hit on the nose by the seal's flippers. Pluto tries to tell Mickey what happened, but Mickey can't understand him. While this is happening, the seal escapes from the basket and Pluto chases it, only to get his head stuck inside the basket. He blunders around and in the process, makes a mess of the kitchen, alerting Mickey. He angrily orders Pluto out of the house, despite Pluto's attempts to tell him what he was chasing.\n\nWhen Mickey goes to the bathroom to take a bath, he doesn't notice the seal hop into the tank just before him. Completely unaware of what's around him, Mickey ends up scrubbing the seal's head with his brush instead of his back, which he intended to clean. Mickey eventually realizes that he's not scrubbing himself, but still can't see the seal behind him. The seal then begins scrubbing Mickey's head, which makes Mickey puzzled. Pluto later comes to the window and tries to tell Mickey again, but Mickey shuts the shade. When the seal takes his scrubbing brush, Mickey tries to get it back, only to grab the seal by mistake; he yells with fright upon seeing it. After jumping out of the tub, Mickey grabs a stool to nab the intruder, drains the water, and only then does he realize there is a seal in the tub.\n\nDespite Mickey's orders to stay outside, an angry Pluto storms in and crashes into the tub, and then tries to attack the seal after Mickey introduces him to it. After Pluto becomes alarmed and angry when Mickey says he decides to keep it as a pet, Mickey changes his mind, understanding that Pluto won't like it and that having a wild animal for a pet is a bad idea, and eventually decides to take the seal back to the zoo, and Pluto smiles in reply (taking a liking to that idea) before bringing over Mickey's basket. After Mickey and Pluto drop it off, the seal shows the other seals the things it learned about bathtime from Mickey and Pluto. When Mickey comes home, he and Pluto find that all the seals have moved into their house and are using the bathroom and bathtub as their personal exhibit and pool, respectively, and using an ironing board as a diving board.\n\nThe young seal then waves goodbye from the shower, which concludes the cartoon.\n\nCast\nWalt Disney as Mickey Mouse\nPinto Colvig as Pluto and Salty the Seal\n\nReleases\n 1948 – theatrical release\n 1956 – Disneyland, episode #3.11: \"At Home with Donald Duck\" (TV)\n 1968 – Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color, episode #15.11: \"The Mickey Mouse Anniversary Show\"\n c. 1983 – Good Morning, Mickey!, episode #38 (TV)\n c. 1989 – Cheetah, re-release\n c. 1992 – Mickey's Mouse Tracks, episode #45 (TV)\n c. 1992 – Donald's Quack Attack, episode #36 (TV)\n c. 2000 – Walt Disney World TVs (TV)\n 2002 – House of Mouse, episode #2.9: \"King Larry Swings In\" (TV)\n 2009 – Have a Laugh!, episode #1 (TV)\n\nHome media\nThe short was released on May 18, 2004 on Walt Disney Treasures: Mickey Mouse in Living Color, Volume Two: 1939-Today.\n\nAdditional releases include:\n 1983 – \"Cartoon Classics: Disney's Best of 1931-1948\" (VHS)\n 1988 – \"Cartoon Classics: Special Edition\" (VHS)\n 1998 – \"The Spirit of Mickey\" (VHS)\n 2006 – \"Funny Factory with Mickey\" (DVD)\n 2010 – \"Have a Laugh! Volume One\" (DVD)\n\nSee also\nMickey Mouse (film series)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\n1948 films\n1948 animated films\n1948 comedy films\nAmerican films\nEnglish-language films\nMickey Mouse short films\nFilms set in zoos\n1940s Disney animated short films\nFilms produced by Walt Disney\nFilms scored by Oliver Wallace\nFilms directed by Charles August Nichols\nAmerican comedy films\nFilms about pinnipeds"
] |
[
"Theodore Roosevelt",
"Early life and family",
"Where was Theodore Roosevelt born?",
"Theodore Roosevelt Jr. was born on October 27, 1858, at East 20th Street in New York City.",
"Who was his mother?",
"socialite Martha Stewart \"Mittie\" Bulloch",
"What type of work did his father do?",
"businessman and philanthropist",
"Did Roosevelt have any siblings?",
"He had an older sister, Anna (nicknamed \"Bamie\"), a younger brother, Elliott, and a younger sister, Corinne.",
"What were his interests in his early life?",
"Roosevelt's youth was largely shaped by his poor health and debilitating asthma.",
"Did he have any hobbies while growing up?",
"His lifelong interest in zoology began at age seven when he saw a dead seal at a local market;",
"Did he ever overcome his asthma and poor health?",
"Doctors had no cure.",
"Were there any influential figures in his early life?",
"Roosevelt's father significantly influenced him.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"after obtaining the seal's head, Roosevelt and two cousins formed what they called the \"Roosevelt Museum of Natural History\".",
"What did he do with the seal's head?",
"Having learned the rudiments of taxidermy, he filled his makeshift museum with animals that he killed or caught;"
] | C_ea2b2d977c0c4d1d93ec5efce7ee7156_1 | Did his interest in taxidermy or zoology lead him to do anything else? | 11 | In addition to his museum, did Theodore Roosevelt's interests in taxidermy and zoology lead to anything else? | Theodore Roosevelt | Theodore Roosevelt Jr. was born on October 27, 1858, at East 20th Street in New York City. He was the second of four children born to socialite Martha Stewart "Mittie" Bulloch and businessman and philanthropist Theodore Roosevelt Sr. He had an older sister, Anna (nicknamed "Bamie"), a younger brother, Elliott, and a younger sister, Corinne. Elliott was later the father of First Lady Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of Theodore's distant cousin, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. His paternal grandfather was of Dutch descent; his other ancestry included primarily Scottish and Scots-Irish, English and smaller amounts of German, Welsh, and French. Theodore Sr. was the fifth son of businessman Cornelius Van Schaack "C.V.S." Roosevelt and Margaret Barnhill. Theodore's fourth cousin, James Roosevelt I, who was also a businessman, was the father of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Mittie was the younger daughter of Major James Stephens Bulloch and Martha P. "Patsy" Stewart. Through the Van Schaacks, Roosevelt was a descendant of the Schuyler family. Roosevelt's youth was largely shaped by his poor health and debilitating asthma. He repeatedly experienced sudden nighttime asthma attacks that caused the experience of being smothered to death, which terrified both Theodore and his parents. Doctors had no cure. Nevertheless, he was energetic and mischievously inquisitive. His lifelong interest in zoology began at age seven when he saw a dead seal at a local market; after obtaining the seal's head, Roosevelt and two cousins formed what they called the "Roosevelt Museum of Natural History". Having learned the rudiments of taxidermy, he filled his makeshift museum with animals that he killed or caught; he then studied the animals and prepared them for display. At age nine, he recorded his observation of insects in a paper entitled "The Natural History of Insects". Roosevelt's father significantly influenced him. His father was a prominent leader in New York's cultural affairs; he helped to found the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and had been especially active in mobilizing support for the Union during the Civil War, even though his in-laws included Confederate leaders. Roosevelt said, "My father, Theodore Roosevelt, was the best man I ever knew. He combined strength and courage with gentleness, tenderness, and great unselfishness. He would not tolerate in us children selfishness or cruelty, idleness, cowardice, or untruthfulness." Family trips abroad, including tours of Europe in 1869 and 1870, and Egypt in 1872, shaped his cosmopolitan perspective. Hiking with his family in the Alps in 1869, Roosevelt found that he could keep pace with his father. He had discovered the significant benefits of physical exertion to minimize his asthma and bolster his spirits. Roosevelt began a heavy regime of exercise. After being manhandled by two older boys on a camping trip, he found a boxing coach to teach him to fight and strengthen his body. CANNOTANSWER | At age nine, he recorded his observation of insects in a paper entitled "The Natural History of Insects". | Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or his initials T. R., was an American politician, statesman, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26th president of the United States from 1901 to 1909. He previously served as the 25th vice president under William McKinley from March to September 1901, and as the 33rd governor of New York from 1899 to 1900. Having assumed the presidency after McKinley's assassination, Roosevelt emerged as a leader of the Republican Party and became a driving force for anti-trust and Progressive policies.
Roosevelt was a sickly child with debilitating asthma but partly overcame his health problems by embracing a strenuous lifestyle. He integrated his exuberant personality, a vast range of interests and achievements into a "cowboy" persona defined by robust masculinity. He was home-schooled and began a lifelong naturalist avocation before attending Harvard. His book The Naval War of 1812 (1882) established his reputation as a learned historian and popular writer. Upon entering politics, he became the leader of the reform faction of Republicans in New York's state legislature. His wife and mother both died in the same night and he was psychologically devastated. He recuperated by buying and operating a cattle ranch in the Dakotas. He served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy under President William McKinley and in 1898 helped plan the highly successful naval war against Spain. He resigned to help form and lead the Rough Riders, a unit that fought the Spanish army in Cuba to great publicity. Returning a war hero, he was elected governor of New York in 1898. The New York state party leadership disliked his ambitious agenda and convinced McKinley to make Roosevelt his running mate in the 1900 election. Roosevelt campaigned vigorously, and the McKinley–Roosevelt ticket won a landslide victory based on a platform of victory, peace and prosperity.
Roosevelt assumed the presidency at age 42 after McKinley was assassinated in September 1901. He remains the youngest person to become president of the United States. Roosevelt was a leader of the progressive movement and championed his "Square Deal" domestic policies, promising the average citizen fairness, breaking of trusts, regulation of railroads, and pure food and drugs. He prioritized conservation and established national parks, forests, and monuments intended to preserve the nation's natural resources. In foreign policy, he focused on Central America where he began construction of the Panama Canal. He expanded the Navy and sent the Great White Fleet on a world tour to project American naval power. His successful efforts to broker the end of the Russo-Japanese War won him the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize. Roosevelt was elected to a full term in 1904 and continued to promote progressive policies. He groomed his close friend William Howard Taft to succeed him in the 1908 presidential election.
Roosevelt grew frustrated with Taft's brand of conservatism and belatedly tried to win the 1912 Republican nomination for president. He failed, walked out, and founded the Progressive Party. He ran in the 1912 presidential election and the split allowed the Democratic nominee Woodrow Wilson to win the election. Following the defeat, Roosevelt led a two-year expedition to the Amazon basin where he nearly died of tropical disease. During World War I, he criticized Wilson for keeping the country out of the war; his offer to lead volunteers to France was rejected. He considered running for president again in 1920, but his health continued to deteriorate. He died in 1919. He is generally ranked in polls of historians and political scientists as one of the five best presidents.
Early life and family
Theodore Roosevelt Jr. was born on October 27, 1858, at 28 East 20th Street in Manhattan, New York City. He was the second of four children born to socialite Martha Stewart "Mittie" Bulloch and businessman and philanthropist Theodore Roosevelt Sr. He had an older sister (Anna, nicknamed "Bamie"), a younger brother (Elliott) and a younger sister (Corinne). Elliott was later the father of First Lady Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of Theodore's distant cousin, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. His paternal grandfather was of Dutch descent; his other ancestry included primarily Scottish and Scots-Irish, English and smaller amounts of German, Welsh and French. Theodore Sr. was the fifth son of businessman Cornelius Van Schaack "C. V. S." Roosevelt and Margaret Barnhill as well as a brother of Robert Roosevelt and James A. Roosevelt. Theodore's fourth cousin, James Roosevelt I, who was also a businessman, was the father of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Mittie was the younger daughter of Major James Stephens Bulloch and Martha P. "Patsy" Stewart. Through the Van Schaacks, Roosevelt was a descendant of the Schuyler family.
Roosevelt's youth was largely shaped by his poor health and debilitating asthma. He repeatedly experienced sudden nighttime asthma attacks that caused the experience of being smothered to death, which terrified both Theodore and his parents. Doctors had no cure. Nevertheless, he was energetic and mischievously inquisitive. His lifelong interest in zoology began at age seven when he saw a dead seal at a local market; after obtaining the seal's head, Roosevelt and two cousins formed what they called the "Roosevelt Museum of Natural History". Having learned the rudiments of taxidermy, he filled his makeshift museum with animals that he killed or caught; he then studied the animals and prepared them for exhibition. At age nine, he recorded his observation of insects in a paper entitled "The Natural History of Insects".
Roosevelt's father significantly influenced him. His father was a prominent leader in New York's cultural affairs; he helped to found the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and had been especially active in mobilizing support for the Union during the Civil War, even though his in-laws included Confederate leaders. Roosevelt said, "My father, Theodore Roosevelt, was the best man I ever knew. He combined strength and courage with gentleness, tenderness, and great unselfishness. He would not tolerate in us children selfishness or cruelty, idleness, cowardice, or untruthfulness." Family trips abroad, including tours of Europe in 1869 and 1870, and Egypt in 1872, shaped his cosmopolitan perspective. Hiking with his family in the Alps in 1869, Roosevelt found that he could keep pace with his father. He had discovered the significant benefits of physical exertion to minimize his asthma and bolster his spirits. Roosevelt began a heavy regime of exercise. After being manhandled by two older boys on a camping trip, he found a boxing coach to teach him to fight and strengthen his body.
A 6-year-old Roosevelt witnessed the funeral procession of Abraham Lincoln from his grandfather's mansion in Union Square, New York City where he was photographed in the window along with his brother Elliott, as confirmed by wife Edith who was also present.
Education
Roosevelt was homeschooled, mostly by tutors and his parents. Biographer H. W. Brands argued that "The most obvious drawback to his home schooling was uneven coverage of the various areas of human knowledge." He was solid in geography and bright in history, biology, French, and German; however, he struggled in mathematics and the classical languages. When he entered Harvard College on September 27, 1876, his father advised: "Take care of your morals first, your health next, and finally your studies." His father's sudden death on February 9, 1878, devastated Roosevelt, but he eventually recovered and doubled his activities.
He did well in science, philosophy, and rhetoric courses but continued to struggle in Latin and Greek. He studied biology intently and was already an accomplished naturalist and a published ornithologist. He read prodigiously with an almost photographic memory. While at Harvard, Roosevelt participated in rowing and boxing; he was once runner-up in an intramural boxing tournament. Roosevelt was a member of the Alpha Delta Phi literary society (later the Fly Club), the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity, and the prestigious Porcellian Club; he was also an editor of The Harvard Advocate. In 1880, Roosevelt graduated Phi Beta Kappa (22nd of 177) from Harvard with an A.B. magna cum laude. Biographer Henry Pringle states:
After his father's death, Roosevelt had inherited $65,000 (), enough to live off comfortably for the rest of his life. Roosevelt gave up his earlier plan of studying natural science and instead decided to attend Columbia Law School, moving back into his family's home in New York City. Roosevelt was an able law student, but he often found law to be irrational. He spent much of his time writing a book on the War of 1812.
Determined to enter politics, Roosevelt began attending meetings at Morton Hall, the 59th Street headquarters of New York's 21st District Republican Association. Though Roosevelt's father had been a prominent member of the Republican Party, the younger Roosevelt made an unorthodox career choice for someone of his class, as most of Roosevelt's peers refrained from becoming too closely involved in politics. Roosevelt found allies in the local Republican Party, and he defeated an incumbent Republican state assemblyman closely tied to the political machine of Senator Roscoe Conkling. After his election victory, Roosevelt decided to drop out of law school, later saying, "I intended to be one of the governing class."
Naval history and strategy
While at Harvard, Roosevelt began a systematic study of the role played by the young United States Navy in the War of 1812. Assisted by two uncles, he scrutinized original source materials and official U.S. Navy records, ultimately publishing The Naval War of 1812 in 1882. The book contained drawings of individual and combined ship maneuvers, charts depicting the differences in iron throw weights of cannon shot between rival forces, and analyses of the differences and similarities between British and American leadership down to the ship-to-ship level. Upon release, The Naval War of 1812 was praised for its scholarship and style, and it remains a standard study of the war.
With the publication of The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660–1783 in 1890, Navy Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan was immediately hailed as the world's outstanding naval theorist by the leaders of Europe. Roosevelt paid very close attention to Mahan's emphasis that only a nation with the world's most powerful fleet could dominate the world's oceans, exert its diplomacy to the fullest, and defend its own borders. He incorporated Mahan's ideas into his views on naval strategy for the remainder of his career.
First marriage and widowerhood
In 1880, Roosevelt married socialite Alice Hathaway Lee. Their daughter, Alice Lee Roosevelt, was born on February 12, 1884. Two days later, the new mother died of an undiagnosed case of kidney failure that had been masked by the pregnancy. In his diary, Roosevelt wrote a large 'X' on the page and then, "The light has gone out of my life." His mother, Mittie, had died of typhoid fever eleven hours earlier at 3:00 a.m., in the same house on 57th Street in Manhattan. Distraught, Roosevelt left baby Alice in the care of his sister Bamie while he grieved; he assumed custody of Alice when she was three.
After the deaths of his wife and mother, Roosevelt focused on his work, specifically by re-energizing a legislative investigation into corruption of the New York City government, which arose from a concurrent bill proposing that power be centralized in the mayor's office. For the rest of his life, he rarely spoke about his wife Alice and did not write about her in his autobiography.
Early political career
State Assemblyman
Roosevelt was a member of the New York State Assembly (New York Co., 21st D.) in 1882, 1883 and 1884. He immediately began making his mark, specifically in corporate corruption issues. He blocked a corrupt effort by financier Jay Gould to lower his taxes. Roosevelt exposed suspected collusion in the matter by Judge Theodore Westbrook, and argued for and received approval for an investigation to proceed, aiming for the impeachment of the judge. The investigation committee rejected impeachment, but Roosevelt had exposed the potential corruption in Albany, and thus assumed a high and positive political profile in multiple New York publications.
Roosevelt's anti-corruption efforts helped him win re-election in 1882 by a margin greater than two-to-one, an achievement made even more impressive by the fact that Democratic gubernatorial candidate Grover Cleveland won Roosevelt's district. With Conkling's Stalwart faction of the Republican Party in disarray following the assassination of President James Garfield, Roosevelt won election as the Republican party leader in the state assembly. He allied with Governor Cleveland to win passage of a civil service reform bill. Roosevelt won re-election a second time, and sought the office of Speaker of the New York State Assembly, but was defeated by Titus Sheard in a 41 to 29 vote of the GOP caucus. In his final term, Roosevelt served as Chairman of the Committee on Affairs of Cities; he wrote more bills than any other legislator.
Presidential election of 1884
With numerous presidential hopefuls to choose from, Roosevelt supported Senator George F. Edmunds of Vermont, a colorless reformer. The state GOP preferred the incumbent president, New York City's Chester Arthur, who was known for passing the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act. Arthur, at the time, was suffering from Bright's disease, unknown to the public, and out of duty he did not contest his own nomination. Roosevelt fought hard and succeeded in influencing the Manhattan delegates at the state convention in Utica. He then took control of the state convention, bargaining through the night and outmaneuvering the supporters of Arthur and James G. Blaine; he gained a national reputation as a key person in New York State.
Roosevelt attended the 1884 GOP National Convention in Chicago and gave a speech convincing delegates to nominate African American John R. Lynch, an Edmunds supporter, to be temporary chair. Roosevelt fought alongside the Mugwump reformers; however, Blaine, having gained support from Arthur's and Edmunds's delegates, won the nomination by 541 votes on the fourth ballot. In a crucial moment of his budding political career, Roosevelt resisted the demand of the Mugwumps that he bolt from Blaine. He bragged about his one small success: "We achieved a victory in getting up a combination to beat the Blaine nominee for temporary chairman... To do this needed a mixture of skill, boldness and energy... to get the different factions to come in... to defeat the common foe." He was also impressed by an invitation to speak before an audience of ten thousand, the largest crowd he had addressed up to that date. Having gotten a taste of national politics, Roosevelt felt less aspiration for advocacy on the state level; he then retired to his new "Chimney Butte Ranch" on the Little Missouri River. Roosevelt refused to join other Mugwumps in supporting Grover Cleveland, the governor of New York and the Democratic nominee in the general election. He debated the pros and cons of staying loyal with his political friend, Henry Cabot Lodge. After Blaine won the nomination, Roosevelt had carelessly said that he would give "hearty support to any decent Democrat". He distanced himself from the promise, saying that it had not been meant "for publication". When a reporter asked if he would support Blaine, Roosevelt replied, "That question I decline to answer. It is a subject I do not care to talk about." In the end, he realized that he had to support Blaine to maintain his role in the GOP, and he did so in a press release on July 19. Having lost the support of many reformers, Roosevelt decided to retire from politics and move to North Dakota.
Cattle rancher in Dakota
Roosevelt first visited the Dakota Territory in 1883 to hunt bison. Exhilarated by the western lifestyle, and with the cattle business booming in the territory, Roosevelt invested $14,000 in hopes of becoming a prosperous cattle rancher. For the next several years, he shuttled between his home in New York and his ranch in Dakota.
Following the 1884 presidential election, Roosevelt built a ranch named Elkhorn, which was north of the boomtown of Medora, North Dakota. Roosevelt learned to ride western style, rope, and hunt on the banks of the Little Missouri. Though he earned the respect of the authentic cowboys, they were not overly impressed. However, he identified with the herdsman of history, a man he said possesses "few of the emasculated, milk-and-water moralities admired by the pseudo-philanthropists; but he does possess, to a very high degree, the stern, manly qualities that are invaluable to a nation". He reoriented, and began writing about frontier life for national magazines; he also published three books – Hunting Trips of a Ranchman, Ranch Life and the Hunting-Trail, and The Wilderness Hunter.
Roosevelt brought his desire to address the common interests of citizens to the West. He successfully led efforts to organize ranchers to address problems of overgrazing and other shared concerns; his work resulted in the formation of the Little Missouri Stockmen's Association. He felt compelled to promote conservation and was able to form the Boone and Crockett Club, whose primary goal was the conservation of large game animals and their habitats. After the uniquely severe US winter of 1886–87 wiped out his herd of cattle and those of his competitors, and with it over half of his $80,000 investment, Roosevelt returned to the East. Though his finances suffered from the experience, Roosevelt's time in the West made it impossible to peg him as an ineffectual intellectual, a characterization that could have hampered his political career.
Second marriage
On December 2, 1886, Roosevelt married his childhood and family friend, Edith Kermit Carow. Roosevelt was deeply troubled that his second marriage had taken place so soon after the death of his first wife, and he faced resistance from his sisters. Nonetheless, the couple married at St George's, Hanover Square in London, England. The couple had five children: Theodore "Ted" III in 1887, Kermit in 1889, Ethel in 1891, Archibald in 1894, and Quentin in 1897. The couple also raised Roosevelt's daughter from his first marriage, Alice, who often clashed with her stepmother.
Reentering public life
Upon Roosevelt's return to New York in 1886, Republican leaders quickly approached him about running for mayor of New York City in the city's mayoral election. Roosevelt accepted the nomination despite having little hope of winning the race against United Labor Party candidate Henry George and Democratic candidate Abram Hewitt. Roosevelt campaigned hard for the position, but Hewitt won with 41% (90,552 votes), taking the votes of many Republicans who feared George's radical policies. George was held to 31% (68,110 votes), and Roosevelt took third place with 27% (60,435 votes). Fearing that his political career might never recover, Roosevelt turned his attention to writing The Winning of the West, a historical work tracking the westward movement of Americans; the book was a great success for Roosevelt, earning favorable reviews and selling numerous copies.
Civil Service Commission
After Benjamin Harrison unexpectedly defeated Blaine for the presidential nomination at the 1888 Republican National Convention, Roosevelt gave stump speeches in the Midwest in support of Harrison. On the insistence of Henry Cabot Lodge, President Harrison appointed Roosevelt to the United States Civil Service Commission, where he served until 1895. While many of his predecessors had approached the office as a sinecure, Roosevelt vigorously fought the spoilsmen and demanded enforcement of civil service laws. The New York Sun then described Roosevelt as "irrepressible, belligerent, and enthusiastic". Roosevelt frequently clashed with Postmaster General John Wanamaker, who handed out numerous patronage positions to Harrison supporters, and Roosevelt's attempt to force out several postal workers damaged Harrison politically. Despite Roosevelt's support for Harrison's reelection bid in the presidential election of 1892, the eventual winner, Grover Cleveland, reappointed him to the same post. Roosevelt's close friend and biographer, Joseph Bucklin Bishop, described his assault on the spoils system:
New York City Police Commissioner
In 1894, a group of reform Republicans approached Roosevelt about running for Mayor of New York again; he declined, mostly due to his wife's resistance to being removed from the Washington social set. Soon after he declined, he realized that he had missed an opportunity to reinvigorate a dormant political career. He retreated to the Dakotas for a time; his wife Edith regretted her role in the decision and vowed that there would be no repeat of it.
William Lafayette Strong, a reform-minded Republican, won the 1894 mayoral election and offered Roosevelt a position on the board of the New York City Police Commissioners. Roosevelt became president of the board of commissioners and radically reformed the police force. Roosevelt implemented regular inspections of firearms and annual physical exams, appointed recruits based on their physical and mental qualifications rather than political affiliation, established Meritorious Service Medals, and closed corrupt police hostelries. During his tenure, a Municipal Lodging House was established by the Board of Charities, and Roosevelt required officers to register with the Board; he also had telephones installed in station houses.
In 1894, Roosevelt met Jacob Riis, the muckraking Evening Sun newspaper journalist who was opening the eyes of New Yorkers to the terrible conditions of the city's millions of poor immigrants with such books as How the Other Half Lives. Riis described how his book affected Roosevelt:
Roosevelt made a habit of walking officers' beats late at night and early in the morning to make sure that they were on duty. He made a concerted effort to uniformly enforce New York's Sunday closing law; in this, he ran up against boss Tom Platt as well as Tammany Hall—he was notified that the Police Commission was being legislated out of existence. His crackdowns led to protests and demonstrations. Invited to one large demonstration, not only did he surprisingly accept, he delighted in the insults, caricatures and lampoons directed at him, and earned some surprising good will. Roosevelt chose to defer rather than split with his party. As Governor of New York State, he would later sign an act replacing the Police Commission with a single Police Commissioner.
Emergence as a national figure
Assistant Secretary of the Navy
In the 1896 presidential election, Roosevelt backed Speaker of the House Thomas Brackett Reed for the Republican nomination, but William McKinley won the nomination and defeated William Jennings Bryan in the general election. Roosevelt opposed Bryan's free silver platform, viewing many of Bryan's followers as dangerous fanatics, and Roosevelt gave campaign speeches for McKinley. Urged by Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, President McKinley appointed Roosevelt as the Assistant Secretary of the Navy in 1897. Secretary of the Navy John D. Long was more concerned about formalities than functions, was in poor health, and left many major decisions to Roosevelt. Influenced by Alfred Thayer Mahan, Roosevelt called for a build-up in the country's naval strength, particularly the construction of battleships. Roosevelt also began pressing his national security views regarding the Pacific and the Caribbean on McKinley, and was particularly adamant that Spain be ejected from Cuba. He explained his priorities to one of the Navy's planners in late 1897:
On February 15, 1898, , an armored cruiser, exploded in the harbor of Havana, Cuba, killing hundreds of crew members. While Roosevelt and many other Americans blamed Spain for the explosion, McKinley sought a diplomatic solution. Without approval from Long or McKinley, Roosevelt sent out orders to several naval vessels, directing them to prepare for war. George Dewey, who had received an appointment to lead the Asiatic Squadron with the backing of Roosevelt, later credited his victory at the Battle of Manila Bay to Roosevelt's orders. After finally giving up hope of a peaceful solution, McKinley asked Congress to declare war upon Spain, beginning the Spanish–American War.
War in Cuba
With the beginning of the Spanish–American War in late April 1898, Roosevelt resigned from his post as Assistant Secretary of the Navy. Along with Army Colonel Leonard Wood, he formed the First US Volunteer Cavalry Regiment. His wife and many of his friends begged Roosevelt to remain in his post in Washington, but Roosevelt was determined to see battle. When the newspapers reported the formation of the new regiment, Roosevelt and Wood were flooded with applications from all over the country. Referred to by the press as the "Rough Riders", the regiment was one of many temporary units active only for the duration of the war.
The regiment trained for several weeks in San Antonio, Texas, and in his autobiography, Roosevelt wrote that his prior experience with the New York National Guard had been invaluable, in that it enabled him to immediately begin teaching his men basic soldiering skills. The Rough Riders used some standard issue gear and some of their own design, purchased with gift money. Diversity characterized the regiment, which included Ivy Leaguers, professional and amateur athletes, upscale gentlemen, cowboys, frontiersmen, Native Americans, hunters, miners, prospectors, former soldiers, tradesmen, and sheriffs. The Rough Riders were part of the cavalry division commanded by former Confederate general Joseph Wheeler, which itself was one of three divisions in the V Corps under Lieutenant General William Rufus Shafter. Roosevelt and his men landed in Daiquirí, Cuba, on June 23, 1898, and marched to Siboney. Wheeler sent parts of the 1st and 10th Regular Cavalry on the lower road northwest and sent the "Rough Riders" on the parallel road running along a ridge up from the beach. To throw off his infantry rival, Wheeler left one regiment of his Cavalry Division, the 9th, at Siboney so that he could claim that his move north was only a limited reconnaissance if things went wrong. Roosevelt was promoted to colonel and took command of the regiment when Wood was put in command of the brigade. The Rough Riders had a short, minor skirmish known as the Battle of Las Guasimas; they fought their way through Spanish resistance and, together with the Regulars, forced the Spaniards to abandon their positions.
Under his leadership, the Rough Riders became famous for the charge up Kettle Hill on July 1, 1898, while supporting the regulars. Roosevelt had the only horse, and rode back and forth between rifle pits at the forefront of the advance up Kettle Hill, an advance that he urged despite the absence of any orders from superiors. He was forced to walk up the last part of Kettle Hill because his horse had been entangled in barbed wire. The victories came at a cost of 200 killed and 1,000 wounded.
In August, Roosevelt and other officers demanded that the soldiers be returned home. Roosevelt always recalled the Battle of Kettle Hill (part of the San Juan Heights) as "the great day of my life" and "my crowded hour". In 2001, Roosevelt was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions; he had been nominated during the war, but Army officials, annoyed at his grabbing the headlines, blocked it. After returning to civilian life, Roosevelt preferred to be known as "Colonel Roosevelt" or "The Colonel", though "Teddy" remained much more popular with the public, even though Roosevelt openly despised that moniker. Men working closely with Roosevelt customarily called him "Colonel" or "Theodore". Henceforth, political cartoons of Roosevelt usually depicted him in his Rough Rider garb.
Governor of New York
After leaving Cuba in August 1898, the Rough Riders were transported to a camp at Montauk Point, Long Island, where Roosevelt and his men were briefly quarantined due to the War Department's fear of spreading yellow fever. Shortly after Roosevelt's return to the United States, Republican Congressman Lemuel E. Quigg, a lieutenant of party boss Tom Platt, asked Roosevelt to run in the 1898 gubernatorial election. Platt disliked Roosevelt personally, feared that Roosevelt would oppose Platt's interests in office, and was reluctant to propel Roosevelt to the forefront of national politics. However, Platt also needed a strong candidate due to the unpopularity of the incumbent Republican governor, Frank S. Black, and Roosevelt agreed to become the nominee and to try not to "make war" with the Republican establishment once in office. Roosevelt defeated Black in the Republican caucus by a vote of 753 to 218, and faced Democrat Augustus Van Wyck, a well-respected judge, in the general election. Roosevelt campaigned vigorously on his war record, winning the election by a margin of just one percent.
As governor, Roosevelt learned much about ongoing economic issues and political techniques that later proved valuable in his presidency. He was exposed to the problems of trusts, monopolies, labor relations, and conservation. Chessman argues that Roosevelt's program "rested firmly upon the concept of the square deal by a neutral state". The rules for the Square Deal were "honesty in public affairs, an equitable sharing of privilege and responsibility, and subordination of party and local concerns to the interests of the state at large".
By holding twice-daily press conferences—which was an innovation—Roosevelt remained connected with his middle-class political base. Roosevelt successfully pushed the Ford Franchise-Tax bill, which taxed public franchises granted by the state and controlled by corporations, declaring that "a corporation which derives its powers from the State, should pay to the State a just percentage of its earnings as a return for the privileges it enjoys". He rejected "boss" Thomas C. Platt's worries that this approached Bryanite Socialism, explaining that without it, New York voters might get angry and adopt public ownership of streetcar lines and other franchises.
The New York state government affected many interests, and the power to make appointments to policy-making positions was a key role for the governor. Platt insisted that he be consulted on major appointments; Roosevelt appeared to comply, but then made his own decisions. Historians marvel that Roosevelt managed to appoint so many first-rate men with Platt's approval. He even enlisted Platt's help in securing reform, such as in the spring of 1899, when Platt pressured state senators to vote for a civil service bill that the secretary of the Civil Service Reform Association called "superior to any civil service statute heretofore secured in America".
Chessman argues that as governor, Roosevelt developed the principles that shaped his presidency, especially insistence upon the public responsibility of large corporations, publicity as a first remedy for trusts, regulation of railroad rates, mediation of the conflict of capital and labor, conservation of natural resources and protection of the less fortunate members of society. Roosevelt sought to position himself against the excesses of large corporations on the one hand and radical movements on the other.
As the chief executive of the most populous state in the union, Roosevelt was widely considered a potential future presidential candidate, and supporters such as William Allen White encouraged him to run for president. Roosevelt had no interest in challenging McKinley for the Republican nomination in 1900, and was denied his preferred post of Secretary of War. As his term progressed, Roosevelt pondered a 1904 presidential run, but was uncertain about whether he should seek re-election as governor in 1900.
Vice Presidency (1901)
In November 1899, Vice President Garret Hobart died of heart failure, leaving an open spot on the 1900 Republican national ticket. Though Henry Cabot Lodge and others urged him to run for vice president in 1900, Roosevelt was reluctant to take the powerless position and issued a public statement saying that he would not accept the nomination. Additionally, Roosevelt was informed by President McKinley and campaign manager Mark Hanna that he was not being considered for the role of vice president due to his actions prior to the Spanish–American War. Eager to be rid of Roosevelt, Platt nonetheless began a newspaper campaign in favor of Roosevelt's nomination for the vice presidency. Roosevelt attended the 1900 Republican National Convention as a state delegate and struck a bargain with Platt: Roosevelt would accept the nomination for vice president if the convention offered it to him, but would otherwise serve another term as governor. Platt asked Pennsylvania party boss Matthew Quay to lead the campaign for Roosevelt's nomination, and Quay outmaneuvered Hanna at the convention to put Roosevelt on the ticket. Roosevelt won the nomination unanimously.
Roosevelt's vice-presidential campaigning proved highly energetic and an equal match for Democratic presidential nominee William Jennings Bryan's famous barnstorming style of campaigning. In a whirlwind campaign that displayed his energy to the public, Roosevelt made 480 stops in 23 states. He denounced the radicalism of Bryan, contrasting it with the heroism of the soldiers and sailors who fought and won the war against Spain. Bryan had strongly supported the war itself, but he denounced the annexation of the Philippines as imperialism, which would spoil America's innocence. Roosevelt countered that it was best for the Filipinos to have stability and the Americans to have a proud place in the world. With the nation basking in peace and prosperity, the voters gave McKinley an even larger victory than that which he had achieved in 1896.
After the campaign, Roosevelt took office as vice president in March 1901. The office of vice president was a powerless sinecure and did not suit Roosevelt's aggressive temperament. Roosevelt's six months as vice president were uneventful and boring for a man of action. He had no power; he presided over the Senate for a mere four days before it adjourned. On September 2, 1901, Roosevelt first publicized an aphorism that thrilled his supporters: "Speak softly and carry a big stick, and you will go far."
Presidency (1901–1909)
On September 6, 1901, President McKinley was attending the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York when he was shot by anarchist Leon Czolgosz. Roosevelt was vacationing in Isle La Motte, Vermont, and traveled to Buffalo to visit McKinley in the hospital. It appeared that McKinley would recover, so Roosevelt resumed his vacation in the Adirondack Mountains. When McKinley's condition worsened, Roosevelt again rushed back to Buffalo. McKinley died on September 14, and Roosevelt was informed while he was in North Creek; he continued on to Buffalo and was sworn in as the nation's 26th president at the Ansley Wilcox House.
McKinley's supporters were nervous about the new president, and Hanna was particularly bitter that the man he had opposed so vigorously at the convention had succeeded McKinley. Roosevelt assured party leaders that he intended to adhere to McKinley's policies, and he retained McKinley's Cabinet. Nonetheless, Roosevelt sought to position himself as the party's undisputed leader, seeking to bolster the role of the president and position himself for the 1904 election. The vice presidency remained vacant, as there was no constitutional provision for filling an intra-term vacancy in that office (prior to the 25th Amendment in 1967).
Shortly after taking office, Roosevelt invited Booker T. Washington to dinner at the White House. This sparked a bitter, and at times vicious, reaction among whites across the heavily segregated South. Roosevelt reacted with astonishment and protest, saying that he looked forward to many future dinners with Washington. Upon further reflection, Roosevelt wanted to ensure that this had no effect on political support in the white South, and further dinner invitations to Washington were avoided; their next meeting was scheduled as typical business at 10:00 a.m. instead.
Domestic policies
Trust busting and regulation
For his aggressive use of the 1890 Sherman Antitrust Act, compared to his predecessors, Roosevelt was hailed as the "trust-buster"; but in reality he was more of a trust regulator. Roosevelt viewed big business as a necessary part of the American economy, and sought only to prosecute the "bad trusts" that restrained trade and charged unfair prices. He brought 44 antitrust suits, breaking up the Northern Securities Company, the largest railroad monopoly; and regulating Standard Oil, the largest oil company. Presidents Benjamin Harrison, Grover Cleveland, and William McKinley combined had prosecuted only 18 antitrust violations under the Sherman Antitrust Act.
Bolstered by his party's winning large majorities in the 1902 elections, Roosevelt proposed the creation of the United States Department of Commerce and Labor, which would include the Bureau of Corporations. While Congress was receptive to the Department of Commerce and Labor, it was more skeptical of the antitrust powers that Roosevelt sought to endow within the Bureau of Corporations. Roosevelt successfully appealed to the public to pressure Congress, and Congress overwhelmingly voted to pass Roosevelt's version of the bill.
In a moment of frustration, House Speaker Joseph Gurney Cannon commented on Roosevelt's desire for executive branch control in domestic policy-making: "That fellow at the other end of the avenue wants everything from the birth of Christ to the death of the devil." Biographer Brands states, "Even his friends occasionally wondered whether there wasn't any custom or practice too minor for him to try to regulate, update or otherwise improve." In fact, Roosevelt's willingness to exercise his power included attempted rule changes in the game of football; at the Naval Academy, he sought to force retention of martial arts classes and to revise disciplinary rules. He even ordered changes made in the minting of a coin whose design he disliked, and ordered the Government Printing Office to adopt simplified spellings for a core list of 300 words, according to reformers on the Simplified Spelling Board. He was forced to rescind the latter after substantial ridicule from the press and a resolution of protest from the House of Representatives.
Coal strike
In May 1902, anthracite coal miners went on strike, threatening a national energy shortage. After threatening the coal operators with intervention by federal troops, Roosevelt won their agreement to dispute arbitration by a commission, which succeeded in stopping the strike. The accord with J. P. Morgan resulted in the miners getting more pay for fewer hours, but with no union recognition. Roosevelt said, "My action on labor should always be considered in connection with my action as regards capital, and both are reducible to my favorite formula—a square deal for every man." Roosevelt was the first president to help settle a labor dispute.
Prosecuted misconduct
During Roosevelt's second year in office it was discovered there was corruption in the Indian Service, the Land Office, and the Post Office Department. Roosevelt investigated and prosecuted corrupt Indian agents who had cheated the Creeks and various tribes out of land parcels. Land fraud and speculation were found involving Oregon federal timberlands. In November 1902, Roosevelt and Secretary Ethan A. Hitchcock forced Binger Hermann, the General Land Office Commissioner, to resign from office. On November 6, 1903 Francis J. Heney was appointed special prosecutor and obtained 146 indictments involving an Oregon Land Office bribery ring. U.S. Senator John H. Mitchell was indicted for bribery to expedite illegal land patents, found guilty in July 1905, and sentenced to six months in prison. More corruption was found in the Postal Department, that brought on the indictments of 44 government employees on charges of bribery and fraud. Historians generally agree that Roosevelt moved "quickly and decisively" to prosecute misconduct in his administration.
Railroads
Merchants complained that some railroad rates were too high. In the 1906 Hepburn Act, Roosevelt sought to give the Interstate Commerce Commission the power to regulate rates, but the Senate, led by conservative Nelson Aldrich, fought back. Roosevelt worked with the Democratic Senator Benjamin Tillman to pass the bill. Roosevelt and Aldrich ultimately reached a compromise that gave the ICC the power to replace existing rates with "just-and-reasonable" maximum rates, but allowed railroads to appeal to the federal courts on what was "reasonable". In addition to rate-setting, the Hepburn Act also granted the ICC regulatory power over pipeline fees, storage contracts, and several other aspects of railroad operations.
Pure food and drugs
Roosevelt responded to public anger over the abuses in the food packing industry by pushing Congress to pass the Meat Inspection Act of 1906 and the Pure Food and Drug Act. Though conservatives initially opposed the bill, Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, published in 1906, helped galvanize support for reform. The Meat Inspection Act of 1906 banned misleading labels and preservatives that contained harmful chemicals. The Pure Food and Drug Act banned food and drugs that were impure or falsely labeled from being made, sold, and shipped. Roosevelt also served as honorary president of the American School Hygiene Association from 1907 to 1908, and in 1909 he convened the first White House Conference on the Care of Dependent Children.
Conservation
Of all Roosevelt's achievements, he was proudest of his work in the conservation of natural resources and extending federal protection to land and wildlife. Roosevelt worked closely with Interior Secretary James Rudolph Garfield and Chief of the United States Forest Service Gifford Pinchot to enact a series of conservation programs that often met with resistance from Western members of Congress, such as Charles William Fulton. Nonetheless, Roosevelt established the United States Forest Service, signed into law the creation of five National Parks, and signed the 1906 Antiquities Act, under which he proclaimed 18 new U.S. National Monuments. He also established the first 51 bird reserves, four game preserves, and 150 National Forests. The area of the United States that he placed under public protection totals approximately .
Roosevelt extensively used executive orders on a number of occasions to protect forest and wildlife lands during his tenure as president. By the end of his second term in office, Roosevelt used executive orders to establish of reserved forestry land. Roosevelt was unapologetic about his extensive use of executive orders to protect the environment, despite the perception in Congress that he was encroaching on too many lands. Eventually, Senator Charles Fulton (R-OR) attached an amendment to an agricultural appropriations bill that effectively prevented the president from reserving any further land. Before signing that bill into law, Roosevelt used executive orders to establish an additional 21 forest reserves, waiting until the last minute to sign the bill into law. In total, Roosevelt used executive orders to establish 121 forest reserves in 31 states. Prior to Roosevelt, only one president had issued over 200 executive orders, Grover Cleveland (253). The first 25 presidents issued a total of 1,262 executive orders; Roosevelt issued 1,081.
Foreign policy
Japan
The American annexation of Hawaii in 1898 was stimulated in part by fear that otherwise Japan would dominate the Hawaiian Republic. Similarly, Germany was the alternative to American takeover of the Philippines in 1900, and Tokyo strongly preferred the U.S. to take over. As the U.S. became a naval world power, it needed to find a way to avoid a military confrontation in the Pacific with Japan.
In the 1890s, Roosevelt had been an ardent imperialist and vigorously defended the permanent acquisition of the Philippines in the 1900 campaign. After the local insurrection ended in 1902, he largely lost his imperialist interest in the Philippines and Asian expansion but wished to have a strong U.S. presence in the region as a symbol of democratic values. One of Theodore Roosevelt's priorities during his presidency and afterwards, was the maintenance of friendly relations with Japan. From 1904 to 1905 Japan and Russia were at war. Roosevelt admired the martial courage of the Japanese, and distrusted the reckless German Kaiser. Both sides asked Roosevelt to mediate a peace conference, held successfully in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Roosevelt won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts.
In California, anti-Japanese hostility was growing, and Tokyo protested. Roosevelt negotiated a "Gentleman's Agreement" in 1907. Explicit discrimination against the Japanese was ended, and Japan agreed not to allow unskilled immigrants into the United States. The Great White Fleet of American battleships visited Japan in 1908. Pulitzer prize-winning biographer Henry Pringle states that the great voyage was "the direct result of the Japanese trouble." Roosevelt intended to emphasize the superiority of the American fleet over the smaller Japanese navy, but instead of resentment the visitors arrived to a joyous welcome by Japanese elite as well as the general public. This good-will facilitated the Root–Takahira Agreement of November 1908 which reaffirmed the status quo of Japanese control of Korea and American control of the Philippines.
Europe
Success in the war against Spain and the new empire, plus having the largest economy in the world, meant that the United States had emerged as a world power. Roosevelt searched for ways to win recognition for the position abroad.
Roosevelt also played a major role in mediating the First Moroccan Crisis by calling the Algeciras Conference, which averted war between France and Germany.
Roosevelt's presidency saw the strengthening of ties with Great Britain. The Great Rapprochement had begun with British support of the United States during the Spanish–American War, and it continued as Britain withdrew its fleet from the Caribbean in favor of focusing on the rising German naval threat. In 1901, Britain and the United States signed the Hay–Pauncefote Treaty, abrogating the Clayton–Bulwer Treaty, which had prevented the United States from constructing a canal connecting the Pacific and the Atlantic Ocean. The long-standing Alaska boundary dispute was settled on terms favorable to the United States, as Great Britain was unwilling to alienate the United States over what it considered to be a secondary issue. As Roosevelt later put it, the resolution of the Alaskan boundary dispute "settled the last serious trouble between the British Empire and ourselves."
Latin America and Panama Canal
As president, he primarily focused the nation's overseas ambitions on the Caribbean, especially locations that had a bearing on the defense of his pet project, the Panama Canal. Roosevelt also increased the size of the navy, and by the end of his second term the United States had more battleships than any other country besides Britain. The Panama Canal when it opened in 1914 allowed the U.S. Navy to rapidly move back and forth from the Pacific to the Caribbean to European waters.
In December 1902, the Germans, British, and Italians blockaded the ports of Venezuela in order to force the repayment of delinquent loans. Roosevelt was particularly concerned with the motives of German Emperor Wilhelm II. He succeeded in getting the three nations to agree to arbitration by tribunal at The Hague, and successfully defused the crisis. The latitude granted to the Europeans by the arbiters was in part responsible for the "Roosevelt Corollary" to the Monroe Doctrine, which the President issued in 1904: "Chronic wrongdoing or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation, and in the Western Hemisphere, the adherence of the United States to the Monroe doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power."
The pursuit of an isthmus canal in Central America during this period focused on two possible routes—Nicaragua and Panama, which was then a rebellious district within Colombia. Roosevelt convinced Congress to approve the Panamanian alternative, and a treaty was approved, only to be rejected by the Colombian government. When the Panamanians learned of this, a rebellion followed, was supported by Roosevelt, and succeeded. A treaty with the new Panama government for construction of the canal was then reached in 1903. Roosevelt received criticism for paying the bankrupt Panama Canal Company and the New Panama Canal Company $40,000,000 (equivalent to $ billion in ) for the rights and equipment to build the canal. Critics charged that an American investor syndicate allegedly divided the large payment among themselves. There was also controversy over whether a French company engineer influenced Roosevelt in choosing the Panama route for the canal over the Nicaragua route. Roosevelt denied charges of corruption concerning the canal in a January 8, 1906 message to Congress. In January 1909, Roosevelt, in an unprecedented move, brought criminal libel charges against the New York World and the Indianapolis News known as the "Roosevelt-Panama Libel Cases". Both cases were dismissed by U.S. District Courts, and on January 3, 1911, the U.S. Supreme Court, upon federal appeal, upheld the lower courts' rulings. Historians are sharply critical of Roosevelt's criminal prosecutions of the World and the News, but are divided on whether actual corruption in acquiring and building the Panama Canal took place.
In 1906, following a disputed election, an insurrection ensued in Cuba; Roosevelt sent Taft, the Secretary of War, to monitor the situation; he was convinced that he had the authority to unilaterally authorize Taft to deploy Marines if necessary, without congressional approval.
Examining the work of numerous scholars, Ricard (2014) reports that:
The most striking evolution in the twenty-first-century historiography of Theodore Roosevelt is the switch from a partial arraignment of the imperialist to a quasi-unanimous celebration of the master diplomatist.... [Recent works] have underlined cogently Roosevelt's exceptional statesmanship in the construction of the nascent twentieth-century "special relationship". ...The twenty-sixth president's reputation as a brilliant diplomatist and realpolitician has undeniably reached new heights in the twenty-first century...yet, his Philippine policy still prompts criticism.
Media
Building on McKinley's effective use of the press, Roosevelt made the White House the center of news every day, providing interviews and photo opportunities. After noticing the reporters huddled outside the White House in the rain one day, he gave them their own room inside, effectively inventing the presidential press briefing. The grateful press, with unprecedented access to the White House, rewarded Roosevelt with ample coverage.
Roosevelt normally enjoyed very close relationships with the press, which he used to keep in daily contact with his middle-class base. While out of office, he made a living as a writer and magazine editor. He loved talking with intellectuals, authors, and writers. He drew the line, however, at exposé-oriented scandal-mongering journalists who, during his term, sent magazine subscriptions soaring by their attacks on corrupt politicians, mayors, and corporations. Roosevelt himself was not usually a target, but a speech of his from 1906 coined the term "muckraker" for unscrupulous journalists making wild charges. "The liar", he said, "is no whit better than the thief, and if his mendacity takes the form of slander he may be worse than most thieves."
The press did briefly target Roosevelt in one instance. After 1904, he was periodically criticized for the manner in which he facilitated the construction of the Panama Canal. According to biographer Brands, Roosevelt, near the end of his term, demanded that the Justice Department bring charges of criminal libel against Joseph Pulitzer's New York World. The publication had accused him of "deliberate misstatements of fact" in defense of family members who were criticized as a result of the Panama affair. Though an indictment was obtained, the case was ultimately dismissed in federal court—it was not a federal offense, but one enforceable in state courts. The Justice Department had predicted that result, and had also advised Roosevelt accordingly.
Election of 1904
The control and management of the Republican Party lay in the hands of Ohio Senator and Republican Party chairman Mark Hanna until McKinley's death. Roosevelt and Hanna frequently cooperated during Roosevelt's first term, but Hanna left open the possibility of a challenge to Roosevelt for the 1904 Republican nomination. Roosevelt and Ohio's other Senator, Joseph B. Foraker, forced Hanna's hand by calling for Ohio's state Republican convention to endorse Roosevelt for the 1904 nomination. Unwilling to break with the president, Hanna was forced to publicly endorse Roosevelt. Hanna and Pennsylvania Senator Matthew Quay both died in early 1904, and with the waning of Thomas Platt's power, Roosevelt faced little effective opposition for the 1904 nomination. In deference to Hanna's conservative loyalists, Roosevelt at first offered the party chairmanship to Cornelius Bliss, but he declined. Roosevelt turned to his own man, George B. Cortelyou of New York, the first Secretary of Commerce and Labor. To buttress his hold on the party's nomination, Roosevelt made it clear that anyone opposing Cortelyou would be considered to be opposing the President. The President secured his own nomination, but his preferred vice-presidential running mate, Robert R. Hitt, was not nominated. Senator Charles Warren Fairbanks of Indiana, a favorite of conservatives, gained the nomination.
While Roosevelt followed the tradition of incumbents in not actively campaigning on the stump, he sought to control the campaign's message through specific instructions to Cortelyou. He also attempted to manage the press's release of White House statements by forming the Ananias Club. Any journalist who repeated a statement made by the president without approval was penalized by restriction of further access.
The Democratic Party's nominee in 1904 was Alton Brooks Parker. Democratic newspapers charged that Republicans were extorting large campaign contributions from corporations, putting ultimate responsibility on Roosevelt, himself. Roosevelt denied corruption while at the same time he ordered Cortelyou to return $100,000 (equivalent to $ million in ) of a campaign contribution from Standard Oil. Parker said that Roosevelt was accepting corporate donations to keep damaging information from the Bureau of Corporations from going public. Roosevelt strongly denied Parker's charge and responded that he would "go into the Presidency unhampered by any pledge, promise, or understanding of any kind, sort, or description...". Allegations from Parker and the Democrats, however, had little impact on the election, as Roosevelt promised to give every American a "square deal". Roosevelt won 56% of the popular vote, and Parker received 38%; Roosevelt also won the Electoral College vote, 336 to 140. Before his inauguration ceremony, Roosevelt declared that he would not serve another term. Democrats afterwards would continue to charge Roosevelt and the Republicans of being influenced by corporate donations during Roosevelt's second term.
Second term
As his second term progressed, Roosevelt moved to the left of his Republican Party base and called for a series of reforms, most of which Congress failed to pass. In his last year in office, he was assisted by his friend Archibald Butt (who later perished in the sinking of RMS Titanic). Roosevelt's influence waned as he approached the end of his second term, as his promise to forego a third term made him a lame duck and his concentration of power provoked a backlash from many Congressmen. He sought a national incorporation law (at a time when all corporations had state charters), called for a federal income tax (despite the Supreme Court's ruling in Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co.), and an inheritance tax. In the area of labor legislation, Roosevelt called for limits on the use of court injunctions against labor unions during strikes; injunctions were a powerful weapon that mostly helped business. He wanted an employee liability law for industrial injuries (pre-empting state laws) and an eight-hour work day for federal employees. In other areas he also sought a postal savings system (to provide competition for local banks), and he asked for campaign reform laws.
The election of 1904 continued to be a source of contention between Republicans and Democrats. A Congressional investigation in 1905 revealed that corporate executives donated tens of thousands of dollars in 1904 to the Republican National Committee. In 1908, a month before the general presidential election, Governor Charles N. Haskell of Oklahoma, former Democratic Treasurer, said that Senators beholden to Standard Oil lobbied Roosevelt, in the summer of 1904, to authorize the leasing of Indian oil lands by Standard Oil subsidiaries. He said Roosevelt overruled his Secretary of Interior Ethan A. Hitchcock and granted a pipeline franchise to run through the Osage lands to the Prairie Oil and Gas Company. The New York Sun made a similar accusation and said that Standard Oil, a refinery who financially benefited from the pipeline, had contributed $150,000 to the Republicans in 1904 (equivalent to $ million in ) after Roosevelt's alleged reversal allowing the pipeline franchise. Roosevelt branded Haskell's allegation as "a lie, pure and simple" and obtained a denial from Treasury Secretary Shaw that Roosevelt had neither coerced Shaw nor overruled him.
Post-presidency (1909–1919)
Election of 1908
Roosevelt enjoyed being president and was still relatively youthful, but felt that a limited number of terms provided a check against dictatorship. Roosevelt ultimately decided to stick to his 1904 pledge not to run for a third term. He personally favored Secretary of State Elihu Root as his successor, but Root's ill health made him an unsuitable candidate. New York Governor Charles Evans Hughes loomed as a potentially strong candidate and shared Roosevelt's progressivism, but Roosevelt disliked him and considered him to be too independent. Instead, Roosevelt settled on his Secretary of War, William Howard Taft, who had ably served under Presidents Harrison, McKinley, and Roosevelt in various positions. Roosevelt and Taft had been friends since 1890, and Taft had consistently supported President Roosevelt's policies. Roosevelt was determined to install the successor of his choice, and wrote the following to Taft: "Dear Will: Do you want any action about those federal officials? I will break their necks with the utmost cheerfulness if you say the word!". Just weeks later he branded as "false and malicious" the charge that he was using the offices at his disposal to favor Taft. At the 1908 Republican convention, many chanted for "four years more" of a Roosevelt presidency, but Taft won the nomination after Henry Cabot Lodge made it clear that Roosevelt was not interested in a third term.
In the 1908 election, Taft easily defeated the Democratic nominee, three-time candidate William Jennings Bryan. Taft promoted a progressivism that stressed the rule of law; he preferred that judges rather than administrators or politicians make the basic decisions about fairness. Taft usually proved to be a less adroit politician than Roosevelt and lacked the energy and personal magnetism, along with the publicity devices, the dedicated supporters, and the broad base of public support that made Roosevelt so formidable. When Roosevelt realized that lowering the tariff would risk creating severe tensions inside the Republican Party by pitting producers (manufacturers and farmers) against merchants and consumers, he stopped talking about the issue. Taft ignored the risks and tackled the tariff boldly, encouraging reformers to fight for lower rates, and then cutting deals with conservative leaders that kept overall rates high. The resulting Payne-Aldrich tariff of 1909, signed into law early in President Taft's tenure, was too high for most reformers, and Taft's handling of the tariff alienated all sides. While the crisis was building inside the Party, Roosevelt was touring Africa and Europe, to allow Taft to be his own man.
Africa and Europe (1909–1910)
In March 1909, shortly after the end of his presidency, Roosevelt left New York for the Smithsonian-Roosevelt African Expedition, a safari in east and central Africa. Roosevelt's party landed in Mombasa, East Africa (now Kenya) and traveled to the Belgian Congo (now Democratic Republic of the Congo) before following the Nile to Khartoum in modern Sudan. Financed by Andrew Carnegie and by his own writings, Roosevelt's party hunted for specimens for the Smithsonian Institution and for the American Museum of Natural History in New York. The group, led by the hunter-tracker RJ Cunninghame, included scientists from the Smithsonian, and was joined from time to time by Frederick Selous, the famous big game hunter and explorer. Participants on the expedition included Kermit Roosevelt, Edgar Alexander Mearns, Edmund Heller, and John Alden Loring.
Roosevelt and his companions killed or trapped approximately 11,400 animals, from insects and moles to hippopotamuses and elephants. The 1,000 large animals included 512 big game animals, including six rare white rhinos. Tons of salted animals and their skins were shipped to Washington; it took years to mount them all, and the Smithsonian shared many duplicate specimens with other museums. Regarding the large number of animals taken, Roosevelt said, "I can be condemned only if the existence of the National Museum, the American Museum of Natural History, and all similar zoological institutions are to be condemned". He wrote a detailed account of the safari in the book African Game Trails, recounting the excitement of the chase, the people he met, and the flora and fauna he collected in the name of science.
After his safari, Roosevelt traveled north to embark on a tour of Europe. Stopping first in Egypt, he commented favorably on British rule of the region, giving his opinion that Egypt was not yet ready for independence. He refused a meeting with the Pope due to a dispute over a group of Methodists active in Rome, but met with Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, King George V of Great Britain, and other European leaders. In Oslo, Norway, Roosevelt delivered a speech calling for limitations on naval armaments, a strengthening of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, and the creation of a "League of Peace" among the world powers. He also delivered the Romanes Lecture at Oxford, in which he denounced those who sought parallels between the evolution of animal life and the development of society. Though Roosevelt attempted to avoid domestic politics during his time abroad, he met with Gifford Pinchot, who related his own disappointment with the Taft Administration. Pinchot had been forced to resign as head of the forest service after clashing with Taft's Interior Secretary, Richard Ballinger, who had prioritized development over conservation. Roosevelt returned to the United States in June 1910.
Republican Party schism
Roosevelt had attempted to refashion Taft into a second version of himself, but as soon as Taft began to display his individuality, the former president expressed his disenchantment. He was offended on election night when Taft indicated that his success had been possible not just through the efforts of Roosevelt, but also his brother Charley. Roosevelt was further alienated when Taft, intent on becoming his own man, did not consult him about cabinet appointments. Roosevelt and other progressives were ideologically dissatisfied over Taft's conservation policies and his handling of the tariff when he concentrated more power in the hands of conservative party leaders in Congress. Regarding radicalism and liberalism, Roosevelt wrote a British friend in 1911:
Fundamentally it is the radical liberal with whom I sympathize. He is at least working toward the end for which I think we should all of us strive; and when he adds sanity in moderation to courage and enthusiasm for high ideals he develops into the kind of statesman whom alone I can wholeheartedly support."
Roosevelt urged progressives to take control of the Republican Party at the state and local level and to avoid splitting the party in a way that would hand the presidency to the Democrats in 1912. Additionally, Roosevelt expressed optimism about the Taft Administration after meeting with the president in the White House in June 1910.
In August 1910, Roosevelt gained national attention with a speech at Osawatomie, Kansas, which was the most radical of his career and marked his public break with Taft and the conservative Republicans. Advocating a program of "New Nationalism", Roosevelt emphasized the priority of labor over capital interests, a need to more effectively control corporate creation and combination, and proposed a ban on corporate political contributions. Returning to New York, Roosevelt began a battle to take control of the state Republican party from William Barnes Jr., Tom Platt's successor as the state party boss, whom he would later confront in the Barnes vs. Roosevelt Libel Trial. Taft had pledged his support to Roosevelt in this endeavor, and Roosevelt was outraged when Taft's support failed to materialize at the 1910 state convention. Roosevelt nonetheless campaigned for the Republicans in the 1910 elections, in which the Democrats gained control of the House for the first time since the 1890s. Among the newly elected Democrats was New York state senator Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who argued that he represented his distant cousin's policies better than his Republican opponent.
The Republican progressives interpreted the 1910 defeats as a compelling argument for the complete reorganization of the party in 1911. Senator Robert M. La Follette of Wisconsin joined with Pinchot, William White, and California Governor Hiram Johnson to create the National Progressive Republican League; their objectives were to defeat the power of political bossism at the state level and to replace Taft at the national level. Despite skepticism of La Follette's new league, Roosevelt expressed general support for progressive principles. Between January and April 1911, Roosevelt wrote a series of articles for The Outlook, defending what he called "the great movement of our day, the progressive nationalist movement against special privilege, and in favor of an honest and efficient political and industrial democracy". With Roosevelt apparently uninterested in running in 1912, La Follette declared his own candidacy in June 1911. Roosevelt continually criticized Taft after the 1910 elections, and the break between the two men became final after the Justice Department filed an antitrust lawsuit against US Steel in September 1911; Roosevelt was humiliated by this suit because he had personally approved of an acquisition that the Justice Department was now challenging. However, Roosevelt was still unwilling to run against Taft in 1912; he instead hoped to run in 1916 against whichever Democrat beat Taft in 1912.
Dispute over arbitration treaties
Taft was a major advocate of arbitration as a major reform of the Progressive Era. In 1911 Taft and his Secretary of State Philander C. Knox negotiated major treaties with Great Britain and with France providing that differences be arbitrated. Disputes had to be submitted to the Hague Court or other tribunal. These were signed in August 1911 but had to be ratified by a two-thirds vote of the Senate. Neither Taft nor Knox consulted with members of the Senate during the negotiating process. By then many Republicans were opposed to Taft, and the president felt that lobbying too hard for the treaties might cause their defeat. He made some speeches supporting the treaties in October, but the Senate added amendments Taft could not accept, killing the agreements.
The arbitration issue opens a window on a bitter philosophical dispute among American progressives. Some, led by Taft looked to legal arbitration as the best alternative to warfare. Taft was a constitutional lawyer who later became Chief Justice; he had a deep understanding of the legal issues. Taft's political base was the conservative business community that largely supported peace movements before 1914. However, his mistake, in this case, was a failure to mobilize that base. The businessmen believed that economic rivalries were the cause of war, and that extensive trade led to an interdependent world that would make war a very expensive and useless anachronism.
However, an opposing faction of progressives, led by Roosevelt, ridiculed arbitration as foolhardy idealism, and insisted on the realism of warfare as the only solution to serious international disputes. Roosevelt worked with his close friend Senator Henry Cabot Lodge to impose those amendments that ruined the goals of the treaties. Lodge thought the treaties impinged too much on senatorial prerogatives. Roosevelt, however, was acting to sabotage Taft's campaign promises. At a deeper level, Roosevelt truly believed that arbitration was a naïve solution and the great issues had to be decided by warfare. The Rooseveltian approach incorporated a near-mystical faith of the ennobling nature of war. It endorsed jingoistic nationalism as opposed to the businessmen's calculation of profit and national interest.
Election of 1912
Republican primaries and convention
In November 1911, a group of Ohio Republicans endorsed Roosevelt for the party's nomination for president; the endorsers included James R. Garfield and Dan Hanna. This endorsement was made by leaders of President Taft's home state. Roosevelt conspicuously declined to make a statement—requested by Garfield—that he would flatly refuse a nomination. Soon thereafter, Roosevelt said, "I am really sorry for Taft... I am sure he means well, but he means well feebly, and he does not know how! He is utterly unfit for leadership and this is a time when we need leadership." In January 1912, Roosevelt declared "if the people make a draft on me I shall not decline to serve". Later that year, Roosevelt spoke before the Constitutional Convention in Ohio, openly identifying as a progressive and endorsing progressive reforms—even endorsing popular review of state judicial decisions. In reaction to Roosevelt's proposals for popular overrule of court decisions, Taft said, "Such extremists are not progressives—they are political emotionalists or neurotics".
Roosevelt began to envision himself as the savior of the Republican Party from defeat in the upcoming presidential election. In February 1912, Roosevelt announced in Boston, "I will accept the nomination for president if it is tendered to me. I hope that so far as possible the people may be given the chance through direct primaries to express who shall be the nominee. Elihu Root and Henry Cabot Lodge thought that division of the party would lead to its defeat in the next election, while Taft believed that he would be defeated either in the Republican primary or in the general election.
The 1912 primaries represented the first extensive use of the presidential primary, a reform achievement of the progressive movement. The Republican primaries in the South, where party regulars dominated, went for Taft, as did results in New York, Indiana, Michigan, Kentucky and Massachusetts. Meanwhile, Roosevelt won in Illinois, Minnesota, Nebraska, South Dakota, California, Maryland and Pennsylvania; Roosevelt also won Taft's home state of Ohio. These primary elections, while demonstrating Roosevelt's continuing popularity with the electorate, were not pivotal. The final credentials of the state delegates at the national convention were determined by the national committee, which was controlled by the party leaders, headed by the incumbent president.
Prior to the 1912 Republican National Convention in Chicago, Roosevelt expressed doubt about his prospects for victory, noting that Taft had more delegates and control of the credentials committee. His only hope was to convince party leaders that the nomination of Taft would hand the election to the Democrats, but party leaders were determined not to cede their leadership to Roosevelt. The credentials committee awarded almost all contested delegates to Taft, and Taft won the nomination on the first ballot. Black delegates from the South played a key role: they voted heavily for Taft and put him over the top. La Follette also helped Taft's candidacy; he hoped that a deadlocked convention would result in his own nomination, and refused to release his delegates to support Roosevelt.
The Progressive ("Bull Moose") Party
Once his defeat at the Republican convention appeared probable, Roosevelt announced that he would "accept the progressive nomination on a progressive platform and I shall fight to the end, win or lose". At the same time, Roosevelt prophetically said, "My feeling is that the Democrats will probably win if they nominate a progressive".
Roosevelt left the Republican Party and created the Progressive Party, structuring it as a permanent organization that would field complete tickets at the presidential and state level. The party included Roosevelt and key allies such as Pinchot, Cornelia Bryce Pinchot (Pinchot's wife and a longtime friend of Roosevelt's), and Albert Beveridge. The new party was popularly known as the "Bull Moose Party" after Roosevelt told reporters, "I'm as fit as a bull moose". At the 1912 Progressive National Convention, Roosevelt cried out, "We stand at Armageddon and we battle for the Lord." California Governor Hiram Johnson was nominated as Roosevelt's running mate. Roosevelt's platform echoed his 1907–1908 proposals, calling for vigorous government intervention to protect the people from selfish interests:
Though many Progressive party supporters in the North were supporters of civil rights for blacks, Roosevelt did not give strong support to civil rights and ran a "lily-white" campaign in the South. Rival all-white and all-black delegations from four southern states arrived at the Progressive national convention, and Roosevelt decided to seat the all-white delegations. Nevertheless, he won little support outside mountain Republican strongholds. Out of nearly 1100 counties in the South, Roosevelt won two counties in Alabama, one in Arkansas, seven in North Carolina, three in Georgia, 17 in Tennessee, two in Texas, one in Virginia, and none in Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, or South Carolina.
Assassination attempt
On October 14, 1912, while arriving at a campaign event in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Roosevelt was shot from seven feet away in front of the Gilpatrick Hotel by a delusional saloonkeeper named John Flammang Schrank, who believed that the ghost of assassinated president William McKinley had directed him to kill Roosevelt. The bullet lodged in his chest after penetrating his steel eyeglass case and passing through a 50-page-thick single-folded copy of the speech titled "Progressive Cause Greater Than Any Individual", which he was carrying in his jacket. Schrank was immediately disarmed (by Czech immigrant Frank Bukovsky), captured, and might have been lynched had Roosevelt not shouted for Schrank to remain unharmed. Roosevelt assured the crowd he was all right, then ordered police to take charge of Schrank and to make sure no violence was done to him.
As an experienced hunter and anatomist, Roosevelt correctly concluded that since he was not coughing blood, the bullet had not reached his lung. He declined suggestions to go to the hospital immediately and instead delivered a 90 minute speech with blood seeping into his shirt. His opening comments to the gathered crowd were, "Ladies and gentlemen, I don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot, but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose." Only after finishing his address did he accept medical attention.
Subsequent probes and an x-ray showed that the bullet had lodged in Roosevelt's chest muscle, but did not penetrate the pleura. Doctors concluded that it would be less dangerous to leave it in place than to attempt to remove it, and Roosevelt carried the bullet with him for the rest of his life. Both Taft and Democratic nominee Woodrow Wilson suspended their own campaigning until Roosevelt recovered and resumed his. When asked if the shooting would affect his election campaign, he said to the reporter "I'm fit as a bull moose." The bull moose became a symbol of both Roosevelt and the Progressive Party, and it often was referred to as simply the Bull Moose Party. He spent two weeks recuperating before returning to the campaign trail. He later wrote a friend about the bullet inside him, "I do not mind it any more than if it were in my waistcoat pocket."
Farewell manifesto
On October 20, Roosevelt spoke to a crowd of 16,000 at Madison Square Garden. The speech included: "Perhaps once in a generation, there comes a chance for the people of a country to play their part wisely and fearlessly in some great battle of the age-long warfare for human rights."
Election results
After the Democrats nominated Governor Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey, Roosevelt did not expect to win the general election, as Wilson had compiled a record attractive to many progressive Democrats who might have otherwise considered voting for Roosevelt. Roosevelt still campaigned vigorously, and the election developed into a two-person contest between Wilson and Roosevelt despite Taft's presence in the race. Roosevelt respected Wilson, but the two differed on various issues; Wilson opposed any federal intervention regarding women's suffrage or child labor (he viewed these as state issues), and attacked Roosevelt's tolerance of large businesses.
Roosevelt won 4.1 million votes (27%), compared to Taft's 3.5 million (23%). Wilson gained 6.3 million votes (42% of the total) and a massive landslide in the Electoral College, with 435 electoral votes; Roosevelt won 88 electoral votes, while Taft won 8. Pennsylvania was the only eastern state won by Roosevelt; in the Midwest, he carried Michigan, Minnesota, and South Dakota; in the West, California, and Washington. Wilson's victory represented the first Democratic presidential election victory since Cleveland's 1892 campaign, and it was the party's best performance in the Electoral College since 1852. Roosevelt, meanwhile, garnered a higher share of the popular vote than any other third-party presidential candidate in history and won the most states of any third-party candidate after the Civil War.
South American expedition (1913-1914)
A friend of Roosevelt's, Father John Augustine Zahm, persuaded Roosevelt to participate in an expedition to South America. To finance the expedition, Roosevelt received support from the American Museum of Natural History in return for promising to bring back many new animal specimens. Roosevelt's popular book, Through the Brazilian Wilderness describes his expedition into the Brazilian jungle in 1913 as a member of the Roosevelt-Rondon Scientific Expedition, co-named after its leader, Brazilian explorer Cândido Rondon.
Once in South America, a new, far more ambitious goal was added: to find the headwaters of the Rio da Duvida (Portuguese for "River of Doubt"), and trace it north to the Madeira and thence to the Amazon River. It was later renamed Roosevelt River in honor of the former president. Roosevelt's crew consisted of his son Kermit, Colonel Rondon, naturalist George Kruck Cherrie (sent by the American Museum of Natural History), Brazilian Lieutenant João Lira, team physician Dr. José Antonio Cajazeira, and 16 skilled paddlers and porters. Roosevelt also identified Leo Miller (another AMNH recommendation), Anthony Fiala, Frank Harper, and Jacob Sigg as crew members. The initial expedition started somewhat tenuously on December 9, 1913, at the height of the rainy season. The trip down the River of Doubt started on February 27, 1914.
During the trip down the river, Roosevelt suffered a minor leg wound after he jumped into the river to try to prevent two canoes from smashing against the rocks. The flesh wound he received, however, soon gave him tropical fever that resembled the malaria he had contracted while in Cuba fifteen years before. Because the bullet lodged in his chest from the assassination attempt in 1912 was never removed, his health worsened from the infection. This weakened Roosevelt so greatly that six weeks into the adventure, he had to be attended to day and night by the expedition's physician and his son Kermit. By then, he could not walk because of the infection in his injured leg and an infirmity in the other, which was due to a traffic accident a decade earlier. Roosevelt was riddled with chest pains, fighting a fever that soared to and at times made him delirious, at one point constantly reciting the first two lines of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem "Kubla Khan": "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan / A stately pleasure dome decree". Regarding his condition as a threat to the survival of the others, Roosevelt insisted he be left behind to allow the poorly provisioned expedition to proceed as rapidly as it could, preparing to commit suicide with an overdose of morphine. Only an appeal by his son persuaded him to continue.
Despite Roosevelt's continued decline and loss of over , Colonel Rondon reduced the pace of the expedition to allow for his commission's mapmaking and other geographical tasks, which required regular stops to fix the expedition's position by sun-based survey. Upon Roosevelt's return to New York, friends and family were startled by his physical appearance and fatigue. Roosevelt wrote, perhaps prophetically, to a friend that the trip had cut his life short by ten years. For the rest of his few remaining years, he would be plagued by flare-ups of malaria and leg inflammations so severe as to require surgery. Before Roosevelt had even completed his sea voyage home, critics raised doubts over his claims of exploring and navigating a completely uncharted river over long. When he had recovered sufficiently, he addressed a standing-room-only convention organized in Washington, D.C., by the National Geographic Society and satisfactorily defended his claims.
Final years
Roosevelt returned to the United States in May 1914. Though he was outraged by the Wilson Administration's conclusion of a treaty that expressed "sincere regret" for the way in which the United States had acquired the Panama Canal Zone, he was impressed by many of the reforms passed under Wilson. Roosevelt made several campaign appearances for the Progressives, but the 1914 elections were a disaster for the fledgling third party. Roosevelt began to envision another campaign for president, this time with himself at the head of the Republican Party, but conservative party leaders remained opposed to Roosevelt. In hopes of engineering a joint nomination, the Progressives scheduled the 1916 Progressive National Convention at the same time as the 1916 Republican National Convention. When the Republicans nominated Charles Evans Hughes, Roosevelt declined the Progressive nomination and urged his Progressive followers to support the Republican candidate. Though Roosevelt had long disliked Hughes, he disliked Wilson even more, and he campaigned energetically for the Republican nominee. However, Wilson won the 1916 election by a narrow margin. The Progressives disappeared as a party following the 1916 election, and Roosevelt and many of his followers permanently re-joined the Republican Party.
World War I
When the First World War began in 1914, Roosevelt strongly supported the Allies and demanded a harsher policy against Germany, especially regarding submarine warfare. Roosevelt angrily denounced the foreign policy of President Wilson, calling it a failure regarding the atrocities in Belgium and the violations of American rights. In 1916, while campaigning for Hughes, Roosevelt repeatedly denounced Irish-Americans and German-Americans whom he described as unpatriotic, saying they put the interests of Ireland and Germany ahead of America's by supporting neutrality. He insisted that one had to be 100% American, not a "hyphenated American" who juggled multiple loyalties. In March 1917, Congress gave Roosevelt the authority to raise a maximum of four divisions similar to the Rough Riders, and Major Frederick Russell Burnham was put in charge of both the general organization and recruitment. However, President Wilson announced to the press that he would not send Roosevelt and his volunteers to France, but instead would send an American Expeditionary Force under the command of General John J. Pershing. Roosevelt never forgave Wilson, and quickly published The Foes of Our Own Household, an indictment of the sitting president. Roosevelt's youngest son, Quentin, a pilot with the American forces in France, was killed when shot down behind German lines on July 14, 1918, at the age of 20. It is said that Quentin's death distressed Roosevelt so much that he never recovered from his loss.
League of Nations
Roosevelt was an early supporter of the modern view that there needs to be a global order. In his Nobel prize address of 1910, he said, "it would be a master stroke if those great Powers honestly bent on peace would form a League of Peace, not only to keep the peace among themselves, but to prevent, by force if necessary, its being broken by others." It would have executive power such as the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 lacked. He called for American participation.
When World War I broke out, Roosevelt proposed "a World League for the Peace of Righteousness", in September 1914, which would preserve sovereignty but limit armaments and require arbitration. He added that it should be "solemnly covenanted that if any nations refused to abide by the decisions of such a court, then others draw the sword in behalf of peace and justice." In 1915 he outlined this plan more specifically, urging that nations guarantee their entire military force, if necessary, against any nation that refused to carry out arbitration decrees or violated rights of other nations. Though Roosevelt had some concerns about the impact on United States sovereignty, he insisted that such a league would only work if the United States participated as one of the "joint guarantors". Roosevelt referred to this plan in a 1918 speech as "the most feasible for...a league of nations." By this time Wilson was strongly hostile to Roosevelt and Lodge, and developed his own plans for a rather different League of Nations. It became reality along Wilson's lines at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. Roosevelt denounced Wilson's approach but died before it was adopted at Paris. However, Lodge was willing to accept it with serious reservations. In the end, on March 19, 1920, Wilson had Democratic Senators vote against the League with the Lodge Reservations and the United States never joined the League of Nations.
Final political activities
Roosevelt's attacks on Wilson helped the Republicans win control of Congress in the midterm elections of 1918. He declined a request from New York Republicans to run for another gubernatorial term, but attacked Wilson's Fourteen Points, calling instead for the unconditional surrender of Germany. Though his health was uncertain, he was seen as a leading contender for the 1920 Republican nomination, but insisted that, "If they take me, they'll have to take me without a single modification of the things that I have always stood for! He wrote William Allen White, "I wish to do everything in my power to make the Republican Party the Party of sane, constructive radicalism, just as it was under Lincoln." Accordingly, he told the 1918 state convention of the Maine Republican Party that he stood for old-age pensions, insurance for sickness and unemployment, construction of public housing for low-income families, the reduction of working hours, aid to farmers, and more regulation of large corporations.
While his political profile remained high, Roosevelt's physical condition continued to deteriorate throughout 1918 due to the long-term effects of jungle diseases. He was hospitalized for seven weeks late in the year and never fully recovered.
Death
On the night of January 5, 1919, Roosevelt suffered breathing problems. After receiving treatment from his physician, Dr. George W. Faller, he felt better and went to bed. Roosevelt's last words were "Please put out that light, James" to his family servant James E. Amos. Between 4:00 and 4:15 the next morning, Roosevelt, at the age of 60, died in his sleep at Sagamore Hill after a blood clot detached from a vein and traveled to his lungs.
Upon receiving word of his death, his son Archibald telegraphed his siblings: "The old lion is dead." Woodrow Wilson's vice president, Thomas R. Marshall, said that "Death had to take Roosevelt sleeping, for if he had been awake, there would have been a fight." Following a private farewell service in the North Room at Sagamore Hill, a simple funeral was held at Christ Episcopal Church in Oyster Bay. Vice President Thomas R. Marshall, Charles Evans Hughes, Warren G. Harding, Henry Cabot Lodge, and William Howard Taft were among the mourners. The snow-covered procession route to Youngs Memorial Cemetery was lined with spectators and a squad of mounted policemen who had ridden from New York City. Roosevelt was buried on a hillside overlooking Oyster Bay.
Writer
Roosevelt was a prolific author, writing with passion on subjects ranging from foreign policy to the importance of the national park system. Roosevelt was also an avid reader of poetry. Poet Robert Frost said that Roosevelt "was our kind. He quoted poetry to me. He knew poetry."
As an editor of Outlook magazine, Roosevelt had weekly access to a large, educated national audience. In all, Roosevelt wrote about 18 books (each in several editions), including his autobiography, The Rough Riders, History of the Naval War of 1812, and others on subjects such as ranching, explorations, and wildlife. His most ambitious book was the four volume narrative The Winning of the West, focused on the American frontier in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Roosevelt said that the American character—indeed a new "American race" (ethnic group) had emerged from the heroic wilderness hunters and Indian fighters, acting on the frontier with little government help. Roosevelt also published an account of his 1909–10 African expedition entitled African Game Trails.
In 1907, Roosevelt became embroiled in a widely publicized literary debate known as the nature fakers controversy. A few years earlier, naturalist John Burroughs had published an article entitled "Real and Sham Natural History" in the Atlantic Monthly, attacking popular writers of the day such as Ernest Thompson Seton, Charles G. D. Roberts, and William J. Long for their fantastical representations of wildlife. Roosevelt agreed with Burroughs's criticisms, and published several essays of his own denouncing the booming genre of "naturalistic" animal stories as "yellow journalism of the woods". It was the President himself who popularized the negative term "nature faker" to describe writers who depicted their animal characters with excessive anthropomorphism.
Character and beliefs
Roosevelt intensely disliked being called "Teddy", despite the widespread public association with said moniker, and was quick to point out this to those who referred to him as such, though it would become widely used by newspapers during his political career.
He was an active Freemason and member of the Sons of the American Revolution.
British scholar Marcus Cunliffe evaluates the liberal argument that Roosevelt was an opportunist, exhibitionist, and imperialist. Cunliffe praises TR's versatility, his respect for law, and his sincerity. He argues that Roosevelt's foreign policy was better than his detractors allege. Cunliffe calls him "a big man in several respects," ranking him below Washington, Lincoln, and Jefferson, and on the same level as Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Strenuous life
Roosevelt had a lifelong interest in pursuing what he called, in an 1899 speech, "The Strenuous Life". To this end, he exercised regularly and took up boxing, tennis, hiking, rowing, polo, and horseback riding. He also continued his habit of skinny-dipping in the Potomac River during the winter. As governor of New York, he boxed with sparring partners several times each week, a practice he regularly continued as president until being hit so hard in the face he became blind in his left eye (a fact not made public until many years later). As president, he practiced judo for two 2-month periods in 1902 and 1904, not attaining any rank. Roosevelt began to believe in the utility of jiu-jitsu training after training with Yoshitsugu Yamashita. Concerned that the United States would lose its military supremacy to rising powers like Japan, Roosevelt began to advocate for jiu-jitsu training for American soldiers. Feminists annoyed by the posturing of men like Roosevelt, insisted that women were just as capable of learning jiu-jitsu. To prove their point, Martha Blow Wadsworth and Maria Louise ("Hallie") Davis Elkins hired Fude Yamashita, a highly skilled jiu-jitsu instructor and the wife of Yoshitsugu Yamashita, to teach a jiu-jitsu class for women and girls in Washington, DC in 1904. Women had already begun training in boxing in the United States as a means of personal and political empowerment. Jiu-jitsu training thus soon also became popular with American women, coinciding with the origins of a women's self-defense movement.
Roosevelt was an enthusiastic singlestick player and, according to Harper's Weekly, showed up at a White House reception with his arm bandaged after a bout with General Leonard Wood in 1905. Roosevelt was an avid reader, reading tens of thousands of books, at a rate of several per day in multiple languages. Along with Thomas Jefferson, Roosevelt was the most well-read of all American presidents.
Warrior
Historians have often emphasized Roosevelt's warrior persona. He took aggressive positions regarding war with Spain in 1898, Colombia in 1903, and especially with Germany, from 1915 to 1917. As a demonstration of American naval might, he sent the "Great White Fleet" around the world in 1907–1909. The implicit threat of the "big stick" of military power provided leverage to "speak softly" and quietly resolve conflict in numerous cases. He boasted in his autobiography:
Richard D. White Jr states, "Roosevelt's warrior spirit framed his views of national politics, [and] international relations."
Historian Howard K. Beale has argued:
Religion
Roosevelt attended church regularly and was a lifelong adherent of the Reformed Church in America, an American affiliate of the Dutch Reformed Church. In 1907, concerning the motto "In God We Trust" on money, he wrote, "It seems to me eminently unwise to cheapen such a motto by use on coins, just as it would be to cheapen it by use on postage stamps, or in advertisements." Roosevelt talked a great deal about religion. Biographer Edmund Morris states:
Roosevelt publicly encouraged church attendance and was a conscientious churchgoer himself. When gas rationing was introduced during the First World War, he walked the three miles from his home at Sagamore Hill to the local church and back, even after a serious operation had made it difficult for him to travel by foot. It was said that Roosevelt "allowed no engagement to keep him from going to church," and he remained a fervent advocate of the Bible throughout his adult life. According to Christian F. Reisner, writing in 1922 shortly after Roosevelt's death, "Religion was as natural to Mr. Roosevelt as breathing," and when the travel library for Roosevelt's famous Smithsonian-sponsored African expedition was being assembled, the Bible was, according to his sister, "the first book selected." In an address delivered in his home at Oyster Bay to the Long Island Bible Society in 1901, Roosevelt declared that:
Political positions
When he assumed the presidency, Roosevelt reassured many conservatives, stating, "the mechanism of modern business is so delicate that extreme care must be taken not to interfere with it in a spirit of rashness or ignorance." The following year, Roosevelt asserted the president's independence from business interests by opposing the merger which created the Northern Securities Company, and many were surprised that any president, much less an unelected one, would challenge powerful banker J.P. Morgan. In his last two years as president, Roosevelt became increasingly distrustful of big business, despite its close ties to the Republican Party. Roosevelt sought to replace the 19th-century laissez-faire economic environment with a new economic model which included a larger regulatory role for the federal government. He believed that 19th-century entrepreneurs had risked their fortunes on innovations and new businesses, and that these capitalists had been rightly rewarded. By contrast, he believed that 20th-century capitalists risked little but nonetheless reaped huge and, given the lack of risk, unjust, economic rewards. Without a redistribution of wealth away from the upper class, Roosevelt feared that the country would turn to radicals or fall to revolution. His Square Deal domestic program had three main goals: conservation of natural resources, control of corporations, and consumer protection. The Square Deal evolved into his program of "New Nationalism", which emphasized the priority of labor over capital interests and a need to more effectively control corporate creation and combination, and proposed a ban on corporate political contributions.
Foreign policy beliefs
In the analysis by Henry Kissinger, Theodore Roosevelt was the first president to develop the guideline that it was America's duty to make its enormous power and potential influence felt globally. The idea of being a passive "city on the hill" model that others could look up to, he rejected. Roosevelt, trained in biology, was a social darwinist who believed in survival of the fittest. The international world in his view was a realm of violence and conflict. The United States had all the economic and geographical potential to be the fittest nation on the globe. The United States had a duty to act decisively. For example, in terms of the Monroe Doctrine, America had to prevent European incursions in the Western Hemisphere. But there was more, as he expressed in his famous Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine: the U.S. had to be the policeman of the region because unruly, corrupt smaller nations had to be controlled, and if United States did not do it, European powers would in fact intervene and develop their own base of power in the hemisphere in contravention to the Monroe Doctrine.
Roosevelt was a realist and a conservative. He deplored many of the increasingly popular idealistic liberal themes, such as were promoted by William Jennings Bryan, the anti-imperialists, and Woodrow Wilson. Kissinger says he rejected the efficacy of international law. Roosevelt argue that if a country could not protect its own interests, the international community could not help very much. He ridiculed disarmament proposals that were increasingly common. He saw no likelihood of an international power capable of checking wrongdoing on a major scale. As for world government: I regard the Wilson–Bryan attitude of trusting to fantastic peace treaties, too impossible promises, to all kinds of scraps of paper without any backing in efficient force, as abhorrent. It is infinitely better for a nation and for the world to have the Frederick the Great and Bismarck tradition as regards foreign policy than to have the Bryan or Bryan–Wilson attitude as a permanent national attitude.... A milk-and-water righteousness unbacked by force is...as wicked as and even more mischievous than force divorced from righteousness.
On the positive side, Roosevelt favored spheres of influence, whereby one great power would generally prevail, such as the United States in the Western Hemisphere or Great Britain in the Indian subcontinent. Japan fit that role and he approved. However he had deep distrust of both Germany and Russia.
Legacy
Historians credit Roosevelt for changing the nation's political system by permanently placing the "bully pulpit" of the presidency at center stage and making character as important as the issues. His accomplishments include trust busting and conservationism. He is a hero to liberals and progressives for his proposals in 1907–1912 that presaged the modern welfare state of the New Deal Era, including direct federal taxation, labor reforms, and more direct democracy, while conservationists admire Roosevelt for putting the environment and selflessness towards future generations on the national agenda, and conservatives and nationalists respect his commitment to law and order, civic duty and military values, as well as his personality of individual self-responsibility and hardiness. Dalton says, "Today he is heralded as the architect of the modern presidency, as a world leader who boldly reshaped the office to meet the needs of the new century and redefined America's place in the world."
However, liberals and socialists have criticized him for his interventionist and imperialist approach to nations he considered "uncivilized". Conservatives and libertarians reject his vision of the welfare state and emphasis on the superiority of government over private action. Historians typically rank Roosevelt among the top five presidents in American history.
Persona and masculinity
Dalton says Roosevelt is remembered as, "one of the most picturesque personalities who has ever enlivened the landscape". His friend, historian Henry Adams, proclaimed: "Roosevelt, more than any other man... showed the singular primitive quality that belongs to ultimate matter—the quality that medieval theology assigned to God—he was pure act."
Roosevelt's biographers have stressed his personality. Henry F. Pringle, who won the Pulitzer Prize in biography for his Theodore Roosevelt (1931) stated: "The Theodore Roosevelt of later years was the most adolescent of men… Failure to receive the Medal of Honor for his exploits [in Cuba] had been a grief as real as any of those which swamp childhood in despair. 'You must always remember,' wrote Cecil Spring Rice in 1904, 'that the President is about six.'"
Cooper compared him with Woodrow Wilson and argued that both of them played the roles of warrior and priest. Dalton stressed Roosevelt's strenuous life. Sarah Watts examined the desires of the "Rough Rider in the White House". Brands calls Roosevelt "the last romantic", arguing that his romantic concept of life emerged from his belief that "physical bravery was the highest virtue and war the ultimate test of bravery".
Roosevelt as the exemplar of American masculinity has become a major theme. As president, he repeatedly warned men that they were becoming too office-bound, too complacent, too comfortable with physical ease and moral laxity, and were failing in their duties to propagate the race and exhibit masculine vigor. French historian Serge Ricard says, "the ebullient apostle of the Strenuous Life offers ideal material for a detailed psycho-historical analysis of aggressive manhood in the changing socio-cultural environment of his era; McKinley, Taft, or Wilson would perhaps inadequately serve that purpose". He promoted competitive sports like boxing and jiu-jitsu for physically strengthening American men. He also believed that organizations like the Boy Scouts of America, founded in 1910, could help mold and strengthen the character of American boys. Brands shows that heroic displays of bravery were essential to Roosevelt's image and mission:
Memorials and cultural depictions
Roosevelt was included with Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln at the Mount Rushmore Memorial, designed in 1927 with the approval of Republican President Calvin Coolidge.
For his gallantry at San Juan Hill, Roosevelt's commanders recommended him for the Medal of Honor. However, the initial recommendation lacked any eyewitnesses, and the effort was eventually tainted by Roosevelt's own lobbying of the War Department. In the late 1990s, Roosevelt's supporters again recommended the award, which was denied by the Secretary of the Army on basis that the decorations board determined "Roosevelt's bravery in battle did not rise to the level that would justify the Medal of Honor and, indeed, it did not rise to the level of men who fought in that engagement." Nevertheless, politicians apparently convinced the secretary to reconsider the award a third time and reverse himself, leading to the charge that it was a "politically motivated award." On January 16, 2001, President Bill Clinton awarded Theodore Roosevelt the Medal of Honor posthumously for his charge on San Juan Hill. He is the only president to have received the Medal of Honor.
The United States Navy named two ships for Roosevelt: the , a submarine that was in commission from 1961 to 1982, and the , an aircraft carrier that has been on active duty in the Atlantic Fleet since 1986.
On November 18, 1956, the United States Postal Service released a 6¢ Liberty Issue postage stamp honoring Roosevelt. A 32¢ stamp was issued on February 3, 1998, as part of the Celebrate the Century stamp sheet series. In 2008, Columbia Law School awarded Roosevelt a Juris Doctor degree, posthumously making him a member of the class of 1882.
Roosevelt's "Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick" ideology is still quoted by politicians and columnists in different countries—not only in English, but also in translations to various other languages. Another lasting, popular legacy of Roosevelt is the stuffed toy bears—teddy bears—named after him following an incident on a hunting trip in Mississippi in 1902. Roosevelt has been portrayed in films and television series such as Brighty of the Grand Canyon, The Wind and the Lion, Rough Riders, My Friend Flicka, and Law of the Plainsman. Robin Williams portrayed Roosevelt in the form of a wax mannequin that comes to life in Night at the Museum and its sequels Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian and Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb. In 2017, it was announced that Leonardo DiCaprio will portray Roosevelt in a biopic to be directed by Martin Scorsese.
Moreover, Theodore Roosevelt National Park in the state of North Dakota is named after him. The America the Beautiful Quarters series features Roosevelt riding a horse on the national park's quarter.
Asteroid 188693 Roosevelt, discovered by astronomers with the Catalina Sky Survey in 2005, was named after him. The official was published by the Minor Planet Center on November 8, 2019 ().
In January 2022, after years of lobbying by activists, an equestrian statue of the former president was removed from where it had stood for more than eighty years in front of New York's American Museum of Natural History. Responding to controversy, the museum noted that the design "communicates a racial hierarchy that the museum and members of the public have long found disturbing."
Audiovisual media
Theodore Roosevelt was one of the first presidents whose voice was recorded for posterity. Several of his recorded speeches survive. A 4.6-minute voice recording, which preserves Roosevelt's lower timbre ranges particularly well for its time, is among those available from the Michigan State University libraries (this is the 1912 recording of The Right of the People to Rule, recorded by Edison at Carnegie Hall). The audio clip sponsored by the Authentic History Center includes his defense of the Progressive Party in 1912, wherein he proclaims it the "party of the people" – in contrast with the other major parties.
Roosevelt goes for a ride in Arch Hoxsey's plane in October 1910
In popular culture
Theodore Roosevelt appears as the leader of the American civilization in the Firaxis Games title Civilization VI. His unique ability is Roosevelt Corollary, which gives +5 Combat Strength for all units inside America's home continent, and +1 Appeal to all tiles in cities with a national park.
See also
Notes
References
Bibliography
Full biographies
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, 105 pp, very short biography by leading scholar.
.; also titled Power and responsibility; the life and times of Theodore Roosevelt online free to borrow
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, only volume published, to age 28.
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Personality and activities
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Provides a lesson plan on TR as the historical figure who most exemplifies the quality of masculinity.
. Chronicles the events of TR's presidency during the summers of his two terms.
. The president's use of publicity, rhetoric and force of personality.
; his deadly 1913–14 trip to the Amazon.
, best seller; to 1886.
, to 1884.
. 494 pp.
, examines TR and his family during the World War I period.
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, 240 pp. TR in Africa & Europe, 1909–10
. 289 pp.
, 337 pp; TR's political thought and its significance for republican self-government.
Domestic policies
online review; another online review
Cutright, P.R. (1985) Theodore Roosevelt: The making of a Modern Conservationist (U of Illinois Press.)
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, standard history of his domestic and foreign policy as president.
Bakari, Mohamed El-Kamel. "Mapping the 'Anthropocentric-ecocentric'Dualism in the History of American Presidency: The Good, the Bad, and the Ambivalent." Journal of Studies in Social Sciences 14, no. 2 (2016).
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Redekop, Benjamin. (2015). "Embodying the Story: The Conservation Leadership of Theodore Roosevelt". Leadership (2015) DOI:10.1177/1742715014546875 online
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Politics
. How TR did politics.
, 323 pp.
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. 361 pp.
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. Focus on 1912; online free
. online free
. Attacks TR policies from conservative/libertarian perspective.
Foreign policy, military and naval issues
. online
. excerpt
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. 328 pp.
Kuehn, John T. "Theodore Roosevelt’s Naval Diplomacy: The U.S. Navy and the Birth of the American Century," Naval War College Review (2010) 53#3 online
Livermore, Seward W. "Theodore Roosevelt, the American Navy, and the Venezuelan Crisis of 1902-1903." American Historical Review 51.3 (1946): 452–471. online
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Nester, William R. Theodore Roosevelt and the Art of American Power: An American for All Time. Rowman & Littlefield, 2019. excerpt
Neu, Charles E. "Theodore Roosevelt and American Involvement in the Far East, 1901-1909." Pacific Historical Review 35.4 (1966): 433–449. online
O'Gara, Gordon Carpenter. Theodore Roosevelt and the Rise of the Modern Navy. (Princeton UP, 1943). online
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Oyos, Matthew M. In Command: Theodore Roosevelt and the American Military (2018) online review
Pietrusza, David (2018). TR's Last War: Theodore Roosevelt, the Great War, and a Journey of Triumph and Tragedy
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Thompson, John M. Great Power Rising: Theodore Roosevelt and the Politics of US Foreign Policy (Oxford UP, 2019).
. 196 pp.
Turk, Richard W. The Ambiguous Relationship: Theodore Roosevelt and Alfred Thayer Mahan (1987) [https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article-abstract/93/5/1413/70734 online review
Historiography
Cunliffe, Marcus. "Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States 1901–1908" History Today (Sept 1955) 4#9 pp. 592–601, online.
Ricard, Serge. "The State of Theodore Roosevelt Studies" H-Diplo Essay No. 116 24 October 2014 online
, excerpt and text search, 28 new essays by scholars; focus on historiography. online
Primary sources
Kohn, Edward P., ed. A Most Glorious Ride: The Diaries of Theodore Roosevelt, 1877–1886 (State University of New York Press, 2015), 284 pp.
; vol 2
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, 20 vol.; 18,000 pages containing most of TR's speeches, books and essays, but not his letters; a CD-ROM edition is available; some of TR's books are available online through Project Bartleby
, Roosevelt's opinions on many issues; online version at Theodore Roosevelt.
, 8 vols. Very large collection. vol 1 1868–1898 online free
. online free
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online free to borrow
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External links
Official
White House biography
Organizations
Boone and Crockett Club
Theodore Roosevelt Association
Libraries and collections
Theodore Roosevelt Center at Dickinson State University
Theodore Roosevelt Collection, at the Houghton Library, Harvard University
Julian L. Street Papers on Theodore Roosevelt, at the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library, Princeton University
Doris A. and Lawrence H. Budner Collection on Theodore Roosevelt at the DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University
Theodore Roosevelt's journalism at The Archive of American Journalism
Theodore Roosevelt American Museum of Natural History
Roosevelt Papers, at the Library of Congress
Guide to the Herbert R. Strauss Collection of Theodore Roosevelt Papers 1884–1919 at the University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center
Media
"Life Portrait of Theodore Roosevelt", from C-SPAN's American Presidents: Life Portraits, September 3, 1999
"Writings of Theodore Roosevelt" from C-SPAN's American Writers: A Journey Through History
Other
Almanac of Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt: A Resource Guide – Library of Congress
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American nationalists
20th-century American male writers | true | [
"János Salamon Petényi, Johann Salomon von Petényi or Ján Šalamún Petian (30 July 1799 – 5 October 1855) was a Hungarian priest who took an interest in zoology, travelling, collecting specimens, and contributing to ornithology, speleology, and paleontology. He is considered the father of Hungarian ornithology. \n\nPetényi was born in Ábelfalva, Nógrád megye where his father was Lutheran pastor Gábor Petényi who was known for his work in orientalism. Schooled in Losonc and Selmec he took an interest in collecting objects of natural history. He also influenced Agoston Kubinyi. He followed the family tradition to become a pastor, studying in Bratislava and Vienna while also attending the botanical lectures of Nikolaus Joseph von Jacquin, meeting Johann Jakob Heckel and Johann Natterer from whom he learned taxidermy and specimen preparation. He corresponded with Christian Ludwig Brehm and Johann Friedrich Naumann and in 1826 became a pastor in Czinkota. In 1833 he moved to Pest and in 1834 he became curator of the zoological collections at the Hungarian National Museum. Around 1840 Gustav Hartlaub visited him and Hartlaub apparently did not like him for reasons unclear. In 1847 he examined fossilized remains in the karst of Beremend. He also examined caves in the Bihor Mountains. He was elected to the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 1846. Accidental absorption and toxicity from arsenic soap used as a preservative in his taxidermy work led to his early death. His main work on birds was completed and translated to German from his manuscripts by Titus Csörgey with a biographical preface by Otto Herman.\n\nEponymy\nMany species of fossil and extant animals have been named after him including: \nProdeinotherium petenyii, \nThe Romanian barbel fish Barbus petenyi, \nVillanyia petenyii, and \nThe extinct Vole, Mimomys petenyii.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n\n Ornithologische Fragmente Aus Den Handschriften Von Johann Salamon Von Petenyi (1905)\n\n1799 births\n1855 deaths\nHungarian zoologists\nDeaths from arsenic poisoning",
"Kelly McCallum (born 1979) is a London-based Canadian artist specializing in taxidermy, metalsmith and jewelry making.\n\nEarly life and education\nAt a very young age Kelly used to go on school trips to Norman Elder's house and view his collection. It was there that she began to appreciate the art of taxidermy. Beginning her own art studies with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) culminating in 2001, she moved on to study Animal Science, Pre Veterinarian at the University of Massachusetts Amherst for a year. Immediately following Kelly went back to RISD for additional studio work in Metalsmith. From 2004–2006 Kelly studied at the Royal College of Art in London, England to earn her Master of Arts Degree.\n\nInspiration\nStarting at a young age Kelly found beauty in almost anything. She enjoys natural history, which is what prompted her degree in science. Her studies at RISD began in photography, a subject she has always admired. She enjoys works by Eva Hesse, Louise Bourgeois, Magdalena Abakanowicz, Mark Ryden, Frida Kahlo, David Wojnarowicz, Annette Messager, Joel-Peter Witkin and Simon Ward. Comparisons may also be drawn between the Victorian taxidermy works left by Walter Potter and Kelly's own whimsical creations.\n\nCareer\nAside from the full-scale use of Victorian taxidermy, Kelly has made numerous wearable pieces of art in her jewelry. Her attention to detail is impeccable and ultimately the hands-on aspect of creating is what prompted her to go back to RISD and study metalsmithing. Despite her multi-layered CV, the use of taxidermy single handedly puts her in a category with several very popular contemporary artists such as Polly Morgan, Damien Hirst, and Kate McGwire. Her inspiration comes from the stories of how things decay or are preserved. It is this interest in the controversial line between life and death that links Kelly to artists like Tim Noble and Sue Webster and brothers Jake and Dinos Chapman. In a way this has made it difficult to categorize her work because although it uses Victorian taxidermy and goldsmithing, it is also juxtaposing and celebrating the interplay or preservation and disintegration.\n\nShe has been included in numerous group and solo exhibitions across the globe. Places include: Canada, the United States, Switzerland, Germany, France, Korea, the United Kingdom, and Poland, and has been displayed at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, Goldsmiths Hall, Sotheby's, Selfridges and Liberty's. Her work is also held in a number of private collections worldwide. McCallum also headlined the exhibition \"Telling Tales\" at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 2009.\n\nSee also\n Taxidermy\n Contemporary art\n\nReferences\n\n1979 births\nLiving people\nArtists from Toronto\nCanadian contemporary artists\nCanadian sculptors\n21st-century Canadian women artists"
] |
[
"Parliament-Funkadelic",
"Funkadelic and Parliament"
] | C_1d20bd078bea4cd887de65f1a7c04623_1 | Who were the members of Funkadelic and Parliament? | 1 | Who were the members of Parliament-Funkadelic? | Parliament-Funkadelic | By the late 1960s Clinton had assembled a touring band to back up the Parliaments, the first stable lineup of which included Billy Bass Nelson (bass), Eddie Hazel (lead guitarist), Tawl Ross (guitarist), Tiki Fulwood (drums), and Mickey Atkins (keyboards). After a contractual dispute in which Clinton temporarily lost the rights to the name "The Parliaments," Clinton brought the backing musicians forward. When the band relocated to Detroit, their guitar-based, raw funk sound, with its heavy psychedelic rock influences, inspired "Billy Bass" Nelson, who coined the name "Funkadelic". Clinton signed Funkadelic to Westbound Records, and the five Parliaments singers were credited as "guests" while the five musicians were listed as the main group members. The debut album Funkadelic was released in 1970. Meanwhile, Clinton regained the rights to the name "The Parliaments" and initiated another new entity, now known as Parliament, with the same five singers and five musicians but this time as a smoother R&B-based funk ensemble that Clinton positioned as a counterpoint to the more rock-oriented Funkadelic. Parliament recorded Osmium for Invictus Records in 1970, and after a hiatus in which Clinton focused on Funkadelic, Parliament was signed to Casablanca Records and released its debut for that label Up for the Down Stroke in 1974. The two bands began to tour together under the collective name "Parliament-Funkadelic." By this time the original ten-member lineup of Parliament-Funkadelic had begun to splinter, but many others joined for various album releases by either band, leading to a collective with a fluid and rapidly expanding membership. Notable members to join during this period include keyboardist Bernie Worrell, bassist Bootsy Collins, guitarist Garry Shider, and The Horny Horns. In the 1975-1979 period, both Parliament and Funkadelic achieved several high-charting albums and singles on both the R&B and Pop charts. Many members of the collective began to branch out into side bands and solo projects under George Clinton's tutelage, including Bootsy's Rubber Band, Parlet, and The Brides of Funkenstein, while longtime members like Eddie Hazel recorded solo albums with songwriting and studio help from the collective. The Parliament albums of this period had become concept albums with themes from science fiction and afro-futurism, elaborate political and sociological themes, and an evolving storyline with recurring fictional characters. Parliament-Funkadelic stage shows (particularly the P-Funk Earth Tour of 1976) were expanded to include imagery from science fiction and a stage prop known as the Mothership. These concepts came to be known as the P-Funk mythology. By the late 1970s the Parliament-Funkadelic collective became over-extended and several key members departed acrimoniously over disagreements with Clinton and his management style. Original Parliaments members Fuzzy Haskins, Calvin Simon, and Grady Thomas departed in 1977 after becoming disillusioned with the influx of new members, and later recorded an album under the name Funkadelic. Other members departed and formed new funk bands that detached themselves from P-Funk and even criticized the collective, such as Quazar (formed by guitarist Glenn Goins) and Mutiny (formed by drummer Jerome Brailey). Due to financial difficulties and the collapse of Casablanca Records (Parliament's label), Clinton dissolved Parliament and Funkadelic as separate entities. Many members of the collective continued to work for Clinton, first on his solo albums and later as Parliament-Funkadelic or the P-Funk All Stars. CANNOTANSWER | Billy Bass Nelson (bass), Eddie Hazel (lead guitarist), Tawl Ross (guitarist), Tiki Fulwood (drums), and Mickey Atkins | Parliament-Funkadelic (abbreviated as P-Funk) is an American funk music collective of rotating musicians headed by George Clinton, primarily consisting of the bands Parliament and Funkadelic, both active since the 1960s. Their distinctive funk style drew on psychedelic culture, outlandish fashion, science-fiction, and surreal humor; it would have an influential effect on subsequent funk, post-punk, hip-hop, and post-disco artists of the 1980s and 1990s, while their collective mythology would help pioneer Afrofuturism.
The collective's origins date back to the doo-wop group the Parliaments, formed by Clinton in the late 1950s in suburban Plainfield, New Jersey. Under the influence of late-1960s artists such as Jimi Hendrix, Sly Stone, and Frank Zappa, Clinton later relocated to Detroit and began the sister groups Parliament and Funkadelic, with the former playing an eclectic and more commercial form of funk, and the latter incorporating more influence from psychedelic rock. The groups released albums such as Maggot Brain (1971), Mothership Connection (1975), and One Nation Under a Groove (1978) to critical praise, and scored charting hits with singles such as "Give Up the Funk" (1976), "One Nation Under a Groove" (1978), and "Flash Light" (1978). Overall, the collective achieved thirteen top ten hits in the American R&B music charts between 1967 and 1983, including six number one hits.
The name "Parliament-Funkadelic" became the catch-all term for the dozens of related musicians recording and touring different projects in Clinton's orbit. Other prominent collective members have included bassist Bootsy Collins, keyboardist Bernie Worrell, and guitarists Eddie Hazel and Michael Hampton. By the early 1980s, Clinton and other members had begun solo careers, with Clinton also consolidating the collective's multiple projects and touring under names such as George Clinton and the P-Funk All-Stars. Some former members of Parliament perform under the name "Original P". Sixteen members of Parliament-Funkadelic were inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997. In 2019, the group was given the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
History
The Parliaments
The P-Funk story began in 1956 in Plainfield, New Jersey, with a doo-wop group formed by fifteen-year-old George Clinton. This was The Parliaments, a name inspired by Parliament cigarettes. By the early 1960s, the group had solidified into the five-man lineup of Clinton, Ray "Stingray" Davis, Clarence "Fuzzy" Haskins, Calvin Simon and Grady Thomas. Later, the group rehearsed in a barbershop partially owned by Clinton and entertained the customers. The Parliaments finally achieved a hit single in 1967 with "(I Wanna) Testify" while Clinton began commuting to Detroit as a songwriter and producer for Motown Records.
The West End of Plainfield, New Jersey was once home to the Silk Palace, a barbershop at 216 Plainfield Avenue owned in part by Clinton, staffed by various members of Parliament-Funkadelic and known as the "hangout for all the local singers and musicians" in Plainfield's 1950s and 1960s doo-wop, soul, rock and proto-funk music scene.
Funkadelic and Parliament
By the late 1960s Clinton had assembled a touring band to back up the Parliaments, the first stable lineup of which included Billy Bass Nelson (bass), Eddie Hazel (lead guitarist), Tawl Ross (guitarist), Tiki Fulwood (drums), and Mickey Atkins (keyboards). After a contractual dispute in which Clinton temporarily lost the rights to the name "The Parliaments," Clinton brought the backing musicians forward. When the band relocated to Detroit, their guitar-based, raw funk sound, with its heavy psychedelic rock influences, inspired "Billy Bass" Nelson, who coined the name "Funkadelic". Clinton signed Funkadelic to Westbound Records, and the five Parliaments singers were credited as "guests" while the five musicians were listed as the main group members. The debut album Funkadelic was released in 1970.
Meanwhile, Clinton regained the rights to the name "The Parliaments" and initiated another new entity, now known as Parliament, with the same five singers and five musicians but this time as a smoother R&B-based funk ensemble that Clinton positioned as a counterpoint to the more rock-oriented Funkadelic. Parliament recorded Osmium for Invictus Records in 1970, and after a hiatus in which Clinton focused on Funkadelic, Parliament was signed to Casablanca Records and released its debut for that label Up for the Down Stroke in 1974. The two bands began to tour together under the collective name "Parliament-Funkadelic."
By this time the original ten-member lineup of Parliament-Funkadelic had begun to splinter, but many others joined for various album releases by either band, leading to a collective with a fluid and rapidly expanding membership. Notable members to join during this period include keyboardist Bernie Worrell, bassist Bootsy Collins, guitarist Garry Shider, bassist Cordell Mosson, and The Horny Horns.
In the 1975-1979 period, both Parliament and Funkadelic achieved several high-charting albums and singles on both the R&B and Pop charts. Many members of the collective began to branch out into side bands and solo projects under George Clinton's tutelage, including Bootsy's Rubber Band, Parlet, and The Brides of Funkenstein, while longtime members like Eddie Hazel recorded solo albums with songwriting and studio help from the collective. The Parliament albums of this period had become concept albums with themes from science fiction and afro-futurism, elaborate political and sociological themes, and an evolving storyline with recurring fictional characters. Parliament-Funkadelic stage shows (particularly the P-Funk Earth Tour of 1976) were expanded to include imagery from science fiction and a stage prop known as the Mothership. These concepts came to be known as the P-Funk mythology.
By the late 1970s the Parliament-Funkadelic collective became over-extended and several key members departed acrimoniously over disagreements with Clinton and his management style. Original Parliaments members Fuzzy Haskins, Calvin Simon, and Grady Thomas departed in 1977 after becoming disillusioned with the influx of new members, and later recorded an album under the name Funkadelic. Other members departed and formed new funk bands that detached themselves from P-Funk and even criticized the collective, such as Quazar (formed by guitarist Glenn Goins) and Mutiny (formed by drummer Jerome Brailey). Due to financial difficulties and the collapse of Casablanca Records (Parliament's label), Clinton dissolved Parliament and Funkadelic as separate entities. Many members of the collective continued to work for Clinton, first on his solo albums and later as Parliament-Funkadelic or the P-Funk All Stars.
Modern day Parliament-Funkadelic
In the early 1980s George Clinton continued to record while battling with financial problems and well-publicized drug problems. The remaining members of Parliament-Funkadelic recorded the 1982 hit album Computer Games, which was released as a George Clinton solo album. Included on this release was the much-sampled #1 hit single "Atomic Dog". The following year, Clinton formed the P-Funk All Stars, who went on to record Urban Dancefloor Guerillas in 1983. The P-Funk All Stars included many of the same members as the late-1970s version of the Parliament-Funkadelic collective, and was so named because of various legal issues concerning use of the names Parliament and Funkadelic after 1980. The name P-Funk All Stars is still in use to the current day, and group has included a mix of former Parliament-Funkadelic members as well as guests and new musicians.
As the 1980s continued, P-Funk did not meet with great commercial success as the band continued to produce albums under the name of George Clinton as solo artist. P-Funk retired from touring from 1984 until 1989, except for extremely sporadic performances and TV appearances. It was at this time that hip hop music began to extensively sample P-Funk music, so remnants of the music were still heard regularly, now among fans of hip hop. By 1993, most of the Parliament and Funkadelic back catalog had been reissued. The same year saw the return of a reconstituted P-Funk All Stars, with the re-release of Urban Dancefloor Guerrillas under the title Hydraulic Funk, and a new hip hop influenced album Dope Dogs. In 1994, the group toured with the Lollapalooza festival and appeared in the film PCU.
The 1996 album T.A.P.O.A.F.O.M. (The Awesome Power of a Fully Operational Mothership), released under the name George Clinton & the P-Funk All Stars, served as a reunion album featuring contributions from the band's most noteworthy songwriters from the earlier eras, such as Bootsy Collins, Bernie Worrell, and Junie Morrison. It would be ten years before another album would be released. In the intervening time, successive tours would slowly restore some of the broken ties between the original band members, together with an accumulation of new talent. On July 23, 1999, George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic, including noteworthy former members Bootsy and Catfish Collins and Bernie Worrell, performed on stage at Woodstock '99. The collective continued to tour sporadically in to the 2000s, with participation from some of the children and grandchildren of the original members.
Legacy
In May 1997, George Clinton and 15 other members of Parliament-Funkadelic were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the largest band yet inducted. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked Parliament-Funkadelic #56 on their list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time". In February 2002, Spin ranked Parliament-Funkadelic #6 on their list of the "50 Greatest Bands of All Time". Besides their innovation in the entire genre of funk music, George Clinton and P-Funk are still heard often today, especially in hip-hop sampling. The Red Hot Chili Peppers video for their 2006 single "Dani California" featured a tribute to Parliament-Funkadelic. Parliament-Funkadelic's musical influence can also be heard in rhythm and blues, soul, electronica, gospel, jazz, and new wave.
Parliament-Funkadelic was inducted into the Michigan Rock and Roll Legends Hall of Fame in 2013.
In December 2018, the Recording Academy announced that Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic would be given Lifetime Achievement Awards. The awards will be presented on May 11, 2019.
Afrofuturism
About the album Mothership Connection, Clinton said "We had put black people in situations nobody ever thought they would be in, like the White House. I figured another place you wouldn't think black people would be was in outer space. I was a big fan of Star Trek, so we did a thing with a pimp sitting in a spaceship shaped like a Cadillac, and we did all these James Brown-type grooves, but with street talk and ghetto slang." Like Sun Ra, Clinton wanted to see black people in space.
All the sci-fi aspects of P-Funk are what situate Clinton's work in an afrofuturistic setting, but also the idea that he took the shared experience of African Americans – a negative one, at that – and gave it back, therefore giving them tremendously more agency than they’d had before.
Key members
George Clinton (band leader, vocals, songwriter, producer; born July 22, 1941).
George Clinton has been, since its inception, the driving force behind the development of the P-Funk sound, having led the collective since forming The Parliaments as a doo-wop group in the late 1950s. The funk sound, socially conscious lyrics, and P-Funk mythology developed primarily by Clinton have been especially influential for later R&B, hip hop, and rock music.
Bernie Worrell (keyboards, vocals, songwriter, arranger; producer; April 19, 1944 – June 24, 2016).
Bernie Worrell officially joined Funkadelic after the release of their first album and became an integral member of the Parliament-Funkadelic collective thereafter. His classical training on piano and innovative use of synthesizers has proven to be extremely influential, particularly his pioneering use of the Moog synthesizer, which replaced the conventional electric bass on songs like "Flash Light" and "Aqua Boogie". He was responsible for many P-Funk rhythm and (with trombonist Fred Wesley) horn arrangements. Worrell left the band in 1981, but continued to contribute to P-Funk studio albums and occasionally appear live with Parliament-Funkadelic as a special guest.
William "Bootsy" Collins (bass guitar, vocals, drums, songwriter, producer; born October 26, 1951).
Bootsy Collins was a major songwriter, rhythm arranger, and bassist for Parliament-Funkadelic during the seventies and was a major influence in the band's sound during that time. His style of bass playing has become especially influential. Collins later focused his attention on his own Bootsy's Rubber Band but continues to make occasional contributions to studio albums by members of the Parliament-Funkadelic collective.
Eddie Hazel (guitar, vocals, songwriter; April 10, 1950 – December 23, 1992).
Eddie Hazel was the original lead guitarist for Funkadelic and was a major force on the first several albums by that group. His Hendrix-inspired style has become very influential. After the early 1970s he contributed sporadically to various Parliament-Funkadelic projects. A key early Funkadelic song that captured both the band's unique sound and Hazel's talent was the ten-minute guitar solo "Maggot Brain" from the 1971 Funkadelic album of the same title.
Maceo Parker (saxophone; born February 14, 1943).
Maceo joined James Brown's band with brother Melvin Parker in 1964. In 1970, Parker, his brother Melvin, and a few of Brown's band members left to establish the band Maceo & All the King's Men, which toured for two years.
In January 1973, Parker rejoined with James Brown. He also charted a single "Parrty – Part I" (#71 pop singles) with Maceo & the Macks that year. In 1975, Parker and some of Brown's band members, including Fred Wesley, left to join George Clinton's band Parliament-Funkadelic.
Walter "Junie" Morrison (keyboards, multi-instrumentalist, vocals, songwriter, arranger, producer; born 1954 - January 21, 2017 ).
Junie Morrison joined P-Funk in early 1978 as musical director after having success in the early Ohio Players and as a solo artist. Though primarily a keyboardist, Junie composed or co-wrote several of the band's hits at the height of their popularity and served as a lead vocalist, producer, and arranger on many songs for the collective. Morrison stopped touring with the band after 1981, but contributed to many subsequent albums. During his time with P-funk, some of his work was credited under the name J.S. Theracon.
Garry "Diaperman" Shider (vocals, guitar; July 24, 1953 – June 16, 2010).
As a child, Garry Shider was a customer at the barbershop where The Parliaments rehearsed and performed, and after some time with his own group United Soul, he was recruited by George Clinton into Funkadelic in 1972. Shider became a frequent lead vocalist on several Parliament and Funkadelic albums and along with his "gospel" vocal and guitar style, was most recognized for wearing his trademark hotel-towel "diaper".
Michael "Kidd Funkadelic" Hampton (guitar; born November 15, 1956).
Mike Hampton has been the lead guitarist for P-Funk since 1973, when he was recruited at age 17 to replace Eddie Hazel, after an impromptu performance of Hazel's signature song "Maggot Brain." Hampton is known for his advancement of rock and heavy metal guitar used by Parliament-Funkadelic and later the P-Funk All Stars, leaving the collective in 2015.
Glenn Goins (vocals, guitar; January 2, 1954 – July 29, 1978).
Glenn Goins was recruited into Parliament-Funkadelic in 1975 and was an important contributor, and like bandmate Garry Shider, was known for his "gospel" singing and guitar style. In 1978, Goins and bandmate Jerome Brailey departed acrimoniously, and immediately began recording and producing his own band, Quazar_(album), featuring his younger brother Kevin Goins. Shortly after his departure, Goins died from Hodgkin's lymphoma at age 24.
Jerome "Bigfoot" Brailey (drums and percussion; born August 20, 1950).
Brailey was the most prominent drummer in the Parliament-Funkadelic collective during their period of greatest success in the mid-to-late 1970s. Brailey (and bandmate Glenn Goins) left the collective acrimoniously, forming his own band Mutiny, in which he criticized George Clinton's management style.
Ramon "Tiki" Fulwood (drums, vocals; May 23, 1944 – October 29, 1979).
Tiki Fulwood was the original drummer for Funkadelic. He originally quit the band in 1971 but reappeared on several Parliament-Funkadelic releases during the remainder of the 1970s. After also working briefly for Miles Davis, Fulwood died of cancer in 1979.
"Billy Bass" Nelson (bass, guitar; born January 28, 1951).
Billy Nelson was a teenage employee at George Clinton's barbershop in the 1960s and was the first musician hired to back The Parliaments in the band that would eventually become Funkadelic. Nelson then brought his friend Eddie Hazel into the band and coined the name "Funkadelic" when Clinton moved the collective to Detroit. Nelson quit Funkadelic in 1971 but contributed to P-Funk releases sporadically for the next few years. Starting in 1994, he toured with the P-Funk All Stars for ten years.
Cordell "Boogie" Mosson (bass, guitar, drums; October 16, 1952 – April 18, 2013).
Mosson joined Funkadelic in 1972 along with his friend and previous United Soul bandmate Garry Shider. Mosson was the primary bassist for Funkadelic starting in 1972 and Parliament starting a few years after Bootsy Collins began to focus on his solo career. Since the late 1970s, Mosson most frequently played rhythm guitar and continued to tour with the P-Funk All Stars until his death.
Ray "Stingray" Davis (vocals; March 29, 1940 – July 5, 2005).
Davis was the bass singer and a member of The Parliaments. His distinctive voice can be heard on "Give Up the Funk (Tear the Roof off the Sucker)" and on George Clinton's solo hit single "Atomic Dog". Aside from Clinton, he was the only original member of the Parliaments not to leave in 1977. In the eighties, Davis recorded and toured with George Clinton and the P-Funk Allstars in support of "Atomic Dog" and with Zapp in support of "I Can Make You Dance", but his vocal range made him an obvious choice as replacement bass vocalist for Melvin Franklin in the Temptations. Davis left the Temptations in 1995 (after being diagnosed with cancer), but continued to perform with former P-Funk members Fuzzy Haskins, Calvin Simon, and Grady Thomas under the name Original P.
Clarence "Fuzzy" Haskins (vocals, guitar, drums; born June 8, 1941).
Haskins was a member and first tenor of The Parliaments. In addition to writing, playing drums and guitar, Haskins is known for his "gospel" singing style. He left P-Funk in 1977. In the nineties, he formed Original P with the other Parliaments (Davis, Thomas and Simon), and retired in 2011.
Calvin Simon (vocals, percussion; May 22, 1942 – January 6, 2022).
Simon was an original member of The Parliaments, before leaving in 1977. In the nineties, he formed Original P with the other Parliaments (Davis, Thomas and Haskins), and retired in 2005. He was the owner of a record label.
"Shady Grady" Thomas (vocals; born January 5, 1941).
In the late 1950s, Thomas started as bass vocalist for The Parliaments. When Parliament members moved from Newark to Plainfield, New Jersey to "conk" hair at The Silk Palace, The Parliaments began a friendly rivalry with local doo wop group Sammy Campbell and the Del-Larks, who featured bass vocalist Raymond Davis. Thomas persuaded Davis to take over as bass vocalist in the Parliaments, which enabled Thomas to move to baritone. Thomas (along with Worrell) is responsible for the addition of drummer Jerome Brailey. After Thomas, Haskins, and Simon left P-Funk in 1977, Thomas formed his own band called The Shady Bunch. Word of Thomas's drummer, Dennis Chambers, and bassist Rodney "Skeet" Curtis got back to Clinton, and Chambers and Curtis were invited, and joined Parliament-Funkadelic. After Thomas' brief return to The P-Funk Allstars in the nineties, Thomas cofounded Original P with original Parliaments (Davis, Haskins, and Simon). Thomas is the leader of Original P.
Notable songs
"Give Up The Funk (Tear The Roof Off The Sucker)" (Parliament), 1975
"Flash Light" (Parliament), 1978
"(Not Just) Knee Deep" (Funkadelic), 1979
"Atomic Dog" (George Clinton), 1982
"One Nation Under a Groove" (Funkadelic), 1978
"Maggot Brain" (Funkadelic), 1971
"I'd Rather Be With You" (Bootsy's Rubber Band), 1976
"P-Funk (Wants to Get Funked Up)" (Parliament), 1975
"Funkentelechy" (Parliament), 1977
"Aqua Boogie (A Psychoalphadiscobetabioaquadoloop)" (Parliament), 1978
"Up for the Down Stroke" (Parliament), 1974
"Chocolate City" (Parliament), 1975
"Do Fries Go with That Shake?" (George Clinton), 1986
"Bootzilla" (Bootsy's Rubber Band), 1978
"Do That Stuff" (Parliament), 1976
"The Pinocchio Theory" (Bootsy's Rubber Band), 1977
"Bop Gun (Endangered Species)" (Parliament), 1977
"The Electric Spanking of War Babies" (Funkadelic), 1981
See also
Album era
List of P-Funk members
List of P-Funk projects
:Category:P-Funk songs
Parliament discography
Funkadelic discography
P-Funk mythology
References
External links
George Clinton's official website
the Motherpage (includes an excellent FAQ)
P.Funk portal (with many interviews, discographies, photos, and links)
P-Funk Collectors Page on Facebook
George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic on Facebook
P-Funk Tour List (archival)
Musical groups established in 1955
American funk musical groups
P-Funk groups
Rock music supergroups
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
Musical collectives
Musicians from Plainfield, New Jersey
African-American rock musical groups
Afrofuturism
Musical backing groups
1955 establishments in New Jersey | true | [
"Grady Thomas (born January 5, 1941, in Newark, New Jersey, United States) is a former member of the bands Parliament and Funkadelic. He is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, inducted in 1997 with fifteen other members of Parliament-Funkadelic.\n\nThomas started out in the late 1950s as one of The Parliaments, a doo wop barbershop quintet led by George Clinton. In 1977, Thomas (along with original Parliaments Fuzzy Haskins and Calvin Simon), left Parliament-Funkadelic after financial and management disputes with Clinton. In 1981, the trio caused confusion when they formed a new band, and released an album called Connections and Disconnections under the name Funkadelic. After a return stint with George Clinton and the P-Funk Allstars in the 1990s, Thomas, along with original Parliaments bass vocalist Ray Davis (musician), Haskins, and Simon founded \"Original P\" in 1998, with whom Thomas currently performs. In 2019, he and Parliament-Funkadelic were given Grammy Lifetime Achievement Awards.\n\nReferences \n\n1941 births\nLiving people\nAmerican male singers\nMusicians from Newark, New Jersey\nP-Funk members",
"Cordell \"Boogie\" Mosson (born Cardell Mosson; October 16, 1952 – April 18, 2013) was an American bassist who was a member of Parliament-Funkadelic. He was given a Lifetime Achievement Award Grammy in 2019.\n\nMosson was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, but grew up in Plainfield, New Jersey.\n\nBiography\nA good friend of Garry Shider, the two left Plainfield, New Jersey in their teens for Canada. They joined a band called United Soul, which came to the attention of George Clinton, who had known Shider as a youth in Plainfield. In 1971 Clinton produced several tracks by United Soul with input from members of Funkadelic. The songs \"I Miss My Baby\" and \"Baby I Owe You Something Good\" were released as a one-off single by Westbound Records in 1971 under the group name U.S. Music with Funkadelic. All the tracks recorded with Clinton in 1971 were released by Westbound in 2009 as the album U.S. Music With Funkadelic. After producing United Soul, Clinton then invited Mosson and Shider to join Parliament-Funkadelic. Two United Soul songs were rerecorded on later Funkadelic albums with Mosson as a member.\n\nMosson was a prominent contributor to albums by both Funkadelic and Parliament from 1972 until the dissolution of the two groups in the early 1980s, and was the featured on-stage bassist for Parliament-Funkadelic after Bootsy Collins went solo. While Collins is more widely remembered as the P-Funk bassist, Mosson's contributions were arguably more numerous and are well regarded by fans. Mosson also appeared in the movie PCU as himself, in 1994.\n\nHis name as spelled on his birth certificate is Cardell Mosson, and \"Cordell\" is his son's name, a common spelling in the notes for most of the Parliament-Funkadelic albums on which he appeared. Mosson is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, inducted in 1997 with fifteen other members of Parliament-Funkadelic. He was also honored by the Recording Academy with a Lifetime Achievement Award Grammy in 2019. His children and long time partner received the award on his behalf.\n\nMosson died of liver failure on April 18, 2013.\n\nReferences\nLiner notes to Music For Your Mother by Rob Bowman, 1992.\n\nP-Funk members\n1952 births\n2013 deaths\nMusicians from Plainfield, New Jersey\nAmerican bass guitarists\nGuitarists from New Jersey\nAmerican male guitarists\n20th-century American guitarists\nAmerican male bass guitarists"
] |
[
"Parliament-Funkadelic",
"Funkadelic and Parliament",
"Who were the members of Funkadelic and Parliament?",
"Billy Bass Nelson (bass), Eddie Hazel (lead guitarist), Tawl Ross (guitarist), Tiki Fulwood (drums), and Mickey Atkins"
] | C_1d20bd078bea4cd887de65f1a7c04623_1 | When did they get together? | 2 | When did Parliament-Funkadelic get together? | Parliament-Funkadelic | By the late 1960s Clinton had assembled a touring band to back up the Parliaments, the first stable lineup of which included Billy Bass Nelson (bass), Eddie Hazel (lead guitarist), Tawl Ross (guitarist), Tiki Fulwood (drums), and Mickey Atkins (keyboards). After a contractual dispute in which Clinton temporarily lost the rights to the name "The Parliaments," Clinton brought the backing musicians forward. When the band relocated to Detroit, their guitar-based, raw funk sound, with its heavy psychedelic rock influences, inspired "Billy Bass" Nelson, who coined the name "Funkadelic". Clinton signed Funkadelic to Westbound Records, and the five Parliaments singers were credited as "guests" while the five musicians were listed as the main group members. The debut album Funkadelic was released in 1970. Meanwhile, Clinton regained the rights to the name "The Parliaments" and initiated another new entity, now known as Parliament, with the same five singers and five musicians but this time as a smoother R&B-based funk ensemble that Clinton positioned as a counterpoint to the more rock-oriented Funkadelic. Parliament recorded Osmium for Invictus Records in 1970, and after a hiatus in which Clinton focused on Funkadelic, Parliament was signed to Casablanca Records and released its debut for that label Up for the Down Stroke in 1974. The two bands began to tour together under the collective name "Parliament-Funkadelic." By this time the original ten-member lineup of Parliament-Funkadelic had begun to splinter, but many others joined for various album releases by either band, leading to a collective with a fluid and rapidly expanding membership. Notable members to join during this period include keyboardist Bernie Worrell, bassist Bootsy Collins, guitarist Garry Shider, and The Horny Horns. In the 1975-1979 period, both Parliament and Funkadelic achieved several high-charting albums and singles on both the R&B and Pop charts. Many members of the collective began to branch out into side bands and solo projects under George Clinton's tutelage, including Bootsy's Rubber Band, Parlet, and The Brides of Funkenstein, while longtime members like Eddie Hazel recorded solo albums with songwriting and studio help from the collective. The Parliament albums of this period had become concept albums with themes from science fiction and afro-futurism, elaborate political and sociological themes, and an evolving storyline with recurring fictional characters. Parliament-Funkadelic stage shows (particularly the P-Funk Earth Tour of 1976) were expanded to include imagery from science fiction and a stage prop known as the Mothership. These concepts came to be known as the P-Funk mythology. By the late 1970s the Parliament-Funkadelic collective became over-extended and several key members departed acrimoniously over disagreements with Clinton and his management style. Original Parliaments members Fuzzy Haskins, Calvin Simon, and Grady Thomas departed in 1977 after becoming disillusioned with the influx of new members, and later recorded an album under the name Funkadelic. Other members departed and formed new funk bands that detached themselves from P-Funk and even criticized the collective, such as Quazar (formed by guitarist Glenn Goins) and Mutiny (formed by drummer Jerome Brailey). Due to financial difficulties and the collapse of Casablanca Records (Parliament's label), Clinton dissolved Parliament and Funkadelic as separate entities. Many members of the collective continued to work for Clinton, first on his solo albums and later as Parliament-Funkadelic or the P-Funk All Stars. CANNOTANSWER | the late 1960s | Parliament-Funkadelic (abbreviated as P-Funk) is an American funk music collective of rotating musicians headed by George Clinton, primarily consisting of the bands Parliament and Funkadelic, both active since the 1960s. Their distinctive funk style drew on psychedelic culture, outlandish fashion, science-fiction, and surreal humor; it would have an influential effect on subsequent funk, post-punk, hip-hop, and post-disco artists of the 1980s and 1990s, while their collective mythology would help pioneer Afrofuturism.
The collective's origins date back to the doo-wop group the Parliaments, formed by Clinton in the late 1950s in suburban Plainfield, New Jersey. Under the influence of late-1960s artists such as Jimi Hendrix, Sly Stone, and Frank Zappa, Clinton later relocated to Detroit and began the sister groups Parliament and Funkadelic, with the former playing an eclectic and more commercial form of funk, and the latter incorporating more influence from psychedelic rock. The groups released albums such as Maggot Brain (1971), Mothership Connection (1975), and One Nation Under a Groove (1978) to critical praise, and scored charting hits with singles such as "Give Up the Funk" (1976), "One Nation Under a Groove" (1978), and "Flash Light" (1978). Overall, the collective achieved thirteen top ten hits in the American R&B music charts between 1967 and 1983, including six number one hits.
The name "Parliament-Funkadelic" became the catch-all term for the dozens of related musicians recording and touring different projects in Clinton's orbit. Other prominent collective members have included bassist Bootsy Collins, keyboardist Bernie Worrell, and guitarists Eddie Hazel and Michael Hampton. By the early 1980s, Clinton and other members had begun solo careers, with Clinton also consolidating the collective's multiple projects and touring under names such as George Clinton and the P-Funk All-Stars. Some former members of Parliament perform under the name "Original P". Sixteen members of Parliament-Funkadelic were inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997. In 2019, the group was given the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
History
The Parliaments
The P-Funk story began in 1956 in Plainfield, New Jersey, with a doo-wop group formed by fifteen-year-old George Clinton. This was The Parliaments, a name inspired by Parliament cigarettes. By the early 1960s, the group had solidified into the five-man lineup of Clinton, Ray "Stingray" Davis, Clarence "Fuzzy" Haskins, Calvin Simon and Grady Thomas. Later, the group rehearsed in a barbershop partially owned by Clinton and entertained the customers. The Parliaments finally achieved a hit single in 1967 with "(I Wanna) Testify" while Clinton began commuting to Detroit as a songwriter and producer for Motown Records.
The West End of Plainfield, New Jersey was once home to the Silk Palace, a barbershop at 216 Plainfield Avenue owned in part by Clinton, staffed by various members of Parliament-Funkadelic and known as the "hangout for all the local singers and musicians" in Plainfield's 1950s and 1960s doo-wop, soul, rock and proto-funk music scene.
Funkadelic and Parliament
By the late 1960s Clinton had assembled a touring band to back up the Parliaments, the first stable lineup of which included Billy Bass Nelson (bass), Eddie Hazel (lead guitarist), Tawl Ross (guitarist), Tiki Fulwood (drums), and Mickey Atkins (keyboards). After a contractual dispute in which Clinton temporarily lost the rights to the name "The Parliaments," Clinton brought the backing musicians forward. When the band relocated to Detroit, their guitar-based, raw funk sound, with its heavy psychedelic rock influences, inspired "Billy Bass" Nelson, who coined the name "Funkadelic". Clinton signed Funkadelic to Westbound Records, and the five Parliaments singers were credited as "guests" while the five musicians were listed as the main group members. The debut album Funkadelic was released in 1970.
Meanwhile, Clinton regained the rights to the name "The Parliaments" and initiated another new entity, now known as Parliament, with the same five singers and five musicians but this time as a smoother R&B-based funk ensemble that Clinton positioned as a counterpoint to the more rock-oriented Funkadelic. Parliament recorded Osmium for Invictus Records in 1970, and after a hiatus in which Clinton focused on Funkadelic, Parliament was signed to Casablanca Records and released its debut for that label Up for the Down Stroke in 1974. The two bands began to tour together under the collective name "Parliament-Funkadelic."
By this time the original ten-member lineup of Parliament-Funkadelic had begun to splinter, but many others joined for various album releases by either band, leading to a collective with a fluid and rapidly expanding membership. Notable members to join during this period include keyboardist Bernie Worrell, bassist Bootsy Collins, guitarist Garry Shider, bassist Cordell Mosson, and The Horny Horns.
In the 1975-1979 period, both Parliament and Funkadelic achieved several high-charting albums and singles on both the R&B and Pop charts. Many members of the collective began to branch out into side bands and solo projects under George Clinton's tutelage, including Bootsy's Rubber Band, Parlet, and The Brides of Funkenstein, while longtime members like Eddie Hazel recorded solo albums with songwriting and studio help from the collective. The Parliament albums of this period had become concept albums with themes from science fiction and afro-futurism, elaborate political and sociological themes, and an evolving storyline with recurring fictional characters. Parliament-Funkadelic stage shows (particularly the P-Funk Earth Tour of 1976) were expanded to include imagery from science fiction and a stage prop known as the Mothership. These concepts came to be known as the P-Funk mythology.
By the late 1970s the Parliament-Funkadelic collective became over-extended and several key members departed acrimoniously over disagreements with Clinton and his management style. Original Parliaments members Fuzzy Haskins, Calvin Simon, and Grady Thomas departed in 1977 after becoming disillusioned with the influx of new members, and later recorded an album under the name Funkadelic. Other members departed and formed new funk bands that detached themselves from P-Funk and even criticized the collective, such as Quazar (formed by guitarist Glenn Goins) and Mutiny (formed by drummer Jerome Brailey). Due to financial difficulties and the collapse of Casablanca Records (Parliament's label), Clinton dissolved Parliament and Funkadelic as separate entities. Many members of the collective continued to work for Clinton, first on his solo albums and later as Parliament-Funkadelic or the P-Funk All Stars.
Modern day Parliament-Funkadelic
In the early 1980s George Clinton continued to record while battling with financial problems and well-publicized drug problems. The remaining members of Parliament-Funkadelic recorded the 1982 hit album Computer Games, which was released as a George Clinton solo album. Included on this release was the much-sampled #1 hit single "Atomic Dog". The following year, Clinton formed the P-Funk All Stars, who went on to record Urban Dancefloor Guerillas in 1983. The P-Funk All Stars included many of the same members as the late-1970s version of the Parliament-Funkadelic collective, and was so named because of various legal issues concerning use of the names Parliament and Funkadelic after 1980. The name P-Funk All Stars is still in use to the current day, and group has included a mix of former Parliament-Funkadelic members as well as guests and new musicians.
As the 1980s continued, P-Funk did not meet with great commercial success as the band continued to produce albums under the name of George Clinton as solo artist. P-Funk retired from touring from 1984 until 1989, except for extremely sporadic performances and TV appearances. It was at this time that hip hop music began to extensively sample P-Funk music, so remnants of the music were still heard regularly, now among fans of hip hop. By 1993, most of the Parliament and Funkadelic back catalog had been reissued. The same year saw the return of a reconstituted P-Funk All Stars, with the re-release of Urban Dancefloor Guerrillas under the title Hydraulic Funk, and a new hip hop influenced album Dope Dogs. In 1994, the group toured with the Lollapalooza festival and appeared in the film PCU.
The 1996 album T.A.P.O.A.F.O.M. (The Awesome Power of a Fully Operational Mothership), released under the name George Clinton & the P-Funk All Stars, served as a reunion album featuring contributions from the band's most noteworthy songwriters from the earlier eras, such as Bootsy Collins, Bernie Worrell, and Junie Morrison. It would be ten years before another album would be released. In the intervening time, successive tours would slowly restore some of the broken ties between the original band members, together with an accumulation of new talent. On July 23, 1999, George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic, including noteworthy former members Bootsy and Catfish Collins and Bernie Worrell, performed on stage at Woodstock '99. The collective continued to tour sporadically in to the 2000s, with participation from some of the children and grandchildren of the original members.
Legacy
In May 1997, George Clinton and 15 other members of Parliament-Funkadelic were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the largest band yet inducted. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked Parliament-Funkadelic #56 on their list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time". In February 2002, Spin ranked Parliament-Funkadelic #6 on their list of the "50 Greatest Bands of All Time". Besides their innovation in the entire genre of funk music, George Clinton and P-Funk are still heard often today, especially in hip-hop sampling. The Red Hot Chili Peppers video for their 2006 single "Dani California" featured a tribute to Parliament-Funkadelic. Parliament-Funkadelic's musical influence can also be heard in rhythm and blues, soul, electronica, gospel, jazz, and new wave.
Parliament-Funkadelic was inducted into the Michigan Rock and Roll Legends Hall of Fame in 2013.
In December 2018, the Recording Academy announced that Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic would be given Lifetime Achievement Awards. The awards will be presented on May 11, 2019.
Afrofuturism
About the album Mothership Connection, Clinton said "We had put black people in situations nobody ever thought they would be in, like the White House. I figured another place you wouldn't think black people would be was in outer space. I was a big fan of Star Trek, so we did a thing with a pimp sitting in a spaceship shaped like a Cadillac, and we did all these James Brown-type grooves, but with street talk and ghetto slang." Like Sun Ra, Clinton wanted to see black people in space.
All the sci-fi aspects of P-Funk are what situate Clinton's work in an afrofuturistic setting, but also the idea that he took the shared experience of African Americans – a negative one, at that – and gave it back, therefore giving them tremendously more agency than they’d had before.
Key members
George Clinton (band leader, vocals, songwriter, producer; born July 22, 1941).
George Clinton has been, since its inception, the driving force behind the development of the P-Funk sound, having led the collective since forming The Parliaments as a doo-wop group in the late 1950s. The funk sound, socially conscious lyrics, and P-Funk mythology developed primarily by Clinton have been especially influential for later R&B, hip hop, and rock music.
Bernie Worrell (keyboards, vocals, songwriter, arranger; producer; April 19, 1944 – June 24, 2016).
Bernie Worrell officially joined Funkadelic after the release of their first album and became an integral member of the Parliament-Funkadelic collective thereafter. His classical training on piano and innovative use of synthesizers has proven to be extremely influential, particularly his pioneering use of the Moog synthesizer, which replaced the conventional electric bass on songs like "Flash Light" and "Aqua Boogie". He was responsible for many P-Funk rhythm and (with trombonist Fred Wesley) horn arrangements. Worrell left the band in 1981, but continued to contribute to P-Funk studio albums and occasionally appear live with Parliament-Funkadelic as a special guest.
William "Bootsy" Collins (bass guitar, vocals, drums, songwriter, producer; born October 26, 1951).
Bootsy Collins was a major songwriter, rhythm arranger, and bassist for Parliament-Funkadelic during the seventies and was a major influence in the band's sound during that time. His style of bass playing has become especially influential. Collins later focused his attention on his own Bootsy's Rubber Band but continues to make occasional contributions to studio albums by members of the Parliament-Funkadelic collective.
Eddie Hazel (guitar, vocals, songwriter; April 10, 1950 – December 23, 1992).
Eddie Hazel was the original lead guitarist for Funkadelic and was a major force on the first several albums by that group. His Hendrix-inspired style has become very influential. After the early 1970s he contributed sporadically to various Parliament-Funkadelic projects. A key early Funkadelic song that captured both the band's unique sound and Hazel's talent was the ten-minute guitar solo "Maggot Brain" from the 1971 Funkadelic album of the same title.
Maceo Parker (saxophone; born February 14, 1943).
Maceo joined James Brown's band with brother Melvin Parker in 1964. In 1970, Parker, his brother Melvin, and a few of Brown's band members left to establish the band Maceo & All the King's Men, which toured for two years.
In January 1973, Parker rejoined with James Brown. He also charted a single "Parrty – Part I" (#71 pop singles) with Maceo & the Macks that year. In 1975, Parker and some of Brown's band members, including Fred Wesley, left to join George Clinton's band Parliament-Funkadelic.
Walter "Junie" Morrison (keyboards, multi-instrumentalist, vocals, songwriter, arranger, producer; born 1954 - January 21, 2017 ).
Junie Morrison joined P-Funk in early 1978 as musical director after having success in the early Ohio Players and as a solo artist. Though primarily a keyboardist, Junie composed or co-wrote several of the band's hits at the height of their popularity and served as a lead vocalist, producer, and arranger on many songs for the collective. Morrison stopped touring with the band after 1981, but contributed to many subsequent albums. During his time with P-funk, some of his work was credited under the name J.S. Theracon.
Garry "Diaperman" Shider (vocals, guitar; July 24, 1953 – June 16, 2010).
As a child, Garry Shider was a customer at the barbershop where The Parliaments rehearsed and performed, and after some time with his own group United Soul, he was recruited by George Clinton into Funkadelic in 1972. Shider became a frequent lead vocalist on several Parliament and Funkadelic albums and along with his "gospel" vocal and guitar style, was most recognized for wearing his trademark hotel-towel "diaper".
Michael "Kidd Funkadelic" Hampton (guitar; born November 15, 1956).
Mike Hampton has been the lead guitarist for P-Funk since 1973, when he was recruited at age 17 to replace Eddie Hazel, after an impromptu performance of Hazel's signature song "Maggot Brain." Hampton is known for his advancement of rock and heavy metal guitar used by Parliament-Funkadelic and later the P-Funk All Stars, leaving the collective in 2015.
Glenn Goins (vocals, guitar; January 2, 1954 – July 29, 1978).
Glenn Goins was recruited into Parliament-Funkadelic in 1975 and was an important contributor, and like bandmate Garry Shider, was known for his "gospel" singing and guitar style. In 1978, Goins and bandmate Jerome Brailey departed acrimoniously, and immediately began recording and producing his own band, Quazar_(album), featuring his younger brother Kevin Goins. Shortly after his departure, Goins died from Hodgkin's lymphoma at age 24.
Jerome "Bigfoot" Brailey (drums and percussion; born August 20, 1950).
Brailey was the most prominent drummer in the Parliament-Funkadelic collective during their period of greatest success in the mid-to-late 1970s. Brailey (and bandmate Glenn Goins) left the collective acrimoniously, forming his own band Mutiny, in which he criticized George Clinton's management style.
Ramon "Tiki" Fulwood (drums, vocals; May 23, 1944 – October 29, 1979).
Tiki Fulwood was the original drummer for Funkadelic. He originally quit the band in 1971 but reappeared on several Parliament-Funkadelic releases during the remainder of the 1970s. After also working briefly for Miles Davis, Fulwood died of cancer in 1979.
"Billy Bass" Nelson (bass, guitar; born January 28, 1951).
Billy Nelson was a teenage employee at George Clinton's barbershop in the 1960s and was the first musician hired to back The Parliaments in the band that would eventually become Funkadelic. Nelson then brought his friend Eddie Hazel into the band and coined the name "Funkadelic" when Clinton moved the collective to Detroit. Nelson quit Funkadelic in 1971 but contributed to P-Funk releases sporadically for the next few years. Starting in 1994, he toured with the P-Funk All Stars for ten years.
Cordell "Boogie" Mosson (bass, guitar, drums; October 16, 1952 – April 18, 2013).
Mosson joined Funkadelic in 1972 along with his friend and previous United Soul bandmate Garry Shider. Mosson was the primary bassist for Funkadelic starting in 1972 and Parliament starting a few years after Bootsy Collins began to focus on his solo career. Since the late 1970s, Mosson most frequently played rhythm guitar and continued to tour with the P-Funk All Stars until his death.
Ray "Stingray" Davis (vocals; March 29, 1940 – July 5, 2005).
Davis was the bass singer and a member of The Parliaments. His distinctive voice can be heard on "Give Up the Funk (Tear the Roof off the Sucker)" and on George Clinton's solo hit single "Atomic Dog". Aside from Clinton, he was the only original member of the Parliaments not to leave in 1977. In the eighties, Davis recorded and toured with George Clinton and the P-Funk Allstars in support of "Atomic Dog" and with Zapp in support of "I Can Make You Dance", but his vocal range made him an obvious choice as replacement bass vocalist for Melvin Franklin in the Temptations. Davis left the Temptations in 1995 (after being diagnosed with cancer), but continued to perform with former P-Funk members Fuzzy Haskins, Calvin Simon, and Grady Thomas under the name Original P.
Clarence "Fuzzy" Haskins (vocals, guitar, drums; born June 8, 1941).
Haskins was a member and first tenor of The Parliaments. In addition to writing, playing drums and guitar, Haskins is known for his "gospel" singing style. He left P-Funk in 1977. In the nineties, he formed Original P with the other Parliaments (Davis, Thomas and Simon), and retired in 2011.
Calvin Simon (vocals, percussion; May 22, 1942 – January 6, 2022).
Simon was an original member of The Parliaments, before leaving in 1977. In the nineties, he formed Original P with the other Parliaments (Davis, Thomas and Haskins), and retired in 2005. He was the owner of a record label.
"Shady Grady" Thomas (vocals; born January 5, 1941).
In the late 1950s, Thomas started as bass vocalist for The Parliaments. When Parliament members moved from Newark to Plainfield, New Jersey to "conk" hair at The Silk Palace, The Parliaments began a friendly rivalry with local doo wop group Sammy Campbell and the Del-Larks, who featured bass vocalist Raymond Davis. Thomas persuaded Davis to take over as bass vocalist in the Parliaments, which enabled Thomas to move to baritone. Thomas (along with Worrell) is responsible for the addition of drummer Jerome Brailey. After Thomas, Haskins, and Simon left P-Funk in 1977, Thomas formed his own band called The Shady Bunch. Word of Thomas's drummer, Dennis Chambers, and bassist Rodney "Skeet" Curtis got back to Clinton, and Chambers and Curtis were invited, and joined Parliament-Funkadelic. After Thomas' brief return to The P-Funk Allstars in the nineties, Thomas cofounded Original P with original Parliaments (Davis, Haskins, and Simon). Thomas is the leader of Original P.
Notable songs
"Give Up The Funk (Tear The Roof Off The Sucker)" (Parliament), 1975
"Flash Light" (Parliament), 1978
"(Not Just) Knee Deep" (Funkadelic), 1979
"Atomic Dog" (George Clinton), 1982
"One Nation Under a Groove" (Funkadelic), 1978
"Maggot Brain" (Funkadelic), 1971
"I'd Rather Be With You" (Bootsy's Rubber Band), 1976
"P-Funk (Wants to Get Funked Up)" (Parliament), 1975
"Funkentelechy" (Parliament), 1977
"Aqua Boogie (A Psychoalphadiscobetabioaquadoloop)" (Parliament), 1978
"Up for the Down Stroke" (Parliament), 1974
"Chocolate City" (Parliament), 1975
"Do Fries Go with That Shake?" (George Clinton), 1986
"Bootzilla" (Bootsy's Rubber Band), 1978
"Do That Stuff" (Parliament), 1976
"The Pinocchio Theory" (Bootsy's Rubber Band), 1977
"Bop Gun (Endangered Species)" (Parliament), 1977
"The Electric Spanking of War Babies" (Funkadelic), 1981
See also
Album era
List of P-Funk members
List of P-Funk projects
:Category:P-Funk songs
Parliament discography
Funkadelic discography
P-Funk mythology
References
External links
George Clinton's official website
the Motherpage (includes an excellent FAQ)
P.Funk portal (with many interviews, discographies, photos, and links)
P-Funk Collectors Page on Facebook
George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic on Facebook
P-Funk Tour List (archival)
Musical groups established in 1955
American funk musical groups
P-Funk groups
Rock music supergroups
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
Musical collectives
Musicians from Plainfield, New Jersey
African-American rock musical groups
Afrofuturism
Musical backing groups
1955 establishments in New Jersey | true | [
"G.I.T.: Get It Together (a.k.a. Get It Together) is the eighth studio album by the Jackson 5, released in September 1973 for the Motown label.\n\nDuring the group's last years with Motown, the label struggled to come up with material for the group. As a result, the Jackson 5 fell into a period from 1973 to 1974 where they scored no Top 10 singles. By this point, most of the Jackson 5's members, and their manager/father Joseph, were vocally complaining about the group's direction, with Michael becoming the most outspoken. The only member not to complain about Motown's handling of the act was Jermaine, who married Motown head Berry Gordy's daughter Hazel three months after the release of the album. G.I.T.: Get It Together sold over two million copies worldwide.\n\nThe album was arranged by Arthur G. Wright, David Blumberg and James Anthony Carmichael.\n\nNotability\nG.I.T.: Get It Together was the first album to feature lead singer Michael's noticeable growth spurt, now with a slightly deeper, full-fledged tenor singing voice, as he was 14 when the album was recorded and 15 when it came out. The overall sound of the group changed as well. It was also on this album that he first employed what became known as his \"vocal hiccup\", notably on the song \"It's Too Late to Change the Time\". As Motown frowned on any sort of control being relinquished to the group, Michael semi-retired the hiccup until his solo career at Epic Records began in earnest with Off the Wall in 1979.\n\nGet It Together was one of the earliest albums to experiment with a pre-disco sound, released at a time before the genre was mainstream. The album was a breakaway from the group's bubblegum soul sound as they came up with a more funk-oriented album similar to the Temptations' Norman Whitfield-produced albums. Two of Whitfield's Temptations songs — \"You Need Love Like I Do (Don't You)\" and \"Hum Along and Dance\"— appeared on Get It Together. Whitfield's group the Undisputed Truth also recorded the original version of \"Mama, I Got A Brand New Thing (Don't Say No)\", which appears here in a 7-minute long version with all of the Jacksons singing.\n\nThe sequence of songs was also carefully arranged for Get It Together. There was no silence separating one song from the other. Each track flowed together thematically, a technique borrowed from Stevie Wonder's landmark album Music of My Mind, released the year prior.\n\nThe title track, \"Get It Together\", was a modest pop hit for the group reaching No. 28, while the album-closing \"Dancing Machine\" became a smash pop hit, reaching No. 2 on the pop chart and briefly restoring the Jackson 5 back to their former success.\n\nGet It Together was also the first Jackson 5 album to feature all five Jackson brothers sharing lead vocals, giving the album a more group unified aura. Marlon, in particular, is prominently featured on \"Mama, I Got A Brand New Thing\" and Jackie and Tito lead the brothers through \"Hum Along and Dance\". Jackie released a solo album a month later. In addition, the album did not feature production or songwriting from any of the now-disbanded Corporation. Motown head Berry Gordy, a member of the Corporation, was busy expanding his Motown empire into movie ventures, mostly starring Diana Ross.\n\nReception\n\nRolling Stone's Vince Aletti stated that \"it's their most energetic and exciting work since 'ABC,' and an album that should finally break them out of the just-kids market once and for all.\"\n\nTrack listing\nLead vocals are as of noted in superscripts: (a) Michael Jackson, (b) Jermaine Jackson, (c) Jackie Jackson, (d) Tito Jackson, (e) Marlon Jackson.\n\nSide One\n\"Get It Together\" (Hal Davis, Donald Fletcher, Berry Gordy, Mel Larson, Jerry Marcellino) a, b – 2:48\n\"Don't Say Goodbye Again\" (Pam Sawyer, Leon Ware) a – 3:24\n\"Reflections\" (originally by Diana Ross & the Supremes) (Lamont Dozier, Edward Holland, Jr., Brian Holland) a, b – 2:58\n\"Hum Along and Dance\" (originally by the Temptations) (Barrett Strong, Norman Whitfield) a, b, c, d, e – 8:37\n\nSide Two\n\"Mama, I Got A Brand New Thing (Don't Say No)\" (originally by the Undisputed Truth) (Norman Whitfield) a, b, c, d, e – 7:11\n\"It's Too Late to Change the Time\" (Pam Sawyer, Leon Ware) a – 3:57\n\"You Need Love Like I Do (Don't You)\" (originally by Gladys Knight & the Pips) (Barrett Strong, Norman Whitfield) a, b – 3:45\n\"Dancing Machine\" (Hal Davis, Donald Fletcher, Dean Parks) a, b – 3:27\n\nRe-release\nIn 2001, Motown Records remastered all J5 albums in a \"Two Classic Albums/One CD\" series (much like they did in the late 1980s). This album was paired up with Skywriter. The bonus tracks were the outtakes \"Pride and Joy\", \"Love's Gone Bad\" and \"Love Is the Thing You Need\". \"Love Is the Thing You Need\" and \"Pride and Joy\" were released on Joyful Jukebox Music in 1976, and \"Love's Gone Bad\" was released on Boogie'' in 1979.\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Get It Together overview at www.jackson5abc.com\n\n1973 albums\nThe Jackson 5 albums\nMotown albums\nAlbums produced by Hal Davis\nAlbums produced by Norman Whitfield",
"This article lists the CDs and DVDs featuring the Doodlebops, a Canadian television children's television series show for children. \"Rock & Bop with The Doodlebops\", (Disney Records USA), was released in 2006. Other CDs and DVDs were released later.\n\nCDs\n\nGet On The Bus (2007) \n Tick Tock\n I Can Dance\n She's A Superstar\n You're The Best\n Hold Your Horses\n More Fun\n It's Up To You\n Different Things\n Get On Board\n Jump Up\n When You're Good at Something\n You Betcha\n My Hero\n My Ukulele\n Let's Get Loud\n What You've Got\n Your Favorite Color\n You Are My Friend\n Who Can It Be\n Rockin' the World\n Get On The Bus II\n\nRock & Bop with The Doodlebops (2006) \n We're The Doodlebops\n The Pledge\n Wobbly Whoopsy\n Look in a Book\n I Want to Be Bigger\n Get On The Bus\n Hey Moe\n The Bird Song\n Count to Ten\n Queen for a Day\n Getting Along\n Gibble Gobble\n My Friend\n Write A Letter\n Tap Tap Tap\n Faces\n When the Lights Go Out\n Cauliflower\n Keep Trying\n Together Forever\n Thank You\n\nPlayhouse Disney: Imagine & Learn With Music features two Doodlebop songs; \"Wobbly Whoopsy\" & \"Together Forever\".\n\nDVDs\n\nMusic and Fun (Vol. 1) \n Tap Tap Tap\n Queen For a day Deedee\n High and Low\n Bonus features: Musical instruments flash cards, \"We're the Doodlebops\" music video\n Includes a CD with:\n We're the Doodlebops\n The Pledge\n Get on the Bus\n High and Low\n Tap Tap Tap\n Queen For a Deedee\n\nLet's Move! (Vol. 2) \n Wobbly Whoopsy\n The Move Groove\n Jumpin' Judy\n Bonus features: \"Wobbly Whoopsy\" music video, 2 Bus dance scenes\n Includes a CD with:\n We're the Doodlebops\n The Pledge\n Get on the Bus\n Wobbly Whoopsy\n Jumpin' Judy\n On The Move\n\nLet's Have Some Fun! (Vol. 3) \n Gibble Gobble Nabber Gabber\n Cauliflower Power\n Junk Funk\n Roar Like A Dinosaur (Bonus Episode)\n Bonus feature: Knock knock jokes\n\nAbracadeedee It's Magic (Vol. 4) \n Glad Sad Bumpy Grumpy\n Fast And Slow Moe\n Abracadeedee\n What Did You See Today? (Bonus Episode)\n Bonus feature: \"Abracadeedee\" music video\n\nTwist, Turn, Dance and Learn (Vol. 5) \n Look In a Book\n What When Why\n Strudel Doodle\n All Together Now (Bonus Episode)\n Bonus feature: \"All Together Now\" music video\n\nRock And Bop with the Doodlebops (Released: August 1, 2006) \n All Together Now\n High and Low\n What Did You See Today?\n Junk Funk\n Bonus features\n \"We're the Doodlebops\" music video\n \"Wobbly Whoopsy\" music video\n \"Abracadeedee\" music video\n 4 Sing-alongs\n 4 Knock knock jokes\n\nDance & Hop with the Doodlebops (Released: August 1, 2006) \n Tap Tap Tap\n Jumpin' Judy\n The Move Groove\n Wobbly Whoopsy\n Bonus features\n \"We're the Doodlebops\" music video\n \"Wobbly Whoopsy\" music video\n \"Abracadeedee\" music video\n 4 Sing-alongs\n Knock knock jokes\n\nSuperstars (Released: Jan 23, 2007 ) \n Doodlebops Photo Op\n Count On Me\n Cauliflower Power\n What, When, Why?\n\nGet Up & Groove (Releases April 24, 2007) \n Fast And Slow Moe\n Step By Step\n Flat Sitis\n The Bad Day\n\nDiscographies of Canadian artists\nFilm and television discographies\nPop music group discographies"
] |
[
"Parliament-Funkadelic",
"Funkadelic and Parliament",
"Who were the members of Funkadelic and Parliament?",
"Billy Bass Nelson (bass), Eddie Hazel (lead guitarist), Tawl Ross (guitarist), Tiki Fulwood (drums), and Mickey Atkins",
"When did they get together?",
"the late 1960s"
] | C_1d20bd078bea4cd887de65f1a7c04623_1 | What kind of music did they play? | 3 | What kind of music did Parliament-Funkadelic play? | Parliament-Funkadelic | By the late 1960s Clinton had assembled a touring band to back up the Parliaments, the first stable lineup of which included Billy Bass Nelson (bass), Eddie Hazel (lead guitarist), Tawl Ross (guitarist), Tiki Fulwood (drums), and Mickey Atkins (keyboards). After a contractual dispute in which Clinton temporarily lost the rights to the name "The Parliaments," Clinton brought the backing musicians forward. When the band relocated to Detroit, their guitar-based, raw funk sound, with its heavy psychedelic rock influences, inspired "Billy Bass" Nelson, who coined the name "Funkadelic". Clinton signed Funkadelic to Westbound Records, and the five Parliaments singers were credited as "guests" while the five musicians were listed as the main group members. The debut album Funkadelic was released in 1970. Meanwhile, Clinton regained the rights to the name "The Parliaments" and initiated another new entity, now known as Parliament, with the same five singers and five musicians but this time as a smoother R&B-based funk ensemble that Clinton positioned as a counterpoint to the more rock-oriented Funkadelic. Parliament recorded Osmium for Invictus Records in 1970, and after a hiatus in which Clinton focused on Funkadelic, Parliament was signed to Casablanca Records and released its debut for that label Up for the Down Stroke in 1974. The two bands began to tour together under the collective name "Parliament-Funkadelic." By this time the original ten-member lineup of Parliament-Funkadelic had begun to splinter, but many others joined for various album releases by either band, leading to a collective with a fluid and rapidly expanding membership. Notable members to join during this period include keyboardist Bernie Worrell, bassist Bootsy Collins, guitarist Garry Shider, and The Horny Horns. In the 1975-1979 period, both Parliament and Funkadelic achieved several high-charting albums and singles on both the R&B and Pop charts. Many members of the collective began to branch out into side bands and solo projects under George Clinton's tutelage, including Bootsy's Rubber Band, Parlet, and The Brides of Funkenstein, while longtime members like Eddie Hazel recorded solo albums with songwriting and studio help from the collective. The Parliament albums of this period had become concept albums with themes from science fiction and afro-futurism, elaborate political and sociological themes, and an evolving storyline with recurring fictional characters. Parliament-Funkadelic stage shows (particularly the P-Funk Earth Tour of 1976) were expanded to include imagery from science fiction and a stage prop known as the Mothership. These concepts came to be known as the P-Funk mythology. By the late 1970s the Parliament-Funkadelic collective became over-extended and several key members departed acrimoniously over disagreements with Clinton and his management style. Original Parliaments members Fuzzy Haskins, Calvin Simon, and Grady Thomas departed in 1977 after becoming disillusioned with the influx of new members, and later recorded an album under the name Funkadelic. Other members departed and formed new funk bands that detached themselves from P-Funk and even criticized the collective, such as Quazar (formed by guitarist Glenn Goins) and Mutiny (formed by drummer Jerome Brailey). Due to financial difficulties and the collapse of Casablanca Records (Parliament's label), Clinton dissolved Parliament and Funkadelic as separate entities. Many members of the collective continued to work for Clinton, first on his solo albums and later as Parliament-Funkadelic or the P-Funk All Stars. CANNOTANSWER | guitar-based, raw funk sound, with its heavy psychedelic rock influences, | Parliament-Funkadelic (abbreviated as P-Funk) is an American funk music collective of rotating musicians headed by George Clinton, primarily consisting of the bands Parliament and Funkadelic, both active since the 1960s. Their distinctive funk style drew on psychedelic culture, outlandish fashion, science-fiction, and surreal humor; it would have an influential effect on subsequent funk, post-punk, hip-hop, and post-disco artists of the 1980s and 1990s, while their collective mythology would help pioneer Afrofuturism.
The collective's origins date back to the doo-wop group the Parliaments, formed by Clinton in the late 1950s in suburban Plainfield, New Jersey. Under the influence of late-1960s artists such as Jimi Hendrix, Sly Stone, and Frank Zappa, Clinton later relocated to Detroit and began the sister groups Parliament and Funkadelic, with the former playing an eclectic and more commercial form of funk, and the latter incorporating more influence from psychedelic rock. The groups released albums such as Maggot Brain (1971), Mothership Connection (1975), and One Nation Under a Groove (1978) to critical praise, and scored charting hits with singles such as "Give Up the Funk" (1976), "One Nation Under a Groove" (1978), and "Flash Light" (1978). Overall, the collective achieved thirteen top ten hits in the American R&B music charts between 1967 and 1983, including six number one hits.
The name "Parliament-Funkadelic" became the catch-all term for the dozens of related musicians recording and touring different projects in Clinton's orbit. Other prominent collective members have included bassist Bootsy Collins, keyboardist Bernie Worrell, and guitarists Eddie Hazel and Michael Hampton. By the early 1980s, Clinton and other members had begun solo careers, with Clinton also consolidating the collective's multiple projects and touring under names such as George Clinton and the P-Funk All-Stars. Some former members of Parliament perform under the name "Original P". Sixteen members of Parliament-Funkadelic were inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997. In 2019, the group was given the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
History
The Parliaments
The P-Funk story began in 1956 in Plainfield, New Jersey, with a doo-wop group formed by fifteen-year-old George Clinton. This was The Parliaments, a name inspired by Parliament cigarettes. By the early 1960s, the group had solidified into the five-man lineup of Clinton, Ray "Stingray" Davis, Clarence "Fuzzy" Haskins, Calvin Simon and Grady Thomas. Later, the group rehearsed in a barbershop partially owned by Clinton and entertained the customers. The Parliaments finally achieved a hit single in 1967 with "(I Wanna) Testify" while Clinton began commuting to Detroit as a songwriter and producer for Motown Records.
The West End of Plainfield, New Jersey was once home to the Silk Palace, a barbershop at 216 Plainfield Avenue owned in part by Clinton, staffed by various members of Parliament-Funkadelic and known as the "hangout for all the local singers and musicians" in Plainfield's 1950s and 1960s doo-wop, soul, rock and proto-funk music scene.
Funkadelic and Parliament
By the late 1960s Clinton had assembled a touring band to back up the Parliaments, the first stable lineup of which included Billy Bass Nelson (bass), Eddie Hazel (lead guitarist), Tawl Ross (guitarist), Tiki Fulwood (drums), and Mickey Atkins (keyboards). After a contractual dispute in which Clinton temporarily lost the rights to the name "The Parliaments," Clinton brought the backing musicians forward. When the band relocated to Detroit, their guitar-based, raw funk sound, with its heavy psychedelic rock influences, inspired "Billy Bass" Nelson, who coined the name "Funkadelic". Clinton signed Funkadelic to Westbound Records, and the five Parliaments singers were credited as "guests" while the five musicians were listed as the main group members. The debut album Funkadelic was released in 1970.
Meanwhile, Clinton regained the rights to the name "The Parliaments" and initiated another new entity, now known as Parliament, with the same five singers and five musicians but this time as a smoother R&B-based funk ensemble that Clinton positioned as a counterpoint to the more rock-oriented Funkadelic. Parliament recorded Osmium for Invictus Records in 1970, and after a hiatus in which Clinton focused on Funkadelic, Parliament was signed to Casablanca Records and released its debut for that label Up for the Down Stroke in 1974. The two bands began to tour together under the collective name "Parliament-Funkadelic."
By this time the original ten-member lineup of Parliament-Funkadelic had begun to splinter, but many others joined for various album releases by either band, leading to a collective with a fluid and rapidly expanding membership. Notable members to join during this period include keyboardist Bernie Worrell, bassist Bootsy Collins, guitarist Garry Shider, bassist Cordell Mosson, and The Horny Horns.
In the 1975-1979 period, both Parliament and Funkadelic achieved several high-charting albums and singles on both the R&B and Pop charts. Many members of the collective began to branch out into side bands and solo projects under George Clinton's tutelage, including Bootsy's Rubber Band, Parlet, and The Brides of Funkenstein, while longtime members like Eddie Hazel recorded solo albums with songwriting and studio help from the collective. The Parliament albums of this period had become concept albums with themes from science fiction and afro-futurism, elaborate political and sociological themes, and an evolving storyline with recurring fictional characters. Parliament-Funkadelic stage shows (particularly the P-Funk Earth Tour of 1976) were expanded to include imagery from science fiction and a stage prop known as the Mothership. These concepts came to be known as the P-Funk mythology.
By the late 1970s the Parliament-Funkadelic collective became over-extended and several key members departed acrimoniously over disagreements with Clinton and his management style. Original Parliaments members Fuzzy Haskins, Calvin Simon, and Grady Thomas departed in 1977 after becoming disillusioned with the influx of new members, and later recorded an album under the name Funkadelic. Other members departed and formed new funk bands that detached themselves from P-Funk and even criticized the collective, such as Quazar (formed by guitarist Glenn Goins) and Mutiny (formed by drummer Jerome Brailey). Due to financial difficulties and the collapse of Casablanca Records (Parliament's label), Clinton dissolved Parliament and Funkadelic as separate entities. Many members of the collective continued to work for Clinton, first on his solo albums and later as Parliament-Funkadelic or the P-Funk All Stars.
Modern day Parliament-Funkadelic
In the early 1980s George Clinton continued to record while battling with financial problems and well-publicized drug problems. The remaining members of Parliament-Funkadelic recorded the 1982 hit album Computer Games, which was released as a George Clinton solo album. Included on this release was the much-sampled #1 hit single "Atomic Dog". The following year, Clinton formed the P-Funk All Stars, who went on to record Urban Dancefloor Guerillas in 1983. The P-Funk All Stars included many of the same members as the late-1970s version of the Parliament-Funkadelic collective, and was so named because of various legal issues concerning use of the names Parliament and Funkadelic after 1980. The name P-Funk All Stars is still in use to the current day, and group has included a mix of former Parliament-Funkadelic members as well as guests and new musicians.
As the 1980s continued, P-Funk did not meet with great commercial success as the band continued to produce albums under the name of George Clinton as solo artist. P-Funk retired from touring from 1984 until 1989, except for extremely sporadic performances and TV appearances. It was at this time that hip hop music began to extensively sample P-Funk music, so remnants of the music were still heard regularly, now among fans of hip hop. By 1993, most of the Parliament and Funkadelic back catalog had been reissued. The same year saw the return of a reconstituted P-Funk All Stars, with the re-release of Urban Dancefloor Guerrillas under the title Hydraulic Funk, and a new hip hop influenced album Dope Dogs. In 1994, the group toured with the Lollapalooza festival and appeared in the film PCU.
The 1996 album T.A.P.O.A.F.O.M. (The Awesome Power of a Fully Operational Mothership), released under the name George Clinton & the P-Funk All Stars, served as a reunion album featuring contributions from the band's most noteworthy songwriters from the earlier eras, such as Bootsy Collins, Bernie Worrell, and Junie Morrison. It would be ten years before another album would be released. In the intervening time, successive tours would slowly restore some of the broken ties between the original band members, together with an accumulation of new talent. On July 23, 1999, George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic, including noteworthy former members Bootsy and Catfish Collins and Bernie Worrell, performed on stage at Woodstock '99. The collective continued to tour sporadically in to the 2000s, with participation from some of the children and grandchildren of the original members.
Legacy
In May 1997, George Clinton and 15 other members of Parliament-Funkadelic were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the largest band yet inducted. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked Parliament-Funkadelic #56 on their list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time". In February 2002, Spin ranked Parliament-Funkadelic #6 on their list of the "50 Greatest Bands of All Time". Besides their innovation in the entire genre of funk music, George Clinton and P-Funk are still heard often today, especially in hip-hop sampling. The Red Hot Chili Peppers video for their 2006 single "Dani California" featured a tribute to Parliament-Funkadelic. Parliament-Funkadelic's musical influence can also be heard in rhythm and blues, soul, electronica, gospel, jazz, and new wave.
Parliament-Funkadelic was inducted into the Michigan Rock and Roll Legends Hall of Fame in 2013.
In December 2018, the Recording Academy announced that Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic would be given Lifetime Achievement Awards. The awards will be presented on May 11, 2019.
Afrofuturism
About the album Mothership Connection, Clinton said "We had put black people in situations nobody ever thought they would be in, like the White House. I figured another place you wouldn't think black people would be was in outer space. I was a big fan of Star Trek, so we did a thing with a pimp sitting in a spaceship shaped like a Cadillac, and we did all these James Brown-type grooves, but with street talk and ghetto slang." Like Sun Ra, Clinton wanted to see black people in space.
All the sci-fi aspects of P-Funk are what situate Clinton's work in an afrofuturistic setting, but also the idea that he took the shared experience of African Americans – a negative one, at that – and gave it back, therefore giving them tremendously more agency than they’d had before.
Key members
George Clinton (band leader, vocals, songwriter, producer; born July 22, 1941).
George Clinton has been, since its inception, the driving force behind the development of the P-Funk sound, having led the collective since forming The Parliaments as a doo-wop group in the late 1950s. The funk sound, socially conscious lyrics, and P-Funk mythology developed primarily by Clinton have been especially influential for later R&B, hip hop, and rock music.
Bernie Worrell (keyboards, vocals, songwriter, arranger; producer; April 19, 1944 – June 24, 2016).
Bernie Worrell officially joined Funkadelic after the release of their first album and became an integral member of the Parliament-Funkadelic collective thereafter. His classical training on piano and innovative use of synthesizers has proven to be extremely influential, particularly his pioneering use of the Moog synthesizer, which replaced the conventional electric bass on songs like "Flash Light" and "Aqua Boogie". He was responsible for many P-Funk rhythm and (with trombonist Fred Wesley) horn arrangements. Worrell left the band in 1981, but continued to contribute to P-Funk studio albums and occasionally appear live with Parliament-Funkadelic as a special guest.
William "Bootsy" Collins (bass guitar, vocals, drums, songwriter, producer; born October 26, 1951).
Bootsy Collins was a major songwriter, rhythm arranger, and bassist for Parliament-Funkadelic during the seventies and was a major influence in the band's sound during that time. His style of bass playing has become especially influential. Collins later focused his attention on his own Bootsy's Rubber Band but continues to make occasional contributions to studio albums by members of the Parliament-Funkadelic collective.
Eddie Hazel (guitar, vocals, songwriter; April 10, 1950 – December 23, 1992).
Eddie Hazel was the original lead guitarist for Funkadelic and was a major force on the first several albums by that group. His Hendrix-inspired style has become very influential. After the early 1970s he contributed sporadically to various Parliament-Funkadelic projects. A key early Funkadelic song that captured both the band's unique sound and Hazel's talent was the ten-minute guitar solo "Maggot Brain" from the 1971 Funkadelic album of the same title.
Maceo Parker (saxophone; born February 14, 1943).
Maceo joined James Brown's band with brother Melvin Parker in 1964. In 1970, Parker, his brother Melvin, and a few of Brown's band members left to establish the band Maceo & All the King's Men, which toured for two years.
In January 1973, Parker rejoined with James Brown. He also charted a single "Parrty – Part I" (#71 pop singles) with Maceo & the Macks that year. In 1975, Parker and some of Brown's band members, including Fred Wesley, left to join George Clinton's band Parliament-Funkadelic.
Walter "Junie" Morrison (keyboards, multi-instrumentalist, vocals, songwriter, arranger, producer; born 1954 - January 21, 2017 ).
Junie Morrison joined P-Funk in early 1978 as musical director after having success in the early Ohio Players and as a solo artist. Though primarily a keyboardist, Junie composed or co-wrote several of the band's hits at the height of their popularity and served as a lead vocalist, producer, and arranger on many songs for the collective. Morrison stopped touring with the band after 1981, but contributed to many subsequent albums. During his time with P-funk, some of his work was credited under the name J.S. Theracon.
Garry "Diaperman" Shider (vocals, guitar; July 24, 1953 – June 16, 2010).
As a child, Garry Shider was a customer at the barbershop where The Parliaments rehearsed and performed, and after some time with his own group United Soul, he was recruited by George Clinton into Funkadelic in 1972. Shider became a frequent lead vocalist on several Parliament and Funkadelic albums and along with his "gospel" vocal and guitar style, was most recognized for wearing his trademark hotel-towel "diaper".
Michael "Kidd Funkadelic" Hampton (guitar; born November 15, 1956).
Mike Hampton has been the lead guitarist for P-Funk since 1973, when he was recruited at age 17 to replace Eddie Hazel, after an impromptu performance of Hazel's signature song "Maggot Brain." Hampton is known for his advancement of rock and heavy metal guitar used by Parliament-Funkadelic and later the P-Funk All Stars, leaving the collective in 2015.
Glenn Goins (vocals, guitar; January 2, 1954 – July 29, 1978).
Glenn Goins was recruited into Parliament-Funkadelic in 1975 and was an important contributor, and like bandmate Garry Shider, was known for his "gospel" singing and guitar style. In 1978, Goins and bandmate Jerome Brailey departed acrimoniously, and immediately began recording and producing his own band, Quazar_(album), featuring his younger brother Kevin Goins. Shortly after his departure, Goins died from Hodgkin's lymphoma at age 24.
Jerome "Bigfoot" Brailey (drums and percussion; born August 20, 1950).
Brailey was the most prominent drummer in the Parliament-Funkadelic collective during their period of greatest success in the mid-to-late 1970s. Brailey (and bandmate Glenn Goins) left the collective acrimoniously, forming his own band Mutiny, in which he criticized George Clinton's management style.
Ramon "Tiki" Fulwood (drums, vocals; May 23, 1944 – October 29, 1979).
Tiki Fulwood was the original drummer for Funkadelic. He originally quit the band in 1971 but reappeared on several Parliament-Funkadelic releases during the remainder of the 1970s. After also working briefly for Miles Davis, Fulwood died of cancer in 1979.
"Billy Bass" Nelson (bass, guitar; born January 28, 1951).
Billy Nelson was a teenage employee at George Clinton's barbershop in the 1960s and was the first musician hired to back The Parliaments in the band that would eventually become Funkadelic. Nelson then brought his friend Eddie Hazel into the band and coined the name "Funkadelic" when Clinton moved the collective to Detroit. Nelson quit Funkadelic in 1971 but contributed to P-Funk releases sporadically for the next few years. Starting in 1994, he toured with the P-Funk All Stars for ten years.
Cordell "Boogie" Mosson (bass, guitar, drums; October 16, 1952 – April 18, 2013).
Mosson joined Funkadelic in 1972 along with his friend and previous United Soul bandmate Garry Shider. Mosson was the primary bassist for Funkadelic starting in 1972 and Parliament starting a few years after Bootsy Collins began to focus on his solo career. Since the late 1970s, Mosson most frequently played rhythm guitar and continued to tour with the P-Funk All Stars until his death.
Ray "Stingray" Davis (vocals; March 29, 1940 – July 5, 2005).
Davis was the bass singer and a member of The Parliaments. His distinctive voice can be heard on "Give Up the Funk (Tear the Roof off the Sucker)" and on George Clinton's solo hit single "Atomic Dog". Aside from Clinton, he was the only original member of the Parliaments not to leave in 1977. In the eighties, Davis recorded and toured with George Clinton and the P-Funk Allstars in support of "Atomic Dog" and with Zapp in support of "I Can Make You Dance", but his vocal range made him an obvious choice as replacement bass vocalist for Melvin Franklin in the Temptations. Davis left the Temptations in 1995 (after being diagnosed with cancer), but continued to perform with former P-Funk members Fuzzy Haskins, Calvin Simon, and Grady Thomas under the name Original P.
Clarence "Fuzzy" Haskins (vocals, guitar, drums; born June 8, 1941).
Haskins was a member and first tenor of The Parliaments. In addition to writing, playing drums and guitar, Haskins is known for his "gospel" singing style. He left P-Funk in 1977. In the nineties, he formed Original P with the other Parliaments (Davis, Thomas and Simon), and retired in 2011.
Calvin Simon (vocals, percussion; May 22, 1942 – January 6, 2022).
Simon was an original member of The Parliaments, before leaving in 1977. In the nineties, he formed Original P with the other Parliaments (Davis, Thomas and Haskins), and retired in 2005. He was the owner of a record label.
"Shady Grady" Thomas (vocals; born January 5, 1941).
In the late 1950s, Thomas started as bass vocalist for The Parliaments. When Parliament members moved from Newark to Plainfield, New Jersey to "conk" hair at The Silk Palace, The Parliaments began a friendly rivalry with local doo wop group Sammy Campbell and the Del-Larks, who featured bass vocalist Raymond Davis. Thomas persuaded Davis to take over as bass vocalist in the Parliaments, which enabled Thomas to move to baritone. Thomas (along with Worrell) is responsible for the addition of drummer Jerome Brailey. After Thomas, Haskins, and Simon left P-Funk in 1977, Thomas formed his own band called The Shady Bunch. Word of Thomas's drummer, Dennis Chambers, and bassist Rodney "Skeet" Curtis got back to Clinton, and Chambers and Curtis were invited, and joined Parliament-Funkadelic. After Thomas' brief return to The P-Funk Allstars in the nineties, Thomas cofounded Original P with original Parliaments (Davis, Haskins, and Simon). Thomas is the leader of Original P.
Notable songs
"Give Up The Funk (Tear The Roof Off The Sucker)" (Parliament), 1975
"Flash Light" (Parliament), 1978
"(Not Just) Knee Deep" (Funkadelic), 1979
"Atomic Dog" (George Clinton), 1982
"One Nation Under a Groove" (Funkadelic), 1978
"Maggot Brain" (Funkadelic), 1971
"I'd Rather Be With You" (Bootsy's Rubber Band), 1976
"P-Funk (Wants to Get Funked Up)" (Parliament), 1975
"Funkentelechy" (Parliament), 1977
"Aqua Boogie (A Psychoalphadiscobetabioaquadoloop)" (Parliament), 1978
"Up for the Down Stroke" (Parliament), 1974
"Chocolate City" (Parliament), 1975
"Do Fries Go with That Shake?" (George Clinton), 1986
"Bootzilla" (Bootsy's Rubber Band), 1978
"Do That Stuff" (Parliament), 1976
"The Pinocchio Theory" (Bootsy's Rubber Band), 1977
"Bop Gun (Endangered Species)" (Parliament), 1977
"The Electric Spanking of War Babies" (Funkadelic), 1981
See also
Album era
List of P-Funk members
List of P-Funk projects
:Category:P-Funk songs
Parliament discography
Funkadelic discography
P-Funk mythology
References
External links
George Clinton's official website
the Motherpage (includes an excellent FAQ)
P.Funk portal (with many interviews, discographies, photos, and links)
P-Funk Collectors Page on Facebook
George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic on Facebook
P-Funk Tour List (archival)
Musical groups established in 1955
American funk musical groups
P-Funk groups
Rock music supergroups
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
Musical collectives
Musicians from Plainfield, New Jersey
African-American rock musical groups
Afrofuturism
Musical backing groups
1955 establishments in New Jersey | true | [
"What Kind of an American are you?, also known as What Kind of American are you?, is a World War I era song released in 1917. Albert Von Tilzer composed the music. Lew Brown and Charles R. McCarron wrote the lyrics. The song was published by Broadway Music Co. of New York, New York. On the cover is a gray drawing of Uncle Sam pointing. A map of the United States is featured on the lower half of the cover. The song was written for voice and piano.\n\nThe sheet music can be found at Pritzker Military Museum & Library.\n\nAnalysis\nThe song urges Americans (specifically immigrants) to use this war to prove their loyalty to the United States; whether that may be by fighting or by simply standing behind the US's actions. For those who show no support, this question is posed: \"What are you doing over here?\" It upholds the \"us-against-them\" mentality; the \"them\" in this case is Germany. The chorus is as follows:\nWhat kind of an American are you?\nIt's time to show what you intend to do\nIf they trample on Old Glory will you think that they are right,\nOr will you stand behind your land and fight with all your might?\nWhat kind of an American are you?\nThat's a question you'll have to answer to\nIf the Star Spangled Banner don't make you stand and cheer,\nThen what are you doing over here?\n\nExternal links\nWhat Kind of an American are You? at Wolfsonian FIU\nWhat Kind of an American are You? at Acumen\n\nReferences\n\nSongs about the United States\nAmerican patriotic songs\n1917 songs\nSongs of World War I\nSongs written by Albert Von Tilzer\nSongs with lyrics by Lew Brown\nSongs with music by Charles McCarron",
"Play Music is the second studio album by electronic group Thieves Like Us.\n\nCritical reception \n\nIndieLondon criticized Play Music for the song tempos being too slow for the dance style it aimed for and also panned the lead singer's performance. An extremely negative NME review from Alex Hoban dismissed the album as a set of \"boring songs about drugs\" with \"vaguely voguish words\" and \"empty lyrics,\" wondering if he was \"caught up in some kind of late April Fool\" instead of an actual record. The Line of Best Fit bashed the record for its lack of stylistic and instrumental variety between tracks, describing the experience as \"faceless, soulless, heartless synthetics in its prime as this Parisian trio pursue only what they know, and care nothing for what they don't.\"\n\nExclaim! was one of the few publications to run a favorable review, where Cam Lindsay praised its mixture of styles from different countries with pop music elements and a dark mood: \"Play Music is the complete package, with a resounding desire to keep you locked in with misshapen melodies and distorted emotion. Even two years after its debut, it still sounds freshly squeezed, without any indication of going sour any time soon.\"\n\nReferences \n\n2008 albums"
] |
[
"Parliament-Funkadelic",
"Funkadelic and Parliament",
"Who were the members of Funkadelic and Parliament?",
"Billy Bass Nelson (bass), Eddie Hazel (lead guitarist), Tawl Ross (guitarist), Tiki Fulwood (drums), and Mickey Atkins",
"When did they get together?",
"the late 1960s",
"What kind of music did they play?",
"guitar-based, raw funk sound, with its heavy psychedelic rock influences,"
] | C_1d20bd078bea4cd887de65f1a7c04623_1 | Did they record any albums? | 4 | Did Parliament-Funkadelic record any albums? | Parliament-Funkadelic | By the late 1960s Clinton had assembled a touring band to back up the Parliaments, the first stable lineup of which included Billy Bass Nelson (bass), Eddie Hazel (lead guitarist), Tawl Ross (guitarist), Tiki Fulwood (drums), and Mickey Atkins (keyboards). After a contractual dispute in which Clinton temporarily lost the rights to the name "The Parliaments," Clinton brought the backing musicians forward. When the band relocated to Detroit, their guitar-based, raw funk sound, with its heavy psychedelic rock influences, inspired "Billy Bass" Nelson, who coined the name "Funkadelic". Clinton signed Funkadelic to Westbound Records, and the five Parliaments singers were credited as "guests" while the five musicians were listed as the main group members. The debut album Funkadelic was released in 1970. Meanwhile, Clinton regained the rights to the name "The Parliaments" and initiated another new entity, now known as Parliament, with the same five singers and five musicians but this time as a smoother R&B-based funk ensemble that Clinton positioned as a counterpoint to the more rock-oriented Funkadelic. Parliament recorded Osmium for Invictus Records in 1970, and after a hiatus in which Clinton focused on Funkadelic, Parliament was signed to Casablanca Records and released its debut for that label Up for the Down Stroke in 1974. The two bands began to tour together under the collective name "Parliament-Funkadelic." By this time the original ten-member lineup of Parliament-Funkadelic had begun to splinter, but many others joined for various album releases by either band, leading to a collective with a fluid and rapidly expanding membership. Notable members to join during this period include keyboardist Bernie Worrell, bassist Bootsy Collins, guitarist Garry Shider, and The Horny Horns. In the 1975-1979 period, both Parliament and Funkadelic achieved several high-charting albums and singles on both the R&B and Pop charts. Many members of the collective began to branch out into side bands and solo projects under George Clinton's tutelage, including Bootsy's Rubber Band, Parlet, and The Brides of Funkenstein, while longtime members like Eddie Hazel recorded solo albums with songwriting and studio help from the collective. The Parliament albums of this period had become concept albums with themes from science fiction and afro-futurism, elaborate political and sociological themes, and an evolving storyline with recurring fictional characters. Parliament-Funkadelic stage shows (particularly the P-Funk Earth Tour of 1976) were expanded to include imagery from science fiction and a stage prop known as the Mothership. These concepts came to be known as the P-Funk mythology. By the late 1970s the Parliament-Funkadelic collective became over-extended and several key members departed acrimoniously over disagreements with Clinton and his management style. Original Parliaments members Fuzzy Haskins, Calvin Simon, and Grady Thomas departed in 1977 after becoming disillusioned with the influx of new members, and later recorded an album under the name Funkadelic. Other members departed and formed new funk bands that detached themselves from P-Funk and even criticized the collective, such as Quazar (formed by guitarist Glenn Goins) and Mutiny (formed by drummer Jerome Brailey). Due to financial difficulties and the collapse of Casablanca Records (Parliament's label), Clinton dissolved Parliament and Funkadelic as separate entities. Many members of the collective continued to work for Clinton, first on his solo albums and later as Parliament-Funkadelic or the P-Funk All Stars. CANNOTANSWER | The debut album Funkadelic was released in 1970. | Parliament-Funkadelic (abbreviated as P-Funk) is an American funk music collective of rotating musicians headed by George Clinton, primarily consisting of the bands Parliament and Funkadelic, both active since the 1960s. Their distinctive funk style drew on psychedelic culture, outlandish fashion, science-fiction, and surreal humor; it would have an influential effect on subsequent funk, post-punk, hip-hop, and post-disco artists of the 1980s and 1990s, while their collective mythology would help pioneer Afrofuturism.
The collective's origins date back to the doo-wop group the Parliaments, formed by Clinton in the late 1950s in suburban Plainfield, New Jersey. Under the influence of late-1960s artists such as Jimi Hendrix, Sly Stone, and Frank Zappa, Clinton later relocated to Detroit and began the sister groups Parliament and Funkadelic, with the former playing an eclectic and more commercial form of funk, and the latter incorporating more influence from psychedelic rock. The groups released albums such as Maggot Brain (1971), Mothership Connection (1975), and One Nation Under a Groove (1978) to critical praise, and scored charting hits with singles such as "Give Up the Funk" (1976), "One Nation Under a Groove" (1978), and "Flash Light" (1978). Overall, the collective achieved thirteen top ten hits in the American R&B music charts between 1967 and 1983, including six number one hits.
The name "Parliament-Funkadelic" became the catch-all term for the dozens of related musicians recording and touring different projects in Clinton's orbit. Other prominent collective members have included bassist Bootsy Collins, keyboardist Bernie Worrell, and guitarists Eddie Hazel and Michael Hampton. By the early 1980s, Clinton and other members had begun solo careers, with Clinton also consolidating the collective's multiple projects and touring under names such as George Clinton and the P-Funk All-Stars. Some former members of Parliament perform under the name "Original P". Sixteen members of Parliament-Funkadelic were inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997. In 2019, the group was given the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
History
The Parliaments
The P-Funk story began in 1956 in Plainfield, New Jersey, with a doo-wop group formed by fifteen-year-old George Clinton. This was The Parliaments, a name inspired by Parliament cigarettes. By the early 1960s, the group had solidified into the five-man lineup of Clinton, Ray "Stingray" Davis, Clarence "Fuzzy" Haskins, Calvin Simon and Grady Thomas. Later, the group rehearsed in a barbershop partially owned by Clinton and entertained the customers. The Parliaments finally achieved a hit single in 1967 with "(I Wanna) Testify" while Clinton began commuting to Detroit as a songwriter and producer for Motown Records.
The West End of Plainfield, New Jersey was once home to the Silk Palace, a barbershop at 216 Plainfield Avenue owned in part by Clinton, staffed by various members of Parliament-Funkadelic and known as the "hangout for all the local singers and musicians" in Plainfield's 1950s and 1960s doo-wop, soul, rock and proto-funk music scene.
Funkadelic and Parliament
By the late 1960s Clinton had assembled a touring band to back up the Parliaments, the first stable lineup of which included Billy Bass Nelson (bass), Eddie Hazel (lead guitarist), Tawl Ross (guitarist), Tiki Fulwood (drums), and Mickey Atkins (keyboards). After a contractual dispute in which Clinton temporarily lost the rights to the name "The Parliaments," Clinton brought the backing musicians forward. When the band relocated to Detroit, their guitar-based, raw funk sound, with its heavy psychedelic rock influences, inspired "Billy Bass" Nelson, who coined the name "Funkadelic". Clinton signed Funkadelic to Westbound Records, and the five Parliaments singers were credited as "guests" while the five musicians were listed as the main group members. The debut album Funkadelic was released in 1970.
Meanwhile, Clinton regained the rights to the name "The Parliaments" and initiated another new entity, now known as Parliament, with the same five singers and five musicians but this time as a smoother R&B-based funk ensemble that Clinton positioned as a counterpoint to the more rock-oriented Funkadelic. Parliament recorded Osmium for Invictus Records in 1970, and after a hiatus in which Clinton focused on Funkadelic, Parliament was signed to Casablanca Records and released its debut for that label Up for the Down Stroke in 1974. The two bands began to tour together under the collective name "Parliament-Funkadelic."
By this time the original ten-member lineup of Parliament-Funkadelic had begun to splinter, but many others joined for various album releases by either band, leading to a collective with a fluid and rapidly expanding membership. Notable members to join during this period include keyboardist Bernie Worrell, bassist Bootsy Collins, guitarist Garry Shider, bassist Cordell Mosson, and The Horny Horns.
In the 1975-1979 period, both Parliament and Funkadelic achieved several high-charting albums and singles on both the R&B and Pop charts. Many members of the collective began to branch out into side bands and solo projects under George Clinton's tutelage, including Bootsy's Rubber Band, Parlet, and The Brides of Funkenstein, while longtime members like Eddie Hazel recorded solo albums with songwriting and studio help from the collective. The Parliament albums of this period had become concept albums with themes from science fiction and afro-futurism, elaborate political and sociological themes, and an evolving storyline with recurring fictional characters. Parliament-Funkadelic stage shows (particularly the P-Funk Earth Tour of 1976) were expanded to include imagery from science fiction and a stage prop known as the Mothership. These concepts came to be known as the P-Funk mythology.
By the late 1970s the Parliament-Funkadelic collective became over-extended and several key members departed acrimoniously over disagreements with Clinton and his management style. Original Parliaments members Fuzzy Haskins, Calvin Simon, and Grady Thomas departed in 1977 after becoming disillusioned with the influx of new members, and later recorded an album under the name Funkadelic. Other members departed and formed new funk bands that detached themselves from P-Funk and even criticized the collective, such as Quazar (formed by guitarist Glenn Goins) and Mutiny (formed by drummer Jerome Brailey). Due to financial difficulties and the collapse of Casablanca Records (Parliament's label), Clinton dissolved Parliament and Funkadelic as separate entities. Many members of the collective continued to work for Clinton, first on his solo albums and later as Parliament-Funkadelic or the P-Funk All Stars.
Modern day Parliament-Funkadelic
In the early 1980s George Clinton continued to record while battling with financial problems and well-publicized drug problems. The remaining members of Parliament-Funkadelic recorded the 1982 hit album Computer Games, which was released as a George Clinton solo album. Included on this release was the much-sampled #1 hit single "Atomic Dog". The following year, Clinton formed the P-Funk All Stars, who went on to record Urban Dancefloor Guerillas in 1983. The P-Funk All Stars included many of the same members as the late-1970s version of the Parliament-Funkadelic collective, and was so named because of various legal issues concerning use of the names Parliament and Funkadelic after 1980. The name P-Funk All Stars is still in use to the current day, and group has included a mix of former Parliament-Funkadelic members as well as guests and new musicians.
As the 1980s continued, P-Funk did not meet with great commercial success as the band continued to produce albums under the name of George Clinton as solo artist. P-Funk retired from touring from 1984 until 1989, except for extremely sporadic performances and TV appearances. It was at this time that hip hop music began to extensively sample P-Funk music, so remnants of the music were still heard regularly, now among fans of hip hop. By 1993, most of the Parliament and Funkadelic back catalog had been reissued. The same year saw the return of a reconstituted P-Funk All Stars, with the re-release of Urban Dancefloor Guerrillas under the title Hydraulic Funk, and a new hip hop influenced album Dope Dogs. In 1994, the group toured with the Lollapalooza festival and appeared in the film PCU.
The 1996 album T.A.P.O.A.F.O.M. (The Awesome Power of a Fully Operational Mothership), released under the name George Clinton & the P-Funk All Stars, served as a reunion album featuring contributions from the band's most noteworthy songwriters from the earlier eras, such as Bootsy Collins, Bernie Worrell, and Junie Morrison. It would be ten years before another album would be released. In the intervening time, successive tours would slowly restore some of the broken ties between the original band members, together with an accumulation of new talent. On July 23, 1999, George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic, including noteworthy former members Bootsy and Catfish Collins and Bernie Worrell, performed on stage at Woodstock '99. The collective continued to tour sporadically in to the 2000s, with participation from some of the children and grandchildren of the original members.
Legacy
In May 1997, George Clinton and 15 other members of Parliament-Funkadelic were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the largest band yet inducted. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked Parliament-Funkadelic #56 on their list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time". In February 2002, Spin ranked Parliament-Funkadelic #6 on their list of the "50 Greatest Bands of All Time". Besides their innovation in the entire genre of funk music, George Clinton and P-Funk are still heard often today, especially in hip-hop sampling. The Red Hot Chili Peppers video for their 2006 single "Dani California" featured a tribute to Parliament-Funkadelic. Parliament-Funkadelic's musical influence can also be heard in rhythm and blues, soul, electronica, gospel, jazz, and new wave.
Parliament-Funkadelic was inducted into the Michigan Rock and Roll Legends Hall of Fame in 2013.
In December 2018, the Recording Academy announced that Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic would be given Lifetime Achievement Awards. The awards will be presented on May 11, 2019.
Afrofuturism
About the album Mothership Connection, Clinton said "We had put black people in situations nobody ever thought they would be in, like the White House. I figured another place you wouldn't think black people would be was in outer space. I was a big fan of Star Trek, so we did a thing with a pimp sitting in a spaceship shaped like a Cadillac, and we did all these James Brown-type grooves, but with street talk and ghetto slang." Like Sun Ra, Clinton wanted to see black people in space.
All the sci-fi aspects of P-Funk are what situate Clinton's work in an afrofuturistic setting, but also the idea that he took the shared experience of African Americans – a negative one, at that – and gave it back, therefore giving them tremendously more agency than they’d had before.
Key members
George Clinton (band leader, vocals, songwriter, producer; born July 22, 1941).
George Clinton has been, since its inception, the driving force behind the development of the P-Funk sound, having led the collective since forming The Parliaments as a doo-wop group in the late 1950s. The funk sound, socially conscious lyrics, and P-Funk mythology developed primarily by Clinton have been especially influential for later R&B, hip hop, and rock music.
Bernie Worrell (keyboards, vocals, songwriter, arranger; producer; April 19, 1944 – June 24, 2016).
Bernie Worrell officially joined Funkadelic after the release of their first album and became an integral member of the Parliament-Funkadelic collective thereafter. His classical training on piano and innovative use of synthesizers has proven to be extremely influential, particularly his pioneering use of the Moog synthesizer, which replaced the conventional electric bass on songs like "Flash Light" and "Aqua Boogie". He was responsible for many P-Funk rhythm and (with trombonist Fred Wesley) horn arrangements. Worrell left the band in 1981, but continued to contribute to P-Funk studio albums and occasionally appear live with Parliament-Funkadelic as a special guest.
William "Bootsy" Collins (bass guitar, vocals, drums, songwriter, producer; born October 26, 1951).
Bootsy Collins was a major songwriter, rhythm arranger, and bassist for Parliament-Funkadelic during the seventies and was a major influence in the band's sound during that time. His style of bass playing has become especially influential. Collins later focused his attention on his own Bootsy's Rubber Band but continues to make occasional contributions to studio albums by members of the Parliament-Funkadelic collective.
Eddie Hazel (guitar, vocals, songwriter; April 10, 1950 – December 23, 1992).
Eddie Hazel was the original lead guitarist for Funkadelic and was a major force on the first several albums by that group. His Hendrix-inspired style has become very influential. After the early 1970s he contributed sporadically to various Parliament-Funkadelic projects. A key early Funkadelic song that captured both the band's unique sound and Hazel's talent was the ten-minute guitar solo "Maggot Brain" from the 1971 Funkadelic album of the same title.
Maceo Parker (saxophone; born February 14, 1943).
Maceo joined James Brown's band with brother Melvin Parker in 1964. In 1970, Parker, his brother Melvin, and a few of Brown's band members left to establish the band Maceo & All the King's Men, which toured for two years.
In January 1973, Parker rejoined with James Brown. He also charted a single "Parrty – Part I" (#71 pop singles) with Maceo & the Macks that year. In 1975, Parker and some of Brown's band members, including Fred Wesley, left to join George Clinton's band Parliament-Funkadelic.
Walter "Junie" Morrison (keyboards, multi-instrumentalist, vocals, songwriter, arranger, producer; born 1954 - January 21, 2017 ).
Junie Morrison joined P-Funk in early 1978 as musical director after having success in the early Ohio Players and as a solo artist. Though primarily a keyboardist, Junie composed or co-wrote several of the band's hits at the height of their popularity and served as a lead vocalist, producer, and arranger on many songs for the collective. Morrison stopped touring with the band after 1981, but contributed to many subsequent albums. During his time with P-funk, some of his work was credited under the name J.S. Theracon.
Garry "Diaperman" Shider (vocals, guitar; July 24, 1953 – June 16, 2010).
As a child, Garry Shider was a customer at the barbershop where The Parliaments rehearsed and performed, and after some time with his own group United Soul, he was recruited by George Clinton into Funkadelic in 1972. Shider became a frequent lead vocalist on several Parliament and Funkadelic albums and along with his "gospel" vocal and guitar style, was most recognized for wearing his trademark hotel-towel "diaper".
Michael "Kidd Funkadelic" Hampton (guitar; born November 15, 1956).
Mike Hampton has been the lead guitarist for P-Funk since 1973, when he was recruited at age 17 to replace Eddie Hazel, after an impromptu performance of Hazel's signature song "Maggot Brain." Hampton is known for his advancement of rock and heavy metal guitar used by Parliament-Funkadelic and later the P-Funk All Stars, leaving the collective in 2015.
Glenn Goins (vocals, guitar; January 2, 1954 – July 29, 1978).
Glenn Goins was recruited into Parliament-Funkadelic in 1975 and was an important contributor, and like bandmate Garry Shider, was known for his "gospel" singing and guitar style. In 1978, Goins and bandmate Jerome Brailey departed acrimoniously, and immediately began recording and producing his own band, Quazar_(album), featuring his younger brother Kevin Goins. Shortly after his departure, Goins died from Hodgkin's lymphoma at age 24.
Jerome "Bigfoot" Brailey (drums and percussion; born August 20, 1950).
Brailey was the most prominent drummer in the Parliament-Funkadelic collective during their period of greatest success in the mid-to-late 1970s. Brailey (and bandmate Glenn Goins) left the collective acrimoniously, forming his own band Mutiny, in which he criticized George Clinton's management style.
Ramon "Tiki" Fulwood (drums, vocals; May 23, 1944 – October 29, 1979).
Tiki Fulwood was the original drummer for Funkadelic. He originally quit the band in 1971 but reappeared on several Parliament-Funkadelic releases during the remainder of the 1970s. After also working briefly for Miles Davis, Fulwood died of cancer in 1979.
"Billy Bass" Nelson (bass, guitar; born January 28, 1951).
Billy Nelson was a teenage employee at George Clinton's barbershop in the 1960s and was the first musician hired to back The Parliaments in the band that would eventually become Funkadelic. Nelson then brought his friend Eddie Hazel into the band and coined the name "Funkadelic" when Clinton moved the collective to Detroit. Nelson quit Funkadelic in 1971 but contributed to P-Funk releases sporadically for the next few years. Starting in 1994, he toured with the P-Funk All Stars for ten years.
Cordell "Boogie" Mosson (bass, guitar, drums; October 16, 1952 – April 18, 2013).
Mosson joined Funkadelic in 1972 along with his friend and previous United Soul bandmate Garry Shider. Mosson was the primary bassist for Funkadelic starting in 1972 and Parliament starting a few years after Bootsy Collins began to focus on his solo career. Since the late 1970s, Mosson most frequently played rhythm guitar and continued to tour with the P-Funk All Stars until his death.
Ray "Stingray" Davis (vocals; March 29, 1940 – July 5, 2005).
Davis was the bass singer and a member of The Parliaments. His distinctive voice can be heard on "Give Up the Funk (Tear the Roof off the Sucker)" and on George Clinton's solo hit single "Atomic Dog". Aside from Clinton, he was the only original member of the Parliaments not to leave in 1977. In the eighties, Davis recorded and toured with George Clinton and the P-Funk Allstars in support of "Atomic Dog" and with Zapp in support of "I Can Make You Dance", but his vocal range made him an obvious choice as replacement bass vocalist for Melvin Franklin in the Temptations. Davis left the Temptations in 1995 (after being diagnosed with cancer), but continued to perform with former P-Funk members Fuzzy Haskins, Calvin Simon, and Grady Thomas under the name Original P.
Clarence "Fuzzy" Haskins (vocals, guitar, drums; born June 8, 1941).
Haskins was a member and first tenor of The Parliaments. In addition to writing, playing drums and guitar, Haskins is known for his "gospel" singing style. He left P-Funk in 1977. In the nineties, he formed Original P with the other Parliaments (Davis, Thomas and Simon), and retired in 2011.
Calvin Simon (vocals, percussion; May 22, 1942 – January 6, 2022).
Simon was an original member of The Parliaments, before leaving in 1977. In the nineties, he formed Original P with the other Parliaments (Davis, Thomas and Haskins), and retired in 2005. He was the owner of a record label.
"Shady Grady" Thomas (vocals; born January 5, 1941).
In the late 1950s, Thomas started as bass vocalist for The Parliaments. When Parliament members moved from Newark to Plainfield, New Jersey to "conk" hair at The Silk Palace, The Parliaments began a friendly rivalry with local doo wop group Sammy Campbell and the Del-Larks, who featured bass vocalist Raymond Davis. Thomas persuaded Davis to take over as bass vocalist in the Parliaments, which enabled Thomas to move to baritone. Thomas (along with Worrell) is responsible for the addition of drummer Jerome Brailey. After Thomas, Haskins, and Simon left P-Funk in 1977, Thomas formed his own band called The Shady Bunch. Word of Thomas's drummer, Dennis Chambers, and bassist Rodney "Skeet" Curtis got back to Clinton, and Chambers and Curtis were invited, and joined Parliament-Funkadelic. After Thomas' brief return to The P-Funk Allstars in the nineties, Thomas cofounded Original P with original Parliaments (Davis, Haskins, and Simon). Thomas is the leader of Original P.
Notable songs
"Give Up The Funk (Tear The Roof Off The Sucker)" (Parliament), 1975
"Flash Light" (Parliament), 1978
"(Not Just) Knee Deep" (Funkadelic), 1979
"Atomic Dog" (George Clinton), 1982
"One Nation Under a Groove" (Funkadelic), 1978
"Maggot Brain" (Funkadelic), 1971
"I'd Rather Be With You" (Bootsy's Rubber Band), 1976
"P-Funk (Wants to Get Funked Up)" (Parliament), 1975
"Funkentelechy" (Parliament), 1977
"Aqua Boogie (A Psychoalphadiscobetabioaquadoloop)" (Parliament), 1978
"Up for the Down Stroke" (Parliament), 1974
"Chocolate City" (Parliament), 1975
"Do Fries Go with That Shake?" (George Clinton), 1986
"Bootzilla" (Bootsy's Rubber Band), 1978
"Do That Stuff" (Parliament), 1976
"The Pinocchio Theory" (Bootsy's Rubber Band), 1977
"Bop Gun (Endangered Species)" (Parliament), 1977
"The Electric Spanking of War Babies" (Funkadelic), 1981
See also
Album era
List of P-Funk members
List of P-Funk projects
:Category:P-Funk songs
Parliament discography
Funkadelic discography
P-Funk mythology
References
External links
George Clinton's official website
the Motherpage (includes an excellent FAQ)
P.Funk portal (with many interviews, discographies, photos, and links)
P-Funk Collectors Page on Facebook
George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic on Facebook
P-Funk Tour List (archival)
Musical groups established in 1955
American funk musical groups
P-Funk groups
Rock music supergroups
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
Musical collectives
Musicians from Plainfield, New Jersey
African-American rock musical groups
Afrofuturism
Musical backing groups
1955 establishments in New Jersey | true | [
"To Those Who Walk Behind Us is the eighth album by Danish death metal band Illdisposed.\n\nTrack listing \n \"Blood on Your Parade\" - 4:18\n \"For the Record\" - 3:14\n \"Come and Get Me\" - 4:10\n \"Seeking Truth - Telling Lies\" - 3:44\n \"Sale at the Misery Factory\" - 4:31\n \"To Those Who Walk Behind Me\" - 4:05\n \"If All the World\" - 4:22\n \"My Number Is Expired\" - 3:45\n \"Johnny\" - 4:15\n \"This Unscheduled Moment\" - 3:43\n \"Nu Gik Det Lige Sa Godt\" - 3:58\n \"When You Scream\" (remix, limited edition bonus)\n \"Throw Your Bolts\" (live, limited edition bonus)\n\nAll lyrics written by Bo Summer, all music written by Jakob \"Batten\" Hansen.\n\nPersonnel \n Bo Summer - vocals\n Jakob \"Batten\" Hansen - guitar\n Jonas \"Kloge\" Mikkelsen - bass\n Thomas \"Muskelbux\" Jensen - drums\n\nBass on this record was recorded by Jakob Batten; Franz Gottschalk did not record any guitars on the record, but Batten did.\n\nReferences \n\nIlldisposed albums\n2009 albums\nMassacre Records albums",
"Swirly Termination is a compilation album by British band Ozric Tentacles. Though released in 2000 this record contains songs made as early as 1992. The reason for this is that the band had to deliver one more album to their record company, Snapper Music, before parting ways, and thus came up with some previously unreleased material.\n\nThis album was not promoted by the band in any way and, apart from the songs itself, they did not contribute to either the title nor the artwork.\n\nTrack listing\n \"Steep\" – 3:11\n \"Space Out\" – 8:29\n \"Pyoing\" – 4:30\n \"Far Dreaming\" – 5:25\n \"Waldorfdub\" – 6:14\n \"Kick 98\" – 6:03\n \"Yoy Mandala\" – 11:52\n\nPersonnel\n Ed Wynne - guitar, keyboards\n John Egan - flute, vocals\n Zia Geelani - bass\n Seaweed - keyboards\n Rad - drums, percussion\n Joie Hinton - keyboards\n\nReferences\n\n2000 albums\nOzric Tentacles albums"
] |
[
"Parliament-Funkadelic",
"Funkadelic and Parliament",
"Who were the members of Funkadelic and Parliament?",
"Billy Bass Nelson (bass), Eddie Hazel (lead guitarist), Tawl Ross (guitarist), Tiki Fulwood (drums), and Mickey Atkins",
"When did they get together?",
"the late 1960s",
"What kind of music did they play?",
"guitar-based, raw funk sound, with its heavy psychedelic rock influences,",
"Did they record any albums?",
"The debut album Funkadelic was released in 1970."
] | C_1d20bd078bea4cd887de65f1a7c04623_1 | Were there any notable singles from it? | 5 | Were there any notable singles from Parliament-Funkadelic? | Parliament-Funkadelic | By the late 1960s Clinton had assembled a touring band to back up the Parliaments, the first stable lineup of which included Billy Bass Nelson (bass), Eddie Hazel (lead guitarist), Tawl Ross (guitarist), Tiki Fulwood (drums), and Mickey Atkins (keyboards). After a contractual dispute in which Clinton temporarily lost the rights to the name "The Parliaments," Clinton brought the backing musicians forward. When the band relocated to Detroit, their guitar-based, raw funk sound, with its heavy psychedelic rock influences, inspired "Billy Bass" Nelson, who coined the name "Funkadelic". Clinton signed Funkadelic to Westbound Records, and the five Parliaments singers were credited as "guests" while the five musicians were listed as the main group members. The debut album Funkadelic was released in 1970. Meanwhile, Clinton regained the rights to the name "The Parliaments" and initiated another new entity, now known as Parliament, with the same five singers and five musicians but this time as a smoother R&B-based funk ensemble that Clinton positioned as a counterpoint to the more rock-oriented Funkadelic. Parliament recorded Osmium for Invictus Records in 1970, and after a hiatus in which Clinton focused on Funkadelic, Parliament was signed to Casablanca Records and released its debut for that label Up for the Down Stroke in 1974. The two bands began to tour together under the collective name "Parliament-Funkadelic." By this time the original ten-member lineup of Parliament-Funkadelic had begun to splinter, but many others joined for various album releases by either band, leading to a collective with a fluid and rapidly expanding membership. Notable members to join during this period include keyboardist Bernie Worrell, bassist Bootsy Collins, guitarist Garry Shider, and The Horny Horns. In the 1975-1979 period, both Parliament and Funkadelic achieved several high-charting albums and singles on both the R&B and Pop charts. Many members of the collective began to branch out into side bands and solo projects under George Clinton's tutelage, including Bootsy's Rubber Band, Parlet, and The Brides of Funkenstein, while longtime members like Eddie Hazel recorded solo albums with songwriting and studio help from the collective. The Parliament albums of this period had become concept albums with themes from science fiction and afro-futurism, elaborate political and sociological themes, and an evolving storyline with recurring fictional characters. Parliament-Funkadelic stage shows (particularly the P-Funk Earth Tour of 1976) were expanded to include imagery from science fiction and a stage prop known as the Mothership. These concepts came to be known as the P-Funk mythology. By the late 1970s the Parliament-Funkadelic collective became over-extended and several key members departed acrimoniously over disagreements with Clinton and his management style. Original Parliaments members Fuzzy Haskins, Calvin Simon, and Grady Thomas departed in 1977 after becoming disillusioned with the influx of new members, and later recorded an album under the name Funkadelic. Other members departed and formed new funk bands that detached themselves from P-Funk and even criticized the collective, such as Quazar (formed by guitarist Glenn Goins) and Mutiny (formed by drummer Jerome Brailey). Due to financial difficulties and the collapse of Casablanca Records (Parliament's label), Clinton dissolved Parliament and Funkadelic as separate entities. Many members of the collective continued to work for Clinton, first on his solo albums and later as Parliament-Funkadelic or the P-Funk All Stars. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Parliament-Funkadelic (abbreviated as P-Funk) is an American funk music collective of rotating musicians headed by George Clinton, primarily consisting of the bands Parliament and Funkadelic, both active since the 1960s. Their distinctive funk style drew on psychedelic culture, outlandish fashion, science-fiction, and surreal humor; it would have an influential effect on subsequent funk, post-punk, hip-hop, and post-disco artists of the 1980s and 1990s, while their collective mythology would help pioneer Afrofuturism.
The collective's origins date back to the doo-wop group the Parliaments, formed by Clinton in the late 1950s in suburban Plainfield, New Jersey. Under the influence of late-1960s artists such as Jimi Hendrix, Sly Stone, and Frank Zappa, Clinton later relocated to Detroit and began the sister groups Parliament and Funkadelic, with the former playing an eclectic and more commercial form of funk, and the latter incorporating more influence from psychedelic rock. The groups released albums such as Maggot Brain (1971), Mothership Connection (1975), and One Nation Under a Groove (1978) to critical praise, and scored charting hits with singles such as "Give Up the Funk" (1976), "One Nation Under a Groove" (1978), and "Flash Light" (1978). Overall, the collective achieved thirteen top ten hits in the American R&B music charts between 1967 and 1983, including six number one hits.
The name "Parliament-Funkadelic" became the catch-all term for the dozens of related musicians recording and touring different projects in Clinton's orbit. Other prominent collective members have included bassist Bootsy Collins, keyboardist Bernie Worrell, and guitarists Eddie Hazel and Michael Hampton. By the early 1980s, Clinton and other members had begun solo careers, with Clinton also consolidating the collective's multiple projects and touring under names such as George Clinton and the P-Funk All-Stars. Some former members of Parliament perform under the name "Original P". Sixteen members of Parliament-Funkadelic were inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997. In 2019, the group was given the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
History
The Parliaments
The P-Funk story began in 1956 in Plainfield, New Jersey, with a doo-wop group formed by fifteen-year-old George Clinton. This was The Parliaments, a name inspired by Parliament cigarettes. By the early 1960s, the group had solidified into the five-man lineup of Clinton, Ray "Stingray" Davis, Clarence "Fuzzy" Haskins, Calvin Simon and Grady Thomas. Later, the group rehearsed in a barbershop partially owned by Clinton and entertained the customers. The Parliaments finally achieved a hit single in 1967 with "(I Wanna) Testify" while Clinton began commuting to Detroit as a songwriter and producer for Motown Records.
The West End of Plainfield, New Jersey was once home to the Silk Palace, a barbershop at 216 Plainfield Avenue owned in part by Clinton, staffed by various members of Parliament-Funkadelic and known as the "hangout for all the local singers and musicians" in Plainfield's 1950s and 1960s doo-wop, soul, rock and proto-funk music scene.
Funkadelic and Parliament
By the late 1960s Clinton had assembled a touring band to back up the Parliaments, the first stable lineup of which included Billy Bass Nelson (bass), Eddie Hazel (lead guitarist), Tawl Ross (guitarist), Tiki Fulwood (drums), and Mickey Atkins (keyboards). After a contractual dispute in which Clinton temporarily lost the rights to the name "The Parliaments," Clinton brought the backing musicians forward. When the band relocated to Detroit, their guitar-based, raw funk sound, with its heavy psychedelic rock influences, inspired "Billy Bass" Nelson, who coined the name "Funkadelic". Clinton signed Funkadelic to Westbound Records, and the five Parliaments singers were credited as "guests" while the five musicians were listed as the main group members. The debut album Funkadelic was released in 1970.
Meanwhile, Clinton regained the rights to the name "The Parliaments" and initiated another new entity, now known as Parliament, with the same five singers and five musicians but this time as a smoother R&B-based funk ensemble that Clinton positioned as a counterpoint to the more rock-oriented Funkadelic. Parliament recorded Osmium for Invictus Records in 1970, and after a hiatus in which Clinton focused on Funkadelic, Parliament was signed to Casablanca Records and released its debut for that label Up for the Down Stroke in 1974. The two bands began to tour together under the collective name "Parliament-Funkadelic."
By this time the original ten-member lineup of Parliament-Funkadelic had begun to splinter, but many others joined for various album releases by either band, leading to a collective with a fluid and rapidly expanding membership. Notable members to join during this period include keyboardist Bernie Worrell, bassist Bootsy Collins, guitarist Garry Shider, bassist Cordell Mosson, and The Horny Horns.
In the 1975-1979 period, both Parliament and Funkadelic achieved several high-charting albums and singles on both the R&B and Pop charts. Many members of the collective began to branch out into side bands and solo projects under George Clinton's tutelage, including Bootsy's Rubber Band, Parlet, and The Brides of Funkenstein, while longtime members like Eddie Hazel recorded solo albums with songwriting and studio help from the collective. The Parliament albums of this period had become concept albums with themes from science fiction and afro-futurism, elaborate political and sociological themes, and an evolving storyline with recurring fictional characters. Parliament-Funkadelic stage shows (particularly the P-Funk Earth Tour of 1976) were expanded to include imagery from science fiction and a stage prop known as the Mothership. These concepts came to be known as the P-Funk mythology.
By the late 1970s the Parliament-Funkadelic collective became over-extended and several key members departed acrimoniously over disagreements with Clinton and his management style. Original Parliaments members Fuzzy Haskins, Calvin Simon, and Grady Thomas departed in 1977 after becoming disillusioned with the influx of new members, and later recorded an album under the name Funkadelic. Other members departed and formed new funk bands that detached themselves from P-Funk and even criticized the collective, such as Quazar (formed by guitarist Glenn Goins) and Mutiny (formed by drummer Jerome Brailey). Due to financial difficulties and the collapse of Casablanca Records (Parliament's label), Clinton dissolved Parliament and Funkadelic as separate entities. Many members of the collective continued to work for Clinton, first on his solo albums and later as Parliament-Funkadelic or the P-Funk All Stars.
Modern day Parliament-Funkadelic
In the early 1980s George Clinton continued to record while battling with financial problems and well-publicized drug problems. The remaining members of Parliament-Funkadelic recorded the 1982 hit album Computer Games, which was released as a George Clinton solo album. Included on this release was the much-sampled #1 hit single "Atomic Dog". The following year, Clinton formed the P-Funk All Stars, who went on to record Urban Dancefloor Guerillas in 1983. The P-Funk All Stars included many of the same members as the late-1970s version of the Parliament-Funkadelic collective, and was so named because of various legal issues concerning use of the names Parliament and Funkadelic after 1980. The name P-Funk All Stars is still in use to the current day, and group has included a mix of former Parliament-Funkadelic members as well as guests and new musicians.
As the 1980s continued, P-Funk did not meet with great commercial success as the band continued to produce albums under the name of George Clinton as solo artist. P-Funk retired from touring from 1984 until 1989, except for extremely sporadic performances and TV appearances. It was at this time that hip hop music began to extensively sample P-Funk music, so remnants of the music were still heard regularly, now among fans of hip hop. By 1993, most of the Parliament and Funkadelic back catalog had been reissued. The same year saw the return of a reconstituted P-Funk All Stars, with the re-release of Urban Dancefloor Guerrillas under the title Hydraulic Funk, and a new hip hop influenced album Dope Dogs. In 1994, the group toured with the Lollapalooza festival and appeared in the film PCU.
The 1996 album T.A.P.O.A.F.O.M. (The Awesome Power of a Fully Operational Mothership), released under the name George Clinton & the P-Funk All Stars, served as a reunion album featuring contributions from the band's most noteworthy songwriters from the earlier eras, such as Bootsy Collins, Bernie Worrell, and Junie Morrison. It would be ten years before another album would be released. In the intervening time, successive tours would slowly restore some of the broken ties between the original band members, together with an accumulation of new talent. On July 23, 1999, George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic, including noteworthy former members Bootsy and Catfish Collins and Bernie Worrell, performed on stage at Woodstock '99. The collective continued to tour sporadically in to the 2000s, with participation from some of the children and grandchildren of the original members.
Legacy
In May 1997, George Clinton and 15 other members of Parliament-Funkadelic were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the largest band yet inducted. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked Parliament-Funkadelic #56 on their list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time". In February 2002, Spin ranked Parliament-Funkadelic #6 on their list of the "50 Greatest Bands of All Time". Besides their innovation in the entire genre of funk music, George Clinton and P-Funk are still heard often today, especially in hip-hop sampling. The Red Hot Chili Peppers video for their 2006 single "Dani California" featured a tribute to Parliament-Funkadelic. Parliament-Funkadelic's musical influence can also be heard in rhythm and blues, soul, electronica, gospel, jazz, and new wave.
Parliament-Funkadelic was inducted into the Michigan Rock and Roll Legends Hall of Fame in 2013.
In December 2018, the Recording Academy announced that Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic would be given Lifetime Achievement Awards. The awards will be presented on May 11, 2019.
Afrofuturism
About the album Mothership Connection, Clinton said "We had put black people in situations nobody ever thought they would be in, like the White House. I figured another place you wouldn't think black people would be was in outer space. I was a big fan of Star Trek, so we did a thing with a pimp sitting in a spaceship shaped like a Cadillac, and we did all these James Brown-type grooves, but with street talk and ghetto slang." Like Sun Ra, Clinton wanted to see black people in space.
All the sci-fi aspects of P-Funk are what situate Clinton's work in an afrofuturistic setting, but also the idea that he took the shared experience of African Americans – a negative one, at that – and gave it back, therefore giving them tremendously more agency than they’d had before.
Key members
George Clinton (band leader, vocals, songwriter, producer; born July 22, 1941).
George Clinton has been, since its inception, the driving force behind the development of the P-Funk sound, having led the collective since forming The Parliaments as a doo-wop group in the late 1950s. The funk sound, socially conscious lyrics, and P-Funk mythology developed primarily by Clinton have been especially influential for later R&B, hip hop, and rock music.
Bernie Worrell (keyboards, vocals, songwriter, arranger; producer; April 19, 1944 – June 24, 2016).
Bernie Worrell officially joined Funkadelic after the release of their first album and became an integral member of the Parliament-Funkadelic collective thereafter. His classical training on piano and innovative use of synthesizers has proven to be extremely influential, particularly his pioneering use of the Moog synthesizer, which replaced the conventional electric bass on songs like "Flash Light" and "Aqua Boogie". He was responsible for many P-Funk rhythm and (with trombonist Fred Wesley) horn arrangements. Worrell left the band in 1981, but continued to contribute to P-Funk studio albums and occasionally appear live with Parliament-Funkadelic as a special guest.
William "Bootsy" Collins (bass guitar, vocals, drums, songwriter, producer; born October 26, 1951).
Bootsy Collins was a major songwriter, rhythm arranger, and bassist for Parliament-Funkadelic during the seventies and was a major influence in the band's sound during that time. His style of bass playing has become especially influential. Collins later focused his attention on his own Bootsy's Rubber Band but continues to make occasional contributions to studio albums by members of the Parliament-Funkadelic collective.
Eddie Hazel (guitar, vocals, songwriter; April 10, 1950 – December 23, 1992).
Eddie Hazel was the original lead guitarist for Funkadelic and was a major force on the first several albums by that group. His Hendrix-inspired style has become very influential. After the early 1970s he contributed sporadically to various Parliament-Funkadelic projects. A key early Funkadelic song that captured both the band's unique sound and Hazel's talent was the ten-minute guitar solo "Maggot Brain" from the 1971 Funkadelic album of the same title.
Maceo Parker (saxophone; born February 14, 1943).
Maceo joined James Brown's band with brother Melvin Parker in 1964. In 1970, Parker, his brother Melvin, and a few of Brown's band members left to establish the band Maceo & All the King's Men, which toured for two years.
In January 1973, Parker rejoined with James Brown. He also charted a single "Parrty – Part I" (#71 pop singles) with Maceo & the Macks that year. In 1975, Parker and some of Brown's band members, including Fred Wesley, left to join George Clinton's band Parliament-Funkadelic.
Walter "Junie" Morrison (keyboards, multi-instrumentalist, vocals, songwriter, arranger, producer; born 1954 - January 21, 2017 ).
Junie Morrison joined P-Funk in early 1978 as musical director after having success in the early Ohio Players and as a solo artist. Though primarily a keyboardist, Junie composed or co-wrote several of the band's hits at the height of their popularity and served as a lead vocalist, producer, and arranger on many songs for the collective. Morrison stopped touring with the band after 1981, but contributed to many subsequent albums. During his time with P-funk, some of his work was credited under the name J.S. Theracon.
Garry "Diaperman" Shider (vocals, guitar; July 24, 1953 – June 16, 2010).
As a child, Garry Shider was a customer at the barbershop where The Parliaments rehearsed and performed, and after some time with his own group United Soul, he was recruited by George Clinton into Funkadelic in 1972. Shider became a frequent lead vocalist on several Parliament and Funkadelic albums and along with his "gospel" vocal and guitar style, was most recognized for wearing his trademark hotel-towel "diaper".
Michael "Kidd Funkadelic" Hampton (guitar; born November 15, 1956).
Mike Hampton has been the lead guitarist for P-Funk since 1973, when he was recruited at age 17 to replace Eddie Hazel, after an impromptu performance of Hazel's signature song "Maggot Brain." Hampton is known for his advancement of rock and heavy metal guitar used by Parliament-Funkadelic and later the P-Funk All Stars, leaving the collective in 2015.
Glenn Goins (vocals, guitar; January 2, 1954 – July 29, 1978).
Glenn Goins was recruited into Parliament-Funkadelic in 1975 and was an important contributor, and like bandmate Garry Shider, was known for his "gospel" singing and guitar style. In 1978, Goins and bandmate Jerome Brailey departed acrimoniously, and immediately began recording and producing his own band, Quazar_(album), featuring his younger brother Kevin Goins. Shortly after his departure, Goins died from Hodgkin's lymphoma at age 24.
Jerome "Bigfoot" Brailey (drums and percussion; born August 20, 1950).
Brailey was the most prominent drummer in the Parliament-Funkadelic collective during their period of greatest success in the mid-to-late 1970s. Brailey (and bandmate Glenn Goins) left the collective acrimoniously, forming his own band Mutiny, in which he criticized George Clinton's management style.
Ramon "Tiki" Fulwood (drums, vocals; May 23, 1944 – October 29, 1979).
Tiki Fulwood was the original drummer for Funkadelic. He originally quit the band in 1971 but reappeared on several Parliament-Funkadelic releases during the remainder of the 1970s. After also working briefly for Miles Davis, Fulwood died of cancer in 1979.
"Billy Bass" Nelson (bass, guitar; born January 28, 1951).
Billy Nelson was a teenage employee at George Clinton's barbershop in the 1960s and was the first musician hired to back The Parliaments in the band that would eventually become Funkadelic. Nelson then brought his friend Eddie Hazel into the band and coined the name "Funkadelic" when Clinton moved the collective to Detroit. Nelson quit Funkadelic in 1971 but contributed to P-Funk releases sporadically for the next few years. Starting in 1994, he toured with the P-Funk All Stars for ten years.
Cordell "Boogie" Mosson (bass, guitar, drums; October 16, 1952 – April 18, 2013).
Mosson joined Funkadelic in 1972 along with his friend and previous United Soul bandmate Garry Shider. Mosson was the primary bassist for Funkadelic starting in 1972 and Parliament starting a few years after Bootsy Collins began to focus on his solo career. Since the late 1970s, Mosson most frequently played rhythm guitar and continued to tour with the P-Funk All Stars until his death.
Ray "Stingray" Davis (vocals; March 29, 1940 – July 5, 2005).
Davis was the bass singer and a member of The Parliaments. His distinctive voice can be heard on "Give Up the Funk (Tear the Roof off the Sucker)" and on George Clinton's solo hit single "Atomic Dog". Aside from Clinton, he was the only original member of the Parliaments not to leave in 1977. In the eighties, Davis recorded and toured with George Clinton and the P-Funk Allstars in support of "Atomic Dog" and with Zapp in support of "I Can Make You Dance", but his vocal range made him an obvious choice as replacement bass vocalist for Melvin Franklin in the Temptations. Davis left the Temptations in 1995 (after being diagnosed with cancer), but continued to perform with former P-Funk members Fuzzy Haskins, Calvin Simon, and Grady Thomas under the name Original P.
Clarence "Fuzzy" Haskins (vocals, guitar, drums; born June 8, 1941).
Haskins was a member and first tenor of The Parliaments. In addition to writing, playing drums and guitar, Haskins is known for his "gospel" singing style. He left P-Funk in 1977. In the nineties, he formed Original P with the other Parliaments (Davis, Thomas and Simon), and retired in 2011.
Calvin Simon (vocals, percussion; May 22, 1942 – January 6, 2022).
Simon was an original member of The Parliaments, before leaving in 1977. In the nineties, he formed Original P with the other Parliaments (Davis, Thomas and Haskins), and retired in 2005. He was the owner of a record label.
"Shady Grady" Thomas (vocals; born January 5, 1941).
In the late 1950s, Thomas started as bass vocalist for The Parliaments. When Parliament members moved from Newark to Plainfield, New Jersey to "conk" hair at The Silk Palace, The Parliaments began a friendly rivalry with local doo wop group Sammy Campbell and the Del-Larks, who featured bass vocalist Raymond Davis. Thomas persuaded Davis to take over as bass vocalist in the Parliaments, which enabled Thomas to move to baritone. Thomas (along with Worrell) is responsible for the addition of drummer Jerome Brailey. After Thomas, Haskins, and Simon left P-Funk in 1977, Thomas formed his own band called The Shady Bunch. Word of Thomas's drummer, Dennis Chambers, and bassist Rodney "Skeet" Curtis got back to Clinton, and Chambers and Curtis were invited, and joined Parliament-Funkadelic. After Thomas' brief return to The P-Funk Allstars in the nineties, Thomas cofounded Original P with original Parliaments (Davis, Haskins, and Simon). Thomas is the leader of Original P.
Notable songs
"Give Up The Funk (Tear The Roof Off The Sucker)" (Parliament), 1975
"Flash Light" (Parliament), 1978
"(Not Just) Knee Deep" (Funkadelic), 1979
"Atomic Dog" (George Clinton), 1982
"One Nation Under a Groove" (Funkadelic), 1978
"Maggot Brain" (Funkadelic), 1971
"I'd Rather Be With You" (Bootsy's Rubber Band), 1976
"P-Funk (Wants to Get Funked Up)" (Parliament), 1975
"Funkentelechy" (Parliament), 1977
"Aqua Boogie (A Psychoalphadiscobetabioaquadoloop)" (Parliament), 1978
"Up for the Down Stroke" (Parliament), 1974
"Chocolate City" (Parliament), 1975
"Do Fries Go with That Shake?" (George Clinton), 1986
"Bootzilla" (Bootsy's Rubber Band), 1978
"Do That Stuff" (Parliament), 1976
"The Pinocchio Theory" (Bootsy's Rubber Band), 1977
"Bop Gun (Endangered Species)" (Parliament), 1977
"The Electric Spanking of War Babies" (Funkadelic), 1981
See also
Album era
List of P-Funk members
List of P-Funk projects
:Category:P-Funk songs
Parliament discography
Funkadelic discography
P-Funk mythology
References
External links
George Clinton's official website
the Motherpage (includes an excellent FAQ)
P.Funk portal (with many interviews, discographies, photos, and links)
P-Funk Collectors Page on Facebook
George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic on Facebook
P-Funk Tour List (archival)
Musical groups established in 1955
American funk musical groups
P-Funk groups
Rock music supergroups
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
Musical collectives
Musicians from Plainfield, New Jersey
African-American rock musical groups
Afrofuturism
Musical backing groups
1955 establishments in New Jersey | false | [
"\"Dear Summer\" is the third and final single from American rapper Memphis Bleek's fourth studio album, 534. Despite being featured on Bleek's album and released as a single, the song does not feature any vocals from Memphis Bleek. He is also not listed as a writer. It is solely performed by the featured guest, Jay-Z. Produced by Just Blaze, it contains a sample from Weldon Irvine's \"Morning Sunrise\". It is notable for being the first Jay-Z song to be released following his retirement from music in the summer of 2003.\n\nThe song peaked at number 30 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart.\n\nReferences\n\n2005 singles\nJay-Z songs\nSong recordings produced by Just Blaze\nSongs written by Jay-Z\nRoc-A-Fella Records singles\nSongs written by Just Blaze\n2005 songs",
"\"If There's Any Justice\" is a song by written by Michael Noble, C. Michael Spriggs and Tony Colton, and recorded by American country music artist Lee Greenwood. It was released in August 1987 as the second single and title track from the album If There's Any Justice. The song reached number 9 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart.\n\nChart performance\n\nReferences\n\n1987 singles\n1987 songs\nLee Greenwood songs\nSong recordings produced by Jimmy Bowen\nMCA Records singles\nSongs written by Tony Colton"
] |
[
"Walter Winterbottom",
"England Team Manager"
] | C_ec5491bbf741493a9efd0e572c087a79_1 | Can you provide me with a little information about Walter Winterbottom and his career as an England Team Manager? | 1 | Can you provide me with a little information about Walter Winterbottom and his career as an England Team Manager? | Walter Winterbottom | Walter Winterbottom has the distinction of being England's first, youngest and longest serving England team manager; he is also the only England manager to have had no previous professional managerial experience. In all matches in which he was in charge, England played 139, won 78, drew 33, and lost 28; goals for 383, against 196. At home England lost six matches in sixteen years. England won the British championship in thirteen out of his sixteen seasons (seven times outright and six times sharing top place). In the World Cup tournament England qualified on all four occasions, reaching the quarter finals twice, playing 28 matches, winning 15, drawing 7 and losing 6; goals for 75 against 35 (including World Cup qualifying matches). Although he had coaching and managerial responsibilities, Winterbottom never had the power to pick his own team (it was chosen by a selection committee). Over time his technical knowledge increasingly influenced selectors. Finally, prior to Alf Ramsey's arrival in 1962, he convinced the FA that the team manager must have sole control of selection. During his time Winterbottom repeatedly warned the English football establishment that countries in Continental Europe and South America were overtaking England and that English football had to change. His sixteen years as England team manager helped greatly in creating a modern and competitive national team and four years after his departure in 1966 England won the World Cup. His innovations included the introduction of England B, Under 23, youth and schoolboy teams providing players with continuity and experience in international football before being selected for the full England team. Notable victories during his era were 10-0 away to Portugal in 1947, 4-0 away to Italy in 1948, 4-2 at home to Brazil in 1956 and 9-3 at home to Scotland in 1961. Notable defeats were losing 1-0 to the USA in the 1950 World Cup and 6-3 at home to Hungary in 1953 when England lost her unbeaten home record to a foreign team, followed by a 7-1 away defeat to the same team in 1954. CANNOTANSWER | Walter Winterbottom has the distinction of being England's first, youngest and longest serving England team manager; | Sir Walter Winterbottom (31 March 1913 – 16 February 2002) was the first manager of the England football team (1946–1962) and FA Director of Coaching. He resigned from the FA in 1962 to become General Secretary of the Central Council of Physical Recreation (CCPR) and was appointed as the first Director of the Sports Council in 1965. He was knighted for his services to sport in 1978 when he retired. The Football Association marked the 100th anniversary of Winterbottom's birth by commissioning a bust which was unveiled by Roy Hodgson at St Georges Park on 23 April 2013 in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the development of English football.
Early years
Born in Oldham, Lancashire, Walter Winterbottom was the only son of James Winterbottom, a ring frame fitter in a textile machine works. At the age of 12 he was awarded a scholarship to Oldham High School where he excelled. He won a bursary to Chester Diocesan Teachers Training College, graduating as the top student in 1933 and took a teaching post at the Alexandra Road School, Oldham. Whilst teaching he played football for Royton Amateurs and then Mossley where he was spotted by Manchester United. He signed for United as a part-time professional in 1936 but continued teaching. In his first season (1936/37) at Manchester United he showed great promise, playing 21 first team League games and 2 FA cup games, appearing as wing half and centre half. But in the following two seasons he made only 4 first team appearances. and 41 Central League appearances, his playing career effectively ended by a spinal disease, later diagnosed as ankylosing spondylitis. Whilst still playing for Manchester United he left his teaching position to study at Carnegie College of Physical Education, Leeds. On graduating he was appointed as a lecturer.
During World War II Winterbottom served as an officer in the Royal Air Force, reaching the rank of wing commander and working at the Air Ministry with overall responsibility for training PE instructors at home and overseas. He was also a guest player with Chelsea and ran coaching courses for the FA at grammar schools in London. In 1946 Stanley Rous, who was the secretary of The Football Association, persuaded the FA council to appoint Winterbottom as The FA's first Director of Coaching and suggested he take on the additional responsibility of being the first England team manager.
England team manager
Walter Winterbottom has the distinction of being England's first, youngest and longest serving England team manager; he is also the only England manager to have had no previous professional managerial experience. In all matches in which he was in charge, England played 139, won 78, drew 33, and lost 28; goals for 383, against 196. At home England lost six matches in sixteen years. England won the British championship in thirteen out of his sixteen seasons (seven times outright and six times sharing top place). In the World Cup tournament England qualified on all four occasions, reaching the quarter finals twice, playing 28 matches, winning 15, drawing 7 and losing 6; goals for 75 against 35 (including World Cup qualifying matches).
Although he had coaching and managerial responsibilities, Winterbottom never had the power to pick his own team (it was chosen by a selection committee). Over time his technical knowledge increasingly influenced selectors. Finally, prior to Alf Ramsey's arrival in 1962, he convinced the FA that the team manager must have sole control of selection.
During his time Winterbottom repeatedly warned the English football establishment that countries in Continental Europe and South America were overtaking England and that English football had to change. His sixteen years as England team manager helped greatly in creating a modern and competitive national team and four years after his departure in 1966 England won the World Cup. His innovations included the introduction of England B, Under 23, youth and schoolboy teams providing players with continuity and experience in international football before being selected for the full England team.
Notable victories during his era were 10—0 away to Portugal in 1947, 4—0 away to Italy in 1948, 3—1 at home to recently crowned World Champions West Germany in 1954 after the 4—2 at home to Brazil in 1956 and 9—3 at home to Scotland in 1961. Notable defeats were losing 2–0 to the Republic of Ireland at Goodison Park, losing 1—0 to the USA in the 1950 World Cup and 6—3 at home to Hungary in 1953 when England lost their unbeaten home record to a foreign team at Wembley, followed by a 7—1 away defeat to the same team in 1954.
Also while he was manager, England visited Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Denmark, Mexico, Peru, Portugal, the Soviet Union, United States and Uruguay for the first time.
FIFA World Cup record
Winterbottom led England to four consecutive World Cup finals, a record subsequently equalled only by Helmut Schön of West Germany. England entered the World Cup for the first time in 1950, qualifying for the tournament in Brazil by winning the British Home Championship. England had never before played in South America. They beat Chile by 2—0 but lost 1—0 to the USA and 1—0 to Spain to be eliminated in the first round.
Winterbottom again led England to qualification in Switzerland in 1954 by winning the British Home championship. A 4—4 draw against Belgium and a 2—0 victory against Switzerland took them to the quarter finals where they were beaten 4—2 by the defending champions, Uruguay.
England qualified for the 1958 FIFA World Cup in Sweden with wins over the Republic of Ireland and Denmark, with a team that had lost only once in 17 games. Three months before the tournament began the Munich air disaster robbed the team of key players from Manchester United: Roger Byrne, Tommy Taylor and Duncan Edwards died. England drew against the USSR, Brazil and Austria but lost to the Soviet Union in a playoff for a quarter-final place.
Winterbottom again led his team to qualification for the 1962 World Cup in Chile with wins over Portugal and Luxembourg. After progressing from their group on goal average, England reached the quarter-finals but were beaten 3—1 by the eventual winners, Brazil.
FA Director of Coaching
Although Winterbottom is best known as the England team manager, it is in coaching that he made important contributions to the development of English football. He made no secret of his belief that his job as Director of Coaching was the more important of his two roles at the FA.
When he joined the FA in 1946, club directors, managers and players were cynical about the need for coaching but Winterbottom had a passion for coaching and a vision of how it should develop.
He soon created a national coaching scheme with summer residential courses at Lilleshall, Shropshire, and persuaded some of his international players to take the courses that led to exams for the FA preliminary and full coaching badges. This gave the scheme credibility. They developed their teaching skills by coaching in schools and then moved into part-time coaching positions in junior clubs. He gathered around him a cadre of young FA staff coaches: men like Bill Nicholson, Don Howe, Alan Brown, Ron Greenwood, Dave Sexton, Malcolm Allison, Joe Mercer, Vic Buckingham, Jimmy Hill and Bobby Robson. Over time a new breed of managers emerged in the League clubs and began to change attitudes to coaching.
Winterbottom's courses were expanded to include professional players, referees, schoolmasters, club trainers, schoolboys and youth leaders. In addition to Lilleshall they were held at Loughborough College, Carnegie College, Bisham Abbey and Birmingham University. In 1947 three hundred had taken the full coaching award and the numbers of qualified coaches grew each year.
The courses attracted international participation and praise. Winterbottom was regarded by many as a leading technical thinker and exponent of association football, of his generation, in the world and lectured internationally.
He inspired a new generation of managers, most notably Ron Greenwood and Bobby Robson, who graduated through every level of coaching, both eventually becoming England team manager.
Criticism
In assessing Winterbottom's tenure as England manager, Goldblatt writes that "[Winterbottom] introduced a measure of tactical thinking and discussion to the England squad, though his inability to anticipate or learn significantly from the Hungarian debacle suggests that his grasp of tactics and communication with the players was limited." William Baker writes that Winterbottom, because of his "upper-class origins [sic]", could not "effectively instruct, much less inspire, working-class footballers." Football journalist Brian Glanville said in an interview: "I got on very well with Walter Winterbottom, but he was a rotten manager."
Publishing
Winterbottom was also responsible for the publishing at the FA. The first coaching bulletin was launched in 1946 and this became the FA Bulletin and then the FA News. The FA Year Book was introduced in 1948 along with the FA Book for Boys annual. The first coaching films and film strips followed in 1950.
An important landmark was the publication of Winterbottom's book, Soccer Coaching, the first modern soccer coaching manual. This was followed by three more books, Skilful Soccer, Modern Soccer and Training for Soccer.
Sports administrator
In 1962 Winterbottom resigned from the FA and took up an appointment as General Secretary of the Central Council of Physical Recreation and two years later became the Director of the newly formed Sports Council. He stepped onto the wider stage of sport and emerged to have a profound effect on sport in Britain during the second half of the twentieth century.
Central Council of Physical Recreation
At the Central Council of Physical Education (CCPR) Winterbottom worked to provide coaches and better facilities for sports governing bodies. He soon became involved in the ongoing political debate about the recommendations of the 1960 Report of the Wolfenden Committee on Sport, which had recommended the establishment of a Sports Council responsible for distributing government money to sport. He was in favour but the CCPR was divided on the issue. In 1965 the Government under set up a Sports Council and Winterbottom was seconded to become the first Director of the Sports Council with Denis Howell as his chairman.
Sports Council
Winterbottom believed that participation in a sport played a much more important role in society that was generally accepted. For 16 years he battled to win significantly more investment in sport from national and local government to support a Sport for All campaign. Despite a harsh economic climate great progress was made in providing new facilities. In ten years 499 sports centres were built and 524 new swimming pools. Under his leadership sports governing bodies were helped to develop more professional organisations and provide more coaches. He conceived the idea of the Sports Aid Foundation, raising money from industry to back young elite sportsmen and women with Olympic medal winning chances.
He was a member of the Council of Europe and Chairman of the Committee for the Development of Sport and was influential in the acceptance of the Sport For All concept by Canada and UNESCO.
Later life
In 1978, after reaching the age of 65, Winterbottom retired from the Sports Council and was knighted for his services to sport. He became an advisor to the British government on ways in which British manufacturers of sports equipment could work with foreign firms. In 1979, he visited Australia and New Zealand to help their governments to support sport in the community.
He was head of the FIFA Technical Studies Group for the World Cup in 1966, 1970, 1974, 1978 and a member in 1982. In 1985 The Winterbottom Report, an FA enquiry into artificial playing surfaces was published and in 1987–89 he was a member of the Football League enquiry into artificial pitches.
He died in the Royal Surrey Hospital after an operation for cancer on 16 February 2002. He was 88 years old. A memorial service was held at St. Nicolas Church, Cranleigh, Surrey on 1 March 2002.
Managerial statistics
England matches under Winterbottom
England's goal tally first.
England record versus other countries
Honours
British Home Championship
Champions: 1947, 1948, 1950, 1952 (shared), 1953 (shared), 1954, 1955, 1956 (shared), 1957, 1958 (shared), 1959 (shared), 1960 (shared), 1961
Runners-up: 1949, 1951
Notes
External links
Literature
Graham Morse: Sir Walter Winterbottom - The Father of Modern English Football, Kings Road Publishing, 2013.
People from Oldham
1913 births
2002 deaths
Royal Air Force personnel of World War II
English footballers
Footballers from Oldham
Manchester United F.C. players
English Football League players
English football managers
England national football team managers
1950 FIFA World Cup managers
1954 FIFA World Cup managers
1958 FIFA World Cup managers
1962 FIFA World Cup managers
Alumni of the University of Chester
Association football people awarded knighthoods
Knights Bachelor
Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
Chelsea F.C. wartime guest players
English Football Hall of Fame inductees
Association football midfielders
Mossley A.F.C. players
Olympic football managers of Great Britain
Royal Air Force wing commanders
Deaths from cancer in England
Association football coaches | true | [
"Les Cocker (13 March 1924 – 4 October 1979) was an English professional football player and coach. As a player, Cocker played as a striker for Stockport County and Accrington Stanley, making nearly 300 appearances in the English Football League. After retiring as a player, Cocker became a coach, working with club sides Luton Town and Leeds United, before working with the victorious England team at the 1966 World Cup.\n\nEarly and personal life\nCocker was born in Stockport on 13 March 1924. During World War II, Cocker spent time with the Reconnaissance Regiment in Occupied France.\n\nCocker was married to Nora and had three sons – David, Stephen and Ian.\n\nCareer\n\nPlaying career\nCocker began his professional career with Stockport County in 1946, scoring 43 goals in 173 League games between then and 1953. Cocker then played with Accrington Stanley, scoring 48 goals in 122 League games between 1953 and 1958. In his professional playing career, Cocker scored a total of 91 goals in 295 League games.\n\nCoaching career\nAfter retiring as a player in 1958, Cocker became a Coach at Luton Town. In 1960 Cocker moved to Leeds United, as one of the country's first FA Coaching Certificate holders. In 1962, Cocker was called up by England national team manager Walter Winterbottom to become a squad trainer, combining his national duties with those of his club. Cocker left Leeds in 1974 to become full-time Assistant Manager to Don Revie with the English national team. When Revie left in 1977 to become manager of the United Arab Emirates national team, Cocker followed as his assistant. Cocker returned to England in 1979 to become a coach at Doncaster Rovers under former Leeds legend Billy Bremner, but he died in October of that year aged 55.\n\n1966 World Cup\nCocker was also a Team Trainer with the victorious England squad at the 1966 World Cup. Despite the England team winning the competition, Cocker was not awarded a medal, and a posthumous campaign for Cocker to be awarded one was launched by his family in February 2008. The campaign attracted support from former Leeds players including Eddie Gray, Peter Lorimer and Johnny Giles, as well as British politicians including Gerry Sutcliffe and Richard Caborn. Cocker was eventually awarded a medal in June 2009, which was collected on his behalf by his family.\n\nReferences\n\n1924 births\n1979 deaths\nEnglish footballers\nStockport County F.C. players\nAccrington Stanley F.C. (1891) players\nEnglish Football League players\nBritish Army personnel of World War II\nFootballers from Stockport\nAssociation football forwards\nReconnaissance Corps soldiers\nMilitary personnel from Cheshire",
"Harold Edward Winterbottom (1879 – 16 October 1953) was secretary of the South Australian Chamber of Manufactures 1907–1947 and organiser of various major public functions in Adelaide, South Australia.\n\nHistory\n\nWinterbottom was born in London, second son of Charles John Winterbottom (c. 1847 – 18 February 1890), who, as accountant for the English & Australian Copper Company of Port Adelaide, emigrated with his wife Jane Winterbottom, née Firkins and small family to South Australia on the RMS Iberia in 1888 and had a home on the Esplanade, Semaphore. \nC. J. Winterbottom was instrumental in the sacking of H. Trewenack, the manager of E & A Copper in 1889 and was subsequently appointed joint manager with metallurgist John Dunstan.\nAfter her husband's death Mrs Winterbottom ran a boarding house at two historic residences: \"Bute House\" at 176–186 Military Road, Semaphore, followed in 1896 by \"Airlie\", 9 Trinity Street, College Town, owned by Edward Kay, but by 1897 she was looking for other premises. No further trace of her has been found.\n\nNothing has been found of his schooling and little of his early days in the colony: he served an apprenticeship under G. F. Cleland, and J. H. Thompson was revealed as a childhood friend; he was a member of the Adelaide Rowing Club around 1905 and a Lacrosse player; from 1909 secretary of the Association.\n\nHe has been cited as organiser of the Royal Adelaide Show for six years from around 1900, an assertion which is difficult to verify.\n\nChamber of Manufactures\nHe first came to prominence in 1908, as the very active and astute secretary of the South Australian Chamber of Manufactures (Inc.) when they proposed a \"Manufacturers' Day\" to be held on 8 September during the coming Royal Show. The promotion, where shopkeepers displayed only Australian-manufactured goods in their windows was successful, and repeated the following year.\n\nHe organised a highly successful Manufacturers' Exhibition held at the Jubilee Exhibition Building in April–May 1910, in conjunction with which an extensive musical competition was organised by W. A. Cawthorne.\nWinterbottom was praised for his handling of a major hitch — the forced postponement of the opening night fireworks display.\n\nPatriotic and benevolent causes\nThe Lord Mayor's Patriotic Fund, for alleviating distress to families of servicemen, was inaugurated in August 1914, with the mayor (A. A. Simpson) as chairman and Winterbottom as hon. secretary. It was one of a great number of organisations with similar objectives, leading to much duplication of effort and uneven distribution of benefits. A year later its management committee merged with that of the South Australian Soldiers' Fund, so effectively became one entity of which Winterbottom was secretary until 1937.\nIn 1922 he sued printers Vardon & Sons and Verge Cyril Blunden for publishing a defamatory article Heartless Treatment of Soldiers' Widows in the Diggers' Gazette of 19 November 1921, for which he was awarded £1,000 without costs, plus written and published apologies.\n\nOther interests\nHe was secretary of Winemakers' Association of SA, and in April 1945 succeeded Charles Stanley Panton (father of Selkirk Panton) of Victoria as secretary of the Federal Viticultural Council. Two years later the office was transferred to Sydney and he was replaced by K. M. F. Powell.\n\nHis remains were interred at the Centennial Park Cemetery.\n\nFamily\nWinterbottom married Alice Francis in 1908. Their family included:\nH(arold) Denis Winterbottom (8 October 1910 – 2001) took over from his father as general secretary of the Chamber of Manufactures.\nRuth Alice Winterbottom (24 June 1912 – )\nBarbara Joyce Winterbottom (1913– )\n\nJanet Winterbottom (23 March 1921– ) married John Adams on 21 June 1941\nThey had a home at 29 Park Terrace (today's Greenhill Road), Eastwood.\n\nHis elder brother, Douglas Charles Winterbottom, married Ethel \"Elsie\" Francis on 30 July 1903. Both wives were daughters of Walter James Francis of Norwood. He was a chemist with the Wheat Harvest Board and the Victorian Wheat Commission in charge of weevil suppression, then from 1922 with John Darling & Son in Melbourne.\n\nNotes and references \n\n1879 births\n1953 deaths\nAustralian businesspeople"
] |
[
"Walter Winterbottom",
"England Team Manager",
"Can you provide me with a little information about Walter Winterbottom and his career as an England Team Manager?",
"Walter Winterbottom has the distinction of being England's first, youngest and longest serving England team manager;"
] | C_ec5491bbf741493a9efd0e572c087a79_1 | How long did he serve as an England team manager? | 2 | How long did Walter Winterbottom serve as an England team manager? | Walter Winterbottom | Walter Winterbottom has the distinction of being England's first, youngest and longest serving England team manager; he is also the only England manager to have had no previous professional managerial experience. In all matches in which he was in charge, England played 139, won 78, drew 33, and lost 28; goals for 383, against 196. At home England lost six matches in sixteen years. England won the British championship in thirteen out of his sixteen seasons (seven times outright and six times sharing top place). In the World Cup tournament England qualified on all four occasions, reaching the quarter finals twice, playing 28 matches, winning 15, drawing 7 and losing 6; goals for 75 against 35 (including World Cup qualifying matches). Although he had coaching and managerial responsibilities, Winterbottom never had the power to pick his own team (it was chosen by a selection committee). Over time his technical knowledge increasingly influenced selectors. Finally, prior to Alf Ramsey's arrival in 1962, he convinced the FA that the team manager must have sole control of selection. During his time Winterbottom repeatedly warned the English football establishment that countries in Continental Europe and South America were overtaking England and that English football had to change. His sixteen years as England team manager helped greatly in creating a modern and competitive national team and four years after his departure in 1966 England won the World Cup. His innovations included the introduction of England B, Under 23, youth and schoolboy teams providing players with continuity and experience in international football before being selected for the full England team. Notable victories during his era were 10-0 away to Portugal in 1947, 4-0 away to Italy in 1948, 4-2 at home to Brazil in 1956 and 9-3 at home to Scotland in 1961. Notable defeats were losing 1-0 to the USA in the 1950 World Cup and 6-3 at home to Hungary in 1953 when England lost her unbeaten home record to a foreign team, followed by a 7-1 away defeat to the same team in 1954. CANNOTANSWER | his departure in 1966 | Sir Walter Winterbottom (31 March 1913 – 16 February 2002) was the first manager of the England football team (1946–1962) and FA Director of Coaching. He resigned from the FA in 1962 to become General Secretary of the Central Council of Physical Recreation (CCPR) and was appointed as the first Director of the Sports Council in 1965. He was knighted for his services to sport in 1978 when he retired. The Football Association marked the 100th anniversary of Winterbottom's birth by commissioning a bust which was unveiled by Roy Hodgson at St Georges Park on 23 April 2013 in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the development of English football.
Early years
Born in Oldham, Lancashire, Walter Winterbottom was the only son of James Winterbottom, a ring frame fitter in a textile machine works. At the age of 12 he was awarded a scholarship to Oldham High School where he excelled. He won a bursary to Chester Diocesan Teachers Training College, graduating as the top student in 1933 and took a teaching post at the Alexandra Road School, Oldham. Whilst teaching he played football for Royton Amateurs and then Mossley where he was spotted by Manchester United. He signed for United as a part-time professional in 1936 but continued teaching. In his first season (1936/37) at Manchester United he showed great promise, playing 21 first team League games and 2 FA cup games, appearing as wing half and centre half. But in the following two seasons he made only 4 first team appearances. and 41 Central League appearances, his playing career effectively ended by a spinal disease, later diagnosed as ankylosing spondylitis. Whilst still playing for Manchester United he left his teaching position to study at Carnegie College of Physical Education, Leeds. On graduating he was appointed as a lecturer.
During World War II Winterbottom served as an officer in the Royal Air Force, reaching the rank of wing commander and working at the Air Ministry with overall responsibility for training PE instructors at home and overseas. He was also a guest player with Chelsea and ran coaching courses for the FA at grammar schools in London. In 1946 Stanley Rous, who was the secretary of The Football Association, persuaded the FA council to appoint Winterbottom as The FA's first Director of Coaching and suggested he take on the additional responsibility of being the first England team manager.
England team manager
Walter Winterbottom has the distinction of being England's first, youngest and longest serving England team manager; he is also the only England manager to have had no previous professional managerial experience. In all matches in which he was in charge, England played 139, won 78, drew 33, and lost 28; goals for 383, against 196. At home England lost six matches in sixteen years. England won the British championship in thirteen out of his sixteen seasons (seven times outright and six times sharing top place). In the World Cup tournament England qualified on all four occasions, reaching the quarter finals twice, playing 28 matches, winning 15, drawing 7 and losing 6; goals for 75 against 35 (including World Cup qualifying matches).
Although he had coaching and managerial responsibilities, Winterbottom never had the power to pick his own team (it was chosen by a selection committee). Over time his technical knowledge increasingly influenced selectors. Finally, prior to Alf Ramsey's arrival in 1962, he convinced the FA that the team manager must have sole control of selection.
During his time Winterbottom repeatedly warned the English football establishment that countries in Continental Europe and South America were overtaking England and that English football had to change. His sixteen years as England team manager helped greatly in creating a modern and competitive national team and four years after his departure in 1966 England won the World Cup. His innovations included the introduction of England B, Under 23, youth and schoolboy teams providing players with continuity and experience in international football before being selected for the full England team.
Notable victories during his era were 10—0 away to Portugal in 1947, 4—0 away to Italy in 1948, 3—1 at home to recently crowned World Champions West Germany in 1954 after the 4—2 at home to Brazil in 1956 and 9—3 at home to Scotland in 1961. Notable defeats were losing 2–0 to the Republic of Ireland at Goodison Park, losing 1—0 to the USA in the 1950 World Cup and 6—3 at home to Hungary in 1953 when England lost their unbeaten home record to a foreign team at Wembley, followed by a 7—1 away defeat to the same team in 1954.
Also while he was manager, England visited Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Denmark, Mexico, Peru, Portugal, the Soviet Union, United States and Uruguay for the first time.
FIFA World Cup record
Winterbottom led England to four consecutive World Cup finals, a record subsequently equalled only by Helmut Schön of West Germany. England entered the World Cup for the first time in 1950, qualifying for the tournament in Brazil by winning the British Home Championship. England had never before played in South America. They beat Chile by 2—0 but lost 1—0 to the USA and 1—0 to Spain to be eliminated in the first round.
Winterbottom again led England to qualification in Switzerland in 1954 by winning the British Home championship. A 4—4 draw against Belgium and a 2—0 victory against Switzerland took them to the quarter finals where they were beaten 4—2 by the defending champions, Uruguay.
England qualified for the 1958 FIFA World Cup in Sweden with wins over the Republic of Ireland and Denmark, with a team that had lost only once in 17 games. Three months before the tournament began the Munich air disaster robbed the team of key players from Manchester United: Roger Byrne, Tommy Taylor and Duncan Edwards died. England drew against the USSR, Brazil and Austria but lost to the Soviet Union in a playoff for a quarter-final place.
Winterbottom again led his team to qualification for the 1962 World Cup in Chile with wins over Portugal and Luxembourg. After progressing from their group on goal average, England reached the quarter-finals but were beaten 3—1 by the eventual winners, Brazil.
FA Director of Coaching
Although Winterbottom is best known as the England team manager, it is in coaching that he made important contributions to the development of English football. He made no secret of his belief that his job as Director of Coaching was the more important of his two roles at the FA.
When he joined the FA in 1946, club directors, managers and players were cynical about the need for coaching but Winterbottom had a passion for coaching and a vision of how it should develop.
He soon created a national coaching scheme with summer residential courses at Lilleshall, Shropshire, and persuaded some of his international players to take the courses that led to exams for the FA preliminary and full coaching badges. This gave the scheme credibility. They developed their teaching skills by coaching in schools and then moved into part-time coaching positions in junior clubs. He gathered around him a cadre of young FA staff coaches: men like Bill Nicholson, Don Howe, Alan Brown, Ron Greenwood, Dave Sexton, Malcolm Allison, Joe Mercer, Vic Buckingham, Jimmy Hill and Bobby Robson. Over time a new breed of managers emerged in the League clubs and began to change attitudes to coaching.
Winterbottom's courses were expanded to include professional players, referees, schoolmasters, club trainers, schoolboys and youth leaders. In addition to Lilleshall they were held at Loughborough College, Carnegie College, Bisham Abbey and Birmingham University. In 1947 three hundred had taken the full coaching award and the numbers of qualified coaches grew each year.
The courses attracted international participation and praise. Winterbottom was regarded by many as a leading technical thinker and exponent of association football, of his generation, in the world and lectured internationally.
He inspired a new generation of managers, most notably Ron Greenwood and Bobby Robson, who graduated through every level of coaching, both eventually becoming England team manager.
Criticism
In assessing Winterbottom's tenure as England manager, Goldblatt writes that "[Winterbottom] introduced a measure of tactical thinking and discussion to the England squad, though his inability to anticipate or learn significantly from the Hungarian debacle suggests that his grasp of tactics and communication with the players was limited." William Baker writes that Winterbottom, because of his "upper-class origins [sic]", could not "effectively instruct, much less inspire, working-class footballers." Football journalist Brian Glanville said in an interview: "I got on very well with Walter Winterbottom, but he was a rotten manager."
Publishing
Winterbottom was also responsible for the publishing at the FA. The first coaching bulletin was launched in 1946 and this became the FA Bulletin and then the FA News. The FA Year Book was introduced in 1948 along with the FA Book for Boys annual. The first coaching films and film strips followed in 1950.
An important landmark was the publication of Winterbottom's book, Soccer Coaching, the first modern soccer coaching manual. This was followed by three more books, Skilful Soccer, Modern Soccer and Training for Soccer.
Sports administrator
In 1962 Winterbottom resigned from the FA and took up an appointment as General Secretary of the Central Council of Physical Recreation and two years later became the Director of the newly formed Sports Council. He stepped onto the wider stage of sport and emerged to have a profound effect on sport in Britain during the second half of the twentieth century.
Central Council of Physical Recreation
At the Central Council of Physical Education (CCPR) Winterbottom worked to provide coaches and better facilities for sports governing bodies. He soon became involved in the ongoing political debate about the recommendations of the 1960 Report of the Wolfenden Committee on Sport, which had recommended the establishment of a Sports Council responsible for distributing government money to sport. He was in favour but the CCPR was divided on the issue. In 1965 the Government under set up a Sports Council and Winterbottom was seconded to become the first Director of the Sports Council with Denis Howell as his chairman.
Sports Council
Winterbottom believed that participation in a sport played a much more important role in society that was generally accepted. For 16 years he battled to win significantly more investment in sport from national and local government to support a Sport for All campaign. Despite a harsh economic climate great progress was made in providing new facilities. In ten years 499 sports centres were built and 524 new swimming pools. Under his leadership sports governing bodies were helped to develop more professional organisations and provide more coaches. He conceived the idea of the Sports Aid Foundation, raising money from industry to back young elite sportsmen and women with Olympic medal winning chances.
He was a member of the Council of Europe and Chairman of the Committee for the Development of Sport and was influential in the acceptance of the Sport For All concept by Canada and UNESCO.
Later life
In 1978, after reaching the age of 65, Winterbottom retired from the Sports Council and was knighted for his services to sport. He became an advisor to the British government on ways in which British manufacturers of sports equipment could work with foreign firms. In 1979, he visited Australia and New Zealand to help their governments to support sport in the community.
He was head of the FIFA Technical Studies Group for the World Cup in 1966, 1970, 1974, 1978 and a member in 1982. In 1985 The Winterbottom Report, an FA enquiry into artificial playing surfaces was published and in 1987–89 he was a member of the Football League enquiry into artificial pitches.
He died in the Royal Surrey Hospital after an operation for cancer on 16 February 2002. He was 88 years old. A memorial service was held at St. Nicolas Church, Cranleigh, Surrey on 1 March 2002.
Managerial statistics
England matches under Winterbottom
England's goal tally first.
England record versus other countries
Honours
British Home Championship
Champions: 1947, 1948, 1950, 1952 (shared), 1953 (shared), 1954, 1955, 1956 (shared), 1957, 1958 (shared), 1959 (shared), 1960 (shared), 1961
Runners-up: 1949, 1951
Notes
External links
Literature
Graham Morse: Sir Walter Winterbottom - The Father of Modern English Football, Kings Road Publishing, 2013.
People from Oldham
1913 births
2002 deaths
Royal Air Force personnel of World War II
English footballers
Footballers from Oldham
Manchester United F.C. players
English Football League players
English football managers
England national football team managers
1950 FIFA World Cup managers
1954 FIFA World Cup managers
1958 FIFA World Cup managers
1962 FIFA World Cup managers
Alumni of the University of Chester
Association football people awarded knighthoods
Knights Bachelor
Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
Chelsea F.C. wartime guest players
English Football Hall of Fame inductees
Association football midfielders
Mossley A.F.C. players
Olympic football managers of Great Britain
Royal Air Force wing commanders
Deaths from cancer in England
Association football coaches | true | [
"Wilfred McGuinness (born 25 October 1937) is an English former football player and manager, who played twice for England in his short playing career. He succeeded Sir Matt Busby as manager of Manchester United in 1969.\n\nFollowing his tenure at the Manchester United bench, McGuinness had a four year long stay in Greece, leading Panachaiki through their first appearance in a European competition, the 1973–74 UEFA Cup.\n\nMcGuinness' son Paul was Manchester United's U-18 team manager and assistant director of their youth academy for 17- to 21-year-olds.\n\nPlaying career\n\nAs a player, McGuinness captained Manchester, Lancashire and England at schoolboy level, and signed for Manchester United in January 1953. He made his first team debut against Wolverhampton Wanderers on 8 October 1955, turning 18 later that month. Competition for places was fierce but he played in enough matches to qualify for a medal when United won the league in 1956-57.\n\nHe was still a United player at the time of the Munich air disaster in 1958, but an injury had prevented him from playing so he was not on the plane that crashed. A broken leg in the 1959–60 season finished his playing career when he was only 22, and came just after he had been capped twice at senior level by the England team.\n\nManagerial career\nMcGuinness continued to be involved at Manchester United after the end of his playing career, getting heavily involved in coaching, and in 1964, he replaced Jimmy Murphy as reserve team manager, as Murphy left that role after managing the reserve team to a sixth FA Youth Cup triumph. In 1969, McGuinness was promoted from reserve team manager to manager of the first team after Matt Busby retired as manager at the end of the 1968–69 season. Appointed as Busby's successor in June 1969 at the age of 31, at a time when the Manchester United side was in transition and Busby had moved upstairs to become general manager, McGuinness's reign as Manchester United manager was not as successful as United had hoped. But McGuinness did lead United to three cup semi-finals during his reign, one in the FA Cup and two in the League Cup.\n\nMcGuinness was sacked in December 1970, after a dramatic comeback which saw United draw 4–4 with Derby County in a league fixture at the Baseball Ground. He returned to his old job as reserve team manager before leaving the club at the end of the season to become manager of Greek side Aris Thessaloniki. Meanwhile, Busby was re-appointed as manager until the end of the season, following McGuinness' dismissal as first team manager, until Frank O'Farrell was named as Manchester United's new manager in June 1971.\n\nUnder McGuinness, Aris finished fourth in the 1971–72 Alpha Ethniki season, and ninth a year later, albeit being tied with three teams in sixth position. He took over Panachaiki in 1973, finishing sixth in the Alpha Ethniki his first year while advancing to the UEFA Cup second round in the team's first ever European campaign. Panachaiki finished seventh in the 1974–75 Alpha Ethniki season and parted with McGuinness.\n\nIn 1975, McGuinness was hired by York City. On arriving at York, he took over a side which had just recorded its highest-ever league finish, only to take them through two successive relegations before leaving midway through a season which ended with York having to apply for re-election to the Football League. Later he worked as assistant manager and then caretaker manager at Hull City, and was on the coaching staff at Bury for 10 years, taking over as interim manager prior to the appointment of Sam Ellis in 1989.\n\nHonours\n\nPlayer\nManchester United\nFootball League First Division: 1955–56, 1956–57\nFA Charity Shield: 1956, 1957\n\nManagerial statistics\n\nReferences\n\n1937 births\nLiving people\nFootballers from Manchester\nEnglish footballers\nEngland youth international footballers\nEngland international footballers\nManchester United F.C. players\nEnglish Football League players\nEnglish football managers\nManchester United F.C. managers\nAris Thessaloniki F.C. managers\nPanachaiki F.C. managers\nYork City F.C. managers\nEnglish Football League managers\nBury F.C. non-playing staff\nAssociation football wing halves\nEngland under-23 international footballers\nEnglish Football League representative players\nEnglish expatriate sportspeople in Greece",
"Leslie Arnold Reed (born 12 December 1952) is an English football coach and was the manager of Charlton Athletic between 14 November and 24 December 2006. He was technical director of the Football Association between 2002 and 2004. Between April 2010 and November 2018, Reed was Head of Football Development and the Vice-Chairman of Football at Southampton.\n\nReed was appointed as football strategy advisor at Wrexham A.F.C. on 1 June 2021.\n\nEarly life and playing career\nReed was born in Wapping, London. He was on the books as a football player for Cambridge United, Watford, and Wycombe Wanderers as a centre forward, but did not play any league matches for any of the three clubs.\n\nCoaching and managerial career\n\nEarly career\nReed started his coaching career in non-league football, coaching both Finchley and Wealdstone. In 1985 Wealdstone won both the Football Conference and the FA Trophy with him.\n\nIn 1986, he joined the Football Association (FA) as development officer. He worked there for nine years in a variety of roles including Regional Director of Coaching and coach at The FA National School, where he worked with Joe Cole, Sol Campbell, Nick Barmby and Michael Owen, among others. He went to Italy for his first World Cup in 1990 with Bobby Robson's England team. It was the first of three World Cup finals tournaments in which he would serve his country.\n\nIn 1995 Reed left the FA to become Alan Curbishley's assistant at Charlton Athletic, helping them to gain promotion to the FA Premier League via the playoffs in 1998. After the final Reed was appointed Director of Technical Development at the FA by Howard Wilkinson, its Technical Director at the time. He coached England's new under-15 National Team to win the Nationwide Trophy at Wembley, defeating an Argentine team that included Carlos Tevez.\n\nThe FA and England\nIn 1998 Reed rejoined the FA as part of the England national coaching setup under Kevin Keegan. During Euro 2000, Keegan allowed Reed to respond to virtually all the tactical questions posed by the English press after England's defeat by Portugal. Many journalists wondered in their columns how a manager and his coaching team had allowed a minor member of their entourage such an important role.\n\nIn his autobiography, Gerrard: My Autobiography, Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard said that he had \"no respect\" for Les Reed after the way he treated him during England's Euro 2000 campaign. Gerrard wrote, \"To this day, I have no respect for Reed or (fellow coach) Derek Fazackerley. I was a young lad who had never been away from home to play football before. They didn't seem to understand that not everyone can board a plane, settle in a strange hotel far from the family they love, and find it easy. In fact they made me feel like shit. My homesickness worsened whenever I was forced to be in their company. I felt they could have shown more care and sympathy. They were always pushing me, always telling me to buck up my ideas.\"\n\nIn 2002 Reed replaced Howard Wilkinson as the FA's Technical Director. During his second spell at the FA he authored the FA's official coaching manual, The Official FA Guide to Basic Team Coaching, but he was sacked by the FA in 2004.\n\nCharlton Athletic\nReed worked for a time as a consultant. Among his clients was the Northern Ireland national football team, who would beat England during his stint with the side. He returned to Charlton to become Iain Dowie's assistant manager in summer 2006. Dowie was sacked on 14 November 2006 and Reed was promoted to replace him. During his six-week spell as manager Reed managed just one victory, and Charlton were knocked out of the League Cup by League Two team Wycombe Wanderers. Reed's spell at Charlton became infamous, as the media attacked him frequently, nicknaming him \"Les Misérables\" and \"Santa Clueless\", and he was later voted in an unofficial online poll \"the worst manager of all time\". He was replaced as manager by Alan Pardew on 24 December, leaving Charlton Athletic by mutual consent.\n\nFulham\nReed was linked with a consultancy role helping Northern Ireland boss Lawrie Sanchez, who approached him after a League Managers' Association meeting at West Bromwich Albion in February 2007. He had been considering consultancy roles with the football associations of Turkey and Latvia, and he revealed that he could return to Charlton in an overseas development role. After a period advising the Football Association of Ireland, he became first-team coach at Fulham in April 2007, where he helped the club retain their league position at the expense of Charlton. In June 2007 he was appointed Director of Football at Fulham, notably recruiting Chris Smalling from non-league football, later to be sold for an estimated 12 million pounds to Manchester United.\n\nBishop's Stortford\nOn 19 December 2008 Reed was appointed assistant manager on a voluntary basis at Bishop's Stortford in the Conference South, to help manager Mark Simpson, a long-standing friend. Here he was instrumental in recommending winger Danny Green to John Still, manager of Dagenham and Redbridge F.C.\n\nSouthampton\nOn 16 April 2010 Reed was appointed Head of Football Development and Support at Southampton, and later the Vice-Chairman, overseeing four main areas: the Youth Academy, Scouting and Recruitment, Sports medicine and Science, and Kit and Equipment Management. Reed left the club on 8 November 2018.\n\nFootball Association\nOn 21 December 2018, It was announced that Reed was appointed as the Football Association's technical director, and would take up the post in February 2019.\n\nManagerial stats\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nCharlton appoint Reed as new boss\n\n1952 births\nLiving people\nFootballers from Wapping\nEnglish footballers\nAssociation football forwards\nCambridge United F.C. players\nWatford F.C. players\nWycombe Wanderers F.C. players\nEnglish football managers\nCharlton Athletic F.C. managers\nPremier League managers\nFulham F.C. non-playing staff\nSouthampton F.C. non-playing staff\nSouthampton F.C. directors and chairmen\nWrexham A.F.C. non-playing staff"
] |
[
"Walter Winterbottom",
"England Team Manager",
"Can you provide me with a little information about Walter Winterbottom and his career as an England Team Manager?",
"Walter Winterbottom has the distinction of being England's first, youngest and longest serving England team manager;",
"How long did he serve as an England team manager?",
"his departure in 1966"
] | C_ec5491bbf741493a9efd0e572c087a79_1 | How old was he when he first began his career as a team manager? | 3 | How old was Walter Winterbottom when he first began his career as a team manager? | Walter Winterbottom | Walter Winterbottom has the distinction of being England's first, youngest and longest serving England team manager; he is also the only England manager to have had no previous professional managerial experience. In all matches in which he was in charge, England played 139, won 78, drew 33, and lost 28; goals for 383, against 196. At home England lost six matches in sixteen years. England won the British championship in thirteen out of his sixteen seasons (seven times outright and six times sharing top place). In the World Cup tournament England qualified on all four occasions, reaching the quarter finals twice, playing 28 matches, winning 15, drawing 7 and losing 6; goals for 75 against 35 (including World Cup qualifying matches). Although he had coaching and managerial responsibilities, Winterbottom never had the power to pick his own team (it was chosen by a selection committee). Over time his technical knowledge increasingly influenced selectors. Finally, prior to Alf Ramsey's arrival in 1962, he convinced the FA that the team manager must have sole control of selection. During his time Winterbottom repeatedly warned the English football establishment that countries in Continental Europe and South America were overtaking England and that English football had to change. His sixteen years as England team manager helped greatly in creating a modern and competitive national team and four years after his departure in 1966 England won the World Cup. His innovations included the introduction of England B, Under 23, youth and schoolboy teams providing players with continuity and experience in international football before being selected for the full England team. Notable victories during his era were 10-0 away to Portugal in 1947, 4-0 away to Italy in 1948, 4-2 at home to Brazil in 1956 and 9-3 at home to Scotland in 1961. Notable defeats were losing 1-0 to the USA in the 1950 World Cup and 6-3 at home to Hungary in 1953 when England lost her unbeaten home record to a foreign team, followed by a 7-1 away defeat to the same team in 1954. CANNOTANSWER | Walter Winterbottom has the distinction of being England's first, youngest | Sir Walter Winterbottom (31 March 1913 – 16 February 2002) was the first manager of the England football team (1946–1962) and FA Director of Coaching. He resigned from the FA in 1962 to become General Secretary of the Central Council of Physical Recreation (CCPR) and was appointed as the first Director of the Sports Council in 1965. He was knighted for his services to sport in 1978 when he retired. The Football Association marked the 100th anniversary of Winterbottom's birth by commissioning a bust which was unveiled by Roy Hodgson at St Georges Park on 23 April 2013 in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the development of English football.
Early years
Born in Oldham, Lancashire, Walter Winterbottom was the only son of James Winterbottom, a ring frame fitter in a textile machine works. At the age of 12 he was awarded a scholarship to Oldham High School where he excelled. He won a bursary to Chester Diocesan Teachers Training College, graduating as the top student in 1933 and took a teaching post at the Alexandra Road School, Oldham. Whilst teaching he played football for Royton Amateurs and then Mossley where he was spotted by Manchester United. He signed for United as a part-time professional in 1936 but continued teaching. In his first season (1936/37) at Manchester United he showed great promise, playing 21 first team League games and 2 FA cup games, appearing as wing half and centre half. But in the following two seasons he made only 4 first team appearances. and 41 Central League appearances, his playing career effectively ended by a spinal disease, later diagnosed as ankylosing spondylitis. Whilst still playing for Manchester United he left his teaching position to study at Carnegie College of Physical Education, Leeds. On graduating he was appointed as a lecturer.
During World War II Winterbottom served as an officer in the Royal Air Force, reaching the rank of wing commander and working at the Air Ministry with overall responsibility for training PE instructors at home and overseas. He was also a guest player with Chelsea and ran coaching courses for the FA at grammar schools in London. In 1946 Stanley Rous, who was the secretary of The Football Association, persuaded the FA council to appoint Winterbottom as The FA's first Director of Coaching and suggested he take on the additional responsibility of being the first England team manager.
England team manager
Walter Winterbottom has the distinction of being England's first, youngest and longest serving England team manager; he is also the only England manager to have had no previous professional managerial experience. In all matches in which he was in charge, England played 139, won 78, drew 33, and lost 28; goals for 383, against 196. At home England lost six matches in sixteen years. England won the British championship in thirteen out of his sixteen seasons (seven times outright and six times sharing top place). In the World Cup tournament England qualified on all four occasions, reaching the quarter finals twice, playing 28 matches, winning 15, drawing 7 and losing 6; goals for 75 against 35 (including World Cup qualifying matches).
Although he had coaching and managerial responsibilities, Winterbottom never had the power to pick his own team (it was chosen by a selection committee). Over time his technical knowledge increasingly influenced selectors. Finally, prior to Alf Ramsey's arrival in 1962, he convinced the FA that the team manager must have sole control of selection.
During his time Winterbottom repeatedly warned the English football establishment that countries in Continental Europe and South America were overtaking England and that English football had to change. His sixteen years as England team manager helped greatly in creating a modern and competitive national team and four years after his departure in 1966 England won the World Cup. His innovations included the introduction of England B, Under 23, youth and schoolboy teams providing players with continuity and experience in international football before being selected for the full England team.
Notable victories during his era were 10—0 away to Portugal in 1947, 4—0 away to Italy in 1948, 3—1 at home to recently crowned World Champions West Germany in 1954 after the 4—2 at home to Brazil in 1956 and 9—3 at home to Scotland in 1961. Notable defeats were losing 2–0 to the Republic of Ireland at Goodison Park, losing 1—0 to the USA in the 1950 World Cup and 6—3 at home to Hungary in 1953 when England lost their unbeaten home record to a foreign team at Wembley, followed by a 7—1 away defeat to the same team in 1954.
Also while he was manager, England visited Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Denmark, Mexico, Peru, Portugal, the Soviet Union, United States and Uruguay for the first time.
FIFA World Cup record
Winterbottom led England to four consecutive World Cup finals, a record subsequently equalled only by Helmut Schön of West Germany. England entered the World Cup for the first time in 1950, qualifying for the tournament in Brazil by winning the British Home Championship. England had never before played in South America. They beat Chile by 2—0 but lost 1—0 to the USA and 1—0 to Spain to be eliminated in the first round.
Winterbottom again led England to qualification in Switzerland in 1954 by winning the British Home championship. A 4—4 draw against Belgium and a 2—0 victory against Switzerland took them to the quarter finals where they were beaten 4—2 by the defending champions, Uruguay.
England qualified for the 1958 FIFA World Cup in Sweden with wins over the Republic of Ireland and Denmark, with a team that had lost only once in 17 games. Three months before the tournament began the Munich air disaster robbed the team of key players from Manchester United: Roger Byrne, Tommy Taylor and Duncan Edwards died. England drew against the USSR, Brazil and Austria but lost to the Soviet Union in a playoff for a quarter-final place.
Winterbottom again led his team to qualification for the 1962 World Cup in Chile with wins over Portugal and Luxembourg. After progressing from their group on goal average, England reached the quarter-finals but were beaten 3—1 by the eventual winners, Brazil.
FA Director of Coaching
Although Winterbottom is best known as the England team manager, it is in coaching that he made important contributions to the development of English football. He made no secret of his belief that his job as Director of Coaching was the more important of his two roles at the FA.
When he joined the FA in 1946, club directors, managers and players were cynical about the need for coaching but Winterbottom had a passion for coaching and a vision of how it should develop.
He soon created a national coaching scheme with summer residential courses at Lilleshall, Shropshire, and persuaded some of his international players to take the courses that led to exams for the FA preliminary and full coaching badges. This gave the scheme credibility. They developed their teaching skills by coaching in schools and then moved into part-time coaching positions in junior clubs. He gathered around him a cadre of young FA staff coaches: men like Bill Nicholson, Don Howe, Alan Brown, Ron Greenwood, Dave Sexton, Malcolm Allison, Joe Mercer, Vic Buckingham, Jimmy Hill and Bobby Robson. Over time a new breed of managers emerged in the League clubs and began to change attitudes to coaching.
Winterbottom's courses were expanded to include professional players, referees, schoolmasters, club trainers, schoolboys and youth leaders. In addition to Lilleshall they were held at Loughborough College, Carnegie College, Bisham Abbey and Birmingham University. In 1947 three hundred had taken the full coaching award and the numbers of qualified coaches grew each year.
The courses attracted international participation and praise. Winterbottom was regarded by many as a leading technical thinker and exponent of association football, of his generation, in the world and lectured internationally.
He inspired a new generation of managers, most notably Ron Greenwood and Bobby Robson, who graduated through every level of coaching, both eventually becoming England team manager.
Criticism
In assessing Winterbottom's tenure as England manager, Goldblatt writes that "[Winterbottom] introduced a measure of tactical thinking and discussion to the England squad, though his inability to anticipate or learn significantly from the Hungarian debacle suggests that his grasp of tactics and communication with the players was limited." William Baker writes that Winterbottom, because of his "upper-class origins [sic]", could not "effectively instruct, much less inspire, working-class footballers." Football journalist Brian Glanville said in an interview: "I got on very well with Walter Winterbottom, but he was a rotten manager."
Publishing
Winterbottom was also responsible for the publishing at the FA. The first coaching bulletin was launched in 1946 and this became the FA Bulletin and then the FA News. The FA Year Book was introduced in 1948 along with the FA Book for Boys annual. The first coaching films and film strips followed in 1950.
An important landmark was the publication of Winterbottom's book, Soccer Coaching, the first modern soccer coaching manual. This was followed by three more books, Skilful Soccer, Modern Soccer and Training for Soccer.
Sports administrator
In 1962 Winterbottom resigned from the FA and took up an appointment as General Secretary of the Central Council of Physical Recreation and two years later became the Director of the newly formed Sports Council. He stepped onto the wider stage of sport and emerged to have a profound effect on sport in Britain during the second half of the twentieth century.
Central Council of Physical Recreation
At the Central Council of Physical Education (CCPR) Winterbottom worked to provide coaches and better facilities for sports governing bodies. He soon became involved in the ongoing political debate about the recommendations of the 1960 Report of the Wolfenden Committee on Sport, which had recommended the establishment of a Sports Council responsible for distributing government money to sport. He was in favour but the CCPR was divided on the issue. In 1965 the Government under set up a Sports Council and Winterbottom was seconded to become the first Director of the Sports Council with Denis Howell as his chairman.
Sports Council
Winterbottom believed that participation in a sport played a much more important role in society that was generally accepted. For 16 years he battled to win significantly more investment in sport from national and local government to support a Sport for All campaign. Despite a harsh economic climate great progress was made in providing new facilities. In ten years 499 sports centres were built and 524 new swimming pools. Under his leadership sports governing bodies were helped to develop more professional organisations and provide more coaches. He conceived the idea of the Sports Aid Foundation, raising money from industry to back young elite sportsmen and women with Olympic medal winning chances.
He was a member of the Council of Europe and Chairman of the Committee for the Development of Sport and was influential in the acceptance of the Sport For All concept by Canada and UNESCO.
Later life
In 1978, after reaching the age of 65, Winterbottom retired from the Sports Council and was knighted for his services to sport. He became an advisor to the British government on ways in which British manufacturers of sports equipment could work with foreign firms. In 1979, he visited Australia and New Zealand to help their governments to support sport in the community.
He was head of the FIFA Technical Studies Group for the World Cup in 1966, 1970, 1974, 1978 and a member in 1982. In 1985 The Winterbottom Report, an FA enquiry into artificial playing surfaces was published and in 1987–89 he was a member of the Football League enquiry into artificial pitches.
He died in the Royal Surrey Hospital after an operation for cancer on 16 February 2002. He was 88 years old. A memorial service was held at St. Nicolas Church, Cranleigh, Surrey on 1 March 2002.
Managerial statistics
England matches under Winterbottom
England's goal tally first.
England record versus other countries
Honours
British Home Championship
Champions: 1947, 1948, 1950, 1952 (shared), 1953 (shared), 1954, 1955, 1956 (shared), 1957, 1958 (shared), 1959 (shared), 1960 (shared), 1961
Runners-up: 1949, 1951
Notes
External links
Literature
Graham Morse: Sir Walter Winterbottom - The Father of Modern English Football, Kings Road Publishing, 2013.
People from Oldham
1913 births
2002 deaths
Royal Air Force personnel of World War II
English footballers
Footballers from Oldham
Manchester United F.C. players
English Football League players
English football managers
England national football team managers
1950 FIFA World Cup managers
1954 FIFA World Cup managers
1958 FIFA World Cup managers
1962 FIFA World Cup managers
Alumni of the University of Chester
Association football people awarded knighthoods
Knights Bachelor
Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
Chelsea F.C. wartime guest players
English Football Hall of Fame inductees
Association football midfielders
Mossley A.F.C. players
Olympic football managers of Great Britain
Royal Air Force wing commanders
Deaths from cancer in England
Association football coaches | true | [
"George Walter \"Watch\" Burnham (May 20, 1860 – November 18, 1902) was an American umpire and manager in Major League Baseball who was briefly in the National League in the 1880s. He was born in Albion, Michigan.\n\nUmpiring career\nBurnham began his major league officiating career in when he called 41 National League games. On July 25 of that season, he called balls and strikes for a no-hitter thrown by \"Old Hoss\" Radbourn of the Providence Grays.\n\nHis next appearances as an umpire were single games in and another in , but he returned to part-time officiating when he called 33 games in , and 31 games in . In all, Watch umpired 107 games, 99 of which were behind the plate.\n\nManagerial career\nBurnhan began the season as the manager of an upstart National League team, the Indianapolis Hoosiers. However, after a very slow start, the team had a 6–22 record, and was in last place; he was fired on June 2. Fred Thomas took over as interim manager in addition to his front office duties.\n\nLater life\nWatch Burnham died at the age of 42 in Detroit, Michigan, and is interred at Oakwood Cemetery in Saline, Michigan.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nBaseball-Reference.com - career managing record\nRetrosheet\n\n1860 births\n1902 deaths\nIndianapolis Hoosiers (NL) managers\nSportspeople from Michigan\nMajor League Baseball umpires\nPeople from Albion, Michigan",
"Eric van der Luer (born 16 August 1965 in Maastricht, Netherlands) is a former Dutch international footballer who played as a midfielder.\n\nHe began his career with hometown club MVV in 1982 and spent five seasons there before playing with Belgian side Assent FC for a season. He joined Roda JC in 1988 and would spend the next 14 seasons at the club, also winning two caps for his country. After joining Alemannia Aachen in 2002, van der Luer retired from professional football after the 2003–04 season. With Roda JC, van der Luer won the KNVB Beker (Dutch Cup) twice in (1996–97 and 1999–2000), scoring in both finals.\n\nCoaching career\nFrom 2004 to 2008, van der Luer worked as a youth coach for Roda JC. In 2008, he then became manager of Alemannia Aachen's reserve team. He was later also appointed sporting director of the club's youth sector alongside his reserve team manager job. He stopped as manager for the reserve team at the end of the 2009–10 season and continued as head of the youth sector and assistant manager for the first team. He left the club in September 2011 alongside manager Peter Hyballa.\n\nIn July 2012 van der Luer became new manager of KFC Uerdingen 05. He guided the club to promotion to the Regionalliga in his first season. He was sacked in March 2014.\n\nIn 2015 he return to his old club Roda JC as manager for the second team, Jong Roda JC, and a scout for the first team. When Robert Molenaar was sacked as manager of Roda's first team in March 2019, van der Luer was installed as caretaker manager for the rest of the season. Van der Luer left the club at the end of the season, where his contract expired.\n\nHonours\nRoda JC\nKNVB Cup: 1996–97, 1999–2000\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Career Stats \n\n1965 births\nLiving people\nDutch footballers\nDutch football managers\nMVV Maastricht players\nRoda JC Kerkrade players\nAlemannia Aachen players\n2. Bundesliga players\nKFC Uerdingen 05 managers\nRoda JC Kerkrade managers\nNetherlands international footballers\nAssociation football midfielders\nSV Meerssen players\nRKSV Groene Ster players\nFootballers from Maastricht"
] |
[
"Walter Winterbottom",
"England Team Manager",
"Can you provide me with a little information about Walter Winterbottom and his career as an England Team Manager?",
"Walter Winterbottom has the distinction of being England's first, youngest and longest serving England team manager;",
"How long did he serve as an England team manager?",
"his departure in 1966",
"How old was he when he first began his career as a team manager?",
"Walter Winterbottom has the distinction of being England's first, youngest"
] | C_ec5491bbf741493a9efd0e572c087a79_1 | What led to his career as a team manager? | 4 | What led to career of Walter Winterbottom as a team manager? | Walter Winterbottom | Walter Winterbottom has the distinction of being England's first, youngest and longest serving England team manager; he is also the only England manager to have had no previous professional managerial experience. In all matches in which he was in charge, England played 139, won 78, drew 33, and lost 28; goals for 383, against 196. At home England lost six matches in sixteen years. England won the British championship in thirteen out of his sixteen seasons (seven times outright and six times sharing top place). In the World Cup tournament England qualified on all four occasions, reaching the quarter finals twice, playing 28 matches, winning 15, drawing 7 and losing 6; goals for 75 against 35 (including World Cup qualifying matches). Although he had coaching and managerial responsibilities, Winterbottom never had the power to pick his own team (it was chosen by a selection committee). Over time his technical knowledge increasingly influenced selectors. Finally, prior to Alf Ramsey's arrival in 1962, he convinced the FA that the team manager must have sole control of selection. During his time Winterbottom repeatedly warned the English football establishment that countries in Continental Europe and South America were overtaking England and that English football had to change. His sixteen years as England team manager helped greatly in creating a modern and competitive national team and four years after his departure in 1966 England won the World Cup. His innovations included the introduction of England B, Under 23, youth and schoolboy teams providing players with continuity and experience in international football before being selected for the full England team. Notable victories during his era were 10-0 away to Portugal in 1947, 4-0 away to Italy in 1948, 4-2 at home to Brazil in 1956 and 9-3 at home to Scotland in 1961. Notable defeats were losing 1-0 to the USA in the 1950 World Cup and 6-3 at home to Hungary in 1953 when England lost her unbeaten home record to a foreign team, followed by a 7-1 away defeat to the same team in 1954. CANNOTANSWER | he is also the only England manager to have had no previous professional managerial experience. | Sir Walter Winterbottom (31 March 1913 – 16 February 2002) was the first manager of the England football team (1946–1962) and FA Director of Coaching. He resigned from the FA in 1962 to become General Secretary of the Central Council of Physical Recreation (CCPR) and was appointed as the first Director of the Sports Council in 1965. He was knighted for his services to sport in 1978 when he retired. The Football Association marked the 100th anniversary of Winterbottom's birth by commissioning a bust which was unveiled by Roy Hodgson at St Georges Park on 23 April 2013 in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the development of English football.
Early years
Born in Oldham, Lancashire, Walter Winterbottom was the only son of James Winterbottom, a ring frame fitter in a textile machine works. At the age of 12 he was awarded a scholarship to Oldham High School where he excelled. He won a bursary to Chester Diocesan Teachers Training College, graduating as the top student in 1933 and took a teaching post at the Alexandra Road School, Oldham. Whilst teaching he played football for Royton Amateurs and then Mossley where he was spotted by Manchester United. He signed for United as a part-time professional in 1936 but continued teaching. In his first season (1936/37) at Manchester United he showed great promise, playing 21 first team League games and 2 FA cup games, appearing as wing half and centre half. But in the following two seasons he made only 4 first team appearances. and 41 Central League appearances, his playing career effectively ended by a spinal disease, later diagnosed as ankylosing spondylitis. Whilst still playing for Manchester United he left his teaching position to study at Carnegie College of Physical Education, Leeds. On graduating he was appointed as a lecturer.
During World War II Winterbottom served as an officer in the Royal Air Force, reaching the rank of wing commander and working at the Air Ministry with overall responsibility for training PE instructors at home and overseas. He was also a guest player with Chelsea and ran coaching courses for the FA at grammar schools in London. In 1946 Stanley Rous, who was the secretary of The Football Association, persuaded the FA council to appoint Winterbottom as The FA's first Director of Coaching and suggested he take on the additional responsibility of being the first England team manager.
England team manager
Walter Winterbottom has the distinction of being England's first, youngest and longest serving England team manager; he is also the only England manager to have had no previous professional managerial experience. In all matches in which he was in charge, England played 139, won 78, drew 33, and lost 28; goals for 383, against 196. At home England lost six matches in sixteen years. England won the British championship in thirteen out of his sixteen seasons (seven times outright and six times sharing top place). In the World Cup tournament England qualified on all four occasions, reaching the quarter finals twice, playing 28 matches, winning 15, drawing 7 and losing 6; goals for 75 against 35 (including World Cup qualifying matches).
Although he had coaching and managerial responsibilities, Winterbottom never had the power to pick his own team (it was chosen by a selection committee). Over time his technical knowledge increasingly influenced selectors. Finally, prior to Alf Ramsey's arrival in 1962, he convinced the FA that the team manager must have sole control of selection.
During his time Winterbottom repeatedly warned the English football establishment that countries in Continental Europe and South America were overtaking England and that English football had to change. His sixteen years as England team manager helped greatly in creating a modern and competitive national team and four years after his departure in 1966 England won the World Cup. His innovations included the introduction of England B, Under 23, youth and schoolboy teams providing players with continuity and experience in international football before being selected for the full England team.
Notable victories during his era were 10—0 away to Portugal in 1947, 4—0 away to Italy in 1948, 3—1 at home to recently crowned World Champions West Germany in 1954 after the 4—2 at home to Brazil in 1956 and 9—3 at home to Scotland in 1961. Notable defeats were losing 2–0 to the Republic of Ireland at Goodison Park, losing 1—0 to the USA in the 1950 World Cup and 6—3 at home to Hungary in 1953 when England lost their unbeaten home record to a foreign team at Wembley, followed by a 7—1 away defeat to the same team in 1954.
Also while he was manager, England visited Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Denmark, Mexico, Peru, Portugal, the Soviet Union, United States and Uruguay for the first time.
FIFA World Cup record
Winterbottom led England to four consecutive World Cup finals, a record subsequently equalled only by Helmut Schön of West Germany. England entered the World Cup for the first time in 1950, qualifying for the tournament in Brazil by winning the British Home Championship. England had never before played in South America. They beat Chile by 2—0 but lost 1—0 to the USA and 1—0 to Spain to be eliminated in the first round.
Winterbottom again led England to qualification in Switzerland in 1954 by winning the British Home championship. A 4—4 draw against Belgium and a 2—0 victory against Switzerland took them to the quarter finals where they were beaten 4—2 by the defending champions, Uruguay.
England qualified for the 1958 FIFA World Cup in Sweden with wins over the Republic of Ireland and Denmark, with a team that had lost only once in 17 games. Three months before the tournament began the Munich air disaster robbed the team of key players from Manchester United: Roger Byrne, Tommy Taylor and Duncan Edwards died. England drew against the USSR, Brazil and Austria but lost to the Soviet Union in a playoff for a quarter-final place.
Winterbottom again led his team to qualification for the 1962 World Cup in Chile with wins over Portugal and Luxembourg. After progressing from their group on goal average, England reached the quarter-finals but were beaten 3—1 by the eventual winners, Brazil.
FA Director of Coaching
Although Winterbottom is best known as the England team manager, it is in coaching that he made important contributions to the development of English football. He made no secret of his belief that his job as Director of Coaching was the more important of his two roles at the FA.
When he joined the FA in 1946, club directors, managers and players were cynical about the need for coaching but Winterbottom had a passion for coaching and a vision of how it should develop.
He soon created a national coaching scheme with summer residential courses at Lilleshall, Shropshire, and persuaded some of his international players to take the courses that led to exams for the FA preliminary and full coaching badges. This gave the scheme credibility. They developed their teaching skills by coaching in schools and then moved into part-time coaching positions in junior clubs. He gathered around him a cadre of young FA staff coaches: men like Bill Nicholson, Don Howe, Alan Brown, Ron Greenwood, Dave Sexton, Malcolm Allison, Joe Mercer, Vic Buckingham, Jimmy Hill and Bobby Robson. Over time a new breed of managers emerged in the League clubs and began to change attitudes to coaching.
Winterbottom's courses were expanded to include professional players, referees, schoolmasters, club trainers, schoolboys and youth leaders. In addition to Lilleshall they were held at Loughborough College, Carnegie College, Bisham Abbey and Birmingham University. In 1947 three hundred had taken the full coaching award and the numbers of qualified coaches grew each year.
The courses attracted international participation and praise. Winterbottom was regarded by many as a leading technical thinker and exponent of association football, of his generation, in the world and lectured internationally.
He inspired a new generation of managers, most notably Ron Greenwood and Bobby Robson, who graduated through every level of coaching, both eventually becoming England team manager.
Criticism
In assessing Winterbottom's tenure as England manager, Goldblatt writes that "[Winterbottom] introduced a measure of tactical thinking and discussion to the England squad, though his inability to anticipate or learn significantly from the Hungarian debacle suggests that his grasp of tactics and communication with the players was limited." William Baker writes that Winterbottom, because of his "upper-class origins [sic]", could not "effectively instruct, much less inspire, working-class footballers." Football journalist Brian Glanville said in an interview: "I got on very well with Walter Winterbottom, but he was a rotten manager."
Publishing
Winterbottom was also responsible for the publishing at the FA. The first coaching bulletin was launched in 1946 and this became the FA Bulletin and then the FA News. The FA Year Book was introduced in 1948 along with the FA Book for Boys annual. The first coaching films and film strips followed in 1950.
An important landmark was the publication of Winterbottom's book, Soccer Coaching, the first modern soccer coaching manual. This was followed by three more books, Skilful Soccer, Modern Soccer and Training for Soccer.
Sports administrator
In 1962 Winterbottom resigned from the FA and took up an appointment as General Secretary of the Central Council of Physical Recreation and two years later became the Director of the newly formed Sports Council. He stepped onto the wider stage of sport and emerged to have a profound effect on sport in Britain during the second half of the twentieth century.
Central Council of Physical Recreation
At the Central Council of Physical Education (CCPR) Winterbottom worked to provide coaches and better facilities for sports governing bodies. He soon became involved in the ongoing political debate about the recommendations of the 1960 Report of the Wolfenden Committee on Sport, which had recommended the establishment of a Sports Council responsible for distributing government money to sport. He was in favour but the CCPR was divided on the issue. In 1965 the Government under set up a Sports Council and Winterbottom was seconded to become the first Director of the Sports Council with Denis Howell as his chairman.
Sports Council
Winterbottom believed that participation in a sport played a much more important role in society that was generally accepted. For 16 years he battled to win significantly more investment in sport from national and local government to support a Sport for All campaign. Despite a harsh economic climate great progress was made in providing new facilities. In ten years 499 sports centres were built and 524 new swimming pools. Under his leadership sports governing bodies were helped to develop more professional organisations and provide more coaches. He conceived the idea of the Sports Aid Foundation, raising money from industry to back young elite sportsmen and women with Olympic medal winning chances.
He was a member of the Council of Europe and Chairman of the Committee for the Development of Sport and was influential in the acceptance of the Sport For All concept by Canada and UNESCO.
Later life
In 1978, after reaching the age of 65, Winterbottom retired from the Sports Council and was knighted for his services to sport. He became an advisor to the British government on ways in which British manufacturers of sports equipment could work with foreign firms. In 1979, he visited Australia and New Zealand to help their governments to support sport in the community.
He was head of the FIFA Technical Studies Group for the World Cup in 1966, 1970, 1974, 1978 and a member in 1982. In 1985 The Winterbottom Report, an FA enquiry into artificial playing surfaces was published and in 1987–89 he was a member of the Football League enquiry into artificial pitches.
He died in the Royal Surrey Hospital after an operation for cancer on 16 February 2002. He was 88 years old. A memorial service was held at St. Nicolas Church, Cranleigh, Surrey on 1 March 2002.
Managerial statistics
England matches under Winterbottom
England's goal tally first.
England record versus other countries
Honours
British Home Championship
Champions: 1947, 1948, 1950, 1952 (shared), 1953 (shared), 1954, 1955, 1956 (shared), 1957, 1958 (shared), 1959 (shared), 1960 (shared), 1961
Runners-up: 1949, 1951
Notes
External links
Literature
Graham Morse: Sir Walter Winterbottom - The Father of Modern English Football, Kings Road Publishing, 2013.
People from Oldham
1913 births
2002 deaths
Royal Air Force personnel of World War II
English footballers
Footballers from Oldham
Manchester United F.C. players
English Football League players
English football managers
England national football team managers
1950 FIFA World Cup managers
1954 FIFA World Cup managers
1958 FIFA World Cup managers
1962 FIFA World Cup managers
Alumni of the University of Chester
Association football people awarded knighthoods
Knights Bachelor
Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
Chelsea F.C. wartime guest players
English Football Hall of Fame inductees
Association football midfielders
Mossley A.F.C. players
Olympic football managers of Great Britain
Royal Air Force wing commanders
Deaths from cancer in England
Association football coaches | true | [
"Khaled Fahad Al-Atwi (born 13 April 1977) is a Saudi Arabian professional football manager and former player who was most recently head coach of Al-Ettifaq.\n\nAl-Atwi began his coaching career as the manager of Al-Oyoon. A year later he joined Al-Nojoom and led them to the First Division. In 2016, he was appointed as the manager of Saudi Arabia U20 national team. In 2019, Al-Atwi became the manager of Pro League side Al-Ettifaq.\n\nManagerial career\nAl-Atwi began his coaching career in the youth teams of Al-Oyoon in 2008. He then became the assistant manager of Al-Fateh's youth team before rejoining Al-Oyoon to become the first team manager in 2009. In 2011, Al-Atwi was appointed as the first team manager of Al-Nojoom. In his 5 seasons at the club, Al-Atwi led Al-Nojoom to promotion to the Second Division and the First Division respectively. On June 14 2016, Al-Atwi was appointed as the manager of the Saudi Arabia U20 national team. He led the young falcons to a first-place finish in the 2018 AFC U-19 Championship and was also the manager during the disastrous 2019 FIFA U-20 World Cup where Saudi Arabia exited from the group stage with a crushing defeat. By doing so, Al-Atwi became the youngest Saudi manager to lead the national team to continental glory. On 17 June 2019, Al-Atwi resigned from his post as the manager of the U20 national team after 3 years. Later on the same day, he was announced as the manager of Pro League club Al-Ettifaq. On 14 October 2021, it was announced that Al-Atwi and Al-Ettifaq agreed to end their contract mutually and he would take charge of his last match on 16 October against Al-Ahli.\n\nPersonal life\nAl-Atwi was born in Dammam but moved to Al-Oyoon, located in the Al-Ahsa Governorate, during his childhood. He is married and has four sons; Fahad, Saud, Mohammed, and Sattam. Al-Atwi graduated from King Faisal University and has a Bachelor's degree in Sociology. He used to work as a history teacher in a school in Urayrah. He later became a principal of a school in Al Kulabiyah.\n\nHonours\n\nManager\nAl-Nojoom\nSaudi Third Division: 2012–13\nSaudi Second Division runners-up: 2014–15\n\nSaudi Arabia U20\nAFC U-19 Championship: 2018\n\nIndividual\nSaudi Professional League Manager of the Month: December 2020\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1977 births\nLiving people\nPeople from Dammam\nSaudi Arabian footballers\nAssociation football midfielders\nAl Oyoon FC players\nSaudi Fourth Division players\nSaudi Arabian football managers\nSaudi Professional League managers\nEttifaq FC managers",
"Ahad Sheykhlari (, born 18 April 1960 in Tabriz, Iran) is an Iranian professional football player who was forced to leave the green field unexpectedly due to pressure from his team mates and club’s official, whom believed his success foreshadowed his teammates' popularity; he is currently a professional football manager. He started his football career as an amateur player in Tabriz dirt fields and neighborhood clubs. The very first football club he joined was Charandab’s neighborhood club Peykan. He played his professional career for Machine Sazi, Montakhabeh Tabriz, Idem F.C., Tractor and Esteghlal Rasht F.C. He had scored 115 goals during his playing career for Tractor as an Striker. At the end of his playing career Vasile Godja manager of Tractor used him as a Defender and he shined well as a successful Sweeper. He also represented Iran at national level, playing for Iran's under-20 football team and the Iran national football team and has 20 national caps with five goals. Tractor's fans named him as Tabriz's Maradona due to his aggressive technique, speed and scoring, and he kicks the specific skills.\n\nAfter being forced to leave his playing career unexpectedly, he became a football manager, and although he had been a player-manager during his player career in Idem F.C., he started his first sole managerial career in Shahrdari Shot F.C. in 1996-1997, he became U20 Shahrdari Tabriz F.C.’s manager and lead the team to Iran’s U20 champions league and earned the 1st place and the cup. Later, he became Tractor’s manager at difficult times when a few matches had already passed half season and the team suffered terribly from continuous losses, dead draws and no goals. For a brief period of about six months in 2002, he revived Tractor from what was known to Tractor‘s fans most darkest days, but all the heroic effort of Sheykhlari and the players went in vain due to lost intuitive the club had suffered under Mahmoud Yavari’s management. Many fans today still believe that if he was the manager Tractor before season start, Tractor never would have fallen to 2nd Division and might have even been one of the three tops. He later became manager of Shahid Ghandi and led the club to promotion to the Iran Pro League for the first time. He later managed other Tabriz based clubs, Machine Sazi which was in the verge of demotion to the 2nd division, and managed to save the club by 9 matches and an average of 2.3 points per game, and Shahrdari Tabriz. In July 2007, he returned to Tractor as a manager but due to the heavy fringe made by a band of disobedient players, whom managed to provoke hooligans against the club, the team failed from promotion to the first division, though he left the club at first rank in the table. He was also the manager of Mes Soongoun for four years, which he took from the 3rd Division to the Azadegan League. He became the first Iranian manager to promote a team from 3rd Division to the 1st in succession every year.\n\nHonours\n\nAs a player\nTractor\n\n Hazfi Cup Runner-up (1): 1993–94\n 2nd Division Runner-up (1): 1995–96\n\nAs a manager\nShahid Ghandi\n Azadegan League (1): 2004–05\n\nMes Soongoun\n 3rd Division (1): 2011–12\n 2nd Division (1): 2012–13\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Official website of Ahad Sheykhlari \n\n1960 births\nLiving people\nIranian footballers\nIranian Azerbaijani sportspeople\nIran international footballers\nTractor S.C. players\nSportspeople from Tabriz\nTractor S.C. managers\nMachine Sazi F.C. players\nAssociation football forwards\nIranian football managers"
] |
[
"Walter Winterbottom",
"England Team Manager",
"Can you provide me with a little information about Walter Winterbottom and his career as an England Team Manager?",
"Walter Winterbottom has the distinction of being England's first, youngest and longest serving England team manager;",
"How long did he serve as an England team manager?",
"his departure in 1966",
"How old was he when he first began his career as a team manager?",
"Walter Winterbottom has the distinction of being England's first, youngest",
"What led to his career as a team manager?",
"he is also the only England manager to have had no previous professional managerial experience."
] | C_ec5491bbf741493a9efd0e572c087a79_1 | Was he ever trained? | 5 | Was Walter Winterbottom ever trained? | Walter Winterbottom | Walter Winterbottom has the distinction of being England's first, youngest and longest serving England team manager; he is also the only England manager to have had no previous professional managerial experience. In all matches in which he was in charge, England played 139, won 78, drew 33, and lost 28; goals for 383, against 196. At home England lost six matches in sixteen years. England won the British championship in thirteen out of his sixteen seasons (seven times outright and six times sharing top place). In the World Cup tournament England qualified on all four occasions, reaching the quarter finals twice, playing 28 matches, winning 15, drawing 7 and losing 6; goals for 75 against 35 (including World Cup qualifying matches). Although he had coaching and managerial responsibilities, Winterbottom never had the power to pick his own team (it was chosen by a selection committee). Over time his technical knowledge increasingly influenced selectors. Finally, prior to Alf Ramsey's arrival in 1962, he convinced the FA that the team manager must have sole control of selection. During his time Winterbottom repeatedly warned the English football establishment that countries in Continental Europe and South America were overtaking England and that English football had to change. His sixteen years as England team manager helped greatly in creating a modern and competitive national team and four years after his departure in 1966 England won the World Cup. His innovations included the introduction of England B, Under 23, youth and schoolboy teams providing players with continuity and experience in international football before being selected for the full England team. Notable victories during his era were 10-0 away to Portugal in 1947, 4-0 away to Italy in 1948, 4-2 at home to Brazil in 1956 and 9-3 at home to Scotland in 1961. Notable defeats were losing 1-0 to the USA in the 1950 World Cup and 6-3 at home to Hungary in 1953 when England lost her unbeaten home record to a foreign team, followed by a 7-1 away defeat to the same team in 1954. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Sir Walter Winterbottom (31 March 1913 – 16 February 2002) was the first manager of the England football team (1946–1962) and FA Director of Coaching. He resigned from the FA in 1962 to become General Secretary of the Central Council of Physical Recreation (CCPR) and was appointed as the first Director of the Sports Council in 1965. He was knighted for his services to sport in 1978 when he retired. The Football Association marked the 100th anniversary of Winterbottom's birth by commissioning a bust which was unveiled by Roy Hodgson at St Georges Park on 23 April 2013 in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the development of English football.
Early years
Born in Oldham, Lancashire, Walter Winterbottom was the only son of James Winterbottom, a ring frame fitter in a textile machine works. At the age of 12 he was awarded a scholarship to Oldham High School where he excelled. He won a bursary to Chester Diocesan Teachers Training College, graduating as the top student in 1933 and took a teaching post at the Alexandra Road School, Oldham. Whilst teaching he played football for Royton Amateurs and then Mossley where he was spotted by Manchester United. He signed for United as a part-time professional in 1936 but continued teaching. In his first season (1936/37) at Manchester United he showed great promise, playing 21 first team League games and 2 FA cup games, appearing as wing half and centre half. But in the following two seasons he made only 4 first team appearances. and 41 Central League appearances, his playing career effectively ended by a spinal disease, later diagnosed as ankylosing spondylitis. Whilst still playing for Manchester United he left his teaching position to study at Carnegie College of Physical Education, Leeds. On graduating he was appointed as a lecturer.
During World War II Winterbottom served as an officer in the Royal Air Force, reaching the rank of wing commander and working at the Air Ministry with overall responsibility for training PE instructors at home and overseas. He was also a guest player with Chelsea and ran coaching courses for the FA at grammar schools in London. In 1946 Stanley Rous, who was the secretary of The Football Association, persuaded the FA council to appoint Winterbottom as The FA's first Director of Coaching and suggested he take on the additional responsibility of being the first England team manager.
England team manager
Walter Winterbottom has the distinction of being England's first, youngest and longest serving England team manager; he is also the only England manager to have had no previous professional managerial experience. In all matches in which he was in charge, England played 139, won 78, drew 33, and lost 28; goals for 383, against 196. At home England lost six matches in sixteen years. England won the British championship in thirteen out of his sixteen seasons (seven times outright and six times sharing top place). In the World Cup tournament England qualified on all four occasions, reaching the quarter finals twice, playing 28 matches, winning 15, drawing 7 and losing 6; goals for 75 against 35 (including World Cup qualifying matches).
Although he had coaching and managerial responsibilities, Winterbottom never had the power to pick his own team (it was chosen by a selection committee). Over time his technical knowledge increasingly influenced selectors. Finally, prior to Alf Ramsey's arrival in 1962, he convinced the FA that the team manager must have sole control of selection.
During his time Winterbottom repeatedly warned the English football establishment that countries in Continental Europe and South America were overtaking England and that English football had to change. His sixteen years as England team manager helped greatly in creating a modern and competitive national team and four years after his departure in 1966 England won the World Cup. His innovations included the introduction of England B, Under 23, youth and schoolboy teams providing players with continuity and experience in international football before being selected for the full England team.
Notable victories during his era were 10—0 away to Portugal in 1947, 4—0 away to Italy in 1948, 3—1 at home to recently crowned World Champions West Germany in 1954 after the 4—2 at home to Brazil in 1956 and 9—3 at home to Scotland in 1961. Notable defeats were losing 2–0 to the Republic of Ireland at Goodison Park, losing 1—0 to the USA in the 1950 World Cup and 6—3 at home to Hungary in 1953 when England lost their unbeaten home record to a foreign team at Wembley, followed by a 7—1 away defeat to the same team in 1954.
Also while he was manager, England visited Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Denmark, Mexico, Peru, Portugal, the Soviet Union, United States and Uruguay for the first time.
FIFA World Cup record
Winterbottom led England to four consecutive World Cup finals, a record subsequently equalled only by Helmut Schön of West Germany. England entered the World Cup for the first time in 1950, qualifying for the tournament in Brazil by winning the British Home Championship. England had never before played in South America. They beat Chile by 2—0 but lost 1—0 to the USA and 1—0 to Spain to be eliminated in the first round.
Winterbottom again led England to qualification in Switzerland in 1954 by winning the British Home championship. A 4—4 draw against Belgium and a 2—0 victory against Switzerland took them to the quarter finals where they were beaten 4—2 by the defending champions, Uruguay.
England qualified for the 1958 FIFA World Cup in Sweden with wins over the Republic of Ireland and Denmark, with a team that had lost only once in 17 games. Three months before the tournament began the Munich air disaster robbed the team of key players from Manchester United: Roger Byrne, Tommy Taylor and Duncan Edwards died. England drew against the USSR, Brazil and Austria but lost to the Soviet Union in a playoff for a quarter-final place.
Winterbottom again led his team to qualification for the 1962 World Cup in Chile with wins over Portugal and Luxembourg. After progressing from their group on goal average, England reached the quarter-finals but were beaten 3—1 by the eventual winners, Brazil.
FA Director of Coaching
Although Winterbottom is best known as the England team manager, it is in coaching that he made important contributions to the development of English football. He made no secret of his belief that his job as Director of Coaching was the more important of his two roles at the FA.
When he joined the FA in 1946, club directors, managers and players were cynical about the need for coaching but Winterbottom had a passion for coaching and a vision of how it should develop.
He soon created a national coaching scheme with summer residential courses at Lilleshall, Shropshire, and persuaded some of his international players to take the courses that led to exams for the FA preliminary and full coaching badges. This gave the scheme credibility. They developed their teaching skills by coaching in schools and then moved into part-time coaching positions in junior clubs. He gathered around him a cadre of young FA staff coaches: men like Bill Nicholson, Don Howe, Alan Brown, Ron Greenwood, Dave Sexton, Malcolm Allison, Joe Mercer, Vic Buckingham, Jimmy Hill and Bobby Robson. Over time a new breed of managers emerged in the League clubs and began to change attitudes to coaching.
Winterbottom's courses were expanded to include professional players, referees, schoolmasters, club trainers, schoolboys and youth leaders. In addition to Lilleshall they were held at Loughborough College, Carnegie College, Bisham Abbey and Birmingham University. In 1947 three hundred had taken the full coaching award and the numbers of qualified coaches grew each year.
The courses attracted international participation and praise. Winterbottom was regarded by many as a leading technical thinker and exponent of association football, of his generation, in the world and lectured internationally.
He inspired a new generation of managers, most notably Ron Greenwood and Bobby Robson, who graduated through every level of coaching, both eventually becoming England team manager.
Criticism
In assessing Winterbottom's tenure as England manager, Goldblatt writes that "[Winterbottom] introduced a measure of tactical thinking and discussion to the England squad, though his inability to anticipate or learn significantly from the Hungarian debacle suggests that his grasp of tactics and communication with the players was limited." William Baker writes that Winterbottom, because of his "upper-class origins [sic]", could not "effectively instruct, much less inspire, working-class footballers." Football journalist Brian Glanville said in an interview: "I got on very well with Walter Winterbottom, but he was a rotten manager."
Publishing
Winterbottom was also responsible for the publishing at the FA. The first coaching bulletin was launched in 1946 and this became the FA Bulletin and then the FA News. The FA Year Book was introduced in 1948 along with the FA Book for Boys annual. The first coaching films and film strips followed in 1950.
An important landmark was the publication of Winterbottom's book, Soccer Coaching, the first modern soccer coaching manual. This was followed by three more books, Skilful Soccer, Modern Soccer and Training for Soccer.
Sports administrator
In 1962 Winterbottom resigned from the FA and took up an appointment as General Secretary of the Central Council of Physical Recreation and two years later became the Director of the newly formed Sports Council. He stepped onto the wider stage of sport and emerged to have a profound effect on sport in Britain during the second half of the twentieth century.
Central Council of Physical Recreation
At the Central Council of Physical Education (CCPR) Winterbottom worked to provide coaches and better facilities for sports governing bodies. He soon became involved in the ongoing political debate about the recommendations of the 1960 Report of the Wolfenden Committee on Sport, which had recommended the establishment of a Sports Council responsible for distributing government money to sport. He was in favour but the CCPR was divided on the issue. In 1965 the Government under set up a Sports Council and Winterbottom was seconded to become the first Director of the Sports Council with Denis Howell as his chairman.
Sports Council
Winterbottom believed that participation in a sport played a much more important role in society that was generally accepted. For 16 years he battled to win significantly more investment in sport from national and local government to support a Sport for All campaign. Despite a harsh economic climate great progress was made in providing new facilities. In ten years 499 sports centres were built and 524 new swimming pools. Under his leadership sports governing bodies were helped to develop more professional organisations and provide more coaches. He conceived the idea of the Sports Aid Foundation, raising money from industry to back young elite sportsmen and women with Olympic medal winning chances.
He was a member of the Council of Europe and Chairman of the Committee for the Development of Sport and was influential in the acceptance of the Sport For All concept by Canada and UNESCO.
Later life
In 1978, after reaching the age of 65, Winterbottom retired from the Sports Council and was knighted for his services to sport. He became an advisor to the British government on ways in which British manufacturers of sports equipment could work with foreign firms. In 1979, he visited Australia and New Zealand to help their governments to support sport in the community.
He was head of the FIFA Technical Studies Group for the World Cup in 1966, 1970, 1974, 1978 and a member in 1982. In 1985 The Winterbottom Report, an FA enquiry into artificial playing surfaces was published and in 1987–89 he was a member of the Football League enquiry into artificial pitches.
He died in the Royal Surrey Hospital after an operation for cancer on 16 February 2002. He was 88 years old. A memorial service was held at St. Nicolas Church, Cranleigh, Surrey on 1 March 2002.
Managerial statistics
England matches under Winterbottom
England's goal tally first.
England record versus other countries
Honours
British Home Championship
Champions: 1947, 1948, 1950, 1952 (shared), 1953 (shared), 1954, 1955, 1956 (shared), 1957, 1958 (shared), 1959 (shared), 1960 (shared), 1961
Runners-up: 1949, 1951
Notes
External links
Literature
Graham Morse: Sir Walter Winterbottom - The Father of Modern English Football, Kings Road Publishing, 2013.
People from Oldham
1913 births
2002 deaths
Royal Air Force personnel of World War II
English footballers
Footballers from Oldham
Manchester United F.C. players
English Football League players
English football managers
England national football team managers
1950 FIFA World Cup managers
1954 FIFA World Cup managers
1958 FIFA World Cup managers
1962 FIFA World Cup managers
Alumni of the University of Chester
Association football people awarded knighthoods
Knights Bachelor
Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
Chelsea F.C. wartime guest players
English Football Hall of Fame inductees
Association football midfielders
Mossley A.F.C. players
Olympic football managers of Great Britain
Royal Air Force wing commanders
Deaths from cancer in England
Association football coaches | false | [
"Night Nurse (26 May 1971 – 1998) was an Irish-bred English-trained National Hunt racehorse. Night Nurse garnered 35 wins, winning a total of £174,507 viz. He won 3 races on the flat at 3 and 4-years old and placed 3 times; he also won 32 National Hunt races, 19 wins over hurdles and 13 wins in steeplechases from 64 starts. He was awarded the highest Timeform rating ever given to a hurdler and has been acclaimed amongst the greatest ever hurdlers.\n\nBackground\nNight Nurse was a bay gelding bred at the Cloghran Stud in Ireland by Eleanor Samuelson, the daughter of Dick Dawson. He was sired by Falcon out of Samuelson's mare Florence Nightingale. At the Newmarket Houghton sale in 1972 Night Nurse was sold for 1,300 guineas to the trainer Peter Easterby. During his racing career he was owned by Reg Spencer and trained by Easterby at his stables at Habton Grange near Malton, North Yorkshire. Night Nurse was ridden in many of his early races by the Irishman Paddy Broderick, who used a long-rein style.\n\nRacing career\n\nFlat racing\nNight Nurse failed to win in six races as a two-year-old in 1973 and won once, in a maiden race at Ripon Racecourse, from six attempts in the following year. He won two of his three races in 1975 and finished second in his only flat race of 1976.\n\nHurdle racing\nHe won 10 consecutive hurdle races from 1975–76 which included an undefeated season where he won the Welsh, English and Scottish Champion hurdles.\n\nNight Nurse's second victory in the Champion Hurdle is widely regarded as the highest-quality race ever run over hurdles. His Peter Easterby-trained stablemate Sea Pigeon, a future dual winner, was fourth, with the great Monksfield beaten by two lengths into second. A last-flight mistake contributed to the runner-up's defeat, and the pair's rematch at Aintree shortly after in the Templegate Hurdle is still talked about. It was jump racing's most famous ever dead-heat.\n\nSteeplechasing\nNight Nurse was successfully switched to chasing and was several times fancied to win the Cheltenham Gold Cup, but the closest he came was second to Little Owl in 1981.\n\nAssessment\nTimeform rated Night Nurse at 182, the highest rating ever awarded to a hurdler.\n\nPedigree\n\nNight Nurse was inbred 4 × 4 to Fair Trial, meaning that this stallion appears twice in the fourth generation of his pedigree.\n\nReferences\n\n1971 racehorse births\n1998 racehorse deaths\nCheltenham Festival winners\nRacehorses bred in the United Kingdom\nRacehorses trained in the United Kingdom\nNational Hunt racehorses\nThoroughbred family 3-e\nByerley Turk sire line\nChampion Hurdle winners",
"Naturalism (19 October 1988 – 13 July 2018) was a New Zealand-bred Australian-trained thoroughbred racehorse.\n\nBackground\nFoaled in New Zealand on 19 October 1988, Naturalism was a bay stallion sired by Palace Music, a Kentucky-bred, French-trained racehorse who won the Champion Stakes in 1984. At stud, Palace Music (Naturalism's sire) was best known as the sire of the American champion Cigar. Naturalism was purchased as a yearling for A$35,000 by Anthony Freedman.\n\nRacing career\nNaturalism's wins included three Group One races.\n\nAccording to the Freedman brothers website, Lee Freedman rated Naturalism as one of the five best horses he ever trained. The website also says that \"Probably his greatest performance was his second in the Japan Cup, as he wasn't really a 2400m horse.\"\n\nNaturalism died at Meringo Stud, New South Wales, Australia, on 13 July 2018.\n\nReferences\n\n1988 racehorse births\n2018 racehorse deaths\nThoroughbred family 16-c\nRacehorses bred in New Zealand\nRacehorses trained in Australia"
] |
[
"Walter Winterbottom",
"England Team Manager",
"Can you provide me with a little information about Walter Winterbottom and his career as an England Team Manager?",
"Walter Winterbottom has the distinction of being England's first, youngest and longest serving England team manager;",
"How long did he serve as an England team manager?",
"his departure in 1966",
"How old was he when he first began his career as a team manager?",
"Walter Winterbottom has the distinction of being England's first, youngest",
"What led to his career as a team manager?",
"he is also the only England manager to have had no previous professional managerial experience.",
"Was he ever trained?",
"I don't know."
] | C_ec5491bbf741493a9efd0e572c087a79_1 | What else is unique about this time as a team manager? | 6 | What else is unique about the training time as a team manager besides the career of Walter Winterbottom? | Walter Winterbottom | Walter Winterbottom has the distinction of being England's first, youngest and longest serving England team manager; he is also the only England manager to have had no previous professional managerial experience. In all matches in which he was in charge, England played 139, won 78, drew 33, and lost 28; goals for 383, against 196. At home England lost six matches in sixteen years. England won the British championship in thirteen out of his sixteen seasons (seven times outright and six times sharing top place). In the World Cup tournament England qualified on all four occasions, reaching the quarter finals twice, playing 28 matches, winning 15, drawing 7 and losing 6; goals for 75 against 35 (including World Cup qualifying matches). Although he had coaching and managerial responsibilities, Winterbottom never had the power to pick his own team (it was chosen by a selection committee). Over time his technical knowledge increasingly influenced selectors. Finally, prior to Alf Ramsey's arrival in 1962, he convinced the FA that the team manager must have sole control of selection. During his time Winterbottom repeatedly warned the English football establishment that countries in Continental Europe and South America were overtaking England and that English football had to change. His sixteen years as England team manager helped greatly in creating a modern and competitive national team and four years after his departure in 1966 England won the World Cup. His innovations included the introduction of England B, Under 23, youth and schoolboy teams providing players with continuity and experience in international football before being selected for the full England team. Notable victories during his era were 10-0 away to Portugal in 1947, 4-0 away to Italy in 1948, 4-2 at home to Brazil in 1956 and 9-3 at home to Scotland in 1961. Notable defeats were losing 1-0 to the USA in the 1950 World Cup and 6-3 at home to Hungary in 1953 when England lost her unbeaten home record to a foreign team, followed by a 7-1 away defeat to the same team in 1954. CANNOTANSWER | he is also the only England manager to have had no previous professional managerial experience. | Sir Walter Winterbottom (31 March 1913 – 16 February 2002) was the first manager of the England football team (1946–1962) and FA Director of Coaching. He resigned from the FA in 1962 to become General Secretary of the Central Council of Physical Recreation (CCPR) and was appointed as the first Director of the Sports Council in 1965. He was knighted for his services to sport in 1978 when he retired. The Football Association marked the 100th anniversary of Winterbottom's birth by commissioning a bust which was unveiled by Roy Hodgson at St Georges Park on 23 April 2013 in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the development of English football.
Early years
Born in Oldham, Lancashire, Walter Winterbottom was the only son of James Winterbottom, a ring frame fitter in a textile machine works. At the age of 12 he was awarded a scholarship to Oldham High School where he excelled. He won a bursary to Chester Diocesan Teachers Training College, graduating as the top student in 1933 and took a teaching post at the Alexandra Road School, Oldham. Whilst teaching he played football for Royton Amateurs and then Mossley where he was spotted by Manchester United. He signed for United as a part-time professional in 1936 but continued teaching. In his first season (1936/37) at Manchester United he showed great promise, playing 21 first team League games and 2 FA cup games, appearing as wing half and centre half. But in the following two seasons he made only 4 first team appearances. and 41 Central League appearances, his playing career effectively ended by a spinal disease, later diagnosed as ankylosing spondylitis. Whilst still playing for Manchester United he left his teaching position to study at Carnegie College of Physical Education, Leeds. On graduating he was appointed as a lecturer.
During World War II Winterbottom served as an officer in the Royal Air Force, reaching the rank of wing commander and working at the Air Ministry with overall responsibility for training PE instructors at home and overseas. He was also a guest player with Chelsea and ran coaching courses for the FA at grammar schools in London. In 1946 Stanley Rous, who was the secretary of The Football Association, persuaded the FA council to appoint Winterbottom as The FA's first Director of Coaching and suggested he take on the additional responsibility of being the first England team manager.
England team manager
Walter Winterbottom has the distinction of being England's first, youngest and longest serving England team manager; he is also the only England manager to have had no previous professional managerial experience. In all matches in which he was in charge, England played 139, won 78, drew 33, and lost 28; goals for 383, against 196. At home England lost six matches in sixteen years. England won the British championship in thirteen out of his sixteen seasons (seven times outright and six times sharing top place). In the World Cup tournament England qualified on all four occasions, reaching the quarter finals twice, playing 28 matches, winning 15, drawing 7 and losing 6; goals for 75 against 35 (including World Cup qualifying matches).
Although he had coaching and managerial responsibilities, Winterbottom never had the power to pick his own team (it was chosen by a selection committee). Over time his technical knowledge increasingly influenced selectors. Finally, prior to Alf Ramsey's arrival in 1962, he convinced the FA that the team manager must have sole control of selection.
During his time Winterbottom repeatedly warned the English football establishment that countries in Continental Europe and South America were overtaking England and that English football had to change. His sixteen years as England team manager helped greatly in creating a modern and competitive national team and four years after his departure in 1966 England won the World Cup. His innovations included the introduction of England B, Under 23, youth and schoolboy teams providing players with continuity and experience in international football before being selected for the full England team.
Notable victories during his era were 10—0 away to Portugal in 1947, 4—0 away to Italy in 1948, 3—1 at home to recently crowned World Champions West Germany in 1954 after the 4—2 at home to Brazil in 1956 and 9—3 at home to Scotland in 1961. Notable defeats were losing 2–0 to the Republic of Ireland at Goodison Park, losing 1—0 to the USA in the 1950 World Cup and 6—3 at home to Hungary in 1953 when England lost their unbeaten home record to a foreign team at Wembley, followed by a 7—1 away defeat to the same team in 1954.
Also while he was manager, England visited Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Denmark, Mexico, Peru, Portugal, the Soviet Union, United States and Uruguay for the first time.
FIFA World Cup record
Winterbottom led England to four consecutive World Cup finals, a record subsequently equalled only by Helmut Schön of West Germany. England entered the World Cup for the first time in 1950, qualifying for the tournament in Brazil by winning the British Home Championship. England had never before played in South America. They beat Chile by 2—0 but lost 1—0 to the USA and 1—0 to Spain to be eliminated in the first round.
Winterbottom again led England to qualification in Switzerland in 1954 by winning the British Home championship. A 4—4 draw against Belgium and a 2—0 victory against Switzerland took them to the quarter finals where they were beaten 4—2 by the defending champions, Uruguay.
England qualified for the 1958 FIFA World Cup in Sweden with wins over the Republic of Ireland and Denmark, with a team that had lost only once in 17 games. Three months before the tournament began the Munich air disaster robbed the team of key players from Manchester United: Roger Byrne, Tommy Taylor and Duncan Edwards died. England drew against the USSR, Brazil and Austria but lost to the Soviet Union in a playoff for a quarter-final place.
Winterbottom again led his team to qualification for the 1962 World Cup in Chile with wins over Portugal and Luxembourg. After progressing from their group on goal average, England reached the quarter-finals but were beaten 3—1 by the eventual winners, Brazil.
FA Director of Coaching
Although Winterbottom is best known as the England team manager, it is in coaching that he made important contributions to the development of English football. He made no secret of his belief that his job as Director of Coaching was the more important of his two roles at the FA.
When he joined the FA in 1946, club directors, managers and players were cynical about the need for coaching but Winterbottom had a passion for coaching and a vision of how it should develop.
He soon created a national coaching scheme with summer residential courses at Lilleshall, Shropshire, and persuaded some of his international players to take the courses that led to exams for the FA preliminary and full coaching badges. This gave the scheme credibility. They developed their teaching skills by coaching in schools and then moved into part-time coaching positions in junior clubs. He gathered around him a cadre of young FA staff coaches: men like Bill Nicholson, Don Howe, Alan Brown, Ron Greenwood, Dave Sexton, Malcolm Allison, Joe Mercer, Vic Buckingham, Jimmy Hill and Bobby Robson. Over time a new breed of managers emerged in the League clubs and began to change attitudes to coaching.
Winterbottom's courses were expanded to include professional players, referees, schoolmasters, club trainers, schoolboys and youth leaders. In addition to Lilleshall they were held at Loughborough College, Carnegie College, Bisham Abbey and Birmingham University. In 1947 three hundred had taken the full coaching award and the numbers of qualified coaches grew each year.
The courses attracted international participation and praise. Winterbottom was regarded by many as a leading technical thinker and exponent of association football, of his generation, in the world and lectured internationally.
He inspired a new generation of managers, most notably Ron Greenwood and Bobby Robson, who graduated through every level of coaching, both eventually becoming England team manager.
Criticism
In assessing Winterbottom's tenure as England manager, Goldblatt writes that "[Winterbottom] introduced a measure of tactical thinking and discussion to the England squad, though his inability to anticipate or learn significantly from the Hungarian debacle suggests that his grasp of tactics and communication with the players was limited." William Baker writes that Winterbottom, because of his "upper-class origins [sic]", could not "effectively instruct, much less inspire, working-class footballers." Football journalist Brian Glanville said in an interview: "I got on very well with Walter Winterbottom, but he was a rotten manager."
Publishing
Winterbottom was also responsible for the publishing at the FA. The first coaching bulletin was launched in 1946 and this became the FA Bulletin and then the FA News. The FA Year Book was introduced in 1948 along with the FA Book for Boys annual. The first coaching films and film strips followed in 1950.
An important landmark was the publication of Winterbottom's book, Soccer Coaching, the first modern soccer coaching manual. This was followed by three more books, Skilful Soccer, Modern Soccer and Training for Soccer.
Sports administrator
In 1962 Winterbottom resigned from the FA and took up an appointment as General Secretary of the Central Council of Physical Recreation and two years later became the Director of the newly formed Sports Council. He stepped onto the wider stage of sport and emerged to have a profound effect on sport in Britain during the second half of the twentieth century.
Central Council of Physical Recreation
At the Central Council of Physical Education (CCPR) Winterbottom worked to provide coaches and better facilities for sports governing bodies. He soon became involved in the ongoing political debate about the recommendations of the 1960 Report of the Wolfenden Committee on Sport, which had recommended the establishment of a Sports Council responsible for distributing government money to sport. He was in favour but the CCPR was divided on the issue. In 1965 the Government under set up a Sports Council and Winterbottom was seconded to become the first Director of the Sports Council with Denis Howell as his chairman.
Sports Council
Winterbottom believed that participation in a sport played a much more important role in society that was generally accepted. For 16 years he battled to win significantly more investment in sport from national and local government to support a Sport for All campaign. Despite a harsh economic climate great progress was made in providing new facilities. In ten years 499 sports centres were built and 524 new swimming pools. Under his leadership sports governing bodies were helped to develop more professional organisations and provide more coaches. He conceived the idea of the Sports Aid Foundation, raising money from industry to back young elite sportsmen and women with Olympic medal winning chances.
He was a member of the Council of Europe and Chairman of the Committee for the Development of Sport and was influential in the acceptance of the Sport For All concept by Canada and UNESCO.
Later life
In 1978, after reaching the age of 65, Winterbottom retired from the Sports Council and was knighted for his services to sport. He became an advisor to the British government on ways in which British manufacturers of sports equipment could work with foreign firms. In 1979, he visited Australia and New Zealand to help their governments to support sport in the community.
He was head of the FIFA Technical Studies Group for the World Cup in 1966, 1970, 1974, 1978 and a member in 1982. In 1985 The Winterbottom Report, an FA enquiry into artificial playing surfaces was published and in 1987–89 he was a member of the Football League enquiry into artificial pitches.
He died in the Royal Surrey Hospital after an operation for cancer on 16 February 2002. He was 88 years old. A memorial service was held at St. Nicolas Church, Cranleigh, Surrey on 1 March 2002.
Managerial statistics
England matches under Winterbottom
England's goal tally first.
England record versus other countries
Honours
British Home Championship
Champions: 1947, 1948, 1950, 1952 (shared), 1953 (shared), 1954, 1955, 1956 (shared), 1957, 1958 (shared), 1959 (shared), 1960 (shared), 1961
Runners-up: 1949, 1951
Notes
External links
Literature
Graham Morse: Sir Walter Winterbottom - The Father of Modern English Football, Kings Road Publishing, 2013.
People from Oldham
1913 births
2002 deaths
Royal Air Force personnel of World War II
English footballers
Footballers from Oldham
Manchester United F.C. players
English Football League players
English football managers
England national football team managers
1950 FIFA World Cup managers
1954 FIFA World Cup managers
1958 FIFA World Cup managers
1962 FIFA World Cup managers
Alumni of the University of Chester
Association football people awarded knighthoods
Knights Bachelor
Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
Chelsea F.C. wartime guest players
English Football Hall of Fame inductees
Association football midfielders
Mossley A.F.C. players
Olympic football managers of Great Britain
Royal Air Force wing commanders
Deaths from cancer in England
Association football coaches | true | [
"A team leader is a person who provides guidance, instruction, direction and leadership to a group of individuals (the team) for the purpose of achieving a key result or group of aligned results.\n\nThe team leader monitors the quantitative and qualitative achievements of the team and reports results to a manager. The leader often works within the team, as a member, carrying out the same roles but with the additional 'leader' responsibilities – as opposed to higher-level management which often has a separate job role altogether. In order for a team to function successfully, the team leader must also motivate the team to \"use their knowledge and skills to achieve the shared goals\". When a team leader motivates a team, group members can function in a goal-oriented manner. A \"team leader\" is also someone who has the capability to drive performance within a group of people. Team leaders utilize their expertise, their peers, influence, and/or creativeness to formulate an effective team. \n\nScouller (2011) defined the purpose of a leader (including a team leader) as follows: \"The purpose of a leader is to make sure there is leadership … to ensure that all four dimensions of leadership are [being addressed].” The four dimensions being: a shared, motivating team purpose or vision or goal, action, progress and results, collective unity or team spirit, and attention to individuals. Leaders also contribute by leading through example.\n\nLeaders and managers \nWhile the distinction between leader and manager may be confusing, the difference between the two is that a manager focuses more on organization and keeping the team on task while a team leader relates better to an artist and tends to have a more creative minded approach to problems. Team leaders can also be described as entrepreneurial and forward thinking. Team leaders tend to manage a group or team consisting of fewer people than a manager would.\n\nThe function of line manager and team manager are hybrid forms of leader and manager. They have a completely different job role than the team members and manage larger teams. The line manager and team manager report to middle or high management.\n\nPersonality differences \nTeam leaders are expected to be focused on solving problems. Under a manager's watch, a team should function as smoothly and efficiently as possible. This form of leadership stresses a practical approach to the work environment that instills discipline throughout the team or organization. Managers can be trained to lead a team to great heights within a certain set of limits. The creativity and critical thinking required are not as strenuous as required by a true leader or entrepreneur. While managers need to be tolerant and able to create goodwill with the team and perhaps clients, they do not need to be necessarily hard-working, intelligent, or analytical. Instead managers are trained for a specific purpose. Entrepreneurs use a vision for what they see as being a success to guide their actions.\n\nGoal orientation \nManagers tend to set goals that prioritize necessities and the culture of the organization over all else. Leaders, however, are progressive and want to set goals based on their personal wants and desires. An innovative spirit in a leader is what propels them to create something unique. They will use this single-minded passion to inspire and push others around them to greater achievements. Instead of being reactive to the wants of others, leaders are active in pursuing their goals. The resulting desires and objectives push the organization in the direction of the leader's vision.\n\nManagers also tend to view work as something that warrants either coercion by a reward and punishment system. Managers lean toward limiting and narrowing the number of solutions available to make sure there is consistency and efficiency. Leaders move in the opposite direction and try to incorporate fresh solutions to new problems. They excite those around them with exciting images about what could be. This comes down to a fundamental character trait in which managers tend to be risk averse while leaders are more risk seeking. Where managers will work methodically to make sure everyday tasks go smoothly, leaders will have a difficult time staying focused when given the same tasks.\n\nRelationships \nLeaders and managers tend to both build relationships with those that are working under them. With that being said it is important to note the type of relationship that is being built. Managers tend to maintain a distance from those that work under them by showing little or no empathy for them. Leaders on the other hand are very empathetic to their employees and those that they lead. The result is that followers, or employees, are motivated to work and pursue a common goal held by the leader and the rest of the group. In inter group conflicts and relationships, the managers sole focus is usually turning a win-lose situation into a win-win situation or maintaining the win-win situation. This leads to a desensitization of the managers views towards his employees feelings. For managers, relationships are not about creating a great work environment as they are about maintaining a balance of power.\n\nSelf-perceptions \nAccording to William James, there are two basic personality types: once-borns and twice-borns. Once-borns generally have stable childhoods and upbringings that lead them to be more conservative in their views. They strive for harmony in their environment and use their own sense of self as their guide. Twice-borns generally have an upbringing that is defined by a struggle to create some sort of order in their lives. As a result, these individuals tend to strive for separation of themselves from their peers and society. Their self-perception is not based on where they work, what organizations they are a part of, or even what they have already done in the past. Instead they are driven by the desire to create change.\n\nManagers show the traits of once-borns while leaders exhibit the traits of twice-borns. Leaders see themselves as separate from the rest and try to play this sense of self by becoming entrepreneurs or great political leaders or even by chasing any endeavor that they feel will differentiate them. Managers want to maintain their harmonic environment and commit their lives to making sure nothing causes disturbances.\n\nConcertive style of management \nWhile traditional leadership has maintained that one person generally leads several groups, each with their own leadership hierarchy, the concertive style of leadership gives the power to the group. While there will generally be a management group responsible for bigger decisions for the direction of the company or organization, the workers get to develop their own set of values and rules to govern themselves. This includes task division, problem solving, day-to-day functions, group prioritization, and internal conflict resolution. Instead of a manager or leader being responsible for producing the results, the management expects the burden to fall on each individual member of the group. By establishing a set of values, rules, and norms these groups can go on to manage themselves, usually with success.\n\nHolacracy \nIn a holacracy people have multiple roles while increasing efficiency, confidence, and communication in the workplace. This model was adopted by Zappos because they had \"gone from being a fast speedboat to a cruise ship\". While many cite more work to do and the large learning curve as obstacles to implementing the system, most workers are happier than when they had a managerial system of organizational structure.\n\nSee also\n Crew chief\n Squad leader\n Three levels of leadership model\n Captain (sports)\n\nReferences\n\nOrganizational theory\nTeams\nBusiness occupations\nPositions of authority",
"\"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"
] |
[
"Walter Winterbottom",
"England Team Manager",
"Can you provide me with a little information about Walter Winterbottom and his career as an England Team Manager?",
"Walter Winterbottom has the distinction of being England's first, youngest and longest serving England team manager;",
"How long did he serve as an England team manager?",
"his departure in 1966",
"How old was he when he first began his career as a team manager?",
"Walter Winterbottom has the distinction of being England's first, youngest",
"What led to his career as a team manager?",
"he is also the only England manager to have had no previous professional managerial experience.",
"Was he ever trained?",
"I don't know.",
"What else is unique about this time as a team manager?",
"he is also the only England manager to have had no previous professional managerial experience."
] | C_ec5491bbf741493a9efd0e572c087a79_1 | What are some important aspects of his career? | 7 | What are some important aspects of career of Walter? | Walter Winterbottom | Walter Winterbottom has the distinction of being England's first, youngest and longest serving England team manager; he is also the only England manager to have had no previous professional managerial experience. In all matches in which he was in charge, England played 139, won 78, drew 33, and lost 28; goals for 383, against 196. At home England lost six matches in sixteen years. England won the British championship in thirteen out of his sixteen seasons (seven times outright and six times sharing top place). In the World Cup tournament England qualified on all four occasions, reaching the quarter finals twice, playing 28 matches, winning 15, drawing 7 and losing 6; goals for 75 against 35 (including World Cup qualifying matches). Although he had coaching and managerial responsibilities, Winterbottom never had the power to pick his own team (it was chosen by a selection committee). Over time his technical knowledge increasingly influenced selectors. Finally, prior to Alf Ramsey's arrival in 1962, he convinced the FA that the team manager must have sole control of selection. During his time Winterbottom repeatedly warned the English football establishment that countries in Continental Europe and South America were overtaking England and that English football had to change. His sixteen years as England team manager helped greatly in creating a modern and competitive national team and four years after his departure in 1966 England won the World Cup. His innovations included the introduction of England B, Under 23, youth and schoolboy teams providing players with continuity and experience in international football before being selected for the full England team. Notable victories during his era were 10-0 away to Portugal in 1947, 4-0 away to Italy in 1948, 4-2 at home to Brazil in 1956 and 9-3 at home to Scotland in 1961. Notable defeats were losing 1-0 to the USA in the 1950 World Cup and 6-3 at home to Hungary in 1953 when England lost her unbeaten home record to a foreign team, followed by a 7-1 away defeat to the same team in 1954. CANNOTANSWER | In all matches in which he was in charge, England played 139, won 78, drew 33, and lost 28; goals for 383, against 196. | Sir Walter Winterbottom (31 March 1913 – 16 February 2002) was the first manager of the England football team (1946–1962) and FA Director of Coaching. He resigned from the FA in 1962 to become General Secretary of the Central Council of Physical Recreation (CCPR) and was appointed as the first Director of the Sports Council in 1965. He was knighted for his services to sport in 1978 when he retired. The Football Association marked the 100th anniversary of Winterbottom's birth by commissioning a bust which was unveiled by Roy Hodgson at St Georges Park on 23 April 2013 in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the development of English football.
Early years
Born in Oldham, Lancashire, Walter Winterbottom was the only son of James Winterbottom, a ring frame fitter in a textile machine works. At the age of 12 he was awarded a scholarship to Oldham High School where he excelled. He won a bursary to Chester Diocesan Teachers Training College, graduating as the top student in 1933 and took a teaching post at the Alexandra Road School, Oldham. Whilst teaching he played football for Royton Amateurs and then Mossley where he was spotted by Manchester United. He signed for United as a part-time professional in 1936 but continued teaching. In his first season (1936/37) at Manchester United he showed great promise, playing 21 first team League games and 2 FA cup games, appearing as wing half and centre half. But in the following two seasons he made only 4 first team appearances. and 41 Central League appearances, his playing career effectively ended by a spinal disease, later diagnosed as ankylosing spondylitis. Whilst still playing for Manchester United he left his teaching position to study at Carnegie College of Physical Education, Leeds. On graduating he was appointed as a lecturer.
During World War II Winterbottom served as an officer in the Royal Air Force, reaching the rank of wing commander and working at the Air Ministry with overall responsibility for training PE instructors at home and overseas. He was also a guest player with Chelsea and ran coaching courses for the FA at grammar schools in London. In 1946 Stanley Rous, who was the secretary of The Football Association, persuaded the FA council to appoint Winterbottom as The FA's first Director of Coaching and suggested he take on the additional responsibility of being the first England team manager.
England team manager
Walter Winterbottom has the distinction of being England's first, youngest and longest serving England team manager; he is also the only England manager to have had no previous professional managerial experience. In all matches in which he was in charge, England played 139, won 78, drew 33, and lost 28; goals for 383, against 196. At home England lost six matches in sixteen years. England won the British championship in thirteen out of his sixteen seasons (seven times outright and six times sharing top place). In the World Cup tournament England qualified on all four occasions, reaching the quarter finals twice, playing 28 matches, winning 15, drawing 7 and losing 6; goals for 75 against 35 (including World Cup qualifying matches).
Although he had coaching and managerial responsibilities, Winterbottom never had the power to pick his own team (it was chosen by a selection committee). Over time his technical knowledge increasingly influenced selectors. Finally, prior to Alf Ramsey's arrival in 1962, he convinced the FA that the team manager must have sole control of selection.
During his time Winterbottom repeatedly warned the English football establishment that countries in Continental Europe and South America were overtaking England and that English football had to change. His sixteen years as England team manager helped greatly in creating a modern and competitive national team and four years after his departure in 1966 England won the World Cup. His innovations included the introduction of England B, Under 23, youth and schoolboy teams providing players with continuity and experience in international football before being selected for the full England team.
Notable victories during his era were 10—0 away to Portugal in 1947, 4—0 away to Italy in 1948, 3—1 at home to recently crowned World Champions West Germany in 1954 after the 4—2 at home to Brazil in 1956 and 9—3 at home to Scotland in 1961. Notable defeats were losing 2–0 to the Republic of Ireland at Goodison Park, losing 1—0 to the USA in the 1950 World Cup and 6—3 at home to Hungary in 1953 when England lost their unbeaten home record to a foreign team at Wembley, followed by a 7—1 away defeat to the same team in 1954.
Also while he was manager, England visited Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Denmark, Mexico, Peru, Portugal, the Soviet Union, United States and Uruguay for the first time.
FIFA World Cup record
Winterbottom led England to four consecutive World Cup finals, a record subsequently equalled only by Helmut Schön of West Germany. England entered the World Cup for the first time in 1950, qualifying for the tournament in Brazil by winning the British Home Championship. England had never before played in South America. They beat Chile by 2—0 but lost 1—0 to the USA and 1—0 to Spain to be eliminated in the first round.
Winterbottom again led England to qualification in Switzerland in 1954 by winning the British Home championship. A 4—4 draw against Belgium and a 2—0 victory against Switzerland took them to the quarter finals where they were beaten 4—2 by the defending champions, Uruguay.
England qualified for the 1958 FIFA World Cup in Sweden with wins over the Republic of Ireland and Denmark, with a team that had lost only once in 17 games. Three months before the tournament began the Munich air disaster robbed the team of key players from Manchester United: Roger Byrne, Tommy Taylor and Duncan Edwards died. England drew against the USSR, Brazil and Austria but lost to the Soviet Union in a playoff for a quarter-final place.
Winterbottom again led his team to qualification for the 1962 World Cup in Chile with wins over Portugal and Luxembourg. After progressing from their group on goal average, England reached the quarter-finals but were beaten 3—1 by the eventual winners, Brazil.
FA Director of Coaching
Although Winterbottom is best known as the England team manager, it is in coaching that he made important contributions to the development of English football. He made no secret of his belief that his job as Director of Coaching was the more important of his two roles at the FA.
When he joined the FA in 1946, club directors, managers and players were cynical about the need for coaching but Winterbottom had a passion for coaching and a vision of how it should develop.
He soon created a national coaching scheme with summer residential courses at Lilleshall, Shropshire, and persuaded some of his international players to take the courses that led to exams for the FA preliminary and full coaching badges. This gave the scheme credibility. They developed their teaching skills by coaching in schools and then moved into part-time coaching positions in junior clubs. He gathered around him a cadre of young FA staff coaches: men like Bill Nicholson, Don Howe, Alan Brown, Ron Greenwood, Dave Sexton, Malcolm Allison, Joe Mercer, Vic Buckingham, Jimmy Hill and Bobby Robson. Over time a new breed of managers emerged in the League clubs and began to change attitudes to coaching.
Winterbottom's courses were expanded to include professional players, referees, schoolmasters, club trainers, schoolboys and youth leaders. In addition to Lilleshall they were held at Loughborough College, Carnegie College, Bisham Abbey and Birmingham University. In 1947 three hundred had taken the full coaching award and the numbers of qualified coaches grew each year.
The courses attracted international participation and praise. Winterbottom was regarded by many as a leading technical thinker and exponent of association football, of his generation, in the world and lectured internationally.
He inspired a new generation of managers, most notably Ron Greenwood and Bobby Robson, who graduated through every level of coaching, both eventually becoming England team manager.
Criticism
In assessing Winterbottom's tenure as England manager, Goldblatt writes that "[Winterbottom] introduced a measure of tactical thinking and discussion to the England squad, though his inability to anticipate or learn significantly from the Hungarian debacle suggests that his grasp of tactics and communication with the players was limited." William Baker writes that Winterbottom, because of his "upper-class origins [sic]", could not "effectively instruct, much less inspire, working-class footballers." Football journalist Brian Glanville said in an interview: "I got on very well with Walter Winterbottom, but he was a rotten manager."
Publishing
Winterbottom was also responsible for the publishing at the FA. The first coaching bulletin was launched in 1946 and this became the FA Bulletin and then the FA News. The FA Year Book was introduced in 1948 along with the FA Book for Boys annual. The first coaching films and film strips followed in 1950.
An important landmark was the publication of Winterbottom's book, Soccer Coaching, the first modern soccer coaching manual. This was followed by three more books, Skilful Soccer, Modern Soccer and Training for Soccer.
Sports administrator
In 1962 Winterbottom resigned from the FA and took up an appointment as General Secretary of the Central Council of Physical Recreation and two years later became the Director of the newly formed Sports Council. He stepped onto the wider stage of sport and emerged to have a profound effect on sport in Britain during the second half of the twentieth century.
Central Council of Physical Recreation
At the Central Council of Physical Education (CCPR) Winterbottom worked to provide coaches and better facilities for sports governing bodies. He soon became involved in the ongoing political debate about the recommendations of the 1960 Report of the Wolfenden Committee on Sport, which had recommended the establishment of a Sports Council responsible for distributing government money to sport. He was in favour but the CCPR was divided on the issue. In 1965 the Government under set up a Sports Council and Winterbottom was seconded to become the first Director of the Sports Council with Denis Howell as his chairman.
Sports Council
Winterbottom believed that participation in a sport played a much more important role in society that was generally accepted. For 16 years he battled to win significantly more investment in sport from national and local government to support a Sport for All campaign. Despite a harsh economic climate great progress was made in providing new facilities. In ten years 499 sports centres were built and 524 new swimming pools. Under his leadership sports governing bodies were helped to develop more professional organisations and provide more coaches. He conceived the idea of the Sports Aid Foundation, raising money from industry to back young elite sportsmen and women with Olympic medal winning chances.
He was a member of the Council of Europe and Chairman of the Committee for the Development of Sport and was influential in the acceptance of the Sport For All concept by Canada and UNESCO.
Later life
In 1978, after reaching the age of 65, Winterbottom retired from the Sports Council and was knighted for his services to sport. He became an advisor to the British government on ways in which British manufacturers of sports equipment could work with foreign firms. In 1979, he visited Australia and New Zealand to help their governments to support sport in the community.
He was head of the FIFA Technical Studies Group for the World Cup in 1966, 1970, 1974, 1978 and a member in 1982. In 1985 The Winterbottom Report, an FA enquiry into artificial playing surfaces was published and in 1987–89 he was a member of the Football League enquiry into artificial pitches.
He died in the Royal Surrey Hospital after an operation for cancer on 16 February 2002. He was 88 years old. A memorial service was held at St. Nicolas Church, Cranleigh, Surrey on 1 March 2002.
Managerial statistics
England matches under Winterbottom
England's goal tally first.
England record versus other countries
Honours
British Home Championship
Champions: 1947, 1948, 1950, 1952 (shared), 1953 (shared), 1954, 1955, 1956 (shared), 1957, 1958 (shared), 1959 (shared), 1960 (shared), 1961
Runners-up: 1949, 1951
Notes
External links
Literature
Graham Morse: Sir Walter Winterbottom - The Father of Modern English Football, Kings Road Publishing, 2013.
People from Oldham
1913 births
2002 deaths
Royal Air Force personnel of World War II
English footballers
Footballers from Oldham
Manchester United F.C. players
English Football League players
English football managers
England national football team managers
1950 FIFA World Cup managers
1954 FIFA World Cup managers
1958 FIFA World Cup managers
1962 FIFA World Cup managers
Alumni of the University of Chester
Association football people awarded knighthoods
Knights Bachelor
Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
Chelsea F.C. wartime guest players
English Football Hall of Fame inductees
Association football midfielders
Mossley A.F.C. players
Olympic football managers of Great Britain
Royal Air Force wing commanders
Deaths from cancer in England
Association football coaches | true | [
"What Mad Pursuit: A Personal View of Scientific Discovery is a book published in 1988 and written by Francis Crick, the English co-discoverer in 1953 of the structure of DNA. In this book, Crick gives important insights into his work on the DNA structure, along with the Central Dogma of molecular biology and the genetic code, and his later work on neuroscience.\n\nDescription\nThe main purpose of Crick's book is to describe some of his experiences before and during the \"classical period\" of molecular biology from the 1953 discovery of the DNA double helix to the 1966 elucidation of the genetic code. There is a prologue outlining Crick's upbringing, education, and war work on magnetic and acoustic mines, and following World War II his decision on what branch of science to study, using the \"gossip test\". (Your interests are revealed by your gossip.) There is also an epilogue that outlines Crick's work after 1966, his move to the Salk Institute with his career transition to neuroscience concentrating on visual consciousness in primates, and some of his conclusions regarding research in theoretical biology, especially with regard to the brain sciences.\n\nCrick comments on various aspects of the DNA double helix discovery and gives a qualified endorsement to the 1987 television movie Life Story with Jeff Goldblum as Jim Watson and Tim Pigott-Smith as Francis Crick. There is a clear presentation of the basic ideas of molecular biology with appendices \"A Brief Outline of Classical Molecular Biology\" and \"The Genetic Code.\" Crick gives some anecdotes and explains some important ideas and insights without too much technical jargon.\n\nAccording to the Nobel prize-winning physicist Philip W. Anderson, the basic goal of experimental science is \"learning the truth about the world around us. Crick's words are as good a guide to that end as I have seen.\"\n\n\"This is a book to be read more than once; the beauty of its style masks much hard science and subtle thought. In spite of having heard it many times from others, the story of DNA as told by Crick still makes a marvelous read. A sense of clarity of thought combined with an equally strong sense of commitment and overlaid with the deep power of his thinking runs through the book. One sees that Crick possesses that all-important but dismayingly elusive knack of distinguishing what is significant from what is not. His confidence in the power of structural chemistry to unravel the functioning of biological molecule is unflagging. At the same time, warning signals sound constantly to keep possible evolutionary arbitrariness in mind\".\n\nReferences\n\n1988 non-fiction books\nBiology books\nGenetics in the United Kingdom\nScience autobiographies\n1988 in science",
"Blata, is a Czech company, based in Blansko, that produces high performance, mini moto bikes. These bikes are designed and built for use on a closed, paved circuit.\n\nPavel Blata, the founder of the company, had his first experiences with motorbikes as a competitor of six-day motorbike endurance events. During this time he had the chance to ride many different machines. Blata learnt first hand how they worked, what was important for the rider and also what the rider actually wanted. He saw the positive as well as the negative aspects of each different machine. After some time he decided that he must do something with this knowledge.\n\nBy the end of the 80's he had started to produce and sell scooters and minibikes under the Blata name. He gradually built up a small team of people that he could trust, and set up a strong basis for the management of his company. This management core concentrated on building up another team of experts around them in the form of engineers, technicians and developers.\n\nExternal links \n \n\nMinibikes\nMotorcycle manufacturers of the Czech Republic\nCzech brands"
] |
[
"Walter Winterbottom",
"England Team Manager",
"Can you provide me with a little information about Walter Winterbottom and his career as an England Team Manager?",
"Walter Winterbottom has the distinction of being England's first, youngest and longest serving England team manager;",
"How long did he serve as an England team manager?",
"his departure in 1966",
"How old was he when he first began his career as a team manager?",
"Walter Winterbottom has the distinction of being England's first, youngest",
"What led to his career as a team manager?",
"he is also the only England manager to have had no previous professional managerial experience.",
"Was he ever trained?",
"I don't know.",
"What else is unique about this time as a team manager?",
"he is also the only England manager to have had no previous professional managerial experience.",
"What are some important aspects of his career?",
"In all matches in which he was in charge, England played 139, won 78, drew 33, and lost 28; goals for 383, against 196."
] | C_ec5491bbf741493a9efd0e572c087a79_1 | What happened after? | 8 | What happened the English team being Walter Winterbottom as a team manager? | Walter Winterbottom | Walter Winterbottom has the distinction of being England's first, youngest and longest serving England team manager; he is also the only England manager to have had no previous professional managerial experience. In all matches in which he was in charge, England played 139, won 78, drew 33, and lost 28; goals for 383, against 196. At home England lost six matches in sixteen years. England won the British championship in thirteen out of his sixteen seasons (seven times outright and six times sharing top place). In the World Cup tournament England qualified on all four occasions, reaching the quarter finals twice, playing 28 matches, winning 15, drawing 7 and losing 6; goals for 75 against 35 (including World Cup qualifying matches). Although he had coaching and managerial responsibilities, Winterbottom never had the power to pick his own team (it was chosen by a selection committee). Over time his technical knowledge increasingly influenced selectors. Finally, prior to Alf Ramsey's arrival in 1962, he convinced the FA that the team manager must have sole control of selection. During his time Winterbottom repeatedly warned the English football establishment that countries in Continental Europe and South America were overtaking England and that English football had to change. His sixteen years as England team manager helped greatly in creating a modern and competitive national team and four years after his departure in 1966 England won the World Cup. His innovations included the introduction of England B, Under 23, youth and schoolboy teams providing players with continuity and experience in international football before being selected for the full England team. Notable victories during his era were 10-0 away to Portugal in 1947, 4-0 away to Italy in 1948, 4-2 at home to Brazil in 1956 and 9-3 at home to Scotland in 1961. Notable defeats were losing 1-0 to the USA in the 1950 World Cup and 6-3 at home to Hungary in 1953 when England lost her unbeaten home record to a foreign team, followed by a 7-1 away defeat to the same team in 1954. CANNOTANSWER | England won the British championship in thirteen out of his sixteen seasons (seven times outright and six times sharing top place). | Sir Walter Winterbottom (31 March 1913 – 16 February 2002) was the first manager of the England football team (1946–1962) and FA Director of Coaching. He resigned from the FA in 1962 to become General Secretary of the Central Council of Physical Recreation (CCPR) and was appointed as the first Director of the Sports Council in 1965. He was knighted for his services to sport in 1978 when he retired. The Football Association marked the 100th anniversary of Winterbottom's birth by commissioning a bust which was unveiled by Roy Hodgson at St Georges Park on 23 April 2013 in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the development of English football.
Early years
Born in Oldham, Lancashire, Walter Winterbottom was the only son of James Winterbottom, a ring frame fitter in a textile machine works. At the age of 12 he was awarded a scholarship to Oldham High School where he excelled. He won a bursary to Chester Diocesan Teachers Training College, graduating as the top student in 1933 and took a teaching post at the Alexandra Road School, Oldham. Whilst teaching he played football for Royton Amateurs and then Mossley where he was spotted by Manchester United. He signed for United as a part-time professional in 1936 but continued teaching. In his first season (1936/37) at Manchester United he showed great promise, playing 21 first team League games and 2 FA cup games, appearing as wing half and centre half. But in the following two seasons he made only 4 first team appearances. and 41 Central League appearances, his playing career effectively ended by a spinal disease, later diagnosed as ankylosing spondylitis. Whilst still playing for Manchester United he left his teaching position to study at Carnegie College of Physical Education, Leeds. On graduating he was appointed as a lecturer.
During World War II Winterbottom served as an officer in the Royal Air Force, reaching the rank of wing commander and working at the Air Ministry with overall responsibility for training PE instructors at home and overseas. He was also a guest player with Chelsea and ran coaching courses for the FA at grammar schools in London. In 1946 Stanley Rous, who was the secretary of The Football Association, persuaded the FA council to appoint Winterbottom as The FA's first Director of Coaching and suggested he take on the additional responsibility of being the first England team manager.
England team manager
Walter Winterbottom has the distinction of being England's first, youngest and longest serving England team manager; he is also the only England manager to have had no previous professional managerial experience. In all matches in which he was in charge, England played 139, won 78, drew 33, and lost 28; goals for 383, against 196. At home England lost six matches in sixteen years. England won the British championship in thirteen out of his sixteen seasons (seven times outright and six times sharing top place). In the World Cup tournament England qualified on all four occasions, reaching the quarter finals twice, playing 28 matches, winning 15, drawing 7 and losing 6; goals for 75 against 35 (including World Cup qualifying matches).
Although he had coaching and managerial responsibilities, Winterbottom never had the power to pick his own team (it was chosen by a selection committee). Over time his technical knowledge increasingly influenced selectors. Finally, prior to Alf Ramsey's arrival in 1962, he convinced the FA that the team manager must have sole control of selection.
During his time Winterbottom repeatedly warned the English football establishment that countries in Continental Europe and South America were overtaking England and that English football had to change. His sixteen years as England team manager helped greatly in creating a modern and competitive national team and four years after his departure in 1966 England won the World Cup. His innovations included the introduction of England B, Under 23, youth and schoolboy teams providing players with continuity and experience in international football before being selected for the full England team.
Notable victories during his era were 10—0 away to Portugal in 1947, 4—0 away to Italy in 1948, 3—1 at home to recently crowned World Champions West Germany in 1954 after the 4—2 at home to Brazil in 1956 and 9—3 at home to Scotland in 1961. Notable defeats were losing 2–0 to the Republic of Ireland at Goodison Park, losing 1—0 to the USA in the 1950 World Cup and 6—3 at home to Hungary in 1953 when England lost their unbeaten home record to a foreign team at Wembley, followed by a 7—1 away defeat to the same team in 1954.
Also while he was manager, England visited Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Denmark, Mexico, Peru, Portugal, the Soviet Union, United States and Uruguay for the first time.
FIFA World Cup record
Winterbottom led England to four consecutive World Cup finals, a record subsequently equalled only by Helmut Schön of West Germany. England entered the World Cup for the first time in 1950, qualifying for the tournament in Brazil by winning the British Home Championship. England had never before played in South America. They beat Chile by 2—0 but lost 1—0 to the USA and 1—0 to Spain to be eliminated in the first round.
Winterbottom again led England to qualification in Switzerland in 1954 by winning the British Home championship. A 4—4 draw against Belgium and a 2—0 victory against Switzerland took them to the quarter finals where they were beaten 4—2 by the defending champions, Uruguay.
England qualified for the 1958 FIFA World Cup in Sweden with wins over the Republic of Ireland and Denmark, with a team that had lost only once in 17 games. Three months before the tournament began the Munich air disaster robbed the team of key players from Manchester United: Roger Byrne, Tommy Taylor and Duncan Edwards died. England drew against the USSR, Brazil and Austria but lost to the Soviet Union in a playoff for a quarter-final place.
Winterbottom again led his team to qualification for the 1962 World Cup in Chile with wins over Portugal and Luxembourg. After progressing from their group on goal average, England reached the quarter-finals but were beaten 3—1 by the eventual winners, Brazil.
FA Director of Coaching
Although Winterbottom is best known as the England team manager, it is in coaching that he made important contributions to the development of English football. He made no secret of his belief that his job as Director of Coaching was the more important of his two roles at the FA.
When he joined the FA in 1946, club directors, managers and players were cynical about the need for coaching but Winterbottom had a passion for coaching and a vision of how it should develop.
He soon created a national coaching scheme with summer residential courses at Lilleshall, Shropshire, and persuaded some of his international players to take the courses that led to exams for the FA preliminary and full coaching badges. This gave the scheme credibility. They developed their teaching skills by coaching in schools and then moved into part-time coaching positions in junior clubs. He gathered around him a cadre of young FA staff coaches: men like Bill Nicholson, Don Howe, Alan Brown, Ron Greenwood, Dave Sexton, Malcolm Allison, Joe Mercer, Vic Buckingham, Jimmy Hill and Bobby Robson. Over time a new breed of managers emerged in the League clubs and began to change attitudes to coaching.
Winterbottom's courses were expanded to include professional players, referees, schoolmasters, club trainers, schoolboys and youth leaders. In addition to Lilleshall they were held at Loughborough College, Carnegie College, Bisham Abbey and Birmingham University. In 1947 three hundred had taken the full coaching award and the numbers of qualified coaches grew each year.
The courses attracted international participation and praise. Winterbottom was regarded by many as a leading technical thinker and exponent of association football, of his generation, in the world and lectured internationally.
He inspired a new generation of managers, most notably Ron Greenwood and Bobby Robson, who graduated through every level of coaching, both eventually becoming England team manager.
Criticism
In assessing Winterbottom's tenure as England manager, Goldblatt writes that "[Winterbottom] introduced a measure of tactical thinking and discussion to the England squad, though his inability to anticipate or learn significantly from the Hungarian debacle suggests that his grasp of tactics and communication with the players was limited." William Baker writes that Winterbottom, because of his "upper-class origins [sic]", could not "effectively instruct, much less inspire, working-class footballers." Football journalist Brian Glanville said in an interview: "I got on very well with Walter Winterbottom, but he was a rotten manager."
Publishing
Winterbottom was also responsible for the publishing at the FA. The first coaching bulletin was launched in 1946 and this became the FA Bulletin and then the FA News. The FA Year Book was introduced in 1948 along with the FA Book for Boys annual. The first coaching films and film strips followed in 1950.
An important landmark was the publication of Winterbottom's book, Soccer Coaching, the first modern soccer coaching manual. This was followed by three more books, Skilful Soccer, Modern Soccer and Training for Soccer.
Sports administrator
In 1962 Winterbottom resigned from the FA and took up an appointment as General Secretary of the Central Council of Physical Recreation and two years later became the Director of the newly formed Sports Council. He stepped onto the wider stage of sport and emerged to have a profound effect on sport in Britain during the second half of the twentieth century.
Central Council of Physical Recreation
At the Central Council of Physical Education (CCPR) Winterbottom worked to provide coaches and better facilities for sports governing bodies. He soon became involved in the ongoing political debate about the recommendations of the 1960 Report of the Wolfenden Committee on Sport, which had recommended the establishment of a Sports Council responsible for distributing government money to sport. He was in favour but the CCPR was divided on the issue. In 1965 the Government under set up a Sports Council and Winterbottom was seconded to become the first Director of the Sports Council with Denis Howell as his chairman.
Sports Council
Winterbottom believed that participation in a sport played a much more important role in society that was generally accepted. For 16 years he battled to win significantly more investment in sport from national and local government to support a Sport for All campaign. Despite a harsh economic climate great progress was made in providing new facilities. In ten years 499 sports centres were built and 524 new swimming pools. Under his leadership sports governing bodies were helped to develop more professional organisations and provide more coaches. He conceived the idea of the Sports Aid Foundation, raising money from industry to back young elite sportsmen and women with Olympic medal winning chances.
He was a member of the Council of Europe and Chairman of the Committee for the Development of Sport and was influential in the acceptance of the Sport For All concept by Canada and UNESCO.
Later life
In 1978, after reaching the age of 65, Winterbottom retired from the Sports Council and was knighted for his services to sport. He became an advisor to the British government on ways in which British manufacturers of sports equipment could work with foreign firms. In 1979, he visited Australia and New Zealand to help their governments to support sport in the community.
He was head of the FIFA Technical Studies Group for the World Cup in 1966, 1970, 1974, 1978 and a member in 1982. In 1985 The Winterbottom Report, an FA enquiry into artificial playing surfaces was published and in 1987–89 he was a member of the Football League enquiry into artificial pitches.
He died in the Royal Surrey Hospital after an operation for cancer on 16 February 2002. He was 88 years old. A memorial service was held at St. Nicolas Church, Cranleigh, Surrey on 1 March 2002.
Managerial statistics
England matches under Winterbottom
England's goal tally first.
England record versus other countries
Honours
British Home Championship
Champions: 1947, 1948, 1950, 1952 (shared), 1953 (shared), 1954, 1955, 1956 (shared), 1957, 1958 (shared), 1959 (shared), 1960 (shared), 1961
Runners-up: 1949, 1951
Notes
External links
Literature
Graham Morse: Sir Walter Winterbottom - The Father of Modern English Football, Kings Road Publishing, 2013.
People from Oldham
1913 births
2002 deaths
Royal Air Force personnel of World War II
English footballers
Footballers from Oldham
Manchester United F.C. players
English Football League players
English football managers
England national football team managers
1950 FIFA World Cup managers
1954 FIFA World Cup managers
1958 FIFA World Cup managers
1962 FIFA World Cup managers
Alumni of the University of Chester
Association football people awarded knighthoods
Knights Bachelor
Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
Chelsea F.C. wartime guest players
English Football Hall of Fame inductees
Association football midfielders
Mossley A.F.C. players
Olympic football managers of Great Britain
Royal Air Force wing commanders
Deaths from cancer in England
Association football coaches | true | [
"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",
"What Happened may refer to:\n\n What Happened (Clinton book), 2017 book by Hillary Clinton\n What Happened (McClellan book), 2008 autobiography by Scott McClellan\n \"What Happened\", a song by Sublime from the album 40oz. to Freedom\n \"What Happened\", an episode of One Day at a Time (2017 TV series)\n\nSee also\nWhat's Happening (disambiguation)"
] |
[
"Walter Winterbottom",
"England Team Manager",
"Can you provide me with a little information about Walter Winterbottom and his career as an England Team Manager?",
"Walter Winterbottom has the distinction of being England's first, youngest and longest serving England team manager;",
"How long did he serve as an England team manager?",
"his departure in 1966",
"How old was he when he first began his career as a team manager?",
"Walter Winterbottom has the distinction of being England's first, youngest",
"What led to his career as a team manager?",
"he is also the only England manager to have had no previous professional managerial experience.",
"Was he ever trained?",
"I don't know.",
"What else is unique about this time as a team manager?",
"he is also the only England manager to have had no previous professional managerial experience.",
"What are some important aspects of his career?",
"In all matches in which he was in charge, England played 139, won 78, drew 33, and lost 28; goals for 383, against 196.",
"What happened after?",
"England won the British championship in thirteen out of his sixteen seasons (seven times outright and six times sharing top place)."
] | C_ec5491bbf741493a9efd0e572c087a79_1 | Is there anything elsse that happened after this took place? | 9 | Is there anything else that happened after England team win the British championship? | Walter Winterbottom | Walter Winterbottom has the distinction of being England's first, youngest and longest serving England team manager; he is also the only England manager to have had no previous professional managerial experience. In all matches in which he was in charge, England played 139, won 78, drew 33, and lost 28; goals for 383, against 196. At home England lost six matches in sixteen years. England won the British championship in thirteen out of his sixteen seasons (seven times outright and six times sharing top place). In the World Cup tournament England qualified on all four occasions, reaching the quarter finals twice, playing 28 matches, winning 15, drawing 7 and losing 6; goals for 75 against 35 (including World Cup qualifying matches). Although he had coaching and managerial responsibilities, Winterbottom never had the power to pick his own team (it was chosen by a selection committee). Over time his technical knowledge increasingly influenced selectors. Finally, prior to Alf Ramsey's arrival in 1962, he convinced the FA that the team manager must have sole control of selection. During his time Winterbottom repeatedly warned the English football establishment that countries in Continental Europe and South America were overtaking England and that English football had to change. His sixteen years as England team manager helped greatly in creating a modern and competitive national team and four years after his departure in 1966 England won the World Cup. His innovations included the introduction of England B, Under 23, youth and schoolboy teams providing players with continuity and experience in international football before being selected for the full England team. Notable victories during his era were 10-0 away to Portugal in 1947, 4-0 away to Italy in 1948, 4-2 at home to Brazil in 1956 and 9-3 at home to Scotland in 1961. Notable defeats were losing 1-0 to the USA in the 1950 World Cup and 6-3 at home to Hungary in 1953 when England lost her unbeaten home record to a foreign team, followed by a 7-1 away defeat to the same team in 1954. CANNOTANSWER | In the World Cup tournament England qualified on all four occasions, reaching the quarter finals twice, | Sir Walter Winterbottom (31 March 1913 – 16 February 2002) was the first manager of the England football team (1946–1962) and FA Director of Coaching. He resigned from the FA in 1962 to become General Secretary of the Central Council of Physical Recreation (CCPR) and was appointed as the first Director of the Sports Council in 1965. He was knighted for his services to sport in 1978 when he retired. The Football Association marked the 100th anniversary of Winterbottom's birth by commissioning a bust which was unveiled by Roy Hodgson at St Georges Park on 23 April 2013 in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the development of English football.
Early years
Born in Oldham, Lancashire, Walter Winterbottom was the only son of James Winterbottom, a ring frame fitter in a textile machine works. At the age of 12 he was awarded a scholarship to Oldham High School where he excelled. He won a bursary to Chester Diocesan Teachers Training College, graduating as the top student in 1933 and took a teaching post at the Alexandra Road School, Oldham. Whilst teaching he played football for Royton Amateurs and then Mossley where he was spotted by Manchester United. He signed for United as a part-time professional in 1936 but continued teaching. In his first season (1936/37) at Manchester United he showed great promise, playing 21 first team League games and 2 FA cup games, appearing as wing half and centre half. But in the following two seasons he made only 4 first team appearances. and 41 Central League appearances, his playing career effectively ended by a spinal disease, later diagnosed as ankylosing spondylitis. Whilst still playing for Manchester United he left his teaching position to study at Carnegie College of Physical Education, Leeds. On graduating he was appointed as a lecturer.
During World War II Winterbottom served as an officer in the Royal Air Force, reaching the rank of wing commander and working at the Air Ministry with overall responsibility for training PE instructors at home and overseas. He was also a guest player with Chelsea and ran coaching courses for the FA at grammar schools in London. In 1946 Stanley Rous, who was the secretary of The Football Association, persuaded the FA council to appoint Winterbottom as The FA's first Director of Coaching and suggested he take on the additional responsibility of being the first England team manager.
England team manager
Walter Winterbottom has the distinction of being England's first, youngest and longest serving England team manager; he is also the only England manager to have had no previous professional managerial experience. In all matches in which he was in charge, England played 139, won 78, drew 33, and lost 28; goals for 383, against 196. At home England lost six matches in sixteen years. England won the British championship in thirteen out of his sixteen seasons (seven times outright and six times sharing top place). In the World Cup tournament England qualified on all four occasions, reaching the quarter finals twice, playing 28 matches, winning 15, drawing 7 and losing 6; goals for 75 against 35 (including World Cup qualifying matches).
Although he had coaching and managerial responsibilities, Winterbottom never had the power to pick his own team (it was chosen by a selection committee). Over time his technical knowledge increasingly influenced selectors. Finally, prior to Alf Ramsey's arrival in 1962, he convinced the FA that the team manager must have sole control of selection.
During his time Winterbottom repeatedly warned the English football establishment that countries in Continental Europe and South America were overtaking England and that English football had to change. His sixteen years as England team manager helped greatly in creating a modern and competitive national team and four years after his departure in 1966 England won the World Cup. His innovations included the introduction of England B, Under 23, youth and schoolboy teams providing players with continuity and experience in international football before being selected for the full England team.
Notable victories during his era were 10—0 away to Portugal in 1947, 4—0 away to Italy in 1948, 3—1 at home to recently crowned World Champions West Germany in 1954 after the 4—2 at home to Brazil in 1956 and 9—3 at home to Scotland in 1961. Notable defeats were losing 2–0 to the Republic of Ireland at Goodison Park, losing 1—0 to the USA in the 1950 World Cup and 6—3 at home to Hungary in 1953 when England lost their unbeaten home record to a foreign team at Wembley, followed by a 7—1 away defeat to the same team in 1954.
Also while he was manager, England visited Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Denmark, Mexico, Peru, Portugal, the Soviet Union, United States and Uruguay for the first time.
FIFA World Cup record
Winterbottom led England to four consecutive World Cup finals, a record subsequently equalled only by Helmut Schön of West Germany. England entered the World Cup for the first time in 1950, qualifying for the tournament in Brazil by winning the British Home Championship. England had never before played in South America. They beat Chile by 2—0 but lost 1—0 to the USA and 1—0 to Spain to be eliminated in the first round.
Winterbottom again led England to qualification in Switzerland in 1954 by winning the British Home championship. A 4—4 draw against Belgium and a 2—0 victory against Switzerland took them to the quarter finals where they were beaten 4—2 by the defending champions, Uruguay.
England qualified for the 1958 FIFA World Cup in Sweden with wins over the Republic of Ireland and Denmark, with a team that had lost only once in 17 games. Three months before the tournament began the Munich air disaster robbed the team of key players from Manchester United: Roger Byrne, Tommy Taylor and Duncan Edwards died. England drew against the USSR, Brazil and Austria but lost to the Soviet Union in a playoff for a quarter-final place.
Winterbottom again led his team to qualification for the 1962 World Cup in Chile with wins over Portugal and Luxembourg. After progressing from their group on goal average, England reached the quarter-finals but were beaten 3—1 by the eventual winners, Brazil.
FA Director of Coaching
Although Winterbottom is best known as the England team manager, it is in coaching that he made important contributions to the development of English football. He made no secret of his belief that his job as Director of Coaching was the more important of his two roles at the FA.
When he joined the FA in 1946, club directors, managers and players were cynical about the need for coaching but Winterbottom had a passion for coaching and a vision of how it should develop.
He soon created a national coaching scheme with summer residential courses at Lilleshall, Shropshire, and persuaded some of his international players to take the courses that led to exams for the FA preliminary and full coaching badges. This gave the scheme credibility. They developed their teaching skills by coaching in schools and then moved into part-time coaching positions in junior clubs. He gathered around him a cadre of young FA staff coaches: men like Bill Nicholson, Don Howe, Alan Brown, Ron Greenwood, Dave Sexton, Malcolm Allison, Joe Mercer, Vic Buckingham, Jimmy Hill and Bobby Robson. Over time a new breed of managers emerged in the League clubs and began to change attitudes to coaching.
Winterbottom's courses were expanded to include professional players, referees, schoolmasters, club trainers, schoolboys and youth leaders. In addition to Lilleshall they were held at Loughborough College, Carnegie College, Bisham Abbey and Birmingham University. In 1947 three hundred had taken the full coaching award and the numbers of qualified coaches grew each year.
The courses attracted international participation and praise. Winterbottom was regarded by many as a leading technical thinker and exponent of association football, of his generation, in the world and lectured internationally.
He inspired a new generation of managers, most notably Ron Greenwood and Bobby Robson, who graduated through every level of coaching, both eventually becoming England team manager.
Criticism
In assessing Winterbottom's tenure as England manager, Goldblatt writes that "[Winterbottom] introduced a measure of tactical thinking and discussion to the England squad, though his inability to anticipate or learn significantly from the Hungarian debacle suggests that his grasp of tactics and communication with the players was limited." William Baker writes that Winterbottom, because of his "upper-class origins [sic]", could not "effectively instruct, much less inspire, working-class footballers." Football journalist Brian Glanville said in an interview: "I got on very well with Walter Winterbottom, but he was a rotten manager."
Publishing
Winterbottom was also responsible for the publishing at the FA. The first coaching bulletin was launched in 1946 and this became the FA Bulletin and then the FA News. The FA Year Book was introduced in 1948 along with the FA Book for Boys annual. The first coaching films and film strips followed in 1950.
An important landmark was the publication of Winterbottom's book, Soccer Coaching, the first modern soccer coaching manual. This was followed by three more books, Skilful Soccer, Modern Soccer and Training for Soccer.
Sports administrator
In 1962 Winterbottom resigned from the FA and took up an appointment as General Secretary of the Central Council of Physical Recreation and two years later became the Director of the newly formed Sports Council. He stepped onto the wider stage of sport and emerged to have a profound effect on sport in Britain during the second half of the twentieth century.
Central Council of Physical Recreation
At the Central Council of Physical Education (CCPR) Winterbottom worked to provide coaches and better facilities for sports governing bodies. He soon became involved in the ongoing political debate about the recommendations of the 1960 Report of the Wolfenden Committee on Sport, which had recommended the establishment of a Sports Council responsible for distributing government money to sport. He was in favour but the CCPR was divided on the issue. In 1965 the Government under set up a Sports Council and Winterbottom was seconded to become the first Director of the Sports Council with Denis Howell as his chairman.
Sports Council
Winterbottom believed that participation in a sport played a much more important role in society that was generally accepted. For 16 years he battled to win significantly more investment in sport from national and local government to support a Sport for All campaign. Despite a harsh economic climate great progress was made in providing new facilities. In ten years 499 sports centres were built and 524 new swimming pools. Under his leadership sports governing bodies were helped to develop more professional organisations and provide more coaches. He conceived the idea of the Sports Aid Foundation, raising money from industry to back young elite sportsmen and women with Olympic medal winning chances.
He was a member of the Council of Europe and Chairman of the Committee for the Development of Sport and was influential in the acceptance of the Sport For All concept by Canada and UNESCO.
Later life
In 1978, after reaching the age of 65, Winterbottom retired from the Sports Council and was knighted for his services to sport. He became an advisor to the British government on ways in which British manufacturers of sports equipment could work with foreign firms. In 1979, he visited Australia and New Zealand to help their governments to support sport in the community.
He was head of the FIFA Technical Studies Group for the World Cup in 1966, 1970, 1974, 1978 and a member in 1982. In 1985 The Winterbottom Report, an FA enquiry into artificial playing surfaces was published and in 1987–89 he was a member of the Football League enquiry into artificial pitches.
He died in the Royal Surrey Hospital after an operation for cancer on 16 February 2002. He was 88 years old. A memorial service was held at St. Nicolas Church, Cranleigh, Surrey on 1 March 2002.
Managerial statistics
England matches under Winterbottom
England's goal tally first.
England record versus other countries
Honours
British Home Championship
Champions: 1947, 1948, 1950, 1952 (shared), 1953 (shared), 1954, 1955, 1956 (shared), 1957, 1958 (shared), 1959 (shared), 1960 (shared), 1961
Runners-up: 1949, 1951
Notes
External links
Literature
Graham Morse: Sir Walter Winterbottom - The Father of Modern English Football, Kings Road Publishing, 2013.
People from Oldham
1913 births
2002 deaths
Royal Air Force personnel of World War II
English footballers
Footballers from Oldham
Manchester United F.C. players
English Football League players
English football managers
England national football team managers
1950 FIFA World Cup managers
1954 FIFA World Cup managers
1958 FIFA World Cup managers
1962 FIFA World Cup managers
Alumni of the University of Chester
Association football people awarded knighthoods
Knights Bachelor
Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
Chelsea F.C. wartime guest players
English Football Hall of Fame inductees
Association football midfielders
Mossley A.F.C. players
Olympic football managers of Great Britain
Royal Air Force wing commanders
Deaths from cancer in England
Association football coaches | true | [
"Something Happened is Joseph Heller's second novel (published in 1974, thirteen years after Catch-22). Its main character and narrator is Bob Slocum, a businessman who engages in a stream of consciousness narrative about his job, his family, his childhood, his sexual escapades, and his own psyche.\n\nPlot\n\nWhile there is an ongoing plot about Slocum preparing for a promotion at work, most of the book focuses on detailing various events from his life, ranging from early childhood to his predictions for the future, often in non-chronological order and with little if anything to connect one anecdote to the next. Near the end of the book, Slocum starts worrying about the state of his own sanity as he finds himself hallucinating or remembering events incorrectly, suggesting that some or all of the novel might be the product of his imagination, making him an unreliable narrator.\n\nSomething Happened has failed to achieve the renown of Catch-22 but has a cult following, with some considering it one of Heller's finest works.\n\nReception\nSomething Happened has frequently been criticized as overlong, rambling, and deeply unhappy. These sentiments are echoed in a review of the novel by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., but are balanced with praise for the novel's prose and the meticulous patience Heller took in the creation of the novel, stating, \"Is this book any good? Yes. It is splendidly put together and hypnotic to read. It is as clear and hard-edged as a cut diamond. Mr. Heller's concentration and patience are so evident on every page that one can only say that 'Something Happened' is at all points precisely what he hoped it would be.\" In a contemporary write-up for Kirkus Reviews, the reviewer states that \"there is none of the rogue absurdism or imaginative verve\" of Heller's previous novel, but praises the book's \"bravura, expertise and cumulative hook\".\n\nSomething Happened has since garnered a small base of devoted fans. In 2015, Carmen Petaccio referred to it as the \"most criminally overlooked great novel of the past half century [...] one of the most pleasurable, engrossing, and in retrospect moving American novels ever written.\" Naturi Thomas-Millard called it the \"best book you've never read\"; while agreeing that it is overlong, she billed it as \"an invaluable study in how to portray the horror of everyday life.\" Novelist Jonathan Franzen prefers Something Happened to Catch-22, and Christopher Buckley referred to the work as \"dark and brilliant\". Comedian Richard Lewis claims he \"happily lost most of [his] hope\" after reading the novel.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \nKurt Vonnegut on 'Something Happened' from The New York Times Book Review (1974).\n\n1974 American novels\nNovels by Joseph Heller\nAlfred A. Knopf books\nFiction with unreliable narrators\nBooks with cover art by Paul Bacon\nBureaucracy in fiction",
"Inside is a 2013 American horror film written and directed by Daryn Tufts, and starring Luke Goss, Paul Rae, Isaac Singleton, and Derek Phillips.\n\nPlot\nAfter succumbing to a drug addiction that cost him his job, almost all of his money, and his dignity, Miles Berrett (Luke Goss) is entering his new home: a tiny cell in an old, run-down prison. Determined to get his life back on track, Miles plans to serve his time and make things right with his wife and daughter.\n\nWhile asleep on his bunk during his first night locked up, Miles is ripped awake by a terrifying crash. A moment later, in the dark, guards rush past his cell. Working with Anthony (Paul Rae), the \"lifer\" in the cell next to him, Miles tries to determine what is going on, but this is unlike anything that has ever happened in this prison. Soon, Miles and Anthony hear gunfire. And then screaming... the horrible, sickening screams of a man being torn apart. Something bad is happening in this prison.\n\nOutside of his cell, through the darkness, Miles can hear other inmates talking, yelling—trying to figure out what is happening. A voice over a PA system instructs all of the prisoners to remain calm and quiet. \"There has been a situation. It has been contained.\" But Miles and Anthony know that is a lie. Something is loose in the prison, and it is killing the guards. \n\nAfter some time, Miles understands that there are no prison guards left and that the thing outside his cell is connected to him.\n\nCast\n Luke Goss as Miles Barrett\n Paul Rae as Anthony\n Isaac C. Singleton, Jr. as Russell\n Derek Phillips as Grant Carter\n Renee Casati as Rachel Barrett\n Brett Merritt as Cody Young\n Anne Forester as News Reporter\n\nProduction\nPrincipal photography took place June 2011, in Provo, Utah at the Old Utah County Jail.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\n2013 films\nAmerican horror films\nAmerican films\nFilms shot in Utah"
] |
[
"Walter Winterbottom",
"England Team Manager",
"Can you provide me with a little information about Walter Winterbottom and his career as an England Team Manager?",
"Walter Winterbottom has the distinction of being England's first, youngest and longest serving England team manager;",
"How long did he serve as an England team manager?",
"his departure in 1966",
"How old was he when he first began his career as a team manager?",
"Walter Winterbottom has the distinction of being England's first, youngest",
"What led to his career as a team manager?",
"he is also the only England manager to have had no previous professional managerial experience.",
"Was he ever trained?",
"I don't know.",
"What else is unique about this time as a team manager?",
"he is also the only England manager to have had no previous professional managerial experience.",
"What are some important aspects of his career?",
"In all matches in which he was in charge, England played 139, won 78, drew 33, and lost 28; goals for 383, against 196.",
"What happened after?",
"England won the British championship in thirteen out of his sixteen seasons (seven times outright and six times sharing top place).",
"Is there anything elsse that happened after this took place?",
"In the World Cup tournament England qualified on all four occasions, reaching the quarter finals twice,"
] | C_ec5491bbf741493a9efd0e572c087a79_1 | Can you tell me what followed that? | 10 | Can you tell me what followed after England team win the British championship? | Walter Winterbottom | Walter Winterbottom has the distinction of being England's first, youngest and longest serving England team manager; he is also the only England manager to have had no previous professional managerial experience. In all matches in which he was in charge, England played 139, won 78, drew 33, and lost 28; goals for 383, against 196. At home England lost six matches in sixteen years. England won the British championship in thirteen out of his sixteen seasons (seven times outright and six times sharing top place). In the World Cup tournament England qualified on all four occasions, reaching the quarter finals twice, playing 28 matches, winning 15, drawing 7 and losing 6; goals for 75 against 35 (including World Cup qualifying matches). Although he had coaching and managerial responsibilities, Winterbottom never had the power to pick his own team (it was chosen by a selection committee). Over time his technical knowledge increasingly influenced selectors. Finally, prior to Alf Ramsey's arrival in 1962, he convinced the FA that the team manager must have sole control of selection. During his time Winterbottom repeatedly warned the English football establishment that countries in Continental Europe and South America were overtaking England and that English football had to change. His sixteen years as England team manager helped greatly in creating a modern and competitive national team and four years after his departure in 1966 England won the World Cup. His innovations included the introduction of England B, Under 23, youth and schoolboy teams providing players with continuity and experience in international football before being selected for the full England team. Notable victories during his era were 10-0 away to Portugal in 1947, 4-0 away to Italy in 1948, 4-2 at home to Brazil in 1956 and 9-3 at home to Scotland in 1961. Notable defeats were losing 1-0 to the USA in the 1950 World Cup and 6-3 at home to Hungary in 1953 when England lost her unbeaten home record to a foreign team, followed by a 7-1 away defeat to the same team in 1954. CANNOTANSWER | playing 28 matches, winning 15, drawing 7 and losing 6; goals for 75 against 35 (including World Cup qualifying matches). | Sir Walter Winterbottom (31 March 1913 – 16 February 2002) was the first manager of the England football team (1946–1962) and FA Director of Coaching. He resigned from the FA in 1962 to become General Secretary of the Central Council of Physical Recreation (CCPR) and was appointed as the first Director of the Sports Council in 1965. He was knighted for his services to sport in 1978 when he retired. The Football Association marked the 100th anniversary of Winterbottom's birth by commissioning a bust which was unveiled by Roy Hodgson at St Georges Park on 23 April 2013 in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the development of English football.
Early years
Born in Oldham, Lancashire, Walter Winterbottom was the only son of James Winterbottom, a ring frame fitter in a textile machine works. At the age of 12 he was awarded a scholarship to Oldham High School where he excelled. He won a bursary to Chester Diocesan Teachers Training College, graduating as the top student in 1933 and took a teaching post at the Alexandra Road School, Oldham. Whilst teaching he played football for Royton Amateurs and then Mossley where he was spotted by Manchester United. He signed for United as a part-time professional in 1936 but continued teaching. In his first season (1936/37) at Manchester United he showed great promise, playing 21 first team League games and 2 FA cup games, appearing as wing half and centre half. But in the following two seasons he made only 4 first team appearances. and 41 Central League appearances, his playing career effectively ended by a spinal disease, later diagnosed as ankylosing spondylitis. Whilst still playing for Manchester United he left his teaching position to study at Carnegie College of Physical Education, Leeds. On graduating he was appointed as a lecturer.
During World War II Winterbottom served as an officer in the Royal Air Force, reaching the rank of wing commander and working at the Air Ministry with overall responsibility for training PE instructors at home and overseas. He was also a guest player with Chelsea and ran coaching courses for the FA at grammar schools in London. In 1946 Stanley Rous, who was the secretary of The Football Association, persuaded the FA council to appoint Winterbottom as The FA's first Director of Coaching and suggested he take on the additional responsibility of being the first England team manager.
England team manager
Walter Winterbottom has the distinction of being England's first, youngest and longest serving England team manager; he is also the only England manager to have had no previous professional managerial experience. In all matches in which he was in charge, England played 139, won 78, drew 33, and lost 28; goals for 383, against 196. At home England lost six matches in sixteen years. England won the British championship in thirteen out of his sixteen seasons (seven times outright and six times sharing top place). In the World Cup tournament England qualified on all four occasions, reaching the quarter finals twice, playing 28 matches, winning 15, drawing 7 and losing 6; goals for 75 against 35 (including World Cup qualifying matches).
Although he had coaching and managerial responsibilities, Winterbottom never had the power to pick his own team (it was chosen by a selection committee). Over time his technical knowledge increasingly influenced selectors. Finally, prior to Alf Ramsey's arrival in 1962, he convinced the FA that the team manager must have sole control of selection.
During his time Winterbottom repeatedly warned the English football establishment that countries in Continental Europe and South America were overtaking England and that English football had to change. His sixteen years as England team manager helped greatly in creating a modern and competitive national team and four years after his departure in 1966 England won the World Cup. His innovations included the introduction of England B, Under 23, youth and schoolboy teams providing players with continuity and experience in international football before being selected for the full England team.
Notable victories during his era were 10—0 away to Portugal in 1947, 4—0 away to Italy in 1948, 3—1 at home to recently crowned World Champions West Germany in 1954 after the 4—2 at home to Brazil in 1956 and 9—3 at home to Scotland in 1961. Notable defeats were losing 2–0 to the Republic of Ireland at Goodison Park, losing 1—0 to the USA in the 1950 World Cup and 6—3 at home to Hungary in 1953 when England lost their unbeaten home record to a foreign team at Wembley, followed by a 7—1 away defeat to the same team in 1954.
Also while he was manager, England visited Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Denmark, Mexico, Peru, Portugal, the Soviet Union, United States and Uruguay for the first time.
FIFA World Cup record
Winterbottom led England to four consecutive World Cup finals, a record subsequently equalled only by Helmut Schön of West Germany. England entered the World Cup for the first time in 1950, qualifying for the tournament in Brazil by winning the British Home Championship. England had never before played in South America. They beat Chile by 2—0 but lost 1—0 to the USA and 1—0 to Spain to be eliminated in the first round.
Winterbottom again led England to qualification in Switzerland in 1954 by winning the British Home championship. A 4—4 draw against Belgium and a 2—0 victory against Switzerland took them to the quarter finals where they were beaten 4—2 by the defending champions, Uruguay.
England qualified for the 1958 FIFA World Cup in Sweden with wins over the Republic of Ireland and Denmark, with a team that had lost only once in 17 games. Three months before the tournament began the Munich air disaster robbed the team of key players from Manchester United: Roger Byrne, Tommy Taylor and Duncan Edwards died. England drew against the USSR, Brazil and Austria but lost to the Soviet Union in a playoff for a quarter-final place.
Winterbottom again led his team to qualification for the 1962 World Cup in Chile with wins over Portugal and Luxembourg. After progressing from their group on goal average, England reached the quarter-finals but were beaten 3—1 by the eventual winners, Brazil.
FA Director of Coaching
Although Winterbottom is best known as the England team manager, it is in coaching that he made important contributions to the development of English football. He made no secret of his belief that his job as Director of Coaching was the more important of his two roles at the FA.
When he joined the FA in 1946, club directors, managers and players were cynical about the need for coaching but Winterbottom had a passion for coaching and a vision of how it should develop.
He soon created a national coaching scheme with summer residential courses at Lilleshall, Shropshire, and persuaded some of his international players to take the courses that led to exams for the FA preliminary and full coaching badges. This gave the scheme credibility. They developed their teaching skills by coaching in schools and then moved into part-time coaching positions in junior clubs. He gathered around him a cadre of young FA staff coaches: men like Bill Nicholson, Don Howe, Alan Brown, Ron Greenwood, Dave Sexton, Malcolm Allison, Joe Mercer, Vic Buckingham, Jimmy Hill and Bobby Robson. Over time a new breed of managers emerged in the League clubs and began to change attitudes to coaching.
Winterbottom's courses were expanded to include professional players, referees, schoolmasters, club trainers, schoolboys and youth leaders. In addition to Lilleshall they were held at Loughborough College, Carnegie College, Bisham Abbey and Birmingham University. In 1947 three hundred had taken the full coaching award and the numbers of qualified coaches grew each year.
The courses attracted international participation and praise. Winterbottom was regarded by many as a leading technical thinker and exponent of association football, of his generation, in the world and lectured internationally.
He inspired a new generation of managers, most notably Ron Greenwood and Bobby Robson, who graduated through every level of coaching, both eventually becoming England team manager.
Criticism
In assessing Winterbottom's tenure as England manager, Goldblatt writes that "[Winterbottom] introduced a measure of tactical thinking and discussion to the England squad, though his inability to anticipate or learn significantly from the Hungarian debacle suggests that his grasp of tactics and communication with the players was limited." William Baker writes that Winterbottom, because of his "upper-class origins [sic]", could not "effectively instruct, much less inspire, working-class footballers." Football journalist Brian Glanville said in an interview: "I got on very well with Walter Winterbottom, but he was a rotten manager."
Publishing
Winterbottom was also responsible for the publishing at the FA. The first coaching bulletin was launched in 1946 and this became the FA Bulletin and then the FA News. The FA Year Book was introduced in 1948 along with the FA Book for Boys annual. The first coaching films and film strips followed in 1950.
An important landmark was the publication of Winterbottom's book, Soccer Coaching, the first modern soccer coaching manual. This was followed by three more books, Skilful Soccer, Modern Soccer and Training for Soccer.
Sports administrator
In 1962 Winterbottom resigned from the FA and took up an appointment as General Secretary of the Central Council of Physical Recreation and two years later became the Director of the newly formed Sports Council. He stepped onto the wider stage of sport and emerged to have a profound effect on sport in Britain during the second half of the twentieth century.
Central Council of Physical Recreation
At the Central Council of Physical Education (CCPR) Winterbottom worked to provide coaches and better facilities for sports governing bodies. He soon became involved in the ongoing political debate about the recommendations of the 1960 Report of the Wolfenden Committee on Sport, which had recommended the establishment of a Sports Council responsible for distributing government money to sport. He was in favour but the CCPR was divided on the issue. In 1965 the Government under set up a Sports Council and Winterbottom was seconded to become the first Director of the Sports Council with Denis Howell as his chairman.
Sports Council
Winterbottom believed that participation in a sport played a much more important role in society that was generally accepted. For 16 years he battled to win significantly more investment in sport from national and local government to support a Sport for All campaign. Despite a harsh economic climate great progress was made in providing new facilities. In ten years 499 sports centres were built and 524 new swimming pools. Under his leadership sports governing bodies were helped to develop more professional organisations and provide more coaches. He conceived the idea of the Sports Aid Foundation, raising money from industry to back young elite sportsmen and women with Olympic medal winning chances.
He was a member of the Council of Europe and Chairman of the Committee for the Development of Sport and was influential in the acceptance of the Sport For All concept by Canada and UNESCO.
Later life
In 1978, after reaching the age of 65, Winterbottom retired from the Sports Council and was knighted for his services to sport. He became an advisor to the British government on ways in which British manufacturers of sports equipment could work with foreign firms. In 1979, he visited Australia and New Zealand to help their governments to support sport in the community.
He was head of the FIFA Technical Studies Group for the World Cup in 1966, 1970, 1974, 1978 and a member in 1982. In 1985 The Winterbottom Report, an FA enquiry into artificial playing surfaces was published and in 1987–89 he was a member of the Football League enquiry into artificial pitches.
He died in the Royal Surrey Hospital after an operation for cancer on 16 February 2002. He was 88 years old. A memorial service was held at St. Nicolas Church, Cranleigh, Surrey on 1 March 2002.
Managerial statistics
England matches under Winterbottom
England's goal tally first.
England record versus other countries
Honours
British Home Championship
Champions: 1947, 1948, 1950, 1952 (shared), 1953 (shared), 1954, 1955, 1956 (shared), 1957, 1958 (shared), 1959 (shared), 1960 (shared), 1961
Runners-up: 1949, 1951
Notes
External links
Literature
Graham Morse: Sir Walter Winterbottom - The Father of Modern English Football, Kings Road Publishing, 2013.
People from Oldham
1913 births
2002 deaths
Royal Air Force personnel of World War II
English footballers
Footballers from Oldham
Manchester United F.C. players
English Football League players
English football managers
England national football team managers
1950 FIFA World Cup managers
1954 FIFA World Cup managers
1958 FIFA World Cup managers
1962 FIFA World Cup managers
Alumni of the University of Chester
Association football people awarded knighthoods
Knights Bachelor
Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
Chelsea F.C. wartime guest players
English Football Hall of Fame inductees
Association football midfielders
Mossley A.F.C. players
Olympic football managers of Great Britain
Royal Air Force wing commanders
Deaths from cancer in England
Association football coaches | true | [
"\"Tell Me What You Want Me to Do\" is the title of a number-one R&B single by singer Tevin Campbell. To date, the single is Campbell's biggest hit peaking at number 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 and spending one week at number-one on the US R&B chart. The hit song is also Tevin's one and only Adult Contemporary hit, where it peaked at number 43. The song showcases Campbell's four-octave vocal range from a low note of E2 to a D#6 during the bridge of the song.\n\nTrack listings\nUS 7\" vinyl\nA \"Tell Me What You Want Me to Do\" (edit) – 4:16\t\nB \"Tell Me What You Want Me to Do\" (instrumental) – 5:00\n\n12\" vinyl\nA \"Tell Me What You Want Me to Do\" (edit) – 4:16\t\nB \"Tell Me What You Want Me to Do\" (album version) – 5:02\n\nUK CD\n \"Tell Me What You Want Me to Do\" – 4:16\n \"Goodbye\" (7\" Remix Edit) – 3:48\n \"Goodbye\" (Sidub and Listen) – 4:58\n \"Goodbye\" (Tevin's Dub Pt 1 & 2) – 6:53\n\nJapan CD\n \"Tell Me What You Want Me to Do\" – 4:10\n \"Tell Me What You Want Me to Do\" (instrumental version) – 4:10\n\nGermany CD\n \"Tell Me What You Want Me to Do\" (edit) – 4:10\n \"Just Ask Me\" (featuring Chubb Rock) – 4:07\n \"Tomorrow\" (A Better You, Better Me) – 4:46\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nSee also\nList of number-one R&B singles of 1992 (U.S.)\n\nReferences\n\nTevin Campbell songs\n1991 singles\n1991 songs\nSongs written by Tevin Campbell\nSongs written by Narada Michael Walden\nSong recordings produced by Narada Michael Walden\nWarner Records singles\nContemporary R&B ballads\nPop ballads\nSoul ballads\n1990s ballads",
"\"Tell Me What You Want\" is the fourth single by English R&B band Loose Ends from their first studio album, A Little Spice, and was released in February 1984 by Virgin Records. The single reached number 74 in the UK Singles Chart.\n\nTrack listing\n7” Single: VS658\n \"Tell Me What You Want) 3.35\n \"Tell Me What You Want (Dub Mix)\" 3.34\n\n12” Single: VS658-12\n \"Tell Me What You Want (Extended Version)\" 6.11\n \"Tell Me What You Want (Extended Dub Mix)\" 5.41\n\nU.S. only release - 12” Single: MCA23596 (released 1985)\n \"Tell Me What You Want (U.S. Extended Remix)\" 6.08 *\n \"Tell Me What You Want (U.S. Dub Version)\" 5.18\n\n* The U.S. Extended Remix version was released on CD on the U.S. Version of the 'A Little Spice' album (MCAD27141).\n\nThe Extended Version also featured on Side D of the limited gatefold sleeve version of 'Magic Touch'\n\nChart performance\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Tell Me What You Want at Discogs.\n\n1984 singles\nLoose Ends (band) songs\nSong recordings produced by Nick Martinelli\nSongs written by Carl McIntosh (musician)\nSongs written by Steve Nichol\n1984 songs\nVirgin Records singles"
] |
[
"Walter Winterbottom",
"England Team Manager",
"Can you provide me with a little information about Walter Winterbottom and his career as an England Team Manager?",
"Walter Winterbottom has the distinction of being England's first, youngest and longest serving England team manager;",
"How long did he serve as an England team manager?",
"his departure in 1966",
"How old was he when he first began his career as a team manager?",
"Walter Winterbottom has the distinction of being England's first, youngest",
"What led to his career as a team manager?",
"he is also the only England manager to have had no previous professional managerial experience.",
"Was he ever trained?",
"I don't know.",
"What else is unique about this time as a team manager?",
"he is also the only England manager to have had no previous professional managerial experience.",
"What are some important aspects of his career?",
"In all matches in which he was in charge, England played 139, won 78, drew 33, and lost 28; goals for 383, against 196.",
"What happened after?",
"England won the British championship in thirteen out of his sixteen seasons (seven times outright and six times sharing top place).",
"Is there anything elsse that happened after this took place?",
"In the World Cup tournament England qualified on all four occasions, reaching the quarter finals twice,",
"Can you tell me what followed that?",
"playing 28 matches, winning 15, drawing 7 and losing 6; goals for 75 against 35 (including World Cup qualifying matches)."
] | C_ec5491bbf741493a9efd0e572c087a79_1 | Did the team celebrate after their winnings? | 11 | Did the England team celebrate after the winnings of British championship? | Walter Winterbottom | Walter Winterbottom has the distinction of being England's first, youngest and longest serving England team manager; he is also the only England manager to have had no previous professional managerial experience. In all matches in which he was in charge, England played 139, won 78, drew 33, and lost 28; goals for 383, against 196. At home England lost six matches in sixteen years. England won the British championship in thirteen out of his sixteen seasons (seven times outright and six times sharing top place). In the World Cup tournament England qualified on all four occasions, reaching the quarter finals twice, playing 28 matches, winning 15, drawing 7 and losing 6; goals for 75 against 35 (including World Cup qualifying matches). Although he had coaching and managerial responsibilities, Winterbottom never had the power to pick his own team (it was chosen by a selection committee). Over time his technical knowledge increasingly influenced selectors. Finally, prior to Alf Ramsey's arrival in 1962, he convinced the FA that the team manager must have sole control of selection. During his time Winterbottom repeatedly warned the English football establishment that countries in Continental Europe and South America were overtaking England and that English football had to change. His sixteen years as England team manager helped greatly in creating a modern and competitive national team and four years after his departure in 1966 England won the World Cup. His innovations included the introduction of England B, Under 23, youth and schoolboy teams providing players with continuity and experience in international football before being selected for the full England team. Notable victories during his era were 10-0 away to Portugal in 1947, 4-0 away to Italy in 1948, 4-2 at home to Brazil in 1956 and 9-3 at home to Scotland in 1961. Notable defeats were losing 1-0 to the USA in the 1950 World Cup and 6-3 at home to Hungary in 1953 when England lost her unbeaten home record to a foreign team, followed by a 7-1 away defeat to the same team in 1954. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Sir Walter Winterbottom (31 March 1913 – 16 February 2002) was the first manager of the England football team (1946–1962) and FA Director of Coaching. He resigned from the FA in 1962 to become General Secretary of the Central Council of Physical Recreation (CCPR) and was appointed as the first Director of the Sports Council in 1965. He was knighted for his services to sport in 1978 when he retired. The Football Association marked the 100th anniversary of Winterbottom's birth by commissioning a bust which was unveiled by Roy Hodgson at St Georges Park on 23 April 2013 in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the development of English football.
Early years
Born in Oldham, Lancashire, Walter Winterbottom was the only son of James Winterbottom, a ring frame fitter in a textile machine works. At the age of 12 he was awarded a scholarship to Oldham High School where he excelled. He won a bursary to Chester Diocesan Teachers Training College, graduating as the top student in 1933 and took a teaching post at the Alexandra Road School, Oldham. Whilst teaching he played football for Royton Amateurs and then Mossley where he was spotted by Manchester United. He signed for United as a part-time professional in 1936 but continued teaching. In his first season (1936/37) at Manchester United he showed great promise, playing 21 first team League games and 2 FA cup games, appearing as wing half and centre half. But in the following two seasons he made only 4 first team appearances. and 41 Central League appearances, his playing career effectively ended by a spinal disease, later diagnosed as ankylosing spondylitis. Whilst still playing for Manchester United he left his teaching position to study at Carnegie College of Physical Education, Leeds. On graduating he was appointed as a lecturer.
During World War II Winterbottom served as an officer in the Royal Air Force, reaching the rank of wing commander and working at the Air Ministry with overall responsibility for training PE instructors at home and overseas. He was also a guest player with Chelsea and ran coaching courses for the FA at grammar schools in London. In 1946 Stanley Rous, who was the secretary of The Football Association, persuaded the FA council to appoint Winterbottom as The FA's first Director of Coaching and suggested he take on the additional responsibility of being the first England team manager.
England team manager
Walter Winterbottom has the distinction of being England's first, youngest and longest serving England team manager; he is also the only England manager to have had no previous professional managerial experience. In all matches in which he was in charge, England played 139, won 78, drew 33, and lost 28; goals for 383, against 196. At home England lost six matches in sixteen years. England won the British championship in thirteen out of his sixteen seasons (seven times outright and six times sharing top place). In the World Cup tournament England qualified on all four occasions, reaching the quarter finals twice, playing 28 matches, winning 15, drawing 7 and losing 6; goals for 75 against 35 (including World Cup qualifying matches).
Although he had coaching and managerial responsibilities, Winterbottom never had the power to pick his own team (it was chosen by a selection committee). Over time his technical knowledge increasingly influenced selectors. Finally, prior to Alf Ramsey's arrival in 1962, he convinced the FA that the team manager must have sole control of selection.
During his time Winterbottom repeatedly warned the English football establishment that countries in Continental Europe and South America were overtaking England and that English football had to change. His sixteen years as England team manager helped greatly in creating a modern and competitive national team and four years after his departure in 1966 England won the World Cup. His innovations included the introduction of England B, Under 23, youth and schoolboy teams providing players with continuity and experience in international football before being selected for the full England team.
Notable victories during his era were 10—0 away to Portugal in 1947, 4—0 away to Italy in 1948, 3—1 at home to recently crowned World Champions West Germany in 1954 after the 4—2 at home to Brazil in 1956 and 9—3 at home to Scotland in 1961. Notable defeats were losing 2–0 to the Republic of Ireland at Goodison Park, losing 1—0 to the USA in the 1950 World Cup and 6—3 at home to Hungary in 1953 when England lost their unbeaten home record to a foreign team at Wembley, followed by a 7—1 away defeat to the same team in 1954.
Also while he was manager, England visited Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Denmark, Mexico, Peru, Portugal, the Soviet Union, United States and Uruguay for the first time.
FIFA World Cup record
Winterbottom led England to four consecutive World Cup finals, a record subsequently equalled only by Helmut Schön of West Germany. England entered the World Cup for the first time in 1950, qualifying for the tournament in Brazil by winning the British Home Championship. England had never before played in South America. They beat Chile by 2—0 but lost 1—0 to the USA and 1—0 to Spain to be eliminated in the first round.
Winterbottom again led England to qualification in Switzerland in 1954 by winning the British Home championship. A 4—4 draw against Belgium and a 2—0 victory against Switzerland took them to the quarter finals where they were beaten 4—2 by the defending champions, Uruguay.
England qualified for the 1958 FIFA World Cup in Sweden with wins over the Republic of Ireland and Denmark, with a team that had lost only once in 17 games. Three months before the tournament began the Munich air disaster robbed the team of key players from Manchester United: Roger Byrne, Tommy Taylor and Duncan Edwards died. England drew against the USSR, Brazil and Austria but lost to the Soviet Union in a playoff for a quarter-final place.
Winterbottom again led his team to qualification for the 1962 World Cup in Chile with wins over Portugal and Luxembourg. After progressing from their group on goal average, England reached the quarter-finals but were beaten 3—1 by the eventual winners, Brazil.
FA Director of Coaching
Although Winterbottom is best known as the England team manager, it is in coaching that he made important contributions to the development of English football. He made no secret of his belief that his job as Director of Coaching was the more important of his two roles at the FA.
When he joined the FA in 1946, club directors, managers and players were cynical about the need for coaching but Winterbottom had a passion for coaching and a vision of how it should develop.
He soon created a national coaching scheme with summer residential courses at Lilleshall, Shropshire, and persuaded some of his international players to take the courses that led to exams for the FA preliminary and full coaching badges. This gave the scheme credibility. They developed their teaching skills by coaching in schools and then moved into part-time coaching positions in junior clubs. He gathered around him a cadre of young FA staff coaches: men like Bill Nicholson, Don Howe, Alan Brown, Ron Greenwood, Dave Sexton, Malcolm Allison, Joe Mercer, Vic Buckingham, Jimmy Hill and Bobby Robson. Over time a new breed of managers emerged in the League clubs and began to change attitudes to coaching.
Winterbottom's courses were expanded to include professional players, referees, schoolmasters, club trainers, schoolboys and youth leaders. In addition to Lilleshall they were held at Loughborough College, Carnegie College, Bisham Abbey and Birmingham University. In 1947 three hundred had taken the full coaching award and the numbers of qualified coaches grew each year.
The courses attracted international participation and praise. Winterbottom was regarded by many as a leading technical thinker and exponent of association football, of his generation, in the world and lectured internationally.
He inspired a new generation of managers, most notably Ron Greenwood and Bobby Robson, who graduated through every level of coaching, both eventually becoming England team manager.
Criticism
In assessing Winterbottom's tenure as England manager, Goldblatt writes that "[Winterbottom] introduced a measure of tactical thinking and discussion to the England squad, though his inability to anticipate or learn significantly from the Hungarian debacle suggests that his grasp of tactics and communication with the players was limited." William Baker writes that Winterbottom, because of his "upper-class origins [sic]", could not "effectively instruct, much less inspire, working-class footballers." Football journalist Brian Glanville said in an interview: "I got on very well with Walter Winterbottom, but he was a rotten manager."
Publishing
Winterbottom was also responsible for the publishing at the FA. The first coaching bulletin was launched in 1946 and this became the FA Bulletin and then the FA News. The FA Year Book was introduced in 1948 along with the FA Book for Boys annual. The first coaching films and film strips followed in 1950.
An important landmark was the publication of Winterbottom's book, Soccer Coaching, the first modern soccer coaching manual. This was followed by three more books, Skilful Soccer, Modern Soccer and Training for Soccer.
Sports administrator
In 1962 Winterbottom resigned from the FA and took up an appointment as General Secretary of the Central Council of Physical Recreation and two years later became the Director of the newly formed Sports Council. He stepped onto the wider stage of sport and emerged to have a profound effect on sport in Britain during the second half of the twentieth century.
Central Council of Physical Recreation
At the Central Council of Physical Education (CCPR) Winterbottom worked to provide coaches and better facilities for sports governing bodies. He soon became involved in the ongoing political debate about the recommendations of the 1960 Report of the Wolfenden Committee on Sport, which had recommended the establishment of a Sports Council responsible for distributing government money to sport. He was in favour but the CCPR was divided on the issue. In 1965 the Government under set up a Sports Council and Winterbottom was seconded to become the first Director of the Sports Council with Denis Howell as his chairman.
Sports Council
Winterbottom believed that participation in a sport played a much more important role in society that was generally accepted. For 16 years he battled to win significantly more investment in sport from national and local government to support a Sport for All campaign. Despite a harsh economic climate great progress was made in providing new facilities. In ten years 499 sports centres were built and 524 new swimming pools. Under his leadership sports governing bodies were helped to develop more professional organisations and provide more coaches. He conceived the idea of the Sports Aid Foundation, raising money from industry to back young elite sportsmen and women with Olympic medal winning chances.
He was a member of the Council of Europe and Chairman of the Committee for the Development of Sport and was influential in the acceptance of the Sport For All concept by Canada and UNESCO.
Later life
In 1978, after reaching the age of 65, Winterbottom retired from the Sports Council and was knighted for his services to sport. He became an advisor to the British government on ways in which British manufacturers of sports equipment could work with foreign firms. In 1979, he visited Australia and New Zealand to help their governments to support sport in the community.
He was head of the FIFA Technical Studies Group for the World Cup in 1966, 1970, 1974, 1978 and a member in 1982. In 1985 The Winterbottom Report, an FA enquiry into artificial playing surfaces was published and in 1987–89 he was a member of the Football League enquiry into artificial pitches.
He died in the Royal Surrey Hospital after an operation for cancer on 16 February 2002. He was 88 years old. A memorial service was held at St. Nicolas Church, Cranleigh, Surrey on 1 March 2002.
Managerial statistics
England matches under Winterbottom
England's goal tally first.
England record versus other countries
Honours
British Home Championship
Champions: 1947, 1948, 1950, 1952 (shared), 1953 (shared), 1954, 1955, 1956 (shared), 1957, 1958 (shared), 1959 (shared), 1960 (shared), 1961
Runners-up: 1949, 1951
Notes
External links
Literature
Graham Morse: Sir Walter Winterbottom - The Father of Modern English Football, Kings Road Publishing, 2013.
People from Oldham
1913 births
2002 deaths
Royal Air Force personnel of World War II
English footballers
Footballers from Oldham
Manchester United F.C. players
English Football League players
English football managers
England national football team managers
1950 FIFA World Cup managers
1954 FIFA World Cup managers
1958 FIFA World Cup managers
1962 FIFA World Cup managers
Alumni of the University of Chester
Association football people awarded knighthoods
Knights Bachelor
Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
Chelsea F.C. wartime guest players
English Football Hall of Fame inductees
Association football midfielders
Mossley A.F.C. players
Olympic football managers of Great Britain
Royal Air Force wing commanders
Deaths from cancer in England
Association football coaches | false | [
"Who Dares Wins (The National Lottery: Who Dares Wins during National Lottery draws) is a BBC game show broadcast on BBC One which began on 17 November 2007. The programme is hosted by Nick Knowles and is based on Fox's short-lived American game show The Rich List. From 2007 until 2016 it was a BBC National Lottery game show.\n\nFormat\nTwo teams of two members each, who have never met before, are placed in separate soundproof pods. The audio to each pod can be turned on or off as needed during the game, either isolating a team or allowing them to hear and be heard.\n\nThe subject for a list is announced to both teams (e.g. \"20th Century Oscar-Nominated Films,\" \"Highest-Grossing Authors in the United Kingdom\"), followed by a brief explanation of what constitutes a valid answer. The teams then take turns bidding on how many correct answers they think they can give. A team's pod is turned on only when it is their turn to bid, and they are told of the opposing team's current bid. The bidding ends when one team dares the other to play the list, whereupon both pods are turned on. If the high bidders can give their stated number of correct answers without a miss, they win the list; otherwise, the opponents win it. The first team to win two lists takes/retains the championship and advances to the bonus round.\n\nIf each team wins one of the first two lists, a penalty shootout tiebreaker is played. A new list subject is announced, both pods are turned on, and the teams alternate giving one answer at a time. If both teams answer correctly or both miss, they each take another turn; when only one team answers correctly, they win the game.\n\nMoney ladder\nThe champions are given a new list subject and can win money by giving up to 15 correct answers, as follows:\n\nAfter every third correct answer, the team may choose to quit the round and bank their winnings. An incorrect answer at any time ends the round and forfeits the accumulated money (money won on previous money lists is safe). After 15 correct answers, the team banks the full £50,000 and the round automatically ends.\n\nThere is no limit on the number of games or amount of money that a team can win. All winnings are split equally between the teammates.\n\nThree champion teams chose to leave the show instead of continuing. In each case, the next game was played with two new teams.\n\nRecords\nThe most games won by a team is 12 by Chrissy from Blackrod and Joe from Canterbury.\n\nTrish McGowan and Seamus Hussein have won the most money (£170,000). They won 8 times.\n\nChrissy and Joe are second in terms of winnings, with £165,000 in 12 games, while Nat Moitt and Euan Fleming are third in terms of winnings, with £155,000 in 7 games; they also held the record for the most answers given on a single list, with 40 (for Chemical Elements), until series 7 episode 5 where Hayley and Ranjit managed to name a 52 word list (the words in Bohemian Rhapsody).\n\nTransmissions\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n2007 British television series debuts\n2019 British television series endings\n2000s British game shows\n2010s British game shows\nBBC Scotland television shows\nBBC television game shows\nBritish lottery game shows\nTelevision series by ITV Studios\nEnglish-language television shows",
"The 2019 TSN All-Star Curling Skins Game was held from February 1 to 3 at The Fenlands Banff Recreation Centre in Banff, Alberta. Brendan Bottcher defeated Kevin Koe in the men's final and Jennifer Jones defeated Tracy Fleury in the women's final.\n\nMen\n\nTeams\n\nTeam Gushue\n\nSkip: Brad Gushue\nThird: Mark Nichols\nSecond: Brett Gallant\nLead: Geoff Walker\n\nTeam Koe\n\nSkip: Kevin Koe\nThird: B. J. Neufeld\nSecond: Colton Flasch\nLead: Ben Hebert\n\nTeam Carruthers\n\nFourth: Mike McEwen\nSkip: Reid Carruthers\nSecond: Derek Samagalski\nLead: Colin Hodgson\n\nTeam Bottcher\n\nSkip: Brendan Bottcher\nThird: Darren Moulding\nSecond: Bradley Thiessen\nLead: Karrick Martin\n\nResults\nAll times listed in Mountain Standard Time.\n\nSemifinals\nGushue vs. Bottcher\nFriday, February 1, 6:00 pm\n\nKoe vs. Carruthers\nSaturday, February 2, 1:00 pm\n\nFinal\nSunday, February 3, 1:00 pm\n\nWinnings\nThe prize winnings for each team are listed below:\n\nWomen\n\nTeams\n\nTeam Jones\n\nSkip: Jennifer Jones\nThird: Kaitlyn Lawes\nSecond: Jocelyn Peterman\nLead: Dawn McEwen\n\nTeam Einarson\n\nSkip: Kerri Einarson\nThird: Val Sweeting\nSecond: Shannon Birchard\nLead: Briane Meilleur\n\nTeam Scheidegger\n\nSkip: Casey Scheidegger\nThird: Cary-Anne McTaggart\nSecond: Jessie Haughian\nLead: Kristie Moore\n\nTeam Fleury\n\nSkip: Tracy Fleury\nThird: Selena Njegovan\nSecond: Liz Fyfe\nLead: Kristin MacCuish\n\nResults\nAll times listed in Mountain Standard Time.\n\nSemifinals\nEinarson vs. Fleury\nSaturday, February 2, 9:00 am\n\nJones vs. Scheidegger\nSaturday, February 2, 5:00 pm\n\nFinal\nSunday, February 3, 9:00 am\n\nWinnings\nThe prize winnings for each team are listed below:\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\n2019 in Canadian curling\nCurling in Alberta\nTSN Skins Game\nTSN All-Star\nBanff, Alberta\nTSN All-Star Curling Skins Game"
] |
[
"John Maulbetsch",
"\"Human Bullet\""
] | C_263bcc5e0b4349d8a4de0526b164f1ce_0 | Why was he known as the human bullet? | 1 | Why was John Maulbetsch known as the human bullet? | John Maulbetsch | Much of the attention on Maulbetsch focused on his diminutive size and unique running style. At 5 ft 7 in (1.70 m), and 155 lb (70 kg), Maulbetsch was a small back, even by the standards of his day. And his running style saw him bend his torso and propel himself like a projectile into the opposing line. Indeed, he won several nicknames based on his size, running style, and fighting spirit, including the "Human Bullet," "Mauly", the "Human Shrapnel", the "Featherweight Fullback", the "Michigan Cannon Ball," and the "German bullet." Comparisons of Maulbetsch to military armaments were common. In addition to the "bullet", "shrapnel", and "cannonball" nicknames, the Syracuse Herald observed: "Standing up in front of a Krupp gun has its dangers, but it is not to be compared with the dangers of standing in front of Maulbetsch when he is going full speed ahead." Maulbetsch's style was described as "line-plunging." A New York newspaper noted: "When the ball is snapped to him he almost doubles himself up, and, with his head aimed at the knees of the opposing line, he dives head first. Those who have seen Maulbetsch in action marvel at the great momentum he can get up in two or three steps." Noted football writer Walter Eckersall said: "Mauly is a little fellow, being built close to the ground. They say that when he plunges at the line his head is almost on a level with his shoe tops - that he hits so low that it's well nigh impossible to stop him." An Iowa newspaper wondered how it was possible "for a man to smash into a line of human bodies with the force that Maulbetsch does and come out of the game without a broken neck." Maulbetsch was said to run "so low that he could dash under an ordinary table without losing his feet." At a coaching conference in the 1920s, a coach doubted the table-ducking story and challenged Maulbetsch. The doubter later recalled: "I began ribbing him about this table-ducking stuff and finally offered to bet him he couldn't do it. Well, we got a table up in a room, Johnny tucked a water pitcher under his arm and backed against the wall. Darned if he didn't do it, the only thing, that water pitcher broke in a million pieces." Asked about the incident, Maulbetsch said it was true, except one part. Maulbetsch insisted there wasn't a nick on the pitcher. CANNOTANSWER | And his running style saw him bend his torso and propel himself like a projectile into the opposing line. | John Frederick Maulbetsch (June 20, 1890 – September 14, 1950) was an All-American football halfback at Adrian College in 1911 and for the University of Michigan Wolverines from 1914 to 1916. He is also a member of the College Football Hall of Fame.
After playing with an independent football team in Ann Arbor and at Adrian College, Maulbetsch became one of the most famous American football players in 1914 while playing for the University of Michigan. Maulbetsch became known as the "Human Bullet" because of his unusual low, line-plunging style of play, and was also known as the "Featherweight Fullback" because of his light weight and small size. After his performance against Harvard in 1914, in which some reports indicated he gained more than 300 yards, eastern writers, including Damon Runyon, wrote articles touting Maulbetsch. Maulbetsch was also selected by Walter Camp to his All-American team.
In 1915, Maulbetsch underwent surgery for appendicitis and did not perform to the same level as he had in 1914. He made a comeback as a senior in 1916 and was again one of the leading players in college football.
Between 1917 and 1920, Maulbetsch was the head football coach at Phillips University. With Maulbetsch's name recognition, he was able to recruit big name talent to Phillips, including future Pro Football Hall of Famer Steve Owen, and future United States Olympic Committee President Doug Roby. Maulbetsch quickly turned Phillips into one of the top programs in the southwest, as his teams beat Oklahoma and Texas and lost only one game in the 1918 and 1919 seasons. Maulbetsch was later the football coach at Oklahoma A&M (later known as Oklahoma State) and Marshall College in the 1920s. He has been inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame, and the University of Michigan awards the John F. Maulbetsch Award each year to a freshman football player based on desire, character, and capacity for leadership and future success both on and off the football field.
Ann Arbor High School and the Independents
Maulbetsch was born and grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He attended Ann Arbor High School where he led the football team to consecutive state championships in 1908 and 1909. One account of the 1908 playoffs noted: "Ann Arbor's smashing play in the first half was wholly due to Maulbetsch, Ann Arbor's fullback, and his terrific line bucking. He clearly outshone his team mates."
After graduating from high school, Maulbetsch joined the Ann Arbor Independents, a football team made up of Michigan "varsity eligibles" and "townies." Maulbetsch was once reportedly called upon to drive across the goal line for the Independents in a game in which a large crowd, including a farmer with his plow-horse, gathered in the end zone. "Head down and legs working like piston rods, Maulbetsch plowed ahead until head struck the plow horse amidships. Down went the horse Mauly on top of him."
College football player
Transfer from Adrian College
Maulbetsch started his college football career at age 21, leading Adrian College to an 8–0 record in 1911, including a 15–0 win over the University of Michigan freshman team. Maulbetsch's performance drew the attention of Michigan Coach Fielding H. Yost. After watching Maulbetsch dominate Michigan's freshman team, Yost concluded: "If I could get that kid into Michigan and keep him up in his studies I’d make an All-American place for him his first year." Yost persuaded Maulbetsch to transfer, and he played with "the scrubs" in 1912. Yost told the press at the time he had "another (Willie) Heston" in Maulbetsch.
1914 season
Maulbetsch did not play for the varsity team until the fall of 1914 when he was 24 years old. Before the season began, Maulbetsch was "touted as one of the fastest halfbacks who ever donned moleskins. He weighs 155 pounds, is built low, has a powerful pair of shoulders and his dashes are characterized by lightning speed." Another pre-season account said he was "a wonder as a line plunger and a wizard in the open field." From the outset, considerable attention was paid to his unusual running style. Observers noted "the peculiar manner in which he runs. . . . He has a corkscrew style of dashing, and even when tackled squarely has such a sturdy pair of legs that his assailant is usually carried back several yards."
Michigan opened the season with a 58–0 win over DePauw, followed by a 69–0 victory over Case Institute of Technology. Maulbetsch was the offensive star against Case, as he twice "carried several would-be tackles across the goal." Playing Vanderbilt the following week, Maulbetsch had runs of 25 and 35 yards, scored two touchdowns, "was worked overtime and probably advanced the pigskin more than any two other players." After starting the season 5–0, Michigan lost three of four games against top eastern schools: Syracuse, Harvard, Penn, and Cornell.
1914 Harvard game
Maulbetsch's breakthrough came on October 31, 1914, in front of 30,000 fans at Harvard. The game was one of the most anticipated matches of the year. A special train brought Michigan fans to Cambridge, Massachusetts, and hundreds of Michigan alumni from the East were on hand as "reinforcements." Though Harvard prevailed, 7–0, Maulbetsch was the big story in papers across the country. Writers from Ring Lardner to Damon Runyon told the story of Maulbetsch's performance. Lardner said: "If anyone tells you the East plays the best brand of football, Maulbetsch shot that theory full of holes." According to Runyon, the Wolverines used "the mighty Maulbetsch as their battering ram", and he "gained enough ground against Harvard to bury a German army corps." Football writer Frank G. Menke said: "No westerner ever created half the stir in the east as did this Michigander . . . His peculiar, baffling style of attack, backed by phenomenal strength almost always earned for him gains of 5 to 20 yards every time he was called upon to carry the ball." Another writer noted Maulbetsch's skill as a "line breaker" as he "carried the ball repeatedly through the Harvard line and into the secondary defense with bullet-like rushes that upset tackler after tackler." Maulbetsch was responsible for four-fifths of Michigan's ground gains, and on several occasions his dives reportedly "had so much power that he dove right through a double line of crimson players and went sprawling on the ground twelve to twenty feet clear of the double line."
While every report indicates that Maulbetsch had a big day, the accounts vary dramatically as to exactly how many yards he gained. Frank Menke reported after the game that Maulbetsch gained 300 yards. A 1938 newspaper account said he "gained 350 yards from scrimmage." Yet, his 1951 obituary indicated he gained 133 yards in 30 attempts.
Despite Maulbetsch's efforts, Michigan was never able to punch the ball across the goal line. Many blamed Michigan's quarterback who switched to another back every time after Maulbetsch "took the ball to the shadow of the Crimson goal posts." In answer to the question why Michigan was unable to score, Frank Menke said: "Ask the fellow who quarterbacked for Michigan that day. His actions were too mystifying for the spectators to figure out."
When Harvard reneged on an agreement to play a game in Ann Arbor in 1915, sports writers concluded it was to avoid facing Maulbetsch again. Said one reporter: "When faih Hahvahd [sic] saw what Maulbetsch did in the first clash, it decided it cared to see no more of him. He was too rough."
"Human Bullet"
Much of the attention on Maulbetsch focused on his diminutive size and unique running style. At , and , Maulbetsch was a small back, even by the standards of his day. And his running style saw him bend his torso and propel himself like a projectile into the opposing line. Indeed, he won several nicknames based on his size, running style, and fighting spirit, including the "Human Bullet," "Mauly", the "Human Shrapnel", the "Featherweight Fullback", the "Michigan Cannon Ball," and the "German bullet." Comparisons of Maulbetsch to military armaments were common. In addition to the "bullet", "shrapnel", and "cannonball" nicknames, the Syracuse Herald observed: "Standing up in front of a Krupp gun has its dangers, but it is not to be compared with the dangers of standing in front of Maulbetsch when he is going full speed ahead."
Maulbetsch's style was described as "line-plunging." A New York newspaper noted: "When the ball is snapped to him he almost doubles himself up, and, with his head aimed at the knees of the opposing line, he dives head first. Those who have seen Maulbetsch in action marvel at the great momentum he can get up in two or three steps." Noted football writer Walter Eckersall said: "Mauly is a little fellow, being built close to the ground. They say that when he plunges at the line his head is almost on a level with his shoe tops – that he hits so low that it's well nigh impossible to stop him." An Iowa newspaper wondered how it was possible "for a man to smash into a line of human bodies with the force that Maulbetsch does and come out of the game without a broken neck."
Maulbetsch was said to run "so low that he could dash under an ordinary table without losing his feet." At a coaching conference in the 1920s, a coach doubted the table-ducking story and challenged Maulbetsch. The doubter later recalled: "I began ribbing him about this table-ducking stuff and finally offered to bet him he couldn’t do it. Well, we got a table up in a room, Johnny tucked a water pitcher under his arm and backed against the wall. Darned if he didn’t do it, the only thing, that water pitcher broke in a million pieces." Asked about the incident, Maulbetsch said it was true, except one part. Maulbetsch insisted there wasn’t a nick on the pitcher.
Maulbetsch makes All-American
After the loss to Harvard in 1914, Michigan rebounded with a 34–3 win over Penn. Walter Eckersall reported that the Wolverines were "led by the redoubtable Johnny Maulbetsch." Despite being "a marked man" by the Penn defense, he was not thrown for a loss in the entire game, and he scored three touchdowns. Before Michigan lost to Cornell in the final game of the season, a scandal arose when it was revealed that the owner of an Ann Arbor pool room, Joe Reinger, had written a letter intimating that he could buy Maulbetsch and Michigan's quarterback to throw the Cornell game, and win US$50,000 from students willing to bet on Michigan. The letter was turned in to the Michigan athletic officials, and Reinger went to the athletic office "to try to hush the matter up." Reinger became abusive and was thrown out of the office by Coach Yost. The incident caused "the biggest stir of the season on the campus," as students demolished Reinger's pool room, and police had to guard Reinger's residence against threatening demonstrations that continued to "a late hour." Although Michigan did lose to Cornell, Maulbetsch was said to be "practically the only successful ground gainer for Michigan." Over the course of the 1914 season, Maulbetsch was said to have scored about half of Michigan's 252 points. A Wisconsin newspaper noted that, "when it comes time to write a resume of the 1914 football season", Maulbetsch's play "will live in the minds of men . . . for years to come." As a reward for his efforts, Maulbetsch was named a first-team All-American at the end of the 1914 season.
Pie and coffee diet
As public attention focused on Maulbetsch as "the greatest line-plunger of a decade," the press could not get enough of Maulbetsch, even interviewing his family. His sister revealed that Maulbetsch had a fondness for home cooking and received permission from the team trainer to eat at his family's Ann Arbor home. "Now, Johnny's sister explains that each day his mother baked two pies for the athlete's supper, and that in addition he had everything else his appetite craved, including coffee." Confronted by reporters about the revelation, Maulbetsch replied: "The story was slightly exaggerated. I rarely ate more than one and one half pies for dinner." Joking references to Maulbetsch's diet continued when it was reported in 1915 that he was suffering from "acute indigestion." One reporter quipped, "Those much advertised pies of his maw's evidently aren’t as great training dope as they were cracked up to be." It turned out that the indigestion was appendicitis, and Maulbetsch was hospitalized at St. Joseph's Sanitarium in Ann Arbor in April 1915, where he underwent an operation.
1915 season
As the 1915 season was set to get underway, Coach Yost reported, "Johnny told me he was feeling fine when I saw him recently, although he doesn’t weigh as much as he used to." Despite Yost's hopes, Maulbetsch fell far short of the prior year's performance in 1915. He was several pounds lighter after the illness and surgery, and it was noted that "a few pounds means much to a man of Maulbetsch's weight." In the opening game against Lawrence, Maulbetsch scored three touchdowns, but he was "woefully weak on interference." Playing against Mount Union, Maulbetsch made several big gains, including a 50-yard touchdown run in the third quarter. His difficulties returned in the season's third game against Marietta, as "Maulbetsch was powerless to stop the Marietta forward pass, all of the successful ones being directed toward his side of the line."
After The Michigan Daily criticized his performance following the Marietta game, Maulbetsch "threatened to desert the Michigan squad and give up football for good." It reportedly took Yost several hours to coax Maulbetsch to report for practice again, and in the next game against Case, Maulbetsch did not play until the third quarter. In the season's first big game, Michigan was soundly beaten by Michigan Agricultural College, 24–0, and most of Maulbetsch's runs "didn’t even get as far as his own line." In the final four games of the season, matters got worse for Michigan and Maulbetsch, as the team went 0–3–1, scoring only 14 points in four games.
In Maulbetsch's defense, some writers noted the weakness of the Michigan line, often allowing rushers into the backfield before Maulbetsch even had the ball. But some of those same observers noted that "Mauly" was not carrying the ball "at his usual pace." Sports writer Frank Menke described Maulbetsch's 1915 performance this way: "[The] Wolverine halfback skidded from the heights of greatness to the level of mediocre. . . . The lines that he had crumpled like eggshells a year before stood up under his charges, often dumping him back for losses. The once 'unstoppable' Maulbetsch not only was stopped but forced to retract." Despite the subpar performance in 1915, Michigan's varsity letter-winners elected him captain of the team for 1916.
1916 comeback
Maulbetsch made a strong comeback in 1916. Instead of spending the summer recovering from appendicitis, he spent the summer working as an assistant barkeeper on a steamship plying between Chicago and St. Joseph, Michigan. Maulbetsch spent his afternoons swimming and running sprints up and down the beach. On one trip, a giant coal passer claimed to be the strongest man in the world, and Maulbetsch agreed to a wrestling match on the boat. "The coal passer rushed the stripling, who ducked, caught his opponent about the waist and crushed him to the deck. When the giant woke, he wanted to know if the boat hit a rock." As the season started, The New York Times wrote: "Michigan's come-back football team, headed by Bullet Maulbetsch, is going to be an eleven to be reckoned with on the gridiron this Fall." Maulbetsch returned to his prior form, and one of the writers who had criticized him in 1915 said "the great Michigander using the same method of attack, has repeatedly broken in fragments this year the lines that he couldn’t dent in 1915."
Professional football
After the 1916 football season ended, Maulbetsch considered his options. There was a report that he had been engaged as a high school football coach (and math instructor) in Toledo, Ohio. Even more prevalent were reports that he had signed to play for a professional football team. Professional football was still in its infancy in 1917, and landing a well-known star would have been a boost to any of the budding franchises. In January 1917 newspapers reported that Maulbetsch had signed a contract to play professional football for Detroit Tigers owner, Frank Navin. Navin was supporting efforts to organize a professional football league in all the important Midwestern cities, including a Detroit franchise to play at Navin Field. As late as November 1917, newspapers reported Maulbetsch had played professional football after graduating and was offered "a handsome fee" to play with the Akron Burkhardts in November 1917. Although professional football records prior to 1920 are scarce, it appears unlikely that Maulbetsch played professional football, as press accounts show he was working as a college football coach starting in 1917.
Head football coach
Building Phillips University into a football power (1917–1920)
In June 1917, Maulbetsch announced that he had accepted a position as the football coach (and professor of chemistry) at Phillips University in Enid, Oklahoma. Phillips was a small, private school without a well-known athletic program. In the fall, Enid residents were "leaving their work every afternoon to watch [Maulbetsch] and his husky young Oklahoma youths work out on campus." Within a year, Maulbetsch turned Phillips into one of the strongest teams in the southwest.
Maulbetsch landed his first big recruit before leaving Ann Arbor. While playing at Michigan, Maulbetsch became friends with Doug Roby, a football player at the Michigan Military Academy, and one of the state's top recruits. Roby followed Maulbetsch to Phillips and later went on to become a member of the International Olympic Committee in the 1950s and 1960s and president of the United States Olympic Committee from 1965 to 1968. Maulbetsch's next find was future Pro Football Hall of Famer Steve Owen, who later spent 23 years with the New York Giants. Maulbetsch saw Owen watching football practice from under a tree and told him: "A fellow your size ought to be out for the squad." Owen showed up the next day and, when Maulbetsch used him to illustrate blocking fundamentals, Owen threw a block into Maulbetsch that threw him five yards through the air. Maulbetsch was satisfied, and Owen had a spot on the team. Because Phillips was not part of a conference, it was not subject to any eligibility limitations, an advantage Maulbetsch was accused of exploiting. A third key player recruited by Maulbetsch was a Native American halfback named Levi, and dubbed "Big Chief" by Phillips fans.
Having recruited top talent to Enid, Maulbetsch's teams lost only one game in 1918 and 1919, including a 10–0–1 record in 1919. In 1917 and 1918, Phillips came into the limelight when they beat the Oklahoma Sooners and the Henry Kendricks College team that had swept the west without allowing another team to score.
Maulbetsch arranged a game against the Texas Longhorns in 1919, the first meeting between the schools. When the game was announced The San Antonio Light reported: "Phillips University has one of the strongest teams in the Southwest. The only team to beat them in the past two years is Oklahoma and last year Phillips beat the Sooners 13–7." The report credited Maulbetsch for securing success at an institution little known in athletics before he arrived. The University of Texas had not lost a game since 1917 when the Phillips "Haymakers" arrived in Austin, Texas on October 11, 1919. Maulbetsch's team shocked the Longhorns, holding them scoreless and winning the contest, 10–0. One Texas newspaper reported that Phillips had "whitewashed the Longhorns in their own corral."
Others in Texas concluded that Phillips’ success was the result of lax or non-existent eligibility policies. The lack of eligibility rules almost certainly did play a part in Phillips’ success. When Phillips joined the Southwest Conference in 1920, it became bound by the conference's eligibility rules, and the team was outscored 97–0 in conference play against Texas A&M (47–0), Texas (27–0), Arkansas (20–0), and Texas Christian (3–0). The Galveston Daily News noted that Maulbetsch's 1920 team could not "compare with the strong team" he surprised Texas with in 1919. At the end of the 1920 season, Phillips withdrew from the Southwest Conference, and Maulbetsch accepted a new position at Oklahoma A&M.
Head coach at Oklahoma A&M (1921–1928)
In January 1921, Maulbetsch was hired as the head coach at Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical College (now Oklahoma State) in Stillwater, Oklahoma. He served as the coach at Oklahoma A&M from 1921 to 1928, where his teams posted a 28–37–6 (.437) record. In 1924, his team went 6–1–2 and shut out Oklahoma (6–0), Arkansas (20–0) and Kansas (3–0). Maulbetsch's Aggies also shut out Phillips that year, 13–0. After the season, attempts were made to lure him to Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, but Maulbetsch said he was satisfied with his position in Stillwater.
Maulbetsch arranged a game in Ann Arbor against his alma mater to start the 1926 season. Michigan beat the Aggies, 42–3. Despite an overall record of 3–4–1, Oklahoma A&M won its first conference football championship by going 3–0–1 in games against Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association opponents. Maulbetsch also drew attention in 1926 for his disciplinary methods. When the team lost two games due to fumbles, he ordered eight of his backfield players to carry footballs with them to classes throughout the week and instructed other team members to try knocking the balls from under their arms. The penalty for losing a ball was "a hard run around the stadium." He also ordered one of his ends to wear boxing gloves after he poked an opposing player in the eye.
The Aggies won only one game against seven defeats in 1928. In late November, the day after a 46–0 loss to Oklahoma, newspapers reported that "reliable sources" had said Maulbetsch intended to resign. Maulbetsch immediately denied the rumor, saying: "I have not resigned. I am aware that a faction here is trying to get me out, but I do not intend to throw up the sponge." In December, pressure to fire Maulbetsch grew, and one Oklahoma newspaper observed: "Coach Maulbetsch of the A. & M. football team is the object of attacks from many sides because of the rather poor showing made by his team during the past season. They are looking for a goat and just now Johnnie is cast in that role. Regardless of his past record, those who demand victory at any price and by any means whatsoever, are insisting that he be fired forthwith and a man be placed in the position who, by fair means or foul, will gather in a team that will win victories and never lose a game." Ultimately, Maulbetsch resigned at the end of May 1929 as Oklahoma A&M's coach in football, baseball, and basketball. It was announced that he would spend the remaining year of his contract on a leave of absence at half pay.
Head coach at Marshall College (1929–1930)
In July 1929, Maulbetsch was hired by Marshall College in Huntington, West Virginia to become head coach in charge of football and track. When Marshall's "Thundering Herd" got off to a 4–1 start, Maulbetsch won praise in the West Virginia press, but Marshall finished the season 1–2–1 in the second half. And in 1930, the Marshall team went 3–5–1, including a 65–0 loss to Penn State. Maulbetsch resigned as Marshall's coach in January 1931; his only comment at the time was that he had "other plans."
Later years and legacy
After retiring from football, Maulbetsch bought a drug store in Huntington, West Virginia. During World War II, Maulbetsch took a job building B-24 Liberator bombers at Ford Motor Company's famed Willow Run Plant near Ypsilanti, Michigan. From 1946 until his death, he owned an automobile sales company in Adrian, Michigan. Maulbetsch died of cancer in 1950 at his home in Ann Arbor. He was survived by his widow, Ida, a son John Maulbetsch, and a daughter Barbara. Maulbetsch had been married to Ida (maiden name Ida Elizabeth Cappon) since May 27, 1917.
Maulbetsch was inducted posthumously into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1973. Since 1956, the John F. Maulbetsch Award has been given at the University of Michigan after spring practice to a freshman football candidate on the basis of desire, character, capacity for leadership and future success both on and off the football field. The award was established by Frederick C. Matthaei – a former classmate of Maulbetsch who went on to become a Regent of the University. The award has been a good indicator of future success, as past recipients include Jim Mandich (1967), Rick Leach (1976), Charles Woodson (1996), Marlin Jackson (2002), and Jake Long (2004). Maulbetsch Avenue in Ypsilanti Township is presumably named after Maulbetsch.
Head coaching record
Football
Baseball
See also
List of Michigan Wolverines football All-Americans
References
External links
Profile at Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan Athletics History
1890 births
1950 deaths
American football halfbacks
Basketball coaches from Michigan
Adrian Bulldogs football players
Marshall Thundering Herd football coaches
Michigan Wolverines football players
Oklahoma State Cowboys football coaches
Oklahoma State Cowboys baseball coaches
Oklahoma State Cowboys basketball coaches
Phillips Haymakers football coaches
All-American college football players
College Football Hall of Fame inductees
Players of American football from Ann Arbor, Michigan | true | [
"The .38 S&W, also commonly known as .38 S&W Short (it is sometimes referred to as .38 S&W Short to differentiate it from .38 Long Colt and .38 Special), 9×20mmR, or .38/200, is a revolver cartridge developed by Smith & Wesson in 1877. Versions of the cartridge were the standard revolver cartridges of the British military from 1922 to 1963. Though similar in name, it is not interchangeable with the later .38 Special due to a different case shape and slightly larger bullet diameter.\n\nHistory\n\nThe round was first introduced in 1877 for use in the S&W .38 Single Action. As standard for the era, it featured heeled bullet with the same diameter of bullet and case neck equal to .38 inch; later versions discarded the feature and downsized the bullet, but the designation didn't change.\n\nAfter World War I, the British military sought to replace pre-war revolvers with easier to handle weapons. Webley demonstrated a lighter version of their Mk III revolver with modified .38 S&W ammunition, firing a heavy bullet. It received favorable reports, and the revolver was accepted in principle. \n\nAs Webley had used the .38 S&W cartridge dimensions for their revolver, and the cartridge length was fixed by the size of the cylinder of the revolver (the same as for the wider .455), Kynoch produced a cartridge with the same dimensions as the .38 S&W but with 2.8 grains (0.18 g) of \"Neonite\" nitrocellulose powder and a 200 grain (13.0 g) bullet. In tests performed on cadavers and live animals, it was found that the lead bullet, being overly long and heavy for its calibre, become unstable after penetrating the target, somewhat increasing target effect. The relatively low velocity allowed all of the energy of the cartridge to be spent inside the human target, rather than the bullet passing through. This was deemed satisfactory and the design for the cartridge was accepted as the \".38/200 Cartridge, Revolver Mk I\".\n\nAfter a period of service, it was realized that the soft lead bullet could arguably contravene the Hague Conventions, which outlawed the use of bullets designed so as to \"expand or flatten easily in the human body\". A new cartridge was therefore adopted as \"Cartridge, Pistol, .380 Mk II\" or \".380 Mk IIz\", firing a 180 gr (11.7 g) full metal jacket bullet. The .38/200 Mk I loading was retained in service for marksmanship and training purposes. However, after the outbreak of war, supply exigencies and the need to order readily available and compatible ammunition, such as the .38 S&W Super Police, from U.S. sources forced British authorities to issue both the .38/200 Mk I and MkII/IIz cartridges interchangeably to forces deploying for combat.\n\nThe Cartridge S.A. Ball Revolver .380 inch Mark II and Cartridge S.A. Ball Revolver .380 inch Mark IIz cartridge were theoretically phased out of British service in 1963, when the 9×19mm semi-automatic Browning Hi-Power pistol was finally issued to most British and Commonwealth forces.\n\nVariants\nThe .38 Colt New Police was Colt's Manufacturing Company's proprietary name for what was essentially the .38 S&W with a flat-nosed bullet.\n\nThe U.S. .38 S&W Super Police cartridge was nearly identical to the British .38/200 Mk I, using a lead alloy bullet with a muzzle velocity of and a muzzle energy of , and was supplied by several U.S. manufacturers to the British government as equivalent to the Mk I loading.\n\nMKE 9.65 mm Normal (9.2×23mmR (.38 Smith & Wesson)) cartridge has a lead-antimony alloy bullet with a gilding-metal full metal jacket and a Boxer-primed brass case. The \"normal\" designation differentiates it from their 9.65mm Special (9.1×29mmR (.38 Special)) round. It uses the 9.65 mm (.38-caliber) nominal bore rather than its 9.2 mm (.361-caliber) actual bore. It has a muzzle velocity of .\n\nCurrent status\nThe .380 Mk IIz is still produced by the Ordnance Factory Board in India, for use in revolvers. Commercially, only Ruger makes limited runs of revolvers in this caliber for overseas sales, and only a few companies still manufacture ammunition. The majority that do offer it in only a lead round nose bullet, though Fiocchi still markets FMJ rounds. Some companies, such as Buffalo Bore, usually manufacture several different types of ammunition for either self-defense and/or hunting.\n\nSee also\nColt Official Police Revolver\nColt Police Positive Revolver\nEnfield No. 2 revolver\nSmith & Wesson Model 10\nTable of handgun and rifle cartridges\nWebley revolver\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n\nPistol and rifle cartridges\nRimmed cartridges\nSmith & Wesson cartridges",
"A bullet button is a device used to remove a magazine in a semiautomatic rifle, replacing the magazine release with a block which forces the user to remove the magazine by using a tool rather than the magazine release button. This allows the rifle to comply with parts of California's firearms laws. The name came about in relation to a 1999 California law which said that a \"bullet or ammunition cartridge is considered a tool.\"\n\nThe 2012 court case Haynie v Pleasanton validated that a bullet button is legal and rifles that have one installed are not considered assault weapons.\n\nIn 2016, California law was changed to prohibit the sales of firearms with bullet buttons.\n\nHistory\nAfter certain rifles with detachable magazines and certain other features were classified as assault weapons under California State law, gun owners and manufacturers sought various ways to obtain certain styles of rifles similar to those determined to be assault weapons. One of the most common modifications is the use of a part known as a bullet button, which modifies a rifle so that the magazine is not removable without the use of a tool (a bullet was defined as a tool per state law). The bullet button was invented and named by Darin Prince of California in January 2007. Prince also holds the US Trademark for Bullet Button USPTO trademark registration number 77663672.\n\nThe bullet button recesses a small release within a block that replaces the magazine release. The recessed button to detach the magazine cannot be pressed by the shooter's finger. Firearms with this feature no longer have a \"detachable magazine\" under California's assault weapons definition, and therefore may be exempt depending on the other requirements.\n\nMany tools have been devised to make it easier and faster to release a magazine from a rifle, as California law states that the user must use an external tool not attached to the rifle.\n\nCalifornia Senator Leland Yee, who was later convicted of arms trafficking, attempted to have the bullet button outlawed in California, as did U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein at the federal level; both attempts failed. On April 20, 2016, California state lawmakers gave initial approval of a bill that prohibited the sale of rifles with the bullet button. This was in response to a December 2015 terrorist attack in San Bernardino, California, despite the fact that the perpetrators, Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, used rifles that had their bullet buttons illegally removed. In July, the legislation was signed by the governor, and sales of bullet button-equipped rifles in late 2016 were reported by the Los Angeles Times to have doubled in anticipation of a January 1, 2017, ban on sales of new such rifles. After the spike in bullet button sales, the creator of the bullet button, Darin Prince, released a new compliant tool called the Patriot Mag Release. It is a more complicated version of the bullet button and it is compliant with the bullet button ban. The bullet button only consisted of about four parts and was easily installed. The patriot mag release has seven to twelve parts, depending on what kind of AR you want to convert, and usually a store that sells the PMR will install it for you. The patriot mag release takes much longer than the bullet button did to release the mag and that's why it was approved as a new compliance tool. With the bullet button, all you had to do was use the tip of a bullet to click down the inverted button to release the mag. With the PMR, you pull the installed paracord string, it opens the lower and upper, you open that and can now push down on the mag release button and release the mag. Then, you push the rifle closed again, push the button that the paracord is attached to, and the rifle is good to go. </ref></ref>\n\nReferences\n\nFurther reading\n\nExternal links\n\nFirearm components"
] |
[
"John Maulbetsch",
"\"Human Bullet\"",
"Why was he known as the human bullet?",
"And his running style saw him bend his torso and propel himself like a projectile into the opposing line."
] | C_263bcc5e0b4349d8a4de0526b164f1ce_0 | What position did he play? | 2 | What position did John Maulbetsch play? | John Maulbetsch | Much of the attention on Maulbetsch focused on his diminutive size and unique running style. At 5 ft 7 in (1.70 m), and 155 lb (70 kg), Maulbetsch was a small back, even by the standards of his day. And his running style saw him bend his torso and propel himself like a projectile into the opposing line. Indeed, he won several nicknames based on his size, running style, and fighting spirit, including the "Human Bullet," "Mauly", the "Human Shrapnel", the "Featherweight Fullback", the "Michigan Cannon Ball," and the "German bullet." Comparisons of Maulbetsch to military armaments were common. In addition to the "bullet", "shrapnel", and "cannonball" nicknames, the Syracuse Herald observed: "Standing up in front of a Krupp gun has its dangers, but it is not to be compared with the dangers of standing in front of Maulbetsch when he is going full speed ahead." Maulbetsch's style was described as "line-plunging." A New York newspaper noted: "When the ball is snapped to him he almost doubles himself up, and, with his head aimed at the knees of the opposing line, he dives head first. Those who have seen Maulbetsch in action marvel at the great momentum he can get up in two or three steps." Noted football writer Walter Eckersall said: "Mauly is a little fellow, being built close to the ground. They say that when he plunges at the line his head is almost on a level with his shoe tops - that he hits so low that it's well nigh impossible to stop him." An Iowa newspaper wondered how it was possible "for a man to smash into a line of human bodies with the force that Maulbetsch does and come out of the game without a broken neck." Maulbetsch was said to run "so low that he could dash under an ordinary table without losing his feet." At a coaching conference in the 1920s, a coach doubted the table-ducking story and challenged Maulbetsch. The doubter later recalled: "I began ribbing him about this table-ducking stuff and finally offered to bet him he couldn't do it. Well, we got a table up in a room, Johnny tucked a water pitcher under his arm and backed against the wall. Darned if he didn't do it, the only thing, that water pitcher broke in a million pieces." Asked about the incident, Maulbetsch said it was true, except one part. Maulbetsch insisted there wasn't a nick on the pitcher. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | John Frederick Maulbetsch (June 20, 1890 – September 14, 1950) was an All-American football halfback at Adrian College in 1911 and for the University of Michigan Wolverines from 1914 to 1916. He is also a member of the College Football Hall of Fame.
After playing with an independent football team in Ann Arbor and at Adrian College, Maulbetsch became one of the most famous American football players in 1914 while playing for the University of Michigan. Maulbetsch became known as the "Human Bullet" because of his unusual low, line-plunging style of play, and was also known as the "Featherweight Fullback" because of his light weight and small size. After his performance against Harvard in 1914, in which some reports indicated he gained more than 300 yards, eastern writers, including Damon Runyon, wrote articles touting Maulbetsch. Maulbetsch was also selected by Walter Camp to his All-American team.
In 1915, Maulbetsch underwent surgery for appendicitis and did not perform to the same level as he had in 1914. He made a comeback as a senior in 1916 and was again one of the leading players in college football.
Between 1917 and 1920, Maulbetsch was the head football coach at Phillips University. With Maulbetsch's name recognition, he was able to recruit big name talent to Phillips, including future Pro Football Hall of Famer Steve Owen, and future United States Olympic Committee President Doug Roby. Maulbetsch quickly turned Phillips into one of the top programs in the southwest, as his teams beat Oklahoma and Texas and lost only one game in the 1918 and 1919 seasons. Maulbetsch was later the football coach at Oklahoma A&M (later known as Oklahoma State) and Marshall College in the 1920s. He has been inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame, and the University of Michigan awards the John F. Maulbetsch Award each year to a freshman football player based on desire, character, and capacity for leadership and future success both on and off the football field.
Ann Arbor High School and the Independents
Maulbetsch was born and grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He attended Ann Arbor High School where he led the football team to consecutive state championships in 1908 and 1909. One account of the 1908 playoffs noted: "Ann Arbor's smashing play in the first half was wholly due to Maulbetsch, Ann Arbor's fullback, and his terrific line bucking. He clearly outshone his team mates."
After graduating from high school, Maulbetsch joined the Ann Arbor Independents, a football team made up of Michigan "varsity eligibles" and "townies." Maulbetsch was once reportedly called upon to drive across the goal line for the Independents in a game in which a large crowd, including a farmer with his plow-horse, gathered in the end zone. "Head down and legs working like piston rods, Maulbetsch plowed ahead until head struck the plow horse amidships. Down went the horse Mauly on top of him."
College football player
Transfer from Adrian College
Maulbetsch started his college football career at age 21, leading Adrian College to an 8–0 record in 1911, including a 15–0 win over the University of Michigan freshman team. Maulbetsch's performance drew the attention of Michigan Coach Fielding H. Yost. After watching Maulbetsch dominate Michigan's freshman team, Yost concluded: "If I could get that kid into Michigan and keep him up in his studies I’d make an All-American place for him his first year." Yost persuaded Maulbetsch to transfer, and he played with "the scrubs" in 1912. Yost told the press at the time he had "another (Willie) Heston" in Maulbetsch.
1914 season
Maulbetsch did not play for the varsity team until the fall of 1914 when he was 24 years old. Before the season began, Maulbetsch was "touted as one of the fastest halfbacks who ever donned moleskins. He weighs 155 pounds, is built low, has a powerful pair of shoulders and his dashes are characterized by lightning speed." Another pre-season account said he was "a wonder as a line plunger and a wizard in the open field." From the outset, considerable attention was paid to his unusual running style. Observers noted "the peculiar manner in which he runs. . . . He has a corkscrew style of dashing, and even when tackled squarely has such a sturdy pair of legs that his assailant is usually carried back several yards."
Michigan opened the season with a 58–0 win over DePauw, followed by a 69–0 victory over Case Institute of Technology. Maulbetsch was the offensive star against Case, as he twice "carried several would-be tackles across the goal." Playing Vanderbilt the following week, Maulbetsch had runs of 25 and 35 yards, scored two touchdowns, "was worked overtime and probably advanced the pigskin more than any two other players." After starting the season 5–0, Michigan lost three of four games against top eastern schools: Syracuse, Harvard, Penn, and Cornell.
1914 Harvard game
Maulbetsch's breakthrough came on October 31, 1914, in front of 30,000 fans at Harvard. The game was one of the most anticipated matches of the year. A special train brought Michigan fans to Cambridge, Massachusetts, and hundreds of Michigan alumni from the East were on hand as "reinforcements." Though Harvard prevailed, 7–0, Maulbetsch was the big story in papers across the country. Writers from Ring Lardner to Damon Runyon told the story of Maulbetsch's performance. Lardner said: "If anyone tells you the East plays the best brand of football, Maulbetsch shot that theory full of holes." According to Runyon, the Wolverines used "the mighty Maulbetsch as their battering ram", and he "gained enough ground against Harvard to bury a German army corps." Football writer Frank G. Menke said: "No westerner ever created half the stir in the east as did this Michigander . . . His peculiar, baffling style of attack, backed by phenomenal strength almost always earned for him gains of 5 to 20 yards every time he was called upon to carry the ball." Another writer noted Maulbetsch's skill as a "line breaker" as he "carried the ball repeatedly through the Harvard line and into the secondary defense with bullet-like rushes that upset tackler after tackler." Maulbetsch was responsible for four-fifths of Michigan's ground gains, and on several occasions his dives reportedly "had so much power that he dove right through a double line of crimson players and went sprawling on the ground twelve to twenty feet clear of the double line."
While every report indicates that Maulbetsch had a big day, the accounts vary dramatically as to exactly how many yards he gained. Frank Menke reported after the game that Maulbetsch gained 300 yards. A 1938 newspaper account said he "gained 350 yards from scrimmage." Yet, his 1951 obituary indicated he gained 133 yards in 30 attempts.
Despite Maulbetsch's efforts, Michigan was never able to punch the ball across the goal line. Many blamed Michigan's quarterback who switched to another back every time after Maulbetsch "took the ball to the shadow of the Crimson goal posts." In answer to the question why Michigan was unable to score, Frank Menke said: "Ask the fellow who quarterbacked for Michigan that day. His actions were too mystifying for the spectators to figure out."
When Harvard reneged on an agreement to play a game in Ann Arbor in 1915, sports writers concluded it was to avoid facing Maulbetsch again. Said one reporter: "When faih Hahvahd [sic] saw what Maulbetsch did in the first clash, it decided it cared to see no more of him. He was too rough."
"Human Bullet"
Much of the attention on Maulbetsch focused on his diminutive size and unique running style. At , and , Maulbetsch was a small back, even by the standards of his day. And his running style saw him bend his torso and propel himself like a projectile into the opposing line. Indeed, he won several nicknames based on his size, running style, and fighting spirit, including the "Human Bullet," "Mauly", the "Human Shrapnel", the "Featherweight Fullback", the "Michigan Cannon Ball," and the "German bullet." Comparisons of Maulbetsch to military armaments were common. In addition to the "bullet", "shrapnel", and "cannonball" nicknames, the Syracuse Herald observed: "Standing up in front of a Krupp gun has its dangers, but it is not to be compared with the dangers of standing in front of Maulbetsch when he is going full speed ahead."
Maulbetsch's style was described as "line-plunging." A New York newspaper noted: "When the ball is snapped to him he almost doubles himself up, and, with his head aimed at the knees of the opposing line, he dives head first. Those who have seen Maulbetsch in action marvel at the great momentum he can get up in two or three steps." Noted football writer Walter Eckersall said: "Mauly is a little fellow, being built close to the ground. They say that when he plunges at the line his head is almost on a level with his shoe tops – that he hits so low that it's well nigh impossible to stop him." An Iowa newspaper wondered how it was possible "for a man to smash into a line of human bodies with the force that Maulbetsch does and come out of the game without a broken neck."
Maulbetsch was said to run "so low that he could dash under an ordinary table without losing his feet." At a coaching conference in the 1920s, a coach doubted the table-ducking story and challenged Maulbetsch. The doubter later recalled: "I began ribbing him about this table-ducking stuff and finally offered to bet him he couldn’t do it. Well, we got a table up in a room, Johnny tucked a water pitcher under his arm and backed against the wall. Darned if he didn’t do it, the only thing, that water pitcher broke in a million pieces." Asked about the incident, Maulbetsch said it was true, except one part. Maulbetsch insisted there wasn’t a nick on the pitcher.
Maulbetsch makes All-American
After the loss to Harvard in 1914, Michigan rebounded with a 34–3 win over Penn. Walter Eckersall reported that the Wolverines were "led by the redoubtable Johnny Maulbetsch." Despite being "a marked man" by the Penn defense, he was not thrown for a loss in the entire game, and he scored three touchdowns. Before Michigan lost to Cornell in the final game of the season, a scandal arose when it was revealed that the owner of an Ann Arbor pool room, Joe Reinger, had written a letter intimating that he could buy Maulbetsch and Michigan's quarterback to throw the Cornell game, and win US$50,000 from students willing to bet on Michigan. The letter was turned in to the Michigan athletic officials, and Reinger went to the athletic office "to try to hush the matter up." Reinger became abusive and was thrown out of the office by Coach Yost. The incident caused "the biggest stir of the season on the campus," as students demolished Reinger's pool room, and police had to guard Reinger's residence against threatening demonstrations that continued to "a late hour." Although Michigan did lose to Cornell, Maulbetsch was said to be "practically the only successful ground gainer for Michigan." Over the course of the 1914 season, Maulbetsch was said to have scored about half of Michigan's 252 points. A Wisconsin newspaper noted that, "when it comes time to write a resume of the 1914 football season", Maulbetsch's play "will live in the minds of men . . . for years to come." As a reward for his efforts, Maulbetsch was named a first-team All-American at the end of the 1914 season.
Pie and coffee diet
As public attention focused on Maulbetsch as "the greatest line-plunger of a decade," the press could not get enough of Maulbetsch, even interviewing his family. His sister revealed that Maulbetsch had a fondness for home cooking and received permission from the team trainer to eat at his family's Ann Arbor home. "Now, Johnny's sister explains that each day his mother baked two pies for the athlete's supper, and that in addition he had everything else his appetite craved, including coffee." Confronted by reporters about the revelation, Maulbetsch replied: "The story was slightly exaggerated. I rarely ate more than one and one half pies for dinner." Joking references to Maulbetsch's diet continued when it was reported in 1915 that he was suffering from "acute indigestion." One reporter quipped, "Those much advertised pies of his maw's evidently aren’t as great training dope as they were cracked up to be." It turned out that the indigestion was appendicitis, and Maulbetsch was hospitalized at St. Joseph's Sanitarium in Ann Arbor in April 1915, where he underwent an operation.
1915 season
As the 1915 season was set to get underway, Coach Yost reported, "Johnny told me he was feeling fine when I saw him recently, although he doesn’t weigh as much as he used to." Despite Yost's hopes, Maulbetsch fell far short of the prior year's performance in 1915. He was several pounds lighter after the illness and surgery, and it was noted that "a few pounds means much to a man of Maulbetsch's weight." In the opening game against Lawrence, Maulbetsch scored three touchdowns, but he was "woefully weak on interference." Playing against Mount Union, Maulbetsch made several big gains, including a 50-yard touchdown run in the third quarter. His difficulties returned in the season's third game against Marietta, as "Maulbetsch was powerless to stop the Marietta forward pass, all of the successful ones being directed toward his side of the line."
After The Michigan Daily criticized his performance following the Marietta game, Maulbetsch "threatened to desert the Michigan squad and give up football for good." It reportedly took Yost several hours to coax Maulbetsch to report for practice again, and in the next game against Case, Maulbetsch did not play until the third quarter. In the season's first big game, Michigan was soundly beaten by Michigan Agricultural College, 24–0, and most of Maulbetsch's runs "didn’t even get as far as his own line." In the final four games of the season, matters got worse for Michigan and Maulbetsch, as the team went 0–3–1, scoring only 14 points in four games.
In Maulbetsch's defense, some writers noted the weakness of the Michigan line, often allowing rushers into the backfield before Maulbetsch even had the ball. But some of those same observers noted that "Mauly" was not carrying the ball "at his usual pace." Sports writer Frank Menke described Maulbetsch's 1915 performance this way: "[The] Wolverine halfback skidded from the heights of greatness to the level of mediocre. . . . The lines that he had crumpled like eggshells a year before stood up under his charges, often dumping him back for losses. The once 'unstoppable' Maulbetsch not only was stopped but forced to retract." Despite the subpar performance in 1915, Michigan's varsity letter-winners elected him captain of the team for 1916.
1916 comeback
Maulbetsch made a strong comeback in 1916. Instead of spending the summer recovering from appendicitis, he spent the summer working as an assistant barkeeper on a steamship plying between Chicago and St. Joseph, Michigan. Maulbetsch spent his afternoons swimming and running sprints up and down the beach. On one trip, a giant coal passer claimed to be the strongest man in the world, and Maulbetsch agreed to a wrestling match on the boat. "The coal passer rushed the stripling, who ducked, caught his opponent about the waist and crushed him to the deck. When the giant woke, he wanted to know if the boat hit a rock." As the season started, The New York Times wrote: "Michigan's come-back football team, headed by Bullet Maulbetsch, is going to be an eleven to be reckoned with on the gridiron this Fall." Maulbetsch returned to his prior form, and one of the writers who had criticized him in 1915 said "the great Michigander using the same method of attack, has repeatedly broken in fragments this year the lines that he couldn’t dent in 1915."
Professional football
After the 1916 football season ended, Maulbetsch considered his options. There was a report that he had been engaged as a high school football coach (and math instructor) in Toledo, Ohio. Even more prevalent were reports that he had signed to play for a professional football team. Professional football was still in its infancy in 1917, and landing a well-known star would have been a boost to any of the budding franchises. In January 1917 newspapers reported that Maulbetsch had signed a contract to play professional football for Detroit Tigers owner, Frank Navin. Navin was supporting efforts to organize a professional football league in all the important Midwestern cities, including a Detroit franchise to play at Navin Field. As late as November 1917, newspapers reported Maulbetsch had played professional football after graduating and was offered "a handsome fee" to play with the Akron Burkhardts in November 1917. Although professional football records prior to 1920 are scarce, it appears unlikely that Maulbetsch played professional football, as press accounts show he was working as a college football coach starting in 1917.
Head football coach
Building Phillips University into a football power (1917–1920)
In June 1917, Maulbetsch announced that he had accepted a position as the football coach (and professor of chemistry) at Phillips University in Enid, Oklahoma. Phillips was a small, private school without a well-known athletic program. In the fall, Enid residents were "leaving their work every afternoon to watch [Maulbetsch] and his husky young Oklahoma youths work out on campus." Within a year, Maulbetsch turned Phillips into one of the strongest teams in the southwest.
Maulbetsch landed his first big recruit before leaving Ann Arbor. While playing at Michigan, Maulbetsch became friends with Doug Roby, a football player at the Michigan Military Academy, and one of the state's top recruits. Roby followed Maulbetsch to Phillips and later went on to become a member of the International Olympic Committee in the 1950s and 1960s and president of the United States Olympic Committee from 1965 to 1968. Maulbetsch's next find was future Pro Football Hall of Famer Steve Owen, who later spent 23 years with the New York Giants. Maulbetsch saw Owen watching football practice from under a tree and told him: "A fellow your size ought to be out for the squad." Owen showed up the next day and, when Maulbetsch used him to illustrate blocking fundamentals, Owen threw a block into Maulbetsch that threw him five yards through the air. Maulbetsch was satisfied, and Owen had a spot on the team. Because Phillips was not part of a conference, it was not subject to any eligibility limitations, an advantage Maulbetsch was accused of exploiting. A third key player recruited by Maulbetsch was a Native American halfback named Levi, and dubbed "Big Chief" by Phillips fans.
Having recruited top talent to Enid, Maulbetsch's teams lost only one game in 1918 and 1919, including a 10–0–1 record in 1919. In 1917 and 1918, Phillips came into the limelight when they beat the Oklahoma Sooners and the Henry Kendricks College team that had swept the west without allowing another team to score.
Maulbetsch arranged a game against the Texas Longhorns in 1919, the first meeting between the schools. When the game was announced The San Antonio Light reported: "Phillips University has one of the strongest teams in the Southwest. The only team to beat them in the past two years is Oklahoma and last year Phillips beat the Sooners 13–7." The report credited Maulbetsch for securing success at an institution little known in athletics before he arrived. The University of Texas had not lost a game since 1917 when the Phillips "Haymakers" arrived in Austin, Texas on October 11, 1919. Maulbetsch's team shocked the Longhorns, holding them scoreless and winning the contest, 10–0. One Texas newspaper reported that Phillips had "whitewashed the Longhorns in their own corral."
Others in Texas concluded that Phillips’ success was the result of lax or non-existent eligibility policies. The lack of eligibility rules almost certainly did play a part in Phillips’ success. When Phillips joined the Southwest Conference in 1920, it became bound by the conference's eligibility rules, and the team was outscored 97–0 in conference play against Texas A&M (47–0), Texas (27–0), Arkansas (20–0), and Texas Christian (3–0). The Galveston Daily News noted that Maulbetsch's 1920 team could not "compare with the strong team" he surprised Texas with in 1919. At the end of the 1920 season, Phillips withdrew from the Southwest Conference, and Maulbetsch accepted a new position at Oklahoma A&M.
Head coach at Oklahoma A&M (1921–1928)
In January 1921, Maulbetsch was hired as the head coach at Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical College (now Oklahoma State) in Stillwater, Oklahoma. He served as the coach at Oklahoma A&M from 1921 to 1928, where his teams posted a 28–37–6 (.437) record. In 1924, his team went 6–1–2 and shut out Oklahoma (6–0), Arkansas (20–0) and Kansas (3–0). Maulbetsch's Aggies also shut out Phillips that year, 13–0. After the season, attempts were made to lure him to Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, but Maulbetsch said he was satisfied with his position in Stillwater.
Maulbetsch arranged a game in Ann Arbor against his alma mater to start the 1926 season. Michigan beat the Aggies, 42–3. Despite an overall record of 3–4–1, Oklahoma A&M won its first conference football championship by going 3–0–1 in games against Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association opponents. Maulbetsch also drew attention in 1926 for his disciplinary methods. When the team lost two games due to fumbles, he ordered eight of his backfield players to carry footballs with them to classes throughout the week and instructed other team members to try knocking the balls from under their arms. The penalty for losing a ball was "a hard run around the stadium." He also ordered one of his ends to wear boxing gloves after he poked an opposing player in the eye.
The Aggies won only one game against seven defeats in 1928. In late November, the day after a 46–0 loss to Oklahoma, newspapers reported that "reliable sources" had said Maulbetsch intended to resign. Maulbetsch immediately denied the rumor, saying: "I have not resigned. I am aware that a faction here is trying to get me out, but I do not intend to throw up the sponge." In December, pressure to fire Maulbetsch grew, and one Oklahoma newspaper observed: "Coach Maulbetsch of the A. & M. football team is the object of attacks from many sides because of the rather poor showing made by his team during the past season. They are looking for a goat and just now Johnnie is cast in that role. Regardless of his past record, those who demand victory at any price and by any means whatsoever, are insisting that he be fired forthwith and a man be placed in the position who, by fair means or foul, will gather in a team that will win victories and never lose a game." Ultimately, Maulbetsch resigned at the end of May 1929 as Oklahoma A&M's coach in football, baseball, and basketball. It was announced that he would spend the remaining year of his contract on a leave of absence at half pay.
Head coach at Marshall College (1929–1930)
In July 1929, Maulbetsch was hired by Marshall College in Huntington, West Virginia to become head coach in charge of football and track. When Marshall's "Thundering Herd" got off to a 4–1 start, Maulbetsch won praise in the West Virginia press, but Marshall finished the season 1–2–1 in the second half. And in 1930, the Marshall team went 3–5–1, including a 65–0 loss to Penn State. Maulbetsch resigned as Marshall's coach in January 1931; his only comment at the time was that he had "other plans."
Later years and legacy
After retiring from football, Maulbetsch bought a drug store in Huntington, West Virginia. During World War II, Maulbetsch took a job building B-24 Liberator bombers at Ford Motor Company's famed Willow Run Plant near Ypsilanti, Michigan. From 1946 until his death, he owned an automobile sales company in Adrian, Michigan. Maulbetsch died of cancer in 1950 at his home in Ann Arbor. He was survived by his widow, Ida, a son John Maulbetsch, and a daughter Barbara. Maulbetsch had been married to Ida (maiden name Ida Elizabeth Cappon) since May 27, 1917.
Maulbetsch was inducted posthumously into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1973. Since 1956, the John F. Maulbetsch Award has been given at the University of Michigan after spring practice to a freshman football candidate on the basis of desire, character, capacity for leadership and future success both on and off the football field. The award was established by Frederick C. Matthaei – a former classmate of Maulbetsch who went on to become a Regent of the University. The award has been a good indicator of future success, as past recipients include Jim Mandich (1967), Rick Leach (1976), Charles Woodson (1996), Marlin Jackson (2002), and Jake Long (2004). Maulbetsch Avenue in Ypsilanti Township is presumably named after Maulbetsch.
Head coaching record
Football
Baseball
See also
List of Michigan Wolverines football All-Americans
References
External links
Profile at Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan Athletics History
1890 births
1950 deaths
American football halfbacks
Basketball coaches from Michigan
Adrian Bulldogs football players
Marshall Thundering Herd football coaches
Michigan Wolverines football players
Oklahoma State Cowboys football coaches
Oklahoma State Cowboys baseball coaches
Oklahoma State Cowboys basketball coaches
Phillips Haymakers football coaches
All-American college football players
College Football Hall of Fame inductees
Players of American football from Ann Arbor, Michigan | false | [
"is a former Japanese football player.\n\nPlaying career\nIwamaru was born in Fujioka on December 4, 1981. After graduating from high school, he joined the J1 League club Vissel Kobe in 2000. However he did not play as much as Makoto Kakegawa until 2003. In 2004, he played more often, after Kakegawa got hurt. In September 2004, he moved to Júbilo Iwata. In late 2004, he played often, after regular goalkeeper Yohei Sato got hurt. In 2005, he moved to the newly promoted J2 League club, Thespa Kusatsu (later Thespakusatsu Gunma), based in his home region. He competed with Nobuyuki Kojima for the position and played often. \n\nIn 2006, he moved to the newly promoted J1 club, Avispa Fukuoka. However he did not play as much as Yuichi Mizutani. In 2007, he moved to the newly promoted J1 club, Yokohama FC. However he did not play as much as Takanori Sugeno and the club was relegated to J2 within a year. Although he did not play as much as Kenji Koyama in 2008, he played often in 2009. He did not play at all in 2010. \n\nIn 2011, he moved to the J2 club Roasso Kumamoto. He did not play as much as Yuta Minami. In 2013, he moved to the newly promoted J2 club, V-Varen Nagasaki. Although he played in the first three matches, he did play at all after the fourth match, when Junki Kanayama played in his place. In 2014, he moved to the J2 club Thespakusatsu Gunma based in his local region. However he did not play at all, and retired at the end of the 2014 season.\n\nClub statistics\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n\n \n\n1981 births\nLiving people\nAssociation football people from Gunma Prefecture\nJapanese footballers\nJ1 League players\nJ2 League players\nVissel Kobe players\nJúbilo Iwata players\nThespakusatsu Gunma players\nAvispa Fukuoka players\nYokohama FC players\nRoasso Kumamoto players\nV-Varen Nagasaki players\nAssociation football goalkeepers",
"John Stirk (born 5 September 1955) is an English former footballer. His primary position was as a right back. During his career he played for Ipswich Town, Watford, Chesterfield and North Shields. He also made two appearances for England at youth level.\n\nCareer \n\nBorn in Consett, Stirk played youth football for local non-league team Consett A.F.C. He joined Ipswich Town on schoolboy terms in 1971, and after making two appearances for the England youth team, turned professional in 1973. During his time at Ipswich he was largely a reserve. He made his first-team debut on 5 November 1977, in a Football League First Division match against Manchester City at Portman Road. His manager at the time was Bobby Robson, who later went on to manage the England national football team. Ipswich won the FA Cup in 1978, in what proved to be Stirk's final season at the club. However, Stirk himself did not play in the final, nor did he play in any of the rounds en route to the final.\n\nAnother future England manager, Watford's Graham Taylor, signed Stirk for a transfer fee of £30,000 at the end of the 1977–78 season. Stirk went on to play every Watford league game in the 1978–79 season, as Watford gained promotion to the Second Division. However, Stirk did not play for Watford in the Second Division. Two months before the end of the 1979–80 season, Stirk was sold to Third Division side Chesterfield, at a profit to Watford of £10,000. After making 56 league appearances over two and a half seasons, Stirk left Chesterfield in 1983 moving on to Blyth Spartans then Tow Law Town, and finished his career at non-league North Shields.\n\nReferences \n\n1955 births\nLiving people\nConsett A.F.C. players\nIpswich Town F.C. players\nWatford F.C. players\nChesterfield F.C. players\nEnglish Football League players\nNorth Shields F.C. players\nSportspeople from Consett\nAssociation football fullbacks\nEnglish footballers"
] |
[
"John Maulbetsch",
"\"Human Bullet\"",
"Why was he known as the human bullet?",
"And his running style saw him bend his torso and propel himself like a projectile into the opposing line.",
"What position did he play?",
"I don't know."
] | C_263bcc5e0b4349d8a4de0526b164f1ce_0 | What else can you tell me about the human bullet? | 3 | Other than running like a projectile into the opposing line, what else can you tell me about the "human bullet" John Maulbetsch? | John Maulbetsch | Much of the attention on Maulbetsch focused on his diminutive size and unique running style. At 5 ft 7 in (1.70 m), and 155 lb (70 kg), Maulbetsch was a small back, even by the standards of his day. And his running style saw him bend his torso and propel himself like a projectile into the opposing line. Indeed, he won several nicknames based on his size, running style, and fighting spirit, including the "Human Bullet," "Mauly", the "Human Shrapnel", the "Featherweight Fullback", the "Michigan Cannon Ball," and the "German bullet." Comparisons of Maulbetsch to military armaments were common. In addition to the "bullet", "shrapnel", and "cannonball" nicknames, the Syracuse Herald observed: "Standing up in front of a Krupp gun has its dangers, but it is not to be compared with the dangers of standing in front of Maulbetsch when he is going full speed ahead." Maulbetsch's style was described as "line-plunging." A New York newspaper noted: "When the ball is snapped to him he almost doubles himself up, and, with his head aimed at the knees of the opposing line, he dives head first. Those who have seen Maulbetsch in action marvel at the great momentum he can get up in two or three steps." Noted football writer Walter Eckersall said: "Mauly is a little fellow, being built close to the ground. They say that when he plunges at the line his head is almost on a level with his shoe tops - that he hits so low that it's well nigh impossible to stop him." An Iowa newspaper wondered how it was possible "for a man to smash into a line of human bodies with the force that Maulbetsch does and come out of the game without a broken neck." Maulbetsch was said to run "so low that he could dash under an ordinary table without losing his feet." At a coaching conference in the 1920s, a coach doubted the table-ducking story and challenged Maulbetsch. The doubter later recalled: "I began ribbing him about this table-ducking stuff and finally offered to bet him he couldn't do it. Well, we got a table up in a room, Johnny tucked a water pitcher under his arm and backed against the wall. Darned if he didn't do it, the only thing, that water pitcher broke in a million pieces." Asked about the incident, Maulbetsch said it was true, except one part. Maulbetsch insisted there wasn't a nick on the pitcher. CANNOTANSWER | Indeed, he won several nicknames based on his size, running style, and fighting spirit, including the "Human Bullet," " | John Frederick Maulbetsch (June 20, 1890 – September 14, 1950) was an All-American football halfback at Adrian College in 1911 and for the University of Michigan Wolverines from 1914 to 1916. He is also a member of the College Football Hall of Fame.
After playing with an independent football team in Ann Arbor and at Adrian College, Maulbetsch became one of the most famous American football players in 1914 while playing for the University of Michigan. Maulbetsch became known as the "Human Bullet" because of his unusual low, line-plunging style of play, and was also known as the "Featherweight Fullback" because of his light weight and small size. After his performance against Harvard in 1914, in which some reports indicated he gained more than 300 yards, eastern writers, including Damon Runyon, wrote articles touting Maulbetsch. Maulbetsch was also selected by Walter Camp to his All-American team.
In 1915, Maulbetsch underwent surgery for appendicitis and did not perform to the same level as he had in 1914. He made a comeback as a senior in 1916 and was again one of the leading players in college football.
Between 1917 and 1920, Maulbetsch was the head football coach at Phillips University. With Maulbetsch's name recognition, he was able to recruit big name talent to Phillips, including future Pro Football Hall of Famer Steve Owen, and future United States Olympic Committee President Doug Roby. Maulbetsch quickly turned Phillips into one of the top programs in the southwest, as his teams beat Oklahoma and Texas and lost only one game in the 1918 and 1919 seasons. Maulbetsch was later the football coach at Oklahoma A&M (later known as Oklahoma State) and Marshall College in the 1920s. He has been inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame, and the University of Michigan awards the John F. Maulbetsch Award each year to a freshman football player based on desire, character, and capacity for leadership and future success both on and off the football field.
Ann Arbor High School and the Independents
Maulbetsch was born and grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He attended Ann Arbor High School where he led the football team to consecutive state championships in 1908 and 1909. One account of the 1908 playoffs noted: "Ann Arbor's smashing play in the first half was wholly due to Maulbetsch, Ann Arbor's fullback, and his terrific line bucking. He clearly outshone his team mates."
After graduating from high school, Maulbetsch joined the Ann Arbor Independents, a football team made up of Michigan "varsity eligibles" and "townies." Maulbetsch was once reportedly called upon to drive across the goal line for the Independents in a game in which a large crowd, including a farmer with his plow-horse, gathered in the end zone. "Head down and legs working like piston rods, Maulbetsch plowed ahead until head struck the plow horse amidships. Down went the horse Mauly on top of him."
College football player
Transfer from Adrian College
Maulbetsch started his college football career at age 21, leading Adrian College to an 8–0 record in 1911, including a 15–0 win over the University of Michigan freshman team. Maulbetsch's performance drew the attention of Michigan Coach Fielding H. Yost. After watching Maulbetsch dominate Michigan's freshman team, Yost concluded: "If I could get that kid into Michigan and keep him up in his studies I’d make an All-American place for him his first year." Yost persuaded Maulbetsch to transfer, and he played with "the scrubs" in 1912. Yost told the press at the time he had "another (Willie) Heston" in Maulbetsch.
1914 season
Maulbetsch did not play for the varsity team until the fall of 1914 when he was 24 years old. Before the season began, Maulbetsch was "touted as one of the fastest halfbacks who ever donned moleskins. He weighs 155 pounds, is built low, has a powerful pair of shoulders and his dashes are characterized by lightning speed." Another pre-season account said he was "a wonder as a line plunger and a wizard in the open field." From the outset, considerable attention was paid to his unusual running style. Observers noted "the peculiar manner in which he runs. . . . He has a corkscrew style of dashing, and even when tackled squarely has such a sturdy pair of legs that his assailant is usually carried back several yards."
Michigan opened the season with a 58–0 win over DePauw, followed by a 69–0 victory over Case Institute of Technology. Maulbetsch was the offensive star against Case, as he twice "carried several would-be tackles across the goal." Playing Vanderbilt the following week, Maulbetsch had runs of 25 and 35 yards, scored two touchdowns, "was worked overtime and probably advanced the pigskin more than any two other players." After starting the season 5–0, Michigan lost three of four games against top eastern schools: Syracuse, Harvard, Penn, and Cornell.
1914 Harvard game
Maulbetsch's breakthrough came on October 31, 1914, in front of 30,000 fans at Harvard. The game was one of the most anticipated matches of the year. A special train brought Michigan fans to Cambridge, Massachusetts, and hundreds of Michigan alumni from the East were on hand as "reinforcements." Though Harvard prevailed, 7–0, Maulbetsch was the big story in papers across the country. Writers from Ring Lardner to Damon Runyon told the story of Maulbetsch's performance. Lardner said: "If anyone tells you the East plays the best brand of football, Maulbetsch shot that theory full of holes." According to Runyon, the Wolverines used "the mighty Maulbetsch as their battering ram", and he "gained enough ground against Harvard to bury a German army corps." Football writer Frank G. Menke said: "No westerner ever created half the stir in the east as did this Michigander . . . His peculiar, baffling style of attack, backed by phenomenal strength almost always earned for him gains of 5 to 20 yards every time he was called upon to carry the ball." Another writer noted Maulbetsch's skill as a "line breaker" as he "carried the ball repeatedly through the Harvard line and into the secondary defense with bullet-like rushes that upset tackler after tackler." Maulbetsch was responsible for four-fifths of Michigan's ground gains, and on several occasions his dives reportedly "had so much power that he dove right through a double line of crimson players and went sprawling on the ground twelve to twenty feet clear of the double line."
While every report indicates that Maulbetsch had a big day, the accounts vary dramatically as to exactly how many yards he gained. Frank Menke reported after the game that Maulbetsch gained 300 yards. A 1938 newspaper account said he "gained 350 yards from scrimmage." Yet, his 1951 obituary indicated he gained 133 yards in 30 attempts.
Despite Maulbetsch's efforts, Michigan was never able to punch the ball across the goal line. Many blamed Michigan's quarterback who switched to another back every time after Maulbetsch "took the ball to the shadow of the Crimson goal posts." In answer to the question why Michigan was unable to score, Frank Menke said: "Ask the fellow who quarterbacked for Michigan that day. His actions were too mystifying for the spectators to figure out."
When Harvard reneged on an agreement to play a game in Ann Arbor in 1915, sports writers concluded it was to avoid facing Maulbetsch again. Said one reporter: "When faih Hahvahd [sic] saw what Maulbetsch did in the first clash, it decided it cared to see no more of him. He was too rough."
"Human Bullet"
Much of the attention on Maulbetsch focused on his diminutive size and unique running style. At , and , Maulbetsch was a small back, even by the standards of his day. And his running style saw him bend his torso and propel himself like a projectile into the opposing line. Indeed, he won several nicknames based on his size, running style, and fighting spirit, including the "Human Bullet," "Mauly", the "Human Shrapnel", the "Featherweight Fullback", the "Michigan Cannon Ball," and the "German bullet." Comparisons of Maulbetsch to military armaments were common. In addition to the "bullet", "shrapnel", and "cannonball" nicknames, the Syracuse Herald observed: "Standing up in front of a Krupp gun has its dangers, but it is not to be compared with the dangers of standing in front of Maulbetsch when he is going full speed ahead."
Maulbetsch's style was described as "line-plunging." A New York newspaper noted: "When the ball is snapped to him he almost doubles himself up, and, with his head aimed at the knees of the opposing line, he dives head first. Those who have seen Maulbetsch in action marvel at the great momentum he can get up in two or three steps." Noted football writer Walter Eckersall said: "Mauly is a little fellow, being built close to the ground. They say that when he plunges at the line his head is almost on a level with his shoe tops – that he hits so low that it's well nigh impossible to stop him." An Iowa newspaper wondered how it was possible "for a man to smash into a line of human bodies with the force that Maulbetsch does and come out of the game without a broken neck."
Maulbetsch was said to run "so low that he could dash under an ordinary table without losing his feet." At a coaching conference in the 1920s, a coach doubted the table-ducking story and challenged Maulbetsch. The doubter later recalled: "I began ribbing him about this table-ducking stuff and finally offered to bet him he couldn’t do it. Well, we got a table up in a room, Johnny tucked a water pitcher under his arm and backed against the wall. Darned if he didn’t do it, the only thing, that water pitcher broke in a million pieces." Asked about the incident, Maulbetsch said it was true, except one part. Maulbetsch insisted there wasn’t a nick on the pitcher.
Maulbetsch makes All-American
After the loss to Harvard in 1914, Michigan rebounded with a 34–3 win over Penn. Walter Eckersall reported that the Wolverines were "led by the redoubtable Johnny Maulbetsch." Despite being "a marked man" by the Penn defense, he was not thrown for a loss in the entire game, and he scored three touchdowns. Before Michigan lost to Cornell in the final game of the season, a scandal arose when it was revealed that the owner of an Ann Arbor pool room, Joe Reinger, had written a letter intimating that he could buy Maulbetsch and Michigan's quarterback to throw the Cornell game, and win US$50,000 from students willing to bet on Michigan. The letter was turned in to the Michigan athletic officials, and Reinger went to the athletic office "to try to hush the matter up." Reinger became abusive and was thrown out of the office by Coach Yost. The incident caused "the biggest stir of the season on the campus," as students demolished Reinger's pool room, and police had to guard Reinger's residence against threatening demonstrations that continued to "a late hour." Although Michigan did lose to Cornell, Maulbetsch was said to be "practically the only successful ground gainer for Michigan." Over the course of the 1914 season, Maulbetsch was said to have scored about half of Michigan's 252 points. A Wisconsin newspaper noted that, "when it comes time to write a resume of the 1914 football season", Maulbetsch's play "will live in the minds of men . . . for years to come." As a reward for his efforts, Maulbetsch was named a first-team All-American at the end of the 1914 season.
Pie and coffee diet
As public attention focused on Maulbetsch as "the greatest line-plunger of a decade," the press could not get enough of Maulbetsch, even interviewing his family. His sister revealed that Maulbetsch had a fondness for home cooking and received permission from the team trainer to eat at his family's Ann Arbor home. "Now, Johnny's sister explains that each day his mother baked two pies for the athlete's supper, and that in addition he had everything else his appetite craved, including coffee." Confronted by reporters about the revelation, Maulbetsch replied: "The story was slightly exaggerated. I rarely ate more than one and one half pies for dinner." Joking references to Maulbetsch's diet continued when it was reported in 1915 that he was suffering from "acute indigestion." One reporter quipped, "Those much advertised pies of his maw's evidently aren’t as great training dope as they were cracked up to be." It turned out that the indigestion was appendicitis, and Maulbetsch was hospitalized at St. Joseph's Sanitarium in Ann Arbor in April 1915, where he underwent an operation.
1915 season
As the 1915 season was set to get underway, Coach Yost reported, "Johnny told me he was feeling fine when I saw him recently, although he doesn’t weigh as much as he used to." Despite Yost's hopes, Maulbetsch fell far short of the prior year's performance in 1915. He was several pounds lighter after the illness and surgery, and it was noted that "a few pounds means much to a man of Maulbetsch's weight." In the opening game against Lawrence, Maulbetsch scored three touchdowns, but he was "woefully weak on interference." Playing against Mount Union, Maulbetsch made several big gains, including a 50-yard touchdown run in the third quarter. His difficulties returned in the season's third game against Marietta, as "Maulbetsch was powerless to stop the Marietta forward pass, all of the successful ones being directed toward his side of the line."
After The Michigan Daily criticized his performance following the Marietta game, Maulbetsch "threatened to desert the Michigan squad and give up football for good." It reportedly took Yost several hours to coax Maulbetsch to report for practice again, and in the next game against Case, Maulbetsch did not play until the third quarter. In the season's first big game, Michigan was soundly beaten by Michigan Agricultural College, 24–0, and most of Maulbetsch's runs "didn’t even get as far as his own line." In the final four games of the season, matters got worse for Michigan and Maulbetsch, as the team went 0–3–1, scoring only 14 points in four games.
In Maulbetsch's defense, some writers noted the weakness of the Michigan line, often allowing rushers into the backfield before Maulbetsch even had the ball. But some of those same observers noted that "Mauly" was not carrying the ball "at his usual pace." Sports writer Frank Menke described Maulbetsch's 1915 performance this way: "[The] Wolverine halfback skidded from the heights of greatness to the level of mediocre. . . . The lines that he had crumpled like eggshells a year before stood up under his charges, often dumping him back for losses. The once 'unstoppable' Maulbetsch not only was stopped but forced to retract." Despite the subpar performance in 1915, Michigan's varsity letter-winners elected him captain of the team for 1916.
1916 comeback
Maulbetsch made a strong comeback in 1916. Instead of spending the summer recovering from appendicitis, he spent the summer working as an assistant barkeeper on a steamship plying between Chicago and St. Joseph, Michigan. Maulbetsch spent his afternoons swimming and running sprints up and down the beach. On one trip, a giant coal passer claimed to be the strongest man in the world, and Maulbetsch agreed to a wrestling match on the boat. "The coal passer rushed the stripling, who ducked, caught his opponent about the waist and crushed him to the deck. When the giant woke, he wanted to know if the boat hit a rock." As the season started, The New York Times wrote: "Michigan's come-back football team, headed by Bullet Maulbetsch, is going to be an eleven to be reckoned with on the gridiron this Fall." Maulbetsch returned to his prior form, and one of the writers who had criticized him in 1915 said "the great Michigander using the same method of attack, has repeatedly broken in fragments this year the lines that he couldn’t dent in 1915."
Professional football
After the 1916 football season ended, Maulbetsch considered his options. There was a report that he had been engaged as a high school football coach (and math instructor) in Toledo, Ohio. Even more prevalent were reports that he had signed to play for a professional football team. Professional football was still in its infancy in 1917, and landing a well-known star would have been a boost to any of the budding franchises. In January 1917 newspapers reported that Maulbetsch had signed a contract to play professional football for Detroit Tigers owner, Frank Navin. Navin was supporting efforts to organize a professional football league in all the important Midwestern cities, including a Detroit franchise to play at Navin Field. As late as November 1917, newspapers reported Maulbetsch had played professional football after graduating and was offered "a handsome fee" to play with the Akron Burkhardts in November 1917. Although professional football records prior to 1920 are scarce, it appears unlikely that Maulbetsch played professional football, as press accounts show he was working as a college football coach starting in 1917.
Head football coach
Building Phillips University into a football power (1917–1920)
In June 1917, Maulbetsch announced that he had accepted a position as the football coach (and professor of chemistry) at Phillips University in Enid, Oklahoma. Phillips was a small, private school without a well-known athletic program. In the fall, Enid residents were "leaving their work every afternoon to watch [Maulbetsch] and his husky young Oklahoma youths work out on campus." Within a year, Maulbetsch turned Phillips into one of the strongest teams in the southwest.
Maulbetsch landed his first big recruit before leaving Ann Arbor. While playing at Michigan, Maulbetsch became friends with Doug Roby, a football player at the Michigan Military Academy, and one of the state's top recruits. Roby followed Maulbetsch to Phillips and later went on to become a member of the International Olympic Committee in the 1950s and 1960s and president of the United States Olympic Committee from 1965 to 1968. Maulbetsch's next find was future Pro Football Hall of Famer Steve Owen, who later spent 23 years with the New York Giants. Maulbetsch saw Owen watching football practice from under a tree and told him: "A fellow your size ought to be out for the squad." Owen showed up the next day and, when Maulbetsch used him to illustrate blocking fundamentals, Owen threw a block into Maulbetsch that threw him five yards through the air. Maulbetsch was satisfied, and Owen had a spot on the team. Because Phillips was not part of a conference, it was not subject to any eligibility limitations, an advantage Maulbetsch was accused of exploiting. A third key player recruited by Maulbetsch was a Native American halfback named Levi, and dubbed "Big Chief" by Phillips fans.
Having recruited top talent to Enid, Maulbetsch's teams lost only one game in 1918 and 1919, including a 10–0–1 record in 1919. In 1917 and 1918, Phillips came into the limelight when they beat the Oklahoma Sooners and the Henry Kendricks College team that had swept the west without allowing another team to score.
Maulbetsch arranged a game against the Texas Longhorns in 1919, the first meeting between the schools. When the game was announced The San Antonio Light reported: "Phillips University has one of the strongest teams in the Southwest. The only team to beat them in the past two years is Oklahoma and last year Phillips beat the Sooners 13–7." The report credited Maulbetsch for securing success at an institution little known in athletics before he arrived. The University of Texas had not lost a game since 1917 when the Phillips "Haymakers" arrived in Austin, Texas on October 11, 1919. Maulbetsch's team shocked the Longhorns, holding them scoreless and winning the contest, 10–0. One Texas newspaper reported that Phillips had "whitewashed the Longhorns in their own corral."
Others in Texas concluded that Phillips’ success was the result of lax or non-existent eligibility policies. The lack of eligibility rules almost certainly did play a part in Phillips’ success. When Phillips joined the Southwest Conference in 1920, it became bound by the conference's eligibility rules, and the team was outscored 97–0 in conference play against Texas A&M (47–0), Texas (27–0), Arkansas (20–0), and Texas Christian (3–0). The Galveston Daily News noted that Maulbetsch's 1920 team could not "compare with the strong team" he surprised Texas with in 1919. At the end of the 1920 season, Phillips withdrew from the Southwest Conference, and Maulbetsch accepted a new position at Oklahoma A&M.
Head coach at Oklahoma A&M (1921–1928)
In January 1921, Maulbetsch was hired as the head coach at Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical College (now Oklahoma State) in Stillwater, Oklahoma. He served as the coach at Oklahoma A&M from 1921 to 1928, where his teams posted a 28–37–6 (.437) record. In 1924, his team went 6–1–2 and shut out Oklahoma (6–0), Arkansas (20–0) and Kansas (3–0). Maulbetsch's Aggies also shut out Phillips that year, 13–0. After the season, attempts were made to lure him to Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, but Maulbetsch said he was satisfied with his position in Stillwater.
Maulbetsch arranged a game in Ann Arbor against his alma mater to start the 1926 season. Michigan beat the Aggies, 42–3. Despite an overall record of 3–4–1, Oklahoma A&M won its first conference football championship by going 3–0–1 in games against Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association opponents. Maulbetsch also drew attention in 1926 for his disciplinary methods. When the team lost two games due to fumbles, he ordered eight of his backfield players to carry footballs with them to classes throughout the week and instructed other team members to try knocking the balls from under their arms. The penalty for losing a ball was "a hard run around the stadium." He also ordered one of his ends to wear boxing gloves after he poked an opposing player in the eye.
The Aggies won only one game against seven defeats in 1928. In late November, the day after a 46–0 loss to Oklahoma, newspapers reported that "reliable sources" had said Maulbetsch intended to resign. Maulbetsch immediately denied the rumor, saying: "I have not resigned. I am aware that a faction here is trying to get me out, but I do not intend to throw up the sponge." In December, pressure to fire Maulbetsch grew, and one Oklahoma newspaper observed: "Coach Maulbetsch of the A. & M. football team is the object of attacks from many sides because of the rather poor showing made by his team during the past season. They are looking for a goat and just now Johnnie is cast in that role. Regardless of his past record, those who demand victory at any price and by any means whatsoever, are insisting that he be fired forthwith and a man be placed in the position who, by fair means or foul, will gather in a team that will win victories and never lose a game." Ultimately, Maulbetsch resigned at the end of May 1929 as Oklahoma A&M's coach in football, baseball, and basketball. It was announced that he would spend the remaining year of his contract on a leave of absence at half pay.
Head coach at Marshall College (1929–1930)
In July 1929, Maulbetsch was hired by Marshall College in Huntington, West Virginia to become head coach in charge of football and track. When Marshall's "Thundering Herd" got off to a 4–1 start, Maulbetsch won praise in the West Virginia press, but Marshall finished the season 1–2–1 in the second half. And in 1930, the Marshall team went 3–5–1, including a 65–0 loss to Penn State. Maulbetsch resigned as Marshall's coach in January 1931; his only comment at the time was that he had "other plans."
Later years and legacy
After retiring from football, Maulbetsch bought a drug store in Huntington, West Virginia. During World War II, Maulbetsch took a job building B-24 Liberator bombers at Ford Motor Company's famed Willow Run Plant near Ypsilanti, Michigan. From 1946 until his death, he owned an automobile sales company in Adrian, Michigan. Maulbetsch died of cancer in 1950 at his home in Ann Arbor. He was survived by his widow, Ida, a son John Maulbetsch, and a daughter Barbara. Maulbetsch had been married to Ida (maiden name Ida Elizabeth Cappon) since May 27, 1917.
Maulbetsch was inducted posthumously into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1973. Since 1956, the John F. Maulbetsch Award has been given at the University of Michigan after spring practice to a freshman football candidate on the basis of desire, character, capacity for leadership and future success both on and off the football field. The award was established by Frederick C. Matthaei – a former classmate of Maulbetsch who went on to become a Regent of the University. The award has been a good indicator of future success, as past recipients include Jim Mandich (1967), Rick Leach (1976), Charles Woodson (1996), Marlin Jackson (2002), and Jake Long (2004). Maulbetsch Avenue in Ypsilanti Township is presumably named after Maulbetsch.
Head coaching record
Football
Baseball
See also
List of Michigan Wolverines football All-Americans
References
External links
Profile at Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan Athletics History
1890 births
1950 deaths
American football halfbacks
Basketball coaches from Michigan
Adrian Bulldogs football players
Marshall Thundering Herd football coaches
Michigan Wolverines football players
Oklahoma State Cowboys football coaches
Oklahoma State Cowboys baseball coaches
Oklahoma State Cowboys basketball coaches
Phillips Haymakers football coaches
All-American college football players
College Football Hall of Fame inductees
Players of American football from Ann Arbor, Michigan | true | [
"\"Tell Me What You Want\" is the fourth single by English R&B band Loose Ends from their first studio album, A Little Spice, and was released in February 1984 by Virgin Records. The single reached number 74 in the UK Singles Chart.\n\nTrack listing\n7” Single: VS658\n \"Tell Me What You Want) 3.35\n \"Tell Me What You Want (Dub Mix)\" 3.34\n\n12” Single: VS658-12\n \"Tell Me What You Want (Extended Version)\" 6.11\n \"Tell Me What You Want (Extended Dub Mix)\" 5.41\n\nU.S. only release - 12” Single: MCA23596 (released 1985)\n \"Tell Me What You Want (U.S. Extended Remix)\" 6.08 *\n \"Tell Me What You Want (U.S. Dub Version)\" 5.18\n\n* The U.S. Extended Remix version was released on CD on the U.S. Version of the 'A Little Spice' album (MCAD27141).\n\nThe Extended Version also featured on Side D of the limited gatefold sleeve version of 'Magic Touch'\n\nChart performance\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Tell Me What You Want at Discogs.\n\n1984 singles\nLoose Ends (band) songs\nSong recordings produced by Nick Martinelli\nSongs written by Carl McIntosh (musician)\nSongs written by Steve Nichol\n1984 songs\nVirgin Records singles",
"Forever Young is Kaysha's album released 2009.\n\nTrack list\n\n Anti Bad Music Police\n Be With You\n Digital Sexyness\n Duro\n Fanta & Avocado\n Forever Young Intro\n Funky Makaku\n Glorious Beautiful\n Heaven\n Hey Girl\n I Give You the Music\n I Still Love You\n Joachim\n Kota Na Piste\n Les Belles Histoires D'amour\n Love You Need You\n Loving and Kissing\n Make More Dollars\n Nobody Else\n On Veut Juste Danser\n Once Again\n Outro\n Paradisio / Inferno\n Pour Toujours\n Pure\n Si Tu T'en Vas\n Simple Pleasures\n Tell Me What We Waiting For\n That African Shit\n The Sweetest Thing\n The Way You Move\n Toi Et Moi\n U My Bb\n Yes You Can\n You + Me\n You're My Baby Girl\n\n2009 albums"
] |
[
"John Maulbetsch",
"\"Human Bullet\"",
"Why was he known as the human bullet?",
"And his running style saw him bend his torso and propel himself like a projectile into the opposing line.",
"What position did he play?",
"I don't know.",
"What else can you tell me about the human bullet?",
"Indeed, he won several nicknames based on his size, running style, and fighting spirit, including the \"Human Bullet,\" \""
] | C_263bcc5e0b4349d8a4de0526b164f1ce_0 | What else was noted about his style? | 4 | Other than running like a projectile into the opposing line, what else can you tell me about John Maulbetsch's style? | John Maulbetsch | Much of the attention on Maulbetsch focused on his diminutive size and unique running style. At 5 ft 7 in (1.70 m), and 155 lb (70 kg), Maulbetsch was a small back, even by the standards of his day. And his running style saw him bend his torso and propel himself like a projectile into the opposing line. Indeed, he won several nicknames based on his size, running style, and fighting spirit, including the "Human Bullet," "Mauly", the "Human Shrapnel", the "Featherweight Fullback", the "Michigan Cannon Ball," and the "German bullet." Comparisons of Maulbetsch to military armaments were common. In addition to the "bullet", "shrapnel", and "cannonball" nicknames, the Syracuse Herald observed: "Standing up in front of a Krupp gun has its dangers, but it is not to be compared with the dangers of standing in front of Maulbetsch when he is going full speed ahead." Maulbetsch's style was described as "line-plunging." A New York newspaper noted: "When the ball is snapped to him he almost doubles himself up, and, with his head aimed at the knees of the opposing line, he dives head first. Those who have seen Maulbetsch in action marvel at the great momentum he can get up in two or three steps." Noted football writer Walter Eckersall said: "Mauly is a little fellow, being built close to the ground. They say that when he plunges at the line his head is almost on a level with his shoe tops - that he hits so low that it's well nigh impossible to stop him." An Iowa newspaper wondered how it was possible "for a man to smash into a line of human bodies with the force that Maulbetsch does and come out of the game without a broken neck." Maulbetsch was said to run "so low that he could dash under an ordinary table without losing his feet." At a coaching conference in the 1920s, a coach doubted the table-ducking story and challenged Maulbetsch. The doubter later recalled: "I began ribbing him about this table-ducking stuff and finally offered to bet him he couldn't do it. Well, we got a table up in a room, Johnny tucked a water pitcher under his arm and backed against the wall. Darned if he didn't do it, the only thing, that water pitcher broke in a million pieces." Asked about the incident, Maulbetsch said it was true, except one part. Maulbetsch insisted there wasn't a nick on the pitcher. CANNOTANSWER | Maulbetsch was said to run "so low that he could dash under an ordinary table without losing his feet." | John Frederick Maulbetsch (June 20, 1890 – September 14, 1950) was an All-American football halfback at Adrian College in 1911 and for the University of Michigan Wolverines from 1914 to 1916. He is also a member of the College Football Hall of Fame.
After playing with an independent football team in Ann Arbor and at Adrian College, Maulbetsch became one of the most famous American football players in 1914 while playing for the University of Michigan. Maulbetsch became known as the "Human Bullet" because of his unusual low, line-plunging style of play, and was also known as the "Featherweight Fullback" because of his light weight and small size. After his performance against Harvard in 1914, in which some reports indicated he gained more than 300 yards, eastern writers, including Damon Runyon, wrote articles touting Maulbetsch. Maulbetsch was also selected by Walter Camp to his All-American team.
In 1915, Maulbetsch underwent surgery for appendicitis and did not perform to the same level as he had in 1914. He made a comeback as a senior in 1916 and was again one of the leading players in college football.
Between 1917 and 1920, Maulbetsch was the head football coach at Phillips University. With Maulbetsch's name recognition, he was able to recruit big name talent to Phillips, including future Pro Football Hall of Famer Steve Owen, and future United States Olympic Committee President Doug Roby. Maulbetsch quickly turned Phillips into one of the top programs in the southwest, as his teams beat Oklahoma and Texas and lost only one game in the 1918 and 1919 seasons. Maulbetsch was later the football coach at Oklahoma A&M (later known as Oklahoma State) and Marshall College in the 1920s. He has been inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame, and the University of Michigan awards the John F. Maulbetsch Award each year to a freshman football player based on desire, character, and capacity for leadership and future success both on and off the football field.
Ann Arbor High School and the Independents
Maulbetsch was born and grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He attended Ann Arbor High School where he led the football team to consecutive state championships in 1908 and 1909. One account of the 1908 playoffs noted: "Ann Arbor's smashing play in the first half was wholly due to Maulbetsch, Ann Arbor's fullback, and his terrific line bucking. He clearly outshone his team mates."
After graduating from high school, Maulbetsch joined the Ann Arbor Independents, a football team made up of Michigan "varsity eligibles" and "townies." Maulbetsch was once reportedly called upon to drive across the goal line for the Independents in a game in which a large crowd, including a farmer with his plow-horse, gathered in the end zone. "Head down and legs working like piston rods, Maulbetsch plowed ahead until head struck the plow horse amidships. Down went the horse Mauly on top of him."
College football player
Transfer from Adrian College
Maulbetsch started his college football career at age 21, leading Adrian College to an 8–0 record in 1911, including a 15–0 win over the University of Michigan freshman team. Maulbetsch's performance drew the attention of Michigan Coach Fielding H. Yost. After watching Maulbetsch dominate Michigan's freshman team, Yost concluded: "If I could get that kid into Michigan and keep him up in his studies I’d make an All-American place for him his first year." Yost persuaded Maulbetsch to transfer, and he played with "the scrubs" in 1912. Yost told the press at the time he had "another (Willie) Heston" in Maulbetsch.
1914 season
Maulbetsch did not play for the varsity team until the fall of 1914 when he was 24 years old. Before the season began, Maulbetsch was "touted as one of the fastest halfbacks who ever donned moleskins. He weighs 155 pounds, is built low, has a powerful pair of shoulders and his dashes are characterized by lightning speed." Another pre-season account said he was "a wonder as a line plunger and a wizard in the open field." From the outset, considerable attention was paid to his unusual running style. Observers noted "the peculiar manner in which he runs. . . . He has a corkscrew style of dashing, and even when tackled squarely has such a sturdy pair of legs that his assailant is usually carried back several yards."
Michigan opened the season with a 58–0 win over DePauw, followed by a 69–0 victory over Case Institute of Technology. Maulbetsch was the offensive star against Case, as he twice "carried several would-be tackles across the goal." Playing Vanderbilt the following week, Maulbetsch had runs of 25 and 35 yards, scored two touchdowns, "was worked overtime and probably advanced the pigskin more than any two other players." After starting the season 5–0, Michigan lost three of four games against top eastern schools: Syracuse, Harvard, Penn, and Cornell.
1914 Harvard game
Maulbetsch's breakthrough came on October 31, 1914, in front of 30,000 fans at Harvard. The game was one of the most anticipated matches of the year. A special train brought Michigan fans to Cambridge, Massachusetts, and hundreds of Michigan alumni from the East were on hand as "reinforcements." Though Harvard prevailed, 7–0, Maulbetsch was the big story in papers across the country. Writers from Ring Lardner to Damon Runyon told the story of Maulbetsch's performance. Lardner said: "If anyone tells you the East plays the best brand of football, Maulbetsch shot that theory full of holes." According to Runyon, the Wolverines used "the mighty Maulbetsch as their battering ram", and he "gained enough ground against Harvard to bury a German army corps." Football writer Frank G. Menke said: "No westerner ever created half the stir in the east as did this Michigander . . . His peculiar, baffling style of attack, backed by phenomenal strength almost always earned for him gains of 5 to 20 yards every time he was called upon to carry the ball." Another writer noted Maulbetsch's skill as a "line breaker" as he "carried the ball repeatedly through the Harvard line and into the secondary defense with bullet-like rushes that upset tackler after tackler." Maulbetsch was responsible for four-fifths of Michigan's ground gains, and on several occasions his dives reportedly "had so much power that he dove right through a double line of crimson players and went sprawling on the ground twelve to twenty feet clear of the double line."
While every report indicates that Maulbetsch had a big day, the accounts vary dramatically as to exactly how many yards he gained. Frank Menke reported after the game that Maulbetsch gained 300 yards. A 1938 newspaper account said he "gained 350 yards from scrimmage." Yet, his 1951 obituary indicated he gained 133 yards in 30 attempts.
Despite Maulbetsch's efforts, Michigan was never able to punch the ball across the goal line. Many blamed Michigan's quarterback who switched to another back every time after Maulbetsch "took the ball to the shadow of the Crimson goal posts." In answer to the question why Michigan was unable to score, Frank Menke said: "Ask the fellow who quarterbacked for Michigan that day. His actions were too mystifying for the spectators to figure out."
When Harvard reneged on an agreement to play a game in Ann Arbor in 1915, sports writers concluded it was to avoid facing Maulbetsch again. Said one reporter: "When faih Hahvahd [sic] saw what Maulbetsch did in the first clash, it decided it cared to see no more of him. He was too rough."
"Human Bullet"
Much of the attention on Maulbetsch focused on his diminutive size and unique running style. At , and , Maulbetsch was a small back, even by the standards of his day. And his running style saw him bend his torso and propel himself like a projectile into the opposing line. Indeed, he won several nicknames based on his size, running style, and fighting spirit, including the "Human Bullet," "Mauly", the "Human Shrapnel", the "Featherweight Fullback", the "Michigan Cannon Ball," and the "German bullet." Comparisons of Maulbetsch to military armaments were common. In addition to the "bullet", "shrapnel", and "cannonball" nicknames, the Syracuse Herald observed: "Standing up in front of a Krupp gun has its dangers, but it is not to be compared with the dangers of standing in front of Maulbetsch when he is going full speed ahead."
Maulbetsch's style was described as "line-plunging." A New York newspaper noted: "When the ball is snapped to him he almost doubles himself up, and, with his head aimed at the knees of the opposing line, he dives head first. Those who have seen Maulbetsch in action marvel at the great momentum he can get up in two or three steps." Noted football writer Walter Eckersall said: "Mauly is a little fellow, being built close to the ground. They say that when he plunges at the line his head is almost on a level with his shoe tops – that he hits so low that it's well nigh impossible to stop him." An Iowa newspaper wondered how it was possible "for a man to smash into a line of human bodies with the force that Maulbetsch does and come out of the game without a broken neck."
Maulbetsch was said to run "so low that he could dash under an ordinary table without losing his feet." At a coaching conference in the 1920s, a coach doubted the table-ducking story and challenged Maulbetsch. The doubter later recalled: "I began ribbing him about this table-ducking stuff and finally offered to bet him he couldn’t do it. Well, we got a table up in a room, Johnny tucked a water pitcher under his arm and backed against the wall. Darned if he didn’t do it, the only thing, that water pitcher broke in a million pieces." Asked about the incident, Maulbetsch said it was true, except one part. Maulbetsch insisted there wasn’t a nick on the pitcher.
Maulbetsch makes All-American
After the loss to Harvard in 1914, Michigan rebounded with a 34–3 win over Penn. Walter Eckersall reported that the Wolverines were "led by the redoubtable Johnny Maulbetsch." Despite being "a marked man" by the Penn defense, he was not thrown for a loss in the entire game, and he scored three touchdowns. Before Michigan lost to Cornell in the final game of the season, a scandal arose when it was revealed that the owner of an Ann Arbor pool room, Joe Reinger, had written a letter intimating that he could buy Maulbetsch and Michigan's quarterback to throw the Cornell game, and win US$50,000 from students willing to bet on Michigan. The letter was turned in to the Michigan athletic officials, and Reinger went to the athletic office "to try to hush the matter up." Reinger became abusive and was thrown out of the office by Coach Yost. The incident caused "the biggest stir of the season on the campus," as students demolished Reinger's pool room, and police had to guard Reinger's residence against threatening demonstrations that continued to "a late hour." Although Michigan did lose to Cornell, Maulbetsch was said to be "practically the only successful ground gainer for Michigan." Over the course of the 1914 season, Maulbetsch was said to have scored about half of Michigan's 252 points. A Wisconsin newspaper noted that, "when it comes time to write a resume of the 1914 football season", Maulbetsch's play "will live in the minds of men . . . for years to come." As a reward for his efforts, Maulbetsch was named a first-team All-American at the end of the 1914 season.
Pie and coffee diet
As public attention focused on Maulbetsch as "the greatest line-plunger of a decade," the press could not get enough of Maulbetsch, even interviewing his family. His sister revealed that Maulbetsch had a fondness for home cooking and received permission from the team trainer to eat at his family's Ann Arbor home. "Now, Johnny's sister explains that each day his mother baked two pies for the athlete's supper, and that in addition he had everything else his appetite craved, including coffee." Confronted by reporters about the revelation, Maulbetsch replied: "The story was slightly exaggerated. I rarely ate more than one and one half pies for dinner." Joking references to Maulbetsch's diet continued when it was reported in 1915 that he was suffering from "acute indigestion." One reporter quipped, "Those much advertised pies of his maw's evidently aren’t as great training dope as they were cracked up to be." It turned out that the indigestion was appendicitis, and Maulbetsch was hospitalized at St. Joseph's Sanitarium in Ann Arbor in April 1915, where he underwent an operation.
1915 season
As the 1915 season was set to get underway, Coach Yost reported, "Johnny told me he was feeling fine when I saw him recently, although he doesn’t weigh as much as he used to." Despite Yost's hopes, Maulbetsch fell far short of the prior year's performance in 1915. He was several pounds lighter after the illness and surgery, and it was noted that "a few pounds means much to a man of Maulbetsch's weight." In the opening game against Lawrence, Maulbetsch scored three touchdowns, but he was "woefully weak on interference." Playing against Mount Union, Maulbetsch made several big gains, including a 50-yard touchdown run in the third quarter. His difficulties returned in the season's third game against Marietta, as "Maulbetsch was powerless to stop the Marietta forward pass, all of the successful ones being directed toward his side of the line."
After The Michigan Daily criticized his performance following the Marietta game, Maulbetsch "threatened to desert the Michigan squad and give up football for good." It reportedly took Yost several hours to coax Maulbetsch to report for practice again, and in the next game against Case, Maulbetsch did not play until the third quarter. In the season's first big game, Michigan was soundly beaten by Michigan Agricultural College, 24–0, and most of Maulbetsch's runs "didn’t even get as far as his own line." In the final four games of the season, matters got worse for Michigan and Maulbetsch, as the team went 0–3–1, scoring only 14 points in four games.
In Maulbetsch's defense, some writers noted the weakness of the Michigan line, often allowing rushers into the backfield before Maulbetsch even had the ball. But some of those same observers noted that "Mauly" was not carrying the ball "at his usual pace." Sports writer Frank Menke described Maulbetsch's 1915 performance this way: "[The] Wolverine halfback skidded from the heights of greatness to the level of mediocre. . . . The lines that he had crumpled like eggshells a year before stood up under his charges, often dumping him back for losses. The once 'unstoppable' Maulbetsch not only was stopped but forced to retract." Despite the subpar performance in 1915, Michigan's varsity letter-winners elected him captain of the team for 1916.
1916 comeback
Maulbetsch made a strong comeback in 1916. Instead of spending the summer recovering from appendicitis, he spent the summer working as an assistant barkeeper on a steamship plying between Chicago and St. Joseph, Michigan. Maulbetsch spent his afternoons swimming and running sprints up and down the beach. On one trip, a giant coal passer claimed to be the strongest man in the world, and Maulbetsch agreed to a wrestling match on the boat. "The coal passer rushed the stripling, who ducked, caught his opponent about the waist and crushed him to the deck. When the giant woke, he wanted to know if the boat hit a rock." As the season started, The New York Times wrote: "Michigan's come-back football team, headed by Bullet Maulbetsch, is going to be an eleven to be reckoned with on the gridiron this Fall." Maulbetsch returned to his prior form, and one of the writers who had criticized him in 1915 said "the great Michigander using the same method of attack, has repeatedly broken in fragments this year the lines that he couldn’t dent in 1915."
Professional football
After the 1916 football season ended, Maulbetsch considered his options. There was a report that he had been engaged as a high school football coach (and math instructor) in Toledo, Ohio. Even more prevalent were reports that he had signed to play for a professional football team. Professional football was still in its infancy in 1917, and landing a well-known star would have been a boost to any of the budding franchises. In January 1917 newspapers reported that Maulbetsch had signed a contract to play professional football for Detroit Tigers owner, Frank Navin. Navin was supporting efforts to organize a professional football league in all the important Midwestern cities, including a Detroit franchise to play at Navin Field. As late as November 1917, newspapers reported Maulbetsch had played professional football after graduating and was offered "a handsome fee" to play with the Akron Burkhardts in November 1917. Although professional football records prior to 1920 are scarce, it appears unlikely that Maulbetsch played professional football, as press accounts show he was working as a college football coach starting in 1917.
Head football coach
Building Phillips University into a football power (1917–1920)
In June 1917, Maulbetsch announced that he had accepted a position as the football coach (and professor of chemistry) at Phillips University in Enid, Oklahoma. Phillips was a small, private school without a well-known athletic program. In the fall, Enid residents were "leaving their work every afternoon to watch [Maulbetsch] and his husky young Oklahoma youths work out on campus." Within a year, Maulbetsch turned Phillips into one of the strongest teams in the southwest.
Maulbetsch landed his first big recruit before leaving Ann Arbor. While playing at Michigan, Maulbetsch became friends with Doug Roby, a football player at the Michigan Military Academy, and one of the state's top recruits. Roby followed Maulbetsch to Phillips and later went on to become a member of the International Olympic Committee in the 1950s and 1960s and president of the United States Olympic Committee from 1965 to 1968. Maulbetsch's next find was future Pro Football Hall of Famer Steve Owen, who later spent 23 years with the New York Giants. Maulbetsch saw Owen watching football practice from under a tree and told him: "A fellow your size ought to be out for the squad." Owen showed up the next day and, when Maulbetsch used him to illustrate blocking fundamentals, Owen threw a block into Maulbetsch that threw him five yards through the air. Maulbetsch was satisfied, and Owen had a spot on the team. Because Phillips was not part of a conference, it was not subject to any eligibility limitations, an advantage Maulbetsch was accused of exploiting. A third key player recruited by Maulbetsch was a Native American halfback named Levi, and dubbed "Big Chief" by Phillips fans.
Having recruited top talent to Enid, Maulbetsch's teams lost only one game in 1918 and 1919, including a 10–0–1 record in 1919. In 1917 and 1918, Phillips came into the limelight when they beat the Oklahoma Sooners and the Henry Kendricks College team that had swept the west without allowing another team to score.
Maulbetsch arranged a game against the Texas Longhorns in 1919, the first meeting between the schools. When the game was announced The San Antonio Light reported: "Phillips University has one of the strongest teams in the Southwest. The only team to beat them in the past two years is Oklahoma and last year Phillips beat the Sooners 13–7." The report credited Maulbetsch for securing success at an institution little known in athletics before he arrived. The University of Texas had not lost a game since 1917 when the Phillips "Haymakers" arrived in Austin, Texas on October 11, 1919. Maulbetsch's team shocked the Longhorns, holding them scoreless and winning the contest, 10–0. One Texas newspaper reported that Phillips had "whitewashed the Longhorns in their own corral."
Others in Texas concluded that Phillips’ success was the result of lax or non-existent eligibility policies. The lack of eligibility rules almost certainly did play a part in Phillips’ success. When Phillips joined the Southwest Conference in 1920, it became bound by the conference's eligibility rules, and the team was outscored 97–0 in conference play against Texas A&M (47–0), Texas (27–0), Arkansas (20–0), and Texas Christian (3–0). The Galveston Daily News noted that Maulbetsch's 1920 team could not "compare with the strong team" he surprised Texas with in 1919. At the end of the 1920 season, Phillips withdrew from the Southwest Conference, and Maulbetsch accepted a new position at Oklahoma A&M.
Head coach at Oklahoma A&M (1921–1928)
In January 1921, Maulbetsch was hired as the head coach at Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical College (now Oklahoma State) in Stillwater, Oklahoma. He served as the coach at Oklahoma A&M from 1921 to 1928, where his teams posted a 28–37–6 (.437) record. In 1924, his team went 6–1–2 and shut out Oklahoma (6–0), Arkansas (20–0) and Kansas (3–0). Maulbetsch's Aggies also shut out Phillips that year, 13–0. After the season, attempts were made to lure him to Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, but Maulbetsch said he was satisfied with his position in Stillwater.
Maulbetsch arranged a game in Ann Arbor against his alma mater to start the 1926 season. Michigan beat the Aggies, 42–3. Despite an overall record of 3–4–1, Oklahoma A&M won its first conference football championship by going 3–0–1 in games against Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association opponents. Maulbetsch also drew attention in 1926 for his disciplinary methods. When the team lost two games due to fumbles, he ordered eight of his backfield players to carry footballs with them to classes throughout the week and instructed other team members to try knocking the balls from under their arms. The penalty for losing a ball was "a hard run around the stadium." He also ordered one of his ends to wear boxing gloves after he poked an opposing player in the eye.
The Aggies won only one game against seven defeats in 1928. In late November, the day after a 46–0 loss to Oklahoma, newspapers reported that "reliable sources" had said Maulbetsch intended to resign. Maulbetsch immediately denied the rumor, saying: "I have not resigned. I am aware that a faction here is trying to get me out, but I do not intend to throw up the sponge." In December, pressure to fire Maulbetsch grew, and one Oklahoma newspaper observed: "Coach Maulbetsch of the A. & M. football team is the object of attacks from many sides because of the rather poor showing made by his team during the past season. They are looking for a goat and just now Johnnie is cast in that role. Regardless of his past record, those who demand victory at any price and by any means whatsoever, are insisting that he be fired forthwith and a man be placed in the position who, by fair means or foul, will gather in a team that will win victories and never lose a game." Ultimately, Maulbetsch resigned at the end of May 1929 as Oklahoma A&M's coach in football, baseball, and basketball. It was announced that he would spend the remaining year of his contract on a leave of absence at half pay.
Head coach at Marshall College (1929–1930)
In July 1929, Maulbetsch was hired by Marshall College in Huntington, West Virginia to become head coach in charge of football and track. When Marshall's "Thundering Herd" got off to a 4–1 start, Maulbetsch won praise in the West Virginia press, but Marshall finished the season 1–2–1 in the second half. And in 1930, the Marshall team went 3–5–1, including a 65–0 loss to Penn State. Maulbetsch resigned as Marshall's coach in January 1931; his only comment at the time was that he had "other plans."
Later years and legacy
After retiring from football, Maulbetsch bought a drug store in Huntington, West Virginia. During World War II, Maulbetsch took a job building B-24 Liberator bombers at Ford Motor Company's famed Willow Run Plant near Ypsilanti, Michigan. From 1946 until his death, he owned an automobile sales company in Adrian, Michigan. Maulbetsch died of cancer in 1950 at his home in Ann Arbor. He was survived by his widow, Ida, a son John Maulbetsch, and a daughter Barbara. Maulbetsch had been married to Ida (maiden name Ida Elizabeth Cappon) since May 27, 1917.
Maulbetsch was inducted posthumously into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1973. Since 1956, the John F. Maulbetsch Award has been given at the University of Michigan after spring practice to a freshman football candidate on the basis of desire, character, capacity for leadership and future success both on and off the football field. The award was established by Frederick C. Matthaei – a former classmate of Maulbetsch who went on to become a Regent of the University. The award has been a good indicator of future success, as past recipients include Jim Mandich (1967), Rick Leach (1976), Charles Woodson (1996), Marlin Jackson (2002), and Jake Long (2004). Maulbetsch Avenue in Ypsilanti Township is presumably named after Maulbetsch.
Head coaching record
Football
Baseball
See also
List of Michigan Wolverines football All-Americans
References
External links
Profile at Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan Athletics History
1890 births
1950 deaths
American football halfbacks
Basketball coaches from Michigan
Adrian Bulldogs football players
Marshall Thundering Herd football coaches
Michigan Wolverines football players
Oklahoma State Cowboys football coaches
Oklahoma State Cowboys baseball coaches
Oklahoma State Cowboys basketball coaches
Phillips Haymakers football coaches
All-American college football players
College Football Hall of Fame inductees
Players of American football from Ann Arbor, Michigan | true | [
"\"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",
"Else Alfelt (16 September 1910 – 9 August 1974) was a Danish artist who specialized in abstract paintings. She was one of two female members of the CoBrA movement. She was married to Carl-Henning Pedersen, another prominent CoBrA member.\n\nEarly life and education\nAlfelt was born in Copenhagen to the parents Carl Valdemar Ahlefeldt (1882–1954) and Edith Alexandra Regine Julie Thomsen (1893–1938). She began to paint in an early age and remained self-taught as an artist. When her parents divorced while Else was very young, she was sent away to an orphanage by her father’s new wife. Alfelt learned to paint around age 12 by trying to capture staff and other children at the orphanage.\n\nAt age 15, Alfelt attended the Technical School in Copenhagen for two years. Her training worked to prepare her to apply to the Art Academy in Copenhagen where she was ultimately turned down. According to her museum website, “the rejection was made on the grounds that she already possessed the necessary painting skills.”\nIn 1933, when Alfelt was 23 years old, she attended the International Folk High School in Elsinore. There, she met her future husband Carl-Henning Pederson. They married very quickly, and their daughter Vibeke Alfelt was born in 1934. From about 1934 to 1937, the couple struggled financially but felt inspired still, so they would paint over used canvases in order to continue their craft. This was how Pederson allegedly began painting, by being given a used canvas from his wife and instructed to make it his own.\n\nCareer\n\nAhlefeldt submitted her work to the annual Autumn Salon of Danish artists (Kunstnernes Efterårsudstilling) from 1929, but her work was not accepted until 1936, when she exhibited two naturalistic portraits. Soon after this, Alfelt's painting style shifted to a completely abstract idiom of meditative and colorful prismatic compositions.\n\nAlfelt was involved with the major avant-garde art movements in Denmark from the 1930s through the 1950s. She took part in Linien (The Line, 1934-1939), the artists' collective and art journal that was the first conduit of French Surrealism to Denmark. Under the German occupation of Denmark during World War Two, Alfelt was an integral component of Helhesten (The Hell-Horse, 1941-1944), the artists' group and art journal co-founded by Asger Jorn as a harbinger of experimental art and implicit cultural-political resistance. She was also an important member of CoBrA (1948-1951) after the war.\n\nAlfelt's work explored motifs such as spirals, mountains, and spheres, which she linked to expressions of \"inner space\". Alfelt was directly inspired by nature, specifically mountains, which she sought out on her many travels, such as her trip to Lapland 1945 and Japan in 1967. In addition to paintings she also produced several mosaics.\n\nShe was awarded the Tagea Brandt Rejselegat in 1961.\n\nNotable artworks\n\nPosthumous Exhibitions \n“Else Alfelt- The Flower of the Universe” – Carl Henning Pederson og Else Alfelts Museum; 2018.\n\nAlfelt was inspired by travels to Japan to incorporate Zen Buddhism into her artistic style, resulting in 100 meditative paintings all named “Flower of the Universe.” These paintings were all made from Since she created them while traveling to Japan, each piece was composed on paper since it was lightweight and easy to transport.\n\n“Abstract Women- Else Alfelt and Marianne Grønnow” – Carl Henning Pederson og Else Alfelts museum; March 2015-August 2015.\nAbstract women documents two Danish abstract female painters who have gone overlooked by history, and overshadowed by their husbands’ works. While the two artists vary greatly in style and technique, the CHPEA museum brings them together for this exhibition to bring attention to the ways their art challenges established societal norms.\n\nLegacy\n'Carl Henning Pedersen og Else Alfelts Museum' outside Herning. Else Alfelts Vej in the Ørestad district of Copenhagen is named after her. In September 2010, the museum displayed a large-scale exhibition called “Else Alfelt – The Aesthetics of Emptiness.” The exhibition was shown for five months to celebrate what would have been Alfelt’s 100th birthday. The museum page description of the event calls her “one of the most significant women artists in Danish modernism.”\n\nSee also\nList of Danish painters\nList of Danish women artists\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n'Carl Henning Pedersen og Else Alfelts Museum' - Else Alfelt \nElse Alfelt in Kunstindeks Danmark \n\n1910 births\n1974 deaths\n20th-century Danish painters\n20th-century Danish women artists\nAbstract painters\nArtists from Copenhagen\nDanish watercolourists\nDanish women painters\nRecipients of the Thorvaldsen Medal\nWomen watercolorists"
] |
[
"John Maulbetsch",
"\"Human Bullet\"",
"Why was he known as the human bullet?",
"And his running style saw him bend his torso and propel himself like a projectile into the opposing line.",
"What position did he play?",
"I don't know.",
"What else can you tell me about the human bullet?",
"Indeed, he won several nicknames based on his size, running style, and fighting spirit, including the \"Human Bullet,\" \"",
"What else was noted about his style?",
"Maulbetsch was said to run \"so low that he could dash under an ordinary table without losing his feet.\""
] | C_263bcc5e0b4349d8a4de0526b164f1ce_0 | What was his record? | 5 | What was John Maulbetsch' record? | John Maulbetsch | Much of the attention on Maulbetsch focused on his diminutive size and unique running style. At 5 ft 7 in (1.70 m), and 155 lb (70 kg), Maulbetsch was a small back, even by the standards of his day. And his running style saw him bend his torso and propel himself like a projectile into the opposing line. Indeed, he won several nicknames based on his size, running style, and fighting spirit, including the "Human Bullet," "Mauly", the "Human Shrapnel", the "Featherweight Fullback", the "Michigan Cannon Ball," and the "German bullet." Comparisons of Maulbetsch to military armaments were common. In addition to the "bullet", "shrapnel", and "cannonball" nicknames, the Syracuse Herald observed: "Standing up in front of a Krupp gun has its dangers, but it is not to be compared with the dangers of standing in front of Maulbetsch when he is going full speed ahead." Maulbetsch's style was described as "line-plunging." A New York newspaper noted: "When the ball is snapped to him he almost doubles himself up, and, with his head aimed at the knees of the opposing line, he dives head first. Those who have seen Maulbetsch in action marvel at the great momentum he can get up in two or three steps." Noted football writer Walter Eckersall said: "Mauly is a little fellow, being built close to the ground. They say that when he plunges at the line his head is almost on a level with his shoe tops - that he hits so low that it's well nigh impossible to stop him." An Iowa newspaper wondered how it was possible "for a man to smash into a line of human bodies with the force that Maulbetsch does and come out of the game without a broken neck." Maulbetsch was said to run "so low that he could dash under an ordinary table without losing his feet." At a coaching conference in the 1920s, a coach doubted the table-ducking story and challenged Maulbetsch. The doubter later recalled: "I began ribbing him about this table-ducking stuff and finally offered to bet him he couldn't do it. Well, we got a table up in a room, Johnny tucked a water pitcher under his arm and backed against the wall. Darned if he didn't do it, the only thing, that water pitcher broke in a million pieces." Asked about the incident, Maulbetsch said it was true, except one part. Maulbetsch insisted there wasn't a nick on the pitcher. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | John Frederick Maulbetsch (June 20, 1890 – September 14, 1950) was an All-American football halfback at Adrian College in 1911 and for the University of Michigan Wolverines from 1914 to 1916. He is also a member of the College Football Hall of Fame.
After playing with an independent football team in Ann Arbor and at Adrian College, Maulbetsch became one of the most famous American football players in 1914 while playing for the University of Michigan. Maulbetsch became known as the "Human Bullet" because of his unusual low, line-plunging style of play, and was also known as the "Featherweight Fullback" because of his light weight and small size. After his performance against Harvard in 1914, in which some reports indicated he gained more than 300 yards, eastern writers, including Damon Runyon, wrote articles touting Maulbetsch. Maulbetsch was also selected by Walter Camp to his All-American team.
In 1915, Maulbetsch underwent surgery for appendicitis and did not perform to the same level as he had in 1914. He made a comeback as a senior in 1916 and was again one of the leading players in college football.
Between 1917 and 1920, Maulbetsch was the head football coach at Phillips University. With Maulbetsch's name recognition, he was able to recruit big name talent to Phillips, including future Pro Football Hall of Famer Steve Owen, and future United States Olympic Committee President Doug Roby. Maulbetsch quickly turned Phillips into one of the top programs in the southwest, as his teams beat Oklahoma and Texas and lost only one game in the 1918 and 1919 seasons. Maulbetsch was later the football coach at Oklahoma A&M (later known as Oklahoma State) and Marshall College in the 1920s. He has been inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame, and the University of Michigan awards the John F. Maulbetsch Award each year to a freshman football player based on desire, character, and capacity for leadership and future success both on and off the football field.
Ann Arbor High School and the Independents
Maulbetsch was born and grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He attended Ann Arbor High School where he led the football team to consecutive state championships in 1908 and 1909. One account of the 1908 playoffs noted: "Ann Arbor's smashing play in the first half was wholly due to Maulbetsch, Ann Arbor's fullback, and his terrific line bucking. He clearly outshone his team mates."
After graduating from high school, Maulbetsch joined the Ann Arbor Independents, a football team made up of Michigan "varsity eligibles" and "townies." Maulbetsch was once reportedly called upon to drive across the goal line for the Independents in a game in which a large crowd, including a farmer with his plow-horse, gathered in the end zone. "Head down and legs working like piston rods, Maulbetsch plowed ahead until head struck the plow horse amidships. Down went the horse Mauly on top of him."
College football player
Transfer from Adrian College
Maulbetsch started his college football career at age 21, leading Adrian College to an 8–0 record in 1911, including a 15–0 win over the University of Michigan freshman team. Maulbetsch's performance drew the attention of Michigan Coach Fielding H. Yost. After watching Maulbetsch dominate Michigan's freshman team, Yost concluded: "If I could get that kid into Michigan and keep him up in his studies I’d make an All-American place for him his first year." Yost persuaded Maulbetsch to transfer, and he played with "the scrubs" in 1912. Yost told the press at the time he had "another (Willie) Heston" in Maulbetsch.
1914 season
Maulbetsch did not play for the varsity team until the fall of 1914 when he was 24 years old. Before the season began, Maulbetsch was "touted as one of the fastest halfbacks who ever donned moleskins. He weighs 155 pounds, is built low, has a powerful pair of shoulders and his dashes are characterized by lightning speed." Another pre-season account said he was "a wonder as a line plunger and a wizard in the open field." From the outset, considerable attention was paid to his unusual running style. Observers noted "the peculiar manner in which he runs. . . . He has a corkscrew style of dashing, and even when tackled squarely has such a sturdy pair of legs that his assailant is usually carried back several yards."
Michigan opened the season with a 58–0 win over DePauw, followed by a 69–0 victory over Case Institute of Technology. Maulbetsch was the offensive star against Case, as he twice "carried several would-be tackles across the goal." Playing Vanderbilt the following week, Maulbetsch had runs of 25 and 35 yards, scored two touchdowns, "was worked overtime and probably advanced the pigskin more than any two other players." After starting the season 5–0, Michigan lost three of four games against top eastern schools: Syracuse, Harvard, Penn, and Cornell.
1914 Harvard game
Maulbetsch's breakthrough came on October 31, 1914, in front of 30,000 fans at Harvard. The game was one of the most anticipated matches of the year. A special train brought Michigan fans to Cambridge, Massachusetts, and hundreds of Michigan alumni from the East were on hand as "reinforcements." Though Harvard prevailed, 7–0, Maulbetsch was the big story in papers across the country. Writers from Ring Lardner to Damon Runyon told the story of Maulbetsch's performance. Lardner said: "If anyone tells you the East plays the best brand of football, Maulbetsch shot that theory full of holes." According to Runyon, the Wolverines used "the mighty Maulbetsch as their battering ram", and he "gained enough ground against Harvard to bury a German army corps." Football writer Frank G. Menke said: "No westerner ever created half the stir in the east as did this Michigander . . . His peculiar, baffling style of attack, backed by phenomenal strength almost always earned for him gains of 5 to 20 yards every time he was called upon to carry the ball." Another writer noted Maulbetsch's skill as a "line breaker" as he "carried the ball repeatedly through the Harvard line and into the secondary defense with bullet-like rushes that upset tackler after tackler." Maulbetsch was responsible for four-fifths of Michigan's ground gains, and on several occasions his dives reportedly "had so much power that he dove right through a double line of crimson players and went sprawling on the ground twelve to twenty feet clear of the double line."
While every report indicates that Maulbetsch had a big day, the accounts vary dramatically as to exactly how many yards he gained. Frank Menke reported after the game that Maulbetsch gained 300 yards. A 1938 newspaper account said he "gained 350 yards from scrimmage." Yet, his 1951 obituary indicated he gained 133 yards in 30 attempts.
Despite Maulbetsch's efforts, Michigan was never able to punch the ball across the goal line. Many blamed Michigan's quarterback who switched to another back every time after Maulbetsch "took the ball to the shadow of the Crimson goal posts." In answer to the question why Michigan was unable to score, Frank Menke said: "Ask the fellow who quarterbacked for Michigan that day. His actions were too mystifying for the spectators to figure out."
When Harvard reneged on an agreement to play a game in Ann Arbor in 1915, sports writers concluded it was to avoid facing Maulbetsch again. Said one reporter: "When faih Hahvahd [sic] saw what Maulbetsch did in the first clash, it decided it cared to see no more of him. He was too rough."
"Human Bullet"
Much of the attention on Maulbetsch focused on his diminutive size and unique running style. At , and , Maulbetsch was a small back, even by the standards of his day. And his running style saw him bend his torso and propel himself like a projectile into the opposing line. Indeed, he won several nicknames based on his size, running style, and fighting spirit, including the "Human Bullet," "Mauly", the "Human Shrapnel", the "Featherweight Fullback", the "Michigan Cannon Ball," and the "German bullet." Comparisons of Maulbetsch to military armaments were common. In addition to the "bullet", "shrapnel", and "cannonball" nicknames, the Syracuse Herald observed: "Standing up in front of a Krupp gun has its dangers, but it is not to be compared with the dangers of standing in front of Maulbetsch when he is going full speed ahead."
Maulbetsch's style was described as "line-plunging." A New York newspaper noted: "When the ball is snapped to him he almost doubles himself up, and, with his head aimed at the knees of the opposing line, he dives head first. Those who have seen Maulbetsch in action marvel at the great momentum he can get up in two or three steps." Noted football writer Walter Eckersall said: "Mauly is a little fellow, being built close to the ground. They say that when he plunges at the line his head is almost on a level with his shoe tops – that he hits so low that it's well nigh impossible to stop him." An Iowa newspaper wondered how it was possible "for a man to smash into a line of human bodies with the force that Maulbetsch does and come out of the game without a broken neck."
Maulbetsch was said to run "so low that he could dash under an ordinary table without losing his feet." At a coaching conference in the 1920s, a coach doubted the table-ducking story and challenged Maulbetsch. The doubter later recalled: "I began ribbing him about this table-ducking stuff and finally offered to bet him he couldn’t do it. Well, we got a table up in a room, Johnny tucked a water pitcher under his arm and backed against the wall. Darned if he didn’t do it, the only thing, that water pitcher broke in a million pieces." Asked about the incident, Maulbetsch said it was true, except one part. Maulbetsch insisted there wasn’t a nick on the pitcher.
Maulbetsch makes All-American
After the loss to Harvard in 1914, Michigan rebounded with a 34–3 win over Penn. Walter Eckersall reported that the Wolverines were "led by the redoubtable Johnny Maulbetsch." Despite being "a marked man" by the Penn defense, he was not thrown for a loss in the entire game, and he scored three touchdowns. Before Michigan lost to Cornell in the final game of the season, a scandal arose when it was revealed that the owner of an Ann Arbor pool room, Joe Reinger, had written a letter intimating that he could buy Maulbetsch and Michigan's quarterback to throw the Cornell game, and win US$50,000 from students willing to bet on Michigan. The letter was turned in to the Michigan athletic officials, and Reinger went to the athletic office "to try to hush the matter up." Reinger became abusive and was thrown out of the office by Coach Yost. The incident caused "the biggest stir of the season on the campus," as students demolished Reinger's pool room, and police had to guard Reinger's residence against threatening demonstrations that continued to "a late hour." Although Michigan did lose to Cornell, Maulbetsch was said to be "practically the only successful ground gainer for Michigan." Over the course of the 1914 season, Maulbetsch was said to have scored about half of Michigan's 252 points. A Wisconsin newspaper noted that, "when it comes time to write a resume of the 1914 football season", Maulbetsch's play "will live in the minds of men . . . for years to come." As a reward for his efforts, Maulbetsch was named a first-team All-American at the end of the 1914 season.
Pie and coffee diet
As public attention focused on Maulbetsch as "the greatest line-plunger of a decade," the press could not get enough of Maulbetsch, even interviewing his family. His sister revealed that Maulbetsch had a fondness for home cooking and received permission from the team trainer to eat at his family's Ann Arbor home. "Now, Johnny's sister explains that each day his mother baked two pies for the athlete's supper, and that in addition he had everything else his appetite craved, including coffee." Confronted by reporters about the revelation, Maulbetsch replied: "The story was slightly exaggerated. I rarely ate more than one and one half pies for dinner." Joking references to Maulbetsch's diet continued when it was reported in 1915 that he was suffering from "acute indigestion." One reporter quipped, "Those much advertised pies of his maw's evidently aren’t as great training dope as they were cracked up to be." It turned out that the indigestion was appendicitis, and Maulbetsch was hospitalized at St. Joseph's Sanitarium in Ann Arbor in April 1915, where he underwent an operation.
1915 season
As the 1915 season was set to get underway, Coach Yost reported, "Johnny told me he was feeling fine when I saw him recently, although he doesn’t weigh as much as he used to." Despite Yost's hopes, Maulbetsch fell far short of the prior year's performance in 1915. He was several pounds lighter after the illness and surgery, and it was noted that "a few pounds means much to a man of Maulbetsch's weight." In the opening game against Lawrence, Maulbetsch scored three touchdowns, but he was "woefully weak on interference." Playing against Mount Union, Maulbetsch made several big gains, including a 50-yard touchdown run in the third quarter. His difficulties returned in the season's third game against Marietta, as "Maulbetsch was powerless to stop the Marietta forward pass, all of the successful ones being directed toward his side of the line."
After The Michigan Daily criticized his performance following the Marietta game, Maulbetsch "threatened to desert the Michigan squad and give up football for good." It reportedly took Yost several hours to coax Maulbetsch to report for practice again, and in the next game against Case, Maulbetsch did not play until the third quarter. In the season's first big game, Michigan was soundly beaten by Michigan Agricultural College, 24–0, and most of Maulbetsch's runs "didn’t even get as far as his own line." In the final four games of the season, matters got worse for Michigan and Maulbetsch, as the team went 0–3–1, scoring only 14 points in four games.
In Maulbetsch's defense, some writers noted the weakness of the Michigan line, often allowing rushers into the backfield before Maulbetsch even had the ball. But some of those same observers noted that "Mauly" was not carrying the ball "at his usual pace." Sports writer Frank Menke described Maulbetsch's 1915 performance this way: "[The] Wolverine halfback skidded from the heights of greatness to the level of mediocre. . . . The lines that he had crumpled like eggshells a year before stood up under his charges, often dumping him back for losses. The once 'unstoppable' Maulbetsch not only was stopped but forced to retract." Despite the subpar performance in 1915, Michigan's varsity letter-winners elected him captain of the team for 1916.
1916 comeback
Maulbetsch made a strong comeback in 1916. Instead of spending the summer recovering from appendicitis, he spent the summer working as an assistant barkeeper on a steamship plying between Chicago and St. Joseph, Michigan. Maulbetsch spent his afternoons swimming and running sprints up and down the beach. On one trip, a giant coal passer claimed to be the strongest man in the world, and Maulbetsch agreed to a wrestling match on the boat. "The coal passer rushed the stripling, who ducked, caught his opponent about the waist and crushed him to the deck. When the giant woke, he wanted to know if the boat hit a rock." As the season started, The New York Times wrote: "Michigan's come-back football team, headed by Bullet Maulbetsch, is going to be an eleven to be reckoned with on the gridiron this Fall." Maulbetsch returned to his prior form, and one of the writers who had criticized him in 1915 said "the great Michigander using the same method of attack, has repeatedly broken in fragments this year the lines that he couldn’t dent in 1915."
Professional football
After the 1916 football season ended, Maulbetsch considered his options. There was a report that he had been engaged as a high school football coach (and math instructor) in Toledo, Ohio. Even more prevalent were reports that he had signed to play for a professional football team. Professional football was still in its infancy in 1917, and landing a well-known star would have been a boost to any of the budding franchises. In January 1917 newspapers reported that Maulbetsch had signed a contract to play professional football for Detroit Tigers owner, Frank Navin. Navin was supporting efforts to organize a professional football league in all the important Midwestern cities, including a Detroit franchise to play at Navin Field. As late as November 1917, newspapers reported Maulbetsch had played professional football after graduating and was offered "a handsome fee" to play with the Akron Burkhardts in November 1917. Although professional football records prior to 1920 are scarce, it appears unlikely that Maulbetsch played professional football, as press accounts show he was working as a college football coach starting in 1917.
Head football coach
Building Phillips University into a football power (1917–1920)
In June 1917, Maulbetsch announced that he had accepted a position as the football coach (and professor of chemistry) at Phillips University in Enid, Oklahoma. Phillips was a small, private school without a well-known athletic program. In the fall, Enid residents were "leaving their work every afternoon to watch [Maulbetsch] and his husky young Oklahoma youths work out on campus." Within a year, Maulbetsch turned Phillips into one of the strongest teams in the southwest.
Maulbetsch landed his first big recruit before leaving Ann Arbor. While playing at Michigan, Maulbetsch became friends with Doug Roby, a football player at the Michigan Military Academy, and one of the state's top recruits. Roby followed Maulbetsch to Phillips and later went on to become a member of the International Olympic Committee in the 1950s and 1960s and president of the United States Olympic Committee from 1965 to 1968. Maulbetsch's next find was future Pro Football Hall of Famer Steve Owen, who later spent 23 years with the New York Giants. Maulbetsch saw Owen watching football practice from under a tree and told him: "A fellow your size ought to be out for the squad." Owen showed up the next day and, when Maulbetsch used him to illustrate blocking fundamentals, Owen threw a block into Maulbetsch that threw him five yards through the air. Maulbetsch was satisfied, and Owen had a spot on the team. Because Phillips was not part of a conference, it was not subject to any eligibility limitations, an advantage Maulbetsch was accused of exploiting. A third key player recruited by Maulbetsch was a Native American halfback named Levi, and dubbed "Big Chief" by Phillips fans.
Having recruited top talent to Enid, Maulbetsch's teams lost only one game in 1918 and 1919, including a 10–0–1 record in 1919. In 1917 and 1918, Phillips came into the limelight when they beat the Oklahoma Sooners and the Henry Kendricks College team that had swept the west without allowing another team to score.
Maulbetsch arranged a game against the Texas Longhorns in 1919, the first meeting between the schools. When the game was announced The San Antonio Light reported: "Phillips University has one of the strongest teams in the Southwest. The only team to beat them in the past two years is Oklahoma and last year Phillips beat the Sooners 13–7." The report credited Maulbetsch for securing success at an institution little known in athletics before he arrived. The University of Texas had not lost a game since 1917 when the Phillips "Haymakers" arrived in Austin, Texas on October 11, 1919. Maulbetsch's team shocked the Longhorns, holding them scoreless and winning the contest, 10–0. One Texas newspaper reported that Phillips had "whitewashed the Longhorns in their own corral."
Others in Texas concluded that Phillips’ success was the result of lax or non-existent eligibility policies. The lack of eligibility rules almost certainly did play a part in Phillips’ success. When Phillips joined the Southwest Conference in 1920, it became bound by the conference's eligibility rules, and the team was outscored 97–0 in conference play against Texas A&M (47–0), Texas (27–0), Arkansas (20–0), and Texas Christian (3–0). The Galveston Daily News noted that Maulbetsch's 1920 team could not "compare with the strong team" he surprised Texas with in 1919. At the end of the 1920 season, Phillips withdrew from the Southwest Conference, and Maulbetsch accepted a new position at Oklahoma A&M.
Head coach at Oklahoma A&M (1921–1928)
In January 1921, Maulbetsch was hired as the head coach at Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical College (now Oklahoma State) in Stillwater, Oklahoma. He served as the coach at Oklahoma A&M from 1921 to 1928, where his teams posted a 28–37–6 (.437) record. In 1924, his team went 6–1–2 and shut out Oklahoma (6–0), Arkansas (20–0) and Kansas (3–0). Maulbetsch's Aggies also shut out Phillips that year, 13–0. After the season, attempts were made to lure him to Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, but Maulbetsch said he was satisfied with his position in Stillwater.
Maulbetsch arranged a game in Ann Arbor against his alma mater to start the 1926 season. Michigan beat the Aggies, 42–3. Despite an overall record of 3–4–1, Oklahoma A&M won its first conference football championship by going 3–0–1 in games against Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association opponents. Maulbetsch also drew attention in 1926 for his disciplinary methods. When the team lost two games due to fumbles, he ordered eight of his backfield players to carry footballs with them to classes throughout the week and instructed other team members to try knocking the balls from under their arms. The penalty for losing a ball was "a hard run around the stadium." He also ordered one of his ends to wear boxing gloves after he poked an opposing player in the eye.
The Aggies won only one game against seven defeats in 1928. In late November, the day after a 46–0 loss to Oklahoma, newspapers reported that "reliable sources" had said Maulbetsch intended to resign. Maulbetsch immediately denied the rumor, saying: "I have not resigned. I am aware that a faction here is trying to get me out, but I do not intend to throw up the sponge." In December, pressure to fire Maulbetsch grew, and one Oklahoma newspaper observed: "Coach Maulbetsch of the A. & M. football team is the object of attacks from many sides because of the rather poor showing made by his team during the past season. They are looking for a goat and just now Johnnie is cast in that role. Regardless of his past record, those who demand victory at any price and by any means whatsoever, are insisting that he be fired forthwith and a man be placed in the position who, by fair means or foul, will gather in a team that will win victories and never lose a game." Ultimately, Maulbetsch resigned at the end of May 1929 as Oklahoma A&M's coach in football, baseball, and basketball. It was announced that he would spend the remaining year of his contract on a leave of absence at half pay.
Head coach at Marshall College (1929–1930)
In July 1929, Maulbetsch was hired by Marshall College in Huntington, West Virginia to become head coach in charge of football and track. When Marshall's "Thundering Herd" got off to a 4–1 start, Maulbetsch won praise in the West Virginia press, but Marshall finished the season 1–2–1 in the second half. And in 1930, the Marshall team went 3–5–1, including a 65–0 loss to Penn State. Maulbetsch resigned as Marshall's coach in January 1931; his only comment at the time was that he had "other plans."
Later years and legacy
After retiring from football, Maulbetsch bought a drug store in Huntington, West Virginia. During World War II, Maulbetsch took a job building B-24 Liberator bombers at Ford Motor Company's famed Willow Run Plant near Ypsilanti, Michigan. From 1946 until his death, he owned an automobile sales company in Adrian, Michigan. Maulbetsch died of cancer in 1950 at his home in Ann Arbor. He was survived by his widow, Ida, a son John Maulbetsch, and a daughter Barbara. Maulbetsch had been married to Ida (maiden name Ida Elizabeth Cappon) since May 27, 1917.
Maulbetsch was inducted posthumously into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1973. Since 1956, the John F. Maulbetsch Award has been given at the University of Michigan after spring practice to a freshman football candidate on the basis of desire, character, capacity for leadership and future success both on and off the football field. The award was established by Frederick C. Matthaei – a former classmate of Maulbetsch who went on to become a Regent of the University. The award has been a good indicator of future success, as past recipients include Jim Mandich (1967), Rick Leach (1976), Charles Woodson (1996), Marlin Jackson (2002), and Jake Long (2004). Maulbetsch Avenue in Ypsilanti Township is presumably named after Maulbetsch.
Head coaching record
Football
Baseball
See also
List of Michigan Wolverines football All-Americans
References
External links
Profile at Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan Athletics History
1890 births
1950 deaths
American football halfbacks
Basketball coaches from Michigan
Adrian Bulldogs football players
Marshall Thundering Herd football coaches
Michigan Wolverines football players
Oklahoma State Cowboys football coaches
Oklahoma State Cowboys baseball coaches
Oklahoma State Cowboys basketball coaches
Phillips Haymakers football coaches
All-American college football players
College Football Hall of Fame inductees
Players of American football from Ann Arbor, Michigan | false | [
"Incognegro is the independent studio album by American rapper Ludacris. It was released on August 17, 1999, by Ludacris' newly founded indie record label, DTP Entertainment. Recording sessions took place from 1998 to 1999, with Ludacris serving as the record's executive producer, while the additional production was provided by Jermaine Dupri and Organized Noize, among others.\n\nThe album was supported by two singles: \"Ho\" (produced by Bangladesh), and \"What's Your Fantasy\" (featuring Shawnna, produced by Bangladesh).\n\nEvery track would later appear on his second album except for \"Intro\", \"It Wasn't Us\", \"Midnight Train\", & \"Rock and a Hard Place\".\n\nSingles \nThe lead single for his untitled independent album, called \"Ho\" was released on July 15, 1998. The song was produced by American hip hop record producer Bangladesh.\n\nThe second single for Incognegro, \"What's Your Fantasy\" was released on September 12, 2000. The song features guest verse from an American local rapper Shawnna, while the production was also provided by Bangladesh.\n\nCritical reception\n\nTrack listing\n\nChart positions\n\nReferences\n\n2000 debut albums\nLudacris albums\nAlbums produced by Bangladesh (record producer)\nAlbums produced by Jermaine Dupri",
"\"What's the Use of Getting Sober (When You Gonna Get Drunk Again)\" is a song written by Busby Meyers, performed by Louis Jordan and his Tympany Five, recorded in July 1942, and released on the Decca label (catalog no. 8645). The \"B\" side of the record was \"The Chicks I Pick Are Slender and Tender and Tall\". \n\nThe record peaked at No. 1 on Billboards race record chart and remained on the chart for 14 weeks. It was Jordan's first No. 1 record.\n\nIn a November 1942 review in The Billboard, M. H. Orodenker wrote: \"The trumpet, with plenty of 'hicks' to his hot horn licks, establishes the mood right from the edge.\"\n\nThe song was included in the 1977 compilation, The Best of Louis Jordan. It was covered by Joe Jackson on his 1981 release Joe Jackson's Jumpin' Jive.\n\nReferences\n\n1942 songs\nLouis Jordan songs"
] |
[
"Vasco da Gama",
"Exploration before da Gama"
] | C_ad92303978184a0890a8eb9304f15d62_1 | Was types of exploration happened before da Gama? | 1 | What types of exploration happened before da Gama? | Vasco da Gama | From the earlier part of the 15th century, Portuguese expeditions organized by Prince Henry the Navigator had been reaching down the African coastline, principally in search of west African riches (notably, gold). They had greatly extended Portuguese maritime knowledge, but had little profit to show for the effort. After Henry's death in 1460, the Portuguese Crown showed little interest in continuing this effort and, in 1469, sold off the neglected African enterprise to a private Lisbon merchant consortium led by Fernao Gomes. Within a few years, Gomes' captains expanded Portuguese knowledge across the Gulf of Guinea, doing business in gold dust, Melegueta pepper, ivory and sub-Saharan slaves. When Gomes' charter came up for renewal in 1474, Prince John (future John II), asked his father Afonso V of Portugal to pass the African charter to him. Upon becoming king in 1481, John II of Portugal set out on many long reforms. To break the monarch's dependence on the feudal nobility, John II needed to build up the royal treasury; he considered royal commerce to be the key to achieving that. Under John II's watch, the gold and slave trade in west Africa was greatly expanded. He was eager to break into the highly profitable spice trade between Europe and Asia, which was conducted chiefly by land. At the time, this was virtually monopolized by the Republic of Venice, who operated overland routes via Levantine and Egyptian ports, through the Red Sea across to the spice markets of India. John II set a new objective for his captains: to find a sea route to Asia by sailing around the African continent. By the time Vasco da Gama was in his 20s, the king's plans were coming to fruition. In 1487, John II dispatched two spies, Pero da Covilha and Afonso de Paiva, overland via Egypt to East Africa and India, to scout the details of the spice markets and trade routes. The breakthrough came soon after, when John II's captain Bartolomeu Dias returned from rounding the Cape of Good Hope in 1488, having explored as far as the Fish River (Rio do Infante) in modern-day South Africa and having verified that the unknown coast stretched away to the northeast. An explorer was needed who could prove the link between the findings of Dias and those of da Covilha and de Paiva, and connect these separate segments into a potentially lucrative trade route across the Indian Ocean. CANNOTANSWER | From the earlier part of the 15th century, Portuguese expeditions organized by Prince Henry the Navigator had been reaching down the African coastline, principally in search of west African riches | Vasco da Gama, 1st Count of Vidigueira (, ; ; c. 1460s – 24 December 1524), was a Portuguese explorer and the first European to reach India by sea.
His initial voyage to India by way of Cape of Good Hope (1497–1499) was the first to link Europe and Asia by an ocean route, connecting the Atlantic and the Indian oceans and therefore, the West and the Orient. This is widely considered a milestone in world history, as it marked the beginning of a sea-based phase of global multiculturalism. Da Gama's discovery of the sea route to India opened the way for an age of global imperialism and enabled the Portuguese to establish a long-lasting colonial empire along the way from Africa to Asia. The violence and hostage taking employed by da Gama and those who followed also assigned a brutal reputation to the Portuguese among India's indigenous kingdoms that would set the pattern for western colonialism in the Age of Exploration. Traveling the ocean route allowed the Portuguese to avoid sailing across the highly disputed Mediterranean and traversing the dangerous Arabian Peninsula. The sum of the distances covered in the outward and return voyages made this expedition the longest ocean voyage ever made until then.
After decades of sailors trying to reach the Indies, with thousands of lives and dozens of vessels lost in shipwrecks and attacks, da Gama landed in Calicut on 20 May 1498. Unopposed access to the Indian spice routes boosted the economy of the Portuguese Empire, which was previously based along northern and coastal West Africa. The main spices at first obtained from Southeast Asia were pepper and cinnamon, but soon included other products, all new to Europe. Portugal maintained a commercial monopoly of these commodities for several decades. It was not until a century later that other European powers, first the Dutch Republic and England, later France and Denmark, were able to challenge Portugal's monopoly and naval supremacy in the Cape Route.
Da Gama led two of the Portuguese India Armadas, the first and the fourth. The latter was the largest and departed for India four years after his return from the first one. For his contributions, in 1524 da Gama was appointed Governor of India, with the title of Viceroy, and was ennobled as Count of Vidigueira in 1519. He remains a leading figure in the history of exploration, and homages worldwide have celebrated his explorations and accomplishments. The Portuguese national epic poem, Os Lusíadas, was written in his honour by Luís de Camões. In March 2016 thousands of artifacts and nautical remains were recovered from the wreck of the ship Esmeralda, one of da Gama's armada, found off the coast of Oman.
Early life
Vasco da Gama was born in 1460 in the town of Sines, one of the few seaports on the Alentejo coast, southwest Portugal, probably in a house near the church of Nossa Senhora das Salas.
Vasco da Gama's father was Estêvão da Gama, who had served in the 1460s as a knight of the household of Infante Ferdinand, Duke of Viseu. He rose in the ranks of the military Order of Santiago. Estêvão da Gama was appointed alcaide-mór (civil governor) of Sines in the 1460s, a post he held until 1478; after that he continued as a receiver of taxes and holder of the Order's commendas in the region.
Estêvão da Gama married Isabel Sodré, a daughter of João Sodré (also known as João de Resende), scion of a well-connected family of English origin. Her father and her brothers, Vicente Sodré and Brás Sodré, had links to the household of Infante Diogo, Duke of Viseu, and were prominent figures in the military Order of Christ. Vasco da Gama was the third of five sons of Estêvão da Gama and Isabel Sodré – in (probable) order of age: Paulo da Gama, João Sodré, Vasco da Gama, Pedro da Gama and Aires da Gama. Vasco also had one known sister, Teresa da Gama (who married Lopo Mendes de Vasconcelos).
Little is known of da Gama's early life. The Portuguese historian Teixeira de Aragão suggests that he studied at the inland town of Évora, which is where he may have learned mathematics and navigation. It has been claimed that he studied under Abraham Zacuto, an astrologer and astronomer, but da Gama's biographer Subrahmanyam thinks this dubious.
Around 1480, da Gama followed his father (rather than the Sodrés) and joined the Order of Santiago. The master of Santiago was Prince John, who ascended to the throne in 1481 as King John II of Portugal. John II doted on the Order, and the da Gamas' prospects rose accordingly.
In 1492, John II dispatched da Gama on a mission to the port of Setúbal and to the Algarve to seize French ships in retaliation for peacetime depredations against Portuguese shipping – a task that da Gama rapidly and effectively performed.
Exploration before da Gama
From the earlier part of the 15th century, Portuguese expeditions organized by Prince Henry the Navigator had been reaching down the African coastline, principally in search of west African riches (notably, gold and slaves). They had greatly extended Portuguese maritime knowledge, but had little profit to show for the effort. After Henry's death in 1460, the Portuguese Crown showed little interest in continuing this effort and, in 1469, licensed the neglected African enterprise to a private Lisbon merchant consortium led by Fernão Gomes. Within a few years, Gomes' captains expanded Portuguese knowledge across the Gulf of Guinea, doing business in gold dust, melegueta pepper, ivory and sub-Saharan slaves. When Gomes' charter came up for renewal in 1474, Prince John (future John II), asked his father Afonso V of Portugal to pass the African charter to him.
Upon becoming king in 1481, John II of Portugal set out on many long reforms. To break the monarch's dependence on the feudal nobility, John II needed to build up the royal treasury; he considered royal commerce to be the key to achieving that. Under John II's watch, the gold and slave trade in west Africa was greatly expanded. He was eager to break into the highly profitable spice trade between Europe and Asia, which was conducted chiefly by land. At the time, this was virtually monopolized by the Republic of Venice, who operated overland routes via Levantine and Egyptian ports, through the Red Sea across to the spice markets of India. John II set a new objective for his captains: to find a sea route to Asia by sailing around the African continent.
By the time Vasco da Gama was in his 20s, the king's plans were coming to fruition. In 1487, John II dispatched two spies, Pero da Covilhã and Afonso de Paiva, overland via Egypt to East Africa and India, to scout the details of the spice markets and trade routes. The breakthrough came soon after, when John II's captain Bartolomeu Dias returned from rounding the Cape of Good Hope in 1488, having explored as far as the Fish River (Rio do Infante) in modern-day South Africa and having verified that the unknown coast stretched away to the northeast.
An explorer was needed who could prove the link between the findings of Dias and those of da Covilhã and de Paiva, and connect these separate segments into a potentially lucrative trade route across the Indian Ocean.
First voyage
On 8 July 1497 Vasco da Gama led a fleet of four ships with a crew of 170 men from Lisbon. The distance traveled in the journey around Africa to India and back was greater than the length of the equator. The navigators included Portugal's most experienced, Pero de Alenquer, Pedro Escobar, João de Coimbra, and Afonso Gonçalves. It is not known for certain how many people were in each ship's crew but approximately 55 returned, and two ships were lost. Two of the vessels were carracks, newly built for the voyage; the others were a caravel and a supply boat.
The four ships were:
São Gabriel, commanded by Vasco da Gama; a carrack of 178 tons, length 27 m, width 8.5 m, draft 2.3 m, sails of 372 m2
São Rafael, commanded by his brother Paulo da Gama; similar dimensions to the São Gabriel
Berrio (nickname, officially called São Miguel), a caravel, slightly smaller than the former two, commanded by Nicolau Coelho
A storage ship of unknown name, commanded by Gonçalo Nunes, destined to be scuttled in Mossel Bay (São Brás) in South Africa
Journey to the Cape
The expedition set sail from Lisbon on 8 July 1497. It followed the route pioneered by earlier explorers along the coast of Africa via Tenerife and the Cape Verde Islands. After reaching the coast of present-day Sierra Leone, da Gama took a course south into the open ocean, crossing the Equator and seeking the South Atlantic westerlies that Bartolomeu Dias had discovered in 1487. This course proved successful and on 4 November 1497, the expedition made landfall on the African coast. For over three months the ships had sailed more than of open ocean, by far the longest journey out of sight of land made by that time.
By 16 December, the fleet had passed the Great Fish River (Eastern Cape, South Africa) – where Dias had anchored – and sailed into waters previously unknown to Europeans. With Christmas pending, da Gama and his crew gave the coast they were passing the name Natal, which carried the connotation of "birth of Christ" in Portuguese.
Mozambique
Vasco da Gama spent 2 to 29 March 1498 in the vicinity of Mozambique Island. Arab-controlled territory on the East African coast was an integral part of the network of trade in the Indian Ocean. Fearing the local population would be hostile to Christians, da Gama impersonated a Muslim and gained audience with the Sultan of Mozambique. With the paltry trade goods he had to offer, the explorer was unable to provide a suitable gift to the ruler. Soon the local populace became suspicious of da Gama and his men. Forced by a hostile crowd to flee Mozambique, da Gama departed the harbor, firing his cannons into the city in retaliation.
Mombasa
In the vicinity of modern Kenya, the expedition resorted to piracy, looting Arab merchant ships that were generally unarmed trading vessels without heavy cannons. The Portuguese became the first known Europeans to visit the port of Mombasa from 7 to 13 April 1498, but were met with hostility and soon departed.
Malindi
Vasco da Gama continued north, arriving on 14 April 1498 at the friendlier port of Malindi, whose leaders were having a conflict with those of Mombasa. There the expedition first noted evidence of Indian traders. Da Gama and his crew contracted the services of a pilot who used his knowledge of the monsoon winds to guide the expedition the rest of the way to Calicut, located on the southwest coast of India. Sources differ over the identity of the pilot, calling him variously a Christian, a Muslim, and a Gujarati. One traditional story describes the pilot as the famous Arab navigator Ibn Majid, but other contemporaneous accounts place Majid elsewhere, and he could not have been near the vicinity at the time. None of the Portuguese historians of the time mentions Ibn Majid. Vasco da Gama left Malindi for India on 24 April 1498.
Calicut, India
The fleet arrived in Kappadu near Kozhikode (Calicut), in Malabar Coast (present day Kerala state of India), on 20 May 1498. The King of Calicut, the Samudiri (Zamorin), who was at that time staying in his second capital at Ponnani, returned to Calicut on hearing the news of the foreign fleet's arrival. The navigator was received with traditional hospitality, including a grand procession of at least 3,000 armed Nairs, but an interview with the Zamorin failed to produce any concrete results. When local authorities asked da Gama's fleet, "What brought you hither?", they replied that they had come "in search of Christians and spices." The presents that da Gama sent to the Zamorin as gifts from Dom Manuel – four cloaks of scarlet cloth, six hats, four branches of corals, twelve , a box with seven brass vessels, a chest of sugar, two barrels of oil and a cask of honey – were trivial, and failed to impress. While Zamorin's officials wondered at why there was no gold or silver, the Muslim merchants who considered da Gama their rival suggested that the latter was only an ordinary pirate and not a royal ambassador. Vasco da Gama's request for permission to leave a factor behind him in charge of the merchandise he could not sell was turned down by the King, who insisted that da Gama pay customs duty – preferably in gold – like any other trader, which strained the relation between the two. Annoyed by this, da Gama carried a few Nairs and sixteen fishermen (mukkuva) off with him by force.
Return
Vasco da Gama left Calicut on 29 August 1498. Eager to set sail for home, he ignored the local knowledge of monsoon wind patterns that were still blowing onshore. The fleet initially inched north along the Indian coast, and then anchored in at Anjediva island for a spell. They finally struck out for their Indian Ocean crossing on 3 October 1498. But with the winter monsoon yet to set in, it was a harrowing journey. On the outgoing journey, sailing with the summer monsoon wind, da Gama's fleet crossed the Indian Ocean in only 23 days; now, on the return trip, sailing against the wind, it took 132 days.
Da Gama saw land again only on 2 January 1499, passing before the coastal Somali city of Mogadishu, then under the influence of the Ajuran Empire in the Horn of Africa. The fleet did not make a stop, but passing before Mogadishu, the anonymous diarist of the expedition noted that it was a large city with houses of four or five storeys high and big palaces in its center and many mosques with cylindrical minarets.
Da Gama's fleet finally arrived in Malindi on 7 January 1499, in a terrible state – approximately half of the crew had died during the crossing, and many of the rest were afflicted with scurvy. Not having enough crewmen left standing to manage three ships, da Gama ordered the São Rafael scuttled off the East African coast, and the crew re-distributed to the remaining two ships, the São Gabriel and the Berrio. Thereafter, the sailing was smoother. By early March, they had arrived in Mossel Bay, and crossed the Cape of Good Hope in the opposite direction on 20 March, reaching the west African coast by 25 April.
The diary record of the expedition ends abruptly here. Reconstructing from other sources, it seems they continued to Cape Verde, where Nicolau Coelho's Berrio separated from Vasco da Gama's São Gabriel and sailed on by itself. The Berrio arrived in Lisbon on 10 July 1499 and Nicolau Coelho personally delivered the news to King Manuel I and the royal court, then assembled in Sintra. In the meantime, back in Cape Verde, da Gama's brother, Paulo da Gama, had fallen grievously ill. Da Gama elected to stay by his side on Santiago island and handed the São Gabriel over to his clerk, João de Sá, to take home. The São Gabriel under Sá arrived in Lisbon sometime in late July or early August. Da Gama and his sickly brother eventually hitched a ride with a Guinea caravel returning to Portugal, but Paulo da Gama died en route. Da Gama disembarked at the Azores to bury his brother at the monastery of São Francisco in Angra do Heroismo, and lingered there for a little while in mourning. He eventually took passage on an Azorean caravel and finally arrived in Lisbon on 29 August 1499 (according to Barros), or early September (8th or 18th, according to other sources). Despite his melancholic mood, da Gama was given a hero's welcome and showered with honors, including a triumphal procession and public festivities. King Manuel wrote two letters in which he described da Gama's first voyage, in July and August 1499, soon after the return of the ships. Girolamo Sernigi also wrote three letters describing da Gama's first voyage soon after the return of the expedition.
The expedition had exacted a large cost – two ships and over half the men had been lost. It had also failed in its principal mission of securing a commercial treaty with Calicut. Nonetheless, the small quantities of spices and other trade goods brought back on the remaining two ships demonstrated the potential of great profit for future trade. Vasco da Gama was justly celebrated for opening a direct sea route to Asia. His path would be followed up thereafter by yearly Portuguese India Armadas.
The spice trade would prove to be a major asset to the Portuguese royal treasury, and other consequences soon followed. For example, da Gama's voyage had made it clear that the east coast of Africa, the Contra Costa, was essential to Portuguese interests; its ports provided fresh water, provisions, timber, and harbors for repairs, and served as a refuge where ships could wait out unfavorable weather. One significant result was the colonization of Mozambique by the Portuguese Crown.
Rewards
In December 1499, King Manuel I of Portugal rewarded Vasco da Gama with the town of Sines as a hereditary fief (the town his father, Estêvão, had once held as a commenda). This turned out to be a complicated affair, for Sines still belonged to the Order of Santiago. The master of the Order, Jorge de Lencastre, might have endorsed the reward – after all, da Gama was a Santiago knight, one of their own, and a close associate of Lencastre himself. But the fact that Sines was awarded by the king provoked Lencastre to refuse out of principle, lest it encourage the king to make other donations of the Order's properties. Da Gama would spend the next few years attempting to take hold of Sines, an effort that would estrange him from Lencastre and eventually prompt da Gama to abandon his beloved Order of Santiago, switching over to the rival Order of Christ in 1507.
In the meantime, da Gama made do with a substantial hereditary royal pension of 300,000 reis. He was awarded the noble title of Dom (lord) in perpetuity for himself, his siblings and their descendants. On 30 January 1502, da Gama was awarded the title of Almirante dos mares de Arabia, Persia, India e de todo o Oriente ("Admiral of the Seas of Arabia, Persia, India and all the Orient") – an overwrought title reminiscent of the ornate Castilian title borne by Christopher Columbus (evidently, Manuel must have reckoned that if Castile had an 'Admiral of the Ocean Seas', then surely Portugal should have one too). Another royal letter, dated October 1501, gave da Gama the personal right to intervene and exercise a determining role on any future India-bound fleet.
Around 1501, Vasco da Gama married Catarina de Ataíde, daughter of Álvaro de Ataíde, the alcaide-mór of Alvor (Algarve), and a prominent nobleman connected by kinship with the powerful Almeida family (Catarina was a first cousin of Dom Francisco de Almeida).
Second voyage
The follow-up expedition, the Second India Armada, launched in 1500 under the command of Pedro Álvares Cabral with the mission of making a treaty with the Zamorin of Calicut and setting up a Portuguese factory in the city. However, Pedro Cabral entered into a conflict with the local Arab merchant guilds, with the result that the Portuguese factory was overrun in a riot and up to 70 Portuguese were killed. Cabral blamed the Zamorin for the incident and bombarded the city. Thus war broke out between Portugal and Calicut.
Vasco da Gama invoked his royal letter to take command of the 4th India Armada, scheduled to set out in 1502, with the explicit aim of taking revenge upon the Zamorin and force him to submit to Portuguese terms. The heavily armed fleet of fifteen ships and eight hundred men left Lisbon on 12 February 1502. It was followed in April by another squadron of five ships led by his cousin, Estêvão da Gama (the son of Aires da Gama), which caught up to them in the Indian Ocean. The 4th Armada was a veritable da Gama family affair. Two of his maternal uncles, Vicente Sodré and Brás Sodré, were pre-designated to command an Indian Ocean naval patrol, while brothers-in-law Álvaro de Ataíde (brother of Vasco's wife Catarina) and Lopo Mendes de Vasconcelos (betrothed to Teresa da Gama, Vasco's sister) captained ships in the main fleet.
On the outgoing voyage, da Gama's fleet opened contact with the East African gold trading port of Sofala and reduced the sultanate of Kilwa to tribute, extracting a substantial sum of gold.
Pilgrim ship incident
On reaching India in October 1502, da Gama's fleet intercepted a ship of Muslim pilgrims at Madayi travelling from Calicut to Mecca. Described in detail by eyewitness Thomé Lopes and chronicler Gaspar Correia, da Gama looted the ship with over 400 pilgrims on board including 50 women, locked in the passengers, the owner and an ambassador from Egypt and burned them to death. They offered their wealth, which "could ransom all the Christian slaves in the Kingdom of Fez and much more" but were not spared. Da Gama looked on through the porthole and saw the women bringing up their gold and jewels and holding up their babies to beg for mercy.
Calicut
After stopping at Cannanore, Gama drove his fleet before Calicut, demanding redress for the treatment of Cabral. Having known of the fate of the pilgrims' ship, the Zamorin adopted a conciliatory attitude towards the Portuguese and expressed willingness to sign a new treaty but da Gama made a call to the Hindu king to expel all Muslims from Calicut before beginning negotiations, which was turned down. At the same time however, the Zamorin sent a message to his rebellious vassal, the Raja of Cochin urging cooperation and obedience to counter the Portuguese threat; the ruler of Cochin forwarded this message to Gama, which reinforced his opinion of the Indians as duplicitous. After demanding the expulsion of Muslims from Calicut to the Hindu Zamorin, the latter sent the high priest Talappana Namboothiri (the very same person who conducted da Gama to the Zamorin's chamber during his much celebrated first visit to Calicut in May 1498) for talks. Da Gama called him a spy, ordered the priests' lips and ears to be cut off and after sewing a pair of dog's ears to his head, sent him away. The Portuguese fleet then bombarded the unfortified city for nearly two days from the sea, severely damaging it. He also captured several rice vessels and cut off the crew's hands, ears and noses, dispatching them with a note to the Zamorin, in which Gama declared that he would be open to friendly relations once the Zamorin had paid for the items plundered from the feitoria as well as the gunpowder and cannonballs.
Seabattle
The violent treatment meted out by da Gama quickly brought trade along the Malabar Coast of India, upon which Calicut depended, to a standstill. The Zamorin ventured to dispatch a fleet of strong warships to challenge da Gama's armada, but which Gama managed to defeat in a naval battle before Calicut harbor.
Cochin
Da Gama loaded up with spices at Cochin and Cannanore, small nearby kingdoms at war with the Zamorin, whose alliances had been secured by prior Portuguese fleets. The 4th armada left India in early 1503. Da Gama left behind a small squadron of caravels under the command of his uncle, Vicente Sodré, to patrol the Indian coast, to continue harassing Calicut shipping, and to protect the Portuguese factories at Cochin and Cannanore from the Zamorin's inevitable reprisals.
Vasco da Gama arrived back in Portugal in September 1503, effectively having failed in his mission to bring the Zamorin to submission. This failure, and the subsequent more galling failure of his uncle Vicente Sodré to protect the Portuguese factory in Cochin, probably counted against any further rewards. When the Portuguese king Manuel I of Portugal decided to appoint the first governor and viceroy of Portuguese India in 1505, da Gama was conspicuously overlooked, and the post given to Francisco de Almeida.
Interlude
For the next two decades, Vasco da Gama lived out a quiet life, unwelcome in the royal court and sidelined from Indian affairs. His attempts to return to the favor of Manuel I (including switching over to the Order of Christ in 1507), yielded little. Almeida, the larger-than-life Afonso de Albuquerque and, later on, Albergaria and Sequeira, were the king's preferred point men for India.
After Ferdinand Magellan defected to the Crown of Castile in 1518, Vasco da Gama threatened to do the same, prompting the king to undertake steps to retain him in Portugal and avoid the embarrassment of losing his own "Admiral of the Indies" to Spain. In 1519, after years of ignoring his petitions, King Manuel I finally hurried to give Vasco da Gama a feudal title, appointing him the first Count of Vidigueira, a count title created by a royal decree issued in Évora on 29 December, after a complicated agreement with Dom Jaime, Duke of Braganza, who ceded him on payment the towns of Vidigueira and Vila dos Frades. The decree granted Vasco da Gama and his heirs all the revenues and privileges related, thus establishing da Gama as the first Portuguese count who was not born with royal blood.
Third voyage and death
After the death of King Manuel I in late 1521, his son and successor, King John III of Portugal set about reviewing the Portuguese government overseas. Turning away from the old Albuquerque clique (now represented by Diogo Lopes de Sequeira), John III looked for a fresh start. Vasco da Gama re-emerged from his political wilderness as an important adviser to the new king's appointments and strategy. Seeing the new Spanish threat to the Maluku Islands as the priority, Vasco da Gama advised against the obsession with Arabia that had pervaded much of the Manueline period, and continued to be the dominant concern of Duarte de Menezes, then-governor of Portuguese India. Menezes also turned out to be incompetent and corrupt, subject to numerous complaints. As a result, John III decided to appoint Vasco da Gama himself to replace Menezes, confident that the magic of his name and memory of his deeds might better impress his authority on Portuguese India, and manage the transition to a new government and new strategy.
By his appointment letter of February 1524, John III granted Vasco da Gama the privileged title of "Viceroy", being only the second Portuguese governor to enjoy that title (the first was Francisco de Almeida in 1505). His second son, Estêvão da Gama was simultaneously appointed Capitão-mor do Mar da Índia ('Captain-major of the Indian Sea', commander of the Indian Ocean naval patrol fleet), to replace Duarte's brother, Luís de Menezes. As a final condition, Gama secured from John III of Portugal the commitment to appoint all his sons successively as Portuguese captains of Malacca.
Setting out in April 1524, with a fleet of fourteen ships, Vasco da Gama took as his flagship the famous large carrack Santa Catarina do Monte Sinai on her last journey to India, along with two of his sons, Estêvão and Paulo. After a troubled journey (four or five of the ships were lost en route), he arrived in India in September. Vasco da Gama immediately invoked his high viceregent powers to impose a new order in Portuguese India, replacing all the old officials with his own appointments. But Gama contracted malaria not long after arriving, and died in the city of Cochin on Christmas Eve in 1524, three months after his arrival. As per royal instructions, da Gama was succeeded as governor of India by one of the captains who had come with him, Henrique de Menezes (no relation to Duarte). Da Gama's sons Estêvão and Paulo immediately lost their posts and joined the returning fleet of early 1525 (along with the dismissed Duarte de Menezes and Luís de Menezes).
Vasco da Gama's body was first buried at St. Francis Church, which was located at Fort Kochi in the city of Kochi, but his remains were returned to Portugal in 1539. The body of Vasco da Gama was re-interred in Vidigueira in a casket decorated with gold and jewels.
The Monastery of the Hieronymites, in Belém, which would become the necropolis of the Portuguese royal dynasty of Aviz, was erected in the early 1500s near the launch point of Vasco da Gama's first journey, and its construction funded by a tax on the profits of the yearly Portuguese India Armadas. In 1880, da Gama's remains and those of the poet Luís de Camões (who celebrated da Gama's first voyage in his 1572 epic poem, The Lusiad), were moved to new carved tombs in the nave of the monastery's church, only a few meters away from the tombs of the kings Manuel I and John III, whom da Gama had served.
Marriage and descendants
Vasco da Gama and his wife, Catarina de Ataíde, had six sons and one daughter:
Dom Francisco da Gama, who inherited his father's titles as 2nd Count of Vidigueira and the 2nd "Admiral of the Seas of India, Arabia and Persia". He remained in Portugal.
Dom Estevão da Gama, after his abortive 1524 term as Indian patrol captain, he was appointed for a three-year term as captain of Malacca, serving from 1534 to 1539 (includes the last two years of his younger brother Paulo's term). He was subsequently appointed as the 11th governor of India from 1540 to 1542.
Dom Paulo da Gama (having the same name as his uncle Paulo), captain of Malacca from 1533 to 1534, killed in a naval action off Malacca.
Dom Cristovão da Gama, captain of Malacca from 1538 to 1540; nominated to succeed in Malacca, but executed by Ahmad ibn Ibrahim during the Ethiopian-Adal war in 1542.
Dom Pedro da Silva da Gama, appointed captain of Malacca from 1548 to 1552.
Dom Álvaro d'Ataide da Gama, appointed captain of Malacca fleet in the 1540s, captain of Malacca itself from 1552 to 1554.
Dona Isabel d'Ataide da Gama, only daughter, married Ignacio de Noronha, son of the first Count of Linhares.
His male-line issue became extinct in 1747, though the title continued through the female-line.
Intergenerations
Dom Vasco da Gama, 3rd Count of Vidigueira, the nobility and military personnel, son of Francisco (2nd Count) and grandson of Vasco da Gama.
Dom Francisco da Gama, 4th Count of Vidigueira, the viceroy (1597–1600) and governor (1622–1628) of India, son of Vasco (3rd Count) and great-grandson of Vasco da Gama.
Legacy
Vasco da Gama is one of the most famous and celebrated explorers from the Age of Discovery. As much as anyone after Henry the Navigator, he was responsible for Portugal's success as an early colonising power. Beside the fact of the first voyage itself, it was his astute mix of politics and war on the other side of the world that placed Portugal in a prominent position in Indian Ocean trade. Following da Gama's initial voyage, the Portuguese crown realized that securing outposts on the eastern coast of Africa would prove vital to maintaining national trade routes to the Far East.
However, his fame is tempered by such incidents and attitudes as displayed in the notorious Pilgrim Ship Incident previously discussed.
The Portuguese national epic, the Lusíadas of Luís Vaz de Camões, largely concerns Vasco da Gama's voyages.
The 1865 grand opera L'Africaine: Opéra en Cinq Actes, composed by Giacomo Meyerbeer from a libretto by Eugène Scribe, prominently includes the character of Vasco da Gama. The events depicted, however, are fictitious. Meyerbeer's working title for the opera was Vasco da Gama. A 1989 production of the opera by the San Francisco Opera featured noted tenor Plácido Domingo in the role of da Gama. The 19th-century composer Louis-Albert Bourgault-Ducoudray composed an eponymous 1872 opera based on da Gama's life and exploits at sea.
The port city of Vasco da Gama in Goa is named after him, as is the crater Vasco da Gama on the Moon. There are three football clubs in Brazil (including Club de Regatas Vasco da Gama) and Vasco Sports Club in Goa that were also named after him. There exists a church in Kochi, Kerala called Vasco da Gama Church, and a private residence on the island of Saint Helena. The suburb of Vasco in Cape Town also honours him.
A few places in Lisbon's Parque das Nações are named after the explorer, such as the Vasco da Gama Bridge, Vasco da Gama Tower and the Centro Comercial Vasco da Gama shopping centre. The Oceanário in the Parque das Nações has a mascot of a cartoon diver with the name of "Vasco", who is named after the explorer.
Vasco da Gama was the only explorer on the final pool of Os Grandes Portugueses. Although the final shortlist featured other Age of Discovery related people, they were not actually explorers nor navigators for any matter.
The Portuguese Navy has a class of frigates named after him. There are three Vasco da Gama class frigates in total, of which the first one also bears his name.
The Portuguese government erected two navigational beacons, Dias Cross and da Gama Cross, to commemorate da Gama and Bartolomeu Dias who were the first modern European explorers to reach the Cape of Good Hope. When lined up, these crosses point to Whittle Rock, a large, permanently submerged shipping hazard in False Bay.
South African musician Hugh Masekela recorded an anti-colonialist song entitled "Colonial Man", which contains the lyrics "Vasco da Gama was no friend of mine", and another song entitled "Vasco da Gama (The Sailor Man)". Both songs were included in his 1976 album Colonial Man.
Vasco da Gama appears as an antagonist in the Indian film Urumi. The film, directed by Santosh Sivan, depicts atrocities and progression to establish the Portuguese empire by da Gama in India.
In March 2016, archaeologists working off the coast of Oman identified a shipwreck believed to be that of the Esmeralda from da Gama's 1502–1503 fleet. The wreck was initially discovered in 1998. Later underwater excavations took place between 2013 and 2015 through a partnership between the Oman Ministry of Heritage and Culture and Blue Water Recoveries Ltd., a shipwreck recovery company. The vessel was identified through such artifacts as a "Portuguese coin minted for trade with India (one of only two coins of this type known to exist) and stone cannonballs engraved with what appear to be the initials of Vincente Sodré, da Gama's maternal uncle and the commander of the Esmeralda."
See also
Chronology of European exploration of Asia
References
Citations
Bibliography
Castanhoso, M. de (1898) Dos feitos de D. Christovam da Gama em Ethiopia Lisbon: Imprensa nacional. online
Facsimile reprint of an 1869 edition by the Hakluyt Society, London.
(reissued by Cambridge University Press, 2010. )
Teixeira de Aragão, A.C. (1887) Vasco da Gama e a Vidigueira: um estudo historico. Lisbon: Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa online
Further reading
Vasco da Gama (Ernst Georg Ravenstein, Gaspar Corrêa, Alvaro Velho) [2011] Viartis
Vasco da Gama: Renaissance Crusader (Glen J.Ames) [2004] Longman
The Career and Legend of Vasco da Gama (Sanjay Subrahmanyam) [1997] Cambridge University Press
External links
Vasco da Gama's Round Africa to India, fordham.edu
Vasco da Gama web tutorial with animated maps, ucalgary.ca
A Portuguese East Indiaman from the 1502–1503 Fleet of Vasco da Gama off Al Hallaniyah Island, Oman: an interim report, IJNA
Portuguese explorers
Portuguese colonial governors and administrators
Maritime history of Portugal
Explorers of Asia
Explorers of India
Explorers of Africa
Viceroys of Portuguese India
Vasco
1460s births
1524 deaths
Deaths from malaria
Infectious disease deaths in India
Maritime history of South Africa
Colonial Goa
Colonial Kerala
History of Goa
People from Sines
People of Portuguese India
People from Vidigueira
Portuguese Roman Catholics
15th-century explorers
15th-century Portuguese people
15th-century Roman Catholics | true | [
"Gaspar da Gama also known as Gaspar da India and Gaspar de Almeida (c. 1444 – c. 1510) was an interpreter (\"Língua\", in old Portuguese) and guide to several fleets of the Portuguese maritime explorations. He was of Jewish origin and was probably born in Poznań in the Kingdom of Poland. In 1498 he was taken captive aboard Vasco da Gama's fleet on its return voyage to Portugal from India. He was known to speak multiple languages including Hebrew and Chaldean, as well as a mixture of Italian and Spanish.\n\nBiography\n\nBefore meeting the Portuguese \nHe appears with the name \"Gaspar da Gama\" or \"Gaspar of the Indies\" in the chronicles and reports of discovery written by Gaspar Correia, Fernão Lopes de Castanheda, Jerónimo Osório, Damião de Góis and Álvaro Velho but was known to Indians as Mahmet. Correia states that he was a Castillan named Alonso Perez. Some sources confuse him with Gaspar de Lemos, a Portuguese sailor who commanded a ship in the fleet that discovered Brazil. Other sources also call him \"Gaspar de Almeida\" given his friendship with Francisco de Almeida, 1st Viceroy of India.\n\nThere are several versions of his life before meeting Vasco da Gama in India. Some of these were sourced at Gaspar da Gama himself, but he probably tried to hide some \"inconvenient\" facts about his own past. According to Gaspar's own account, he became a Jewish traveller, making his way to Jerusalem, and then Alexandria, where he was taken prisoner and sold as a slave in India, in India he secured his freedom in the service of the ruler of Goa. The chronicler Gaspar Correia states that, when found by the Portuguese, Gaspar da Gama was Captain of the fleet of Yusuf Adil Shah, the Sultan of Bijapur, Arab governor of Goa in India. Damião de Góis says Gaspar da Gama was a Jew born in the city of Poznań in the Kingdom of Poland and that at that time he did not speak Spanish, but the Venetian language, the very language used in European based commercial centers in the East.\n\nControversy\nThe historian João de Barros, reports that Gaspar da Gama informed him that his parents were from Bosna (or Posner, i.e., Poznan) in Poland. His parents migrated to Jerusalem and then to Alexandria, where Gaspar da Gama was born. The Israeli journalist Elias Lipiner, studied the documentation of the Portuguese chroniclers of the Age of Discovery and considered João de Barros version as the most faithful to facts, suggesting that Gaspar da Gama must have been born in Alexandria (Egypt) around 1458. Following Jewish Radhanite trade routes at the time, he went very young to India where he established himself as a merchant. Other historians, such as the scholar of Brazilian Jewish history Arnold Wiznitzer, think he was born in Granada or circa 1440 in Bosnia (perhaps confusion with the name of Poznan).\n\nMeeting the Portuguese \nIn 1498, when the returning Vasco da Gama fleet landed on the island of Angediva, about 20 miles off the coast of Goa, Gaspar da Gama, uninvited, went on the ship of Vasco da Gama and asked happily to go aboard, to visit his native Spain. He was then more than 50 years age, with white beard, with louder and clear manners than that of the Indians of region. As reported by Álvaro Velho, clerk of the Portuguese fleet, Gaspar da Gama said that he was \"working for a powerful lord who owns an army of more than 40 thousand horsemen, and that upon hearing of their arrival he had asked to see them. If not he would have died of sadness.\"\n\nVasco da Gama pretended to believe, and discreetly sent men to Anjadip Island to get information about the visitor. Some reliable merchants told that he was a spy, preparing a surprise attack. Upon this, Vasco da Gama had the visitor whipped and interrogated under torture. After having hot oil dropped on his skin, Gaspar da Gama told he was a Jew from Granada who had converted to Christianity and after traveling to Turkey and Mecca went to the Indies, and that there was no plan to attack the Portuguese. After 12 days of interrogation, Vasco da Gama came to rely more on the prisoner. He gave him a cheese and two soft breads and Gaspar da Gama told him that, after all, he was very happy to find these \"Franks\".\n\nVasco da Gama kept Gaspar as a prisoner and took him on the eventful trip back to Portugal, perhaps considering that his knowledge of the East would be useful. During the long return, Gaspar da Gama befriended the Portuguese, and especially Vasco da Gama. He was baptized the following year, Vasco da Gama being his godfather and giving him his own surname. The first name - Gaspar - had been chosen as a reference to its origins, being the name of one of three Magi from the East who visited Jesus.\n\nIn Portugal and back to India\nKing Manuel I of Portugal enjoyed Gaspar da Gama and called him frequently to the court, to hear his stories about the land and customs of the East. There was a suspicion that Gaspar da Gama was an Arabic spy, but the Portuguese recognized his value, because beside having traded in some of their centers in India, he spoke Latin, Arabic, Italian, Castilian, Portuguese and some languages of India. Because of this, the King Manuel I appointed him counselor and interpreter of the second fleet sailing to the Indies, led by Pedro Álvares Cabral.\n\nAlways with a cap on his head and dressed in white linen, Gaspar da Gama was one of the more exotic characters in the fleet of Pedro Álvares Cabral. Although not the only linguist at the expedition that discovered the Brazil, he was the main interpreter in the trade negotiations between the Portuguese and Brazilian Indians, along with Gonçalo Madeira. Once in India, Gaspar da Gama fulfilled his mission with his interpreter services and knowledge of geopolitics and customs of India important in business meetings of Portuguese and Indian rajas in Calicut and Cochin.\n\nHe returned on his own will to Portugal with Pedro Álvares Cabral. In 1501, the fleet met the expedition of Gaspar de Lemos appointed by the king of Portugal to explore the newly discovered lands of Brazil, near modern Dakar, Senegal. Talks between Gaspar da Gama and other members of the expedition with the Florentine Amerigo Vespucci who accompanied Gaspar de Lemos certainly strengthened the idea that the lands discovered by Christopher Columbus were not the Indies, but a new continent.\n\nIn 1502 Gaspar da Gama participated in another travel to India commanded by Vasco da Gama, and again in 1505 with the recently appointed viceroy Francisco de Almeida. During these trips, he learned a few African languages.\n\nHe participated in the Indian expeditions of the Portuguese who tried to conquer Hormuz in 1508 and Calicut in 1510, when some assume that he died. Others believe that he returned to Portugal where he died. Some say that his death occurred between 1510 and 1515, or even by about 1520, with nearly eighty years. The change of Christian name \"Terra de Santa Cruz\" to \"Brazil\" is attributed by some to Gaspar da Gama and Fernão de Noronha, both being Jewish. However, this does not have an historical basis, being due to the intense trade in Brazilwood.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n\n Project Gutenberg eBook of A Journal of the First Voyage of Vasco da Gama 1497-1499, translated by E. G. Ravenstein. Contains a contemporary account of Gaspar da Gamma's capture. Appendix E, \"MUSTER-ROLL OF VASCO DA GAMA’S FLEET\", has several paragraphs devoted to Gaspar da Gama.\nInternet Archive eBook of The three voyages of Vasco de Gama, and his viceroyalty : from the Lendas da India of Gaspar Corrêa, translated by Henry Stanley. Contains several references to Gaspar da Gama, sometimes using his various aliases.\n\nPortuguese exploration in the Age of Discovery\nInterpreters\n1444 births\n1510s deaths\nHistory of Kerala\nMaritime history of Portugal\nMedieval Polish Jews\n15th-century Jews\n16th-century Jews\nPortuguese people of colonial India",
"João da Gama (c. 1540 – after 1591) was a Portuguese explorer and colonial administrator in the Far East in the last quarter of the 16th century. He was the grandson of Vasco da Gama. João da Gama sailed from Macau to northeast and rounded Japan by north. He crossed the Pacific Ocean at the northernmost latitudes taken until then by Europeans. Forced by the circumstances of his voyage, he became also a circumnavigator (one of the first to do it eastwards). The lands northeast of Japan which João da Gama discovered were the target of legend and speculation in the centuries that followed, inspiring its search by European powers.\n\nEarly years and voyages to the East \n\nNot much is known of his childhood and youth, though is believed that he was born around 1540. His parents were Guiomar de Vilhena, Countess of Vidigueira and Francisco da Gama, 2nd Count of Vidigueira, son of the explorer Vasco da Gama, the discoverer of the sea route to the East. He was married with Joana de Menezes and had one son, Vasco da Gama, who later became captain in Chaul. João da Gama became the captain of Malacca between 1578 and 1582. He received cordially the Portuguese representative who brought the news of the coronation of Philip II of Spain as king of Portugal, but only recognized the new order later, after indication of the Viceroy of India. He had numerous political conflicts within his mandate, caused by alleged personal irregularities that had brought him into political confrontation with the administrative bodies of the city, which led to a Judicial process. He was accused of harming the interests of Malacca and called to Lisbon to answer for his actions and expose his defense.\n\nHe returned to the East with the aim of fulfilling the nanban trade (the \"voyage of Japan\"), between Macau (China) and Nagasaki (Japan), a trade route monopolized by Portugal. Gama was married to the daughter of D. João de Meneses Baroche, Captain of Cochin. He left his wife at his residence in Cochin and headed to Macau in 1588, accompanied by his brother Miguel da Gama. In that year the annual voyage had not yet been carried due to the sudden death of the captain of Macau, Jerónimo de Sousa. Following the trade agreement between the Portuguese-Jew New Christian Bartolomeu Landeiro and the city of Macau, Jerónimo de Sousa was also preparing to send a ship to the Philippines. In parallel to this, was then issued the anti-Christian edict in Japan. João da Gama, hoping to get a higher profit and new possibilities, and against all prohibitions, decided for an expedition to New Spain at his own expense and at his own risk.\n\nDa Gama was well-regarded in Macau, as can be seen from the letter that the Macau City Council wrote to the king on 30 June\n1588, in which praises da Gama, then captain of Macau and Japan. They also asked the king that he be granted for life with this captaincy. The Câmara of Macau also mentions the subject of a recent Spanish (Castilian) travel to Macau, and the reasons why should be prohibited, among other subjects. Gama and the Council of Macau also argued that the profits of the voyage could sustain churches, a Misericordia, and two hospitals, being a leper one of them. Da Gama took possession of a carrack of 600 tons that instead of going from Macau to India, went to Mexico, where they could accomplish much more lucrative deals, which were coveted by residents of Macau. Years later, members of the Macau City Council would publicly condemn and criticize da Gama and his voyage.\n\nThe crossing of the Pacific \n\nThe decision of D. João da Gama, a risk taker, was taken with the knowledge that it was an illegal enterprise, since it was well known the prohibition of trade between the world areas of Portugal and Castile (later Spain) by the Treaties of Tordesillas and Zaragoza, ban reinforced by the letters personally written by Philip II to the Viceroys of New Spain and India, and also directly to the administrative bodies of Macau and the Philippines in 1589 and 1590s, leading to the expulsion of the Spanish from Macau in 1592.\n\nThe unusual and exceptional decision to make the journey was due to the expectation that the initiative might be regarded with tolerance, as happened to some Spanish precedents to Macau, but on the other hand, seems it had been taken in desperate position because da Gama was possibly aware that if he returned to Goa, he would possily be arrested due to charges of having committed serious irregularities. This reality is reflected in the letter that the king Phillip II (I of Portugal) sent to the Viceroy on February 6, 1589, which ordered him \"that the noble (João da Gama) that came from China, should be arrest in irons and taken to the Kingdom aboard this Armada\", as was also appointed before, in 1587, by the Crown.\n\nJoão da Gama, however, seemed unaware of this reality in 1588, since he sent from Macau, on November 20 of the same year, a letter to the king informing him of his intention to go to Spain via Mexico, with an alleged justification of give in person to the king part of his mission to China, and show how easy it seemed to be undertaken its conquest (in fact the Portuguese in Macau were against such project). Two days earlier, on November 18, Domingos Segurado, in Macau, also wrote to the king to inform the wreck of a Spanish ship from New Spain in Macau, and the shipment of its crew on da Gama's ship, owner of the voyage to Japan, which, once in Macau, accepted the order of the Viceroy of India to transport that crew to Mexico, being himself in the office of Captain of Macau during Gama's absence, even suggesting his own appointment to that office, or as a reward for his services, the provision of two voyages from China to New Spain.\n\nAfter starting the voyage in Macau and due to a damage caused by a typhon, da Gama was forced to seek refuge at the island of Amakusa on the Japanese coast. After repairs, he continued on his voyage in October 1589. He reached Mexico after having traversed the Pacific at a much higher latitude (around 45° N and possibly further north) than the course ordinarily taken by the Spanish Manila galleons (usually near or around 40° N) travelling between Manila and Mexico. Da Gama touched at a place which has since been called Ezo (Yezo) – the island of Hokkaido, followed by unveiling a 'Land of Gama\", which may correspond to one or some of the Kuril Islands. Arriving at Acapulco in March 1590, the navigator may well have gone north along the Japanese main coasts and the Kuril Islands, to near the Aleutians and then down to the American coast. His name was attached, originally on Portuguese maps, to a vague land he sighted northeast of Japan.\n\nThe hypothesis that João da Gama explored or reached North America as far north as Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, Bartolomé Ferrer, Francis Drake, and Francisco Gali, who (in 1584) had sailed from Macau and possibly sighted islands with metals 500 leagues to the east or east-northeast of southeast Japan (around 29° N or further north), or as later, Sebastião Rodrigues Soromenho, or landed further north, taking into account his route from the East, lacks direct evidence, due to the loss of much of the documentation on the nearby North American route he took and on his other possible landings in North America, except on the news of his successful arrival in Acapulco, in March 1590. Nevertheless, several maps later point to João da Gama's exploration and discovery of a large portion of the west and northwest of the then unknown and known coasts of North America. In the 1630s, documents came into possession of the Portuguese cartographer João Teixeira Albernaz when he was in Sevile. The papers eventually included a sketch of a long north Pacific coast which João da Gama skimmed en route.\n\nArriving in Acapulco, before being arrested, he managed to sell the goods, through two Sephardic New Christians, and getting in the negotiations 22,000 pesos, of which two thousand would be used to pay debts and the remaining twenty thousand would be sent to Brazil inland through his representatives (four traders, two of which would possibly be New Christians). It seems they were successful in the mission.\n\nDa Gama's voyage was directly contrary to the Iberian crown legislation, prohibiting commercial transactions between the Spanish and the Portuguese empires. Accordingly, he was arrested and his ship and remained cargo impounded by the local authorities. However, in spite of the fact that Portugal and Spain were then \"united\", da Gama's remained goods and his charts and logs of navigation were confiscated. His remained goods were evaluated at 140,000 pesos. The process of João da Gama went to Casa de la Contratación in Seville, where it came to drag. Indeed, the enterprise of João da Gama was no more welcome to Spain that had been that of Vasco, his grandfather, a century before. The Portuguese crew and merchants who had participated in the trip returned to Macau via Philippines, after a stay in Mexico, where they brought silver, and he himself was sent to Seville to be tried by the audiencia of the Casa de la Contratación. João da Gama became one of the first men to complete an eastward circumnavigation of the globe.\n\nIn the trans-Pacific crossing from Macau to Acapulco da Gama was preceded by Francisco Gali and Pedro de Unamuno.\n\nBefore seeing solved the process to which he was subjected, João da Gama have possibly died in Spain or Portugal after 1591 or 1592.\n\nThe search for \"Joao-da-Gama-Land\" or \"Gamaland\" \n\nIn the 18th century, the Russians, after crossing Siberia and reaching the Bering Strait between Siberia and Alaska, took the initiative in exploring the northern edges of the Pacific. One of the goals of the Russian Great Northern Expedition, led by the Danish explorer Vitus Bering, was to proceed from Okhotsk on Kamchatka and reconnoiter from there for the legendary \"Joao-da-Gama-Land\". From \"Joao-da-Gama-Land\", Bering's group was to set out farther east to the coast of North America.\n\nThe mythical Gamaland was believed either to have existed between Kamchatka and the American continent. During the next 150 years contradictory maps depicted a jumble of real or imagined islands between Hokkaido and Kamchatka, confusing the existing Kuril Islands with the Company Land, State Island (named after the exploration in 1643 of the main southern Kuril Islands and Sakhalin by the Dutch explorer Maarten Gerritsz Vries), Terra Esonis, and Gamaland. Sometime around 1731, the Russian Admiralty College requested the Academy of Sciences to prepare a map of the North Pacific. Joseph Nicolas Delisle prepared the map and an accompanying mémoire based on work done by his elder brother Guillaume. This showed the three islands mentioned above and the \"Land seen by Dom Juan de Gama\", which trails off in the direction of America. When the route of the second voyage of Vitus Bering was determined in Petropavlovsk in May 1741, this map or another based on it clearly influenced the choice.\n\nReferences \n\nPortuguese explorers\n16th-century Portuguese people\nExplorers of Asia\nPortuguese explorers of the Pacific\nCircumnavigators of the globe\n16th-century explorers\n1540s births\nYear of death unknown\n\nSee also\n Francisco Gali\n Pedro de Unamuno"
] |
[
"Vasco da Gama",
"Exploration before da Gama",
"Was types of exploration happened before da Gama?",
"From the earlier part of the 15th century, Portuguese expeditions organized by Prince Henry the Navigator had been reaching down the African coastline, principally in search of west African riches"
] | C_ad92303978184a0890a8eb9304f15d62_1 | Were any riches found? | 2 | Were any riches found after expeditions were organized by Prince Henry? | Vasco da Gama | From the earlier part of the 15th century, Portuguese expeditions organized by Prince Henry the Navigator had been reaching down the African coastline, principally in search of west African riches (notably, gold). They had greatly extended Portuguese maritime knowledge, but had little profit to show for the effort. After Henry's death in 1460, the Portuguese Crown showed little interest in continuing this effort and, in 1469, sold off the neglected African enterprise to a private Lisbon merchant consortium led by Fernao Gomes. Within a few years, Gomes' captains expanded Portuguese knowledge across the Gulf of Guinea, doing business in gold dust, Melegueta pepper, ivory and sub-Saharan slaves. When Gomes' charter came up for renewal in 1474, Prince John (future John II), asked his father Afonso V of Portugal to pass the African charter to him. Upon becoming king in 1481, John II of Portugal set out on many long reforms. To break the monarch's dependence on the feudal nobility, John II needed to build up the royal treasury; he considered royal commerce to be the key to achieving that. Under John II's watch, the gold and slave trade in west Africa was greatly expanded. He was eager to break into the highly profitable spice trade between Europe and Asia, which was conducted chiefly by land. At the time, this was virtually monopolized by the Republic of Venice, who operated overland routes via Levantine and Egyptian ports, through the Red Sea across to the spice markets of India. John II set a new objective for his captains: to find a sea route to Asia by sailing around the African continent. By the time Vasco da Gama was in his 20s, the king's plans were coming to fruition. In 1487, John II dispatched two spies, Pero da Covilha and Afonso de Paiva, overland via Egypt to East Africa and India, to scout the details of the spice markets and trade routes. The breakthrough came soon after, when John II's captain Bartolomeu Dias returned from rounding the Cape of Good Hope in 1488, having explored as far as the Fish River (Rio do Infante) in modern-day South Africa and having verified that the unknown coast stretched away to the northeast. An explorer was needed who could prove the link between the findings of Dias and those of da Covilha and de Paiva, and connect these separate segments into a potentially lucrative trade route across the Indian Ocean. CANNOTANSWER | They had greatly extended Portuguese maritime knowledge, but had little profit to show for the effort. After Henry's death in 1460, | Vasco da Gama, 1st Count of Vidigueira (, ; ; c. 1460s – 24 December 1524), was a Portuguese explorer and the first European to reach India by sea.
His initial voyage to India by way of Cape of Good Hope (1497–1499) was the first to link Europe and Asia by an ocean route, connecting the Atlantic and the Indian oceans and therefore, the West and the Orient. This is widely considered a milestone in world history, as it marked the beginning of a sea-based phase of global multiculturalism. Da Gama's discovery of the sea route to India opened the way for an age of global imperialism and enabled the Portuguese to establish a long-lasting colonial empire along the way from Africa to Asia. The violence and hostage taking employed by da Gama and those who followed also assigned a brutal reputation to the Portuguese among India's indigenous kingdoms that would set the pattern for western colonialism in the Age of Exploration. Traveling the ocean route allowed the Portuguese to avoid sailing across the highly disputed Mediterranean and traversing the dangerous Arabian Peninsula. The sum of the distances covered in the outward and return voyages made this expedition the longest ocean voyage ever made until then.
After decades of sailors trying to reach the Indies, with thousands of lives and dozens of vessels lost in shipwrecks and attacks, da Gama landed in Calicut on 20 May 1498. Unopposed access to the Indian spice routes boosted the economy of the Portuguese Empire, which was previously based along northern and coastal West Africa. The main spices at first obtained from Southeast Asia were pepper and cinnamon, but soon included other products, all new to Europe. Portugal maintained a commercial monopoly of these commodities for several decades. It was not until a century later that other European powers, first the Dutch Republic and England, later France and Denmark, were able to challenge Portugal's monopoly and naval supremacy in the Cape Route.
Da Gama led two of the Portuguese India Armadas, the first and the fourth. The latter was the largest and departed for India four years after his return from the first one. For his contributions, in 1524 da Gama was appointed Governor of India, with the title of Viceroy, and was ennobled as Count of Vidigueira in 1519. He remains a leading figure in the history of exploration, and homages worldwide have celebrated his explorations and accomplishments. The Portuguese national epic poem, Os Lusíadas, was written in his honour by Luís de Camões. In March 2016 thousands of artifacts and nautical remains were recovered from the wreck of the ship Esmeralda, one of da Gama's armada, found off the coast of Oman.
Early life
Vasco da Gama was born in 1460 in the town of Sines, one of the few seaports on the Alentejo coast, southwest Portugal, probably in a house near the church of Nossa Senhora das Salas.
Vasco da Gama's father was Estêvão da Gama, who had served in the 1460s as a knight of the household of Infante Ferdinand, Duke of Viseu. He rose in the ranks of the military Order of Santiago. Estêvão da Gama was appointed alcaide-mór (civil governor) of Sines in the 1460s, a post he held until 1478; after that he continued as a receiver of taxes and holder of the Order's commendas in the region.
Estêvão da Gama married Isabel Sodré, a daughter of João Sodré (also known as João de Resende), scion of a well-connected family of English origin. Her father and her brothers, Vicente Sodré and Brás Sodré, had links to the household of Infante Diogo, Duke of Viseu, and were prominent figures in the military Order of Christ. Vasco da Gama was the third of five sons of Estêvão da Gama and Isabel Sodré – in (probable) order of age: Paulo da Gama, João Sodré, Vasco da Gama, Pedro da Gama and Aires da Gama. Vasco also had one known sister, Teresa da Gama (who married Lopo Mendes de Vasconcelos).
Little is known of da Gama's early life. The Portuguese historian Teixeira de Aragão suggests that he studied at the inland town of Évora, which is where he may have learned mathematics and navigation. It has been claimed that he studied under Abraham Zacuto, an astrologer and astronomer, but da Gama's biographer Subrahmanyam thinks this dubious.
Around 1480, da Gama followed his father (rather than the Sodrés) and joined the Order of Santiago. The master of Santiago was Prince John, who ascended to the throne in 1481 as King John II of Portugal. John II doted on the Order, and the da Gamas' prospects rose accordingly.
In 1492, John II dispatched da Gama on a mission to the port of Setúbal and to the Algarve to seize French ships in retaliation for peacetime depredations against Portuguese shipping – a task that da Gama rapidly and effectively performed.
Exploration before da Gama
From the earlier part of the 15th century, Portuguese expeditions organized by Prince Henry the Navigator had been reaching down the African coastline, principally in search of west African riches (notably, gold and slaves). They had greatly extended Portuguese maritime knowledge, but had little profit to show for the effort. After Henry's death in 1460, the Portuguese Crown showed little interest in continuing this effort and, in 1469, licensed the neglected African enterprise to a private Lisbon merchant consortium led by Fernão Gomes. Within a few years, Gomes' captains expanded Portuguese knowledge across the Gulf of Guinea, doing business in gold dust, melegueta pepper, ivory and sub-Saharan slaves. When Gomes' charter came up for renewal in 1474, Prince John (future John II), asked his father Afonso V of Portugal to pass the African charter to him.
Upon becoming king in 1481, John II of Portugal set out on many long reforms. To break the monarch's dependence on the feudal nobility, John II needed to build up the royal treasury; he considered royal commerce to be the key to achieving that. Under John II's watch, the gold and slave trade in west Africa was greatly expanded. He was eager to break into the highly profitable spice trade between Europe and Asia, which was conducted chiefly by land. At the time, this was virtually monopolized by the Republic of Venice, who operated overland routes via Levantine and Egyptian ports, through the Red Sea across to the spice markets of India. John II set a new objective for his captains: to find a sea route to Asia by sailing around the African continent.
By the time Vasco da Gama was in his 20s, the king's plans were coming to fruition. In 1487, John II dispatched two spies, Pero da Covilhã and Afonso de Paiva, overland via Egypt to East Africa and India, to scout the details of the spice markets and trade routes. The breakthrough came soon after, when John II's captain Bartolomeu Dias returned from rounding the Cape of Good Hope in 1488, having explored as far as the Fish River (Rio do Infante) in modern-day South Africa and having verified that the unknown coast stretched away to the northeast.
An explorer was needed who could prove the link between the findings of Dias and those of da Covilhã and de Paiva, and connect these separate segments into a potentially lucrative trade route across the Indian Ocean.
First voyage
On 8 July 1497 Vasco da Gama led a fleet of four ships with a crew of 170 men from Lisbon. The distance traveled in the journey around Africa to India and back was greater than the length of the equator. The navigators included Portugal's most experienced, Pero de Alenquer, Pedro Escobar, João de Coimbra, and Afonso Gonçalves. It is not known for certain how many people were in each ship's crew but approximately 55 returned, and two ships were lost. Two of the vessels were carracks, newly built for the voyage; the others were a caravel and a supply boat.
The four ships were:
São Gabriel, commanded by Vasco da Gama; a carrack of 178 tons, length 27 m, width 8.5 m, draft 2.3 m, sails of 372 m2
São Rafael, commanded by his brother Paulo da Gama; similar dimensions to the São Gabriel
Berrio (nickname, officially called São Miguel), a caravel, slightly smaller than the former two, commanded by Nicolau Coelho
A storage ship of unknown name, commanded by Gonçalo Nunes, destined to be scuttled in Mossel Bay (São Brás) in South Africa
Journey to the Cape
The expedition set sail from Lisbon on 8 July 1497. It followed the route pioneered by earlier explorers along the coast of Africa via Tenerife and the Cape Verde Islands. After reaching the coast of present-day Sierra Leone, da Gama took a course south into the open ocean, crossing the Equator and seeking the South Atlantic westerlies that Bartolomeu Dias had discovered in 1487. This course proved successful and on 4 November 1497, the expedition made landfall on the African coast. For over three months the ships had sailed more than of open ocean, by far the longest journey out of sight of land made by that time.
By 16 December, the fleet had passed the Great Fish River (Eastern Cape, South Africa) – where Dias had anchored – and sailed into waters previously unknown to Europeans. With Christmas pending, da Gama and his crew gave the coast they were passing the name Natal, which carried the connotation of "birth of Christ" in Portuguese.
Mozambique
Vasco da Gama spent 2 to 29 March 1498 in the vicinity of Mozambique Island. Arab-controlled territory on the East African coast was an integral part of the network of trade in the Indian Ocean. Fearing the local population would be hostile to Christians, da Gama impersonated a Muslim and gained audience with the Sultan of Mozambique. With the paltry trade goods he had to offer, the explorer was unable to provide a suitable gift to the ruler. Soon the local populace became suspicious of da Gama and his men. Forced by a hostile crowd to flee Mozambique, da Gama departed the harbor, firing his cannons into the city in retaliation.
Mombasa
In the vicinity of modern Kenya, the expedition resorted to piracy, looting Arab merchant ships that were generally unarmed trading vessels without heavy cannons. The Portuguese became the first known Europeans to visit the port of Mombasa from 7 to 13 April 1498, but were met with hostility and soon departed.
Malindi
Vasco da Gama continued north, arriving on 14 April 1498 at the friendlier port of Malindi, whose leaders were having a conflict with those of Mombasa. There the expedition first noted evidence of Indian traders. Da Gama and his crew contracted the services of a pilot who used his knowledge of the monsoon winds to guide the expedition the rest of the way to Calicut, located on the southwest coast of India. Sources differ over the identity of the pilot, calling him variously a Christian, a Muslim, and a Gujarati. One traditional story describes the pilot as the famous Arab navigator Ibn Majid, but other contemporaneous accounts place Majid elsewhere, and he could not have been near the vicinity at the time. None of the Portuguese historians of the time mentions Ibn Majid. Vasco da Gama left Malindi for India on 24 April 1498.
Calicut, India
The fleet arrived in Kappadu near Kozhikode (Calicut), in Malabar Coast (present day Kerala state of India), on 20 May 1498. The King of Calicut, the Samudiri (Zamorin), who was at that time staying in his second capital at Ponnani, returned to Calicut on hearing the news of the foreign fleet's arrival. The navigator was received with traditional hospitality, including a grand procession of at least 3,000 armed Nairs, but an interview with the Zamorin failed to produce any concrete results. When local authorities asked da Gama's fleet, "What brought you hither?", they replied that they had come "in search of Christians and spices." The presents that da Gama sent to the Zamorin as gifts from Dom Manuel – four cloaks of scarlet cloth, six hats, four branches of corals, twelve , a box with seven brass vessels, a chest of sugar, two barrels of oil and a cask of honey – were trivial, and failed to impress. While Zamorin's officials wondered at why there was no gold or silver, the Muslim merchants who considered da Gama their rival suggested that the latter was only an ordinary pirate and not a royal ambassador. Vasco da Gama's request for permission to leave a factor behind him in charge of the merchandise he could not sell was turned down by the King, who insisted that da Gama pay customs duty – preferably in gold – like any other trader, which strained the relation between the two. Annoyed by this, da Gama carried a few Nairs and sixteen fishermen (mukkuva) off with him by force.
Return
Vasco da Gama left Calicut on 29 August 1498. Eager to set sail for home, he ignored the local knowledge of monsoon wind patterns that were still blowing onshore. The fleet initially inched north along the Indian coast, and then anchored in at Anjediva island for a spell. They finally struck out for their Indian Ocean crossing on 3 October 1498. But with the winter monsoon yet to set in, it was a harrowing journey. On the outgoing journey, sailing with the summer monsoon wind, da Gama's fleet crossed the Indian Ocean in only 23 days; now, on the return trip, sailing against the wind, it took 132 days.
Da Gama saw land again only on 2 January 1499, passing before the coastal Somali city of Mogadishu, then under the influence of the Ajuran Empire in the Horn of Africa. The fleet did not make a stop, but passing before Mogadishu, the anonymous diarist of the expedition noted that it was a large city with houses of four or five storeys high and big palaces in its center and many mosques with cylindrical minarets.
Da Gama's fleet finally arrived in Malindi on 7 January 1499, in a terrible state – approximately half of the crew had died during the crossing, and many of the rest were afflicted with scurvy. Not having enough crewmen left standing to manage three ships, da Gama ordered the São Rafael scuttled off the East African coast, and the crew re-distributed to the remaining two ships, the São Gabriel and the Berrio. Thereafter, the sailing was smoother. By early March, they had arrived in Mossel Bay, and crossed the Cape of Good Hope in the opposite direction on 20 March, reaching the west African coast by 25 April.
The diary record of the expedition ends abruptly here. Reconstructing from other sources, it seems they continued to Cape Verde, where Nicolau Coelho's Berrio separated from Vasco da Gama's São Gabriel and sailed on by itself. The Berrio arrived in Lisbon on 10 July 1499 and Nicolau Coelho personally delivered the news to King Manuel I and the royal court, then assembled in Sintra. In the meantime, back in Cape Verde, da Gama's brother, Paulo da Gama, had fallen grievously ill. Da Gama elected to stay by his side on Santiago island and handed the São Gabriel over to his clerk, João de Sá, to take home. The São Gabriel under Sá arrived in Lisbon sometime in late July or early August. Da Gama and his sickly brother eventually hitched a ride with a Guinea caravel returning to Portugal, but Paulo da Gama died en route. Da Gama disembarked at the Azores to bury his brother at the monastery of São Francisco in Angra do Heroismo, and lingered there for a little while in mourning. He eventually took passage on an Azorean caravel and finally arrived in Lisbon on 29 August 1499 (according to Barros), or early September (8th or 18th, according to other sources). Despite his melancholic mood, da Gama was given a hero's welcome and showered with honors, including a triumphal procession and public festivities. King Manuel wrote two letters in which he described da Gama's first voyage, in July and August 1499, soon after the return of the ships. Girolamo Sernigi also wrote three letters describing da Gama's first voyage soon after the return of the expedition.
The expedition had exacted a large cost – two ships and over half the men had been lost. It had also failed in its principal mission of securing a commercial treaty with Calicut. Nonetheless, the small quantities of spices and other trade goods brought back on the remaining two ships demonstrated the potential of great profit for future trade. Vasco da Gama was justly celebrated for opening a direct sea route to Asia. His path would be followed up thereafter by yearly Portuguese India Armadas.
The spice trade would prove to be a major asset to the Portuguese royal treasury, and other consequences soon followed. For example, da Gama's voyage had made it clear that the east coast of Africa, the Contra Costa, was essential to Portuguese interests; its ports provided fresh water, provisions, timber, and harbors for repairs, and served as a refuge where ships could wait out unfavorable weather. One significant result was the colonization of Mozambique by the Portuguese Crown.
Rewards
In December 1499, King Manuel I of Portugal rewarded Vasco da Gama with the town of Sines as a hereditary fief (the town his father, Estêvão, had once held as a commenda). This turned out to be a complicated affair, for Sines still belonged to the Order of Santiago. The master of the Order, Jorge de Lencastre, might have endorsed the reward – after all, da Gama was a Santiago knight, one of their own, and a close associate of Lencastre himself. But the fact that Sines was awarded by the king provoked Lencastre to refuse out of principle, lest it encourage the king to make other donations of the Order's properties. Da Gama would spend the next few years attempting to take hold of Sines, an effort that would estrange him from Lencastre and eventually prompt da Gama to abandon his beloved Order of Santiago, switching over to the rival Order of Christ in 1507.
In the meantime, da Gama made do with a substantial hereditary royal pension of 300,000 reis. He was awarded the noble title of Dom (lord) in perpetuity for himself, his siblings and their descendants. On 30 January 1502, da Gama was awarded the title of Almirante dos mares de Arabia, Persia, India e de todo o Oriente ("Admiral of the Seas of Arabia, Persia, India and all the Orient") – an overwrought title reminiscent of the ornate Castilian title borne by Christopher Columbus (evidently, Manuel must have reckoned that if Castile had an 'Admiral of the Ocean Seas', then surely Portugal should have one too). Another royal letter, dated October 1501, gave da Gama the personal right to intervene and exercise a determining role on any future India-bound fleet.
Around 1501, Vasco da Gama married Catarina de Ataíde, daughter of Álvaro de Ataíde, the alcaide-mór of Alvor (Algarve), and a prominent nobleman connected by kinship with the powerful Almeida family (Catarina was a first cousin of Dom Francisco de Almeida).
Second voyage
The follow-up expedition, the Second India Armada, launched in 1500 under the command of Pedro Álvares Cabral with the mission of making a treaty with the Zamorin of Calicut and setting up a Portuguese factory in the city. However, Pedro Cabral entered into a conflict with the local Arab merchant guilds, with the result that the Portuguese factory was overrun in a riot and up to 70 Portuguese were killed. Cabral blamed the Zamorin for the incident and bombarded the city. Thus war broke out between Portugal and Calicut.
Vasco da Gama invoked his royal letter to take command of the 4th India Armada, scheduled to set out in 1502, with the explicit aim of taking revenge upon the Zamorin and force him to submit to Portuguese terms. The heavily armed fleet of fifteen ships and eight hundred men left Lisbon on 12 February 1502. It was followed in April by another squadron of five ships led by his cousin, Estêvão da Gama (the son of Aires da Gama), which caught up to them in the Indian Ocean. The 4th Armada was a veritable da Gama family affair. Two of his maternal uncles, Vicente Sodré and Brás Sodré, were pre-designated to command an Indian Ocean naval patrol, while brothers-in-law Álvaro de Ataíde (brother of Vasco's wife Catarina) and Lopo Mendes de Vasconcelos (betrothed to Teresa da Gama, Vasco's sister) captained ships in the main fleet.
On the outgoing voyage, da Gama's fleet opened contact with the East African gold trading port of Sofala and reduced the sultanate of Kilwa to tribute, extracting a substantial sum of gold.
Pilgrim ship incident
On reaching India in October 1502, da Gama's fleet intercepted a ship of Muslim pilgrims at Madayi travelling from Calicut to Mecca. Described in detail by eyewitness Thomé Lopes and chronicler Gaspar Correia, da Gama looted the ship with over 400 pilgrims on board including 50 women, locked in the passengers, the owner and an ambassador from Egypt and burned them to death. They offered their wealth, which "could ransom all the Christian slaves in the Kingdom of Fez and much more" but were not spared. Da Gama looked on through the porthole and saw the women bringing up their gold and jewels and holding up their babies to beg for mercy.
Calicut
After stopping at Cannanore, Gama drove his fleet before Calicut, demanding redress for the treatment of Cabral. Having known of the fate of the pilgrims' ship, the Zamorin adopted a conciliatory attitude towards the Portuguese and expressed willingness to sign a new treaty but da Gama made a call to the Hindu king to expel all Muslims from Calicut before beginning negotiations, which was turned down. At the same time however, the Zamorin sent a message to his rebellious vassal, the Raja of Cochin urging cooperation and obedience to counter the Portuguese threat; the ruler of Cochin forwarded this message to Gama, which reinforced his opinion of the Indians as duplicitous. After demanding the expulsion of Muslims from Calicut to the Hindu Zamorin, the latter sent the high priest Talappana Namboothiri (the very same person who conducted da Gama to the Zamorin's chamber during his much celebrated first visit to Calicut in May 1498) for talks. Da Gama called him a spy, ordered the priests' lips and ears to be cut off and after sewing a pair of dog's ears to his head, sent him away. The Portuguese fleet then bombarded the unfortified city for nearly two days from the sea, severely damaging it. He also captured several rice vessels and cut off the crew's hands, ears and noses, dispatching them with a note to the Zamorin, in which Gama declared that he would be open to friendly relations once the Zamorin had paid for the items plundered from the feitoria as well as the gunpowder and cannonballs.
Seabattle
The violent treatment meted out by da Gama quickly brought trade along the Malabar Coast of India, upon which Calicut depended, to a standstill. The Zamorin ventured to dispatch a fleet of strong warships to challenge da Gama's armada, but which Gama managed to defeat in a naval battle before Calicut harbor.
Cochin
Da Gama loaded up with spices at Cochin and Cannanore, small nearby kingdoms at war with the Zamorin, whose alliances had been secured by prior Portuguese fleets. The 4th armada left India in early 1503. Da Gama left behind a small squadron of caravels under the command of his uncle, Vicente Sodré, to patrol the Indian coast, to continue harassing Calicut shipping, and to protect the Portuguese factories at Cochin and Cannanore from the Zamorin's inevitable reprisals.
Vasco da Gama arrived back in Portugal in September 1503, effectively having failed in his mission to bring the Zamorin to submission. This failure, and the subsequent more galling failure of his uncle Vicente Sodré to protect the Portuguese factory in Cochin, probably counted against any further rewards. When the Portuguese king Manuel I of Portugal decided to appoint the first governor and viceroy of Portuguese India in 1505, da Gama was conspicuously overlooked, and the post given to Francisco de Almeida.
Interlude
For the next two decades, Vasco da Gama lived out a quiet life, unwelcome in the royal court and sidelined from Indian affairs. His attempts to return to the favor of Manuel I (including switching over to the Order of Christ in 1507), yielded little. Almeida, the larger-than-life Afonso de Albuquerque and, later on, Albergaria and Sequeira, were the king's preferred point men for India.
After Ferdinand Magellan defected to the Crown of Castile in 1518, Vasco da Gama threatened to do the same, prompting the king to undertake steps to retain him in Portugal and avoid the embarrassment of losing his own "Admiral of the Indies" to Spain. In 1519, after years of ignoring his petitions, King Manuel I finally hurried to give Vasco da Gama a feudal title, appointing him the first Count of Vidigueira, a count title created by a royal decree issued in Évora on 29 December, after a complicated agreement with Dom Jaime, Duke of Braganza, who ceded him on payment the towns of Vidigueira and Vila dos Frades. The decree granted Vasco da Gama and his heirs all the revenues and privileges related, thus establishing da Gama as the first Portuguese count who was not born with royal blood.
Third voyage and death
After the death of King Manuel I in late 1521, his son and successor, King John III of Portugal set about reviewing the Portuguese government overseas. Turning away from the old Albuquerque clique (now represented by Diogo Lopes de Sequeira), John III looked for a fresh start. Vasco da Gama re-emerged from his political wilderness as an important adviser to the new king's appointments and strategy. Seeing the new Spanish threat to the Maluku Islands as the priority, Vasco da Gama advised against the obsession with Arabia that had pervaded much of the Manueline period, and continued to be the dominant concern of Duarte de Menezes, then-governor of Portuguese India. Menezes also turned out to be incompetent and corrupt, subject to numerous complaints. As a result, John III decided to appoint Vasco da Gama himself to replace Menezes, confident that the magic of his name and memory of his deeds might better impress his authority on Portuguese India, and manage the transition to a new government and new strategy.
By his appointment letter of February 1524, John III granted Vasco da Gama the privileged title of "Viceroy", being only the second Portuguese governor to enjoy that title (the first was Francisco de Almeida in 1505). His second son, Estêvão da Gama was simultaneously appointed Capitão-mor do Mar da Índia ('Captain-major of the Indian Sea', commander of the Indian Ocean naval patrol fleet), to replace Duarte's brother, Luís de Menezes. As a final condition, Gama secured from John III of Portugal the commitment to appoint all his sons successively as Portuguese captains of Malacca.
Setting out in April 1524, with a fleet of fourteen ships, Vasco da Gama took as his flagship the famous large carrack Santa Catarina do Monte Sinai on her last journey to India, along with two of his sons, Estêvão and Paulo. After a troubled journey (four or five of the ships were lost en route), he arrived in India in September. Vasco da Gama immediately invoked his high viceregent powers to impose a new order in Portuguese India, replacing all the old officials with his own appointments. But Gama contracted malaria not long after arriving, and died in the city of Cochin on Christmas Eve in 1524, three months after his arrival. As per royal instructions, da Gama was succeeded as governor of India by one of the captains who had come with him, Henrique de Menezes (no relation to Duarte). Da Gama's sons Estêvão and Paulo immediately lost their posts and joined the returning fleet of early 1525 (along with the dismissed Duarte de Menezes and Luís de Menezes).
Vasco da Gama's body was first buried at St. Francis Church, which was located at Fort Kochi in the city of Kochi, but his remains were returned to Portugal in 1539. The body of Vasco da Gama was re-interred in Vidigueira in a casket decorated with gold and jewels.
The Monastery of the Hieronymites, in Belém, which would become the necropolis of the Portuguese royal dynasty of Aviz, was erected in the early 1500s near the launch point of Vasco da Gama's first journey, and its construction funded by a tax on the profits of the yearly Portuguese India Armadas. In 1880, da Gama's remains and those of the poet Luís de Camões (who celebrated da Gama's first voyage in his 1572 epic poem, The Lusiad), were moved to new carved tombs in the nave of the monastery's church, only a few meters away from the tombs of the kings Manuel I and John III, whom da Gama had served.
Marriage and descendants
Vasco da Gama and his wife, Catarina de Ataíde, had six sons and one daughter:
Dom Francisco da Gama, who inherited his father's titles as 2nd Count of Vidigueira and the 2nd "Admiral of the Seas of India, Arabia and Persia". He remained in Portugal.
Dom Estevão da Gama, after his abortive 1524 term as Indian patrol captain, he was appointed for a three-year term as captain of Malacca, serving from 1534 to 1539 (includes the last two years of his younger brother Paulo's term). He was subsequently appointed as the 11th governor of India from 1540 to 1542.
Dom Paulo da Gama (having the same name as his uncle Paulo), captain of Malacca from 1533 to 1534, killed in a naval action off Malacca.
Dom Cristovão da Gama, captain of Malacca from 1538 to 1540; nominated to succeed in Malacca, but executed by Ahmad ibn Ibrahim during the Ethiopian-Adal war in 1542.
Dom Pedro da Silva da Gama, appointed captain of Malacca from 1548 to 1552.
Dom Álvaro d'Ataide da Gama, appointed captain of Malacca fleet in the 1540s, captain of Malacca itself from 1552 to 1554.
Dona Isabel d'Ataide da Gama, only daughter, married Ignacio de Noronha, son of the first Count of Linhares.
His male-line issue became extinct in 1747, though the title continued through the female-line.
Intergenerations
Dom Vasco da Gama, 3rd Count of Vidigueira, the nobility and military personnel, son of Francisco (2nd Count) and grandson of Vasco da Gama.
Dom Francisco da Gama, 4th Count of Vidigueira, the viceroy (1597–1600) and governor (1622–1628) of India, son of Vasco (3rd Count) and great-grandson of Vasco da Gama.
Legacy
Vasco da Gama is one of the most famous and celebrated explorers from the Age of Discovery. As much as anyone after Henry the Navigator, he was responsible for Portugal's success as an early colonising power. Beside the fact of the first voyage itself, it was his astute mix of politics and war on the other side of the world that placed Portugal in a prominent position in Indian Ocean trade. Following da Gama's initial voyage, the Portuguese crown realized that securing outposts on the eastern coast of Africa would prove vital to maintaining national trade routes to the Far East.
However, his fame is tempered by such incidents and attitudes as displayed in the notorious Pilgrim Ship Incident previously discussed.
The Portuguese national epic, the Lusíadas of Luís Vaz de Camões, largely concerns Vasco da Gama's voyages.
The 1865 grand opera L'Africaine: Opéra en Cinq Actes, composed by Giacomo Meyerbeer from a libretto by Eugène Scribe, prominently includes the character of Vasco da Gama. The events depicted, however, are fictitious. Meyerbeer's working title for the opera was Vasco da Gama. A 1989 production of the opera by the San Francisco Opera featured noted tenor Plácido Domingo in the role of da Gama. The 19th-century composer Louis-Albert Bourgault-Ducoudray composed an eponymous 1872 opera based on da Gama's life and exploits at sea.
The port city of Vasco da Gama in Goa is named after him, as is the crater Vasco da Gama on the Moon. There are three football clubs in Brazil (including Club de Regatas Vasco da Gama) and Vasco Sports Club in Goa that were also named after him. There exists a church in Kochi, Kerala called Vasco da Gama Church, and a private residence on the island of Saint Helena. The suburb of Vasco in Cape Town also honours him.
A few places in Lisbon's Parque das Nações are named after the explorer, such as the Vasco da Gama Bridge, Vasco da Gama Tower and the Centro Comercial Vasco da Gama shopping centre. The Oceanário in the Parque das Nações has a mascot of a cartoon diver with the name of "Vasco", who is named after the explorer.
Vasco da Gama was the only explorer on the final pool of Os Grandes Portugueses. Although the final shortlist featured other Age of Discovery related people, they were not actually explorers nor navigators for any matter.
The Portuguese Navy has a class of frigates named after him. There are three Vasco da Gama class frigates in total, of which the first one also bears his name.
The Portuguese government erected two navigational beacons, Dias Cross and da Gama Cross, to commemorate da Gama and Bartolomeu Dias who were the first modern European explorers to reach the Cape of Good Hope. When lined up, these crosses point to Whittle Rock, a large, permanently submerged shipping hazard in False Bay.
South African musician Hugh Masekela recorded an anti-colonialist song entitled "Colonial Man", which contains the lyrics "Vasco da Gama was no friend of mine", and another song entitled "Vasco da Gama (The Sailor Man)". Both songs were included in his 1976 album Colonial Man.
Vasco da Gama appears as an antagonist in the Indian film Urumi. The film, directed by Santosh Sivan, depicts atrocities and progression to establish the Portuguese empire by da Gama in India.
In March 2016, archaeologists working off the coast of Oman identified a shipwreck believed to be that of the Esmeralda from da Gama's 1502–1503 fleet. The wreck was initially discovered in 1998. Later underwater excavations took place between 2013 and 2015 through a partnership between the Oman Ministry of Heritage and Culture and Blue Water Recoveries Ltd., a shipwreck recovery company. The vessel was identified through such artifacts as a "Portuguese coin minted for trade with India (one of only two coins of this type known to exist) and stone cannonballs engraved with what appear to be the initials of Vincente Sodré, da Gama's maternal uncle and the commander of the Esmeralda."
See also
Chronology of European exploration of Asia
References
Citations
Bibliography
Castanhoso, M. de (1898) Dos feitos de D. Christovam da Gama em Ethiopia Lisbon: Imprensa nacional. online
Facsimile reprint of an 1869 edition by the Hakluyt Society, London.
(reissued by Cambridge University Press, 2010. )
Teixeira de Aragão, A.C. (1887) Vasco da Gama e a Vidigueira: um estudo historico. Lisbon: Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa online
Further reading
Vasco da Gama (Ernst Georg Ravenstein, Gaspar Corrêa, Alvaro Velho) [2011] Viartis
Vasco da Gama: Renaissance Crusader (Glen J.Ames) [2004] Longman
The Career and Legend of Vasco da Gama (Sanjay Subrahmanyam) [1997] Cambridge University Press
External links
Vasco da Gama's Round Africa to India, fordham.edu
Vasco da Gama web tutorial with animated maps, ucalgary.ca
A Portuguese East Indiaman from the 1502–1503 Fleet of Vasco da Gama off Al Hallaniyah Island, Oman: an interim report, IJNA
Portuguese explorers
Portuguese colonial governors and administrators
Maritime history of Portugal
Explorers of Asia
Explorers of India
Explorers of Africa
Viceroys of Portuguese India
Vasco
1460s births
1524 deaths
Deaths from malaria
Infectious disease deaths in India
Maritime history of South Africa
Colonial Goa
Colonial Kerala
History of Goa
People from Sines
People of Portuguese India
People from Vidigueira
Portuguese Roman Catholics
15th-century explorers
15th-century Portuguese people
15th-century Roman Catholics | true | [
"John Riches (30 December 1920 – 5 October 1999) was a Welsh cricketer. He was a right-handed batsman and a slow left-arm bowler who played first-class cricket for Glamorgan.\n\nRiches made a single first-class appearance for Glamorgan in 1947, against Yorkshire, though he played for the Second XI between 1946 and 1957. Riches played regular club cricket for Cardiff, as well as playing with the MCC.\n\nRiches' father, Norman, wife Pearl and great-uncle Gowan Clark, were all noted cricketers.\n\nExternal links\nJohn Riches at Cricket Archive\n\n1920 births\n1999 deaths\nWelsh cricketers\nGlamorgan cricketers",
"Riches may refer to:\n\n Wealth\n The Riches (television series)\n C. T. Hurry Riches, Locomotive Superintendent of the Rhymney Railway from 1906\n Norman Riches (1883–1975), Welsh cricketer\n Tom Hurry Riches (1846–1911), Locomotive Superintendent of the Taff Vale Railway, 1873–1910\n Riches (album), a 1988 album by Deacon Blue\n Riches & More, a compilation album by Deacon Blue\n\nSee also\n Rich (disambiguation)"
] |
[
"Vasco da Gama",
"Exploration before da Gama",
"Was types of exploration happened before da Gama?",
"From the earlier part of the 15th century, Portuguese expeditions organized by Prince Henry the Navigator had been reaching down the African coastline, principally in search of west African riches",
"Were any riches found?",
"They had greatly extended Portuguese maritime knowledge, but had little profit to show for the effort. After Henry's death in 1460,"
] | C_ad92303978184a0890a8eb9304f15d62_1 | What happened after Henry's death? | 3 | What happened after Henry's death in 1460? | Vasco da Gama | From the earlier part of the 15th century, Portuguese expeditions organized by Prince Henry the Navigator had been reaching down the African coastline, principally in search of west African riches (notably, gold). They had greatly extended Portuguese maritime knowledge, but had little profit to show for the effort. After Henry's death in 1460, the Portuguese Crown showed little interest in continuing this effort and, in 1469, sold off the neglected African enterprise to a private Lisbon merchant consortium led by Fernao Gomes. Within a few years, Gomes' captains expanded Portuguese knowledge across the Gulf of Guinea, doing business in gold dust, Melegueta pepper, ivory and sub-Saharan slaves. When Gomes' charter came up for renewal in 1474, Prince John (future John II), asked his father Afonso V of Portugal to pass the African charter to him. Upon becoming king in 1481, John II of Portugal set out on many long reforms. To break the monarch's dependence on the feudal nobility, John II needed to build up the royal treasury; he considered royal commerce to be the key to achieving that. Under John II's watch, the gold and slave trade in west Africa was greatly expanded. He was eager to break into the highly profitable spice trade between Europe and Asia, which was conducted chiefly by land. At the time, this was virtually monopolized by the Republic of Venice, who operated overland routes via Levantine and Egyptian ports, through the Red Sea across to the spice markets of India. John II set a new objective for his captains: to find a sea route to Asia by sailing around the African continent. By the time Vasco da Gama was in his 20s, the king's plans were coming to fruition. In 1487, John II dispatched two spies, Pero da Covilha and Afonso de Paiva, overland via Egypt to East Africa and India, to scout the details of the spice markets and trade routes. The breakthrough came soon after, when John II's captain Bartolomeu Dias returned from rounding the Cape of Good Hope in 1488, having explored as far as the Fish River (Rio do Infante) in modern-day South Africa and having verified that the unknown coast stretched away to the northeast. An explorer was needed who could prove the link between the findings of Dias and those of da Covilha and de Paiva, and connect these separate segments into a potentially lucrative trade route across the Indian Ocean. CANNOTANSWER | the Portuguese Crown showed little interest in continuing this effort and, in 1469, sold off the neglected African enterprise to a private Lisbon merchant | Vasco da Gama, 1st Count of Vidigueira (, ; ; c. 1460s – 24 December 1524), was a Portuguese explorer and the first European to reach India by sea.
His initial voyage to India by way of Cape of Good Hope (1497–1499) was the first to link Europe and Asia by an ocean route, connecting the Atlantic and the Indian oceans and therefore, the West and the Orient. This is widely considered a milestone in world history, as it marked the beginning of a sea-based phase of global multiculturalism. Da Gama's discovery of the sea route to India opened the way for an age of global imperialism and enabled the Portuguese to establish a long-lasting colonial empire along the way from Africa to Asia. The violence and hostage taking employed by da Gama and those who followed also assigned a brutal reputation to the Portuguese among India's indigenous kingdoms that would set the pattern for western colonialism in the Age of Exploration. Traveling the ocean route allowed the Portuguese to avoid sailing across the highly disputed Mediterranean and traversing the dangerous Arabian Peninsula. The sum of the distances covered in the outward and return voyages made this expedition the longest ocean voyage ever made until then.
After decades of sailors trying to reach the Indies, with thousands of lives and dozens of vessels lost in shipwrecks and attacks, da Gama landed in Calicut on 20 May 1498. Unopposed access to the Indian spice routes boosted the economy of the Portuguese Empire, which was previously based along northern and coastal West Africa. The main spices at first obtained from Southeast Asia were pepper and cinnamon, but soon included other products, all new to Europe. Portugal maintained a commercial monopoly of these commodities for several decades. It was not until a century later that other European powers, first the Dutch Republic and England, later France and Denmark, were able to challenge Portugal's monopoly and naval supremacy in the Cape Route.
Da Gama led two of the Portuguese India Armadas, the first and the fourth. The latter was the largest and departed for India four years after his return from the first one. For his contributions, in 1524 da Gama was appointed Governor of India, with the title of Viceroy, and was ennobled as Count of Vidigueira in 1519. He remains a leading figure in the history of exploration, and homages worldwide have celebrated his explorations and accomplishments. The Portuguese national epic poem, Os Lusíadas, was written in his honour by Luís de Camões. In March 2016 thousands of artifacts and nautical remains were recovered from the wreck of the ship Esmeralda, one of da Gama's armada, found off the coast of Oman.
Early life
Vasco da Gama was born in 1460 in the town of Sines, one of the few seaports on the Alentejo coast, southwest Portugal, probably in a house near the church of Nossa Senhora das Salas.
Vasco da Gama's father was Estêvão da Gama, who had served in the 1460s as a knight of the household of Infante Ferdinand, Duke of Viseu. He rose in the ranks of the military Order of Santiago. Estêvão da Gama was appointed alcaide-mór (civil governor) of Sines in the 1460s, a post he held until 1478; after that he continued as a receiver of taxes and holder of the Order's commendas in the region.
Estêvão da Gama married Isabel Sodré, a daughter of João Sodré (also known as João de Resende), scion of a well-connected family of English origin. Her father and her brothers, Vicente Sodré and Brás Sodré, had links to the household of Infante Diogo, Duke of Viseu, and were prominent figures in the military Order of Christ. Vasco da Gama was the third of five sons of Estêvão da Gama and Isabel Sodré – in (probable) order of age: Paulo da Gama, João Sodré, Vasco da Gama, Pedro da Gama and Aires da Gama. Vasco also had one known sister, Teresa da Gama (who married Lopo Mendes de Vasconcelos).
Little is known of da Gama's early life. The Portuguese historian Teixeira de Aragão suggests that he studied at the inland town of Évora, which is where he may have learned mathematics and navigation. It has been claimed that he studied under Abraham Zacuto, an astrologer and astronomer, but da Gama's biographer Subrahmanyam thinks this dubious.
Around 1480, da Gama followed his father (rather than the Sodrés) and joined the Order of Santiago. The master of Santiago was Prince John, who ascended to the throne in 1481 as King John II of Portugal. John II doted on the Order, and the da Gamas' prospects rose accordingly.
In 1492, John II dispatched da Gama on a mission to the port of Setúbal and to the Algarve to seize French ships in retaliation for peacetime depredations against Portuguese shipping – a task that da Gama rapidly and effectively performed.
Exploration before da Gama
From the earlier part of the 15th century, Portuguese expeditions organized by Prince Henry the Navigator had been reaching down the African coastline, principally in search of west African riches (notably, gold and slaves). They had greatly extended Portuguese maritime knowledge, but had little profit to show for the effort. After Henry's death in 1460, the Portuguese Crown showed little interest in continuing this effort and, in 1469, licensed the neglected African enterprise to a private Lisbon merchant consortium led by Fernão Gomes. Within a few years, Gomes' captains expanded Portuguese knowledge across the Gulf of Guinea, doing business in gold dust, melegueta pepper, ivory and sub-Saharan slaves. When Gomes' charter came up for renewal in 1474, Prince John (future John II), asked his father Afonso V of Portugal to pass the African charter to him.
Upon becoming king in 1481, John II of Portugal set out on many long reforms. To break the monarch's dependence on the feudal nobility, John II needed to build up the royal treasury; he considered royal commerce to be the key to achieving that. Under John II's watch, the gold and slave trade in west Africa was greatly expanded. He was eager to break into the highly profitable spice trade between Europe and Asia, which was conducted chiefly by land. At the time, this was virtually monopolized by the Republic of Venice, who operated overland routes via Levantine and Egyptian ports, through the Red Sea across to the spice markets of India. John II set a new objective for his captains: to find a sea route to Asia by sailing around the African continent.
By the time Vasco da Gama was in his 20s, the king's plans were coming to fruition. In 1487, John II dispatched two spies, Pero da Covilhã and Afonso de Paiva, overland via Egypt to East Africa and India, to scout the details of the spice markets and trade routes. The breakthrough came soon after, when John II's captain Bartolomeu Dias returned from rounding the Cape of Good Hope in 1488, having explored as far as the Fish River (Rio do Infante) in modern-day South Africa and having verified that the unknown coast stretched away to the northeast.
An explorer was needed who could prove the link between the findings of Dias and those of da Covilhã and de Paiva, and connect these separate segments into a potentially lucrative trade route across the Indian Ocean.
First voyage
On 8 July 1497 Vasco da Gama led a fleet of four ships with a crew of 170 men from Lisbon. The distance traveled in the journey around Africa to India and back was greater than the length of the equator. The navigators included Portugal's most experienced, Pero de Alenquer, Pedro Escobar, João de Coimbra, and Afonso Gonçalves. It is not known for certain how many people were in each ship's crew but approximately 55 returned, and two ships were lost. Two of the vessels were carracks, newly built for the voyage; the others were a caravel and a supply boat.
The four ships were:
São Gabriel, commanded by Vasco da Gama; a carrack of 178 tons, length 27 m, width 8.5 m, draft 2.3 m, sails of 372 m2
São Rafael, commanded by his brother Paulo da Gama; similar dimensions to the São Gabriel
Berrio (nickname, officially called São Miguel), a caravel, slightly smaller than the former two, commanded by Nicolau Coelho
A storage ship of unknown name, commanded by Gonçalo Nunes, destined to be scuttled in Mossel Bay (São Brás) in South Africa
Journey to the Cape
The expedition set sail from Lisbon on 8 July 1497. It followed the route pioneered by earlier explorers along the coast of Africa via Tenerife and the Cape Verde Islands. After reaching the coast of present-day Sierra Leone, da Gama took a course south into the open ocean, crossing the Equator and seeking the South Atlantic westerlies that Bartolomeu Dias had discovered in 1487. This course proved successful and on 4 November 1497, the expedition made landfall on the African coast. For over three months the ships had sailed more than of open ocean, by far the longest journey out of sight of land made by that time.
By 16 December, the fleet had passed the Great Fish River (Eastern Cape, South Africa) – where Dias had anchored – and sailed into waters previously unknown to Europeans. With Christmas pending, da Gama and his crew gave the coast they were passing the name Natal, which carried the connotation of "birth of Christ" in Portuguese.
Mozambique
Vasco da Gama spent 2 to 29 March 1498 in the vicinity of Mozambique Island. Arab-controlled territory on the East African coast was an integral part of the network of trade in the Indian Ocean. Fearing the local population would be hostile to Christians, da Gama impersonated a Muslim and gained audience with the Sultan of Mozambique. With the paltry trade goods he had to offer, the explorer was unable to provide a suitable gift to the ruler. Soon the local populace became suspicious of da Gama and his men. Forced by a hostile crowd to flee Mozambique, da Gama departed the harbor, firing his cannons into the city in retaliation.
Mombasa
In the vicinity of modern Kenya, the expedition resorted to piracy, looting Arab merchant ships that were generally unarmed trading vessels without heavy cannons. The Portuguese became the first known Europeans to visit the port of Mombasa from 7 to 13 April 1498, but were met with hostility and soon departed.
Malindi
Vasco da Gama continued north, arriving on 14 April 1498 at the friendlier port of Malindi, whose leaders were having a conflict with those of Mombasa. There the expedition first noted evidence of Indian traders. Da Gama and his crew contracted the services of a pilot who used his knowledge of the monsoon winds to guide the expedition the rest of the way to Calicut, located on the southwest coast of India. Sources differ over the identity of the pilot, calling him variously a Christian, a Muslim, and a Gujarati. One traditional story describes the pilot as the famous Arab navigator Ibn Majid, but other contemporaneous accounts place Majid elsewhere, and he could not have been near the vicinity at the time. None of the Portuguese historians of the time mentions Ibn Majid. Vasco da Gama left Malindi for India on 24 April 1498.
Calicut, India
The fleet arrived in Kappadu near Kozhikode (Calicut), in Malabar Coast (present day Kerala state of India), on 20 May 1498. The King of Calicut, the Samudiri (Zamorin), who was at that time staying in his second capital at Ponnani, returned to Calicut on hearing the news of the foreign fleet's arrival. The navigator was received with traditional hospitality, including a grand procession of at least 3,000 armed Nairs, but an interview with the Zamorin failed to produce any concrete results. When local authorities asked da Gama's fleet, "What brought you hither?", they replied that they had come "in search of Christians and spices." The presents that da Gama sent to the Zamorin as gifts from Dom Manuel – four cloaks of scarlet cloth, six hats, four branches of corals, twelve , a box with seven brass vessels, a chest of sugar, two barrels of oil and a cask of honey – were trivial, and failed to impress. While Zamorin's officials wondered at why there was no gold or silver, the Muslim merchants who considered da Gama their rival suggested that the latter was only an ordinary pirate and not a royal ambassador. Vasco da Gama's request for permission to leave a factor behind him in charge of the merchandise he could not sell was turned down by the King, who insisted that da Gama pay customs duty – preferably in gold – like any other trader, which strained the relation between the two. Annoyed by this, da Gama carried a few Nairs and sixteen fishermen (mukkuva) off with him by force.
Return
Vasco da Gama left Calicut on 29 August 1498. Eager to set sail for home, he ignored the local knowledge of monsoon wind patterns that were still blowing onshore. The fleet initially inched north along the Indian coast, and then anchored in at Anjediva island for a spell. They finally struck out for their Indian Ocean crossing on 3 October 1498. But with the winter monsoon yet to set in, it was a harrowing journey. On the outgoing journey, sailing with the summer monsoon wind, da Gama's fleet crossed the Indian Ocean in only 23 days; now, on the return trip, sailing against the wind, it took 132 days.
Da Gama saw land again only on 2 January 1499, passing before the coastal Somali city of Mogadishu, then under the influence of the Ajuran Empire in the Horn of Africa. The fleet did not make a stop, but passing before Mogadishu, the anonymous diarist of the expedition noted that it was a large city with houses of four or five storeys high and big palaces in its center and many mosques with cylindrical minarets.
Da Gama's fleet finally arrived in Malindi on 7 January 1499, in a terrible state – approximately half of the crew had died during the crossing, and many of the rest were afflicted with scurvy. Not having enough crewmen left standing to manage three ships, da Gama ordered the São Rafael scuttled off the East African coast, and the crew re-distributed to the remaining two ships, the São Gabriel and the Berrio. Thereafter, the sailing was smoother. By early March, they had arrived in Mossel Bay, and crossed the Cape of Good Hope in the opposite direction on 20 March, reaching the west African coast by 25 April.
The diary record of the expedition ends abruptly here. Reconstructing from other sources, it seems they continued to Cape Verde, where Nicolau Coelho's Berrio separated from Vasco da Gama's São Gabriel and sailed on by itself. The Berrio arrived in Lisbon on 10 July 1499 and Nicolau Coelho personally delivered the news to King Manuel I and the royal court, then assembled in Sintra. In the meantime, back in Cape Verde, da Gama's brother, Paulo da Gama, had fallen grievously ill. Da Gama elected to stay by his side on Santiago island and handed the São Gabriel over to his clerk, João de Sá, to take home. The São Gabriel under Sá arrived in Lisbon sometime in late July or early August. Da Gama and his sickly brother eventually hitched a ride with a Guinea caravel returning to Portugal, but Paulo da Gama died en route. Da Gama disembarked at the Azores to bury his brother at the monastery of São Francisco in Angra do Heroismo, and lingered there for a little while in mourning. He eventually took passage on an Azorean caravel and finally arrived in Lisbon on 29 August 1499 (according to Barros), or early September (8th or 18th, according to other sources). Despite his melancholic mood, da Gama was given a hero's welcome and showered with honors, including a triumphal procession and public festivities. King Manuel wrote two letters in which he described da Gama's first voyage, in July and August 1499, soon after the return of the ships. Girolamo Sernigi also wrote three letters describing da Gama's first voyage soon after the return of the expedition.
The expedition had exacted a large cost – two ships and over half the men had been lost. It had also failed in its principal mission of securing a commercial treaty with Calicut. Nonetheless, the small quantities of spices and other trade goods brought back on the remaining two ships demonstrated the potential of great profit for future trade. Vasco da Gama was justly celebrated for opening a direct sea route to Asia. His path would be followed up thereafter by yearly Portuguese India Armadas.
The spice trade would prove to be a major asset to the Portuguese royal treasury, and other consequences soon followed. For example, da Gama's voyage had made it clear that the east coast of Africa, the Contra Costa, was essential to Portuguese interests; its ports provided fresh water, provisions, timber, and harbors for repairs, and served as a refuge where ships could wait out unfavorable weather. One significant result was the colonization of Mozambique by the Portuguese Crown.
Rewards
In December 1499, King Manuel I of Portugal rewarded Vasco da Gama with the town of Sines as a hereditary fief (the town his father, Estêvão, had once held as a commenda). This turned out to be a complicated affair, for Sines still belonged to the Order of Santiago. The master of the Order, Jorge de Lencastre, might have endorsed the reward – after all, da Gama was a Santiago knight, one of their own, and a close associate of Lencastre himself. But the fact that Sines was awarded by the king provoked Lencastre to refuse out of principle, lest it encourage the king to make other donations of the Order's properties. Da Gama would spend the next few years attempting to take hold of Sines, an effort that would estrange him from Lencastre and eventually prompt da Gama to abandon his beloved Order of Santiago, switching over to the rival Order of Christ in 1507.
In the meantime, da Gama made do with a substantial hereditary royal pension of 300,000 reis. He was awarded the noble title of Dom (lord) in perpetuity for himself, his siblings and their descendants. On 30 January 1502, da Gama was awarded the title of Almirante dos mares de Arabia, Persia, India e de todo o Oriente ("Admiral of the Seas of Arabia, Persia, India and all the Orient") – an overwrought title reminiscent of the ornate Castilian title borne by Christopher Columbus (evidently, Manuel must have reckoned that if Castile had an 'Admiral of the Ocean Seas', then surely Portugal should have one too). Another royal letter, dated October 1501, gave da Gama the personal right to intervene and exercise a determining role on any future India-bound fleet.
Around 1501, Vasco da Gama married Catarina de Ataíde, daughter of Álvaro de Ataíde, the alcaide-mór of Alvor (Algarve), and a prominent nobleman connected by kinship with the powerful Almeida family (Catarina was a first cousin of Dom Francisco de Almeida).
Second voyage
The follow-up expedition, the Second India Armada, launched in 1500 under the command of Pedro Álvares Cabral with the mission of making a treaty with the Zamorin of Calicut and setting up a Portuguese factory in the city. However, Pedro Cabral entered into a conflict with the local Arab merchant guilds, with the result that the Portuguese factory was overrun in a riot and up to 70 Portuguese were killed. Cabral blamed the Zamorin for the incident and bombarded the city. Thus war broke out between Portugal and Calicut.
Vasco da Gama invoked his royal letter to take command of the 4th India Armada, scheduled to set out in 1502, with the explicit aim of taking revenge upon the Zamorin and force him to submit to Portuguese terms. The heavily armed fleet of fifteen ships and eight hundred men left Lisbon on 12 February 1502. It was followed in April by another squadron of five ships led by his cousin, Estêvão da Gama (the son of Aires da Gama), which caught up to them in the Indian Ocean. The 4th Armada was a veritable da Gama family affair. Two of his maternal uncles, Vicente Sodré and Brás Sodré, were pre-designated to command an Indian Ocean naval patrol, while brothers-in-law Álvaro de Ataíde (brother of Vasco's wife Catarina) and Lopo Mendes de Vasconcelos (betrothed to Teresa da Gama, Vasco's sister) captained ships in the main fleet.
On the outgoing voyage, da Gama's fleet opened contact with the East African gold trading port of Sofala and reduced the sultanate of Kilwa to tribute, extracting a substantial sum of gold.
Pilgrim ship incident
On reaching India in October 1502, da Gama's fleet intercepted a ship of Muslim pilgrims at Madayi travelling from Calicut to Mecca. Described in detail by eyewitness Thomé Lopes and chronicler Gaspar Correia, da Gama looted the ship with over 400 pilgrims on board including 50 women, locked in the passengers, the owner and an ambassador from Egypt and burned them to death. They offered their wealth, which "could ransom all the Christian slaves in the Kingdom of Fez and much more" but were not spared. Da Gama looked on through the porthole and saw the women bringing up their gold and jewels and holding up their babies to beg for mercy.
Calicut
After stopping at Cannanore, Gama drove his fleet before Calicut, demanding redress for the treatment of Cabral. Having known of the fate of the pilgrims' ship, the Zamorin adopted a conciliatory attitude towards the Portuguese and expressed willingness to sign a new treaty but da Gama made a call to the Hindu king to expel all Muslims from Calicut before beginning negotiations, which was turned down. At the same time however, the Zamorin sent a message to his rebellious vassal, the Raja of Cochin urging cooperation and obedience to counter the Portuguese threat; the ruler of Cochin forwarded this message to Gama, which reinforced his opinion of the Indians as duplicitous. After demanding the expulsion of Muslims from Calicut to the Hindu Zamorin, the latter sent the high priest Talappana Namboothiri (the very same person who conducted da Gama to the Zamorin's chamber during his much celebrated first visit to Calicut in May 1498) for talks. Da Gama called him a spy, ordered the priests' lips and ears to be cut off and after sewing a pair of dog's ears to his head, sent him away. The Portuguese fleet then bombarded the unfortified city for nearly two days from the sea, severely damaging it. He also captured several rice vessels and cut off the crew's hands, ears and noses, dispatching them with a note to the Zamorin, in which Gama declared that he would be open to friendly relations once the Zamorin had paid for the items plundered from the feitoria as well as the gunpowder and cannonballs.
Seabattle
The violent treatment meted out by da Gama quickly brought trade along the Malabar Coast of India, upon which Calicut depended, to a standstill. The Zamorin ventured to dispatch a fleet of strong warships to challenge da Gama's armada, but which Gama managed to defeat in a naval battle before Calicut harbor.
Cochin
Da Gama loaded up with spices at Cochin and Cannanore, small nearby kingdoms at war with the Zamorin, whose alliances had been secured by prior Portuguese fleets. The 4th armada left India in early 1503. Da Gama left behind a small squadron of caravels under the command of his uncle, Vicente Sodré, to patrol the Indian coast, to continue harassing Calicut shipping, and to protect the Portuguese factories at Cochin and Cannanore from the Zamorin's inevitable reprisals.
Vasco da Gama arrived back in Portugal in September 1503, effectively having failed in his mission to bring the Zamorin to submission. This failure, and the subsequent more galling failure of his uncle Vicente Sodré to protect the Portuguese factory in Cochin, probably counted against any further rewards. When the Portuguese king Manuel I of Portugal decided to appoint the first governor and viceroy of Portuguese India in 1505, da Gama was conspicuously overlooked, and the post given to Francisco de Almeida.
Interlude
For the next two decades, Vasco da Gama lived out a quiet life, unwelcome in the royal court and sidelined from Indian affairs. His attempts to return to the favor of Manuel I (including switching over to the Order of Christ in 1507), yielded little. Almeida, the larger-than-life Afonso de Albuquerque and, later on, Albergaria and Sequeira, were the king's preferred point men for India.
After Ferdinand Magellan defected to the Crown of Castile in 1518, Vasco da Gama threatened to do the same, prompting the king to undertake steps to retain him in Portugal and avoid the embarrassment of losing his own "Admiral of the Indies" to Spain. In 1519, after years of ignoring his petitions, King Manuel I finally hurried to give Vasco da Gama a feudal title, appointing him the first Count of Vidigueira, a count title created by a royal decree issued in Évora on 29 December, after a complicated agreement with Dom Jaime, Duke of Braganza, who ceded him on payment the towns of Vidigueira and Vila dos Frades. The decree granted Vasco da Gama and his heirs all the revenues and privileges related, thus establishing da Gama as the first Portuguese count who was not born with royal blood.
Third voyage and death
After the death of King Manuel I in late 1521, his son and successor, King John III of Portugal set about reviewing the Portuguese government overseas. Turning away from the old Albuquerque clique (now represented by Diogo Lopes de Sequeira), John III looked for a fresh start. Vasco da Gama re-emerged from his political wilderness as an important adviser to the new king's appointments and strategy. Seeing the new Spanish threat to the Maluku Islands as the priority, Vasco da Gama advised against the obsession with Arabia that had pervaded much of the Manueline period, and continued to be the dominant concern of Duarte de Menezes, then-governor of Portuguese India. Menezes also turned out to be incompetent and corrupt, subject to numerous complaints. As a result, John III decided to appoint Vasco da Gama himself to replace Menezes, confident that the magic of his name and memory of his deeds might better impress his authority on Portuguese India, and manage the transition to a new government and new strategy.
By his appointment letter of February 1524, John III granted Vasco da Gama the privileged title of "Viceroy", being only the second Portuguese governor to enjoy that title (the first was Francisco de Almeida in 1505). His second son, Estêvão da Gama was simultaneously appointed Capitão-mor do Mar da Índia ('Captain-major of the Indian Sea', commander of the Indian Ocean naval patrol fleet), to replace Duarte's brother, Luís de Menezes. As a final condition, Gama secured from John III of Portugal the commitment to appoint all his sons successively as Portuguese captains of Malacca.
Setting out in April 1524, with a fleet of fourteen ships, Vasco da Gama took as his flagship the famous large carrack Santa Catarina do Monte Sinai on her last journey to India, along with two of his sons, Estêvão and Paulo. After a troubled journey (four or five of the ships were lost en route), he arrived in India in September. Vasco da Gama immediately invoked his high viceregent powers to impose a new order in Portuguese India, replacing all the old officials with his own appointments. But Gama contracted malaria not long after arriving, and died in the city of Cochin on Christmas Eve in 1524, three months after his arrival. As per royal instructions, da Gama was succeeded as governor of India by one of the captains who had come with him, Henrique de Menezes (no relation to Duarte). Da Gama's sons Estêvão and Paulo immediately lost their posts and joined the returning fleet of early 1525 (along with the dismissed Duarte de Menezes and Luís de Menezes).
Vasco da Gama's body was first buried at St. Francis Church, which was located at Fort Kochi in the city of Kochi, but his remains were returned to Portugal in 1539. The body of Vasco da Gama was re-interred in Vidigueira in a casket decorated with gold and jewels.
The Monastery of the Hieronymites, in Belém, which would become the necropolis of the Portuguese royal dynasty of Aviz, was erected in the early 1500s near the launch point of Vasco da Gama's first journey, and its construction funded by a tax on the profits of the yearly Portuguese India Armadas. In 1880, da Gama's remains and those of the poet Luís de Camões (who celebrated da Gama's first voyage in his 1572 epic poem, The Lusiad), were moved to new carved tombs in the nave of the monastery's church, only a few meters away from the tombs of the kings Manuel I and John III, whom da Gama had served.
Marriage and descendants
Vasco da Gama and his wife, Catarina de Ataíde, had six sons and one daughter:
Dom Francisco da Gama, who inherited his father's titles as 2nd Count of Vidigueira and the 2nd "Admiral of the Seas of India, Arabia and Persia". He remained in Portugal.
Dom Estevão da Gama, after his abortive 1524 term as Indian patrol captain, he was appointed for a three-year term as captain of Malacca, serving from 1534 to 1539 (includes the last two years of his younger brother Paulo's term). He was subsequently appointed as the 11th governor of India from 1540 to 1542.
Dom Paulo da Gama (having the same name as his uncle Paulo), captain of Malacca from 1533 to 1534, killed in a naval action off Malacca.
Dom Cristovão da Gama, captain of Malacca from 1538 to 1540; nominated to succeed in Malacca, but executed by Ahmad ibn Ibrahim during the Ethiopian-Adal war in 1542.
Dom Pedro da Silva da Gama, appointed captain of Malacca from 1548 to 1552.
Dom Álvaro d'Ataide da Gama, appointed captain of Malacca fleet in the 1540s, captain of Malacca itself from 1552 to 1554.
Dona Isabel d'Ataide da Gama, only daughter, married Ignacio de Noronha, son of the first Count of Linhares.
His male-line issue became extinct in 1747, though the title continued through the female-line.
Intergenerations
Dom Vasco da Gama, 3rd Count of Vidigueira, the nobility and military personnel, son of Francisco (2nd Count) and grandson of Vasco da Gama.
Dom Francisco da Gama, 4th Count of Vidigueira, the viceroy (1597–1600) and governor (1622–1628) of India, son of Vasco (3rd Count) and great-grandson of Vasco da Gama.
Legacy
Vasco da Gama is one of the most famous and celebrated explorers from the Age of Discovery. As much as anyone after Henry the Navigator, he was responsible for Portugal's success as an early colonising power. Beside the fact of the first voyage itself, it was his astute mix of politics and war on the other side of the world that placed Portugal in a prominent position in Indian Ocean trade. Following da Gama's initial voyage, the Portuguese crown realized that securing outposts on the eastern coast of Africa would prove vital to maintaining national trade routes to the Far East.
However, his fame is tempered by such incidents and attitudes as displayed in the notorious Pilgrim Ship Incident previously discussed.
The Portuguese national epic, the Lusíadas of Luís Vaz de Camões, largely concerns Vasco da Gama's voyages.
The 1865 grand opera L'Africaine: Opéra en Cinq Actes, composed by Giacomo Meyerbeer from a libretto by Eugène Scribe, prominently includes the character of Vasco da Gama. The events depicted, however, are fictitious. Meyerbeer's working title for the opera was Vasco da Gama. A 1989 production of the opera by the San Francisco Opera featured noted tenor Plácido Domingo in the role of da Gama. The 19th-century composer Louis-Albert Bourgault-Ducoudray composed an eponymous 1872 opera based on da Gama's life and exploits at sea.
The port city of Vasco da Gama in Goa is named after him, as is the crater Vasco da Gama on the Moon. There are three football clubs in Brazil (including Club de Regatas Vasco da Gama) and Vasco Sports Club in Goa that were also named after him. There exists a church in Kochi, Kerala called Vasco da Gama Church, and a private residence on the island of Saint Helena. The suburb of Vasco in Cape Town also honours him.
A few places in Lisbon's Parque das Nações are named after the explorer, such as the Vasco da Gama Bridge, Vasco da Gama Tower and the Centro Comercial Vasco da Gama shopping centre. The Oceanário in the Parque das Nações has a mascot of a cartoon diver with the name of "Vasco", who is named after the explorer.
Vasco da Gama was the only explorer on the final pool of Os Grandes Portugueses. Although the final shortlist featured other Age of Discovery related people, they were not actually explorers nor navigators for any matter.
The Portuguese Navy has a class of frigates named after him. There are three Vasco da Gama class frigates in total, of which the first one also bears his name.
The Portuguese government erected two navigational beacons, Dias Cross and da Gama Cross, to commemorate da Gama and Bartolomeu Dias who were the first modern European explorers to reach the Cape of Good Hope. When lined up, these crosses point to Whittle Rock, a large, permanently submerged shipping hazard in False Bay.
South African musician Hugh Masekela recorded an anti-colonialist song entitled "Colonial Man", which contains the lyrics "Vasco da Gama was no friend of mine", and another song entitled "Vasco da Gama (The Sailor Man)". Both songs were included in his 1976 album Colonial Man.
Vasco da Gama appears as an antagonist in the Indian film Urumi. The film, directed by Santosh Sivan, depicts atrocities and progression to establish the Portuguese empire by da Gama in India.
In March 2016, archaeologists working off the coast of Oman identified a shipwreck believed to be that of the Esmeralda from da Gama's 1502–1503 fleet. The wreck was initially discovered in 1998. Later underwater excavations took place between 2013 and 2015 through a partnership between the Oman Ministry of Heritage and Culture and Blue Water Recoveries Ltd., a shipwreck recovery company. The vessel was identified through such artifacts as a "Portuguese coin minted for trade with India (one of only two coins of this type known to exist) and stone cannonballs engraved with what appear to be the initials of Vincente Sodré, da Gama's maternal uncle and the commander of the Esmeralda."
See also
Chronology of European exploration of Asia
References
Citations
Bibliography
Castanhoso, M. de (1898) Dos feitos de D. Christovam da Gama em Ethiopia Lisbon: Imprensa nacional. online
Facsimile reprint of an 1869 edition by the Hakluyt Society, London.
(reissued by Cambridge University Press, 2010. )
Teixeira de Aragão, A.C. (1887) Vasco da Gama e a Vidigueira: um estudo historico. Lisbon: Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa online
Further reading
Vasco da Gama (Ernst Georg Ravenstein, Gaspar Corrêa, Alvaro Velho) [2011] Viartis
Vasco da Gama: Renaissance Crusader (Glen J.Ames) [2004] Longman
The Career and Legend of Vasco da Gama (Sanjay Subrahmanyam) [1997] Cambridge University Press
External links
Vasco da Gama's Round Africa to India, fordham.edu
Vasco da Gama web tutorial with animated maps, ucalgary.ca
A Portuguese East Indiaman from the 1502–1503 Fleet of Vasco da Gama off Al Hallaniyah Island, Oman: an interim report, IJNA
Portuguese explorers
Portuguese colonial governors and administrators
Maritime history of Portugal
Explorers of Asia
Explorers of India
Explorers of Africa
Viceroys of Portuguese India
Vasco
1460s births
1524 deaths
Deaths from malaria
Infectious disease deaths in India
Maritime history of South Africa
Colonial Goa
Colonial Kerala
History of Goa
People from Sines
People of Portuguese India
People from Vidigueira
Portuguese Roman Catholics
15th-century explorers
15th-century Portuguese people
15th-century Roman Catholics | false | [
"What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? may refer to:\n\nWhat Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (novel), a 1960 suspense novel by Henry Farrell\n What Ever Happened to Baby Jane (film), a 1962 American psychological thriller, based on the novel.\n What Ever Happened to..., a 1991 ABC television film, based on the novel",
"Henry Farrell (September 27, 1920 – March 29, 2006) was an American novelist and screenwriter, best known as the author of the renowned gothic horror story What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, which was made into a film starring Bette Davis and Joan Crawford.\n\nLife and work\n\nHe was born Charles Farrell Myers in California, and grew up in Chowchilla, California. Under the name Charles F. Myers, he wrote the \"Toffee\" short stories. Later taking the pseudonym Henry Farrell, his first novel was The Hostage, published in 1959.\n[[File:Fantastic adventures 195006.jpg|thumb|right|Myers's \"The Shades of Toffee\" was the cover story in the June 1950 issue of Fantastic Adventures]]\n\nWith Lukas Heller, he co-wrote the screenplay for Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964), starring Davis and Olivia de Havilland. It was based on a story he wrote titled \"What Ever Happened to Cousin Charlotte?\", and the script earned Heller and Farrell a 1965 Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for Best Motion Picture Screenplay. He wrote the original screenplay for What's the Matter with Helen? (1971), which starred Debbie Reynolds and Shelley Winters.\n\nHis wife was actress Molly Dodd, who died in 1981. Dodd appeared in small roles in two movies written by Farrell, the TV production How Awful About Allan, starring Anthony Perkins and Julie Harris and What's the Matter with Helen? French director François Truffaut's 1972 movie Such a Gorgeous Kid Like Me was based on Farrell's 1967 novel of the same name.\n\nDeath \nHenry Farrell died in his home in Pacific Palisades, California at age 85. According to his obituary, he completed another novel, titled A Piece of Clarisse, shortly before his death . There is currently no word on publication.\n\nNovelsThe Hostage (1959)What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1960)Death on the Sixth Day (1961)How Awful About Allan (1963)Such a Gorgeous Kid Like Me (1967)\n\nShort stories\n\"What Ever Happened to Cousin Charlotte?\"\n\"The Eyes of Charles Sand\"\n\"Where Beauty Lies\"\n\"The Do-Gooder\"\n\nFilmography\n Bus Stop (1961) - 1 episode (\"Jaws of Darkness\")\n Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1962) - 1 episode (\"Where Beauty Lies\")\n Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964, with Lukas Heller)\n Perry Mason (1965–66) - 2 episodes (\"The Case of the Wrathful Wraith\", \"The Case of the Bogus Buccaneers\")\n How Awful About Allan (1970, TV movie)\n The House That Would Not Die (1970, TV movie)\n What's the Matter with Helen? (1971)\n The Eyes of Charles Sand'' (1972, TV movie)\n\nSee also\n List of horror fiction authors\n\nExternal links\n \n\n1920 births\n2006 deaths\n20th-century American novelists\nAmerican horror writers\nAmerican male screenwriters\nAmerican male novelists\nEdgar Award winners\nAmerican male short story writers\n20th-century American short story writers\nPeople from Madera County, California\n20th-century American male writers\nNovelists from California\nScreenwriters from California\n20th-century American screenwriters"
] |
[
"Vasco da Gama",
"Exploration before da Gama",
"Was types of exploration happened before da Gama?",
"From the earlier part of the 15th century, Portuguese expeditions organized by Prince Henry the Navigator had been reaching down the African coastline, principally in search of west African riches",
"Were any riches found?",
"They had greatly extended Portuguese maritime knowledge, but had little profit to show for the effort. After Henry's death in 1460,",
"What happened after Henry's death?",
"the Portuguese Crown showed little interest in continuing this effort and, in 1469, sold off the neglected African enterprise to a private Lisbon merchant"
] | C_ad92303978184a0890a8eb9304f15d62_1 | What was the result of neglection of the African enterprise? | 4 | What was the result of neglection of the African enterprise? | Vasco da Gama | From the earlier part of the 15th century, Portuguese expeditions organized by Prince Henry the Navigator had been reaching down the African coastline, principally in search of west African riches (notably, gold). They had greatly extended Portuguese maritime knowledge, but had little profit to show for the effort. After Henry's death in 1460, the Portuguese Crown showed little interest in continuing this effort and, in 1469, sold off the neglected African enterprise to a private Lisbon merchant consortium led by Fernao Gomes. Within a few years, Gomes' captains expanded Portuguese knowledge across the Gulf of Guinea, doing business in gold dust, Melegueta pepper, ivory and sub-Saharan slaves. When Gomes' charter came up for renewal in 1474, Prince John (future John II), asked his father Afonso V of Portugal to pass the African charter to him. Upon becoming king in 1481, John II of Portugal set out on many long reforms. To break the monarch's dependence on the feudal nobility, John II needed to build up the royal treasury; he considered royal commerce to be the key to achieving that. Under John II's watch, the gold and slave trade in west Africa was greatly expanded. He was eager to break into the highly profitable spice trade between Europe and Asia, which was conducted chiefly by land. At the time, this was virtually monopolized by the Republic of Venice, who operated overland routes via Levantine and Egyptian ports, through the Red Sea across to the spice markets of India. John II set a new objective for his captains: to find a sea route to Asia by sailing around the African continent. By the time Vasco da Gama was in his 20s, the king's plans were coming to fruition. In 1487, John II dispatched two spies, Pero da Covilha and Afonso de Paiva, overland via Egypt to East Africa and India, to scout the details of the spice markets and trade routes. The breakthrough came soon after, when John II's captain Bartolomeu Dias returned from rounding the Cape of Good Hope in 1488, having explored as far as the Fish River (Rio do Infante) in modern-day South Africa and having verified that the unknown coast stretched away to the northeast. An explorer was needed who could prove the link between the findings of Dias and those of da Covilha and de Paiva, and connect these separate segments into a potentially lucrative trade route across the Indian Ocean. CANNOTANSWER | Within a few years, Gomes' captains expanded Portuguese knowledge across the Gulf of Guinea, doing business in gold dust, Melegueta pepper, ivory and sub-Saharan slaves. | Vasco da Gama, 1st Count of Vidigueira (, ; ; c. 1460s – 24 December 1524), was a Portuguese explorer and the first European to reach India by sea.
His initial voyage to India by way of Cape of Good Hope (1497–1499) was the first to link Europe and Asia by an ocean route, connecting the Atlantic and the Indian oceans and therefore, the West and the Orient. This is widely considered a milestone in world history, as it marked the beginning of a sea-based phase of global multiculturalism. Da Gama's discovery of the sea route to India opened the way for an age of global imperialism and enabled the Portuguese to establish a long-lasting colonial empire along the way from Africa to Asia. The violence and hostage taking employed by da Gama and those who followed also assigned a brutal reputation to the Portuguese among India's indigenous kingdoms that would set the pattern for western colonialism in the Age of Exploration. Traveling the ocean route allowed the Portuguese to avoid sailing across the highly disputed Mediterranean and traversing the dangerous Arabian Peninsula. The sum of the distances covered in the outward and return voyages made this expedition the longest ocean voyage ever made until then.
After decades of sailors trying to reach the Indies, with thousands of lives and dozens of vessels lost in shipwrecks and attacks, da Gama landed in Calicut on 20 May 1498. Unopposed access to the Indian spice routes boosted the economy of the Portuguese Empire, which was previously based along northern and coastal West Africa. The main spices at first obtained from Southeast Asia were pepper and cinnamon, but soon included other products, all new to Europe. Portugal maintained a commercial monopoly of these commodities for several decades. It was not until a century later that other European powers, first the Dutch Republic and England, later France and Denmark, were able to challenge Portugal's monopoly and naval supremacy in the Cape Route.
Da Gama led two of the Portuguese India Armadas, the first and the fourth. The latter was the largest and departed for India four years after his return from the first one. For his contributions, in 1524 da Gama was appointed Governor of India, with the title of Viceroy, and was ennobled as Count of Vidigueira in 1519. He remains a leading figure in the history of exploration, and homages worldwide have celebrated his explorations and accomplishments. The Portuguese national epic poem, Os Lusíadas, was written in his honour by Luís de Camões. In March 2016 thousands of artifacts and nautical remains were recovered from the wreck of the ship Esmeralda, one of da Gama's armada, found off the coast of Oman.
Early life
Vasco da Gama was born in 1460 in the town of Sines, one of the few seaports on the Alentejo coast, southwest Portugal, probably in a house near the church of Nossa Senhora das Salas.
Vasco da Gama's father was Estêvão da Gama, who had served in the 1460s as a knight of the household of Infante Ferdinand, Duke of Viseu. He rose in the ranks of the military Order of Santiago. Estêvão da Gama was appointed alcaide-mór (civil governor) of Sines in the 1460s, a post he held until 1478; after that he continued as a receiver of taxes and holder of the Order's commendas in the region.
Estêvão da Gama married Isabel Sodré, a daughter of João Sodré (also known as João de Resende), scion of a well-connected family of English origin. Her father and her brothers, Vicente Sodré and Brás Sodré, had links to the household of Infante Diogo, Duke of Viseu, and were prominent figures in the military Order of Christ. Vasco da Gama was the third of five sons of Estêvão da Gama and Isabel Sodré – in (probable) order of age: Paulo da Gama, João Sodré, Vasco da Gama, Pedro da Gama and Aires da Gama. Vasco also had one known sister, Teresa da Gama (who married Lopo Mendes de Vasconcelos).
Little is known of da Gama's early life. The Portuguese historian Teixeira de Aragão suggests that he studied at the inland town of Évora, which is where he may have learned mathematics and navigation. It has been claimed that he studied under Abraham Zacuto, an astrologer and astronomer, but da Gama's biographer Subrahmanyam thinks this dubious.
Around 1480, da Gama followed his father (rather than the Sodrés) and joined the Order of Santiago. The master of Santiago was Prince John, who ascended to the throne in 1481 as King John II of Portugal. John II doted on the Order, and the da Gamas' prospects rose accordingly.
In 1492, John II dispatched da Gama on a mission to the port of Setúbal and to the Algarve to seize French ships in retaliation for peacetime depredations against Portuguese shipping – a task that da Gama rapidly and effectively performed.
Exploration before da Gama
From the earlier part of the 15th century, Portuguese expeditions organized by Prince Henry the Navigator had been reaching down the African coastline, principally in search of west African riches (notably, gold and slaves). They had greatly extended Portuguese maritime knowledge, but had little profit to show for the effort. After Henry's death in 1460, the Portuguese Crown showed little interest in continuing this effort and, in 1469, licensed the neglected African enterprise to a private Lisbon merchant consortium led by Fernão Gomes. Within a few years, Gomes' captains expanded Portuguese knowledge across the Gulf of Guinea, doing business in gold dust, melegueta pepper, ivory and sub-Saharan slaves. When Gomes' charter came up for renewal in 1474, Prince John (future John II), asked his father Afonso V of Portugal to pass the African charter to him.
Upon becoming king in 1481, John II of Portugal set out on many long reforms. To break the monarch's dependence on the feudal nobility, John II needed to build up the royal treasury; he considered royal commerce to be the key to achieving that. Under John II's watch, the gold and slave trade in west Africa was greatly expanded. He was eager to break into the highly profitable spice trade between Europe and Asia, which was conducted chiefly by land. At the time, this was virtually monopolized by the Republic of Venice, who operated overland routes via Levantine and Egyptian ports, through the Red Sea across to the spice markets of India. John II set a new objective for his captains: to find a sea route to Asia by sailing around the African continent.
By the time Vasco da Gama was in his 20s, the king's plans were coming to fruition. In 1487, John II dispatched two spies, Pero da Covilhã and Afonso de Paiva, overland via Egypt to East Africa and India, to scout the details of the spice markets and trade routes. The breakthrough came soon after, when John II's captain Bartolomeu Dias returned from rounding the Cape of Good Hope in 1488, having explored as far as the Fish River (Rio do Infante) in modern-day South Africa and having verified that the unknown coast stretched away to the northeast.
An explorer was needed who could prove the link between the findings of Dias and those of da Covilhã and de Paiva, and connect these separate segments into a potentially lucrative trade route across the Indian Ocean.
First voyage
On 8 July 1497 Vasco da Gama led a fleet of four ships with a crew of 170 men from Lisbon. The distance traveled in the journey around Africa to India and back was greater than the length of the equator. The navigators included Portugal's most experienced, Pero de Alenquer, Pedro Escobar, João de Coimbra, and Afonso Gonçalves. It is not known for certain how many people were in each ship's crew but approximately 55 returned, and two ships were lost. Two of the vessels were carracks, newly built for the voyage; the others were a caravel and a supply boat.
The four ships were:
São Gabriel, commanded by Vasco da Gama; a carrack of 178 tons, length 27 m, width 8.5 m, draft 2.3 m, sails of 372 m2
São Rafael, commanded by his brother Paulo da Gama; similar dimensions to the São Gabriel
Berrio (nickname, officially called São Miguel), a caravel, slightly smaller than the former two, commanded by Nicolau Coelho
A storage ship of unknown name, commanded by Gonçalo Nunes, destined to be scuttled in Mossel Bay (São Brás) in South Africa
Journey to the Cape
The expedition set sail from Lisbon on 8 July 1497. It followed the route pioneered by earlier explorers along the coast of Africa via Tenerife and the Cape Verde Islands. After reaching the coast of present-day Sierra Leone, da Gama took a course south into the open ocean, crossing the Equator and seeking the South Atlantic westerlies that Bartolomeu Dias had discovered in 1487. This course proved successful and on 4 November 1497, the expedition made landfall on the African coast. For over three months the ships had sailed more than of open ocean, by far the longest journey out of sight of land made by that time.
By 16 December, the fleet had passed the Great Fish River (Eastern Cape, South Africa) – where Dias had anchored – and sailed into waters previously unknown to Europeans. With Christmas pending, da Gama and his crew gave the coast they were passing the name Natal, which carried the connotation of "birth of Christ" in Portuguese.
Mozambique
Vasco da Gama spent 2 to 29 March 1498 in the vicinity of Mozambique Island. Arab-controlled territory on the East African coast was an integral part of the network of trade in the Indian Ocean. Fearing the local population would be hostile to Christians, da Gama impersonated a Muslim and gained audience with the Sultan of Mozambique. With the paltry trade goods he had to offer, the explorer was unable to provide a suitable gift to the ruler. Soon the local populace became suspicious of da Gama and his men. Forced by a hostile crowd to flee Mozambique, da Gama departed the harbor, firing his cannons into the city in retaliation.
Mombasa
In the vicinity of modern Kenya, the expedition resorted to piracy, looting Arab merchant ships that were generally unarmed trading vessels without heavy cannons. The Portuguese became the first known Europeans to visit the port of Mombasa from 7 to 13 April 1498, but were met with hostility and soon departed.
Malindi
Vasco da Gama continued north, arriving on 14 April 1498 at the friendlier port of Malindi, whose leaders were having a conflict with those of Mombasa. There the expedition first noted evidence of Indian traders. Da Gama and his crew contracted the services of a pilot who used his knowledge of the monsoon winds to guide the expedition the rest of the way to Calicut, located on the southwest coast of India. Sources differ over the identity of the pilot, calling him variously a Christian, a Muslim, and a Gujarati. One traditional story describes the pilot as the famous Arab navigator Ibn Majid, but other contemporaneous accounts place Majid elsewhere, and he could not have been near the vicinity at the time. None of the Portuguese historians of the time mentions Ibn Majid. Vasco da Gama left Malindi for India on 24 April 1498.
Calicut, India
The fleet arrived in Kappadu near Kozhikode (Calicut), in Malabar Coast (present day Kerala state of India), on 20 May 1498. The King of Calicut, the Samudiri (Zamorin), who was at that time staying in his second capital at Ponnani, returned to Calicut on hearing the news of the foreign fleet's arrival. The navigator was received with traditional hospitality, including a grand procession of at least 3,000 armed Nairs, but an interview with the Zamorin failed to produce any concrete results. When local authorities asked da Gama's fleet, "What brought you hither?", they replied that they had come "in search of Christians and spices." The presents that da Gama sent to the Zamorin as gifts from Dom Manuel – four cloaks of scarlet cloth, six hats, four branches of corals, twelve , a box with seven brass vessels, a chest of sugar, two barrels of oil and a cask of honey – were trivial, and failed to impress. While Zamorin's officials wondered at why there was no gold or silver, the Muslim merchants who considered da Gama their rival suggested that the latter was only an ordinary pirate and not a royal ambassador. Vasco da Gama's request for permission to leave a factor behind him in charge of the merchandise he could not sell was turned down by the King, who insisted that da Gama pay customs duty – preferably in gold – like any other trader, which strained the relation between the two. Annoyed by this, da Gama carried a few Nairs and sixteen fishermen (mukkuva) off with him by force.
Return
Vasco da Gama left Calicut on 29 August 1498. Eager to set sail for home, he ignored the local knowledge of monsoon wind patterns that were still blowing onshore. The fleet initially inched north along the Indian coast, and then anchored in at Anjediva island for a spell. They finally struck out for their Indian Ocean crossing on 3 October 1498. But with the winter monsoon yet to set in, it was a harrowing journey. On the outgoing journey, sailing with the summer monsoon wind, da Gama's fleet crossed the Indian Ocean in only 23 days; now, on the return trip, sailing against the wind, it took 132 days.
Da Gama saw land again only on 2 January 1499, passing before the coastal Somali city of Mogadishu, then under the influence of the Ajuran Empire in the Horn of Africa. The fleet did not make a stop, but passing before Mogadishu, the anonymous diarist of the expedition noted that it was a large city with houses of four or five storeys high and big palaces in its center and many mosques with cylindrical minarets.
Da Gama's fleet finally arrived in Malindi on 7 January 1499, in a terrible state – approximately half of the crew had died during the crossing, and many of the rest were afflicted with scurvy. Not having enough crewmen left standing to manage three ships, da Gama ordered the São Rafael scuttled off the East African coast, and the crew re-distributed to the remaining two ships, the São Gabriel and the Berrio. Thereafter, the sailing was smoother. By early March, they had arrived in Mossel Bay, and crossed the Cape of Good Hope in the opposite direction on 20 March, reaching the west African coast by 25 April.
The diary record of the expedition ends abruptly here. Reconstructing from other sources, it seems they continued to Cape Verde, where Nicolau Coelho's Berrio separated from Vasco da Gama's São Gabriel and sailed on by itself. The Berrio arrived in Lisbon on 10 July 1499 and Nicolau Coelho personally delivered the news to King Manuel I and the royal court, then assembled in Sintra. In the meantime, back in Cape Verde, da Gama's brother, Paulo da Gama, had fallen grievously ill. Da Gama elected to stay by his side on Santiago island and handed the São Gabriel over to his clerk, João de Sá, to take home. The São Gabriel under Sá arrived in Lisbon sometime in late July or early August. Da Gama and his sickly brother eventually hitched a ride with a Guinea caravel returning to Portugal, but Paulo da Gama died en route. Da Gama disembarked at the Azores to bury his brother at the monastery of São Francisco in Angra do Heroismo, and lingered there for a little while in mourning. He eventually took passage on an Azorean caravel and finally arrived in Lisbon on 29 August 1499 (according to Barros), or early September (8th or 18th, according to other sources). Despite his melancholic mood, da Gama was given a hero's welcome and showered with honors, including a triumphal procession and public festivities. King Manuel wrote two letters in which he described da Gama's first voyage, in July and August 1499, soon after the return of the ships. Girolamo Sernigi also wrote three letters describing da Gama's first voyage soon after the return of the expedition.
The expedition had exacted a large cost – two ships and over half the men had been lost. It had also failed in its principal mission of securing a commercial treaty with Calicut. Nonetheless, the small quantities of spices and other trade goods brought back on the remaining two ships demonstrated the potential of great profit for future trade. Vasco da Gama was justly celebrated for opening a direct sea route to Asia. His path would be followed up thereafter by yearly Portuguese India Armadas.
The spice trade would prove to be a major asset to the Portuguese royal treasury, and other consequences soon followed. For example, da Gama's voyage had made it clear that the east coast of Africa, the Contra Costa, was essential to Portuguese interests; its ports provided fresh water, provisions, timber, and harbors for repairs, and served as a refuge where ships could wait out unfavorable weather. One significant result was the colonization of Mozambique by the Portuguese Crown.
Rewards
In December 1499, King Manuel I of Portugal rewarded Vasco da Gama with the town of Sines as a hereditary fief (the town his father, Estêvão, had once held as a commenda). This turned out to be a complicated affair, for Sines still belonged to the Order of Santiago. The master of the Order, Jorge de Lencastre, might have endorsed the reward – after all, da Gama was a Santiago knight, one of their own, and a close associate of Lencastre himself. But the fact that Sines was awarded by the king provoked Lencastre to refuse out of principle, lest it encourage the king to make other donations of the Order's properties. Da Gama would spend the next few years attempting to take hold of Sines, an effort that would estrange him from Lencastre and eventually prompt da Gama to abandon his beloved Order of Santiago, switching over to the rival Order of Christ in 1507.
In the meantime, da Gama made do with a substantial hereditary royal pension of 300,000 reis. He was awarded the noble title of Dom (lord) in perpetuity for himself, his siblings and their descendants. On 30 January 1502, da Gama was awarded the title of Almirante dos mares de Arabia, Persia, India e de todo o Oriente ("Admiral of the Seas of Arabia, Persia, India and all the Orient") – an overwrought title reminiscent of the ornate Castilian title borne by Christopher Columbus (evidently, Manuel must have reckoned that if Castile had an 'Admiral of the Ocean Seas', then surely Portugal should have one too). Another royal letter, dated October 1501, gave da Gama the personal right to intervene and exercise a determining role on any future India-bound fleet.
Around 1501, Vasco da Gama married Catarina de Ataíde, daughter of Álvaro de Ataíde, the alcaide-mór of Alvor (Algarve), and a prominent nobleman connected by kinship with the powerful Almeida family (Catarina was a first cousin of Dom Francisco de Almeida).
Second voyage
The follow-up expedition, the Second India Armada, launched in 1500 under the command of Pedro Álvares Cabral with the mission of making a treaty with the Zamorin of Calicut and setting up a Portuguese factory in the city. However, Pedro Cabral entered into a conflict with the local Arab merchant guilds, with the result that the Portuguese factory was overrun in a riot and up to 70 Portuguese were killed. Cabral blamed the Zamorin for the incident and bombarded the city. Thus war broke out between Portugal and Calicut.
Vasco da Gama invoked his royal letter to take command of the 4th India Armada, scheduled to set out in 1502, with the explicit aim of taking revenge upon the Zamorin and force him to submit to Portuguese terms. The heavily armed fleet of fifteen ships and eight hundred men left Lisbon on 12 February 1502. It was followed in April by another squadron of five ships led by his cousin, Estêvão da Gama (the son of Aires da Gama), which caught up to them in the Indian Ocean. The 4th Armada was a veritable da Gama family affair. Two of his maternal uncles, Vicente Sodré and Brás Sodré, were pre-designated to command an Indian Ocean naval patrol, while brothers-in-law Álvaro de Ataíde (brother of Vasco's wife Catarina) and Lopo Mendes de Vasconcelos (betrothed to Teresa da Gama, Vasco's sister) captained ships in the main fleet.
On the outgoing voyage, da Gama's fleet opened contact with the East African gold trading port of Sofala and reduced the sultanate of Kilwa to tribute, extracting a substantial sum of gold.
Pilgrim ship incident
On reaching India in October 1502, da Gama's fleet intercepted a ship of Muslim pilgrims at Madayi travelling from Calicut to Mecca. Described in detail by eyewitness Thomé Lopes and chronicler Gaspar Correia, da Gama looted the ship with over 400 pilgrims on board including 50 women, locked in the passengers, the owner and an ambassador from Egypt and burned them to death. They offered their wealth, which "could ransom all the Christian slaves in the Kingdom of Fez and much more" but were not spared. Da Gama looked on through the porthole and saw the women bringing up their gold and jewels and holding up their babies to beg for mercy.
Calicut
After stopping at Cannanore, Gama drove his fleet before Calicut, demanding redress for the treatment of Cabral. Having known of the fate of the pilgrims' ship, the Zamorin adopted a conciliatory attitude towards the Portuguese and expressed willingness to sign a new treaty but da Gama made a call to the Hindu king to expel all Muslims from Calicut before beginning negotiations, which was turned down. At the same time however, the Zamorin sent a message to his rebellious vassal, the Raja of Cochin urging cooperation and obedience to counter the Portuguese threat; the ruler of Cochin forwarded this message to Gama, which reinforced his opinion of the Indians as duplicitous. After demanding the expulsion of Muslims from Calicut to the Hindu Zamorin, the latter sent the high priest Talappana Namboothiri (the very same person who conducted da Gama to the Zamorin's chamber during his much celebrated first visit to Calicut in May 1498) for talks. Da Gama called him a spy, ordered the priests' lips and ears to be cut off and after sewing a pair of dog's ears to his head, sent him away. The Portuguese fleet then bombarded the unfortified city for nearly two days from the sea, severely damaging it. He also captured several rice vessels and cut off the crew's hands, ears and noses, dispatching them with a note to the Zamorin, in which Gama declared that he would be open to friendly relations once the Zamorin had paid for the items plundered from the feitoria as well as the gunpowder and cannonballs.
Seabattle
The violent treatment meted out by da Gama quickly brought trade along the Malabar Coast of India, upon which Calicut depended, to a standstill. The Zamorin ventured to dispatch a fleet of strong warships to challenge da Gama's armada, but which Gama managed to defeat in a naval battle before Calicut harbor.
Cochin
Da Gama loaded up with spices at Cochin and Cannanore, small nearby kingdoms at war with the Zamorin, whose alliances had been secured by prior Portuguese fleets. The 4th armada left India in early 1503. Da Gama left behind a small squadron of caravels under the command of his uncle, Vicente Sodré, to patrol the Indian coast, to continue harassing Calicut shipping, and to protect the Portuguese factories at Cochin and Cannanore from the Zamorin's inevitable reprisals.
Vasco da Gama arrived back in Portugal in September 1503, effectively having failed in his mission to bring the Zamorin to submission. This failure, and the subsequent more galling failure of his uncle Vicente Sodré to protect the Portuguese factory in Cochin, probably counted against any further rewards. When the Portuguese king Manuel I of Portugal decided to appoint the first governor and viceroy of Portuguese India in 1505, da Gama was conspicuously overlooked, and the post given to Francisco de Almeida.
Interlude
For the next two decades, Vasco da Gama lived out a quiet life, unwelcome in the royal court and sidelined from Indian affairs. His attempts to return to the favor of Manuel I (including switching over to the Order of Christ in 1507), yielded little. Almeida, the larger-than-life Afonso de Albuquerque and, later on, Albergaria and Sequeira, were the king's preferred point men for India.
After Ferdinand Magellan defected to the Crown of Castile in 1518, Vasco da Gama threatened to do the same, prompting the king to undertake steps to retain him in Portugal and avoid the embarrassment of losing his own "Admiral of the Indies" to Spain. In 1519, after years of ignoring his petitions, King Manuel I finally hurried to give Vasco da Gama a feudal title, appointing him the first Count of Vidigueira, a count title created by a royal decree issued in Évora on 29 December, after a complicated agreement with Dom Jaime, Duke of Braganza, who ceded him on payment the towns of Vidigueira and Vila dos Frades. The decree granted Vasco da Gama and his heirs all the revenues and privileges related, thus establishing da Gama as the first Portuguese count who was not born with royal blood.
Third voyage and death
After the death of King Manuel I in late 1521, his son and successor, King John III of Portugal set about reviewing the Portuguese government overseas. Turning away from the old Albuquerque clique (now represented by Diogo Lopes de Sequeira), John III looked for a fresh start. Vasco da Gama re-emerged from his political wilderness as an important adviser to the new king's appointments and strategy. Seeing the new Spanish threat to the Maluku Islands as the priority, Vasco da Gama advised against the obsession with Arabia that had pervaded much of the Manueline period, and continued to be the dominant concern of Duarte de Menezes, then-governor of Portuguese India. Menezes also turned out to be incompetent and corrupt, subject to numerous complaints. As a result, John III decided to appoint Vasco da Gama himself to replace Menezes, confident that the magic of his name and memory of his deeds might better impress his authority on Portuguese India, and manage the transition to a new government and new strategy.
By his appointment letter of February 1524, John III granted Vasco da Gama the privileged title of "Viceroy", being only the second Portuguese governor to enjoy that title (the first was Francisco de Almeida in 1505). His second son, Estêvão da Gama was simultaneously appointed Capitão-mor do Mar da Índia ('Captain-major of the Indian Sea', commander of the Indian Ocean naval patrol fleet), to replace Duarte's brother, Luís de Menezes. As a final condition, Gama secured from John III of Portugal the commitment to appoint all his sons successively as Portuguese captains of Malacca.
Setting out in April 1524, with a fleet of fourteen ships, Vasco da Gama took as his flagship the famous large carrack Santa Catarina do Monte Sinai on her last journey to India, along with two of his sons, Estêvão and Paulo. After a troubled journey (four or five of the ships were lost en route), he arrived in India in September. Vasco da Gama immediately invoked his high viceregent powers to impose a new order in Portuguese India, replacing all the old officials with his own appointments. But Gama contracted malaria not long after arriving, and died in the city of Cochin on Christmas Eve in 1524, three months after his arrival. As per royal instructions, da Gama was succeeded as governor of India by one of the captains who had come with him, Henrique de Menezes (no relation to Duarte). Da Gama's sons Estêvão and Paulo immediately lost their posts and joined the returning fleet of early 1525 (along with the dismissed Duarte de Menezes and Luís de Menezes).
Vasco da Gama's body was first buried at St. Francis Church, which was located at Fort Kochi in the city of Kochi, but his remains were returned to Portugal in 1539. The body of Vasco da Gama was re-interred in Vidigueira in a casket decorated with gold and jewels.
The Monastery of the Hieronymites, in Belém, which would become the necropolis of the Portuguese royal dynasty of Aviz, was erected in the early 1500s near the launch point of Vasco da Gama's first journey, and its construction funded by a tax on the profits of the yearly Portuguese India Armadas. In 1880, da Gama's remains and those of the poet Luís de Camões (who celebrated da Gama's first voyage in his 1572 epic poem, The Lusiad), were moved to new carved tombs in the nave of the monastery's church, only a few meters away from the tombs of the kings Manuel I and John III, whom da Gama had served.
Marriage and descendants
Vasco da Gama and his wife, Catarina de Ataíde, had six sons and one daughter:
Dom Francisco da Gama, who inherited his father's titles as 2nd Count of Vidigueira and the 2nd "Admiral of the Seas of India, Arabia and Persia". He remained in Portugal.
Dom Estevão da Gama, after his abortive 1524 term as Indian patrol captain, he was appointed for a three-year term as captain of Malacca, serving from 1534 to 1539 (includes the last two years of his younger brother Paulo's term). He was subsequently appointed as the 11th governor of India from 1540 to 1542.
Dom Paulo da Gama (having the same name as his uncle Paulo), captain of Malacca from 1533 to 1534, killed in a naval action off Malacca.
Dom Cristovão da Gama, captain of Malacca from 1538 to 1540; nominated to succeed in Malacca, but executed by Ahmad ibn Ibrahim during the Ethiopian-Adal war in 1542.
Dom Pedro da Silva da Gama, appointed captain of Malacca from 1548 to 1552.
Dom Álvaro d'Ataide da Gama, appointed captain of Malacca fleet in the 1540s, captain of Malacca itself from 1552 to 1554.
Dona Isabel d'Ataide da Gama, only daughter, married Ignacio de Noronha, son of the first Count of Linhares.
His male-line issue became extinct in 1747, though the title continued through the female-line.
Intergenerations
Dom Vasco da Gama, 3rd Count of Vidigueira, the nobility and military personnel, son of Francisco (2nd Count) and grandson of Vasco da Gama.
Dom Francisco da Gama, 4th Count of Vidigueira, the viceroy (1597–1600) and governor (1622–1628) of India, son of Vasco (3rd Count) and great-grandson of Vasco da Gama.
Legacy
Vasco da Gama is one of the most famous and celebrated explorers from the Age of Discovery. As much as anyone after Henry the Navigator, he was responsible for Portugal's success as an early colonising power. Beside the fact of the first voyage itself, it was his astute mix of politics and war on the other side of the world that placed Portugal in a prominent position in Indian Ocean trade. Following da Gama's initial voyage, the Portuguese crown realized that securing outposts on the eastern coast of Africa would prove vital to maintaining national trade routes to the Far East.
However, his fame is tempered by such incidents and attitudes as displayed in the notorious Pilgrim Ship Incident previously discussed.
The Portuguese national epic, the Lusíadas of Luís Vaz de Camões, largely concerns Vasco da Gama's voyages.
The 1865 grand opera L'Africaine: Opéra en Cinq Actes, composed by Giacomo Meyerbeer from a libretto by Eugène Scribe, prominently includes the character of Vasco da Gama. The events depicted, however, are fictitious. Meyerbeer's working title for the opera was Vasco da Gama. A 1989 production of the opera by the San Francisco Opera featured noted tenor Plácido Domingo in the role of da Gama. The 19th-century composer Louis-Albert Bourgault-Ducoudray composed an eponymous 1872 opera based on da Gama's life and exploits at sea.
The port city of Vasco da Gama in Goa is named after him, as is the crater Vasco da Gama on the Moon. There are three football clubs in Brazil (including Club de Regatas Vasco da Gama) and Vasco Sports Club in Goa that were also named after him. There exists a church in Kochi, Kerala called Vasco da Gama Church, and a private residence on the island of Saint Helena. The suburb of Vasco in Cape Town also honours him.
A few places in Lisbon's Parque das Nações are named after the explorer, such as the Vasco da Gama Bridge, Vasco da Gama Tower and the Centro Comercial Vasco da Gama shopping centre. The Oceanário in the Parque das Nações has a mascot of a cartoon diver with the name of "Vasco", who is named after the explorer.
Vasco da Gama was the only explorer on the final pool of Os Grandes Portugueses. Although the final shortlist featured other Age of Discovery related people, they were not actually explorers nor navigators for any matter.
The Portuguese Navy has a class of frigates named after him. There are three Vasco da Gama class frigates in total, of which the first one also bears his name.
The Portuguese government erected two navigational beacons, Dias Cross and da Gama Cross, to commemorate da Gama and Bartolomeu Dias who were the first modern European explorers to reach the Cape of Good Hope. When lined up, these crosses point to Whittle Rock, a large, permanently submerged shipping hazard in False Bay.
South African musician Hugh Masekela recorded an anti-colonialist song entitled "Colonial Man", which contains the lyrics "Vasco da Gama was no friend of mine", and another song entitled "Vasco da Gama (The Sailor Man)". Both songs were included in his 1976 album Colonial Man.
Vasco da Gama appears as an antagonist in the Indian film Urumi. The film, directed by Santosh Sivan, depicts atrocities and progression to establish the Portuguese empire by da Gama in India.
In March 2016, archaeologists working off the coast of Oman identified a shipwreck believed to be that of the Esmeralda from da Gama's 1502–1503 fleet. The wreck was initially discovered in 1998. Later underwater excavations took place between 2013 and 2015 through a partnership between the Oman Ministry of Heritage and Culture and Blue Water Recoveries Ltd., a shipwreck recovery company. The vessel was identified through such artifacts as a "Portuguese coin minted for trade with India (one of only two coins of this type known to exist) and stone cannonballs engraved with what appear to be the initials of Vincente Sodré, da Gama's maternal uncle and the commander of the Esmeralda."
See also
Chronology of European exploration of Asia
References
Citations
Bibliography
Castanhoso, M. de (1898) Dos feitos de D. Christovam da Gama em Ethiopia Lisbon: Imprensa nacional. online
Facsimile reprint of an 1869 edition by the Hakluyt Society, London.
(reissued by Cambridge University Press, 2010. )
Teixeira de Aragão, A.C. (1887) Vasco da Gama e a Vidigueira: um estudo historico. Lisbon: Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa online
Further reading
Vasco da Gama (Ernst Georg Ravenstein, Gaspar Corrêa, Alvaro Velho) [2011] Viartis
Vasco da Gama: Renaissance Crusader (Glen J.Ames) [2004] Longman
The Career and Legend of Vasco da Gama (Sanjay Subrahmanyam) [1997] Cambridge University Press
External links
Vasco da Gama's Round Africa to India, fordham.edu
Vasco da Gama web tutorial with animated maps, ucalgary.ca
A Portuguese East Indiaman from the 1502–1503 Fleet of Vasco da Gama off Al Hallaniyah Island, Oman: an interim report, IJNA
Portuguese explorers
Portuguese colonial governors and administrators
Maritime history of Portugal
Explorers of Asia
Explorers of India
Explorers of Africa
Viceroys of Portuguese India
Vasco
1460s births
1524 deaths
Deaths from malaria
Infectious disease deaths in India
Maritime history of South Africa
Colonial Goa
Colonial Kerala
History of Goa
People from Sines
People of Portuguese India
People from Vidigueira
Portuguese Roman Catholics
15th-century explorers
15th-century Portuguese people
15th-century Roman Catholics | true | [
"City of Kings: The Sac-a-Indo Project is the sixth studio album by rapper X-Raided, and his first collaboration (non-solo) album, released in conjunction with rapper Kingpen. It was released on July 2, 2002 for Out of Bounds Records and featured production from X-Raided and Big Hollis.\n\nTrack listing\n\"Sac-A-Intro\"- 2:04 \n\"Respect for None\"- 3:50 \n\"What Can They Say\"- 4:15 \n\"The Monster Mash\"- 4:25 (Featuring Luni Coleone) \n\"City of Kings\"- 3:50 \n\"It Will Never Happen\"- 3:56 \n\"Otherwise\" (Neglection)- 4:15 \n\"The Process\"- 0:51 \n\"Relentless\"- 3:50 \n\"Bomb Guts\"- 4:05 \n\"Off the Deep End\"- 2:40 (Featuring Mac Jesus) \n\"Repercussions\" (A Time to Ride)- 3:49 \n\"Retaliation\" (Coming for Me)- 4:43 \n\"We Did That\"- 2:10\n\n2002 albums\nX-Raided albums\nAlbums produced by Big Hollis",
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] |
[
"Vasco da Gama",
"Exploration before da Gama",
"Was types of exploration happened before da Gama?",
"From the earlier part of the 15th century, Portuguese expeditions organized by Prince Henry the Navigator had been reaching down the African coastline, principally in search of west African riches",
"Were any riches found?",
"They had greatly extended Portuguese maritime knowledge, but had little profit to show for the effort. After Henry's death in 1460,",
"What happened after Henry's death?",
"the Portuguese Crown showed little interest in continuing this effort and, in 1469, sold off the neglected African enterprise to a private Lisbon merchant",
"What was the result of neglection of the African enterprise?",
"Within a few years, Gomes' captains expanded Portuguese knowledge across the Gulf of Guinea, doing business in gold dust, Melegueta pepper, ivory and sub-Saharan slaves."
] | C_ad92303978184a0890a8eb9304f15d62_1 | What was the most profitable trade? | 5 | What was the most profitable trade across the Gulf of Guinea? | Vasco da Gama | From the earlier part of the 15th century, Portuguese expeditions organized by Prince Henry the Navigator had been reaching down the African coastline, principally in search of west African riches (notably, gold). They had greatly extended Portuguese maritime knowledge, but had little profit to show for the effort. After Henry's death in 1460, the Portuguese Crown showed little interest in continuing this effort and, in 1469, sold off the neglected African enterprise to a private Lisbon merchant consortium led by Fernao Gomes. Within a few years, Gomes' captains expanded Portuguese knowledge across the Gulf of Guinea, doing business in gold dust, Melegueta pepper, ivory and sub-Saharan slaves. When Gomes' charter came up for renewal in 1474, Prince John (future John II), asked his father Afonso V of Portugal to pass the African charter to him. Upon becoming king in 1481, John II of Portugal set out on many long reforms. To break the monarch's dependence on the feudal nobility, John II needed to build up the royal treasury; he considered royal commerce to be the key to achieving that. Under John II's watch, the gold and slave trade in west Africa was greatly expanded. He was eager to break into the highly profitable spice trade between Europe and Asia, which was conducted chiefly by land. At the time, this was virtually monopolized by the Republic of Venice, who operated overland routes via Levantine and Egyptian ports, through the Red Sea across to the spice markets of India. John II set a new objective for his captains: to find a sea route to Asia by sailing around the African continent. By the time Vasco da Gama was in his 20s, the king's plans were coming to fruition. In 1487, John II dispatched two spies, Pero da Covilha and Afonso de Paiva, overland via Egypt to East Africa and India, to scout the details of the spice markets and trade routes. The breakthrough came soon after, when John II's captain Bartolomeu Dias returned from rounding the Cape of Good Hope in 1488, having explored as far as the Fish River (Rio do Infante) in modern-day South Africa and having verified that the unknown coast stretched away to the northeast. An explorer was needed who could prove the link between the findings of Dias and those of da Covilha and de Paiva, and connect these separate segments into a potentially lucrative trade route across the Indian Ocean. CANNOTANSWER | To break the monarch's dependence on the feudal nobility, John II needed to build up the royal treasury; | Vasco da Gama, 1st Count of Vidigueira (, ; ; c. 1460s – 24 December 1524), was a Portuguese explorer and the first European to reach India by sea.
His initial voyage to India by way of Cape of Good Hope (1497–1499) was the first to link Europe and Asia by an ocean route, connecting the Atlantic and the Indian oceans and therefore, the West and the Orient. This is widely considered a milestone in world history, as it marked the beginning of a sea-based phase of global multiculturalism. Da Gama's discovery of the sea route to India opened the way for an age of global imperialism and enabled the Portuguese to establish a long-lasting colonial empire along the way from Africa to Asia. The violence and hostage taking employed by da Gama and those who followed also assigned a brutal reputation to the Portuguese among India's indigenous kingdoms that would set the pattern for western colonialism in the Age of Exploration. Traveling the ocean route allowed the Portuguese to avoid sailing across the highly disputed Mediterranean and traversing the dangerous Arabian Peninsula. The sum of the distances covered in the outward and return voyages made this expedition the longest ocean voyage ever made until then.
After decades of sailors trying to reach the Indies, with thousands of lives and dozens of vessels lost in shipwrecks and attacks, da Gama landed in Calicut on 20 May 1498. Unopposed access to the Indian spice routes boosted the economy of the Portuguese Empire, which was previously based along northern and coastal West Africa. The main spices at first obtained from Southeast Asia were pepper and cinnamon, but soon included other products, all new to Europe. Portugal maintained a commercial monopoly of these commodities for several decades. It was not until a century later that other European powers, first the Dutch Republic and England, later France and Denmark, were able to challenge Portugal's monopoly and naval supremacy in the Cape Route.
Da Gama led two of the Portuguese India Armadas, the first and the fourth. The latter was the largest and departed for India four years after his return from the first one. For his contributions, in 1524 da Gama was appointed Governor of India, with the title of Viceroy, and was ennobled as Count of Vidigueira in 1519. He remains a leading figure in the history of exploration, and homages worldwide have celebrated his explorations and accomplishments. The Portuguese national epic poem, Os Lusíadas, was written in his honour by Luís de Camões. In March 2016 thousands of artifacts and nautical remains were recovered from the wreck of the ship Esmeralda, one of da Gama's armada, found off the coast of Oman.
Early life
Vasco da Gama was born in 1460 in the town of Sines, one of the few seaports on the Alentejo coast, southwest Portugal, probably in a house near the church of Nossa Senhora das Salas.
Vasco da Gama's father was Estêvão da Gama, who had served in the 1460s as a knight of the household of Infante Ferdinand, Duke of Viseu. He rose in the ranks of the military Order of Santiago. Estêvão da Gama was appointed alcaide-mór (civil governor) of Sines in the 1460s, a post he held until 1478; after that he continued as a receiver of taxes and holder of the Order's commendas in the region.
Estêvão da Gama married Isabel Sodré, a daughter of João Sodré (also known as João de Resende), scion of a well-connected family of English origin. Her father and her brothers, Vicente Sodré and Brás Sodré, had links to the household of Infante Diogo, Duke of Viseu, and were prominent figures in the military Order of Christ. Vasco da Gama was the third of five sons of Estêvão da Gama and Isabel Sodré – in (probable) order of age: Paulo da Gama, João Sodré, Vasco da Gama, Pedro da Gama and Aires da Gama. Vasco also had one known sister, Teresa da Gama (who married Lopo Mendes de Vasconcelos).
Little is known of da Gama's early life. The Portuguese historian Teixeira de Aragão suggests that he studied at the inland town of Évora, which is where he may have learned mathematics and navigation. It has been claimed that he studied under Abraham Zacuto, an astrologer and astronomer, but da Gama's biographer Subrahmanyam thinks this dubious.
Around 1480, da Gama followed his father (rather than the Sodrés) and joined the Order of Santiago. The master of Santiago was Prince John, who ascended to the throne in 1481 as King John II of Portugal. John II doted on the Order, and the da Gamas' prospects rose accordingly.
In 1492, John II dispatched da Gama on a mission to the port of Setúbal and to the Algarve to seize French ships in retaliation for peacetime depredations against Portuguese shipping – a task that da Gama rapidly and effectively performed.
Exploration before da Gama
From the earlier part of the 15th century, Portuguese expeditions organized by Prince Henry the Navigator had been reaching down the African coastline, principally in search of west African riches (notably, gold and slaves). They had greatly extended Portuguese maritime knowledge, but had little profit to show for the effort. After Henry's death in 1460, the Portuguese Crown showed little interest in continuing this effort and, in 1469, licensed the neglected African enterprise to a private Lisbon merchant consortium led by Fernão Gomes. Within a few years, Gomes' captains expanded Portuguese knowledge across the Gulf of Guinea, doing business in gold dust, melegueta pepper, ivory and sub-Saharan slaves. When Gomes' charter came up for renewal in 1474, Prince John (future John II), asked his father Afonso V of Portugal to pass the African charter to him.
Upon becoming king in 1481, John II of Portugal set out on many long reforms. To break the monarch's dependence on the feudal nobility, John II needed to build up the royal treasury; he considered royal commerce to be the key to achieving that. Under John II's watch, the gold and slave trade in west Africa was greatly expanded. He was eager to break into the highly profitable spice trade between Europe and Asia, which was conducted chiefly by land. At the time, this was virtually monopolized by the Republic of Venice, who operated overland routes via Levantine and Egyptian ports, through the Red Sea across to the spice markets of India. John II set a new objective for his captains: to find a sea route to Asia by sailing around the African continent.
By the time Vasco da Gama was in his 20s, the king's plans were coming to fruition. In 1487, John II dispatched two spies, Pero da Covilhã and Afonso de Paiva, overland via Egypt to East Africa and India, to scout the details of the spice markets and trade routes. The breakthrough came soon after, when John II's captain Bartolomeu Dias returned from rounding the Cape of Good Hope in 1488, having explored as far as the Fish River (Rio do Infante) in modern-day South Africa and having verified that the unknown coast stretched away to the northeast.
An explorer was needed who could prove the link between the findings of Dias and those of da Covilhã and de Paiva, and connect these separate segments into a potentially lucrative trade route across the Indian Ocean.
First voyage
On 8 July 1497 Vasco da Gama led a fleet of four ships with a crew of 170 men from Lisbon. The distance traveled in the journey around Africa to India and back was greater than the length of the equator. The navigators included Portugal's most experienced, Pero de Alenquer, Pedro Escobar, João de Coimbra, and Afonso Gonçalves. It is not known for certain how many people were in each ship's crew but approximately 55 returned, and two ships were lost. Two of the vessels were carracks, newly built for the voyage; the others were a caravel and a supply boat.
The four ships were:
São Gabriel, commanded by Vasco da Gama; a carrack of 178 tons, length 27 m, width 8.5 m, draft 2.3 m, sails of 372 m2
São Rafael, commanded by his brother Paulo da Gama; similar dimensions to the São Gabriel
Berrio (nickname, officially called São Miguel), a caravel, slightly smaller than the former two, commanded by Nicolau Coelho
A storage ship of unknown name, commanded by Gonçalo Nunes, destined to be scuttled in Mossel Bay (São Brás) in South Africa
Journey to the Cape
The expedition set sail from Lisbon on 8 July 1497. It followed the route pioneered by earlier explorers along the coast of Africa via Tenerife and the Cape Verde Islands. After reaching the coast of present-day Sierra Leone, da Gama took a course south into the open ocean, crossing the Equator and seeking the South Atlantic westerlies that Bartolomeu Dias had discovered in 1487. This course proved successful and on 4 November 1497, the expedition made landfall on the African coast. For over three months the ships had sailed more than of open ocean, by far the longest journey out of sight of land made by that time.
By 16 December, the fleet had passed the Great Fish River (Eastern Cape, South Africa) – where Dias had anchored – and sailed into waters previously unknown to Europeans. With Christmas pending, da Gama and his crew gave the coast they were passing the name Natal, which carried the connotation of "birth of Christ" in Portuguese.
Mozambique
Vasco da Gama spent 2 to 29 March 1498 in the vicinity of Mozambique Island. Arab-controlled territory on the East African coast was an integral part of the network of trade in the Indian Ocean. Fearing the local population would be hostile to Christians, da Gama impersonated a Muslim and gained audience with the Sultan of Mozambique. With the paltry trade goods he had to offer, the explorer was unable to provide a suitable gift to the ruler. Soon the local populace became suspicious of da Gama and his men. Forced by a hostile crowd to flee Mozambique, da Gama departed the harbor, firing his cannons into the city in retaliation.
Mombasa
In the vicinity of modern Kenya, the expedition resorted to piracy, looting Arab merchant ships that were generally unarmed trading vessels without heavy cannons. The Portuguese became the first known Europeans to visit the port of Mombasa from 7 to 13 April 1498, but were met with hostility and soon departed.
Malindi
Vasco da Gama continued north, arriving on 14 April 1498 at the friendlier port of Malindi, whose leaders were having a conflict with those of Mombasa. There the expedition first noted evidence of Indian traders. Da Gama and his crew contracted the services of a pilot who used his knowledge of the monsoon winds to guide the expedition the rest of the way to Calicut, located on the southwest coast of India. Sources differ over the identity of the pilot, calling him variously a Christian, a Muslim, and a Gujarati. One traditional story describes the pilot as the famous Arab navigator Ibn Majid, but other contemporaneous accounts place Majid elsewhere, and he could not have been near the vicinity at the time. None of the Portuguese historians of the time mentions Ibn Majid. Vasco da Gama left Malindi for India on 24 April 1498.
Calicut, India
The fleet arrived in Kappadu near Kozhikode (Calicut), in Malabar Coast (present day Kerala state of India), on 20 May 1498. The King of Calicut, the Samudiri (Zamorin), who was at that time staying in his second capital at Ponnani, returned to Calicut on hearing the news of the foreign fleet's arrival. The navigator was received with traditional hospitality, including a grand procession of at least 3,000 armed Nairs, but an interview with the Zamorin failed to produce any concrete results. When local authorities asked da Gama's fleet, "What brought you hither?", they replied that they had come "in search of Christians and spices." The presents that da Gama sent to the Zamorin as gifts from Dom Manuel – four cloaks of scarlet cloth, six hats, four branches of corals, twelve , a box with seven brass vessels, a chest of sugar, two barrels of oil and a cask of honey – were trivial, and failed to impress. While Zamorin's officials wondered at why there was no gold or silver, the Muslim merchants who considered da Gama their rival suggested that the latter was only an ordinary pirate and not a royal ambassador. Vasco da Gama's request for permission to leave a factor behind him in charge of the merchandise he could not sell was turned down by the King, who insisted that da Gama pay customs duty – preferably in gold – like any other trader, which strained the relation between the two. Annoyed by this, da Gama carried a few Nairs and sixteen fishermen (mukkuva) off with him by force.
Return
Vasco da Gama left Calicut on 29 August 1498. Eager to set sail for home, he ignored the local knowledge of monsoon wind patterns that were still blowing onshore. The fleet initially inched north along the Indian coast, and then anchored in at Anjediva island for a spell. They finally struck out for their Indian Ocean crossing on 3 October 1498. But with the winter monsoon yet to set in, it was a harrowing journey. On the outgoing journey, sailing with the summer monsoon wind, da Gama's fleet crossed the Indian Ocean in only 23 days; now, on the return trip, sailing against the wind, it took 132 days.
Da Gama saw land again only on 2 January 1499, passing before the coastal Somali city of Mogadishu, then under the influence of the Ajuran Empire in the Horn of Africa. The fleet did not make a stop, but passing before Mogadishu, the anonymous diarist of the expedition noted that it was a large city with houses of four or five storeys high and big palaces in its center and many mosques with cylindrical minarets.
Da Gama's fleet finally arrived in Malindi on 7 January 1499, in a terrible state – approximately half of the crew had died during the crossing, and many of the rest were afflicted with scurvy. Not having enough crewmen left standing to manage three ships, da Gama ordered the São Rafael scuttled off the East African coast, and the crew re-distributed to the remaining two ships, the São Gabriel and the Berrio. Thereafter, the sailing was smoother. By early March, they had arrived in Mossel Bay, and crossed the Cape of Good Hope in the opposite direction on 20 March, reaching the west African coast by 25 April.
The diary record of the expedition ends abruptly here. Reconstructing from other sources, it seems they continued to Cape Verde, where Nicolau Coelho's Berrio separated from Vasco da Gama's São Gabriel and sailed on by itself. The Berrio arrived in Lisbon on 10 July 1499 and Nicolau Coelho personally delivered the news to King Manuel I and the royal court, then assembled in Sintra. In the meantime, back in Cape Verde, da Gama's brother, Paulo da Gama, had fallen grievously ill. Da Gama elected to stay by his side on Santiago island and handed the São Gabriel over to his clerk, João de Sá, to take home. The São Gabriel under Sá arrived in Lisbon sometime in late July or early August. Da Gama and his sickly brother eventually hitched a ride with a Guinea caravel returning to Portugal, but Paulo da Gama died en route. Da Gama disembarked at the Azores to bury his brother at the monastery of São Francisco in Angra do Heroismo, and lingered there for a little while in mourning. He eventually took passage on an Azorean caravel and finally arrived in Lisbon on 29 August 1499 (according to Barros), or early September (8th or 18th, according to other sources). Despite his melancholic mood, da Gama was given a hero's welcome and showered with honors, including a triumphal procession and public festivities. King Manuel wrote two letters in which he described da Gama's first voyage, in July and August 1499, soon after the return of the ships. Girolamo Sernigi also wrote three letters describing da Gama's first voyage soon after the return of the expedition.
The expedition had exacted a large cost – two ships and over half the men had been lost. It had also failed in its principal mission of securing a commercial treaty with Calicut. Nonetheless, the small quantities of spices and other trade goods brought back on the remaining two ships demonstrated the potential of great profit for future trade. Vasco da Gama was justly celebrated for opening a direct sea route to Asia. His path would be followed up thereafter by yearly Portuguese India Armadas.
The spice trade would prove to be a major asset to the Portuguese royal treasury, and other consequences soon followed. For example, da Gama's voyage had made it clear that the east coast of Africa, the Contra Costa, was essential to Portuguese interests; its ports provided fresh water, provisions, timber, and harbors for repairs, and served as a refuge where ships could wait out unfavorable weather. One significant result was the colonization of Mozambique by the Portuguese Crown.
Rewards
In December 1499, King Manuel I of Portugal rewarded Vasco da Gama with the town of Sines as a hereditary fief (the town his father, Estêvão, had once held as a commenda). This turned out to be a complicated affair, for Sines still belonged to the Order of Santiago. The master of the Order, Jorge de Lencastre, might have endorsed the reward – after all, da Gama was a Santiago knight, one of their own, and a close associate of Lencastre himself. But the fact that Sines was awarded by the king provoked Lencastre to refuse out of principle, lest it encourage the king to make other donations of the Order's properties. Da Gama would spend the next few years attempting to take hold of Sines, an effort that would estrange him from Lencastre and eventually prompt da Gama to abandon his beloved Order of Santiago, switching over to the rival Order of Christ in 1507.
In the meantime, da Gama made do with a substantial hereditary royal pension of 300,000 reis. He was awarded the noble title of Dom (lord) in perpetuity for himself, his siblings and their descendants. On 30 January 1502, da Gama was awarded the title of Almirante dos mares de Arabia, Persia, India e de todo o Oriente ("Admiral of the Seas of Arabia, Persia, India and all the Orient") – an overwrought title reminiscent of the ornate Castilian title borne by Christopher Columbus (evidently, Manuel must have reckoned that if Castile had an 'Admiral of the Ocean Seas', then surely Portugal should have one too). Another royal letter, dated October 1501, gave da Gama the personal right to intervene and exercise a determining role on any future India-bound fleet.
Around 1501, Vasco da Gama married Catarina de Ataíde, daughter of Álvaro de Ataíde, the alcaide-mór of Alvor (Algarve), and a prominent nobleman connected by kinship with the powerful Almeida family (Catarina was a first cousin of Dom Francisco de Almeida).
Second voyage
The follow-up expedition, the Second India Armada, launched in 1500 under the command of Pedro Álvares Cabral with the mission of making a treaty with the Zamorin of Calicut and setting up a Portuguese factory in the city. However, Pedro Cabral entered into a conflict with the local Arab merchant guilds, with the result that the Portuguese factory was overrun in a riot and up to 70 Portuguese were killed. Cabral blamed the Zamorin for the incident and bombarded the city. Thus war broke out between Portugal and Calicut.
Vasco da Gama invoked his royal letter to take command of the 4th India Armada, scheduled to set out in 1502, with the explicit aim of taking revenge upon the Zamorin and force him to submit to Portuguese terms. The heavily armed fleet of fifteen ships and eight hundred men left Lisbon on 12 February 1502. It was followed in April by another squadron of five ships led by his cousin, Estêvão da Gama (the son of Aires da Gama), which caught up to them in the Indian Ocean. The 4th Armada was a veritable da Gama family affair. Two of his maternal uncles, Vicente Sodré and Brás Sodré, were pre-designated to command an Indian Ocean naval patrol, while brothers-in-law Álvaro de Ataíde (brother of Vasco's wife Catarina) and Lopo Mendes de Vasconcelos (betrothed to Teresa da Gama, Vasco's sister) captained ships in the main fleet.
On the outgoing voyage, da Gama's fleet opened contact with the East African gold trading port of Sofala and reduced the sultanate of Kilwa to tribute, extracting a substantial sum of gold.
Pilgrim ship incident
On reaching India in October 1502, da Gama's fleet intercepted a ship of Muslim pilgrims at Madayi travelling from Calicut to Mecca. Described in detail by eyewitness Thomé Lopes and chronicler Gaspar Correia, da Gama looted the ship with over 400 pilgrims on board including 50 women, locked in the passengers, the owner and an ambassador from Egypt and burned them to death. They offered their wealth, which "could ransom all the Christian slaves in the Kingdom of Fez and much more" but were not spared. Da Gama looked on through the porthole and saw the women bringing up their gold and jewels and holding up their babies to beg for mercy.
Calicut
After stopping at Cannanore, Gama drove his fleet before Calicut, demanding redress for the treatment of Cabral. Having known of the fate of the pilgrims' ship, the Zamorin adopted a conciliatory attitude towards the Portuguese and expressed willingness to sign a new treaty but da Gama made a call to the Hindu king to expel all Muslims from Calicut before beginning negotiations, which was turned down. At the same time however, the Zamorin sent a message to his rebellious vassal, the Raja of Cochin urging cooperation and obedience to counter the Portuguese threat; the ruler of Cochin forwarded this message to Gama, which reinforced his opinion of the Indians as duplicitous. After demanding the expulsion of Muslims from Calicut to the Hindu Zamorin, the latter sent the high priest Talappana Namboothiri (the very same person who conducted da Gama to the Zamorin's chamber during his much celebrated first visit to Calicut in May 1498) for talks. Da Gama called him a spy, ordered the priests' lips and ears to be cut off and after sewing a pair of dog's ears to his head, sent him away. The Portuguese fleet then bombarded the unfortified city for nearly two days from the sea, severely damaging it. He also captured several rice vessels and cut off the crew's hands, ears and noses, dispatching them with a note to the Zamorin, in which Gama declared that he would be open to friendly relations once the Zamorin had paid for the items plundered from the feitoria as well as the gunpowder and cannonballs.
Seabattle
The violent treatment meted out by da Gama quickly brought trade along the Malabar Coast of India, upon which Calicut depended, to a standstill. The Zamorin ventured to dispatch a fleet of strong warships to challenge da Gama's armada, but which Gama managed to defeat in a naval battle before Calicut harbor.
Cochin
Da Gama loaded up with spices at Cochin and Cannanore, small nearby kingdoms at war with the Zamorin, whose alliances had been secured by prior Portuguese fleets. The 4th armada left India in early 1503. Da Gama left behind a small squadron of caravels under the command of his uncle, Vicente Sodré, to patrol the Indian coast, to continue harassing Calicut shipping, and to protect the Portuguese factories at Cochin and Cannanore from the Zamorin's inevitable reprisals.
Vasco da Gama arrived back in Portugal in September 1503, effectively having failed in his mission to bring the Zamorin to submission. This failure, and the subsequent more galling failure of his uncle Vicente Sodré to protect the Portuguese factory in Cochin, probably counted against any further rewards. When the Portuguese king Manuel I of Portugal decided to appoint the first governor and viceroy of Portuguese India in 1505, da Gama was conspicuously overlooked, and the post given to Francisco de Almeida.
Interlude
For the next two decades, Vasco da Gama lived out a quiet life, unwelcome in the royal court and sidelined from Indian affairs. His attempts to return to the favor of Manuel I (including switching over to the Order of Christ in 1507), yielded little. Almeida, the larger-than-life Afonso de Albuquerque and, later on, Albergaria and Sequeira, were the king's preferred point men for India.
After Ferdinand Magellan defected to the Crown of Castile in 1518, Vasco da Gama threatened to do the same, prompting the king to undertake steps to retain him in Portugal and avoid the embarrassment of losing his own "Admiral of the Indies" to Spain. In 1519, after years of ignoring his petitions, King Manuel I finally hurried to give Vasco da Gama a feudal title, appointing him the first Count of Vidigueira, a count title created by a royal decree issued in Évora on 29 December, after a complicated agreement with Dom Jaime, Duke of Braganza, who ceded him on payment the towns of Vidigueira and Vila dos Frades. The decree granted Vasco da Gama and his heirs all the revenues and privileges related, thus establishing da Gama as the first Portuguese count who was not born with royal blood.
Third voyage and death
After the death of King Manuel I in late 1521, his son and successor, King John III of Portugal set about reviewing the Portuguese government overseas. Turning away from the old Albuquerque clique (now represented by Diogo Lopes de Sequeira), John III looked for a fresh start. Vasco da Gama re-emerged from his political wilderness as an important adviser to the new king's appointments and strategy. Seeing the new Spanish threat to the Maluku Islands as the priority, Vasco da Gama advised against the obsession with Arabia that had pervaded much of the Manueline period, and continued to be the dominant concern of Duarte de Menezes, then-governor of Portuguese India. Menezes also turned out to be incompetent and corrupt, subject to numerous complaints. As a result, John III decided to appoint Vasco da Gama himself to replace Menezes, confident that the magic of his name and memory of his deeds might better impress his authority on Portuguese India, and manage the transition to a new government and new strategy.
By his appointment letter of February 1524, John III granted Vasco da Gama the privileged title of "Viceroy", being only the second Portuguese governor to enjoy that title (the first was Francisco de Almeida in 1505). His second son, Estêvão da Gama was simultaneously appointed Capitão-mor do Mar da Índia ('Captain-major of the Indian Sea', commander of the Indian Ocean naval patrol fleet), to replace Duarte's brother, Luís de Menezes. As a final condition, Gama secured from John III of Portugal the commitment to appoint all his sons successively as Portuguese captains of Malacca.
Setting out in April 1524, with a fleet of fourteen ships, Vasco da Gama took as his flagship the famous large carrack Santa Catarina do Monte Sinai on her last journey to India, along with two of his sons, Estêvão and Paulo. After a troubled journey (four or five of the ships were lost en route), he arrived in India in September. Vasco da Gama immediately invoked his high viceregent powers to impose a new order in Portuguese India, replacing all the old officials with his own appointments. But Gama contracted malaria not long after arriving, and died in the city of Cochin on Christmas Eve in 1524, three months after his arrival. As per royal instructions, da Gama was succeeded as governor of India by one of the captains who had come with him, Henrique de Menezes (no relation to Duarte). Da Gama's sons Estêvão and Paulo immediately lost their posts and joined the returning fleet of early 1525 (along with the dismissed Duarte de Menezes and Luís de Menezes).
Vasco da Gama's body was first buried at St. Francis Church, which was located at Fort Kochi in the city of Kochi, but his remains were returned to Portugal in 1539. The body of Vasco da Gama was re-interred in Vidigueira in a casket decorated with gold and jewels.
The Monastery of the Hieronymites, in Belém, which would become the necropolis of the Portuguese royal dynasty of Aviz, was erected in the early 1500s near the launch point of Vasco da Gama's first journey, and its construction funded by a tax on the profits of the yearly Portuguese India Armadas. In 1880, da Gama's remains and those of the poet Luís de Camões (who celebrated da Gama's first voyage in his 1572 epic poem, The Lusiad), were moved to new carved tombs in the nave of the monastery's church, only a few meters away from the tombs of the kings Manuel I and John III, whom da Gama had served.
Marriage and descendants
Vasco da Gama and his wife, Catarina de Ataíde, had six sons and one daughter:
Dom Francisco da Gama, who inherited his father's titles as 2nd Count of Vidigueira and the 2nd "Admiral of the Seas of India, Arabia and Persia". He remained in Portugal.
Dom Estevão da Gama, after his abortive 1524 term as Indian patrol captain, he was appointed for a three-year term as captain of Malacca, serving from 1534 to 1539 (includes the last two years of his younger brother Paulo's term). He was subsequently appointed as the 11th governor of India from 1540 to 1542.
Dom Paulo da Gama (having the same name as his uncle Paulo), captain of Malacca from 1533 to 1534, killed in a naval action off Malacca.
Dom Cristovão da Gama, captain of Malacca from 1538 to 1540; nominated to succeed in Malacca, but executed by Ahmad ibn Ibrahim during the Ethiopian-Adal war in 1542.
Dom Pedro da Silva da Gama, appointed captain of Malacca from 1548 to 1552.
Dom Álvaro d'Ataide da Gama, appointed captain of Malacca fleet in the 1540s, captain of Malacca itself from 1552 to 1554.
Dona Isabel d'Ataide da Gama, only daughter, married Ignacio de Noronha, son of the first Count of Linhares.
His male-line issue became extinct in 1747, though the title continued through the female-line.
Intergenerations
Dom Vasco da Gama, 3rd Count of Vidigueira, the nobility and military personnel, son of Francisco (2nd Count) and grandson of Vasco da Gama.
Dom Francisco da Gama, 4th Count of Vidigueira, the viceroy (1597–1600) and governor (1622–1628) of India, son of Vasco (3rd Count) and great-grandson of Vasco da Gama.
Legacy
Vasco da Gama is one of the most famous and celebrated explorers from the Age of Discovery. As much as anyone after Henry the Navigator, he was responsible for Portugal's success as an early colonising power. Beside the fact of the first voyage itself, it was his astute mix of politics and war on the other side of the world that placed Portugal in a prominent position in Indian Ocean trade. Following da Gama's initial voyage, the Portuguese crown realized that securing outposts on the eastern coast of Africa would prove vital to maintaining national trade routes to the Far East.
However, his fame is tempered by such incidents and attitudes as displayed in the notorious Pilgrim Ship Incident previously discussed.
The Portuguese national epic, the Lusíadas of Luís Vaz de Camões, largely concerns Vasco da Gama's voyages.
The 1865 grand opera L'Africaine: Opéra en Cinq Actes, composed by Giacomo Meyerbeer from a libretto by Eugène Scribe, prominently includes the character of Vasco da Gama. The events depicted, however, are fictitious. Meyerbeer's working title for the opera was Vasco da Gama. A 1989 production of the opera by the San Francisco Opera featured noted tenor Plácido Domingo in the role of da Gama. The 19th-century composer Louis-Albert Bourgault-Ducoudray composed an eponymous 1872 opera based on da Gama's life and exploits at sea.
The port city of Vasco da Gama in Goa is named after him, as is the crater Vasco da Gama on the Moon. There are three football clubs in Brazil (including Club de Regatas Vasco da Gama) and Vasco Sports Club in Goa that were also named after him. There exists a church in Kochi, Kerala called Vasco da Gama Church, and a private residence on the island of Saint Helena. The suburb of Vasco in Cape Town also honours him.
A few places in Lisbon's Parque das Nações are named after the explorer, such as the Vasco da Gama Bridge, Vasco da Gama Tower and the Centro Comercial Vasco da Gama shopping centre. The Oceanário in the Parque das Nações has a mascot of a cartoon diver with the name of "Vasco", who is named after the explorer.
Vasco da Gama was the only explorer on the final pool of Os Grandes Portugueses. Although the final shortlist featured other Age of Discovery related people, they were not actually explorers nor navigators for any matter.
The Portuguese Navy has a class of frigates named after him. There are three Vasco da Gama class frigates in total, of which the first one also bears his name.
The Portuguese government erected two navigational beacons, Dias Cross and da Gama Cross, to commemorate da Gama and Bartolomeu Dias who were the first modern European explorers to reach the Cape of Good Hope. When lined up, these crosses point to Whittle Rock, a large, permanently submerged shipping hazard in False Bay.
South African musician Hugh Masekela recorded an anti-colonialist song entitled "Colonial Man", which contains the lyrics "Vasco da Gama was no friend of mine", and another song entitled "Vasco da Gama (The Sailor Man)". Both songs were included in his 1976 album Colonial Man.
Vasco da Gama appears as an antagonist in the Indian film Urumi. The film, directed by Santosh Sivan, depicts atrocities and progression to establish the Portuguese empire by da Gama in India.
In March 2016, archaeologists working off the coast of Oman identified a shipwreck believed to be that of the Esmeralda from da Gama's 1502–1503 fleet. The wreck was initially discovered in 1998. Later underwater excavations took place between 2013 and 2015 through a partnership between the Oman Ministry of Heritage and Culture and Blue Water Recoveries Ltd., a shipwreck recovery company. The vessel was identified through such artifacts as a "Portuguese coin minted for trade with India (one of only two coins of this type known to exist) and stone cannonballs engraved with what appear to be the initials of Vincente Sodré, da Gama's maternal uncle and the commander of the Esmeralda."
See also
Chronology of European exploration of Asia
References
Citations
Bibliography
Castanhoso, M. de (1898) Dos feitos de D. Christovam da Gama em Ethiopia Lisbon: Imprensa nacional. online
Facsimile reprint of an 1869 edition by the Hakluyt Society, London.
(reissued by Cambridge University Press, 2010. )
Teixeira de Aragão, A.C. (1887) Vasco da Gama e a Vidigueira: um estudo historico. Lisbon: Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa online
Further reading
Vasco da Gama (Ernst Georg Ravenstein, Gaspar Corrêa, Alvaro Velho) [2011] Viartis
Vasco da Gama: Renaissance Crusader (Glen J.Ames) [2004] Longman
The Career and Legend of Vasco da Gama (Sanjay Subrahmanyam) [1997] Cambridge University Press
External links
Vasco da Gama's Round Africa to India, fordham.edu
Vasco da Gama web tutorial with animated maps, ucalgary.ca
A Portuguese East Indiaman from the 1502–1503 Fleet of Vasco da Gama off Al Hallaniyah Island, Oman: an interim report, IJNA
Portuguese explorers
Portuguese colonial governors and administrators
Maritime history of Portugal
Explorers of Asia
Explorers of India
Explorers of Africa
Viceroys of Portuguese India
Vasco
1460s births
1524 deaths
Deaths from malaria
Infectious disease deaths in India
Maritime history of South Africa
Colonial Goa
Colonial Kerala
History of Goa
People from Sines
People of Portuguese India
People from Vidigueira
Portuguese Roman Catholics
15th-century explorers
15th-century Portuguese people
15th-century Roman Catholics | true | [
"The Slave Trade Felony Act 1811 (51 Geo. III, c. 23) was a piece of British legislation that made engagement in the slave trade a felony. The earlier Slave Trade Act 1807 merely imposed fines that were insufficient to deter entrepreneurs from engaging in such a profitable business. The contexts in which it could be applied and how these sat within international criminal law gave rise to controversy. Henry Brougham was the principal proponent of the act.\n\nThe first case brought under the act was that of Samuel Samo, who was tried by Chief Justice Robert Thorpe at the Vice-Admiralty Court in Freetown, Sierra Leone. The case was heard from 8 April to 11 April 1812.\n\nSee also\n Slave Trade Acts\n\nReferences\n\nUnited Kingdom Acts of Parliament 1811\nSlave trade legislation\nAbolitionism in the United Kingdom",
"The ETC Bollywood Business Awards are presented annually by ETC Bollywood Business to award Bollywood films. This is the only award in India which judges films based on their box-office performances. The ETC Bollywood Business Awards were launched in 2010.\n\nCategories\nThe awards are given in the following categories:\n Top Grossing Film of the Year\n Most Profitable Actor (Male)\n Most Profitable Actor (Female)\n Highest Grossing Director\n Highest Grossing Actor\n Highest Grossing Actress\n Most Profitable Male Debut\n Most Profitable Female Debut\n Most Profitable Actor Overseas\n Most Profitable Banner\n Most Profitable Producer\n Most Successful Music Director\n Box Office Surprise Hit of the Year\n Most Successful Small Budget Film\n Best Marketed Film of the Year\n Most popular song of 2012\n Best Cinema Chain\n Most Popular Trailer\n Best Music Company\n\nWinners\n\n2010\n\n2011 \nThe 2011 action drama Bodyguard was awarded Top Grosser of the Year. Actor Salman Khan garnered the Most Profitable Actor (Male) award, while Shah Rukh Khan won for Most Profitable Actor (Overseas). The actress who won the Most Profitable Actor (Female) was Kareena Kapoor. The superhero film Ra.One was declared Best Marketed Film Of The Year. The film also won the Best Marketed Movie of the Year and the Highest Single-Day Collections awards. Eros International earned the award for Excellence in International Distribution.\n\n2012 \nSalman Khan won his third consecutive award for Most Profitable Actor (Male) while Katrina Kaif garnered the Most Profitable Actor (Female) honour. The film Ek Tha Tiger was declared as Top Grossing Film of the Year. Akshay Kumar went on to win for Highest Grossing Actor. Sonakshi Sinha won the Highest Grossing Actress award. Shah Rukh Khan won his second consecutive award for Most Profitable Actor (Overseas).\n\n2013 \nActor Aamir Khan won Highest Grossing Actor (Male) for his 2013 released film Dhoom 3. Deepika Padukone took the award for Highest Grossing Actor (Female) for her films released in 2013.\n\n2014 \nAamir Khan won his 2nd consecutive Highest Grossing Actor (Male) award for the film PK, while Anushka Sharma won Highest Grossing Actor (Female) award for the same film.\n\n2015 \nSalman Khan won Highest grossing Actor (Male) award for Bajrangi Bhaijaan and Prem Ratan Dhan Payo. Kareena Kapoor won Highest Grossing Actress (Female) award for Bajrangi Bhaijaan.\n\n2018 \nRanveer Singh took Highest Grossing Actor (Male) award for his two highly successful films Padmaavat and Simmba. Sonam Kapoor took Highest Grossing Actor (Female) award for Veere Di Wedding, Pad Man and Sanju.\n\n2019 \nAction Blockbuster War won highest grossing Film of the Year. Akshay Kumar received highest grossing Actor award for Kesari, Mission Mangal, Housefull 4 and Good Newwz while Kiara Advani took highest grossing Actress award for Kabir Singh and Good Newwz.\nPrabhas won the Highest Grossing Debut Actor Award for Saaho\n\nFootnotes\n\nReferences \n\nBollywood film awards"
] |
[
"Vasco da Gama",
"Exploration before da Gama",
"Was types of exploration happened before da Gama?",
"From the earlier part of the 15th century, Portuguese expeditions organized by Prince Henry the Navigator had been reaching down the African coastline, principally in search of west African riches",
"Were any riches found?",
"They had greatly extended Portuguese maritime knowledge, but had little profit to show for the effort. After Henry's death in 1460,",
"What happened after Henry's death?",
"the Portuguese Crown showed little interest in continuing this effort and, in 1469, sold off the neglected African enterprise to a private Lisbon merchant",
"What was the result of neglection of the African enterprise?",
"Within a few years, Gomes' captains expanded Portuguese knowledge across the Gulf of Guinea, doing business in gold dust, Melegueta pepper, ivory and sub-Saharan slaves.",
"What was the most profitable trade?",
"To break the monarch's dependence on the feudal nobility, John II needed to build up the royal treasury;"
] | C_ad92303978184a0890a8eb9304f15d62_1 | Are there any other interesting aspects about this article? | 6 | Are there any other interesting aspects about this article in addition to John II need to build up the royal treasury? | Vasco da Gama | From the earlier part of the 15th century, Portuguese expeditions organized by Prince Henry the Navigator had been reaching down the African coastline, principally in search of west African riches (notably, gold). They had greatly extended Portuguese maritime knowledge, but had little profit to show for the effort. After Henry's death in 1460, the Portuguese Crown showed little interest in continuing this effort and, in 1469, sold off the neglected African enterprise to a private Lisbon merchant consortium led by Fernao Gomes. Within a few years, Gomes' captains expanded Portuguese knowledge across the Gulf of Guinea, doing business in gold dust, Melegueta pepper, ivory and sub-Saharan slaves. When Gomes' charter came up for renewal in 1474, Prince John (future John II), asked his father Afonso V of Portugal to pass the African charter to him. Upon becoming king in 1481, John II of Portugal set out on many long reforms. To break the monarch's dependence on the feudal nobility, John II needed to build up the royal treasury; he considered royal commerce to be the key to achieving that. Under John II's watch, the gold and slave trade in west Africa was greatly expanded. He was eager to break into the highly profitable spice trade between Europe and Asia, which was conducted chiefly by land. At the time, this was virtually monopolized by the Republic of Venice, who operated overland routes via Levantine and Egyptian ports, through the Red Sea across to the spice markets of India. John II set a new objective for his captains: to find a sea route to Asia by sailing around the African continent. By the time Vasco da Gama was in his 20s, the king's plans were coming to fruition. In 1487, John II dispatched two spies, Pero da Covilha and Afonso de Paiva, overland via Egypt to East Africa and India, to scout the details of the spice markets and trade routes. The breakthrough came soon after, when John II's captain Bartolomeu Dias returned from rounding the Cape of Good Hope in 1488, having explored as far as the Fish River (Rio do Infante) in modern-day South Africa and having verified that the unknown coast stretched away to the northeast. An explorer was needed who could prove the link between the findings of Dias and those of da Covilha and de Paiva, and connect these separate segments into a potentially lucrative trade route across the Indian Ocean. CANNOTANSWER | Under John II's watch, the gold and slave trade in west Africa was greatly expanded. He was eager to break into the highly profitable spice trade between Europe and Asia, | Vasco da Gama, 1st Count of Vidigueira (, ; ; c. 1460s – 24 December 1524), was a Portuguese explorer and the first European to reach India by sea.
His initial voyage to India by way of Cape of Good Hope (1497–1499) was the first to link Europe and Asia by an ocean route, connecting the Atlantic and the Indian oceans and therefore, the West and the Orient. This is widely considered a milestone in world history, as it marked the beginning of a sea-based phase of global multiculturalism. Da Gama's discovery of the sea route to India opened the way for an age of global imperialism and enabled the Portuguese to establish a long-lasting colonial empire along the way from Africa to Asia. The violence and hostage taking employed by da Gama and those who followed also assigned a brutal reputation to the Portuguese among India's indigenous kingdoms that would set the pattern for western colonialism in the Age of Exploration. Traveling the ocean route allowed the Portuguese to avoid sailing across the highly disputed Mediterranean and traversing the dangerous Arabian Peninsula. The sum of the distances covered in the outward and return voyages made this expedition the longest ocean voyage ever made until then.
After decades of sailors trying to reach the Indies, with thousands of lives and dozens of vessels lost in shipwrecks and attacks, da Gama landed in Calicut on 20 May 1498. Unopposed access to the Indian spice routes boosted the economy of the Portuguese Empire, which was previously based along northern and coastal West Africa. The main spices at first obtained from Southeast Asia were pepper and cinnamon, but soon included other products, all new to Europe. Portugal maintained a commercial monopoly of these commodities for several decades. It was not until a century later that other European powers, first the Dutch Republic and England, later France and Denmark, were able to challenge Portugal's monopoly and naval supremacy in the Cape Route.
Da Gama led two of the Portuguese India Armadas, the first and the fourth. The latter was the largest and departed for India four years after his return from the first one. For his contributions, in 1524 da Gama was appointed Governor of India, with the title of Viceroy, and was ennobled as Count of Vidigueira in 1519. He remains a leading figure in the history of exploration, and homages worldwide have celebrated his explorations and accomplishments. The Portuguese national epic poem, Os Lusíadas, was written in his honour by Luís de Camões. In March 2016 thousands of artifacts and nautical remains were recovered from the wreck of the ship Esmeralda, one of da Gama's armada, found off the coast of Oman.
Early life
Vasco da Gama was born in 1460 in the town of Sines, one of the few seaports on the Alentejo coast, southwest Portugal, probably in a house near the church of Nossa Senhora das Salas.
Vasco da Gama's father was Estêvão da Gama, who had served in the 1460s as a knight of the household of Infante Ferdinand, Duke of Viseu. He rose in the ranks of the military Order of Santiago. Estêvão da Gama was appointed alcaide-mór (civil governor) of Sines in the 1460s, a post he held until 1478; after that he continued as a receiver of taxes and holder of the Order's commendas in the region.
Estêvão da Gama married Isabel Sodré, a daughter of João Sodré (also known as João de Resende), scion of a well-connected family of English origin. Her father and her brothers, Vicente Sodré and Brás Sodré, had links to the household of Infante Diogo, Duke of Viseu, and were prominent figures in the military Order of Christ. Vasco da Gama was the third of five sons of Estêvão da Gama and Isabel Sodré – in (probable) order of age: Paulo da Gama, João Sodré, Vasco da Gama, Pedro da Gama and Aires da Gama. Vasco also had one known sister, Teresa da Gama (who married Lopo Mendes de Vasconcelos).
Little is known of da Gama's early life. The Portuguese historian Teixeira de Aragão suggests that he studied at the inland town of Évora, which is where he may have learned mathematics and navigation. It has been claimed that he studied under Abraham Zacuto, an astrologer and astronomer, but da Gama's biographer Subrahmanyam thinks this dubious.
Around 1480, da Gama followed his father (rather than the Sodrés) and joined the Order of Santiago. The master of Santiago was Prince John, who ascended to the throne in 1481 as King John II of Portugal. John II doted on the Order, and the da Gamas' prospects rose accordingly.
In 1492, John II dispatched da Gama on a mission to the port of Setúbal and to the Algarve to seize French ships in retaliation for peacetime depredations against Portuguese shipping – a task that da Gama rapidly and effectively performed.
Exploration before da Gama
From the earlier part of the 15th century, Portuguese expeditions organized by Prince Henry the Navigator had been reaching down the African coastline, principally in search of west African riches (notably, gold and slaves). They had greatly extended Portuguese maritime knowledge, but had little profit to show for the effort. After Henry's death in 1460, the Portuguese Crown showed little interest in continuing this effort and, in 1469, licensed the neglected African enterprise to a private Lisbon merchant consortium led by Fernão Gomes. Within a few years, Gomes' captains expanded Portuguese knowledge across the Gulf of Guinea, doing business in gold dust, melegueta pepper, ivory and sub-Saharan slaves. When Gomes' charter came up for renewal in 1474, Prince John (future John II), asked his father Afonso V of Portugal to pass the African charter to him.
Upon becoming king in 1481, John II of Portugal set out on many long reforms. To break the monarch's dependence on the feudal nobility, John II needed to build up the royal treasury; he considered royal commerce to be the key to achieving that. Under John II's watch, the gold and slave trade in west Africa was greatly expanded. He was eager to break into the highly profitable spice trade between Europe and Asia, which was conducted chiefly by land. At the time, this was virtually monopolized by the Republic of Venice, who operated overland routes via Levantine and Egyptian ports, through the Red Sea across to the spice markets of India. John II set a new objective for his captains: to find a sea route to Asia by sailing around the African continent.
By the time Vasco da Gama was in his 20s, the king's plans were coming to fruition. In 1487, John II dispatched two spies, Pero da Covilhã and Afonso de Paiva, overland via Egypt to East Africa and India, to scout the details of the spice markets and trade routes. The breakthrough came soon after, when John II's captain Bartolomeu Dias returned from rounding the Cape of Good Hope in 1488, having explored as far as the Fish River (Rio do Infante) in modern-day South Africa and having verified that the unknown coast stretched away to the northeast.
An explorer was needed who could prove the link between the findings of Dias and those of da Covilhã and de Paiva, and connect these separate segments into a potentially lucrative trade route across the Indian Ocean.
First voyage
On 8 July 1497 Vasco da Gama led a fleet of four ships with a crew of 170 men from Lisbon. The distance traveled in the journey around Africa to India and back was greater than the length of the equator. The navigators included Portugal's most experienced, Pero de Alenquer, Pedro Escobar, João de Coimbra, and Afonso Gonçalves. It is not known for certain how many people were in each ship's crew but approximately 55 returned, and two ships were lost. Two of the vessels were carracks, newly built for the voyage; the others were a caravel and a supply boat.
The four ships were:
São Gabriel, commanded by Vasco da Gama; a carrack of 178 tons, length 27 m, width 8.5 m, draft 2.3 m, sails of 372 m2
São Rafael, commanded by his brother Paulo da Gama; similar dimensions to the São Gabriel
Berrio (nickname, officially called São Miguel), a caravel, slightly smaller than the former two, commanded by Nicolau Coelho
A storage ship of unknown name, commanded by Gonçalo Nunes, destined to be scuttled in Mossel Bay (São Brás) in South Africa
Journey to the Cape
The expedition set sail from Lisbon on 8 July 1497. It followed the route pioneered by earlier explorers along the coast of Africa via Tenerife and the Cape Verde Islands. After reaching the coast of present-day Sierra Leone, da Gama took a course south into the open ocean, crossing the Equator and seeking the South Atlantic westerlies that Bartolomeu Dias had discovered in 1487. This course proved successful and on 4 November 1497, the expedition made landfall on the African coast. For over three months the ships had sailed more than of open ocean, by far the longest journey out of sight of land made by that time.
By 16 December, the fleet had passed the Great Fish River (Eastern Cape, South Africa) – where Dias had anchored – and sailed into waters previously unknown to Europeans. With Christmas pending, da Gama and his crew gave the coast they were passing the name Natal, which carried the connotation of "birth of Christ" in Portuguese.
Mozambique
Vasco da Gama spent 2 to 29 March 1498 in the vicinity of Mozambique Island. Arab-controlled territory on the East African coast was an integral part of the network of trade in the Indian Ocean. Fearing the local population would be hostile to Christians, da Gama impersonated a Muslim and gained audience with the Sultan of Mozambique. With the paltry trade goods he had to offer, the explorer was unable to provide a suitable gift to the ruler. Soon the local populace became suspicious of da Gama and his men. Forced by a hostile crowd to flee Mozambique, da Gama departed the harbor, firing his cannons into the city in retaliation.
Mombasa
In the vicinity of modern Kenya, the expedition resorted to piracy, looting Arab merchant ships that were generally unarmed trading vessels without heavy cannons. The Portuguese became the first known Europeans to visit the port of Mombasa from 7 to 13 April 1498, but were met with hostility and soon departed.
Malindi
Vasco da Gama continued north, arriving on 14 April 1498 at the friendlier port of Malindi, whose leaders were having a conflict with those of Mombasa. There the expedition first noted evidence of Indian traders. Da Gama and his crew contracted the services of a pilot who used his knowledge of the monsoon winds to guide the expedition the rest of the way to Calicut, located on the southwest coast of India. Sources differ over the identity of the pilot, calling him variously a Christian, a Muslim, and a Gujarati. One traditional story describes the pilot as the famous Arab navigator Ibn Majid, but other contemporaneous accounts place Majid elsewhere, and he could not have been near the vicinity at the time. None of the Portuguese historians of the time mentions Ibn Majid. Vasco da Gama left Malindi for India on 24 April 1498.
Calicut, India
The fleet arrived in Kappadu near Kozhikode (Calicut), in Malabar Coast (present day Kerala state of India), on 20 May 1498. The King of Calicut, the Samudiri (Zamorin), who was at that time staying in his second capital at Ponnani, returned to Calicut on hearing the news of the foreign fleet's arrival. The navigator was received with traditional hospitality, including a grand procession of at least 3,000 armed Nairs, but an interview with the Zamorin failed to produce any concrete results. When local authorities asked da Gama's fleet, "What brought you hither?", they replied that they had come "in search of Christians and spices." The presents that da Gama sent to the Zamorin as gifts from Dom Manuel – four cloaks of scarlet cloth, six hats, four branches of corals, twelve , a box with seven brass vessels, a chest of sugar, two barrels of oil and a cask of honey – were trivial, and failed to impress. While Zamorin's officials wondered at why there was no gold or silver, the Muslim merchants who considered da Gama their rival suggested that the latter was only an ordinary pirate and not a royal ambassador. Vasco da Gama's request for permission to leave a factor behind him in charge of the merchandise he could not sell was turned down by the King, who insisted that da Gama pay customs duty – preferably in gold – like any other trader, which strained the relation between the two. Annoyed by this, da Gama carried a few Nairs and sixteen fishermen (mukkuva) off with him by force.
Return
Vasco da Gama left Calicut on 29 August 1498. Eager to set sail for home, he ignored the local knowledge of monsoon wind patterns that were still blowing onshore. The fleet initially inched north along the Indian coast, and then anchored in at Anjediva island for a spell. They finally struck out for their Indian Ocean crossing on 3 October 1498. But with the winter monsoon yet to set in, it was a harrowing journey. On the outgoing journey, sailing with the summer monsoon wind, da Gama's fleet crossed the Indian Ocean in only 23 days; now, on the return trip, sailing against the wind, it took 132 days.
Da Gama saw land again only on 2 January 1499, passing before the coastal Somali city of Mogadishu, then under the influence of the Ajuran Empire in the Horn of Africa. The fleet did not make a stop, but passing before Mogadishu, the anonymous diarist of the expedition noted that it was a large city with houses of four or five storeys high and big palaces in its center and many mosques with cylindrical minarets.
Da Gama's fleet finally arrived in Malindi on 7 January 1499, in a terrible state – approximately half of the crew had died during the crossing, and many of the rest were afflicted with scurvy. Not having enough crewmen left standing to manage three ships, da Gama ordered the São Rafael scuttled off the East African coast, and the crew re-distributed to the remaining two ships, the São Gabriel and the Berrio. Thereafter, the sailing was smoother. By early March, they had arrived in Mossel Bay, and crossed the Cape of Good Hope in the opposite direction on 20 March, reaching the west African coast by 25 April.
The diary record of the expedition ends abruptly here. Reconstructing from other sources, it seems they continued to Cape Verde, where Nicolau Coelho's Berrio separated from Vasco da Gama's São Gabriel and sailed on by itself. The Berrio arrived in Lisbon on 10 July 1499 and Nicolau Coelho personally delivered the news to King Manuel I and the royal court, then assembled in Sintra. In the meantime, back in Cape Verde, da Gama's brother, Paulo da Gama, had fallen grievously ill. Da Gama elected to stay by his side on Santiago island and handed the São Gabriel over to his clerk, João de Sá, to take home. The São Gabriel under Sá arrived in Lisbon sometime in late July or early August. Da Gama and his sickly brother eventually hitched a ride with a Guinea caravel returning to Portugal, but Paulo da Gama died en route. Da Gama disembarked at the Azores to bury his brother at the monastery of São Francisco in Angra do Heroismo, and lingered there for a little while in mourning. He eventually took passage on an Azorean caravel and finally arrived in Lisbon on 29 August 1499 (according to Barros), or early September (8th or 18th, according to other sources). Despite his melancholic mood, da Gama was given a hero's welcome and showered with honors, including a triumphal procession and public festivities. King Manuel wrote two letters in which he described da Gama's first voyage, in July and August 1499, soon after the return of the ships. Girolamo Sernigi also wrote three letters describing da Gama's first voyage soon after the return of the expedition.
The expedition had exacted a large cost – two ships and over half the men had been lost. It had also failed in its principal mission of securing a commercial treaty with Calicut. Nonetheless, the small quantities of spices and other trade goods brought back on the remaining two ships demonstrated the potential of great profit for future trade. Vasco da Gama was justly celebrated for opening a direct sea route to Asia. His path would be followed up thereafter by yearly Portuguese India Armadas.
The spice trade would prove to be a major asset to the Portuguese royal treasury, and other consequences soon followed. For example, da Gama's voyage had made it clear that the east coast of Africa, the Contra Costa, was essential to Portuguese interests; its ports provided fresh water, provisions, timber, and harbors for repairs, and served as a refuge where ships could wait out unfavorable weather. One significant result was the colonization of Mozambique by the Portuguese Crown.
Rewards
In December 1499, King Manuel I of Portugal rewarded Vasco da Gama with the town of Sines as a hereditary fief (the town his father, Estêvão, had once held as a commenda). This turned out to be a complicated affair, for Sines still belonged to the Order of Santiago. The master of the Order, Jorge de Lencastre, might have endorsed the reward – after all, da Gama was a Santiago knight, one of their own, and a close associate of Lencastre himself. But the fact that Sines was awarded by the king provoked Lencastre to refuse out of principle, lest it encourage the king to make other donations of the Order's properties. Da Gama would spend the next few years attempting to take hold of Sines, an effort that would estrange him from Lencastre and eventually prompt da Gama to abandon his beloved Order of Santiago, switching over to the rival Order of Christ in 1507.
In the meantime, da Gama made do with a substantial hereditary royal pension of 300,000 reis. He was awarded the noble title of Dom (lord) in perpetuity for himself, his siblings and their descendants. On 30 January 1502, da Gama was awarded the title of Almirante dos mares de Arabia, Persia, India e de todo o Oriente ("Admiral of the Seas of Arabia, Persia, India and all the Orient") – an overwrought title reminiscent of the ornate Castilian title borne by Christopher Columbus (evidently, Manuel must have reckoned that if Castile had an 'Admiral of the Ocean Seas', then surely Portugal should have one too). Another royal letter, dated October 1501, gave da Gama the personal right to intervene and exercise a determining role on any future India-bound fleet.
Around 1501, Vasco da Gama married Catarina de Ataíde, daughter of Álvaro de Ataíde, the alcaide-mór of Alvor (Algarve), and a prominent nobleman connected by kinship with the powerful Almeida family (Catarina was a first cousin of Dom Francisco de Almeida).
Second voyage
The follow-up expedition, the Second India Armada, launched in 1500 under the command of Pedro Álvares Cabral with the mission of making a treaty with the Zamorin of Calicut and setting up a Portuguese factory in the city. However, Pedro Cabral entered into a conflict with the local Arab merchant guilds, with the result that the Portuguese factory was overrun in a riot and up to 70 Portuguese were killed. Cabral blamed the Zamorin for the incident and bombarded the city. Thus war broke out between Portugal and Calicut.
Vasco da Gama invoked his royal letter to take command of the 4th India Armada, scheduled to set out in 1502, with the explicit aim of taking revenge upon the Zamorin and force him to submit to Portuguese terms. The heavily armed fleet of fifteen ships and eight hundred men left Lisbon on 12 February 1502. It was followed in April by another squadron of five ships led by his cousin, Estêvão da Gama (the son of Aires da Gama), which caught up to them in the Indian Ocean. The 4th Armada was a veritable da Gama family affair. Two of his maternal uncles, Vicente Sodré and Brás Sodré, were pre-designated to command an Indian Ocean naval patrol, while brothers-in-law Álvaro de Ataíde (brother of Vasco's wife Catarina) and Lopo Mendes de Vasconcelos (betrothed to Teresa da Gama, Vasco's sister) captained ships in the main fleet.
On the outgoing voyage, da Gama's fleet opened contact with the East African gold trading port of Sofala and reduced the sultanate of Kilwa to tribute, extracting a substantial sum of gold.
Pilgrim ship incident
On reaching India in October 1502, da Gama's fleet intercepted a ship of Muslim pilgrims at Madayi travelling from Calicut to Mecca. Described in detail by eyewitness Thomé Lopes and chronicler Gaspar Correia, da Gama looted the ship with over 400 pilgrims on board including 50 women, locked in the passengers, the owner and an ambassador from Egypt and burned them to death. They offered their wealth, which "could ransom all the Christian slaves in the Kingdom of Fez and much more" but were not spared. Da Gama looked on through the porthole and saw the women bringing up their gold and jewels and holding up their babies to beg for mercy.
Calicut
After stopping at Cannanore, Gama drove his fleet before Calicut, demanding redress for the treatment of Cabral. Having known of the fate of the pilgrims' ship, the Zamorin adopted a conciliatory attitude towards the Portuguese and expressed willingness to sign a new treaty but da Gama made a call to the Hindu king to expel all Muslims from Calicut before beginning negotiations, which was turned down. At the same time however, the Zamorin sent a message to his rebellious vassal, the Raja of Cochin urging cooperation and obedience to counter the Portuguese threat; the ruler of Cochin forwarded this message to Gama, which reinforced his opinion of the Indians as duplicitous. After demanding the expulsion of Muslims from Calicut to the Hindu Zamorin, the latter sent the high priest Talappana Namboothiri (the very same person who conducted da Gama to the Zamorin's chamber during his much celebrated first visit to Calicut in May 1498) for talks. Da Gama called him a spy, ordered the priests' lips and ears to be cut off and after sewing a pair of dog's ears to his head, sent him away. The Portuguese fleet then bombarded the unfortified city for nearly two days from the sea, severely damaging it. He also captured several rice vessels and cut off the crew's hands, ears and noses, dispatching them with a note to the Zamorin, in which Gama declared that he would be open to friendly relations once the Zamorin had paid for the items plundered from the feitoria as well as the gunpowder and cannonballs.
Seabattle
The violent treatment meted out by da Gama quickly brought trade along the Malabar Coast of India, upon which Calicut depended, to a standstill. The Zamorin ventured to dispatch a fleet of strong warships to challenge da Gama's armada, but which Gama managed to defeat in a naval battle before Calicut harbor.
Cochin
Da Gama loaded up with spices at Cochin and Cannanore, small nearby kingdoms at war with the Zamorin, whose alliances had been secured by prior Portuguese fleets. The 4th armada left India in early 1503. Da Gama left behind a small squadron of caravels under the command of his uncle, Vicente Sodré, to patrol the Indian coast, to continue harassing Calicut shipping, and to protect the Portuguese factories at Cochin and Cannanore from the Zamorin's inevitable reprisals.
Vasco da Gama arrived back in Portugal in September 1503, effectively having failed in his mission to bring the Zamorin to submission. This failure, and the subsequent more galling failure of his uncle Vicente Sodré to protect the Portuguese factory in Cochin, probably counted against any further rewards. When the Portuguese king Manuel I of Portugal decided to appoint the first governor and viceroy of Portuguese India in 1505, da Gama was conspicuously overlooked, and the post given to Francisco de Almeida.
Interlude
For the next two decades, Vasco da Gama lived out a quiet life, unwelcome in the royal court and sidelined from Indian affairs. His attempts to return to the favor of Manuel I (including switching over to the Order of Christ in 1507), yielded little. Almeida, the larger-than-life Afonso de Albuquerque and, later on, Albergaria and Sequeira, were the king's preferred point men for India.
After Ferdinand Magellan defected to the Crown of Castile in 1518, Vasco da Gama threatened to do the same, prompting the king to undertake steps to retain him in Portugal and avoid the embarrassment of losing his own "Admiral of the Indies" to Spain. In 1519, after years of ignoring his petitions, King Manuel I finally hurried to give Vasco da Gama a feudal title, appointing him the first Count of Vidigueira, a count title created by a royal decree issued in Évora on 29 December, after a complicated agreement with Dom Jaime, Duke of Braganza, who ceded him on payment the towns of Vidigueira and Vila dos Frades. The decree granted Vasco da Gama and his heirs all the revenues and privileges related, thus establishing da Gama as the first Portuguese count who was not born with royal blood.
Third voyage and death
After the death of King Manuel I in late 1521, his son and successor, King John III of Portugal set about reviewing the Portuguese government overseas. Turning away from the old Albuquerque clique (now represented by Diogo Lopes de Sequeira), John III looked for a fresh start. Vasco da Gama re-emerged from his political wilderness as an important adviser to the new king's appointments and strategy. Seeing the new Spanish threat to the Maluku Islands as the priority, Vasco da Gama advised against the obsession with Arabia that had pervaded much of the Manueline period, and continued to be the dominant concern of Duarte de Menezes, then-governor of Portuguese India. Menezes also turned out to be incompetent and corrupt, subject to numerous complaints. As a result, John III decided to appoint Vasco da Gama himself to replace Menezes, confident that the magic of his name and memory of his deeds might better impress his authority on Portuguese India, and manage the transition to a new government and new strategy.
By his appointment letter of February 1524, John III granted Vasco da Gama the privileged title of "Viceroy", being only the second Portuguese governor to enjoy that title (the first was Francisco de Almeida in 1505). His second son, Estêvão da Gama was simultaneously appointed Capitão-mor do Mar da Índia ('Captain-major of the Indian Sea', commander of the Indian Ocean naval patrol fleet), to replace Duarte's brother, Luís de Menezes. As a final condition, Gama secured from John III of Portugal the commitment to appoint all his sons successively as Portuguese captains of Malacca.
Setting out in April 1524, with a fleet of fourteen ships, Vasco da Gama took as his flagship the famous large carrack Santa Catarina do Monte Sinai on her last journey to India, along with two of his sons, Estêvão and Paulo. After a troubled journey (four or five of the ships were lost en route), he arrived in India in September. Vasco da Gama immediately invoked his high viceregent powers to impose a new order in Portuguese India, replacing all the old officials with his own appointments. But Gama contracted malaria not long after arriving, and died in the city of Cochin on Christmas Eve in 1524, three months after his arrival. As per royal instructions, da Gama was succeeded as governor of India by one of the captains who had come with him, Henrique de Menezes (no relation to Duarte). Da Gama's sons Estêvão and Paulo immediately lost their posts and joined the returning fleet of early 1525 (along with the dismissed Duarte de Menezes and Luís de Menezes).
Vasco da Gama's body was first buried at St. Francis Church, which was located at Fort Kochi in the city of Kochi, but his remains were returned to Portugal in 1539. The body of Vasco da Gama was re-interred in Vidigueira in a casket decorated with gold and jewels.
The Monastery of the Hieronymites, in Belém, which would become the necropolis of the Portuguese royal dynasty of Aviz, was erected in the early 1500s near the launch point of Vasco da Gama's first journey, and its construction funded by a tax on the profits of the yearly Portuguese India Armadas. In 1880, da Gama's remains and those of the poet Luís de Camões (who celebrated da Gama's first voyage in his 1572 epic poem, The Lusiad), were moved to new carved tombs in the nave of the monastery's church, only a few meters away from the tombs of the kings Manuel I and John III, whom da Gama had served.
Marriage and descendants
Vasco da Gama and his wife, Catarina de Ataíde, had six sons and one daughter:
Dom Francisco da Gama, who inherited his father's titles as 2nd Count of Vidigueira and the 2nd "Admiral of the Seas of India, Arabia and Persia". He remained in Portugal.
Dom Estevão da Gama, after his abortive 1524 term as Indian patrol captain, he was appointed for a three-year term as captain of Malacca, serving from 1534 to 1539 (includes the last two years of his younger brother Paulo's term). He was subsequently appointed as the 11th governor of India from 1540 to 1542.
Dom Paulo da Gama (having the same name as his uncle Paulo), captain of Malacca from 1533 to 1534, killed in a naval action off Malacca.
Dom Cristovão da Gama, captain of Malacca from 1538 to 1540; nominated to succeed in Malacca, but executed by Ahmad ibn Ibrahim during the Ethiopian-Adal war in 1542.
Dom Pedro da Silva da Gama, appointed captain of Malacca from 1548 to 1552.
Dom Álvaro d'Ataide da Gama, appointed captain of Malacca fleet in the 1540s, captain of Malacca itself from 1552 to 1554.
Dona Isabel d'Ataide da Gama, only daughter, married Ignacio de Noronha, son of the first Count of Linhares.
His male-line issue became extinct in 1747, though the title continued through the female-line.
Intergenerations
Dom Vasco da Gama, 3rd Count of Vidigueira, the nobility and military personnel, son of Francisco (2nd Count) and grandson of Vasco da Gama.
Dom Francisco da Gama, 4th Count of Vidigueira, the viceroy (1597–1600) and governor (1622–1628) of India, son of Vasco (3rd Count) and great-grandson of Vasco da Gama.
Legacy
Vasco da Gama is one of the most famous and celebrated explorers from the Age of Discovery. As much as anyone after Henry the Navigator, he was responsible for Portugal's success as an early colonising power. Beside the fact of the first voyage itself, it was his astute mix of politics and war on the other side of the world that placed Portugal in a prominent position in Indian Ocean trade. Following da Gama's initial voyage, the Portuguese crown realized that securing outposts on the eastern coast of Africa would prove vital to maintaining national trade routes to the Far East.
However, his fame is tempered by such incidents and attitudes as displayed in the notorious Pilgrim Ship Incident previously discussed.
The Portuguese national epic, the Lusíadas of Luís Vaz de Camões, largely concerns Vasco da Gama's voyages.
The 1865 grand opera L'Africaine: Opéra en Cinq Actes, composed by Giacomo Meyerbeer from a libretto by Eugène Scribe, prominently includes the character of Vasco da Gama. The events depicted, however, are fictitious. Meyerbeer's working title for the opera was Vasco da Gama. A 1989 production of the opera by the San Francisco Opera featured noted tenor Plácido Domingo in the role of da Gama. The 19th-century composer Louis-Albert Bourgault-Ducoudray composed an eponymous 1872 opera based on da Gama's life and exploits at sea.
The port city of Vasco da Gama in Goa is named after him, as is the crater Vasco da Gama on the Moon. There are three football clubs in Brazil (including Club de Regatas Vasco da Gama) and Vasco Sports Club in Goa that were also named after him. There exists a church in Kochi, Kerala called Vasco da Gama Church, and a private residence on the island of Saint Helena. The suburb of Vasco in Cape Town also honours him.
A few places in Lisbon's Parque das Nações are named after the explorer, such as the Vasco da Gama Bridge, Vasco da Gama Tower and the Centro Comercial Vasco da Gama shopping centre. The Oceanário in the Parque das Nações has a mascot of a cartoon diver with the name of "Vasco", who is named after the explorer.
Vasco da Gama was the only explorer on the final pool of Os Grandes Portugueses. Although the final shortlist featured other Age of Discovery related people, they were not actually explorers nor navigators for any matter.
The Portuguese Navy has a class of frigates named after him. There are three Vasco da Gama class frigates in total, of which the first one also bears his name.
The Portuguese government erected two navigational beacons, Dias Cross and da Gama Cross, to commemorate da Gama and Bartolomeu Dias who were the first modern European explorers to reach the Cape of Good Hope. When lined up, these crosses point to Whittle Rock, a large, permanently submerged shipping hazard in False Bay.
South African musician Hugh Masekela recorded an anti-colonialist song entitled "Colonial Man", which contains the lyrics "Vasco da Gama was no friend of mine", and another song entitled "Vasco da Gama (The Sailor Man)". Both songs were included in his 1976 album Colonial Man.
Vasco da Gama appears as an antagonist in the Indian film Urumi. The film, directed by Santosh Sivan, depicts atrocities and progression to establish the Portuguese empire by da Gama in India.
In March 2016, archaeologists working off the coast of Oman identified a shipwreck believed to be that of the Esmeralda from da Gama's 1502–1503 fleet. The wreck was initially discovered in 1998. Later underwater excavations took place between 2013 and 2015 through a partnership between the Oman Ministry of Heritage and Culture and Blue Water Recoveries Ltd., a shipwreck recovery company. The vessel was identified through such artifacts as a "Portuguese coin minted for trade with India (one of only two coins of this type known to exist) and stone cannonballs engraved with what appear to be the initials of Vincente Sodré, da Gama's maternal uncle and the commander of the Esmeralda."
See also
Chronology of European exploration of Asia
References
Citations
Bibliography
Castanhoso, M. de (1898) Dos feitos de D. Christovam da Gama em Ethiopia Lisbon: Imprensa nacional. online
Facsimile reprint of an 1869 edition by the Hakluyt Society, London.
(reissued by Cambridge University Press, 2010. )
Teixeira de Aragão, A.C. (1887) Vasco da Gama e a Vidigueira: um estudo historico. Lisbon: Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa online
Further reading
Vasco da Gama (Ernst Georg Ravenstein, Gaspar Corrêa, Alvaro Velho) [2011] Viartis
Vasco da Gama: Renaissance Crusader (Glen J.Ames) [2004] Longman
The Career and Legend of Vasco da Gama (Sanjay Subrahmanyam) [1997] Cambridge University Press
External links
Vasco da Gama's Round Africa to India, fordham.edu
Vasco da Gama web tutorial with animated maps, ucalgary.ca
A Portuguese East Indiaman from the 1502–1503 Fleet of Vasco da Gama off Al Hallaniyah Island, Oman: an interim report, IJNA
Portuguese explorers
Portuguese colonial governors and administrators
Maritime history of Portugal
Explorers of Asia
Explorers of India
Explorers of Africa
Viceroys of Portuguese India
Vasco
1460s births
1524 deaths
Deaths from malaria
Infectious disease deaths in India
Maritime history of South Africa
Colonial Goa
Colonial Kerala
History of Goa
People from Sines
People of Portuguese India
People from Vidigueira
Portuguese Roman Catholics
15th-century explorers
15th-century Portuguese people
15th-century Roman Catholics | 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"
] |
[
"Vasco da Gama",
"Exploration before da Gama",
"Was types of exploration happened before da Gama?",
"From the earlier part of the 15th century, Portuguese expeditions organized by Prince Henry the Navigator had been reaching down the African coastline, principally in search of west African riches",
"Were any riches found?",
"They had greatly extended Portuguese maritime knowledge, but had little profit to show for the effort. After Henry's death in 1460,",
"What happened after Henry's death?",
"the Portuguese Crown showed little interest in continuing this effort and, in 1469, sold off the neglected African enterprise to a private Lisbon merchant",
"What was the result of neglection of the African enterprise?",
"Within a few years, Gomes' captains expanded Portuguese knowledge across the Gulf of Guinea, doing business in gold dust, Melegueta pepper, ivory and sub-Saharan slaves.",
"What was the most profitable trade?",
"To break the monarch's dependence on the feudal nobility, John II needed to build up the royal treasury;",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Under John II's watch, the gold and slave trade in west Africa was greatly expanded. He was eager to break into the highly profitable spice trade between Europe and Asia,"
] | C_ad92303978184a0890a8eb9304f15d62_1 | Who were some of this trade partners? | 7 | Who were his Asian and Eurpean trade partners? | Vasco da Gama | From the earlier part of the 15th century, Portuguese expeditions organized by Prince Henry the Navigator had been reaching down the African coastline, principally in search of west African riches (notably, gold). They had greatly extended Portuguese maritime knowledge, but had little profit to show for the effort. After Henry's death in 1460, the Portuguese Crown showed little interest in continuing this effort and, in 1469, sold off the neglected African enterprise to a private Lisbon merchant consortium led by Fernao Gomes. Within a few years, Gomes' captains expanded Portuguese knowledge across the Gulf of Guinea, doing business in gold dust, Melegueta pepper, ivory and sub-Saharan slaves. When Gomes' charter came up for renewal in 1474, Prince John (future John II), asked his father Afonso V of Portugal to pass the African charter to him. Upon becoming king in 1481, John II of Portugal set out on many long reforms. To break the monarch's dependence on the feudal nobility, John II needed to build up the royal treasury; he considered royal commerce to be the key to achieving that. Under John II's watch, the gold and slave trade in west Africa was greatly expanded. He was eager to break into the highly profitable spice trade between Europe and Asia, which was conducted chiefly by land. At the time, this was virtually monopolized by the Republic of Venice, who operated overland routes via Levantine and Egyptian ports, through the Red Sea across to the spice markets of India. John II set a new objective for his captains: to find a sea route to Asia by sailing around the African continent. By the time Vasco da Gama was in his 20s, the king's plans were coming to fruition. In 1487, John II dispatched two spies, Pero da Covilha and Afonso de Paiva, overland via Egypt to East Africa and India, to scout the details of the spice markets and trade routes. The breakthrough came soon after, when John II's captain Bartolomeu Dias returned from rounding the Cape of Good Hope in 1488, having explored as far as the Fish River (Rio do Infante) in modern-day South Africa and having verified that the unknown coast stretched away to the northeast. An explorer was needed who could prove the link between the findings of Dias and those of da Covilha and de Paiva, and connect these separate segments into a potentially lucrative trade route across the Indian Ocean. CANNOTANSWER | At the time, this was virtually monopolized by the Republic of Venice, who operated overland routes via Levantine and Egyptian ports, | Vasco da Gama, 1st Count of Vidigueira (, ; ; c. 1460s – 24 December 1524), was a Portuguese explorer and the first European to reach India by sea.
His initial voyage to India by way of Cape of Good Hope (1497–1499) was the first to link Europe and Asia by an ocean route, connecting the Atlantic and the Indian oceans and therefore, the West and the Orient. This is widely considered a milestone in world history, as it marked the beginning of a sea-based phase of global multiculturalism. Da Gama's discovery of the sea route to India opened the way for an age of global imperialism and enabled the Portuguese to establish a long-lasting colonial empire along the way from Africa to Asia. The violence and hostage taking employed by da Gama and those who followed also assigned a brutal reputation to the Portuguese among India's indigenous kingdoms that would set the pattern for western colonialism in the Age of Exploration. Traveling the ocean route allowed the Portuguese to avoid sailing across the highly disputed Mediterranean and traversing the dangerous Arabian Peninsula. The sum of the distances covered in the outward and return voyages made this expedition the longest ocean voyage ever made until then.
After decades of sailors trying to reach the Indies, with thousands of lives and dozens of vessels lost in shipwrecks and attacks, da Gama landed in Calicut on 20 May 1498. Unopposed access to the Indian spice routes boosted the economy of the Portuguese Empire, which was previously based along northern and coastal West Africa. The main spices at first obtained from Southeast Asia were pepper and cinnamon, but soon included other products, all new to Europe. Portugal maintained a commercial monopoly of these commodities for several decades. It was not until a century later that other European powers, first the Dutch Republic and England, later France and Denmark, were able to challenge Portugal's monopoly and naval supremacy in the Cape Route.
Da Gama led two of the Portuguese India Armadas, the first and the fourth. The latter was the largest and departed for India four years after his return from the first one. For his contributions, in 1524 da Gama was appointed Governor of India, with the title of Viceroy, and was ennobled as Count of Vidigueira in 1519. He remains a leading figure in the history of exploration, and homages worldwide have celebrated his explorations and accomplishments. The Portuguese national epic poem, Os Lusíadas, was written in his honour by Luís de Camões. In March 2016 thousands of artifacts and nautical remains were recovered from the wreck of the ship Esmeralda, one of da Gama's armada, found off the coast of Oman.
Early life
Vasco da Gama was born in 1460 in the town of Sines, one of the few seaports on the Alentejo coast, southwest Portugal, probably in a house near the church of Nossa Senhora das Salas.
Vasco da Gama's father was Estêvão da Gama, who had served in the 1460s as a knight of the household of Infante Ferdinand, Duke of Viseu. He rose in the ranks of the military Order of Santiago. Estêvão da Gama was appointed alcaide-mór (civil governor) of Sines in the 1460s, a post he held until 1478; after that he continued as a receiver of taxes and holder of the Order's commendas in the region.
Estêvão da Gama married Isabel Sodré, a daughter of João Sodré (also known as João de Resende), scion of a well-connected family of English origin. Her father and her brothers, Vicente Sodré and Brás Sodré, had links to the household of Infante Diogo, Duke of Viseu, and were prominent figures in the military Order of Christ. Vasco da Gama was the third of five sons of Estêvão da Gama and Isabel Sodré – in (probable) order of age: Paulo da Gama, João Sodré, Vasco da Gama, Pedro da Gama and Aires da Gama. Vasco also had one known sister, Teresa da Gama (who married Lopo Mendes de Vasconcelos).
Little is known of da Gama's early life. The Portuguese historian Teixeira de Aragão suggests that he studied at the inland town of Évora, which is where he may have learned mathematics and navigation. It has been claimed that he studied under Abraham Zacuto, an astrologer and astronomer, but da Gama's biographer Subrahmanyam thinks this dubious.
Around 1480, da Gama followed his father (rather than the Sodrés) and joined the Order of Santiago. The master of Santiago was Prince John, who ascended to the throne in 1481 as King John II of Portugal. John II doted on the Order, and the da Gamas' prospects rose accordingly.
In 1492, John II dispatched da Gama on a mission to the port of Setúbal and to the Algarve to seize French ships in retaliation for peacetime depredations against Portuguese shipping – a task that da Gama rapidly and effectively performed.
Exploration before da Gama
From the earlier part of the 15th century, Portuguese expeditions organized by Prince Henry the Navigator had been reaching down the African coastline, principally in search of west African riches (notably, gold and slaves). They had greatly extended Portuguese maritime knowledge, but had little profit to show for the effort. After Henry's death in 1460, the Portuguese Crown showed little interest in continuing this effort and, in 1469, licensed the neglected African enterprise to a private Lisbon merchant consortium led by Fernão Gomes. Within a few years, Gomes' captains expanded Portuguese knowledge across the Gulf of Guinea, doing business in gold dust, melegueta pepper, ivory and sub-Saharan slaves. When Gomes' charter came up for renewal in 1474, Prince John (future John II), asked his father Afonso V of Portugal to pass the African charter to him.
Upon becoming king in 1481, John II of Portugal set out on many long reforms. To break the monarch's dependence on the feudal nobility, John II needed to build up the royal treasury; he considered royal commerce to be the key to achieving that. Under John II's watch, the gold and slave trade in west Africa was greatly expanded. He was eager to break into the highly profitable spice trade between Europe and Asia, which was conducted chiefly by land. At the time, this was virtually monopolized by the Republic of Venice, who operated overland routes via Levantine and Egyptian ports, through the Red Sea across to the spice markets of India. John II set a new objective for his captains: to find a sea route to Asia by sailing around the African continent.
By the time Vasco da Gama was in his 20s, the king's plans were coming to fruition. In 1487, John II dispatched two spies, Pero da Covilhã and Afonso de Paiva, overland via Egypt to East Africa and India, to scout the details of the spice markets and trade routes. The breakthrough came soon after, when John II's captain Bartolomeu Dias returned from rounding the Cape of Good Hope in 1488, having explored as far as the Fish River (Rio do Infante) in modern-day South Africa and having verified that the unknown coast stretched away to the northeast.
An explorer was needed who could prove the link between the findings of Dias and those of da Covilhã and de Paiva, and connect these separate segments into a potentially lucrative trade route across the Indian Ocean.
First voyage
On 8 July 1497 Vasco da Gama led a fleet of four ships with a crew of 170 men from Lisbon. The distance traveled in the journey around Africa to India and back was greater than the length of the equator. The navigators included Portugal's most experienced, Pero de Alenquer, Pedro Escobar, João de Coimbra, and Afonso Gonçalves. It is not known for certain how many people were in each ship's crew but approximately 55 returned, and two ships were lost. Two of the vessels were carracks, newly built for the voyage; the others were a caravel and a supply boat.
The four ships were:
São Gabriel, commanded by Vasco da Gama; a carrack of 178 tons, length 27 m, width 8.5 m, draft 2.3 m, sails of 372 m2
São Rafael, commanded by his brother Paulo da Gama; similar dimensions to the São Gabriel
Berrio (nickname, officially called São Miguel), a caravel, slightly smaller than the former two, commanded by Nicolau Coelho
A storage ship of unknown name, commanded by Gonçalo Nunes, destined to be scuttled in Mossel Bay (São Brás) in South Africa
Journey to the Cape
The expedition set sail from Lisbon on 8 July 1497. It followed the route pioneered by earlier explorers along the coast of Africa via Tenerife and the Cape Verde Islands. After reaching the coast of present-day Sierra Leone, da Gama took a course south into the open ocean, crossing the Equator and seeking the South Atlantic westerlies that Bartolomeu Dias had discovered in 1487. This course proved successful and on 4 November 1497, the expedition made landfall on the African coast. For over three months the ships had sailed more than of open ocean, by far the longest journey out of sight of land made by that time.
By 16 December, the fleet had passed the Great Fish River (Eastern Cape, South Africa) – where Dias had anchored – and sailed into waters previously unknown to Europeans. With Christmas pending, da Gama and his crew gave the coast they were passing the name Natal, which carried the connotation of "birth of Christ" in Portuguese.
Mozambique
Vasco da Gama spent 2 to 29 March 1498 in the vicinity of Mozambique Island. Arab-controlled territory on the East African coast was an integral part of the network of trade in the Indian Ocean. Fearing the local population would be hostile to Christians, da Gama impersonated a Muslim and gained audience with the Sultan of Mozambique. With the paltry trade goods he had to offer, the explorer was unable to provide a suitable gift to the ruler. Soon the local populace became suspicious of da Gama and his men. Forced by a hostile crowd to flee Mozambique, da Gama departed the harbor, firing his cannons into the city in retaliation.
Mombasa
In the vicinity of modern Kenya, the expedition resorted to piracy, looting Arab merchant ships that were generally unarmed trading vessels without heavy cannons. The Portuguese became the first known Europeans to visit the port of Mombasa from 7 to 13 April 1498, but were met with hostility and soon departed.
Malindi
Vasco da Gama continued north, arriving on 14 April 1498 at the friendlier port of Malindi, whose leaders were having a conflict with those of Mombasa. There the expedition first noted evidence of Indian traders. Da Gama and his crew contracted the services of a pilot who used his knowledge of the monsoon winds to guide the expedition the rest of the way to Calicut, located on the southwest coast of India. Sources differ over the identity of the pilot, calling him variously a Christian, a Muslim, and a Gujarati. One traditional story describes the pilot as the famous Arab navigator Ibn Majid, but other contemporaneous accounts place Majid elsewhere, and he could not have been near the vicinity at the time. None of the Portuguese historians of the time mentions Ibn Majid. Vasco da Gama left Malindi for India on 24 April 1498.
Calicut, India
The fleet arrived in Kappadu near Kozhikode (Calicut), in Malabar Coast (present day Kerala state of India), on 20 May 1498. The King of Calicut, the Samudiri (Zamorin), who was at that time staying in his second capital at Ponnani, returned to Calicut on hearing the news of the foreign fleet's arrival. The navigator was received with traditional hospitality, including a grand procession of at least 3,000 armed Nairs, but an interview with the Zamorin failed to produce any concrete results. When local authorities asked da Gama's fleet, "What brought you hither?", they replied that they had come "in search of Christians and spices." The presents that da Gama sent to the Zamorin as gifts from Dom Manuel – four cloaks of scarlet cloth, six hats, four branches of corals, twelve , a box with seven brass vessels, a chest of sugar, two barrels of oil and a cask of honey – were trivial, and failed to impress. While Zamorin's officials wondered at why there was no gold or silver, the Muslim merchants who considered da Gama their rival suggested that the latter was only an ordinary pirate and not a royal ambassador. Vasco da Gama's request for permission to leave a factor behind him in charge of the merchandise he could not sell was turned down by the King, who insisted that da Gama pay customs duty – preferably in gold – like any other trader, which strained the relation between the two. Annoyed by this, da Gama carried a few Nairs and sixteen fishermen (mukkuva) off with him by force.
Return
Vasco da Gama left Calicut on 29 August 1498. Eager to set sail for home, he ignored the local knowledge of monsoon wind patterns that were still blowing onshore. The fleet initially inched north along the Indian coast, and then anchored in at Anjediva island for a spell. They finally struck out for their Indian Ocean crossing on 3 October 1498. But with the winter monsoon yet to set in, it was a harrowing journey. On the outgoing journey, sailing with the summer monsoon wind, da Gama's fleet crossed the Indian Ocean in only 23 days; now, on the return trip, sailing against the wind, it took 132 days.
Da Gama saw land again only on 2 January 1499, passing before the coastal Somali city of Mogadishu, then under the influence of the Ajuran Empire in the Horn of Africa. The fleet did not make a stop, but passing before Mogadishu, the anonymous diarist of the expedition noted that it was a large city with houses of four or five storeys high and big palaces in its center and many mosques with cylindrical minarets.
Da Gama's fleet finally arrived in Malindi on 7 January 1499, in a terrible state – approximately half of the crew had died during the crossing, and many of the rest were afflicted with scurvy. Not having enough crewmen left standing to manage three ships, da Gama ordered the São Rafael scuttled off the East African coast, and the crew re-distributed to the remaining two ships, the São Gabriel and the Berrio. Thereafter, the sailing was smoother. By early March, they had arrived in Mossel Bay, and crossed the Cape of Good Hope in the opposite direction on 20 March, reaching the west African coast by 25 April.
The diary record of the expedition ends abruptly here. Reconstructing from other sources, it seems they continued to Cape Verde, where Nicolau Coelho's Berrio separated from Vasco da Gama's São Gabriel and sailed on by itself. The Berrio arrived in Lisbon on 10 July 1499 and Nicolau Coelho personally delivered the news to King Manuel I and the royal court, then assembled in Sintra. In the meantime, back in Cape Verde, da Gama's brother, Paulo da Gama, had fallen grievously ill. Da Gama elected to stay by his side on Santiago island and handed the São Gabriel over to his clerk, João de Sá, to take home. The São Gabriel under Sá arrived in Lisbon sometime in late July or early August. Da Gama and his sickly brother eventually hitched a ride with a Guinea caravel returning to Portugal, but Paulo da Gama died en route. Da Gama disembarked at the Azores to bury his brother at the monastery of São Francisco in Angra do Heroismo, and lingered there for a little while in mourning. He eventually took passage on an Azorean caravel and finally arrived in Lisbon on 29 August 1499 (according to Barros), or early September (8th or 18th, according to other sources). Despite his melancholic mood, da Gama was given a hero's welcome and showered with honors, including a triumphal procession and public festivities. King Manuel wrote two letters in which he described da Gama's first voyage, in July and August 1499, soon after the return of the ships. Girolamo Sernigi also wrote three letters describing da Gama's first voyage soon after the return of the expedition.
The expedition had exacted a large cost – two ships and over half the men had been lost. It had also failed in its principal mission of securing a commercial treaty with Calicut. Nonetheless, the small quantities of spices and other trade goods brought back on the remaining two ships demonstrated the potential of great profit for future trade. Vasco da Gama was justly celebrated for opening a direct sea route to Asia. His path would be followed up thereafter by yearly Portuguese India Armadas.
The spice trade would prove to be a major asset to the Portuguese royal treasury, and other consequences soon followed. For example, da Gama's voyage had made it clear that the east coast of Africa, the Contra Costa, was essential to Portuguese interests; its ports provided fresh water, provisions, timber, and harbors for repairs, and served as a refuge where ships could wait out unfavorable weather. One significant result was the colonization of Mozambique by the Portuguese Crown.
Rewards
In December 1499, King Manuel I of Portugal rewarded Vasco da Gama with the town of Sines as a hereditary fief (the town his father, Estêvão, had once held as a commenda). This turned out to be a complicated affair, for Sines still belonged to the Order of Santiago. The master of the Order, Jorge de Lencastre, might have endorsed the reward – after all, da Gama was a Santiago knight, one of their own, and a close associate of Lencastre himself. But the fact that Sines was awarded by the king provoked Lencastre to refuse out of principle, lest it encourage the king to make other donations of the Order's properties. Da Gama would spend the next few years attempting to take hold of Sines, an effort that would estrange him from Lencastre and eventually prompt da Gama to abandon his beloved Order of Santiago, switching over to the rival Order of Christ in 1507.
In the meantime, da Gama made do with a substantial hereditary royal pension of 300,000 reis. He was awarded the noble title of Dom (lord) in perpetuity for himself, his siblings and their descendants. On 30 January 1502, da Gama was awarded the title of Almirante dos mares de Arabia, Persia, India e de todo o Oriente ("Admiral of the Seas of Arabia, Persia, India and all the Orient") – an overwrought title reminiscent of the ornate Castilian title borne by Christopher Columbus (evidently, Manuel must have reckoned that if Castile had an 'Admiral of the Ocean Seas', then surely Portugal should have one too). Another royal letter, dated October 1501, gave da Gama the personal right to intervene and exercise a determining role on any future India-bound fleet.
Around 1501, Vasco da Gama married Catarina de Ataíde, daughter of Álvaro de Ataíde, the alcaide-mór of Alvor (Algarve), and a prominent nobleman connected by kinship with the powerful Almeida family (Catarina was a first cousin of Dom Francisco de Almeida).
Second voyage
The follow-up expedition, the Second India Armada, launched in 1500 under the command of Pedro Álvares Cabral with the mission of making a treaty with the Zamorin of Calicut and setting up a Portuguese factory in the city. However, Pedro Cabral entered into a conflict with the local Arab merchant guilds, with the result that the Portuguese factory was overrun in a riot and up to 70 Portuguese were killed. Cabral blamed the Zamorin for the incident and bombarded the city. Thus war broke out between Portugal and Calicut.
Vasco da Gama invoked his royal letter to take command of the 4th India Armada, scheduled to set out in 1502, with the explicit aim of taking revenge upon the Zamorin and force him to submit to Portuguese terms. The heavily armed fleet of fifteen ships and eight hundred men left Lisbon on 12 February 1502. It was followed in April by another squadron of five ships led by his cousin, Estêvão da Gama (the son of Aires da Gama), which caught up to them in the Indian Ocean. The 4th Armada was a veritable da Gama family affair. Two of his maternal uncles, Vicente Sodré and Brás Sodré, were pre-designated to command an Indian Ocean naval patrol, while brothers-in-law Álvaro de Ataíde (brother of Vasco's wife Catarina) and Lopo Mendes de Vasconcelos (betrothed to Teresa da Gama, Vasco's sister) captained ships in the main fleet.
On the outgoing voyage, da Gama's fleet opened contact with the East African gold trading port of Sofala and reduced the sultanate of Kilwa to tribute, extracting a substantial sum of gold.
Pilgrim ship incident
On reaching India in October 1502, da Gama's fleet intercepted a ship of Muslim pilgrims at Madayi travelling from Calicut to Mecca. Described in detail by eyewitness Thomé Lopes and chronicler Gaspar Correia, da Gama looted the ship with over 400 pilgrims on board including 50 women, locked in the passengers, the owner and an ambassador from Egypt and burned them to death. They offered their wealth, which "could ransom all the Christian slaves in the Kingdom of Fez and much more" but were not spared. Da Gama looked on through the porthole and saw the women bringing up their gold and jewels and holding up their babies to beg for mercy.
Calicut
After stopping at Cannanore, Gama drove his fleet before Calicut, demanding redress for the treatment of Cabral. Having known of the fate of the pilgrims' ship, the Zamorin adopted a conciliatory attitude towards the Portuguese and expressed willingness to sign a new treaty but da Gama made a call to the Hindu king to expel all Muslims from Calicut before beginning negotiations, which was turned down. At the same time however, the Zamorin sent a message to his rebellious vassal, the Raja of Cochin urging cooperation and obedience to counter the Portuguese threat; the ruler of Cochin forwarded this message to Gama, which reinforced his opinion of the Indians as duplicitous. After demanding the expulsion of Muslims from Calicut to the Hindu Zamorin, the latter sent the high priest Talappana Namboothiri (the very same person who conducted da Gama to the Zamorin's chamber during his much celebrated first visit to Calicut in May 1498) for talks. Da Gama called him a spy, ordered the priests' lips and ears to be cut off and after sewing a pair of dog's ears to his head, sent him away. The Portuguese fleet then bombarded the unfortified city for nearly two days from the sea, severely damaging it. He also captured several rice vessels and cut off the crew's hands, ears and noses, dispatching them with a note to the Zamorin, in which Gama declared that he would be open to friendly relations once the Zamorin had paid for the items plundered from the feitoria as well as the gunpowder and cannonballs.
Seabattle
The violent treatment meted out by da Gama quickly brought trade along the Malabar Coast of India, upon which Calicut depended, to a standstill. The Zamorin ventured to dispatch a fleet of strong warships to challenge da Gama's armada, but which Gama managed to defeat in a naval battle before Calicut harbor.
Cochin
Da Gama loaded up with spices at Cochin and Cannanore, small nearby kingdoms at war with the Zamorin, whose alliances had been secured by prior Portuguese fleets. The 4th armada left India in early 1503. Da Gama left behind a small squadron of caravels under the command of his uncle, Vicente Sodré, to patrol the Indian coast, to continue harassing Calicut shipping, and to protect the Portuguese factories at Cochin and Cannanore from the Zamorin's inevitable reprisals.
Vasco da Gama arrived back in Portugal in September 1503, effectively having failed in his mission to bring the Zamorin to submission. This failure, and the subsequent more galling failure of his uncle Vicente Sodré to protect the Portuguese factory in Cochin, probably counted against any further rewards. When the Portuguese king Manuel I of Portugal decided to appoint the first governor and viceroy of Portuguese India in 1505, da Gama was conspicuously overlooked, and the post given to Francisco de Almeida.
Interlude
For the next two decades, Vasco da Gama lived out a quiet life, unwelcome in the royal court and sidelined from Indian affairs. His attempts to return to the favor of Manuel I (including switching over to the Order of Christ in 1507), yielded little. Almeida, the larger-than-life Afonso de Albuquerque and, later on, Albergaria and Sequeira, were the king's preferred point men for India.
After Ferdinand Magellan defected to the Crown of Castile in 1518, Vasco da Gama threatened to do the same, prompting the king to undertake steps to retain him in Portugal and avoid the embarrassment of losing his own "Admiral of the Indies" to Spain. In 1519, after years of ignoring his petitions, King Manuel I finally hurried to give Vasco da Gama a feudal title, appointing him the first Count of Vidigueira, a count title created by a royal decree issued in Évora on 29 December, after a complicated agreement with Dom Jaime, Duke of Braganza, who ceded him on payment the towns of Vidigueira and Vila dos Frades. The decree granted Vasco da Gama and his heirs all the revenues and privileges related, thus establishing da Gama as the first Portuguese count who was not born with royal blood.
Third voyage and death
After the death of King Manuel I in late 1521, his son and successor, King John III of Portugal set about reviewing the Portuguese government overseas. Turning away from the old Albuquerque clique (now represented by Diogo Lopes de Sequeira), John III looked for a fresh start. Vasco da Gama re-emerged from his political wilderness as an important adviser to the new king's appointments and strategy. Seeing the new Spanish threat to the Maluku Islands as the priority, Vasco da Gama advised against the obsession with Arabia that had pervaded much of the Manueline period, and continued to be the dominant concern of Duarte de Menezes, then-governor of Portuguese India. Menezes also turned out to be incompetent and corrupt, subject to numerous complaints. As a result, John III decided to appoint Vasco da Gama himself to replace Menezes, confident that the magic of his name and memory of his deeds might better impress his authority on Portuguese India, and manage the transition to a new government and new strategy.
By his appointment letter of February 1524, John III granted Vasco da Gama the privileged title of "Viceroy", being only the second Portuguese governor to enjoy that title (the first was Francisco de Almeida in 1505). His second son, Estêvão da Gama was simultaneously appointed Capitão-mor do Mar da Índia ('Captain-major of the Indian Sea', commander of the Indian Ocean naval patrol fleet), to replace Duarte's brother, Luís de Menezes. As a final condition, Gama secured from John III of Portugal the commitment to appoint all his sons successively as Portuguese captains of Malacca.
Setting out in April 1524, with a fleet of fourteen ships, Vasco da Gama took as his flagship the famous large carrack Santa Catarina do Monte Sinai on her last journey to India, along with two of his sons, Estêvão and Paulo. After a troubled journey (four or five of the ships were lost en route), he arrived in India in September. Vasco da Gama immediately invoked his high viceregent powers to impose a new order in Portuguese India, replacing all the old officials with his own appointments. But Gama contracted malaria not long after arriving, and died in the city of Cochin on Christmas Eve in 1524, three months after his arrival. As per royal instructions, da Gama was succeeded as governor of India by one of the captains who had come with him, Henrique de Menezes (no relation to Duarte). Da Gama's sons Estêvão and Paulo immediately lost their posts and joined the returning fleet of early 1525 (along with the dismissed Duarte de Menezes and Luís de Menezes).
Vasco da Gama's body was first buried at St. Francis Church, which was located at Fort Kochi in the city of Kochi, but his remains were returned to Portugal in 1539. The body of Vasco da Gama was re-interred in Vidigueira in a casket decorated with gold and jewels.
The Monastery of the Hieronymites, in Belém, which would become the necropolis of the Portuguese royal dynasty of Aviz, was erected in the early 1500s near the launch point of Vasco da Gama's first journey, and its construction funded by a tax on the profits of the yearly Portuguese India Armadas. In 1880, da Gama's remains and those of the poet Luís de Camões (who celebrated da Gama's first voyage in his 1572 epic poem, The Lusiad), were moved to new carved tombs in the nave of the monastery's church, only a few meters away from the tombs of the kings Manuel I and John III, whom da Gama had served.
Marriage and descendants
Vasco da Gama and his wife, Catarina de Ataíde, had six sons and one daughter:
Dom Francisco da Gama, who inherited his father's titles as 2nd Count of Vidigueira and the 2nd "Admiral of the Seas of India, Arabia and Persia". He remained in Portugal.
Dom Estevão da Gama, after his abortive 1524 term as Indian patrol captain, he was appointed for a three-year term as captain of Malacca, serving from 1534 to 1539 (includes the last two years of his younger brother Paulo's term). He was subsequently appointed as the 11th governor of India from 1540 to 1542.
Dom Paulo da Gama (having the same name as his uncle Paulo), captain of Malacca from 1533 to 1534, killed in a naval action off Malacca.
Dom Cristovão da Gama, captain of Malacca from 1538 to 1540; nominated to succeed in Malacca, but executed by Ahmad ibn Ibrahim during the Ethiopian-Adal war in 1542.
Dom Pedro da Silva da Gama, appointed captain of Malacca from 1548 to 1552.
Dom Álvaro d'Ataide da Gama, appointed captain of Malacca fleet in the 1540s, captain of Malacca itself from 1552 to 1554.
Dona Isabel d'Ataide da Gama, only daughter, married Ignacio de Noronha, son of the first Count of Linhares.
His male-line issue became extinct in 1747, though the title continued through the female-line.
Intergenerations
Dom Vasco da Gama, 3rd Count of Vidigueira, the nobility and military personnel, son of Francisco (2nd Count) and grandson of Vasco da Gama.
Dom Francisco da Gama, 4th Count of Vidigueira, the viceroy (1597–1600) and governor (1622–1628) of India, son of Vasco (3rd Count) and great-grandson of Vasco da Gama.
Legacy
Vasco da Gama is one of the most famous and celebrated explorers from the Age of Discovery. As much as anyone after Henry the Navigator, he was responsible for Portugal's success as an early colonising power. Beside the fact of the first voyage itself, it was his astute mix of politics and war on the other side of the world that placed Portugal in a prominent position in Indian Ocean trade. Following da Gama's initial voyage, the Portuguese crown realized that securing outposts on the eastern coast of Africa would prove vital to maintaining national trade routes to the Far East.
However, his fame is tempered by such incidents and attitudes as displayed in the notorious Pilgrim Ship Incident previously discussed.
The Portuguese national epic, the Lusíadas of Luís Vaz de Camões, largely concerns Vasco da Gama's voyages.
The 1865 grand opera L'Africaine: Opéra en Cinq Actes, composed by Giacomo Meyerbeer from a libretto by Eugène Scribe, prominently includes the character of Vasco da Gama. The events depicted, however, are fictitious. Meyerbeer's working title for the opera was Vasco da Gama. A 1989 production of the opera by the San Francisco Opera featured noted tenor Plácido Domingo in the role of da Gama. The 19th-century composer Louis-Albert Bourgault-Ducoudray composed an eponymous 1872 opera based on da Gama's life and exploits at sea.
The port city of Vasco da Gama in Goa is named after him, as is the crater Vasco da Gama on the Moon. There are three football clubs in Brazil (including Club de Regatas Vasco da Gama) and Vasco Sports Club in Goa that were also named after him. There exists a church in Kochi, Kerala called Vasco da Gama Church, and a private residence on the island of Saint Helena. The suburb of Vasco in Cape Town also honours him.
A few places in Lisbon's Parque das Nações are named after the explorer, such as the Vasco da Gama Bridge, Vasco da Gama Tower and the Centro Comercial Vasco da Gama shopping centre. The Oceanário in the Parque das Nações has a mascot of a cartoon diver with the name of "Vasco", who is named after the explorer.
Vasco da Gama was the only explorer on the final pool of Os Grandes Portugueses. Although the final shortlist featured other Age of Discovery related people, they were not actually explorers nor navigators for any matter.
The Portuguese Navy has a class of frigates named after him. There are three Vasco da Gama class frigates in total, of which the first one also bears his name.
The Portuguese government erected two navigational beacons, Dias Cross and da Gama Cross, to commemorate da Gama and Bartolomeu Dias who were the first modern European explorers to reach the Cape of Good Hope. When lined up, these crosses point to Whittle Rock, a large, permanently submerged shipping hazard in False Bay.
South African musician Hugh Masekela recorded an anti-colonialist song entitled "Colonial Man", which contains the lyrics "Vasco da Gama was no friend of mine", and another song entitled "Vasco da Gama (The Sailor Man)". Both songs were included in his 1976 album Colonial Man.
Vasco da Gama appears as an antagonist in the Indian film Urumi. The film, directed by Santosh Sivan, depicts atrocities and progression to establish the Portuguese empire by da Gama in India.
In March 2016, archaeologists working off the coast of Oman identified a shipwreck believed to be that of the Esmeralda from da Gama's 1502–1503 fleet. The wreck was initially discovered in 1998. Later underwater excavations took place between 2013 and 2015 through a partnership between the Oman Ministry of Heritage and Culture and Blue Water Recoveries Ltd., a shipwreck recovery company. The vessel was identified through such artifacts as a "Portuguese coin minted for trade with India (one of only two coins of this type known to exist) and stone cannonballs engraved with what appear to be the initials of Vincente Sodré, da Gama's maternal uncle and the commander of the Esmeralda."
See also
Chronology of European exploration of Asia
References
Citations
Bibliography
Castanhoso, M. de (1898) Dos feitos de D. Christovam da Gama em Ethiopia Lisbon: Imprensa nacional. online
Facsimile reprint of an 1869 edition by the Hakluyt Society, London.
(reissued by Cambridge University Press, 2010. )
Teixeira de Aragão, A.C. (1887) Vasco da Gama e a Vidigueira: um estudo historico. Lisbon: Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa online
Further reading
Vasco da Gama (Ernst Georg Ravenstein, Gaspar Corrêa, Alvaro Velho) [2011] Viartis
Vasco da Gama: Renaissance Crusader (Glen J.Ames) [2004] Longman
The Career and Legend of Vasco da Gama (Sanjay Subrahmanyam) [1997] Cambridge University Press
External links
Vasco da Gama's Round Africa to India, fordham.edu
Vasco da Gama web tutorial with animated maps, ucalgary.ca
A Portuguese East Indiaman from the 1502–1503 Fleet of Vasco da Gama off Al Hallaniyah Island, Oman: an interim report, IJNA
Portuguese explorers
Portuguese colonial governors and administrators
Maritime history of Portugal
Explorers of Asia
Explorers of India
Explorers of Africa
Viceroys of Portuguese India
Vasco
1460s births
1524 deaths
Deaths from malaria
Infectious disease deaths in India
Maritime history of South Africa
Colonial Goa
Colonial Kerala
History of Goa
People from Sines
People of Portuguese India
People from Vidigueira
Portuguese Roman Catholics
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15th-century Portuguese people
15th-century Roman Catholics | true | [
"This is a list of the largest trading partners of Canada. Canada is considered to be a trading nation\n\nHistorically, the issue of Canada's largest trade partners, and dependence on particular markets, has been a major political issue. At the time of Confederation in 1867, the United Kingdom was by far Canada's largest trading partner, reflecting the close historical, cultural, and institutional ties within the British Empire. Over time, more and more of Canada's trade was proportionally done with the United States. Various governments hoped to strengthen or reverse this trend, by changing tariff policy either to one of Imperial Preference with the British, Reciprocity with the National Policy of internal development. The 1891 and 1911 elections were fought partly over the issue of closer trade relationships with the British. Following their Civil War, the United States emerged as Canada's largest trading partner. By the time the United Kingdom joined the European Economic Community in 1973, the idea of the UK as an alternative to the USA as Canada's largest market was no longer viable. Canada and the United States signed the Free Trade Agreement in 1988 (which was expanded into NAFTA by the addition of Mexico in 1994). Since that time the United States has dominated Canadian trade by an overwhelming degree. After the Wars, trade with Asia began to expand, especially China. After the opening of Canada–People's Republic of China relations in 1970, trade with China has expanded rapidly.\n\nThe 20 largest trade partners of Canada represent 94.0% of Canada's exports, and 91.9% of Canada's imports . These figures do not include services or foreign direct investment.\n\nThe largest partners of Canada with their total trade (sum of imports and exports) in millions of Canadian Dollars for calendar year 2019 are as follows:\n\nSee also\nList of the largest trading partners of Australia\nList of the largest trading partners of China\nList of the largest trading partners of the European Union\nList of the largest trading partners of Germany\nList of the largest trading partners of Italy\nList of the largest trading partners of the Netherlands\nList of the largest trading partners of India\nList of the largest trading partners of Russia\nList of the largest trading partners of United Kingdom\nList of the largest trading partners of the United States\n\nReferences\n\nForeign trade of Canada\nTrading partners\nCanada economy-related lists\nLists of trading partners",
"This is a list of the largest trading partners of Australia. According to data obtained in the 2018 calendar year, China was the largest partner followed by Japan and the European Union.\n\nThe largest trading partners\nThe ten largest trading partners of Australia with their total trade (sum of imports and exports) in millions of Australian dollars and the total trade for all countries for the 2018 calendar year were as follows:\n\nTop export markets\nThe 15 largest export markets of Australia in millions of Australian dollars for the 2019–20 financial year were as follows:\n\nTop import sources\nThe 15 largest import sources to Australia in millions of Australian dollars for the 2018–19 financial year were as follows:\n\nSee also\nList of the largest trading partners of Canada\nList of the largest trading partners of China\nList of the largest trading partners of the European Union\nList of the largest trading partners of Germany\nList of the largest trading partners of Italy\nList of the largest trading partners of the Netherlands\nList of the largest trading partners of India\nList of the largest trading partners of Russia\nList of the largest trading partners of United Kingdom\nList of the largest trading partners of the United States\n\nReferences\n\nEconomy of Australia-related lists\nForeign trade of Australia\nAustralia"
] |
[
"Vasco da Gama",
"Exploration before da Gama",
"Was types of exploration happened before da Gama?",
"From the earlier part of the 15th century, Portuguese expeditions organized by Prince Henry the Navigator had been reaching down the African coastline, principally in search of west African riches",
"Were any riches found?",
"They had greatly extended Portuguese maritime knowledge, but had little profit to show for the effort. After Henry's death in 1460,",
"What happened after Henry's death?",
"the Portuguese Crown showed little interest in continuing this effort and, in 1469, sold off the neglected African enterprise to a private Lisbon merchant",
"What was the result of neglection of the African enterprise?",
"Within a few years, Gomes' captains expanded Portuguese knowledge across the Gulf of Guinea, doing business in gold dust, Melegueta pepper, ivory and sub-Saharan slaves.",
"What was the most profitable trade?",
"To break the monarch's dependence on the feudal nobility, John II needed to build up the royal treasury;",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Under John II's watch, the gold and slave trade in west Africa was greatly expanded. He was eager to break into the highly profitable spice trade between Europe and Asia,",
"Who were some of this trade partners?",
"At the time, this was virtually monopolized by the Republic of Venice, who operated overland routes via Levantine and Egyptian ports,"
] | C_ad92303978184a0890a8eb9304f15d62_1 | Who headed the explorations? | 8 | Who headed the explorations under John II? | Vasco da Gama | From the earlier part of the 15th century, Portuguese expeditions organized by Prince Henry the Navigator had been reaching down the African coastline, principally in search of west African riches (notably, gold). They had greatly extended Portuguese maritime knowledge, but had little profit to show for the effort. After Henry's death in 1460, the Portuguese Crown showed little interest in continuing this effort and, in 1469, sold off the neglected African enterprise to a private Lisbon merchant consortium led by Fernao Gomes. Within a few years, Gomes' captains expanded Portuguese knowledge across the Gulf of Guinea, doing business in gold dust, Melegueta pepper, ivory and sub-Saharan slaves. When Gomes' charter came up for renewal in 1474, Prince John (future John II), asked his father Afonso V of Portugal to pass the African charter to him. Upon becoming king in 1481, John II of Portugal set out on many long reforms. To break the monarch's dependence on the feudal nobility, John II needed to build up the royal treasury; he considered royal commerce to be the key to achieving that. Under John II's watch, the gold and slave trade in west Africa was greatly expanded. He was eager to break into the highly profitable spice trade between Europe and Asia, which was conducted chiefly by land. At the time, this was virtually monopolized by the Republic of Venice, who operated overland routes via Levantine and Egyptian ports, through the Red Sea across to the spice markets of India. John II set a new objective for his captains: to find a sea route to Asia by sailing around the African continent. By the time Vasco da Gama was in his 20s, the king's plans were coming to fruition. In 1487, John II dispatched two spies, Pero da Covilha and Afonso de Paiva, overland via Egypt to East Africa and India, to scout the details of the spice markets and trade routes. The breakthrough came soon after, when John II's captain Bartolomeu Dias returned from rounding the Cape of Good Hope in 1488, having explored as far as the Fish River (Rio do Infante) in modern-day South Africa and having verified that the unknown coast stretched away to the northeast. An explorer was needed who could prove the link between the findings of Dias and those of da Covilha and de Paiva, and connect these separate segments into a potentially lucrative trade route across the Indian Ocean. CANNOTANSWER | John II set a new objective for his captains: to find a sea route to Asia by sailing around the African continent. | Vasco da Gama, 1st Count of Vidigueira (, ; ; c. 1460s – 24 December 1524), was a Portuguese explorer and the first European to reach India by sea.
His initial voyage to India by way of Cape of Good Hope (1497–1499) was the first to link Europe and Asia by an ocean route, connecting the Atlantic and the Indian oceans and therefore, the West and the Orient. This is widely considered a milestone in world history, as it marked the beginning of a sea-based phase of global multiculturalism. Da Gama's discovery of the sea route to India opened the way for an age of global imperialism and enabled the Portuguese to establish a long-lasting colonial empire along the way from Africa to Asia. The violence and hostage taking employed by da Gama and those who followed also assigned a brutal reputation to the Portuguese among India's indigenous kingdoms that would set the pattern for western colonialism in the Age of Exploration. Traveling the ocean route allowed the Portuguese to avoid sailing across the highly disputed Mediterranean and traversing the dangerous Arabian Peninsula. The sum of the distances covered in the outward and return voyages made this expedition the longest ocean voyage ever made until then.
After decades of sailors trying to reach the Indies, with thousands of lives and dozens of vessels lost in shipwrecks and attacks, da Gama landed in Calicut on 20 May 1498. Unopposed access to the Indian spice routes boosted the economy of the Portuguese Empire, which was previously based along northern and coastal West Africa. The main spices at first obtained from Southeast Asia were pepper and cinnamon, but soon included other products, all new to Europe. Portugal maintained a commercial monopoly of these commodities for several decades. It was not until a century later that other European powers, first the Dutch Republic and England, later France and Denmark, were able to challenge Portugal's monopoly and naval supremacy in the Cape Route.
Da Gama led two of the Portuguese India Armadas, the first and the fourth. The latter was the largest and departed for India four years after his return from the first one. For his contributions, in 1524 da Gama was appointed Governor of India, with the title of Viceroy, and was ennobled as Count of Vidigueira in 1519. He remains a leading figure in the history of exploration, and homages worldwide have celebrated his explorations and accomplishments. The Portuguese national epic poem, Os Lusíadas, was written in his honour by Luís de Camões. In March 2016 thousands of artifacts and nautical remains were recovered from the wreck of the ship Esmeralda, one of da Gama's armada, found off the coast of Oman.
Early life
Vasco da Gama was born in 1460 in the town of Sines, one of the few seaports on the Alentejo coast, southwest Portugal, probably in a house near the church of Nossa Senhora das Salas.
Vasco da Gama's father was Estêvão da Gama, who had served in the 1460s as a knight of the household of Infante Ferdinand, Duke of Viseu. He rose in the ranks of the military Order of Santiago. Estêvão da Gama was appointed alcaide-mór (civil governor) of Sines in the 1460s, a post he held until 1478; after that he continued as a receiver of taxes and holder of the Order's commendas in the region.
Estêvão da Gama married Isabel Sodré, a daughter of João Sodré (also known as João de Resende), scion of a well-connected family of English origin. Her father and her brothers, Vicente Sodré and Brás Sodré, had links to the household of Infante Diogo, Duke of Viseu, and were prominent figures in the military Order of Christ. Vasco da Gama was the third of five sons of Estêvão da Gama and Isabel Sodré – in (probable) order of age: Paulo da Gama, João Sodré, Vasco da Gama, Pedro da Gama and Aires da Gama. Vasco also had one known sister, Teresa da Gama (who married Lopo Mendes de Vasconcelos).
Little is known of da Gama's early life. The Portuguese historian Teixeira de Aragão suggests that he studied at the inland town of Évora, which is where he may have learned mathematics and navigation. It has been claimed that he studied under Abraham Zacuto, an astrologer and astronomer, but da Gama's biographer Subrahmanyam thinks this dubious.
Around 1480, da Gama followed his father (rather than the Sodrés) and joined the Order of Santiago. The master of Santiago was Prince John, who ascended to the throne in 1481 as King John II of Portugal. John II doted on the Order, and the da Gamas' prospects rose accordingly.
In 1492, John II dispatched da Gama on a mission to the port of Setúbal and to the Algarve to seize French ships in retaliation for peacetime depredations against Portuguese shipping – a task that da Gama rapidly and effectively performed.
Exploration before da Gama
From the earlier part of the 15th century, Portuguese expeditions organized by Prince Henry the Navigator had been reaching down the African coastline, principally in search of west African riches (notably, gold and slaves). They had greatly extended Portuguese maritime knowledge, but had little profit to show for the effort. After Henry's death in 1460, the Portuguese Crown showed little interest in continuing this effort and, in 1469, licensed the neglected African enterprise to a private Lisbon merchant consortium led by Fernão Gomes. Within a few years, Gomes' captains expanded Portuguese knowledge across the Gulf of Guinea, doing business in gold dust, melegueta pepper, ivory and sub-Saharan slaves. When Gomes' charter came up for renewal in 1474, Prince John (future John II), asked his father Afonso V of Portugal to pass the African charter to him.
Upon becoming king in 1481, John II of Portugal set out on many long reforms. To break the monarch's dependence on the feudal nobility, John II needed to build up the royal treasury; he considered royal commerce to be the key to achieving that. Under John II's watch, the gold and slave trade in west Africa was greatly expanded. He was eager to break into the highly profitable spice trade between Europe and Asia, which was conducted chiefly by land. At the time, this was virtually monopolized by the Republic of Venice, who operated overland routes via Levantine and Egyptian ports, through the Red Sea across to the spice markets of India. John II set a new objective for his captains: to find a sea route to Asia by sailing around the African continent.
By the time Vasco da Gama was in his 20s, the king's plans were coming to fruition. In 1487, John II dispatched two spies, Pero da Covilhã and Afonso de Paiva, overland via Egypt to East Africa and India, to scout the details of the spice markets and trade routes. The breakthrough came soon after, when John II's captain Bartolomeu Dias returned from rounding the Cape of Good Hope in 1488, having explored as far as the Fish River (Rio do Infante) in modern-day South Africa and having verified that the unknown coast stretched away to the northeast.
An explorer was needed who could prove the link between the findings of Dias and those of da Covilhã and de Paiva, and connect these separate segments into a potentially lucrative trade route across the Indian Ocean.
First voyage
On 8 July 1497 Vasco da Gama led a fleet of four ships with a crew of 170 men from Lisbon. The distance traveled in the journey around Africa to India and back was greater than the length of the equator. The navigators included Portugal's most experienced, Pero de Alenquer, Pedro Escobar, João de Coimbra, and Afonso Gonçalves. It is not known for certain how many people were in each ship's crew but approximately 55 returned, and two ships were lost. Two of the vessels were carracks, newly built for the voyage; the others were a caravel and a supply boat.
The four ships were:
São Gabriel, commanded by Vasco da Gama; a carrack of 178 tons, length 27 m, width 8.5 m, draft 2.3 m, sails of 372 m2
São Rafael, commanded by his brother Paulo da Gama; similar dimensions to the São Gabriel
Berrio (nickname, officially called São Miguel), a caravel, slightly smaller than the former two, commanded by Nicolau Coelho
A storage ship of unknown name, commanded by Gonçalo Nunes, destined to be scuttled in Mossel Bay (São Brás) in South Africa
Journey to the Cape
The expedition set sail from Lisbon on 8 July 1497. It followed the route pioneered by earlier explorers along the coast of Africa via Tenerife and the Cape Verde Islands. After reaching the coast of present-day Sierra Leone, da Gama took a course south into the open ocean, crossing the Equator and seeking the South Atlantic westerlies that Bartolomeu Dias had discovered in 1487. This course proved successful and on 4 November 1497, the expedition made landfall on the African coast. For over three months the ships had sailed more than of open ocean, by far the longest journey out of sight of land made by that time.
By 16 December, the fleet had passed the Great Fish River (Eastern Cape, South Africa) – where Dias had anchored – and sailed into waters previously unknown to Europeans. With Christmas pending, da Gama and his crew gave the coast they were passing the name Natal, which carried the connotation of "birth of Christ" in Portuguese.
Mozambique
Vasco da Gama spent 2 to 29 March 1498 in the vicinity of Mozambique Island. Arab-controlled territory on the East African coast was an integral part of the network of trade in the Indian Ocean. Fearing the local population would be hostile to Christians, da Gama impersonated a Muslim and gained audience with the Sultan of Mozambique. With the paltry trade goods he had to offer, the explorer was unable to provide a suitable gift to the ruler. Soon the local populace became suspicious of da Gama and his men. Forced by a hostile crowd to flee Mozambique, da Gama departed the harbor, firing his cannons into the city in retaliation.
Mombasa
In the vicinity of modern Kenya, the expedition resorted to piracy, looting Arab merchant ships that were generally unarmed trading vessels without heavy cannons. The Portuguese became the first known Europeans to visit the port of Mombasa from 7 to 13 April 1498, but were met with hostility and soon departed.
Malindi
Vasco da Gama continued north, arriving on 14 April 1498 at the friendlier port of Malindi, whose leaders were having a conflict with those of Mombasa. There the expedition first noted evidence of Indian traders. Da Gama and his crew contracted the services of a pilot who used his knowledge of the monsoon winds to guide the expedition the rest of the way to Calicut, located on the southwest coast of India. Sources differ over the identity of the pilot, calling him variously a Christian, a Muslim, and a Gujarati. One traditional story describes the pilot as the famous Arab navigator Ibn Majid, but other contemporaneous accounts place Majid elsewhere, and he could not have been near the vicinity at the time. None of the Portuguese historians of the time mentions Ibn Majid. Vasco da Gama left Malindi for India on 24 April 1498.
Calicut, India
The fleet arrived in Kappadu near Kozhikode (Calicut), in Malabar Coast (present day Kerala state of India), on 20 May 1498. The King of Calicut, the Samudiri (Zamorin), who was at that time staying in his second capital at Ponnani, returned to Calicut on hearing the news of the foreign fleet's arrival. The navigator was received with traditional hospitality, including a grand procession of at least 3,000 armed Nairs, but an interview with the Zamorin failed to produce any concrete results. When local authorities asked da Gama's fleet, "What brought you hither?", they replied that they had come "in search of Christians and spices." The presents that da Gama sent to the Zamorin as gifts from Dom Manuel – four cloaks of scarlet cloth, six hats, four branches of corals, twelve , a box with seven brass vessels, a chest of sugar, two barrels of oil and a cask of honey – were trivial, and failed to impress. While Zamorin's officials wondered at why there was no gold or silver, the Muslim merchants who considered da Gama their rival suggested that the latter was only an ordinary pirate and not a royal ambassador. Vasco da Gama's request for permission to leave a factor behind him in charge of the merchandise he could not sell was turned down by the King, who insisted that da Gama pay customs duty – preferably in gold – like any other trader, which strained the relation between the two. Annoyed by this, da Gama carried a few Nairs and sixteen fishermen (mukkuva) off with him by force.
Return
Vasco da Gama left Calicut on 29 August 1498. Eager to set sail for home, he ignored the local knowledge of monsoon wind patterns that were still blowing onshore. The fleet initially inched north along the Indian coast, and then anchored in at Anjediva island for a spell. They finally struck out for their Indian Ocean crossing on 3 October 1498. But with the winter monsoon yet to set in, it was a harrowing journey. On the outgoing journey, sailing with the summer monsoon wind, da Gama's fleet crossed the Indian Ocean in only 23 days; now, on the return trip, sailing against the wind, it took 132 days.
Da Gama saw land again only on 2 January 1499, passing before the coastal Somali city of Mogadishu, then under the influence of the Ajuran Empire in the Horn of Africa. The fleet did not make a stop, but passing before Mogadishu, the anonymous diarist of the expedition noted that it was a large city with houses of four or five storeys high and big palaces in its center and many mosques with cylindrical minarets.
Da Gama's fleet finally arrived in Malindi on 7 January 1499, in a terrible state – approximately half of the crew had died during the crossing, and many of the rest were afflicted with scurvy. Not having enough crewmen left standing to manage three ships, da Gama ordered the São Rafael scuttled off the East African coast, and the crew re-distributed to the remaining two ships, the São Gabriel and the Berrio. Thereafter, the sailing was smoother. By early March, they had arrived in Mossel Bay, and crossed the Cape of Good Hope in the opposite direction on 20 March, reaching the west African coast by 25 April.
The diary record of the expedition ends abruptly here. Reconstructing from other sources, it seems they continued to Cape Verde, where Nicolau Coelho's Berrio separated from Vasco da Gama's São Gabriel and sailed on by itself. The Berrio arrived in Lisbon on 10 July 1499 and Nicolau Coelho personally delivered the news to King Manuel I and the royal court, then assembled in Sintra. In the meantime, back in Cape Verde, da Gama's brother, Paulo da Gama, had fallen grievously ill. Da Gama elected to stay by his side on Santiago island and handed the São Gabriel over to his clerk, João de Sá, to take home. The São Gabriel under Sá arrived in Lisbon sometime in late July or early August. Da Gama and his sickly brother eventually hitched a ride with a Guinea caravel returning to Portugal, but Paulo da Gama died en route. Da Gama disembarked at the Azores to bury his brother at the monastery of São Francisco in Angra do Heroismo, and lingered there for a little while in mourning. He eventually took passage on an Azorean caravel and finally arrived in Lisbon on 29 August 1499 (according to Barros), or early September (8th or 18th, according to other sources). Despite his melancholic mood, da Gama was given a hero's welcome and showered with honors, including a triumphal procession and public festivities. King Manuel wrote two letters in which he described da Gama's first voyage, in July and August 1499, soon after the return of the ships. Girolamo Sernigi also wrote three letters describing da Gama's first voyage soon after the return of the expedition.
The expedition had exacted a large cost – two ships and over half the men had been lost. It had also failed in its principal mission of securing a commercial treaty with Calicut. Nonetheless, the small quantities of spices and other trade goods brought back on the remaining two ships demonstrated the potential of great profit for future trade. Vasco da Gama was justly celebrated for opening a direct sea route to Asia. His path would be followed up thereafter by yearly Portuguese India Armadas.
The spice trade would prove to be a major asset to the Portuguese royal treasury, and other consequences soon followed. For example, da Gama's voyage had made it clear that the east coast of Africa, the Contra Costa, was essential to Portuguese interests; its ports provided fresh water, provisions, timber, and harbors for repairs, and served as a refuge where ships could wait out unfavorable weather. One significant result was the colonization of Mozambique by the Portuguese Crown.
Rewards
In December 1499, King Manuel I of Portugal rewarded Vasco da Gama with the town of Sines as a hereditary fief (the town his father, Estêvão, had once held as a commenda). This turned out to be a complicated affair, for Sines still belonged to the Order of Santiago. The master of the Order, Jorge de Lencastre, might have endorsed the reward – after all, da Gama was a Santiago knight, one of their own, and a close associate of Lencastre himself. But the fact that Sines was awarded by the king provoked Lencastre to refuse out of principle, lest it encourage the king to make other donations of the Order's properties. Da Gama would spend the next few years attempting to take hold of Sines, an effort that would estrange him from Lencastre and eventually prompt da Gama to abandon his beloved Order of Santiago, switching over to the rival Order of Christ in 1507.
In the meantime, da Gama made do with a substantial hereditary royal pension of 300,000 reis. He was awarded the noble title of Dom (lord) in perpetuity for himself, his siblings and their descendants. On 30 January 1502, da Gama was awarded the title of Almirante dos mares de Arabia, Persia, India e de todo o Oriente ("Admiral of the Seas of Arabia, Persia, India and all the Orient") – an overwrought title reminiscent of the ornate Castilian title borne by Christopher Columbus (evidently, Manuel must have reckoned that if Castile had an 'Admiral of the Ocean Seas', then surely Portugal should have one too). Another royal letter, dated October 1501, gave da Gama the personal right to intervene and exercise a determining role on any future India-bound fleet.
Around 1501, Vasco da Gama married Catarina de Ataíde, daughter of Álvaro de Ataíde, the alcaide-mór of Alvor (Algarve), and a prominent nobleman connected by kinship with the powerful Almeida family (Catarina was a first cousin of Dom Francisco de Almeida).
Second voyage
The follow-up expedition, the Second India Armada, launched in 1500 under the command of Pedro Álvares Cabral with the mission of making a treaty with the Zamorin of Calicut and setting up a Portuguese factory in the city. However, Pedro Cabral entered into a conflict with the local Arab merchant guilds, with the result that the Portuguese factory was overrun in a riot and up to 70 Portuguese were killed. Cabral blamed the Zamorin for the incident and bombarded the city. Thus war broke out between Portugal and Calicut.
Vasco da Gama invoked his royal letter to take command of the 4th India Armada, scheduled to set out in 1502, with the explicit aim of taking revenge upon the Zamorin and force him to submit to Portuguese terms. The heavily armed fleet of fifteen ships and eight hundred men left Lisbon on 12 February 1502. It was followed in April by another squadron of five ships led by his cousin, Estêvão da Gama (the son of Aires da Gama), which caught up to them in the Indian Ocean. The 4th Armada was a veritable da Gama family affair. Two of his maternal uncles, Vicente Sodré and Brás Sodré, were pre-designated to command an Indian Ocean naval patrol, while brothers-in-law Álvaro de Ataíde (brother of Vasco's wife Catarina) and Lopo Mendes de Vasconcelos (betrothed to Teresa da Gama, Vasco's sister) captained ships in the main fleet.
On the outgoing voyage, da Gama's fleet opened contact with the East African gold trading port of Sofala and reduced the sultanate of Kilwa to tribute, extracting a substantial sum of gold.
Pilgrim ship incident
On reaching India in October 1502, da Gama's fleet intercepted a ship of Muslim pilgrims at Madayi travelling from Calicut to Mecca. Described in detail by eyewitness Thomé Lopes and chronicler Gaspar Correia, da Gama looted the ship with over 400 pilgrims on board including 50 women, locked in the passengers, the owner and an ambassador from Egypt and burned them to death. They offered their wealth, which "could ransom all the Christian slaves in the Kingdom of Fez and much more" but were not spared. Da Gama looked on through the porthole and saw the women bringing up their gold and jewels and holding up their babies to beg for mercy.
Calicut
After stopping at Cannanore, Gama drove his fleet before Calicut, demanding redress for the treatment of Cabral. Having known of the fate of the pilgrims' ship, the Zamorin adopted a conciliatory attitude towards the Portuguese and expressed willingness to sign a new treaty but da Gama made a call to the Hindu king to expel all Muslims from Calicut before beginning negotiations, which was turned down. At the same time however, the Zamorin sent a message to his rebellious vassal, the Raja of Cochin urging cooperation and obedience to counter the Portuguese threat; the ruler of Cochin forwarded this message to Gama, which reinforced his opinion of the Indians as duplicitous. After demanding the expulsion of Muslims from Calicut to the Hindu Zamorin, the latter sent the high priest Talappana Namboothiri (the very same person who conducted da Gama to the Zamorin's chamber during his much celebrated first visit to Calicut in May 1498) for talks. Da Gama called him a spy, ordered the priests' lips and ears to be cut off and after sewing a pair of dog's ears to his head, sent him away. The Portuguese fleet then bombarded the unfortified city for nearly two days from the sea, severely damaging it. He also captured several rice vessels and cut off the crew's hands, ears and noses, dispatching them with a note to the Zamorin, in which Gama declared that he would be open to friendly relations once the Zamorin had paid for the items plundered from the feitoria as well as the gunpowder and cannonballs.
Seabattle
The violent treatment meted out by da Gama quickly brought trade along the Malabar Coast of India, upon which Calicut depended, to a standstill. The Zamorin ventured to dispatch a fleet of strong warships to challenge da Gama's armada, but which Gama managed to defeat in a naval battle before Calicut harbor.
Cochin
Da Gama loaded up with spices at Cochin and Cannanore, small nearby kingdoms at war with the Zamorin, whose alliances had been secured by prior Portuguese fleets. The 4th armada left India in early 1503. Da Gama left behind a small squadron of caravels under the command of his uncle, Vicente Sodré, to patrol the Indian coast, to continue harassing Calicut shipping, and to protect the Portuguese factories at Cochin and Cannanore from the Zamorin's inevitable reprisals.
Vasco da Gama arrived back in Portugal in September 1503, effectively having failed in his mission to bring the Zamorin to submission. This failure, and the subsequent more galling failure of his uncle Vicente Sodré to protect the Portuguese factory in Cochin, probably counted against any further rewards. When the Portuguese king Manuel I of Portugal decided to appoint the first governor and viceroy of Portuguese India in 1505, da Gama was conspicuously overlooked, and the post given to Francisco de Almeida.
Interlude
For the next two decades, Vasco da Gama lived out a quiet life, unwelcome in the royal court and sidelined from Indian affairs. His attempts to return to the favor of Manuel I (including switching over to the Order of Christ in 1507), yielded little. Almeida, the larger-than-life Afonso de Albuquerque and, later on, Albergaria and Sequeira, were the king's preferred point men for India.
After Ferdinand Magellan defected to the Crown of Castile in 1518, Vasco da Gama threatened to do the same, prompting the king to undertake steps to retain him in Portugal and avoid the embarrassment of losing his own "Admiral of the Indies" to Spain. In 1519, after years of ignoring his petitions, King Manuel I finally hurried to give Vasco da Gama a feudal title, appointing him the first Count of Vidigueira, a count title created by a royal decree issued in Évora on 29 December, after a complicated agreement with Dom Jaime, Duke of Braganza, who ceded him on payment the towns of Vidigueira and Vila dos Frades. The decree granted Vasco da Gama and his heirs all the revenues and privileges related, thus establishing da Gama as the first Portuguese count who was not born with royal blood.
Third voyage and death
After the death of King Manuel I in late 1521, his son and successor, King John III of Portugal set about reviewing the Portuguese government overseas. Turning away from the old Albuquerque clique (now represented by Diogo Lopes de Sequeira), John III looked for a fresh start. Vasco da Gama re-emerged from his political wilderness as an important adviser to the new king's appointments and strategy. Seeing the new Spanish threat to the Maluku Islands as the priority, Vasco da Gama advised against the obsession with Arabia that had pervaded much of the Manueline period, and continued to be the dominant concern of Duarte de Menezes, then-governor of Portuguese India. Menezes also turned out to be incompetent and corrupt, subject to numerous complaints. As a result, John III decided to appoint Vasco da Gama himself to replace Menezes, confident that the magic of his name and memory of his deeds might better impress his authority on Portuguese India, and manage the transition to a new government and new strategy.
By his appointment letter of February 1524, John III granted Vasco da Gama the privileged title of "Viceroy", being only the second Portuguese governor to enjoy that title (the first was Francisco de Almeida in 1505). His second son, Estêvão da Gama was simultaneously appointed Capitão-mor do Mar da Índia ('Captain-major of the Indian Sea', commander of the Indian Ocean naval patrol fleet), to replace Duarte's brother, Luís de Menezes. As a final condition, Gama secured from John III of Portugal the commitment to appoint all his sons successively as Portuguese captains of Malacca.
Setting out in April 1524, with a fleet of fourteen ships, Vasco da Gama took as his flagship the famous large carrack Santa Catarina do Monte Sinai on her last journey to India, along with two of his sons, Estêvão and Paulo. After a troubled journey (four or five of the ships were lost en route), he arrived in India in September. Vasco da Gama immediately invoked his high viceregent powers to impose a new order in Portuguese India, replacing all the old officials with his own appointments. But Gama contracted malaria not long after arriving, and died in the city of Cochin on Christmas Eve in 1524, three months after his arrival. As per royal instructions, da Gama was succeeded as governor of India by one of the captains who had come with him, Henrique de Menezes (no relation to Duarte). Da Gama's sons Estêvão and Paulo immediately lost their posts and joined the returning fleet of early 1525 (along with the dismissed Duarte de Menezes and Luís de Menezes).
Vasco da Gama's body was first buried at St. Francis Church, which was located at Fort Kochi in the city of Kochi, but his remains were returned to Portugal in 1539. The body of Vasco da Gama was re-interred in Vidigueira in a casket decorated with gold and jewels.
The Monastery of the Hieronymites, in Belém, which would become the necropolis of the Portuguese royal dynasty of Aviz, was erected in the early 1500s near the launch point of Vasco da Gama's first journey, and its construction funded by a tax on the profits of the yearly Portuguese India Armadas. In 1880, da Gama's remains and those of the poet Luís de Camões (who celebrated da Gama's first voyage in his 1572 epic poem, The Lusiad), were moved to new carved tombs in the nave of the monastery's church, only a few meters away from the tombs of the kings Manuel I and John III, whom da Gama had served.
Marriage and descendants
Vasco da Gama and his wife, Catarina de Ataíde, had six sons and one daughter:
Dom Francisco da Gama, who inherited his father's titles as 2nd Count of Vidigueira and the 2nd "Admiral of the Seas of India, Arabia and Persia". He remained in Portugal.
Dom Estevão da Gama, after his abortive 1524 term as Indian patrol captain, he was appointed for a three-year term as captain of Malacca, serving from 1534 to 1539 (includes the last two years of his younger brother Paulo's term). He was subsequently appointed as the 11th governor of India from 1540 to 1542.
Dom Paulo da Gama (having the same name as his uncle Paulo), captain of Malacca from 1533 to 1534, killed in a naval action off Malacca.
Dom Cristovão da Gama, captain of Malacca from 1538 to 1540; nominated to succeed in Malacca, but executed by Ahmad ibn Ibrahim during the Ethiopian-Adal war in 1542.
Dom Pedro da Silva da Gama, appointed captain of Malacca from 1548 to 1552.
Dom Álvaro d'Ataide da Gama, appointed captain of Malacca fleet in the 1540s, captain of Malacca itself from 1552 to 1554.
Dona Isabel d'Ataide da Gama, only daughter, married Ignacio de Noronha, son of the first Count of Linhares.
His male-line issue became extinct in 1747, though the title continued through the female-line.
Intergenerations
Dom Vasco da Gama, 3rd Count of Vidigueira, the nobility and military personnel, son of Francisco (2nd Count) and grandson of Vasco da Gama.
Dom Francisco da Gama, 4th Count of Vidigueira, the viceroy (1597–1600) and governor (1622–1628) of India, son of Vasco (3rd Count) and great-grandson of Vasco da Gama.
Legacy
Vasco da Gama is one of the most famous and celebrated explorers from the Age of Discovery. As much as anyone after Henry the Navigator, he was responsible for Portugal's success as an early colonising power. Beside the fact of the first voyage itself, it was his astute mix of politics and war on the other side of the world that placed Portugal in a prominent position in Indian Ocean trade. Following da Gama's initial voyage, the Portuguese crown realized that securing outposts on the eastern coast of Africa would prove vital to maintaining national trade routes to the Far East.
However, his fame is tempered by such incidents and attitudes as displayed in the notorious Pilgrim Ship Incident previously discussed.
The Portuguese national epic, the Lusíadas of Luís Vaz de Camões, largely concerns Vasco da Gama's voyages.
The 1865 grand opera L'Africaine: Opéra en Cinq Actes, composed by Giacomo Meyerbeer from a libretto by Eugène Scribe, prominently includes the character of Vasco da Gama. The events depicted, however, are fictitious. Meyerbeer's working title for the opera was Vasco da Gama. A 1989 production of the opera by the San Francisco Opera featured noted tenor Plácido Domingo in the role of da Gama. The 19th-century composer Louis-Albert Bourgault-Ducoudray composed an eponymous 1872 opera based on da Gama's life and exploits at sea.
The port city of Vasco da Gama in Goa is named after him, as is the crater Vasco da Gama on the Moon. There are three football clubs in Brazil (including Club de Regatas Vasco da Gama) and Vasco Sports Club in Goa that were also named after him. There exists a church in Kochi, Kerala called Vasco da Gama Church, and a private residence on the island of Saint Helena. The suburb of Vasco in Cape Town also honours him.
A few places in Lisbon's Parque das Nações are named after the explorer, such as the Vasco da Gama Bridge, Vasco da Gama Tower and the Centro Comercial Vasco da Gama shopping centre. The Oceanário in the Parque das Nações has a mascot of a cartoon diver with the name of "Vasco", who is named after the explorer.
Vasco da Gama was the only explorer on the final pool of Os Grandes Portugueses. Although the final shortlist featured other Age of Discovery related people, they were not actually explorers nor navigators for any matter.
The Portuguese Navy has a class of frigates named after him. There are three Vasco da Gama class frigates in total, of which the first one also bears his name.
The Portuguese government erected two navigational beacons, Dias Cross and da Gama Cross, to commemorate da Gama and Bartolomeu Dias who were the first modern European explorers to reach the Cape of Good Hope. When lined up, these crosses point to Whittle Rock, a large, permanently submerged shipping hazard in False Bay.
South African musician Hugh Masekela recorded an anti-colonialist song entitled "Colonial Man", which contains the lyrics "Vasco da Gama was no friend of mine", and another song entitled "Vasco da Gama (The Sailor Man)". Both songs were included in his 1976 album Colonial Man.
Vasco da Gama appears as an antagonist in the Indian film Urumi. The film, directed by Santosh Sivan, depicts atrocities and progression to establish the Portuguese empire by da Gama in India.
In March 2016, archaeologists working off the coast of Oman identified a shipwreck believed to be that of the Esmeralda from da Gama's 1502–1503 fleet. The wreck was initially discovered in 1998. Later underwater excavations took place between 2013 and 2015 through a partnership between the Oman Ministry of Heritage and Culture and Blue Water Recoveries Ltd., a shipwreck recovery company. The vessel was identified through such artifacts as a "Portuguese coin minted for trade with India (one of only two coins of this type known to exist) and stone cannonballs engraved with what appear to be the initials of Vincente Sodré, da Gama's maternal uncle and the commander of the Esmeralda."
See also
Chronology of European exploration of Asia
References
Citations
Bibliography
Castanhoso, M. de (1898) Dos feitos de D. Christovam da Gama em Ethiopia Lisbon: Imprensa nacional. online
Facsimile reprint of an 1869 edition by the Hakluyt Society, London.
(reissued by Cambridge University Press, 2010. )
Teixeira de Aragão, A.C. (1887) Vasco da Gama e a Vidigueira: um estudo historico. Lisbon: Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa online
Further reading
Vasco da Gama (Ernst Georg Ravenstein, Gaspar Corrêa, Alvaro Velho) [2011] Viartis
Vasco da Gama: Renaissance Crusader (Glen J.Ames) [2004] Longman
The Career and Legend of Vasco da Gama (Sanjay Subrahmanyam) [1997] Cambridge University Press
External links
Vasco da Gama's Round Africa to India, fordham.edu
Vasco da Gama web tutorial with animated maps, ucalgary.ca
A Portuguese East Indiaman from the 1502–1503 Fleet of Vasco da Gama off Al Hallaniyah Island, Oman: an interim report, IJNA
Portuguese explorers
Portuguese colonial governors and administrators
Maritime history of Portugal
Explorers of Asia
Explorers of India
Explorers of Africa
Viceroys of Portuguese India
Vasco
1460s births
1524 deaths
Deaths from malaria
Infectious disease deaths in India
Maritime history of South Africa
Colonial Goa
Colonial Kerala
History of Goa
People from Sines
People of Portuguese India
People from Vidigueira
Portuguese Roman Catholics
15th-century explorers
15th-century Portuguese people
15th-century Roman Catholics | true | [
"Nani Gopal Majumdar (1 December 1897 – 11 November 1938) was an Indian archaeologist who is credited with having discovered 62 Indus Valley Civilization sites in Sindh including Chanhudaro.\n\nEarly life and education \n\nMajumdar was born on 1 December 1897 to Baradaprasanna Majumdar and his wife Sarojini in the town of Jessore. Majumdar passed his M. A. from the University of Calcutta in 1920, winning a gold medal. He won a doctorate from the Calcutta University in 1923 for his thesis on \"Vajra\". The same year he joined the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) and participated in the excavations at Mohenjodaro.\n\nArchaeology work \n\nOn 22 April 1929, Majumdar was appointed Superintendent of the Central Circle and served till 9 May 1929 when he was transferred to the Head Office in Calcutta as Assistant Superintendent.\n\nExplorations in Sind \n\nMajumdar first explored Sind in 1927. During his explorations, he discovered that the Lower Indus Valley was inhabited as early as the Early Indus period. Aided by a small grant, in 1927-28, Majumdar excavated the Indus Valley site of Jhukar near Mohenjodaro. In March 1930, Majumdar excavated two new sites of Tharo Hill and Chanhudaro.\n\nIn October 1930, Majumdar left Dokri near Mohenjodaro and headed southwest along the Kirthar Mountains. By the time he returned in March 1931, Majumdar had discovered more than 32 prehistoric sites. Majumdar wrote a detailed report of his explorations and excavations in his book Exploration in Sind (1934).\n\nOn 1 October 1938, Majumdar was once again deputed to Sindh for six months to explore the region for Indus Valley sites. Majumdar travelled over 200 miles on foot and discovered half a dozen sites of the Chalcolithic period.\n\nDeath \nOn the morning of 11 November 1938, while offering puja at a small Hindu shrine close to his camp near the archaeological site of Rohelji Kund, on bank of Gaaj river, Johi, Dadu District, Majumdar was shot dead by bandits. A plaque marks the spot where he was killed.\n\nPersonal life \nMajumdar married Snehlata Mukherjee. The couple had two daughters and a son, Tapas Majumdar (1929-2010). Tapas, who was nine when Nani Gopal died, later graduated from the Presidency College, Calcutta where he served as a professor of economics.\n\nReferences \n\n1897 births\n1938 deaths\nIndian archaeologists\nIndian Sindhologists\nBengali scientists\nPeople from Jessore District\n20th-century Indian historians\n20th-century Indian archaeologists",
"Sonic Explorations is the debut album by American jazz pianist Matthew Shipp and alto saxophonist Rob Brown, originally issued on LP in 1988 on Cadence Jazz.\n\nBoth musicians played together for about 5 years before. \"Sonic Explorations\" is a suite in 6 sections (including a piano solo and a sax solo section). The duo also plays jazz standards Oleo by Sonny Rollins and Blue in Green (credited to Miles Davis on Kind of Blue, but Shipp believes that Bill Evans wrote the piece). \"I love Bill Evans even though a lot of people don't connect my playing with him at all. I learned a lot from him about phrasing, harmonic possibilities of the piano\", Shipp says. The 2000 CD reissue adds additional takes of both standards.\n\nReception\n\nIn his review for AllMusic, Thom Jurek states \"This duet by Matthew Shipp and Rob Brown from the late '80s offers a slice-of-the-pie view of Shipp's rethinking his own approach to improvisation and ensemble playing.\" The Penguin Guide to Jazz says that \"there's much detailed interplay between piano and saxophone, with Brown's beautiful tone and ripping phrasing pushing the pianist into an accompanying role at times.\"\n\nTrack listing\nAll compositions by Matthew Shipp except as indicated\n \"Sonic Explorations Section 1\" - 8:07\n \"Sonic Explorations Section 2\" - 4:10\n \"Sonic Explorations Section 3\" - 5:46\n \"Sonic Explorations Section 4\" - 4:08\n \"Sonic Explorations Section 5\" (Rob Brown) - 5:21\n \"Sonic Explorations Section 6\" - 9:44\n \"Oleo\" (Sonny Rollins) - 3:32\n \"Blue in Green\" (Miles Davis / Bill Evans) - 6:10\n \"Oleo - take 2\" (Sonny Rollins) - 3:37\n \"Blue in Green - take 2\" (Miles Davis / Bill Evans) - 4:10\n8 & 9 does not appear on original LP\n\nPersonnel\nMatthew Shipp - piano\nRob Brown - alto sax\n\nReferences\n\n1988 debut albums\nCadence Jazz Records albums\nMatthew Shipp albums\nRob Brown (saxophonist) albums"
] |
[
"Vasco da Gama",
"Exploration before da Gama",
"Was types of exploration happened before da Gama?",
"From the earlier part of the 15th century, Portuguese expeditions organized by Prince Henry the Navigator had been reaching down the African coastline, principally in search of west African riches",
"Were any riches found?",
"They had greatly extended Portuguese maritime knowledge, but had little profit to show for the effort. After Henry's death in 1460,",
"What happened after Henry's death?",
"the Portuguese Crown showed little interest in continuing this effort and, in 1469, sold off the neglected African enterprise to a private Lisbon merchant",
"What was the result of neglection of the African enterprise?",
"Within a few years, Gomes' captains expanded Portuguese knowledge across the Gulf of Guinea, doing business in gold dust, Melegueta pepper, ivory and sub-Saharan slaves.",
"What was the most profitable trade?",
"To break the monarch's dependence on the feudal nobility, John II needed to build up the royal treasury;",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Under John II's watch, the gold and slave trade in west Africa was greatly expanded. He was eager to break into the highly profitable spice trade between Europe and Asia,",
"Who were some of this trade partners?",
"At the time, this was virtually monopolized by the Republic of Venice, who operated overland routes via Levantine and Egyptian ports,",
"Who headed the explorations?",
"John II set a new objective for his captains: to find a sea route to Asia by sailing around the African continent."
] | C_ad92303978184a0890a8eb9304f15d62_1 | Was he successful? | 9 | Was John II successful? | Vasco da Gama | From the earlier part of the 15th century, Portuguese expeditions organized by Prince Henry the Navigator had been reaching down the African coastline, principally in search of west African riches (notably, gold). They had greatly extended Portuguese maritime knowledge, but had little profit to show for the effort. After Henry's death in 1460, the Portuguese Crown showed little interest in continuing this effort and, in 1469, sold off the neglected African enterprise to a private Lisbon merchant consortium led by Fernao Gomes. Within a few years, Gomes' captains expanded Portuguese knowledge across the Gulf of Guinea, doing business in gold dust, Melegueta pepper, ivory and sub-Saharan slaves. When Gomes' charter came up for renewal in 1474, Prince John (future John II), asked his father Afonso V of Portugal to pass the African charter to him. Upon becoming king in 1481, John II of Portugal set out on many long reforms. To break the monarch's dependence on the feudal nobility, John II needed to build up the royal treasury; he considered royal commerce to be the key to achieving that. Under John II's watch, the gold and slave trade in west Africa was greatly expanded. He was eager to break into the highly profitable spice trade between Europe and Asia, which was conducted chiefly by land. At the time, this was virtually monopolized by the Republic of Venice, who operated overland routes via Levantine and Egyptian ports, through the Red Sea across to the spice markets of India. John II set a new objective for his captains: to find a sea route to Asia by sailing around the African continent. By the time Vasco da Gama was in his 20s, the king's plans were coming to fruition. In 1487, John II dispatched two spies, Pero da Covilha and Afonso de Paiva, overland via Egypt to East Africa and India, to scout the details of the spice markets and trade routes. The breakthrough came soon after, when John II's captain Bartolomeu Dias returned from rounding the Cape of Good Hope in 1488, having explored as far as the Fish River (Rio do Infante) in modern-day South Africa and having verified that the unknown coast stretched away to the northeast. An explorer was needed who could prove the link between the findings of Dias and those of da Covilha and de Paiva, and connect these separate segments into a potentially lucrative trade route across the Indian Ocean. CANNOTANSWER | By the time Vasco da Gama was in his 20s, the king's plans were coming to fruition. In 1487, John II dispatched two spies, | Vasco da Gama, 1st Count of Vidigueira (, ; ; c. 1460s – 24 December 1524), was a Portuguese explorer and the first European to reach India by sea.
His initial voyage to India by way of Cape of Good Hope (1497–1499) was the first to link Europe and Asia by an ocean route, connecting the Atlantic and the Indian oceans and therefore, the West and the Orient. This is widely considered a milestone in world history, as it marked the beginning of a sea-based phase of global multiculturalism. Da Gama's discovery of the sea route to India opened the way for an age of global imperialism and enabled the Portuguese to establish a long-lasting colonial empire along the way from Africa to Asia. The violence and hostage taking employed by da Gama and those who followed also assigned a brutal reputation to the Portuguese among India's indigenous kingdoms that would set the pattern for western colonialism in the Age of Exploration. Traveling the ocean route allowed the Portuguese to avoid sailing across the highly disputed Mediterranean and traversing the dangerous Arabian Peninsula. The sum of the distances covered in the outward and return voyages made this expedition the longest ocean voyage ever made until then.
After decades of sailors trying to reach the Indies, with thousands of lives and dozens of vessels lost in shipwrecks and attacks, da Gama landed in Calicut on 20 May 1498. Unopposed access to the Indian spice routes boosted the economy of the Portuguese Empire, which was previously based along northern and coastal West Africa. The main spices at first obtained from Southeast Asia were pepper and cinnamon, but soon included other products, all new to Europe. Portugal maintained a commercial monopoly of these commodities for several decades. It was not until a century later that other European powers, first the Dutch Republic and England, later France and Denmark, were able to challenge Portugal's monopoly and naval supremacy in the Cape Route.
Da Gama led two of the Portuguese India Armadas, the first and the fourth. The latter was the largest and departed for India four years after his return from the first one. For his contributions, in 1524 da Gama was appointed Governor of India, with the title of Viceroy, and was ennobled as Count of Vidigueira in 1519. He remains a leading figure in the history of exploration, and homages worldwide have celebrated his explorations and accomplishments. The Portuguese national epic poem, Os Lusíadas, was written in his honour by Luís de Camões. In March 2016 thousands of artifacts and nautical remains were recovered from the wreck of the ship Esmeralda, one of da Gama's armada, found off the coast of Oman.
Early life
Vasco da Gama was born in 1460 in the town of Sines, one of the few seaports on the Alentejo coast, southwest Portugal, probably in a house near the church of Nossa Senhora das Salas.
Vasco da Gama's father was Estêvão da Gama, who had served in the 1460s as a knight of the household of Infante Ferdinand, Duke of Viseu. He rose in the ranks of the military Order of Santiago. Estêvão da Gama was appointed alcaide-mór (civil governor) of Sines in the 1460s, a post he held until 1478; after that he continued as a receiver of taxes and holder of the Order's commendas in the region.
Estêvão da Gama married Isabel Sodré, a daughter of João Sodré (also known as João de Resende), scion of a well-connected family of English origin. Her father and her brothers, Vicente Sodré and Brás Sodré, had links to the household of Infante Diogo, Duke of Viseu, and were prominent figures in the military Order of Christ. Vasco da Gama was the third of five sons of Estêvão da Gama and Isabel Sodré – in (probable) order of age: Paulo da Gama, João Sodré, Vasco da Gama, Pedro da Gama and Aires da Gama. Vasco also had one known sister, Teresa da Gama (who married Lopo Mendes de Vasconcelos).
Little is known of da Gama's early life. The Portuguese historian Teixeira de Aragão suggests that he studied at the inland town of Évora, which is where he may have learned mathematics and navigation. It has been claimed that he studied under Abraham Zacuto, an astrologer and astronomer, but da Gama's biographer Subrahmanyam thinks this dubious.
Around 1480, da Gama followed his father (rather than the Sodrés) and joined the Order of Santiago. The master of Santiago was Prince John, who ascended to the throne in 1481 as King John II of Portugal. John II doted on the Order, and the da Gamas' prospects rose accordingly.
In 1492, John II dispatched da Gama on a mission to the port of Setúbal and to the Algarve to seize French ships in retaliation for peacetime depredations against Portuguese shipping – a task that da Gama rapidly and effectively performed.
Exploration before da Gama
From the earlier part of the 15th century, Portuguese expeditions organized by Prince Henry the Navigator had been reaching down the African coastline, principally in search of west African riches (notably, gold and slaves). They had greatly extended Portuguese maritime knowledge, but had little profit to show for the effort. After Henry's death in 1460, the Portuguese Crown showed little interest in continuing this effort and, in 1469, licensed the neglected African enterprise to a private Lisbon merchant consortium led by Fernão Gomes. Within a few years, Gomes' captains expanded Portuguese knowledge across the Gulf of Guinea, doing business in gold dust, melegueta pepper, ivory and sub-Saharan slaves. When Gomes' charter came up for renewal in 1474, Prince John (future John II), asked his father Afonso V of Portugal to pass the African charter to him.
Upon becoming king in 1481, John II of Portugal set out on many long reforms. To break the monarch's dependence on the feudal nobility, John II needed to build up the royal treasury; he considered royal commerce to be the key to achieving that. Under John II's watch, the gold and slave trade in west Africa was greatly expanded. He was eager to break into the highly profitable spice trade between Europe and Asia, which was conducted chiefly by land. At the time, this was virtually monopolized by the Republic of Venice, who operated overland routes via Levantine and Egyptian ports, through the Red Sea across to the spice markets of India. John II set a new objective for his captains: to find a sea route to Asia by sailing around the African continent.
By the time Vasco da Gama was in his 20s, the king's plans were coming to fruition. In 1487, John II dispatched two spies, Pero da Covilhã and Afonso de Paiva, overland via Egypt to East Africa and India, to scout the details of the spice markets and trade routes. The breakthrough came soon after, when John II's captain Bartolomeu Dias returned from rounding the Cape of Good Hope in 1488, having explored as far as the Fish River (Rio do Infante) in modern-day South Africa and having verified that the unknown coast stretched away to the northeast.
An explorer was needed who could prove the link between the findings of Dias and those of da Covilhã and de Paiva, and connect these separate segments into a potentially lucrative trade route across the Indian Ocean.
First voyage
On 8 July 1497 Vasco da Gama led a fleet of four ships with a crew of 170 men from Lisbon. The distance traveled in the journey around Africa to India and back was greater than the length of the equator. The navigators included Portugal's most experienced, Pero de Alenquer, Pedro Escobar, João de Coimbra, and Afonso Gonçalves. It is not known for certain how many people were in each ship's crew but approximately 55 returned, and two ships were lost. Two of the vessels were carracks, newly built for the voyage; the others were a caravel and a supply boat.
The four ships were:
São Gabriel, commanded by Vasco da Gama; a carrack of 178 tons, length 27 m, width 8.5 m, draft 2.3 m, sails of 372 m2
São Rafael, commanded by his brother Paulo da Gama; similar dimensions to the São Gabriel
Berrio (nickname, officially called São Miguel), a caravel, slightly smaller than the former two, commanded by Nicolau Coelho
A storage ship of unknown name, commanded by Gonçalo Nunes, destined to be scuttled in Mossel Bay (São Brás) in South Africa
Journey to the Cape
The expedition set sail from Lisbon on 8 July 1497. It followed the route pioneered by earlier explorers along the coast of Africa via Tenerife and the Cape Verde Islands. After reaching the coast of present-day Sierra Leone, da Gama took a course south into the open ocean, crossing the Equator and seeking the South Atlantic westerlies that Bartolomeu Dias had discovered in 1487. This course proved successful and on 4 November 1497, the expedition made landfall on the African coast. For over three months the ships had sailed more than of open ocean, by far the longest journey out of sight of land made by that time.
By 16 December, the fleet had passed the Great Fish River (Eastern Cape, South Africa) – where Dias had anchored – and sailed into waters previously unknown to Europeans. With Christmas pending, da Gama and his crew gave the coast they were passing the name Natal, which carried the connotation of "birth of Christ" in Portuguese.
Mozambique
Vasco da Gama spent 2 to 29 March 1498 in the vicinity of Mozambique Island. Arab-controlled territory on the East African coast was an integral part of the network of trade in the Indian Ocean. Fearing the local population would be hostile to Christians, da Gama impersonated a Muslim and gained audience with the Sultan of Mozambique. With the paltry trade goods he had to offer, the explorer was unable to provide a suitable gift to the ruler. Soon the local populace became suspicious of da Gama and his men. Forced by a hostile crowd to flee Mozambique, da Gama departed the harbor, firing his cannons into the city in retaliation.
Mombasa
In the vicinity of modern Kenya, the expedition resorted to piracy, looting Arab merchant ships that were generally unarmed trading vessels without heavy cannons. The Portuguese became the first known Europeans to visit the port of Mombasa from 7 to 13 April 1498, but were met with hostility and soon departed.
Malindi
Vasco da Gama continued north, arriving on 14 April 1498 at the friendlier port of Malindi, whose leaders were having a conflict with those of Mombasa. There the expedition first noted evidence of Indian traders. Da Gama and his crew contracted the services of a pilot who used his knowledge of the monsoon winds to guide the expedition the rest of the way to Calicut, located on the southwest coast of India. Sources differ over the identity of the pilot, calling him variously a Christian, a Muslim, and a Gujarati. One traditional story describes the pilot as the famous Arab navigator Ibn Majid, but other contemporaneous accounts place Majid elsewhere, and he could not have been near the vicinity at the time. None of the Portuguese historians of the time mentions Ibn Majid. Vasco da Gama left Malindi for India on 24 April 1498.
Calicut, India
The fleet arrived in Kappadu near Kozhikode (Calicut), in Malabar Coast (present day Kerala state of India), on 20 May 1498. The King of Calicut, the Samudiri (Zamorin), who was at that time staying in his second capital at Ponnani, returned to Calicut on hearing the news of the foreign fleet's arrival. The navigator was received with traditional hospitality, including a grand procession of at least 3,000 armed Nairs, but an interview with the Zamorin failed to produce any concrete results. When local authorities asked da Gama's fleet, "What brought you hither?", they replied that they had come "in search of Christians and spices." The presents that da Gama sent to the Zamorin as gifts from Dom Manuel – four cloaks of scarlet cloth, six hats, four branches of corals, twelve , a box with seven brass vessels, a chest of sugar, two barrels of oil and a cask of honey – were trivial, and failed to impress. While Zamorin's officials wondered at why there was no gold or silver, the Muslim merchants who considered da Gama their rival suggested that the latter was only an ordinary pirate and not a royal ambassador. Vasco da Gama's request for permission to leave a factor behind him in charge of the merchandise he could not sell was turned down by the King, who insisted that da Gama pay customs duty – preferably in gold – like any other trader, which strained the relation between the two. Annoyed by this, da Gama carried a few Nairs and sixteen fishermen (mukkuva) off with him by force.
Return
Vasco da Gama left Calicut on 29 August 1498. Eager to set sail for home, he ignored the local knowledge of monsoon wind patterns that were still blowing onshore. The fleet initially inched north along the Indian coast, and then anchored in at Anjediva island for a spell. They finally struck out for their Indian Ocean crossing on 3 October 1498. But with the winter monsoon yet to set in, it was a harrowing journey. On the outgoing journey, sailing with the summer monsoon wind, da Gama's fleet crossed the Indian Ocean in only 23 days; now, on the return trip, sailing against the wind, it took 132 days.
Da Gama saw land again only on 2 January 1499, passing before the coastal Somali city of Mogadishu, then under the influence of the Ajuran Empire in the Horn of Africa. The fleet did not make a stop, but passing before Mogadishu, the anonymous diarist of the expedition noted that it was a large city with houses of four or five storeys high and big palaces in its center and many mosques with cylindrical minarets.
Da Gama's fleet finally arrived in Malindi on 7 January 1499, in a terrible state – approximately half of the crew had died during the crossing, and many of the rest were afflicted with scurvy. Not having enough crewmen left standing to manage three ships, da Gama ordered the São Rafael scuttled off the East African coast, and the crew re-distributed to the remaining two ships, the São Gabriel and the Berrio. Thereafter, the sailing was smoother. By early March, they had arrived in Mossel Bay, and crossed the Cape of Good Hope in the opposite direction on 20 March, reaching the west African coast by 25 April.
The diary record of the expedition ends abruptly here. Reconstructing from other sources, it seems they continued to Cape Verde, where Nicolau Coelho's Berrio separated from Vasco da Gama's São Gabriel and sailed on by itself. The Berrio arrived in Lisbon on 10 July 1499 and Nicolau Coelho personally delivered the news to King Manuel I and the royal court, then assembled in Sintra. In the meantime, back in Cape Verde, da Gama's brother, Paulo da Gama, had fallen grievously ill. Da Gama elected to stay by his side on Santiago island and handed the São Gabriel over to his clerk, João de Sá, to take home. The São Gabriel under Sá arrived in Lisbon sometime in late July or early August. Da Gama and his sickly brother eventually hitched a ride with a Guinea caravel returning to Portugal, but Paulo da Gama died en route. Da Gama disembarked at the Azores to bury his brother at the monastery of São Francisco in Angra do Heroismo, and lingered there for a little while in mourning. He eventually took passage on an Azorean caravel and finally arrived in Lisbon on 29 August 1499 (according to Barros), or early September (8th or 18th, according to other sources). Despite his melancholic mood, da Gama was given a hero's welcome and showered with honors, including a triumphal procession and public festivities. King Manuel wrote two letters in which he described da Gama's first voyage, in July and August 1499, soon after the return of the ships. Girolamo Sernigi also wrote three letters describing da Gama's first voyage soon after the return of the expedition.
The expedition had exacted a large cost – two ships and over half the men had been lost. It had also failed in its principal mission of securing a commercial treaty with Calicut. Nonetheless, the small quantities of spices and other trade goods brought back on the remaining two ships demonstrated the potential of great profit for future trade. Vasco da Gama was justly celebrated for opening a direct sea route to Asia. His path would be followed up thereafter by yearly Portuguese India Armadas.
The spice trade would prove to be a major asset to the Portuguese royal treasury, and other consequences soon followed. For example, da Gama's voyage had made it clear that the east coast of Africa, the Contra Costa, was essential to Portuguese interests; its ports provided fresh water, provisions, timber, and harbors for repairs, and served as a refuge where ships could wait out unfavorable weather. One significant result was the colonization of Mozambique by the Portuguese Crown.
Rewards
In December 1499, King Manuel I of Portugal rewarded Vasco da Gama with the town of Sines as a hereditary fief (the town his father, Estêvão, had once held as a commenda). This turned out to be a complicated affair, for Sines still belonged to the Order of Santiago. The master of the Order, Jorge de Lencastre, might have endorsed the reward – after all, da Gama was a Santiago knight, one of their own, and a close associate of Lencastre himself. But the fact that Sines was awarded by the king provoked Lencastre to refuse out of principle, lest it encourage the king to make other donations of the Order's properties. Da Gama would spend the next few years attempting to take hold of Sines, an effort that would estrange him from Lencastre and eventually prompt da Gama to abandon his beloved Order of Santiago, switching over to the rival Order of Christ in 1507.
In the meantime, da Gama made do with a substantial hereditary royal pension of 300,000 reis. He was awarded the noble title of Dom (lord) in perpetuity for himself, his siblings and their descendants. On 30 January 1502, da Gama was awarded the title of Almirante dos mares de Arabia, Persia, India e de todo o Oriente ("Admiral of the Seas of Arabia, Persia, India and all the Orient") – an overwrought title reminiscent of the ornate Castilian title borne by Christopher Columbus (evidently, Manuel must have reckoned that if Castile had an 'Admiral of the Ocean Seas', then surely Portugal should have one too). Another royal letter, dated October 1501, gave da Gama the personal right to intervene and exercise a determining role on any future India-bound fleet.
Around 1501, Vasco da Gama married Catarina de Ataíde, daughter of Álvaro de Ataíde, the alcaide-mór of Alvor (Algarve), and a prominent nobleman connected by kinship with the powerful Almeida family (Catarina was a first cousin of Dom Francisco de Almeida).
Second voyage
The follow-up expedition, the Second India Armada, launched in 1500 under the command of Pedro Álvares Cabral with the mission of making a treaty with the Zamorin of Calicut and setting up a Portuguese factory in the city. However, Pedro Cabral entered into a conflict with the local Arab merchant guilds, with the result that the Portuguese factory was overrun in a riot and up to 70 Portuguese were killed. Cabral blamed the Zamorin for the incident and bombarded the city. Thus war broke out between Portugal and Calicut.
Vasco da Gama invoked his royal letter to take command of the 4th India Armada, scheduled to set out in 1502, with the explicit aim of taking revenge upon the Zamorin and force him to submit to Portuguese terms. The heavily armed fleet of fifteen ships and eight hundred men left Lisbon on 12 February 1502. It was followed in April by another squadron of five ships led by his cousin, Estêvão da Gama (the son of Aires da Gama), which caught up to them in the Indian Ocean. The 4th Armada was a veritable da Gama family affair. Two of his maternal uncles, Vicente Sodré and Brás Sodré, were pre-designated to command an Indian Ocean naval patrol, while brothers-in-law Álvaro de Ataíde (brother of Vasco's wife Catarina) and Lopo Mendes de Vasconcelos (betrothed to Teresa da Gama, Vasco's sister) captained ships in the main fleet.
On the outgoing voyage, da Gama's fleet opened contact with the East African gold trading port of Sofala and reduced the sultanate of Kilwa to tribute, extracting a substantial sum of gold.
Pilgrim ship incident
On reaching India in October 1502, da Gama's fleet intercepted a ship of Muslim pilgrims at Madayi travelling from Calicut to Mecca. Described in detail by eyewitness Thomé Lopes and chronicler Gaspar Correia, da Gama looted the ship with over 400 pilgrims on board including 50 women, locked in the passengers, the owner and an ambassador from Egypt and burned them to death. They offered their wealth, which "could ransom all the Christian slaves in the Kingdom of Fez and much more" but were not spared. Da Gama looked on through the porthole and saw the women bringing up their gold and jewels and holding up their babies to beg for mercy.
Calicut
After stopping at Cannanore, Gama drove his fleet before Calicut, demanding redress for the treatment of Cabral. Having known of the fate of the pilgrims' ship, the Zamorin adopted a conciliatory attitude towards the Portuguese and expressed willingness to sign a new treaty but da Gama made a call to the Hindu king to expel all Muslims from Calicut before beginning negotiations, which was turned down. At the same time however, the Zamorin sent a message to his rebellious vassal, the Raja of Cochin urging cooperation and obedience to counter the Portuguese threat; the ruler of Cochin forwarded this message to Gama, which reinforced his opinion of the Indians as duplicitous. After demanding the expulsion of Muslims from Calicut to the Hindu Zamorin, the latter sent the high priest Talappana Namboothiri (the very same person who conducted da Gama to the Zamorin's chamber during his much celebrated first visit to Calicut in May 1498) for talks. Da Gama called him a spy, ordered the priests' lips and ears to be cut off and after sewing a pair of dog's ears to his head, sent him away. The Portuguese fleet then bombarded the unfortified city for nearly two days from the sea, severely damaging it. He also captured several rice vessels and cut off the crew's hands, ears and noses, dispatching them with a note to the Zamorin, in which Gama declared that he would be open to friendly relations once the Zamorin had paid for the items plundered from the feitoria as well as the gunpowder and cannonballs.
Seabattle
The violent treatment meted out by da Gama quickly brought trade along the Malabar Coast of India, upon which Calicut depended, to a standstill. The Zamorin ventured to dispatch a fleet of strong warships to challenge da Gama's armada, but which Gama managed to defeat in a naval battle before Calicut harbor.
Cochin
Da Gama loaded up with spices at Cochin and Cannanore, small nearby kingdoms at war with the Zamorin, whose alliances had been secured by prior Portuguese fleets. The 4th armada left India in early 1503. Da Gama left behind a small squadron of caravels under the command of his uncle, Vicente Sodré, to patrol the Indian coast, to continue harassing Calicut shipping, and to protect the Portuguese factories at Cochin and Cannanore from the Zamorin's inevitable reprisals.
Vasco da Gama arrived back in Portugal in September 1503, effectively having failed in his mission to bring the Zamorin to submission. This failure, and the subsequent more galling failure of his uncle Vicente Sodré to protect the Portuguese factory in Cochin, probably counted against any further rewards. When the Portuguese king Manuel I of Portugal decided to appoint the first governor and viceroy of Portuguese India in 1505, da Gama was conspicuously overlooked, and the post given to Francisco de Almeida.
Interlude
For the next two decades, Vasco da Gama lived out a quiet life, unwelcome in the royal court and sidelined from Indian affairs. His attempts to return to the favor of Manuel I (including switching over to the Order of Christ in 1507), yielded little. Almeida, the larger-than-life Afonso de Albuquerque and, later on, Albergaria and Sequeira, were the king's preferred point men for India.
After Ferdinand Magellan defected to the Crown of Castile in 1518, Vasco da Gama threatened to do the same, prompting the king to undertake steps to retain him in Portugal and avoid the embarrassment of losing his own "Admiral of the Indies" to Spain. In 1519, after years of ignoring his petitions, King Manuel I finally hurried to give Vasco da Gama a feudal title, appointing him the first Count of Vidigueira, a count title created by a royal decree issued in Évora on 29 December, after a complicated agreement with Dom Jaime, Duke of Braganza, who ceded him on payment the towns of Vidigueira and Vila dos Frades. The decree granted Vasco da Gama and his heirs all the revenues and privileges related, thus establishing da Gama as the first Portuguese count who was not born with royal blood.
Third voyage and death
After the death of King Manuel I in late 1521, his son and successor, King John III of Portugal set about reviewing the Portuguese government overseas. Turning away from the old Albuquerque clique (now represented by Diogo Lopes de Sequeira), John III looked for a fresh start. Vasco da Gama re-emerged from his political wilderness as an important adviser to the new king's appointments and strategy. Seeing the new Spanish threat to the Maluku Islands as the priority, Vasco da Gama advised against the obsession with Arabia that had pervaded much of the Manueline period, and continued to be the dominant concern of Duarte de Menezes, then-governor of Portuguese India. Menezes also turned out to be incompetent and corrupt, subject to numerous complaints. As a result, John III decided to appoint Vasco da Gama himself to replace Menezes, confident that the magic of his name and memory of his deeds might better impress his authority on Portuguese India, and manage the transition to a new government and new strategy.
By his appointment letter of February 1524, John III granted Vasco da Gama the privileged title of "Viceroy", being only the second Portuguese governor to enjoy that title (the first was Francisco de Almeida in 1505). His second son, Estêvão da Gama was simultaneously appointed Capitão-mor do Mar da Índia ('Captain-major of the Indian Sea', commander of the Indian Ocean naval patrol fleet), to replace Duarte's brother, Luís de Menezes. As a final condition, Gama secured from John III of Portugal the commitment to appoint all his sons successively as Portuguese captains of Malacca.
Setting out in April 1524, with a fleet of fourteen ships, Vasco da Gama took as his flagship the famous large carrack Santa Catarina do Monte Sinai on her last journey to India, along with two of his sons, Estêvão and Paulo. After a troubled journey (four or five of the ships were lost en route), he arrived in India in September. Vasco da Gama immediately invoked his high viceregent powers to impose a new order in Portuguese India, replacing all the old officials with his own appointments. But Gama contracted malaria not long after arriving, and died in the city of Cochin on Christmas Eve in 1524, three months after his arrival. As per royal instructions, da Gama was succeeded as governor of India by one of the captains who had come with him, Henrique de Menezes (no relation to Duarte). Da Gama's sons Estêvão and Paulo immediately lost their posts and joined the returning fleet of early 1525 (along with the dismissed Duarte de Menezes and Luís de Menezes).
Vasco da Gama's body was first buried at St. Francis Church, which was located at Fort Kochi in the city of Kochi, but his remains were returned to Portugal in 1539. The body of Vasco da Gama was re-interred in Vidigueira in a casket decorated with gold and jewels.
The Monastery of the Hieronymites, in Belém, which would become the necropolis of the Portuguese royal dynasty of Aviz, was erected in the early 1500s near the launch point of Vasco da Gama's first journey, and its construction funded by a tax on the profits of the yearly Portuguese India Armadas. In 1880, da Gama's remains and those of the poet Luís de Camões (who celebrated da Gama's first voyage in his 1572 epic poem, The Lusiad), were moved to new carved tombs in the nave of the monastery's church, only a few meters away from the tombs of the kings Manuel I and John III, whom da Gama had served.
Marriage and descendants
Vasco da Gama and his wife, Catarina de Ataíde, had six sons and one daughter:
Dom Francisco da Gama, who inherited his father's titles as 2nd Count of Vidigueira and the 2nd "Admiral of the Seas of India, Arabia and Persia". He remained in Portugal.
Dom Estevão da Gama, after his abortive 1524 term as Indian patrol captain, he was appointed for a three-year term as captain of Malacca, serving from 1534 to 1539 (includes the last two years of his younger brother Paulo's term). He was subsequently appointed as the 11th governor of India from 1540 to 1542.
Dom Paulo da Gama (having the same name as his uncle Paulo), captain of Malacca from 1533 to 1534, killed in a naval action off Malacca.
Dom Cristovão da Gama, captain of Malacca from 1538 to 1540; nominated to succeed in Malacca, but executed by Ahmad ibn Ibrahim during the Ethiopian-Adal war in 1542.
Dom Pedro da Silva da Gama, appointed captain of Malacca from 1548 to 1552.
Dom Álvaro d'Ataide da Gama, appointed captain of Malacca fleet in the 1540s, captain of Malacca itself from 1552 to 1554.
Dona Isabel d'Ataide da Gama, only daughter, married Ignacio de Noronha, son of the first Count of Linhares.
His male-line issue became extinct in 1747, though the title continued through the female-line.
Intergenerations
Dom Vasco da Gama, 3rd Count of Vidigueira, the nobility and military personnel, son of Francisco (2nd Count) and grandson of Vasco da Gama.
Dom Francisco da Gama, 4th Count of Vidigueira, the viceroy (1597–1600) and governor (1622–1628) of India, son of Vasco (3rd Count) and great-grandson of Vasco da Gama.
Legacy
Vasco da Gama is one of the most famous and celebrated explorers from the Age of Discovery. As much as anyone after Henry the Navigator, he was responsible for Portugal's success as an early colonising power. Beside the fact of the first voyage itself, it was his astute mix of politics and war on the other side of the world that placed Portugal in a prominent position in Indian Ocean trade. Following da Gama's initial voyage, the Portuguese crown realized that securing outposts on the eastern coast of Africa would prove vital to maintaining national trade routes to the Far East.
However, his fame is tempered by such incidents and attitudes as displayed in the notorious Pilgrim Ship Incident previously discussed.
The Portuguese national epic, the Lusíadas of Luís Vaz de Camões, largely concerns Vasco da Gama's voyages.
The 1865 grand opera L'Africaine: Opéra en Cinq Actes, composed by Giacomo Meyerbeer from a libretto by Eugène Scribe, prominently includes the character of Vasco da Gama. The events depicted, however, are fictitious. Meyerbeer's working title for the opera was Vasco da Gama. A 1989 production of the opera by the San Francisco Opera featured noted tenor Plácido Domingo in the role of da Gama. The 19th-century composer Louis-Albert Bourgault-Ducoudray composed an eponymous 1872 opera based on da Gama's life and exploits at sea.
The port city of Vasco da Gama in Goa is named after him, as is the crater Vasco da Gama on the Moon. There are three football clubs in Brazil (including Club de Regatas Vasco da Gama) and Vasco Sports Club in Goa that were also named after him. There exists a church in Kochi, Kerala called Vasco da Gama Church, and a private residence on the island of Saint Helena. The suburb of Vasco in Cape Town also honours him.
A few places in Lisbon's Parque das Nações are named after the explorer, such as the Vasco da Gama Bridge, Vasco da Gama Tower and the Centro Comercial Vasco da Gama shopping centre. The Oceanário in the Parque das Nações has a mascot of a cartoon diver with the name of "Vasco", who is named after the explorer.
Vasco da Gama was the only explorer on the final pool of Os Grandes Portugueses. Although the final shortlist featured other Age of Discovery related people, they were not actually explorers nor navigators for any matter.
The Portuguese Navy has a class of frigates named after him. There are three Vasco da Gama class frigates in total, of which the first one also bears his name.
The Portuguese government erected two navigational beacons, Dias Cross and da Gama Cross, to commemorate da Gama and Bartolomeu Dias who were the first modern European explorers to reach the Cape of Good Hope. When lined up, these crosses point to Whittle Rock, a large, permanently submerged shipping hazard in False Bay.
South African musician Hugh Masekela recorded an anti-colonialist song entitled "Colonial Man", which contains the lyrics "Vasco da Gama was no friend of mine", and another song entitled "Vasco da Gama (The Sailor Man)". Both songs were included in his 1976 album Colonial Man.
Vasco da Gama appears as an antagonist in the Indian film Urumi. The film, directed by Santosh Sivan, depicts atrocities and progression to establish the Portuguese empire by da Gama in India.
In March 2016, archaeologists working off the coast of Oman identified a shipwreck believed to be that of the Esmeralda from da Gama's 1502–1503 fleet. The wreck was initially discovered in 1998. Later underwater excavations took place between 2013 and 2015 through a partnership between the Oman Ministry of Heritage and Culture and Blue Water Recoveries Ltd., a shipwreck recovery company. The vessel was identified through such artifacts as a "Portuguese coin minted for trade with India (one of only two coins of this type known to exist) and stone cannonballs engraved with what appear to be the initials of Vincente Sodré, da Gama's maternal uncle and the commander of the Esmeralda."
See also
Chronology of European exploration of Asia
References
Citations
Bibliography
Castanhoso, M. de (1898) Dos feitos de D. Christovam da Gama em Ethiopia Lisbon: Imprensa nacional. online
Facsimile reprint of an 1869 edition by the Hakluyt Society, London.
(reissued by Cambridge University Press, 2010. )
Teixeira de Aragão, A.C. (1887) Vasco da Gama e a Vidigueira: um estudo historico. Lisbon: Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa online
Further reading
Vasco da Gama (Ernst Georg Ravenstein, Gaspar Corrêa, Alvaro Velho) [2011] Viartis
Vasco da Gama: Renaissance Crusader (Glen J.Ames) [2004] Longman
The Career and Legend of Vasco da Gama (Sanjay Subrahmanyam) [1997] Cambridge University Press
External links
Vasco da Gama's Round Africa to India, fordham.edu
Vasco da Gama web tutorial with animated maps, ucalgary.ca
A Portuguese East Indiaman from the 1502–1503 Fleet of Vasco da Gama off Al Hallaniyah Island, Oman: an interim report, IJNA
Portuguese explorers
Portuguese colonial governors and administrators
Maritime history of Portugal
Explorers of Asia
Explorers of India
Explorers of Africa
Viceroys of Portuguese India
Vasco
1460s births
1524 deaths
Deaths from malaria
Infectious disease deaths in India
Maritime history of South Africa
Colonial Goa
Colonial Kerala
History of Goa
People from Sines
People of Portuguese India
People from Vidigueira
Portuguese Roman Catholics
15th-century explorers
15th-century Portuguese people
15th-century Roman Catholics | true | [
"Charles Young (September 1686 – 12 December 1758) was an English organist and composer. He was part of a well-known English family of musicians that included several professional singers and organists during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.\n\nBiography\nCharles Young was born sometime during September 1686 in the Covent Garden area of London and was baptised on 7 October of the same year. Born into a musical family, his initial studies were with his father alongside his elder brother Anthony Young, who would also become a successful organist and minor composer. He became a chorister at St Paul's Cathedral in the late 1690s where he sang for over a decade. In 1713, Young was appointed organist of All Hallows, Barking-by-the-Tower, where he remained until his death in 1758. His grandson, Charles John Frederick Lampe, replaced him as organist at All Hallows after his death.\n\nAs a composer, Young wrote music mostly for the Church of England. He was not prolific, producing only a handful of anthems and some organ preludes. He also composed a few vocal art songs. His reputation lies more on his skills as an organist and he was regarded as one of the finest players in England during the eighteenth century.\n\nSeveral of Young's children went on to have successful careers. His eldest daughter Cecilia Young (1712-1789) was one of the greatest English sopranos of the eighteenth century and the wife of composer Thomas Arne. Their son and Charles's grandson, Michael Arne, was a successful composer. His daughter Isabella was also a successful soprano and the wife of composer John Frederick Lampe, and his daughter Esther was a well known contralto and wife to Charles Jones, one of the largest music publishers in England during the eighteenth century. Young's only son, Charles, was a clerk at the Treasury, whose daughters, Isabella, Elizabeth, and Polly followed in the foot steps of their aunts to become successful singers.\n\nReferences\n\n1686 births\n1758 deaths\nEnglish organists\nBritish male organists\nEnglish composers\nCharles",
"This is a list of members of the Western Australian Legislative Assembly between the 1917 election and the 1921 election, together known as the 10th Parliament.\n\nNotes\n The Labor member for Subiaco, Bartholomew James Stubbs, died in action in Belgium on 26 September 1917. At the resulting by-election on 10 November 1917, the Nationalist candidate, Samuel Brown, was successful.\n The Nationalist member for Claremont, John Stewart, resigned on 30 August 1918. At the resulting by-election on 14 September 1918, the Nationalist candidate, Thomas Duff, was successful.\n Sir James Mitchell, member for Northam, was appointed by Premier Hal Colebatch as Minister for Lands and Repatriation on 17 April 1919. Mitchell was therefore required to resign and contest a ministerial by-election, at which he was declared elected upon the close of nominations on 24 April 1919. He himself became premier three weeks later after the failure of the Colebatch Ministry.\n The Nationalist member for Albany, Herbert Robinson, died on 2 May 1919. At the resulting by-election on 31 May 1919, the National Labor candidate, former Premier John Scaddan, was successful.\n Thomas Draper, member for West Perth, was appointed by Premier James Mitchell as Attorney-General on 17 May 1919. Draper was therefore required to resign and contest a ministerial by-election, at which he was successful against an Independent candidate on 7 June 1919.\n Frank Broun, member for Beverley, was appointed by Premier James Mitchell as Colonial Secretary on 25 June 1919. Broun was therefore required to resign and contest a ministerial by-election, at which he was returned unopposed at the close of nominations on 10 July 1919.\n The National Labor member for Mount Leonora, George Foley, resigned on 18 November 1920, to run as the Nationalist candidate for the federal seat of Kalgoorlie at a by-election following the expulsion of Hugh Mahon from the Australian House of Representatives. At the resulting by-election on 20 December 1920, the Labor candidate, Thomas Heron, was successful.\n\nSources\n \n \n\nMembers of Western Australian parliaments by term"
] |
[
"Vasco da Gama",
"Exploration before da Gama",
"Was types of exploration happened before da Gama?",
"From the earlier part of the 15th century, Portuguese expeditions organized by Prince Henry the Navigator had been reaching down the African coastline, principally in search of west African riches",
"Were any riches found?",
"They had greatly extended Portuguese maritime knowledge, but had little profit to show for the effort. After Henry's death in 1460,",
"What happened after Henry's death?",
"the Portuguese Crown showed little interest in continuing this effort and, in 1469, sold off the neglected African enterprise to a private Lisbon merchant",
"What was the result of neglection of the African enterprise?",
"Within a few years, Gomes' captains expanded Portuguese knowledge across the Gulf of Guinea, doing business in gold dust, Melegueta pepper, ivory and sub-Saharan slaves.",
"What was the most profitable trade?",
"To break the monarch's dependence on the feudal nobility, John II needed to build up the royal treasury;",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Under John II's watch, the gold and slave trade in west Africa was greatly expanded. He was eager to break into the highly profitable spice trade between Europe and Asia,",
"Who were some of this trade partners?",
"At the time, this was virtually monopolized by the Republic of Venice, who operated overland routes via Levantine and Egyptian ports,",
"Who headed the explorations?",
"John II set a new objective for his captains: to find a sea route to Asia by sailing around the African continent.",
"Was he successful?",
"By the time Vasco da Gama was in his 20s, the king's plans were coming to fruition. In 1487, John II dispatched two spies,"
] | C_ad92303978184a0890a8eb9304f15d62_1 | What did the spies do? | 10 | What did the John II spies do? | Vasco da Gama | From the earlier part of the 15th century, Portuguese expeditions organized by Prince Henry the Navigator had been reaching down the African coastline, principally in search of west African riches (notably, gold). They had greatly extended Portuguese maritime knowledge, but had little profit to show for the effort. After Henry's death in 1460, the Portuguese Crown showed little interest in continuing this effort and, in 1469, sold off the neglected African enterprise to a private Lisbon merchant consortium led by Fernao Gomes. Within a few years, Gomes' captains expanded Portuguese knowledge across the Gulf of Guinea, doing business in gold dust, Melegueta pepper, ivory and sub-Saharan slaves. When Gomes' charter came up for renewal in 1474, Prince John (future John II), asked his father Afonso V of Portugal to pass the African charter to him. Upon becoming king in 1481, John II of Portugal set out on many long reforms. To break the monarch's dependence on the feudal nobility, John II needed to build up the royal treasury; he considered royal commerce to be the key to achieving that. Under John II's watch, the gold and slave trade in west Africa was greatly expanded. He was eager to break into the highly profitable spice trade between Europe and Asia, which was conducted chiefly by land. At the time, this was virtually monopolized by the Republic of Venice, who operated overland routes via Levantine and Egyptian ports, through the Red Sea across to the spice markets of India. John II set a new objective for his captains: to find a sea route to Asia by sailing around the African continent. By the time Vasco da Gama was in his 20s, the king's plans were coming to fruition. In 1487, John II dispatched two spies, Pero da Covilha and Afonso de Paiva, overland via Egypt to East Africa and India, to scout the details of the spice markets and trade routes. The breakthrough came soon after, when John II's captain Bartolomeu Dias returned from rounding the Cape of Good Hope in 1488, having explored as far as the Fish River (Rio do Infante) in modern-day South Africa and having verified that the unknown coast stretched away to the northeast. An explorer was needed who could prove the link between the findings of Dias and those of da Covilha and de Paiva, and connect these separate segments into a potentially lucrative trade route across the Indian Ocean. CANNOTANSWER | overland via Egypt to East Africa and India, to scout the details of the spice markets and trade routes. The breakthrough came soon after, | Vasco da Gama, 1st Count of Vidigueira (, ; ; c. 1460s – 24 December 1524), was a Portuguese explorer and the first European to reach India by sea.
His initial voyage to India by way of Cape of Good Hope (1497–1499) was the first to link Europe and Asia by an ocean route, connecting the Atlantic and the Indian oceans and therefore, the West and the Orient. This is widely considered a milestone in world history, as it marked the beginning of a sea-based phase of global multiculturalism. Da Gama's discovery of the sea route to India opened the way for an age of global imperialism and enabled the Portuguese to establish a long-lasting colonial empire along the way from Africa to Asia. The violence and hostage taking employed by da Gama and those who followed also assigned a brutal reputation to the Portuguese among India's indigenous kingdoms that would set the pattern for western colonialism in the Age of Exploration. Traveling the ocean route allowed the Portuguese to avoid sailing across the highly disputed Mediterranean and traversing the dangerous Arabian Peninsula. The sum of the distances covered in the outward and return voyages made this expedition the longest ocean voyage ever made until then.
After decades of sailors trying to reach the Indies, with thousands of lives and dozens of vessels lost in shipwrecks and attacks, da Gama landed in Calicut on 20 May 1498. Unopposed access to the Indian spice routes boosted the economy of the Portuguese Empire, which was previously based along northern and coastal West Africa. The main spices at first obtained from Southeast Asia were pepper and cinnamon, but soon included other products, all new to Europe. Portugal maintained a commercial monopoly of these commodities for several decades. It was not until a century later that other European powers, first the Dutch Republic and England, later France and Denmark, were able to challenge Portugal's monopoly and naval supremacy in the Cape Route.
Da Gama led two of the Portuguese India Armadas, the first and the fourth. The latter was the largest and departed for India four years after his return from the first one. For his contributions, in 1524 da Gama was appointed Governor of India, with the title of Viceroy, and was ennobled as Count of Vidigueira in 1519. He remains a leading figure in the history of exploration, and homages worldwide have celebrated his explorations and accomplishments. The Portuguese national epic poem, Os Lusíadas, was written in his honour by Luís de Camões. In March 2016 thousands of artifacts and nautical remains were recovered from the wreck of the ship Esmeralda, one of da Gama's armada, found off the coast of Oman.
Early life
Vasco da Gama was born in 1460 in the town of Sines, one of the few seaports on the Alentejo coast, southwest Portugal, probably in a house near the church of Nossa Senhora das Salas.
Vasco da Gama's father was Estêvão da Gama, who had served in the 1460s as a knight of the household of Infante Ferdinand, Duke of Viseu. He rose in the ranks of the military Order of Santiago. Estêvão da Gama was appointed alcaide-mór (civil governor) of Sines in the 1460s, a post he held until 1478; after that he continued as a receiver of taxes and holder of the Order's commendas in the region.
Estêvão da Gama married Isabel Sodré, a daughter of João Sodré (also known as João de Resende), scion of a well-connected family of English origin. Her father and her brothers, Vicente Sodré and Brás Sodré, had links to the household of Infante Diogo, Duke of Viseu, and were prominent figures in the military Order of Christ. Vasco da Gama was the third of five sons of Estêvão da Gama and Isabel Sodré – in (probable) order of age: Paulo da Gama, João Sodré, Vasco da Gama, Pedro da Gama and Aires da Gama. Vasco also had one known sister, Teresa da Gama (who married Lopo Mendes de Vasconcelos).
Little is known of da Gama's early life. The Portuguese historian Teixeira de Aragão suggests that he studied at the inland town of Évora, which is where he may have learned mathematics and navigation. It has been claimed that he studied under Abraham Zacuto, an astrologer and astronomer, but da Gama's biographer Subrahmanyam thinks this dubious.
Around 1480, da Gama followed his father (rather than the Sodrés) and joined the Order of Santiago. The master of Santiago was Prince John, who ascended to the throne in 1481 as King John II of Portugal. John II doted on the Order, and the da Gamas' prospects rose accordingly.
In 1492, John II dispatched da Gama on a mission to the port of Setúbal and to the Algarve to seize French ships in retaliation for peacetime depredations against Portuguese shipping – a task that da Gama rapidly and effectively performed.
Exploration before da Gama
From the earlier part of the 15th century, Portuguese expeditions organized by Prince Henry the Navigator had been reaching down the African coastline, principally in search of west African riches (notably, gold and slaves). They had greatly extended Portuguese maritime knowledge, but had little profit to show for the effort. After Henry's death in 1460, the Portuguese Crown showed little interest in continuing this effort and, in 1469, licensed the neglected African enterprise to a private Lisbon merchant consortium led by Fernão Gomes. Within a few years, Gomes' captains expanded Portuguese knowledge across the Gulf of Guinea, doing business in gold dust, melegueta pepper, ivory and sub-Saharan slaves. When Gomes' charter came up for renewal in 1474, Prince John (future John II), asked his father Afonso V of Portugal to pass the African charter to him.
Upon becoming king in 1481, John II of Portugal set out on many long reforms. To break the monarch's dependence on the feudal nobility, John II needed to build up the royal treasury; he considered royal commerce to be the key to achieving that. Under John II's watch, the gold and slave trade in west Africa was greatly expanded. He was eager to break into the highly profitable spice trade between Europe and Asia, which was conducted chiefly by land. At the time, this was virtually monopolized by the Republic of Venice, who operated overland routes via Levantine and Egyptian ports, through the Red Sea across to the spice markets of India. John II set a new objective for his captains: to find a sea route to Asia by sailing around the African continent.
By the time Vasco da Gama was in his 20s, the king's plans were coming to fruition. In 1487, John II dispatched two spies, Pero da Covilhã and Afonso de Paiva, overland via Egypt to East Africa and India, to scout the details of the spice markets and trade routes. The breakthrough came soon after, when John II's captain Bartolomeu Dias returned from rounding the Cape of Good Hope in 1488, having explored as far as the Fish River (Rio do Infante) in modern-day South Africa and having verified that the unknown coast stretched away to the northeast.
An explorer was needed who could prove the link between the findings of Dias and those of da Covilhã and de Paiva, and connect these separate segments into a potentially lucrative trade route across the Indian Ocean.
First voyage
On 8 July 1497 Vasco da Gama led a fleet of four ships with a crew of 170 men from Lisbon. The distance traveled in the journey around Africa to India and back was greater than the length of the equator. The navigators included Portugal's most experienced, Pero de Alenquer, Pedro Escobar, João de Coimbra, and Afonso Gonçalves. It is not known for certain how many people were in each ship's crew but approximately 55 returned, and two ships were lost. Two of the vessels were carracks, newly built for the voyage; the others were a caravel and a supply boat.
The four ships were:
São Gabriel, commanded by Vasco da Gama; a carrack of 178 tons, length 27 m, width 8.5 m, draft 2.3 m, sails of 372 m2
São Rafael, commanded by his brother Paulo da Gama; similar dimensions to the São Gabriel
Berrio (nickname, officially called São Miguel), a caravel, slightly smaller than the former two, commanded by Nicolau Coelho
A storage ship of unknown name, commanded by Gonçalo Nunes, destined to be scuttled in Mossel Bay (São Brás) in South Africa
Journey to the Cape
The expedition set sail from Lisbon on 8 July 1497. It followed the route pioneered by earlier explorers along the coast of Africa via Tenerife and the Cape Verde Islands. After reaching the coast of present-day Sierra Leone, da Gama took a course south into the open ocean, crossing the Equator and seeking the South Atlantic westerlies that Bartolomeu Dias had discovered in 1487. This course proved successful and on 4 November 1497, the expedition made landfall on the African coast. For over three months the ships had sailed more than of open ocean, by far the longest journey out of sight of land made by that time.
By 16 December, the fleet had passed the Great Fish River (Eastern Cape, South Africa) – where Dias had anchored – and sailed into waters previously unknown to Europeans. With Christmas pending, da Gama and his crew gave the coast they were passing the name Natal, which carried the connotation of "birth of Christ" in Portuguese.
Mozambique
Vasco da Gama spent 2 to 29 March 1498 in the vicinity of Mozambique Island. Arab-controlled territory on the East African coast was an integral part of the network of trade in the Indian Ocean. Fearing the local population would be hostile to Christians, da Gama impersonated a Muslim and gained audience with the Sultan of Mozambique. With the paltry trade goods he had to offer, the explorer was unable to provide a suitable gift to the ruler. Soon the local populace became suspicious of da Gama and his men. Forced by a hostile crowd to flee Mozambique, da Gama departed the harbor, firing his cannons into the city in retaliation.
Mombasa
In the vicinity of modern Kenya, the expedition resorted to piracy, looting Arab merchant ships that were generally unarmed trading vessels without heavy cannons. The Portuguese became the first known Europeans to visit the port of Mombasa from 7 to 13 April 1498, but were met with hostility and soon departed.
Malindi
Vasco da Gama continued north, arriving on 14 April 1498 at the friendlier port of Malindi, whose leaders were having a conflict with those of Mombasa. There the expedition first noted evidence of Indian traders. Da Gama and his crew contracted the services of a pilot who used his knowledge of the monsoon winds to guide the expedition the rest of the way to Calicut, located on the southwest coast of India. Sources differ over the identity of the pilot, calling him variously a Christian, a Muslim, and a Gujarati. One traditional story describes the pilot as the famous Arab navigator Ibn Majid, but other contemporaneous accounts place Majid elsewhere, and he could not have been near the vicinity at the time. None of the Portuguese historians of the time mentions Ibn Majid. Vasco da Gama left Malindi for India on 24 April 1498.
Calicut, India
The fleet arrived in Kappadu near Kozhikode (Calicut), in Malabar Coast (present day Kerala state of India), on 20 May 1498. The King of Calicut, the Samudiri (Zamorin), who was at that time staying in his second capital at Ponnani, returned to Calicut on hearing the news of the foreign fleet's arrival. The navigator was received with traditional hospitality, including a grand procession of at least 3,000 armed Nairs, but an interview with the Zamorin failed to produce any concrete results. When local authorities asked da Gama's fleet, "What brought you hither?", they replied that they had come "in search of Christians and spices." The presents that da Gama sent to the Zamorin as gifts from Dom Manuel – four cloaks of scarlet cloth, six hats, four branches of corals, twelve , a box with seven brass vessels, a chest of sugar, two barrels of oil and a cask of honey – were trivial, and failed to impress. While Zamorin's officials wondered at why there was no gold or silver, the Muslim merchants who considered da Gama their rival suggested that the latter was only an ordinary pirate and not a royal ambassador. Vasco da Gama's request for permission to leave a factor behind him in charge of the merchandise he could not sell was turned down by the King, who insisted that da Gama pay customs duty – preferably in gold – like any other trader, which strained the relation between the two. Annoyed by this, da Gama carried a few Nairs and sixteen fishermen (mukkuva) off with him by force.
Return
Vasco da Gama left Calicut on 29 August 1498. Eager to set sail for home, he ignored the local knowledge of monsoon wind patterns that were still blowing onshore. The fleet initially inched north along the Indian coast, and then anchored in at Anjediva island for a spell. They finally struck out for their Indian Ocean crossing on 3 October 1498. But with the winter monsoon yet to set in, it was a harrowing journey. On the outgoing journey, sailing with the summer monsoon wind, da Gama's fleet crossed the Indian Ocean in only 23 days; now, on the return trip, sailing against the wind, it took 132 days.
Da Gama saw land again only on 2 January 1499, passing before the coastal Somali city of Mogadishu, then under the influence of the Ajuran Empire in the Horn of Africa. The fleet did not make a stop, but passing before Mogadishu, the anonymous diarist of the expedition noted that it was a large city with houses of four or five storeys high and big palaces in its center and many mosques with cylindrical minarets.
Da Gama's fleet finally arrived in Malindi on 7 January 1499, in a terrible state – approximately half of the crew had died during the crossing, and many of the rest were afflicted with scurvy. Not having enough crewmen left standing to manage three ships, da Gama ordered the São Rafael scuttled off the East African coast, and the crew re-distributed to the remaining two ships, the São Gabriel and the Berrio. Thereafter, the sailing was smoother. By early March, they had arrived in Mossel Bay, and crossed the Cape of Good Hope in the opposite direction on 20 March, reaching the west African coast by 25 April.
The diary record of the expedition ends abruptly here. Reconstructing from other sources, it seems they continued to Cape Verde, where Nicolau Coelho's Berrio separated from Vasco da Gama's São Gabriel and sailed on by itself. The Berrio arrived in Lisbon on 10 July 1499 and Nicolau Coelho personally delivered the news to King Manuel I and the royal court, then assembled in Sintra. In the meantime, back in Cape Verde, da Gama's brother, Paulo da Gama, had fallen grievously ill. Da Gama elected to stay by his side on Santiago island and handed the São Gabriel over to his clerk, João de Sá, to take home. The São Gabriel under Sá arrived in Lisbon sometime in late July or early August. Da Gama and his sickly brother eventually hitched a ride with a Guinea caravel returning to Portugal, but Paulo da Gama died en route. Da Gama disembarked at the Azores to bury his brother at the monastery of São Francisco in Angra do Heroismo, and lingered there for a little while in mourning. He eventually took passage on an Azorean caravel and finally arrived in Lisbon on 29 August 1499 (according to Barros), or early September (8th or 18th, according to other sources). Despite his melancholic mood, da Gama was given a hero's welcome and showered with honors, including a triumphal procession and public festivities. King Manuel wrote two letters in which he described da Gama's first voyage, in July and August 1499, soon after the return of the ships. Girolamo Sernigi also wrote three letters describing da Gama's first voyage soon after the return of the expedition.
The expedition had exacted a large cost – two ships and over half the men had been lost. It had also failed in its principal mission of securing a commercial treaty with Calicut. Nonetheless, the small quantities of spices and other trade goods brought back on the remaining two ships demonstrated the potential of great profit for future trade. Vasco da Gama was justly celebrated for opening a direct sea route to Asia. His path would be followed up thereafter by yearly Portuguese India Armadas.
The spice trade would prove to be a major asset to the Portuguese royal treasury, and other consequences soon followed. For example, da Gama's voyage had made it clear that the east coast of Africa, the Contra Costa, was essential to Portuguese interests; its ports provided fresh water, provisions, timber, and harbors for repairs, and served as a refuge where ships could wait out unfavorable weather. One significant result was the colonization of Mozambique by the Portuguese Crown.
Rewards
In December 1499, King Manuel I of Portugal rewarded Vasco da Gama with the town of Sines as a hereditary fief (the town his father, Estêvão, had once held as a commenda). This turned out to be a complicated affair, for Sines still belonged to the Order of Santiago. The master of the Order, Jorge de Lencastre, might have endorsed the reward – after all, da Gama was a Santiago knight, one of their own, and a close associate of Lencastre himself. But the fact that Sines was awarded by the king provoked Lencastre to refuse out of principle, lest it encourage the king to make other donations of the Order's properties. Da Gama would spend the next few years attempting to take hold of Sines, an effort that would estrange him from Lencastre and eventually prompt da Gama to abandon his beloved Order of Santiago, switching over to the rival Order of Christ in 1507.
In the meantime, da Gama made do with a substantial hereditary royal pension of 300,000 reis. He was awarded the noble title of Dom (lord) in perpetuity for himself, his siblings and their descendants. On 30 January 1502, da Gama was awarded the title of Almirante dos mares de Arabia, Persia, India e de todo o Oriente ("Admiral of the Seas of Arabia, Persia, India and all the Orient") – an overwrought title reminiscent of the ornate Castilian title borne by Christopher Columbus (evidently, Manuel must have reckoned that if Castile had an 'Admiral of the Ocean Seas', then surely Portugal should have one too). Another royal letter, dated October 1501, gave da Gama the personal right to intervene and exercise a determining role on any future India-bound fleet.
Around 1501, Vasco da Gama married Catarina de Ataíde, daughter of Álvaro de Ataíde, the alcaide-mór of Alvor (Algarve), and a prominent nobleman connected by kinship with the powerful Almeida family (Catarina was a first cousin of Dom Francisco de Almeida).
Second voyage
The follow-up expedition, the Second India Armada, launched in 1500 under the command of Pedro Álvares Cabral with the mission of making a treaty with the Zamorin of Calicut and setting up a Portuguese factory in the city. However, Pedro Cabral entered into a conflict with the local Arab merchant guilds, with the result that the Portuguese factory was overrun in a riot and up to 70 Portuguese were killed. Cabral blamed the Zamorin for the incident and bombarded the city. Thus war broke out between Portugal and Calicut.
Vasco da Gama invoked his royal letter to take command of the 4th India Armada, scheduled to set out in 1502, with the explicit aim of taking revenge upon the Zamorin and force him to submit to Portuguese terms. The heavily armed fleet of fifteen ships and eight hundred men left Lisbon on 12 February 1502. It was followed in April by another squadron of five ships led by his cousin, Estêvão da Gama (the son of Aires da Gama), which caught up to them in the Indian Ocean. The 4th Armada was a veritable da Gama family affair. Two of his maternal uncles, Vicente Sodré and Brás Sodré, were pre-designated to command an Indian Ocean naval patrol, while brothers-in-law Álvaro de Ataíde (brother of Vasco's wife Catarina) and Lopo Mendes de Vasconcelos (betrothed to Teresa da Gama, Vasco's sister) captained ships in the main fleet.
On the outgoing voyage, da Gama's fleet opened contact with the East African gold trading port of Sofala and reduced the sultanate of Kilwa to tribute, extracting a substantial sum of gold.
Pilgrim ship incident
On reaching India in October 1502, da Gama's fleet intercepted a ship of Muslim pilgrims at Madayi travelling from Calicut to Mecca. Described in detail by eyewitness Thomé Lopes and chronicler Gaspar Correia, da Gama looted the ship with over 400 pilgrims on board including 50 women, locked in the passengers, the owner and an ambassador from Egypt and burned them to death. They offered their wealth, which "could ransom all the Christian slaves in the Kingdom of Fez and much more" but were not spared. Da Gama looked on through the porthole and saw the women bringing up their gold and jewels and holding up their babies to beg for mercy.
Calicut
After stopping at Cannanore, Gama drove his fleet before Calicut, demanding redress for the treatment of Cabral. Having known of the fate of the pilgrims' ship, the Zamorin adopted a conciliatory attitude towards the Portuguese and expressed willingness to sign a new treaty but da Gama made a call to the Hindu king to expel all Muslims from Calicut before beginning negotiations, which was turned down. At the same time however, the Zamorin sent a message to his rebellious vassal, the Raja of Cochin urging cooperation and obedience to counter the Portuguese threat; the ruler of Cochin forwarded this message to Gama, which reinforced his opinion of the Indians as duplicitous. After demanding the expulsion of Muslims from Calicut to the Hindu Zamorin, the latter sent the high priest Talappana Namboothiri (the very same person who conducted da Gama to the Zamorin's chamber during his much celebrated first visit to Calicut in May 1498) for talks. Da Gama called him a spy, ordered the priests' lips and ears to be cut off and after sewing a pair of dog's ears to his head, sent him away. The Portuguese fleet then bombarded the unfortified city for nearly two days from the sea, severely damaging it. He also captured several rice vessels and cut off the crew's hands, ears and noses, dispatching them with a note to the Zamorin, in which Gama declared that he would be open to friendly relations once the Zamorin had paid for the items plundered from the feitoria as well as the gunpowder and cannonballs.
Seabattle
The violent treatment meted out by da Gama quickly brought trade along the Malabar Coast of India, upon which Calicut depended, to a standstill. The Zamorin ventured to dispatch a fleet of strong warships to challenge da Gama's armada, but which Gama managed to defeat in a naval battle before Calicut harbor.
Cochin
Da Gama loaded up with spices at Cochin and Cannanore, small nearby kingdoms at war with the Zamorin, whose alliances had been secured by prior Portuguese fleets. The 4th armada left India in early 1503. Da Gama left behind a small squadron of caravels under the command of his uncle, Vicente Sodré, to patrol the Indian coast, to continue harassing Calicut shipping, and to protect the Portuguese factories at Cochin and Cannanore from the Zamorin's inevitable reprisals.
Vasco da Gama arrived back in Portugal in September 1503, effectively having failed in his mission to bring the Zamorin to submission. This failure, and the subsequent more galling failure of his uncle Vicente Sodré to protect the Portuguese factory in Cochin, probably counted against any further rewards. When the Portuguese king Manuel I of Portugal decided to appoint the first governor and viceroy of Portuguese India in 1505, da Gama was conspicuously overlooked, and the post given to Francisco de Almeida.
Interlude
For the next two decades, Vasco da Gama lived out a quiet life, unwelcome in the royal court and sidelined from Indian affairs. His attempts to return to the favor of Manuel I (including switching over to the Order of Christ in 1507), yielded little. Almeida, the larger-than-life Afonso de Albuquerque and, later on, Albergaria and Sequeira, were the king's preferred point men for India.
After Ferdinand Magellan defected to the Crown of Castile in 1518, Vasco da Gama threatened to do the same, prompting the king to undertake steps to retain him in Portugal and avoid the embarrassment of losing his own "Admiral of the Indies" to Spain. In 1519, after years of ignoring his petitions, King Manuel I finally hurried to give Vasco da Gama a feudal title, appointing him the first Count of Vidigueira, a count title created by a royal decree issued in Évora on 29 December, after a complicated agreement with Dom Jaime, Duke of Braganza, who ceded him on payment the towns of Vidigueira and Vila dos Frades. The decree granted Vasco da Gama and his heirs all the revenues and privileges related, thus establishing da Gama as the first Portuguese count who was not born with royal blood.
Third voyage and death
After the death of King Manuel I in late 1521, his son and successor, King John III of Portugal set about reviewing the Portuguese government overseas. Turning away from the old Albuquerque clique (now represented by Diogo Lopes de Sequeira), John III looked for a fresh start. Vasco da Gama re-emerged from his political wilderness as an important adviser to the new king's appointments and strategy. Seeing the new Spanish threat to the Maluku Islands as the priority, Vasco da Gama advised against the obsession with Arabia that had pervaded much of the Manueline period, and continued to be the dominant concern of Duarte de Menezes, then-governor of Portuguese India. Menezes also turned out to be incompetent and corrupt, subject to numerous complaints. As a result, John III decided to appoint Vasco da Gama himself to replace Menezes, confident that the magic of his name and memory of his deeds might better impress his authority on Portuguese India, and manage the transition to a new government and new strategy.
By his appointment letter of February 1524, John III granted Vasco da Gama the privileged title of "Viceroy", being only the second Portuguese governor to enjoy that title (the first was Francisco de Almeida in 1505). His second son, Estêvão da Gama was simultaneously appointed Capitão-mor do Mar da Índia ('Captain-major of the Indian Sea', commander of the Indian Ocean naval patrol fleet), to replace Duarte's brother, Luís de Menezes. As a final condition, Gama secured from John III of Portugal the commitment to appoint all his sons successively as Portuguese captains of Malacca.
Setting out in April 1524, with a fleet of fourteen ships, Vasco da Gama took as his flagship the famous large carrack Santa Catarina do Monte Sinai on her last journey to India, along with two of his sons, Estêvão and Paulo. After a troubled journey (four or five of the ships were lost en route), he arrived in India in September. Vasco da Gama immediately invoked his high viceregent powers to impose a new order in Portuguese India, replacing all the old officials with his own appointments. But Gama contracted malaria not long after arriving, and died in the city of Cochin on Christmas Eve in 1524, three months after his arrival. As per royal instructions, da Gama was succeeded as governor of India by one of the captains who had come with him, Henrique de Menezes (no relation to Duarte). Da Gama's sons Estêvão and Paulo immediately lost their posts and joined the returning fleet of early 1525 (along with the dismissed Duarte de Menezes and Luís de Menezes).
Vasco da Gama's body was first buried at St. Francis Church, which was located at Fort Kochi in the city of Kochi, but his remains were returned to Portugal in 1539. The body of Vasco da Gama was re-interred in Vidigueira in a casket decorated with gold and jewels.
The Monastery of the Hieronymites, in Belém, which would become the necropolis of the Portuguese royal dynasty of Aviz, was erected in the early 1500s near the launch point of Vasco da Gama's first journey, and its construction funded by a tax on the profits of the yearly Portuguese India Armadas. In 1880, da Gama's remains and those of the poet Luís de Camões (who celebrated da Gama's first voyage in his 1572 epic poem, The Lusiad), were moved to new carved tombs in the nave of the monastery's church, only a few meters away from the tombs of the kings Manuel I and John III, whom da Gama had served.
Marriage and descendants
Vasco da Gama and his wife, Catarina de Ataíde, had six sons and one daughter:
Dom Francisco da Gama, who inherited his father's titles as 2nd Count of Vidigueira and the 2nd "Admiral of the Seas of India, Arabia and Persia". He remained in Portugal.
Dom Estevão da Gama, after his abortive 1524 term as Indian patrol captain, he was appointed for a three-year term as captain of Malacca, serving from 1534 to 1539 (includes the last two years of his younger brother Paulo's term). He was subsequently appointed as the 11th governor of India from 1540 to 1542.
Dom Paulo da Gama (having the same name as his uncle Paulo), captain of Malacca from 1533 to 1534, killed in a naval action off Malacca.
Dom Cristovão da Gama, captain of Malacca from 1538 to 1540; nominated to succeed in Malacca, but executed by Ahmad ibn Ibrahim during the Ethiopian-Adal war in 1542.
Dom Pedro da Silva da Gama, appointed captain of Malacca from 1548 to 1552.
Dom Álvaro d'Ataide da Gama, appointed captain of Malacca fleet in the 1540s, captain of Malacca itself from 1552 to 1554.
Dona Isabel d'Ataide da Gama, only daughter, married Ignacio de Noronha, son of the first Count of Linhares.
His male-line issue became extinct in 1747, though the title continued through the female-line.
Intergenerations
Dom Vasco da Gama, 3rd Count of Vidigueira, the nobility and military personnel, son of Francisco (2nd Count) and grandson of Vasco da Gama.
Dom Francisco da Gama, 4th Count of Vidigueira, the viceroy (1597–1600) and governor (1622–1628) of India, son of Vasco (3rd Count) and great-grandson of Vasco da Gama.
Legacy
Vasco da Gama is one of the most famous and celebrated explorers from the Age of Discovery. As much as anyone after Henry the Navigator, he was responsible for Portugal's success as an early colonising power. Beside the fact of the first voyage itself, it was his astute mix of politics and war on the other side of the world that placed Portugal in a prominent position in Indian Ocean trade. Following da Gama's initial voyage, the Portuguese crown realized that securing outposts on the eastern coast of Africa would prove vital to maintaining national trade routes to the Far East.
However, his fame is tempered by such incidents and attitudes as displayed in the notorious Pilgrim Ship Incident previously discussed.
The Portuguese national epic, the Lusíadas of Luís Vaz de Camões, largely concerns Vasco da Gama's voyages.
The 1865 grand opera L'Africaine: Opéra en Cinq Actes, composed by Giacomo Meyerbeer from a libretto by Eugène Scribe, prominently includes the character of Vasco da Gama. The events depicted, however, are fictitious. Meyerbeer's working title for the opera was Vasco da Gama. A 1989 production of the opera by the San Francisco Opera featured noted tenor Plácido Domingo in the role of da Gama. The 19th-century composer Louis-Albert Bourgault-Ducoudray composed an eponymous 1872 opera based on da Gama's life and exploits at sea.
The port city of Vasco da Gama in Goa is named after him, as is the crater Vasco da Gama on the Moon. There are three football clubs in Brazil (including Club de Regatas Vasco da Gama) and Vasco Sports Club in Goa that were also named after him. There exists a church in Kochi, Kerala called Vasco da Gama Church, and a private residence on the island of Saint Helena. The suburb of Vasco in Cape Town also honours him.
A few places in Lisbon's Parque das Nações are named after the explorer, such as the Vasco da Gama Bridge, Vasco da Gama Tower and the Centro Comercial Vasco da Gama shopping centre. The Oceanário in the Parque das Nações has a mascot of a cartoon diver with the name of "Vasco", who is named after the explorer.
Vasco da Gama was the only explorer on the final pool of Os Grandes Portugueses. Although the final shortlist featured other Age of Discovery related people, they were not actually explorers nor navigators for any matter.
The Portuguese Navy has a class of frigates named after him. There are three Vasco da Gama class frigates in total, of which the first one also bears his name.
The Portuguese government erected two navigational beacons, Dias Cross and da Gama Cross, to commemorate da Gama and Bartolomeu Dias who were the first modern European explorers to reach the Cape of Good Hope. When lined up, these crosses point to Whittle Rock, a large, permanently submerged shipping hazard in False Bay.
South African musician Hugh Masekela recorded an anti-colonialist song entitled "Colonial Man", which contains the lyrics "Vasco da Gama was no friend of mine", and another song entitled "Vasco da Gama (The Sailor Man)". Both songs were included in his 1976 album Colonial Man.
Vasco da Gama appears as an antagonist in the Indian film Urumi. The film, directed by Santosh Sivan, depicts atrocities and progression to establish the Portuguese empire by da Gama in India.
In March 2016, archaeologists working off the coast of Oman identified a shipwreck believed to be that of the Esmeralda from da Gama's 1502–1503 fleet. The wreck was initially discovered in 1998. Later underwater excavations took place between 2013 and 2015 through a partnership between the Oman Ministry of Heritage and Culture and Blue Water Recoveries Ltd., a shipwreck recovery company. The vessel was identified through such artifacts as a "Portuguese coin minted for trade with India (one of only two coins of this type known to exist) and stone cannonballs engraved with what appear to be the initials of Vincente Sodré, da Gama's maternal uncle and the commander of the Esmeralda."
See also
Chronology of European exploration of Asia
References
Citations
Bibliography
Castanhoso, M. de (1898) Dos feitos de D. Christovam da Gama em Ethiopia Lisbon: Imprensa nacional. online
Facsimile reprint of an 1869 edition by the Hakluyt Society, London.
(reissued by Cambridge University Press, 2010. )
Teixeira de Aragão, A.C. (1887) Vasco da Gama e a Vidigueira: um estudo historico. Lisbon: Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa online
Further reading
Vasco da Gama (Ernst Georg Ravenstein, Gaspar Corrêa, Alvaro Velho) [2011] Viartis
Vasco da Gama: Renaissance Crusader (Glen J.Ames) [2004] Longman
The Career and Legend of Vasco da Gama (Sanjay Subrahmanyam) [1997] Cambridge University Press
External links
Vasco da Gama's Round Africa to India, fordham.edu
Vasco da Gama web tutorial with animated maps, ucalgary.ca
A Portuguese East Indiaman from the 1502–1503 Fleet of Vasco da Gama off Al Hallaniyah Island, Oman: an interim report, IJNA
Portuguese explorers
Portuguese colonial governors and administrators
Maritime history of Portugal
Explorers of Asia
Explorers of India
Explorers of Africa
Viceroys of Portuguese India
Vasco
1460s births
1524 deaths
Deaths from malaria
Infectious disease deaths in India
Maritime history of South Africa
Colonial Goa
Colonial Kerala
History of Goa
People from Sines
People of Portuguese India
People from Vidigueira
Portuguese Roman Catholics
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15th-century Portuguese people
15th-century Roman Catholics | true | [
"\"Statuesque\" is a song by Britpop band Sleeper, written by the band's vocalist and guitarist Louise Wener. \"Statuesque\" was the fourth and final single to be released from Sleeper's second album The It Girl and became the group's last top twenty hit on the UK Singles Chart.\n\nBackground\n\n\"Statuesque\" soundtracked a key scene at the end of the 1996 hit movie Trainspotting, and featured on the additional soundtrack album Trainspotting #2: Music from the Motion Picture, Vol. #2 the following year. Sleeper had also covered Blondie's 1980 hit \"Atomic\", for the movie; a remix of the song backed the single formats, along with a remix of \"Statuesque\" by then Evening Session DJ Steve Lamacq. For the b-sides of \"Statuesque\", Sleeper recorded two new tracks \"She's a Sweetheart\" and \"Spies\", as well as a cover of Elvis Costello's \"The Other End of the Telescope\", after Costello covered their own \"What Do I Do Now?\".\n\nTrack listing\n\nUK 7\" single Indolent SLEEP 014 (ltd no'd edition of 10,000; with poster)\n\n\"Statuesque\" – 4:34\n\"She's a Sweetheart\" – 3:31\n\nUK CD single Indolent SLEEP 014CD1\n\n\"Statuesque\" – 4:34\n\"She's a Sweetheart\" – 3:31 \n\"Spies\" – 3:14\n\nUK CD single Indolent SLEEP 014CD2\n\n\"Statuesque\" – 4:34\n\"Statuesque (The Boxed Off mix)\" – 6:11\n\"The Other End of the Telescope\" – 4:31 \n\"Atomic (Wubble U mix)\" – 8:21\n\nAustralia CD single BMG 74321 42243-2\n\n\"Statuesque\" – 4:34\n\"She's a Sweetheart\" – 3:31 \n\"Spies\" – 3:14\n\"Statuesque (The Boxed Off mix)\" – 6:11\n\"The Other End of the Telescope\" – 4:31 \n\"Atomic (Wubble U mix)\" – 8:21\n\nCritical reception\nJack Rabid of AllMusic called the track \"Blondie-like\", likening it in particular to \"(I'm Always Touched by Your) Presence, Dear\".\n\nComprehensive charts\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\"Statuesque\" music video\n\n1996 singles\nSleeper (band) songs\nSongs written by Louise Wener\nSong recordings produced by Stephen Street\n1996 songs",
"Janni Spies (née Brodersen, born 19 September 1962) is a Danish businesswoman, multimillionaire, and former owner of the Scandinavian travelling empire including the charter airline Conair of Scandinavia, companies she inherited from her first husband Simon Spies. Formerly one of Denmark's five richest and the 10th wealthiest woman in Europe, Spies today is chairwoman for Simon Spies Fonden (The Simon Spies Foundation).\n\nBiography \n\nSpies was born Janni Isager Brodersen on 19 September 1962 to Yvonne Brodersen (1929–2007) and Werner Heinrich Isager (1922–2011) in the Copenhagen suburb Herlev. Her mother was a seamstress and homemaker, and her father was a telephone technician. When in tenth grade, Janni at age 16 dropped out of school and started working as a messenger girl at the travelling agency . She caught the attention of the company owner, Simon Spies, and the then 20-year-old Janni married the 61-year-old Simon Spies on 11 May 1983 in Holmen Church in central Copenhagen. To their wedding 3.000 guests were invited. Simon Spies died less than a year later on 16 April 1984, and bequeathed the majority of his estate to his wife, making her one of Europe's richest women.\n\nSpies became chairwoman of the board upon her husband's death, and in 1989 acquired the travelling agency . Spies sold the entire company in 1996 to what is now Sunclass Airlines.\n\nShe has later been accused of having destroyed her inheritance by bringing her brother, a former toolmaker, Leif Brodersen on the board together with a friend of his, the former trade union economist Steffen Møller. Her board now counseled her to purchase three Airbus A300 in 1987 and in 1991 another six brand new and very expensive Airbus A320. As the Airbus A300 were very difficult to sell, the passengers became fewer due to the Gulf War the entire Spies company ended up in severe financial difficulties. According to the General Manager at the time, Knud Heinesen, had this never happened if Janni had listened to him instead, and merged or cooperated with Copenhagen-based Sterling Airways instead.\nAlso her second husband, the lawyer and politician Christian Kjær agreed. And as he took over as chairman of the board, (with Janni as vice chairwoman only) Leif Brodersen left the Spies company. But the financial problems didn't end there, and in 1993 had several banks to add new capital to the bankruptcy threatened travelling agency. And in 1996 was Spies Rejser sold to the British travel company Airtours while Conair merged with Scanair into Premiair, changing the name to Thomas Cook Airlines Scandinavia, which today is Sunclass Airlines A/S.\n\nSpies is chairwoman for Simon Spies Fonden (The Simon Spies Foundation) that supports science, business, arts, and sport, and typically donates some 2-3 million DKK every year.\n\nIn 2007, Spies was made a Dame of the Order of the Dannebrog.\n\nPrivate life \n\nFrom 1985 to 1987, Spies dated and was engaged to Swedish actor and director Gunnar Hellström (1928–2001). She dated estate agent for a short while, before marrying in 1988. The marriage produced two children but ended in divorce in 2008, followed by bitter court cases.\n\nReferences \n\n1962 births\nLiving people\nPeople from Copenhagen\nKnights of the Order of the Dannebrog"
] |
[
"Lewis H. Morgan",
"Early life and education"
] | C_e5fc21be457745f1b3c92b694b802e45_1 | Where was Lewis born? | 1 | Where was Lewis H. Morgan born? | Lewis H. Morgan | Lewis' grandfather, Thomas Morgan of Connecticut, had been a Continental soldier in the Revolutionary War. Afterward he and his family migrated west to New York's Finger Lakes region, where he bought land from the Cayuga people and planted a farm on the shores of Lake Cayuga near Aurora. He and his wife already had three sons, including Jedediah, the future father of Lewis; and a daughter. In 1797, Jedediah Morgan (1774-1826) married Amanda Stanton, settling on a 100-acre gift of land from his father. After she had five children and died, Jedediah married Harriet Steele of Hartford, Connecticut. They had eight more children, including Lewis. As an adult, he adopted the middle initial "H." Lewis later decided that this H, if anything, stood for "Henry". A multi-skilled Yankee, Jedediah Morgan invented a plow and formed a business partnership to manufacture parts for it; he built a blast furnace for the factory. He moved to Aurora, leaving the farm to a son. After joining the Masons, he helped to form the first Masonic lodge in Aurora. Elected a state senator, Morgan supported the construction of the Erie Canal, which opened in 1825. At his death in 1826, Jedediah left 500 acres with herds and flocks in trust for the support of his family. This provided for education as well. Lewis studied classical subjects at Cayuga Academy: Latin, Greek, rhetoric and mathematics. His father had bequeathed money specifically for his college education, after giving land to the other children for their occupations. Lewis chose Union College in Schenectady. Due to his work at Cayuga Academy, Lewis finished college in two years, 1838-1840, graduating at age 22. The curriculum continued study of classics combined with science, especially mechanics and optics. Lewis was strongly interested in the works of the French naturalist Georges Cuvier. Eliphalet Nott, the president of Union College, was an inventor of stoves and a boiler; he held 31 patents. A Presbyterian minister, he kept the young men under a tight discipline, forbidding alcoholic beverages and requiring students to get permission to go to town. He held up the Bible as the one practical standard for all behavior. His career ended with some notoriety when he was investigated by the state for attempting to raise funds for the college through a lottery. The students evaded his strict regime by founding secret (and forbidden) fraternities, such as the Kappa Alpha Society. Lewis Morgan joined in 1839. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Lewis Henry Morgan (November 21, 1818 – December 17, 1881) was a pioneering American anthropologist and social theorist who worked as a railroad lawyer. He is best known for his work on kinship and social structure, his theories of social evolution, and his ethnography of the Iroquois. Interested in what holds societies together, he proposed the concept that the earliest human domestic institution was the matrilineal clan, not the patriarchal family.
Also interested in what leads to social change, he was a contemporary of the European social theorists Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, who were influenced by reading his work on social structure and material culture, the influence of technology on progress. Morgan is the only American social theorist to be cited by such diverse scholars as Marx, Charles Darwin, and Sigmund Freud. Elected as a member of the National Academy of Sciences, Morgan served as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1880.
Morgan was a Republican member of the New York State Assembly (Monroe Co., 2nd D.) in 1861, and of the New York State Senate in 1868 and 1869.
Biography
The American Morgans
According to Herbert Marshall Lloyd, an attorney and editor of Morgan's works, Lewis was descended from James Morgan, brother of Miles, who were Welsh pioneers of Connecticut and Springfield, Massachusetts, respectively. Various sources record that the three sons of William Morgan of Llandaff, Glamorganshire, took passage for Boston in 1636. From there Miles went to Springfield, James to New London, Connecticut and John Morgan to Virginia. Lloyd writes, "From these two brothers [James and Miles] all the Morgans prominent in the annals of New York and New England are believed to be descended." The Morgans to which he refers played a critical part in the foundation of the colonies. During the American Revolutionary War, they were Continentals. Immediately after the war, the Connecticut line, along with many other land-hungry Yankees, migrated into New York State. Following the United States' victory against the British, the new government forced the latter's Iroquois allies to cede most of their traditional lands in New York and Pennsylvania to the US. New York made 5 million of acres available for public sale. In addition, the US government granted some plots in western New York to Revolutionary veterans as compensation for their service in the war.
Early life and education
Lewis' grandfather, Thomas Morgan of Connecticut, had been a Continental soldier in the Revolutionary War. Afterward he and his family migrated west to New York's Finger Lakes region, where he bought land from the Cayuga people and planted a farm on the shores of Lake Cayuga near Aurora. He and his wife already had three sons, including Jedediah, the future father of Lewis; and a daughter.
In 1797, Jedediah Morgan (1774–1826) married Amanda Stanton, settling on a 100-acre gift of land from his father. After she had five children and died, Jedediah married Harriet Steele of Hartford, Connecticut. They had eight more children, including Lewis. As an adult, he adopted the middle initial "H." Morgan later decided that this H, if anything, stood for "Henry".
A multi-skilled Yankee, Jedediah Morgan invented a plow and formed a business partnership to manufacture parts for it; he built a blast furnace for the factory. He moved to Aurora, leaving the farm to a son. After joining the Masons, he helped to form the first Masonic lodge in Aurora. Elected a state senator, Morgan supported the construction of the Erie Canal, which opened in 1825.
At his death in 1826, Jedediah left 500 acres with herds and flocks in trust for the support of his family. This provided for education as well. Morgan studied classical subjects at Cayuga Academy: Latin, Greek, rhetoric and mathematics. His father had bequeathed money specifically for his college education, after giving land to the other children for their occupations. Morgan chose Union College in Schenectady. Due to his work at Cayuga Academy, Morgan finished college in two years, 1838–1840, graduating at age 22. The curriculum continued study of classics combined with science, especially mechanics and optics. Morgan was strongly interested in the works of the French naturalist Georges Cuvier.
Eliphalet Nott, the president of Union College, was an inventor of stoves and a boiler; he held 31 patents. A Presbyterian minister, he kept the young men under a tight discipline, forbidding alcoholic beverages and requiring students to get permission to go to town. He held up the Bible as the one practical standard for all behavior. His career ended with some notoriety when he was investigated by the state for attempting to raise funds for the college through a lottery. The students evaded his strict regime by founding secret (and forbidden) fraternities, such as the Kappa Alpha Society. Lewis Morgan joined in 1839.
The New Confederacy of the Iroquois
After graduating in 1840, Morgan returned to Aurora to read the law with an established firm. In 1842 he was admitted to the bar in Rochester, where he went into partnership with a Union classmate, George F. Danforth, a future judge. They could find no clients, as the nation was in an economic depression, which had started with the Panic of 1837. Morgan wrote essays, which he had begun to do while studying law, and published some in The Knickerbocker under the pen name Aquarius.
On January 1, 1841, Morgan and some friends from Cayuga Academy formed a secret fraternal society which they called the Gordian Knot. As Morgan's earliest essays from that time had classical themes, the club may have been a kind of literary society, as was common then. In 1841 or 1842 the young men redefined the society, renaming it the Order of the Iroquois. Morgan referred to this event as cutting the knot. In 1843 they named it the Grand Order of the Iroquois, followed by the New Confederacy of the Iroquois. They made the group a research organization to collect information on the Iroquois, whose historical territory for centuries had included central and upstate New York west of the Hudson and the Finger Lakes region.
The men intended to resurrect the spirit of the Iroquois. They tried to learn the languages, assumed Iroquois names, and organized the group by the historic pattern of Iroquois tribes. In 1844 they received permission from the former Freemasons of Aurora to use the upper floor of the Masonic temple as a meeting hall. New members underwent a secret rite called inindianation in which they were transformed spiritually into Iroquois. They met in the summer around campfires and paraded yearly through the town in costume. Morgan seemed infused with the spirit of the Iroquois. He said, "We are now upon the very soil over which they exercised dominion ... Poetry still lingers around the scenery. ... " These new Iroquois retained a literary frame of mind, but they intended to focus on "the writing of a native American epic that would define national identity".
Encounter with the Iroquois
On an 1844 business trip to the capital of Albany, Morgan started research on old Cayuga treaties in the state archives. The Seneca people were also studying old US-Native American treaties to support their land claims. After the Revolutionary War, the United States had forced the four Iroquois tribes allied with the British to cede their lands and migrate to Canada.
By specific treaties, the US set aside small reservations in New York for their own allies, the Onondaga and Seneca. In the 1840s, long after the war, the Ogden Land Company, a real estate venture, laid claim to the Seneca Tonawanda Reservation on the basis of a fraudulent treaty. The Seneca sued and had representatives at the state capital pressing their case when Morgan was there.
The delegation, led by Jimmy Johnson, its chief officer (and son of chief Red Jacket), were essentially former officers of what was left of the Iroquois Confederacy. Johnson's 16-year-old grandson Ha-sa-ne-an-da (Ely Parker) accompanied them as their interpreter, as he had attended a mission school and was bilingual. By chance Morgan and the young Parker encountered each other in an Albany book store. Soon intrigued by Morgan's talk of the New Confederacy, Parker invited the older man to interview Johnson and meet the delegation. Morgan took pages of organizational notes, which he used to remodel the New Confederacy. Beyond such details of scholarship, Morgan and the Seneca men formed deep attachments of friendship.
Morgan and his colleagues invited Parker to join the New Confederacy. They (chiefly Morgan) paid for the rest of Parker's education at the Cayuga Academy, along with his sister and a friend of hers. Later the Confederacy paid for Parker's studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, where he graduated in civil engineering. After military service in the American Civil War, from which Parker retired at the rank of brigadier general, he entered the upper ranks of civil service in the presidency of his former commander, Ulysses S. Grant.
The Ogden Land Company affair
Meanwhile, the organization had had activist goals from the beginning. In his initial New Gordius address Morgan had said:
... when the last tribe shall slumber in the grass, it is to be feared that the stain of blood will be found on the escutcheon of the American republic. This nation must shield their declining day ...
In 1838 the Ogden Land Company began a campaign to defraud the remaining Iroquois in New York of their lands. By Iroquois law, only a unanimous vote of all the chiefs sitting in council could effect binding decisions relating to the tribe. The OLC set about to purchase the votes of as many chiefs as it could, plying some with alcohol. The chiefs in many cases complied, believing any resolutions to sell the land would be defeated in council. Obtaining a majority vote for sale at one council called for the purpose, the OLC took their treaty to the Congress of the United States, which knew nothing of Iroquois law. President Martin Van Buren advised Congress that the treaty was fraudulent but on June 11, 1838, Congress adopted it as a resolution. After being compensated for their land by $1.67 per acre (Morgan said it was worth $16 per acre), the Seneca were to be evicted forthwith.
The great majority of the tribe were against the sale of the land. When they discovered they had been defrauded, they were galvanized to action. The New Confederacy stepped into the case on the side of the Seneca, conducting a major publicity campaign. They held mass meetings, circulated a general petition, and spoke to congressmen in Washington. The US Indian agent and ethnologist Henry Rowe Schoolcraft and other influential men became honorary members. In 1846 a general convention of the population of Genesee County, New York sent Morgan to Congress with a counter-offer. The Seneca were allowed to buy back some land at $20 per acre, at which time the Tonawanda Reservation was created. The previous treaty was thrown out. Returning home, Morgan was adopted into the Hawk Clan, Seneca Tribe, as the son of Jimmy Johnson on October 31, 1847, in part to honor his work with the Seneca on the reservation issues. They named him Tayadaowuhkuh, meaning "bridging the gap" (between the Iroquois and the European Americans).
After Morgan was admitted to the tribe, he lost interest in the New Confederacy. The group retained its secrecy and initiation requirements, but they were being hotly disputed. When internal dissent began to impede the group's efficacy in 1847, Morgan stopped attending. For practical purposes it ceased to exist, but Morgan and Parker continued with a series of "Iroquois Letters" to the American Whig Review, edited by George Colton. The Seneca case dragged on. Finally in 1857 the Supreme Court of the United States affirmed that only the federal government could evict the Seneca from their land. As it declined to do that, the case was over. The Ogden Land Company collapsed.
Marriage and family
In 1851 Morgan summarized his investigation of Iroquois customs in his first book of note, League of the Iroquois, one of the founding works of ethnology. In it he compares systems of kinship. In that year also he married his cross-cousin, Mary Elizabeth Steele, his companion and partner for the rest of his life. She had intended to become a Presbyterian missionary. On their wedding day he presented to her an ornate copy of his new book. It was dedicated to his collaborator, Ely Parker.
In 1853 Mary's father died, leaving her a large inheritance. The Morgans bought a brownstone in a wealthy suburb of Rochester. In that year their son, Lemuel, was born, who "turned out to be mentally handicapped". Morgan's rising fame brought him public attention. Lemuel's condition (on no specific evidence) was universally attributed to the first-cousin marriage. The Morgans had to endure perpetual criticism, which they accepted as true, Lewis going to far as, in Ancient Society, to take a stand against cousin marriage. The Morgan marriage remained a close and affectionate one.
Morgan and his wife were active in the First Presbyterian Church of Rochester, mainly of interest to Mary. Morgan refused to make "the public profession of Christ that was necessary for full membership". They both contributed to and sponsored charitable works. In 1856, Mary Elisabeth was born and in 1860 Helen King.
Supporting education
For several years "his ethnical interests lay dormant", but not his scholarship and writing. In 1852 Morgan and eight other "Rochester intellectuals" instituted The Pundit Club, shortened later to just The Club, a scientific and literary society before which the members read papers they had researched for the occasion. Morgan read papers to The Club every year for the rest of his life. He also joined the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Morgan and other leading men of Rochester decided to found a university, the University of Rochester. It did not support the matriculation of women. The group resolved to found a college for women, the Barleywood Female University, which was advertised but apparently never started. In the same year of its foundation, 1852, the donor of the land on which it was to be located gave it to the University of Rochester instead. Morgan was gravely disappointed. He believed that equality of the sexes is a mark of advanced civilization. For the present, he lacked the wealth and connections to prevent the collapse of Barleywood. Later he would serve as a founding trustee of the board of Wells College in Aurora. In addition, he and Mary would leave their estate to the University of Rochester for the foundation of a women's college.
Success at last
In 1855 Morgan and other Rochester businessmen invested in the expanding metals industry of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. After a brief sojourn on the 5-man board of the Iron Mountain Railroad, Morgan joined them in creating the Bay de Noquet and Marquette Railroad Company, connecting the entire Upper Peninsula by a single, ore-bearing line. He became its attorney and director. At that time the U.S. government was selling lands previously confiscated from the natives in cases where the sale benefited the public good. Although the Upper Peninsula was known for its great natural beauty, the discovery of iron persuaded Morgan and others to develop wide-scale mining and industrialization of the peninsula. He spent the next few years between Washington, lobbying for the sale of the land to his company, and in large cities such as Detroit and Chicago, where he fought lawsuits to prevent competitors from taking it. Morgan vigorously defended American capitalism to protect his own interests. After the stockholders refused to pay him for some of his legal work, he all but withdrew from business in favor of field work in anthropology.
In 1861 in the middle of his field work, Morgan was elected as Member of the New York State Assembly on the Republican ticket. The Morgans traditionally had belonged to the Whigs, which dissolved in 1856; most Whigs joined the Republicans, created in 1854. Morgan did not run with any agenda except his own as it pertained to the Iroquois. He was seeking appointment by the President of the United States as Commissioner of the new Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). Morgan anticipated that William H. Seward would be elected president, and outlined to him plans to employ the natives in the manufacture and sale of Indian goods.
At the last moment Abraham Lincoln displaced Seward as the Republican candidate. The new president was deluged by letters from Morgan's associates asking that Morgan be appointed commissioner. Lincoln explained that the post had already been exchanged by his campaign manager for political support. With the chance for appointment lost, Morgan, who had made no pretense of interest in New York state's government, returned to field study of the natives.
Field anthropologist
After attending the 1856 meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Morgan decided on an ethnology study to compare kinship systems. He conducted a field research program funded by himself and the Smithsonian Institution, 1859-1862. He made four expeditions, two to the Plains tribes of Kansas and Nebraska, and two more up the Missouri River past Yellowstone. This was before the development of any inland transportation system. Passengers on riverboats could shoot Bison and other game for food along the upper Missouri River. He collected data on 51 kinship systems. Tribes included the Winnebago, Crow, Yankton, Kaw, Blackfeet, Omaha and others.
At the height of Morgan's anthropological field work, death struck his family. In May and June, 1862, their two daughters, ages 6 and 2, died as a result of scarlet fever while Morgan was traveling in the West. In Sioux City, Iowa, Morgan received the news from his wife. He wrote in his journal:
Two of three of my children are taken. Our family is destroyed. The intelligence has simply petrified me. I have not shed a tear. It is too profound for tears. Thus ends my last expedition. I go home to my stricken and mourning wife, a miserable and destroyed man.
The Civil War
During this time, neither Morgan nor Mary showed any interest in abolitionism, nor did they participate in the American Civil War. They differed markedly from their friend Ely Parker. The latter attempted to raise an Iroquois regiment but was denied, on the grounds that he was not a US citizen, and denied service on the same ground. He entered the army finally by the intervention of his friend, Ulysses S. Grant, serving on Grant's staff. Parker was present at the surrender of General Lee; to Lee's remark that Parker was the "true American" (as an American Indian), he responded, "We are all Americans here, sir."
Morgan held no consistent views on the war. He could easily have joined the anti-slavery cause if he had wished to do so. Rochester, as the last station before Canada on the Underground Railroad, was a center of abolitionism. Frederick Douglass published the North Star in Rochester. Like Morgan, Douglass supported the equality of women, yet they never made connection.
Morgan was anti-slavery but opposed abolitionism on the grounds that slavery was protected by law. Before the war he assented to the possible division of the nation on the grounds of "irreconcilable differences", that is, slavery, between regions. Morgan began to change his mind when some of his friends who had gone out to watch the First Battle of Bull Run were captured and imprisoned by the Confederates for the duration. By the end of the war, he was insisting along with most others that Jefferson Davis be hanged as a traitor. In 1866 he formed the Rochester Committee for the Relief of Southern Starvation.
Morgan did participate indirectly in the war through his company. Recovering from the deaths of his daughters and having resolved to end the expeditions that had taken him away from home, he gave his life totally over to business. In 1863 he and Samuel Ely formed a partnership creating the Morgan Iron Company in northern Michigan. The war had created such a high demand for metals that within the first year of business, the company paid off its founding debt and offered 100% dividends on its stock. The demand went on until 1868, enabling the company to construct a blast furnace. Morgan became independently wealthy and could retire from the practice of law.
The Erie Railroad affair
Morgan took up trout fishing during his Michigan period. He fished in the wilds of Michigan during the summers, sometimes with Ojibwe guides. During this recreational activity, he became interested in beavers, which had greatly modified the lowlands. After several summers of tracking and observing beavers in the field, in 1868 he published a work describing in detail the biology and habits of this animal, which shaped the environment through its construction of dams.
In that year also, his wealth secure and free of business, Morgan entered the state government again as a senator, 1868–1869, still seeking appointment as head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. He was ridiculed by the Union Advertiser as being a "hobby candidate". The Republicans that year were running on a platform of moral probity. They argued that as a superior class, they could and should serve as guardians of the public morals. Morgan passed muster on the heredity because of his descent and Mary's descent from William Bradford, of Mayflower note. Morgan soon was immersed in such issues as whether beer drinking on Sunday should be allowed (a veiled hit at the new German immigrants).
As member of the Standing Committee on Railroads, Morgan became embroiled in a major issue of the day and one closer to his interests: monopoly. The New York Central Railroad, under Cornelius Vanderbilt, had attempted a hostile takeover of the Erie Railroad under Jay Gould by buying up its stock. The two railroads competed for the Rochester market. Daniel Drew, Erie's treasurer, defended successfully by creating new stock, which he had his friends sold short, dropping the value of the stock. Vanderbilt dumped the stock, barely covering the losses. Ordinarily such stock manipulations were illegal. The Railroad Act of 1850, however, allowed railroads to borrow money in exchange for bonds convertible to stocks. Given essentially free stocks, friends of the Erie Railroad grew rich; that is, Drew had found a way to transfer Vanderbilt's wealth to his own friends. Vanderbilt just escaped ruin. He immediately appealed to the state government.
The Railroad Committee investigated the affair. Gould purchased inaction among the senators, a practice Morgan had seen in the Ogden Land Company Affair. This time he worked to protect his friends from investigation. No action was taken. The Erie Railroad affair tapped Morgan's deepest ideological beliefs. To him the role of capitalism in creating mobile wealth was essential to the advancement of civilization. A monopoly such as Vanderbilt had been trying to build would choke off the downward flow of wealth. His report of the Railroad Committee attacked both Vanderbilt and Gould. It argued that the system in its "tendency to combination" was broken. He asserted that the people had to use government action to rein in the power of large corporations. For the time being the Erie Railroad was supported, but Morgan noted that its victory was just as dangerous to society as its defeat would have been.
The Grant-Parker policy on Native Americans
Despite his new interest in government, which was to come to be expressed in his subsequent works on social systems, Morgan persisted in his major goal in running for office, to be appointed Commissioner of Indian Affairs. The choice was now up to President Grant. Together in The League, Parker and Morgan had determined the policy Grant was to adopt. They thought that, much as Parker had assimilated, American Indians should assimilate into American society; they were not yet considered US citizens. Of the two men responsible for his policy, Grant chose his former adjutant. Terribly disappointed, Morgan never applied for the post again. The two collaborators did not speak to each other during Parker's tenure, but Morgan stayed on intimate terms with Parker's family.
The implementation of assimilation policy was more difficult than either man had anticipated. Parker controlled none of the variables. The American Indians were to be moved into reservations, assisted with supplies and food so they could start subsistence farming, and educated at mission schools to be converted to Christianity and American values, until they adopted European-American ways. In theory they would then be able to enter American society at large. The system of appointed Indian agents and traders had long been corrupt; in addition, unscrupulous land agents took the best land and moved American Indians into the desert lands, which did not support small-scale household farms and did not have sufficient game for hunting. Thieves among the agents replaced food and goods intended for the Indians with inedible or no foodstuffs. Faced with these realities, the American Indians refused the reservations or abandoned them, and attempted to return to ancestral lands, now occupied by white settlers. In other cases, they raided white settlements for food or attacked them seeking to repel the invaders. Grant resorted to military solutions and used U.S. soldiers to repress the tribes. This warfare exacerbated the failure of the army to protect the American Indians against depredations and encroachment by white settlers.
In 1871 Congress took action to halt the suppression of the Natives. It created a Board of Indian Commissioners and relieved Parker of his main responsibilities. Parker resigned in protest. After suffering years of poverty and attempt to suppress their cultures, American Indians were admitted to citizenship in 1924. The government continued to send their children to Indian boarding schools, started in the late 1870s, where Indian languages and cultures were prohibited. Policies of diversity and limited sovereignty were adopted. The Grant administration is universally regarded as inept in Indian affairs as well as have been rife with corruption. Although Morgan contributed to the ideology of assimilation, he escaped accountability for the results.
Later career
Having failed to become Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Morgan applied for various ambassadorships under the Grant administration, including to China and Peru. Grant's administration rejected all the applications, after which Morgan resolved to visit Europe on his own with a professional as well as a personal agenda.
For one year, 1870–71, the three Morgans went on a grand tour of Europe. During his European travels, Morgan met Charles Darwin and the great British anthropologists of the age. He visited Sir John Lubbock, who had coined the words "Paleolithic" and "Neolithic", and used the terms "barbarians" and "savages" in his own studies of the three-age system. Morgan adopted these terms, but with an altered sense, in Ancient Society. Lubbock was using modern ethnology as he knew it to reconstruct the ways of human ancestors. Lubbock's main works had already been published by the time of Morgan's visit. Morgan recorded his European travel and contacts in a journal of several volumes. Extracts were published in 1937 by Leslie White.
He continued with his independent scholarship, never becoming affiliated with any university, although he associated with university presidents and the leading ethnologists looked up to him as a founder of the field. He was an intellectual mentor to those who followed, including John Wesley Powell, who became head of the Bureau of Ethnology in 1879 at the Smithsonian Institution. Morgan was consulted by the highest levels of government on appointments and other ethnological matters. In 1878 he conducted one final field trip, leading a small party in search of native ruins in the American Southwest. They were the first to describe the Aztec ruins on the Animas River but missed discovering Mesa Verde.
Death and legacy
In 1879 Morgan completed two construction projects. One was his library, an addition to the house he had purchased with Mary many years before and where he died in December 1881. He combined the opening of the library with a celebration of the 25th anniversary of The Club. It included a dinner for 40 persons, who were by that time the leading lights of Rochester. The library acquired some fame as a local monument. Pictures were taken and published. The Club only met there one other time, however, at Morgan's funeral in 1881. The second building project was a mausoleum for his daughters in Mount Hope Cemetery. It became the resting place of the entire remainder of the family, starting with Lewis.
His wife survived him by two years. They both left wills. A nephew of Lewis moved to Rochester with his family and took up residence in the house to care for Lewis' and Mary's son. On the son's death 20 years later, the entire estate reverted to the University of Rochester, which by the terms of the wills was to use the funds for the endowment of a college for women, dedicated as a memorial to the Morgan daughters. The nephew attempted to break the wills on his behalf but lost the case in the state supreme court. The house with the library survived into mid-20th-century, when it was demolished to make way for a highway bypass system. Materials relating to Morgan's writings are held in a special collection at the University of Rochester library.
Professional associations
Morgan was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society in 1865. He was elected president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1879. Morgan was also a member of the National Academy of Sciences.
Thought
Work in ethnology
In the 1840s, Morgan had befriended the young Ely S. Parker of the Seneca tribe and the Tonawanda Reservation. With a classical missionary education, Parker went on to study law. With his help, Morgan studied the culture and the structure of Iroquois society. Morgan had noticed they used different terms than Europeans to designate individuals by their relationships within the extended family. He had the creative insight to recognize this was meaningful in terms of their social organization. He defined European terms as "descriptive" and Iroquois (and Native American) terms as "classificatory", terms that continue to be used as major divisions by anthropologists and ethnographers.
Based on his research enabled by Parker, Morgan and Parker wrote and published The League of the Ho-dé-no-sau-nee or Iroquois (1851). Morgan dedicated the book to Parker (who was then 23) and "our joint researches". In subsequent publications of the book Parker's name was omitted. This work presented the complexity of Iroquois society in a path-breaking ethnography that was a model for future anthropologists, as Morgan presented the kinship system of the Iroquois with unprecedented nuance.
Morgan expanded his research far beyond the Iroquois. Although Benjamin Barton had posited Asian origins for Native Americans as early as 1797, in the mid-nineteenth century, other American and European scholars still supported widely varying ideas, including a theory they were one of the lost tribes of Israel, because of the strong influence of biblical and classical conceptions of history. Morgan had begun to theorize the Native Americans originated in Asia. He thought he could prove it by a broad study of kinship terms used by people in Asia as well as tribes in North America.
He wanted to provide evidence for monogenesis, the theory that all human beings descend from a common source (as opposed to polygenism).
In the late 1850s and 1860s, Morgan collected kinship data from a variety of Native American tribes. In his quest to do comparative kinship studies, Morgan also corresponded with scholars, missionaries, US Indian agents, colonial agents, and military officers around the world. He created a questionnaire which others could complete so he could collect data in a standardized way. Over several years, he made months-long trips to what was then the Wild West to further his research.
With the help of local contacts and, after intensive correspondence over the course of years, Morgan analyzed his data and wrote his seminal Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family (1871), which was printed by the Smithsonian Press. It "created at a stroke what without exaggeration might be called the seminal concern of contemporary anthropology, the study of kinship ..." In this work, Morgan set forth his argument for the unity of humankind. At the same time, he presented a sophisticated schema of social evolution based upon the relationship terms, the categories of kinship, used by peoples around the world. Through his analysis of kinship terms, Morgan discerned that the structure of the family and social institutions develop and change according to a specific sequence.
Theory of social evolution
This original theory became less relevant because of the Darwinian revolution, which demonstrated how change happens over time. In addition, Morgan became increasingly interested in the comparative study of kinship (family) relations as a window into understanding larger social dynamics. He saw kinship relations as a basic part of society. Morgan viewed society as a living system that changes over time.
In the years that followed, Morgan developed his theories. Combined with an exhaustive study of classic Greek and Roman sources, he crowned his work with his magnum opus Ancient Society (1877). Morgan elaborated upon his theory of social evolution. He introduced a critical link between social progress and technological progress. He emphasized the centrality of family and property relations. He traced the interplay between the evolution of technology, of family relations, of property relations, of the larger social structures and systems of governance, and intellectual development.
Looking across an expanded span of human existence, Morgan presented three major stages: savagery, barbarism, and civilization. He divided and defined the stages by technological inventions, such as use of fire, bow, pottery in the savage era; domestication of animals, agriculture, and metalworking in the barbarian era; and development of the alphabet and writing in the civilization era. In part, this was an effort to create a structure for North American history that was comparable to the three-age system of European pre-history, which had been developed as an evidence-based system by the Danish antiquarian Christian Jürgensen Thomsen in the 1830s; his work (Guideline to Scandinavian Antiquity) was published in English in 1848. The concept of evidence-based chronological dating received wider notice in English-speaking nations as developed by J. J. A. Worsaae, whose The Primeval Antiquities of Denmark was published in English in 1849.
Initially Morgan's work was accepted as integral to American history, but later it was treated as a separate category of anthropology. Henry Adams wrote of Ancient Society that it "must become the foundation of all future work in American historical science." The historian Francis Parkman also was a fan, but later nineteenth-century historians pushed Native American history to the side of the American story.
Morgan's final work, Houses and House-life of the American Aborigines (1881), was an elaboration on what he had originally planned as an additional part of Ancient Society. In it, Morgan presented evidence, mostly from North and South America, that the development of house architecture and house culture reflected the development of kinship and property relations.
Although many specific aspects of Morgan's evolutionary position have been rejected by later anthropologists, his real achievements remain impressive. He founded the sub-discipline of kinship studies. Anthropologists remain interested in the connections which Morgan outlined between material culture and social structure. His impact has been felt far beyond the Ivory Tower.
Morgan was not quite the social reformer some would believe him to be. Outraged at the manipulations of the Ogden Land Company to get possession of the Tonawanda Seneca Reservation, Morgan exerted some effort in behalf of the Indians, but not nearly as much or to such effect as is generally supposed. Most of his effort seems to have been limited to a few months in 1846, and the issue was not settled until 1857, more than ten years later. The Indians' principal legal counsel in these years was not Morgan, but John Martindale. Morgan's role, such as it was, was that of citizen activist. Then, too, although a champion of the Indian, Morgan was not an advocate of cultural pluralism nor did he work for "cultural survival." The Indian, Morgan exhorted his fellow citizens, ought to be rescued "from his impending destiny," "reclaimed and civilized, and thus saved eventually from the fate which has already befallen so many of our aboriginal races" by education and Christianity.
Influence on Marxism
In 1881, Karl Marx started reading Morgan's Ancient Society, thus beginning Morgan's posthumous influence among European thinkers. Friedrich Engels also read his work after Morgan's death. Although Marx never finished his own book based on Morgan's work, Engels continued his analysis. Morgan's work on the social structure and material culture strongly influenced Engels' sociological theory of dialectical materialism (expressed in his work The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State, 1884). Scholars of the Communist bloc considered Morgan as the preeminent anthropologist. Morgan's work has led to some believing that early communist-like societies existed in Native American society. Though the belief of primitive communism as based on Morgan's work is flawed due to Morgan's misunderstandings of Haudenosaunee society and his, since proven wrong, theory of social evolution. This, and subsequent more accurate research, has led to the society of the Haudenosaunee to be of interest in communist and anarchist analysis. Particularly aspects where land was not treated as a commodity, communal ownership and near non-existent rates of crime.
Eponymous honors
Annual lecture in Morgan's name at the Anthropology Department of the University of Rochester.
Rochester Public School #37 in the 19th Ward named "Lewis H. Morgan #37 School"
Lewis Henry Morgan Institute (a research organization), SUNYIT, Utica, New York
Lewis H. Morgan Rochester Regional Chapter of the New York State Archeological Association
List of Morgan's writings
Lewis Morgan wrote continuously, whether letters, papers to be read, or published articles and books. A list of his major works follows. Some of the letters and papers have been omitted. A complete list, as far as was known, is given by Lloyd in the 1922 revised edition (posthumous) of The League ... . Specifically omitted are 14 "Letters on the Iroquois" read before the New Confederacy, 1844–1846, and published in The American Review in 1847 under another pen name, Skenandoah; 31 papers read before The Club, 1854–1880; and various book reviews published in The Nation.
See also
Cultural evolution
Sociocultural evolution
Ethnology
Unilineal evolution
Origins of society
List of important publications in anthropology
References
Bibliography
.
.
Stern, Bernhard J. "Lewis Henry Morgan Today; An Appraisal of His Scientific Contributions," Science & Society, vol. 10, no. 2 (Spring 1946), pp. 172–176. In JSTOR.
External links
1963 reissue of Ancient Society with introductions by Eleanor Leacock
Knight, C. 2008. Early Human Kinship was Matrilineal. In N. J. Allen, H. Callan, R. Dunbar and W. James (eds), Early Human Kinship. London: Royal Anthropological Institute, pp. 61–82.
1818 births
1881 deaths
People from Aurora, Cayuga County, New York
American people of Welsh descent
New York (state) Republicans
Members of the New York State Assembly
New York (state) state senators
American anthropologists
American feminists
Economic anthropologists
Native Americans' rights activists
19th-century American politicians
Union College (New York) alumni
Members of the American Antiquarian Society
Burials at Mount Hope Cemetery (Rochester) | false | [
"Butch Lewis (born December 1, 1987) is a former American Football offensive lineman. Lewis was signed by the Kansas City Chiefs as an undrafted free agent in 2011. Following the 2011 NFL Preseason, Lewis was waived by the Chiefs. After clearing waivers, Lewis was signed to the Chiefs practice squad. Lewis was released from the practice squad on September 8, 2011. Shortly after, Lewis was re-signed to the practice squad, only to be released once again on October 5. On October 26, 2011 Lewis was signed to the Vikings practice squad. Lewis went to high school at Regis Jesuit in Aurora, Colorado where he was a Parade Magazine All-American, and played his college football at the University of Southern California.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Butch Lewis's NFL.com Profile\n Butch Lewis's Chiefs profile\n Butch Lewis's USC Profile\n\nLiving people\nAmerican football offensive tackles\nUSC Trojans football players\nKansas City Chiefs players\n1987 births",
"Ada Hannah Lewis-Hill born (26 April 1844–13 October 1906) was an English amateur musician and philanthropist.\n\nShe was a well-known financier of the arts and lover of music, and played the violin and cello; however she was not considered particularly gifted.\n\nAda Davies was born on 29 June 1844 into a Jewish family in Liverpool and was the third of ten children. One of her younger sisters was Hope Temple.\n\nShe was brought up in Dublin, where she married the financier and philanthropist Samuel Lewis in 1867, and lived with him in Grosvenor Square until his death in 1901. Ada Lewis was left with a fortune of £2.6 million following her husband's death, of which over £1 million was left to various charities. On 13 July 1904, Ada Lewis married William James Montagu Lewis-Hill, \"a noted Jewish moneylender to the aristocracy\".\n\nIn 1905, she founded the Ada Lewis Nurses' Institute. As of 1906, she became one of the two wealthiest women in the United Kingdom.\n\nLewis-Hill died of cancer on 13 October 1906 and was buried in Hoop Lane Jewish Cemetery in Golders Green, London, together with Samuel. Upon her death, she endowed the Royal Academy of Music with fifteen scholarships at a cost of nearly £20,000 and generous yearly subscriptions. She left her Stradivarius violin to the president of the Royal Academy for the use of the Ada Lewis scholars. The Ada Lewis Women's Lodging House was also opened in her honour in 1913, to provide housing for single, lower-middle class working women.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n National Archives\n \t\n Art UK\n\nBritish philanthropists\n1844 births\n1906 deaths\nBritish women"
] |
[
"Lewis H. Morgan",
"Early life and education",
"Where was Lewis born?",
"I don't know."
] | C_e5fc21be457745f1b3c92b694b802e45_1 | Where did he grow up? | 2 | Where did Lewis H. Morgan grow up? | Lewis H. Morgan | Lewis' grandfather, Thomas Morgan of Connecticut, had been a Continental soldier in the Revolutionary War. Afterward he and his family migrated west to New York's Finger Lakes region, where he bought land from the Cayuga people and planted a farm on the shores of Lake Cayuga near Aurora. He and his wife already had three sons, including Jedediah, the future father of Lewis; and a daughter. In 1797, Jedediah Morgan (1774-1826) married Amanda Stanton, settling on a 100-acre gift of land from his father. After she had five children and died, Jedediah married Harriet Steele of Hartford, Connecticut. They had eight more children, including Lewis. As an adult, he adopted the middle initial "H." Lewis later decided that this H, if anything, stood for "Henry". A multi-skilled Yankee, Jedediah Morgan invented a plow and formed a business partnership to manufacture parts for it; he built a blast furnace for the factory. He moved to Aurora, leaving the farm to a son. After joining the Masons, he helped to form the first Masonic lodge in Aurora. Elected a state senator, Morgan supported the construction of the Erie Canal, which opened in 1825. At his death in 1826, Jedediah left 500 acres with herds and flocks in trust for the support of his family. This provided for education as well. Lewis studied classical subjects at Cayuga Academy: Latin, Greek, rhetoric and mathematics. His father had bequeathed money specifically for his college education, after giving land to the other children for their occupations. Lewis chose Union College in Schenectady. Due to his work at Cayuga Academy, Lewis finished college in two years, 1838-1840, graduating at age 22. The curriculum continued study of classics combined with science, especially mechanics and optics. Lewis was strongly interested in the works of the French naturalist Georges Cuvier. Eliphalet Nott, the president of Union College, was an inventor of stoves and a boiler; he held 31 patents. A Presbyterian minister, he kept the young men under a tight discipline, forbidding alcoholic beverages and requiring students to get permission to go to town. He held up the Bible as the one practical standard for all behavior. His career ended with some notoriety when he was investigated by the state for attempting to raise funds for the college through a lottery. The students evaded his strict regime by founding secret (and forbidden) fraternities, such as the Kappa Alpha Society. Lewis Morgan joined in 1839. CANNOTANSWER | near Aurora. | Lewis Henry Morgan (November 21, 1818 – December 17, 1881) was a pioneering American anthropologist and social theorist who worked as a railroad lawyer. He is best known for his work on kinship and social structure, his theories of social evolution, and his ethnography of the Iroquois. Interested in what holds societies together, he proposed the concept that the earliest human domestic institution was the matrilineal clan, not the patriarchal family.
Also interested in what leads to social change, he was a contemporary of the European social theorists Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, who were influenced by reading his work on social structure and material culture, the influence of technology on progress. Morgan is the only American social theorist to be cited by such diverse scholars as Marx, Charles Darwin, and Sigmund Freud. Elected as a member of the National Academy of Sciences, Morgan served as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1880.
Morgan was a Republican member of the New York State Assembly (Monroe Co., 2nd D.) in 1861, and of the New York State Senate in 1868 and 1869.
Biography
The American Morgans
According to Herbert Marshall Lloyd, an attorney and editor of Morgan's works, Lewis was descended from James Morgan, brother of Miles, who were Welsh pioneers of Connecticut and Springfield, Massachusetts, respectively. Various sources record that the three sons of William Morgan of Llandaff, Glamorganshire, took passage for Boston in 1636. From there Miles went to Springfield, James to New London, Connecticut and John Morgan to Virginia. Lloyd writes, "From these two brothers [James and Miles] all the Morgans prominent in the annals of New York and New England are believed to be descended." The Morgans to which he refers played a critical part in the foundation of the colonies. During the American Revolutionary War, they were Continentals. Immediately after the war, the Connecticut line, along with many other land-hungry Yankees, migrated into New York State. Following the United States' victory against the British, the new government forced the latter's Iroquois allies to cede most of their traditional lands in New York and Pennsylvania to the US. New York made 5 million of acres available for public sale. In addition, the US government granted some plots in western New York to Revolutionary veterans as compensation for their service in the war.
Early life and education
Lewis' grandfather, Thomas Morgan of Connecticut, had been a Continental soldier in the Revolutionary War. Afterward he and his family migrated west to New York's Finger Lakes region, where he bought land from the Cayuga people and planted a farm on the shores of Lake Cayuga near Aurora. He and his wife already had three sons, including Jedediah, the future father of Lewis; and a daughter.
In 1797, Jedediah Morgan (1774–1826) married Amanda Stanton, settling on a 100-acre gift of land from his father. After she had five children and died, Jedediah married Harriet Steele of Hartford, Connecticut. They had eight more children, including Lewis. As an adult, he adopted the middle initial "H." Morgan later decided that this H, if anything, stood for "Henry".
A multi-skilled Yankee, Jedediah Morgan invented a plow and formed a business partnership to manufacture parts for it; he built a blast furnace for the factory. He moved to Aurora, leaving the farm to a son. After joining the Masons, he helped to form the first Masonic lodge in Aurora. Elected a state senator, Morgan supported the construction of the Erie Canal, which opened in 1825.
At his death in 1826, Jedediah left 500 acres with herds and flocks in trust for the support of his family. This provided for education as well. Morgan studied classical subjects at Cayuga Academy: Latin, Greek, rhetoric and mathematics. His father had bequeathed money specifically for his college education, after giving land to the other children for their occupations. Morgan chose Union College in Schenectady. Due to his work at Cayuga Academy, Morgan finished college in two years, 1838–1840, graduating at age 22. The curriculum continued study of classics combined with science, especially mechanics and optics. Morgan was strongly interested in the works of the French naturalist Georges Cuvier.
Eliphalet Nott, the president of Union College, was an inventor of stoves and a boiler; he held 31 patents. A Presbyterian minister, he kept the young men under a tight discipline, forbidding alcoholic beverages and requiring students to get permission to go to town. He held up the Bible as the one practical standard for all behavior. His career ended with some notoriety when he was investigated by the state for attempting to raise funds for the college through a lottery. The students evaded his strict regime by founding secret (and forbidden) fraternities, such as the Kappa Alpha Society. Lewis Morgan joined in 1839.
The New Confederacy of the Iroquois
After graduating in 1840, Morgan returned to Aurora to read the law with an established firm. In 1842 he was admitted to the bar in Rochester, where he went into partnership with a Union classmate, George F. Danforth, a future judge. They could find no clients, as the nation was in an economic depression, which had started with the Panic of 1837. Morgan wrote essays, which he had begun to do while studying law, and published some in The Knickerbocker under the pen name Aquarius.
On January 1, 1841, Morgan and some friends from Cayuga Academy formed a secret fraternal society which they called the Gordian Knot. As Morgan's earliest essays from that time had classical themes, the club may have been a kind of literary society, as was common then. In 1841 or 1842 the young men redefined the society, renaming it the Order of the Iroquois. Morgan referred to this event as cutting the knot. In 1843 they named it the Grand Order of the Iroquois, followed by the New Confederacy of the Iroquois. They made the group a research organization to collect information on the Iroquois, whose historical territory for centuries had included central and upstate New York west of the Hudson and the Finger Lakes region.
The men intended to resurrect the spirit of the Iroquois. They tried to learn the languages, assumed Iroquois names, and organized the group by the historic pattern of Iroquois tribes. In 1844 they received permission from the former Freemasons of Aurora to use the upper floor of the Masonic temple as a meeting hall. New members underwent a secret rite called inindianation in which they were transformed spiritually into Iroquois. They met in the summer around campfires and paraded yearly through the town in costume. Morgan seemed infused with the spirit of the Iroquois. He said, "We are now upon the very soil over which they exercised dominion ... Poetry still lingers around the scenery. ... " These new Iroquois retained a literary frame of mind, but they intended to focus on "the writing of a native American epic that would define national identity".
Encounter with the Iroquois
On an 1844 business trip to the capital of Albany, Morgan started research on old Cayuga treaties in the state archives. The Seneca people were also studying old US-Native American treaties to support their land claims. After the Revolutionary War, the United States had forced the four Iroquois tribes allied with the British to cede their lands and migrate to Canada.
By specific treaties, the US set aside small reservations in New York for their own allies, the Onondaga and Seneca. In the 1840s, long after the war, the Ogden Land Company, a real estate venture, laid claim to the Seneca Tonawanda Reservation on the basis of a fraudulent treaty. The Seneca sued and had representatives at the state capital pressing their case when Morgan was there.
The delegation, led by Jimmy Johnson, its chief officer (and son of chief Red Jacket), were essentially former officers of what was left of the Iroquois Confederacy. Johnson's 16-year-old grandson Ha-sa-ne-an-da (Ely Parker) accompanied them as their interpreter, as he had attended a mission school and was bilingual. By chance Morgan and the young Parker encountered each other in an Albany book store. Soon intrigued by Morgan's talk of the New Confederacy, Parker invited the older man to interview Johnson and meet the delegation. Morgan took pages of organizational notes, which he used to remodel the New Confederacy. Beyond such details of scholarship, Morgan and the Seneca men formed deep attachments of friendship.
Morgan and his colleagues invited Parker to join the New Confederacy. They (chiefly Morgan) paid for the rest of Parker's education at the Cayuga Academy, along with his sister and a friend of hers. Later the Confederacy paid for Parker's studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, where he graduated in civil engineering. After military service in the American Civil War, from which Parker retired at the rank of brigadier general, he entered the upper ranks of civil service in the presidency of his former commander, Ulysses S. Grant.
The Ogden Land Company affair
Meanwhile, the organization had had activist goals from the beginning. In his initial New Gordius address Morgan had said:
... when the last tribe shall slumber in the grass, it is to be feared that the stain of blood will be found on the escutcheon of the American republic. This nation must shield their declining day ...
In 1838 the Ogden Land Company began a campaign to defraud the remaining Iroquois in New York of their lands. By Iroquois law, only a unanimous vote of all the chiefs sitting in council could effect binding decisions relating to the tribe. The OLC set about to purchase the votes of as many chiefs as it could, plying some with alcohol. The chiefs in many cases complied, believing any resolutions to sell the land would be defeated in council. Obtaining a majority vote for sale at one council called for the purpose, the OLC took their treaty to the Congress of the United States, which knew nothing of Iroquois law. President Martin Van Buren advised Congress that the treaty was fraudulent but on June 11, 1838, Congress adopted it as a resolution. After being compensated for their land by $1.67 per acre (Morgan said it was worth $16 per acre), the Seneca were to be evicted forthwith.
The great majority of the tribe were against the sale of the land. When they discovered they had been defrauded, they were galvanized to action. The New Confederacy stepped into the case on the side of the Seneca, conducting a major publicity campaign. They held mass meetings, circulated a general petition, and spoke to congressmen in Washington. The US Indian agent and ethnologist Henry Rowe Schoolcraft and other influential men became honorary members. In 1846 a general convention of the population of Genesee County, New York sent Morgan to Congress with a counter-offer. The Seneca were allowed to buy back some land at $20 per acre, at which time the Tonawanda Reservation was created. The previous treaty was thrown out. Returning home, Morgan was adopted into the Hawk Clan, Seneca Tribe, as the son of Jimmy Johnson on October 31, 1847, in part to honor his work with the Seneca on the reservation issues. They named him Tayadaowuhkuh, meaning "bridging the gap" (between the Iroquois and the European Americans).
After Morgan was admitted to the tribe, he lost interest in the New Confederacy. The group retained its secrecy and initiation requirements, but they were being hotly disputed. When internal dissent began to impede the group's efficacy in 1847, Morgan stopped attending. For practical purposes it ceased to exist, but Morgan and Parker continued with a series of "Iroquois Letters" to the American Whig Review, edited by George Colton. The Seneca case dragged on. Finally in 1857 the Supreme Court of the United States affirmed that only the federal government could evict the Seneca from their land. As it declined to do that, the case was over. The Ogden Land Company collapsed.
Marriage and family
In 1851 Morgan summarized his investigation of Iroquois customs in his first book of note, League of the Iroquois, one of the founding works of ethnology. In it he compares systems of kinship. In that year also he married his cross-cousin, Mary Elizabeth Steele, his companion and partner for the rest of his life. She had intended to become a Presbyterian missionary. On their wedding day he presented to her an ornate copy of his new book. It was dedicated to his collaborator, Ely Parker.
In 1853 Mary's father died, leaving her a large inheritance. The Morgans bought a brownstone in a wealthy suburb of Rochester. In that year their son, Lemuel, was born, who "turned out to be mentally handicapped". Morgan's rising fame brought him public attention. Lemuel's condition (on no specific evidence) was universally attributed to the first-cousin marriage. The Morgans had to endure perpetual criticism, which they accepted as true, Lewis going to far as, in Ancient Society, to take a stand against cousin marriage. The Morgan marriage remained a close and affectionate one.
Morgan and his wife were active in the First Presbyterian Church of Rochester, mainly of interest to Mary. Morgan refused to make "the public profession of Christ that was necessary for full membership". They both contributed to and sponsored charitable works. In 1856, Mary Elisabeth was born and in 1860 Helen King.
Supporting education
For several years "his ethnical interests lay dormant", but not his scholarship and writing. In 1852 Morgan and eight other "Rochester intellectuals" instituted The Pundit Club, shortened later to just The Club, a scientific and literary society before which the members read papers they had researched for the occasion. Morgan read papers to The Club every year for the rest of his life. He also joined the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Morgan and other leading men of Rochester decided to found a university, the University of Rochester. It did not support the matriculation of women. The group resolved to found a college for women, the Barleywood Female University, which was advertised but apparently never started. In the same year of its foundation, 1852, the donor of the land on which it was to be located gave it to the University of Rochester instead. Morgan was gravely disappointed. He believed that equality of the sexes is a mark of advanced civilization. For the present, he lacked the wealth and connections to prevent the collapse of Barleywood. Later he would serve as a founding trustee of the board of Wells College in Aurora. In addition, he and Mary would leave their estate to the University of Rochester for the foundation of a women's college.
Success at last
In 1855 Morgan and other Rochester businessmen invested in the expanding metals industry of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. After a brief sojourn on the 5-man board of the Iron Mountain Railroad, Morgan joined them in creating the Bay de Noquet and Marquette Railroad Company, connecting the entire Upper Peninsula by a single, ore-bearing line. He became its attorney and director. At that time the U.S. government was selling lands previously confiscated from the natives in cases where the sale benefited the public good. Although the Upper Peninsula was known for its great natural beauty, the discovery of iron persuaded Morgan and others to develop wide-scale mining and industrialization of the peninsula. He spent the next few years between Washington, lobbying for the sale of the land to his company, and in large cities such as Detroit and Chicago, where he fought lawsuits to prevent competitors from taking it. Morgan vigorously defended American capitalism to protect his own interests. After the stockholders refused to pay him for some of his legal work, he all but withdrew from business in favor of field work in anthropology.
In 1861 in the middle of his field work, Morgan was elected as Member of the New York State Assembly on the Republican ticket. The Morgans traditionally had belonged to the Whigs, which dissolved in 1856; most Whigs joined the Republicans, created in 1854. Morgan did not run with any agenda except his own as it pertained to the Iroquois. He was seeking appointment by the President of the United States as Commissioner of the new Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). Morgan anticipated that William H. Seward would be elected president, and outlined to him plans to employ the natives in the manufacture and sale of Indian goods.
At the last moment Abraham Lincoln displaced Seward as the Republican candidate. The new president was deluged by letters from Morgan's associates asking that Morgan be appointed commissioner. Lincoln explained that the post had already been exchanged by his campaign manager for political support. With the chance for appointment lost, Morgan, who had made no pretense of interest in New York state's government, returned to field study of the natives.
Field anthropologist
After attending the 1856 meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Morgan decided on an ethnology study to compare kinship systems. He conducted a field research program funded by himself and the Smithsonian Institution, 1859-1862. He made four expeditions, two to the Plains tribes of Kansas and Nebraska, and two more up the Missouri River past Yellowstone. This was before the development of any inland transportation system. Passengers on riverboats could shoot Bison and other game for food along the upper Missouri River. He collected data on 51 kinship systems. Tribes included the Winnebago, Crow, Yankton, Kaw, Blackfeet, Omaha and others.
At the height of Morgan's anthropological field work, death struck his family. In May and June, 1862, their two daughters, ages 6 and 2, died as a result of scarlet fever while Morgan was traveling in the West. In Sioux City, Iowa, Morgan received the news from his wife. He wrote in his journal:
Two of three of my children are taken. Our family is destroyed. The intelligence has simply petrified me. I have not shed a tear. It is too profound for tears. Thus ends my last expedition. I go home to my stricken and mourning wife, a miserable and destroyed man.
The Civil War
During this time, neither Morgan nor Mary showed any interest in abolitionism, nor did they participate in the American Civil War. They differed markedly from their friend Ely Parker. The latter attempted to raise an Iroquois regiment but was denied, on the grounds that he was not a US citizen, and denied service on the same ground. He entered the army finally by the intervention of his friend, Ulysses S. Grant, serving on Grant's staff. Parker was present at the surrender of General Lee; to Lee's remark that Parker was the "true American" (as an American Indian), he responded, "We are all Americans here, sir."
Morgan held no consistent views on the war. He could easily have joined the anti-slavery cause if he had wished to do so. Rochester, as the last station before Canada on the Underground Railroad, was a center of abolitionism. Frederick Douglass published the North Star in Rochester. Like Morgan, Douglass supported the equality of women, yet they never made connection.
Morgan was anti-slavery but opposed abolitionism on the grounds that slavery was protected by law. Before the war he assented to the possible division of the nation on the grounds of "irreconcilable differences", that is, slavery, between regions. Morgan began to change his mind when some of his friends who had gone out to watch the First Battle of Bull Run were captured and imprisoned by the Confederates for the duration. By the end of the war, he was insisting along with most others that Jefferson Davis be hanged as a traitor. In 1866 he formed the Rochester Committee for the Relief of Southern Starvation.
Morgan did participate indirectly in the war through his company. Recovering from the deaths of his daughters and having resolved to end the expeditions that had taken him away from home, he gave his life totally over to business. In 1863 he and Samuel Ely formed a partnership creating the Morgan Iron Company in northern Michigan. The war had created such a high demand for metals that within the first year of business, the company paid off its founding debt and offered 100% dividends on its stock. The demand went on until 1868, enabling the company to construct a blast furnace. Morgan became independently wealthy and could retire from the practice of law.
The Erie Railroad affair
Morgan took up trout fishing during his Michigan period. He fished in the wilds of Michigan during the summers, sometimes with Ojibwe guides. During this recreational activity, he became interested in beavers, which had greatly modified the lowlands. After several summers of tracking and observing beavers in the field, in 1868 he published a work describing in detail the biology and habits of this animal, which shaped the environment through its construction of dams.
In that year also, his wealth secure and free of business, Morgan entered the state government again as a senator, 1868–1869, still seeking appointment as head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. He was ridiculed by the Union Advertiser as being a "hobby candidate". The Republicans that year were running on a platform of moral probity. They argued that as a superior class, they could and should serve as guardians of the public morals. Morgan passed muster on the heredity because of his descent and Mary's descent from William Bradford, of Mayflower note. Morgan soon was immersed in such issues as whether beer drinking on Sunday should be allowed (a veiled hit at the new German immigrants).
As member of the Standing Committee on Railroads, Morgan became embroiled in a major issue of the day and one closer to his interests: monopoly. The New York Central Railroad, under Cornelius Vanderbilt, had attempted a hostile takeover of the Erie Railroad under Jay Gould by buying up its stock. The two railroads competed for the Rochester market. Daniel Drew, Erie's treasurer, defended successfully by creating new stock, which he had his friends sold short, dropping the value of the stock. Vanderbilt dumped the stock, barely covering the losses. Ordinarily such stock manipulations were illegal. The Railroad Act of 1850, however, allowed railroads to borrow money in exchange for bonds convertible to stocks. Given essentially free stocks, friends of the Erie Railroad grew rich; that is, Drew had found a way to transfer Vanderbilt's wealth to his own friends. Vanderbilt just escaped ruin. He immediately appealed to the state government.
The Railroad Committee investigated the affair. Gould purchased inaction among the senators, a practice Morgan had seen in the Ogden Land Company Affair. This time he worked to protect his friends from investigation. No action was taken. The Erie Railroad affair tapped Morgan's deepest ideological beliefs. To him the role of capitalism in creating mobile wealth was essential to the advancement of civilization. A monopoly such as Vanderbilt had been trying to build would choke off the downward flow of wealth. His report of the Railroad Committee attacked both Vanderbilt and Gould. It argued that the system in its "tendency to combination" was broken. He asserted that the people had to use government action to rein in the power of large corporations. For the time being the Erie Railroad was supported, but Morgan noted that its victory was just as dangerous to society as its defeat would have been.
The Grant-Parker policy on Native Americans
Despite his new interest in government, which was to come to be expressed in his subsequent works on social systems, Morgan persisted in his major goal in running for office, to be appointed Commissioner of Indian Affairs. The choice was now up to President Grant. Together in The League, Parker and Morgan had determined the policy Grant was to adopt. They thought that, much as Parker had assimilated, American Indians should assimilate into American society; they were not yet considered US citizens. Of the two men responsible for his policy, Grant chose his former adjutant. Terribly disappointed, Morgan never applied for the post again. The two collaborators did not speak to each other during Parker's tenure, but Morgan stayed on intimate terms with Parker's family.
The implementation of assimilation policy was more difficult than either man had anticipated. Parker controlled none of the variables. The American Indians were to be moved into reservations, assisted with supplies and food so they could start subsistence farming, and educated at mission schools to be converted to Christianity and American values, until they adopted European-American ways. In theory they would then be able to enter American society at large. The system of appointed Indian agents and traders had long been corrupt; in addition, unscrupulous land agents took the best land and moved American Indians into the desert lands, which did not support small-scale household farms and did not have sufficient game for hunting. Thieves among the agents replaced food and goods intended for the Indians with inedible or no foodstuffs. Faced with these realities, the American Indians refused the reservations or abandoned them, and attempted to return to ancestral lands, now occupied by white settlers. In other cases, they raided white settlements for food or attacked them seeking to repel the invaders. Grant resorted to military solutions and used U.S. soldiers to repress the tribes. This warfare exacerbated the failure of the army to protect the American Indians against depredations and encroachment by white settlers.
In 1871 Congress took action to halt the suppression of the Natives. It created a Board of Indian Commissioners and relieved Parker of his main responsibilities. Parker resigned in protest. After suffering years of poverty and attempt to suppress their cultures, American Indians were admitted to citizenship in 1924. The government continued to send their children to Indian boarding schools, started in the late 1870s, where Indian languages and cultures were prohibited. Policies of diversity and limited sovereignty were adopted. The Grant administration is universally regarded as inept in Indian affairs as well as have been rife with corruption. Although Morgan contributed to the ideology of assimilation, he escaped accountability for the results.
Later career
Having failed to become Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Morgan applied for various ambassadorships under the Grant administration, including to China and Peru. Grant's administration rejected all the applications, after which Morgan resolved to visit Europe on his own with a professional as well as a personal agenda.
For one year, 1870–71, the three Morgans went on a grand tour of Europe. During his European travels, Morgan met Charles Darwin and the great British anthropologists of the age. He visited Sir John Lubbock, who had coined the words "Paleolithic" and "Neolithic", and used the terms "barbarians" and "savages" in his own studies of the three-age system. Morgan adopted these terms, but with an altered sense, in Ancient Society. Lubbock was using modern ethnology as he knew it to reconstruct the ways of human ancestors. Lubbock's main works had already been published by the time of Morgan's visit. Morgan recorded his European travel and contacts in a journal of several volumes. Extracts were published in 1937 by Leslie White.
He continued with his independent scholarship, never becoming affiliated with any university, although he associated with university presidents and the leading ethnologists looked up to him as a founder of the field. He was an intellectual mentor to those who followed, including John Wesley Powell, who became head of the Bureau of Ethnology in 1879 at the Smithsonian Institution. Morgan was consulted by the highest levels of government on appointments and other ethnological matters. In 1878 he conducted one final field trip, leading a small party in search of native ruins in the American Southwest. They were the first to describe the Aztec ruins on the Animas River but missed discovering Mesa Verde.
Death and legacy
In 1879 Morgan completed two construction projects. One was his library, an addition to the house he had purchased with Mary many years before and where he died in December 1881. He combined the opening of the library with a celebration of the 25th anniversary of The Club. It included a dinner for 40 persons, who were by that time the leading lights of Rochester. The library acquired some fame as a local monument. Pictures were taken and published. The Club only met there one other time, however, at Morgan's funeral in 1881. The second building project was a mausoleum for his daughters in Mount Hope Cemetery. It became the resting place of the entire remainder of the family, starting with Lewis.
His wife survived him by two years. They both left wills. A nephew of Lewis moved to Rochester with his family and took up residence in the house to care for Lewis' and Mary's son. On the son's death 20 years later, the entire estate reverted to the University of Rochester, which by the terms of the wills was to use the funds for the endowment of a college for women, dedicated as a memorial to the Morgan daughters. The nephew attempted to break the wills on his behalf but lost the case in the state supreme court. The house with the library survived into mid-20th-century, when it was demolished to make way for a highway bypass system. Materials relating to Morgan's writings are held in a special collection at the University of Rochester library.
Professional associations
Morgan was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society in 1865. He was elected president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1879. Morgan was also a member of the National Academy of Sciences.
Thought
Work in ethnology
In the 1840s, Morgan had befriended the young Ely S. Parker of the Seneca tribe and the Tonawanda Reservation. With a classical missionary education, Parker went on to study law. With his help, Morgan studied the culture and the structure of Iroquois society. Morgan had noticed they used different terms than Europeans to designate individuals by their relationships within the extended family. He had the creative insight to recognize this was meaningful in terms of their social organization. He defined European terms as "descriptive" and Iroquois (and Native American) terms as "classificatory", terms that continue to be used as major divisions by anthropologists and ethnographers.
Based on his research enabled by Parker, Morgan and Parker wrote and published The League of the Ho-dé-no-sau-nee or Iroquois (1851). Morgan dedicated the book to Parker (who was then 23) and "our joint researches". In subsequent publications of the book Parker's name was omitted. This work presented the complexity of Iroquois society in a path-breaking ethnography that was a model for future anthropologists, as Morgan presented the kinship system of the Iroquois with unprecedented nuance.
Morgan expanded his research far beyond the Iroquois. Although Benjamin Barton had posited Asian origins for Native Americans as early as 1797, in the mid-nineteenth century, other American and European scholars still supported widely varying ideas, including a theory they were one of the lost tribes of Israel, because of the strong influence of biblical and classical conceptions of history. Morgan had begun to theorize the Native Americans originated in Asia. He thought he could prove it by a broad study of kinship terms used by people in Asia as well as tribes in North America.
He wanted to provide evidence for monogenesis, the theory that all human beings descend from a common source (as opposed to polygenism).
In the late 1850s and 1860s, Morgan collected kinship data from a variety of Native American tribes. In his quest to do comparative kinship studies, Morgan also corresponded with scholars, missionaries, US Indian agents, colonial agents, and military officers around the world. He created a questionnaire which others could complete so he could collect data in a standardized way. Over several years, he made months-long trips to what was then the Wild West to further his research.
With the help of local contacts and, after intensive correspondence over the course of years, Morgan analyzed his data and wrote his seminal Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family (1871), which was printed by the Smithsonian Press. It "created at a stroke what without exaggeration might be called the seminal concern of contemporary anthropology, the study of kinship ..." In this work, Morgan set forth his argument for the unity of humankind. At the same time, he presented a sophisticated schema of social evolution based upon the relationship terms, the categories of kinship, used by peoples around the world. Through his analysis of kinship terms, Morgan discerned that the structure of the family and social institutions develop and change according to a specific sequence.
Theory of social evolution
This original theory became less relevant because of the Darwinian revolution, which demonstrated how change happens over time. In addition, Morgan became increasingly interested in the comparative study of kinship (family) relations as a window into understanding larger social dynamics. He saw kinship relations as a basic part of society. Morgan viewed society as a living system that changes over time.
In the years that followed, Morgan developed his theories. Combined with an exhaustive study of classic Greek and Roman sources, he crowned his work with his magnum opus Ancient Society (1877). Morgan elaborated upon his theory of social evolution. He introduced a critical link between social progress and technological progress. He emphasized the centrality of family and property relations. He traced the interplay between the evolution of technology, of family relations, of property relations, of the larger social structures and systems of governance, and intellectual development.
Looking across an expanded span of human existence, Morgan presented three major stages: savagery, barbarism, and civilization. He divided and defined the stages by technological inventions, such as use of fire, bow, pottery in the savage era; domestication of animals, agriculture, and metalworking in the barbarian era; and development of the alphabet and writing in the civilization era. In part, this was an effort to create a structure for North American history that was comparable to the three-age system of European pre-history, which had been developed as an evidence-based system by the Danish antiquarian Christian Jürgensen Thomsen in the 1830s; his work (Guideline to Scandinavian Antiquity) was published in English in 1848. The concept of evidence-based chronological dating received wider notice in English-speaking nations as developed by J. J. A. Worsaae, whose The Primeval Antiquities of Denmark was published in English in 1849.
Initially Morgan's work was accepted as integral to American history, but later it was treated as a separate category of anthropology. Henry Adams wrote of Ancient Society that it "must become the foundation of all future work in American historical science." The historian Francis Parkman also was a fan, but later nineteenth-century historians pushed Native American history to the side of the American story.
Morgan's final work, Houses and House-life of the American Aborigines (1881), was an elaboration on what he had originally planned as an additional part of Ancient Society. In it, Morgan presented evidence, mostly from North and South America, that the development of house architecture and house culture reflected the development of kinship and property relations.
Although many specific aspects of Morgan's evolutionary position have been rejected by later anthropologists, his real achievements remain impressive. He founded the sub-discipline of kinship studies. Anthropologists remain interested in the connections which Morgan outlined between material culture and social structure. His impact has been felt far beyond the Ivory Tower.
Morgan was not quite the social reformer some would believe him to be. Outraged at the manipulations of the Ogden Land Company to get possession of the Tonawanda Seneca Reservation, Morgan exerted some effort in behalf of the Indians, but not nearly as much or to such effect as is generally supposed. Most of his effort seems to have been limited to a few months in 1846, and the issue was not settled until 1857, more than ten years later. The Indians' principal legal counsel in these years was not Morgan, but John Martindale. Morgan's role, such as it was, was that of citizen activist. Then, too, although a champion of the Indian, Morgan was not an advocate of cultural pluralism nor did he work for "cultural survival." The Indian, Morgan exhorted his fellow citizens, ought to be rescued "from his impending destiny," "reclaimed and civilized, and thus saved eventually from the fate which has already befallen so many of our aboriginal races" by education and Christianity.
Influence on Marxism
In 1881, Karl Marx started reading Morgan's Ancient Society, thus beginning Morgan's posthumous influence among European thinkers. Friedrich Engels also read his work after Morgan's death. Although Marx never finished his own book based on Morgan's work, Engels continued his analysis. Morgan's work on the social structure and material culture strongly influenced Engels' sociological theory of dialectical materialism (expressed in his work The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State, 1884). Scholars of the Communist bloc considered Morgan as the preeminent anthropologist. Morgan's work has led to some believing that early communist-like societies existed in Native American society. Though the belief of primitive communism as based on Morgan's work is flawed due to Morgan's misunderstandings of Haudenosaunee society and his, since proven wrong, theory of social evolution. This, and subsequent more accurate research, has led to the society of the Haudenosaunee to be of interest in communist and anarchist analysis. Particularly aspects where land was not treated as a commodity, communal ownership and near non-existent rates of crime.
Eponymous honors
Annual lecture in Morgan's name at the Anthropology Department of the University of Rochester.
Rochester Public School #37 in the 19th Ward named "Lewis H. Morgan #37 School"
Lewis Henry Morgan Institute (a research organization), SUNYIT, Utica, New York
Lewis H. Morgan Rochester Regional Chapter of the New York State Archeological Association
List of Morgan's writings
Lewis Morgan wrote continuously, whether letters, papers to be read, or published articles and books. A list of his major works follows. Some of the letters and papers have been omitted. A complete list, as far as was known, is given by Lloyd in the 1922 revised edition (posthumous) of The League ... . Specifically omitted are 14 "Letters on the Iroquois" read before the New Confederacy, 1844–1846, and published in The American Review in 1847 under another pen name, Skenandoah; 31 papers read before The Club, 1854–1880; and various book reviews published in The Nation.
See also
Cultural evolution
Sociocultural evolution
Ethnology
Unilineal evolution
Origins of society
List of important publications in anthropology
References
Bibliography
.
.
Stern, Bernhard J. "Lewis Henry Morgan Today; An Appraisal of His Scientific Contributions," Science & Society, vol. 10, no. 2 (Spring 1946), pp. 172–176. In JSTOR.
External links
1963 reissue of Ancient Society with introductions by Eleanor Leacock
Knight, C. 2008. Early Human Kinship was Matrilineal. In N. J. Allen, H. Callan, R. Dunbar and W. James (eds), Early Human Kinship. London: Royal Anthropological Institute, pp. 61–82.
1818 births
1881 deaths
People from Aurora, Cayuga County, New York
American people of Welsh descent
New York (state) Republicans
Members of the New York State Assembly
New York (state) state senators
American anthropologists
American feminists
Economic anthropologists
Native Americans' rights activists
19th-century American politicians
Union College (New York) alumni
Members of the American Antiquarian Society
Burials at Mount Hope Cemetery (Rochester) | true | [
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"\"When I Grow Up\" is the second single from Swedish recording artist Fever Ray's self-titled debut album, Fever Ray (2009).\n\nCritical reception\nPitchfork Media placed \"When I Grow Up\" at number 36 on the website's list of The Top 100 Tracks of 2009.\n\nMusic video\nThe music video for \"When I Grow Up\" was directed by Martin de Thurah. He said of the video's visual statement:\n\n\"That initial idea was something about something coming out of water—something which was about to take form – a state turning into something new. And a double headed creature not deciding which to turn. But the idea had to take a simpler form, to let the song grow by itself. I remembered a photo I took in Croatia two years ago, a swimming pool with its shining blue color in a grey foggy autumn landscape.\"\n\nThe video premiered on Fever Ray's YouTube channel on 19 February 2009. It has received over 12 million views as of March 2016.\n\n\"When I Grow Up\" was placed at number three on Spins list of The 20 Best Videos of 2009.\n\nTrack listings\niTunes single\n\"When I Grow Up\" – 4:31\n\"When I Grow Up\" (Håkan Lidbo's Encephalitis Remix) – 5:59\n\"When I Grow Up\" (D. Lissvik) – 4:28\n\"Memories from When I Grew Up (Remembered by The Subliminal Kid)\" – 16:41\n\"When I Grow Up\" (Van Rivers Dark Sails on the Horizon Mix) – 9:16\n\"When I Grow Up\" (We Grow Apart Vocal Version by Pär Grindvik) – 6:02\n\"When I Grow Up\" (We Grow Apart Inspiration - Take 2 - By Pär Grindvik) – 7:59\n\"When I Grow Up\" (Scuba's High Up Mix) – 6:17\n\"When I Grow Up\" (Scuba's Straight Down Mix) – 5:54\n\"When I Grow Up\" (Video) – 4:04\n\nSwedish 12\" single \nA1. \"When I Grow Up\" (Van Rivers Dark Sails on the Horizon Mix) – 9:10\nA2. \"When I Grow Up\" (D. Lissvik) – 4:28\nB1. \"Memories from When I Grew Up (Remembered by The Subliminal Kid)\" – 16:41\n\nUK promo CD single \n\"When I Grow Up\" (Edit) – 3:42\n\"When I Grow Up\" (D. Lissvik Radio Edit) – 3:19\n\nNominations\n\nAppearances in other media\nThe song was used as part of the soundtrack for the video game Pro Evolution Soccer 2011.\n\nReferences\n\n2009 singles\n2009 songs\nFever Ray songs\nSongs written by Karin Dreijer"
] |
[
"Lewis H. Morgan",
"Early life and education",
"Where was Lewis born?",
"I don't know.",
"Where did he grow up?",
"near Aurora."
] | C_e5fc21be457745f1b3c92b694b802e45_1 | Who were his parents? | 3 | Who were Lewis H. Morgan's parents? | Lewis H. Morgan | Lewis' grandfather, Thomas Morgan of Connecticut, had been a Continental soldier in the Revolutionary War. Afterward he and his family migrated west to New York's Finger Lakes region, where he bought land from the Cayuga people and planted a farm on the shores of Lake Cayuga near Aurora. He and his wife already had three sons, including Jedediah, the future father of Lewis; and a daughter. In 1797, Jedediah Morgan (1774-1826) married Amanda Stanton, settling on a 100-acre gift of land from his father. After she had five children and died, Jedediah married Harriet Steele of Hartford, Connecticut. They had eight more children, including Lewis. As an adult, he adopted the middle initial "H." Lewis later decided that this H, if anything, stood for "Henry". A multi-skilled Yankee, Jedediah Morgan invented a plow and formed a business partnership to manufacture parts for it; he built a blast furnace for the factory. He moved to Aurora, leaving the farm to a son. After joining the Masons, he helped to form the first Masonic lodge in Aurora. Elected a state senator, Morgan supported the construction of the Erie Canal, which opened in 1825. At his death in 1826, Jedediah left 500 acres with herds and flocks in trust for the support of his family. This provided for education as well. Lewis studied classical subjects at Cayuga Academy: Latin, Greek, rhetoric and mathematics. His father had bequeathed money specifically for his college education, after giving land to the other children for their occupations. Lewis chose Union College in Schenectady. Due to his work at Cayuga Academy, Lewis finished college in two years, 1838-1840, graduating at age 22. The curriculum continued study of classics combined with science, especially mechanics and optics. Lewis was strongly interested in the works of the French naturalist Georges Cuvier. Eliphalet Nott, the president of Union College, was an inventor of stoves and a boiler; he held 31 patents. A Presbyterian minister, he kept the young men under a tight discipline, forbidding alcoholic beverages and requiring students to get permission to go to town. He held up the Bible as the one practical standard for all behavior. His career ended with some notoriety when he was investigated by the state for attempting to raise funds for the college through a lottery. The students evaded his strict regime by founding secret (and forbidden) fraternities, such as the Kappa Alpha Society. Lewis Morgan joined in 1839. CANNOTANSWER | Jedediah Morgan | Lewis Henry Morgan (November 21, 1818 – December 17, 1881) was a pioneering American anthropologist and social theorist who worked as a railroad lawyer. He is best known for his work on kinship and social structure, his theories of social evolution, and his ethnography of the Iroquois. Interested in what holds societies together, he proposed the concept that the earliest human domestic institution was the matrilineal clan, not the patriarchal family.
Also interested in what leads to social change, he was a contemporary of the European social theorists Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, who were influenced by reading his work on social structure and material culture, the influence of technology on progress. Morgan is the only American social theorist to be cited by such diverse scholars as Marx, Charles Darwin, and Sigmund Freud. Elected as a member of the National Academy of Sciences, Morgan served as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1880.
Morgan was a Republican member of the New York State Assembly (Monroe Co., 2nd D.) in 1861, and of the New York State Senate in 1868 and 1869.
Biography
The American Morgans
According to Herbert Marshall Lloyd, an attorney and editor of Morgan's works, Lewis was descended from James Morgan, brother of Miles, who were Welsh pioneers of Connecticut and Springfield, Massachusetts, respectively. Various sources record that the three sons of William Morgan of Llandaff, Glamorganshire, took passage for Boston in 1636. From there Miles went to Springfield, James to New London, Connecticut and John Morgan to Virginia. Lloyd writes, "From these two brothers [James and Miles] all the Morgans prominent in the annals of New York and New England are believed to be descended." The Morgans to which he refers played a critical part in the foundation of the colonies. During the American Revolutionary War, they were Continentals. Immediately after the war, the Connecticut line, along with many other land-hungry Yankees, migrated into New York State. Following the United States' victory against the British, the new government forced the latter's Iroquois allies to cede most of their traditional lands in New York and Pennsylvania to the US. New York made 5 million of acres available for public sale. In addition, the US government granted some plots in western New York to Revolutionary veterans as compensation for their service in the war.
Early life and education
Lewis' grandfather, Thomas Morgan of Connecticut, had been a Continental soldier in the Revolutionary War. Afterward he and his family migrated west to New York's Finger Lakes region, where he bought land from the Cayuga people and planted a farm on the shores of Lake Cayuga near Aurora. He and his wife already had three sons, including Jedediah, the future father of Lewis; and a daughter.
In 1797, Jedediah Morgan (1774–1826) married Amanda Stanton, settling on a 100-acre gift of land from his father. After she had five children and died, Jedediah married Harriet Steele of Hartford, Connecticut. They had eight more children, including Lewis. As an adult, he adopted the middle initial "H." Morgan later decided that this H, if anything, stood for "Henry".
A multi-skilled Yankee, Jedediah Morgan invented a plow and formed a business partnership to manufacture parts for it; he built a blast furnace for the factory. He moved to Aurora, leaving the farm to a son. After joining the Masons, he helped to form the first Masonic lodge in Aurora. Elected a state senator, Morgan supported the construction of the Erie Canal, which opened in 1825.
At his death in 1826, Jedediah left 500 acres with herds and flocks in trust for the support of his family. This provided for education as well. Morgan studied classical subjects at Cayuga Academy: Latin, Greek, rhetoric and mathematics. His father had bequeathed money specifically for his college education, after giving land to the other children for their occupations. Morgan chose Union College in Schenectady. Due to his work at Cayuga Academy, Morgan finished college in two years, 1838–1840, graduating at age 22. The curriculum continued study of classics combined with science, especially mechanics and optics. Morgan was strongly interested in the works of the French naturalist Georges Cuvier.
Eliphalet Nott, the president of Union College, was an inventor of stoves and a boiler; he held 31 patents. A Presbyterian minister, he kept the young men under a tight discipline, forbidding alcoholic beverages and requiring students to get permission to go to town. He held up the Bible as the one practical standard for all behavior. His career ended with some notoriety when he was investigated by the state for attempting to raise funds for the college through a lottery. The students evaded his strict regime by founding secret (and forbidden) fraternities, such as the Kappa Alpha Society. Lewis Morgan joined in 1839.
The New Confederacy of the Iroquois
After graduating in 1840, Morgan returned to Aurora to read the law with an established firm. In 1842 he was admitted to the bar in Rochester, where he went into partnership with a Union classmate, George F. Danforth, a future judge. They could find no clients, as the nation was in an economic depression, which had started with the Panic of 1837. Morgan wrote essays, which he had begun to do while studying law, and published some in The Knickerbocker under the pen name Aquarius.
On January 1, 1841, Morgan and some friends from Cayuga Academy formed a secret fraternal society which they called the Gordian Knot. As Morgan's earliest essays from that time had classical themes, the club may have been a kind of literary society, as was common then. In 1841 or 1842 the young men redefined the society, renaming it the Order of the Iroquois. Morgan referred to this event as cutting the knot. In 1843 they named it the Grand Order of the Iroquois, followed by the New Confederacy of the Iroquois. They made the group a research organization to collect information on the Iroquois, whose historical territory for centuries had included central and upstate New York west of the Hudson and the Finger Lakes region.
The men intended to resurrect the spirit of the Iroquois. They tried to learn the languages, assumed Iroquois names, and organized the group by the historic pattern of Iroquois tribes. In 1844 they received permission from the former Freemasons of Aurora to use the upper floor of the Masonic temple as a meeting hall. New members underwent a secret rite called inindianation in which they were transformed spiritually into Iroquois. They met in the summer around campfires and paraded yearly through the town in costume. Morgan seemed infused with the spirit of the Iroquois. He said, "We are now upon the very soil over which they exercised dominion ... Poetry still lingers around the scenery. ... " These new Iroquois retained a literary frame of mind, but they intended to focus on "the writing of a native American epic that would define national identity".
Encounter with the Iroquois
On an 1844 business trip to the capital of Albany, Morgan started research on old Cayuga treaties in the state archives. The Seneca people were also studying old US-Native American treaties to support their land claims. After the Revolutionary War, the United States had forced the four Iroquois tribes allied with the British to cede their lands and migrate to Canada.
By specific treaties, the US set aside small reservations in New York for their own allies, the Onondaga and Seneca. In the 1840s, long after the war, the Ogden Land Company, a real estate venture, laid claim to the Seneca Tonawanda Reservation on the basis of a fraudulent treaty. The Seneca sued and had representatives at the state capital pressing their case when Morgan was there.
The delegation, led by Jimmy Johnson, its chief officer (and son of chief Red Jacket), were essentially former officers of what was left of the Iroquois Confederacy. Johnson's 16-year-old grandson Ha-sa-ne-an-da (Ely Parker) accompanied them as their interpreter, as he had attended a mission school and was bilingual. By chance Morgan and the young Parker encountered each other in an Albany book store. Soon intrigued by Morgan's talk of the New Confederacy, Parker invited the older man to interview Johnson and meet the delegation. Morgan took pages of organizational notes, which he used to remodel the New Confederacy. Beyond such details of scholarship, Morgan and the Seneca men formed deep attachments of friendship.
Morgan and his colleagues invited Parker to join the New Confederacy. They (chiefly Morgan) paid for the rest of Parker's education at the Cayuga Academy, along with his sister and a friend of hers. Later the Confederacy paid for Parker's studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, where he graduated in civil engineering. After military service in the American Civil War, from which Parker retired at the rank of brigadier general, he entered the upper ranks of civil service in the presidency of his former commander, Ulysses S. Grant.
The Ogden Land Company affair
Meanwhile, the organization had had activist goals from the beginning. In his initial New Gordius address Morgan had said:
... when the last tribe shall slumber in the grass, it is to be feared that the stain of blood will be found on the escutcheon of the American republic. This nation must shield their declining day ...
In 1838 the Ogden Land Company began a campaign to defraud the remaining Iroquois in New York of their lands. By Iroquois law, only a unanimous vote of all the chiefs sitting in council could effect binding decisions relating to the tribe. The OLC set about to purchase the votes of as many chiefs as it could, plying some with alcohol. The chiefs in many cases complied, believing any resolutions to sell the land would be defeated in council. Obtaining a majority vote for sale at one council called for the purpose, the OLC took their treaty to the Congress of the United States, which knew nothing of Iroquois law. President Martin Van Buren advised Congress that the treaty was fraudulent but on June 11, 1838, Congress adopted it as a resolution. After being compensated for their land by $1.67 per acre (Morgan said it was worth $16 per acre), the Seneca were to be evicted forthwith.
The great majority of the tribe were against the sale of the land. When they discovered they had been defrauded, they were galvanized to action. The New Confederacy stepped into the case on the side of the Seneca, conducting a major publicity campaign. They held mass meetings, circulated a general petition, and spoke to congressmen in Washington. The US Indian agent and ethnologist Henry Rowe Schoolcraft and other influential men became honorary members. In 1846 a general convention of the population of Genesee County, New York sent Morgan to Congress with a counter-offer. The Seneca were allowed to buy back some land at $20 per acre, at which time the Tonawanda Reservation was created. The previous treaty was thrown out. Returning home, Morgan was adopted into the Hawk Clan, Seneca Tribe, as the son of Jimmy Johnson on October 31, 1847, in part to honor his work with the Seneca on the reservation issues. They named him Tayadaowuhkuh, meaning "bridging the gap" (between the Iroquois and the European Americans).
After Morgan was admitted to the tribe, he lost interest in the New Confederacy. The group retained its secrecy and initiation requirements, but they were being hotly disputed. When internal dissent began to impede the group's efficacy in 1847, Morgan stopped attending. For practical purposes it ceased to exist, but Morgan and Parker continued with a series of "Iroquois Letters" to the American Whig Review, edited by George Colton. The Seneca case dragged on. Finally in 1857 the Supreme Court of the United States affirmed that only the federal government could evict the Seneca from their land. As it declined to do that, the case was over. The Ogden Land Company collapsed.
Marriage and family
In 1851 Morgan summarized his investigation of Iroquois customs in his first book of note, League of the Iroquois, one of the founding works of ethnology. In it he compares systems of kinship. In that year also he married his cross-cousin, Mary Elizabeth Steele, his companion and partner for the rest of his life. She had intended to become a Presbyterian missionary. On their wedding day he presented to her an ornate copy of his new book. It was dedicated to his collaborator, Ely Parker.
In 1853 Mary's father died, leaving her a large inheritance. The Morgans bought a brownstone in a wealthy suburb of Rochester. In that year their son, Lemuel, was born, who "turned out to be mentally handicapped". Morgan's rising fame brought him public attention. Lemuel's condition (on no specific evidence) was universally attributed to the first-cousin marriage. The Morgans had to endure perpetual criticism, which they accepted as true, Lewis going to far as, in Ancient Society, to take a stand against cousin marriage. The Morgan marriage remained a close and affectionate one.
Morgan and his wife were active in the First Presbyterian Church of Rochester, mainly of interest to Mary. Morgan refused to make "the public profession of Christ that was necessary for full membership". They both contributed to and sponsored charitable works. In 1856, Mary Elisabeth was born and in 1860 Helen King.
Supporting education
For several years "his ethnical interests lay dormant", but not his scholarship and writing. In 1852 Morgan and eight other "Rochester intellectuals" instituted The Pundit Club, shortened later to just The Club, a scientific and literary society before which the members read papers they had researched for the occasion. Morgan read papers to The Club every year for the rest of his life. He also joined the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Morgan and other leading men of Rochester decided to found a university, the University of Rochester. It did not support the matriculation of women. The group resolved to found a college for women, the Barleywood Female University, which was advertised but apparently never started. In the same year of its foundation, 1852, the donor of the land on which it was to be located gave it to the University of Rochester instead. Morgan was gravely disappointed. He believed that equality of the sexes is a mark of advanced civilization. For the present, he lacked the wealth and connections to prevent the collapse of Barleywood. Later he would serve as a founding trustee of the board of Wells College in Aurora. In addition, he and Mary would leave their estate to the University of Rochester for the foundation of a women's college.
Success at last
In 1855 Morgan and other Rochester businessmen invested in the expanding metals industry of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. After a brief sojourn on the 5-man board of the Iron Mountain Railroad, Morgan joined them in creating the Bay de Noquet and Marquette Railroad Company, connecting the entire Upper Peninsula by a single, ore-bearing line. He became its attorney and director. At that time the U.S. government was selling lands previously confiscated from the natives in cases where the sale benefited the public good. Although the Upper Peninsula was known for its great natural beauty, the discovery of iron persuaded Morgan and others to develop wide-scale mining and industrialization of the peninsula. He spent the next few years between Washington, lobbying for the sale of the land to his company, and in large cities such as Detroit and Chicago, where he fought lawsuits to prevent competitors from taking it. Morgan vigorously defended American capitalism to protect his own interests. After the stockholders refused to pay him for some of his legal work, he all but withdrew from business in favor of field work in anthropology.
In 1861 in the middle of his field work, Morgan was elected as Member of the New York State Assembly on the Republican ticket. The Morgans traditionally had belonged to the Whigs, which dissolved in 1856; most Whigs joined the Republicans, created in 1854. Morgan did not run with any agenda except his own as it pertained to the Iroquois. He was seeking appointment by the President of the United States as Commissioner of the new Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). Morgan anticipated that William H. Seward would be elected president, and outlined to him plans to employ the natives in the manufacture and sale of Indian goods.
At the last moment Abraham Lincoln displaced Seward as the Republican candidate. The new president was deluged by letters from Morgan's associates asking that Morgan be appointed commissioner. Lincoln explained that the post had already been exchanged by his campaign manager for political support. With the chance for appointment lost, Morgan, who had made no pretense of interest in New York state's government, returned to field study of the natives.
Field anthropologist
After attending the 1856 meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Morgan decided on an ethnology study to compare kinship systems. He conducted a field research program funded by himself and the Smithsonian Institution, 1859-1862. He made four expeditions, two to the Plains tribes of Kansas and Nebraska, and two more up the Missouri River past Yellowstone. This was before the development of any inland transportation system. Passengers on riverboats could shoot Bison and other game for food along the upper Missouri River. He collected data on 51 kinship systems. Tribes included the Winnebago, Crow, Yankton, Kaw, Blackfeet, Omaha and others.
At the height of Morgan's anthropological field work, death struck his family. In May and June, 1862, their two daughters, ages 6 and 2, died as a result of scarlet fever while Morgan was traveling in the West. In Sioux City, Iowa, Morgan received the news from his wife. He wrote in his journal:
Two of three of my children are taken. Our family is destroyed. The intelligence has simply petrified me. I have not shed a tear. It is too profound for tears. Thus ends my last expedition. I go home to my stricken and mourning wife, a miserable and destroyed man.
The Civil War
During this time, neither Morgan nor Mary showed any interest in abolitionism, nor did they participate in the American Civil War. They differed markedly from their friend Ely Parker. The latter attempted to raise an Iroquois regiment but was denied, on the grounds that he was not a US citizen, and denied service on the same ground. He entered the army finally by the intervention of his friend, Ulysses S. Grant, serving on Grant's staff. Parker was present at the surrender of General Lee; to Lee's remark that Parker was the "true American" (as an American Indian), he responded, "We are all Americans here, sir."
Morgan held no consistent views on the war. He could easily have joined the anti-slavery cause if he had wished to do so. Rochester, as the last station before Canada on the Underground Railroad, was a center of abolitionism. Frederick Douglass published the North Star in Rochester. Like Morgan, Douglass supported the equality of women, yet they never made connection.
Morgan was anti-slavery but opposed abolitionism on the grounds that slavery was protected by law. Before the war he assented to the possible division of the nation on the grounds of "irreconcilable differences", that is, slavery, between regions. Morgan began to change his mind when some of his friends who had gone out to watch the First Battle of Bull Run were captured and imprisoned by the Confederates for the duration. By the end of the war, he was insisting along with most others that Jefferson Davis be hanged as a traitor. In 1866 he formed the Rochester Committee for the Relief of Southern Starvation.
Morgan did participate indirectly in the war through his company. Recovering from the deaths of his daughters and having resolved to end the expeditions that had taken him away from home, he gave his life totally over to business. In 1863 he and Samuel Ely formed a partnership creating the Morgan Iron Company in northern Michigan. The war had created such a high demand for metals that within the first year of business, the company paid off its founding debt and offered 100% dividends on its stock. The demand went on until 1868, enabling the company to construct a blast furnace. Morgan became independently wealthy and could retire from the practice of law.
The Erie Railroad affair
Morgan took up trout fishing during his Michigan period. He fished in the wilds of Michigan during the summers, sometimes with Ojibwe guides. During this recreational activity, he became interested in beavers, which had greatly modified the lowlands. After several summers of tracking and observing beavers in the field, in 1868 he published a work describing in detail the biology and habits of this animal, which shaped the environment through its construction of dams.
In that year also, his wealth secure and free of business, Morgan entered the state government again as a senator, 1868–1869, still seeking appointment as head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. He was ridiculed by the Union Advertiser as being a "hobby candidate". The Republicans that year were running on a platform of moral probity. They argued that as a superior class, they could and should serve as guardians of the public morals. Morgan passed muster on the heredity because of his descent and Mary's descent from William Bradford, of Mayflower note. Morgan soon was immersed in such issues as whether beer drinking on Sunday should be allowed (a veiled hit at the new German immigrants).
As member of the Standing Committee on Railroads, Morgan became embroiled in a major issue of the day and one closer to his interests: monopoly. The New York Central Railroad, under Cornelius Vanderbilt, had attempted a hostile takeover of the Erie Railroad under Jay Gould by buying up its stock. The two railroads competed for the Rochester market. Daniel Drew, Erie's treasurer, defended successfully by creating new stock, which he had his friends sold short, dropping the value of the stock. Vanderbilt dumped the stock, barely covering the losses. Ordinarily such stock manipulations were illegal. The Railroad Act of 1850, however, allowed railroads to borrow money in exchange for bonds convertible to stocks. Given essentially free stocks, friends of the Erie Railroad grew rich; that is, Drew had found a way to transfer Vanderbilt's wealth to his own friends. Vanderbilt just escaped ruin. He immediately appealed to the state government.
The Railroad Committee investigated the affair. Gould purchased inaction among the senators, a practice Morgan had seen in the Ogden Land Company Affair. This time he worked to protect his friends from investigation. No action was taken. The Erie Railroad affair tapped Morgan's deepest ideological beliefs. To him the role of capitalism in creating mobile wealth was essential to the advancement of civilization. A monopoly such as Vanderbilt had been trying to build would choke off the downward flow of wealth. His report of the Railroad Committee attacked both Vanderbilt and Gould. It argued that the system in its "tendency to combination" was broken. He asserted that the people had to use government action to rein in the power of large corporations. For the time being the Erie Railroad was supported, but Morgan noted that its victory was just as dangerous to society as its defeat would have been.
The Grant-Parker policy on Native Americans
Despite his new interest in government, which was to come to be expressed in his subsequent works on social systems, Morgan persisted in his major goal in running for office, to be appointed Commissioner of Indian Affairs. The choice was now up to President Grant. Together in The League, Parker and Morgan had determined the policy Grant was to adopt. They thought that, much as Parker had assimilated, American Indians should assimilate into American society; they were not yet considered US citizens. Of the two men responsible for his policy, Grant chose his former adjutant. Terribly disappointed, Morgan never applied for the post again. The two collaborators did not speak to each other during Parker's tenure, but Morgan stayed on intimate terms with Parker's family.
The implementation of assimilation policy was more difficult than either man had anticipated. Parker controlled none of the variables. The American Indians were to be moved into reservations, assisted with supplies and food so they could start subsistence farming, and educated at mission schools to be converted to Christianity and American values, until they adopted European-American ways. In theory they would then be able to enter American society at large. The system of appointed Indian agents and traders had long been corrupt; in addition, unscrupulous land agents took the best land and moved American Indians into the desert lands, which did not support small-scale household farms and did not have sufficient game for hunting. Thieves among the agents replaced food and goods intended for the Indians with inedible or no foodstuffs. Faced with these realities, the American Indians refused the reservations or abandoned them, and attempted to return to ancestral lands, now occupied by white settlers. In other cases, they raided white settlements for food or attacked them seeking to repel the invaders. Grant resorted to military solutions and used U.S. soldiers to repress the tribes. This warfare exacerbated the failure of the army to protect the American Indians against depredations and encroachment by white settlers.
In 1871 Congress took action to halt the suppression of the Natives. It created a Board of Indian Commissioners and relieved Parker of his main responsibilities. Parker resigned in protest. After suffering years of poverty and attempt to suppress their cultures, American Indians were admitted to citizenship in 1924. The government continued to send their children to Indian boarding schools, started in the late 1870s, where Indian languages and cultures were prohibited. Policies of diversity and limited sovereignty were adopted. The Grant administration is universally regarded as inept in Indian affairs as well as have been rife with corruption. Although Morgan contributed to the ideology of assimilation, he escaped accountability for the results.
Later career
Having failed to become Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Morgan applied for various ambassadorships under the Grant administration, including to China and Peru. Grant's administration rejected all the applications, after which Morgan resolved to visit Europe on his own with a professional as well as a personal agenda.
For one year, 1870–71, the three Morgans went on a grand tour of Europe. During his European travels, Morgan met Charles Darwin and the great British anthropologists of the age. He visited Sir John Lubbock, who had coined the words "Paleolithic" and "Neolithic", and used the terms "barbarians" and "savages" in his own studies of the three-age system. Morgan adopted these terms, but with an altered sense, in Ancient Society. Lubbock was using modern ethnology as he knew it to reconstruct the ways of human ancestors. Lubbock's main works had already been published by the time of Morgan's visit. Morgan recorded his European travel and contacts in a journal of several volumes. Extracts were published in 1937 by Leslie White.
He continued with his independent scholarship, never becoming affiliated with any university, although he associated with university presidents and the leading ethnologists looked up to him as a founder of the field. He was an intellectual mentor to those who followed, including John Wesley Powell, who became head of the Bureau of Ethnology in 1879 at the Smithsonian Institution. Morgan was consulted by the highest levels of government on appointments and other ethnological matters. In 1878 he conducted one final field trip, leading a small party in search of native ruins in the American Southwest. They were the first to describe the Aztec ruins on the Animas River but missed discovering Mesa Verde.
Death and legacy
In 1879 Morgan completed two construction projects. One was his library, an addition to the house he had purchased with Mary many years before and where he died in December 1881. He combined the opening of the library with a celebration of the 25th anniversary of The Club. It included a dinner for 40 persons, who were by that time the leading lights of Rochester. The library acquired some fame as a local monument. Pictures were taken and published. The Club only met there one other time, however, at Morgan's funeral in 1881. The second building project was a mausoleum for his daughters in Mount Hope Cemetery. It became the resting place of the entire remainder of the family, starting with Lewis.
His wife survived him by two years. They both left wills. A nephew of Lewis moved to Rochester with his family and took up residence in the house to care for Lewis' and Mary's son. On the son's death 20 years later, the entire estate reverted to the University of Rochester, which by the terms of the wills was to use the funds for the endowment of a college for women, dedicated as a memorial to the Morgan daughters. The nephew attempted to break the wills on his behalf but lost the case in the state supreme court. The house with the library survived into mid-20th-century, when it was demolished to make way for a highway bypass system. Materials relating to Morgan's writings are held in a special collection at the University of Rochester library.
Professional associations
Morgan was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society in 1865. He was elected president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1879. Morgan was also a member of the National Academy of Sciences.
Thought
Work in ethnology
In the 1840s, Morgan had befriended the young Ely S. Parker of the Seneca tribe and the Tonawanda Reservation. With a classical missionary education, Parker went on to study law. With his help, Morgan studied the culture and the structure of Iroquois society. Morgan had noticed they used different terms than Europeans to designate individuals by their relationships within the extended family. He had the creative insight to recognize this was meaningful in terms of their social organization. He defined European terms as "descriptive" and Iroquois (and Native American) terms as "classificatory", terms that continue to be used as major divisions by anthropologists and ethnographers.
Based on his research enabled by Parker, Morgan and Parker wrote and published The League of the Ho-dé-no-sau-nee or Iroquois (1851). Morgan dedicated the book to Parker (who was then 23) and "our joint researches". In subsequent publications of the book Parker's name was omitted. This work presented the complexity of Iroquois society in a path-breaking ethnography that was a model for future anthropologists, as Morgan presented the kinship system of the Iroquois with unprecedented nuance.
Morgan expanded his research far beyond the Iroquois. Although Benjamin Barton had posited Asian origins for Native Americans as early as 1797, in the mid-nineteenth century, other American and European scholars still supported widely varying ideas, including a theory they were one of the lost tribes of Israel, because of the strong influence of biblical and classical conceptions of history. Morgan had begun to theorize the Native Americans originated in Asia. He thought he could prove it by a broad study of kinship terms used by people in Asia as well as tribes in North America.
He wanted to provide evidence for monogenesis, the theory that all human beings descend from a common source (as opposed to polygenism).
In the late 1850s and 1860s, Morgan collected kinship data from a variety of Native American tribes. In his quest to do comparative kinship studies, Morgan also corresponded with scholars, missionaries, US Indian agents, colonial agents, and military officers around the world. He created a questionnaire which others could complete so he could collect data in a standardized way. Over several years, he made months-long trips to what was then the Wild West to further his research.
With the help of local contacts and, after intensive correspondence over the course of years, Morgan analyzed his data and wrote his seminal Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family (1871), which was printed by the Smithsonian Press. It "created at a stroke what without exaggeration might be called the seminal concern of contemporary anthropology, the study of kinship ..." In this work, Morgan set forth his argument for the unity of humankind. At the same time, he presented a sophisticated schema of social evolution based upon the relationship terms, the categories of kinship, used by peoples around the world. Through his analysis of kinship terms, Morgan discerned that the structure of the family and social institutions develop and change according to a specific sequence.
Theory of social evolution
This original theory became less relevant because of the Darwinian revolution, which demonstrated how change happens over time. In addition, Morgan became increasingly interested in the comparative study of kinship (family) relations as a window into understanding larger social dynamics. He saw kinship relations as a basic part of society. Morgan viewed society as a living system that changes over time.
In the years that followed, Morgan developed his theories. Combined with an exhaustive study of classic Greek and Roman sources, he crowned his work with his magnum opus Ancient Society (1877). Morgan elaborated upon his theory of social evolution. He introduced a critical link between social progress and technological progress. He emphasized the centrality of family and property relations. He traced the interplay between the evolution of technology, of family relations, of property relations, of the larger social structures and systems of governance, and intellectual development.
Looking across an expanded span of human existence, Morgan presented three major stages: savagery, barbarism, and civilization. He divided and defined the stages by technological inventions, such as use of fire, bow, pottery in the savage era; domestication of animals, agriculture, and metalworking in the barbarian era; and development of the alphabet and writing in the civilization era. In part, this was an effort to create a structure for North American history that was comparable to the three-age system of European pre-history, which had been developed as an evidence-based system by the Danish antiquarian Christian Jürgensen Thomsen in the 1830s; his work (Guideline to Scandinavian Antiquity) was published in English in 1848. The concept of evidence-based chronological dating received wider notice in English-speaking nations as developed by J. J. A. Worsaae, whose The Primeval Antiquities of Denmark was published in English in 1849.
Initially Morgan's work was accepted as integral to American history, but later it was treated as a separate category of anthropology. Henry Adams wrote of Ancient Society that it "must become the foundation of all future work in American historical science." The historian Francis Parkman also was a fan, but later nineteenth-century historians pushed Native American history to the side of the American story.
Morgan's final work, Houses and House-life of the American Aborigines (1881), was an elaboration on what he had originally planned as an additional part of Ancient Society. In it, Morgan presented evidence, mostly from North and South America, that the development of house architecture and house culture reflected the development of kinship and property relations.
Although many specific aspects of Morgan's evolutionary position have been rejected by later anthropologists, his real achievements remain impressive. He founded the sub-discipline of kinship studies. Anthropologists remain interested in the connections which Morgan outlined between material culture and social structure. His impact has been felt far beyond the Ivory Tower.
Morgan was not quite the social reformer some would believe him to be. Outraged at the manipulations of the Ogden Land Company to get possession of the Tonawanda Seneca Reservation, Morgan exerted some effort in behalf of the Indians, but not nearly as much or to such effect as is generally supposed. Most of his effort seems to have been limited to a few months in 1846, and the issue was not settled until 1857, more than ten years later. The Indians' principal legal counsel in these years was not Morgan, but John Martindale. Morgan's role, such as it was, was that of citizen activist. Then, too, although a champion of the Indian, Morgan was not an advocate of cultural pluralism nor did he work for "cultural survival." The Indian, Morgan exhorted his fellow citizens, ought to be rescued "from his impending destiny," "reclaimed and civilized, and thus saved eventually from the fate which has already befallen so many of our aboriginal races" by education and Christianity.
Influence on Marxism
In 1881, Karl Marx started reading Morgan's Ancient Society, thus beginning Morgan's posthumous influence among European thinkers. Friedrich Engels also read his work after Morgan's death. Although Marx never finished his own book based on Morgan's work, Engels continued his analysis. Morgan's work on the social structure and material culture strongly influenced Engels' sociological theory of dialectical materialism (expressed in his work The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State, 1884). Scholars of the Communist bloc considered Morgan as the preeminent anthropologist. Morgan's work has led to some believing that early communist-like societies existed in Native American society. Though the belief of primitive communism as based on Morgan's work is flawed due to Morgan's misunderstandings of Haudenosaunee society and his, since proven wrong, theory of social evolution. This, and subsequent more accurate research, has led to the society of the Haudenosaunee to be of interest in communist and anarchist analysis. Particularly aspects where land was not treated as a commodity, communal ownership and near non-existent rates of crime.
Eponymous honors
Annual lecture in Morgan's name at the Anthropology Department of the University of Rochester.
Rochester Public School #37 in the 19th Ward named "Lewis H. Morgan #37 School"
Lewis Henry Morgan Institute (a research organization), SUNYIT, Utica, New York
Lewis H. Morgan Rochester Regional Chapter of the New York State Archeological Association
List of Morgan's writings
Lewis Morgan wrote continuously, whether letters, papers to be read, or published articles and books. A list of his major works follows. Some of the letters and papers have been omitted. A complete list, as far as was known, is given by Lloyd in the 1922 revised edition (posthumous) of The League ... . Specifically omitted are 14 "Letters on the Iroquois" read before the New Confederacy, 1844–1846, and published in The American Review in 1847 under another pen name, Skenandoah; 31 papers read before The Club, 1854–1880; and various book reviews published in The Nation.
See also
Cultural evolution
Sociocultural evolution
Ethnology
Unilineal evolution
Origins of society
List of important publications in anthropology
References
Bibliography
.
.
Stern, Bernhard J. "Lewis Henry Morgan Today; An Appraisal of His Scientific Contributions," Science & Society, vol. 10, no. 2 (Spring 1946), pp. 172–176. In JSTOR.
External links
1963 reissue of Ancient Society with introductions by Eleanor Leacock
Knight, C. 2008. Early Human Kinship was Matrilineal. In N. J. Allen, H. Callan, R. Dunbar and W. James (eds), Early Human Kinship. London: Royal Anthropological Institute, pp. 61–82.
1818 births
1881 deaths
People from Aurora, Cayuga County, New York
American people of Welsh descent
New York (state) Republicans
Members of the New York State Assembly
New York (state) state senators
American anthropologists
American feminists
Economic anthropologists
Native Americans' rights activists
19th-century American politicians
Union College (New York) alumni
Members of the American Antiquarian Society
Burials at Mount Hope Cemetery (Rochester) | 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"
] |
[
"Lewis H. Morgan",
"Early life and education",
"Where was Lewis born?",
"I don't know.",
"Where did he grow up?",
"near Aurora.",
"Who were his parents?",
"Jedediah Morgan"
] | C_e5fc21be457745f1b3c92b694b802e45_1 | Did he have any siblings? | 4 | Did Lewis H. Morgan have any siblings? | Lewis H. Morgan | Lewis' grandfather, Thomas Morgan of Connecticut, had been a Continental soldier in the Revolutionary War. Afterward he and his family migrated west to New York's Finger Lakes region, where he bought land from the Cayuga people and planted a farm on the shores of Lake Cayuga near Aurora. He and his wife already had three sons, including Jedediah, the future father of Lewis; and a daughter. In 1797, Jedediah Morgan (1774-1826) married Amanda Stanton, settling on a 100-acre gift of land from his father. After she had five children and died, Jedediah married Harriet Steele of Hartford, Connecticut. They had eight more children, including Lewis. As an adult, he adopted the middle initial "H." Lewis later decided that this H, if anything, stood for "Henry". A multi-skilled Yankee, Jedediah Morgan invented a plow and formed a business partnership to manufacture parts for it; he built a blast furnace for the factory. He moved to Aurora, leaving the farm to a son. After joining the Masons, he helped to form the first Masonic lodge in Aurora. Elected a state senator, Morgan supported the construction of the Erie Canal, which opened in 1825. At his death in 1826, Jedediah left 500 acres with herds and flocks in trust for the support of his family. This provided for education as well. Lewis studied classical subjects at Cayuga Academy: Latin, Greek, rhetoric and mathematics. His father had bequeathed money specifically for his college education, after giving land to the other children for their occupations. Lewis chose Union College in Schenectady. Due to his work at Cayuga Academy, Lewis finished college in two years, 1838-1840, graduating at age 22. The curriculum continued study of classics combined with science, especially mechanics and optics. Lewis was strongly interested in the works of the French naturalist Georges Cuvier. Eliphalet Nott, the president of Union College, was an inventor of stoves and a boiler; he held 31 patents. A Presbyterian minister, he kept the young men under a tight discipline, forbidding alcoholic beverages and requiring students to get permission to go to town. He held up the Bible as the one practical standard for all behavior. His career ended with some notoriety when he was investigated by the state for attempting to raise funds for the college through a lottery. The students evaded his strict regime by founding secret (and forbidden) fraternities, such as the Kappa Alpha Society. Lewis Morgan joined in 1839. CANNOTANSWER | They had eight more children, | Lewis Henry Morgan (November 21, 1818 – December 17, 1881) was a pioneering American anthropologist and social theorist who worked as a railroad lawyer. He is best known for his work on kinship and social structure, his theories of social evolution, and his ethnography of the Iroquois. Interested in what holds societies together, he proposed the concept that the earliest human domestic institution was the matrilineal clan, not the patriarchal family.
Also interested in what leads to social change, he was a contemporary of the European social theorists Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, who were influenced by reading his work on social structure and material culture, the influence of technology on progress. Morgan is the only American social theorist to be cited by such diverse scholars as Marx, Charles Darwin, and Sigmund Freud. Elected as a member of the National Academy of Sciences, Morgan served as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1880.
Morgan was a Republican member of the New York State Assembly (Monroe Co., 2nd D.) in 1861, and of the New York State Senate in 1868 and 1869.
Biography
The American Morgans
According to Herbert Marshall Lloyd, an attorney and editor of Morgan's works, Lewis was descended from James Morgan, brother of Miles, who were Welsh pioneers of Connecticut and Springfield, Massachusetts, respectively. Various sources record that the three sons of William Morgan of Llandaff, Glamorganshire, took passage for Boston in 1636. From there Miles went to Springfield, James to New London, Connecticut and John Morgan to Virginia. Lloyd writes, "From these two brothers [James and Miles] all the Morgans prominent in the annals of New York and New England are believed to be descended." The Morgans to which he refers played a critical part in the foundation of the colonies. During the American Revolutionary War, they were Continentals. Immediately after the war, the Connecticut line, along with many other land-hungry Yankees, migrated into New York State. Following the United States' victory against the British, the new government forced the latter's Iroquois allies to cede most of their traditional lands in New York and Pennsylvania to the US. New York made 5 million of acres available for public sale. In addition, the US government granted some plots in western New York to Revolutionary veterans as compensation for their service in the war.
Early life and education
Lewis' grandfather, Thomas Morgan of Connecticut, had been a Continental soldier in the Revolutionary War. Afterward he and his family migrated west to New York's Finger Lakes region, where he bought land from the Cayuga people and planted a farm on the shores of Lake Cayuga near Aurora. He and his wife already had three sons, including Jedediah, the future father of Lewis; and a daughter.
In 1797, Jedediah Morgan (1774–1826) married Amanda Stanton, settling on a 100-acre gift of land from his father. After she had five children and died, Jedediah married Harriet Steele of Hartford, Connecticut. They had eight more children, including Lewis. As an adult, he adopted the middle initial "H." Morgan later decided that this H, if anything, stood for "Henry".
A multi-skilled Yankee, Jedediah Morgan invented a plow and formed a business partnership to manufacture parts for it; he built a blast furnace for the factory. He moved to Aurora, leaving the farm to a son. After joining the Masons, he helped to form the first Masonic lodge in Aurora. Elected a state senator, Morgan supported the construction of the Erie Canal, which opened in 1825.
At his death in 1826, Jedediah left 500 acres with herds and flocks in trust for the support of his family. This provided for education as well. Morgan studied classical subjects at Cayuga Academy: Latin, Greek, rhetoric and mathematics. His father had bequeathed money specifically for his college education, after giving land to the other children for their occupations. Morgan chose Union College in Schenectady. Due to his work at Cayuga Academy, Morgan finished college in two years, 1838–1840, graduating at age 22. The curriculum continued study of classics combined with science, especially mechanics and optics. Morgan was strongly interested in the works of the French naturalist Georges Cuvier.
Eliphalet Nott, the president of Union College, was an inventor of stoves and a boiler; he held 31 patents. A Presbyterian minister, he kept the young men under a tight discipline, forbidding alcoholic beverages and requiring students to get permission to go to town. He held up the Bible as the one practical standard for all behavior. His career ended with some notoriety when he was investigated by the state for attempting to raise funds for the college through a lottery. The students evaded his strict regime by founding secret (and forbidden) fraternities, such as the Kappa Alpha Society. Lewis Morgan joined in 1839.
The New Confederacy of the Iroquois
After graduating in 1840, Morgan returned to Aurora to read the law with an established firm. In 1842 he was admitted to the bar in Rochester, where he went into partnership with a Union classmate, George F. Danforth, a future judge. They could find no clients, as the nation was in an economic depression, which had started with the Panic of 1837. Morgan wrote essays, which he had begun to do while studying law, and published some in The Knickerbocker under the pen name Aquarius.
On January 1, 1841, Morgan and some friends from Cayuga Academy formed a secret fraternal society which they called the Gordian Knot. As Morgan's earliest essays from that time had classical themes, the club may have been a kind of literary society, as was common then. In 1841 or 1842 the young men redefined the society, renaming it the Order of the Iroquois. Morgan referred to this event as cutting the knot. In 1843 they named it the Grand Order of the Iroquois, followed by the New Confederacy of the Iroquois. They made the group a research organization to collect information on the Iroquois, whose historical territory for centuries had included central and upstate New York west of the Hudson and the Finger Lakes region.
The men intended to resurrect the spirit of the Iroquois. They tried to learn the languages, assumed Iroquois names, and organized the group by the historic pattern of Iroquois tribes. In 1844 they received permission from the former Freemasons of Aurora to use the upper floor of the Masonic temple as a meeting hall. New members underwent a secret rite called inindianation in which they were transformed spiritually into Iroquois. They met in the summer around campfires and paraded yearly through the town in costume. Morgan seemed infused with the spirit of the Iroquois. He said, "We are now upon the very soil over which they exercised dominion ... Poetry still lingers around the scenery. ... " These new Iroquois retained a literary frame of mind, but they intended to focus on "the writing of a native American epic that would define national identity".
Encounter with the Iroquois
On an 1844 business trip to the capital of Albany, Morgan started research on old Cayuga treaties in the state archives. The Seneca people were also studying old US-Native American treaties to support their land claims. After the Revolutionary War, the United States had forced the four Iroquois tribes allied with the British to cede their lands and migrate to Canada.
By specific treaties, the US set aside small reservations in New York for their own allies, the Onondaga and Seneca. In the 1840s, long after the war, the Ogden Land Company, a real estate venture, laid claim to the Seneca Tonawanda Reservation on the basis of a fraudulent treaty. The Seneca sued and had representatives at the state capital pressing their case when Morgan was there.
The delegation, led by Jimmy Johnson, its chief officer (and son of chief Red Jacket), were essentially former officers of what was left of the Iroquois Confederacy. Johnson's 16-year-old grandson Ha-sa-ne-an-da (Ely Parker) accompanied them as their interpreter, as he had attended a mission school and was bilingual. By chance Morgan and the young Parker encountered each other in an Albany book store. Soon intrigued by Morgan's talk of the New Confederacy, Parker invited the older man to interview Johnson and meet the delegation. Morgan took pages of organizational notes, which he used to remodel the New Confederacy. Beyond such details of scholarship, Morgan and the Seneca men formed deep attachments of friendship.
Morgan and his colleagues invited Parker to join the New Confederacy. They (chiefly Morgan) paid for the rest of Parker's education at the Cayuga Academy, along with his sister and a friend of hers. Later the Confederacy paid for Parker's studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, where he graduated in civil engineering. After military service in the American Civil War, from which Parker retired at the rank of brigadier general, he entered the upper ranks of civil service in the presidency of his former commander, Ulysses S. Grant.
The Ogden Land Company affair
Meanwhile, the organization had had activist goals from the beginning. In his initial New Gordius address Morgan had said:
... when the last tribe shall slumber in the grass, it is to be feared that the stain of blood will be found on the escutcheon of the American republic. This nation must shield their declining day ...
In 1838 the Ogden Land Company began a campaign to defraud the remaining Iroquois in New York of their lands. By Iroquois law, only a unanimous vote of all the chiefs sitting in council could effect binding decisions relating to the tribe. The OLC set about to purchase the votes of as many chiefs as it could, plying some with alcohol. The chiefs in many cases complied, believing any resolutions to sell the land would be defeated in council. Obtaining a majority vote for sale at one council called for the purpose, the OLC took their treaty to the Congress of the United States, which knew nothing of Iroquois law. President Martin Van Buren advised Congress that the treaty was fraudulent but on June 11, 1838, Congress adopted it as a resolution. After being compensated for their land by $1.67 per acre (Morgan said it was worth $16 per acre), the Seneca were to be evicted forthwith.
The great majority of the tribe were against the sale of the land. When they discovered they had been defrauded, they were galvanized to action. The New Confederacy stepped into the case on the side of the Seneca, conducting a major publicity campaign. They held mass meetings, circulated a general petition, and spoke to congressmen in Washington. The US Indian agent and ethnologist Henry Rowe Schoolcraft and other influential men became honorary members. In 1846 a general convention of the population of Genesee County, New York sent Morgan to Congress with a counter-offer. The Seneca were allowed to buy back some land at $20 per acre, at which time the Tonawanda Reservation was created. The previous treaty was thrown out. Returning home, Morgan was adopted into the Hawk Clan, Seneca Tribe, as the son of Jimmy Johnson on October 31, 1847, in part to honor his work with the Seneca on the reservation issues. They named him Tayadaowuhkuh, meaning "bridging the gap" (between the Iroquois and the European Americans).
After Morgan was admitted to the tribe, he lost interest in the New Confederacy. The group retained its secrecy and initiation requirements, but they were being hotly disputed. When internal dissent began to impede the group's efficacy in 1847, Morgan stopped attending. For practical purposes it ceased to exist, but Morgan and Parker continued with a series of "Iroquois Letters" to the American Whig Review, edited by George Colton. The Seneca case dragged on. Finally in 1857 the Supreme Court of the United States affirmed that only the federal government could evict the Seneca from their land. As it declined to do that, the case was over. The Ogden Land Company collapsed.
Marriage and family
In 1851 Morgan summarized his investigation of Iroquois customs in his first book of note, League of the Iroquois, one of the founding works of ethnology. In it he compares systems of kinship. In that year also he married his cross-cousin, Mary Elizabeth Steele, his companion and partner for the rest of his life. She had intended to become a Presbyterian missionary. On their wedding day he presented to her an ornate copy of his new book. It was dedicated to his collaborator, Ely Parker.
In 1853 Mary's father died, leaving her a large inheritance. The Morgans bought a brownstone in a wealthy suburb of Rochester. In that year their son, Lemuel, was born, who "turned out to be mentally handicapped". Morgan's rising fame brought him public attention. Lemuel's condition (on no specific evidence) was universally attributed to the first-cousin marriage. The Morgans had to endure perpetual criticism, which they accepted as true, Lewis going to far as, in Ancient Society, to take a stand against cousin marriage. The Morgan marriage remained a close and affectionate one.
Morgan and his wife were active in the First Presbyterian Church of Rochester, mainly of interest to Mary. Morgan refused to make "the public profession of Christ that was necessary for full membership". They both contributed to and sponsored charitable works. In 1856, Mary Elisabeth was born and in 1860 Helen King.
Supporting education
For several years "his ethnical interests lay dormant", but not his scholarship and writing. In 1852 Morgan and eight other "Rochester intellectuals" instituted The Pundit Club, shortened later to just The Club, a scientific and literary society before which the members read papers they had researched for the occasion. Morgan read papers to The Club every year for the rest of his life. He also joined the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Morgan and other leading men of Rochester decided to found a university, the University of Rochester. It did not support the matriculation of women. The group resolved to found a college for women, the Barleywood Female University, which was advertised but apparently never started. In the same year of its foundation, 1852, the donor of the land on which it was to be located gave it to the University of Rochester instead. Morgan was gravely disappointed. He believed that equality of the sexes is a mark of advanced civilization. For the present, he lacked the wealth and connections to prevent the collapse of Barleywood. Later he would serve as a founding trustee of the board of Wells College in Aurora. In addition, he and Mary would leave their estate to the University of Rochester for the foundation of a women's college.
Success at last
In 1855 Morgan and other Rochester businessmen invested in the expanding metals industry of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. After a brief sojourn on the 5-man board of the Iron Mountain Railroad, Morgan joined them in creating the Bay de Noquet and Marquette Railroad Company, connecting the entire Upper Peninsula by a single, ore-bearing line. He became its attorney and director. At that time the U.S. government was selling lands previously confiscated from the natives in cases where the sale benefited the public good. Although the Upper Peninsula was known for its great natural beauty, the discovery of iron persuaded Morgan and others to develop wide-scale mining and industrialization of the peninsula. He spent the next few years between Washington, lobbying for the sale of the land to his company, and in large cities such as Detroit and Chicago, where he fought lawsuits to prevent competitors from taking it. Morgan vigorously defended American capitalism to protect his own interests. After the stockholders refused to pay him for some of his legal work, he all but withdrew from business in favor of field work in anthropology.
In 1861 in the middle of his field work, Morgan was elected as Member of the New York State Assembly on the Republican ticket. The Morgans traditionally had belonged to the Whigs, which dissolved in 1856; most Whigs joined the Republicans, created in 1854. Morgan did not run with any agenda except his own as it pertained to the Iroquois. He was seeking appointment by the President of the United States as Commissioner of the new Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). Morgan anticipated that William H. Seward would be elected president, and outlined to him plans to employ the natives in the manufacture and sale of Indian goods.
At the last moment Abraham Lincoln displaced Seward as the Republican candidate. The new president was deluged by letters from Morgan's associates asking that Morgan be appointed commissioner. Lincoln explained that the post had already been exchanged by his campaign manager for political support. With the chance for appointment lost, Morgan, who had made no pretense of interest in New York state's government, returned to field study of the natives.
Field anthropologist
After attending the 1856 meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Morgan decided on an ethnology study to compare kinship systems. He conducted a field research program funded by himself and the Smithsonian Institution, 1859-1862. He made four expeditions, two to the Plains tribes of Kansas and Nebraska, and two more up the Missouri River past Yellowstone. This was before the development of any inland transportation system. Passengers on riverboats could shoot Bison and other game for food along the upper Missouri River. He collected data on 51 kinship systems. Tribes included the Winnebago, Crow, Yankton, Kaw, Blackfeet, Omaha and others.
At the height of Morgan's anthropological field work, death struck his family. In May and June, 1862, their two daughters, ages 6 and 2, died as a result of scarlet fever while Morgan was traveling in the West. In Sioux City, Iowa, Morgan received the news from his wife. He wrote in his journal:
Two of three of my children are taken. Our family is destroyed. The intelligence has simply petrified me. I have not shed a tear. It is too profound for tears. Thus ends my last expedition. I go home to my stricken and mourning wife, a miserable and destroyed man.
The Civil War
During this time, neither Morgan nor Mary showed any interest in abolitionism, nor did they participate in the American Civil War. They differed markedly from their friend Ely Parker. The latter attempted to raise an Iroquois regiment but was denied, on the grounds that he was not a US citizen, and denied service on the same ground. He entered the army finally by the intervention of his friend, Ulysses S. Grant, serving on Grant's staff. Parker was present at the surrender of General Lee; to Lee's remark that Parker was the "true American" (as an American Indian), he responded, "We are all Americans here, sir."
Morgan held no consistent views on the war. He could easily have joined the anti-slavery cause if he had wished to do so. Rochester, as the last station before Canada on the Underground Railroad, was a center of abolitionism. Frederick Douglass published the North Star in Rochester. Like Morgan, Douglass supported the equality of women, yet they never made connection.
Morgan was anti-slavery but opposed abolitionism on the grounds that slavery was protected by law. Before the war he assented to the possible division of the nation on the grounds of "irreconcilable differences", that is, slavery, between regions. Morgan began to change his mind when some of his friends who had gone out to watch the First Battle of Bull Run were captured and imprisoned by the Confederates for the duration. By the end of the war, he was insisting along with most others that Jefferson Davis be hanged as a traitor. In 1866 he formed the Rochester Committee for the Relief of Southern Starvation.
Morgan did participate indirectly in the war through his company. Recovering from the deaths of his daughters and having resolved to end the expeditions that had taken him away from home, he gave his life totally over to business. In 1863 he and Samuel Ely formed a partnership creating the Morgan Iron Company in northern Michigan. The war had created such a high demand for metals that within the first year of business, the company paid off its founding debt and offered 100% dividends on its stock. The demand went on until 1868, enabling the company to construct a blast furnace. Morgan became independently wealthy and could retire from the practice of law.
The Erie Railroad affair
Morgan took up trout fishing during his Michigan period. He fished in the wilds of Michigan during the summers, sometimes with Ojibwe guides. During this recreational activity, he became interested in beavers, which had greatly modified the lowlands. After several summers of tracking and observing beavers in the field, in 1868 he published a work describing in detail the biology and habits of this animal, which shaped the environment through its construction of dams.
In that year also, his wealth secure and free of business, Morgan entered the state government again as a senator, 1868–1869, still seeking appointment as head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. He was ridiculed by the Union Advertiser as being a "hobby candidate". The Republicans that year were running on a platform of moral probity. They argued that as a superior class, they could and should serve as guardians of the public morals. Morgan passed muster on the heredity because of his descent and Mary's descent from William Bradford, of Mayflower note. Morgan soon was immersed in such issues as whether beer drinking on Sunday should be allowed (a veiled hit at the new German immigrants).
As member of the Standing Committee on Railroads, Morgan became embroiled in a major issue of the day and one closer to his interests: monopoly. The New York Central Railroad, under Cornelius Vanderbilt, had attempted a hostile takeover of the Erie Railroad under Jay Gould by buying up its stock. The two railroads competed for the Rochester market. Daniel Drew, Erie's treasurer, defended successfully by creating new stock, which he had his friends sold short, dropping the value of the stock. Vanderbilt dumped the stock, barely covering the losses. Ordinarily such stock manipulations were illegal. The Railroad Act of 1850, however, allowed railroads to borrow money in exchange for bonds convertible to stocks. Given essentially free stocks, friends of the Erie Railroad grew rich; that is, Drew had found a way to transfer Vanderbilt's wealth to his own friends. Vanderbilt just escaped ruin. He immediately appealed to the state government.
The Railroad Committee investigated the affair. Gould purchased inaction among the senators, a practice Morgan had seen in the Ogden Land Company Affair. This time he worked to protect his friends from investigation. No action was taken. The Erie Railroad affair tapped Morgan's deepest ideological beliefs. To him the role of capitalism in creating mobile wealth was essential to the advancement of civilization. A monopoly such as Vanderbilt had been trying to build would choke off the downward flow of wealth. His report of the Railroad Committee attacked both Vanderbilt and Gould. It argued that the system in its "tendency to combination" was broken. He asserted that the people had to use government action to rein in the power of large corporations. For the time being the Erie Railroad was supported, but Morgan noted that its victory was just as dangerous to society as its defeat would have been.
The Grant-Parker policy on Native Americans
Despite his new interest in government, which was to come to be expressed in his subsequent works on social systems, Morgan persisted in his major goal in running for office, to be appointed Commissioner of Indian Affairs. The choice was now up to President Grant. Together in The League, Parker and Morgan had determined the policy Grant was to adopt. They thought that, much as Parker had assimilated, American Indians should assimilate into American society; they were not yet considered US citizens. Of the two men responsible for his policy, Grant chose his former adjutant. Terribly disappointed, Morgan never applied for the post again. The two collaborators did not speak to each other during Parker's tenure, but Morgan stayed on intimate terms with Parker's family.
The implementation of assimilation policy was more difficult than either man had anticipated. Parker controlled none of the variables. The American Indians were to be moved into reservations, assisted with supplies and food so they could start subsistence farming, and educated at mission schools to be converted to Christianity and American values, until they adopted European-American ways. In theory they would then be able to enter American society at large. The system of appointed Indian agents and traders had long been corrupt; in addition, unscrupulous land agents took the best land and moved American Indians into the desert lands, which did not support small-scale household farms and did not have sufficient game for hunting. Thieves among the agents replaced food and goods intended for the Indians with inedible or no foodstuffs. Faced with these realities, the American Indians refused the reservations or abandoned them, and attempted to return to ancestral lands, now occupied by white settlers. In other cases, they raided white settlements for food or attacked them seeking to repel the invaders. Grant resorted to military solutions and used U.S. soldiers to repress the tribes. This warfare exacerbated the failure of the army to protect the American Indians against depredations and encroachment by white settlers.
In 1871 Congress took action to halt the suppression of the Natives. It created a Board of Indian Commissioners and relieved Parker of his main responsibilities. Parker resigned in protest. After suffering years of poverty and attempt to suppress their cultures, American Indians were admitted to citizenship in 1924. The government continued to send their children to Indian boarding schools, started in the late 1870s, where Indian languages and cultures were prohibited. Policies of diversity and limited sovereignty were adopted. The Grant administration is universally regarded as inept in Indian affairs as well as have been rife with corruption. Although Morgan contributed to the ideology of assimilation, he escaped accountability for the results.
Later career
Having failed to become Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Morgan applied for various ambassadorships under the Grant administration, including to China and Peru. Grant's administration rejected all the applications, after which Morgan resolved to visit Europe on his own with a professional as well as a personal agenda.
For one year, 1870–71, the three Morgans went on a grand tour of Europe. During his European travels, Morgan met Charles Darwin and the great British anthropologists of the age. He visited Sir John Lubbock, who had coined the words "Paleolithic" and "Neolithic", and used the terms "barbarians" and "savages" in his own studies of the three-age system. Morgan adopted these terms, but with an altered sense, in Ancient Society. Lubbock was using modern ethnology as he knew it to reconstruct the ways of human ancestors. Lubbock's main works had already been published by the time of Morgan's visit. Morgan recorded his European travel and contacts in a journal of several volumes. Extracts were published in 1937 by Leslie White.
He continued with his independent scholarship, never becoming affiliated with any university, although he associated with university presidents and the leading ethnologists looked up to him as a founder of the field. He was an intellectual mentor to those who followed, including John Wesley Powell, who became head of the Bureau of Ethnology in 1879 at the Smithsonian Institution. Morgan was consulted by the highest levels of government on appointments and other ethnological matters. In 1878 he conducted one final field trip, leading a small party in search of native ruins in the American Southwest. They were the first to describe the Aztec ruins on the Animas River but missed discovering Mesa Verde.
Death and legacy
In 1879 Morgan completed two construction projects. One was his library, an addition to the house he had purchased with Mary many years before and where he died in December 1881. He combined the opening of the library with a celebration of the 25th anniversary of The Club. It included a dinner for 40 persons, who were by that time the leading lights of Rochester. The library acquired some fame as a local monument. Pictures were taken and published. The Club only met there one other time, however, at Morgan's funeral in 1881. The second building project was a mausoleum for his daughters in Mount Hope Cemetery. It became the resting place of the entire remainder of the family, starting with Lewis.
His wife survived him by two years. They both left wills. A nephew of Lewis moved to Rochester with his family and took up residence in the house to care for Lewis' and Mary's son. On the son's death 20 years later, the entire estate reverted to the University of Rochester, which by the terms of the wills was to use the funds for the endowment of a college for women, dedicated as a memorial to the Morgan daughters. The nephew attempted to break the wills on his behalf but lost the case in the state supreme court. The house with the library survived into mid-20th-century, when it was demolished to make way for a highway bypass system. Materials relating to Morgan's writings are held in a special collection at the University of Rochester library.
Professional associations
Morgan was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society in 1865. He was elected president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1879. Morgan was also a member of the National Academy of Sciences.
Thought
Work in ethnology
In the 1840s, Morgan had befriended the young Ely S. Parker of the Seneca tribe and the Tonawanda Reservation. With a classical missionary education, Parker went on to study law. With his help, Morgan studied the culture and the structure of Iroquois society. Morgan had noticed they used different terms than Europeans to designate individuals by their relationships within the extended family. He had the creative insight to recognize this was meaningful in terms of their social organization. He defined European terms as "descriptive" and Iroquois (and Native American) terms as "classificatory", terms that continue to be used as major divisions by anthropologists and ethnographers.
Based on his research enabled by Parker, Morgan and Parker wrote and published The League of the Ho-dé-no-sau-nee or Iroquois (1851). Morgan dedicated the book to Parker (who was then 23) and "our joint researches". In subsequent publications of the book Parker's name was omitted. This work presented the complexity of Iroquois society in a path-breaking ethnography that was a model for future anthropologists, as Morgan presented the kinship system of the Iroquois with unprecedented nuance.
Morgan expanded his research far beyond the Iroquois. Although Benjamin Barton had posited Asian origins for Native Americans as early as 1797, in the mid-nineteenth century, other American and European scholars still supported widely varying ideas, including a theory they were one of the lost tribes of Israel, because of the strong influence of biblical and classical conceptions of history. Morgan had begun to theorize the Native Americans originated in Asia. He thought he could prove it by a broad study of kinship terms used by people in Asia as well as tribes in North America.
He wanted to provide evidence for monogenesis, the theory that all human beings descend from a common source (as opposed to polygenism).
In the late 1850s and 1860s, Morgan collected kinship data from a variety of Native American tribes. In his quest to do comparative kinship studies, Morgan also corresponded with scholars, missionaries, US Indian agents, colonial agents, and military officers around the world. He created a questionnaire which others could complete so he could collect data in a standardized way. Over several years, he made months-long trips to what was then the Wild West to further his research.
With the help of local contacts and, after intensive correspondence over the course of years, Morgan analyzed his data and wrote his seminal Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family (1871), which was printed by the Smithsonian Press. It "created at a stroke what without exaggeration might be called the seminal concern of contemporary anthropology, the study of kinship ..." In this work, Morgan set forth his argument for the unity of humankind. At the same time, he presented a sophisticated schema of social evolution based upon the relationship terms, the categories of kinship, used by peoples around the world. Through his analysis of kinship terms, Morgan discerned that the structure of the family and social institutions develop and change according to a specific sequence.
Theory of social evolution
This original theory became less relevant because of the Darwinian revolution, which demonstrated how change happens over time. In addition, Morgan became increasingly interested in the comparative study of kinship (family) relations as a window into understanding larger social dynamics. He saw kinship relations as a basic part of society. Morgan viewed society as a living system that changes over time.
In the years that followed, Morgan developed his theories. Combined with an exhaustive study of classic Greek and Roman sources, he crowned his work with his magnum opus Ancient Society (1877). Morgan elaborated upon his theory of social evolution. He introduced a critical link between social progress and technological progress. He emphasized the centrality of family and property relations. He traced the interplay between the evolution of technology, of family relations, of property relations, of the larger social structures and systems of governance, and intellectual development.
Looking across an expanded span of human existence, Morgan presented three major stages: savagery, barbarism, and civilization. He divided and defined the stages by technological inventions, such as use of fire, bow, pottery in the savage era; domestication of animals, agriculture, and metalworking in the barbarian era; and development of the alphabet and writing in the civilization era. In part, this was an effort to create a structure for North American history that was comparable to the three-age system of European pre-history, which had been developed as an evidence-based system by the Danish antiquarian Christian Jürgensen Thomsen in the 1830s; his work (Guideline to Scandinavian Antiquity) was published in English in 1848. The concept of evidence-based chronological dating received wider notice in English-speaking nations as developed by J. J. A. Worsaae, whose The Primeval Antiquities of Denmark was published in English in 1849.
Initially Morgan's work was accepted as integral to American history, but later it was treated as a separate category of anthropology. Henry Adams wrote of Ancient Society that it "must become the foundation of all future work in American historical science." The historian Francis Parkman also was a fan, but later nineteenth-century historians pushed Native American history to the side of the American story.
Morgan's final work, Houses and House-life of the American Aborigines (1881), was an elaboration on what he had originally planned as an additional part of Ancient Society. In it, Morgan presented evidence, mostly from North and South America, that the development of house architecture and house culture reflected the development of kinship and property relations.
Although many specific aspects of Morgan's evolutionary position have been rejected by later anthropologists, his real achievements remain impressive. He founded the sub-discipline of kinship studies. Anthropologists remain interested in the connections which Morgan outlined between material culture and social structure. His impact has been felt far beyond the Ivory Tower.
Morgan was not quite the social reformer some would believe him to be. Outraged at the manipulations of the Ogden Land Company to get possession of the Tonawanda Seneca Reservation, Morgan exerted some effort in behalf of the Indians, but not nearly as much or to such effect as is generally supposed. Most of his effort seems to have been limited to a few months in 1846, and the issue was not settled until 1857, more than ten years later. The Indians' principal legal counsel in these years was not Morgan, but John Martindale. Morgan's role, such as it was, was that of citizen activist. Then, too, although a champion of the Indian, Morgan was not an advocate of cultural pluralism nor did he work for "cultural survival." The Indian, Morgan exhorted his fellow citizens, ought to be rescued "from his impending destiny," "reclaimed and civilized, and thus saved eventually from the fate which has already befallen so many of our aboriginal races" by education and Christianity.
Influence on Marxism
In 1881, Karl Marx started reading Morgan's Ancient Society, thus beginning Morgan's posthumous influence among European thinkers. Friedrich Engels also read his work after Morgan's death. Although Marx never finished his own book based on Morgan's work, Engels continued his analysis. Morgan's work on the social structure and material culture strongly influenced Engels' sociological theory of dialectical materialism (expressed in his work The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State, 1884). Scholars of the Communist bloc considered Morgan as the preeminent anthropologist. Morgan's work has led to some believing that early communist-like societies existed in Native American society. Though the belief of primitive communism as based on Morgan's work is flawed due to Morgan's misunderstandings of Haudenosaunee society and his, since proven wrong, theory of social evolution. This, and subsequent more accurate research, has led to the society of the Haudenosaunee to be of interest in communist and anarchist analysis. Particularly aspects where land was not treated as a commodity, communal ownership and near non-existent rates of crime.
Eponymous honors
Annual lecture in Morgan's name at the Anthropology Department of the University of Rochester.
Rochester Public School #37 in the 19th Ward named "Lewis H. Morgan #37 School"
Lewis Henry Morgan Institute (a research organization), SUNYIT, Utica, New York
Lewis H. Morgan Rochester Regional Chapter of the New York State Archeological Association
List of Morgan's writings
Lewis Morgan wrote continuously, whether letters, papers to be read, or published articles and books. A list of his major works follows. Some of the letters and papers have been omitted. A complete list, as far as was known, is given by Lloyd in the 1922 revised edition (posthumous) of The League ... . Specifically omitted are 14 "Letters on the Iroquois" read before the New Confederacy, 1844–1846, and published in The American Review in 1847 under another pen name, Skenandoah; 31 papers read before The Club, 1854–1880; and various book reviews published in The Nation.
See also
Cultural evolution
Sociocultural evolution
Ethnology
Unilineal evolution
Origins of society
List of important publications in anthropology
References
Bibliography
.
.
Stern, Bernhard J. "Lewis Henry Morgan Today; An Appraisal of His Scientific Contributions," Science & Society, vol. 10, no. 2 (Spring 1946), pp. 172–176. In JSTOR.
External links
1963 reissue of Ancient Society with introductions by Eleanor Leacock
Knight, C. 2008. Early Human Kinship was Matrilineal. In N. J. Allen, H. Callan, R. Dunbar and W. James (eds), Early Human Kinship. London: Royal Anthropological Institute, pp. 61–82.
1818 births
1881 deaths
People from Aurora, Cayuga County, New York
American people of Welsh descent
New York (state) Republicans
Members of the New York State Assembly
New York (state) state senators
American anthropologists
American feminists
Economic anthropologists
Native Americans' rights activists
19th-century American politicians
Union College (New York) alumni
Members of the American Antiquarian Society
Burials at Mount Hope Cemetery (Rochester) | true | [
"An only child is a person who does not have any siblings, neither biological nor adopted.\n\nOnly Child may also refer to:\n\n Only Child (novel), a novel by Jack Ketchum\n Only Child, a 2020 album by Sasha Sloan",
"John August Kusche (1869 – 1934) was a renowned botanist and entomologist, and he discovered many new species of moths and butterflies. The plant of the aster family, Erigeron kuschei is named in his honor.\n\nNotable discoveries \n\nIn 1928, Kusche donated to the Bishop Museum 164 species of Lepidoptera he collected on Kauai between 1919 and 1920. Of those, 55 species had not previously been recorded on Kauai and 6 were new to science, namely Agrotis stenospila, Euxoa charmocrita, Plusia violacea, Nesamiptis senicula, Nesamiptis proterortha and Scotorythra crocorrhoa.\n\nThe Essig Museum of Entomology lists 26 species collected by Kusche from California, Baja California, Arizona, Alaska and on the Solomon Islands.\n\nEarly life \nHis father's name was Johann Karl Wilhelm Kusche, he remarried in 1883 to Johanna Susanna Niesar. He had three siblings from his father (Herman, Ernst and Pauline) and four half siblings from her second marriage (Bertha, Wilhelm, Heinrich and Reinhold. There were two other children from this marriage, which died young and whom were not recorded). His family were farmers, while he lived with them, in Kreuzburg, Germany.\n\nHis siblings quickly accustomed themselves to their new mother, however August, the eldest, did not get on easily with her. He attended a gardening school there in Kreuzburg. He left at a relatively young age after unintentionally setting a forest fire. \"One day on a walk through Kreuzburg forest, he unintentionally caused a huge forest fire. Fearing jail, he fled from home and somehow made it to America.\"\n\nHe wrote letters back to his family, urging them to come to America. His father eventually did, sometime shortly after February 1893. His father started a homestead in Brownsville, Texas. Yellow fever broke out and his father caught it. He managed to survive, while many did not, leaving him a sick old man in his mid-fifties. He wrote to August, who was then living it Prescott, Arizona, asking for money. August wrote back, saying \"Dear father, if you are out of money, see to it that you go back to Germany as soon as possible. Without any money here, you are lost,\" \n\nAugust didn't have any money either, and had been hoping to borrow money from his father. If he had wanted to visit him, then he would have had to make the trip on foot.\n\nWhen August arrived in America, he got a job as a gardener on a Pennsylvania farm. He had an affair with a Swiss woman, which resulted in a child. August denied being the child's father, but married her anyway. He went west, on horseback, and had his horse stolen by Native Americans. He ended up in San Francisco. His family joined him there. By this time he had three sons and a daughter.\n\nAfter his children grew up, he began traveling and collecting moths and butterflies.\n\nLater life \nHe traveled to the South Seas where he collected moths and butterflies. There he caught a terrible fever that very nearly killed him. He was picked up by a government ship in New Guinea, and was unconscious until he awoke in a San Francisco hospital. After that time he had hearing loss and lost all of his teeth. His doctor told him not to take any more trips to Alaska, and this apparently helped his condition.\n\nIn 1924 he lived in San Diego. He had taken a trip to Alaska just before this date. He worked as a gardener in California for nine years (1915–1924) where he died of stomach cancer.\n\nReferences \n\n19th-century German botanists\n1869 births\n1934 deaths\n20th-century American botanists\nGerman emigrants to the United States"
] |
[
"Lewis H. Morgan",
"Early life and education",
"Where was Lewis born?",
"I don't know.",
"Where did he grow up?",
"near Aurora.",
"Who were his parents?",
"Jedediah Morgan",
"Did he have any siblings?",
"They had eight more children,"
] | C_e5fc21be457745f1b3c92b694b802e45_1 | Where did he go to school? | 5 | Where did Lewis H. Morgan go to school? | Lewis H. Morgan | Lewis' grandfather, Thomas Morgan of Connecticut, had been a Continental soldier in the Revolutionary War. Afterward he and his family migrated west to New York's Finger Lakes region, where he bought land from the Cayuga people and planted a farm on the shores of Lake Cayuga near Aurora. He and his wife already had three sons, including Jedediah, the future father of Lewis; and a daughter. In 1797, Jedediah Morgan (1774-1826) married Amanda Stanton, settling on a 100-acre gift of land from his father. After she had five children and died, Jedediah married Harriet Steele of Hartford, Connecticut. They had eight more children, including Lewis. As an adult, he adopted the middle initial "H." Lewis later decided that this H, if anything, stood for "Henry". A multi-skilled Yankee, Jedediah Morgan invented a plow and formed a business partnership to manufacture parts for it; he built a blast furnace for the factory. He moved to Aurora, leaving the farm to a son. After joining the Masons, he helped to form the first Masonic lodge in Aurora. Elected a state senator, Morgan supported the construction of the Erie Canal, which opened in 1825. At his death in 1826, Jedediah left 500 acres with herds and flocks in trust for the support of his family. This provided for education as well. Lewis studied classical subjects at Cayuga Academy: Latin, Greek, rhetoric and mathematics. His father had bequeathed money specifically for his college education, after giving land to the other children for their occupations. Lewis chose Union College in Schenectady. Due to his work at Cayuga Academy, Lewis finished college in two years, 1838-1840, graduating at age 22. The curriculum continued study of classics combined with science, especially mechanics and optics. Lewis was strongly interested in the works of the French naturalist Georges Cuvier. Eliphalet Nott, the president of Union College, was an inventor of stoves and a boiler; he held 31 patents. A Presbyterian minister, he kept the young men under a tight discipline, forbidding alcoholic beverages and requiring students to get permission to go to town. He held up the Bible as the one practical standard for all behavior. His career ended with some notoriety when he was investigated by the state for attempting to raise funds for the college through a lottery. The students evaded his strict regime by founding secret (and forbidden) fraternities, such as the Kappa Alpha Society. Lewis Morgan joined in 1839. CANNOTANSWER | Lewis studied classical subjects at Cayuga Academy: | Lewis Henry Morgan (November 21, 1818 – December 17, 1881) was a pioneering American anthropologist and social theorist who worked as a railroad lawyer. He is best known for his work on kinship and social structure, his theories of social evolution, and his ethnography of the Iroquois. Interested in what holds societies together, he proposed the concept that the earliest human domestic institution was the matrilineal clan, not the patriarchal family.
Also interested in what leads to social change, he was a contemporary of the European social theorists Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, who were influenced by reading his work on social structure and material culture, the influence of technology on progress. Morgan is the only American social theorist to be cited by such diverse scholars as Marx, Charles Darwin, and Sigmund Freud. Elected as a member of the National Academy of Sciences, Morgan served as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1880.
Morgan was a Republican member of the New York State Assembly (Monroe Co., 2nd D.) in 1861, and of the New York State Senate in 1868 and 1869.
Biography
The American Morgans
According to Herbert Marshall Lloyd, an attorney and editor of Morgan's works, Lewis was descended from James Morgan, brother of Miles, who were Welsh pioneers of Connecticut and Springfield, Massachusetts, respectively. Various sources record that the three sons of William Morgan of Llandaff, Glamorganshire, took passage for Boston in 1636. From there Miles went to Springfield, James to New London, Connecticut and John Morgan to Virginia. Lloyd writes, "From these two brothers [James and Miles] all the Morgans prominent in the annals of New York and New England are believed to be descended." The Morgans to which he refers played a critical part in the foundation of the colonies. During the American Revolutionary War, they were Continentals. Immediately after the war, the Connecticut line, along with many other land-hungry Yankees, migrated into New York State. Following the United States' victory against the British, the new government forced the latter's Iroquois allies to cede most of their traditional lands in New York and Pennsylvania to the US. New York made 5 million of acres available for public sale. In addition, the US government granted some plots in western New York to Revolutionary veterans as compensation for their service in the war.
Early life and education
Lewis' grandfather, Thomas Morgan of Connecticut, had been a Continental soldier in the Revolutionary War. Afterward he and his family migrated west to New York's Finger Lakes region, where he bought land from the Cayuga people and planted a farm on the shores of Lake Cayuga near Aurora. He and his wife already had three sons, including Jedediah, the future father of Lewis; and a daughter.
In 1797, Jedediah Morgan (1774–1826) married Amanda Stanton, settling on a 100-acre gift of land from his father. After she had five children and died, Jedediah married Harriet Steele of Hartford, Connecticut. They had eight more children, including Lewis. As an adult, he adopted the middle initial "H." Morgan later decided that this H, if anything, stood for "Henry".
A multi-skilled Yankee, Jedediah Morgan invented a plow and formed a business partnership to manufacture parts for it; he built a blast furnace for the factory. He moved to Aurora, leaving the farm to a son. After joining the Masons, he helped to form the first Masonic lodge in Aurora. Elected a state senator, Morgan supported the construction of the Erie Canal, which opened in 1825.
At his death in 1826, Jedediah left 500 acres with herds and flocks in trust for the support of his family. This provided for education as well. Morgan studied classical subjects at Cayuga Academy: Latin, Greek, rhetoric and mathematics. His father had bequeathed money specifically for his college education, after giving land to the other children for their occupations. Morgan chose Union College in Schenectady. Due to his work at Cayuga Academy, Morgan finished college in two years, 1838–1840, graduating at age 22. The curriculum continued study of classics combined with science, especially mechanics and optics. Morgan was strongly interested in the works of the French naturalist Georges Cuvier.
Eliphalet Nott, the president of Union College, was an inventor of stoves and a boiler; he held 31 patents. A Presbyterian minister, he kept the young men under a tight discipline, forbidding alcoholic beverages and requiring students to get permission to go to town. He held up the Bible as the one practical standard for all behavior. His career ended with some notoriety when he was investigated by the state for attempting to raise funds for the college through a lottery. The students evaded his strict regime by founding secret (and forbidden) fraternities, such as the Kappa Alpha Society. Lewis Morgan joined in 1839.
The New Confederacy of the Iroquois
After graduating in 1840, Morgan returned to Aurora to read the law with an established firm. In 1842 he was admitted to the bar in Rochester, where he went into partnership with a Union classmate, George F. Danforth, a future judge. They could find no clients, as the nation was in an economic depression, which had started with the Panic of 1837. Morgan wrote essays, which he had begun to do while studying law, and published some in The Knickerbocker under the pen name Aquarius.
On January 1, 1841, Morgan and some friends from Cayuga Academy formed a secret fraternal society which they called the Gordian Knot. As Morgan's earliest essays from that time had classical themes, the club may have been a kind of literary society, as was common then. In 1841 or 1842 the young men redefined the society, renaming it the Order of the Iroquois. Morgan referred to this event as cutting the knot. In 1843 they named it the Grand Order of the Iroquois, followed by the New Confederacy of the Iroquois. They made the group a research organization to collect information on the Iroquois, whose historical territory for centuries had included central and upstate New York west of the Hudson and the Finger Lakes region.
The men intended to resurrect the spirit of the Iroquois. They tried to learn the languages, assumed Iroquois names, and organized the group by the historic pattern of Iroquois tribes. In 1844 they received permission from the former Freemasons of Aurora to use the upper floor of the Masonic temple as a meeting hall. New members underwent a secret rite called inindianation in which they were transformed spiritually into Iroquois. They met in the summer around campfires and paraded yearly through the town in costume. Morgan seemed infused with the spirit of the Iroquois. He said, "We are now upon the very soil over which they exercised dominion ... Poetry still lingers around the scenery. ... " These new Iroquois retained a literary frame of mind, but they intended to focus on "the writing of a native American epic that would define national identity".
Encounter with the Iroquois
On an 1844 business trip to the capital of Albany, Morgan started research on old Cayuga treaties in the state archives. The Seneca people were also studying old US-Native American treaties to support their land claims. After the Revolutionary War, the United States had forced the four Iroquois tribes allied with the British to cede their lands and migrate to Canada.
By specific treaties, the US set aside small reservations in New York for their own allies, the Onondaga and Seneca. In the 1840s, long after the war, the Ogden Land Company, a real estate venture, laid claim to the Seneca Tonawanda Reservation on the basis of a fraudulent treaty. The Seneca sued and had representatives at the state capital pressing their case when Morgan was there.
The delegation, led by Jimmy Johnson, its chief officer (and son of chief Red Jacket), were essentially former officers of what was left of the Iroquois Confederacy. Johnson's 16-year-old grandson Ha-sa-ne-an-da (Ely Parker) accompanied them as their interpreter, as he had attended a mission school and was bilingual. By chance Morgan and the young Parker encountered each other in an Albany book store. Soon intrigued by Morgan's talk of the New Confederacy, Parker invited the older man to interview Johnson and meet the delegation. Morgan took pages of organizational notes, which he used to remodel the New Confederacy. Beyond such details of scholarship, Morgan and the Seneca men formed deep attachments of friendship.
Morgan and his colleagues invited Parker to join the New Confederacy. They (chiefly Morgan) paid for the rest of Parker's education at the Cayuga Academy, along with his sister and a friend of hers. Later the Confederacy paid for Parker's studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, where he graduated in civil engineering. After military service in the American Civil War, from which Parker retired at the rank of brigadier general, he entered the upper ranks of civil service in the presidency of his former commander, Ulysses S. Grant.
The Ogden Land Company affair
Meanwhile, the organization had had activist goals from the beginning. In his initial New Gordius address Morgan had said:
... when the last tribe shall slumber in the grass, it is to be feared that the stain of blood will be found on the escutcheon of the American republic. This nation must shield their declining day ...
In 1838 the Ogden Land Company began a campaign to defraud the remaining Iroquois in New York of their lands. By Iroquois law, only a unanimous vote of all the chiefs sitting in council could effect binding decisions relating to the tribe. The OLC set about to purchase the votes of as many chiefs as it could, plying some with alcohol. The chiefs in many cases complied, believing any resolutions to sell the land would be defeated in council. Obtaining a majority vote for sale at one council called for the purpose, the OLC took their treaty to the Congress of the United States, which knew nothing of Iroquois law. President Martin Van Buren advised Congress that the treaty was fraudulent but on June 11, 1838, Congress adopted it as a resolution. After being compensated for their land by $1.67 per acre (Morgan said it was worth $16 per acre), the Seneca were to be evicted forthwith.
The great majority of the tribe were against the sale of the land. When they discovered they had been defrauded, they were galvanized to action. The New Confederacy stepped into the case on the side of the Seneca, conducting a major publicity campaign. They held mass meetings, circulated a general petition, and spoke to congressmen in Washington. The US Indian agent and ethnologist Henry Rowe Schoolcraft and other influential men became honorary members. In 1846 a general convention of the population of Genesee County, New York sent Morgan to Congress with a counter-offer. The Seneca were allowed to buy back some land at $20 per acre, at which time the Tonawanda Reservation was created. The previous treaty was thrown out. Returning home, Morgan was adopted into the Hawk Clan, Seneca Tribe, as the son of Jimmy Johnson on October 31, 1847, in part to honor his work with the Seneca on the reservation issues. They named him Tayadaowuhkuh, meaning "bridging the gap" (between the Iroquois and the European Americans).
After Morgan was admitted to the tribe, he lost interest in the New Confederacy. The group retained its secrecy and initiation requirements, but they were being hotly disputed. When internal dissent began to impede the group's efficacy in 1847, Morgan stopped attending. For practical purposes it ceased to exist, but Morgan and Parker continued with a series of "Iroquois Letters" to the American Whig Review, edited by George Colton. The Seneca case dragged on. Finally in 1857 the Supreme Court of the United States affirmed that only the federal government could evict the Seneca from their land. As it declined to do that, the case was over. The Ogden Land Company collapsed.
Marriage and family
In 1851 Morgan summarized his investigation of Iroquois customs in his first book of note, League of the Iroquois, one of the founding works of ethnology. In it he compares systems of kinship. In that year also he married his cross-cousin, Mary Elizabeth Steele, his companion and partner for the rest of his life. She had intended to become a Presbyterian missionary. On their wedding day he presented to her an ornate copy of his new book. It was dedicated to his collaborator, Ely Parker.
In 1853 Mary's father died, leaving her a large inheritance. The Morgans bought a brownstone in a wealthy suburb of Rochester. In that year their son, Lemuel, was born, who "turned out to be mentally handicapped". Morgan's rising fame brought him public attention. Lemuel's condition (on no specific evidence) was universally attributed to the first-cousin marriage. The Morgans had to endure perpetual criticism, which they accepted as true, Lewis going to far as, in Ancient Society, to take a stand against cousin marriage. The Morgan marriage remained a close and affectionate one.
Morgan and his wife were active in the First Presbyterian Church of Rochester, mainly of interest to Mary. Morgan refused to make "the public profession of Christ that was necessary for full membership". They both contributed to and sponsored charitable works. In 1856, Mary Elisabeth was born and in 1860 Helen King.
Supporting education
For several years "his ethnical interests lay dormant", but not his scholarship and writing. In 1852 Morgan and eight other "Rochester intellectuals" instituted The Pundit Club, shortened later to just The Club, a scientific and literary society before which the members read papers they had researched for the occasion. Morgan read papers to The Club every year for the rest of his life. He also joined the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Morgan and other leading men of Rochester decided to found a university, the University of Rochester. It did not support the matriculation of women. The group resolved to found a college for women, the Barleywood Female University, which was advertised but apparently never started. In the same year of its foundation, 1852, the donor of the land on which it was to be located gave it to the University of Rochester instead. Morgan was gravely disappointed. He believed that equality of the sexes is a mark of advanced civilization. For the present, he lacked the wealth and connections to prevent the collapse of Barleywood. Later he would serve as a founding trustee of the board of Wells College in Aurora. In addition, he and Mary would leave their estate to the University of Rochester for the foundation of a women's college.
Success at last
In 1855 Morgan and other Rochester businessmen invested in the expanding metals industry of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. After a brief sojourn on the 5-man board of the Iron Mountain Railroad, Morgan joined them in creating the Bay de Noquet and Marquette Railroad Company, connecting the entire Upper Peninsula by a single, ore-bearing line. He became its attorney and director. At that time the U.S. government was selling lands previously confiscated from the natives in cases where the sale benefited the public good. Although the Upper Peninsula was known for its great natural beauty, the discovery of iron persuaded Morgan and others to develop wide-scale mining and industrialization of the peninsula. He spent the next few years between Washington, lobbying for the sale of the land to his company, and in large cities such as Detroit and Chicago, where he fought lawsuits to prevent competitors from taking it. Morgan vigorously defended American capitalism to protect his own interests. After the stockholders refused to pay him for some of his legal work, he all but withdrew from business in favor of field work in anthropology.
In 1861 in the middle of his field work, Morgan was elected as Member of the New York State Assembly on the Republican ticket. The Morgans traditionally had belonged to the Whigs, which dissolved in 1856; most Whigs joined the Republicans, created in 1854. Morgan did not run with any agenda except his own as it pertained to the Iroquois. He was seeking appointment by the President of the United States as Commissioner of the new Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). Morgan anticipated that William H. Seward would be elected president, and outlined to him plans to employ the natives in the manufacture and sale of Indian goods.
At the last moment Abraham Lincoln displaced Seward as the Republican candidate. The new president was deluged by letters from Morgan's associates asking that Morgan be appointed commissioner. Lincoln explained that the post had already been exchanged by his campaign manager for political support. With the chance for appointment lost, Morgan, who had made no pretense of interest in New York state's government, returned to field study of the natives.
Field anthropologist
After attending the 1856 meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Morgan decided on an ethnology study to compare kinship systems. He conducted a field research program funded by himself and the Smithsonian Institution, 1859-1862. He made four expeditions, two to the Plains tribes of Kansas and Nebraska, and two more up the Missouri River past Yellowstone. This was before the development of any inland transportation system. Passengers on riverboats could shoot Bison and other game for food along the upper Missouri River. He collected data on 51 kinship systems. Tribes included the Winnebago, Crow, Yankton, Kaw, Blackfeet, Omaha and others.
At the height of Morgan's anthropological field work, death struck his family. In May and June, 1862, their two daughters, ages 6 and 2, died as a result of scarlet fever while Morgan was traveling in the West. In Sioux City, Iowa, Morgan received the news from his wife. He wrote in his journal:
Two of three of my children are taken. Our family is destroyed. The intelligence has simply petrified me. I have not shed a tear. It is too profound for tears. Thus ends my last expedition. I go home to my stricken and mourning wife, a miserable and destroyed man.
The Civil War
During this time, neither Morgan nor Mary showed any interest in abolitionism, nor did they participate in the American Civil War. They differed markedly from their friend Ely Parker. The latter attempted to raise an Iroquois regiment but was denied, on the grounds that he was not a US citizen, and denied service on the same ground. He entered the army finally by the intervention of his friend, Ulysses S. Grant, serving on Grant's staff. Parker was present at the surrender of General Lee; to Lee's remark that Parker was the "true American" (as an American Indian), he responded, "We are all Americans here, sir."
Morgan held no consistent views on the war. He could easily have joined the anti-slavery cause if he had wished to do so. Rochester, as the last station before Canada on the Underground Railroad, was a center of abolitionism. Frederick Douglass published the North Star in Rochester. Like Morgan, Douglass supported the equality of women, yet they never made connection.
Morgan was anti-slavery but opposed abolitionism on the grounds that slavery was protected by law. Before the war he assented to the possible division of the nation on the grounds of "irreconcilable differences", that is, slavery, between regions. Morgan began to change his mind when some of his friends who had gone out to watch the First Battle of Bull Run were captured and imprisoned by the Confederates for the duration. By the end of the war, he was insisting along with most others that Jefferson Davis be hanged as a traitor. In 1866 he formed the Rochester Committee for the Relief of Southern Starvation.
Morgan did participate indirectly in the war through his company. Recovering from the deaths of his daughters and having resolved to end the expeditions that had taken him away from home, he gave his life totally over to business. In 1863 he and Samuel Ely formed a partnership creating the Morgan Iron Company in northern Michigan. The war had created such a high demand for metals that within the first year of business, the company paid off its founding debt and offered 100% dividends on its stock. The demand went on until 1868, enabling the company to construct a blast furnace. Morgan became independently wealthy and could retire from the practice of law.
The Erie Railroad affair
Morgan took up trout fishing during his Michigan period. He fished in the wilds of Michigan during the summers, sometimes with Ojibwe guides. During this recreational activity, he became interested in beavers, which had greatly modified the lowlands. After several summers of tracking and observing beavers in the field, in 1868 he published a work describing in detail the biology and habits of this animal, which shaped the environment through its construction of dams.
In that year also, his wealth secure and free of business, Morgan entered the state government again as a senator, 1868–1869, still seeking appointment as head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. He was ridiculed by the Union Advertiser as being a "hobby candidate". The Republicans that year were running on a platform of moral probity. They argued that as a superior class, they could and should serve as guardians of the public morals. Morgan passed muster on the heredity because of his descent and Mary's descent from William Bradford, of Mayflower note. Morgan soon was immersed in such issues as whether beer drinking on Sunday should be allowed (a veiled hit at the new German immigrants).
As member of the Standing Committee on Railroads, Morgan became embroiled in a major issue of the day and one closer to his interests: monopoly. The New York Central Railroad, under Cornelius Vanderbilt, had attempted a hostile takeover of the Erie Railroad under Jay Gould by buying up its stock. The two railroads competed for the Rochester market. Daniel Drew, Erie's treasurer, defended successfully by creating new stock, which he had his friends sold short, dropping the value of the stock. Vanderbilt dumped the stock, barely covering the losses. Ordinarily such stock manipulations were illegal. The Railroad Act of 1850, however, allowed railroads to borrow money in exchange for bonds convertible to stocks. Given essentially free stocks, friends of the Erie Railroad grew rich; that is, Drew had found a way to transfer Vanderbilt's wealth to his own friends. Vanderbilt just escaped ruin. He immediately appealed to the state government.
The Railroad Committee investigated the affair. Gould purchased inaction among the senators, a practice Morgan had seen in the Ogden Land Company Affair. This time he worked to protect his friends from investigation. No action was taken. The Erie Railroad affair tapped Morgan's deepest ideological beliefs. To him the role of capitalism in creating mobile wealth was essential to the advancement of civilization. A monopoly such as Vanderbilt had been trying to build would choke off the downward flow of wealth. His report of the Railroad Committee attacked both Vanderbilt and Gould. It argued that the system in its "tendency to combination" was broken. He asserted that the people had to use government action to rein in the power of large corporations. For the time being the Erie Railroad was supported, but Morgan noted that its victory was just as dangerous to society as its defeat would have been.
The Grant-Parker policy on Native Americans
Despite his new interest in government, which was to come to be expressed in his subsequent works on social systems, Morgan persisted in his major goal in running for office, to be appointed Commissioner of Indian Affairs. The choice was now up to President Grant. Together in The League, Parker and Morgan had determined the policy Grant was to adopt. They thought that, much as Parker had assimilated, American Indians should assimilate into American society; they were not yet considered US citizens. Of the two men responsible for his policy, Grant chose his former adjutant. Terribly disappointed, Morgan never applied for the post again. The two collaborators did not speak to each other during Parker's tenure, but Morgan stayed on intimate terms with Parker's family.
The implementation of assimilation policy was more difficult than either man had anticipated. Parker controlled none of the variables. The American Indians were to be moved into reservations, assisted with supplies and food so they could start subsistence farming, and educated at mission schools to be converted to Christianity and American values, until they adopted European-American ways. In theory they would then be able to enter American society at large. The system of appointed Indian agents and traders had long been corrupt; in addition, unscrupulous land agents took the best land and moved American Indians into the desert lands, which did not support small-scale household farms and did not have sufficient game for hunting. Thieves among the agents replaced food and goods intended for the Indians with inedible or no foodstuffs. Faced with these realities, the American Indians refused the reservations or abandoned them, and attempted to return to ancestral lands, now occupied by white settlers. In other cases, they raided white settlements for food or attacked them seeking to repel the invaders. Grant resorted to military solutions and used U.S. soldiers to repress the tribes. This warfare exacerbated the failure of the army to protect the American Indians against depredations and encroachment by white settlers.
In 1871 Congress took action to halt the suppression of the Natives. It created a Board of Indian Commissioners and relieved Parker of his main responsibilities. Parker resigned in protest. After suffering years of poverty and attempt to suppress their cultures, American Indians were admitted to citizenship in 1924. The government continued to send their children to Indian boarding schools, started in the late 1870s, where Indian languages and cultures were prohibited. Policies of diversity and limited sovereignty were adopted. The Grant administration is universally regarded as inept in Indian affairs as well as have been rife with corruption. Although Morgan contributed to the ideology of assimilation, he escaped accountability for the results.
Later career
Having failed to become Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Morgan applied for various ambassadorships under the Grant administration, including to China and Peru. Grant's administration rejected all the applications, after which Morgan resolved to visit Europe on his own with a professional as well as a personal agenda.
For one year, 1870–71, the three Morgans went on a grand tour of Europe. During his European travels, Morgan met Charles Darwin and the great British anthropologists of the age. He visited Sir John Lubbock, who had coined the words "Paleolithic" and "Neolithic", and used the terms "barbarians" and "savages" in his own studies of the three-age system. Morgan adopted these terms, but with an altered sense, in Ancient Society. Lubbock was using modern ethnology as he knew it to reconstruct the ways of human ancestors. Lubbock's main works had already been published by the time of Morgan's visit. Morgan recorded his European travel and contacts in a journal of several volumes. Extracts were published in 1937 by Leslie White.
He continued with his independent scholarship, never becoming affiliated with any university, although he associated with university presidents and the leading ethnologists looked up to him as a founder of the field. He was an intellectual mentor to those who followed, including John Wesley Powell, who became head of the Bureau of Ethnology in 1879 at the Smithsonian Institution. Morgan was consulted by the highest levels of government on appointments and other ethnological matters. In 1878 he conducted one final field trip, leading a small party in search of native ruins in the American Southwest. They were the first to describe the Aztec ruins on the Animas River but missed discovering Mesa Verde.
Death and legacy
In 1879 Morgan completed two construction projects. One was his library, an addition to the house he had purchased with Mary many years before and where he died in December 1881. He combined the opening of the library with a celebration of the 25th anniversary of The Club. It included a dinner for 40 persons, who were by that time the leading lights of Rochester. The library acquired some fame as a local monument. Pictures were taken and published. The Club only met there one other time, however, at Morgan's funeral in 1881. The second building project was a mausoleum for his daughters in Mount Hope Cemetery. It became the resting place of the entire remainder of the family, starting with Lewis.
His wife survived him by two years. They both left wills. A nephew of Lewis moved to Rochester with his family and took up residence in the house to care for Lewis' and Mary's son. On the son's death 20 years later, the entire estate reverted to the University of Rochester, which by the terms of the wills was to use the funds for the endowment of a college for women, dedicated as a memorial to the Morgan daughters. The nephew attempted to break the wills on his behalf but lost the case in the state supreme court. The house with the library survived into mid-20th-century, when it was demolished to make way for a highway bypass system. Materials relating to Morgan's writings are held in a special collection at the University of Rochester library.
Professional associations
Morgan was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society in 1865. He was elected president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1879. Morgan was also a member of the National Academy of Sciences.
Thought
Work in ethnology
In the 1840s, Morgan had befriended the young Ely S. Parker of the Seneca tribe and the Tonawanda Reservation. With a classical missionary education, Parker went on to study law. With his help, Morgan studied the culture and the structure of Iroquois society. Morgan had noticed they used different terms than Europeans to designate individuals by their relationships within the extended family. He had the creative insight to recognize this was meaningful in terms of their social organization. He defined European terms as "descriptive" and Iroquois (and Native American) terms as "classificatory", terms that continue to be used as major divisions by anthropologists and ethnographers.
Based on his research enabled by Parker, Morgan and Parker wrote and published The League of the Ho-dé-no-sau-nee or Iroquois (1851). Morgan dedicated the book to Parker (who was then 23) and "our joint researches". In subsequent publications of the book Parker's name was omitted. This work presented the complexity of Iroquois society in a path-breaking ethnography that was a model for future anthropologists, as Morgan presented the kinship system of the Iroquois with unprecedented nuance.
Morgan expanded his research far beyond the Iroquois. Although Benjamin Barton had posited Asian origins for Native Americans as early as 1797, in the mid-nineteenth century, other American and European scholars still supported widely varying ideas, including a theory they were one of the lost tribes of Israel, because of the strong influence of biblical and classical conceptions of history. Morgan had begun to theorize the Native Americans originated in Asia. He thought he could prove it by a broad study of kinship terms used by people in Asia as well as tribes in North America.
He wanted to provide evidence for monogenesis, the theory that all human beings descend from a common source (as opposed to polygenism).
In the late 1850s and 1860s, Morgan collected kinship data from a variety of Native American tribes. In his quest to do comparative kinship studies, Morgan also corresponded with scholars, missionaries, US Indian agents, colonial agents, and military officers around the world. He created a questionnaire which others could complete so he could collect data in a standardized way. Over several years, he made months-long trips to what was then the Wild West to further his research.
With the help of local contacts and, after intensive correspondence over the course of years, Morgan analyzed his data and wrote his seminal Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family (1871), which was printed by the Smithsonian Press. It "created at a stroke what without exaggeration might be called the seminal concern of contemporary anthropology, the study of kinship ..." In this work, Morgan set forth his argument for the unity of humankind. At the same time, he presented a sophisticated schema of social evolution based upon the relationship terms, the categories of kinship, used by peoples around the world. Through his analysis of kinship terms, Morgan discerned that the structure of the family and social institutions develop and change according to a specific sequence.
Theory of social evolution
This original theory became less relevant because of the Darwinian revolution, which demonstrated how change happens over time. In addition, Morgan became increasingly interested in the comparative study of kinship (family) relations as a window into understanding larger social dynamics. He saw kinship relations as a basic part of society. Morgan viewed society as a living system that changes over time.
In the years that followed, Morgan developed his theories. Combined with an exhaustive study of classic Greek and Roman sources, he crowned his work with his magnum opus Ancient Society (1877). Morgan elaborated upon his theory of social evolution. He introduced a critical link between social progress and technological progress. He emphasized the centrality of family and property relations. He traced the interplay between the evolution of technology, of family relations, of property relations, of the larger social structures and systems of governance, and intellectual development.
Looking across an expanded span of human existence, Morgan presented three major stages: savagery, barbarism, and civilization. He divided and defined the stages by technological inventions, such as use of fire, bow, pottery in the savage era; domestication of animals, agriculture, and metalworking in the barbarian era; and development of the alphabet and writing in the civilization era. In part, this was an effort to create a structure for North American history that was comparable to the three-age system of European pre-history, which had been developed as an evidence-based system by the Danish antiquarian Christian Jürgensen Thomsen in the 1830s; his work (Guideline to Scandinavian Antiquity) was published in English in 1848. The concept of evidence-based chronological dating received wider notice in English-speaking nations as developed by J. J. A. Worsaae, whose The Primeval Antiquities of Denmark was published in English in 1849.
Initially Morgan's work was accepted as integral to American history, but later it was treated as a separate category of anthropology. Henry Adams wrote of Ancient Society that it "must become the foundation of all future work in American historical science." The historian Francis Parkman also was a fan, but later nineteenth-century historians pushed Native American history to the side of the American story.
Morgan's final work, Houses and House-life of the American Aborigines (1881), was an elaboration on what he had originally planned as an additional part of Ancient Society. In it, Morgan presented evidence, mostly from North and South America, that the development of house architecture and house culture reflected the development of kinship and property relations.
Although many specific aspects of Morgan's evolutionary position have been rejected by later anthropologists, his real achievements remain impressive. He founded the sub-discipline of kinship studies. Anthropologists remain interested in the connections which Morgan outlined between material culture and social structure. His impact has been felt far beyond the Ivory Tower.
Morgan was not quite the social reformer some would believe him to be. Outraged at the manipulations of the Ogden Land Company to get possession of the Tonawanda Seneca Reservation, Morgan exerted some effort in behalf of the Indians, but not nearly as much or to such effect as is generally supposed. Most of his effort seems to have been limited to a few months in 1846, and the issue was not settled until 1857, more than ten years later. The Indians' principal legal counsel in these years was not Morgan, but John Martindale. Morgan's role, such as it was, was that of citizen activist. Then, too, although a champion of the Indian, Morgan was not an advocate of cultural pluralism nor did he work for "cultural survival." The Indian, Morgan exhorted his fellow citizens, ought to be rescued "from his impending destiny," "reclaimed and civilized, and thus saved eventually from the fate which has already befallen so many of our aboriginal races" by education and Christianity.
Influence on Marxism
In 1881, Karl Marx started reading Morgan's Ancient Society, thus beginning Morgan's posthumous influence among European thinkers. Friedrich Engels also read his work after Morgan's death. Although Marx never finished his own book based on Morgan's work, Engels continued his analysis. Morgan's work on the social structure and material culture strongly influenced Engels' sociological theory of dialectical materialism (expressed in his work The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State, 1884). Scholars of the Communist bloc considered Morgan as the preeminent anthropologist. Morgan's work has led to some believing that early communist-like societies existed in Native American society. Though the belief of primitive communism as based on Morgan's work is flawed due to Morgan's misunderstandings of Haudenosaunee society and his, since proven wrong, theory of social evolution. This, and subsequent more accurate research, has led to the society of the Haudenosaunee to be of interest in communist and anarchist analysis. Particularly aspects where land was not treated as a commodity, communal ownership and near non-existent rates of crime.
Eponymous honors
Annual lecture in Morgan's name at the Anthropology Department of the University of Rochester.
Rochester Public School #37 in the 19th Ward named "Lewis H. Morgan #37 School"
Lewis Henry Morgan Institute (a research organization), SUNYIT, Utica, New York
Lewis H. Morgan Rochester Regional Chapter of the New York State Archeological Association
List of Morgan's writings
Lewis Morgan wrote continuously, whether letters, papers to be read, or published articles and books. A list of his major works follows. Some of the letters and papers have been omitted. A complete list, as far as was known, is given by Lloyd in the 1922 revised edition (posthumous) of The League ... . Specifically omitted are 14 "Letters on the Iroquois" read before the New Confederacy, 1844–1846, and published in The American Review in 1847 under another pen name, Skenandoah; 31 papers read before The Club, 1854–1880; and various book reviews published in The Nation.
See also
Cultural evolution
Sociocultural evolution
Ethnology
Unilineal evolution
Origins of society
List of important publications in anthropology
References
Bibliography
.
.
Stern, Bernhard J. "Lewis Henry Morgan Today; An Appraisal of His Scientific Contributions," Science & Society, vol. 10, no. 2 (Spring 1946), pp. 172–176. In JSTOR.
External links
1963 reissue of Ancient Society with introductions by Eleanor Leacock
Knight, C. 2008. Early Human Kinship was Matrilineal. In N. J. Allen, H. Callan, R. Dunbar and W. James (eds), Early Human Kinship. London: Royal Anthropological Institute, pp. 61–82.
1818 births
1881 deaths
People from Aurora, Cayuga County, New York
American people of Welsh descent
New York (state) Republicans
Members of the New York State Assembly
New York (state) state senators
American anthropologists
American feminists
Economic anthropologists
Native Americans' rights activists
19th-century American politicians
Union College (New York) alumni
Members of the American Antiquarian Society
Burials at Mount Hope Cemetery (Rochester) | false | [
"Where Did We Go Wrong may refer to:\n \"Where Did We Go Wrong\" (Dondria song), 2010\n \"Where Did We Go Wrong\" (Toni Braxton and Babyface song), 2013\n \"Where Did We Go Wrong\", a song by Petula Clark from the album My Love\n \"Where Did We Go Wrong\", a song by Diana Ross from the album Ross\n \"Where Did We Go Wrong\", a 1980 song by Frankie Valli",
"California Concordia College existed in Oakland, California, United States from 1906 until 1973.\n\nAmong the presidents of California Concordia College was Johann Theodore Gotthold Brohm Jr.\n\nCalifornia Concordia College and the Academy of California College were located at 2365 Camden Street, Oakland, California. Some of the school buildings still exist at this location, but older buildings that housed the earlier classrooms and later the dormitories are gone. The site is now the location of the Spectrum Center Camden Campus, a provider of special education services.\n\nThe \"Academy\" was the official name for the high school. California Concordia was a six-year institution patterned after the German gymnasium. This provided four years of high school, plus two years of junior college. Years in the school took their names from Latin numbers and referred to the years to go before graduation. The classes were named:\n\n Sexta - 6 years to go; high school freshman\n Qunita - 5 years to go; high school sophomore\n Quarta - 4 years to go; high school junior\n Tertia - 3 years to go; high school senior\n Secunda - 2 years to go; college freshman\n Prima - 1 year to go; college sophomore\n\nThose in Sexta were usually hazed in a mild way by upperclassmen. In addition, those in Sexta were required to do a certain amount of clean-up work around the school, such as picking up trash.\n\nMost students, even high school freshmen, lived in dormitories. High school students were supervised by \"proctors\" (selected high school seniors in Tertia). High school students were required to study for two hours each night in their study rooms from 7:00 to 9:00 pm. Students could not leave their rooms for any reason without permission. This requirement came as quite a shock to those in Sexta (freshmen) on their first night, when they were caught and scolded by a proctor when they left their study room to go to the bathroom without permission. Seniors (those in Tertia) were allowed one night off where they did not need to be in their study hall.\n\nFrom 9:00 to 9:30 pm all students gathered for a chapel service. From 9:30 to 10 pm, high school students were free to roam, and sometimes went to the local Lucky Supermarket to purchase snacks. All high school students were required to be in bed with lights out by 10:00 pm. There were generally five students in each dormitory room. The room had two sections: a bedroom area and (across the hallway) another room for studying. Four beds, including at least one bunk bed, were in the bedroom, and four or five desks were in the study room\n\nA few interesting words used by Concordia students were \"fink\" and \"rack.\" To \"fink\" meant to \"sing like a canary\" or \"squeal.\" A student who finked told everything he knew about a misbehavior committed by another student. \"Rack\" was actually an official term used by proctors and administrators who lived on campus in the dormitories with students. When students misbehaved they were racked (punished). Proctors held a meeting once a week and decided which students, if any, deserved to be racked. If a student were racked, he might be forbidden from leaving the campus grounds, even during normal free time School hours were from 7:30 am to 3:30 pm. After 3:30 pm and until 7:00 pm, students could normally explore the local area surrounding the school, for example, to go to a local store to buy a snack. However, if a student were racked for the week, he could not do so.\n\nProctors made their rounds in the morning to make sure beds were made and inspected rooms in the evening to ensure that students were in bed by 10:00 pm. Often after the proctors left a room at night, the room lights would go back on and students enjoyed studying their National Geographic magazines. Student might be racked if they failed to make their beds or did not make them neatly enough.\n\nAlthough California Concordia College no longer exists, it does receive some recognition by Concordia University Irvine. This is also the location of its old academic records.\n\nSources\n\nExternal links \n Photos of old campus\n\nEducational institutions disestablished in 1973\nDefunct private universities and colleges in California\nEducational institutions established in 1906\n1906 establishments in California\n1973 disestablishments in California\nUniversities and colleges affiliated with the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod"
] |
[
"Dwight Howard",
"Public image"
] | C_d944cfc090ab415ca5bfbd6859c14699_0 | What is a positive public image going forhim? | 1 | What is a positive public image going for Dwight Howard ? | Dwight Howard | Before he was drafted in 2004, Howard said that he wanted to use his NBA career and Christian faith to "raise the name of God within the league and throughout the world". He has stated he believes in reaching out to his community and fans and thus contributes substantially in the field of philanthropy. An avid listener of Gospel music, he attends the Fellowship of Faith Church when he is back home in Atlanta and is involved and active with the youth programs at the church. Together with his parents, Howard also established the Dwight D. Howard Foundation Inc. in 2004. The Foundation provides scholarships for students who want to attend his alma mater, Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy, and grants to Lovell Elementary School and Memorial Middle School in Orlando, Florida. The Foundation also organizes summer basketball camps for boys and girls, and together with high school and college coaches and players, fellow NBA players are invited to be on hand at the camp. For his contributions in the Central Florida community, Howard received in 2005 the Rich and Helen De Vos Community Enrichment Award. Within the NBA itself, Howard has participated in several NBA "Read to Achieve" assemblies encouraging children to make reading a priority. In November 2009, the center was named one of the 10 finalists for the Jefferson Awards for Public Service, which awards athletes for their charitable work. In 2009, Howard, along with several other NBA players, joined the Hoops for St. Jude charity program benefitting the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Elsewhere, Howard appeared as a special guest on an episode of the ABC series Extreme Makeover: Home Edition that aired April 2, 2006, in which Ty Pennington and his team built a new home and ministry offices for Sadie Holmes, who operates a social services ministry in the Orlando area. He made another appearance on the show in the October 9, 2011 episode. Along with Sam Worthington and Jonah Hill, Howard appeared in a commercial for the video game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Howard, along with Carmelo Anthony and Scottie Pippen, also appeared in the 2013 Chinese film Amazing, a joint venture between the NBA and Shanghai Film Group Corporation. In 2014, Epix featured Howard as the focal point of a documentary about his life called In the Moment. The film was directed by Ross Greenburg and Executive Producers include Michael D. Ratner and Matthew Weaver. CANNOTANSWER | Howard said that he wanted to use his NBA career and Christian faith to "raise the name of God within the league and throughout the world | Dwight David Howard II (born December 8, 1985) is an American professional basketball player for the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He is an NBA champion, eight-time All-Star, eight-time All-NBA Team honoree, five-time All-Defensive Team member, and three-time Defensive Player of the Year.
Howard, who plays center, spent his high school career at Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy. He chose to forgo college, entered the 2004 NBA draft, and was selected first overall by the Orlando Magic. Howard set numerous franchise and league records with the Magic. He led the team to the 2009 NBA Finals.
In 2012, after eight seasons with Orlando, Howard was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers. After a year with the Lakers, he played for the Houston Rockets, the Atlanta Hawks, the Charlotte Hornets, and the Washington Wizards. Howard returned to the Lakers in 2019 and won his first NBA championship in 2020.
Early life
Howard was born in Atlanta, to Dwight Sr. and Sheryl Howard, a family with strong athletic connections. His father is a Georgia State Trooper and is the athletic director at Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy, a private academy with one of the country's best high school basketball programs; his mother played on the inaugural women's basketball team at Morris Brown College. Howard's mother had seven miscarriages before he was born. A devout Christian since his youth, Howard became serious about basketball around the age of nine. Despite his large frame, Howard was quick and versatile enough to play the guard position. He attended Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy and played mostly as power forward, averaging 16.6 points, 13.4 rebounds and 6.3 blocks per game in 129 appearances. As a senior, Howard led his team to a 31–2 record and the 2004 state title, while averaging 25 points, 18 rebounds, 8.1 blocks and 3.5 assists per game. The same year, he was widely recognized as the best American high school basketball player, and received the Naismith Prep Player of the Year Award, the Morgan Wootten High School Player of the Year Award, Gatorade National Player of the Year and the McDonald's National High School Player of the Year honor. He was also co-MVP (with J. R. Smith) of the McDonald's All-American Game that year. On January 31, 2012, Howard was honored as one of the 35 greatest McDonald's All-Americans.
Professional career
Orlando Magic (2004–2012)
Early years (2004–2008)
Following his high school successes, Howard chose to forego college and declared for the 2004 NBA draft—a decision partly inspired by his idol Kevin Garnett who had done the same in 1995—where the Orlando Magic selected him first overall over UConn junior Emeka Okafor. He took the number 12 for his jersey, in part because it was the reverse of Garnett's 21 when he played for Minnesota. Howard joined a depleted Magic squad that had finished with only 21 victories the previous season; further, the club had just lost perennial NBA All-Star Tracy McGrady. Howard, however, made an immediate impact. He finished his rookie season with an average of 12 points and 10 rebounds, setting several NBA records in the process. He became the youngest player in NBA history to average a double double in the regular season. He also became the youngest player in NBA history to average at least 10 rebounds in a season and youngest NBA player ever to record at least 20 rebounds in a game. Howard's importance to the Magic was highlighted when he became the first player in NBA history directly out of high school to start all 82 games during his rookie season. For his efforts, he was selected to play in the 2005 NBA Rookie Challenge, and was unanimously selected to the All-Rookie Team. He also finished third in the Rookie of the Year voting.
Howard reported to camp for his second NBA season having added 20 pounds of muscle during the off-season. Orlando coach Brian Hill—responsible for grooming former Magic superstar Shaquille O'Neal—decided that Howard should be converted into a full-fledged center. Hill identified two areas where Howard needed to improve: his post-up game and his defense. He exerted extra pressure on Howard, saying that the Magic would need him to emerge as a force in the middle before the team had a chance at the playoffs. On November 15, 2005, in a home game against the Charlotte Bobcats, Howard recorded 21 points and 20 rebounds, becoming the youngest player ever to score 20 or more points and gather 20 or more rebounds in the same game. He was selected to play on the Sophomore Team in the 2006 Rookie Challenge during the All-Star break. Overall, he averaged 15.8 points and 12.5 rebounds per game, ranking second in the NBA in rebounds per game, offensive rebounds, and double-doubles and sixth in field goal percentage. Despite Howard's improvement, the Magic finished the season with a 36–46 record and failed to qualify for the playoffs for the second consecutive season since Howard's arrival.
In the 2006–07 season (and for the third consecutive season), Howard played in all 82 regular-season games. On February 1, 2007, he received his first NBA All-Star selection as a reserve on the Eastern Conference squad for the 2007 NBA All-Star Game. On February 9, he made a game-winning alley-oop off an inbound pass at the buzzer against the San Antonio Spurs. Howard set a new career high with 35 points against the Philadelphia 76ers on April 14. Under his leadership, the Magic qualified for the 2007 NBA Playoffs as the eighth seed in the Eastern Conference. There, the Magic were swept by the Detroit Pistons in the first round. For the season, Howard averaged 17.6 points and 12.3 rebounds per game, finishing first in the NBA in total rebounds, second in field goal percentage, and ninth in blocks. He was named to the All-NBA Third Team at the end of the 2006–07 campaign.
Howard continued posting impressive numbers in the 2007–08 season and helped the Magic have their best season to date. Howard was named as a starter for the Eastern Conference All-Star team. On February 16, 2008, he won the NBA Slam Dunk Contest by receiving 78% of the fan's votes via text messaging or online voting; in that contest, he performed a series of innovative dunks said to have rejuvenated the contest, including donning a Superman cape for one of the dunks. Howard led the Magic to their first division title in 12 years and to the third seed for the 2008 NBA Playoffs. In their first round match-up against the Toronto Raptors, Howard's dominance (three 20-point/20-rebound games) helped Orlando to prevail in five games. Howard's series total of 91 rebounds was also greater than the total rebounds collected by the entire Toronto frontcourt. In the second round against the Pistons, the Magic lost in five games. For the season, Howard was named to the All-NBA First Team for the first time, and was also named to the NBA All-Defensive Second Team.
Dominance and NBA Finals appearance (2008–2011)
The 2008–09 season began well for Howard. Ten games into the season, the center was leading the league in blocks per game (4.2). In December, Howard injured his left knee, which caused him to miss a game due to injury for the first time in his NBA career; previously, he had played in 351 consecutive games. He garnered a record 3.1 million votes to earn the starting berth on the Eastern Conference team for the 2009 NBA All-Star Game. Howard led Orlando to its second straight Southeast Division title and to the third seed for the 2009 NBA Playoffs; the team finished the season with a 59–23 record. In the first round of the playoffs against the 76ers, Howard recorded 24 points and 24 rebounds in Game 5 to give Orlando a 3–2 lead before the Magic closed out the series in six games. In the second round against the Boston Celtics, after the Magic blew a lead in Game 5 to fall behind 3–2 in the series, Howard publicly stated that he should have been given the ball more and questioned coach Stan Van Gundy's tactics. The Magic went on to defeat Boston to win the series and move on to the Eastern Conference Finals. There they, defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers 4–2. Howard had a playoff career-high 40 points to go with his 14 rebounds in the deciding Game 6, leading Orlando to the NBA Finals for the first time in 14 years. In the NBA Finals, the Los Angeles Lakers took the first two home games, before a home win by the Magic brought the deficit to 2–1. In Game 4, despite Howard putting up 21 rebounds and a Finals record of 9 blocks in a game, the Magic lost in overtime. The Lakers went on to clinch the series with a win in Game 5. For the season, Howard became the youngest player ever to win the NBA Defensive Player of the Year Award. He was also named to the NBA All-Defensive First Team, and to the All-NBA First Team.
In the 2009–10 season, the Magic got off to a strong start, winning 17 of their first 21 games and setting a franchise record. On January 21, 2010, Howard was named as the starting center for the East in the 2010 NBA All-Star Game. The Magic completed the regular season with 59 wins and their third consecutive division title. The Magic's playoff run resulted another Eastern Conference Finals appearance, where they lost in six games to the Celtics. Howard won the Defensive Player of the Year Award for the second straight year. He became the first player in NBA history to lead the league in blocks and rebounds in the same season twice—and for two years in a row.
In the 2010–11 season, Howard posted career highs in points and field goal percentage. He became the first player in league history to win Defensive Player of the Year honors for three consecutive seasons. Howard led the league in double-doubles and also averaged 14.1 rebounds, 2.3 blocks and a career-high 1.3 steals this season. He led the Magic to 52 wins, as they finished as the fourth seed in the Eastern Conference. They went on to lose to the Atlanta Hawks in the first round of 2011 NBA Playoffs. He had a playoff career-high 46 points and 19 rebounds in Orlando's 103–93 loss to Atlanta in Game 1. Howard led the NBA in technical fouls with 18 in the regular season, and received one-game suspensions after his 16th and 18th technicals.
Final season in Orlando (2011–2012)
Due to a lockout, the 2011–12 regular season was shortened to 66 games. Not long after the lockout ended, Howard, who was eligible to become a free agent at the end of the season, demanded a trade to the New Jersey Nets, Los Angeles Lakers or Dallas Mavericks. Howard stated that although his preference was to remain in Orlando, he did not feel the Magic organization was doing enough to build a championship contender. He would later meet with Magic officials and agree to back off his trade demands, but stated that he also felt the team needed to make changes to the roster if they wanted to contend for a championship.
On January 12, 2012, Howard attempted an NBA regular season record 39 free throws against the Golden State Warriors. Howard entered the game making 42 percent of his free throws for the season and just below 60 percent for his career. The Warriors hacked Howard intentionally throughout the game, and he broke Wilt Chamberlain's regular-season record of 34 set in 1962. Howard made 21 of the 39 attempts, finishing with 45 points and 23 rebounds in the Magic's 117–109 victory. On January 24, 2012, Howard became the Magic's all-time scoring leader.
On March 15, 2012, on the day of the trading deadline for the 2011–12 NBA season, Howard waived his right to opt out of his contract at the end of the season and committed to stay with the Magic through the 2012–13 season. He had previously asked to be traded to the New Jersey Nets. Had he not signed the amendment, the Magic were prepared to trade him to avoid losing him as a free agent. On April 5, Van Gundy said that he had been informed by management that Howard wanted him fired. During the interview, the center walked up and hugged his coach, unaware that Van Gundy had confirmed a report that Howard denied. Van Gundy was let go after the season.
On April 19, 2012, Howard's agent said that Howard would undergo surgery to repair a herniated disk in his back and would miss the rest of the 2011–12 season, as well as the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. During the offseason, Howard again requested a trade to the Nets, who had relocated to Brooklyn. He intended to become a free agent at the end of the 2012–13 season if he was not traded to Brooklyn.
Los Angeles Lakers (2012–2013)
On August 10, 2012, Howard was traded from Orlando to the Los Angeles Lakers in a deal that also involved the Philadelphia 76ers and the Denver Nuggets. Howard took six months off from basketball after his April back surgery, and only had the combined four weeks of training camp and preseason to prepare for the season. Still working himself into shape, Howard paced himself throughout the season on both offense and defense. On January 4, 2013, Howard injured his right shoulder in the second half of the Lakers' 107–102 loss to the Los Angeles Clippers. At the midpoint of the season, the Lakers were a disappointing 17–24. Howard was averaging 17.1 points on 58.2% shooting, 12.3 rebounds, and 2.5 blocks, but also 3.6 fouls a game with 3.2 turnovers while making only 50.4% of his free throws.
Howard was upset that he was not getting the ball enough, and he felt that Kobe Bryant was shooting too much. Moving forward, Howard said he needed to "bring it" and dominate in more ways than just scoring. Howard missed games due to his recurring shoulder injury in January and February. In February, Bryant said that Howard "worries too much" and "doesn't want to let anyone down", urging him to play through the pain when Pau Gasol was sidelined with a torn plantar fascia. Howard returned the next game after commenting that Bryant was "not a doctor, I'm not a doctor. That's his opinion."
During the All-Star break, Howard adopted a healthier diet to get into better shape to anchor the Lakers' defense and run head coach Mike D'Antoni's preferred pick and rolls. Still, on February 23, Howard said he was "not even close" to physically being where he wanted to be. Coach Mike D'Antoni attributed Howard's difficulty running the pick-and-roll—a play the coach had expected would be a staple for the team—with Steve Nash to Howard's lack of conditioning. The Lakers were 8–2 after the All-Star break, passing Utah for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference, and Howard averaged 15.5 points, 14.8 rebounds, and 2.6 blocks. In his first game back in Orlando on March 12, Howard scored a season-high 39 points and had 16 rebounds in a 106–97 Lakers win. Booed throughout the game, he made 25 of 39 free throws, setting franchise records for free throws made and attempted while tying his own NBA record for attempts. Howard made 16 of 20 free throws when he was fouled intentionally by the Magic. With Howard anchoring the Lakers defense and his improved overall play, the Lakers made the playoffs, but were swept in the opening round by San Antonio. Howard was ejected in Game 4 with over nine minutes left in the third quarter.
Howard finished the season with his lowest scoring average since his second year in the NBA, but he was the league leader in rebounding and ranked second in field goal percentage. Although he was recovering from his back surgery, he only missed six games all season—all due to his torn labrum. Howard was named to the All-NBA Third Team after having received five consecutive first-team honors. He became a free agent in the summer, and he was offered a maximum contract of five years and $118 million by the Lakers.
Houston Rockets (2013–2016)
On July 13, 2013, Howard signed with the Houston Rockets, joining James Harden to form a formidable duo. Howard finished the regular season with averages of 18.3 points and 12.2 rebounds and earned All-NBA Second Team honors. During the 2014 playoffs, Howard averaged 26 points and 13.7 rebounds per game, but the Rockets were eliminated by the Portland Trail Blazers in the first round, losing the series 4–2.
After playing in the Rockets' first 10 out of 11 games to start the 2014–15 season, Howard missed 11 straight due to a strained right knee before returning to action on December 13 against the Denver Nuggets and recording his 10,000th career rebound. However, on January 31, Howard was ruled out for a further month due to persistent trouble with his right knee. After setbacks forced him out for a further month and a total of 26 games, Howard returned to action on March 25 against the New Orleans Pelicans. He started the game but was held under 17 minutes by coach Kevin McHale and finished with just four points and seven rebounds in a 95–93 win. Howard played only 41 games in the regular season. The Rockets clinched their first division title in over 20 years and made it to the Western Conference Finals, where they lost 4–1 to the Golden State Warriors.
On November 4, 2015, Howard had 23 points and 14 rebounds against the Orlando Magic. He shot 10-of-10 to become the first Rocket to make 10 or more field goals without a miss since Yao Ming went 12-of-12 in 2009. On December 26, he eclipsed 15,000 points for his career in a loss to the New Orleans Pelicans. On January 18, 2016, in an overtime loss to the Los Angeles Clippers, Howard had 36 points and tied a career high with 26 rebounds en route to his 10th straight double-double, the league's longest active streak at the time, and his longest since a 14-game run in 2012–13. On June 22, 2016, Howard declined his $23 million player option for the 2016–17 season and became an unrestricted free agent.
Atlanta Hawks (2016–2017)
On July 12, 2016, Howard signed a three-year, $70 million contract with his hometown team the Atlanta Hawks. With the retirement of Tim Duncan, Howard entered the 2016–17 season as the NBA's active leader in rebounds (12,089) and blocked shots (1,916). In his debut for the Hawks in their season opener on October 27, Howard grabbed 19 rebounds in a 114–99 win over the Washington Wizards. It was the most rebounds for anyone in their Atlanta debut, breaking the mark of 18 that Shareef Abdur-Rahim set on October 30, 2001. On November 2, he scored a season-high 31 points in a 123–116 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers. On February 2, he had a season-best game with 24 points and 23 rebounds in a 113–108 win over the Rockets in Houston.
Charlotte Hornets (2017–2018)
On June 20, 2017, the Hawks traded Howard, along with the 31st overall pick in the 2017 NBA draft, to the Charlotte Hornets in exchange for Marco Belinelli, Miles Plumlee and the 41st overall pick in the 2017 NBA draft. To begin the season, Howard became the first Charlotte player since Emeka Okafor in 2007 with four consecutive 15-rebound games. In the fifth game of the season, he had another 15-rebound game. On March 15, he scored 20 of his season-high 33 points in the second half of the Hornets' 129–117 win over the Atlanta Hawks. On March 21, Howard recorded 32 points and a franchise-record 30 rebounds in a 111–105 win over the Nets, becoming just the eighth player in league history with a 30–30 game. He became the first NBA player with a 30-point, 30-rebound game since Kevin Love in November 2010, and the first player with a 30–30 game against the Nets since Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in February 1978. The next day, Howard was suspended for one game without pay due to receiving his 16th technical foul of the season. Howard finished the season with a franchise-record 53 double-doubles and joined Abdul-Jabbar and Wilt Chamberlain as the only players to hold single-season records with two teams. Howard also became one of six players to average a double-double in each of his first 13 seasons in the league.
On July 6, 2018, Howard was traded to the Brooklyn Nets in exchange for Timofey Mozgov, the draft rights to Hamidou Diallo, a 2021 second-round draft pick and cash considerations. He was waived by the Nets immediately upon being acquired.
Washington Wizards (2018–2019)
On July 12, 2018, Howard signed with the Washington Wizards. He missed all of training camp, every exhibition game and the first seven regular-season games with a sore backside. He appeared in nine games in November before missing the rest of the season after undergoing spinal surgery to relieve pain in his glutes. In March 2019, it was revealed that Howard, in addition to his back injury, was also dealing with a hamstring issue. On April 18, 2019, Howard exercised his $5.6 million player option to play a second season with the Wizards.
On July 6, 2019, Howard was traded to the Memphis Grizzlies for forward C. J. Miles. On August 24, 2019, Howard was waived by the Grizzlies.
Return to the Lakers (2019–2020)
On August 26, 2019, Howard signed a $2.6 million veteran's minimum contract with the Los Angeles Lakers, reuniting him with his former team. He was replacing DeMarcus Cousins, a free agent signed earlier in the offseason who was lost for the year after suffering a knee injury. To assure the team that he would accept any role the team asked, Howard offered to sign a non-guaranteed contract, freeing the Lakers to cut him at any time.
During the season, the Lakers split time fairly evenly between him and starting center JaVale McGee. On January 13, 2020, Howard scored a season-high 21 points on a 9-of-11 shooting and got a season-high 15 rebounds. In Game 4 of the Western Conference finals against the Denver Nuggets, Lakers coach Frank Vogel started Howard to match up against the Nuggets' Nikola Jokić. Howard had 12 points and 11 rebounds in 23 minutes to help the Lakers win and take a 3–1 lead in the series. He had started twice during the regular season, but this was his first start by coach's decision when McGee was available. The Lakers advanced to the NBA Finals, winning the series 4–2 over the Miami Heat and giving Howard his first NBA championship.
Philadelphia 76ers (2020–2021)
On November 21, 2020, the Philadelphia 76ers signed Howard to a one-year deal worth $2,564,753. With the 76ers he averaged 7 points and 8.4 rebounds. Howard played 69 games with the Sixers with six starts in 17.3 minutes. He was suspended for one game after getting into a scuffle with Udonis Haslem where both were assessed technical fouls and Haslem was ejected. Howard was suspended because he incurred his 16th technical foul of the year.
Third stint with the Lakers (2021–present)
Howard signed a $2.6 million veteran's minimum contract with the Los Angeles Lakers on August 6, 2021.
National team career
On March 5, 2006, Howard was named to the 2006–2008 USA Basketball Men's Senior National Team program. As the team's regular starting center, he helped lead the team to a 5–0 record during its pre-World Championship tour, and subsequently helped the team win the bronze medal at the 2006 FIBA World Championship. During the FIBA Americas Championship 2007, Howard was on the team which won its first nine games en route to qualifying for the finals and a spot for the 2008 Olympics. He started in eight of those nine games, averaging 8.9 ppg, 5.3 rpg and led the team in shooting .778 from the field. In the finals, he made all seven of his shots and scored 20 points as the USA defeated Argentina to win the gold medal.
On June 23, 2008, Howard was named as one of the members of the 12-man squad representing the United States in the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. With Howard starting as center, Team USA won all of its games en route to the gold medal, breaking their drought of gold medals dating back to the 2000 Olympics. Howard averaged 10.9 points and 5.8 rebounds per game in the tournament.
Player profile
Standing and weighing , Howard plays the center position. He led the NBA in rebounding from 2007 to 2010, and again from 2012 to 2013. Howard's rebounding is in part facilitated by his extraordinary athleticism; his running vertical leap was tested at in 2011, rare for a player of his size. He demonstrated this skill in the 2007 Slam Dunk Contest, where he completed an alley oop dunk from teammate Jameer Nelson while slapping a sticker onto the backboard at high. The sticker showed an image of his own smiling face with a handwritten "All things through Christ Phil: 4:13", a paraphrase of .
Howard's abilities and powerful physique have drawn attention from fellow NBA All-Stars. Tim Duncan remarked in 2007, "[Howard] is so developed... He has so much promise and I am glad that I will be out of the league when he is peaking." Kevin Garnett echoed those sentiments: "[Howard] is a freak of nature, man... I was nowhere near that physically talented. I wasn't that gifted, as far as body and physical presence." After a game in the 2009 NBA Playoffs, Philadelphia 76ers swingman Andre Iguodala said: "It's like he can guard two guys at once. He can guard his guy and the guy coming off the pick-and-roll, which is almost impossible to do... If he gets any more athletic or jumps any higher, they're going to have to change the rules." In December 2007, ESPN writer David Thorpe declared Howard the most dominant center in the NBA. Early in his career, many sports pundits rated Howard one of the top young prospects in the NBA.
Howard has a reputation as a negative locker room presence. In a 2013 interview, he called his former Orlando Magic teammates a "team full of people no one wanted". In a 2013 article titled "Is Dwight Howard the NBA's Worst Teammate?", Bleacher Report asserted that Howard had "extinguished all bridges with the franchise where he spent his first eight NBA seasons". Howard did not get along with Kobe Bryant when he played for the Lakers and did not get along with James Harden when he played for the Rockets. When he was traded from the Atlanta Hawks to the Charlotte Hornets, some of his Hawks teammates reportedly cheered. After Charlotte traded Howard to the Washington Wizards, Charlotte player Brendan Haywood asserted that Howard's teammates were "sick and tired of his act". In 2018, NBC News reported that "Howard’s time with the Magic, Lakers and Rockets devolved into interpersonal strife well before he left those teams". Also in 2018, The Ringer published a piece titled "Everybody (Still) Hates Dwight" in which it called Howard "almost certainly the least popular player in the NBA". Before signing with the Lakers in 2019, Howard reportedly met with the team multiple times, "promising not to live up to his reputation as a difficult teammate who disrupts locker rooms"; the team warned him that he would be released if he became a disruptive presence.
NBA career statistics
Regular season
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 82 || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 32.6 || .520 || .000 || .671 || 10.0 || .9 || .9 || 1.7 || 12.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 81 || 36.8 || .531 || .000 || .595 || 12.5 || 1.5 || .8 || 1.4 || 15.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 36.9 || .603 || .500 || .586 || 12.3 || 1.9 || .9 || 1.9 || 17.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 37.7 || .599 || .000 || .590 || style="background:#cfecec;"| 14.2* || 1.3 || .9 || 2.1 || 20.7
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 79 || 79 || 35.7 || .572 || .000 || .594 || style="background:#cfecec;"| 13.8* || 1.4 || 1.0 || style="background:#cfecec;"| 2.9* || 20.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 34.7 || style="background:#cfecec;"| .612* || .000 || .592 || style="background:#cfecec;"| 13.2* || 1.8 || .9 || style="background:#cfecec;"| 2.8* || 18.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 78 || 78 || 37.5 || .593 || .000 || .596 || 14.1 || 1.4 || 1.4 || 2.4 || 22.9
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 54 || 54 || 38.3 || .573 || .000 || .491 || style="background:#cfecec;"|14.5* || 1.9 || 1.5 || 2.1 || 20.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 76 || 76 || 35.8 || .578 || .167 || .492 ||bgcolor="CFECEC"| 12.4* || 1.4 || 1.1 || 2.4 || 17.1
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 71 || 71 || 33.7 || .591 || .286 || .547 || 12.2 || 1.8 || .8 || 1.8 || 18.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 41 || 41 || 29.8 || .593 || .500 || .528 || 10.5 || 1.2 || .7 || 1.3 || 15.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 71 || 71 || 32.1 || .620 || .000 || .489 || 11.8 || 1.4 || 1.0 || 1.6 || 13.7
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Atlanta
| 74|| 74 || 29.7 || .633 || .000 || .533 || 12.7 || 1.4 || .9 || 1.2 || 13.5
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Charlotte
| 81 || 81 || 30.4 || .555 || .143 || .574 || 12.5 || 1.3 || .6 || 1.6 || 16.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Washington
| 9 || 9 || 25.6 || .623 || .000 || .604 || 9.2 || .4 || .8 || .4 || 12.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 69 || 2 || 18.9 || .729 || .600 || .514 || 7.3 || .7 || .4 || 1.1 || 7.5
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Philadelphia
| 69 || 6 || 17.3 || .587 || .250 || .576 || 8.4 || .9 || .4 || .9 || 7.0
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|Career
| 1182 || 1051 || 32.6 || .586 || .159 || .566 || 12.1 || 1.4 || .9 || 1.9 || 16.2
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|All-Star
| 8 || 6 || 23.3 || .642 || .154 || .450 || 8.8 || 1.5 || .6 || 1.1 || 12.1
Playoffs
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2007
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 4 || 4 || 41.8 || .548 || .000 || .455 || 14.8 || 1.8 || .5 || 1.0 || 15.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2008
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 10 || 10 || 42.1 || .581 || .000 || .542 || 15.8 || .9 || .8 || 3.4 || 18.9
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2009
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 23 || 23 || 39.3 || .601 || .000 || .636 || 15.3 || 1.9 || .9 || 2.6 || 20.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2010
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 14 || 14 || 35.5 || .614 || .000 || .519 || 11.1 || 1.4 || .8 || 3.5|| 18.1
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2011
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 6 || 6 || 43.0 || .630 || .000 ||.682 || 15.5 || 0.5 || .7 || 1.8 || 27.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2013
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 4 || 4 || 31.5 || .619 || .000 || .444 || 10.8 || 1.0 || .5 || 2.0 || 17.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2014
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 6 || 6 || 38.5 || .547 || .000 || .625 || 13.7 || 1.8 || .7 || 2.8 || 26.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2015
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 17 || 17 || 33.8 || .577 || .000 || .412 || 14.0 || 1.2 || 1.4 || 2.3 || 16.4
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2016
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 5 || 5 || 36.0 || .542 || .000 || .368 || 14.0 || 1.6 || .8 || 1.4 || 13.2
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2017
| style="text-align:left;"|Atlanta
| 6 || 6 || 26.1 || .500 || .000 || .632 || 10.7 || 1.3 || 1.0 || .8 || 8.0
|-
|style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"|2020†
|style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 18 || 7 || 15.7 || .684 || .500 || .556 || 4.6 || .5 || .4 || .4 || 5.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2021
| style="text-align:left;"|Philadelphia
| 12 || 0 || 12.4 || .533 || .000 || .600 || 6.3 || .7 || .2 || .5 || 4.7
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|Career
| 125 || 102 || 31.6 || .589 || .143 || .548 || 11.8 || 1.2 || .8 || 2.0 || 15.3
Televised appearances
Howard appeared as a special guest on an episode of the ABC series Extreme Makeover: Home Edition that aired April 2, 2006, in which Ty Pennington and his team built a new home and ministry offices for Sadie Holmes, who operates a social services ministry in the Orlando area.
Howard competed in season 6 of The Masked Singer as "Octopus". He was the first one to be eliminated during the two-night premiere alongside Vivica A. Fox as "Mother Nature" and Toni Braxton as "Pufferfish".
Personal life
Howard has five children by five women. In 2010, Howard won a defamation judgment against Royce Reed, the mother of his oldest child Braylon. A Florida judge ruled that she violated a court order prohibiting her from mentioning Howard in the media. He had initially sought about half a billion dollars in damages, claiming that she had disparaged him through Twitter and her appearances on the reality television show, Basketball Wives, as the couple's paternity agreement stipulated a $500 fine for each time she mentioned him in public.
In October 2014, police in Cobb County, Georgia investigated claims by Reed that Howard abused their son. Howard had admitted to hitting Braylon with a belt; he had been disciplined in the same manner while growing up, and he stated that he did not realize it was wrong to do so. Howard was not charged in connection with the allegations. Howard was also involved in a civil case with Reed over custody of their son.
Howard keeps approximately 20 snakes as pets and has appeared twice in Animal Planet's reality TV series Tanked. He owns a farm "in north Georgia where he relaxes [with] cows, hogs, turkeys and deer," and also grows vegetables on his estate.
Melissa Rios, the mother of his son, David, died on March 27, 2020, following an epileptic seizure. David was with Howard at his home in Georgia at the time to ride out the COVID-19 pandemic.
Philanthropy, faith, and public image
Before he was drafted in 2004, Howard said that he wanted to use his NBA career and Christian faith to "raise the name of God within the league and throughout the world". He has stated he believes in reaching out to his community and fans and thus contributes substantially in the field of philanthropy. Together with his parents, Howard established the Dwight D. Howard Foundation Inc. in 2004. In November 2009, the center was named one of the 10 finalists for the Jefferson Awards for Public Service, which awards athletes for their charitable work.
In 2014, Epix featured Howard as the focal point of a documentary about his life called In the Moment.
See also
List of career achievements by Dwight Howard
List of National Basketball Association career games played leaders
List of National Basketball Association career rebounding leaders
List of National Basketball Association career blocks leaders
List of National Basketball Association career turnovers leaders
List of National Basketball Association career free throw scoring leaders
List of National Basketball Association career playoff blocks leaders
List of National Basketball Association annual rebounding leaders
List of National Basketball Association annual blocks leaders
List of National Basketball Association players with most blocks in a game
List of National Basketball Association players with most rebounds in a game
List of National Basketball Association franchise career scoring leaders
Notes
References
External links
1985 births
Living people
2006 FIBA World Championship players
21st-century African-American sportspeople
African-American basketball players
African-American Christians
American men's basketball players
Atlanta Hawks players
Basketball players at the 2008 Summer Olympics
Basketball players from Atlanta
Centers (basketball)
Charlotte Hornets players
Houston Rockets players
Los Angeles Lakers players
McDonald's High School All-Americans
Medalists at the 2008 Summer Olympics
National Basketball Association All-Stars
National Basketball Association high school draftees
Olympic gold medalists for the United States in basketball
Orlando Magic draft picks
Orlando Magic players
Parade High School All-Americans (boys' basketball)
Philadelphia 76ers players
Power forwards (basketball)
United States men's national basketball team players
Washington Wizards players
20th-century African-American people | true | [
"\"This Is Not a Love Song\" is a single released by English post-punk group Public Image Ltd in 1983. It is the group's biggest commercial hit, peaking at number 5 on the UK Singles Chart and at number 3 on the Irish Singles Chart.\n\nThe 12\" remixed version of the song is featured on Commercial Zone as \"Love Song\". A re-recorded version of the song is featured on PiL's fourth studio album This Is What You Want... This Is What You Get and includes a horn section.\n\nThe song was used in the 2008 animated movie Waltz with Bashir.\n\nTrack listing\n7\" vinyl – A|B Virgin 105 938\n\"This Is Not a Love Song\" – 3:30\n\"Public Image\" – 2:58\n\n12\" maxi – Virgin 600 997\n\"This Is Not a Love Song\" – 4:27\n\"Blue Water\" – 3:46\n\"This Is Not a Love Song (Remixed version)\" – 4:27\n\"Public Image\" – 2:58\n\nChart performance\n\nReferences\n\n1983 singles\n1983 songs\nPublic Image Ltd songs\nSongs written by John Lydon\nVirgin Records singles\nSongs written by Keith Levene",
"Psycho-Cybernetics is a self-help book written by Maxwell Maltz in 1960. Motivational and self-help experts in personal development, including Zig Ziglar, Tony Robbins, Brian Tracy have based their techniques on Maxwell Maltz. Many of the psychological methods of training elite athletes are based on the concepts in Psycho-Cybernetics as well. The book combines the cognitive behavioral technique of teaching an individual how to regulate self-concept, using theories developed by Prescott Lecky, with the cybernetics of Norbert Wiener and John von Neumann. The book defines the mind-body connection as the core in succeeding in attaining personal goals.\n\nMaltz found that his plastic surgery patients often had expectations that were not satisfied by the surgery, so he pursued a means of helping them set the goal of a positive outcome through visualization of that positive outcome. Patients thinking that surgery will solve their problems is an example of the XY problem. Maltz became interested in why setting goals works. He learned that the power of self-affirmation and mental visualization techniques used the connection between the mind and the body. He specified techniques to develop a positive inner goal as a means of developing a positive outer goal. This concentration on inner attitudes is essential to his approach, as he believes that a person's outer success can never rise above the one visualized internally.\n\nThe operator and the \"mechanism\"\n\nMaxwell Maltz drew inspiration from Norbert Wiener's book, Cybernetics, which describes both animals and the self-guided missiles he helped develop in WWII as goal-seeking mechanisms. \n\nIn Psycho-Cybernetics, Maltz observed from Wiener's work the following on cybernetic mechanisms:\n\n There's a \"mechanism\" which\n can accept a \"goal\"\n has sensing equipment (cameras, radar, infrared, lasers)\n has a propulsion system\n has a correcting device \n has some form of memory\n The operator gives the mechanism a goal and \"starts\" it\n During propulsion, the mechanism subtracts what it senses from the goal from the data received\n If on track, nothing is done and it keeps going\n If off track, the correcting device shifts until \"the goal minus what it senses\" is on track.\n The mechanism refers to successful moves in its memory, hitting the goal without having to search for the answer again. \n\nHe noted that Wiener sees that man operates the same way. From this, he drew the following conclusions on a human being:\n\n A person, for what is conscious, is \"the operator\", which can identify and offer goals\n What's traditionally called the \"subconscious mind\" isn't a \"mind\" but a cybernetic mechanism built on our nervous system.\n it can accept a goal--image and an emotion determines if it accepts it\n The mechanism has sensing equipment like the eyes and ears\n The various systems, primarily the musculature and nervous systems, propel the mechanism\n The nervous system works w/ other systems as the correcting device \n The memory can be used to see past successes, making future success more likely\n The operator gives a goal to the mechanism (called the \"Automatic Success Mechanism\" and \"Automatic Failure Mechanism\", which refer to the same mechanism). \n The mechanism responds no matter what, whether the goal is \"positive\" or \"negative\". It will move toward it.\n The most powerful goal image is an image of ourselves, because it causes a wide variety of useful or harmful behaviors from the mechanism.\n When successful responses are found, we can remember past successes, and our mechanism will repeat the successful response.\n\nThe core of nearly all bad results is the conscious giving bad goal images to the mechanism.\n\nMaltz viewed worry, or focusing on negative possibilities, as generating negative goal images that cause the mechanism, the subconscious, the set of human systems like the musculature, to drive toward it. At the same time, he viewed it as evidence that you could generate goal imagery, and that you could \"worry\" about positive images instead of negative.\n\nPositive results come from a positive goal focus. To see positive goals, he says that we need a realistic and adequate self-image that recognizes these goals as possible and consistent with the self.\n\nHe refers heavily to Prescott Lecky's idea that whatever is not consistent with the system of ideas a person has will get rejected. To have positive goals that the mechanism will move toward, the system of ideas, primarily the self-image, needs to be set so that the positive goal image will be consistent with the other ideas. This will allow the operator to comfortably keep the goal image in mind, which the mechanism will act on.\n\nOther key ideas\nMaltz also teaches that:\n\n We act on our mental representation of things, not the things themselves. We could respond with fear appropriate to seeing a bear, whether it's an actual bear, an actor, or a large shaggy dog.\n Negative feedback should be used to correct toward our goals. If corrective action on negative feedback isn't progressing one toward a goal, the correct response is no response.\n In cybernetic mechanisms, once success is found, it is focused on and errors are forgotten. Maltz encourages readers to recall past failures and unhappy moments.\n He saw self-image change as self-image realization, \"Oh, this is who I am\". This is where dramatic behavior change happens.\n Hypnosis is the relaxed acceptance of ideas (beliefs). Accepted ideas determine what we're willing to see and therefore what goals we pass into the mechanism.\n Each (agonist) muscle has an opposite, antagonist muscle. When a hypnotist instructed a weight lifter that he couldn't pick up a pencil, he noted that the antagonistic muscles opposed his conscious effort, and he couldn't pick it up.\n Imagination: The first Key to Your Success Mechanism.\n\nReception\nThe book rapidly attained best-seller status and has remained in print continuously since 1960.\n\nPosthumous editions\nSeveral adaptations have been produced since Maltz's death in 1975.\n\nReferences\n\nPersonal development\nSystems theory books\nSelf-help books"
] |
[
"Dwight Howard",
"Public image",
"What is a positive public image going forhim?",
"Howard said that he wanted to use his NBA career and Christian faith to \"raise the name of God within the league and throughout the world"
] | C_d944cfc090ab415ca5bfbd6859c14699_0 | What way does he plan on reaching out? | 2 | What way does Dwight Howard plan on reaching out to the world? | Dwight Howard | Before he was drafted in 2004, Howard said that he wanted to use his NBA career and Christian faith to "raise the name of God within the league and throughout the world". He has stated he believes in reaching out to his community and fans and thus contributes substantially in the field of philanthropy. An avid listener of Gospel music, he attends the Fellowship of Faith Church when he is back home in Atlanta and is involved and active with the youth programs at the church. Together with his parents, Howard also established the Dwight D. Howard Foundation Inc. in 2004. The Foundation provides scholarships for students who want to attend his alma mater, Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy, and grants to Lovell Elementary School and Memorial Middle School in Orlando, Florida. The Foundation also organizes summer basketball camps for boys and girls, and together with high school and college coaches and players, fellow NBA players are invited to be on hand at the camp. For his contributions in the Central Florida community, Howard received in 2005 the Rich and Helen De Vos Community Enrichment Award. Within the NBA itself, Howard has participated in several NBA "Read to Achieve" assemblies encouraging children to make reading a priority. In November 2009, the center was named one of the 10 finalists for the Jefferson Awards for Public Service, which awards athletes for their charitable work. In 2009, Howard, along with several other NBA players, joined the Hoops for St. Jude charity program benefitting the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Elsewhere, Howard appeared as a special guest on an episode of the ABC series Extreme Makeover: Home Edition that aired April 2, 2006, in which Ty Pennington and his team built a new home and ministry offices for Sadie Holmes, who operates a social services ministry in the Orlando area. He made another appearance on the show in the October 9, 2011 episode. Along with Sam Worthington and Jonah Hill, Howard appeared in a commercial for the video game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Howard, along with Carmelo Anthony and Scottie Pippen, also appeared in the 2013 Chinese film Amazing, a joint venture between the NBA and Shanghai Film Group Corporation. In 2014, Epix featured Howard as the focal point of a documentary about his life called In the Moment. The film was directed by Ross Greenburg and Executive Producers include Michael D. Ratner and Matthew Weaver. CANNOTANSWER | He has stated he believes in reaching out to his community and fans and thus contributes substantially in the field of philanthropy. | Dwight David Howard II (born December 8, 1985) is an American professional basketball player for the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He is an NBA champion, eight-time All-Star, eight-time All-NBA Team honoree, five-time All-Defensive Team member, and three-time Defensive Player of the Year.
Howard, who plays center, spent his high school career at Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy. He chose to forgo college, entered the 2004 NBA draft, and was selected first overall by the Orlando Magic. Howard set numerous franchise and league records with the Magic. He led the team to the 2009 NBA Finals.
In 2012, after eight seasons with Orlando, Howard was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers. After a year with the Lakers, he played for the Houston Rockets, the Atlanta Hawks, the Charlotte Hornets, and the Washington Wizards. Howard returned to the Lakers in 2019 and won his first NBA championship in 2020.
Early life
Howard was born in Atlanta, to Dwight Sr. and Sheryl Howard, a family with strong athletic connections. His father is a Georgia State Trooper and is the athletic director at Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy, a private academy with one of the country's best high school basketball programs; his mother played on the inaugural women's basketball team at Morris Brown College. Howard's mother had seven miscarriages before he was born. A devout Christian since his youth, Howard became serious about basketball around the age of nine. Despite his large frame, Howard was quick and versatile enough to play the guard position. He attended Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy and played mostly as power forward, averaging 16.6 points, 13.4 rebounds and 6.3 blocks per game in 129 appearances. As a senior, Howard led his team to a 31–2 record and the 2004 state title, while averaging 25 points, 18 rebounds, 8.1 blocks and 3.5 assists per game. The same year, he was widely recognized as the best American high school basketball player, and received the Naismith Prep Player of the Year Award, the Morgan Wootten High School Player of the Year Award, Gatorade National Player of the Year and the McDonald's National High School Player of the Year honor. He was also co-MVP (with J. R. Smith) of the McDonald's All-American Game that year. On January 31, 2012, Howard was honored as one of the 35 greatest McDonald's All-Americans.
Professional career
Orlando Magic (2004–2012)
Early years (2004–2008)
Following his high school successes, Howard chose to forego college and declared for the 2004 NBA draft—a decision partly inspired by his idol Kevin Garnett who had done the same in 1995—where the Orlando Magic selected him first overall over UConn junior Emeka Okafor. He took the number 12 for his jersey, in part because it was the reverse of Garnett's 21 when he played for Minnesota. Howard joined a depleted Magic squad that had finished with only 21 victories the previous season; further, the club had just lost perennial NBA All-Star Tracy McGrady. Howard, however, made an immediate impact. He finished his rookie season with an average of 12 points and 10 rebounds, setting several NBA records in the process. He became the youngest player in NBA history to average a double double in the regular season. He also became the youngest player in NBA history to average at least 10 rebounds in a season and youngest NBA player ever to record at least 20 rebounds in a game. Howard's importance to the Magic was highlighted when he became the first player in NBA history directly out of high school to start all 82 games during his rookie season. For his efforts, he was selected to play in the 2005 NBA Rookie Challenge, and was unanimously selected to the All-Rookie Team. He also finished third in the Rookie of the Year voting.
Howard reported to camp for his second NBA season having added 20 pounds of muscle during the off-season. Orlando coach Brian Hill—responsible for grooming former Magic superstar Shaquille O'Neal—decided that Howard should be converted into a full-fledged center. Hill identified two areas where Howard needed to improve: his post-up game and his defense. He exerted extra pressure on Howard, saying that the Magic would need him to emerge as a force in the middle before the team had a chance at the playoffs. On November 15, 2005, in a home game against the Charlotte Bobcats, Howard recorded 21 points and 20 rebounds, becoming the youngest player ever to score 20 or more points and gather 20 or more rebounds in the same game. He was selected to play on the Sophomore Team in the 2006 Rookie Challenge during the All-Star break. Overall, he averaged 15.8 points and 12.5 rebounds per game, ranking second in the NBA in rebounds per game, offensive rebounds, and double-doubles and sixth in field goal percentage. Despite Howard's improvement, the Magic finished the season with a 36–46 record and failed to qualify for the playoffs for the second consecutive season since Howard's arrival.
In the 2006–07 season (and for the third consecutive season), Howard played in all 82 regular-season games. On February 1, 2007, he received his first NBA All-Star selection as a reserve on the Eastern Conference squad for the 2007 NBA All-Star Game. On February 9, he made a game-winning alley-oop off an inbound pass at the buzzer against the San Antonio Spurs. Howard set a new career high with 35 points against the Philadelphia 76ers on April 14. Under his leadership, the Magic qualified for the 2007 NBA Playoffs as the eighth seed in the Eastern Conference. There, the Magic were swept by the Detroit Pistons in the first round. For the season, Howard averaged 17.6 points and 12.3 rebounds per game, finishing first in the NBA in total rebounds, second in field goal percentage, and ninth in blocks. He was named to the All-NBA Third Team at the end of the 2006–07 campaign.
Howard continued posting impressive numbers in the 2007–08 season and helped the Magic have their best season to date. Howard was named as a starter for the Eastern Conference All-Star team. On February 16, 2008, he won the NBA Slam Dunk Contest by receiving 78% of the fan's votes via text messaging or online voting; in that contest, he performed a series of innovative dunks said to have rejuvenated the contest, including donning a Superman cape for one of the dunks. Howard led the Magic to their first division title in 12 years and to the third seed for the 2008 NBA Playoffs. In their first round match-up against the Toronto Raptors, Howard's dominance (three 20-point/20-rebound games) helped Orlando to prevail in five games. Howard's series total of 91 rebounds was also greater than the total rebounds collected by the entire Toronto frontcourt. In the second round against the Pistons, the Magic lost in five games. For the season, Howard was named to the All-NBA First Team for the first time, and was also named to the NBA All-Defensive Second Team.
Dominance and NBA Finals appearance (2008–2011)
The 2008–09 season began well for Howard. Ten games into the season, the center was leading the league in blocks per game (4.2). In December, Howard injured his left knee, which caused him to miss a game due to injury for the first time in his NBA career; previously, he had played in 351 consecutive games. He garnered a record 3.1 million votes to earn the starting berth on the Eastern Conference team for the 2009 NBA All-Star Game. Howard led Orlando to its second straight Southeast Division title and to the third seed for the 2009 NBA Playoffs; the team finished the season with a 59–23 record. In the first round of the playoffs against the 76ers, Howard recorded 24 points and 24 rebounds in Game 5 to give Orlando a 3–2 lead before the Magic closed out the series in six games. In the second round against the Boston Celtics, after the Magic blew a lead in Game 5 to fall behind 3–2 in the series, Howard publicly stated that he should have been given the ball more and questioned coach Stan Van Gundy's tactics. The Magic went on to defeat Boston to win the series and move on to the Eastern Conference Finals. There they, defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers 4–2. Howard had a playoff career-high 40 points to go with his 14 rebounds in the deciding Game 6, leading Orlando to the NBA Finals for the first time in 14 years. In the NBA Finals, the Los Angeles Lakers took the first two home games, before a home win by the Magic brought the deficit to 2–1. In Game 4, despite Howard putting up 21 rebounds and a Finals record of 9 blocks in a game, the Magic lost in overtime. The Lakers went on to clinch the series with a win in Game 5. For the season, Howard became the youngest player ever to win the NBA Defensive Player of the Year Award. He was also named to the NBA All-Defensive First Team, and to the All-NBA First Team.
In the 2009–10 season, the Magic got off to a strong start, winning 17 of their first 21 games and setting a franchise record. On January 21, 2010, Howard was named as the starting center for the East in the 2010 NBA All-Star Game. The Magic completed the regular season with 59 wins and their third consecutive division title. The Magic's playoff run resulted another Eastern Conference Finals appearance, where they lost in six games to the Celtics. Howard won the Defensive Player of the Year Award for the second straight year. He became the first player in NBA history to lead the league in blocks and rebounds in the same season twice—and for two years in a row.
In the 2010–11 season, Howard posted career highs in points and field goal percentage. He became the first player in league history to win Defensive Player of the Year honors for three consecutive seasons. Howard led the league in double-doubles and also averaged 14.1 rebounds, 2.3 blocks and a career-high 1.3 steals this season. He led the Magic to 52 wins, as they finished as the fourth seed in the Eastern Conference. They went on to lose to the Atlanta Hawks in the first round of 2011 NBA Playoffs. He had a playoff career-high 46 points and 19 rebounds in Orlando's 103–93 loss to Atlanta in Game 1. Howard led the NBA in technical fouls with 18 in the regular season, and received one-game suspensions after his 16th and 18th technicals.
Final season in Orlando (2011–2012)
Due to a lockout, the 2011–12 regular season was shortened to 66 games. Not long after the lockout ended, Howard, who was eligible to become a free agent at the end of the season, demanded a trade to the New Jersey Nets, Los Angeles Lakers or Dallas Mavericks. Howard stated that although his preference was to remain in Orlando, he did not feel the Magic organization was doing enough to build a championship contender. He would later meet with Magic officials and agree to back off his trade demands, but stated that he also felt the team needed to make changes to the roster if they wanted to contend for a championship.
On January 12, 2012, Howard attempted an NBA regular season record 39 free throws against the Golden State Warriors. Howard entered the game making 42 percent of his free throws for the season and just below 60 percent for his career. The Warriors hacked Howard intentionally throughout the game, and he broke Wilt Chamberlain's regular-season record of 34 set in 1962. Howard made 21 of the 39 attempts, finishing with 45 points and 23 rebounds in the Magic's 117–109 victory. On January 24, 2012, Howard became the Magic's all-time scoring leader.
On March 15, 2012, on the day of the trading deadline for the 2011–12 NBA season, Howard waived his right to opt out of his contract at the end of the season and committed to stay with the Magic through the 2012–13 season. He had previously asked to be traded to the New Jersey Nets. Had he not signed the amendment, the Magic were prepared to trade him to avoid losing him as a free agent. On April 5, Van Gundy said that he had been informed by management that Howard wanted him fired. During the interview, the center walked up and hugged his coach, unaware that Van Gundy had confirmed a report that Howard denied. Van Gundy was let go after the season.
On April 19, 2012, Howard's agent said that Howard would undergo surgery to repair a herniated disk in his back and would miss the rest of the 2011–12 season, as well as the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. During the offseason, Howard again requested a trade to the Nets, who had relocated to Brooklyn. He intended to become a free agent at the end of the 2012–13 season if he was not traded to Brooklyn.
Los Angeles Lakers (2012–2013)
On August 10, 2012, Howard was traded from Orlando to the Los Angeles Lakers in a deal that also involved the Philadelphia 76ers and the Denver Nuggets. Howard took six months off from basketball after his April back surgery, and only had the combined four weeks of training camp and preseason to prepare for the season. Still working himself into shape, Howard paced himself throughout the season on both offense and defense. On January 4, 2013, Howard injured his right shoulder in the second half of the Lakers' 107–102 loss to the Los Angeles Clippers. At the midpoint of the season, the Lakers were a disappointing 17–24. Howard was averaging 17.1 points on 58.2% shooting, 12.3 rebounds, and 2.5 blocks, but also 3.6 fouls a game with 3.2 turnovers while making only 50.4% of his free throws.
Howard was upset that he was not getting the ball enough, and he felt that Kobe Bryant was shooting too much. Moving forward, Howard said he needed to "bring it" and dominate in more ways than just scoring. Howard missed games due to his recurring shoulder injury in January and February. In February, Bryant said that Howard "worries too much" and "doesn't want to let anyone down", urging him to play through the pain when Pau Gasol was sidelined with a torn plantar fascia. Howard returned the next game after commenting that Bryant was "not a doctor, I'm not a doctor. That's his opinion."
During the All-Star break, Howard adopted a healthier diet to get into better shape to anchor the Lakers' defense and run head coach Mike D'Antoni's preferred pick and rolls. Still, on February 23, Howard said he was "not even close" to physically being where he wanted to be. Coach Mike D'Antoni attributed Howard's difficulty running the pick-and-roll—a play the coach had expected would be a staple for the team—with Steve Nash to Howard's lack of conditioning. The Lakers were 8–2 after the All-Star break, passing Utah for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference, and Howard averaged 15.5 points, 14.8 rebounds, and 2.6 blocks. In his first game back in Orlando on March 12, Howard scored a season-high 39 points and had 16 rebounds in a 106–97 Lakers win. Booed throughout the game, he made 25 of 39 free throws, setting franchise records for free throws made and attempted while tying his own NBA record for attempts. Howard made 16 of 20 free throws when he was fouled intentionally by the Magic. With Howard anchoring the Lakers defense and his improved overall play, the Lakers made the playoffs, but were swept in the opening round by San Antonio. Howard was ejected in Game 4 with over nine minutes left in the third quarter.
Howard finished the season with his lowest scoring average since his second year in the NBA, but he was the league leader in rebounding and ranked second in field goal percentage. Although he was recovering from his back surgery, he only missed six games all season—all due to his torn labrum. Howard was named to the All-NBA Third Team after having received five consecutive first-team honors. He became a free agent in the summer, and he was offered a maximum contract of five years and $118 million by the Lakers.
Houston Rockets (2013–2016)
On July 13, 2013, Howard signed with the Houston Rockets, joining James Harden to form a formidable duo. Howard finished the regular season with averages of 18.3 points and 12.2 rebounds and earned All-NBA Second Team honors. During the 2014 playoffs, Howard averaged 26 points and 13.7 rebounds per game, but the Rockets were eliminated by the Portland Trail Blazers in the first round, losing the series 4–2.
After playing in the Rockets' first 10 out of 11 games to start the 2014–15 season, Howard missed 11 straight due to a strained right knee before returning to action on December 13 against the Denver Nuggets and recording his 10,000th career rebound. However, on January 31, Howard was ruled out for a further month due to persistent trouble with his right knee. After setbacks forced him out for a further month and a total of 26 games, Howard returned to action on March 25 against the New Orleans Pelicans. He started the game but was held under 17 minutes by coach Kevin McHale and finished with just four points and seven rebounds in a 95–93 win. Howard played only 41 games in the regular season. The Rockets clinched their first division title in over 20 years and made it to the Western Conference Finals, where they lost 4–1 to the Golden State Warriors.
On November 4, 2015, Howard had 23 points and 14 rebounds against the Orlando Magic. He shot 10-of-10 to become the first Rocket to make 10 or more field goals without a miss since Yao Ming went 12-of-12 in 2009. On December 26, he eclipsed 15,000 points for his career in a loss to the New Orleans Pelicans. On January 18, 2016, in an overtime loss to the Los Angeles Clippers, Howard had 36 points and tied a career high with 26 rebounds en route to his 10th straight double-double, the league's longest active streak at the time, and his longest since a 14-game run in 2012–13. On June 22, 2016, Howard declined his $23 million player option for the 2016–17 season and became an unrestricted free agent.
Atlanta Hawks (2016–2017)
On July 12, 2016, Howard signed a three-year, $70 million contract with his hometown team the Atlanta Hawks. With the retirement of Tim Duncan, Howard entered the 2016–17 season as the NBA's active leader in rebounds (12,089) and blocked shots (1,916). In his debut for the Hawks in their season opener on October 27, Howard grabbed 19 rebounds in a 114–99 win over the Washington Wizards. It was the most rebounds for anyone in their Atlanta debut, breaking the mark of 18 that Shareef Abdur-Rahim set on October 30, 2001. On November 2, he scored a season-high 31 points in a 123–116 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers. On February 2, he had a season-best game with 24 points and 23 rebounds in a 113–108 win over the Rockets in Houston.
Charlotte Hornets (2017–2018)
On June 20, 2017, the Hawks traded Howard, along with the 31st overall pick in the 2017 NBA draft, to the Charlotte Hornets in exchange for Marco Belinelli, Miles Plumlee and the 41st overall pick in the 2017 NBA draft. To begin the season, Howard became the first Charlotte player since Emeka Okafor in 2007 with four consecutive 15-rebound games. In the fifth game of the season, he had another 15-rebound game. On March 15, he scored 20 of his season-high 33 points in the second half of the Hornets' 129–117 win over the Atlanta Hawks. On March 21, Howard recorded 32 points and a franchise-record 30 rebounds in a 111–105 win over the Nets, becoming just the eighth player in league history with a 30–30 game. He became the first NBA player with a 30-point, 30-rebound game since Kevin Love in November 2010, and the first player with a 30–30 game against the Nets since Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in February 1978. The next day, Howard was suspended for one game without pay due to receiving his 16th technical foul of the season. Howard finished the season with a franchise-record 53 double-doubles and joined Abdul-Jabbar and Wilt Chamberlain as the only players to hold single-season records with two teams. Howard also became one of six players to average a double-double in each of his first 13 seasons in the league.
On July 6, 2018, Howard was traded to the Brooklyn Nets in exchange for Timofey Mozgov, the draft rights to Hamidou Diallo, a 2021 second-round draft pick and cash considerations. He was waived by the Nets immediately upon being acquired.
Washington Wizards (2018–2019)
On July 12, 2018, Howard signed with the Washington Wizards. He missed all of training camp, every exhibition game and the first seven regular-season games with a sore backside. He appeared in nine games in November before missing the rest of the season after undergoing spinal surgery to relieve pain in his glutes. In March 2019, it was revealed that Howard, in addition to his back injury, was also dealing with a hamstring issue. On April 18, 2019, Howard exercised his $5.6 million player option to play a second season with the Wizards.
On July 6, 2019, Howard was traded to the Memphis Grizzlies for forward C. J. Miles. On August 24, 2019, Howard was waived by the Grizzlies.
Return to the Lakers (2019–2020)
On August 26, 2019, Howard signed a $2.6 million veteran's minimum contract with the Los Angeles Lakers, reuniting him with his former team. He was replacing DeMarcus Cousins, a free agent signed earlier in the offseason who was lost for the year after suffering a knee injury. To assure the team that he would accept any role the team asked, Howard offered to sign a non-guaranteed contract, freeing the Lakers to cut him at any time.
During the season, the Lakers split time fairly evenly between him and starting center JaVale McGee. On January 13, 2020, Howard scored a season-high 21 points on a 9-of-11 shooting and got a season-high 15 rebounds. In Game 4 of the Western Conference finals against the Denver Nuggets, Lakers coach Frank Vogel started Howard to match up against the Nuggets' Nikola Jokić. Howard had 12 points and 11 rebounds in 23 minutes to help the Lakers win and take a 3–1 lead in the series. He had started twice during the regular season, but this was his first start by coach's decision when McGee was available. The Lakers advanced to the NBA Finals, winning the series 4–2 over the Miami Heat and giving Howard his first NBA championship.
Philadelphia 76ers (2020–2021)
On November 21, 2020, the Philadelphia 76ers signed Howard to a one-year deal worth $2,564,753. With the 76ers he averaged 7 points and 8.4 rebounds. Howard played 69 games with the Sixers with six starts in 17.3 minutes. He was suspended for one game after getting into a scuffle with Udonis Haslem where both were assessed technical fouls and Haslem was ejected. Howard was suspended because he incurred his 16th technical foul of the year.
Third stint with the Lakers (2021–present)
Howard signed a $2.6 million veteran's minimum contract with the Los Angeles Lakers on August 6, 2021.
National team career
On March 5, 2006, Howard was named to the 2006–2008 USA Basketball Men's Senior National Team program. As the team's regular starting center, he helped lead the team to a 5–0 record during its pre-World Championship tour, and subsequently helped the team win the bronze medal at the 2006 FIBA World Championship. During the FIBA Americas Championship 2007, Howard was on the team which won its first nine games en route to qualifying for the finals and a spot for the 2008 Olympics. He started in eight of those nine games, averaging 8.9 ppg, 5.3 rpg and led the team in shooting .778 from the field. In the finals, he made all seven of his shots and scored 20 points as the USA defeated Argentina to win the gold medal.
On June 23, 2008, Howard was named as one of the members of the 12-man squad representing the United States in the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. With Howard starting as center, Team USA won all of its games en route to the gold medal, breaking their drought of gold medals dating back to the 2000 Olympics. Howard averaged 10.9 points and 5.8 rebounds per game in the tournament.
Player profile
Standing and weighing , Howard plays the center position. He led the NBA in rebounding from 2007 to 2010, and again from 2012 to 2013. Howard's rebounding is in part facilitated by his extraordinary athleticism; his running vertical leap was tested at in 2011, rare for a player of his size. He demonstrated this skill in the 2007 Slam Dunk Contest, where he completed an alley oop dunk from teammate Jameer Nelson while slapping a sticker onto the backboard at high. The sticker showed an image of his own smiling face with a handwritten "All things through Christ Phil: 4:13", a paraphrase of .
Howard's abilities and powerful physique have drawn attention from fellow NBA All-Stars. Tim Duncan remarked in 2007, "[Howard] is so developed... He has so much promise and I am glad that I will be out of the league when he is peaking." Kevin Garnett echoed those sentiments: "[Howard] is a freak of nature, man... I was nowhere near that physically talented. I wasn't that gifted, as far as body and physical presence." After a game in the 2009 NBA Playoffs, Philadelphia 76ers swingman Andre Iguodala said: "It's like he can guard two guys at once. He can guard his guy and the guy coming off the pick-and-roll, which is almost impossible to do... If he gets any more athletic or jumps any higher, they're going to have to change the rules." In December 2007, ESPN writer David Thorpe declared Howard the most dominant center in the NBA. Early in his career, many sports pundits rated Howard one of the top young prospects in the NBA.
Howard has a reputation as a negative locker room presence. In a 2013 interview, he called his former Orlando Magic teammates a "team full of people no one wanted". In a 2013 article titled "Is Dwight Howard the NBA's Worst Teammate?", Bleacher Report asserted that Howard had "extinguished all bridges with the franchise where he spent his first eight NBA seasons". Howard did not get along with Kobe Bryant when he played for the Lakers and did not get along with James Harden when he played for the Rockets. When he was traded from the Atlanta Hawks to the Charlotte Hornets, some of his Hawks teammates reportedly cheered. After Charlotte traded Howard to the Washington Wizards, Charlotte player Brendan Haywood asserted that Howard's teammates were "sick and tired of his act". In 2018, NBC News reported that "Howard’s time with the Magic, Lakers and Rockets devolved into interpersonal strife well before he left those teams". Also in 2018, The Ringer published a piece titled "Everybody (Still) Hates Dwight" in which it called Howard "almost certainly the least popular player in the NBA". Before signing with the Lakers in 2019, Howard reportedly met with the team multiple times, "promising not to live up to his reputation as a difficult teammate who disrupts locker rooms"; the team warned him that he would be released if he became a disruptive presence.
NBA career statistics
Regular season
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 82 || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 32.6 || .520 || .000 || .671 || 10.0 || .9 || .9 || 1.7 || 12.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 81 || 36.8 || .531 || .000 || .595 || 12.5 || 1.5 || .8 || 1.4 || 15.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 36.9 || .603 || .500 || .586 || 12.3 || 1.9 || .9 || 1.9 || 17.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 37.7 || .599 || .000 || .590 || style="background:#cfecec;"| 14.2* || 1.3 || .9 || 2.1 || 20.7
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 79 || 79 || 35.7 || .572 || .000 || .594 || style="background:#cfecec;"| 13.8* || 1.4 || 1.0 || style="background:#cfecec;"| 2.9* || 20.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 34.7 || style="background:#cfecec;"| .612* || .000 || .592 || style="background:#cfecec;"| 13.2* || 1.8 || .9 || style="background:#cfecec;"| 2.8* || 18.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 78 || 78 || 37.5 || .593 || .000 || .596 || 14.1 || 1.4 || 1.4 || 2.4 || 22.9
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 54 || 54 || 38.3 || .573 || .000 || .491 || style="background:#cfecec;"|14.5* || 1.9 || 1.5 || 2.1 || 20.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 76 || 76 || 35.8 || .578 || .167 || .492 ||bgcolor="CFECEC"| 12.4* || 1.4 || 1.1 || 2.4 || 17.1
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 71 || 71 || 33.7 || .591 || .286 || .547 || 12.2 || 1.8 || .8 || 1.8 || 18.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 41 || 41 || 29.8 || .593 || .500 || .528 || 10.5 || 1.2 || .7 || 1.3 || 15.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 71 || 71 || 32.1 || .620 || .000 || .489 || 11.8 || 1.4 || 1.0 || 1.6 || 13.7
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Atlanta
| 74|| 74 || 29.7 || .633 || .000 || .533 || 12.7 || 1.4 || .9 || 1.2 || 13.5
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Charlotte
| 81 || 81 || 30.4 || .555 || .143 || .574 || 12.5 || 1.3 || .6 || 1.6 || 16.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Washington
| 9 || 9 || 25.6 || .623 || .000 || .604 || 9.2 || .4 || .8 || .4 || 12.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 69 || 2 || 18.9 || .729 || .600 || .514 || 7.3 || .7 || .4 || 1.1 || 7.5
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Philadelphia
| 69 || 6 || 17.3 || .587 || .250 || .576 || 8.4 || .9 || .4 || .9 || 7.0
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|Career
| 1182 || 1051 || 32.6 || .586 || .159 || .566 || 12.1 || 1.4 || .9 || 1.9 || 16.2
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|All-Star
| 8 || 6 || 23.3 || .642 || .154 || .450 || 8.8 || 1.5 || .6 || 1.1 || 12.1
Playoffs
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2007
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 4 || 4 || 41.8 || .548 || .000 || .455 || 14.8 || 1.8 || .5 || 1.0 || 15.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2008
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 10 || 10 || 42.1 || .581 || .000 || .542 || 15.8 || .9 || .8 || 3.4 || 18.9
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2009
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 23 || 23 || 39.3 || .601 || .000 || .636 || 15.3 || 1.9 || .9 || 2.6 || 20.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2010
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 14 || 14 || 35.5 || .614 || .000 || .519 || 11.1 || 1.4 || .8 || 3.5|| 18.1
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2011
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 6 || 6 || 43.0 || .630 || .000 ||.682 || 15.5 || 0.5 || .7 || 1.8 || 27.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2013
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 4 || 4 || 31.5 || .619 || .000 || .444 || 10.8 || 1.0 || .5 || 2.0 || 17.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2014
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 6 || 6 || 38.5 || .547 || .000 || .625 || 13.7 || 1.8 || .7 || 2.8 || 26.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2015
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 17 || 17 || 33.8 || .577 || .000 || .412 || 14.0 || 1.2 || 1.4 || 2.3 || 16.4
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2016
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 5 || 5 || 36.0 || .542 || .000 || .368 || 14.0 || 1.6 || .8 || 1.4 || 13.2
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2017
| style="text-align:left;"|Atlanta
| 6 || 6 || 26.1 || .500 || .000 || .632 || 10.7 || 1.3 || 1.0 || .8 || 8.0
|-
|style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"|2020†
|style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 18 || 7 || 15.7 || .684 || .500 || .556 || 4.6 || .5 || .4 || .4 || 5.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2021
| style="text-align:left;"|Philadelphia
| 12 || 0 || 12.4 || .533 || .000 || .600 || 6.3 || .7 || .2 || .5 || 4.7
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|Career
| 125 || 102 || 31.6 || .589 || .143 || .548 || 11.8 || 1.2 || .8 || 2.0 || 15.3
Televised appearances
Howard appeared as a special guest on an episode of the ABC series Extreme Makeover: Home Edition that aired April 2, 2006, in which Ty Pennington and his team built a new home and ministry offices for Sadie Holmes, who operates a social services ministry in the Orlando area.
Howard competed in season 6 of The Masked Singer as "Octopus". He was the first one to be eliminated during the two-night premiere alongside Vivica A. Fox as "Mother Nature" and Toni Braxton as "Pufferfish".
Personal life
Howard has five children by five women. In 2010, Howard won a defamation judgment against Royce Reed, the mother of his oldest child Braylon. A Florida judge ruled that she violated a court order prohibiting her from mentioning Howard in the media. He had initially sought about half a billion dollars in damages, claiming that she had disparaged him through Twitter and her appearances on the reality television show, Basketball Wives, as the couple's paternity agreement stipulated a $500 fine for each time she mentioned him in public.
In October 2014, police in Cobb County, Georgia investigated claims by Reed that Howard abused their son. Howard had admitted to hitting Braylon with a belt; he had been disciplined in the same manner while growing up, and he stated that he did not realize it was wrong to do so. Howard was not charged in connection with the allegations. Howard was also involved in a civil case with Reed over custody of their son.
Howard keeps approximately 20 snakes as pets and has appeared twice in Animal Planet's reality TV series Tanked. He owns a farm "in north Georgia where he relaxes [with] cows, hogs, turkeys and deer," and also grows vegetables on his estate.
Melissa Rios, the mother of his son, David, died on March 27, 2020, following an epileptic seizure. David was with Howard at his home in Georgia at the time to ride out the COVID-19 pandemic.
Philanthropy, faith, and public image
Before he was drafted in 2004, Howard said that he wanted to use his NBA career and Christian faith to "raise the name of God within the league and throughout the world". He has stated he believes in reaching out to his community and fans and thus contributes substantially in the field of philanthropy. Together with his parents, Howard established the Dwight D. Howard Foundation Inc. in 2004. In November 2009, the center was named one of the 10 finalists for the Jefferson Awards for Public Service, which awards athletes for their charitable work.
In 2014, Epix featured Howard as the focal point of a documentary about his life called In the Moment.
See also
List of career achievements by Dwight Howard
List of National Basketball Association career games played leaders
List of National Basketball Association career rebounding leaders
List of National Basketball Association career blocks leaders
List of National Basketball Association career turnovers leaders
List of National Basketball Association career free throw scoring leaders
List of National Basketball Association career playoff blocks leaders
List of National Basketball Association annual rebounding leaders
List of National Basketball Association annual blocks leaders
List of National Basketball Association players with most blocks in a game
List of National Basketball Association players with most rebounds in a game
List of National Basketball Association franchise career scoring leaders
Notes
References
External links
1985 births
Living people
2006 FIBA World Championship players
21st-century African-American sportspeople
African-American basketball players
African-American Christians
American men's basketball players
Atlanta Hawks players
Basketball players at the 2008 Summer Olympics
Basketball players from Atlanta
Centers (basketball)
Charlotte Hornets players
Houston Rockets players
Los Angeles Lakers players
McDonald's High School All-Americans
Medalists at the 2008 Summer Olympics
National Basketball Association All-Stars
National Basketball Association high school draftees
Olympic gold medalists for the United States in basketball
Orlando Magic draft picks
Orlando Magic players
Parade High School All-Americans (boys' basketball)
Philadelphia 76ers players
Power forwards (basketball)
United States men's national basketball team players
Washington Wizards players
20th-century African-American people | true | [
"Growth planning is a strategic business activity that enables business owners to plan and track organic growth in their revenue. It allows businesses to allocate their limited resources toward a centered effort to adapt to changes in the industry driven by digital disruption and differentiate from competitors. The strategies and tactics included in a Growth Plan focus on the key driver of revenue generation - the customer.\n\nWhy Businesses Develop a Growth Plan\nBusinesses often develop a growth plan following certain trigger events. These could include a lack of sales, intense competition and unexpected growth. Businesses in situations like these will develop a Growth Plan to prioritize resources and take corrective action to stay on track.\n\nWhat is in a Growth Plan\nA Growth Plan only contains the elements of a business where the customer can see value. It begins by setting out business goals and leads to the strategies and tactics for reaching them. The benefit of this is it enables businesses to connect their goals with precise actions. Small businesses focus on market penetration to sell more to existing customers. A growth plan for more mature small businesses is market development where they sell existing offerings to a different market (e.g. a neighboring state or country). Larger businesses tend to focus on reaching customers through alternate channels (e.g. online) or broadening their target customer through product development to solve their unique problems.\n\nWhen starting to develop a growth plan, 3 key questions are considered:\nWhat is the current state of the business?\nWhat do the key stakeholders envision the future state to be?\nHow do you bridge the gap?\n\nTo answer these questions businesses outline the following 9 step blueprint:\n\nPreparing for Growth\nWhen implementing a growth plan, management will investigate whether it is aligned with the current organizational structure. In cases where it is not aligned, management must question whether to adapt the organizational structure or not. Further, rapid growth can place pressure on existing processes. If processes aren’t scalable, management should address these issues before growing as the costs of fixing the problems afterwards is greater.\n\nBusiness Plan vs Growth Plan\nA Business plan focuses on the business goals and background information about the organization and key team members. It is commonly developed for a 3-5 year time frame and is useful when seeking external funding from either banks or investors.\n\nOn the other hand, a Growth Plan is short term, typically 1–2 years or less. It focuses at a much deeper level on the go-to-market section usually seen in a Business Plan. Growth Planning aims to be agile and adapt to changing market conditions that businesses are facing, particularly through technology and digital media. Further, a Business Plan may give a high level view of the plans in place to reach business goals whereas a Growth Plan is more granular and ensures rapid execution, usually in 90-day sprints.\n\nReferences\n\nStrategy\nPlanning",
"ShadowFlare is an episodic action role-playing game developed by Denyusha and published by Emurasoft for Microsoft Windows. The game consisted of four episodes. The first episode was released in Japan in October 2001, with a worldwide release following in October 2002. The second episode was released on December 10, 2002. The third episode was released on January 10, 2003, and the fourth and final episode was released on February 13, 2003.\n\nThe game is no longer available for purchase as of today, after the official site closed down in October 2013. The site returned online in 2020 but it is still impossible to legally obtain a copy of the game.\n\nGameplay\n\nThe player starts their journey as a mercenary working for gold and precious items, in a world ruled by demons. As the player ventures through the ruins of the in-game world, they'll find out what happened and who or what is responsible for these events. After reaching a certain skill level, the player will be able to choose a new profession for their character, such as a warrior, wizard/witch, or hunter. The player will have an animal companion to fight alongside them. They will come across many acquaintances, enemies, and friends along the way, including the original demon himself, Dignosis, and his rival, the white angel Altecia.\n\nProfessions\nIn Shadowflare the player begins as a Mercenary until reaching level 5, when the profession automatically changes to Warrior. Upon reaching level 6 Hunter and Wizard will also be available.\n\n Mercenary Every character starts out as a Mercenary. They gain +40 HP, +10 Strength, +4 Attack, +4 Defense, +2 Magical Attack and +2 Magical Defence on level up.\n\n Warrior Warriors have a combo melee attack and they gain significantly more HP per level than other professions.\n\n Hunter Unlike other professions, the Hunter does not suffer a penalty in Attack when using bow-type weapons. Hunter is the only class to consistently improve walking speed.\n\n Wizard Although all professions can cast spells, Wizards gain access to spells earlier and get the best bonuses to MP and Magical Attack.\n\nReception\nShadowFlare received generally negative reviews. Aggregate review website Metacritic assigned a score 49 out of 100 based on reviews from seven critics.\n\nReferences\n\n2001 video games\nRole-playing video games\nVideo games developed in Japan\nWindows games\nWindows-only games\nAction role-playing video games"
] |
[
"Dwight Howard",
"Public image",
"What is a positive public image going forhim?",
"Howard said that he wanted to use his NBA career and Christian faith to \"raise the name of God within the league and throughout the world",
"What way does he plan on reaching out?",
"He has stated he believes in reaching out to his community and fans and thus contributes substantially in the field of philanthropy."
] | C_d944cfc090ab415ca5bfbd6859c14699_0 | Does he have any negative image? | 3 | Does Dwight Howard have any negative image? | Dwight Howard | Before he was drafted in 2004, Howard said that he wanted to use his NBA career and Christian faith to "raise the name of God within the league and throughout the world". He has stated he believes in reaching out to his community and fans and thus contributes substantially in the field of philanthropy. An avid listener of Gospel music, he attends the Fellowship of Faith Church when he is back home in Atlanta and is involved and active with the youth programs at the church. Together with his parents, Howard also established the Dwight D. Howard Foundation Inc. in 2004. The Foundation provides scholarships for students who want to attend his alma mater, Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy, and grants to Lovell Elementary School and Memorial Middle School in Orlando, Florida. The Foundation also organizes summer basketball camps for boys and girls, and together with high school and college coaches and players, fellow NBA players are invited to be on hand at the camp. For his contributions in the Central Florida community, Howard received in 2005 the Rich and Helen De Vos Community Enrichment Award. Within the NBA itself, Howard has participated in several NBA "Read to Achieve" assemblies encouraging children to make reading a priority. In November 2009, the center was named one of the 10 finalists for the Jefferson Awards for Public Service, which awards athletes for their charitable work. In 2009, Howard, along with several other NBA players, joined the Hoops for St. Jude charity program benefitting the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Elsewhere, Howard appeared as a special guest on an episode of the ABC series Extreme Makeover: Home Edition that aired April 2, 2006, in which Ty Pennington and his team built a new home and ministry offices for Sadie Holmes, who operates a social services ministry in the Orlando area. He made another appearance on the show in the October 9, 2011 episode. Along with Sam Worthington and Jonah Hill, Howard appeared in a commercial for the video game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Howard, along with Carmelo Anthony and Scottie Pippen, also appeared in the 2013 Chinese film Amazing, a joint venture between the NBA and Shanghai Film Group Corporation. In 2014, Epix featured Howard as the focal point of a documentary about his life called In the Moment. The film was directed by Ross Greenburg and Executive Producers include Michael D. Ratner and Matthew Weaver. CANNOTANSWER | An avid listener of Gospel music, he attends the Fellowship of Faith Church when he is back home in Atlanta | Dwight David Howard II (born December 8, 1985) is an American professional basketball player for the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He is an NBA champion, eight-time All-Star, eight-time All-NBA Team honoree, five-time All-Defensive Team member, and three-time Defensive Player of the Year.
Howard, who plays center, spent his high school career at Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy. He chose to forgo college, entered the 2004 NBA draft, and was selected first overall by the Orlando Magic. Howard set numerous franchise and league records with the Magic. He led the team to the 2009 NBA Finals.
In 2012, after eight seasons with Orlando, Howard was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers. After a year with the Lakers, he played for the Houston Rockets, the Atlanta Hawks, the Charlotte Hornets, and the Washington Wizards. Howard returned to the Lakers in 2019 and won his first NBA championship in 2020.
Early life
Howard was born in Atlanta, to Dwight Sr. and Sheryl Howard, a family with strong athletic connections. His father is a Georgia State Trooper and is the athletic director at Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy, a private academy with one of the country's best high school basketball programs; his mother played on the inaugural women's basketball team at Morris Brown College. Howard's mother had seven miscarriages before he was born. A devout Christian since his youth, Howard became serious about basketball around the age of nine. Despite his large frame, Howard was quick and versatile enough to play the guard position. He attended Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy and played mostly as power forward, averaging 16.6 points, 13.4 rebounds and 6.3 blocks per game in 129 appearances. As a senior, Howard led his team to a 31–2 record and the 2004 state title, while averaging 25 points, 18 rebounds, 8.1 blocks and 3.5 assists per game. The same year, he was widely recognized as the best American high school basketball player, and received the Naismith Prep Player of the Year Award, the Morgan Wootten High School Player of the Year Award, Gatorade National Player of the Year and the McDonald's National High School Player of the Year honor. He was also co-MVP (with J. R. Smith) of the McDonald's All-American Game that year. On January 31, 2012, Howard was honored as one of the 35 greatest McDonald's All-Americans.
Professional career
Orlando Magic (2004–2012)
Early years (2004–2008)
Following his high school successes, Howard chose to forego college and declared for the 2004 NBA draft—a decision partly inspired by his idol Kevin Garnett who had done the same in 1995—where the Orlando Magic selected him first overall over UConn junior Emeka Okafor. He took the number 12 for his jersey, in part because it was the reverse of Garnett's 21 when he played for Minnesota. Howard joined a depleted Magic squad that had finished with only 21 victories the previous season; further, the club had just lost perennial NBA All-Star Tracy McGrady. Howard, however, made an immediate impact. He finished his rookie season with an average of 12 points and 10 rebounds, setting several NBA records in the process. He became the youngest player in NBA history to average a double double in the regular season. He also became the youngest player in NBA history to average at least 10 rebounds in a season and youngest NBA player ever to record at least 20 rebounds in a game. Howard's importance to the Magic was highlighted when he became the first player in NBA history directly out of high school to start all 82 games during his rookie season. For his efforts, he was selected to play in the 2005 NBA Rookie Challenge, and was unanimously selected to the All-Rookie Team. He also finished third in the Rookie of the Year voting.
Howard reported to camp for his second NBA season having added 20 pounds of muscle during the off-season. Orlando coach Brian Hill—responsible for grooming former Magic superstar Shaquille O'Neal—decided that Howard should be converted into a full-fledged center. Hill identified two areas where Howard needed to improve: his post-up game and his defense. He exerted extra pressure on Howard, saying that the Magic would need him to emerge as a force in the middle before the team had a chance at the playoffs. On November 15, 2005, in a home game against the Charlotte Bobcats, Howard recorded 21 points and 20 rebounds, becoming the youngest player ever to score 20 or more points and gather 20 or more rebounds in the same game. He was selected to play on the Sophomore Team in the 2006 Rookie Challenge during the All-Star break. Overall, he averaged 15.8 points and 12.5 rebounds per game, ranking second in the NBA in rebounds per game, offensive rebounds, and double-doubles and sixth in field goal percentage. Despite Howard's improvement, the Magic finished the season with a 36–46 record and failed to qualify for the playoffs for the second consecutive season since Howard's arrival.
In the 2006–07 season (and for the third consecutive season), Howard played in all 82 regular-season games. On February 1, 2007, he received his first NBA All-Star selection as a reserve on the Eastern Conference squad for the 2007 NBA All-Star Game. On February 9, he made a game-winning alley-oop off an inbound pass at the buzzer against the San Antonio Spurs. Howard set a new career high with 35 points against the Philadelphia 76ers on April 14. Under his leadership, the Magic qualified for the 2007 NBA Playoffs as the eighth seed in the Eastern Conference. There, the Magic were swept by the Detroit Pistons in the first round. For the season, Howard averaged 17.6 points and 12.3 rebounds per game, finishing first in the NBA in total rebounds, second in field goal percentage, and ninth in blocks. He was named to the All-NBA Third Team at the end of the 2006–07 campaign.
Howard continued posting impressive numbers in the 2007–08 season and helped the Magic have their best season to date. Howard was named as a starter for the Eastern Conference All-Star team. On February 16, 2008, he won the NBA Slam Dunk Contest by receiving 78% of the fan's votes via text messaging or online voting; in that contest, he performed a series of innovative dunks said to have rejuvenated the contest, including donning a Superman cape for one of the dunks. Howard led the Magic to their first division title in 12 years and to the third seed for the 2008 NBA Playoffs. In their first round match-up against the Toronto Raptors, Howard's dominance (three 20-point/20-rebound games) helped Orlando to prevail in five games. Howard's series total of 91 rebounds was also greater than the total rebounds collected by the entire Toronto frontcourt. In the second round against the Pistons, the Magic lost in five games. For the season, Howard was named to the All-NBA First Team for the first time, and was also named to the NBA All-Defensive Second Team.
Dominance and NBA Finals appearance (2008–2011)
The 2008–09 season began well for Howard. Ten games into the season, the center was leading the league in blocks per game (4.2). In December, Howard injured his left knee, which caused him to miss a game due to injury for the first time in his NBA career; previously, he had played in 351 consecutive games. He garnered a record 3.1 million votes to earn the starting berth on the Eastern Conference team for the 2009 NBA All-Star Game. Howard led Orlando to its second straight Southeast Division title and to the third seed for the 2009 NBA Playoffs; the team finished the season with a 59–23 record. In the first round of the playoffs against the 76ers, Howard recorded 24 points and 24 rebounds in Game 5 to give Orlando a 3–2 lead before the Magic closed out the series in six games. In the second round against the Boston Celtics, after the Magic blew a lead in Game 5 to fall behind 3–2 in the series, Howard publicly stated that he should have been given the ball more and questioned coach Stan Van Gundy's tactics. The Magic went on to defeat Boston to win the series and move on to the Eastern Conference Finals. There they, defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers 4–2. Howard had a playoff career-high 40 points to go with his 14 rebounds in the deciding Game 6, leading Orlando to the NBA Finals for the first time in 14 years. In the NBA Finals, the Los Angeles Lakers took the first two home games, before a home win by the Magic brought the deficit to 2–1. In Game 4, despite Howard putting up 21 rebounds and a Finals record of 9 blocks in a game, the Magic lost in overtime. The Lakers went on to clinch the series with a win in Game 5. For the season, Howard became the youngest player ever to win the NBA Defensive Player of the Year Award. He was also named to the NBA All-Defensive First Team, and to the All-NBA First Team.
In the 2009–10 season, the Magic got off to a strong start, winning 17 of their first 21 games and setting a franchise record. On January 21, 2010, Howard was named as the starting center for the East in the 2010 NBA All-Star Game. The Magic completed the regular season with 59 wins and their third consecutive division title. The Magic's playoff run resulted another Eastern Conference Finals appearance, where they lost in six games to the Celtics. Howard won the Defensive Player of the Year Award for the second straight year. He became the first player in NBA history to lead the league in blocks and rebounds in the same season twice—and for two years in a row.
In the 2010–11 season, Howard posted career highs in points and field goal percentage. He became the first player in league history to win Defensive Player of the Year honors for three consecutive seasons. Howard led the league in double-doubles and also averaged 14.1 rebounds, 2.3 blocks and a career-high 1.3 steals this season. He led the Magic to 52 wins, as they finished as the fourth seed in the Eastern Conference. They went on to lose to the Atlanta Hawks in the first round of 2011 NBA Playoffs. He had a playoff career-high 46 points and 19 rebounds in Orlando's 103–93 loss to Atlanta in Game 1. Howard led the NBA in technical fouls with 18 in the regular season, and received one-game suspensions after his 16th and 18th technicals.
Final season in Orlando (2011–2012)
Due to a lockout, the 2011–12 regular season was shortened to 66 games. Not long after the lockout ended, Howard, who was eligible to become a free agent at the end of the season, demanded a trade to the New Jersey Nets, Los Angeles Lakers or Dallas Mavericks. Howard stated that although his preference was to remain in Orlando, he did not feel the Magic organization was doing enough to build a championship contender. He would later meet with Magic officials and agree to back off his trade demands, but stated that he also felt the team needed to make changes to the roster if they wanted to contend for a championship.
On January 12, 2012, Howard attempted an NBA regular season record 39 free throws against the Golden State Warriors. Howard entered the game making 42 percent of his free throws for the season and just below 60 percent for his career. The Warriors hacked Howard intentionally throughout the game, and he broke Wilt Chamberlain's regular-season record of 34 set in 1962. Howard made 21 of the 39 attempts, finishing with 45 points and 23 rebounds in the Magic's 117–109 victory. On January 24, 2012, Howard became the Magic's all-time scoring leader.
On March 15, 2012, on the day of the trading deadline for the 2011–12 NBA season, Howard waived his right to opt out of his contract at the end of the season and committed to stay with the Magic through the 2012–13 season. He had previously asked to be traded to the New Jersey Nets. Had he not signed the amendment, the Magic were prepared to trade him to avoid losing him as a free agent. On April 5, Van Gundy said that he had been informed by management that Howard wanted him fired. During the interview, the center walked up and hugged his coach, unaware that Van Gundy had confirmed a report that Howard denied. Van Gundy was let go after the season.
On April 19, 2012, Howard's agent said that Howard would undergo surgery to repair a herniated disk in his back and would miss the rest of the 2011–12 season, as well as the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. During the offseason, Howard again requested a trade to the Nets, who had relocated to Brooklyn. He intended to become a free agent at the end of the 2012–13 season if he was not traded to Brooklyn.
Los Angeles Lakers (2012–2013)
On August 10, 2012, Howard was traded from Orlando to the Los Angeles Lakers in a deal that also involved the Philadelphia 76ers and the Denver Nuggets. Howard took six months off from basketball after his April back surgery, and only had the combined four weeks of training camp and preseason to prepare for the season. Still working himself into shape, Howard paced himself throughout the season on both offense and defense. On January 4, 2013, Howard injured his right shoulder in the second half of the Lakers' 107–102 loss to the Los Angeles Clippers. At the midpoint of the season, the Lakers were a disappointing 17–24. Howard was averaging 17.1 points on 58.2% shooting, 12.3 rebounds, and 2.5 blocks, but also 3.6 fouls a game with 3.2 turnovers while making only 50.4% of his free throws.
Howard was upset that he was not getting the ball enough, and he felt that Kobe Bryant was shooting too much. Moving forward, Howard said he needed to "bring it" and dominate in more ways than just scoring. Howard missed games due to his recurring shoulder injury in January and February. In February, Bryant said that Howard "worries too much" and "doesn't want to let anyone down", urging him to play through the pain when Pau Gasol was sidelined with a torn plantar fascia. Howard returned the next game after commenting that Bryant was "not a doctor, I'm not a doctor. That's his opinion."
During the All-Star break, Howard adopted a healthier diet to get into better shape to anchor the Lakers' defense and run head coach Mike D'Antoni's preferred pick and rolls. Still, on February 23, Howard said he was "not even close" to physically being where he wanted to be. Coach Mike D'Antoni attributed Howard's difficulty running the pick-and-roll—a play the coach had expected would be a staple for the team—with Steve Nash to Howard's lack of conditioning. The Lakers were 8–2 after the All-Star break, passing Utah for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference, and Howard averaged 15.5 points, 14.8 rebounds, and 2.6 blocks. In his first game back in Orlando on March 12, Howard scored a season-high 39 points and had 16 rebounds in a 106–97 Lakers win. Booed throughout the game, he made 25 of 39 free throws, setting franchise records for free throws made and attempted while tying his own NBA record for attempts. Howard made 16 of 20 free throws when he was fouled intentionally by the Magic. With Howard anchoring the Lakers defense and his improved overall play, the Lakers made the playoffs, but were swept in the opening round by San Antonio. Howard was ejected in Game 4 with over nine minutes left in the third quarter.
Howard finished the season with his lowest scoring average since his second year in the NBA, but he was the league leader in rebounding and ranked second in field goal percentage. Although he was recovering from his back surgery, he only missed six games all season—all due to his torn labrum. Howard was named to the All-NBA Third Team after having received five consecutive first-team honors. He became a free agent in the summer, and he was offered a maximum contract of five years and $118 million by the Lakers.
Houston Rockets (2013–2016)
On July 13, 2013, Howard signed with the Houston Rockets, joining James Harden to form a formidable duo. Howard finished the regular season with averages of 18.3 points and 12.2 rebounds and earned All-NBA Second Team honors. During the 2014 playoffs, Howard averaged 26 points and 13.7 rebounds per game, but the Rockets were eliminated by the Portland Trail Blazers in the first round, losing the series 4–2.
After playing in the Rockets' first 10 out of 11 games to start the 2014–15 season, Howard missed 11 straight due to a strained right knee before returning to action on December 13 against the Denver Nuggets and recording his 10,000th career rebound. However, on January 31, Howard was ruled out for a further month due to persistent trouble with his right knee. After setbacks forced him out for a further month and a total of 26 games, Howard returned to action on March 25 against the New Orleans Pelicans. He started the game but was held under 17 minutes by coach Kevin McHale and finished with just four points and seven rebounds in a 95–93 win. Howard played only 41 games in the regular season. The Rockets clinched their first division title in over 20 years and made it to the Western Conference Finals, where they lost 4–1 to the Golden State Warriors.
On November 4, 2015, Howard had 23 points and 14 rebounds against the Orlando Magic. He shot 10-of-10 to become the first Rocket to make 10 or more field goals without a miss since Yao Ming went 12-of-12 in 2009. On December 26, he eclipsed 15,000 points for his career in a loss to the New Orleans Pelicans. On January 18, 2016, in an overtime loss to the Los Angeles Clippers, Howard had 36 points and tied a career high with 26 rebounds en route to his 10th straight double-double, the league's longest active streak at the time, and his longest since a 14-game run in 2012–13. On June 22, 2016, Howard declined his $23 million player option for the 2016–17 season and became an unrestricted free agent.
Atlanta Hawks (2016–2017)
On July 12, 2016, Howard signed a three-year, $70 million contract with his hometown team the Atlanta Hawks. With the retirement of Tim Duncan, Howard entered the 2016–17 season as the NBA's active leader in rebounds (12,089) and blocked shots (1,916). In his debut for the Hawks in their season opener on October 27, Howard grabbed 19 rebounds in a 114–99 win over the Washington Wizards. It was the most rebounds for anyone in their Atlanta debut, breaking the mark of 18 that Shareef Abdur-Rahim set on October 30, 2001. On November 2, he scored a season-high 31 points in a 123–116 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers. On February 2, he had a season-best game with 24 points and 23 rebounds in a 113–108 win over the Rockets in Houston.
Charlotte Hornets (2017–2018)
On June 20, 2017, the Hawks traded Howard, along with the 31st overall pick in the 2017 NBA draft, to the Charlotte Hornets in exchange for Marco Belinelli, Miles Plumlee and the 41st overall pick in the 2017 NBA draft. To begin the season, Howard became the first Charlotte player since Emeka Okafor in 2007 with four consecutive 15-rebound games. In the fifth game of the season, he had another 15-rebound game. On March 15, he scored 20 of his season-high 33 points in the second half of the Hornets' 129–117 win over the Atlanta Hawks. On March 21, Howard recorded 32 points and a franchise-record 30 rebounds in a 111–105 win over the Nets, becoming just the eighth player in league history with a 30–30 game. He became the first NBA player with a 30-point, 30-rebound game since Kevin Love in November 2010, and the first player with a 30–30 game against the Nets since Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in February 1978. The next day, Howard was suspended for one game without pay due to receiving his 16th technical foul of the season. Howard finished the season with a franchise-record 53 double-doubles and joined Abdul-Jabbar and Wilt Chamberlain as the only players to hold single-season records with two teams. Howard also became one of six players to average a double-double in each of his first 13 seasons in the league.
On July 6, 2018, Howard was traded to the Brooklyn Nets in exchange for Timofey Mozgov, the draft rights to Hamidou Diallo, a 2021 second-round draft pick and cash considerations. He was waived by the Nets immediately upon being acquired.
Washington Wizards (2018–2019)
On July 12, 2018, Howard signed with the Washington Wizards. He missed all of training camp, every exhibition game and the first seven regular-season games with a sore backside. He appeared in nine games in November before missing the rest of the season after undergoing spinal surgery to relieve pain in his glutes. In March 2019, it was revealed that Howard, in addition to his back injury, was also dealing with a hamstring issue. On April 18, 2019, Howard exercised his $5.6 million player option to play a second season with the Wizards.
On July 6, 2019, Howard was traded to the Memphis Grizzlies for forward C. J. Miles. On August 24, 2019, Howard was waived by the Grizzlies.
Return to the Lakers (2019–2020)
On August 26, 2019, Howard signed a $2.6 million veteran's minimum contract with the Los Angeles Lakers, reuniting him with his former team. He was replacing DeMarcus Cousins, a free agent signed earlier in the offseason who was lost for the year after suffering a knee injury. To assure the team that he would accept any role the team asked, Howard offered to sign a non-guaranteed contract, freeing the Lakers to cut him at any time.
During the season, the Lakers split time fairly evenly between him and starting center JaVale McGee. On January 13, 2020, Howard scored a season-high 21 points on a 9-of-11 shooting and got a season-high 15 rebounds. In Game 4 of the Western Conference finals against the Denver Nuggets, Lakers coach Frank Vogel started Howard to match up against the Nuggets' Nikola Jokić. Howard had 12 points and 11 rebounds in 23 minutes to help the Lakers win and take a 3–1 lead in the series. He had started twice during the regular season, but this was his first start by coach's decision when McGee was available. The Lakers advanced to the NBA Finals, winning the series 4–2 over the Miami Heat and giving Howard his first NBA championship.
Philadelphia 76ers (2020–2021)
On November 21, 2020, the Philadelphia 76ers signed Howard to a one-year deal worth $2,564,753. With the 76ers he averaged 7 points and 8.4 rebounds. Howard played 69 games with the Sixers with six starts in 17.3 minutes. He was suspended for one game after getting into a scuffle with Udonis Haslem where both were assessed technical fouls and Haslem was ejected. Howard was suspended because he incurred his 16th technical foul of the year.
Third stint with the Lakers (2021–present)
Howard signed a $2.6 million veteran's minimum contract with the Los Angeles Lakers on August 6, 2021.
National team career
On March 5, 2006, Howard was named to the 2006–2008 USA Basketball Men's Senior National Team program. As the team's regular starting center, he helped lead the team to a 5–0 record during its pre-World Championship tour, and subsequently helped the team win the bronze medal at the 2006 FIBA World Championship. During the FIBA Americas Championship 2007, Howard was on the team which won its first nine games en route to qualifying for the finals and a spot for the 2008 Olympics. He started in eight of those nine games, averaging 8.9 ppg, 5.3 rpg and led the team in shooting .778 from the field. In the finals, he made all seven of his shots and scored 20 points as the USA defeated Argentina to win the gold medal.
On June 23, 2008, Howard was named as one of the members of the 12-man squad representing the United States in the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. With Howard starting as center, Team USA won all of its games en route to the gold medal, breaking their drought of gold medals dating back to the 2000 Olympics. Howard averaged 10.9 points and 5.8 rebounds per game in the tournament.
Player profile
Standing and weighing , Howard plays the center position. He led the NBA in rebounding from 2007 to 2010, and again from 2012 to 2013. Howard's rebounding is in part facilitated by his extraordinary athleticism; his running vertical leap was tested at in 2011, rare for a player of his size. He demonstrated this skill in the 2007 Slam Dunk Contest, where he completed an alley oop dunk from teammate Jameer Nelson while slapping a sticker onto the backboard at high. The sticker showed an image of his own smiling face with a handwritten "All things through Christ Phil: 4:13", a paraphrase of .
Howard's abilities and powerful physique have drawn attention from fellow NBA All-Stars. Tim Duncan remarked in 2007, "[Howard] is so developed... He has so much promise and I am glad that I will be out of the league when he is peaking." Kevin Garnett echoed those sentiments: "[Howard] is a freak of nature, man... I was nowhere near that physically talented. I wasn't that gifted, as far as body and physical presence." After a game in the 2009 NBA Playoffs, Philadelphia 76ers swingman Andre Iguodala said: "It's like he can guard two guys at once. He can guard his guy and the guy coming off the pick-and-roll, which is almost impossible to do... If he gets any more athletic or jumps any higher, they're going to have to change the rules." In December 2007, ESPN writer David Thorpe declared Howard the most dominant center in the NBA. Early in his career, many sports pundits rated Howard one of the top young prospects in the NBA.
Howard has a reputation as a negative locker room presence. In a 2013 interview, he called his former Orlando Magic teammates a "team full of people no one wanted". In a 2013 article titled "Is Dwight Howard the NBA's Worst Teammate?", Bleacher Report asserted that Howard had "extinguished all bridges with the franchise where he spent his first eight NBA seasons". Howard did not get along with Kobe Bryant when he played for the Lakers and did not get along with James Harden when he played for the Rockets. When he was traded from the Atlanta Hawks to the Charlotte Hornets, some of his Hawks teammates reportedly cheered. After Charlotte traded Howard to the Washington Wizards, Charlotte player Brendan Haywood asserted that Howard's teammates were "sick and tired of his act". In 2018, NBC News reported that "Howard’s time with the Magic, Lakers and Rockets devolved into interpersonal strife well before he left those teams". Also in 2018, The Ringer published a piece titled "Everybody (Still) Hates Dwight" in which it called Howard "almost certainly the least popular player in the NBA". Before signing with the Lakers in 2019, Howard reportedly met with the team multiple times, "promising not to live up to his reputation as a difficult teammate who disrupts locker rooms"; the team warned him that he would be released if he became a disruptive presence.
NBA career statistics
Regular season
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 82 || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 32.6 || .520 || .000 || .671 || 10.0 || .9 || .9 || 1.7 || 12.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 81 || 36.8 || .531 || .000 || .595 || 12.5 || 1.5 || .8 || 1.4 || 15.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 36.9 || .603 || .500 || .586 || 12.3 || 1.9 || .9 || 1.9 || 17.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 37.7 || .599 || .000 || .590 || style="background:#cfecec;"| 14.2* || 1.3 || .9 || 2.1 || 20.7
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 79 || 79 || 35.7 || .572 || .000 || .594 || style="background:#cfecec;"| 13.8* || 1.4 || 1.0 || style="background:#cfecec;"| 2.9* || 20.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 34.7 || style="background:#cfecec;"| .612* || .000 || .592 || style="background:#cfecec;"| 13.2* || 1.8 || .9 || style="background:#cfecec;"| 2.8* || 18.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 78 || 78 || 37.5 || .593 || .000 || .596 || 14.1 || 1.4 || 1.4 || 2.4 || 22.9
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 54 || 54 || 38.3 || .573 || .000 || .491 || style="background:#cfecec;"|14.5* || 1.9 || 1.5 || 2.1 || 20.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 76 || 76 || 35.8 || .578 || .167 || .492 ||bgcolor="CFECEC"| 12.4* || 1.4 || 1.1 || 2.4 || 17.1
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 71 || 71 || 33.7 || .591 || .286 || .547 || 12.2 || 1.8 || .8 || 1.8 || 18.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 41 || 41 || 29.8 || .593 || .500 || .528 || 10.5 || 1.2 || .7 || 1.3 || 15.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 71 || 71 || 32.1 || .620 || .000 || .489 || 11.8 || 1.4 || 1.0 || 1.6 || 13.7
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Atlanta
| 74|| 74 || 29.7 || .633 || .000 || .533 || 12.7 || 1.4 || .9 || 1.2 || 13.5
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Charlotte
| 81 || 81 || 30.4 || .555 || .143 || .574 || 12.5 || 1.3 || .6 || 1.6 || 16.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Washington
| 9 || 9 || 25.6 || .623 || .000 || .604 || 9.2 || .4 || .8 || .4 || 12.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 69 || 2 || 18.9 || .729 || .600 || .514 || 7.3 || .7 || .4 || 1.1 || 7.5
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Philadelphia
| 69 || 6 || 17.3 || .587 || .250 || .576 || 8.4 || .9 || .4 || .9 || 7.0
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|Career
| 1182 || 1051 || 32.6 || .586 || .159 || .566 || 12.1 || 1.4 || .9 || 1.9 || 16.2
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|All-Star
| 8 || 6 || 23.3 || .642 || .154 || .450 || 8.8 || 1.5 || .6 || 1.1 || 12.1
Playoffs
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2007
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 4 || 4 || 41.8 || .548 || .000 || .455 || 14.8 || 1.8 || .5 || 1.0 || 15.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2008
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 10 || 10 || 42.1 || .581 || .000 || .542 || 15.8 || .9 || .8 || 3.4 || 18.9
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2009
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 23 || 23 || 39.3 || .601 || .000 || .636 || 15.3 || 1.9 || .9 || 2.6 || 20.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2010
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 14 || 14 || 35.5 || .614 || .000 || .519 || 11.1 || 1.4 || .8 || 3.5|| 18.1
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2011
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 6 || 6 || 43.0 || .630 || .000 ||.682 || 15.5 || 0.5 || .7 || 1.8 || 27.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2013
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 4 || 4 || 31.5 || .619 || .000 || .444 || 10.8 || 1.0 || .5 || 2.0 || 17.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2014
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 6 || 6 || 38.5 || .547 || .000 || .625 || 13.7 || 1.8 || .7 || 2.8 || 26.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2015
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 17 || 17 || 33.8 || .577 || .000 || .412 || 14.0 || 1.2 || 1.4 || 2.3 || 16.4
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2016
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 5 || 5 || 36.0 || .542 || .000 || .368 || 14.0 || 1.6 || .8 || 1.4 || 13.2
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2017
| style="text-align:left;"|Atlanta
| 6 || 6 || 26.1 || .500 || .000 || .632 || 10.7 || 1.3 || 1.0 || .8 || 8.0
|-
|style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"|2020†
|style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 18 || 7 || 15.7 || .684 || .500 || .556 || 4.6 || .5 || .4 || .4 || 5.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2021
| style="text-align:left;"|Philadelphia
| 12 || 0 || 12.4 || .533 || .000 || .600 || 6.3 || .7 || .2 || .5 || 4.7
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|Career
| 125 || 102 || 31.6 || .589 || .143 || .548 || 11.8 || 1.2 || .8 || 2.0 || 15.3
Televised appearances
Howard appeared as a special guest on an episode of the ABC series Extreme Makeover: Home Edition that aired April 2, 2006, in which Ty Pennington and his team built a new home and ministry offices for Sadie Holmes, who operates a social services ministry in the Orlando area.
Howard competed in season 6 of The Masked Singer as "Octopus". He was the first one to be eliminated during the two-night premiere alongside Vivica A. Fox as "Mother Nature" and Toni Braxton as "Pufferfish".
Personal life
Howard has five children by five women. In 2010, Howard won a defamation judgment against Royce Reed, the mother of his oldest child Braylon. A Florida judge ruled that she violated a court order prohibiting her from mentioning Howard in the media. He had initially sought about half a billion dollars in damages, claiming that she had disparaged him through Twitter and her appearances on the reality television show, Basketball Wives, as the couple's paternity agreement stipulated a $500 fine for each time she mentioned him in public.
In October 2014, police in Cobb County, Georgia investigated claims by Reed that Howard abused their son. Howard had admitted to hitting Braylon with a belt; he had been disciplined in the same manner while growing up, and he stated that he did not realize it was wrong to do so. Howard was not charged in connection with the allegations. Howard was also involved in a civil case with Reed over custody of their son.
Howard keeps approximately 20 snakes as pets and has appeared twice in Animal Planet's reality TV series Tanked. He owns a farm "in north Georgia where he relaxes [with] cows, hogs, turkeys and deer," and also grows vegetables on his estate.
Melissa Rios, the mother of his son, David, died on March 27, 2020, following an epileptic seizure. David was with Howard at his home in Georgia at the time to ride out the COVID-19 pandemic.
Philanthropy, faith, and public image
Before he was drafted in 2004, Howard said that he wanted to use his NBA career and Christian faith to "raise the name of God within the league and throughout the world". He has stated he believes in reaching out to his community and fans and thus contributes substantially in the field of philanthropy. Together with his parents, Howard established the Dwight D. Howard Foundation Inc. in 2004. In November 2009, the center was named one of the 10 finalists for the Jefferson Awards for Public Service, which awards athletes for their charitable work.
In 2014, Epix featured Howard as the focal point of a documentary about his life called In the Moment.
See also
List of career achievements by Dwight Howard
List of National Basketball Association career games played leaders
List of National Basketball Association career rebounding leaders
List of National Basketball Association career blocks leaders
List of National Basketball Association career turnovers leaders
List of National Basketball Association career free throw scoring leaders
List of National Basketball Association career playoff blocks leaders
List of National Basketball Association annual rebounding leaders
List of National Basketball Association annual blocks leaders
List of National Basketball Association players with most blocks in a game
List of National Basketball Association players with most rebounds in a game
List of National Basketball Association franchise career scoring leaders
Notes
References
External links
1985 births
Living people
2006 FIBA World Championship players
21st-century African-American sportspeople
African-American basketball players
African-American Christians
American men's basketball players
Atlanta Hawks players
Basketball players at the 2008 Summer Olympics
Basketball players from Atlanta
Centers (basketball)
Charlotte Hornets players
Houston Rockets players
Los Angeles Lakers players
McDonald's High School All-Americans
Medalists at the 2008 Summer Olympics
National Basketball Association All-Stars
National Basketball Association high school draftees
Olympic gold medalists for the United States in basketball
Orlando Magic draft picks
Orlando Magic players
Parade High School All-Americans (boys' basketball)
Philadelphia 76ers players
Power forwards (basketball)
United States men's national basketball team players
Washington Wizards players
20th-century African-American people | false | [
"\n\nNegative particles \nNegative particle syntax is parallel to Mandarin about 70% of the time. Here is a fairly complete description (parallel usage to Mandarin is bolded):\n\n 毋 - (is) not + noun (Mandarin: 不)\n 伊毋是阮老母 She is not my mother.\n 毋 - (does) not + verb/will not + verb (Mandarin: 不)\n 伊毋來 He does not come./He will not come.\n verb + 未 + particle - (is) not able to (Mandarin: 不)\n 我看未著 I am not able to see it.\n 未 + helping verb - can not (opposite of ē/會 is able to/Mandarin: 不)\n 伊未曉講英語 He can't speak English.\n helping verbs that go with 未\n未使 - is not permitted to (Mandarin: 不可以)\n未曉 - does not know how to (Mandarin: 不会)\n未當 - not able to (Mandarin: 不能)\n 莫 - do not (imperative) (Mandarin: 別)\n 莫講! Don't speak!\n 无 - do not + helping verb (Mandarin: 不)\n 伊無侎來 He is not going to come.\n helping verbs that go with 無:\n侎 - want to + verb; will + verb\n愛 - must + verb\n應該 - should + verb\n合意 - like to + verb\n 無 - does not have (Mandarin: 沒有)\n 伊無錢 He does not have any money.\n 無 - did not (Mandarin: 沒有)\n 伊無來 He did not come.\n 無 - is not + adjective (Mandarin: 不)\n 伊無婎 She is not beautiful.\nAn exception can be made for 好 (good), 不好 = 無好 - not good.\nback to main article\nview negative particles in simplified Chinese script\n\nSouthern Min",
"\n\nNegative particles \nNegative particle syntax is parallel to Mandarin about 70% of the time. Here is a fairly complete description (parallel usage to Mandarin is bolded):\n\n 不 - is not + noun (Mandarin: 不)\n 伊不是阮老母 She is not my mother.\n 不 - does not + verb/will not + verb (Mandarin: 不)\n 伊不来 He does not come./He will not come.\n verb + 未 + particle - is not able to (Mandarin: 不)\n 我看未着 I am not able to see it.\n 未 + helping verb - can not (opposite of ē is able to/Mandarin: 不)\n 伊未晓讲英语 He can't speak English.\n helping verbs that go with 未\n未使 - is not permitted to (Mandarin: 不可以)\n未晓 - does not know how to (Mandarin: 不会)\n未当 - not able to (Mandarin: 不能)\n 莫 - do not (imperative) (Mandarin: 别)\n 莫讲! Don't speak!\n 无 - do not + helping verb (Mandarin: 不)\n 伊无侎来 He is not going to come.\n helping verbs that go with 无:\n侎 - want to + verb; will + verb\n爱 - must + verb\n应该 - should + verb\n合意 - like to + verb\n 无 - does not have (Mandarin: 没有)\n 伊无钱 He does not have any money.\n 无 - did not (Mandarin: 没有)\n 伊无来 He did not come.\n 无 - is not + adjective (Mandarin: 不)\n 伊无婎 She is not beautiful.\nAn exception can be made for 好 (good), 不好 = 无好 - not good.\nback to main article\nview negative particles in traditional Chinese script\n\nSouthern Min"
] |
[
"Dwight Howard",
"Public image",
"What is a positive public image going forhim?",
"Howard said that he wanted to use his NBA career and Christian faith to \"raise the name of God within the league and throughout the world",
"What way does he plan on reaching out?",
"He has stated he believes in reaching out to his community and fans and thus contributes substantially in the field of philanthropy.",
"Does he have any negative image?",
"An avid listener of Gospel music, he attends the Fellowship of Faith Church when he is back home in Atlanta"
] | C_d944cfc090ab415ca5bfbd6859c14699_0 | Has he been in any movies? | 4 | Has Dwight Howard been in any movies? | Dwight Howard | Before he was drafted in 2004, Howard said that he wanted to use his NBA career and Christian faith to "raise the name of God within the league and throughout the world". He has stated he believes in reaching out to his community and fans and thus contributes substantially in the field of philanthropy. An avid listener of Gospel music, he attends the Fellowship of Faith Church when he is back home in Atlanta and is involved and active with the youth programs at the church. Together with his parents, Howard also established the Dwight D. Howard Foundation Inc. in 2004. The Foundation provides scholarships for students who want to attend his alma mater, Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy, and grants to Lovell Elementary School and Memorial Middle School in Orlando, Florida. The Foundation also organizes summer basketball camps for boys and girls, and together with high school and college coaches and players, fellow NBA players are invited to be on hand at the camp. For his contributions in the Central Florida community, Howard received in 2005 the Rich and Helen De Vos Community Enrichment Award. Within the NBA itself, Howard has participated in several NBA "Read to Achieve" assemblies encouraging children to make reading a priority. In November 2009, the center was named one of the 10 finalists for the Jefferson Awards for Public Service, which awards athletes for their charitable work. In 2009, Howard, along with several other NBA players, joined the Hoops for St. Jude charity program benefitting the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Elsewhere, Howard appeared as a special guest on an episode of the ABC series Extreme Makeover: Home Edition that aired April 2, 2006, in which Ty Pennington and his team built a new home and ministry offices for Sadie Holmes, who operates a social services ministry in the Orlando area. He made another appearance on the show in the October 9, 2011 episode. Along with Sam Worthington and Jonah Hill, Howard appeared in a commercial for the video game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Howard, along with Carmelo Anthony and Scottie Pippen, also appeared in the 2013 Chinese film Amazing, a joint venture between the NBA and Shanghai Film Group Corporation. In 2014, Epix featured Howard as the focal point of a documentary about his life called In the Moment. The film was directed by Ross Greenburg and Executive Producers include Michael D. Ratner and Matthew Weaver. CANNOTANSWER | In 2014, Epix featured Howard as the focal point of a documentary about his life called In the Moment. | Dwight David Howard II (born December 8, 1985) is an American professional basketball player for the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He is an NBA champion, eight-time All-Star, eight-time All-NBA Team honoree, five-time All-Defensive Team member, and three-time Defensive Player of the Year.
Howard, who plays center, spent his high school career at Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy. He chose to forgo college, entered the 2004 NBA draft, and was selected first overall by the Orlando Magic. Howard set numerous franchise and league records with the Magic. He led the team to the 2009 NBA Finals.
In 2012, after eight seasons with Orlando, Howard was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers. After a year with the Lakers, he played for the Houston Rockets, the Atlanta Hawks, the Charlotte Hornets, and the Washington Wizards. Howard returned to the Lakers in 2019 and won his first NBA championship in 2020.
Early life
Howard was born in Atlanta, to Dwight Sr. and Sheryl Howard, a family with strong athletic connections. His father is a Georgia State Trooper and is the athletic director at Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy, a private academy with one of the country's best high school basketball programs; his mother played on the inaugural women's basketball team at Morris Brown College. Howard's mother had seven miscarriages before he was born. A devout Christian since his youth, Howard became serious about basketball around the age of nine. Despite his large frame, Howard was quick and versatile enough to play the guard position. He attended Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy and played mostly as power forward, averaging 16.6 points, 13.4 rebounds and 6.3 blocks per game in 129 appearances. As a senior, Howard led his team to a 31–2 record and the 2004 state title, while averaging 25 points, 18 rebounds, 8.1 blocks and 3.5 assists per game. The same year, he was widely recognized as the best American high school basketball player, and received the Naismith Prep Player of the Year Award, the Morgan Wootten High School Player of the Year Award, Gatorade National Player of the Year and the McDonald's National High School Player of the Year honor. He was also co-MVP (with J. R. Smith) of the McDonald's All-American Game that year. On January 31, 2012, Howard was honored as one of the 35 greatest McDonald's All-Americans.
Professional career
Orlando Magic (2004–2012)
Early years (2004–2008)
Following his high school successes, Howard chose to forego college and declared for the 2004 NBA draft—a decision partly inspired by his idol Kevin Garnett who had done the same in 1995—where the Orlando Magic selected him first overall over UConn junior Emeka Okafor. He took the number 12 for his jersey, in part because it was the reverse of Garnett's 21 when he played for Minnesota. Howard joined a depleted Magic squad that had finished with only 21 victories the previous season; further, the club had just lost perennial NBA All-Star Tracy McGrady. Howard, however, made an immediate impact. He finished his rookie season with an average of 12 points and 10 rebounds, setting several NBA records in the process. He became the youngest player in NBA history to average a double double in the regular season. He also became the youngest player in NBA history to average at least 10 rebounds in a season and youngest NBA player ever to record at least 20 rebounds in a game. Howard's importance to the Magic was highlighted when he became the first player in NBA history directly out of high school to start all 82 games during his rookie season. For his efforts, he was selected to play in the 2005 NBA Rookie Challenge, and was unanimously selected to the All-Rookie Team. He also finished third in the Rookie of the Year voting.
Howard reported to camp for his second NBA season having added 20 pounds of muscle during the off-season. Orlando coach Brian Hill—responsible for grooming former Magic superstar Shaquille O'Neal—decided that Howard should be converted into a full-fledged center. Hill identified two areas where Howard needed to improve: his post-up game and his defense. He exerted extra pressure on Howard, saying that the Magic would need him to emerge as a force in the middle before the team had a chance at the playoffs. On November 15, 2005, in a home game against the Charlotte Bobcats, Howard recorded 21 points and 20 rebounds, becoming the youngest player ever to score 20 or more points and gather 20 or more rebounds in the same game. He was selected to play on the Sophomore Team in the 2006 Rookie Challenge during the All-Star break. Overall, he averaged 15.8 points and 12.5 rebounds per game, ranking second in the NBA in rebounds per game, offensive rebounds, and double-doubles and sixth in field goal percentage. Despite Howard's improvement, the Magic finished the season with a 36–46 record and failed to qualify for the playoffs for the second consecutive season since Howard's arrival.
In the 2006–07 season (and for the third consecutive season), Howard played in all 82 regular-season games. On February 1, 2007, he received his first NBA All-Star selection as a reserve on the Eastern Conference squad for the 2007 NBA All-Star Game. On February 9, he made a game-winning alley-oop off an inbound pass at the buzzer against the San Antonio Spurs. Howard set a new career high with 35 points against the Philadelphia 76ers on April 14. Under his leadership, the Magic qualified for the 2007 NBA Playoffs as the eighth seed in the Eastern Conference. There, the Magic were swept by the Detroit Pistons in the first round. For the season, Howard averaged 17.6 points and 12.3 rebounds per game, finishing first in the NBA in total rebounds, second in field goal percentage, and ninth in blocks. He was named to the All-NBA Third Team at the end of the 2006–07 campaign.
Howard continued posting impressive numbers in the 2007–08 season and helped the Magic have their best season to date. Howard was named as a starter for the Eastern Conference All-Star team. On February 16, 2008, he won the NBA Slam Dunk Contest by receiving 78% of the fan's votes via text messaging or online voting; in that contest, he performed a series of innovative dunks said to have rejuvenated the contest, including donning a Superman cape for one of the dunks. Howard led the Magic to their first division title in 12 years and to the third seed for the 2008 NBA Playoffs. In their first round match-up against the Toronto Raptors, Howard's dominance (three 20-point/20-rebound games) helped Orlando to prevail in five games. Howard's series total of 91 rebounds was also greater than the total rebounds collected by the entire Toronto frontcourt. In the second round against the Pistons, the Magic lost in five games. For the season, Howard was named to the All-NBA First Team for the first time, and was also named to the NBA All-Defensive Second Team.
Dominance and NBA Finals appearance (2008–2011)
The 2008–09 season began well for Howard. Ten games into the season, the center was leading the league in blocks per game (4.2). In December, Howard injured his left knee, which caused him to miss a game due to injury for the first time in his NBA career; previously, he had played in 351 consecutive games. He garnered a record 3.1 million votes to earn the starting berth on the Eastern Conference team for the 2009 NBA All-Star Game. Howard led Orlando to its second straight Southeast Division title and to the third seed for the 2009 NBA Playoffs; the team finished the season with a 59–23 record. In the first round of the playoffs against the 76ers, Howard recorded 24 points and 24 rebounds in Game 5 to give Orlando a 3–2 lead before the Magic closed out the series in six games. In the second round against the Boston Celtics, after the Magic blew a lead in Game 5 to fall behind 3–2 in the series, Howard publicly stated that he should have been given the ball more and questioned coach Stan Van Gundy's tactics. The Magic went on to defeat Boston to win the series and move on to the Eastern Conference Finals. There they, defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers 4–2. Howard had a playoff career-high 40 points to go with his 14 rebounds in the deciding Game 6, leading Orlando to the NBA Finals for the first time in 14 years. In the NBA Finals, the Los Angeles Lakers took the first two home games, before a home win by the Magic brought the deficit to 2–1. In Game 4, despite Howard putting up 21 rebounds and a Finals record of 9 blocks in a game, the Magic lost in overtime. The Lakers went on to clinch the series with a win in Game 5. For the season, Howard became the youngest player ever to win the NBA Defensive Player of the Year Award. He was also named to the NBA All-Defensive First Team, and to the All-NBA First Team.
In the 2009–10 season, the Magic got off to a strong start, winning 17 of their first 21 games and setting a franchise record. On January 21, 2010, Howard was named as the starting center for the East in the 2010 NBA All-Star Game. The Magic completed the regular season with 59 wins and their third consecutive division title. The Magic's playoff run resulted another Eastern Conference Finals appearance, where they lost in six games to the Celtics. Howard won the Defensive Player of the Year Award for the second straight year. He became the first player in NBA history to lead the league in blocks and rebounds in the same season twice—and for two years in a row.
In the 2010–11 season, Howard posted career highs in points and field goal percentage. He became the first player in league history to win Defensive Player of the Year honors for three consecutive seasons. Howard led the league in double-doubles and also averaged 14.1 rebounds, 2.3 blocks and a career-high 1.3 steals this season. He led the Magic to 52 wins, as they finished as the fourth seed in the Eastern Conference. They went on to lose to the Atlanta Hawks in the first round of 2011 NBA Playoffs. He had a playoff career-high 46 points and 19 rebounds in Orlando's 103–93 loss to Atlanta in Game 1. Howard led the NBA in technical fouls with 18 in the regular season, and received one-game suspensions after his 16th and 18th technicals.
Final season in Orlando (2011–2012)
Due to a lockout, the 2011–12 regular season was shortened to 66 games. Not long after the lockout ended, Howard, who was eligible to become a free agent at the end of the season, demanded a trade to the New Jersey Nets, Los Angeles Lakers or Dallas Mavericks. Howard stated that although his preference was to remain in Orlando, he did not feel the Magic organization was doing enough to build a championship contender. He would later meet with Magic officials and agree to back off his trade demands, but stated that he also felt the team needed to make changes to the roster if they wanted to contend for a championship.
On January 12, 2012, Howard attempted an NBA regular season record 39 free throws against the Golden State Warriors. Howard entered the game making 42 percent of his free throws for the season and just below 60 percent for his career. The Warriors hacked Howard intentionally throughout the game, and he broke Wilt Chamberlain's regular-season record of 34 set in 1962. Howard made 21 of the 39 attempts, finishing with 45 points and 23 rebounds in the Magic's 117–109 victory. On January 24, 2012, Howard became the Magic's all-time scoring leader.
On March 15, 2012, on the day of the trading deadline for the 2011–12 NBA season, Howard waived his right to opt out of his contract at the end of the season and committed to stay with the Magic through the 2012–13 season. He had previously asked to be traded to the New Jersey Nets. Had he not signed the amendment, the Magic were prepared to trade him to avoid losing him as a free agent. On April 5, Van Gundy said that he had been informed by management that Howard wanted him fired. During the interview, the center walked up and hugged his coach, unaware that Van Gundy had confirmed a report that Howard denied. Van Gundy was let go after the season.
On April 19, 2012, Howard's agent said that Howard would undergo surgery to repair a herniated disk in his back and would miss the rest of the 2011–12 season, as well as the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. During the offseason, Howard again requested a trade to the Nets, who had relocated to Brooklyn. He intended to become a free agent at the end of the 2012–13 season if he was not traded to Brooklyn.
Los Angeles Lakers (2012–2013)
On August 10, 2012, Howard was traded from Orlando to the Los Angeles Lakers in a deal that also involved the Philadelphia 76ers and the Denver Nuggets. Howard took six months off from basketball after his April back surgery, and only had the combined four weeks of training camp and preseason to prepare for the season. Still working himself into shape, Howard paced himself throughout the season on both offense and defense. On January 4, 2013, Howard injured his right shoulder in the second half of the Lakers' 107–102 loss to the Los Angeles Clippers. At the midpoint of the season, the Lakers were a disappointing 17–24. Howard was averaging 17.1 points on 58.2% shooting, 12.3 rebounds, and 2.5 blocks, but also 3.6 fouls a game with 3.2 turnovers while making only 50.4% of his free throws.
Howard was upset that he was not getting the ball enough, and he felt that Kobe Bryant was shooting too much. Moving forward, Howard said he needed to "bring it" and dominate in more ways than just scoring. Howard missed games due to his recurring shoulder injury in January and February. In February, Bryant said that Howard "worries too much" and "doesn't want to let anyone down", urging him to play through the pain when Pau Gasol was sidelined with a torn plantar fascia. Howard returned the next game after commenting that Bryant was "not a doctor, I'm not a doctor. That's his opinion."
During the All-Star break, Howard adopted a healthier diet to get into better shape to anchor the Lakers' defense and run head coach Mike D'Antoni's preferred pick and rolls. Still, on February 23, Howard said he was "not even close" to physically being where he wanted to be. Coach Mike D'Antoni attributed Howard's difficulty running the pick-and-roll—a play the coach had expected would be a staple for the team—with Steve Nash to Howard's lack of conditioning. The Lakers were 8–2 after the All-Star break, passing Utah for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference, and Howard averaged 15.5 points, 14.8 rebounds, and 2.6 blocks. In his first game back in Orlando on March 12, Howard scored a season-high 39 points and had 16 rebounds in a 106–97 Lakers win. Booed throughout the game, he made 25 of 39 free throws, setting franchise records for free throws made and attempted while tying his own NBA record for attempts. Howard made 16 of 20 free throws when he was fouled intentionally by the Magic. With Howard anchoring the Lakers defense and his improved overall play, the Lakers made the playoffs, but were swept in the opening round by San Antonio. Howard was ejected in Game 4 with over nine minutes left in the third quarter.
Howard finished the season with his lowest scoring average since his second year in the NBA, but he was the league leader in rebounding and ranked second in field goal percentage. Although he was recovering from his back surgery, he only missed six games all season—all due to his torn labrum. Howard was named to the All-NBA Third Team after having received five consecutive first-team honors. He became a free agent in the summer, and he was offered a maximum contract of five years and $118 million by the Lakers.
Houston Rockets (2013–2016)
On July 13, 2013, Howard signed with the Houston Rockets, joining James Harden to form a formidable duo. Howard finished the regular season with averages of 18.3 points and 12.2 rebounds and earned All-NBA Second Team honors. During the 2014 playoffs, Howard averaged 26 points and 13.7 rebounds per game, but the Rockets were eliminated by the Portland Trail Blazers in the first round, losing the series 4–2.
After playing in the Rockets' first 10 out of 11 games to start the 2014–15 season, Howard missed 11 straight due to a strained right knee before returning to action on December 13 against the Denver Nuggets and recording his 10,000th career rebound. However, on January 31, Howard was ruled out for a further month due to persistent trouble with his right knee. After setbacks forced him out for a further month and a total of 26 games, Howard returned to action on March 25 against the New Orleans Pelicans. He started the game but was held under 17 minutes by coach Kevin McHale and finished with just four points and seven rebounds in a 95–93 win. Howard played only 41 games in the regular season. The Rockets clinched their first division title in over 20 years and made it to the Western Conference Finals, where they lost 4–1 to the Golden State Warriors.
On November 4, 2015, Howard had 23 points and 14 rebounds against the Orlando Magic. He shot 10-of-10 to become the first Rocket to make 10 or more field goals without a miss since Yao Ming went 12-of-12 in 2009. On December 26, he eclipsed 15,000 points for his career in a loss to the New Orleans Pelicans. On January 18, 2016, in an overtime loss to the Los Angeles Clippers, Howard had 36 points and tied a career high with 26 rebounds en route to his 10th straight double-double, the league's longest active streak at the time, and his longest since a 14-game run in 2012–13. On June 22, 2016, Howard declined his $23 million player option for the 2016–17 season and became an unrestricted free agent.
Atlanta Hawks (2016–2017)
On July 12, 2016, Howard signed a three-year, $70 million contract with his hometown team the Atlanta Hawks. With the retirement of Tim Duncan, Howard entered the 2016–17 season as the NBA's active leader in rebounds (12,089) and blocked shots (1,916). In his debut for the Hawks in their season opener on October 27, Howard grabbed 19 rebounds in a 114–99 win over the Washington Wizards. It was the most rebounds for anyone in their Atlanta debut, breaking the mark of 18 that Shareef Abdur-Rahim set on October 30, 2001. On November 2, he scored a season-high 31 points in a 123–116 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers. On February 2, he had a season-best game with 24 points and 23 rebounds in a 113–108 win over the Rockets in Houston.
Charlotte Hornets (2017–2018)
On June 20, 2017, the Hawks traded Howard, along with the 31st overall pick in the 2017 NBA draft, to the Charlotte Hornets in exchange for Marco Belinelli, Miles Plumlee and the 41st overall pick in the 2017 NBA draft. To begin the season, Howard became the first Charlotte player since Emeka Okafor in 2007 with four consecutive 15-rebound games. In the fifth game of the season, he had another 15-rebound game. On March 15, he scored 20 of his season-high 33 points in the second half of the Hornets' 129–117 win over the Atlanta Hawks. On March 21, Howard recorded 32 points and a franchise-record 30 rebounds in a 111–105 win over the Nets, becoming just the eighth player in league history with a 30–30 game. He became the first NBA player with a 30-point, 30-rebound game since Kevin Love in November 2010, and the first player with a 30–30 game against the Nets since Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in February 1978. The next day, Howard was suspended for one game without pay due to receiving his 16th technical foul of the season. Howard finished the season with a franchise-record 53 double-doubles and joined Abdul-Jabbar and Wilt Chamberlain as the only players to hold single-season records with two teams. Howard also became one of six players to average a double-double in each of his first 13 seasons in the league.
On July 6, 2018, Howard was traded to the Brooklyn Nets in exchange for Timofey Mozgov, the draft rights to Hamidou Diallo, a 2021 second-round draft pick and cash considerations. He was waived by the Nets immediately upon being acquired.
Washington Wizards (2018–2019)
On July 12, 2018, Howard signed with the Washington Wizards. He missed all of training camp, every exhibition game and the first seven regular-season games with a sore backside. He appeared in nine games in November before missing the rest of the season after undergoing spinal surgery to relieve pain in his glutes. In March 2019, it was revealed that Howard, in addition to his back injury, was also dealing with a hamstring issue. On April 18, 2019, Howard exercised his $5.6 million player option to play a second season with the Wizards.
On July 6, 2019, Howard was traded to the Memphis Grizzlies for forward C. J. Miles. On August 24, 2019, Howard was waived by the Grizzlies.
Return to the Lakers (2019–2020)
On August 26, 2019, Howard signed a $2.6 million veteran's minimum contract with the Los Angeles Lakers, reuniting him with his former team. He was replacing DeMarcus Cousins, a free agent signed earlier in the offseason who was lost for the year after suffering a knee injury. To assure the team that he would accept any role the team asked, Howard offered to sign a non-guaranteed contract, freeing the Lakers to cut him at any time.
During the season, the Lakers split time fairly evenly between him and starting center JaVale McGee. On January 13, 2020, Howard scored a season-high 21 points on a 9-of-11 shooting and got a season-high 15 rebounds. In Game 4 of the Western Conference finals against the Denver Nuggets, Lakers coach Frank Vogel started Howard to match up against the Nuggets' Nikola Jokić. Howard had 12 points and 11 rebounds in 23 minutes to help the Lakers win and take a 3–1 lead in the series. He had started twice during the regular season, but this was his first start by coach's decision when McGee was available. The Lakers advanced to the NBA Finals, winning the series 4–2 over the Miami Heat and giving Howard his first NBA championship.
Philadelphia 76ers (2020–2021)
On November 21, 2020, the Philadelphia 76ers signed Howard to a one-year deal worth $2,564,753. With the 76ers he averaged 7 points and 8.4 rebounds. Howard played 69 games with the Sixers with six starts in 17.3 minutes. He was suspended for one game after getting into a scuffle with Udonis Haslem where both were assessed technical fouls and Haslem was ejected. Howard was suspended because he incurred his 16th technical foul of the year.
Third stint with the Lakers (2021–present)
Howard signed a $2.6 million veteran's minimum contract with the Los Angeles Lakers on August 6, 2021.
National team career
On March 5, 2006, Howard was named to the 2006–2008 USA Basketball Men's Senior National Team program. As the team's regular starting center, he helped lead the team to a 5–0 record during its pre-World Championship tour, and subsequently helped the team win the bronze medal at the 2006 FIBA World Championship. During the FIBA Americas Championship 2007, Howard was on the team which won its first nine games en route to qualifying for the finals and a spot for the 2008 Olympics. He started in eight of those nine games, averaging 8.9 ppg, 5.3 rpg and led the team in shooting .778 from the field. In the finals, he made all seven of his shots and scored 20 points as the USA defeated Argentina to win the gold medal.
On June 23, 2008, Howard was named as one of the members of the 12-man squad representing the United States in the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. With Howard starting as center, Team USA won all of its games en route to the gold medal, breaking their drought of gold medals dating back to the 2000 Olympics. Howard averaged 10.9 points and 5.8 rebounds per game in the tournament.
Player profile
Standing and weighing , Howard plays the center position. He led the NBA in rebounding from 2007 to 2010, and again from 2012 to 2013. Howard's rebounding is in part facilitated by his extraordinary athleticism; his running vertical leap was tested at in 2011, rare for a player of his size. He demonstrated this skill in the 2007 Slam Dunk Contest, where he completed an alley oop dunk from teammate Jameer Nelson while slapping a sticker onto the backboard at high. The sticker showed an image of his own smiling face with a handwritten "All things through Christ Phil: 4:13", a paraphrase of .
Howard's abilities and powerful physique have drawn attention from fellow NBA All-Stars. Tim Duncan remarked in 2007, "[Howard] is so developed... He has so much promise and I am glad that I will be out of the league when he is peaking." Kevin Garnett echoed those sentiments: "[Howard] is a freak of nature, man... I was nowhere near that physically talented. I wasn't that gifted, as far as body and physical presence." After a game in the 2009 NBA Playoffs, Philadelphia 76ers swingman Andre Iguodala said: "It's like he can guard two guys at once. He can guard his guy and the guy coming off the pick-and-roll, which is almost impossible to do... If he gets any more athletic or jumps any higher, they're going to have to change the rules." In December 2007, ESPN writer David Thorpe declared Howard the most dominant center in the NBA. Early in his career, many sports pundits rated Howard one of the top young prospects in the NBA.
Howard has a reputation as a negative locker room presence. In a 2013 interview, he called his former Orlando Magic teammates a "team full of people no one wanted". In a 2013 article titled "Is Dwight Howard the NBA's Worst Teammate?", Bleacher Report asserted that Howard had "extinguished all bridges with the franchise where he spent his first eight NBA seasons". Howard did not get along with Kobe Bryant when he played for the Lakers and did not get along with James Harden when he played for the Rockets. When he was traded from the Atlanta Hawks to the Charlotte Hornets, some of his Hawks teammates reportedly cheered. After Charlotte traded Howard to the Washington Wizards, Charlotte player Brendan Haywood asserted that Howard's teammates were "sick and tired of his act". In 2018, NBC News reported that "Howard’s time with the Magic, Lakers and Rockets devolved into interpersonal strife well before he left those teams". Also in 2018, The Ringer published a piece titled "Everybody (Still) Hates Dwight" in which it called Howard "almost certainly the least popular player in the NBA". Before signing with the Lakers in 2019, Howard reportedly met with the team multiple times, "promising not to live up to his reputation as a difficult teammate who disrupts locker rooms"; the team warned him that he would be released if he became a disruptive presence.
NBA career statistics
Regular season
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 82 || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 32.6 || .520 || .000 || .671 || 10.0 || .9 || .9 || 1.7 || 12.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 81 || 36.8 || .531 || .000 || .595 || 12.5 || 1.5 || .8 || 1.4 || 15.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 36.9 || .603 || .500 || .586 || 12.3 || 1.9 || .9 || 1.9 || 17.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 37.7 || .599 || .000 || .590 || style="background:#cfecec;"| 14.2* || 1.3 || .9 || 2.1 || 20.7
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 79 || 79 || 35.7 || .572 || .000 || .594 || style="background:#cfecec;"| 13.8* || 1.4 || 1.0 || style="background:#cfecec;"| 2.9* || 20.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 34.7 || style="background:#cfecec;"| .612* || .000 || .592 || style="background:#cfecec;"| 13.2* || 1.8 || .9 || style="background:#cfecec;"| 2.8* || 18.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 78 || 78 || 37.5 || .593 || .000 || .596 || 14.1 || 1.4 || 1.4 || 2.4 || 22.9
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 54 || 54 || 38.3 || .573 || .000 || .491 || style="background:#cfecec;"|14.5* || 1.9 || 1.5 || 2.1 || 20.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 76 || 76 || 35.8 || .578 || .167 || .492 ||bgcolor="CFECEC"| 12.4* || 1.4 || 1.1 || 2.4 || 17.1
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 71 || 71 || 33.7 || .591 || .286 || .547 || 12.2 || 1.8 || .8 || 1.8 || 18.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 41 || 41 || 29.8 || .593 || .500 || .528 || 10.5 || 1.2 || .7 || 1.3 || 15.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 71 || 71 || 32.1 || .620 || .000 || .489 || 11.8 || 1.4 || 1.0 || 1.6 || 13.7
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Atlanta
| 74|| 74 || 29.7 || .633 || .000 || .533 || 12.7 || 1.4 || .9 || 1.2 || 13.5
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Charlotte
| 81 || 81 || 30.4 || .555 || .143 || .574 || 12.5 || 1.3 || .6 || 1.6 || 16.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Washington
| 9 || 9 || 25.6 || .623 || .000 || .604 || 9.2 || .4 || .8 || .4 || 12.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 69 || 2 || 18.9 || .729 || .600 || .514 || 7.3 || .7 || .4 || 1.1 || 7.5
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Philadelphia
| 69 || 6 || 17.3 || .587 || .250 || .576 || 8.4 || .9 || .4 || .9 || 7.0
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|Career
| 1182 || 1051 || 32.6 || .586 || .159 || .566 || 12.1 || 1.4 || .9 || 1.9 || 16.2
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|All-Star
| 8 || 6 || 23.3 || .642 || .154 || .450 || 8.8 || 1.5 || .6 || 1.1 || 12.1
Playoffs
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2007
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 4 || 4 || 41.8 || .548 || .000 || .455 || 14.8 || 1.8 || .5 || 1.0 || 15.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2008
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 10 || 10 || 42.1 || .581 || .000 || .542 || 15.8 || .9 || .8 || 3.4 || 18.9
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2009
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 23 || 23 || 39.3 || .601 || .000 || .636 || 15.3 || 1.9 || .9 || 2.6 || 20.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2010
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 14 || 14 || 35.5 || .614 || .000 || .519 || 11.1 || 1.4 || .8 || 3.5|| 18.1
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2011
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 6 || 6 || 43.0 || .630 || .000 ||.682 || 15.5 || 0.5 || .7 || 1.8 || 27.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2013
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 4 || 4 || 31.5 || .619 || .000 || .444 || 10.8 || 1.0 || .5 || 2.0 || 17.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2014
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 6 || 6 || 38.5 || .547 || .000 || .625 || 13.7 || 1.8 || .7 || 2.8 || 26.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2015
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 17 || 17 || 33.8 || .577 || .000 || .412 || 14.0 || 1.2 || 1.4 || 2.3 || 16.4
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2016
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 5 || 5 || 36.0 || .542 || .000 || .368 || 14.0 || 1.6 || .8 || 1.4 || 13.2
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2017
| style="text-align:left;"|Atlanta
| 6 || 6 || 26.1 || .500 || .000 || .632 || 10.7 || 1.3 || 1.0 || .8 || 8.0
|-
|style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"|2020†
|style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 18 || 7 || 15.7 || .684 || .500 || .556 || 4.6 || .5 || .4 || .4 || 5.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2021
| style="text-align:left;"|Philadelphia
| 12 || 0 || 12.4 || .533 || .000 || .600 || 6.3 || .7 || .2 || .5 || 4.7
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|Career
| 125 || 102 || 31.6 || .589 || .143 || .548 || 11.8 || 1.2 || .8 || 2.0 || 15.3
Televised appearances
Howard appeared as a special guest on an episode of the ABC series Extreme Makeover: Home Edition that aired April 2, 2006, in which Ty Pennington and his team built a new home and ministry offices for Sadie Holmes, who operates a social services ministry in the Orlando area.
Howard competed in season 6 of The Masked Singer as "Octopus". He was the first one to be eliminated during the two-night premiere alongside Vivica A. Fox as "Mother Nature" and Toni Braxton as "Pufferfish".
Personal life
Howard has five children by five women. In 2010, Howard won a defamation judgment against Royce Reed, the mother of his oldest child Braylon. A Florida judge ruled that she violated a court order prohibiting her from mentioning Howard in the media. He had initially sought about half a billion dollars in damages, claiming that she had disparaged him through Twitter and her appearances on the reality television show, Basketball Wives, as the couple's paternity agreement stipulated a $500 fine for each time she mentioned him in public.
In October 2014, police in Cobb County, Georgia investigated claims by Reed that Howard abused their son. Howard had admitted to hitting Braylon with a belt; he had been disciplined in the same manner while growing up, and he stated that he did not realize it was wrong to do so. Howard was not charged in connection with the allegations. Howard was also involved in a civil case with Reed over custody of their son.
Howard keeps approximately 20 snakes as pets and has appeared twice in Animal Planet's reality TV series Tanked. He owns a farm "in north Georgia where he relaxes [with] cows, hogs, turkeys and deer," and also grows vegetables on his estate.
Melissa Rios, the mother of his son, David, died on March 27, 2020, following an epileptic seizure. David was with Howard at his home in Georgia at the time to ride out the COVID-19 pandemic.
Philanthropy, faith, and public image
Before he was drafted in 2004, Howard said that he wanted to use his NBA career and Christian faith to "raise the name of God within the league and throughout the world". He has stated he believes in reaching out to his community and fans and thus contributes substantially in the field of philanthropy. Together with his parents, Howard established the Dwight D. Howard Foundation Inc. in 2004. In November 2009, the center was named one of the 10 finalists for the Jefferson Awards for Public Service, which awards athletes for their charitable work.
In 2014, Epix featured Howard as the focal point of a documentary about his life called In the Moment.
See also
List of career achievements by Dwight Howard
List of National Basketball Association career games played leaders
List of National Basketball Association career rebounding leaders
List of National Basketball Association career blocks leaders
List of National Basketball Association career turnovers leaders
List of National Basketball Association career free throw scoring leaders
List of National Basketball Association career playoff blocks leaders
List of National Basketball Association annual rebounding leaders
List of National Basketball Association annual blocks leaders
List of National Basketball Association players with most blocks in a game
List of National Basketball Association players with most rebounds in a game
List of National Basketball Association franchise career scoring leaders
Notes
References
External links
1985 births
Living people
2006 FIBA World Championship players
21st-century African-American sportspeople
African-American basketball players
African-American Christians
American men's basketball players
Atlanta Hawks players
Basketball players at the 2008 Summer Olympics
Basketball players from Atlanta
Centers (basketball)
Charlotte Hornets players
Houston Rockets players
Los Angeles Lakers players
McDonald's High School All-Americans
Medalists at the 2008 Summer Olympics
National Basketball Association All-Stars
National Basketball Association high school draftees
Olympic gold medalists for the United States in basketball
Orlando Magic draft picks
Orlando Magic players
Parade High School All-Americans (boys' basketball)
Philadelphia 76ers players
Power forwards (basketball)
United States men's national basketball team players
Washington Wizards players
20th-century African-American people | true | [
"True Movies 2 was a British free-to-air television channel that was owned by Moving Movies Ltd., majority owned by CSC Media Group (formerly Chart Show Channels). It was launched on 20 March 2006 and was a sister channel from True Movies which was launched on 29 April 2005. True Movies 2 initially broadcast for two hours in the early morning, from 4am to 6am by timesharing with Pop, a children's cartoon channel. The service was later extended to 24 hours a day.\n\nTrue Movies 2 was aimed especially at a female audience with its movies dedicated to true life dramas, which are mostly made-for-TV movies.\n\nReception of the channel did not require any special Sky or Freesat equipment nor subscription, any free to air receiver can pick up the channel.\nThe channel was temporarily rebranded from 19 May to 2 June 2014 as True Murder. From 30 September 2016, the channel was replaced by True Movies +1.\n\nEnglish-language television stations in the United Kingdom\nMovie channels in the United Kingdom\nCSC Media Group\nSony Pictures Television\nTelevision channels and stations established in 2006\nTelevision channels and stations disestablished in 2016",
"Elias Kobra (born 20 January 1961) is a Bangladeshi film actor. In the films he usually plays the supporting negative role. He made his acting debut in the 1987 film Maruk Shah directed by Masood Parvez (Sohel Rana). In a career spanning more than two decades, Elias Cobra has acted in more than 500 films.\n\nPersonal life \nElias Cobra was born on January 20, 1961 in Baharchhara, Teknaf.\n\nCareer \nElias Cobra made his acting debut in Masood Parvez's (Sohel Rana) film Maruk Shah in 1986. Danny Sidak also played a villain with him at the time. Before coming to the movies, Elias Cobra ran a martial arts school. He has mostly worked in martial arts movies. He came from Burma to learn martial arts. He has acted in many films as a worthy rival to the kung fu hero RubelSo far he has acted in more than five hundred movies and Ratan Talukder.\n\nElias Cobra won the 2000 Shilpi Samiti election for the post of Sports-Cultural Secretary.\n\nSelected movies \n Maruk Shah (1996)\n Shant Ken Mastan (1997)\n Bhand (1997)\n Mugher Mulluk (1999)\n Lund Bhand (2000)\n Chairman (2001)\n Major Saheb (2002)\n City Terror (2005)\n Bullet (2006)\n Priya Amar Priya (2007)\n Thekao Andolan (2009)\n Hai Prem Hai Bhalobasha (2010)\n Search - The Search (2010)\n Wanted (2011)\n Boss Number One (2011)\n Dui Prithibi (2015)\n Musafir (2016)\n\nCriticism \nHe has been criticized for acting in several obscene movies\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n \n\nBangladeshi film producers\nPeople from Cox's Bazar District\n21st-century Bangladeshi male actors\nBangladeshi male film actors\nLiving people\n1961 births"
] |
[
"Dwight Howard",
"Public image",
"What is a positive public image going forhim?",
"Howard said that he wanted to use his NBA career and Christian faith to \"raise the name of God within the league and throughout the world",
"What way does he plan on reaching out?",
"He has stated he believes in reaching out to his community and fans and thus contributes substantially in the field of philanthropy.",
"Does he have any negative image?",
"An avid listener of Gospel music, he attends the Fellowship of Faith Church when he is back home in Atlanta",
"Has he been in any movies?",
"In 2014, Epix featured Howard as the focal point of a documentary about his life called In the Moment."
] | C_d944cfc090ab415ca5bfbd6859c14699_0 | What did the documentary tell about his life? | 5 | What did the Epix documentary tell about Dwight Howard's life? | Dwight Howard | Before he was drafted in 2004, Howard said that he wanted to use his NBA career and Christian faith to "raise the name of God within the league and throughout the world". He has stated he believes in reaching out to his community and fans and thus contributes substantially in the field of philanthropy. An avid listener of Gospel music, he attends the Fellowship of Faith Church when he is back home in Atlanta and is involved and active with the youth programs at the church. Together with his parents, Howard also established the Dwight D. Howard Foundation Inc. in 2004. The Foundation provides scholarships for students who want to attend his alma mater, Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy, and grants to Lovell Elementary School and Memorial Middle School in Orlando, Florida. The Foundation also organizes summer basketball camps for boys and girls, and together with high school and college coaches and players, fellow NBA players are invited to be on hand at the camp. For his contributions in the Central Florida community, Howard received in 2005 the Rich and Helen De Vos Community Enrichment Award. Within the NBA itself, Howard has participated in several NBA "Read to Achieve" assemblies encouraging children to make reading a priority. In November 2009, the center was named one of the 10 finalists for the Jefferson Awards for Public Service, which awards athletes for their charitable work. In 2009, Howard, along with several other NBA players, joined the Hoops for St. Jude charity program benefitting the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Elsewhere, Howard appeared as a special guest on an episode of the ABC series Extreme Makeover: Home Edition that aired April 2, 2006, in which Ty Pennington and his team built a new home and ministry offices for Sadie Holmes, who operates a social services ministry in the Orlando area. He made another appearance on the show in the October 9, 2011 episode. Along with Sam Worthington and Jonah Hill, Howard appeared in a commercial for the video game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Howard, along with Carmelo Anthony and Scottie Pippen, also appeared in the 2013 Chinese film Amazing, a joint venture between the NBA and Shanghai Film Group Corporation. In 2014, Epix featured Howard as the focal point of a documentary about his life called In the Moment. The film was directed by Ross Greenburg and Executive Producers include Michael D. Ratner and Matthew Weaver. CANNOTANSWER | The film was directed by Ross Greenburg and Executive Producers include Michael D. Ratner and Matthew Weaver. | Dwight David Howard II (born December 8, 1985) is an American professional basketball player for the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He is an NBA champion, eight-time All-Star, eight-time All-NBA Team honoree, five-time All-Defensive Team member, and three-time Defensive Player of the Year.
Howard, who plays center, spent his high school career at Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy. He chose to forgo college, entered the 2004 NBA draft, and was selected first overall by the Orlando Magic. Howard set numerous franchise and league records with the Magic. He led the team to the 2009 NBA Finals.
In 2012, after eight seasons with Orlando, Howard was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers. After a year with the Lakers, he played for the Houston Rockets, the Atlanta Hawks, the Charlotte Hornets, and the Washington Wizards. Howard returned to the Lakers in 2019 and won his first NBA championship in 2020.
Early life
Howard was born in Atlanta, to Dwight Sr. and Sheryl Howard, a family with strong athletic connections. His father is a Georgia State Trooper and is the athletic director at Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy, a private academy with one of the country's best high school basketball programs; his mother played on the inaugural women's basketball team at Morris Brown College. Howard's mother had seven miscarriages before he was born. A devout Christian since his youth, Howard became serious about basketball around the age of nine. Despite his large frame, Howard was quick and versatile enough to play the guard position. He attended Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy and played mostly as power forward, averaging 16.6 points, 13.4 rebounds and 6.3 blocks per game in 129 appearances. As a senior, Howard led his team to a 31–2 record and the 2004 state title, while averaging 25 points, 18 rebounds, 8.1 blocks and 3.5 assists per game. The same year, he was widely recognized as the best American high school basketball player, and received the Naismith Prep Player of the Year Award, the Morgan Wootten High School Player of the Year Award, Gatorade National Player of the Year and the McDonald's National High School Player of the Year honor. He was also co-MVP (with J. R. Smith) of the McDonald's All-American Game that year. On January 31, 2012, Howard was honored as one of the 35 greatest McDonald's All-Americans.
Professional career
Orlando Magic (2004–2012)
Early years (2004–2008)
Following his high school successes, Howard chose to forego college and declared for the 2004 NBA draft—a decision partly inspired by his idol Kevin Garnett who had done the same in 1995—where the Orlando Magic selected him first overall over UConn junior Emeka Okafor. He took the number 12 for his jersey, in part because it was the reverse of Garnett's 21 when he played for Minnesota. Howard joined a depleted Magic squad that had finished with only 21 victories the previous season; further, the club had just lost perennial NBA All-Star Tracy McGrady. Howard, however, made an immediate impact. He finished his rookie season with an average of 12 points and 10 rebounds, setting several NBA records in the process. He became the youngest player in NBA history to average a double double in the regular season. He also became the youngest player in NBA history to average at least 10 rebounds in a season and youngest NBA player ever to record at least 20 rebounds in a game. Howard's importance to the Magic was highlighted when he became the first player in NBA history directly out of high school to start all 82 games during his rookie season. For his efforts, he was selected to play in the 2005 NBA Rookie Challenge, and was unanimously selected to the All-Rookie Team. He also finished third in the Rookie of the Year voting.
Howard reported to camp for his second NBA season having added 20 pounds of muscle during the off-season. Orlando coach Brian Hill—responsible for grooming former Magic superstar Shaquille O'Neal—decided that Howard should be converted into a full-fledged center. Hill identified two areas where Howard needed to improve: his post-up game and his defense. He exerted extra pressure on Howard, saying that the Magic would need him to emerge as a force in the middle before the team had a chance at the playoffs. On November 15, 2005, in a home game against the Charlotte Bobcats, Howard recorded 21 points and 20 rebounds, becoming the youngest player ever to score 20 or more points and gather 20 or more rebounds in the same game. He was selected to play on the Sophomore Team in the 2006 Rookie Challenge during the All-Star break. Overall, he averaged 15.8 points and 12.5 rebounds per game, ranking second in the NBA in rebounds per game, offensive rebounds, and double-doubles and sixth in field goal percentage. Despite Howard's improvement, the Magic finished the season with a 36–46 record and failed to qualify for the playoffs for the second consecutive season since Howard's arrival.
In the 2006–07 season (and for the third consecutive season), Howard played in all 82 regular-season games. On February 1, 2007, he received his first NBA All-Star selection as a reserve on the Eastern Conference squad for the 2007 NBA All-Star Game. On February 9, he made a game-winning alley-oop off an inbound pass at the buzzer against the San Antonio Spurs. Howard set a new career high with 35 points against the Philadelphia 76ers on April 14. Under his leadership, the Magic qualified for the 2007 NBA Playoffs as the eighth seed in the Eastern Conference. There, the Magic were swept by the Detroit Pistons in the first round. For the season, Howard averaged 17.6 points and 12.3 rebounds per game, finishing first in the NBA in total rebounds, second in field goal percentage, and ninth in blocks. He was named to the All-NBA Third Team at the end of the 2006–07 campaign.
Howard continued posting impressive numbers in the 2007–08 season and helped the Magic have their best season to date. Howard was named as a starter for the Eastern Conference All-Star team. On February 16, 2008, he won the NBA Slam Dunk Contest by receiving 78% of the fan's votes via text messaging or online voting; in that contest, he performed a series of innovative dunks said to have rejuvenated the contest, including donning a Superman cape for one of the dunks. Howard led the Magic to their first division title in 12 years and to the third seed for the 2008 NBA Playoffs. In their first round match-up against the Toronto Raptors, Howard's dominance (three 20-point/20-rebound games) helped Orlando to prevail in five games. Howard's series total of 91 rebounds was also greater than the total rebounds collected by the entire Toronto frontcourt. In the second round against the Pistons, the Magic lost in five games. For the season, Howard was named to the All-NBA First Team for the first time, and was also named to the NBA All-Defensive Second Team.
Dominance and NBA Finals appearance (2008–2011)
The 2008–09 season began well for Howard. Ten games into the season, the center was leading the league in blocks per game (4.2). In December, Howard injured his left knee, which caused him to miss a game due to injury for the first time in his NBA career; previously, he had played in 351 consecutive games. He garnered a record 3.1 million votes to earn the starting berth on the Eastern Conference team for the 2009 NBA All-Star Game. Howard led Orlando to its second straight Southeast Division title and to the third seed for the 2009 NBA Playoffs; the team finished the season with a 59–23 record. In the first round of the playoffs against the 76ers, Howard recorded 24 points and 24 rebounds in Game 5 to give Orlando a 3–2 lead before the Magic closed out the series in six games. In the second round against the Boston Celtics, after the Magic blew a lead in Game 5 to fall behind 3–2 in the series, Howard publicly stated that he should have been given the ball more and questioned coach Stan Van Gundy's tactics. The Magic went on to defeat Boston to win the series and move on to the Eastern Conference Finals. There they, defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers 4–2. Howard had a playoff career-high 40 points to go with his 14 rebounds in the deciding Game 6, leading Orlando to the NBA Finals for the first time in 14 years. In the NBA Finals, the Los Angeles Lakers took the first two home games, before a home win by the Magic brought the deficit to 2–1. In Game 4, despite Howard putting up 21 rebounds and a Finals record of 9 blocks in a game, the Magic lost in overtime. The Lakers went on to clinch the series with a win in Game 5. For the season, Howard became the youngest player ever to win the NBA Defensive Player of the Year Award. He was also named to the NBA All-Defensive First Team, and to the All-NBA First Team.
In the 2009–10 season, the Magic got off to a strong start, winning 17 of their first 21 games and setting a franchise record. On January 21, 2010, Howard was named as the starting center for the East in the 2010 NBA All-Star Game. The Magic completed the regular season with 59 wins and their third consecutive division title. The Magic's playoff run resulted another Eastern Conference Finals appearance, where they lost in six games to the Celtics. Howard won the Defensive Player of the Year Award for the second straight year. He became the first player in NBA history to lead the league in blocks and rebounds in the same season twice—and for two years in a row.
In the 2010–11 season, Howard posted career highs in points and field goal percentage. He became the first player in league history to win Defensive Player of the Year honors for three consecutive seasons. Howard led the league in double-doubles and also averaged 14.1 rebounds, 2.3 blocks and a career-high 1.3 steals this season. He led the Magic to 52 wins, as they finished as the fourth seed in the Eastern Conference. They went on to lose to the Atlanta Hawks in the first round of 2011 NBA Playoffs. He had a playoff career-high 46 points and 19 rebounds in Orlando's 103–93 loss to Atlanta in Game 1. Howard led the NBA in technical fouls with 18 in the regular season, and received one-game suspensions after his 16th and 18th technicals.
Final season in Orlando (2011–2012)
Due to a lockout, the 2011–12 regular season was shortened to 66 games. Not long after the lockout ended, Howard, who was eligible to become a free agent at the end of the season, demanded a trade to the New Jersey Nets, Los Angeles Lakers or Dallas Mavericks. Howard stated that although his preference was to remain in Orlando, he did not feel the Magic organization was doing enough to build a championship contender. He would later meet with Magic officials and agree to back off his trade demands, but stated that he also felt the team needed to make changes to the roster if they wanted to contend for a championship.
On January 12, 2012, Howard attempted an NBA regular season record 39 free throws against the Golden State Warriors. Howard entered the game making 42 percent of his free throws for the season and just below 60 percent for his career. The Warriors hacked Howard intentionally throughout the game, and he broke Wilt Chamberlain's regular-season record of 34 set in 1962. Howard made 21 of the 39 attempts, finishing with 45 points and 23 rebounds in the Magic's 117–109 victory. On January 24, 2012, Howard became the Magic's all-time scoring leader.
On March 15, 2012, on the day of the trading deadline for the 2011–12 NBA season, Howard waived his right to opt out of his contract at the end of the season and committed to stay with the Magic through the 2012–13 season. He had previously asked to be traded to the New Jersey Nets. Had he not signed the amendment, the Magic were prepared to trade him to avoid losing him as a free agent. On April 5, Van Gundy said that he had been informed by management that Howard wanted him fired. During the interview, the center walked up and hugged his coach, unaware that Van Gundy had confirmed a report that Howard denied. Van Gundy was let go after the season.
On April 19, 2012, Howard's agent said that Howard would undergo surgery to repair a herniated disk in his back and would miss the rest of the 2011–12 season, as well as the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. During the offseason, Howard again requested a trade to the Nets, who had relocated to Brooklyn. He intended to become a free agent at the end of the 2012–13 season if he was not traded to Brooklyn.
Los Angeles Lakers (2012–2013)
On August 10, 2012, Howard was traded from Orlando to the Los Angeles Lakers in a deal that also involved the Philadelphia 76ers and the Denver Nuggets. Howard took six months off from basketball after his April back surgery, and only had the combined four weeks of training camp and preseason to prepare for the season. Still working himself into shape, Howard paced himself throughout the season on both offense and defense. On January 4, 2013, Howard injured his right shoulder in the second half of the Lakers' 107–102 loss to the Los Angeles Clippers. At the midpoint of the season, the Lakers were a disappointing 17–24. Howard was averaging 17.1 points on 58.2% shooting, 12.3 rebounds, and 2.5 blocks, but also 3.6 fouls a game with 3.2 turnovers while making only 50.4% of his free throws.
Howard was upset that he was not getting the ball enough, and he felt that Kobe Bryant was shooting too much. Moving forward, Howard said he needed to "bring it" and dominate in more ways than just scoring. Howard missed games due to his recurring shoulder injury in January and February. In February, Bryant said that Howard "worries too much" and "doesn't want to let anyone down", urging him to play through the pain when Pau Gasol was sidelined with a torn plantar fascia. Howard returned the next game after commenting that Bryant was "not a doctor, I'm not a doctor. That's his opinion."
During the All-Star break, Howard adopted a healthier diet to get into better shape to anchor the Lakers' defense and run head coach Mike D'Antoni's preferred pick and rolls. Still, on February 23, Howard said he was "not even close" to physically being where he wanted to be. Coach Mike D'Antoni attributed Howard's difficulty running the pick-and-roll—a play the coach had expected would be a staple for the team—with Steve Nash to Howard's lack of conditioning. The Lakers were 8–2 after the All-Star break, passing Utah for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference, and Howard averaged 15.5 points, 14.8 rebounds, and 2.6 blocks. In his first game back in Orlando on March 12, Howard scored a season-high 39 points and had 16 rebounds in a 106–97 Lakers win. Booed throughout the game, he made 25 of 39 free throws, setting franchise records for free throws made and attempted while tying his own NBA record for attempts. Howard made 16 of 20 free throws when he was fouled intentionally by the Magic. With Howard anchoring the Lakers defense and his improved overall play, the Lakers made the playoffs, but were swept in the opening round by San Antonio. Howard was ejected in Game 4 with over nine minutes left in the third quarter.
Howard finished the season with his lowest scoring average since his second year in the NBA, but he was the league leader in rebounding and ranked second in field goal percentage. Although he was recovering from his back surgery, he only missed six games all season—all due to his torn labrum. Howard was named to the All-NBA Third Team after having received five consecutive first-team honors. He became a free agent in the summer, and he was offered a maximum contract of five years and $118 million by the Lakers.
Houston Rockets (2013–2016)
On July 13, 2013, Howard signed with the Houston Rockets, joining James Harden to form a formidable duo. Howard finished the regular season with averages of 18.3 points and 12.2 rebounds and earned All-NBA Second Team honors. During the 2014 playoffs, Howard averaged 26 points and 13.7 rebounds per game, but the Rockets were eliminated by the Portland Trail Blazers in the first round, losing the series 4–2.
After playing in the Rockets' first 10 out of 11 games to start the 2014–15 season, Howard missed 11 straight due to a strained right knee before returning to action on December 13 against the Denver Nuggets and recording his 10,000th career rebound. However, on January 31, Howard was ruled out for a further month due to persistent trouble with his right knee. After setbacks forced him out for a further month and a total of 26 games, Howard returned to action on March 25 against the New Orleans Pelicans. He started the game but was held under 17 minutes by coach Kevin McHale and finished with just four points and seven rebounds in a 95–93 win. Howard played only 41 games in the regular season. The Rockets clinched their first division title in over 20 years and made it to the Western Conference Finals, where they lost 4–1 to the Golden State Warriors.
On November 4, 2015, Howard had 23 points and 14 rebounds against the Orlando Magic. He shot 10-of-10 to become the first Rocket to make 10 or more field goals without a miss since Yao Ming went 12-of-12 in 2009. On December 26, he eclipsed 15,000 points for his career in a loss to the New Orleans Pelicans. On January 18, 2016, in an overtime loss to the Los Angeles Clippers, Howard had 36 points and tied a career high with 26 rebounds en route to his 10th straight double-double, the league's longest active streak at the time, and his longest since a 14-game run in 2012–13. On June 22, 2016, Howard declined his $23 million player option for the 2016–17 season and became an unrestricted free agent.
Atlanta Hawks (2016–2017)
On July 12, 2016, Howard signed a three-year, $70 million contract with his hometown team the Atlanta Hawks. With the retirement of Tim Duncan, Howard entered the 2016–17 season as the NBA's active leader in rebounds (12,089) and blocked shots (1,916). In his debut for the Hawks in their season opener on October 27, Howard grabbed 19 rebounds in a 114–99 win over the Washington Wizards. It was the most rebounds for anyone in their Atlanta debut, breaking the mark of 18 that Shareef Abdur-Rahim set on October 30, 2001. On November 2, he scored a season-high 31 points in a 123–116 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers. On February 2, he had a season-best game with 24 points and 23 rebounds in a 113–108 win over the Rockets in Houston.
Charlotte Hornets (2017–2018)
On June 20, 2017, the Hawks traded Howard, along with the 31st overall pick in the 2017 NBA draft, to the Charlotte Hornets in exchange for Marco Belinelli, Miles Plumlee and the 41st overall pick in the 2017 NBA draft. To begin the season, Howard became the first Charlotte player since Emeka Okafor in 2007 with four consecutive 15-rebound games. In the fifth game of the season, he had another 15-rebound game. On March 15, he scored 20 of his season-high 33 points in the second half of the Hornets' 129–117 win over the Atlanta Hawks. On March 21, Howard recorded 32 points and a franchise-record 30 rebounds in a 111–105 win over the Nets, becoming just the eighth player in league history with a 30–30 game. He became the first NBA player with a 30-point, 30-rebound game since Kevin Love in November 2010, and the first player with a 30–30 game against the Nets since Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in February 1978. The next day, Howard was suspended for one game without pay due to receiving his 16th technical foul of the season. Howard finished the season with a franchise-record 53 double-doubles and joined Abdul-Jabbar and Wilt Chamberlain as the only players to hold single-season records with two teams. Howard also became one of six players to average a double-double in each of his first 13 seasons in the league.
On July 6, 2018, Howard was traded to the Brooklyn Nets in exchange for Timofey Mozgov, the draft rights to Hamidou Diallo, a 2021 second-round draft pick and cash considerations. He was waived by the Nets immediately upon being acquired.
Washington Wizards (2018–2019)
On July 12, 2018, Howard signed with the Washington Wizards. He missed all of training camp, every exhibition game and the first seven regular-season games with a sore backside. He appeared in nine games in November before missing the rest of the season after undergoing spinal surgery to relieve pain in his glutes. In March 2019, it was revealed that Howard, in addition to his back injury, was also dealing with a hamstring issue. On April 18, 2019, Howard exercised his $5.6 million player option to play a second season with the Wizards.
On July 6, 2019, Howard was traded to the Memphis Grizzlies for forward C. J. Miles. On August 24, 2019, Howard was waived by the Grizzlies.
Return to the Lakers (2019–2020)
On August 26, 2019, Howard signed a $2.6 million veteran's minimum contract with the Los Angeles Lakers, reuniting him with his former team. He was replacing DeMarcus Cousins, a free agent signed earlier in the offseason who was lost for the year after suffering a knee injury. To assure the team that he would accept any role the team asked, Howard offered to sign a non-guaranteed contract, freeing the Lakers to cut him at any time.
During the season, the Lakers split time fairly evenly between him and starting center JaVale McGee. On January 13, 2020, Howard scored a season-high 21 points on a 9-of-11 shooting and got a season-high 15 rebounds. In Game 4 of the Western Conference finals against the Denver Nuggets, Lakers coach Frank Vogel started Howard to match up against the Nuggets' Nikola Jokić. Howard had 12 points and 11 rebounds in 23 minutes to help the Lakers win and take a 3–1 lead in the series. He had started twice during the regular season, but this was his first start by coach's decision when McGee was available. The Lakers advanced to the NBA Finals, winning the series 4–2 over the Miami Heat and giving Howard his first NBA championship.
Philadelphia 76ers (2020–2021)
On November 21, 2020, the Philadelphia 76ers signed Howard to a one-year deal worth $2,564,753. With the 76ers he averaged 7 points and 8.4 rebounds. Howard played 69 games with the Sixers with six starts in 17.3 minutes. He was suspended for one game after getting into a scuffle with Udonis Haslem where both were assessed technical fouls and Haslem was ejected. Howard was suspended because he incurred his 16th technical foul of the year.
Third stint with the Lakers (2021–present)
Howard signed a $2.6 million veteran's minimum contract with the Los Angeles Lakers on August 6, 2021.
National team career
On March 5, 2006, Howard was named to the 2006–2008 USA Basketball Men's Senior National Team program. As the team's regular starting center, he helped lead the team to a 5–0 record during its pre-World Championship tour, and subsequently helped the team win the bronze medal at the 2006 FIBA World Championship. During the FIBA Americas Championship 2007, Howard was on the team which won its first nine games en route to qualifying for the finals and a spot for the 2008 Olympics. He started in eight of those nine games, averaging 8.9 ppg, 5.3 rpg and led the team in shooting .778 from the field. In the finals, he made all seven of his shots and scored 20 points as the USA defeated Argentina to win the gold medal.
On June 23, 2008, Howard was named as one of the members of the 12-man squad representing the United States in the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. With Howard starting as center, Team USA won all of its games en route to the gold medal, breaking their drought of gold medals dating back to the 2000 Olympics. Howard averaged 10.9 points and 5.8 rebounds per game in the tournament.
Player profile
Standing and weighing , Howard plays the center position. He led the NBA in rebounding from 2007 to 2010, and again from 2012 to 2013. Howard's rebounding is in part facilitated by his extraordinary athleticism; his running vertical leap was tested at in 2011, rare for a player of his size. He demonstrated this skill in the 2007 Slam Dunk Contest, where he completed an alley oop dunk from teammate Jameer Nelson while slapping a sticker onto the backboard at high. The sticker showed an image of his own smiling face with a handwritten "All things through Christ Phil: 4:13", a paraphrase of .
Howard's abilities and powerful physique have drawn attention from fellow NBA All-Stars. Tim Duncan remarked in 2007, "[Howard] is so developed... He has so much promise and I am glad that I will be out of the league when he is peaking." Kevin Garnett echoed those sentiments: "[Howard] is a freak of nature, man... I was nowhere near that physically talented. I wasn't that gifted, as far as body and physical presence." After a game in the 2009 NBA Playoffs, Philadelphia 76ers swingman Andre Iguodala said: "It's like he can guard two guys at once. He can guard his guy and the guy coming off the pick-and-roll, which is almost impossible to do... If he gets any more athletic or jumps any higher, they're going to have to change the rules." In December 2007, ESPN writer David Thorpe declared Howard the most dominant center in the NBA. Early in his career, many sports pundits rated Howard one of the top young prospects in the NBA.
Howard has a reputation as a negative locker room presence. In a 2013 interview, he called his former Orlando Magic teammates a "team full of people no one wanted". In a 2013 article titled "Is Dwight Howard the NBA's Worst Teammate?", Bleacher Report asserted that Howard had "extinguished all bridges with the franchise where he spent his first eight NBA seasons". Howard did not get along with Kobe Bryant when he played for the Lakers and did not get along with James Harden when he played for the Rockets. When he was traded from the Atlanta Hawks to the Charlotte Hornets, some of his Hawks teammates reportedly cheered. After Charlotte traded Howard to the Washington Wizards, Charlotte player Brendan Haywood asserted that Howard's teammates were "sick and tired of his act". In 2018, NBC News reported that "Howard’s time with the Magic, Lakers and Rockets devolved into interpersonal strife well before he left those teams". Also in 2018, The Ringer published a piece titled "Everybody (Still) Hates Dwight" in which it called Howard "almost certainly the least popular player in the NBA". Before signing with the Lakers in 2019, Howard reportedly met with the team multiple times, "promising not to live up to his reputation as a difficult teammate who disrupts locker rooms"; the team warned him that he would be released if he became a disruptive presence.
NBA career statistics
Regular season
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 82 || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 32.6 || .520 || .000 || .671 || 10.0 || .9 || .9 || 1.7 || 12.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 81 || 36.8 || .531 || .000 || .595 || 12.5 || 1.5 || .8 || 1.4 || 15.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 36.9 || .603 || .500 || .586 || 12.3 || 1.9 || .9 || 1.9 || 17.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 37.7 || .599 || .000 || .590 || style="background:#cfecec;"| 14.2* || 1.3 || .9 || 2.1 || 20.7
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 79 || 79 || 35.7 || .572 || .000 || .594 || style="background:#cfecec;"| 13.8* || 1.4 || 1.0 || style="background:#cfecec;"| 2.9* || 20.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 34.7 || style="background:#cfecec;"| .612* || .000 || .592 || style="background:#cfecec;"| 13.2* || 1.8 || .9 || style="background:#cfecec;"| 2.8* || 18.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 78 || 78 || 37.5 || .593 || .000 || .596 || 14.1 || 1.4 || 1.4 || 2.4 || 22.9
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 54 || 54 || 38.3 || .573 || .000 || .491 || style="background:#cfecec;"|14.5* || 1.9 || 1.5 || 2.1 || 20.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 76 || 76 || 35.8 || .578 || .167 || .492 ||bgcolor="CFECEC"| 12.4* || 1.4 || 1.1 || 2.4 || 17.1
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 71 || 71 || 33.7 || .591 || .286 || .547 || 12.2 || 1.8 || .8 || 1.8 || 18.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 41 || 41 || 29.8 || .593 || .500 || .528 || 10.5 || 1.2 || .7 || 1.3 || 15.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 71 || 71 || 32.1 || .620 || .000 || .489 || 11.8 || 1.4 || 1.0 || 1.6 || 13.7
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Atlanta
| 74|| 74 || 29.7 || .633 || .000 || .533 || 12.7 || 1.4 || .9 || 1.2 || 13.5
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Charlotte
| 81 || 81 || 30.4 || .555 || .143 || .574 || 12.5 || 1.3 || .6 || 1.6 || 16.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Washington
| 9 || 9 || 25.6 || .623 || .000 || .604 || 9.2 || .4 || .8 || .4 || 12.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 69 || 2 || 18.9 || .729 || .600 || .514 || 7.3 || .7 || .4 || 1.1 || 7.5
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Philadelphia
| 69 || 6 || 17.3 || .587 || .250 || .576 || 8.4 || .9 || .4 || .9 || 7.0
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|Career
| 1182 || 1051 || 32.6 || .586 || .159 || .566 || 12.1 || 1.4 || .9 || 1.9 || 16.2
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|All-Star
| 8 || 6 || 23.3 || .642 || .154 || .450 || 8.8 || 1.5 || .6 || 1.1 || 12.1
Playoffs
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2007
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 4 || 4 || 41.8 || .548 || .000 || .455 || 14.8 || 1.8 || .5 || 1.0 || 15.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2008
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 10 || 10 || 42.1 || .581 || .000 || .542 || 15.8 || .9 || .8 || 3.4 || 18.9
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2009
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 23 || 23 || 39.3 || .601 || .000 || .636 || 15.3 || 1.9 || .9 || 2.6 || 20.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2010
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 14 || 14 || 35.5 || .614 || .000 || .519 || 11.1 || 1.4 || .8 || 3.5|| 18.1
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2011
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 6 || 6 || 43.0 || .630 || .000 ||.682 || 15.5 || 0.5 || .7 || 1.8 || 27.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2013
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 4 || 4 || 31.5 || .619 || .000 || .444 || 10.8 || 1.0 || .5 || 2.0 || 17.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2014
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 6 || 6 || 38.5 || .547 || .000 || .625 || 13.7 || 1.8 || .7 || 2.8 || 26.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2015
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 17 || 17 || 33.8 || .577 || .000 || .412 || 14.0 || 1.2 || 1.4 || 2.3 || 16.4
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2016
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 5 || 5 || 36.0 || .542 || .000 || .368 || 14.0 || 1.6 || .8 || 1.4 || 13.2
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2017
| style="text-align:left;"|Atlanta
| 6 || 6 || 26.1 || .500 || .000 || .632 || 10.7 || 1.3 || 1.0 || .8 || 8.0
|-
|style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"|2020†
|style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 18 || 7 || 15.7 || .684 || .500 || .556 || 4.6 || .5 || .4 || .4 || 5.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2021
| style="text-align:left;"|Philadelphia
| 12 || 0 || 12.4 || .533 || .000 || .600 || 6.3 || .7 || .2 || .5 || 4.7
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|Career
| 125 || 102 || 31.6 || .589 || .143 || .548 || 11.8 || 1.2 || .8 || 2.0 || 15.3
Televised appearances
Howard appeared as a special guest on an episode of the ABC series Extreme Makeover: Home Edition that aired April 2, 2006, in which Ty Pennington and his team built a new home and ministry offices for Sadie Holmes, who operates a social services ministry in the Orlando area.
Howard competed in season 6 of The Masked Singer as "Octopus". He was the first one to be eliminated during the two-night premiere alongside Vivica A. Fox as "Mother Nature" and Toni Braxton as "Pufferfish".
Personal life
Howard has five children by five women. In 2010, Howard won a defamation judgment against Royce Reed, the mother of his oldest child Braylon. A Florida judge ruled that she violated a court order prohibiting her from mentioning Howard in the media. He had initially sought about half a billion dollars in damages, claiming that she had disparaged him through Twitter and her appearances on the reality television show, Basketball Wives, as the couple's paternity agreement stipulated a $500 fine for each time she mentioned him in public.
In October 2014, police in Cobb County, Georgia investigated claims by Reed that Howard abused their son. Howard had admitted to hitting Braylon with a belt; he had been disciplined in the same manner while growing up, and he stated that he did not realize it was wrong to do so. Howard was not charged in connection with the allegations. Howard was also involved in a civil case with Reed over custody of their son.
Howard keeps approximately 20 snakes as pets and has appeared twice in Animal Planet's reality TV series Tanked. He owns a farm "in north Georgia where he relaxes [with] cows, hogs, turkeys and deer," and also grows vegetables on his estate.
Melissa Rios, the mother of his son, David, died on March 27, 2020, following an epileptic seizure. David was with Howard at his home in Georgia at the time to ride out the COVID-19 pandemic.
Philanthropy, faith, and public image
Before he was drafted in 2004, Howard said that he wanted to use his NBA career and Christian faith to "raise the name of God within the league and throughout the world". He has stated he believes in reaching out to his community and fans and thus contributes substantially in the field of philanthropy. Together with his parents, Howard established the Dwight D. Howard Foundation Inc. in 2004. In November 2009, the center was named one of the 10 finalists for the Jefferson Awards for Public Service, which awards athletes for their charitable work.
In 2014, Epix featured Howard as the focal point of a documentary about his life called In the Moment.
See also
List of career achievements by Dwight Howard
List of National Basketball Association career games played leaders
List of National Basketball Association career rebounding leaders
List of National Basketball Association career blocks leaders
List of National Basketball Association career turnovers leaders
List of National Basketball Association career free throw scoring leaders
List of National Basketball Association career playoff blocks leaders
List of National Basketball Association annual rebounding leaders
List of National Basketball Association annual blocks leaders
List of National Basketball Association players with most blocks in a game
List of National Basketball Association players with most rebounds in a game
List of National Basketball Association franchise career scoring leaders
Notes
References
External links
1985 births
Living people
2006 FIBA World Championship players
21st-century African-American sportspeople
African-American basketball players
African-American Christians
American men's basketball players
Atlanta Hawks players
Basketball players at the 2008 Summer Olympics
Basketball players from Atlanta
Centers (basketball)
Charlotte Hornets players
Houston Rockets players
Los Angeles Lakers players
McDonald's High School All-Americans
Medalists at the 2008 Summer Olympics
National Basketball Association All-Stars
National Basketball Association high school draftees
Olympic gold medalists for the United States in basketball
Orlando Magic draft picks
Orlando Magic players
Parade High School All-Americans (boys' basketball)
Philadelphia 76ers players
Power forwards (basketball)
United States men's national basketball team players
Washington Wizards players
20th-century African-American people | false | [
"In the Nuclear Shadow: What Can the Children Tell Us? is a 1983 American short documentary film directed by Eric Thiermann. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short. The film includes interviews with youths discussing the nuclear threat, a first-hand account of the atomic destruction of Hiroshima, and excerpts of speeches by psychiatrists John E. Mack and Robert Jay Lifton.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n In the Nuclear Shadow: What Can the Children Tell Us? at WorldCat\n\n1983 films\n1983 documentary films\nAmerican films\nEnglish-language films\nAmerican short documentary films\n1980s short documentary films\nDocumentary films about nuclear war and weapons",
"Tell Me Who I Am is a 2019 documentary film directed and produced by the British filmmaker Ed Perkins. It focuses on twin brothers Alex and Marcus Lewis. Alex lost his memory in a motorcycle accident at age 18, and his twin brother helped him recreate his lost memories of his childhood. However, Marcus omits that the twins were sexually abused by their mother and also sexually abused by friends of hers in a paedophile network until the age of 14. The film follows Alex and Marcus in telling their lives' stories from the accident at age 18 to age 32, when the sexual abuse is revealed after their mother's death, to both of them coming to terms with the abuse at age 54. The documentary is based on a 2013 book written by the twins together with Joanna Hodgkin.\n\nThe film was commissioned by and aired on Netflix. It received acclaim from critics after its release and was described as \"harrowing\" and \"involving but upsetting\".\n\nSynopsis\nThe documentary is split into three parts. In the first part, the viewer follows Alex trying to solve the mystery of his past and trying to figure out who he is after losing his memory in a motorcycle accident at age 18 in 1982. His twin brother, Marcus, is the only person he remembers after emerging from a coma - including himself. Marcus helps him to reintegrate into life. At first, Alex functions like a child, asking basic questions like, \"what is this?\" to nearly everything and re-learning how to ride a bike. As he rapidly \"matures,\" Alex begins to ask questions about their childhood. Marcus paints a picture of a happy, wealthy, well-connected family for Alex.\n\nIn the second part, Marcus reveals that he omitted a dark family secret from Alex in order to protect him from harrowing memories of their shared past. Marcus further emotionally admits that as he created a fantasy life for Alex, he began to believe it himself and was better-able to suppress his own memories of the family secret. \n\nAfter their parents both die, the brothers embark on an effort to clean out the vast English estate house they left behind, which is jam-packed with flotsam and jetsam. In the process, Alex finds puzzling items, including a wardrobe filled with sex toys, which Marcus tells him to disregard. The last straw is a photograph Alex finds in a secret closet in his mother's room of the two boys at age ten, naked and with the heads cut off. Alex confronts Marcus, asking whether their mother had sexually abused them. Marcus simply nods and says nothing more. For the next 20+ years, Marcus refuses to give any further information to Alex about what happened to them, causing Alex further distress and a sense of inability to understand who he is. He becomes obsessed with learning details of his mother's life, and discovers that her entire life revolved around sex.\n\nIn the third part, Marcus and Alex sit down together and Marcus reveals that not only did their mother sexually abuse them together in her own bed, but that she also was involved in a child sex ring wherein she volunteered her own sons to other pedophiles. She would drive one of the boys (never both) to different male \"friends\" of hers all over Britain and those friends would assault and rape them. This continued up until the age of 14, when Marcus fought back, at which time it stopped for both brothers. Marcus apologizes to Alex for not telling the whole story at age 32, but states that he was not able to do it because he was too traumatized himself, and that denying what had happened helped him forget about it and live a worth-while life.\n\nBackground\nThe documentary film is based on the book with the same name written by the twins and Joanna Hodgkin.\n\nBook \n Tell Me Who I Am\n\nExternal links\n Trailer for Tell Me Who I Am\n\nReferences \n\n2019 films\n2019 documentary films\nBritish documentary films\nBritish films\nDocumentary films about amnesia\nDocumentary films about child abuse\nDocumentary films about pedophilia\nEnglish-language films\nFilms about child sexual abuse\nFilms about dysfunctional families\nWorks about dysfunctional families\nNetflix original documentary films"
] |
[
"Dwight Howard",
"Public image",
"What is a positive public image going forhim?",
"Howard said that he wanted to use his NBA career and Christian faith to \"raise the name of God within the league and throughout the world",
"What way does he plan on reaching out?",
"He has stated he believes in reaching out to his community and fans and thus contributes substantially in the field of philanthropy.",
"Does he have any negative image?",
"An avid listener of Gospel music, he attends the Fellowship of Faith Church when he is back home in Atlanta",
"Has he been in any movies?",
"In 2014, Epix featured Howard as the focal point of a documentary about his life called In the Moment.",
"What did the documentary tell about his life?",
"The film was directed by Ross Greenburg and Executive Producers include Michael D. Ratner and Matthew Weaver."
] | C_d944cfc090ab415ca5bfbd6859c14699_0 | Does he devote any of his time to causes? | 6 | Does Dwight Howard devote any of his time to causes? | Dwight Howard | Before he was drafted in 2004, Howard said that he wanted to use his NBA career and Christian faith to "raise the name of God within the league and throughout the world". He has stated he believes in reaching out to his community and fans and thus contributes substantially in the field of philanthropy. An avid listener of Gospel music, he attends the Fellowship of Faith Church when he is back home in Atlanta and is involved and active with the youth programs at the church. Together with his parents, Howard also established the Dwight D. Howard Foundation Inc. in 2004. The Foundation provides scholarships for students who want to attend his alma mater, Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy, and grants to Lovell Elementary School and Memorial Middle School in Orlando, Florida. The Foundation also organizes summer basketball camps for boys and girls, and together with high school and college coaches and players, fellow NBA players are invited to be on hand at the camp. For his contributions in the Central Florida community, Howard received in 2005 the Rich and Helen De Vos Community Enrichment Award. Within the NBA itself, Howard has participated in several NBA "Read to Achieve" assemblies encouraging children to make reading a priority. In November 2009, the center was named one of the 10 finalists for the Jefferson Awards for Public Service, which awards athletes for their charitable work. In 2009, Howard, along with several other NBA players, joined the Hoops for St. Jude charity program benefitting the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Elsewhere, Howard appeared as a special guest on an episode of the ABC series Extreme Makeover: Home Edition that aired April 2, 2006, in which Ty Pennington and his team built a new home and ministry offices for Sadie Holmes, who operates a social services ministry in the Orlando area. He made another appearance on the show in the October 9, 2011 episode. Along with Sam Worthington and Jonah Hill, Howard appeared in a commercial for the video game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Howard, along with Carmelo Anthony and Scottie Pippen, also appeared in the 2013 Chinese film Amazing, a joint venture between the NBA and Shanghai Film Group Corporation. In 2014, Epix featured Howard as the focal point of a documentary about his life called In the Moment. The film was directed by Ross Greenburg and Executive Producers include Michael D. Ratner and Matthew Weaver. CANNOTANSWER | Within the NBA itself, Howard has participated in several NBA "Read to Achieve" assemblies encouraging children to make reading a priority. | Dwight David Howard II (born December 8, 1985) is an American professional basketball player for the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He is an NBA champion, eight-time All-Star, eight-time All-NBA Team honoree, five-time All-Defensive Team member, and three-time Defensive Player of the Year.
Howard, who plays center, spent his high school career at Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy. He chose to forgo college, entered the 2004 NBA draft, and was selected first overall by the Orlando Magic. Howard set numerous franchise and league records with the Magic. He led the team to the 2009 NBA Finals.
In 2012, after eight seasons with Orlando, Howard was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers. After a year with the Lakers, he played for the Houston Rockets, the Atlanta Hawks, the Charlotte Hornets, and the Washington Wizards. Howard returned to the Lakers in 2019 and won his first NBA championship in 2020.
Early life
Howard was born in Atlanta, to Dwight Sr. and Sheryl Howard, a family with strong athletic connections. His father is a Georgia State Trooper and is the athletic director at Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy, a private academy with one of the country's best high school basketball programs; his mother played on the inaugural women's basketball team at Morris Brown College. Howard's mother had seven miscarriages before he was born. A devout Christian since his youth, Howard became serious about basketball around the age of nine. Despite his large frame, Howard was quick and versatile enough to play the guard position. He attended Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy and played mostly as power forward, averaging 16.6 points, 13.4 rebounds and 6.3 blocks per game in 129 appearances. As a senior, Howard led his team to a 31–2 record and the 2004 state title, while averaging 25 points, 18 rebounds, 8.1 blocks and 3.5 assists per game. The same year, he was widely recognized as the best American high school basketball player, and received the Naismith Prep Player of the Year Award, the Morgan Wootten High School Player of the Year Award, Gatorade National Player of the Year and the McDonald's National High School Player of the Year honor. He was also co-MVP (with J. R. Smith) of the McDonald's All-American Game that year. On January 31, 2012, Howard was honored as one of the 35 greatest McDonald's All-Americans.
Professional career
Orlando Magic (2004–2012)
Early years (2004–2008)
Following his high school successes, Howard chose to forego college and declared for the 2004 NBA draft—a decision partly inspired by his idol Kevin Garnett who had done the same in 1995—where the Orlando Magic selected him first overall over UConn junior Emeka Okafor. He took the number 12 for his jersey, in part because it was the reverse of Garnett's 21 when he played for Minnesota. Howard joined a depleted Magic squad that had finished with only 21 victories the previous season; further, the club had just lost perennial NBA All-Star Tracy McGrady. Howard, however, made an immediate impact. He finished his rookie season with an average of 12 points and 10 rebounds, setting several NBA records in the process. He became the youngest player in NBA history to average a double double in the regular season. He also became the youngest player in NBA history to average at least 10 rebounds in a season and youngest NBA player ever to record at least 20 rebounds in a game. Howard's importance to the Magic was highlighted when he became the first player in NBA history directly out of high school to start all 82 games during his rookie season. For his efforts, he was selected to play in the 2005 NBA Rookie Challenge, and was unanimously selected to the All-Rookie Team. He also finished third in the Rookie of the Year voting.
Howard reported to camp for his second NBA season having added 20 pounds of muscle during the off-season. Orlando coach Brian Hill—responsible for grooming former Magic superstar Shaquille O'Neal—decided that Howard should be converted into a full-fledged center. Hill identified two areas where Howard needed to improve: his post-up game and his defense. He exerted extra pressure on Howard, saying that the Magic would need him to emerge as a force in the middle before the team had a chance at the playoffs. On November 15, 2005, in a home game against the Charlotte Bobcats, Howard recorded 21 points and 20 rebounds, becoming the youngest player ever to score 20 or more points and gather 20 or more rebounds in the same game. He was selected to play on the Sophomore Team in the 2006 Rookie Challenge during the All-Star break. Overall, he averaged 15.8 points and 12.5 rebounds per game, ranking second in the NBA in rebounds per game, offensive rebounds, and double-doubles and sixth in field goal percentage. Despite Howard's improvement, the Magic finished the season with a 36–46 record and failed to qualify for the playoffs for the second consecutive season since Howard's arrival.
In the 2006–07 season (and for the third consecutive season), Howard played in all 82 regular-season games. On February 1, 2007, he received his first NBA All-Star selection as a reserve on the Eastern Conference squad for the 2007 NBA All-Star Game. On February 9, he made a game-winning alley-oop off an inbound pass at the buzzer against the San Antonio Spurs. Howard set a new career high with 35 points against the Philadelphia 76ers on April 14. Under his leadership, the Magic qualified for the 2007 NBA Playoffs as the eighth seed in the Eastern Conference. There, the Magic were swept by the Detroit Pistons in the first round. For the season, Howard averaged 17.6 points and 12.3 rebounds per game, finishing first in the NBA in total rebounds, second in field goal percentage, and ninth in blocks. He was named to the All-NBA Third Team at the end of the 2006–07 campaign.
Howard continued posting impressive numbers in the 2007–08 season and helped the Magic have their best season to date. Howard was named as a starter for the Eastern Conference All-Star team. On February 16, 2008, he won the NBA Slam Dunk Contest by receiving 78% of the fan's votes via text messaging or online voting; in that contest, he performed a series of innovative dunks said to have rejuvenated the contest, including donning a Superman cape for one of the dunks. Howard led the Magic to their first division title in 12 years and to the third seed for the 2008 NBA Playoffs. In their first round match-up against the Toronto Raptors, Howard's dominance (three 20-point/20-rebound games) helped Orlando to prevail in five games. Howard's series total of 91 rebounds was also greater than the total rebounds collected by the entire Toronto frontcourt. In the second round against the Pistons, the Magic lost in five games. For the season, Howard was named to the All-NBA First Team for the first time, and was also named to the NBA All-Defensive Second Team.
Dominance and NBA Finals appearance (2008–2011)
The 2008–09 season began well for Howard. Ten games into the season, the center was leading the league in blocks per game (4.2). In December, Howard injured his left knee, which caused him to miss a game due to injury for the first time in his NBA career; previously, he had played in 351 consecutive games. He garnered a record 3.1 million votes to earn the starting berth on the Eastern Conference team for the 2009 NBA All-Star Game. Howard led Orlando to its second straight Southeast Division title and to the third seed for the 2009 NBA Playoffs; the team finished the season with a 59–23 record. In the first round of the playoffs against the 76ers, Howard recorded 24 points and 24 rebounds in Game 5 to give Orlando a 3–2 lead before the Magic closed out the series in six games. In the second round against the Boston Celtics, after the Magic blew a lead in Game 5 to fall behind 3–2 in the series, Howard publicly stated that he should have been given the ball more and questioned coach Stan Van Gundy's tactics. The Magic went on to defeat Boston to win the series and move on to the Eastern Conference Finals. There they, defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers 4–2. Howard had a playoff career-high 40 points to go with his 14 rebounds in the deciding Game 6, leading Orlando to the NBA Finals for the first time in 14 years. In the NBA Finals, the Los Angeles Lakers took the first two home games, before a home win by the Magic brought the deficit to 2–1. In Game 4, despite Howard putting up 21 rebounds and a Finals record of 9 blocks in a game, the Magic lost in overtime. The Lakers went on to clinch the series with a win in Game 5. For the season, Howard became the youngest player ever to win the NBA Defensive Player of the Year Award. He was also named to the NBA All-Defensive First Team, and to the All-NBA First Team.
In the 2009–10 season, the Magic got off to a strong start, winning 17 of their first 21 games and setting a franchise record. On January 21, 2010, Howard was named as the starting center for the East in the 2010 NBA All-Star Game. The Magic completed the regular season with 59 wins and their third consecutive division title. The Magic's playoff run resulted another Eastern Conference Finals appearance, where they lost in six games to the Celtics. Howard won the Defensive Player of the Year Award for the second straight year. He became the first player in NBA history to lead the league in blocks and rebounds in the same season twice—and for two years in a row.
In the 2010–11 season, Howard posted career highs in points and field goal percentage. He became the first player in league history to win Defensive Player of the Year honors for three consecutive seasons. Howard led the league in double-doubles and also averaged 14.1 rebounds, 2.3 blocks and a career-high 1.3 steals this season. He led the Magic to 52 wins, as they finished as the fourth seed in the Eastern Conference. They went on to lose to the Atlanta Hawks in the first round of 2011 NBA Playoffs. He had a playoff career-high 46 points and 19 rebounds in Orlando's 103–93 loss to Atlanta in Game 1. Howard led the NBA in technical fouls with 18 in the regular season, and received one-game suspensions after his 16th and 18th technicals.
Final season in Orlando (2011–2012)
Due to a lockout, the 2011–12 regular season was shortened to 66 games. Not long after the lockout ended, Howard, who was eligible to become a free agent at the end of the season, demanded a trade to the New Jersey Nets, Los Angeles Lakers or Dallas Mavericks. Howard stated that although his preference was to remain in Orlando, he did not feel the Magic organization was doing enough to build a championship contender. He would later meet with Magic officials and agree to back off his trade demands, but stated that he also felt the team needed to make changes to the roster if they wanted to contend for a championship.
On January 12, 2012, Howard attempted an NBA regular season record 39 free throws against the Golden State Warriors. Howard entered the game making 42 percent of his free throws for the season and just below 60 percent for his career. The Warriors hacked Howard intentionally throughout the game, and he broke Wilt Chamberlain's regular-season record of 34 set in 1962. Howard made 21 of the 39 attempts, finishing with 45 points and 23 rebounds in the Magic's 117–109 victory. On January 24, 2012, Howard became the Magic's all-time scoring leader.
On March 15, 2012, on the day of the trading deadline for the 2011–12 NBA season, Howard waived his right to opt out of his contract at the end of the season and committed to stay with the Magic through the 2012–13 season. He had previously asked to be traded to the New Jersey Nets. Had he not signed the amendment, the Magic were prepared to trade him to avoid losing him as a free agent. On April 5, Van Gundy said that he had been informed by management that Howard wanted him fired. During the interview, the center walked up and hugged his coach, unaware that Van Gundy had confirmed a report that Howard denied. Van Gundy was let go after the season.
On April 19, 2012, Howard's agent said that Howard would undergo surgery to repair a herniated disk in his back and would miss the rest of the 2011–12 season, as well as the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. During the offseason, Howard again requested a trade to the Nets, who had relocated to Brooklyn. He intended to become a free agent at the end of the 2012–13 season if he was not traded to Brooklyn.
Los Angeles Lakers (2012–2013)
On August 10, 2012, Howard was traded from Orlando to the Los Angeles Lakers in a deal that also involved the Philadelphia 76ers and the Denver Nuggets. Howard took six months off from basketball after his April back surgery, and only had the combined four weeks of training camp and preseason to prepare for the season. Still working himself into shape, Howard paced himself throughout the season on both offense and defense. On January 4, 2013, Howard injured his right shoulder in the second half of the Lakers' 107–102 loss to the Los Angeles Clippers. At the midpoint of the season, the Lakers were a disappointing 17–24. Howard was averaging 17.1 points on 58.2% shooting, 12.3 rebounds, and 2.5 blocks, but also 3.6 fouls a game with 3.2 turnovers while making only 50.4% of his free throws.
Howard was upset that he was not getting the ball enough, and he felt that Kobe Bryant was shooting too much. Moving forward, Howard said he needed to "bring it" and dominate in more ways than just scoring. Howard missed games due to his recurring shoulder injury in January and February. In February, Bryant said that Howard "worries too much" and "doesn't want to let anyone down", urging him to play through the pain when Pau Gasol was sidelined with a torn plantar fascia. Howard returned the next game after commenting that Bryant was "not a doctor, I'm not a doctor. That's his opinion."
During the All-Star break, Howard adopted a healthier diet to get into better shape to anchor the Lakers' defense and run head coach Mike D'Antoni's preferred pick and rolls. Still, on February 23, Howard said he was "not even close" to physically being where he wanted to be. Coach Mike D'Antoni attributed Howard's difficulty running the pick-and-roll—a play the coach had expected would be a staple for the team—with Steve Nash to Howard's lack of conditioning. The Lakers were 8–2 after the All-Star break, passing Utah for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference, and Howard averaged 15.5 points, 14.8 rebounds, and 2.6 blocks. In his first game back in Orlando on March 12, Howard scored a season-high 39 points and had 16 rebounds in a 106–97 Lakers win. Booed throughout the game, he made 25 of 39 free throws, setting franchise records for free throws made and attempted while tying his own NBA record for attempts. Howard made 16 of 20 free throws when he was fouled intentionally by the Magic. With Howard anchoring the Lakers defense and his improved overall play, the Lakers made the playoffs, but were swept in the opening round by San Antonio. Howard was ejected in Game 4 with over nine minutes left in the third quarter.
Howard finished the season with his lowest scoring average since his second year in the NBA, but he was the league leader in rebounding and ranked second in field goal percentage. Although he was recovering from his back surgery, he only missed six games all season—all due to his torn labrum. Howard was named to the All-NBA Third Team after having received five consecutive first-team honors. He became a free agent in the summer, and he was offered a maximum contract of five years and $118 million by the Lakers.
Houston Rockets (2013–2016)
On July 13, 2013, Howard signed with the Houston Rockets, joining James Harden to form a formidable duo. Howard finished the regular season with averages of 18.3 points and 12.2 rebounds and earned All-NBA Second Team honors. During the 2014 playoffs, Howard averaged 26 points and 13.7 rebounds per game, but the Rockets were eliminated by the Portland Trail Blazers in the first round, losing the series 4–2.
After playing in the Rockets' first 10 out of 11 games to start the 2014–15 season, Howard missed 11 straight due to a strained right knee before returning to action on December 13 against the Denver Nuggets and recording his 10,000th career rebound. However, on January 31, Howard was ruled out for a further month due to persistent trouble with his right knee. After setbacks forced him out for a further month and a total of 26 games, Howard returned to action on March 25 against the New Orleans Pelicans. He started the game but was held under 17 minutes by coach Kevin McHale and finished with just four points and seven rebounds in a 95–93 win. Howard played only 41 games in the regular season. The Rockets clinched their first division title in over 20 years and made it to the Western Conference Finals, where they lost 4–1 to the Golden State Warriors.
On November 4, 2015, Howard had 23 points and 14 rebounds against the Orlando Magic. He shot 10-of-10 to become the first Rocket to make 10 or more field goals without a miss since Yao Ming went 12-of-12 in 2009. On December 26, he eclipsed 15,000 points for his career in a loss to the New Orleans Pelicans. On January 18, 2016, in an overtime loss to the Los Angeles Clippers, Howard had 36 points and tied a career high with 26 rebounds en route to his 10th straight double-double, the league's longest active streak at the time, and his longest since a 14-game run in 2012–13. On June 22, 2016, Howard declined his $23 million player option for the 2016–17 season and became an unrestricted free agent.
Atlanta Hawks (2016–2017)
On July 12, 2016, Howard signed a three-year, $70 million contract with his hometown team the Atlanta Hawks. With the retirement of Tim Duncan, Howard entered the 2016–17 season as the NBA's active leader in rebounds (12,089) and blocked shots (1,916). In his debut for the Hawks in their season opener on October 27, Howard grabbed 19 rebounds in a 114–99 win over the Washington Wizards. It was the most rebounds for anyone in their Atlanta debut, breaking the mark of 18 that Shareef Abdur-Rahim set on October 30, 2001. On November 2, he scored a season-high 31 points in a 123–116 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers. On February 2, he had a season-best game with 24 points and 23 rebounds in a 113–108 win over the Rockets in Houston.
Charlotte Hornets (2017–2018)
On June 20, 2017, the Hawks traded Howard, along with the 31st overall pick in the 2017 NBA draft, to the Charlotte Hornets in exchange for Marco Belinelli, Miles Plumlee and the 41st overall pick in the 2017 NBA draft. To begin the season, Howard became the first Charlotte player since Emeka Okafor in 2007 with four consecutive 15-rebound games. In the fifth game of the season, he had another 15-rebound game. On March 15, he scored 20 of his season-high 33 points in the second half of the Hornets' 129–117 win over the Atlanta Hawks. On March 21, Howard recorded 32 points and a franchise-record 30 rebounds in a 111–105 win over the Nets, becoming just the eighth player in league history with a 30–30 game. He became the first NBA player with a 30-point, 30-rebound game since Kevin Love in November 2010, and the first player with a 30–30 game against the Nets since Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in February 1978. The next day, Howard was suspended for one game without pay due to receiving his 16th technical foul of the season. Howard finished the season with a franchise-record 53 double-doubles and joined Abdul-Jabbar and Wilt Chamberlain as the only players to hold single-season records with two teams. Howard also became one of six players to average a double-double in each of his first 13 seasons in the league.
On July 6, 2018, Howard was traded to the Brooklyn Nets in exchange for Timofey Mozgov, the draft rights to Hamidou Diallo, a 2021 second-round draft pick and cash considerations. He was waived by the Nets immediately upon being acquired.
Washington Wizards (2018–2019)
On July 12, 2018, Howard signed with the Washington Wizards. He missed all of training camp, every exhibition game and the first seven regular-season games with a sore backside. He appeared in nine games in November before missing the rest of the season after undergoing spinal surgery to relieve pain in his glutes. In March 2019, it was revealed that Howard, in addition to his back injury, was also dealing with a hamstring issue. On April 18, 2019, Howard exercised his $5.6 million player option to play a second season with the Wizards.
On July 6, 2019, Howard was traded to the Memphis Grizzlies for forward C. J. Miles. On August 24, 2019, Howard was waived by the Grizzlies.
Return to the Lakers (2019–2020)
On August 26, 2019, Howard signed a $2.6 million veteran's minimum contract with the Los Angeles Lakers, reuniting him with his former team. He was replacing DeMarcus Cousins, a free agent signed earlier in the offseason who was lost for the year after suffering a knee injury. To assure the team that he would accept any role the team asked, Howard offered to sign a non-guaranteed contract, freeing the Lakers to cut him at any time.
During the season, the Lakers split time fairly evenly between him and starting center JaVale McGee. On January 13, 2020, Howard scored a season-high 21 points on a 9-of-11 shooting and got a season-high 15 rebounds. In Game 4 of the Western Conference finals against the Denver Nuggets, Lakers coach Frank Vogel started Howard to match up against the Nuggets' Nikola Jokić. Howard had 12 points and 11 rebounds in 23 minutes to help the Lakers win and take a 3–1 lead in the series. He had started twice during the regular season, but this was his first start by coach's decision when McGee was available. The Lakers advanced to the NBA Finals, winning the series 4–2 over the Miami Heat and giving Howard his first NBA championship.
Philadelphia 76ers (2020–2021)
On November 21, 2020, the Philadelphia 76ers signed Howard to a one-year deal worth $2,564,753. With the 76ers he averaged 7 points and 8.4 rebounds. Howard played 69 games with the Sixers with six starts in 17.3 minutes. He was suspended for one game after getting into a scuffle with Udonis Haslem where both were assessed technical fouls and Haslem was ejected. Howard was suspended because he incurred his 16th technical foul of the year.
Third stint with the Lakers (2021–present)
Howard signed a $2.6 million veteran's minimum contract with the Los Angeles Lakers on August 6, 2021.
National team career
On March 5, 2006, Howard was named to the 2006–2008 USA Basketball Men's Senior National Team program. As the team's regular starting center, he helped lead the team to a 5–0 record during its pre-World Championship tour, and subsequently helped the team win the bronze medal at the 2006 FIBA World Championship. During the FIBA Americas Championship 2007, Howard was on the team which won its first nine games en route to qualifying for the finals and a spot for the 2008 Olympics. He started in eight of those nine games, averaging 8.9 ppg, 5.3 rpg and led the team in shooting .778 from the field. In the finals, he made all seven of his shots and scored 20 points as the USA defeated Argentina to win the gold medal.
On June 23, 2008, Howard was named as one of the members of the 12-man squad representing the United States in the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. With Howard starting as center, Team USA won all of its games en route to the gold medal, breaking their drought of gold medals dating back to the 2000 Olympics. Howard averaged 10.9 points and 5.8 rebounds per game in the tournament.
Player profile
Standing and weighing , Howard plays the center position. He led the NBA in rebounding from 2007 to 2010, and again from 2012 to 2013. Howard's rebounding is in part facilitated by his extraordinary athleticism; his running vertical leap was tested at in 2011, rare for a player of his size. He demonstrated this skill in the 2007 Slam Dunk Contest, where he completed an alley oop dunk from teammate Jameer Nelson while slapping a sticker onto the backboard at high. The sticker showed an image of his own smiling face with a handwritten "All things through Christ Phil: 4:13", a paraphrase of .
Howard's abilities and powerful physique have drawn attention from fellow NBA All-Stars. Tim Duncan remarked in 2007, "[Howard] is so developed... He has so much promise and I am glad that I will be out of the league when he is peaking." Kevin Garnett echoed those sentiments: "[Howard] is a freak of nature, man... I was nowhere near that physically talented. I wasn't that gifted, as far as body and physical presence." After a game in the 2009 NBA Playoffs, Philadelphia 76ers swingman Andre Iguodala said: "It's like he can guard two guys at once. He can guard his guy and the guy coming off the pick-and-roll, which is almost impossible to do... If he gets any more athletic or jumps any higher, they're going to have to change the rules." In December 2007, ESPN writer David Thorpe declared Howard the most dominant center in the NBA. Early in his career, many sports pundits rated Howard one of the top young prospects in the NBA.
Howard has a reputation as a negative locker room presence. In a 2013 interview, he called his former Orlando Magic teammates a "team full of people no one wanted". In a 2013 article titled "Is Dwight Howard the NBA's Worst Teammate?", Bleacher Report asserted that Howard had "extinguished all bridges with the franchise where he spent his first eight NBA seasons". Howard did not get along with Kobe Bryant when he played for the Lakers and did not get along with James Harden when he played for the Rockets. When he was traded from the Atlanta Hawks to the Charlotte Hornets, some of his Hawks teammates reportedly cheered. After Charlotte traded Howard to the Washington Wizards, Charlotte player Brendan Haywood asserted that Howard's teammates were "sick and tired of his act". In 2018, NBC News reported that "Howard’s time with the Magic, Lakers and Rockets devolved into interpersonal strife well before he left those teams". Also in 2018, The Ringer published a piece titled "Everybody (Still) Hates Dwight" in which it called Howard "almost certainly the least popular player in the NBA". Before signing with the Lakers in 2019, Howard reportedly met with the team multiple times, "promising not to live up to his reputation as a difficult teammate who disrupts locker rooms"; the team warned him that he would be released if he became a disruptive presence.
NBA career statistics
Regular season
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 82 || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 32.6 || .520 || .000 || .671 || 10.0 || .9 || .9 || 1.7 || 12.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 81 || 36.8 || .531 || .000 || .595 || 12.5 || 1.5 || .8 || 1.4 || 15.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 36.9 || .603 || .500 || .586 || 12.3 || 1.9 || .9 || 1.9 || 17.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 37.7 || .599 || .000 || .590 || style="background:#cfecec;"| 14.2* || 1.3 || .9 || 2.1 || 20.7
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 79 || 79 || 35.7 || .572 || .000 || .594 || style="background:#cfecec;"| 13.8* || 1.4 || 1.0 || style="background:#cfecec;"| 2.9* || 20.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 34.7 || style="background:#cfecec;"| .612* || .000 || .592 || style="background:#cfecec;"| 13.2* || 1.8 || .9 || style="background:#cfecec;"| 2.8* || 18.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 78 || 78 || 37.5 || .593 || .000 || .596 || 14.1 || 1.4 || 1.4 || 2.4 || 22.9
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 54 || 54 || 38.3 || .573 || .000 || .491 || style="background:#cfecec;"|14.5* || 1.9 || 1.5 || 2.1 || 20.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 76 || 76 || 35.8 || .578 || .167 || .492 ||bgcolor="CFECEC"| 12.4* || 1.4 || 1.1 || 2.4 || 17.1
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 71 || 71 || 33.7 || .591 || .286 || .547 || 12.2 || 1.8 || .8 || 1.8 || 18.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 41 || 41 || 29.8 || .593 || .500 || .528 || 10.5 || 1.2 || .7 || 1.3 || 15.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 71 || 71 || 32.1 || .620 || .000 || .489 || 11.8 || 1.4 || 1.0 || 1.6 || 13.7
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Atlanta
| 74|| 74 || 29.7 || .633 || .000 || .533 || 12.7 || 1.4 || .9 || 1.2 || 13.5
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Charlotte
| 81 || 81 || 30.4 || .555 || .143 || .574 || 12.5 || 1.3 || .6 || 1.6 || 16.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Washington
| 9 || 9 || 25.6 || .623 || .000 || .604 || 9.2 || .4 || .8 || .4 || 12.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 69 || 2 || 18.9 || .729 || .600 || .514 || 7.3 || .7 || .4 || 1.1 || 7.5
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Philadelphia
| 69 || 6 || 17.3 || .587 || .250 || .576 || 8.4 || .9 || .4 || .9 || 7.0
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|Career
| 1182 || 1051 || 32.6 || .586 || .159 || .566 || 12.1 || 1.4 || .9 || 1.9 || 16.2
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|All-Star
| 8 || 6 || 23.3 || .642 || .154 || .450 || 8.8 || 1.5 || .6 || 1.1 || 12.1
Playoffs
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2007
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 4 || 4 || 41.8 || .548 || .000 || .455 || 14.8 || 1.8 || .5 || 1.0 || 15.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2008
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 10 || 10 || 42.1 || .581 || .000 || .542 || 15.8 || .9 || .8 || 3.4 || 18.9
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2009
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 23 || 23 || 39.3 || .601 || .000 || .636 || 15.3 || 1.9 || .9 || 2.6 || 20.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2010
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 14 || 14 || 35.5 || .614 || .000 || .519 || 11.1 || 1.4 || .8 || 3.5|| 18.1
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2011
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 6 || 6 || 43.0 || .630 || .000 ||.682 || 15.5 || 0.5 || .7 || 1.8 || 27.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2013
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 4 || 4 || 31.5 || .619 || .000 || .444 || 10.8 || 1.0 || .5 || 2.0 || 17.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2014
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 6 || 6 || 38.5 || .547 || .000 || .625 || 13.7 || 1.8 || .7 || 2.8 || 26.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2015
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 17 || 17 || 33.8 || .577 || .000 || .412 || 14.0 || 1.2 || 1.4 || 2.3 || 16.4
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2016
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 5 || 5 || 36.0 || .542 || .000 || .368 || 14.0 || 1.6 || .8 || 1.4 || 13.2
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2017
| style="text-align:left;"|Atlanta
| 6 || 6 || 26.1 || .500 || .000 || .632 || 10.7 || 1.3 || 1.0 || .8 || 8.0
|-
|style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"|2020†
|style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 18 || 7 || 15.7 || .684 || .500 || .556 || 4.6 || .5 || .4 || .4 || 5.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2021
| style="text-align:left;"|Philadelphia
| 12 || 0 || 12.4 || .533 || .000 || .600 || 6.3 || .7 || .2 || .5 || 4.7
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|Career
| 125 || 102 || 31.6 || .589 || .143 || .548 || 11.8 || 1.2 || .8 || 2.0 || 15.3
Televised appearances
Howard appeared as a special guest on an episode of the ABC series Extreme Makeover: Home Edition that aired April 2, 2006, in which Ty Pennington and his team built a new home and ministry offices for Sadie Holmes, who operates a social services ministry in the Orlando area.
Howard competed in season 6 of The Masked Singer as "Octopus". He was the first one to be eliminated during the two-night premiere alongside Vivica A. Fox as "Mother Nature" and Toni Braxton as "Pufferfish".
Personal life
Howard has five children by five women. In 2010, Howard won a defamation judgment against Royce Reed, the mother of his oldest child Braylon. A Florida judge ruled that she violated a court order prohibiting her from mentioning Howard in the media. He had initially sought about half a billion dollars in damages, claiming that she had disparaged him through Twitter and her appearances on the reality television show, Basketball Wives, as the couple's paternity agreement stipulated a $500 fine for each time she mentioned him in public.
In October 2014, police in Cobb County, Georgia investigated claims by Reed that Howard abused their son. Howard had admitted to hitting Braylon with a belt; he had been disciplined in the same manner while growing up, and he stated that he did not realize it was wrong to do so. Howard was not charged in connection with the allegations. Howard was also involved in a civil case with Reed over custody of their son.
Howard keeps approximately 20 snakes as pets and has appeared twice in Animal Planet's reality TV series Tanked. He owns a farm "in north Georgia where he relaxes [with] cows, hogs, turkeys and deer," and also grows vegetables on his estate.
Melissa Rios, the mother of his son, David, died on March 27, 2020, following an epileptic seizure. David was with Howard at his home in Georgia at the time to ride out the COVID-19 pandemic.
Philanthropy, faith, and public image
Before he was drafted in 2004, Howard said that he wanted to use his NBA career and Christian faith to "raise the name of God within the league and throughout the world". He has stated he believes in reaching out to his community and fans and thus contributes substantially in the field of philanthropy. Together with his parents, Howard established the Dwight D. Howard Foundation Inc. in 2004. In November 2009, the center was named one of the 10 finalists for the Jefferson Awards for Public Service, which awards athletes for their charitable work.
In 2014, Epix featured Howard as the focal point of a documentary about his life called In the Moment.
See also
List of career achievements by Dwight Howard
List of National Basketball Association career games played leaders
List of National Basketball Association career rebounding leaders
List of National Basketball Association career blocks leaders
List of National Basketball Association career turnovers leaders
List of National Basketball Association career free throw scoring leaders
List of National Basketball Association career playoff blocks leaders
List of National Basketball Association annual rebounding leaders
List of National Basketball Association annual blocks leaders
List of National Basketball Association players with most blocks in a game
List of National Basketball Association players with most rebounds in a game
List of National Basketball Association franchise career scoring leaders
Notes
References
External links
1985 births
Living people
2006 FIBA World Championship players
21st-century African-American sportspeople
African-American basketball players
African-American Christians
American men's basketball players
Atlanta Hawks players
Basketball players at the 2008 Summer Olympics
Basketball players from Atlanta
Centers (basketball)
Charlotte Hornets players
Houston Rockets players
Los Angeles Lakers players
McDonald's High School All-Americans
Medalists at the 2008 Summer Olympics
National Basketball Association All-Stars
National Basketball Association high school draftees
Olympic gold medalists for the United States in basketball
Orlando Magic draft picks
Orlando Magic players
Parade High School All-Americans (boys' basketball)
Philadelphia 76ers players
Power forwards (basketball)
United States men's national basketball team players
Washington Wizards players
20th-century African-American people | false | [
"Renato Birolli (December 10, 1905 – May 3, 1959) was an Italian painter.\n\nBiography\nBirolli was born at Verona to a family of industrial workers. In 1923 he moved to Milan where he formed an avantguardist group with artists such as Renato Guttuso, Giacomo Manzù and Aligi Sassu. In 1937 he was a member of the artistical movement Corrente di Vita. In the same year he was arrested by the Fascist government for opposing the regime. He subsequently cast painting aside to devote himself to support Communist causes and, later, the partisan resistance.\n\nAfter World War II, in 1947, Birolli moved to Paris. Here his painting style changed under the influence of Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso, moving first to a post-Cubist position and then to a somehow abstract form of lyrism.\n\nHe died suddenly in Milan in 1959.\n\nHis son Zeno Birolli (1939-2014) was an art critic and historian.\n\nExternal links\nArticle about Birolli's art (in Italian)\n\n1905 births\n1959 deaths\nItalian communists\n20th-century Italian painters\nItalian male painters\nPainters from Verona",
"Functional incontinence is a form of urinary incontinence in which a person is usually aware of the need to urinate, but for one or more physical or mental reasons they are unable to get to a bathroom. The loss of urine can vary, from small leakages to full emptying of the bladder.\n\nMain causes\nThere are a number of causes of functional incontinence. These include confusion, dementia, poor eyesight, impaired mobility or dexterity or unwillingness to use the toilet due to depression or anxiety. Functional incontinence is more common in elderly people as many of the causes are associated with conditions that affect people as they age. For example, a person with Alzheimer's disease may not plan well enough to reach a bathroom in time or may not remember how to get to the bathroom.\n\nNon-medical causes\nFunctional incontinence can also occur at any age in circumstances where there is no underlying medical problem. For example, a person may recognise the need to urinate but are unable to do so because there is no toilet or suitable alternative nearby or access to a toilet is restricted or prohibited.\n\nIf a suitable place to urinate does not become available, the person may reach a stage where they are no longer able to refrain from urination and involuntary voiding of the bladder may take place. Instances of this sort will often result in full emptying of the bladder, but are likely to be one-off or rare occurrences. Excessive alcohol consumption can also cause episodes of incontinence in otherwise healthy adults.\n\nReferences\n\nUrinary incontinence"
] |
[
"Dwight Howard",
"Public image",
"What is a positive public image going forhim?",
"Howard said that he wanted to use his NBA career and Christian faith to \"raise the name of God within the league and throughout the world",
"What way does he plan on reaching out?",
"He has stated he believes in reaching out to his community and fans and thus contributes substantially in the field of philanthropy.",
"Does he have any negative image?",
"An avid listener of Gospel music, he attends the Fellowship of Faith Church when he is back home in Atlanta",
"Has he been in any movies?",
"In 2014, Epix featured Howard as the focal point of a documentary about his life called In the Moment.",
"What did the documentary tell about his life?",
"The film was directed by Ross Greenburg and Executive Producers include Michael D. Ratner and Matthew Weaver.",
"Does he devote any of his time to causes?",
"Within the NBA itself, Howard has participated in several NBA \"Read to Achieve\" assemblies encouraging children to make reading a priority."
] | C_d944cfc090ab415ca5bfbd6859c14699_0 | Has be given money to any charity? | 7 | Has Dwight Howard given money to any charity? | Dwight Howard | Before he was drafted in 2004, Howard said that he wanted to use his NBA career and Christian faith to "raise the name of God within the league and throughout the world". He has stated he believes in reaching out to his community and fans and thus contributes substantially in the field of philanthropy. An avid listener of Gospel music, he attends the Fellowship of Faith Church when he is back home in Atlanta and is involved and active with the youth programs at the church. Together with his parents, Howard also established the Dwight D. Howard Foundation Inc. in 2004. The Foundation provides scholarships for students who want to attend his alma mater, Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy, and grants to Lovell Elementary School and Memorial Middle School in Orlando, Florida. The Foundation also organizes summer basketball camps for boys and girls, and together with high school and college coaches and players, fellow NBA players are invited to be on hand at the camp. For his contributions in the Central Florida community, Howard received in 2005 the Rich and Helen De Vos Community Enrichment Award. Within the NBA itself, Howard has participated in several NBA "Read to Achieve" assemblies encouraging children to make reading a priority. In November 2009, the center was named one of the 10 finalists for the Jefferson Awards for Public Service, which awards athletes for their charitable work. In 2009, Howard, along with several other NBA players, joined the Hoops for St. Jude charity program benefitting the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Elsewhere, Howard appeared as a special guest on an episode of the ABC series Extreme Makeover: Home Edition that aired April 2, 2006, in which Ty Pennington and his team built a new home and ministry offices for Sadie Holmes, who operates a social services ministry in the Orlando area. He made another appearance on the show in the October 9, 2011 episode. Along with Sam Worthington and Jonah Hill, Howard appeared in a commercial for the video game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Howard, along with Carmelo Anthony and Scottie Pippen, also appeared in the 2013 Chinese film Amazing, a joint venture between the NBA and Shanghai Film Group Corporation. In 2014, Epix featured Howard as the focal point of a documentary about his life called In the Moment. The film was directed by Ross Greenburg and Executive Producers include Michael D. Ratner and Matthew Weaver. CANNOTANSWER | Howard also established the Dwight D. Howard Foundation Inc. in 2004. The Foundation provides scholarships for students who want to attend his alma mater, | Dwight David Howard II (born December 8, 1985) is an American professional basketball player for the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He is an NBA champion, eight-time All-Star, eight-time All-NBA Team honoree, five-time All-Defensive Team member, and three-time Defensive Player of the Year.
Howard, who plays center, spent his high school career at Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy. He chose to forgo college, entered the 2004 NBA draft, and was selected first overall by the Orlando Magic. Howard set numerous franchise and league records with the Magic. He led the team to the 2009 NBA Finals.
In 2012, after eight seasons with Orlando, Howard was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers. After a year with the Lakers, he played for the Houston Rockets, the Atlanta Hawks, the Charlotte Hornets, and the Washington Wizards. Howard returned to the Lakers in 2019 and won his first NBA championship in 2020.
Early life
Howard was born in Atlanta, to Dwight Sr. and Sheryl Howard, a family with strong athletic connections. His father is a Georgia State Trooper and is the athletic director at Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy, a private academy with one of the country's best high school basketball programs; his mother played on the inaugural women's basketball team at Morris Brown College. Howard's mother had seven miscarriages before he was born. A devout Christian since his youth, Howard became serious about basketball around the age of nine. Despite his large frame, Howard was quick and versatile enough to play the guard position. He attended Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy and played mostly as power forward, averaging 16.6 points, 13.4 rebounds and 6.3 blocks per game in 129 appearances. As a senior, Howard led his team to a 31–2 record and the 2004 state title, while averaging 25 points, 18 rebounds, 8.1 blocks and 3.5 assists per game. The same year, he was widely recognized as the best American high school basketball player, and received the Naismith Prep Player of the Year Award, the Morgan Wootten High School Player of the Year Award, Gatorade National Player of the Year and the McDonald's National High School Player of the Year honor. He was also co-MVP (with J. R. Smith) of the McDonald's All-American Game that year. On January 31, 2012, Howard was honored as one of the 35 greatest McDonald's All-Americans.
Professional career
Orlando Magic (2004–2012)
Early years (2004–2008)
Following his high school successes, Howard chose to forego college and declared for the 2004 NBA draft—a decision partly inspired by his idol Kevin Garnett who had done the same in 1995—where the Orlando Magic selected him first overall over UConn junior Emeka Okafor. He took the number 12 for his jersey, in part because it was the reverse of Garnett's 21 when he played for Minnesota. Howard joined a depleted Magic squad that had finished with only 21 victories the previous season; further, the club had just lost perennial NBA All-Star Tracy McGrady. Howard, however, made an immediate impact. He finished his rookie season with an average of 12 points and 10 rebounds, setting several NBA records in the process. He became the youngest player in NBA history to average a double double in the regular season. He also became the youngest player in NBA history to average at least 10 rebounds in a season and youngest NBA player ever to record at least 20 rebounds in a game. Howard's importance to the Magic was highlighted when he became the first player in NBA history directly out of high school to start all 82 games during his rookie season. For his efforts, he was selected to play in the 2005 NBA Rookie Challenge, and was unanimously selected to the All-Rookie Team. He also finished third in the Rookie of the Year voting.
Howard reported to camp for his second NBA season having added 20 pounds of muscle during the off-season. Orlando coach Brian Hill—responsible for grooming former Magic superstar Shaquille O'Neal—decided that Howard should be converted into a full-fledged center. Hill identified two areas where Howard needed to improve: his post-up game and his defense. He exerted extra pressure on Howard, saying that the Magic would need him to emerge as a force in the middle before the team had a chance at the playoffs. On November 15, 2005, in a home game against the Charlotte Bobcats, Howard recorded 21 points and 20 rebounds, becoming the youngest player ever to score 20 or more points and gather 20 or more rebounds in the same game. He was selected to play on the Sophomore Team in the 2006 Rookie Challenge during the All-Star break. Overall, he averaged 15.8 points and 12.5 rebounds per game, ranking second in the NBA in rebounds per game, offensive rebounds, and double-doubles and sixth in field goal percentage. Despite Howard's improvement, the Magic finished the season with a 36–46 record and failed to qualify for the playoffs for the second consecutive season since Howard's arrival.
In the 2006–07 season (and for the third consecutive season), Howard played in all 82 regular-season games. On February 1, 2007, he received his first NBA All-Star selection as a reserve on the Eastern Conference squad for the 2007 NBA All-Star Game. On February 9, he made a game-winning alley-oop off an inbound pass at the buzzer against the San Antonio Spurs. Howard set a new career high with 35 points against the Philadelphia 76ers on April 14. Under his leadership, the Magic qualified for the 2007 NBA Playoffs as the eighth seed in the Eastern Conference. There, the Magic were swept by the Detroit Pistons in the first round. For the season, Howard averaged 17.6 points and 12.3 rebounds per game, finishing first in the NBA in total rebounds, second in field goal percentage, and ninth in blocks. He was named to the All-NBA Third Team at the end of the 2006–07 campaign.
Howard continued posting impressive numbers in the 2007–08 season and helped the Magic have their best season to date. Howard was named as a starter for the Eastern Conference All-Star team. On February 16, 2008, he won the NBA Slam Dunk Contest by receiving 78% of the fan's votes via text messaging or online voting; in that contest, he performed a series of innovative dunks said to have rejuvenated the contest, including donning a Superman cape for one of the dunks. Howard led the Magic to their first division title in 12 years and to the third seed for the 2008 NBA Playoffs. In their first round match-up against the Toronto Raptors, Howard's dominance (three 20-point/20-rebound games) helped Orlando to prevail in five games. Howard's series total of 91 rebounds was also greater than the total rebounds collected by the entire Toronto frontcourt. In the second round against the Pistons, the Magic lost in five games. For the season, Howard was named to the All-NBA First Team for the first time, and was also named to the NBA All-Defensive Second Team.
Dominance and NBA Finals appearance (2008–2011)
The 2008–09 season began well for Howard. Ten games into the season, the center was leading the league in blocks per game (4.2). In December, Howard injured his left knee, which caused him to miss a game due to injury for the first time in his NBA career; previously, he had played in 351 consecutive games. He garnered a record 3.1 million votes to earn the starting berth on the Eastern Conference team for the 2009 NBA All-Star Game. Howard led Orlando to its second straight Southeast Division title and to the third seed for the 2009 NBA Playoffs; the team finished the season with a 59–23 record. In the first round of the playoffs against the 76ers, Howard recorded 24 points and 24 rebounds in Game 5 to give Orlando a 3–2 lead before the Magic closed out the series in six games. In the second round against the Boston Celtics, after the Magic blew a lead in Game 5 to fall behind 3–2 in the series, Howard publicly stated that he should have been given the ball more and questioned coach Stan Van Gundy's tactics. The Magic went on to defeat Boston to win the series and move on to the Eastern Conference Finals. There they, defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers 4–2. Howard had a playoff career-high 40 points to go with his 14 rebounds in the deciding Game 6, leading Orlando to the NBA Finals for the first time in 14 years. In the NBA Finals, the Los Angeles Lakers took the first two home games, before a home win by the Magic brought the deficit to 2–1. In Game 4, despite Howard putting up 21 rebounds and a Finals record of 9 blocks in a game, the Magic lost in overtime. The Lakers went on to clinch the series with a win in Game 5. For the season, Howard became the youngest player ever to win the NBA Defensive Player of the Year Award. He was also named to the NBA All-Defensive First Team, and to the All-NBA First Team.
In the 2009–10 season, the Magic got off to a strong start, winning 17 of their first 21 games and setting a franchise record. On January 21, 2010, Howard was named as the starting center for the East in the 2010 NBA All-Star Game. The Magic completed the regular season with 59 wins and their third consecutive division title. The Magic's playoff run resulted another Eastern Conference Finals appearance, where they lost in six games to the Celtics. Howard won the Defensive Player of the Year Award for the second straight year. He became the first player in NBA history to lead the league in blocks and rebounds in the same season twice—and for two years in a row.
In the 2010–11 season, Howard posted career highs in points and field goal percentage. He became the first player in league history to win Defensive Player of the Year honors for three consecutive seasons. Howard led the league in double-doubles and also averaged 14.1 rebounds, 2.3 blocks and a career-high 1.3 steals this season. He led the Magic to 52 wins, as they finished as the fourth seed in the Eastern Conference. They went on to lose to the Atlanta Hawks in the first round of 2011 NBA Playoffs. He had a playoff career-high 46 points and 19 rebounds in Orlando's 103–93 loss to Atlanta in Game 1. Howard led the NBA in technical fouls with 18 in the regular season, and received one-game suspensions after his 16th and 18th technicals.
Final season in Orlando (2011–2012)
Due to a lockout, the 2011–12 regular season was shortened to 66 games. Not long after the lockout ended, Howard, who was eligible to become a free agent at the end of the season, demanded a trade to the New Jersey Nets, Los Angeles Lakers or Dallas Mavericks. Howard stated that although his preference was to remain in Orlando, he did not feel the Magic organization was doing enough to build a championship contender. He would later meet with Magic officials and agree to back off his trade demands, but stated that he also felt the team needed to make changes to the roster if they wanted to contend for a championship.
On January 12, 2012, Howard attempted an NBA regular season record 39 free throws against the Golden State Warriors. Howard entered the game making 42 percent of his free throws for the season and just below 60 percent for his career. The Warriors hacked Howard intentionally throughout the game, and he broke Wilt Chamberlain's regular-season record of 34 set in 1962. Howard made 21 of the 39 attempts, finishing with 45 points and 23 rebounds in the Magic's 117–109 victory. On January 24, 2012, Howard became the Magic's all-time scoring leader.
On March 15, 2012, on the day of the trading deadline for the 2011–12 NBA season, Howard waived his right to opt out of his contract at the end of the season and committed to stay with the Magic through the 2012–13 season. He had previously asked to be traded to the New Jersey Nets. Had he not signed the amendment, the Magic were prepared to trade him to avoid losing him as a free agent. On April 5, Van Gundy said that he had been informed by management that Howard wanted him fired. During the interview, the center walked up and hugged his coach, unaware that Van Gundy had confirmed a report that Howard denied. Van Gundy was let go after the season.
On April 19, 2012, Howard's agent said that Howard would undergo surgery to repair a herniated disk in his back and would miss the rest of the 2011–12 season, as well as the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. During the offseason, Howard again requested a trade to the Nets, who had relocated to Brooklyn. He intended to become a free agent at the end of the 2012–13 season if he was not traded to Brooklyn.
Los Angeles Lakers (2012–2013)
On August 10, 2012, Howard was traded from Orlando to the Los Angeles Lakers in a deal that also involved the Philadelphia 76ers and the Denver Nuggets. Howard took six months off from basketball after his April back surgery, and only had the combined four weeks of training camp and preseason to prepare for the season. Still working himself into shape, Howard paced himself throughout the season on both offense and defense. On January 4, 2013, Howard injured his right shoulder in the second half of the Lakers' 107–102 loss to the Los Angeles Clippers. At the midpoint of the season, the Lakers were a disappointing 17–24. Howard was averaging 17.1 points on 58.2% shooting, 12.3 rebounds, and 2.5 blocks, but also 3.6 fouls a game with 3.2 turnovers while making only 50.4% of his free throws.
Howard was upset that he was not getting the ball enough, and he felt that Kobe Bryant was shooting too much. Moving forward, Howard said he needed to "bring it" and dominate in more ways than just scoring. Howard missed games due to his recurring shoulder injury in January and February. In February, Bryant said that Howard "worries too much" and "doesn't want to let anyone down", urging him to play through the pain when Pau Gasol was sidelined with a torn plantar fascia. Howard returned the next game after commenting that Bryant was "not a doctor, I'm not a doctor. That's his opinion."
During the All-Star break, Howard adopted a healthier diet to get into better shape to anchor the Lakers' defense and run head coach Mike D'Antoni's preferred pick and rolls. Still, on February 23, Howard said he was "not even close" to physically being where he wanted to be. Coach Mike D'Antoni attributed Howard's difficulty running the pick-and-roll—a play the coach had expected would be a staple for the team—with Steve Nash to Howard's lack of conditioning. The Lakers were 8–2 after the All-Star break, passing Utah for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference, and Howard averaged 15.5 points, 14.8 rebounds, and 2.6 blocks. In his first game back in Orlando on March 12, Howard scored a season-high 39 points and had 16 rebounds in a 106–97 Lakers win. Booed throughout the game, he made 25 of 39 free throws, setting franchise records for free throws made and attempted while tying his own NBA record for attempts. Howard made 16 of 20 free throws when he was fouled intentionally by the Magic. With Howard anchoring the Lakers defense and his improved overall play, the Lakers made the playoffs, but were swept in the opening round by San Antonio. Howard was ejected in Game 4 with over nine minutes left in the third quarter.
Howard finished the season with his lowest scoring average since his second year in the NBA, but he was the league leader in rebounding and ranked second in field goal percentage. Although he was recovering from his back surgery, he only missed six games all season—all due to his torn labrum. Howard was named to the All-NBA Third Team after having received five consecutive first-team honors. He became a free agent in the summer, and he was offered a maximum contract of five years and $118 million by the Lakers.
Houston Rockets (2013–2016)
On July 13, 2013, Howard signed with the Houston Rockets, joining James Harden to form a formidable duo. Howard finished the regular season with averages of 18.3 points and 12.2 rebounds and earned All-NBA Second Team honors. During the 2014 playoffs, Howard averaged 26 points and 13.7 rebounds per game, but the Rockets were eliminated by the Portland Trail Blazers in the first round, losing the series 4–2.
After playing in the Rockets' first 10 out of 11 games to start the 2014–15 season, Howard missed 11 straight due to a strained right knee before returning to action on December 13 against the Denver Nuggets and recording his 10,000th career rebound. However, on January 31, Howard was ruled out for a further month due to persistent trouble with his right knee. After setbacks forced him out for a further month and a total of 26 games, Howard returned to action on March 25 against the New Orleans Pelicans. He started the game but was held under 17 minutes by coach Kevin McHale and finished with just four points and seven rebounds in a 95–93 win. Howard played only 41 games in the regular season. The Rockets clinched their first division title in over 20 years and made it to the Western Conference Finals, where they lost 4–1 to the Golden State Warriors.
On November 4, 2015, Howard had 23 points and 14 rebounds against the Orlando Magic. He shot 10-of-10 to become the first Rocket to make 10 or more field goals without a miss since Yao Ming went 12-of-12 in 2009. On December 26, he eclipsed 15,000 points for his career in a loss to the New Orleans Pelicans. On January 18, 2016, in an overtime loss to the Los Angeles Clippers, Howard had 36 points and tied a career high with 26 rebounds en route to his 10th straight double-double, the league's longest active streak at the time, and his longest since a 14-game run in 2012–13. On June 22, 2016, Howard declined his $23 million player option for the 2016–17 season and became an unrestricted free agent.
Atlanta Hawks (2016–2017)
On July 12, 2016, Howard signed a three-year, $70 million contract with his hometown team the Atlanta Hawks. With the retirement of Tim Duncan, Howard entered the 2016–17 season as the NBA's active leader in rebounds (12,089) and blocked shots (1,916). In his debut for the Hawks in their season opener on October 27, Howard grabbed 19 rebounds in a 114–99 win over the Washington Wizards. It was the most rebounds for anyone in their Atlanta debut, breaking the mark of 18 that Shareef Abdur-Rahim set on October 30, 2001. On November 2, he scored a season-high 31 points in a 123–116 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers. On February 2, he had a season-best game with 24 points and 23 rebounds in a 113–108 win over the Rockets in Houston.
Charlotte Hornets (2017–2018)
On June 20, 2017, the Hawks traded Howard, along with the 31st overall pick in the 2017 NBA draft, to the Charlotte Hornets in exchange for Marco Belinelli, Miles Plumlee and the 41st overall pick in the 2017 NBA draft. To begin the season, Howard became the first Charlotte player since Emeka Okafor in 2007 with four consecutive 15-rebound games. In the fifth game of the season, he had another 15-rebound game. On March 15, he scored 20 of his season-high 33 points in the second half of the Hornets' 129–117 win over the Atlanta Hawks. On March 21, Howard recorded 32 points and a franchise-record 30 rebounds in a 111–105 win over the Nets, becoming just the eighth player in league history with a 30–30 game. He became the first NBA player with a 30-point, 30-rebound game since Kevin Love in November 2010, and the first player with a 30–30 game against the Nets since Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in February 1978. The next day, Howard was suspended for one game without pay due to receiving his 16th technical foul of the season. Howard finished the season with a franchise-record 53 double-doubles and joined Abdul-Jabbar and Wilt Chamberlain as the only players to hold single-season records with two teams. Howard also became one of six players to average a double-double in each of his first 13 seasons in the league.
On July 6, 2018, Howard was traded to the Brooklyn Nets in exchange for Timofey Mozgov, the draft rights to Hamidou Diallo, a 2021 second-round draft pick and cash considerations. He was waived by the Nets immediately upon being acquired.
Washington Wizards (2018–2019)
On July 12, 2018, Howard signed with the Washington Wizards. He missed all of training camp, every exhibition game and the first seven regular-season games with a sore backside. He appeared in nine games in November before missing the rest of the season after undergoing spinal surgery to relieve pain in his glutes. In March 2019, it was revealed that Howard, in addition to his back injury, was also dealing with a hamstring issue. On April 18, 2019, Howard exercised his $5.6 million player option to play a second season with the Wizards.
On July 6, 2019, Howard was traded to the Memphis Grizzlies for forward C. J. Miles. On August 24, 2019, Howard was waived by the Grizzlies.
Return to the Lakers (2019–2020)
On August 26, 2019, Howard signed a $2.6 million veteran's minimum contract with the Los Angeles Lakers, reuniting him with his former team. He was replacing DeMarcus Cousins, a free agent signed earlier in the offseason who was lost for the year after suffering a knee injury. To assure the team that he would accept any role the team asked, Howard offered to sign a non-guaranteed contract, freeing the Lakers to cut him at any time.
During the season, the Lakers split time fairly evenly between him and starting center JaVale McGee. On January 13, 2020, Howard scored a season-high 21 points on a 9-of-11 shooting and got a season-high 15 rebounds. In Game 4 of the Western Conference finals against the Denver Nuggets, Lakers coach Frank Vogel started Howard to match up against the Nuggets' Nikola Jokić. Howard had 12 points and 11 rebounds in 23 minutes to help the Lakers win and take a 3–1 lead in the series. He had started twice during the regular season, but this was his first start by coach's decision when McGee was available. The Lakers advanced to the NBA Finals, winning the series 4–2 over the Miami Heat and giving Howard his first NBA championship.
Philadelphia 76ers (2020–2021)
On November 21, 2020, the Philadelphia 76ers signed Howard to a one-year deal worth $2,564,753. With the 76ers he averaged 7 points and 8.4 rebounds. Howard played 69 games with the Sixers with six starts in 17.3 minutes. He was suspended for one game after getting into a scuffle with Udonis Haslem where both were assessed technical fouls and Haslem was ejected. Howard was suspended because he incurred his 16th technical foul of the year.
Third stint with the Lakers (2021–present)
Howard signed a $2.6 million veteran's minimum contract with the Los Angeles Lakers on August 6, 2021.
National team career
On March 5, 2006, Howard was named to the 2006–2008 USA Basketball Men's Senior National Team program. As the team's regular starting center, he helped lead the team to a 5–0 record during its pre-World Championship tour, and subsequently helped the team win the bronze medal at the 2006 FIBA World Championship. During the FIBA Americas Championship 2007, Howard was on the team which won its first nine games en route to qualifying for the finals and a spot for the 2008 Olympics. He started in eight of those nine games, averaging 8.9 ppg, 5.3 rpg and led the team in shooting .778 from the field. In the finals, he made all seven of his shots and scored 20 points as the USA defeated Argentina to win the gold medal.
On June 23, 2008, Howard was named as one of the members of the 12-man squad representing the United States in the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. With Howard starting as center, Team USA won all of its games en route to the gold medal, breaking their drought of gold medals dating back to the 2000 Olympics. Howard averaged 10.9 points and 5.8 rebounds per game in the tournament.
Player profile
Standing and weighing , Howard plays the center position. He led the NBA in rebounding from 2007 to 2010, and again from 2012 to 2013. Howard's rebounding is in part facilitated by his extraordinary athleticism; his running vertical leap was tested at in 2011, rare for a player of his size. He demonstrated this skill in the 2007 Slam Dunk Contest, where he completed an alley oop dunk from teammate Jameer Nelson while slapping a sticker onto the backboard at high. The sticker showed an image of his own smiling face with a handwritten "All things through Christ Phil: 4:13", a paraphrase of .
Howard's abilities and powerful physique have drawn attention from fellow NBA All-Stars. Tim Duncan remarked in 2007, "[Howard] is so developed... He has so much promise and I am glad that I will be out of the league when he is peaking." Kevin Garnett echoed those sentiments: "[Howard] is a freak of nature, man... I was nowhere near that physically talented. I wasn't that gifted, as far as body and physical presence." After a game in the 2009 NBA Playoffs, Philadelphia 76ers swingman Andre Iguodala said: "It's like he can guard two guys at once. He can guard his guy and the guy coming off the pick-and-roll, which is almost impossible to do... If he gets any more athletic or jumps any higher, they're going to have to change the rules." In December 2007, ESPN writer David Thorpe declared Howard the most dominant center in the NBA. Early in his career, many sports pundits rated Howard one of the top young prospects in the NBA.
Howard has a reputation as a negative locker room presence. In a 2013 interview, he called his former Orlando Magic teammates a "team full of people no one wanted". In a 2013 article titled "Is Dwight Howard the NBA's Worst Teammate?", Bleacher Report asserted that Howard had "extinguished all bridges with the franchise where he spent his first eight NBA seasons". Howard did not get along with Kobe Bryant when he played for the Lakers and did not get along with James Harden when he played for the Rockets. When he was traded from the Atlanta Hawks to the Charlotte Hornets, some of his Hawks teammates reportedly cheered. After Charlotte traded Howard to the Washington Wizards, Charlotte player Brendan Haywood asserted that Howard's teammates were "sick and tired of his act". In 2018, NBC News reported that "Howard’s time with the Magic, Lakers and Rockets devolved into interpersonal strife well before he left those teams". Also in 2018, The Ringer published a piece titled "Everybody (Still) Hates Dwight" in which it called Howard "almost certainly the least popular player in the NBA". Before signing with the Lakers in 2019, Howard reportedly met with the team multiple times, "promising not to live up to his reputation as a difficult teammate who disrupts locker rooms"; the team warned him that he would be released if he became a disruptive presence.
NBA career statistics
Regular season
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 82 || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 32.6 || .520 || .000 || .671 || 10.0 || .9 || .9 || 1.7 || 12.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 81 || 36.8 || .531 || .000 || .595 || 12.5 || 1.5 || .8 || 1.4 || 15.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 36.9 || .603 || .500 || .586 || 12.3 || 1.9 || .9 || 1.9 || 17.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 37.7 || .599 || .000 || .590 || style="background:#cfecec;"| 14.2* || 1.3 || .9 || 2.1 || 20.7
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 79 || 79 || 35.7 || .572 || .000 || .594 || style="background:#cfecec;"| 13.8* || 1.4 || 1.0 || style="background:#cfecec;"| 2.9* || 20.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 34.7 || style="background:#cfecec;"| .612* || .000 || .592 || style="background:#cfecec;"| 13.2* || 1.8 || .9 || style="background:#cfecec;"| 2.8* || 18.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 78 || 78 || 37.5 || .593 || .000 || .596 || 14.1 || 1.4 || 1.4 || 2.4 || 22.9
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 54 || 54 || 38.3 || .573 || .000 || .491 || style="background:#cfecec;"|14.5* || 1.9 || 1.5 || 2.1 || 20.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 76 || 76 || 35.8 || .578 || .167 || .492 ||bgcolor="CFECEC"| 12.4* || 1.4 || 1.1 || 2.4 || 17.1
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 71 || 71 || 33.7 || .591 || .286 || .547 || 12.2 || 1.8 || .8 || 1.8 || 18.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 41 || 41 || 29.8 || .593 || .500 || .528 || 10.5 || 1.2 || .7 || 1.3 || 15.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 71 || 71 || 32.1 || .620 || .000 || .489 || 11.8 || 1.4 || 1.0 || 1.6 || 13.7
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Atlanta
| 74|| 74 || 29.7 || .633 || .000 || .533 || 12.7 || 1.4 || .9 || 1.2 || 13.5
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Charlotte
| 81 || 81 || 30.4 || .555 || .143 || .574 || 12.5 || 1.3 || .6 || 1.6 || 16.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Washington
| 9 || 9 || 25.6 || .623 || .000 || .604 || 9.2 || .4 || .8 || .4 || 12.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 69 || 2 || 18.9 || .729 || .600 || .514 || 7.3 || .7 || .4 || 1.1 || 7.5
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Philadelphia
| 69 || 6 || 17.3 || .587 || .250 || .576 || 8.4 || .9 || .4 || .9 || 7.0
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|Career
| 1182 || 1051 || 32.6 || .586 || .159 || .566 || 12.1 || 1.4 || .9 || 1.9 || 16.2
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|All-Star
| 8 || 6 || 23.3 || .642 || .154 || .450 || 8.8 || 1.5 || .6 || 1.1 || 12.1
Playoffs
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2007
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 4 || 4 || 41.8 || .548 || .000 || .455 || 14.8 || 1.8 || .5 || 1.0 || 15.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2008
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 10 || 10 || 42.1 || .581 || .000 || .542 || 15.8 || .9 || .8 || 3.4 || 18.9
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2009
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 23 || 23 || 39.3 || .601 || .000 || .636 || 15.3 || 1.9 || .9 || 2.6 || 20.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2010
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 14 || 14 || 35.5 || .614 || .000 || .519 || 11.1 || 1.4 || .8 || 3.5|| 18.1
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2011
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 6 || 6 || 43.0 || .630 || .000 ||.682 || 15.5 || 0.5 || .7 || 1.8 || 27.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2013
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 4 || 4 || 31.5 || .619 || .000 || .444 || 10.8 || 1.0 || .5 || 2.0 || 17.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2014
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 6 || 6 || 38.5 || .547 || .000 || .625 || 13.7 || 1.8 || .7 || 2.8 || 26.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2015
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 17 || 17 || 33.8 || .577 || .000 || .412 || 14.0 || 1.2 || 1.4 || 2.3 || 16.4
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2016
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 5 || 5 || 36.0 || .542 || .000 || .368 || 14.0 || 1.6 || .8 || 1.4 || 13.2
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2017
| style="text-align:left;"|Atlanta
| 6 || 6 || 26.1 || .500 || .000 || .632 || 10.7 || 1.3 || 1.0 || .8 || 8.0
|-
|style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"|2020†
|style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 18 || 7 || 15.7 || .684 || .500 || .556 || 4.6 || .5 || .4 || .4 || 5.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2021
| style="text-align:left;"|Philadelphia
| 12 || 0 || 12.4 || .533 || .000 || .600 || 6.3 || .7 || .2 || .5 || 4.7
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|Career
| 125 || 102 || 31.6 || .589 || .143 || .548 || 11.8 || 1.2 || .8 || 2.0 || 15.3
Televised appearances
Howard appeared as a special guest on an episode of the ABC series Extreme Makeover: Home Edition that aired April 2, 2006, in which Ty Pennington and his team built a new home and ministry offices for Sadie Holmes, who operates a social services ministry in the Orlando area.
Howard competed in season 6 of The Masked Singer as "Octopus". He was the first one to be eliminated during the two-night premiere alongside Vivica A. Fox as "Mother Nature" and Toni Braxton as "Pufferfish".
Personal life
Howard has five children by five women. In 2010, Howard won a defamation judgment against Royce Reed, the mother of his oldest child Braylon. A Florida judge ruled that she violated a court order prohibiting her from mentioning Howard in the media. He had initially sought about half a billion dollars in damages, claiming that she had disparaged him through Twitter and her appearances on the reality television show, Basketball Wives, as the couple's paternity agreement stipulated a $500 fine for each time she mentioned him in public.
In October 2014, police in Cobb County, Georgia investigated claims by Reed that Howard abused their son. Howard had admitted to hitting Braylon with a belt; he had been disciplined in the same manner while growing up, and he stated that he did not realize it was wrong to do so. Howard was not charged in connection with the allegations. Howard was also involved in a civil case with Reed over custody of their son.
Howard keeps approximately 20 snakes as pets and has appeared twice in Animal Planet's reality TV series Tanked. He owns a farm "in north Georgia where he relaxes [with] cows, hogs, turkeys and deer," and also grows vegetables on his estate.
Melissa Rios, the mother of his son, David, died on March 27, 2020, following an epileptic seizure. David was with Howard at his home in Georgia at the time to ride out the COVID-19 pandemic.
Philanthropy, faith, and public image
Before he was drafted in 2004, Howard said that he wanted to use his NBA career and Christian faith to "raise the name of God within the league and throughout the world". He has stated he believes in reaching out to his community and fans and thus contributes substantially in the field of philanthropy. Together with his parents, Howard established the Dwight D. Howard Foundation Inc. in 2004. In November 2009, the center was named one of the 10 finalists for the Jefferson Awards for Public Service, which awards athletes for their charitable work.
In 2014, Epix featured Howard as the focal point of a documentary about his life called In the Moment.
See also
List of career achievements by Dwight Howard
List of National Basketball Association career games played leaders
List of National Basketball Association career rebounding leaders
List of National Basketball Association career blocks leaders
List of National Basketball Association career turnovers leaders
List of National Basketball Association career free throw scoring leaders
List of National Basketball Association career playoff blocks leaders
List of National Basketball Association annual rebounding leaders
List of National Basketball Association annual blocks leaders
List of National Basketball Association players with most blocks in a game
List of National Basketball Association players with most rebounds in a game
List of National Basketball Association franchise career scoring leaders
Notes
References
External links
1985 births
Living people
2006 FIBA World Championship players
21st-century African-American sportspeople
African-American basketball players
African-American Christians
American men's basketball players
Atlanta Hawks players
Basketball players at the 2008 Summer Olympics
Basketball players from Atlanta
Centers (basketball)
Charlotte Hornets players
Houston Rockets players
Los Angeles Lakers players
McDonald's High School All-Americans
Medalists at the 2008 Summer Olympics
National Basketball Association All-Stars
National Basketball Association high school draftees
Olympic gold medalists for the United States in basketball
Orlando Magic draft picks
Orlando Magic players
Parade High School All-Americans (boys' basketball)
Philadelphia 76ers players
Power forwards (basketball)
United States men's national basketball team players
Washington Wizards players
20th-century African-American people | false | [
"Rosalie (Rosa) Nachmanson née Davidson (20 March 1852 - 9 November 1916) was a Swedish philanthropist and charity worker. She was the daughter of conditor Wilhelm Davidson who in the mid 1800s opened the known restaurant Hasselbacken in Stockholm. After her death she left a fortune of 3.5 million (SEK). Half of the money was to be handed over to people close to her and the rest was to be given to several charity health care causes.\n\nReferences\n\n1852 births\n1916 deaths\nSwedish philanthropists\n19th-century philanthropists",
"A click-to-donate site is a website where users can click a button to generate a donation for a charity without spending any of their own money. The money for the donation comes from advertisers whose banners are displayed each time a user clicks the button. While not directly contributing (though many sites offer additional ways of support), visitors are making a difference in the sense that, had they not visited, no donation would have been given. \n\nIn most cases, the donation generated by each user only amounts to a few cents, but the goal is to accumulate enough clicks to add up to a significant amount.\n\nMany charities launched this style of program in the late 1990s. However, the constriction of online advertising spending around 2001 following the dot-com collapse caused many sites to be closed. Yet there are still many in operation, notably Freerice, The Hunger Site, and Por Los Chicos. \n\nFlattr and CentUp (now defunct) used click-to-donate technology on many sites instead of being centralized on just one.\n\nSee also\nCrowdfunding\nMicrofinance\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n – An active listing of click-to-donate links.\n\nOnline charity"
] |
[
"Dwight Howard",
"Public image",
"What is a positive public image going forhim?",
"Howard said that he wanted to use his NBA career and Christian faith to \"raise the name of God within the league and throughout the world",
"What way does he plan on reaching out?",
"He has stated he believes in reaching out to his community and fans and thus contributes substantially in the field of philanthropy.",
"Does he have any negative image?",
"An avid listener of Gospel music, he attends the Fellowship of Faith Church when he is back home in Atlanta",
"Has he been in any movies?",
"In 2014, Epix featured Howard as the focal point of a documentary about his life called In the Moment.",
"What did the documentary tell about his life?",
"The film was directed by Ross Greenburg and Executive Producers include Michael D. Ratner and Matthew Weaver.",
"Does he devote any of his time to causes?",
"Within the NBA itself, Howard has participated in several NBA \"Read to Achieve\" assemblies encouraging children to make reading a priority.",
"Has be given money to any charity?",
"Howard also established the Dwight D. Howard Foundation Inc. in 2004. The Foundation provides scholarships for students who want to attend his alma mater,"
] | C_d944cfc090ab415ca5bfbd6859c14699_0 | Has he made any guest appearances? | 8 | Has Dwight Howard made any guest appearances in media? | Dwight Howard | Before he was drafted in 2004, Howard said that he wanted to use his NBA career and Christian faith to "raise the name of God within the league and throughout the world". He has stated he believes in reaching out to his community and fans and thus contributes substantially in the field of philanthropy. An avid listener of Gospel music, he attends the Fellowship of Faith Church when he is back home in Atlanta and is involved and active with the youth programs at the church. Together with his parents, Howard also established the Dwight D. Howard Foundation Inc. in 2004. The Foundation provides scholarships for students who want to attend his alma mater, Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy, and grants to Lovell Elementary School and Memorial Middle School in Orlando, Florida. The Foundation also organizes summer basketball camps for boys and girls, and together with high school and college coaches and players, fellow NBA players are invited to be on hand at the camp. For his contributions in the Central Florida community, Howard received in 2005 the Rich and Helen De Vos Community Enrichment Award. Within the NBA itself, Howard has participated in several NBA "Read to Achieve" assemblies encouraging children to make reading a priority. In November 2009, the center was named one of the 10 finalists for the Jefferson Awards for Public Service, which awards athletes for their charitable work. In 2009, Howard, along with several other NBA players, joined the Hoops for St. Jude charity program benefitting the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Elsewhere, Howard appeared as a special guest on an episode of the ABC series Extreme Makeover: Home Edition that aired April 2, 2006, in which Ty Pennington and his team built a new home and ministry offices for Sadie Holmes, who operates a social services ministry in the Orlando area. He made another appearance on the show in the October 9, 2011 episode. Along with Sam Worthington and Jonah Hill, Howard appeared in a commercial for the video game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Howard, along with Carmelo Anthony and Scottie Pippen, also appeared in the 2013 Chinese film Amazing, a joint venture between the NBA and Shanghai Film Group Corporation. In 2014, Epix featured Howard as the focal point of a documentary about his life called In the Moment. The film was directed by Ross Greenburg and Executive Producers include Michael D. Ratner and Matthew Weaver. CANNOTANSWER | Along with Sam Worthington and Jonah Hill, Howard appeared in a commercial for the video game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. | Dwight David Howard II (born December 8, 1985) is an American professional basketball player for the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He is an NBA champion, eight-time All-Star, eight-time All-NBA Team honoree, five-time All-Defensive Team member, and three-time Defensive Player of the Year.
Howard, who plays center, spent his high school career at Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy. He chose to forgo college, entered the 2004 NBA draft, and was selected first overall by the Orlando Magic. Howard set numerous franchise and league records with the Magic. He led the team to the 2009 NBA Finals.
In 2012, after eight seasons with Orlando, Howard was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers. After a year with the Lakers, he played for the Houston Rockets, the Atlanta Hawks, the Charlotte Hornets, and the Washington Wizards. Howard returned to the Lakers in 2019 and won his first NBA championship in 2020.
Early life
Howard was born in Atlanta, to Dwight Sr. and Sheryl Howard, a family with strong athletic connections. His father is a Georgia State Trooper and is the athletic director at Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy, a private academy with one of the country's best high school basketball programs; his mother played on the inaugural women's basketball team at Morris Brown College. Howard's mother had seven miscarriages before he was born. A devout Christian since his youth, Howard became serious about basketball around the age of nine. Despite his large frame, Howard was quick and versatile enough to play the guard position. He attended Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy and played mostly as power forward, averaging 16.6 points, 13.4 rebounds and 6.3 blocks per game in 129 appearances. As a senior, Howard led his team to a 31–2 record and the 2004 state title, while averaging 25 points, 18 rebounds, 8.1 blocks and 3.5 assists per game. The same year, he was widely recognized as the best American high school basketball player, and received the Naismith Prep Player of the Year Award, the Morgan Wootten High School Player of the Year Award, Gatorade National Player of the Year and the McDonald's National High School Player of the Year honor. He was also co-MVP (with J. R. Smith) of the McDonald's All-American Game that year. On January 31, 2012, Howard was honored as one of the 35 greatest McDonald's All-Americans.
Professional career
Orlando Magic (2004–2012)
Early years (2004–2008)
Following his high school successes, Howard chose to forego college and declared for the 2004 NBA draft—a decision partly inspired by his idol Kevin Garnett who had done the same in 1995—where the Orlando Magic selected him first overall over UConn junior Emeka Okafor. He took the number 12 for his jersey, in part because it was the reverse of Garnett's 21 when he played for Minnesota. Howard joined a depleted Magic squad that had finished with only 21 victories the previous season; further, the club had just lost perennial NBA All-Star Tracy McGrady. Howard, however, made an immediate impact. He finished his rookie season with an average of 12 points and 10 rebounds, setting several NBA records in the process. He became the youngest player in NBA history to average a double double in the regular season. He also became the youngest player in NBA history to average at least 10 rebounds in a season and youngest NBA player ever to record at least 20 rebounds in a game. Howard's importance to the Magic was highlighted when he became the first player in NBA history directly out of high school to start all 82 games during his rookie season. For his efforts, he was selected to play in the 2005 NBA Rookie Challenge, and was unanimously selected to the All-Rookie Team. He also finished third in the Rookie of the Year voting.
Howard reported to camp for his second NBA season having added 20 pounds of muscle during the off-season. Orlando coach Brian Hill—responsible for grooming former Magic superstar Shaquille O'Neal—decided that Howard should be converted into a full-fledged center. Hill identified two areas where Howard needed to improve: his post-up game and his defense. He exerted extra pressure on Howard, saying that the Magic would need him to emerge as a force in the middle before the team had a chance at the playoffs. On November 15, 2005, in a home game against the Charlotte Bobcats, Howard recorded 21 points and 20 rebounds, becoming the youngest player ever to score 20 or more points and gather 20 or more rebounds in the same game. He was selected to play on the Sophomore Team in the 2006 Rookie Challenge during the All-Star break. Overall, he averaged 15.8 points and 12.5 rebounds per game, ranking second in the NBA in rebounds per game, offensive rebounds, and double-doubles and sixth in field goal percentage. Despite Howard's improvement, the Magic finished the season with a 36–46 record and failed to qualify for the playoffs for the second consecutive season since Howard's arrival.
In the 2006–07 season (and for the third consecutive season), Howard played in all 82 regular-season games. On February 1, 2007, he received his first NBA All-Star selection as a reserve on the Eastern Conference squad for the 2007 NBA All-Star Game. On February 9, he made a game-winning alley-oop off an inbound pass at the buzzer against the San Antonio Spurs. Howard set a new career high with 35 points against the Philadelphia 76ers on April 14. Under his leadership, the Magic qualified for the 2007 NBA Playoffs as the eighth seed in the Eastern Conference. There, the Magic were swept by the Detroit Pistons in the first round. For the season, Howard averaged 17.6 points and 12.3 rebounds per game, finishing first in the NBA in total rebounds, second in field goal percentage, and ninth in blocks. He was named to the All-NBA Third Team at the end of the 2006–07 campaign.
Howard continued posting impressive numbers in the 2007–08 season and helped the Magic have their best season to date. Howard was named as a starter for the Eastern Conference All-Star team. On February 16, 2008, he won the NBA Slam Dunk Contest by receiving 78% of the fan's votes via text messaging or online voting; in that contest, he performed a series of innovative dunks said to have rejuvenated the contest, including donning a Superman cape for one of the dunks. Howard led the Magic to their first division title in 12 years and to the third seed for the 2008 NBA Playoffs. In their first round match-up against the Toronto Raptors, Howard's dominance (three 20-point/20-rebound games) helped Orlando to prevail in five games. Howard's series total of 91 rebounds was also greater than the total rebounds collected by the entire Toronto frontcourt. In the second round against the Pistons, the Magic lost in five games. For the season, Howard was named to the All-NBA First Team for the first time, and was also named to the NBA All-Defensive Second Team.
Dominance and NBA Finals appearance (2008–2011)
The 2008–09 season began well for Howard. Ten games into the season, the center was leading the league in blocks per game (4.2). In December, Howard injured his left knee, which caused him to miss a game due to injury for the first time in his NBA career; previously, he had played in 351 consecutive games. He garnered a record 3.1 million votes to earn the starting berth on the Eastern Conference team for the 2009 NBA All-Star Game. Howard led Orlando to its second straight Southeast Division title and to the third seed for the 2009 NBA Playoffs; the team finished the season with a 59–23 record. In the first round of the playoffs against the 76ers, Howard recorded 24 points and 24 rebounds in Game 5 to give Orlando a 3–2 lead before the Magic closed out the series in six games. In the second round against the Boston Celtics, after the Magic blew a lead in Game 5 to fall behind 3–2 in the series, Howard publicly stated that he should have been given the ball more and questioned coach Stan Van Gundy's tactics. The Magic went on to defeat Boston to win the series and move on to the Eastern Conference Finals. There they, defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers 4–2. Howard had a playoff career-high 40 points to go with his 14 rebounds in the deciding Game 6, leading Orlando to the NBA Finals for the first time in 14 years. In the NBA Finals, the Los Angeles Lakers took the first two home games, before a home win by the Magic brought the deficit to 2–1. In Game 4, despite Howard putting up 21 rebounds and a Finals record of 9 blocks in a game, the Magic lost in overtime. The Lakers went on to clinch the series with a win in Game 5. For the season, Howard became the youngest player ever to win the NBA Defensive Player of the Year Award. He was also named to the NBA All-Defensive First Team, and to the All-NBA First Team.
In the 2009–10 season, the Magic got off to a strong start, winning 17 of their first 21 games and setting a franchise record. On January 21, 2010, Howard was named as the starting center for the East in the 2010 NBA All-Star Game. The Magic completed the regular season with 59 wins and their third consecutive division title. The Magic's playoff run resulted another Eastern Conference Finals appearance, where they lost in six games to the Celtics. Howard won the Defensive Player of the Year Award for the second straight year. He became the first player in NBA history to lead the league in blocks and rebounds in the same season twice—and for two years in a row.
In the 2010–11 season, Howard posted career highs in points and field goal percentage. He became the first player in league history to win Defensive Player of the Year honors for three consecutive seasons. Howard led the league in double-doubles and also averaged 14.1 rebounds, 2.3 blocks and a career-high 1.3 steals this season. He led the Magic to 52 wins, as they finished as the fourth seed in the Eastern Conference. They went on to lose to the Atlanta Hawks in the first round of 2011 NBA Playoffs. He had a playoff career-high 46 points and 19 rebounds in Orlando's 103–93 loss to Atlanta in Game 1. Howard led the NBA in technical fouls with 18 in the regular season, and received one-game suspensions after his 16th and 18th technicals.
Final season in Orlando (2011–2012)
Due to a lockout, the 2011–12 regular season was shortened to 66 games. Not long after the lockout ended, Howard, who was eligible to become a free agent at the end of the season, demanded a trade to the New Jersey Nets, Los Angeles Lakers or Dallas Mavericks. Howard stated that although his preference was to remain in Orlando, he did not feel the Magic organization was doing enough to build a championship contender. He would later meet with Magic officials and agree to back off his trade demands, but stated that he also felt the team needed to make changes to the roster if they wanted to contend for a championship.
On January 12, 2012, Howard attempted an NBA regular season record 39 free throws against the Golden State Warriors. Howard entered the game making 42 percent of his free throws for the season and just below 60 percent for his career. The Warriors hacked Howard intentionally throughout the game, and he broke Wilt Chamberlain's regular-season record of 34 set in 1962. Howard made 21 of the 39 attempts, finishing with 45 points and 23 rebounds in the Magic's 117–109 victory. On January 24, 2012, Howard became the Magic's all-time scoring leader.
On March 15, 2012, on the day of the trading deadline for the 2011–12 NBA season, Howard waived his right to opt out of his contract at the end of the season and committed to stay with the Magic through the 2012–13 season. He had previously asked to be traded to the New Jersey Nets. Had he not signed the amendment, the Magic were prepared to trade him to avoid losing him as a free agent. On April 5, Van Gundy said that he had been informed by management that Howard wanted him fired. During the interview, the center walked up and hugged his coach, unaware that Van Gundy had confirmed a report that Howard denied. Van Gundy was let go after the season.
On April 19, 2012, Howard's agent said that Howard would undergo surgery to repair a herniated disk in his back and would miss the rest of the 2011–12 season, as well as the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. During the offseason, Howard again requested a trade to the Nets, who had relocated to Brooklyn. He intended to become a free agent at the end of the 2012–13 season if he was not traded to Brooklyn.
Los Angeles Lakers (2012–2013)
On August 10, 2012, Howard was traded from Orlando to the Los Angeles Lakers in a deal that also involved the Philadelphia 76ers and the Denver Nuggets. Howard took six months off from basketball after his April back surgery, and only had the combined four weeks of training camp and preseason to prepare for the season. Still working himself into shape, Howard paced himself throughout the season on both offense and defense. On January 4, 2013, Howard injured his right shoulder in the second half of the Lakers' 107–102 loss to the Los Angeles Clippers. At the midpoint of the season, the Lakers were a disappointing 17–24. Howard was averaging 17.1 points on 58.2% shooting, 12.3 rebounds, and 2.5 blocks, but also 3.6 fouls a game with 3.2 turnovers while making only 50.4% of his free throws.
Howard was upset that he was not getting the ball enough, and he felt that Kobe Bryant was shooting too much. Moving forward, Howard said he needed to "bring it" and dominate in more ways than just scoring. Howard missed games due to his recurring shoulder injury in January and February. In February, Bryant said that Howard "worries too much" and "doesn't want to let anyone down", urging him to play through the pain when Pau Gasol was sidelined with a torn plantar fascia. Howard returned the next game after commenting that Bryant was "not a doctor, I'm not a doctor. That's his opinion."
During the All-Star break, Howard adopted a healthier diet to get into better shape to anchor the Lakers' defense and run head coach Mike D'Antoni's preferred pick and rolls. Still, on February 23, Howard said he was "not even close" to physically being where he wanted to be. Coach Mike D'Antoni attributed Howard's difficulty running the pick-and-roll—a play the coach had expected would be a staple for the team—with Steve Nash to Howard's lack of conditioning. The Lakers were 8–2 after the All-Star break, passing Utah for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference, and Howard averaged 15.5 points, 14.8 rebounds, and 2.6 blocks. In his first game back in Orlando on March 12, Howard scored a season-high 39 points and had 16 rebounds in a 106–97 Lakers win. Booed throughout the game, he made 25 of 39 free throws, setting franchise records for free throws made and attempted while tying his own NBA record for attempts. Howard made 16 of 20 free throws when he was fouled intentionally by the Magic. With Howard anchoring the Lakers defense and his improved overall play, the Lakers made the playoffs, but were swept in the opening round by San Antonio. Howard was ejected in Game 4 with over nine minutes left in the third quarter.
Howard finished the season with his lowest scoring average since his second year in the NBA, but he was the league leader in rebounding and ranked second in field goal percentage. Although he was recovering from his back surgery, he only missed six games all season—all due to his torn labrum. Howard was named to the All-NBA Third Team after having received five consecutive first-team honors. He became a free agent in the summer, and he was offered a maximum contract of five years and $118 million by the Lakers.
Houston Rockets (2013–2016)
On July 13, 2013, Howard signed with the Houston Rockets, joining James Harden to form a formidable duo. Howard finished the regular season with averages of 18.3 points and 12.2 rebounds and earned All-NBA Second Team honors. During the 2014 playoffs, Howard averaged 26 points and 13.7 rebounds per game, but the Rockets were eliminated by the Portland Trail Blazers in the first round, losing the series 4–2.
After playing in the Rockets' first 10 out of 11 games to start the 2014–15 season, Howard missed 11 straight due to a strained right knee before returning to action on December 13 against the Denver Nuggets and recording his 10,000th career rebound. However, on January 31, Howard was ruled out for a further month due to persistent trouble with his right knee. After setbacks forced him out for a further month and a total of 26 games, Howard returned to action on March 25 against the New Orleans Pelicans. He started the game but was held under 17 minutes by coach Kevin McHale and finished with just four points and seven rebounds in a 95–93 win. Howard played only 41 games in the regular season. The Rockets clinched their first division title in over 20 years and made it to the Western Conference Finals, where they lost 4–1 to the Golden State Warriors.
On November 4, 2015, Howard had 23 points and 14 rebounds against the Orlando Magic. He shot 10-of-10 to become the first Rocket to make 10 or more field goals without a miss since Yao Ming went 12-of-12 in 2009. On December 26, he eclipsed 15,000 points for his career in a loss to the New Orleans Pelicans. On January 18, 2016, in an overtime loss to the Los Angeles Clippers, Howard had 36 points and tied a career high with 26 rebounds en route to his 10th straight double-double, the league's longest active streak at the time, and his longest since a 14-game run in 2012–13. On June 22, 2016, Howard declined his $23 million player option for the 2016–17 season and became an unrestricted free agent.
Atlanta Hawks (2016–2017)
On July 12, 2016, Howard signed a three-year, $70 million contract with his hometown team the Atlanta Hawks. With the retirement of Tim Duncan, Howard entered the 2016–17 season as the NBA's active leader in rebounds (12,089) and blocked shots (1,916). In his debut for the Hawks in their season opener on October 27, Howard grabbed 19 rebounds in a 114–99 win over the Washington Wizards. It was the most rebounds for anyone in their Atlanta debut, breaking the mark of 18 that Shareef Abdur-Rahim set on October 30, 2001. On November 2, he scored a season-high 31 points in a 123–116 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers. On February 2, he had a season-best game with 24 points and 23 rebounds in a 113–108 win over the Rockets in Houston.
Charlotte Hornets (2017–2018)
On June 20, 2017, the Hawks traded Howard, along with the 31st overall pick in the 2017 NBA draft, to the Charlotte Hornets in exchange for Marco Belinelli, Miles Plumlee and the 41st overall pick in the 2017 NBA draft. To begin the season, Howard became the first Charlotte player since Emeka Okafor in 2007 with four consecutive 15-rebound games. In the fifth game of the season, he had another 15-rebound game. On March 15, he scored 20 of his season-high 33 points in the second half of the Hornets' 129–117 win over the Atlanta Hawks. On March 21, Howard recorded 32 points and a franchise-record 30 rebounds in a 111–105 win over the Nets, becoming just the eighth player in league history with a 30–30 game. He became the first NBA player with a 30-point, 30-rebound game since Kevin Love in November 2010, and the first player with a 30–30 game against the Nets since Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in February 1978. The next day, Howard was suspended for one game without pay due to receiving his 16th technical foul of the season. Howard finished the season with a franchise-record 53 double-doubles and joined Abdul-Jabbar and Wilt Chamberlain as the only players to hold single-season records with two teams. Howard also became one of six players to average a double-double in each of his first 13 seasons in the league.
On July 6, 2018, Howard was traded to the Brooklyn Nets in exchange for Timofey Mozgov, the draft rights to Hamidou Diallo, a 2021 second-round draft pick and cash considerations. He was waived by the Nets immediately upon being acquired.
Washington Wizards (2018–2019)
On July 12, 2018, Howard signed with the Washington Wizards. He missed all of training camp, every exhibition game and the first seven regular-season games with a sore backside. He appeared in nine games in November before missing the rest of the season after undergoing spinal surgery to relieve pain in his glutes. In March 2019, it was revealed that Howard, in addition to his back injury, was also dealing with a hamstring issue. On April 18, 2019, Howard exercised his $5.6 million player option to play a second season with the Wizards.
On July 6, 2019, Howard was traded to the Memphis Grizzlies for forward C. J. Miles. On August 24, 2019, Howard was waived by the Grizzlies.
Return to the Lakers (2019–2020)
On August 26, 2019, Howard signed a $2.6 million veteran's minimum contract with the Los Angeles Lakers, reuniting him with his former team. He was replacing DeMarcus Cousins, a free agent signed earlier in the offseason who was lost for the year after suffering a knee injury. To assure the team that he would accept any role the team asked, Howard offered to sign a non-guaranteed contract, freeing the Lakers to cut him at any time.
During the season, the Lakers split time fairly evenly between him and starting center JaVale McGee. On January 13, 2020, Howard scored a season-high 21 points on a 9-of-11 shooting and got a season-high 15 rebounds. In Game 4 of the Western Conference finals against the Denver Nuggets, Lakers coach Frank Vogel started Howard to match up against the Nuggets' Nikola Jokić. Howard had 12 points and 11 rebounds in 23 minutes to help the Lakers win and take a 3–1 lead in the series. He had started twice during the regular season, but this was his first start by coach's decision when McGee was available. The Lakers advanced to the NBA Finals, winning the series 4–2 over the Miami Heat and giving Howard his first NBA championship.
Philadelphia 76ers (2020–2021)
On November 21, 2020, the Philadelphia 76ers signed Howard to a one-year deal worth $2,564,753. With the 76ers he averaged 7 points and 8.4 rebounds. Howard played 69 games with the Sixers with six starts in 17.3 minutes. He was suspended for one game after getting into a scuffle with Udonis Haslem where both were assessed technical fouls and Haslem was ejected. Howard was suspended because he incurred his 16th technical foul of the year.
Third stint with the Lakers (2021–present)
Howard signed a $2.6 million veteran's minimum contract with the Los Angeles Lakers on August 6, 2021.
National team career
On March 5, 2006, Howard was named to the 2006–2008 USA Basketball Men's Senior National Team program. As the team's regular starting center, he helped lead the team to a 5–0 record during its pre-World Championship tour, and subsequently helped the team win the bronze medal at the 2006 FIBA World Championship. During the FIBA Americas Championship 2007, Howard was on the team which won its first nine games en route to qualifying for the finals and a spot for the 2008 Olympics. He started in eight of those nine games, averaging 8.9 ppg, 5.3 rpg and led the team in shooting .778 from the field. In the finals, he made all seven of his shots and scored 20 points as the USA defeated Argentina to win the gold medal.
On June 23, 2008, Howard was named as one of the members of the 12-man squad representing the United States in the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. With Howard starting as center, Team USA won all of its games en route to the gold medal, breaking their drought of gold medals dating back to the 2000 Olympics. Howard averaged 10.9 points and 5.8 rebounds per game in the tournament.
Player profile
Standing and weighing , Howard plays the center position. He led the NBA in rebounding from 2007 to 2010, and again from 2012 to 2013. Howard's rebounding is in part facilitated by his extraordinary athleticism; his running vertical leap was tested at in 2011, rare for a player of his size. He demonstrated this skill in the 2007 Slam Dunk Contest, where he completed an alley oop dunk from teammate Jameer Nelson while slapping a sticker onto the backboard at high. The sticker showed an image of his own smiling face with a handwritten "All things through Christ Phil: 4:13", a paraphrase of .
Howard's abilities and powerful physique have drawn attention from fellow NBA All-Stars. Tim Duncan remarked in 2007, "[Howard] is so developed... He has so much promise and I am glad that I will be out of the league when he is peaking." Kevin Garnett echoed those sentiments: "[Howard] is a freak of nature, man... I was nowhere near that physically talented. I wasn't that gifted, as far as body and physical presence." After a game in the 2009 NBA Playoffs, Philadelphia 76ers swingman Andre Iguodala said: "It's like he can guard two guys at once. He can guard his guy and the guy coming off the pick-and-roll, which is almost impossible to do... If he gets any more athletic or jumps any higher, they're going to have to change the rules." In December 2007, ESPN writer David Thorpe declared Howard the most dominant center in the NBA. Early in his career, many sports pundits rated Howard one of the top young prospects in the NBA.
Howard has a reputation as a negative locker room presence. In a 2013 interview, he called his former Orlando Magic teammates a "team full of people no one wanted". In a 2013 article titled "Is Dwight Howard the NBA's Worst Teammate?", Bleacher Report asserted that Howard had "extinguished all bridges with the franchise where he spent his first eight NBA seasons". Howard did not get along with Kobe Bryant when he played for the Lakers and did not get along with James Harden when he played for the Rockets. When he was traded from the Atlanta Hawks to the Charlotte Hornets, some of his Hawks teammates reportedly cheered. After Charlotte traded Howard to the Washington Wizards, Charlotte player Brendan Haywood asserted that Howard's teammates were "sick and tired of his act". In 2018, NBC News reported that "Howard’s time with the Magic, Lakers and Rockets devolved into interpersonal strife well before he left those teams". Also in 2018, The Ringer published a piece titled "Everybody (Still) Hates Dwight" in which it called Howard "almost certainly the least popular player in the NBA". Before signing with the Lakers in 2019, Howard reportedly met with the team multiple times, "promising not to live up to his reputation as a difficult teammate who disrupts locker rooms"; the team warned him that he would be released if he became a disruptive presence.
NBA career statistics
Regular season
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 82 || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 32.6 || .520 || .000 || .671 || 10.0 || .9 || .9 || 1.7 || 12.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 81 || 36.8 || .531 || .000 || .595 || 12.5 || 1.5 || .8 || 1.4 || 15.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 36.9 || .603 || .500 || .586 || 12.3 || 1.9 || .9 || 1.9 || 17.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 37.7 || .599 || .000 || .590 || style="background:#cfecec;"| 14.2* || 1.3 || .9 || 2.1 || 20.7
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 79 || 79 || 35.7 || .572 || .000 || .594 || style="background:#cfecec;"| 13.8* || 1.4 || 1.0 || style="background:#cfecec;"| 2.9* || 20.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 34.7 || style="background:#cfecec;"| .612* || .000 || .592 || style="background:#cfecec;"| 13.2* || 1.8 || .9 || style="background:#cfecec;"| 2.8* || 18.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 78 || 78 || 37.5 || .593 || .000 || .596 || 14.1 || 1.4 || 1.4 || 2.4 || 22.9
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 54 || 54 || 38.3 || .573 || .000 || .491 || style="background:#cfecec;"|14.5* || 1.9 || 1.5 || 2.1 || 20.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 76 || 76 || 35.8 || .578 || .167 || .492 ||bgcolor="CFECEC"| 12.4* || 1.4 || 1.1 || 2.4 || 17.1
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 71 || 71 || 33.7 || .591 || .286 || .547 || 12.2 || 1.8 || .8 || 1.8 || 18.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 41 || 41 || 29.8 || .593 || .500 || .528 || 10.5 || 1.2 || .7 || 1.3 || 15.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 71 || 71 || 32.1 || .620 || .000 || .489 || 11.8 || 1.4 || 1.0 || 1.6 || 13.7
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Atlanta
| 74|| 74 || 29.7 || .633 || .000 || .533 || 12.7 || 1.4 || .9 || 1.2 || 13.5
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Charlotte
| 81 || 81 || 30.4 || .555 || .143 || .574 || 12.5 || 1.3 || .6 || 1.6 || 16.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Washington
| 9 || 9 || 25.6 || .623 || .000 || .604 || 9.2 || .4 || .8 || .4 || 12.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 69 || 2 || 18.9 || .729 || .600 || .514 || 7.3 || .7 || .4 || 1.1 || 7.5
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Philadelphia
| 69 || 6 || 17.3 || .587 || .250 || .576 || 8.4 || .9 || .4 || .9 || 7.0
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|Career
| 1182 || 1051 || 32.6 || .586 || .159 || .566 || 12.1 || 1.4 || .9 || 1.9 || 16.2
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|All-Star
| 8 || 6 || 23.3 || .642 || .154 || .450 || 8.8 || 1.5 || .6 || 1.1 || 12.1
Playoffs
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2007
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 4 || 4 || 41.8 || .548 || .000 || .455 || 14.8 || 1.8 || .5 || 1.0 || 15.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2008
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 10 || 10 || 42.1 || .581 || .000 || .542 || 15.8 || .9 || .8 || 3.4 || 18.9
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2009
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 23 || 23 || 39.3 || .601 || .000 || .636 || 15.3 || 1.9 || .9 || 2.6 || 20.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2010
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 14 || 14 || 35.5 || .614 || .000 || .519 || 11.1 || 1.4 || .8 || 3.5|| 18.1
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2011
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 6 || 6 || 43.0 || .630 || .000 ||.682 || 15.5 || 0.5 || .7 || 1.8 || 27.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2013
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 4 || 4 || 31.5 || .619 || .000 || .444 || 10.8 || 1.0 || .5 || 2.0 || 17.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2014
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 6 || 6 || 38.5 || .547 || .000 || .625 || 13.7 || 1.8 || .7 || 2.8 || 26.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2015
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 17 || 17 || 33.8 || .577 || .000 || .412 || 14.0 || 1.2 || 1.4 || 2.3 || 16.4
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2016
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 5 || 5 || 36.0 || .542 || .000 || .368 || 14.0 || 1.6 || .8 || 1.4 || 13.2
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2017
| style="text-align:left;"|Atlanta
| 6 || 6 || 26.1 || .500 || .000 || .632 || 10.7 || 1.3 || 1.0 || .8 || 8.0
|-
|style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"|2020†
|style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 18 || 7 || 15.7 || .684 || .500 || .556 || 4.6 || .5 || .4 || .4 || 5.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2021
| style="text-align:left;"|Philadelphia
| 12 || 0 || 12.4 || .533 || .000 || .600 || 6.3 || .7 || .2 || .5 || 4.7
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|Career
| 125 || 102 || 31.6 || .589 || .143 || .548 || 11.8 || 1.2 || .8 || 2.0 || 15.3
Televised appearances
Howard appeared as a special guest on an episode of the ABC series Extreme Makeover: Home Edition that aired April 2, 2006, in which Ty Pennington and his team built a new home and ministry offices for Sadie Holmes, who operates a social services ministry in the Orlando area.
Howard competed in season 6 of The Masked Singer as "Octopus". He was the first one to be eliminated during the two-night premiere alongside Vivica A. Fox as "Mother Nature" and Toni Braxton as "Pufferfish".
Personal life
Howard has five children by five women. In 2010, Howard won a defamation judgment against Royce Reed, the mother of his oldest child Braylon. A Florida judge ruled that she violated a court order prohibiting her from mentioning Howard in the media. He had initially sought about half a billion dollars in damages, claiming that she had disparaged him through Twitter and her appearances on the reality television show, Basketball Wives, as the couple's paternity agreement stipulated a $500 fine for each time she mentioned him in public.
In October 2014, police in Cobb County, Georgia investigated claims by Reed that Howard abused their son. Howard had admitted to hitting Braylon with a belt; he had been disciplined in the same manner while growing up, and he stated that he did not realize it was wrong to do so. Howard was not charged in connection with the allegations. Howard was also involved in a civil case with Reed over custody of their son.
Howard keeps approximately 20 snakes as pets and has appeared twice in Animal Planet's reality TV series Tanked. He owns a farm "in north Georgia where he relaxes [with] cows, hogs, turkeys and deer," and also grows vegetables on his estate.
Melissa Rios, the mother of his son, David, died on March 27, 2020, following an epileptic seizure. David was with Howard at his home in Georgia at the time to ride out the COVID-19 pandemic.
Philanthropy, faith, and public image
Before he was drafted in 2004, Howard said that he wanted to use his NBA career and Christian faith to "raise the name of God within the league and throughout the world". He has stated he believes in reaching out to his community and fans and thus contributes substantially in the field of philanthropy. Together with his parents, Howard established the Dwight D. Howard Foundation Inc. in 2004. In November 2009, the center was named one of the 10 finalists for the Jefferson Awards for Public Service, which awards athletes for their charitable work.
In 2014, Epix featured Howard as the focal point of a documentary about his life called In the Moment.
See also
List of career achievements by Dwight Howard
List of National Basketball Association career games played leaders
List of National Basketball Association career rebounding leaders
List of National Basketball Association career blocks leaders
List of National Basketball Association career turnovers leaders
List of National Basketball Association career free throw scoring leaders
List of National Basketball Association career playoff blocks leaders
List of National Basketball Association annual rebounding leaders
List of National Basketball Association annual blocks leaders
List of National Basketball Association players with most blocks in a game
List of National Basketball Association players with most rebounds in a game
List of National Basketball Association franchise career scoring leaders
Notes
References
External links
1985 births
Living people
2006 FIBA World Championship players
21st-century African-American sportspeople
African-American basketball players
African-American Christians
American men's basketball players
Atlanta Hawks players
Basketball players at the 2008 Summer Olympics
Basketball players from Atlanta
Centers (basketball)
Charlotte Hornets players
Houston Rockets players
Los Angeles Lakers players
McDonald's High School All-Americans
Medalists at the 2008 Summer Olympics
National Basketball Association All-Stars
National Basketball Association high school draftees
Olympic gold medalists for the United States in basketball
Orlando Magic draft picks
Orlando Magic players
Parade High School All-Americans (boys' basketball)
Philadelphia 76ers players
Power forwards (basketball)
United States men's national basketball team players
Washington Wizards players
20th-century African-American people | false | [
"John Mackie (3 January 1910 – 20 April 1980) was a Scottish professional footballer who played as a centre half.\n\nCareer\nBorn in Baillieston, Mackie played for Hull City, Bradford City and Chesterfield. For Bradford City, he made 91 appearances in the Football League; he also made 8 FA Cup appearances. For Chesterfield, he made 17 appearances in the Football League, and five appearances as a war guest.\n\nSources\n\nReferences\n\n1910 births\n1980 deaths\nPeople from Baillieston\nScottish footballers\nHull City A.F.C. players\nBradford City A.F.C. players\nChesterfield F.C. players\nChesterfield F.C. wartime guest players\nEnglish Football League players\nAssociation football central defenders",
"John \"Jackie\" Arthur (14 December 1917 – 19 November 1986) was an English footballer.\n\nPlaying career\nArthur began his career at Blackburn Rovers and Everton without making any league appearances, before playing for Stockport County shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War. During the war he returned to Everton and made guest appearances for Wrexham.\n\nAfter the war Arthur spent almost a year at Chester before concluding his professional career with a long spell at Rochdale. After retiring from playing he remained on the training staff at Spotland.\n\nReferences\n\n1917 births\n1986 deaths\nPeople from Ramsbottom\nEnglish Football League players\nEnglish footballers\nAssociation football wingers\nBlackburn Rovers F.C. players\nEverton F.C. players\nStockport County F.C. players\nChester City F.C. players\nRochdale A.F.C. players\nWrexham F.C. wartime guest players\nFootballers from Greater Manchester"
] |
[
"Dwight Howard",
"Public image",
"What is a positive public image going forhim?",
"Howard said that he wanted to use his NBA career and Christian faith to \"raise the name of God within the league and throughout the world",
"What way does he plan on reaching out?",
"He has stated he believes in reaching out to his community and fans and thus contributes substantially in the field of philanthropy.",
"Does he have any negative image?",
"An avid listener of Gospel music, he attends the Fellowship of Faith Church when he is back home in Atlanta",
"Has he been in any movies?",
"In 2014, Epix featured Howard as the focal point of a documentary about his life called In the Moment.",
"What did the documentary tell about his life?",
"The film was directed by Ross Greenburg and Executive Producers include Michael D. Ratner and Matthew Weaver.",
"Does he devote any of his time to causes?",
"Within the NBA itself, Howard has participated in several NBA \"Read to Achieve\" assemblies encouraging children to make reading a priority.",
"Has be given money to any charity?",
"Howard also established the Dwight D. Howard Foundation Inc. in 2004. The Foundation provides scholarships for students who want to attend his alma mater,",
"Has he made any guest appearances?",
"Along with Sam Worthington and Jonah Hill, Howard appeared in a commercial for the video game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3."
] | C_d944cfc090ab415ca5bfbd6859c14699_0 | What other appearances has he made? | 9 | What other appearances has Dwight Howard made besides Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3? | Dwight Howard | Before he was drafted in 2004, Howard said that he wanted to use his NBA career and Christian faith to "raise the name of God within the league and throughout the world". He has stated he believes in reaching out to his community and fans and thus contributes substantially in the field of philanthropy. An avid listener of Gospel music, he attends the Fellowship of Faith Church when he is back home in Atlanta and is involved and active with the youth programs at the church. Together with his parents, Howard also established the Dwight D. Howard Foundation Inc. in 2004. The Foundation provides scholarships for students who want to attend his alma mater, Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy, and grants to Lovell Elementary School and Memorial Middle School in Orlando, Florida. The Foundation also organizes summer basketball camps for boys and girls, and together with high school and college coaches and players, fellow NBA players are invited to be on hand at the camp. For his contributions in the Central Florida community, Howard received in 2005 the Rich and Helen De Vos Community Enrichment Award. Within the NBA itself, Howard has participated in several NBA "Read to Achieve" assemblies encouraging children to make reading a priority. In November 2009, the center was named one of the 10 finalists for the Jefferson Awards for Public Service, which awards athletes for their charitable work. In 2009, Howard, along with several other NBA players, joined the Hoops for St. Jude charity program benefitting the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Elsewhere, Howard appeared as a special guest on an episode of the ABC series Extreme Makeover: Home Edition that aired April 2, 2006, in which Ty Pennington and his team built a new home and ministry offices for Sadie Holmes, who operates a social services ministry in the Orlando area. He made another appearance on the show in the October 9, 2011 episode. Along with Sam Worthington and Jonah Hill, Howard appeared in a commercial for the video game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Howard, along with Carmelo Anthony and Scottie Pippen, also appeared in the 2013 Chinese film Amazing, a joint venture between the NBA and Shanghai Film Group Corporation. In 2014, Epix featured Howard as the focal point of a documentary about his life called In the Moment. The film was directed by Ross Greenburg and Executive Producers include Michael D. Ratner and Matthew Weaver. CANNOTANSWER | Howard, along with Carmelo Anthony and Scottie Pippen, also appeared in the 2013 Chinese film Amazing, a joint venture between the NBA and Shanghai Film Group Corporation. | Dwight David Howard II (born December 8, 1985) is an American professional basketball player for the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He is an NBA champion, eight-time All-Star, eight-time All-NBA Team honoree, five-time All-Defensive Team member, and three-time Defensive Player of the Year.
Howard, who plays center, spent his high school career at Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy. He chose to forgo college, entered the 2004 NBA draft, and was selected first overall by the Orlando Magic. Howard set numerous franchise and league records with the Magic. He led the team to the 2009 NBA Finals.
In 2012, after eight seasons with Orlando, Howard was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers. After a year with the Lakers, he played for the Houston Rockets, the Atlanta Hawks, the Charlotte Hornets, and the Washington Wizards. Howard returned to the Lakers in 2019 and won his first NBA championship in 2020.
Early life
Howard was born in Atlanta, to Dwight Sr. and Sheryl Howard, a family with strong athletic connections. His father is a Georgia State Trooper and is the athletic director at Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy, a private academy with one of the country's best high school basketball programs; his mother played on the inaugural women's basketball team at Morris Brown College. Howard's mother had seven miscarriages before he was born. A devout Christian since his youth, Howard became serious about basketball around the age of nine. Despite his large frame, Howard was quick and versatile enough to play the guard position. He attended Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy and played mostly as power forward, averaging 16.6 points, 13.4 rebounds and 6.3 blocks per game in 129 appearances. As a senior, Howard led his team to a 31–2 record and the 2004 state title, while averaging 25 points, 18 rebounds, 8.1 blocks and 3.5 assists per game. The same year, he was widely recognized as the best American high school basketball player, and received the Naismith Prep Player of the Year Award, the Morgan Wootten High School Player of the Year Award, Gatorade National Player of the Year and the McDonald's National High School Player of the Year honor. He was also co-MVP (with J. R. Smith) of the McDonald's All-American Game that year. On January 31, 2012, Howard was honored as one of the 35 greatest McDonald's All-Americans.
Professional career
Orlando Magic (2004–2012)
Early years (2004–2008)
Following his high school successes, Howard chose to forego college and declared for the 2004 NBA draft—a decision partly inspired by his idol Kevin Garnett who had done the same in 1995—where the Orlando Magic selected him first overall over UConn junior Emeka Okafor. He took the number 12 for his jersey, in part because it was the reverse of Garnett's 21 when he played for Minnesota. Howard joined a depleted Magic squad that had finished with only 21 victories the previous season; further, the club had just lost perennial NBA All-Star Tracy McGrady. Howard, however, made an immediate impact. He finished his rookie season with an average of 12 points and 10 rebounds, setting several NBA records in the process. He became the youngest player in NBA history to average a double double in the regular season. He also became the youngest player in NBA history to average at least 10 rebounds in a season and youngest NBA player ever to record at least 20 rebounds in a game. Howard's importance to the Magic was highlighted when he became the first player in NBA history directly out of high school to start all 82 games during his rookie season. For his efforts, he was selected to play in the 2005 NBA Rookie Challenge, and was unanimously selected to the All-Rookie Team. He also finished third in the Rookie of the Year voting.
Howard reported to camp for his second NBA season having added 20 pounds of muscle during the off-season. Orlando coach Brian Hill—responsible for grooming former Magic superstar Shaquille O'Neal—decided that Howard should be converted into a full-fledged center. Hill identified two areas where Howard needed to improve: his post-up game and his defense. He exerted extra pressure on Howard, saying that the Magic would need him to emerge as a force in the middle before the team had a chance at the playoffs. On November 15, 2005, in a home game against the Charlotte Bobcats, Howard recorded 21 points and 20 rebounds, becoming the youngest player ever to score 20 or more points and gather 20 or more rebounds in the same game. He was selected to play on the Sophomore Team in the 2006 Rookie Challenge during the All-Star break. Overall, he averaged 15.8 points and 12.5 rebounds per game, ranking second in the NBA in rebounds per game, offensive rebounds, and double-doubles and sixth in field goal percentage. Despite Howard's improvement, the Magic finished the season with a 36–46 record and failed to qualify for the playoffs for the second consecutive season since Howard's arrival.
In the 2006–07 season (and for the third consecutive season), Howard played in all 82 regular-season games. On February 1, 2007, he received his first NBA All-Star selection as a reserve on the Eastern Conference squad for the 2007 NBA All-Star Game. On February 9, he made a game-winning alley-oop off an inbound pass at the buzzer against the San Antonio Spurs. Howard set a new career high with 35 points against the Philadelphia 76ers on April 14. Under his leadership, the Magic qualified for the 2007 NBA Playoffs as the eighth seed in the Eastern Conference. There, the Magic were swept by the Detroit Pistons in the first round. For the season, Howard averaged 17.6 points and 12.3 rebounds per game, finishing first in the NBA in total rebounds, second in field goal percentage, and ninth in blocks. He was named to the All-NBA Third Team at the end of the 2006–07 campaign.
Howard continued posting impressive numbers in the 2007–08 season and helped the Magic have their best season to date. Howard was named as a starter for the Eastern Conference All-Star team. On February 16, 2008, he won the NBA Slam Dunk Contest by receiving 78% of the fan's votes via text messaging or online voting; in that contest, he performed a series of innovative dunks said to have rejuvenated the contest, including donning a Superman cape for one of the dunks. Howard led the Magic to their first division title in 12 years and to the third seed for the 2008 NBA Playoffs. In their first round match-up against the Toronto Raptors, Howard's dominance (three 20-point/20-rebound games) helped Orlando to prevail in five games. Howard's series total of 91 rebounds was also greater than the total rebounds collected by the entire Toronto frontcourt. In the second round against the Pistons, the Magic lost in five games. For the season, Howard was named to the All-NBA First Team for the first time, and was also named to the NBA All-Defensive Second Team.
Dominance and NBA Finals appearance (2008–2011)
The 2008–09 season began well for Howard. Ten games into the season, the center was leading the league in blocks per game (4.2). In December, Howard injured his left knee, which caused him to miss a game due to injury for the first time in his NBA career; previously, he had played in 351 consecutive games. He garnered a record 3.1 million votes to earn the starting berth on the Eastern Conference team for the 2009 NBA All-Star Game. Howard led Orlando to its second straight Southeast Division title and to the third seed for the 2009 NBA Playoffs; the team finished the season with a 59–23 record. In the first round of the playoffs against the 76ers, Howard recorded 24 points and 24 rebounds in Game 5 to give Orlando a 3–2 lead before the Magic closed out the series in six games. In the second round against the Boston Celtics, after the Magic blew a lead in Game 5 to fall behind 3–2 in the series, Howard publicly stated that he should have been given the ball more and questioned coach Stan Van Gundy's tactics. The Magic went on to defeat Boston to win the series and move on to the Eastern Conference Finals. There they, defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers 4–2. Howard had a playoff career-high 40 points to go with his 14 rebounds in the deciding Game 6, leading Orlando to the NBA Finals for the first time in 14 years. In the NBA Finals, the Los Angeles Lakers took the first two home games, before a home win by the Magic brought the deficit to 2–1. In Game 4, despite Howard putting up 21 rebounds and a Finals record of 9 blocks in a game, the Magic lost in overtime. The Lakers went on to clinch the series with a win in Game 5. For the season, Howard became the youngest player ever to win the NBA Defensive Player of the Year Award. He was also named to the NBA All-Defensive First Team, and to the All-NBA First Team.
In the 2009–10 season, the Magic got off to a strong start, winning 17 of their first 21 games and setting a franchise record. On January 21, 2010, Howard was named as the starting center for the East in the 2010 NBA All-Star Game. The Magic completed the regular season with 59 wins and their third consecutive division title. The Magic's playoff run resulted another Eastern Conference Finals appearance, where they lost in six games to the Celtics. Howard won the Defensive Player of the Year Award for the second straight year. He became the first player in NBA history to lead the league in blocks and rebounds in the same season twice—and for two years in a row.
In the 2010–11 season, Howard posted career highs in points and field goal percentage. He became the first player in league history to win Defensive Player of the Year honors for three consecutive seasons. Howard led the league in double-doubles and also averaged 14.1 rebounds, 2.3 blocks and a career-high 1.3 steals this season. He led the Magic to 52 wins, as they finished as the fourth seed in the Eastern Conference. They went on to lose to the Atlanta Hawks in the first round of 2011 NBA Playoffs. He had a playoff career-high 46 points and 19 rebounds in Orlando's 103–93 loss to Atlanta in Game 1. Howard led the NBA in technical fouls with 18 in the regular season, and received one-game suspensions after his 16th and 18th technicals.
Final season in Orlando (2011–2012)
Due to a lockout, the 2011–12 regular season was shortened to 66 games. Not long after the lockout ended, Howard, who was eligible to become a free agent at the end of the season, demanded a trade to the New Jersey Nets, Los Angeles Lakers or Dallas Mavericks. Howard stated that although his preference was to remain in Orlando, he did not feel the Magic organization was doing enough to build a championship contender. He would later meet with Magic officials and agree to back off his trade demands, but stated that he also felt the team needed to make changes to the roster if they wanted to contend for a championship.
On January 12, 2012, Howard attempted an NBA regular season record 39 free throws against the Golden State Warriors. Howard entered the game making 42 percent of his free throws for the season and just below 60 percent for his career. The Warriors hacked Howard intentionally throughout the game, and he broke Wilt Chamberlain's regular-season record of 34 set in 1962. Howard made 21 of the 39 attempts, finishing with 45 points and 23 rebounds in the Magic's 117–109 victory. On January 24, 2012, Howard became the Magic's all-time scoring leader.
On March 15, 2012, on the day of the trading deadline for the 2011–12 NBA season, Howard waived his right to opt out of his contract at the end of the season and committed to stay with the Magic through the 2012–13 season. He had previously asked to be traded to the New Jersey Nets. Had he not signed the amendment, the Magic were prepared to trade him to avoid losing him as a free agent. On April 5, Van Gundy said that he had been informed by management that Howard wanted him fired. During the interview, the center walked up and hugged his coach, unaware that Van Gundy had confirmed a report that Howard denied. Van Gundy was let go after the season.
On April 19, 2012, Howard's agent said that Howard would undergo surgery to repair a herniated disk in his back and would miss the rest of the 2011–12 season, as well as the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. During the offseason, Howard again requested a trade to the Nets, who had relocated to Brooklyn. He intended to become a free agent at the end of the 2012–13 season if he was not traded to Brooklyn.
Los Angeles Lakers (2012–2013)
On August 10, 2012, Howard was traded from Orlando to the Los Angeles Lakers in a deal that also involved the Philadelphia 76ers and the Denver Nuggets. Howard took six months off from basketball after his April back surgery, and only had the combined four weeks of training camp and preseason to prepare for the season. Still working himself into shape, Howard paced himself throughout the season on both offense and defense. On January 4, 2013, Howard injured his right shoulder in the second half of the Lakers' 107–102 loss to the Los Angeles Clippers. At the midpoint of the season, the Lakers were a disappointing 17–24. Howard was averaging 17.1 points on 58.2% shooting, 12.3 rebounds, and 2.5 blocks, but also 3.6 fouls a game with 3.2 turnovers while making only 50.4% of his free throws.
Howard was upset that he was not getting the ball enough, and he felt that Kobe Bryant was shooting too much. Moving forward, Howard said he needed to "bring it" and dominate in more ways than just scoring. Howard missed games due to his recurring shoulder injury in January and February. In February, Bryant said that Howard "worries too much" and "doesn't want to let anyone down", urging him to play through the pain when Pau Gasol was sidelined with a torn plantar fascia. Howard returned the next game after commenting that Bryant was "not a doctor, I'm not a doctor. That's his opinion."
During the All-Star break, Howard adopted a healthier diet to get into better shape to anchor the Lakers' defense and run head coach Mike D'Antoni's preferred pick and rolls. Still, on February 23, Howard said he was "not even close" to physically being where he wanted to be. Coach Mike D'Antoni attributed Howard's difficulty running the pick-and-roll—a play the coach had expected would be a staple for the team—with Steve Nash to Howard's lack of conditioning. The Lakers were 8–2 after the All-Star break, passing Utah for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference, and Howard averaged 15.5 points, 14.8 rebounds, and 2.6 blocks. In his first game back in Orlando on March 12, Howard scored a season-high 39 points and had 16 rebounds in a 106–97 Lakers win. Booed throughout the game, he made 25 of 39 free throws, setting franchise records for free throws made and attempted while tying his own NBA record for attempts. Howard made 16 of 20 free throws when he was fouled intentionally by the Magic. With Howard anchoring the Lakers defense and his improved overall play, the Lakers made the playoffs, but were swept in the opening round by San Antonio. Howard was ejected in Game 4 with over nine minutes left in the third quarter.
Howard finished the season with his lowest scoring average since his second year in the NBA, but he was the league leader in rebounding and ranked second in field goal percentage. Although he was recovering from his back surgery, he only missed six games all season—all due to his torn labrum. Howard was named to the All-NBA Third Team after having received five consecutive first-team honors. He became a free agent in the summer, and he was offered a maximum contract of five years and $118 million by the Lakers.
Houston Rockets (2013–2016)
On July 13, 2013, Howard signed with the Houston Rockets, joining James Harden to form a formidable duo. Howard finished the regular season with averages of 18.3 points and 12.2 rebounds and earned All-NBA Second Team honors. During the 2014 playoffs, Howard averaged 26 points and 13.7 rebounds per game, but the Rockets were eliminated by the Portland Trail Blazers in the first round, losing the series 4–2.
After playing in the Rockets' first 10 out of 11 games to start the 2014–15 season, Howard missed 11 straight due to a strained right knee before returning to action on December 13 against the Denver Nuggets and recording his 10,000th career rebound. However, on January 31, Howard was ruled out for a further month due to persistent trouble with his right knee. After setbacks forced him out for a further month and a total of 26 games, Howard returned to action on March 25 against the New Orleans Pelicans. He started the game but was held under 17 minutes by coach Kevin McHale and finished with just four points and seven rebounds in a 95–93 win. Howard played only 41 games in the regular season. The Rockets clinched their first division title in over 20 years and made it to the Western Conference Finals, where they lost 4–1 to the Golden State Warriors.
On November 4, 2015, Howard had 23 points and 14 rebounds against the Orlando Magic. He shot 10-of-10 to become the first Rocket to make 10 or more field goals without a miss since Yao Ming went 12-of-12 in 2009. On December 26, he eclipsed 15,000 points for his career in a loss to the New Orleans Pelicans. On January 18, 2016, in an overtime loss to the Los Angeles Clippers, Howard had 36 points and tied a career high with 26 rebounds en route to his 10th straight double-double, the league's longest active streak at the time, and his longest since a 14-game run in 2012–13. On June 22, 2016, Howard declined his $23 million player option for the 2016–17 season and became an unrestricted free agent.
Atlanta Hawks (2016–2017)
On July 12, 2016, Howard signed a three-year, $70 million contract with his hometown team the Atlanta Hawks. With the retirement of Tim Duncan, Howard entered the 2016–17 season as the NBA's active leader in rebounds (12,089) and blocked shots (1,916). In his debut for the Hawks in their season opener on October 27, Howard grabbed 19 rebounds in a 114–99 win over the Washington Wizards. It was the most rebounds for anyone in their Atlanta debut, breaking the mark of 18 that Shareef Abdur-Rahim set on October 30, 2001. On November 2, he scored a season-high 31 points in a 123–116 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers. On February 2, he had a season-best game with 24 points and 23 rebounds in a 113–108 win over the Rockets in Houston.
Charlotte Hornets (2017–2018)
On June 20, 2017, the Hawks traded Howard, along with the 31st overall pick in the 2017 NBA draft, to the Charlotte Hornets in exchange for Marco Belinelli, Miles Plumlee and the 41st overall pick in the 2017 NBA draft. To begin the season, Howard became the first Charlotte player since Emeka Okafor in 2007 with four consecutive 15-rebound games. In the fifth game of the season, he had another 15-rebound game. On March 15, he scored 20 of his season-high 33 points in the second half of the Hornets' 129–117 win over the Atlanta Hawks. On March 21, Howard recorded 32 points and a franchise-record 30 rebounds in a 111–105 win over the Nets, becoming just the eighth player in league history with a 30–30 game. He became the first NBA player with a 30-point, 30-rebound game since Kevin Love in November 2010, and the first player with a 30–30 game against the Nets since Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in February 1978. The next day, Howard was suspended for one game without pay due to receiving his 16th technical foul of the season. Howard finished the season with a franchise-record 53 double-doubles and joined Abdul-Jabbar and Wilt Chamberlain as the only players to hold single-season records with two teams. Howard also became one of six players to average a double-double in each of his first 13 seasons in the league.
On July 6, 2018, Howard was traded to the Brooklyn Nets in exchange for Timofey Mozgov, the draft rights to Hamidou Diallo, a 2021 second-round draft pick and cash considerations. He was waived by the Nets immediately upon being acquired.
Washington Wizards (2018–2019)
On July 12, 2018, Howard signed with the Washington Wizards. He missed all of training camp, every exhibition game and the first seven regular-season games with a sore backside. He appeared in nine games in November before missing the rest of the season after undergoing spinal surgery to relieve pain in his glutes. In March 2019, it was revealed that Howard, in addition to his back injury, was also dealing with a hamstring issue. On April 18, 2019, Howard exercised his $5.6 million player option to play a second season with the Wizards.
On July 6, 2019, Howard was traded to the Memphis Grizzlies for forward C. J. Miles. On August 24, 2019, Howard was waived by the Grizzlies.
Return to the Lakers (2019–2020)
On August 26, 2019, Howard signed a $2.6 million veteran's minimum contract with the Los Angeles Lakers, reuniting him with his former team. He was replacing DeMarcus Cousins, a free agent signed earlier in the offseason who was lost for the year after suffering a knee injury. To assure the team that he would accept any role the team asked, Howard offered to sign a non-guaranteed contract, freeing the Lakers to cut him at any time.
During the season, the Lakers split time fairly evenly between him and starting center JaVale McGee. On January 13, 2020, Howard scored a season-high 21 points on a 9-of-11 shooting and got a season-high 15 rebounds. In Game 4 of the Western Conference finals against the Denver Nuggets, Lakers coach Frank Vogel started Howard to match up against the Nuggets' Nikola Jokić. Howard had 12 points and 11 rebounds in 23 minutes to help the Lakers win and take a 3–1 lead in the series. He had started twice during the regular season, but this was his first start by coach's decision when McGee was available. The Lakers advanced to the NBA Finals, winning the series 4–2 over the Miami Heat and giving Howard his first NBA championship.
Philadelphia 76ers (2020–2021)
On November 21, 2020, the Philadelphia 76ers signed Howard to a one-year deal worth $2,564,753. With the 76ers he averaged 7 points and 8.4 rebounds. Howard played 69 games with the Sixers with six starts in 17.3 minutes. He was suspended for one game after getting into a scuffle with Udonis Haslem where both were assessed technical fouls and Haslem was ejected. Howard was suspended because he incurred his 16th technical foul of the year.
Third stint with the Lakers (2021–present)
Howard signed a $2.6 million veteran's minimum contract with the Los Angeles Lakers on August 6, 2021.
National team career
On March 5, 2006, Howard was named to the 2006–2008 USA Basketball Men's Senior National Team program. As the team's regular starting center, he helped lead the team to a 5–0 record during its pre-World Championship tour, and subsequently helped the team win the bronze medal at the 2006 FIBA World Championship. During the FIBA Americas Championship 2007, Howard was on the team which won its first nine games en route to qualifying for the finals and a spot for the 2008 Olympics. He started in eight of those nine games, averaging 8.9 ppg, 5.3 rpg and led the team in shooting .778 from the field. In the finals, he made all seven of his shots and scored 20 points as the USA defeated Argentina to win the gold medal.
On June 23, 2008, Howard was named as one of the members of the 12-man squad representing the United States in the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. With Howard starting as center, Team USA won all of its games en route to the gold medal, breaking their drought of gold medals dating back to the 2000 Olympics. Howard averaged 10.9 points and 5.8 rebounds per game in the tournament.
Player profile
Standing and weighing , Howard plays the center position. He led the NBA in rebounding from 2007 to 2010, and again from 2012 to 2013. Howard's rebounding is in part facilitated by his extraordinary athleticism; his running vertical leap was tested at in 2011, rare for a player of his size. He demonstrated this skill in the 2007 Slam Dunk Contest, where he completed an alley oop dunk from teammate Jameer Nelson while slapping a sticker onto the backboard at high. The sticker showed an image of his own smiling face with a handwritten "All things through Christ Phil: 4:13", a paraphrase of .
Howard's abilities and powerful physique have drawn attention from fellow NBA All-Stars. Tim Duncan remarked in 2007, "[Howard] is so developed... He has so much promise and I am glad that I will be out of the league when he is peaking." Kevin Garnett echoed those sentiments: "[Howard] is a freak of nature, man... I was nowhere near that physically talented. I wasn't that gifted, as far as body and physical presence." After a game in the 2009 NBA Playoffs, Philadelphia 76ers swingman Andre Iguodala said: "It's like he can guard two guys at once. He can guard his guy and the guy coming off the pick-and-roll, which is almost impossible to do... If he gets any more athletic or jumps any higher, they're going to have to change the rules." In December 2007, ESPN writer David Thorpe declared Howard the most dominant center in the NBA. Early in his career, many sports pundits rated Howard one of the top young prospects in the NBA.
Howard has a reputation as a negative locker room presence. In a 2013 interview, he called his former Orlando Magic teammates a "team full of people no one wanted". In a 2013 article titled "Is Dwight Howard the NBA's Worst Teammate?", Bleacher Report asserted that Howard had "extinguished all bridges with the franchise where he spent his first eight NBA seasons". Howard did not get along with Kobe Bryant when he played for the Lakers and did not get along with James Harden when he played for the Rockets. When he was traded from the Atlanta Hawks to the Charlotte Hornets, some of his Hawks teammates reportedly cheered. After Charlotte traded Howard to the Washington Wizards, Charlotte player Brendan Haywood asserted that Howard's teammates were "sick and tired of his act". In 2018, NBC News reported that "Howard’s time with the Magic, Lakers and Rockets devolved into interpersonal strife well before he left those teams". Also in 2018, The Ringer published a piece titled "Everybody (Still) Hates Dwight" in which it called Howard "almost certainly the least popular player in the NBA". Before signing with the Lakers in 2019, Howard reportedly met with the team multiple times, "promising not to live up to his reputation as a difficult teammate who disrupts locker rooms"; the team warned him that he would be released if he became a disruptive presence.
NBA career statistics
Regular season
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 82 || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 32.6 || .520 || .000 || .671 || 10.0 || .9 || .9 || 1.7 || 12.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 81 || 36.8 || .531 || .000 || .595 || 12.5 || 1.5 || .8 || 1.4 || 15.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 36.9 || .603 || .500 || .586 || 12.3 || 1.9 || .9 || 1.9 || 17.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 37.7 || .599 || .000 || .590 || style="background:#cfecec;"| 14.2* || 1.3 || .9 || 2.1 || 20.7
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 79 || 79 || 35.7 || .572 || .000 || .594 || style="background:#cfecec;"| 13.8* || 1.4 || 1.0 || style="background:#cfecec;"| 2.9* || 20.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 34.7 || style="background:#cfecec;"| .612* || .000 || .592 || style="background:#cfecec;"| 13.2* || 1.8 || .9 || style="background:#cfecec;"| 2.8* || 18.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 78 || 78 || 37.5 || .593 || .000 || .596 || 14.1 || 1.4 || 1.4 || 2.4 || 22.9
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 54 || 54 || 38.3 || .573 || .000 || .491 || style="background:#cfecec;"|14.5* || 1.9 || 1.5 || 2.1 || 20.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 76 || 76 || 35.8 || .578 || .167 || .492 ||bgcolor="CFECEC"| 12.4* || 1.4 || 1.1 || 2.4 || 17.1
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 71 || 71 || 33.7 || .591 || .286 || .547 || 12.2 || 1.8 || .8 || 1.8 || 18.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 41 || 41 || 29.8 || .593 || .500 || .528 || 10.5 || 1.2 || .7 || 1.3 || 15.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 71 || 71 || 32.1 || .620 || .000 || .489 || 11.8 || 1.4 || 1.0 || 1.6 || 13.7
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Atlanta
| 74|| 74 || 29.7 || .633 || .000 || .533 || 12.7 || 1.4 || .9 || 1.2 || 13.5
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Charlotte
| 81 || 81 || 30.4 || .555 || .143 || .574 || 12.5 || 1.3 || .6 || 1.6 || 16.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Washington
| 9 || 9 || 25.6 || .623 || .000 || .604 || 9.2 || .4 || .8 || .4 || 12.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 69 || 2 || 18.9 || .729 || .600 || .514 || 7.3 || .7 || .4 || 1.1 || 7.5
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Philadelphia
| 69 || 6 || 17.3 || .587 || .250 || .576 || 8.4 || .9 || .4 || .9 || 7.0
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|Career
| 1182 || 1051 || 32.6 || .586 || .159 || .566 || 12.1 || 1.4 || .9 || 1.9 || 16.2
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|All-Star
| 8 || 6 || 23.3 || .642 || .154 || .450 || 8.8 || 1.5 || .6 || 1.1 || 12.1
Playoffs
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2007
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 4 || 4 || 41.8 || .548 || .000 || .455 || 14.8 || 1.8 || .5 || 1.0 || 15.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2008
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 10 || 10 || 42.1 || .581 || .000 || .542 || 15.8 || .9 || .8 || 3.4 || 18.9
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2009
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 23 || 23 || 39.3 || .601 || .000 || .636 || 15.3 || 1.9 || .9 || 2.6 || 20.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2010
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 14 || 14 || 35.5 || .614 || .000 || .519 || 11.1 || 1.4 || .8 || 3.5|| 18.1
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2011
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 6 || 6 || 43.0 || .630 || .000 ||.682 || 15.5 || 0.5 || .7 || 1.8 || 27.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2013
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 4 || 4 || 31.5 || .619 || .000 || .444 || 10.8 || 1.0 || .5 || 2.0 || 17.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2014
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 6 || 6 || 38.5 || .547 || .000 || .625 || 13.7 || 1.8 || .7 || 2.8 || 26.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2015
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 17 || 17 || 33.8 || .577 || .000 || .412 || 14.0 || 1.2 || 1.4 || 2.3 || 16.4
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2016
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 5 || 5 || 36.0 || .542 || .000 || .368 || 14.0 || 1.6 || .8 || 1.4 || 13.2
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2017
| style="text-align:left;"|Atlanta
| 6 || 6 || 26.1 || .500 || .000 || .632 || 10.7 || 1.3 || 1.0 || .8 || 8.0
|-
|style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"|2020†
|style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 18 || 7 || 15.7 || .684 || .500 || .556 || 4.6 || .5 || .4 || .4 || 5.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2021
| style="text-align:left;"|Philadelphia
| 12 || 0 || 12.4 || .533 || .000 || .600 || 6.3 || .7 || .2 || .5 || 4.7
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|Career
| 125 || 102 || 31.6 || .589 || .143 || .548 || 11.8 || 1.2 || .8 || 2.0 || 15.3
Televised appearances
Howard appeared as a special guest on an episode of the ABC series Extreme Makeover: Home Edition that aired April 2, 2006, in which Ty Pennington and his team built a new home and ministry offices for Sadie Holmes, who operates a social services ministry in the Orlando area.
Howard competed in season 6 of The Masked Singer as "Octopus". He was the first one to be eliminated during the two-night premiere alongside Vivica A. Fox as "Mother Nature" and Toni Braxton as "Pufferfish".
Personal life
Howard has five children by five women. In 2010, Howard won a defamation judgment against Royce Reed, the mother of his oldest child Braylon. A Florida judge ruled that she violated a court order prohibiting her from mentioning Howard in the media. He had initially sought about half a billion dollars in damages, claiming that she had disparaged him through Twitter and her appearances on the reality television show, Basketball Wives, as the couple's paternity agreement stipulated a $500 fine for each time she mentioned him in public.
In October 2014, police in Cobb County, Georgia investigated claims by Reed that Howard abused their son. Howard had admitted to hitting Braylon with a belt; he had been disciplined in the same manner while growing up, and he stated that he did not realize it was wrong to do so. Howard was not charged in connection with the allegations. Howard was also involved in a civil case with Reed over custody of their son.
Howard keeps approximately 20 snakes as pets and has appeared twice in Animal Planet's reality TV series Tanked. He owns a farm "in north Georgia where he relaxes [with] cows, hogs, turkeys and deer," and also grows vegetables on his estate.
Melissa Rios, the mother of his son, David, died on March 27, 2020, following an epileptic seizure. David was with Howard at his home in Georgia at the time to ride out the COVID-19 pandemic.
Philanthropy, faith, and public image
Before he was drafted in 2004, Howard said that he wanted to use his NBA career and Christian faith to "raise the name of God within the league and throughout the world". He has stated he believes in reaching out to his community and fans and thus contributes substantially in the field of philanthropy. Together with his parents, Howard established the Dwight D. Howard Foundation Inc. in 2004. In November 2009, the center was named one of the 10 finalists for the Jefferson Awards for Public Service, which awards athletes for their charitable work.
In 2014, Epix featured Howard as the focal point of a documentary about his life called In the Moment.
See also
List of career achievements by Dwight Howard
List of National Basketball Association career games played leaders
List of National Basketball Association career rebounding leaders
List of National Basketball Association career blocks leaders
List of National Basketball Association career turnovers leaders
List of National Basketball Association career free throw scoring leaders
List of National Basketball Association career playoff blocks leaders
List of National Basketball Association annual rebounding leaders
List of National Basketball Association annual blocks leaders
List of National Basketball Association players with most blocks in a game
List of National Basketball Association players with most rebounds in a game
List of National Basketball Association franchise career scoring leaders
Notes
References
External links
1985 births
Living people
2006 FIBA World Championship players
21st-century African-American sportspeople
African-American basketball players
African-American Christians
American men's basketball players
Atlanta Hawks players
Basketball players at the 2008 Summer Olympics
Basketball players from Atlanta
Centers (basketball)
Charlotte Hornets players
Houston Rockets players
Los Angeles Lakers players
McDonald's High School All-Americans
Medalists at the 2008 Summer Olympics
National Basketball Association All-Stars
National Basketball Association high school draftees
Olympic gold medalists for the United States in basketball
Orlando Magic draft picks
Orlando Magic players
Parade High School All-Americans (boys' basketball)
Philadelphia 76ers players
Power forwards (basketball)
United States men's national basketball team players
Washington Wizards players
20th-century African-American people | false | [
"Andrzej Fedorowicz (born 21 January 1942) is a Polish actor. He has made over 10 appearances in film. He starred in the 1978 comedy film What Will You Do When You Catch Me?.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1942 births\nLiving people\nPolish male film actors",
"Stefan Friedmann (born 2 September 1941) is a Polish actor. He has made over 40 appearances in film and television. He starred in the 1978 comedy film What Will You Do When You Catch Me?, He hosted the Miss Polski pageant.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\n1941 births\nLiving people\nPolish male film actors\nMale actors from Kraków\nBeauty pageant hosts"
] |
[
"Dwight Howard",
"Public image",
"What is a positive public image going forhim?",
"Howard said that he wanted to use his NBA career and Christian faith to \"raise the name of God within the league and throughout the world",
"What way does he plan on reaching out?",
"He has stated he believes in reaching out to his community and fans and thus contributes substantially in the field of philanthropy.",
"Does he have any negative image?",
"An avid listener of Gospel music, he attends the Fellowship of Faith Church when he is back home in Atlanta",
"Has he been in any movies?",
"In 2014, Epix featured Howard as the focal point of a documentary about his life called In the Moment.",
"What did the documentary tell about his life?",
"The film was directed by Ross Greenburg and Executive Producers include Michael D. Ratner and Matthew Weaver.",
"Does he devote any of his time to causes?",
"Within the NBA itself, Howard has participated in several NBA \"Read to Achieve\" assemblies encouraging children to make reading a priority.",
"Has be given money to any charity?",
"Howard also established the Dwight D. Howard Foundation Inc. in 2004. The Foundation provides scholarships for students who want to attend his alma mater,",
"Has he made any guest appearances?",
"Along with Sam Worthington and Jonah Hill, Howard appeared in a commercial for the video game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.",
"What other appearances has he made?",
"Howard, along with Carmelo Anthony and Scottie Pippen, also appeared in the 2013 Chinese film Amazing, a joint venture between the NBA and Shanghai Film Group Corporation."
] | C_d944cfc090ab415ca5bfbd6859c14699_0 | What is a positive image fact recently? | 10 | What is a Dwight Howard positive image fact recently? | Dwight Howard | Before he was drafted in 2004, Howard said that he wanted to use his NBA career and Christian faith to "raise the name of God within the league and throughout the world". He has stated he believes in reaching out to his community and fans and thus contributes substantially in the field of philanthropy. An avid listener of Gospel music, he attends the Fellowship of Faith Church when he is back home in Atlanta and is involved and active with the youth programs at the church. Together with his parents, Howard also established the Dwight D. Howard Foundation Inc. in 2004. The Foundation provides scholarships for students who want to attend his alma mater, Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy, and grants to Lovell Elementary School and Memorial Middle School in Orlando, Florida. The Foundation also organizes summer basketball camps for boys and girls, and together with high school and college coaches and players, fellow NBA players are invited to be on hand at the camp. For his contributions in the Central Florida community, Howard received in 2005 the Rich and Helen De Vos Community Enrichment Award. Within the NBA itself, Howard has participated in several NBA "Read to Achieve" assemblies encouraging children to make reading a priority. In November 2009, the center was named one of the 10 finalists for the Jefferson Awards for Public Service, which awards athletes for their charitable work. In 2009, Howard, along with several other NBA players, joined the Hoops for St. Jude charity program benefitting the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Elsewhere, Howard appeared as a special guest on an episode of the ABC series Extreme Makeover: Home Edition that aired April 2, 2006, in which Ty Pennington and his team built a new home and ministry offices for Sadie Holmes, who operates a social services ministry in the Orlando area. He made another appearance on the show in the October 9, 2011 episode. Along with Sam Worthington and Jonah Hill, Howard appeared in a commercial for the video game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Howard, along with Carmelo Anthony and Scottie Pippen, also appeared in the 2013 Chinese film Amazing, a joint venture between the NBA and Shanghai Film Group Corporation. In 2014, Epix featured Howard as the focal point of a documentary about his life called In the Moment. The film was directed by Ross Greenburg and Executive Producers include Michael D. Ratner and Matthew Weaver. CANNOTANSWER | Home Edition that aired April 2, 2006, in which Ty Pennington and his team built a new home and ministry offices for Sadie Holmes, who operates a social services ministry | Dwight David Howard II (born December 8, 1985) is an American professional basketball player for the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He is an NBA champion, eight-time All-Star, eight-time All-NBA Team honoree, five-time All-Defensive Team member, and three-time Defensive Player of the Year.
Howard, who plays center, spent his high school career at Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy. He chose to forgo college, entered the 2004 NBA draft, and was selected first overall by the Orlando Magic. Howard set numerous franchise and league records with the Magic. He led the team to the 2009 NBA Finals.
In 2012, after eight seasons with Orlando, Howard was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers. After a year with the Lakers, he played for the Houston Rockets, the Atlanta Hawks, the Charlotte Hornets, and the Washington Wizards. Howard returned to the Lakers in 2019 and won his first NBA championship in 2020.
Early life
Howard was born in Atlanta, to Dwight Sr. and Sheryl Howard, a family with strong athletic connections. His father is a Georgia State Trooper and is the athletic director at Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy, a private academy with one of the country's best high school basketball programs; his mother played on the inaugural women's basketball team at Morris Brown College. Howard's mother had seven miscarriages before he was born. A devout Christian since his youth, Howard became serious about basketball around the age of nine. Despite his large frame, Howard was quick and versatile enough to play the guard position. He attended Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy and played mostly as power forward, averaging 16.6 points, 13.4 rebounds and 6.3 blocks per game in 129 appearances. As a senior, Howard led his team to a 31–2 record and the 2004 state title, while averaging 25 points, 18 rebounds, 8.1 blocks and 3.5 assists per game. The same year, he was widely recognized as the best American high school basketball player, and received the Naismith Prep Player of the Year Award, the Morgan Wootten High School Player of the Year Award, Gatorade National Player of the Year and the McDonald's National High School Player of the Year honor. He was also co-MVP (with J. R. Smith) of the McDonald's All-American Game that year. On January 31, 2012, Howard was honored as one of the 35 greatest McDonald's All-Americans.
Professional career
Orlando Magic (2004–2012)
Early years (2004–2008)
Following his high school successes, Howard chose to forego college and declared for the 2004 NBA draft—a decision partly inspired by his idol Kevin Garnett who had done the same in 1995—where the Orlando Magic selected him first overall over UConn junior Emeka Okafor. He took the number 12 for his jersey, in part because it was the reverse of Garnett's 21 when he played for Minnesota. Howard joined a depleted Magic squad that had finished with only 21 victories the previous season; further, the club had just lost perennial NBA All-Star Tracy McGrady. Howard, however, made an immediate impact. He finished his rookie season with an average of 12 points and 10 rebounds, setting several NBA records in the process. He became the youngest player in NBA history to average a double double in the regular season. He also became the youngest player in NBA history to average at least 10 rebounds in a season and youngest NBA player ever to record at least 20 rebounds in a game. Howard's importance to the Magic was highlighted when he became the first player in NBA history directly out of high school to start all 82 games during his rookie season. For his efforts, he was selected to play in the 2005 NBA Rookie Challenge, and was unanimously selected to the All-Rookie Team. He also finished third in the Rookie of the Year voting.
Howard reported to camp for his second NBA season having added 20 pounds of muscle during the off-season. Orlando coach Brian Hill—responsible for grooming former Magic superstar Shaquille O'Neal—decided that Howard should be converted into a full-fledged center. Hill identified two areas where Howard needed to improve: his post-up game and his defense. He exerted extra pressure on Howard, saying that the Magic would need him to emerge as a force in the middle before the team had a chance at the playoffs. On November 15, 2005, in a home game against the Charlotte Bobcats, Howard recorded 21 points and 20 rebounds, becoming the youngest player ever to score 20 or more points and gather 20 or more rebounds in the same game. He was selected to play on the Sophomore Team in the 2006 Rookie Challenge during the All-Star break. Overall, he averaged 15.8 points and 12.5 rebounds per game, ranking second in the NBA in rebounds per game, offensive rebounds, and double-doubles and sixth in field goal percentage. Despite Howard's improvement, the Magic finished the season with a 36–46 record and failed to qualify for the playoffs for the second consecutive season since Howard's arrival.
In the 2006–07 season (and for the third consecutive season), Howard played in all 82 regular-season games. On February 1, 2007, he received his first NBA All-Star selection as a reserve on the Eastern Conference squad for the 2007 NBA All-Star Game. On February 9, he made a game-winning alley-oop off an inbound pass at the buzzer against the San Antonio Spurs. Howard set a new career high with 35 points against the Philadelphia 76ers on April 14. Under his leadership, the Magic qualified for the 2007 NBA Playoffs as the eighth seed in the Eastern Conference. There, the Magic were swept by the Detroit Pistons in the first round. For the season, Howard averaged 17.6 points and 12.3 rebounds per game, finishing first in the NBA in total rebounds, second in field goal percentage, and ninth in blocks. He was named to the All-NBA Third Team at the end of the 2006–07 campaign.
Howard continued posting impressive numbers in the 2007–08 season and helped the Magic have their best season to date. Howard was named as a starter for the Eastern Conference All-Star team. On February 16, 2008, he won the NBA Slam Dunk Contest by receiving 78% of the fan's votes via text messaging or online voting; in that contest, he performed a series of innovative dunks said to have rejuvenated the contest, including donning a Superman cape for one of the dunks. Howard led the Magic to their first division title in 12 years and to the third seed for the 2008 NBA Playoffs. In their first round match-up against the Toronto Raptors, Howard's dominance (three 20-point/20-rebound games) helped Orlando to prevail in five games. Howard's series total of 91 rebounds was also greater than the total rebounds collected by the entire Toronto frontcourt. In the second round against the Pistons, the Magic lost in five games. For the season, Howard was named to the All-NBA First Team for the first time, and was also named to the NBA All-Defensive Second Team.
Dominance and NBA Finals appearance (2008–2011)
The 2008–09 season began well for Howard. Ten games into the season, the center was leading the league in blocks per game (4.2). In December, Howard injured his left knee, which caused him to miss a game due to injury for the first time in his NBA career; previously, he had played in 351 consecutive games. He garnered a record 3.1 million votes to earn the starting berth on the Eastern Conference team for the 2009 NBA All-Star Game. Howard led Orlando to its second straight Southeast Division title and to the third seed for the 2009 NBA Playoffs; the team finished the season with a 59–23 record. In the first round of the playoffs against the 76ers, Howard recorded 24 points and 24 rebounds in Game 5 to give Orlando a 3–2 lead before the Magic closed out the series in six games. In the second round against the Boston Celtics, after the Magic blew a lead in Game 5 to fall behind 3–2 in the series, Howard publicly stated that he should have been given the ball more and questioned coach Stan Van Gundy's tactics. The Magic went on to defeat Boston to win the series and move on to the Eastern Conference Finals. There they, defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers 4–2. Howard had a playoff career-high 40 points to go with his 14 rebounds in the deciding Game 6, leading Orlando to the NBA Finals for the first time in 14 years. In the NBA Finals, the Los Angeles Lakers took the first two home games, before a home win by the Magic brought the deficit to 2–1. In Game 4, despite Howard putting up 21 rebounds and a Finals record of 9 blocks in a game, the Magic lost in overtime. The Lakers went on to clinch the series with a win in Game 5. For the season, Howard became the youngest player ever to win the NBA Defensive Player of the Year Award. He was also named to the NBA All-Defensive First Team, and to the All-NBA First Team.
In the 2009–10 season, the Magic got off to a strong start, winning 17 of their first 21 games and setting a franchise record. On January 21, 2010, Howard was named as the starting center for the East in the 2010 NBA All-Star Game. The Magic completed the regular season with 59 wins and their third consecutive division title. The Magic's playoff run resulted another Eastern Conference Finals appearance, where they lost in six games to the Celtics. Howard won the Defensive Player of the Year Award for the second straight year. He became the first player in NBA history to lead the league in blocks and rebounds in the same season twice—and for two years in a row.
In the 2010–11 season, Howard posted career highs in points and field goal percentage. He became the first player in league history to win Defensive Player of the Year honors for three consecutive seasons. Howard led the league in double-doubles and also averaged 14.1 rebounds, 2.3 blocks and a career-high 1.3 steals this season. He led the Magic to 52 wins, as they finished as the fourth seed in the Eastern Conference. They went on to lose to the Atlanta Hawks in the first round of 2011 NBA Playoffs. He had a playoff career-high 46 points and 19 rebounds in Orlando's 103–93 loss to Atlanta in Game 1. Howard led the NBA in technical fouls with 18 in the regular season, and received one-game suspensions after his 16th and 18th technicals.
Final season in Orlando (2011–2012)
Due to a lockout, the 2011–12 regular season was shortened to 66 games. Not long after the lockout ended, Howard, who was eligible to become a free agent at the end of the season, demanded a trade to the New Jersey Nets, Los Angeles Lakers or Dallas Mavericks. Howard stated that although his preference was to remain in Orlando, he did not feel the Magic organization was doing enough to build a championship contender. He would later meet with Magic officials and agree to back off his trade demands, but stated that he also felt the team needed to make changes to the roster if they wanted to contend for a championship.
On January 12, 2012, Howard attempted an NBA regular season record 39 free throws against the Golden State Warriors. Howard entered the game making 42 percent of his free throws for the season and just below 60 percent for his career. The Warriors hacked Howard intentionally throughout the game, and he broke Wilt Chamberlain's regular-season record of 34 set in 1962. Howard made 21 of the 39 attempts, finishing with 45 points and 23 rebounds in the Magic's 117–109 victory. On January 24, 2012, Howard became the Magic's all-time scoring leader.
On March 15, 2012, on the day of the trading deadline for the 2011–12 NBA season, Howard waived his right to opt out of his contract at the end of the season and committed to stay with the Magic through the 2012–13 season. He had previously asked to be traded to the New Jersey Nets. Had he not signed the amendment, the Magic were prepared to trade him to avoid losing him as a free agent. On April 5, Van Gundy said that he had been informed by management that Howard wanted him fired. During the interview, the center walked up and hugged his coach, unaware that Van Gundy had confirmed a report that Howard denied. Van Gundy was let go after the season.
On April 19, 2012, Howard's agent said that Howard would undergo surgery to repair a herniated disk in his back and would miss the rest of the 2011–12 season, as well as the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. During the offseason, Howard again requested a trade to the Nets, who had relocated to Brooklyn. He intended to become a free agent at the end of the 2012–13 season if he was not traded to Brooklyn.
Los Angeles Lakers (2012–2013)
On August 10, 2012, Howard was traded from Orlando to the Los Angeles Lakers in a deal that also involved the Philadelphia 76ers and the Denver Nuggets. Howard took six months off from basketball after his April back surgery, and only had the combined four weeks of training camp and preseason to prepare for the season. Still working himself into shape, Howard paced himself throughout the season on both offense and defense. On January 4, 2013, Howard injured his right shoulder in the second half of the Lakers' 107–102 loss to the Los Angeles Clippers. At the midpoint of the season, the Lakers were a disappointing 17–24. Howard was averaging 17.1 points on 58.2% shooting, 12.3 rebounds, and 2.5 blocks, but also 3.6 fouls a game with 3.2 turnovers while making only 50.4% of his free throws.
Howard was upset that he was not getting the ball enough, and he felt that Kobe Bryant was shooting too much. Moving forward, Howard said he needed to "bring it" and dominate in more ways than just scoring. Howard missed games due to his recurring shoulder injury in January and February. In February, Bryant said that Howard "worries too much" and "doesn't want to let anyone down", urging him to play through the pain when Pau Gasol was sidelined with a torn plantar fascia. Howard returned the next game after commenting that Bryant was "not a doctor, I'm not a doctor. That's his opinion."
During the All-Star break, Howard adopted a healthier diet to get into better shape to anchor the Lakers' defense and run head coach Mike D'Antoni's preferred pick and rolls. Still, on February 23, Howard said he was "not even close" to physically being where he wanted to be. Coach Mike D'Antoni attributed Howard's difficulty running the pick-and-roll—a play the coach had expected would be a staple for the team—with Steve Nash to Howard's lack of conditioning. The Lakers were 8–2 after the All-Star break, passing Utah for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference, and Howard averaged 15.5 points, 14.8 rebounds, and 2.6 blocks. In his first game back in Orlando on March 12, Howard scored a season-high 39 points and had 16 rebounds in a 106–97 Lakers win. Booed throughout the game, he made 25 of 39 free throws, setting franchise records for free throws made and attempted while tying his own NBA record for attempts. Howard made 16 of 20 free throws when he was fouled intentionally by the Magic. With Howard anchoring the Lakers defense and his improved overall play, the Lakers made the playoffs, but were swept in the opening round by San Antonio. Howard was ejected in Game 4 with over nine minutes left in the third quarter.
Howard finished the season with his lowest scoring average since his second year in the NBA, but he was the league leader in rebounding and ranked second in field goal percentage. Although he was recovering from his back surgery, he only missed six games all season—all due to his torn labrum. Howard was named to the All-NBA Third Team after having received five consecutive first-team honors. He became a free agent in the summer, and he was offered a maximum contract of five years and $118 million by the Lakers.
Houston Rockets (2013–2016)
On July 13, 2013, Howard signed with the Houston Rockets, joining James Harden to form a formidable duo. Howard finished the regular season with averages of 18.3 points and 12.2 rebounds and earned All-NBA Second Team honors. During the 2014 playoffs, Howard averaged 26 points and 13.7 rebounds per game, but the Rockets were eliminated by the Portland Trail Blazers in the first round, losing the series 4–2.
After playing in the Rockets' first 10 out of 11 games to start the 2014–15 season, Howard missed 11 straight due to a strained right knee before returning to action on December 13 against the Denver Nuggets and recording his 10,000th career rebound. However, on January 31, Howard was ruled out for a further month due to persistent trouble with his right knee. After setbacks forced him out for a further month and a total of 26 games, Howard returned to action on March 25 against the New Orleans Pelicans. He started the game but was held under 17 minutes by coach Kevin McHale and finished with just four points and seven rebounds in a 95–93 win. Howard played only 41 games in the regular season. The Rockets clinched their first division title in over 20 years and made it to the Western Conference Finals, where they lost 4–1 to the Golden State Warriors.
On November 4, 2015, Howard had 23 points and 14 rebounds against the Orlando Magic. He shot 10-of-10 to become the first Rocket to make 10 or more field goals without a miss since Yao Ming went 12-of-12 in 2009. On December 26, he eclipsed 15,000 points for his career in a loss to the New Orleans Pelicans. On January 18, 2016, in an overtime loss to the Los Angeles Clippers, Howard had 36 points and tied a career high with 26 rebounds en route to his 10th straight double-double, the league's longest active streak at the time, and his longest since a 14-game run in 2012–13. On June 22, 2016, Howard declined his $23 million player option for the 2016–17 season and became an unrestricted free agent.
Atlanta Hawks (2016–2017)
On July 12, 2016, Howard signed a three-year, $70 million contract with his hometown team the Atlanta Hawks. With the retirement of Tim Duncan, Howard entered the 2016–17 season as the NBA's active leader in rebounds (12,089) and blocked shots (1,916). In his debut for the Hawks in their season opener on October 27, Howard grabbed 19 rebounds in a 114–99 win over the Washington Wizards. It was the most rebounds for anyone in their Atlanta debut, breaking the mark of 18 that Shareef Abdur-Rahim set on October 30, 2001. On November 2, he scored a season-high 31 points in a 123–116 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers. On February 2, he had a season-best game with 24 points and 23 rebounds in a 113–108 win over the Rockets in Houston.
Charlotte Hornets (2017–2018)
On June 20, 2017, the Hawks traded Howard, along with the 31st overall pick in the 2017 NBA draft, to the Charlotte Hornets in exchange for Marco Belinelli, Miles Plumlee and the 41st overall pick in the 2017 NBA draft. To begin the season, Howard became the first Charlotte player since Emeka Okafor in 2007 with four consecutive 15-rebound games. In the fifth game of the season, he had another 15-rebound game. On March 15, he scored 20 of his season-high 33 points in the second half of the Hornets' 129–117 win over the Atlanta Hawks. On March 21, Howard recorded 32 points and a franchise-record 30 rebounds in a 111–105 win over the Nets, becoming just the eighth player in league history with a 30–30 game. He became the first NBA player with a 30-point, 30-rebound game since Kevin Love in November 2010, and the first player with a 30–30 game against the Nets since Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in February 1978. The next day, Howard was suspended for one game without pay due to receiving his 16th technical foul of the season. Howard finished the season with a franchise-record 53 double-doubles and joined Abdul-Jabbar and Wilt Chamberlain as the only players to hold single-season records with two teams. Howard also became one of six players to average a double-double in each of his first 13 seasons in the league.
On July 6, 2018, Howard was traded to the Brooklyn Nets in exchange for Timofey Mozgov, the draft rights to Hamidou Diallo, a 2021 second-round draft pick and cash considerations. He was waived by the Nets immediately upon being acquired.
Washington Wizards (2018–2019)
On July 12, 2018, Howard signed with the Washington Wizards. He missed all of training camp, every exhibition game and the first seven regular-season games with a sore backside. He appeared in nine games in November before missing the rest of the season after undergoing spinal surgery to relieve pain in his glutes. In March 2019, it was revealed that Howard, in addition to his back injury, was also dealing with a hamstring issue. On April 18, 2019, Howard exercised his $5.6 million player option to play a second season with the Wizards.
On July 6, 2019, Howard was traded to the Memphis Grizzlies for forward C. J. Miles. On August 24, 2019, Howard was waived by the Grizzlies.
Return to the Lakers (2019–2020)
On August 26, 2019, Howard signed a $2.6 million veteran's minimum contract with the Los Angeles Lakers, reuniting him with his former team. He was replacing DeMarcus Cousins, a free agent signed earlier in the offseason who was lost for the year after suffering a knee injury. To assure the team that he would accept any role the team asked, Howard offered to sign a non-guaranteed contract, freeing the Lakers to cut him at any time.
During the season, the Lakers split time fairly evenly between him and starting center JaVale McGee. On January 13, 2020, Howard scored a season-high 21 points on a 9-of-11 shooting and got a season-high 15 rebounds. In Game 4 of the Western Conference finals against the Denver Nuggets, Lakers coach Frank Vogel started Howard to match up against the Nuggets' Nikola Jokić. Howard had 12 points and 11 rebounds in 23 minutes to help the Lakers win and take a 3–1 lead in the series. He had started twice during the regular season, but this was his first start by coach's decision when McGee was available. The Lakers advanced to the NBA Finals, winning the series 4–2 over the Miami Heat and giving Howard his first NBA championship.
Philadelphia 76ers (2020–2021)
On November 21, 2020, the Philadelphia 76ers signed Howard to a one-year deal worth $2,564,753. With the 76ers he averaged 7 points and 8.4 rebounds. Howard played 69 games with the Sixers with six starts in 17.3 minutes. He was suspended for one game after getting into a scuffle with Udonis Haslem where both were assessed technical fouls and Haslem was ejected. Howard was suspended because he incurred his 16th technical foul of the year.
Third stint with the Lakers (2021–present)
Howard signed a $2.6 million veteran's minimum contract with the Los Angeles Lakers on August 6, 2021.
National team career
On March 5, 2006, Howard was named to the 2006–2008 USA Basketball Men's Senior National Team program. As the team's regular starting center, he helped lead the team to a 5–0 record during its pre-World Championship tour, and subsequently helped the team win the bronze medal at the 2006 FIBA World Championship. During the FIBA Americas Championship 2007, Howard was on the team which won its first nine games en route to qualifying for the finals and a spot for the 2008 Olympics. He started in eight of those nine games, averaging 8.9 ppg, 5.3 rpg and led the team in shooting .778 from the field. In the finals, he made all seven of his shots and scored 20 points as the USA defeated Argentina to win the gold medal.
On June 23, 2008, Howard was named as one of the members of the 12-man squad representing the United States in the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. With Howard starting as center, Team USA won all of its games en route to the gold medal, breaking their drought of gold medals dating back to the 2000 Olympics. Howard averaged 10.9 points and 5.8 rebounds per game in the tournament.
Player profile
Standing and weighing , Howard plays the center position. He led the NBA in rebounding from 2007 to 2010, and again from 2012 to 2013. Howard's rebounding is in part facilitated by his extraordinary athleticism; his running vertical leap was tested at in 2011, rare for a player of his size. He demonstrated this skill in the 2007 Slam Dunk Contest, where he completed an alley oop dunk from teammate Jameer Nelson while slapping a sticker onto the backboard at high. The sticker showed an image of his own smiling face with a handwritten "All things through Christ Phil: 4:13", a paraphrase of .
Howard's abilities and powerful physique have drawn attention from fellow NBA All-Stars. Tim Duncan remarked in 2007, "[Howard] is so developed... He has so much promise and I am glad that I will be out of the league when he is peaking." Kevin Garnett echoed those sentiments: "[Howard] is a freak of nature, man... I was nowhere near that physically talented. I wasn't that gifted, as far as body and physical presence." After a game in the 2009 NBA Playoffs, Philadelphia 76ers swingman Andre Iguodala said: "It's like he can guard two guys at once. He can guard his guy and the guy coming off the pick-and-roll, which is almost impossible to do... If he gets any more athletic or jumps any higher, they're going to have to change the rules." In December 2007, ESPN writer David Thorpe declared Howard the most dominant center in the NBA. Early in his career, many sports pundits rated Howard one of the top young prospects in the NBA.
Howard has a reputation as a negative locker room presence. In a 2013 interview, he called his former Orlando Magic teammates a "team full of people no one wanted". In a 2013 article titled "Is Dwight Howard the NBA's Worst Teammate?", Bleacher Report asserted that Howard had "extinguished all bridges with the franchise where he spent his first eight NBA seasons". Howard did not get along with Kobe Bryant when he played for the Lakers and did not get along with James Harden when he played for the Rockets. When he was traded from the Atlanta Hawks to the Charlotte Hornets, some of his Hawks teammates reportedly cheered. After Charlotte traded Howard to the Washington Wizards, Charlotte player Brendan Haywood asserted that Howard's teammates were "sick and tired of his act". In 2018, NBC News reported that "Howard’s time with the Magic, Lakers and Rockets devolved into interpersonal strife well before he left those teams". Also in 2018, The Ringer published a piece titled "Everybody (Still) Hates Dwight" in which it called Howard "almost certainly the least popular player in the NBA". Before signing with the Lakers in 2019, Howard reportedly met with the team multiple times, "promising not to live up to his reputation as a difficult teammate who disrupts locker rooms"; the team warned him that he would be released if he became a disruptive presence.
NBA career statistics
Regular season
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 82 || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 32.6 || .520 || .000 || .671 || 10.0 || .9 || .9 || 1.7 || 12.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 81 || 36.8 || .531 || .000 || .595 || 12.5 || 1.5 || .8 || 1.4 || 15.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 36.9 || .603 || .500 || .586 || 12.3 || 1.9 || .9 || 1.9 || 17.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 37.7 || .599 || .000 || .590 || style="background:#cfecec;"| 14.2* || 1.3 || .9 || 2.1 || 20.7
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 79 || 79 || 35.7 || .572 || .000 || .594 || style="background:#cfecec;"| 13.8* || 1.4 || 1.0 || style="background:#cfecec;"| 2.9* || 20.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 34.7 || style="background:#cfecec;"| .612* || .000 || .592 || style="background:#cfecec;"| 13.2* || 1.8 || .9 || style="background:#cfecec;"| 2.8* || 18.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 78 || 78 || 37.5 || .593 || .000 || .596 || 14.1 || 1.4 || 1.4 || 2.4 || 22.9
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 54 || 54 || 38.3 || .573 || .000 || .491 || style="background:#cfecec;"|14.5* || 1.9 || 1.5 || 2.1 || 20.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 76 || 76 || 35.8 || .578 || .167 || .492 ||bgcolor="CFECEC"| 12.4* || 1.4 || 1.1 || 2.4 || 17.1
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 71 || 71 || 33.7 || .591 || .286 || .547 || 12.2 || 1.8 || .8 || 1.8 || 18.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 41 || 41 || 29.8 || .593 || .500 || .528 || 10.5 || 1.2 || .7 || 1.3 || 15.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 71 || 71 || 32.1 || .620 || .000 || .489 || 11.8 || 1.4 || 1.0 || 1.6 || 13.7
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Atlanta
| 74|| 74 || 29.7 || .633 || .000 || .533 || 12.7 || 1.4 || .9 || 1.2 || 13.5
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Charlotte
| 81 || 81 || 30.4 || .555 || .143 || .574 || 12.5 || 1.3 || .6 || 1.6 || 16.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Washington
| 9 || 9 || 25.6 || .623 || .000 || .604 || 9.2 || .4 || .8 || .4 || 12.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 69 || 2 || 18.9 || .729 || .600 || .514 || 7.3 || .7 || .4 || 1.1 || 7.5
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Philadelphia
| 69 || 6 || 17.3 || .587 || .250 || .576 || 8.4 || .9 || .4 || .9 || 7.0
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|Career
| 1182 || 1051 || 32.6 || .586 || .159 || .566 || 12.1 || 1.4 || .9 || 1.9 || 16.2
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|All-Star
| 8 || 6 || 23.3 || .642 || .154 || .450 || 8.8 || 1.5 || .6 || 1.1 || 12.1
Playoffs
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2007
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 4 || 4 || 41.8 || .548 || .000 || .455 || 14.8 || 1.8 || .5 || 1.0 || 15.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2008
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 10 || 10 || 42.1 || .581 || .000 || .542 || 15.8 || .9 || .8 || 3.4 || 18.9
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2009
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 23 || 23 || 39.3 || .601 || .000 || .636 || 15.3 || 1.9 || .9 || 2.6 || 20.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2010
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 14 || 14 || 35.5 || .614 || .000 || .519 || 11.1 || 1.4 || .8 || 3.5|| 18.1
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2011
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 6 || 6 || 43.0 || .630 || .000 ||.682 || 15.5 || 0.5 || .7 || 1.8 || 27.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2013
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 4 || 4 || 31.5 || .619 || .000 || .444 || 10.8 || 1.0 || .5 || 2.0 || 17.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2014
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 6 || 6 || 38.5 || .547 || .000 || .625 || 13.7 || 1.8 || .7 || 2.8 || 26.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2015
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 17 || 17 || 33.8 || .577 || .000 || .412 || 14.0 || 1.2 || 1.4 || 2.3 || 16.4
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2016
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 5 || 5 || 36.0 || .542 || .000 || .368 || 14.0 || 1.6 || .8 || 1.4 || 13.2
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2017
| style="text-align:left;"|Atlanta
| 6 || 6 || 26.1 || .500 || .000 || .632 || 10.7 || 1.3 || 1.0 || .8 || 8.0
|-
|style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"|2020†
|style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 18 || 7 || 15.7 || .684 || .500 || .556 || 4.6 || .5 || .4 || .4 || 5.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2021
| style="text-align:left;"|Philadelphia
| 12 || 0 || 12.4 || .533 || .000 || .600 || 6.3 || .7 || .2 || .5 || 4.7
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|Career
| 125 || 102 || 31.6 || .589 || .143 || .548 || 11.8 || 1.2 || .8 || 2.0 || 15.3
Televised appearances
Howard appeared as a special guest on an episode of the ABC series Extreme Makeover: Home Edition that aired April 2, 2006, in which Ty Pennington and his team built a new home and ministry offices for Sadie Holmes, who operates a social services ministry in the Orlando area.
Howard competed in season 6 of The Masked Singer as "Octopus". He was the first one to be eliminated during the two-night premiere alongside Vivica A. Fox as "Mother Nature" and Toni Braxton as "Pufferfish".
Personal life
Howard has five children by five women. In 2010, Howard won a defamation judgment against Royce Reed, the mother of his oldest child Braylon. A Florida judge ruled that she violated a court order prohibiting her from mentioning Howard in the media. He had initially sought about half a billion dollars in damages, claiming that she had disparaged him through Twitter and her appearances on the reality television show, Basketball Wives, as the couple's paternity agreement stipulated a $500 fine for each time she mentioned him in public.
In October 2014, police in Cobb County, Georgia investigated claims by Reed that Howard abused their son. Howard had admitted to hitting Braylon with a belt; he had been disciplined in the same manner while growing up, and he stated that he did not realize it was wrong to do so. Howard was not charged in connection with the allegations. Howard was also involved in a civil case with Reed over custody of their son.
Howard keeps approximately 20 snakes as pets and has appeared twice in Animal Planet's reality TV series Tanked. He owns a farm "in north Georgia where he relaxes [with] cows, hogs, turkeys and deer," and also grows vegetables on his estate.
Melissa Rios, the mother of his son, David, died on March 27, 2020, following an epileptic seizure. David was with Howard at his home in Georgia at the time to ride out the COVID-19 pandemic.
Philanthropy, faith, and public image
Before he was drafted in 2004, Howard said that he wanted to use his NBA career and Christian faith to "raise the name of God within the league and throughout the world". He has stated he believes in reaching out to his community and fans and thus contributes substantially in the field of philanthropy. Together with his parents, Howard established the Dwight D. Howard Foundation Inc. in 2004. In November 2009, the center was named one of the 10 finalists for the Jefferson Awards for Public Service, which awards athletes for their charitable work.
In 2014, Epix featured Howard as the focal point of a documentary about his life called In the Moment.
See also
List of career achievements by Dwight Howard
List of National Basketball Association career games played leaders
List of National Basketball Association career rebounding leaders
List of National Basketball Association career blocks leaders
List of National Basketball Association career turnovers leaders
List of National Basketball Association career free throw scoring leaders
List of National Basketball Association career playoff blocks leaders
List of National Basketball Association annual rebounding leaders
List of National Basketball Association annual blocks leaders
List of National Basketball Association players with most blocks in a game
List of National Basketball Association players with most rebounds in a game
List of National Basketball Association franchise career scoring leaders
Notes
References
External links
1985 births
Living people
2006 FIBA World Championship players
21st-century African-American sportspeople
African-American basketball players
African-American Christians
American men's basketball players
Atlanta Hawks players
Basketball players at the 2008 Summer Olympics
Basketball players from Atlanta
Centers (basketball)
Charlotte Hornets players
Houston Rockets players
Los Angeles Lakers players
McDonald's High School All-Americans
Medalists at the 2008 Summer Olympics
National Basketball Association All-Stars
National Basketball Association high school draftees
Olympic gold medalists for the United States in basketball
Orlando Magic draft picks
Orlando Magic players
Parade High School All-Americans (boys' basketball)
Philadelphia 76ers players
Power forwards (basketball)
United States men's national basketball team players
Washington Wizards players
20th-century African-American people | true | [
"In mathematics a positive map is a map between C*-algebras that sends positive elements to positive elements. A completely positive map is one which satisfies a stronger, more robust condition.\n\nDefinition \n\nLet and be C*-algebras. A linear map is called positive map if maps positive elements to positive elements: .\n\nAny linear map induces another map\n\nin a natural way. If is identified with the C*-algebra of -matrices with entries in , then acts as\n\nWe say that is k-positive if is a positive map, and is called completely positive if is k-positive for all k.\n\nProperties \n\n Positive maps are monotone, i.e. for all self-adjoint elements .\n Since for all self-adjoint elements , every positive map is automatically continuous with respect to the C*-norms and its operator norm equals . A similar statement with approximate units holds for non-unital algebras.\n The set of positive functionals is the dual cone of the cone of positive elements of .\n\nExamples \n\n Every *-homomorphism is completely positive.\n For every linear operator between Hilbert spaces, the map is completely positive. Stinespring's theorem says that all completely positive maps are compositions of *-homomorphisms and these special maps.\n Every positive functional (in particular every state) is automatically completely positive.\n Every positive map is completely positive.\n The transposition of matrices is a standard example of a positive map that fails to be 2-positive. Let T denote this map on . The following is a positive matrix in :\n\nThe image of this matrix under is\n\nwhich is clearly not positive, having determinant -1. Moreover, the eigenvalues of this matrix are 1,1,1 and -1. (This matrix happens to be the Choi matrix of T, in fact.)\n\nIncidentally, a map Φ is said to be co-positive if the composition Φ T is positive. The transposition map itself is a co-positive map.\n\nSee also\n Choi's theorem on completely positive maps\n\nC*-algebras",
"Psycho-Cybernetics is a self-help book written by Maxwell Maltz in 1960. Motivational and self-help experts in personal development, including Zig Ziglar, Tony Robbins, Brian Tracy have based their techniques on Maxwell Maltz. Many of the psychological methods of training elite athletes are based on the concepts in Psycho-Cybernetics as well. The book combines the cognitive behavioral technique of teaching an individual how to regulate self-concept, using theories developed by Prescott Lecky, with the cybernetics of Norbert Wiener and John von Neumann. The book defines the mind-body connection as the core in succeeding in attaining personal goals.\n\nMaltz found that his plastic surgery patients often had expectations that were not satisfied by the surgery, so he pursued a means of helping them set the goal of a positive outcome through visualization of that positive outcome. Patients thinking that surgery will solve their problems is an example of the XY problem. Maltz became interested in why setting goals works. He learned that the power of self-affirmation and mental visualization techniques used the connection between the mind and the body. He specified techniques to develop a positive inner goal as a means of developing a positive outer goal. This concentration on inner attitudes is essential to his approach, as he believes that a person's outer success can never rise above the one visualized internally.\n\nThe operator and the \"mechanism\"\n\nMaxwell Maltz drew inspiration from Norbert Wiener's book, Cybernetics, which describes both animals and the self-guided missiles he helped develop in WWII as goal-seeking mechanisms. \n\nIn Psycho-Cybernetics, Maltz observed from Wiener's work the following on cybernetic mechanisms:\n\n There's a \"mechanism\" which\n can accept a \"goal\"\n has sensing equipment (cameras, radar, infrared, lasers)\n has a propulsion system\n has a correcting device \n has some form of memory\n The operator gives the mechanism a goal and \"starts\" it\n During propulsion, the mechanism subtracts what it senses from the goal from the data received\n If on track, nothing is done and it keeps going\n If off track, the correcting device shifts until \"the goal minus what it senses\" is on track.\n The mechanism refers to successful moves in its memory, hitting the goal without having to search for the answer again. \n\nHe noted that Wiener sees that man operates the same way. From this, he drew the following conclusions on a human being:\n\n A person, for what is conscious, is \"the operator\", which can identify and offer goals\n What's traditionally called the \"subconscious mind\" isn't a \"mind\" but a cybernetic mechanism built on our nervous system.\n it can accept a goal--image and an emotion determines if it accepts it\n The mechanism has sensing equipment like the eyes and ears\n The various systems, primarily the musculature and nervous systems, propel the mechanism\n The nervous system works w/ other systems as the correcting device \n The memory can be used to see past successes, making future success more likely\n The operator gives a goal to the mechanism (called the \"Automatic Success Mechanism\" and \"Automatic Failure Mechanism\", which refer to the same mechanism). \n The mechanism responds no matter what, whether the goal is \"positive\" or \"negative\". It will move toward it.\n The most powerful goal image is an image of ourselves, because it causes a wide variety of useful or harmful behaviors from the mechanism.\n When successful responses are found, we can remember past successes, and our mechanism will repeat the successful response.\n\nThe core of nearly all bad results is the conscious giving bad goal images to the mechanism.\n\nMaltz viewed worry, or focusing on negative possibilities, as generating negative goal images that cause the mechanism, the subconscious, the set of human systems like the musculature, to drive toward it. At the same time, he viewed it as evidence that you could generate goal imagery, and that you could \"worry\" about positive images instead of negative.\n\nPositive results come from a positive goal focus. To see positive goals, he says that we need a realistic and adequate self-image that recognizes these goals as possible and consistent with the self.\n\nHe refers heavily to Prescott Lecky's idea that whatever is not consistent with the system of ideas a person has will get rejected. To have positive goals that the mechanism will move toward, the system of ideas, primarily the self-image, needs to be set so that the positive goal image will be consistent with the other ideas. This will allow the operator to comfortably keep the goal image in mind, which the mechanism will act on.\n\nOther key ideas\nMaltz also teaches that:\n\n We act on our mental representation of things, not the things themselves. We could respond with fear appropriate to seeing a bear, whether it's an actual bear, an actor, or a large shaggy dog.\n Negative feedback should be used to correct toward our goals. If corrective action on negative feedback isn't progressing one toward a goal, the correct response is no response.\n In cybernetic mechanisms, once success is found, it is focused on and errors are forgotten. Maltz encourages readers to recall past failures and unhappy moments.\n He saw self-image change as self-image realization, \"Oh, this is who I am\". This is where dramatic behavior change happens.\n Hypnosis is the relaxed acceptance of ideas (beliefs). Accepted ideas determine what we're willing to see and therefore what goals we pass into the mechanism.\n Each (agonist) muscle has an opposite, antagonist muscle. When a hypnotist instructed a weight lifter that he couldn't pick up a pencil, he noted that the antagonistic muscles opposed his conscious effort, and he couldn't pick it up.\n Imagination: The first Key to Your Success Mechanism.\n\nReception\nThe book rapidly attained best-seller status and has remained in print continuously since 1960.\n\nPosthumous editions\nSeveral adaptations have been produced since Maltz's death in 1975.\n\nReferences\n\nPersonal development\nSystems theory books\nSelf-help books"
] |
[
"Dwight Howard",
"Public image",
"What is a positive public image going forhim?",
"Howard said that he wanted to use his NBA career and Christian faith to \"raise the name of God within the league and throughout the world",
"What way does he plan on reaching out?",
"He has stated he believes in reaching out to his community and fans and thus contributes substantially in the field of philanthropy.",
"Does he have any negative image?",
"An avid listener of Gospel music, he attends the Fellowship of Faith Church when he is back home in Atlanta",
"Has he been in any movies?",
"In 2014, Epix featured Howard as the focal point of a documentary about his life called In the Moment.",
"What did the documentary tell about his life?",
"The film was directed by Ross Greenburg and Executive Producers include Michael D. Ratner and Matthew Weaver.",
"Does he devote any of his time to causes?",
"Within the NBA itself, Howard has participated in several NBA \"Read to Achieve\" assemblies encouraging children to make reading a priority.",
"Has be given money to any charity?",
"Howard also established the Dwight D. Howard Foundation Inc. in 2004. The Foundation provides scholarships for students who want to attend his alma mater,",
"Has he made any guest appearances?",
"Along with Sam Worthington and Jonah Hill, Howard appeared in a commercial for the video game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.",
"What other appearances has he made?",
"Howard, along with Carmelo Anthony and Scottie Pippen, also appeared in the 2013 Chinese film Amazing, a joint venture between the NBA and Shanghai Film Group Corporation.",
"What is a positive image fact recently?",
"Home Edition that aired April 2, 2006, in which Ty Pennington and his team built a new home and ministry offices for Sadie Holmes, who operates a social services ministry"
] | C_d944cfc090ab415ca5bfbd6859c14699_0 | Did he like being on that show? | 11 | Did Dwight Howard like being on Home Edition? | Dwight Howard | Before he was drafted in 2004, Howard said that he wanted to use his NBA career and Christian faith to "raise the name of God within the league and throughout the world". He has stated he believes in reaching out to his community and fans and thus contributes substantially in the field of philanthropy. An avid listener of Gospel music, he attends the Fellowship of Faith Church when he is back home in Atlanta and is involved and active with the youth programs at the church. Together with his parents, Howard also established the Dwight D. Howard Foundation Inc. in 2004. The Foundation provides scholarships for students who want to attend his alma mater, Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy, and grants to Lovell Elementary School and Memorial Middle School in Orlando, Florida. The Foundation also organizes summer basketball camps for boys and girls, and together with high school and college coaches and players, fellow NBA players are invited to be on hand at the camp. For his contributions in the Central Florida community, Howard received in 2005 the Rich and Helen De Vos Community Enrichment Award. Within the NBA itself, Howard has participated in several NBA "Read to Achieve" assemblies encouraging children to make reading a priority. In November 2009, the center was named one of the 10 finalists for the Jefferson Awards for Public Service, which awards athletes for their charitable work. In 2009, Howard, along with several other NBA players, joined the Hoops for St. Jude charity program benefitting the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Elsewhere, Howard appeared as a special guest on an episode of the ABC series Extreme Makeover: Home Edition that aired April 2, 2006, in which Ty Pennington and his team built a new home and ministry offices for Sadie Holmes, who operates a social services ministry in the Orlando area. He made another appearance on the show in the October 9, 2011 episode. Along with Sam Worthington and Jonah Hill, Howard appeared in a commercial for the video game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Howard, along with Carmelo Anthony and Scottie Pippen, also appeared in the 2013 Chinese film Amazing, a joint venture between the NBA and Shanghai Film Group Corporation. In 2014, Epix featured Howard as the focal point of a documentary about his life called In the Moment. The film was directed by Ross Greenburg and Executive Producers include Michael D. Ratner and Matthew Weaver. CANNOTANSWER | He made another appearance on the show in the October 9, 2011 episode. | Dwight David Howard II (born December 8, 1985) is an American professional basketball player for the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He is an NBA champion, eight-time All-Star, eight-time All-NBA Team honoree, five-time All-Defensive Team member, and three-time Defensive Player of the Year.
Howard, who plays center, spent his high school career at Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy. He chose to forgo college, entered the 2004 NBA draft, and was selected first overall by the Orlando Magic. Howard set numerous franchise and league records with the Magic. He led the team to the 2009 NBA Finals.
In 2012, after eight seasons with Orlando, Howard was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers. After a year with the Lakers, he played for the Houston Rockets, the Atlanta Hawks, the Charlotte Hornets, and the Washington Wizards. Howard returned to the Lakers in 2019 and won his first NBA championship in 2020.
Early life
Howard was born in Atlanta, to Dwight Sr. and Sheryl Howard, a family with strong athletic connections. His father is a Georgia State Trooper and is the athletic director at Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy, a private academy with one of the country's best high school basketball programs; his mother played on the inaugural women's basketball team at Morris Brown College. Howard's mother had seven miscarriages before he was born. A devout Christian since his youth, Howard became serious about basketball around the age of nine. Despite his large frame, Howard was quick and versatile enough to play the guard position. He attended Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy and played mostly as power forward, averaging 16.6 points, 13.4 rebounds and 6.3 blocks per game in 129 appearances. As a senior, Howard led his team to a 31–2 record and the 2004 state title, while averaging 25 points, 18 rebounds, 8.1 blocks and 3.5 assists per game. The same year, he was widely recognized as the best American high school basketball player, and received the Naismith Prep Player of the Year Award, the Morgan Wootten High School Player of the Year Award, Gatorade National Player of the Year and the McDonald's National High School Player of the Year honor. He was also co-MVP (with J. R. Smith) of the McDonald's All-American Game that year. On January 31, 2012, Howard was honored as one of the 35 greatest McDonald's All-Americans.
Professional career
Orlando Magic (2004–2012)
Early years (2004–2008)
Following his high school successes, Howard chose to forego college and declared for the 2004 NBA draft—a decision partly inspired by his idol Kevin Garnett who had done the same in 1995—where the Orlando Magic selected him first overall over UConn junior Emeka Okafor. He took the number 12 for his jersey, in part because it was the reverse of Garnett's 21 when he played for Minnesota. Howard joined a depleted Magic squad that had finished with only 21 victories the previous season; further, the club had just lost perennial NBA All-Star Tracy McGrady. Howard, however, made an immediate impact. He finished his rookie season with an average of 12 points and 10 rebounds, setting several NBA records in the process. He became the youngest player in NBA history to average a double double in the regular season. He also became the youngest player in NBA history to average at least 10 rebounds in a season and youngest NBA player ever to record at least 20 rebounds in a game. Howard's importance to the Magic was highlighted when he became the first player in NBA history directly out of high school to start all 82 games during his rookie season. For his efforts, he was selected to play in the 2005 NBA Rookie Challenge, and was unanimously selected to the All-Rookie Team. He also finished third in the Rookie of the Year voting.
Howard reported to camp for his second NBA season having added 20 pounds of muscle during the off-season. Orlando coach Brian Hill—responsible for grooming former Magic superstar Shaquille O'Neal—decided that Howard should be converted into a full-fledged center. Hill identified two areas where Howard needed to improve: his post-up game and his defense. He exerted extra pressure on Howard, saying that the Magic would need him to emerge as a force in the middle before the team had a chance at the playoffs. On November 15, 2005, in a home game against the Charlotte Bobcats, Howard recorded 21 points and 20 rebounds, becoming the youngest player ever to score 20 or more points and gather 20 or more rebounds in the same game. He was selected to play on the Sophomore Team in the 2006 Rookie Challenge during the All-Star break. Overall, he averaged 15.8 points and 12.5 rebounds per game, ranking second in the NBA in rebounds per game, offensive rebounds, and double-doubles and sixth in field goal percentage. Despite Howard's improvement, the Magic finished the season with a 36–46 record and failed to qualify for the playoffs for the second consecutive season since Howard's arrival.
In the 2006–07 season (and for the third consecutive season), Howard played in all 82 regular-season games. On February 1, 2007, he received his first NBA All-Star selection as a reserve on the Eastern Conference squad for the 2007 NBA All-Star Game. On February 9, he made a game-winning alley-oop off an inbound pass at the buzzer against the San Antonio Spurs. Howard set a new career high with 35 points against the Philadelphia 76ers on April 14. Under his leadership, the Magic qualified for the 2007 NBA Playoffs as the eighth seed in the Eastern Conference. There, the Magic were swept by the Detroit Pistons in the first round. For the season, Howard averaged 17.6 points and 12.3 rebounds per game, finishing first in the NBA in total rebounds, second in field goal percentage, and ninth in blocks. He was named to the All-NBA Third Team at the end of the 2006–07 campaign.
Howard continued posting impressive numbers in the 2007–08 season and helped the Magic have their best season to date. Howard was named as a starter for the Eastern Conference All-Star team. On February 16, 2008, he won the NBA Slam Dunk Contest by receiving 78% of the fan's votes via text messaging or online voting; in that contest, he performed a series of innovative dunks said to have rejuvenated the contest, including donning a Superman cape for one of the dunks. Howard led the Magic to their first division title in 12 years and to the third seed for the 2008 NBA Playoffs. In their first round match-up against the Toronto Raptors, Howard's dominance (three 20-point/20-rebound games) helped Orlando to prevail in five games. Howard's series total of 91 rebounds was also greater than the total rebounds collected by the entire Toronto frontcourt. In the second round against the Pistons, the Magic lost in five games. For the season, Howard was named to the All-NBA First Team for the first time, and was also named to the NBA All-Defensive Second Team.
Dominance and NBA Finals appearance (2008–2011)
The 2008–09 season began well for Howard. Ten games into the season, the center was leading the league in blocks per game (4.2). In December, Howard injured his left knee, which caused him to miss a game due to injury for the first time in his NBA career; previously, he had played in 351 consecutive games. He garnered a record 3.1 million votes to earn the starting berth on the Eastern Conference team for the 2009 NBA All-Star Game. Howard led Orlando to its second straight Southeast Division title and to the third seed for the 2009 NBA Playoffs; the team finished the season with a 59–23 record. In the first round of the playoffs against the 76ers, Howard recorded 24 points and 24 rebounds in Game 5 to give Orlando a 3–2 lead before the Magic closed out the series in six games. In the second round against the Boston Celtics, after the Magic blew a lead in Game 5 to fall behind 3–2 in the series, Howard publicly stated that he should have been given the ball more and questioned coach Stan Van Gundy's tactics. The Magic went on to defeat Boston to win the series and move on to the Eastern Conference Finals. There they, defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers 4–2. Howard had a playoff career-high 40 points to go with his 14 rebounds in the deciding Game 6, leading Orlando to the NBA Finals for the first time in 14 years. In the NBA Finals, the Los Angeles Lakers took the first two home games, before a home win by the Magic brought the deficit to 2–1. In Game 4, despite Howard putting up 21 rebounds and a Finals record of 9 blocks in a game, the Magic lost in overtime. The Lakers went on to clinch the series with a win in Game 5. For the season, Howard became the youngest player ever to win the NBA Defensive Player of the Year Award. He was also named to the NBA All-Defensive First Team, and to the All-NBA First Team.
In the 2009–10 season, the Magic got off to a strong start, winning 17 of their first 21 games and setting a franchise record. On January 21, 2010, Howard was named as the starting center for the East in the 2010 NBA All-Star Game. The Magic completed the regular season with 59 wins and their third consecutive division title. The Magic's playoff run resulted another Eastern Conference Finals appearance, where they lost in six games to the Celtics. Howard won the Defensive Player of the Year Award for the second straight year. He became the first player in NBA history to lead the league in blocks and rebounds in the same season twice—and for two years in a row.
In the 2010–11 season, Howard posted career highs in points and field goal percentage. He became the first player in league history to win Defensive Player of the Year honors for three consecutive seasons. Howard led the league in double-doubles and also averaged 14.1 rebounds, 2.3 blocks and a career-high 1.3 steals this season. He led the Magic to 52 wins, as they finished as the fourth seed in the Eastern Conference. They went on to lose to the Atlanta Hawks in the first round of 2011 NBA Playoffs. He had a playoff career-high 46 points and 19 rebounds in Orlando's 103–93 loss to Atlanta in Game 1. Howard led the NBA in technical fouls with 18 in the regular season, and received one-game suspensions after his 16th and 18th technicals.
Final season in Orlando (2011–2012)
Due to a lockout, the 2011–12 regular season was shortened to 66 games. Not long after the lockout ended, Howard, who was eligible to become a free agent at the end of the season, demanded a trade to the New Jersey Nets, Los Angeles Lakers or Dallas Mavericks. Howard stated that although his preference was to remain in Orlando, he did not feel the Magic organization was doing enough to build a championship contender. He would later meet with Magic officials and agree to back off his trade demands, but stated that he also felt the team needed to make changes to the roster if they wanted to contend for a championship.
On January 12, 2012, Howard attempted an NBA regular season record 39 free throws against the Golden State Warriors. Howard entered the game making 42 percent of his free throws for the season and just below 60 percent for his career. The Warriors hacked Howard intentionally throughout the game, and he broke Wilt Chamberlain's regular-season record of 34 set in 1962. Howard made 21 of the 39 attempts, finishing with 45 points and 23 rebounds in the Magic's 117–109 victory. On January 24, 2012, Howard became the Magic's all-time scoring leader.
On March 15, 2012, on the day of the trading deadline for the 2011–12 NBA season, Howard waived his right to opt out of his contract at the end of the season and committed to stay with the Magic through the 2012–13 season. He had previously asked to be traded to the New Jersey Nets. Had he not signed the amendment, the Magic were prepared to trade him to avoid losing him as a free agent. On April 5, Van Gundy said that he had been informed by management that Howard wanted him fired. During the interview, the center walked up and hugged his coach, unaware that Van Gundy had confirmed a report that Howard denied. Van Gundy was let go after the season.
On April 19, 2012, Howard's agent said that Howard would undergo surgery to repair a herniated disk in his back and would miss the rest of the 2011–12 season, as well as the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. During the offseason, Howard again requested a trade to the Nets, who had relocated to Brooklyn. He intended to become a free agent at the end of the 2012–13 season if he was not traded to Brooklyn.
Los Angeles Lakers (2012–2013)
On August 10, 2012, Howard was traded from Orlando to the Los Angeles Lakers in a deal that also involved the Philadelphia 76ers and the Denver Nuggets. Howard took six months off from basketball after his April back surgery, and only had the combined four weeks of training camp and preseason to prepare for the season. Still working himself into shape, Howard paced himself throughout the season on both offense and defense. On January 4, 2013, Howard injured his right shoulder in the second half of the Lakers' 107–102 loss to the Los Angeles Clippers. At the midpoint of the season, the Lakers were a disappointing 17–24. Howard was averaging 17.1 points on 58.2% shooting, 12.3 rebounds, and 2.5 blocks, but also 3.6 fouls a game with 3.2 turnovers while making only 50.4% of his free throws.
Howard was upset that he was not getting the ball enough, and he felt that Kobe Bryant was shooting too much. Moving forward, Howard said he needed to "bring it" and dominate in more ways than just scoring. Howard missed games due to his recurring shoulder injury in January and February. In February, Bryant said that Howard "worries too much" and "doesn't want to let anyone down", urging him to play through the pain when Pau Gasol was sidelined with a torn plantar fascia. Howard returned the next game after commenting that Bryant was "not a doctor, I'm not a doctor. That's his opinion."
During the All-Star break, Howard adopted a healthier diet to get into better shape to anchor the Lakers' defense and run head coach Mike D'Antoni's preferred pick and rolls. Still, on February 23, Howard said he was "not even close" to physically being where he wanted to be. Coach Mike D'Antoni attributed Howard's difficulty running the pick-and-roll—a play the coach had expected would be a staple for the team—with Steve Nash to Howard's lack of conditioning. The Lakers were 8–2 after the All-Star break, passing Utah for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference, and Howard averaged 15.5 points, 14.8 rebounds, and 2.6 blocks. In his first game back in Orlando on March 12, Howard scored a season-high 39 points and had 16 rebounds in a 106–97 Lakers win. Booed throughout the game, he made 25 of 39 free throws, setting franchise records for free throws made and attempted while tying his own NBA record for attempts. Howard made 16 of 20 free throws when he was fouled intentionally by the Magic. With Howard anchoring the Lakers defense and his improved overall play, the Lakers made the playoffs, but were swept in the opening round by San Antonio. Howard was ejected in Game 4 with over nine minutes left in the third quarter.
Howard finished the season with his lowest scoring average since his second year in the NBA, but he was the league leader in rebounding and ranked second in field goal percentage. Although he was recovering from his back surgery, he only missed six games all season—all due to his torn labrum. Howard was named to the All-NBA Third Team after having received five consecutive first-team honors. He became a free agent in the summer, and he was offered a maximum contract of five years and $118 million by the Lakers.
Houston Rockets (2013–2016)
On July 13, 2013, Howard signed with the Houston Rockets, joining James Harden to form a formidable duo. Howard finished the regular season with averages of 18.3 points and 12.2 rebounds and earned All-NBA Second Team honors. During the 2014 playoffs, Howard averaged 26 points and 13.7 rebounds per game, but the Rockets were eliminated by the Portland Trail Blazers in the first round, losing the series 4–2.
After playing in the Rockets' first 10 out of 11 games to start the 2014–15 season, Howard missed 11 straight due to a strained right knee before returning to action on December 13 against the Denver Nuggets and recording his 10,000th career rebound. However, on January 31, Howard was ruled out for a further month due to persistent trouble with his right knee. After setbacks forced him out for a further month and a total of 26 games, Howard returned to action on March 25 against the New Orleans Pelicans. He started the game but was held under 17 minutes by coach Kevin McHale and finished with just four points and seven rebounds in a 95–93 win. Howard played only 41 games in the regular season. The Rockets clinched their first division title in over 20 years and made it to the Western Conference Finals, where they lost 4–1 to the Golden State Warriors.
On November 4, 2015, Howard had 23 points and 14 rebounds against the Orlando Magic. He shot 10-of-10 to become the first Rocket to make 10 or more field goals without a miss since Yao Ming went 12-of-12 in 2009. On December 26, he eclipsed 15,000 points for his career in a loss to the New Orleans Pelicans. On January 18, 2016, in an overtime loss to the Los Angeles Clippers, Howard had 36 points and tied a career high with 26 rebounds en route to his 10th straight double-double, the league's longest active streak at the time, and his longest since a 14-game run in 2012–13. On June 22, 2016, Howard declined his $23 million player option for the 2016–17 season and became an unrestricted free agent.
Atlanta Hawks (2016–2017)
On July 12, 2016, Howard signed a three-year, $70 million contract with his hometown team the Atlanta Hawks. With the retirement of Tim Duncan, Howard entered the 2016–17 season as the NBA's active leader in rebounds (12,089) and blocked shots (1,916). In his debut for the Hawks in their season opener on October 27, Howard grabbed 19 rebounds in a 114–99 win over the Washington Wizards. It was the most rebounds for anyone in their Atlanta debut, breaking the mark of 18 that Shareef Abdur-Rahim set on October 30, 2001. On November 2, he scored a season-high 31 points in a 123–116 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers. On February 2, he had a season-best game with 24 points and 23 rebounds in a 113–108 win over the Rockets in Houston.
Charlotte Hornets (2017–2018)
On June 20, 2017, the Hawks traded Howard, along with the 31st overall pick in the 2017 NBA draft, to the Charlotte Hornets in exchange for Marco Belinelli, Miles Plumlee and the 41st overall pick in the 2017 NBA draft. To begin the season, Howard became the first Charlotte player since Emeka Okafor in 2007 with four consecutive 15-rebound games. In the fifth game of the season, he had another 15-rebound game. On March 15, he scored 20 of his season-high 33 points in the second half of the Hornets' 129–117 win over the Atlanta Hawks. On March 21, Howard recorded 32 points and a franchise-record 30 rebounds in a 111–105 win over the Nets, becoming just the eighth player in league history with a 30–30 game. He became the first NBA player with a 30-point, 30-rebound game since Kevin Love in November 2010, and the first player with a 30–30 game against the Nets since Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in February 1978. The next day, Howard was suspended for one game without pay due to receiving his 16th technical foul of the season. Howard finished the season with a franchise-record 53 double-doubles and joined Abdul-Jabbar and Wilt Chamberlain as the only players to hold single-season records with two teams. Howard also became one of six players to average a double-double in each of his first 13 seasons in the league.
On July 6, 2018, Howard was traded to the Brooklyn Nets in exchange for Timofey Mozgov, the draft rights to Hamidou Diallo, a 2021 second-round draft pick and cash considerations. He was waived by the Nets immediately upon being acquired.
Washington Wizards (2018–2019)
On July 12, 2018, Howard signed with the Washington Wizards. He missed all of training camp, every exhibition game and the first seven regular-season games with a sore backside. He appeared in nine games in November before missing the rest of the season after undergoing spinal surgery to relieve pain in his glutes. In March 2019, it was revealed that Howard, in addition to his back injury, was also dealing with a hamstring issue. On April 18, 2019, Howard exercised his $5.6 million player option to play a second season with the Wizards.
On July 6, 2019, Howard was traded to the Memphis Grizzlies for forward C. J. Miles. On August 24, 2019, Howard was waived by the Grizzlies.
Return to the Lakers (2019–2020)
On August 26, 2019, Howard signed a $2.6 million veteran's minimum contract with the Los Angeles Lakers, reuniting him with his former team. He was replacing DeMarcus Cousins, a free agent signed earlier in the offseason who was lost for the year after suffering a knee injury. To assure the team that he would accept any role the team asked, Howard offered to sign a non-guaranteed contract, freeing the Lakers to cut him at any time.
During the season, the Lakers split time fairly evenly between him and starting center JaVale McGee. On January 13, 2020, Howard scored a season-high 21 points on a 9-of-11 shooting and got a season-high 15 rebounds. In Game 4 of the Western Conference finals against the Denver Nuggets, Lakers coach Frank Vogel started Howard to match up against the Nuggets' Nikola Jokić. Howard had 12 points and 11 rebounds in 23 minutes to help the Lakers win and take a 3–1 lead in the series. He had started twice during the regular season, but this was his first start by coach's decision when McGee was available. The Lakers advanced to the NBA Finals, winning the series 4–2 over the Miami Heat and giving Howard his first NBA championship.
Philadelphia 76ers (2020–2021)
On November 21, 2020, the Philadelphia 76ers signed Howard to a one-year deal worth $2,564,753. With the 76ers he averaged 7 points and 8.4 rebounds. Howard played 69 games with the Sixers with six starts in 17.3 minutes. He was suspended for one game after getting into a scuffle with Udonis Haslem where both were assessed technical fouls and Haslem was ejected. Howard was suspended because he incurred his 16th technical foul of the year.
Third stint with the Lakers (2021–present)
Howard signed a $2.6 million veteran's minimum contract with the Los Angeles Lakers on August 6, 2021.
National team career
On March 5, 2006, Howard was named to the 2006–2008 USA Basketball Men's Senior National Team program. As the team's regular starting center, he helped lead the team to a 5–0 record during its pre-World Championship tour, and subsequently helped the team win the bronze medal at the 2006 FIBA World Championship. During the FIBA Americas Championship 2007, Howard was on the team which won its first nine games en route to qualifying for the finals and a spot for the 2008 Olympics. He started in eight of those nine games, averaging 8.9 ppg, 5.3 rpg and led the team in shooting .778 from the field. In the finals, he made all seven of his shots and scored 20 points as the USA defeated Argentina to win the gold medal.
On June 23, 2008, Howard was named as one of the members of the 12-man squad representing the United States in the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. With Howard starting as center, Team USA won all of its games en route to the gold medal, breaking their drought of gold medals dating back to the 2000 Olympics. Howard averaged 10.9 points and 5.8 rebounds per game in the tournament.
Player profile
Standing and weighing , Howard plays the center position. He led the NBA in rebounding from 2007 to 2010, and again from 2012 to 2013. Howard's rebounding is in part facilitated by his extraordinary athleticism; his running vertical leap was tested at in 2011, rare for a player of his size. He demonstrated this skill in the 2007 Slam Dunk Contest, where he completed an alley oop dunk from teammate Jameer Nelson while slapping a sticker onto the backboard at high. The sticker showed an image of his own smiling face with a handwritten "All things through Christ Phil: 4:13", a paraphrase of .
Howard's abilities and powerful physique have drawn attention from fellow NBA All-Stars. Tim Duncan remarked in 2007, "[Howard] is so developed... He has so much promise and I am glad that I will be out of the league when he is peaking." Kevin Garnett echoed those sentiments: "[Howard] is a freak of nature, man... I was nowhere near that physically talented. I wasn't that gifted, as far as body and physical presence." After a game in the 2009 NBA Playoffs, Philadelphia 76ers swingman Andre Iguodala said: "It's like he can guard two guys at once. He can guard his guy and the guy coming off the pick-and-roll, which is almost impossible to do... If he gets any more athletic or jumps any higher, they're going to have to change the rules." In December 2007, ESPN writer David Thorpe declared Howard the most dominant center in the NBA. Early in his career, many sports pundits rated Howard one of the top young prospects in the NBA.
Howard has a reputation as a negative locker room presence. In a 2013 interview, he called his former Orlando Magic teammates a "team full of people no one wanted". In a 2013 article titled "Is Dwight Howard the NBA's Worst Teammate?", Bleacher Report asserted that Howard had "extinguished all bridges with the franchise where he spent his first eight NBA seasons". Howard did not get along with Kobe Bryant when he played for the Lakers and did not get along with James Harden when he played for the Rockets. When he was traded from the Atlanta Hawks to the Charlotte Hornets, some of his Hawks teammates reportedly cheered. After Charlotte traded Howard to the Washington Wizards, Charlotte player Brendan Haywood asserted that Howard's teammates were "sick and tired of his act". In 2018, NBC News reported that "Howard’s time with the Magic, Lakers and Rockets devolved into interpersonal strife well before he left those teams". Also in 2018, The Ringer published a piece titled "Everybody (Still) Hates Dwight" in which it called Howard "almost certainly the least popular player in the NBA". Before signing with the Lakers in 2019, Howard reportedly met with the team multiple times, "promising not to live up to his reputation as a difficult teammate who disrupts locker rooms"; the team warned him that he would be released if he became a disruptive presence.
NBA career statistics
Regular season
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 82 || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 32.6 || .520 || .000 || .671 || 10.0 || .9 || .9 || 1.7 || 12.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 81 || 36.8 || .531 || .000 || .595 || 12.5 || 1.5 || .8 || 1.4 || 15.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 36.9 || .603 || .500 || .586 || 12.3 || 1.9 || .9 || 1.9 || 17.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 37.7 || .599 || .000 || .590 || style="background:#cfecec;"| 14.2* || 1.3 || .9 || 2.1 || 20.7
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 79 || 79 || 35.7 || .572 || .000 || .594 || style="background:#cfecec;"| 13.8* || 1.4 || 1.0 || style="background:#cfecec;"| 2.9* || 20.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 34.7 || style="background:#cfecec;"| .612* || .000 || .592 || style="background:#cfecec;"| 13.2* || 1.8 || .9 || style="background:#cfecec;"| 2.8* || 18.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 78 || 78 || 37.5 || .593 || .000 || .596 || 14.1 || 1.4 || 1.4 || 2.4 || 22.9
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 54 || 54 || 38.3 || .573 || .000 || .491 || style="background:#cfecec;"|14.5* || 1.9 || 1.5 || 2.1 || 20.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 76 || 76 || 35.8 || .578 || .167 || .492 ||bgcolor="CFECEC"| 12.4* || 1.4 || 1.1 || 2.4 || 17.1
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 71 || 71 || 33.7 || .591 || .286 || .547 || 12.2 || 1.8 || .8 || 1.8 || 18.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 41 || 41 || 29.8 || .593 || .500 || .528 || 10.5 || 1.2 || .7 || 1.3 || 15.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 71 || 71 || 32.1 || .620 || .000 || .489 || 11.8 || 1.4 || 1.0 || 1.6 || 13.7
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Atlanta
| 74|| 74 || 29.7 || .633 || .000 || .533 || 12.7 || 1.4 || .9 || 1.2 || 13.5
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Charlotte
| 81 || 81 || 30.4 || .555 || .143 || .574 || 12.5 || 1.3 || .6 || 1.6 || 16.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Washington
| 9 || 9 || 25.6 || .623 || .000 || .604 || 9.2 || .4 || .8 || .4 || 12.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 69 || 2 || 18.9 || .729 || .600 || .514 || 7.3 || .7 || .4 || 1.1 || 7.5
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Philadelphia
| 69 || 6 || 17.3 || .587 || .250 || .576 || 8.4 || .9 || .4 || .9 || 7.0
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|Career
| 1182 || 1051 || 32.6 || .586 || .159 || .566 || 12.1 || 1.4 || .9 || 1.9 || 16.2
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|All-Star
| 8 || 6 || 23.3 || .642 || .154 || .450 || 8.8 || 1.5 || .6 || 1.1 || 12.1
Playoffs
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2007
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 4 || 4 || 41.8 || .548 || .000 || .455 || 14.8 || 1.8 || .5 || 1.0 || 15.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2008
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 10 || 10 || 42.1 || .581 || .000 || .542 || 15.8 || .9 || .8 || 3.4 || 18.9
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2009
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 23 || 23 || 39.3 || .601 || .000 || .636 || 15.3 || 1.9 || .9 || 2.6 || 20.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2010
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 14 || 14 || 35.5 || .614 || .000 || .519 || 11.1 || 1.4 || .8 || 3.5|| 18.1
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2011
| style="text-align:left;"|Orlando
| 6 || 6 || 43.0 || .630 || .000 ||.682 || 15.5 || 0.5 || .7 || 1.8 || 27.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2013
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 4 || 4 || 31.5 || .619 || .000 || .444 || 10.8 || 1.0 || .5 || 2.0 || 17.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2014
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 6 || 6 || 38.5 || .547 || .000 || .625 || 13.7 || 1.8 || .7 || 2.8 || 26.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2015
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 17 || 17 || 33.8 || .577 || .000 || .412 || 14.0 || 1.2 || 1.4 || 2.3 || 16.4
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2016
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 5 || 5 || 36.0 || .542 || .000 || .368 || 14.0 || 1.6 || .8 || 1.4 || 13.2
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2017
| style="text-align:left;"|Atlanta
| 6 || 6 || 26.1 || .500 || .000 || .632 || 10.7 || 1.3 || 1.0 || .8 || 8.0
|-
|style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"|2020†
|style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 18 || 7 || 15.7 || .684 || .500 || .556 || 4.6 || .5 || .4 || .4 || 5.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2021
| style="text-align:left;"|Philadelphia
| 12 || 0 || 12.4 || .533 || .000 || .600 || 6.3 || .7 || .2 || .5 || 4.7
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|Career
| 125 || 102 || 31.6 || .589 || .143 || .548 || 11.8 || 1.2 || .8 || 2.0 || 15.3
Televised appearances
Howard appeared as a special guest on an episode of the ABC series Extreme Makeover: Home Edition that aired April 2, 2006, in which Ty Pennington and his team built a new home and ministry offices for Sadie Holmes, who operates a social services ministry in the Orlando area.
Howard competed in season 6 of The Masked Singer as "Octopus". He was the first one to be eliminated during the two-night premiere alongside Vivica A. Fox as "Mother Nature" and Toni Braxton as "Pufferfish".
Personal life
Howard has five children by five women. In 2010, Howard won a defamation judgment against Royce Reed, the mother of his oldest child Braylon. A Florida judge ruled that she violated a court order prohibiting her from mentioning Howard in the media. He had initially sought about half a billion dollars in damages, claiming that she had disparaged him through Twitter and her appearances on the reality television show, Basketball Wives, as the couple's paternity agreement stipulated a $500 fine for each time she mentioned him in public.
In October 2014, police in Cobb County, Georgia investigated claims by Reed that Howard abused their son. Howard had admitted to hitting Braylon with a belt; he had been disciplined in the same manner while growing up, and he stated that he did not realize it was wrong to do so. Howard was not charged in connection with the allegations. Howard was also involved in a civil case with Reed over custody of their son.
Howard keeps approximately 20 snakes as pets and has appeared twice in Animal Planet's reality TV series Tanked. He owns a farm "in north Georgia where he relaxes [with] cows, hogs, turkeys and deer," and also grows vegetables on his estate.
Melissa Rios, the mother of his son, David, died on March 27, 2020, following an epileptic seizure. David was with Howard at his home in Georgia at the time to ride out the COVID-19 pandemic.
Philanthropy, faith, and public image
Before he was drafted in 2004, Howard said that he wanted to use his NBA career and Christian faith to "raise the name of God within the league and throughout the world". He has stated he believes in reaching out to his community and fans and thus contributes substantially in the field of philanthropy. Together with his parents, Howard established the Dwight D. Howard Foundation Inc. in 2004. In November 2009, the center was named one of the 10 finalists for the Jefferson Awards for Public Service, which awards athletes for their charitable work.
In 2014, Epix featured Howard as the focal point of a documentary about his life called In the Moment.
See also
List of career achievements by Dwight Howard
List of National Basketball Association career games played leaders
List of National Basketball Association career rebounding leaders
List of National Basketball Association career blocks leaders
List of National Basketball Association career turnovers leaders
List of National Basketball Association career free throw scoring leaders
List of National Basketball Association career playoff blocks leaders
List of National Basketball Association annual rebounding leaders
List of National Basketball Association annual blocks leaders
List of National Basketball Association players with most blocks in a game
List of National Basketball Association players with most rebounds in a game
List of National Basketball Association franchise career scoring leaders
Notes
References
External links
1985 births
Living people
2006 FIBA World Championship players
21st-century African-American sportspeople
African-American basketball players
African-American Christians
American men's basketball players
Atlanta Hawks players
Basketball players at the 2008 Summer Olympics
Basketball players from Atlanta
Centers (basketball)
Charlotte Hornets players
Houston Rockets players
Los Angeles Lakers players
McDonald's High School All-Americans
Medalists at the 2008 Summer Olympics
National Basketball Association All-Stars
National Basketball Association high school draftees
Olympic gold medalists for the United States in basketball
Orlando Magic draft picks
Orlando Magic players
Parade High School All-Americans (boys' basketball)
Philadelphia 76ers players
Power forwards (basketball)
United States men's national basketball team players
Washington Wizards players
20th-century African-American people | false | [
"Live With Chris Moyles was a short-lived British comedy chat show on five, which aired weekdays at 7pm. The show was filmed in front of a live audience in a bar in London.\n\nThe show consisted of Moyles' unique take on the day's news, interactive fun and games with competitions such as 'Dancing Letters', and celebrity guests dropping in for a pint and a chat.\n\nChris Moyles talks about this show in The Difficult Second Book. In it he says how after a show he had a conversation with the producer, radio DJ and owner of UMTV, Chris Evans. During the conversation Moyles said he did not like the way the show was being made and that anyone could present it, and wanted to give it a unique style for his personality. After this Evans avoided Moyles until the end of the shows run. Although the show was commissioned for a second series, whilst Moyles was on holiday his agent was sent a press release saying that Christian O'Connell was the new host of the show and that Moyles was moving on to do other projects for Five.\n\nExternal links\nLive With Chris Moyles at UMTV.tv\n\nChannel 5 (British TV channel) original programming\nTelevision shows set in London\n2002 British television series debuts\n2002 British television series endings",
"Please Like Me is an Australian television comedy-drama series created by and starring Josh Thomas. Thomas also serves as a writer for most episodes. The series premiered on 28 February 2013 on ABC2 in Australia. The show explores realistic issues with humorous tones; the executive producer, Todd Abbott, had pitched the show as a drama rather than a sitcom. The show aired later on the United States network Pivot, which then helped to develop the show from its second season onwards. Four seasons of the show have been broadcast, and creator Thomas has stated that he has no plans to make any further episodes. The show has attracted praise from critics and has garnered numerous nominations, winning a number of awards.\n\nCreation\nPlease Like Me was chiefly written by Josh Thomas, who also played the main character, Josh. Most episodes were directed by Matthew Saville. Thomas and producer Todd Abbott developed the series together for four years. They held a series of consultation meetings with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Abbott was careful to pitch the series as a drama rather than a sitcom. It portrays a set of circumstances that could happen to a young person but has humorous themes. Thomas envisioned an original show, something he had not seen on television before. The actor, also a known comedian in Australia, wanted honesty in the script and wrote the comedy with that in mind. He also wanted the actors to not intentionally react to the scripted jokes.\n\nIn January 2013, The West Australian reported that Please Like Me would air on ABC2. The show had been meant to air on ABC1, but it was decided that the show would be better suited to the digital channel ABC2. The broadcaster stated that the show is aimed at a younger demographic more appropriate for ABC2, while ABC1 caters to all ages. The move was criticised because it was believed to be the result of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation viewing the show's content as \"too gay\" for their primary channel. The series begins with Josh realising that he is gay and his mother attempting suicide with an overdose of Panadol.\n\nIn September 2013, ABC1 started running the series on Wednesday nights (10pm), six months after its original ABC2 run.\n\nIt was announced in July 2013 that the series would air in the United States as part of the launch programming of Pivot, a new digital cable and satellite television channel which released the first episode of the series online prior to its screening on the channel. It will also offer the series as part of its video on demand service. Pivot also launched a social media website \"pleaselikeme.org\" for viewers to share personal experiences about breaking stigma and fear of being unliked, in relation to the series.\n\nOn 26 July 2013, it was announced that ABC and Pivot had commissioned a second season of the show consisting of ten episodes. The season debuted in its American territory first from 8 August 2014. Producers also added a host of new regular characters to the cast. On 12 July 2014, it was announced that the networking partnership had renewed Please Like Me for a third series also comprising ten episodes. On 7 July 2016, the series was renewed for a fourth season consisting of six episodes. On 2 February 2017, it was announced that season 4 was the final season for the series.\n\nPlot\nTwenty something Josh is going through a number of big changes as he navigates his first decade of adulthood. After being dumped by his girlfriend, he comes to the realization that he is gay.\n\nCast\n\nNotes\n\nEpisodes\n\nReception\n\nCritical response\nAnthony D. Langford from AfterElton.com said that he \"absolutely loved this charming series. It’s funny and sweet and has plenty of heart.\" He also praised Thomas's portrayal of Josh and wished that US broadcasters could emulate the show's format. He later said that he would miss the show and hoped a second season would be commissioned. He added that he did not want to say goodbye to Josh's world. Andrew Mast, writing for Music.com.au, praised Briggs's \"naturalistic performances\" and the inclusion of accomplished actress Farr. He concluded that Thomas's writing was good and comedic, but the on-screen delivery did not meet his expectations. David Knox from TV Tonight praised the performances of many cast members. He opined that the dynamic between Josh and his parents created a \"very rich comedic terrain\" for the show. He added that Please Like Me displays \"a confidence that delivers laughs, pathos and insight\".\n\nColin Vickery and Darren Devlyn from News.com.au said that it \"has a sweetness that sets it apart from other boundary-pushing comedies\". Giles Hardie from The Age praised the show for \"breaking new ground\" and not making stereotypes of gay characters. He viewed the comedy as being genuine without feeling like a sitcom. He noted that coming out and attempted suicide are given humour without the gags. Hardie concluded that Josh, his family and friends were \"incredibly well\" played. His colleague Scott Ellis believed that Please Like Me was an important show and the type of material the ABC should be investing more in. He also branded it \"gentle\" and insightful when covering \"tough ground\". Fellow critic Craig Mathieson also agreed that the show's darker moments are some of the most humorous and compared it to US show Louie. Please Like Me received an invitation to screen at the Series Mania Television Festival in Paris.\n\nThe A.V. Club regarded season 2 of Please Like Me as one of the year's best shows, praising the camera work and Josh's performance. The Guardian praised Please Like Me's \"unconventional writing\".\n\nAwards and nominations\n\nSee also\nList of Australian television series\nList of programs broadcast by ABC Television\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nOfficial Takepart Website\n\n2010s LGBT-related drama television series\n2010s LGBT-related comedy television series\n2013 Australian television series debuts\n2013 American television series debuts\n2016 Australian television series endings\nAustralian Broadcasting Corporation original programming\nPivot (TV network) original programming\nPolyamory in fiction\nAustralian comedy-drama television series\nAustralian LGBT-related television shows\nGay-related television shows\nTelevision about mental health\nBipolar disorder in fiction\nLesbian-related television shows\nSuicide in television"
] |
[
"Don Knotts",
"The Andy Griffith Show"
] | C_78df05bd80874e908541d6c62b2828dd_0 | What show did he star in | 1 | What show did Knotts star in? | Don Knotts | In 1960, Andy Griffith was offered the opportunity to headline his own sitcom, The Andy Griffith Show (1960-1968). Knotts took the role of Barney Fife, the deputy--and originally cousin--of Sheriff Andy Taylor (portrayed by Griffith). Knotts's portrayal of the deputy on the popular show earned him five Emmy Awards for Best Supporting Actor in a Television Comedy, three awards for the first five seasons that he played the character. A summary of the show from the website of the Museum of Broadcast Communications describes Deputy Barney Fife: Self-important, romantic, and nearly always wrong, Barney dreamed of the day he could use the one bullet Andy had issued to him, though he did fire his gun on a few occasions. He always fired his pistol accidentally while still in his holster or in the ceiling of the court house, at which point he would sadly hand his pistol to Andy. This is why Barney kept his one very shiny bullet in his shirt pocket. In episode #196, Andy gave Barney more bullets so that he would have a loaded gun to go after a bad guy that Barney unintentionally helped escape. While Barney was forever frustrated that Mayberry was too small for the delusional ideas he had of himself, viewers got the sense that he couldn't have survived anywhere else. Don Knotts played the comic and pathetic sides of the character with equal aplomb and he received three Emmy Awards during the show's first five seasons. When the show first aired, Griffith was intended to be the comedic lead with Knotts as his straight man, similar to their roles in No Time for Sergeants. However, it was quickly discovered that the show was funnier with the roles reversed. As Griffith maintained in several interviews, "By the second episode, I knew that Don should be funny, and I should play straight." Knotts believed remarks by Griffith that The Andy Griffith Show would end after five seasons, and he began to look for other work, signing a five-film contract with Universal Studios. He was caught off guard when Griffith announced that he would continue the show after all, but Knotts's hands were tied. In his autobiography, Knotts admitted that he had not yet signed a contract when Griffith announced his decision; but he had made up his mind to move on, believing he would not get the chance again. Knotts left the series in 1965. His character's absence on the show was explained by Deputy Fife's having finally made the "big time," joining the Raleigh, North Carolina police force. CANNOTANSWER | Andy Griffith was offered the opportunity to headline his own sitcom, The Andy Griffith Show | Jesse Donald Knotts (July 21, 1924February 24, 2006) was an American actor and comedian. He is widely known for his role as Deputy Sheriff Barney Fife on The Andy Griffith Show, a 1960s sitcom for which he earned five Emmy Awards. He also played Ralph Furley on the highly rated sitcom Three's Company from 1979 to 1984. He starred in multiple comedic films, including the leading roles in The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966) and The Incredible Mr. Limpet (1964). In 1979, TV Guide ranked him number 27 on its 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time list.
Early life
Jesse Donald Knotts was born on July 21, 1924, in Morgantown, West Virginia, the youngest of four sons born to farmer William Jesse Knotts and his wife, Elsie Luzetta Knotts (née Moore). His parents were married in Spraggs, Pennsylvania. His English paternal ancestors emigrated to America in the 17th century, originally settling in Queen Anne's County, Maryland. Knotts' brothers were named Willis, William, and Ralph "Sid".
Don's mother was 40 at the time of his birth and his father suffered from mental illness. Afflicted with schizophrenia and alcoholism, he sometimes terrorized Don with a knife, causing Don to turn inward at an early age. The elder Knotts died of pneumonia when Don was 13 years old. Don and his brothers were then raised by their mother, who ran a boarding house in Morgantown. She died in 1969 at age 84. Her son William preceded her in death in 1941 at age 31. They are buried in the family plot at Beverly Hills Memorial Park in Morgantown.
Don graduated from Morgantown High School. After enlisting in the United States Army and serving in World War II, Don earned a bachelor's degree in education with a minor in speech from West Virginia University in Morgantown, graduating in 1948. He was a member of Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity and Alpha Psi Omega Honor Society while at WVU.
Career
Early career
Before he entered high school, Knotts began performing as a ventriloquist and comedian at various church and school functions. After high school, he traveled to New York City to try to make his way as a comedian but returned home to attend West Virginia University when his career failed to take off. After his college freshman year, Knotts joined the U.S. Army and spent most of his service entertaining troops. He toured the western Pacific Islands as a comedian as part of a G.I. variety show called "Stars and Gripes". His ventriloquist act in "Stars and Gripes" included a dummy named Danny, which Knotts grew to hate, eventually throwing it overboard according to his friend and castmate, Al Checco.
Knotts served in the U.S. Army from June 21, 1943, to January 6, 1946, in the Army's 6817th Special Services Battalion. He was discharged at the rank of Technician Grade 5, which was the equivalent then of a corporal. During his military service, Knotts was awarded the World War II Victory Medal, the Philippine Liberation Medal, the Asiatic–Pacific Campaign Medal (with 4 bronze service stars), the American Campaign Medal, the Army Good Conduct Medal, the Army Marksman Badge (with an M1 Carbine) and the Honorable Service Lapel Pin.
Knotts returned to West Virginia University after being demobilized and graduated in 1948. He married Kay Metz and moved back to New York, where connections he had made while in the Special Services Branch helped him break into show business. In addition to doing stand-up comedy at clubs, he appeared on the radio, eventually playing the wisecracking, know-it-all character "Windy Wales" on a radio Western called "Bobby Benson and the B-Bar-B Riders".
Knotts got his first major break on television in the soap opera Search for Tomorrow where he appeared from 1953 to 1955. He came to fame in 1956 on Steve Allen's variety show, as part of Allen's repertory company, most notably in Allen's mock "Man in the Street" interviews, always as an extremely nervous man. He remained with the Allen program through the 1959–1960 season. From October 20, 1955, through September 14, 1957, Knotts appeared in the Broadway play version of No Time for Sergeants, in which he played two roles, listed on the playbill as a Corporal Manual Dexterity and a Preacher. In 1958, Knotts appeared for the first time on film with Andy Griffith in the film version of No Time for Sergeants. In that film, Knotts reprised his Broadway role and played a high-strung Air Force test administrator whose routine is disrupted by the hijinks of a provincial new recruit.
The Andy Griffith Show
In 1960, Andy Griffith was offered the opportunity to headline his own sitcom, The Andy Griffith Show (1960–1968). Knotts took the role of Barney Fife, the deputy—and originally cousin—of Sheriff Andy Taylor (portrayed by Griffith). Knotts's portrayal of the deputy on the popular show earned him five Emmy Awards for Best Supporting Actor in a Television Comedy.
A summary of the show from the website of the Museum of Broadcast Communications describes Deputy Barney Fife:
When the show first aired, Griffith was intended to be the comedic lead with Knotts as his straight man, similar to their roles in No Time for Sergeants. However, it was quickly discovered that the show was funnier with the roles reversed. As Griffith maintained in several interviews, "By the second episode, I knew that Don should be funny, and I should play straight."
Knotts believed remarks by Griffith that The Andy Griffith Show would end after five seasons, and he began to look for other work, signing a five-film contract with Universal Studios. In his autobiography, Knotts admitted that he had not yet signed the contract when Griffith announced his decision to continue the series; but he had made up his mind to move on, believing he would not get the chance again. Knotts left the series in 1965. His character's absence on the show was explained by Deputy Fife's having finally made the "big time," joining the Raleigh, North Carolina, police force.
Post-Mayberry film career
Knotts went on to star in a series of film comedies that drew on his high-strung persona from the television series: he had a cameo appearance in United Artists' It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), and starred in Warner Bros.' The Incredible Mr. Limpet (1964). Knotts then began his Universal five-film contract with The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966), The Reluctant Astronaut (1967), The Shakiest Gun in the West (1968), The Love God? (1969) and How to Frame a Figg (1971). After making How to Frame a Figg, Knotts's five-film contract with Universal finished.
Knotts reprised his role as Barney Fife several times in the 1960s: he made five guest appearances on The Andy Griffith Show (gaining him another two Emmy Awards), and he later appeared once on the spin-off Mayberry R.F.D., where he was present as best man for the marriage of Andy Taylor and his longtime love, Helen Crump. He continued to work steadily, though he did not appear as a regular on any successful television series until in 1979 he got the part of landlord Ralph Furley on Three's Company for seasons 4 through 8, after the departure of Norman Fell, who had played the previous landlord.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Knotts served as the spokesman for Dodge trucks and was featured prominently in a series of print ads and dealer brochures. On television, he went on to host a variety show/sitcom hybrid on NBC, The Don Knotts Show, which aired Tuesdays during the fall of 1970, but the series was low-rated and short-lived, and Knotts was uncomfortable with the variety show format. He also made frequent guest appearances on other shows such as The Bill Cosby Show and Here's Lucy. In 1970, he appeared as a Barney Fife-like police officer in the pilot of The New Andy Griffith Show. In 1972, Knotts voiced an animated version of himself in two episodes of The New Scooby Doo Movies: "The Spooky Fog of Juneberry", in which he played a lawman resembling Barney Fife, and "Guess Who's Knott Coming to Dinner". He appeared as Felix Unger in a stage version of Neil Simon's The Odd Couple, with Art Carney as Oscar Madison, and toured in the Neil Simon comedy Last of the Red Hot Lovers.
Beginning in 1975, Knotts was teamed with Tim Conway in a series of slapstick films aimed at children, including the Disney film The Apple Dumpling Gang (1975) and its sequel, The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again (1979). They also did two independent films, the boxing comedy The Prize Fighter (1979), and the mystery-comedy The Private Eyes (1980). Knotts co-starred in several other Disney films, including Gus (1976), No Deposit, No Return (1976), Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo (1977) and Hot Lead and Cold Feet (1978).
Three's Company
In 1979, Knotts returned to series television in his second most identifiable role, the wacky but lovable landlord Ralph Furley on Three's Company. The series, which was already an established hit, added Knotts to the cast when the original landlords, Stanley and Helen Roper (a married couple played by Norman Fell and Audra Lindley, respectively) left the series to star in their own short-lived spin-off series The Ropers.
On set, Knotts easily integrated himself into the already established cast who were, as John Ritter put it, "so scared" of Knotts because of his star status when he joined the cast. When Suzanne Somers left the show after a contract dispute in 1981, the writers started giving the material meant for Somers's Chrissy to Knotts's Furley. Knotts remained on the series until it ended in 1984. The Three's Company script supervisor, Carol Summers, became Knotts' agent and often accompanied him to personal appearances.
Later years
In 1986, Don Knotts reunited with Andy Griffith in the made-for-television film Return to Mayberry, reprising his Barney Fife role. In early 1987, Knotts joined the cast of the first-run syndication comedy What a Country!, playing Principal Bud McPherson for the series' remaining 13 episodes. The sitcom was produced by Martin Rips and Joseph Staretski, who had previously worked on Three's Company.
In 1988, Knotts joined Andy Griffith in another show, playing the recurring role of pesky neighbor Les Calhoun on Matlock until 1992.
After that, Knotts's roles were sporadic, including a cameo appearance in the film Big Bully (1996) as the principal of the high school. In 1998, Knotts played a small but pivotal role as a mysterious TV repairman in Pleasantville. That year, his hometown of Morgantown, West Virginia, changed the name of the street formerly known as South University Avenue (U.S. Route 119) to Don Knotts Boulevard on "Don Knotts Day". Also that day, in honor of Knotts's role as Barney Fife, he was named an honorary deputy sheriff with the Monongalia County Sheriff's Department.
Knotts was recognized in 2000 with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He continued to act on stage, but much of his film and television work after 2000 was as voice talent. In 2002, he appeared again with Scooby-Doo in the video game Scooby-Doo! Night of 100 Frights. (Knotts also spoofed his appearances on that show in various promotions for Cartoon Network and in a parody on Robot Chicken, where he was teamed with Phyllis Diller.) In 2003, Knotts teamed up with Tim Conway again to provide voices for the direct-to-video children's series Hermie and Friends, which continued until his death. In 2005, he was the voice of Mayor Turkey Lurkey in Chicken Little (2005), his first Disney movie since 1979. On September 12, 2003, Knotts was in Kansas City in a stage version of On Golden Pond when he received a call from John Ritter's family telling him that his former Three's Company co-star had died of an aortic dissection that day. Knotts and his co-stars attended the funeral four days later. Knotts had appeared with Ritter one final time in a cameo on 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter. It was an episode that paid homage to their earlier television series. Knotts was the last Three's Company star to work with Ritter.
During this period of time, macular degeneration in both eyes caused the otherwise robust Knotts to become virtually blind. His live appearances on television were few. In 2005, Knotts parodied his Ralph Furley character while playing a Paul Young variation in a Desperate Housewives sketch on The 3rd Annual TV Land Awards. He parodied that part one final time in "Stone Cold Crazy", an episode of the sitcom That '70s Show. In the show, Knotts played Fez and Jackie's new landlord. This was his last live-action television appearance. His final role was in Air Buddies (2006), a direct-to-video sequel to Air Bud, voicing the sheriff's deputy dog, Sniffer.
Personal life
Knotts's friend Al Checco said, "Don was somewhat of a ladies' man. He fancied himself something of a Frank Sinatra. The ladies loved him and he dated quite a bit." Knotts was married three times. His marriage to Kathryn Metz lasted from 1947 until their divorce in 1964, and he raised his daughter as a single parent. He married Loralee Czuchna in 1974 and they divorced in 1983. His third marriage was to Frances Yarborough, from 2002 until his death in 2006. From his first marriage, Knotts had a son, Thomas Knotts, and a daughter, actress Karen Knotts (born April 2, 1954).
Knotts struggled with hypochondria and macular degeneration. Betty Lynn, one of Knotts' co-stars on The Andy Griffith Show, described him as a "very quiet man. Very sweet. Nothing like Barney Fife." TV writer Mark Evanier called him "the most beloved person in all of show business".
Death
Knotts died at age 81 on February 24, 2006, at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles from pulmonary and respiratory complications of pneumonia related to lung cancer. He had been undergoing treatment at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in the months before his death, but he returned home after he had reportedly been feeling better. He was buried at Westwood Memorial Park in Los Angeles.
Knotts' obituaries cited him as a major influence on other entertainers. In early 2011, his grave's plain granite headstone was replaced with a bronze plaque that displays several of Knotts' movie and television roles. A statue honoring Knotts, created by Jamie Lester, was unveiled on July 23, 2016, in front of The Metropolitan Theatre on High Street in his hometown of Morgantown, West Virginia.
Filmography
Film
No Time for Sergeants (1958) as Cpl. John C. Brown
Wake Me When It's Over (1960) as Sgt. Percy Warren
The Last Time I Saw Archie (1961) as Captain Harry Little
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) as the nervous motorist
Move Over, Darling (1963) as Shoe Clerk
The Incredible Mr. Limpet (1964) as Henry Limpet
The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966) as Luther Heggs
The Reluctant Astronaut (1967) as Roy Fleming
The Shakiest Gun in the West (1968) as Dr. Jesse W. Heywood
The Love God? (1969) as Abner Audubon Peacock IV
How to Frame a Figg (1971) as Hollis Alexander Figg
The Apple Dumpling Gang (1975) as Theodore Ogelvie
No Deposit, No Return (1976) as Bert Delaney
Gus (1976) as Coach Venner
Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo (1977) as Wheely Applegate
Mule Feathers (1978) as Narrator / The Mule (voice)
Hot Lead and Cold Feet (1978) as Sheriff Denver Kid
The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again (1979) as Theodore Ogelvie
The Prize Fighter (1979) as Shake
The Private Eyes (1980) as Inspector Winship
Cannonball Run II (1984) as CHP Officer #2
Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night (1987) as Gee Willikers (voice)
Big Bully (1996) as Principal Kokelar
Cats Don't Dance (1997) as T.W. Turtle (voice)
Pleasantville (1998) as TV Repairman
Tom Sawyer (2000) as Mutt Potter (voice)
Quints (2000) as Governor Healy
Chicken Little (2005) as Mayor Turkey Lurkey (voice)
Air Buddies (2006) as Sniffer (voice; final film role, posthumous release)
Television
Search for Tomorrow (1953–1955) as Wilbur Peterson
The Steve Allen Show (1956–1960) as Himself
The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (1960) as Esmond Metzger
The Andy Griffith Show (1960–1968) as Barney Fife
The Joey Bishop Show (1 episode 1964) as Barney Fife
The Red Skelton Show (1961–1965) as Commodore of Lagoons / 'Steady Fingers' Ferguson / Horaces Horatio / Mr. Pallid / Herbie
The New Steve Allen Show (1961–1963) as Regular
The Garry Moore Show (4 episodes 1962–1964) as Himself
McHale's Navy (Season 4, Episode 25) as Lt. Pratt
The Jerry Lewis Show (1 episode 1963) as Himself
38th Academy Awards (1966) as Himself (co-presenter)
The Don Knotts Special (1967) as Himself (host/performer)
The Hollywood Palace (1 episode #7.17 1970) as Himself
The Don Knotts Show (1970–1971) as Himself (host)
Don Knotts' Nice Clean, Decent, Wholesome Hour (1970) as Himself (host/performer)
The New Scooby-Doo Movies (2 episodes 1972) as Himself (voice)
The Man Who Came to Dinner (1972) as Dr. Bradley
The Flip Wilson Show (1972–73) (2 episodes) as Himself
Dinah Shore: In Search of the Ideal Man (1973) as Himself
I Love a Mystery (1973) as Alexander Archer
Here's Lucy (1973) (1 episode) as Ben Fletcher
Hollywood Squares (4 episodes, 1974–1977) as Himself – Panelist
Steve Allen's Laugh Back (1975)
The Captain & Tennille Show (1976–1977) as Himself (recurring guest)
The Muppet Show (1977) as Himself – Special Guest Star
Fantasy Island (1978–1979) as Felix Birdsong / Stanley Scheckter
The Love Boat (1979) as Herb Grobecker / Devon King
Three's Company (1979–1984) as Ralph Furley
George Burns Comedy Week (1985) as Himself
Return to Mayberry (1986) as Barney Fife
What a Country! (1987) as F. Jerry 'Bud' McPherson
The Little Troll Prince (1987) as Professor Nidaros (voice)
Matlock (1987–1992) as Les Calhoun
Newhart (1 episode 1990) as Iron
Timmy's Gift: A Precious Moments Christmas (1991) as Titus (voice)
The Andy Griffith Show Reunion (1993) as Himself
Burke's Law (1 episode 1994)
Step by Step (1993) (1 episode) as Deputy Feif
101 Dalmatians: The Series (2 episodes, 1997–1998) as Additional Voices (voice)
E! True Hollywood Story (1 episode 1998) as Himself
Late Night with Conan O'Brien (1 episode 1999) as Himself
Jingle Bells (1999) as Kris (voice)
Inside TV Land: The Andy Griffith Show (2000) as Himself
Biography TV Documentary (2 episodes 2000–2002) as Himself
Biography: "John Ritter: In Good Company" (2002) as Himself
Inside TV Land: Cops on Camera (2002) as Himself
Odd Job Jack (2003) as Dirk Douglas
8 Simple Rules (2003) as Himself
Larry King Live (1 episode 2003) as Himself
The Andy Griffith Show: Back To Mayberry (2003) as Himself/Barney Fife
TV Lands Top Ten (2004) (1 episode) as Himself
Johnny Bravo (cartoon series), episode "Johnny Makeover" (2004) as Don Knotts (voice)
That '70s Show (2005) as The Landlord
Las Vegas (2005) as Himself
The 3rd Annual TV Land Awards (2005) as Paul Young (segment "Desperate Classic Housewives")
Robot Chicken as Himself
Hatching Chicken Little (2006) as Himself
CMT: The Greatest – 20 Greatest Country Comedy Shows (2006) as Himself
Video games
Scooby-Doo! Night of 100 Frights (2002) as The Groundskeeper
Animation videos
Hermie and Friends (2003–06) as Wormie
Awards
References
Further reading
Klin, Richard. "Fife and Drum". Flagpole, 2006.
External links
The West Virginia & Regional History Center has a collection of materials related to the career or Don Knotts
20th-century American comedians
20th-century American male actors
21st-century American comedians
21st-century American male actors
1924 births
2006 deaths
American male comedians
American male film actors
American male soap opera actors
American male television actors
American male voice actors
United States Army personnel of World War II
American people of English descent
Burials at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery
Deaths from cancer in California
Deaths from lung cancer
Deaths from pneumonia in California
Disney people
Male actors from West Virginia
Military personnel from West Virginia
Morgantown High School alumni
Outstanding Performance by a Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series Primetime Emmy Award winners
People from Morgantown, West Virginia
United States Army soldiers
Ventriloquists
West Virginia University alumni | true | [
"World Class Wrestling Association (WCWA), based out of Dallas, Texas held a number of major professional wrestling supercard shows under the name Wrestling Star Wars'' between 1981 and 1989, with two of these being held in 1989. WCWA held two \"Wrestling Star Wars\" events, one in January and one in March, the final \"Wrestling Star Wars\" shows of the series. On August 4, 1989 WCWA merged with Continental Wrestling Association (CWA) to become the United States Wrestling Alliance (USWA), which did not continue the Star Wars series.\n\nWrestling Star Wars (January)WCWA Wrestling Star Wars (January 1989) was a professional wrestling supercard show that was held on January 27, 1989. The show was produced and scripted by the Dallas, Texas based World Class Wrestling Association (WCWA) professional wrestling promotion and held in their home arena, the Dallas, Texas. Several matches from the show were taped for WCWA's television shows and broadcast in the weeks following the show. The show was the second to last Wrestling Star Wars show and the 31st overall show in the \"Star Wars\" event chronology. The January 1989 Star Wars was the only show in the series to be held in the Dallas Sportatorium, as they usually took place at the Reunion Arena in Dallas or the Fort Worth Convention Center in Ft. Worth, Texas. The show drew 3,300 spectators in the approximately 4,500 seat arena.\n\nIn the main event, WCWA main-stay Kerry Von Erich defeated Master of Pain in a singles match. The eight-match show also featured Eric Embry defeating long-time rival Gary Young and Iceman King Parsons defeating former tag team partner Brickhouse Brown. No championships were defended and only the third match, a First Blood match between Jimmy Jack Funk and Super Black Ninja had a special stipulation.\n\nResults\n\nWrestling Star Wars (March)WCWA Wrestling Star Wars (March 1989)''' was a professional wrestling supercard show that was held on March 12, 1989. The show was produced and scripted by the Dallas, Texas based World Class Wrestling Association (WCWA) professional wrestling promotion and held in the Will Rogers Coliseum in Ft. Worth, Texas instead of the Reunion Arena where WCWA usually held their Star Wars shows in Ft. Worth. Several matches from the show were taped for WCWA's television shows and broadcast in the weeks following the show. The show was the 32nd and last Wrestling Star Wars show in the \"Star Wars\" event chronology. \n\nRecords only document two results from the show as they were later broadcast on television. The Star Wars shows generally consisted of eight or more matches, but records are unclear on the card for the last Star Wars. In the first of two documented matches Eric Embry defended the WCWA World Light Heavyweight Championship against the 300+ pound Botswana Beast in a match where the weight limit for the championship had been waived. Embry retained the championship. In the second confirmed match of the night Kerry Von Erich and Jeff Jarrett won the WCWA World Tag Team Championship from Robert Fuller and Jimmy Golden in what could have been the main event of the show.\n\nResults\n\nReferences\n\n1989 in professional wrestling\nWorld Class Championship Wrestling shows",
"Chhavi Pandey is an Indian television actress known for playing Tara in Life OK's Ek Boond Ishq, Namrata Singh in Star Bharat's mystery thriller Kaal Bhairav Rahasya and Prarthana Kashyap in Sony TV's Ladies Special 2.\n\nCareer \nPandey has learnt Kathak (Indian classic dance) and is a professional singer as well. She has learned classical music and light music and is a national scholar from ministry of culture New Delhi in classical music.\n\nPandey first appeared in India's Got Talent Season 1 on Colors TV in 2008 and finished up as a semi-finalist. She then did a Bhojpuri movie Bidesia opposite Dinesh Lal Yadav. Pandey was in 2011 considered to play the role of Aaliya in Star Plus show Sajda Tere Pyaar Mein which later got played by Deblina Chatterjee. Pandey did in January 2012 sign Star Plus show Sang Mere Dol Tu, a pilot of the show was made but the show got scrapped by the end of 2012. Pandey in August 2012 signed in Star Plus show Daag (later named Ek Hasina Thi) opposite actor Vatsal Seth, but due to some problems she later left the show and was replaced by Sanjeeda Sheikh.\n\nIn September 2013, Pandey was seen in the Life OK show Ek Boond Ishq opposite actor Viraf Patel. Pandey played the role of Smita in Teri Meri Love Stories on Star Plus. In 2015, she portrayed the lead role of Darpan in serial Bandhan.\n\nLater in 2016 she appeared in the show Silsila Pyaar Ka on Star Plus. In 2017 she appeared on suspense thriller Kaal Bhairav Rahasya that aired on Star Bharat as Main Female Lead Antagonist. In late 2018, She was offered the Role of Queen Padmini in Vikram Betaal Ki Rahasya Gatha, but later on she denied the role. Till 2019 she played lead role of Prarthna Kashyap in Ladies Special 2.\n\nTelevision\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n\n \n \n\nIndian television actresses\nLiving people\nActresses from Patna\n21st-century Indian actresses\n1986 births"
] |
[
"Don Knotts",
"The Andy Griffith Show",
"What show did he star in",
"Andy Griffith was offered the opportunity to headline his own sitcom, The Andy Griffith Show"
] | C_78df05bd80874e908541d6c62b2828dd_0 | When did the show run for | 2 | When did the Andy Griffith Show run for? | Don Knotts | In 1960, Andy Griffith was offered the opportunity to headline his own sitcom, The Andy Griffith Show (1960-1968). Knotts took the role of Barney Fife, the deputy--and originally cousin--of Sheriff Andy Taylor (portrayed by Griffith). Knotts's portrayal of the deputy on the popular show earned him five Emmy Awards for Best Supporting Actor in a Television Comedy, three awards for the first five seasons that he played the character. A summary of the show from the website of the Museum of Broadcast Communications describes Deputy Barney Fife: Self-important, romantic, and nearly always wrong, Barney dreamed of the day he could use the one bullet Andy had issued to him, though he did fire his gun on a few occasions. He always fired his pistol accidentally while still in his holster or in the ceiling of the court house, at which point he would sadly hand his pistol to Andy. This is why Barney kept his one very shiny bullet in his shirt pocket. In episode #196, Andy gave Barney more bullets so that he would have a loaded gun to go after a bad guy that Barney unintentionally helped escape. While Barney was forever frustrated that Mayberry was too small for the delusional ideas he had of himself, viewers got the sense that he couldn't have survived anywhere else. Don Knotts played the comic and pathetic sides of the character with equal aplomb and he received three Emmy Awards during the show's first five seasons. When the show first aired, Griffith was intended to be the comedic lead with Knotts as his straight man, similar to their roles in No Time for Sergeants. However, it was quickly discovered that the show was funnier with the roles reversed. As Griffith maintained in several interviews, "By the second episode, I knew that Don should be funny, and I should play straight." Knotts believed remarks by Griffith that The Andy Griffith Show would end after five seasons, and he began to look for other work, signing a five-film contract with Universal Studios. He was caught off guard when Griffith announced that he would continue the show after all, but Knotts's hands were tied. In his autobiography, Knotts admitted that he had not yet signed a contract when Griffith announced his decision; but he had made up his mind to move on, believing he would not get the chance again. Knotts left the series in 1965. His character's absence on the show was explained by Deputy Fife's having finally made the "big time," joining the Raleigh, North Carolina police force. CANNOTANSWER | 1960-1968 | Jesse Donald Knotts (July 21, 1924February 24, 2006) was an American actor and comedian. He is widely known for his role as Deputy Sheriff Barney Fife on The Andy Griffith Show, a 1960s sitcom for which he earned five Emmy Awards. He also played Ralph Furley on the highly rated sitcom Three's Company from 1979 to 1984. He starred in multiple comedic films, including the leading roles in The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966) and The Incredible Mr. Limpet (1964). In 1979, TV Guide ranked him number 27 on its 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time list.
Early life
Jesse Donald Knotts was born on July 21, 1924, in Morgantown, West Virginia, the youngest of four sons born to farmer William Jesse Knotts and his wife, Elsie Luzetta Knotts (née Moore). His parents were married in Spraggs, Pennsylvania. His English paternal ancestors emigrated to America in the 17th century, originally settling in Queen Anne's County, Maryland. Knotts' brothers were named Willis, William, and Ralph "Sid".
Don's mother was 40 at the time of his birth and his father suffered from mental illness. Afflicted with schizophrenia and alcoholism, he sometimes terrorized Don with a knife, causing Don to turn inward at an early age. The elder Knotts died of pneumonia when Don was 13 years old. Don and his brothers were then raised by their mother, who ran a boarding house in Morgantown. She died in 1969 at age 84. Her son William preceded her in death in 1941 at age 31. They are buried in the family plot at Beverly Hills Memorial Park in Morgantown.
Don graduated from Morgantown High School. After enlisting in the United States Army and serving in World War II, Don earned a bachelor's degree in education with a minor in speech from West Virginia University in Morgantown, graduating in 1948. He was a member of Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity and Alpha Psi Omega Honor Society while at WVU.
Career
Early career
Before he entered high school, Knotts began performing as a ventriloquist and comedian at various church and school functions. After high school, he traveled to New York City to try to make his way as a comedian but returned home to attend West Virginia University when his career failed to take off. After his college freshman year, Knotts joined the U.S. Army and spent most of his service entertaining troops. He toured the western Pacific Islands as a comedian as part of a G.I. variety show called "Stars and Gripes". His ventriloquist act in "Stars and Gripes" included a dummy named Danny, which Knotts grew to hate, eventually throwing it overboard according to his friend and castmate, Al Checco.
Knotts served in the U.S. Army from June 21, 1943, to January 6, 1946, in the Army's 6817th Special Services Battalion. He was discharged at the rank of Technician Grade 5, which was the equivalent then of a corporal. During his military service, Knotts was awarded the World War II Victory Medal, the Philippine Liberation Medal, the Asiatic–Pacific Campaign Medal (with 4 bronze service stars), the American Campaign Medal, the Army Good Conduct Medal, the Army Marksman Badge (with an M1 Carbine) and the Honorable Service Lapel Pin.
Knotts returned to West Virginia University after being demobilized and graduated in 1948. He married Kay Metz and moved back to New York, where connections he had made while in the Special Services Branch helped him break into show business. In addition to doing stand-up comedy at clubs, he appeared on the radio, eventually playing the wisecracking, know-it-all character "Windy Wales" on a radio Western called "Bobby Benson and the B-Bar-B Riders".
Knotts got his first major break on television in the soap opera Search for Tomorrow where he appeared from 1953 to 1955. He came to fame in 1956 on Steve Allen's variety show, as part of Allen's repertory company, most notably in Allen's mock "Man in the Street" interviews, always as an extremely nervous man. He remained with the Allen program through the 1959–1960 season. From October 20, 1955, through September 14, 1957, Knotts appeared in the Broadway play version of No Time for Sergeants, in which he played two roles, listed on the playbill as a Corporal Manual Dexterity and a Preacher. In 1958, Knotts appeared for the first time on film with Andy Griffith in the film version of No Time for Sergeants. In that film, Knotts reprised his Broadway role and played a high-strung Air Force test administrator whose routine is disrupted by the hijinks of a provincial new recruit.
The Andy Griffith Show
In 1960, Andy Griffith was offered the opportunity to headline his own sitcom, The Andy Griffith Show (1960–1968). Knotts took the role of Barney Fife, the deputy—and originally cousin—of Sheriff Andy Taylor (portrayed by Griffith). Knotts's portrayal of the deputy on the popular show earned him five Emmy Awards for Best Supporting Actor in a Television Comedy.
A summary of the show from the website of the Museum of Broadcast Communications describes Deputy Barney Fife:
When the show first aired, Griffith was intended to be the comedic lead with Knotts as his straight man, similar to their roles in No Time for Sergeants. However, it was quickly discovered that the show was funnier with the roles reversed. As Griffith maintained in several interviews, "By the second episode, I knew that Don should be funny, and I should play straight."
Knotts believed remarks by Griffith that The Andy Griffith Show would end after five seasons, and he began to look for other work, signing a five-film contract with Universal Studios. In his autobiography, Knotts admitted that he had not yet signed the contract when Griffith announced his decision to continue the series; but he had made up his mind to move on, believing he would not get the chance again. Knotts left the series in 1965. His character's absence on the show was explained by Deputy Fife's having finally made the "big time," joining the Raleigh, North Carolina, police force.
Post-Mayberry film career
Knotts went on to star in a series of film comedies that drew on his high-strung persona from the television series: he had a cameo appearance in United Artists' It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), and starred in Warner Bros.' The Incredible Mr. Limpet (1964). Knotts then began his Universal five-film contract with The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966), The Reluctant Astronaut (1967), The Shakiest Gun in the West (1968), The Love God? (1969) and How to Frame a Figg (1971). After making How to Frame a Figg, Knotts's five-film contract with Universal finished.
Knotts reprised his role as Barney Fife several times in the 1960s: he made five guest appearances on The Andy Griffith Show (gaining him another two Emmy Awards), and he later appeared once on the spin-off Mayberry R.F.D., where he was present as best man for the marriage of Andy Taylor and his longtime love, Helen Crump. He continued to work steadily, though he did not appear as a regular on any successful television series until in 1979 he got the part of landlord Ralph Furley on Three's Company for seasons 4 through 8, after the departure of Norman Fell, who had played the previous landlord.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Knotts served as the spokesman for Dodge trucks and was featured prominently in a series of print ads and dealer brochures. On television, he went on to host a variety show/sitcom hybrid on NBC, The Don Knotts Show, which aired Tuesdays during the fall of 1970, but the series was low-rated and short-lived, and Knotts was uncomfortable with the variety show format. He also made frequent guest appearances on other shows such as The Bill Cosby Show and Here's Lucy. In 1970, he appeared as a Barney Fife-like police officer in the pilot of The New Andy Griffith Show. In 1972, Knotts voiced an animated version of himself in two episodes of The New Scooby Doo Movies: "The Spooky Fog of Juneberry", in which he played a lawman resembling Barney Fife, and "Guess Who's Knott Coming to Dinner". He appeared as Felix Unger in a stage version of Neil Simon's The Odd Couple, with Art Carney as Oscar Madison, and toured in the Neil Simon comedy Last of the Red Hot Lovers.
Beginning in 1975, Knotts was teamed with Tim Conway in a series of slapstick films aimed at children, including the Disney film The Apple Dumpling Gang (1975) and its sequel, The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again (1979). They also did two independent films, the boxing comedy The Prize Fighter (1979), and the mystery-comedy The Private Eyes (1980). Knotts co-starred in several other Disney films, including Gus (1976), No Deposit, No Return (1976), Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo (1977) and Hot Lead and Cold Feet (1978).
Three's Company
In 1979, Knotts returned to series television in his second most identifiable role, the wacky but lovable landlord Ralph Furley on Three's Company. The series, which was already an established hit, added Knotts to the cast when the original landlords, Stanley and Helen Roper (a married couple played by Norman Fell and Audra Lindley, respectively) left the series to star in their own short-lived spin-off series The Ropers.
On set, Knotts easily integrated himself into the already established cast who were, as John Ritter put it, "so scared" of Knotts because of his star status when he joined the cast. When Suzanne Somers left the show after a contract dispute in 1981, the writers started giving the material meant for Somers's Chrissy to Knotts's Furley. Knotts remained on the series until it ended in 1984. The Three's Company script supervisor, Carol Summers, became Knotts' agent and often accompanied him to personal appearances.
Later years
In 1986, Don Knotts reunited with Andy Griffith in the made-for-television film Return to Mayberry, reprising his Barney Fife role. In early 1987, Knotts joined the cast of the first-run syndication comedy What a Country!, playing Principal Bud McPherson for the series' remaining 13 episodes. The sitcom was produced by Martin Rips and Joseph Staretski, who had previously worked on Three's Company.
In 1988, Knotts joined Andy Griffith in another show, playing the recurring role of pesky neighbor Les Calhoun on Matlock until 1992.
After that, Knotts's roles were sporadic, including a cameo appearance in the film Big Bully (1996) as the principal of the high school. In 1998, Knotts played a small but pivotal role as a mysterious TV repairman in Pleasantville. That year, his hometown of Morgantown, West Virginia, changed the name of the street formerly known as South University Avenue (U.S. Route 119) to Don Knotts Boulevard on "Don Knotts Day". Also that day, in honor of Knotts's role as Barney Fife, he was named an honorary deputy sheriff with the Monongalia County Sheriff's Department.
Knotts was recognized in 2000 with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He continued to act on stage, but much of his film and television work after 2000 was as voice talent. In 2002, he appeared again with Scooby-Doo in the video game Scooby-Doo! Night of 100 Frights. (Knotts also spoofed his appearances on that show in various promotions for Cartoon Network and in a parody on Robot Chicken, where he was teamed with Phyllis Diller.) In 2003, Knotts teamed up with Tim Conway again to provide voices for the direct-to-video children's series Hermie and Friends, which continued until his death. In 2005, he was the voice of Mayor Turkey Lurkey in Chicken Little (2005), his first Disney movie since 1979. On September 12, 2003, Knotts was in Kansas City in a stage version of On Golden Pond when he received a call from John Ritter's family telling him that his former Three's Company co-star had died of an aortic dissection that day. Knotts and his co-stars attended the funeral four days later. Knotts had appeared with Ritter one final time in a cameo on 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter. It was an episode that paid homage to their earlier television series. Knotts was the last Three's Company star to work with Ritter.
During this period of time, macular degeneration in both eyes caused the otherwise robust Knotts to become virtually blind. His live appearances on television were few. In 2005, Knotts parodied his Ralph Furley character while playing a Paul Young variation in a Desperate Housewives sketch on The 3rd Annual TV Land Awards. He parodied that part one final time in "Stone Cold Crazy", an episode of the sitcom That '70s Show. In the show, Knotts played Fez and Jackie's new landlord. This was his last live-action television appearance. His final role was in Air Buddies (2006), a direct-to-video sequel to Air Bud, voicing the sheriff's deputy dog, Sniffer.
Personal life
Knotts's friend Al Checco said, "Don was somewhat of a ladies' man. He fancied himself something of a Frank Sinatra. The ladies loved him and he dated quite a bit." Knotts was married three times. His marriage to Kathryn Metz lasted from 1947 until their divorce in 1964, and he raised his daughter as a single parent. He married Loralee Czuchna in 1974 and they divorced in 1983. His third marriage was to Frances Yarborough, from 2002 until his death in 2006. From his first marriage, Knotts had a son, Thomas Knotts, and a daughter, actress Karen Knotts (born April 2, 1954).
Knotts struggled with hypochondria and macular degeneration. Betty Lynn, one of Knotts' co-stars on The Andy Griffith Show, described him as a "very quiet man. Very sweet. Nothing like Barney Fife." TV writer Mark Evanier called him "the most beloved person in all of show business".
Death
Knotts died at age 81 on February 24, 2006, at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles from pulmonary and respiratory complications of pneumonia related to lung cancer. He had been undergoing treatment at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in the months before his death, but he returned home after he had reportedly been feeling better. He was buried at Westwood Memorial Park in Los Angeles.
Knotts' obituaries cited him as a major influence on other entertainers. In early 2011, his grave's plain granite headstone was replaced with a bronze plaque that displays several of Knotts' movie and television roles. A statue honoring Knotts, created by Jamie Lester, was unveiled on July 23, 2016, in front of The Metropolitan Theatre on High Street in his hometown of Morgantown, West Virginia.
Filmography
Film
No Time for Sergeants (1958) as Cpl. John C. Brown
Wake Me When It's Over (1960) as Sgt. Percy Warren
The Last Time I Saw Archie (1961) as Captain Harry Little
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) as the nervous motorist
Move Over, Darling (1963) as Shoe Clerk
The Incredible Mr. Limpet (1964) as Henry Limpet
The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966) as Luther Heggs
The Reluctant Astronaut (1967) as Roy Fleming
The Shakiest Gun in the West (1968) as Dr. Jesse W. Heywood
The Love God? (1969) as Abner Audubon Peacock IV
How to Frame a Figg (1971) as Hollis Alexander Figg
The Apple Dumpling Gang (1975) as Theodore Ogelvie
No Deposit, No Return (1976) as Bert Delaney
Gus (1976) as Coach Venner
Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo (1977) as Wheely Applegate
Mule Feathers (1978) as Narrator / The Mule (voice)
Hot Lead and Cold Feet (1978) as Sheriff Denver Kid
The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again (1979) as Theodore Ogelvie
The Prize Fighter (1979) as Shake
The Private Eyes (1980) as Inspector Winship
Cannonball Run II (1984) as CHP Officer #2
Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night (1987) as Gee Willikers (voice)
Big Bully (1996) as Principal Kokelar
Cats Don't Dance (1997) as T.W. Turtle (voice)
Pleasantville (1998) as TV Repairman
Tom Sawyer (2000) as Mutt Potter (voice)
Quints (2000) as Governor Healy
Chicken Little (2005) as Mayor Turkey Lurkey (voice)
Air Buddies (2006) as Sniffer (voice; final film role, posthumous release)
Television
Search for Tomorrow (1953–1955) as Wilbur Peterson
The Steve Allen Show (1956–1960) as Himself
The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (1960) as Esmond Metzger
The Andy Griffith Show (1960–1968) as Barney Fife
The Joey Bishop Show (1 episode 1964) as Barney Fife
The Red Skelton Show (1961–1965) as Commodore of Lagoons / 'Steady Fingers' Ferguson / Horaces Horatio / Mr. Pallid / Herbie
The New Steve Allen Show (1961–1963) as Regular
The Garry Moore Show (4 episodes 1962–1964) as Himself
McHale's Navy (Season 4, Episode 25) as Lt. Pratt
The Jerry Lewis Show (1 episode 1963) as Himself
38th Academy Awards (1966) as Himself (co-presenter)
The Don Knotts Special (1967) as Himself (host/performer)
The Hollywood Palace (1 episode #7.17 1970) as Himself
The Don Knotts Show (1970–1971) as Himself (host)
Don Knotts' Nice Clean, Decent, Wholesome Hour (1970) as Himself (host/performer)
The New Scooby-Doo Movies (2 episodes 1972) as Himself (voice)
The Man Who Came to Dinner (1972) as Dr. Bradley
The Flip Wilson Show (1972–73) (2 episodes) as Himself
Dinah Shore: In Search of the Ideal Man (1973) as Himself
I Love a Mystery (1973) as Alexander Archer
Here's Lucy (1973) (1 episode) as Ben Fletcher
Hollywood Squares (4 episodes, 1974–1977) as Himself – Panelist
Steve Allen's Laugh Back (1975)
The Captain & Tennille Show (1976–1977) as Himself (recurring guest)
The Muppet Show (1977) as Himself – Special Guest Star
Fantasy Island (1978–1979) as Felix Birdsong / Stanley Scheckter
The Love Boat (1979) as Herb Grobecker / Devon King
Three's Company (1979–1984) as Ralph Furley
George Burns Comedy Week (1985) as Himself
Return to Mayberry (1986) as Barney Fife
What a Country! (1987) as F. Jerry 'Bud' McPherson
The Little Troll Prince (1987) as Professor Nidaros (voice)
Matlock (1987–1992) as Les Calhoun
Newhart (1 episode 1990) as Iron
Timmy's Gift: A Precious Moments Christmas (1991) as Titus (voice)
The Andy Griffith Show Reunion (1993) as Himself
Burke's Law (1 episode 1994)
Step by Step (1993) (1 episode) as Deputy Feif
101 Dalmatians: The Series (2 episodes, 1997–1998) as Additional Voices (voice)
E! True Hollywood Story (1 episode 1998) as Himself
Late Night with Conan O'Brien (1 episode 1999) as Himself
Jingle Bells (1999) as Kris (voice)
Inside TV Land: The Andy Griffith Show (2000) as Himself
Biography TV Documentary (2 episodes 2000–2002) as Himself
Biography: "John Ritter: In Good Company" (2002) as Himself
Inside TV Land: Cops on Camera (2002) as Himself
Odd Job Jack (2003) as Dirk Douglas
8 Simple Rules (2003) as Himself
Larry King Live (1 episode 2003) as Himself
The Andy Griffith Show: Back To Mayberry (2003) as Himself/Barney Fife
TV Lands Top Ten (2004) (1 episode) as Himself
Johnny Bravo (cartoon series), episode "Johnny Makeover" (2004) as Don Knotts (voice)
That '70s Show (2005) as The Landlord
Las Vegas (2005) as Himself
The 3rd Annual TV Land Awards (2005) as Paul Young (segment "Desperate Classic Housewives")
Robot Chicken as Himself
Hatching Chicken Little (2006) as Himself
CMT: The Greatest – 20 Greatest Country Comedy Shows (2006) as Himself
Video games
Scooby-Doo! Night of 100 Frights (2002) as The Groundskeeper
Animation videos
Hermie and Friends (2003–06) as Wormie
Awards
References
Further reading
Klin, Richard. "Fife and Drum". Flagpole, 2006.
External links
The West Virginia & Regional History Center has a collection of materials related to the career or Don Knotts
20th-century American comedians
20th-century American male actors
21st-century American comedians
21st-century American male actors
1924 births
2006 deaths
American male comedians
American male film actors
American male soap opera actors
American male television actors
American male voice actors
United States Army personnel of World War II
American people of English descent
Burials at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery
Deaths from cancer in California
Deaths from lung cancer
Deaths from pneumonia in California
Disney people
Male actors from West Virginia
Military personnel from West Virginia
Morgantown High School alumni
Outstanding Performance by a Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series Primetime Emmy Award winners
People from Morgantown, West Virginia
United States Army soldiers
Ventriloquists
West Virginia University alumni | false | [
"Cookin' Cheap is a nationally syndicated cooking show, originally hosted by Larry Bly and Earl \"Laban\" Johnson, Jr. (July 29, 1941 - March 2, 1999). Cookin' Cheap was taped in the studios of Blue Ridge Public Television in Roanoke, Virginia. It began its national distribution through the PBS system in 1981, and more recently did a syndication run on the GoodLife TV Network.\n\nCookin' Cheap contrasted itself with contemporary cooking shows of its time by not attempting to hide the tedious preparation work that goes into cooking a recipe, and by using common ingredients purchased at local supermarkets in Roanoke, Virginia, where the show was produced. Johnson stated that the idea for the show was born from the frustration he suffered when trying to recreate the recipes of Julia Child, lacking ingredients that are unavailable in a small southern town.\n\nLaban Johnson's illness and death \nLaban Johnson suffered from complications of congestive heart failure and diabetes in his later years. In 1994, he temporarily took a leave from the show to undergo and recover from heart surgery. He returned in 1996. On March 2, 1999, Johnson was found dead at his apartment in Roanoke, Virginia by several members of the production staff, when he failed to show up for a taping. He was 57. Before his death, Johnson left instructions for Larry Bly to write and deliver his eulogy at his funeral, which he did. Johnson was replaced by Doug Patterson, his hand-picked successor, for the remainder of the show's run.\n\nCancellation \nThe show ended its run in October 2002. Budget cuts were cited as the reason for the cancellation, even though Bly has claimed the show only cost $20,000 per year to produce. Bly claims that even though Blue Ridge Public Television \"threw all the master tapes in the trash\", he has located alternate master tapes, as well as securing the copyright to the show, and plans to release a DVD series.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nLarry Bly's Official Site\nCookin' Cheap Episodes\nNew York Times article\n\n1981 American television series debuts\n1990s American television series\n2002 American television series endings\n2000s American cooking television series\nPBS original programming",
"Mark Scott (February 21, 1915 – July 13, 1960) was an actor and broadcaster. He is probably best known for hosting the Home Run Derby television show that originally aired in 1960. Scott, who was a native of Chicago, died of a heart attack in Burbank, California, shortly after the first season of the show aired. Rather than find a replacement for him, the producers decided to cancel the series.\n\nDuring the Home Run Derby show, he both announced the action and interviewed each contestant when his opponent was batting. His most well known line from the show was, \"It's a home run or nothing here on Home Run Derby.\"\n\nPrior to Home Run Derby, he had been an announcer for the Cincinnati Redlegs and for the Hollywood Stars of the Pacific Coast League, which transferred out of the city after the 1957 season due to the arrival of the Los Angeles Dodgers.\n\nExternal links\n \n\n1915 births\n1960 deaths\n20th-century American male actors\nAmerican game show hosts\nAmerican male television actors\nAmerican sports announcers\nCincinnati Reds announcers\nMajor League Baseball broadcasters\nMale actors from Chicago\nMinor League Baseball broadcasters\nNational Football League announcers"
] |
[
"Don Knotts",
"The Andy Griffith Show",
"What show did he star in",
"Andy Griffith was offered the opportunity to headline his own sitcom, The Andy Griffith Show",
"When did the show run for",
"1960-1968"
] | C_78df05bd80874e908541d6c62b2828dd_0 | How did knotts fit into the show | 3 | How did Knotts fit into the Andy Griffith Show? | Don Knotts | In 1960, Andy Griffith was offered the opportunity to headline his own sitcom, The Andy Griffith Show (1960-1968). Knotts took the role of Barney Fife, the deputy--and originally cousin--of Sheriff Andy Taylor (portrayed by Griffith). Knotts's portrayal of the deputy on the popular show earned him five Emmy Awards for Best Supporting Actor in a Television Comedy, three awards for the first five seasons that he played the character. A summary of the show from the website of the Museum of Broadcast Communications describes Deputy Barney Fife: Self-important, romantic, and nearly always wrong, Barney dreamed of the day he could use the one bullet Andy had issued to him, though he did fire his gun on a few occasions. He always fired his pistol accidentally while still in his holster or in the ceiling of the court house, at which point he would sadly hand his pistol to Andy. This is why Barney kept his one very shiny bullet in his shirt pocket. In episode #196, Andy gave Barney more bullets so that he would have a loaded gun to go after a bad guy that Barney unintentionally helped escape. While Barney was forever frustrated that Mayberry was too small for the delusional ideas he had of himself, viewers got the sense that he couldn't have survived anywhere else. Don Knotts played the comic and pathetic sides of the character with equal aplomb and he received three Emmy Awards during the show's first five seasons. When the show first aired, Griffith was intended to be the comedic lead with Knotts as his straight man, similar to their roles in No Time for Sergeants. However, it was quickly discovered that the show was funnier with the roles reversed. As Griffith maintained in several interviews, "By the second episode, I knew that Don should be funny, and I should play straight." Knotts believed remarks by Griffith that The Andy Griffith Show would end after five seasons, and he began to look for other work, signing a five-film contract with Universal Studios. He was caught off guard when Griffith announced that he would continue the show after all, but Knotts's hands were tied. In his autobiography, Knotts admitted that he had not yet signed a contract when Griffith announced his decision; but he had made up his mind to move on, believing he would not get the chance again. Knotts left the series in 1965. His character's absence on the show was explained by Deputy Fife's having finally made the "big time," joining the Raleigh, North Carolina police force. CANNOTANSWER | Knotts took the role of Barney Fife, the deputy--and originally cousin--of Sheriff Andy Taylor (portrayed by Griffith | Jesse Donald Knotts (July 21, 1924February 24, 2006) was an American actor and comedian. He is widely known for his role as Deputy Sheriff Barney Fife on The Andy Griffith Show, a 1960s sitcom for which he earned five Emmy Awards. He also played Ralph Furley on the highly rated sitcom Three's Company from 1979 to 1984. He starred in multiple comedic films, including the leading roles in The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966) and The Incredible Mr. Limpet (1964). In 1979, TV Guide ranked him number 27 on its 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time list.
Early life
Jesse Donald Knotts was born on July 21, 1924, in Morgantown, West Virginia, the youngest of four sons born to farmer William Jesse Knotts and his wife, Elsie Luzetta Knotts (née Moore). His parents were married in Spraggs, Pennsylvania. His English paternal ancestors emigrated to America in the 17th century, originally settling in Queen Anne's County, Maryland. Knotts' brothers were named Willis, William, and Ralph "Sid".
Don's mother was 40 at the time of his birth and his father suffered from mental illness. Afflicted with schizophrenia and alcoholism, he sometimes terrorized Don with a knife, causing Don to turn inward at an early age. The elder Knotts died of pneumonia when Don was 13 years old. Don and his brothers were then raised by their mother, who ran a boarding house in Morgantown. She died in 1969 at age 84. Her son William preceded her in death in 1941 at age 31. They are buried in the family plot at Beverly Hills Memorial Park in Morgantown.
Don graduated from Morgantown High School. After enlisting in the United States Army and serving in World War II, Don earned a bachelor's degree in education with a minor in speech from West Virginia University in Morgantown, graduating in 1948. He was a member of Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity and Alpha Psi Omega Honor Society while at WVU.
Career
Early career
Before he entered high school, Knotts began performing as a ventriloquist and comedian at various church and school functions. After high school, he traveled to New York City to try to make his way as a comedian but returned home to attend West Virginia University when his career failed to take off. After his college freshman year, Knotts joined the U.S. Army and spent most of his service entertaining troops. He toured the western Pacific Islands as a comedian as part of a G.I. variety show called "Stars and Gripes". His ventriloquist act in "Stars and Gripes" included a dummy named Danny, which Knotts grew to hate, eventually throwing it overboard according to his friend and castmate, Al Checco.
Knotts served in the U.S. Army from June 21, 1943, to January 6, 1946, in the Army's 6817th Special Services Battalion. He was discharged at the rank of Technician Grade 5, which was the equivalent then of a corporal. During his military service, Knotts was awarded the World War II Victory Medal, the Philippine Liberation Medal, the Asiatic–Pacific Campaign Medal (with 4 bronze service stars), the American Campaign Medal, the Army Good Conduct Medal, the Army Marksman Badge (with an M1 Carbine) and the Honorable Service Lapel Pin.
Knotts returned to West Virginia University after being demobilized and graduated in 1948. He married Kay Metz and moved back to New York, where connections he had made while in the Special Services Branch helped him break into show business. In addition to doing stand-up comedy at clubs, he appeared on the radio, eventually playing the wisecracking, know-it-all character "Windy Wales" on a radio Western called "Bobby Benson and the B-Bar-B Riders".
Knotts got his first major break on television in the soap opera Search for Tomorrow where he appeared from 1953 to 1955. He came to fame in 1956 on Steve Allen's variety show, as part of Allen's repertory company, most notably in Allen's mock "Man in the Street" interviews, always as an extremely nervous man. He remained with the Allen program through the 1959–1960 season. From October 20, 1955, through September 14, 1957, Knotts appeared in the Broadway play version of No Time for Sergeants, in which he played two roles, listed on the playbill as a Corporal Manual Dexterity and a Preacher. In 1958, Knotts appeared for the first time on film with Andy Griffith in the film version of No Time for Sergeants. In that film, Knotts reprised his Broadway role and played a high-strung Air Force test administrator whose routine is disrupted by the hijinks of a provincial new recruit.
The Andy Griffith Show
In 1960, Andy Griffith was offered the opportunity to headline his own sitcom, The Andy Griffith Show (1960–1968). Knotts took the role of Barney Fife, the deputy—and originally cousin—of Sheriff Andy Taylor (portrayed by Griffith). Knotts's portrayal of the deputy on the popular show earned him five Emmy Awards for Best Supporting Actor in a Television Comedy.
A summary of the show from the website of the Museum of Broadcast Communications describes Deputy Barney Fife:
When the show first aired, Griffith was intended to be the comedic lead with Knotts as his straight man, similar to their roles in No Time for Sergeants. However, it was quickly discovered that the show was funnier with the roles reversed. As Griffith maintained in several interviews, "By the second episode, I knew that Don should be funny, and I should play straight."
Knotts believed remarks by Griffith that The Andy Griffith Show would end after five seasons, and he began to look for other work, signing a five-film contract with Universal Studios. In his autobiography, Knotts admitted that he had not yet signed the contract when Griffith announced his decision to continue the series; but he had made up his mind to move on, believing he would not get the chance again. Knotts left the series in 1965. His character's absence on the show was explained by Deputy Fife's having finally made the "big time," joining the Raleigh, North Carolina, police force.
Post-Mayberry film career
Knotts went on to star in a series of film comedies that drew on his high-strung persona from the television series: he had a cameo appearance in United Artists' It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), and starred in Warner Bros.' The Incredible Mr. Limpet (1964). Knotts then began his Universal five-film contract with The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966), The Reluctant Astronaut (1967), The Shakiest Gun in the West (1968), The Love God? (1969) and How to Frame a Figg (1971). After making How to Frame a Figg, Knotts's five-film contract with Universal finished.
Knotts reprised his role as Barney Fife several times in the 1960s: he made five guest appearances on The Andy Griffith Show (gaining him another two Emmy Awards), and he later appeared once on the spin-off Mayberry R.F.D., where he was present as best man for the marriage of Andy Taylor and his longtime love, Helen Crump. He continued to work steadily, though he did not appear as a regular on any successful television series until in 1979 he got the part of landlord Ralph Furley on Three's Company for seasons 4 through 8, after the departure of Norman Fell, who had played the previous landlord.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Knotts served as the spokesman for Dodge trucks and was featured prominently in a series of print ads and dealer brochures. On television, he went on to host a variety show/sitcom hybrid on NBC, The Don Knotts Show, which aired Tuesdays during the fall of 1970, but the series was low-rated and short-lived, and Knotts was uncomfortable with the variety show format. He also made frequent guest appearances on other shows such as The Bill Cosby Show and Here's Lucy. In 1970, he appeared as a Barney Fife-like police officer in the pilot of The New Andy Griffith Show. In 1972, Knotts voiced an animated version of himself in two episodes of The New Scooby Doo Movies: "The Spooky Fog of Juneberry", in which he played a lawman resembling Barney Fife, and "Guess Who's Knott Coming to Dinner". He appeared as Felix Unger in a stage version of Neil Simon's The Odd Couple, with Art Carney as Oscar Madison, and toured in the Neil Simon comedy Last of the Red Hot Lovers.
Beginning in 1975, Knotts was teamed with Tim Conway in a series of slapstick films aimed at children, including the Disney film The Apple Dumpling Gang (1975) and its sequel, The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again (1979). They also did two independent films, the boxing comedy The Prize Fighter (1979), and the mystery-comedy The Private Eyes (1980). Knotts co-starred in several other Disney films, including Gus (1976), No Deposit, No Return (1976), Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo (1977) and Hot Lead and Cold Feet (1978).
Three's Company
In 1979, Knotts returned to series television in his second most identifiable role, the wacky but lovable landlord Ralph Furley on Three's Company. The series, which was already an established hit, added Knotts to the cast when the original landlords, Stanley and Helen Roper (a married couple played by Norman Fell and Audra Lindley, respectively) left the series to star in their own short-lived spin-off series The Ropers.
On set, Knotts easily integrated himself into the already established cast who were, as John Ritter put it, "so scared" of Knotts because of his star status when he joined the cast. When Suzanne Somers left the show after a contract dispute in 1981, the writers started giving the material meant for Somers's Chrissy to Knotts's Furley. Knotts remained on the series until it ended in 1984. The Three's Company script supervisor, Carol Summers, became Knotts' agent and often accompanied him to personal appearances.
Later years
In 1986, Don Knotts reunited with Andy Griffith in the made-for-television film Return to Mayberry, reprising his Barney Fife role. In early 1987, Knotts joined the cast of the first-run syndication comedy What a Country!, playing Principal Bud McPherson for the series' remaining 13 episodes. The sitcom was produced by Martin Rips and Joseph Staretski, who had previously worked on Three's Company.
In 1988, Knotts joined Andy Griffith in another show, playing the recurring role of pesky neighbor Les Calhoun on Matlock until 1992.
After that, Knotts's roles were sporadic, including a cameo appearance in the film Big Bully (1996) as the principal of the high school. In 1998, Knotts played a small but pivotal role as a mysterious TV repairman in Pleasantville. That year, his hometown of Morgantown, West Virginia, changed the name of the street formerly known as South University Avenue (U.S. Route 119) to Don Knotts Boulevard on "Don Knotts Day". Also that day, in honor of Knotts's role as Barney Fife, he was named an honorary deputy sheriff with the Monongalia County Sheriff's Department.
Knotts was recognized in 2000 with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He continued to act on stage, but much of his film and television work after 2000 was as voice talent. In 2002, he appeared again with Scooby-Doo in the video game Scooby-Doo! Night of 100 Frights. (Knotts also spoofed his appearances on that show in various promotions for Cartoon Network and in a parody on Robot Chicken, where he was teamed with Phyllis Diller.) In 2003, Knotts teamed up with Tim Conway again to provide voices for the direct-to-video children's series Hermie and Friends, which continued until his death. In 2005, he was the voice of Mayor Turkey Lurkey in Chicken Little (2005), his first Disney movie since 1979. On September 12, 2003, Knotts was in Kansas City in a stage version of On Golden Pond when he received a call from John Ritter's family telling him that his former Three's Company co-star had died of an aortic dissection that day. Knotts and his co-stars attended the funeral four days later. Knotts had appeared with Ritter one final time in a cameo on 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter. It was an episode that paid homage to their earlier television series. Knotts was the last Three's Company star to work with Ritter.
During this period of time, macular degeneration in both eyes caused the otherwise robust Knotts to become virtually blind. His live appearances on television were few. In 2005, Knotts parodied his Ralph Furley character while playing a Paul Young variation in a Desperate Housewives sketch on The 3rd Annual TV Land Awards. He parodied that part one final time in "Stone Cold Crazy", an episode of the sitcom That '70s Show. In the show, Knotts played Fez and Jackie's new landlord. This was his last live-action television appearance. His final role was in Air Buddies (2006), a direct-to-video sequel to Air Bud, voicing the sheriff's deputy dog, Sniffer.
Personal life
Knotts's friend Al Checco said, "Don was somewhat of a ladies' man. He fancied himself something of a Frank Sinatra. The ladies loved him and he dated quite a bit." Knotts was married three times. His marriage to Kathryn Metz lasted from 1947 until their divorce in 1964, and he raised his daughter as a single parent. He married Loralee Czuchna in 1974 and they divorced in 1983. His third marriage was to Frances Yarborough, from 2002 until his death in 2006. From his first marriage, Knotts had a son, Thomas Knotts, and a daughter, actress Karen Knotts (born April 2, 1954).
Knotts struggled with hypochondria and macular degeneration. Betty Lynn, one of Knotts' co-stars on The Andy Griffith Show, described him as a "very quiet man. Very sweet. Nothing like Barney Fife." TV writer Mark Evanier called him "the most beloved person in all of show business".
Death
Knotts died at age 81 on February 24, 2006, at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles from pulmonary and respiratory complications of pneumonia related to lung cancer. He had been undergoing treatment at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in the months before his death, but he returned home after he had reportedly been feeling better. He was buried at Westwood Memorial Park in Los Angeles.
Knotts' obituaries cited him as a major influence on other entertainers. In early 2011, his grave's plain granite headstone was replaced with a bronze plaque that displays several of Knotts' movie and television roles. A statue honoring Knotts, created by Jamie Lester, was unveiled on July 23, 2016, in front of The Metropolitan Theatre on High Street in his hometown of Morgantown, West Virginia.
Filmography
Film
No Time for Sergeants (1958) as Cpl. John C. Brown
Wake Me When It's Over (1960) as Sgt. Percy Warren
The Last Time I Saw Archie (1961) as Captain Harry Little
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) as the nervous motorist
Move Over, Darling (1963) as Shoe Clerk
The Incredible Mr. Limpet (1964) as Henry Limpet
The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966) as Luther Heggs
The Reluctant Astronaut (1967) as Roy Fleming
The Shakiest Gun in the West (1968) as Dr. Jesse W. Heywood
The Love God? (1969) as Abner Audubon Peacock IV
How to Frame a Figg (1971) as Hollis Alexander Figg
The Apple Dumpling Gang (1975) as Theodore Ogelvie
No Deposit, No Return (1976) as Bert Delaney
Gus (1976) as Coach Venner
Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo (1977) as Wheely Applegate
Mule Feathers (1978) as Narrator / The Mule (voice)
Hot Lead and Cold Feet (1978) as Sheriff Denver Kid
The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again (1979) as Theodore Ogelvie
The Prize Fighter (1979) as Shake
The Private Eyes (1980) as Inspector Winship
Cannonball Run II (1984) as CHP Officer #2
Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night (1987) as Gee Willikers (voice)
Big Bully (1996) as Principal Kokelar
Cats Don't Dance (1997) as T.W. Turtle (voice)
Pleasantville (1998) as TV Repairman
Tom Sawyer (2000) as Mutt Potter (voice)
Quints (2000) as Governor Healy
Chicken Little (2005) as Mayor Turkey Lurkey (voice)
Air Buddies (2006) as Sniffer (voice; final film role, posthumous release)
Television
Search for Tomorrow (1953–1955) as Wilbur Peterson
The Steve Allen Show (1956–1960) as Himself
The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (1960) as Esmond Metzger
The Andy Griffith Show (1960–1968) as Barney Fife
The Joey Bishop Show (1 episode 1964) as Barney Fife
The Red Skelton Show (1961–1965) as Commodore of Lagoons / 'Steady Fingers' Ferguson / Horaces Horatio / Mr. Pallid / Herbie
The New Steve Allen Show (1961–1963) as Regular
The Garry Moore Show (4 episodes 1962–1964) as Himself
McHale's Navy (Season 4, Episode 25) as Lt. Pratt
The Jerry Lewis Show (1 episode 1963) as Himself
38th Academy Awards (1966) as Himself (co-presenter)
The Don Knotts Special (1967) as Himself (host/performer)
The Hollywood Palace (1 episode #7.17 1970) as Himself
The Don Knotts Show (1970–1971) as Himself (host)
Don Knotts' Nice Clean, Decent, Wholesome Hour (1970) as Himself (host/performer)
The New Scooby-Doo Movies (2 episodes 1972) as Himself (voice)
The Man Who Came to Dinner (1972) as Dr. Bradley
The Flip Wilson Show (1972–73) (2 episodes) as Himself
Dinah Shore: In Search of the Ideal Man (1973) as Himself
I Love a Mystery (1973) as Alexander Archer
Here's Lucy (1973) (1 episode) as Ben Fletcher
Hollywood Squares (4 episodes, 1974–1977) as Himself – Panelist
Steve Allen's Laugh Back (1975)
The Captain & Tennille Show (1976–1977) as Himself (recurring guest)
The Muppet Show (1977) as Himself – Special Guest Star
Fantasy Island (1978–1979) as Felix Birdsong / Stanley Scheckter
The Love Boat (1979) as Herb Grobecker / Devon King
Three's Company (1979–1984) as Ralph Furley
George Burns Comedy Week (1985) as Himself
Return to Mayberry (1986) as Barney Fife
What a Country! (1987) as F. Jerry 'Bud' McPherson
The Little Troll Prince (1987) as Professor Nidaros (voice)
Matlock (1987–1992) as Les Calhoun
Newhart (1 episode 1990) as Iron
Timmy's Gift: A Precious Moments Christmas (1991) as Titus (voice)
The Andy Griffith Show Reunion (1993) as Himself
Burke's Law (1 episode 1994)
Step by Step (1993) (1 episode) as Deputy Feif
101 Dalmatians: The Series (2 episodes, 1997–1998) as Additional Voices (voice)
E! True Hollywood Story (1 episode 1998) as Himself
Late Night with Conan O'Brien (1 episode 1999) as Himself
Jingle Bells (1999) as Kris (voice)
Inside TV Land: The Andy Griffith Show (2000) as Himself
Biography TV Documentary (2 episodes 2000–2002) as Himself
Biography: "John Ritter: In Good Company" (2002) as Himself
Inside TV Land: Cops on Camera (2002) as Himself
Odd Job Jack (2003) as Dirk Douglas
8 Simple Rules (2003) as Himself
Larry King Live (1 episode 2003) as Himself
The Andy Griffith Show: Back To Mayberry (2003) as Himself/Barney Fife
TV Lands Top Ten (2004) (1 episode) as Himself
Johnny Bravo (cartoon series), episode "Johnny Makeover" (2004) as Don Knotts (voice)
That '70s Show (2005) as The Landlord
Las Vegas (2005) as Himself
The 3rd Annual TV Land Awards (2005) as Paul Young (segment "Desperate Classic Housewives")
Robot Chicken as Himself
Hatching Chicken Little (2006) as Himself
CMT: The Greatest – 20 Greatest Country Comedy Shows (2006) as Himself
Video games
Scooby-Doo! Night of 100 Frights (2002) as The Groundskeeper
Animation videos
Hermie and Friends (2003–06) as Wormie
Awards
References
Further reading
Klin, Richard. "Fife and Drum". Flagpole, 2006.
External links
The West Virginia & Regional History Center has a collection of materials related to the career or Don Knotts
20th-century American comedians
20th-century American male actors
21st-century American comedians
21st-century American male actors
1924 births
2006 deaths
American male comedians
American male film actors
American male soap opera actors
American male television actors
American male voice actors
United States Army personnel of World War II
American people of English descent
Burials at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery
Deaths from cancer in California
Deaths from lung cancer
Deaths from pneumonia in California
Disney people
Male actors from West Virginia
Military personnel from West Virginia
Morgantown High School alumni
Outstanding Performance by a Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series Primetime Emmy Award winners
People from Morgantown, West Virginia
United States Army soldiers
Ventriloquists
West Virginia University alumni | false | [
"Jesse Donald Knotts (July 21, 1924February 24, 2006) was an American actor and comedian. He is widely known for his role as Deputy Sheriff Barney Fife on The Andy Griffith Show, a 1960s sitcom for which he earned five Emmy Awards. He also played Ralph Furley on the highly rated sitcom Three's Company from 1979 to 1984. He starred in multiple comedic films, including the leading roles in The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966) and The Incredible Mr. Limpet (1964). In 1979, TV Guide ranked him number 27 on its 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time list.\n\nEarly life \nJesse Donald Knotts was born on July 21, 1924, in Morgantown, West Virginia, the youngest of four sons born to farmer William Jesse Knotts and his wife, Elsie Luzetta Knotts (née Moore). His parents were married in Spraggs, Pennsylvania. His English paternal ancestors emigrated to America in the 17th century, originally settling in Queen Anne's County, Maryland. Knotts' brothers were named Willis, William, and Ralph \"Sid\".\n\nDon's mother was 40 at the time of his birth and his father suffered from mental illness. Afflicted with schizophrenia and alcoholism, he sometimes terrorized Don with a knife, causing Don to turn inward at an early age. The elder Knotts died of pneumonia when Don was 13 years old. Don and his brothers were then raised by their mother, who ran a boarding house in Morgantown. She died in 1969 at age 84. Her son William preceded her in death in 1941 at age 31. They are buried in the family plot at Beverly Hills Memorial Park in Morgantown. \n\nDon graduated from Morgantown High School. After enlisting in the United States Army and serving in World War II, Don earned a bachelor's degree in education with a minor in speech from West Virginia University in Morgantown, graduating in 1948. He was a member of Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity and Alpha Psi Omega Honor Society while at WVU.\n\nCareer\n\nEarly career \nBefore he entered high school, Knotts began performing as a ventriloquist and comedian at various church and school functions. After high school, he traveled to New York City to try to make his way as a comedian but returned home to attend West Virginia University when his career failed to take off. After his college freshman year, Knotts joined the U.S. Army and spent most of his service entertaining troops. He toured the western Pacific Islands as a comedian as part of a G.I. variety show called \"Stars and Gripes\". His ventriloquist act in \"Stars and Gripes\" included a dummy named Danny, which Knotts grew to hate, eventually throwing it overboard according to his friend and castmate, Al Checco.\n\nKnotts served in the U.S. Army from June 21, 1943, to January 6, 1946, in the Army's 6817th Special Services Battalion. He was discharged at the rank of Technician Grade 5, which was the equivalent then of a corporal. During his military service, Knotts was awarded the World War II Victory Medal, the Philippine Liberation Medal, the Asiatic–Pacific Campaign Medal (with 4 bronze service stars), the American Campaign Medal, the Army Good Conduct Medal, the Army Marksman Badge (with an M1 Carbine) and the Honorable Service Lapel Pin.\n\nKnotts returned to West Virginia University after being demobilized and graduated in 1948. He married Kay Metz and moved back to New York, where connections he had made while in the Special Services Branch helped him break into show business. In addition to doing stand-up comedy at clubs, he appeared on the radio, eventually playing the wisecracking, know-it-all character \"Windy Wales\" on a radio Western called \"Bobby Benson and the B-Bar-B Riders\".\n\nKnotts got his first major break on television in the soap opera Search for Tomorrow where he appeared from 1953 to 1955. He came to fame in 1956 on Steve Allen's variety show, as part of Allen's repertory company, most notably in Allen's mock \"Man in the Street\" interviews, always as an extremely nervous man. He remained with the Allen program through the 1959–1960 season. From October 20, 1955, through September 14, 1957, Knotts appeared in the Broadway play version of No Time for Sergeants, in which he played two roles, listed on the playbill as a Corporal Manual Dexterity and a Preacher. In 1958, Knotts appeared for the first time on film with Andy Griffith in the film version of No Time for Sergeants. In that film, Knotts reprised his Broadway role and played a high-strung Air Force test administrator whose routine is disrupted by the hijinks of a provincial new recruit.\n\nThe Andy Griffith Show \n\nIn 1960, Andy Griffith was offered the opportunity to headline his own sitcom, The Andy Griffith Show (1960–1968). Knotts took the role of Barney Fife, the deputy—and originally cousin—of Sheriff Andy Taylor (portrayed by Griffith). Knotts's portrayal of the deputy on the popular show earned him five Emmy Awards for Best Supporting Actor in a Television Comedy.\n\nA summary of the show from the website of the Museum of Broadcast Communications describes Deputy Barney Fife:\n\nWhen the show first aired, Griffith was intended to be the comedic lead with Knotts as his straight man, similar to their roles in No Time for Sergeants. However, it was quickly discovered that the show was funnier with the roles reversed. As Griffith maintained in several interviews, \"By the second episode, I knew that Don should be funny, and I should play straight.\"\n\nKnotts believed remarks by Griffith that The Andy Griffith Show would end after five seasons, and he began to look for other work, signing a five-film contract with Universal Studios. In his autobiography, Knotts admitted that he had not yet signed the contract when Griffith announced his decision to continue the series; but he had made up his mind to move on, believing he would not get the chance again. Knotts left the series in 1965. His character's absence on the show was explained by Deputy Fife's having finally made the \"big time,\" joining the Raleigh, North Carolina, police force.\n\nPost-Mayberry film career \n\nKnotts went on to star in a series of film comedies that drew on his high-strung persona from the television series: he had a cameo appearance in United Artists' It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), and starred in Warner Bros.' The Incredible Mr. Limpet (1964). Knotts then began his Universal five-film contract with The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966), The Reluctant Astronaut (1967), The Shakiest Gun in the West (1968), The Love God? (1969) and How to Frame a Figg (1971). After making How to Frame a Figg, Knotts's five-film contract with Universal finished. \n\nKnotts reprised his role as Barney Fife several times in the 1960s: he made five guest appearances on The Andy Griffith Show (gaining him another two Emmy Awards), and he later appeared once on the spin-off Mayberry R.F.D., where he was present as best man for the marriage of Andy Taylor and his longtime love, Helen Crump. He continued to work steadily, though he did not appear as a regular on any successful television series until in 1979 he got the part of landlord Ralph Furley on Three's Company for seasons 4 through 8, after the departure of Norman Fell, who had played the previous landlord. \n\nIn the late 1960s and early 1970s, Knotts served as the spokesman for Dodge trucks and was featured prominently in a series of print ads and dealer brochures. On television, he went on to host a variety show/sitcom hybrid on NBC, The Don Knotts Show, which aired Tuesdays during the fall of 1970, but the series was low-rated and short-lived, and Knotts was uncomfortable with the variety show format. He also made frequent guest appearances on other shows such as The Bill Cosby Show and Here's Lucy. In 1970, he appeared as a Barney Fife-like police officer in the pilot of The New Andy Griffith Show. In 1972, Knotts voiced an animated version of himself in two episodes of The New Scooby Doo Movies: \"The Spooky Fog of Juneberry\", in which he played a lawman resembling Barney Fife, and \"Guess Who's Knott Coming to Dinner\". He appeared as Felix Unger in a stage version of Neil Simon's The Odd Couple, with Art Carney as Oscar Madison, and toured in the Neil Simon comedy Last of the Red Hot Lovers.\n\nBeginning in 1975, Knotts was teamed with Tim Conway in a series of slapstick films aimed at children, including the Disney film The Apple Dumpling Gang (1975) and its sequel, The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again (1979). They also did two independent films, the boxing comedy The Prize Fighter (1979), and the mystery-comedy The Private Eyes (1980). Knotts co-starred in several other Disney films, including Gus (1976), No Deposit, No Return (1976), Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo (1977) and Hot Lead and Cold Feet (1978).\n\nThree's Company \nIn 1979, Knotts returned to series television in his second most identifiable role, the wacky but lovable landlord Ralph Furley on Three's Company. The series, which was already an established hit, added Knotts to the cast when the original landlords, Stanley and Helen Roper (a married couple played by Norman Fell and Audra Lindley, respectively) left the series to star in their own short-lived spin-off series The Ropers.\n\nOn set, Knotts easily integrated himself into the already established cast who were, as John Ritter put it, \"so scared\" of Knotts because of his star status when he joined the cast. When Suzanne Somers left the show after a contract dispute in 1981, the writers started giving the material meant for Somers's Chrissy to Knotts's Furley. Knotts remained on the series until it ended in 1984. The Three's Company script supervisor, Carol Summers, became Knotts' agent and often accompanied him to personal appearances.\n\nLater years \nIn 1986, Don Knotts reunited with Andy Griffith in the made-for-television film Return to Mayberry, reprising his Barney Fife role. In early 1987, Knotts joined the cast of the first-run syndication comedy What a Country!, playing Principal Bud McPherson for the series' remaining 13 episodes. The sitcom was produced by Martin Rips and Joseph Staretski, who had previously worked on Three's Company.\n\nIn 1988, Knotts joined Andy Griffith in another show, playing the recurring role of pesky neighbor Les Calhoun on Matlock until 1992.\n\nAfter that, Knotts's roles were sporadic, including a cameo appearance in the film Big Bully (1996) as the principal of the high school. In 1998, Knotts played a small but pivotal role as a mysterious TV repairman in Pleasantville. That year, his hometown of Morgantown, West Virginia, changed the name of the street formerly known as South University Avenue (U.S. Route 119) to Don Knotts Boulevard on \"Don Knotts Day\". Also that day, in honor of Knotts's role as Barney Fife, he was named an honorary deputy sheriff with the Monongalia County Sheriff's Department.\n\nKnotts was recognized in 2000 with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He continued to act on stage, but much of his film and television work after 2000 was as voice talent. In 2002, he appeared again with Scooby-Doo in the video game Scooby-Doo! Night of 100 Frights. (Knotts also spoofed his appearances on that show in various promotions for Cartoon Network and in a parody on Robot Chicken, where he was teamed with Phyllis Diller.) In 2003, Knotts teamed up with Tim Conway again to provide voices for the direct-to-video children's series Hermie and Friends, which continued until his death. In 2005, he was the voice of Mayor Turkey Lurkey in Chicken Little (2005), his first Disney movie since 1979. On September 12, 2003, Knotts was in Kansas City in a stage version of On Golden Pond when he received a call from John Ritter's family telling him that his former Three's Company co-star had died of an aortic dissection that day. Knotts and his co-stars attended the funeral four days later. Knotts had appeared with Ritter one final time in a cameo on 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter. It was an episode that paid homage to their earlier television series. Knotts was the last Three's Company star to work with Ritter.\n\nDuring this period of time, macular degeneration in both eyes caused the otherwise robust Knotts to become virtually blind. His live appearances on television were few. In 2005, Knotts parodied his Ralph Furley character while playing a Paul Young variation in a Desperate Housewives sketch on The 3rd Annual TV Land Awards. He parodied that part one final time in \"Stone Cold Crazy\", an episode of the sitcom That '70s Show. In the show, Knotts played Fez and Jackie's new landlord. This was his last live-action television appearance. His final role was in Air Buddies (2006), a direct-to-video sequel to Air Bud, voicing the sheriff's deputy dog, Sniffer.\n\nPersonal life \n\nKnotts's friend Al Checco said, \"Don was somewhat of a ladies' man. He fancied himself something of a Frank Sinatra. The ladies loved him and he dated quite a bit.\" Knotts was married three times. His marriage to Kathryn Metz lasted from 1947 until their divorce in 1964, and he raised his daughter as a single parent. He married Loralee Czuchna in 1974 and they divorced in 1983. His third marriage was to Frances Yarborough, from 2002 until his death in 2006. From his first marriage, Knotts had a son, Thomas Knotts, and a daughter, actress Karen Knotts (born April 2, 1954).\n\nKnotts struggled with hypochondria and macular degeneration. Betty Lynn, one of Knotts' co-stars on The Andy Griffith Show, described him as a \"very quiet man. Very sweet. Nothing like Barney Fife.\" TV writer Mark Evanier called him \"the most beloved person in all of show business\".\n\nDeath \n\nKnotts died at age 81 on February 24, 2006, at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles from pulmonary and respiratory complications of pneumonia related to lung cancer. He had been undergoing treatment at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in the months before his death, but he returned home after he had reportedly been feeling better. He was buried at Westwood Memorial Park in Los Angeles.\n\nKnotts' obituaries cited him as a major influence on other entertainers. In early 2011, his grave's plain granite headstone was replaced with a bronze plaque that displays several of Knotts' movie and television roles. A statue honoring Knotts, created by Jamie Lester, was unveiled on July 23, 2016, in front of The Metropolitan Theatre on High Street in his hometown of Morgantown, West Virginia.\n\nFilmography\n\nFilm \n\n No Time for Sergeants (1958) as Cpl. John C. Brown\n Wake Me When It's Over (1960) as Sgt. Percy Warren\n The Last Time I Saw Archie (1961) as Captain Harry Little\n It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) as the nervous motorist\n Move Over, Darling (1963) as Shoe Clerk\n The Incredible Mr. Limpet (1964) as Henry Limpet\n The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966) as Luther Heggs\n The Reluctant Astronaut (1967) as Roy Fleming\n The Shakiest Gun in the West (1968) as Dr. Jesse W. Heywood\n The Love God? (1969) as Abner Audubon Peacock IV\n How to Frame a Figg (1971) as Hollis Alexander Figg\n The Apple Dumpling Gang (1975) as Theodore Ogelvie\n No Deposit, No Return (1976) as Bert Delaney\n Gus (1976) as Coach Venner\n Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo (1977) as Wheely Applegate\n Mule Feathers (1978) as Narrator / The Mule (voice)\n Hot Lead and Cold Feet (1978) as Sheriff Denver Kid\n The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again (1979) as Theodore Ogelvie\n The Prize Fighter (1979) as Shake\n The Private Eyes (1980) as Inspector Winship\n Cannonball Run II (1984) as CHP Officer #2\n Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night (1987) as Gee Willikers (voice)\n Big Bully (1996) as Principal Kokelar\n Cats Don't Dance (1997) as T.W. Turtle (voice)\n Pleasantville (1998) as TV Repairman\n Tom Sawyer (2000) as Mutt Potter (voice)\n Quints (2000) as Governor Healy\n Chicken Little (2005) as Mayor Turkey Lurkey (voice)\n Air Buddies (2006) as Sniffer (voice; final film role, posthumous release)\n\nTelevision \n\n Search for Tomorrow (1953–1955) as Wilbur Peterson\n The Steve Allen Show (1956–1960) as Himself\n The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (1960) as Esmond Metzger\n The Andy Griffith Show (1960–1968) as Barney Fife\n The Joey Bishop Show (1 episode 1964) as Barney Fife\n The Red Skelton Show (1961–1965) as Commodore of Lagoons / 'Steady Fingers' Ferguson / Horaces Horatio / Mr. Pallid / Herbie\n The New Steve Allen Show (1961–1963) as Regular\n The Garry Moore Show (4 episodes 1962–1964) as Himself\n McHale's Navy (Season 4, Episode 25) as Lt. Pratt\n The Jerry Lewis Show (1 episode 1963) as Himself\n 38th Academy Awards (1966) as Himself (co-presenter)\n The Don Knotts Special (1967) as Himself (host/performer)\n The Hollywood Palace (1 episode #7.17 1970) as Himself\n The Don Knotts Show (1970–1971) as Himself (host)\n Don Knotts' Nice Clean, Decent, Wholesome Hour (1970) as Himself (host/performer)\n The New Scooby-Doo Movies (2 episodes 1972) as Himself (voice)\n The Man Who Came to Dinner (1972) as Dr. Bradley\n The Flip Wilson Show (1972–73) (2 episodes) as Himself\n Dinah Shore: In Search of the Ideal Man (1973) as Himself\n I Love a Mystery (1973) as Alexander Archer\n Here's Lucy (1973) (1 episode) as Ben Fletcher\n Hollywood Squares (4 episodes, 1974–1977) as Himself – Panelist\n Steve Allen's Laugh Back (1975)\n The Captain & Tennille Show (1976–1977) as Himself (recurring guest)\n The Muppet Show (1977) as Himself – Special Guest Star\n Fantasy Island (1978–1979) as Felix Birdsong / Stanley Scheckter\n The Love Boat (1979) as Herb Grobecker / Devon King\n Three's Company (1979–1984) as Ralph Furley\n George Burns Comedy Week (1985) as Himself\n Return to Mayberry (1986) as Barney Fife\n What a Country! (1987) as F. Jerry 'Bud' McPherson\n The Little Troll Prince (1987) as Professor Nidaros (voice)\n Matlock (1987–1992) as Les Calhoun\n Newhart (1 episode 1990) as Iron\n Timmy's Gift: A Precious Moments Christmas (1991) as Titus (voice)\n The Andy Griffith Show Reunion (1993) as Himself\n Burke's Law (1 episode 1994)\n Step by Step (1993) (1 episode) as Deputy Feif\n 101 Dalmatians: The Series (2 episodes, 1997–1998) as Additional Voices (voice)\n E! True Hollywood Story (1 episode 1998) as Himself\n Late Night with Conan O'Brien (1 episode 1999) as Himself\n Jingle Bells (1999) as Kris (voice)\n Inside TV Land: The Andy Griffith Show (2000) as Himself\n Biography TV Documentary (2 episodes 2000–2002) as Himself\n Biography: \"John Ritter: In Good Company\" (2002) as Himself\n Inside TV Land: Cops on Camera (2002) as Himself\n Odd Job Jack (2003) as Dirk Douglas\n 8 Simple Rules (2003) as Himself\n Larry King Live (1 episode 2003) as Himself\n The Andy Griffith Show: Back To Mayberry (2003) as Himself/Barney Fife\n TV Lands Top Ten (2004) (1 episode) as Himself\n Johnny Bravo (cartoon series), episode \"Johnny Makeover\" (2004) as Don Knotts (voice)\n That '70s Show (2005) as The Landlord\n Las Vegas (2005) as Himself\n The 3rd Annual TV Land Awards (2005) as Paul Young (segment \"Desperate Classic Housewives\")\n Robot Chicken as Himself\n Hatching Chicken Little (2006) as Himself\n CMT: The Greatest – 20 Greatest Country Comedy Shows (2006) as Himself\n\nVideo games \n Scooby-Doo! Night of 100 Frights (2002) as The Groundskeeper\n\nAnimation videos \n Hermie and Friends (2003–06) as Wormie\n\nAwards\n\nReferences\n\nFurther reading \n \n \n \n \n \n Klin, Richard. \"Fife and Drum\". Flagpole, 2006.\n\nExternal links \n\n \n \n \n \n The West Virginia & Regional History Center has a collection of materials related to the career or Don Knotts\n\n20th-century American comedians\n20th-century American male actors\n21st-century American comedians\n21st-century American male actors\n1924 births\n2006 deaths\nAmerican male comedians\nAmerican male film actors\nAmerican male soap opera actors\nAmerican male television actors\nAmerican male voice actors\nUnited States Army personnel of World War II\nAmerican people of English descent\nBurials at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery\nDeaths from cancer in California\nDeaths from lung cancer\nDeaths from pneumonia in California\nDisney people\nMale actors from West Virginia\nMilitary personnel from West Virginia\nMorgantown High School alumni\nOutstanding Performance by a Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series Primetime Emmy Award winners\nPeople from Morgantown, West Virginia\nUnited States Army soldiers\nVentriloquists\nWest Virginia University alumni",
"Wesley Donehue is an American political strategist and Internet consultant. He is the CEO of Push Digital based out of Charleston, South Carolina with a second office in Columbia, South Carolina.\n\nBiography\nIn late 2007, Donehue built a fake website against Fred Thompson, who was a political opponent to Mitt Romney, which drew national attention. While employed at First Tuesday Strategies, Wesley managed much of Mitt Romney’s South Carolina Internet outreach and tried to cast Fred Thompson in a negative light by creating www.PhoneyFred.org.\n\nDonehue and Phil Bailey host a weekly web show, originally labeled “PNN Happy Hour” and was shot from a local Columbia bar. The name was soon changed to “Pub Politics” and went live on April 22 with State House Representative Bakari Sellers as the political guest. Since then, the Pub Politics has featured numerous guest appearances from the state’s political representatives, local journalists and lobbyists.\n\nOn June 3, 2010, South Carolina State Sen. Jake Knotts used the ethnic slur \"raghead\" to describe President Barack Obama and Republican gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley while appearing on a live broadcast of Pub Politics. Several people present at the political talk show's broadcast confirmed Knotts said \"We already got one raghead in the White House, we don’t need a raghead in the governor's mansion.\"\n\nThe video of Knotts' remarks never made it online - unlike most of Pub Politics' episodes. In a statement, Donehue and Bailey said that what Knotts said does not fit with their program and its goals. A Washington Post report added that, \"Conveniently for Knotts - who has been condemned by state Republicans anyway - the lack of the video prevents the story from taking on more steam.\" The Post added, \"What's interesting about this is that Knotts is a close political ally of Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) - and Donehue, according to FEC reports, has done work for Wilson.\"\n\nIn early 2010, Campaigns and Elections Politics Magazine named Donehue as being a “Rising Star” in the political scene, an award given to those who show promise in the early stages of their career.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n\nLiving people\nUniversity of South Carolina alumni"
] |
[
"Don Knotts",
"The Andy Griffith Show",
"What show did he star in",
"Andy Griffith was offered the opportunity to headline his own sitcom, The Andy Griffith Show",
"When did the show run for",
"1960-1968",
"How did knotts fit into the show",
"Knotts took the role of Barney Fife, the deputy--and originally cousin--of Sheriff Andy Taylor (portrayed by Griffith"
] | C_78df05bd80874e908541d6c62b2828dd_0 | Did he win awards for the show | 4 | Did Knotts win awards for The Andy Griffith Show | Don Knotts | In 1960, Andy Griffith was offered the opportunity to headline his own sitcom, The Andy Griffith Show (1960-1968). Knotts took the role of Barney Fife, the deputy--and originally cousin--of Sheriff Andy Taylor (portrayed by Griffith). Knotts's portrayal of the deputy on the popular show earned him five Emmy Awards for Best Supporting Actor in a Television Comedy, three awards for the first five seasons that he played the character. A summary of the show from the website of the Museum of Broadcast Communications describes Deputy Barney Fife: Self-important, romantic, and nearly always wrong, Barney dreamed of the day he could use the one bullet Andy had issued to him, though he did fire his gun on a few occasions. He always fired his pistol accidentally while still in his holster or in the ceiling of the court house, at which point he would sadly hand his pistol to Andy. This is why Barney kept his one very shiny bullet in his shirt pocket. In episode #196, Andy gave Barney more bullets so that he would have a loaded gun to go after a bad guy that Barney unintentionally helped escape. While Barney was forever frustrated that Mayberry was too small for the delusional ideas he had of himself, viewers got the sense that he couldn't have survived anywhere else. Don Knotts played the comic and pathetic sides of the character with equal aplomb and he received three Emmy Awards during the show's first five seasons. When the show first aired, Griffith was intended to be the comedic lead with Knotts as his straight man, similar to their roles in No Time for Sergeants. However, it was quickly discovered that the show was funnier with the roles reversed. As Griffith maintained in several interviews, "By the second episode, I knew that Don should be funny, and I should play straight." Knotts believed remarks by Griffith that The Andy Griffith Show would end after five seasons, and he began to look for other work, signing a five-film contract with Universal Studios. He was caught off guard when Griffith announced that he would continue the show after all, but Knotts's hands were tied. In his autobiography, Knotts admitted that he had not yet signed a contract when Griffith announced his decision; but he had made up his mind to move on, believing he would not get the chance again. Knotts left the series in 1965. His character's absence on the show was explained by Deputy Fife's having finally made the "big time," joining the Raleigh, North Carolina police force. CANNOTANSWER | Knotts's portrayal of the deputy on the popular show earned him five Emmy Awards for Best Supporting Actor in a Television Comedy, | Jesse Donald Knotts (July 21, 1924February 24, 2006) was an American actor and comedian. He is widely known for his role as Deputy Sheriff Barney Fife on The Andy Griffith Show, a 1960s sitcom for which he earned five Emmy Awards. He also played Ralph Furley on the highly rated sitcom Three's Company from 1979 to 1984. He starred in multiple comedic films, including the leading roles in The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966) and The Incredible Mr. Limpet (1964). In 1979, TV Guide ranked him number 27 on its 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time list.
Early life
Jesse Donald Knotts was born on July 21, 1924, in Morgantown, West Virginia, the youngest of four sons born to farmer William Jesse Knotts and his wife, Elsie Luzetta Knotts (née Moore). His parents were married in Spraggs, Pennsylvania. His English paternal ancestors emigrated to America in the 17th century, originally settling in Queen Anne's County, Maryland. Knotts' brothers were named Willis, William, and Ralph "Sid".
Don's mother was 40 at the time of his birth and his father suffered from mental illness. Afflicted with schizophrenia and alcoholism, he sometimes terrorized Don with a knife, causing Don to turn inward at an early age. The elder Knotts died of pneumonia when Don was 13 years old. Don and his brothers were then raised by their mother, who ran a boarding house in Morgantown. She died in 1969 at age 84. Her son William preceded her in death in 1941 at age 31. They are buried in the family plot at Beverly Hills Memorial Park in Morgantown.
Don graduated from Morgantown High School. After enlisting in the United States Army and serving in World War II, Don earned a bachelor's degree in education with a minor in speech from West Virginia University in Morgantown, graduating in 1948. He was a member of Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity and Alpha Psi Omega Honor Society while at WVU.
Career
Early career
Before he entered high school, Knotts began performing as a ventriloquist and comedian at various church and school functions. After high school, he traveled to New York City to try to make his way as a comedian but returned home to attend West Virginia University when his career failed to take off. After his college freshman year, Knotts joined the U.S. Army and spent most of his service entertaining troops. He toured the western Pacific Islands as a comedian as part of a G.I. variety show called "Stars and Gripes". His ventriloquist act in "Stars and Gripes" included a dummy named Danny, which Knotts grew to hate, eventually throwing it overboard according to his friend and castmate, Al Checco.
Knotts served in the U.S. Army from June 21, 1943, to January 6, 1946, in the Army's 6817th Special Services Battalion. He was discharged at the rank of Technician Grade 5, which was the equivalent then of a corporal. During his military service, Knotts was awarded the World War II Victory Medal, the Philippine Liberation Medal, the Asiatic–Pacific Campaign Medal (with 4 bronze service stars), the American Campaign Medal, the Army Good Conduct Medal, the Army Marksman Badge (with an M1 Carbine) and the Honorable Service Lapel Pin.
Knotts returned to West Virginia University after being demobilized and graduated in 1948. He married Kay Metz and moved back to New York, where connections he had made while in the Special Services Branch helped him break into show business. In addition to doing stand-up comedy at clubs, he appeared on the radio, eventually playing the wisecracking, know-it-all character "Windy Wales" on a radio Western called "Bobby Benson and the B-Bar-B Riders".
Knotts got his first major break on television in the soap opera Search for Tomorrow where he appeared from 1953 to 1955. He came to fame in 1956 on Steve Allen's variety show, as part of Allen's repertory company, most notably in Allen's mock "Man in the Street" interviews, always as an extremely nervous man. He remained with the Allen program through the 1959–1960 season. From October 20, 1955, through September 14, 1957, Knotts appeared in the Broadway play version of No Time for Sergeants, in which he played two roles, listed on the playbill as a Corporal Manual Dexterity and a Preacher. In 1958, Knotts appeared for the first time on film with Andy Griffith in the film version of No Time for Sergeants. In that film, Knotts reprised his Broadway role and played a high-strung Air Force test administrator whose routine is disrupted by the hijinks of a provincial new recruit.
The Andy Griffith Show
In 1960, Andy Griffith was offered the opportunity to headline his own sitcom, The Andy Griffith Show (1960–1968). Knotts took the role of Barney Fife, the deputy—and originally cousin—of Sheriff Andy Taylor (portrayed by Griffith). Knotts's portrayal of the deputy on the popular show earned him five Emmy Awards for Best Supporting Actor in a Television Comedy.
A summary of the show from the website of the Museum of Broadcast Communications describes Deputy Barney Fife:
When the show first aired, Griffith was intended to be the comedic lead with Knotts as his straight man, similar to their roles in No Time for Sergeants. However, it was quickly discovered that the show was funnier with the roles reversed. As Griffith maintained in several interviews, "By the second episode, I knew that Don should be funny, and I should play straight."
Knotts believed remarks by Griffith that The Andy Griffith Show would end after five seasons, and he began to look for other work, signing a five-film contract with Universal Studios. In his autobiography, Knotts admitted that he had not yet signed the contract when Griffith announced his decision to continue the series; but he had made up his mind to move on, believing he would not get the chance again. Knotts left the series in 1965. His character's absence on the show was explained by Deputy Fife's having finally made the "big time," joining the Raleigh, North Carolina, police force.
Post-Mayberry film career
Knotts went on to star in a series of film comedies that drew on his high-strung persona from the television series: he had a cameo appearance in United Artists' It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), and starred in Warner Bros.' The Incredible Mr. Limpet (1964). Knotts then began his Universal five-film contract with The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966), The Reluctant Astronaut (1967), The Shakiest Gun in the West (1968), The Love God? (1969) and How to Frame a Figg (1971). After making How to Frame a Figg, Knotts's five-film contract with Universal finished.
Knotts reprised his role as Barney Fife several times in the 1960s: he made five guest appearances on The Andy Griffith Show (gaining him another two Emmy Awards), and he later appeared once on the spin-off Mayberry R.F.D., where he was present as best man for the marriage of Andy Taylor and his longtime love, Helen Crump. He continued to work steadily, though he did not appear as a regular on any successful television series until in 1979 he got the part of landlord Ralph Furley on Three's Company for seasons 4 through 8, after the departure of Norman Fell, who had played the previous landlord.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Knotts served as the spokesman for Dodge trucks and was featured prominently in a series of print ads and dealer brochures. On television, he went on to host a variety show/sitcom hybrid on NBC, The Don Knotts Show, which aired Tuesdays during the fall of 1970, but the series was low-rated and short-lived, and Knotts was uncomfortable with the variety show format. He also made frequent guest appearances on other shows such as The Bill Cosby Show and Here's Lucy. In 1970, he appeared as a Barney Fife-like police officer in the pilot of The New Andy Griffith Show. In 1972, Knotts voiced an animated version of himself in two episodes of The New Scooby Doo Movies: "The Spooky Fog of Juneberry", in which he played a lawman resembling Barney Fife, and "Guess Who's Knott Coming to Dinner". He appeared as Felix Unger in a stage version of Neil Simon's The Odd Couple, with Art Carney as Oscar Madison, and toured in the Neil Simon comedy Last of the Red Hot Lovers.
Beginning in 1975, Knotts was teamed with Tim Conway in a series of slapstick films aimed at children, including the Disney film The Apple Dumpling Gang (1975) and its sequel, The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again (1979). They also did two independent films, the boxing comedy The Prize Fighter (1979), and the mystery-comedy The Private Eyes (1980). Knotts co-starred in several other Disney films, including Gus (1976), No Deposit, No Return (1976), Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo (1977) and Hot Lead and Cold Feet (1978).
Three's Company
In 1979, Knotts returned to series television in his second most identifiable role, the wacky but lovable landlord Ralph Furley on Three's Company. The series, which was already an established hit, added Knotts to the cast when the original landlords, Stanley and Helen Roper (a married couple played by Norman Fell and Audra Lindley, respectively) left the series to star in their own short-lived spin-off series The Ropers.
On set, Knotts easily integrated himself into the already established cast who were, as John Ritter put it, "so scared" of Knotts because of his star status when he joined the cast. When Suzanne Somers left the show after a contract dispute in 1981, the writers started giving the material meant for Somers's Chrissy to Knotts's Furley. Knotts remained on the series until it ended in 1984. The Three's Company script supervisor, Carol Summers, became Knotts' agent and often accompanied him to personal appearances.
Later years
In 1986, Don Knotts reunited with Andy Griffith in the made-for-television film Return to Mayberry, reprising his Barney Fife role. In early 1987, Knotts joined the cast of the first-run syndication comedy What a Country!, playing Principal Bud McPherson for the series' remaining 13 episodes. The sitcom was produced by Martin Rips and Joseph Staretski, who had previously worked on Three's Company.
In 1988, Knotts joined Andy Griffith in another show, playing the recurring role of pesky neighbor Les Calhoun on Matlock until 1992.
After that, Knotts's roles were sporadic, including a cameo appearance in the film Big Bully (1996) as the principal of the high school. In 1998, Knotts played a small but pivotal role as a mysterious TV repairman in Pleasantville. That year, his hometown of Morgantown, West Virginia, changed the name of the street formerly known as South University Avenue (U.S. Route 119) to Don Knotts Boulevard on "Don Knotts Day". Also that day, in honor of Knotts's role as Barney Fife, he was named an honorary deputy sheriff with the Monongalia County Sheriff's Department.
Knotts was recognized in 2000 with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He continued to act on stage, but much of his film and television work after 2000 was as voice talent. In 2002, he appeared again with Scooby-Doo in the video game Scooby-Doo! Night of 100 Frights. (Knotts also spoofed his appearances on that show in various promotions for Cartoon Network and in a parody on Robot Chicken, where he was teamed with Phyllis Diller.) In 2003, Knotts teamed up with Tim Conway again to provide voices for the direct-to-video children's series Hermie and Friends, which continued until his death. In 2005, he was the voice of Mayor Turkey Lurkey in Chicken Little (2005), his first Disney movie since 1979. On September 12, 2003, Knotts was in Kansas City in a stage version of On Golden Pond when he received a call from John Ritter's family telling him that his former Three's Company co-star had died of an aortic dissection that day. Knotts and his co-stars attended the funeral four days later. Knotts had appeared with Ritter one final time in a cameo on 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter. It was an episode that paid homage to their earlier television series. Knotts was the last Three's Company star to work with Ritter.
During this period of time, macular degeneration in both eyes caused the otherwise robust Knotts to become virtually blind. His live appearances on television were few. In 2005, Knotts parodied his Ralph Furley character while playing a Paul Young variation in a Desperate Housewives sketch on The 3rd Annual TV Land Awards. He parodied that part one final time in "Stone Cold Crazy", an episode of the sitcom That '70s Show. In the show, Knotts played Fez and Jackie's new landlord. This was his last live-action television appearance. His final role was in Air Buddies (2006), a direct-to-video sequel to Air Bud, voicing the sheriff's deputy dog, Sniffer.
Personal life
Knotts's friend Al Checco said, "Don was somewhat of a ladies' man. He fancied himself something of a Frank Sinatra. The ladies loved him and he dated quite a bit." Knotts was married three times. His marriage to Kathryn Metz lasted from 1947 until their divorce in 1964, and he raised his daughter as a single parent. He married Loralee Czuchna in 1974 and they divorced in 1983. His third marriage was to Frances Yarborough, from 2002 until his death in 2006. From his first marriage, Knotts had a son, Thomas Knotts, and a daughter, actress Karen Knotts (born April 2, 1954).
Knotts struggled with hypochondria and macular degeneration. Betty Lynn, one of Knotts' co-stars on The Andy Griffith Show, described him as a "very quiet man. Very sweet. Nothing like Barney Fife." TV writer Mark Evanier called him "the most beloved person in all of show business".
Death
Knotts died at age 81 on February 24, 2006, at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles from pulmonary and respiratory complications of pneumonia related to lung cancer. He had been undergoing treatment at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in the months before his death, but he returned home after he had reportedly been feeling better. He was buried at Westwood Memorial Park in Los Angeles.
Knotts' obituaries cited him as a major influence on other entertainers. In early 2011, his grave's plain granite headstone was replaced with a bronze plaque that displays several of Knotts' movie and television roles. A statue honoring Knotts, created by Jamie Lester, was unveiled on July 23, 2016, in front of The Metropolitan Theatre on High Street in his hometown of Morgantown, West Virginia.
Filmography
Film
No Time for Sergeants (1958) as Cpl. John C. Brown
Wake Me When It's Over (1960) as Sgt. Percy Warren
The Last Time I Saw Archie (1961) as Captain Harry Little
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) as the nervous motorist
Move Over, Darling (1963) as Shoe Clerk
The Incredible Mr. Limpet (1964) as Henry Limpet
The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966) as Luther Heggs
The Reluctant Astronaut (1967) as Roy Fleming
The Shakiest Gun in the West (1968) as Dr. Jesse W. Heywood
The Love God? (1969) as Abner Audubon Peacock IV
How to Frame a Figg (1971) as Hollis Alexander Figg
The Apple Dumpling Gang (1975) as Theodore Ogelvie
No Deposit, No Return (1976) as Bert Delaney
Gus (1976) as Coach Venner
Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo (1977) as Wheely Applegate
Mule Feathers (1978) as Narrator / The Mule (voice)
Hot Lead and Cold Feet (1978) as Sheriff Denver Kid
The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again (1979) as Theodore Ogelvie
The Prize Fighter (1979) as Shake
The Private Eyes (1980) as Inspector Winship
Cannonball Run II (1984) as CHP Officer #2
Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night (1987) as Gee Willikers (voice)
Big Bully (1996) as Principal Kokelar
Cats Don't Dance (1997) as T.W. Turtle (voice)
Pleasantville (1998) as TV Repairman
Tom Sawyer (2000) as Mutt Potter (voice)
Quints (2000) as Governor Healy
Chicken Little (2005) as Mayor Turkey Lurkey (voice)
Air Buddies (2006) as Sniffer (voice; final film role, posthumous release)
Television
Search for Tomorrow (1953–1955) as Wilbur Peterson
The Steve Allen Show (1956–1960) as Himself
The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (1960) as Esmond Metzger
The Andy Griffith Show (1960–1968) as Barney Fife
The Joey Bishop Show (1 episode 1964) as Barney Fife
The Red Skelton Show (1961–1965) as Commodore of Lagoons / 'Steady Fingers' Ferguson / Horaces Horatio / Mr. Pallid / Herbie
The New Steve Allen Show (1961–1963) as Regular
The Garry Moore Show (4 episodes 1962–1964) as Himself
McHale's Navy (Season 4, Episode 25) as Lt. Pratt
The Jerry Lewis Show (1 episode 1963) as Himself
38th Academy Awards (1966) as Himself (co-presenter)
The Don Knotts Special (1967) as Himself (host/performer)
The Hollywood Palace (1 episode #7.17 1970) as Himself
The Don Knotts Show (1970–1971) as Himself (host)
Don Knotts' Nice Clean, Decent, Wholesome Hour (1970) as Himself (host/performer)
The New Scooby-Doo Movies (2 episodes 1972) as Himself (voice)
The Man Who Came to Dinner (1972) as Dr. Bradley
The Flip Wilson Show (1972–73) (2 episodes) as Himself
Dinah Shore: In Search of the Ideal Man (1973) as Himself
I Love a Mystery (1973) as Alexander Archer
Here's Lucy (1973) (1 episode) as Ben Fletcher
Hollywood Squares (4 episodes, 1974–1977) as Himself – Panelist
Steve Allen's Laugh Back (1975)
The Captain & Tennille Show (1976–1977) as Himself (recurring guest)
The Muppet Show (1977) as Himself – Special Guest Star
Fantasy Island (1978–1979) as Felix Birdsong / Stanley Scheckter
The Love Boat (1979) as Herb Grobecker / Devon King
Three's Company (1979–1984) as Ralph Furley
George Burns Comedy Week (1985) as Himself
Return to Mayberry (1986) as Barney Fife
What a Country! (1987) as F. Jerry 'Bud' McPherson
The Little Troll Prince (1987) as Professor Nidaros (voice)
Matlock (1987–1992) as Les Calhoun
Newhart (1 episode 1990) as Iron
Timmy's Gift: A Precious Moments Christmas (1991) as Titus (voice)
The Andy Griffith Show Reunion (1993) as Himself
Burke's Law (1 episode 1994)
Step by Step (1993) (1 episode) as Deputy Feif
101 Dalmatians: The Series (2 episodes, 1997–1998) as Additional Voices (voice)
E! True Hollywood Story (1 episode 1998) as Himself
Late Night with Conan O'Brien (1 episode 1999) as Himself
Jingle Bells (1999) as Kris (voice)
Inside TV Land: The Andy Griffith Show (2000) as Himself
Biography TV Documentary (2 episodes 2000–2002) as Himself
Biography: "John Ritter: In Good Company" (2002) as Himself
Inside TV Land: Cops on Camera (2002) as Himself
Odd Job Jack (2003) as Dirk Douglas
8 Simple Rules (2003) as Himself
Larry King Live (1 episode 2003) as Himself
The Andy Griffith Show: Back To Mayberry (2003) as Himself/Barney Fife
TV Lands Top Ten (2004) (1 episode) as Himself
Johnny Bravo (cartoon series), episode "Johnny Makeover" (2004) as Don Knotts (voice)
That '70s Show (2005) as The Landlord
Las Vegas (2005) as Himself
The 3rd Annual TV Land Awards (2005) as Paul Young (segment "Desperate Classic Housewives")
Robot Chicken as Himself
Hatching Chicken Little (2006) as Himself
CMT: The Greatest – 20 Greatest Country Comedy Shows (2006) as Himself
Video games
Scooby-Doo! Night of 100 Frights (2002) as The Groundskeeper
Animation videos
Hermie and Friends (2003–06) as Wormie
Awards
References
Further reading
Klin, Richard. "Fife and Drum". Flagpole, 2006.
External links
The West Virginia & Regional History Center has a collection of materials related to the career or Don Knotts
20th-century American comedians
20th-century American male actors
21st-century American comedians
21st-century American male actors
1924 births
2006 deaths
American male comedians
American male film actors
American male soap opera actors
American male television actors
American male voice actors
United States Army personnel of World War II
American people of English descent
Burials at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery
Deaths from cancer in California
Deaths from lung cancer
Deaths from pneumonia in California
Disney people
Male actors from West Virginia
Military personnel from West Virginia
Morgantown High School alumni
Outstanding Performance by a Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series Primetime Emmy Award winners
People from Morgantown, West Virginia
United States Army soldiers
Ventriloquists
West Virginia University alumni | false | [
"Mark Sanchez is an American makeup artist. He was nominated at the 68th Academy Awards for Best Makeup. He was nominated for the film My Family, Mi Familia, which he shared the nomination with Ken Diaz.\n\nHe also was nominated for an Emmy Award for the makeup on That '70s Show. He did win a Daytime Emmy for The Joan Rivers Show.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nLiving people\nPlace of birth missing (living people)\nYear of birth missing (living people)\nAmerican make-up artists",
"Star Awards 2015 (also SA2015, Chinese: 红星大奖2015) is a double television award ceremony which is held in Singapore. It is part of the annual Star Awards organised by MediaCorp for free-to-air channel MediaCorp Channel 8. SA2015 is broadcast live on Channel 8, on 19 April 2015 and 26 April 2015.\n\nThe ceremony saw The Joy Truck II and The Journey: Tumultuous Times, became the biggest winning variety and drama series respectively.\n\nProgramme details\n\nWinners and nominees\nUnless otherwise stated, the winners are listed first, highlighted in boldface.\n\nShow 1 (加利谷闪耀星光)\nThe first show, titled \"加利谷闪耀星光\" (The Starlight of Caldecott), was broadcast on 19 April 2015.\n\nProfessionally Judged Awards \n\n Lim was absent during the ceremony due to illness; Kang Lay See represented the award on his behalf.\n\nAwards Eligible for Voting\n\nAll Time Favourite Artiste\nThis award is a special achievement award given out to artiste(s) who have achieved a maximum of 10 popularity awards over 10 years. Top 10 winning years the recipients were awarded together are highlighted in boldface.\n\nAwards Eligible for Voting\n\nTop 10 awards \nSince the 2012 awards, results for the Top 10 Most Popular Male and Female Artistes were determined by telepoll and online voting, each carrying a 50% weightage towards the final results. The telepoll lines were announced, and opened on 9 March 2015 in its first public event held at VivoCity. The voting closed on 26 April at 8:30 pm, during the second award ceremony.\n\nThe nominees are listed in telepoll line order. The results of the Top 10 awards are not in any rank order.\n\nPost Show Party Awards (红星大奖2015庆功宴)\n\nStatistics \nShows are ordered based on number of nominations, release date and type order.\n\nDrama series nominations:\n\nDrama series awards:\n\nVariety / info-ed series nominations:\n\nVariety / info-ed / current affairs series awards:\n\nCurrent affairs series nominations:\n\nPresenters and performers \nThe following individuals presented awards or performed musical numbers.\n\nShow 1\n\nShow 2\n\nCeremony information\n\nAward Information\nThis was the last Star Awards ceremony to be held in the Caldecott Hill before the show moved to the new campus in Mediapolis@one-north. As such, the Chinese subtitles for both ceremonies referenced Caldecott (加利谷).\nIt was also the first Star Awards ceremony since 2009 the ceremony was not held on a location outside Mediacorp studios. \nAs of the most recent ceremony in 2021, this was the last time Professional & Technical Awards were presented on one show in a two-show format (not counting preludes in 2017). Although the following year's ceremony was also a two-show, the two-show format was revamped to focus on the variety and drama categories, while Professional & Technical Awards were awarded outside the show, for the first time since 2009.\nIt was also the last Star Awards ceremony to feature long-time announcer John Kuek due to his retirement.\n\nConsecutive and records in award categories, first in Top 10\nThe Joy Truck became the third variety program to win its second Best Variety Programme award, after City Beat and Say It If You Dare.\nRui En became the sixth All-Time Favourite Artiste to win the award with ten consecutive Top 10 Female Favourite Artiste wins. Ng, along with Qi Yuwu, were conferred the said award in the following year's ceremony.\nThe previous recipients to do so were Fann Wong and Xie Shaoguang, both occurring in the 2005 ceremony.\nJeanette Aw set a record on winning the most awards for an individual at seven, among which were Most Popular Regional Artiste Awards (three, for Malaysia, Indonesia and Cambodia), Social Media Award, Favourite Female Character, Favourite Onscreen Couple (Drama) (with Zhang Zhenhuan, who they also won all the Favourite category awards) and All-Time Favourite Artiste (with Vivian Lai). \nCarrie Wong, Jayley Woo, Shane Pow and Youyi) were nominated for the Top 10 voting category for the first time.\nPow and Wong, along with Shaun Chen, Ian Fang and Julie Tan, won their first Top 10 Favourite Artiste award.\nThe last time Felicia Chin nominated (and won) for the Top 10 Most Favourite Female Artiste was 2010; she switched to part-time acting to study for a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in the NUS Business School, quit her studies and has since returned to acting.\nThe Best Drama Serial nomination for the third season of C.L.I.F. now tied The Unbeatables for its most nominations for its category at three. With the loss to The Journey: Tumultuous Times (which became the eighth drama to receive a second nomination), C.L.I.F. now holds the record for the most nominations without a win.\nStar Awards won its fifth consecutive \"Best Variety Special\" award, part of the five-win streak since the show won her first award in 2010 until its next loss in 2016.\n\nAwards categories \nThis was the first show to introduce the category for Tokyo Bust Express Sexy Babe Award.\n\nControversies \nProfessional and programme awards will only be given out when there are at least 10 candidates from 2014 onwards. Even though Channel 8 News & Current Affairs already had ten news presenters by the end of 2014, both the Best News Presenter award and Best Current Affairs Presenter award did not return for a second consecutive year, while the Best Newcomer returned after being absent last year.\nThe Best Newcomer will be absent again in 2016 and 2017, but returned in 2018.\nAfter Jeanette Aw won six voting-based awards in Show 1, she expressed her intention to withdraw from voting-based award categories in the future. Speaking to the media after the ceremony, Aw said that the move is due to her concern about rabid fans who left messages online saying that this could impede other potential contenders if she did not win enough awards. However, it can be seen that voting for Star Awards 2016 Favourite Female Character for The Journey: Our Homeland and The Dream Makers II did not remove her from the voting list. Mediacorp quotes that these awards are determined by online voting, and she still had to participate in both categories. Aw would go on to win the Favourite Female Character and Favourite Onscreen Couple (Drama) with Qi Yuwu for The Dream Makers II in the following year, which was the last time the Favourite categories were held.\n\nOther trivia \nJack Neo's comeback appearance as Liang Po Po in nearly 15 years.\n\nStar Awards 2016 nominations\nThe 2015 ceremony was nominated for Best Variety Producer and Best Variety Special in the ceremony next year, but were lost to Love on the Plate 3 and GeTai Challenge, respectively; for the latter, the loss ended a five-win streak of winning the \"Best Variety Special\" since Star Awards 2010.\n\nSee also \n List of variety and infotainment programmes broadcast by MediaCorp Channel 8\n MediaCorp Channel 8\n Star Awards\n\nReferences \n\nStar Awards"
] |
[
"Don Knotts",
"The Andy Griffith Show",
"What show did he star in",
"Andy Griffith was offered the opportunity to headline his own sitcom, The Andy Griffith Show",
"When did the show run for",
"1960-1968",
"How did knotts fit into the show",
"Knotts took the role of Barney Fife, the deputy--and originally cousin--of Sheriff Andy Taylor (portrayed by Griffith",
"Did he win awards for the show",
"Knotts's portrayal of the deputy on the popular show earned him five Emmy Awards for Best Supporting Actor in a Television Comedy,"
] | C_78df05bd80874e908541d6c62b2828dd_0 | What did he win the awards | 5 | When Knotts win the awards for The Andy Griffith Show? | Don Knotts | In 1960, Andy Griffith was offered the opportunity to headline his own sitcom, The Andy Griffith Show (1960-1968). Knotts took the role of Barney Fife, the deputy--and originally cousin--of Sheriff Andy Taylor (portrayed by Griffith). Knotts's portrayal of the deputy on the popular show earned him five Emmy Awards for Best Supporting Actor in a Television Comedy, three awards for the first five seasons that he played the character. A summary of the show from the website of the Museum of Broadcast Communications describes Deputy Barney Fife: Self-important, romantic, and nearly always wrong, Barney dreamed of the day he could use the one bullet Andy had issued to him, though he did fire his gun on a few occasions. He always fired his pistol accidentally while still in his holster or in the ceiling of the court house, at which point he would sadly hand his pistol to Andy. This is why Barney kept his one very shiny bullet in his shirt pocket. In episode #196, Andy gave Barney more bullets so that he would have a loaded gun to go after a bad guy that Barney unintentionally helped escape. While Barney was forever frustrated that Mayberry was too small for the delusional ideas he had of himself, viewers got the sense that he couldn't have survived anywhere else. Don Knotts played the comic and pathetic sides of the character with equal aplomb and he received three Emmy Awards during the show's first five seasons. When the show first aired, Griffith was intended to be the comedic lead with Knotts as his straight man, similar to their roles in No Time for Sergeants. However, it was quickly discovered that the show was funnier with the roles reversed. As Griffith maintained in several interviews, "By the second episode, I knew that Don should be funny, and I should play straight." Knotts believed remarks by Griffith that The Andy Griffith Show would end after five seasons, and he began to look for other work, signing a five-film contract with Universal Studios. He was caught off guard when Griffith announced that he would continue the show after all, but Knotts's hands were tied. In his autobiography, Knotts admitted that he had not yet signed a contract when Griffith announced his decision; but he had made up his mind to move on, believing he would not get the chance again. Knotts left the series in 1965. His character's absence on the show was explained by Deputy Fife's having finally made the "big time," joining the Raleigh, North Carolina police force. CANNOTANSWER | three awards for the first five seasons that he played the character. | Jesse Donald Knotts (July 21, 1924February 24, 2006) was an American actor and comedian. He is widely known for his role as Deputy Sheriff Barney Fife on The Andy Griffith Show, a 1960s sitcom for which he earned five Emmy Awards. He also played Ralph Furley on the highly rated sitcom Three's Company from 1979 to 1984. He starred in multiple comedic films, including the leading roles in The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966) and The Incredible Mr. Limpet (1964). In 1979, TV Guide ranked him number 27 on its 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time list.
Early life
Jesse Donald Knotts was born on July 21, 1924, in Morgantown, West Virginia, the youngest of four sons born to farmer William Jesse Knotts and his wife, Elsie Luzetta Knotts (née Moore). His parents were married in Spraggs, Pennsylvania. His English paternal ancestors emigrated to America in the 17th century, originally settling in Queen Anne's County, Maryland. Knotts' brothers were named Willis, William, and Ralph "Sid".
Don's mother was 40 at the time of his birth and his father suffered from mental illness. Afflicted with schizophrenia and alcoholism, he sometimes terrorized Don with a knife, causing Don to turn inward at an early age. The elder Knotts died of pneumonia when Don was 13 years old. Don and his brothers were then raised by their mother, who ran a boarding house in Morgantown. She died in 1969 at age 84. Her son William preceded her in death in 1941 at age 31. They are buried in the family plot at Beverly Hills Memorial Park in Morgantown.
Don graduated from Morgantown High School. After enlisting in the United States Army and serving in World War II, Don earned a bachelor's degree in education with a minor in speech from West Virginia University in Morgantown, graduating in 1948. He was a member of Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity and Alpha Psi Omega Honor Society while at WVU.
Career
Early career
Before he entered high school, Knotts began performing as a ventriloquist and comedian at various church and school functions. After high school, he traveled to New York City to try to make his way as a comedian but returned home to attend West Virginia University when his career failed to take off. After his college freshman year, Knotts joined the U.S. Army and spent most of his service entertaining troops. He toured the western Pacific Islands as a comedian as part of a G.I. variety show called "Stars and Gripes". His ventriloquist act in "Stars and Gripes" included a dummy named Danny, which Knotts grew to hate, eventually throwing it overboard according to his friend and castmate, Al Checco.
Knotts served in the U.S. Army from June 21, 1943, to January 6, 1946, in the Army's 6817th Special Services Battalion. He was discharged at the rank of Technician Grade 5, which was the equivalent then of a corporal. During his military service, Knotts was awarded the World War II Victory Medal, the Philippine Liberation Medal, the Asiatic–Pacific Campaign Medal (with 4 bronze service stars), the American Campaign Medal, the Army Good Conduct Medal, the Army Marksman Badge (with an M1 Carbine) and the Honorable Service Lapel Pin.
Knotts returned to West Virginia University after being demobilized and graduated in 1948. He married Kay Metz and moved back to New York, where connections he had made while in the Special Services Branch helped him break into show business. In addition to doing stand-up comedy at clubs, he appeared on the radio, eventually playing the wisecracking, know-it-all character "Windy Wales" on a radio Western called "Bobby Benson and the B-Bar-B Riders".
Knotts got his first major break on television in the soap opera Search for Tomorrow where he appeared from 1953 to 1955. He came to fame in 1956 on Steve Allen's variety show, as part of Allen's repertory company, most notably in Allen's mock "Man in the Street" interviews, always as an extremely nervous man. He remained with the Allen program through the 1959–1960 season. From October 20, 1955, through September 14, 1957, Knotts appeared in the Broadway play version of No Time for Sergeants, in which he played two roles, listed on the playbill as a Corporal Manual Dexterity and a Preacher. In 1958, Knotts appeared for the first time on film with Andy Griffith in the film version of No Time for Sergeants. In that film, Knotts reprised his Broadway role and played a high-strung Air Force test administrator whose routine is disrupted by the hijinks of a provincial new recruit.
The Andy Griffith Show
In 1960, Andy Griffith was offered the opportunity to headline his own sitcom, The Andy Griffith Show (1960–1968). Knotts took the role of Barney Fife, the deputy—and originally cousin—of Sheriff Andy Taylor (portrayed by Griffith). Knotts's portrayal of the deputy on the popular show earned him five Emmy Awards for Best Supporting Actor in a Television Comedy.
A summary of the show from the website of the Museum of Broadcast Communications describes Deputy Barney Fife:
When the show first aired, Griffith was intended to be the comedic lead with Knotts as his straight man, similar to their roles in No Time for Sergeants. However, it was quickly discovered that the show was funnier with the roles reversed. As Griffith maintained in several interviews, "By the second episode, I knew that Don should be funny, and I should play straight."
Knotts believed remarks by Griffith that The Andy Griffith Show would end after five seasons, and he began to look for other work, signing a five-film contract with Universal Studios. In his autobiography, Knotts admitted that he had not yet signed the contract when Griffith announced his decision to continue the series; but he had made up his mind to move on, believing he would not get the chance again. Knotts left the series in 1965. His character's absence on the show was explained by Deputy Fife's having finally made the "big time," joining the Raleigh, North Carolina, police force.
Post-Mayberry film career
Knotts went on to star in a series of film comedies that drew on his high-strung persona from the television series: he had a cameo appearance in United Artists' It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), and starred in Warner Bros.' The Incredible Mr. Limpet (1964). Knotts then began his Universal five-film contract with The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966), The Reluctant Astronaut (1967), The Shakiest Gun in the West (1968), The Love God? (1969) and How to Frame a Figg (1971). After making How to Frame a Figg, Knotts's five-film contract with Universal finished.
Knotts reprised his role as Barney Fife several times in the 1960s: he made five guest appearances on The Andy Griffith Show (gaining him another two Emmy Awards), and he later appeared once on the spin-off Mayberry R.F.D., where he was present as best man for the marriage of Andy Taylor and his longtime love, Helen Crump. He continued to work steadily, though he did not appear as a regular on any successful television series until in 1979 he got the part of landlord Ralph Furley on Three's Company for seasons 4 through 8, after the departure of Norman Fell, who had played the previous landlord.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Knotts served as the spokesman for Dodge trucks and was featured prominently in a series of print ads and dealer brochures. On television, he went on to host a variety show/sitcom hybrid on NBC, The Don Knotts Show, which aired Tuesdays during the fall of 1970, but the series was low-rated and short-lived, and Knotts was uncomfortable with the variety show format. He also made frequent guest appearances on other shows such as The Bill Cosby Show and Here's Lucy. In 1970, he appeared as a Barney Fife-like police officer in the pilot of The New Andy Griffith Show. In 1972, Knotts voiced an animated version of himself in two episodes of The New Scooby Doo Movies: "The Spooky Fog of Juneberry", in which he played a lawman resembling Barney Fife, and "Guess Who's Knott Coming to Dinner". He appeared as Felix Unger in a stage version of Neil Simon's The Odd Couple, with Art Carney as Oscar Madison, and toured in the Neil Simon comedy Last of the Red Hot Lovers.
Beginning in 1975, Knotts was teamed with Tim Conway in a series of slapstick films aimed at children, including the Disney film The Apple Dumpling Gang (1975) and its sequel, The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again (1979). They also did two independent films, the boxing comedy The Prize Fighter (1979), and the mystery-comedy The Private Eyes (1980). Knotts co-starred in several other Disney films, including Gus (1976), No Deposit, No Return (1976), Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo (1977) and Hot Lead and Cold Feet (1978).
Three's Company
In 1979, Knotts returned to series television in his second most identifiable role, the wacky but lovable landlord Ralph Furley on Three's Company. The series, which was already an established hit, added Knotts to the cast when the original landlords, Stanley and Helen Roper (a married couple played by Norman Fell and Audra Lindley, respectively) left the series to star in their own short-lived spin-off series The Ropers.
On set, Knotts easily integrated himself into the already established cast who were, as John Ritter put it, "so scared" of Knotts because of his star status when he joined the cast. When Suzanne Somers left the show after a contract dispute in 1981, the writers started giving the material meant for Somers's Chrissy to Knotts's Furley. Knotts remained on the series until it ended in 1984. The Three's Company script supervisor, Carol Summers, became Knotts' agent and often accompanied him to personal appearances.
Later years
In 1986, Don Knotts reunited with Andy Griffith in the made-for-television film Return to Mayberry, reprising his Barney Fife role. In early 1987, Knotts joined the cast of the first-run syndication comedy What a Country!, playing Principal Bud McPherson for the series' remaining 13 episodes. The sitcom was produced by Martin Rips and Joseph Staretski, who had previously worked on Three's Company.
In 1988, Knotts joined Andy Griffith in another show, playing the recurring role of pesky neighbor Les Calhoun on Matlock until 1992.
After that, Knotts's roles were sporadic, including a cameo appearance in the film Big Bully (1996) as the principal of the high school. In 1998, Knotts played a small but pivotal role as a mysterious TV repairman in Pleasantville. That year, his hometown of Morgantown, West Virginia, changed the name of the street formerly known as South University Avenue (U.S. Route 119) to Don Knotts Boulevard on "Don Knotts Day". Also that day, in honor of Knotts's role as Barney Fife, he was named an honorary deputy sheriff with the Monongalia County Sheriff's Department.
Knotts was recognized in 2000 with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He continued to act on stage, but much of his film and television work after 2000 was as voice talent. In 2002, he appeared again with Scooby-Doo in the video game Scooby-Doo! Night of 100 Frights. (Knotts also spoofed his appearances on that show in various promotions for Cartoon Network and in a parody on Robot Chicken, where he was teamed with Phyllis Diller.) In 2003, Knotts teamed up with Tim Conway again to provide voices for the direct-to-video children's series Hermie and Friends, which continued until his death. In 2005, he was the voice of Mayor Turkey Lurkey in Chicken Little (2005), his first Disney movie since 1979. On September 12, 2003, Knotts was in Kansas City in a stage version of On Golden Pond when he received a call from John Ritter's family telling him that his former Three's Company co-star had died of an aortic dissection that day. Knotts and his co-stars attended the funeral four days later. Knotts had appeared with Ritter one final time in a cameo on 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter. It was an episode that paid homage to their earlier television series. Knotts was the last Three's Company star to work with Ritter.
During this period of time, macular degeneration in both eyes caused the otherwise robust Knotts to become virtually blind. His live appearances on television were few. In 2005, Knotts parodied his Ralph Furley character while playing a Paul Young variation in a Desperate Housewives sketch on The 3rd Annual TV Land Awards. He parodied that part one final time in "Stone Cold Crazy", an episode of the sitcom That '70s Show. In the show, Knotts played Fez and Jackie's new landlord. This was his last live-action television appearance. His final role was in Air Buddies (2006), a direct-to-video sequel to Air Bud, voicing the sheriff's deputy dog, Sniffer.
Personal life
Knotts's friend Al Checco said, "Don was somewhat of a ladies' man. He fancied himself something of a Frank Sinatra. The ladies loved him and he dated quite a bit." Knotts was married three times. His marriage to Kathryn Metz lasted from 1947 until their divorce in 1964, and he raised his daughter as a single parent. He married Loralee Czuchna in 1974 and they divorced in 1983. His third marriage was to Frances Yarborough, from 2002 until his death in 2006. From his first marriage, Knotts had a son, Thomas Knotts, and a daughter, actress Karen Knotts (born April 2, 1954).
Knotts struggled with hypochondria and macular degeneration. Betty Lynn, one of Knotts' co-stars on The Andy Griffith Show, described him as a "very quiet man. Very sweet. Nothing like Barney Fife." TV writer Mark Evanier called him "the most beloved person in all of show business".
Death
Knotts died at age 81 on February 24, 2006, at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles from pulmonary and respiratory complications of pneumonia related to lung cancer. He had been undergoing treatment at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in the months before his death, but he returned home after he had reportedly been feeling better. He was buried at Westwood Memorial Park in Los Angeles.
Knotts' obituaries cited him as a major influence on other entertainers. In early 2011, his grave's plain granite headstone was replaced with a bronze plaque that displays several of Knotts' movie and television roles. A statue honoring Knotts, created by Jamie Lester, was unveiled on July 23, 2016, in front of The Metropolitan Theatre on High Street in his hometown of Morgantown, West Virginia.
Filmography
Film
No Time for Sergeants (1958) as Cpl. John C. Brown
Wake Me When It's Over (1960) as Sgt. Percy Warren
The Last Time I Saw Archie (1961) as Captain Harry Little
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) as the nervous motorist
Move Over, Darling (1963) as Shoe Clerk
The Incredible Mr. Limpet (1964) as Henry Limpet
The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966) as Luther Heggs
The Reluctant Astronaut (1967) as Roy Fleming
The Shakiest Gun in the West (1968) as Dr. Jesse W. Heywood
The Love God? (1969) as Abner Audubon Peacock IV
How to Frame a Figg (1971) as Hollis Alexander Figg
The Apple Dumpling Gang (1975) as Theodore Ogelvie
No Deposit, No Return (1976) as Bert Delaney
Gus (1976) as Coach Venner
Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo (1977) as Wheely Applegate
Mule Feathers (1978) as Narrator / The Mule (voice)
Hot Lead and Cold Feet (1978) as Sheriff Denver Kid
The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again (1979) as Theodore Ogelvie
The Prize Fighter (1979) as Shake
The Private Eyes (1980) as Inspector Winship
Cannonball Run II (1984) as CHP Officer #2
Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night (1987) as Gee Willikers (voice)
Big Bully (1996) as Principal Kokelar
Cats Don't Dance (1997) as T.W. Turtle (voice)
Pleasantville (1998) as TV Repairman
Tom Sawyer (2000) as Mutt Potter (voice)
Quints (2000) as Governor Healy
Chicken Little (2005) as Mayor Turkey Lurkey (voice)
Air Buddies (2006) as Sniffer (voice; final film role, posthumous release)
Television
Search for Tomorrow (1953–1955) as Wilbur Peterson
The Steve Allen Show (1956–1960) as Himself
The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (1960) as Esmond Metzger
The Andy Griffith Show (1960–1968) as Barney Fife
The Joey Bishop Show (1 episode 1964) as Barney Fife
The Red Skelton Show (1961–1965) as Commodore of Lagoons / 'Steady Fingers' Ferguson / Horaces Horatio / Mr. Pallid / Herbie
The New Steve Allen Show (1961–1963) as Regular
The Garry Moore Show (4 episodes 1962–1964) as Himself
McHale's Navy (Season 4, Episode 25) as Lt. Pratt
The Jerry Lewis Show (1 episode 1963) as Himself
38th Academy Awards (1966) as Himself (co-presenter)
The Don Knotts Special (1967) as Himself (host/performer)
The Hollywood Palace (1 episode #7.17 1970) as Himself
The Don Knotts Show (1970–1971) as Himself (host)
Don Knotts' Nice Clean, Decent, Wholesome Hour (1970) as Himself (host/performer)
The New Scooby-Doo Movies (2 episodes 1972) as Himself (voice)
The Man Who Came to Dinner (1972) as Dr. Bradley
The Flip Wilson Show (1972–73) (2 episodes) as Himself
Dinah Shore: In Search of the Ideal Man (1973) as Himself
I Love a Mystery (1973) as Alexander Archer
Here's Lucy (1973) (1 episode) as Ben Fletcher
Hollywood Squares (4 episodes, 1974–1977) as Himself – Panelist
Steve Allen's Laugh Back (1975)
The Captain & Tennille Show (1976–1977) as Himself (recurring guest)
The Muppet Show (1977) as Himself – Special Guest Star
Fantasy Island (1978–1979) as Felix Birdsong / Stanley Scheckter
The Love Boat (1979) as Herb Grobecker / Devon King
Three's Company (1979–1984) as Ralph Furley
George Burns Comedy Week (1985) as Himself
Return to Mayberry (1986) as Barney Fife
What a Country! (1987) as F. Jerry 'Bud' McPherson
The Little Troll Prince (1987) as Professor Nidaros (voice)
Matlock (1987–1992) as Les Calhoun
Newhart (1 episode 1990) as Iron
Timmy's Gift: A Precious Moments Christmas (1991) as Titus (voice)
The Andy Griffith Show Reunion (1993) as Himself
Burke's Law (1 episode 1994)
Step by Step (1993) (1 episode) as Deputy Feif
101 Dalmatians: The Series (2 episodes, 1997–1998) as Additional Voices (voice)
E! True Hollywood Story (1 episode 1998) as Himself
Late Night with Conan O'Brien (1 episode 1999) as Himself
Jingle Bells (1999) as Kris (voice)
Inside TV Land: The Andy Griffith Show (2000) as Himself
Biography TV Documentary (2 episodes 2000–2002) as Himself
Biography: "John Ritter: In Good Company" (2002) as Himself
Inside TV Land: Cops on Camera (2002) as Himself
Odd Job Jack (2003) as Dirk Douglas
8 Simple Rules (2003) as Himself
Larry King Live (1 episode 2003) as Himself
The Andy Griffith Show: Back To Mayberry (2003) as Himself/Barney Fife
TV Lands Top Ten (2004) (1 episode) as Himself
Johnny Bravo (cartoon series), episode "Johnny Makeover" (2004) as Don Knotts (voice)
That '70s Show (2005) as The Landlord
Las Vegas (2005) as Himself
The 3rd Annual TV Land Awards (2005) as Paul Young (segment "Desperate Classic Housewives")
Robot Chicken as Himself
Hatching Chicken Little (2006) as Himself
CMT: The Greatest – 20 Greatest Country Comedy Shows (2006) as Himself
Video games
Scooby-Doo! Night of 100 Frights (2002) as The Groundskeeper
Animation videos
Hermie and Friends (2003–06) as Wormie
Awards
References
Further reading
Klin, Richard. "Fife and Drum". Flagpole, 2006.
External links
The West Virginia & Regional History Center has a collection of materials related to the career or Don Knotts
20th-century American comedians
20th-century American male actors
21st-century American comedians
21st-century American male actors
1924 births
2006 deaths
American male comedians
American male film actors
American male soap opera actors
American male television actors
American male voice actors
United States Army personnel of World War II
American people of English descent
Burials at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery
Deaths from cancer in California
Deaths from lung cancer
Deaths from pneumonia in California
Disney people
Male actors from West Virginia
Military personnel from West Virginia
Morgantown High School alumni
Outstanding Performance by a Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series Primetime Emmy Award winners
People from Morgantown, West Virginia
United States Army soldiers
Ventriloquists
West Virginia University alumni | false | [
"The 3rd Academy Awards were awarded to films completed and screened released between August 1, 1929, and July 31, 1930, by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.\n\nAll Quiet on the Western Front was the first film to win both Best Picture and Best Director, a feat that would become common in later years. Lewis Milestone became the first person to win two Oscars, having won Best Director – Comedy at the 1st Academy Awards.\n\nThe Love Parade received six nominations, the greatest number of any film to that point. However, it did not win in any category.\n\nBest Sound Recording was introduced this year, making it the first new category since the inception of the Oscars. It was awarded to Douglas Shearer, brother of Best Actress winner Norma Shearer, making them the first sibling winners in Oscar history.\n\nThis was also the first Academy Awards ceremony to be filmed. It is unknown where it was filmed at, but what was filmed was Universal Pictures co-founder and president Carl Laemmle winning a special Academy Award for All Quiet on the Western Front which was given to him by Louis B. Mayer, who was vice president of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer at the time, Norma Shearer winning her Best Actress award, and screenwriter Frances Marion winning the Academy Award for Best Writing Achievement for The Big House.\n\nAwards \n\nWinners are listed first and highlighted in boldface.\n\nMultiple nominations and awards \n\nThe following eight films received multiple nominations:\n\n 6 nominations: The Love Parade\n 4 nominations: All Quiet on the Western Front, The Big House and The Divorcee\n 3 nominations: Disraeli and Anna Christie\n 2 nominations: Bulldog Drummond and Romance\n\nThe following two films received multiple awards:\n\n 2 awards: All Quiet on the Western Front and The Big House\n\nSee also \n\n 1929 in film\n 1930 in film\n\nReferences\n\nAcademy Awards ceremonies\n1929 film awards\n1930 film awards\n1930 in American cinema\nAcademy Awards\nNovember 1930 events",
"Ricky Gervais ( ; born 25 June 1961) is an English comedian, actor, writer, producer, and director. He is best known for co-creating, writing, and acting in the British television series The Office (2001–2003). He has won seven BAFTA Awards, five British Comedy Awards, two Primetime Emmy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, and the Rose d'Or twice (2006 and 2019), as well as a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination. In 2007, he was placed at No. 11 on Channel 4's 100 Greatest Stand-Ups and at No. 3 on the updated 2010 list. In 2010, he was named on the Time 100 list of the world's most influential people. In 2002 he was nominated to be Britain's Funniest Man but did not win the award, he did however beat some gangsters up in a pub when an old man was being hassled, against the odds.\n\nMajor awards\n\nPrimetime Emmy Awards\n\nGolden Globe Awards\n\nBAFTA Television Awards\n\nScreen Actors Guild Awards\n\nWriters Guild of America Awards\n\nProducers Guild of America Awards\n\nOther awards\n\nBritannia Awards\n\nBritish Comedy Guide Awards\n\nBritish Comedy Awards\n\nBroadcasting Press Guild Awards\n\nEvening Standard British Film Awards\n\nSatellite Award\n\nTelevision Critics Association Awards\n\nReferences \n\nLists of awards received by actor"
] |
[
"Don Knotts",
"The Andy Griffith Show",
"What show did he star in",
"Andy Griffith was offered the opportunity to headline his own sitcom, The Andy Griffith Show",
"When did the show run for",
"1960-1968",
"How did knotts fit into the show",
"Knotts took the role of Barney Fife, the deputy--and originally cousin--of Sheriff Andy Taylor (portrayed by Griffith",
"Did he win awards for the show",
"Knotts's portrayal of the deputy on the popular show earned him five Emmy Awards for Best Supporting Actor in a Television Comedy,",
"What did he win the awards",
"three awards for the first five seasons that he played the character."
] | C_78df05bd80874e908541d6c62b2828dd_0 | What did people say about his character | 6 | What did people say about Knotts' character on The Andy Griffith Show? | Don Knotts | In 1960, Andy Griffith was offered the opportunity to headline his own sitcom, The Andy Griffith Show (1960-1968). Knotts took the role of Barney Fife, the deputy--and originally cousin--of Sheriff Andy Taylor (portrayed by Griffith). Knotts's portrayal of the deputy on the popular show earned him five Emmy Awards for Best Supporting Actor in a Television Comedy, three awards for the first five seasons that he played the character. A summary of the show from the website of the Museum of Broadcast Communications describes Deputy Barney Fife: Self-important, romantic, and nearly always wrong, Barney dreamed of the day he could use the one bullet Andy had issued to him, though he did fire his gun on a few occasions. He always fired his pistol accidentally while still in his holster or in the ceiling of the court house, at which point he would sadly hand his pistol to Andy. This is why Barney kept his one very shiny bullet in his shirt pocket. In episode #196, Andy gave Barney more bullets so that he would have a loaded gun to go after a bad guy that Barney unintentionally helped escape. While Barney was forever frustrated that Mayberry was too small for the delusional ideas he had of himself, viewers got the sense that he couldn't have survived anywhere else. Don Knotts played the comic and pathetic sides of the character with equal aplomb and he received three Emmy Awards during the show's first five seasons. When the show first aired, Griffith was intended to be the comedic lead with Knotts as his straight man, similar to their roles in No Time for Sergeants. However, it was quickly discovered that the show was funnier with the roles reversed. As Griffith maintained in several interviews, "By the second episode, I knew that Don should be funny, and I should play straight." Knotts believed remarks by Griffith that The Andy Griffith Show would end after five seasons, and he began to look for other work, signing a five-film contract with Universal Studios. He was caught off guard when Griffith announced that he would continue the show after all, but Knotts's hands were tied. In his autobiography, Knotts admitted that he had not yet signed a contract when Griffith announced his decision; but he had made up his mind to move on, believing he would not get the chance again. Knotts left the series in 1965. His character's absence on the show was explained by Deputy Fife's having finally made the "big time," joining the Raleigh, North Carolina police force. CANNOTANSWER | A summary of the show from the website of the Museum of Broadcast Communications describes Deputy Barney Fife: | Jesse Donald Knotts (July 21, 1924February 24, 2006) was an American actor and comedian. He is widely known for his role as Deputy Sheriff Barney Fife on The Andy Griffith Show, a 1960s sitcom for which he earned five Emmy Awards. He also played Ralph Furley on the highly rated sitcom Three's Company from 1979 to 1984. He starred in multiple comedic films, including the leading roles in The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966) and The Incredible Mr. Limpet (1964). In 1979, TV Guide ranked him number 27 on its 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time list.
Early life
Jesse Donald Knotts was born on July 21, 1924, in Morgantown, West Virginia, the youngest of four sons born to farmer William Jesse Knotts and his wife, Elsie Luzetta Knotts (née Moore). His parents were married in Spraggs, Pennsylvania. His English paternal ancestors emigrated to America in the 17th century, originally settling in Queen Anne's County, Maryland. Knotts' brothers were named Willis, William, and Ralph "Sid".
Don's mother was 40 at the time of his birth and his father suffered from mental illness. Afflicted with schizophrenia and alcoholism, he sometimes terrorized Don with a knife, causing Don to turn inward at an early age. The elder Knotts died of pneumonia when Don was 13 years old. Don and his brothers were then raised by their mother, who ran a boarding house in Morgantown. She died in 1969 at age 84. Her son William preceded her in death in 1941 at age 31. They are buried in the family plot at Beverly Hills Memorial Park in Morgantown.
Don graduated from Morgantown High School. After enlisting in the United States Army and serving in World War II, Don earned a bachelor's degree in education with a minor in speech from West Virginia University in Morgantown, graduating in 1948. He was a member of Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity and Alpha Psi Omega Honor Society while at WVU.
Career
Early career
Before he entered high school, Knotts began performing as a ventriloquist and comedian at various church and school functions. After high school, he traveled to New York City to try to make his way as a comedian but returned home to attend West Virginia University when his career failed to take off. After his college freshman year, Knotts joined the U.S. Army and spent most of his service entertaining troops. He toured the western Pacific Islands as a comedian as part of a G.I. variety show called "Stars and Gripes". His ventriloquist act in "Stars and Gripes" included a dummy named Danny, which Knotts grew to hate, eventually throwing it overboard according to his friend and castmate, Al Checco.
Knotts served in the U.S. Army from June 21, 1943, to January 6, 1946, in the Army's 6817th Special Services Battalion. He was discharged at the rank of Technician Grade 5, which was the equivalent then of a corporal. During his military service, Knotts was awarded the World War II Victory Medal, the Philippine Liberation Medal, the Asiatic–Pacific Campaign Medal (with 4 bronze service stars), the American Campaign Medal, the Army Good Conduct Medal, the Army Marksman Badge (with an M1 Carbine) and the Honorable Service Lapel Pin.
Knotts returned to West Virginia University after being demobilized and graduated in 1948. He married Kay Metz and moved back to New York, where connections he had made while in the Special Services Branch helped him break into show business. In addition to doing stand-up comedy at clubs, he appeared on the radio, eventually playing the wisecracking, know-it-all character "Windy Wales" on a radio Western called "Bobby Benson and the B-Bar-B Riders".
Knotts got his first major break on television in the soap opera Search for Tomorrow where he appeared from 1953 to 1955. He came to fame in 1956 on Steve Allen's variety show, as part of Allen's repertory company, most notably in Allen's mock "Man in the Street" interviews, always as an extremely nervous man. He remained with the Allen program through the 1959–1960 season. From October 20, 1955, through September 14, 1957, Knotts appeared in the Broadway play version of No Time for Sergeants, in which he played two roles, listed on the playbill as a Corporal Manual Dexterity and a Preacher. In 1958, Knotts appeared for the first time on film with Andy Griffith in the film version of No Time for Sergeants. In that film, Knotts reprised his Broadway role and played a high-strung Air Force test administrator whose routine is disrupted by the hijinks of a provincial new recruit.
The Andy Griffith Show
In 1960, Andy Griffith was offered the opportunity to headline his own sitcom, The Andy Griffith Show (1960–1968). Knotts took the role of Barney Fife, the deputy—and originally cousin—of Sheriff Andy Taylor (portrayed by Griffith). Knotts's portrayal of the deputy on the popular show earned him five Emmy Awards for Best Supporting Actor in a Television Comedy.
A summary of the show from the website of the Museum of Broadcast Communications describes Deputy Barney Fife:
When the show first aired, Griffith was intended to be the comedic lead with Knotts as his straight man, similar to their roles in No Time for Sergeants. However, it was quickly discovered that the show was funnier with the roles reversed. As Griffith maintained in several interviews, "By the second episode, I knew that Don should be funny, and I should play straight."
Knotts believed remarks by Griffith that The Andy Griffith Show would end after five seasons, and he began to look for other work, signing a five-film contract with Universal Studios. In his autobiography, Knotts admitted that he had not yet signed the contract when Griffith announced his decision to continue the series; but he had made up his mind to move on, believing he would not get the chance again. Knotts left the series in 1965. His character's absence on the show was explained by Deputy Fife's having finally made the "big time," joining the Raleigh, North Carolina, police force.
Post-Mayberry film career
Knotts went on to star in a series of film comedies that drew on his high-strung persona from the television series: he had a cameo appearance in United Artists' It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), and starred in Warner Bros.' The Incredible Mr. Limpet (1964). Knotts then began his Universal five-film contract with The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966), The Reluctant Astronaut (1967), The Shakiest Gun in the West (1968), The Love God? (1969) and How to Frame a Figg (1971). After making How to Frame a Figg, Knotts's five-film contract with Universal finished.
Knotts reprised his role as Barney Fife several times in the 1960s: he made five guest appearances on The Andy Griffith Show (gaining him another two Emmy Awards), and he later appeared once on the spin-off Mayberry R.F.D., where he was present as best man for the marriage of Andy Taylor and his longtime love, Helen Crump. He continued to work steadily, though he did not appear as a regular on any successful television series until in 1979 he got the part of landlord Ralph Furley on Three's Company for seasons 4 through 8, after the departure of Norman Fell, who had played the previous landlord.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Knotts served as the spokesman for Dodge trucks and was featured prominently in a series of print ads and dealer brochures. On television, he went on to host a variety show/sitcom hybrid on NBC, The Don Knotts Show, which aired Tuesdays during the fall of 1970, but the series was low-rated and short-lived, and Knotts was uncomfortable with the variety show format. He also made frequent guest appearances on other shows such as The Bill Cosby Show and Here's Lucy. In 1970, he appeared as a Barney Fife-like police officer in the pilot of The New Andy Griffith Show. In 1972, Knotts voiced an animated version of himself in two episodes of The New Scooby Doo Movies: "The Spooky Fog of Juneberry", in which he played a lawman resembling Barney Fife, and "Guess Who's Knott Coming to Dinner". He appeared as Felix Unger in a stage version of Neil Simon's The Odd Couple, with Art Carney as Oscar Madison, and toured in the Neil Simon comedy Last of the Red Hot Lovers.
Beginning in 1975, Knotts was teamed with Tim Conway in a series of slapstick films aimed at children, including the Disney film The Apple Dumpling Gang (1975) and its sequel, The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again (1979). They also did two independent films, the boxing comedy The Prize Fighter (1979), and the mystery-comedy The Private Eyes (1980). Knotts co-starred in several other Disney films, including Gus (1976), No Deposit, No Return (1976), Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo (1977) and Hot Lead and Cold Feet (1978).
Three's Company
In 1979, Knotts returned to series television in his second most identifiable role, the wacky but lovable landlord Ralph Furley on Three's Company. The series, which was already an established hit, added Knotts to the cast when the original landlords, Stanley and Helen Roper (a married couple played by Norman Fell and Audra Lindley, respectively) left the series to star in their own short-lived spin-off series The Ropers.
On set, Knotts easily integrated himself into the already established cast who were, as John Ritter put it, "so scared" of Knotts because of his star status when he joined the cast. When Suzanne Somers left the show after a contract dispute in 1981, the writers started giving the material meant for Somers's Chrissy to Knotts's Furley. Knotts remained on the series until it ended in 1984. The Three's Company script supervisor, Carol Summers, became Knotts' agent and often accompanied him to personal appearances.
Later years
In 1986, Don Knotts reunited with Andy Griffith in the made-for-television film Return to Mayberry, reprising his Barney Fife role. In early 1987, Knotts joined the cast of the first-run syndication comedy What a Country!, playing Principal Bud McPherson for the series' remaining 13 episodes. The sitcom was produced by Martin Rips and Joseph Staretski, who had previously worked on Three's Company.
In 1988, Knotts joined Andy Griffith in another show, playing the recurring role of pesky neighbor Les Calhoun on Matlock until 1992.
After that, Knotts's roles were sporadic, including a cameo appearance in the film Big Bully (1996) as the principal of the high school. In 1998, Knotts played a small but pivotal role as a mysterious TV repairman in Pleasantville. That year, his hometown of Morgantown, West Virginia, changed the name of the street formerly known as South University Avenue (U.S. Route 119) to Don Knotts Boulevard on "Don Knotts Day". Also that day, in honor of Knotts's role as Barney Fife, he was named an honorary deputy sheriff with the Monongalia County Sheriff's Department.
Knotts was recognized in 2000 with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He continued to act on stage, but much of his film and television work after 2000 was as voice talent. In 2002, he appeared again with Scooby-Doo in the video game Scooby-Doo! Night of 100 Frights. (Knotts also spoofed his appearances on that show in various promotions for Cartoon Network and in a parody on Robot Chicken, where he was teamed with Phyllis Diller.) In 2003, Knotts teamed up with Tim Conway again to provide voices for the direct-to-video children's series Hermie and Friends, which continued until his death. In 2005, he was the voice of Mayor Turkey Lurkey in Chicken Little (2005), his first Disney movie since 1979. On September 12, 2003, Knotts was in Kansas City in a stage version of On Golden Pond when he received a call from John Ritter's family telling him that his former Three's Company co-star had died of an aortic dissection that day. Knotts and his co-stars attended the funeral four days later. Knotts had appeared with Ritter one final time in a cameo on 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter. It was an episode that paid homage to their earlier television series. Knotts was the last Three's Company star to work with Ritter.
During this period of time, macular degeneration in both eyes caused the otherwise robust Knotts to become virtually blind. His live appearances on television were few. In 2005, Knotts parodied his Ralph Furley character while playing a Paul Young variation in a Desperate Housewives sketch on The 3rd Annual TV Land Awards. He parodied that part one final time in "Stone Cold Crazy", an episode of the sitcom That '70s Show. In the show, Knotts played Fez and Jackie's new landlord. This was his last live-action television appearance. His final role was in Air Buddies (2006), a direct-to-video sequel to Air Bud, voicing the sheriff's deputy dog, Sniffer.
Personal life
Knotts's friend Al Checco said, "Don was somewhat of a ladies' man. He fancied himself something of a Frank Sinatra. The ladies loved him and he dated quite a bit." Knotts was married three times. His marriage to Kathryn Metz lasted from 1947 until their divorce in 1964, and he raised his daughter as a single parent. He married Loralee Czuchna in 1974 and they divorced in 1983. His third marriage was to Frances Yarborough, from 2002 until his death in 2006. From his first marriage, Knotts had a son, Thomas Knotts, and a daughter, actress Karen Knotts (born April 2, 1954).
Knotts struggled with hypochondria and macular degeneration. Betty Lynn, one of Knotts' co-stars on The Andy Griffith Show, described him as a "very quiet man. Very sweet. Nothing like Barney Fife." TV writer Mark Evanier called him "the most beloved person in all of show business".
Death
Knotts died at age 81 on February 24, 2006, at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles from pulmonary and respiratory complications of pneumonia related to lung cancer. He had been undergoing treatment at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in the months before his death, but he returned home after he had reportedly been feeling better. He was buried at Westwood Memorial Park in Los Angeles.
Knotts' obituaries cited him as a major influence on other entertainers. In early 2011, his grave's plain granite headstone was replaced with a bronze plaque that displays several of Knotts' movie and television roles. A statue honoring Knotts, created by Jamie Lester, was unveiled on July 23, 2016, in front of The Metropolitan Theatre on High Street in his hometown of Morgantown, West Virginia.
Filmography
Film
No Time for Sergeants (1958) as Cpl. John C. Brown
Wake Me When It's Over (1960) as Sgt. Percy Warren
The Last Time I Saw Archie (1961) as Captain Harry Little
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) as the nervous motorist
Move Over, Darling (1963) as Shoe Clerk
The Incredible Mr. Limpet (1964) as Henry Limpet
The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966) as Luther Heggs
The Reluctant Astronaut (1967) as Roy Fleming
The Shakiest Gun in the West (1968) as Dr. Jesse W. Heywood
The Love God? (1969) as Abner Audubon Peacock IV
How to Frame a Figg (1971) as Hollis Alexander Figg
The Apple Dumpling Gang (1975) as Theodore Ogelvie
No Deposit, No Return (1976) as Bert Delaney
Gus (1976) as Coach Venner
Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo (1977) as Wheely Applegate
Mule Feathers (1978) as Narrator / The Mule (voice)
Hot Lead and Cold Feet (1978) as Sheriff Denver Kid
The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again (1979) as Theodore Ogelvie
The Prize Fighter (1979) as Shake
The Private Eyes (1980) as Inspector Winship
Cannonball Run II (1984) as CHP Officer #2
Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night (1987) as Gee Willikers (voice)
Big Bully (1996) as Principal Kokelar
Cats Don't Dance (1997) as T.W. Turtle (voice)
Pleasantville (1998) as TV Repairman
Tom Sawyer (2000) as Mutt Potter (voice)
Quints (2000) as Governor Healy
Chicken Little (2005) as Mayor Turkey Lurkey (voice)
Air Buddies (2006) as Sniffer (voice; final film role, posthumous release)
Television
Search for Tomorrow (1953–1955) as Wilbur Peterson
The Steve Allen Show (1956–1960) as Himself
The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (1960) as Esmond Metzger
The Andy Griffith Show (1960–1968) as Barney Fife
The Joey Bishop Show (1 episode 1964) as Barney Fife
The Red Skelton Show (1961–1965) as Commodore of Lagoons / 'Steady Fingers' Ferguson / Horaces Horatio / Mr. Pallid / Herbie
The New Steve Allen Show (1961–1963) as Regular
The Garry Moore Show (4 episodes 1962–1964) as Himself
McHale's Navy (Season 4, Episode 25) as Lt. Pratt
The Jerry Lewis Show (1 episode 1963) as Himself
38th Academy Awards (1966) as Himself (co-presenter)
The Don Knotts Special (1967) as Himself (host/performer)
The Hollywood Palace (1 episode #7.17 1970) as Himself
The Don Knotts Show (1970–1971) as Himself (host)
Don Knotts' Nice Clean, Decent, Wholesome Hour (1970) as Himself (host/performer)
The New Scooby-Doo Movies (2 episodes 1972) as Himself (voice)
The Man Who Came to Dinner (1972) as Dr. Bradley
The Flip Wilson Show (1972–73) (2 episodes) as Himself
Dinah Shore: In Search of the Ideal Man (1973) as Himself
I Love a Mystery (1973) as Alexander Archer
Here's Lucy (1973) (1 episode) as Ben Fletcher
Hollywood Squares (4 episodes, 1974–1977) as Himself – Panelist
Steve Allen's Laugh Back (1975)
The Captain & Tennille Show (1976–1977) as Himself (recurring guest)
The Muppet Show (1977) as Himself – Special Guest Star
Fantasy Island (1978–1979) as Felix Birdsong / Stanley Scheckter
The Love Boat (1979) as Herb Grobecker / Devon King
Three's Company (1979–1984) as Ralph Furley
George Burns Comedy Week (1985) as Himself
Return to Mayberry (1986) as Barney Fife
What a Country! (1987) as F. Jerry 'Bud' McPherson
The Little Troll Prince (1987) as Professor Nidaros (voice)
Matlock (1987–1992) as Les Calhoun
Newhart (1 episode 1990) as Iron
Timmy's Gift: A Precious Moments Christmas (1991) as Titus (voice)
The Andy Griffith Show Reunion (1993) as Himself
Burke's Law (1 episode 1994)
Step by Step (1993) (1 episode) as Deputy Feif
101 Dalmatians: The Series (2 episodes, 1997–1998) as Additional Voices (voice)
E! True Hollywood Story (1 episode 1998) as Himself
Late Night with Conan O'Brien (1 episode 1999) as Himself
Jingle Bells (1999) as Kris (voice)
Inside TV Land: The Andy Griffith Show (2000) as Himself
Biography TV Documentary (2 episodes 2000–2002) as Himself
Biography: "John Ritter: In Good Company" (2002) as Himself
Inside TV Land: Cops on Camera (2002) as Himself
Odd Job Jack (2003) as Dirk Douglas
8 Simple Rules (2003) as Himself
Larry King Live (1 episode 2003) as Himself
The Andy Griffith Show: Back To Mayberry (2003) as Himself/Barney Fife
TV Lands Top Ten (2004) (1 episode) as Himself
Johnny Bravo (cartoon series), episode "Johnny Makeover" (2004) as Don Knotts (voice)
That '70s Show (2005) as The Landlord
Las Vegas (2005) as Himself
The 3rd Annual TV Land Awards (2005) as Paul Young (segment "Desperate Classic Housewives")
Robot Chicken as Himself
Hatching Chicken Little (2006) as Himself
CMT: The Greatest – 20 Greatest Country Comedy Shows (2006) as Himself
Video games
Scooby-Doo! Night of 100 Frights (2002) as The Groundskeeper
Animation videos
Hermie and Friends (2003–06) as Wormie
Awards
References
Further reading
Klin, Richard. "Fife and Drum". Flagpole, 2006.
External links
The West Virginia & Regional History Center has a collection of materials related to the career or Don Knotts
20th-century American comedians
20th-century American male actors
21st-century American comedians
21st-century American male actors
1924 births
2006 deaths
American male comedians
American male film actors
American male soap opera actors
American male television actors
American male voice actors
United States Army personnel of World War II
American people of English descent
Burials at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery
Deaths from cancer in California
Deaths from lung cancer
Deaths from pneumonia in California
Disney people
Male actors from West Virginia
Military personnel from West Virginia
Morgantown High School alumni
Outstanding Performance by a Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series Primetime Emmy Award winners
People from Morgantown, West Virginia
United States Army soldiers
Ventriloquists
West Virginia University alumni | true | [
"\"Mama\" is a song by British electronic music group Clean Bandit featuring British singer Ellie Goulding, released as the sixth and final single from Clean Bandit's second album, What Is Love?, on 22 February 2019.\n\nMusic video\nClean Bandit also released the video on YouTube on 25 February 2019, after postponing its launch several times due to technical problems. The video stars a character who resembles Donald Trump, mocking his childhood to his adulthood when he is elected president. The band did not say whether the character is actually Trump but said they wrote a script about \"a boy whose power was taken away from him as a child and he grew up determined to take that power back.\"\n\nTrack listing\nDigital download – Tiësto's Big Room Remix\n\"Mama\" – 2:36\n\nDigital download – Morgan Page Remix\n\"Mama\" – 2:57\n\nDigital download – acoustic\n\"Mama\" – 3:06\n\"Mama\" – 3:09\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nCertifications\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\n2018 songs\n2019 singles\nClean Bandit songs\nEllie Goulding songs\nAtlantic Records singles\nSongs written by Grace Chatto\nSongs written by Jack Patterson (Clean Bandit)\nSongs written by Jason Evigan\nSongs written by Ellie Goulding\nParodies of Donald Trump\nSongs written by Caroline Ailin\nSong recordings produced by Mark Ralph (record producer)",
"\"What They'll Say About Us\" is a song by American singer-songwriter Finneas. It was released by OYOY as a single on September 2, 2020. The song was written and produced by Finneas. A lullaby-influenced ballad, the lyrics were inspired by the Black Lives Matter protests and Nick Cordero's death due to COVID-19. \"What They'll Say About Us\" was noted by music critics for its lyrical content. A music video for the song was released alongside the song and was directed by Sam Bennett in one take. It is the first single from his debut studio album Optimist.\n\nBackground and development\nFinneas wrote and produced \"What They'll Say About Us\". It was inspired by the spark of Black Lives Matter protests after racial inequality in the United States and the death of Canadian actor Nick Cordero, who died at the age of 41 from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Finneas wrote the track in June 2020 while in quarantine. In an interview over Zoom with The Wall Street Journal, he said: \"I wrote this song in June after spending the day at a protest in Downtown LA, filled with hope with the prospect that millions of people were coming together from all over the world to fight against institutionalized racism and inequality\". He further stated: \"The other component of the song was [that] I was very closely following Nick Cordero's story on Instagram, via his wife [Amanda Kloots], and Nick and his wife were not people I'd ever met. I don't know them at all. I saw the headlines about his health, just like everybody else did. I just became incredibly attached to this family that I’d never met before. I kind of wrote this song as if you were singing to your loved one who was in a hospital bed while the world was protesting outside. I did make a point to keep the song fairly ambiguous because I know everybody's sort of going through different circumstances of the same things right now\".\n\nComposition and lyrics\n\"What They'll Say About Us\" begins \"calmly and reassuringly\": \"You're tired now, lie down/I'll be waiting to give you the good news/It might take patience/And when you wake up, it won't be over/So don't you give up\". However, as the beat and other instruments begin to arrive, the soundstage changes to be hazy. John Pareles, writing for The New York Times, says it \"mortality begins to haunt the song, all the way to a devastating last line\", noting the lyrics, \"It might take patience/And if you don't wake up/I'll know you tried to/I wish you could see him/He looks just like you\".\n\nReception\nIn a review for DIY magazine, the staff labeled \"What They'll Say About Us\" as \"poignant\" and an \"ode to human strength\". Writing for Billboard magazine, Jason Lipshutz said while the production on the track is \"effectively restrained\", people should credit Finneas for going \"full-on showstopper when he draws out the line, 'We've got the time to take the world / And make it better than it ever was\". Emily Tan of Spin magazine described the track as a song that \"aims to offer comfort to those who have lost someone due to Covid-19\".\n\nMusic video\nA music video for \"What They'll Say About Us\" was released to Finneas' YouTube channel on September 2, 2020. The video was directed by Sam Bennett and shot in one take. In the visual, lights and rain swirl around Finneas as he sings and offers comfort to people who have lost someone they love from COVID-19. Spins Emily Yan described the visual as \"simple\" and \"intimate\".\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\n2020s ballads\n2020 singles\n2020 songs\nSong recordings produced by Finneas O'Connell\nSongs written by Finneas O'Connell\nSongs in memory of deceased persons\nFinneas O'Connell songs"
] |
[
"Don Knotts",
"The Andy Griffith Show",
"What show did he star in",
"Andy Griffith was offered the opportunity to headline his own sitcom, The Andy Griffith Show",
"When did the show run for",
"1960-1968",
"How did knotts fit into the show",
"Knotts took the role of Barney Fife, the deputy--and originally cousin--of Sheriff Andy Taylor (portrayed by Griffith",
"Did he win awards for the show",
"Knotts's portrayal of the deputy on the popular show earned him five Emmy Awards for Best Supporting Actor in a Television Comedy,",
"What did he win the awards",
"three awards for the first five seasons that he played the character.",
"What did people say about his character",
"A summary of the show from the website of the Museum of Broadcast Communications describes Deputy Barney Fife:"
] | C_78df05bd80874e908541d6c62b2828dd_0 | What did they say about him | 7 | What did people say about Deputy Barney Fife? | Don Knotts | In 1960, Andy Griffith was offered the opportunity to headline his own sitcom, The Andy Griffith Show (1960-1968). Knotts took the role of Barney Fife, the deputy--and originally cousin--of Sheriff Andy Taylor (portrayed by Griffith). Knotts's portrayal of the deputy on the popular show earned him five Emmy Awards for Best Supporting Actor in a Television Comedy, three awards for the first five seasons that he played the character. A summary of the show from the website of the Museum of Broadcast Communications describes Deputy Barney Fife: Self-important, romantic, and nearly always wrong, Barney dreamed of the day he could use the one bullet Andy had issued to him, though he did fire his gun on a few occasions. He always fired his pistol accidentally while still in his holster or in the ceiling of the court house, at which point he would sadly hand his pistol to Andy. This is why Barney kept his one very shiny bullet in his shirt pocket. In episode #196, Andy gave Barney more bullets so that he would have a loaded gun to go after a bad guy that Barney unintentionally helped escape. While Barney was forever frustrated that Mayberry was too small for the delusional ideas he had of himself, viewers got the sense that he couldn't have survived anywhere else. Don Knotts played the comic and pathetic sides of the character with equal aplomb and he received three Emmy Awards during the show's first five seasons. When the show first aired, Griffith was intended to be the comedic lead with Knotts as his straight man, similar to their roles in No Time for Sergeants. However, it was quickly discovered that the show was funnier with the roles reversed. As Griffith maintained in several interviews, "By the second episode, I knew that Don should be funny, and I should play straight." Knotts believed remarks by Griffith that The Andy Griffith Show would end after five seasons, and he began to look for other work, signing a five-film contract with Universal Studios. He was caught off guard when Griffith announced that he would continue the show after all, but Knotts's hands were tied. In his autobiography, Knotts admitted that he had not yet signed a contract when Griffith announced his decision; but he had made up his mind to move on, believing he would not get the chance again. Knotts left the series in 1965. His character's absence on the show was explained by Deputy Fife's having finally made the "big time," joining the Raleigh, North Carolina police force. CANNOTANSWER | important, romantic, and nearly always wrong, Barney dreamed of the day he could use the one bullet Andy had issued to him, | Jesse Donald Knotts (July 21, 1924February 24, 2006) was an American actor and comedian. He is widely known for his role as Deputy Sheriff Barney Fife on The Andy Griffith Show, a 1960s sitcom for which he earned five Emmy Awards. He also played Ralph Furley on the highly rated sitcom Three's Company from 1979 to 1984. He starred in multiple comedic films, including the leading roles in The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966) and The Incredible Mr. Limpet (1964). In 1979, TV Guide ranked him number 27 on its 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time list.
Early life
Jesse Donald Knotts was born on July 21, 1924, in Morgantown, West Virginia, the youngest of four sons born to farmer William Jesse Knotts and his wife, Elsie Luzetta Knotts (née Moore). His parents were married in Spraggs, Pennsylvania. His English paternal ancestors emigrated to America in the 17th century, originally settling in Queen Anne's County, Maryland. Knotts' brothers were named Willis, William, and Ralph "Sid".
Don's mother was 40 at the time of his birth and his father suffered from mental illness. Afflicted with schizophrenia and alcoholism, he sometimes terrorized Don with a knife, causing Don to turn inward at an early age. The elder Knotts died of pneumonia when Don was 13 years old. Don and his brothers were then raised by their mother, who ran a boarding house in Morgantown. She died in 1969 at age 84. Her son William preceded her in death in 1941 at age 31. They are buried in the family plot at Beverly Hills Memorial Park in Morgantown.
Don graduated from Morgantown High School. After enlisting in the United States Army and serving in World War II, Don earned a bachelor's degree in education with a minor in speech from West Virginia University in Morgantown, graduating in 1948. He was a member of Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity and Alpha Psi Omega Honor Society while at WVU.
Career
Early career
Before he entered high school, Knotts began performing as a ventriloquist and comedian at various church and school functions. After high school, he traveled to New York City to try to make his way as a comedian but returned home to attend West Virginia University when his career failed to take off. After his college freshman year, Knotts joined the U.S. Army and spent most of his service entertaining troops. He toured the western Pacific Islands as a comedian as part of a G.I. variety show called "Stars and Gripes". His ventriloquist act in "Stars and Gripes" included a dummy named Danny, which Knotts grew to hate, eventually throwing it overboard according to his friend and castmate, Al Checco.
Knotts served in the U.S. Army from June 21, 1943, to January 6, 1946, in the Army's 6817th Special Services Battalion. He was discharged at the rank of Technician Grade 5, which was the equivalent then of a corporal. During his military service, Knotts was awarded the World War II Victory Medal, the Philippine Liberation Medal, the Asiatic–Pacific Campaign Medal (with 4 bronze service stars), the American Campaign Medal, the Army Good Conduct Medal, the Army Marksman Badge (with an M1 Carbine) and the Honorable Service Lapel Pin.
Knotts returned to West Virginia University after being demobilized and graduated in 1948. He married Kay Metz and moved back to New York, where connections he had made while in the Special Services Branch helped him break into show business. In addition to doing stand-up comedy at clubs, he appeared on the radio, eventually playing the wisecracking, know-it-all character "Windy Wales" on a radio Western called "Bobby Benson and the B-Bar-B Riders".
Knotts got his first major break on television in the soap opera Search for Tomorrow where he appeared from 1953 to 1955. He came to fame in 1956 on Steve Allen's variety show, as part of Allen's repertory company, most notably in Allen's mock "Man in the Street" interviews, always as an extremely nervous man. He remained with the Allen program through the 1959–1960 season. From October 20, 1955, through September 14, 1957, Knotts appeared in the Broadway play version of No Time for Sergeants, in which he played two roles, listed on the playbill as a Corporal Manual Dexterity and a Preacher. In 1958, Knotts appeared for the first time on film with Andy Griffith in the film version of No Time for Sergeants. In that film, Knotts reprised his Broadway role and played a high-strung Air Force test administrator whose routine is disrupted by the hijinks of a provincial new recruit.
The Andy Griffith Show
In 1960, Andy Griffith was offered the opportunity to headline his own sitcom, The Andy Griffith Show (1960–1968). Knotts took the role of Barney Fife, the deputy—and originally cousin—of Sheriff Andy Taylor (portrayed by Griffith). Knotts's portrayal of the deputy on the popular show earned him five Emmy Awards for Best Supporting Actor in a Television Comedy.
A summary of the show from the website of the Museum of Broadcast Communications describes Deputy Barney Fife:
When the show first aired, Griffith was intended to be the comedic lead with Knotts as his straight man, similar to their roles in No Time for Sergeants. However, it was quickly discovered that the show was funnier with the roles reversed. As Griffith maintained in several interviews, "By the second episode, I knew that Don should be funny, and I should play straight."
Knotts believed remarks by Griffith that The Andy Griffith Show would end after five seasons, and he began to look for other work, signing a five-film contract with Universal Studios. In his autobiography, Knotts admitted that he had not yet signed the contract when Griffith announced his decision to continue the series; but he had made up his mind to move on, believing he would not get the chance again. Knotts left the series in 1965. His character's absence on the show was explained by Deputy Fife's having finally made the "big time," joining the Raleigh, North Carolina, police force.
Post-Mayberry film career
Knotts went on to star in a series of film comedies that drew on his high-strung persona from the television series: he had a cameo appearance in United Artists' It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), and starred in Warner Bros.' The Incredible Mr. Limpet (1964). Knotts then began his Universal five-film contract with The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966), The Reluctant Astronaut (1967), The Shakiest Gun in the West (1968), The Love God? (1969) and How to Frame a Figg (1971). After making How to Frame a Figg, Knotts's five-film contract with Universal finished.
Knotts reprised his role as Barney Fife several times in the 1960s: he made five guest appearances on The Andy Griffith Show (gaining him another two Emmy Awards), and he later appeared once on the spin-off Mayberry R.F.D., where he was present as best man for the marriage of Andy Taylor and his longtime love, Helen Crump. He continued to work steadily, though he did not appear as a regular on any successful television series until in 1979 he got the part of landlord Ralph Furley on Three's Company for seasons 4 through 8, after the departure of Norman Fell, who had played the previous landlord.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Knotts served as the spokesman for Dodge trucks and was featured prominently in a series of print ads and dealer brochures. On television, he went on to host a variety show/sitcom hybrid on NBC, The Don Knotts Show, which aired Tuesdays during the fall of 1970, but the series was low-rated and short-lived, and Knotts was uncomfortable with the variety show format. He also made frequent guest appearances on other shows such as The Bill Cosby Show and Here's Lucy. In 1970, he appeared as a Barney Fife-like police officer in the pilot of The New Andy Griffith Show. In 1972, Knotts voiced an animated version of himself in two episodes of The New Scooby Doo Movies: "The Spooky Fog of Juneberry", in which he played a lawman resembling Barney Fife, and "Guess Who's Knott Coming to Dinner". He appeared as Felix Unger in a stage version of Neil Simon's The Odd Couple, with Art Carney as Oscar Madison, and toured in the Neil Simon comedy Last of the Red Hot Lovers.
Beginning in 1975, Knotts was teamed with Tim Conway in a series of slapstick films aimed at children, including the Disney film The Apple Dumpling Gang (1975) and its sequel, The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again (1979). They also did two independent films, the boxing comedy The Prize Fighter (1979), and the mystery-comedy The Private Eyes (1980). Knotts co-starred in several other Disney films, including Gus (1976), No Deposit, No Return (1976), Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo (1977) and Hot Lead and Cold Feet (1978).
Three's Company
In 1979, Knotts returned to series television in his second most identifiable role, the wacky but lovable landlord Ralph Furley on Three's Company. The series, which was already an established hit, added Knotts to the cast when the original landlords, Stanley and Helen Roper (a married couple played by Norman Fell and Audra Lindley, respectively) left the series to star in their own short-lived spin-off series The Ropers.
On set, Knotts easily integrated himself into the already established cast who were, as John Ritter put it, "so scared" of Knotts because of his star status when he joined the cast. When Suzanne Somers left the show after a contract dispute in 1981, the writers started giving the material meant for Somers's Chrissy to Knotts's Furley. Knotts remained on the series until it ended in 1984. The Three's Company script supervisor, Carol Summers, became Knotts' agent and often accompanied him to personal appearances.
Later years
In 1986, Don Knotts reunited with Andy Griffith in the made-for-television film Return to Mayberry, reprising his Barney Fife role. In early 1987, Knotts joined the cast of the first-run syndication comedy What a Country!, playing Principal Bud McPherson for the series' remaining 13 episodes. The sitcom was produced by Martin Rips and Joseph Staretski, who had previously worked on Three's Company.
In 1988, Knotts joined Andy Griffith in another show, playing the recurring role of pesky neighbor Les Calhoun on Matlock until 1992.
After that, Knotts's roles were sporadic, including a cameo appearance in the film Big Bully (1996) as the principal of the high school. In 1998, Knotts played a small but pivotal role as a mysterious TV repairman in Pleasantville. That year, his hometown of Morgantown, West Virginia, changed the name of the street formerly known as South University Avenue (U.S. Route 119) to Don Knotts Boulevard on "Don Knotts Day". Also that day, in honor of Knotts's role as Barney Fife, he was named an honorary deputy sheriff with the Monongalia County Sheriff's Department.
Knotts was recognized in 2000 with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He continued to act on stage, but much of his film and television work after 2000 was as voice talent. In 2002, he appeared again with Scooby-Doo in the video game Scooby-Doo! Night of 100 Frights. (Knotts also spoofed his appearances on that show in various promotions for Cartoon Network and in a parody on Robot Chicken, where he was teamed with Phyllis Diller.) In 2003, Knotts teamed up with Tim Conway again to provide voices for the direct-to-video children's series Hermie and Friends, which continued until his death. In 2005, he was the voice of Mayor Turkey Lurkey in Chicken Little (2005), his first Disney movie since 1979. On September 12, 2003, Knotts was in Kansas City in a stage version of On Golden Pond when he received a call from John Ritter's family telling him that his former Three's Company co-star had died of an aortic dissection that day. Knotts and his co-stars attended the funeral four days later. Knotts had appeared with Ritter one final time in a cameo on 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter. It was an episode that paid homage to their earlier television series. Knotts was the last Three's Company star to work with Ritter.
During this period of time, macular degeneration in both eyes caused the otherwise robust Knotts to become virtually blind. His live appearances on television were few. In 2005, Knotts parodied his Ralph Furley character while playing a Paul Young variation in a Desperate Housewives sketch on The 3rd Annual TV Land Awards. He parodied that part one final time in "Stone Cold Crazy", an episode of the sitcom That '70s Show. In the show, Knotts played Fez and Jackie's new landlord. This was his last live-action television appearance. His final role was in Air Buddies (2006), a direct-to-video sequel to Air Bud, voicing the sheriff's deputy dog, Sniffer.
Personal life
Knotts's friend Al Checco said, "Don was somewhat of a ladies' man. He fancied himself something of a Frank Sinatra. The ladies loved him and he dated quite a bit." Knotts was married three times. His marriage to Kathryn Metz lasted from 1947 until their divorce in 1964, and he raised his daughter as a single parent. He married Loralee Czuchna in 1974 and they divorced in 1983. His third marriage was to Frances Yarborough, from 2002 until his death in 2006. From his first marriage, Knotts had a son, Thomas Knotts, and a daughter, actress Karen Knotts (born April 2, 1954).
Knotts struggled with hypochondria and macular degeneration. Betty Lynn, one of Knotts' co-stars on The Andy Griffith Show, described him as a "very quiet man. Very sweet. Nothing like Barney Fife." TV writer Mark Evanier called him "the most beloved person in all of show business".
Death
Knotts died at age 81 on February 24, 2006, at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles from pulmonary and respiratory complications of pneumonia related to lung cancer. He had been undergoing treatment at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in the months before his death, but he returned home after he had reportedly been feeling better. He was buried at Westwood Memorial Park in Los Angeles.
Knotts' obituaries cited him as a major influence on other entertainers. In early 2011, his grave's plain granite headstone was replaced with a bronze plaque that displays several of Knotts' movie and television roles. A statue honoring Knotts, created by Jamie Lester, was unveiled on July 23, 2016, in front of The Metropolitan Theatre on High Street in his hometown of Morgantown, West Virginia.
Filmography
Film
No Time for Sergeants (1958) as Cpl. John C. Brown
Wake Me When It's Over (1960) as Sgt. Percy Warren
The Last Time I Saw Archie (1961) as Captain Harry Little
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) as the nervous motorist
Move Over, Darling (1963) as Shoe Clerk
The Incredible Mr. Limpet (1964) as Henry Limpet
The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966) as Luther Heggs
The Reluctant Astronaut (1967) as Roy Fleming
The Shakiest Gun in the West (1968) as Dr. Jesse W. Heywood
The Love God? (1969) as Abner Audubon Peacock IV
How to Frame a Figg (1971) as Hollis Alexander Figg
The Apple Dumpling Gang (1975) as Theodore Ogelvie
No Deposit, No Return (1976) as Bert Delaney
Gus (1976) as Coach Venner
Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo (1977) as Wheely Applegate
Mule Feathers (1978) as Narrator / The Mule (voice)
Hot Lead and Cold Feet (1978) as Sheriff Denver Kid
The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again (1979) as Theodore Ogelvie
The Prize Fighter (1979) as Shake
The Private Eyes (1980) as Inspector Winship
Cannonball Run II (1984) as CHP Officer #2
Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night (1987) as Gee Willikers (voice)
Big Bully (1996) as Principal Kokelar
Cats Don't Dance (1997) as T.W. Turtle (voice)
Pleasantville (1998) as TV Repairman
Tom Sawyer (2000) as Mutt Potter (voice)
Quints (2000) as Governor Healy
Chicken Little (2005) as Mayor Turkey Lurkey (voice)
Air Buddies (2006) as Sniffer (voice; final film role, posthumous release)
Television
Search for Tomorrow (1953–1955) as Wilbur Peterson
The Steve Allen Show (1956–1960) as Himself
The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (1960) as Esmond Metzger
The Andy Griffith Show (1960–1968) as Barney Fife
The Joey Bishop Show (1 episode 1964) as Barney Fife
The Red Skelton Show (1961–1965) as Commodore of Lagoons / 'Steady Fingers' Ferguson / Horaces Horatio / Mr. Pallid / Herbie
The New Steve Allen Show (1961–1963) as Regular
The Garry Moore Show (4 episodes 1962–1964) as Himself
McHale's Navy (Season 4, Episode 25) as Lt. Pratt
The Jerry Lewis Show (1 episode 1963) as Himself
38th Academy Awards (1966) as Himself (co-presenter)
The Don Knotts Special (1967) as Himself (host/performer)
The Hollywood Palace (1 episode #7.17 1970) as Himself
The Don Knotts Show (1970–1971) as Himself (host)
Don Knotts' Nice Clean, Decent, Wholesome Hour (1970) as Himself (host/performer)
The New Scooby-Doo Movies (2 episodes 1972) as Himself (voice)
The Man Who Came to Dinner (1972) as Dr. Bradley
The Flip Wilson Show (1972–73) (2 episodes) as Himself
Dinah Shore: In Search of the Ideal Man (1973) as Himself
I Love a Mystery (1973) as Alexander Archer
Here's Lucy (1973) (1 episode) as Ben Fletcher
Hollywood Squares (4 episodes, 1974–1977) as Himself – Panelist
Steve Allen's Laugh Back (1975)
The Captain & Tennille Show (1976–1977) as Himself (recurring guest)
The Muppet Show (1977) as Himself – Special Guest Star
Fantasy Island (1978–1979) as Felix Birdsong / Stanley Scheckter
The Love Boat (1979) as Herb Grobecker / Devon King
Three's Company (1979–1984) as Ralph Furley
George Burns Comedy Week (1985) as Himself
Return to Mayberry (1986) as Barney Fife
What a Country! (1987) as F. Jerry 'Bud' McPherson
The Little Troll Prince (1987) as Professor Nidaros (voice)
Matlock (1987–1992) as Les Calhoun
Newhart (1 episode 1990) as Iron
Timmy's Gift: A Precious Moments Christmas (1991) as Titus (voice)
The Andy Griffith Show Reunion (1993) as Himself
Burke's Law (1 episode 1994)
Step by Step (1993) (1 episode) as Deputy Feif
101 Dalmatians: The Series (2 episodes, 1997–1998) as Additional Voices (voice)
E! True Hollywood Story (1 episode 1998) as Himself
Late Night with Conan O'Brien (1 episode 1999) as Himself
Jingle Bells (1999) as Kris (voice)
Inside TV Land: The Andy Griffith Show (2000) as Himself
Biography TV Documentary (2 episodes 2000–2002) as Himself
Biography: "John Ritter: In Good Company" (2002) as Himself
Inside TV Land: Cops on Camera (2002) as Himself
Odd Job Jack (2003) as Dirk Douglas
8 Simple Rules (2003) as Himself
Larry King Live (1 episode 2003) as Himself
The Andy Griffith Show: Back To Mayberry (2003) as Himself/Barney Fife
TV Lands Top Ten (2004) (1 episode) as Himself
Johnny Bravo (cartoon series), episode "Johnny Makeover" (2004) as Don Knotts (voice)
That '70s Show (2005) as The Landlord
Las Vegas (2005) as Himself
The 3rd Annual TV Land Awards (2005) as Paul Young (segment "Desperate Classic Housewives")
Robot Chicken as Himself
Hatching Chicken Little (2006) as Himself
CMT: The Greatest – 20 Greatest Country Comedy Shows (2006) as Himself
Video games
Scooby-Doo! Night of 100 Frights (2002) as The Groundskeeper
Animation videos
Hermie and Friends (2003–06) as Wormie
Awards
References
Further reading
Klin, Richard. "Fife and Drum". Flagpole, 2006.
External links
The West Virginia & Regional History Center has a collection of materials related to the career or Don Knotts
20th-century American comedians
20th-century American male actors
21st-century American comedians
21st-century American male actors
1924 births
2006 deaths
American male comedians
American male film actors
American male soap opera actors
American male television actors
American male voice actors
United States Army personnel of World War II
American people of English descent
Burials at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery
Deaths from cancer in California
Deaths from lung cancer
Deaths from pneumonia in California
Disney people
Male actors from West Virginia
Military personnel from West Virginia
Morgantown High School alumni
Outstanding Performance by a Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series Primetime Emmy Award winners
People from Morgantown, West Virginia
United States Army soldiers
Ventriloquists
West Virginia University alumni | false | [
"\n\nTrack listing\n Opening Overture\n \"I Get a Kick Out of You\" (Cole Porter)\n \"You Are the Sunshine of My Life\" (Stevie Wonder)\n \"You Will Be My Music\" (Joe Raposo)\n \"Don't Worry 'bout Me\" (Ted Koehler, Rube Bloom)\n \"If\" (David Gates)\n \"Bad, Bad Leroy Brown\" (Jim Croce)\n \"Ol' Man River\" (Jerome Kern, Oscar Hammerstein II)\n Famous Monologue\n Saloon Trilogy: \"Last Night When We Were Young\"/\"Violets for Your Furs\"/\"Here's That Rainy Day\" (Harold Arlen, E.Y. Harburg)/(Matt Dennis, Tom Adair)/(Jimmy Van Heusen, Johnny Burke)\n \"I've Got You Under My Skin\" (Porter)\n \"My Kind of Town\" (Sammy Cahn, Van Heusen)\n \"Let Me Try Again\" (Paul Anka, Cahn, Michel Jourdan)\n \"The Lady Is a Tramp\" (Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart)\n \"My Way\" (Anka, Claude Francois, Jacques Revaux, Gilles Thibaut)\n\nFrank Sinatra's Monologue About the Australian Press\nI do believe this is my interval, as we say... We've been having a marvelous time being chased around the country for three days. You know, I think it's worth mentioning because it's so idiotic, it's so ridiculous what's been happening. We came all the way to Australia because I chose to come here. I haven't been here for a long time and I wanted to come back for a few days. Wait now, wait. I'm not buttering anybody at all. I don't have to. I really don't have to. I like coming here. I like the people. I love your attitude. I like the booze and the beer and everything else that comes into the scene. I also like the way the country's growing and it's a swinging place.\n\nSo we come here and what happens? We gotta run all day long because of the parasites who chase us with automobiles. That's dangerous, too, on the road, you know. Might cause an accident. They won't quit. They wonder why I won't talk to them. I wouldn't drink their water, let alone talk to them. And if any of you folks in the press are in the audience, please quote me properly. Don't mix it up, do it exactly as I'm saying it, please. Write it down very clearly. One idiot called me up and he wanted to know what I had for breakfast. What the hell does he care what I had for breakfast? I was about to tell him what I did after breakfast. Oh, boy, they're murder! We have a name in the States for their counterparts: They're called parasites. Because they take and take and take and never give, absolutely, never give. I don't care what you think about any press in the world, I say they're bums and they'll always be bums, everyone of them. There are just a few exceptions to the rule. Some good editorial writers who don't go out in the street and chase people around. Critics don't bother me, because if I do badly, I know I'm bad before they even write it, and if I'm good, I know I'm good before they write it. It's true. I know best about myself. So, a critic is a critic. He doesn't anger me. It's the scandal man who bugs you, drives you crazy. It's the two-bit-type work that they do. They're pimps. They're just crazy, you know. And the broads who work in the press are the hookers of the press. Need I explain that to you? I might offer them a buck and a half... I'm not sure. I once gave a chick in Washington $2 and I overpaid her, I found out. She didn't even bathe. Imagine what that was like, ha, ha.\n\nNow, it's a good thing I'm not angry. Really. It's a good thing I'm not angry. I couldn't care less. The press of the world never made a person a star who was untalented, nor did they ever hurt any artist who was talented. So we, who have God-given talent, say, \"To hell with them.\" It doesn't make any difference, you know. And I want to say one more thing. From what I see what's happened since I was last here... what, 16 years ago? Twelve years ago. From what I've seen to happen with the type of news that they print in this town shocked me. And do you know what is devastating? It's old-fashioned. It was done in America and England twenty years ago. And they're catching up with it now, with the scandal sheet. They're rags, that's what they are. You use them to train your dog and your parrot. What else do I have to say? Oh, I guess that's it. That'll keep them talking to themselves for a while. I think most of them are a bunch of fags anyway. Never did a hard day's work in their life. I love when they say, \"What do you mean, you won't stand still when I take your picture?\" All of a sudden, they're God. We gotta do what they want us to do. It's incredible. A pox on them... Now, let's get down to some serious business here...\n\nSee also\nConcerts of Frank Sinatra\n\nFrank Sinatra",
"Matthew 10:19 is a verse in the ninth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament.\n\nContent\nIn the original Greek according to Westcott-Hort for this verse is:\nὍταν δὲ παραδιδῶσιν ὑμᾶς, μὴ μεριμνήσητε πῶς ἢ τί λαλήσητε· δοθήσεται γὰρ ὑμῖν ἐν ἐκείνῃ τῇ ὥρᾳ τί λαλήσετε· \n\nIn the King James Version of the Bible the text reads:\nBut when they deliver you up, take no thought how or what ye shall speak: for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak.\n\nThe New International Version translates the passage as:\nBut when they arrest you, do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say,\n\nAnalysis\nThis is the eleventh ordinance of Christ to his apostles in which he forbids them being anxious about their answers.\nThis was also promised by Christ in Luke's gospel: \"I will give you a mouth and wisdom which none of your adversaries shall be able to gainsay or resist.\" So with St. Stephen it was said, \"They were not able to resist the wisdom and spirit with which he spoke.\"\n\nCommentary from the Church Fathers\nChrysostom: \" To the foregoing topics of consolation, He adds another not a little one; that they should not say, How shall we be able to persuade such men as these, when they shall persecute us? He bids them be of good courage respecting their answer, saying, When they shall deliver you up, take no thought how or what ye shall speak.\"\n\nSaint Remigius: \" How or what, one refers to the substance, the other to the expression in words. And because both of these would be supplied by Him, there was no need for the holy preachers to be anxious about either.\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nOther translations of Matthew 10:19 at BibleHub\n\n010:19"
] |
[
"Don Knotts",
"The Andy Griffith Show",
"What show did he star in",
"Andy Griffith was offered the opportunity to headline his own sitcom, The Andy Griffith Show",
"When did the show run for",
"1960-1968",
"How did knotts fit into the show",
"Knotts took the role of Barney Fife, the deputy--and originally cousin--of Sheriff Andy Taylor (portrayed by Griffith",
"Did he win awards for the show",
"Knotts's portrayal of the deputy on the popular show earned him five Emmy Awards for Best Supporting Actor in a Television Comedy,",
"What did he win the awards",
"three awards for the first five seasons that he played the character.",
"What did people say about his character",
"A summary of the show from the website of the Museum of Broadcast Communications describes Deputy Barney Fife:",
"What did they say about him",
"important, romantic, and nearly always wrong, Barney dreamed of the day he could use the one bullet Andy had issued to him,"
] | C_78df05bd80874e908541d6c62b2828dd_0 | What did he do | 8 | What did Barney do? | Don Knotts | In 1960, Andy Griffith was offered the opportunity to headline his own sitcom, The Andy Griffith Show (1960-1968). Knotts took the role of Barney Fife, the deputy--and originally cousin--of Sheriff Andy Taylor (portrayed by Griffith). Knotts's portrayal of the deputy on the popular show earned him five Emmy Awards for Best Supporting Actor in a Television Comedy, three awards for the first five seasons that he played the character. A summary of the show from the website of the Museum of Broadcast Communications describes Deputy Barney Fife: Self-important, romantic, and nearly always wrong, Barney dreamed of the day he could use the one bullet Andy had issued to him, though he did fire his gun on a few occasions. He always fired his pistol accidentally while still in his holster or in the ceiling of the court house, at which point he would sadly hand his pistol to Andy. This is why Barney kept his one very shiny bullet in his shirt pocket. In episode #196, Andy gave Barney more bullets so that he would have a loaded gun to go after a bad guy that Barney unintentionally helped escape. While Barney was forever frustrated that Mayberry was too small for the delusional ideas he had of himself, viewers got the sense that he couldn't have survived anywhere else. Don Knotts played the comic and pathetic sides of the character with equal aplomb and he received three Emmy Awards during the show's first five seasons. When the show first aired, Griffith was intended to be the comedic lead with Knotts as his straight man, similar to their roles in No Time for Sergeants. However, it was quickly discovered that the show was funnier with the roles reversed. As Griffith maintained in several interviews, "By the second episode, I knew that Don should be funny, and I should play straight." Knotts believed remarks by Griffith that The Andy Griffith Show would end after five seasons, and he began to look for other work, signing a five-film contract with Universal Studios. He was caught off guard when Griffith announced that he would continue the show after all, but Knotts's hands were tied. In his autobiography, Knotts admitted that he had not yet signed a contract when Griffith announced his decision; but he had made up his mind to move on, believing he would not get the chance again. Knotts left the series in 1965. His character's absence on the show was explained by Deputy Fife's having finally made the "big time," joining the Raleigh, North Carolina police force. CANNOTANSWER | He always fired his pistol accidentally while still in his holster or in the ceiling of the court house, at which point he would sadly hand his pistol to Andy. | Jesse Donald Knotts (July 21, 1924February 24, 2006) was an American actor and comedian. He is widely known for his role as Deputy Sheriff Barney Fife on The Andy Griffith Show, a 1960s sitcom for which he earned five Emmy Awards. He also played Ralph Furley on the highly rated sitcom Three's Company from 1979 to 1984. He starred in multiple comedic films, including the leading roles in The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966) and The Incredible Mr. Limpet (1964). In 1979, TV Guide ranked him number 27 on its 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time list.
Early life
Jesse Donald Knotts was born on July 21, 1924, in Morgantown, West Virginia, the youngest of four sons born to farmer William Jesse Knotts and his wife, Elsie Luzetta Knotts (née Moore). His parents were married in Spraggs, Pennsylvania. His English paternal ancestors emigrated to America in the 17th century, originally settling in Queen Anne's County, Maryland. Knotts' brothers were named Willis, William, and Ralph "Sid".
Don's mother was 40 at the time of his birth and his father suffered from mental illness. Afflicted with schizophrenia and alcoholism, he sometimes terrorized Don with a knife, causing Don to turn inward at an early age. The elder Knotts died of pneumonia when Don was 13 years old. Don and his brothers were then raised by their mother, who ran a boarding house in Morgantown. She died in 1969 at age 84. Her son William preceded her in death in 1941 at age 31. They are buried in the family plot at Beverly Hills Memorial Park in Morgantown.
Don graduated from Morgantown High School. After enlisting in the United States Army and serving in World War II, Don earned a bachelor's degree in education with a minor in speech from West Virginia University in Morgantown, graduating in 1948. He was a member of Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity and Alpha Psi Omega Honor Society while at WVU.
Career
Early career
Before he entered high school, Knotts began performing as a ventriloquist and comedian at various church and school functions. After high school, he traveled to New York City to try to make his way as a comedian but returned home to attend West Virginia University when his career failed to take off. After his college freshman year, Knotts joined the U.S. Army and spent most of his service entertaining troops. He toured the western Pacific Islands as a comedian as part of a G.I. variety show called "Stars and Gripes". His ventriloquist act in "Stars and Gripes" included a dummy named Danny, which Knotts grew to hate, eventually throwing it overboard according to his friend and castmate, Al Checco.
Knotts served in the U.S. Army from June 21, 1943, to January 6, 1946, in the Army's 6817th Special Services Battalion. He was discharged at the rank of Technician Grade 5, which was the equivalent then of a corporal. During his military service, Knotts was awarded the World War II Victory Medal, the Philippine Liberation Medal, the Asiatic–Pacific Campaign Medal (with 4 bronze service stars), the American Campaign Medal, the Army Good Conduct Medal, the Army Marksman Badge (with an M1 Carbine) and the Honorable Service Lapel Pin.
Knotts returned to West Virginia University after being demobilized and graduated in 1948. He married Kay Metz and moved back to New York, where connections he had made while in the Special Services Branch helped him break into show business. In addition to doing stand-up comedy at clubs, he appeared on the radio, eventually playing the wisecracking, know-it-all character "Windy Wales" on a radio Western called "Bobby Benson and the B-Bar-B Riders".
Knotts got his first major break on television in the soap opera Search for Tomorrow where he appeared from 1953 to 1955. He came to fame in 1956 on Steve Allen's variety show, as part of Allen's repertory company, most notably in Allen's mock "Man in the Street" interviews, always as an extremely nervous man. He remained with the Allen program through the 1959–1960 season. From October 20, 1955, through September 14, 1957, Knotts appeared in the Broadway play version of No Time for Sergeants, in which he played two roles, listed on the playbill as a Corporal Manual Dexterity and a Preacher. In 1958, Knotts appeared for the first time on film with Andy Griffith in the film version of No Time for Sergeants. In that film, Knotts reprised his Broadway role and played a high-strung Air Force test administrator whose routine is disrupted by the hijinks of a provincial new recruit.
The Andy Griffith Show
In 1960, Andy Griffith was offered the opportunity to headline his own sitcom, The Andy Griffith Show (1960–1968). Knotts took the role of Barney Fife, the deputy—and originally cousin—of Sheriff Andy Taylor (portrayed by Griffith). Knotts's portrayal of the deputy on the popular show earned him five Emmy Awards for Best Supporting Actor in a Television Comedy.
A summary of the show from the website of the Museum of Broadcast Communications describes Deputy Barney Fife:
When the show first aired, Griffith was intended to be the comedic lead with Knotts as his straight man, similar to their roles in No Time for Sergeants. However, it was quickly discovered that the show was funnier with the roles reversed. As Griffith maintained in several interviews, "By the second episode, I knew that Don should be funny, and I should play straight."
Knotts believed remarks by Griffith that The Andy Griffith Show would end after five seasons, and he began to look for other work, signing a five-film contract with Universal Studios. In his autobiography, Knotts admitted that he had not yet signed the contract when Griffith announced his decision to continue the series; but he had made up his mind to move on, believing he would not get the chance again. Knotts left the series in 1965. His character's absence on the show was explained by Deputy Fife's having finally made the "big time," joining the Raleigh, North Carolina, police force.
Post-Mayberry film career
Knotts went on to star in a series of film comedies that drew on his high-strung persona from the television series: he had a cameo appearance in United Artists' It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), and starred in Warner Bros.' The Incredible Mr. Limpet (1964). Knotts then began his Universal five-film contract with The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966), The Reluctant Astronaut (1967), The Shakiest Gun in the West (1968), The Love God? (1969) and How to Frame a Figg (1971). After making How to Frame a Figg, Knotts's five-film contract with Universal finished.
Knotts reprised his role as Barney Fife several times in the 1960s: he made five guest appearances on The Andy Griffith Show (gaining him another two Emmy Awards), and he later appeared once on the spin-off Mayberry R.F.D., where he was present as best man for the marriage of Andy Taylor and his longtime love, Helen Crump. He continued to work steadily, though he did not appear as a regular on any successful television series until in 1979 he got the part of landlord Ralph Furley on Three's Company for seasons 4 through 8, after the departure of Norman Fell, who had played the previous landlord.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Knotts served as the spokesman for Dodge trucks and was featured prominently in a series of print ads and dealer brochures. On television, he went on to host a variety show/sitcom hybrid on NBC, The Don Knotts Show, which aired Tuesdays during the fall of 1970, but the series was low-rated and short-lived, and Knotts was uncomfortable with the variety show format. He also made frequent guest appearances on other shows such as The Bill Cosby Show and Here's Lucy. In 1970, he appeared as a Barney Fife-like police officer in the pilot of The New Andy Griffith Show. In 1972, Knotts voiced an animated version of himself in two episodes of The New Scooby Doo Movies: "The Spooky Fog of Juneberry", in which he played a lawman resembling Barney Fife, and "Guess Who's Knott Coming to Dinner". He appeared as Felix Unger in a stage version of Neil Simon's The Odd Couple, with Art Carney as Oscar Madison, and toured in the Neil Simon comedy Last of the Red Hot Lovers.
Beginning in 1975, Knotts was teamed with Tim Conway in a series of slapstick films aimed at children, including the Disney film The Apple Dumpling Gang (1975) and its sequel, The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again (1979). They also did two independent films, the boxing comedy The Prize Fighter (1979), and the mystery-comedy The Private Eyes (1980). Knotts co-starred in several other Disney films, including Gus (1976), No Deposit, No Return (1976), Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo (1977) and Hot Lead and Cold Feet (1978).
Three's Company
In 1979, Knotts returned to series television in his second most identifiable role, the wacky but lovable landlord Ralph Furley on Three's Company. The series, which was already an established hit, added Knotts to the cast when the original landlords, Stanley and Helen Roper (a married couple played by Norman Fell and Audra Lindley, respectively) left the series to star in their own short-lived spin-off series The Ropers.
On set, Knotts easily integrated himself into the already established cast who were, as John Ritter put it, "so scared" of Knotts because of his star status when he joined the cast. When Suzanne Somers left the show after a contract dispute in 1981, the writers started giving the material meant for Somers's Chrissy to Knotts's Furley. Knotts remained on the series until it ended in 1984. The Three's Company script supervisor, Carol Summers, became Knotts' agent and often accompanied him to personal appearances.
Later years
In 1986, Don Knotts reunited with Andy Griffith in the made-for-television film Return to Mayberry, reprising his Barney Fife role. In early 1987, Knotts joined the cast of the first-run syndication comedy What a Country!, playing Principal Bud McPherson for the series' remaining 13 episodes. The sitcom was produced by Martin Rips and Joseph Staretski, who had previously worked on Three's Company.
In 1988, Knotts joined Andy Griffith in another show, playing the recurring role of pesky neighbor Les Calhoun on Matlock until 1992.
After that, Knotts's roles were sporadic, including a cameo appearance in the film Big Bully (1996) as the principal of the high school. In 1998, Knotts played a small but pivotal role as a mysterious TV repairman in Pleasantville. That year, his hometown of Morgantown, West Virginia, changed the name of the street formerly known as South University Avenue (U.S. Route 119) to Don Knotts Boulevard on "Don Knotts Day". Also that day, in honor of Knotts's role as Barney Fife, he was named an honorary deputy sheriff with the Monongalia County Sheriff's Department.
Knotts was recognized in 2000 with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He continued to act on stage, but much of his film and television work after 2000 was as voice talent. In 2002, he appeared again with Scooby-Doo in the video game Scooby-Doo! Night of 100 Frights. (Knotts also spoofed his appearances on that show in various promotions for Cartoon Network and in a parody on Robot Chicken, where he was teamed with Phyllis Diller.) In 2003, Knotts teamed up with Tim Conway again to provide voices for the direct-to-video children's series Hermie and Friends, which continued until his death. In 2005, he was the voice of Mayor Turkey Lurkey in Chicken Little (2005), his first Disney movie since 1979. On September 12, 2003, Knotts was in Kansas City in a stage version of On Golden Pond when he received a call from John Ritter's family telling him that his former Three's Company co-star had died of an aortic dissection that day. Knotts and his co-stars attended the funeral four days later. Knotts had appeared with Ritter one final time in a cameo on 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter. It was an episode that paid homage to their earlier television series. Knotts was the last Three's Company star to work with Ritter.
During this period of time, macular degeneration in both eyes caused the otherwise robust Knotts to become virtually blind. His live appearances on television were few. In 2005, Knotts parodied his Ralph Furley character while playing a Paul Young variation in a Desperate Housewives sketch on The 3rd Annual TV Land Awards. He parodied that part one final time in "Stone Cold Crazy", an episode of the sitcom That '70s Show. In the show, Knotts played Fez and Jackie's new landlord. This was his last live-action television appearance. His final role was in Air Buddies (2006), a direct-to-video sequel to Air Bud, voicing the sheriff's deputy dog, Sniffer.
Personal life
Knotts's friend Al Checco said, "Don was somewhat of a ladies' man. He fancied himself something of a Frank Sinatra. The ladies loved him and he dated quite a bit." Knotts was married three times. His marriage to Kathryn Metz lasted from 1947 until their divorce in 1964, and he raised his daughter as a single parent. He married Loralee Czuchna in 1974 and they divorced in 1983. His third marriage was to Frances Yarborough, from 2002 until his death in 2006. From his first marriage, Knotts had a son, Thomas Knotts, and a daughter, actress Karen Knotts (born April 2, 1954).
Knotts struggled with hypochondria and macular degeneration. Betty Lynn, one of Knotts' co-stars on The Andy Griffith Show, described him as a "very quiet man. Very sweet. Nothing like Barney Fife." TV writer Mark Evanier called him "the most beloved person in all of show business".
Death
Knotts died at age 81 on February 24, 2006, at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles from pulmonary and respiratory complications of pneumonia related to lung cancer. He had been undergoing treatment at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in the months before his death, but he returned home after he had reportedly been feeling better. He was buried at Westwood Memorial Park in Los Angeles.
Knotts' obituaries cited him as a major influence on other entertainers. In early 2011, his grave's plain granite headstone was replaced with a bronze plaque that displays several of Knotts' movie and television roles. A statue honoring Knotts, created by Jamie Lester, was unveiled on July 23, 2016, in front of The Metropolitan Theatre on High Street in his hometown of Morgantown, West Virginia.
Filmography
Film
No Time for Sergeants (1958) as Cpl. John C. Brown
Wake Me When It's Over (1960) as Sgt. Percy Warren
The Last Time I Saw Archie (1961) as Captain Harry Little
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) as the nervous motorist
Move Over, Darling (1963) as Shoe Clerk
The Incredible Mr. Limpet (1964) as Henry Limpet
The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966) as Luther Heggs
The Reluctant Astronaut (1967) as Roy Fleming
The Shakiest Gun in the West (1968) as Dr. Jesse W. Heywood
The Love God? (1969) as Abner Audubon Peacock IV
How to Frame a Figg (1971) as Hollis Alexander Figg
The Apple Dumpling Gang (1975) as Theodore Ogelvie
No Deposit, No Return (1976) as Bert Delaney
Gus (1976) as Coach Venner
Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo (1977) as Wheely Applegate
Mule Feathers (1978) as Narrator / The Mule (voice)
Hot Lead and Cold Feet (1978) as Sheriff Denver Kid
The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again (1979) as Theodore Ogelvie
The Prize Fighter (1979) as Shake
The Private Eyes (1980) as Inspector Winship
Cannonball Run II (1984) as CHP Officer #2
Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night (1987) as Gee Willikers (voice)
Big Bully (1996) as Principal Kokelar
Cats Don't Dance (1997) as T.W. Turtle (voice)
Pleasantville (1998) as TV Repairman
Tom Sawyer (2000) as Mutt Potter (voice)
Quints (2000) as Governor Healy
Chicken Little (2005) as Mayor Turkey Lurkey (voice)
Air Buddies (2006) as Sniffer (voice; final film role, posthumous release)
Television
Search for Tomorrow (1953–1955) as Wilbur Peterson
The Steve Allen Show (1956–1960) as Himself
The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (1960) as Esmond Metzger
The Andy Griffith Show (1960–1968) as Barney Fife
The Joey Bishop Show (1 episode 1964) as Barney Fife
The Red Skelton Show (1961–1965) as Commodore of Lagoons / 'Steady Fingers' Ferguson / Horaces Horatio / Mr. Pallid / Herbie
The New Steve Allen Show (1961–1963) as Regular
The Garry Moore Show (4 episodes 1962–1964) as Himself
McHale's Navy (Season 4, Episode 25) as Lt. Pratt
The Jerry Lewis Show (1 episode 1963) as Himself
38th Academy Awards (1966) as Himself (co-presenter)
The Don Knotts Special (1967) as Himself (host/performer)
The Hollywood Palace (1 episode #7.17 1970) as Himself
The Don Knotts Show (1970–1971) as Himself (host)
Don Knotts' Nice Clean, Decent, Wholesome Hour (1970) as Himself (host/performer)
The New Scooby-Doo Movies (2 episodes 1972) as Himself (voice)
The Man Who Came to Dinner (1972) as Dr. Bradley
The Flip Wilson Show (1972–73) (2 episodes) as Himself
Dinah Shore: In Search of the Ideal Man (1973) as Himself
I Love a Mystery (1973) as Alexander Archer
Here's Lucy (1973) (1 episode) as Ben Fletcher
Hollywood Squares (4 episodes, 1974–1977) as Himself – Panelist
Steve Allen's Laugh Back (1975)
The Captain & Tennille Show (1976–1977) as Himself (recurring guest)
The Muppet Show (1977) as Himself – Special Guest Star
Fantasy Island (1978–1979) as Felix Birdsong / Stanley Scheckter
The Love Boat (1979) as Herb Grobecker / Devon King
Three's Company (1979–1984) as Ralph Furley
George Burns Comedy Week (1985) as Himself
Return to Mayberry (1986) as Barney Fife
What a Country! (1987) as F. Jerry 'Bud' McPherson
The Little Troll Prince (1987) as Professor Nidaros (voice)
Matlock (1987–1992) as Les Calhoun
Newhart (1 episode 1990) as Iron
Timmy's Gift: A Precious Moments Christmas (1991) as Titus (voice)
The Andy Griffith Show Reunion (1993) as Himself
Burke's Law (1 episode 1994)
Step by Step (1993) (1 episode) as Deputy Feif
101 Dalmatians: The Series (2 episodes, 1997–1998) as Additional Voices (voice)
E! True Hollywood Story (1 episode 1998) as Himself
Late Night with Conan O'Brien (1 episode 1999) as Himself
Jingle Bells (1999) as Kris (voice)
Inside TV Land: The Andy Griffith Show (2000) as Himself
Biography TV Documentary (2 episodes 2000–2002) as Himself
Biography: "John Ritter: In Good Company" (2002) as Himself
Inside TV Land: Cops on Camera (2002) as Himself
Odd Job Jack (2003) as Dirk Douglas
8 Simple Rules (2003) as Himself
Larry King Live (1 episode 2003) as Himself
The Andy Griffith Show: Back To Mayberry (2003) as Himself/Barney Fife
TV Lands Top Ten (2004) (1 episode) as Himself
Johnny Bravo (cartoon series), episode "Johnny Makeover" (2004) as Don Knotts (voice)
That '70s Show (2005) as The Landlord
Las Vegas (2005) as Himself
The 3rd Annual TV Land Awards (2005) as Paul Young (segment "Desperate Classic Housewives")
Robot Chicken as Himself
Hatching Chicken Little (2006) as Himself
CMT: The Greatest – 20 Greatest Country Comedy Shows (2006) as Himself
Video games
Scooby-Doo! Night of 100 Frights (2002) as The Groundskeeper
Animation videos
Hermie and Friends (2003–06) as Wormie
Awards
References
Further reading
Klin, Richard. "Fife and Drum". Flagpole, 2006.
External links
The West Virginia & Regional History Center has a collection of materials related to the career or Don Knotts
20th-century American comedians
20th-century American male actors
21st-century American comedians
21st-century American male actors
1924 births
2006 deaths
American male comedians
American male film actors
American male soap opera actors
American male television actors
American male voice actors
United States Army personnel of World War II
American people of English descent
Burials at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery
Deaths from cancer in California
Deaths from lung cancer
Deaths from pneumonia in California
Disney people
Male actors from West Virginia
Military personnel from West Virginia
Morgantown High School alumni
Outstanding Performance by a Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series Primetime Emmy Award winners
People from Morgantown, West Virginia
United States Army soldiers
Ventriloquists
West Virginia University alumni | 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)",
"\"What Would Steve Do?\" is the second single released by Mumm-Ra on Columbia Records, which was released on February 19, 2007. It is a re-recorded version of the self-release they did in April 2006. It reached #40 in the UK Singles Chart, making it their highest charting single.\n\nTrack listings\nAll songs written by Mumm-Ra.\n\nCD\n\"What Would Steve Do?\"\n\"Cute As\"\n\"Without You\"\n\n7\"\n\"What Would Steve Do?\"\n\"What Would Steve Do? (Floorboard Mix)\"\n\nGatefold 7\"\n\"What Would Steve Do?\"\n\"Cute As\"\n\nReferences\n\n2007 singles\nMumm-Ra (band) songs\n2006 songs\nColumbia Records singles"
] |
[
"Don Knotts",
"The Andy Griffith Show",
"What show did he star in",
"Andy Griffith was offered the opportunity to headline his own sitcom, The Andy Griffith Show",
"When did the show run for",
"1960-1968",
"How did knotts fit into the show",
"Knotts took the role of Barney Fife, the deputy--and originally cousin--of Sheriff Andy Taylor (portrayed by Griffith",
"Did he win awards for the show",
"Knotts's portrayal of the deputy on the popular show earned him five Emmy Awards for Best Supporting Actor in a Television Comedy,",
"What did he win the awards",
"three awards for the first five seasons that he played the character.",
"What did people say about his character",
"A summary of the show from the website of the Museum of Broadcast Communications describes Deputy Barney Fife:",
"What did they say about him",
"important, romantic, and nearly always wrong, Barney dreamed of the day he could use the one bullet Andy had issued to him,",
"What did he do",
"He always fired his pistol accidentally while still in his holster or in the ceiling of the court house, at which point he would sadly hand his pistol to Andy."
] | C_78df05bd80874e908541d6c62b2828dd_0 | What did this bullet come from | 9 | Where did the bullet Barney shot come from? | Don Knotts | In 1960, Andy Griffith was offered the opportunity to headline his own sitcom, The Andy Griffith Show (1960-1968). Knotts took the role of Barney Fife, the deputy--and originally cousin--of Sheriff Andy Taylor (portrayed by Griffith). Knotts's portrayal of the deputy on the popular show earned him five Emmy Awards for Best Supporting Actor in a Television Comedy, three awards for the first five seasons that he played the character. A summary of the show from the website of the Museum of Broadcast Communications describes Deputy Barney Fife: Self-important, romantic, and nearly always wrong, Barney dreamed of the day he could use the one bullet Andy had issued to him, though he did fire his gun on a few occasions. He always fired his pistol accidentally while still in his holster or in the ceiling of the court house, at which point he would sadly hand his pistol to Andy. This is why Barney kept his one very shiny bullet in his shirt pocket. In episode #196, Andy gave Barney more bullets so that he would have a loaded gun to go after a bad guy that Barney unintentionally helped escape. While Barney was forever frustrated that Mayberry was too small for the delusional ideas he had of himself, viewers got the sense that he couldn't have survived anywhere else. Don Knotts played the comic and pathetic sides of the character with equal aplomb and he received three Emmy Awards during the show's first five seasons. When the show first aired, Griffith was intended to be the comedic lead with Knotts as his straight man, similar to their roles in No Time for Sergeants. However, it was quickly discovered that the show was funnier with the roles reversed. As Griffith maintained in several interviews, "By the second episode, I knew that Don should be funny, and I should play straight." Knotts believed remarks by Griffith that The Andy Griffith Show would end after five seasons, and he began to look for other work, signing a five-film contract with Universal Studios. He was caught off guard when Griffith announced that he would continue the show after all, but Knotts's hands were tied. In his autobiography, Knotts admitted that he had not yet signed a contract when Griffith announced his decision; but he had made up his mind to move on, believing he would not get the chance again. Knotts left the series in 1965. His character's absence on the show was explained by Deputy Fife's having finally made the "big time," joining the Raleigh, North Carolina police force. CANNOTANSWER | Andy gave Barney more bullets so that he would have a loaded gun to go after a bad guy that Barney unintentionally helped escape. | Jesse Donald Knotts (July 21, 1924February 24, 2006) was an American actor and comedian. He is widely known for his role as Deputy Sheriff Barney Fife on The Andy Griffith Show, a 1960s sitcom for which he earned five Emmy Awards. He also played Ralph Furley on the highly rated sitcom Three's Company from 1979 to 1984. He starred in multiple comedic films, including the leading roles in The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966) and The Incredible Mr. Limpet (1964). In 1979, TV Guide ranked him number 27 on its 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time list.
Early life
Jesse Donald Knotts was born on July 21, 1924, in Morgantown, West Virginia, the youngest of four sons born to farmer William Jesse Knotts and his wife, Elsie Luzetta Knotts (née Moore). His parents were married in Spraggs, Pennsylvania. His English paternal ancestors emigrated to America in the 17th century, originally settling in Queen Anne's County, Maryland. Knotts' brothers were named Willis, William, and Ralph "Sid".
Don's mother was 40 at the time of his birth and his father suffered from mental illness. Afflicted with schizophrenia and alcoholism, he sometimes terrorized Don with a knife, causing Don to turn inward at an early age. The elder Knotts died of pneumonia when Don was 13 years old. Don and his brothers were then raised by their mother, who ran a boarding house in Morgantown. She died in 1969 at age 84. Her son William preceded her in death in 1941 at age 31. They are buried in the family plot at Beverly Hills Memorial Park in Morgantown.
Don graduated from Morgantown High School. After enlisting in the United States Army and serving in World War II, Don earned a bachelor's degree in education with a minor in speech from West Virginia University in Morgantown, graduating in 1948. He was a member of Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity and Alpha Psi Omega Honor Society while at WVU.
Career
Early career
Before he entered high school, Knotts began performing as a ventriloquist and comedian at various church and school functions. After high school, he traveled to New York City to try to make his way as a comedian but returned home to attend West Virginia University when his career failed to take off. After his college freshman year, Knotts joined the U.S. Army and spent most of his service entertaining troops. He toured the western Pacific Islands as a comedian as part of a G.I. variety show called "Stars and Gripes". His ventriloquist act in "Stars and Gripes" included a dummy named Danny, which Knotts grew to hate, eventually throwing it overboard according to his friend and castmate, Al Checco.
Knotts served in the U.S. Army from June 21, 1943, to January 6, 1946, in the Army's 6817th Special Services Battalion. He was discharged at the rank of Technician Grade 5, which was the equivalent then of a corporal. During his military service, Knotts was awarded the World War II Victory Medal, the Philippine Liberation Medal, the Asiatic–Pacific Campaign Medal (with 4 bronze service stars), the American Campaign Medal, the Army Good Conduct Medal, the Army Marksman Badge (with an M1 Carbine) and the Honorable Service Lapel Pin.
Knotts returned to West Virginia University after being demobilized and graduated in 1948. He married Kay Metz and moved back to New York, where connections he had made while in the Special Services Branch helped him break into show business. In addition to doing stand-up comedy at clubs, he appeared on the radio, eventually playing the wisecracking, know-it-all character "Windy Wales" on a radio Western called "Bobby Benson and the B-Bar-B Riders".
Knotts got his first major break on television in the soap opera Search for Tomorrow where he appeared from 1953 to 1955. He came to fame in 1956 on Steve Allen's variety show, as part of Allen's repertory company, most notably in Allen's mock "Man in the Street" interviews, always as an extremely nervous man. He remained with the Allen program through the 1959–1960 season. From October 20, 1955, through September 14, 1957, Knotts appeared in the Broadway play version of No Time for Sergeants, in which he played two roles, listed on the playbill as a Corporal Manual Dexterity and a Preacher. In 1958, Knotts appeared for the first time on film with Andy Griffith in the film version of No Time for Sergeants. In that film, Knotts reprised his Broadway role and played a high-strung Air Force test administrator whose routine is disrupted by the hijinks of a provincial new recruit.
The Andy Griffith Show
In 1960, Andy Griffith was offered the opportunity to headline his own sitcom, The Andy Griffith Show (1960–1968). Knotts took the role of Barney Fife, the deputy—and originally cousin—of Sheriff Andy Taylor (portrayed by Griffith). Knotts's portrayal of the deputy on the popular show earned him five Emmy Awards for Best Supporting Actor in a Television Comedy.
A summary of the show from the website of the Museum of Broadcast Communications describes Deputy Barney Fife:
When the show first aired, Griffith was intended to be the comedic lead with Knotts as his straight man, similar to their roles in No Time for Sergeants. However, it was quickly discovered that the show was funnier with the roles reversed. As Griffith maintained in several interviews, "By the second episode, I knew that Don should be funny, and I should play straight."
Knotts believed remarks by Griffith that The Andy Griffith Show would end after five seasons, and he began to look for other work, signing a five-film contract with Universal Studios. In his autobiography, Knotts admitted that he had not yet signed the contract when Griffith announced his decision to continue the series; but he had made up his mind to move on, believing he would not get the chance again. Knotts left the series in 1965. His character's absence on the show was explained by Deputy Fife's having finally made the "big time," joining the Raleigh, North Carolina, police force.
Post-Mayberry film career
Knotts went on to star in a series of film comedies that drew on his high-strung persona from the television series: he had a cameo appearance in United Artists' It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), and starred in Warner Bros.' The Incredible Mr. Limpet (1964). Knotts then began his Universal five-film contract with The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966), The Reluctant Astronaut (1967), The Shakiest Gun in the West (1968), The Love God? (1969) and How to Frame a Figg (1971). After making How to Frame a Figg, Knotts's five-film contract with Universal finished.
Knotts reprised his role as Barney Fife several times in the 1960s: he made five guest appearances on The Andy Griffith Show (gaining him another two Emmy Awards), and he later appeared once on the spin-off Mayberry R.F.D., where he was present as best man for the marriage of Andy Taylor and his longtime love, Helen Crump. He continued to work steadily, though he did not appear as a regular on any successful television series until in 1979 he got the part of landlord Ralph Furley on Three's Company for seasons 4 through 8, after the departure of Norman Fell, who had played the previous landlord.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Knotts served as the spokesman for Dodge trucks and was featured prominently in a series of print ads and dealer brochures. On television, he went on to host a variety show/sitcom hybrid on NBC, The Don Knotts Show, which aired Tuesdays during the fall of 1970, but the series was low-rated and short-lived, and Knotts was uncomfortable with the variety show format. He also made frequent guest appearances on other shows such as The Bill Cosby Show and Here's Lucy. In 1970, he appeared as a Barney Fife-like police officer in the pilot of The New Andy Griffith Show. In 1972, Knotts voiced an animated version of himself in two episodes of The New Scooby Doo Movies: "The Spooky Fog of Juneberry", in which he played a lawman resembling Barney Fife, and "Guess Who's Knott Coming to Dinner". He appeared as Felix Unger in a stage version of Neil Simon's The Odd Couple, with Art Carney as Oscar Madison, and toured in the Neil Simon comedy Last of the Red Hot Lovers.
Beginning in 1975, Knotts was teamed with Tim Conway in a series of slapstick films aimed at children, including the Disney film The Apple Dumpling Gang (1975) and its sequel, The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again (1979). They also did two independent films, the boxing comedy The Prize Fighter (1979), and the mystery-comedy The Private Eyes (1980). Knotts co-starred in several other Disney films, including Gus (1976), No Deposit, No Return (1976), Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo (1977) and Hot Lead and Cold Feet (1978).
Three's Company
In 1979, Knotts returned to series television in his second most identifiable role, the wacky but lovable landlord Ralph Furley on Three's Company. The series, which was already an established hit, added Knotts to the cast when the original landlords, Stanley and Helen Roper (a married couple played by Norman Fell and Audra Lindley, respectively) left the series to star in their own short-lived spin-off series The Ropers.
On set, Knotts easily integrated himself into the already established cast who were, as John Ritter put it, "so scared" of Knotts because of his star status when he joined the cast. When Suzanne Somers left the show after a contract dispute in 1981, the writers started giving the material meant for Somers's Chrissy to Knotts's Furley. Knotts remained on the series until it ended in 1984. The Three's Company script supervisor, Carol Summers, became Knotts' agent and often accompanied him to personal appearances.
Later years
In 1986, Don Knotts reunited with Andy Griffith in the made-for-television film Return to Mayberry, reprising his Barney Fife role. In early 1987, Knotts joined the cast of the first-run syndication comedy What a Country!, playing Principal Bud McPherson for the series' remaining 13 episodes. The sitcom was produced by Martin Rips and Joseph Staretski, who had previously worked on Three's Company.
In 1988, Knotts joined Andy Griffith in another show, playing the recurring role of pesky neighbor Les Calhoun on Matlock until 1992.
After that, Knotts's roles were sporadic, including a cameo appearance in the film Big Bully (1996) as the principal of the high school. In 1998, Knotts played a small but pivotal role as a mysterious TV repairman in Pleasantville. That year, his hometown of Morgantown, West Virginia, changed the name of the street formerly known as South University Avenue (U.S. Route 119) to Don Knotts Boulevard on "Don Knotts Day". Also that day, in honor of Knotts's role as Barney Fife, he was named an honorary deputy sheriff with the Monongalia County Sheriff's Department.
Knotts was recognized in 2000 with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He continued to act on stage, but much of his film and television work after 2000 was as voice talent. In 2002, he appeared again with Scooby-Doo in the video game Scooby-Doo! Night of 100 Frights. (Knotts also spoofed his appearances on that show in various promotions for Cartoon Network and in a parody on Robot Chicken, where he was teamed with Phyllis Diller.) In 2003, Knotts teamed up with Tim Conway again to provide voices for the direct-to-video children's series Hermie and Friends, which continued until his death. In 2005, he was the voice of Mayor Turkey Lurkey in Chicken Little (2005), his first Disney movie since 1979. On September 12, 2003, Knotts was in Kansas City in a stage version of On Golden Pond when he received a call from John Ritter's family telling him that his former Three's Company co-star had died of an aortic dissection that day. Knotts and his co-stars attended the funeral four days later. Knotts had appeared with Ritter one final time in a cameo on 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter. It was an episode that paid homage to their earlier television series. Knotts was the last Three's Company star to work with Ritter.
During this period of time, macular degeneration in both eyes caused the otherwise robust Knotts to become virtually blind. His live appearances on television were few. In 2005, Knotts parodied his Ralph Furley character while playing a Paul Young variation in a Desperate Housewives sketch on The 3rd Annual TV Land Awards. He parodied that part one final time in "Stone Cold Crazy", an episode of the sitcom That '70s Show. In the show, Knotts played Fez and Jackie's new landlord. This was his last live-action television appearance. His final role was in Air Buddies (2006), a direct-to-video sequel to Air Bud, voicing the sheriff's deputy dog, Sniffer.
Personal life
Knotts's friend Al Checco said, "Don was somewhat of a ladies' man. He fancied himself something of a Frank Sinatra. The ladies loved him and he dated quite a bit." Knotts was married three times. His marriage to Kathryn Metz lasted from 1947 until their divorce in 1964, and he raised his daughter as a single parent. He married Loralee Czuchna in 1974 and they divorced in 1983. His third marriage was to Frances Yarborough, from 2002 until his death in 2006. From his first marriage, Knotts had a son, Thomas Knotts, and a daughter, actress Karen Knotts (born April 2, 1954).
Knotts struggled with hypochondria and macular degeneration. Betty Lynn, one of Knotts' co-stars on The Andy Griffith Show, described him as a "very quiet man. Very sweet. Nothing like Barney Fife." TV writer Mark Evanier called him "the most beloved person in all of show business".
Death
Knotts died at age 81 on February 24, 2006, at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles from pulmonary and respiratory complications of pneumonia related to lung cancer. He had been undergoing treatment at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in the months before his death, but he returned home after he had reportedly been feeling better. He was buried at Westwood Memorial Park in Los Angeles.
Knotts' obituaries cited him as a major influence on other entertainers. In early 2011, his grave's plain granite headstone was replaced with a bronze plaque that displays several of Knotts' movie and television roles. A statue honoring Knotts, created by Jamie Lester, was unveiled on July 23, 2016, in front of The Metropolitan Theatre on High Street in his hometown of Morgantown, West Virginia.
Filmography
Film
No Time for Sergeants (1958) as Cpl. John C. Brown
Wake Me When It's Over (1960) as Sgt. Percy Warren
The Last Time I Saw Archie (1961) as Captain Harry Little
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) as the nervous motorist
Move Over, Darling (1963) as Shoe Clerk
The Incredible Mr. Limpet (1964) as Henry Limpet
The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966) as Luther Heggs
The Reluctant Astronaut (1967) as Roy Fleming
The Shakiest Gun in the West (1968) as Dr. Jesse W. Heywood
The Love God? (1969) as Abner Audubon Peacock IV
How to Frame a Figg (1971) as Hollis Alexander Figg
The Apple Dumpling Gang (1975) as Theodore Ogelvie
No Deposit, No Return (1976) as Bert Delaney
Gus (1976) as Coach Venner
Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo (1977) as Wheely Applegate
Mule Feathers (1978) as Narrator / The Mule (voice)
Hot Lead and Cold Feet (1978) as Sheriff Denver Kid
The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again (1979) as Theodore Ogelvie
The Prize Fighter (1979) as Shake
The Private Eyes (1980) as Inspector Winship
Cannonball Run II (1984) as CHP Officer #2
Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night (1987) as Gee Willikers (voice)
Big Bully (1996) as Principal Kokelar
Cats Don't Dance (1997) as T.W. Turtle (voice)
Pleasantville (1998) as TV Repairman
Tom Sawyer (2000) as Mutt Potter (voice)
Quints (2000) as Governor Healy
Chicken Little (2005) as Mayor Turkey Lurkey (voice)
Air Buddies (2006) as Sniffer (voice; final film role, posthumous release)
Television
Search for Tomorrow (1953–1955) as Wilbur Peterson
The Steve Allen Show (1956–1960) as Himself
The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (1960) as Esmond Metzger
The Andy Griffith Show (1960–1968) as Barney Fife
The Joey Bishop Show (1 episode 1964) as Barney Fife
The Red Skelton Show (1961–1965) as Commodore of Lagoons / 'Steady Fingers' Ferguson / Horaces Horatio / Mr. Pallid / Herbie
The New Steve Allen Show (1961–1963) as Regular
The Garry Moore Show (4 episodes 1962–1964) as Himself
McHale's Navy (Season 4, Episode 25) as Lt. Pratt
The Jerry Lewis Show (1 episode 1963) as Himself
38th Academy Awards (1966) as Himself (co-presenter)
The Don Knotts Special (1967) as Himself (host/performer)
The Hollywood Palace (1 episode #7.17 1970) as Himself
The Don Knotts Show (1970–1971) as Himself (host)
Don Knotts' Nice Clean, Decent, Wholesome Hour (1970) as Himself (host/performer)
The New Scooby-Doo Movies (2 episodes 1972) as Himself (voice)
The Man Who Came to Dinner (1972) as Dr. Bradley
The Flip Wilson Show (1972–73) (2 episodes) as Himself
Dinah Shore: In Search of the Ideal Man (1973) as Himself
I Love a Mystery (1973) as Alexander Archer
Here's Lucy (1973) (1 episode) as Ben Fletcher
Hollywood Squares (4 episodes, 1974–1977) as Himself – Panelist
Steve Allen's Laugh Back (1975)
The Captain & Tennille Show (1976–1977) as Himself (recurring guest)
The Muppet Show (1977) as Himself – Special Guest Star
Fantasy Island (1978–1979) as Felix Birdsong / Stanley Scheckter
The Love Boat (1979) as Herb Grobecker / Devon King
Three's Company (1979–1984) as Ralph Furley
George Burns Comedy Week (1985) as Himself
Return to Mayberry (1986) as Barney Fife
What a Country! (1987) as F. Jerry 'Bud' McPherson
The Little Troll Prince (1987) as Professor Nidaros (voice)
Matlock (1987–1992) as Les Calhoun
Newhart (1 episode 1990) as Iron
Timmy's Gift: A Precious Moments Christmas (1991) as Titus (voice)
The Andy Griffith Show Reunion (1993) as Himself
Burke's Law (1 episode 1994)
Step by Step (1993) (1 episode) as Deputy Feif
101 Dalmatians: The Series (2 episodes, 1997–1998) as Additional Voices (voice)
E! True Hollywood Story (1 episode 1998) as Himself
Late Night with Conan O'Brien (1 episode 1999) as Himself
Jingle Bells (1999) as Kris (voice)
Inside TV Land: The Andy Griffith Show (2000) as Himself
Biography TV Documentary (2 episodes 2000–2002) as Himself
Biography: "John Ritter: In Good Company" (2002) as Himself
Inside TV Land: Cops on Camera (2002) as Himself
Odd Job Jack (2003) as Dirk Douglas
8 Simple Rules (2003) as Himself
Larry King Live (1 episode 2003) as Himself
The Andy Griffith Show: Back To Mayberry (2003) as Himself/Barney Fife
TV Lands Top Ten (2004) (1 episode) as Himself
Johnny Bravo (cartoon series), episode "Johnny Makeover" (2004) as Don Knotts (voice)
That '70s Show (2005) as The Landlord
Las Vegas (2005) as Himself
The 3rd Annual TV Land Awards (2005) as Paul Young (segment "Desperate Classic Housewives")
Robot Chicken as Himself
Hatching Chicken Little (2006) as Himself
CMT: The Greatest – 20 Greatest Country Comedy Shows (2006) as Himself
Video games
Scooby-Doo! Night of 100 Frights (2002) as The Groundskeeper
Animation videos
Hermie and Friends (2003–06) as Wormie
Awards
References
Further reading
Klin, Richard. "Fife and Drum". Flagpole, 2006.
External links
The West Virginia & Regional History Center has a collection of materials related to the career or Don Knotts
20th-century American comedians
20th-century American male actors
21st-century American comedians
21st-century American male actors
1924 births
2006 deaths
American male comedians
American male film actors
American male soap opera actors
American male television actors
American male voice actors
United States Army personnel of World War II
American people of English descent
Burials at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery
Deaths from cancer in California
Deaths from lung cancer
Deaths from pneumonia in California
Disney people
Male actors from West Virginia
Military personnel from West Virginia
Morgantown High School alumni
Outstanding Performance by a Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series Primetime Emmy Award winners
People from Morgantown, West Virginia
United States Army soldiers
Ventriloquists
West Virginia University alumni | false | [
"Bullet Treatment is an American hardcore/punk band based out of Los Angeles, California, United States.\n\nMost of their albums are released on Basement Records. They also have released music on Fat Wreck Chords and Think Fast! Records. Started by guitarist Chuck Dietrich, the band has featured over 30 members over its long history including Tim McIlrath of Rise Against, Matt Caughthran of The Bronx, and Dave Hildago Jr. from Social Distortion. Bullet Treatment songs \"Grindstone\", \"Spread My Legs\", \"A Reason For Violence\", \"Hand In Hand\", \"Pointless Conversation\", and \"Not Afraid Of The World\" have been featured on MTV's television show Nitro Circus.\n\nThe song \"The Escapist\" from the EP \"Ex-Breathers\" was featured in Season 3 Episode 11 of the MTV show, Ridiculousness.\n\nPunknews.org described Bullet Treatment as \"Take the reckless intensity of Black Flag, the breakneck speed of Minor Threat and the brilliant musical structures of early Adolescents. Now throw it all in a pot, set that shit on fire and let it explode in a blaze of glory. Your end result would be The Mistake by a little-known band called Bullet Treatment.\" \n\nReleases:\n\n“Split w/ Riotgun” (2002, Basement Records)\n“Furious World” (2003,Basement Records)\n\"What More Do You Want\" (2004, Basement Records)\n“Split w/ Shellshock” (2004, Puke N’ Vomit)\n“Split w/ The Nipples” (2004, Basement Records)\n“The Bigger, The Better” (2005, Basement Records)\n“Dead Are Walking” (2006, Basement Records)\n\"The Mistake\" (2006, Basement / Think Fast Records) \n“Split w/ It’s Casual” (2008, Basement Records)\n\"Designated - Vol.1\" (2009, Fat Wreck Chords)\n“What Else Could You Want?” (2009, Basement Records)\n“Designated - Vol. 2” (2012, Think Fast Records)\n“Ex-Breathers” (2013, Basement Records)\n“What More Do You Want? (Re-Issue)” (2014, Basement Records) \n“Retrospective” (2015, Basement Records)\n“Bloodshot Chapter 1” (2016, Basement Records)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Bullet Treatment Facebook Page\n Bullet Treatment Instagram Page\n Bullet Treatment MTV Artist Page\n Bullet Treatment Myspace Page\n\nMusical groups from Los Angeles\nHardcore punk groups from California\nFat Wreck Chords artists",
"What Katie Did is a British lingerie design house founded in 1999 by Katie Thomas.\n\nHistory \nIn 1999, being unable to afford fully fashioned stockings, Thomas decided to invest in nylons to sell at The London Fetish Fair. This led to Thomas creating her own website.\n\nIn 2002, What Katie Did's first reproduction of the Bullet bra was launched, the first to be produced in the country. The next year, the company opened a boutique in London Portobello. In 2010, Thomas was asked to advise on an bra of Marilyn Monroe that was put up for auction.\n\nThomas has also appeared advising on corsets on ABC's Nightline in 2012 and in the same year was nominated for Cosmopolitan's Businesswoman of the Year.\n\nStyle\nThe brand recreates designs from the 1950s including the bullet bra, which has been worn by celebrities such as Madonna and Rihanna. What Katie Did are also known for their steel boned corsets.\n\nModels \nModels for the company include Bernie Dexter, Missy Malone, Jami Deadly and Miss Polly Rae.\n\nReferences\n\nFurther reading\n\nExternal links \n \n\nClothing retailers of the United Kingdom\nLingerie brands\nBritish companies established in 1999\nClothing companies established in 1999\nRetail companies established in 1999\nCompanies based in London\n1999 establishments in England"
] |
[
"Staind",
"Staind and departure of Jon Wysocki (2010-2012)"
] | C_bb81d322c9cb4d249702e1b5c76671f3_1 | What was happening in 2010? | 1 | What was happening with Staind in 2010? | Staind | In March 2010, Aaron Lewis stated the band would start working on their seventh studio album by the end of the year. Lewis had finished recording his country-tinged solo EP and had started a nonprofit organization to reopen his daughter's elementary school in Worthington, Massachusetts. Guitarist Mike Mushok stated in a question and answer session with fans that the band was looking to make a heavy record, but still "explore some of the things we did on the last record and take them somewhere new for us". In a webisode posted on the band's website, Lewis stated that eight songs were written and that "every one of them is as heavy or heavier than the heaviest song on the last record". In December 2010, Staind posted three webisodes from the studio, which featured the band members discussing the writing and recording process of their new album. They announced that as of April 20, the band had completed the recording of their untitled seventh album and would release it later that year. On May 20, 2011, Staind announced that original drummer Jon Wysocki had left the band. Drummer Will Hunt filled in for a few dates, while Wysocki's drum tech Sal Giancarelli filled in for the rest of the tour. Three days later, it was reported that Staind's new album was originally called Seven, but was renamed Staind. It was released on September 13, 2011. The first single "Not Again" was released to active radio stations on July 18. The song "The Bottom" appeared on the Transformers: Dark of the Moon soundtrack. On June 30, Staind released a song called "Eyes Wide Open" from their new record. "Eyes Wide Open" would later be released on November 29 as the album's second single. On July 12, Staind released the first single "Not Again" through YouTube and was officially released/available on July 26. In November 2011, the band announced through their YouTube page that Sal Giancarelli was now an official member. The band continued to tour heavily into 2012; embarking on an April and May touring with Godsmack and Halestorm, and the Uproar Festival in August and Setpember with Shinedown and a number of other artists. CANNOTANSWER | In March 2010, Aaron Lewis stated the band would start working on their seventh studio album by the end of the year. | Staind ( ) is an American rock band formed in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1995. The original lineup consisted of lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist Aaron Lewis, lead guitarist Mike Mushok, bassist and backing vocalist Johnny April, and drummer Jon Wysocki. The lineup has been stable outside of the 2011 departure of Wysocki, who was replaced by Sal Giancarelli. Staind has recorded seven studio albums: Tormented (1996), Dysfunction (1999), Break the Cycle (2001), 14 Shades of Grey (2003), Chapter V (2005), The Illusion of Progress (2008), and Staind (2011). The band's activity became more sporadic after their self-titled release, with Lewis pursuing a solo country music career and Mushok subsequently joining the band Saint Asonia, but they have continued to tour on and off in the following years. In 2016, Lewis reiterated that the band had not broken up, and would possibly create another album, but that his then-current focus was on his solo career. The band reunited more permanently in 2019 for several shows, continuing with live appearances in 2020. Many of their singles have reached high positions on US rock and all-format charts as well, including "It's Been Awhile", "Fade", "Price to Play", "So Far Away", and "Right Here".
History
Early years and Tormented (1995–1998)
In 1993, vocalist Aaron Lewis and guitarist Mike Mushok met at a Christmas party in Springfield, Massachusetts. Mushok introduced drummer Jon Wysocki while Lewis brought in bassist Johnny April to form the band in 1995. Their first public performance was in February 1995, playing a heavy, dark, and introspective style of metal. Extensive touring in the Northeast helped Staind acquire a regional following over the next few years.
The band started covering Korn, Rage Against the Machine, Pearl Jam, Tool, and Alice in Chains, among others, and played at local clubs (most commonly playing at Infinity, a live music venue located in Springfield) for a year and a half. Staind self-released their debut album, Tormented, in November 1996, citing Tool, Faith No More, and Pantera as their influences. In October 1997, Staind acquired a concert slot through Aaron's cousin Justin Cantor with Limp Bizkit. Just prior to the performance, Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst was appalled by Staind's grotesque album cover and unsuccessfully attempted to remove them from the bill. Durst thought that Staind were Theistic Satanists. After being persuaded to let them perform, however, Durst was so impressed that he signed them to Flip Records by February 1998.
Dysfunction (1999–2000)
On April 13, 1999, Staind released their major label debut Dysfunction on Flip Records. The album, which was co-produced by Fred Durst and Terry Date (who also produced acts like Soundgarden, Deftones, and Pantera), received comparisons to alternative metal giants Tool and Korn. In particular, Aaron Lewis was lauded for his vocals, which were likened to those of Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder.
The album achieved slow success, reaching the No. 1 spot on Billboard's Heatseeker Charts almost six months after its debut. In the same week, the record jumped to No. 74 on Billboard's Top 200 Album Charts. The nine-track LP (with one hidden track, "Excess Baggage") produced three singles, "Just Go", "Mudshovel", and "Home". "Mudshovel" and "Home" both received radio play, cracking the Top 20 of Billboard's Modern Rock and Mainstream Rock charts. In promotion of Dysfunction, Staind went on several tours, including the Family Values Tour with acts like Limp Bizkit and The Crystal Method, as well as opening for Sevendust's headlining tour.
Break the Cycle (2001–2002)
Staind toured with Limp Bizkit for the Family Values Tour during the fall of 1999, where Aaron Lewis performed an early version of "Outside" with Fred Durst at the Mississippi Coast Coliseum. Staind released their third studio album, Break the Cycle, on May 22, 2001. Propelled by the success of the first single, "It's Been Awhile", the album debuted at No. 1 on Billboard's Top 200 Album charts, selling 716,000 copies in its first week. The record's first-week sales were the second highest of any album that year, behind Creed's Weathered.
Break the Cycle saw the band retaining the nu metal sound from their previous album. Despite this, the album saw the band going further into a post-grunge sound which is evident in the smash hit song "It's Been Awhile", and the song led critics to compare the band to several other post-grunge bands at the time. The record spawned the singles "It's Been Awhile" (which hit the Billboard Top 10), "Fade", "Outside", "For You", and the acoustic ballad "Epiphany". "It's Been Awhile" spent a total of 16 and 14 weeks on top of the modern and mainstream rock charts respectively, making it one of the highest joint numbers of all time. In 2001, Break the Cycle sold four million copies worldwide, making it one of the best selling albums that year. Break the Cycle would go on to sell seven million copies worldwide, making this Staind's bestselling album.
14 Shades of Grey (2003–2004)
In early 2003, Staind embarked on a worldwide tour to promote the release of the follow-up to Break the Cycle, 14 Shades of Grey, which sold two million copies and debuted at number 1 on the Billboard 200. The album saw a departure from their previous nu metal sound as it mostly contained a lighter and more melodic post-grunge sound. 14 Shades of Grey produced two mainstream hits, "Price to Play" and "So Far Away", which spent 14 weeks on top of the rock chart. In addition, two other singles were released: "How About You" and "Zoe Jane". The band's appearance at the Reading Festival during their 2003 tour had another impromptu acoustic set, this time due to equipment failure. The singles "So Far Away" and "Price to Play" came with two unreleased tracks, "Novocaine" and "Let It Out", which were released for the special edition of the group's subsequent album Chapter V, which came out in late 2005. In 2003, Staind unsuccessfully sued their logo designer Jon Stainbrook in New York Federal Court for attempting to re-use the logo he had sold to the band. They re-opened the case in mid-2005.
Chapter V and The Singles (2005–2007)
Staind's fifth album, titled Chapter V, was released on August 9, 2005, and became their third consecutive album to top the Billboard 200. The album opened to sales of 185,000 and has since been certified platinum in the U.S. The first single, "Right Here", was the biggest success from the album, garnering much mainstream radio play and peaking at number 1 on the mainstream rock chart. "Falling" was released as the second single, followed by "Everything Changes" and "King of All Excuses". Staind went on the road when the album came out, doing live shows and promoting it for a full year, including participating in the Fall Brawl tour with P.O.D., Taproot, and Flyleaf; they also had a solo tour across Europe and a mini-promotional tour in Australia for the first time. Other live shows included a cover of Pantera's "This Love", a tribute to Dimebag Darrell. Staind appeared on The Howard Stern Show on August 10, 2005 to promote Chapter V. They performed acoustic renditions of the single "Right Here" and Beetlejuice's song "This is Beetle". In early November 2005, Staind released the limited edition 2-CD/DVD set of Chapter V. On September 6, 2006, they performed an acoustic show in the Hiro Ballroom, New York City, that was recorded for their singles collection. The band played sixteen songs, including three covers: Tool's "Sober", Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb", and Alice in Chains's "Nutshell".
The collection The Singles: 1996–2006 was released on November 14, 2006. It included all the band's singles, the three covers performed at the New York show, and a remastered version of "Come Again" from Staind's first independent release Tormented.
The Illusion of Progress (2008–2009)
On August 19, 2008, Staind released their sixth album, The Illusion of Progress. Prior to the album's release, the track "This Is It" was available for download on the iTunes Store, as well as for Rock Band. The album debuted at No. 3 on the US Billboard 200, No. 1 on the Top Modern Rock/Alternative Albums Chart, No. 1 on the Top Digital Albums Chart, and also No. 1 on the Top Internet Albums Chart, with first-week sales of 91,800 units. The first single on the album, "Believe", topped Billboard's Top 10 Modern Rock Tracks on September 5, 2008. The band also supported Nickelback on their 2008 European tour. The second single was "All I Want", and came out on November 24. The single also became Staind's 13th top 20 hit on the rock charts. In Europe, the second single was "The Way I Am", released on January 26, 2009. The final single released from the album, "This Is It", was sent to radio stations across the country on May 4, 2009. The track was also included on the successful Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen – The Album released in late June 2009. The same year, Staind embarked on a fall tour with the newly reunited Creed.
Staind and departure of Jon Wysocki (2010–2012)
In March 2010, Aaron Lewis stated the band would start working on their seventh studio album by the end of the year. Lewis had finished recording his country music solo EP and had started a nonprofit organization to reopen his daughter's elementary school in Worthington, Massachusetts. Guitarist Mike Mushok stated in a Q&A session with fans that the band was looking to make a heavy record, but still "explore some of the things we did on the last record and take them somewhere new for us". In a webisode posted on the band's website, Lewis stated that eight songs were written and that "every one of them is as heavy or heavier than the heaviest song on the last record".
In December 2010, Staind posted three webisodes from the studio, which featured the band members discussing the writing and recording process of their new album. They announced that as of April 20, they had completed the recording of their seventh and would release it later that year.
On May 20, 2011, Staind announced that original drummer Jon Wysocki had left the band. Drummer Will Hunt filled in for a few dates, while Wysocki's drum tech Sal Giancarelli filled in for the rest of the tour. Three days later, it was reported that Staind's new album would be a self-titled release. It was released on September 13, 2011. The first single, "Not Again", was released to active radio stations on July 18. The song "The Bottom" appeared on the Transformers: Dark of the Moon soundtrack. On June 30, Staind released a song called "Eyes Wide Open" from their new record. "Eyes Wide Open" would later be released on November 29 as the album's second single.
In November 2011, the band announced through their YouTube page that Sal Giancarelli was now an official member. The band continued to perform into 2012, embarking on an April and May tour with Godsmack and Halestorm, and they played the Uproar Festival in August and September with Shinedown and a number of other artists.
It was announced in July 2012 that the band was to be taking a hiatus. In an interview with Billboard, Aaron Lewis stated that "We're not breaking up. We're not gonna stop making music. We're just going to take a little hiatus that really hasn't ever been taken in our career. We put out seven records in 14 years. We've been pretty busy." Lewis also had plans to release his first solo album The Road. During this time, Mike Mushok auditioned, and was selected, to play guitar for former Metallica bassist Jason Newsted's new band Newsted. He featured on their debut album Heavy Metal Music.
Hiatus and limited activity (2013–present)
Staind played their first show in two years at the Welcome To Rockville Festival on April 27, 2014. They also played the Carolina Rebellion and Rock on the Range festivals in May 2014.
In late 2014, the band went on a hiatus. Aaron Lewis continued to play solo shows and work on his next solo album. He also confirmed that the hiatus would last "for a while". Mike Mushok teamed up with former Three Days Grace singer Adam Gontier, former Finger Eleven drummer Rich Beddoe, and Eye Empire bassist Corey Lowery to form Saint Asonia.
On August 4, 2017, the band performed for the first time since November 2014 for an acoustic performance at Aaron Lewis' 6th annual charity golf tournament and concert when bassist Johnny April and drummer Sal Giancarelli joined Aaron Lewis and Mike Mushok to perform "Outside", "Something to Remind You", and "It's Been Awhile". Three days later, Lewis announced that Staind would never tour extensively again, with Lewis explaining:
In April 2019, the band announced they would reform in September 2019 for some live performances. The band was scheduled to play at Epicenter Festival on May 3, 2020 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, but the COVID-19 pandemic led to the festival being cancelled.
Musical style, influences, and lyrical themes
The topics of Staind's lyrics cover issues of depression, relationships, death, addiction, finding one's self, betrayal, and Lewis' thoughts about becoming a father in the song "Zoe Jane" from 14 Shades of Grey, as well as reflecting on his upbringing in the song "The Corner" from The Illusion of Progress. Also from 14 Shades of Grey, the track titled "Layne" was written about Alice in Chains frontman Layne Staley in response to his death in 2002. The song is also about Staley's legacy and the effect his music had on the members of Staind, especially Aaron Lewis. Staind has been categorized as nu metal, alternative metal, heavy metal, hard rock, and post-grunge.
In 2001, Rolling Stone outlined the band's relationship to the nu metal label:
{{quote|Staind got their first break in 1998 when [Fred] Durst signed the band to his Flip Records. That association has linked the group with "new metal," though Break the Cycles sound is neither particularly new nor metal. The band doesn't rap, and though Mushok has adopted new-metal's minor-key guitar riffs, Lewis' dramatic voice and the anthemic quality of such songs as "Open Your Eyes" and "Fade" are more akin to Alice in Chains than to Korn. Aggressive yet reflective, Break the Cycle doesn't require a poisonous abundance of testosterone to be appreciated and is better suited to solitary listening than to the mosh pit.}}
Staind's influences include Pantera, The Doors, Suicidal Tendencies, Kiss, Van Halen, Slayer, Led Zeppelin, Sepultura, Whitesnake, the Beatles, Alice in Chains, Faith No More, Deftones, Black Sabbath, Pearl Jam, Tool, Rage Against the Machine, Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots, Helmet, James Taylor, Korn, and Crosby, Stills & Nash.
Band membersCurrent line-up Aaron Lewis – lead vocals, rhythm guitar (1995–2012, 2014, 2017, 2019–present)
Mike Mushok – lead guitar (1995–2012, 2014, 2017, 2019–present)
Johnny April – bass, backing vocals (1995–2012, 2014, 2017, 2019–present)
Sal Giancarelli – drums (2011–2012, 2014, 2017, 2019–present)Former members Jon Wysocki – drums (1995–2011)
Timeline
Discography Studio albums'''Tormented (1996)Dysfunction (1999)Break the Cycle (2001)14 Shades of Grey (2003)Chapter V (2005)The Illusion of Progress (2008)Staind'' (2011)
References
External links
1995 establishments in Massachusetts
Atlantic Records artists
American alternative metal musical groups
American nu metal musical groups
American post-grunge musical groups
Rock music groups from Massachusetts
Alternative rock groups from Massachusetts
Heavy metal musical groups from Massachusetts
Flip Records (1994) artists
Musical groups established in 1995
Musical groups disestablished in 2017
Musical groups disestablished in 2014
Musical groups disestablished in 2012
Musical groups reestablished in 2014
Musical groups reestablished in 2019
Musical groups reestablished in 2017
Musical groups from Springfield, Massachusetts
Musical quartets | true | [
"What's Happening? is the fourth mini-album recorded by the South Korean boy band B1A4, which was released by WM Entertainment on May 6, 2013. The track \"What's Happening?\" (also known as \"What's Going On?\") was used as the lead single of the album. The song \"What's Happening(이게 무슨 일이야) took the first rank on the ground wave in Korea, May, 2013.\n\nTrack listing\n\nChart\n\nReferences\n\n2013 EPs\nB1A4 EPs",
"Ernest Lee Thomas (born March 26, 1949) is an American actor. He is best known for his role as Roger \"Raj\" Thomas on the 1970s ABC sitcom What's Happening!!, and its 1980s syndicated sequel, What's Happening Now!!, and for his recurring role as Mr. Omar on Everybody Hates Chris.\n\nEarly career and What's Happening!!\n\nThomas was born in Gary, Indiana, and began his professional acting career as a Broadway actor, appearing in the 1974 revival production of Love for Love and in the 1975 revival of The Member of the Wedding. Both shows starred actress Glenn Close. Shortly after he moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career as a TV/film actor. In the fall of 1975 he received a role on an episode of The Jeffersons. It was during the taping of the show that he learned of an audition for a sitcom loosely based on the 1975 film Cooley High. Thomas auditioned, won the lead role, and filmed the television pilot, which tested poorly. The concept was quickly reworked into a more light-hearted approach to the source material, and became known as Central Avenue, before settling on the title What's Happening!!. Thomas was the only cast member retained from the pilot, and took the lead role of Roger \"Raj\" Thomas. The new \"summer series\" became a ratings hit, and was expanded to a full series, airing from 1976 to 1979.\n\nDuring the show's run, Thomas was involved in other film and TV projects including Baretta, The Brady Bunch Hour and the film A Piece of the Action starring Sidney Poitier and Bill Cosby. During the first season of What's Happening!!, Thomas was one of the final two actors to be considered for the lead role of Kunta Kinte in the breakthrough miniseries Roots, which eventually went to LeVar Burton. Thomas would go on to play the smaller role of Kailuba in the miniseries.\n\nWhat's Happening Now!! and later career\nAfter a six-year hiatus from TV and film acting, Ernest resumed his role as Roger \"Raj\" Thomas in the sequel What's Happening Now!! The show aired in first-run syndication from 1985 to 1988.\n\nSince the show's cancellation Thomas has guest starred on a number of popular TV dramas and sitcoms including In the Heat of the Night, (which co-starred his TV wife Anne-Marie Johnson, from What's Happening Now!!), The Parent 'Hood, Martin (which starred his What's Happening Now!! co-star Martin Lawrence), Soul Food, The Steve Harvey Show, All About the Andersons and more recently Just Jordan. He has also appeared in a number of films, including a supporting role in Malcolm X and a cameo in Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star. He later had a recurring role as funeral director, Mr. Omar, on the TV sitcom Everybody Hates Chris. He had an uncredited guest spot as Ernest T \"Bass\" on the TV show Are We There Yet? It was titled, \"The Satchel Paige Episode\" and had him playing a Flavor Flav type personality.\n\nIn 2012, Thomas was cast in rocker/horror movie director Rob Zombie's 2012 film The Lords of Salem. In 2016, he was in a comedic body horror short film called Earworm.\n\nHe has an eye condition called amblyopia.\n\nFilmography\n1976-1979: What's Happening!! (TV Series) - Roger 'Raj' Thomas\n1977: A Piece of the Action - John\n1985-1988: What's Happening Now!! (TV Series) - Roger 'Raj' Thomas\n1991: Kiss and Be Killed - Det. Ross\n1992: Malcolm X - Sidney\n2003: The Watermelon Heist - Jailer\n2003: Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star - Ernest Thomas\n2005-2009: Everybody Hates Chris (TV Series) - Mr. Omar / Funeral Director / Radical Man\n2007: Paroled - Royce Henderson\n2009: Funny People - Yo Teach Principal\n2012: The Lords of Salem - Chip McDonald (Frankenstein and the Witchhunter) (uncredited)\n2013: The Pastor and Mrs. Jones - Pastor\n2014: Basketball Girlfriend - Lenny\n2014: Revenge - Neville\n2014: The Slimbones - Uncle AB\n2015: Mega Shark vs. Kolossus - Admiral Titus Jackson\n2015: Chocolate City - Diner Manager\n2016: '79 Parts - Priore\n2016: Stop Bullying Now: Live from the Big House - Himself\n2016 - Earworm (short)\n2017: Chocolate City: Vegas Strip - Mr. Williams\n2017: The Gods - Olympus\n2017: Two Wolves - Olivier\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1949 births\nLiving people\nMale actors from Indiana\nAmerican male film actors\nAmerican male stage actors\nAmerican male television actors\nAfrican-American male actors\n20th-century American male actors\n21st-century American male actors\nPeople from Gary, Indiana\n20th-century African-American people\n21st-century African-American people"
] |
[
"Staind",
"Staind and departure of Jon Wysocki (2010-2012)",
"What was happening in 2010?",
"In March 2010, Aaron Lewis stated the band would start working on their seventh studio album by the end of the year."
] | C_bb81d322c9cb4d249702e1b5c76671f3_1 | How did the album do on the charts? | 2 | How did the seventh studio album do on the charts? | Staind | In March 2010, Aaron Lewis stated the band would start working on their seventh studio album by the end of the year. Lewis had finished recording his country-tinged solo EP and had started a nonprofit organization to reopen his daughter's elementary school in Worthington, Massachusetts. Guitarist Mike Mushok stated in a question and answer session with fans that the band was looking to make a heavy record, but still "explore some of the things we did on the last record and take them somewhere new for us". In a webisode posted on the band's website, Lewis stated that eight songs were written and that "every one of them is as heavy or heavier than the heaviest song on the last record". In December 2010, Staind posted three webisodes from the studio, which featured the band members discussing the writing and recording process of their new album. They announced that as of April 20, the band had completed the recording of their untitled seventh album and would release it later that year. On May 20, 2011, Staind announced that original drummer Jon Wysocki had left the band. Drummer Will Hunt filled in for a few dates, while Wysocki's drum tech Sal Giancarelli filled in for the rest of the tour. Three days later, it was reported that Staind's new album was originally called Seven, but was renamed Staind. It was released on September 13, 2011. The first single "Not Again" was released to active radio stations on July 18. The song "The Bottom" appeared on the Transformers: Dark of the Moon soundtrack. On June 30, Staind released a song called "Eyes Wide Open" from their new record. "Eyes Wide Open" would later be released on November 29 as the album's second single. On July 12, Staind released the first single "Not Again" through YouTube and was officially released/available on July 26. In November 2011, the band announced through their YouTube page that Sal Giancarelli was now an official member. The band continued to tour heavily into 2012; embarking on an April and May touring with Godsmack and Halestorm, and the Uproar Festival in August and Setpember with Shinedown and a number of other artists. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Staind ( ) is an American rock band formed in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1995. The original lineup consisted of lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist Aaron Lewis, lead guitarist Mike Mushok, bassist and backing vocalist Johnny April, and drummer Jon Wysocki. The lineup has been stable outside of the 2011 departure of Wysocki, who was replaced by Sal Giancarelli. Staind has recorded seven studio albums: Tormented (1996), Dysfunction (1999), Break the Cycle (2001), 14 Shades of Grey (2003), Chapter V (2005), The Illusion of Progress (2008), and Staind (2011). The band's activity became more sporadic after their self-titled release, with Lewis pursuing a solo country music career and Mushok subsequently joining the band Saint Asonia, but they have continued to tour on and off in the following years. In 2016, Lewis reiterated that the band had not broken up, and would possibly create another album, but that his then-current focus was on his solo career. The band reunited more permanently in 2019 for several shows, continuing with live appearances in 2020. Many of their singles have reached high positions on US rock and all-format charts as well, including "It's Been Awhile", "Fade", "Price to Play", "So Far Away", and "Right Here".
History
Early years and Tormented (1995–1998)
In 1993, vocalist Aaron Lewis and guitarist Mike Mushok met at a Christmas party in Springfield, Massachusetts. Mushok introduced drummer Jon Wysocki while Lewis brought in bassist Johnny April to form the band in 1995. Their first public performance was in February 1995, playing a heavy, dark, and introspective style of metal. Extensive touring in the Northeast helped Staind acquire a regional following over the next few years.
The band started covering Korn, Rage Against the Machine, Pearl Jam, Tool, and Alice in Chains, among others, and played at local clubs (most commonly playing at Infinity, a live music venue located in Springfield) for a year and a half. Staind self-released their debut album, Tormented, in November 1996, citing Tool, Faith No More, and Pantera as their influences. In October 1997, Staind acquired a concert slot through Aaron's cousin Justin Cantor with Limp Bizkit. Just prior to the performance, Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst was appalled by Staind's grotesque album cover and unsuccessfully attempted to remove them from the bill. Durst thought that Staind were Theistic Satanists. After being persuaded to let them perform, however, Durst was so impressed that he signed them to Flip Records by February 1998.
Dysfunction (1999–2000)
On April 13, 1999, Staind released their major label debut Dysfunction on Flip Records. The album, which was co-produced by Fred Durst and Terry Date (who also produced acts like Soundgarden, Deftones, and Pantera), received comparisons to alternative metal giants Tool and Korn. In particular, Aaron Lewis was lauded for his vocals, which were likened to those of Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder.
The album achieved slow success, reaching the No. 1 spot on Billboard's Heatseeker Charts almost six months after its debut. In the same week, the record jumped to No. 74 on Billboard's Top 200 Album Charts. The nine-track LP (with one hidden track, "Excess Baggage") produced three singles, "Just Go", "Mudshovel", and "Home". "Mudshovel" and "Home" both received radio play, cracking the Top 20 of Billboard's Modern Rock and Mainstream Rock charts. In promotion of Dysfunction, Staind went on several tours, including the Family Values Tour with acts like Limp Bizkit and The Crystal Method, as well as opening for Sevendust's headlining tour.
Break the Cycle (2001–2002)
Staind toured with Limp Bizkit for the Family Values Tour during the fall of 1999, where Aaron Lewis performed an early version of "Outside" with Fred Durst at the Mississippi Coast Coliseum. Staind released their third studio album, Break the Cycle, on May 22, 2001. Propelled by the success of the first single, "It's Been Awhile", the album debuted at No. 1 on Billboard's Top 200 Album charts, selling 716,000 copies in its first week. The record's first-week sales were the second highest of any album that year, behind Creed's Weathered.
Break the Cycle saw the band retaining the nu metal sound from their previous album. Despite this, the album saw the band going further into a post-grunge sound which is evident in the smash hit song "It's Been Awhile", and the song led critics to compare the band to several other post-grunge bands at the time. The record spawned the singles "It's Been Awhile" (which hit the Billboard Top 10), "Fade", "Outside", "For You", and the acoustic ballad "Epiphany". "It's Been Awhile" spent a total of 16 and 14 weeks on top of the modern and mainstream rock charts respectively, making it one of the highest joint numbers of all time. In 2001, Break the Cycle sold four million copies worldwide, making it one of the best selling albums that year. Break the Cycle would go on to sell seven million copies worldwide, making this Staind's bestselling album.
14 Shades of Grey (2003–2004)
In early 2003, Staind embarked on a worldwide tour to promote the release of the follow-up to Break the Cycle, 14 Shades of Grey, which sold two million copies and debuted at number 1 on the Billboard 200. The album saw a departure from their previous nu metal sound as it mostly contained a lighter and more melodic post-grunge sound. 14 Shades of Grey produced two mainstream hits, "Price to Play" and "So Far Away", which spent 14 weeks on top of the rock chart. In addition, two other singles were released: "How About You" and "Zoe Jane". The band's appearance at the Reading Festival during their 2003 tour had another impromptu acoustic set, this time due to equipment failure. The singles "So Far Away" and "Price to Play" came with two unreleased tracks, "Novocaine" and "Let It Out", which were released for the special edition of the group's subsequent album Chapter V, which came out in late 2005. In 2003, Staind unsuccessfully sued their logo designer Jon Stainbrook in New York Federal Court for attempting to re-use the logo he had sold to the band. They re-opened the case in mid-2005.
Chapter V and The Singles (2005–2007)
Staind's fifth album, titled Chapter V, was released on August 9, 2005, and became their third consecutive album to top the Billboard 200. The album opened to sales of 185,000 and has since been certified platinum in the U.S. The first single, "Right Here", was the biggest success from the album, garnering much mainstream radio play and peaking at number 1 on the mainstream rock chart. "Falling" was released as the second single, followed by "Everything Changes" and "King of All Excuses". Staind went on the road when the album came out, doing live shows and promoting it for a full year, including participating in the Fall Brawl tour with P.O.D., Taproot, and Flyleaf; they also had a solo tour across Europe and a mini-promotional tour in Australia for the first time. Other live shows included a cover of Pantera's "This Love", a tribute to Dimebag Darrell. Staind appeared on The Howard Stern Show on August 10, 2005 to promote Chapter V. They performed acoustic renditions of the single "Right Here" and Beetlejuice's song "This is Beetle". In early November 2005, Staind released the limited edition 2-CD/DVD set of Chapter V. On September 6, 2006, they performed an acoustic show in the Hiro Ballroom, New York City, that was recorded for their singles collection. The band played sixteen songs, including three covers: Tool's "Sober", Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb", and Alice in Chains's "Nutshell".
The collection The Singles: 1996–2006 was released on November 14, 2006. It included all the band's singles, the three covers performed at the New York show, and a remastered version of "Come Again" from Staind's first independent release Tormented.
The Illusion of Progress (2008–2009)
On August 19, 2008, Staind released their sixth album, The Illusion of Progress. Prior to the album's release, the track "This Is It" was available for download on the iTunes Store, as well as for Rock Band. The album debuted at No. 3 on the US Billboard 200, No. 1 on the Top Modern Rock/Alternative Albums Chart, No. 1 on the Top Digital Albums Chart, and also No. 1 on the Top Internet Albums Chart, with first-week sales of 91,800 units. The first single on the album, "Believe", topped Billboard's Top 10 Modern Rock Tracks on September 5, 2008. The band also supported Nickelback on their 2008 European tour. The second single was "All I Want", and came out on November 24. The single also became Staind's 13th top 20 hit on the rock charts. In Europe, the second single was "The Way I Am", released on January 26, 2009. The final single released from the album, "This Is It", was sent to radio stations across the country on May 4, 2009. The track was also included on the successful Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen – The Album released in late June 2009. The same year, Staind embarked on a fall tour with the newly reunited Creed.
Staind and departure of Jon Wysocki (2010–2012)
In March 2010, Aaron Lewis stated the band would start working on their seventh studio album by the end of the year. Lewis had finished recording his country music solo EP and had started a nonprofit organization to reopen his daughter's elementary school in Worthington, Massachusetts. Guitarist Mike Mushok stated in a Q&A session with fans that the band was looking to make a heavy record, but still "explore some of the things we did on the last record and take them somewhere new for us". In a webisode posted on the band's website, Lewis stated that eight songs were written and that "every one of them is as heavy or heavier than the heaviest song on the last record".
In December 2010, Staind posted three webisodes from the studio, which featured the band members discussing the writing and recording process of their new album. They announced that as of April 20, they had completed the recording of their seventh and would release it later that year.
On May 20, 2011, Staind announced that original drummer Jon Wysocki had left the band. Drummer Will Hunt filled in for a few dates, while Wysocki's drum tech Sal Giancarelli filled in for the rest of the tour. Three days later, it was reported that Staind's new album would be a self-titled release. It was released on September 13, 2011. The first single, "Not Again", was released to active radio stations on July 18. The song "The Bottom" appeared on the Transformers: Dark of the Moon soundtrack. On June 30, Staind released a song called "Eyes Wide Open" from their new record. "Eyes Wide Open" would later be released on November 29 as the album's second single.
In November 2011, the band announced through their YouTube page that Sal Giancarelli was now an official member. The band continued to perform into 2012, embarking on an April and May tour with Godsmack and Halestorm, and they played the Uproar Festival in August and September with Shinedown and a number of other artists.
It was announced in July 2012 that the band was to be taking a hiatus. In an interview with Billboard, Aaron Lewis stated that "We're not breaking up. We're not gonna stop making music. We're just going to take a little hiatus that really hasn't ever been taken in our career. We put out seven records in 14 years. We've been pretty busy." Lewis also had plans to release his first solo album The Road. During this time, Mike Mushok auditioned, and was selected, to play guitar for former Metallica bassist Jason Newsted's new band Newsted. He featured on their debut album Heavy Metal Music.
Hiatus and limited activity (2013–present)
Staind played their first show in two years at the Welcome To Rockville Festival on April 27, 2014. They also played the Carolina Rebellion and Rock on the Range festivals in May 2014.
In late 2014, the band went on a hiatus. Aaron Lewis continued to play solo shows and work on his next solo album. He also confirmed that the hiatus would last "for a while". Mike Mushok teamed up with former Three Days Grace singer Adam Gontier, former Finger Eleven drummer Rich Beddoe, and Eye Empire bassist Corey Lowery to form Saint Asonia.
On August 4, 2017, the band performed for the first time since November 2014 for an acoustic performance at Aaron Lewis' 6th annual charity golf tournament and concert when bassist Johnny April and drummer Sal Giancarelli joined Aaron Lewis and Mike Mushok to perform "Outside", "Something to Remind You", and "It's Been Awhile". Three days later, Lewis announced that Staind would never tour extensively again, with Lewis explaining:
In April 2019, the band announced they would reform in September 2019 for some live performances. The band was scheduled to play at Epicenter Festival on May 3, 2020 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, but the COVID-19 pandemic led to the festival being cancelled.
Musical style, influences, and lyrical themes
The topics of Staind's lyrics cover issues of depression, relationships, death, addiction, finding one's self, betrayal, and Lewis' thoughts about becoming a father in the song "Zoe Jane" from 14 Shades of Grey, as well as reflecting on his upbringing in the song "The Corner" from The Illusion of Progress. Also from 14 Shades of Grey, the track titled "Layne" was written about Alice in Chains frontman Layne Staley in response to his death in 2002. The song is also about Staley's legacy and the effect his music had on the members of Staind, especially Aaron Lewis. Staind has been categorized as nu metal, alternative metal, heavy metal, hard rock, and post-grunge.
In 2001, Rolling Stone outlined the band's relationship to the nu metal label:
{{quote|Staind got their first break in 1998 when [Fred] Durst signed the band to his Flip Records. That association has linked the group with "new metal," though Break the Cycles sound is neither particularly new nor metal. The band doesn't rap, and though Mushok has adopted new-metal's minor-key guitar riffs, Lewis' dramatic voice and the anthemic quality of such songs as "Open Your Eyes" and "Fade" are more akin to Alice in Chains than to Korn. Aggressive yet reflective, Break the Cycle doesn't require a poisonous abundance of testosterone to be appreciated and is better suited to solitary listening than to the mosh pit.}}
Staind's influences include Pantera, The Doors, Suicidal Tendencies, Kiss, Van Halen, Slayer, Led Zeppelin, Sepultura, Whitesnake, the Beatles, Alice in Chains, Faith No More, Deftones, Black Sabbath, Pearl Jam, Tool, Rage Against the Machine, Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots, Helmet, James Taylor, Korn, and Crosby, Stills & Nash.
Band membersCurrent line-up Aaron Lewis – lead vocals, rhythm guitar (1995–2012, 2014, 2017, 2019–present)
Mike Mushok – lead guitar (1995–2012, 2014, 2017, 2019–present)
Johnny April – bass, backing vocals (1995–2012, 2014, 2017, 2019–present)
Sal Giancarelli – drums (2011–2012, 2014, 2017, 2019–present)Former members Jon Wysocki – drums (1995–2011)
Timeline
Discography Studio albums'''Tormented (1996)Dysfunction (1999)Break the Cycle (2001)14 Shades of Grey (2003)Chapter V (2005)The Illusion of Progress (2008)Staind'' (2011)
References
External links
1995 establishments in Massachusetts
Atlantic Records artists
American alternative metal musical groups
American nu metal musical groups
American post-grunge musical groups
Rock music groups from Massachusetts
Alternative rock groups from Massachusetts
Heavy metal musical groups from Massachusetts
Flip Records (1994) artists
Musical groups established in 1995
Musical groups disestablished in 2017
Musical groups disestablished in 2014
Musical groups disestablished in 2012
Musical groups reestablished in 2014
Musical groups reestablished in 2019
Musical groups reestablished in 2017
Musical groups from Springfield, Massachusetts
Musical quartets | false | [
"This Is How We Do It is the debut studio album by Montell Jordan. The album peaked at #12 on the Billboard 200 and #4 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and was certified platinum. The album also featured the single \"This Is How We Do It\", which made it to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, #1 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks and #1 on the Rhythmic Top 40. Another single, \"Somethin' 4 da Honeyz\", peaked at #21 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #18 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks chart.\n\nTrack listing\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nReferences\n\nMontell Jordan albums\n1995 debut albums\nDef Jam Recordings albums",
"\"Roll On\" is a song by British girl group Mis-Teeq. Produced by Blacksmith, it was recorded for the band's debut album, Lickin' on Both Sides (2001). The song was released on a double A-single along with a cover version of Montell Jordan's \"This Is How We Do It\" on 17 June 2002, marking the album's final single. Upon its release, it became another top-10 success for the band on the UK Singles Chart, peaking at number seven.\n\nMusic video\nInstead of filming two separate music videos for the double A-side single, one music video was filmed combining both songs. The video opens with \"Roll On\", starting with a group of men playing basketball in a court. The three members of Mis-Teeq (Alesha Dixon, Su-Elise Nash and Sabrina Washington) arrive in a lowrider and watch the men play basketball, and occasionally join in. Then it changes to dusk and cuts to the single \"This Is How We Do It\". The music video was filmed in various parts of Los Angeles, California in the US.\n\nTrack listings\n\nUK CD single\n \"Roll On\" (Rishi Rich BhangraHop edit)\n \"This Is How We Do It\" (Rishi Rich Mayfair edit)\n \"Roll On\" / \"This Is How We Do It\" (video)\n\nUK cassette single\n \"Roll On\" (Rishi Rich BhangraHop edit)\n \"This Is How We Do It\" (Rishi Rich Mayfair edit)\n \"Roll On\" (Rishi Rich radio mix)\n\nEuropean CD single\n \"Roll On\" (Rishi Rich BhangraHop edit) – 3:45\n \"This Is How We Do It\" (Rishi Rich Mayfair edit) – 3:27\n\nAustralian CD single\n \"Roll On\" (Rishi Rich radio mix)\n \"This Is How We Do It\" (Rishi Rich Mayfair edit)\n \"Roll On\" (Blacksmith Olde Skool mix)\n \"This Is How We Do It\" (Mayfair club rub)\n \"Roll On\" (Rishi Rich club mix)\n\nCharts\nAll entries charted with \"This Is How We Do It\" except where noted.\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nReferences\n\n2001 songs\n2002 singles\nMis-Teeq songs\nTelstar Records singles"
] |
[
"Staind",
"Staind and departure of Jon Wysocki (2010-2012)",
"What was happening in 2010?",
"In March 2010, Aaron Lewis stated the band would start working on their seventh studio album by the end of the year.",
"How did the album do on the charts?",
"I don't know."
] | C_bb81d322c9cb4d249702e1b5c76671f3_1 | Why did Wysocki leave? | 3 | Why did Jon Wysocki leave Staind the band? | Staind | In March 2010, Aaron Lewis stated the band would start working on their seventh studio album by the end of the year. Lewis had finished recording his country-tinged solo EP and had started a nonprofit organization to reopen his daughter's elementary school in Worthington, Massachusetts. Guitarist Mike Mushok stated in a question and answer session with fans that the band was looking to make a heavy record, but still "explore some of the things we did on the last record and take them somewhere new for us". In a webisode posted on the band's website, Lewis stated that eight songs were written and that "every one of them is as heavy or heavier than the heaviest song on the last record". In December 2010, Staind posted three webisodes from the studio, which featured the band members discussing the writing and recording process of their new album. They announced that as of April 20, the band had completed the recording of their untitled seventh album and would release it later that year. On May 20, 2011, Staind announced that original drummer Jon Wysocki had left the band. Drummer Will Hunt filled in for a few dates, while Wysocki's drum tech Sal Giancarelli filled in for the rest of the tour. Three days later, it was reported that Staind's new album was originally called Seven, but was renamed Staind. It was released on September 13, 2011. The first single "Not Again" was released to active radio stations on July 18. The song "The Bottom" appeared on the Transformers: Dark of the Moon soundtrack. On June 30, Staind released a song called "Eyes Wide Open" from their new record. "Eyes Wide Open" would later be released on November 29 as the album's second single. On July 12, Staind released the first single "Not Again" through YouTube and was officially released/available on July 26. In November 2011, the band announced through their YouTube page that Sal Giancarelli was now an official member. The band continued to tour heavily into 2012; embarking on an April and May touring with Godsmack and Halestorm, and the Uproar Festival in August and Setpember with Shinedown and a number of other artists. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Staind ( ) is an American rock band formed in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1995. The original lineup consisted of lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist Aaron Lewis, lead guitarist Mike Mushok, bassist and backing vocalist Johnny April, and drummer Jon Wysocki. The lineup has been stable outside of the 2011 departure of Wysocki, who was replaced by Sal Giancarelli. Staind has recorded seven studio albums: Tormented (1996), Dysfunction (1999), Break the Cycle (2001), 14 Shades of Grey (2003), Chapter V (2005), The Illusion of Progress (2008), and Staind (2011). The band's activity became more sporadic after their self-titled release, with Lewis pursuing a solo country music career and Mushok subsequently joining the band Saint Asonia, but they have continued to tour on and off in the following years. In 2016, Lewis reiterated that the band had not broken up, and would possibly create another album, but that his then-current focus was on his solo career. The band reunited more permanently in 2019 for several shows, continuing with live appearances in 2020. Many of their singles have reached high positions on US rock and all-format charts as well, including "It's Been Awhile", "Fade", "Price to Play", "So Far Away", and "Right Here".
History
Early years and Tormented (1995–1998)
In 1993, vocalist Aaron Lewis and guitarist Mike Mushok met at a Christmas party in Springfield, Massachusetts. Mushok introduced drummer Jon Wysocki while Lewis brought in bassist Johnny April to form the band in 1995. Their first public performance was in February 1995, playing a heavy, dark, and introspective style of metal. Extensive touring in the Northeast helped Staind acquire a regional following over the next few years.
The band started covering Korn, Rage Against the Machine, Pearl Jam, Tool, and Alice in Chains, among others, and played at local clubs (most commonly playing at Infinity, a live music venue located in Springfield) for a year and a half. Staind self-released their debut album, Tormented, in November 1996, citing Tool, Faith No More, and Pantera as their influences. In October 1997, Staind acquired a concert slot through Aaron's cousin Justin Cantor with Limp Bizkit. Just prior to the performance, Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst was appalled by Staind's grotesque album cover and unsuccessfully attempted to remove them from the bill. Durst thought that Staind were Theistic Satanists. After being persuaded to let them perform, however, Durst was so impressed that he signed them to Flip Records by February 1998.
Dysfunction (1999–2000)
On April 13, 1999, Staind released their major label debut Dysfunction on Flip Records. The album, which was co-produced by Fred Durst and Terry Date (who also produced acts like Soundgarden, Deftones, and Pantera), received comparisons to alternative metal giants Tool and Korn. In particular, Aaron Lewis was lauded for his vocals, which were likened to those of Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder.
The album achieved slow success, reaching the No. 1 spot on Billboard's Heatseeker Charts almost six months after its debut. In the same week, the record jumped to No. 74 on Billboard's Top 200 Album Charts. The nine-track LP (with one hidden track, "Excess Baggage") produced three singles, "Just Go", "Mudshovel", and "Home". "Mudshovel" and "Home" both received radio play, cracking the Top 20 of Billboard's Modern Rock and Mainstream Rock charts. In promotion of Dysfunction, Staind went on several tours, including the Family Values Tour with acts like Limp Bizkit and The Crystal Method, as well as opening for Sevendust's headlining tour.
Break the Cycle (2001–2002)
Staind toured with Limp Bizkit for the Family Values Tour during the fall of 1999, where Aaron Lewis performed an early version of "Outside" with Fred Durst at the Mississippi Coast Coliseum. Staind released their third studio album, Break the Cycle, on May 22, 2001. Propelled by the success of the first single, "It's Been Awhile", the album debuted at No. 1 on Billboard's Top 200 Album charts, selling 716,000 copies in its first week. The record's first-week sales were the second highest of any album that year, behind Creed's Weathered.
Break the Cycle saw the band retaining the nu metal sound from their previous album. Despite this, the album saw the band going further into a post-grunge sound which is evident in the smash hit song "It's Been Awhile", and the song led critics to compare the band to several other post-grunge bands at the time. The record spawned the singles "It's Been Awhile" (which hit the Billboard Top 10), "Fade", "Outside", "For You", and the acoustic ballad "Epiphany". "It's Been Awhile" spent a total of 16 and 14 weeks on top of the modern and mainstream rock charts respectively, making it one of the highest joint numbers of all time. In 2001, Break the Cycle sold four million copies worldwide, making it one of the best selling albums that year. Break the Cycle would go on to sell seven million copies worldwide, making this Staind's bestselling album.
14 Shades of Grey (2003–2004)
In early 2003, Staind embarked on a worldwide tour to promote the release of the follow-up to Break the Cycle, 14 Shades of Grey, which sold two million copies and debuted at number 1 on the Billboard 200. The album saw a departure from their previous nu metal sound as it mostly contained a lighter and more melodic post-grunge sound. 14 Shades of Grey produced two mainstream hits, "Price to Play" and "So Far Away", which spent 14 weeks on top of the rock chart. In addition, two other singles were released: "How About You" and "Zoe Jane". The band's appearance at the Reading Festival during their 2003 tour had another impromptu acoustic set, this time due to equipment failure. The singles "So Far Away" and "Price to Play" came with two unreleased tracks, "Novocaine" and "Let It Out", which were released for the special edition of the group's subsequent album Chapter V, which came out in late 2005. In 2003, Staind unsuccessfully sued their logo designer Jon Stainbrook in New York Federal Court for attempting to re-use the logo he had sold to the band. They re-opened the case in mid-2005.
Chapter V and The Singles (2005–2007)
Staind's fifth album, titled Chapter V, was released on August 9, 2005, and became their third consecutive album to top the Billboard 200. The album opened to sales of 185,000 and has since been certified platinum in the U.S. The first single, "Right Here", was the biggest success from the album, garnering much mainstream radio play and peaking at number 1 on the mainstream rock chart. "Falling" was released as the second single, followed by "Everything Changes" and "King of All Excuses". Staind went on the road when the album came out, doing live shows and promoting it for a full year, including participating in the Fall Brawl tour with P.O.D., Taproot, and Flyleaf; they also had a solo tour across Europe and a mini-promotional tour in Australia for the first time. Other live shows included a cover of Pantera's "This Love", a tribute to Dimebag Darrell. Staind appeared on The Howard Stern Show on August 10, 2005 to promote Chapter V. They performed acoustic renditions of the single "Right Here" and Beetlejuice's song "This is Beetle". In early November 2005, Staind released the limited edition 2-CD/DVD set of Chapter V. On September 6, 2006, they performed an acoustic show in the Hiro Ballroom, New York City, that was recorded for their singles collection. The band played sixteen songs, including three covers: Tool's "Sober", Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb", and Alice in Chains's "Nutshell".
The collection The Singles: 1996–2006 was released on November 14, 2006. It included all the band's singles, the three covers performed at the New York show, and a remastered version of "Come Again" from Staind's first independent release Tormented.
The Illusion of Progress (2008–2009)
On August 19, 2008, Staind released their sixth album, The Illusion of Progress. Prior to the album's release, the track "This Is It" was available for download on the iTunes Store, as well as for Rock Band. The album debuted at No. 3 on the US Billboard 200, No. 1 on the Top Modern Rock/Alternative Albums Chart, No. 1 on the Top Digital Albums Chart, and also No. 1 on the Top Internet Albums Chart, with first-week sales of 91,800 units. The first single on the album, "Believe", topped Billboard's Top 10 Modern Rock Tracks on September 5, 2008. The band also supported Nickelback on their 2008 European tour. The second single was "All I Want", and came out on November 24. The single also became Staind's 13th top 20 hit on the rock charts. In Europe, the second single was "The Way I Am", released on January 26, 2009. The final single released from the album, "This Is It", was sent to radio stations across the country on May 4, 2009. The track was also included on the successful Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen – The Album released in late June 2009. The same year, Staind embarked on a fall tour with the newly reunited Creed.
Staind and departure of Jon Wysocki (2010–2012)
In March 2010, Aaron Lewis stated the band would start working on their seventh studio album by the end of the year. Lewis had finished recording his country music solo EP and had started a nonprofit organization to reopen his daughter's elementary school in Worthington, Massachusetts. Guitarist Mike Mushok stated in a Q&A session with fans that the band was looking to make a heavy record, but still "explore some of the things we did on the last record and take them somewhere new for us". In a webisode posted on the band's website, Lewis stated that eight songs were written and that "every one of them is as heavy or heavier than the heaviest song on the last record".
In December 2010, Staind posted three webisodes from the studio, which featured the band members discussing the writing and recording process of their new album. They announced that as of April 20, they had completed the recording of their seventh and would release it later that year.
On May 20, 2011, Staind announced that original drummer Jon Wysocki had left the band. Drummer Will Hunt filled in for a few dates, while Wysocki's drum tech Sal Giancarelli filled in for the rest of the tour. Three days later, it was reported that Staind's new album would be a self-titled release. It was released on September 13, 2011. The first single, "Not Again", was released to active radio stations on July 18. The song "The Bottom" appeared on the Transformers: Dark of the Moon soundtrack. On June 30, Staind released a song called "Eyes Wide Open" from their new record. "Eyes Wide Open" would later be released on November 29 as the album's second single.
In November 2011, the band announced through their YouTube page that Sal Giancarelli was now an official member. The band continued to perform into 2012, embarking on an April and May tour with Godsmack and Halestorm, and they played the Uproar Festival in August and September with Shinedown and a number of other artists.
It was announced in July 2012 that the band was to be taking a hiatus. In an interview with Billboard, Aaron Lewis stated that "We're not breaking up. We're not gonna stop making music. We're just going to take a little hiatus that really hasn't ever been taken in our career. We put out seven records in 14 years. We've been pretty busy." Lewis also had plans to release his first solo album The Road. During this time, Mike Mushok auditioned, and was selected, to play guitar for former Metallica bassist Jason Newsted's new band Newsted. He featured on their debut album Heavy Metal Music.
Hiatus and limited activity (2013–present)
Staind played their first show in two years at the Welcome To Rockville Festival on April 27, 2014. They also played the Carolina Rebellion and Rock on the Range festivals in May 2014.
In late 2014, the band went on a hiatus. Aaron Lewis continued to play solo shows and work on his next solo album. He also confirmed that the hiatus would last "for a while". Mike Mushok teamed up with former Three Days Grace singer Adam Gontier, former Finger Eleven drummer Rich Beddoe, and Eye Empire bassist Corey Lowery to form Saint Asonia.
On August 4, 2017, the band performed for the first time since November 2014 for an acoustic performance at Aaron Lewis' 6th annual charity golf tournament and concert when bassist Johnny April and drummer Sal Giancarelli joined Aaron Lewis and Mike Mushok to perform "Outside", "Something to Remind You", and "It's Been Awhile". Three days later, Lewis announced that Staind would never tour extensively again, with Lewis explaining:
In April 2019, the band announced they would reform in September 2019 for some live performances. The band was scheduled to play at Epicenter Festival on May 3, 2020 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, but the COVID-19 pandemic led to the festival being cancelled.
Musical style, influences, and lyrical themes
The topics of Staind's lyrics cover issues of depression, relationships, death, addiction, finding one's self, betrayal, and Lewis' thoughts about becoming a father in the song "Zoe Jane" from 14 Shades of Grey, as well as reflecting on his upbringing in the song "The Corner" from The Illusion of Progress. Also from 14 Shades of Grey, the track titled "Layne" was written about Alice in Chains frontman Layne Staley in response to his death in 2002. The song is also about Staley's legacy and the effect his music had on the members of Staind, especially Aaron Lewis. Staind has been categorized as nu metal, alternative metal, heavy metal, hard rock, and post-grunge.
In 2001, Rolling Stone outlined the band's relationship to the nu metal label:
{{quote|Staind got their first break in 1998 when [Fred] Durst signed the band to his Flip Records. That association has linked the group with "new metal," though Break the Cycles sound is neither particularly new nor metal. The band doesn't rap, and though Mushok has adopted new-metal's minor-key guitar riffs, Lewis' dramatic voice and the anthemic quality of such songs as "Open Your Eyes" and "Fade" are more akin to Alice in Chains than to Korn. Aggressive yet reflective, Break the Cycle doesn't require a poisonous abundance of testosterone to be appreciated and is better suited to solitary listening than to the mosh pit.}}
Staind's influences include Pantera, The Doors, Suicidal Tendencies, Kiss, Van Halen, Slayer, Led Zeppelin, Sepultura, Whitesnake, the Beatles, Alice in Chains, Faith No More, Deftones, Black Sabbath, Pearl Jam, Tool, Rage Against the Machine, Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots, Helmet, James Taylor, Korn, and Crosby, Stills & Nash.
Band membersCurrent line-up Aaron Lewis – lead vocals, rhythm guitar (1995–2012, 2014, 2017, 2019–present)
Mike Mushok – lead guitar (1995–2012, 2014, 2017, 2019–present)
Johnny April – bass, backing vocals (1995–2012, 2014, 2017, 2019–present)
Sal Giancarelli – drums (2011–2012, 2014, 2017, 2019–present)Former members Jon Wysocki – drums (1995–2011)
Timeline
Discography Studio albums'''Tormented (1996)Dysfunction (1999)Break the Cycle (2001)14 Shades of Grey (2003)Chapter V (2005)The Illusion of Progress (2008)Staind'' (2011)
References
External links
1995 establishments in Massachusetts
Atlantic Records artists
American alternative metal musical groups
American nu metal musical groups
American post-grunge musical groups
Rock music groups from Massachusetts
Alternative rock groups from Massachusetts
Heavy metal musical groups from Massachusetts
Flip Records (1994) artists
Musical groups established in 1995
Musical groups disestablished in 2017
Musical groups disestablished in 2014
Musical groups disestablished in 2012
Musical groups reestablished in 2014
Musical groups reestablished in 2019
Musical groups reestablished in 2017
Musical groups from Springfield, Massachusetts
Musical quartets | false | [
"Wysocki (feminine: Wysocka, plural: Wysoccy) is a surname of Polish origin. Notable people with the surname include:\n\n Adam Wysocki (born 1974), Polish sprint canoeist\n Ben Wysocki (born 1984), American drummer\n Charles Wysocki (artist) (1928–2002), American painter\n Charles Wysocki, American biologist and psychologist\n Jacob Wysocki (born 1990), American actor and comedian\n Jon Wysocki (born 1971), American drummer for the rock band Staind\n Józef Wysocki (1809–1873), Polish general\n Konrad Wysocki (born 1982), Polish-German basketball player\n Krystyna Krupska-Wysocka (1935–2020), Polish film director\n Lidia Wysocka (1916–2006), Polish actress\n Małgorzata Wysocka (born 1979), Polish road cyclist\n Marzena Wysocka (born 1969), Polish discus thrower\n Pete Wysocki (1948–2003), American football player\n Piotr Wysocki (1797–1875), Polish lieutenant\n Rebecca Wisocky (born 1979), American actress\n Ricky Wysocki (born 1993), American professional disc golfer\n Ruth Wysocki (born 1957), American runner\n Stanisława Wysocka (1877–1941), Polish actress and theatre director\n Vicki Wysocki, American chemist\n Zdzisław Wysocki (born 1944), Polish composer\n\nSee also\n \n \nVysotsky (disambiguation)\n\nPolish-language surnames",
"John Wysocki (c. 1916 – September 23, 1965) was an American football player who played for Villanova University from 1936 to 1938 and was selected as a consensus All-American at the end position in both 1937 and 1938.\n\nWysocki first gained national media attention after an October 1937 game in which he scored 19 of Villanova's 20 points (three touchdowns and an extra point) in a 20–0 victory over Manhattan. In November 1937, noted sports writer Alan Gould wrote of Wysocki: \"Villanova's sensational John Wysocki, who put on a one man scoring show against Manhattan, had another big afternoon against Detroit.\" Wysocki was also known as a kick-blocker and had three career touchdowns on blocked kicks. In the 1937 Bacardi Bowl, Villanova was trailing Auburn 7–0 in the fourth quarter, when Wysocki and Valentine Rizzo blocked a kick inside the Auburn 15-yard line, and the kick was recovered by a Villanova lineman for a touchdown that led to the final game score of 7–7. Wysocki repeated as an All-American in 1938 despite suffering injuries that prevented him from playing a full schedule. In November 1938, NEA syndicate sports editor Harry Grayson said the following of the two-time All-American:\"John Wysocki is a raw-boned kid who made more All-America teams last year than did any other end. As a sophomore Wysocki had little polish. He was just a big fellow with a desire to put on bone-crushing blocks, a fervor for knocking people down, and obsessed with the idea that end play should be confined to the opponent's backfield. There was a finesse to his blistering blocking, brisk tackling and uncanny forward pass receiving this year. He gave Maurice (Big Clipper) Smith a chance to turn the foemen's desire to sock Wysocki into a Villanova advantage. Wysocki was all team player. He was the ideal decoy on pass plays and a demon on defense. Wysocki, a Wilkes-Barre boy, played with a pair of ankles that would have benched a less hardy individual.\"\n\nWysocki was drafted by the Chicago Bears in the third round (21st pick overall) of the 1939 NFL Draft. However, Wysocki instead took a job as a high school teacher and coach. Upon graduating in 1939, Wysocki became a teacher and coach of football, basketball and track at Clifton Heights High School in a suburb of Philadelphia. He later became the football and baseball coach and athletic director at Upper Merion High School in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, from 1944 to 1946. From 1947 to 1965, he was a sales representative for a distilling firm. He lived in his later years in Highland Park, Pennsylvania, and died in Philadelphia's Osteophathic Hospital at age 49 in 1965. Wysocki was survived by his wife, Mary Wysocki, a son and four daughters.\n\nWysocki was inducted into the Villanova Walk of Fame in 1994.\n\nSee also\n 1938 College Football All-America Team\n\nReferences\n\nSportspeople from Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania\nVillanova Wildcats football players\n1910s births\n1965 deaths\nPlayers of American football from Pennsylvania\nHigh school football coaches in Pennsylvania\nHigh school basketball coaches in Pennsylvania\nHigh school track and field coaches in the United States\nHigh school baseball coaches in the United States"
] |
[
"Staind",
"Staind and departure of Jon Wysocki (2010-2012)",
"What was happening in 2010?",
"In March 2010, Aaron Lewis stated the band would start working on their seventh studio album by the end of the year.",
"How did the album do on the charts?",
"I don't know.",
"Why did Wysocki leave?",
"I don't know."
] | C_bb81d322c9cb4d249702e1b5c76671f3_1 | Who replaced him? | 4 | Who replaced Jon Wysocki in Stained? | Staind | In March 2010, Aaron Lewis stated the band would start working on their seventh studio album by the end of the year. Lewis had finished recording his country-tinged solo EP and had started a nonprofit organization to reopen his daughter's elementary school in Worthington, Massachusetts. Guitarist Mike Mushok stated in a question and answer session with fans that the band was looking to make a heavy record, but still "explore some of the things we did on the last record and take them somewhere new for us". In a webisode posted on the band's website, Lewis stated that eight songs were written and that "every one of them is as heavy or heavier than the heaviest song on the last record". In December 2010, Staind posted three webisodes from the studio, which featured the band members discussing the writing and recording process of their new album. They announced that as of April 20, the band had completed the recording of their untitled seventh album and would release it later that year. On May 20, 2011, Staind announced that original drummer Jon Wysocki had left the band. Drummer Will Hunt filled in for a few dates, while Wysocki's drum tech Sal Giancarelli filled in for the rest of the tour. Three days later, it was reported that Staind's new album was originally called Seven, but was renamed Staind. It was released on September 13, 2011. The first single "Not Again" was released to active radio stations on July 18. The song "The Bottom" appeared on the Transformers: Dark of the Moon soundtrack. On June 30, Staind released a song called "Eyes Wide Open" from their new record. "Eyes Wide Open" would later be released on November 29 as the album's second single. On July 12, Staind released the first single "Not Again" through YouTube and was officially released/available on July 26. In November 2011, the band announced through their YouTube page that Sal Giancarelli was now an official member. The band continued to tour heavily into 2012; embarking on an April and May touring with Godsmack and Halestorm, and the Uproar Festival in August and Setpember with Shinedown and a number of other artists. CANNOTANSWER | Drummer Will Hunt filled in for a few dates, while Wysocki's drum tech Sal Giancarelli filled in for the rest of the tour. | Staind ( ) is an American rock band formed in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1995. The original lineup consisted of lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist Aaron Lewis, lead guitarist Mike Mushok, bassist and backing vocalist Johnny April, and drummer Jon Wysocki. The lineup has been stable outside of the 2011 departure of Wysocki, who was replaced by Sal Giancarelli. Staind has recorded seven studio albums: Tormented (1996), Dysfunction (1999), Break the Cycle (2001), 14 Shades of Grey (2003), Chapter V (2005), The Illusion of Progress (2008), and Staind (2011). The band's activity became more sporadic after their self-titled release, with Lewis pursuing a solo country music career and Mushok subsequently joining the band Saint Asonia, but they have continued to tour on and off in the following years. In 2016, Lewis reiterated that the band had not broken up, and would possibly create another album, but that his then-current focus was on his solo career. The band reunited more permanently in 2019 for several shows, continuing with live appearances in 2020. Many of their singles have reached high positions on US rock and all-format charts as well, including "It's Been Awhile", "Fade", "Price to Play", "So Far Away", and "Right Here".
History
Early years and Tormented (1995–1998)
In 1993, vocalist Aaron Lewis and guitarist Mike Mushok met at a Christmas party in Springfield, Massachusetts. Mushok introduced drummer Jon Wysocki while Lewis brought in bassist Johnny April to form the band in 1995. Their first public performance was in February 1995, playing a heavy, dark, and introspective style of metal. Extensive touring in the Northeast helped Staind acquire a regional following over the next few years.
The band started covering Korn, Rage Against the Machine, Pearl Jam, Tool, and Alice in Chains, among others, and played at local clubs (most commonly playing at Infinity, a live music venue located in Springfield) for a year and a half. Staind self-released their debut album, Tormented, in November 1996, citing Tool, Faith No More, and Pantera as their influences. In October 1997, Staind acquired a concert slot through Aaron's cousin Justin Cantor with Limp Bizkit. Just prior to the performance, Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst was appalled by Staind's grotesque album cover and unsuccessfully attempted to remove them from the bill. Durst thought that Staind were Theistic Satanists. After being persuaded to let them perform, however, Durst was so impressed that he signed them to Flip Records by February 1998.
Dysfunction (1999–2000)
On April 13, 1999, Staind released their major label debut Dysfunction on Flip Records. The album, which was co-produced by Fred Durst and Terry Date (who also produced acts like Soundgarden, Deftones, and Pantera), received comparisons to alternative metal giants Tool and Korn. In particular, Aaron Lewis was lauded for his vocals, which were likened to those of Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder.
The album achieved slow success, reaching the No. 1 spot on Billboard's Heatseeker Charts almost six months after its debut. In the same week, the record jumped to No. 74 on Billboard's Top 200 Album Charts. The nine-track LP (with one hidden track, "Excess Baggage") produced three singles, "Just Go", "Mudshovel", and "Home". "Mudshovel" and "Home" both received radio play, cracking the Top 20 of Billboard's Modern Rock and Mainstream Rock charts. In promotion of Dysfunction, Staind went on several tours, including the Family Values Tour with acts like Limp Bizkit and The Crystal Method, as well as opening for Sevendust's headlining tour.
Break the Cycle (2001–2002)
Staind toured with Limp Bizkit for the Family Values Tour during the fall of 1999, where Aaron Lewis performed an early version of "Outside" with Fred Durst at the Mississippi Coast Coliseum. Staind released their third studio album, Break the Cycle, on May 22, 2001. Propelled by the success of the first single, "It's Been Awhile", the album debuted at No. 1 on Billboard's Top 200 Album charts, selling 716,000 copies in its first week. The record's first-week sales were the second highest of any album that year, behind Creed's Weathered.
Break the Cycle saw the band retaining the nu metal sound from their previous album. Despite this, the album saw the band going further into a post-grunge sound which is evident in the smash hit song "It's Been Awhile", and the song led critics to compare the band to several other post-grunge bands at the time. The record spawned the singles "It's Been Awhile" (which hit the Billboard Top 10), "Fade", "Outside", "For You", and the acoustic ballad "Epiphany". "It's Been Awhile" spent a total of 16 and 14 weeks on top of the modern and mainstream rock charts respectively, making it one of the highest joint numbers of all time. In 2001, Break the Cycle sold four million copies worldwide, making it one of the best selling albums that year. Break the Cycle would go on to sell seven million copies worldwide, making this Staind's bestselling album.
14 Shades of Grey (2003–2004)
In early 2003, Staind embarked on a worldwide tour to promote the release of the follow-up to Break the Cycle, 14 Shades of Grey, which sold two million copies and debuted at number 1 on the Billboard 200. The album saw a departure from their previous nu metal sound as it mostly contained a lighter and more melodic post-grunge sound. 14 Shades of Grey produced two mainstream hits, "Price to Play" and "So Far Away", which spent 14 weeks on top of the rock chart. In addition, two other singles were released: "How About You" and "Zoe Jane". The band's appearance at the Reading Festival during their 2003 tour had another impromptu acoustic set, this time due to equipment failure. The singles "So Far Away" and "Price to Play" came with two unreleased tracks, "Novocaine" and "Let It Out", which were released for the special edition of the group's subsequent album Chapter V, which came out in late 2005. In 2003, Staind unsuccessfully sued their logo designer Jon Stainbrook in New York Federal Court for attempting to re-use the logo he had sold to the band. They re-opened the case in mid-2005.
Chapter V and The Singles (2005–2007)
Staind's fifth album, titled Chapter V, was released on August 9, 2005, and became their third consecutive album to top the Billboard 200. The album opened to sales of 185,000 and has since been certified platinum in the U.S. The first single, "Right Here", was the biggest success from the album, garnering much mainstream radio play and peaking at number 1 on the mainstream rock chart. "Falling" was released as the second single, followed by "Everything Changes" and "King of All Excuses". Staind went on the road when the album came out, doing live shows and promoting it for a full year, including participating in the Fall Brawl tour with P.O.D., Taproot, and Flyleaf; they also had a solo tour across Europe and a mini-promotional tour in Australia for the first time. Other live shows included a cover of Pantera's "This Love", a tribute to Dimebag Darrell. Staind appeared on The Howard Stern Show on August 10, 2005 to promote Chapter V. They performed acoustic renditions of the single "Right Here" and Beetlejuice's song "This is Beetle". In early November 2005, Staind released the limited edition 2-CD/DVD set of Chapter V. On September 6, 2006, they performed an acoustic show in the Hiro Ballroom, New York City, that was recorded for their singles collection. The band played sixteen songs, including three covers: Tool's "Sober", Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb", and Alice in Chains's "Nutshell".
The collection The Singles: 1996–2006 was released on November 14, 2006. It included all the band's singles, the three covers performed at the New York show, and a remastered version of "Come Again" from Staind's first independent release Tormented.
The Illusion of Progress (2008–2009)
On August 19, 2008, Staind released their sixth album, The Illusion of Progress. Prior to the album's release, the track "This Is It" was available for download on the iTunes Store, as well as for Rock Band. The album debuted at No. 3 on the US Billboard 200, No. 1 on the Top Modern Rock/Alternative Albums Chart, No. 1 on the Top Digital Albums Chart, and also No. 1 on the Top Internet Albums Chart, with first-week sales of 91,800 units. The first single on the album, "Believe", topped Billboard's Top 10 Modern Rock Tracks on September 5, 2008. The band also supported Nickelback on their 2008 European tour. The second single was "All I Want", and came out on November 24. The single also became Staind's 13th top 20 hit on the rock charts. In Europe, the second single was "The Way I Am", released on January 26, 2009. The final single released from the album, "This Is It", was sent to radio stations across the country on May 4, 2009. The track was also included on the successful Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen – The Album released in late June 2009. The same year, Staind embarked on a fall tour with the newly reunited Creed.
Staind and departure of Jon Wysocki (2010–2012)
In March 2010, Aaron Lewis stated the band would start working on their seventh studio album by the end of the year. Lewis had finished recording his country music solo EP and had started a nonprofit organization to reopen his daughter's elementary school in Worthington, Massachusetts. Guitarist Mike Mushok stated in a Q&A session with fans that the band was looking to make a heavy record, but still "explore some of the things we did on the last record and take them somewhere new for us". In a webisode posted on the band's website, Lewis stated that eight songs were written and that "every one of them is as heavy or heavier than the heaviest song on the last record".
In December 2010, Staind posted three webisodes from the studio, which featured the band members discussing the writing and recording process of their new album. They announced that as of April 20, they had completed the recording of their seventh and would release it later that year.
On May 20, 2011, Staind announced that original drummer Jon Wysocki had left the band. Drummer Will Hunt filled in for a few dates, while Wysocki's drum tech Sal Giancarelli filled in for the rest of the tour. Three days later, it was reported that Staind's new album would be a self-titled release. It was released on September 13, 2011. The first single, "Not Again", was released to active radio stations on July 18. The song "The Bottom" appeared on the Transformers: Dark of the Moon soundtrack. On June 30, Staind released a song called "Eyes Wide Open" from their new record. "Eyes Wide Open" would later be released on November 29 as the album's second single.
In November 2011, the band announced through their YouTube page that Sal Giancarelli was now an official member. The band continued to perform into 2012, embarking on an April and May tour with Godsmack and Halestorm, and they played the Uproar Festival in August and September with Shinedown and a number of other artists.
It was announced in July 2012 that the band was to be taking a hiatus. In an interview with Billboard, Aaron Lewis stated that "We're not breaking up. We're not gonna stop making music. We're just going to take a little hiatus that really hasn't ever been taken in our career. We put out seven records in 14 years. We've been pretty busy." Lewis also had plans to release his first solo album The Road. During this time, Mike Mushok auditioned, and was selected, to play guitar for former Metallica bassist Jason Newsted's new band Newsted. He featured on their debut album Heavy Metal Music.
Hiatus and limited activity (2013–present)
Staind played their first show in two years at the Welcome To Rockville Festival on April 27, 2014. They also played the Carolina Rebellion and Rock on the Range festivals in May 2014.
In late 2014, the band went on a hiatus. Aaron Lewis continued to play solo shows and work on his next solo album. He also confirmed that the hiatus would last "for a while". Mike Mushok teamed up with former Three Days Grace singer Adam Gontier, former Finger Eleven drummer Rich Beddoe, and Eye Empire bassist Corey Lowery to form Saint Asonia.
On August 4, 2017, the band performed for the first time since November 2014 for an acoustic performance at Aaron Lewis' 6th annual charity golf tournament and concert when bassist Johnny April and drummer Sal Giancarelli joined Aaron Lewis and Mike Mushok to perform "Outside", "Something to Remind You", and "It's Been Awhile". Three days later, Lewis announced that Staind would never tour extensively again, with Lewis explaining:
In April 2019, the band announced they would reform in September 2019 for some live performances. The band was scheduled to play at Epicenter Festival on May 3, 2020 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, but the COVID-19 pandemic led to the festival being cancelled.
Musical style, influences, and lyrical themes
The topics of Staind's lyrics cover issues of depression, relationships, death, addiction, finding one's self, betrayal, and Lewis' thoughts about becoming a father in the song "Zoe Jane" from 14 Shades of Grey, as well as reflecting on his upbringing in the song "The Corner" from The Illusion of Progress. Also from 14 Shades of Grey, the track titled "Layne" was written about Alice in Chains frontman Layne Staley in response to his death in 2002. The song is also about Staley's legacy and the effect his music had on the members of Staind, especially Aaron Lewis. Staind has been categorized as nu metal, alternative metal, heavy metal, hard rock, and post-grunge.
In 2001, Rolling Stone outlined the band's relationship to the nu metal label:
{{quote|Staind got their first break in 1998 when [Fred] Durst signed the band to his Flip Records. That association has linked the group with "new metal," though Break the Cycles sound is neither particularly new nor metal. The band doesn't rap, and though Mushok has adopted new-metal's minor-key guitar riffs, Lewis' dramatic voice and the anthemic quality of such songs as "Open Your Eyes" and "Fade" are more akin to Alice in Chains than to Korn. Aggressive yet reflective, Break the Cycle doesn't require a poisonous abundance of testosterone to be appreciated and is better suited to solitary listening than to the mosh pit.}}
Staind's influences include Pantera, The Doors, Suicidal Tendencies, Kiss, Van Halen, Slayer, Led Zeppelin, Sepultura, Whitesnake, the Beatles, Alice in Chains, Faith No More, Deftones, Black Sabbath, Pearl Jam, Tool, Rage Against the Machine, Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots, Helmet, James Taylor, Korn, and Crosby, Stills & Nash.
Band membersCurrent line-up Aaron Lewis – lead vocals, rhythm guitar (1995–2012, 2014, 2017, 2019–present)
Mike Mushok – lead guitar (1995–2012, 2014, 2017, 2019–present)
Johnny April – bass, backing vocals (1995–2012, 2014, 2017, 2019–present)
Sal Giancarelli – drums (2011–2012, 2014, 2017, 2019–present)Former members Jon Wysocki – drums (1995–2011)
Timeline
Discography Studio albums'''Tormented (1996)Dysfunction (1999)Break the Cycle (2001)14 Shades of Grey (2003)Chapter V (2005)The Illusion of Progress (2008)Staind'' (2011)
References
External links
1995 establishments in Massachusetts
Atlantic Records artists
American alternative metal musical groups
American nu metal musical groups
American post-grunge musical groups
Rock music groups from Massachusetts
Alternative rock groups from Massachusetts
Heavy metal musical groups from Massachusetts
Flip Records (1994) artists
Musical groups established in 1995
Musical groups disestablished in 2017
Musical groups disestablished in 2014
Musical groups disestablished in 2012
Musical groups reestablished in 2014
Musical groups reestablished in 2019
Musical groups reestablished in 2017
Musical groups from Springfield, Massachusetts
Musical quartets | true | [
"The 7th General Junta was the meeting of the General Junta, the parliament of the Principality of Asturias, with the membership determined by the results of the regional election held on 27 May 2007. The congress met for the first time on 21 June 2007.\n\nElection \nThe 7th Asturian regional election was held on 27 May 2007. At the election the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) remained the largest party in the General Junta but fell short of a majority again.\n\nHistory \nThe new parliament met for the first time on 21 June 2007. María Jesús Álvarez (PSOE) was elected as the president of the General Junta, with the support of PSOE and IU-BA-LV.\n\nDeaths, resignations and suspensions \nThe 7th General Junta has seen the following deaths, resignations and suspensions:\n\n 26 November 2008 - Manuel Aurelio Martín (IU/IX) and Noemí Martín (IU/IX) resigned after being appointed Minister of Rural Affairs and Fisheries and Minister of Social Welfare and Housing in the Asturian Government. Diana Camafeita (IU/IX) and Emilia Vázquez (IU/IX) replaced them respectively on 11 December 2008.\n 22 December 2009 - Francisco Javier García (IU/IX) resigned due to political disagreements with his party. Roberto Colunga (BA) replaced him on 4 February 2010.\n 13 July 2010 - Roberto Colunga (BA) left the United Left-Bloc of Asturias-The Greens group due to political disagreements with United Left, the biggest member of the coalition. He officially joined the Mixed group on 1 August 2010.\n 3 January 2011 - Pelayo Roces (PP) resigned in order to support former deputy prime minister of Spain, Francisco Álvarez-Cascos, who left the party after he wasn't picked as nominee for President of Asturias ahead of the 2007 Asturian regional election. José Manuel Felgueres replaced him on 10 February 2011.\n 31 January 2011 - Emilio Rodríguez (PP) resigned in order to join Asturias Forum (FAC), a split from the People's Party led by former deputy prime minister of Spain, Francisco Álvarez-Cascos. Pablo Álvarez (PP) replaced him on 17 February 2011.\n 3 February 2011 - Cristina Coto (PP) resigned in order to join Asturias Forum (FAC). María Isabel Pérez (PP) replaced her on 24 February 2011.\n 8 February 2011 - Marcial González (PP) resigned in order to join Asturias Forum (FAC). Rebeca Heli Álvarez (PP) replaced him on 10 March 2011.\n 17 February 2011 - Luis Servando Peláez (PP) resigned in order to join Asturias Forum (FAC). Álvaro Álvarez (PP) replaced him on 10 March 2011.\n\nMembers\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n\n Official website of the General Junta\n All members of the General Junta\n\nGeneral Junta of the Principality of Asturias\n2007 establishments in Spain",
"Shemp may refer to:\n Fake Shemp, someone who appears in a film as a replacement for another actor or person\n Shemp Howard (1895-1955), American actor, source of the above term after actors replaced him in films after his death"
] |
[
"Staind",
"Staind and departure of Jon Wysocki (2010-2012)",
"What was happening in 2010?",
"In March 2010, Aaron Lewis stated the band would start working on their seventh studio album by the end of the year.",
"How did the album do on the charts?",
"I don't know.",
"Why did Wysocki leave?",
"I don't know.",
"Who replaced him?",
"Drummer Will Hunt filled in for a few dates, while Wysocki's drum tech Sal Giancarelli filled in for the rest of the tour."
] | C_bb81d322c9cb4d249702e1b5c76671f3_1 | Did they release a new album with the new member? | 5 | Did Staind release a new album with the new member drummer Will Hunt? | Staind | In March 2010, Aaron Lewis stated the band would start working on their seventh studio album by the end of the year. Lewis had finished recording his country-tinged solo EP and had started a nonprofit organization to reopen his daughter's elementary school in Worthington, Massachusetts. Guitarist Mike Mushok stated in a question and answer session with fans that the band was looking to make a heavy record, but still "explore some of the things we did on the last record and take them somewhere new for us". In a webisode posted on the band's website, Lewis stated that eight songs were written and that "every one of them is as heavy or heavier than the heaviest song on the last record". In December 2010, Staind posted three webisodes from the studio, which featured the band members discussing the writing and recording process of their new album. They announced that as of April 20, the band had completed the recording of their untitled seventh album and would release it later that year. On May 20, 2011, Staind announced that original drummer Jon Wysocki had left the band. Drummer Will Hunt filled in for a few dates, while Wysocki's drum tech Sal Giancarelli filled in for the rest of the tour. Three days later, it was reported that Staind's new album was originally called Seven, but was renamed Staind. It was released on September 13, 2011. The first single "Not Again" was released to active radio stations on July 18. The song "The Bottom" appeared on the Transformers: Dark of the Moon soundtrack. On June 30, Staind released a song called "Eyes Wide Open" from their new record. "Eyes Wide Open" would later be released on November 29 as the album's second single. On July 12, Staind released the first single "Not Again" through YouTube and was officially released/available on July 26. In November 2011, the band announced through their YouTube page that Sal Giancarelli was now an official member. The band continued to tour heavily into 2012; embarking on an April and May touring with Godsmack and Halestorm, and the Uproar Festival in August and Setpember with Shinedown and a number of other artists. CANNOTANSWER | The first single "Not Again" was released to active radio stations on July 18. | Staind ( ) is an American rock band formed in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1995. The original lineup consisted of lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist Aaron Lewis, lead guitarist Mike Mushok, bassist and backing vocalist Johnny April, and drummer Jon Wysocki. The lineup has been stable outside of the 2011 departure of Wysocki, who was replaced by Sal Giancarelli. Staind has recorded seven studio albums: Tormented (1996), Dysfunction (1999), Break the Cycle (2001), 14 Shades of Grey (2003), Chapter V (2005), The Illusion of Progress (2008), and Staind (2011). The band's activity became more sporadic after their self-titled release, with Lewis pursuing a solo country music career and Mushok subsequently joining the band Saint Asonia, but they have continued to tour on and off in the following years. In 2016, Lewis reiterated that the band had not broken up, and would possibly create another album, but that his then-current focus was on his solo career. The band reunited more permanently in 2019 for several shows, continuing with live appearances in 2020. Many of their singles have reached high positions on US rock and all-format charts as well, including "It's Been Awhile", "Fade", "Price to Play", "So Far Away", and "Right Here".
History
Early years and Tormented (1995–1998)
In 1993, vocalist Aaron Lewis and guitarist Mike Mushok met at a Christmas party in Springfield, Massachusetts. Mushok introduced drummer Jon Wysocki while Lewis brought in bassist Johnny April to form the band in 1995. Their first public performance was in February 1995, playing a heavy, dark, and introspective style of metal. Extensive touring in the Northeast helped Staind acquire a regional following over the next few years.
The band started covering Korn, Rage Against the Machine, Pearl Jam, Tool, and Alice in Chains, among others, and played at local clubs (most commonly playing at Infinity, a live music venue located in Springfield) for a year and a half. Staind self-released their debut album, Tormented, in November 1996, citing Tool, Faith No More, and Pantera as their influences. In October 1997, Staind acquired a concert slot through Aaron's cousin Justin Cantor with Limp Bizkit. Just prior to the performance, Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst was appalled by Staind's grotesque album cover and unsuccessfully attempted to remove them from the bill. Durst thought that Staind were Theistic Satanists. After being persuaded to let them perform, however, Durst was so impressed that he signed them to Flip Records by February 1998.
Dysfunction (1999–2000)
On April 13, 1999, Staind released their major label debut Dysfunction on Flip Records. The album, which was co-produced by Fred Durst and Terry Date (who also produced acts like Soundgarden, Deftones, and Pantera), received comparisons to alternative metal giants Tool and Korn. In particular, Aaron Lewis was lauded for his vocals, which were likened to those of Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder.
The album achieved slow success, reaching the No. 1 spot on Billboard's Heatseeker Charts almost six months after its debut. In the same week, the record jumped to No. 74 on Billboard's Top 200 Album Charts. The nine-track LP (with one hidden track, "Excess Baggage") produced three singles, "Just Go", "Mudshovel", and "Home". "Mudshovel" and "Home" both received radio play, cracking the Top 20 of Billboard's Modern Rock and Mainstream Rock charts. In promotion of Dysfunction, Staind went on several tours, including the Family Values Tour with acts like Limp Bizkit and The Crystal Method, as well as opening for Sevendust's headlining tour.
Break the Cycle (2001–2002)
Staind toured with Limp Bizkit for the Family Values Tour during the fall of 1999, where Aaron Lewis performed an early version of "Outside" with Fred Durst at the Mississippi Coast Coliseum. Staind released their third studio album, Break the Cycle, on May 22, 2001. Propelled by the success of the first single, "It's Been Awhile", the album debuted at No. 1 on Billboard's Top 200 Album charts, selling 716,000 copies in its first week. The record's first-week sales were the second highest of any album that year, behind Creed's Weathered.
Break the Cycle saw the band retaining the nu metal sound from their previous album. Despite this, the album saw the band going further into a post-grunge sound which is evident in the smash hit song "It's Been Awhile", and the song led critics to compare the band to several other post-grunge bands at the time. The record spawned the singles "It's Been Awhile" (which hit the Billboard Top 10), "Fade", "Outside", "For You", and the acoustic ballad "Epiphany". "It's Been Awhile" spent a total of 16 and 14 weeks on top of the modern and mainstream rock charts respectively, making it one of the highest joint numbers of all time. In 2001, Break the Cycle sold four million copies worldwide, making it one of the best selling albums that year. Break the Cycle would go on to sell seven million copies worldwide, making this Staind's bestselling album.
14 Shades of Grey (2003–2004)
In early 2003, Staind embarked on a worldwide tour to promote the release of the follow-up to Break the Cycle, 14 Shades of Grey, which sold two million copies and debuted at number 1 on the Billboard 200. The album saw a departure from their previous nu metal sound as it mostly contained a lighter and more melodic post-grunge sound. 14 Shades of Grey produced two mainstream hits, "Price to Play" and "So Far Away", which spent 14 weeks on top of the rock chart. In addition, two other singles were released: "How About You" and "Zoe Jane". The band's appearance at the Reading Festival during their 2003 tour had another impromptu acoustic set, this time due to equipment failure. The singles "So Far Away" and "Price to Play" came with two unreleased tracks, "Novocaine" and "Let It Out", which were released for the special edition of the group's subsequent album Chapter V, which came out in late 2005. In 2003, Staind unsuccessfully sued their logo designer Jon Stainbrook in New York Federal Court for attempting to re-use the logo he had sold to the band. They re-opened the case in mid-2005.
Chapter V and The Singles (2005–2007)
Staind's fifth album, titled Chapter V, was released on August 9, 2005, and became their third consecutive album to top the Billboard 200. The album opened to sales of 185,000 and has since been certified platinum in the U.S. The first single, "Right Here", was the biggest success from the album, garnering much mainstream radio play and peaking at number 1 on the mainstream rock chart. "Falling" was released as the second single, followed by "Everything Changes" and "King of All Excuses". Staind went on the road when the album came out, doing live shows and promoting it for a full year, including participating in the Fall Brawl tour with P.O.D., Taproot, and Flyleaf; they also had a solo tour across Europe and a mini-promotional tour in Australia for the first time. Other live shows included a cover of Pantera's "This Love", a tribute to Dimebag Darrell. Staind appeared on The Howard Stern Show on August 10, 2005 to promote Chapter V. They performed acoustic renditions of the single "Right Here" and Beetlejuice's song "This is Beetle". In early November 2005, Staind released the limited edition 2-CD/DVD set of Chapter V. On September 6, 2006, they performed an acoustic show in the Hiro Ballroom, New York City, that was recorded for their singles collection. The band played sixteen songs, including three covers: Tool's "Sober", Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb", and Alice in Chains's "Nutshell".
The collection The Singles: 1996–2006 was released on November 14, 2006. It included all the band's singles, the three covers performed at the New York show, and a remastered version of "Come Again" from Staind's first independent release Tormented.
The Illusion of Progress (2008–2009)
On August 19, 2008, Staind released their sixth album, The Illusion of Progress. Prior to the album's release, the track "This Is It" was available for download on the iTunes Store, as well as for Rock Band. The album debuted at No. 3 on the US Billboard 200, No. 1 on the Top Modern Rock/Alternative Albums Chart, No. 1 on the Top Digital Albums Chart, and also No. 1 on the Top Internet Albums Chart, with first-week sales of 91,800 units. The first single on the album, "Believe", topped Billboard's Top 10 Modern Rock Tracks on September 5, 2008. The band also supported Nickelback on their 2008 European tour. The second single was "All I Want", and came out on November 24. The single also became Staind's 13th top 20 hit on the rock charts. In Europe, the second single was "The Way I Am", released on January 26, 2009. The final single released from the album, "This Is It", was sent to radio stations across the country on May 4, 2009. The track was also included on the successful Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen – The Album released in late June 2009. The same year, Staind embarked on a fall tour with the newly reunited Creed.
Staind and departure of Jon Wysocki (2010–2012)
In March 2010, Aaron Lewis stated the band would start working on their seventh studio album by the end of the year. Lewis had finished recording his country music solo EP and had started a nonprofit organization to reopen his daughter's elementary school in Worthington, Massachusetts. Guitarist Mike Mushok stated in a Q&A session with fans that the band was looking to make a heavy record, but still "explore some of the things we did on the last record and take them somewhere new for us". In a webisode posted on the band's website, Lewis stated that eight songs were written and that "every one of them is as heavy or heavier than the heaviest song on the last record".
In December 2010, Staind posted three webisodes from the studio, which featured the band members discussing the writing and recording process of their new album. They announced that as of April 20, they had completed the recording of their seventh and would release it later that year.
On May 20, 2011, Staind announced that original drummer Jon Wysocki had left the band. Drummer Will Hunt filled in for a few dates, while Wysocki's drum tech Sal Giancarelli filled in for the rest of the tour. Three days later, it was reported that Staind's new album would be a self-titled release. It was released on September 13, 2011. The first single, "Not Again", was released to active radio stations on July 18. The song "The Bottom" appeared on the Transformers: Dark of the Moon soundtrack. On June 30, Staind released a song called "Eyes Wide Open" from their new record. "Eyes Wide Open" would later be released on November 29 as the album's second single.
In November 2011, the band announced through their YouTube page that Sal Giancarelli was now an official member. The band continued to perform into 2012, embarking on an April and May tour with Godsmack and Halestorm, and they played the Uproar Festival in August and September with Shinedown and a number of other artists.
It was announced in July 2012 that the band was to be taking a hiatus. In an interview with Billboard, Aaron Lewis stated that "We're not breaking up. We're not gonna stop making music. We're just going to take a little hiatus that really hasn't ever been taken in our career. We put out seven records in 14 years. We've been pretty busy." Lewis also had plans to release his first solo album The Road. During this time, Mike Mushok auditioned, and was selected, to play guitar for former Metallica bassist Jason Newsted's new band Newsted. He featured on their debut album Heavy Metal Music.
Hiatus and limited activity (2013–present)
Staind played their first show in two years at the Welcome To Rockville Festival on April 27, 2014. They also played the Carolina Rebellion and Rock on the Range festivals in May 2014.
In late 2014, the band went on a hiatus. Aaron Lewis continued to play solo shows and work on his next solo album. He also confirmed that the hiatus would last "for a while". Mike Mushok teamed up with former Three Days Grace singer Adam Gontier, former Finger Eleven drummer Rich Beddoe, and Eye Empire bassist Corey Lowery to form Saint Asonia.
On August 4, 2017, the band performed for the first time since November 2014 for an acoustic performance at Aaron Lewis' 6th annual charity golf tournament and concert when bassist Johnny April and drummer Sal Giancarelli joined Aaron Lewis and Mike Mushok to perform "Outside", "Something to Remind You", and "It's Been Awhile". Three days later, Lewis announced that Staind would never tour extensively again, with Lewis explaining:
In April 2019, the band announced they would reform in September 2019 for some live performances. The band was scheduled to play at Epicenter Festival on May 3, 2020 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, but the COVID-19 pandemic led to the festival being cancelled.
Musical style, influences, and lyrical themes
The topics of Staind's lyrics cover issues of depression, relationships, death, addiction, finding one's self, betrayal, and Lewis' thoughts about becoming a father in the song "Zoe Jane" from 14 Shades of Grey, as well as reflecting on his upbringing in the song "The Corner" from The Illusion of Progress. Also from 14 Shades of Grey, the track titled "Layne" was written about Alice in Chains frontman Layne Staley in response to his death in 2002. The song is also about Staley's legacy and the effect his music had on the members of Staind, especially Aaron Lewis. Staind has been categorized as nu metal, alternative metal, heavy metal, hard rock, and post-grunge.
In 2001, Rolling Stone outlined the band's relationship to the nu metal label:
{{quote|Staind got their first break in 1998 when [Fred] Durst signed the band to his Flip Records. That association has linked the group with "new metal," though Break the Cycles sound is neither particularly new nor metal. The band doesn't rap, and though Mushok has adopted new-metal's minor-key guitar riffs, Lewis' dramatic voice and the anthemic quality of such songs as "Open Your Eyes" and "Fade" are more akin to Alice in Chains than to Korn. Aggressive yet reflective, Break the Cycle doesn't require a poisonous abundance of testosterone to be appreciated and is better suited to solitary listening than to the mosh pit.}}
Staind's influences include Pantera, The Doors, Suicidal Tendencies, Kiss, Van Halen, Slayer, Led Zeppelin, Sepultura, Whitesnake, the Beatles, Alice in Chains, Faith No More, Deftones, Black Sabbath, Pearl Jam, Tool, Rage Against the Machine, Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots, Helmet, James Taylor, Korn, and Crosby, Stills & Nash.
Band membersCurrent line-up Aaron Lewis – lead vocals, rhythm guitar (1995–2012, 2014, 2017, 2019–present)
Mike Mushok – lead guitar (1995–2012, 2014, 2017, 2019–present)
Johnny April – bass, backing vocals (1995–2012, 2014, 2017, 2019–present)
Sal Giancarelli – drums (2011–2012, 2014, 2017, 2019–present)Former members Jon Wysocki – drums (1995–2011)
Timeline
Discography Studio albums'''Tormented (1996)Dysfunction (1999)Break the Cycle (2001)14 Shades of Grey (2003)Chapter V (2005)The Illusion of Progress (2008)Staind'' (2011)
References
External links
1995 establishments in Massachusetts
Atlantic Records artists
American alternative metal musical groups
American nu metal musical groups
American post-grunge musical groups
Rock music groups from Massachusetts
Alternative rock groups from Massachusetts
Heavy metal musical groups from Massachusetts
Flip Records (1994) artists
Musical groups established in 1995
Musical groups disestablished in 2017
Musical groups disestablished in 2014
Musical groups disestablished in 2012
Musical groups reestablished in 2014
Musical groups reestablished in 2019
Musical groups reestablished in 2017
Musical groups from Springfield, Massachusetts
Musical quartets | false | [
"Virgin is the debut and only Korean studio album by South Korean girl group After School. They promoted the album by performing their lead single \"Shampoo\" along with a tap dance performance of \"Let's Step Up\". It was released on 29 April 2011 and contains 13 songs (including new recordings of their songs \"Because of You\", \"When I Fall\", and \"Bang!\"). The group has released three music videos for the album: \"Shampoo\", \"Let's Step Up\", and \"Play Ur Love\". This is the first release with the addition of the member E-Young and first release with nine-member line-up and last release to feature member Bekah.\n\nHistory \n\nFollowing the admission of ninth member, E-Young, Pledis Entertainment announced that After School will be having a comeback at the end of April 2011. They also announced that After School will release their first full-length studio album. Before the release of the album, several actions were made by the agency such as releasing a mini-album for the group leader Kahi and also the release of Orange Caramel's \"Bangkok City\".\n\nOn 18 April 2011, Pledis released a photo teaser of the album, featuring fourth generation member E-young. The track-listing and three other member photos followed, which were separated into third, second, and first generation members. On the day before the album's release, Pledis uploaded the video of their lead track \"Shampoo\" and \"Let's Step Up!\" on their official channel at YouTube.\n\nTheir comeback stage was held on KBS Music Bank and they performed \"Shampoo\" and \"Let's Step Up\".\n\nThe album contains nine new tracks, three re-recorded songs, and a radio edit. Two of the new tracks, \"Lean on Time\" and \"My Bell\" are solo songs sung by main vocal members Raina and Jungah.\n\nTwo songs from the album features a Pre-School Girl: in \"Dream\" features Yoonjo, which in 2012 debuted on the group Hello Venus, and in \"Funky Man\", a duet song of the members Nana and Lizzy, features Kyung Min.\n\nTrack listing\n\nCharts \nVirgin was released in the Philippines on 23 July 2011, along with Bang! and Happy Pledis 1st Album, and it debuted at number one on the Philippines AstroChart, while Bang! debuted at number two and Happy Pledis 1st Album at number three.\n\nAlbum chart\n\nOther songs charted\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n\n2011 debut albums\nAfter School (band) albums\nKorean-language albums\nKakao M albums\nHybe Corporation albums",
"Fight to Survive is the debut album by the American-Danish glam metal band White Lion, released by Victor Records in Japan in 1985. The album charted at number 151 on the Billboard 200.\n\nBackground\t\nThe band was signed to Elektra Records, which shelved the album with no intention of publishing it in the USA. Philadelphia-based Grand Slamm Records bought the album from Elektra and released it in America the following year. Tramp has noted that once White Lion was dropped by Elektra Records, their manager managed to get the right to license the album and release it in Japan. The album actually broke in Europe before it did in the USA thanks to magazines covering the band. Tramp is very proud of songs like \"All the Fallen Men\" and \"Kid of 1,000 Faces,\" which he considers among the darkest songs they have written.\n \t\nThe song \"Broken Heart\" was released as the band's debut single and featured a music video with drummer Greg D'Angelo and bassist Dave Spitz appearing in the video. The track was re-recorded and updated for the band's 1991 release, Mane Attraction, and featured a new music video. \"El Salvador\" was released as a promo single.\n\nTrack listing\nAll songs written by Mike Tramp & Vito Bratta, except where noted.\n\nSome earlier remastered versions of the album feature several live bonus tracks. However, these were recorded during the Pride tour by the band's classic lineup, quite some time after this album. Fight To Survive was re-released in 2014 by Rock Candy Records in a special deluxe collector's edition with fully remastered sound shaped from 24 bit digital technology. The package contains a 12-page full color booklet, 3,500 word essay, enhanced artwork, rare photos and a new interview with vocalist Mike Tramp.\n\nPersonnel\nMike Tramp – vocals, rhythm guitar\nVito Bratta – lead guitar\nFelix Robinson – bass, keyboards\nNicky Capozzi – drums\n\nAdditional personnel\nJames LoMenzo – bass (member at time of album release, listed as band member in album credits)\nGreg D'Angelo – drums (member at time of album release, listed as band member in album credits)\n Harry Baierl - piano\n Roderiich Gold - keyboards\n\nProduction\n Caroline Greyshock - cover photo\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nOfficial White Lion website\nOfficial Mike Tramp website\n\n1985 debut albums\nWhite Lion albums"
] |
[
"Staind",
"Staind and departure of Jon Wysocki (2010-2012)",
"What was happening in 2010?",
"In March 2010, Aaron Lewis stated the band would start working on their seventh studio album by the end of the year.",
"How did the album do on the charts?",
"I don't know.",
"Why did Wysocki leave?",
"I don't know.",
"Who replaced him?",
"Drummer Will Hunt filled in for a few dates, while Wysocki's drum tech Sal Giancarelli filled in for the rest of the tour.",
"Did they release a new album with the new member?",
"The first single \"Not Again\" was released to active radio stations on July 18."
] | C_bb81d322c9cb4d249702e1b5c76671f3_1 | Did the album contain any hit singles? | 6 | Did the Staind new album contain any hit singles? | Staind | In March 2010, Aaron Lewis stated the band would start working on their seventh studio album by the end of the year. Lewis had finished recording his country-tinged solo EP and had started a nonprofit organization to reopen his daughter's elementary school in Worthington, Massachusetts. Guitarist Mike Mushok stated in a question and answer session with fans that the band was looking to make a heavy record, but still "explore some of the things we did on the last record and take them somewhere new for us". In a webisode posted on the band's website, Lewis stated that eight songs were written and that "every one of them is as heavy or heavier than the heaviest song on the last record". In December 2010, Staind posted three webisodes from the studio, which featured the band members discussing the writing and recording process of their new album. They announced that as of April 20, the band had completed the recording of their untitled seventh album and would release it later that year. On May 20, 2011, Staind announced that original drummer Jon Wysocki had left the band. Drummer Will Hunt filled in for a few dates, while Wysocki's drum tech Sal Giancarelli filled in for the rest of the tour. Three days later, it was reported that Staind's new album was originally called Seven, but was renamed Staind. It was released on September 13, 2011. The first single "Not Again" was released to active radio stations on July 18. The song "The Bottom" appeared on the Transformers: Dark of the Moon soundtrack. On June 30, Staind released a song called "Eyes Wide Open" from their new record. "Eyes Wide Open" would later be released on November 29 as the album's second single. On July 12, Staind released the first single "Not Again" through YouTube and was officially released/available on July 26. In November 2011, the band announced through their YouTube page that Sal Giancarelli was now an official member. The band continued to tour heavily into 2012; embarking on an April and May touring with Godsmack and Halestorm, and the Uproar Festival in August and Setpember with Shinedown and a number of other artists. CANNOTANSWER | The first single "Not Again" was released to active radio stations on July 18. | Staind ( ) is an American rock band formed in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1995. The original lineup consisted of lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist Aaron Lewis, lead guitarist Mike Mushok, bassist and backing vocalist Johnny April, and drummer Jon Wysocki. The lineup has been stable outside of the 2011 departure of Wysocki, who was replaced by Sal Giancarelli. Staind has recorded seven studio albums: Tormented (1996), Dysfunction (1999), Break the Cycle (2001), 14 Shades of Grey (2003), Chapter V (2005), The Illusion of Progress (2008), and Staind (2011). The band's activity became more sporadic after their self-titled release, with Lewis pursuing a solo country music career and Mushok subsequently joining the band Saint Asonia, but they have continued to tour on and off in the following years. In 2016, Lewis reiterated that the band had not broken up, and would possibly create another album, but that his then-current focus was on his solo career. The band reunited more permanently in 2019 for several shows, continuing with live appearances in 2020. Many of their singles have reached high positions on US rock and all-format charts as well, including "It's Been Awhile", "Fade", "Price to Play", "So Far Away", and "Right Here".
History
Early years and Tormented (1995–1998)
In 1993, vocalist Aaron Lewis and guitarist Mike Mushok met at a Christmas party in Springfield, Massachusetts. Mushok introduced drummer Jon Wysocki while Lewis brought in bassist Johnny April to form the band in 1995. Their first public performance was in February 1995, playing a heavy, dark, and introspective style of metal. Extensive touring in the Northeast helped Staind acquire a regional following over the next few years.
The band started covering Korn, Rage Against the Machine, Pearl Jam, Tool, and Alice in Chains, among others, and played at local clubs (most commonly playing at Infinity, a live music venue located in Springfield) for a year and a half. Staind self-released their debut album, Tormented, in November 1996, citing Tool, Faith No More, and Pantera as their influences. In October 1997, Staind acquired a concert slot through Aaron's cousin Justin Cantor with Limp Bizkit. Just prior to the performance, Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst was appalled by Staind's grotesque album cover and unsuccessfully attempted to remove them from the bill. Durst thought that Staind were Theistic Satanists. After being persuaded to let them perform, however, Durst was so impressed that he signed them to Flip Records by February 1998.
Dysfunction (1999–2000)
On April 13, 1999, Staind released their major label debut Dysfunction on Flip Records. The album, which was co-produced by Fred Durst and Terry Date (who also produced acts like Soundgarden, Deftones, and Pantera), received comparisons to alternative metal giants Tool and Korn. In particular, Aaron Lewis was lauded for his vocals, which were likened to those of Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder.
The album achieved slow success, reaching the No. 1 spot on Billboard's Heatseeker Charts almost six months after its debut. In the same week, the record jumped to No. 74 on Billboard's Top 200 Album Charts. The nine-track LP (with one hidden track, "Excess Baggage") produced three singles, "Just Go", "Mudshovel", and "Home". "Mudshovel" and "Home" both received radio play, cracking the Top 20 of Billboard's Modern Rock and Mainstream Rock charts. In promotion of Dysfunction, Staind went on several tours, including the Family Values Tour with acts like Limp Bizkit and The Crystal Method, as well as opening for Sevendust's headlining tour.
Break the Cycle (2001–2002)
Staind toured with Limp Bizkit for the Family Values Tour during the fall of 1999, where Aaron Lewis performed an early version of "Outside" with Fred Durst at the Mississippi Coast Coliseum. Staind released their third studio album, Break the Cycle, on May 22, 2001. Propelled by the success of the first single, "It's Been Awhile", the album debuted at No. 1 on Billboard's Top 200 Album charts, selling 716,000 copies in its first week. The record's first-week sales were the second highest of any album that year, behind Creed's Weathered.
Break the Cycle saw the band retaining the nu metal sound from their previous album. Despite this, the album saw the band going further into a post-grunge sound which is evident in the smash hit song "It's Been Awhile", and the song led critics to compare the band to several other post-grunge bands at the time. The record spawned the singles "It's Been Awhile" (which hit the Billboard Top 10), "Fade", "Outside", "For You", and the acoustic ballad "Epiphany". "It's Been Awhile" spent a total of 16 and 14 weeks on top of the modern and mainstream rock charts respectively, making it one of the highest joint numbers of all time. In 2001, Break the Cycle sold four million copies worldwide, making it one of the best selling albums that year. Break the Cycle would go on to sell seven million copies worldwide, making this Staind's bestselling album.
14 Shades of Grey (2003–2004)
In early 2003, Staind embarked on a worldwide tour to promote the release of the follow-up to Break the Cycle, 14 Shades of Grey, which sold two million copies and debuted at number 1 on the Billboard 200. The album saw a departure from their previous nu metal sound as it mostly contained a lighter and more melodic post-grunge sound. 14 Shades of Grey produced two mainstream hits, "Price to Play" and "So Far Away", which spent 14 weeks on top of the rock chart. In addition, two other singles were released: "How About You" and "Zoe Jane". The band's appearance at the Reading Festival during their 2003 tour had another impromptu acoustic set, this time due to equipment failure. The singles "So Far Away" and "Price to Play" came with two unreleased tracks, "Novocaine" and "Let It Out", which were released for the special edition of the group's subsequent album Chapter V, which came out in late 2005. In 2003, Staind unsuccessfully sued their logo designer Jon Stainbrook in New York Federal Court for attempting to re-use the logo he had sold to the band. They re-opened the case in mid-2005.
Chapter V and The Singles (2005–2007)
Staind's fifth album, titled Chapter V, was released on August 9, 2005, and became their third consecutive album to top the Billboard 200. The album opened to sales of 185,000 and has since been certified platinum in the U.S. The first single, "Right Here", was the biggest success from the album, garnering much mainstream radio play and peaking at number 1 on the mainstream rock chart. "Falling" was released as the second single, followed by "Everything Changes" and "King of All Excuses". Staind went on the road when the album came out, doing live shows and promoting it for a full year, including participating in the Fall Brawl tour with P.O.D., Taproot, and Flyleaf; they also had a solo tour across Europe and a mini-promotional tour in Australia for the first time. Other live shows included a cover of Pantera's "This Love", a tribute to Dimebag Darrell. Staind appeared on The Howard Stern Show on August 10, 2005 to promote Chapter V. They performed acoustic renditions of the single "Right Here" and Beetlejuice's song "This is Beetle". In early November 2005, Staind released the limited edition 2-CD/DVD set of Chapter V. On September 6, 2006, they performed an acoustic show in the Hiro Ballroom, New York City, that was recorded for their singles collection. The band played sixteen songs, including three covers: Tool's "Sober", Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb", and Alice in Chains's "Nutshell".
The collection The Singles: 1996–2006 was released on November 14, 2006. It included all the band's singles, the three covers performed at the New York show, and a remastered version of "Come Again" from Staind's first independent release Tormented.
The Illusion of Progress (2008–2009)
On August 19, 2008, Staind released their sixth album, The Illusion of Progress. Prior to the album's release, the track "This Is It" was available for download on the iTunes Store, as well as for Rock Band. The album debuted at No. 3 on the US Billboard 200, No. 1 on the Top Modern Rock/Alternative Albums Chart, No. 1 on the Top Digital Albums Chart, and also No. 1 on the Top Internet Albums Chart, with first-week sales of 91,800 units. The first single on the album, "Believe", topped Billboard's Top 10 Modern Rock Tracks on September 5, 2008. The band also supported Nickelback on their 2008 European tour. The second single was "All I Want", and came out on November 24. The single also became Staind's 13th top 20 hit on the rock charts. In Europe, the second single was "The Way I Am", released on January 26, 2009. The final single released from the album, "This Is It", was sent to radio stations across the country on May 4, 2009. The track was also included on the successful Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen – The Album released in late June 2009. The same year, Staind embarked on a fall tour with the newly reunited Creed.
Staind and departure of Jon Wysocki (2010–2012)
In March 2010, Aaron Lewis stated the band would start working on their seventh studio album by the end of the year. Lewis had finished recording his country music solo EP and had started a nonprofit organization to reopen his daughter's elementary school in Worthington, Massachusetts. Guitarist Mike Mushok stated in a Q&A session with fans that the band was looking to make a heavy record, but still "explore some of the things we did on the last record and take them somewhere new for us". In a webisode posted on the band's website, Lewis stated that eight songs were written and that "every one of them is as heavy or heavier than the heaviest song on the last record".
In December 2010, Staind posted three webisodes from the studio, which featured the band members discussing the writing and recording process of their new album. They announced that as of April 20, they had completed the recording of their seventh and would release it later that year.
On May 20, 2011, Staind announced that original drummer Jon Wysocki had left the band. Drummer Will Hunt filled in for a few dates, while Wysocki's drum tech Sal Giancarelli filled in for the rest of the tour. Three days later, it was reported that Staind's new album would be a self-titled release. It was released on September 13, 2011. The first single, "Not Again", was released to active radio stations on July 18. The song "The Bottom" appeared on the Transformers: Dark of the Moon soundtrack. On June 30, Staind released a song called "Eyes Wide Open" from their new record. "Eyes Wide Open" would later be released on November 29 as the album's second single.
In November 2011, the band announced through their YouTube page that Sal Giancarelli was now an official member. The band continued to perform into 2012, embarking on an April and May tour with Godsmack and Halestorm, and they played the Uproar Festival in August and September with Shinedown and a number of other artists.
It was announced in July 2012 that the band was to be taking a hiatus. In an interview with Billboard, Aaron Lewis stated that "We're not breaking up. We're not gonna stop making music. We're just going to take a little hiatus that really hasn't ever been taken in our career. We put out seven records in 14 years. We've been pretty busy." Lewis also had plans to release his first solo album The Road. During this time, Mike Mushok auditioned, and was selected, to play guitar for former Metallica bassist Jason Newsted's new band Newsted. He featured on their debut album Heavy Metal Music.
Hiatus and limited activity (2013–present)
Staind played their first show in two years at the Welcome To Rockville Festival on April 27, 2014. They also played the Carolina Rebellion and Rock on the Range festivals in May 2014.
In late 2014, the band went on a hiatus. Aaron Lewis continued to play solo shows and work on his next solo album. He also confirmed that the hiatus would last "for a while". Mike Mushok teamed up with former Three Days Grace singer Adam Gontier, former Finger Eleven drummer Rich Beddoe, and Eye Empire bassist Corey Lowery to form Saint Asonia.
On August 4, 2017, the band performed for the first time since November 2014 for an acoustic performance at Aaron Lewis' 6th annual charity golf tournament and concert when bassist Johnny April and drummer Sal Giancarelli joined Aaron Lewis and Mike Mushok to perform "Outside", "Something to Remind You", and "It's Been Awhile". Three days later, Lewis announced that Staind would never tour extensively again, with Lewis explaining:
In April 2019, the band announced they would reform in September 2019 for some live performances. The band was scheduled to play at Epicenter Festival on May 3, 2020 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, but the COVID-19 pandemic led to the festival being cancelled.
Musical style, influences, and lyrical themes
The topics of Staind's lyrics cover issues of depression, relationships, death, addiction, finding one's self, betrayal, and Lewis' thoughts about becoming a father in the song "Zoe Jane" from 14 Shades of Grey, as well as reflecting on his upbringing in the song "The Corner" from The Illusion of Progress. Also from 14 Shades of Grey, the track titled "Layne" was written about Alice in Chains frontman Layne Staley in response to his death in 2002. The song is also about Staley's legacy and the effect his music had on the members of Staind, especially Aaron Lewis. Staind has been categorized as nu metal, alternative metal, heavy metal, hard rock, and post-grunge.
In 2001, Rolling Stone outlined the band's relationship to the nu metal label:
{{quote|Staind got their first break in 1998 when [Fred] Durst signed the band to his Flip Records. That association has linked the group with "new metal," though Break the Cycles sound is neither particularly new nor metal. The band doesn't rap, and though Mushok has adopted new-metal's minor-key guitar riffs, Lewis' dramatic voice and the anthemic quality of such songs as "Open Your Eyes" and "Fade" are more akin to Alice in Chains than to Korn. Aggressive yet reflective, Break the Cycle doesn't require a poisonous abundance of testosterone to be appreciated and is better suited to solitary listening than to the mosh pit.}}
Staind's influences include Pantera, The Doors, Suicidal Tendencies, Kiss, Van Halen, Slayer, Led Zeppelin, Sepultura, Whitesnake, the Beatles, Alice in Chains, Faith No More, Deftones, Black Sabbath, Pearl Jam, Tool, Rage Against the Machine, Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots, Helmet, James Taylor, Korn, and Crosby, Stills & Nash.
Band membersCurrent line-up Aaron Lewis – lead vocals, rhythm guitar (1995–2012, 2014, 2017, 2019–present)
Mike Mushok – lead guitar (1995–2012, 2014, 2017, 2019–present)
Johnny April – bass, backing vocals (1995–2012, 2014, 2017, 2019–present)
Sal Giancarelli – drums (2011–2012, 2014, 2017, 2019–present)Former members Jon Wysocki – drums (1995–2011)
Timeline
Discography Studio albums'''Tormented (1996)Dysfunction (1999)Break the Cycle (2001)14 Shades of Grey (2003)Chapter V (2005)The Illusion of Progress (2008)Staind'' (2011)
References
External links
1995 establishments in Massachusetts
Atlantic Records artists
American alternative metal musical groups
American nu metal musical groups
American post-grunge musical groups
Rock music groups from Massachusetts
Alternative rock groups from Massachusetts
Heavy metal musical groups from Massachusetts
Flip Records (1994) artists
Musical groups established in 1995
Musical groups disestablished in 2017
Musical groups disestablished in 2014
Musical groups disestablished in 2012
Musical groups reestablished in 2014
Musical groups reestablished in 2019
Musical groups reestablished in 2017
Musical groups from Springfield, Massachusetts
Musical quartets | false | [
"\"Hot Girl\" is an Italo disco/pop song by Italian singer Sabrina. The single was released by Baby Records in November 1987 as the album's fourth and final single. The B-side \"Kiss Me\" also appeared on her debut album. The song was a success in France, Switzerland, Germany and the Netherlands where it was a top 20 hit.\n\nSong information\nAfter the enormous success with \"Boys (Summertime Love)\", the team around Sabrina's manager Menzione tried to score another international hit with a new single. They chose \"Hot Girl\", a song from Sabrina's by-then-released first album, and had it remixed for the single release. But, as things go, it's hard to plan success, and so \"Hot Girl\" did much less well than its predecessor (although Sabrina did everything to promote the new song: In a Spanish TV show, she danced in such an enthusiastic way that her top couldn't contain her breasts any more).\n\nFormats and track listings\n 7\" single\n \"Hot Girl\" – 3:22\n \"Kiss Me\" – 4:05\n 12\" maxi\n \"Hot Girl\" (new version) – 6:04\n \"Hot Girl\" (dub version) – 7:03\n\nCredits\n Written by Cecchetto, Bonsanto and Rossi\n Engineered by F.Santamaria and L. Vittori\n Remixed by Matteo Bonsanto and Roberto Ross\n Edited by Matteo Bonsanto and Roberto Rossi\n Executive produced by Matteo Bonsanto and Roberto Rossi\n Produced by Claudio Cecchetto\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\n1987 singles\n1988 singles\nSabrina Salerno songs\nSongs written by Claudio Cecchetto",
"Return of the 1 Hit Wonder is the fourth album by rapper, Young MC. The album was released in 1997 for Overall Records and was Young MC's first release on an independent record label. While the album did not chart on any album charts, it did have two charting singles; \"Madame Buttafly\" reached No. 25 on the Hot Rap Songs and \"On & Poppin\" reached No. 23. The title refers to Young MC's only Billboard Hot 100 top 10 hit, \"Bust A Move\".\n\nTrack listing\n\"One Hit\" \n\"Freakie\" \n\"On & Poppin'\" \n\"You Ain't Gotta Lie Ta Kick It\" \n\"Madame Buttafly\" \n\"Lingerie\" \n\"Coast 2 Coast\" \n\"Fuel to the Fire\" \n\"Bring It Home\" \n\"Intensify\" \n\"Mr. Right Now\" \n\"On & Poppin'\" (Remix)\n\nReferences\n\nYoung MC albums\n1997 albums"
] |
[
"Staind",
"Staind and departure of Jon Wysocki (2010-2012)",
"What was happening in 2010?",
"In March 2010, Aaron Lewis stated the band would start working on their seventh studio album by the end of the year.",
"How did the album do on the charts?",
"I don't know.",
"Why did Wysocki leave?",
"I don't know.",
"Who replaced him?",
"Drummer Will Hunt filled in for a few dates, while Wysocki's drum tech Sal Giancarelli filled in for the rest of the tour.",
"Did they release a new album with the new member?",
"The first single \"Not Again\" was released to active radio stations on July 18.",
"Did the album contain any hit singles?",
"The first single \"Not Again\" was released to active radio stations on July 18."
] | C_bb81d322c9cb4d249702e1b5c76671f3_1 | did they continue touring? | 7 | did Staind the band continue touring? | Staind | In March 2010, Aaron Lewis stated the band would start working on their seventh studio album by the end of the year. Lewis had finished recording his country-tinged solo EP and had started a nonprofit organization to reopen his daughter's elementary school in Worthington, Massachusetts. Guitarist Mike Mushok stated in a question and answer session with fans that the band was looking to make a heavy record, but still "explore some of the things we did on the last record and take them somewhere new for us". In a webisode posted on the band's website, Lewis stated that eight songs were written and that "every one of them is as heavy or heavier than the heaviest song on the last record". In December 2010, Staind posted three webisodes from the studio, which featured the band members discussing the writing and recording process of their new album. They announced that as of April 20, the band had completed the recording of their untitled seventh album and would release it later that year. On May 20, 2011, Staind announced that original drummer Jon Wysocki had left the band. Drummer Will Hunt filled in for a few dates, while Wysocki's drum tech Sal Giancarelli filled in for the rest of the tour. Three days later, it was reported that Staind's new album was originally called Seven, but was renamed Staind. It was released on September 13, 2011. The first single "Not Again" was released to active radio stations on July 18. The song "The Bottom" appeared on the Transformers: Dark of the Moon soundtrack. On June 30, Staind released a song called "Eyes Wide Open" from their new record. "Eyes Wide Open" would later be released on November 29 as the album's second single. On July 12, Staind released the first single "Not Again" through YouTube and was officially released/available on July 26. In November 2011, the band announced through their YouTube page that Sal Giancarelli was now an official member. The band continued to tour heavily into 2012; embarking on an April and May touring with Godsmack and Halestorm, and the Uproar Festival in August and Setpember with Shinedown and a number of other artists. CANNOTANSWER | The band continued to tour heavily into 2012; | Staind ( ) is an American rock band formed in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1995. The original lineup consisted of lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist Aaron Lewis, lead guitarist Mike Mushok, bassist and backing vocalist Johnny April, and drummer Jon Wysocki. The lineup has been stable outside of the 2011 departure of Wysocki, who was replaced by Sal Giancarelli. Staind has recorded seven studio albums: Tormented (1996), Dysfunction (1999), Break the Cycle (2001), 14 Shades of Grey (2003), Chapter V (2005), The Illusion of Progress (2008), and Staind (2011). The band's activity became more sporadic after their self-titled release, with Lewis pursuing a solo country music career and Mushok subsequently joining the band Saint Asonia, but they have continued to tour on and off in the following years. In 2016, Lewis reiterated that the band had not broken up, and would possibly create another album, but that his then-current focus was on his solo career. The band reunited more permanently in 2019 for several shows, continuing with live appearances in 2020. Many of their singles have reached high positions on US rock and all-format charts as well, including "It's Been Awhile", "Fade", "Price to Play", "So Far Away", and "Right Here".
History
Early years and Tormented (1995–1998)
In 1993, vocalist Aaron Lewis and guitarist Mike Mushok met at a Christmas party in Springfield, Massachusetts. Mushok introduced drummer Jon Wysocki while Lewis brought in bassist Johnny April to form the band in 1995. Their first public performance was in February 1995, playing a heavy, dark, and introspective style of metal. Extensive touring in the Northeast helped Staind acquire a regional following over the next few years.
The band started covering Korn, Rage Against the Machine, Pearl Jam, Tool, and Alice in Chains, among others, and played at local clubs (most commonly playing at Infinity, a live music venue located in Springfield) for a year and a half. Staind self-released their debut album, Tormented, in November 1996, citing Tool, Faith No More, and Pantera as their influences. In October 1997, Staind acquired a concert slot through Aaron's cousin Justin Cantor with Limp Bizkit. Just prior to the performance, Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst was appalled by Staind's grotesque album cover and unsuccessfully attempted to remove them from the bill. Durst thought that Staind were Theistic Satanists. After being persuaded to let them perform, however, Durst was so impressed that he signed them to Flip Records by February 1998.
Dysfunction (1999–2000)
On April 13, 1999, Staind released their major label debut Dysfunction on Flip Records. The album, which was co-produced by Fred Durst and Terry Date (who also produced acts like Soundgarden, Deftones, and Pantera), received comparisons to alternative metal giants Tool and Korn. In particular, Aaron Lewis was lauded for his vocals, which were likened to those of Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder.
The album achieved slow success, reaching the No. 1 spot on Billboard's Heatseeker Charts almost six months after its debut. In the same week, the record jumped to No. 74 on Billboard's Top 200 Album Charts. The nine-track LP (with one hidden track, "Excess Baggage") produced three singles, "Just Go", "Mudshovel", and "Home". "Mudshovel" and "Home" both received radio play, cracking the Top 20 of Billboard's Modern Rock and Mainstream Rock charts. In promotion of Dysfunction, Staind went on several tours, including the Family Values Tour with acts like Limp Bizkit and The Crystal Method, as well as opening for Sevendust's headlining tour.
Break the Cycle (2001–2002)
Staind toured with Limp Bizkit for the Family Values Tour during the fall of 1999, where Aaron Lewis performed an early version of "Outside" with Fred Durst at the Mississippi Coast Coliseum. Staind released their third studio album, Break the Cycle, on May 22, 2001. Propelled by the success of the first single, "It's Been Awhile", the album debuted at No. 1 on Billboard's Top 200 Album charts, selling 716,000 copies in its first week. The record's first-week sales were the second highest of any album that year, behind Creed's Weathered.
Break the Cycle saw the band retaining the nu metal sound from their previous album. Despite this, the album saw the band going further into a post-grunge sound which is evident in the smash hit song "It's Been Awhile", and the song led critics to compare the band to several other post-grunge bands at the time. The record spawned the singles "It's Been Awhile" (which hit the Billboard Top 10), "Fade", "Outside", "For You", and the acoustic ballad "Epiphany". "It's Been Awhile" spent a total of 16 and 14 weeks on top of the modern and mainstream rock charts respectively, making it one of the highest joint numbers of all time. In 2001, Break the Cycle sold four million copies worldwide, making it one of the best selling albums that year. Break the Cycle would go on to sell seven million copies worldwide, making this Staind's bestselling album.
14 Shades of Grey (2003–2004)
In early 2003, Staind embarked on a worldwide tour to promote the release of the follow-up to Break the Cycle, 14 Shades of Grey, which sold two million copies and debuted at number 1 on the Billboard 200. The album saw a departure from their previous nu metal sound as it mostly contained a lighter and more melodic post-grunge sound. 14 Shades of Grey produced two mainstream hits, "Price to Play" and "So Far Away", which spent 14 weeks on top of the rock chart. In addition, two other singles were released: "How About You" and "Zoe Jane". The band's appearance at the Reading Festival during their 2003 tour had another impromptu acoustic set, this time due to equipment failure. The singles "So Far Away" and "Price to Play" came with two unreleased tracks, "Novocaine" and "Let It Out", which were released for the special edition of the group's subsequent album Chapter V, which came out in late 2005. In 2003, Staind unsuccessfully sued their logo designer Jon Stainbrook in New York Federal Court for attempting to re-use the logo he had sold to the band. They re-opened the case in mid-2005.
Chapter V and The Singles (2005–2007)
Staind's fifth album, titled Chapter V, was released on August 9, 2005, and became their third consecutive album to top the Billboard 200. The album opened to sales of 185,000 and has since been certified platinum in the U.S. The first single, "Right Here", was the biggest success from the album, garnering much mainstream radio play and peaking at number 1 on the mainstream rock chart. "Falling" was released as the second single, followed by "Everything Changes" and "King of All Excuses". Staind went on the road when the album came out, doing live shows and promoting it for a full year, including participating in the Fall Brawl tour with P.O.D., Taproot, and Flyleaf; they also had a solo tour across Europe and a mini-promotional tour in Australia for the first time. Other live shows included a cover of Pantera's "This Love", a tribute to Dimebag Darrell. Staind appeared on The Howard Stern Show on August 10, 2005 to promote Chapter V. They performed acoustic renditions of the single "Right Here" and Beetlejuice's song "This is Beetle". In early November 2005, Staind released the limited edition 2-CD/DVD set of Chapter V. On September 6, 2006, they performed an acoustic show in the Hiro Ballroom, New York City, that was recorded for their singles collection. The band played sixteen songs, including three covers: Tool's "Sober", Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb", and Alice in Chains's "Nutshell".
The collection The Singles: 1996–2006 was released on November 14, 2006. It included all the band's singles, the three covers performed at the New York show, and a remastered version of "Come Again" from Staind's first independent release Tormented.
The Illusion of Progress (2008–2009)
On August 19, 2008, Staind released their sixth album, The Illusion of Progress. Prior to the album's release, the track "This Is It" was available for download on the iTunes Store, as well as for Rock Band. The album debuted at No. 3 on the US Billboard 200, No. 1 on the Top Modern Rock/Alternative Albums Chart, No. 1 on the Top Digital Albums Chart, and also No. 1 on the Top Internet Albums Chart, with first-week sales of 91,800 units. The first single on the album, "Believe", topped Billboard's Top 10 Modern Rock Tracks on September 5, 2008. The band also supported Nickelback on their 2008 European tour. The second single was "All I Want", and came out on November 24. The single also became Staind's 13th top 20 hit on the rock charts. In Europe, the second single was "The Way I Am", released on January 26, 2009. The final single released from the album, "This Is It", was sent to radio stations across the country on May 4, 2009. The track was also included on the successful Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen – The Album released in late June 2009. The same year, Staind embarked on a fall tour with the newly reunited Creed.
Staind and departure of Jon Wysocki (2010–2012)
In March 2010, Aaron Lewis stated the band would start working on their seventh studio album by the end of the year. Lewis had finished recording his country music solo EP and had started a nonprofit organization to reopen his daughter's elementary school in Worthington, Massachusetts. Guitarist Mike Mushok stated in a Q&A session with fans that the band was looking to make a heavy record, but still "explore some of the things we did on the last record and take them somewhere new for us". In a webisode posted on the band's website, Lewis stated that eight songs were written and that "every one of them is as heavy or heavier than the heaviest song on the last record".
In December 2010, Staind posted three webisodes from the studio, which featured the band members discussing the writing and recording process of their new album. They announced that as of April 20, they had completed the recording of their seventh and would release it later that year.
On May 20, 2011, Staind announced that original drummer Jon Wysocki had left the band. Drummer Will Hunt filled in for a few dates, while Wysocki's drum tech Sal Giancarelli filled in for the rest of the tour. Three days later, it was reported that Staind's new album would be a self-titled release. It was released on September 13, 2011. The first single, "Not Again", was released to active radio stations on July 18. The song "The Bottom" appeared on the Transformers: Dark of the Moon soundtrack. On June 30, Staind released a song called "Eyes Wide Open" from their new record. "Eyes Wide Open" would later be released on November 29 as the album's second single.
In November 2011, the band announced through their YouTube page that Sal Giancarelli was now an official member. The band continued to perform into 2012, embarking on an April and May tour with Godsmack and Halestorm, and they played the Uproar Festival in August and September with Shinedown and a number of other artists.
It was announced in July 2012 that the band was to be taking a hiatus. In an interview with Billboard, Aaron Lewis stated that "We're not breaking up. We're not gonna stop making music. We're just going to take a little hiatus that really hasn't ever been taken in our career. We put out seven records in 14 years. We've been pretty busy." Lewis also had plans to release his first solo album The Road. During this time, Mike Mushok auditioned, and was selected, to play guitar for former Metallica bassist Jason Newsted's new band Newsted. He featured on their debut album Heavy Metal Music.
Hiatus and limited activity (2013–present)
Staind played their first show in two years at the Welcome To Rockville Festival on April 27, 2014. They also played the Carolina Rebellion and Rock on the Range festivals in May 2014.
In late 2014, the band went on a hiatus. Aaron Lewis continued to play solo shows and work on his next solo album. He also confirmed that the hiatus would last "for a while". Mike Mushok teamed up with former Three Days Grace singer Adam Gontier, former Finger Eleven drummer Rich Beddoe, and Eye Empire bassist Corey Lowery to form Saint Asonia.
On August 4, 2017, the band performed for the first time since November 2014 for an acoustic performance at Aaron Lewis' 6th annual charity golf tournament and concert when bassist Johnny April and drummer Sal Giancarelli joined Aaron Lewis and Mike Mushok to perform "Outside", "Something to Remind You", and "It's Been Awhile". Three days later, Lewis announced that Staind would never tour extensively again, with Lewis explaining:
In April 2019, the band announced they would reform in September 2019 for some live performances. The band was scheduled to play at Epicenter Festival on May 3, 2020 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, but the COVID-19 pandemic led to the festival being cancelled.
Musical style, influences, and lyrical themes
The topics of Staind's lyrics cover issues of depression, relationships, death, addiction, finding one's self, betrayal, and Lewis' thoughts about becoming a father in the song "Zoe Jane" from 14 Shades of Grey, as well as reflecting on his upbringing in the song "The Corner" from The Illusion of Progress. Also from 14 Shades of Grey, the track titled "Layne" was written about Alice in Chains frontman Layne Staley in response to his death in 2002. The song is also about Staley's legacy and the effect his music had on the members of Staind, especially Aaron Lewis. Staind has been categorized as nu metal, alternative metal, heavy metal, hard rock, and post-grunge.
In 2001, Rolling Stone outlined the band's relationship to the nu metal label:
{{quote|Staind got their first break in 1998 when [Fred] Durst signed the band to his Flip Records. That association has linked the group with "new metal," though Break the Cycles sound is neither particularly new nor metal. The band doesn't rap, and though Mushok has adopted new-metal's minor-key guitar riffs, Lewis' dramatic voice and the anthemic quality of such songs as "Open Your Eyes" and "Fade" are more akin to Alice in Chains than to Korn. Aggressive yet reflective, Break the Cycle doesn't require a poisonous abundance of testosterone to be appreciated and is better suited to solitary listening than to the mosh pit.}}
Staind's influences include Pantera, The Doors, Suicidal Tendencies, Kiss, Van Halen, Slayer, Led Zeppelin, Sepultura, Whitesnake, the Beatles, Alice in Chains, Faith No More, Deftones, Black Sabbath, Pearl Jam, Tool, Rage Against the Machine, Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots, Helmet, James Taylor, Korn, and Crosby, Stills & Nash.
Band membersCurrent line-up Aaron Lewis – lead vocals, rhythm guitar (1995–2012, 2014, 2017, 2019–present)
Mike Mushok – lead guitar (1995–2012, 2014, 2017, 2019–present)
Johnny April – bass, backing vocals (1995–2012, 2014, 2017, 2019–present)
Sal Giancarelli – drums (2011–2012, 2014, 2017, 2019–present)Former members Jon Wysocki – drums (1995–2011)
Timeline
Discography Studio albums'''Tormented (1996)Dysfunction (1999)Break the Cycle (2001)14 Shades of Grey (2003)Chapter V (2005)The Illusion of Progress (2008)Staind'' (2011)
References
External links
1995 establishments in Massachusetts
Atlantic Records artists
American alternative metal musical groups
American nu metal musical groups
American post-grunge musical groups
Rock music groups from Massachusetts
Alternative rock groups from Massachusetts
Heavy metal musical groups from Massachusetts
Flip Records (1994) artists
Musical groups established in 1995
Musical groups disestablished in 2017
Musical groups disestablished in 2014
Musical groups disestablished in 2012
Musical groups reestablished in 2014
Musical groups reestablished in 2019
Musical groups reestablished in 2017
Musical groups from Springfield, Massachusetts
Musical quartets | false | [
"The 2021 SMP Russian Circuit Racing Series is the eighth season of the Russian Circuit Racing Series, organized by SMP Racing. It is the seventh season with TCR class cars. In 2021, the competition will be held in seven classes: Touring, Touring Light, Super Production, S1600, S1600 Junior, GT4 and CN.\n\nTeams and drivers\nYokohama is the official tyre supplier.\n\nTouring / TCR Russian Touring Car Championship\n\nSuper Production\nAll teams and drivers are Russian-registered.\n\nTouring Light\nAll teams and drivers are Russian-registered.\n\nS1600\nAll teams and drivers are Russian-registered except Thomas Jonsson.\n\nS1600 Junior\nAll teams and drivers are Russian-registered.\n\nGT4\nAll teams and drivers are Russian-registered.\n\nSports prototype CN\nAll teams and drivers are Russian-registered.\n\nCalendar and results\nThe 2021 schedule was announced on 13 November 2020, with all events scheduled to be held in Russia.\n\nChampionship standings\n\nScoring systems\n\nTouring / TCR Russian Touring Car Championship\n\n† – Drivers did not finish the race, but were classified as they completed over 75% of the race distance.\n\nTouring / TCR Russian Touring Car Championship Team's Standings\n\n{|\n| valign=\"top\" |\n\nSuper Production\n\n† – Drivers did not finish the race, but were classified as they completed over 75% of the race distance.\n\nSuper Production Team's Standings\n\n{|\n| valign=\"top\" |\n\nTouring Light\n\n† – Drivers did not finish the race, but were classified as they completed over 75% of the race distance.\n\nTouring Light Team's Standings\n\n{|\n| valign=\"top\" |\n\nS1600\n\n† – Drivers did not finish the race, but were classified as they completed over 75% of the race distance.\n\nS1600 Team's Standings\n\n{|\n| valign=\"top\" |\n\nS1600 Junior\n\n† – Drivers did not finish the race, but were classified as they completed over 75% of the race distance.\n\nS1600 Junior Team's Standings\n\n{|\n| valign=\"top\" |\n\nSMP GT4 Russia\n\n† – Drivers did not finish the race, but were classified as they completed over 75% of the race distance.\n\nSMP GT4 Russia Team's Standings",
"The 2020 SMP Russian Circuit Racing Series is the seventh season of the Russian Circuit Racing Series, organized by SMP Racing. It is the sixth season with TCR class cars. In 2020, the GT4 and CN classes were added to the main Touring, Touring Light, Super Production and S1600 classes.\n\nKiril Ladygin won the Russian Touring Car Championship, driving a Lada Vesta Sport TCR. Lada Sport Rosneft clinched the teams' title. Vladislav Nezvankin won the Super Production class, driving a Lada Vesta. Vladimir Sheshenin won the Touring Light class, driving a Lada Granta. Petr Plotnikov won the S1600 class, while Egor Fokin won the S1600 Junior; they were both driving a Volkswagen Polo Sedan. Denis Remenyako with Capital Racing Team won the GT4 class, driving a Mercedes-AMG GT4.\n\nTeams and drivers\nYokohama is the official tyre supplier.\n\nTouring / TCR Russian Touring Car Championship\nAll teams are Russian-registered.\n\nSuper Production\nAll teams and drivers are Russian-registered.\n\nTouring-Light\nAll teams and drivers are Russian-registered.\n\nS1600\nAll teams and drivers are Russian-registered, with the exception of the Belarusian racer Alexei Savin..\n\nS1600 Junior\nAll teams and drivers are Russian-registered.\n\nGT4\nAll teams and drivers are Russian-registered.\n\nSports prototype CN\nAll teams and drivers are Russian-registered.\n\nCalendar and results\nThe 2020 schedule was announced on 28 November 2019, with all events scheduled to be held in Russia. After the restrictions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, on June 22, an updated calendar of SMP RCRS 2020 is presented.\n\nChampionship standings\n\nScoring systems\n\nTouring / TCR Russian Touring Car Championship\n\n† – Drivers did not finish the race, but were classified as they completed over 75% of the race distance.\n\nTouring / TCR Russian Touring Car Championship Team's Standings\n\nSuper Production\n\n† – Drivers did not finish the race, but were classified as they completed over 75% of the race distance.\n\nSuper Production Team's Standings\n\nTouring Light\n\n† – Drivers did not finish the race, but were classified as they completed over 75% of the race distance.\n\nTouring Light Team's Standings\n\nS1600\n\n† – Drivers did not finish the race, but were classified as they completed over 75% of the race distance.\n\nS1600 Team's Standings\n\nS1600 Junior\n\n† – Drivers did not finish the race, but were classified as they completed over 75% of the race distance.\n\nS1600 Junior Team's Standings\n\nGT4\n\n† – Drivers did not finish the race, but were classified as they completed over 75% of the race distance.\n\nGT4 Team's Standings\n\nFootnotes\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\nRussian Circuit Racing Series\nRussian Circuit Racing Series\nRussian Circuit Racing Series"
] |
[
"Staind",
"Staind and departure of Jon Wysocki (2010-2012)",
"What was happening in 2010?",
"In March 2010, Aaron Lewis stated the band would start working on their seventh studio album by the end of the year.",
"How did the album do on the charts?",
"I don't know.",
"Why did Wysocki leave?",
"I don't know.",
"Who replaced him?",
"Drummer Will Hunt filled in for a few dates, while Wysocki's drum tech Sal Giancarelli filled in for the rest of the tour.",
"Did they release a new album with the new member?",
"The first single \"Not Again\" was released to active radio stations on July 18.",
"Did the album contain any hit singles?",
"The first single \"Not Again\" was released to active radio stations on July 18.",
"did they continue touring?",
"The band continued to tour heavily into 2012;"
] | C_bb81d322c9cb4d249702e1b5c76671f3_1 | Did they tour with anyone | 8 | Did Staind the band tour with anyone into 2012 | Staind | In March 2010, Aaron Lewis stated the band would start working on their seventh studio album by the end of the year. Lewis had finished recording his country-tinged solo EP and had started a nonprofit organization to reopen his daughter's elementary school in Worthington, Massachusetts. Guitarist Mike Mushok stated in a question and answer session with fans that the band was looking to make a heavy record, but still "explore some of the things we did on the last record and take them somewhere new for us". In a webisode posted on the band's website, Lewis stated that eight songs were written and that "every one of them is as heavy or heavier than the heaviest song on the last record". In December 2010, Staind posted three webisodes from the studio, which featured the band members discussing the writing and recording process of their new album. They announced that as of April 20, the band had completed the recording of their untitled seventh album and would release it later that year. On May 20, 2011, Staind announced that original drummer Jon Wysocki had left the band. Drummer Will Hunt filled in for a few dates, while Wysocki's drum tech Sal Giancarelli filled in for the rest of the tour. Three days later, it was reported that Staind's new album was originally called Seven, but was renamed Staind. It was released on September 13, 2011. The first single "Not Again" was released to active radio stations on July 18. The song "The Bottom" appeared on the Transformers: Dark of the Moon soundtrack. On June 30, Staind released a song called "Eyes Wide Open" from their new record. "Eyes Wide Open" would later be released on November 29 as the album's second single. On July 12, Staind released the first single "Not Again" through YouTube and was officially released/available on July 26. In November 2011, the band announced through their YouTube page that Sal Giancarelli was now an official member. The band continued to tour heavily into 2012; embarking on an April and May touring with Godsmack and Halestorm, and the Uproar Festival in August and Setpember with Shinedown and a number of other artists. CANNOTANSWER | touring with Godsmack and Halestorm, and the Uproar Festival in August and Setpember with Shinedown and a number of other artists. | Staind ( ) is an American rock band formed in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1995. The original lineup consisted of lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist Aaron Lewis, lead guitarist Mike Mushok, bassist and backing vocalist Johnny April, and drummer Jon Wysocki. The lineup has been stable outside of the 2011 departure of Wysocki, who was replaced by Sal Giancarelli. Staind has recorded seven studio albums: Tormented (1996), Dysfunction (1999), Break the Cycle (2001), 14 Shades of Grey (2003), Chapter V (2005), The Illusion of Progress (2008), and Staind (2011). The band's activity became more sporadic after their self-titled release, with Lewis pursuing a solo country music career and Mushok subsequently joining the band Saint Asonia, but they have continued to tour on and off in the following years. In 2016, Lewis reiterated that the band had not broken up, and would possibly create another album, but that his then-current focus was on his solo career. The band reunited more permanently in 2019 for several shows, continuing with live appearances in 2020. Many of their singles have reached high positions on US rock and all-format charts as well, including "It's Been Awhile", "Fade", "Price to Play", "So Far Away", and "Right Here".
History
Early years and Tormented (1995–1998)
In 1993, vocalist Aaron Lewis and guitarist Mike Mushok met at a Christmas party in Springfield, Massachusetts. Mushok introduced drummer Jon Wysocki while Lewis brought in bassist Johnny April to form the band in 1995. Their first public performance was in February 1995, playing a heavy, dark, and introspective style of metal. Extensive touring in the Northeast helped Staind acquire a regional following over the next few years.
The band started covering Korn, Rage Against the Machine, Pearl Jam, Tool, and Alice in Chains, among others, and played at local clubs (most commonly playing at Infinity, a live music venue located in Springfield) for a year and a half. Staind self-released their debut album, Tormented, in November 1996, citing Tool, Faith No More, and Pantera as their influences. In October 1997, Staind acquired a concert slot through Aaron's cousin Justin Cantor with Limp Bizkit. Just prior to the performance, Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst was appalled by Staind's grotesque album cover and unsuccessfully attempted to remove them from the bill. Durst thought that Staind were Theistic Satanists. After being persuaded to let them perform, however, Durst was so impressed that he signed them to Flip Records by February 1998.
Dysfunction (1999–2000)
On April 13, 1999, Staind released their major label debut Dysfunction on Flip Records. The album, which was co-produced by Fred Durst and Terry Date (who also produced acts like Soundgarden, Deftones, and Pantera), received comparisons to alternative metal giants Tool and Korn. In particular, Aaron Lewis was lauded for his vocals, which were likened to those of Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder.
The album achieved slow success, reaching the No. 1 spot on Billboard's Heatseeker Charts almost six months after its debut. In the same week, the record jumped to No. 74 on Billboard's Top 200 Album Charts. The nine-track LP (with one hidden track, "Excess Baggage") produced three singles, "Just Go", "Mudshovel", and "Home". "Mudshovel" and "Home" both received radio play, cracking the Top 20 of Billboard's Modern Rock and Mainstream Rock charts. In promotion of Dysfunction, Staind went on several tours, including the Family Values Tour with acts like Limp Bizkit and The Crystal Method, as well as opening for Sevendust's headlining tour.
Break the Cycle (2001–2002)
Staind toured with Limp Bizkit for the Family Values Tour during the fall of 1999, where Aaron Lewis performed an early version of "Outside" with Fred Durst at the Mississippi Coast Coliseum. Staind released their third studio album, Break the Cycle, on May 22, 2001. Propelled by the success of the first single, "It's Been Awhile", the album debuted at No. 1 on Billboard's Top 200 Album charts, selling 716,000 copies in its first week. The record's first-week sales were the second highest of any album that year, behind Creed's Weathered.
Break the Cycle saw the band retaining the nu metal sound from their previous album. Despite this, the album saw the band going further into a post-grunge sound which is evident in the smash hit song "It's Been Awhile", and the song led critics to compare the band to several other post-grunge bands at the time. The record spawned the singles "It's Been Awhile" (which hit the Billboard Top 10), "Fade", "Outside", "For You", and the acoustic ballad "Epiphany". "It's Been Awhile" spent a total of 16 and 14 weeks on top of the modern and mainstream rock charts respectively, making it one of the highest joint numbers of all time. In 2001, Break the Cycle sold four million copies worldwide, making it one of the best selling albums that year. Break the Cycle would go on to sell seven million copies worldwide, making this Staind's bestselling album.
14 Shades of Grey (2003–2004)
In early 2003, Staind embarked on a worldwide tour to promote the release of the follow-up to Break the Cycle, 14 Shades of Grey, which sold two million copies and debuted at number 1 on the Billboard 200. The album saw a departure from their previous nu metal sound as it mostly contained a lighter and more melodic post-grunge sound. 14 Shades of Grey produced two mainstream hits, "Price to Play" and "So Far Away", which spent 14 weeks on top of the rock chart. In addition, two other singles were released: "How About You" and "Zoe Jane". The band's appearance at the Reading Festival during their 2003 tour had another impromptu acoustic set, this time due to equipment failure. The singles "So Far Away" and "Price to Play" came with two unreleased tracks, "Novocaine" and "Let It Out", which were released for the special edition of the group's subsequent album Chapter V, which came out in late 2005. In 2003, Staind unsuccessfully sued their logo designer Jon Stainbrook in New York Federal Court for attempting to re-use the logo he had sold to the band. They re-opened the case in mid-2005.
Chapter V and The Singles (2005–2007)
Staind's fifth album, titled Chapter V, was released on August 9, 2005, and became their third consecutive album to top the Billboard 200. The album opened to sales of 185,000 and has since been certified platinum in the U.S. The first single, "Right Here", was the biggest success from the album, garnering much mainstream radio play and peaking at number 1 on the mainstream rock chart. "Falling" was released as the second single, followed by "Everything Changes" and "King of All Excuses". Staind went on the road when the album came out, doing live shows and promoting it for a full year, including participating in the Fall Brawl tour with P.O.D., Taproot, and Flyleaf; they also had a solo tour across Europe and a mini-promotional tour in Australia for the first time. Other live shows included a cover of Pantera's "This Love", a tribute to Dimebag Darrell. Staind appeared on The Howard Stern Show on August 10, 2005 to promote Chapter V. They performed acoustic renditions of the single "Right Here" and Beetlejuice's song "This is Beetle". In early November 2005, Staind released the limited edition 2-CD/DVD set of Chapter V. On September 6, 2006, they performed an acoustic show in the Hiro Ballroom, New York City, that was recorded for their singles collection. The band played sixteen songs, including three covers: Tool's "Sober", Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb", and Alice in Chains's "Nutshell".
The collection The Singles: 1996–2006 was released on November 14, 2006. It included all the band's singles, the three covers performed at the New York show, and a remastered version of "Come Again" from Staind's first independent release Tormented.
The Illusion of Progress (2008–2009)
On August 19, 2008, Staind released their sixth album, The Illusion of Progress. Prior to the album's release, the track "This Is It" was available for download on the iTunes Store, as well as for Rock Band. The album debuted at No. 3 on the US Billboard 200, No. 1 on the Top Modern Rock/Alternative Albums Chart, No. 1 on the Top Digital Albums Chart, and also No. 1 on the Top Internet Albums Chart, with first-week sales of 91,800 units. The first single on the album, "Believe", topped Billboard's Top 10 Modern Rock Tracks on September 5, 2008. The band also supported Nickelback on their 2008 European tour. The second single was "All I Want", and came out on November 24. The single also became Staind's 13th top 20 hit on the rock charts. In Europe, the second single was "The Way I Am", released on January 26, 2009. The final single released from the album, "This Is It", was sent to radio stations across the country on May 4, 2009. The track was also included on the successful Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen – The Album released in late June 2009. The same year, Staind embarked on a fall tour with the newly reunited Creed.
Staind and departure of Jon Wysocki (2010–2012)
In March 2010, Aaron Lewis stated the band would start working on their seventh studio album by the end of the year. Lewis had finished recording his country music solo EP and had started a nonprofit organization to reopen his daughter's elementary school in Worthington, Massachusetts. Guitarist Mike Mushok stated in a Q&A session with fans that the band was looking to make a heavy record, but still "explore some of the things we did on the last record and take them somewhere new for us". In a webisode posted on the band's website, Lewis stated that eight songs were written and that "every one of them is as heavy or heavier than the heaviest song on the last record".
In December 2010, Staind posted three webisodes from the studio, which featured the band members discussing the writing and recording process of their new album. They announced that as of April 20, they had completed the recording of their seventh and would release it later that year.
On May 20, 2011, Staind announced that original drummer Jon Wysocki had left the band. Drummer Will Hunt filled in for a few dates, while Wysocki's drum tech Sal Giancarelli filled in for the rest of the tour. Three days later, it was reported that Staind's new album would be a self-titled release. It was released on September 13, 2011. The first single, "Not Again", was released to active radio stations on July 18. The song "The Bottom" appeared on the Transformers: Dark of the Moon soundtrack. On June 30, Staind released a song called "Eyes Wide Open" from their new record. "Eyes Wide Open" would later be released on November 29 as the album's second single.
In November 2011, the band announced through their YouTube page that Sal Giancarelli was now an official member. The band continued to perform into 2012, embarking on an April and May tour with Godsmack and Halestorm, and they played the Uproar Festival in August and September with Shinedown and a number of other artists.
It was announced in July 2012 that the band was to be taking a hiatus. In an interview with Billboard, Aaron Lewis stated that "We're not breaking up. We're not gonna stop making music. We're just going to take a little hiatus that really hasn't ever been taken in our career. We put out seven records in 14 years. We've been pretty busy." Lewis also had plans to release his first solo album The Road. During this time, Mike Mushok auditioned, and was selected, to play guitar for former Metallica bassist Jason Newsted's new band Newsted. He featured on their debut album Heavy Metal Music.
Hiatus and limited activity (2013–present)
Staind played their first show in two years at the Welcome To Rockville Festival on April 27, 2014. They also played the Carolina Rebellion and Rock on the Range festivals in May 2014.
In late 2014, the band went on a hiatus. Aaron Lewis continued to play solo shows and work on his next solo album. He also confirmed that the hiatus would last "for a while". Mike Mushok teamed up with former Three Days Grace singer Adam Gontier, former Finger Eleven drummer Rich Beddoe, and Eye Empire bassist Corey Lowery to form Saint Asonia.
On August 4, 2017, the band performed for the first time since November 2014 for an acoustic performance at Aaron Lewis' 6th annual charity golf tournament and concert when bassist Johnny April and drummer Sal Giancarelli joined Aaron Lewis and Mike Mushok to perform "Outside", "Something to Remind You", and "It's Been Awhile". Three days later, Lewis announced that Staind would never tour extensively again, with Lewis explaining:
In April 2019, the band announced they would reform in September 2019 for some live performances. The band was scheduled to play at Epicenter Festival on May 3, 2020 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, but the COVID-19 pandemic led to the festival being cancelled.
Musical style, influences, and lyrical themes
The topics of Staind's lyrics cover issues of depression, relationships, death, addiction, finding one's self, betrayal, and Lewis' thoughts about becoming a father in the song "Zoe Jane" from 14 Shades of Grey, as well as reflecting on his upbringing in the song "The Corner" from The Illusion of Progress. Also from 14 Shades of Grey, the track titled "Layne" was written about Alice in Chains frontman Layne Staley in response to his death in 2002. The song is also about Staley's legacy and the effect his music had on the members of Staind, especially Aaron Lewis. Staind has been categorized as nu metal, alternative metal, heavy metal, hard rock, and post-grunge.
In 2001, Rolling Stone outlined the band's relationship to the nu metal label:
{{quote|Staind got their first break in 1998 when [Fred] Durst signed the band to his Flip Records. That association has linked the group with "new metal," though Break the Cycles sound is neither particularly new nor metal. The band doesn't rap, and though Mushok has adopted new-metal's minor-key guitar riffs, Lewis' dramatic voice and the anthemic quality of such songs as "Open Your Eyes" and "Fade" are more akin to Alice in Chains than to Korn. Aggressive yet reflective, Break the Cycle doesn't require a poisonous abundance of testosterone to be appreciated and is better suited to solitary listening than to the mosh pit.}}
Staind's influences include Pantera, The Doors, Suicidal Tendencies, Kiss, Van Halen, Slayer, Led Zeppelin, Sepultura, Whitesnake, the Beatles, Alice in Chains, Faith No More, Deftones, Black Sabbath, Pearl Jam, Tool, Rage Against the Machine, Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots, Helmet, James Taylor, Korn, and Crosby, Stills & Nash.
Band membersCurrent line-up Aaron Lewis – lead vocals, rhythm guitar (1995–2012, 2014, 2017, 2019–present)
Mike Mushok – lead guitar (1995–2012, 2014, 2017, 2019–present)
Johnny April – bass, backing vocals (1995–2012, 2014, 2017, 2019–present)
Sal Giancarelli – drums (2011–2012, 2014, 2017, 2019–present)Former members Jon Wysocki – drums (1995–2011)
Timeline
Discography Studio albums'''Tormented (1996)Dysfunction (1999)Break the Cycle (2001)14 Shades of Grey (2003)Chapter V (2005)The Illusion of Progress (2008)Staind'' (2011)
References
External links
1995 establishments in Massachusetts
Atlantic Records artists
American alternative metal musical groups
American nu metal musical groups
American post-grunge musical groups
Rock music groups from Massachusetts
Alternative rock groups from Massachusetts
Heavy metal musical groups from Massachusetts
Flip Records (1994) artists
Musical groups established in 1995
Musical groups disestablished in 2017
Musical groups disestablished in 2014
Musical groups disestablished in 2012
Musical groups reestablished in 2014
Musical groups reestablished in 2019
Musical groups reestablished in 2017
Musical groups from Springfield, Massachusetts
Musical quartets | false | [
"Jeanne Cinnante Galway, Lady Galway (born October 8, 1955) is an American-born concert flutist and teacher who lives in Switzerland. She is married to flutist James Galway and they often tour as a pair. They both live in Switzerland.\n\nBiography\nJeanne Cinnante was born and raised in and around Long Island, New York. She started playing the flute when she was 10 and said she had to purchase her own flutes with babysitting money. She graduated in 1973 from John Glenn High School in Elwood, then attended Mannes College of Music in New York City.\n\nShe met Sir James Galway in 1982 and they dated for two years before marrying in 1984. She did not perform between 1984 and 1992 due to the stress of traveling and supporting her husband on tour, managing his business affairs, and taking care of his young children. They now travel and perform together. In addition to performing with her husband, she sometimes performs as a solo artist or as part of the trio Zephyr (with pianist Jonathan Feldman and cellist Darrett Adkins). She teaches and actively supports music education. In 2008, Irish America magazine awarded James and Jeanne Galway the \"Spirit of Ireland\" award in recognition of their roles as musical ambassadors.\n\nShe currently lives with her husband in Lucerne, Switzerland. Galway currently performs on an 18 carat, James Galway edition gold Nagahara flute. Her husband no longer performs with anyone else.\n\nDiscography\n\"My Magic Flute\" with Sir James Galway and Sinfonia Varsovia\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Official website\n\nAmerican classical flautists\n1955 births\nLiving people\nAmerican expatriates in Switzerland\nClassical musicians from New York (state)",
"The 2008 Stone Temple Pilots Reunion Tour was a 75-date reunion tour for the rock band Stone Temple Pilots, who originally disbanded in 2002. The tour, which kicked off on May 17, 2008 in Columbus, Ohio at the Rock on the Range festival, ran throughout the summer and ended on October 31 at the Verizon Wireless Center in Pelham, Alabama. The Stone Temple Pilots reunion tour was a success, receiving positive reviews from critics and fans alike as well as high ticket sales. At one point, the Stone Temple Pilots tour was ranked at #1 on Pollstar's \"Top 50\" list. According to Rolling Stone, the band sold an average of $230,000 of tickets a night.\n\nTour history\nAfter Stone Temple Pilots broke up in 2002, the members formed different side projects; lead singer Scott Weiland formed the supergroup Velvet Revolver with former members of Guns N' Roses, and brothers Robert (bass) and Dean DeLeo (guitar) were in the short-lived band Army of Anyone. Drummer Eric Kretz kept a low-profile, operating out of his own studio, Bombshelter Studios, in Los Angeles. Army of Anyone announced its breakup in 2007 and Weiland left Velvet Revolver on April 1, 2008.\n\nAccording to Dean DeLeo, steps toward a reunion started with a simple phone call from Weiland's then-wife, Mary Forsberg. She would later invite the DeLeo brothers to play at a private beach party, which led to the reconciliation of Weiland and the DeLeo brothers. In 2007 Dean DeLeo discussed with Weiland an offer from a concert promoter to headline several summer festivals. Weiland accepted and said he had cleared the brief tour with his Velvet Revolver bandmates. Weiland said \"everything was cool. Then it wasn't\", and stated that the rest of the band stopped talking to him. As a result, Weiland announced in the middle of a Velvet Revolver show on March 21, 2008 in Glasgow that it would be his last performance with the group.\n\nStone Temple Pilots first show since 2002 was at a private show on April 7 at Harry Houdini's estate outside of Los Angeles. The band performed for a second time on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on May 1, and officially kicked off the tour on May 17 in Columbus.\n\nDespite several positive reviews regarding the tour from fans and critics, there were some negative reviews regarding Scott Weiland's performance at the PNC Bank Arts Center on May 31 in New Jersey. The band was over an hour late onstage, and an intoxicated Weiland mumbled some lyrics and almost lost his balance. He even apologized to his band mates for \"messing up\".\n\nDue to the death of his father, Eric Kretz did not play with the band for a few shows in October. Ray Luzier, current drummer for Korn and former drummer for Army of Anyone, filled in on drums. Kretz returned for the last few dates of the tour.\n\nTampa Show Incident\nSTP had to postpone their performance for the Ford Amphitheatre show (August 22, 2008). The second opening act, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, played an extended set to push time for STP, ending at 9:30 pm. It wasn't until 10:30 that it was announced the show had been canceled due to the band's inability to make it to the venue as a result of Tropical Storm Fay. Some fans accused the band of canceling due to Weiland not showing up, claiming that they had seen the other members of the band at the venue before it was announced that they were unable to travel. Also, the storm cited as the reason for the cancellation was already well to the north of the route the band would have taken to make it to Tampa from the previous show in Ft. Lauderdale.\n\nSetlist\nNot every single show had the same setlist, but all of STP's \"hits\" were played nightly, with the song \"Big Empty\" opening every show, except during the Virgin Mobile Festival in Baltimore where the band opened with \"Vasoline\". The hits \"Dead and Bloated\" and \"Trippin' on a Hole in a Paper Heart\" were traditionally the tour's two encore songs, with the band's other hits, deep cuts, and covers played throughout each night's setlist. STP also covered artists such as Queen, The Beatles and Bob Marley on the tour. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Pixies singer Black Francis, Meat Puppets, The Secret Machines, Tommy Joe Wilson, (artist signed to Weiland's label Softdrive Records) and 10 Years were the opening bands on the tour. The band came onstage to the song \"Manhattan Rumble\" by Electric Light Orchestra at the beginning of each performance on the tour.\n\nTour dates\n\nReferences\n\nStone Temple Pilots concert tours\n2008 concert tours\nReunion concert tours"
] |
[
"Staind",
"Staind and departure of Jon Wysocki (2010-2012)",
"What was happening in 2010?",
"In March 2010, Aaron Lewis stated the band would start working on their seventh studio album by the end of the year.",
"How did the album do on the charts?",
"I don't know.",
"Why did Wysocki leave?",
"I don't know.",
"Who replaced him?",
"Drummer Will Hunt filled in for a few dates, while Wysocki's drum tech Sal Giancarelli filled in for the rest of the tour.",
"Did they release a new album with the new member?",
"The first single \"Not Again\" was released to active radio stations on July 18.",
"Did the album contain any hit singles?",
"The first single \"Not Again\" was released to active radio stations on July 18.",
"did they continue touring?",
"The band continued to tour heavily into 2012;",
"Did they tour with anyone",
"touring with Godsmack and Halestorm, and the Uproar Festival in August and Setpember with Shinedown and a number of other artists."
] | C_bb81d322c9cb4d249702e1b5c76671f3_1 | What did you find interesting in the article? | 9 | What did you find interesting in the article besides departure of Jon Wysocki | Staind | In March 2010, Aaron Lewis stated the band would start working on their seventh studio album by the end of the year. Lewis had finished recording his country-tinged solo EP and had started a nonprofit organization to reopen his daughter's elementary school in Worthington, Massachusetts. Guitarist Mike Mushok stated in a question and answer session with fans that the band was looking to make a heavy record, but still "explore some of the things we did on the last record and take them somewhere new for us". In a webisode posted on the band's website, Lewis stated that eight songs were written and that "every one of them is as heavy or heavier than the heaviest song on the last record". In December 2010, Staind posted three webisodes from the studio, which featured the band members discussing the writing and recording process of their new album. They announced that as of April 20, the band had completed the recording of their untitled seventh album and would release it later that year. On May 20, 2011, Staind announced that original drummer Jon Wysocki had left the band. Drummer Will Hunt filled in for a few dates, while Wysocki's drum tech Sal Giancarelli filled in for the rest of the tour. Three days later, it was reported that Staind's new album was originally called Seven, but was renamed Staind. It was released on September 13, 2011. The first single "Not Again" was released to active radio stations on July 18. The song "The Bottom" appeared on the Transformers: Dark of the Moon soundtrack. On June 30, Staind released a song called "Eyes Wide Open" from their new record. "Eyes Wide Open" would later be released on November 29 as the album's second single. On July 12, Staind released the first single "Not Again" through YouTube and was officially released/available on July 26. In November 2011, the band announced through their YouTube page that Sal Giancarelli was now an official member. The band continued to tour heavily into 2012; embarking on an April and May touring with Godsmack and Halestorm, and the Uproar Festival in August and Setpember with Shinedown and a number of other artists. CANNOTANSWER | Staind posted three webisodes from the studio, which featured the band members discussing the writing and recording process of their new album. | Staind ( ) is an American rock band formed in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1995. The original lineup consisted of lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist Aaron Lewis, lead guitarist Mike Mushok, bassist and backing vocalist Johnny April, and drummer Jon Wysocki. The lineup has been stable outside of the 2011 departure of Wysocki, who was replaced by Sal Giancarelli. Staind has recorded seven studio albums: Tormented (1996), Dysfunction (1999), Break the Cycle (2001), 14 Shades of Grey (2003), Chapter V (2005), The Illusion of Progress (2008), and Staind (2011). The band's activity became more sporadic after their self-titled release, with Lewis pursuing a solo country music career and Mushok subsequently joining the band Saint Asonia, but they have continued to tour on and off in the following years. In 2016, Lewis reiterated that the band had not broken up, and would possibly create another album, but that his then-current focus was on his solo career. The band reunited more permanently in 2019 for several shows, continuing with live appearances in 2020. Many of their singles have reached high positions on US rock and all-format charts as well, including "It's Been Awhile", "Fade", "Price to Play", "So Far Away", and "Right Here".
History
Early years and Tormented (1995–1998)
In 1993, vocalist Aaron Lewis and guitarist Mike Mushok met at a Christmas party in Springfield, Massachusetts. Mushok introduced drummer Jon Wysocki while Lewis brought in bassist Johnny April to form the band in 1995. Their first public performance was in February 1995, playing a heavy, dark, and introspective style of metal. Extensive touring in the Northeast helped Staind acquire a regional following over the next few years.
The band started covering Korn, Rage Against the Machine, Pearl Jam, Tool, and Alice in Chains, among others, and played at local clubs (most commonly playing at Infinity, a live music venue located in Springfield) for a year and a half. Staind self-released their debut album, Tormented, in November 1996, citing Tool, Faith No More, and Pantera as their influences. In October 1997, Staind acquired a concert slot through Aaron's cousin Justin Cantor with Limp Bizkit. Just prior to the performance, Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst was appalled by Staind's grotesque album cover and unsuccessfully attempted to remove them from the bill. Durst thought that Staind were Theistic Satanists. After being persuaded to let them perform, however, Durst was so impressed that he signed them to Flip Records by February 1998.
Dysfunction (1999–2000)
On April 13, 1999, Staind released their major label debut Dysfunction on Flip Records. The album, which was co-produced by Fred Durst and Terry Date (who also produced acts like Soundgarden, Deftones, and Pantera), received comparisons to alternative metal giants Tool and Korn. In particular, Aaron Lewis was lauded for his vocals, which were likened to those of Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder.
The album achieved slow success, reaching the No. 1 spot on Billboard's Heatseeker Charts almost six months after its debut. In the same week, the record jumped to No. 74 on Billboard's Top 200 Album Charts. The nine-track LP (with one hidden track, "Excess Baggage") produced three singles, "Just Go", "Mudshovel", and "Home". "Mudshovel" and "Home" both received radio play, cracking the Top 20 of Billboard's Modern Rock and Mainstream Rock charts. In promotion of Dysfunction, Staind went on several tours, including the Family Values Tour with acts like Limp Bizkit and The Crystal Method, as well as opening for Sevendust's headlining tour.
Break the Cycle (2001–2002)
Staind toured with Limp Bizkit for the Family Values Tour during the fall of 1999, where Aaron Lewis performed an early version of "Outside" with Fred Durst at the Mississippi Coast Coliseum. Staind released their third studio album, Break the Cycle, on May 22, 2001. Propelled by the success of the first single, "It's Been Awhile", the album debuted at No. 1 on Billboard's Top 200 Album charts, selling 716,000 copies in its first week. The record's first-week sales were the second highest of any album that year, behind Creed's Weathered.
Break the Cycle saw the band retaining the nu metal sound from their previous album. Despite this, the album saw the band going further into a post-grunge sound which is evident in the smash hit song "It's Been Awhile", and the song led critics to compare the band to several other post-grunge bands at the time. The record spawned the singles "It's Been Awhile" (which hit the Billboard Top 10), "Fade", "Outside", "For You", and the acoustic ballad "Epiphany". "It's Been Awhile" spent a total of 16 and 14 weeks on top of the modern and mainstream rock charts respectively, making it one of the highest joint numbers of all time. In 2001, Break the Cycle sold four million copies worldwide, making it one of the best selling albums that year. Break the Cycle would go on to sell seven million copies worldwide, making this Staind's bestselling album.
14 Shades of Grey (2003–2004)
In early 2003, Staind embarked on a worldwide tour to promote the release of the follow-up to Break the Cycle, 14 Shades of Grey, which sold two million copies and debuted at number 1 on the Billboard 200. The album saw a departure from their previous nu metal sound as it mostly contained a lighter and more melodic post-grunge sound. 14 Shades of Grey produced two mainstream hits, "Price to Play" and "So Far Away", which spent 14 weeks on top of the rock chart. In addition, two other singles were released: "How About You" and "Zoe Jane". The band's appearance at the Reading Festival during their 2003 tour had another impromptu acoustic set, this time due to equipment failure. The singles "So Far Away" and "Price to Play" came with two unreleased tracks, "Novocaine" and "Let It Out", which were released for the special edition of the group's subsequent album Chapter V, which came out in late 2005. In 2003, Staind unsuccessfully sued their logo designer Jon Stainbrook in New York Federal Court for attempting to re-use the logo he had sold to the band. They re-opened the case in mid-2005.
Chapter V and The Singles (2005–2007)
Staind's fifth album, titled Chapter V, was released on August 9, 2005, and became their third consecutive album to top the Billboard 200. The album opened to sales of 185,000 and has since been certified platinum in the U.S. The first single, "Right Here", was the biggest success from the album, garnering much mainstream radio play and peaking at number 1 on the mainstream rock chart. "Falling" was released as the second single, followed by "Everything Changes" and "King of All Excuses". Staind went on the road when the album came out, doing live shows and promoting it for a full year, including participating in the Fall Brawl tour with P.O.D., Taproot, and Flyleaf; they also had a solo tour across Europe and a mini-promotional tour in Australia for the first time. Other live shows included a cover of Pantera's "This Love", a tribute to Dimebag Darrell. Staind appeared on The Howard Stern Show on August 10, 2005 to promote Chapter V. They performed acoustic renditions of the single "Right Here" and Beetlejuice's song "This is Beetle". In early November 2005, Staind released the limited edition 2-CD/DVD set of Chapter V. On September 6, 2006, they performed an acoustic show in the Hiro Ballroom, New York City, that was recorded for their singles collection. The band played sixteen songs, including three covers: Tool's "Sober", Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb", and Alice in Chains's "Nutshell".
The collection The Singles: 1996–2006 was released on November 14, 2006. It included all the band's singles, the three covers performed at the New York show, and a remastered version of "Come Again" from Staind's first independent release Tormented.
The Illusion of Progress (2008–2009)
On August 19, 2008, Staind released their sixth album, The Illusion of Progress. Prior to the album's release, the track "This Is It" was available for download on the iTunes Store, as well as for Rock Band. The album debuted at No. 3 on the US Billboard 200, No. 1 on the Top Modern Rock/Alternative Albums Chart, No. 1 on the Top Digital Albums Chart, and also No. 1 on the Top Internet Albums Chart, with first-week sales of 91,800 units. The first single on the album, "Believe", topped Billboard's Top 10 Modern Rock Tracks on September 5, 2008. The band also supported Nickelback on their 2008 European tour. The second single was "All I Want", and came out on November 24. The single also became Staind's 13th top 20 hit on the rock charts. In Europe, the second single was "The Way I Am", released on January 26, 2009. The final single released from the album, "This Is It", was sent to radio stations across the country on May 4, 2009. The track was also included on the successful Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen – The Album released in late June 2009. The same year, Staind embarked on a fall tour with the newly reunited Creed.
Staind and departure of Jon Wysocki (2010–2012)
In March 2010, Aaron Lewis stated the band would start working on their seventh studio album by the end of the year. Lewis had finished recording his country music solo EP and had started a nonprofit organization to reopen his daughter's elementary school in Worthington, Massachusetts. Guitarist Mike Mushok stated in a Q&A session with fans that the band was looking to make a heavy record, but still "explore some of the things we did on the last record and take them somewhere new for us". In a webisode posted on the band's website, Lewis stated that eight songs were written and that "every one of them is as heavy or heavier than the heaviest song on the last record".
In December 2010, Staind posted three webisodes from the studio, which featured the band members discussing the writing and recording process of their new album. They announced that as of April 20, they had completed the recording of their seventh and would release it later that year.
On May 20, 2011, Staind announced that original drummer Jon Wysocki had left the band. Drummer Will Hunt filled in for a few dates, while Wysocki's drum tech Sal Giancarelli filled in for the rest of the tour. Three days later, it was reported that Staind's new album would be a self-titled release. It was released on September 13, 2011. The first single, "Not Again", was released to active radio stations on July 18. The song "The Bottom" appeared on the Transformers: Dark of the Moon soundtrack. On June 30, Staind released a song called "Eyes Wide Open" from their new record. "Eyes Wide Open" would later be released on November 29 as the album's second single.
In November 2011, the band announced through their YouTube page that Sal Giancarelli was now an official member. The band continued to perform into 2012, embarking on an April and May tour with Godsmack and Halestorm, and they played the Uproar Festival in August and September with Shinedown and a number of other artists.
It was announced in July 2012 that the band was to be taking a hiatus. In an interview with Billboard, Aaron Lewis stated that "We're not breaking up. We're not gonna stop making music. We're just going to take a little hiatus that really hasn't ever been taken in our career. We put out seven records in 14 years. We've been pretty busy." Lewis also had plans to release his first solo album The Road. During this time, Mike Mushok auditioned, and was selected, to play guitar for former Metallica bassist Jason Newsted's new band Newsted. He featured on their debut album Heavy Metal Music.
Hiatus and limited activity (2013–present)
Staind played their first show in two years at the Welcome To Rockville Festival on April 27, 2014. They also played the Carolina Rebellion and Rock on the Range festivals in May 2014.
In late 2014, the band went on a hiatus. Aaron Lewis continued to play solo shows and work on his next solo album. He also confirmed that the hiatus would last "for a while". Mike Mushok teamed up with former Three Days Grace singer Adam Gontier, former Finger Eleven drummer Rich Beddoe, and Eye Empire bassist Corey Lowery to form Saint Asonia.
On August 4, 2017, the band performed for the first time since November 2014 for an acoustic performance at Aaron Lewis' 6th annual charity golf tournament and concert when bassist Johnny April and drummer Sal Giancarelli joined Aaron Lewis and Mike Mushok to perform "Outside", "Something to Remind You", and "It's Been Awhile". Three days later, Lewis announced that Staind would never tour extensively again, with Lewis explaining:
In April 2019, the band announced they would reform in September 2019 for some live performances. The band was scheduled to play at Epicenter Festival on May 3, 2020 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, but the COVID-19 pandemic led to the festival being cancelled.
Musical style, influences, and lyrical themes
The topics of Staind's lyrics cover issues of depression, relationships, death, addiction, finding one's self, betrayal, and Lewis' thoughts about becoming a father in the song "Zoe Jane" from 14 Shades of Grey, as well as reflecting on his upbringing in the song "The Corner" from The Illusion of Progress. Also from 14 Shades of Grey, the track titled "Layne" was written about Alice in Chains frontman Layne Staley in response to his death in 2002. The song is also about Staley's legacy and the effect his music had on the members of Staind, especially Aaron Lewis. Staind has been categorized as nu metal, alternative metal, heavy metal, hard rock, and post-grunge.
In 2001, Rolling Stone outlined the band's relationship to the nu metal label:
{{quote|Staind got their first break in 1998 when [Fred] Durst signed the band to his Flip Records. That association has linked the group with "new metal," though Break the Cycles sound is neither particularly new nor metal. The band doesn't rap, and though Mushok has adopted new-metal's minor-key guitar riffs, Lewis' dramatic voice and the anthemic quality of such songs as "Open Your Eyes" and "Fade" are more akin to Alice in Chains than to Korn. Aggressive yet reflective, Break the Cycle doesn't require a poisonous abundance of testosterone to be appreciated and is better suited to solitary listening than to the mosh pit.}}
Staind's influences include Pantera, The Doors, Suicidal Tendencies, Kiss, Van Halen, Slayer, Led Zeppelin, Sepultura, Whitesnake, the Beatles, Alice in Chains, Faith No More, Deftones, Black Sabbath, Pearl Jam, Tool, Rage Against the Machine, Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots, Helmet, James Taylor, Korn, and Crosby, Stills & Nash.
Band membersCurrent line-up Aaron Lewis – lead vocals, rhythm guitar (1995–2012, 2014, 2017, 2019–present)
Mike Mushok – lead guitar (1995–2012, 2014, 2017, 2019–present)
Johnny April – bass, backing vocals (1995–2012, 2014, 2017, 2019–present)
Sal Giancarelli – drums (2011–2012, 2014, 2017, 2019–present)Former members Jon Wysocki – drums (1995–2011)
Timeline
Discography Studio albums'''Tormented (1996)Dysfunction (1999)Break the Cycle (2001)14 Shades of Grey (2003)Chapter V (2005)The Illusion of Progress (2008)Staind'' (2011)
References
External links
1995 establishments in Massachusetts
Atlantic Records artists
American alternative metal musical groups
American nu metal musical groups
American post-grunge musical groups
Rock music groups from Massachusetts
Alternative rock groups from Massachusetts
Heavy metal musical groups from Massachusetts
Flip Records (1994) artists
Musical groups established in 1995
Musical groups disestablished in 2017
Musical groups disestablished in 2014
Musical groups disestablished in 2012
Musical groups reestablished in 2014
Musical groups reestablished in 2019
Musical groups reestablished in 2017
Musical groups from Springfield, Massachusetts
Musical quartets | true | [
"a TEN Talk (originally 10Talk) is a short presentation on a topic of the speaker's choosing given at a BarCamp type conference. It derives from a TED Talk and originated at the 2012 RefreshCache v4 developer conference (now defunct) in Gilbert, Arizona during the open floor demo time with a description of \"Fast paced 10 minute presentations by the you and the other leaders among us.\" Since the term was still somewhat new at the time, a \"What is a Ten-Talk?\" page was created on the RefreshCache site with the following abbreviated description so potential Ten-Talk presenters would know exactly what was expected of them:\n \n A Ten-Talk is a fast-paced, ten minute POLISHED presentation on an interesting topic that you think will appeal to the Church IT / Web Developer audiences.\n \n Here are some examples of Ten-Talk topics:\n (1) Have you implemented something at your church that has been a radical success or epic failure? We can learn from either of these!\n (2) Do you have an inspirational message that can lead others to action? Even better if you can share how this message inspired you to action and then show us what you did.\n (3) Have you spent time researching and understanding something in the world of ministry software or Church IT? Maybe you are an expert in [redacted]. Present this to the Church IT Network /RefreshCache community and share what you know. Your research may help another church find the solution to a problem they are facing, or save them the trouble of doing all the research you just did by realizing it won't work for them.\n\nIt was later adopted at the national Church IT Round Table conference held in February 2013 in Phoenix, Arizona when the two events began to intermingle and used again in 2014 at the Peoria, Illinois event where it was re-described as \"10Talks (or TEN-Talks) are 10 minute, fast paced talks on a topic. These are perfect sessions for raising awareness about a topic, tool, or idea that you think your peers should know.\"\n\nIts use outside of CITRT conferences is thought to begin with the WLAN professionals summit in February 2014.\n\nReferences\n\nPresentation",
"Beyond the Tesseract is a text-based adventure game developed in 1983 by Canadian author David Lo for the TRS-80. The game was notable for its unique take on the genre and approach to mathematical entities and abstract concepts.\nIn one section the player must navigate a text adventure game, inside the text adventure game. In another the player, while asleep, derives a proof using physical representations of various symbolic logic components.\n\nThe game is intentionally vague using a VERB NOUN gameplay mechanic with a vocabulary of just 200.\n\nIn 1988 the game was ported to Atari ST, MS-DOS and Solaris environments and, in 2003, to interactive fiction standard of machine-independent Z-code.\n\nOriginal release notes \n\nScenario:\n\"You have reached the final part of your mission. You have\ngained access to the complex, and all but the last procedure has\nbeen performed. Now comes a time of waiting, in which you must\nsearch for the hidden 12-word message that will aid you at the\nfinal step. But what choice will you make when that time comes?\"\n\nThe scenario for the adventure is meant to be vague. Once the\nadventure has been completed, the scenario will hopefully become\nclear.\n\nInstructions:\nThis adventure recognizes the standard commands for moving\n(N, E, S, W), taking inventory (I), manipulating objects (GET,\nDROP, LOOK), and saving games (SAVE, LOAD), as well as many\nothers. Use 2-word 'verb noun' commands, such as 'use stack' or\n'get all'. Only the first four letters of each word are\nsignificant. The adventure recognizes about 200 words, so if\none word does not work, try another.\n\nNotes:\n\"The \"stack\" is an acronym for Space Time Activated Continuum\nKey. You will find this object very useful. Try the command\n\"use stack\".\"\n\nThis adventure is abstract and a bit on the technical side.\nBasic knowledge of the names of interesting mathematical objects\nwould be a definite asset in solving the puzzles. However,\ndetailed knowledge of the technical background is not necessary,\nalthough it will make the adventure more enjoyable and reduce\nthe amount of comments of the form \"Was that supposed to be funny\nor what? I don't get it.\"\n\nThere is no carry limit, no death traps, and over 200 words in\nthe program's vocabulary, so the player can hopefully concentrate on\nsolving the adventure instead of solving the program. The map\nof the adventure can be draw on a grid. All it takes is a\nlittle experimenting to put all the subsets of locations\ntogether \"logically\".\n\nHistory:\nThe idea of a mathematically abstract adventure came about\nduring the summer of 1983, when I was reading the book \"Godel,\nEscher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid\". I had just read an\narticle on writing adventures, and I thought about doing my own\narticle on adventure writing. I did start on the article, and\none of the examples of how varied puzzles can be is a\nmathematical adventure where the player has to \"use a\nprobability function to cross a field of improbability to get to\na vortex.\" Sadly the article was never finished, although\nremnants of it can be found in the ADV.DOC file. I started\nthinking more and more about a mathematically abstract\nadventure, and Tesseract was born!\n\nThe very first adventure that I wrote was in 1982, titled \"Hall\nof the Mountain King\" (find the Crystal of Light). Tesseract\nVersion 1.0 was the second of the three TRS-80 BASIC adventures\nthat I wrote in a two-month adventure-frenzy during the summer\nof 1983. The first was \"Project Triad\" (defuse the bomb on the\nspace station), and the third was \"Codename Intrepid\" (deliver a\npackage to another agent).\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n Various versions of the game are available for free legal download\n\n1980s interactive fiction\n1983 video games\nAtari ST games\nDOS games\nTRS-80 games\nVideo games about video games\nVideo games developed in Canada"
] |
[
"Staind",
"Staind and departure of Jon Wysocki (2010-2012)",
"What was happening in 2010?",
"In March 2010, Aaron Lewis stated the band would start working on their seventh studio album by the end of the year.",
"How did the album do on the charts?",
"I don't know.",
"Why did Wysocki leave?",
"I don't know.",
"Who replaced him?",
"Drummer Will Hunt filled in for a few dates, while Wysocki's drum tech Sal Giancarelli filled in for the rest of the tour.",
"Did they release a new album with the new member?",
"The first single \"Not Again\" was released to active radio stations on July 18.",
"Did the album contain any hit singles?",
"The first single \"Not Again\" was released to active radio stations on July 18.",
"did they continue touring?",
"The band continued to tour heavily into 2012;",
"Did they tour with anyone",
"touring with Godsmack and Halestorm, and the Uproar Festival in August and Setpember with Shinedown and a number of other artists.",
"What did you find interesting in the article?",
"Staind posted three webisodes from the studio, which featured the band members discussing the writing and recording process of their new album."
] | C_bb81d322c9cb4d249702e1b5c76671f3_1 | Were these webisodes televised anywhere? | 10 | Were Staind webisodes televised anywhere? | Staind | In March 2010, Aaron Lewis stated the band would start working on their seventh studio album by the end of the year. Lewis had finished recording his country-tinged solo EP and had started a nonprofit organization to reopen his daughter's elementary school in Worthington, Massachusetts. Guitarist Mike Mushok stated in a question and answer session with fans that the band was looking to make a heavy record, but still "explore some of the things we did on the last record and take them somewhere new for us". In a webisode posted on the band's website, Lewis stated that eight songs were written and that "every one of them is as heavy or heavier than the heaviest song on the last record". In December 2010, Staind posted three webisodes from the studio, which featured the band members discussing the writing and recording process of their new album. They announced that as of April 20, the band had completed the recording of their untitled seventh album and would release it later that year. On May 20, 2011, Staind announced that original drummer Jon Wysocki had left the band. Drummer Will Hunt filled in for a few dates, while Wysocki's drum tech Sal Giancarelli filled in for the rest of the tour. Three days later, it was reported that Staind's new album was originally called Seven, but was renamed Staind. It was released on September 13, 2011. The first single "Not Again" was released to active radio stations on July 18. The song "The Bottom" appeared on the Transformers: Dark of the Moon soundtrack. On June 30, Staind released a song called "Eyes Wide Open" from their new record. "Eyes Wide Open" would later be released on November 29 as the album's second single. On July 12, Staind released the first single "Not Again" through YouTube and was officially released/available on July 26. In November 2011, the band announced through their YouTube page that Sal Giancarelli was now an official member. The band continued to tour heavily into 2012; embarking on an April and May touring with Godsmack and Halestorm, and the Uproar Festival in August and Setpember with Shinedown and a number of other artists. CANNOTANSWER | from the studio, | Staind ( ) is an American rock band formed in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1995. The original lineup consisted of lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist Aaron Lewis, lead guitarist Mike Mushok, bassist and backing vocalist Johnny April, and drummer Jon Wysocki. The lineup has been stable outside of the 2011 departure of Wysocki, who was replaced by Sal Giancarelli. Staind has recorded seven studio albums: Tormented (1996), Dysfunction (1999), Break the Cycle (2001), 14 Shades of Grey (2003), Chapter V (2005), The Illusion of Progress (2008), and Staind (2011). The band's activity became more sporadic after their self-titled release, with Lewis pursuing a solo country music career and Mushok subsequently joining the band Saint Asonia, but they have continued to tour on and off in the following years. In 2016, Lewis reiterated that the band had not broken up, and would possibly create another album, but that his then-current focus was on his solo career. The band reunited more permanently in 2019 for several shows, continuing with live appearances in 2020. Many of their singles have reached high positions on US rock and all-format charts as well, including "It's Been Awhile", "Fade", "Price to Play", "So Far Away", and "Right Here".
History
Early years and Tormented (1995–1998)
In 1993, vocalist Aaron Lewis and guitarist Mike Mushok met at a Christmas party in Springfield, Massachusetts. Mushok introduced drummer Jon Wysocki while Lewis brought in bassist Johnny April to form the band in 1995. Their first public performance was in February 1995, playing a heavy, dark, and introspective style of metal. Extensive touring in the Northeast helped Staind acquire a regional following over the next few years.
The band started covering Korn, Rage Against the Machine, Pearl Jam, Tool, and Alice in Chains, among others, and played at local clubs (most commonly playing at Infinity, a live music venue located in Springfield) for a year and a half. Staind self-released their debut album, Tormented, in November 1996, citing Tool, Faith No More, and Pantera as their influences. In October 1997, Staind acquired a concert slot through Aaron's cousin Justin Cantor with Limp Bizkit. Just prior to the performance, Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst was appalled by Staind's grotesque album cover and unsuccessfully attempted to remove them from the bill. Durst thought that Staind were Theistic Satanists. After being persuaded to let them perform, however, Durst was so impressed that he signed them to Flip Records by February 1998.
Dysfunction (1999–2000)
On April 13, 1999, Staind released their major label debut Dysfunction on Flip Records. The album, which was co-produced by Fred Durst and Terry Date (who also produced acts like Soundgarden, Deftones, and Pantera), received comparisons to alternative metal giants Tool and Korn. In particular, Aaron Lewis was lauded for his vocals, which were likened to those of Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder.
The album achieved slow success, reaching the No. 1 spot on Billboard's Heatseeker Charts almost six months after its debut. In the same week, the record jumped to No. 74 on Billboard's Top 200 Album Charts. The nine-track LP (with one hidden track, "Excess Baggage") produced three singles, "Just Go", "Mudshovel", and "Home". "Mudshovel" and "Home" both received radio play, cracking the Top 20 of Billboard's Modern Rock and Mainstream Rock charts. In promotion of Dysfunction, Staind went on several tours, including the Family Values Tour with acts like Limp Bizkit and The Crystal Method, as well as opening for Sevendust's headlining tour.
Break the Cycle (2001–2002)
Staind toured with Limp Bizkit for the Family Values Tour during the fall of 1999, where Aaron Lewis performed an early version of "Outside" with Fred Durst at the Mississippi Coast Coliseum. Staind released their third studio album, Break the Cycle, on May 22, 2001. Propelled by the success of the first single, "It's Been Awhile", the album debuted at No. 1 on Billboard's Top 200 Album charts, selling 716,000 copies in its first week. The record's first-week sales were the second highest of any album that year, behind Creed's Weathered.
Break the Cycle saw the band retaining the nu metal sound from their previous album. Despite this, the album saw the band going further into a post-grunge sound which is evident in the smash hit song "It's Been Awhile", and the song led critics to compare the band to several other post-grunge bands at the time. The record spawned the singles "It's Been Awhile" (which hit the Billboard Top 10), "Fade", "Outside", "For You", and the acoustic ballad "Epiphany". "It's Been Awhile" spent a total of 16 and 14 weeks on top of the modern and mainstream rock charts respectively, making it one of the highest joint numbers of all time. In 2001, Break the Cycle sold four million copies worldwide, making it one of the best selling albums that year. Break the Cycle would go on to sell seven million copies worldwide, making this Staind's bestselling album.
14 Shades of Grey (2003–2004)
In early 2003, Staind embarked on a worldwide tour to promote the release of the follow-up to Break the Cycle, 14 Shades of Grey, which sold two million copies and debuted at number 1 on the Billboard 200. The album saw a departure from their previous nu metal sound as it mostly contained a lighter and more melodic post-grunge sound. 14 Shades of Grey produced two mainstream hits, "Price to Play" and "So Far Away", which spent 14 weeks on top of the rock chart. In addition, two other singles were released: "How About You" and "Zoe Jane". The band's appearance at the Reading Festival during their 2003 tour had another impromptu acoustic set, this time due to equipment failure. The singles "So Far Away" and "Price to Play" came with two unreleased tracks, "Novocaine" and "Let It Out", which were released for the special edition of the group's subsequent album Chapter V, which came out in late 2005. In 2003, Staind unsuccessfully sued their logo designer Jon Stainbrook in New York Federal Court for attempting to re-use the logo he had sold to the band. They re-opened the case in mid-2005.
Chapter V and The Singles (2005–2007)
Staind's fifth album, titled Chapter V, was released on August 9, 2005, and became their third consecutive album to top the Billboard 200. The album opened to sales of 185,000 and has since been certified platinum in the U.S. The first single, "Right Here", was the biggest success from the album, garnering much mainstream radio play and peaking at number 1 on the mainstream rock chart. "Falling" was released as the second single, followed by "Everything Changes" and "King of All Excuses". Staind went on the road when the album came out, doing live shows and promoting it for a full year, including participating in the Fall Brawl tour with P.O.D., Taproot, and Flyleaf; they also had a solo tour across Europe and a mini-promotional tour in Australia for the first time. Other live shows included a cover of Pantera's "This Love", a tribute to Dimebag Darrell. Staind appeared on The Howard Stern Show on August 10, 2005 to promote Chapter V. They performed acoustic renditions of the single "Right Here" and Beetlejuice's song "This is Beetle". In early November 2005, Staind released the limited edition 2-CD/DVD set of Chapter V. On September 6, 2006, they performed an acoustic show in the Hiro Ballroom, New York City, that was recorded for their singles collection. The band played sixteen songs, including three covers: Tool's "Sober", Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb", and Alice in Chains's "Nutshell".
The collection The Singles: 1996–2006 was released on November 14, 2006. It included all the band's singles, the three covers performed at the New York show, and a remastered version of "Come Again" from Staind's first independent release Tormented.
The Illusion of Progress (2008–2009)
On August 19, 2008, Staind released their sixth album, The Illusion of Progress. Prior to the album's release, the track "This Is It" was available for download on the iTunes Store, as well as for Rock Band. The album debuted at No. 3 on the US Billboard 200, No. 1 on the Top Modern Rock/Alternative Albums Chart, No. 1 on the Top Digital Albums Chart, and also No. 1 on the Top Internet Albums Chart, with first-week sales of 91,800 units. The first single on the album, "Believe", topped Billboard's Top 10 Modern Rock Tracks on September 5, 2008. The band also supported Nickelback on their 2008 European tour. The second single was "All I Want", and came out on November 24. The single also became Staind's 13th top 20 hit on the rock charts. In Europe, the second single was "The Way I Am", released on January 26, 2009. The final single released from the album, "This Is It", was sent to radio stations across the country on May 4, 2009. The track was also included on the successful Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen – The Album released in late June 2009. The same year, Staind embarked on a fall tour with the newly reunited Creed.
Staind and departure of Jon Wysocki (2010–2012)
In March 2010, Aaron Lewis stated the band would start working on their seventh studio album by the end of the year. Lewis had finished recording his country music solo EP and had started a nonprofit organization to reopen his daughter's elementary school in Worthington, Massachusetts. Guitarist Mike Mushok stated in a Q&A session with fans that the band was looking to make a heavy record, but still "explore some of the things we did on the last record and take them somewhere new for us". In a webisode posted on the band's website, Lewis stated that eight songs were written and that "every one of them is as heavy or heavier than the heaviest song on the last record".
In December 2010, Staind posted three webisodes from the studio, which featured the band members discussing the writing and recording process of their new album. They announced that as of April 20, they had completed the recording of their seventh and would release it later that year.
On May 20, 2011, Staind announced that original drummer Jon Wysocki had left the band. Drummer Will Hunt filled in for a few dates, while Wysocki's drum tech Sal Giancarelli filled in for the rest of the tour. Three days later, it was reported that Staind's new album would be a self-titled release. It was released on September 13, 2011. The first single, "Not Again", was released to active radio stations on July 18. The song "The Bottom" appeared on the Transformers: Dark of the Moon soundtrack. On June 30, Staind released a song called "Eyes Wide Open" from their new record. "Eyes Wide Open" would later be released on November 29 as the album's second single.
In November 2011, the band announced through their YouTube page that Sal Giancarelli was now an official member. The band continued to perform into 2012, embarking on an April and May tour with Godsmack and Halestorm, and they played the Uproar Festival in August and September with Shinedown and a number of other artists.
It was announced in July 2012 that the band was to be taking a hiatus. In an interview with Billboard, Aaron Lewis stated that "We're not breaking up. We're not gonna stop making music. We're just going to take a little hiatus that really hasn't ever been taken in our career. We put out seven records in 14 years. We've been pretty busy." Lewis also had plans to release his first solo album The Road. During this time, Mike Mushok auditioned, and was selected, to play guitar for former Metallica bassist Jason Newsted's new band Newsted. He featured on their debut album Heavy Metal Music.
Hiatus and limited activity (2013–present)
Staind played their first show in two years at the Welcome To Rockville Festival on April 27, 2014. They also played the Carolina Rebellion and Rock on the Range festivals in May 2014.
In late 2014, the band went on a hiatus. Aaron Lewis continued to play solo shows and work on his next solo album. He also confirmed that the hiatus would last "for a while". Mike Mushok teamed up with former Three Days Grace singer Adam Gontier, former Finger Eleven drummer Rich Beddoe, and Eye Empire bassist Corey Lowery to form Saint Asonia.
On August 4, 2017, the band performed for the first time since November 2014 for an acoustic performance at Aaron Lewis' 6th annual charity golf tournament and concert when bassist Johnny April and drummer Sal Giancarelli joined Aaron Lewis and Mike Mushok to perform "Outside", "Something to Remind You", and "It's Been Awhile". Three days later, Lewis announced that Staind would never tour extensively again, with Lewis explaining:
In April 2019, the band announced they would reform in September 2019 for some live performances. The band was scheduled to play at Epicenter Festival on May 3, 2020 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, but the COVID-19 pandemic led to the festival being cancelled.
Musical style, influences, and lyrical themes
The topics of Staind's lyrics cover issues of depression, relationships, death, addiction, finding one's self, betrayal, and Lewis' thoughts about becoming a father in the song "Zoe Jane" from 14 Shades of Grey, as well as reflecting on his upbringing in the song "The Corner" from The Illusion of Progress. Also from 14 Shades of Grey, the track titled "Layne" was written about Alice in Chains frontman Layne Staley in response to his death in 2002. The song is also about Staley's legacy and the effect his music had on the members of Staind, especially Aaron Lewis. Staind has been categorized as nu metal, alternative metal, heavy metal, hard rock, and post-grunge.
In 2001, Rolling Stone outlined the band's relationship to the nu metal label:
{{quote|Staind got their first break in 1998 when [Fred] Durst signed the band to his Flip Records. That association has linked the group with "new metal," though Break the Cycles sound is neither particularly new nor metal. The band doesn't rap, and though Mushok has adopted new-metal's minor-key guitar riffs, Lewis' dramatic voice and the anthemic quality of such songs as "Open Your Eyes" and "Fade" are more akin to Alice in Chains than to Korn. Aggressive yet reflective, Break the Cycle doesn't require a poisonous abundance of testosterone to be appreciated and is better suited to solitary listening than to the mosh pit.}}
Staind's influences include Pantera, The Doors, Suicidal Tendencies, Kiss, Van Halen, Slayer, Led Zeppelin, Sepultura, Whitesnake, the Beatles, Alice in Chains, Faith No More, Deftones, Black Sabbath, Pearl Jam, Tool, Rage Against the Machine, Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots, Helmet, James Taylor, Korn, and Crosby, Stills & Nash.
Band membersCurrent line-up Aaron Lewis – lead vocals, rhythm guitar (1995–2012, 2014, 2017, 2019–present)
Mike Mushok – lead guitar (1995–2012, 2014, 2017, 2019–present)
Johnny April – bass, backing vocals (1995–2012, 2014, 2017, 2019–present)
Sal Giancarelli – drums (2011–2012, 2014, 2017, 2019–present)Former members Jon Wysocki – drums (1995–2011)
Timeline
Discography Studio albums'''Tormented (1996)Dysfunction (1999)Break the Cycle (2001)14 Shades of Grey (2003)Chapter V (2005)The Illusion of Progress (2008)Staind'' (2011)
References
External links
1995 establishments in Massachusetts
Atlantic Records artists
American alternative metal musical groups
American nu metal musical groups
American post-grunge musical groups
Rock music groups from Massachusetts
Alternative rock groups from Massachusetts
Heavy metal musical groups from Massachusetts
Flip Records (1994) artists
Musical groups established in 1995
Musical groups disestablished in 2017
Musical groups disestablished in 2014
Musical groups disestablished in 2012
Musical groups reestablished in 2014
Musical groups reestablished in 2019
Musical groups reestablished in 2017
Musical groups from Springfield, Massachusetts
Musical quartets | true | [
"Web Therapy is a web series of Lstudio.com mainly based on improvisation. Lisa Kudrow appears as the self-absorbed therapist Fiona Wallice who offers three-minute therapy sessions via webcam over the internet. Each webisode stars Kudrow video chatting with one or more guest stars.\n\nAll episodes are written by Lisa Kudrow, Don Roos, and Dan Bucatinsky, and all episodes are directed by Don Roos.\n\nSeries overview\n\nEpisode list\n\nSeason 1 (2008) \n Season 1 consists of five stories each divided in three parts thus making 15 webisodes.\n Tim Bagley, Rashida Jones, Bob Balaban, Jane Lynch, Drew Sherman, Patty Guggenheim and Dan Bucatinsky star as Fiona Wallice's clients this season.\n\nSeason 2 (2009) \n\n Season 2 consists of five stories each divided in three parts thus making 15 webisodes similarly to the first season.\n Julie Claire, Courteney Cox, Steven Weber, Alan Cumming and Dan Bucatinsky star as Fiona Wallice's clients this season.\n Dan Bucatinsky reprises his role as Jerome Sokoloff while Victor Garber guest stars as Fiona's husband, Kip.\n\nSeason 3 (2010) \n\n Season 3 consists of 15 webisodes.\n After the third season had been completed, three special webisodes starring Meryl Streep as Camilla Bowner were added making a total of 18 webisodes.\n This season mostly revolves around Fiona's husband's political campaign.\n Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Molly Shannon, Selma Blair, Michael McDonald, Tim Bagley, Julie Claire and Dan Bucatinsky all guest star this season.\n Tim Bagley, Julie Claire and Dan Bucatinsky reprise their roles from previous seasons as Richard Pratt, Robin Griner and Jerome Sokoloff respectively.\n\nSeason 4 (2011–2012) \n\n Season 4 consists of 17 webisodes.\n Rosie O'Donnell, Conan O'Brien, Natasha Bedingfield, Minnie Driver, Lily Tomlin and Dan Bucatinsky guest star this season.\n\nSeason 5 (2013) \n\n Season 5 consists of 35 webisodes.\n\nSeason 6 (2014) \n\n Season 6 consists of 33 webisodes.\n\nReferences\n\nAmerican web series\nLists of web series episodes",
"Community is an American comedy television series which premiered on September 17, 2009, on NBC. The series follows a group of students at a community college in the fictional locale of Greendale, Colorado. The series heavily uses meta-humor and pop culture references, often parodying film and television clichés and tropes. The series was canceled by NBC in May 2014. However, Yahoo! Screen picked it up for a sixth and final season.\n\nSeries overview\n\nEpisodes\n\nSeason 1 (2009–10)\n\nSeason 2 (2010–11)\n\nSeason 3 (2011–12)\n\nSeason 4 (2013)\n\nSeason 5 (2014)\n\nSeason 6 (2015)\n\nWebisodes\n\nThe 5 As (2009)\nThe 5 As of Greendale is a webisode series that appeared before Communitys pilot was broadcast. The videos are set up as informational videos featuring dean of admissions Pat Isakson (Dan Harmon) welcoming potential students to Greendale Community College.\n\nSix Candles\nAbed's short film about his family life starring Jeff and Britta as his parents. This ties in to season 1, episode 3 (\"Introduction to Film\").\n\nThe Community College Chronicles (2009)\nThe Community College Chronicles are two webisodes that act as Abed Nadir's student films. The webisodes parody events that happen on the main show Community. In the episode \"Debate 109\", the webisodes were seen by the characters making them believe Abed can see the future. The webisodes also appear on the Greendale Community College's website part of the A/V department's page.\n\nSpanish Videos (2010)\nSpanish Videos are two webisodes (plus a trailer) featuring Star-Burns (Dino Stamatopoulos), Abed (Danny Pudi), and Señor Chang (Ken Jeong). Chang assigns the class a video assignment and Abed and Star-Burns make a space epic.\n\nStudy Break (2010)\nStudy Break is a series of three mini-episodes of Community exclusive to Comcast's Xfinity TV and to the season one DVD of Community. The mini-episodes focus on 90 second study breaks during a Spanish study session.\n\nRoad to the Emmys (2010)\nRoad to the Emmys are three webisodes about the study group on their way to an Emmy party.\n\nDean Pelton's Office Hours (2010)\nDean Pelton's Office Hours are three webisodes focusing on Dean Pelton (Jim Rash) solving student problems.\n\nSave Greendale (2012)\nThey encourage people to come to Greendale.\n\nAbed's Master Key (2012)\nAbed's Master Key are three animated webisodes in which Abed becomes Dean Pelton's assistant and is given a master key to Greendale.\n\nOthers\n\nRatings\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Community at NBC\n Community at Sony Pictures Television\n \n\nCommunity"
] |
[
"Mickey Thompson",
"Indy years"
] | C_4f7b8d89e29b402da38481fd6ce54d4e_0 | What was his first race on the Indy Circuit? | 1 | What was Mickey Thompson's first race on the Indy Circuit? | Mickey Thompson | In 1962 Thompson entered three John Crosthwaite designed cars in the Indianapolis 500. Unusually, they used a stock V8 Buick engine and it was in the rear unlike the front engined, race tuned, Offenhauser powered cars used by most competitors. It was the first stock engine to be raced at Indy since 1946. Thompson's crew, led by Fritz Voigt, were young, smart and hard working. Working 12-14 hour days, the car was designed and built in 120 days. For the race, the engine (enlarged to 4.2 litre capacity, the maximum allowed by the regulations for "stock block" engines) had to be detuned because they were concerned it would not last the distance. Despite being more than 70 bhp down on the other cars, Dan Gurney qualified eighth and was in ninth place until a leaking oil seal seized the gearbox and ended his race on lap 94. He was placed 20th out of 33. The team won the Mechanical Achievement Award for original design, construction and accomplishment. Thompson's promotion skills pleased the sponsors with the publicity generated that year. For the 1963 Indianapolis 500 Crosthwaite designed the innovative Harvey Aluminium Special "roller skate car" with the then pioneering smaller profile (12 inch diameter) and wide racing tires (front 7 inches and rear 9 inches wide) and wheels. Thompson took five cars to Indianapolis. Two of the previous year's design with Chevrolet V8 engines and three roller skate cars. One of the new cars, the Harvey Titanium Special, featured a lightweight titanium chassis. Al Miller II raced one of the modified 1962 cars to ninth place despite only qualifying in 31st position. Duane Carter qualified one of the roller skate cars 15th but was only placed 23rd after an engine failure on the 100th lap. The small tire sizes and low car weights caused complaints amongst the old hands and owners, so for future races, cars were restricted to minimum tire sizes and minimum car weights. 1962 Formula One World Champion Graham Hill tested one of the roller skate cars at Indianapolis in 1963, but refused to race it citing its poor handling. In 1963 Thompson traveled to England where, along with Dante Duce, he demonstrated his Ford-powered top fuel Harvey Aluminum Special dragster at the Brighton Speed Trials. It was then displayed at the Racing Car Show in London in January 1964. Thompson brought three modified 12-inch tire cars to the 1964 Indianapolis 500, but new rules required him to use 15-inch tires. The Allstate sponsored team used Allstate tires and Ford engines. The chassis had to be altered to accommodate the larger Ford engines. Two of them qualified for the race. The car No.84 began the month with Masten Gregory as the driver but Eddie Johnson in car No.84 qualified 24th and finished 26th. Dave MacDonald in car No.83 qualified 14th and died in a fiery crash on the second lap. CANNOTANSWER | In 1962 Thompson entered three John Crosthwaite designed cars in the Indianapolis 500. | Michael Lee "Mickey" Thompson (December 7, 1928March 16, 1988) was an American auto racing builder and promoter.
A hot rodder since his youth, Thompson increasingly pursued land speed records in his late 20s and early 30s. He achieved international fame in 1960, when he became the first American to break the 400-mph barrier, driving his Challenger 1 to a one-way top speed of 406.60 mph at the Bonneville Salt Flats and surpassing John Cobb's one-way world record mark of 402 mph.
Thompson then turned to racing, winning many track and dragster championships. In the 1960s, he also entered cars at the Indianapolis 500. Later, he formed off-road racing sanctioning bodies SCORE International and Mickey Thompson Entertainment Group (MTEG).
In 1988, Thompson and his wife Trudy were gunned down at their home in Bradbury, California. The crime remained unsolved until 2007, when a former business partner was convicted of having orchestrated the murders.
Early life
On December 7, 1928 Thompson was born in Alhambra, California. Thompson's father was Captain Marion L. Thompson, a former police officer with Alhambra Police Department. Thompson's sister is Collene Thompson Campbell.
Career
In his early 20s, he worked as a pressman for the Los Angeles Times while pursuing a lifelong love of hot rodding. He later became involved in the new sport of drag racing. Tireless and innovative, he found success as a championship driver and instinctive automotive technician.
Over the course of his career, Thompson set more speed and endurance records than any other man in automotive history. He is credited with designing and building the first slingshot dragster, in 1954, moving the seat behind the rear axle to improve traction when existing racing tires proved unable to handle the output of increasingly powerful custom engines. This car, the Panorama City Special, debuted at the first NHRA U.S. Nationals at the Great Bend Municipal Airport in Great Bend, Kansas, in 1955. The car ultimately ran a best speed of . A change so momentous would not happen again until Don Garlits introduced the rear-engined digger in 1971. Thompson also was noted for being the first manager of Lions Drag Strip in Wilmington, California, in 1955.
Thompson collaborated with Fritz Voight on a 1958 twin-engined dragster. This car achieved a best speed of . It provided lessons later applied to Challenger I. Determined to set a new land speed record, Thompson achieved fame when he drove his four-engined Challenger 1 at better than in 1960 at the Bonneville Salt Flats, becoming the first American to break that barrier.
Indy years
1962
In 1962, Thompson entered three John Crosthwaite-designed cars in the Indianapolis 500. Unusually, they used a stock V8 Buick engine, and it was in the rear unlike the front-engined, race-tuned, Offenhauser-powered cars used by most competitors. It was the first stock engine to be raced at Indy since 1946. Thompson's crew, led by Fritz Voigt, was young, smart, and hard working. Working 12- to 14-hour days, the car was designed and built in 120 days. For the race, the engine (enlarged to 4.2-L capacity, the maximum allowed by the regulations for "stock block" engines) had to be detuned because they were concerned it would not last the distance. Despite being more than 70 bhp down on the other cars, Dan Gurney qualified eighth and was in ninth place until a leaking oil seal seized the gearbox and ended his race on lap 94. He was placed 20th out of 33. The team won the Mechanical Achievement Award for original design, construction, and accomplishment.
1963
Thompson's promotional skills pleased the sponsors with the publicity generated that year. For the 1963 Indianapolis 500, Crosthwaite designed the innovative Harvey Aluminium Special "roller skate car" with the then-pioneering diameter wheels with smaller-profile racing tires, wide at the front and rear. Thompson took five cars to Indianapolis - two of the previous year's design with Chevrolet V8 engines and three roller skate cars. One of the new cars, the Harvey Titanium Special, featured a lightweight titanium chassis. Al Miller raced one of the modified 1962 cars to ninth place despite only qualifying in 31st position. Duane Carter qualified one of the roller skate cars 15th, but was only placed 23rd after an engine failure on the 100th lap. The small tire sizes and low car weights caused complaints among the old hands and owners, so for future races, cars were restricted to minimum tire sizes and minimum car weights.
Formula One World Champion Graham Hill tested one of the roller skate cars at Indianapolis in 1963, but refused to race it, citing its poor handling. The recent ruling required 15-in wheels, but the chassis was designed around smaller wheels. Thompson commented: "The car wouldn't handle", adding, "There was too much body roll due to the high center of gravity."
In 1963, Thompson traveled to England, where along with Dante Duce, he demonstrated his Ford-powered top fuel Harvey Aluminum Special dragster at the Brighton Speed Trials. It was then displayed at the Racing Car Show in London in January 1964.
1964
Thompson brought three modified 12-inch-tired cars to the 1964 Indianapolis 500, but new rules required him to use 15-in tires. The Allstate sponsored team used Allstate tires and Ford engines. The chassis had to be altered to accommodate the larger Ford engines. Two of them qualified for the race. The car No. 84 began the month with Masten Gregory as the driver, but Eddie Johnson in car No. 84 qualified 24th and finished 26th. Dave MacDonald in car No. 83 qualified 14th and died in a fiery crash on the second lap.
1965–1968
Thompson went back to Indy in 1965, but failed to qualify in an attempt with a front-engined roadster. He skipped 1966, but tried again in 1967 and 1968, again failing to qualify either year.
The 1967 attempt used a unique all-wheel drive rear-engined design that steered both front and rear wheels, but Gary Congdon was unable to qualify any of the three cars.
Post Indy
In 1965, Thompson published Challenger: Mickey Thompson's own story of his life of Speed. In 1968 Danny Ongais and he
took three Ford Mustang Mach 1 to the Bonneville salt flats for a feature in Hot Rod magazine, in the process setting 295 speed and endurance records over a series of 500-mile and 24-hour courses. Together with John Buttera and Pat Foster, developed a Ford Mustang Mach 1 Funny Car with a dragster-like chassis. Driven by Ongais, the car won the 1969 NHRA Spring Nationals at Dallas and the NHRA U.S. Nationals.
In his long career, Thompson raced vehicles from stock cars to off-road, and engineered numerous competition engines. He went into the performance aftermarket business in the early 1960s and then, in 1963, he created "Mickey Thompson Performance Tires" that developed special tires for racing including for Indianapolis 500 competitors.
Thompson founded SCORE International in 1973, a sanctioning body to oversee off-road racing across North America. With his wife Trudy he formed the Mickey Thompson Entertainment Group (MTEG), which ran an indoor motocross and off-road vehicle racing show and competition that brought the sport from the back-country to major metropolitan stadiums and arenas.
Personal life
Thompson's wife was Trudy Thompson. On March 16, 1988, Thompson and his wife Trudy were murdered in Bradbury, California.
Murder
On March 16, 1988, Thompson and his wife Trudy were killed by two hooded gunmen outside their home in Bradbury, California, in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains.
On the morning of the murder, a pair of unknown assailants waited outside the Thompson home for the couple to leave for the day. Mickey opened the garage door for his wife to pull out in her vehicle, and as he headed for his own car, the gunmen attacked. He was shot and wounded, then dragged out into the driveway while one of the attackers went after Trudy as she backed out. Killing her, the gunman then came back up the driveway, where the other gunman was watching over Mickey and shot him fatally in the head. The attackers then made their escape on the bicycles they had ridden to the Thompson residence. Expensive jewelry and a large amount of cash were found on the Thompsons' bodies, eliminating robbery as a likely motive.
An intense police investigation initially failed to uncover either the identity of the mystery gunmen, or a motive for the crime. Police were interested in Thompson's former business partner Michael Frank Goodwin who repeatedly refused to pay a more than $768,000 settlement he owed Thompson. Goodwin and his wife bought $275,000 worth of gold coins two months before the Thompsons were murdered and wired $400,000 to banks on the island Grand Turk and Caicos. Goodwin and his wife then left the country five months after the murder on their yacht and did not return for more than two years.
The case remained unsolved until 2001, when Goodwin was charged in Orange County, California with the murders. Before a trial could be completed, it was ended on jurisdictional grounds by the California District Court of Appeal. On June 8, 2004, Goodwin was formally charged with the murders in Pasadena, in Los Angeles County. In October 2006, a Pasadena Superior Court judge ordered Goodwin to stand trial.
During the trial, a long series of witnesses reported hearing Goodwin threaten to kill the Thompsons. “I’m going to kill that son of a bitch. I’m going to kill that motherfucker. I’m going to take out Mickey. I’m too smart to get caught. I’ll have him wasted. He’ll never see a nickel. I’ll kill him first. Mickey doesn’t know who he is fucking with. He is fucking dead.”
Although the prosecution did not establish a direct connection between the murderers and Goodwin, the circumstantial evidence was sufficient to convict him. On January 4, 2007, a jury found Goodwin guilty of two counts of murder in the death of Thompson and his wife. Goodwin was sentenced to two consecutive life-without-parole terms. A subsequent motion for a new trial was denied. In the 2015 California 2nd District Court of Appeal ruling, although no direct evidence connected Goodwin to the case, the array of circumstantial evidence was found to be "overwhelming". The two men who murdered the Thompsons have not been located.
TV coverage, and its fictionalization through the television program CSI, were cited by the defense team during the murder trial as having created a "folklore" around the case, preventing a fair trial.
Thompson, his wife, and his pets are interred in the Rose Hills Memorial Park, in Whittier, California.
In popular culture
CBS's To Tell The Truth. Appeared as a contestant in March 1962
NBC's Unsolved Mysteries
Investigation Discovery's Murder Book.
CBS television program 48 Hours Mystery April 28, 2007
CSI episode "Early Rollout" (2004) was based on this murder case.
Awards
Thompson was inducted posthumously to the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America
1990 Inducted to International Motorsports Hall of Fame.
Thompson was ranked No. 11 on the National Hot Rod Association Top 50 Drivers, 1951–2000
Thompson was inducted posthumously to the Off-Road Motorsports Hall of Fame in 2007, and the Automotive Hall of Fame in 2009.
See also
Semon Knudsen
Stadium Super Trucks, a racing series inspired by Thompson's stadium off-road racing
Danny Thompson, Thompson's son, also a race car driver
References
External links
News release on documentary of the murder (dead link)
Trial Commentary
M/T Tires Official Page
Michael Goodwin profile on America's Most Wanted
Murder On the Last Turn LA Weekly October 18, 2006
Lions the Greatest Drag Strip Part One at nhramuseum.org
Additional sources
Taylor, Thom. "Beauty Beyond the Twilight Zone" in Hot Rod, April 2017, pp. 30–43.
1928 births
1988 deaths
Bonneville 300 MPH Club members
Brighton Speed Trials people
Deaths by firearm in California
Dragster drivers
International Motorsports Hall of Fame inductees
Land speed record people
Male murder victims
Off-road racing drivers
Off-road racing
Sportspeople from Alhambra, California
People murdered in California
Racing drivers from California
World Sportscar Championship drivers
People from Bradbury, California
Burials at Rose Hills Memorial Park | false | [
"The 1998 Honda Indy 300 was the eighteenth and penultimate round of the 1998 CART World Series Season, held on 18 October 1998 on the Surfers Paradise Street Circuit, Surfers Paradise, Queensland, Australia. Alex Zanardi won the race, his 15th and final CART victory, after taking the lead from polesitter Dario Franchitti at the first round of pitstops.\n\nQualifying results\n\nClassification\n\nRace\n\nCaution flags\n\nLap Leaders\n\nPoint standings after race\n\nReferences \n\nHonda Indy 300\nHonda Indy 300\nGold Coast Indy 300",
"The 2010 Indy Japan 300 was the 16th round of the 2010 IndyCar Series season and the eighth running of the event . It took place on Sunday September 19, 2010. The race was contested over 200 laps at the Twin Ring Motegi in Motegi, Tochigi, Japan. This was the last race to be contested by Indy Cars at the Twin Ring Motegi oval circuit as they switched to the road course for the last race in 2011.\n\nClassification\n\nQualifying\n\nRace\n\nReferences\n\nIndy Japan 300\nIndy Japan 300\nIndy Japan 300\nIndy Japan 300"
] |
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